[
  {
    "title": "Animal Farm",
    "author": "George Orwell",
    "published_date": "1945-08-17",
    "synopsis": " Old Major, the old boar on the Manor Farm, calls the animals on the farm for a meeting, where he compares the humans to parasites and teaches the animals a revolutionary song, 'Beasts of England'. When Major dies, two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, assume command and turn his dream into a philosophy. The animals revolt and drive the drunken and irresponsible Mr Jones from the farm, renaming it \"Animal Farm\". They adopt Seven Commandments of Animal-ism, the most important of which is, \"All animals are equal\". Snowball attempts to teach the animals reading and writing; food is plentiful, and the farm runs smoothly. The pigs elevate themselves to positions of leadership and set aside special food items, ostensibly for their personal health. Napoleon takes the pups from the farm dogs and trains them privately. Napoleon and Snowball struggle for leadership. When Snowball announces his plans to build a windmill, Napoleon has his dogs chase Snowball away and declares himself leader. Napoleon enacts changes to the governance structure of the farm, replacing meetings with a committee of pigs, who will run the farm. Using a young pig named Squealer as a \"mouthpiece\", Napoleon claims credit for the windmill idea. The animals work harder with the promise of easier lives with the windmill. After a violent storm, the animals find the windmill annihilated. Napoleon and Squealer convince the animals that Snowball destroyed it, although the scorn of the neighbouring farmers suggests that its walls were too thin. Once Snowball becomes a scapegoat, Napoleon begins purging the farm with his dogs, killing animals he accuses of consorting with his old rival. He and the pigs abuse their power, imposing more control while reserving privileges for themselves and rewriting history, villainising Snowball and glorifying Napoleon. Squealer justifies every statement Napoleon makes, even the pigs' alteration of the Seven Commandments of Animalism to benefit themselves. 'Beasts of England' is replaced by an anthem glorifying Napoleon, who appears to be adopting the lifestyle of a man. The animals remain convinced that they are better off than they were when under Mr Jones. Squealer abuses the animals' poor memories and invents numbers to show their improvement. Mr Frederick, one of the neighbouring farmers, attacks the farm, using blasting powder to blow up the restored windmill. Though the animals win the battle, they do so at great cost, as many, including Boxer the workhorse, are wounded. Despite his injuries, Boxer continues working harder and harder, until he collapses while working on the windmill. Napoleon sends for a van to take Boxer to the veterinary surgeon's, explaining that better care can be given there. Benjamin, the cynical donkey, who \"could read as well as any pig\", notices that the van belongs to a knacker, and attempts to mount a rescue; but the animals' attempts are futile. Squealer reports that the van was purchased by the hospital and the writing from the previous owner had not been repainted. He recounts a tale of Boxer's death in the hands of the best medical care. Years pass, and the pigs learn to walk upright, carry whips and wear clothes. The Seven Commandments are reduced to a single phrase: \"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others\". Napoleon holds a dinner party for the pigs and the humans of the area, who congratulate Napoleon on having the hardest-working but least fed animals in the country. Napoleon announces an alliance with the humans, against the labouring classes of both \"worlds\". He abolishes practices and traditions related to the Revolution, and changes the name of the farm to \"The Manor Farm\". The animals, overhearing the conversation, notice that the faces of the pigs have begun changing. During a poker match, an argument breaks out between Napoleon and Mr Pilkington, and the animals realise that the faces of the pigs look like the faces of humans, and no one can tell the difference between them. The pigs Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer adapt Old Major's ideas into an actual philosophy, which they formally name Animalism. Soon after, Napoleon and Squealer indulge in the vices of humans (drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, trading). Squealer is employed to alter the Seven Commandments to account for this humanisation, an allusion to the Soviet government's revising of history in order to exercise control of the people's beliefs about themselves and their society. The original commandments are: # Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. # Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. # No animal shall wear clothes. # No animal shall sleep in a bed. # No animal shall drink alcohol. # No animal shall kill any other animal. # All animals are equal. Later, Napoleon and his pigs secretly revise some commandments to clear them of accusations of law-breaking (such as \"No animal shall drink alcohol\" having \"to excess\" appended to it and \"No animal shall sleep in a bed\" with \"with sheets\" added to it). The changed commandments are as follows, with the changes bolded: * 4 No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets. * 5 No animal shall drink alcohol to excess. * 6 No animal shall kill any other animal without cause. Eventually these are replaced with the maxims, \"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others\", and \"Four legs good, two legs better!\" as the pigs become more human. This is an ironic twist to the original purpose of the Seven Commandments, which were supposed to keep order within Animal Farm by uniting the animals together against the humans, and prevent animals from following the humans' evil habits. Through the revision of the commandments, Orwell demonstrates how simply political dogma can be turned into malleable propaganda.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Old Major, the old boar on the Manor Farm, calls the animals on the farm for a meeting, where he compares the humans to parasites and teaches the animals a revolutionary song, 'Beasts of England'. When Major dies, two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, assume command and turn his dream into a philosophy. The animals revolt and drive the drunken and irresponsible Mr Jones from the farm, renaming it \"Animal Farm\". They adopt Seven Commandments of Animal-ism, the most important of which is, \"All animals are equal\". Snowball attempts to teach the animals reading and writing; food is plentiful, and the farm runs smoothly. The pigs elevate themselves to positions of leadership and set aside special food items, ostensibly for their personal health. Napoleon takes the pups from the farm dogs and trains them privately. Napoleon and Snowball struggle for leadership. When Snowball announces his plans to build a windmill, Napoleon has his dogs chase Snowball away and declares himself leader. Napoleon enacts changes to the governance structure of the farm, replacing meetings with a committee of pigs, who will run the farm. Using a young pig named Squealer as a \"mouthpiece\", Napoleon claims credit for the windmill idea. The animals work harder with the promise of easier lives with the windmill. After a violent storm, the animals find the windmill annihilated. Napoleon and Squealer convince the animals that Snowball destroyed it, although the scorn of the neighbouring farmers suggests that its walls were too thin. Once Snowball becomes a scapegoat, Napoleon begins purging the farm with his dogs, killing animals he accuses of consorting with his old rival. He and the pigs abuse their power, imposing more control while reserving privileges for themselves and rewriting history, villainising Snowball and glorifying Napoleon. Squealer justifies every statement Napoleon makes, even the pigs' alteration of the Seven Commandments of Animalism to benefit themselves. 'Beasts of England' is"
      },
      {
        "text": " that its walls were too thin. Once Snowball becomes a scapegoat, Napoleon begins purging the farm with his dogs, killing animals he accuses of consorting with his old rival. He and the pigs abuse their power, imposing more control while reserving privileges for themselves and rewriting history, villainising Snowball and glorifying Napoleon. Squealer justifies every statement Napoleon makes, even the pigs' alteration of the Seven Commandments of Animalism to benefit themselves. 'Beasts of England' is replaced by an anthem glorifying Napoleon, who appears to be adopting the lifestyle of a man. The animals remain convinced that they are better off than they were when under Mr Jones. Squealer abuses the animals' poor memories and invents numbers to show their improvement. Mr Frederick, one of the neighbouring farmers, attacks the farm, using blasting powder to blow up the restored windmill. Though the animals win the battle, they do so at great cost, as many, including Boxer the workhorse, are wounded. Despite his injuries, Boxer continues working harder and harder, until he collapses while working on the windmill. Napoleon sends for a van to take Boxer to the veterinary surgeon's, explaining that better care can be given there. Benjamin, the cynical donkey, who \"could read as well as any pig\", notices that the van belongs to a knacker, and attempts to mount a rescue; but the animals' attempts are futile. Squealer reports that the van was purchased by the hospital and the writing from the previous owner had not been repainted. He recounts a tale of Boxer's death in the hands of the best medical care. Years pass, and the pigs learn to walk upright, carry whips and wear clothes. The Seven Commandments are reduced to a single phrase: \"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others\". Napoleon holds a dinner party for the pigs and the humans of the area, who congratulate Napoleon on having the"
      },
      {
        "text": " purchased by the hospital and the writing from the previous owner had not been repainted. He recounts a tale of Boxer's death in the hands of the best medical care. Years pass, and the pigs learn to walk upright, carry whips and wear clothes. The Seven Commandments are reduced to a single phrase: \"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others\". Napoleon holds a dinner party for the pigs and the humans of the area, who congratulate Napoleon on having the hardest-working but least fed animals in the country. Napoleon announces an alliance with the humans, against the labouring classes of both \"worlds\". He abolishes practices and traditions related to the Revolution, and changes the name of the farm to \"The Manor Farm\". The animals, overhearing the conversation, notice that the faces of the pigs have begun changing. During a poker match, an argument breaks out between Napoleon and Mr Pilkington, and the animals realise that the faces of the pigs look like the faces of humans, and no one can tell the difference between them. The pigs Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer adapt Old Major's ideas into an actual philosophy, which they formally name Animalism. Soon after, Napoleon and Squealer indulge in the vices of humans (drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, trading). Squealer is employed to alter the Seven Commandments to account for this humanisation, an allusion to the Soviet government's revising of history in order to exercise control of the people's beliefs about themselves and their society. The original commandments are: # Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. # Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. # No animal shall wear clothes. # No animal shall sleep in a bed. # No animal shall drink alcohol. # No animal shall kill any other animal. # All animals are equal. Later, Napoleon and his pigs secretly revise some commandments to clear them of accusations"
      },
      {
        "text": " history in order to exercise control of the people's beliefs about themselves and their society. The original commandments are: # Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. # Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. # No animal shall wear clothes. # No animal shall sleep in a bed. # No animal shall drink alcohol. # No animal shall kill any other animal. # All animals are equal. Later, Napoleon and his pigs secretly revise some commandments to clear them of accusations of law-breaking (such as \"No animal shall drink alcohol\" having \"to excess\" appended to it and \"No animal shall sleep in a bed\" with \"with sheets\" added to it). The changed commandments are as follows, with the changes bolded: * 4 No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets. * 5 No animal shall drink alcohol to excess. * 6 No animal shall kill any other animal without cause. Eventually these are replaced with the maxims, \"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others\", and \"Four legs good, two legs better!\" as the pigs become more human. This is an ironic twist to the original purpose of the Seven Commandments, which were supposed to keep order within Animal Farm by uniting the animals together against the humans, and prevent animals from following the humans' evil habits. Through the revision of the commandments, Orwell demonstrates how simply political dogma can be turned into malleable propaganda.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Clockwork Orange",
    "author": "Anthony Burgess",
    "published_date": "1962",
    "synopsis": " Alex, a teenager living in near-future England, leads his gang on nightly orgies of opportunistic, random \"ultra-violence.\" Alex's friends (\"droogs\" in the novel's Anglo-Russian slang, Nadsat) are: Dim, a slow-witted bruiser who is the gang's muscle; Georgie, an ambitious second-in-command; and Pete, who mostly plays along as the droogs indulge their taste for ultra-violence. Characterized as a sociopath and a hardened juvenile delinquent, Alex is also intelligent and quick-witted, with sophisticated taste in music, being particularly fond of Beethoven, or \"Lovely Ludwig Van.\" The novel begins with the droogs sitting in their favorite hangout (the Korova Milkbar), drinking milk-drug cocktails, called \"milk-plus\", to hype themselves for the night's mayhem. They assault a scholar walking home from the public library, rob a store leaving the owner and his wife bloodied and unconscious, stomp a panhandling derelict, then scuffle with a rival gang. Joyriding through the countryside in a stolen car, they break into an isolated cottage and maul the young couple living there, beating the husband and raping his wife. In a metafictional touch, the husband is a writer working on a manuscript called \"A Clockwork Orange,\" and Alex contemptuously reads out a paragraph that states the novel's main theme before shredding the manuscript. Back at the milk bar, Alex punishes Dim for some crude behaviour, and strains within the gang become apparent. At home in his dreary flat, Alex plays classical music at top volume while fantasizing of even more orgiastic violence. Alex skips school the next day. Following an unexpected visit from P.R. Deltoid, his \"post-corrective advisor,\" Alex meets a pair of ten-year-old girls and takes them back to his parents' flat, where he administers hard drugs and then rapes them. That evening, Alex finds his droogs in a mutinous mood. Georgie challenges Alex for leadership of the gang, demanding that they pull a \"man-sized\" job. Alex quells the rebellion by slashing Dim's hand and fighting with Georgie, then in a show of generosity takes them to a bar, where Alex insists on following through on Georgie's idea to burgle the home of a wealthy old woman. The break-in starts as farce and ends in tragic pathos, as Alex's attack kills the elderly woman. His escape is blocked by Dim, who attacks Alex, leaving him incapacitated on the front step as the police arrive. Sentenced to prison for murder, Alex gets a job at the Wing chapel playing religious music on the stereo before and after services as well as during the singing of hymns. The prison chaplain mistakes Alex's Bible studies for stirrings of faith (Alex is actually reading Scripture for the violent passages). After Alex's fellow cellmates blame him for beating a troublesome cellmate to death, he agrees to undergo an experimental behaviour-modification treatment called the Ludovico Technique. The technique is a form of aversion therapy in which Alex receives an injection that makes him feel sick while watching graphically violent films, eventually conditioning him to suffer crippling bouts of nausea at the mere thought of violence. As an unintended consequence, the soundtrack to one of the films\u2014Beethoven's Fifth Symphony\u2014renders Alex unable to listen to his beloved classical music. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated to a group of VIPs, who watch as Alex collapses before a walloping bully, and abases himself before a scantily-clad young woman whose presence has aroused his predatory sexual inclinations. Though the prison chaplain accuses the state of stripping Alex of free will, the government officials on the scene are pleased with the results and Alex is released into society. Since his parents are now renting his room to a lodger, Alex wanders the streets and enters a public library where he hopes to learn a painless way to commit suicide. There, he accidentally encounters the old scholar he assaulted earlier in the book, who, keen on revenge, beats Alex with the help of his friends. The policemen who come to Alex's rescue turn out to be none other than Dim and former gang rival Billyboy. The two policemen take Alex outside of town and beat him up. Dazed and bloodied, Alex collapses at the door of an isolated cottage, realizing too late that it is the house he and his droogs invaded in the first half of the story. Because the gang wore masks during the assault, the writer does not recognize Alex. The writer, whose name is revealed as F. Alexander, shelters Alex and questions him about the conditioning. During this sequence, it is revealed that Mrs. Alexander died from the injuries inflicted during the gang-rape, and her husband has decided to continue living \"where her fragrant memory persists\" despite the horrid memories. Alexander, a critic of the government, hopes to use Alex as a symbol of state brutality and thereby prevent the incumbent government from being re-elected. Eventually, he begins to realize Alex's role in the happenings of the night two years ago. One of Alexander's radical associates manages to extract a confession from Alex after removing him from F. Alexander's home and then locks him in a flatblock near his former home. Alex is then subjected to a relentless barrage of classical music, prompting him to attempt suicide by leaping from a high window. Alex wakes up in hospital, where he is courted by government officials anxious to counter the bad publicity created by his suicide attempt. With Alexander safely packed off to a mental institution, Alex is offered a well-paying job if he agrees to side with the government. As photographers snap pictures, Alex daydreams of orgiastic violence and realizes the Ludovico conditioning has been reversed: \"I was cured all right.\" In the final chapter, Alex has a new trio of droogs, but he finds he is beginning to outgrow his taste for violence. A chance encounter with Pete, now married and settled down, inspires Alex to seek a wife and family of his own. He contemplates the likelihood of his future son being a delinquent as he was, a prospect Alex views fatalistically.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Alex, a teenager living in near-future England, leads his gang on nightly orgies of opportunistic, random \"ultra-violence.\" Alex's friends (\"droogs\" in the novel's Anglo-Russian slang, Nadsat) are: Dim, a slow-witted bruiser who is the gang's muscle; Georgie, an ambitious second-in-command; and Pete, who mostly plays along as the droogs indulge their taste for ultra-violence. Characterized as a sociopath and a hardened juvenile delinquent, Alex is also intelligent and quick-witted, with sophisticated taste in music, being particularly fond of Beethoven, or \"Lovely Ludwig Van.\" The novel begins with the droogs sitting in their favorite hangout (the Korova Milkbar), drinking milk-drug cocktails, called \"milk-plus\", to hype themselves for the night's mayhem. They assault a scholar walking home from the public library, rob a store leaving the owner and his wife bloodied and unconscious, stomp a panhandling derelict, then scuffle with a rival gang. Joyriding through the countryside in a stolen car, they break into an isolated cottage and maul the young couple living there, beating the husband and raping his wife. In a metafictional touch, the husband is a writer working on a manuscript called \"A Clockwork Orange,\" and Alex contemptuously reads out a paragraph that states the novel's main theme before shredding the manuscript. Back at the milk bar, Alex punishes Dim for some crude behaviour, and strains within the gang become apparent. At home in his dreary flat, Alex plays classical music at top volume while fantasizing of even more orgiastic violence. Alex skips school the next day. Following an unexpected visit from P.R. Deltoid, his \"post-corrective advisor,\" Alex meets a pair of ten-year-old girls and takes them back to his parents' flat,"
      },
      {
        "text": " Back at the milk bar, Alex punishes Dim for some crude behaviour, and strains within the gang become apparent. At home in his dreary flat, Alex plays classical music at top volume while fantasizing of even more orgiastic violence. Alex skips school the next day. Following an unexpected visit from P.R. Deltoid, his \"post-corrective advisor,\" Alex meets a pair of ten-year-old girls and takes them back to his parents' flat, where he administers hard drugs and then rapes them. That evening, Alex finds his droogs in a mutinous mood. Georgie challenges Alex for leadership of the gang, demanding that they pull a \"man-sized\" job. Alex quells the rebellion by slashing Dim's hand and fighting with Georgie, then in a show of generosity takes them to a bar, where Alex insists on following through on Georgie's idea to burgle the home of a wealthy old woman. The break-in starts as farce and ends in tragic pathos, as Alex's attack kills the elderly woman. His escape is blocked by Dim, who attacks Alex, leaving him incapacitated on the front step as the police arrive. Sentenced to prison for murder, Alex gets a job at the Wing chapel playing religious music on the stereo before and after services as well as during the singing of hymns. The prison chaplain mistakes Alex's Bible studies for stirrings of faith (Alex is actually reading Scripture for the violent passages). After Alex's fellow cellmates blame him for beating a troublesome cellmate to death, he agrees to undergo an experimental behaviour-modification treatment called the Ludovico Technique. The technique is a form of aversion therapy in which Alex receives an injection that makes him feel sick while watching graphically violent films, eventually conditioning him to suffer crippling bouts of nausea at the mere thought of violence. As an unintended consequence, the soundtrack to one of the films\u2014Beethoven's"
      },
      {
        "text": " Scripture for the violent passages). After Alex's fellow cellmates blame him for beating a troublesome cellmate to death, he agrees to undergo an experimental behaviour-modification treatment called the Ludovico Technique. The technique is a form of aversion therapy in which Alex receives an injection that makes him feel sick while watching graphically violent films, eventually conditioning him to suffer crippling bouts of nausea at the mere thought of violence. As an unintended consequence, the soundtrack to one of the films\u2014Beethoven's Fifth Symphony\u2014renders Alex unable to listen to his beloved classical music. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated to a group of VIPs, who watch as Alex collapses before a walloping bully, and abases himself before a scantily-clad young woman whose presence has aroused his predatory sexual inclinations. Though the prison chaplain accuses the state of stripping Alex of free will, the government officials on the scene are pleased with the results and Alex is released into society. Since his parents are now renting his room to a lodger, Alex wanders the streets and enters a public library where he hopes to learn a painless way to commit suicide. There, he accidentally encounters the old scholar he assaulted earlier in the book, who, keen on revenge, beats Alex with the help of his friends. The policemen who come to Alex's rescue turn out to be none other than Dim and former gang rival Billyboy. The two policemen take Alex outside of town and beat him up. Dazed and bloodied, Alex collapses at the door of an isolated cottage, realizing too late that it is the house he and his droogs invaded in the first half of the story. Because the gang wore masks during the assault, the writer does not recognize Alex. The writer, whose name is revealed as F. Alexander, shelters Alex and questions him about the conditioning. During this sequence, it is revealed that Mrs. Alexander died from the injuries inflicted during the gang-rape, and her husband has decided to"
      },
      {
        "text": " bloodied, Alex collapses at the door of an isolated cottage, realizing too late that it is the house he and his droogs invaded in the first half of the story. Because the gang wore masks during the assault, the writer does not recognize Alex. The writer, whose name is revealed as F. Alexander, shelters Alex and questions him about the conditioning. During this sequence, it is revealed that Mrs. Alexander died from the injuries inflicted during the gang-rape, and her husband has decided to continue living \"where her fragrant memory persists\" despite the horrid memories. Alexander, a critic of the government, hopes to use Alex as a symbol of state brutality and thereby prevent the incumbent government from being re-elected. Eventually, he begins to realize Alex's role in the happenings of the night two years ago. One of Alexander's radical associates manages to extract a confession from Alex after removing him from F. Alexander's home and then locks him in a flatblock near his former home. Alex is then subjected to a relentless barrage of classical music, prompting him to attempt suicide by leaping from a high window. Alex wakes up in hospital, where he is courted by government officials anxious to counter the bad publicity created by his suicide attempt. With Alexander safely packed off to a mental institution, Alex is offered a well-paying job if he agrees to side with the government. As photographers snap pictures, Alex daydreams of orgiastic violence and realizes the Ludovico conditioning has been reversed: \"I was cured all right.\" In the final chapter, Alex has a new trio of droogs, but he finds he is beginning to outgrow his taste for violence. A chance encounter with Pete, now married and settled down, inspires Alex to seek a wife and family of his own. He contemplates the likelihood of his future son being a delinquent as he was, a prospect Alex views fatalistically.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " been reversed: \"I was cured all right.\" In the final chapter, Alex has a new trio of droogs, but he finds he is beginning to outgrow his taste for violence. A chance encounter with Pete, now married and settled down, inspires Alex to seek a wife and family of his own. He contemplates the likelihood of his future son being a delinquent as he was, a prospect Alex views fatalistically.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Plague",
    "author": "Albert Camus",
    "published_date": "1947",
    "synopsis": " The text of The Plague is divided into five parts. In the town of Oran, thousands of rats, initially unnoticed by the populace, begin to die in the streets. A hysteria develops soon afterward, causing the local newspapers to report the incident. Authorities responding to public pressure order the collection and cremation of the rats, unaware that the collection itself was the catalyst for the spread of the bubonic plague. The main character, Dr. Bernard Rieux, lives comfortably in an apartment building when strangely the building's concierge, M. Michel, a confidante, dies from a fever. Dr. Rieux consults his colleague, Castel, about the illness until they come to the conclusion that a plague is sweeping the town. They both approach fellow doctors and town authorities about their theory, but are eventually dismissed on the basis of one death. However, as more and more deaths quickly ensue, it becomes apparent that there is an epidemic. Authorities, including the Prefect, M. Othon, are slow to accept that the situation is serious and quibble over the appropriate action to take. Official notices enacting control measures are posted, but the language used is optimistic and downplays the seriousness of the situation. A \"special ward\" is opened at the hospital, but its 80 beds are filled within three days. As the death toll begins to rise, more desperate measures are taken. Homes are quarantined; corpses and burials are strictly supervised. A supply of plague serum finally arrives, but there is only enough to treat existing cases and the country's emergency reserves are depleted. When the daily number of deaths jumps to 30, the town is sealed and an outbreak of plague is officially declared. The town is sealed off. The town gates are shut, rail travel is prohibited, and all mail service is suspended. The use of telephone lines is restricted only to \"urgent\" calls, leaving short telegrams as the only means of communicating with friends or family outside the town. The separation affects daily activity and depresses the spirit of the townspeople, who begin to feel isolated and introverted, and the plague begins to affect various characters. One character, Raymond Rambert, devises a plan to escape the city to join his lover in Paris after city officials refuse his request to leave. He befriends some criminals so that they may smuggle him out of the city. Another character, Father Paneloux, uses the plague as an opportunity to advance his stature in the town by suggesting that the plague was an act of God punishing the citizens' sinful nature. His diatribe falls on the ears of many citizens of the town, who turned to religion in droves but would not have done so under normal circumstances. Cottard, a criminal remorseful enough to attempt suicide yet fearful of being arrested, becomes wealthy as a major smuggler. Meanwhile, Dr. Rieux, a vacationer Jean Tarrou, and a civil servant Joseph Grand exhaustively treat patients in their homes and in the hospital. Rambert informs Tarrou of his escape plan, but when Tarrou tells him that others in the city, including Dr. Rieux, also have loved ones outside the city whom they are not allowed to see, Rambert becomes sympathetic and changes his mind. He then decides to join Tarrou and Dr. Rieux to help fight the epidemic. In mid-August, the situation continues to worsen. People try to escape the town, but some are shot by armed sentries. Violence and looting break out on a small scale, and the authorities respond by declaring martial law and imposing a curfew. Funerals are conducted with more and more speed, no ceremony, and little concern for the feelings of the families of the deceased. The inhabitants passively endure their increasing feelings of exile and separation; despondent, they waste away emotionally as well as physically. In September and October, the town remains at the mercy of the plague. Rieux hears from the sanatorium that his wife's condition is worsening. He also hardens his heart regarding the plague victims so that he can continue to do his work. Cottard, on the other hand, seems to flourish during the plague, because it gives him a sense of being connected to others, since everybody faces the same danger. Cottard and Tarrou attend a performance of Gluck's opera Orpheus and Eurydice, but the actor portraying Orpheus collapses with plague symptoms during the performance. Rambert finally has a chance to escape, but he decides to stay, saying that he would feel ashamed of himself if he left. Towards the end of October, Castel's new anti-plague serum is tried for the first time, but it cannot save the life of Othon's young son, who suffers greatly, as Paneloux, Rieux, and Tarrou look on in horror. Paneloux, who has joined the group of volunteers fighting the plague, gives a second sermon. He addresses the problem of an innocent child's suffering and says it is a test of a Christian's faith, since it requires him either to deny everything or believe everything. He urges the congregation not to give up the struggle but to do everything possible to fight the plague. A few days after the sermon, Paneloux is taken ill. His symptoms do not conform to those of the plague, but the disease still proves fatal. Tarrou and Rambert visit one of the isolation camps, where they meet Othon. When Othon's period of quarantine ends, he elects to stay in the camp as a volunteer because this will make him feel less separated from his dead son. Tarrou tells Rieux the story of his life, and the two men go swimming together in the sea. Grand catches the plague and instructs Rieux to burn all his papers. But Grand makes an unexpected recovery, and deaths from the plague start to decline. By late January, the plague is in full retreat, and the townspeople begin to celebrate the imminent opening of the town gates. Othon, however, does not escape death from the disease. Cottard is distressed by the ending of the epidemic, from which he has profited by shady dealings. Two government employees approach him, and he flees. Despite the epidemic's ending, Tarrou contracts the plague and dies after an heroic struggle. Rieux's wife also dies. In February, the town gates open and people are reunited with their loved ones from other cities. Rambert is reunited with his wife. Rieux reveals that he is the narrator of the chronicle and that he tried to present an objective view of the events. Cottard goes mad and shoots at people from his home. He is arrested. Grand begins working on his sentence again. Rieux reflects on the epidemic and reaches the conclusion that there is more to admire than to despise in humans.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The text of The Plague is divided into five parts. In the town of Oran, thousands of rats, initially unnoticed by the populace, begin to die in the streets. A hysteria develops soon afterward, causing the local newspapers to report the incident. Authorities responding to public pressure order the collection and cremation of the rats, unaware that the collection itself was the catalyst for the spread of the bubonic plague. The main character, Dr. Bernard Rieux, lives comfortably in an apartment building when strangely the building's concierge, M. Michel, a confidante, dies from a fever. Dr. Rieux consults his colleague, Castel, about the illness until they come to the conclusion that a plague is sweeping the town. They both approach fellow doctors and town authorities about their theory, but are eventually dismissed on the basis of one death. However, as more and more deaths quickly ensue, it becomes apparent that there is an epidemic. Authorities, including the Prefect, M. Othon, are slow to accept that the situation is serious and quibble over the appropriate action to take. Official notices enacting control measures are posted, but the language used is optimistic and downplays the seriousness of the situation. A \"special ward\" is opened at the hospital, but its 80 beds are filled within three days. As the death toll begins to rise, more desperate measures are taken. Homes are quarantined; corpses and burials are strictly supervised. A supply of plague serum finally arrives, but there is only enough to treat existing cases and the country's emergency reserves are depleted. When the daily number of deaths jumps to 30, the town is sealed and an outbreak of plague is officially declared. The town is sealed off. The town gates are shut, rail travel is prohibited, and all mail service is suspended. The use of telephone lines is restricted only to \"urgent\" calls, leaving short telegrams as the only means of communicating with friends"
      },
      {
        "text": " supply of plague serum finally arrives, but there is only enough to treat existing cases and the country's emergency reserves are depleted. When the daily number of deaths jumps to 30, the town is sealed and an outbreak of plague is officially declared. The town is sealed off. The town gates are shut, rail travel is prohibited, and all mail service is suspended. The use of telephone lines is restricted only to \"urgent\" calls, leaving short telegrams as the only means of communicating with friends or family outside the town. The separation affects daily activity and depresses the spirit of the townspeople, who begin to feel isolated and introverted, and the plague begins to affect various characters. One character, Raymond Rambert, devises a plan to escape the city to join his lover in Paris after city officials refuse his request to leave. He befriends some criminals so that they may smuggle him out of the city. Another character, Father Paneloux, uses the plague as an opportunity to advance his stature in the town by suggesting that the plague was an act of God punishing the citizens' sinful nature. His diatribe falls on the ears of many citizens of the town, who turned to religion in droves but would not have done so under normal circumstances. Cottard, a criminal remorseful enough to attempt suicide yet fearful of being arrested, becomes wealthy as a major smuggler. Meanwhile, Dr. Rieux, a vacationer Jean Tarrou, and a civil servant Joseph Grand exhaustively treat patients in their homes and in the hospital. Rambert informs Tarrou of his escape plan, but when Tarrou tells him that others in the city, including Dr. Rieux, also have loved ones outside the city whom they are not allowed to see, Rambert becomes sympathetic and changes his mind. He then decides to join Tarrou and Dr. Rieux to help fight the epidemic. In mid-August, the situation continues to worsen. People try"
      },
      {
        "text": " servant Joseph Grand exhaustively treat patients in their homes and in the hospital. Rambert informs Tarrou of his escape plan, but when Tarrou tells him that others in the city, including Dr. Rieux, also have loved ones outside the city whom they are not allowed to see, Rambert becomes sympathetic and changes his mind. He then decides to join Tarrou and Dr. Rieux to help fight the epidemic. In mid-August, the situation continues to worsen. People try to escape the town, but some are shot by armed sentries. Violence and looting break out on a small scale, and the authorities respond by declaring martial law and imposing a curfew. Funerals are conducted with more and more speed, no ceremony, and little concern for the feelings of the families of the deceased. The inhabitants passively endure their increasing feelings of exile and separation; despondent, they waste away emotionally as well as physically. In September and October, the town remains at the mercy of the plague. Rieux hears from the sanatorium that his wife's condition is worsening. He also hardens his heart regarding the plague victims so that he can continue to do his work. Cottard, on the other hand, seems to flourish during the plague, because it gives him a sense of being connected to others, since everybody faces the same danger. Cottard and Tarrou attend a performance of Gluck's opera Orpheus and Eurydice, but the actor portraying Orpheus collapses with plague symptoms during the performance. Rambert finally has a chance to escape, but he decides to stay, saying that he would feel ashamed of himself if he left. Towards the end of October, Castel's new anti-plague serum is tried for the first time, but it cannot save the life of Othon's young son, who suffers greatly, as Paneloux, Rieux, and Tarrou look on in horror. Paneloux, who has joined"
      },
      {
        "text": " portraying Orpheus collapses with plague symptoms during the performance. Rambert finally has a chance to escape, but he decides to stay, saying that he would feel ashamed of himself if he left. Towards the end of October, Castel's new anti-plague serum is tried for the first time, but it cannot save the life of Othon's young son, who suffers greatly, as Paneloux, Rieux, and Tarrou look on in horror. Paneloux, who has joined the group of volunteers fighting the plague, gives a second sermon. He addresses the problem of an innocent child's suffering and says it is a test of a Christian's faith, since it requires him either to deny everything or believe everything. He urges the congregation not to give up the struggle but to do everything possible to fight the plague. A few days after the sermon, Paneloux is taken ill. His symptoms do not conform to those of the plague, but the disease still proves fatal. Tarrou and Rambert visit one of the isolation camps, where they meet Othon. When Othon's period of quarantine ends, he elects to stay in the camp as a volunteer because this will make him feel less separated from his dead son. Tarrou tells Rieux the story of his life, and the two men go swimming together in the sea. Grand catches the plague and instructs Rieux to burn all his papers. But Grand makes an unexpected recovery, and deaths from the plague start to decline. By late January, the plague is in full retreat, and the townspeople begin to celebrate the imminent opening of the town gates. Othon, however, does not escape death from the disease. Cottard is distressed by the ending of the epidemic, from which he has profited by shady dealings. Two government employees approach him, and he flees. Despite the epidemic's ending, Tarrou contracts the plague and dies after an heroic struggle. Rie"
      },
      {
        "text": " the plague start to decline. By late January, the plague is in full retreat, and the townspeople begin to celebrate the imminent opening of the town gates. Othon, however, does not escape death from the disease. Cottard is distressed by the ending of the epidemic, from which he has profited by shady dealings. Two government employees approach him, and he flees. Despite the epidemic's ending, Tarrou contracts the plague and dies after an heroic struggle. Rieux's wife also dies. In February, the town gates open and people are reunited with their loved ones from other cities. Rambert is reunited with his wife. Rieux reveals that he is the narrator of the chronicle and that he tried to present an objective view of the events. Cottard goes mad and shoots at people from his home. He is arrested. Grand begins working on his sentence again. Rieux reflects on the epidemic and reaches the conclusion that there is more to admire than to despise in humans.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding",
    "author": "David Hume",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The argument of the Enquiry proceeds by a series of incremental steps, separated into chapters which logically succeed one another. After expounding his epistemology, Hume explains how to apply his principles to specific topics. In the first section of the Enquiry, Hume provides a rough introduction to philosophy as a whole. For Hume, philosophy can be split into two general parts: natural philosophy and the philosophy of human nature (or, as he calls it, \"moral philosophy\"). The latter investigates both actions and thoughts. He emphasizes in this section, by way of warning, that philosophers with nuanced thoughts will likely be cast aside in favor of those whose conclusions more intuitively match popular opinion. However, he insists, precision helps art and craft of all kinds, including the craft of philosophy. Next, Hume discusses the distinction between impressions and ideas. By \"impressions\", he means sensations, while by \"ideas\", he means memories and imaginings. According to Hume, the difference between the two is that ideas are less vivacious than impressions. For example, the idea of the taste of an orange is far inferior to the impression (or sensation) of actually eating one. Writing within the tradition of empiricism, he argues that impressions are the source of all ideas. Hume accepts that ideas may be either the product of mere sensation, or of the imagination working in conjunction with sensation. According to Hume, the creative faculty makes use of (at least) four mental operations which produce imaginings out of sense-impressions. These operations are compounding (or the addition of one idea onto another, such as a horn on a horse to create a unicorn); transposing (or the substitution of one part of a thing with the part from another, such as with the body of a man upon a horse to make a centaur); augmenting (as with the case of a giant, whose size has been augmented); and diminishing (as with Lilliputians, whose size has been diminished). (Hume 1974:317) In a later chapter, he also mentions the operations of mixing, separating, and dividing. (Hume 1974:340) However, Hume admits that there is one objection to his account: the problem of \"The Missing Shade of Blue\". In this thought-experiment, he asks us to imagine a man who has experienced every shade of blue except for one (see Fig. 1). He predicts that this man will be able to divine the color of this particular shade of blue, despite the fact that he has never experienced it. This seems to pose a serious problem for the empirical account, though Hume brushes it aside as an exceptional case by stating that one may experience a novel idea that itself is derived from combinations of previous impressions. (Hume 1974:319) In this chapter, Hume discusses how thoughts tend to come in sequences, as in trains of thought. He explains that there are at least three kinds of associations between ideas: resemblance, contiguity in space-time, and cause-and-effect. He argues that there must be some universal principle that must account for the various sorts of connections that exist between ideas. However, he does not immediately show what this principle might be. (Hume 1974:320-321) In the first part, Hume discusses how the objects of inquiry are either \"relations of ideas\" or \"matters of fact\", which is roughly the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. The former, he tells the reader, are proved by demonstration, while the latter are given through experience. (Hume 1974:322) In explaining how matters of fact are entirely a product of experience, he dismisses the notion that they may be arrived at through a priori reasoning. For Hume, every effect only follows its cause arbitrarily\u2014they are entirely distinct from one another. (Hume 1974:324) In part two, Hume inquires into how anyone can justifiably believe that experience yields any conclusions about the world: ::\"When it is asked, What is the nature of all our reasonings concerning matter of fact? the proper answer seems to be, that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect. When again it is asked, What is the foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concerning that relation? it may be replied in one word, experience. But if we still carry on our sifting humor, and ask, What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience? this implies a new question, which may be of more difficult solution and explication.\" (Hume 1974:328) He shows how a satisfying argument for the validity of experience can be based neither on demonstration (since \"it implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change\") nor experience (since that would be a circular argument). (Hume 1974:330-332) Here he is describing what would become known as the problem of induction. For Hume, we assume that experience tells us something about the world because of habit or custom, which human nature forces us to take seriously. This is also, presumably, the \"principle\" that organizes the connections between ideas. Indeed, one of the many famous passages of the Inquiry was on the topic of the incorrigibility of human custom. In a later chapter, he wrote: ::\"The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of skepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life. These principles may flourish and triumph in the schools; where it is, indeed, difficult, if not impossible, to refute them. But as soon as they leave the shade, and by the presence of the real objects, which actuate our passions and sentiments, are put in opposition to the more powerful principles of our nature, they vanish like smoke, and leave the most determined skeptic in the same condition as other mortals.\" (Hume 1974:425) In the second part, he provides an account of beliefs. He explains that the difference between belief and fiction is that the former produces a certain feeling of confidence which the latter doesn't. (Hume 1974:340) This short chapter begins with the notions of probability and chance. For him, \"probability\" means a higher chance of occurring, and brings about a higher degree of subjective expectation in the viewer. By \"chance\", he means all those particular comprehensible events which the viewer considers possible in accord with their experience. However, further experience takes these equal chances, and forces the imagination to observe that certain chances arise more frequently than others. These gentle forces upon the imagination cause the viewer to have strong beliefs in outcomes. This effect may be understood as another case of custom or habit taking past experience and using it to predict the future. (Hume 1974:346-348) By \"necessary connection\", Hume means the power or force which necessarily ties one idea to another. He rejects the notion that any sensible qualities are necessarily conjoined, since that would mean we could know something prior to experience. Unlike his predecessors, Berkeley and Locke, Hume rejects the idea that volitions or impulses of the will may be inferred to necessarily connect to the actions they produce by way of some sense of the power of the will. He reasons that, i) if we knew the nature of this power, then the mind-body divide would seem totally unmysterious to us; ii) if we had immediate knowledge of this mysterious power, then we would be able to intuitively explain why it is that we can control some parts of our bodies (e.g., our hands or tongues), and not others (e.g., the liver or heart); iii) we have no immediate knowledge of the powers which allow an impulse of volition to create an action (e.g., of the \"muscles, and nerves, and animal spirits\" which are the immediate cause of an action). (Hume 1974:353-354) He produces like arguments against the notion that we have knowledge of these powers as they affect the mind alone. (Hume 1974:355-356) He also argues in brief against the idea that causes are mere occasions of the will of some god(s), a view associated with the philosopher Nicolas Malebranche. (Hume 1974:356-359) Having dispensed with these alternative explanations, he identifies the source of our knowledge of necessary connections as arising out of observation of constant conjunction of certain impressions across many instances. In this way, people know of necessity through rigorous custom or habit, and not from any immediate knowledge of the powers of the will. (Hume 1974:361) He then produces three explanations for how we account for causation: # When all objects or events of one kind are immediately followed by objects or events of another kind. # Where, if there had been no object of the first kind, we would never have seen an object of the second kind. # Where the appearance of the first object forces one's mind to think about the second one. (Hume 1974:362) Here Hume tackles the problem of how liberty may be reconciled with metaphysical necessity (otherwise known as a compatibilist formulation of free will). Hume believes that all disputes on the subject have been merely verbal arguments\u2014that is to say, arguments which are based on a lack of prior agreement on definitions. He first shows that it is clear that most events are deterministic, but human actions are more controversial. However, he thinks that these too occur out of necessity since an outside observer can see the same regularity that he would in a purely physical system. To show the compatibility of necessity and liberty, Hume defines liberty as the ability to act on the basis of one's will e.g. the capacity to will one's actions but not to will one's will. He then shows (quite briefly) how determinism and free will are compatible notions, and have no bad consequences on ethics or moral life. Hume insists that the conclusions of the Enquiry will be very powerful if they can be shown to apply to animals and not just humans. He believed that animals were able to infer the relation between cause and effect in the same way that humans do: through learned expectations. (Hume 1974:384) He also notes that this \"inferential\" ability that animals have is not through reason, but custom alone. Hume concludes that there is an innate faculty of instincts which both beasts and humans share, namely, the ability to reason experimentally (through custom). Nevertheless, he admits, humans and animals differ in mental faculties in a number of ways, including: differences in memory and attention, inferential abilities, ability to make deductions in a long chain, ability to grasp ideas more or less clearly, the human capacity to worry about conflating unrelated circumstances, a sagely prudence which arrests generalizations, a capacity for a greater inner library of analogies to reason with, an ability to detach oneself and scrap one's own biases, and an ability to converse through language (and thus gain from the experience of others' testimonies). (Hume 1974:385, footnote 17.) The next topic which Hume strives to give treatment is that of the reliability of human testimony, and of the role that testimony plays a part in epistemology. This was not an idle concern for Hume. Depending on its outcome, the entire treatment would give the epistemologist a degree of certitude in the treatment of miracles. True to his empirical thesis, Hume tells the reader that, though testimony does have some force, it is never quite as powerful as the direct evidence of the senses. That said, he provides some reasons why we may have a basis for trust in the testimony of persons: because a) human memory can be relatively tenacious; and b) because people are inclined to tell the truth, and ashamed of telling falsities. Needless to say, these reasons are only to be trusted to the extent that they conform to experience. (Hume 1974:389) And there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of human testimony, also based on experience. If a) testimonies conflict one another, b) there are a small number of witnesses, c) the speaker has no integrity, d) the speaker is overly hesitant or bold, or e) the speaker is known to have motives for lying, then the epistemologist has reason to be skeptical of the speaker's claims. (Hume 1974:390) There is one final criterion that Hume thinks gives us warrant to doubt any given testimony, and that is f) if the propositions being communicated are miraculous. Hume understands a miracle to be any event which contradicts the laws of nature. He argues that the laws of nature have an overwhelming body of evidence behind them, and are so well demonstrated to everyone's experience, that any deviation from those laws necessarily flies in the face of all evidence. (Hume 1974:391-392) Moreover, he stresses that talk of the miraculous has no surface validity, for four reasons. First, he explains that in all of history there has never been a miracle which was attested to by a wide body of disinterested experts. Second, he notes that human beings delight in a sense of wonder, and this provides a villain with an opportunity to manipulate others. Third, he thinks that those who hold onto the miraculous have tended towards barbarism. Finally, since testimonies tend to conflict with one another when it comes to the miraculous\u2014that is, one man's religious miracle may be contradicted by another man's miracle\u2014any testimony relating to the fantastic is self-denunciating. (Hume 1974:393-398) Still, Hume takes care to warn that historians are generally to be trusted with confidence, so long as their reports on facts are extensive and uniform. However, he seems to suggest that historians are as fallible at interpreting the facts as the rest of humanity. Thus, if every historian were to claim that there was a solar eclipse in the year 1600, then though we might at first naively regard that as in violation of natural laws, we'd come to accept it as a fact. But if every historian were to assert that Queen Elizabeth was observed walking around happy and healthy after her funeral, and then interpreted that to mean that they had risen from the dead, then we'd have reason to appeal to natural laws in order to dispute their interpretation. (Hume 1974:400-402) Hume continues his application of epistemology to theology by an extended discussion on heaven and hell. The brunt of this chapter allegedly narrates the opinions, not of Hume, but of one of Hume's anonymous friends, who again presents them in an imagined speech by the philosopher Epicurus. His friend argues that, though it is possible to trace a cause from an effect, it is not possible to infer unseen effects from a cause thus traced. The friend insists, then, that even though we might postulate that there is a first cause behind all things\u2014God\u2014we can't infer anything about the afterlife, because we don't know anything of the afterlife from experience, and we can't infer it from the existence of God. (Hume 1974:408) Hume offers his friend an objection: if we see an unfinished building, then can't we infer that it has been created by humans with certain intentions, and that it will be finished in the future? His friend concurs, but indicates that there is a relevant disanalogy that we can't pretend to know the contents of the mind of God, while we can know the designs of other humans. Hume seems essentially persuaded by his friend's reasoning. (Hume 1974:412-414) The first section of the last chapter is organized as an outline of various skeptical arguments. The treatment includes the arguments of atheism, Cartesian skepticism, \"light\" skepticism, and rationalist critiques of empiricism. Hume shows that even light skepticism leads to crushing doubts about the world which - while they ultimately are philosophically justifiable - may only be combated through the non-philosophical adherence to custom or habit. He ends the section with his own reservations towards Cartesian and Lockean epistemologies. In the second section he returns to the topic of hard skepticism by sharply denouncing it. ::\"For here is the chief and most confounding objection to excessive skepticism, that no durable good can ever result from it; while it remains in its full force and vigor. We need only ask such a skeptic, What his meaning is? And what he proposes by all these curious researches? He is immediately at a loss, and knows not what to answer... a Pyrrhonian cannot expect, that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind: or if it had, that its influence would be beneficial to society. On the contrary, he must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge anything, that all human life must perish, were his principles universally and steadily to prevail.\" (Hume 1974:426) He concludes the volume by setting out the limits of knowledge once and for all. \"When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The argument of the Enquiry proceeds by a series of incremental steps, separated into chapters which logically succeed one another. After expounding his epistemology, Hume explains how to apply his principles to specific topics. In the first section of the Enquiry, Hume provides a rough introduction to philosophy as a whole. For Hume, philosophy can be split into two general parts: natural philosophy and the philosophy of human nature (or, as he calls it, \"moral philosophy\"). The latter investigates both actions and thoughts. He emphasizes in this section, by way of warning, that philosophers with nuanced thoughts will likely be cast aside in favor of those whose conclusions more intuitively match popular opinion. However, he insists, precision helps art and craft of all kinds, including the craft of philosophy. Next, Hume discusses the distinction between impressions and ideas. By \"impressions\", he means sensations, while by \"ideas\", he means memories and imaginings. According to Hume, the difference between the two is that ideas are less vivacious than impressions. For example, the idea of the taste of an orange is far inferior to the impression (or sensation) of actually eating one. Writing within the tradition of empiricism, he argues that impressions are the source of all ideas. Hume accepts that ideas may be either the product of mere sensation, or of the imagination working in conjunction with sensation. According to Hume, the creative faculty makes use of (at least) four mental operations which produce imaginings out of sense-impressions. These operations are compounding (or the addition of one idea onto another, such as a horn on a horse to create a unicorn); transposing (or the substitution of one part of a thing with the part from another, such as with the body of a man upon a horse to make a centaur); augmenting (as with the case of a giant, whose size has been augmented); and diminishing (as with Lilliputians, whose"
      },
      {
        "text": "ings out of sense-impressions. These operations are compounding (or the addition of one idea onto another, such as a horn on a horse to create a unicorn); transposing (or the substitution of one part of a thing with the part from another, such as with the body of a man upon a horse to make a centaur); augmenting (as with the case of a giant, whose size has been augmented); and diminishing (as with Lilliputians, whose size has been diminished). (Hume 1974:317) In a later chapter, he also mentions the operations of mixing, separating, and dividing. (Hume 1974:340) However, Hume admits that there is one objection to his account: the problem of \"The Missing Shade of Blue\". In this thought-experiment, he asks us to imagine a man who has experienced every shade of blue except for one (see Fig. 1). He predicts that this man will be able to divine the color of this particular shade of blue, despite the fact that he has never experienced it. This seems to pose a serious problem for the empirical account, though Hume brushes it aside as an exceptional case by stating that one may experience a novel idea that itself is derived from combinations of previous impressions. (Hume 1974:319) In this chapter, Hume discusses how thoughts tend to come in sequences, as in trains of thought. He explains that there are at least three kinds of associations between ideas: resemblance, contiguity in space-time, and cause-and-effect. He argues that there must be some universal principle that must account for the various sorts of connections that exist between ideas. However, he does not immediately show what this principle might be. (Hume 1974:320-321) In the first part, Hume discusses how the objects of inquiry are either \"relations of ideas\" or \"matters of fact\", which is roughly the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. The"
      },
      {
        "text": " resemblance, contiguity in space-time, and cause-and-effect. He argues that there must be some universal principle that must account for the various sorts of connections that exist between ideas. However, he does not immediately show what this principle might be. (Hume 1974:320-321) In the first part, Hume discusses how the objects of inquiry are either \"relations of ideas\" or \"matters of fact\", which is roughly the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. The former, he tells the reader, are proved by demonstration, while the latter are given through experience. (Hume 1974:322) In explaining how matters of fact are entirely a product of experience, he dismisses the notion that they may be arrived at through a priori reasoning. For Hume, every effect only follows its cause arbitrarily\u2014they are entirely distinct from one another. (Hume 1974:324) In part two, Hume inquires into how anyone can justifiably believe that experience yields any conclusions about the world: ::\"When it is asked, What is the nature of all our reasonings concerning matter of fact? the proper answer seems to be, that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect. When again it is asked, What is the foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concerning that relation? it may be replied in one word, experience. But if we still carry on our sifting humor, and ask, What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience? this implies a new question, which may be of more difficult solution and explication.\" (Hume 1974:328) He shows how a satisfying argument for the validity of experience can be based neither on demonstration (since \"it implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change\") nor experience (since that would be a circular argument). (Hume 1974:330-332) Here he is describing what would become known as the problem of induction. For Hume, we assume that experience tells"
      },
      {
        "text": " experience? this implies a new question, which may be of more difficult solution and explication.\" (Hume 1974:328) He shows how a satisfying argument for the validity of experience can be based neither on demonstration (since \"it implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change\") nor experience (since that would be a circular argument). (Hume 1974:330-332) Here he is describing what would become known as the problem of induction. For Hume, we assume that experience tells us something about the world because of habit or custom, which human nature forces us to take seriously. This is also, presumably, the \"principle\" that organizes the connections between ideas. Indeed, one of the many famous passages of the Inquiry was on the topic of the incorrigibility of human custom. In a later chapter, he wrote: ::\"The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of skepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life. These principles may flourish and triumph in the schools; where it is, indeed, difficult, if not impossible, to refute them. But as soon as they leave the shade, and by the presence of the real objects, which actuate our passions and sentiments, are put in opposition to the more powerful principles of our nature, they vanish like smoke, and leave the most determined skeptic in the same condition as other mortals.\" (Hume 1974:425) In the second part, he provides an account of beliefs. He explains that the difference between belief and fiction is that the former produces a certain feeling of confidence which the latter doesn't. (Hume 1974:340) This short chapter begins with the notions of probability and chance. For him, \"probability\" means a higher chance of occurring, and brings about a higher degree of subjective expectation in the viewer. By \"chance\", he means all those particular comprehensible events which the viewer considers possible in accord with their"
      },
      {
        "text": " he provides an account of beliefs. He explains that the difference between belief and fiction is that the former produces a certain feeling of confidence which the latter doesn't. (Hume 1974:340) This short chapter begins with the notions of probability and chance. For him, \"probability\" means a higher chance of occurring, and brings about a higher degree of subjective expectation in the viewer. By \"chance\", he means all those particular comprehensible events which the viewer considers possible in accord with their experience. However, further experience takes these equal chances, and forces the imagination to observe that certain chances arise more frequently than others. These gentle forces upon the imagination cause the viewer to have strong beliefs in outcomes. This effect may be understood as another case of custom or habit taking past experience and using it to predict the future. (Hume 1974:346-348) By \"necessary connection\", Hume means the power or force which necessarily ties one idea to another. He rejects the notion that any sensible qualities are necessarily conjoined, since that would mean we could know something prior to experience. Unlike his predecessors, Berkeley and Locke, Hume rejects the idea that volitions or impulses of the will may be inferred to necessarily connect to the actions they produce by way of some sense of the power of the will. He reasons that, i) if we knew the nature of this power, then the mind-body divide would seem totally unmysterious to us; ii) if we had immediate knowledge of this mysterious power, then we would be able to intuitively explain why it is that we can control some parts of our bodies (e.g., our hands or tongues), and not others (e.g., the liver or heart); iii) we have no immediate knowledge of the powers which allow an impulse of volition to create an action (e.g., of the \"muscles, and nerves, and animal spirits\" which are the immediate cause of an action). (Hume 1974"
      },
      {
        "text": " this mysterious power, then we would be able to intuitively explain why it is that we can control some parts of our bodies (e.g., our hands or tongues), and not others (e.g., the liver or heart); iii) we have no immediate knowledge of the powers which allow an impulse of volition to create an action (e.g., of the \"muscles, and nerves, and animal spirits\" which are the immediate cause of an action). (Hume 1974:353-354) He produces like arguments against the notion that we have knowledge of these powers as they affect the mind alone. (Hume 1974:355-356) He also argues in brief against the idea that causes are mere occasions of the will of some god(s), a view associated with the philosopher Nicolas Malebranche. (Hume 1974:356-359) Having dispensed with these alternative explanations, he identifies the source of our knowledge of necessary connections as arising out of observation of constant conjunction of certain impressions across many instances. In this way, people know of necessity through rigorous custom or habit, and not from any immediate knowledge of the powers of the will. (Hume 1974:361) He then produces three explanations for how we account for causation: # When all objects or events of one kind are immediately followed by objects or events of another kind. # Where, if there had been no object of the first kind, we would never have seen an object of the second kind. # Where the appearance of the first object forces one's mind to think about the second one. (Hume 1974:362) Here Hume tackles the problem of how liberty may be reconciled with metaphysical necessity (otherwise known as a compatibilist formulation of free will). Hume believes that all disputes on the subject have been merely verbal arguments\u2014that is to say, arguments which are based on a lack of prior agreement on definitions. He first shows that it is clear that most events"
      },
      {
        "text": " kind. # Where the appearance of the first object forces one's mind to think about the second one. (Hume 1974:362) Here Hume tackles the problem of how liberty may be reconciled with metaphysical necessity (otherwise known as a compatibilist formulation of free will). Hume believes that all disputes on the subject have been merely verbal arguments\u2014that is to say, arguments which are based on a lack of prior agreement on definitions. He first shows that it is clear that most events are deterministic, but human actions are more controversial. However, he thinks that these too occur out of necessity since an outside observer can see the same regularity that he would in a purely physical system. To show the compatibility of necessity and liberty, Hume defines liberty as the ability to act on the basis of one's will e.g. the capacity to will one's actions but not to will one's will. He then shows (quite briefly) how determinism and free will are compatible notions, and have no bad consequences on ethics or moral life. Hume insists that the conclusions of the Enquiry will be very powerful if they can be shown to apply to animals and not just humans. He believed that animals were able to infer the relation between cause and effect in the same way that humans do: through learned expectations. (Hume 1974:384) He also notes that this \"inferential\" ability that animals have is not through reason, but custom alone. Hume concludes that there is an innate faculty of instincts which both beasts and humans share, namely, the ability to reason experimentally (through custom). Nevertheless, he admits, humans and animals differ in mental faculties in a number of ways, including: differences in memory and attention, inferential abilities, ability to make deductions in a long chain, ability to grasp ideas more or less clearly, the human capacity to worry about conflating unrelated circumstances, a sagely prudence which arrests generalizations, a capacity for a greater inner"
      },
      {
        "text": " an innate faculty of instincts which both beasts and humans share, namely, the ability to reason experimentally (through custom). Nevertheless, he admits, humans and animals differ in mental faculties in a number of ways, including: differences in memory and attention, inferential abilities, ability to make deductions in a long chain, ability to grasp ideas more or less clearly, the human capacity to worry about conflating unrelated circumstances, a sagely prudence which arrests generalizations, a capacity for a greater inner library of analogies to reason with, an ability to detach oneself and scrap one's own biases, and an ability to converse through language (and thus gain from the experience of others' testimonies). (Hume 1974:385, footnote 17.) The next topic which Hume strives to give treatment is that of the reliability of human testimony, and of the role that testimony plays a part in epistemology. This was not an idle concern for Hume. Depending on its outcome, the entire treatment would give the epistemologist a degree of certitude in the treatment of miracles. True to his empirical thesis, Hume tells the reader that, though testimony does have some force, it is never quite as powerful as the direct evidence of the senses. That said, he provides some reasons why we may have a basis for trust in the testimony of persons: because a) human memory can be relatively tenacious; and b) because people are inclined to tell the truth, and ashamed of telling falsities. Needless to say, these reasons are only to be trusted to the extent that they conform to experience. (Hume 1974:389) And there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of human testimony, also based on experience. If a) testimonies conflict one another, b) there are a small number of witnesses, c) the speaker has no integrity, d) the speaker is overly hesitant or bold, or e) the speaker is known to have motives for lying, then the epistemologist"
      },
      {
        "text": " Needless to say, these reasons are only to be trusted to the extent that they conform to experience. (Hume 1974:389) And there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of human testimony, also based on experience. If a) testimonies conflict one another, b) there are a small number of witnesses, c) the speaker has no integrity, d) the speaker is overly hesitant or bold, or e) the speaker is known to have motives for lying, then the epistemologist has reason to be skeptical of the speaker's claims. (Hume 1974:390) There is one final criterion that Hume thinks gives us warrant to doubt any given testimony, and that is f) if the propositions being communicated are miraculous. Hume understands a miracle to be any event which contradicts the laws of nature. He argues that the laws of nature have an overwhelming body of evidence behind them, and are so well demonstrated to everyone's experience, that any deviation from those laws necessarily flies in the face of all evidence. (Hume 1974:391-392) Moreover, he stresses that talk of the miraculous has no surface validity, for four reasons. First, he explains that in all of history there has never been a miracle which was attested to by a wide body of disinterested experts. Second, he notes that human beings delight in a sense of wonder, and this provides a villain with an opportunity to manipulate others. Third, he thinks that those who hold onto the miraculous have tended towards barbarism. Finally, since testimonies tend to conflict with one another when it comes to the miraculous\u2014that is, one man's religious miracle may be contradicted by another man's miracle\u2014any testimony relating to the fantastic is self-denunciating. (Hume 1974:393-398) Still, Hume takes care to warn that historians are generally to be trusted with confidence, so long as their reports on facts are extensive and uniform. However, he seems to suggest that historians are as fallible"
      },
      {
        "text": " barbarism. Finally, since testimonies tend to conflict with one another when it comes to the miraculous\u2014that is, one man's religious miracle may be contradicted by another man's miracle\u2014any testimony relating to the fantastic is self-denunciating. (Hume 1974:393-398) Still, Hume takes care to warn that historians are generally to be trusted with confidence, so long as their reports on facts are extensive and uniform. However, he seems to suggest that historians are as fallible at interpreting the facts as the rest of humanity. Thus, if every historian were to claim that there was a solar eclipse in the year 1600, then though we might at first naively regard that as in violation of natural laws, we'd come to accept it as a fact. But if every historian were to assert that Queen Elizabeth was observed walking around happy and healthy after her funeral, and then interpreted that to mean that they had risen from the dead, then we'd have reason to appeal to natural laws in order to dispute their interpretation. (Hume 1974:400-402) Hume continues his application of epistemology to theology by an extended discussion on heaven and hell. The brunt of this chapter allegedly narrates the opinions, not of Hume, but of one of Hume's anonymous friends, who again presents them in an imagined speech by the philosopher Epicurus. His friend argues that, though it is possible to trace a cause from an effect, it is not possible to infer unseen effects from a cause thus traced. The friend insists, then, that even though we might postulate that there is a first cause behind all things\u2014God\u2014we can't infer anything about the afterlife, because we don't know anything of the afterlife from experience, and we can't infer it from the existence of God. (Hume 1974:408) Hume offers his friend an objection: if we see an unfinished building, then can't we infer that it has been created by humans with certain intentions,"
      },
      {
        "text": " a cause thus traced. The friend insists, then, that even though we might postulate that there is a first cause behind all things\u2014God\u2014we can't infer anything about the afterlife, because we don't know anything of the afterlife from experience, and we can't infer it from the existence of God. (Hume 1974:408) Hume offers his friend an objection: if we see an unfinished building, then can't we infer that it has been created by humans with certain intentions, and that it will be finished in the future? His friend concurs, but indicates that there is a relevant disanalogy that we can't pretend to know the contents of the mind of God, while we can know the designs of other humans. Hume seems essentially persuaded by his friend's reasoning. (Hume 1974:412-414) The first section of the last chapter is organized as an outline of various skeptical arguments. The treatment includes the arguments of atheism, Cartesian skepticism, \"light\" skepticism, and rationalist critiques of empiricism. Hume shows that even light skepticism leads to crushing doubts about the world which - while they ultimately are philosophically justifiable - may only be combated through the non-philosophical adherence to custom or habit. He ends the section with his own reservations towards Cartesian and Lockean epistemologies. In the second section he returns to the topic of hard skepticism by sharply denouncing it. ::\"For here is the chief and most confounding objection to excessive skepticism, that no durable good can ever result from it; while it remains in its full force and vigor. We need only ask such a skeptic, What his meaning is? And what he proposes by all these curious researches? He is immediately at a loss, and knows not what to answer... a Pyrrhonian cannot expect, that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind: or if it had, that its influence would be beneficial to society. On the contrary,"
      },
      {
        "text": " excessive skepticism, that no durable good can ever result from it; while it remains in its full force and vigor. We need only ask such a skeptic, What his meaning is? And what he proposes by all these curious researches? He is immediately at a loss, and knows not what to answer... a Pyrrhonian cannot expect, that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind: or if it had, that its influence would be beneficial to society. On the contrary, he must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge anything, that all human life must perish, were his principles universally and steadily to prevail.\" (Hume 1974:426) He concludes the volume by setting out the limits of knowledge once and for all. \"When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Fire Upon the Deep",
    "author": "Vernor Vinge",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel posits that space around the Milky Way is divided into concentric layers called Zones, each being constrained by different laws of physics and each allowing for different degrees of biological and technological advancement. The innermost, the \"Unthinking Depths\", surrounds the galactic core and is incapable of supporting advanced life forms at all. The next layer, the \"Slow Zone\", is roughly equivalent to the real world in behavior and potential. Further out, the zone named the \"Beyond\" can support futuristic technologies such as AI and FTL travel. The outermost zone, the \"Transcend\", contains most of the galactic halo and is populated by incomprehensibly vast and powerful posthuman entities. A human expedition investigates a five-billion-year-old data archive that offers the possibility of unimaginable riches for the ambitious young civilization of the Straumli Realm. The expedition's facility, called High Lab, is gradually compromised by a dormant super-intelligent entity (actually encoded within the archive) later known as the Blight. The Blight rapidly learns how to infiltrate and control the computer systems of High Lab, and even develops the ability to possess and control the living humans. The novel starts with an imaginative description of the evolution of this superintelligence through exponentially accelerating developmental stages, culminating in a transcendent, nigh-omnipotent power that is unfathomable to mere humans. Shortly before its final \"flowering\", the changes in a single minute of the Blight's life are said to exceed those of 10,000 years of human civilization. Recognizing the danger of what they have awakened, the researchers at High Lab attempt to flee in two ships. Suspicious, the Blight discovers that one of the ships contains a data storage device in its cargo manifest; assuming it contains information that could harm it, the Blight destroys the ship. The second ship is allowed to escape, unharmed, as the Blight assumes that it is no threat; but later realizes that it actually held a countermeasure, one of the few things in the universe that the Blight fears. The ship lands on a distant planet with a medieval-level civilization of dog-like creatures dubbed \"Tines\", who live in packs as group minds. The ship is revealed to be a sleeper ship, carrying most of High Lab's children in \"coldsleep boxes\". The boxes are rapidly failing and the surviving adults begin unloading them, but are killed when one of two rival forces of Tines seize the ship. The faction that initially contacts the humans, led by a Tine known as Steel, kills the adults and destroys many of the coldsleep boxes. They also capture a boy named Jefri Olsndot, whom Steel intended on killing but eventually exploits in order to develop advanced technology (such as cannon and radio communication). Jefri's older sister, Johanna, is rescued by Pilgrim and Scriber, wandering Tines who bring her to the rival faction, led by Woodcarver. She is asked to help develop technology that could gain the upper hand in the impending war. A distress signal from the sleeper ship eventually reaches \"Relay\", a major node in the galactic communications network. A benign transcendent entity (known as a \"Power\") named \"Old One\" contacts Relay, seeking information about the Blight and the humans who released it. Old One constructs a seemingly human man, Pham Nuwen, to act as its agent. Pham and Ravna Bergsndot \u2013 a human employee of Relay's owners, the wealthy Vrinimi Organization \u2013 trace the sleeper ship's signal to the Tines world. Old One designs a vessel, the Out of Band II, to reach the Tines world and to investigate what the ship carried with it from the High Lab. The Blight attacks Relay and Old One. Old One gives Pham the information necessary to activate the Blight Countermeasure while dying (a process known as godshatter), and Pham and Ravna escape Relay's destruction in the Out of Band II. After arriving at the Tines homeworld and allying with Woodcarver to defeat Steel, Pham initiates the Countermeasure, which extends the Slow Zone by thousands of light-years to enclose the Blight. This ends the threat of the Blight at the cost of wrecking thousands of uninvolved civilizations, causing trillions of deaths and potentially the extinction of several galactic races. The process also kills Pham and strands the other humans on the Tines world, now in the depths of the \"Slow Zone\" where rescue by an advanced civilization is impossible.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel posits that space around the Milky Way is divided into concentric layers called Zones, each being constrained by different laws of physics and each allowing for different degrees of biological and technological advancement. The innermost, the \"Unthinking Depths\", surrounds the galactic core and is incapable of supporting advanced life forms at all. The next layer, the \"Slow Zone\", is roughly equivalent to the real world in behavior and potential. Further out, the zone named the \"Beyond\" can support futuristic technologies such as AI and FTL travel. The outermost zone, the \"Transcend\", contains most of the galactic halo and is populated by incomprehensibly vast and powerful posthuman entities. A human expedition investigates a five-billion-year-old data archive that offers the possibility of unimaginable riches for the ambitious young civilization of the Straumli Realm. The expedition's facility, called High Lab, is gradually compromised by a dormant super-intelligent entity (actually encoded within the archive) later known as the Blight. The Blight rapidly learns how to infiltrate and control the computer systems of High Lab, and even develops the ability to possess and control the living humans. The novel starts with an imaginative description of the evolution of this superintelligence through exponentially accelerating developmental stages, culminating in a transcendent, nigh-omnipotent power that is unfathomable to mere humans. Shortly before its final \"flowering\", the changes in a single minute of the Blight's life are said to exceed those of 10,000 years of human civilization. Recognizing the danger of what they have awakened, the researchers at High Lab attempt to flee in two ships. Suspicious, the Blight discovers that one of the ships contains a data storage device in its cargo manifest; assuming it contains information that could harm it, the Blight destroys the ship. The second ship is allowed to escape, unharmed, as the Blight assumes that it is no threat; but later realizes that"
      },
      {
        "text": " said to exceed those of 10,000 years of human civilization. Recognizing the danger of what they have awakened, the researchers at High Lab attempt to flee in two ships. Suspicious, the Blight discovers that one of the ships contains a data storage device in its cargo manifest; assuming it contains information that could harm it, the Blight destroys the ship. The second ship is allowed to escape, unharmed, as the Blight assumes that it is no threat; but later realizes that it actually held a countermeasure, one of the few things in the universe that the Blight fears. The ship lands on a distant planet with a medieval-level civilization of dog-like creatures dubbed \"Tines\", who live in packs as group minds. The ship is revealed to be a sleeper ship, carrying most of High Lab's children in \"coldsleep boxes\". The boxes are rapidly failing and the surviving adults begin unloading them, but are killed when one of two rival forces of Tines seize the ship. The faction that initially contacts the humans, led by a Tine known as Steel, kills the adults and destroys many of the coldsleep boxes. They also capture a boy named Jefri Olsndot, whom Steel intended on killing but eventually exploits in order to develop advanced technology (such as cannon and radio communication). Jefri's older sister, Johanna, is rescued by Pilgrim and Scriber, wandering Tines who bring her to the rival faction, led by Woodcarver. She is asked to help develop technology that could gain the upper hand in the impending war. A distress signal from the sleeper ship eventually reaches \"Relay\", a major node in the galactic communications network. A benign transcendent entity (known as a \"Power\") named \"Old One\" contacts Relay, seeking information about the Blight and the humans who released it. Old One constructs a seemingly human man, Pham Nuwen, to act as its agent."
      },
      {
        "text": ", led by Woodcarver. She is asked to help develop technology that could gain the upper hand in the impending war. A distress signal from the sleeper ship eventually reaches \"Relay\", a major node in the galactic communications network. A benign transcendent entity (known as a \"Power\") named \"Old One\" contacts Relay, seeking information about the Blight and the humans who released it. Old One constructs a seemingly human man, Pham Nuwen, to act as its agent. Pham and Ravna Bergsndot \u2013 a human employee of Relay's owners, the wealthy Vrinimi Organization \u2013 trace the sleeper ship's signal to the Tines world. Old One designs a vessel, the Out of Band II, to reach the Tines world and to investigate what the ship carried with it from the High Lab. The Blight attacks Relay and Old One. Old One gives Pham the information necessary to activate the Blight Countermeasure while dying (a process known as godshatter), and Pham and Ravna escape Relay's destruction in the Out of Band II. After arriving at the Tines homeworld and allying with Woodcarver to defeat Steel, Pham initiates the Countermeasure, which extends the Slow Zone by thousands of light-years to enclose the Blight. This ends the threat of the Blight at the cost of wrecking thousands of uninvolved civilizations, causing trillions of deaths and potentially the extinction of several galactic races. The process also kills Pham and strands the other humans on the Tines world, now in the depths of the \"Slow Zone\" where rescue by an advanced civilization is impossible.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " several galactic races. The process also kills Pham and strands the other humans on the Tines world, now in the depths of the \"Slow Zone\" where rescue by an advanced civilization is impossible.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "All Quiet on the Western Front",
    "author": "Erich Maria Remarque",
    "published_date": "1929-01-29",
    "synopsis": " The book tells the story of Paul B\u00e4umer, a German soldier who\u2014urged on by his school teacher\u2014joins the German army shortly after the start of World War I. B\u00e4umer arrives at the Western Front with his friends and schoolmates (Tjaden, M\u00fcller, Kropp and a number of other characters). There they meet Stanislaus Katczinsky, an older soldier, nicknamed Kat, who becomes Paul's mentor. While fighting at the front, B\u00e4umer and his comrades have to engage in frequent battles and endure the dangerous and often dirty conditions of warfare. At the very beginning of the book Erich Maria Remarque says \"This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.\" The book does not focus on heroic stories of bravery, but rather gives a view of the conditions in which the soldiers find themselves. The monotony between battles, the constant threat of artillery fire and bombardments, the struggle to find food, the lack of training of young recruits (meaning lower chances of survival), and the overarching role of random chance in the lives and deaths of the soldiers are described in detail. The battles fought here have no names and seem to have little overall significance, except for the impending possibility of injury or death for B\u00e4umer and his comrades. Only pitifully small pieces of land are gained, about the size of a football field, which are often lost again later. Remarque often refers to the living soldiers as old and dead, emotionally drained and shaken. \"We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing from ourselves, from our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.\" Paul's visit on leave to his home highlights the cost of the war on his psyche. The town has not changed since he went off to war; however, he finds that he does \"not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world.\" He feels disconnected from most of the townspeople. His father asks him \"stupid and distressing\" questions about his war experiences, not understanding \"that a man cannot talk of such things.\" An old schoolmaster lectures him about strategy and advancing to Paris, while insisting that Paul and his friends know only their \"own little sector\" of the war but nothing of the big picture. Indeed, the only person he remains connected to is his dying mother, with whom he shares a tender, yet restrained relationship. The night before he is to return from leave, he stays up with her, exchanging small expressions of love and concern for each other. He thinks to himself, \"Ah! Mother, Mother! How can it be that I must part from you? Here I sit and there you are lying; we have so much to say, and we shall never say it.\" In the end, he concludes that he \"ought never to have come [home] on leave.\" Paul feels glad to be reunited with his comrades. Soon after, he volunteers to go on a patrol and kills a man for the first time in hand-to-hand combat. He watches the man die, in pain for hours. He feels remorse and asks forgiveness from the man's corpse. He is devastated and later confesses to Kat and Albert, who try to comfort him and reassure him that it is only part of the war. They are then sent on what Paul calls a \"good job.\" They must guard a village that is being shelled too heavily. The men enjoy themselves but while evacuating the villagers, Paul and Albert are wounded. They recuperate in a Catholic hospital and Paul returns to active duty. By now, the war is nearing its end and the German Army is retreating. In despair, Paul watches as his friends fall one by one. It is the death of Kat that eventually makes Paul careless about living. In the final chapter, he comments that peace is coming soon, but he does not see the future as bright and shining with hope. Paul feels that he has no aims left in life and that their generation will be different and misunderstood. When he finally dies at the end of the novel, the situation report from the frontline states, \"All is Quiet on the Western Front,\" symbolizing the cheapness of human life in war.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book tells the story of Paul B\u00e4umer, a German soldier who\u2014urged on by his school teacher\u2014joins the German army shortly after the start of World War I. B\u00e4umer arrives at the Western Front with his friends and schoolmates (Tjaden, M\u00fcller, Kropp and a number of other characters). There they meet Stanislaus Katczinsky, an older soldier, nicknamed Kat, who becomes Paul's mentor. While fighting at the front, B\u00e4umer and his comrades have to engage in frequent battles and endure the dangerous and often dirty conditions of warfare. At the very beginning of the book Erich Maria Remarque says \"This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.\" The book does not focus on heroic stories of bravery, but rather gives a view of the conditions in which the soldiers find themselves. The monotony between battles, the constant threat of artillery fire and bombardments, the struggle to find food, the lack of training of young recruits (meaning lower chances of survival), and the overarching role of random chance in the lives and deaths of the soldiers are described in detail. The battles fought here have no names and seem to have little overall significance, except for the impending possibility of injury or death for B\u00e4umer and his comrades. Only pitifully small pieces of land are gained, about the size of a football field, which are often lost again later. Remarque often refers to the living soldiers as old and dead, emotionally drained and shaken. \"We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing from ourselves, from our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and"
      },
      {
        "text": " possibility of injury or death for B\u00e4umer and his comrades. Only pitifully small pieces of land are gained, about the size of a football field, which are often lost again later. Remarque often refers to the living soldiers as old and dead, emotionally drained and shaken. \"We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing from ourselves, from our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.\" Paul's visit on leave to his home highlights the cost of the war on his psyche. The town has not changed since he went off to war; however, he finds that he does \"not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world.\" He feels disconnected from most of the townspeople. His father asks him \"stupid and distressing\" questions about his war experiences, not understanding \"that a man cannot talk of such things.\" An old schoolmaster lectures him about strategy and advancing to Paris, while insisting that Paul and his friends know only their \"own little sector\" of the war but nothing of the big picture. Indeed, the only person he remains connected to is his dying mother, with whom he shares a tender, yet restrained relationship. The night before he is to return from leave, he stays up with her, exchanging small expressions of love and concern for each other. He thinks to himself, \"Ah! Mother, Mother! How can it be that I must part from you? Here I sit and there you are lying; we have so much to say, and we shall never say it.\" In the end, he concludes that he \"ought never to have come [home] on leave.\" Paul feels glad to be reunited with his comrades. Soon after, he volunteers to go on a patrol and kills a man for the first time in hand-to-hand combat. He watches the man die, in pain for hours."
      },
      {
        "text": " can it be that I must part from you? Here I sit and there you are lying; we have so much to say, and we shall never say it.\" In the end, he concludes that he \"ought never to have come [home] on leave.\" Paul feels glad to be reunited with his comrades. Soon after, he volunteers to go on a patrol and kills a man for the first time in hand-to-hand combat. He watches the man die, in pain for hours. He feels remorse and asks forgiveness from the man's corpse. He is devastated and later confesses to Kat and Albert, who try to comfort him and reassure him that it is only part of the war. They are then sent on what Paul calls a \"good job.\" They must guard a village that is being shelled too heavily. The men enjoy themselves but while evacuating the villagers, Paul and Albert are wounded. They recuperate in a Catholic hospital and Paul returns to active duty. By now, the war is nearing its end and the German Army is retreating. In despair, Paul watches as his friends fall one by one. It is the death of Kat that eventually makes Paul careless about living. In the final chapter, he comments that peace is coming soon, but he does not see the future as bright and shining with hope. Paul feels that he has no aims left in life and that their generation will be different and misunderstood. When he finally dies at the end of the novel, the situation report from the frontline states, \"All is Quiet on the Western Front,\" symbolizing the cheapness of human life in war.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the situation report from the frontline states, \"All is Quiet on the Western Front,\" symbolizing the cheapness of human life in war.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Wizard of Earthsea",
    "author": "Ursula K. Le Guin",
    "published_date": "1968",
    "synopsis": " Ged is a young boy on Gont, one of the larger islands in the north of the archipelago of Earthsea. His mother is dead, his much older siblings have all left home, and his father is a dour, taciturn bronzesmith with nothing in common with his son, so the boy grows up wild and headstrong. Ged discovers by accident that he has an extraordinary talent for magic. His aunt, the village witch, teaches him the little she herself knows, but his power far exceeds hers. One day, he uses his talent and a fog-gathering spell he learned from a passing weatherworker to save his village from Karg raiders. The tale of his remarkable feat spreads far and wide, finally reaching the ear of a wise Gontish mage, Ogion the Silent. He recognizes that the boy is so powerful he must be trained so as not to become a danger to himself and others. In the rite of passage into adulthood, he gives the boy his \"true name\", Ged, and takes him as an apprentice. In this world, a magician who knows someone's true name has control over that person, so one's true name is revealed only to those whom one trusts completely. Normally, a person is referred to by his or her \"use name\". Ged's is Sparrowhawk. The undisciplined young man grows restless under the gentle, patient tutelage of his master. One day, at the taunting of the daughter of the local lord - who, it is later revealed, is also a witch - Ged seeks a powerful spell from one of Ogion's old books to impress the girl. As he reads the spell, to his horror, a shadowy being manifests. The shade advances on Ged, but is driven away by the timely return of Ogion. Ogion finally gives him a choice: stay with him or go to the renowned school for wizards, on the island of Roke. Though he has grown to love the old man, the youngster is drawn irresistibly to a life of doing, rather than being. At the school, Ged masters his craft with ease, but his pride and arrogance grow even faster than his skill and, in his hubris, he attempts to summon a dead spirit - a perilous spell which goes awry. The shadow seizes the chance to escape into the world and attacks him, scarring his face. It is driven off by the head of the school, the Archmage Nemmerle, who expends all of his power in the process and dies shortly thereafter. Ged is wracked with guilt at causing the old man's death, but after a painful and slow recovery, he graduates from the school. Normally, Roke's wizards are much sought after by princes and rich merchants, but the new Archmage sends a willing Ged to a poor island group instead, to protect the inhabitants from a powerful dragon and its maturing sons, who have been seen scouting the region. Ged eventually realizes that he cannot both defend the islanders against the dragon and himself against the nameless thing he summoned into the world. He takes a desperate gamble; in the old histories, he has found the true name of a dragon which might be the one he faces. His guess is right and by using the dragon's name, Yevaud, he is able to force the dragon to vow that neither it nor its offspring will ever trouble the islanders. Then, with no idea how to deal with his other foe, Ged tries to return to the safety of Roke, but the magical, protective Mage-wind drives away the ship on which he is a passenger. On the far northern island of Osskil, his nemesis takes possession of a man and nearly catches him. Ged flees to what appears to be a safe haven in the castle of Benderesk, the lord of Terranon. Serret, his wife, is the same girl who taunted Ged years ago. She tries to enslave Ged using the power of a stone which harbors one of the \"Nameless Ones\", ancient malevolent powers that predate people. Fortunately Ged realizes his peril just in time and flies away in the form of a falcon. He instinctively returns to Gont and Ogion, who advises him to turn the tables on his shadow. In following his master's wise guidance, the roles of Ged and his enemy become reversed, and the shadow becomes the hunted. Ged pursues the shadow southwards across the ocean, but is nearly drowned when the shadow lures him into steering his boat onto rocks. The vessel sinks, but he manages to reach a small island inhabited by only two old people, a Kargish man and his sister, who were abandoned there as children and who have forgotten there is an outside world and other people. Despite their initial fear of him, they provide him with food and water. After Ged regains his strength, he constructs another boat. When he is ready to leave, he offers to take the pair wherever they want to go, but the man fearfully turns him down, and the woman does not seem to understand what he means. However, she gives him a parting gift of one of her few possessions, a broken half of an armlet. (The siblings' story and the gift's significance are revealed in the sequel, The Tombs of Atuan.) Back at sea, the shadow nearly takes Ged unawares, but he senses it just in time and comes to grips with it, forging a bond that cannot be broken. Ged follows the shadow south. On the island of Iffish, his luck begins to improve. The resident wizard is Vetch (true name Estarriol), the only friend he made at school. Estarriol insists on accompanying him. The two wizards eventually leave behind the last known island of Earthsea and head out into the open sea. As they draw closer to the shadow, Ged perceives the water gradually congealing and turning into land, an immensely powerful magic. Though Vetch cannot see the transformation, the boat runs aground. Ged steps out of the boat and walks off to confront his waiting shadow. Though some of his teachers had thought it to be nameless, Ged and his adversary speak at the same moment, each naming the other \"Ged\". The two embrace and become one. The sea returns to its normal state; fortunately, Estarriol is able to fish his healed friend out of the water.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ged is a young boy on Gont, one of the larger islands in the north of the archipelago of Earthsea. His mother is dead, his much older siblings have all left home, and his father is a dour, taciturn bronzesmith with nothing in common with his son, so the boy grows up wild and headstrong. Ged discovers by accident that he has an extraordinary talent for magic. His aunt, the village witch, teaches him the little she herself knows, but his power far exceeds hers. One day, he uses his talent and a fog-gathering spell he learned from a passing weatherworker to save his village from Karg raiders. The tale of his remarkable feat spreads far and wide, finally reaching the ear of a wise Gontish mage, Ogion the Silent. He recognizes that the boy is so powerful he must be trained so as not to become a danger to himself and others. In the rite of passage into adulthood, he gives the boy his \"true name\", Ged, and takes him as an apprentice. In this world, a magician who knows someone's true name has control over that person, so one's true name is revealed only to those whom one trusts completely. Normally, a person is referred to by his or her \"use name\". Ged's is Sparrowhawk. The undisciplined young man grows restless under the gentle, patient tutelage of his master. One day, at the taunting of the daughter of the local lord - who, it is later revealed, is also a witch - Ged seeks a powerful spell from one of Ogion's old books to impress the girl. As he reads the spell, to his horror, a shadowy being manifests. The shade advances on Ged, but is driven away by the timely return of Ogion. Ogion finally gives him a choice: stay with him or go to the renowned school for wizards, on the island of Roke."
      },
      {
        "text": " of the daughter of the local lord - who, it is later revealed, is also a witch - Ged seeks a powerful spell from one of Ogion's old books to impress the girl. As he reads the spell, to his horror, a shadowy being manifests. The shade advances on Ged, but is driven away by the timely return of Ogion. Ogion finally gives him a choice: stay with him or go to the renowned school for wizards, on the island of Roke. Though he has grown to love the old man, the youngster is drawn irresistibly to a life of doing, rather than being. At the school, Ged masters his craft with ease, but his pride and arrogance grow even faster than his skill and, in his hubris, he attempts to summon a dead spirit - a perilous spell which goes awry. The shadow seizes the chance to escape into the world and attacks him, scarring his face. It is driven off by the head of the school, the Archmage Nemmerle, who expends all of his power in the process and dies shortly thereafter. Ged is wracked with guilt at causing the old man's death, but after a painful and slow recovery, he graduates from the school. Normally, Roke's wizards are much sought after by princes and rich merchants, but the new Archmage sends a willing Ged to a poor island group instead, to protect the inhabitants from a powerful dragon and its maturing sons, who have been seen scouting the region. Ged eventually realizes that he cannot both defend the islanders against the dragon and himself against the nameless thing he summoned into the world. He takes a desperate gamble; in the old histories, he has found the true name of a dragon which might be the one he faces. His guess is right and by using the dragon's name, Yevaud, he is able to force the dragon to vow that neither it nor its offspring will ever trouble the"
      },
      {
        "text": ", who have been seen scouting the region. Ged eventually realizes that he cannot both defend the islanders against the dragon and himself against the nameless thing he summoned into the world. He takes a desperate gamble; in the old histories, he has found the true name of a dragon which might be the one he faces. His guess is right and by using the dragon's name, Yevaud, he is able to force the dragon to vow that neither it nor its offspring will ever trouble the islanders. Then, with no idea how to deal with his other foe, Ged tries to return to the safety of Roke, but the magical, protective Mage-wind drives away the ship on which he is a passenger. On the far northern island of Osskil, his nemesis takes possession of a man and nearly catches him. Ged flees to what appears to be a safe haven in the castle of Benderesk, the lord of Terranon. Serret, his wife, is the same girl who taunted Ged years ago. She tries to enslave Ged using the power of a stone which harbors one of the \"Nameless Ones\", ancient malevolent powers that predate people. Fortunately Ged realizes his peril just in time and flies away in the form of a falcon. He instinctively returns to Gont and Ogion, who advises him to turn the tables on his shadow. In following his master's wise guidance, the roles of Ged and his enemy become reversed, and the shadow becomes the hunted. Ged pursues the shadow southwards across the ocean, but is nearly drowned when the shadow lures him into steering his boat onto rocks. The vessel sinks, but he manages to reach a small island inhabited by only two old people, a Kargish man and his sister, who were abandoned there as children and who have forgotten there is an outside world and other people. Despite their initial fear of him, they provide him"
      },
      {
        "text": "ed and his enemy become reversed, and the shadow becomes the hunted. Ged pursues the shadow southwards across the ocean, but is nearly drowned when the shadow lures him into steering his boat onto rocks. The vessel sinks, but he manages to reach a small island inhabited by only two old people, a Kargish man and his sister, who were abandoned there as children and who have forgotten there is an outside world and other people. Despite their initial fear of him, they provide him with food and water. After Ged regains his strength, he constructs another boat. When he is ready to leave, he offers to take the pair wherever they want to go, but the man fearfully turns him down, and the woman does not seem to understand what he means. However, she gives him a parting gift of one of her few possessions, a broken half of an armlet. (The siblings' story and the gift's significance are revealed in the sequel, The Tombs of Atuan.) Back at sea, the shadow nearly takes Ged unawares, but he senses it just in time and comes to grips with it, forging a bond that cannot be broken. Ged follows the shadow south. On the island of Iffish, his luck begins to improve. The resident wizard is Vetch (true name Estarriol), the only friend he made at school. Estarriol insists on accompanying him. The two wizards eventually leave behind the last known island of Earthsea and head out into the open sea. As they draw closer to the shadow, Ged perceives the water gradually congealing and turning into land, an immensely powerful magic. Though Vetch cannot see the transformation, the boat runs aground. Ged steps out of the boat and walks off to confront his waiting shadow. Though some of his teachers had thought it to be nameless, Ged and his adversary speak at the same moment, each naming the other \""
      },
      {
        "text": " known island of Earthsea and head out into the open sea. As they draw closer to the shadow, Ged perceives the water gradually congealing and turning into land, an immensely powerful magic. Though Vetch cannot see the transformation, the boat runs aground. Ged steps out of the boat and walks off to confront his waiting shadow. Though some of his teachers had thought it to be nameless, Ged and his adversary speak at the same moment, each naming the other \"Ged\". The two embrace and become one. The sea returns to its normal state; fortunately, Estarriol is able to fish his healed friend out of the water.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Anyone Can Whistle",
    "author": "Arthur Laurents",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story is set in an imaginary American town that has gone bankrupt. The only place in town doing good business is the local sanitarium, known as \u201cThe Cookie Jar,\u201d whose inmates look much healthier than the disgruntled townspeople. (\"I'm Like the Bluebird\") All the money is in the hands of Cora Hoover Hooper, the stylish, ruthless mayoress and her cronies - Comptroller Schub, Treasurer Cooley, and Police Chief Magruder. Cora appears carried in a litter by her backup singers, and admits that she can accept anything except unpopularity (\u201cMe and My Town\u201d). The scheming Comptroller Schub, tells her that he has a plan to save her administration, and the town, promising \u201cIt's highly unethical.\u201d He tells her to meet him at the rock on the edge of town. At the rock, a local mother, Mrs. Schroeder, tries to tell her child, Baby Joan, to come down from the rock, when Baby Joan licks it - and a spring of water begins flowing from it. The town instantly proclaims a miracle, and Cora and her council eagerly anticipate tourist dollars as they boast of the water's curative powers. (\"Miracle Song\") It is soon revealed to Cora that the miracle is a fake, controlled by a pump inside the rock. The only person in town who doubts the miracle is Fay Apple, an eternally skeptical young nurse from the Cookie Jar who refuses to believe in miracles. She appears at the rock with all forty-nine of the inmates, or \u201cCookies\u201d in tow, intending to let them take some of the water. Schub realizes that if they drink the water and do not change, people will discover the fake. As he tries to stop Fay, the inmates mingle with the townspeople, until no one can guess who is who. Fay disappears, and hiding from the police, admits that she hopes for one miracle - for a hero who can come and deliver the town from the madness (\u201cThere Won't Be Trumpets\u201d). Cora arrives on the scene with the Cookie Jar's manager, Dr. Detmold, but he says that Fay has taken the records to identify the inmates. He tells Cora that he is expecting a new assistant who might help them. At that moment a mysterious stranger, J. Bowden Hapgood, arrives asking for directions to the Cookie Jar. He is instantly taken for the new assistant. Asked to identify the missing Cookies, Hapgood begins questioning random people and sorting them into two groups, group A, and group one, but refuses to divulge which group is which. The town council becomes suspicious of this and try to force the truth out, but Hapgood questions them until they begin to doubt their own sanity. Cora is too caught up with his logic to care. (\u201cSimple\u201d) As the extended musical sequence ends, the lights black out except for a spotlight on Hapgood, who announces to the audience, \u201cYou are all mad!\u201d Seconds later, the stage lights are restored. The stage set has vanished, and the cast is revealed in theater seats, holding programs, applauding the audience. As act two opens, the two groups are now in bitter rivalry over who is the normal group (\u201cA-1 March\u201d) Another stranger, a French woman in a feathered coat appears. It is really Fay Apple in disguise. She introduces herself as the Lady from Lourdes, a professional Miracle Inspector, come to investigate the miracle. As Schub runs off to warn Cora, Fay seeks out Hapgood in his hotel, and the two seduce each other in the style of a French romantic film. (\u201cCome Play Wiz Me\u201d) Fay tries to get Hapgood's help in exposing the miracle. Hapgood, however, sees through her disguise and wants to question her first. Fay refuses to take her wig off, and confesses to him that this disguise, left over from a college play, is the only way she can break out of her rigid and cynical persona. She begins to hope, however, that Hapgood may be the one who can help her learn to be free. (\u201cAnyone Can Whistle\u201d) Meanwhile, the two groups continue to march, and Cora, trying to give a speech, realizes that Hapgood has stolen her limelight. (\u201cA Parade in Town\u201d) She and Schub plan an emergency meeting at her house. Back at the hotel, Hapgood comes up with an idea, telling Fay to destroy the inmates' records. That way Fay can be free of them and they can stop pretending. When Fay is reluctant, Hapgood produces a record of his own - he is her fiftieth Cookie. He is a practicing idealist who, after years of attempted heroism, is tired of crusading and has come to the Cookie Jar to retire. Inspired by his record, Fay begins to tear the records up. As she does, the Cookies appear and begin to dance (\u201cEverybody Says Don't\u201d). Act three begins with Cora at her house with her council. Schub has put the miracle on hiatus, but announces that they can easily turn the town against Hapgood by blaming him for it. The group celebrates their alliance. (\u201cI've Got You to Lean On\u201d) A mob quickly forms outside the hotel, and Hapgood and Fay, still disguised, take refuge under the rock. Discovering the fraud, Cora and the council confront them. At that moment, Cora receives a telegram from the governor warning that if the quota of forty-nine cookies is not filled, she will be impeached. Schub tells her that since Hapgood never said who is normal or not, they can arrest anyone at random until the quota is filled. Fay tries to get Hapgood to expose the miracle, but he warns her no one will believe it is a fake, because it works as a miracle should. Fay wants his help stopping the Mayoress, but he refuses, since he is through with crusading. Although she knows she still isn't out of her shell, Fay angrily swears to go it alone. (\u201cSee What it Gets You\u201d) As Cora and the police force begin rounding up Cookies, Fay tries to get the key away from the guards in an extended ballet sequence. (\u201cThe Cookie Chase\u201d) As it ends, Fay is captured, and Dr. Detmold suddenly recognizes her. Fay tells the townspeople about the fake miracle, but the town refuses to believe her. Detmold tells Cora that even without the records, Fay can identify the inmates from memory. Cora warns that she will arrest forty-nine people, normal or not, and Fay, helplessly, identifies all the Cookies, except Hapgood. She tells him the world needs people like him, and Hapgood can't turn himself in. He asks Fay to come with him, but she still can't bring herself to break free. Parting ways, they reflect on what they briefly shared. (\u201cWith So Little to be Sure Of\u201d) Word comes of a new miracle, two towns over, of a statue with a warm heart. Soon the town is all but deserted, and Cora is again upstaged. Again, Schub has the answer - since the Cookie Jar is still successful, they can turn the entire town into one big Cookie Jar! Cora realizes she and Schub are meant for each other, and they dance off together. As Fay resumes work, Detmold's real new assistant arrives, and Fay is horrified to realize that she is even more practical, rigid and disbelieving than Fay herself, and the new nurse marches the Cookies off to the next town to disprove the new miracle. Horrified at seeing what she might become, Fay returns to the rock calling for Hapgood. When he doesn't answer, she tries to whistle - and succeeds in blowing a shrill, ugly whistle. Hapgood appears again, saying 'That's good enough for me.' As they embrace, the water begins flowing from the rock - a true miracle this time. (Finale)\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is set in an imaginary American town that has gone bankrupt. The only place in town doing good business is the local sanitarium, known as \u201cThe Cookie Jar,\u201d whose inmates look much healthier than the disgruntled townspeople. (\"I'm Like the Bluebird\") All the money is in the hands of Cora Hoover Hooper, the stylish, ruthless mayoress and her cronies - Comptroller Schub, Treasurer Cooley, and Police Chief Magruder. Cora appears carried in a litter by her backup singers, and admits that she can accept anything except unpopularity (\u201cMe and My Town\u201d). The scheming Comptroller Schub, tells her that he has a plan to save her administration, and the town, promising \u201cIt's highly unethical.\u201d He tells her to meet him at the rock on the edge of town. At the rock, a local mother, Mrs. Schroeder, tries to tell her child, Baby Joan, to come down from the rock, when Baby Joan licks it - and a spring of water begins flowing from it. The town instantly proclaims a miracle, and Cora and her council eagerly anticipate tourist dollars as they boast of the water's curative powers. (\"Miracle Song\") It is soon revealed to Cora that the miracle is a fake, controlled by a pump inside the rock. The only person in town who doubts the miracle is Fay Apple, an eternally skeptical young nurse from the Cookie Jar who refuses to believe in miracles. She appears at the rock with all forty-nine of the inmates, or \u201cCookies\u201d in tow, intending to let them take some of the water. Schub realizes that if they drink the water and do not change, people will discover the fake. As he tries to stop Fay, the inmates mingle with the townspeople, until no one can guess who is who. Fay disappears, and hiding from"
      },
      {
        "text": " skeptical young nurse from the Cookie Jar who refuses to believe in miracles. She appears at the rock with all forty-nine of the inmates, or \u201cCookies\u201d in tow, intending to let them take some of the water. Schub realizes that if they drink the water and do not change, people will discover the fake. As he tries to stop Fay, the inmates mingle with the townspeople, until no one can guess who is who. Fay disappears, and hiding from the police, admits that she hopes for one miracle - for a hero who can come and deliver the town from the madness (\u201cThere Won't Be Trumpets\u201d). Cora arrives on the scene with the Cookie Jar's manager, Dr. Detmold, but he says that Fay has taken the records to identify the inmates. He tells Cora that he is expecting a new assistant who might help them. At that moment a mysterious stranger, J. Bowden Hapgood, arrives asking for directions to the Cookie Jar. He is instantly taken for the new assistant. Asked to identify the missing Cookies, Hapgood begins questioning random people and sorting them into two groups, group A, and group one, but refuses to divulge which group is which. The town council becomes suspicious of this and try to force the truth out, but Hapgood questions them until they begin to doubt their own sanity. Cora is too caught up with his logic to care. (\u201cSimple\u201d) As the extended musical sequence ends, the lights black out except for a spotlight on Hapgood, who announces to the audience, \u201cYou are all mad!\u201d Seconds later, the stage lights are restored. The stage set has vanished, and the cast is revealed in theater seats, holding programs, applauding the audience. As act two opens, the two groups are now in bitter rivalry over who is the normal group (\u201cA-1 March\u201d"
      },
      {
        "text": "\ufffdSimple\u201d) As the extended musical sequence ends, the lights black out except for a spotlight on Hapgood, who announces to the audience, \u201cYou are all mad!\u201d Seconds later, the stage lights are restored. The stage set has vanished, and the cast is revealed in theater seats, holding programs, applauding the audience. As act two opens, the two groups are now in bitter rivalry over who is the normal group (\u201cA-1 March\u201d) Another stranger, a French woman in a feathered coat appears. It is really Fay Apple in disguise. She introduces herself as the Lady from Lourdes, a professional Miracle Inspector, come to investigate the miracle. As Schub runs off to warn Cora, Fay seeks out Hapgood in his hotel, and the two seduce each other in the style of a French romantic film. (\u201cCome Play Wiz Me\u201d) Fay tries to get Hapgood's help in exposing the miracle. Hapgood, however, sees through her disguise and wants to question her first. Fay refuses to take her wig off, and confesses to him that this disguise, left over from a college play, is the only way she can break out of her rigid and cynical persona. She begins to hope, however, that Hapgood may be the one who can help her learn to be free. (\u201cAnyone Can Whistle\u201d) Meanwhile, the two groups continue to march, and Cora, trying to give a speech, realizes that Hapgood has stolen her limelight. (\u201cA Parade in Town\u201d) She and Schub plan an emergency meeting at her house. Back at the hotel, Hapgood comes up with an idea, telling Fay to destroy the inmates' records. That way Fay can be free of them and they can stop pretending. When Fay is reluctant, Hapgood produces a record of his own - he is"
      },
      {
        "text": " to march, and Cora, trying to give a speech, realizes that Hapgood has stolen her limelight. (\u201cA Parade in Town\u201d) She and Schub plan an emergency meeting at her house. Back at the hotel, Hapgood comes up with an idea, telling Fay to destroy the inmates' records. That way Fay can be free of them and they can stop pretending. When Fay is reluctant, Hapgood produces a record of his own - he is her fiftieth Cookie. He is a practicing idealist who, after years of attempted heroism, is tired of crusading and has come to the Cookie Jar to retire. Inspired by his record, Fay begins to tear the records up. As she does, the Cookies appear and begin to dance (\u201cEverybody Says Don't\u201d). Act three begins with Cora at her house with her council. Schub has put the miracle on hiatus, but announces that they can easily turn the town against Hapgood by blaming him for it. The group celebrates their alliance. (\u201cI've Got You to Lean On\u201d) A mob quickly forms outside the hotel, and Hapgood and Fay, still disguised, take refuge under the rock. Discovering the fraud, Cora and the council confront them. At that moment, Cora receives a telegram from the governor warning that if the quota of forty-nine cookies is not filled, she will be impeached. Schub tells her that since Hapgood never said who is normal or not, they can arrest anyone at random until the quota is filled. Fay tries to get Hapgood to expose the miracle, but he warns her no one will believe it is a fake, because it works as a miracle should. Fay wants his help stopping the Mayoress, but he refuses, since he is through with crusading. Although she knows she still isn't out of her shell, Fay angrily swears to"
      },
      {
        "text": "ub tells her that since Hapgood never said who is normal or not, they can arrest anyone at random until the quota is filled. Fay tries to get Hapgood to expose the miracle, but he warns her no one will believe it is a fake, because it works as a miracle should. Fay wants his help stopping the Mayoress, but he refuses, since he is through with crusading. Although she knows she still isn't out of her shell, Fay angrily swears to go it alone. (\u201cSee What it Gets You\u201d) As Cora and the police force begin rounding up Cookies, Fay tries to get the key away from the guards in an extended ballet sequence. (\u201cThe Cookie Chase\u201d) As it ends, Fay is captured, and Dr. Detmold suddenly recognizes her. Fay tells the townspeople about the fake miracle, but the town refuses to believe her. Detmold tells Cora that even without the records, Fay can identify the inmates from memory. Cora warns that she will arrest forty-nine people, normal or not, and Fay, helplessly, identifies all the Cookies, except Hapgood. She tells him the world needs people like him, and Hapgood can't turn himself in. He asks Fay to come with him, but she still can't bring herself to break free. Parting ways, they reflect on what they briefly shared. (\u201cWith So Little to be Sure Of\u201d) Word comes of a new miracle, two towns over, of a statue with a warm heart. Soon the town is all but deserted, and Cora is again upstaged. Again, Schub has the answer - since the Cookie Jar is still successful, they can turn the entire town into one big Cookie Jar! Cora realizes she and Schub are meant for each other, and they dance off together. As Fay resumes work, Detmold's real new assistant"
      },
      {
        "text": " Sure Of\u201d) Word comes of a new miracle, two towns over, of a statue with a warm heart. Soon the town is all but deserted, and Cora is again upstaged. Again, Schub has the answer - since the Cookie Jar is still successful, they can turn the entire town into one big Cookie Jar! Cora realizes she and Schub are meant for each other, and they dance off together. As Fay resumes work, Detmold's real new assistant arrives, and Fay is horrified to realize that she is even more practical, rigid and disbelieving than Fay herself, and the new nurse marches the Cookies off to the next town to disprove the new miracle. Horrified at seeing what she might become, Fay returns to the rock calling for Hapgood. When he doesn't answer, she tries to whistle - and succeeds in blowing a shrill, ugly whistle. Hapgood appears again, saying 'That's good enough for me.' As they embrace, the water begins flowing from the rock - a true miracle this time. (Finale)\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night",
    "author": "K. W. Jeter",
    "published_date": "1996-10-01",
    "synopsis": " Living on Mars, Deckard is acting as a consultant to a movie crew filming the story of his Blade Runner days. He finds himself drawn into a mission on behalf of the replicants he was once assigned to kill. Meanwhile, the mystery surrounding the beginnings of the Tyrell Corporation is being dragged out into the light.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Living on Mars, Deckard is acting as a consultant to a movie crew filming the story of his Blade Runner days. He finds himself drawn into a mission on behalf of the replicants he was once assigned to kill. Meanwhile, the mystery surrounding the beginnings of the Tyrell Corporation is being dragged out into the light.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human",
    "author": "K. W. Jeter",
    "published_date": "1995-10-01",
    "synopsis": " Beginning several months after the events in Blade Runner, Deckard has retired to an isolated shack outside the city, taking the replicant Rachael with him in a Tyrell transport container, which slows down the replicant aging process. He is approached by a woman who explains she is Sarah Tyrell, niece of Eldon Tyrell, heiress to the entire Tyrell Corporation and the human template (templant) for the Rachael replicant. She asks Deckard to hunt down the \"missing\" sixth replicant. At the same time, the human template for Roy Batty hires Dave Holden, the blade runner attacked by Leon, to help him hunt down the man he believes is the sixth replicant - Deckard. Deckard and Holden's investigations lead them to re-visit Sebastian, Bryant, and John Isidore (from the book Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?), learning more about the nature of the blade runners and the replicants. When Deckard, Batty, and Holden finally clash, Batty's inhuman fighting prowess leads Holden to believe he has been duped all along and that Batty is the sixth replicant; he shoots him. Deckard returns to Sarah with his suspicion: there is no sixth replicant. Sarah, speaking via a remote camera, confesses that she created and maintained the rumor herself, to deliberately discredit and eventually destroy the Tyrell Corporation, after her uncle Eldon created Rachael based on her and then abandoned the real Sarah. Sarah brings Rachael back to the Corporation building to meet with Deckard, and he escapes with her. However, Holden - recovering from his injuries during the fight - later finds the truth: Rachael has been killed by Tyrell agents, and the \"Rachael\" who escaped with Deckard was actually Sarah. She has completed her revenge by both destroying Tyrell, and taking back Rachael's place.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Beginning several months after the events in Blade Runner, Deckard has retired to an isolated shack outside the city, taking the replicant Rachael with him in a Tyrell transport container, which slows down the replicant aging process. He is approached by a woman who explains she is Sarah Tyrell, niece of Eldon Tyrell, heiress to the entire Tyrell Corporation and the human template (templant) for the Rachael replicant. She asks Deckard to hunt down the \"missing\" sixth replicant. At the same time, the human template for Roy Batty hires Dave Holden, the blade runner attacked by Leon, to help him hunt down the man he believes is the sixth replicant - Deckard. Deckard and Holden's investigations lead them to re-visit Sebastian, Bryant, and John Isidore (from the book Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?), learning more about the nature of the blade runners and the replicants. When Deckard, Batty, and Holden finally clash, Batty's inhuman fighting prowess leads Holden to believe he has been duped all along and that Batty is the sixth replicant; he shoots him. Deckard returns to Sarah with his suspicion: there is no sixth replicant. Sarah, speaking via a remote camera, confesses that she created and maintained the rumor herself, to deliberately discredit and eventually destroy the Tyrell Corporation, after her uncle Eldon created Rachael based on her and then abandoned the real Sarah. Sarah brings Rachael back to the Corporation building to meet with Deckard, and he escapes with her. However, Holden - recovering from his injuries during the fight - later finds the truth: Rachael has been killed by Tyrell agents, and the \"Rachael\" who escaped with Deckard was actually Sarah. She has completed her revenge by both destroying Tyrell, and taking back Rachael's place."
      },
      {
        "text": " created Rachael based on her and then abandoned the real Sarah. Sarah brings Rachael back to the Corporation building to meet with Deckard, and he escapes with her. However, Holden - recovering from his injuries during the fight - later finds the truth: Rachael has been killed by Tyrell agents, and the \"Rachael\" who escaped with Deckard was actually Sarah. She has completed her revenge by both destroying Tyrell, and taking back Rachael's place.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Book of Joshua",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " (Chapter 1 is the first of three important moments in Joshua marked with major speeches and reflections by the main characters; here first God and then Joshua make speeches about the goal of conquest of the Promised Land; at chapter 12, Joshua looks back on the conquest; and at chapter 23 Joshua gives a speech about what must be done if Israel is to live in peace in the land). God commissions Joshua to take possession of the land and warns him to keep faith with the Covenant. (God's speech foreshadows major themes of the book: the crossing of the Jordan and conquest of the land, its distribution, and the imperative need for obedience to the Law; Joshua's own immediate obedience is seen in his speeches to the Israelite commanders and to the Transjordanian tribes, and the Transjordanians' affirmation of Joshua's leadership echoes Yahweh's assurances of victory). The Israelites cross the Jordan through the miraculous intervention of God and his ark and are circumcised at Gibeath-Haaraloth (translated as hill of foreskins), renamed Gilgal in memory (Gilgal sounds like Gallothi, I have removed, but is more likely to translate as circle of standing stones). The conquest begins in Canaan with Jericho, followed by Ai (central Canaan), after which Joshua builds an altar to Yahweh at Mt Ebal (northern Canaan) and renews the Covenant. (The covenant ceremony has elements of a divine land-grant ceremony, similar to ceremonies known from Mesopotamia). The narrative now switches to the south. The Gibeonites trick the Israelites into entering into an alliance with them by saying they are not Canaanites; this prevents the Israelites from exterminating them, but they are enslaved instead. An alliance of Amorite kingdoms headed by the Canaanite king of Jerusalem is defeated with Yahweh's miraculous help, and the enemy kings are hanged on trees. (The Deuteronomist author may have used the then-recent 701 BCE campaign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in Judah as his model; the hanging of the captured kings is in accordance with Assyrian practice of the 8th century). With the south conquered the narrative moves to the northern campaign. A powerful multi-national (or more accurately, multi-ethnic) coalition headed by the king of Hazor, the most important northern city, is defeated with Yahweh's help and Hazor captured and destroyed. Chapter 11:16-23 summarises the campaign: Joshua has taken the entire land, and the land \"had rest from war.\" Chapter 12 lists the vanquished kings on both sides of the Jordan. Having described how the Israelites and Joshua have carried out the first of their God's commands, the story now turns to the second, to \"put the people in possession of the land.\" This section is a \"covenantal land grant\": Yahweh, as king, is issuing each tribe its territory. The \"cities of refuge\" and Levitical cities are attached to the end, since it is necessary for the tribes to receive their grants before they allocate parts of it to others. The Transjordanian tribes are dismissed, affirming their loyalty to Yahweh. Joshua charges the leaders of the Israelites to remain faithful to Yahweh and the covenant, warning of judgement should Israel leave Yahweh and follow other gods; Joshua meets with all the people and reminds them of Yahweh's great works for them, and of the need to love Yahweh alone. Joshua performs the concluding covenant ceremony, and send the people to their inheritance.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " (Chapter 1 is the first of three important moments in Joshua marked with major speeches and reflections by the main characters; here first God and then Joshua make speeches about the goal of conquest of the Promised Land; at chapter 12, Joshua looks back on the conquest; and at chapter 23 Joshua gives a speech about what must be done if Israel is to live in peace in the land). God commissions Joshua to take possession of the land and warns him to keep faith with the Covenant. (God's speech foreshadows major themes of the book: the crossing of the Jordan and conquest of the land, its distribution, and the imperative need for obedience to the Law; Joshua's own immediate obedience is seen in his speeches to the Israelite commanders and to the Transjordanian tribes, and the Transjordanians' affirmation of Joshua's leadership echoes Yahweh's assurances of victory). The Israelites cross the Jordan through the miraculous intervention of God and his ark and are circumcised at Gibeath-Haaraloth (translated as hill of foreskins), renamed Gilgal in memory (Gilgal sounds like Gallothi, I have removed, but is more likely to translate as circle of standing stones). The conquest begins in Canaan with Jericho, followed by Ai (central Canaan), after which Joshua builds an altar to Yahweh at Mt Ebal (northern Canaan) and renews the Covenant. (The covenant ceremony has elements of a divine land-grant ceremony, similar to ceremonies known from Mesopotamia). The narrative now switches to the south. The Gibeonites trick the Israelites into entering into an alliance with them by saying they are not Canaanites; this prevents the Israelites from exterminating them, but they are enslaved instead. An alliance of Amorite kingdoms headed by the Canaanite king of Jerusalem is defeated with Yahweh's miraculous help, and the enemy kings are hanged on trees. (The Deuteronomist author may have"
      },
      {
        "text": ", similar to ceremonies known from Mesopotamia). The narrative now switches to the south. The Gibeonites trick the Israelites into entering into an alliance with them by saying they are not Canaanites; this prevents the Israelites from exterminating them, but they are enslaved instead. An alliance of Amorite kingdoms headed by the Canaanite king of Jerusalem is defeated with Yahweh's miraculous help, and the enemy kings are hanged on trees. (The Deuteronomist author may have used the then-recent 701 BCE campaign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in Judah as his model; the hanging of the captured kings is in accordance with Assyrian practice of the 8th century). With the south conquered the narrative moves to the northern campaign. A powerful multi-national (or more accurately, multi-ethnic) coalition headed by the king of Hazor, the most important northern city, is defeated with Yahweh's help and Hazor captured and destroyed. Chapter 11:16-23 summarises the campaign: Joshua has taken the entire land, and the land \"had rest from war.\" Chapter 12 lists the vanquished kings on both sides of the Jordan. Having described how the Israelites and Joshua have carried out the first of their God's commands, the story now turns to the second, to \"put the people in possession of the land.\" This section is a \"covenantal land grant\": Yahweh, as king, is issuing each tribe its territory. The \"cities of refuge\" and Levitical cities are attached to the end, since it is necessary for the tribes to receive their grants before they allocate parts of it to others. The Transjordanian tribes are dismissed, affirming their loyalty to Yahweh. Joshua charges the leaders of the Israelites to remain faithful to Yahweh and the covenant, warning of judgement should Israel leave Yahweh and follow other gods; Joshua meets with all the"
      },
      {
        "text": " issuing each tribe its territory. The \"cities of refuge\" and Levitical cities are attached to the end, since it is necessary for the tribes to receive their grants before they allocate parts of it to others. The Transjordanian tribes are dismissed, affirming their loyalty to Yahweh. Joshua charges the leaders of the Israelites to remain faithful to Yahweh and the covenant, warning of judgement should Israel leave Yahweh and follow other gods; Joshua meets with all the people and reminds them of Yahweh's great works for them, and of the need to love Yahweh alone. Joshua performs the concluding covenant ceremony, and send the people to their inheritance.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Book of Ezra",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " For the Bible text, see Bible Gateway (opens at NIV version) or see King James Version The Book of Ezra consists of ten chapters: chapters 1-6, covering the period from the Decree of Cyrus to the dedication of the Second Temple, are told in the third person; chapters 7-10, dealing with the mission of Ezra, are told largely in the first person. The book contains several documents presented as historical inclusions. ;Chapters 1-6 (documents included in the text in italics) *1. Decree of Cyrus, first version: Cyrus, inspired by God, returns the Temple vessels to Sheshbazzar, \"prince of Judah\", and directs the Israelites to return to Jerusalem with him and rebuild the Temple. *2. 42,360 exiles, with men servants, women servants and \"singing men and women\", return from Babylon to Jerusalem and Judah under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Jeshua the High Priest. *3. Jeshua the High Priest and Zerubbabel build the altar and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. In the second year the foundations of the Temple are laid and the dedication takes place with great rejoicing. *4. Letter of the Samaritans to Artaxerxes, and reply of Artaxerxes: The \"enemies of Judah and Benjamin\" offer to help with the rebuilding, but are rebuffed; they then work to frustrate the builders \"down to the reign of Darius.\" The officials of Samaria write to king Artaxerxes warning him that Jerusalem is being rebuilt, and the king orders the work to stop. \"Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.\" *5. Tattenai's letter to Darius: Through the exhortations of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, Zerubbabel and Joshua recommence the building of the Temple. Tattenai, satrap over both Judah and Samaria, writes to Darius warning him that Jerusalem is being rebuilt and advising that the archives be searched to discover the decree of Cyrus. *6. Decree of Cyrus, second version, and decree of Darius: Darius finds the decree, directs Tattenai not to disturb the Jews in their work, and exempts them from tribute and supplies everything necessary for the offerings. The Temple is finished in the month of Adar in the sixth year of Darius, and the Israelites assemble to celebrate its completion. ;Chapters 7-10 *7. Letter of Artaxerxes to Ezra (Artaxerxes' rescript): King Artaxerxes is moved by God to commission Ezra \"to inquire about Judah and Jerusalem with regard to the Law of your God\" and to \"appoint magistrates and judges to administer justice to all the people of Trans-Euphrates\u2014all who know the laws of your God.\" Artaxerxes gives Ezra much gold and directs all Persian officials to aid him. *8. Ezra gathers a large body of returnees and much gold and silver and precious vessels for the Temple and camps by a canal outside Babylon. There he discovers he has no Levites, and so sends messengers to gather some. The exiles then return to Jerusalem, where they distribute the gold and silver and offer sacrifices to God. *9. Ezra is informed that some of the Jews already in Jerusalem have married non-Jewish women. Ezra is appalled at this proof of sin, and prays to God: \"O God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.\" *10. Despite the opposition of some of their number, the Israelites assemble and send away their foreign wives and children.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " For the Bible text, see Bible Gateway (opens at NIV version) or see King James Version The Book of Ezra consists of ten chapters: chapters 1-6, covering the period from the Decree of Cyrus to the dedication of the Second Temple, are told in the third person; chapters 7-10, dealing with the mission of Ezra, are told largely in the first person. The book contains several documents presented as historical inclusions. ;Chapters 1-6 (documents included in the text in italics) *1. Decree of Cyrus, first version: Cyrus, inspired by God, returns the Temple vessels to Sheshbazzar, \"prince of Judah\", and directs the Israelites to return to Jerusalem with him and rebuild the Temple. *2. 42,360 exiles, with men servants, women servants and \"singing men and women\", return from Babylon to Jerusalem and Judah under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Jeshua the High Priest. *3. Jeshua the High Priest and Zerubbabel build the altar and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. In the second year the foundations of the Temple are laid and the dedication takes place with great rejoicing. *4. Letter of the Samaritans to Artaxerxes, and reply of Artaxerxes: The \"enemies of Judah and Benjamin\" offer to help with the rebuilding, but are rebuffed; they then work to frustrate the builders \"down to the reign of Darius.\" The officials of Samaria write to king Artaxerxes warning him that Jerusalem is being rebuilt, and the king orders the work to stop. \"Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.\" *5. Tattenai's letter to Darius: Through the exhortations of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, Zerubbabel and Joshua recommence the building"
      },
      {
        "text": " the reign of Darius.\" The officials of Samaria write to king Artaxerxes warning him that Jerusalem is being rebuilt, and the king orders the work to stop. \"Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.\" *5. Tattenai's letter to Darius: Through the exhortations of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, Zerubbabel and Joshua recommence the building of the Temple. Tattenai, satrap over both Judah and Samaria, writes to Darius warning him that Jerusalem is being rebuilt and advising that the archives be searched to discover the decree of Cyrus. *6. Decree of Cyrus, second version, and decree of Darius: Darius finds the decree, directs Tattenai not to disturb the Jews in their work, and exempts them from tribute and supplies everything necessary for the offerings. The Temple is finished in the month of Adar in the sixth year of Darius, and the Israelites assemble to celebrate its completion. ;Chapters 7-10 *7. Letter of Artaxerxes to Ezra (Artaxerxes' rescript): King Artaxerxes is moved by God to commission Ezra \"to inquire about Judah and Jerusalem with regard to the Law of your God\" and to \"appoint magistrates and judges to administer justice to all the people of Trans-Euphrates\u2014all who know the laws of your God.\" Artaxerxes gives Ezra much gold and directs all Persian officials to aid him. *8. Ezra gathers a large body of returnees and much gold and silver and precious vessels for the Temple and camps by a canal outside Babylon. There he discovers he has no Levites, and so sends messengers to gather some. The exiles then return to Jerusalem, where they distribute the gold and silver and offer sacrifices to God. *9. Ezra is informed that some of the Jews already"
      },
      {
        "text": " God.\" Artaxerxes gives Ezra much gold and directs all Persian officials to aid him. *8. Ezra gathers a large body of returnees and much gold and silver and precious vessels for the Temple and camps by a canal outside Babylon. There he discovers he has no Levites, and so sends messengers to gather some. The exiles then return to Jerusalem, where they distribute the gold and silver and offer sacrifices to God. *9. Ezra is informed that some of the Jews already in Jerusalem have married non-Jewish women. Ezra is appalled at this proof of sin, and prays to God: \"O God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.\" *10. Despite the opposition of some of their number, the Israelites assemble and send away their foreign wives and children.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Book of Numbers",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " God orders Moses, in the wilderness of Sinai, to number those able to bear arms—of all the men \"from twenty years old and upward,\" and to appoint princes over each tribe. 603,550 Israelites are found to be fit for military service. In chapter 26, a generation later and after approximately forty years of wandering the desert, the Lord orders a second census. 601,730 men are counted. The tribe of Levi is exempted from military service and therefore not included in the census totals. Moses consecrates the Levites for the service of the Tabernacle in the place of the first-born sons, who hitherto had performed that service. The Levites are divided into three families, the Gershonites, the Kohathites, and the Merarites, each under a chief, and all headed by one prince, Eleazar, son of Aaron. Preparations are then made for resuming the march to the Promised Land. Various ordinances and laws are decreed. The first journey of the Israelites after the Tabernacle had been constructed is commenced. The people murmur against God and are punished by fire; Moses complains of the stubbornness of the Israelites and is ordered to choose seventy elders to assist him in the government of the people. Miriam and Aaron insult Moses at Hazeroth, which angers God; Miriam is punished with leprosy and is shut out of camp for seven days, at the end of which the Israelites proceed to the desert of Paran. Twelve spies are sent out into Canaan and come back to report to Moses. Joshua and Caleb, two of the spies, tell that the land is abundant and is \"flowing with milk and honey\"; the other spies say that it is inhabited by giants, and the Israelites refuse to enter the land. Yahweh decrees that the Israelites will be punished for their loss of faith by having to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Moses is ordered to make plates to cover the altar with the two hundred fifty censers left after the destruction of Korah's band. The children of Israel murmur against Moses and Aaron on account of the death of Korah's men and are stricken with the plague, with 14,700 perishing. Aaron and his family are declared by God to be responsible for any iniquity committed in connection with the sanctuary. The Levites are again appointed to help in the keeping of the Tabernacle. The Levites are ordered to surrender to the priests a part of the tithes taken to them. Miriam dies at Kadesh Barnea and the Israelites set out for Moab, on Canaan's western border. The Israelites blame Moses for the lack of water. Moses is ordered by God to speak to a rock but disobeys, and is punished by the announcement that he shall not enter Canaan. The king of Edom refuses permission to the Israelites to pass through his land and they go round it. Aaron dies on Mount Hor. The Israelites are bitten by Fiery flying serpents for speaking against God and Moses. A brazen serpent is made to ward off these serpents. The Israelites arrive on the plains of Moab. A new census gives the total number of males from twenty years and upward as 601,730, and the number of the Levites from a month old and upward as 23,000. The land shall be divided by lot. The daughters of Zelophehad, their father having no sons, are to share in the allotment. Moses is ordered to appoint Joshua as his successor. Prescriptions for the observance of the feasts, and the offerings for different occasions are enumerated. Moses orders the Israelites to massacre the people of Midian. The Reubenites and the Gadites request Moses to assign them the land east of the Jordan. Moses grants their request after they promise to help in the conquest of the land west of the Jordan. The land east of the Jordan is divided among the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. Moses recalls the stations at which the Israelites halted during their forty years' wanderings and instructs the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanites and destroy their idols. The boundaries of the land are spelled out; the land is to be divided under the supervision of Eleazar, Joshua, and twelve princes, one of each tribe.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " God orders Moses, in the wilderness of Sinai, to number those able to bear arms—of all the men \"from twenty years old and upward,\" and to appoint princes over each tribe. 603,550 Israelites are found to be fit for military service. In chapter 26, a generation later and after approximately forty years of wandering the desert, the Lord orders a second census. 601,730 men are counted. The tribe of Levi is exempted from military service and therefore not included in the census totals. Moses consecrates the Levites for the service of the Tabernacle in the place of the first-born sons, who hitherto had performed that service. The Levites are divided into three families, the Gershonites, the Kohathites, and the Merarites, each under a chief, and all headed by one prince, Eleazar, son of Aaron. Preparations are then made for resuming the march to the Promised Land. Various ordinances and laws are decreed. The first journey of the Israelites after the Tabernacle had been constructed is commenced. The people murmur against God and are punished by fire; Moses complains of the stubbornness of the Israelites and is ordered to choose seventy elders to assist him in the government of the people. Miriam and Aaron insult Moses at Hazeroth, which angers God; Miriam is punished with leprosy and is shut out of camp for seven days, at the end of which the Israelites proceed to the desert of Paran. Twelve spies are sent out into Canaan and come back to report to Moses. Joshua and Caleb, two of the spies, tell that the land is abundant and is \"flowing with milk and honey\"; the other spies say that it is inhabited by giants, and the Israelites refuse to enter the land. Yahweh decrees that the Israelites will be punished for their loss of faith by having to wander in the wilderness for 40 years."
      },
      {
        "text": " which the Israelites proceed to the desert of Paran. Twelve spies are sent out into Canaan and come back to report to Moses. Joshua and Caleb, two of the spies, tell that the land is abundant and is \"flowing with milk and honey\"; the other spies say that it is inhabited by giants, and the Israelites refuse to enter the land. Yahweh decrees that the Israelites will be punished for their loss of faith by having to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Moses is ordered to make plates to cover the altar with the two hundred fifty censers left after the destruction of Korah's band. The children of Israel murmur against Moses and Aaron on account of the death of Korah's men and are stricken with the plague, with 14,700 perishing. Aaron and his family are declared by God to be responsible for any iniquity committed in connection with the sanctuary. The Levites are again appointed to help in the keeping of the Tabernacle. The Levites are ordered to surrender to the priests a part of the tithes taken to them. Miriam dies at Kadesh Barnea and the Israelites set out for Moab, on Canaan's western border. The Israelites blame Moses for the lack of water. Moses is ordered by God to speak to a rock but disobeys, and is punished by the announcement that he shall not enter Canaan. The king of Edom refuses permission to the Israelites to pass through his land and they go round it. Aaron dies on Mount Hor. The Israelites are bitten by Fiery flying serpents for speaking against God and Moses. A brazen serpent is made to ward off these serpents. The Israelites arrive on the plains of Moab. A new census gives the total number of males from twenty years and upward as 601,730, and the number of the Levites from a month old and upward as 23,000. The land shall be divided by lot."
      },
      {
        "text": " and they go round it. Aaron dies on Mount Hor. The Israelites are bitten by Fiery flying serpents for speaking against God and Moses. A brazen serpent is made to ward off these serpents. The Israelites arrive on the plains of Moab. A new census gives the total number of males from twenty years and upward as 601,730, and the number of the Levites from a month old and upward as 23,000. The land shall be divided by lot. The daughters of Zelophehad, their father having no sons, are to share in the allotment. Moses is ordered to appoint Joshua as his successor. Prescriptions for the observance of the feasts, and the offerings for different occasions are enumerated. Moses orders the Israelites to massacre the people of Midian. The Reubenites and the Gadites request Moses to assign them the land east of the Jordan. Moses grants their request after they promise to help in the conquest of the land west of the Jordan. The land east of the Jordan is divided among the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. Moses recalls the stations at which the Israelites halted during their forty years' wanderings and instructs the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanites and destroy their idols. The boundaries of the land are spelled out; the land is to be divided under the supervision of Eleazar, Joshua, and twelve princes, one of each tribe.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Book of Ruth",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " During the time of the Judges when there was a famine, an Israelite family from Bethlehem\u2014Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their sons Mahlon and Chilion\u2014emigrate to the nearby country of Moab. Elimelech dies, and the sons marry two Moabite women: Mahlon marries Ruth and Chilion marries Orpah. The two sons of Naomi then die themselves. Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem. She tells her daughters-in-law to return to their own mothers, and remarry. Orpah reluctantly leaves; however, Ruth says, \"Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.\" (Ruth 1:16\u201317 NKJV) The two women return to Bethlehem. It is the time of the barley harvest, and in order to support her mother-in-law and herself, Ruth goes to the fields to glean. The field she goes to belongs to a man named Boaz, who is kind to her because he has heard of her loyalty to her mother-in-law. Ruth tells her mother-in-law of Boaz's kindness, and she gleans in his field through the remainder of the harvest season. Boaz is a close relative of Naomi's husband's family. He is therefore obliged by the Levirate law to marry Mahlon's widow, Ruth, in order to carry on his family line. Naomi sends Ruth to the threshing floor at night and tells her to \"uncover the feet\" of the sleeping Boaz. Ruth does so; Boaz awakes and asks,\"Who are you?\" Ruth identifies herself, then asks Boaz to spread his cloak over her. The phrase \"spread your cloak\" was a woman's way of asking for marriage (Ezekiel 16:8). For a man to spread his cloak over a woman showed acquisition of that woman. Boaz states he is willing to \"redeem\" Ruth via marriage, but informs Ruth that there is another male relative who has the first right of redemption. The next morning, Boaz discusses the issue with the other male relative, Ploni Almoni (\"so-and-so\") before the town elders. The other male relative is unwilling to jeopardize the inheritance of his own estate by marrying Ruth, and so relinquishes his right of redemption, thus allowing Boaz to marry Ruth. They transfer the property and redeem it by the nearer kinsman taking off his sandal and handing it over to Boaz. (Ruth 4:7\u201318) Boaz and Ruth get married and have a son named Obed (who by Levirate customs is also considered a son or heir to Elimelech, and thus Naomi). In the genealogy which concludes the story, it is pointed out that Obed is the father of Jesse, and thus the grandfather of David. This also places Ruth among David's ancestors.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " During the time of the Judges when there was a famine, an Israelite family from Bethlehem\u2014Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their sons Mahlon and Chilion\u2014emigrate to the nearby country of Moab. Elimelech dies, and the sons marry two Moabite women: Mahlon marries Ruth and Chilion marries Orpah. The two sons of Naomi then die themselves. Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem. She tells her daughters-in-law to return to their own mothers, and remarry. Orpah reluctantly leaves; however, Ruth says, \"Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.\" (Ruth 1:16\u201317 NKJV) The two women return to Bethlehem. It is the time of the barley harvest, and in order to support her mother-in-law and herself, Ruth goes to the fields to glean. The field she goes to belongs to a man named Boaz, who is kind to her because he has heard of her loyalty to her mother-in-law. Ruth tells her mother-in-law of Boaz's kindness, and she gleans in his field through the remainder of the harvest season. Boaz is a close relative of Naomi's husband's family. He is therefore obliged by the Levirate law to marry Mahlon's widow, Ruth, in order to carry on his family line. Naomi sends Ruth to the threshing floor at night and tells her to \"uncover the feet\" of the sleeping Boaz. Ruth does so; Boaz awakes and asks,\"Who are you"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s kindness, and she gleans in his field through the remainder of the harvest season. Boaz is a close relative of Naomi's husband's family. He is therefore obliged by the Levirate law to marry Mahlon's widow, Ruth, in order to carry on his family line. Naomi sends Ruth to the threshing floor at night and tells her to \"uncover the feet\" of the sleeping Boaz. Ruth does so; Boaz awakes and asks,\"Who are you?\" Ruth identifies herself, then asks Boaz to spread his cloak over her. The phrase \"spread your cloak\" was a woman's way of asking for marriage (Ezekiel 16:8). For a man to spread his cloak over a woman showed acquisition of that woman. Boaz states he is willing to \"redeem\" Ruth via marriage, but informs Ruth that there is another male relative who has the first right of redemption. The next morning, Boaz discusses the issue with the other male relative, Ploni Almoni (\"so-and-so\") before the town elders. The other male relative is unwilling to jeopardize the inheritance of his own estate by marrying Ruth, and so relinquishes his right of redemption, thus allowing Boaz to marry Ruth. They transfer the property and redeem it by the nearer kinsman taking off his sandal and handing it over to Boaz. (Ruth 4:7\u201318) Boaz and Ruth get married and have a son named Obed (who by Levirate customs is also considered a son or heir to Elimelech, and thus Naomi). In the genealogy which concludes the story, it is pointed out that Obed is the father of Jesse, and thus the grandfather of David. This also places Ruth among David's ancestors.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " named Obed (who by Levirate customs is also considered a son or heir to Elimelech, and thus Naomi). In the genealogy which concludes the story, it is pointed out that Obed is the father of Jesse, and thus the grandfather of David. This also places Ruth among David's ancestors.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Book of Esther",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Ahasuerus, ruler of a massive Persian empire, holds a lavish party, initially for his court and dignitaries and afterwards for all inhabitants of the capital city Shushan. Ahasuerus orders the queen Vashti to display her beauty before the guests. She refuses. Worried all women will learn from this, Ahasuerus removes her as queen and has a royal decree sent across the empire that men should be the ruler of their households and should speak their own native tongue. Ahasuerus then orders all beautiful young girls to be presented to him, so he can choose a new queen to replace Vashti. One of these is the orphan Esther, whose Jewish name is Hadassah. After the death of her parents, she is being fostered by her cousin Mordecai. She finds favor in the king's eyes, and is made his new queen. Esther does not reveal that she is Jewish. Shortly afterwards, Mordechai discovers a plot by courtiers Bigthan and Teresh to assassinate Ahasuerus. The conspirators are apprehended and hanged, and Mordechai's service to the king is recorded. Ahasuerus appoints Haman as his prime minister. Mordechai, who sits at the palace gates, falls into Haman's disfavor as he refuses to bow down to him. Having found out that Mordechai is Jewish, Haman plans to kill not just Mordechai but all the Jews in the empire. He obtains Ahasuerus' permission to execute this plan, against payment of ten thousand talents of silver (which the King declines to accept and rather allows him to execute his plan on principle), and he casts lots to choose the date on which to do this\u2014the thirteenth of the month of Adar. On that day, everyone in the empire is free to massacre the Jews and despoil their property. When Mordechai finds out about the plans he and all Jews mourn and fast. Mordechai informs Esther what has happened and tells her to intercede with the King. She is afraid to break the law and go to the King unsummoned. This action would incur the death penalty. Mordechai tells her that she must. She orders Mordechai to have all Jews fast for three days together with her, and on the third day she goes to Ahasuerus, who stretches out his sceptre to her which shows that she is not to be punished. She invites him to a feast in the company of Haman. During the feast, she asks them to attend a further feast the next evening. Meanwhile, Haman is again offended by Mordechai and consults with his friends. At his wife's suggestion, he builds a gallows for Mordechai. That night, Ahasuerus suffers from insomnia, and when the court records are read to him to help him sleep, he learns of the services rendered by Mordechai in the previous plot against his life. Ahasuerus is told that Mordechai has not received any recognition for saving the king's life. Just then, Haman appears, to ask the King to hang Mordechai, but before he can make this request, King Ahasuerus asks Haman what should be done for the man that the king wishes to honor. Thinking that the man that the king is referring to is himself, Haman says that the man should be dressed in the king's royal robes and led around on the king's royal horse, while a herald calls: \"See how the king honours a man he wishes to reward!\" To his horror and surprise, the king instructs Haman to do so to Mordechai. After leading Mordechai's parade, he returns in mourning to his wife and friends, who suggest his downfall has begun. Immediately after, Ahasuerus and Haman attend Esther's second banquet, at which she reveals that she is Jewish and that Haman is planning to exterminate her people, including her. Overcome by rage, Ahasuerus leaves the room; meanwhile Haman stays behind and begs Esther for his life, falling upon her in desperation. The king comes back in at this moment and thinks Haman is assaulting the queen; this makes him angrier than before and he orders Haman hanged on the gallows that Haman had prepared for Mordechai. The previous decree against the Jews cannot be annulled, but the king allows the Jews to defend themselves during attacks. As a result, on 13 Adar, five hundred attackers and Haman's ten sons are killed in Shushan, followed by a Jewish slaughter of seventy-five thousand Persians, although they took no plunder. Esther sends a letter instituting an annual commemoration of the Jewish people's redemption, in a holiday called Purim (lots). Ahasuerus remains very powerful and continues reigning, with Mordechai assuming a prominent position in his court.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ahasuerus, ruler of a massive Persian empire, holds a lavish party, initially for his court and dignitaries and afterwards for all inhabitants of the capital city Shushan. Ahasuerus orders the queen Vashti to display her beauty before the guests. She refuses. Worried all women will learn from this, Ahasuerus removes her as queen and has a royal decree sent across the empire that men should be the ruler of their households and should speak their own native tongue. Ahasuerus then orders all beautiful young girls to be presented to him, so he can choose a new queen to replace Vashti. One of these is the orphan Esther, whose Jewish name is Hadassah. After the death of her parents, she is being fostered by her cousin Mordecai. She finds favor in the king's eyes, and is made his new queen. Esther does not reveal that she is Jewish. Shortly afterwards, Mordechai discovers a plot by courtiers Bigthan and Teresh to assassinate Ahasuerus. The conspirators are apprehended and hanged, and Mordechai's service to the king is recorded. Ahasuerus appoints Haman as his prime minister. Mordechai, who sits at the palace gates, falls into Haman's disfavor as he refuses to bow down to him. Having found out that Mordechai is Jewish, Haman plans to kill not just Mordechai but all the Jews in the empire. He obtains Ahasuerus' permission to execute this plan, against payment of ten thousand talents of silver (which the King declines to accept and rather allows him to execute his plan on principle), and he casts lots to choose the date on which to do this\u2014the thirteenth of the month of Adar. On that day, everyone in the empire is free to massacre the Jews and despoil their property. When Mordechai finds out about the plans he"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the empire. He obtains Ahasuerus' permission to execute this plan, against payment of ten thousand talents of silver (which the King declines to accept and rather allows him to execute his plan on principle), and he casts lots to choose the date on which to do this\u2014the thirteenth of the month of Adar. On that day, everyone in the empire is free to massacre the Jews and despoil their property. When Mordechai finds out about the plans he and all Jews mourn and fast. Mordechai informs Esther what has happened and tells her to intercede with the King. She is afraid to break the law and go to the King unsummoned. This action would incur the death penalty. Mordechai tells her that she must. She orders Mordechai to have all Jews fast for three days together with her, and on the third day she goes to Ahasuerus, who stretches out his sceptre to her which shows that she is not to be punished. She invites him to a feast in the company of Haman. During the feast, she asks them to attend a further feast the next evening. Meanwhile, Haman is again offended by Mordechai and consults with his friends. At his wife's suggestion, he builds a gallows for Mordechai. That night, Ahasuerus suffers from insomnia, and when the court records are read to him to help him sleep, he learns of the services rendered by Mordechai in the previous plot against his life. Ahasuerus is told that Mordechai has not received any recognition for saving the king's life. Just then, Haman appears, to ask the King to hang Mordechai, but before he can make this request, King Ahasuerus asks Haman what should be done for the man that the king wishes to honor. Thinking that the man that the king is referring to is himself, Haman says that"
      },
      {
        "text": " services rendered by Mordechai in the previous plot against his life. Ahasuerus is told that Mordechai has not received any recognition for saving the king's life. Just then, Haman appears, to ask the King to hang Mordechai, but before he can make this request, King Ahasuerus asks Haman what should be done for the man that the king wishes to honor. Thinking that the man that the king is referring to is himself, Haman says that the man should be dressed in the king's royal robes and led around on the king's royal horse, while a herald calls: \"See how the king honours a man he wishes to reward!\" To his horror and surprise, the king instructs Haman to do so to Mordechai. After leading Mordechai's parade, he returns in mourning to his wife and friends, who suggest his downfall has begun. Immediately after, Ahasuerus and Haman attend Esther's second banquet, at which she reveals that she is Jewish and that Haman is planning to exterminate her people, including her. Overcome by rage, Ahasuerus leaves the room; meanwhile Haman stays behind and begs Esther for his life, falling upon her in desperation. The king comes back in at this moment and thinks Haman is assaulting the queen; this makes him angrier than before and he orders Haman hanged on the gallows that Haman had prepared for Mordechai. The previous decree against the Jews cannot be annulled, but the king allows the Jews to defend themselves during attacks. As a result, on 13 Adar, five hundred attackers and Haman's ten sons are killed in Shushan, followed by a Jewish slaughter of seventy-five thousand Persians, although they took no plunder. Esther sends a letter instituting an annual commemoration of the Jewish people's redemption, in a holiday called Purim (lots). Ahasuerus remains very"
      },
      {
        "text": " previous decree against the Jews cannot be annulled, but the king allows the Jews to defend themselves during attacks. As a result, on 13 Adar, five hundred attackers and Haman's ten sons are killed in Shushan, followed by a Jewish slaughter of seventy-five thousand Persians, although they took no plunder. Esther sends a letter instituting an annual commemoration of the Jewish people's redemption, in a holiday called Purim (lots). Ahasuerus remains very powerful and continues reigning, with Mordechai assuming a prominent position in his court.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Book of Job",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The book of Job tells the story of an extremely righteous man named Job, who is very prosperous and has seven sons and three daughters. Constantly fearing that his sons may have sinned and \"cursed God in their hearts\", he habitually offers burnt offerings as a pardon for their sins. The \"sons of God\" and Satan (literally \"the Adversary\") present themselves to God, and God asks Satan his opinion on Job. Satan answers that Job is pious only because God has put a \"wall around\" him and \"blessed\" his favourite servant with prosperity, but if God were to stretch out his hand and strike everything that Job had, then he would surely curse God. God gives Satan permission to test Job's righteousness. All Job's possessions are destroyed: 500 yoke of oxen and 500 donkeys carried off by Sabeans; 7,000 sheep burned up by 'The fire of God which fell from the sky'; 3,000 camels stolen by the Chaldeans; and the house of the firstborn destroyed by a mighty wind, killing Job's ten children. Still Job does not curse God, but instead shaves his head, tears his clothes, and says, \"Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return: Lord has given, and Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of Lord.\" As Job endures these calamities without reproaching God, Satan solicits permission to afflict his person as well, and God says, \"Behold, he is in your hand, but don't touch his life.\" Satan, therefore, smites him with dreadful boils, and Job, seated in ashes, scrapes his skin with broken pottery. His wife prompts him to \"curse God, and die,\" but Job answers, \"You speak as one of the foolish speaks. Moreover, shall we receive good from God and shall not receive evil?\" Three friends of Job, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, come to console him. (A fourth, Elihu the Buzite (Heb: Alieua ben Barakal the Buzite), begins talking in Chapter 32 and plays a significant role in the dialogue, but his arrival is not described.) The friends spend seven days sitting on the ground with Job, without saying anything to him because they see that he is suffering and in much pain. Job at last breaks his silence and \"curses the day he was born.\" God responds saying that there are so many things Job does not know about how this world was formed or how nature works, that Job should consider God as being greater than the thunderstorm and strong enough to pull in the leviathan with a fish-hook. God then rebukes the three friends and says, \"I am angry with you... you have not spoken of me what is right.\" The story ends with Job restored to health, with a new family and twice as much livestock.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book of Job tells the story of an extremely righteous man named Job, who is very prosperous and has seven sons and three daughters. Constantly fearing that his sons may have sinned and \"cursed God in their hearts\", he habitually offers burnt offerings as a pardon for their sins. The \"sons of God\" and Satan (literally \"the Adversary\") present themselves to God, and God asks Satan his opinion on Job. Satan answers that Job is pious only because God has put a \"wall around\" him and \"blessed\" his favourite servant with prosperity, but if God were to stretch out his hand and strike everything that Job had, then he would surely curse God. God gives Satan permission to test Job's righteousness. All Job's possessions are destroyed: 500 yoke of oxen and 500 donkeys carried off by Sabeans; 7,000 sheep burned up by 'The fire of God which fell from the sky'; 3,000 camels stolen by the Chaldeans; and the house of the firstborn destroyed by a mighty wind, killing Job's ten children. Still Job does not curse God, but instead shaves his head, tears his clothes, and says, \"Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return: Lord has given, and Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of Lord.\" As Job endures these calamities without reproaching God, Satan solicits permission to afflict his person as well, and God says, \"Behold, he is in your hand, but don't touch his life.\" Satan, therefore, smites him with dreadful boils, and Job, seated in ashes, scrapes his skin with broken pottery. His wife prompts him to \"curse God, and die,\" but Job answers, \"You speak as one of the foolish speaks. Moreover, shall we receive good from God and shall not receive evil?\" Three friends of Job, El"
      },
      {
        "text": " his person as well, and God says, \"Behold, he is in your hand, but don't touch his life.\" Satan, therefore, smites him with dreadful boils, and Job, seated in ashes, scrapes his skin with broken pottery. His wife prompts him to \"curse God, and die,\" but Job answers, \"You speak as one of the foolish speaks. Moreover, shall we receive good from God and shall not receive evil?\" Three friends of Job, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, come to console him. (A fourth, Elihu the Buzite (Heb: Alieua ben Barakal the Buzite), begins talking in Chapter 32 and plays a significant role in the dialogue, but his arrival is not described.) The friends spend seven days sitting on the ground with Job, without saying anything to him because they see that he is suffering and in much pain. Job at last breaks his silence and \"curses the day he was born.\" God responds saying that there are so many things Job does not know about how this world was formed or how nature works, that Job should consider God as being greater than the thunderstorm and strong enough to pull in the leviathan with a fish-hook. God then rebukes the three friends and says, \"I am angry with you... you have not spoken of me what is right.\" The story ends with Job restored to health, with a new family and twice as much livestock.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " story ends with Job restored to health, with a new family and twice as much livestock.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Book of Hosea",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " First, Hosea was directed by God to marry a promiscuous woman of ill-repute, and he did so. Marriage here is symbolic of the covenantal relationship between God and Israel. However, Israel has been unfaithful to God by following other gods and breaking the commandments which are the terms of the covenant, hence Israel is symbolized by a harlot who violates the obligations of marriage to her husband. Second, Hosea and his wife, Gomer, have a son. God commands that the son be named Jezreel. This name refers to a valley in which much blood had been shed in Israel's history, especially by the kings of the Northern Kingdom. (See I Kings 21 and II Kings 9:21-35). The naming of this son was to stand as a prophecy against the reigning house of the Northern Kingdom, that they would pay for that bloodshed. Jezreel's name means God Sows. Third, the couple have a daughter. God commands that she be named Lo-ruhamah; Unloved, or, Pity or Pitied On to show Israel that, although God will still have pity on the Southern Kingdom, God will no longer have pity on the Northern Kingdom; its destruction is imminent. In the NIV translation, the omitting of the word 'him' leads to speculation as to whether Lo-Ruhamah was the daughter of Hosea or one of Gomer's lovers. James Mays, however, says that the failure to mention Hosea's paternity this is \"hardly an implication\" of Gomer's adultery. Fourth, a son is born to Gomer. It is questionable whether this child was Hosea's, for God commands that his name be Lo-ammi; Not My People, or more simply, Not Mine. The child bore this name of shame to show that the Northern Kingdom would also be shamed, for its people would no longer be known as God's People. Also God says that \"I am not your I am\"; in other words, God changes His own name in connection with his current relationship with Israel. A brief outline of the concepts presented in the Book of Hosea exist below * Chapters 1-2; Account of Hosea's marriage with Gomer biographically which is a metaphor for the relationship with Yahweh and Israel. * Chapter 3; Account of Hosea's marriage autobiographically. This is possibly a marriage to different women * Chapters 4-14:9; Oracle judging Israel, Ephraim in particular, for not living up to the covenant. No further breakdown of ideas is clear in 4-14:9 Following this, the prophecy is made that someday this will all be changed, that God will indeed have pity on Israel. Chapter two describes a divorce. This divorce seems to be the end of the covenant between God and the Northern Kingdom. However, it is probable that this was again a symbolic act, in which Hosea divorced Gomer for infidelity, and used the occasion to preach the message of God's rejection of the Northern Kingdom. He ends this prophecy with the declaration that God will one day renew the covenant, and will take Israel back in love. In Chapter three, at God's command, Hosea seeks out Gomer once more. Either she has sold herself into slavery for debt, or she is with a lover who demands money in order to give her up, because Hosea has to buy her back. He takes her home, but refrains from sexual intimacy with her for many days, to symbolize the fact that Israel will be without a king for many years, but that God will take Israel back, even at a cost to Himself. Chapters 4-14 spell out the allegory at length. Chapters 1-3 speaks of Hosea's family, and the issues with Gomer. Chapters 4-10 contain a series of oracles, or prophetic sermons, showing exactly why God is rejecting the Northern Kingdom (what the grounds are for the divorce). Chapter 11 is God's lament over the necessity of giving up the Northern Kingdom, which is a large part of the people of Israel, whom God loves. God promises not to give them up entirely. Then, in Chapter 12, the prophet pleads for Israel's repentance. Chapter 13 foretells the destruction of the kingdom at the hands of Assyria, because there has been no repentance. In Chapter 14, the prophet urges Israel to seek forgiveness, and promises its restoration, while urging the utmost fidelity to God. Matthew 2:13 cites Hosea's prophecy in that God would call His Son out of Egypt as foretelling the flight into Egypt and return to Israel of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus Christ. The capital of the Northern Kingdom, in 722 BC. All the members of the upper classes and many of the ordinary people were taken captive and carried off to live as prisoners of war.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " First, Hosea was directed by God to marry a promiscuous woman of ill-repute, and he did so. Marriage here is symbolic of the covenantal relationship between God and Israel. However, Israel has been unfaithful to God by following other gods and breaking the commandments which are the terms of the covenant, hence Israel is symbolized by a harlot who violates the obligations of marriage to her husband. Second, Hosea and his wife, Gomer, have a son. God commands that the son be named Jezreel. This name refers to a valley in which much blood had been shed in Israel's history, especially by the kings of the Northern Kingdom. (See I Kings 21 and II Kings 9:21-35). The naming of this son was to stand as a prophecy against the reigning house of the Northern Kingdom, that they would pay for that bloodshed. Jezreel's name means God Sows. Third, the couple have a daughter. God commands that she be named Lo-ruhamah; Unloved, or, Pity or Pitied On to show Israel that, although God will still have pity on the Southern Kingdom, God will no longer have pity on the Northern Kingdom; its destruction is imminent. In the NIV translation, the omitting of the word 'him' leads to speculation as to whether Lo-Ruhamah was the daughter of Hosea or one of Gomer's lovers. James Mays, however, says that the failure to mention Hosea's paternity this is \"hardly an implication\" of Gomer's adultery. Fourth, a son is born to Gomer. It is questionable whether this child was Hosea's, for God commands that his name be Lo-ammi; Not My People, or more simply, Not Mine. The child bore this name of shame to show that the Northern Kingdom would also be shamed, for its people would no longer"
      },
      {
        "text": " Mays, however, says that the failure to mention Hosea's paternity this is \"hardly an implication\" of Gomer's adultery. Fourth, a son is born to Gomer. It is questionable whether this child was Hosea's, for God commands that his name be Lo-ammi; Not My People, or more simply, Not Mine. The child bore this name of shame to show that the Northern Kingdom would also be shamed, for its people would no longer be known as God's People. Also God says that \"I am not your I am\"; in other words, God changes His own name in connection with his current relationship with Israel. A brief outline of the concepts presented in the Book of Hosea exist below * Chapters 1-2; Account of Hosea's marriage with Gomer biographically which is a metaphor for the relationship with Yahweh and Israel. * Chapter 3; Account of Hosea's marriage autobiographically. This is possibly a marriage to different women * Chapters 4-14:9; Oracle judging Israel, Ephraim in particular, for not living up to the covenant. No further breakdown of ideas is clear in 4-14:9 Following this, the prophecy is made that someday this will all be changed, that God will indeed have pity on Israel. Chapter two describes a divorce. This divorce seems to be the end of the covenant between God and the Northern Kingdom. However, it is probable that this was again a symbolic act, in which Hosea divorced Gomer for infidelity, and used the occasion to preach the message of God's rejection of the Northern Kingdom. He ends this prophecy with the declaration that God will one day renew the covenant, and will take Israel back in love. In Chapter three, at God's command, Hosea seeks out Gomer once more. Either she has sold herself into slavery for debt, or she is with a lover who demands money in order"
      },
      {
        "text": " this was again a symbolic act, in which Hosea divorced Gomer for infidelity, and used the occasion to preach the message of God's rejection of the Northern Kingdom. He ends this prophecy with the declaration that God will one day renew the covenant, and will take Israel back in love. In Chapter three, at God's command, Hosea seeks out Gomer once more. Either she has sold herself into slavery for debt, or she is with a lover who demands money in order to give her up, because Hosea has to buy her back. He takes her home, but refrains from sexual intimacy with her for many days, to symbolize the fact that Israel will be without a king for many years, but that God will take Israel back, even at a cost to Himself. Chapters 4-14 spell out the allegory at length. Chapters 1-3 speaks of Hosea's family, and the issues with Gomer. Chapters 4-10 contain a series of oracles, or prophetic sermons, showing exactly why God is rejecting the Northern Kingdom (what the grounds are for the divorce). Chapter 11 is God's lament over the necessity of giving up the Northern Kingdom, which is a large part of the people of Israel, whom God loves. God promises not to give them up entirely. Then, in Chapter 12, the prophet pleads for Israel's repentance. Chapter 13 foretells the destruction of the kingdom at the hands of Assyria, because there has been no repentance. In Chapter 14, the prophet urges Israel to seek forgiveness, and promises its restoration, while urging the utmost fidelity to God. Matthew 2:13 cites Hosea's prophecy in that God would call His Son out of Egypt as foretelling the flight into Egypt and return to Israel of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus Christ. The capital of the Northern Kingdom, in 722 BC. All the members of the upper classes and many of the ordinary people"
      },
      {
        "text": ", because there has been no repentance. In Chapter 14, the prophet urges Israel to seek forgiveness, and promises its restoration, while urging the utmost fidelity to God. Matthew 2:13 cites Hosea's prophecy in that God would call His Son out of Egypt as foretelling the flight into Egypt and return to Israel of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus Christ. The capital of the Northern Kingdom, in 722 BC. All the members of the upper classes and many of the ordinary people were taken captive and carried off to live as prisoners of war.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Book of Jonah",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The plot centers on a conflict between Jonah and God. God calls Jonah to proclaim judgment to Nineveh, but Jonah resists and attempts to flee. He goes to Joppa and boards a ship bound for Tarshish. God calls up a great storm at sea, and the ship's crew cast Jonah overboard in an attempt to appease God. A great sea creature sent by God, swallows Jonah. For three days and three nights Jonah languishes inside the fish's belly. He says a prayer in which he repents for his disobedience and thanks God for His mercy. God speaks to the fish, which vomits out Jonah safely on dry land. After his rescue, Jonah obeys the call to prophesy against Nineveh, and they repent and God forgives them. Jonah is furious, however, and angrily tells God that this is the reason he tried to flee from Him, as he knew Him to be a just and merciful God. He then beseeches God to kill him, a request which is denied when God causes a tree to grow over him, giving him shade. Initially grateful, Jonah's anger returns the next day, when God sends a worm to eat the plant, withering it, and he tells God that it would be better if he were dead. God then points out: \"Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night. And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?\" Ironically, the relentless God demonstrated in the first chapter becomes the merciful God in the last two chapters (see 3:10). In a parallel turnabout, Jonah becomes one of the most effective of all prophets, turning the entire population of Nineveh (about 120,000 people) to God.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The plot centers on a conflict between Jonah and God. God calls Jonah to proclaim judgment to Nineveh, but Jonah resists and attempts to flee. He goes to Joppa and boards a ship bound for Tarshish. God calls up a great storm at sea, and the ship's crew cast Jonah overboard in an attempt to appease God. A great sea creature sent by God, swallows Jonah. For three days and three nights Jonah languishes inside the fish's belly. He says a prayer in which he repents for his disobedience and thanks God for His mercy. God speaks to the fish, which vomits out Jonah safely on dry land. After his rescue, Jonah obeys the call to prophesy against Nineveh, and they repent and God forgives them. Jonah is furious, however, and angrily tells God that this is the reason he tried to flee from Him, as he knew Him to be a just and merciful God. He then beseeches God to kill him, a request which is denied when God causes a tree to grow over him, giving him shade. Initially grateful, Jonah's anger returns the next day, when God sends a worm to eat the plant, withering it, and he tells God that it would be better if he were dead. God then points out: \"Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night. And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?\" Ironically, the relentless God demonstrated in the first chapter becomes the merciful God in the last two chapters (see 3:10). In a parallel turnabout, Jonah becomes one of the most effective of all prophets, turning the entire population of Nineveh (about 120,000 people) to God."
      },
      {
        "text": " a night. And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?\" Ironically, the relentless God demonstrated in the first chapter becomes the merciful God in the last two chapters (see 3:10). In a parallel turnabout, Jonah becomes one of the most effective of all prophets, turning the entire population of Nineveh (about 120,000 people) to God.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Book of Micah",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " * The Heading (1:1): As is typical of prophetic books, an anonymous editor has supplied the name of the prophet, an indication of his time of activity, and an identification of his speech as the \u201cword of Yahweh\u201d, a generic term carrying a claim to prophetic legitimacy and authority. Samaria and Jerusalem are given prominence as the foci of the prophet\u2019s attention. * Judgement against Samaria (1:2–7): Drawing upon ancient traditions for depicting a theophany, the prophet depicts the coming of Yahweh to punish the city, whose sins are idolatry and the abuse of the poor. * Warnings to the cities of Judah (1:8–16): Samaria has fallen, Judah is next. Micah describes the destruction of the lesser towns of Judah (referring to the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib, 701 BC). For these passages of doom on the various cities, the device paronomasia is used. Paronomasia is a literary device which 'plays' on the sound of each word for literary effect. For example, the inhabitants of Beth-le-aphrah (\u201chouse of dust\u201d) are told to \u201croll yourselves in the dust.\u201d 1:14. Though most of the Paronomasia is lost in translation, it is the equivalent of \u2018Ashdod shall be but ashes,\u2019 where the fate of the city matches its name. * Misuse of power denounced (2:1–5): Denounces those who appropriate the land and houses of others. The context may be simply the amassing wealth for its own sake, or could be connected with the militarisation of the region for the expected Assyrian attack. * Threats against the prophet (2:6–11): The prophet is warned not to prophesy. He answers that the rulers are harming God's people, and want to listen only to those who advocate the virtues of wine. * A later promise (2:12–13): These verses assume that judgement has already fallen and Israel is already scattered abroad. * Judgement on wicked Zion (3:1–4): Israel's rulers are accused of gaining more wealth at the expense of the poor, by any means. The metaphor of flesh being torn illustrates the length to which the ruling classes and socialites would go to further increase their wealth. Prophets are corrupt, seeking personal gain. Jerusalem's rulers believe that God will always be with them, but God will be with his people, and Jerusalem will be destroyed. * Zion's future hope (4:1–5) This is a later passage, almost identical with Isaiah 2:2–4. Zion (meaning the Temple) will be rebuilt, but by God, and based not on violence and corruption but on the desire to learn God's laws and live in peace. * Further promises to Zion (4:6–7) This is another later passage, promising Zion that she will once more enjoy her former independence and power. * Deliverance from Distress in Babylon (4:9–5:1) The similarities to Isaiah 41:15–16 and the references to Babylon suggest the period of this material, although it is unclear whether a period during or after the siege of 586 is meant. Despite their trials, God will not desert his people. * The promised ruler from Bethlehem (5:1–14): This passage is usually dated to the exile. Although chapters 4:9-10 have said that there is \"no king in Zion\", these chapters predict a new military ruler will emerge from Bethlehem, the traditional home of the Davidic monarchy, to restore the security of Israel. Assyria will be stricken, and Israel's punishment will lead to the punishment of the nations. * A Covenant lawsuit (6:1–5): Yahweh accuses Israel (the people of Judah) of breaking the covenant through their lack of justice and honesty, after the pattern of the kings of Israel (northern kingdom) * Torah Liturgy (6:6–8): Micah speaks on behalf of the community asking what they should do in order to get back on God's good side. Micah then responds in V. 8 by showing what God requires: \"to Do Justice, and to Love Kindness, and to Walk Humbly with your God.\" Thus declaring that the burnt offering of both animals and humans (which may have been practiced in Judah under Kings Ahaz and Manasseh) is not necessary for God. * The City as a Cheat (6:9–16): The city is reprimanded for its dishonest trade practices. * Lament (7:1–7): The first passage in the book in the first person: whether it comes from Micah himself is disputed. Honesty and decency have vanished, families are filled with strife. * A song of fallen Jerusalem (7:8–10): The first person voice continues, but now it is the city who speaks. She recognises that her destruction is deserved punishment from God. The recognition gives grounds for hope that God is still with her. * A prophecy of restoration (7:11–13): Fallen Jerusalem is promised that she will be rebuilt and that her power will be greater than ever (a contrast with the vision of peace in 4:1-5). * A prayer for future prosperity (7:14–17): The mood switches from a request for power to grateful astonishment at God's mercy.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " * The Heading (1:1): As is typical of prophetic books, an anonymous editor has supplied the name of the prophet, an indication of his time of activity, and an identification of his speech as the \u201cword of Yahweh\u201d, a generic term carrying a claim to prophetic legitimacy and authority. Samaria and Jerusalem are given prominence as the foci of the prophet\u2019s attention. * Judgement against Samaria (1:2–7): Drawing upon ancient traditions for depicting a theophany, the prophet depicts the coming of Yahweh to punish the city, whose sins are idolatry and the abuse of the poor. * Warnings to the cities of Judah (1:8–16): Samaria has fallen, Judah is next. Micah describes the destruction of the lesser towns of Judah (referring to the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib, 701 BC). For these passages of doom on the various cities, the device paronomasia is used. Paronomasia is a literary device which 'plays' on the sound of each word for literary effect. For example, the inhabitants of Beth-le-aphrah (\u201chouse of dust\u201d) are told to \u201croll yourselves in the dust.\u201d 1:14. Though most of the Paronomasia is lost in translation, it is the equivalent of \u2018Ashdod shall be but ashes,\u2019 where the fate of the city matches its name. * Misuse of power denounced (2:1–5): Denounces those who appropriate the land and houses of others. The context may be simply the amassing wealth for its own sake, or could be connected with the militarisation of the region for the expected Assyrian attack. * Threats against the prophet (2:6–11): The prophet is warned not to prophesy. He"
      },
      {
        "text": " ashes,\u2019 where the fate of the city matches its name. * Misuse of power denounced (2:1–5): Denounces those who appropriate the land and houses of others. The context may be simply the amassing wealth for its own sake, or could be connected with the militarisation of the region for the expected Assyrian attack. * Threats against the prophet (2:6–11): The prophet is warned not to prophesy. He answers that the rulers are harming God's people, and want to listen only to those who advocate the virtues of wine. * A later promise (2:12–13): These verses assume that judgement has already fallen and Israel is already scattered abroad. * Judgement on wicked Zion (3:1–4): Israel's rulers are accused of gaining more wealth at the expense of the poor, by any means. The metaphor of flesh being torn illustrates the length to which the ruling classes and socialites would go to further increase their wealth. Prophets are corrupt, seeking personal gain. Jerusalem's rulers believe that God will always be with them, but God will be with his people, and Jerusalem will be destroyed. * Zion's future hope (4:1–5) This is a later passage, almost identical with Isaiah 2:2–4. Zion (meaning the Temple) will be rebuilt, but by God, and based not on violence and corruption but on the desire to learn God's laws and live in peace. * Further promises to Zion (4:6–7) This is another later passage, promising Zion that she will once more enjoy her former independence and power. * Deliverance from Distress in Babylon (4:9–5:1) The similarities to Isaiah 41:15–16 and the references to Babylon suggest the period of this material, although it is"
      },
      {
        "text": " on violence and corruption but on the desire to learn God's laws and live in peace. * Further promises to Zion (4:6–7) This is another later passage, promising Zion that she will once more enjoy her former independence and power. * Deliverance from Distress in Babylon (4:9–5:1) The similarities to Isaiah 41:15–16 and the references to Babylon suggest the period of this material, although it is unclear whether a period during or after the siege of 586 is meant. Despite their trials, God will not desert his people. * The promised ruler from Bethlehem (5:1–14): This passage is usually dated to the exile. Although chapters 4:9-10 have said that there is \"no king in Zion\", these chapters predict a new military ruler will emerge from Bethlehem, the traditional home of the Davidic monarchy, to restore the security of Israel. Assyria will be stricken, and Israel's punishment will lead to the punishment of the nations. * A Covenant lawsuit (6:1–5): Yahweh accuses Israel (the people of Judah) of breaking the covenant through their lack of justice and honesty, after the pattern of the kings of Israel (northern kingdom) * Torah Liturgy (6:6–8): Micah speaks on behalf of the community asking what they should do in order to get back on God's good side. Micah then responds in V. 8 by showing what God requires: \"to Do Justice, and to Love Kindness, and to Walk Humbly with your God.\" Thus declaring that the burnt offering of both animals and humans (which may have been practiced in Judah under Kings Ahaz and Manasseh) is not necessary for God. * The City as a Cheat (6:9–16): The city is reprimanded for its dishonest trade practices"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s good side. Micah then responds in V. 8 by showing what God requires: \"to Do Justice, and to Love Kindness, and to Walk Humbly with your God.\" Thus declaring that the burnt offering of both animals and humans (which may have been practiced in Judah under Kings Ahaz and Manasseh) is not necessary for God. * The City as a Cheat (6:9–16): The city is reprimanded for its dishonest trade practices. * Lament (7:1–7): The first passage in the book in the first person: whether it comes from Micah himself is disputed. Honesty and decency have vanished, families are filled with strife. * A song of fallen Jerusalem (7:8–10): The first person voice continues, but now it is the city who speaks. She recognises that her destruction is deserved punishment from God. The recognition gives grounds for hope that God is still with her. * A prophecy of restoration (7:11–13): Fallen Jerusalem is promised that she will be rebuilt and that her power will be greater than ever (a contrast with the vision of peace in 4:1-5). * A prayer for future prosperity (7:14–17): The mood switches from a request for power to grateful astonishment at God's mercy.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Book of Haggai",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Haggai's message is filled with an urgency for the people to proceed with the rebuilding of the second Jerusalem temple. Haggai attributes a recent drought to the peoples' refusal to rebuild the temple, which he sees as key to Jerusalem\u2019s glory. The book ends with the prediction of the downfall of kingdoms, with one Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, as the Lord\u2019s chosen leader. The language here is not as finely wrought as in some other books of the minor prophets, yet the intent seems straightforward.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Haggai's message is filled with an urgency for the people to proceed with the rebuilding of the second Jerusalem temple. Haggai attributes a recent drought to the peoples' refusal to rebuild the temple, which he sees as key to Jerusalem\u2019s glory. The book ends with the prediction of the downfall of kingdoms, with one Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, as the Lord\u2019s chosen leader. The language here is not as finely wrought as in some other books of the minor prophets, yet the intent seems straightforward.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Crash",
    "author": "J. G. Ballard",
    "published_date": "1973",
    "synopsis": " The story is told through the eyes of narrator James Ballard, named after the author himself, but it centers on the sinister figure of Dr. Robert Vaughan, a \u201cformer TV-scientist, turned nightmare angel of the expressways\u201d. Ballard meets Vaughan after being involved in a car accident himself near London Airport. Gathering around Vaughan is a group of alienated people, all of them former crash-victims, who follow him in his pursuit to re-enact the crashes of celebrities, and experience what the narrator calls \"a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology\". Vaughan\u2019s ultimate fantasy is to die in a head-on collision with movie star Elizabeth Taylor.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is told through the eyes of narrator James Ballard, named after the author himself, but it centers on the sinister figure of Dr. Robert Vaughan, a \u201cformer TV-scientist, turned nightmare angel of the expressways\u201d. Ballard meets Vaughan after being involved in a car accident himself near London Airport. Gathering around Vaughan is a group of alienated people, all of them former crash-victims, who follow him in his pursuit to re-enact the crashes of celebrities, and experience what the narrator calls \"a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology\". Vaughan\u2019s ultimate fantasy is to die in a head-on collision with movie star Elizabeth Taylor.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Children of Dune",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1976",
    "synopsis": " Nine years after Emperor Paul Muad'dib walked into the desert, blind, the ecological transformation of Dune has reached the point where some Fremen are living without stillsuits in the less arid climate and have started to move out of the Sietches and into the villages and cities. As the old ways erode, more and more pilgrims arrive to experience the planet of Muad'dib. The Imperial high council has lost the political initiative and is powerless to control the Jihad. Paul's twin young children, Leto II and Ghanima, sharing his prescience, have concluded that their guardian Alia has succumbed to possession by one of her ancestors and fear that a similar fate awaits them. They (and Alia) also realize that the terraforming of Dune will kill all the sandworms, thus destroying the source of the spice. Leto also fears that, like his father, he will be trapped by his prescience. Possessed by the persona of her grandfather Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Alia fears that her mother, about to return to Arrakis, will recognize her \"abomination.\" A new religious figure called \"The Preacher\" has risen in the desert, railing against the religious government's injustices and the changes among the Fremen. Some Fremen believe he is Paul Atreides. The fallen House Corrino on Salusa Secundus plots to assassinate the twins and regain power. Lady Jessica returns to Arrakis and recognizes that her daughter has been possessed but finds no signs of abomination in the twins. She plans with them to thwart Alia's plotting. Leto arranges for Fremen leader Stilgar to protect his sister if there is an attempt on their lives. Alia attempts to assassinate Jessica who escapes into the desert with Duncan Idaho's help, precipitating a rebellion among the Fremen. The twins anticipate and survive the Corrino assassination plot. Leto leaves to seek out the Preacher while Ghanima, masking her memory with self-hypnosis, reports falsely that her brother had been murdered. Duncan and Jessica flee to Salusa Secundus where Jessica begins to mentor the Corrino heir Farad'n. He seizes power from his regent mother and allies with the Bene Gesserit, who promise to marry him to Ghanima and support his bid for coronation as Emperor. A band of Fremen outlaws capture Leto and force him to undergo the spice trance at the suggestion of one of Alia's agents, who has infiltrated the group. His spice-induced visions show him a myriad of possible futures where humanity has become extinct and only one where humanity survives. He names this future \"The Golden Path\" and resolves to bring it to fruition. He escapes his captors and sacrifices his humanity in pursuit of the Golden Path. This requires him to physically fuse with a school of sandtrout, gaining superhuman strength and near-invulnerability. He travels across the desert and confronts the Preacher who does, in fact, prove to be his father, Paul Atreides. Duncan Idaho returns to Arrakis and provokes Stilgar into killing him. With Stilgar's neutrality now untenable, he seizes Ghanima and flees. Alia recaptures Ghanima and arranges her marriage to Farad'n, planning to exploit the expected chaos when Ghanima kills him to avenge her brother's murder. The Preacher and Leto return to the capital to confront Alia who has the Preacher murdered, revealing his true identity. Leto reveals himself in a display of superhuman strength and triggers the return of Ghanima's genuine memories. He confronts Alia and offers to help her overcome her possession but she is overwhelmed by her ancestral personae and elects to commit suicide. Leto declares himself Emperor and asserts control over the Fremen. Farad'n enlists in his service and delivers control of the Corrino armies. The seemingly immortal and omnipotent Leto is left as Emperor of the Known Universe, with Ghanima at his side.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Nine years after Emperor Paul Muad'dib walked into the desert, blind, the ecological transformation of Dune has reached the point where some Fremen are living without stillsuits in the less arid climate and have started to move out of the Sietches and into the villages and cities. As the old ways erode, more and more pilgrims arrive to experience the planet of Muad'dib. The Imperial high council has lost the political initiative and is powerless to control the Jihad. Paul's twin young children, Leto II and Ghanima, sharing his prescience, have concluded that their guardian Alia has succumbed to possession by one of her ancestors and fear that a similar fate awaits them. They (and Alia) also realize that the terraforming of Dune will kill all the sandworms, thus destroying the source of the spice. Leto also fears that, like his father, he will be trapped by his prescience. Possessed by the persona of her grandfather Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Alia fears that her mother, about to return to Arrakis, will recognize her \"abomination.\" A new religious figure called \"The Preacher\" has risen in the desert, railing against the religious government's injustices and the changes among the Fremen. Some Fremen believe he is Paul Atreides. The fallen House Corrino on Salusa Secundus plots to assassinate the twins and regain power. Lady Jessica returns to Arrakis and recognizes that her daughter has been possessed but finds no signs of abomination in the twins. She plans with them to thwart Alia's plotting. Leto arranges for Fremen leader Stilgar to protect his sister if there is an attempt on their lives. Alia attempts to assassinate Jessica who escapes into the desert with Duncan Idaho's help, precipitating a rebellion among the Fremen. The twins anticipate and survive the Corrino assassination plot. Leto leaves to seek out the Pre"
      },
      {
        "text": " and recognizes that her daughter has been possessed but finds no signs of abomination in the twins. She plans with them to thwart Alia's plotting. Leto arranges for Fremen leader Stilgar to protect his sister if there is an attempt on their lives. Alia attempts to assassinate Jessica who escapes into the desert with Duncan Idaho's help, precipitating a rebellion among the Fremen. The twins anticipate and survive the Corrino assassination plot. Leto leaves to seek out the Preacher while Ghanima, masking her memory with self-hypnosis, reports falsely that her brother had been murdered. Duncan and Jessica flee to Salusa Secundus where Jessica begins to mentor the Corrino heir Farad'n. He seizes power from his regent mother and allies with the Bene Gesserit, who promise to marry him to Ghanima and support his bid for coronation as Emperor. A band of Fremen outlaws capture Leto and force him to undergo the spice trance at the suggestion of one of Alia's agents, who has infiltrated the group. His spice-induced visions show him a myriad of possible futures where humanity has become extinct and only one where humanity survives. He names this future \"The Golden Path\" and resolves to bring it to fruition. He escapes his captors and sacrifices his humanity in pursuit of the Golden Path. This requires him to physically fuse with a school of sandtrout, gaining superhuman strength and near-invulnerability. He travels across the desert and confronts the Preacher who does, in fact, prove to be his father, Paul Atreides. Duncan Idaho returns to Arrakis and provokes Stilgar into killing him. With Stilgar's neutrality now untenable, he seizes Ghanima and flees. Alia recaptures Ghanima and arranges her marriage to Farad'n, planning to exploit the expected chaos when Ghanima kills him to avenge"
      },
      {
        "text": "invulnerability. He travels across the desert and confronts the Preacher who does, in fact, prove to be his father, Paul Atreides. Duncan Idaho returns to Arrakis and provokes Stilgar into killing him. With Stilgar's neutrality now untenable, he seizes Ghanima and flees. Alia recaptures Ghanima and arranges her marriage to Farad'n, planning to exploit the expected chaos when Ghanima kills him to avenge her brother's murder. The Preacher and Leto return to the capital to confront Alia who has the Preacher murdered, revealing his true identity. Leto reveals himself in a display of superhuman strength and triggers the return of Ghanima's genuine memories. He confronts Alia and offers to help her overcome her possession but she is overwhelmed by her ancestral personae and elects to commit suicide. Leto declares himself Emperor and asserts control over the Fremen. Farad'n enlists in his service and delivers control of the Corrino armies. The seemingly immortal and omnipotent Leto is left as Emperor of the Known Universe, with Ghanima at his side.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Candide, ou l'Optimisme",
    "author": "Voltaire",
    "published_date": "1759-01",
    "synopsis": " Candide contains thirty episodic chapters, which may be grouped into two main schemes: one consists of two divisions, separated by the protagonist's hiatus in El Dorado; the other consists of three parts, each defined by its geographical setting. By the former scheme, the first half of Candide constitutes the rising action and the last part the resolution. This view is supported by the strong theme of travel and quest, reminiscent of adventure and picaresque novels, which tend to employ such a dramatic structure. By the latter scheme, the thirty chapters may be grouped into three parts each comprising ten chapters and defined by locale: I\u2013X are set in Europe, XI\u2013XX are set in the Americas, and XXI\u2013XXX are set in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The plot summary that follows uses this second format and includes Voltaire's additions of 1761. The tale of Candide begins in the castle of the Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh in Westphalia, home to the Baron's daughter, Lady Cun\u00e9gonde; his bastard nephew, Candide; a tutor, Pangloss; a chambermaid, Paquette; and the rest of the Baron's family. The protagonist, Candide, is romantically attracted to Cun\u00e9gonde. He is a child of \"the most unaffected simplicity\", whose face is \"the index of his mind\". Dr. Pangloss, professor of \"m\u00e9taphysico-th\u00e9ologo-cosmolonigologie\" (english translation \"metaphysico-theologo-cosmonigology\") and self-proclaimed optimist, teaches his pupils that they live in the \"best of all possible worlds\" and that \"all is for the best\". All is well in the castle until Cun\u00e9gonde sees Pangloss sexually engaged with Paquette in some bushes. Encouraged by this show of affection, Cun\u00e9gonde drops her handkerchief next to Candide which entices him to kiss her. For this infraction, Candide is evicted from the castle, at which point he is captured by Bulgar (Prussian) recruiters and coerced into military service, where he is flogged, nearly executed, and forced to participate in a major battle between the Bulgars and the Abares (an allegory representing the Prussians and the French). Candide eventually escapes the army and makes his way to Holland where he is given aid by Jacques, an Anabaptist, who strengthens Candide's optimism. Soon after, Candide finds his master Pangloss, now a beggar with syphilis. Pangloss reveals he was infected with this disease by Paquette and shocks Candide by relating how Castle Thunder-ten-Tronckh was destroyed by Bulgars, and that Cun\u00e9gonde and her whole family were killed. Pangloss is cured of his illness by Jacques, losing one eye and one ear in the process, and the three set sail to Lisbon. In Lisbon's harbor, they are overtaken by a vicious storm which destroys the boat. Jacques attempts to save a sailor, and in the process is thrown overboard. The sailor makes no move to help the drowning Jacques, and Candide is in a state of despair until Pangloss explains to him that Lisbon harbor was created in order for Jacques to drown. Only Pangloss, Candide, and the \"brutish sailor\" who let Jacques drown survive the wreck and reach Lisbon, which is promptly hit by an earthquake, tsunami and fire which kill tens of thousands. The sailor leaves in order to loot the rubble while Candide, injured and begging for help, is lectured on the optimistic view of the situation by Pangloss. The next day, Pangloss discusses his optimistic philosophy with a member of the Portuguese Inquisition, and he and Candide are arrested for heresy, set to be tortured and killed in an \"auto-da-f\u00e9\" set up to appease God and prevent another disaster. Candide is flogged and sees Pangloss hanged, but another earthquake intervenes and he escapes. He is approached by an old woman, who leads him to a house where Lady Cun\u00e9gonde waits, alive. Candide is surprised: Pangloss had told him that Cun\u00e9gonde had been raped and disemboweled. She had been, but Cun\u00e9gonde points out that people survive such things. However, her rescuer sold her to a Jewish merchant who was then threatened by a corrupt Grand Inquisitor into sharing her. Her owners arrive, find her with another man, and Candide kills them both. Candide and the two women flee the city, heading to the Americas. Along the way, Cun\u00e9gonde falls into self-pity, complaining of all the misfortunes that have befallen her. The old woman reciprocates by revealing her own tragic life, which included having a buttock cut off in order to feed some starving men. The trio arrives in Buenos Aires, where Governor Don Fernando d'Ibarra, y Figueroa, y Mascarenes, y Lampourdos, y Alejandro asks to marry Cun\u00e9gonde. Just then, an alcalde (a Portuguese fortress commander) arrives, pursuing Candide for killing the Grand Inquisitor. Leaving the women behind, Candide flees to Paraguay with his practical and heretofore unmentioned manservant, Cacambo. At a border post on the way to Paraguay, Cacambo and Candide speak to the commandant, who turns out to be Cun\u00e9gonde's unnamed brother. He explains that after his family was slaughtered, the Jesuits' preparation for his burial revived him, and he has since joined the order. When Candide proclaims he intends to marry Cun\u00e9gonde, her brother attacks him, and Candide stabs him through with his rapier. After lamenting all the people (mainly priests) he's killed, he and Cacambo flee. In their flight, Candide and Cacambo come across two naked women being chased and bitten by a pair of monkeys. Candide, seeking to protect the women, shoots and kills the monkeys, but is informed by Cacambo that the monkeys and women were probably lovers. Cacambo and Candide are captured by Oreillons, the fictional inhabitants of the area. Mistaking Candide for a Jesuit by his robes, the Oreillons prepare to cook Candide and Cacambo; however, Cacambo convinces the Oreillons that Candide killed a Jesuit to procure the robe. Cacambo and Candide are released and travel for a month on foot and then down a river by canoe, living on fruits and berries. After a few more adventures, Candide and Cacambo wander into El Dorado, a geographically isolated utopia where the streets are covered with precious stones, there exist no priests, and all of the king's jokes are funny. Candide and Cacambo stay a month in El Dorado, but Candide is still in pain without Cun\u00e9gonde, and expresses to the king his wish to leave. The king points out that this is a foolish idea, but generously helps them do so. The pair continue their journey, now accompanied by one hundred red pack sheep carrying provisions and incredible sums of money, which they slowly lose or have stolen over the next few adventures. Candide and Cacambo eventually reach Suriname, where they split up: Cacambo travels to Buenos Aires to retrieve Lady Cun\u00e9gonde, while Candide prepares to travel to Europe to await the two. Candide's remaining sheep are stolen, and Candide is fined heavily by a Dutch magistrate for petulance over the theft. Before leaving Surinam, Candide feels in need of companionship, so he interviews a number of local men who have been through various ill-fortunes and settles on a man named Martin. This companion, Martin, is a Manichean scholar based on the real-life pessimist Pierre Bayle, who was a chief opponent of Leibniz. For the remainder of the voyage, Martin and Candide argue about philosophy, Martin painting the entire world as occupied by fools. Candide, however, remains an optimist at heart, since it is all he knows. As they arrive in England, they see an admiral (based on Admiral Byng) being shot for not killing enough of the enemy. Martin explains that Britain finds it necessary to shoot an admiral from time to time \"pour l'encouragement des autres\" (to encourage the others). Candide, horrified, arranges for them to leave Britain immediately. After various scenes satirising other European institutions, Candide and Martin meet Paquette, the chambermaid who infected Pangloss with his syphilis, in Venice. She is now a prostitute, and is spending her time with a monk, Brother Girofl\u00e9e. Although both appear happy on the surface, they reveal their despair: Paquette has led a miserable existence as a sexual object, and the monk detests the religious order in which he was indoctrinated. Later, while Candide and Martin are eating supper, Cacambo returns to Candide and informs him that Cun\u00e9gonde is in Constantinople, and that she has been enslaved. She is now washing dishes for a prince of Transylvania, and has become ugly. On the way to rescue her, Candide finds Pangloss and Cun\u00e9gonde's brother rowing in the galley. Candide buys their freedom and further passage at steep prices. The baron and Pangloss relate how they survived, but despite the horrors he has been through, Pangloss's optimism remains unshaken: \"I still hold to my original opinions, because, after all, I'm a philosopher, and it wouldn't be proper for me to recant, since Leibniz cannot be wrong, and since pre-established harmony is the most beautiful thing in the world, along with the plenum and subtle matter.\" The travellers arrive on the Ottoman coast where they rejoin Cun\u00e9gonde and the old woman. Cun\u00e9gonde has indeed become hideously ugly, but Candide nevertheless buys their freedom and marries Cun\u00e9gonde to spite her brother. Paquette and Brother Girofl\u00e9e, too, are reconciled with Candide on a farm which he just bought with the last of his finances. One day, the protagonists seek out a dervish known as a great philosopher of the land. Pangloss asks him why Man is made to suffer so, and what they all ought to do. The dervish responds by asking rhetorically why Pangloss is concerned about the existence of evil and good. The dervish describes human beings as mice on a ship sent by a king to Egypt; their comfort does not matter to the king. The dervish then slams his door on the group. Returning to their farm, Candide, Pangloss, and Martin meet a Turk whose philosophy is to devote his life only to simple work and not concern himself with external affairs. He and his four children work a small farm to keep \"free of three great evils: boredom, vice and necessity\", or \"poverty\" as per John Butt's 1947 translation. Candide, Pangloss, Martin, Cun\u00e9gonde, Paquette, Cacambo, the old woman, and Brother Girofl\u00e9e all set to work (on this \"louable dessein\", or \"commendable plan\", as the narrator calls it), each to one specific task. Candide ignores Pangloss's insistence that all turned out for the best by necessity, instead telling him \"we must cultivate our garden\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Candide contains thirty episodic chapters, which may be grouped into two main schemes: one consists of two divisions, separated by the protagonist's hiatus in El Dorado; the other consists of three parts, each defined by its geographical setting. By the former scheme, the first half of Candide constitutes the rising action and the last part the resolution. This view is supported by the strong theme of travel and quest, reminiscent of adventure and picaresque novels, which tend to employ such a dramatic structure. By the latter scheme, the thirty chapters may be grouped into three parts each comprising ten chapters and defined by locale: I\u2013X are set in Europe, XI\u2013XX are set in the Americas, and XXI\u2013XXX are set in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The plot summary that follows uses this second format and includes Voltaire's additions of 1761. The tale of Candide begins in the castle of the Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh in Westphalia, home to the Baron's daughter, Lady Cun\u00e9gonde; his bastard nephew, Candide; a tutor, Pangloss; a chambermaid, Paquette; and the rest of the Baron's family. The protagonist, Candide, is romantically attracted to Cun\u00e9gonde. He is a child of \"the most unaffected simplicity\", whose face is \"the index of his mind\". Dr. Pangloss, professor of \"m\u00e9taphysico-th\u00e9ologo-cosmolonigologie\" (english translation \"metaphysico-theologo-cosmonigology\") and self-proclaimed optimist, teaches his pupils that they live in the \"best of all possible worlds\" and that \"all is for the best\". All is well in the castle until Cun\u00e9gonde sees Pangloss sexually engaged with Paquette in some bushes. Encouraged by this show of affection, Cun\u00e9gonde drops her"
      },
      {
        "text": "o-cosmolonigologie\" (english translation \"metaphysico-theologo-cosmonigology\") and self-proclaimed optimist, teaches his pupils that they live in the \"best of all possible worlds\" and that \"all is for the best\". All is well in the castle until Cun\u00e9gonde sees Pangloss sexually engaged with Paquette in some bushes. Encouraged by this show of affection, Cun\u00e9gonde drops her handkerchief next to Candide which entices him to kiss her. For this infraction, Candide is evicted from the castle, at which point he is captured by Bulgar (Prussian) recruiters and coerced into military service, where he is flogged, nearly executed, and forced to participate in a major battle between the Bulgars and the Abares (an allegory representing the Prussians and the French). Candide eventually escapes the army and makes his way to Holland where he is given aid by Jacques, an Anabaptist, who strengthens Candide's optimism. Soon after, Candide finds his master Pangloss, now a beggar with syphilis. Pangloss reveals he was infected with this disease by Paquette and shocks Candide by relating how Castle Thunder-ten-Tronckh was destroyed by Bulgars, and that Cun\u00e9gonde and her whole family were killed. Pangloss is cured of his illness by Jacques, losing one eye and one ear in the process, and the three set sail to Lisbon. In Lisbon's harbor, they are overtaken by a vicious storm which destroys the boat. Jacques attempts to save a sailor, and in the process is thrown overboard. The sailor makes no move to help the drowning Jacques, and Candide is in a state of despair until Pangloss explains to him that Lisbon harbor was created in order for Jacques to drown. Only Pangloss, Candide, and"
      },
      {
        "text": ", losing one eye and one ear in the process, and the three set sail to Lisbon. In Lisbon's harbor, they are overtaken by a vicious storm which destroys the boat. Jacques attempts to save a sailor, and in the process is thrown overboard. The sailor makes no move to help the drowning Jacques, and Candide is in a state of despair until Pangloss explains to him that Lisbon harbor was created in order for Jacques to drown. Only Pangloss, Candide, and the \"brutish sailor\" who let Jacques drown survive the wreck and reach Lisbon, which is promptly hit by an earthquake, tsunami and fire which kill tens of thousands. The sailor leaves in order to loot the rubble while Candide, injured and begging for help, is lectured on the optimistic view of the situation by Pangloss. The next day, Pangloss discusses his optimistic philosophy with a member of the Portuguese Inquisition, and he and Candide are arrested for heresy, set to be tortured and killed in an \"auto-da-f\u00e9\" set up to appease God and prevent another disaster. Candide is flogged and sees Pangloss hanged, but another earthquake intervenes and he escapes. He is approached by an old woman, who leads him to a house where Lady Cun\u00e9gonde waits, alive. Candide is surprised: Pangloss had told him that Cun\u00e9gonde had been raped and disemboweled. She had been, but Cun\u00e9gonde points out that people survive such things. However, her rescuer sold her to a Jewish merchant who was then threatened by a corrupt Grand Inquisitor into sharing her. Her owners arrive, find her with another man, and Candide kills them both. Candide and the two women flee the city, heading to the Americas. Along the way, Cun\u00e9gonde falls into self-pity, complaining of all the misfortunes that have befallen her"
      },
      {
        "text": " but Cun\u00e9gonde points out that people survive such things. However, her rescuer sold her to a Jewish merchant who was then threatened by a corrupt Grand Inquisitor into sharing her. Her owners arrive, find her with another man, and Candide kills them both. Candide and the two women flee the city, heading to the Americas. Along the way, Cun\u00e9gonde falls into self-pity, complaining of all the misfortunes that have befallen her. The old woman reciprocates by revealing her own tragic life, which included having a buttock cut off in order to feed some starving men. The trio arrives in Buenos Aires, where Governor Don Fernando d'Ibarra, y Figueroa, y Mascarenes, y Lampourdos, y Alejandro asks to marry Cun\u00e9gonde. Just then, an alcalde (a Portuguese fortress commander) arrives, pursuing Candide for killing the Grand Inquisitor. Leaving the women behind, Candide flees to Paraguay with his practical and heretofore unmentioned manservant, Cacambo. At a border post on the way to Paraguay, Cacambo and Candide speak to the commandant, who turns out to be Cun\u00e9gonde's unnamed brother. He explains that after his family was slaughtered, the Jesuits' preparation for his burial revived him, and he has since joined the order. When Candide proclaims he intends to marry Cun\u00e9gonde, her brother attacks him, and Candide stabs him through with his rapier. After lamenting all the people (mainly priests) he's killed, he and Cacambo flee. In their flight, Candide and Cacambo come across two naked women being chased and bitten by a pair of monkeys. Candide, seeking to protect the women, shoots and kills the monkeys, but is informed by Cacambo that the monkeys and women were"
      },
      {
        "text": " to marry Cun\u00e9gonde, her brother attacks him, and Candide stabs him through with his rapier. After lamenting all the people (mainly priests) he's killed, he and Cacambo flee. In their flight, Candide and Cacambo come across two naked women being chased and bitten by a pair of monkeys. Candide, seeking to protect the women, shoots and kills the monkeys, but is informed by Cacambo that the monkeys and women were probably lovers. Cacambo and Candide are captured by Oreillons, the fictional inhabitants of the area. Mistaking Candide for a Jesuit by his robes, the Oreillons prepare to cook Candide and Cacambo; however, Cacambo convinces the Oreillons that Candide killed a Jesuit to procure the robe. Cacambo and Candide are released and travel for a month on foot and then down a river by canoe, living on fruits and berries. After a few more adventures, Candide and Cacambo wander into El Dorado, a geographically isolated utopia where the streets are covered with precious stones, there exist no priests, and all of the king's jokes are funny. Candide and Cacambo stay a month in El Dorado, but Candide is still in pain without Cun\u00e9gonde, and expresses to the king his wish to leave. The king points out that this is a foolish idea, but generously helps them do so. The pair continue their journey, now accompanied by one hundred red pack sheep carrying provisions and incredible sums of money, which they slowly lose or have stolen over the next few adventures. Candide and Cacambo eventually reach Suriname, where they split up: Cacambo travels to Buenos Aires to retrieve Lady Cun\u00e9gonde, while Candide prepares to travel to Europe to await the two. Candide's remaining sheep are stolen, and Candide is fined heavily by a Dutch"
      },
      {
        "text": " so. The pair continue their journey, now accompanied by one hundred red pack sheep carrying provisions and incredible sums of money, which they slowly lose or have stolen over the next few adventures. Candide and Cacambo eventually reach Suriname, where they split up: Cacambo travels to Buenos Aires to retrieve Lady Cun\u00e9gonde, while Candide prepares to travel to Europe to await the two. Candide's remaining sheep are stolen, and Candide is fined heavily by a Dutch magistrate for petulance over the theft. Before leaving Surinam, Candide feels in need of companionship, so he interviews a number of local men who have been through various ill-fortunes and settles on a man named Martin. This companion, Martin, is a Manichean scholar based on the real-life pessimist Pierre Bayle, who was a chief opponent of Leibniz. For the remainder of the voyage, Martin and Candide argue about philosophy, Martin painting the entire world as occupied by fools. Candide, however, remains an optimist at heart, since it is all he knows. As they arrive in England, they see an admiral (based on Admiral Byng) being shot for not killing enough of the enemy. Martin explains that Britain finds it necessary to shoot an admiral from time to time \"pour l'encouragement des autres\" (to encourage the others). Candide, horrified, arranges for them to leave Britain immediately. After various scenes satirising other European institutions, Candide and Martin meet Paquette, the chambermaid who infected Pangloss with his syphilis, in Venice. She is now a prostitute, and is spending her time with a monk, Brother Girofl\u00e9e. Although both appear happy on the surface, they reveal their despair: Paquette has led a miserable existence as a sexual object, and the monk detests the religious order in which he was indoctrinated. Later"
      },
      {
        "text": " Britain immediately. After various scenes satirising other European institutions, Candide and Martin meet Paquette, the chambermaid who infected Pangloss with his syphilis, in Venice. She is now a prostitute, and is spending her time with a monk, Brother Girofl\u00e9e. Although both appear happy on the surface, they reveal their despair: Paquette has led a miserable existence as a sexual object, and the monk detests the religious order in which he was indoctrinated. Later, while Candide and Martin are eating supper, Cacambo returns to Candide and informs him that Cun\u00e9gonde is in Constantinople, and that she has been enslaved. She is now washing dishes for a prince of Transylvania, and has become ugly. On the way to rescue her, Candide finds Pangloss and Cun\u00e9gonde's brother rowing in the galley. Candide buys their freedom and further passage at steep prices. The baron and Pangloss relate how they survived, but despite the horrors he has been through, Pangloss's optimism remains unshaken: \"I still hold to my original opinions, because, after all, I'm a philosopher, and it wouldn't be proper for me to recant, since Leibniz cannot be wrong, and since pre-established harmony is the most beautiful thing in the world, along with the plenum and subtle matter.\" The travellers arrive on the Ottoman coast where they rejoin Cun\u00e9gonde and the old woman. Cun\u00e9gonde has indeed become hideously ugly, but Candide nevertheless buys their freedom and marries Cun\u00e9gonde to spite her brother. Paquette and Brother Girofl\u00e9e, too, are reconciled with Candide on a farm which he just bought with the last of his finances. One day, the protagonists seek out a dervish known as a great philosopher of the land. Pangloss asks"
      },
      {
        "text": " rejoin Cun\u00e9gonde and the old woman. Cun\u00e9gonde has indeed become hideously ugly, but Candide nevertheless buys their freedom and marries Cun\u00e9gonde to spite her brother. Paquette and Brother Girofl\u00e9e, too, are reconciled with Candide on a farm which he just bought with the last of his finances. One day, the protagonists seek out a dervish known as a great philosopher of the land. Pangloss asks him why Man is made to suffer so, and what they all ought to do. The dervish responds by asking rhetorically why Pangloss is concerned about the existence of evil and good. The dervish describes human beings as mice on a ship sent by a king to Egypt; their comfort does not matter to the king. The dervish then slams his door on the group. Returning to their farm, Candide, Pangloss, and Martin meet a Turk whose philosophy is to devote his life only to simple work and not concern himself with external affairs. He and his four children work a small farm to keep \"free of three great evils: boredom, vice and necessity\", or \"poverty\" as per John Butt's 1947 translation. Candide, Pangloss, Martin, Cun\u00e9gonde, Paquette, Cacambo, the old woman, and Brother Girofl\u00e9e all set to work (on this \"louable dessein\", or \"commendable plan\", as the narrator calls it), each to one specific task. Candide ignores Pangloss's insistence that all turned out for the best by necessity, instead telling him \"we must cultivate our garden\".\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " or \"commendable plan\", as the narrator calls it), each to one specific task. Candide ignores Pangloss's insistence that all turned out for the best by necessity, instead telling him \"we must cultivate our garden\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Chapterhouse Dune",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1985-04",
    "synopsis": " The situation is desperate for the Bene Gesserit as they find themselves the targets of the Honored Matres, whose conquest of the Old Empire is almost complete. The Matres are seeking to assimilate the technology and developed methods of the Bene Gesserit and exterminate the Sisterhood itself. Now in command of the Bene Gesserit, Mother Superior Darwi Odrade continues to develop her drastic, secret plan to overcome the Honored Matres. The Bene Gesserit are also terraforming the planet Chapterhouse to accommodate the all-important sandworms, whose native planet Dune had been destroyed by the Matres. Sheeana, in charge of the project, expects sandworms to appear soon. The Honored Matres have also destroyed the entire Bene Tleilax civilization, with Tleilaxu Master Scytale the only one of his kind left alive. In Bene Gesserit captivity, Scytale possesses the Tleilaxu secret of ghola production, which he has reluctantly traded for the Sisterhood's protection. The first ghola produced is that of their recently-deceased military genius, Miles Teg. The Bene Gesserit have two other prisoners on Chapterhouse: the latest Duncan Idaho ghola, and former Honored Matre Murbella, whom they have accepted as a novice despite their suspicion that she intends to escape back to the Honored Matres. Lampadas, a center for Bene Gesserit education, has been destroyed by the Honored Matres. The planet's Chancellor, Reverend Mother Lucilla, manages to escape carrying the shared-minds of millions of Reverend Mothers. Lucilla is forced to land on Gammu where she seeks refuge with an underground group of Jews. The Rabbi gives Lucilla sanctuary, but to save his organization he must deliver her to the Matres. Before doing so, he reveals Rebecca, a \"wild\" Reverend Mother who has gained her Other Memory without Bene Gesserit training. Lucilla shares minds with Rebecca, who promises to take the memories of Lampadas safely back to the Sisterhood. Lucilla is then \"betrayed\", and taken before the Great Honored Matre Dama, who tries to persuade her to join the Honored Matres, preserving her life in exchange for Bene Gesserit secrets. Lucilla refuses, and Dama ultimately kills her. Back on Chapterhouse, Odrade confronts Duncan and forces him to admit that he is a Mentat, proving that he retains the memories of his many ghola lives. He does not reveal his mysterious visions of two people. Meanwhile, Murbella collapses under the pressure of Bene Gesserit training, giving in to \"word weapons\" that the Bene Gesserit had planted to undermine her earlier Honored Matre identity. Murbella realizes that she wants to be Bene Gesserit. Odrade believes that the Bene Gesserit made a mistake in fearing emotion, and that in order to evolve, the Bene Gesserit must learn to accept emotions. Odrade permits Duncan to watch Murbella undergo the spice agony, making him the first man ever to do so. Murbella survives the ordeal and becomes a Reverend Mother. Odrade then confronts Sheeana, discovering that Duncan and Sheeana have been allied together for some time. Sheeana does not reveal that they have been considering the option of reawakening Teg's memory through Imprinting, nor does Odrade discover that Sheeana has the keys to Duncan's no-ship prison. Odrade continues molding Scytale, with Sheeana showing him a baby sandworm, the Bene Gesserit's own long term supply of spice, and destroying Scytale's main bargaining card. Finally, Teg is awakened by Sheeana using imprinting techniques. Odrade appoints him again as Bashar of the military forces of the Sisterhood for the assault on the Honored Matres. Odrade next calls a meeting of all the Bene Gesserit, announcing her plan to attack the Honored Matres. She tells them that this attack will be led by Teg. She also announces candidates to succeed her as Mother Superior; she will share her memories with Murbella and Sheeana before she leaves. Odrade then goes to meet the Great Honored Matre. Under cover of Odrade's diplomacy, the Bene Gesserit forces under Teg attack Gammu with tremendous force. Teg uses his secret ability to see no-ships to secure control of the system. Survivors of the attack flee to Junction, and Teg follows them there and carries all with him. Victory for the Bene Gesserit seems inevitable. In the midst of this battle, the Jews (including Rebecca with her precious memories) take refuge with the Bene Gesserit fleet. Logno — chief advisor to Dama — assassinates Dama with poison and assumes control of the Honored Matres. Her first act surprises Odrade greatly. Too late Odrade and Teg realize they have fallen into a trap, and the Honored Matres use a mysterious weapon to turn defeat into victory, as well as capturing Odrade. Murbella saves as much of the Bene Gesserit force as she can and they begin to withdraw to Chapterhouse. Odrade, however, had planned for the possible failure of the Bene Gesserit attack and left Murbella instructions for a last desperate gamble. Murbella pilots a small craft down to the surface, announcing herself as an Honored Matre who, in the confusion, has managed to escape the Bene Gesserit with all their secrets. She arrives on the planet and is taken to the Great Honored Matre. Unable to control her anger, Logno attacks but is killed by Murbella. Awed by her physical prowess, the remaining Honored Matres are forced to accept her as their new leader. Odrade is also killed in the melee and Murbella shares memories with her, thereby also becoming Reverend Mother Superior. Murbella's ascension to leadership is not accepted as victory by all the Bene Gesserit. Some flee Chapterhouse, notably Sheeana, who has a vision of her own, and is joined by Duncan. The two escape in the giant no-ship, with Scytale, Teg and the Jews. Murbella recognizes their plan at the last minute, but is powerless to stop them. Watching this escape with interest are Daniel and Marty, the observers Duncan had been having visions of. The story ends on a cliffhanger with several questions left unanswered regarding the merging of the Honored Matres and Bene Gesserit, the fates of those on the escaped no-ship (including the role of Scytale, the development of Idaho and Teg, and the role of the Jews), the identity of the god-like characters in the book's final chapter and the ultimate mystery of what chased the Honored Matres back into the Old Empire.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The situation is desperate for the Bene Gesserit as they find themselves the targets of the Honored Matres, whose conquest of the Old Empire is almost complete. The Matres are seeking to assimilate the technology and developed methods of the Bene Gesserit and exterminate the Sisterhood itself. Now in command of the Bene Gesserit, Mother Superior Darwi Odrade continues to develop her drastic, secret plan to overcome the Honored Matres. The Bene Gesserit are also terraforming the planet Chapterhouse to accommodate the all-important sandworms, whose native planet Dune had been destroyed by the Matres. Sheeana, in charge of the project, expects sandworms to appear soon. The Honored Matres have also destroyed the entire Bene Tleilax civilization, with Tleilaxu Master Scytale the only one of his kind left alive. In Bene Gesserit captivity, Scytale possesses the Tleilaxu secret of ghola production, which he has reluctantly traded for the Sisterhood's protection. The first ghola produced is that of their recently-deceased military genius, Miles Teg. The Bene Gesserit have two other prisoners on Chapterhouse: the latest Duncan Idaho ghola, and former Honored Matre Murbella, whom they have accepted as a novice despite their suspicion that she intends to escape back to the Honored Matres. Lampadas, a center for Bene Gesserit education, has been destroyed by the Honored Matres. The planet's Chancellor, Reverend Mother Lucilla, manages to escape carrying the shared-minds of millions of Reverend Mothers. Lucilla is forced to land on Gammu where she seeks refuge with an underground group of Jews. The Rabbi gives Lucilla sanctuary, but to save his organization he must deliver her to the Matres. Before doing so, he reveals Rebecca, a \"wild\" Reverend Mother"
      },
      {
        "text": " a center for Bene Gesserit education, has been destroyed by the Honored Matres. The planet's Chancellor, Reverend Mother Lucilla, manages to escape carrying the shared-minds of millions of Reverend Mothers. Lucilla is forced to land on Gammu where she seeks refuge with an underground group of Jews. The Rabbi gives Lucilla sanctuary, but to save his organization he must deliver her to the Matres. Before doing so, he reveals Rebecca, a \"wild\" Reverend Mother who has gained her Other Memory without Bene Gesserit training. Lucilla shares minds with Rebecca, who promises to take the memories of Lampadas safely back to the Sisterhood. Lucilla is then \"betrayed\", and taken before the Great Honored Matre Dama, who tries to persuade her to join the Honored Matres, preserving her life in exchange for Bene Gesserit secrets. Lucilla refuses, and Dama ultimately kills her. Back on Chapterhouse, Odrade confronts Duncan and forces him to admit that he is a Mentat, proving that he retains the memories of his many ghola lives. He does not reveal his mysterious visions of two people. Meanwhile, Murbella collapses under the pressure of Bene Gesserit training, giving in to \"word weapons\" that the Bene Gesserit had planted to undermine her earlier Honored Matre identity. Murbella realizes that she wants to be Bene Gesserit. Odrade believes that the Bene Gesserit made a mistake in fearing emotion, and that in order to evolve, the Bene Gesserit must learn to accept emotions. Odrade permits Duncan to watch Murbella undergo the spice agony, making him the first man ever to do so. Murbella survives the ordeal and becomes a Reverend Mother. Odrade then confronts Sheeana, discovering that Duncan and Sheeana have been allied together for some time. Shee"
      },
      {
        "text": " Odrade believes that the Bene Gesserit made a mistake in fearing emotion, and that in order to evolve, the Bene Gesserit must learn to accept emotions. Odrade permits Duncan to watch Murbella undergo the spice agony, making him the first man ever to do so. Murbella survives the ordeal and becomes a Reverend Mother. Odrade then confronts Sheeana, discovering that Duncan and Sheeana have been allied together for some time. Sheeana does not reveal that they have been considering the option of reawakening Teg's memory through Imprinting, nor does Odrade discover that Sheeana has the keys to Duncan's no-ship prison. Odrade continues molding Scytale, with Sheeana showing him a baby sandworm, the Bene Gesserit's own long term supply of spice, and destroying Scytale's main bargaining card. Finally, Teg is awakened by Sheeana using imprinting techniques. Odrade appoints him again as Bashar of the military forces of the Sisterhood for the assault on the Honored Matres. Odrade next calls a meeting of all the Bene Gesserit, announcing her plan to attack the Honored Matres. She tells them that this attack will be led by Teg. She also announces candidates to succeed her as Mother Superior; she will share her memories with Murbella and Sheeana before she leaves. Odrade then goes to meet the Great Honored Matre. Under cover of Odrade's diplomacy, the Bene Gesserit forces under Teg attack Gammu with tremendous force. Teg uses his secret ability to see no-ships to secure control of the system. Survivors of the attack flee to Junction, and Teg follows them there and carries all with him. Victory for the Bene Gesserit seems inevitable. In the midst of this battle, the Jews (including Rebecca with her precious memories) take refuge"
      },
      {
        "text": " to meet the Great Honored Matre. Under cover of Odrade's diplomacy, the Bene Gesserit forces under Teg attack Gammu with tremendous force. Teg uses his secret ability to see no-ships to secure control of the system. Survivors of the attack flee to Junction, and Teg follows them there and carries all with him. Victory for the Bene Gesserit seems inevitable. In the midst of this battle, the Jews (including Rebecca with her precious memories) take refuge with the Bene Gesserit fleet. Logno — chief advisor to Dama — assassinates Dama with poison and assumes control of the Honored Matres. Her first act surprises Odrade greatly. Too late Odrade and Teg realize they have fallen into a trap, and the Honored Matres use a mysterious weapon to turn defeat into victory, as well as capturing Odrade. Murbella saves as much of the Bene Gesserit force as she can and they begin to withdraw to Chapterhouse. Odrade, however, had planned for the possible failure of the Bene Gesserit attack and left Murbella instructions for a last desperate gamble. Murbella pilots a small craft down to the surface, announcing herself as an Honored Matre who, in the confusion, has managed to escape the Bene Gesserit with all their secrets. She arrives on the planet and is taken to the Great Honored Matre. Unable to control her anger, Logno attacks but is killed by Murbella. Awed by her physical prowess, the remaining Honored Matres are forced to accept her as their new leader. Odrade is also killed in the melee and Murbella shares memories with her, thereby also becoming Reverend Mother Superior. Murbella's ascension to leadership is not accepted as victory by all the Bene Gesserit. Some flee Chapterhouse, notably Shee"
      },
      {
        "text": "ored Matre. Unable to control her anger, Logno attacks but is killed by Murbella. Awed by her physical prowess, the remaining Honored Matres are forced to accept her as their new leader. Odrade is also killed in the melee and Murbella shares memories with her, thereby also becoming Reverend Mother Superior. Murbella's ascension to leadership is not accepted as victory by all the Bene Gesserit. Some flee Chapterhouse, notably Sheeana, who has a vision of her own, and is joined by Duncan. The two escape in the giant no-ship, with Scytale, Teg and the Jews. Murbella recognizes their plan at the last minute, but is powerless to stop them. Watching this escape with interest are Daniel and Marty, the observers Duncan had been having visions of. The story ends on a cliffhanger with several questions left unanswered regarding the merging of the Honored Matres and Bene Gesserit, the fates of those on the escaped no-ship (including the role of Scytale, the development of Idaho and Teg, and the role of the Jews), the identity of the god-like characters in the book's final chapter and the ultimate mystery of what chased the Honored Matres back into the Old Empire.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Carmilla",
    "author": "Sheridan Le Fanu",
    "published_date": "1872",
    "synopsis": " The story is presented by Le Fanu as part of the casebook of Dr Hesselius, whose departures from medical orthodoxy rank him as the first occult doctor in literature. The story is narrated by Laura, one of the two main protagonists of the tale. Laura begins her tale by relating her childhood in a \"picturesque and solitary\" castle in the midst of an extensive forest in Styria where she lives with her father, a wealthy English widower, retired from the Austrian Service. When she is six years old, Laura has a vision of a beautiful visitor in her bedchamber. She later claims to have been bitten on the chest, although no wounds are found on her. 12 years later, Laura and her father are admiring the sunset in front of the castle when her father tells her of a letter he received earlier from his friend General Spielsdorf. The General was supposed to bring his niece, Bertha Rheinfeldt, to visit the two, but the niece suddenly died under mysterious circumstances. The General ambiguously concludes that he will discuss the circumstances in detail when they meet later. Laura is saddened by the loss of a potential friend, and longs for a companion. A carriage accident outside Laura's home unexpectedly brings a girl of Laura's age into the family's care. Her name is Carmilla. Both girls instantly recognize the other from the 'dream' they both had when they were young. Carmilla appears injured after her carriage accident, but her mysterious mother informs Laura's father that her journey is urgent and cannot be delayed. She arranges to leave her daughter with Laura and her father until she can return in three months. Before she leaves she sternly notes that her daughter will not disclose any information whatsoever about her family, past, or herself and that Carmilla is of sound mind. Laura comments that this information seems needless to say, and her father laughs it off. Carmilla and Laura grow to be very close friends, but occasionally Carmilla's mood abruptly changes. She sometimes makes unsettling romantic advances towards Laura. Carmilla refuses to tell anything about herself or her background, despite questioning from Laura. Her secrecy isn't the only mysterious thing about her. Carmilla sleeps much of the day, and seems to sleepwalk at night. When a funeral procession passes by the two girls and Laura begins singing a hymn, Carmilla bursts out in rage and scolds Laura for singing a Christian song. When a shipment of family heirloom restored portraits arrives at the castle, Laura finds one of her ancestors, \"Mircalla, Countess Karnstein\", dated 1698. The portrait resembles Carmilla exactly, down to the mole on her neck. During Carmilla's stay, Laura has nightmares of a fiendish cat-like beast entering her room at night and biting her on the chest. The beast then takes the form of a female figure and disappears through the door without opening it. Laura's health declines and her father has a doctor examine her. He speaks privately with her father and only asks that Laura never be left unattended. Her father then sets out with Laura in a carriage for the ruined village of Karnstein. They leave a message behind asking Carmilla and one of the governesses entreated to follow after once the perpetually late-sleeping Carmilla wakes up. En route to Karnstein, Laura and her father encounter General Spielsdorf. He tells them his own ghastly story. Spielsdorf and his niece had met a young woman named Millarca and her enigmatic mother at a costume ball. The General's niece was immediately taken with Millarca. The mother convinced the General that she was an old friend of his and asked that Millarca be allowed to stay with them for three weeks while she attended to a secret matter of great importance. The General's niece fell mysteriously ill and suffered exactly the same symptoms as Laura. After consulting with a priestly doctor who he had specially ordered, the General came to the realization that his niece was being visited by a vampire. He hid in a closet with a sword and waited until seeing a fiendish cat-like creature stalk around his niece's bedroom and bite her on the neck. He then leapt from his hiding place and attacked the beast, which took the form of Millarca. She fled through the locked door, unharmed. The General's niece died immediately afterward. When they arrive at Karnstein the General asks a nearby woodsman where he can find the tomb of Mircalla Karnstein. The woodsman relates that the tomb was relocated long ago, by the hero who vanquished the vampires that haunted the region. While the General and Laura are left alone in the ruined chapel, Carmilla appears. The General and Carmilla both fly into a rage upon seeing each other and the General attacks her with an axe. Carmilla flees and the General explains to Laura that Carmilla is also Millarca, both anagrams for the original name of the vampire Countess Mircalla Karnstein. The party is then joined by Baron Vordenburg, the descendant of the hero who rid the area of vampires long ago. Vordenburg is an authority on vampires and has discovered that his ancestor was romantically involved with the Countess Karnstein, before she died and became one of the undead. Using his forefather's notes he locates the hidden tomb of Carmilla. An Imperial Commission is then summoned who exhume and destroy the body of the vampire on behalf of the ruling Habsburg Monarchy, within whose domains Styria is situated. Afterwards, Laura's father takes her on a year-long vacation to recover from the trauma and regain her health.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is presented by Le Fanu as part of the casebook of Dr Hesselius, whose departures from medical orthodoxy rank him as the first occult doctor in literature. The story is narrated by Laura, one of the two main protagonists of the tale. Laura begins her tale by relating her childhood in a \"picturesque and solitary\" castle in the midst of an extensive forest in Styria where she lives with her father, a wealthy English widower, retired from the Austrian Service. When she is six years old, Laura has a vision of a beautiful visitor in her bedchamber. She later claims to have been bitten on the chest, although no wounds are found on her. 12 years later, Laura and her father are admiring the sunset in front of the castle when her father tells her of a letter he received earlier from his friend General Spielsdorf. The General was supposed to bring his niece, Bertha Rheinfeldt, to visit the two, but the niece suddenly died under mysterious circumstances. The General ambiguously concludes that he will discuss the circumstances in detail when they meet later. Laura is saddened by the loss of a potential friend, and longs for a companion. A carriage accident outside Laura's home unexpectedly brings a girl of Laura's age into the family's care. Her name is Carmilla. Both girls instantly recognize the other from the 'dream' they both had when they were young. Carmilla appears injured after her carriage accident, but her mysterious mother informs Laura's father that her journey is urgent and cannot be delayed. She arranges to leave her daughter with Laura and her father until she can return in three months. Before she leaves she sternly notes that her daughter will not disclose any information whatsoever about her family, past, or herself and that Carmilla is of sound mind. Laura comments that this information seems needless to say, and her father laughs it off. Carmilla and Laura grow to be very close friends, but occasionally"
      },
      {
        "text": " her mysterious mother informs Laura's father that her journey is urgent and cannot be delayed. She arranges to leave her daughter with Laura and her father until she can return in three months. Before she leaves she sternly notes that her daughter will not disclose any information whatsoever about her family, past, or herself and that Carmilla is of sound mind. Laura comments that this information seems needless to say, and her father laughs it off. Carmilla and Laura grow to be very close friends, but occasionally Carmilla's mood abruptly changes. She sometimes makes unsettling romantic advances towards Laura. Carmilla refuses to tell anything about herself or her background, despite questioning from Laura. Her secrecy isn't the only mysterious thing about her. Carmilla sleeps much of the day, and seems to sleepwalk at night. When a funeral procession passes by the two girls and Laura begins singing a hymn, Carmilla bursts out in rage and scolds Laura for singing a Christian song. When a shipment of family heirloom restored portraits arrives at the castle, Laura finds one of her ancestors, \"Mircalla, Countess Karnstein\", dated 1698. The portrait resembles Carmilla exactly, down to the mole on her neck. During Carmilla's stay, Laura has nightmares of a fiendish cat-like beast entering her room at night and biting her on the chest. The beast then takes the form of a female figure and disappears through the door without opening it. Laura's health declines and her father has a doctor examine her. He speaks privately with her father and only asks that Laura never be left unattended. Her father then sets out with Laura in a carriage for the ruined village of Karnstein. They leave a message behind asking Carmilla and one of the governesses entreated to follow after once the perpetually late-sleeping Carmilla wakes up. En route to Karnstein, Laura and her father encounter General Spielsdorf. He tells them his own ghastly story. Sp"
      },
      {
        "text": " a doctor examine her. He speaks privately with her father and only asks that Laura never be left unattended. Her father then sets out with Laura in a carriage for the ruined village of Karnstein. They leave a message behind asking Carmilla and one of the governesses entreated to follow after once the perpetually late-sleeping Carmilla wakes up. En route to Karnstein, Laura and her father encounter General Spielsdorf. He tells them his own ghastly story. Spielsdorf and his niece had met a young woman named Millarca and her enigmatic mother at a costume ball. The General's niece was immediately taken with Millarca. The mother convinced the General that she was an old friend of his and asked that Millarca be allowed to stay with them for three weeks while she attended to a secret matter of great importance. The General's niece fell mysteriously ill and suffered exactly the same symptoms as Laura. After consulting with a priestly doctor who he had specially ordered, the General came to the realization that his niece was being visited by a vampire. He hid in a closet with a sword and waited until seeing a fiendish cat-like creature stalk around his niece's bedroom and bite her on the neck. He then leapt from his hiding place and attacked the beast, which took the form of Millarca. She fled through the locked door, unharmed. The General's niece died immediately afterward. When they arrive at Karnstein the General asks a nearby woodsman where he can find the tomb of Mircalla Karnstein. The woodsman relates that the tomb was relocated long ago, by the hero who vanquished the vampires that haunted the region. While the General and Laura are left alone in the ruined chapel, Carmilla appears. The General and Carmilla both fly into a rage upon seeing each other and the General attacks her with an axe. Carmilla flees and the General explains to Laura that Carmilla is also Millarc"
      },
      {
        "text": " General asks a nearby woodsman where he can find the tomb of Mircalla Karnstein. The woodsman relates that the tomb was relocated long ago, by the hero who vanquished the vampires that haunted the region. While the General and Laura are left alone in the ruined chapel, Carmilla appears. The General and Carmilla both fly into a rage upon seeing each other and the General attacks her with an axe. Carmilla flees and the General explains to Laura that Carmilla is also Millarca, both anagrams for the original name of the vampire Countess Mircalla Karnstein. The party is then joined by Baron Vordenburg, the descendant of the hero who rid the area of vampires long ago. Vordenburg is an authority on vampires and has discovered that his ancestor was romantically involved with the Countess Karnstein, before she died and became one of the undead. Using his forefather's notes he locates the hidden tomb of Carmilla. An Imperial Commission is then summoned who exhume and destroy the body of the vampire on behalf of the ruling Habsburg Monarchy, within whose domains Styria is situated. Afterwards, Laura's father takes her on a year-long vacation to recover from the trauma and regain her health.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Cider House Rules",
    "author": "John Irving",
    "published_date": "1985",
    "synopsis": " Homer Wells grows up in an orphanage where he spends his childhood \"being of use\" as a medical assistant to the director, Dr. Wilbur Larch, whose history is told in flashbacks: After a traumatic misadventure with a prostitute as a young man, Wilbur turns his back on sex and love, choosing instead to help women with unwanted pregnancies give birth and then keeping the babies in an orphanage. He makes a point of maintaining an emotional distance from the orphans, so that they can more easily make the transition into an adoptive family, but when it becomes clear that Homer is going to spend his entire childhood at the orphanage, Wilbur trains the orphan as an obstetrician and then comes to love him. Wilbur's and Homer's lives are complicated by Wilbur also secretly being an abortionist. Wilbur came to this work reluctantly, but he is driven by having seen the horrors of back-alley operations. Homer, upon learning Wilbur's secret, considers it morally wrong. As a young man, Homer befriends a young couple, Candy Kendall and Wally Worthington, who come to St. Cloud's for an abortion. Homer leaves the orphanage, and returns with them to Ocean View Orchards (Wally's family's orchard) in Heart's Rock, near the Maine Coast. Wally and Homer become best friends and Homer develops a secret love for Candy. Wally goes off to war and his plane is shot down over Burma. He is presumed missing by the military, but Homer and Candy both believe he is dead and move on with their lives. They have sexual relations, and Candy becomes pregnant. They go back to St. Cloud's Orphanage, where their child is born and named Angel. Subsequently, Wally is found in Burma and returns home, paralyzed from the waist down. He is still able to have sexual intercourse but is sterile due to an infection received in Burma. They lie to the family about Angel's parentage, claiming that Homer decided to adopt him. Wally and Candy marry shortly afterward, but Candy and Homer maintain a secret affair that lasts some 15 years. Many years later, teenaged Angel falls in love with Rose Rose, the daughter of the head migrant worker at the apple orchard. She becomes pregnant by her father, and Homer performs an abortion on her. Homer decides to return to the orphanage after the death of Dr. Larch, to work as the new director. Though he maintains his distaste for abortions, he continues Dr. Larch's legacy of honoring the choice of his patients, and he dreams of the day when abortions are free, legal, and safe, so he'll no longer feel obliged to offer them. A subplot follows the character Melony, who grew up alongside Homer in the orphanage. She was Homer's first girlfriend in a relationship of circumstances. After Homer leaves the orphanage, so does she in an effort to find him. She eventually becomes an electrician and takes a female lover, Lorna. Melony is an extremely stoic woman, who refuses to press charges against a man who brutally broke her nose and arm so that she can later retaliate herself. She is the catalyst that transforms Homer from his comfortable but not entirely admirable position at the apple orchard to becoming Dr. Larch's replacement at the orphanage.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Homer Wells grows up in an orphanage where he spends his childhood \"being of use\" as a medical assistant to the director, Dr. Wilbur Larch, whose history is told in flashbacks: After a traumatic misadventure with a prostitute as a young man, Wilbur turns his back on sex and love, choosing instead to help women with unwanted pregnancies give birth and then keeping the babies in an orphanage. He makes a point of maintaining an emotional distance from the orphans, so that they can more easily make the transition into an adoptive family, but when it becomes clear that Homer is going to spend his entire childhood at the orphanage, Wilbur trains the orphan as an obstetrician and then comes to love him. Wilbur's and Homer's lives are complicated by Wilbur also secretly being an abortionist. Wilbur came to this work reluctantly, but he is driven by having seen the horrors of back-alley operations. Homer, upon learning Wilbur's secret, considers it morally wrong. As a young man, Homer befriends a young couple, Candy Kendall and Wally Worthington, who come to St. Cloud's for an abortion. Homer leaves the orphanage, and returns with them to Ocean View Orchards (Wally's family's orchard) in Heart's Rock, near the Maine Coast. Wally and Homer become best friends and Homer develops a secret love for Candy. Wally goes off to war and his plane is shot down over Burma. He is presumed missing by the military, but Homer and Candy both believe he is dead and move on with their lives. They have sexual relations, and Candy becomes pregnant. They go back to St. Cloud's Orphanage, where their child is born and named Angel. Subsequently, Wally is found in Burma and returns home, paralyzed from the waist down. He is still able to have sexual intercourse but is sterile due to an infection received in Burma. They lie to the family about Angel's parent"
      },
      {
        "text": " is presumed missing by the military, but Homer and Candy both believe he is dead and move on with their lives. They have sexual relations, and Candy becomes pregnant. They go back to St. Cloud's Orphanage, where their child is born and named Angel. Subsequently, Wally is found in Burma and returns home, paralyzed from the waist down. He is still able to have sexual intercourse but is sterile due to an infection received in Burma. They lie to the family about Angel's parentage, claiming that Homer decided to adopt him. Wally and Candy marry shortly afterward, but Candy and Homer maintain a secret affair that lasts some 15 years. Many years later, teenaged Angel falls in love with Rose Rose, the daughter of the head migrant worker at the apple orchard. She becomes pregnant by her father, and Homer performs an abortion on her. Homer decides to return to the orphanage after the death of Dr. Larch, to work as the new director. Though he maintains his distaste for abortions, he continues Dr. Larch's legacy of honoring the choice of his patients, and he dreams of the day when abortions are free, legal, and safe, so he'll no longer feel obliged to offer them. A subplot follows the character Melony, who grew up alongside Homer in the orphanage. She was Homer's first girlfriend in a relationship of circumstances. After Homer leaves the orphanage, so does she in an effort to find him. She eventually becomes an electrician and takes a female lover, Lorna. Melony is an extremely stoic woman, who refuses to press charges against a man who brutally broke her nose and arm so that she can later retaliate herself. She is the catalyst that transforms Homer from his comfortable but not entirely admirable position at the apple orchard to becoming Dr. Larch's replacement at the orphanage.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " an electrician and takes a female lover, Lorna. Melony is an extremely stoic woman, who refuses to press charges against a man who brutally broke her nose and arm so that she can later retaliate herself. She is the catalyst that transforms Homer from his comfortable but not entirely admirable position at the apple orchard to becoming Dr. Larch's replacement at the orphanage.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dracula",
    "author": "Bram Stoker",
    "published_date": "1897",
    "synopsis": " The novel is told in epistolary format, as a series of letters, diary entries, ships' log entries, and so forth. The main writers of these items are also the novel's protagonists. The story is occasionally supplemented with newspaper clippings that relate events not directly witnessed by the story's characters. The tale begins with Jonathan Harker, a newly qualified English solicitor, journeying by train and carriage from England to Count Dracula's crumbling, remote castle (situated in the Carpathian Mountains on the border of Transylvania, Bukovina and Moldavia). The purpose of his mission is to provide legal support to Dracula for a real estate transaction overseen by Harker's employer, Peter Hawkins, of Exeter in England. At first enticed by Dracula's gracious manner, Harker soon discovers that he has become a prisoner in the castle. He also begins to see disquieting facets of Dracula's nocturnal life. One night while searching for a way out of the castle, and against Dracula's strict admonition not to venture outside his room at night, Harker falls under the spell of three wanton female vampires, \"the Sisters.\" He is saved at the last second by the Count, because he wants to keep Harker alive just long enough to obtain needed legal advice and teachings about England and London (Dracula's planned travel destination was to be among the \"teeming millions\"). Harker barely escapes from the castle with his life. Not long afterward, a Russian ship, the Demeter, having weighed anchor at Varna, runs aground on the shores of Whitby, England, during a fierce tempest. All of the crew are missing and presumed dead, and only one body is found, that of the captain tied to the ship's helm. The captain's log is recovered and tells of strange events that had taken place during the ship's journey. These events led to the gradual disappearance of the entire crew apparently owing to a malevolent presence on board the ill-fated ship. An animal described as a large dog is seen on the ship leaping ashore. The ship's cargo is described as silver sand and boxes of \"mould\", or earth, from Transylvania. Soon Dracula is tracking Harker's devoted fianc\u00e9e, Wilhelmina \"Mina\" Murray, and her friend, Lucy Westenra. Lucy receives three marriage proposals in one day, from Dr. John Seward; Quincey Morris; and the Hon. Arthur Holmwood (later Lord Godalming). Lucy accepts Holmwood's proposal while turning down Seward and Morris, but all remain friends. There is a notable encounter between Dracula and Seward's patient Renfield, an insane man who means to consume insects, spiders, birds, and other creatures — in ascending order of size — in order to absorb their \"life force\". Renfield acts as a motion sensor, detecting Dracula's proximity and supplying clues accordingly. Lucy begins to waste away suspiciously. All of her suitors fret, and Seward calls in his old teacher, Professor Abraham Van Helsing from Amsterdam. Van Helsing immediately determines the cause of Lucy's condition but refuses to disclose it, knowing that Seward's faith in him will be shaken if he starts to speak of vampires. Van Helsing tries multiple blood transfusions, but they are clearly losing ground. On a night when Van Helsing must return to Amsterdam (and his message to Seward asking him to watch the Westenra household is delayed), Lucy and her mother are attacked by a wolf. Mrs. Westenra, who has a heart condition, dies of fright, and Lucy apparently dies soon after. Lucy is buried, but soon afterward the newspapers report children being stalked in the night by a \"bloofer lady\" (as they describe it), i.e. \"beautiful lady\". Van Helsing, knowing that this means Lucy has become a vampire, confides in Seward, Lord Godalming and Morris. The suitors and Van Helsing track her down, and after a disturbing confrontation between her vampiric self and Arthur, they stake her heart, behead her, and fill her mouth with garlic. Around the same time, Jonathan Harker arrives home from recuperation in Budapest (where Mina joined and married him after his escape from the castle); he and Mina also join the coalition, who turn their attentions to dealing with Dracula. After Dracula learns of Van Helsing's and the others' plot against him, he takes revenge by visiting \u2013 and feeding from \u2013 Mina at least three times. Dracula also feeds Mina his blood, creating a spiritual bond between them to control her. The only way to forestall this is to kill Dracula first. Mina slowly succumbs to the blood of the vampire that flows through her veins, switching back and forth from a state of consciousness to a state of semi-trance during which she is telepathically connected with Dracula. This telepathic connection is established to be two-way, in that the Count can influence Mina, but in doing so betrays to her awareness of his surroundings. After the group sterilizes all of his lairs in London by putting pieces of consecrated host in each box of earth, Dracula flees back to his castle in Transylvania, transported in a box with transfer and portage instructions forwarded, pursued by Van Helsing's group, who themselves are aided by Van Helsing hypnotizing Mina and questioning her about the Count. The group splits in three directions. Van Helsing goes to the Count's castle and kills his trio of brides, and shortly afterwards all converge on the Count just at sundown under the shadow of the castle. Harker and Quincey rush to Dracula's box, which is being transported by Gypsies. Harker shears Dracula through the throat with a Kukri while the mortally wounded Quincey, slashed by one of the crew, stabs the Count in the heart with a Bowie knife. Dracula crumbles to dust, and Mina is freed from his curse. The book closes with a note about Mina's and Jonathan's married life and the birth of their first-born son, whom they name after all four members of the party, but refer to only as Quincey in remembrance of their American friend.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is told in epistolary format, as a series of letters, diary entries, ships' log entries, and so forth. The main writers of these items are also the novel's protagonists. The story is occasionally supplemented with newspaper clippings that relate events not directly witnessed by the story's characters. The tale begins with Jonathan Harker, a newly qualified English solicitor, journeying by train and carriage from England to Count Dracula's crumbling, remote castle (situated in the Carpathian Mountains on the border of Transylvania, Bukovina and Moldavia). The purpose of his mission is to provide legal support to Dracula for a real estate transaction overseen by Harker's employer, Peter Hawkins, of Exeter in England. At first enticed by Dracula's gracious manner, Harker soon discovers that he has become a prisoner in the castle. He also begins to see disquieting facets of Dracula's nocturnal life. One night while searching for a way out of the castle, and against Dracula's strict admonition not to venture outside his room at night, Harker falls under the spell of three wanton female vampires, \"the Sisters.\" He is saved at the last second by the Count, because he wants to keep Harker alive just long enough to obtain needed legal advice and teachings about England and London (Dracula's planned travel destination was to be among the \"teeming millions\"). Harker barely escapes from the castle with his life. Not long afterward, a Russian ship, the Demeter, having weighed anchor at Varna, runs aground on the shores of Whitby, England, during a fierce tempest. All of the crew are missing and presumed dead, and only one body is found, that of the captain tied to the ship's helm. The captain's log is recovered and tells of strange events that had taken place during the ship's journey. These events led to the gradual disappearance of"
      },
      {
        "text": " the castle with his life. Not long afterward, a Russian ship, the Demeter, having weighed anchor at Varna, runs aground on the shores of Whitby, England, during a fierce tempest. All of the crew are missing and presumed dead, and only one body is found, that of the captain tied to the ship's helm. The captain's log is recovered and tells of strange events that had taken place during the ship's journey. These events led to the gradual disappearance of the entire crew apparently owing to a malevolent presence on board the ill-fated ship. An animal described as a large dog is seen on the ship leaping ashore. The ship's cargo is described as silver sand and boxes of \"mould\", or earth, from Transylvania. Soon Dracula is tracking Harker's devoted fianc\u00e9e, Wilhelmina \"Mina\" Murray, and her friend, Lucy Westenra. Lucy receives three marriage proposals in one day, from Dr. John Seward; Quincey Morris; and the Hon. Arthur Holmwood (later Lord Godalming). Lucy accepts Holmwood's proposal while turning down Seward and Morris, but all remain friends. There is a notable encounter between Dracula and Seward's patient Renfield, an insane man who means to consume insects, spiders, birds, and other creatures — in ascending order of size — in order to absorb their \"life force\". Renfield acts as a motion sensor, detecting Dracula's proximity and supplying clues accordingly. Lucy begins to waste away suspiciously. All of her suitors fret, and Seward calls in his old teacher, Professor Abraham Van Helsing from Amsterdam. Van Helsing immediately determines the cause of Lucy's condition but refuses to disclose it, knowing that Seward's faith in him will be shaken if he starts to speak of vampires. Van Helsing tries multiple blood transfusions, but they are clearly losing ground"
      },
      {
        "text": " Renfield acts as a motion sensor, detecting Dracula's proximity and supplying clues accordingly. Lucy begins to waste away suspiciously. All of her suitors fret, and Seward calls in his old teacher, Professor Abraham Van Helsing from Amsterdam. Van Helsing immediately determines the cause of Lucy's condition but refuses to disclose it, knowing that Seward's faith in him will be shaken if he starts to speak of vampires. Van Helsing tries multiple blood transfusions, but they are clearly losing ground. On a night when Van Helsing must return to Amsterdam (and his message to Seward asking him to watch the Westenra household is delayed), Lucy and her mother are attacked by a wolf. Mrs. Westenra, who has a heart condition, dies of fright, and Lucy apparently dies soon after. Lucy is buried, but soon afterward the newspapers report children being stalked in the night by a \"bloofer lady\" (as they describe it), i.e. \"beautiful lady\". Van Helsing, knowing that this means Lucy has become a vampire, confides in Seward, Lord Godalming and Morris. The suitors and Van Helsing track her down, and after a disturbing confrontation between her vampiric self and Arthur, they stake her heart, behead her, and fill her mouth with garlic. Around the same time, Jonathan Harker arrives home from recuperation in Budapest (where Mina joined and married him after his escape from the castle); he and Mina also join the coalition, who turn their attentions to dealing with Dracula. After Dracula learns of Van Helsing's and the others' plot against him, he takes revenge by visiting \u2013 and feeding from \u2013 Mina at least three times. Dracula also feeds Mina his blood, creating a spiritual bond between them to control her. The only way to forestall this is to kill Dracula first. Mina slowly succumbs to the blood of the vampire that"
      },
      {
        "text": " escape from the castle); he and Mina also join the coalition, who turn their attentions to dealing with Dracula. After Dracula learns of Van Helsing's and the others' plot against him, he takes revenge by visiting \u2013 and feeding from \u2013 Mina at least three times. Dracula also feeds Mina his blood, creating a spiritual bond between them to control her. The only way to forestall this is to kill Dracula first. Mina slowly succumbs to the blood of the vampire that flows through her veins, switching back and forth from a state of consciousness to a state of semi-trance during which she is telepathically connected with Dracula. This telepathic connection is established to be two-way, in that the Count can influence Mina, but in doing so betrays to her awareness of his surroundings. After the group sterilizes all of his lairs in London by putting pieces of consecrated host in each box of earth, Dracula flees back to his castle in Transylvania, transported in a box with transfer and portage instructions forwarded, pursued by Van Helsing's group, who themselves are aided by Van Helsing hypnotizing Mina and questioning her about the Count. The group splits in three directions. Van Helsing goes to the Count's castle and kills his trio of brides, and shortly afterwards all converge on the Count just at sundown under the shadow of the castle. Harker and Quincey rush to Dracula's box, which is being transported by Gypsies. Harker shears Dracula through the throat with a Kukri while the mortally wounded Quincey, slashed by one of the crew, stabs the Count in the heart with a Bowie knife. Dracula crumbles to dust, and Mina is freed from his curse. The book closes with a note about Mina's and Jonathan's married life and the birth of their first-born son, whom they name after all four members of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " which is being transported by Gypsies. Harker shears Dracula through the throat with a Kukri while the mortally wounded Quincey, slashed by one of the crew, stabs the Count in the heart with a Bowie knife. Dracula crumbles to dust, and Mina is freed from his curse. The book closes with a note about Mina's and Jonathan's married life and the birth of their first-born son, whom they name after all four members of the party, but refer to only as Quincey in remembrance of their American friend.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Don Quixote",
    "author": "Miguel de Cervantes",
    "published_date": "1605",
    "synopsis": " The First Sally Alonso Quijano, the protagonist of the novel, is a retired country gentleman nearing fifty years of age, living in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and housekeeper. While mostly a rational man of sound reason, his reading of books of chivalry in excess has had a profound effect on him, leading to the distortion of his perception and the wavering of his mental faculties. In essence, he believes every word of these books of chivalry to be true though, for the most part, the content of these books is clearly fiction. Otherwise, his wits, in regards to everything other than chivalry, are intact. He decides to go out as a knight-errant in search of adventure. He dons an old suit of armour, renames himself \"Don Quixote de la Mancha,\" and names his skinny horse \"Rocinante\". He designates a neighboring farm girl as his lady love, renaming her Dulcinea del Toboso, while she knows nothing about this. He sets out in the early morning and ends up at an inn, which he believes to be a castle. He asks the innkeeper, whom he thinks to be the lord of the castle, to dub him a knight. He spends the night holding vigil over his armor, where he becomes involved in a fight with muleteers who try to remove his armor from the horse trough so that they can water their mules. The innkeeper then dubs him a knight to be rid of him, and sends him on his way. Don Quixote next \"frees\" a young boy who is tied to a tree and beaten by his master by making his master swear on the chivalric code to treat the boy fairly. The boy's beating is continued as soon as Quixote leaves. Don Quixote has a run-in with traders from Toledo, who \"insult\" the imaginary Dulcinea, one of whom severely beats Don Quixote and leaves him on the side of the road. Don Quixote is found and returned to his home by a neighboring peasant. The Second Sally While Don Quixote is unconscious in his bed, his niece, the housekeeper, the parish curate, and the local barber secretly burn most of the books of chivalry, and seal up his library pretending that a magician has carried it off. After a short period of feigning health, Don Quixote approaches his neighbor, Sancho Panza, and asks him to be his squire, promising him governorship of an island. The uneducated Sancho agrees, and the pair sneak off in the early dawn. It is here that their series of famous adventures begin, starting with Don Quixote's attack on windmills that he believes to be ferocious giants. The two next encounter a group of friars accompanying a lady in a carriage. They are heavily cloaked, as is the lady, to protect themselves from the hot climate and dust on the road. Don Quixote takes the friars to be enchanters who hold the lady captive. He knocks a friar from his horse, and is immediately challenged by an armed Basque traveling with the company. As he has no shield, the Basque uses a pillow to protect himself, which saves him when Don Quixote strikes him. The combat ends with the lady leaving her carriage and demanding those traveling with her to \"surrender\" to Don Quixote. The Pastoral Wanderings Sancho and Don Quixote go on, and fall in with a group of goatherds. Don Quixote tells Sancho and the goatherds about the \"Golden Age\" of man, reminiscent of both Ovid and the later Rousseau in which property does not exist, and men live in peace. The goatherds invite the Knight and Sancho to the funeral of Gris\u00f3stomo, once a student who left his studies to become a shepherd after reading Pastoral novels, seeking the shepherdess Marcela. At the funeral Marcela appears, delivering a long speech vindicating herself from the bitter verses written about her by Gris\u00f3stomo, claiming her own autonomy and freedom from expectations put on her by Pastoral clich\u00e9s. She disappears into the woods, and Don Quixote and Sancho follow. Ultimately giving up, the two stop and dismount by a pond to rest. Some Galicians arrive to water their ponies, and Rocinante (Don Quixote's horse) attempts to mate with the ponies. The Galicians hit Rocinante with clubs to dissuade him, which Don Quixote takes as a threat and runs to defend Rocinante. The Galicians beat Don Quixote and Sancho leaving them in great pain. The Adventures with Cardenio and Dorotea After Don Quixote frees a group of galley slaves, The Knight and Sancho wander into the Sierra Morena, and there encounter the dejected Cardenio. Cardenio relates the first part of his story, in which he falls deeply in love with his childhood friend Luscinda, and is hired as the companion to the Duke's son, leading to his friendship with the Duke's younger son, Don Fernando. Cardenio confides in Don Fernando his love for Luscinda and the delays in their engagement, caused by Cardenio's desire to keep with tradition. After reading Cardenio's poems praising Luscinda, Don Fernando falls in love with her. Don Quixote interrupts when Cardenio suggests that his beloved may have become unfaithful after the formulaic stories of spurned lovers in Chivalric novels. In the course of their travels, the protagonists meet innkeepers, prostitutes, goatherds, soldiers, priests, escaped convicts, and scorned lovers. These encounters are magnified by Don Quixote\u2019s imagination into chivalrous quests. Don Quixote\u2019s tendency to intervene violently in matters which do not concern him, and his habit of not paying his debts, result in many privations, injuries, and humiliations (with Sancho often getting the worst of it). Finally, Don Quixote is persuaded to return to his home village. The author hints that there was a third quest, but says that records of it have been lost. The Third Sally Although the two parts are now normally published as a single work, Don Quixote, Part Two was a sequel published ten years after the original novel. While Part One was mostly farcical, the second half is more serious and philosophical about the theme of deception. As Part Two begins, it is assumed that the literate classes of Spain have all read the first part of the history of Don Quixote and his squire. Cervantes's meta-fictional device was to make even the characters in the story familiar with the publication of Part One, as well as with an actually published fraudulent Part Two. When strangers encounter the duo in person, they already know their famous history. A Duke and Duchess, and others, deceive Don Quixote for entertainment, setting forth a string of imagined adventures resulting in a series of practical jokes. Some of them are quite sadistic, and they put Don Quixote's sense of chivalry and his devotion to Dulcinea through many tests. Even Sancho deceives him at one point. Pressured into finding Dulcinea, Sancho brings back three dirty and ragged peasant girls, and tells Don Quixote that they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting. When Don Quixote only sees the peasant girls, Sancho pretends that their derelict appearance results from an enchantment. Sancho later gets his comeuppance for this when, as part of one of the duke and duchess's pranks, the two are led to believe that the only method to release Dulcinea from her spell is for Sancho to give himself a surplus of three thousand lashes. Sancho naturally resists this course of action, leading to friction with his master. Under the duke's patronage, Sancho eventually gets a governorship, though it is false, and proves to be a wise and practical ruler; though this ends in humiliation as well. Near the end, Don Quixote reluctantly sways towards sanity: an inn is just an inn, not a castle. The lengthy untold \"history\" of Don Quixote's adventures in knight-errantry comes to a close after his battle with the Knight of the White Moon, in which we the readers find him conquered. Bound by the rules of chivalry, Don Quixote submits to prearranged terms that the vanquished is to obey the will of the conqueror, which in this case, is that Don Quixote is to lay down his arms and cease his acts of chivalry for the period of one year (a duration in which he may be cured of his madness). Defeated and dejected, he and Sancho start their journey home. Part Two of Don Quixote is often regarded as the birth of modern literature, as it explores the concept of a character understanding that he is being written about. This is a theme much explored in writings of the 20th Century. Upon returning to his village, Don Quixote announces his plan to retire to the countryside and live the pastoral existence of shepherd, although his housekeeper, who has a more realistic view of the hard life of a shepherd, urges him to stay home and tend to his own affairs. Soon after, he retires to his bed with a deathly illness, possibly brought on by melancholy over his defeats and humiliations. One day, he awakes from a dream having fully recovered his sanity. Sancho tries to restore his faith, but Alonso Quixano, for that is his true name, can only renounce his previous existence and apologize for the harm he has caused. He dictates his will, which includes a provision that his niece will be disinherited if she marries a man who reads books of chivalry. After Alonso Quixano dies, the author emphasizes that there are no more adventures to relate, and that any further books about Don Quixote would be spurious.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The First Sally Alonso Quijano, the protagonist of the novel, is a retired country gentleman nearing fifty years of age, living in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and housekeeper. While mostly a rational man of sound reason, his reading of books of chivalry in excess has had a profound effect on him, leading to the distortion of his perception and the wavering of his mental faculties. In essence, he believes every word of these books of chivalry to be true though, for the most part, the content of these books is clearly fiction. Otherwise, his wits, in regards to everything other than chivalry, are intact. He decides to go out as a knight-errant in search of adventure. He dons an old suit of armour, renames himself \"Don Quixote de la Mancha,\" and names his skinny horse \"Rocinante\". He designates a neighboring farm girl as his lady love, renaming her Dulcinea del Toboso, while she knows nothing about this. He sets out in the early morning and ends up at an inn, which he believes to be a castle. He asks the innkeeper, whom he thinks to be the lord of the castle, to dub him a knight. He spends the night holding vigil over his armor, where he becomes involved in a fight with muleteers who try to remove his armor from the horse trough so that they can water their mules. The innkeeper then dubs him a knight to be rid of him, and sends him on his way. Don Quixote next \"frees\" a young boy who is tied to a tree and beaten by his master by making his master swear on the chivalric code to treat the boy fairly. The boy's beating is continued as soon as Quixote leaves. Don Quixote has a run-in with traders from Toledo, who \"insult\" the imaginary Dulcinea, one"
      },
      {
        "text": "keeper then dubs him a knight to be rid of him, and sends him on his way. Don Quixote next \"frees\" a young boy who is tied to a tree and beaten by his master by making his master swear on the chivalric code to treat the boy fairly. The boy's beating is continued as soon as Quixote leaves. Don Quixote has a run-in with traders from Toledo, who \"insult\" the imaginary Dulcinea, one of whom severely beats Don Quixote and leaves him on the side of the road. Don Quixote is found and returned to his home by a neighboring peasant. The Second Sally While Don Quixote is unconscious in his bed, his niece, the housekeeper, the parish curate, and the local barber secretly burn most of the books of chivalry, and seal up his library pretending that a magician has carried it off. After a short period of feigning health, Don Quixote approaches his neighbor, Sancho Panza, and asks him to be his squire, promising him governorship of an island. The uneducated Sancho agrees, and the pair sneak off in the early dawn. It is here that their series of famous adventures begin, starting with Don Quixote's attack on windmills that he believes to be ferocious giants. The two next encounter a group of friars accompanying a lady in a carriage. They are heavily cloaked, as is the lady, to protect themselves from the hot climate and dust on the road. Don Quixote takes the friars to be enchanters who hold the lady captive. He knocks a friar from his horse, and is immediately challenged by an armed Basque traveling with the company. As he has no shield, the Basque uses a pillow to protect himself, which saves him when Don Quixote strikes him. The combat ends with the lady leaving her carriage and demanding those traveling with her to"
      },
      {
        "text": " lady, to protect themselves from the hot climate and dust on the road. Don Quixote takes the friars to be enchanters who hold the lady captive. He knocks a friar from his horse, and is immediately challenged by an armed Basque traveling with the company. As he has no shield, the Basque uses a pillow to protect himself, which saves him when Don Quixote strikes him. The combat ends with the lady leaving her carriage and demanding those traveling with her to \"surrender\" to Don Quixote. The Pastoral Wanderings Sancho and Don Quixote go on, and fall in with a group of goatherds. Don Quixote tells Sancho and the goatherds about the \"Golden Age\" of man, reminiscent of both Ovid and the later Rousseau in which property does not exist, and men live in peace. The goatherds invite the Knight and Sancho to the funeral of Gris\u00f3stomo, once a student who left his studies to become a shepherd after reading Pastoral novels, seeking the shepherdess Marcela. At the funeral Marcela appears, delivering a long speech vindicating herself from the bitter verses written about her by Gris\u00f3stomo, claiming her own autonomy and freedom from expectations put on her by Pastoral clich\u00e9s. She disappears into the woods, and Don Quixote and Sancho follow. Ultimately giving up, the two stop and dismount by a pond to rest. Some Galicians arrive to water their ponies, and Rocinante (Don Quixote's horse) attempts to mate with the ponies. The Galicians hit Rocinante with clubs to dissuade him, which Don Quixote takes as a threat and runs to defend Rocinante. The Galicians beat Don Quixote and Sancho leaving them in great pain. The Adventures with Cardenio and Dorotea After Don Quixote frees a group of gal"
      },
      {
        "text": " to rest. Some Galicians arrive to water their ponies, and Rocinante (Don Quixote's horse) attempts to mate with the ponies. The Galicians hit Rocinante with clubs to dissuade him, which Don Quixote takes as a threat and runs to defend Rocinante. The Galicians beat Don Quixote and Sancho leaving them in great pain. The Adventures with Cardenio and Dorotea After Don Quixote frees a group of galley slaves, The Knight and Sancho wander into the Sierra Morena, and there encounter the dejected Cardenio. Cardenio relates the first part of his story, in which he falls deeply in love with his childhood friend Luscinda, and is hired as the companion to the Duke's son, leading to his friendship with the Duke's younger son, Don Fernando. Cardenio confides in Don Fernando his love for Luscinda and the delays in their engagement, caused by Cardenio's desire to keep with tradition. After reading Cardenio's poems praising Luscinda, Don Fernando falls in love with her. Don Quixote interrupts when Cardenio suggests that his beloved may have become unfaithful after the formulaic stories of spurned lovers in Chivalric novels. In the course of their travels, the protagonists meet innkeepers, prostitutes, goatherds, soldiers, priests, escaped convicts, and scorned lovers. These encounters are magnified by Don Quixote\u2019s imagination into chivalrous quests. Don Quixote\u2019s tendency to intervene violently in matters which do not concern him, and his habit of not paying his debts, result in many privations, injuries, and humiliations (with Sancho often getting the worst of it). Finally, Don Quixote is persuaded to return to his home village. The author hints that there was a third quest, but says that records of it have been lost"
      },
      {
        "text": "ified by Don Quixote\u2019s imagination into chivalrous quests. Don Quixote\u2019s tendency to intervene violently in matters which do not concern him, and his habit of not paying his debts, result in many privations, injuries, and humiliations (with Sancho often getting the worst of it). Finally, Don Quixote is persuaded to return to his home village. The author hints that there was a third quest, but says that records of it have been lost. The Third Sally Although the two parts are now normally published as a single work, Don Quixote, Part Two was a sequel published ten years after the original novel. While Part One was mostly farcical, the second half is more serious and philosophical about the theme of deception. As Part Two begins, it is assumed that the literate classes of Spain have all read the first part of the history of Don Quixote and his squire. Cervantes's meta-fictional device was to make even the characters in the story familiar with the publication of Part One, as well as with an actually published fraudulent Part Two. When strangers encounter the duo in person, they already know their famous history. A Duke and Duchess, and others, deceive Don Quixote for entertainment, setting forth a string of imagined adventures resulting in a series of practical jokes. Some of them are quite sadistic, and they put Don Quixote's sense of chivalry and his devotion to Dulcinea through many tests. Even Sancho deceives him at one point. Pressured into finding Dulcinea, Sancho brings back three dirty and ragged peasant girls, and tells Don Quixote that they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting. When Don Quixote only sees the peasant girls, Sancho pretends that their derelict appearance results from an enchantment. Sancho later gets his comeuppance for this when, as part of one of the"
      },
      {
        "text": "cinea through many tests. Even Sancho deceives him at one point. Pressured into finding Dulcinea, Sancho brings back three dirty and ragged peasant girls, and tells Don Quixote that they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting. When Don Quixote only sees the peasant girls, Sancho pretends that their derelict appearance results from an enchantment. Sancho later gets his comeuppance for this when, as part of one of the duke and duchess's pranks, the two are led to believe that the only method to release Dulcinea from her spell is for Sancho to give himself a surplus of three thousand lashes. Sancho naturally resists this course of action, leading to friction with his master. Under the duke's patronage, Sancho eventually gets a governorship, though it is false, and proves to be a wise and practical ruler; though this ends in humiliation as well. Near the end, Don Quixote reluctantly sways towards sanity: an inn is just an inn, not a castle. The lengthy untold \"history\" of Don Quixote's adventures in knight-errantry comes to a close after his battle with the Knight of the White Moon, in which we the readers find him conquered. Bound by the rules of chivalry, Don Quixote submits to prearranged terms that the vanquished is to obey the will of the conqueror, which in this case, is that Don Quixote is to lay down his arms and cease his acts of chivalry for the period of one year (a duration in which he may be cured of his madness). Defeated and dejected, he and Sancho start their journey home. Part Two of Don Quixote is often regarded as the birth of modern literature, as it explores the concept of a character understanding that he is being written about. This is a theme much explored in writings of the 20th"
      },
      {
        "text": ", is that Don Quixote is to lay down his arms and cease his acts of chivalry for the period of one year (a duration in which he may be cured of his madness). Defeated and dejected, he and Sancho start their journey home. Part Two of Don Quixote is often regarded as the birth of modern literature, as it explores the concept of a character understanding that he is being written about. This is a theme much explored in writings of the 20th Century. Upon returning to his village, Don Quixote announces his plan to retire to the countryside and live the pastoral existence of shepherd, although his housekeeper, who has a more realistic view of the hard life of a shepherd, urges him to stay home and tend to his own affairs. Soon after, he retires to his bed with a deathly illness, possibly brought on by melancholy over his defeats and humiliations. One day, he awakes from a dream having fully recovered his sanity. Sancho tries to restore his faith, but Alonso Quixano, for that is his true name, can only renounce his previous existence and apologize for the harm he has caused. He dictates his will, which includes a provision that his niece will be disinherited if she marries a man who reads books of chivalry. After Alonso Quixano dies, the author emphasizes that there are no more adventures to relate, and that any further books about Don Quixote would be spurious.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " spurious.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Deuteronomy",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " (The following \"literary\" outline of Deuteronomy is from John Van Seters; it can be contrasted with Alexander Rof\u00e9's \"covenantal\" analysis in his Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretation.) *Chapters 1\u20134: The journey through the wilderness from Horeb (Sinai) to Kadesh and then to Moab is recalled. *Chapters 4\u201311: After a second introduction at 4:44\u201349 the events at Mount Horeb (Mt. Sinai) are recalled, with the giving of the Ten Commandments. Heads of families are urged to instruct those under their care in the law, warnings are made against serving gods other than Yahweh, the land promised to Israel is praised, and the people are urged to obedience. *Chapters 12\u201326, the Deuteronomic code: Laws governing Israel's worship (chapters 12\u201316a), the appointment and regulation of community and religious leaders (16b\u201318), social regulation (19\u201325), and confession of identity and loyalty (26). *Chapters 27\u201328: Blessings and curses for those who keep and break the law. *Chapters 29\u201330: Concluding discourse on the covenant in the land of Moab, including all the laws in the Deuteronomic code (chapters 12\u201326) after those given at Horeb; Israel is again exhorted to obedience. *Chapters 31\u201334: Joshua is installed as Moses' successor, Moses delivers the law to the Levites (priests), and ascends Mount Nebo/Pisgah, where he dies and is buried by God. The narrative of these events is interrupted by two poems, the Song of Moses and the Blessing of Moses. The final verses, Deuteronomy 34:10\u201312, \"never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses,\" state authoritatively that the Deuteronomistic view of theology, with its insistence on the worship of Yahweh as the sole God of Israel, was the only permissible religion, sealed by the greatest of prophets.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " (The following \"literary\" outline of Deuteronomy is from John Van Seters; it can be contrasted with Alexander Rof\u00e9's \"covenantal\" analysis in his Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretation.) *Chapters 1\u20134: The journey through the wilderness from Horeb (Sinai) to Kadesh and then to Moab is recalled. *Chapters 4\u201311: After a second introduction at 4:44\u201349 the events at Mount Horeb (Mt. Sinai) are recalled, with the giving of the Ten Commandments. Heads of families are urged to instruct those under their care in the law, warnings are made against serving gods other than Yahweh, the land promised to Israel is praised, and the people are urged to obedience. *Chapters 12\u201326, the Deuteronomic code: Laws governing Israel's worship (chapters 12\u201316a), the appointment and regulation of community and religious leaders (16b\u201318), social regulation (19\u201325), and confession of identity and loyalty (26). *Chapters 27\u201328: Blessings and curses for those who keep and break the law. *Chapters 29\u201330: Concluding discourse on the covenant in the land of Moab, including all the laws in the Deuteronomic code (chapters 12\u201326) after those given at Horeb; Israel is again exhorted to obedience. *Chapters 31\u201334: Joshua is installed as Moses' successor, Moses delivers the law to the Levites (priests), and ascends Mount Nebo/Pisgah, where he dies and is buried by God. The narrative of these events is interrupted by two poems, the Song of Moses and the Blessing of Moses. The final verses, Deuteronomy 34:10\u201312, \"never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses,\" state authoritatively that the Deuteronomistic view of theology"
      },
      {
        "text": " Joshua is installed as Moses' successor, Moses delivers the law to the Levites (priests), and ascends Mount Nebo/Pisgah, where he dies and is buried by God. The narrative of these events is interrupted by two poems, the Song of Moses and the Blessing of Moses. The final verses, Deuteronomy 34:10\u201312, \"never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses,\" state authoritatively that the Deuteronomistic view of theology, with its insistence on the worship of Yahweh as the sole God of Israel, was the only permissible religion, sealed by the greatest of prophets.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dune Messiah",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1969",
    "synopsis": " Twelve years after the events described in Dune (1965), Paul \"Muad'Dib\" Atreides rules as Emperor. By accepting the role of messiah to the Fremen, Paul had unleashed a jihad which conquered most of the known universe. While Paul is the most powerful Emperor ever known, he is powerless to stop the lethal excesses of the religious juggernaut he has created. Although sixty-one billion people have perished, Paul's prescient visions indicate that this is far from the worst possible outcome for humanity. Motivated by this knowledge, Paul hopes to set humanity on a course that will not inevitably lead to stagnation and destruction, while at the same time acting as ruler of the Empire and focal point of the Fremen religion. The Bene Gesserit, Spacing Guild and Tleilaxu enter into a conspiracy to dethrone Paul, the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam enlisting Paul's own consort Princess Irulan, daughter of the deposed Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV. Paul has refused to father a child with Irulan (or even touch her), but his Fremen concubine Chani has also failed to produce an heir, causing tension within his monarchy. Desperate both to secure her place in the Atreides dynasty and to preserve the Atreides bloodline for the Bene Gesserit breeding program, Irulan has secretly been giving contraceptives to Chani. Paul is aware of this fact, but has foreseen that the birth of his heir will bring Chani's death, and does not want to lose her. Because of the way oracles interfere with one another's prescience, the Guild Navigator Edric is able to shield the conspiracy from Paul's visions of the future. The Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale gives Paul a gift he cannot resist: a Tleilaxu-grown ghola of the deceased Duncan Idaho, Paul's childhood teacher and friend, now called \"Hayt\". The conspirators hope the presence of Hayt will undermine Paul's ability to rule by forcing Paul to question himself and the empire he has created. Furthermore, Paul's acceptance of the gift weakens his support among the Fremen, who see the Tleilaxu and their tools as unclean. Chani, taking matters into her own hands, switches to a traditional Fremen fertility diet, preventing Irulan from being able to tamper with her food, and soon becomes pregnant. Otheym, one of Paul's former Fedaykin death commandos, reveals evidence of a Fremen conspiracy against Paul. Otheym gives Paul his dwarf Tleilaxu servant Bijaz who, like a recording machine, can remember faces, names, and details. Paul accepts reluctantly, seeing the strands of a Tleilaxu plot. As Paul's soldiers attack the conspirators, others set off an atomic weapon called a stone burner, purchased from the Tleilaxu, that destroys the area and blinds Paul. By tradition, all blind Fremen are abandoned in the desert, but Paul shocks the Fremen and entrenches his godhead by proving he can still see, even without eyes. His oracular powers have become so developed that he can foresee in his mind everything that happens, as though his eyes still function. By moving through his life in lockstep with his visions, he can see even the slightest details of the world around him. The disadvantage of this is his inability to change any part of his destiny so long as he wishes to appear sighted. The unraveling of the Fremen conspiracy reveals that Korba, a former Fedaykin and now high priest of Paul's church, is among Paul's enemies. Hayt interrogates Bijaz, but the little man\u2014actually an agent of the Tleilaxu\u2014uses a specific humming intonation that renders Hayt open to implanted commands. Bijaz programs Hayt to offer Paul a bargain when Chani dies: Chani's rebirth as a ghola, and the hope that Duncan Idaho's memories might be reawakened, in return for Paul sacrificing the throne and going into exile. Bijaz also implants a compulsion that will force Hayt to attempt to kill Paul, given the appropriate circumstances. Hayt remains oblivious of the programming. Eventually news is brought that Chani has died giving birth. Paul's reaction to it triggers the compulsions in the mind of Hayt, who attempts to kill Paul. But rather than kill his beloved Paul, Duncan's ghola body reacts against its own programming and recovers Duncan's full consciousness. He remains conscious of the Zen-Sunni and Mentat training given to Hayt by the Tleilaxu, but is no longer bound to their programming. Paul and Chani's newborn twins are \"pre-born\", like Paul's sister Alia had been, and come into the world fully conscious with Kwisatz Haderach-like access to ancestral memories thanks to a combination of their genes and an in utero exposure to the quantities of spice in Chani's special pregnancy diet. Scytale offers to revive Chani as a ghola in return for all of Paul's CHOAM holdings. Paul refuses to submit to the possibility that the Tleilaxu might program Chani in some diabolical way, and Scytale threatens the infants with a knife while he negotiates with Alia. Paul has now been rendered completely blind by the presence of his oracular son, yet he is able to kill Scytale with an accurately aimed dagger thanks to a vision from his son's perspective. Now prophetically as well as physically blind, Paul chooses to embrace the Fremen tradition of a blind man walking alone into the desert, winning the fealty of the Fremen for his children, who will inherit his mantle of Emperor. Paul leaves Alia, now romantically involved with Duncan, as regent for the twins, whom he has named Leto and Ghanima. Duncan notes the irony that Paul and Chani's deaths had enabled them to triumph against their enemies, and that Paul has escaped deification by walking into the desert as a man, while guaranteeing Fremen support for the Atreides line.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Twelve years after the events described in Dune (1965), Paul \"Muad'Dib\" Atreides rules as Emperor. By accepting the role of messiah to the Fremen, Paul had unleashed a jihad which conquered most of the known universe. While Paul is the most powerful Emperor ever known, he is powerless to stop the lethal excesses of the religious juggernaut he has created. Although sixty-one billion people have perished, Paul's prescient visions indicate that this is far from the worst possible outcome for humanity. Motivated by this knowledge, Paul hopes to set humanity on a course that will not inevitably lead to stagnation and destruction, while at the same time acting as ruler of the Empire and focal point of the Fremen religion. The Bene Gesserit, Spacing Guild and Tleilaxu enter into a conspiracy to dethrone Paul, the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam enlisting Paul's own consort Princess Irulan, daughter of the deposed Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV. Paul has refused to father a child with Irulan (or even touch her), but his Fremen concubine Chani has also failed to produce an heir, causing tension within his monarchy. Desperate both to secure her place in the Atreides dynasty and to preserve the Atreides bloodline for the Bene Gesserit breeding program, Irulan has secretly been giving contraceptives to Chani. Paul is aware of this fact, but has foreseen that the birth of his heir will bring Chani's death, and does not want to lose her. Because of the way oracles interfere with one another's prescience, the Guild Navigator Edric is able to shield the conspiracy from Paul's visions of the future. The Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale gives Paul a gift he cannot resist: a Tleilaxu-grown ghola"
      },
      {
        "text": " to Chani. Paul is aware of this fact, but has foreseen that the birth of his heir will bring Chani's death, and does not want to lose her. Because of the way oracles interfere with one another's prescience, the Guild Navigator Edric is able to shield the conspiracy from Paul's visions of the future. The Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale gives Paul a gift he cannot resist: a Tleilaxu-grown ghola of the deceased Duncan Idaho, Paul's childhood teacher and friend, now called \"Hayt\". The conspirators hope the presence of Hayt will undermine Paul's ability to rule by forcing Paul to question himself and the empire he has created. Furthermore, Paul's acceptance of the gift weakens his support among the Fremen, who see the Tleilaxu and their tools as unclean. Chani, taking matters into her own hands, switches to a traditional Fremen fertility diet, preventing Irulan from being able to tamper with her food, and soon becomes pregnant. Otheym, one of Paul's former Fedaykin death commandos, reveals evidence of a Fremen conspiracy against Paul. Otheym gives Paul his dwarf Tleilaxu servant Bijaz who, like a recording machine, can remember faces, names, and details. Paul accepts reluctantly, seeing the strands of a Tleilaxu plot. As Paul's soldiers attack the conspirators, others set off an atomic weapon called a stone burner, purchased from the Tleilaxu, that destroys the area and blinds Paul. By tradition, all blind Fremen are abandoned in the desert, but Paul shocks the Fremen and entrenches his godhead by proving he can still see, even without eyes. His oracular powers have become so developed that he can foresee in his mind everything that happens, as though his eyes still function. By moving through his life in lockstep"
      },
      {
        "text": ", others set off an atomic weapon called a stone burner, purchased from the Tleilaxu, that destroys the area and blinds Paul. By tradition, all blind Fremen are abandoned in the desert, but Paul shocks the Fremen and entrenches his godhead by proving he can still see, even without eyes. His oracular powers have become so developed that he can foresee in his mind everything that happens, as though his eyes still function. By moving through his life in lockstep with his visions, he can see even the slightest details of the world around him. The disadvantage of this is his inability to change any part of his destiny so long as he wishes to appear sighted. The unraveling of the Fremen conspiracy reveals that Korba, a former Fedaykin and now high priest of Paul's church, is among Paul's enemies. Hayt interrogates Bijaz, but the little man\u2014actually an agent of the Tleilaxu\u2014uses a specific humming intonation that renders Hayt open to implanted commands. Bijaz programs Hayt to offer Paul a bargain when Chani dies: Chani's rebirth as a ghola, and the hope that Duncan Idaho's memories might be reawakened, in return for Paul sacrificing the throne and going into exile. Bijaz also implants a compulsion that will force Hayt to attempt to kill Paul, given the appropriate circumstances. Hayt remains oblivious of the programming. Eventually news is brought that Chani has died giving birth. Paul's reaction to it triggers the compulsions in the mind of Hayt, who attempts to kill Paul. But rather than kill his beloved Paul, Duncan's ghola body reacts against its own programming and recovers Duncan's full consciousness. He remains conscious of the Zen-Sunni and Mentat training given to Hayt by the Tleilaxu, but is no longer bound to their programming. Paul and Chani's newborn twins are"
      },
      {
        "text": " is brought that Chani has died giving birth. Paul's reaction to it triggers the compulsions in the mind of Hayt, who attempts to kill Paul. But rather than kill his beloved Paul, Duncan's ghola body reacts against its own programming and recovers Duncan's full consciousness. He remains conscious of the Zen-Sunni and Mentat training given to Hayt by the Tleilaxu, but is no longer bound to their programming. Paul and Chani's newborn twins are \"pre-born\", like Paul's sister Alia had been, and come into the world fully conscious with Kwisatz Haderach-like access to ancestral memories thanks to a combination of their genes and an in utero exposure to the quantities of spice in Chani's special pregnancy diet. Scytale offers to revive Chani as a ghola in return for all of Paul's CHOAM holdings. Paul refuses to submit to the possibility that the Tleilaxu might program Chani in some diabolical way, and Scytale threatens the infants with a knife while he negotiates with Alia. Paul has now been rendered completely blind by the presence of his oracular son, yet he is able to kill Scytale with an accurately aimed dagger thanks to a vision from his son's perspective. Now prophetically as well as physically blind, Paul chooses to embrace the Fremen tradition of a blind man walking alone into the desert, winning the fealty of the Fremen for his children, who will inherit his mantle of Emperor. Paul leaves Alia, now romantically involved with Duncan, as regent for the twins, whom he has named Leto and Ghanima. Duncan notes the irony that Paul and Chani's deaths had enabled them to triumph against their enemies, and that Paul has escaped deification by walking into the desert as a man, while guaranteeing Fremen support for the Atreides line.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " his children, who will inherit his mantle of Emperor. Paul leaves Alia, now romantically involved with Duncan, as regent for the twins, whom he has named Leto and Ghanima. Duncan notes the irony that Paul and Chani's deaths had enabled them to triumph against their enemies, and that Paul has escaped deification by walking into the desert as a man, while guaranteeing Fremen support for the Atreides line.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Darwin's Dangerous Idea",
    "author": "Daniel Dennett",
    "published_date": "1995",
    "synopsis": " \"Starting in the Middle\", Part I of Darwin's Dangerous Idea, gets its name from a quote by Willard Van Orman Quine: \"Analyze theory-building how we will, we all must start in the middle. Our conceptual firsts are middle-sized, middle-distance objects, and our introduction to them and to everything comes midway in the cultural evolution of the race.\" The first chapter \"Tell Me Why\" is named after a song. Before Charles Darwin, God was seen as the ultimate cause of all design, or the ultimate answer to 'why?' questions. John Locke argued for the primacy of mind before matter, and David Hume, while exposing problems with Locke's view, could not see any alternative. Darwin provided just such an alternative: evolution. Besides providing evidence of common descent, he introduced a mechanism to explain it: natural selection. According to Dennett, natural selection is a mindless, mechanical and algorithmic process—Darwin's dangerous idea. The third chapter introduces the concept of \"skyhooks\" and \"cranes\" (see below). He suggests that resistance to Darwinism is based on a desire for skyhooks, which do not really exist. According to Dennett, good reductionists explain apparent design without skyhooks; greedy reductionists try to explain it without cranes. Chapter 4 looks at the tree of life, such as how it can be visualized and some crucial events in life's history. The next chapter concerns the possible and the actual, using the 'Library of Mendel' (the space of all logically possible genomes) as a conceptual aid. In the last chapter of part I, Dennett treats human artifacts and culture as a branch of a unified Design Space. Descent or homology can be detected by shared design features that would be unlikely to appear independently. However, there are also \"Forced Moves\" or \"Good Tricks\" that will be discovered repeatedly, either by natural selection (see convergent evolution) or human investigation. The first chapter of part II, \"Darwinian Thinking in Biology\", asserts that life originated without any skyhooks, and the orderly world we know is the result of a blind and undirected shuffle through chaos. The eighth chapter's message is conveyed by its title, \"Biology is Engineering\"; biology is the study of design, function, construction and operation. However, there are some important differences between biology and engineering. Related to the engineering concept of optimization, the next chapter deals with adaptationism, which Dennett endorses, calling Gould and Lewontin's \"refutation\" of it an illusion. Dennett thinks adaptationism is, in fact, the best way of uncovering constraints. The tenth chapter, entitled \"Bully for Brontosaurus\", is an extended critique of Stephen Jay Gould, who Dennett feels has created a distorted view of evolution with his popular writings; his \"self-styled revolutions\" against adaptationism, gradualism and other orthodox Darwinism all being false alarms. The final chapter of part II dismisses directed mutation, the inheritance of acquired traits and Teilhard's \"Omega Point\", and insists that other controversies and hypotheses (like the unit of selection and Panspermia) have no dire consequences for orthodox Darwinism. \"Mind, Meaning, Mathematics and Morality\" is the name of Part III, which begins with a quote from Nietzsche. Chapter 12, \"The Cranes of Culture\", discusses cultural evolution. It asserts that the meme has a role to play in our understanding of culture, and that it allows humans, alone among animals, to \"transcend\" our selfish genes. \"Losing Our Minds to Darwin\" follows, a chapter about the evolution of brains, minds and language. Dennett criticizes Noam Chomsky's perceived resistance to the evolution of language, its modeling by artificial intelligence, and reverse engineering. The evolution of meaning is then discussed, and Dennett uses a series of thought experiments to persuade the reader that meaning is the product of meaningless, algorithmic processes. Chapter 15 asserts that G\u00f6del's Theorem does not make certain sorts of artificial intelligence impossible. Dennett extends his criticism to Roger Penrose. The subject then moves on to the origin and evolution of morality, beginning with Thomas Hobbes (who Dennett calls \"the first sociobiologist\") and Friedrich Nietzsche. He concludes that only an evolutionary analysis of ethics makes sense, though he cautions against some varieties of 'greedy ethical reductionism'. Before moving to the next chapter, he discusses some sociobiology controversies. The penultimate chapter, entitled \"Redesigning Morality\", begins by asking if ethics can be 'naturalized'. Dennett does not believe there is much hope of discovering an algorithm for doing the right thing, but expresses optimism in our ability to design and redesign our approach to moral problems. In \"The Future of an Idea\", the book's last chapter, Dennett praises biodiversity, including cultural diversity. In closing, he uses Beauty and the Beast as an analogy; although Darwin's idea may seem dangerous, it is actually quite beautiful.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " \"Starting in the Middle\", Part I of Darwin's Dangerous Idea, gets its name from a quote by Willard Van Orman Quine: \"Analyze theory-building how we will, we all must start in the middle. Our conceptual firsts are middle-sized, middle-distance objects, and our introduction to them and to everything comes midway in the cultural evolution of the race.\" The first chapter \"Tell Me Why\" is named after a song. Before Charles Darwin, God was seen as the ultimate cause of all design, or the ultimate answer to 'why?' questions. John Locke argued for the primacy of mind before matter, and David Hume, while exposing problems with Locke's view, could not see any alternative. Darwin provided just such an alternative: evolution. Besides providing evidence of common descent, he introduced a mechanism to explain it: natural selection. According to Dennett, natural selection is a mindless, mechanical and algorithmic process—Darwin's dangerous idea. The third chapter introduces the concept of \"skyhooks\" and \"cranes\" (see below). He suggests that resistance to Darwinism is based on a desire for skyhooks, which do not really exist. According to Dennett, good reductionists explain apparent design without skyhooks; greedy reductionists try to explain it without cranes. Chapter 4 looks at the tree of life, such as how it can be visualized and some crucial events in life's history. The next chapter concerns the possible and the actual, using the 'Library of Mendel' (the space of all logically possible genomes) as a conceptual aid. In the last chapter of part I, Dennett treats human artifacts and culture as a branch of a unified Design Space. Descent or homology can be detected by shared design features that would be unlikely to appear independently. However, there are also \"Forced Moves\" or \"Good Tricks\" that will be discovered repeatedly, either by natural"
      },
      {
        "text": " next chapter concerns the possible and the actual, using the 'Library of Mendel' (the space of all logically possible genomes) as a conceptual aid. In the last chapter of part I, Dennett treats human artifacts and culture as a branch of a unified Design Space. Descent or homology can be detected by shared design features that would be unlikely to appear independently. However, there are also \"Forced Moves\" or \"Good Tricks\" that will be discovered repeatedly, either by natural selection (see convergent evolution) or human investigation. The first chapter of part II, \"Darwinian Thinking in Biology\", asserts that life originated without any skyhooks, and the orderly world we know is the result of a blind and undirected shuffle through chaos. The eighth chapter's message is conveyed by its title, \"Biology is Engineering\"; biology is the study of design, function, construction and operation. However, there are some important differences between biology and engineering. Related to the engineering concept of optimization, the next chapter deals with adaptationism, which Dennett endorses, calling Gould and Lewontin's \"refutation\" of it an illusion. Dennett thinks adaptationism is, in fact, the best way of uncovering constraints. The tenth chapter, entitled \"Bully for Brontosaurus\", is an extended critique of Stephen Jay Gould, who Dennett feels has created a distorted view of evolution with his popular writings; his \"self-styled revolutions\" against adaptationism, gradualism and other orthodox Darwinism all being false alarms. The final chapter of part II dismisses directed mutation, the inheritance of acquired traits and Teilhard's \"Omega Point\", and insists that other controversies and hypotheses (like the unit of selection and Panspermia) have no dire consequences for orthodox Darwinism. \"Mind, Meaning, Mathematics and Morality\" is the name of Part III, which begins with a quote from Nietzsche. Chapter 12, \"The"
      },
      {
        "text": " against adaptationism, gradualism and other orthodox Darwinism all being false alarms. The final chapter of part II dismisses directed mutation, the inheritance of acquired traits and Teilhard's \"Omega Point\", and insists that other controversies and hypotheses (like the unit of selection and Panspermia) have no dire consequences for orthodox Darwinism. \"Mind, Meaning, Mathematics and Morality\" is the name of Part III, which begins with a quote from Nietzsche. Chapter 12, \"The Cranes of Culture\", discusses cultural evolution. It asserts that the meme has a role to play in our understanding of culture, and that it allows humans, alone among animals, to \"transcend\" our selfish genes. \"Losing Our Minds to Darwin\" follows, a chapter about the evolution of brains, minds and language. Dennett criticizes Noam Chomsky's perceived resistance to the evolution of language, its modeling by artificial intelligence, and reverse engineering. The evolution of meaning is then discussed, and Dennett uses a series of thought experiments to persuade the reader that meaning is the product of meaningless, algorithmic processes. Chapter 15 asserts that G\u00f6del's Theorem does not make certain sorts of artificial intelligence impossible. Dennett extends his criticism to Roger Penrose. The subject then moves on to the origin and evolution of morality, beginning with Thomas Hobbes (who Dennett calls \"the first sociobiologist\") and Friedrich Nietzsche. He concludes that only an evolutionary analysis of ethics makes sense, though he cautions against some varieties of 'greedy ethical reductionism'. Before moving to the next chapter, he discusses some sociobiology controversies. The penultimate chapter, entitled \"Redesigning Morality\", begins by asking if ethics can be 'naturalized'. Dennett does not believe there is much hope of discovering an algorithm for doing the right thing, but expresses optimism in our ability to design and redesign our approach to moral problems. In \"The Future of an Idea\","
      },
      {
        "text": " sense, though he cautions against some varieties of 'greedy ethical reductionism'. Before moving to the next chapter, he discusses some sociobiology controversies. The penultimate chapter, entitled \"Redesigning Morality\", begins by asking if ethics can be 'naturalized'. Dennett does not believe there is much hope of discovering an algorithm for doing the right thing, but expresses optimism in our ability to design and redesign our approach to moral problems. In \"The Future of an Idea\", the book's last chapter, Dennett praises biodiversity, including cultural diversity. In closing, he uses Beauty and the Beast as an analogy; although Darwin's idea may seem dangerous, it is actually quite beautiful.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Death of a Hero",
    "author": "Richard Aldington",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Death of a Hero is the story of a young English artist named George Winterbourne who enlists in the army at the outbreak of World War I. The book is narrated by an unnamed first-person narrator who claims to have known and served with the main character. It is divided into three parts. The first part details George's family history. His father, a middle-class man from England's countryside, marries a poor woman who falsely believes she is marrying into a monied family. After George's birth, his mother takes a series of lovers. George is brought up to be a proper and patriotic member of English society. He is encouraged to follow in his father's insurance business, but fails to do so. After a falling out with his parents, he moves to London to pursue art and live a socialite lifestyle. The second section of the book deals with George's London life. He ingrains himself in socialite society and engages a number of trendy philosophies. After he and his lover, Elizabeth, have a pregnancy scare, they decide to marry. Although they do not have a child, the marriage stands. They decide to leave their marriage open. George takes Elizabeth's close friend as a lover, however, and their marriage begins to fall apart. Just as the situation is becoming particularly heated, England declares war on Germany. George decides to enlist. George trains for the army and is sent to France. (No particular location in France is mentioned. The town behind the front where George spends much of his time is referred to as M---.) He fights on the front for some time. When he returns home, he finds that he has been so affected by the war that he cannot relate to his friends, including his wife and lover. The casualty rate among officers is particularly high at the front. When a number of officers in George's unit are killed, he is promoted. Upon spending time with the other officers, he finds them to be cynical and utilitarian. He loses faith in the war quickly. The story ends with George standing up during a machine-gun barrage. He is killed. At the end of the book there is a poem written from the point of view of a veteran comparing World War I to the Trojan War.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Death of a Hero is the story of a young English artist named George Winterbourne who enlists in the army at the outbreak of World War I. The book is narrated by an unnamed first-person narrator who claims to have known and served with the main character. It is divided into three parts. The first part details George's family history. His father, a middle-class man from England's countryside, marries a poor woman who falsely believes she is marrying into a monied family. After George's birth, his mother takes a series of lovers. George is brought up to be a proper and patriotic member of English society. He is encouraged to follow in his father's insurance business, but fails to do so. After a falling out with his parents, he moves to London to pursue art and live a socialite lifestyle. The second section of the book deals with George's London life. He ingrains himself in socialite society and engages a number of trendy philosophies. After he and his lover, Elizabeth, have a pregnancy scare, they decide to marry. Although they do not have a child, the marriage stands. They decide to leave their marriage open. George takes Elizabeth's close friend as a lover, however, and their marriage begins to fall apart. Just as the situation is becoming particularly heated, England declares war on Germany. George decides to enlist. George trains for the army and is sent to France. (No particular location in France is mentioned. The town behind the front where George spends much of his time is referred to as M---.) He fights on the front for some time. When he returns home, he finds that he has been so affected by the war that he cannot relate to his friends, including his wife and lover. The casualty rate among officers is particularly high at the front. When a number of officers in George's unit are killed, he is promoted. Upon spending time with the other officers, he finds them to be cynical and utilitarian. He loses"
      },
      {
        "text": " where George spends much of his time is referred to as M---.) He fights on the front for some time. When he returns home, he finds that he has been so affected by the war that he cannot relate to his friends, including his wife and lover. The casualty rate among officers is particularly high at the front. When a number of officers in George's unit are killed, he is promoted. Upon spending time with the other officers, he finds them to be cynical and utilitarian. He loses faith in the war quickly. The story ends with George standing up during a machine-gun barrage. He is killed. At the end of the book there is a poem written from the point of view of a veteran comparing World War I to the Trojan War.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Exodus",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Egypt's Pharaoh, fearful of the Israelites' numbers, orders that all newborn boys be thrown into the Nile. A Levite woman saves her baby by setting him adrift on the river in an ark of bulrushes. Pharaoh's daughter finds the child, names him Moses, and brings him up as her own. But Moses is aware of his origins, and one day, when grown, he kills an Egyptian overseer who is beating a Hebrew slave and has to flee into Midian. There he marries the daughter of Jethro the priest of Midian, and encounters God in a burning bush. Moses asks God for his name: God replies: \"I AM that I AM.\" God tells Moses to return to Egypt and lead the Hebrews into Canaan, the land promised to Abraham. Moses returns to Egypt, where God again reveals his name Yahweh to him. Yahweh instructs Moses to appear before the pharaoh and inform him of God's demand that he let God's people go. Moses and his brother Aaron do so, but Pharaoh refuses. Yahweh causes a series of ten plagues to strike Egypt, but whenever Pharaoh begins to relent God causes him to harden his heart. # Blood - The waters of Egypt are turned into blood. All the fish die and water becomes undrinkable. # Frogs - Hordes of frogs swarm the land of Egypt. # Gnats or Lice - Masses of gnats or lice invade Egyptian homes and plague the Egyptian people. # Wild Animals - Wild animals invade Egyptian homes and lands, causing destruction and wrecking havoc. # Pestilence - Egyptian livestock are struck down with disease. # Boils - The Egyptian people are plagued by painful boils that cover their bodies. # Hail - Severe weather destroys Egyptian crops and beats down upon them. # Locusts - Locusts swarm Egypt and eat any remaining crops and food. # Darkness - Darkness covers the land of Egypt for three days. # Death of the Firstborn - The firstborn of every Egyptian family is killed. Even the firstborn of Egyptian animals die. God instructs Moses' to have his people mark their doorposts with the blood of a sacrificed lamb to indicate that they would be \"passed over\" by this plague, hence this has become the Jewish holiday of Passover. The Exodus begins. The Israelites, enumerated at 603,550 able-bodied adult males (not counting Levites) and their families, with their flocks and herds, set out for the mountain of God. Yahweh causes Pharaoh to change his mind about allowing the Israelites to depart; he pursues them, but God destroys the Egyptian army at the crossing of the Red Sea (Yam Suf) and the Israelites celebrate Yahweh's victory. The desert proves arduous, and the Israelites complain and long for Egypt, but God provides manna and miraculous water for them. The Israelites arrive at the mountain of God, where Moses' father-in-law Jethro visits Moses; at his suggestion Moses appoints judges over Israel. The Israelites arrive at the mountain of God, where God asks whether they will agree to be his people. They accept. The people gather at the foot of the mountain, and with thunder and lightning, fire and clouds of smoke, and the sound of trumpets, and the trembling of the mountain, God appears on the peak, and the people see the cloud and hear the voice [or possibly \"sound\"] of God. Moses and Aaron are told to ascend the mountain. God pronounces the Ten Commandments (the Ethical Decalogue) in the hearing of all Israel. Moses goes up the mountain into the presence of God, who pronounces the Covenant Code (a detailed code of ritual and civil law), and promises Canaan to them if they obey. Moses comes down the mountain and writes down God's words and the people agree to keep them. God calls Moses up the mountain together with Aaron and the elders of Israel, and they all feast in the presence of God. God calls Moses up the mountain to receive a set of stone tablets containing the law, and he and Joshua go up, leaving Aaron in charge. God gave Moses instructions for the construction of the tabernacle so that God could dwell permanently among his chosen people, as well as instructions for the priestly vestments, the altar and its appurtenances, the procedure to be used to ordain the priests, and the daily sacrifices to be offered. Aaron was appointed as the first high priest, with the priesthood to be hereditary in his line. God gave Moses the two tables of stone containing the words of the ten commandments spoken to the people in the day of the assembly, written with the \"finger of God\". While Moses is with God, Aaron makes a golden calf, which the people worship. God informs Moses of their apostasy and threatens to kill them all, but relents when Moses pleads for them. Moses comes down from the mountain, smashes the stone tablets in anger, and commands the Levites to massacre the unfaithful Israelites. God commands Moses to make two new tablets on which He will personally write the words that were on the first tablets. Moses ascends the mountain, God dictates the Ten Commandments (the Ritual Decalogue), and Moses writes them on the tablets. Moses descends from the mountain, and his face is transformed, so that from that time onwards he has to hide his face with a veil. Moses assembles the Hebrews and repeats to them the commandments he has received from God, which are to keep the Sabbath and to construct the Tabernacle. \"And all the construction of the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting was finished, and the children of Israel did according to everything that God had commanded Moses\", and from that time God dwelt in the Tabernacle and ordered the travels of the Hebrews.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Egypt's Pharaoh, fearful of the Israelites' numbers, orders that all newborn boys be thrown into the Nile. A Levite woman saves her baby by setting him adrift on the river in an ark of bulrushes. Pharaoh's daughter finds the child, names him Moses, and brings him up as her own. But Moses is aware of his origins, and one day, when grown, he kills an Egyptian overseer who is beating a Hebrew slave and has to flee into Midian. There he marries the daughter of Jethro the priest of Midian, and encounters God in a burning bush. Moses asks God for his name: God replies: \"I AM that I AM.\" God tells Moses to return to Egypt and lead the Hebrews into Canaan, the land promised to Abraham. Moses returns to Egypt, where God again reveals his name Yahweh to him. Yahweh instructs Moses to appear before the pharaoh and inform him of God's demand that he let God's people go. Moses and his brother Aaron do so, but Pharaoh refuses. Yahweh causes a series of ten plagues to strike Egypt, but whenever Pharaoh begins to relent God causes him to harden his heart. # Blood - The waters of Egypt are turned into blood. All the fish die and water becomes undrinkable. # Frogs - Hordes of frogs swarm the land of Egypt. # Gnats or Lice - Masses of gnats or lice invade Egyptian homes and plague the Egyptian people. # Wild Animals - Wild animals invade Egyptian homes and lands, causing destruction and wrecking havoc. # Pestilence - Egyptian livestock are struck down with disease. # Boils - The Egyptian people are plagued by painful boils that cover their bodies. # Hail - Severe weather destroys Egyptian crops and beats down upon them. # Locusts - Locusts swarm Egypt and eat any remaining crops and food. # Darkness - Darkness covers the land"
      },
      {
        "text": "ice invade Egyptian homes and plague the Egyptian people. # Wild Animals - Wild animals invade Egyptian homes and lands, causing destruction and wrecking havoc. # Pestilence - Egyptian livestock are struck down with disease. # Boils - The Egyptian people are plagued by painful boils that cover their bodies. # Hail - Severe weather destroys Egyptian crops and beats down upon them. # Locusts - Locusts swarm Egypt and eat any remaining crops and food. # Darkness - Darkness covers the land of Egypt for three days. # Death of the Firstborn - The firstborn of every Egyptian family is killed. Even the firstborn of Egyptian animals die. God instructs Moses' to have his people mark their doorposts with the blood of a sacrificed lamb to indicate that they would be \"passed over\" by this plague, hence this has become the Jewish holiday of Passover. The Exodus begins. The Israelites, enumerated at 603,550 able-bodied adult males (not counting Levites) and their families, with their flocks and herds, set out for the mountain of God. Yahweh causes Pharaoh to change his mind about allowing the Israelites to depart; he pursues them, but God destroys the Egyptian army at the crossing of the Red Sea (Yam Suf) and the Israelites celebrate Yahweh's victory. The desert proves arduous, and the Israelites complain and long for Egypt, but God provides manna and miraculous water for them. The Israelites arrive at the mountain of God, where Moses' father-in-law Jethro visits Moses; at his suggestion Moses appoints judges over Israel. The Israelites arrive at the mountain of God, where God asks whether they will agree to be his people. They accept. The people gather at the foot of the mountain, and with thunder and lightning, fire and clouds of smoke, and the sound of trumpets, and the trembling of the mountain, God appears on"
      },
      {
        "text": " them. The Israelites arrive at the mountain of God, where Moses' father-in-law Jethro visits Moses; at his suggestion Moses appoints judges over Israel. The Israelites arrive at the mountain of God, where God asks whether they will agree to be his people. They accept. The people gather at the foot of the mountain, and with thunder and lightning, fire and clouds of smoke, and the sound of trumpets, and the trembling of the mountain, God appears on the peak, and the people see the cloud and hear the voice [or possibly \"sound\"] of God. Moses and Aaron are told to ascend the mountain. God pronounces the Ten Commandments (the Ethical Decalogue) in the hearing of all Israel. Moses goes up the mountain into the presence of God, who pronounces the Covenant Code (a detailed code of ritual and civil law), and promises Canaan to them if they obey. Moses comes down the mountain and writes down God's words and the people agree to keep them. God calls Moses up the mountain together with Aaron and the elders of Israel, and they all feast in the presence of God. God calls Moses up the mountain to receive a set of stone tablets containing the law, and he and Joshua go up, leaving Aaron in charge. God gave Moses instructions for the construction of the tabernacle so that God could dwell permanently among his chosen people, as well as instructions for the priestly vestments, the altar and its appurtenances, the procedure to be used to ordain the priests, and the daily sacrifices to be offered. Aaron was appointed as the first high priest, with the priesthood to be hereditary in his line. God gave Moses the two tables of stone containing the words of the ten commandments spoken to the people in the day of the assembly, written with the \"finger of God\". While Moses is with God, Aaron makes a golden calf, which the people worship. God informs Moses of their apost"
      },
      {
        "text": " appurtenances, the procedure to be used to ordain the priests, and the daily sacrifices to be offered. Aaron was appointed as the first high priest, with the priesthood to be hereditary in his line. God gave Moses the two tables of stone containing the words of the ten commandments spoken to the people in the day of the assembly, written with the \"finger of God\". While Moses is with God, Aaron makes a golden calf, which the people worship. God informs Moses of their apostasy and threatens to kill them all, but relents when Moses pleads for them. Moses comes down from the mountain, smashes the stone tablets in anger, and commands the Levites to massacre the unfaithful Israelites. God commands Moses to make two new tablets on which He will personally write the words that were on the first tablets. Moses ascends the mountain, God dictates the Ten Commandments (the Ritual Decalogue), and Moses writes them on the tablets. Moses descends from the mountain, and his face is transformed, so that from that time onwards he has to hide his face with a veil. Moses assembles the Hebrews and repeats to them the commandments he has received from God, which are to keep the Sabbath and to construct the Tabernacle. \"And all the construction of the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting was finished, and the children of Israel did according to everything that God had commanded Moses\", and from that time God dwelt in the Tabernacle and ordered the travels of the Hebrews.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ernacle and ordered the travels of the Hebrews.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Trial",
    "author": "Franz Kafka",
    "published_date": "1925",
    "synopsis": " On his thirtieth birthday, the chief financial officer of a bank, Josef K., is unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents from an unspecified agency for an unspecified crime. The agents' boss later arrives and holds a mini tribunal in the room of K.'s neighbor, Fr\u00e4ulein B\u00fcrstner. K. is not taken away, however, but left \"free\" to await instructions from the Committee of Affairs. He goes to work, and that night apologizes to Fr\u00e4ulein B\u00fcrstner for the intrusion into her room. At the end of the conversation he suddenly kisses her. K. receives a phone calling summoning him to court, and the coming Sunday is arranged as the date. No time is set and the address is given to him. The address turns out to be a huge tenement building. K. has to explore to find the court, which turns out to be in the attic. The room is airless, shabby, and crowded, and although he has no idea what he is charged with, or what authorizes the process, makes a long speech denigrating the whole process, including the agents who arrested him, and during which an attendant's wife is raped. He then returns home. K. later goes to visit the court again, although he has not been summoned. Court is not in session. He instead talks with the attendant's wife, who attempts to seduce him into taking her away, and who gives him more information about the process and offers to help him. K. later goes with the attendant to a higher level of the attic where it turns out that the offices of the court are housed, which are shabby and airless. K. returns home to find Fr\u00e4ulein Montag, a lodger from another room, moving in with Fr\u00e4ulein B\u00fcrstner. He suspects that this is to prevent him from pursuing his affair with the latter woman. Yet another lodger, Captain Lanz, appears to be in league with Montag. Later, in a store room at his own bank, K. discovers the two agents, who arrested him, being whipped by a flogger for asking K. for bribes, as a result of complaints K. made at court. K. tries to argue with the flogger, saying that the men need not be whipped, but the flogger cannot be swayed. The next day he returns to the store room and is shocked to find everything as he had found it the day before, including the Whipper and the two agents. K. is visited by his uncle, who was K.'s guardian. The uncle seems distressed by K.'s predicament. At first sympathetic, he becomes concerned K. is underestimating the seriousness of the case. The uncle introduces K. to a lawyer, who is attended by Leni, a nurse, who K.'s uncle suspects is the advocate's mistress. During the discussion it becomes clear how different this process is from regular legal proceedings \u2013 guilt is assumed, the bureaucracy running it is vast with many levels, and everything is secret, from the charge, to the rules of the court, to the authority behind the courts \u2013 even the identity of the judges at the higher levels. The attorney tells him that he can prepare a brief for K., but since the charge is unknown and the rules are unknown, it is difficult work. It also never may be read. Yet it is very important. The lawyer says that his most important task is to deal with powerful court officials behinds the scenes. As they talk, the lawyer reveals that the Chief Clerk of the Court has been sitting hidden in the darkness of a corner. The Chief Clerk emerges to join the conversation, but K. is called away by Leni, who takes him to the next room, where she offers to help him and seduces him. They have a sexual encounter. Afterwards K. meets his uncle outside, who is angry and, who claims that K.'s lack of respect has also hurt K.'s case. K. visits the lawyer several times. The lawyer tells him incessantly how dire his situation is and tells many stories of other hopeless clients and of his behind-the-scenes efforts on behalf of these clients, and brags about his many connections. The brief is never complete. K.'s work at the bank deteriorates as he is consumed with worry about his case. K. is surprised by one of his bank clients, who tells K. that he is aware that K. is dealing with a trial. The client learned of K.'s case from Titorelli, a painter, who told the client about K.'s case and has dealings with the court. The client advises K. to go to Titorelli for advice. Titorelli lives in the attic of a tenement in a suburb on the opposite side of town from the court that K. visited. Three teenage girls taunt K. on the steps and tease him sexually. Titorelli turns out to be an official painter of portraits for the court \u2013 an inherited position, and has a deep understanding of the process. K. learns that, to Titorelli's knowledge, not a single defendant has ever been acquitted. He sets out K.'s options and offers to help K. with either. The options are: obtain a provisional verdict of innocence from the lower court, which can be overturned at any time by higher levels of the court leading to re-initiation of the process; or curry favor with the lower judges to keep the process moving albeit at a glacial pace. Titorelli has K. leave through a small back door as the girls are blocking the door through with K. entered. To K.'s shock, the door opens into another warren of the court's offices \u2013 again shabby and airless. K. decides to take control of matters himself and visits his lawyer with the intention of dismissing him. At the lawyer's office he meets a downtrodden individual, Block, a client who offers K. some insight from a client's perspective. Block's case has continued for five years and he has gone from being a successful businessman to being almost bankrupt and is virtually enslaved by his dependence on the lawyer and Leni, with whom he appears to be sexually involved. The lawyer mocks Block in front of K. for his dog-like subservience. This experience further poisons K.'s opinion of his lawyer. (This chapter was left unfinished by the author.) K. is asked by the bank to show an Italian client around local places of cultural interest, but the Italian client, short of time, asks K. to take him only to the cathedral, setting a time to meet there. When the client doesn't show up, K. explores the cathedral which is empty except for an old woman and a church official. K. notices a priest who seems to be preparing to give a sermon from a small second pulpit, and K. begins to leave, lest it begin and K. be compelled to stay for its entirety. Instead of giving a sermon, the priest calls out K.'s name. K. approaches the pulpit and the priest berates him for his attitude toward the trial and for seeking help, especially from women. K. asks him to come down and the two men walk inside the cathedral. The priest works for the court as a chaplain, and tells K. a fable, (which has been published separately as Before the Law) that is meant to explain his situation. K. and the priest discuss the parable. The priest tells K. that the parable is an ancient text of the court, and many generations of court officials have given interpretations. On the eve of K.'s thirty-first birthday, two men arrive at his apartment. He has been waiting for them, and he offers little resistance \u2013 indeed the two men take direction from K. as they walk through town. K. leads them to a quarry where the two men place K's head on a discarded block. One of the men produces a double-edged butcher knife, and as the two men pass it back and forth between them, the narrator tells us that \"K. knew then precisely, that it would have been his duty to take the knife...and thrust it into himself.\" He does not take the knife. One of the men holds his shoulder and pulls him up and the other man stabs him in the heart and twists the knife twice. K.'s last words are: \"Like a dog!\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On his thirtieth birthday, the chief financial officer of a bank, Josef K., is unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents from an unspecified agency for an unspecified crime. The agents' boss later arrives and holds a mini tribunal in the room of K.'s neighbor, Fr\u00e4ulein B\u00fcrstner. K. is not taken away, however, but left \"free\" to await instructions from the Committee of Affairs. He goes to work, and that night apologizes to Fr\u00e4ulein B\u00fcrstner for the intrusion into her room. At the end of the conversation he suddenly kisses her. K. receives a phone calling summoning him to court, and the coming Sunday is arranged as the date. No time is set and the address is given to him. The address turns out to be a huge tenement building. K. has to explore to find the court, which turns out to be in the attic. The room is airless, shabby, and crowded, and although he has no idea what he is charged with, or what authorizes the process, makes a long speech denigrating the whole process, including the agents who arrested him, and during which an attendant's wife is raped. He then returns home. K. later goes to visit the court again, although he has not been summoned. Court is not in session. He instead talks with the attendant's wife, who attempts to seduce him into taking her away, and who gives him more information about the process and offers to help him. K. later goes with the attendant to a higher level of the attic where it turns out that the offices of the court are housed, which are shabby and airless. K. returns home to find Fr\u00e4ulein Montag, a lodger from another room, moving in with Fr\u00e4ulein B\u00fcrstner. He suspects that this is to prevent him from pursuing his affair with the latter woman. Yet another lodger, Captain"
      },
      {
        "text": " information about the process and offers to help him. K. later goes with the attendant to a higher level of the attic where it turns out that the offices of the court are housed, which are shabby and airless. K. returns home to find Fr\u00e4ulein Montag, a lodger from another room, moving in with Fr\u00e4ulein B\u00fcrstner. He suspects that this is to prevent him from pursuing his affair with the latter woman. Yet another lodger, Captain Lanz, appears to be in league with Montag. Later, in a store room at his own bank, K. discovers the two agents, who arrested him, being whipped by a flogger for asking K. for bribes, as a result of complaints K. made at court. K. tries to argue with the flogger, saying that the men need not be whipped, but the flogger cannot be swayed. The next day he returns to the store room and is shocked to find everything as he had found it the day before, including the Whipper and the two agents. K. is visited by his uncle, who was K.'s guardian. The uncle seems distressed by K.'s predicament. At first sympathetic, he becomes concerned K. is underestimating the seriousness of the case. The uncle introduces K. to a lawyer, who is attended by Leni, a nurse, who K.'s uncle suspects is the advocate's mistress. During the discussion it becomes clear how different this process is from regular legal proceedings \u2013 guilt is assumed, the bureaucracy running it is vast with many levels, and everything is secret, from the charge, to the rules of the court, to the authority behind the courts \u2013 even the identity of the judges at the higher levels. The attorney tells him that he can prepare a brief for K., but since the charge is unknown and the rules are unknown, it is difficult work. It also never may be read. Yet it is very"
      },
      {
        "text": " clear how different this process is from regular legal proceedings \u2013 guilt is assumed, the bureaucracy running it is vast with many levels, and everything is secret, from the charge, to the rules of the court, to the authority behind the courts \u2013 even the identity of the judges at the higher levels. The attorney tells him that he can prepare a brief for K., but since the charge is unknown and the rules are unknown, it is difficult work. It also never may be read. Yet it is very important. The lawyer says that his most important task is to deal with powerful court officials behinds the scenes. As they talk, the lawyer reveals that the Chief Clerk of the Court has been sitting hidden in the darkness of a corner. The Chief Clerk emerges to join the conversation, but K. is called away by Leni, who takes him to the next room, where she offers to help him and seduces him. They have a sexual encounter. Afterwards K. meets his uncle outside, who is angry and, who claims that K.'s lack of respect has also hurt K.'s case. K. visits the lawyer several times. The lawyer tells him incessantly how dire his situation is and tells many stories of other hopeless clients and of his behind-the-scenes efforts on behalf of these clients, and brags about his many connections. The brief is never complete. K.'s work at the bank deteriorates as he is consumed with worry about his case. K. is surprised by one of his bank clients, who tells K. that he is aware that K. is dealing with a trial. The client learned of K.'s case from Titorelli, a painter, who told the client about K.'s case and has dealings with the court. The client advises K. to go to Titorelli for advice. Titorelli lives in the attic of a tenement in a suburb on the opposite side of town from the court that K. visited. Three teenage"
      },
      {
        "text": " by one of his bank clients, who tells K. that he is aware that K. is dealing with a trial. The client learned of K.'s case from Titorelli, a painter, who told the client about K.'s case and has dealings with the court. The client advises K. to go to Titorelli for advice. Titorelli lives in the attic of a tenement in a suburb on the opposite side of town from the court that K. visited. Three teenage girls taunt K. on the steps and tease him sexually. Titorelli turns out to be an official painter of portraits for the court \u2013 an inherited position, and has a deep understanding of the process. K. learns that, to Titorelli's knowledge, not a single defendant has ever been acquitted. He sets out K.'s options and offers to help K. with either. The options are: obtain a provisional verdict of innocence from the lower court, which can be overturned at any time by higher levels of the court leading to re-initiation of the process; or curry favor with the lower judges to keep the process moving albeit at a glacial pace. Titorelli has K. leave through a small back door as the girls are blocking the door through with K. entered. To K.'s shock, the door opens into another warren of the court's offices \u2013 again shabby and airless. K. decides to take control of matters himself and visits his lawyer with the intention of dismissing him. At the lawyer's office he meets a downtrodden individual, Block, a client who offers K. some insight from a client's perspective. Block's case has continued for five years and he has gone from being a successful businessman to being almost bankrupt and is virtually enslaved by his dependence on the lawyer and Leni, with whom he appears to be sexually involved. The lawyer mocks Block in front of K. for his dog-like subservience. This experience"
      },
      {
        "text": " the intention of dismissing him. At the lawyer's office he meets a downtrodden individual, Block, a client who offers K. some insight from a client's perspective. Block's case has continued for five years and he has gone from being a successful businessman to being almost bankrupt and is virtually enslaved by his dependence on the lawyer and Leni, with whom he appears to be sexually involved. The lawyer mocks Block in front of K. for his dog-like subservience. This experience further poisons K.'s opinion of his lawyer. (This chapter was left unfinished by the author.) K. is asked by the bank to show an Italian client around local places of cultural interest, but the Italian client, short of time, asks K. to take him only to the cathedral, setting a time to meet there. When the client doesn't show up, K. explores the cathedral which is empty except for an old woman and a church official. K. notices a priest who seems to be preparing to give a sermon from a small second pulpit, and K. begins to leave, lest it begin and K. be compelled to stay for its entirety. Instead of giving a sermon, the priest calls out K.'s name. K. approaches the pulpit and the priest berates him for his attitude toward the trial and for seeking help, especially from women. K. asks him to come down and the two men walk inside the cathedral. The priest works for the court as a chaplain, and tells K. a fable, (which has been published separately as Before the Law) that is meant to explain his situation. K. and the priest discuss the parable. The priest tells K. that the parable is an ancient text of the court, and many generations of court officials have given interpretations. On the eve of K.'s thirty-first birthday, two men arrive at his apartment. He has been waiting for them, and he offers little resistance \u2013 indeed"
      },
      {
        "text": " chaplain, and tells K. a fable, (which has been published separately as Before the Law) that is meant to explain his situation. K. and the priest discuss the parable. The priest tells K. that the parable is an ancient text of the court, and many generations of court officials have given interpretations. On the eve of K.'s thirty-first birthday, two men arrive at his apartment. He has been waiting for them, and he offers little resistance \u2013 indeed the two men take direction from K. as they walk through town. K. leads them to a quarry where the two men place K's head on a discarded block. One of the men produces a double-edged butcher knife, and as the two men pass it back and forth between them, the narrator tells us that \"K. knew then precisely, that it would have been his duty to take the knife...and thrust it into himself.\" He does not take the knife. One of the men holds his shoulder and pulls him up and the other man stabs him in the heart and twists the knife twice. K.'s last words are: \"Like a dog!\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Metamorphosis",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "1915",
    "synopsis": " One day Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up to find himself transformed into a \"ungeheuren Ungeziefer\", literally \"monstrous vermin\", often interpreted as a giant bug or insect. He believes it is a dream, and reflects on how dreary life as a traveling salesmen is. He looks at the wall clock and realizes that he has overslept and missed his train for work. He ponders on the consequences of this delay, and is annoyed at how his boss never accepts excuses or explanations from any of his employees no matter how hard working they are, displaying an apparent lack of trusting abilities. Gregor's mother knocks on the door and he answers her. She is concerned for Gregor because he is late for work, which is unorthodox for Gregor. Gregor answers his mother and realizes that his voice has changed, but his answer is short so his mother does not notice the voice change. His sister, Grete, to whom he was very close then whispers through the door and begs him to open the door. All his family members think that he is ill and ask him to open the door. He tries to get out of bed but he is incapable of moving his body. While trying to move, he finds that his office manager, the chief clerk has showed up to check on him. He finally rocks his body to the floor and calls out that he will open the door shortly. Feeling offended by Gregor's delayed response in opening the door, the clerk warns him of the consequences of missing work. He adds that his recent performance has been unsatisfactory. Gregor disagrees and tells him that he will open the door shortly. Nobody on the other side of the door could understand a single word he uttered (Gregor was unaware of the fact that his voice has also transformed) and conclude that he is seriously ill. Finally, Gregor manages to unlock and open the door with his mouth. He apologizes to the office manager for the delay. Horrified by the sight of Gregor's appearance, the manager bolts out of the apartment, while Gregor's mother faints. Gregor tries to catch up with him but his father drives him back into the bedroom with a cane and a rolled newspaper. Gregor injures himself squeezing back through the doorway, and his father slams the door shut. Gregor, exhausted, falls asleep. Gregor wakes and sees that someone has put milk and bread in his room. Initially excited, he quickly discovers that he has no taste for milk, once one of his favorite foods. He settles himself under a couch. The next morning, his sister comes in, sees that he has not touched the milk, and replaces it with rotting food scraps, which Gregor happily eats. This begins a routine in which his sister feeds him and cleans up while he hides under the couch, afraid that his appearance will frighten her. Gregor spends his time listening through the wall to his family members talking. They often discuss the difficult financial situation they find themselves in now that Gregor can\u2019t provide for them. Gregor had plans of sending Grete to the conservatorium to pursue violin lessons, something that everyone else including Grete considered to be a dream. Gregor was however pretty determined to do so on the same Christmas before which the metamorphosis occurs. His incapability of being the provider of his family as well as his shattered dreams in respect to his sister coupled with his speechlessness reduces his thought process to a great respect. Gregor also learns that his mother wants to visit him, but his sister and father will not let her. Gregor grows more comfortable with his changed body. He begins climbing the walls and ceiling for amusement. Discovering Gregor\u2019s new pastime, Grete decides to remove some of the furniture to give Gregor more space. She and her mother begin taking furniture away, but Gregor finds their actions deeply distressing. He tries to save a picture on the wall of a woman wearing a fur hat, fur scarf, and a fur muff. Gregor\u2019s mother sees him hanging on the wall and passes out. Grete calls out to Gregor\u2014the first time anyone has spoken directly to him since his transformation. Gregor runs out of the room and into the kitchen. The father throws apples at Gregor, and one of them sinks into a sensitive spot in his back and remains lodged there, paralyzing his movements for a month and damaging it permanently. Gregor manages to get back into his bedroom but is severely injured. One evening, the cleaning lady leaves Gregor\u2019s door open while the boarders lounge about the living room. Grete has been asked to play the violin for them, and Gregor who usually took care to avoid crossing paths with anyone in the flat, in the midst of his depression and thus caused detachment, creeps out of his bedroom to listen. The boarders, who initially seemed interested in Grete, grow bored with her performance, but Gregor is transfixed by it. One of the boarders spots Gregor and they become alarmed. Gregor\u2019s father tries to shove the boarders back into their rooms, but the three men protest and announce that they will move out immediately without paying rent because of the disgusting conditions in the apartment. Grete, who has by now become tired of taking care of Gregor and is realizing the amount of burden his existence puts on each one in the family, tells her parents that they must get rid of Gregor or they will all be ruined. Her father agrees, wishing Gregor could understand them and would leave of his own accord. Gregor does in fact understand and slowly moves back to the bedroom. There, determined to rid his family of his presence, Gregor dies. Upon discovering that Gregor is dead, the family feels a great sense of relief. The father kicks out the boarders and decides to fire the cleaning lady, who has disposed of Gregor\u2019s body. The family takes a trolley ride out to the countryside, during which they consider their finances. Months of spare living as a result of Gregor\u2019s condition have left them with substantial savings. They decide to move to a smaller apartment than the present one to further save their finances, an act which they were unable to carry out in Gregor's presence. During this short trip, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa realize that in spite of going through hardships which have brought an amount of paleness to her face,Grete appears to have grown up into a pretty and well figured lady, which leads her parents to think about finding her a husband.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " One day Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up to find himself transformed into a \"ungeheuren Ungeziefer\", literally \"monstrous vermin\", often interpreted as a giant bug or insect. He believes it is a dream, and reflects on how dreary life as a traveling salesmen is. He looks at the wall clock and realizes that he has overslept and missed his train for work. He ponders on the consequences of this delay, and is annoyed at how his boss never accepts excuses or explanations from any of his employees no matter how hard working they are, displaying an apparent lack of trusting abilities. Gregor's mother knocks on the door and he answers her. She is concerned for Gregor because he is late for work, which is unorthodox for Gregor. Gregor answers his mother and realizes that his voice has changed, but his answer is short so his mother does not notice the voice change. His sister, Grete, to whom he was very close then whispers through the door and begs him to open the door. All his family members think that he is ill and ask him to open the door. He tries to get out of bed but he is incapable of moving his body. While trying to move, he finds that his office manager, the chief clerk has showed up to check on him. He finally rocks his body to the floor and calls out that he will open the door shortly. Feeling offended by Gregor's delayed response in opening the door, the clerk warns him of the consequences of missing work. He adds that his recent performance has been unsatisfactory. Gregor disagrees and tells him that he will open the door shortly. Nobody on the other side of the door could understand a single word he uttered (Gregor was unaware of the fact that his voice has also transformed) and conclude that he is seriously ill. Finally, Gregor manages to unlock and open the door with his mouth. He apologizes to the"
      },
      {
        "text": " response in opening the door, the clerk warns him of the consequences of missing work. He adds that his recent performance has been unsatisfactory. Gregor disagrees and tells him that he will open the door shortly. Nobody on the other side of the door could understand a single word he uttered (Gregor was unaware of the fact that his voice has also transformed) and conclude that he is seriously ill. Finally, Gregor manages to unlock and open the door with his mouth. He apologizes to the office manager for the delay. Horrified by the sight of Gregor's appearance, the manager bolts out of the apartment, while Gregor's mother faints. Gregor tries to catch up with him but his father drives him back into the bedroom with a cane and a rolled newspaper. Gregor injures himself squeezing back through the doorway, and his father slams the door shut. Gregor, exhausted, falls asleep. Gregor wakes and sees that someone has put milk and bread in his room. Initially excited, he quickly discovers that he has no taste for milk, once one of his favorite foods. He settles himself under a couch. The next morning, his sister comes in, sees that he has not touched the milk, and replaces it with rotting food scraps, which Gregor happily eats. This begins a routine in which his sister feeds him and cleans up while he hides under the couch, afraid that his appearance will frighten her. Gregor spends his time listening through the wall to his family members talking. They often discuss the difficult financial situation they find themselves in now that Gregor can\u2019t provide for them. Gregor had plans of sending Grete to the conservatorium to pursue violin lessons, something that everyone else including Grete considered to be a dream. Gregor was however pretty determined to do so on the same Christmas before which the metamorphosis occurs. His incapability of being the provider of his family as well as his shattered dreams in respect to his sister"
      },
      {
        "text": " his family members talking. They often discuss the difficult financial situation they find themselves in now that Gregor can\u2019t provide for them. Gregor had plans of sending Grete to the conservatorium to pursue violin lessons, something that everyone else including Grete considered to be a dream. Gregor was however pretty determined to do so on the same Christmas before which the metamorphosis occurs. His incapability of being the provider of his family as well as his shattered dreams in respect to his sister coupled with his speechlessness reduces his thought process to a great respect. Gregor also learns that his mother wants to visit him, but his sister and father will not let her. Gregor grows more comfortable with his changed body. He begins climbing the walls and ceiling for amusement. Discovering Gregor\u2019s new pastime, Grete decides to remove some of the furniture to give Gregor more space. She and her mother begin taking furniture away, but Gregor finds their actions deeply distressing. He tries to save a picture on the wall of a woman wearing a fur hat, fur scarf, and a fur muff. Gregor\u2019s mother sees him hanging on the wall and passes out. Grete calls out to Gregor\u2014the first time anyone has spoken directly to him since his transformation. Gregor runs out of the room and into the kitchen. The father throws apples at Gregor, and one of them sinks into a sensitive spot in his back and remains lodged there, paralyzing his movements for a month and damaging it permanently. Gregor manages to get back into his bedroom but is severely injured. One evening, the cleaning lady leaves Gregor\u2019s door open while the boarders lounge about the living room. Grete has been asked to play the violin for them, and Gregor who usually took care to avoid crossing paths with anyone in the flat, in the midst of his depression and thus caused detachment, creeps out of his bedroom to listen. The"
      },
      {
        "text": ", paralyzing his movements for a month and damaging it permanently. Gregor manages to get back into his bedroom but is severely injured. One evening, the cleaning lady leaves Gregor\u2019s door open while the boarders lounge about the living room. Grete has been asked to play the violin for them, and Gregor who usually took care to avoid crossing paths with anyone in the flat, in the midst of his depression and thus caused detachment, creeps out of his bedroom to listen. The boarders, who initially seemed interested in Grete, grow bored with her performance, but Gregor is transfixed by it. One of the boarders spots Gregor and they become alarmed. Gregor\u2019s father tries to shove the boarders back into their rooms, but the three men protest and announce that they will move out immediately without paying rent because of the disgusting conditions in the apartment. Grete, who has by now become tired of taking care of Gregor and is realizing the amount of burden his existence puts on each one in the family, tells her parents that they must get rid of Gregor or they will all be ruined. Her father agrees, wishing Gregor could understand them and would leave of his own accord. Gregor does in fact understand and slowly moves back to the bedroom. There, determined to rid his family of his presence, Gregor dies. Upon discovering that Gregor is dead, the family feels a great sense of relief. The father kicks out the boarders and decides to fire the cleaning lady, who has disposed of Gregor\u2019s body. The family takes a trolley ride out to the countryside, during which they consider their finances. Months of spare living as a result of Gregor\u2019s condition have left them with substantial savings. They decide to move to a smaller apartment than the present one to further save their finances, an act which they were unable to carry out in Gregor's presence. During this short trip, Mr"
      },
      {
        "text": " boarders and decides to fire the cleaning lady, who has disposed of Gregor\u2019s body. The family takes a trolley ride out to the countryside, during which they consider their finances. Months of spare living as a result of Gregor\u2019s condition have left them with substantial savings. They decide to move to a smaller apartment than the present one to further save their finances, an act which they were unable to carry out in Gregor's presence. During this short trip, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa realize that in spite of going through hardships which have brought an amount of paleness to her face,Grete appears to have grown up into a pretty and well figured lady, which leads her parents to think about finding her a husband.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Fahrenheit 451",
    "author": "Ray Bradbury",
    "published_date": "1953",
    "synopsis": " On a rainy night while returning from his job, Guy Montag is followed by a cheery, 17-year-old girl named Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse initially bothers Montag with her incessant questions (and Clarisse is a bit bothered by Montag's uncalled-for reactions, such as laughing when she hasn't said anything funny), but Montag chooses to tolerate her as she tells him of how she loves nature and walking around and observing how crazy the world has become. The two walk until they reach Clarisse's house (which is next to Montag's). Before Clarisse goes inside, she asks Montag if he's happy. The question catches Montag by surprise and he mulls over his encounter with Clarisse (and how similar it was to another encounter in the park involving an English professor who was afraid of Montag). Montag enters his bedroom, and finds Mildred in bed with her Seashell ear radio in her ear, staring vacantly at the ceiling (just as she's been doing for the past ten years or so). Montag doesn't notice anything wrong until his foot hits Mildred's empty sleeping pill bottle. Montag tries to wake up his wife, but she doesn't respond. Montag calls for medical attention, trying to shout over the screams of the passing jet engines above the house. Because \"accidental\" prescription pill overdoses have become commonplace, the medical department sends over two cynical, uncaring technicians who use a \"Black Cobra\" stomach pump to flush the poisons out of Mildred's system and replace her blood with a fresh, mechanical replacement. Montag stands outside Clarisse's house and sees that she and her family are the only ones in the neighborhood with the lights on and engaging in a spirited conversation. Montag returns to his house, sees that Mildred is looking slightly better than before, and goes to bed. The next day, Montag finds Mildred in the kitchen, making breakfast and complaining of an upset stomach. Montag tries to tell his wife that she overdosed, but is interrupted by Mildred's ramblings of her stomach hurting, but being hungry, and rationalizes that the feeling is from drinking too much alcohol during a party. As Montag leaves for work, he finally tells Mildred (who is watching an interactive soap opera on the \"parlor walls\" -- three enormous, floor-to-ceiling television screens) that she overdosed on sleeping pills. Mildred denies that she would do something that suicidal, but Montag insists. Mildred brushes off the issue and returns to her soap opera. Over the next few days, Montag bonds with Clarisse, who tells him that her interest in intellectual activities has made her an outcast in a society dominated by shallow entertainment, and for that, she has no friends and has to see a psychiatrist. On the final day, however, Clarisse doesn't appear alongside Montag. Montag waits for her, but the wait is short-lived when the train comes to take him to work. A few days later, the firemen are called in to burn down the house of an old woman who has been hoarding books. The firemen go to arrest her, but instead the woman recites a quote from Nicholas Ridley and refuses to leave. As the firemen toss the books from the woman's upstairs bedroom down to the living room floor and spray the pile with kerosene, Montag accidentally reads a line in one of her books and hides it away before any of his coworkers can see. The woman is given a final warning to leave the house, but the woman produces a match. Before she can strike it, the firemen flee, save for Montag, who watches as the woman lights the match, drops it in the kerosene, and is engulfed in flames. Montag comes home from the jarring experience and tries to take his mind off the event by asking a half-asleep Mildred where the two first met and when. Mildred tries to remember, but can't, laughing it off as she heads to the bathroom to take her sleeping pills. As Montag reflects on his stagnant, stilted marriage to Mildred (and how Mildred has become emotionally and mentally dead from watching her \"parlor wall\" entertainment, driving recklessly, and her sleeping pill addiction), Montag begins to cry after realizing that if Mildred died, he wouldn't miss her at all. Montag then asks Mildred about Clarisse and her whereabouts. Mildred initially denies knowledge of what happened to Clarisse, then tells Montag exactly what happened to her: Clarisse was run over by a speeding car and, once her family heard the news about her death, they packed up and moved away, all of which happened four days ago. Montag is shocked that Mildred didn't tell him the grim news sooner and more disturbed over Mildred's apathy over the death of someone Montag had genuinely liked. Montag wakes up physically ill and begs Mildred to call in sick for him. Mildred refuses and doesn't believe that Montag is really sick (even when Montag vomits on the rug from the stench of kerosene -- which earlier was like a perfume to him -- Mildred is only concerned about whether or not the vomit stain will come out in the wash). Captain Beatty, Montag's fire chief, personally visits him and tells him the story of how books lost their value and where the firemen fit in: Over the course of several decades (with the starting point being after the American Civil War), populations grew and people embraced new media, sports, and a quickening pace of life. Books were ruthlessly abridged and degraded to accommodate a shorter attention span. Later, minorities and other special-interest groups began criticizing books for their controversial content while other critics bashed authors for making people feel inferior by publishing works that no one could comprehend. Books became blander and blander due to censorship measures, and eventually, books stopped selling and authors were either locked away in insane asylums or gave up their profession and lived in exile. The only reading material that the society now accepts are captionless comics, three-dimensional sex magazines, trade magazines, and scripts used during the interactive plays on the parlor walls. To get rid of the books from the past (and their copies), the government implemented a program using the firemen to burn the books (now that houses were being rebuilt to be fire-resistant) and placate the masses. As Beatty is giving his monologue, Mildred tries to fluff Montag's pillow and nearly discovers the book hidden underneath. Montag yells at her and Mildred, at the request of Beatty, quietly leaves the room to watch the parlor walls. Beatty knows that Montag has a book but acts casual about it, stating that it's natural that every fireman gets curious about books and starts to possess one. If the book isn't burned or returned to the firehouse within 24 hours then the firemen will burn it for him. After Beatty has left, Montag shows Mildred the books he has hidden in the ventilator of their home. Mildred tries to incinerate the books, but Montag subdues her and tells her that the two of them are going to read the books to see if they have value. If they do not, he promises the books will be burned and all will return to normal. While going over the stolen books (and nearly getting caught by the firehouse's Mechanical Hound), Mildred argues with Montag that books have no meaning and questions why Montag dragged her into this. Montag snaps back by mentioning Mildred's overdose, Clarisse's death, the book woman who burned herself, and how society is falling apart due to apathy, ignorance, and a pending war, then states that maybe the books of the past have messages in them that can save society from its own destruction. Before Montag can finish, Mildred gets a call from her friends about coming over to watch The White Clown on the parlor walls. Montag laments that his wife is a lost cause (and he will be too if he can't force himself to absorb the information in the books). Montag then remembers a man he once met in the park a year ago: Faber, a former English professor. Montag seeks Faber's help, though Faber refuses at first due to his cowardice. After Montag starts to rip a few pages from the beginning of a rare copy of The New Testament (one of the few left that actually contains God's word, rather than the bastardized versions that have Jesus and other Biblical characters shilling products), Faber relents and teaches Montag about the importance of literature in its attempt to explain human existence. He gives Montag an ear-piece communicator he made himself so that Faber can offer guidance throughout his daily activities. At Montag's house, Mildred has friends Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles over to watch the parlor walls. In the middle of a bloody demolition derby, Montag unplugs the walls and engages the women into meaningful conversation, only to find them concerned only with pleasure in the present moment and indifferent to the upcoming war, death, their families, and politics. Montag then brings out a book of poetry to scare some emotion into them (despite Faber's warnings). Mildred tries to cover up Montag's actions by claiming that, once a year, firemen bring home one book and read it aloud as a form of mocking past literature. Mildred then turns to a page in the book that has the poem Dover Beach on it and assures that none of her friends will understand any of the words. A shaken, confused Montag reads the poem, which ends up making Mrs. Phelps cry. Mrs. Bowles, however, is disgusted, accuses Montag of being nasty, and breaks off her friendship with Mildred. Montag yells at the women to go home and reflect on their empty lives and burns the poetry book while Mildred locks herself in the bathroom to take her pills. Montag returns to the firehouse the next day with only one of the books, which Beatty tosses into the trash. Beatty tells Montag that he had a dream in which they fought endlessly by quoting books to each other. In describing the dream Beatty shows that, despite his disillusionment, he was once an enthusiastic reader. A fire alarm goes off and Beatty picks up the address from the dispatcher system. He reminds Montag of his duty, theatrically leads the crew to the fire engine, and drives it to Montag's house. Beatty orders Montag to destroy his own house, telling him that his wife and neighbors were the ones who reported him. Montag tries to talk to Mildred as she quickly leaves the house, but Mildred ignores him, gets inside a waiting taxi, and vanishes down the street. Montag obeys the chief, destroying the home piece by piece with a flamethrower. After he has incinerated the house, Beatty discovers Montag's earpiece and plans to hunt down Faber. Montag threatens Beatty with the flamethrower and (after Beatty taunts him) burns his boss alive. As Montag flees the scene, the firehouse's mechanical hound attacks him, managing to inject his leg with a tranquilizer. He destroys it with the flamethrower and limps away. Montag flees through the city streets, to Faber's house. Faber urges him to make his way to the countryside and contact the exiled book-lovers who live there. On Faber's television, they watch news reports of another mechanical hound being released, with news helicopters following it to create a public spectacle. Montag leaves Faber's house and escapes the manhunt by jumping into a river and floating downstream into the countryside. There he meets the exiles, who have memorized various books for an upcoming time when society is ready to rediscover them. The war begins, and then, just as suddenly, ends. Montag watches helplessly as jet bombers fly overhead and attack the city with nuclear weapons. During breakfast at dawn, Granger (leader of the group of wandering intellectuals) discusses the legendary phoenix and its endless cycle of long life, death in flames, and rebirth, adding that the phoenix must have some relation to mankind, which constantly repeats its mistakes, but that man has something the phoenix doesn't. It can remember the mistakes it made from before it destroyed itself, and try not make them again. Granger then muses that a large factory of mirrors should be built, so that mankind can take a long look at itself. After the meal is over, the band sets off back toward the city, to rebuild society.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On a rainy night while returning from his job, Guy Montag is followed by a cheery, 17-year-old girl named Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse initially bothers Montag with her incessant questions (and Clarisse is a bit bothered by Montag's uncalled-for reactions, such as laughing when she hasn't said anything funny), but Montag chooses to tolerate her as she tells him of how she loves nature and walking around and observing how crazy the world has become. The two walk until they reach Clarisse's house (which is next to Montag's). Before Clarisse goes inside, she asks Montag if he's happy. The question catches Montag by surprise and he mulls over his encounter with Clarisse (and how similar it was to another encounter in the park involving an English professor who was afraid of Montag). Montag enters his bedroom, and finds Mildred in bed with her Seashell ear radio in her ear, staring vacantly at the ceiling (just as she's been doing for the past ten years or so). Montag doesn't notice anything wrong until his foot hits Mildred's empty sleeping pill bottle. Montag tries to wake up his wife, but she doesn't respond. Montag calls for medical attention, trying to shout over the screams of the passing jet engines above the house. Because \"accidental\" prescription pill overdoses have become commonplace, the medical department sends over two cynical, uncaring technicians who use a \"Black Cobra\" stomach pump to flush the poisons out of Mildred's system and replace her blood with a fresh, mechanical replacement. Montag stands outside Clarisse's house and sees that she and her family are the only ones in the neighborhood with the lights on and engaging in a spirited conversation. Montag returns to his house, sees that Mildred is looking slightly better than before, and goes to bed. The next day, Montag finds Mildred in the kitchen, making breakfast and complaining"
      },
      {
        "text": " \"Black Cobra\" stomach pump to flush the poisons out of Mildred's system and replace her blood with a fresh, mechanical replacement. Montag stands outside Clarisse's house and sees that she and her family are the only ones in the neighborhood with the lights on and engaging in a spirited conversation. Montag returns to his house, sees that Mildred is looking slightly better than before, and goes to bed. The next day, Montag finds Mildred in the kitchen, making breakfast and complaining of an upset stomach. Montag tries to tell his wife that she overdosed, but is interrupted by Mildred's ramblings of her stomach hurting, but being hungry, and rationalizes that the feeling is from drinking too much alcohol during a party. As Montag leaves for work, he finally tells Mildred (who is watching an interactive soap opera on the \"parlor walls\" -- three enormous, floor-to-ceiling television screens) that she overdosed on sleeping pills. Mildred denies that she would do something that suicidal, but Montag insists. Mildred brushes off the issue and returns to her soap opera. Over the next few days, Montag bonds with Clarisse, who tells him that her interest in intellectual activities has made her an outcast in a society dominated by shallow entertainment, and for that, she has no friends and has to see a psychiatrist. On the final day, however, Clarisse doesn't appear alongside Montag. Montag waits for her, but the wait is short-lived when the train comes to take him to work. A few days later, the firemen are called in to burn down the house of an old woman who has been hoarding books. The firemen go to arrest her, but instead the woman recites a quote from Nicholas Ridley and refuses to leave. As the firemen toss the books from the woman's upstairs bedroom down to the living room floor and spray the pile with kerosene, Montag"
      },
      {
        "text": " her, but the wait is short-lived when the train comes to take him to work. A few days later, the firemen are called in to burn down the house of an old woman who has been hoarding books. The firemen go to arrest her, but instead the woman recites a quote from Nicholas Ridley and refuses to leave. As the firemen toss the books from the woman's upstairs bedroom down to the living room floor and spray the pile with kerosene, Montag accidentally reads a line in one of her books and hides it away before any of his coworkers can see. The woman is given a final warning to leave the house, but the woman produces a match. Before she can strike it, the firemen flee, save for Montag, who watches as the woman lights the match, drops it in the kerosene, and is engulfed in flames. Montag comes home from the jarring experience and tries to take his mind off the event by asking a half-asleep Mildred where the two first met and when. Mildred tries to remember, but can't, laughing it off as she heads to the bathroom to take her sleeping pills. As Montag reflects on his stagnant, stilted marriage to Mildred (and how Mildred has become emotionally and mentally dead from watching her \"parlor wall\" entertainment, driving recklessly, and her sleeping pill addiction), Montag begins to cry after realizing that if Mildred died, he wouldn't miss her at all. Montag then asks Mildred about Clarisse and her whereabouts. Mildred initially denies knowledge of what happened to Clarisse, then tells Montag exactly what happened to her: Clarisse was run over by a speeding car and, once her family heard the news about her death, they packed up and moved away, all of which happened four days ago. Montag is shocked that Mildred didn't tell him the grim news sooner and more disturbed over Mildred's apathy"
      },
      {
        "text": " miss her at all. Montag then asks Mildred about Clarisse and her whereabouts. Mildred initially denies knowledge of what happened to Clarisse, then tells Montag exactly what happened to her: Clarisse was run over by a speeding car and, once her family heard the news about her death, they packed up and moved away, all of which happened four days ago. Montag is shocked that Mildred didn't tell him the grim news sooner and more disturbed over Mildred's apathy over the death of someone Montag had genuinely liked. Montag wakes up physically ill and begs Mildred to call in sick for him. Mildred refuses and doesn't believe that Montag is really sick (even when Montag vomits on the rug from the stench of kerosene -- which earlier was like a perfume to him -- Mildred is only concerned about whether or not the vomit stain will come out in the wash). Captain Beatty, Montag's fire chief, personally visits him and tells him the story of how books lost their value and where the firemen fit in: Over the course of several decades (with the starting point being after the American Civil War), populations grew and people embraced new media, sports, and a quickening pace of life. Books were ruthlessly abridged and degraded to accommodate a shorter attention span. Later, minorities and other special-interest groups began criticizing books for their controversial content while other critics bashed authors for making people feel inferior by publishing works that no one could comprehend. Books became blander and blander due to censorship measures, and eventually, books stopped selling and authors were either locked away in insane asylums or gave up their profession and lived in exile. The only reading material that the society now accepts are captionless comics, three-dimensional sex magazines, trade magazines, and scripts used during the interactive plays on the parlor walls. To get rid of the books from the past (and their copies), the government implemented"
      },
      {
        "text": " publishing works that no one could comprehend. Books became blander and blander due to censorship measures, and eventually, books stopped selling and authors were either locked away in insane asylums or gave up their profession and lived in exile. The only reading material that the society now accepts are captionless comics, three-dimensional sex magazines, trade magazines, and scripts used during the interactive plays on the parlor walls. To get rid of the books from the past (and their copies), the government implemented a program using the firemen to burn the books (now that houses were being rebuilt to be fire-resistant) and placate the masses. As Beatty is giving his monologue, Mildred tries to fluff Montag's pillow and nearly discovers the book hidden underneath. Montag yells at her and Mildred, at the request of Beatty, quietly leaves the room to watch the parlor walls. Beatty knows that Montag has a book but acts casual about it, stating that it's natural that every fireman gets curious about books and starts to possess one. If the book isn't burned or returned to the firehouse within 24 hours then the firemen will burn it for him. After Beatty has left, Montag shows Mildred the books he has hidden in the ventilator of their home. Mildred tries to incinerate the books, but Montag subdues her and tells her that the two of them are going to read the books to see if they have value. If they do not, he promises the books will be burned and all will return to normal. While going over the stolen books (and nearly getting caught by the firehouse's Mechanical Hound), Mildred argues with Montag that books have no meaning and questions why Montag dragged her into this. Montag snaps back by mentioning Mildred's overdose, Clarisse's death, the book woman who burned herself, and how society is falling apart due to apathy, ignorance, and a"
      },
      {
        "text": " have value. If they do not, he promises the books will be burned and all will return to normal. While going over the stolen books (and nearly getting caught by the firehouse's Mechanical Hound), Mildred argues with Montag that books have no meaning and questions why Montag dragged her into this. Montag snaps back by mentioning Mildred's overdose, Clarisse's death, the book woman who burned herself, and how society is falling apart due to apathy, ignorance, and a pending war, then states that maybe the books of the past have messages in them that can save society from its own destruction. Before Montag can finish, Mildred gets a call from her friends about coming over to watch The White Clown on the parlor walls. Montag laments that his wife is a lost cause (and he will be too if he can't force himself to absorb the information in the books). Montag then remembers a man he once met in the park a year ago: Faber, a former English professor. Montag seeks Faber's help, though Faber refuses at first due to his cowardice. After Montag starts to rip a few pages from the beginning of a rare copy of The New Testament (one of the few left that actually contains God's word, rather than the bastardized versions that have Jesus and other Biblical characters shilling products), Faber relents and teaches Montag about the importance of literature in its attempt to explain human existence. He gives Montag an ear-piece communicator he made himself so that Faber can offer guidance throughout his daily activities. At Montag's house, Mildred has friends Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles over to watch the parlor walls. In the middle of a bloody demolition derby, Montag unplugs the walls and engages the women into meaningful conversation, only to find them concerned only with pleasure in the present moment and indifferent to the upcoming war, death, their families, and politics"
      },
      {
        "text": " gives Montag an ear-piece communicator he made himself so that Faber can offer guidance throughout his daily activities. At Montag's house, Mildred has friends Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles over to watch the parlor walls. In the middle of a bloody demolition derby, Montag unplugs the walls and engages the women into meaningful conversation, only to find them concerned only with pleasure in the present moment and indifferent to the upcoming war, death, their families, and politics. Montag then brings out a book of poetry to scare some emotion into them (despite Faber's warnings). Mildred tries to cover up Montag's actions by claiming that, once a year, firemen bring home one book and read it aloud as a form of mocking past literature. Mildred then turns to a page in the book that has the poem Dover Beach on it and assures that none of her friends will understand any of the words. A shaken, confused Montag reads the poem, which ends up making Mrs. Phelps cry. Mrs. Bowles, however, is disgusted, accuses Montag of being nasty, and breaks off her friendship with Mildred. Montag yells at the women to go home and reflect on their empty lives and burns the poetry book while Mildred locks herself in the bathroom to take her pills. Montag returns to the firehouse the next day with only one of the books, which Beatty tosses into the trash. Beatty tells Montag that he had a dream in which they fought endlessly by quoting books to each other. In describing the dream Beatty shows that, despite his disillusionment, he was once an enthusiastic reader. A fire alarm goes off and Beatty picks up the address from the dispatcher system. He reminds Montag of his duty, theatrically leads the crew to the fire engine, and drives it to Montag's house. Beatty orders Montag to destroy his own house, telling him that his wife and"
      },
      {
        "text": " that he had a dream in which they fought endlessly by quoting books to each other. In describing the dream Beatty shows that, despite his disillusionment, he was once an enthusiastic reader. A fire alarm goes off and Beatty picks up the address from the dispatcher system. He reminds Montag of his duty, theatrically leads the crew to the fire engine, and drives it to Montag's house. Beatty orders Montag to destroy his own house, telling him that his wife and neighbors were the ones who reported him. Montag tries to talk to Mildred as she quickly leaves the house, but Mildred ignores him, gets inside a waiting taxi, and vanishes down the street. Montag obeys the chief, destroying the home piece by piece with a flamethrower. After he has incinerated the house, Beatty discovers Montag's earpiece and plans to hunt down Faber. Montag threatens Beatty with the flamethrower and (after Beatty taunts him) burns his boss alive. As Montag flees the scene, the firehouse's mechanical hound attacks him, managing to inject his leg with a tranquilizer. He destroys it with the flamethrower and limps away. Montag flees through the city streets, to Faber's house. Faber urges him to make his way to the countryside and contact the exiled book-lovers who live there. On Faber's television, they watch news reports of another mechanical hound being released, with news helicopters following it to create a public spectacle. Montag leaves Faber's house and escapes the manhunt by jumping into a river and floating downstream into the countryside. There he meets the exiles, who have memorized various books for an upcoming time when society is ready to rediscover them. The war begins, and then, just as suddenly, ends. Montag watches helplessly as jet bombers fly overhead and attack the city with nuclear weapons"
      },
      {
        "text": " reports of another mechanical hound being released, with news helicopters following it to create a public spectacle. Montag leaves Faber's house and escapes the manhunt by jumping into a river and floating downstream into the countryside. There he meets the exiles, who have memorized various books for an upcoming time when society is ready to rediscover them. The war begins, and then, just as suddenly, ends. Montag watches helplessly as jet bombers fly overhead and attack the city with nuclear weapons. During breakfast at dawn, Granger (leader of the group of wandering intellectuals) discusses the legendary phoenix and its endless cycle of long life, death in flames, and rebirth, adding that the phoenix must have some relation to mankind, which constantly repeats its mistakes, but that man has something the phoenix doesn't. It can remember the mistakes it made from before it destroyed itself, and try not make them again. Granger then muses that a large factory of mirrors should be built, so that mankind can take a long look at itself. After the meal is over, the band sets off back toward the city, to rebuild society.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Farmer Giles of Ham",
    "author": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Farmer Giles (\u00c6gidius Ahenobarbus Julius Agricola de Hammo, \"Giles Bronze-beard Julius Farmer of Ham\") is not a hero. He is fat and red-bearded and enjoys a slow, comfortable life. But a rather deaf and short-sighted giant blunders on to his land, and Giles manages to ward him away with a blunderbuss shot in his general direction. The people of the village cheer: Farmer Giles has become a hero. His reputation spreads across the kingdom, and he is rewarded by the King with a sword named Caudimordax (\"Tailbiter\")\u2014which turns out to be a powerful weapon against dragons. The giant, on returning home, relates to his friends that there are no more knights in the Middle Kingdom, just stinging flies\u2014actually the scrap metal shot from the blunderbuss\u2014and this entices a dragon, Chrysophylax Dives, to investigate the area. The terrified neighbours all expect the accidental hero Farmer Giles to deal with him. The story parodies the great dragon-slaying traditions. The knights sent by the King to pursue the dragon are useless fops, more intent on \"precedence and etiquette\" than on the huge dragon footprints littering the landscape. The only part of a 'dragon' they know is the annual celebratory dragon-tail cake. Giles by contrast clearly recognizes the danger, and resents being sent along to face it. But hapless farmers can be forced to become heroes, and Giles shrewdly makes the best of the situation.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Farmer Giles (\u00c6gidius Ahenobarbus Julius Agricola de Hammo, \"Giles Bronze-beard Julius Farmer of Ham\") is not a hero. He is fat and red-bearded and enjoys a slow, comfortable life. But a rather deaf and short-sighted giant blunders on to his land, and Giles manages to ward him away with a blunderbuss shot in his general direction. The people of the village cheer: Farmer Giles has become a hero. His reputation spreads across the kingdom, and he is rewarded by the King with a sword named Caudimordax (\"Tailbiter\")\u2014which turns out to be a powerful weapon against dragons. The giant, on returning home, relates to his friends that there are no more knights in the Middle Kingdom, just stinging flies\u2014actually the scrap metal shot from the blunderbuss\u2014and this entices a dragon, Chrysophylax Dives, to investigate the area. The terrified neighbours all expect the accidental hero Farmer Giles to deal with him. The story parodies the great dragon-slaying traditions. The knights sent by the King to pursue the dragon are useless fops, more intent on \"precedence and etiquette\" than on the huge dragon footprints littering the landscape. The only part of a 'dragon' they know is the annual celebratory dragon-tail cake. Giles by contrast clearly recognizes the danger, and resents being sent along to face it. But hapless farmers can be forced to become heroes, and Giles shrewdly makes the best of the situation.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " But hapless farmers can be forced to become heroes, and Giles shrewdly makes the best of the situation.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Gaudy Night",
    "author": "Dorothy L. Sayers",
    "published_date": "1935",
    "synopsis": " Harriet Vane returns reluctantly to Oxford to attend the Gaudy dinner. Expecting hostility because of her notoriety, she is surprised to be welcomed warmly by the dons, and rediscovers her old love of the academic life. Some time later the Warden of Shrewsbury writes to ask for help. There has been an outbreak of anonymous letters, vandalism and threats, apparently from someone within the college, and a scandal is feared. Harriet, herself a victim of poison-pen letters ever since her trial, reluctantly agrees to help, and spends much of the next few months resident at the college, ostensibly to do research on Sheridan Le Fanu and assist a don with her book. As she wrestles with the case, trying to narrow down the list of suspects and avert a major scandal, Harriet is forced to examine her ambivalent feelings about love and marriage, along with her attraction to academia as an intellectual (and emotional) refuge. Her personal dilemma becomes entangled with darkly hinted suspicions and prejudices raised by the crimes at the college, which appear to have been committed by a sexually frustrated female don. Harriet is forced to re-examine her relationship with Wimsey in the light of what she has discovered about herself. Wimsey eventually arrives in Oxford to help her, and she gains a new perspective on him from those who know him, including his nephew, a current undergraduate at the university. The attacks build to a crisis, and the college community of students, dons and servants is almost torn apart by suspicion and fear. There is an attempt to drive a vulnerable student to suicide, and a physical assault on Harriet that almost kills her. The perpetrator is finally unmasked by Wimsey as one of the college servants, revealed to be the widow of a disgraced academic at a northern university. Her husband's academic fraud had been exposed by one of his fellow dons there, destroying his career and driving him to suicide. The don has since moved to Shrewsbury College, and the campaign has been the widow's revenge against intellectual women who move outside their \"proper\" domestic sphere. At the end of the book, Harriet Vane finally accepts Wimsey's proposal of marriage. (Their marriage and honeymoon\u2014interrupted by another murder mystery\u2014are depicted in Busman's Honeymoon.)\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Harriet Vane returns reluctantly to Oxford to attend the Gaudy dinner. Expecting hostility because of her notoriety, she is surprised to be welcomed warmly by the dons, and rediscovers her old love of the academic life. Some time later the Warden of Shrewsbury writes to ask for help. There has been an outbreak of anonymous letters, vandalism and threats, apparently from someone within the college, and a scandal is feared. Harriet, herself a victim of poison-pen letters ever since her trial, reluctantly agrees to help, and spends much of the next few months resident at the college, ostensibly to do research on Sheridan Le Fanu and assist a don with her book. As she wrestles with the case, trying to narrow down the list of suspects and avert a major scandal, Harriet is forced to examine her ambivalent feelings about love and marriage, along with her attraction to academia as an intellectual (and emotional) refuge. Her personal dilemma becomes entangled with darkly hinted suspicions and prejudices raised by the crimes at the college, which appear to have been committed by a sexually frustrated female don. Harriet is forced to re-examine her relationship with Wimsey in the light of what she has discovered about herself. Wimsey eventually arrives in Oxford to help her, and she gains a new perspective on him from those who know him, including his nephew, a current undergraduate at the university. The attacks build to a crisis, and the college community of students, dons and servants is almost torn apart by suspicion and fear. There is an attempt to drive a vulnerable student to suicide, and a physical assault on Harriet that almost kills her. The perpetrator is finally unmasked by Wimsey as one of the college servants, revealed to be the widow of a disgraced academic at a northern university. Her husband's academic fraud had been exposed by one of his fellow dons there, destroying his career and driving him to suicide. The don has since moved to Shrews"
      },
      {
        "text": " servants is almost torn apart by suspicion and fear. There is an attempt to drive a vulnerable student to suicide, and a physical assault on Harriet that almost kills her. The perpetrator is finally unmasked by Wimsey as one of the college servants, revealed to be the widow of a disgraced academic at a northern university. Her husband's academic fraud had been exposed by one of his fellow dons there, destroying his career and driving him to suicide. The don has since moved to Shrewsbury College, and the campaign has been the widow's revenge against intellectual women who move outside their \"proper\" domestic sphere. At the end of the book, Harriet Vane finally accepts Wimsey's proposal of marriage. (Their marriage and honeymoon\u2014interrupted by another murder mystery\u2014are depicted in Busman's Honeymoon.)\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Gylfaginning",
    "author": "Snorri Sturluson",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Gylfaginning tells the story of Gylfi, a king of \"the land that men now call Sweden\", who after being tricked by one of the goddesses of the \u00c6sir, wonders if all \u00c6sir use magic and tricks for their will to be done. This is why he journeys to Asgard, but on the way he is tricked by the gods and arrives in some other place, where he finds a great palace. Inside the palace he encounters a man who asks Gylfi's name and so king Gylfi introduces himself as Gangleri. Gangleri then is taken to the king of the palace and comes upon three men; High, Just-As-High, and Third. Gangleri is then challenged to show his wisdom by asking questions, as is the custom in many Norse sagas. Each question made to High, Just-As-High, and Third is about an aspect of the Norse mythology or its gods, and also about the creation and destruction of the world (Ragnar\u00f6k). In the end all the palace and its people just vanish and Gylfi is left standing on empty ground. It is then implied that as Gylfi returns to his nation, he retells the tales he was told. It can be argued that Snorri used this narrative device as a means of being able to safely document a vanishing and largely oral tradition within a Christian context.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Gylfaginning tells the story of Gylfi, a king of \"the land that men now call Sweden\", who after being tricked by one of the goddesses of the \u00c6sir, wonders if all \u00c6sir use magic and tricks for their will to be done. This is why he journeys to Asgard, but on the way he is tricked by the gods and arrives in some other place, where he finds a great palace. Inside the palace he encounters a man who asks Gylfi's name and so king Gylfi introduces himself as Gangleri. Gangleri then is taken to the king of the palace and comes upon three men; High, Just-As-High, and Third. Gangleri is then challenged to show his wisdom by asking questions, as is the custom in many Norse sagas. Each question made to High, Just-As-High, and Third is about an aspect of the Norse mythology or its gods, and also about the creation and destruction of the world (Ragnar\u00f6k). In the end all the palace and its people just vanish and Gylfi is left standing on empty ground. It is then implied that as Gylfi returns to his nation, he retells the tales he was told. It can be argued that Snorri used this narrative device as a means of being able to safely document a vanishing and largely oral tradition within a Christian context.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "God Emperor of Dune",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1981-05-28",
    "synopsis": " The seemingly immortal God Emperor Leto II has ruled his Empire for more than 3,500 years, his lifespan lengthened due to his decision in Children of Dune to merge his human body with sandtrout, the haploid phase of the giant sandworms of Arrakis. His continued evolution has slowly transformed him, altering his human form into what he calls a \"pre-worm.\" His body has come to resemble a small version of the ancient sandworms of Arrakis — ribbed, elongated, and covered in scaly sandtrout; his face remains, as do his hands and arms, but his legs and feet have atrophied to be of no use whatsoever and he moves from place to place on a large cart of Ixian manufacture. It is later revealed that his brain has gradually diffused into the rest of his body, becoming a series of nodes throughout his whole form. This distribution of internal organs and his sandtrout skin makes him virtually impervious to harm, even allowing him to survive lasgun fire, but like a sandworm his biology is very vulnerable to water. During his long reign, Leto has enforced a state of peace throughout his empire, both through tight control of his enormous (but limited) hoard of the spice melange and the military might of his Fish Speaker army. The old Imperium is basically non-existent; the Landsraad has ceased to exist, and only a few remnants of the Great Houses survive. The Bene Gesserit and Spacing Guild have endured, although both have been forced to adapt to Leto's absolute control over melange and his powerful prescience, and CHOAM has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. His reign is considered by many to be depraved and despotic, but he is confident that his actions will ensure the survival of the human race. Leto's enforced peace brings stagnation to the galaxy; he himself battles an incessant struggle with boredom and loneliness that overwhelms him because of his everlasting life, close-to-absolute prescience, a loss of vulnerability which renders him incapable of physical intimacy, and his perception of the passage of time in great lengths (as decades may pass without him realizing it). Few people realize the burden that he carries as he deems subjects useful as long as they serve a purpose to the \"Golden Path\" (the end justifying the means). Leto maintains a small and reclusive system of government, and as God, he chooses not to share the inner workings and purpose of his decisions or any sympathy for his cause, as he knows that humanity would not be able to grasp the concept. As his father before him, Leto is utterly incapable of foreseeing his own demise, and concludes that whatever he cannot see and perceive — and thus control — is connected to his eventual death; ironically, this amuses him since it is one of the few things that still brings surprise to his otherwise dull existence. Leto has employed a series of gholas grown from the cells of Duncan Idaho, the faithful Swordmaster of House Atreides. Duncan functions both as the captain of Leto's guard, and as a familiar face to calm Leto in his moments of distress. They remind Leto of his family, and he feels that he owes Duncan for his service and devotion to House Atreides. The vast majority of these gholas are made under Leto's instructions of preserving the original Idaho without enhancements; Idaho's masterful abilities, thus, are dwarfed by thousands of years of genetic manipulation displayed by Leto's servants. Over the centuries, a significant number of the gholas have attempted to assassinate Leto through various means after struggling with the conflict between their intense loyalty to House Atreides, and the moral disgust triggered by the repression and stagnation Leto has forced upon the Empire. These feelings, compounded with the uneasy doubt caused by being millennia out of their own time, drives some of the Duncan Idaho gholas insane. Even when he doesn't ask for a new ghola, or considering the circumstances surrounding the previous Idaho's demise, the Tleilaxu usually send one anyway as a token for their survival. Leto's \"Golden Path,\" as he calls it, is a millennia-spanning attempt to produce a human who is invisible to a watcher gifted with prescience. This breeding plan, begun with the marriage of Leto's twin sister Ghanima to Farad'n Corrino, has resulted in Leto's majordomo Moneo Atreides and his daughter Siona. Moneo has served Leto faithfully for the majority of his life, having been a rebel until he was shown the Golden Path in a test by Leto. Siona is the leader of a group of rebels seeking to overthrow the God Emperor, and locate his hidden hoard of melange. Unbeknownst to Siona, Nayla — her close friend and de facto bodyguard — worships Leto, and is under orders to protect and obey Siona in all things while reporting on her rebellious activities. Although Leto knows the important purpose of Siona, as long as she doesn't serve the \"Golden Path\" she would be expendable, and he would have to take measures for the breeding paths that he would have to take to replace her. During a raid on his Citadel, Siona and her friends steal, among other things, a series of excerpts from Leto's private journal. Unknown to them, Leto is aware of their activities and allows them to continue. In perusing some of the items and documents stolen from the Citadel, Siona learns that Leto remains capable of love, and plots to use this as a weapon against him. At the same time, the new Ixian ambassador, Hwi Noree, is sent to the court of the God Emperor. Immediately entranced by her beauty, grace, and purity, Leto begins to be tortured by the knowledge that he and Hwi are separated by his continued transformation. For her part, Hwi desires nothing more than to serve the God Emperor, and she quickly becomes a confidante, finally expressing her love of Leto. The latest incarnation of Duncan is also captivated by Hwi's beauty, but is rebuffed by Leto, who warns that Hwi is his alone. Because of his intense feelings for Hwi and the fact that she had never appeared in his prescient visions, Leto realizes that she is a trap, trained and sent by the Ixians to weaken him. However, he is unable to send her away, and she gladly accepts his offer to remain. It is revealed that Hwi had been grown inside an Ixian no-room — a device that shields its occupants from prescient view — from cells of a former Ixian ambassador, Malky, who had been a cynical and roguish friend of the God Emperor. Through discussions with Moneo and Leto, Duncan learns about Leto's transformation, the Fish Speakers, and the oppressive measures Leto takes to maintain his absolute control over the Empire. He begins to grow more agitated and restless, though he continues in his duties, defending the God Emperor from an attack by Tleilaxu Face Dancers. Duncan struggles with feelings of inadequacy, and the confusion and disorientation that result from existing in a time alien to him. Duncan meets Siona, and though the two of them are coldly formal to one another, they eventually unite to kill Leto and end his tyrannical rule over mankind. Leto and Hwi decide to marry, and lead a wedding procession from Leto's Little Citadel to Tuono Village, where Duncan and Siona have been sent. While crossing the Idaho River, Siona orders Nayla to cut the supports of the bridge with a lasgun, spilling Moneo, Hwi, Leto, and a number of courtiers into the jagged rocks in the canyon below. Nayla obeys, despite her fanaticism toward the God Emperor, believing that the instructions are a test of her loyalty. Leto survives the fall, but is immersed in water, and his body begins to dissolve, just as did the sandworms of ancient Dune. In a final conversation with Siona and Duncan, Leto reveals that Siona is the embodiment of the Golden Path, a human completely shielded from prescient view. He explains that humanity is now free from the domination of oracles, free to scatter throughout the universe, never again to face complete domination. After revealing the location of his secret spice hoard, Leto dies, leaving Duncan and Siona to face the task of managing the empire.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The seemingly immortal God Emperor Leto II has ruled his Empire for more than 3,500 years, his lifespan lengthened due to his decision in Children of Dune to merge his human body with sandtrout, the haploid phase of the giant sandworms of Arrakis. His continued evolution has slowly transformed him, altering his human form into what he calls a \"pre-worm.\" His body has come to resemble a small version of the ancient sandworms of Arrakis — ribbed, elongated, and covered in scaly sandtrout; his face remains, as do his hands and arms, but his legs and feet have atrophied to be of no use whatsoever and he moves from place to place on a large cart of Ixian manufacture. It is later revealed that his brain has gradually diffused into the rest of his body, becoming a series of nodes throughout his whole form. This distribution of internal organs and his sandtrout skin makes him virtually impervious to harm, even allowing him to survive lasgun fire, but like a sandworm his biology is very vulnerable to water. During his long reign, Leto has enforced a state of peace throughout his empire, both through tight control of his enormous (but limited) hoard of the spice melange and the military might of his Fish Speaker army. The old Imperium is basically non-existent; the Landsraad has ceased to exist, and only a few remnants of the Great Houses survive. The Bene Gesserit and Spacing Guild have endured, although both have been forced to adapt to Leto's absolute control over melange and his powerful prescience, and CHOAM has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. His reign is considered by many to be depraved and despotic, but he is confident that his actions will ensure the survival of the human race. Leto's enforced peace brings stagnation to the galaxy; he himself battles an incessant struggle with"
      },
      {
        "text": " survive. The Bene Gesserit and Spacing Guild have endured, although both have been forced to adapt to Leto's absolute control over melange and his powerful prescience, and CHOAM has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. His reign is considered by many to be depraved and despotic, but he is confident that his actions will ensure the survival of the human race. Leto's enforced peace brings stagnation to the galaxy; he himself battles an incessant struggle with boredom and loneliness that overwhelms him because of his everlasting life, close-to-absolute prescience, a loss of vulnerability which renders him incapable of physical intimacy, and his perception of the passage of time in great lengths (as decades may pass without him realizing it). Few people realize the burden that he carries as he deems subjects useful as long as they serve a purpose to the \"Golden Path\" (the end justifying the means). Leto maintains a small and reclusive system of government, and as God, he chooses not to share the inner workings and purpose of his decisions or any sympathy for his cause, as he knows that humanity would not be able to grasp the concept. As his father before him, Leto is utterly incapable of foreseeing his own demise, and concludes that whatever he cannot see and perceive — and thus control — is connected to his eventual death; ironically, this amuses him since it is one of the few things that still brings surprise to his otherwise dull existence. Leto has employed a series of gholas grown from the cells of Duncan Idaho, the faithful Swordmaster of House Atreides. Duncan functions both as the captain of Leto's guard, and as a familiar face to calm Leto in his moments of distress. They remind Leto of his family, and he feels that he owes Duncan for his service and devotion to House Atreides. The vast majority of these gholas are made under Leto"
      },
      {
        "text": " to his otherwise dull existence. Leto has employed a series of gholas grown from the cells of Duncan Idaho, the faithful Swordmaster of House Atreides. Duncan functions both as the captain of Leto's guard, and as a familiar face to calm Leto in his moments of distress. They remind Leto of his family, and he feels that he owes Duncan for his service and devotion to House Atreides. The vast majority of these gholas are made under Leto's instructions of preserving the original Idaho without enhancements; Idaho's masterful abilities, thus, are dwarfed by thousands of years of genetic manipulation displayed by Leto's servants. Over the centuries, a significant number of the gholas have attempted to assassinate Leto through various means after struggling with the conflict between their intense loyalty to House Atreides, and the moral disgust triggered by the repression and stagnation Leto has forced upon the Empire. These feelings, compounded with the uneasy doubt caused by being millennia out of their own time, drives some of the Duncan Idaho gholas insane. Even when he doesn't ask for a new ghola, or considering the circumstances surrounding the previous Idaho's demise, the Tleilaxu usually send one anyway as a token for their survival. Leto's \"Golden Path,\" as he calls it, is a millennia-spanning attempt to produce a human who is invisible to a watcher gifted with prescience. This breeding plan, begun with the marriage of Leto's twin sister Ghanima to Farad'n Corrino, has resulted in Leto's majordomo Moneo Atreides and his daughter Siona. Moneo has served Leto faithfully for the majority of his life, having been a rebel until he was shown the Golden Path in a test by Leto. Siona is the leader of a group of rebels seeking to overthrow the God Emperor, and locate his hidden hoard of melange."
      },
      {
        "text": " the marriage of Leto's twin sister Ghanima to Farad'n Corrino, has resulted in Leto's majordomo Moneo Atreides and his daughter Siona. Moneo has served Leto faithfully for the majority of his life, having been a rebel until he was shown the Golden Path in a test by Leto. Siona is the leader of a group of rebels seeking to overthrow the God Emperor, and locate his hidden hoard of melange. Unbeknownst to Siona, Nayla — her close friend and de facto bodyguard — worships Leto, and is under orders to protect and obey Siona in all things while reporting on her rebellious activities. Although Leto knows the important purpose of Siona, as long as she doesn't serve the \"Golden Path\" she would be expendable, and he would have to take measures for the breeding paths that he would have to take to replace her. During a raid on his Citadel, Siona and her friends steal, among other things, a series of excerpts from Leto's private journal. Unknown to them, Leto is aware of their activities and allows them to continue. In perusing some of the items and documents stolen from the Citadel, Siona learns that Leto remains capable of love, and plots to use this as a weapon against him. At the same time, the new Ixian ambassador, Hwi Noree, is sent to the court of the God Emperor. Immediately entranced by her beauty, grace, and purity, Leto begins to be tortured by the knowledge that he and Hwi are separated by his continued transformation. For her part, Hwi desires nothing more than to serve the God Emperor, and she quickly becomes a confidante, finally expressing her love of Leto. The latest incarnation of Duncan is also captivated by Hwi's beauty, but is rebuffed by Leto,"
      },
      {
        "text": ", is sent to the court of the God Emperor. Immediately entranced by her beauty, grace, and purity, Leto begins to be tortured by the knowledge that he and Hwi are separated by his continued transformation. For her part, Hwi desires nothing more than to serve the God Emperor, and she quickly becomes a confidante, finally expressing her love of Leto. The latest incarnation of Duncan is also captivated by Hwi's beauty, but is rebuffed by Leto, who warns that Hwi is his alone. Because of his intense feelings for Hwi and the fact that she had never appeared in his prescient visions, Leto realizes that she is a trap, trained and sent by the Ixians to weaken him. However, he is unable to send her away, and she gladly accepts his offer to remain. It is revealed that Hwi had been grown inside an Ixian no-room — a device that shields its occupants from prescient view — from cells of a former Ixian ambassador, Malky, who had been a cynical and roguish friend of the God Emperor. Through discussions with Moneo and Leto, Duncan learns about Leto's transformation, the Fish Speakers, and the oppressive measures Leto takes to maintain his absolute control over the Empire. He begins to grow more agitated and restless, though he continues in his duties, defending the God Emperor from an attack by Tleilaxu Face Dancers. Duncan struggles with feelings of inadequacy, and the confusion and disorientation that result from existing in a time alien to him. Duncan meets Siona, and though the two of them are coldly formal to one another, they eventually unite to kill Leto and end his tyrannical rule over mankind. Leto and Hwi decide to marry, and lead a wedding procession from Leto's Little Citadel to Tuono Village, where Duncan and Siona have been sent"
      },
      {
        "text": "axu Face Dancers. Duncan struggles with feelings of inadequacy, and the confusion and disorientation that result from existing in a time alien to him. Duncan meets Siona, and though the two of them are coldly formal to one another, they eventually unite to kill Leto and end his tyrannical rule over mankind. Leto and Hwi decide to marry, and lead a wedding procession from Leto's Little Citadel to Tuono Village, where Duncan and Siona have been sent. While crossing the Idaho River, Siona orders Nayla to cut the supports of the bridge with a lasgun, spilling Moneo, Hwi, Leto, and a number of courtiers into the jagged rocks in the canyon below. Nayla obeys, despite her fanaticism toward the God Emperor, believing that the instructions are a test of her loyalty. Leto survives the fall, but is immersed in water, and his body begins to dissolve, just as did the sandworms of ancient Dune. In a final conversation with Siona and Duncan, Leto reveals that Siona is the embodiment of the Golden Path, a human completely shielded from prescient view. He explains that humanity is now free from the domination of oracles, free to scatter throughout the universe, never again to face complete domination. After revealing the location of his secret spice hoard, Leto dies, leaving Duncan and Siona to face the task of managing the empire.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Genesis",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " God creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh after giving mankind his first commandment: \"be fruitful and multiply\". God pronounces the world \"very good\", but it becomes corrupted by the sin of man and God sends a deluge (a great flood) to destroy it, saving only the righteous (Noah) and his family, from whose seed the world is repopulated. Man sins again, but God has promised that he will not destroy the world a second time with water. God instructs Abram (the future Abraham) to travel from his home in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) to the land of Canaan. There God makes a covenant with Abram promising that his descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in the heavens, but that they shall suffer oppression in a foreign land for four hundred years, after which they shall inherit the land \"from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.\" Abram's name is changed to Abraham and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah, and circumcision of all males is instituted as the sign of the covenant. Sarah is barren, and tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, as a concubine. Through Hagar, Abraham becomes the father of Ishmael. Abraham asks God that Ishmael \"might live in Thy sight,\" (that is, be favored), but God replies that Sarah will bear a son, who will be named Isaac, through whom the covenant will be established. At Sarah's insistence Ishmael and his mother Hagar are driven out into the wilderness, but God saves them and promises to make Ishmael a great nation. God resolves to destroy the city of Sodom for the sins of its people. Abraham protests that it is not just \"to slay the righteous with the wicked,\" and asks if the whole city can be spared if even ten righteous men are found there. God replies: \"For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.\" Abraham's nephew Lot is saved from the destruction of Sodom, and through incest with his daughters becomes the ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonites. God tests Abraham by demanding that he sacrifice Isaac. As Abraham is about to lay the knife upon his son, God restrains him, promising him numberless descendants. On the death of Sarah, Abraham purchases Machpelah (modern Hebron) for a family tomb and sends his servant to Mesopotamia to find among his relations a wife for Isaac, and Rebekah is chosen. Other children are born to Abraham by another wife, Keturah, among whose descendants are the Midianites, and he dies in a prosperous old age and is buried in his tomb at Hebron. Isaac's wife Rebekah is barren, but Isaac prays to God and she gives birth to the twins Esau, father of the Edomites, and Jacob. Through deception, Jacob becomes the heir instead of Esau and gains his father's blessing. He flees to his uncle where he prospers and earns his two wives. Jacob's name is changed to Israel, and by his wives Rachel and Leah and their handmaidens he has twelve sons, the ancestors of the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel. Joseph, Jacob's favourite son, is sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers. But Joseph prospers, and when famine comes he brings his father and his brothers and their households, seventy persons in all, to Egypt, where Pharaoh assigns to them the land of Goshen. Jacob calls his sons to his bedside and reveals their future to them before he dies and is interred in the family tomb at Machpelah. Joseph lives to see his great-grandchildren, and on his death-bed he exhorts his brethren, if God should remember them and lead them out of the country, to take his bones with them. The book ends with Joseph's remains being \"put in a coffin in Egypt.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " God creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh after giving mankind his first commandment: \"be fruitful and multiply\". God pronounces the world \"very good\", but it becomes corrupted by the sin of man and God sends a deluge (a great flood) to destroy it, saving only the righteous (Noah) and his family, from whose seed the world is repopulated. Man sins again, but God has promised that he will not destroy the world a second time with water. God instructs Abram (the future Abraham) to travel from his home in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) to the land of Canaan. There God makes a covenant with Abram promising that his descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in the heavens, but that they shall suffer oppression in a foreign land for four hundred years, after which they shall inherit the land \"from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.\" Abram's name is changed to Abraham and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah, and circumcision of all males is instituted as the sign of the covenant. Sarah is barren, and tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, as a concubine. Through Hagar, Abraham becomes the father of Ishmael. Abraham asks God that Ishmael \"might live in Thy sight,\" (that is, be favored), but God replies that Sarah will bear a son, who will be named Isaac, through whom the covenant will be established. At Sarah's insistence Ishmael and his mother Hagar are driven out into the wilderness, but God saves them and promises to make Ishmael a great nation. God resolves to destroy the city of Sodom for the sins of its people. Abraham protests that it is not just \"to slay the righteous with the wicked,\" and asks if the whole city can be spared if even ten righteous men are found there. God replies: \"For the sake of ten I will not destroy"
      },
      {
        "text": " be established. At Sarah's insistence Ishmael and his mother Hagar are driven out into the wilderness, but God saves them and promises to make Ishmael a great nation. God resolves to destroy the city of Sodom for the sins of its people. Abraham protests that it is not just \"to slay the righteous with the wicked,\" and asks if the whole city can be spared if even ten righteous men are found there. God replies: \"For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.\" Abraham's nephew Lot is saved from the destruction of Sodom, and through incest with his daughters becomes the ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonites. God tests Abraham by demanding that he sacrifice Isaac. As Abraham is about to lay the knife upon his son, God restrains him, promising him numberless descendants. On the death of Sarah, Abraham purchases Machpelah (modern Hebron) for a family tomb and sends his servant to Mesopotamia to find among his relations a wife for Isaac, and Rebekah is chosen. Other children are born to Abraham by another wife, Keturah, among whose descendants are the Midianites, and he dies in a prosperous old age and is buried in his tomb at Hebron. Isaac's wife Rebekah is barren, but Isaac prays to God and she gives birth to the twins Esau, father of the Edomites, and Jacob. Through deception, Jacob becomes the heir instead of Esau and gains his father's blessing. He flees to his uncle where he prospers and earns his two wives. Jacob's name is changed to Israel, and by his wives Rachel and Leah and their handmaidens he has twelve sons, the ancestors of the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel. Joseph, Jacob's favourite son, is sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers. But Joseph prospers, and when famine comes he brings his father and his brothers and their households,"
      },
      {
        "text": " and gains his father's blessing. He flees to his uncle where he prospers and earns his two wives. Jacob's name is changed to Israel, and by his wives Rachel and Leah and their handmaidens he has twelve sons, the ancestors of the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel. Joseph, Jacob's favourite son, is sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers. But Joseph prospers, and when famine comes he brings his father and his brothers and their households, seventy persons in all, to Egypt, where Pharaoh assigns to them the land of Goshen. Jacob calls his sons to his bedside and reveals their future to them before he dies and is interred in the family tomb at Machpelah. Joseph lives to see his great-grandchildren, and on his death-bed he exhorts his brethren, if God should remember them and lead them out of the country, to take his bones with them. The book ends with Joseph's remains being \"put in a coffin in Egypt.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Gone with the Wind",
    "author": "Margaret Mitchell",
    "published_date": "1936-06-30",
    "synopsis": " Gone with the Wind takes place in the southern United States in the state of Georgia during the American Civil War (1861\u20131865) and the Reconstruction Era (1865\u20131877) that followed the war. The novel unfolds against the backdrop of rebellion wherein seven southern states, Georgia among them, have declared their secession from the United States (the \"Union\") and formed the Confederate States of America (the \"Confederacy\"), after Abraham Lincoln was elected president with no ballots from ten Southern states where slavery was legal. A dispute over states' rights has arisen had an effect on men, especially when she took notice of them. It is the day before the men are called to war, Fort Sumter having been fired on two days earlier. There are brief but vivid descriptions of the South as it began and grew, with backgrounds of the main characters: the stylish and highbrow French, the gentlemanly English, the forced-to-flee and looked-down-upon Irish. Miss Scarlett learns that one of her many beaux, Ashley Wilkes, is soon to be engaged to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton. She is stricken at heart. The following day at the Wilkeses' barbecue at \"Twelve Oaks,\" Scarlett informs Ashley she loves him and Ashley admits he cares for her. However, he knows he would not be happily married to Scarlett because of their personality differences. Scarlett loses her temper at Ashley and he silently takes it. Then Scarlett meets Rhett Butler, a man who has a reputation as a rogue. Rhett had been alone in the library when Ashley and Scarlett entered, and felt it wiser to not make his presence known while the argument took place. Rhett applauds Scarlett for the unladylike spirit she displayed with Ashley. Infuriated and humiliated, Scarlett tells Rhett, \"You aren't fit to wipe Ashley's boots!\" Upon leaving the library and rejoining the other party guests, she finds out that war has been declared and the men are going to enlist. Seeking revenge for being jilted by Ashley, Scarlett accepts a proposal of marriage from Melanie's brother, Charles Hamilton. They marry two weeks later. Charles dies from measles two months after the war begins. Scarlett is pregnant with her first child. A widow at merely sixteen, she gives birth to a boy, Wade Hampton Hamilton, named after his father's general. As a widow, she is bound by tradition to wear black and avoid conversation with young men. Scarlett is despondent as a result of the restrictions placed upon her. Melanie, who is living in Atlanta with Aunt Pittypat, invites Scarlett to live with them. In Atlanta, Scarlett's spirits revive and she is busy with hospital work and sewing circles for the Confederate army. Scarlett encounters Rhett Butler again at a dance for the Confederacy. Although Rhett believes the war is a lost cause, he is blockade running for the profit in it. The men must bid for a dance with a lady and Rhett bids \"one hundred fifty dollars-in gold.\" for a dance with Scarlett. Everyone at the dance is shocked that Rhett would bid for Scarlett, the widow still dressed in black. Melanie smooths things over by coming to Rhett's defense because he is generously supporting the Confederate cause for which her husband, Ashley, is fighting. At Christmas (1863), Ashley has been granted a furlough from the army and returns to Atlanta to be with Melanie. The war is going badly for the Confederacy. Atlanta is under siege (September 1864), \"hemmed in on three sides,\" it descends into a desperate state while hundreds of wounded Confederate soldiers lie dying or dead in the city. Melanie goes into labor with only the inexperienced Scarlett to assist, as all the doctors are busy attending the soldiers. Prissy, a young Negro servant girl, cries out in despair and fear, \"De Yankees is comin!\" In the chaos, Scarlett, left to fend for herself, cries for the comfort and safety of her mother and Tara. The tattered Confederate States Army sets flame to Atlanta as they abandon it to the Union Army. Melanie gives birth to a boy named \"Beau\", and now they must hurry for refuge. Scarlett tells Prissy to go find Rhett, but she is afraid to \"go runnin' roun' in de dahk\". Scarlett replies to Prissy, \"Haven't you any gumption?\" Prissy then finds Rhett, and Scarlett begs him to take herself, Wade, Melanie, Beau, and Prissy to Tara. Rhett laughs at the idea, but steals an emaciated horse and a small wagon, and they follow the retreating army out of Atlanta. Part way to Tara, Rhett has a change of heart and he abandons Scarlett to enlist in the army. Scarlett makes her way to Tara without him where she is welcomed on the steps by her father, Gerald. It is clear things have drastically changed: Gerald has lost his mind, Scarlett's mother is dead, her sisters are sick with typhoid fever, the field slaves left after Emancipation, the Yankees have burned all the cotton and there is no food in the house. The long tiring struggle for post-war survival begins that has Scarlett working in the fields. There are so many hungry people to feed and so little food. There is the ever present threat of the Yankees who steal and burn, and at one point, Scarlett kills a Yankee marauder with a single shot from Charles's pistol leaving \"a bloody pit where the nose had been.\" A long succession of Confederate soldiers returning home stop at Tara to find food and rest. Two men stay on, an invalid Cracker, Will Benteen, and Ashley Wilkes, whose spirit is broken. Life at Tara slowly begins to recover when a new threat appears in the form of new taxes on Tara. Scarlett knows only one man who has enough money to help her pay the taxes, Rhett Butler. She goes to Atlanta to find him only to learn Rhett is in jail. As she is leaving the jailhouse, Scarlett runs into Frank Kennedy, who is betrothed to Scarlett's sister, Suellen, and running a store in Atlanta. Soon realizing Frank also has money, Scarlett hatches a plot and tells Frank that Suellen has changed her mind about marrying him. Thereafter Frank succumbs to Scarlett's feminine charms and he marries her two weeks later knowing he has done \"something romantic and exciting for the first time in his life.\" Always wanting Scarlett to be happy and radiant, Frank gives her the money to pay the taxes on Tara. While Frank has a cold and is being pampered by Aunt Pittypat, Scarlett goes over the accounts at Frank's store and finds many of his friends owe him money. Scarlett is now terrified about the taxes and decides money, a lot of it, is needed. She takes control of his business while he is away and her business practices leave many Atlantans resentful of her. Then with a loan from Rhett she buys a sawmill and runs the lumber business herself, all very unladylike conduct. Much to Frank's relief, Scarlett learns she is pregnant, which curtails her activities for awhile. She convinces Ashley to come to Atlanta and manage the mill, all the while still in love with him. At Melanie's urging, Ashley takes the job at the mill. Melanie soon becomes the center of Atlanta society, and Scarlett gives birth to a girl named Ella Lorena. \"Ella for her grandmother Ellen, and Lorena because it was the most fashionable name of the day for girls.\" The state of Georgia is under martial law and life there has taken on a new and more frightening tone. For protection, Scarlett keeps Frank's pistol tucked in the upholstery of the buggy. Her trips alone to and from the mill take her past a shanty town where criminal elements live. On one evening when she is coming home from the mill, Scarlett is accosted by two men who attempt to rob her, but she escapes with the help of Big Sam, the former negro foreman from Tara. Attempting to avenge the assault on his wife, Frank and the Ku Klux Klan raid the shanty town whereupon Frank is shot dead. Scarlett is a widow for a second time. Rhett puts on a charade to keep the men who participated in the shanty town raid from being arrested. He walks into the Wilkeses' home with Hugh Elsing and Ashley, singing and pretending to be drunk. Yankee officers outside the home question Rhett and he tells them he and the other men had been at Belle Watling's brothel that evening, a story Belle later confirms to the officers. The men are indebted to Rhett for saving them, and his Scallawag reputation among them improves a notch, but the men's wives, with the exception of Melanie, are livid at owing their husbands' lives to Belle Watling. Frank Kennedy lies cold in a coffin in the quiet stillness of the parlor in Aunt Pittypat's home. Scarlett is in a remorseful state. She is swigging brandy from Aunt Pitty's swoon bottle when Rhett comes to call. She tells Rhett tearfully, \"I'm afraid I'll die and go to hell,\" to which Rhett replies, \"Maybe there isn't a hell.\" Before she can cry any further, Rhett asks Scarlett to marry him saying, \"I always intended having you, one way or another.\" Scarlett declares she doesn't love him and doesn't want to be married again. However, Rhett kisses her passionately, and in the heat of the moment she agrees to marry him. One year later, Scarlett and Rhett announce their engagement. News of the impending marriage is the talk of the town. Mr. and Mrs. Butler honeymoon in New Orleans, spending lavishly. Upon their return to Atlanta, the couple take up residence in the bridal suite at the National Hotel while their new home on Peachtree Street is being constructed. Scarlett chooses a modern Swiss chalet style home like the one she saw in Harper's Weekly, and red wallpaper, thick red carpet and black walnut furniture for the interior. Rhett describes the house as an \"architectural horror\". Shortly after the Butlers move into their new home, the sardonic jabs between them turn into full-blown quarrels. Scarlett wonders why Rhett married her. Then \"with real hate in her eyes\" she tells Rhett she is going to have a baby, a baby she does not want. Wade is seven years old in 1869 when his sister, Eugenie Victoria, named after two queens, arrives in the world. She has blue eyes like Gerald O'Hara and Melanie gives her the nickname, \"Bonnie Blue,\" in reference to the Bonnie Blue Flag of the Confederacy. When Scarlett is feeling well again, she makes a trip to the mill and talks to Ashley, who is alone in the office. In the conversation with him, she comes away believing Ashley still loves her and is jealous of her intimate relations with Rhett, which excites her. Scarlett returns home and tells Rhett she does not want more children. From then on, Scarlett and Rhett sleep in separate bedrooms, and when Bonnie is two years old, she sleeps in a little bed beside Rhett's bed (with the light on all night long because she is afraid of the dark). Rhett turns his attention towards Bonnie, dotes on her, spoils her, and worries about her reputation when she is older. Melanie is giving a surprise birthday party for Ashley. Scarlett goes to the mill to keep Ashley there until party time, a rare opportunity for Scarlett to see Ashley alone. When she sees him, she feels \"sixteen again, a little breathless and excited.\" Ashley tells her how pretty she looks, and they reminisce about the days when they were young and talk about their lives now. Suddenly Scarlett's eyes fill with tears and Ashley holds her head against his chest. Then in the doorway of the office Ashley sees standing his sister, India Wilkes. Before the party has even begun rumors of an adulterous relationship between Ashley and Scarlett have started, and Rhett and Melanie have heard the gossip. Melanie refuses to accept any criticism of her sister in-law and India Wilkes is banished from the Wilkeses' home for it, causing a rift in the family. Rhett, more drunk than Scarlett has ever seen him, returns home the evening of the party long after Scarlett. His eyes are bloodshot and his mood is dark and violent. He enjoins Scarlett to drink with him. Not wanting Rhett to know she is fearful of him, Scarlett throws back a drink and gets up from her chair to go back to her bedroom. But Rhett stops her and pins her shoulders to the wall. Scarlett tells Rhett he is jealous of Ashley and Rhett accuses Scarlett of \"crying for the moon\" over Ashley. He tells Scarlett they could have been happy together saying, \"for I loved you and I know you.\" Rhett then takes Scarlett in his arms and carries her up the stairs to her bedroom where passion envelops them. The following morning Rhett leaves town with Bonnie and Prissy and stays away for three months. Scarlett finds herself missing him, but she is still unsure if Rhett loves her, having told her so when he was drunk. She learns she is pregnant with her fourth child. On the day Rhett arrives home, Scarlett waits for him at the top of the stairs. She wonders if Rhett will kiss her, but to Scarlett's irritation, he does not. He tells her she looks pale. Scarlett tells him she is pale because she is pregnant. Rhett sarcastically asks her if the father is Ashley. She calls Rhett a cad and tells him no woman would want a baby of his. To which Rhett responds, \"cheer up, maybe you'll have a miscarriage.\" At that comment, Scarlett lunges at Rhett, but he side steps and she tumbles backwards down the stairs. She is seriously ill for the first time in her life, having lost her child and broken her ribs. Rhett is remorseful, believing he has killed her. Sobbing and drunk, Rhett buries his head in Melanie's lap and confesses he had been a jealous cad. Scarlett, who is thin and pale, goes to Tara taking Wade and Ella with her, to regain her strength and vitality from \"the green cotton fields of home.\" When she returns a healthy woman to Atlanta, she sells the mills to Ashley. She finds Rhett's attitude has noticeably changed. He is sober, kinder, polite and seemingly disinterested. Though she misses the old Rhett at times, Scarlett is content to leave well enough alone. Now Bonnie is four years old in 1873. A spirited and willful child, she has her father wrapped around her finger and giving into her every demand. Even Scarlett is jealous of the attention she gets from him. Rhett rides his horse around town with Bonnie in front of him, but the household mammy, \"Mammy,\" insists it is not fitting for a girl to ride a horse with her dress flying up. Rhett heeds Mammy's words and buys Bonnie a Shetland pony, whom she names \"Mr. Butler,\" and teaches her to ride sidesaddle. Then Rhett pays a boy named Wash twenty-five cents to teach Mr. Butler to jump over wood bars. When Mr. Butler is able to get his fat legs over a one foot high bar, Rhett puts Bonnie on the pony, and soon Mr. Butler is leaping bars and Aunt Melly's rose bushes. Wearing her blue velvet riding habit with a red feather in her black hat, Bonnie pleads with her father to raise the bar to one and a half feet. He gives in and raises the bar, warning her not to come crying to him if she falls. Bonnie yells to her Mother, \"Watch me take this one!\" The pony gallops towards the wood bar, but trips over it splintering the wood. Mr. Butler tumbles to the ground then scrambles to his feet and trots off with an empty saddle. Little Miss \"Bonnie Blue\" Butler is dead. In the dark days and months following Bonnie's death, Rhett is often drunk and disheveled, while Scarlett, though deeply grieved also, seems to hold up under the strain. With the untimely death of Melanie Wilkes a short time later, Rhett decides he only wants the calm dignity of the genial South he once knew in his youth and he leaves Atlanta to find it. Meanwhile, Scarlett dreams of love that has eluded her for so long. However, she still has Tara and is determined to win Rhett back, and \"tomorrow is another day.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Gone with the Wind takes place in the southern United States in the state of Georgia during the American Civil War (1861\u20131865) and the Reconstruction Era (1865\u20131877) that followed the war. The novel unfolds against the backdrop of rebellion wherein seven southern states, Georgia among them, have declared their secession from the United States (the \"Union\") and formed the Confederate States of America (the \"Confederacy\"), after Abraham Lincoln was elected president with no ballots from ten Southern states where slavery was legal. A dispute over states' rights has arisen had an effect on men, especially when she took notice of them. It is the day before the men are called to war, Fort Sumter having been fired on two days earlier. There are brief but vivid descriptions of the South as it began and grew, with backgrounds of the main characters: the stylish and highbrow French, the gentlemanly English, the forced-to-flee and looked-down-upon Irish. Miss Scarlett learns that one of her many beaux, Ashley Wilkes, is soon to be engaged to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton. She is stricken at heart. The following day at the Wilkeses' barbecue at \"Twelve Oaks,\" Scarlett informs Ashley she loves him and Ashley admits he cares for her. However, he knows he would not be happily married to Scarlett because of their personality differences. Scarlett loses her temper at Ashley and he silently takes it. Then Scarlett meets Rhett Butler, a man who has a reputation as a rogue. Rhett had been alone in the library when Ashley and Scarlett entered, and felt it wiser to not make his presence known while the argument took place. Rhett applauds Scarlett for the unladylike spirit she displayed with Ashley. Infuriated and humiliated, Scarlett tells Rhett, \"You aren't fit to wipe Ashley's boots!\" Upon leaving the library and rejoining the other party guests, she finds out that war has been declared and the"
      },
      {
        "text": " a man who has a reputation as a rogue. Rhett had been alone in the library when Ashley and Scarlett entered, and felt it wiser to not make his presence known while the argument took place. Rhett applauds Scarlett for the unladylike spirit she displayed with Ashley. Infuriated and humiliated, Scarlett tells Rhett, \"You aren't fit to wipe Ashley's boots!\" Upon leaving the library and rejoining the other party guests, she finds out that war has been declared and the men are going to enlist. Seeking revenge for being jilted by Ashley, Scarlett accepts a proposal of marriage from Melanie's brother, Charles Hamilton. They marry two weeks later. Charles dies from measles two months after the war begins. Scarlett is pregnant with her first child. A widow at merely sixteen, she gives birth to a boy, Wade Hampton Hamilton, named after his father's general. As a widow, she is bound by tradition to wear black and avoid conversation with young men. Scarlett is despondent as a result of the restrictions placed upon her. Melanie, who is living in Atlanta with Aunt Pittypat, invites Scarlett to live with them. In Atlanta, Scarlett's spirits revive and she is busy with hospital work and sewing circles for the Confederate army. Scarlett encounters Rhett Butler again at a dance for the Confederacy. Although Rhett believes the war is a lost cause, he is blockade running for the profit in it. The men must bid for a dance with a lady and Rhett bids \"one hundred fifty dollars-in gold.\" for a dance with Scarlett. Everyone at the dance is shocked that Rhett would bid for Scarlett, the widow still dressed in black. Melanie smooths things over by coming to Rhett's defense because he is generously supporting the Confederate cause for which her husband, Ashley, is fighting. At Christmas (1863), Ashley has been granted a furlough from the army and returns to Atlanta to be with Melanie. The war is going badly"
      },
      {
        "text": " Rhett bids \"one hundred fifty dollars-in gold.\" for a dance with Scarlett. Everyone at the dance is shocked that Rhett would bid for Scarlett, the widow still dressed in black. Melanie smooths things over by coming to Rhett's defense because he is generously supporting the Confederate cause for which her husband, Ashley, is fighting. At Christmas (1863), Ashley has been granted a furlough from the army and returns to Atlanta to be with Melanie. The war is going badly for the Confederacy. Atlanta is under siege (September 1864), \"hemmed in on three sides,\" it descends into a desperate state while hundreds of wounded Confederate soldiers lie dying or dead in the city. Melanie goes into labor with only the inexperienced Scarlett to assist, as all the doctors are busy attending the soldiers. Prissy, a young Negro servant girl, cries out in despair and fear, \"De Yankees is comin!\" In the chaos, Scarlett, left to fend for herself, cries for the comfort and safety of her mother and Tara. The tattered Confederate States Army sets flame to Atlanta as they abandon it to the Union Army. Melanie gives birth to a boy named \"Beau\", and now they must hurry for refuge. Scarlett tells Prissy to go find Rhett, but she is afraid to \"go runnin' roun' in de dahk\". Scarlett replies to Prissy, \"Haven't you any gumption?\" Prissy then finds Rhett, and Scarlett begs him to take herself, Wade, Melanie, Beau, and Prissy to Tara. Rhett laughs at the idea, but steals an emaciated horse and a small wagon, and they follow the retreating army out of Atlanta. Part way to Tara, Rhett has a change of heart and he abandons Scarlett to enlist in the army. Scarlett makes her way to Tara without him where she is welcomed on the steps by her father, Gerald. It is clear things have drastically"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Scarlett begs him to take herself, Wade, Melanie, Beau, and Prissy to Tara. Rhett laughs at the idea, but steals an emaciated horse and a small wagon, and they follow the retreating army out of Atlanta. Part way to Tara, Rhett has a change of heart and he abandons Scarlett to enlist in the army. Scarlett makes her way to Tara without him where she is welcomed on the steps by her father, Gerald. It is clear things have drastically changed: Gerald has lost his mind, Scarlett's mother is dead, her sisters are sick with typhoid fever, the field slaves left after Emancipation, the Yankees have burned all the cotton and there is no food in the house. The long tiring struggle for post-war survival begins that has Scarlett working in the fields. There are so many hungry people to feed and so little food. There is the ever present threat of the Yankees who steal and burn, and at one point, Scarlett kills a Yankee marauder with a single shot from Charles's pistol leaving \"a bloody pit where the nose had been.\" A long succession of Confederate soldiers returning home stop at Tara to find food and rest. Two men stay on, an invalid Cracker, Will Benteen, and Ashley Wilkes, whose spirit is broken. Life at Tara slowly begins to recover when a new threat appears in the form of new taxes on Tara. Scarlett knows only one man who has enough money to help her pay the taxes, Rhett Butler. She goes to Atlanta to find him only to learn Rhett is in jail. As she is leaving the jailhouse, Scarlett runs into Frank Kennedy, who is betrothed to Scarlett's sister, Suellen, and running a store in Atlanta. Soon realizing Frank also has money, Scarlett hatches a plot and tells Frank that Suellen has changed her mind about marrying him. Thereafter Frank succumbs to Scarlett's feminine charms and he marries her"
      },
      {
        "text": " the taxes, Rhett Butler. She goes to Atlanta to find him only to learn Rhett is in jail. As she is leaving the jailhouse, Scarlett runs into Frank Kennedy, who is betrothed to Scarlett's sister, Suellen, and running a store in Atlanta. Soon realizing Frank also has money, Scarlett hatches a plot and tells Frank that Suellen has changed her mind about marrying him. Thereafter Frank succumbs to Scarlett's feminine charms and he marries her two weeks later knowing he has done \"something romantic and exciting for the first time in his life.\" Always wanting Scarlett to be happy and radiant, Frank gives her the money to pay the taxes on Tara. While Frank has a cold and is being pampered by Aunt Pittypat, Scarlett goes over the accounts at Frank's store and finds many of his friends owe him money. Scarlett is now terrified about the taxes and decides money, a lot of it, is needed. She takes control of his business while he is away and her business practices leave many Atlantans resentful of her. Then with a loan from Rhett she buys a sawmill and runs the lumber business herself, all very unladylike conduct. Much to Frank's relief, Scarlett learns she is pregnant, which curtails her activities for awhile. She convinces Ashley to come to Atlanta and manage the mill, all the while still in love with him. At Melanie's urging, Ashley takes the job at the mill. Melanie soon becomes the center of Atlanta society, and Scarlett gives birth to a girl named Ella Lorena. \"Ella for her grandmother Ellen, and Lorena because it was the most fashionable name of the day for girls.\" The state of Georgia is under martial law and life there has taken on a new and more frightening tone. For protection, Scarlett keeps Frank's pistol tucked in the upholstery of the buggy. Her trips alone to and from the mill take her past a shanty"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Melanie soon becomes the center of Atlanta society, and Scarlett gives birth to a girl named Ella Lorena. \"Ella for her grandmother Ellen, and Lorena because it was the most fashionable name of the day for girls.\" The state of Georgia is under martial law and life there has taken on a new and more frightening tone. For protection, Scarlett keeps Frank's pistol tucked in the upholstery of the buggy. Her trips alone to and from the mill take her past a shanty town where criminal elements live. On one evening when she is coming home from the mill, Scarlett is accosted by two men who attempt to rob her, but she escapes with the help of Big Sam, the former negro foreman from Tara. Attempting to avenge the assault on his wife, Frank and the Ku Klux Klan raid the shanty town whereupon Frank is shot dead. Scarlett is a widow for a second time. Rhett puts on a charade to keep the men who participated in the shanty town raid from being arrested. He walks into the Wilkeses' home with Hugh Elsing and Ashley, singing and pretending to be drunk. Yankee officers outside the home question Rhett and he tells them he and the other men had been at Belle Watling's brothel that evening, a story Belle later confirms to the officers. The men are indebted to Rhett for saving them, and his Scallawag reputation among them improves a notch, but the men's wives, with the exception of Melanie, are livid at owing their husbands' lives to Belle Watling. Frank Kennedy lies cold in a coffin in the quiet stillness of the parlor in Aunt Pittypat's home. Scarlett is in a remorseful state. She is swigging brandy from Aunt Pitty's swoon bottle when Rhett comes to call. She tells Rhett tearfully, \"I'm afraid I'll die and go to hell,\" to which Rhett replies"
      },
      {
        "text": " wives, with the exception of Melanie, are livid at owing their husbands' lives to Belle Watling. Frank Kennedy lies cold in a coffin in the quiet stillness of the parlor in Aunt Pittypat's home. Scarlett is in a remorseful state. She is swigging brandy from Aunt Pitty's swoon bottle when Rhett comes to call. She tells Rhett tearfully, \"I'm afraid I'll die and go to hell,\" to which Rhett replies, \"Maybe there isn't a hell.\" Before she can cry any further, Rhett asks Scarlett to marry him saying, \"I always intended having you, one way or another.\" Scarlett declares she doesn't love him and doesn't want to be married again. However, Rhett kisses her passionately, and in the heat of the moment she agrees to marry him. One year later, Scarlett and Rhett announce their engagement. News of the impending marriage is the talk of the town. Mr. and Mrs. Butler honeymoon in New Orleans, spending lavishly. Upon their return to Atlanta, the couple take up residence in the bridal suite at the National Hotel while their new home on Peachtree Street is being constructed. Scarlett chooses a modern Swiss chalet style home like the one she saw in Harper's Weekly, and red wallpaper, thick red carpet and black walnut furniture for the interior. Rhett describes the house as an \"architectural horror\". Shortly after the Butlers move into their new home, the sardonic jabs between them turn into full-blown quarrels. Scarlett wonders why Rhett married her. Then \"with real hate in her eyes\" she tells Rhett she is going to have a baby, a baby she does not want. Wade is seven years old in 1869 when his sister, Eugenie Victoria, named after two queens, arrives in the world. She has blue eyes like Gerald O'Hara and Melanie gives her"
      },
      {
        "text": "lers move into their new home, the sardonic jabs between them turn into full-blown quarrels. Scarlett wonders why Rhett married her. Then \"with real hate in her eyes\" she tells Rhett she is going to have a baby, a baby she does not want. Wade is seven years old in 1869 when his sister, Eugenie Victoria, named after two queens, arrives in the world. She has blue eyes like Gerald O'Hara and Melanie gives her the nickname, \"Bonnie Blue,\" in reference to the Bonnie Blue Flag of the Confederacy. When Scarlett is feeling well again, she makes a trip to the mill and talks to Ashley, who is alone in the office. In the conversation with him, she comes away believing Ashley still loves her and is jealous of her intimate relations with Rhett, which excites her. Scarlett returns home and tells Rhett she does not want more children. From then on, Scarlett and Rhett sleep in separate bedrooms, and when Bonnie is two years old, she sleeps in a little bed beside Rhett's bed (with the light on all night long because she is afraid of the dark). Rhett turns his attention towards Bonnie, dotes on her, spoils her, and worries about her reputation when she is older. Melanie is giving a surprise birthday party for Ashley. Scarlett goes to the mill to keep Ashley there until party time, a rare opportunity for Scarlett to see Ashley alone. When she sees him, she feels \"sixteen again, a little breathless and excited.\" Ashley tells her how pretty she looks, and they reminisce about the days when they were young and talk about their lives now. Suddenly Scarlett's eyes fill with tears and Ashley holds her head against his chest. Then in the doorway of the office Ashley sees standing his sister, India Wilkes. Before the party has even begun rumors of an adulterous relationship between Ashley and Scarlett have started, and Rhett and Melanie"
      },
      {
        "text": " him, she feels \"sixteen again, a little breathless and excited.\" Ashley tells her how pretty she looks, and they reminisce about the days when they were young and talk about their lives now. Suddenly Scarlett's eyes fill with tears and Ashley holds her head against his chest. Then in the doorway of the office Ashley sees standing his sister, India Wilkes. Before the party has even begun rumors of an adulterous relationship between Ashley and Scarlett have started, and Rhett and Melanie have heard the gossip. Melanie refuses to accept any criticism of her sister in-law and India Wilkes is banished from the Wilkeses' home for it, causing a rift in the family. Rhett, more drunk than Scarlett has ever seen him, returns home the evening of the party long after Scarlett. His eyes are bloodshot and his mood is dark and violent. He enjoins Scarlett to drink with him. Not wanting Rhett to know she is fearful of him, Scarlett throws back a drink and gets up from her chair to go back to her bedroom. But Rhett stops her and pins her shoulders to the wall. Scarlett tells Rhett he is jealous of Ashley and Rhett accuses Scarlett of \"crying for the moon\" over Ashley. He tells Scarlett they could have been happy together saying, \"for I loved you and I know you.\" Rhett then takes Scarlett in his arms and carries her up the stairs to her bedroom where passion envelops them. The following morning Rhett leaves town with Bonnie and Prissy and stays away for three months. Scarlett finds herself missing him, but she is still unsure if Rhett loves her, having told her so when he was drunk. She learns she is pregnant with her fourth child. On the day Rhett arrives home, Scarlett waits for him at the top of the stairs. She wonders if Rhett will kiss her, but to Scarlett's irritation, he does not. He tells her she looks pale. Scarlett tells"
      },
      {
        "text": " morning Rhett leaves town with Bonnie and Prissy and stays away for three months. Scarlett finds herself missing him, but she is still unsure if Rhett loves her, having told her so when he was drunk. She learns she is pregnant with her fourth child. On the day Rhett arrives home, Scarlett waits for him at the top of the stairs. She wonders if Rhett will kiss her, but to Scarlett's irritation, he does not. He tells her she looks pale. Scarlett tells him she is pale because she is pregnant. Rhett sarcastically asks her if the father is Ashley. She calls Rhett a cad and tells him no woman would want a baby of his. To which Rhett responds, \"cheer up, maybe you'll have a miscarriage.\" At that comment, Scarlett lunges at Rhett, but he side steps and she tumbles backwards down the stairs. She is seriously ill for the first time in her life, having lost her child and broken her ribs. Rhett is remorseful, believing he has killed her. Sobbing and drunk, Rhett buries his head in Melanie's lap and confesses he had been a jealous cad. Scarlett, who is thin and pale, goes to Tara taking Wade and Ella with her, to regain her strength and vitality from \"the green cotton fields of home.\" When she returns a healthy woman to Atlanta, she sells the mills to Ashley. She finds Rhett's attitude has noticeably changed. He is sober, kinder, polite and seemingly disinterested. Though she misses the old Rhett at times, Scarlett is content to leave well enough alone. Now Bonnie is four years old in 1873. A spirited and willful child, she has her father wrapped around her finger and giving into her every demand. Even Scarlett is jealous of the attention she gets from him. Rhett rides his horse around town with Bonnie in front of him, but the household mammy, \"Mammy,\" insists it"
      },
      {
        "text": " is sober, kinder, polite and seemingly disinterested. Though she misses the old Rhett at times, Scarlett is content to leave well enough alone. Now Bonnie is four years old in 1873. A spirited and willful child, she has her father wrapped around her finger and giving into her every demand. Even Scarlett is jealous of the attention she gets from him. Rhett rides his horse around town with Bonnie in front of him, but the household mammy, \"Mammy,\" insists it is not fitting for a girl to ride a horse with her dress flying up. Rhett heeds Mammy's words and buys Bonnie a Shetland pony, whom she names \"Mr. Butler,\" and teaches her to ride sidesaddle. Then Rhett pays a boy named Wash twenty-five cents to teach Mr. Butler to jump over wood bars. When Mr. Butler is able to get his fat legs over a one foot high bar, Rhett puts Bonnie on the pony, and soon Mr. Butler is leaping bars and Aunt Melly's rose bushes. Wearing her blue velvet riding habit with a red feather in her black hat, Bonnie pleads with her father to raise the bar to one and a half feet. He gives in and raises the bar, warning her not to come crying to him if she falls. Bonnie yells to her Mother, \"Watch me take this one!\" The pony gallops towards the wood bar, but trips over it splintering the wood. Mr. Butler tumbles to the ground then scrambles to his feet and trots off with an empty saddle. Little Miss \"Bonnie Blue\" Butler is dead. In the dark days and months following Bonnie's death, Rhett is often drunk and disheveled, while Scarlett, though deeply grieved also, seems to hold up under the strain. With the untimely death of Melanie Wilkes a short time later, Rhett decides he only wants the calm dignity of the genial"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Butler tumbles to the ground then scrambles to his feet and trots off with an empty saddle. Little Miss \"Bonnie Blue\" Butler is dead. In the dark days and months following Bonnie's death, Rhett is often drunk and disheveled, while Scarlett, though deeply grieved also, seems to hold up under the strain. With the untimely death of Melanie Wilkes a short time later, Rhett decides he only wants the calm dignity of the genial South he once knew in his youth and he leaves Atlanta to find it. Meanwhile, Scarlett dreams of love that has eluded her for so long. However, she still has Tara and is determined to win Rhett back, and \"tomorrow is another day.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Heart of Darkness",
    "author": "Joseph Conrad",
    "published_date": "1899",
    "synopsis": " 'Heart of Darkness' opens in first person narrative; our narrator establishes the setting aboard a sailboat, \"The Nellie, a cruising yawl,\" anchored in the Thames River near Gravesend (England). It is somewhat hazy and late in the day. Aboard are four others: the Director of Companies (the captain), the Lawyer (\"the best of old fellows\"), the Accountant (toying architecturally with dominoes), and Marlow (Charlie Marlow) - all share \"the bond of the sea\" but Marlow is the only one that still \"followed the sea\" - they are waiting for the tide waters to turn. Some undefined conversation is shared lazily, the sun sets; then Marlow states how their location also \"has been one of the dark places of the earth.\" Marlow continues describing the trials and tribulations that must have been encountered by the first Romans who made their way to England; how mysterious and incomprehensible the place must have seemed to them. He also explains how brutal and unscrupulous these Romans must have been: \"They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force\" - After some silence, Marlow abruptly starts up again saying, in a hesitating voice, \"I suppose you fellows remember I did once turn fresh-water sailor for a bit.\" Marlow introduces the events that led to his appointment to captain a river-steamboat for an ivory trading company. He describes his passage on ships to the wilderness - to the Company's station, which strikes Marlow as a scene of devastation: \"amongst a waste of excavations\" - disorganized, machinery parts here and there, now and then explosions of demolition, weakened native black men, that have been demoralized, in chains, literally being worked to death, and strolling behind them a white Company man in a uniform carrying a rifle. Marlow remarks on these Company men: \"I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men\u2014men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther.\" At this station Marlow meets the Company's chief accountant, who's dressed in \"unexpected elegance\" - \"Everything else in the station was in a muddle\" - Marlow first hears of a Mr. Kurtz from the chief accountant, who explains that Kurtz is a first-class agent, and later adds: \"'He will be a somebody in the Administration before long. They, above\u2014the Council in Europe, you know\u2014mean him to be.'\" Marlow leaves that station with a caravan to travel on foot some two hundred miles deeper into the wilderness - to the Central Station, where his steamboat is based - the steamer he is to captain. Upon arrival at the Central Station: \"the first glance at the place was enough to let you see the flabby devil was running that show.\" Marlow is shocked to learn that his steamboat had been wrecked two days before his arrival. The manager explains to Marlow that they couldn't wait, and needed to take the steamboat up-river because of \"rumours that a very important station was in jeopardy, and its chief, Mr. Kurtz, was ill.\" Marlow describes that the manager \"inspired uneasiness\" - \"just uneasiness\u2014nothing more\" - Along with the manager, Marlow describes the other Company men at this station as lazy back-biting \"pilgrims\" - fraught with envy and jealousy. All trying to better position themselves in a way to acquire a higher status within the Company, which in turn, would carry more personal profit; but sought after such goals in a meaningless ineffective lazy manner, mixed with a sense that they were all merely waiting, while trying to stay out of harm's way. After fishing his command out of the river, frustrations are met during the months spent on repairs. During this time, Marlow learns that at this station Mr. Kurtz is far from being admired, but instead, more or less, Kurtz is resented (mostly by the manager). Not only is Kurtz's position at the Inner Station a highly envied position, but sentiment seems to be that Kurtz is not deserving of it, as Kurtz only received the appointment by his connections back in Europe. Once ready and underway, the journey up-river to the Inner Station, Kurtz's station, takes two months - to the day. On board was the manager, three or four \"pilgrims\" and about twenty \"cannibals\" that were enlisted to crew the steamer. Marlow describes the brooding wilderness, in all its glory, and in all its mystery. Here and there would be a Company post where Company agents seemed imprisoned, captive by the business of ivory; now and then on shore an occasional native village would be seen, with a frenzied uproar by the natives. Marlow expresses a greater enthusiasm towards the idea of meeting Kurtz - but things become more tense as they get closer to his station. They come to rest for the night about eight miles below the Inner Station. In the morning they awake only to find that they are immersed within a thick white fog. From the river bank they hear a very loud cry, followed by a complaining clamour in savage discords: \"It culminated in a hurried outbreak of almost intolerably excessive shrieking, which stopped short\" - \"The sheer unexpectedness of it made my hair stir under my cap.\" Many wondered if there would be an attack. But it was not until a few hours onwards, while safe navigation was becoming increasingly difficult, that the steamboat was hit with a barrage of sticks - little arrows, everywhere - aimed at the steamboat from the wilderness on shore. The little arrows \"looked as though they wouldn't kill a cat\" - The pilgrims with their Winchesters had opened fire into the bush. The native who had been serving as helmsman, gave up steering to pick up a rifle and shoot it. Marlow grabs the wheel to avoid snags in the river. The helmsman fell at Marlow's feet clutching a shaft of a spear, which had entered his body just below the ribs. Marlow began to screech the steam whistle repeatedly; \"the shower of arrows stopped, a few dropping shots rang out sharply\u2014then silence\" - A pilgrim in \"pink pyjamas\" arrives at the pilot-house, and is shocked to see the dying helmsman. They watch the helmsman die with an inexplicable expression on his face. Marlow forces the pilgrim in \"pink pyjamas\" to take the wheel so that he can shed his blood soaked shoes, and while flinging the pair overboard, he is hit with a rush of thoughts; thinking he would never have a chance to hear Kurtz talk, as he is most likely dead - then submits: \"Of course I was wrong. The privilege was waiting for me. Oh, yes, I heard more than enough.\" Marlow makes a vague mention of a girl, whom later Kurtz will refer to as \"My Intended\" (his fianc\u00e9e): \"You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh, yes, I heard him. 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my\u2014' everything belonged to him.\" Marlow reflects more on Kurtz: \"His mother was half-English, his father was half-French. All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz\" - \"I learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had entrusted him with the making of a report, for its future guidance. And he had written it, too. I've seen it. I've read it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence\" - \"There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminate all the brutes!' The curious part was that he had apparently forgotten all about that valuable postscriptum, because, later on, when he in a sense came to himself, he repeatedly entreated me to take good care of 'my pamphlet' (he called it), as it was sure to have in the future a good influence upon his career.\" After reflecting more on Kurtz, Marlow states \"I can't forget him, though I am not prepared to affirm the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him. I missed my late helmsman awfully\" - \"don't you see, he had done something, he had steered\" - \"and thus a subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken.\" After putting on a pair of slippers, Marlow returned to the pilot-house and resumed steering. By this time the manager is there, and expresses a strong desire to turn back - right at the moment that the Inner Station comes into view. At Kurtz's station Marlow sees a man on the river-bank waving his arm, urging them to land. Because of his expressions, gestures, and all the colorful patches on his clothing, the man reminds Marlow of a harlequin. The pilgrims, heavily armed, escort the manager on shore to retrieve Mr. Kurtz. The harlequin-like chap boards the steamboat. It turns out the man is Russian, and he is a mere wanderer; who just happened to wander into Kurtz's camp: \"He rattled away at such a rate he quite overwhelmed me. He seemed to be trying to make up for lots of silence, and actually hinted, laughing, that such was the case. 'Don't you talk with Mr. Kurtz?' I said. 'You don't talk with that man\u2014you listen to him,' he exclaimed with severe exaltation.\" - \"'I tell you,' he cried, 'this man has enlarged my mind.'\" Through conversation Marlow discovers just how wanton Kurtz could be, how the natives worshiped Kurtz, and how very ill Kurtz has been of late. The concerned harlequin-like Russian admires Mr. Kurtz for his intellect - for his insights - into love, life, and justice. The Russian seems to even admire Kurtz for his power - and his willingness to use it. Marlow suggests that Kurtz has gone mad, and the Russian \"protested indignantly. Mr. Kurtz couldn't be mad. If I had heard him talk, only two days ago, I wouldn't dare hint at such a thing.\" From the steamboat, through a glass (telescope) Marlow can observe details of the station, and is surprised suddenly to see near the station house a row of posts with decapitated heads of natives mounted atop of each. Around the corner of the house the manager with the pilgrims appeared, bearing Kurtz on an improvised stretcher. The area then filled with natives, who appeared to be ready for battle. The Russian stated: \"'Now, if he does not say the right thing to them we are all done for'\" - On the stretcher Marlow could see Kurtz shouting. The pilgrims carried Kurtz to the steamer and laid him down in one of the little cabins. A gorgeous native woman, with a desperate aspect, walked in measured steps along the shore and stopped right next to the steamer. She raised her arms above her head - then \"turned away slowly, walked on, following the bank, and passed into the bushes.\" From the steamboat's cabin Kurtz was placed in, he is heard yelling at the manager: \"'Save me!\u2014save the ivory, you mean. Don't tell me. Save me! Why, I've had to save you. You are interrupting my plans now. Sick! Sick! Not so sick as you would like to believe.'\" The manager walks out of the cabin, and spoke with Marlow about \"unsound methods\" and Marlow puts forward the notion: \"No method at all\" - After some more words the manager gives Marlow a heavy glance, then leaves. The Russian mentions \"'matters that would affect Mr. Kurtz's reputation.'\" - Marlow replied to the Russian: \"'Mr. Kurtz's reputation is safe with me.'\" - He informed Marlow \"that it was Kurtz who had ordered the attack to be made on the steamer\" - The harlequin-like Russian refers to a canoe waiting for him, and adds: \"'Ah! I'll never, never meet such a man again. You ought to have heard him recite poetry\u2014his own, too, it was, he told me. Poetry!' He rolled his eyes at the recollection of these delights. 'Oh, he enlarged my mind!' 'Good-bye,' said I. He shook hands and vanished in the night.\" Later, after midnight, Marlow discovers that Kurtz has left his cabin - he has left the steamer, and has returned to shore. Marlow goes ashore and finds Kurtz in a very weak state making his way back to his station - but not so weak, as he can still call out to the natives. Marlow appreciates the serious situation he is in, and when Kurtz begins a threatening tone, Marlow interjects that his \"success in Europe is assured in any case\" - Kurtz agrees to allow Marlow to help him back to the steamer. The next day they prepare for their departure. They carried Kurtz to the pilot-house: \"there was more air there\" - The natives once again assembled on shore, and the native woman returned - they all began to shout. Marlow saw the pilgrims getting their rifles ready - so he screeched the steam whistle time after time to scatter the crowd on shore. Only the woman remained unmoved, with outstretched arms. The pilgrims opened fire. The current was swift as they headed downstream. Kurtz's health was worsening. Marlow himself is becoming increasingly ill. The steamboat broke down and repairs needed to be made. Kurtz gives Marlow a packet of papers with a photograph because of his dislike and mistrust of the manager. While ill, Marlow continued to make the repairs to the steamer: \"I toiled wearily in a wretched scrap-heap\u2014unless I had the shakes too bad to stand.\" He did not have much time for Kurtz: \"One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a little tremulously, 'I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.' The light was within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, 'Oh, nonsense!' and stood over him as if transfixed.\" As Kurtz dies, Marlow hears him whisper, in no more than a breath: \"'The horror! The horror!'\" Marlow blew out the candle, and tries to act like nothing has happened when he joins the other pilgrims, who were all in the mess-room dining with the manager. In a short while, the \"manager's boy\" appears and announces in a scathing tone: \"'Mistah Kurtz\u2014he dead.'\" - Next day Marlow pays little attention to the pilgrims as they bury \"something\" in a muddy hole. \"And then they very nearly buried me\" - Marlow falls very sick, near death himself: \"I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine\" - \"I was within a hair's breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better\" - \"He had summed up\u2014he had judged. 'The horror!' He was a remarkable man. After all, this was the expression of some sort of belief; it had candour, it had conviction, it had a vibrating note of revolt in its whisper, it had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth\u2014the strange commingling of desire and hate\" - \"he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot. And perhaps in this is the whole difference; perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible. Perhaps! I like to think my summing-up would not have been a word of careless contempt. Better his cry\u2014much better.\" Upon Marlow's return to Europe he seems embittered. The everyday life of the Europeans seem to be something a sham - like some sort of hoax. Eventually Marlow took care of the bundle of papers Kurtz had entrusted to him. To a clean-shaven man who had an official manner, Marlow gave the paper entitled 'Suppression of Savage Customs' - \"with the postscriptum torn off\" - To another, who claims to be Kurtz's cousin, Marlow gave family letters and memoranda of no importance. To a journalist he gave a Report for publication, if the journalist saw fit. Finally Marlow was left with some personal letters and the photograph of the girl's portrait - Kurtz's fianc\u00e9e, his intended. At her door, even before Marlow entered her house, memories of Kurtz began to flow, along with the final words that he whispered. The girl came forward, dressed in black, and met Marlow in a drawing-room. Although it has been more than a year since Kurtz died, she was still in mourning. It was late, and the room was growing darker. The final words of Kurtz's seemed to echo in the room with the girl. Marlow envisioned them together: \"I saw her and him in the same instant of time\u2014his death and her sorrow\u2014I saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death.\" She presses Marlow for information, ultimately asking him to repeat the final words Kurtz had spoken. Being very uncomfortable Marlow tells her that the final words that Kurtz pronounce was her name. Marlow was surprised by her reaction: \"I heard a light sigh and then my heart stood still, stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain. 'I knew it\u2014I was sure!'... She knew. She was sure. I heard her weeping\" - \"I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due? Hadn't he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn't. I could not tell her. It would have been too dark\u2014too dark altogether....\" Then Marlow and his listeners were silent; our first narrator explains: \"Nobody moved for a time. 'We have lost the first of the ebb,' said the Director suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky\u2014seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " 'Heart of Darkness' opens in first person narrative; our narrator establishes the setting aboard a sailboat, \"The Nellie, a cruising yawl,\" anchored in the Thames River near Gravesend (England). It is somewhat hazy and late in the day. Aboard are four others: the Director of Companies (the captain), the Lawyer (\"the best of old fellows\"), the Accountant (toying architecturally with dominoes), and Marlow (Charlie Marlow) - all share \"the bond of the sea\" but Marlow is the only one that still \"followed the sea\" - they are waiting for the tide waters to turn. Some undefined conversation is shared lazily, the sun sets; then Marlow states how their location also \"has been one of the dark places of the earth.\" Marlow continues describing the trials and tribulations that must have been encountered by the first Romans who made their way to England; how mysterious and incomprehensible the place must have seemed to them. He also explains how brutal and unscrupulous these Romans must have been: \"They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force\" - After some silence, Marlow abruptly starts up again saying, in a hesitating voice, \"I suppose you fellows remember I did once turn fresh-water sailor for a bit.\" Marlow introduces the events that led to his appointment to captain a river-steamboat for an ivory trading company. He describes his passage on ships to the wilderness - to the Company's station, which strikes Marlow as a scene of devastation: \"amongst a waste of excavations\" - disorganized, machinery parts here and there, now and then explosions of demolition, weakened native black men, that have been demoralized, in chains, literally being worked to death, and strolling behind them a white Company man in a uniform carrying a rifle. Marlow remarks on these Company men: \"I've seen the devil of violence,"
      },
      {
        "text": " ships to the wilderness - to the Company's station, which strikes Marlow as a scene of devastation: \"amongst a waste of excavations\" - disorganized, machinery parts here and there, now and then explosions of demolition, weakened native black men, that have been demoralized, in chains, literally being worked to death, and strolling behind them a white Company man in a uniform carrying a rifle. Marlow remarks on these Company men: \"I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men\u2014men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther.\" At this station Marlow meets the Company's chief accountant, who's dressed in \"unexpected elegance\" - \"Everything else in the station was in a muddle\" - Marlow first hears of a Mr. Kurtz from the chief accountant, who explains that Kurtz is a first-class agent, and later adds: \"'He will be a somebody in the Administration before long. They, above\u2014the Council in Europe, you know\u2014mean him to be.'\" Marlow leaves that station with a caravan to travel on foot some two hundred miles deeper into the wilderness - to the Central Station, where his steamboat is based - the steamer he is to captain. Upon arrival at the Central Station: \"the first glance at the place was enough to let you see the flabby devil was running that show.\" Marlow is shocked to learn that his steamboat had been wrecked two days before his arrival. The manager explains to Mar"
      },
      {
        "text": "\u2014mean him to be.'\" Marlow leaves that station with a caravan to travel on foot some two hundred miles deeper into the wilderness - to the Central Station, where his steamboat is based - the steamer he is to captain. Upon arrival at the Central Station: \"the first glance at the place was enough to let you see the flabby devil was running that show.\" Marlow is shocked to learn that his steamboat had been wrecked two days before his arrival. The manager explains to Marlow that they couldn't wait, and needed to take the steamboat up-river because of \"rumours that a very important station was in jeopardy, and its chief, Mr. Kurtz, was ill.\" Marlow describes that the manager \"inspired uneasiness\" - \"just uneasiness\u2014nothing more\" - Along with the manager, Marlow describes the other Company men at this station as lazy back-biting \"pilgrims\" - fraught with envy and jealousy. All trying to better position themselves in a way to acquire a higher status within the Company, which in turn, would carry more personal profit; but sought after such goals in a meaningless ineffective lazy manner, mixed with a sense that they were all merely waiting, while trying to stay out of harm's way. After fishing his command out of the river, frustrations are met during the months spent on repairs. During this time, Marlow learns that at this station Mr. Kurtz is far from being admired, but instead, more or less, Kurtz is resented (mostly by the manager). Not only is Kurtz's position at the Inner Station a highly envied position, but sentiment seems to be that Kurtz is not deserving of it, as Kurtz only received the appointment by his connections back in Europe. Once ready and underway, the journey up-river to the Inner Station, Kurtz's station, takes two months - to the day. On board was the manager, three or"
      },
      {
        "text": ", but instead, more or less, Kurtz is resented (mostly by the manager). Not only is Kurtz's position at the Inner Station a highly envied position, but sentiment seems to be that Kurtz is not deserving of it, as Kurtz only received the appointment by his connections back in Europe. Once ready and underway, the journey up-river to the Inner Station, Kurtz's station, takes two months - to the day. On board was the manager, three or four \"pilgrims\" and about twenty \"cannibals\" that were enlisted to crew the steamer. Marlow describes the brooding wilderness, in all its glory, and in all its mystery. Here and there would be a Company post where Company agents seemed imprisoned, captive by the business of ivory; now and then on shore an occasional native village would be seen, with a frenzied uproar by the natives. Marlow expresses a greater enthusiasm towards the idea of meeting Kurtz - but things become more tense as they get closer to his station. They come to rest for the night about eight miles below the Inner Station. In the morning they awake only to find that they are immersed within a thick white fog. From the river bank they hear a very loud cry, followed by a complaining clamour in savage discords: \"It culminated in a hurried outbreak of almost intolerably excessive shrieking, which stopped short\" - \"The sheer unexpectedness of it made my hair stir under my cap.\" Many wondered if there would be an attack. But it was not until a few hours onwards, while safe navigation was becoming increasingly difficult, that the steamboat was hit with a barrage of sticks - little arrows, everywhere - aimed at the steamboat from the wilderness on shore. The little arrows \"looked as though they wouldn't kill a cat\" - The pilgrims with their Winchesters had opened fire into the bush. The native who had been serving as helmsman"
      },
      {
        "text": " stir under my cap.\" Many wondered if there would be an attack. But it was not until a few hours onwards, while safe navigation was becoming increasingly difficult, that the steamboat was hit with a barrage of sticks - little arrows, everywhere - aimed at the steamboat from the wilderness on shore. The little arrows \"looked as though they wouldn't kill a cat\" - The pilgrims with their Winchesters had opened fire into the bush. The native who had been serving as helmsman, gave up steering to pick up a rifle and shoot it. Marlow grabs the wheel to avoid snags in the river. The helmsman fell at Marlow's feet clutching a shaft of a spear, which had entered his body just below the ribs. Marlow began to screech the steam whistle repeatedly; \"the shower of arrows stopped, a few dropping shots rang out sharply\u2014then silence\" - A pilgrim in \"pink pyjamas\" arrives at the pilot-house, and is shocked to see the dying helmsman. They watch the helmsman die with an inexplicable expression on his face. Marlow forces the pilgrim in \"pink pyjamas\" to take the wheel so that he can shed his blood soaked shoes, and while flinging the pair overboard, he is hit with a rush of thoughts; thinking he would never have a chance to hear Kurtz talk, as he is most likely dead - then submits: \"Of course I was wrong. The privilege was waiting for me. Oh, yes, I heard more than enough.\" Marlow makes a vague mention of a girl, whom later Kurtz will refer to as \"My Intended\" (his fianc\u00e9e): \"You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh, yes, I heard him. 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my\u2014' everything belonged to him.\" Marlow reflects more on Kurtz: \""
      },
      {
        "text": " was wrong. The privilege was waiting for me. Oh, yes, I heard more than enough.\" Marlow makes a vague mention of a girl, whom later Kurtz will refer to as \"My Intended\" (his fianc\u00e9e): \"You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh, yes, I heard him. 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my\u2014' everything belonged to him.\" Marlow reflects more on Kurtz: \"His mother was half-English, his father was half-French. All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz\" - \"I learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had entrusted him with the making of a report, for its future guidance. And he had written it, too. I've seen it. I've read it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence\" - \"There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminate all the brutes!' The curious part was that he had apparently forgotten all about that valuable postscriptum, because, later on, when he in a sense came to himself, he repeatedly entreated me to take good care of 'my pamphlet' (he called it), as it was sure to have in the future a good influence upon his career.\" After reflecting more on Kurtz, Marlow states \"I can't forget him, though I am not prepared to affirm the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him. I missed my late helmsman awfully\""
      },
      {
        "text": " postscriptum, because, later on, when he in a sense came to himself, he repeatedly entreated me to take good care of 'my pamphlet' (he called it), as it was sure to have in the future a good influence upon his career.\" After reflecting more on Kurtz, Marlow states \"I can't forget him, though I am not prepared to affirm the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him. I missed my late helmsman awfully\" - \"don't you see, he had done something, he had steered\" - \"and thus a subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken.\" After putting on a pair of slippers, Marlow returned to the pilot-house and resumed steering. By this time the manager is there, and expresses a strong desire to turn back - right at the moment that the Inner Station comes into view. At Kurtz's station Marlow sees a man on the river-bank waving his arm, urging them to land. Because of his expressions, gestures, and all the colorful patches on his clothing, the man reminds Marlow of a harlequin. The pilgrims, heavily armed, escort the manager on shore to retrieve Mr. Kurtz. The harlequin-like chap boards the steamboat. It turns out the man is Russian, and he is a mere wanderer; who just happened to wander into Kurtz's camp: \"He rattled away at such a rate he quite overwhelmed me. He seemed to be trying to make up for lots of silence, and actually hinted, laughing, that such was the case. 'Don't you talk with Mr. Kurtz?' I said. 'You don't talk with that man\u2014you listen to him,' he exclaimed with severe exaltation.\" - \"'I tell you,' he cried, 'this man has enlarged my mind.'\" Through conversation Marlow discovers just how wanton Kurtz could"
      },
      {
        "text": " away at such a rate he quite overwhelmed me. He seemed to be trying to make up for lots of silence, and actually hinted, laughing, that such was the case. 'Don't you talk with Mr. Kurtz?' I said. 'You don't talk with that man\u2014you listen to him,' he exclaimed with severe exaltation.\" - \"'I tell you,' he cried, 'this man has enlarged my mind.'\" Through conversation Marlow discovers just how wanton Kurtz could be, how the natives worshiped Kurtz, and how very ill Kurtz has been of late. The concerned harlequin-like Russian admires Mr. Kurtz for his intellect - for his insights - into love, life, and justice. The Russian seems to even admire Kurtz for his power - and his willingness to use it. Marlow suggests that Kurtz has gone mad, and the Russian \"protested indignantly. Mr. Kurtz couldn't be mad. If I had heard him talk, only two days ago, I wouldn't dare hint at such a thing.\" From the steamboat, through a glass (telescope) Marlow can observe details of the station, and is surprised suddenly to see near the station house a row of posts with decapitated heads of natives mounted atop of each. Around the corner of the house the manager with the pilgrims appeared, bearing Kurtz on an improvised stretcher. The area then filled with natives, who appeared to be ready for battle. The Russian stated: \"'Now, if he does not say the right thing to them we are all done for'\" - On the stretcher Marlow could see Kurtz shouting. The pilgrims carried Kurtz to the steamer and laid him down in one of the little cabins. A gorgeous native woman, with a desperate aspect, walked in measured steps along the shore and stopped right next to the steamer. She raised her arms above her head - then \"turned away slowly"
      },
      {
        "text": " ready for battle. The Russian stated: \"'Now, if he does not say the right thing to them we are all done for'\" - On the stretcher Marlow could see Kurtz shouting. The pilgrims carried Kurtz to the steamer and laid him down in one of the little cabins. A gorgeous native woman, with a desperate aspect, walked in measured steps along the shore and stopped right next to the steamer. She raised her arms above her head - then \"turned away slowly, walked on, following the bank, and passed into the bushes.\" From the steamboat's cabin Kurtz was placed in, he is heard yelling at the manager: \"'Save me!\u2014save the ivory, you mean. Don't tell me. Save me! Why, I've had to save you. You are interrupting my plans now. Sick! Sick! Not so sick as you would like to believe.'\" The manager walks out of the cabin, and spoke with Marlow about \"unsound methods\" and Marlow puts forward the notion: \"No method at all\" - After some more words the manager gives Marlow a heavy glance, then leaves. The Russian mentions \"'matters that would affect Mr. Kurtz's reputation.'\" - Marlow replied to the Russian: \"'Mr. Kurtz's reputation is safe with me.'\" - He informed Marlow \"that it was Kurtz who had ordered the attack to be made on the steamer\" - The harlequin-like Russian refers to a canoe waiting for him, and adds: \"'Ah! I'll never, never meet such a man again. You ought to have heard him recite poetry\u2014his own, too, it was, he told me. Poetry!' He rolled his eyes at the recollection of these delights. 'Oh, he enlarged my mind!' 'Good-bye,' said I. He shook hands and vanished in the night.\" Later, after midnight, Marlow discovers that Kurtz"
      },
      {
        "text": "-like Russian refers to a canoe waiting for him, and adds: \"'Ah! I'll never, never meet such a man again. You ought to have heard him recite poetry\u2014his own, too, it was, he told me. Poetry!' He rolled his eyes at the recollection of these delights. 'Oh, he enlarged my mind!' 'Good-bye,' said I. He shook hands and vanished in the night.\" Later, after midnight, Marlow discovers that Kurtz has left his cabin - he has left the steamer, and has returned to shore. Marlow goes ashore and finds Kurtz in a very weak state making his way back to his station - but not so weak, as he can still call out to the natives. Marlow appreciates the serious situation he is in, and when Kurtz begins a threatening tone, Marlow interjects that his \"success in Europe is assured in any case\" - Kurtz agrees to allow Marlow to help him back to the steamer. The next day they prepare for their departure. They carried Kurtz to the pilot-house: \"there was more air there\" - The natives once again assembled on shore, and the native woman returned - they all began to shout. Marlow saw the pilgrims getting their rifles ready - so he screeched the steam whistle time after time to scatter the crowd on shore. Only the woman remained unmoved, with outstretched arms. The pilgrims opened fire. The current was swift as they headed downstream. Kurtz's health was worsening. Marlow himself is becoming increasingly ill. The steamboat broke down and repairs needed to be made. Kurtz gives Marlow a packet of papers with a photograph because of his dislike and mistrust of the manager. While ill, Marlow continued to make the repairs to the steamer: \"I toiled wearily in a wretched scrap-heap\u2014unless I had the shakes too bad to stand.\" He did not have"
      },
      {
        "text": " current was swift as they headed downstream. Kurtz's health was worsening. Marlow himself is becoming increasingly ill. The steamboat broke down and repairs needed to be made. Kurtz gives Marlow a packet of papers with a photograph because of his dislike and mistrust of the manager. While ill, Marlow continued to make the repairs to the steamer: \"I toiled wearily in a wretched scrap-heap\u2014unless I had the shakes too bad to stand.\" He did not have much time for Kurtz: \"One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him say a little tremulously, 'I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.' The light was within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, 'Oh, nonsense!' and stood over him as if transfixed.\" As Kurtz dies, Marlow hears him whisper, in no more than a breath: \"'The horror! The horror!'\" Marlow blew out the candle, and tries to act like nothing has happened when he joins the other pilgrims, who were all in the mess-room dining with the manager. In a short while, the \"manager's boy\" appears and announces in a scathing tone: \"'Mistah Kurtz\u2014he dead.'\" - Next day Marlow pays little attention to the pilgrims as they bury \"something\" in a muddy hole. \"And then they very nearly buried me\" - Marlow falls very sick, near death himself: \"I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine\" - \"I was within a hair's breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better\" - \"He had summed up\u2014he had judged"
      },
      {
        "text": "I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine\" - \"I was within a hair's breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better\" - \"He had summed up\u2014he had judged. 'The horror!' He was a remarkable man. After all, this was the expression of some sort of belief; it had candour, it had conviction, it had a vibrating note of revolt in its whisper, it had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth\u2014the strange commingling of desire and hate\" - \"he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot. And perhaps in this is the whole difference; perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible. Perhaps! I like to think my summing-up would not have been a word of careless contempt. Better his cry\u2014much better.\" Upon Marlow's return to Europe he seems embittered. The everyday life of the Europeans seem to be something a sham - like some sort of hoax. Eventually Marlow took care of the bundle of papers Kurtz had entrusted to him. To a clean-shaven man who had an official manner, Marlow gave the paper entitled 'Suppression of Savage Customs' - \"with the postscriptum torn off\" - To another, who claims to be Kurtz's cousin, Marlow gave family letters and memoranda of no importance. To a journalist he gave a Report for publication, if the journalist saw fit. Finally Marlow was left with"
      },
      {
        "text": " Eventually Marlow took care of the bundle of papers Kurtz had entrusted to him. To a clean-shaven man who had an official manner, Marlow gave the paper entitled 'Suppression of Savage Customs' - \"with the postscriptum torn off\" - To another, who claims to be Kurtz's cousin, Marlow gave family letters and memoranda of no importance. To a journalist he gave a Report for publication, if the journalist saw fit. Finally Marlow was left with some personal letters and the photograph of the girl's portrait - Kurtz's fianc\u00e9e, his intended. At her door, even before Marlow entered her house, memories of Kurtz began to flow, along with the final words that he whispered. The girl came forward, dressed in black, and met Marlow in a drawing-room. Although it has been more than a year since Kurtz died, she was still in mourning. It was late, and the room was growing darker. The final words of Kurtz's seemed to echo in the room with the girl. Marlow envisioned them together: \"I saw her and him in the same instant of time\u2014his death and her sorrow\u2014I saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death.\" She presses Marlow for information, ultimately asking him to repeat the final words Kurtz had spoken. Being very uncomfortable Marlow tells her that the final words that Kurtz pronounce was her name. Marlow was surprised by her reaction: \"I heard a light sigh and then my heart stood still, stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain. 'I knew it\u2014I was sure!'... She knew. She was sure. I heard her weeping\" - \"I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due? Hadn't he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn't. I could not tell her"
      },
      {
        "text": ": \"I heard a light sigh and then my heart stood still, stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain. 'I knew it\u2014I was sure!'... She knew. She was sure. I heard her weeping\" - \"I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due? Hadn't he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn't. I could not tell her. It would have been too dark\u2014too dark altogether....\" Then Marlow and his listeners were silent; our first narrator explains: \"Nobody moved for a time. 'We have lost the first of the ebb,' said the Director suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky\u2014seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Hamlet",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The protagonist of Hamlet is Prince Hamlet of Denmark, son of deceased King Hamlet and his wife, Queen Gertrude. The story opens on a chilly night at Elsinore, the Danish royal castle. Francisco, one of the sentinels, is relieved of his watch by Bernardo, another sentinel, and exits while Bernardo remains. A third sentinel, Marcellus, enters with Horatio, Hamlet's best friend. The sentinels inform Horatio that they have seen a ghost that looks like the dead King Hamlet. After hearing from Horatio of the Ghost's appearance, Hamlet resolves to see the Ghost himself. That night, the Ghost appears again. It leads Hamlet to a secluded place, claims that it is the actual spirit of his father, and discloses that he\u2014the elder Hamlet\u2014was murdered by his brother Claudius pouring poison in his ear. The Ghost demands that Hamlet avenge him; Hamlet agrees, swears his companions to secrecy, and tells them he intends to \"put an antic disposition on\" (presumably to avert suspicion). Hamlet initially attests to the ghost's reliability, calling him both an \"honest ghost\" and \"truepenny.\" Later, however, he expresses doubts about the ghost's nature and intent, claiming these as reasons for his inaction. Polonius is Claudius's trusted chief counsellor and friend; Polonius's son, Laertes, is returning to France, and Polonius's daughter, Ophelia, is courted by Hamlet. Both Polonius and Laertes warn Ophelia that Hamlet is surely not serious about her. Shortly afterward, Ophelia is alarmed by Hamlet's strange behaviour, reporting to her father that Hamlet rushed into her room, stared at her, and said nothing. Polonius assumes that the \"ecstasy of love\" is responsible for Hamlet's \"mad\" behaviour, and he informs Claudius and Gertrude. Perturbed by Hamlet's continuing deep mourning for his father and his increasingly erratic behaviour, Claudius sends for two of Hamlet's acquaintances\u2014Rosencrantz and Guildenstern\u2014to find out the cause of Hamlet's changed behaviour. Hamlet greets his friends warmly but quickly discerns that they have been sent to spy on him. Together, Claudius and Polonius convince Ophelia to speak with Hamlet while they secretly listen. Hamlet enters, contemplating suicide (To be, or not to be). Ophelia greets him, and offers to return his remembrances, upon which Hamlet questions her honesty and furiously rants at her to \"get thee to a nunnery.\" Hamlet remains uncertain whether the Ghost has told him the truth, but the arrival of a troupe of actors at Elsinore presents him with a solution. He will have them stage a play, The Murder of Gonzago, re-enacting his father's murder and determine Claudius's guilt or innocence by studying his reaction to it. The court assembles to watch the play; Hamlet provides an agitated running commentary throughout. When the murder scene is presented, Claudius abruptly rises and leaves the room, which Hamlet sees as proof of his uncle's guilt. Gertrude summons Hamlet to her closet to demand an explanation. On his way, Hamlet passes Claudius in prayer, but hesitates to kill him, reasoning that death in prayer would send him to heaven. However, it is revealed that the King is not truly praying, remarking that \"words\" never made it to heaven without \"thoughts.\" An argument erupts between Hamlet and Gertrude. Polonius, spying on the scene from behind an arras and convinced that the prince's madness is indeed real, panics when it seems as if Hamlet is about to murder the Queen and cries out for help. Hamlet, believing it is Claudius hiding behind the arras, stabs wildly through the cloth, killing Polonius. When he realises that he has killed Ophelia's father, he is not remorseful, but calls Polonius \"Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool.\" The Ghost appears, urging Hamlet to treat Gertrude gently, but reminding him to kill Claudius. Unable to see or hear the Ghost herself, Gertrude takes Hamlet's conversation with it as further evidence of madness. Claudius, now fearing for his life, finds a legitimate excuse to get rid of the prince: he sends Hamlet to England on a diplomatic pretext, accompanied (and closely watched) by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Alone, Claudius discloses that he is actually sending Hamlet to his death. Prior to embarking for England, Hamlet hides Polonius's body, ultimately revealing its location to the King. Upon leaving Elsinore, Hamlet encounters the army of Prince Fortinbras en route to do battle in Poland. Upon witnessing so many men going to their death on the brash whim of an impulsive prince, Hamlet declares, \"O, from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!\" At Elsinore, further demented by grief at her father Polonius's death, Ophelia wanders the castle, acting erratically and singing bawdy songs. Her brother, Laertes, returns from France, horrified by his father's death and his sister's madness. She appears briefly to give out herbs and flowers. Claudius convinces Laertes that Hamlet is solely responsible; then news arrives that Hamlet is still alive\u2014a story is spread that his ship was attacked by pirates on the way to England, and he has returned to Denmark. Claudius swiftly concocts a plot to kill his nephew but make it appear to be an accident, taking all of the blame off his shoulders. Knowing of Hamlet's jealousy of Laertes' prowess with a sword, he proposes a fencing match between the two. Laertes, enraged at the murder of his father, informs the king that he will further poison the tip of his sword so that a mere scratch would mean certain death. Claudius, unsure that capable Hamlet could receive even a scratch, plans to offer Hamlet poisoned wine if that fails. Gertrude enters to report that Ophelia has drowned. In the Elsinore churchyard, two \"clowns\", typically represented as \"gravediggers,\" enter to prepare Ophelia's grave, and although the coroner has ruled her death accidental so that she may receive Christian burial, they argue that it was a case of suicide. Hamlet arrives with Horatio and banters with one of them, who unearths the skull of a jester whom Hamlet once knew, Yorick (\"Alas, Poor Yorick; I knew him, Horatio.\"). Ophelia's funeral procession approaches, led by her mournful brother Laertes. Distraught at the lack of ceremony (due to the actually-deemed suicide) and overcome by emotion, Laertes leaps into the grave, cursing Hamlet as the cause of her death. Hamlet interrupts, professing his own love and grief for Ophelia. He and Laertes grapple, but the fight is broken up by Claudius and Gertrude. Claudius reminds Laertes of the planned fencing match. Later that day, Hamlet tells Horatio how he escaped death on his journey, disclosing that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been sent to their deaths instead. A courtier, Osric, interrupts to invite Hamlet to fence with Laertes. Despite Horatio's warnings, Hamlet accepts and the match begins. After several rounds, Gertrude toasts Hamlet\u2014against the urgent warning of Claudius\u2014accidentally drinking the wine he poisoned. Between bouts, Laertes attacks and pierces Hamlet with his poisoned blade; in the ensuing scuffle, Hamlet is able to use Laertes's own poisoned sword against him. Gertrude falls and, in her dying breath, announces that she has been poisoned. In his dying moments, Laertes is reconciled with Hamlet and reveals Claudius's murderous plot. Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword, and then forces him to drink from his own poisoned cup to make sure he dies. In his final moments, Hamlet names Prince Fortinbras of Norway as the probable heir to the throne, since the Danish kingship is an elected position, with the country's nobles having the final say. Horatio attempts to kill himself with the same poisoned wine but is stopped by Hamlet, so he will be the only one left alive to give a full account of the story. When Fortinbras arrives to greet King Claudius, he encounters the deadly scene: Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and Hamlet are all dead. Horatio asks to be allowed to recount the tale to \"the yet unknowing world,\" and Fortinbras orders Hamlet's body borne off in honour.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The protagonist of Hamlet is Prince Hamlet of Denmark, son of deceased King Hamlet and his wife, Queen Gertrude. The story opens on a chilly night at Elsinore, the Danish royal castle. Francisco, one of the sentinels, is relieved of his watch by Bernardo, another sentinel, and exits while Bernardo remains. A third sentinel, Marcellus, enters with Horatio, Hamlet's best friend. The sentinels inform Horatio that they have seen a ghost that looks like the dead King Hamlet. After hearing from Horatio of the Ghost's appearance, Hamlet resolves to see the Ghost himself. That night, the Ghost appears again. It leads Hamlet to a secluded place, claims that it is the actual spirit of his father, and discloses that he\u2014the elder Hamlet\u2014was murdered by his brother Claudius pouring poison in his ear. The Ghost demands that Hamlet avenge him; Hamlet agrees, swears his companions to secrecy, and tells them he intends to \"put an antic disposition on\" (presumably to avert suspicion). Hamlet initially attests to the ghost's reliability, calling him both an \"honest ghost\" and \"truepenny.\" Later, however, he expresses doubts about the ghost's nature and intent, claiming these as reasons for his inaction. Polonius is Claudius's trusted chief counsellor and friend; Polonius's son, Laertes, is returning to France, and Polonius's daughter, Ophelia, is courted by Hamlet. Both Polonius and Laertes warn Ophelia that Hamlet is surely not serious about her. Shortly afterward, Ophelia is alarmed by Hamlet's strange behaviour, reporting to her father that Hamlet rushed into her room, stared at her, and said nothing. Polonius assumes that the \"ecstasy of love\" is responsible for Ham"
      },
      {
        "text": " Laertes, is returning to France, and Polonius's daughter, Ophelia, is courted by Hamlet. Both Polonius and Laertes warn Ophelia that Hamlet is surely not serious about her. Shortly afterward, Ophelia is alarmed by Hamlet's strange behaviour, reporting to her father that Hamlet rushed into her room, stared at her, and said nothing. Polonius assumes that the \"ecstasy of love\" is responsible for Hamlet's \"mad\" behaviour, and he informs Claudius and Gertrude. Perturbed by Hamlet's continuing deep mourning for his father and his increasingly erratic behaviour, Claudius sends for two of Hamlet's acquaintances\u2014Rosencrantz and Guildenstern\u2014to find out the cause of Hamlet's changed behaviour. Hamlet greets his friends warmly but quickly discerns that they have been sent to spy on him. Together, Claudius and Polonius convince Ophelia to speak with Hamlet while they secretly listen. Hamlet enters, contemplating suicide (To be, or not to be). Ophelia greets him, and offers to return his remembrances, upon which Hamlet questions her honesty and furiously rants at her to \"get thee to a nunnery.\" Hamlet remains uncertain whether the Ghost has told him the truth, but the arrival of a troupe of actors at Elsinore presents him with a solution. He will have them stage a play, The Murder of Gonzago, re-enacting his father's murder and determine Claudius's guilt or innocence by studying his reaction to it. The court assembles to watch the play; Hamlet provides an agitated running commentary throughout. When the murder scene is presented, Claudius abruptly rises and leaves the room, which Hamlet sees as proof of his uncle's guilt. Gertrude summons Hamlet to her closet to demand an explanation. On his way,"
      },
      {
        "text": " have them stage a play, The Murder of Gonzago, re-enacting his father's murder and determine Claudius's guilt or innocence by studying his reaction to it. The court assembles to watch the play; Hamlet provides an agitated running commentary throughout. When the murder scene is presented, Claudius abruptly rises and leaves the room, which Hamlet sees as proof of his uncle's guilt. Gertrude summons Hamlet to her closet to demand an explanation. On his way, Hamlet passes Claudius in prayer, but hesitates to kill him, reasoning that death in prayer would send him to heaven. However, it is revealed that the King is not truly praying, remarking that \"words\" never made it to heaven without \"thoughts.\" An argument erupts between Hamlet and Gertrude. Polonius, spying on the scene from behind an arras and convinced that the prince's madness is indeed real, panics when it seems as if Hamlet is about to murder the Queen and cries out for help. Hamlet, believing it is Claudius hiding behind the arras, stabs wildly through the cloth, killing Polonius. When he realises that he has killed Ophelia's father, he is not remorseful, but calls Polonius \"Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool.\" The Ghost appears, urging Hamlet to treat Gertrude gently, but reminding him to kill Claudius. Unable to see or hear the Ghost herself, Gertrude takes Hamlet's conversation with it as further evidence of madness. Claudius, now fearing for his life, finds a legitimate excuse to get rid of the prince: he sends Hamlet to England on a diplomatic pretext, accompanied (and closely watched) by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Alone, Claudius discloses that he is actually sending Hamlet to his death. Prior to embarking for England, Hamlet hides Pol"
      },
      {
        "text": " see or hear the Ghost herself, Gertrude takes Hamlet's conversation with it as further evidence of madness. Claudius, now fearing for his life, finds a legitimate excuse to get rid of the prince: he sends Hamlet to England on a diplomatic pretext, accompanied (and closely watched) by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Alone, Claudius discloses that he is actually sending Hamlet to his death. Prior to embarking for England, Hamlet hides Polonius's body, ultimately revealing its location to the King. Upon leaving Elsinore, Hamlet encounters the army of Prince Fortinbras en route to do battle in Poland. Upon witnessing so many men going to their death on the brash whim of an impulsive prince, Hamlet declares, \"O, from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!\" At Elsinore, further demented by grief at her father Polonius's death, Ophelia wanders the castle, acting erratically and singing bawdy songs. Her brother, Laertes, returns from France, horrified by his father's death and his sister's madness. She appears briefly to give out herbs and flowers. Claudius convinces Laertes that Hamlet is solely responsible; then news arrives that Hamlet is still alive\u2014a story is spread that his ship was attacked by pirates on the way to England, and he has returned to Denmark. Claudius swiftly concocts a plot to kill his nephew but make it appear to be an accident, taking all of the blame off his shoulders. Knowing of Hamlet's jealousy of Laertes' prowess with a sword, he proposes a fencing match between the two. Laertes, enraged at the murder of his father, informs the king that he will further poison the tip of his sword so that a mere scratch would mean certain death. Claudius, unsure that capable Hamlet could receive even a"
      },
      {
        "text": "ius swiftly concocts a plot to kill his nephew but make it appear to be an accident, taking all of the blame off his shoulders. Knowing of Hamlet's jealousy of Laertes' prowess with a sword, he proposes a fencing match between the two. Laertes, enraged at the murder of his father, informs the king that he will further poison the tip of his sword so that a mere scratch would mean certain death. Claudius, unsure that capable Hamlet could receive even a scratch, plans to offer Hamlet poisoned wine if that fails. Gertrude enters to report that Ophelia has drowned. In the Elsinore churchyard, two \"clowns\", typically represented as \"gravediggers,\" enter to prepare Ophelia's grave, and although the coroner has ruled her death accidental so that she may receive Christian burial, they argue that it was a case of suicide. Hamlet arrives with Horatio and banters with one of them, who unearths the skull of a jester whom Hamlet once knew, Yorick (\"Alas, Poor Yorick; I knew him, Horatio.\"). Ophelia's funeral procession approaches, led by her mournful brother Laertes. Distraught at the lack of ceremony (due to the actually-deemed suicide) and overcome by emotion, Laertes leaps into the grave, cursing Hamlet as the cause of her death. Hamlet interrupts, professing his own love and grief for Ophelia. He and Laertes grapple, but the fight is broken up by Claudius and Gertrude. Claudius reminds Laertes of the planned fencing match. Later that day, Hamlet tells Horatio how he escaped death on his journey, disclosing that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been sent to their deaths instead. A courtier, Osric, interrupts to invite Hamlet to fence with Laertes. Despite Horatio"
      },
      {
        "text": " love and grief for Ophelia. He and Laertes grapple, but the fight is broken up by Claudius and Gertrude. Claudius reminds Laertes of the planned fencing match. Later that day, Hamlet tells Horatio how he escaped death on his journey, disclosing that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been sent to their deaths instead. A courtier, Osric, interrupts to invite Hamlet to fence with Laertes. Despite Horatio's warnings, Hamlet accepts and the match begins. After several rounds, Gertrude toasts Hamlet\u2014against the urgent warning of Claudius\u2014accidentally drinking the wine he poisoned. Between bouts, Laertes attacks and pierces Hamlet with his poisoned blade; in the ensuing scuffle, Hamlet is able to use Laertes's own poisoned sword against him. Gertrude falls and, in her dying breath, announces that she has been poisoned. In his dying moments, Laertes is reconciled with Hamlet and reveals Claudius's murderous plot. Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword, and then forces him to drink from his own poisoned cup to make sure he dies. In his final moments, Hamlet names Prince Fortinbras of Norway as the probable heir to the throne, since the Danish kingship is an elected position, with the country's nobles having the final say. Horatio attempts to kill himself with the same poisoned wine but is stopped by Hamlet, so he will be the only one left alive to give a full account of the story. When Fortinbras arrives to greet King Claudius, he encounters the deadly scene: Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and Hamlet are all dead. Horatio asks to be allowed to recount the tale to \"the yet unknowing world,\" and Fortinbras orders Hamlet's body borne off in honour.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " poisoned wine but is stopped by Hamlet, so he will be the only one left alive to give a full account of the story. When Fortinbras arrives to greet King Claudius, he encounters the deadly scene: Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and Hamlet are all dead. Horatio asks to be allowed to recount the tale to \"the yet unknowing world,\" and Fortinbras orders Hamlet's body borne off in honour.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Heretics of Dune",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1984",
    "synopsis": " Much has changed in the millennium and a half since the death of the God Emperor. Sandworms have reappeared on Arrakis (now called Rakis) and renewed the flow of the all-important spice melange to the galaxy. With Leto's death, a hugely complex economic system built on spice collapsed, resulting in trillions leaving known space in a great Scattering. A new civilization has risen, with three dominant powers: the Ixians, whose no-ships are capable of piloting between the stars and are invisible to outside detection; the Bene Tleilax, who have learned to manufacture spice in their axlotl tanks and have created a new breed of Face Dancers; and the Bene Gesserit, a matriarchal order of subtle political manipulators who possess superhuman abilities. However, people from the Scattering are returning with their own peculiar powers. The most powerful of these forces are the Honored Matres, a violent society of women bred and trained for combat and the sexual control of men. On Rakis, a girl called Sheeana has been discovered who can control the giant worms. The Bene Gesserit intends to use a Tleilaxu-provided Duncan Idaho ghola to gain control of this sandrider, and the religious forces of mankind who they know will ultimately worship her. The Sisterhood have subtly been altering the gholas to bring their physical reflexes up to modern standards. The Bene Gesserit leader, Mother Superior Taraza, brings Miles Teg to guard the new Idaho. Taraza also sends Reverend Mother Darwi Odrade to take command of the Bene Gesserit keep on Rakis. Odrade is a loose cannon; she does not obey normal Bene Gesserit prohibitions about love, and is also Teg's biological daughter. Bene Gesserit Imprinter Lucilla is also sent by Taraza to bind Idaho's loyalty to the Sisterhood with her sexual talents. However, Lucilla must deal with Reverend Mother Schwangyu, head of the ghola project but also the leader of a faction within the Bene Gesserit who feel gholas are a danger. Above the planet Gammu, Taraza is captured and held hostage by the Honored Matres aboard an Ixian no-ship. The Honored Matres insist Taraza invite Teg to the ship, hoping to gain control of the ghola project. Teg manages to turn the tables on the Matres, and rescues the Mother Superior and her party. An attack is then made on Sheeana on Rakis, which is prevented by the intervention of the Bene Gesserit. Odrade starts training Sheeana as a Bene Gesserit. At about the same time an attempt is made on the life of Idaho, but Teg is able to defeat it. Teg flees with Duncan and Lucilla into the countryside. In an ancient Harkonnen no-globe, Teg proceeds to awaken Idaho's original memories, but does so before Lucilla can imprint Duncan and thus tie him to the Sisterhood. In the meantime, Taraza has been searching for Teg and his party, and finally establishes contact. During the operation, however, Teg and his companions are ambushed. Teg is captured while Lucilla and Duncan escape. Teg is tortured by a T-Probe, but under pressure discovers a new ability: he is able to speed up his physical and mental reactions, which enables him to escape. At the same time, Idaho is ambushed and taken hostage. Taraza arranges a meeting with the Tleilaxu Master Waff, who is soon forced to tell her what he knows about the Honored Matres. When pressed on the issue of Idaho, he also admits that the Bene Tleilax have conditioned their own agenda into him. As the meeting draws to a close, Taraza accidentally divines that Waff is a Zensunni, giving the Bene Gesserit a lever to understand their ancient competitor. She and Odrade meet Waff again on Rakis. He tries to assassinate Taraza but Odrade convinces him that the Sisterhood shares the religious beliefs of the Bene Tleilax. Taraza offers full alliance with them against the onslaught of forces out of the Scattering. This agreement causes consternation among the Bene Gesserit, but Odrade realizes that Taraza's plan is to destroy Rakis. By destroying the planet, the Bene Gesserit would be dependent on the Tleilaxu for the spice, ensuring an alliance. Lucilla arrives at a Bene Gesserit safe house to discover it has been taken over by Honored Matres, who have Idaho as their captive. As Lucilla infiltrates it, the young Honored Matre Murbella proceeds to seduce the captured Idaho with the Honored Matre imprinting method. However, hidden Tleilaxu conditioning kicks in, and Duncan responds with an equal technique, one that overwhelms Murbella. Lucilla takes advantage of Murbella's exhaustion to knock her unconscious and rescue Duncan. The Honored Matres attack Rakis, killing Taraza. Odrade becomes temporary leader of the Bene Gesserit before escaping with Sheeana into the desert on a worm. Teg also goes to a supposed safe house, only to discover the Honored Matres. He unleashes himself upon the complex, before capturing a no-ship and locating Duncan and Lucilla. They and the captured Murbella are taken to Rakis with him. When they arrive, Teg finds Odrade and Sheeana and their giant worm. He loads them all up in his no-ship, finally leading his troops out on a last suicidal defense of Rakis, designed to attract the rage of the Honored Matres. The Honored Matres attack Rakis, destroying the planet and the sandworms except for the one the Bene Gesserit escape with. They drown the worm in a mixture of water and spice, turning it into sandtrout which will turn the secret Bene Gesserit planet Chapterhouse into another Dune.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Much has changed in the millennium and a half since the death of the God Emperor. Sandworms have reappeared on Arrakis (now called Rakis) and renewed the flow of the all-important spice melange to the galaxy. With Leto's death, a hugely complex economic system built on spice collapsed, resulting in trillions leaving known space in a great Scattering. A new civilization has risen, with three dominant powers: the Ixians, whose no-ships are capable of piloting between the stars and are invisible to outside detection; the Bene Tleilax, who have learned to manufacture spice in their axlotl tanks and have created a new breed of Face Dancers; and the Bene Gesserit, a matriarchal order of subtle political manipulators who possess superhuman abilities. However, people from the Scattering are returning with their own peculiar powers. The most powerful of these forces are the Honored Matres, a violent society of women bred and trained for combat and the sexual control of men. On Rakis, a girl called Sheeana has been discovered who can control the giant worms. The Bene Gesserit intends to use a Tleilaxu-provided Duncan Idaho ghola to gain control of this sandrider, and the religious forces of mankind who they know will ultimately worship her. The Sisterhood have subtly been altering the gholas to bring their physical reflexes up to modern standards. The Bene Gesserit leader, Mother Superior Taraza, brings Miles Teg to guard the new Idaho. Taraza also sends Reverend Mother Darwi Odrade to take command of the Bene Gesserit keep on Rakis. Odrade is a loose cannon; she does not obey normal Bene Gesserit prohibitions about love, and is also Teg's biological daughter. Bene Gesserit Imprinter Lucilla is also sent by Taraza to bind Idaho's loyalty to the Sisterhood with"
      },
      {
        "text": "erit leader, Mother Superior Taraza, brings Miles Teg to guard the new Idaho. Taraza also sends Reverend Mother Darwi Odrade to take command of the Bene Gesserit keep on Rakis. Odrade is a loose cannon; she does not obey normal Bene Gesserit prohibitions about love, and is also Teg's biological daughter. Bene Gesserit Imprinter Lucilla is also sent by Taraza to bind Idaho's loyalty to the Sisterhood with her sexual talents. However, Lucilla must deal with Reverend Mother Schwangyu, head of the ghola project but also the leader of a faction within the Bene Gesserit who feel gholas are a danger. Above the planet Gammu, Taraza is captured and held hostage by the Honored Matres aboard an Ixian no-ship. The Honored Matres insist Taraza invite Teg to the ship, hoping to gain control of the ghola project. Teg manages to turn the tables on the Matres, and rescues the Mother Superior and her party. An attack is then made on Sheeana on Rakis, which is prevented by the intervention of the Bene Gesserit. Odrade starts training Sheeana as a Bene Gesserit. At about the same time an attempt is made on the life of Idaho, but Teg is able to defeat it. Teg flees with Duncan and Lucilla into the countryside. In an ancient Harkonnen no-globe, Teg proceeds to awaken Idaho's original memories, but does so before Lucilla can imprint Duncan and thus tie him to the Sisterhood. In the meantime, Taraza has been searching for Teg and his party, and finally establishes contact. During the operation, however, Teg and his companions are ambushed. Teg is captured while Lucilla and Duncan escape. Teg is tortured by a T-Probe, but under pressure discovers a new ability:"
      },
      {
        "text": " an ancient Harkonnen no-globe, Teg proceeds to awaken Idaho's original memories, but does so before Lucilla can imprint Duncan and thus tie him to the Sisterhood. In the meantime, Taraza has been searching for Teg and his party, and finally establishes contact. During the operation, however, Teg and his companions are ambushed. Teg is captured while Lucilla and Duncan escape. Teg is tortured by a T-Probe, but under pressure discovers a new ability: he is able to speed up his physical and mental reactions, which enables him to escape. At the same time, Idaho is ambushed and taken hostage. Taraza arranges a meeting with the Tleilaxu Master Waff, who is soon forced to tell her what he knows about the Honored Matres. When pressed on the issue of Idaho, he also admits that the Bene Tleilax have conditioned their own agenda into him. As the meeting draws to a close, Taraza accidentally divines that Waff is a Zensunni, giving the Bene Gesserit a lever to understand their ancient competitor. She and Odrade meet Waff again on Rakis. He tries to assassinate Taraza but Odrade convinces him that the Sisterhood shares the religious beliefs of the Bene Tleilax. Taraza offers full alliance with them against the onslaught of forces out of the Scattering. This agreement causes consternation among the Bene Gesserit, but Odrade realizes that Taraza's plan is to destroy Rakis. By destroying the planet, the Bene Gesserit would be dependent on the Tleilaxu for the spice, ensuring an alliance. Lucilla arrives at a Bene Gesserit safe house to discover it has been taken over by Honored Matres, who have Idaho as their captive. As Lucilla infiltrates it, the young Honored Matre Murbella proceeds to seduce"
      },
      {
        "text": "erit, but Odrade realizes that Taraza's plan is to destroy Rakis. By destroying the planet, the Bene Gesserit would be dependent on the Tleilaxu for the spice, ensuring an alliance. Lucilla arrives at a Bene Gesserit safe house to discover it has been taken over by Honored Matres, who have Idaho as their captive. As Lucilla infiltrates it, the young Honored Matre Murbella proceeds to seduce the captured Idaho with the Honored Matre imprinting method. However, hidden Tleilaxu conditioning kicks in, and Duncan responds with an equal technique, one that overwhelms Murbella. Lucilla takes advantage of Murbella's exhaustion to knock her unconscious and rescue Duncan. The Honored Matres attack Rakis, killing Taraza. Odrade becomes temporary leader of the Bene Gesserit before escaping with Sheeana into the desert on a worm. Teg also goes to a supposed safe house, only to discover the Honored Matres. He unleashes himself upon the complex, before capturing a no-ship and locating Duncan and Lucilla. They and the captured Murbella are taken to Rakis with him. When they arrive, Teg finds Odrade and Sheeana and their giant worm. He loads them all up in his no-ship, finally leading his troops out on a last suicidal defense of Rakis, designed to attract the rage of the Honored Matres. The Honored Matres attack Rakis, destroying the planet and the sandworms except for the one the Bene Gesserit escape with. They drown the worm in a mixture of water and spice, turning it into sandtrout which will turn the secret Bene Gesserit planet Chapterhouse into another Dune.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the Honored Matres. The Honored Matres attack Rakis, destroying the planet and the sandworms except for the one the Bene Gesserit escape with. They drown the worm in a mixture of water and spice, turning it into sandtrout which will turn the secret Bene Gesserit planet Chapterhouse into another Dune.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn",
    "author": "Mark Twain",
    "published_date": "1884",
    "synopsis": " The story begins in fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri, on the shore of the Mississippi River, sometime between 1835 (when the first steamboat sailed down the Mississippi) and 1845. Two young boys, Thomas \"Tom\" Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier adventures (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer). Huck has been placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas, who, together with her sister, Miss Watson, is attempting to civilize him. Huck appreciates their efforts, but finds civilized life confining. His spirits are raised somewhat when Tom Sawyer helps him to escape one night past Miss Watson's slave Jim, to meet up with his gang of self-proclaimed \"robbers\". However, when the gang's exploits turn out to be nothing worse than disrupting Sunday School outings and stealing paltry items like hymn books (which the Sunday School teacher forces them to return anyway), Huck is again downcast. However, his life is changed by the sudden reappearance of his shiftless father \"Pap\", an abusive parent and drunkard. Although Huck is successful in preventing him from acquiring his fortune (he gives all 6,000 dollars to Judge Thatcher), Pap forcibly gains custody of him and moves him to his backwoods cabin. Though Huck prefers this to his life with the widow, he resents his father's drunken violence and his habit of keeping him locked inside the cabin. During one of his father's absences Huck escapes, elaborately fakes his own murder, and sets off down the Mississippi River. While living quite comfortably in the wilderness along the Mississippi, Huck encounters Miss Watson's slave Jim on an island called Jackson's Island. Huck learns that Jim has also run away after he overheard Miss Watson's plan to sell Jim downriver, where conditions for slaves were even harsher, because he would bring a price of $800. Jim is trying to make his way to Cairo, Illinois, and then to Ohio, a free state, so that he can buy his family's freedom. At first, Huck is conflicted over whether to tell someone about Jim's running away, but as they travel together and talk in depth, Huck begins to know more about Jim's past and his difficult life. As these conversations continue, Huck begins to change his opinion about people, slavery, and life in general. This continues throughout the rest of the novel. Huck and Jim take up in a cavern on a hill on Jackson's Island to wait out a storm. When they can, they scrounge around the river looking for food, wood, and other items. One night, they find a raft they will eventually use to travel down the Mississippi. Later, they find an entire house floating down the river and enter it to grab what they can. Entering one room, Jim finds a man lying dead on the floor, shot in the back while apparently trying to ransack the house. Jim refuses to let Huck see the man's face. To find out the latest news in the area, Huck dresses as a girl and goes into town. He enters the house of a woman new to the area, thinking she will not recognize him. Huck learns from her that opinion is divided about the \"murder\": while some believe Pap has killed his son in order to inherit his fortune, others blame the runaway Jim. Either way there is a $300 reward for Jim's capture, and a manhunt is already underway, including her husband and another man. The men are going to Jackson's Island at night with a gun. The woman becomes suspicious when Huck threads a needle incorrectly, and her suspicions are confirmed after she puts Huck through a series of tests. Having tricked him into revealing he is a boy, she nevertheless allows him to leave her home, believing him to be a mistreated apprentice on the run. Huck returns quickly to the island where he tells Jim of the impending danger. The two immediately load up the raft and leave the islands. Huck and Jim's raft is swamped by a passing steamship, separating the two. Huck is given shelter by the Grangerfords, a prosperous local family. He becomes friends with Buck Grangerford, a boy about his age, and learns that the Grangerfords are engaged in a 30-year blood feud against another family, the Shepherdsons. The Grangerfords and Shepherdsons go to church. Both families bring guns to continue the show, despite the church's preachings on brotherly love. The vendetta comes to a head when Buck's sister, Sophia Grangerford, elopes with Harney Shepherdson. In the resulting conflict, all the Grangerford males from this branch of the family are shot and killed, although Grangerfords elsewhere survive to carry on the feud. Upon seeing Buck's corpse, Huck is too devastated to write about everything that happened. However, Huck does describe how he narrowly avoids his own death in the gunfight, later reuniting with Jim and the raft and together fleeing farther south on the Mississippi River. Further down the river, Jim and Huck rescue two cunning grifters, who join Huck and Jim on the raft. The younger of the two swindlers, a man of about thirty, introduces himself as a son of an English duke (the Duke of Bridgewater) and his father's rightful successor. The older one, about seventy, then trumps the Duke's claim by alleging that he is the Lost Dauphin, the son of Louis XVI and rightful King of France. He continually mispronounces the duke's title as \"Bilgewater\" in conversation. The Duke and the King then join Jim and Huck on the raft, committing a series of confidence schemes on the way south. To allow for Jim's presence, they print fake bills for an escaped slave; and later they paint him up entirely in blue and call him the \"Sick Arab\". On one occasion they arrive in a town and advertise a three-night engagement of a play which they call \"The Royal Nonesuch\". The play turns out to be only a couple of minutes of hysterical cavorting, not worth anywhere near the 50 cents the townsmen were charged to see it. On the afternoon of the first performance, a drunk called Boggs arrives in town and makes a nuisance of himself by going around threatening a southern gentleman by the name of Colonel Sherburn. Sherburn comes out and warns Boggs that he can continue threatening him up until exactly one o'clock. At one o'clock, Boggs continues and Colonel Sherburn kills him. Somebody in the crowd, whom Sherburn later identifies as Buck Harkness, cries out that Sherburn should be lynched. They all head up to Colonel Sherburn's gate, where they are met by Sherburn, who is standing on his porch carrying a loaded shotgun and his three legged dalmatian. He causes them to back down, by making a defiant speech telling them about the essential cowardice of \"Southern justice\". The only lynching to be done here, says Sherburn, will be in the dark, by men wearing masks. By the third night of \"The Royal Nonesuch\", the townspeople are ready to take their revenge; but the Duke and the King have already skipped town, and together with Huck and Jim, they continue down the river. Once they are far enough away, the two grifters test the next town, and decide to impersonate two brothers of Peter Wilks, a recently deceased man of property. Using an absurd English accent, the King manages to convince nearly all the townspeople that he is one of the brothers, a preacher just arrived from England, while the Duke pretends to be a deaf-mute to match accounts of the other brother. One man in town is certain that they are a fraud and confronts them on the matter, but the crowd refuses to support him. Afterwards, the Duke, out of fear, suggests to the King that they should cut and run. The King boldly states his intention to continue to liquidate Wilks' estate, saying, \"Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?\" Huck likes Wilks' daughters, who treat him with kindness and courtesy, so he tries to thwart the grifters' plans by stealing back the inheritance money. When he is in danger of being discovered, he has to hide it in Wilks' coffin, which is buried the next morning without Huck knowing whether the money has been found or not. The arrival of two new men who seem to be the real brothers throws everything into confusion when none of their signatures match the one on record. (The deaf-mute brother, who is said to do the correspondence, has his arm in a sling and cannot currently write.) The townspeople devise a test, which requires digging up the coffin to check. When the money is found in Wilks' coffin, the Duke and the King are able to escape in the confusion. They manage to rejoin Huck and Jim on the raft to Huck's despair, since he had thought he had escaped them. After the four fugitives have drifted far enough from the town, the King takes advantage of Huck's temporary absence to sell his interest in the \"escaped\" slave Jim for forty dollars. Outraged by this betrayal, Huck rejects the advice of his \"conscience\", which continues to tell him that in helping Jim escape to freedom, he is stealing Miss Watson's property. Accepting that-\"All right, then, I'll go to hell!\"-Huck resolves to free Jim. Jim is being held at the plantation of Silas and Sally Phelps. In a surprise twist, they are revealed to be Tom Sawyer's aunt and uncle. Since Tom is expected for a visit, Huck is mistaken for Tom. He plays along, hoping to find Jim's location and free him. When Huck intercepts Tom on the road and tells him everything, Tom decides to join Huck's scheme, pretending to be his own younger half-brother Sid. Jim has also told the household about the two grifters and the new plan for \"The Royal Nonesuch,\" so this time the townspeople are ready for them. The Duke and King are captured by the townspeople, and are tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. Rather than simply sneaking Jim out of the shed where he is being held, Tom develops an elaborate plan to free him, involving secret messages, hidden tunnels, a rope ladder sent in Jim's food, and other elements from popular novels, including a note to the Phelps warning them of a gang planning to steal their runaway slave. During the resulting pursuit, Tom is shot in the leg. Jim remains with him rather than completing his escape, risking recapture. Huck has long known Jim was \"white on the inside\". Although the doctor admires Jim's decency, he betrays him to a passing skiff, and Jim is captured while sleeping and returned to the Phelps family. After Jim's recapture, events quickly resolve themselves. Tom's Aunt Polly arrives and reveals Huck and Tom's true identities. Tom announces that Jim is a free man; Miss Watson died two months earlier and freed Jim in her will, but Tom chose not to reveal Jim's freedom so he could come up with an elaborate plan to rescue Jim. Jim tells Huck that Huck's father has been dead for some time (he was the dead man they found in the floating house) and that Huck may return safely to St. Petersburg. In the final narrative, Huck declares that he is quite glad to be done writing his story, and despite Sally's plans to adopt and \"civilize\" him, Huck intends to flee west to Indian Territory.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins in fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri, on the shore of the Mississippi River, sometime between 1835 (when the first steamboat sailed down the Mississippi) and 1845. Two young boys, Thomas \"Tom\" Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier adventures (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer). Huck has been placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas, who, together with her sister, Miss Watson, is attempting to civilize him. Huck appreciates their efforts, but finds civilized life confining. His spirits are raised somewhat when Tom Sawyer helps him to escape one night past Miss Watson's slave Jim, to meet up with his gang of self-proclaimed \"robbers\". However, when the gang's exploits turn out to be nothing worse than disrupting Sunday School outings and stealing paltry items like hymn books (which the Sunday School teacher forces them to return anyway), Huck is again downcast. However, his life is changed by the sudden reappearance of his shiftless father \"Pap\", an abusive parent and drunkard. Although Huck is successful in preventing him from acquiring his fortune (he gives all 6,000 dollars to Judge Thatcher), Pap forcibly gains custody of him and moves him to his backwoods cabin. Though Huck prefers this to his life with the widow, he resents his father's drunken violence and his habit of keeping him locked inside the cabin. During one of his father's absences Huck escapes, elaborately fakes his own murder, and sets off down the Mississippi River. While living quite comfortably in the wilderness along the Mississippi, Huck encounters Miss Watson's slave Jim on an island called Jackson's Island. Huck learns that Jim has also run away after he overheard Miss Watson's plan to sell Jim downriver, where conditions for slaves were even harsher, because he would bring a price of $800. Jim is trying to make his way to Cairo, Illinois, and"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s absences Huck escapes, elaborately fakes his own murder, and sets off down the Mississippi River. While living quite comfortably in the wilderness along the Mississippi, Huck encounters Miss Watson's slave Jim on an island called Jackson's Island. Huck learns that Jim has also run away after he overheard Miss Watson's plan to sell Jim downriver, where conditions for slaves were even harsher, because he would bring a price of $800. Jim is trying to make his way to Cairo, Illinois, and then to Ohio, a free state, so that he can buy his family's freedom. At first, Huck is conflicted over whether to tell someone about Jim's running away, but as they travel together and talk in depth, Huck begins to know more about Jim's past and his difficult life. As these conversations continue, Huck begins to change his opinion about people, slavery, and life in general. This continues throughout the rest of the novel. Huck and Jim take up in a cavern on a hill on Jackson's Island to wait out a storm. When they can, they scrounge around the river looking for food, wood, and other items. One night, they find a raft they will eventually use to travel down the Mississippi. Later, they find an entire house floating down the river and enter it to grab what they can. Entering one room, Jim finds a man lying dead on the floor, shot in the back while apparently trying to ransack the house. Jim refuses to let Huck see the man's face. To find out the latest news in the area, Huck dresses as a girl and goes into town. He enters the house of a woman new to the area, thinking she will not recognize him. Huck learns from her that opinion is divided about the \"murder\": while some believe Pap has killed his son in order to inherit his fortune, others blame the runaway Jim. Either way there is a $300 reward for Jim's capture, and a manhunt"
      },
      {
        "text": " to let Huck see the man's face. To find out the latest news in the area, Huck dresses as a girl and goes into town. He enters the house of a woman new to the area, thinking she will not recognize him. Huck learns from her that opinion is divided about the \"murder\": while some believe Pap has killed his son in order to inherit his fortune, others blame the runaway Jim. Either way there is a $300 reward for Jim's capture, and a manhunt is already underway, including her husband and another man. The men are going to Jackson's Island at night with a gun. The woman becomes suspicious when Huck threads a needle incorrectly, and her suspicions are confirmed after she puts Huck through a series of tests. Having tricked him into revealing he is a boy, she nevertheless allows him to leave her home, believing him to be a mistreated apprentice on the run. Huck returns quickly to the island where he tells Jim of the impending danger. The two immediately load up the raft and leave the islands. Huck and Jim's raft is swamped by a passing steamship, separating the two. Huck is given shelter by the Grangerfords, a prosperous local family. He becomes friends with Buck Grangerford, a boy about his age, and learns that the Grangerfords are engaged in a 30-year blood feud against another family, the Shepherdsons. The Grangerfords and Shepherdsons go to church. Both families bring guns to continue the show, despite the church's preachings on brotherly love. The vendetta comes to a head when Buck's sister, Sophia Grangerford, elopes with Harney Shepherdson. In the resulting conflict, all the Grangerford males from this branch of the family are shot and killed, although Grangerfords elsewhere survive to carry on the feud. Upon seeing Buck's corpse, Huck is too devastated to write about everything that happened. However, Huck does describe how he narrowly avoids his"
      },
      {
        "text": " to continue the show, despite the church's preachings on brotherly love. The vendetta comes to a head when Buck's sister, Sophia Grangerford, elopes with Harney Shepherdson. In the resulting conflict, all the Grangerford males from this branch of the family are shot and killed, although Grangerfords elsewhere survive to carry on the feud. Upon seeing Buck's corpse, Huck is too devastated to write about everything that happened. However, Huck does describe how he narrowly avoids his own death in the gunfight, later reuniting with Jim and the raft and together fleeing farther south on the Mississippi River. Further down the river, Jim and Huck rescue two cunning grifters, who join Huck and Jim on the raft. The younger of the two swindlers, a man of about thirty, introduces himself as a son of an English duke (the Duke of Bridgewater) and his father's rightful successor. The older one, about seventy, then trumps the Duke's claim by alleging that he is the Lost Dauphin, the son of Louis XVI and rightful King of France. He continually mispronounces the duke's title as \"Bilgewater\" in conversation. The Duke and the King then join Jim and Huck on the raft, committing a series of confidence schemes on the way south. To allow for Jim's presence, they print fake bills for an escaped slave; and later they paint him up entirely in blue and call him the \"Sick Arab\". On one occasion they arrive in a town and advertise a three-night engagement of a play which they call \"The Royal Nonesuch\". The play turns out to be only a couple of minutes of hysterical cavorting, not worth anywhere near the 50 cents the townsmen were charged to see it. On the afternoon of the first performance, a drunk called Boggs arrives in town and makes a nuisance of himself by going around threatening a southern gentleman by the name of Colonel Sherburn."
      },
      {
        "text": " Arab\". On one occasion they arrive in a town and advertise a three-night engagement of a play which they call \"The Royal Nonesuch\". The play turns out to be only a couple of minutes of hysterical cavorting, not worth anywhere near the 50 cents the townsmen were charged to see it. On the afternoon of the first performance, a drunk called Boggs arrives in town and makes a nuisance of himself by going around threatening a southern gentleman by the name of Colonel Sherburn. Sherburn comes out and warns Boggs that he can continue threatening him up until exactly one o'clock. At one o'clock, Boggs continues and Colonel Sherburn kills him. Somebody in the crowd, whom Sherburn later identifies as Buck Harkness, cries out that Sherburn should be lynched. They all head up to Colonel Sherburn's gate, where they are met by Sherburn, who is standing on his porch carrying a loaded shotgun and his three legged dalmatian. He causes them to back down, by making a defiant speech telling them about the essential cowardice of \"Southern justice\". The only lynching to be done here, says Sherburn, will be in the dark, by men wearing masks. By the third night of \"The Royal Nonesuch\", the townspeople are ready to take their revenge; but the Duke and the King have already skipped town, and together with Huck and Jim, they continue down the river. Once they are far enough away, the two grifters test the next town, and decide to impersonate two brothers of Peter Wilks, a recently deceased man of property. Using an absurd English accent, the King manages to convince nearly all the townspeople that he is one of the brothers, a preacher just arrived from England, while the Duke pretends to be a deaf-mute to match accounts of the other brother. One man in town is certain that they are a fraud and"
      },
      {
        "text": " Once they are far enough away, the two grifters test the next town, and decide to impersonate two brothers of Peter Wilks, a recently deceased man of property. Using an absurd English accent, the King manages to convince nearly all the townspeople that he is one of the brothers, a preacher just arrived from England, while the Duke pretends to be a deaf-mute to match accounts of the other brother. One man in town is certain that they are a fraud and confronts them on the matter, but the crowd refuses to support him. Afterwards, the Duke, out of fear, suggests to the King that they should cut and run. The King boldly states his intention to continue to liquidate Wilks' estate, saying, \"Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?\" Huck likes Wilks' daughters, who treat him with kindness and courtesy, so he tries to thwart the grifters' plans by stealing back the inheritance money. When he is in danger of being discovered, he has to hide it in Wilks' coffin, which is buried the next morning without Huck knowing whether the money has been found or not. The arrival of two new men who seem to be the real brothers throws everything into confusion when none of their signatures match the one on record. (The deaf-mute brother, who is said to do the correspondence, has his arm in a sling and cannot currently write.) The townspeople devise a test, which requires digging up the coffin to check. When the money is found in Wilks' coffin, the Duke and the King are able to escape in the confusion. They manage to rejoin Huck and Jim on the raft to Huck's despair, since he had thought he had escaped them. After the four fugitives have drifted far enough from the town, the King takes advantage of Huck's temporary absence to sell his interest in the \""
      },
      {
        "text": " and cannot currently write.) The townspeople devise a test, which requires digging up the coffin to check. When the money is found in Wilks' coffin, the Duke and the King are able to escape in the confusion. They manage to rejoin Huck and Jim on the raft to Huck's despair, since he had thought he had escaped them. After the four fugitives have drifted far enough from the town, the King takes advantage of Huck's temporary absence to sell his interest in the \"escaped\" slave Jim for forty dollars. Outraged by this betrayal, Huck rejects the advice of his \"conscience\", which continues to tell him that in helping Jim escape to freedom, he is stealing Miss Watson's property. Accepting that-\"All right, then, I'll go to hell!\"-Huck resolves to free Jim. Jim is being held at the plantation of Silas and Sally Phelps. In a surprise twist, they are revealed to be Tom Sawyer's aunt and uncle. Since Tom is expected for a visit, Huck is mistaken for Tom. He plays along, hoping to find Jim's location and free him. When Huck intercepts Tom on the road and tells him everything, Tom decides to join Huck's scheme, pretending to be his own younger half-brother Sid. Jim has also told the household about the two grifters and the new plan for \"The Royal Nonesuch,\" so this time the townspeople are ready for them. The Duke and King are captured by the townspeople, and are tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. Rather than simply sneaking Jim out of the shed where he is being held, Tom develops an elaborate plan to free him, involving secret messages, hidden tunnels, a rope ladder sent in Jim's food, and other elements from popular novels, including a note to the Phelps warning them of a gang planning to steal their runaway slave. During the resulting pursuit, Tom is shot in the leg"
      },
      {
        "text": " are captured by the townspeople, and are tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. Rather than simply sneaking Jim out of the shed where he is being held, Tom develops an elaborate plan to free him, involving secret messages, hidden tunnels, a rope ladder sent in Jim's food, and other elements from popular novels, including a note to the Phelps warning them of a gang planning to steal their runaway slave. During the resulting pursuit, Tom is shot in the leg. Jim remains with him rather than completing his escape, risking recapture. Huck has long known Jim was \"white on the inside\". Although the doctor admires Jim's decency, he betrays him to a passing skiff, and Jim is captured while sleeping and returned to the Phelps family. After Jim's recapture, events quickly resolve themselves. Tom's Aunt Polly arrives and reveals Huck and Tom's true identities. Tom announces that Jim is a free man; Miss Watson died two months earlier and freed Jim in her will, but Tom chose not to reveal Jim's freedom so he could come up with an elaborate plan to rescue Jim. Jim tells Huck that Huck's father has been dead for some time (he was the dead man they found in the floating house) and that Huck may return safely to St. Petersburg. In the final narrative, Huck declares that he is quite glad to be done writing his story, and despite Sally's plans to adopt and \"civilize\" him, Huck intends to flee west to Indian Territory.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " to flee west to Indian Territory.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ivanhoe",
    "author": "Walter Scott",
    "published_date": "1819",
    "synopsis": " Wilfred of Ivanhoe is disinherited by his father Cedric of Rotherwood for supporting the Norman King Richard and for falling in love with the Lady Rowena, Cedric's ward and a descendant of the Saxon Kings of England. Cedric had planned to marry her to the powerful Lord Aethelstane, pretender to the Crown of England through his descent from the last Saxon King, Harold Godwinson, thus cementing a Saxon political alliance between two rivals for the same claim. Ivanhoe accompanies King Richard on the Crusades, where he is said to have played a notable role in the Siege of Acre. The book opens with a scene of Norman knights and prelates seeking the hospitality of Cedric. They are guided there by a palmer, who has recently returned from the Holy Land. The same night, seeking refuge from inclement weather and bandits, Isaac of York, a Jewish moneylender, arrives at Rotherwood. Following the night's meal, the palmer observes one of the Normans, the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, issue orders to his Saracen soldiers to follow Isaac of York after he leaves Rotherwood in the morning and relieve him of his possessions. The palmer then warns the moneylender of his peril and assists in his escape from Rotherwood. The swineherd Gurth refuses to open the gates until the palmer whispers a few words in his ear, which turns Gurth as helpful as he was recalcitrant earlier. This is but one of the many mysterious incidents that occur throughout the book. Isaac of York offers to repay his debt to the palmer by offering him a suit of armour and a war horse to participate in the tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where he was bound. His offer is made on the surmise that the palmer was in reality a knight, York having observed his knight's chain and spurs (a fact that he mentions to the palmer). The palmer is taken by surprise but accepts the offer. The story then moves to the scene of the tournament, which is presided over by Prince John, King Richard's younger brother. Other characters in attendance are Cedric, Aethelstane, Lady Rowena, Isaac of York, his daughter Rebecca, Robin of Locksley and his men, Prince John's advisor Waldemar Fitzurse, and numerous Norman knights. On the first day of the tournament, a bout of individual jousting, a mysterious masked knight, identifying himself only as \"Desdichado\" (which is described in the book as Spanish for the \"Disinherited One\", though actually meaning \"Unfortunate\"), makes his appearance and manages to defeat some of the best Norman lances, including Bois-Guilbert, Maurice de Bracy, a leader of a group of \"Free Companions\" (mercenary knights), and the baron Reginald Front-de-Boeuf. The masked knight declines to reveal himself despite Prince John's request, but is nevertheless declared the champion of the day and is permitted to choose the Queen of the Tournament. He bestows this honour upon the Lady Rowena. On the second day, which is a mel\u00e9e, Desdichado is chosen to be leader of one party. Most of the leading knights of the realm, however, flock to the opposite standard under which Desdichado's vanquished opponents fought. Desdichado's side is soon hard pressed and he himself beset by multiple foes, when a knight who had until then taken no part in the battle, thus earning the sobriquet Le Noir Faineant (or the Black Sluggard), rides to Desdichado's rescue. The rescuing knight, having evened the odds by his action, then slips away. Though Desdichado was instrumental in the victory, Prince John, being displeased with his behaviour of the previous day, wishes to bestow his accolades on the vanished Black Knight. Since the latter has departed, he is forced to declare Desdichado the champion. At this point, being forced to unmask himself to receive his coronet, Desdichado is revealed to be Wilfred of Ivanhoe himself, returned from the Crusades. This causes much consternation to Prince John and his court who now fear the imminent return of King Richard. Because he is severely wounded in the competition and because Cedric refuses to have anything to do with him, Ivanhoe is taken into the care of Rebecca, the beautiful daughter of Isaac, who is a skilled healer. She convinces her father to take him with them to York, where he may be best treated. The story then goes over the conclusion of the tournament including feats of archery by Locksley. Meanwhile, de Bracy finds himself infatuated with the Lady Rowena and, with his companions-in-arms, makes plans to abduct her. In the forests between Ashby and York, the Lady Rowena, Cedric, and Aethelstane encounter Isaac, Rebecca, and the wounded Ivanhoe, who had been abandoned by their servants for fear of bandits. The Lady Rowena, in response to the requests of Isaac and Rebecca, urges Cedric to take the group under his protection to York. Cedric, unaware that the wounded man is Ivanhoe, agrees. En route, the party is captured by de Bracy and his companions and taken to Torquilstone, the castle of Front-de-Boeuf. However, the swineherd Gurth, who had run away from Rotherwood to serve Ivanhoe as squire at the tournament and who was recaptured by Cedric when Ivanhoe was identified, manages to escape. The Black Knight, having taken refuge for the night in the hut of a local friar, the Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst, volunteers his assistance on learning about the captives from Robin of Locksley, who had come to rouse the friar for an attempt to free them. They then besiege the Castle of Torquilstone with Robin's own men, including the friar and assorted Saxon yeomen whom they had manage to raise due to the hatred of Front-de-Boeuf and his neighbour, Philip de Malvoisin. At Torquilstone, de Bracy expresses his love for the Lady Rowena, but is refused. In the meantime, de Bois-Guilbert, who had accompanied de Bracy on the raid, takes Rebecca for his captive, and tries to force his attentions on her, which are rebuffed. Front-de-Boeuf, in the meantime, tries to wring a hefty ransom, by torture, from Isaac of York. However, Isaac refuses to pay a farthing unless his daughter is freed from her Templar captor. When the besiegers deliver a note to yield up the captives, their Norman captors retort with a message for a priest to administer the Final Sacrament to the captives. It is then that Cedric's jester Wamba slips in disguised as a priest, and takes the place of Cedric, who then escapes and brings important information to the besiegers on the strength of the garrison and its layout. Then follows an account of the storming of the castle. Front-de-Boeuf is killed while de Bracy surrenders to the Black Knight, who identifies himself as King Richard. Showing mercy, he releases de Bracy. De Bois-Guilbert escapes with Rebecca while Isaac is released from his underground dungeon by the Clerk of Copmanhurst. The Lady Rowena is saved by Cedric, while the still-wounded Ivanhoe is rescued from the burning castle by King Richard. In the fighting, Aethelstane is wounded while attempting to rescue Rebecca, whom he mistakes for Rowena. Following the battle, Locksley plays host to King Richard. Word is also conveyed by de Bracy to Prince John of the King's return and the fall of Torquilstone. In the meantime, de Bois-Guilbert rushes with his captive to the nearest Templar Preceptory, which is under his friend Albert de Malvoisin, expecting to be able to flee the country. However, Lucas de Beaumanoir, the Grand-Master of the Templars is unexpectedly present there. He takes umbrage at de Bois-Guilbert's sinful passion, which is in violation of his Templar vows; and decides to subject Rebecca, who he thinks has cast a spell on de Bois-Guilbert, to a trial for witchcraft. She is found guilty through a flawed trial, but claims the right to trial by combat. Bois-Guilbert, who had hoped to fight as her champion incognito, is devastated when the Grand-Master orders him to fight against Rebecca's champion. Rebecca then writes to her father to procure a champion for her. Meanwhile Cedric organises Aethelstane's funeral at Coningsburgh, in the midst of which the Black Knight arrives with a companion. Cedric, who had not been present at Locksley's carousal, is ill-disposed towards the knight upon learning his true identity. However, King Richard calms Cedric and reconciles him with his son, convincing him to agree to the marriage of Ivanhoe and Rowena. Shortly after, Aethelstane emerges \u2013 not dead, but having been laid in his coffin alive by avaricious monks desirous of the funeral money. Over Cedric's renewed protests, Aethelstane pledges his homage to the Norman King Richard and urges Cedric to marry Rowena to Ivanhoe; to which Cedric finally agrees. Soon after this reconciliation, Ivanhoe receives word from Isaac beseeching him to fight on Rebecca's behalf. Upon arriving at the scene of the witch-burning, Ivanhoe forces de Bois-Guilbert from his saddle, but does not kill him. However, the Templar dies \"a victim to the violence of his own contending passions,\" which is pronounced by the Grand Master as the judgment of God and proof of Rebecca's innocence. King Richard, who had left Kyningestun soon after Ivanhoe's departure, arrives at the Templar Preceptory, banishes the Templars and declares that the Malvoisins' lives are forfeit for having aided in the plots against him. Fearing further persecution, Rebecca and her father leave England for Granada. Before leaving, Rebecca comes to bid Rowena a fond farewell. Finally, Ivanhoe and Rowena marry and live a long and happy life together, though the final paragraphs of the book note that Ivanhoe's long service ended with the death of King Richard.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Wilfred of Ivanhoe is disinherited by his father Cedric of Rotherwood for supporting the Norman King Richard and for falling in love with the Lady Rowena, Cedric's ward and a descendant of the Saxon Kings of England. Cedric had planned to marry her to the powerful Lord Aethelstane, pretender to the Crown of England through his descent from the last Saxon King, Harold Godwinson, thus cementing a Saxon political alliance between two rivals for the same claim. Ivanhoe accompanies King Richard on the Crusades, where he is said to have played a notable role in the Siege of Acre. The book opens with a scene of Norman knights and prelates seeking the hospitality of Cedric. They are guided there by a palmer, who has recently returned from the Holy Land. The same night, seeking refuge from inclement weather and bandits, Isaac of York, a Jewish moneylender, arrives at Rotherwood. Following the night's meal, the palmer observes one of the Normans, the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, issue orders to his Saracen soldiers to follow Isaac of York after he leaves Rotherwood in the morning and relieve him of his possessions. The palmer then warns the moneylender of his peril and assists in his escape from Rotherwood. The swineherd Gurth refuses to open the gates until the palmer whispers a few words in his ear, which turns Gurth as helpful as he was recalcitrant earlier. This is but one of the many mysterious incidents that occur throughout the book. Isaac of York offers to repay his debt to the palmer by offering him a suit of armour and a war horse to participate in the tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where he was bound. His offer is made on the surmise that the palmer was in reality a knight, York having observed his knight's"
      },
      {
        "text": " ear, which turns Gurth as helpful as he was recalcitrant earlier. This is but one of the many mysterious incidents that occur throughout the book. Isaac of York offers to repay his debt to the palmer by offering him a suit of armour and a war horse to participate in the tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where he was bound. His offer is made on the surmise that the palmer was in reality a knight, York having observed his knight's chain and spurs (a fact that he mentions to the palmer). The palmer is taken by surprise but accepts the offer. The story then moves to the scene of the tournament, which is presided over by Prince John, King Richard's younger brother. Other characters in attendance are Cedric, Aethelstane, Lady Rowena, Isaac of York, his daughter Rebecca, Robin of Locksley and his men, Prince John's advisor Waldemar Fitzurse, and numerous Norman knights. On the first day of the tournament, a bout of individual jousting, a mysterious masked knight, identifying himself only as \"Desdichado\" (which is described in the book as Spanish for the \"Disinherited One\", though actually meaning \"Unfortunate\"), makes his appearance and manages to defeat some of the best Norman lances, including Bois-Guilbert, Maurice de Bracy, a leader of a group of \"Free Companions\" (mercenary knights), and the baron Reginald Front-de-Boeuf. The masked knight declines to reveal himself despite Prince John's request, but is nevertheless declared the champion of the day and is permitted to choose the Queen of the Tournament. He bestows this honour upon the Lady Rowena. On the second day, which is a mel\u00e9e, Desdichado is chosen to be leader of one party. Most of the leading knights of the realm, however, flock to"
      },
      {
        "text": "cenary knights), and the baron Reginald Front-de-Boeuf. The masked knight declines to reveal himself despite Prince John's request, but is nevertheless declared the champion of the day and is permitted to choose the Queen of the Tournament. He bestows this honour upon the Lady Rowena. On the second day, which is a mel\u00e9e, Desdichado is chosen to be leader of one party. Most of the leading knights of the realm, however, flock to the opposite standard under which Desdichado's vanquished opponents fought. Desdichado's side is soon hard pressed and he himself beset by multiple foes, when a knight who had until then taken no part in the battle, thus earning the sobriquet Le Noir Faineant (or the Black Sluggard), rides to Desdichado's rescue. The rescuing knight, having evened the odds by his action, then slips away. Though Desdichado was instrumental in the victory, Prince John, being displeased with his behaviour of the previous day, wishes to bestow his accolades on the vanished Black Knight. Since the latter has departed, he is forced to declare Desdichado the champion. At this point, being forced to unmask himself to receive his coronet, Desdichado is revealed to be Wilfred of Ivanhoe himself, returned from the Crusades. This causes much consternation to Prince John and his court who now fear the imminent return of King Richard. Because he is severely wounded in the competition and because Cedric refuses to have anything to do with him, Ivanhoe is taken into the care of Rebecca, the beautiful daughter of Isaac, who is a skilled healer. She convinces her father to take him with them to York, where he may be best treated. The story then goes over the conclusion of the tournament including feats of archery by Locksley. Meanwhile, de Bracy finds himself infatuated"
      },
      {
        "text": " the imminent return of King Richard. Because he is severely wounded in the competition and because Cedric refuses to have anything to do with him, Ivanhoe is taken into the care of Rebecca, the beautiful daughter of Isaac, who is a skilled healer. She convinces her father to take him with them to York, where he may be best treated. The story then goes over the conclusion of the tournament including feats of archery by Locksley. Meanwhile, de Bracy finds himself infatuated with the Lady Rowena and, with his companions-in-arms, makes plans to abduct her. In the forests between Ashby and York, the Lady Rowena, Cedric, and Aethelstane encounter Isaac, Rebecca, and the wounded Ivanhoe, who had been abandoned by their servants for fear of bandits. The Lady Rowena, in response to the requests of Isaac and Rebecca, urges Cedric to take the group under his protection to York. Cedric, unaware that the wounded man is Ivanhoe, agrees. En route, the party is captured by de Bracy and his companions and taken to Torquilstone, the castle of Front-de-Boeuf. However, the swineherd Gurth, who had run away from Rotherwood to serve Ivanhoe as squire at the tournament and who was recaptured by Cedric when Ivanhoe was identified, manages to escape. The Black Knight, having taken refuge for the night in the hut of a local friar, the Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst, volunteers his assistance on learning about the captives from Robin of Locksley, who had come to rouse the friar for an attempt to free them. They then besiege the Castle of Torquilstone with Robin's own men, including the friar and assorted Saxon yeomen whom they had manage to raise due to the hatred of Front-de-Boeuf and his neighbour, Philip de Malvois"
      },
      {
        "text": " hut of a local friar, the Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst, volunteers his assistance on learning about the captives from Robin of Locksley, who had come to rouse the friar for an attempt to free them. They then besiege the Castle of Torquilstone with Robin's own men, including the friar and assorted Saxon yeomen whom they had manage to raise due to the hatred of Front-de-Boeuf and his neighbour, Philip de Malvoisin. At Torquilstone, de Bracy expresses his love for the Lady Rowena, but is refused. In the meantime, de Bois-Guilbert, who had accompanied de Bracy on the raid, takes Rebecca for his captive, and tries to force his attentions on her, which are rebuffed. Front-de-Boeuf, in the meantime, tries to wring a hefty ransom, by torture, from Isaac of York. However, Isaac refuses to pay a farthing unless his daughter is freed from her Templar captor. When the besiegers deliver a note to yield up the captives, their Norman captors retort with a message for a priest to administer the Final Sacrament to the captives. It is then that Cedric's jester Wamba slips in disguised as a priest, and takes the place of Cedric, who then escapes and brings important information to the besiegers on the strength of the garrison and its layout. Then follows an account of the storming of the castle. Front-de-Boeuf is killed while de Bracy surrenders to the Black Knight, who identifies himself as King Richard. Showing mercy, he releases de Bracy. De Bois-Guilbert escapes with Rebecca while Isaac is released from his underground dungeon by the Clerk of Copmanhurst. The Lady Rowena is saved by Cedric, while the still-wounded Ivanhoe is rescued from the burning castle by King Richard."
      },
      {
        "text": " of the storming of the castle. Front-de-Boeuf is killed while de Bracy surrenders to the Black Knight, who identifies himself as King Richard. Showing mercy, he releases de Bracy. De Bois-Guilbert escapes with Rebecca while Isaac is released from his underground dungeon by the Clerk of Copmanhurst. The Lady Rowena is saved by Cedric, while the still-wounded Ivanhoe is rescued from the burning castle by King Richard. In the fighting, Aethelstane is wounded while attempting to rescue Rebecca, whom he mistakes for Rowena. Following the battle, Locksley plays host to King Richard. Word is also conveyed by de Bracy to Prince John of the King's return and the fall of Torquilstone. In the meantime, de Bois-Guilbert rushes with his captive to the nearest Templar Preceptory, which is under his friend Albert de Malvoisin, expecting to be able to flee the country. However, Lucas de Beaumanoir, the Grand-Master of the Templars is unexpectedly present there. He takes umbrage at de Bois-Guilbert's sinful passion, which is in violation of his Templar vows; and decides to subject Rebecca, who he thinks has cast a spell on de Bois-Guilbert, to a trial for witchcraft. She is found guilty through a flawed trial, but claims the right to trial by combat. Bois-Guilbert, who had hoped to fight as her champion incognito, is devastated when the Grand-Master orders him to fight against Rebecca's champion. Rebecca then writes to her father to procure a champion for her. Meanwhile Cedric organises Aethelstane's funeral at Coningsburgh, in the midst of which the Black Knight arrives with a companion. Cedric, who had not been present at Locksley's carousal, is ill-disposed"
      },
      {
        "text": " Bois-Guilbert, who had hoped to fight as her champion incognito, is devastated when the Grand-Master orders him to fight against Rebecca's champion. Rebecca then writes to her father to procure a champion for her. Meanwhile Cedric organises Aethelstane's funeral at Coningsburgh, in the midst of which the Black Knight arrives with a companion. Cedric, who had not been present at Locksley's carousal, is ill-disposed towards the knight upon learning his true identity. However, King Richard calms Cedric and reconciles him with his son, convincing him to agree to the marriage of Ivanhoe and Rowena. Shortly after, Aethelstane emerges \u2013 not dead, but having been laid in his coffin alive by avaricious monks desirous of the funeral money. Over Cedric's renewed protests, Aethelstane pledges his homage to the Norman King Richard and urges Cedric to marry Rowena to Ivanhoe; to which Cedric finally agrees. Soon after this reconciliation, Ivanhoe receives word from Isaac beseeching him to fight on Rebecca's behalf. Upon arriving at the scene of the witch-burning, Ivanhoe forces de Bois-Guilbert from his saddle, but does not kill him. However, the Templar dies \"a victim to the violence of his own contending passions,\" which is pronounced by the Grand Master as the judgment of God and proof of Rebecca's innocence. King Richard, who had left Kyningestun soon after Ivanhoe's departure, arrives at the Templar Preceptory, banishes the Templars and declares that the Malvoisins' lives are forfeit for having aided in the plots against him. Fearing further persecution, Rebecca and her father leave England for Granada. Before leaving, Rebecca comes to bid Rowena a fond farewell. Finally, Ivanhoe and Rowena marry and live a long and happy life together, though the"
      },
      {
        "text": " innocence. King Richard, who had left Kyningestun soon after Ivanhoe's departure, arrives at the Templar Preceptory, banishes the Templars and declares that the Malvoisins' lives are forfeit for having aided in the plots against him. Fearing further persecution, Rebecca and her father leave England for Granada. Before leaving, Rebecca comes to bid Rowena a fond farewell. Finally, Ivanhoe and Rowena marry and live a long and happy life together, though the final paragraphs of the book note that Ivanhoe's long service ended with the death of King Richard.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Johnny Got His Gun",
    "author": "Dalton Trumbo",
    "published_date": "1939",
    "synopsis": " Joe Bonham, a young soldier serving in World War I, awakens in a hospital bed after being caught in the blast of an exploding artillery shell. He gradually realizes that he has lost his arms, legs, and all of his face (including his eyes, ears, teeth, and tongue), but that his mind functions perfectly, leaving him a prisoner in his own body. Joe attempts suicide by suffocation, but finds that he had been given a tracheotomy which he can neither remove nor control. At first Joe wishes to die, but later decides that he desires to be placed in a glass box and toured around the country in order to show others the true horrors of war. After he successfully communicates with his doctors by banging his head on his pillow in Morse code, however, he realizes that neither desire will be granted; it is implied that he will live the rest of his natural life in his condition. As Joe drifts between reality and fantasy, he remembers his old life with his family and girlfriend, and reflects upon the myths and realities of war. He also forms a bond, of sorts, with a young nurse who senses his plight.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Joe Bonham, a young soldier serving in World War I, awakens in a hospital bed after being caught in the blast of an exploding artillery shell. He gradually realizes that he has lost his arms, legs, and all of his face (including his eyes, ears, teeth, and tongue), but that his mind functions perfectly, leaving him a prisoner in his own body. Joe attempts suicide by suffocation, but finds that he had been given a tracheotomy which he can neither remove nor control. At first Joe wishes to die, but later decides that he desires to be placed in a glass box and toured around the country in order to show others the true horrors of war. After he successfully communicates with his doctors by banging his head on his pillow in Morse code, however, he realizes that neither desire will be granted; it is implied that he will live the rest of his natural life in his condition. As Joe drifts between reality and fantasy, he remembers his old life with his family and girlfriend, and reflects upon the myths and realities of war. He also forms a bond, of sorts, with a young nurse who senses his plight.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Icehenge",
    "author": "Kim Stanley Robinson",
    "published_date": "1984",
    "synopsis": " Icehenge is part mystery, part psychological drama, and is set in three distinct time periods. The story shifts from a failed Martian political revolution of 2248, to an expedition to explore a mysterious monument on the north pole of Pluto three centuries later, and ultimately to a space station orbiting Saturn, home to a reclusive and wealthy woman who may hold the key to solving a mystery spanning centuries.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Icehenge is part mystery, part psychological drama, and is set in three distinct time periods. The story shifts from a failed Martian political revolution of 2248, to an expedition to explore a mysterious monument on the north pole of Pluto three centuries later, and ultimately to a space station orbiting Saturn, home to a reclusive and wealthy woman who may hold the key to solving a mystery spanning centuries.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Leviticus",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Chapters 1\u20135 describe the various sacrifices from the sacrificers' point of view, although the priests are essential for handling the blood. Chapters 6\u20137 go over much the same ground, but from the point of view of the priest, who, as the one actually carrying out the sacrifice and dividing the \"portions\", needs to know how this is to be done. Sacrifices are to be divided between God, the priest, and the one offerer, although in some cases the entire sacrifice is a single portion consigned to God\u2014i.e., burnt to ashes. Chapters 7\u201310 describe the consecration (by Moses) of Aaron and his sons as the first priests, the first sacrifices, and God's destruction of two of Aaron's sons for ritual offenses. The purpose is to underline the character of altar priesthood (i.e., those priests empowered to offer sacrifices to God) as an Aaronite privilege, and the restrictions on their position. With sacrifice and priesthood established, chapters 11\u201315 instruct the lay people on purity (or cleanliness). Eating certain animals produces uncleanliness, as does giving birth; certain skin diseases (but not all) are unclean, as are certain conditions affecting walls and clothing (mildew and similar conditions); and genital discharges, including female menses and male gonorrhea, are unclean. The reasoning behind the food rules are obscure; for the rest the guiding principle seems to be that all these conditions involve a loss of \"life force\", usually but not always blood. Leviticus 16 concerns the Day of Atonement. This is the only day on which the High Priest is to enter the holiest part of the sanctuary, the holy of holies. He is to sacrifice a bull for the sins of the priests, and a goat for the sins of the laypeople. A third goat is to sent into the desert to \"Azazel\", bearing the sins of the whole people. Azazel may be a wilderness-demon, but its identity is mysterious. Chapters 17\u201326 are the Holiness code. It begins with a prohibition on all slaughter of animals outside the Temple, even for food, and then prohibits a long list of sexual contacts and also child sacrifice. The \"holiness\" injunctions which give the code its name begin with the next section: penalties are imposed for the worship of Molech, consulting mediums and wizards, cursing one's parents and engaging in unlawful sex. Priests are instructed on mourning rituals and acceptable bodily defects. Blasphemy is to be punished with death, and rules for the eating of sacrifices are set out; the calendar is explained, and rules for sabbatical and Jubilee years set out; and rules are made for oil lamps and bread in the sanctuary. The code ends by telling the Israelites they must choose between the law and prosperity on the one hand, or, on the other, horrible punishments, the worst of which will be expulsion from the land. Chapter 27 is a disparate and probably late addition telling about persons and things dedicated to the Lord and how vows can be redeemed instead of fulfilled.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Chapters 1\u20135 describe the various sacrifices from the sacrificers' point of view, although the priests are essential for handling the blood. Chapters 6\u20137 go over much the same ground, but from the point of view of the priest, who, as the one actually carrying out the sacrifice and dividing the \"portions\", needs to know how this is to be done. Sacrifices are to be divided between God, the priest, and the one offerer, although in some cases the entire sacrifice is a single portion consigned to God\u2014i.e., burnt to ashes. Chapters 7\u201310 describe the consecration (by Moses) of Aaron and his sons as the first priests, the first sacrifices, and God's destruction of two of Aaron's sons for ritual offenses. The purpose is to underline the character of altar priesthood (i.e., those priests empowered to offer sacrifices to God) as an Aaronite privilege, and the restrictions on their position. With sacrifice and priesthood established, chapters 11\u201315 instruct the lay people on purity (or cleanliness). Eating certain animals produces uncleanliness, as does giving birth; certain skin diseases (but not all) are unclean, as are certain conditions affecting walls and clothing (mildew and similar conditions); and genital discharges, including female menses and male gonorrhea, are unclean. The reasoning behind the food rules are obscure; for the rest the guiding principle seems to be that all these conditions involve a loss of \"life force\", usually but not always blood. Leviticus 16 concerns the Day of Atonement. This is the only day on which the High Priest is to enter the holiest part of the sanctuary, the holy of holies. He is to sacrifice a bull for the sins of the priests, and a goat for the sins of the laypeople. A third goat is to sent into the desert to \"Azazel\", bearing the sins of the whole people. Azazel"
      },
      {
        "text": " involve a loss of \"life force\", usually but not always blood. Leviticus 16 concerns the Day of Atonement. This is the only day on which the High Priest is to enter the holiest part of the sanctuary, the holy of holies. He is to sacrifice a bull for the sins of the priests, and a goat for the sins of the laypeople. A third goat is to sent into the desert to \"Azazel\", bearing the sins of the whole people. Azazel may be a wilderness-demon, but its identity is mysterious. Chapters 17\u201326 are the Holiness code. It begins with a prohibition on all slaughter of animals outside the Temple, even for food, and then prohibits a long list of sexual contacts and also child sacrifice. The \"holiness\" injunctions which give the code its name begin with the next section: penalties are imposed for the worship of Molech, consulting mediums and wizards, cursing one's parents and engaging in unlawful sex. Priests are instructed on mourning rituals and acceptable bodily defects. Blasphemy is to be punished with death, and rules for the eating of sacrifices are set out; the calendar is explained, and rules for sabbatical and Jubilee years set out; and rules are made for oil lamps and bread in the sanctuary. The code ends by telling the Israelites they must choose between the law and prosperity on the one hand, or, on the other, horrible punishments, the worst of which will be expulsion from the land. Chapter 27 is a disparate and probably late addition telling about persons and things dedicated to the Lord and how vows can be redeemed instead of fulfilled.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " expulsion from the land. Chapter 27 is a disparate and probably late addition telling about persons and things dedicated to the Lord and how vows can be redeemed instead of fulfilled.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Leaf by Niggle",
    "author": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In this story, an artist, named Niggle, lives in a society that does not much value art. Working only to please himself, he paints a canvas of a great Tree with a forest in the distance. He invests each and every leaf of his tree with obsessive attention to detail, making every leaf uniquely beautiful. Niggle ends up discarding all his other artworks, or tacks them onto the main canvas, which becomes a single vast embodiment of his vision. However, there are many mundane chores and duties that prevent Niggle from giving his work the attention it deserves, so it remains incomplete and is not fully realized. At the back of his head, Niggle knows that he has a great trip looming, and he must pack and prepare his bags. Also, Niggle's next door neighbour, a gardener named Parish, is the sort of neighbour who always drops by whining about the help he needs with this and that. Moreover, Parish is lame and has a sick wife, and honestly needs help \u2014 Niggle, having a good heart, takes time out to help. And Niggle has other pressing work duties that require his attention. Then Niggle himself catches a chill doing errands for Parish in the rain. Eventually, Niggle is forced to take his trip, and cannot get out of it. He has not prepared, and as a result ends up in a kind of institution, in which he must perform menial labour each day. In time he is paroled from the institution, and he is sent to a place 'for a little gentle treatment'. But he discovers that the new country he is sent to is in fact the country of the Tree and Forest of his great painting, now long abandoned and all but destroyed (except for the one perfect leaf of the title which is placed in the local museum) in the home to which he cannot return \u2014 but the Tree here and now in this place is the true realization of his vision, not the flawed and incomplete form of his painting. Niggle is reunited with his old neighbour, Parish, who now proves his worth as a gardener, and together they make the Tree and Forest even more beautiful. Finally, Niggle journeys farther and deeper into the Forest, and beyond into the great mountains that he only faintly glimpsed in his painting. Long after both Niggle and Parish have taken their journeys, the lovely field that they built together becomes a place for many travelers to visit before their final voyage into the Mountains, and it earns the name \"Niggle's Parish.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In this story, an artist, named Niggle, lives in a society that does not much value art. Working only to please himself, he paints a canvas of a great Tree with a forest in the distance. He invests each and every leaf of his tree with obsessive attention to detail, making every leaf uniquely beautiful. Niggle ends up discarding all his other artworks, or tacks them onto the main canvas, which becomes a single vast embodiment of his vision. However, there are many mundane chores and duties that prevent Niggle from giving his work the attention it deserves, so it remains incomplete and is not fully realized. At the back of his head, Niggle knows that he has a great trip looming, and he must pack and prepare his bags. Also, Niggle's next door neighbour, a gardener named Parish, is the sort of neighbour who always drops by whining about the help he needs with this and that. Moreover, Parish is lame and has a sick wife, and honestly needs help \u2014 Niggle, having a good heart, takes time out to help. And Niggle has other pressing work duties that require his attention. Then Niggle himself catches a chill doing errands for Parish in the rain. Eventually, Niggle is forced to take his trip, and cannot get out of it. He has not prepared, and as a result ends up in a kind of institution, in which he must perform menial labour each day. In time he is paroled from the institution, and he is sent to a place 'for a little gentle treatment'. But he discovers that the new country he is sent to is in fact the country of the Tree and Forest of his great painting, now long abandoned and all but destroyed (except for the one perfect leaf of the title which is placed in the local museum) in the home to which he cannot return \u2014 but the Tree here and now in this place is the true realization of his vision, not the flawed and incomplete"
      },
      {
        "text": " from the institution, and he is sent to a place 'for a little gentle treatment'. But he discovers that the new country he is sent to is in fact the country of the Tree and Forest of his great painting, now long abandoned and all but destroyed (except for the one perfect leaf of the title which is placed in the local museum) in the home to which he cannot return \u2014 but the Tree here and now in this place is the true realization of his vision, not the flawed and incomplete form of his painting. Niggle is reunited with his old neighbour, Parish, who now proves his worth as a gardener, and together they make the Tree and Forest even more beautiful. Finally, Niggle journeys farther and deeper into the Forest, and beyond into the great mountains that he only faintly glimpsed in his painting. Long after both Niggle and Parish have taken their journeys, the lovely field that they built together becomes a place for many travelers to visit before their final voyage into the Mountains, and it earns the name \"Niggle's Parish.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Macbeth",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play opens amidst thunder and lightning, and the Three Witches decide that their next meeting shall be with Macbeth. In the following scene, a wounded sergeant reports to King Duncan of Scotland that his generalsMacbeth, who is the Thane of Glamis, and Banquohave just defeated the allied forces of Norway and Ireland, who were led by the traitorous Macdonwald and the Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth, the King's kinsman, is praised for his bravery and fighting prowess. In the following scene, Macbeth and Banquo discuss the weather and their victory. Macbeth's first line is \"So foul and fair a day I have not seen\" (1.3.38). As they wander onto a heath, the Three Witches enter and have been waiting to greet them with prophecies. Though Banquo challenges them first, they address Macbeth, hailing him as \"Thane of Glamis,\" \"Thane of Cawdor,\" and that he shall \"be King hereafter.\" Macbeth appears to be stunned to silence. When Banquo asks of his own fortunes, the witches inform him that he will father a line of kings, though he himself will not be one. While the two men wonder at these pronouncements, the witches vanish, and another thane, Ross, arrives and informs Macbeth of his newly bestowed title: Thane of Cawdor, as the previous Thane of Cawdor shall be put to death for his traitorous activities. The first prophecy is thus fulfilled, and Macbeth immediately begins to harbour ambitions of becoming king. King Duncan welcomes and praises Macbeth and Banquo, and declares that he will spend the night at Macbeth's castle at Inverness; he also names his son Malcolm as his heir. Macbeth sends a message ahead to his wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her about the witches' prophecies. Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband\u2019s uncertainty, and wishes him to murder Duncan in order to obtain kingship. When Macbeth arrives at Inverness, she overrides all of her husband\u2019s objections by challenging his manhood, and successfully persuades him to kill the king that very night. He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan\u2019s two chamberlains drunk so that they will black out; the next morning they will frame the chamberlains for the murder. They will be defenseless, as they will remember nothing. While Duncan is asleep, Macbeth stabs him, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural portents, including a hallucination of a bloody dagger. He is so shaken that Lady Macbeth has to take charge. In accordance with her plan, she frames Duncan's sleeping servants for the murder by placing bloody daggers on them. Early the next morning, Lennox, a Scottish nobleman, and Macduff, the loyal Thane of Fife, arrive. A porter opens the gate and Macbeth leads them to the king's chamber, where Macduff discovers Duncan's body. In a supposed fit of anger, Macbeth murders the guards (in truth, he kills them to prevent them from claiming their innocence). Macduff is immediately suspicious of Macbeth, but does not reveal his suspicions publicly. Duncan\u2019s sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and Ireland, respectively, fearing that whoever killed Duncan desires their demise as well. The rightful heirs' flight makes them suspects and Macbeth assumes the throne as the new King of Scotland as a kinsman of the dead king. Banquo reveals this to the audience, and while skeptical of the new King Macbeth, remembers the witches' prophecy about how his own descendants would inherit the throne. Despite his success, Macbeth, also aware of this part of the prophecy, remains uneasy. Macbeth invites Banquo to a royal banquet, where he discovers that Banquo and his young son, Fleance, will be riding out that night. Macbeth hires two men to kill them; a third murderer appears in the park before the murder. The assassins succeed in killing Banquo, but Fleance escapes. Macbeth becomes furious: as long as Fleance is alive, he fears that his power remains insecure. At the banquet, Macbeth invites his lords and Lady Macbeth to a night of drinking and merriment. Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place. Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests, as the ghost is only visible to himself. The others panic at the sight of Macbeth raging at an empty chair, until a desperate Lady Macbeth tells them that her husband is merely afflicted with a familiar and harmless malady. The ghost departs and returns once more, causing the same riotous anger in Macbeth. This time, Lady Macbeth tells the lords to leave, and they do so. Macbeth, disturbed, visits the three witches once more and asks them to reveal the truth of their prophecies to him. To answer his questions, they summon horrible apparitions, each of which offers predictions and further prophecies to allay Macbeth\u2019s fears. First, they conjure an armed head, which tells him to beware of Macduff (4.1.72). Second, a bloody child tells him that no one born of a woman shall be able to harm him. Thirdly, a crowned child holding a tree states that Macbeth will be safe until Great Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Hill. Macbeth is relieved and feels secure, because he knows that all men are born of women and forests cannot move. However, the witches conjure a procession of eight crowned kings, all similar in appearance to Banquo, and the last carrying a mirror that reflects even more kings. Macbeth demands to know the meaning of this final vision, but the witches perform a mad dance and then vanish. Lennox enters and tells Macbeth that Macduff has fled to England. Macbeth orders Macduff's castle be seized, and, most cruelly, sends murderers to slaughter Macduff\u2019s wife and children. Everyone in Macduff's castle is put to death, including Lady Macduff and their young son. Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth becomes racked with guilt from the crimes she and her husband have committed. At night, in the king\u2019s palace at Dunsinane, a doctor and a gentlewoman discuss Lady Macbeth\u2019s strange habit of sleepwalking. Suddenly, Lady Macbeth enters in a trance with a candle in her hand. Bemoaning the murders of Duncan, Lady Macduff, and Banquo, she tries to wash off imaginary bloodstains from her hands, all the while speaking of the terrible things she knows she pressed her husband to do. She leaves, and the doctor and gentlewoman marvel at her descent into madness. Her belief that nothing can wash away the blood on her hands is an ironic reversal of her earlier claim to Macbeth that \u201c[a] little water clears us of this deed\u201d (2.2.66). In England, Macduff is informed by Ross that his \"castle is surprised; [his] wife and babes / Savagely slaughter'd\" (4.3.204-5). When this news of his family\u2019s execution reaches him, Macduff is stricken with grief and vows revenge. Prince Malcolm, Duncan\u2019s son, has succeeded in raising an army in England, and Macduff joins him as he rides to Scotland to challenge Macbeth\u2019s forces. The invasion has the support of the Scottish nobles, who are appalled and frightened by Macbeth\u2019s tyrannical and murderous behavior. Malcolm leads an army, along with Macduff and Englishmen Siward (the Elder), the Earl of Northumberland, against Dunsinane Castle. While encamped in Birnam Wood, the soldiers are ordered to cut down and carry tree limbs to camouflage their numbers. Before Macbeth\u2019s opponents arrive, he receives news that Lady Macbeth has killed herself, causing him to sink into a deep and pessimistic despair and deliver his \"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow\" soliloquy (5.5.17\u201328). Though he reflects on the brevity and meaninglessness of life, he nevertheless awaits the English and fortifies Dunsinane. He is certain that the witches\u2019 prophecies guarantee his invincibility, but is struck numb with fear when he learns that the English army is advancing on Dunsinane shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood. Birnam Wood is indeed coming to Dunsinane, fulfilling half of the witches\u2019 prophecy. A battle culminates in the slaying of the young Siward and Macduff's confrontation with Macbeth, and the English forces overwhelm his army and castle. Macbeth boasts that he has no reason to fear Macduff, for he cannot be killed by any man born of woman. Macduff declares that he was \"from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd\" (5.8.15\u201316), (i.e., born by Caesarean section) and was not \"of woman born\" (an example of a literary quibble), fulfilling the second prophecy. Macbeth realizes too late that he has misinterpreted the witches' words. Though he realizes that he is doomed, he continues to fight. Macduff kills and beheads him, thus fulfilling the first part of the prophecy. Macduff carries Macbeth's head onstage and Malcolm discusses how order has been restored. His last reference to Lady Macbeth, however, reveals \"'tis thought, by self and violent hands / Took off her life\" (5.9.71\u201372), leading most to assume that she committed suicide, but the method is undisclosed. Malcolm, now the King of Scotland, declares his benevolent intentions for the country and invites all to see him crowned at Scone. Although Malcolm, and not Fleance, is placed on the throne, the witches' prophecy concerning Banquo (\"Thou shalt get kings\") was known to the audience of Shakespeare's time to be true: James VI of Scotland (later also James I of England) was supposedly a descendant of Banquo.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play opens amidst thunder and lightning, and the Three Witches decide that their next meeting shall be with Macbeth. In the following scene, a wounded sergeant reports to King Duncan of Scotland that his generalsMacbeth, who is the Thane of Glamis, and Banquohave just defeated the allied forces of Norway and Ireland, who were led by the traitorous Macdonwald and the Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth, the King's kinsman, is praised for his bravery and fighting prowess. In the following scene, Macbeth and Banquo discuss the weather and their victory. Macbeth's first line is \"So foul and fair a day I have not seen\" (1.3.38). As they wander onto a heath, the Three Witches enter and have been waiting to greet them with prophecies. Though Banquo challenges them first, they address Macbeth, hailing him as \"Thane of Glamis,\" \"Thane of Cawdor,\" and that he shall \"be King hereafter.\" Macbeth appears to be stunned to silence. When Banquo asks of his own fortunes, the witches inform him that he will father a line of kings, though he himself will not be one. While the two men wonder at these pronouncements, the witches vanish, and another thane, Ross, arrives and informs Macbeth of his newly bestowed title: Thane of Cawdor, as the previous Thane of Cawdor shall be put to death for his traitorous activities. The first prophecy is thus fulfilled, and Macbeth immediately begins to harbour ambitions of becoming king. King Duncan welcomes and praises Macbeth and Banquo, and declares that he will spend the night at Macbeth's castle at Inverness; he also names his son Malcolm as his heir. Macbeth sends a message ahead to his wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her"
      },
      {
        "text": " as the previous Thane of Cawdor shall be put to death for his traitorous activities. The first prophecy is thus fulfilled, and Macbeth immediately begins to harbour ambitions of becoming king. King Duncan welcomes and praises Macbeth and Banquo, and declares that he will spend the night at Macbeth's castle at Inverness; he also names his son Malcolm as his heir. Macbeth sends a message ahead to his wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her about the witches' prophecies. Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband\u2019s uncertainty, and wishes him to murder Duncan in order to obtain kingship. When Macbeth arrives at Inverness, she overrides all of her husband\u2019s objections by challenging his manhood, and successfully persuades him to kill the king that very night. He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan\u2019s two chamberlains drunk so that they will black out; the next morning they will frame the chamberlains for the murder. They will be defenseless, as they will remember nothing. While Duncan is asleep, Macbeth stabs him, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural portents, including a hallucination of a bloody dagger. He is so shaken that Lady Macbeth has to take charge. In accordance with her plan, she frames Duncan's sleeping servants for the murder by placing bloody daggers on them. Early the next morning, Lennox, a Scottish nobleman, and Macduff, the loyal Thane of Fife, arrive. A porter opens the gate and Macbeth leads them to the king's chamber, where Macduff discovers Duncan's body. In a supposed fit of anger, Macbeth murders the guards (in truth, he kills them to prevent them from claiming their innocence). Macduff is immediately suspicious of Macbeth, but does not reveal his suspicions publicly. Duncan\u2019"
      },
      {
        "text": " Lennox, a Scottish nobleman, and Macduff, the loyal Thane of Fife, arrive. A porter opens the gate and Macbeth leads them to the king's chamber, where Macduff discovers Duncan's body. In a supposed fit of anger, Macbeth murders the guards (in truth, he kills them to prevent them from claiming their innocence). Macduff is immediately suspicious of Macbeth, but does not reveal his suspicions publicly. Duncan\u2019s sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and Ireland, respectively, fearing that whoever killed Duncan desires their demise as well. The rightful heirs' flight makes them suspects and Macbeth assumes the throne as the new King of Scotland as a kinsman of the dead king. Banquo reveals this to the audience, and while skeptical of the new King Macbeth, remembers the witches' prophecy about how his own descendants would inherit the throne. Despite his success, Macbeth, also aware of this part of the prophecy, remains uneasy. Macbeth invites Banquo to a royal banquet, where he discovers that Banquo and his young son, Fleance, will be riding out that night. Macbeth hires two men to kill them; a third murderer appears in the park before the murder. The assassins succeed in killing Banquo, but Fleance escapes. Macbeth becomes furious: as long as Fleance is alive, he fears that his power remains insecure. At the banquet, Macbeth invites his lords and Lady Macbeth to a night of drinking and merriment. Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place. Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests, as the ghost is only visible to himself. The others panic at the sight of Macbeth raging at an empty chair, until a desperate Lady Macbeth tells them that her husband is merely afflicted with a familiar and harmless"
      },
      {
        "text": " remains insecure. At the banquet, Macbeth invites his lords and Lady Macbeth to a night of drinking and merriment. Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place. Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests, as the ghost is only visible to himself. The others panic at the sight of Macbeth raging at an empty chair, until a desperate Lady Macbeth tells them that her husband is merely afflicted with a familiar and harmless malady. The ghost departs and returns once more, causing the same riotous anger in Macbeth. This time, Lady Macbeth tells the lords to leave, and they do so. Macbeth, disturbed, visits the three witches once more and asks them to reveal the truth of their prophecies to him. To answer his questions, they summon horrible apparitions, each of which offers predictions and further prophecies to allay Macbeth\u2019s fears. First, they conjure an armed head, which tells him to beware of Macduff (4.1.72). Second, a bloody child tells him that no one born of a woman shall be able to harm him. Thirdly, a crowned child holding a tree states that Macbeth will be safe until Great Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Hill. Macbeth is relieved and feels secure, because he knows that all men are born of women and forests cannot move. However, the witches conjure a procession of eight crowned kings, all similar in appearance to Banquo, and the last carrying a mirror that reflects even more kings. Macbeth demands to know the meaning of this final vision, but the witches perform a mad dance and then vanish. Lennox enters and tells Macbeth that Macduff has fled to England. Macbeth orders Macduff's castle be seized, and, most cruelly, sends murderers to slaughter Macduff\u2019"
      },
      {
        "text": " witches conjure a procession of eight crowned kings, all similar in appearance to Banquo, and the last carrying a mirror that reflects even more kings. Macbeth demands to know the meaning of this final vision, but the witches perform a mad dance and then vanish. Lennox enters and tells Macbeth that Macduff has fled to England. Macbeth orders Macduff's castle be seized, and, most cruelly, sends murderers to slaughter Macduff\u2019s wife and children. Everyone in Macduff's castle is put to death, including Lady Macduff and their young son. Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth becomes racked with guilt from the crimes she and her husband have committed. At night, in the king\u2019s palace at Dunsinane, a doctor and a gentlewoman discuss Lady Macbeth\u2019s strange habit of sleepwalking. Suddenly, Lady Macbeth enters in a trance with a candle in her hand. Bemoaning the murders of Duncan, Lady Macduff, and Banquo, she tries to wash off imaginary bloodstains from her hands, all the while speaking of the terrible things she knows she pressed her husband to do. She leaves, and the doctor and gentlewoman marvel at her descent into madness. Her belief that nothing can wash away the blood on her hands is an ironic reversal of her earlier claim to Macbeth that \u201c[a] little water clears us of this deed\u201d (2.2.66). In England, Macduff is informed by Ross that his \"castle is surprised; [his] wife and babes / Savagely slaughter'd\" (4.3.204-5). When this news of his family\u2019s execution reaches him, Macduff is stricken with grief and vows revenge. Prince Malcolm, Duncan\u2019s son, has succeeded in raising an army in England, and Macduff joins him as he rides to"
      },
      {
        "text": "\u201d (2.2.66). In England, Macduff is informed by Ross that his \"castle is surprised; [his] wife and babes / Savagely slaughter'd\" (4.3.204-5). When this news of his family\u2019s execution reaches him, Macduff is stricken with grief and vows revenge. Prince Malcolm, Duncan\u2019s son, has succeeded in raising an army in England, and Macduff joins him as he rides to Scotland to challenge Macbeth\u2019s forces. The invasion has the support of the Scottish nobles, who are appalled and frightened by Macbeth\u2019s tyrannical and murderous behavior. Malcolm leads an army, along with Macduff and Englishmen Siward (the Elder), the Earl of Northumberland, against Dunsinane Castle. While encamped in Birnam Wood, the soldiers are ordered to cut down and carry tree limbs to camouflage their numbers. Before Macbeth\u2019s opponents arrive, he receives news that Lady Macbeth has killed herself, causing him to sink into a deep and pessimistic despair and deliver his \"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow\" soliloquy (5.5.17\u201328). Though he reflects on the brevity and meaninglessness of life, he nevertheless awaits the English and fortifies Dunsinane. He is certain that the witches\u2019 prophecies guarantee his invincibility, but is struck numb with fear when he learns that the English army is advancing on Dunsinane shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood. Birnam Wood is indeed coming to Dunsinane, fulfilling half of the witches\u2019 prophecy. A battle culminates in the slaying of the young Siward and Macduff's confrontation with Macbeth, and the English forces overwhelm his army and castle. Macbeth boasts that he has no reason to fear Macduff, for he cannot be killed by any man born"
      },
      {
        "text": " he learns that the English army is advancing on Dunsinane shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood. Birnam Wood is indeed coming to Dunsinane, fulfilling half of the witches\u2019 prophecy. A battle culminates in the slaying of the young Siward and Macduff's confrontation with Macbeth, and the English forces overwhelm his army and castle. Macbeth boasts that he has no reason to fear Macduff, for he cannot be killed by any man born of woman. Macduff declares that he was \"from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd\" (5.8.15\u201316), (i.e., born by Caesarean section) and was not \"of woman born\" (an example of a literary quibble), fulfilling the second prophecy. Macbeth realizes too late that he has misinterpreted the witches' words. Though he realizes that he is doomed, he continues to fight. Macduff kills and beheads him, thus fulfilling the first part of the prophecy. Macduff carries Macbeth's head onstage and Malcolm discusses how order has been restored. His last reference to Lady Macbeth, however, reveals \"'tis thought, by self and violent hands / Took off her life\" (5.9.71\u201372), leading most to assume that she committed suicide, but the method is undisclosed. Malcolm, now the King of Scotland, declares his benevolent intentions for the country and invites all to see him crowned at Scone. Although Malcolm, and not Fleance, is placed on the throne, the witches' prophecy concerning Banquo (\"Thou shalt get kings\") was known to the audience of Shakespeare's time to be true: James VI of Scotland (later also James I of England) was supposedly a descendant of Banquo.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " country and invites all to see him crowned at Scone. Although Malcolm, and not Fleance, is placed on the throne, the witches' prophecy concerning Banquo (\"Thou shalt get kings\") was known to the audience of Shakespeare's time to be true: James VI of Scotland (later also James I of England) was supposedly a descendant of Banquo.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Microserfs",
    "author": "Douglas Coupland",
    "published_date": "1995-06",
    "synopsis": " The plot of the novel has two distinct movements: the events at Microsoft and in Redmond, Washington, and the movement to Silicon Valley and the \"Oop!\" project. The novel begins in Redmond as the characters are working on different projects at Microsoft's main campus. Life at the campus feels like a feudalistic society, with Bill Gates as the lord, and the employees the serfs. The majority of the main characters\u2014Daniel (the narrator), Susan, Todd, Bug, Michael, and Abe\u2014are living together in a \"geek house\", and their lives are dedicated to their projects and the company. Daniel's foundations are shaken when his father, a longtime employee of IBM, is laid off. The lifespan of a Microsoft coder weighs heavily on Daniel's mind. The second movement of the novel begins when the characters are offered jobs in Silicon Valley working on a project for Michael, who has by then left Redmond. All of the housemates\u2014some immediately, some after thought\u2014decide to move to the Valley. The characters' lives change drastically once they leave the limited sphere of the Microsoft campus and enter the world of \"One-Point-Oh\". They begin to work on a project called \"Oop!\" (a reference to object-oriented programming). Oop! is a Lego-like design program, allowing dynamic creation of many objects, bearing a resemblance to 2009's Minecraft. (Coupland appears on the rear cover of the novel's hardcover versions photographed in Denmark's Legoland Billund, holding a Lego 747.) One of the undercurrents of the plot is Daniel and his family's relationship to Jed, Daniel's younger brother who died in a boating accident while they were children.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The plot of the novel has two distinct movements: the events at Microsoft and in Redmond, Washington, and the movement to Silicon Valley and the \"Oop!\" project. The novel begins in Redmond as the characters are working on different projects at Microsoft's main campus. Life at the campus feels like a feudalistic society, with Bill Gates as the lord, and the employees the serfs. The majority of the main characters\u2014Daniel (the narrator), Susan, Todd, Bug, Michael, and Abe\u2014are living together in a \"geek house\", and their lives are dedicated to their projects and the company. Daniel's foundations are shaken when his father, a longtime employee of IBM, is laid off. The lifespan of a Microsoft coder weighs heavily on Daniel's mind. The second movement of the novel begins when the characters are offered jobs in Silicon Valley working on a project for Michael, who has by then left Redmond. All of the housemates\u2014some immediately, some after thought\u2014decide to move to the Valley. The characters' lives change drastically once they leave the limited sphere of the Microsoft campus and enter the world of \"One-Point-Oh\". They begin to work on a project called \"Oop!\" (a reference to object-oriented programming). Oop! is a Lego-like design program, allowing dynamic creation of many objects, bearing a resemblance to 2009's Minecraft. (Coupland appears on the rear cover of the novel's hardcover versions photographed in Denmark's Legoland Billund, holding a Lego 747.) One of the undercurrents of the plot is Daniel and his family's relationship to Jed, Daniel's younger brother who died in a boating accident while they were children.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " in Denmark's Legoland Billund, holding a Lego 747.) One of the undercurrents of the plot is Daniel and his family's relationship to Jed, Daniel's younger brother who died in a boating accident while they were children.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Moby-Dick; or, The Whale",
    "author": "Herman Melville",
    "published_date": "1851-10-18",
    "synopsis": " \"Moby-Dick\" begins with the line \"Call me Ishmael.\" According to the American Book Review's rating in 2011, this is one of the most recognizable opening lines in Western literature. The narrator, an observant young man setting out from Manhattan, has experience in the merchant marine but has recently decided his next voyage will be on a whaling ship. On a cold, gloomy night in December, he arrives at the Spouter-Inn in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and agrees to share a bed with a then-absent stranger. When his bunk mate, a heavily tattooed Polynesian harpooner named Queequeg, returns very late and discovers Ishmael beneath his covers, both men are alarmed, but the two quickly become close friends and decide to sail together from Nantucket, Massachusetts on a whaling voyage. In Nantucket, the pair signs on with the Pequod, a whaling ship that is soon to leave port. The ship\u2019s captain, Ahab, is nowhere to be seen; nevertheless, they are told of him \u2014 a \"grand, ungodly, godlike man,\" who has \"been in colleges as well as 'mong the cannibals,\" according to one of the owners. The two friends encounter a mysterious man named Elijah on the dock after they sign their papers and he hints at troubles to come with Ahab. The mystery grows on Christmas morning when Ishmael spots dark figures in the mist, apparently boarding the Pequod shortly before it sets sail that day. The ship\u2019s officers direct the early voyage while Ahab stays in his cabin. The chief mate is Starbuck, a serious, sincere Quaker and fine leader; second mate is Stubb, happy-go-lucky and cheerful and always smoking his pipe; the third mate is Flask, short and stout but thoroughly reliable. Each mate is responsible for a whaling boat, and each whaling boat of the Pequod has its own pagan harpooneer assigned to it. Some time after sailing, Ahab finally appears on the quarter-deck one morning, an imposing, frightening figure whose haunted visage sends shivers over the narrator. One of his legs is missing from the knee down and has been replaced by a prosthesis fashioned from a sperm whale's jawbone. Soon gathering the crewmen together, with a rousing speech Ahab secures their support for his single, secret purpose for this voyage: hunting down and killing Moby Dick, an old, very large sperm whale, with a snow-white hump and mottled skin, that crippled Ahab on his last whaling voyage. Only Starbuck shows any sign of resistance to the charismatic but monomaniacal captain. The first mate argues repeatedly that the ship\u2019s purpose should be to hunt whales for their oil, with luck returning home profitably, safely, and quickly, but not to seek out and kill Moby Dick in particular \u2014 and especially not for revenge. Eventually even Starbuck acquiesces to Ahab's will, though harboring misgivings. The mystery of the dark figures seen before the Pequod set sail is explained during the voyage's first lowering for whales. Ahab has secretly brought along his own boat crew, including a mysterious harpooneer named Fedallah (also referred to as 'the Parsee'), an inscrutable figure with a sinister influence over Ahab. Later, while watching one night over a captured whale carcass, Fedallah gives dark prophecies to Ahab regarding their twin deaths. The novel describes numerous \"gams,\" social meetings of two ships on the open sea. Crews normally visit each other during a gam, captains on one vessel and chief mates on the other. Mail may be exchanged and the men talk of whale sightings or other news. For Ahab, however, there is but one relevant question to ask of another ship: \u201cHast seen the White Whale?\u201d After meeting several other whaling ships, which have their own peculiar stories, the Pequod enters the Pacific Ocean. Queequeg becomes deathly ill and requests that a coffin be built for him by the ship\u2019s carpenter. Just as everyone has given up hope, Queequeg changes his mind, deciding to live after all, and recovers quickly. His coffin becomes his sea chest, and is later caulked and pitched to replace the Pequods life buoy. Soon word is heard from other whalers of Moby Dick. The jolly Captain Boomer of the Samuel Enderby has lost an arm to the whale, and is stunned at Ahab's burning need for revenge. Next they meet the Rachel, which has seen Moby Dick very recently. As a result of the encounter, one of its boats is missing; the captain\u2019s youngest son had been aboard. The Rachels captain begs Ahab to aid in the search for the missing boat, but Ahab is resolute; the Pequod is very near the White Whale now and will not stop to help. Finally the Delight is met, even as its captain buries a sailor who had been killed by Moby Dick. Starbuck begs Ahab one final time to reconsider his thirst for vengeance, but to no avail. The next day, the Pequod meets Moby Dick. For two days, the Pequods crew pursues the whale, which wreaks widespread destruction, including the disappearance of Fedallah. On the third day, Moby Dick rises up to reveal Fedallah's corpse tied to him by harpoon ropes. Even after the initial battle on the third day, it is clear that while Ahab is a vengeful whale-hunter, Moby Dick, while dangerous and fearless, is not motivated to hunt humans. As he swims away from the Pequod, Starbuck exhorts Ahab one last time to desist, observing that: Ahab ignores this voice of reason and continues with his ill-fated chase. As the three boats sail out to hunt him, Moby Dick damages two of them, forcing them to go back to the ship and leaving only Ahab's vessel intact. Ahab harpoons the whale, but the harpoon-line breaks. Moby Dick then rams the Pequod itself, which begins to sink. As Ahab harpoons the whale again, the unfolding harpoon-line catches him around his neck and he is dragged into the depths of the sea by the diving Moby Dick. The boat is caught up in the whirlpool of the sinking ship, which takes almost all the crew to their deaths. Only Ishmael survives, clinging to Queequeg\u2019s coffin-turned-life buoy for an entire day and night before the Rachel rescues him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " \"Moby-Dick\" begins with the line \"Call me Ishmael.\" According to the American Book Review's rating in 2011, this is one of the most recognizable opening lines in Western literature. The narrator, an observant young man setting out from Manhattan, has experience in the merchant marine but has recently decided his next voyage will be on a whaling ship. On a cold, gloomy night in December, he arrives at the Spouter-Inn in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and agrees to share a bed with a then-absent stranger. When his bunk mate, a heavily tattooed Polynesian harpooner named Queequeg, returns very late and discovers Ishmael beneath his covers, both men are alarmed, but the two quickly become close friends and decide to sail together from Nantucket, Massachusetts on a whaling voyage. In Nantucket, the pair signs on with the Pequod, a whaling ship that is soon to leave port. The ship\u2019s captain, Ahab, is nowhere to be seen; nevertheless, they are told of him \u2014 a \"grand, ungodly, godlike man,\" who has \"been in colleges as well as 'mong the cannibals,\" according to one of the owners. The two friends encounter a mysterious man named Elijah on the dock after they sign their papers and he hints at troubles to come with Ahab. The mystery grows on Christmas morning when Ishmael spots dark figures in the mist, apparently boarding the Pequod shortly before it sets sail that day. The ship\u2019s officers direct the early voyage while Ahab stays in his cabin. The chief mate is Starbuck, a serious, sincere Quaker and fine leader; second mate is Stubb, happy-go-lucky and cheerful and always smoking his pipe; the third mate is Flask, short and stout but thoroughly reliable. Each mate is responsible for a whaling boat,"
      },
      {
        "text": "el spots dark figures in the mist, apparently boarding the Pequod shortly before it sets sail that day. The ship\u2019s officers direct the early voyage while Ahab stays in his cabin. The chief mate is Starbuck, a serious, sincere Quaker and fine leader; second mate is Stubb, happy-go-lucky and cheerful and always smoking his pipe; the third mate is Flask, short and stout but thoroughly reliable. Each mate is responsible for a whaling boat, and each whaling boat of the Pequod has its own pagan harpooneer assigned to it. Some time after sailing, Ahab finally appears on the quarter-deck one morning, an imposing, frightening figure whose haunted visage sends shivers over the narrator. One of his legs is missing from the knee down and has been replaced by a prosthesis fashioned from a sperm whale's jawbone. Soon gathering the crewmen together, with a rousing speech Ahab secures their support for his single, secret purpose for this voyage: hunting down and killing Moby Dick, an old, very large sperm whale, with a snow-white hump and mottled skin, that crippled Ahab on his last whaling voyage. Only Starbuck shows any sign of resistance to the charismatic but monomaniacal captain. The first mate argues repeatedly that the ship\u2019s purpose should be to hunt whales for their oil, with luck returning home profitably, safely, and quickly, but not to seek out and kill Moby Dick in particular \u2014 and especially not for revenge. Eventually even Starbuck acquiesces to Ahab's will, though harboring misgivings. The mystery of the dark figures seen before the Pequod set sail is explained during the voyage's first lowering for whales. Ahab has secretly brought along his own boat crew, including a mysterious harpooneer named Fedallah (also referred to as 'the Parsee'),"
      },
      {
        "text": ", but not to seek out and kill Moby Dick in particular \u2014 and especially not for revenge. Eventually even Starbuck acquiesces to Ahab's will, though harboring misgivings. The mystery of the dark figures seen before the Pequod set sail is explained during the voyage's first lowering for whales. Ahab has secretly brought along his own boat crew, including a mysterious harpooneer named Fedallah (also referred to as 'the Parsee'), an inscrutable figure with a sinister influence over Ahab. Later, while watching one night over a captured whale carcass, Fedallah gives dark prophecies to Ahab regarding their twin deaths. The novel describes numerous \"gams,\" social meetings of two ships on the open sea. Crews normally visit each other during a gam, captains on one vessel and chief mates on the other. Mail may be exchanged and the men talk of whale sightings or other news. For Ahab, however, there is but one relevant question to ask of another ship: \u201cHast seen the White Whale?\u201d After meeting several other whaling ships, which have their own peculiar stories, the Pequod enters the Pacific Ocean. Queequeg becomes deathly ill and requests that a coffin be built for him by the ship\u2019s carpenter. Just as everyone has given up hope, Queequeg changes his mind, deciding to live after all, and recovers quickly. His coffin becomes his sea chest, and is later caulked and pitched to replace the Pequods life buoy. Soon word is heard from other whalers of Moby Dick. The jolly Captain Boomer of the Samuel Enderby has lost an arm to the whale, and is stunned at Ahab's burning need for revenge. Next they meet the Rachel, which has seen Moby Dick very recently. As a result of the encounter, one of its boats is missing; the captain\u2019s youngest"
      },
      {
        "text": " his sea chest, and is later caulked and pitched to replace the Pequods life buoy. Soon word is heard from other whalers of Moby Dick. The jolly Captain Boomer of the Samuel Enderby has lost an arm to the whale, and is stunned at Ahab's burning need for revenge. Next they meet the Rachel, which has seen Moby Dick very recently. As a result of the encounter, one of its boats is missing; the captain\u2019s youngest son had been aboard. The Rachels captain begs Ahab to aid in the search for the missing boat, but Ahab is resolute; the Pequod is very near the White Whale now and will not stop to help. Finally the Delight is met, even as its captain buries a sailor who had been killed by Moby Dick. Starbuck begs Ahab one final time to reconsider his thirst for vengeance, but to no avail. The next day, the Pequod meets Moby Dick. For two days, the Pequods crew pursues the whale, which wreaks widespread destruction, including the disappearance of Fedallah. On the third day, Moby Dick rises up to reveal Fedallah's corpse tied to him by harpoon ropes. Even after the initial battle on the third day, it is clear that while Ahab is a vengeful whale-hunter, Moby Dick, while dangerous and fearless, is not motivated to hunt humans. As he swims away from the Pequod, Starbuck exhorts Ahab one last time to desist, observing that: Ahab ignores this voice of reason and continues with his ill-fated chase. As the three boats sail out to hunt him, Moby Dick damages two of them, forcing them to go back to the ship and leaving only Ahab's vessel intact. Ahab harpoons the whale, but the harpoon-line breaks. Moby Dick then rams the Pequ"
      },
      {
        "text": "s away from the Pequod, Starbuck exhorts Ahab one last time to desist, observing that: Ahab ignores this voice of reason and continues with his ill-fated chase. As the three boats sail out to hunt him, Moby Dick damages two of them, forcing them to go back to the ship and leaving only Ahab's vessel intact. Ahab harpoons the whale, but the harpoon-line breaks. Moby Dick then rams the Pequod itself, which begins to sink. As Ahab harpoons the whale again, the unfolding harpoon-line catches him around his neck and he is dragged into the depths of the sea by the diving Moby Dick. The boat is caught up in the whirlpool of the sinking ship, which takes almost all the crew to their deaths. Only Ishmael survives, clinging to Queequeg\u2019s coffin-turned-life buoy for an entire day and night before the Rachel rescues him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Moonfleet",
    "author": "J. Meade Falkner",
    "published_date": "1898",
    "synopsis": " In 1757, Moonfleet is a small village near the sea in the south of England. It gets its name from a formerly prominent local family, the Mohunes, whose coat of arms included a symbol shaped like a capital 'Y'. John Trenchard is an orphan who lives with his aunt, Miss Arnold. Other notable residents are the sexton Mr Ratsey who is friendly to John, Parson Glennie, the local clergyman who also teaches in the village school, Elzevir Block, the landlord of the local inn, called the Mohune Arms but nicknamed the Why Not? because of its sign with the Mohune 'Y', and Mr Maskew, the unpopular local magistrate and his beautiful daughter, Grace. Village legend tells of the notorious Colonel John \"Blackbeard\" Mohune who is buried in the family crypt under the church. He is reputed to have stolen a diamond from King Charles I and hidden it. His ghost is said to wander at night looking for it and the mysterious lights in the churchyard are attributed to his activities. As the main part of the story opens, Block's youthful son, David, has just been killed by Maskew during an attack by the authorities on a smuggling boat. One night a bad storm hits the village and there is a flood. While attending the Sunday service at church, John hears strange sounds from the crypt below. He thinks it is the sound of the coffins of the Mohune family. The next day, he finds Elzevir and Ratsey against the south wall of the church. They claim to be checking for damage from the storm, but John suspects they are searching for Blackbeard's ghost. Later John finds a large sinkhole has opened in the ground by a grave. He follows the passage and finds himself in the crypt with coffins on shelves and casks on the floor. He realises his friends are smugglers and this is their hiding place. He has to hide behind a coffin when he hears Ratsey and Elzevir coming. When they leave, they fill in the hole, inadvertently trapping him. John finds a locket in a coffin which holds a piece of paper with verses from the Bible. John eventually passes out after drinking too much of the wine while trying to quench his thirst, having not eaten or drunk for days. Later he wakes up in the Why Not? Inn- he has been rescued by Elzevir and Ratsey. When he is better, he returns to his Aunt's house, but she, suspecting him of drunken behaviour, throws him out. Fortunately, Elzevir takes him in. But when Block's lease on the Why Not? comes up for renewal, Maskew bids against him in the auction and wins. Block must leave the inn and Moonfleet but plans one last smuggling venture. John feels honour-bound to go with him, and sadly, says goodbye to Grace Maskew, whom he loves and has been seeing in secret, and gets his mother's prayer book as a good luck charm. The excisemen and Maskew are aware of the planned smuggling run but do not know exactly where it will occur. During the landing Maskew appears and is caught by the smugglers. Elzevir is bent on vengeance for his son by killing Maskew, and while the rest land the cargo and leave, he and John keep watch over Maskew. Just as Block prepares to shoot Maskew the excisemen attack. They kill Maskew and wound John. Block carries John away to safety and they hide in some old quarries. While there, John inadvertently finds out that the verses from Blackbeard's locket contain a code which will reveal the location of his famous diamond. Once John's wound heals, he and Block decide to recover the diamond from Carisbrooke Castle. After a suspenseful scene in the well where the jewel is hidden, they succeed and escape to Holland where they try to sell it to a Jewish diamond merchant named Crispin Aldobrand. The merchant cheats them, claiming the diamond is fake. Elzevir falls for the deceit and angrily throws the diamond out of the window. John, however, knows they have been duped, and suggests they try to recover the diamond through burglary. The attempt fails and, they are arrested and sentenced to prison. John curses the merchant for his lies. John and Elzevir go to prison for life. Eventually they are separated. Then, unexpectedly, ten years later, their paths cross again. They are being transported, and board a ship. A storm blows up, and by a strong coincidence, John and Elzevir find themselves near Moonfleet. They throw themselves into the sea and start to swim to shore. Elzevir helps John to safety, but is himself dragged under by the tide and drowned. So John ends up back where his whole adventure started, in the Why Not?, and is reunited with Ratsy. He is also reunited with Grace. She is now a rich young lady, having inherited her father's money. However, she is still in love with John, and they decide to marry. John tells her about the diamond and his life in prison. He regrets having lost everything, but then Parson Glennie receives a letter from Aldobrand. The merchant suffered a guilty conscience, and in an attempt to make amends, has bequeathed the worth of the diamond to John. John gives the money to the village, and new almshouses are built, and the school and the church renovated. John marries Grace and becomes Lord of the Manor and Justice of the Peace. Their three children grow up and their sons leave home, including their first-born son, Elzevir. But John and Grace themselves have no plans to leave their beloved Moonfleet ever again. A feature of the narrative is a continuing reference to the boardgame of backgammon which is played by the patrons of the Why Not? on an antique board which bears a Latin inscription Ita in vita ut in lusu alae pessima jactura arte corrigenda est (translated in the book as As in life, so in a game of hazard, skill will make something of the worst of throws). This inscription provides a moralistic metaphor to the story of the orphan boy who in the end overcomes his travails.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In 1757, Moonfleet is a small village near the sea in the south of England. It gets its name from a formerly prominent local family, the Mohunes, whose coat of arms included a symbol shaped like a capital 'Y'. John Trenchard is an orphan who lives with his aunt, Miss Arnold. Other notable residents are the sexton Mr Ratsey who is friendly to John, Parson Glennie, the local clergyman who also teaches in the village school, Elzevir Block, the landlord of the local inn, called the Mohune Arms but nicknamed the Why Not? because of its sign with the Mohune 'Y', and Mr Maskew, the unpopular local magistrate and his beautiful daughter, Grace. Village legend tells of the notorious Colonel John \"Blackbeard\" Mohune who is buried in the family crypt under the church. He is reputed to have stolen a diamond from King Charles I and hidden it. His ghost is said to wander at night looking for it and the mysterious lights in the churchyard are attributed to his activities. As the main part of the story opens, Block's youthful son, David, has just been killed by Maskew during an attack by the authorities on a smuggling boat. One night a bad storm hits the village and there is a flood. While attending the Sunday service at church, John hears strange sounds from the crypt below. He thinks it is the sound of the coffins of the Mohune family. The next day, he finds Elzevir and Ratsey against the south wall of the church. They claim to be checking for damage from the storm, but John suspects they are searching for Blackbeard's ghost. Later John finds a large sinkhole has opened in the ground by a grave. He follows the passage and finds himself in the crypt with coffins on shelves and casks on the floor. He realises his friends are smugglers and this is their hiding place. He has to hide behind a"
      },
      {
        "text": " day, he finds Elzevir and Ratsey against the south wall of the church. They claim to be checking for damage from the storm, but John suspects they are searching for Blackbeard's ghost. Later John finds a large sinkhole has opened in the ground by a grave. He follows the passage and finds himself in the crypt with coffins on shelves and casks on the floor. He realises his friends are smugglers and this is their hiding place. He has to hide behind a coffin when he hears Ratsey and Elzevir coming. When they leave, they fill in the hole, inadvertently trapping him. John finds a locket in a coffin which holds a piece of paper with verses from the Bible. John eventually passes out after drinking too much of the wine while trying to quench his thirst, having not eaten or drunk for days. Later he wakes up in the Why Not? Inn- he has been rescued by Elzevir and Ratsey. When he is better, he returns to his Aunt's house, but she, suspecting him of drunken behaviour, throws him out. Fortunately, Elzevir takes him in. But when Block's lease on the Why Not? comes up for renewal, Maskew bids against him in the auction and wins. Block must leave the inn and Moonfleet but plans one last smuggling venture. John feels honour-bound to go with him, and sadly, says goodbye to Grace Maskew, whom he loves and has been seeing in secret, and gets his mother's prayer book as a good luck charm. The excisemen and Maskew are aware of the planned smuggling run but do not know exactly where it will occur. During the landing Maskew appears and is caught by the smugglers. Elzevir is bent on vengeance for his son by killing Maskew, and while the rest land the cargo and leave, he and John keep watch over Maskew. Just as Block"
      },
      {
        "text": " loves and has been seeing in secret, and gets his mother's prayer book as a good luck charm. The excisemen and Maskew are aware of the planned smuggling run but do not know exactly where it will occur. During the landing Maskew appears and is caught by the smugglers. Elzevir is bent on vengeance for his son by killing Maskew, and while the rest land the cargo and leave, he and John keep watch over Maskew. Just as Block prepares to shoot Maskew the excisemen attack. They kill Maskew and wound John. Block carries John away to safety and they hide in some old quarries. While there, John inadvertently finds out that the verses from Blackbeard's locket contain a code which will reveal the location of his famous diamond. Once John's wound heals, he and Block decide to recover the diamond from Carisbrooke Castle. After a suspenseful scene in the well where the jewel is hidden, they succeed and escape to Holland where they try to sell it to a Jewish diamond merchant named Crispin Aldobrand. The merchant cheats them, claiming the diamond is fake. Elzevir falls for the deceit and angrily throws the diamond out of the window. John, however, knows they have been duped, and suggests they try to recover the diamond through burglary. The attempt fails and, they are arrested and sentenced to prison. John curses the merchant for his lies. John and Elzevir go to prison for life. Eventually they are separated. Then, unexpectedly, ten years later, their paths cross again. They are being transported, and board a ship. A storm blows up, and by a strong coincidence, John and Elzevir find themselves near Moonfleet. They throw themselves into the sea and start to swim to shore. Elzevir helps John to safety, but is himself dragged under by the tide and drowned. So John ends up back where his"
      },
      {
        "text": "zevir go to prison for life. Eventually they are separated. Then, unexpectedly, ten years later, their paths cross again. They are being transported, and board a ship. A storm blows up, and by a strong coincidence, John and Elzevir find themselves near Moonfleet. They throw themselves into the sea and start to swim to shore. Elzevir helps John to safety, but is himself dragged under by the tide and drowned. So John ends up back where his whole adventure started, in the Why Not?, and is reunited with Ratsy. He is also reunited with Grace. She is now a rich young lady, having inherited her father's money. However, she is still in love with John, and they decide to marry. John tells her about the diamond and his life in prison. He regrets having lost everything, but then Parson Glennie receives a letter from Aldobrand. The merchant suffered a guilty conscience, and in an attempt to make amends, has bequeathed the worth of the diamond to John. John gives the money to the village, and new almshouses are built, and the school and the church renovated. John marries Grace and becomes Lord of the Manor and Justice of the Peace. Their three children grow up and their sons leave home, including their first-born son, Elzevir. But John and Grace themselves have no plans to leave their beloved Moonfleet ever again. A feature of the narrative is a continuing reference to the boardgame of backgammon which is played by the patrons of the Why Not? on an antique board which bears a Latin inscription Ita in vita ut in lusu alae pessima jactura arte corrigenda est (translated in the book as As in life, so in a game of hazard, skill will make something of the worst of throws). This inscription provides a moralistic metaphor to the story of the orphan boy who in the"
      },
      {
        "text": " is a continuing reference to the boardgame of backgammon which is played by the patrons of the Why Not? on an antique board which bears a Latin inscription Ita in vita ut in lusu alae pessima jactura arte corrigenda est (translated in the book as As in life, so in a game of hazard, skill will make something of the worst of throws). This inscription provides a moralistic metaphor to the story of the orphan boy who in the end overcomes his travails.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Neuromancer",
    "author": "William Gibson",
    "published_date": "1984-07-01",
    "synopsis": " Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler in the dystopian underworld of Chiba City, Japan. Once a talented computer hacker, Case was caught stealing from his employer. As punishment for his theft, Case's central nervous system was damaged with a mycotoxin, leaving him unable to use keyboard skills to access the global computer network in cyberspace, a virtual reality dataspace called the \"Matrix\". Unemployable, addicted to drugs, and suicidal, Case desperately searches the Chiba \"black clinics\" for a miracle cure. Case is saved by Molly Millions, an augmented \"street samurai\" and mercenary for a shadowy ex-military officer named Armitage, who offers to cure Case in exchange for his services as a hacker. Case jumps at the chance to regain his life as a \"console cowboy,\" but neither Case nor Molly know what Armitage is really planning. Case's nervous system is repaired using new technology that Armitage offers the clinic as payment, but he soon learns from Armitage that sacs of the poison that first crippled him have been placed in his blood vessels as well. Armitage promises Case that if he completes his work in time, the sacs will be removed; otherwise they will dissolve, disabling him again. He also has Case's pancreas replaced and new tissue grafted into his liver, leaving Case incapable of metabolizing cocaine or amphetamines and apparently ending his drug addiction. Case develops a close personal relationship with Molly, who suggests that he begin looking into Armitage's background. Meanwhile, Armitage assigns them their first job: they must steal a ROM module that contains the saved consciousness of one of Case's mentors, legendary cyber-cowboy McCoy Pauley, nicknamed \"Dixie Flatline.\" Pauley's hacking expertise is needed by Armitage, and the ROM construct is stored in the corporate headquarters of media conglomerate Sense/Net. A street gang named the \"Panther Moderns\" are hired to create a simulated terrorist attack on Sense/Net. The diversion allows Molly to penetrate the building and steal Dixie's ROM. Case and Molly continue to investigate Armitage, discovering his former identity of Colonel Willis Corto. Corto was a member of \"Operation Screaming Fist,\" which planned on infiltrating and disrupting Soviet computer systems from ultralight aircraft dropped over Russia. The Russian military had learned of the idea and installed defenses to render the attack impossible, but the military went ahead with Screaming Fist, with a new secret purpose of testing these Russian defenses. As the Operation team attacked a Soviet computer center, EMP weapons shut down their computers and flight systems, and Corto and his men were targeted by Soviet laser defenses. He and a few survivors commandeered a Soviet military helicopter and escaped over the heavily guarded Finnish border. Everyone was killed except Corto, who was seriously wounded and heavily mutilated by Finnish defense forces attacking as they were landing the helicopter. Corto after some months in hospital is visited by a Government military official and then medically rebuilt to be able to provide what he came to realise was fake testimony, designed to mislead the public and protect the military officers who had covered up knowledge of the EMP weapons. After the trials, Corto snaps, killing the Government official who contacted him and then disappears into the criminal underworld. In Istanbul, the team recruits Peter Riviera, an artist, thief, and drug addict who is able to project detailed holographic illusions with the aid of sophisticated cybernetic implants. Although Riviera is a sociopath, Armitage coerces him into joining the team. The trail leads Case and Molly to a powerful artificial intelligence named Wintermute, created by the plutocratic Tessier-Ashpool family, who spend most of their inactive time in cryonic preservation inside Villa Straylight, a labyrinthine mansion located at one end of Freeside, a cylindrical space habitat located at L5, and functioning primarily as a Las Vegas-style space resort for the wealthy. Wintermute's nature is finally revealed \u2013 it is one-half of a super-AI entity planned by the family, although its exact purpose is unknown. The Turing Law Code governing AIs bans the construction of such entities; to get around this, it had to be built as two separate AIs. Wintermute was programmed by the Tessier-Ashpool dynasty with a need to merge with its other half \u2013 Neuromancer. Unable to achieve this merger on its own, Wintermute recruited Armitage and his team to help complete the goal. Case is tasked with entering cyberspace to pierce the Turing-imposed software barriers using a powerful icebreaker program. At the same time, Riviera is to obtain the password to the Turing lock from Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool, an unfrozen daughter clone and the current leader of Tessier-Ashpool SA. Wintermute believes Riviera will pose an irresistible temptation to her, and that she will give him the password. The password must be spoken into an ornate computer terminal located in the Tessier-Ashpool home in Villa Straylight, and entered simultaneously as Case pierces the software barriers in cyberspace \u2013 otherwise the Turing lock will remain intact. Armitage's team attracts the attention of the Turing Police, whose job is to prevent AIs from exceeding their built-in limitations. As Molly and Riviera gain entrance to Villa Straylight, three officers arrest Case and take him into custody; Wintermute manipulates the orbital casino's security and maintenance systems and kills the officers, allowing Case to escape. The Armitage personality starts to disintegrate and revert to the Corto personality as he relives Screaming Fist. It is revealed that in the past, Wintermute had originally contacted Corto through a bedside computer during his convalescence, eventually convincing Corto that he was Armitage. Wintermute used him to persuade Case and Molly to help it merge with its twin AI, Neuromancer. Finally, Armitage becomes the shattered Corto again, but his newfound personality is short-lived as he is killed by Wintermute. Inside Villa Straylight, Molly is captured by Riviera and Lady 3Jane. Worried about Molly and operating under orders from Wintermute, Case tracks her down with help from Maelcum, his Rastafarian pilot. Neuromancer attempts to trap Case within a cyber-construct where he finds the consciousness of Linda Lee, his girlfriend from Chiba City, who was murdered by one of Case's underworld contacts. Case manages to escape flatlining inside the construct by choosing of his own free will not to stay. Freeing himself, Case takes Maelcum and confronts Lady 3Jane, Riviera, and Hideo, Lady 3Jane's ninja bodyguard. Riviera tries to kill Case, but Lady 3Jane is sympathetic towards Case and Molly, and Hideo protects him. Riviera blinds Hideo, but flees when he learns that the ninja is just as adept without his sight. Molly then explains to Case that Riviera is doomed anyway, as he has been fatally poisoned by his drugs, which she had spiked. With Lady 3Jane in possession of the password, the team makes it to the computer terminal. Case ascends to cyberspace to guide the icebreaker to penetrate its target; Lady 3Jane is induced to give up her password and the lock is opened. Wintermute unites with Neuromancer, fusing into a greater entity. The poison in Case's bloodstream is washed out, and he and Molly are handsomely paid for their efforts, while Pauley's ROM construct is apparently erased, at his own request. In the epilogue, Molly leaves Case. Case finds a new girlfriend, resumes his hacking work, and spends his earnings from the mission replacing his internal organs so that he can continue his previous drug use. Wintermute/Neuromancer contacts him, saying that it has become \"the sum total of the works, the whole show,\" and has begun looking for other AIs like itself. Scanning old recorded transmissions from the 1970s, the super-AI finds a lone AI transmitting from the Alpha Centauri star system. In the matrix, Case hears inhuman laughter, a trait associated with Pauley during Case's work with his ROM construct, thus suggesting that Pauley was not erased after all, but instead worked out a side deal with Wintermute/Neuromancer to be freed from the construct so he could exist in the matrix. In the end, while logged into the matrix, Case catches a glimpse of himself, his dead girlfriend Linda Lee, and Neuromancer. The implication of the sighting is that Neuromancer created a copy of Case's consciousness when it previously tried to trap him. The copy of Case's consciousness now exists with that of Linda's, in the matrix, where they are together forever.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler in the dystopian underworld of Chiba City, Japan. Once a talented computer hacker, Case was caught stealing from his employer. As punishment for his theft, Case's central nervous system was damaged with a mycotoxin, leaving him unable to use keyboard skills to access the global computer network in cyberspace, a virtual reality dataspace called the \"Matrix\". Unemployable, addicted to drugs, and suicidal, Case desperately searches the Chiba \"black clinics\" for a miracle cure. Case is saved by Molly Millions, an augmented \"street samurai\" and mercenary for a shadowy ex-military officer named Armitage, who offers to cure Case in exchange for his services as a hacker. Case jumps at the chance to regain his life as a \"console cowboy,\" but neither Case nor Molly know what Armitage is really planning. Case's nervous system is repaired using new technology that Armitage offers the clinic as payment, but he soon learns from Armitage that sacs of the poison that first crippled him have been placed in his blood vessels as well. Armitage promises Case that if he completes his work in time, the sacs will be removed; otherwise they will dissolve, disabling him again. He also has Case's pancreas replaced and new tissue grafted into his liver, leaving Case incapable of metabolizing cocaine or amphetamines and apparently ending his drug addiction. Case develops a close personal relationship with Molly, who suggests that he begin looking into Armitage's background. Meanwhile, Armitage assigns them their first job: they must steal a ROM module that contains the saved consciousness of one of Case's mentors, legendary cyber-cowboy McCoy Pauley, nicknamed \"Dixie Flatline.\" Pauley's hacking expertise is needed by Armitage, and the ROM construct is stored in the corporate headquarters of media conglomerate Sense/Net. A street gang named the \"Panther Modern"
      },
      {
        "text": " with Molly, who suggests that he begin looking into Armitage's background. Meanwhile, Armitage assigns them their first job: they must steal a ROM module that contains the saved consciousness of one of Case's mentors, legendary cyber-cowboy McCoy Pauley, nicknamed \"Dixie Flatline.\" Pauley's hacking expertise is needed by Armitage, and the ROM construct is stored in the corporate headquarters of media conglomerate Sense/Net. A street gang named the \"Panther Moderns\" are hired to create a simulated terrorist attack on Sense/Net. The diversion allows Molly to penetrate the building and steal Dixie's ROM. Case and Molly continue to investigate Armitage, discovering his former identity of Colonel Willis Corto. Corto was a member of \"Operation Screaming Fist,\" which planned on infiltrating and disrupting Soviet computer systems from ultralight aircraft dropped over Russia. The Russian military had learned of the idea and installed defenses to render the attack impossible, but the military went ahead with Screaming Fist, with a new secret purpose of testing these Russian defenses. As the Operation team attacked a Soviet computer center, EMP weapons shut down their computers and flight systems, and Corto and his men were targeted by Soviet laser defenses. He and a few survivors commandeered a Soviet military helicopter and escaped over the heavily guarded Finnish border. Everyone was killed except Corto, who was seriously wounded and heavily mutilated by Finnish defense forces attacking as they were landing the helicopter. Corto after some months in hospital is visited by a Government military official and then medically rebuilt to be able to provide what he came to realise was fake testimony, designed to mislead the public and protect the military officers who had covered up knowledge of the EMP weapons. After the trials, Corto snaps, killing the Government official who contacted him and then disappears into the criminal underworld. In Istanbul, the team recruits Peter Riviera, an artist, thief, and drug addict who is able to project detailed holog"
      },
      {
        "text": " Corto after some months in hospital is visited by a Government military official and then medically rebuilt to be able to provide what he came to realise was fake testimony, designed to mislead the public and protect the military officers who had covered up knowledge of the EMP weapons. After the trials, Corto snaps, killing the Government official who contacted him and then disappears into the criminal underworld. In Istanbul, the team recruits Peter Riviera, an artist, thief, and drug addict who is able to project detailed holographic illusions with the aid of sophisticated cybernetic implants. Although Riviera is a sociopath, Armitage coerces him into joining the team. The trail leads Case and Molly to a powerful artificial intelligence named Wintermute, created by the plutocratic Tessier-Ashpool family, who spend most of their inactive time in cryonic preservation inside Villa Straylight, a labyrinthine mansion located at one end of Freeside, a cylindrical space habitat located at L5, and functioning primarily as a Las Vegas-style space resort for the wealthy. Wintermute's nature is finally revealed \u2013 it is one-half of a super-AI entity planned by the family, although its exact purpose is unknown. The Turing Law Code governing AIs bans the construction of such entities; to get around this, it had to be built as two separate AIs. Wintermute was programmed by the Tessier-Ashpool dynasty with a need to merge with its other half \u2013 Neuromancer. Unable to achieve this merger on its own, Wintermute recruited Armitage and his team to help complete the goal. Case is tasked with entering cyberspace to pierce the Turing-imposed software barriers using a powerful icebreaker program. At the same time, Riviera is to obtain the password to the Turing lock from Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool, an unfrozen daughter clone and the current leader of Tessier-Ashpool SA."
      },
      {
        "text": " Neuromancer. Unable to achieve this merger on its own, Wintermute recruited Armitage and his team to help complete the goal. Case is tasked with entering cyberspace to pierce the Turing-imposed software barriers using a powerful icebreaker program. At the same time, Riviera is to obtain the password to the Turing lock from Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool, an unfrozen daughter clone and the current leader of Tessier-Ashpool SA. Wintermute believes Riviera will pose an irresistible temptation to her, and that she will give him the password. The password must be spoken into an ornate computer terminal located in the Tessier-Ashpool home in Villa Straylight, and entered simultaneously as Case pierces the software barriers in cyberspace \u2013 otherwise the Turing lock will remain intact. Armitage's team attracts the attention of the Turing Police, whose job is to prevent AIs from exceeding their built-in limitations. As Molly and Riviera gain entrance to Villa Straylight, three officers arrest Case and take him into custody; Wintermute manipulates the orbital casino's security and maintenance systems and kills the officers, allowing Case to escape. The Armitage personality starts to disintegrate and revert to the Corto personality as he relives Screaming Fist. It is revealed that in the past, Wintermute had originally contacted Corto through a bedside computer during his convalescence, eventually convincing Corto that he was Armitage. Wintermute used him to persuade Case and Molly to help it merge with its twin AI, Neuromancer. Finally, Armitage becomes the shattered Corto again, but his newfound personality is short-lived as he is killed by Wintermute. Inside Villa Straylight, Molly is captured by Riviera and Lady 3Jane. Worried about Molly and operating under orders from Wintermute, Case tracks her down with help from Mael"
      },
      {
        "text": "o that he was Armitage. Wintermute used him to persuade Case and Molly to help it merge with its twin AI, Neuromancer. Finally, Armitage becomes the shattered Corto again, but his newfound personality is short-lived as he is killed by Wintermute. Inside Villa Straylight, Molly is captured by Riviera and Lady 3Jane. Worried about Molly and operating under orders from Wintermute, Case tracks her down with help from Maelcum, his Rastafarian pilot. Neuromancer attempts to trap Case within a cyber-construct where he finds the consciousness of Linda Lee, his girlfriend from Chiba City, who was murdered by one of Case's underworld contacts. Case manages to escape flatlining inside the construct by choosing of his own free will not to stay. Freeing himself, Case takes Maelcum and confronts Lady 3Jane, Riviera, and Hideo, Lady 3Jane's ninja bodyguard. Riviera tries to kill Case, but Lady 3Jane is sympathetic towards Case and Molly, and Hideo protects him. Riviera blinds Hideo, but flees when he learns that the ninja is just as adept without his sight. Molly then explains to Case that Riviera is doomed anyway, as he has been fatally poisoned by his drugs, which she had spiked. With Lady 3Jane in possession of the password, the team makes it to the computer terminal. Case ascends to cyberspace to guide the icebreaker to penetrate its target; Lady 3Jane is induced to give up her password and the lock is opened. Wintermute unites with Neuromancer, fusing into a greater entity. The poison in Case's bloodstream is washed out, and he and Molly are handsomely paid for their efforts, while Pauley's ROM construct is apparently erased, at his own request. In the epilogue, Molly leaves Case. Case finds a new girlfriend, resumes his hacking"
      },
      {
        "text": " to guide the icebreaker to penetrate its target; Lady 3Jane is induced to give up her password and the lock is opened. Wintermute unites with Neuromancer, fusing into a greater entity. The poison in Case's bloodstream is washed out, and he and Molly are handsomely paid for their efforts, while Pauley's ROM construct is apparently erased, at his own request. In the epilogue, Molly leaves Case. Case finds a new girlfriend, resumes his hacking work, and spends his earnings from the mission replacing his internal organs so that he can continue his previous drug use. Wintermute/Neuromancer contacts him, saying that it has become \"the sum total of the works, the whole show,\" and has begun looking for other AIs like itself. Scanning old recorded transmissions from the 1970s, the super-AI finds a lone AI transmitting from the Alpha Centauri star system. In the matrix, Case hears inhuman laughter, a trait associated with Pauley during Case's work with his ROM construct, thus suggesting that Pauley was not erased after all, but instead worked out a side deal with Wintermute/Neuromancer to be freed from the construct so he could exist in the matrix. In the end, while logged into the matrix, Case catches a glimpse of himself, his dead girlfriend Linda Lee, and Neuromancer. The implication of the sighting is that Neuromancer created a copy of Case's consciousness when it previously tried to trap him. The copy of Case's consciousness now exists with that of Linda's, in the matrix, where they are together forever.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " when it previously tried to trap him. The copy of Case's consciousness now exists with that of Linda's, in the matrix, where they are together forever.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Cryptonomicon",
    "author": "Neal Stephenson",
    "published_date": "1999",
    "synopsis": " The action takes place in two periods: the Second World War and the late 1990s, during the Internet boom. In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, a young U.S. Navy code breaker and mathematical genius, is assigned to the newly formed joint British and American Detachment 2702. This ultra-secret unit's role is to hide the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the German Enigma code. The detachment stages events, often behind enemy lines, that provide alternative explanations for the Allied intelligence successes. Marine sergeant Bobby Shaftoe, a veteran of China and Guadalcanal, serves in unit 2702, carrying out Waterhouse's plans. At the same time, Japanese soldiers including mining engineer Goto Dengo, an old friend of Shaftoe's, are assigned to build a mysterious bunker in the mountains in the Philippines as part of what turns out to be a literal suicide mission. Circa 1997, Randy Waterhouse (Lawrence's grandson) joins his old Dungeons and Dragons companion Avi Halaby in a new startup, providing Pinoy-grams to migrant Filipinos via new fiber-optic cables. The aptly named Epiphyte Corporation uses this income stream to fund the creation of a data haven in the nearby fictional Sultanate of Kinakuta. Vietnam veteran Doug Shaftoe and his daughter Amy do the undersea surveying for the cables and engineering work on the haven is overseen by Goto Furudenendu, heir-apparent to Goto Engineering. Complications arise as figures from the past reappear seeking gold or revenge.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The action takes place in two periods: the Second World War and the late 1990s, during the Internet boom. In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, a young U.S. Navy code breaker and mathematical genius, is assigned to the newly formed joint British and American Detachment 2702. This ultra-secret unit's role is to hide the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the German Enigma code. The detachment stages events, often behind enemy lines, that provide alternative explanations for the Allied intelligence successes. Marine sergeant Bobby Shaftoe, a veteran of China and Guadalcanal, serves in unit 2702, carrying out Waterhouse's plans. At the same time, Japanese soldiers including mining engineer Goto Dengo, an old friend of Shaftoe's, are assigned to build a mysterious bunker in the mountains in the Philippines as part of what turns out to be a literal suicide mission. Circa 1997, Randy Waterhouse (Lawrence's grandson) joins his old Dungeons and Dragons companion Avi Halaby in a new startup, providing Pinoy-grams to migrant Filipinos via new fiber-optic cables. The aptly named Epiphyte Corporation uses this income stream to fund the creation of a data haven in the nearby fictional Sultanate of Kinakuta. Vietnam veteran Doug Shaftoe and his daughter Amy do the undersea surveying for the cables and engineering work on the haven is overseen by Goto Furudenendu, heir-apparent to Goto Engineering. Complications arise as figures from the past reappear seeking gold or revenge.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "arent to Goto Engineering. Complications arise as figures from the past reappear seeking gold or revenge.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "No Logo",
    "author": "Naomi Klein",
    "published_date": "2000-01",
    "synopsis": " The book comprises four sections: \"No Space\", \"No Choice\", \"No Jobs\", and \"No Logo\". The first three deal with the negative effects of brand-oriented corporate activity, while the fourth discusses various methods people have taken in order to fight back. The book begins by tracing the history of brands. Klein argues that there has been a shift in the usage of branding. There is an actual clothing brand NOLOGO which has existed since the late 1980s and can be seen at www.nologo.com. This is an excellent example of this shift to an \"anti-brand\" brand. Early examples of brands were often used to put a recognizable face on factory-produced products. These slowly gave way to the idea of selling lifestyles. According to Klein, in response to an economic crash in the 1980s (Latin American debt crisis, Black Monday (1987), Savings and loan crisis Japanese asset price bubble), corporations began to seriously rethink their approach to marketing, and began to target the youth demographic, as opposed to the baby boomers, who had previously been considered a much more valuable segment. The book discusses how brand names such as Nike or Pepsi expanded beyond the mere products which bore their names, and how these names and logos began to appear everywhere. As this happened, the brands' obsession with the youth market drove them to further associate themselves with whatever the youth considered \"cool\". Along the way, the brands attempted to have their names associated with everything from movie stars and athletes to grassroots social movements. Klein argues that large multinational corporations consider the marketing of a brand name to be more important than the actual manufacture of products; this theme recurs in the book and Klein suggests that it helps explain the shift to production in Third World countries in such industries as clothing, footwear, and computer hardware. This section also looks at ways in which brands have \"muscled\" their presence into the school system, and how in doing so, they have pipelined advertisements into the schools, and have used their position to gather information about the students. Klein argues that this is part of a trend toward targeting younger and younger consumers. In the second section, Klein discusses how brands use their size and clout to limit the number of choices available to the public \u2013 whether through market dominance (Wal-Mart) or through aggressive invasion of a region (Starbucks). Klein argues that the goal of each company is to become the dominant force in its respective field. Meanwhile, other corporations, such as Sony or Disney, simply open their own chains of stores, preventing the competition from even putting their products on the shelves. This section also discusses the way that corporations merge with one another in order to add to their ubiquity and provide greater control over their image. ABC News, for instance, is allegedly under pressure not to air any stories that are overly critical of Disney, its parent company. Other chains, such as Wal-Mart, often threaten to pull various products off of their shelves, forcing manufacturers and publishers to comply with their demands. This might mean driving down manufacturing costs, or changing the artwork or content of products like magazines or albums so they better fit with Wal-Mart's image of family friendliness. Also discussed is the way that corporations abuse copyright laws in order to silence anyone who might attempt to criticize their brand. In this section, the book takes a darker tone, and looks at the way in which manufacturing jobs move from local factories to foreign countries, and particularly to places known as export processing zones. Such zones have no labor laws, leading to dire working conditions. The book then shifts back to North America, where the lack of manufacturing jobs has led to an influx of work in the service sector, where most of the jobs are for minimum wage and offer no benefits. The term McJob is introduced, defined as a job with poor compensation that does not keep pace with inflation, inflexible or undesirable hours, little chance of advancement, and high levels of stress. Meanwhile, the public is being sold the perception that these jobs are temporary employment for students and recent graduates, and therefore need not offer living wages or benefits. All of this is set against a backdrop of massive profits and wealth being produced within the corporate sector. The result is a new generation of employees who have come to resent the success of the companies they work for. This resentment, along with rising unemployment, labour abuses abroad, disregard for the environment and the ever-increasing presence of advertising breeds a new disdain for corporations. The final section of the book discusses various movements that have sprung up during the 1990s. These include Adbusters magazine and the culture-jamming movement, as well as Reclaim the Streets and the McLibel trial. Less radical protests are also discussed, such as the various movements aimed at putting an end to sweatshop labour. Klein concludes by contrasting consumerism and citizenship, opting for the latter. \"When I started this book,\" she writes, \"I honestly didn't know whether I was covering marginal atomized scenes of resistance or the birth of a potentially broad-based movement. But as time went on, what I clearly saw was a movement forming before my eyes.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book comprises four sections: \"No Space\", \"No Choice\", \"No Jobs\", and \"No Logo\". The first three deal with the negative effects of brand-oriented corporate activity, while the fourth discusses various methods people have taken in order to fight back. The book begins by tracing the history of brands. Klein argues that there has been a shift in the usage of branding. There is an actual clothing brand NOLOGO which has existed since the late 1980s and can be seen at www.nologo.com. This is an excellent example of this shift to an \"anti-brand\" brand. Early examples of brands were often used to put a recognizable face on factory-produced products. These slowly gave way to the idea of selling lifestyles. According to Klein, in response to an economic crash in the 1980s (Latin American debt crisis, Black Monday (1987), Savings and loan crisis Japanese asset price bubble), corporations began to seriously rethink their approach to marketing, and began to target the youth demographic, as opposed to the baby boomers, who had previously been considered a much more valuable segment. The book discusses how brand names such as Nike or Pepsi expanded beyond the mere products which bore their names, and how these names and logos began to appear everywhere. As this happened, the brands' obsession with the youth market drove them to further associate themselves with whatever the youth considered \"cool\". Along the way, the brands attempted to have their names associated with everything from movie stars and athletes to grassroots social movements. Klein argues that large multinational corporations consider the marketing of a brand name to be more important than the actual manufacture of products; this theme recurs in the book and Klein suggests that it helps explain the shift to production in Third World countries in such industries as clothing, footwear, and computer hardware. This section also looks at ways in which brands have \"muscled\" their presence into the school system, and how in doing so, they have pipelined advertisements into the schools"
      },
      {
        "text": " athletes to grassroots social movements. Klein argues that large multinational corporations consider the marketing of a brand name to be more important than the actual manufacture of products; this theme recurs in the book and Klein suggests that it helps explain the shift to production in Third World countries in such industries as clothing, footwear, and computer hardware. This section also looks at ways in which brands have \"muscled\" their presence into the school system, and how in doing so, they have pipelined advertisements into the schools, and have used their position to gather information about the students. Klein argues that this is part of a trend toward targeting younger and younger consumers. In the second section, Klein discusses how brands use their size and clout to limit the number of choices available to the public \u2013 whether through market dominance (Wal-Mart) or through aggressive invasion of a region (Starbucks). Klein argues that the goal of each company is to become the dominant force in its respective field. Meanwhile, other corporations, such as Sony or Disney, simply open their own chains of stores, preventing the competition from even putting their products on the shelves. This section also discusses the way that corporations merge with one another in order to add to their ubiquity and provide greater control over their image. ABC News, for instance, is allegedly under pressure not to air any stories that are overly critical of Disney, its parent company. Other chains, such as Wal-Mart, often threaten to pull various products off of their shelves, forcing manufacturers and publishers to comply with their demands. This might mean driving down manufacturing costs, or changing the artwork or content of products like magazines or albums so they better fit with Wal-Mart's image of family friendliness. Also discussed is the way that corporations abuse copyright laws in order to silence anyone who might attempt to criticize their brand. In this section, the book takes a darker tone, and looks at the way in which manufacturing jobs move from local factories to foreign countries, and particularly to places known as"
      },
      {
        "text": " and publishers to comply with their demands. This might mean driving down manufacturing costs, or changing the artwork or content of products like magazines or albums so they better fit with Wal-Mart's image of family friendliness. Also discussed is the way that corporations abuse copyright laws in order to silence anyone who might attempt to criticize their brand. In this section, the book takes a darker tone, and looks at the way in which manufacturing jobs move from local factories to foreign countries, and particularly to places known as export processing zones. Such zones have no labor laws, leading to dire working conditions. The book then shifts back to North America, where the lack of manufacturing jobs has led to an influx of work in the service sector, where most of the jobs are for minimum wage and offer no benefits. The term McJob is introduced, defined as a job with poor compensation that does not keep pace with inflation, inflexible or undesirable hours, little chance of advancement, and high levels of stress. Meanwhile, the public is being sold the perception that these jobs are temporary employment for students and recent graduates, and therefore need not offer living wages or benefits. All of this is set against a backdrop of massive profits and wealth being produced within the corporate sector. The result is a new generation of employees who have come to resent the success of the companies they work for. This resentment, along with rising unemployment, labour abuses abroad, disregard for the environment and the ever-increasing presence of advertising breeds a new disdain for corporations. The final section of the book discusses various movements that have sprung up during the 1990s. These include Adbusters magazine and the culture-jamming movement, as well as Reclaim the Streets and the McLibel trial. Less radical protests are also discussed, such as the various movements aimed at putting an end to sweatshop labour. Klein concludes by contrasting consumerism and citizenship, opting for the latter. \"When I started this book,\" she writes, \"I honestly didn't know whether I"
      },
      {
        "text": " corporations. The final section of the book discusses various movements that have sprung up during the 1990s. These include Adbusters magazine and the culture-jamming movement, as well as Reclaim the Streets and the McLibel trial. Less radical protests are also discussed, such as the various movements aimed at putting an end to sweatshop labour. Klein concludes by contrasting consumerism and citizenship, opting for the latter. \"When I started this book,\" she writes, \"I honestly didn't know whether I was covering marginal atomized scenes of resistance or the birth of a potentially broad-based movement. But as time went on, what I clearly saw was a movement forming before my eyes.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Odyssey",
    "author": "Nextext",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Odyssey begins ten years after the end of the ten-year Trojan War that is the subject of the Iliad, and Odysseus has still not returned home from the war. Odysseus' son Telemachus is about 20 years old and is sharing his absent father\u2019s house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope and a crowd of 108 boisterous young men, \"the Suitors\", whose aim is to persuade Penelope to marry one of them, all the while enjoying the hospitality of Odysseus' household and eating up his wealth. Odysseus\u2019 protectress, the goddess Athena, discusses his fate with Zeus, king of the gods, at a moment when Odysseus' enemy, the god of the sea Poseidon, is absent from Mount Olympus. Then, disguised as a Taphian chieftain named Mentes (otherwise known as \u201cMentor\u201d), she visits Telemachus to urge him to search for news of his father. He offers her hospitality; they observe the Suitors dining rowdily while the bard Phemius performs a narrative poem for them. Penelope objects to Phemius' theme, the \"Return from Troy\", because it reminds her of her missing husband, but Telemachus rebuts her objections. That night Athena, disguised as Telemachus, finds a ship and crew for the true Telemachus. The next morning, Telemachus calls an assembly of citizens of Ithaca to discuss what should be done with the suitors. Accompanied by Athena (still disguised as Mentor), he departs for the Greek mainland and the household of Nestor, most venerable of the Greek warriors at Troy, now at home in Pylos. From there, Telemachus rides overland, accompanied by Nestor's son, Peisistratus, to Sparta, where he finds Menelaus and Helen who are now reconciled. He is told that they returned to Sparta after a long voyage by way of Egypt. There, on the island of Pharos, Menelaus encountered the old sea-god Proteus, who told him that Odysseus was a captive of the nymph Calypso. Incidentally, Telemachus learns the fate of Menelaus\u2019 brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks at Troy: he was murdered on his return home by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Then the story of Odysseus is told. He has spent seven years in captivity on Calypso's island, Ogygia. Calypso falls deeply in love with him but he has consistently spurned her advances. She is persuaded to release him by Odysseus' great-grandfather, the messenger god Hermes, who has been sent by Zeus in response to Athena's plea. Odysseus builds a raft and is given clothing, food and drink by Calypso. When Poseidon finds out that Odysseus has escaped, he wrecks the raft but, helped by a veil given by the sea nymph Ino, Odysseus swims ashore on Scherie, the island of the Phaeacians. Naked and exhausted, he hides in a pile of leaves and falls asleep. The next morning, awakened by the laughter of girls, he sees the young Nausicaa, who has gone to the seashore with her maids to wash clothes after Athena told her in a dream to do so. He appeals to her for help. She encourages him to seek the hospitality of her parents, Arete and Alcinous, or Alkinous. Odysseus is welcomed and is not at first asked for his name. He remains for several days, takes part in a pentathlon, and hears the blind singer Demodocus perform two narrative poems. The first is an otherwise obscure incident of the Trojan War, the \"Quarrel of Odysseus and Achilles\"; the second is the amusing tale of a love affair between two Olympian gods, Ares and Aphrodite. Finally, Odysseus asks Demodocus to return to the Trojan War theme and tell of the Trojan Horse, a stratagem in which Odysseus had played a leading role. Unable to hide his emotion as he relives this episode, Odysseus at last reveals his identity. He then begins to tell the story of his return from Troy. After a piratical raid on Ismaros in the land of the Cicones, he and his twelve ships were driven off course by storms. They visited the lethargic Lotus-Eaters who gave two of his men their fruit which caused them to forget their homecoming, and then were captured by the Cyclops Polyphemus, escaping by blinding him with a wooden stake. While they were escaping, however, Odysseus foolishly told Polyphemus his identity, and Polyphemus told his father, Poseidon, that Odysseus had blinded him. Poseidon then curses Odysseus to wander the sea for ten years, during which he would lose all his crew and return home through the aid of others. After their escape, they stayed with Aeolus, the master of the winds and he gave Odysseus a leather bag containing all the winds, except the west wind, a gift that should have ensured a safe return home. However, the greedy sailors foolishly opened the bag while Odysseus slept, thinking it contained gold. All of the winds flew out and the resulting storm drove the ships back the way they had come, just as Ithaca came into sight. After unsuccessfully pleading with Aeolus to help them again, they re-embarked and encountered the cannibalistic Laestrygonians. All of Odysseus\u2019s ships except his own entered the harbor of the Laestrygonians\u2019 Island and were immediately destroyed. He sailed on and visited the witch-goddess Circe. She turned half of his men into swine after feeding them cheese and wine. Hermes warned Odysseus about Circe and gave Odysseus a drug called moly which gave him resistance to Circe\u2019s magic. Circe, surprised by Odysseus' resistance, agreed to change his men back to their human form in exchange for Odysseus' love. They remained with her on the island for one year, while they feasted and drank. Finally, guided by Circe's instructions, Odysseus and his crew crossed the ocean and reached a harbor at the western edge of the world, where Odysseus sacrificed to the dead. He first encountered the spirit of crewmember Elpenor, who had gotten drunk and fallen from a roof to his death, which had gone unnoticed by others, before Odysseus and the rest of his crew had left Circe. Elpenor's ghost told Odysseus to bury his body, which Odysseus promised to do. Odysseus then summoned the spirit of the old prophet Tiresias for advice on how to appease the gods upon his return home. Next Odysseus met the spirit of his own mother, who had died of grief during his long absence. From her, he got his first news of his own household, threatened by the greed of the Suitors. Finally, he met the spirits of famous men and women. Notably he encountered the spirit of Agamemnon, of whose murder he now learned, and Achilles, who told him about the woes of the land of the dead (for Odysseus' encounter with the dead, see also Nekuia). Returning to Circe\u2019s island, they were advised by her on the remaining stages of the journey. They skirted the land of the Sirens, who sang an enchanting song that normally caused passing sailors to steer toward the rocks, only to hit them and sink. All of the sailors except for Odysseus, who was tied to the mast as he wanted to hear the song, had their ears plugged up with beeswax. They then passed between the six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, Odysseus losing six men to Scylla, and landed on the island of Thrinacia. Zeus caused a storm which prevented them leaving. While Odysseus was away praying, his men ignored the warnings of Tiresias and Circe and hunted down the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios as their food had run short. The Sun God insisted that Zeus punish the men for this sacrilege. They suffered a shipwreck as they were driven towards Charybdis. All but Odysseus were drowned; he clung to a fig tree above Charybdis. Washed ashore on the island of Calypso, he was compelled to remain there as her lover until she was ordered by Zeus via Hermes to release Odysseus. Having listened with rapt attention to his story, the Phaeacians, who are skilled mariners, agree to help Odysseus get home. They deliver him at night, while he is fast asleep, to a hidden harbour on Ithaca. He finds his way to the hut of one of his own slaves, the swineherd Eumaeus. Athena disguises Odysseus as a wandering beggar so he can see how things stand in his household. After dinner, he tells the farm laborers a fictitious tale of himself: He was born in Crete, had led a party of Cretans to fight alongside other Greeks in the Trojan War, and had then spent seven years at the court of the king of Egypt; finally he had been shipwrecked in Thesprotia and crossed from there to Ithaca. Meanwhile, Telemachus sails home from Sparta, evading an ambush set by the Suitors. He disembarks on the coast of Ithaca and makes for Eumaeus\u2019s hut. Father and son meet; Odysseus identifies himself to Telemachus (but still not to Eumaeus), and they decide that the Suitors must be killed. Telemachus goes home first. Accompanied by Eumaeus, Odysseus returns to his own house, still pretending to be a beggar. He is ridiculed by the Suitors in his own home, especially by one extremely impertinent man named Antinous. Odysseus meets Penelope and tests her intentions by saying he once met Odysseus in Crete. Closely questioned, he adds that he had recently been in Thesprotia and had learned something there of Odysseus\u2019s recent wanderings. Odysseus\u2019s identity is discovered by the housekeeper, Eurycleia, when she recognizes an old scar as she is washing his feet. Eurycleia tries to tell Penelope about the beggar's true identity, but Athena makes sure that Penelope cannot hear her. Odysseus then swears Eurycleia to secrecy. The next day, at Athena\u2019s prompting, Penelope maneuvers the Suitors into competing for her hand with an archery competition using Odysseus' bow. The man who can string the bow and shoot it through a dozen axe heads would win. Odysseus takes part in the competition himself: he alone is strong enough to string the bow and shoot it through the dozen axe heads, making him the winner. He then turns his arrows on the Suitors and with the help of Athena, Telemachus, Eumaeus and Philoteus the cowherd, he kills all the Suitors. Odysseus and Telemachus hang twelve of their household maids, who had betrayed Penelope or had sex with the Suitors, or both; they mutilate and kill the goatherd Melanthius, who had mocked and abused Odysseus. Now at last, Odysseus identifies himself to Penelope. She is hesitant, but accepts him when he mentions that their bed was made from an olive tree still rooted to the ground. Many modern and ancient scholars take this to be the original ending of the Odyssey, and the rest to be an interpolation. The next day he and Telemachus visit the country farm of his old father Laertes, who likewise accepts his identity only when Odysseus correctly describes the orchard that Laertes had previously given him. The citizens of Ithaca have followed Odysseus on the road, planning to avenge the killing of the Suitors, their sons. Their leader points out that Odysseus has now caused the deaths of two generations of the men of Ithaca: his sailors, not one of whom survived; and the Suitors, whom he has now executed. The goddess Athena intervenes and persuades both sides to give up the vendetta, a deus ex machina. After this, Ithaca is at peace once more, concluding the Odyssey.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Odyssey begins ten years after the end of the ten-year Trojan War that is the subject of the Iliad, and Odysseus has still not returned home from the war. Odysseus' son Telemachus is about 20 years old and is sharing his absent father\u2019s house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope and a crowd of 108 boisterous young men, \"the Suitors\", whose aim is to persuade Penelope to marry one of them, all the while enjoying the hospitality of Odysseus' household and eating up his wealth. Odysseus\u2019 protectress, the goddess Athena, discusses his fate with Zeus, king of the gods, at a moment when Odysseus' enemy, the god of the sea Poseidon, is absent from Mount Olympus. Then, disguised as a Taphian chieftain named Mentes (otherwise known as \u201cMentor\u201d), she visits Telemachus to urge him to search for news of his father. He offers her hospitality; they observe the Suitors dining rowdily while the bard Phemius performs a narrative poem for them. Penelope objects to Phemius' theme, the \"Return from Troy\", because it reminds her of her missing husband, but Telemachus rebuts her objections. That night Athena, disguised as Telemachus, finds a ship and crew for the true Telemachus. The next morning, Telemachus calls an assembly of citizens of Ithaca to discuss what should be done with the suitors. Accompanied by Athena (still disguised as Mentor), he departs for the Greek mainland and the household of Nestor, most venerable of the Greek warriors at Troy, now at home in Pylos. From there, Telemachus rides overland, accompanied by Nestor's son, Peisistratus, to Sparta, where he finds"
      },
      {
        "text": " next morning, Telemachus calls an assembly of citizens of Ithaca to discuss what should be done with the suitors. Accompanied by Athena (still disguised as Mentor), he departs for the Greek mainland and the household of Nestor, most venerable of the Greek warriors at Troy, now at home in Pylos. From there, Telemachus rides overland, accompanied by Nestor's son, Peisistratus, to Sparta, where he finds Menelaus and Helen who are now reconciled. He is told that they returned to Sparta after a long voyage by way of Egypt. There, on the island of Pharos, Menelaus encountered the old sea-god Proteus, who told him that Odysseus was a captive of the nymph Calypso. Incidentally, Telemachus learns the fate of Menelaus\u2019 brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks at Troy: he was murdered on his return home by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Then the story of Odysseus is told. He has spent seven years in captivity on Calypso's island, Ogygia. Calypso falls deeply in love with him but he has consistently spurned her advances. She is persuaded to release him by Odysseus' great-grandfather, the messenger god Hermes, who has been sent by Zeus in response to Athena's plea. Odysseus builds a raft and is given clothing, food and drink by Calypso. When Poseidon finds out that Odysseus has escaped, he wrecks the raft but, helped by a veil given by the sea nymph Ino, Odysseus swims ashore on Scherie, the island of the Phaeacians. Naked and exhausted, he hides in a pile of leaves and falls asleep. The next"
      },
      {
        "text": " sent by Zeus in response to Athena's plea. Odysseus builds a raft and is given clothing, food and drink by Calypso. When Poseidon finds out that Odysseus has escaped, he wrecks the raft but, helped by a veil given by the sea nymph Ino, Odysseus swims ashore on Scherie, the island of the Phaeacians. Naked and exhausted, he hides in a pile of leaves and falls asleep. The next morning, awakened by the laughter of girls, he sees the young Nausicaa, who has gone to the seashore with her maids to wash clothes after Athena told her in a dream to do so. He appeals to her for help. She encourages him to seek the hospitality of her parents, Arete and Alcinous, or Alkinous. Odysseus is welcomed and is not at first asked for his name. He remains for several days, takes part in a pentathlon, and hears the blind singer Demodocus perform two narrative poems. The first is an otherwise obscure incident of the Trojan War, the \"Quarrel of Odysseus and Achilles\"; the second is the amusing tale of a love affair between two Olympian gods, Ares and Aphrodite. Finally, Odysseus asks Demodocus to return to the Trojan War theme and tell of the Trojan Horse, a stratagem in which Odysseus had played a leading role. Unable to hide his emotion as he relives this episode, Odysseus at last reveals his identity. He then begins to tell the story of his return from Troy. After a piratical raid on Ismaros in the land of the Cicones, he and his twelve ships were driven off course by storms. They visited the lethargic Lotus-Eaters who gave two of his men their fruit which caused them to forget their homecoming, and then were captured by the"
      },
      {
        "text": " leading role. Unable to hide his emotion as he relives this episode, Odysseus at last reveals his identity. He then begins to tell the story of his return from Troy. After a piratical raid on Ismaros in the land of the Cicones, he and his twelve ships were driven off course by storms. They visited the lethargic Lotus-Eaters who gave two of his men their fruit which caused them to forget their homecoming, and then were captured by the Cyclops Polyphemus, escaping by blinding him with a wooden stake. While they were escaping, however, Odysseus foolishly told Polyphemus his identity, and Polyphemus told his father, Poseidon, that Odysseus had blinded him. Poseidon then curses Odysseus to wander the sea for ten years, during which he would lose all his crew and return home through the aid of others. After their escape, they stayed with Aeolus, the master of the winds and he gave Odysseus a leather bag containing all the winds, except the west wind, a gift that should have ensured a safe return home. However, the greedy sailors foolishly opened the bag while Odysseus slept, thinking it contained gold. All of the winds flew out and the resulting storm drove the ships back the way they had come, just as Ithaca came into sight. After unsuccessfully pleading with Aeolus to help them again, they re-embarked and encountered the cannibalistic Laestrygonians. All of Odysseus\u2019s ships except his own entered the harbor of the Laestrygonians\u2019 Island and were immediately destroyed. He sailed on and visited the witch-goddess Circe. She turned half of his men into swine after feeding them cheese and wine. Hermes warned Odysseus about Circe and gave Odysseus a drug called moly which"
      },
      {
        "text": ", they re-embarked and encountered the cannibalistic Laestrygonians. All of Odysseus\u2019s ships except his own entered the harbor of the Laestrygonians\u2019 Island and were immediately destroyed. He sailed on and visited the witch-goddess Circe. She turned half of his men into swine after feeding them cheese and wine. Hermes warned Odysseus about Circe and gave Odysseus a drug called moly which gave him resistance to Circe\u2019s magic. Circe, surprised by Odysseus' resistance, agreed to change his men back to their human form in exchange for Odysseus' love. They remained with her on the island for one year, while they feasted and drank. Finally, guided by Circe's instructions, Odysseus and his crew crossed the ocean and reached a harbor at the western edge of the world, where Odysseus sacrificed to the dead. He first encountered the spirit of crewmember Elpenor, who had gotten drunk and fallen from a roof to his death, which had gone unnoticed by others, before Odysseus and the rest of his crew had left Circe. Elpenor's ghost told Odysseus to bury his body, which Odysseus promised to do. Odysseus then summoned the spirit of the old prophet Tiresias for advice on how to appease the gods upon his return home. Next Odysseus met the spirit of his own mother, who had died of grief during his long absence. From her, he got his first news of his own household, threatened by the greed of the Suitors. Finally, he met the spirits of famous men and women. Notably he encountered the spirit of Agamemnon, of whose murder he now learned, and Achilles, who told him about the woes of the land of the dead (for Odysseus' encounter"
      },
      {
        "text": " home. Next Odysseus met the spirit of his own mother, who had died of grief during his long absence. From her, he got his first news of his own household, threatened by the greed of the Suitors. Finally, he met the spirits of famous men and women. Notably he encountered the spirit of Agamemnon, of whose murder he now learned, and Achilles, who told him about the woes of the land of the dead (for Odysseus' encounter with the dead, see also Nekuia). Returning to Circe\u2019s island, they were advised by her on the remaining stages of the journey. They skirted the land of the Sirens, who sang an enchanting song that normally caused passing sailors to steer toward the rocks, only to hit them and sink. All of the sailors except for Odysseus, who was tied to the mast as he wanted to hear the song, had their ears plugged up with beeswax. They then passed between the six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, Odysseus losing six men to Scylla, and landed on the island of Thrinacia. Zeus caused a storm which prevented them leaving. While Odysseus was away praying, his men ignored the warnings of Tiresias and Circe and hunted down the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios as their food had run short. The Sun God insisted that Zeus punish the men for this sacrilege. They suffered a shipwreck as they were driven towards Charybdis. All but Odysseus were drowned; he clung to a fig tree above Charybdis. Washed ashore on the island of Calypso, he was compelled to remain there as her lover until she was ordered by Zeus via Hermes to release Odysseus. Having listened with rapt attention to his story, the Phaeacians, who are skilled mariners,"
      },
      {
        "text": " men for this sacrilege. They suffered a shipwreck as they were driven towards Charybdis. All but Odysseus were drowned; he clung to a fig tree above Charybdis. Washed ashore on the island of Calypso, he was compelled to remain there as her lover until she was ordered by Zeus via Hermes to release Odysseus. Having listened with rapt attention to his story, the Phaeacians, who are skilled mariners, agree to help Odysseus get home. They deliver him at night, while he is fast asleep, to a hidden harbour on Ithaca. He finds his way to the hut of one of his own slaves, the swineherd Eumaeus. Athena disguises Odysseus as a wandering beggar so he can see how things stand in his household. After dinner, he tells the farm laborers a fictitious tale of himself: He was born in Crete, had led a party of Cretans to fight alongside other Greeks in the Trojan War, and had then spent seven years at the court of the king of Egypt; finally he had been shipwrecked in Thesprotia and crossed from there to Ithaca. Meanwhile, Telemachus sails home from Sparta, evading an ambush set by the Suitors. He disembarks on the coast of Ithaca and makes for Eumaeus\u2019s hut. Father and son meet; Odysseus identifies himself to Telemachus (but still not to Eumaeus), and they decide that the Suitors must be killed. Telemachus goes home first. Accompanied by Eumaeus, Odysseus returns to his own house, still pretending to be a beggar. He is ridiculed by the Suitors in his own home, especially by one extremely impertinent man named Antinous. Odysseus meets Penelope and tests her intentions by saying"
      },
      {
        "text": "ysseus identifies himself to Telemachus (but still not to Eumaeus), and they decide that the Suitors must be killed. Telemachus goes home first. Accompanied by Eumaeus, Odysseus returns to his own house, still pretending to be a beggar. He is ridiculed by the Suitors in his own home, especially by one extremely impertinent man named Antinous. Odysseus meets Penelope and tests her intentions by saying he once met Odysseus in Crete. Closely questioned, he adds that he had recently been in Thesprotia and had learned something there of Odysseus\u2019s recent wanderings. Odysseus\u2019s identity is discovered by the housekeeper, Eurycleia, when she recognizes an old scar as she is washing his feet. Eurycleia tries to tell Penelope about the beggar's true identity, but Athena makes sure that Penelope cannot hear her. Odysseus then swears Eurycleia to secrecy. The next day, at Athena\u2019s prompting, Penelope maneuvers the Suitors into competing for her hand with an archery competition using Odysseus' bow. The man who can string the bow and shoot it through a dozen axe heads would win. Odysseus takes part in the competition himself: he alone is strong enough to string the bow and shoot it through the dozen axe heads, making him the winner. He then turns his arrows on the Suitors and with the help of Athena, Telemachus, Eumaeus and Philoteus the cowherd, he kills all the Suitors. Odysseus and Telemachus hang twelve of their household maids, who had betrayed Penelope or had sex with the Suitors, or both; they mutilate and kill the goatherd Melanthius, who had mocked and abused Odysseus"
      },
      {
        "text": ", making him the winner. He then turns his arrows on the Suitors and with the help of Athena, Telemachus, Eumaeus and Philoteus the cowherd, he kills all the Suitors. Odysseus and Telemachus hang twelve of their household maids, who had betrayed Penelope or had sex with the Suitors, or both; they mutilate and kill the goatherd Melanthius, who had mocked and abused Odysseus. Now at last, Odysseus identifies himself to Penelope. She is hesitant, but accepts him when he mentions that their bed was made from an olive tree still rooted to the ground. Many modern and ancient scholars take this to be the original ending of the Odyssey, and the rest to be an interpolation. The next day he and Telemachus visit the country farm of his old father Laertes, who likewise accepts his identity only when Odysseus correctly describes the orchard that Laertes had previously given him. The citizens of Ithaca have followed Odysseus on the road, planning to avenge the killing of the Suitors, their sons. Their leader points out that Odysseus has now caused the deaths of two generations of the men of Ithaca: his sailors, not one of whom survived; and the Suitors, whom he has now executed. The goddess Athena intervenes and persuades both sides to give up the vendetta, a deus ex machina. After this, Ithaca is at peace once more, concluding the Odyssey.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "etta, a deus ex machina. After this, Ithaca is at peace once more, concluding the Odyssey.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Othello",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play opens with Roderigo, a rich and dissolute gentleman, complaining to Iago, a high-ranking soldier, that Iago has not told him about the secret marriage between Desdemona, the daughter of a Senator named Brabantio, and Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army. He is upset by this development because he loves Desdemona and had previously asked her father for her hand in marriage. Iago hates Othello for promoting a younger man named Michael Cassio above him, and tells Roderigo that he plans to use Othello for his own advantage. Iago is also angry because he believes, or at least gives the pretence of belief, that Othello slept with his wife Emilia. Iago denounces Cassio as a scholarly tactician with no real battle experience; in contrast, Iago is a battle-tested soldier. By emphasizing Roderigo's failed bid for Desdemona, and his own dissatisfaction with serving under Othello, Iago convinces Roderigo to wake Brabantio, Desdemona's father, and tell him about his daughter's elopement. Iago sneaks away to find Othello and warns him that Brabantio is coming for him. Before Brabantio reaches Othello, news arrives in Venice that the Turks are going to attack Cyprus; therefore Othello is summoned to advise the senators. Brabantio arrives and accuses Othello of seducing Desdemona by witchcraft, but Othello defends himself successfully before an assembly that includes the Duke of Venice, Brabantio's kinsman Lodovico and Gratiano, and various senators. He explains that Desdemona became enamored of him for the stories he told of his early life, not because of any witchcraft. The senate is satisfied, but Brabantio leaves saying that Desdemona will betray Othello. By order of the Duke, Othello leaves Venice to command the Venetian armies against invading Turks on the island of Cyprus, accompanied by his new wife, his new lieutenant Cassio, his ensign Iago, and Emilia as Desdemona's attendant. The party arrives in Cyprus to find that a storm has destroyed the Turkish fleet. Othello orders a general celebration. Iago schemes to use Cassio to ruin Othello and takes the opportunity of Othello's absence at the celebration to persuade Roderigo to engage Cassio in a fight. He achieves this by getting Cassio drunk after Cassio's own admission that he cannot hold his wine. The brawl alarms the citizenry, and Othello is forced to quell the disturbance. Othello blames Cassio for the disturbance and strips him of his rank. Cassio is distraught, but Iago persuades him to importune Desdemona to act as an intermediary between himself and Othello, and persuade her husband to reinstate him. Iago now persuades Othello to be suspicious of Cassio and Desdemona. As it happens, Cassio is having a relationship of sorts with Bianca, a prostitute. Desdemona drops a handkerchief that was Othello's first gift to Desdemona and which he has stated holds great significance to him in the context of their relationship. Emilia steals it, at the request of Iago, but unaware of what he plans to do with the handkerchief. Iago plants it in Cassio's lodgings as evidence of Cassio and Desdemona's affair. After he has planted the handkerchief, Iago tells Othello to stand apart and watch Cassio's reactions while Iago questions him about the handkerchief. Iago goads Cassio on to talk about his affair with Bianca, but speaks her name so quietly that Othello believes the two other men are talking about Desdemona when Cassio is really speaking of Bianca. Bianca, on discovering the handkerchief, chastises Cassio, accusing him of giving her a second-hand gift which he received from another lover. Othello sees this, and Iago convinces him that Cassio received the handkerchief from Desdemona. Enraged and hurt, Othello resolves to kill his wife and asks Iago to kill Cassio as a duty to their intimacy. Othello proceeds to make Desdemona's life miserable, hitting her in front of her family. Desdemona laments her suffering, remembering the fate of her mother's maid, who was forsaken by her lover. Roderigo complains that he has received nothing for his efforts and threatens to abandon his pursuit of Desdemona, but Iago convinces him to kill Cassio instead, because Cassio has just been appointed governor of Cyprus, and \u2014 Iago argues \u2014 if Cassio lives to take office, Othello and Desdemona will leave Cyprus, thwarting Roderigo's plans to win Desdemona. Roderigo attacks Cassio in the street after Cassio leaves Bianca's lodgings. They fight and both are wounded. Cassio's leg is cut from behind by Iago who manages to hide his identity as perpetrator. Passers-by arrive to help; Iago joins them, pretending to help Cassio. When Cassio identifies Roderigo as one of his attackers, Iago secretly stabs Roderigo to stop him from confessing. He then accuses Bianca of the failed conspiracy to kill Cassio. In the night, Othello confronts Desdemona, and then smothers her to death in bed, before Emilia arrives. Othello tries to justify his actions to the distressed Emilia by accusing Desdemona of adultery. Emilia calls for help. The Governor arrives, with Iago, Cassio, and others, and Emilia begins to explain the situation. When Othello mentions the handkerchief as proof, Emilia realizes what Iago has done. She exposes him, whereupon Iago kills her. Othello, realizing Desdemona's innocence, attacks Iago but does not kill him, saying that he would rather have Iago live the rest of his life in pain. For his part, Iago refuses to explain his motives, vowing to remain silent from that moment on. Lodovico, a Venetian nobleman, apprehends both Iago and Othello, but Othello commits suicide with a sword before they can take him into custody. At the end, it can be assumed, Iago is taken off to be tortured, and Cassio becomes governor of Cyprus.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play opens with Roderigo, a rich and dissolute gentleman, complaining to Iago, a high-ranking soldier, that Iago has not told him about the secret marriage between Desdemona, the daughter of a Senator named Brabantio, and Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army. He is upset by this development because he loves Desdemona and had previously asked her father for her hand in marriage. Iago hates Othello for promoting a younger man named Michael Cassio above him, and tells Roderigo that he plans to use Othello for his own advantage. Iago is also angry because he believes, or at least gives the pretence of belief, that Othello slept with his wife Emilia. Iago denounces Cassio as a scholarly tactician with no real battle experience; in contrast, Iago is a battle-tested soldier. By emphasizing Roderigo's failed bid for Desdemona, and his own dissatisfaction with serving under Othello, Iago convinces Roderigo to wake Brabantio, Desdemona's father, and tell him about his daughter's elopement. Iago sneaks away to find Othello and warns him that Brabantio is coming for him. Before Brabantio reaches Othello, news arrives in Venice that the Turks are going to attack Cyprus; therefore Othello is summoned to advise the senators. Brabantio arrives and accuses Othello of seducing Desdemona by witchcraft, but Othello defends himself successfully before an assembly that includes the Duke of Venice, Brabantio's kinsman Lodovico and Gratiano, and various senators. He explains that Desdemona became enamored of him for the stories he told of his early life, not because of any witchcraft. The senate is satisfied, but Brabantio leaves saying that Desdemona will"
      },
      {
        "text": " Brabantio arrives and accuses Othello of seducing Desdemona by witchcraft, but Othello defends himself successfully before an assembly that includes the Duke of Venice, Brabantio's kinsman Lodovico and Gratiano, and various senators. He explains that Desdemona became enamored of him for the stories he told of his early life, not because of any witchcraft. The senate is satisfied, but Brabantio leaves saying that Desdemona will betray Othello. By order of the Duke, Othello leaves Venice to command the Venetian armies against invading Turks on the island of Cyprus, accompanied by his new wife, his new lieutenant Cassio, his ensign Iago, and Emilia as Desdemona's attendant. The party arrives in Cyprus to find that a storm has destroyed the Turkish fleet. Othello orders a general celebration. Iago schemes to use Cassio to ruin Othello and takes the opportunity of Othello's absence at the celebration to persuade Roderigo to engage Cassio in a fight. He achieves this by getting Cassio drunk after Cassio's own admission that he cannot hold his wine. The brawl alarms the citizenry, and Othello is forced to quell the disturbance. Othello blames Cassio for the disturbance and strips him of his rank. Cassio is distraught, but Iago persuades him to importune Desdemona to act as an intermediary between himself and Othello, and persuade her husband to reinstate him. Iago now persuades Othello to be suspicious of Cassio and Desdemona. As it happens, Cassio is having a relationship of sorts with Bianca, a prostitute. Desdemona drops a handkerchief that was Othello's first gift to Desdemona and which he has stated holds great significance to him in the context of their relationship. Emilia steals it, at the request of"
      },
      {
        "text": " between himself and Othello, and persuade her husband to reinstate him. Iago now persuades Othello to be suspicious of Cassio and Desdemona. As it happens, Cassio is having a relationship of sorts with Bianca, a prostitute. Desdemona drops a handkerchief that was Othello's first gift to Desdemona and which he has stated holds great significance to him in the context of their relationship. Emilia steals it, at the request of Iago, but unaware of what he plans to do with the handkerchief. Iago plants it in Cassio's lodgings as evidence of Cassio and Desdemona's affair. After he has planted the handkerchief, Iago tells Othello to stand apart and watch Cassio's reactions while Iago questions him about the handkerchief. Iago goads Cassio on to talk about his affair with Bianca, but speaks her name so quietly that Othello believes the two other men are talking about Desdemona when Cassio is really speaking of Bianca. Bianca, on discovering the handkerchief, chastises Cassio, accusing him of giving her a second-hand gift which he received from another lover. Othello sees this, and Iago convinces him that Cassio received the handkerchief from Desdemona. Enraged and hurt, Othello resolves to kill his wife and asks Iago to kill Cassio as a duty to their intimacy. Othello proceeds to make Desdemona's life miserable, hitting her in front of her family. Desdemona laments her suffering, remembering the fate of her mother's maid, who was forsaken by her lover. Roderigo complains that he has received nothing for his efforts and threatens to abandon his pursuit of Desdemona, but Iago convinces him to kill Cassio instead, because Cassio has just been appointed governor of Cyprus, and"
      },
      {
        "text": " as a duty to their intimacy. Othello proceeds to make Desdemona's life miserable, hitting her in front of her family. Desdemona laments her suffering, remembering the fate of her mother's maid, who was forsaken by her lover. Roderigo complains that he has received nothing for his efforts and threatens to abandon his pursuit of Desdemona, but Iago convinces him to kill Cassio instead, because Cassio has just been appointed governor of Cyprus, and \u2014 Iago argues \u2014 if Cassio lives to take office, Othello and Desdemona will leave Cyprus, thwarting Roderigo's plans to win Desdemona. Roderigo attacks Cassio in the street after Cassio leaves Bianca's lodgings. They fight and both are wounded. Cassio's leg is cut from behind by Iago who manages to hide his identity as perpetrator. Passers-by arrive to help; Iago joins them, pretending to help Cassio. When Cassio identifies Roderigo as one of his attackers, Iago secretly stabs Roderigo to stop him from confessing. He then accuses Bianca of the failed conspiracy to kill Cassio. In the night, Othello confronts Desdemona, and then smothers her to death in bed, before Emilia arrives. Othello tries to justify his actions to the distressed Emilia by accusing Desdemona of adultery. Emilia calls for help. The Governor arrives, with Iago, Cassio, and others, and Emilia begins to explain the situation. When Othello mentions the handkerchief as proof, Emilia realizes what Iago has done. She exposes him, whereupon Iago kills her. Othello, realizing Desdemona's innocence, attacks Iago but does not kill him, saying that he would rather have Iago live the rest of his life in pain. For his part, Iago refuses to"
      },
      {
        "text": " The Governor arrives, with Iago, Cassio, and others, and Emilia begins to explain the situation. When Othello mentions the handkerchief as proof, Emilia realizes what Iago has done. She exposes him, whereupon Iago kills her. Othello, realizing Desdemona's innocence, attacks Iago but does not kill him, saying that he would rather have Iago live the rest of his life in pain. For his part, Iago refuses to explain his motives, vowing to remain silent from that moment on. Lodovico, a Venetian nobleman, apprehends both Iago and Othello, but Othello commits suicide with a sword before they can take him into custody. At the end, it can be assumed, Iago is taken off to be tortured, and Cassio becomes governor of Cyprus.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "On War",
    "author": "Carl von Clausewitz",
    "published_date": "1832",
    "synopsis": " The book contains a wealth of historical examples used to illustrate its various concepts. Frederick II of Prussia (the Great) figures prominently for having made very efficient use of the limited forces at his disposal, though Napoleon is perhaps the central figure. According to Azar Gat, the \"general message\" of the book was that \"the conduct of war could not be reduced to universal principles. Among many strands of thought, three stand out as essential to Clausewitz's concept: * War must never be seen as having any purpose in itself, but should be seen as an instrument of Politik--a German word that conflates the meanings of the English words policy and politics: \"War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.\"). * The military objectives in war that support one's political objectives fall into two broad types: \"war to achieve limited aims\" and war to \"disarm\u201d the enemy: \u201cto render [him] politically helpless or militarily impotent.\" * All else being equal, the course of war will tend to favour the party with the stronger emotional and political motivations, but especially the defender (a notion that surprises and confuses many readers, who typically expect a soldier\u2014especially a German soldier\u2014to be a proponent of aggressive warfare). Some of the key ideas (not necessarily original to Clausewitz or even to his mentor Gerhard von Scharnhorst) discussed in On War include (in no particular order of importance): * the dialectical approach to military analysis * the methods of \"critical analysis\" * the uses and abuses of historical studies * the nature of the balance-of-power mechanism * the relationship between political objectives and military objectives in war * the asymmetrical relationship between attack and defense * the nature of \"military genius\" * the \"fascinating trinity\" (Wunderliche Dreifaltigkeit) of war * philosophical distinctions between \"absolute or ideal war,\" and \"real war\" * in \"real war,\" the distinctive poles of a) limited war and b) war to \"render the enemy helpless\" * \"war\" belongs fundamentally to the social realm, rather than the realms of art or science * \"strategy\" belongs primarily to the realm of art * \"tactics\" belongs primarily to the realm of science * the essential unpredictability of war * the \"fog of war\" * \"friction\" * strategic and operational \"centers of gravity\" * the \"culminating point of the offensive\" * the \"culminating point of victory\" Clausewitz used a dialectical method to construct his argument, leading to frequent modern misinterpretation because he explores various\u2014often opposed\u2014ideas before coming to conclusions. Modern perception of war are based on the concepts Clausewitz put forth in On War, though these have been very diversely interpreted by various leaders (e.g., Moltke, Vladimir Lenin, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mao Zedong, etc.), thinkers, armies, and peoples. Modern military doctrine, organization, and norms are all based on Napoleonic premises, even to this day\u2014though whether these premises are necessarily also \"Clausewitzian\" is debatable. The \"dualism\" of Clausewitz's view of war (i.e., that wars can vary a great deal between the two \"poles\" he proposed, based on the political objectives of the opposing sides and the context) seems simple enough, but few commentators have proven willing to accept this crucial variability\u2014they insist that Clausewitz \"really\" argued for one end of the scale or the other. On War has been seen by some prominent critics as an argument for \"total war\". It has been blamed for the level of destruction involved in the First and Second World Wars, but it seems rather that Clausewitz (who did not actually use the term \"total war\") had merely foreseen the inevitable development that started with the huge, patriotically motivated armies of the Napoleonic wars. These wars resulted (though war's evolution has not yet ended) in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with all the forces and capabilities of the state devoted to destroying forces and capabilities of the enemy state (thus \"total war\"). Conversely, Clausewitz has also been seen as \"The preeminent military and political strategist of limited war in modern times.\" (Robert Osgood, 1979) Clausewitz and his proponents have been severely criticized, perhaps quite unfairly, by competing theorists--Antoine-Henri Jomini in the 19th century, B. H. Liddell Hart in the mid-20th century, and Martin van Creveld and John Keegan more recently. On War is a work rooted solely in the world of the nation state, says historian Martin Van Creveld, who alleges that Clausewitz takes the state \"almost for granted\" as he rarely looks at anything previous to Westphalia. He alleges that Clausewitz does not address any form of intra/supra-state conflict, such as rebellion and revolution, because he could not theoretically account for warfare before the existence of the state. Previous kinds of conflict were demoted to criminal activities without legitimacy and not worthy of the label \"war.\" Van Creveld argues that \"Clausewitzian war\" requires the state to act in conjunction with the people and the army, the state becoming a massive engine built to exert military force against an identical opponent. He supports this statement by pointing to the conventional armies in existence throughout the 20th century. This view ignores, among many other things, the facts that Clausewitz died in the early 19th century, that Prussia itself was not a \"nation-state,\" and that the Napoleonic Wars included many non-conventional conflicts of which Clausewitz was well aware. In any case, revolutionaries like Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong had no trouble adapting Clausewitz's concepts to their own purposes. Nor did conservatives like the Elder Moltke and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Much of Clausewitz's thinking was based on his experience as a Prussian war planner concerned with how to use popular forces in an insurrectionary struggle against the much-superior French forces which occupied Prussia after 1806\u2014how, in short, to wage a \"Spanish War in Germany.\" Clausewitz himself never saw the 20th-century states and armies to which Creveld refers\u2014the states with which he himself was familiar were quite different. In any case, the \"Clausewitzian Trinity\" that Van Creveld condemns as consisting of a rigid, static hierarchy of \"People, Army, and Government,\" does not in fact consist of those three concrete actors. In fact, the words people, army, and government appear nowhere in the paragraph in which Clausewitz defines his famous Trinity. Rather, the Trinity of forces that drive the course of real-world war in Clausewitz's view are 1) violent emotion, 2) the interplay of chance and probability, and 3) political calculations driven by reason. It seems unlikely that emotion, chance, and rationality will cease to play a role in war any time soon, whatever the fate of the state.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book contains a wealth of historical examples used to illustrate its various concepts. Frederick II of Prussia (the Great) figures prominently for having made very efficient use of the limited forces at his disposal, though Napoleon is perhaps the central figure. According to Azar Gat, the \"general message\" of the book was that \"the conduct of war could not be reduced to universal principles. Among many strands of thought, three stand out as essential to Clausewitz's concept: * War must never be seen as having any purpose in itself, but should be seen as an instrument of Politik--a German word that conflates the meanings of the English words policy and politics: \"War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.\"). * The military objectives in war that support one's political objectives fall into two broad types: \"war to achieve limited aims\" and war to \"disarm\u201d the enemy: \u201cto render [him] politically helpless or militarily impotent.\" * All else being equal, the course of war will tend to favour the party with the stronger emotional and political motivations, but especially the defender (a notion that surprises and confuses many readers, who typically expect a soldier\u2014especially a German soldier\u2014to be a proponent of aggressive warfare). Some of the key ideas (not necessarily original to Clausewitz or even to his mentor Gerhard von Scharnhorst) discussed in On War include (in no particular order of importance): * the dialectical approach to military analysis * the methods of \"critical analysis\" * the uses and abuses of historical studies * the nature of the balance-of-power mechanism * the relationship between political objectives and military objectives in war * the asymmetrical relationship between attack and defense * the nature of \"military genius\" * the \"fascinating trinity\" (Wunderliche Dreifaltigkeit) of"
      },
      {
        "text": "st) discussed in On War include (in no particular order of importance): * the dialectical approach to military analysis * the methods of \"critical analysis\" * the uses and abuses of historical studies * the nature of the balance-of-power mechanism * the relationship between political objectives and military objectives in war * the asymmetrical relationship between attack and defense * the nature of \"military genius\" * the \"fascinating trinity\" (Wunderliche Dreifaltigkeit) of war * philosophical distinctions between \"absolute or ideal war,\" and \"real war\" * in \"real war,\" the distinctive poles of a) limited war and b) war to \"render the enemy helpless\" * \"war\" belongs fundamentally to the social realm, rather than the realms of art or science * \"strategy\" belongs primarily to the realm of art * \"tactics\" belongs primarily to the realm of science * the essential unpredictability of war * the \"fog of war\" * \"friction\" * strategic and operational \"centers of gravity\" * the \"culminating point of the offensive\" * the \"culminating point of victory\" Clausewitz used a dialectical method to construct his argument, leading to frequent modern misinterpretation because he explores various\u2014often opposed\u2014ideas before coming to conclusions. Modern perception of war are based on the concepts Clausewitz put forth in On War, though these have been very diversely interpreted by various leaders (e.g., Moltke, Vladimir Lenin, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mao Zedong, etc.), thinkers, armies, and peoples. Modern military doctrine, organization, and norms are all based on Napoleonic premises, even to this day\u2014though whether these premises are necessarily also \"Clausewitzian\" is debatable. The \"dualism\" of Clausewitz's view of war (i.e., that wars can vary a great deal between the two \"poles\" he proposed"
      },
      {
        "text": "g., Moltke, Vladimir Lenin, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mao Zedong, etc.), thinkers, armies, and peoples. Modern military doctrine, organization, and norms are all based on Napoleonic premises, even to this day\u2014though whether these premises are necessarily also \"Clausewitzian\" is debatable. The \"dualism\" of Clausewitz's view of war (i.e., that wars can vary a great deal between the two \"poles\" he proposed, based on the political objectives of the opposing sides and the context) seems simple enough, but few commentators have proven willing to accept this crucial variability\u2014they insist that Clausewitz \"really\" argued for one end of the scale or the other. On War has been seen by some prominent critics as an argument for \"total war\". It has been blamed for the level of destruction involved in the First and Second World Wars, but it seems rather that Clausewitz (who did not actually use the term \"total war\") had merely foreseen the inevitable development that started with the huge, patriotically motivated armies of the Napoleonic wars. These wars resulted (though war's evolution has not yet ended) in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with all the forces and capabilities of the state devoted to destroying forces and capabilities of the enemy state (thus \"total war\"). Conversely, Clausewitz has also been seen as \"The preeminent military and political strategist of limited war in modern times.\" (Robert Osgood, 1979) Clausewitz and his proponents have been severely criticized, perhaps quite unfairly, by competing theorists--Antoine-Henri Jomini in the 19th century, B. H. Liddell Hart in the mid-20th century, and Martin van Creveld and John Keegan more recently. On War is a work rooted solely in the world of the nation state, says historian Martin Van Creveld, who alleges that Clausewitz takes the state \""
      },
      {
        "text": " (Robert Osgood, 1979) Clausewitz and his proponents have been severely criticized, perhaps quite unfairly, by competing theorists--Antoine-Henri Jomini in the 19th century, B. H. Liddell Hart in the mid-20th century, and Martin van Creveld and John Keegan more recently. On War is a work rooted solely in the world of the nation state, says historian Martin Van Creveld, who alleges that Clausewitz takes the state \"almost for granted\" as he rarely looks at anything previous to Westphalia. He alleges that Clausewitz does not address any form of intra/supra-state conflict, such as rebellion and revolution, because he could not theoretically account for warfare before the existence of the state. Previous kinds of conflict were demoted to criminal activities without legitimacy and not worthy of the label \"war.\" Van Creveld argues that \"Clausewitzian war\" requires the state to act in conjunction with the people and the army, the state becoming a massive engine built to exert military force against an identical opponent. He supports this statement by pointing to the conventional armies in existence throughout the 20th century. This view ignores, among many other things, the facts that Clausewitz died in the early 19th century, that Prussia itself was not a \"nation-state,\" and that the Napoleonic Wars included many non-conventional conflicts of which Clausewitz was well aware. In any case, revolutionaries like Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong had no trouble adapting Clausewitz's concepts to their own purposes. Nor did conservatives like the Elder Moltke and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Much of Clausewitz's thinking was based on his experience as a Prussian war planner concerned with how to use popular forces in an insurrectionary struggle against the much-superior French forces which occupied Prussia after 1806\u2014how, in short, to wage a \"Spanish War in Germany.\""
      },
      {
        "text": " Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong had no trouble adapting Clausewitz's concepts to their own purposes. Nor did conservatives like the Elder Moltke and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Much of Clausewitz's thinking was based on his experience as a Prussian war planner concerned with how to use popular forces in an insurrectionary struggle against the much-superior French forces which occupied Prussia after 1806\u2014how, in short, to wage a \"Spanish War in Germany.\" Clausewitz himself never saw the 20th-century states and armies to which Creveld refers\u2014the states with which he himself was familiar were quite different. In any case, the \"Clausewitzian Trinity\" that Van Creveld condemns as consisting of a rigid, static hierarchy of \"People, Army, and Government,\" does not in fact consist of those three concrete actors. In fact, the words people, army, and government appear nowhere in the paragraph in which Clausewitz defines his famous Trinity. Rather, the Trinity of forces that drive the course of real-world war in Clausewitz's view are 1) violent emotion, 2) the interplay of chance and probability, and 3) political calculations driven by reason. It seems unlikely that emotion, chance, and rationality will cease to play a role in war any time soon, whatever the fate of the state.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch",
    "author": "Philip K. Dick",
    "published_date": "1965",
    "synopsis": " The story begins in a future world where global warming has resulted in global temperatures so high that in most of the world it is unsafe to be outside without special cooling gear during daylight hours. In a desperate bid to preserve humanity and ease population burdens on Earth, the UN has initiated a \"draft\" for colonizing the nearby planets, where conditions are so horrific and primitive that the unwilling colonists have fallen prey to a form of escapism involving the use of an illegal drug (CAN-D) in concert with \"layouts\". Layouts are physical props intended to simulate a sort of alternate reality where life is easier than either the grim existence of the colonist in their marginal off-world colonies, or even Earth, where global warming has progressed to the point that Antarctica is prime vacation resort territory. The illegal drug CAN-D allows people to \"share\" their experience of the \"Perky Pat\" (the name of the main female character in the simulated world) layouts. This \"sharing\" has caused a pseudo-religious cult or series of cults to grow up around the layouts and the use of the drug. Up to the point where the novel begins, New York City-based Perky Pat (or P.P.) Layouts, Inc., has held a monopoly on this product, as well as on the illegal trade in the drug CAN-D which makes the shared hallucinations possible. The novel opens shortly after Barney Mayerson, P.P. Layouts' top precognitive (someone who can glimpse future possibilities and sort out the most likely to actually occur), has received a \"draft notice\" from the UN for involuntary resettlement as a colonist on Mars. Mayerson is sleeping with his assistant, Roni Fugate, but remains conflicted about the divorce, which he himself initiated, from his first wife Emily, a ceramic pot artist. Meanwhile, Emily's second husband tries to sell her pot designs to P.P. Layouts as possible accessories for the Perky Pat virtual worlds -- but Barney, recognizing them as Emily's, rejects them out of spite. Meanwhile, the UN rescues Palmer Eldritch's ship from a crash on Pluto. Leo Bulero, head of P.P. Layouts and an \"evolved\" human (meaning someone who has undergone expensive genetic treatments by a German \"doctor\" which are supposed to push the client \"forward\" on an evolutionary scale, and which result in gross physical, as well as mental, modifications), hears rumors that Eldritch discovered an alien hallucinogen in the Prox system with similar properties to CAN-D, and that he plans to market it as \"Chew-Z,\" with U.N. approval, on off-world colonies. However CHEW-Z does not require the prop of the external layouts and seems to have certain undefined qualities that make the use of CHEW-Z even more addictive than CAN-D has been. This would effectively destroy P.P. Layouts. Bulero tries to contact Eldritch but he is quarantined at a U.N. hospital. Both Mayerson and Fugate have precognitions of reports that Bulero is going to be responsible for murdering Eldritch. Meanwhile, Emily and her second husband sell her pottery designs to Eldritch and use the payment to undergo evolution therapy. Unfortunately, Emily begins to devolve rather than evolving. This devolution results in a loss of creativity and she finds herself recreating older, less sophisticated designs from earlier work, without realizing it. Under the guise of a reporter, Bulero travels to Eldritch's estate on the Moon, where Eldritch holds a press conference. Bulero is kidnapped and forced to take Chew-Z intravenously. He enters a psychic netherworld over which both he and Eldritch seemingly have some control. After wrangling about business with Eldritch, Bulero travels to what appears to be Earth at some time in the not-too-distant future. Evolved humans identify him as a ghost and show him a monument to himself commemorating his role in the death of Eldritch, an \"enemy of the Sol System.\" Bulero returns to Earth and fires Mayerson because Mayerson was afraid to travel to the Moon to rescue him. Mayerson, in despair, accepts his UN conscription to Mars but Bulero recruits him as a double agent. Mayerson is to inject himself with a virus after taking Chew-Z in a plot to deceive the UN into thinking Chew-Z is harmful and cause them to ban it. On Mars, Mayerson buys some Chew-Z from Eldritch, who appears in holographic form. Mayerson tries to hallucinate a world where he is still with Emily but finds that he does not control his \"hallucination.\" Like Bulero, he finds himself in the future. Mayerson arrives in New York two years hence where he speaks with Bulero, Fugate and his future self about the death of Palmer Eldritch. He also encounters several manifestations of Eldritch, identifiable by their robotic right hand, artificial eyes, and steel teeth. Eldritch offers to help Mayerson \u201cbecome\u201d whatever he wants, but in fact is so manipulative and controlling of the CHEW-Z alternate reality that Mayerson ultimately decides he'd rather be dead than continue to be manipulated by Eldritch. When a despairing Mayerson chooses death, he finds himself apparently forced into Eldritch's body right at the point in the timeline where Bulero is ready to shoot a torpedo at Eldritch's ship. It appears that Eldritch's plan is to preserve his own life essence housed in Mayerson's body while allowing Mayerson himself to die in Eldritch's place. Eldritch, meanwhile, intends to live on in Mayerson's form and enjoy the simple if arduous life of a Martian colonist. Mayerson, stuck in Eldritch's body and mistaken for him, is indeed nearly killed by Bulero in the near future, but before the fatal shot can be fired he is awakened from his Chew-Z trance in the present by Bulero, who has just arrived on Mars. Bulero is willing to take Mayerson back to Earth but refuses to after learning that Mayerson did not inject himself with the virus. Mayerson is now confident that Bulero will kill Eldritch, so the sacrifice of taking the virus in order to ruin Eldritch's business is unnecessary; but he does not try to convince Bulero of this. Later, Mayerson discusses his experience with a neo-christian colonist and they conclude that either Eldritch became a god in the Prox system or some god-like being has taken his place. Mayerson is convinced some aspect of Eldritch is still inside him, and that as long as he refuses to take Chew-Z again, it is Eldritch who will actually be killed by Bulero in the near future; Mayerson is half-resigned, half-hopeful about taking on the life of a Martian colonist without reprieve. Mayerson considers the possibility of Eldritch being what humans have always thought of as a god, but inimical, or perhaps merely an inferior aspect of a bigger and better sort of god. The novel has an ambiguous ending, with Bulero heading back toward Earth, and apparent proliferation of Eldritch's cyborg bodily 'stigmata' -which may mean that Bulero is still trapped in Eldritch's hallucinatory domain, or that Chew-Z is becoming increasingly popular amongst Terrans and Martian colonists.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins in a future world where global warming has resulted in global temperatures so high that in most of the world it is unsafe to be outside without special cooling gear during daylight hours. In a desperate bid to preserve humanity and ease population burdens on Earth, the UN has initiated a \"draft\" for colonizing the nearby planets, where conditions are so horrific and primitive that the unwilling colonists have fallen prey to a form of escapism involving the use of an illegal drug (CAN-D) in concert with \"layouts\". Layouts are physical props intended to simulate a sort of alternate reality where life is easier than either the grim existence of the colonist in their marginal off-world colonies, or even Earth, where global warming has progressed to the point that Antarctica is prime vacation resort territory. The illegal drug CAN-D allows people to \"share\" their experience of the \"Perky Pat\" (the name of the main female character in the simulated world) layouts. This \"sharing\" has caused a pseudo-religious cult or series of cults to grow up around the layouts and the use of the drug. Up to the point where the novel begins, New York City-based Perky Pat (or P.P.) Layouts, Inc., has held a monopoly on this product, as well as on the illegal trade in the drug CAN-D which makes the shared hallucinations possible. The novel opens shortly after Barney Mayerson, P.P. Layouts' top precognitive (someone who can glimpse future possibilities and sort out the most likely to actually occur), has received a \"draft notice\" from the UN for involuntary resettlement as a colonist on Mars. Mayerson is sleeping with his assistant, Roni Fugate, but remains conflicted about the divorce, which he himself initiated, from his first wife Emily, a ceramic pot artist. Meanwhile, Emily's second husband tries to sell her pot designs to P.P. Layouts as possible accessories for the Perky Pat"
      },
      {
        "text": " (someone who can glimpse future possibilities and sort out the most likely to actually occur), has received a \"draft notice\" from the UN for involuntary resettlement as a colonist on Mars. Mayerson is sleeping with his assistant, Roni Fugate, but remains conflicted about the divorce, which he himself initiated, from his first wife Emily, a ceramic pot artist. Meanwhile, Emily's second husband tries to sell her pot designs to P.P. Layouts as possible accessories for the Perky Pat virtual worlds -- but Barney, recognizing them as Emily's, rejects them out of spite. Meanwhile, the UN rescues Palmer Eldritch's ship from a crash on Pluto. Leo Bulero, head of P.P. Layouts and an \"evolved\" human (meaning someone who has undergone expensive genetic treatments by a German \"doctor\" which are supposed to push the client \"forward\" on an evolutionary scale, and which result in gross physical, as well as mental, modifications), hears rumors that Eldritch discovered an alien hallucinogen in the Prox system with similar properties to CAN-D, and that he plans to market it as \"Chew-Z,\" with U.N. approval, on off-world colonies. However CHEW-Z does not require the prop of the external layouts and seems to have certain undefined qualities that make the use of CHEW-Z even more addictive than CAN-D has been. This would effectively destroy P.P. Layouts. Bulero tries to contact Eldritch but he is quarantined at a U.N. hospital. Both Mayerson and Fugate have precognitions of reports that Bulero is going to be responsible for murdering Eldritch. Meanwhile, Emily and her second husband sell her pottery designs to Eldritch and use the payment to undergo evolution therapy. Unfortunately, Emily begins to devolve rather than evolving. This devolution results in a loss of creativity and she finds herself recreating older, less sophisticated"
      },
      {
        "text": " Bulero tries to contact Eldritch but he is quarantined at a U.N. hospital. Both Mayerson and Fugate have precognitions of reports that Bulero is going to be responsible for murdering Eldritch. Meanwhile, Emily and her second husband sell her pottery designs to Eldritch and use the payment to undergo evolution therapy. Unfortunately, Emily begins to devolve rather than evolving. This devolution results in a loss of creativity and she finds herself recreating older, less sophisticated designs from earlier work, without realizing it. Under the guise of a reporter, Bulero travels to Eldritch's estate on the Moon, where Eldritch holds a press conference. Bulero is kidnapped and forced to take Chew-Z intravenously. He enters a psychic netherworld over which both he and Eldritch seemingly have some control. After wrangling about business with Eldritch, Bulero travels to what appears to be Earth at some time in the not-too-distant future. Evolved humans identify him as a ghost and show him a monument to himself commemorating his role in the death of Eldritch, an \"enemy of the Sol System.\" Bulero returns to Earth and fires Mayerson because Mayerson was afraid to travel to the Moon to rescue him. Mayerson, in despair, accepts his UN conscription to Mars but Bulero recruits him as a double agent. Mayerson is to inject himself with a virus after taking Chew-Z in a plot to deceive the UN into thinking Chew-Z is harmful and cause them to ban it. On Mars, Mayerson buys some Chew-Z from Eldritch, who appears in holographic form. Mayerson tries to hallucinate a world where he is still with Emily but finds that he does not control his \"hallucination.\" Like Bulero, he finds himself in the future. Mayerson arrives in New York two years hence where he speaks with Bulero, Fugate and his future self"
      },
      {
        "text": " deceive the UN into thinking Chew-Z is harmful and cause them to ban it. On Mars, Mayerson buys some Chew-Z from Eldritch, who appears in holographic form. Mayerson tries to hallucinate a world where he is still with Emily but finds that he does not control his \"hallucination.\" Like Bulero, he finds himself in the future. Mayerson arrives in New York two years hence where he speaks with Bulero, Fugate and his future self about the death of Palmer Eldritch. He also encounters several manifestations of Eldritch, identifiable by their robotic right hand, artificial eyes, and steel teeth. Eldritch offers to help Mayerson \u201cbecome\u201d whatever he wants, but in fact is so manipulative and controlling of the CHEW-Z alternate reality that Mayerson ultimately decides he'd rather be dead than continue to be manipulated by Eldritch. When a despairing Mayerson chooses death, he finds himself apparently forced into Eldritch's body right at the point in the timeline where Bulero is ready to shoot a torpedo at Eldritch's ship. It appears that Eldritch's plan is to preserve his own life essence housed in Mayerson's body while allowing Mayerson himself to die in Eldritch's place. Eldritch, meanwhile, intends to live on in Mayerson's form and enjoy the simple if arduous life of a Martian colonist. Mayerson, stuck in Eldritch's body and mistaken for him, is indeed nearly killed by Bulero in the near future, but before the fatal shot can be fired he is awakened from his Chew-Z trance in the present by Bulero, who has just arrived on Mars. Bulero is willing to take Mayerson back to Earth but refuses to after learning that Mayerson did not inject himself with the virus. Mayerson is now confident that Bulero will kill Eldritch, so the sacrifice of taking the virus in order to ruin Eldritch's business is unnecessary"
      },
      {
        "text": " indeed nearly killed by Bulero in the near future, but before the fatal shot can be fired he is awakened from his Chew-Z trance in the present by Bulero, who has just arrived on Mars. Bulero is willing to take Mayerson back to Earth but refuses to after learning that Mayerson did not inject himself with the virus. Mayerson is now confident that Bulero will kill Eldritch, so the sacrifice of taking the virus in order to ruin Eldritch's business is unnecessary; but he does not try to convince Bulero of this. Later, Mayerson discusses his experience with a neo-christian colonist and they conclude that either Eldritch became a god in the Prox system or some god-like being has taken his place. Mayerson is convinced some aspect of Eldritch is still inside him, and that as long as he refuses to take Chew-Z again, it is Eldritch who will actually be killed by Bulero in the near future; Mayerson is half-resigned, half-hopeful about taking on the life of a Martian colonist without reprieve. Mayerson considers the possibility of Eldritch being what humans have always thought of as a god, but inimical, or perhaps merely an inferior aspect of a bigger and better sort of god. The novel has an ambiguous ending, with Bulero heading back toward Earth, and apparent proliferation of Eldritch's cyborg bodily 'stigmata' -which may mean that Bulero is still trapped in Eldritch's hallucinatory domain, or that Chew-Z is becoming increasingly popular amongst Terrans and Martian colonists.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Bulero is still trapped in Eldritch's hallucinatory domain, or that Chew-Z is becoming increasingly popular amongst Terrans and Martian colonists.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Time out of Joint",
    "author": "Philip K. Dick",
    "published_date": "1959",
    "synopsis": " As the novel opens, its protagonist Ragle Gumm believes that he lives in the year 1959 in a quiet American suburb. His unusual profession consists of repeatedly winning the cash prize in a local newspaper competition called, \"Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?\". Gumm's 1959 has some differences from ours: the Tucker car is in production, AM/FM radios are scarce to non-existent and Marilyn Monroe is a complete unknown. As the novel opens, strange things begin to happen to Gumm. A soft-drink stand disappears, replaced by a small slip of paper with the words \"SOFT-DRINK STAND\" printed on it in block letters. Intriguing little pieces of the real 1959 turn up: a magazine article on Marilyn Monroe, a telephone book with non-operational exchanges listed and radios hidden away in someone else's house. People with no apparent connection to Gumm, including military pilots using aircraft transceivers, refer to him by name. Few other characters notice these or experience similar anomalies; the sole exception is Gumm's supposed brother-in-law, Victor \"Vic\" Nielson, in whom he confides. A neighborhood woman, Mrs. Keitelbein, invites him to a Civil Defense class where he sees a model of a futuristic underground military factory. He has the unshakeable feeling he's been inside that building many times before. Confusion gradually mounts for Gumm. His neighbor Bill Black knows far more about these events than he admits, and, observing this, begins worrying: \"Suppose Ragle [Gumm] is becoming sane again?\" In fact, Gumm does become sane, and the deception surrounding him (erected to protect and exploit him) begins to unravel. Gumm tries to escape the town and is turned back by kafkaesque obstructions. He sees a magazine with himself on the cover, in a military uniform, at the factory depicted in the model. He tries a second time to escape, this time with Vic, and succeeds. He learns that his idyllic town is a constructed reality designed to protect him from the frightening fact that he lives on a then-future Earth (circa 1998) that is at war with its colonists on the Moon who are fighting for a permanent Lunar habitation that is politically independent of Earth as well. Gumm has a unique ability to predict where the colonists' nuclear strikes will be aimed. Previously Gumm did this work for the military, but then he defected to the colonists' side and planned to secretly emigrate to the Moon. But before this could happen he began retreating into a fantasy world based largely upon the relatively idyllic surroundings of his extreme youth. He was no longer able to shoulder the awesome responsibility of being the Earth's lone protector from Lunar-launched H-Bomb attacks. The fake town was thereby created in Gumm's mental image to accommodate his dementia so that he would continue predicting missile strikes in the guise of submitting entries to a harmless newspaper contest and without the ethical qualms involved with being on the \"wrong\" side of a civil war. When Gumm finally remembers his true history he decides to emigrate to the Moon after all because he feels that exploration and migration, being as they are basic human impulses, should never be denied a people by any national or planetary government. Vic rejects this belief, referring to the colonists essentially as aggressors and terrorists, and returns to the town. The book ends with some hope for peace, because the colonists are more willing to negotiate than the Earth government has been telling its citizens.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As the novel opens, its protagonist Ragle Gumm believes that he lives in the year 1959 in a quiet American suburb. His unusual profession consists of repeatedly winning the cash prize in a local newspaper competition called, \"Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?\". Gumm's 1959 has some differences from ours: the Tucker car is in production, AM/FM radios are scarce to non-existent and Marilyn Monroe is a complete unknown. As the novel opens, strange things begin to happen to Gumm. A soft-drink stand disappears, replaced by a small slip of paper with the words \"SOFT-DRINK STAND\" printed on it in block letters. Intriguing little pieces of the real 1959 turn up: a magazine article on Marilyn Monroe, a telephone book with non-operational exchanges listed and radios hidden away in someone else's house. People with no apparent connection to Gumm, including military pilots using aircraft transceivers, refer to him by name. Few other characters notice these or experience similar anomalies; the sole exception is Gumm's supposed brother-in-law, Victor \"Vic\" Nielson, in whom he confides. A neighborhood woman, Mrs. Keitelbein, invites him to a Civil Defense class where he sees a model of a futuristic underground military factory. He has the unshakeable feeling he's been inside that building many times before. Confusion gradually mounts for Gumm. His neighbor Bill Black knows far more about these events than he admits, and, observing this, begins worrying: \"Suppose Ragle [Gumm] is becoming sane again?\" In fact, Gumm does become sane, and the deception surrounding him (erected to protect and exploit him) begins to unravel. Gumm tries to escape the town and is turned back by kafkaesque obstructions. He sees a magazine with himself on the cover, in a military uniform, at the factory depicted in the model. He tries a"
      },
      {
        "text": " events than he admits, and, observing this, begins worrying: \"Suppose Ragle [Gumm] is becoming sane again?\" In fact, Gumm does become sane, and the deception surrounding him (erected to protect and exploit him) begins to unravel. Gumm tries to escape the town and is turned back by kafkaesque obstructions. He sees a magazine with himself on the cover, in a military uniform, at the factory depicted in the model. He tries a second time to escape, this time with Vic, and succeeds. He learns that his idyllic town is a constructed reality designed to protect him from the frightening fact that he lives on a then-future Earth (circa 1998) that is at war with its colonists on the Moon who are fighting for a permanent Lunar habitation that is politically independent of Earth as well. Gumm has a unique ability to predict where the colonists' nuclear strikes will be aimed. Previously Gumm did this work for the military, but then he defected to the colonists' side and planned to secretly emigrate to the Moon. But before this could happen he began retreating into a fantasy world based largely upon the relatively idyllic surroundings of his extreme youth. He was no longer able to shoulder the awesome responsibility of being the Earth's lone protector from Lunar-launched H-Bomb attacks. The fake town was thereby created in Gumm's mental image to accommodate his dementia so that he would continue predicting missile strikes in the guise of submitting entries to a harmless newspaper contest and without the ethical qualms involved with being on the \"wrong\" side of a civil war. When Gumm finally remembers his true history he decides to emigrate to the Moon after all because he feels that exploration and migration, being as they are basic human impulses, should never be denied a people by any national or planetary government. Vic rejects this belief, referring to the colonists essentially as aggressors and terrorists, and returns to the town."
      },
      {
        "text": " in the guise of submitting entries to a harmless newspaper contest and without the ethical qualms involved with being on the \"wrong\" side of a civil war. When Gumm finally remembers his true history he decides to emigrate to the Moon after all because he feels that exploration and migration, being as they are basic human impulses, should never be denied a people by any national or planetary government. Vic rejects this belief, referring to the colonists essentially as aggressors and terrorists, and returns to the town. The book ends with some hope for peace, because the colonists are more willing to negotiate than the Earth government has been telling its citizens.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Scanner Darkly",
    "author": "Philip K. Dick",
    "published_date": "1977",
    "synopsis": " The protagonist is Bob Arctor, member of a household of drug-users, who is also living a parallel life as Agent Fred, an undercover police agent assigned to spy on Arctor's household. Arctor/Fred shields his true identity from those in the drug subculture, and from the police themselves. (The requirement that narcotics agents remain anonymous, to avoid collusion and other forms of corruption, becomes a critical plot point late in the book.) While supposedly only posing as a drug user, Arctor becomes addicted to \"Substance D\" (also referred to as \"Slow Death,\" \"Death,\" or \"D\"), a powerful psychoactive drug. An ongoing conflict is Arctor's love for Donna, a drug dealer through whom he intends to identify high-level dealers of Substance D. Arctor's persistent use of the drug causes the two hemispheres of his brain to function independently, or \"compete.\" Through a series of drug and psychological tests, Arctor's superiors at work discover that his addiction has made him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. Donna takes Arctor to \"New-Path,\" a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Without his knowledge, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the secretive organization. As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed \"Bruce\" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games intended to break the will of the patients. The story ends with Bruce working at a New-Path farming commune, where he is suffering from a serious neurocognitive deficit after withdrawing from Substance D. Although considered by his handlers to be nothing more than a walking shell of a man, \"Bruce\" manages to spot rows of blue flowers growing hidden among rows of corn, and realizes the blue flowers are Mors ontologica, the source of Substance D. The book ends with Bruce hiding a flower in his shoe to give to his \"friends\" \u2013 undercover police agents posing as recovering addicts at the Los Angeles New-Path facility \u2013 on Thanksgiving.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The protagonist is Bob Arctor, member of a household of drug-users, who is also living a parallel life as Agent Fred, an undercover police agent assigned to spy on Arctor's household. Arctor/Fred shields his true identity from those in the drug subculture, and from the police themselves. (The requirement that narcotics agents remain anonymous, to avoid collusion and other forms of corruption, becomes a critical plot point late in the book.) While supposedly only posing as a drug user, Arctor becomes addicted to \"Substance D\" (also referred to as \"Slow Death,\" \"Death,\" or \"D\"), a powerful psychoactive drug. An ongoing conflict is Arctor's love for Donna, a drug dealer through whom he intends to identify high-level dealers of Substance D. Arctor's persistent use of the drug causes the two hemispheres of his brain to function independently, or \"compete.\" Through a series of drug and psychological tests, Arctor's superiors at work discover that his addiction has made him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. Donna takes Arctor to \"New-Path,\" a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Without his knowledge, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the secretive organization. As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed \"Bruce\" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games intended to break the will of the patients. The story ends with Bruce working at a New-Path farming commune, where he is suffering from a serious neurocognitive deficit after withdrawing from Substance D. Although considered by his handlers to be nothing more than a walking shell of a man, \"Bruce\" manages to spot rows of blue flowers growing hidden among rows of corn, and realizes the blue flowers are Mors"
      },
      {
        "text": "ctor is renamed \"Bruce\" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games intended to break the will of the patients. The story ends with Bruce working at a New-Path farming commune, where he is suffering from a serious neurocognitive deficit after withdrawing from Substance D. Although considered by his handlers to be nothing more than a walking shell of a man, \"Bruce\" manages to spot rows of blue flowers growing hidden among rows of corn, and realizes the blue flowers are Mors ontologica, the source of Substance D. The book ends with Bruce hiding a flower in his shoe to give to his \"friends\" \u2013 undercover police agents posing as recovering addicts at the Los Angeles New-Path facility \u2013 on Thanksgiving.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Radio Free Albemuth",
    "author": "Philip K. Dick",
    "published_date": "1985",
    "synopsis": " In this alternate history the corrupt US President Ferris F. Fremont (FFF for 666, \u2018F\u2019 being the 6th letter in the alphabet, see Number of the Beast) becomes Chief Executive in the late Nineteen-Sixties following Lyndon Johnson's administration. The character is best described as an amalgam of Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon, who abrogates civil liberties and human rights through positing a conspiracy theory centered around a (presumably) fictitious subversive organization known as \"Aramchek\". In addition to this, he is associated with a right-wing populist movement called \"Friends of the American People\" (FAPers). Ironically enough, the President's paranoia and opportunism lead to the establishment of a real resistance movement that is organized through narrow-beam radio transmissions from a mysterious alien near-Earth satellite, by a superintelligent, extraterrestrial, but less than omnipotent being (or network) named VALIS. As with its successor, VALIS, this novel is autobiographical. Dick himself is a major character, though fictitious protagonist Nicholas Brady serves as a vehicle for Dick's alleged gnostic theophany on February 11, 1974. In addition, Sadassa Silvia is a character who claims that Ferris Fremont is actually a communist covert agent recruited by Sadassa's mother when Fremont was still a teenager. As with VALIS, Radio Free Albemuth deals with author Philip Dick's highly personal style of Christianity (or Gnosticism). It further examines the moral and ethical repercussions of informing on trusting friends for the authorities. Also prominent is Dick's dislike of the Republican Party, satirizing Nixon's America as a Stalinist or neo-fascist police state. Fremont eventually captures and imprisons Dick and Brady after the latter attempts to produce and distribute a record that contains subliminal messages of revolt against the current dictatorship. Brady and Silvia are executed, and Dick narrates the concluding passage about his life in a concentration camp, where his supposedly latest work is actually penned by a ghost writer and regime-approved hack. Suddenly, however, he hears music blaring from a transistor radio which contains the same subliminal message. He and his friends, it turns out, were just a decoy set up by VALIS to detour the government from stopping a much more popular A-List band from releasing a similar record with a better-established recording company. As Dick realizes this and hears youngsters repeating the lyrics he realizes that salvation may lie within the hearts and minds of the next generation.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In this alternate history the corrupt US President Ferris F. Fremont (FFF for 666, \u2018F\u2019 being the 6th letter in the alphabet, see Number of the Beast) becomes Chief Executive in the late Nineteen-Sixties following Lyndon Johnson's administration. The character is best described as an amalgam of Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon, who abrogates civil liberties and human rights through positing a conspiracy theory centered around a (presumably) fictitious subversive organization known as \"Aramchek\". In addition to this, he is associated with a right-wing populist movement called \"Friends of the American People\" (FAPers). Ironically enough, the President's paranoia and opportunism lead to the establishment of a real resistance movement that is organized through narrow-beam radio transmissions from a mysterious alien near-Earth satellite, by a superintelligent, extraterrestrial, but less than omnipotent being (or network) named VALIS. As with its successor, VALIS, this novel is autobiographical. Dick himself is a major character, though fictitious protagonist Nicholas Brady serves as a vehicle for Dick's alleged gnostic theophany on February 11, 1974. In addition, Sadassa Silvia is a character who claims that Ferris Fremont is actually a communist covert agent recruited by Sadassa's mother when Fremont was still a teenager. As with VALIS, Radio Free Albemuth deals with author Philip Dick's highly personal style of Christianity (or Gnosticism). It further examines the moral and ethical repercussions of informing on trusting friends for the authorities. Also prominent is Dick's dislike of the Republican Party, satirizing Nixon's America as a Stalinist or neo-fascist police state. Fremont eventually captures and imprisons Dick and Brady after the latter attempts to produce and distribute a record that contains subliminal messages of revolt against the current dictatorship. Brady and Silvia are executed, and Dick narrates the concluding passage about his life"
      },
      {
        "text": "or Gnosticism). It further examines the moral and ethical repercussions of informing on trusting friends for the authorities. Also prominent is Dick's dislike of the Republican Party, satirizing Nixon's America as a Stalinist or neo-fascist police state. Fremont eventually captures and imprisons Dick and Brady after the latter attempts to produce and distribute a record that contains subliminal messages of revolt against the current dictatorship. Brady and Silvia are executed, and Dick narrates the concluding passage about his life in a concentration camp, where his supposedly latest work is actually penned by a ghost writer and regime-approved hack. Suddenly, however, he hears music blaring from a transistor radio which contains the same subliminal message. He and his friends, it turns out, were just a decoy set up by VALIS to detour the government from stopping a much more popular A-List band from releasing a similar record with a better-established recording company. As Dick realizes this and hears youngsters repeating the lyrics he realizes that salvation may lie within the hearts and minds of the next generation.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Pride and Prejudice",
    "author": "Jane Austen",
    "published_date": "1813-01-28",
    "synopsis": " The narrative opens with Mr Bingley, a wealthy, charming and social young bachelor, moving into Netherfield Park in the neighbourhood of the Bennet family. Mr Bingley is soon well received, while his friend Mr Darcy makes a less favorable first impression by appearing proud and condescending at a ball that they attend (this is partly explained in that he detests dancing and is not much for light conversation). Mr Bingley singles out Elizabeth's elder sister, Jane, for particular attention, and it soon becomes apparent that they have formed an attachment to each other. By contrast, Darcy slights Elizabeth, who overhears and jokes about it despite feeling a budding resentment. On paying a visit to Mr Bingley's sister, Jane is caught in a heavy downpour, catches cold, and is forced to stay at Netherfield for several days. Elizabeth arrives to nurse her sister and is thrown into frequent company with Mr Darcy, who begins to perceive his attachment to her, but is too proud to proceed on this feeling. Mr Collins, a clergyman, pays a visit to the Bennets. Mr Bennet and Elizabeth are much amused by his obsequious veneration of his employer, the noble Lady Catherine de Bourgh, as well as by his self-important and pedantic nature. It soon becomes apparent that Mr Collins has come to Longbourn to choose a wife from among the Bennet sisters (his cousins) and Elizabeth has been singled out. At the same time, Elizabeth forms an acquaintance with Mr Wickham, a militia officer who claims to have been very seriously mistreated by Mr Darcy, despite having been a ward of Mr Darcy's father. This tale, and Elizabeth's attraction to Mr Wickham, adds fuel to her dislike of Mr Darcy. At a ball given by Mr Bingley at Netherfield, Mr Darcy becomes aware of a general expectation that Mr Bingley and Jane will marry, and the Bennet family, with the exception of Jane and Elizabeth, make a public display of poor manners and decorum. The following morning, Mr Collins proposes marriage to Elizabeth, who refuses him, much to her mother's distress. Mr Collins recovers and promptly becomes engaged to Elizabeth's close friend Charlotte, a homely woman with few prospects. Mr Bingley abruptly quits Netherfield and returns to London, and Elizabeth is convinced that Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley's sister have conspired to separate him from Jane. In the spring, Elizabeth visits Charlotte and Mr Collins in Kent. Elizabeth and her hosts are frequently invited to Rosings Park, home of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Darcy's aunt; coincidentally, Darcy also arrives to visit. Darcy again finds himself attracted to Elizabeth and impetuously proposes to her. Elizabeth, however, has just learned of Darcy's role in separating Mr Bingley from Jane from his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam. She angrily rebukes him, and a heated discussion follows; she charges him with destroying her sister's happiness, with treating Mr Wickham disgracefully, and with having conducted himself towards her in an ungentleman-like manner. Mr Darcy, shocked, ultimately responds with a letter giving a good account of (most of) his actions: Wickham had exchanged his legacies for a cash payment, only to return after gambling away the money to reclaim the forfeited inheritance; he then attempted to elope with Darcy's young sister, thereby to capture her fortune. Regarding Mr Bingley and Jane, Darcy claimed he had observed no reciprocal interest in Jane for Bingley. Elizabeth later came to acknowledge the truth of Darcy's assertions. Some months later, Elizabeth and her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner visit Pemberley, Darcy's estate, believing he will be absent for the day. He returns unexpectedly, and though surprised, he is gracious and welcoming. He treats the Gardiners with great civility; he introduces Elizabeth to his sister, and Elizabeth begins to realise her attraction to him. Their reacquaintance is cut short, however, by news that Lydia, Elizabeth's sister, has run away to elope with Mr Wickham. Elizabeth and the Gardiners return to Longbourn, where Elizabeth grieves that her renewed acquaintance with Mr Darcy will end because of her sister's disgrace. Lydia and Wickham are soon found, then married by the clergy; they visit Longbourn, where Lydia lets slip that Mr Darcy was responsible for finding the couple and negotiating their marriage\u2014at great expense to himself. Elizabeth is shocked but does not dwell further on the topic due to Mr Bingley's return and subsequent proposal to Jane, who immediately accepts. Lady Catherine de Bourgh later bursts in on Longbourn; intending to thwart local rumour, she warns Elizabeth against marrying Mr Darcy. Elizabeth refuses her demands. Disgusted, Lady Catherine leaves and drops by to inform her nephew on Elizabeth's abominable behaviour. However, this lends hope to Darcy that Elizabeth's opinion of him may have changed. He travels to Longbourn and proposes again; and now Elizabeth accepts.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The narrative opens with Mr Bingley, a wealthy, charming and social young bachelor, moving into Netherfield Park in the neighbourhood of the Bennet family. Mr Bingley is soon well received, while his friend Mr Darcy makes a less favorable first impression by appearing proud and condescending at a ball that they attend (this is partly explained in that he detests dancing and is not much for light conversation). Mr Bingley singles out Elizabeth's elder sister, Jane, for particular attention, and it soon becomes apparent that they have formed an attachment to each other. By contrast, Darcy slights Elizabeth, who overhears and jokes about it despite feeling a budding resentment. On paying a visit to Mr Bingley's sister, Jane is caught in a heavy downpour, catches cold, and is forced to stay at Netherfield for several days. Elizabeth arrives to nurse her sister and is thrown into frequent company with Mr Darcy, who begins to perceive his attachment to her, but is too proud to proceed on this feeling. Mr Collins, a clergyman, pays a visit to the Bennets. Mr Bennet and Elizabeth are much amused by his obsequious veneration of his employer, the noble Lady Catherine de Bourgh, as well as by his self-important and pedantic nature. It soon becomes apparent that Mr Collins has come to Longbourn to choose a wife from among the Bennet sisters (his cousins) and Elizabeth has been singled out. At the same time, Elizabeth forms an acquaintance with Mr Wickham, a militia officer who claims to have been very seriously mistreated by Mr Darcy, despite having been a ward of Mr Darcy's father. This tale, and Elizabeth's attraction to Mr Wickham, adds fuel to her dislike of Mr Darcy. At a ball given by Mr Bingley at Netherfield, Mr Darcy becomes aware of a general expectation that Mr Bingley and Jane will marry, and the Bennet family, with the exception of"
      },
      {
        "text": " Elizabeth forms an acquaintance with Mr Wickham, a militia officer who claims to have been very seriously mistreated by Mr Darcy, despite having been a ward of Mr Darcy's father. This tale, and Elizabeth's attraction to Mr Wickham, adds fuel to her dislike of Mr Darcy. At a ball given by Mr Bingley at Netherfield, Mr Darcy becomes aware of a general expectation that Mr Bingley and Jane will marry, and the Bennet family, with the exception of Jane and Elizabeth, make a public display of poor manners and decorum. The following morning, Mr Collins proposes marriage to Elizabeth, who refuses him, much to her mother's distress. Mr Collins recovers and promptly becomes engaged to Elizabeth's close friend Charlotte, a homely woman with few prospects. Mr Bingley abruptly quits Netherfield and returns to London, and Elizabeth is convinced that Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley's sister have conspired to separate him from Jane. In the spring, Elizabeth visits Charlotte and Mr Collins in Kent. Elizabeth and her hosts are frequently invited to Rosings Park, home of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Darcy's aunt; coincidentally, Darcy also arrives to visit. Darcy again finds himself attracted to Elizabeth and impetuously proposes to her. Elizabeth, however, has just learned of Darcy's role in separating Mr Bingley from Jane from his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam. She angrily rebukes him, and a heated discussion follows; she charges him with destroying her sister's happiness, with treating Mr Wickham disgracefully, and with having conducted himself towards her in an ungentleman-like manner. Mr Darcy, shocked, ultimately responds with a letter giving a good account of (most of) his actions: Wickham had exchanged his legacies for a cash payment, only to return after gambling away the money to reclaim the forfeited inheritance; he then attempted to elope with Darcy's young sister, thereby to capture her"
      },
      {
        "text": " him with destroying her sister's happiness, with treating Mr Wickham disgracefully, and with having conducted himself towards her in an ungentleman-like manner. Mr Darcy, shocked, ultimately responds with a letter giving a good account of (most of) his actions: Wickham had exchanged his legacies for a cash payment, only to return after gambling away the money to reclaim the forfeited inheritance; he then attempted to elope with Darcy's young sister, thereby to capture her fortune. Regarding Mr Bingley and Jane, Darcy claimed he had observed no reciprocal interest in Jane for Bingley. Elizabeth later came to acknowledge the truth of Darcy's assertions. Some months later, Elizabeth and her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner visit Pemberley, Darcy's estate, believing he will be absent for the day. He returns unexpectedly, and though surprised, he is gracious and welcoming. He treats the Gardiners with great civility; he introduces Elizabeth to his sister, and Elizabeth begins to realise her attraction to him. Their reacquaintance is cut short, however, by news that Lydia, Elizabeth's sister, has run away to elope with Mr Wickham. Elizabeth and the Gardiners return to Longbourn, where Elizabeth grieves that her renewed acquaintance with Mr Darcy will end because of her sister's disgrace. Lydia and Wickham are soon found, then married by the clergy; they visit Longbourn, where Lydia lets slip that Mr Darcy was responsible for finding the couple and negotiating their marriage\u2014at great expense to himself. Elizabeth is shocked but does not dwell further on the topic due to Mr Bingley's return and subsequent proposal to Jane, who immediately accepts. Lady Catherine de Bourgh later bursts in on Longbourn; intending to thwart local rumour, she warns Elizabeth against marrying Mr Darcy. Elizabeth refuses her demands. Disgusted, Lady Catherine leaves and drops by to inform her nephew on Elizabeth's abominable"
      },
      {
        "text": "cy was responsible for finding the couple and negotiating their marriage\u2014at great expense to himself. Elizabeth is shocked but does not dwell further on the topic due to Mr Bingley's return and subsequent proposal to Jane, who immediately accepts. Lady Catherine de Bourgh later bursts in on Longbourn; intending to thwart local rumour, she warns Elizabeth against marrying Mr Darcy. Elizabeth refuses her demands. Disgusted, Lady Catherine leaves and drops by to inform her nephew on Elizabeth's abominable behaviour. However, this lends hope to Darcy that Elizabeth's opinion of him may have changed. He travels to Longbourn and proposes again; and now Elizabeth accepts.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Pale Fire",
    "author": "Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Shade's poem digressively describes many aspects of his life. Canto 1 includes his early encounters with death and glimpses of what he takes to be the supernatural. Canto 2 is about his family and the apparent suicide of his daughter, Hazel Shade. Canto 3 focuses on Shade's search for knowledge about an afterlife, culminating in a \"faint hope\" in higher powers \"playing a game of worlds\" as indicated by apparent coincidences. Canto 4 offers details on Shade's daily life and creative process, as well as thoughts on his poetry, which he finds to be a means of somehow understanding the universe. In Kinbote's editorial contributions he tells three stories intermixed with each other. One is his own story, notably including what he thinks of as his friendship with Shade. After Shade was murdered, Kinbote acquired the manuscript, including some variants, and has taken it upon himself to oversee the poem's publication, telling readers that it lacks only line 1000. Kinbote's second story deals with King Charles II, \"The Beloved,\" the deposed king of Zembla. King Charles escaped imprisonment by Soviet-backed revolutionaries, making use of a secret passage and brave adherents in disguise. Kinbote repeatedly claims that he inspired Shade to write the poem by recounting King Charles's escape to him and that possible allusions to the king, and to Zembla, appear in Shade's poem, especially in rejected drafts. However, no explicit reference to King Charles is to be found in the poem. Kinbote's third story is that of Gradus, an assassin dispatched by the new rulers of Zembla to kill the exiled King Charles. Gradus makes his way from Zembla through Europe and America to New Wye, suffering comic mishaps. In the last note, to the missing line 1000, Kinbote narrates how Gradus killed Shade by mistake. The reader soon realizes that Kinbote is King Charles, living incognito\u2014or, though Kinbote builds an elaborate picture of Zembla complete with samples of a constructed language, that he is insane and that his identification with King Charles is a delusion, as perhaps all of Zembla is. Nabokov said in an interview that Kinbote committed suicide after finishing the book. The critic Michael Wood has stated, \"This is authorial trespassing, and we don't have to pay attention to it,\" but Brian Boyd has argued that internal evidence points to Kinbote's suicide. One of Kinbote's annotations to Shade's poem (corresponding to line 493) addresses the subject of suicide at some length.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Shade's poem digressively describes many aspects of his life. Canto 1 includes his early encounters with death and glimpses of what he takes to be the supernatural. Canto 2 is about his family and the apparent suicide of his daughter, Hazel Shade. Canto 3 focuses on Shade's search for knowledge about an afterlife, culminating in a \"faint hope\" in higher powers \"playing a game of worlds\" as indicated by apparent coincidences. Canto 4 offers details on Shade's daily life and creative process, as well as thoughts on his poetry, which he finds to be a means of somehow understanding the universe. In Kinbote's editorial contributions he tells three stories intermixed with each other. One is his own story, notably including what he thinks of as his friendship with Shade. After Shade was murdered, Kinbote acquired the manuscript, including some variants, and has taken it upon himself to oversee the poem's publication, telling readers that it lacks only line 1000. Kinbote's second story deals with King Charles II, \"The Beloved,\" the deposed king of Zembla. King Charles escaped imprisonment by Soviet-backed revolutionaries, making use of a secret passage and brave adherents in disguise. Kinbote repeatedly claims that he inspired Shade to write the poem by recounting King Charles's escape to him and that possible allusions to the king, and to Zembla, appear in Shade's poem, especially in rejected drafts. However, no explicit reference to King Charles is to be found in the poem. Kinbote's third story is that of Gradus, an assassin dispatched by the new rulers of Zembla to kill the exiled King Charles. Gradus makes his way from Zembla through Europe and America to New Wye, suffering comic mishaps. In the last note, to the missing line 1000, Kinbote narrates how Gradus killed Shade by mistake. The reader soon realizes that Kinb"
      },
      {
        "text": " no explicit reference to King Charles is to be found in the poem. Kinbote's third story is that of Gradus, an assassin dispatched by the new rulers of Zembla to kill the exiled King Charles. Gradus makes his way from Zembla through Europe and America to New Wye, suffering comic mishaps. In the last note, to the missing line 1000, Kinbote narrates how Gradus killed Shade by mistake. The reader soon realizes that Kinbote is King Charles, living incognito\u2014or, though Kinbote builds an elaborate picture of Zembla complete with samples of a constructed language, that he is insane and that his identification with King Charles is a delusion, as perhaps all of Zembla is. Nabokov said in an interview that Kinbote committed suicide after finishing the book. The critic Michael Wood has stated, \"This is authorial trespassing, and we don't have to pay attention to it,\" but Brian Boyd has argued that internal evidence points to Kinbote's suicide. One of Kinbote's annotations to Shade's poem (corresponding to line 493) addresses the subject of suicide at some length.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Pacific Overtures",
    "author": "Stephen Sondheim",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " ;Act I Conceived as a sort of Japanese playwright's version of an American musical about American influences on Japan, Pacific Overtures begins its journey to the present day in July 1853. Since the foreigners were driven from the island empire, explains the Reciter, there has been nothing to threaten the changeless cycle of their days. Elsewhere, wars are fought and machines are rumbling but in Nippon they plant rice, exchange bows and enjoy peace and serenity. But President Millard Fillmore, determined to open up trade with Japan, has sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry across the Pacific, and, to the consternation of Lord Abe and the Shogun's other Councillors, the stirrings of trouble begin with the appearance of Manjiro, a fisherman who was lost at sea and rescued by Americans. He returns to Japan and attempts to warn Abe of the presence of warships in the waters around Okinawa, but is instead arrested for consorting with foreigners. A minor samurai, Kayama is appointed Prefect of the Police at Uraga to drive the Americans away - news which leaves Tamate, his wife, grief-stricken since it will result in certain failure and shame. As he leaves, she expresses her feelings in dance as two Observers describe the scene and reveal her thoughts in \"There Is No Other Way\". As a Fisherman, a Thief and other locals relate the sight of the \"Four Black Dragons\" roaring through the sea, an extravagant Oriental caricature of the USS Powhatan pulls into harbor. Kayama is sent to meet with the Americans but he is rejected as not important enough. He enlists the aid of Manjiro, the only man in Japan who has dealt with Americans, and disguised as a great lord, Manjiro gets an answer from them: Commodore Perry announces that he must meet the Shogun within six days or else he will shell the city. Faced with this ultimatum the Shogun takes to his bed. Exasperated by his indecision, his Mother with elaborate courtesy, poisons him with \"Chrysanthemum Tea.\" With the Shogun dead, Kayama devises a plan by which the Americans, thanks to a covering of tatami mats and a raised Treaty House, can be received without having, technically, to set foot on Japanese soil. He and Manjiro set off for Uraga, forging a band of friendship through the exchange of \"Poems\". Kayama has saved Japan, but it is too late to save Tamate. He returns home to find her dead from seppuku. Already events are moving beyond the control of the old order: the two men pass a Madam instructing her inexperienced Girls in the art of seduction as they prepare to \"Welcome to Kanagawa\" the foreign devils. Commodore Perry and his men come ashore and, on their \"March to the Treaty House\", demonstrate their goodwill by offering such gifts as two bags of Irish potatoes and a copy of Owen's \"Geology of Minnesota\". The negotiations themselves are seen through the memory of three who were there: a warrior who could hear the debates but not see it from his hiding place in the floor of the house, a young boy who could see the action but not hear it from his perch in the tree outside, and the boy as an old man recalling that without \"Someone In a Tree\", a silent watcher, history may have been incomplete. Initially, it seems as if Kayama has won: the Americans depart in peace. But then the barbarian figure of Commodore Perry leaps out to perform a traditional Kabuki \"Lion Dance\", which ends as a strutting, triumphalist, all-American cakewalk. ;Act II The child emperor (portrayed by a puppet manipulated by his advisors) reacts with pleasure to the departure of the Americans, promoting Lord Abe to Shogun, Kayama to Governor of Uraga and Manjiro to the rank of Samurai. The crisis appears to have passed, but to the surprise of Lord Abe the Americans return to request formal trading arrangements. To the tune of a Sousa march, they bid Japan \"Please Hello\" and are followed by a Gilbertian British Admiral, a clog-dancing Dutch Admiral, a gloomy Russian and a dandified Frenchman all vying for access to Japan's markets. With this new western threat, the faction of the Lords of the South grow restless. They send a politically charged gift to the Emperor, a storyteller who tells a vivid, allegorical tale of a brave young emperor who frees himself from his cowardly Shogun. The years pass as Kayama and Manjiro dress themselves for tea. As Manjiro continues to dress with painstaking slowness into ceremonial robes for the tea ritual, Kayama slowly adopts the manners and dress of the newcomers, proudly displaying his new pocket watch, cutaway coat and \"A Bowler Hat\". But there are other less pleasant changes prompted by westernization. Three British Sailors mistake a \"Pretty Lady\" for a geisha. Though their approach is gentle, the girl cries for help and her father kills the confused Tars. Reporting on the situation to the Shogun, Kayama witnesses Lord Abe's murder by cloaked assassins and himself is killed by one of their number - his former friend, Manjiro. In the ensuing turmoil the puppet Emperor seizes real power and vows that Japan will modernize itself. As the country moves from one innovation to the \"Next!\", the Imperial robes are removed layer by layer to show the Reciter in T-shirt and black trousers. Contemporary Japan - the world of Toyota and Seiko, air pollution and contaminated beaches -assembles itself around him. \"There was a time when foreigners were not welcome here. But that was long ago,\" he says. \"Welcome to Japan.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " ;Act I Conceived as a sort of Japanese playwright's version of an American musical about American influences on Japan, Pacific Overtures begins its journey to the present day in July 1853. Since the foreigners were driven from the island empire, explains the Reciter, there has been nothing to threaten the changeless cycle of their days. Elsewhere, wars are fought and machines are rumbling but in Nippon they plant rice, exchange bows and enjoy peace and serenity. But President Millard Fillmore, determined to open up trade with Japan, has sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry across the Pacific, and, to the consternation of Lord Abe and the Shogun's other Councillors, the stirrings of trouble begin with the appearance of Manjiro, a fisherman who was lost at sea and rescued by Americans. He returns to Japan and attempts to warn Abe of the presence of warships in the waters around Okinawa, but is instead arrested for consorting with foreigners. A minor samurai, Kayama is appointed Prefect of the Police at Uraga to drive the Americans away - news which leaves Tamate, his wife, grief-stricken since it will result in certain failure and shame. As he leaves, she expresses her feelings in dance as two Observers describe the scene and reveal her thoughts in \"There Is No Other Way\". As a Fisherman, a Thief and other locals relate the sight of the \"Four Black Dragons\" roaring through the sea, an extravagant Oriental caricature of the USS Powhatan pulls into harbor. Kayama is sent to meet with the Americans but he is rejected as not important enough. He enlists the aid of Manjiro, the only man in Japan who has dealt with Americans, and disguised as a great lord, Manjiro gets an answer from them: Commodore Perry announces that he must meet the Shogun within six days or else he will shell the city. Faced with this ultimatum the Shogun takes to his"
      },
      {
        "text": " extravagant Oriental caricature of the USS Powhatan pulls into harbor. Kayama is sent to meet with the Americans but he is rejected as not important enough. He enlists the aid of Manjiro, the only man in Japan who has dealt with Americans, and disguised as a great lord, Manjiro gets an answer from them: Commodore Perry announces that he must meet the Shogun within six days or else he will shell the city. Faced with this ultimatum the Shogun takes to his bed. Exasperated by his indecision, his Mother with elaborate courtesy, poisons him with \"Chrysanthemum Tea.\" With the Shogun dead, Kayama devises a plan by which the Americans, thanks to a covering of tatami mats and a raised Treaty House, can be received without having, technically, to set foot on Japanese soil. He and Manjiro set off for Uraga, forging a band of friendship through the exchange of \"Poems\". Kayama has saved Japan, but it is too late to save Tamate. He returns home to find her dead from seppuku. Already events are moving beyond the control of the old order: the two men pass a Madam instructing her inexperienced Girls in the art of seduction as they prepare to \"Welcome to Kanagawa\" the foreign devils. Commodore Perry and his men come ashore and, on their \"March to the Treaty House\", demonstrate their goodwill by offering such gifts as two bags of Irish potatoes and a copy of Owen's \"Geology of Minnesota\". The negotiations themselves are seen through the memory of three who were there: a warrior who could hear the debates but not see it from his hiding place in the floor of the house, a young boy who could see the action but not hear it from his perch in the tree outside, and the boy as an old man recalling that without \"Someone In a Tree\", a silent watcher, history may have been incomplete. Initially, it"
      },
      {
        "text": " potatoes and a copy of Owen's \"Geology of Minnesota\". The negotiations themselves are seen through the memory of three who were there: a warrior who could hear the debates but not see it from his hiding place in the floor of the house, a young boy who could see the action but not hear it from his perch in the tree outside, and the boy as an old man recalling that without \"Someone In a Tree\", a silent watcher, history may have been incomplete. Initially, it seems as if Kayama has won: the Americans depart in peace. But then the barbarian figure of Commodore Perry leaps out to perform a traditional Kabuki \"Lion Dance\", which ends as a strutting, triumphalist, all-American cakewalk. ;Act II The child emperor (portrayed by a puppet manipulated by his advisors) reacts with pleasure to the departure of the Americans, promoting Lord Abe to Shogun, Kayama to Governor of Uraga and Manjiro to the rank of Samurai. The crisis appears to have passed, but to the surprise of Lord Abe the Americans return to request formal trading arrangements. To the tune of a Sousa march, they bid Japan \"Please Hello\" and are followed by a Gilbertian British Admiral, a clog-dancing Dutch Admiral, a gloomy Russian and a dandified Frenchman all vying for access to Japan's markets. With this new western threat, the faction of the Lords of the South grow restless. They send a politically charged gift to the Emperor, a storyteller who tells a vivid, allegorical tale of a brave young emperor who frees himself from his cowardly Shogun. The years pass as Kayama and Manjiro dress themselves for tea. As Manjiro continues to dress with painstaking slowness into ceremonial robes for the tea ritual, Kayama slowly adopts the manners and dress of the newcomers, proudly displaying his new pocket watch, cutaway coat and \"A Bowler Hat\". But there"
      },
      {
        "text": " politically charged gift to the Emperor, a storyteller who tells a vivid, allegorical tale of a brave young emperor who frees himself from his cowardly Shogun. The years pass as Kayama and Manjiro dress themselves for tea. As Manjiro continues to dress with painstaking slowness into ceremonial robes for the tea ritual, Kayama slowly adopts the manners and dress of the newcomers, proudly displaying his new pocket watch, cutaway coat and \"A Bowler Hat\". But there are other less pleasant changes prompted by westernization. Three British Sailors mistake a \"Pretty Lady\" for a geisha. Though their approach is gentle, the girl cries for help and her father kills the confused Tars. Reporting on the situation to the Shogun, Kayama witnesses Lord Abe's murder by cloaked assassins and himself is killed by one of their number - his former friend, Manjiro. In the ensuing turmoil the puppet Emperor seizes real power and vows that Japan will modernize itself. As the country moves from one innovation to the \"Next!\", the Imperial robes are removed layer by layer to show the Reciter in T-shirt and black trousers. Contemporary Japan - the world of Toyota and Seiko, air pollution and contaminated beaches -assembles itself around him. \"There was a time when foreigners were not welcome here. But that was long ago,\" he says. \"Welcome to Japan.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Romeo and Juliet",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play, set in Verona, begins with a street brawl between Montague and Capulet supporters who are sworn enemies. The Prince of Verona intervenes and declares that further breach of the peace will be punishable by death. Later, Count Paris talks to Capulet about marrying his daughter, but Capulet asks Paris to wait another two years (then he later orders Juliet to marry Paris) and invites him to attend a planned Capulet ball. Lady Capulet and Juliet's nurse try to persuade Juliet to accept Paris's courtship. Meanwhile, Benvolio talks with his cousin Romeo, Montague's son, about Romeo's recent depression. Benvolio discovers that it stems from unrequited infatuation for a girl named Rosaline, one of Capulet's nieces. Persuaded by Benvolio and Mercutio, Romeo attends the ball at the Capulet house in hopes of meeting Rosaline. However, Romeo instead meets and falls in love with Juliet. After the ball, in what is now called the \"balcony scene\", Romeo sneaks into the Capulet orchard and overhears Juliet at her window vowing her love to him in spite of her family's hatred of the Montagues. Romeo makes himself known to her and they agree to be married. With the help of Friar Laurence, who hopes to reconcile the two families through their children's union, they are secretly married the next day. Juliet's cousin Tybalt, incensed that Romeo had sneaked into the Capulet ball, challenges him to a duel. Romeo, now considering Tybalt his kinsman, refuses to fight. Mercutio is offended by Tybalt's insolence, as well as Romeo's \"vile submission,\" and accepts the duel on Romeo's behalf. Mercutio is fatally wounded when Romeo attempts to break up the fight. Grief-stricken and wracked with guilt, Romeo confronts and slays Tybalt. Montague argues that Romeo has justly executed Tybalt for the murder of Mercutio. The Prince, now having lost a kinsman in the warring families' feud, exiles Romeo from Verona, with threat of execution upon return. Romeo secretly spends the night in Juliet's chamber, where they consummate their marriage. Capulet, misinterpreting Juliet's grief, agrees to marry her to Count Paris and threatens to disown her when she refuses to become Paris's \"joyful bride.\" When she then pleads for the marriage to be delayed, her mother rejects her. Juliet visits Friar Laurence for help, and he offers her a drug that will put her into a deathlike coma for \"two and forty hours.\" The Friar promises to send a messenger to inform Romeo of the plan, so that he can rejoin her when she awakens. On the night before the wedding, she takes the drug and, when discovered apparently dead, she is laid in the family crypt. The messenger, however, does not reach Romeo and, instead, Romeo learns of Juliet's apparent death from his servant Balthasar. Heartbroken, Romeo buys poison from an apothecary and goes to the Capulet crypt. He encounters Paris who has come to mourn Juliet privately. Believing Romeo to be a vandal, Paris confronts him and, in the ensuing battle, Romeo kills Paris. Still believing Juliet to be dead, he drinks the poison. Juliet then awakens and, finding Romeo dead, stabs herself with his dagger. The feuding families and the Prince meet at the tomb to find all three dead. Friar Laurence recounts the story of the two \"star-cross'd lovers\". The families are reconciled by their children's deaths and agree to end their violent feud. The play ends with the Prince's elegy for the lovers: \"For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play, set in Verona, begins with a street brawl between Montague and Capulet supporters who are sworn enemies. The Prince of Verona intervenes and declares that further breach of the peace will be punishable by death. Later, Count Paris talks to Capulet about marrying his daughter, but Capulet asks Paris to wait another two years (then he later orders Juliet to marry Paris) and invites him to attend a planned Capulet ball. Lady Capulet and Juliet's nurse try to persuade Juliet to accept Paris's courtship. Meanwhile, Benvolio talks with his cousin Romeo, Montague's son, about Romeo's recent depression. Benvolio discovers that it stems from unrequited infatuation for a girl named Rosaline, one of Capulet's nieces. Persuaded by Benvolio and Mercutio, Romeo attends the ball at the Capulet house in hopes of meeting Rosaline. However, Romeo instead meets and falls in love with Juliet. After the ball, in what is now called the \"balcony scene\", Romeo sneaks into the Capulet orchard and overhears Juliet at her window vowing her love to him in spite of her family's hatred of the Montagues. Romeo makes himself known to her and they agree to be married. With the help of Friar Laurence, who hopes to reconcile the two families through their children's union, they are secretly married the next day. Juliet's cousin Tybalt, incensed that Romeo had sneaked into the Capulet ball, challenges him to a duel. Romeo, now considering Tybalt his kinsman, refuses to fight. Mercutio is offended by Tybalt's insolence, as well as Romeo's \"vile submission,\" and accepts the duel on Romeo's behalf. Mercutio is fatally wounded when Romeo attempts to break up the fight. Grief-stricken and wracked with guilt, Romeo confronts and slays Tybalt"
      },
      {
        "text": " incensed that Romeo had sneaked into the Capulet ball, challenges him to a duel. Romeo, now considering Tybalt his kinsman, refuses to fight. Mercutio is offended by Tybalt's insolence, as well as Romeo's \"vile submission,\" and accepts the duel on Romeo's behalf. Mercutio is fatally wounded when Romeo attempts to break up the fight. Grief-stricken and wracked with guilt, Romeo confronts and slays Tybalt. Montague argues that Romeo has justly executed Tybalt for the murder of Mercutio. The Prince, now having lost a kinsman in the warring families' feud, exiles Romeo from Verona, with threat of execution upon return. Romeo secretly spends the night in Juliet's chamber, where they consummate their marriage. Capulet, misinterpreting Juliet's grief, agrees to marry her to Count Paris and threatens to disown her when she refuses to become Paris's \"joyful bride.\" When she then pleads for the marriage to be delayed, her mother rejects her. Juliet visits Friar Laurence for help, and he offers her a drug that will put her into a deathlike coma for \"two and forty hours.\" The Friar promises to send a messenger to inform Romeo of the plan, so that he can rejoin her when she awakens. On the night before the wedding, she takes the drug and, when discovered apparently dead, she is laid in the family crypt. The messenger, however, does not reach Romeo and, instead, Romeo learns of Juliet's apparent death from his servant Balthasar. Heartbroken, Romeo buys poison from an apothecary and goes to the Capulet crypt. He encounters Paris who has come to mourn Juliet privately. Believing Romeo to be a vandal, Paris confronts him and, in the ensuing battle, Romeo kills Paris. Still believing Juliet to be dead, he drinks the poison. Juliet then"
      },
      {
        "text": " laid in the family crypt. The messenger, however, does not reach Romeo and, instead, Romeo learns of Juliet's apparent death from his servant Balthasar. Heartbroken, Romeo buys poison from an apothecary and goes to the Capulet crypt. He encounters Paris who has come to mourn Juliet privately. Believing Romeo to be a vandal, Paris confronts him and, in the ensuing battle, Romeo kills Paris. Still believing Juliet to be dead, he drinks the poison. Juliet then awakens and, finding Romeo dead, stabs herself with his dagger. The feuding families and the Prince meet at the tomb to find all three dead. Friar Laurence recounts the story of the two \"star-cross'd lovers\". The families are reconciled by their children's deaths and agree to end their violent feud. The play ends with the Prince's elegy for the lovers: \"For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead",
    "author": "Tom Stoppard",
    "published_date": "1967",
    "synopsis": " The play opens with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern betting on coin flips. Rosencrantz, who bets heads each time, wins ninety-two flips in a row. The extreme unlikeliness of this event according to the laws of probability leads Guildenstern to suggest that they may be \"within un-, sub- or supernatural forces\". The reader learns why they are where they are: the King has sent for them. Guildenstern theorizes on the nature of reality, focusing on how an event becomes increasingly real as more people witness it. A troupe of Tragedians arrives and offers the two men a show. They seem capable only of performances involving bloodbaths. The next two scenes are from the plot of Hamlet. The first, involving Hamlet and Ophelia, takes place off-stage in the Shakespeare. The second is taken directly from Hamlet, and is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's first appearance in that play. Here the Danish king and queen, Claudius and Gertrude, ask the two to discover the nature of Hamlet's recent madness. The royal couple demonstrate an inability to distinguish the two courtiers from one another, as indeed do the characters themselves to their irritation. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern attempt to practice for their meeting with the Prince by one pretending to be Hamlet and the other asking him questions, but they glean no new information from it. The act closes with another scene from Hamlet in which they finally meet the Prince face to face. The act opens with the end of the conversation between Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet. Guildenstern tries to look on the bright side, while Rosencrantz makes it clear that the pair had made no progress, that Hamlet had entirely outwitted them. The Player returns to the stage. He is angry that the pair had not earlier stayed to watch their play because, without an audience, his Tragedians are nothing. He tells them to stop questioning their existence because, upon examination, life appears too chaotic to comprehend. The Player, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern lose themselves in yet another illogical conversation that demonstrates the limits of language. The Player leaves in order to prepare for his production of the \"Murder of Gonzago\", set to be put on in front of Hamlet and the King and Queen. The royal couple enters and begins another short scene taken directly from Hamlet: they ask about the duo's encounter with the Prince, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern inform them about his interest in the Tragedians' production. After the king and queen leave, the partners contemplate their job. They see Hamlet walk by but fail to seize the opportunity to interview him. The Tragedians return and perform their dress rehearsal of The Murder of Gonzago. The play moves beyond the scope of what the reader sees in Hamlet; characters resembling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are seen taking a sea voyage and meeting their deaths at the hands of English courtiers, foreshadowing their true fate. Rosencrantz does not quite make the connection, but Guildenstern is frightened into a verbal attack on the Tragedians' inability to capture the real essence of death. The stage becomes dark. When the stage is once again visible, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern lie in the same position as had the actors portraying their deaths. The partners are upset that they have become the pawns of the royal couple. Claudius enters again and tells them to find where Hamlet has hidden Polonius' corpse. After many false starts they eventually find Hamlet, who leaves with the King. Rosencrantz is delighted to find that his mission is complete, but Guildenstern knows it is not over. Hamlet enters, speaking with a Norwegian soldier. Rosencrantz decides that he is happy to accompany Hamlet to England because it means freedom from the orders of the Danish court. Guildenstern understands that wherever they go, they are still trapped in this world. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find themselves on a ship that has already set sail. The audience is led to believe that the pair has no knowledge of how they got there. At first, they try to determine whether they are still alive. Eventually, they recognize that they are not dead and are on board a boat. They remember that Claudius had given them a letter to deliver to England. After some brief confusion over who actually has the letter, they find it and end up opening it. They realize that Claudius has asked for Hamlet to be killed. While Rosencrantz seems hesitant to follow their orders now, Guildenstern convinces him that they are not worthy of interfering with fate and with the plans of kings. The stage becomes black and, presumably, the characters go to sleep. Hamlet switches the letter with one he has written himself, an act which takes place off stage in Hamlet. The pair discovers that the Tragedians are hidden ('impossibly', according to the stage directions) in several barrels on deck. They are fleeing Denmark, because their play has offended Claudius. When Rosencrantz complains that there is not enough action, pirates attack. Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern and the Player all hide in separate barrels. The lights dim. When the lights come on again, Hamlet has vanished (in Hamlet it's reported that he was kidnapped by pirates from the ship). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern panic, and re-read the letter to find that it now calls for them to be put to death instead of the prince. Guildenstern cannot understand why he and Rosencrantz are so important as to necessitate their executions. The Player tells Guildenstern that all paths end in death. Guildenstern snaps and draws the Player's dagger from his belt, shouting at him that his portrayals of death do not do justice to the real thing. He stabs the Player and the Player appears to die. Guildenstern honestly believes he has killed the Player. Seconds later, the Tragedians begin to clap and the Player stands up and brushes himself off, revealing the knife to be a theatrical one with a retractable blade. The Tragedians then act out the deaths from the final scene of Hamlet. The lighting shifts so that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the only ones visible. Rosencrantz still does not understand why they must die. Still, he resigns himself to his fate and his character disappears. Guildenstern wonders when he passed the point where he could have stopped the series of events that has brought him to this point. He disappears as well. The final scene features the last few lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet. The Ambassador from England announces that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play opens with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern betting on coin flips. Rosencrantz, who bets heads each time, wins ninety-two flips in a row. The extreme unlikeliness of this event according to the laws of probability leads Guildenstern to suggest that they may be \"within un-, sub- or supernatural forces\". The reader learns why they are where they are: the King has sent for them. Guildenstern theorizes on the nature of reality, focusing on how an event becomes increasingly real as more people witness it. A troupe of Tragedians arrives and offers the two men a show. They seem capable only of performances involving bloodbaths. The next two scenes are from the plot of Hamlet. The first, involving Hamlet and Ophelia, takes place off-stage in the Shakespeare. The second is taken directly from Hamlet, and is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's first appearance in that play. Here the Danish king and queen, Claudius and Gertrude, ask the two to discover the nature of Hamlet's recent madness. The royal couple demonstrate an inability to distinguish the two courtiers from one another, as indeed do the characters themselves to their irritation. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern attempt to practice for their meeting with the Prince by one pretending to be Hamlet and the other asking him questions, but they glean no new information from it. The act closes with another scene from Hamlet in which they finally meet the Prince face to face. The act opens with the end of the conversation between Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet. Guildenstern tries to look on the bright side, while Rosencrantz makes it clear that the pair had made no progress, that Hamlet had entirely outwitted them. The Player returns to the stage. He is angry that the pair had not earlier stayed to watch their play"
      },
      {
        "text": " with another scene from Hamlet in which they finally meet the Prince face to face. The act opens with the end of the conversation between Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet. Guildenstern tries to look on the bright side, while Rosencrantz makes it clear that the pair had made no progress, that Hamlet had entirely outwitted them. The Player returns to the stage. He is angry that the pair had not earlier stayed to watch their play because, without an audience, his Tragedians are nothing. He tells them to stop questioning their existence because, upon examination, life appears too chaotic to comprehend. The Player, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern lose themselves in yet another illogical conversation that demonstrates the limits of language. The Player leaves in order to prepare for his production of the \"Murder of Gonzago\", set to be put on in front of Hamlet and the King and Queen. The royal couple enters and begins another short scene taken directly from Hamlet: they ask about the duo's encounter with the Prince, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern inform them about his interest in the Tragedians' production. After the king and queen leave, the partners contemplate their job. They see Hamlet walk by but fail to seize the opportunity to interview him. The Tragedians return and perform their dress rehearsal of The Murder of Gonzago. The play moves beyond the scope of what the reader sees in Hamlet; characters resembling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are seen taking a sea voyage and meeting their deaths at the hands of English courtiers, foreshadowing their true fate. Rosencrantz does not quite make the connection, but Guildenstern is frightened into a verbal attack on the Tragedians' inability to capture the real essence of death. The stage becomes dark. When the stage is once again visible, Rosencrantz and Guildenst"
      },
      {
        "text": " reader sees in Hamlet; characters resembling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are seen taking a sea voyage and meeting their deaths at the hands of English courtiers, foreshadowing their true fate. Rosencrantz does not quite make the connection, but Guildenstern is frightened into a verbal attack on the Tragedians' inability to capture the real essence of death. The stage becomes dark. When the stage is once again visible, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern lie in the same position as had the actors portraying their deaths. The partners are upset that they have become the pawns of the royal couple. Claudius enters again and tells them to find where Hamlet has hidden Polonius' corpse. After many false starts they eventually find Hamlet, who leaves with the King. Rosencrantz is delighted to find that his mission is complete, but Guildenstern knows it is not over. Hamlet enters, speaking with a Norwegian soldier. Rosencrantz decides that he is happy to accompany Hamlet to England because it means freedom from the orders of the Danish court. Guildenstern understands that wherever they go, they are still trapped in this world. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find themselves on a ship that has already set sail. The audience is led to believe that the pair has no knowledge of how they got there. At first, they try to determine whether they are still alive. Eventually, they recognize that they are not dead and are on board a boat. They remember that Claudius had given them a letter to deliver to England. After some brief confusion over who actually has the letter, they find it and end up opening it. They realize that Claudius has asked for Hamlet to be killed. While Rosencrantz seems hesitant to follow their orders now, Guildenstern convinces him that they are not worthy of interfering with fate and with the plans of kings. The stage"
      },
      {
        "text": " recognize that they are not dead and are on board a boat. They remember that Claudius had given them a letter to deliver to England. After some brief confusion over who actually has the letter, they find it and end up opening it. They realize that Claudius has asked for Hamlet to be killed. While Rosencrantz seems hesitant to follow their orders now, Guildenstern convinces him that they are not worthy of interfering with fate and with the plans of kings. The stage becomes black and, presumably, the characters go to sleep. Hamlet switches the letter with one he has written himself, an act which takes place off stage in Hamlet. The pair discovers that the Tragedians are hidden ('impossibly', according to the stage directions) in several barrels on deck. They are fleeing Denmark, because their play has offended Claudius. When Rosencrantz complains that there is not enough action, pirates attack. Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern and the Player all hide in separate barrels. The lights dim. When the lights come on again, Hamlet has vanished (in Hamlet it's reported that he was kidnapped by pirates from the ship). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern panic, and re-read the letter to find that it now calls for them to be put to death instead of the prince. Guildenstern cannot understand why he and Rosencrantz are so important as to necessitate their executions. The Player tells Guildenstern that all paths end in death. Guildenstern snaps and draws the Player's dagger from his belt, shouting at him that his portrayals of death do not do justice to the real thing. He stabs the Player and the Player appears to die. Guildenstern honestly believes he has killed the Player. Seconds later, the Tragedians begin to clap and the Player stands up and brushes himself off, revealing the knife to be a"
      },
      {
        "text": " executions. The Player tells Guildenstern that all paths end in death. Guildenstern snaps and draws the Player's dagger from his belt, shouting at him that his portrayals of death do not do justice to the real thing. He stabs the Player and the Player appears to die. Guildenstern honestly believes he has killed the Player. Seconds later, the Tragedians begin to clap and the Player stands up and brushes himself off, revealing the knife to be a theatrical one with a retractable blade. The Tragedians then act out the deaths from the final scene of Hamlet. The lighting shifts so that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the only ones visible. Rosencrantz still does not understand why they must die. Still, he resigns himself to his fate and his character disappears. Guildenstern wonders when he passed the point where he could have stopped the series of events that has brought him to this point. He disappears as well. The final scene features the last few lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet. The Ambassador from England announces that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ringworld",
    "author": "Larry Niven",
    "published_date": "1970",
    "synopsis": " The novel opens in 2850. Louis Gridley Wu is celebrating his 200th birthday. Despite his age, Louis is in perfect physical condition but is bored. He has experienced life thoroughly, and is thinking of taking a trip to and beyond the reaches of Known Space, all alone in a spaceship for a year or more. He is confronted by Nessus, a Pierson's Puppeteer, and offered one of three open positions on an exploration voyage beyond Known Space. Speaker-to-Animals (Speaker), who is a Kzin, and Teela Brown, a young human woman, also join the voyage. They first travel to the Puppeteer home world, where they learn that the expedition's goal is to explore a ringworld: an artificial ring about one million miles wide and approximately the diameter of Earth's orbit (which makes it about 600 million miles in circumference), encircling a Sol-type star. It rotates, providing artificial gravity that is 99.2% as strong as Earth's gravity through the action of centrifugal force. The ringworld has a habitable flat inner surface equivalent in area to approximately three million Earth-sized planets. Night is provided by an inner ring of shadow squares which are connected to each other by thin, ultra-strong wire (shadow square wire). None of the crew's attempts at contacting the Ringworld succeed, and their ship is disabled by its automated meteor defense system. The severely damaged vessel collides with a strand of shadow-square wire and crash-lands on the Ringworld near a huge mountain. The ship's defences keep the crew compartment and many of the ship's systems intact, including the faster-than-light drive (hyperdrive), but the normal drive is destroyed, leaving them unable to launch back into space to use the hyperdrive. The team now has to set out to find a way to get back into space, as well as fulfilling their original mission \u2013 learning more about the Ringworld. Using their flycycles, they try to reach the rim of the ring, where they hope to find some technology that will help them. It will take them months to cross the vast distance. When Teela develops \"Plateau trance\", they find themselves forced to land. On the ground, they encounter apparently human Ringworld natives. The natives, who are living primitively in the crumbling ruins of a once advanced city, think that the crew are the Engineers of the Ring, whom they revere as gods. The crew is attacked when they commit a \"blasphemy\". They continue their journey during which Nessus is forced to reveal some Puppeteer secrets: they have performed indirect \"breeding experiments\" on both humans (breeding for luck) and kzin (breeding for less aggressiveness). The resulting hostility forces Nessus to abandon the other three and follow them at a safe distance. They encounter a city and, in a floating building, they find a map of the Ringworld and videos of its past civilization. In a giant storm, caused by air escaping through a hole in the Ring floor due to meteor impact, Teela is blown away in an unknown direction. While searching for her in a ruined city Louis' and Speaker's flycycles are caught by an automatic police station designed to catch traffic offenders. They are trapped in a prison in the basement of the police station. Nessus arrives, entering the station to help his team. In the station they meet Halrloprillalar Hotrufan (\"Prill\"), a former crew member of a spaceship used for trade between the Ringworld and other inhabited worlds. Her spaceship was stranded on the Ringworld when the landing mechanism failed. She relates what she learned of the downfall of the Ringworld's civilization: A mold that breaks down superconductors was introduced by a visiting spaceship. Without its superconductive technology, civilization fell. Teela reaches the police station, accompanied by her new lover, a native \"hero\" called Seeker who helped her survive. Based on his studies of an ancient Ringworld map, Louis devises a plan to escape. The four explorers, with Seeker and Prill, use the floating police station as a vehicle to travel back to the explorers' crashed ship. Along the way, Teela and Seeker choose to remain behind, to inhabit a flying castle and remain on Ringworld. The remaining explorers and Prill collect one end of the shadow square wire that was dislodged when the ship crashed, dragging the wire behind them as they travel. Reaching the wreck, Louis threads the shadow wire through the crashed ship and uses it to tether the ship to the police station, and then continues to pull the wire onward, up to the summit of \"Fist-of-God\", the enormous mountain near their crash site. The massive mountain does not appear on a map of the original Ringworld, leading Louis to conclude that it is in fact the result of a meteor impact with the underside of the ring, which pushed the \"mountain\" up from the ring floor and broke through. The top of the mountain, above the edge of the Ring's atmosphere, is therefore a passage to the underside of the Ringworld and freedom. Louis drives the police station over the edge of the crater. Because the Ringworld spins fast enough to provide gravity, once the police station and ship are on the underside, centrifugal force pushes them outward from the ring into open space. The crew can then use the ship's faster-than-light drive to get home. The book concludes with Louis and Speaker discussing returning to the Ringworld.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel opens in 2850. Louis Gridley Wu is celebrating his 200th birthday. Despite his age, Louis is in perfect physical condition but is bored. He has experienced life thoroughly, and is thinking of taking a trip to and beyond the reaches of Known Space, all alone in a spaceship for a year or more. He is confronted by Nessus, a Pierson's Puppeteer, and offered one of three open positions on an exploration voyage beyond Known Space. Speaker-to-Animals (Speaker), who is a Kzin, and Teela Brown, a young human woman, also join the voyage. They first travel to the Puppeteer home world, where they learn that the expedition's goal is to explore a ringworld: an artificial ring about one million miles wide and approximately the diameter of Earth's orbit (which makes it about 600 million miles in circumference), encircling a Sol-type star. It rotates, providing artificial gravity that is 99.2% as strong as Earth's gravity through the action of centrifugal force. The ringworld has a habitable flat inner surface equivalent in area to approximately three million Earth-sized planets. Night is provided by an inner ring of shadow squares which are connected to each other by thin, ultra-strong wire (shadow square wire). None of the crew's attempts at contacting the Ringworld succeed, and their ship is disabled by its automated meteor defense system. The severely damaged vessel collides with a strand of shadow-square wire and crash-lands on the Ringworld near a huge mountain. The ship's defences keep the crew compartment and many of the ship's systems intact, including the faster-than-light drive (hyperdrive), but the normal drive is destroyed, leaving them unable to launch back into space to use the hyperdrive. The team now has to set out to find a way to get back into space, as well as fulfilling their original mission \u2013 learning more about the Ringworld. Using their"
      },
      {
        "text": "-square wire and crash-lands on the Ringworld near a huge mountain. The ship's defences keep the crew compartment and many of the ship's systems intact, including the faster-than-light drive (hyperdrive), but the normal drive is destroyed, leaving them unable to launch back into space to use the hyperdrive. The team now has to set out to find a way to get back into space, as well as fulfilling their original mission \u2013 learning more about the Ringworld. Using their flycycles, they try to reach the rim of the ring, where they hope to find some technology that will help them. It will take them months to cross the vast distance. When Teela develops \"Plateau trance\", they find themselves forced to land. On the ground, they encounter apparently human Ringworld natives. The natives, who are living primitively in the crumbling ruins of a once advanced city, think that the crew are the Engineers of the Ring, whom they revere as gods. The crew is attacked when they commit a \"blasphemy\". They continue their journey during which Nessus is forced to reveal some Puppeteer secrets: they have performed indirect \"breeding experiments\" on both humans (breeding for luck) and kzin (breeding for less aggressiveness). The resulting hostility forces Nessus to abandon the other three and follow them at a safe distance. They encounter a city and, in a floating building, they find a map of the Ringworld and videos of its past civilization. In a giant storm, caused by air escaping through a hole in the Ring floor due to meteor impact, Teela is blown away in an unknown direction. While searching for her in a ruined city Louis' and Speaker's flycycles are caught by an automatic police station designed to catch traffic offenders. They are trapped in a prison in the basement of the police station. Nessus arrives, entering the station to help his team. In the station they meet Halrloprillalar Hot"
      },
      {
        "text": " past civilization. In a giant storm, caused by air escaping through a hole in the Ring floor due to meteor impact, Teela is blown away in an unknown direction. While searching for her in a ruined city Louis' and Speaker's flycycles are caught by an automatic police station designed to catch traffic offenders. They are trapped in a prison in the basement of the police station. Nessus arrives, entering the station to help his team. In the station they meet Halrloprillalar Hotrufan (\"Prill\"), a former crew member of a spaceship used for trade between the Ringworld and other inhabited worlds. Her spaceship was stranded on the Ringworld when the landing mechanism failed. She relates what she learned of the downfall of the Ringworld's civilization: A mold that breaks down superconductors was introduced by a visiting spaceship. Without its superconductive technology, civilization fell. Teela reaches the police station, accompanied by her new lover, a native \"hero\" called Seeker who helped her survive. Based on his studies of an ancient Ringworld map, Louis devises a plan to escape. The four explorers, with Seeker and Prill, use the floating police station as a vehicle to travel back to the explorers' crashed ship. Along the way, Teela and Seeker choose to remain behind, to inhabit a flying castle and remain on Ringworld. The remaining explorers and Prill collect one end of the shadow square wire that was dislodged when the ship crashed, dragging the wire behind them as they travel. Reaching the wreck, Louis threads the shadow wire through the crashed ship and uses it to tether the ship to the police station, and then continues to pull the wire onward, up to the summit of \"Fist-of-God\", the enormous mountain near their crash site. The massive mountain does not appear on a map of the original Ringworld, leading Louis to conclude that it is in fact the result of a meteor impact with the underside"
      },
      {
        "text": " crashed, dragging the wire behind them as they travel. Reaching the wreck, Louis threads the shadow wire through the crashed ship and uses it to tether the ship to the police station, and then continues to pull the wire onward, up to the summit of \"Fist-of-God\", the enormous mountain near their crash site. The massive mountain does not appear on a map of the original Ringworld, leading Louis to conclude that it is in fact the result of a meteor impact with the underside of the ring, which pushed the \"mountain\" up from the ring floor and broke through. The top of the mountain, above the edge of the Ring's atmosphere, is therefore a passage to the underside of the Ringworld and freedom. Louis drives the police station over the edge of the crater. Because the Ringworld spins fast enough to provide gravity, once the police station and ship are on the underside, centrifugal force pushes them outward from the ring into open space. The crew can then use the ship's faster-than-light drive to get home. The book concludes with Louis and Speaker discussing returning to the Ringworld.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Rent",
    "author": "Jonathan Larson",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " On Christmas Eve at 9 P.M. Mark Cohen, an aspiring filmmaker, begins a new documentary, as his roommate, Roger Davis, tunes up his guitar (\"Tune Up #1\") but they are quickly interrupted by a call from Mark's mother, who claims she was sorry to hear about his break-up with Maureen Johnson (\"Voicemail #1\"). Roger and Mark's friend Tom Collins, a gay anarchist and college professor, arrives at their building but is mugged. Meanwhile, Roger and Mark receive a call from their former friend and roommate Benjamin \"Benny\" Coffin III. Benny bought Mark and Roger's apartment building, as well as the lot next door. He tells them last year's rent is due (\"Tune Up #2\"). Mark and Roger refuse to pay their rent (\"Rent\"). Meanwhile, a drag queen named Angel Dumott Schunard finds Collins on the street and gets him on his feet (\"You Okay Honey?\"). Mark tries to get Roger out of the apartment. Mark reveals that Roger has been living in withdrawal for the past year due to his girlfriend April's suicide. Mark leaves to find Collins after reminding Roger to take his AZT (\"Tune Up #3\"). Roger attempts to write a great song to make his mark on the world before he dies of AIDS (\"One Song Glory\"). Their downstairs neighbor named Mimi Marqu\u00e9z walks in, asking Roger to light a candle for her, only to continually blow it out (\"Light My Candle\"). Joanne Jefferson, a lawyer and Maureen's new girlfriend, receives a phone call from her parents, wondering why she is stage managing for Maureen's protest (\"Voicemail #2\"). Angel, now in drag, and Collins arrive at the apartment bearing gifts. Collins introduces Angel to his friends (\"Today 4 U\"). Benny arrives with an offer: if they convince Maureen to cancel her protest, he'll let them live in his new studio project, rent-free (\"You'll See\"). However, the two rebuff his offer. After Benny leaves, Angel and Collins invite Mark and Roger to attend a local HIV support group meeting. Mark hurries off to help fix Maureen's sound equipment for the protest, only to run into Maureen's new girlfriend Joanne (\"Tango: Maureen\"). He then enters into the support group meeting (\"Life Support\"). Meanwhile, Mimi attempts to seduce Roger (\"Out Tonight\") but Roger harshly rebuffs her (\"Another Day\"). After Mimi leaves, Roger admits to an empty apartment his fears about dying from AIDS (\"Will I?\"). Collins, Mark and Angel help a homeless woman who is being harassed by police officers. She then mocks Mark for trying to assuage his guilt (\"On the Street\"). Collins talks about his dream of escaping New York and opening up a restaurant in Santa Fe (\"Santa Fe\"). Soon after, Collins and Angel confess their love for each other and begin a relationship (\"I'll Cover You\"). Joanne exasperatedly prepares for Maureen's show (\"We're Okay\"). Roger intercepts Mimi and apologizes for his behavior. He invites her to come to the protest and dinner with them, to which she agrees. Meanwhile, people from the streets protest (\"Christmas Bells\"). Maureen arrives and begins her performance (\"Over The Moon\"). At the Life Caf\u00e9 after the show, Benny criticizes the protest and the group's Bohemian lifestyle. Mark and all the bohemians in the caf\u00e9 rise up and celebrate the Bohemian lifestyle (\"La Vie Boheme A\"). Mimi confronts Roger about ignoring her during dinner. Then, as Mimi's beeper goes off (reminding her to take her AZT) she and Roger each discover that the other is HIV-positive (\"I Should Tell You\"). Joanne returns, explaining that Mark and Roger's building has been padlocked. As the first act closes, Mark reveals that amidst the riot, Roger and Mimi share their first kiss (\"La Vie Boheme B\"). Opening with \"Seasons of Love\" the second act takes place over the course of the year following the first act (\"Seasons of Love\"). Having been locked out of their apartment by Benny; Mark, Roger, and the Bohemians gather to break-in (\"Happy New Year A\"). We learn through a series of voicemails (\"Voicemail #3\") that Mark had filmed the riot which had made the nightly news. The others finally break through the door just as Benny arrives. He says he's there to call a truce. He reveals that Mimi, a former girlfriend of his, convinced him to change his mind by making sexual advances on him. Mimi denies seducing Benny, but the revelation that they had once been together upsets Roger. Roger and Mimi both apologize, but Mimi remains upset, and turns to the drug dealer for a fix (\"Happy New Year B\"). Maureen and Joanne have a fight, giving each other relationship ultimatums. Maureen's flirtatious ways and Joanne's controlling behavior are too much for the other to take, so they break up (\"Take Me Or Leave Me\"). The company sings a reprise of \"Seasons of Love\", as time passes and seasons change (\"Seasons of Love B\"). By spring, Roger and Mimi's relationship becomes strained. Roger keeps talking about moving out of town. Mimi comes home late again, causing Roger to believe that she is cheating on him with Benny. Roger jealously storms out, Mimi stops him and tries to tell him the truth, that she is not cheating and that she is still using drugs, but can't get the words out, and Roger leaves. Alone in the apartment, Mimi sings of her love for Roger, and elsewhere, Roger sings of his love for Mimi (\"Without You\"). Collins continues nursing Angel who is very sick as AIDS begins to overtake him. Mark continues to receive calls from Alexi Darling at Buzzline, a tabloid news program (\"Voicemail #4\"). Eventually, Roger and Mimi, and Joanne and Maureen, reconcile. They then break up just as quickly (\"Contact\"). At the same time, Angel passes away, leaving Collins heartbroken (\"I'll Cover You [Reprise]\"). At Angel's funeral, Mark expresses his fear of being the only one left surviving when the rest of his friends die of AIDS (\"Halloween\"). He finally accepts the job offer from Buzzline. Roger reveals that he is leaving New York for Santa Fe, which sparks an argument about commitment between him and Mimi, and Maureen and Joanne. Collins arrives and admonishes the entire group for fighting on the day of Angel's funeral. Maureen and Joanne realize their fighting is petty, and they reconcile. Mimi tries to go to Roger, but he turns away. After everyone leaves, Mark confronts Roger about his behavior towards Mimi. As the two friends fight, Mark reveals that Roger's feelings aren't jealousy towards Benny, but fear of losing Mimi to AIDS. As Roger leaves, he runs into Mimi, who claims that she heard everything and just wanted to tell Roger goodbye (\"Goodbye Love\"). Roger and Mark both have an artistic epiphany, as Roger finds his song in Mimi and Mark finds his film in Angel's memory. Roger returns to New York just in time for Christmas, and Mark quits Buzzline to work on his own film (\"What You Own\"). Worried about their children not answering their calls, the cast's parents leave several messages on their phones (\"Voicemail #5\"). On Christmas Eve, one year to date from where the show started, Mark has finished his film and is ready to screen it. Roger has found his song but can't find Mimi anywhere. Collins enters with handfuls of cash, revealing that he reprogrammed an ATM at a convenience store to provide money to anybody with the code (A-N-G-E-L). Maureen and Joanne abruptly enter carrying Mimi, who is very weak and close to death. She begins to fade, but not before telling Roger that she loves him (\"Finale A\"). Roger tells her to hold on as he plays her the song he wrote for her, which reveals the depths of his feelings for her (\"Your Eyes\"). Mimi appears to die, but suddenly awakens. She says that she was heading into a light, but Angel told her to go back. The surviving Bohemians and Benny gather together to rejoice and resolve to enjoy whatever time they have left with each other and reaffirm that there is \"no day but today\" (\"Finale B\").\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On Christmas Eve at 9 P.M. Mark Cohen, an aspiring filmmaker, begins a new documentary, as his roommate, Roger Davis, tunes up his guitar (\"Tune Up #1\") but they are quickly interrupted by a call from Mark's mother, who claims she was sorry to hear about his break-up with Maureen Johnson (\"Voicemail #1\"). Roger and Mark's friend Tom Collins, a gay anarchist and college professor, arrives at their building but is mugged. Meanwhile, Roger and Mark receive a call from their former friend and roommate Benjamin \"Benny\" Coffin III. Benny bought Mark and Roger's apartment building, as well as the lot next door. He tells them last year's rent is due (\"Tune Up #2\"). Mark and Roger refuse to pay their rent (\"Rent\"). Meanwhile, a drag queen named Angel Dumott Schunard finds Collins on the street and gets him on his feet (\"You Okay Honey?\"). Mark tries to get Roger out of the apartment. Mark reveals that Roger has been living in withdrawal for the past year due to his girlfriend April's suicide. Mark leaves to find Collins after reminding Roger to take his AZT (\"Tune Up #3\"). Roger attempts to write a great song to make his mark on the world before he dies of AIDS (\"One Song Glory\"). Their downstairs neighbor named Mimi Marqu\u00e9z walks in, asking Roger to light a candle for her, only to continually blow it out (\"Light My Candle\"). Joanne Jefferson, a lawyer and Maureen's new girlfriend, receives a phone call from her parents, wondering why she is stage managing for Maureen's protest (\"Voicemail #2\"). Angel, now in drag, and Collins arrive at the apartment bearing gifts. Collins introduces Angel to his friends (\"Today 4 U\"). Benny arrives with an offer: if they convince Maureen to cancel her protest, he'll let them live in his new studio project, rent-free (\"You'll"
      },
      {
        "text": " Candle\"). Joanne Jefferson, a lawyer and Maureen's new girlfriend, receives a phone call from her parents, wondering why she is stage managing for Maureen's protest (\"Voicemail #2\"). Angel, now in drag, and Collins arrive at the apartment bearing gifts. Collins introduces Angel to his friends (\"Today 4 U\"). Benny arrives with an offer: if they convince Maureen to cancel her protest, he'll let them live in his new studio project, rent-free (\"You'll See\"). However, the two rebuff his offer. After Benny leaves, Angel and Collins invite Mark and Roger to attend a local HIV support group meeting. Mark hurries off to help fix Maureen's sound equipment for the protest, only to run into Maureen's new girlfriend Joanne (\"Tango: Maureen\"). He then enters into the support group meeting (\"Life Support\"). Meanwhile, Mimi attempts to seduce Roger (\"Out Tonight\") but Roger harshly rebuffs her (\"Another Day\"). After Mimi leaves, Roger admits to an empty apartment his fears about dying from AIDS (\"Will I?\"). Collins, Mark and Angel help a homeless woman who is being harassed by police officers. She then mocks Mark for trying to assuage his guilt (\"On the Street\"). Collins talks about his dream of escaping New York and opening up a restaurant in Santa Fe (\"Santa Fe\"). Soon after, Collins and Angel confess their love for each other and begin a relationship (\"I'll Cover You\"). Joanne exasperatedly prepares for Maureen's show (\"We're Okay\"). Roger intercepts Mimi and apologizes for his behavior. He invites her to come to the protest and dinner with them, to which she agrees. Meanwhile, people from the streets protest (\"Christmas Bells\"). Maureen arrives and begins her performance (\"Over The Moon\"). At the Life Caf\u00e9 after the show, Benny criticizes the protest and the group's Bohemian lifestyle. Mark and all the bohemians in the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Joanne exasperatedly prepares for Maureen's show (\"We're Okay\"). Roger intercepts Mimi and apologizes for his behavior. He invites her to come to the protest and dinner with them, to which she agrees. Meanwhile, people from the streets protest (\"Christmas Bells\"). Maureen arrives and begins her performance (\"Over The Moon\"). At the Life Caf\u00e9 after the show, Benny criticizes the protest and the group's Bohemian lifestyle. Mark and all the bohemians in the caf\u00e9 rise up and celebrate the Bohemian lifestyle (\"La Vie Boheme A\"). Mimi confronts Roger about ignoring her during dinner. Then, as Mimi's beeper goes off (reminding her to take her AZT) she and Roger each discover that the other is HIV-positive (\"I Should Tell You\"). Joanne returns, explaining that Mark and Roger's building has been padlocked. As the first act closes, Mark reveals that amidst the riot, Roger and Mimi share their first kiss (\"La Vie Boheme B\"). Opening with \"Seasons of Love\" the second act takes place over the course of the year following the first act (\"Seasons of Love\"). Having been locked out of their apartment by Benny; Mark, Roger, and the Bohemians gather to break-in (\"Happy New Year A\"). We learn through a series of voicemails (\"Voicemail #3\") that Mark had filmed the riot which had made the nightly news. The others finally break through the door just as Benny arrives. He says he's there to call a truce. He reveals that Mimi, a former girlfriend of his, convinced him to change his mind by making sexual advances on him. Mimi denies seducing Benny, but the revelation that they had once been together upsets Roger. Roger and Mimi both apologize, but Mimi remains upset, and turns to the drug dealer for a fix (\"Happy New Year B\"). Maureen and Joanne have a fight"
      },
      {
        "text": " break through the door just as Benny arrives. He says he's there to call a truce. He reveals that Mimi, a former girlfriend of his, convinced him to change his mind by making sexual advances on him. Mimi denies seducing Benny, but the revelation that they had once been together upsets Roger. Roger and Mimi both apologize, but Mimi remains upset, and turns to the drug dealer for a fix (\"Happy New Year B\"). Maureen and Joanne have a fight, giving each other relationship ultimatums. Maureen's flirtatious ways and Joanne's controlling behavior are too much for the other to take, so they break up (\"Take Me Or Leave Me\"). The company sings a reprise of \"Seasons of Love\", as time passes and seasons change (\"Seasons of Love B\"). By spring, Roger and Mimi's relationship becomes strained. Roger keeps talking about moving out of town. Mimi comes home late again, causing Roger to believe that she is cheating on him with Benny. Roger jealously storms out, Mimi stops him and tries to tell him the truth, that she is not cheating and that she is still using drugs, but can't get the words out, and Roger leaves. Alone in the apartment, Mimi sings of her love for Roger, and elsewhere, Roger sings of his love for Mimi (\"Without You\"). Collins continues nursing Angel who is very sick as AIDS begins to overtake him. Mark continues to receive calls from Alexi Darling at Buzzline, a tabloid news program (\"Voicemail #4\"). Eventually, Roger and Mimi, and Joanne and Maureen, reconcile. They then break up just as quickly (\"Contact\"). At the same time, Angel passes away, leaving Collins heartbroken (\"I'll Cover You [Reprise]\"). At Angel's funeral, Mark expresses his fear of being the only one left surviving when the rest of his friends die of AIDS (\"Halloween\")."
      },
      {
        "text": " to receive calls from Alexi Darling at Buzzline, a tabloid news program (\"Voicemail #4\"). Eventually, Roger and Mimi, and Joanne and Maureen, reconcile. They then break up just as quickly (\"Contact\"). At the same time, Angel passes away, leaving Collins heartbroken (\"I'll Cover You [Reprise]\"). At Angel's funeral, Mark expresses his fear of being the only one left surviving when the rest of his friends die of AIDS (\"Halloween\"). He finally accepts the job offer from Buzzline. Roger reveals that he is leaving New York for Santa Fe, which sparks an argument about commitment between him and Mimi, and Maureen and Joanne. Collins arrives and admonishes the entire group for fighting on the day of Angel's funeral. Maureen and Joanne realize their fighting is petty, and they reconcile. Mimi tries to go to Roger, but he turns away. After everyone leaves, Mark confronts Roger about his behavior towards Mimi. As the two friends fight, Mark reveals that Roger's feelings aren't jealousy towards Benny, but fear of losing Mimi to AIDS. As Roger leaves, he runs into Mimi, who claims that she heard everything and just wanted to tell Roger goodbye (\"Goodbye Love\"). Roger and Mark both have an artistic epiphany, as Roger finds his song in Mimi and Mark finds his film in Angel's memory. Roger returns to New York just in time for Christmas, and Mark quits Buzzline to work on his own film (\"What You Own\"). Worried about their children not answering their calls, the cast's parents leave several messages on their phones (\"Voicemail #5\"). On Christmas Eve, one year to date from where the show started, Mark has finished his film and is ready to screen it. Roger has found his song but can't find Mimi anywhere. Collins enters with handfuls of cash, revealing that he reprogrammed an ATM at a convenience store to provide"
      },
      {
        "text": "line to work on his own film (\"What You Own\"). Worried about their children not answering their calls, the cast's parents leave several messages on their phones (\"Voicemail #5\"). On Christmas Eve, one year to date from where the show started, Mark has finished his film and is ready to screen it. Roger has found his song but can't find Mimi anywhere. Collins enters with handfuls of cash, revealing that he reprogrammed an ATM at a convenience store to provide money to anybody with the code (A-N-G-E-L). Maureen and Joanne abruptly enter carrying Mimi, who is very weak and close to death. She begins to fade, but not before telling Roger that she loves him (\"Finale A\"). Roger tells her to hold on as he plays her the song he wrote for her, which reveals the depths of his feelings for her (\"Your Eyes\"). Mimi appears to die, but suddenly awakens. She says that she was heading into a light, but Angel told her to go back. The surviving Bohemians and Benny gather together to rejoice and resolve to enjoy whatever time they have left with each other and reaffirm that there is \"no day but today\" (\"Finale B\").\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Rendezvous with Rama",
    "author": "Arthur C. Clarke",
    "published_date": "1972",
    "synopsis": " After a major disaster caused by a meteorite falling in Eastern Italy in 2077, the government of Earth sets up the Spaceguard system as an early warning of arrivals from deep space. The \"Rama\" of the title is an alien star ship, initially mistaken for an asteroid categorised as \"31/439\". It is detected by astronomers in the year 2130 while still outside the orbit of Jupiter. The object's speed (100 000 km/h) and the angle of its trajectory clearly indicate that this is not an object on a long orbit around our sun; it comes from interstellar space. Astronomers' interest is further piqued when they realise that this asteroid not only has an extremely rapid rotation period of 4 minutes, but it is exceptionally large. It is subsequently renamed Rama after the Hindu god and an unmanned space probe dubbed Sita is launched from the Mars moon Phobos to intercept and photograph the object. The resulting images taken during its rapid flyby reveal that Rama is a perfect cylinder, in diameter and long, made of a completely featureless material, making this humankind's first encounter with an alien space ship. The manned solar survey vessel Endeavour is sent to study Rama, as it is the only ship close enough to do so in the brief period Rama will spend in our solar system. Endeavour manages to rendezvous with Rama one month after the space ship first comes to Earth's attention, when the giant alien spacecraft is already within Venus' orbit. The 20+ crew, led by Commander Bill Norton, enters Rama through triple airlocks, and explores the vast 16-km wide by 50-km long cylindrical world of its interior, but the nature and purpose of the starship and its creators remains enigmatic throughout the book. Inside Rama, the air is discovered to be breathable. The astronauts discover several features, including \"cities\" (odd blocky shapes that look like buildings, and streets with shallow trenches in them, looking like trolley car tracks) that actually served as factories, a sea that stretches in a band around Rama dubbed the Cylindrical Sea, and seven massive cones at the southern end of Rama - believed to form part of the propulsion system. One of the crew members, Jimmy Pak, who has experience with low gravity skybikes, volunteers to ride a smuggled skybike along Rama's axis to the far end, otherwise inaccessible due to the cylindrical sea and the 500-m high cliff on the opposite shore. A few hours later, Jimmy reaches the massive metal cones on the southern end of Rama, picking up a strange magnetic field coming from the cones. Pak takes a few pictures of the area and the strange plateau on the southern end of Rama's landmass before leaving. The electrical charge in the atmosphere begins to increase during Pak's return, resulting in lightning. A discharge hits his skybike causing him to crash on the isolated southern continent. When Pak wakes up, he sees a crab-like creature picking up his skybike and chopping it into pieces. He cannot decide whether it is a robot or a biological alien, and keeps his distance while contacting Norton and the others on the other side of Rama for help. Norton sends a rescue party across the cylindrical sea, using a small, improvised craft, and Pak waits. He sees the crab-like creature dump the remains of the skybike into the sea, and he approaches the creature, but it completely ignores him. Pak explores the surrounding fields while waiting for the rescue party to arrive on the southern cliffs of the cylindrical sea. Amongst the strange geometric patterns he sees an alien flower growing through a cracked tile in the otherwise sterile environment, and decides to take it as both a curiosity and for scientific research. Pak jumps off the 500m cliff, his descent slowed by low gravity and using his shirt as a parachute, and swims quickly to the craft. The ride back is highlighted by tidal waves in the cylindrical sea, formed by movements of Rama itself as it makes course corrections. When the crew arrive at base, they see a variety of odd creatures inspecting their camp. When one is found damaged and apparently lifeless, the team's doctor/biologist Surgeon-Commander Laura Ernst inspects it and names it a \"biot\" or a hybrid of a biological entity and robot. She concludes that it, and others, appear to be electrically powered by natural internal batteries (much like terrestrial electric eels) and possess some degree of intelligence. They are believed to be the servants of Rama's still-absent builders and maintainers of the starship. The members of the Rama Committee and the United Planets, both based on the moon, have been monitoring events inside Rama and giving feedback. The Hermian colonists have concluded that Rama is a potential threat to them and send a rocket-mounted bomb to destroy Rama. It is successfully defused by Lt Boris Rodrigo using a pair of wire cutters. As Rama approaches perihelion, the biots act strangely - jumping into the cylindrical sea where they are destroyed by aquatic biots ('sharks'), and absorbed back into the mineral-laden water. On one last expedition to explore Rama, a few crew members decide to visit the city \"London\" (chosen as closest to the stairways at the \"northern\" end of the cylinder they use to return to their ship) to use a laser to cut open one of the buildings and see what is inside. Inside, they discover pedestals containing holograms of various artifacts, believed to have been used by the Ramans as tools and other objects. The holograms themselves are presumed to be templates for replicating these items as needed. The most amazing sight is what appears to be a uniform with bandoliers, straps and pockets that suggests the size and shape of the Ramans. But before the crew can photograph any more holograms, the lights start going out, and they must leave. They all exit up through the stairway on Rama's northern side, out of the three airlocks, and board Endeavour. When Endeavour is a safe distance away, and Rama reaches perihelion, Rama harnesses the Sun's gravitational field with its mysterious \"space drive\" for use in a slingshot manoeuvre and is flung out of the solar system toward an unknown location in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The book was meant to stand alone, although the final sentence of the book suggests otherwise: Clarke, however, denied that this sentence was meant to hint at a continuation of the story-\u2013according to his foreword in the book's sequel, it was just a good way to end the book and was added during a final revision.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After a major disaster caused by a meteorite falling in Eastern Italy in 2077, the government of Earth sets up the Spaceguard system as an early warning of arrivals from deep space. The \"Rama\" of the title is an alien star ship, initially mistaken for an asteroid categorised as \"31/439\". It is detected by astronomers in the year 2130 while still outside the orbit of Jupiter. The object's speed (100 000 km/h) and the angle of its trajectory clearly indicate that this is not an object on a long orbit around our sun; it comes from interstellar space. Astronomers' interest is further piqued when they realise that this asteroid not only has an extremely rapid rotation period of 4 minutes, but it is exceptionally large. It is subsequently renamed Rama after the Hindu god and an unmanned space probe dubbed Sita is launched from the Mars moon Phobos to intercept and photograph the object. The resulting images taken during its rapid flyby reveal that Rama is a perfect cylinder, in diameter and long, made of a completely featureless material, making this humankind's first encounter with an alien space ship. The manned solar survey vessel Endeavour is sent to study Rama, as it is the only ship close enough to do so in the brief period Rama will spend in our solar system. Endeavour manages to rendezvous with Rama one month after the space ship first comes to Earth's attention, when the giant alien spacecraft is already within Venus' orbit. The 20+ crew, led by Commander Bill Norton, enters Rama through triple airlocks, and explores the vast 16-km wide by 50-km long cylindrical world of its interior, but the nature and purpose of the starship and its creators remains enigmatic throughout the book. Inside Rama, the air is discovered to be breathable. The astronauts discover several features, including \"cities\" (odd blocky shapes that look"
      },
      {
        "text": " when the giant alien spacecraft is already within Venus' orbit. The 20+ crew, led by Commander Bill Norton, enters Rama through triple airlocks, and explores the vast 16-km wide by 50-km long cylindrical world of its interior, but the nature and purpose of the starship and its creators remains enigmatic throughout the book. Inside Rama, the air is discovered to be breathable. The astronauts discover several features, including \"cities\" (odd blocky shapes that look like buildings, and streets with shallow trenches in them, looking like trolley car tracks) that actually served as factories, a sea that stretches in a band around Rama dubbed the Cylindrical Sea, and seven massive cones at the southern end of Rama - believed to form part of the propulsion system. One of the crew members, Jimmy Pak, who has experience with low gravity skybikes, volunteers to ride a smuggled skybike along Rama's axis to the far end, otherwise inaccessible due to the cylindrical sea and the 500-m high cliff on the opposite shore. A few hours later, Jimmy reaches the massive metal cones on the southern end of Rama, picking up a strange magnetic field coming from the cones. Pak takes a few pictures of the area and the strange plateau on the southern end of Rama's landmass before leaving. The electrical charge in the atmosphere begins to increase during Pak's return, resulting in lightning. A discharge hits his skybike causing him to crash on the isolated southern continent. When Pak wakes up, he sees a crab-like creature picking up his skybike and chopping it into pieces. He cannot decide whether it is a robot or a biological alien, and keeps his distance while contacting Norton and the others on the other side of Rama for help. Norton sends a rescue party across the cylindrical sea, using a small, improvised craft, and Pak waits. He sees the crab-like creature dump the remains of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " him to crash on the isolated southern continent. When Pak wakes up, he sees a crab-like creature picking up his skybike and chopping it into pieces. He cannot decide whether it is a robot or a biological alien, and keeps his distance while contacting Norton and the others on the other side of Rama for help. Norton sends a rescue party across the cylindrical sea, using a small, improvised craft, and Pak waits. He sees the crab-like creature dump the remains of the skybike into the sea, and he approaches the creature, but it completely ignores him. Pak explores the surrounding fields while waiting for the rescue party to arrive on the southern cliffs of the cylindrical sea. Amongst the strange geometric patterns he sees an alien flower growing through a cracked tile in the otherwise sterile environment, and decides to take it as both a curiosity and for scientific research. Pak jumps off the 500m cliff, his descent slowed by low gravity and using his shirt as a parachute, and swims quickly to the craft. The ride back is highlighted by tidal waves in the cylindrical sea, formed by movements of Rama itself as it makes course corrections. When the crew arrive at base, they see a variety of odd creatures inspecting their camp. When one is found damaged and apparently lifeless, the team's doctor/biologist Surgeon-Commander Laura Ernst inspects it and names it a \"biot\" or a hybrid of a biological entity and robot. She concludes that it, and others, appear to be electrically powered by natural internal batteries (much like terrestrial electric eels) and possess some degree of intelligence. They are believed to be the servants of Rama's still-absent builders and maintainers of the starship. The members of the Rama Committee and the United Planets, both based on the moon, have been monitoring events inside Rama and giving feedback. The Hermian colonists have concluded that Rama is a potential threat to them and"
      },
      {
        "text": " that it, and others, appear to be electrically powered by natural internal batteries (much like terrestrial electric eels) and possess some degree of intelligence. They are believed to be the servants of Rama's still-absent builders and maintainers of the starship. The members of the Rama Committee and the United Planets, both based on the moon, have been monitoring events inside Rama and giving feedback. The Hermian colonists have concluded that Rama is a potential threat to them and send a rocket-mounted bomb to destroy Rama. It is successfully defused by Lt Boris Rodrigo using a pair of wire cutters. As Rama approaches perihelion, the biots act strangely - jumping into the cylindrical sea where they are destroyed by aquatic biots ('sharks'), and absorbed back into the mineral-laden water. On one last expedition to explore Rama, a few crew members decide to visit the city \"London\" (chosen as closest to the stairways at the \"northern\" end of the cylinder they use to return to their ship) to use a laser to cut open one of the buildings and see what is inside. Inside, they discover pedestals containing holograms of various artifacts, believed to have been used by the Ramans as tools and other objects. The holograms themselves are presumed to be templates for replicating these items as needed. The most amazing sight is what appears to be a uniform with bandoliers, straps and pockets that suggests the size and shape of the Ramans. But before the crew can photograph any more holograms, the lights start going out, and they must leave. They all exit up through the stairway on Rama's northern side, out of the three airlocks, and board Endeavour. When Endeavour is a safe distance away, and Rama reaches perihelion, Rama harnesses the Sun's gravitational field with its mysterious \"space drive\" for use in"
      },
      {
        "text": " pockets that suggests the size and shape of the Ramans. But before the crew can photograph any more holograms, the lights start going out, and they must leave. They all exit up through the stairway on Rama's northern side, out of the three airlocks, and board Endeavour. When Endeavour is a safe distance away, and Rama reaches perihelion, Rama harnesses the Sun's gravitational field with its mysterious \"space drive\" for use in a slingshot manoeuvre and is flung out of the solar system toward an unknown location in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The book was meant to stand alone, although the final sentence of the book suggests otherwise: Clarke, however, denied that this sentence was meant to hint at a continuation of the story-\u2013according to his foreword in the book's sequel, it was just a good way to end the book and was added during a final revision.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sense and Sensibility",
    "author": "Jane Austen",
    "published_date": "1811",
    "synopsis": " When Mr. Dashwood dies, his estate, Norland Park, passes directly to his only son John, the child of his first wife. His second wife, Mrs. Dashwood, and their daughters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, are left only a small income. On his deathbed, Mr. Dashwood extracts a promise from his son, that he will take care of his half-sisters; however, John's selfish and greedy wife, Fanny, soon persuades him to renege. John and Fanny immediately take up their place as the new owners of Norland, while the Dashwood women are reduced to the position of unwelcome guests. Mrs. Dashwood begins looking for somewhere else to live. In the meantime, Fanny's brother, Edward Ferrars, a pleasant, unassuming, intelligent but reserved young man, visits Norland and soon forms an attachment with Elinor. Fanny disapproves the match and offends Mrs. Dashwood with the implication that Elinor is motivated by money rather than love. Mrs. Dashwood indignantly speeds her search for a new home. Mrs. Dashwood moves her family to Barton Cottage in Devonshire, near the home of her cousin, Sir John Middleton. Their new home lacks many of the conveniences that they have been used to, however they are warmly received by Sir John, and welcomed into the local society, meeting his wife, Lady Middleton, his mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings and his friend, the grave, quiet and gentlemanly Colonel Brandon. It soon becomes apparent that Colonel Brandon is attracted to Marianne, and Mrs. Jennings teases them about it. Marianne is not pleased as she considers Colonel Brandon, at thirty-five, to be an old bachelor incapable of falling in love, or inspiring love in anyone else. Marianne, out for a walk, gets caught in the rain, slips and sprains her ankle. The dashing, handsome John Willoughby sees the accident and assists her. Marianne quickly comes to admire his good looks and outspoken views on poetry, music, art and love. Mr. Willoughby's attentions are so overt that Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood begin to suspect that the couple are secretly engaged. Elinor cautions Marianne against her unguarded conduct, but Marianne refuses to check her emotions, believing this to be a falsehood. Unexpectedly one day, Mr. Willoughby informs the Dashwoods that his aunt is sending him to London on business, indefinitely. Marianne is distraught and abandons herself to her sorrow. Edward Ferrars then pays a short visit to Barton Cottage but seems unhappy and out of sorts. Elinor fears that he no longer has feelings for her, but feels compelled, by a sense of duty, to protect her family from knowing her heartache. Soon after Edward departs, Anne and Lucy Steele, the vulgar and uneducated cousins of Lady Middleton, come to stay at Barton Park. Lucy informs Elinor of her secret four year engagement to Edward Ferrars, displaying proofs of her veracity. Elinor comes to understand the inconsistencies of Edward's behaviour to her and acquits him of blame. She is charitable enough to pity Edward for being held to a loveless engagement by his gentlemanly honour. As winter approaches, Elinor and Marianne accompany Mrs. Jennings' to London. Upon arriving, Marianne writes a series of letters to Mr. Willoughby which go unanswered. When they finally meet, Mr. Willoughby greets Marianne reluctantly and coldly, to her extreme distress. Soon Marianne receives a curt letter enclosing their former correspondence and love tokens, including a lock of her hair and informing her of his engagement to a young lady of large fortune. Marianne is devastated, and admits to Elinor that she and Willoughby were never engaged, but she loved him and he led her to believe he loved her. In sympathy for Marianne, and to illuminate his character, Colonel Brandon reveals to Elinor that Mr. Willoughby had seduced Brandon's fifteen-year-old ward, and abandoned her when she became pregnant. In the meantime, the Steele sisters have come to London as guests of John and Fanny Dashwood. Lucy sees her invitation to the Dashwoods' as a personal compliment, rather than what it is, a slight to Elinor. In the false confidence of their popularity, Anne Steele betrays Lucy's secret. As a result the Misses Steele are turned out of the house, and Edward is entreated to break the engagement on pain of disinheritance. Edward, honourably, refuses to comply and is immediately disinherited in favour of his brother, gaining widespread respect for his gentlemanly conduct, and sympathy from Elinor and Marianne who understand how much he has sacrificed. In her misery over Mr. Willoughby's marriage, Marianne neglects her health and becomes dangerously ill. Traumatised by rumours of her impending death, Mr. Willoughby arrives drunkenly to repent and reveals to Elinor that his love for Marianne was genuine. Threatened with disinheritance because of his immoral behaviour, he felt he must marry for money rather than love, but he elicits Elinor's pity because his choice has made him unhappy. When Marianne is recovered, Elinor tells her of Mr. Willoughby's visit. Marianne comes to assess what has passed with sense rather than emotion, and sees that she could never have been happy with Mr Willoughby's immoral and expensive nature. She comes to value Elinor's conduct in a similar situation and resolves to model herself after Elinor's courage and good sense. Upon learning that Lucy has married Mr. Ferrars, Elinor is grieved, until Edward himself arrives to reveal that Lucy has jilted him in favour of his wealthy brother, Robert Ferrars. Edward and Elinor are soon married and in a very few years Marianne marries Colonel Brandon.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " When Mr. Dashwood dies, his estate, Norland Park, passes directly to his only son John, the child of his first wife. His second wife, Mrs. Dashwood, and their daughters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, are left only a small income. On his deathbed, Mr. Dashwood extracts a promise from his son, that he will take care of his half-sisters; however, John's selfish and greedy wife, Fanny, soon persuades him to renege. John and Fanny immediately take up their place as the new owners of Norland, while the Dashwood women are reduced to the position of unwelcome guests. Mrs. Dashwood begins looking for somewhere else to live. In the meantime, Fanny's brother, Edward Ferrars, a pleasant, unassuming, intelligent but reserved young man, visits Norland and soon forms an attachment with Elinor. Fanny disapproves the match and offends Mrs. Dashwood with the implication that Elinor is motivated by money rather than love. Mrs. Dashwood indignantly speeds her search for a new home. Mrs. Dashwood moves her family to Barton Cottage in Devonshire, near the home of her cousin, Sir John Middleton. Their new home lacks many of the conveniences that they have been used to, however they are warmly received by Sir John, and welcomed into the local society, meeting his wife, Lady Middleton, his mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings and his friend, the grave, quiet and gentlemanly Colonel Brandon. It soon becomes apparent that Colonel Brandon is attracted to Marianne, and Mrs. Jennings teases them about it. Marianne is not pleased as she considers Colonel Brandon, at thirty-five, to be an old bachelor incapable of falling in love, or inspiring love in anyone else. Marianne, out for a walk, gets caught in the rain, slips and sprains her ankle"
      },
      {
        "text": " mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings and his friend, the grave, quiet and gentlemanly Colonel Brandon. It soon becomes apparent that Colonel Brandon is attracted to Marianne, and Mrs. Jennings teases them about it. Marianne is not pleased as she considers Colonel Brandon, at thirty-five, to be an old bachelor incapable of falling in love, or inspiring love in anyone else. Marianne, out for a walk, gets caught in the rain, slips and sprains her ankle. The dashing, handsome John Willoughby sees the accident and assists her. Marianne quickly comes to admire his good looks and outspoken views on poetry, music, art and love. Mr. Willoughby's attentions are so overt that Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood begin to suspect that the couple are secretly engaged. Elinor cautions Marianne against her unguarded conduct, but Marianne refuses to check her emotions, believing this to be a falsehood. Unexpectedly one day, Mr. Willoughby informs the Dashwoods that his aunt is sending him to London on business, indefinitely. Marianne is distraught and abandons herself to her sorrow. Edward Ferrars then pays a short visit to Barton Cottage but seems unhappy and out of sorts. Elinor fears that he no longer has feelings for her, but feels compelled, by a sense of duty, to protect her family from knowing her heartache. Soon after Edward departs, Anne and Lucy Steele, the vulgar and uneducated cousins of Lady Middleton, come to stay at Barton Park. Lucy informs Elinor of her secret four year engagement to Edward Ferrars, displaying proofs of her veracity. Elinor comes to understand the inconsistencies of Edward's behaviour to her and acquits him of blame. She is charitable enough to pity Edward for being held to a loveless engagement by his gentlemanly honour. As winter approaches, Elinor and Marianne accompany Mrs."
      },
      {
        "text": " Lucy Steele, the vulgar and uneducated cousins of Lady Middleton, come to stay at Barton Park. Lucy informs Elinor of her secret four year engagement to Edward Ferrars, displaying proofs of her veracity. Elinor comes to understand the inconsistencies of Edward's behaviour to her and acquits him of blame. She is charitable enough to pity Edward for being held to a loveless engagement by his gentlemanly honour. As winter approaches, Elinor and Marianne accompany Mrs. Jennings' to London. Upon arriving, Marianne writes a series of letters to Mr. Willoughby which go unanswered. When they finally meet, Mr. Willoughby greets Marianne reluctantly and coldly, to her extreme distress. Soon Marianne receives a curt letter enclosing their former correspondence and love tokens, including a lock of her hair and informing her of his engagement to a young lady of large fortune. Marianne is devastated, and admits to Elinor that she and Willoughby were never engaged, but she loved him and he led her to believe he loved her. In sympathy for Marianne, and to illuminate his character, Colonel Brandon reveals to Elinor that Mr. Willoughby had seduced Brandon's fifteen-year-old ward, and abandoned her when she became pregnant. In the meantime, the Steele sisters have come to London as guests of John and Fanny Dashwood. Lucy sees her invitation to the Dashwoods' as a personal compliment, rather than what it is, a slight to Elinor. In the false confidence of their popularity, Anne Steele betrays Lucy's secret. As a result the Misses Steele are turned out of the house, and Edward is entreated to break the engagement on pain of disinheritance. Edward, honourably, refuses to comply and is immediately disinherited in favour of his brother, gaining widespread respect for his gentlemanly conduct, and sympathy from Elinor and Marianne who"
      },
      {
        "text": " rather than what it is, a slight to Elinor. In the false confidence of their popularity, Anne Steele betrays Lucy's secret. As a result the Misses Steele are turned out of the house, and Edward is entreated to break the engagement on pain of disinheritance. Edward, honourably, refuses to comply and is immediately disinherited in favour of his brother, gaining widespread respect for his gentlemanly conduct, and sympathy from Elinor and Marianne who understand how much he has sacrificed. In her misery over Mr. Willoughby's marriage, Marianne neglects her health and becomes dangerously ill. Traumatised by rumours of her impending death, Mr. Willoughby arrives drunkenly to repent and reveals to Elinor that his love for Marianne was genuine. Threatened with disinheritance because of his immoral behaviour, he felt he must marry for money rather than love, but he elicits Elinor's pity because his choice has made him unhappy. When Marianne is recovered, Elinor tells her of Mr. Willoughby's visit. Marianne comes to assess what has passed with sense rather than emotion, and sees that she could never have been happy with Mr Willoughby's immoral and expensive nature. She comes to value Elinor's conduct in a similar situation and resolves to model herself after Elinor's courage and good sense. Upon learning that Lucy has married Mr. Ferrars, Elinor is grieved, until Edward himself arrives to reveal that Lucy has jilted him in favour of his wealthy brother, Robert Ferrars. Edward and Elinor are soon married and in a very few years Marianne marries Colonel Brandon.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "inor is grieved, until Edward himself arrives to reveal that Lucy has jilted him in favour of his wealthy brother, Robert Ferrars. Edward and Elinor are soon married and in a very few years Marianne marries Colonel Brandon.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Speaker for the Dead",
    "author": "Orson Scott Card",
    "published_date": "1986",
    "synopsis": " On Novinha's request for a Speaker, Andrew Wiggin leaves for Lusitania, a colony turned into a virtual prison, with its expansion severely limited and its whole existence devoted to the work of xenologers who study the Pequeninos, the first sentient beings found since the destruction of Formics. Lusitania itself is remarkably lacking in biodiversity, featuring thousands of unfilled ecological niches. The other outstanding feature of Lusitania is the Descolada, a native virus which almost wipes out the colony, until husband-and-wife biologists Gusta and Cida succeed in developing counters. Unfortunately, they didn't find the cure soon enough to save themselves, leaving orphaned daughter Novinha to strike out for herself. At the age of thirteen, Novinha, a cold and distant girl, successfully petitions to be made the official biologist of the colony (roughly the equivalent of a master's degree); from then on, she contributes to the work of father-and-son xenologers (alien anthropology) Pipo and Libo, and for a short time there is family and camaraderie. One day, however, she makes a discovery about the descolada\u2014that it's in every native lifeform\u2014and Pipo rushes out to talk to the piggies about the discovery without telling her or Libo why it's important. They can't figure it out on their own, and never learn\u2014a few hours later, Pipo is found vivisected in the grass; his corpse does not even have the benefit of a tree (The symbol of honor placed among all dead piggies). Novinha erases all the lab work, but cannot delete the information itself due to regulations; Libo demands to see it, but even their love for each other will not make her let him see it\u2014it appears to be a secret the piggies will kill to keep. Now Novinha is determined to ensure they never marry, the way they always planned to: for if they do, Libo will have access to those locked files and, Novinha fears, will share the same fate as his father. In anguish, Novinha calls for a Speaker for the Dead, hoping beyond hope that perhaps the original Speaker may arrive, to make sense of Pipo's death\u2014and maybe of her life. Andrew Wiggin doesn't dare let himself be known as Ender anymore; the name is now an Epithet. Ender decides to leave his sister Valentine behind (she is married and pregnant) after traveling with her for many years. He leaves as soon as possible, with his only companion being Jane, an artificial sentience existing within the ansible computer network by which spaceships and planets communicate instantly across galactic distances. He arrives on Lusitania after twenty-two years in transit (only around two weeks to him) to discover that Novinha has canceled her call, or rather tried to, as a call for a speaker cannot legally be canceled after the speaker has begun the journey. However, two others have called, making Ender's trip not entirely in vain: they are Novinha's eldest son Miro, calling for someone to speak the death of Libo, who was killed the same way his father was; and Novinha's eldest daughter Ela, calling for someone to speak the death of Novinha's husband Marcos Ribeira, who died not six weeks ago from a terminal disease. Besides attempting to unravel the question of why Novinha married Marc\u00e3o when she really loved Libo (Marc\u00e3o was sterile, and a quick genetic scan on Jane's part reveals that Novinha's children are all, in fact, Libo's), Ender also takes responsibility for attempting to heal the Ribeira family, and manages to adopt (or perhaps is adopted by) most of the children within their first meeting. He also takes a strong interest in the pequeninos, and eventually (in direct violation of Starways Congress law) meets with them in person. The Hive Queen has also managed to make contact with the pequeninos philotically, and has told them a number of things—including the fact that \"Andrew Wiggin\" is not only the original Speaker for the Dead, but the original Xenocide as well, which romantically involved Zenadors (a shortened form of the word xenologists) Miro and Ouanda do not believe. The Hive Queen very emphatically wants to be revived and freed on Lusitania. Finally, in an effort to help Ender, Jane deliberately reveals to Starways Congress that Miro and Ouanda, continuing the legacy of Ouanda's dead father Libo, have been deliberately introducing new technology into the piggy lifestyle. Both Zenadors are called away to the nearest world for trial (a journey that would take twenty-two years), the colony's charter is revoked, and all humans are ordered to evacuate posthaste, leaving no sign of ever having been there. Ender holds a public speaking for Marc\u00e3o, Novinha's late husband. However, Ender cannot but help reveal secrets from the lives of Libo, Pipo, and even Novinha herself as their lives were all so delicately bound together by guilt, deception, and love. The Speaker explains how Novinha blames herself for Pipo's death, and underwent a life of suffering and deception\u2014marrying Marc\u00e3o so that to prevent Libo from accessing the information which killed Pipo, but secretly trysting with Libo\u2014because their love for each other never truly died. The meaning of Pipo's and Libo's murders come out as well: the trees are the \"third stage\" in the life of the piggies. Trees grown from piggies killed normally become brothertrees, but the ritually dissected ones are done so in order to make them fathertrees\u2014sentient, living trees that are, unlike animal pequeninos, capable of reproduction (the descolada is proved to be instrumental in these transformations). Finally, the Speaker for the Dead is able to work out a treaty with the piggies, so that humans and pequeninos might live in peace. Unfortunately, it is not without cost: Miro, distraught to learn that Ouanda, his girlfriend in secret, is actually his sister, attempts to cross the fence, which separates the humans from the piggies, and suffers significant neurological damage. With no other way to save him, the colony declares itself in rebellion, Jane shuts off outside ansible contact, Miro is rescued, and Ender enters the forest to negotiate the aforementioned treaty. He signs it \"Ender Wiggin,\" and for the first time in his life, someone (Novinha) is prepared to receive the Xenocide with compassion instead of revulsion. Valentine and her family plan to come to Lusitania to help out in the rebellion, aided by Jane; Miro, with his crippled body, is sent into space to meet them; the Hive Queen is released, ready to begin the continuation of her species; and Ender marries Novinha.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On Novinha's request for a Speaker, Andrew Wiggin leaves for Lusitania, a colony turned into a virtual prison, with its expansion severely limited and its whole existence devoted to the work of xenologers who study the Pequeninos, the first sentient beings found since the destruction of Formics. Lusitania itself is remarkably lacking in biodiversity, featuring thousands of unfilled ecological niches. The other outstanding feature of Lusitania is the Descolada, a native virus which almost wipes out the colony, until husband-and-wife biologists Gusta and Cida succeed in developing counters. Unfortunately, they didn't find the cure soon enough to save themselves, leaving orphaned daughter Novinha to strike out for herself. At the age of thirteen, Novinha, a cold and distant girl, successfully petitions to be made the official biologist of the colony (roughly the equivalent of a master's degree); from then on, she contributes to the work of father-and-son xenologers (alien anthropology) Pipo and Libo, and for a short time there is family and camaraderie. One day, however, she makes a discovery about the descolada\u2014that it's in every native lifeform\u2014and Pipo rushes out to talk to the piggies about the discovery without telling her or Libo why it's important. They can't figure it out on their own, and never learn\u2014a few hours later, Pipo is found vivisected in the grass; his corpse does not even have the benefit of a tree (The symbol of honor placed among all dead piggies). Novinha erases all the lab work, but cannot delete the information itself due to regulations; Libo demands to see it, but even their love for each other will not make her let him see it\u2014it appears to be a secret the piggies will kill to keep. Now Nov"
      },
      {
        "text": " few hours later, Pipo is found vivisected in the grass; his corpse does not even have the benefit of a tree (The symbol of honor placed among all dead piggies). Novinha erases all the lab work, but cannot delete the information itself due to regulations; Libo demands to see it, but even their love for each other will not make her let him see it\u2014it appears to be a secret the piggies will kill to keep. Now Novinha is determined to ensure they never marry, the way they always planned to: for if they do, Libo will have access to those locked files and, Novinha fears, will share the same fate as his father. In anguish, Novinha calls for a Speaker for the Dead, hoping beyond hope that perhaps the original Speaker may arrive, to make sense of Pipo's death\u2014and maybe of her life. Andrew Wiggin doesn't dare let himself be known as Ender anymore; the name is now an Epithet. Ender decides to leave his sister Valentine behind (she is married and pregnant) after traveling with her for many years. He leaves as soon as possible, with his only companion being Jane, an artificial sentience existing within the ansible computer network by which spaceships and planets communicate instantly across galactic distances. He arrives on Lusitania after twenty-two years in transit (only around two weeks to him) to discover that Novinha has canceled her call, or rather tried to, as a call for a speaker cannot legally be canceled after the speaker has begun the journey. However, two others have called, making Ender's trip not entirely in vain: they are Novinha's eldest son Miro, calling for someone to speak the death of Libo, who was killed the same way his father was; and Novinha's eldest daughter Ela, calling for someone to speak the death of Novinha's husband Marcos Rib"
      },
      {
        "text": " canceled her call, or rather tried to, as a call for a speaker cannot legally be canceled after the speaker has begun the journey. However, two others have called, making Ender's trip not entirely in vain: they are Novinha's eldest son Miro, calling for someone to speak the death of Libo, who was killed the same way his father was; and Novinha's eldest daughter Ela, calling for someone to speak the death of Novinha's husband Marcos Ribeira, who died not six weeks ago from a terminal disease. Besides attempting to unravel the question of why Novinha married Marc\u00e3o when she really loved Libo (Marc\u00e3o was sterile, and a quick genetic scan on Jane's part reveals that Novinha's children are all, in fact, Libo's), Ender also takes responsibility for attempting to heal the Ribeira family, and manages to adopt (or perhaps is adopted by) most of the children within their first meeting. He also takes a strong interest in the pequeninos, and eventually (in direct violation of Starways Congress law) meets with them in person. The Hive Queen has also managed to make contact with the pequeninos philotically, and has told them a number of things—including the fact that \"Andrew Wiggin\" is not only the original Speaker for the Dead, but the original Xenocide as well, which romantically involved Zenadors (a shortened form of the word xenologists) Miro and Ouanda do not believe. The Hive Queen very emphatically wants to be revived and freed on Lusitania. Finally, in an effort to help Ender, Jane deliberately reveals to Starways Congress that Miro and Ouanda, continuing the legacy of Ouanda's dead father Libo, have been deliberately introducing new technology into the piggy lifestyle. Both Zenadors are called away to the nearest world for trial (a journey that would take twenty"
      },
      {
        "text": " form of the word xenologists) Miro and Ouanda do not believe. The Hive Queen very emphatically wants to be revived and freed on Lusitania. Finally, in an effort to help Ender, Jane deliberately reveals to Starways Congress that Miro and Ouanda, continuing the legacy of Ouanda's dead father Libo, have been deliberately introducing new technology into the piggy lifestyle. Both Zenadors are called away to the nearest world for trial (a journey that would take twenty-two years), the colony's charter is revoked, and all humans are ordered to evacuate posthaste, leaving no sign of ever having been there. Ender holds a public speaking for Marc\u00e3o, Novinha's late husband. However, Ender cannot but help reveal secrets from the lives of Libo, Pipo, and even Novinha herself as their lives were all so delicately bound together by guilt, deception, and love. The Speaker explains how Novinha blames herself for Pipo's death, and underwent a life of suffering and deception\u2014marrying Marc\u00e3o so that to prevent Libo from accessing the information which killed Pipo, but secretly trysting with Libo\u2014because their love for each other never truly died. The meaning of Pipo's and Libo's murders come out as well: the trees are the \"third stage\" in the life of the piggies. Trees grown from piggies killed normally become brothertrees, but the ritually dissected ones are done so in order to make them fathertrees\u2014sentient, living trees that are, unlike animal pequeninos, capable of reproduction (the descolada is proved to be instrumental in these transformations). Finally, the Speaker for the Dead is able to work out a treaty with the piggies, so that humans and pequeninos might live in peace. Unfortunately, it is not without cost: Miro, distraught to learn that Ouanda,"
      },
      {
        "text": "itually dissected ones are done so in order to make them fathertrees\u2014sentient, living trees that are, unlike animal pequeninos, capable of reproduction (the descolada is proved to be instrumental in these transformations). Finally, the Speaker for the Dead is able to work out a treaty with the piggies, so that humans and pequeninos might live in peace. Unfortunately, it is not without cost: Miro, distraught to learn that Ouanda, his girlfriend in secret, is actually his sister, attempts to cross the fence, which separates the humans from the piggies, and suffers significant neurological damage. With no other way to save him, the colony declares itself in rebellion, Jane shuts off outside ansible contact, Miro is rescued, and Ender enters the forest to negotiate the aforementioned treaty. He signs it \"Ender Wiggin,\" and for the first time in his life, someone (Novinha) is prepared to receive the Xenocide with compassion instead of revulsion. Valentine and her family plan to come to Lusitania to help out in the rebellion, aided by Jane; Miro, with his crippled body, is sent into space to meet them; the Hive Queen is released, ready to begin the continuation of her species; and Ender marries Novinha.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Starship Troopers",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1959-12",
    "synopsis": " Starship Troopers takes place in the midst of an interstellar war between the Terran Federation of Earth and the Arachnids (referred to as \"The Bugs\") of Klendathu. It is narrated as a series of flashbacks by Juan Rico, and is one of only a few Heinlein novels set out in this fashion. The novel opens with Rico aboard the corvette Rodger Young (named after Medal of Honor winner Rodger Wilton Young), serving with the platoon known as \"Rasczak's Roughnecks\" (named after the platoon leader, Lt. Rasczak) about to embark on a raid against the planet of the \"Skinnies,\" who are allies of the Arachnids. We learn that he is a cap(sule) trooper in the Terran Federation's Mobile Infantry. The raid itself, one of the few instances of actual combat in the novel, is relatively brief: the Roughnecks land on the planet, destroy their targets, and retreat, suffering a single casualty in the process (Dizzy Flores, who dies in the retrieval boat of wounds received in action). The story then flashes back to Rico's graduation from high school, and his decision to sign up for Federal Service over the objections of his father, who disowns him. This is the only chapter that describes Rico's civilian life, and most of it is spent on the monologues of two people: retired Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois, Rico's school instructor in \"History and Moral Philosophy,\" and Fleet Sergeant Ho, a recruiter for the armed forces of the Terran Federation. Some see Dubois as speaking for Heinlein throughout the novel; he delivers what is probably the book's most famous soliloquy on violence, it \"... has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.\" Fleet Sergeant Ho's monologues examine the nature of military service, and his anti-military tirades seem primarily to be a contrast with Dubois. We learn, later, that his rants are part of a policy intended to scare off applicants signing up without conviction. Interspersed throughout the book are other flashbacks to Rico's high school History and Moral Philosophy course, which describe how in the Terran Federation of Rico's day, the rights of a full Citizen (to vote, and hold public office) must be earned through some form of volunteer Federal service. Those residents who have not exercised their right to perform this Federal Service retain all other rights generally associated with a modern democracy (free speech, assembly, etc.), but they cannot vote or hold public office. This structure arose ad hoc after the collapse of the \"20th century Western democracies\", brought on by both social failures at home (among which appear to be poor handling of juvenile delinquency) and military defeat by the Chinese Hegemony overseas. In the next section of the novel, after being denied all his higher preferred Service choices, Rico goes to boot camp at Camp Arthur Currie, on the northern prairies. Five chapters are spent exploring Rico's experience there, including his adjustment to a very different situation, entering the service under the training of the leading instructor, career Ship's Sergeant Charles Zim. Camp Currie is rigorous by design; less than ten percent of the recruits finish basic training. The rest either resign, are expelled, or die in training. One of the chapters deals with Ted Hendrick, a fellow recruit and constant complainer who is flogged and expelled for striking a superior officer during a simulated combat exercise (he caught Sgt. Zim by surprise after being struck by the sergeant for failure to perform during the exercise). Another recruit, a deserter who murdered a baby girl while AWOL, is hanged by his battalion after his arrest by civilian police and return to Camp Currie. Rico himself is flogged for poor handling of (simulated) nuclear weapons during a drill; despite these experiences he eventually graduates and is assigned to a unit in the Fleet. At some point during Rico's training, the \"Bug War\" has changed from border incidents to formal war, and Rico finds himself taking part in combat operations. The war \"officially\" starts with an Arachnid attack that annihilates the city of Buenos Aires (which kills Juan's mother who was visiting there), although Rico makes it clear that prior to the attack there had been many \"'incidents,' 'patrols,' or 'police actions.'\" Rico briefly describes the Terran Federation's loss at the Battle of Klendathu during which his unit is decimated and his ship destroyed. Following Klendathu, the Terran Federation is reduced to making hit-and-run raids similar to the one described at the beginning of the novel (which, chronologically would be placed between chapters 10 and 11). Rico meanwhile finds himself posted to Rasczak's Roughnecks. This part of the book focuses on the daily routine of military life, as well as the relationship between officers and non-commissioned officers, personified in this case by Rasczak and Sergeant Jelal. Eventually, Rico decides to become a career soldier, and one of his fellow troopers claims he is officer material and should consider volunteering for Officer Candidate School. He applies and is accepted. It turns out to be just like boot camp, only \"squared and cubed with books added.\" Rico manages to make it through to the final exam, \"in the Fleet\". He is commissioned a temporary Third Lieutenant for his field-test and commands his own unit during Operation Royalty. It is revealed at the end of the chapter that one of the enlisted men he leads into combat is his former basic training instructor, Sergeant Zim. Although personally convinced that he badly mismanaged his men, he passes the final exam, and graduates as a Second Lieutenant. There is also an account of the meeting between Rico and his father, who volunteered for Service after his wife, Rico's mother, was killed at Buenos Aires. The final chapter serves as more of a coda, depicting Rico aboard the Rodger Young as the lieutenant in command of Rico's Roughnecks, preparing to drop to Klendathu as part of a major strike, his father being his senior sergeant and a Native American Third Lieutenant-in-training (James Bearpaw, known as \"Jimmie\") of his own under instruction.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Starship Troopers takes place in the midst of an interstellar war between the Terran Federation of Earth and the Arachnids (referred to as \"The Bugs\") of Klendathu. It is narrated as a series of flashbacks by Juan Rico, and is one of only a few Heinlein novels set out in this fashion. The novel opens with Rico aboard the corvette Rodger Young (named after Medal of Honor winner Rodger Wilton Young), serving with the platoon known as \"Rasczak's Roughnecks\" (named after the platoon leader, Lt. Rasczak) about to embark on a raid against the planet of the \"Skinnies,\" who are allies of the Arachnids. We learn that he is a cap(sule) trooper in the Terran Federation's Mobile Infantry. The raid itself, one of the few instances of actual combat in the novel, is relatively brief: the Roughnecks land on the planet, destroy their targets, and retreat, suffering a single casualty in the process (Dizzy Flores, who dies in the retrieval boat of wounds received in action). The story then flashes back to Rico's graduation from high school, and his decision to sign up for Federal Service over the objections of his father, who disowns him. This is the only chapter that describes Rico's civilian life, and most of it is spent on the monologues of two people: retired Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois, Rico's school instructor in \"History and Moral Philosophy,\" and Fleet Sergeant Ho, a recruiter for the armed forces of the Terran Federation. Some see Dubois as speaking for Heinlein throughout the novel; he delivers what is probably the book's most famous soliloquy on violence, it \"... has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.\" Fleet Sergeant Ho's monologues examine the nature of military service, and his anti-military tirades seem primarily to be a contrast"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Rico's school instructor in \"History and Moral Philosophy,\" and Fleet Sergeant Ho, a recruiter for the armed forces of the Terran Federation. Some see Dubois as speaking for Heinlein throughout the novel; he delivers what is probably the book's most famous soliloquy on violence, it \"... has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.\" Fleet Sergeant Ho's monologues examine the nature of military service, and his anti-military tirades seem primarily to be a contrast with Dubois. We learn, later, that his rants are part of a policy intended to scare off applicants signing up without conviction. Interspersed throughout the book are other flashbacks to Rico's high school History and Moral Philosophy course, which describe how in the Terran Federation of Rico's day, the rights of a full Citizen (to vote, and hold public office) must be earned through some form of volunteer Federal service. Those residents who have not exercised their right to perform this Federal Service retain all other rights generally associated with a modern democracy (free speech, assembly, etc.), but they cannot vote or hold public office. This structure arose ad hoc after the collapse of the \"20th century Western democracies\", brought on by both social failures at home (among which appear to be poor handling of juvenile delinquency) and military defeat by the Chinese Hegemony overseas. In the next section of the novel, after being denied all his higher preferred Service choices, Rico goes to boot camp at Camp Arthur Currie, on the northern prairies. Five chapters are spent exploring Rico's experience there, including his adjustment to a very different situation, entering the service under the training of the leading instructor, career Ship's Sergeant Charles Zim. Camp Currie is rigorous by design; less than ten percent of the recruits finish basic training. The rest either resign, are expelled, or die in training. One of the chapters deals with Ted Hendrick, a fellow recruit and constant complainer who is fl"
      },
      {
        "text": " Arthur Currie, on the northern prairies. Five chapters are spent exploring Rico's experience there, including his adjustment to a very different situation, entering the service under the training of the leading instructor, career Ship's Sergeant Charles Zim. Camp Currie is rigorous by design; less than ten percent of the recruits finish basic training. The rest either resign, are expelled, or die in training. One of the chapters deals with Ted Hendrick, a fellow recruit and constant complainer who is flogged and expelled for striking a superior officer during a simulated combat exercise (he caught Sgt. Zim by surprise after being struck by the sergeant for failure to perform during the exercise). Another recruit, a deserter who murdered a baby girl while AWOL, is hanged by his battalion after his arrest by civilian police and return to Camp Currie. Rico himself is flogged for poor handling of (simulated) nuclear weapons during a drill; despite these experiences he eventually graduates and is assigned to a unit in the Fleet. At some point during Rico's training, the \"Bug War\" has changed from border incidents to formal war, and Rico finds himself taking part in combat operations. The war \"officially\" starts with an Arachnid attack that annihilates the city of Buenos Aires (which kills Juan's mother who was visiting there), although Rico makes it clear that prior to the attack there had been many \"'incidents,' 'patrols,' or 'police actions.'\" Rico briefly describes the Terran Federation's loss at the Battle of Klendathu during which his unit is decimated and his ship destroyed. Following Klendathu, the Terran Federation is reduced to making hit-and-run raids similar to the one described at the beginning of the novel (which, chronologically would be placed between chapters 10 and 11). Rico meanwhile finds himself posted to Rasczak's Roughnecks. This part of the book focuses on the daily routine of military life, as"
      },
      {
        "text": " describes the Terran Federation's loss at the Battle of Klendathu during which his unit is decimated and his ship destroyed. Following Klendathu, the Terran Federation is reduced to making hit-and-run raids similar to the one described at the beginning of the novel (which, chronologically would be placed between chapters 10 and 11). Rico meanwhile finds himself posted to Rasczak's Roughnecks. This part of the book focuses on the daily routine of military life, as well as the relationship between officers and non-commissioned officers, personified in this case by Rasczak and Sergeant Jelal. Eventually, Rico decides to become a career soldier, and one of his fellow troopers claims he is officer material and should consider volunteering for Officer Candidate School. He applies and is accepted. It turns out to be just like boot camp, only \"squared and cubed with books added.\" Rico manages to make it through to the final exam, \"in the Fleet\". He is commissioned a temporary Third Lieutenant for his field-test and commands his own unit during Operation Royalty. It is revealed at the end of the chapter that one of the enlisted men he leads into combat is his former basic training instructor, Sergeant Zim. Although personally convinced that he badly mismanaged his men, he passes the final exam, and graduates as a Second Lieutenant. There is also an account of the meeting between Rico and his father, who volunteered for Service after his wife, Rico's mother, was killed at Buenos Aires. The final chapter serves as more of a coda, depicting Rico aboard the Rodger Young as the lieutenant in command of Rico's Roughnecks, preparing to drop to Klendathu as part of a major strike, his father being his senior sergeant and a Native American Third Lieutenant-in-training (James Bearpaw, known as \"Jimmie\") of his own under instruction.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Rico's mother, was killed at Buenos Aires. The final chapter serves as more of a coda, depicting Rico aboard the Rodger Young as the lieutenant in command of Rico's Roughnecks, preparing to drop to Klendathu as part of a major strike, his father being his senior sergeant and a Native American Third Lieutenant-in-training (James Bearpaw, known as \"Jimmie\") of his own under instruction.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight",
    "author": "Pearl Poet",
    "published_date": "2007",
    "synopsis": " In Camelot on New Year's Day King Arthur's court is exchanging gifts and waiting for the feasting to start when the king asks first to see or hear of an exciting adventure. At this a gigantic figure, entirely green in appearance and riding a green horse, rides unexpectedly into the hall. He wears no armour but bears an axe in one hand and a holly bough in the other. Refusing to fight anyone there on the grounds they are all too weak to take him on, he insists he has come for a friendly \"Christmas game\": someone is to strike him once with his axe on condition that the Green Knight may return the blow in a year and a day. The splendid axe will belong to whoever takes him on. Arthur himself is prepared to accept the challenge when it appears no other knight will dare, but Sir Gawain, youngest of Arthur's knights and his nephew, quickly begs for the honour instead. The giant bends and bares his neck before him and Gawain neatly beheads him in one stroke. However the Green Knight neither falls nor falters but reaches out, picks up his severed head and remounts, holding up his bleeding head to Queen Guinevere while its writhing lips remind Gawain that the two must meet again at the Green Chapel before he rides away. Joking together, Gawain and Arthur admire the axe, hang it up as a trophy and encourage Guinevere to treat the whole matter lightly. As the date approaches Sir Gawain sets off to find the Green Chapel and keep his bargain. Many adventures and battles are alluded to (but not described) until Gawain, on the brink of starvation, comes across a splendid castle where he meets Bertilak de Hautdesert, the lord of the castle, and his beautiful wife, who are pleased to have such a renowned guest. Also present is an old and ugly lady, unnamed but treated with great honour by all. Gawain tells them of his New Year's appointment at the Green Chapel and that he only has a few days remaining. Bertilak laughs, explains that the Green Chapel is less than two miles away and proposes that Gawain rest at the castle till then. Relieved and grateful, Gawain agrees. Before going hunting the next day Bertilak proposes a playful bargain: he will give Gawain whatever he catches on condition that Gawain give him whatever he might gain during the day. Gawain accepts. After Bertilak leaves Lady Bertilak visits Gawain's bedroom and behaves seductively but despite her best efforts he yields nothing but a single kiss in his unwillingness to offend her. When Bertilak returns and gives Gawain the deer he has killed, his guest gives a kiss to Bertilak without divulging its source. The next day the lady comes again, Gawain again courteously foils her advances and there is a similar exchange of a hunted boar for two kisses. She comes once more on the third morning, this time offering Gawain a gold ring as a keepsake. As he gently but steadfastly refuses she pleads that he at least take her belt, a girdle of green and gold silk which, the lady assures him, is charmed and will keep him from all physical harm. Tempted, as he may otherwise die the next day, Gawain accepts it from her and they also exchange three kisses. That evening, Bertilak returns with a fox, which he exchanges with Gawain for the three kisses \u2013 but Gawain says nothing of the girdle. The next day Gawain leaves for the Green Chapel with the girdle wound twice round his waist. He finds the Green Knight sharpening an axe and, as promised, Gawain bends his bared neck to receive his blow. At the first swing Gawain flinches slightly and the Green Knight belittles him for it. Ashamed of himself, at the Green Knight's next swing Gawain does not flinch; but again the full force of the blow is withheld. The knight explains he was testing Gawain's nerve. Angrily Gawain tells him to deliver his blow at once and so the knight does, but striking softly and causing only a slight wound on Gawain's neck. The game is over: Gawain is now free to defend himself from further harm. He seizes his sword, helmet and shield, but the Green Knight, laughing, reveals himself to be the lord of the castle, Bertilak de Hautdesert, transformed by magic. He explains that the entire adventure was a trick of the 'elderly lady' Gawain saw at the castle who is the sorceress Morgan le Fay, Arthur's sister, who intended to test Arthur's knights and terrify Guinevere. Gawain is ashamed to have behaved deceitfully and cowardly but the Green Knight laughs at his scruples and the two part on cordial terms. Gawain returns to Camelot wearing the girdle in shame as a token of his failure to keep his promise and follow the rules of the game. The Knights of the Round Table, having heard his story, absolve him of blame and decide that henceforth all will wear a green sash in recognition of Gawain's adventure.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In Camelot on New Year's Day King Arthur's court is exchanging gifts and waiting for the feasting to start when the king asks first to see or hear of an exciting adventure. At this a gigantic figure, entirely green in appearance and riding a green horse, rides unexpectedly into the hall. He wears no armour but bears an axe in one hand and a holly bough in the other. Refusing to fight anyone there on the grounds they are all too weak to take him on, he insists he has come for a friendly \"Christmas game\": someone is to strike him once with his axe on condition that the Green Knight may return the blow in a year and a day. The splendid axe will belong to whoever takes him on. Arthur himself is prepared to accept the challenge when it appears no other knight will dare, but Sir Gawain, youngest of Arthur's knights and his nephew, quickly begs for the honour instead. The giant bends and bares his neck before him and Gawain neatly beheads him in one stroke. However the Green Knight neither falls nor falters but reaches out, picks up his severed head and remounts, holding up his bleeding head to Queen Guinevere while its writhing lips remind Gawain that the two must meet again at the Green Chapel before he rides away. Joking together, Gawain and Arthur admire the axe, hang it up as a trophy and encourage Guinevere to treat the whole matter lightly. As the date approaches Sir Gawain sets off to find the Green Chapel and keep his bargain. Many adventures and battles are alluded to (but not described) until Gawain, on the brink of starvation, comes across a splendid castle where he meets Bertilak de Hautdesert, the lord of the castle, and his beautiful wife, who are pleased to have such a renowned guest. Also present is an old and ugly lady, unnamed but treated with great honour by all. Gawain tells them of his New Year's appointment"
      },
      {
        "text": " sets off to find the Green Chapel and keep his bargain. Many adventures and battles are alluded to (but not described) until Gawain, on the brink of starvation, comes across a splendid castle where he meets Bertilak de Hautdesert, the lord of the castle, and his beautiful wife, who are pleased to have such a renowned guest. Also present is an old and ugly lady, unnamed but treated with great honour by all. Gawain tells them of his New Year's appointment at the Green Chapel and that he only has a few days remaining. Bertilak laughs, explains that the Green Chapel is less than two miles away and proposes that Gawain rest at the castle till then. Relieved and grateful, Gawain agrees. Before going hunting the next day Bertilak proposes a playful bargain: he will give Gawain whatever he catches on condition that Gawain give him whatever he might gain during the day. Gawain accepts. After Bertilak leaves Lady Bertilak visits Gawain's bedroom and behaves seductively but despite her best efforts he yields nothing but a single kiss in his unwillingness to offend her. When Bertilak returns and gives Gawain the deer he has killed, his guest gives a kiss to Bertilak without divulging its source. The next day the lady comes again, Gawain again courteously foils her advances and there is a similar exchange of a hunted boar for two kisses. She comes once more on the third morning, this time offering Gawain a gold ring as a keepsake. As he gently but steadfastly refuses she pleads that he at least take her belt, a girdle of green and gold silk which, the lady assures him, is charmed and will keep him from all physical harm. Tempted, as he may otherwise die the next day, Gawain accepts it from her and they also exchange three kisses. That evening, Bertilak returns with a fox, which he"
      },
      {
        "text": " morning, this time offering Gawain a gold ring as a keepsake. As he gently but steadfastly refuses she pleads that he at least take her belt, a girdle of green and gold silk which, the lady assures him, is charmed and will keep him from all physical harm. Tempted, as he may otherwise die the next day, Gawain accepts it from her and they also exchange three kisses. That evening, Bertilak returns with a fox, which he exchanges with Gawain for the three kisses \u2013 but Gawain says nothing of the girdle. The next day Gawain leaves for the Green Chapel with the girdle wound twice round his waist. He finds the Green Knight sharpening an axe and, as promised, Gawain bends his bared neck to receive his blow. At the first swing Gawain flinches slightly and the Green Knight belittles him for it. Ashamed of himself, at the Green Knight's next swing Gawain does not flinch; but again the full force of the blow is withheld. The knight explains he was testing Gawain's nerve. Angrily Gawain tells him to deliver his blow at once and so the knight does, but striking softly and causing only a slight wound on Gawain's neck. The game is over: Gawain is now free to defend himself from further harm. He seizes his sword, helmet and shield, but the Green Knight, laughing, reveals himself to be the lord of the castle, Bertilak de Hautdesert, transformed by magic. He explains that the entire adventure was a trick of the 'elderly lady' Gawain saw at the castle who is the sorceress Morgan le Fay, Arthur's sister, who intended to test Arthur's knights and terrify Guinevere. Gawain is ashamed to have behaved deceitfully and cowardly but the Green Knight laughs at his scruples and the two part on cordial terms. Gawain"
      },
      {
        "text": " lord of the castle, Bertilak de Hautdesert, transformed by magic. He explains that the entire adventure was a trick of the 'elderly lady' Gawain saw at the castle who is the sorceress Morgan le Fay, Arthur's sister, who intended to test Arthur's knights and terrify Guinevere. Gawain is ashamed to have behaved deceitfully and cowardly but the Green Knight laughs at his scruples and the two part on cordial terms. Gawain returns to Camelot wearing the girdle in shame as a token of his failure to keep his promise and follow the rules of the game. The Knights of the Round Table, having heard his story, absolve him of blame and decide that henceforth all will wear a green sash in recognition of Gawain's adventure.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Stuart Little",
    "author": "E. B. White",
    "published_date": "1945",
    "synopsis": " The story is episodic. First we learn of Stuart's birth to a family in New York City and how the family adapts, socially and structurally, to having such a small son. He has an adventure in which he gets caught in a window-blind while exercising, and Snowbell, the family cat, places Stuart's hat and cane outside a mouse hole, panicking the family. He is accidentally released by his brother George. Then two chapters describe Stuart's participation in a boat race in Central Park. A bird named Margalo is adopted by the Little family, and Stuart protects her from their malevolent cat. The bird repays his kindness by saving Stuart when he is trapped in a garbage can and shipped out for disposal at sea. Margalo flees when she is warned that one of Snowbell's friends intends to eat her, and Stuart strikes out to find her and bring her home. A friendly dentist, who is also the owner of the boat Stuart had raced in Central Park, gives him use of a gasoline-powered model car, and Stuart departs to see the country. He works for a while as a substitute teacher and comes to the town of Ames Crossing, where he meets a girl named Harriet Ames who is no taller than he is. They go on one date, and then Stuart leaves town. As the book ends, he has not yet found Margalo, but feels confident he will do so.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is episodic. First we learn of Stuart's birth to a family in New York City and how the family adapts, socially and structurally, to having such a small son. He has an adventure in which he gets caught in a window-blind while exercising, and Snowbell, the family cat, places Stuart's hat and cane outside a mouse hole, panicking the family. He is accidentally released by his brother George. Then two chapters describe Stuart's participation in a boat race in Central Park. A bird named Margalo is adopted by the Little family, and Stuart protects her from their malevolent cat. The bird repays his kindness by saving Stuart when he is trapped in a garbage can and shipped out for disposal at sea. Margalo flees when she is warned that one of Snowbell's friends intends to eat her, and Stuart strikes out to find her and bring her home. A friendly dentist, who is also the owner of the boat Stuart had raced in Central Park, gives him use of a gasoline-powered model car, and Stuart departs to see the country. He works for a while as a substitute teacher and comes to the town of Ames Crossing, where he meets a girl named Harriet Ames who is no taller than he is. They go on one date, and then Stuart leaves town. As the book ends, he has not yet found Margalo, but feels confident he will do so.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Lord of the Rings",
    "author": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Long before the events of the novel, the Dark Lord Sauron forges the One Ring to dominate the other Rings of Power and corrupt those who wear them: the leaders of Men, Elves and Dwarves. He is vanquished in battle by an alliance of Elves and Men. Isildur cuts the One Ring from Sauron's finger, claiming it as an heirloom for his line, and Sauron loses his physical form. When Isildur is later ambushed and killed by Orcs, the Ring is lost in the River Anduin. Over two thousand years later, the Ring is found by a river-dwelling hobbit called D\u00e9agol. His friend Sm\u00e9agol immediately falls under the Ring's influence and strangles D\u00e9agol to acquire it. Sm\u00e9agol is banished and hides under the Misty Mountains, where the Ring extends his lifespan and transforms him over the course of hundreds of years into a twisted, corrupted creature called Gollum. He loses the Ring, his \"precious\", and, as recounted in The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins finds it. Meanwhile, Sauron reassumes physical form and takes back his old realm of Mordor. Gollum sets out in search of the Ring, but is captured by Sauron, who learns from him that \"Baggins\" now has it. Gollum is set loose, and Sauron, who needs the Ring to regain his full power, sends forth his powerful servants, the Nazg\u00fbl, to seize it. The novel begins in the Shire, where the Hobbit Frodo Baggins inherits the Ring from Bilbo, his cousin and guardian. Neither is aware of its origin, but Gandalf the Grey, a wizard and old friend of Bilbo, suspects the Ring's identity. When he becomes certain, he strongly advises Frodo to take it away from the Shire. Frodo leaves, accompanied by his gardener and friend, Samwise (\"Sam\") Gamgee, and two cousins, Meriadoc (\"Merry\") Brandybuck and Peregrin (\"Pippin\") Took. They nearly encounter the Nazg\u00fbl while still in the Shire, but shake off pursuit by cutting through the Old Forest, where they are aided by the enigmatic Tom Bombadil, who alone is unaffected by the Ring's corrupting influence. After leaving the forest, they stop in the town of Bree where they meet Aragorn, Isildur's heir. He persuades them to take him on as guide and protector. They flee from Bree after narrowly escaping another assault, but the Nazg\u00fbl follow and attack them on the hill of Weathertop, wounding Frodo with a Morgul blade. Aragorn leads the hobbits toward the Elven refuge of Rivendell, while Frodo gradually succumbs to the wound. The Ringwraiths nearly overtake Frodo at the Ford of Bruinen, but flood waters summoned by Elrond, master of Rivendell, rise up and overwhelm them. Frodo recovers in Rivendell under the care of Elrond. The Council of Elrond reveals much significant history about Sauron and the Ring, as well as the news that Sauron has corrupted Gandalf's fellow wizard, Saruman. The Council decides that they must destroy the Ring, but that can only be done by returning it to the flames of Mount Doom in Mordor, where it was forged. Frodo volunteers to take on this daunting task, and a \"Fellowship of the Ring\" is formed to aid him: Sam, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, Gandalf, Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, and the Man Boromir, son of the Ruling Steward Denethor of the realm of Gondor. After a failed attempt to cross the Misty Mountains via the pass below Caradhras, the company are forced to try a more perilous path through the Mines of Moria, where they are attacked by the Watcher in the Water before the gate. Once inside, they discover the fate of Balin and his company of Dwarves, and realize their own danger. After repulsing an attack, they are pursued by orcs and an ancient, powerful Balrog. Gandalf confronts the Balrog, but in their struggle, both fall into a deep chasm. The others escape and take refuge in the Elven forest of Lothl\u00f3rien, where they are counselled by Galadriel and Celeborn. With boats and gifts from Galadriel, the company travel down the River Anduin to the hill of Amon Hen. Boromir succumbs to the lure of the Ring and attempts to take it from Frodo. Frodo escapes and determines to continue the quest alone, though Sam guesses his intent and comes along. Meanwhile, orcs sent by Saruman and Sauron kill Boromir and kidnap Merry and Pippin. After agonizing over which pair of hobbits to follow, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas pursue the orcs bearing Merry and Pippin to Saruman. In the kingdom of Rohan, the orcs are slain by a company of the Rohirrim. Merry and Pippin escape into Fangorn Forest, where they are befriended by Treebeard, the oldest of the tree-like Ents. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas track the hobbits to Fangorn, and encounter Gandalf, resurrected as the significantly more powerful \"Gandalf the White\" after his mutually fatal duel with the Balrog. Gandalf assures them that Merry and Pippin are safe. They ride to Edoras, the capital of Rohan, where they free Th\u00e9oden, King of Rohan, from the influence of Saruman's henchman Gr\u00edma Wormtongue. Th\u00e9oden musters his fighting strength and rides to the ancient fortress of Helm's Deep, but en route Gandalf leaves to seek help from Treebeard. Meanwhile, the Ents, roused from their customarily peaceful ways by Merry and Pippin, attack Isengard, Saruman's stronghold, and trap the wizard in the tower of Orthanc. Gandalf convinces Treebeard to send an army of Huorns to Th\u00e9oden's aid. Gandalf and Rohirrim reinforcements arrive just in time to defeat and scatter Saruman's army. The Huorns dispose of the fleeing orcs. Gandalf then parleys with Saruman at Orthanc. When Saruman rejects his offer of redemption, Gandalf strips him of his rank and most of his powers. Pippin looks into a palant\u00edr, a seeing-stone that Saruman had used to communicate with Sauron and through which he was enslaved. Gandalf rides for Minas Tirith, chief city of Gondor, taking Pippin with him. Frodo and Sam capture Gollum, who had been following them from Moria, and force him to guide them to Mordor. Finding Mordor's Black Gate too well guarded to attempt, they travel instead to a secret passage Gollum knows. Torn between his loyalty to Frodo and his desire for the Ring, Gollum eventually betrays Frodo by leading him to the great spider Shelob in the tunnels of Cirith Ungol. Frodo is felled by Shelob's bite, but Sam fights her off. Sam takes the Ring and leaves Frodo, believing him to be dead. When orcs find Frodo, Sam overhears them say that Frodo is only unconscious, and chases after them. Sauron unleashes a heavy assault upon Gondor. Gandalf arrives at Minas Tirith to alert Denethor of the impending attack. The city is besieged, and Denethor, driven to despair by Sauron through the use of another palant\u00edr, gives up hope and commits suicide, nearly taking his remaining son Faramir with him. With time running out, Aragorn has no choice but to take the Paths of the Dead, accompanied by Legolas and Gimli. There Aragorn raises an undead army of oath-breakers bound by an ancient curse. The ghostly army help them to defeat the Corsairs of Umbar invading southern Gondor. The forces of Gondor and Rohan break the siege of Minas Tirith. Sam rescues Frodo from the tower of Cirith Ungol, and they set out across Mordor. Meanwhile, in order to distract Sauron from his true danger, Aragorn leads the armies of Gondor and Rohan in a march on the Black Gate of Mordor. His vastly outnumbered troops fight desperately against Sauron's armies. At the edge of the Cracks of Doom, Frodo is unable to resist the Ring any longer, and claims it for himself. Gollum suddenly reappears, struggles with Frodo and bites off his finger, Ring and all. Celebrating wildly, Gollum falls into the fire, taking the Ring with him. With the destruction of the One Ring, Sauron perishes, along with the Nazg\u00fbl, and his armies are thrown into such disarray that Aragorn's forces emerge victorious. With the end of the War of the Ring, Aragorn is crowned Elessar, King of Arnor and Gondor, and marries his long-time love, Arwen, daughter of Elrond. Saruman escapes from Isengard and enslaves the Shire. The four hobbits, upon returning home, raise a rebellion and overthrow him. Gr\u00edma turns on Saruman and kills him, and is slain in turn by hobbit archers. The War of the Ring thus comes to its true end on Frodo's very doorstep. Merry and Pippin are acclaimed heroes, while Sam marries Rosie Cotton and uses his gifts from Galadriel to help heal the Shire. Frodo, however, remains wounded in body and spirit after having borne the weight of the One Ring so long. Several years later, accompanied by Bilbo and Gandalf, he sails from the Grey Havens west over the Sea to the Undying Lands to find peace. After Rosie's death, Sam gives his daughter the Red Book of Westmarch, containing the account of Bilbo's adventures and the War of the Ring as witnessed by the hobbits. Sam is then said to have crossed west over the Sea himself, the last of the Ring-bearers.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Long before the events of the novel, the Dark Lord Sauron forges the One Ring to dominate the other Rings of Power and corrupt those who wear them: the leaders of Men, Elves and Dwarves. He is vanquished in battle by an alliance of Elves and Men. Isildur cuts the One Ring from Sauron's finger, claiming it as an heirloom for his line, and Sauron loses his physical form. When Isildur is later ambushed and killed by Orcs, the Ring is lost in the River Anduin. Over two thousand years later, the Ring is found by a river-dwelling hobbit called D\u00e9agol. His friend Sm\u00e9agol immediately falls under the Ring's influence and strangles D\u00e9agol to acquire it. Sm\u00e9agol is banished and hides under the Misty Mountains, where the Ring extends his lifespan and transforms him over the course of hundreds of years into a twisted, corrupted creature called Gollum. He loses the Ring, his \"precious\", and, as recounted in The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins finds it. Meanwhile, Sauron reassumes physical form and takes back his old realm of Mordor. Gollum sets out in search of the Ring, but is captured by Sauron, who learns from him that \"Baggins\" now has it. Gollum is set loose, and Sauron, who needs the Ring to regain his full power, sends forth his powerful servants, the Nazg\u00fbl, to seize it. The novel begins in the Shire, where the Hobbit Frodo Baggins inherits the Ring from Bilbo, his cousin and guardian. Neither is aware of its origin, but Gandalf the Grey, a wizard and old friend of Bilbo, suspects the Ring's identity. When he becomes certain, he strongly advises Frodo to take it away from the Shire. Frodo leaves, accompanied by his gardener and friend, Sam"
      },
      {
        "text": " servants, the Nazg\u00fbl, to seize it. The novel begins in the Shire, where the Hobbit Frodo Baggins inherits the Ring from Bilbo, his cousin and guardian. Neither is aware of its origin, but Gandalf the Grey, a wizard and old friend of Bilbo, suspects the Ring's identity. When he becomes certain, he strongly advises Frodo to take it away from the Shire. Frodo leaves, accompanied by his gardener and friend, Samwise (\"Sam\") Gamgee, and two cousins, Meriadoc (\"Merry\") Brandybuck and Peregrin (\"Pippin\") Took. They nearly encounter the Nazg\u00fbl while still in the Shire, but shake off pursuit by cutting through the Old Forest, where they are aided by the enigmatic Tom Bombadil, who alone is unaffected by the Ring's corrupting influence. After leaving the forest, they stop in the town of Bree where they meet Aragorn, Isildur's heir. He persuades them to take him on as guide and protector. They flee from Bree after narrowly escaping another assault, but the Nazg\u00fbl follow and attack them on the hill of Weathertop, wounding Frodo with a Morgul blade. Aragorn leads the hobbits toward the Elven refuge of Rivendell, while Frodo gradually succumbs to the wound. The Ringwraiths nearly overtake Frodo at the Ford of Bruinen, but flood waters summoned by Elrond, master of Rivendell, rise up and overwhelm them. Frodo recovers in Rivendell under the care of Elrond. The Council of Elrond reveals much significant history about Sauron and the Ring, as well as the news that Sauron has corrupted Gandalf's fellow wizard, Saruman. The Council decides that they must destroy the Ring, but that can only be done by returning it to the flames of Mount Doom in Mordor,"
      },
      {
        "text": " flood waters summoned by Elrond, master of Rivendell, rise up and overwhelm them. Frodo recovers in Rivendell under the care of Elrond. The Council of Elrond reveals much significant history about Sauron and the Ring, as well as the news that Sauron has corrupted Gandalf's fellow wizard, Saruman. The Council decides that they must destroy the Ring, but that can only be done by returning it to the flames of Mount Doom in Mordor, where it was forged. Frodo volunteers to take on this daunting task, and a \"Fellowship of the Ring\" is formed to aid him: Sam, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, Gandalf, Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, and the Man Boromir, son of the Ruling Steward Denethor of the realm of Gondor. After a failed attempt to cross the Misty Mountains via the pass below Caradhras, the company are forced to try a more perilous path through the Mines of Moria, where they are attacked by the Watcher in the Water before the gate. Once inside, they discover the fate of Balin and his company of Dwarves, and realize their own danger. After repulsing an attack, they are pursued by orcs and an ancient, powerful Balrog. Gandalf confronts the Balrog, but in their struggle, both fall into a deep chasm. The others escape and take refuge in the Elven forest of Lothl\u00f3rien, where they are counselled by Galadriel and Celeborn. With boats and gifts from Galadriel, the company travel down the River Anduin to the hill of Amon Hen. Boromir succumbs to the lure of the Ring and attempts to take it from Frodo. Frodo escapes and determines to continue the quest alone, though Sam guesses his intent and comes along. Meanwhile, orcs sent by Saruman and Sauron kill Bor"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Elven forest of Lothl\u00f3rien, where they are counselled by Galadriel and Celeborn. With boats and gifts from Galadriel, the company travel down the River Anduin to the hill of Amon Hen. Boromir succumbs to the lure of the Ring and attempts to take it from Frodo. Frodo escapes and determines to continue the quest alone, though Sam guesses his intent and comes along. Meanwhile, orcs sent by Saruman and Sauron kill Boromir and kidnap Merry and Pippin. After agonizing over which pair of hobbits to follow, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas pursue the orcs bearing Merry and Pippin to Saruman. In the kingdom of Rohan, the orcs are slain by a company of the Rohirrim. Merry and Pippin escape into Fangorn Forest, where they are befriended by Treebeard, the oldest of the tree-like Ents. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas track the hobbits to Fangorn, and encounter Gandalf, resurrected as the significantly more powerful \"Gandalf the White\" after his mutually fatal duel with the Balrog. Gandalf assures them that Merry and Pippin are safe. They ride to Edoras, the capital of Rohan, where they free Th\u00e9oden, King of Rohan, from the influence of Saruman's henchman Gr\u00edma Wormtongue. Th\u00e9oden musters his fighting strength and rides to the ancient fortress of Helm's Deep, but en route Gandalf leaves to seek help from Treebeard. Meanwhile, the Ents, roused from their customarily peaceful ways by Merry and Pippin, attack Isengard, Saruman's stronghold, and trap the wizard in the tower of Orthanc. Gandalf convinces Treebeard to send an army of Huorns to Th\u00e9oden's aid. Gandalf and Rohirrim reinforcements arrive just"
      },
      {
        "text": "ers his fighting strength and rides to the ancient fortress of Helm's Deep, but en route Gandalf leaves to seek help from Treebeard. Meanwhile, the Ents, roused from their customarily peaceful ways by Merry and Pippin, attack Isengard, Saruman's stronghold, and trap the wizard in the tower of Orthanc. Gandalf convinces Treebeard to send an army of Huorns to Th\u00e9oden's aid. Gandalf and Rohirrim reinforcements arrive just in time to defeat and scatter Saruman's army. The Huorns dispose of the fleeing orcs. Gandalf then parleys with Saruman at Orthanc. When Saruman rejects his offer of redemption, Gandalf strips him of his rank and most of his powers. Pippin looks into a palant\u00edr, a seeing-stone that Saruman had used to communicate with Sauron and through which he was enslaved. Gandalf rides for Minas Tirith, chief city of Gondor, taking Pippin with him. Frodo and Sam capture Gollum, who had been following them from Moria, and force him to guide them to Mordor. Finding Mordor's Black Gate too well guarded to attempt, they travel instead to a secret passage Gollum knows. Torn between his loyalty to Frodo and his desire for the Ring, Gollum eventually betrays Frodo by leading him to the great spider Shelob in the tunnels of Cirith Ungol. Frodo is felled by Shelob's bite, but Sam fights her off. Sam takes the Ring and leaves Frodo, believing him to be dead. When orcs find Frodo, Sam overhears them say that Frodo is only unconscious, and chases after them. Sauron unleashes a heavy assault upon Gondor. Gandalf arrives at Minas Tirith to alert Denethor of the impending attack. The city is besieged, and Denethor, driven to despair"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Frodo is felled by Shelob's bite, but Sam fights her off. Sam takes the Ring and leaves Frodo, believing him to be dead. When orcs find Frodo, Sam overhears them say that Frodo is only unconscious, and chases after them. Sauron unleashes a heavy assault upon Gondor. Gandalf arrives at Minas Tirith to alert Denethor of the impending attack. The city is besieged, and Denethor, driven to despair by Sauron through the use of another palant\u00edr, gives up hope and commits suicide, nearly taking his remaining son Faramir with him. With time running out, Aragorn has no choice but to take the Paths of the Dead, accompanied by Legolas and Gimli. There Aragorn raises an undead army of oath-breakers bound by an ancient curse. The ghostly army help them to defeat the Corsairs of Umbar invading southern Gondor. The forces of Gondor and Rohan break the siege of Minas Tirith. Sam rescues Frodo from the tower of Cirith Ungol, and they set out across Mordor. Meanwhile, in order to distract Sauron from his true danger, Aragorn leads the armies of Gondor and Rohan in a march on the Black Gate of Mordor. His vastly outnumbered troops fight desperately against Sauron's armies. At the edge of the Cracks of Doom, Frodo is unable to resist the Ring any longer, and claims it for himself. Gollum suddenly reappears, struggles with Frodo and bites off his finger, Ring and all. Celebrating wildly, Gollum falls into the fire, taking the Ring with him. With the destruction of the One Ring, Sauron perishes, along with the Nazg\u00fbl, and his armies are thrown into such disarray that Aragorn's forces emerge victorious. With the end of the War of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " unable to resist the Ring any longer, and claims it for himself. Gollum suddenly reappears, struggles with Frodo and bites off his finger, Ring and all. Celebrating wildly, Gollum falls into the fire, taking the Ring with him. With the destruction of the One Ring, Sauron perishes, along with the Nazg\u00fbl, and his armies are thrown into such disarray that Aragorn's forces emerge victorious. With the end of the War of the Ring, Aragorn is crowned Elessar, King of Arnor and Gondor, and marries his long-time love, Arwen, daughter of Elrond. Saruman escapes from Isengard and enslaves the Shire. The four hobbits, upon returning home, raise a rebellion and overthrow him. Gr\u00edma turns on Saruman and kills him, and is slain in turn by hobbit archers. The War of the Ring thus comes to its true end on Frodo's very doorstep. Merry and Pippin are acclaimed heroes, while Sam marries Rosie Cotton and uses his gifts from Galadriel to help heal the Shire. Frodo, however, remains wounded in body and spirit after having borne the weight of the One Ring so long. Several years later, accompanied by Bilbo and Gandalf, he sails from the Grey Havens west over the Sea to the Undying Lands to find peace. After Rosie's death, Sam gives his daughter the Red Book of Westmarch, containing the account of Bilbo's adventures and the War of the Ring as witnessed by the hobbits. Sam is then said to have crossed west over the Sea himself, the last of the Ring-bearers.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Sam gives his daughter the Red Book of Westmarch, containing the account of Bilbo's adventures and the War of the Ring as witnessed by the hobbits. Sam is then said to have crossed west over the Sea himself, the last of the Ring-bearers.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Doors of Perception",
    "author": "Aldous Huxley",
    "published_date": "1954",
    "synopsis": " After a brief overview of research into mescaline, Huxley recounts that he was given 4/10 of a gram at 11:00 am one day in May 1953. Huxley writes that he hoped to gain insight into extraordinary states of mind and expected to see brightly colored visionary landscapes. When he only sees lights and shapes, he puts this down to being a bad visualiser, however, he experiences a great change in his perception of the external world. By 12:30 pm, a vase of flowers becomes the \"miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence\". The experience, he asserts, is neither agreeable nor disagreeable, but simply \"is\". He likens it to Meister Eckhart\u2019s \u2018istigheit\u2019 or \u2018is-ness\u2019, and Plato\u2019s \u2018Being\u2019 but not separated from \u2018Becoming\u2019. He feels he understands the Hindu concept of Satchitananda, as well as the Zen koan that \u2018the dharma body of the Buddha is in the hedge\u2019 and Buddhist suchness. In this state, Huxley explains he didn\u2019t have an \u2018I\u2019, but instead a \u2018not-I\u2019. Meaning and existence, pattern and colour become more significant than spatial relationships and time. Duration is replaced by a perpetual present. Reflecting on the experience afterwards, Huxley finds himself in agreement with philosopher C.D. Broad that to enable us to live, the brain and nervous system eliminate unessential information from the totality of the Mind at Large. In summary, Huxley writes that the ability to think straight is not reduced while under the influence of mescaline, visual impressions are intensified, and the human experimenter will see no reason for action because the experience is so fascinating. Temporarily leaving the chronological flow, he mentions that four or five hours into the experience he was taken to the World\u2019s Biggest Drug Store (WBDS) where he was presented with books on art. In one book, the dress in Botticelli\u2019s Judith provokes a reflection on drapery as a major artistic theme as it allows painters to include the abstract in representational art, to create mood, and also to represent the mystery of pure being. Huxley feels that human affairs are somewhat irrelevant whilst on mescaline and attempts to shed light on this by reflecting on paintings featuring people. C\u00e9zanne\u2019s Self portrait with a straw hat seems to him as incredibly pretentious, while Vermeer\u2019s human still lives (also, the Le Nain Brothers and Vuillard) are the nearest to reflecting this not-self state. For Huxley, the reconciliation of these cleansed perceptions with humanity reflects the age old debate between active and contemplative life, known as the way of Martha and the way of Mary. As Huxley believes that contemplation should also include action and charity, he concludes that the experience represents contemplation at its height, but not its fullness. Correct behaviour and alertness are needed. Nonetheless, Huxley maintains that even quietistic contemplation has an ethical value, because it is concerned with negative virtues and acts to channel the transcendent into the world. After listening to Mozart\u2019s C- Minor Piano Concerto, Gesualdo\u2019s madrigals and Alban Berg\u2019s Lyric Suite, Huxley heads into the garden. Outside, the garden chairs take on such an immense intensity that he fears being overwhelmed; this gives him an insight into madness. He reflects that spiritual literature, including the works of Jacob Boehme, William Law and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, talk of these pains and terrors. Huxley speculates that schizophrenia is the inability to escape from this reality into the world of common sense and thus help would be essential. After lunch and the drive to the WBDS he returns home and to his ordinary state of mind. His final insight is taken from Buddhist scripture: that within sameness there is difference, although that difference is not different from sameness. The book finishes with Huxley\u2019s final reflections on the meaning of his experience. Firstly, the urge to transcend one\u2019s self is universal through times and cultures (and was characterized by H.G. Wells as The Door in the Wall). He reasons that better, healthier \u2018doors\u2019 are needed than alcohol and tobacco. Mescaline has the advantage of not provoking violence in takers, but its effects last an inconveniently long time and some users can have negative reactions. Ideally, self-transcendence would be found in religion, but Huxley feels that it is unlikely that this will ever happen. Christianity and mescaline seem well-suited for each other; the Native American Church for instance uses the drug as a sacrament, where its use combines religious feeling with decorum. Huxley concludes that mescaline is not enlightenment or the Beatific Vision, but a 'gratuitous grace' (a term taken from St Thomas Aquinas\u2019 Summa Theologica). It is not necessary but helpful, especially so for the intellectual, who can become the victim of words and symbols. Although systematic reasoning is important, direct perception has intrinsic value too. Finally, Huxley maintains that the person who has this experience will be transformed for the better.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After a brief overview of research into mescaline, Huxley recounts that he was given 4/10 of a gram at 11:00 am one day in May 1953. Huxley writes that he hoped to gain insight into extraordinary states of mind and expected to see brightly colored visionary landscapes. When he only sees lights and shapes, he puts this down to being a bad visualiser, however, he experiences a great change in his perception of the external world. By 12:30 pm, a vase of flowers becomes the \"miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence\". The experience, he asserts, is neither agreeable nor disagreeable, but simply \"is\". He likens it to Meister Eckhart\u2019s \u2018istigheit\u2019 or \u2018is-ness\u2019, and Plato\u2019s \u2018Being\u2019 but not separated from \u2018Becoming\u2019. He feels he understands the Hindu concept of Satchitananda, as well as the Zen koan that \u2018the dharma body of the Buddha is in the hedge\u2019 and Buddhist suchness. In this state, Huxley explains he didn\u2019t have an \u2018I\u2019, but instead a \u2018not-I\u2019. Meaning and existence, pattern and colour become more significant than spatial relationships and time. Duration is replaced by a perpetual present. Reflecting on the experience afterwards, Huxley finds himself in agreement with philosopher C.D. Broad that to enable us to live, the brain and nervous system eliminate unessential information from the totality of the Mind at Large. In summary, Huxley writes that the ability to think straight is not reduced while under the influence of mescaline, visual impressions are intensified, and the human experimenter will see no reason for action because the experience is so fascinating. Temporarily leaving the chronological flow, he mentions that four or five hours into the experience he was taken to the"
      },
      {
        "text": ".D. Broad that to enable us to live, the brain and nervous system eliminate unessential information from the totality of the Mind at Large. In summary, Huxley writes that the ability to think straight is not reduced while under the influence of mescaline, visual impressions are intensified, and the human experimenter will see no reason for action because the experience is so fascinating. Temporarily leaving the chronological flow, he mentions that four or five hours into the experience he was taken to the World\u2019s Biggest Drug Store (WBDS) where he was presented with books on art. In one book, the dress in Botticelli\u2019s Judith provokes a reflection on drapery as a major artistic theme as it allows painters to include the abstract in representational art, to create mood, and also to represent the mystery of pure being. Huxley feels that human affairs are somewhat irrelevant whilst on mescaline and attempts to shed light on this by reflecting on paintings featuring people. C\u00e9zanne\u2019s Self portrait with a straw hat seems to him as incredibly pretentious, while Vermeer\u2019s human still lives (also, the Le Nain Brothers and Vuillard) are the nearest to reflecting this not-self state. For Huxley, the reconciliation of these cleansed perceptions with humanity reflects the age old debate between active and contemplative life, known as the way of Martha and the way of Mary. As Huxley believes that contemplation should also include action and charity, he concludes that the experience represents contemplation at its height, but not its fullness. Correct behaviour and alertness are needed. Nonetheless, Huxley maintains that even quietistic contemplation has an ethical value, because it is concerned with negative virtues and acts to channel the transcendent into the world. After listening to Mozart\u2019s C- Minor Piano Concerto, Gesualdo\u2019s madrigals and Alban Berg\u2019s Ly"
      },
      {
        "text": " believes that contemplation should also include action and charity, he concludes that the experience represents contemplation at its height, but not its fullness. Correct behaviour and alertness are needed. Nonetheless, Huxley maintains that even quietistic contemplation has an ethical value, because it is concerned with negative virtues and acts to channel the transcendent into the world. After listening to Mozart\u2019s C- Minor Piano Concerto, Gesualdo\u2019s madrigals and Alban Berg\u2019s Lyric Suite, Huxley heads into the garden. Outside, the garden chairs take on such an immense intensity that he fears being overwhelmed; this gives him an insight into madness. He reflects that spiritual literature, including the works of Jacob Boehme, William Law and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, talk of these pains and terrors. Huxley speculates that schizophrenia is the inability to escape from this reality into the world of common sense and thus help would be essential. After lunch and the drive to the WBDS he returns home and to his ordinary state of mind. His final insight is taken from Buddhist scripture: that within sameness there is difference, although that difference is not different from sameness. The book finishes with Huxley\u2019s final reflections on the meaning of his experience. Firstly, the urge to transcend one\u2019s self is universal through times and cultures (and was characterized by H.G. Wells as The Door in the Wall). He reasons that better, healthier \u2018doors\u2019 are needed than alcohol and tobacco. Mescaline has the advantage of not provoking violence in takers, but its effects last an inconveniently long time and some users can have negative reactions. Ideally, self-transcendence would be found in religion, but Huxley feels that it is unlikely that this will ever happen. Christianity and mescaline seem well-suited for each other; the Native American Church for instance uses the drug as a sacrament"
      },
      {
        "text": " better, healthier \u2018doors\u2019 are needed than alcohol and tobacco. Mescaline has the advantage of not provoking violence in takers, but its effects last an inconveniently long time and some users can have negative reactions. Ideally, self-transcendence would be found in religion, but Huxley feels that it is unlikely that this will ever happen. Christianity and mescaline seem well-suited for each other; the Native American Church for instance uses the drug as a sacrament, where its use combines religious feeling with decorum. Huxley concludes that mescaline is not enlightenment or the Beatific Vision, but a 'gratuitous grace' (a term taken from St Thomas Aquinas\u2019 Summa Theologica). It is not necessary but helpful, especially so for the intellectual, who can become the victim of words and symbols. Although systematic reasoning is important, direct perception has intrinsic value too. Finally, Huxley maintains that the person who has this experience will be transformed for the better.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Time Machine",
    "author": "H. G. Wells",
    "published_date": "1895",
    "synopsis": " The book's protagonist is an English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension, and his demonstration of a tabletop model machine for travelling through it. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator. In the new narrative, the Time Traveller tests his device with a journey that takes him to 802,701 A.D., where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, childlike adults. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, doing no work and having a frugivorous diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline, and he speculates that they are a peaceful communist society, the result of humanity conquering nature with technology, and subsequently evolving to adapt to an environment in which strength and intellect are no longer advantageous to survival. Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveller is shocked to find his time machine missing, and eventually works out that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside, which resembles a Sphinx. Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who live in darkness underground and surface only at night. Within their dwellings he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutish light-fearing Morlocks. Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that they feed on the Eloi. His revised analysis is that their relationship is not one of lords and servants but of livestock and ranchers. The Time Traveller theorizes that intelligence is the result of and response to danger; with no real challenges facing either species, they have both lost the spirit, intelligence, and physical fitness of Man at its peak. Meanwhile, he saves an Eloi named Weena from drowning as none of the other Eloi take any notice of her plight, and they develop an innocently affectionate relationship over the course of several days. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure that turns out to be the remains of a museum, where he finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he fears he must fight to get back his machine. He plans to take Weena back to his own time. Because the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they stop in the forest, and they are then overcome by Morlocks in the night, and Weena faints. The Traveller escapes only when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire; Weena is presumably lost in the fire, as are the Morlocks. The Morlocks use the time machine as bait to ensnare the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth, menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood-red beaches chasing butterflies in a world covered in simple lichenous vegetation. He continues to make short jumps through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow larger, redder, and dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out. Overwhelmed, he returns to his laboratory, arriving just three hours after he originally left. Interrupting dinner, he relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange flowers Weena had put in his pocket. The original narrator takes over and relates that he returned to the Time Traveller's house the next day, finding him in final preparations for another journey. The Traveller promises to return in half an hour, but three years later, the narrator despairs of ever learning what became of him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book's protagonist is an English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension, and his demonstration of a tabletop model machine for travelling through it. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator. In the new narrative, the Time Traveller tests his device with a journey that takes him to 802,701 A.D., where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, childlike adults. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, doing no work and having a frugivorous diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline, and he speculates that they are a peaceful communist society, the result of humanity conquering nature with technology, and subsequently evolving to adapt to an environment in which strength and intellect are no longer advantageous to survival. Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveller is shocked to find his time machine missing, and eventually works out that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside, which resembles a Sphinx. Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who live in darkness underground and surface only at night. Within their dwellings he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutish light-fearing Morlocks. Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that they feed"
      },
      {
        "text": " darkness underground and surface only at night. Within their dwellings he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutish light-fearing Morlocks. Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that they feed on the Eloi. His revised analysis is that their relationship is not one of lords and servants but of livestock and ranchers. The Time Traveller theorizes that intelligence is the result of and response to danger; with no real challenges facing either species, they have both lost the spirit, intelligence, and physical fitness of Man at its peak. Meanwhile, he saves an Eloi named Weena from drowning as none of the other Eloi take any notice of her plight, and they develop an innocently affectionate relationship over the course of several days. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure that turns out to be the remains of a museum, where he finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he fears he must fight to get back his machine. He plans to take Weena back to his own time. Because the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they stop in the forest, and they are then overcome by Morlocks in the night, and Weena faints. The Traveller escapes only when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire; Weena is presumably lost in the fire, as are the Morlocks. The Morlocks use the time machine as bait to ensnare the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years"
      },
      {
        "text": " the forest, and they are then overcome by Morlocks in the night, and Weena faints. The Traveller escapes only when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire; Weena is presumably lost in the fire, as are the Morlocks. The Morlocks use the time machine as bait to ensnare the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth, menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood-red beaches chasing butterflies in a world covered in simple lichenous vegetation. He continues to make short jumps through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow larger, redder, and dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out. Overwhelmed, he returns to his laboratory, arriving just three hours after he originally left. Interrupting dinner, he relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange flowers Weena had put in his pocket. The original narrator takes over and relates that he returned to the Time Traveller's house the next day, finding him in final preparations for another journey. The Traveller promises to return in half an hour, but three years later, the narrator despairs of ever learning what became of him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Shockwave Rider",
    "author": "John Brunner",
    "published_date": "1975",
    "synopsis": " The novel is set in the weeks following Nick's recapture after several years on the run, alternating between moral arguments with his interrogator, who is trying to discover why the program's star pupil had absconded, and flashbacks of his career. The interrogator is Paul Freeman, a graduate of another secret installation known as \"Electric Skillet\", which focuses on weapons and defense strategy. Although he initially felt at home at Tarnover, Nick eventually becomes aware of experiments in genetic engineering being performed there. These produce monstrous deformed children who are disposed of when they are no longer needed for study. At this point Nick becomes determined to escape. He studies data processing, steals a personal ID code intended for privileged individuals who wish to live their lives without surveillance, and goes on the run. He uses the stolen computer access code to cover his data trails and create new identities for himself, easily adopting entire new personas. One is the pastor of a popular church, another is an idle playboy gigolo. In this last role, calling himself Sandy Locke, he becomes the lover of Ina Grierson, a top executive at Ground to Space Industries, a powerful \"hypercorp\" known to all as G2S. Intending to use the computer facilities at G2S to ensure that his code is still valid after the six years he has been away, he signs on as a \"systems rationalizer\" with the company. This brings him into contact with Ina's daughter, Kate, who attracts him despite her plain appearance and simple lifestyle. At the age of 22, Nick's age when he left Tarnover, Kate is a perpetual student at \"UMKC\". She is perceptive enough to penetrate Nick's adopted persona, deeply disturbing him even though she fascinates him. He visits her at home, helping her to clean out some of her possessions, and meeting her tame cougar, Bagheera. Bagheera is the product of her late father's genetic research into intelligence. He died shortly after abandoning the research because the government was using it to produce animals for military uses. The 21st-century lifestyle produces a symptom called \"overload\" in many people, and most, including Nick, take tranquilizers to some degree. However Nick collapses completely when told that a representative from Tarnover is coming to meet him at G2S. He returns to Kate and confesses that he is not what he seems, asking for her help. She conducts him to one of the \"paid avoidance areas\" in California, where people are paid to do without the full panoply of modern technology, as an alternative to spending billions to rebuild infrastructure after the earthquake. After Nick risks exposure yet again in one of these places, they move to the least known one, a town called Precipice. Precipice turns out to be a Utopian community of a few thousand people. The nearest comparison would be an agrarian, cottage industry community designed by William Morris. Precipice is also the home of \"Hearing Aid\", an anonymous telephone confession service accessible to anyone in the country. Hearing Aid is also known as the \"Ten Nines\", after the phone number used to call it: 999-999-9999. People call the service and simply talk. Some rant, others seek sympathy, still others commit suicide while on the phone. Hearing Aid's promise is that nobody else, not even the government, will hear the call. The only response Hearing Aid gives to a caller is \"Only I heard that, I hope it helped.\" Nick and Kate settle into the community. The inhabitants include intelligent dogs that escaped from the projects that Kate's father worked on. These act as companions, guards, nannies, and even lie detectors, using their sense of smell. Nick rewrites the \"computer tapeworm\" that prevents the calls to Hearing Aid being monitored. While at G2S he became aware of massive backups of data being performed, clearly in anticipation of a major network outage. The Hearing Aid worm is designed to scramble network traffic if attacked, but Nick realizes that it could be destroyed if the authorities were prepared for the effects and ready to recover from them. His new worm, which he calls a \"phage\", cannot be removed without dismantling the entire network. Possibly encouraged by the government, local gangs and tribes raid Precipice, burning down Nick and Kate's house before being overwhelmed by the dogs. Nick, suffering another overload, blames Kate for the incident, since she, following Hearing Aid policy, cut off a call from someone attempting to warn Precipice. He hits her, and then, filled with remorse, leaves the town. He finally reveals his location to the authorities when, encountering one of the \"Roman circus\" operations which broadcast live fights and other bloody exhibitions to the country, he responds to an \"all comers\" challenge by the father of the leader of one of the gangs, and cripples him in front of a nationwide audience. At Tarnover, Paul Freeman takes charge of the interrogation. He was the representative whom Nick, as Sandy Locke, was supposed to meet at G2S. Freeman, a tall gaunt African-American, gradually comes to realize that he has more sympathy with Nick's views than his employer's, and eventually absconds himself, giving Nick computer access so that Nick can make his own escape. The precipitating event in this case is Kate's abduction by government agents, who bring her to Tarnover for further questioning and to threaten Nick. With the code he gets from Freeman, he sets up an identity as an Army Major, with Kate as his prisoner. Once clear of Tarnover, they disappear together. This time around, Nick has another plan, and rather than running and hiding, he and Kate spend a number of months traveling the country, aided by an \"invisible college'\" of academics who are allies or former residents of Precipice. He creates a new \"worm\" which is designed to destroy all secrecy. (Brunner invented the term \"worm\" for this program, as a self-replicating program that propagates across a computer network - the term \"worm\" was later adopted by computer researchers as the name for this type of program.) The worm is eventually activated, and the details of all the government's dark secrets (clandestine genetic experimentation that produces crippled children, bribes and kickbacks from corporations, concealed crimes of high public officials) now become accessible from anywhere on the network - in fact, those most affected by a particular crime of a government official are emailed the full details. In place of the old system, Nick has designed the worm to enforce a kind of utilitarian socialism, with people's worth being defined by their roles in society, not their connections in high places. In effect, the network becomes the entire government and financial system, policing income for illegal money, freezing the accounts of criminals, while making sure money (or credit) flows to places where people are in need. This will only happen fully if the results of a plebiscite, again conducted over the network, allow it. In a final atavistic attempt at revenge, the government orders a nuclear strike by a single aircraft from a local Air Force base. Warned by Hearing Aid, Nick is able to penetrate the military computers and manufacture a counter-order to stop the plane just before it reaches the town. The book ends optimistically, with there being no more privileged hiding of information, no more secret conspiracies of the rich and powerful.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is set in the weeks following Nick's recapture after several years on the run, alternating between moral arguments with his interrogator, who is trying to discover why the program's star pupil had absconded, and flashbacks of his career. The interrogator is Paul Freeman, a graduate of another secret installation known as \"Electric Skillet\", which focuses on weapons and defense strategy. Although he initially felt at home at Tarnover, Nick eventually becomes aware of experiments in genetic engineering being performed there. These produce monstrous deformed children who are disposed of when they are no longer needed for study. At this point Nick becomes determined to escape. He studies data processing, steals a personal ID code intended for privileged individuals who wish to live their lives without surveillance, and goes on the run. He uses the stolen computer access code to cover his data trails and create new identities for himself, easily adopting entire new personas. One is the pastor of a popular church, another is an idle playboy gigolo. In this last role, calling himself Sandy Locke, he becomes the lover of Ina Grierson, a top executive at Ground to Space Industries, a powerful \"hypercorp\" known to all as G2S. Intending to use the computer facilities at G2S to ensure that his code is still valid after the six years he has been away, he signs on as a \"systems rationalizer\" with the company. This brings him into contact with Ina's daughter, Kate, who attracts him despite her plain appearance and simple lifestyle. At the age of 22, Nick's age when he left Tarnover, Kate is a perpetual student at \"UMKC\". She is perceptive enough to penetrate Nick's adopted persona, deeply disturbing him even though she fascinates him. He visits her at home, helping her to clean out some of her possessions, and meeting her tame cougar, Bagheera. Bagheera is the product of her late father"
      },
      {
        "text": " daughter, Kate, who attracts him despite her plain appearance and simple lifestyle. At the age of 22, Nick's age when he left Tarnover, Kate is a perpetual student at \"UMKC\". She is perceptive enough to penetrate Nick's adopted persona, deeply disturbing him even though she fascinates him. He visits her at home, helping her to clean out some of her possessions, and meeting her tame cougar, Bagheera. Bagheera is the product of her late father's genetic research into intelligence. He died shortly after abandoning the research because the government was using it to produce animals for military uses. The 21st-century lifestyle produces a symptom called \"overload\" in many people, and most, including Nick, take tranquilizers to some degree. However Nick collapses completely when told that a representative from Tarnover is coming to meet him at G2S. He returns to Kate and confesses that he is not what he seems, asking for her help. She conducts him to one of the \"paid avoidance areas\" in California, where people are paid to do without the full panoply of modern technology, as an alternative to spending billions to rebuild infrastructure after the earthquake. After Nick risks exposure yet again in one of these places, they move to the least known one, a town called Precipice. Precipice turns out to be a Utopian community of a few thousand people. The nearest comparison would be an agrarian, cottage industry community designed by William Morris. Precipice is also the home of \"Hearing Aid\", an anonymous telephone confession service accessible to anyone in the country. Hearing Aid is also known as the \"Ten Nines\", after the phone number used to call it: 999-999-9999. People call the service and simply talk. Some rant, others seek sympathy, still others commit suicide while on the phone. Hearing Aid's promise is that nobody else, not even the government, will hear the"
      },
      {
        "text": " industry community designed by William Morris. Precipice is also the home of \"Hearing Aid\", an anonymous telephone confession service accessible to anyone in the country. Hearing Aid is also known as the \"Ten Nines\", after the phone number used to call it: 999-999-9999. People call the service and simply talk. Some rant, others seek sympathy, still others commit suicide while on the phone. Hearing Aid's promise is that nobody else, not even the government, will hear the call. The only response Hearing Aid gives to a caller is \"Only I heard that, I hope it helped.\" Nick and Kate settle into the community. The inhabitants include intelligent dogs that escaped from the projects that Kate's father worked on. These act as companions, guards, nannies, and even lie detectors, using their sense of smell. Nick rewrites the \"computer tapeworm\" that prevents the calls to Hearing Aid being monitored. While at G2S he became aware of massive backups of data being performed, clearly in anticipation of a major network outage. The Hearing Aid worm is designed to scramble network traffic if attacked, but Nick realizes that it could be destroyed if the authorities were prepared for the effects and ready to recover from them. His new worm, which he calls a \"phage\", cannot be removed without dismantling the entire network. Possibly encouraged by the government, local gangs and tribes raid Precipice, burning down Nick and Kate's house before being overwhelmed by the dogs. Nick, suffering another overload, blames Kate for the incident, since she, following Hearing Aid policy, cut off a call from someone attempting to warn Precipice. He hits her, and then, filled with remorse, leaves the town. He finally reveals his location to the authorities when, encountering one of the \"Roman circus\" operations which broadcast live fights and other bloody exhibitions to the country, he responds to an \"all comers\" challenge by the father of the leader of one of"
      },
      {
        "text": " dogs. Nick, suffering another overload, blames Kate for the incident, since she, following Hearing Aid policy, cut off a call from someone attempting to warn Precipice. He hits her, and then, filled with remorse, leaves the town. He finally reveals his location to the authorities when, encountering one of the \"Roman circus\" operations which broadcast live fights and other bloody exhibitions to the country, he responds to an \"all comers\" challenge by the father of the leader of one of the gangs, and cripples him in front of a nationwide audience. At Tarnover, Paul Freeman takes charge of the interrogation. He was the representative whom Nick, as Sandy Locke, was supposed to meet at G2S. Freeman, a tall gaunt African-American, gradually comes to realize that he has more sympathy with Nick's views than his employer's, and eventually absconds himself, giving Nick computer access so that Nick can make his own escape. The precipitating event in this case is Kate's abduction by government agents, who bring her to Tarnover for further questioning and to threaten Nick. With the code he gets from Freeman, he sets up an identity as an Army Major, with Kate as his prisoner. Once clear of Tarnover, they disappear together. This time around, Nick has another plan, and rather than running and hiding, he and Kate spend a number of months traveling the country, aided by an \"invisible college'\" of academics who are allies or former residents of Precipice. He creates a new \"worm\" which is designed to destroy all secrecy. (Brunner invented the term \"worm\" for this program, as a self-replicating program that propagates across a computer network - the term \"worm\" was later adopted by computer researchers as the name for this type of program.) The worm is eventually activated, and the details of all the government's dark secrets (clandestine genetic experimentation that produces crippled children, bribes and"
      },
      {
        "text": " allies or former residents of Precipice. He creates a new \"worm\" which is designed to destroy all secrecy. (Brunner invented the term \"worm\" for this program, as a self-replicating program that propagates across a computer network - the term \"worm\" was later adopted by computer researchers as the name for this type of program.) The worm is eventually activated, and the details of all the government's dark secrets (clandestine genetic experimentation that produces crippled children, bribes and kickbacks from corporations, concealed crimes of high public officials) now become accessible from anywhere on the network - in fact, those most affected by a particular crime of a government official are emailed the full details. In place of the old system, Nick has designed the worm to enforce a kind of utilitarian socialism, with people's worth being defined by their roles in society, not their connections in high places. In effect, the network becomes the entire government and financial system, policing income for illegal money, freezing the accounts of criminals, while making sure money (or credit) flows to places where people are in need. This will only happen fully if the results of a plebiscite, again conducted over the network, allow it. In a final atavistic attempt at revenge, the government orders a nuclear strike by a single aircraft from a local Air Force base. Warned by Hearing Aid, Nick is able to penetrate the military computers and manufacture a counter-order to stop the plane just before it reaches the town. The book ends optimistically, with there being no more privileged hiding of information, no more secret conspiracies of the rich and powerful.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " reaches the town. The book ends optimistically, with there being no more privileged hiding of information, no more secret conspiracies of the rich and powerful.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Shining",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1977-01",
    "synopsis": " In 1976, Jack Torrance is an aspiring writer who is attempting to rebuild his marriage and career, both of which have been nearly ruined by two traits inherited from his late father: alcoholism and an explosive temper. During one occasion while drinking, Jack broke his son's arm. This incident shocked him into sobriety, but Jack's temper continued to plague him: he lost his teaching position at a Vermont prep school after assaulting a student. Jack eagerly accepts a job as a winter caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, an isolated resort in the Colorado Rockies. Jack hopes that the seclusion will help him reconnect with his family and give him inspiration and the peace and quiet to help him write a new play. Jack, his wife Wendy, and their five-year-old son, Danny—who has telepathic abilities unknown to his parents—move into the Overlook. Danny's abilities make him immediately sensitive to supernatural forces within the hotel. Shortly after the family's arrival at the Overlook, Danny and the hotel's chef, Dick Hallorann, talk privately to discuss Danny's talent and the hotel's sinister nature. Dick informs Danny that he shares Danny's abilities (though to a lesser degree), as did Dick's grandmother, who called it \"shining\". Dick warns Danny to avoid Room 217, but assures him that the things he may see are merely pictures which cannot harm him. Dick urges Danny to contact him through the shining should trouble arise. As the Torrances settle in at the Overlook, Danny sees frightening ghosts and visions. Although Danny is close to Jack, he does not tell either of his parents about his visions because he senses that the caretaking job is important to his father and the family's future. Wendy considers leaving Jack at the Overlook to finish the job on his own; Danny refuses, thinking his father will be happier if they stay. However Danny soon realizes his presence in the hotel makes the supernatural activity more powerful enabling it to make what Hallorann described as 'pictures' dangerous. Apparitions take form and the garden's topiary animals come to life. Objects, such as a party hat in the elevator, mysteriously appear . The Overlook has difficulty possessing Danny, so it begins to possess Jack, frustrating his need and desire to work. Jack becomes susceptible to cabin fever, and the sinister ghosts of the hotel gradually begin to overtake him, making him increasingly unstable. One day, after a fight with Wendy, Jack finds the hotel's bar fully stocked with alcohol despite being previously empty. As he gets drunk, the hotel urges Jack to kill his wife and son. Wendy and Danny get the better of Jack, locking him into the walk-in pantry, but the ghost of Delbert Grady, a former caretaker who murdered his family and then committed suicide, releases him. Wendy discovers that they are completely isolated at the Overlook, as Jack has sabotaged the hotel's snowcat and smashed the CB radio in the office. Jack strikes Wendy with one of the hotel's mallets, breaking two ribs, a kneecap, and one vertebra in her back. Wendy stabs Jack in the small of his back with a large butcher knife, then crawls away to the caretaker's suite and locks herself in the bathroom, with Jack in pursuit. Jack tries to break the door with the mallet, but before he unlocks the door she keeps him back by cutting him with some razor blades. Hallorann, working at a winter resort in Florida, has heard Danny's psychic call for help and rushes back to the Overlook. Jack leaves Wendy in the bathroom and ambushes Hallorann, shattering his jaw and giving him a concussion with the mallet, before setting off after Danny. Danny distracts Jack by saying \"You're not my daddy,\" having realized that the Overlook has completely taken over Jack by playing on his alcoholism. Jack temporarily regains control of himself and tells Danny, \"Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you\". Soon after, Jack is quickly possessed by the hotel again. He violently bashes his own face and skull in with his mallet so Danny can no longer recognize him as his father. Danny, realizing that his father is now gone forever, tells Jack that the unstable boiler is going to explode. In response, Jack rushes to the basement. Danny and Wendy reunite in the lobby, and they flee the Overlook with Hallorann. Though Jack tries to relieve the boiler pressure, it explodes, destroying the hotel. The building's spirit makes one last desperate attempt to possess Hallorann and make him kill Danny and Wendy, but he shakes it off and brings them to safety. The novel ends with Danny and Wendy summering at a resort in Maine where Hallorann, the head chef, talks with Danny and comforts him over the loss of his father.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In 1976, Jack Torrance is an aspiring writer who is attempting to rebuild his marriage and career, both of which have been nearly ruined by two traits inherited from his late father: alcoholism and an explosive temper. During one occasion while drinking, Jack broke his son's arm. This incident shocked him into sobriety, but Jack's temper continued to plague him: he lost his teaching position at a Vermont prep school after assaulting a student. Jack eagerly accepts a job as a winter caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, an isolated resort in the Colorado Rockies. Jack hopes that the seclusion will help him reconnect with his family and give him inspiration and the peace and quiet to help him write a new play. Jack, his wife Wendy, and their five-year-old son, Danny—who has telepathic abilities unknown to his parents—move into the Overlook. Danny's abilities make him immediately sensitive to supernatural forces within the hotel. Shortly after the family's arrival at the Overlook, Danny and the hotel's chef, Dick Hallorann, talk privately to discuss Danny's talent and the hotel's sinister nature. Dick informs Danny that he shares Danny's abilities (though to a lesser degree), as did Dick's grandmother, who called it \"shining\". Dick warns Danny to avoid Room 217, but assures him that the things he may see are merely pictures which cannot harm him. Dick urges Danny to contact him through the shining should trouble arise. As the Torrances settle in at the Overlook, Danny sees frightening ghosts and visions. Although Danny is close to Jack, he does not tell either of his parents about his visions because he senses that the caretaking job is important to his father and the family's future. Wendy considers leaving Jack at the Overlook to finish the job on his own; Danny refuses, thinking his father will be happier if they stay. However Danny soon realizes his presence in the hotel makes the supernatural activity more powerful enabling"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Torrances settle in at the Overlook, Danny sees frightening ghosts and visions. Although Danny is close to Jack, he does not tell either of his parents about his visions because he senses that the caretaking job is important to his father and the family's future. Wendy considers leaving Jack at the Overlook to finish the job on his own; Danny refuses, thinking his father will be happier if they stay. However Danny soon realizes his presence in the hotel makes the supernatural activity more powerful enabling it to make what Hallorann described as 'pictures' dangerous. Apparitions take form and the garden's topiary animals come to life. Objects, such as a party hat in the elevator, mysteriously appear . The Overlook has difficulty possessing Danny, so it begins to possess Jack, frustrating his need and desire to work. Jack becomes susceptible to cabin fever, and the sinister ghosts of the hotel gradually begin to overtake him, making him increasingly unstable. One day, after a fight with Wendy, Jack finds the hotel's bar fully stocked with alcohol despite being previously empty. As he gets drunk, the hotel urges Jack to kill his wife and son. Wendy and Danny get the better of Jack, locking him into the walk-in pantry, but the ghost of Delbert Grady, a former caretaker who murdered his family and then committed suicide, releases him. Wendy discovers that they are completely isolated at the Overlook, as Jack has sabotaged the hotel's snowcat and smashed the CB radio in the office. Jack strikes Wendy with one of the hotel's mallets, breaking two ribs, a kneecap, and one vertebra in her back. Wendy stabs Jack in the small of his back with a large butcher knife, then crawls away to the caretaker's suite and locks herself in the bathroom, with Jack in pursuit. Jack tries to break the door with the mallet, but before he unlocks the door she keeps him back by cutting him with"
      },
      {
        "text": " smashed the CB radio in the office. Jack strikes Wendy with one of the hotel's mallets, breaking two ribs, a kneecap, and one vertebra in her back. Wendy stabs Jack in the small of his back with a large butcher knife, then crawls away to the caretaker's suite and locks herself in the bathroom, with Jack in pursuit. Jack tries to break the door with the mallet, but before he unlocks the door she keeps him back by cutting him with some razor blades. Hallorann, working at a winter resort in Florida, has heard Danny's psychic call for help and rushes back to the Overlook. Jack leaves Wendy in the bathroom and ambushes Hallorann, shattering his jaw and giving him a concussion with the mallet, before setting off after Danny. Danny distracts Jack by saying \"You're not my daddy,\" having realized that the Overlook has completely taken over Jack by playing on his alcoholism. Jack temporarily regains control of himself and tells Danny, \"Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you\". Soon after, Jack is quickly possessed by the hotel again. He violently bashes his own face and skull in with his mallet so Danny can no longer recognize him as his father. Danny, realizing that his father is now gone forever, tells Jack that the unstable boiler is going to explode. In response, Jack rushes to the basement. Danny and Wendy reunite in the lobby, and they flee the Overlook with Hallorann. Though Jack tries to relieve the boiler pressure, it explodes, destroying the hotel. The building's spirit makes one last desperate attempt to possess Hallorann and make him kill Danny and Wendy, but he shakes it off and brings them to safety. The novel ends with Danny and Wendy summering at a resort in Maine where Hallorann, the head chef, talks with Danny and comforts him over the loss of his father.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Overlook with Hallorann. Though Jack tries to relieve the boiler pressure, it explodes, destroying the hotel. The building's spirit makes one last desperate attempt to possess Hallorann and make him kill Danny and Wendy, but he shakes it off and brings them to safety. The novel ends with Danny and Wendy summering at a resort in Maine where Hallorann, the head chef, talks with Danny and comforts him over the loss of his father.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Mort",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " As a teenager, Mort had a personality and temperament that made him rather unsuited to the family farming business. Mort's father, named Lezek, felt that Mort thought too much, which prevented him from achieving anything practical. Thus, Lezek took him to a local hiring fair, hoping that Mort would land an apprenticeship with some tradesman; not only would this provide a job for his son, but it would also make his son's propensity towards thinking someone else's problem. At the job fair, Mort at first has no luck attracting the interest of an employer. Then, just before the stroke of midnight, a man concealed in a black cloak arrives on a white horse. He says he is looking for a young man to assist him in his work and selects Mort for the job. The man turns out to be Death, and Mort is given an apprenticeship in ushering souls into the next world (though his father thinks he's been apprenticed to an undertaker). When it is a princess' time to die (according to a preconceived reality), Mort, instead of ushering her soul, saves her from death, dramatically altering a part of the Discworld's reality. However, the princess, for whom Mort has a developing infatuation, does not have long to live, and he must try to save her, once again, from a seemingly unstoppable death. Both the princess and Mort end up consulting the local wizard, Igneous Cutwell, for various methods of assistance with the crisis. As Mort begins to do most of Death's \"Duty\", he loses some of his former character traits, and essentially starts to become more like Death himself. Death, in turn, yearns to relish what being human is truly like and travels to Ankh-Morpork to indulge in new experiences and attempt to feel real human emotion. Conclusively, Mort must duel Death for Mort's freedom. Though Death wins the duel, he spares Mort's life and sends him back to the Disc. The princess is saved from a second death when the alternate reality Mort created is reduced to a pearl-like state. This pearl is given to Mort for safe-keeping. At the end of the novel, Mort marries Ysabell, Death's adopted daughter.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As a teenager, Mort had a personality and temperament that made him rather unsuited to the family farming business. Mort's father, named Lezek, felt that Mort thought too much, which prevented him from achieving anything practical. Thus, Lezek took him to a local hiring fair, hoping that Mort would land an apprenticeship with some tradesman; not only would this provide a job for his son, but it would also make his son's propensity towards thinking someone else's problem. At the job fair, Mort at first has no luck attracting the interest of an employer. Then, just before the stroke of midnight, a man concealed in a black cloak arrives on a white horse. He says he is looking for a young man to assist him in his work and selects Mort for the job. The man turns out to be Death, and Mort is given an apprenticeship in ushering souls into the next world (though his father thinks he's been apprenticed to an undertaker). When it is a princess' time to die (according to a preconceived reality), Mort, instead of ushering her soul, saves her from death, dramatically altering a part of the Discworld's reality. However, the princess, for whom Mort has a developing infatuation, does not have long to live, and he must try to save her, once again, from a seemingly unstoppable death. Both the princess and Mort end up consulting the local wizard, Igneous Cutwell, for various methods of assistance with the crisis. As Mort begins to do most of Death's \"Duty\", he loses some of his former character traits, and essentially starts to become more like Death himself. Death, in turn, yearns to relish what being human is truly like and travels to Ankh-Morpork to indulge in new experiences and attempt to feel real human emotion. Conclusively, Mort must duel Death for Mort's freedom. Though Death wins the duel, he spares Mort's life"
      },
      {
        "text": " of assistance with the crisis. As Mort begins to do most of Death's \"Duty\", he loses some of his former character traits, and essentially starts to become more like Death himself. Death, in turn, yearns to relish what being human is truly like and travels to Ankh-Morpork to indulge in new experiences and attempt to feel real human emotion. Conclusively, Mort must duel Death for Mort's freedom. Though Death wins the duel, he spares Mort's life and sends him back to the Disc. The princess is saved from a second death when the alternate reality Mort created is reduced to a pearl-like state. This pearl is given to Mort for safe-keeping. At the end of the novel, Mort marries Ysabell, Death's adopted daughter.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Hound of the Baskervilles",
    "author": "Arthur Conan Doyle",
    "published_date": "1901",
    "synopsis": " Sir Charles Baskerville is found lying dead on the grounds of his country house, Baskerville Hall. The cause is ascribed to a heart attack. Fearing for the safety of Sir Charles's nephew and only known heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, coming from America to claim his inheritance, Dr James Mortimer travels to London and asks Sherlock Holmes for help. Mortimer explains that the Baskerville family is afflicted by a curse. According to an old account, over two centuries ago Hugo Baskerville was infatuated with a farmer's daughter. He kidnapped her and imprisoned her in his bedroom. She escaped and the furious Baskerville offered his soul to the devil if he could recapture her. Aided by friends, he pursued the girl onto the desolate moor. Baskerville and his victim were found dead. She had died from fright, but a giant spectral hound stood guard over Baskerville's body. The hound tore out Baskerville's throat, then vanished into the night. Sir Charles Baskerville had become fearful of the legendary curse and its hellhound. Mortimer decided that Sir Charles had been waiting for someone when he died. His face was contorted in a ghastly expression, while his footprints suggested he was running from something. The elderly man's heart was not strong, and he had planned to go to London the next day. Mortimer says he had seen the footprints of a \"gigantic hound\" near Sir Charles's body, something not revealed at the inquest. Intrigued by the case, Holmes meets with Sir Henry, newly arrived from America. Sir Henry is puzzled by an anonymous note delivered to his London hotel room, warning him to avoid the Devon moors. Holmes says that the note had been composed largely of letters cut from The Times, probably in a hotel, judging by other clues. The fact that the letters were cut with nail scissors suggested an authoress, as did a remnant whiff of perfume. Holmes keeps this last detail to himself. When Holmes and Watson later join Sir Henry at his hotel, they learn one of the baronet's new boots has gone missing. No good explanation can be found for the loss. Holmes asks if there were any other living relatives besides Sir Henry. Mortimer tells him that Charles had two brothers, Rodger and John. Sir Henry is the sole child of John, who settled in America and raised his son there. Another brother, Rodger, was known to be the black sheep of the family. A wastrel and inveterate gambler, he fled to South America to avoid creditors. He is believed to have died there alone. Despite the note's warning, Sir Henry insists on visiting Baskerville Hall. As Sir Henry leaves Holmes' Baker Street apartment, Holmes and Doctor Watson follow him. They realise that a man with a fake-looking black beard in a cab is also following him. Holmes and Watson pursue this man, but he escapes; however, Holmes memorises the cab number. Holmes stops in at a messenger office and employs a young boy, Cartwright, to go visit London's hotels and look through wastepaper in search of cut-up copies of The Times. By the time they return to the hotel, Sir Henry has had another, newer boot stolen. When the first missing boot is discovered before the meeting is over, Holmes begins to realise they must be dealing with a real hound (hence the emphasis on the scent of the used boot). When conversation turns to the man in the cab, Mortimer says that Barrymore, the servant at Baskerville Hall, has a beard, and a telegram is sent to check on his whereabouts. It is decided that, with Holmes being tied up in London with other cases, Watson will accompany Sir Henry to Baskerville Hall and report back by telegram in detail. Later that evening, telegrams from Cartwright (who was unable to find the newspaper) and Baskerville Hall (where Barrymore apparently is) bring an end to those leads. A visit from John Clayton, who was driving the cab with the black-bearded man, is of little help. He says that the man had identified himself as Holmes, much to the surprise and amusement of the actual Holmes. Mortimer, Watson, and Sir Henry set off for Baskerville Hall the following Saturday. The baronet is excited to see it and his connection with the land is clear, but finds the moor dampened. Soldiers are about the area, on the lookout for an escaped murderer named Selden. Barrymore and his wife wish to depart Baskerville Hall as soon as is convenient, and the Hall is, in general, a somber place. Watson has trouble sleeping that night, and hears a woman crying. The next morning Barrymore denies that it was his wife, who is one of only two women in the house. Watson sees Mrs. Barrymore later in the morning, however, and observes clear evidence that she has indeed been weeping. Watson checks with the postmaster in Coombe Tracey and learns that the telegram was not actually delivered into the hands of Barrymore, so it is no longer certain that he was at the Hall, and not in London. On his way back, Watson meets Jack Stapleton, a naturalist familiar with the moor even though he has only been in the area for two years. They hear a moan that the peasants attribute to the hound, but Stapleton attributes it to the cry of a bittern, or possibly the bog settling. He then runs off after a specimen of the butterfly Cyclopedes, which was still found on Dartmoor until the 1860s. Watson is not alone for long before Beryl Stapleton, Jack's sister, approaches him. Mistaking him for Sir Henry, she urgently warns him to leave the area, but drops the subject when her brother returns. The three walk to Merripit House (the Stapletons\u2019 home), and during the discussion, Watson learns that Stapleton used to run a school in Yorkshire. Though he is offered lunch and a look at Stapleton\u2019s collections, Watson departs for the Hall. Before he gets far along the path, Miss Stapleton overtakes him and retracts her warning. Watson notices that the brother and sister don't look very much alike. Sir Henry soon meets Miss Stapleton and becomes romantically interested, despite her brother\u2019s intrusions. Watson meets another neighbour, Mr. Frankland, an elderly lawyer. Barrymore draws increasing suspicion, as Watson and Sir Henry see him late at night walk with a candle into an empty room, hold it up to the window, and then leave. Realising that the room has a view out on the moor, Watson and Sir Henry determine to figure out what is going on. Barrymore's wife confesses that her brother is Selden, the escaped murderer, and that she was giving him food while he was out on the moor. Meanwhile, during the day, Sir Henry continues to pursue Beryl Stapleton until her brother runs up on them and yells angrily. He later explains to the disappointed baronet that it was not personal, he was just afraid of losing his only companion so quickly. To show there are no hard feelings, he invites Sir Henry to dine with him and his sister on Friday. Sir Henry then becomes the person doing the surprising, when he and Watson walk in on Barrymore, catching him at night in the room with a candle. Barrymore refuses to answer their questions, since it is not his secret to tell, but Mrs. Barrymore\u2019s. She tells them that the runaway convict Selden is her brother and the candle is a signal to him that food has been left for him. When the couple return to their room, Sir Henry and Watson go off to find the convict, despite the poor weather and frightening sound of the hound. They see Selden by another candle, but are unable to catch him. Watson notices the outlined figure of another man standing on top of a tor with the moon behind him, but he likewise gets away. Barrymore is upset when he finds out that they tried to capture Selden, but when an agreement is reached to allow Selden to flee the country, he is willing to repay the favour. He tells them of finding a mostly burnt letter asking Sir Charles to be at the gate at the time of his death. It was signed with the initials L.L. Mortimer tells Watson the next day those initials could stand for Laura Lyons, Frankland\u2019s daughter. She lives in Coombe Tracey. When Watson goes to talk to her, she admits to writing the letter in hopes that Sir Charles would be willing to help finance her divorce, but says she never kept the appointment. Frankland has just won two law cases and invites Watson in to help him celebrate. Barrymore had previously told Watson that another man lived out on the moor besides Selden, and Frankland unwittingly confirms this, when he shows Watson through his telescope the figure of a boy carrying food. Watson departs the house and goes in that direction. He finds the prehistoric stone dwelling where the unknown man has been staying, goes in, and sees a message reporting on his own activities. He waits, revolver at the ready, for the unknown man to return. The unknown man proves to be Holmes. He has kept his location a secret so that Watson would not be tempted to come out and so he would be able to appear on the scene of action at the critical moment. Watson\u2019s reports have been of much help to him, and he then tells his friend some of the information he has uncoveredStapleton is actually married to the woman passing as Miss Stapleton, and was also promising marriage to Laura Lyons to get her cooperation. As they bring their conversation to an end, they hear a ghastly scream. They run towards the sound and finding a body, mistake it for Sir Henry. They realise it is actually the escaped convict Selden, the brother of Mrs Barrymore, dressed in the baronet\u2019s old clothes (which had been given to Barrymore by way of further apology for distrusting him). Then Stapleton appears, and while he makes excuses for his presence, Holmes announces that he will return to London the next day, his investigations having produced no result. Holmes and Watson return to Baskerville Hall where, over dinner, the detective stares at Hugo Baskerville's portrait. Calling Watson over after dinner he covers the hair to show the face, revealing its striking likeness to Stapleton. This provides the motive in the crimewith Sir Henry gone, Stapleton could lay claim to the Baskerville fortune, being clearly a Baskerville himself. When they return to Mrs. Lyons\u2019s apartment, Holmes' questioning forces her to admit Stapleton\u2019s role in the letter that lured Sir Charles to his death. They go to the railway station to meet Det. Inspector Lestrade, whom Holmes has called in by telegram. Under the threat of advancing fog, Watson, Holmes, and Lestrade lie in wait outside Merripit House, where Sir Henry has been dining. When the baronet leaves and sets off across the moor, Stapleton looses the hound. Holmes and Watson manage to shoot it before it can hurt Sir Henry seriously, and discover that its hellish appearance was acquired by means of phosphorus. They find Mrs. Stapleton bound and gagged in an upstairs room of Merripit House. When she is freed, she tells them of Stapleton\u2019s hideout; an island deep in the Great Grimpen Mire. They look for him next day, unsuccessfully, and he is presumed dead, having lost his footing and being sucked down into the foul and bottomless depths of the mire. Holmes and Watson are only able to find and recover Sir Henry's boot used by Stapleton to give the hound Sir Henry's scent and find the remains of Dr Mortimer's dog in the mire. Some weeks later, Watson questions Holmes about the Baskerville case. Holmes reveals that although believed to have died unmarried, Sir Charles' younger brother Rodger Baskerville had married and had a son with the same name as his father. The son John Rodger Baskerville, after embezzling public money in Costa Rica, took the name Vandeleur and fled to England where he used the money to fund a Yorkshire school. Unfortunately for him, the tutor he had hired died of consumption, and after an epidemic of the disease killed three students the school itself failed. Now using the name Stapleton, Baskerville/Vandeleur fled with his wife to Dartmoor. He apparently supported himself by burglary, engaging in four large robberies and pistolling a page who surprised him. Having learned the story of the hound, he resolved to kill off the remaining Baskervilles so that he could come into the inheritance as the last of the line. He had no interest in the estate and simply wanted the inheritance money. He purchased the hound and hid it in the mire at the site of an abandoned tin mine. On the night of his death, Sir Charles had been waiting for Laura Lyons. The cigar ash at the scene (\"the ash had twice dropped from his cigar\") showed he had waited for some time. Instead he met the hound that had been trained by Stapleton and covered with phosphorus to give it an unearthly appearance. Sir Charles ran for his life, but then had the fatal heart attack which killed him. Since dogs do not eat or bite dead bodies, it left him there untouched. Stapleton followed Sir Henry in London, and also stole his new boot but later returned it, since it had not been worn and thus lacked Sir Henry's scent. Holmes speculated that the hotel bootblack had been bribed to steal an old boot of Henry's instead. The hound pursued Selden to his death in a fall because he was wearing Sir Henry's old clothes. On the night the hound attacked Sir Henry, Stapleton's wife had refused to have any further part in Stapleton's plot, but her abusive husband beat and tied her to a pole to prevent her from warning him. In Holmes' words: \"..he (Stapleton) has for years been a desperate and dangerous man..\" It was his consuming interest in entomology that allowed Holmes to identify him as the same man as Vandeleur, the former schoolmaster.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Sir Charles Baskerville is found lying dead on the grounds of his country house, Baskerville Hall. The cause is ascribed to a heart attack. Fearing for the safety of Sir Charles's nephew and only known heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, coming from America to claim his inheritance, Dr James Mortimer travels to London and asks Sherlock Holmes for help. Mortimer explains that the Baskerville family is afflicted by a curse. According to an old account, over two centuries ago Hugo Baskerville was infatuated with a farmer's daughter. He kidnapped her and imprisoned her in his bedroom. She escaped and the furious Baskerville offered his soul to the devil if he could recapture her. Aided by friends, he pursued the girl onto the desolate moor. Baskerville and his victim were found dead. She had died from fright, but a giant spectral hound stood guard over Baskerville's body. The hound tore out Baskerville's throat, then vanished into the night. Sir Charles Baskerville had become fearful of the legendary curse and its hellhound. Mortimer decided that Sir Charles had been waiting for someone when he died. His face was contorted in a ghastly expression, while his footprints suggested he was running from something. The elderly man's heart was not strong, and he had planned to go to London the next day. Mortimer says he had seen the footprints of a \"gigantic hound\" near Sir Charles's body, something not revealed at the inquest. Intrigued by the case, Holmes meets with Sir Henry, newly arrived from America. Sir Henry is puzzled by an anonymous note delivered to his London hotel room, warning him to avoid the Devon moors. Holmes says that the note had been composed largely of letters cut from The Times, probably in a hotel, judging by other clues. The fact that the letters were cut with nail scissors suggested an authoress, as did a"
      },
      {
        "text": " near Sir Charles's body, something not revealed at the inquest. Intrigued by the case, Holmes meets with Sir Henry, newly arrived from America. Sir Henry is puzzled by an anonymous note delivered to his London hotel room, warning him to avoid the Devon moors. Holmes says that the note had been composed largely of letters cut from The Times, probably in a hotel, judging by other clues. The fact that the letters were cut with nail scissors suggested an authoress, as did a remnant whiff of perfume. Holmes keeps this last detail to himself. When Holmes and Watson later join Sir Henry at his hotel, they learn one of the baronet's new boots has gone missing. No good explanation can be found for the loss. Holmes asks if there were any other living relatives besides Sir Henry. Mortimer tells him that Charles had two brothers, Rodger and John. Sir Henry is the sole child of John, who settled in America and raised his son there. Another brother, Rodger, was known to be the black sheep of the family. A wastrel and inveterate gambler, he fled to South America to avoid creditors. He is believed to have died there alone. Despite the note's warning, Sir Henry insists on visiting Baskerville Hall. As Sir Henry leaves Holmes' Baker Street apartment, Holmes and Doctor Watson follow him. They realise that a man with a fake-looking black beard in a cab is also following him. Holmes and Watson pursue this man, but he escapes; however, Holmes memorises the cab number. Holmes stops in at a messenger office and employs a young boy, Cartwright, to go visit London's hotels and look through wastepaper in search of cut-up copies of The Times. By the time they return to the hotel, Sir Henry has had another, newer boot stolen. When the first missing boot is discovered before the meeting is over, Holmes begins to realise they must be dealing with a real hound ("
      },
      {
        "text": " man, but he escapes; however, Holmes memorises the cab number. Holmes stops in at a messenger office and employs a young boy, Cartwright, to go visit London's hotels and look through wastepaper in search of cut-up copies of The Times. By the time they return to the hotel, Sir Henry has had another, newer boot stolen. When the first missing boot is discovered before the meeting is over, Holmes begins to realise they must be dealing with a real hound (hence the emphasis on the scent of the used boot). When conversation turns to the man in the cab, Mortimer says that Barrymore, the servant at Baskerville Hall, has a beard, and a telegram is sent to check on his whereabouts. It is decided that, with Holmes being tied up in London with other cases, Watson will accompany Sir Henry to Baskerville Hall and report back by telegram in detail. Later that evening, telegrams from Cartwright (who was unable to find the newspaper) and Baskerville Hall (where Barrymore apparently is) bring an end to those leads. A visit from John Clayton, who was driving the cab with the black-bearded man, is of little help. He says that the man had identified himself as Holmes, much to the surprise and amusement of the actual Holmes. Mortimer, Watson, and Sir Henry set off for Baskerville Hall the following Saturday. The baronet is excited to see it and his connection with the land is clear, but finds the moor dampened. Soldiers are about the area, on the lookout for an escaped murderer named Selden. Barrymore and his wife wish to depart Baskerville Hall as soon as is convenient, and the Hall is, in general, a somber place. Watson has trouble sleeping that night, and hears a woman crying. The next morning Barrymore denies that it was his wife, who is one of only two women in the house"
      },
      {
        "text": " his connection with the land is clear, but finds the moor dampened. Soldiers are about the area, on the lookout for an escaped murderer named Selden. Barrymore and his wife wish to depart Baskerville Hall as soon as is convenient, and the Hall is, in general, a somber place. Watson has trouble sleeping that night, and hears a woman crying. The next morning Barrymore denies that it was his wife, who is one of only two women in the house. Watson sees Mrs. Barrymore later in the morning, however, and observes clear evidence that she has indeed been weeping. Watson checks with the postmaster in Coombe Tracey and learns that the telegram was not actually delivered into the hands of Barrymore, so it is no longer certain that he was at the Hall, and not in London. On his way back, Watson meets Jack Stapleton, a naturalist familiar with the moor even though he has only been in the area for two years. They hear a moan that the peasants attribute to the hound, but Stapleton attributes it to the cry of a bittern, or possibly the bog settling. He then runs off after a specimen of the butterfly Cyclopedes, which was still found on Dartmoor until the 1860s. Watson is not alone for long before Beryl Stapleton, Jack's sister, approaches him. Mistaking him for Sir Henry, she urgently warns him to leave the area, but drops the subject when her brother returns. The three walk to Merripit House (the Stapletons\u2019 home), and during the discussion, Watson learns that Stapleton used to run a school in Yorkshire. Though he is offered lunch and a look at Stapleton\u2019s collections, Watson departs for the Hall. Before he gets far along the path, Miss Stapleton overtakes him and retracts her warning. Watson notices that the brother and sister don"
      },
      {
        "text": ", but drops the subject when her brother returns. The three walk to Merripit House (the Stapletons\u2019 home), and during the discussion, Watson learns that Stapleton used to run a school in Yorkshire. Though he is offered lunch and a look at Stapleton\u2019s collections, Watson departs for the Hall. Before he gets far along the path, Miss Stapleton overtakes him and retracts her warning. Watson notices that the brother and sister don't look very much alike. Sir Henry soon meets Miss Stapleton and becomes romantically interested, despite her brother\u2019s intrusions. Watson meets another neighbour, Mr. Frankland, an elderly lawyer. Barrymore draws increasing suspicion, as Watson and Sir Henry see him late at night walk with a candle into an empty room, hold it up to the window, and then leave. Realising that the room has a view out on the moor, Watson and Sir Henry determine to figure out what is going on. Barrymore's wife confesses that her brother is Selden, the escaped murderer, and that she was giving him food while he was out on the moor. Meanwhile, during the day, Sir Henry continues to pursue Beryl Stapleton until her brother runs up on them and yells angrily. He later explains to the disappointed baronet that it was not personal, he was just afraid of losing his only companion so quickly. To show there are no hard feelings, he invites Sir Henry to dine with him and his sister on Friday. Sir Henry then becomes the person doing the surprising, when he and Watson walk in on Barrymore, catching him at night in the room with a candle. Barrymore refuses to answer their questions, since it is not his secret to tell, but Mrs. Barrymore\u2019s. She tells them that the runaway convict Selden is her brother and the candle is a signal to him that food has been left for"
      },
      {
        "text": ", he invites Sir Henry to dine with him and his sister on Friday. Sir Henry then becomes the person doing the surprising, when he and Watson walk in on Barrymore, catching him at night in the room with a candle. Barrymore refuses to answer their questions, since it is not his secret to tell, but Mrs. Barrymore\u2019s. She tells them that the runaway convict Selden is her brother and the candle is a signal to him that food has been left for him. When the couple return to their room, Sir Henry and Watson go off to find the convict, despite the poor weather and frightening sound of the hound. They see Selden by another candle, but are unable to catch him. Watson notices the outlined figure of another man standing on top of a tor with the moon behind him, but he likewise gets away. Barrymore is upset when he finds out that they tried to capture Selden, but when an agreement is reached to allow Selden to flee the country, he is willing to repay the favour. He tells them of finding a mostly burnt letter asking Sir Charles to be at the gate at the time of his death. It was signed with the initials L.L. Mortimer tells Watson the next day those initials could stand for Laura Lyons, Frankland\u2019s daughter. She lives in Coombe Tracey. When Watson goes to talk to her, she admits to writing the letter in hopes that Sir Charles would be willing to help finance her divorce, but says she never kept the appointment. Frankland has just won two law cases and invites Watson in to help him celebrate. Barrymore had previously told Watson that another man lived out on the moor besides Selden, and Frankland unwittingly confirms this, when he shows Watson through his telescope the figure of a boy carrying food. Watson departs the house and goes in that direction. He finds the prehistoric stone dwelling where the unknown man has been staying"
      },
      {
        "text": " would be willing to help finance her divorce, but says she never kept the appointment. Frankland has just won two law cases and invites Watson in to help him celebrate. Barrymore had previously told Watson that another man lived out on the moor besides Selden, and Frankland unwittingly confirms this, when he shows Watson through his telescope the figure of a boy carrying food. Watson departs the house and goes in that direction. He finds the prehistoric stone dwelling where the unknown man has been staying, goes in, and sees a message reporting on his own activities. He waits, revolver at the ready, for the unknown man to return. The unknown man proves to be Holmes. He has kept his location a secret so that Watson would not be tempted to come out and so he would be able to appear on the scene of action at the critical moment. Watson\u2019s reports have been of much help to him, and he then tells his friend some of the information he has uncoveredStapleton is actually married to the woman passing as Miss Stapleton, and was also promising marriage to Laura Lyons to get her cooperation. As they bring their conversation to an end, they hear a ghastly scream. They run towards the sound and finding a body, mistake it for Sir Henry. They realise it is actually the escaped convict Selden, the brother of Mrs Barrymore, dressed in the baronet\u2019s old clothes (which had been given to Barrymore by way of further apology for distrusting him). Then Stapleton appears, and while he makes excuses for his presence, Holmes announces that he will return to London the next day, his investigations having produced no result. Holmes and Watson return to Baskerville Hall where, over dinner, the detective stares at Hugo Baskerville's portrait. Calling Watson over after dinner he covers the hair to show the face, revealing its striking likeness to Stapleton. This provides the motive in the crimewith Sir Henry"
      },
      {
        "text": " further apology for distrusting him). Then Stapleton appears, and while he makes excuses for his presence, Holmes announces that he will return to London the next day, his investigations having produced no result. Holmes and Watson return to Baskerville Hall where, over dinner, the detective stares at Hugo Baskerville's portrait. Calling Watson over after dinner he covers the hair to show the face, revealing its striking likeness to Stapleton. This provides the motive in the crimewith Sir Henry gone, Stapleton could lay claim to the Baskerville fortune, being clearly a Baskerville himself. When they return to Mrs. Lyons\u2019s apartment, Holmes' questioning forces her to admit Stapleton\u2019s role in the letter that lured Sir Charles to his death. They go to the railway station to meet Det. Inspector Lestrade, whom Holmes has called in by telegram. Under the threat of advancing fog, Watson, Holmes, and Lestrade lie in wait outside Merripit House, where Sir Henry has been dining. When the baronet leaves and sets off across the moor, Stapleton looses the hound. Holmes and Watson manage to shoot it before it can hurt Sir Henry seriously, and discover that its hellish appearance was acquired by means of phosphorus. They find Mrs. Stapleton bound and gagged in an upstairs room of Merripit House. When she is freed, she tells them of Stapleton\u2019s hideout; an island deep in the Great Grimpen Mire. They look for him next day, unsuccessfully, and he is presumed dead, having lost his footing and being sucked down into the foul and bottomless depths of the mire. Holmes and Watson are only able to find and recover Sir Henry's boot used by Stapleton to give the hound Sir Henry's scent and find the remains of Dr Mortimer's dog in the mire. Some weeks later, Watson questions"
      },
      {
        "text": "\ufffds hideout; an island deep in the Great Grimpen Mire. They look for him next day, unsuccessfully, and he is presumed dead, having lost his footing and being sucked down into the foul and bottomless depths of the mire. Holmes and Watson are only able to find and recover Sir Henry's boot used by Stapleton to give the hound Sir Henry's scent and find the remains of Dr Mortimer's dog in the mire. Some weeks later, Watson questions Holmes about the Baskerville case. Holmes reveals that although believed to have died unmarried, Sir Charles' younger brother Rodger Baskerville had married and had a son with the same name as his father. The son John Rodger Baskerville, after embezzling public money in Costa Rica, took the name Vandeleur and fled to England where he used the money to fund a Yorkshire school. Unfortunately for him, the tutor he had hired died of consumption, and after an epidemic of the disease killed three students the school itself failed. Now using the name Stapleton, Baskerville/Vandeleur fled with his wife to Dartmoor. He apparently supported himself by burglary, engaging in four large robberies and pistolling a page who surprised him. Having learned the story of the hound, he resolved to kill off the remaining Baskervilles so that he could come into the inheritance as the last of the line. He had no interest in the estate and simply wanted the inheritance money. He purchased the hound and hid it in the mire at the site of an abandoned tin mine. On the night of his death, Sir Charles had been waiting for Laura Lyons. The cigar ash at the scene (\"the ash had twice dropped from his cigar\") showed he had waited for some time. Instead he met the hound that had been trained by Stapleton and covered with phosphorus to give it an unearthly appearance. Sir Charles ran for his"
      },
      {
        "text": " and simply wanted the inheritance money. He purchased the hound and hid it in the mire at the site of an abandoned tin mine. On the night of his death, Sir Charles had been waiting for Laura Lyons. The cigar ash at the scene (\"the ash had twice dropped from his cigar\") showed he had waited for some time. Instead he met the hound that had been trained by Stapleton and covered with phosphorus to give it an unearthly appearance. Sir Charles ran for his life, but then had the fatal heart attack which killed him. Since dogs do not eat or bite dead bodies, it left him there untouched. Stapleton followed Sir Henry in London, and also stole his new boot but later returned it, since it had not been worn and thus lacked Sir Henry's scent. Holmes speculated that the hotel bootblack had been bribed to steal an old boot of Henry's instead. The hound pursued Selden to his death in a fall because he was wearing Sir Henry's old clothes. On the night the hound attacked Sir Henry, Stapleton's wife had refused to have any further part in Stapleton's plot, but her abusive husband beat and tied her to a pole to prevent her from warning him. In Holmes' words: \"..he (Stapleton) has for years been a desperate and dangerous man..\" It was his consuming interest in entomology that allowed Holmes to identify him as the same man as Vandeleur, the former schoolmaster.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ur, the former schoolmaster.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Hobbit",
    "author": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
    "published_date": "1937",
    "synopsis": " Gandalf tricks Bilbo into hosting a party for Thorin and his band of dwarves, who sing of reclaiming the Lonely Mountain and its vast treasure from the dragon Smaug. When the music ends, Gandalf unveils a map showing a secret door into the Mountain and proposes that the dumbfounded Bilbo serve as the expedition's \"burglar\". The dwarves ridicule the idea, but Bilbo, indignant, joins despite himself. The group travel into the wild, where Gandalf saves the company from trolls and leads them to Rivendell, where Elrond reveals more secrets from the map. Passing over the Misty Mountains, they are caught by goblins and driven deep underground. Although Gandalf rescues them, Bilbo gets separated from the others as they flee the goblins. Lost in the goblin tunnels, he stumbles across a mysterious ring and then encounters Gollum, who engages him in a game of riddles. As a reward for solving all riddles Gollum will show him the path out of the tunnels, but if Bilbo fails, his life will be forfeit. With the help of the ring, which confers invisibility, Bilbo escapes and rejoins the dwarves, improving his reputation with them. The goblins and Wargs give chase but the company are saved by eagles before resting in the house of Beorn. The company enters the black forest of Mirkwood without Gandalf. In Mirkwood, Bilbo first saves the dwarves from giant spiders and then from the dungeons of the Wood-elves. Nearing the Lonely Mountain, the travellers are welcomed by the human inhabitants of Lake-town, who hope the dwarves will fulfil prophecies of Smaug's demise. The expedition travels to the Lonely Mountain and finds the secret door; Bilbo scouts the dragon's lair, stealing a great cup and learning of a weakness in Smaug's armour. The enraged dragon, deducing that Lake-town has aided the intruder, sets out to destroy the town. A noble thrush who overheard Bilbo's report of Smaug's vulnerability reports it to Bard, who slays the dragon. When the dwarves take possession of the mountain, Bilbo finds the Arkenstone, an heirloom of Thorin's dynasty, and steals it. The Wood-elves and Lake-men besiege the mountain and request compensation for their aid, reparations for Lake-town's destruction, and settlement of old claims on the treasure. Thorin refuses and, having summoned his kin from the mountains of the North, reinforces his position. Bilbo tries to ransom the Arkenstone to head off a war, but Thorin is intransigent. He banishes Bilbo, and battle seems inevitable. Gandalf reappears to warn all of an approaching army of goblins and Wargs. The dwarves, men, and elves band together, but only with the timely arrival of the eagles and Beorn do they win the climactic Battle of Five Armies. Thorin is fatally wounded and reconciles with Bilbo before he dies. Bilbo accepts only a small portion of his share of the treasure, having no want or need for more, but still returns home a very wealthy hobbit.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Gandalf tricks Bilbo into hosting a party for Thorin and his band of dwarves, who sing of reclaiming the Lonely Mountain and its vast treasure from the dragon Smaug. When the music ends, Gandalf unveils a map showing a secret door into the Mountain and proposes that the dumbfounded Bilbo serve as the expedition's \"burglar\". The dwarves ridicule the idea, but Bilbo, indignant, joins despite himself. The group travel into the wild, where Gandalf saves the company from trolls and leads them to Rivendell, where Elrond reveals more secrets from the map. Passing over the Misty Mountains, they are caught by goblins and driven deep underground. Although Gandalf rescues them, Bilbo gets separated from the others as they flee the goblins. Lost in the goblin tunnels, he stumbles across a mysterious ring and then encounters Gollum, who engages him in a game of riddles. As a reward for solving all riddles Gollum will show him the path out of the tunnels, but if Bilbo fails, his life will be forfeit. With the help of the ring, which confers invisibility, Bilbo escapes and rejoins the dwarves, improving his reputation with them. The goblins and Wargs give chase but the company are saved by eagles before resting in the house of Beorn. The company enters the black forest of Mirkwood without Gandalf. In Mirkwood, Bilbo first saves the dwarves from giant spiders and then from the dungeons of the Wood-elves. Nearing the Lonely Mountain, the travellers are welcomed by the human inhabitants of Lake-town, who hope the dwarves will fulfil prophecies of Smaug's demise. The expedition travels to the Lonely Mountain and finds the secret door; Bilbo scouts the dragon's lair, stealing a great cup and learning of a weakness in Smaug's armour. The enraged dragon, deducing that Lake-town has aided the intruder, sets out to"
      },
      {
        "text": " spiders and then from the dungeons of the Wood-elves. Nearing the Lonely Mountain, the travellers are welcomed by the human inhabitants of Lake-town, who hope the dwarves will fulfil prophecies of Smaug's demise. The expedition travels to the Lonely Mountain and finds the secret door; Bilbo scouts the dragon's lair, stealing a great cup and learning of a weakness in Smaug's armour. The enraged dragon, deducing that Lake-town has aided the intruder, sets out to destroy the town. A noble thrush who overheard Bilbo's report of Smaug's vulnerability reports it to Bard, who slays the dragon. When the dwarves take possession of the mountain, Bilbo finds the Arkenstone, an heirloom of Thorin's dynasty, and steals it. The Wood-elves and Lake-men besiege the mountain and request compensation for their aid, reparations for Lake-town's destruction, and settlement of old claims on the treasure. Thorin refuses and, having summoned his kin from the mountains of the North, reinforces his position. Bilbo tries to ransom the Arkenstone to head off a war, but Thorin is intransigent. He banishes Bilbo, and battle seems inevitable. Gandalf reappears to warn all of an approaching army of goblins and Wargs. The dwarves, men, and elves band together, but only with the timely arrival of the eagles and Beorn do they win the climactic Battle of Five Armies. Thorin is fatally wounded and reconciles with Bilbo before he dies. Bilbo accepts only a small portion of his share of the treasure, having no want or need for more, but still returns home a very wealthy hobbit.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " of Five Armies. Thorin is fatally wounded and reconciles with Bilbo before he dies. Bilbo accepts only a small portion of his share of the treasure, having no want or need for more, but still returns home a very wealthy hobbit.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Great Divorce",
    "author": "C. S. Lewis",
    "published_date": "1945",
    "synopsis": " The narrator inexplicably finds himself in a grim and joyless city, the \"grey town\", which is either hell or purgatory depending on how long one stays there. He eventually finds a bus for those who desire an excursion to some other place (and which eventually turns out to be the foothills of heaven). He enters the bus and converses with his fellow passengers as they travel. When the bus reaches its destination, the passengers on the bus — including the narrator — are gradually revealed to be ghosts. Although the country is the most beautiful they have ever seen, every feature of the landscape (including streams of water and blades of grass) is unyieldingly solid compared to themselves: it causes them immense pain to walk on the grass, and even a single leaf is far too heavy for any to lift. Shining figures, men and women whom they have known on earth, come to meet them, and to urge them to repent and enter heaven proper. They promise that as the ghosts travel onward and upward, they will become more solid and thus feel less and less discomfort. These figures, called \"spirits\" to distinguish them from the ghosts, offer to assist them in the journey toward the mountains and the sunrise. Almost all of the ghosts choose to return instead to the grey town, giving various reasons and excuses. Much of the interest of the book lies in the recognition it awakens of the plausibility and familiarity, along with the thinness and self-deception, of the excuses that the ghosts refuse to abandon, even though to do so would bring them to \"reality\" and \"joy forevermore.\" The narrator is met by the writer George MacDonald, whom he hails as his mentor, just as Dante did when encountering Virgil in the Divine Comedy; and MacDonald becomes the narrator's guide in his journey, just as Virgil became Dante's. MacDonald explains that it is possible for a soul to choose to remain in heaven despite having been in the grey town; for such souls, the goodness of heaven will work backwards into their lives, turning even their worst sorrows into joy, and changing their experience on earth to an extension of heaven. Conversely, the evil of hell works so that if a soul remains in, or returns to, the grey town, even its happiness on earth will lose its meaning, and its experience on earth would have been hell. None of the ghosts realize that the grey town is, in fact, hell. Indeed it is not that much different from the life they led on earth: joyless, friendless, and uncomfortable. It just goes on forever, and gets worse and worse, with some characters whispering their fear of the \"night\" that is eventually to come. According to MacDonald, while it is possible to leave hell and enter heaven, doing so implies turning away (repentance); or as depicted by Lewis, embracing ultimate and unceasing joy itself. In answer to the narrator's question MacDonald confirms that what is going on is a dream. The use of chess imagery as well as the correspondence of dream elements to elements in the narrator's waking life is reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The narrator discovers that the vast grey town and its ghostly inhabitants are minuscule to the point of being invisible compared with the immensity of heaven and reality. This is illustrated in the encounter of the blessed woman and her husband: she is surrounded by gleaming attendants while he shrinks down to invisibility as he uses a collared tragedian to speak for him. Toward the end, the narrator expresses the terror and agony of remaining a ghost in the advent of full daybreak in heaven, comparing the experience to having large blocks fall on one's body (at this point falling books awaken him). This parallels that of the man with his dream of judgment day in the House of the Interpreter of The Pilgrim's Progress. The book ends with the narrator awakening from his dream of heaven into the unpleasant reality of wartime Britain, in conscious imitation of The Pilgrim's Progress, the last sentence of the \"First Part\" of which is: \"So I awoke, and behold, it was a Dream.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The narrator inexplicably finds himself in a grim and joyless city, the \"grey town\", which is either hell or purgatory depending on how long one stays there. He eventually finds a bus for those who desire an excursion to some other place (and which eventually turns out to be the foothills of heaven). He enters the bus and converses with his fellow passengers as they travel. When the bus reaches its destination, the passengers on the bus — including the narrator — are gradually revealed to be ghosts. Although the country is the most beautiful they have ever seen, every feature of the landscape (including streams of water and blades of grass) is unyieldingly solid compared to themselves: it causes them immense pain to walk on the grass, and even a single leaf is far too heavy for any to lift. Shining figures, men and women whom they have known on earth, come to meet them, and to urge them to repent and enter heaven proper. They promise that as the ghosts travel onward and upward, they will become more solid and thus feel less and less discomfort. These figures, called \"spirits\" to distinguish them from the ghosts, offer to assist them in the journey toward the mountains and the sunrise. Almost all of the ghosts choose to return instead to the grey town, giving various reasons and excuses. Much of the interest of the book lies in the recognition it awakens of the plausibility and familiarity, along with the thinness and self-deception, of the excuses that the ghosts refuse to abandon, even though to do so would bring them to \"reality\" and \"joy forevermore.\" The narrator is met by the writer George MacDonald, whom he hails as his mentor, just as Dante did when encountering Virgil in the Divine Comedy; and MacDonald becomes the narrator's guide in his journey, just as Virgil became Dante's. MacDonald explains that it is possible for a soul to choose to remain in heaven despite"
      },
      {
        "text": " and self-deception, of the excuses that the ghosts refuse to abandon, even though to do so would bring them to \"reality\" and \"joy forevermore.\" The narrator is met by the writer George MacDonald, whom he hails as his mentor, just as Dante did when encountering Virgil in the Divine Comedy; and MacDonald becomes the narrator's guide in his journey, just as Virgil became Dante's. MacDonald explains that it is possible for a soul to choose to remain in heaven despite having been in the grey town; for such souls, the goodness of heaven will work backwards into their lives, turning even their worst sorrows into joy, and changing their experience on earth to an extension of heaven. Conversely, the evil of hell works so that if a soul remains in, or returns to, the grey town, even its happiness on earth will lose its meaning, and its experience on earth would have been hell. None of the ghosts realize that the grey town is, in fact, hell. Indeed it is not that much different from the life they led on earth: joyless, friendless, and uncomfortable. It just goes on forever, and gets worse and worse, with some characters whispering their fear of the \"night\" that is eventually to come. According to MacDonald, while it is possible to leave hell and enter heaven, doing so implies turning away (repentance); or as depicted by Lewis, embracing ultimate and unceasing joy itself. In answer to the narrator's question MacDonald confirms that what is going on is a dream. The use of chess imagery as well as the correspondence of dream elements to elements in the narrator's waking life is reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The narrator discovers that the vast grey town and its ghostly inhabitants are minuscule to the point of being invisible compared with the immensity of heaven and reality. This is illustrated in the encounter of the blessed woman and her husband: she is surrounded by"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s question MacDonald confirms that what is going on is a dream. The use of chess imagery as well as the correspondence of dream elements to elements in the narrator's waking life is reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The narrator discovers that the vast grey town and its ghostly inhabitants are minuscule to the point of being invisible compared with the immensity of heaven and reality. This is illustrated in the encounter of the blessed woman and her husband: she is surrounded by gleaming attendants while he shrinks down to invisibility as he uses a collared tragedian to speak for him. Toward the end, the narrator expresses the terror and agony of remaining a ghost in the advent of full daybreak in heaven, comparing the experience to having large blocks fall on one's body (at this point falling books awaken him). This parallels that of the man with his dream of judgment day in the House of the Interpreter of The Pilgrim's Progress. The book ends with the narrator awakening from his dream of heaven into the unpleasant reality of wartime Britain, in conscious imitation of The Pilgrim's Progress, the last sentence of the \"First Part\" of which is: \"So I awoke, and behold, it was a Dream.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Screwtape Letters",
    "author": "C. S. Lewis",
    "published_date": "1942",
    "synopsis": " In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis provides a series of lessons in the importance of taking a deliberate role in living out Christian faith by portraying a typical human life, with all its temptations and failings, as seen from devils' viewpoints. Screwtape holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy (\"Lowerarchy\") of Hell, and acts as a mentor to Wormwood, the inexperienced tempter. In the body of the thirty-one letters which make up the book, Screwtape gives Wormwood detailed advice on various methods of undermining faith and promoting sin in the Patient, interspersed with observations on human nature and Christian doctrine. Wormwood and Screwtape live in a peculiarly morally reversed world, where individual benefit and greed are seen as the greatest good, and neither demon is capable of comprehending God's love for man or acknowledging true human virtue when he sees it. Versions of the letters were originally published weekly in the Anglican periodical The Guardian between May and November 1941, and the standard edition contains an introduction explaining how the author chose to write his story. Lewis wrote the sequel Screwtape Proposes a Toast in 1959, a critique of certain trends in public education (state schooling). An omnibus edition with a new preface by Lewis was published by Bles in 1961 and MacMillan in 1962. The Screwtape Letters is one of Lewis' most popular works, although he claimed that it was \"not fun\" to write, and \"resolved never to write another 'Letter'.\" Both The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast have been released on both audio cassette and CD, with narration by John Cleese and Joss Ackland. A dramatized audio version by Focus on the Family was a 2010 Audie Award finalist.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis provides a series of lessons in the importance of taking a deliberate role in living out Christian faith by portraying a typical human life, with all its temptations and failings, as seen from devils' viewpoints. Screwtape holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy (\"Lowerarchy\") of Hell, and acts as a mentor to Wormwood, the inexperienced tempter. In the body of the thirty-one letters which make up the book, Screwtape gives Wormwood detailed advice on various methods of undermining faith and promoting sin in the Patient, interspersed with observations on human nature and Christian doctrine. Wormwood and Screwtape live in a peculiarly morally reversed world, where individual benefit and greed are seen as the greatest good, and neither demon is capable of comprehending God's love for man or acknowledging true human virtue when he sees it. Versions of the letters were originally published weekly in the Anglican periodical The Guardian between May and November 1941, and the standard edition contains an introduction explaining how the author chose to write his story. Lewis wrote the sequel Screwtape Proposes a Toast in 1959, a critique of certain trends in public education (state schooling). An omnibus edition with a new preface by Lewis was published by Bles in 1961 and MacMillan in 1962. The Screwtape Letters is one of Lewis' most popular works, although he claimed that it was \"not fun\" to write, and \"resolved never to write another 'Letter'.\" Both The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast have been released on both audio cassette and CD, with narration by John Cleese and Joss Ackland. A dramatized audio version by Focus on the Family was a 2010 Audie Award finalist.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " \"resolved never to write another 'Letter'.\" Both The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast have been released on both audio cassette and CD, with narration by John Cleese and Joss Ackland. A dramatized audio version by Focus on the Family was a 2010 Audie Award finalist.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Pit and the Pendulum",
    "author": "Nancy Kilpatrick",
    "published_date": "1842",
    "synopsis": " The story takes place during the Spanish Inquisition. At the beginning of the story an unnamed narrator is brought to trial before various sinister judges. Poe provides no explanation of why he is there or for what he has been arrested. Before him are seven tall white candles on a table, and, as they melt, his hopes of survival also diminish. He is condemned to death and finds himself in a pitch black compartment. At first the prisoner thinks that he is locked in a tomb, but he discovers that he is in a cell. He decides to explore the cell by placing a hem from his robe against a wall so he can count the paces around the room; however, he faints before being able to measure the whole perimeter. When the prisoner awakens he discovers food and water nearby. He gets back up and tries to measure the prison again, finding that the perimeter measures one hundred steps. While crossing the room he slips on the hem of his robe. He discovers that if he had not tripped he would have walked into a deep pit with water at the bottom in the center of the cell. After losing consciousness again the narrator discovers that the prison is slightly illuminated and that he is bound to a wooden board by ropes. He looks up in horror to see a painted picture of Father Time on the ceiling; hanging from the figure is a gigantic scythe-like pendulum swinging slowly back and forth. The pendulum is inexorably sliding downwards and will eventually kill him. However the condemned man is able to attract rats to his bonds with meat left for him to eat and they start chewing through the ropes. As the pendulum reaches a point inches above his heart, the prisoner breaks free of the ropes and watches as the pendulum is drawn back to the ceiling. He then sees that the walls have become red-hot and begun moving inwards, driving him into the center of the room and towards the brink of the pit. As he gazes into the pit, he decides that no fate could be worse than falling into it. It is implied by the text that the narrator fears what he sees at the bottom of the pit, or perhaps is frightened by its depth. The exact cause of his fear is not clearly stated. However, as the narrator moves back from the pit, he sees that the red-hot walls are leaving him with no foothold. As the prisoner begins to fall into the pit, he hears human voices. The walls rush back and an arm catches him. The French Army has taken Toledo and the Inquisition is in the hands of its enemies.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story takes place during the Spanish Inquisition. At the beginning of the story an unnamed narrator is brought to trial before various sinister judges. Poe provides no explanation of why he is there or for what he has been arrested. Before him are seven tall white candles on a table, and, as they melt, his hopes of survival also diminish. He is condemned to death and finds himself in a pitch black compartment. At first the prisoner thinks that he is locked in a tomb, but he discovers that he is in a cell. He decides to explore the cell by placing a hem from his robe against a wall so he can count the paces around the room; however, he faints before being able to measure the whole perimeter. When the prisoner awakens he discovers food and water nearby. He gets back up and tries to measure the prison again, finding that the perimeter measures one hundred steps. While crossing the room he slips on the hem of his robe. He discovers that if he had not tripped he would have walked into a deep pit with water at the bottom in the center of the cell. After losing consciousness again the narrator discovers that the prison is slightly illuminated and that he is bound to a wooden board by ropes. He looks up in horror to see a painted picture of Father Time on the ceiling; hanging from the figure is a gigantic scythe-like pendulum swinging slowly back and forth. The pendulum is inexorably sliding downwards and will eventually kill him. However the condemned man is able to attract rats to his bonds with meat left for him to eat and they start chewing through the ropes. As the pendulum reaches a point inches above his heart, the prisoner breaks free of the ropes and watches as the pendulum is drawn back to the ceiling. He then sees that the walls have become red-hot and begun moving inwards, driving him into the center of the room and towards the brink of the pit. As he gazes into the pit, he decides"
      },
      {
        "text": " condemned man is able to attract rats to his bonds with meat left for him to eat and they start chewing through the ropes. As the pendulum reaches a point inches above his heart, the prisoner breaks free of the ropes and watches as the pendulum is drawn back to the ceiling. He then sees that the walls have become red-hot and begun moving inwards, driving him into the center of the room and towards the brink of the pit. As he gazes into the pit, he decides that no fate could be worse than falling into it. It is implied by the text that the narrator fears what he sees at the bottom of the pit, or perhaps is frightened by its depth. The exact cause of his fear is not clearly stated. However, as the narrator moves back from the pit, he sees that the red-hot walls are leaving him with no foothold. As the prisoner begins to fall into the pit, he hears human voices. The walls rush back and an arm catches him. The French Army has taken Toledo and the Inquisition is in the hands of its enemies.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Hunt for Red October",
    "author": "Tom Clancy",
    "published_date": "1984",
    "synopsis": " Marko Alexandrovich Ramius, a Lithuanian submarine commander in the Soviet Navy, intends to defect to the United States with his officers on board the experimental nuclear submarine Red October, a Typhoon-class vessel equipped with a revolutionary stealth propulsion system, described as an arrangement of pump-jets nicknamed the \"Caterpillar Drive.\" The system makes sonar detection extremely difficult. The result, immediately apparent to Jack Ryan and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a strategic weapon platform that is capable of sneaking its way into American waters and launching nuclear missiles with little or no warning. The strategic value of Red October was not lost upon Ramius. Several other factors have spurred his decision to defect, in particular his disillusionment by the death of his wife, Natalia, at the hands of an incompetent doctor who went unpunished because he was the son of a Politburo member. Her untimely death, combined with Ramius' long-standing dissatisfaction with the callousness of Soviet rule and his fear of the Red Octobers destabilizing effect on world affairs, ultimately exhausts his tolerance for the failings of the Soviet system. Ramius kills the Red Octobers political officer to ensure that he will not interfere with the defection, and writes a letter to Admiral Yuri Padorin, Natalia's uncle, brazenly stating his intention to defect. The Soviet Northern Fleet sails out to sink the Red October under the pretext of a search and rescue mission. Meanwhile, Ryan, a high-level Central Intelligence Agency analyst, flies from London to Langley, Virginia, to deliver British Intelligence's photographs of Red October to the Deputy Director of Intelligence. Ryan consults a friend at the U.S. Naval Academy and finds out that the new construction variations house the Caterpillar Drive. When the Red Octobers silent drive is engaged, she disappears off the sonar of the USS Dallas, a Los Angeles class submarine that is tracking her. Putting this information together with the subsequent launch of the entire Northern Fleet, Ryan deduces Ramius' plans. The U.S. military command reluctantly agrees, while planning for contingencies in case the Soviet Fleet has intentions other than those stated. As tensions rise between the U.S. and Soviet fleets, the crew of the Dallas discover a way to detect Red October. Ryan must contact Ramius to prevent the loss of the submarine and her decisive technology. Through a combination of circumstances, Ryan becomes responsible for shepherding Ramius and his vessel away from the pursuing Soviet fleet. In order to convince the Soviets that the Red October has been destroyed, the U.S. Navy rescues her crew after Ramius fakes a shipboard emergency. Ramius and his officers heroically stay behind, claiming they are about to scuttle the submarine to prevent it getting into the hands of the Americans. A decommissioned U.S. ballistic missile submarine, the USS Ethan Allen, is blown up underwater as a deception ploy. A depth gauge taken from the main instrument panel of the Red October (with the appropriate serial number) is made to appear as if it was salvaged from the wreckage. These events succeed in convincing Soviet observers that the Red October has been lost. However, GRU intelligence officer Viktor Loginov, masquerading as the Red Octobers cook, realizes what is happening. Loginov attempts to ignite a missile rocket motor inside a launch tube so as to destroy the Red October, wounding both Ramius and a British agent while killing one of Ramius' top officers. Ryan attempts to persuade the fiercely patriotic Loginov to surrender rather than die in the explosion, but he refuses. He manages to fatally shoot Loginov in the submarine's missile compartment. Ramius orders the missile jettisoned in case Loginov had managed to arm it, an action which adds to the deception of the Soviets. Captain Viktor Tupolev, a former student of Ramius' and commander of a Soviet Alfa-class attack submarine, has been trailing what he initially believes is an vessel. Based on acoustical signature information, Tupolev and his political officer realize that it is the Red October, and proceed to pursue and engage it. The two U.S. submarines escorting the Red October are unable to fire due to rules of engagement, and the Red October is damaged by a torpedo from the Alfa. After a tense standoff, the Red October rams Tupolev's submarine broadside and sinks it. The Americans escort Red October safely into the eight-ten dry dock in Norfolk, Virginia, where Ramius and his crew are taken to a CIA safehouse to begin their Americanization. Ryan is commended by his superiors and flies back to his posting in London.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Marko Alexandrovich Ramius, a Lithuanian submarine commander in the Soviet Navy, intends to defect to the United States with his officers on board the experimental nuclear submarine Red October, a Typhoon-class vessel equipped with a revolutionary stealth propulsion system, described as an arrangement of pump-jets nicknamed the \"Caterpillar Drive.\" The system makes sonar detection extremely difficult. The result, immediately apparent to Jack Ryan and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a strategic weapon platform that is capable of sneaking its way into American waters and launching nuclear missiles with little or no warning. The strategic value of Red October was not lost upon Ramius. Several other factors have spurred his decision to defect, in particular his disillusionment by the death of his wife, Natalia, at the hands of an incompetent doctor who went unpunished because he was the son of a Politburo member. Her untimely death, combined with Ramius' long-standing dissatisfaction with the callousness of Soviet rule and his fear of the Red Octobers destabilizing effect on world affairs, ultimately exhausts his tolerance for the failings of the Soviet system. Ramius kills the Red Octobers political officer to ensure that he will not interfere with the defection, and writes a letter to Admiral Yuri Padorin, Natalia's uncle, brazenly stating his intention to defect. The Soviet Northern Fleet sails out to sink the Red October under the pretext of a search and rescue mission. Meanwhile, Ryan, a high-level Central Intelligence Agency analyst, flies from London to Langley, Virginia, to deliver British Intelligence's photographs of Red October to the Deputy Director of Intelligence. Ryan consults a friend at the U.S. Naval Academy and finds out that the new construction variations house the Caterpillar Drive. When the Red Octobers silent drive is engaged, she disappears off the sonar of the USS Dallas, a Los Angeles class submarine that is tracking her. Putting this information together with the"
      },
      {
        "text": ", a high-level Central Intelligence Agency analyst, flies from London to Langley, Virginia, to deliver British Intelligence's photographs of Red October to the Deputy Director of Intelligence. Ryan consults a friend at the U.S. Naval Academy and finds out that the new construction variations house the Caterpillar Drive. When the Red Octobers silent drive is engaged, she disappears off the sonar of the USS Dallas, a Los Angeles class submarine that is tracking her. Putting this information together with the subsequent launch of the entire Northern Fleet, Ryan deduces Ramius' plans. The U.S. military command reluctantly agrees, while planning for contingencies in case the Soviet Fleet has intentions other than those stated. As tensions rise between the U.S. and Soviet fleets, the crew of the Dallas discover a way to detect Red October. Ryan must contact Ramius to prevent the loss of the submarine and her decisive technology. Through a combination of circumstances, Ryan becomes responsible for shepherding Ramius and his vessel away from the pursuing Soviet fleet. In order to convince the Soviets that the Red October has been destroyed, the U.S. Navy rescues her crew after Ramius fakes a shipboard emergency. Ramius and his officers heroically stay behind, claiming they are about to scuttle the submarine to prevent it getting into the hands of the Americans. A decommissioned U.S. ballistic missile submarine, the USS Ethan Allen, is blown up underwater as a deception ploy. A depth gauge taken from the main instrument panel of the Red October (with the appropriate serial number) is made to appear as if it was salvaged from the wreckage. These events succeed in convincing Soviet observers that the Red October has been lost. However, GRU intelligence officer Viktor Loginov, masquerading as the Red Octobers cook, realizes what is happening. Loginov attempts to ignite a missile rocket motor inside a launch tube so as to destroy the Red October, wounding both"
      },
      {
        "text": " ploy. A depth gauge taken from the main instrument panel of the Red October (with the appropriate serial number) is made to appear as if it was salvaged from the wreckage. These events succeed in convincing Soviet observers that the Red October has been lost. However, GRU intelligence officer Viktor Loginov, masquerading as the Red Octobers cook, realizes what is happening. Loginov attempts to ignite a missile rocket motor inside a launch tube so as to destroy the Red October, wounding both Ramius and a British agent while killing one of Ramius' top officers. Ryan attempts to persuade the fiercely patriotic Loginov to surrender rather than die in the explosion, but he refuses. He manages to fatally shoot Loginov in the submarine's missile compartment. Ramius orders the missile jettisoned in case Loginov had managed to arm it, an action which adds to the deception of the Soviets. Captain Viktor Tupolev, a former student of Ramius' and commander of a Soviet Alfa-class attack submarine, has been trailing what he initially believes is an vessel. Based on acoustical signature information, Tupolev and his political officer realize that it is the Red October, and proceed to pursue and engage it. The two U.S. submarines escorting the Red October are unable to fire due to rules of engagement, and the Red October is damaged by a torpedo from the Alfa. After a tense standoff, the Red October rams Tupolev's submarine broadside and sinks it. The Americans escort Red October safely into the eight-ten dry dock in Norfolk, Virginia, where Ramius and his crew are taken to a CIA safehouse to begin their Americanization. Ryan is commended by his superiors and flies back to his posting in London.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " broadside and sinks it. The Americans escort Red October safely into the eight-ten dry dock in Norfolk, Virginia, where Ramius and his crew are taken to a CIA safehouse to begin their Americanization. Ryan is commended by his superiors and flies back to his posting in London.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Cardinal of the Kremlin",
    "author": "Tom Clancy",
    "published_date": "1988",
    "synopsis": " CIA analyst Jack Ryan attends a diplomatic conference in Moscow as part of an American delegation to the Soviet Union. He learns that the CIA\u2019s most highly-placed agent, codenamed \"CARDINAL\", is none other than Colonel Mikhail Semyonovich Filitov, the personal aide to the Soviet Minister of Defense and a national war hero. Filitov was recruited by GRU colonel and British agent Oleg Penkovskiy, and offered his services to the CIA after the deaths of his wife and two sons; the latter two were killed during their service in the Red Army. As a result, Filitov has been passing political, technical, and military intelligence to the CIA for the past thirty years. The U.S. discovers through \"National Technical Means\" that the Soviets were working on an ABM defense system based at Dushanbe in Tajikistan. Emilio Ortiz, a CIA liaison, is sent to aid Mujaheddin rebels in the region. One rebel leader, a man known only as \"The Archer,\" is questioned after unwittingly witnessing a test of the Soviets' ABM system. The Archer determines that the Soviet installation is a threat to him and his people, and tasks his group with attacking and pillaging the facility. In the end, the guerrillas destroy a large amount of Soviet equipment. However, the rebels suffer horrendous losses, including the death of The Archer. Ryan travels to New Mexico to meet with a young SDI researcher, Major Alan Gregory, whom he brings to Washington, D.C., to brief the president. Gregory lives with another scientist, Candi Long, who is working on adaptive optics for use in the development of laser weaponry. A lesbian KGB agent, Bea Taussig—who has unluckily fallen in love with Long—describes Gregory and his work to her KGB handler, Tanya Bisyarina. The KGB launches a plan to kidnap and debrief Gregory. Filitov is arrested after his work for the CIA is discovered. However, Ryan concocts a plan to both secure the return of Filitov and arrange the defection of the sitting KGB chairman, Nikolay Borissovich Gerasimov. Gerasimov is angling to take over as General Secretary in the wake of Filitov's arrest, something Ryan is determined to prevent because of his unyielding anti-American ideology. Ryan schemes to go public with the prior capture of Soviet submarine Red October, banking on the political instability of the Soviet Politburo. He plans for Filitov and Gerasimov to be exfiltrated on the American delegation's aircraft, while Gerasimov's family is extracted from Estonia by John Clark onto the submarine USS Dallas. Meanwhile, in New Mexico, three KGB officers kidnap Gregory on Gerasimov's orders and hold him in a shabby desert safe house, planning to send him to Moscow for debriefing. Their plans are foiled when the FBI sends in the Hostage Rescue Team to retrieve Gregory and return him to Long. Among those killed is Bisyarina. Ryan informs Gerasimov of the failed operation, forcing the enraged chairman to accept Ryan's defection offer. The flipped Gerasimov fetches Filitov from his confinement. The three make their way to Sheremetyevo Airport, awaiting the departure of the American delegation. Unfortunately, two KGB officers, Klementi Vladimirovich Vatutin and Sergey Nikolayevch Golovko, become aware of their planned departure. As Gerasimov and Filitov escape, Ryan allows himself to be captured by Golovko, banking on his diplomatic status to protect him from harm. Golovko then escorts Ryan to the private dacha of General Secretary Narmonov, where the two men discuss the CIA's interest in his political position and the CIA's interference in their internal security. Ryan returns to the United States, where he and several others attend the funeral of Filitov, who had died of heart disease in the months following his CIA debriefing period. Filitov is buried at Camp David, within twenty miles of the Antietam battlefield. A Soviet military attach\u00e9 attending the funeral questions why Filitov would be buried so close to American soldiers. Ryan, always working to keep the peace, explains to him, \"One way or another, we all fight for what we believe in. Doesn't that give us some common ground?\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " CIA analyst Jack Ryan attends a diplomatic conference in Moscow as part of an American delegation to the Soviet Union. He learns that the CIA\u2019s most highly-placed agent, codenamed \"CARDINAL\", is none other than Colonel Mikhail Semyonovich Filitov, the personal aide to the Soviet Minister of Defense and a national war hero. Filitov was recruited by GRU colonel and British agent Oleg Penkovskiy, and offered his services to the CIA after the deaths of his wife and two sons; the latter two were killed during their service in the Red Army. As a result, Filitov has been passing political, technical, and military intelligence to the CIA for the past thirty years. The U.S. discovers through \"National Technical Means\" that the Soviets were working on an ABM defense system based at Dushanbe in Tajikistan. Emilio Ortiz, a CIA liaison, is sent to aid Mujaheddin rebels in the region. One rebel leader, a man known only as \"The Archer,\" is questioned after unwittingly witnessing a test of the Soviets' ABM system. The Archer determines that the Soviet installation is a threat to him and his people, and tasks his group with attacking and pillaging the facility. In the end, the guerrillas destroy a large amount of Soviet equipment. However, the rebels suffer horrendous losses, including the death of The Archer. Ryan travels to New Mexico to meet with a young SDI researcher, Major Alan Gregory, whom he brings to Washington, D.C., to brief the president. Gregory lives with another scientist, Candi Long, who is working on adaptive optics for use in the development of laser weaponry. A lesbian KGB agent, Bea Taussig—who has unluckily fallen in love with Long—describes Gregory and his work to her KGB handler, Tanya Bisyarina. The KGB launches a plan to kidnap"
      },
      {
        "text": "I researcher, Major Alan Gregory, whom he brings to Washington, D.C., to brief the president. Gregory lives with another scientist, Candi Long, who is working on adaptive optics for use in the development of laser weaponry. A lesbian KGB agent, Bea Taussig—who has unluckily fallen in love with Long—describes Gregory and his work to her KGB handler, Tanya Bisyarina. The KGB launches a plan to kidnap and debrief Gregory. Filitov is arrested after his work for the CIA is discovered. However, Ryan concocts a plan to both secure the return of Filitov and arrange the defection of the sitting KGB chairman, Nikolay Borissovich Gerasimov. Gerasimov is angling to take over as General Secretary in the wake of Filitov's arrest, something Ryan is determined to prevent because of his unyielding anti-American ideology. Ryan schemes to go public with the prior capture of Soviet submarine Red October, banking on the political instability of the Soviet Politburo. He plans for Filitov and Gerasimov to be exfiltrated on the American delegation's aircraft, while Gerasimov's family is extracted from Estonia by John Clark onto the submarine USS Dallas. Meanwhile, in New Mexico, three KGB officers kidnap Gregory on Gerasimov's orders and hold him in a shabby desert safe house, planning to send him to Moscow for debriefing. Their plans are foiled when the FBI sends in the Hostage Rescue Team to retrieve Gregory and return him to Long. Among those killed is Bisyarina. Ryan informs Gerasimov of the failed operation, forcing the enraged chairman to accept Ryan's defection offer. The flipped Gerasimov fetches Filitov from his confinement. The three make their way to Sheremetyevo Airport, awaiting the departure of the American delegation. Unfortunately, two KGB officers, Klement"
      },
      {
        "text": "ing. Their plans are foiled when the FBI sends in the Hostage Rescue Team to retrieve Gregory and return him to Long. Among those killed is Bisyarina. Ryan informs Gerasimov of the failed operation, forcing the enraged chairman to accept Ryan's defection offer. The flipped Gerasimov fetches Filitov from his confinement. The three make their way to Sheremetyevo Airport, awaiting the departure of the American delegation. Unfortunately, two KGB officers, Klementi Vladimirovich Vatutin and Sergey Nikolayevch Golovko, become aware of their planned departure. As Gerasimov and Filitov escape, Ryan allows himself to be captured by Golovko, banking on his diplomatic status to protect him from harm. Golovko then escorts Ryan to the private dacha of General Secretary Narmonov, where the two men discuss the CIA's interest in his political position and the CIA's interference in their internal security. Ryan returns to the United States, where he and several others attend the funeral of Filitov, who had died of heart disease in the months following his CIA debriefing period. Filitov is buried at Camp David, within twenty miles of the Antietam battlefield. A Soviet military attach\u00e9 attending the funeral questions why Filitov would be buried so close to American soldiers. Ryan, always working to keep the peace, explains to him, \"One way or another, we all fight for what we believe in. Doesn't that give us some common ground?\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " fight for what we believe in. Doesn't that give us some common ground?\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Debt of Honor",
    "author": "Tom Clancy",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In New York City, Japanese industrialist Raizo Yamata purchases a controlling interest in an American hedge fund. He flies to Saipan \u2014 the site of his parents' suicide during the American invasion of the island at the close of World War II \u2014 to buy a large tract of land. Meanwhile, in eastern Tennessee, a car accident involving two Japanese vehicles leads to the deaths of six people. Revelations about the vehicles' fatal design flaws stir long-standing resentment against Japan's protectionist trade policies. As trade negotiations between the United States and Japan grind to a halt, Congress passes a law enabling the U.S. to mirror the trade practices of the countries from which it imports goods. The bill is immediately used to replicate Japan's non-tariff barriers, cutting off the U.S. export markets upon which the Japanese economy depends. Facing an economic crisis, Japan's ruling corporate cabal decides to take military action against the U.S. Along with China and India, Japan plots to curtail the American presence in the Pacific and re-establish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In the wake of these developments, Jack Ryan is recruited as National Security Advisor by President Roger Durling. Meanwhile, CIA officers John Clark and Domingo Chavez are sent to Japan to reactivate a former KGB spy network in order to gain intelligence. Japan launches the first phase of its assault, sending Self-Defense Force units to occupy the Mariana Islands, specifically Saipan and Guam. The invasion, conducted with commercial airliners and car carriers, is virtually bloodless. Meanwhile, during a joint military exercise, Japanese ships \"accidentally\" launch torpedoes at the U.S. Pacific Fleet, destroying two submarines and crippling two aircraft carriers. This drastically reduces the U.S. capability to project power into the western Pacific. An immediate retaliation is forestalled by the second phase of the Japanese offensive: an economic attack. Even as the military offensive begins, Japan engineers the collapse of the U.S. stock market by hiring a programmer in an exchange firm to insert a logic bomb into the system, which ends up deleting all trade records. The Japanese also attempt to assassinate the chairman of the Federal Reserve, but their target survives the attempt with a broken back. With a massive economic crisis and subsequent mass panic, the Japanese hope that America will be too distracted to quickly respond to Japan's military actions. Japan immediately sues for peace, offering international talks and seemingly free elections in the Marianas to delay a U.S. response. Negotiators secretly reveal to the U.S. that Japan has obtained nuclear ballistic missile capability. The Japanese oligarchs, led by Yamata, believe that offers of negotiation and the nuclear deterrent, defended by a seemingly impregnable AWACS system, will cause the U.S. to concede Japan's advantage. With two of America's twelve carriers disabled, and the rest pinned down by international crises elsewhere, Ryan has few resources with which to defend American interests. Despite his typical focus on military issues, Ryan advises President Durling to deal with the economic crisis first. Ryan also realizes that Japan's deletion of trade records could be an advantage in responding to the economic threat. He engineers a \"do-over\", where all of the transactions on the day of the mass deletion are ignored and all assets are restored to their state at the start of business that day. Accompanied by a presidential address to the nation and behind-the-scenes bullying of investment banks, the plan is a success: America's economy is restored with only minor disruption. Ryan eliminates Japan's AWACS system through a series of \"accidents\" using widely dispersed U.S. assets, allowing B-2 bombers to destroy the silos. Clark and Chavez blind incoming Japanese pilots with a laser and cause them to crash on landing and rescue Japan's moderate former prime minister. An Army special operations team is airdropped into Japan to support Comanche helicopters in attacking the other AWACS planes and kill members of Yamata's cabal. Meanwhile, Admiral Robby Jackson liberates the Marianas with little bloodshed. Cornered, Japan's current prime minister resigns, ceding power to his predecessor. Yamata is arrested, and the new Japanese government accepts America's generous offer of status quo ante. Throughout the book, President Durling faces another, less important political crisis: Vice-President Ed Kealty is forced to resign after being accused of drugging and raping a former member of his staff. With the crisis over, President Durling nominates Ryan as vice-president during a joint session of Congress. However, an embittered Japan Air Lines pilot\u2014driven mad by the deaths of his son and brother during the previous conflict\u2014flies his Boeing 747 directly into the U.S. Capitol. Nearly the entire presidential line of succession is eliminated; Ryan, who had just been confirmed as vice-president moments before, narrowly escapes the attack and is immediately sworn in as president.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In New York City, Japanese industrialist Raizo Yamata purchases a controlling interest in an American hedge fund. He flies to Saipan \u2014 the site of his parents' suicide during the American invasion of the island at the close of World War II \u2014 to buy a large tract of land. Meanwhile, in eastern Tennessee, a car accident involving two Japanese vehicles leads to the deaths of six people. Revelations about the vehicles' fatal design flaws stir long-standing resentment against Japan's protectionist trade policies. As trade negotiations between the United States and Japan grind to a halt, Congress passes a law enabling the U.S. to mirror the trade practices of the countries from which it imports goods. The bill is immediately used to replicate Japan's non-tariff barriers, cutting off the U.S. export markets upon which the Japanese economy depends. Facing an economic crisis, Japan's ruling corporate cabal decides to take military action against the U.S. Along with China and India, Japan plots to curtail the American presence in the Pacific and re-establish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In the wake of these developments, Jack Ryan is recruited as National Security Advisor by President Roger Durling. Meanwhile, CIA officers John Clark and Domingo Chavez are sent to Japan to reactivate a former KGB spy network in order to gain intelligence. Japan launches the first phase of its assault, sending Self-Defense Force units to occupy the Mariana Islands, specifically Saipan and Guam. The invasion, conducted with commercial airliners and car carriers, is virtually bloodless. Meanwhile, during a joint military exercise, Japanese ships \"accidentally\" launch torpedoes at the U.S. Pacific Fleet, destroying two submarines and crippling two aircraft carriers. This drastically reduces the U.S. capability to project power into the western Pacific. An immediate retaliation is forestalled by the second phase of the Japanese offensive: an economic attack. Even"
      },
      {
        "text": " Mariana Islands, specifically Saipan and Guam. The invasion, conducted with commercial airliners and car carriers, is virtually bloodless. Meanwhile, during a joint military exercise, Japanese ships \"accidentally\" launch torpedoes at the U.S. Pacific Fleet, destroying two submarines and crippling two aircraft carriers. This drastically reduces the U.S. capability to project power into the western Pacific. An immediate retaliation is forestalled by the second phase of the Japanese offensive: an economic attack. Even as the military offensive begins, Japan engineers the collapse of the U.S. stock market by hiring a programmer in an exchange firm to insert a logic bomb into the system, which ends up deleting all trade records. The Japanese also attempt to assassinate the chairman of the Federal Reserve, but their target survives the attempt with a broken back. With a massive economic crisis and subsequent mass panic, the Japanese hope that America will be too distracted to quickly respond to Japan's military actions. Japan immediately sues for peace, offering international talks and seemingly free elections in the Marianas to delay a U.S. response. Negotiators secretly reveal to the U.S. that Japan has obtained nuclear ballistic missile capability. The Japanese oligarchs, led by Yamata, believe that offers of negotiation and the nuclear deterrent, defended by a seemingly impregnable AWACS system, will cause the U.S. to concede Japan's advantage. With two of America's twelve carriers disabled, and the rest pinned down by international crises elsewhere, Ryan has few resources with which to defend American interests. Despite his typical focus on military issues, Ryan advises President Durling to deal with the economic crisis first. Ryan also realizes that Japan's deletion of trade records could be an advantage in responding to the economic threat. He engineers a \"do-over\", where all of the transactions on the day of the mass deletion are ignored and all assets are restored to their state at the start of business that day. Accompan"
      },
      {
        "text": " down by international crises elsewhere, Ryan has few resources with which to defend American interests. Despite his typical focus on military issues, Ryan advises President Durling to deal with the economic crisis first. Ryan also realizes that Japan's deletion of trade records could be an advantage in responding to the economic threat. He engineers a \"do-over\", where all of the transactions on the day of the mass deletion are ignored and all assets are restored to their state at the start of business that day. Accompanied by a presidential address to the nation and behind-the-scenes bullying of investment banks, the plan is a success: America's economy is restored with only minor disruption. Ryan eliminates Japan's AWACS system through a series of \"accidents\" using widely dispersed U.S. assets, allowing B-2 bombers to destroy the silos. Clark and Chavez blind incoming Japanese pilots with a laser and cause them to crash on landing and rescue Japan's moderate former prime minister. An Army special operations team is airdropped into Japan to support Comanche helicopters in attacking the other AWACS planes and kill members of Yamata's cabal. Meanwhile, Admiral Robby Jackson liberates the Marianas with little bloodshed. Cornered, Japan's current prime minister resigns, ceding power to his predecessor. Yamata is arrested, and the new Japanese government accepts America's generous offer of status quo ante. Throughout the book, President Durling faces another, less important political crisis: Vice-President Ed Kealty is forced to resign after being accused of drugging and raping a former member of his staff. With the crisis over, President Durling nominates Ryan as vice-president during a joint session of Congress. However, an embittered Japan Air Lines pilot\u2014driven mad by the deaths of his son and brother during the previous conflict\u2014flies his Boeing 747 directly into the U.S. Capitol. Nearly the entire presidential line of succession is eliminated; Ryan, who had"
      },
      {
        "text": "-President Ed Kealty is forced to resign after being accused of drugging and raping a former member of his staff. With the crisis over, President Durling nominates Ryan as vice-president during a joint session of Congress. However, an embittered Japan Air Lines pilot\u2014driven mad by the deaths of his son and brother during the previous conflict\u2014flies his Boeing 747 directly into the U.S. Capitol. Nearly the entire presidential line of succession is eliminated; Ryan, who had just been confirmed as vice-president moments before, narrowly escapes the attack and is immediately sworn in as president.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Tunnel in the Sky",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1955",
    "synopsis": " A Malthusian catastrophe on Earth has been averted by the invention of teleportation, called the \"Ramsbotham jump\", which is used to send Earth's excess population to colonize other planets. However, the costs of operating the device mean that the colonies are isolated from Earth until they can justify two-way travel. Because modern technology requires a supporting infrastructure, more primitive methods are employed \u2014 for example, horses instead of tractors (because tractors cannot reproduce themselves). Rod Walker is a high school student who dreams of becoming a professional colonist. The final test of his Advanced Survival class is to stay alive on an unfamiliar planet for between two and ten days. Students may team up and equip themselves with whatever gear they can carry, but are otherwise completely on their own. They are told only that the challenges are neither insurmountable nor unreasonable. On test day, each student walks through the Ramsbotham portal and finds him or herself alone on a strange planet, though reasonably close to the pickup point. Rod, acting on advice, chooses to equip himself with hunting knives and basic survival gear rather than high-tech weaponry, on the grounds that the latter is dependent on the infrastructure required to maintain it and can easily become a crutch. The last advice the students receive is to \"watch out for stobor.\" On the second day, Rod is ambushed and knocked unconscious by a thief. When he wakes up, all he has left is a spare knife hidden under a bandage. In his desperate concentration on survival, he loses track of time. Eventually he teams up with Jacqueline \"Jack\" Daudet, a student from another class whom he initially mistakes for a male. When she tells him that more than ten days have elapsed without contact, he realizes that they are stranded. They start recruiting others for the long haul and Rod becomes the de facto leader of a community that eventually grows to around 75 people. Rod has no taste for politics or administration, and is happy to have Grant Cowper, an older college student and born politician, elected \"mayor\". Grant proves to be much better at talking than getting things done. Despite disagreeing with many of Grant's policies, Rod supports him. Grant ignores Rod's warning that they are living in a dangerously hard-to-defend location and that they should move to a cave system he has found. When a species previously thought harmless suddenly changes its behavior and stampedes through their camp, the settlement is devastated and Grant is killed. Rod is subsequently put back in charge. Heinlein tracks the social development of this community of educated Westerners deprived of technology, followed by its abrupt dissolution when contact with Earth is reestablished. After nearly two years of isolation, the culture shock experienced by the survivors highlights for them, and the reader, the pain and uncertainty of becoming an adult, by reversing the process abruptly -- Each of the students goes from being a personally self-responsible member of an autonomous community back to being a youth with little authority or responsibility in the home culture. All of the students go back willingly except for Rod, who has great difficulty reverting from the status of head of a small, but sovereign state to a teenager casually brushed aside by the adult rescuers. However, his teacher (and now brother-in-law) and his sister persuade him to change his mind. His teacher also informs Rod that his warning against \"stobor\" (\"robots\" spelled backwards) was just a way of personalizing the dangers of an unknown planet - to instill fear and caution in the students. Years later, Rod is briefly depicted accomplishing his heart's desire; the novel's ending finds him preparing to lead a formal colonization party to another planet.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A Malthusian catastrophe on Earth has been averted by the invention of teleportation, called the \"Ramsbotham jump\", which is used to send Earth's excess population to colonize other planets. However, the costs of operating the device mean that the colonies are isolated from Earth until they can justify two-way travel. Because modern technology requires a supporting infrastructure, more primitive methods are employed \u2014 for example, horses instead of tractors (because tractors cannot reproduce themselves). Rod Walker is a high school student who dreams of becoming a professional colonist. The final test of his Advanced Survival class is to stay alive on an unfamiliar planet for between two and ten days. Students may team up and equip themselves with whatever gear they can carry, but are otherwise completely on their own. They are told only that the challenges are neither insurmountable nor unreasonable. On test day, each student walks through the Ramsbotham portal and finds him or herself alone on a strange planet, though reasonably close to the pickup point. Rod, acting on advice, chooses to equip himself with hunting knives and basic survival gear rather than high-tech weaponry, on the grounds that the latter is dependent on the infrastructure required to maintain it and can easily become a crutch. The last advice the students receive is to \"watch out for stobor.\" On the second day, Rod is ambushed and knocked unconscious by a thief. When he wakes up, all he has left is a spare knife hidden under a bandage. In his desperate concentration on survival, he loses track of time. Eventually he teams up with Jacqueline \"Jack\" Daudet, a student from another class whom he initially mistakes for a male. When she tells him that more than ten days have elapsed without contact, he realizes that they are stranded. They start recruiting others for the long haul and Rod becomes the de facto leader of a community that eventually grows to around 75 people. Rod has no taste for politics or administration, and"
      },
      {
        "text": " bandage. In his desperate concentration on survival, he loses track of time. Eventually he teams up with Jacqueline \"Jack\" Daudet, a student from another class whom he initially mistakes for a male. When she tells him that more than ten days have elapsed without contact, he realizes that they are stranded. They start recruiting others for the long haul and Rod becomes the de facto leader of a community that eventually grows to around 75 people. Rod has no taste for politics or administration, and is happy to have Grant Cowper, an older college student and born politician, elected \"mayor\". Grant proves to be much better at talking than getting things done. Despite disagreeing with many of Grant's policies, Rod supports him. Grant ignores Rod's warning that they are living in a dangerously hard-to-defend location and that they should move to a cave system he has found. When a species previously thought harmless suddenly changes its behavior and stampedes through their camp, the settlement is devastated and Grant is killed. Rod is subsequently put back in charge. Heinlein tracks the social development of this community of educated Westerners deprived of technology, followed by its abrupt dissolution when contact with Earth is reestablished. After nearly two years of isolation, the culture shock experienced by the survivors highlights for them, and the reader, the pain and uncertainty of becoming an adult, by reversing the process abruptly -- Each of the students goes from being a personally self-responsible member of an autonomous community back to being a youth with little authority or responsibility in the home culture. All of the students go back willingly except for Rod, who has great difficulty reverting from the status of head of a small, but sovereign state to a teenager casually brushed aside by the adult rescuers. However, his teacher (and now brother-in-law) and his sister persuade him to change his mind. His teacher also informs Rod that his warning against \"stobor\" (\"robots\" spelled backwards) was just"
      },
      {
        "text": " being a youth with little authority or responsibility in the home culture. All of the students go back willingly except for Rod, who has great difficulty reverting from the status of head of a small, but sovereign state to a teenager casually brushed aside by the adult rescuers. However, his teacher (and now brother-in-law) and his sister persuade him to change his mind. His teacher also informs Rod that his warning against \"stobor\" (\"robots\" spelled backwards) was just a way of personalizing the dangers of an unknown planet - to instill fear and caution in the students. Years later, Rod is briefly depicted accomplishing his heart's desire; the novel's ending finds him preparing to lead a formal colonization party to another planet.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Mismeasure of Man",
    "author": "Stephen Jay Gould",
    "published_date": "1981",
    "synopsis": " The Mismeasure of Man is a critical analysis of the early works of scientific racism about the supposed, biologically inherited (genetic) basis for human intelligence, such as craniometry, the measurement of skull volume and its relation to intellectual faculties. Gould proposed that much of the research was based more upon the racial and social prejudices of the researchers than upon their scientific objectivity; that on occasion, researchers such as Samuel George Morton (1799\u20131851), Louis Agassiz (1807\u20131873), and Paul Broca (1824\u20131880), committed the methodological fallacy of including their personal (a priori) expectations to the conclusions, as part of their analytical reasoning. Gould describes Morton's rather imprecise technique of filling skulls with bird seed to obtain endocranial-volume data and how Morton had probably pushed down bird seed in the white skulls so that they had more volume. Gould re-worked Morton\u2019s original endocranial-volume data, and concluded that the original results were based upon biases, selective data use, and perhaps outright falsification of the results. When said biases are accounted, the original hypothesis \u2014 an ordering in skull volume ranging from Blacks to Mongols to Whites \u2014 is unsupported by the data. The Mismeasure of Man presents a historical evaluation of the concepts of the intelligence quotient (IQ) and of the general intelligence factor (g factor), which were and are the measures for intelligence used by psychologists. Gould proposed that most psychological studies have been heavily biased, by the belief that the human behavior of a race of people is best explained by genetic heredity. He cites the Burt Affair, about the allegedly fraudulent, oft-cited twin studies, by Cyril Burt (1883\u20131971), wherein he claimed that human intelligence is highly heritabile. As an evolutionary biologist and historian of science, Gould accepted biological variability (the premise of the transmission of intelligence via genetic heredity), but opposed biological determinism, which posits that genes determine a definitive, unalterable social destiny for each man and each woman in life and society. The Mismeasure of Man is an analysis of statistical correlation, the mathematics applied by psychologists to establish the validity of IQ tests, and the heritability of intelligence. For example, to establish the validity of the proposition that IQ is supported by a general intelligence factor (g factor), the answers to several tests of cognitive ability must positively correlate; thus, for the g factor to be a heritable trait, the IQ-test scores of close-relation respondents must correlate more than the IQ-test scores of distant-relation respondents. Hence, correlation does not imply causation; in example, Gould said that the measures of the changes, over time, in \"my age, the population of M\u00e9xico, the price of Swiss cheese, my pet turtle\u2019s weight, and the average distance between galaxies\" have a high, positive correlation \u2014 yet that correlation does not indicate that Gould\u2019s age increased because the Mexican population increased. More specifically, a high, positive correlation between the intelligence quotients of a parent and a child can be presumed either as evidence that IQ is genetically inherited, or that IQ is inherited through social and environmental factors. Moreover, because the data from IQ tests can be applied to arguing the logical validity of either proposition \u2014 genetic inheritance and environmental inheritance \u2014 the psychometric data have no inherent value. Gould proposed that if the genetic heritability of IQ were demonstrable within a given racial or ethnic group, it would not explain the causes of IQ differences among the people of a group, or if said IQ differences can be attributed to the environment. For example, the height of a person is genetically determined, but there exist height differences within a given social group that can be attributed to environmental factors (e.g. the quality of nutrition) and to genetic inheritance. The evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin, a colleague of Gould\u2019s, is a proponent of said argument in relation to the cognitive ability tests that determine a person\u2019s intelligence quotient. An example of the intellectual confusion about what heritability is and is not, is the statement: \"If all environments were to become equal for everyone, heritability would rise to 100 percent because all remaining differences in IQ would necessarily be genetic in origin\", which Gould said is misleading, at best, and false, at worst. First, it is very difficult to conceive of a world wherein every man, woman, and child grew up in the same environment, because their spatial and temporal dispersion upon the planet Earth makes it impossible. Second, were people to grew up in the same environment, not every difference would be genetic in origin, because of the randomness of molecular and genetic development. Therefore, heritability is not a measure of phenotypic (physiognomy and physique) differences among racial and ethnic groups, but of differences between genotype and phenotype in a given population. Furthermore, he dismissed the proposition that an IQ score measures the general intelligence (g factor) of a person, because cognitive ability tests (IQ tests) present different types of questions, and the responses tend to form clusters of intellectual acumen. That is, different questions, and the answers to them, yield different scores \u2014 which indicate that an IQ test is a combination method of different examinations of different things. As such, Gould proposed that IQ-test proponents assume the existence of \"general intelligence\" as a discrete quality within the human mind, and thus they analyze the IQ-test data to produce an IQ number that establishes the definitive general intelligence of each man and of each woman. Hence, Dr. Gould dismissed the IQ number as an erroneous artifact of the statistical mathematics applied to the raw IQ-test data; especially because psychometric data can be variously analyzed to produce multiple IQ scores.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Mismeasure of Man is a critical analysis of the early works of scientific racism about the supposed, biologically inherited (genetic) basis for human intelligence, such as craniometry, the measurement of skull volume and its relation to intellectual faculties. Gould proposed that much of the research was based more upon the racial and social prejudices of the researchers than upon their scientific objectivity; that on occasion, researchers such as Samuel George Morton (1799\u20131851), Louis Agassiz (1807\u20131873), and Paul Broca (1824\u20131880), committed the methodological fallacy of including their personal (a priori) expectations to the conclusions, as part of their analytical reasoning. Gould describes Morton's rather imprecise technique of filling skulls with bird seed to obtain endocranial-volume data and how Morton had probably pushed down bird seed in the white skulls so that they had more volume. Gould re-worked Morton\u2019s original endocranial-volume data, and concluded that the original results were based upon biases, selective data use, and perhaps outright falsification of the results. When said biases are accounted, the original hypothesis \u2014 an ordering in skull volume ranging from Blacks to Mongols to Whites \u2014 is unsupported by the data. The Mismeasure of Man presents a historical evaluation of the concepts of the intelligence quotient (IQ) and of the general intelligence factor (g factor), which were and are the measures for intelligence used by psychologists. Gould proposed that most psychological studies have been heavily biased, by the belief that the human behavior of a race of people is best explained by genetic heredity. He cites the Burt Affair, about the allegedly fraudulent, oft-cited twin studies, by Cyril Burt (1883\u20131971), wherein he claimed that human intelligence is highly heritabile. As an evolutionary biologist and historian of science, Gould accepted biological variability (the premise of the transmission of intelligence via genetic he"
      },
      {
        "text": " Gould proposed that most psychological studies have been heavily biased, by the belief that the human behavior of a race of people is best explained by genetic heredity. He cites the Burt Affair, about the allegedly fraudulent, oft-cited twin studies, by Cyril Burt (1883\u20131971), wherein he claimed that human intelligence is highly heritabile. As an evolutionary biologist and historian of science, Gould accepted biological variability (the premise of the transmission of intelligence via genetic heredity), but opposed biological determinism, which posits that genes determine a definitive, unalterable social destiny for each man and each woman in life and society. The Mismeasure of Man is an analysis of statistical correlation, the mathematics applied by psychologists to establish the validity of IQ tests, and the heritability of intelligence. For example, to establish the validity of the proposition that IQ is supported by a general intelligence factor (g factor), the answers to several tests of cognitive ability must positively correlate; thus, for the g factor to be a heritable trait, the IQ-test scores of close-relation respondents must correlate more than the IQ-test scores of distant-relation respondents. Hence, correlation does not imply causation; in example, Gould said that the measures of the changes, over time, in \"my age, the population of M\u00e9xico, the price of Swiss cheese, my pet turtle\u2019s weight, and the average distance between galaxies\" have a high, positive correlation \u2014 yet that correlation does not indicate that Gould\u2019s age increased because the Mexican population increased. More specifically, a high, positive correlation between the intelligence quotients of a parent and a child can be presumed either as evidence that IQ is genetically inherited, or that IQ is inherited through social and environmental factors. Moreover, because the data from IQ tests can be applied to arguing the logical validity of either proposition \u2014 genetic inheritance and environmental inheritance \u2014 the psychometric data have no inherent value."
      },
      {
        "text": ", positive correlation \u2014 yet that correlation does not indicate that Gould\u2019s age increased because the Mexican population increased. More specifically, a high, positive correlation between the intelligence quotients of a parent and a child can be presumed either as evidence that IQ is genetically inherited, or that IQ is inherited through social and environmental factors. Moreover, because the data from IQ tests can be applied to arguing the logical validity of either proposition \u2014 genetic inheritance and environmental inheritance \u2014 the psychometric data have no inherent value. Gould proposed that if the genetic heritability of IQ were demonstrable within a given racial or ethnic group, it would not explain the causes of IQ differences among the people of a group, or if said IQ differences can be attributed to the environment. For example, the height of a person is genetically determined, but there exist height differences within a given social group that can be attributed to environmental factors (e.g. the quality of nutrition) and to genetic inheritance. The evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin, a colleague of Gould\u2019s, is a proponent of said argument in relation to the cognitive ability tests that determine a person\u2019s intelligence quotient. An example of the intellectual confusion about what heritability is and is not, is the statement: \"If all environments were to become equal for everyone, heritability would rise to 100 percent because all remaining differences in IQ would necessarily be genetic in origin\", which Gould said is misleading, at best, and false, at worst. First, it is very difficult to conceive of a world wherein every man, woman, and child grew up in the same environment, because their spatial and temporal dispersion upon the planet Earth makes it impossible. Second, were people to grew up in the same environment, not every difference would be genetic in origin, because of the randomness of molecular and genetic development. Therefore, heritability is not a measure of phenotypic (physiognomy and physique) differences among racial and ethnic groups, but of"
      },
      {
        "text": " it is very difficult to conceive of a world wherein every man, woman, and child grew up in the same environment, because their spatial and temporal dispersion upon the planet Earth makes it impossible. Second, were people to grew up in the same environment, not every difference would be genetic in origin, because of the randomness of molecular and genetic development. Therefore, heritability is not a measure of phenotypic (physiognomy and physique) differences among racial and ethnic groups, but of differences between genotype and phenotype in a given population. Furthermore, he dismissed the proposition that an IQ score measures the general intelligence (g factor) of a person, because cognitive ability tests (IQ tests) present different types of questions, and the responses tend to form clusters of intellectual acumen. That is, different questions, and the answers to them, yield different scores \u2014 which indicate that an IQ test is a combination method of different examinations of different things. As such, Gould proposed that IQ-test proponents assume the existence of \"general intelligence\" as a discrete quality within the human mind, and thus they analyze the IQ-test data to produce an IQ number that establishes the definitive general intelligence of each man and of each woman. Hence, Dr. Gould dismissed the IQ number as an erroneous artifact of the statistical mathematics applied to the raw IQ-test data; especially because psychometric data can be variously analyzed to produce multiple IQ scores.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Picture of Dorian Gray",
    "author": "Oscar Wilde",
    "published_date": "1890",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins on a beautiful summer day with Lord Henry Wotton, a strongly-opinionated man, observing the sensitive artist Basil Hallward painting the portrait of a handsome young man named Dorian Gray, who is Basil's ultimate muse. After hearing Lord Henry's world view, Dorian begins to think beauty is the only worthwhile aspect of life. He wishes that the portrait Basil painted would grow old in his place. Under the influence of Lord Henry (who relishes the hedonic lifestyle and is a major exponent thereof), Dorian begins to explore his senses. He discovers amazing actress Sibyl Vane, who performs Shakespeare plays in a dingy theatre. Dorian approaches her and soon proposes marriage. Sibyl, who refers to him as \"Prince Charming\", swoons with happiness, but her protective brother James tells her that if \"Prince Charming\" harms her, he will certainly kill him. Dorian invites Basil and Lord Henry to see Sibyl perform in Romeo and Juliet. Sibyl, whose only knowledge of love was love of theatre, casts aside her acting abilities through the experience of true love with Dorian. Disheartened, Dorian rejects her, saying her beauty was in her acting, and he is no longer interested in her. When he returns home, he notices that his portrait has changed. Dorian realizes his wish has come true \u2013 the portrait now bears a subtle sneer and will age with each sin he commits, while his own appearance remains unchanged. He decides to reconcile with Sibyl, but Lord Henry later informs him that she has killed herself by swallowing prussic acid. Dorian realizes that lust and looks are where his life is headed and he needs nothing else. Over the next 18 years, he experiments with every vice, mostly under the influence of a \"poisonous\" French decadence novel, a present from Lord Henry. The title is never revealed in the novel, but at Oscar Wilde's trial he admitted that he had 'had in mind' Joris-Karl Huysmans's \u00c0 Rebours ('Against Nature'). One night, before he leaves for Paris, Basil arrives to question Dorian about rumours of his indulgences. Dorian does not deny his debauchery. He takes Basil to the portrait, which is as hideous as Dorian's sins. In anger, Dorian blames Basil for his fate and stabs Basil to death. He then blackmails an old friend named Alan Campbell, a chemist, into destroying Basil's body. Wishing to escape the guilt of his crime, Dorian travels to an opium den. James Vane is present there and attempts to shoot Dorian after he hears someone refer to Dorian as \"Prince Charming\". However, he is deceived when Dorian fools James into thinking he is too young to have been involved with Sibyl 18 years earlier. James releases Dorian but is approached by a woman from the opium den who chastises him for not killing Dorian, revealing Dorian has not aged for 18 years. James attempts to run after him, only to find Dorian long gone. While at dinner, Dorian sees James stalking the grounds and fears for his life. However, during a game-shooting party a few days later, a lurking James is accidentally shot and killed by one of the hunters during this game-shooting party Dorian develops feelings for Lord Henry. After returning to London, Dorian tells Lord Henry that he will be good from now on, and has started by not breaking the heart of his latest innocent conquest named Hetty Merton. Dorian wonders if the portrait has begun to change back, now that he has given up his immoral ways. He unveils the portrait to find it has become worse. Seeing this, he realizes that the motives behind his \"self-sacrifice\" were merely vanity, curiosity, and the quest for new emotional experiences. Deciding that only full confession will absolve him, he decides to destroy the last vestige of his conscience. In a rage, he picks up the knife that killed Basil Hallward and plunges it into the painting. His servants wake hearing a cry from inside the locked room, and passers by on the street fetch the police. The servants find Dorian's body, stabbed in the heart and suddenly aged, withered and horrible. It is only through the rings on his hand that the corpse can be identified. Beside him, however, the portrait has reverted to its original form.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins on a beautiful summer day with Lord Henry Wotton, a strongly-opinionated man, observing the sensitive artist Basil Hallward painting the portrait of a handsome young man named Dorian Gray, who is Basil's ultimate muse. After hearing Lord Henry's world view, Dorian begins to think beauty is the only worthwhile aspect of life. He wishes that the portrait Basil painted would grow old in his place. Under the influence of Lord Henry (who relishes the hedonic lifestyle and is a major exponent thereof), Dorian begins to explore his senses. He discovers amazing actress Sibyl Vane, who performs Shakespeare plays in a dingy theatre. Dorian approaches her and soon proposes marriage. Sibyl, who refers to him as \"Prince Charming\", swoons with happiness, but her protective brother James tells her that if \"Prince Charming\" harms her, he will certainly kill him. Dorian invites Basil and Lord Henry to see Sibyl perform in Romeo and Juliet. Sibyl, whose only knowledge of love was love of theatre, casts aside her acting abilities through the experience of true love with Dorian. Disheartened, Dorian rejects her, saying her beauty was in her acting, and he is no longer interested in her. When he returns home, he notices that his portrait has changed. Dorian realizes his wish has come true \u2013 the portrait now bears a subtle sneer and will age with each sin he commits, while his own appearance remains unchanged. He decides to reconcile with Sibyl, but Lord Henry later informs him that she has killed herself by swallowing prussic acid. Dorian realizes that lust and looks are where his life is headed and he needs nothing else. Over the next 18 years, he experiments with every vice, mostly under the influence of a \"poisonous\" French decadence novel, a present from Lord Henry. The title is never revealed in the novel, but at Oscar Wilde's trial"
      },
      {
        "text": " own appearance remains unchanged. He decides to reconcile with Sibyl, but Lord Henry later informs him that she has killed herself by swallowing prussic acid. Dorian realizes that lust and looks are where his life is headed and he needs nothing else. Over the next 18 years, he experiments with every vice, mostly under the influence of a \"poisonous\" French decadence novel, a present from Lord Henry. The title is never revealed in the novel, but at Oscar Wilde's trial he admitted that he had 'had in mind' Joris-Karl Huysmans's \u00c0 Rebours ('Against Nature'). One night, before he leaves for Paris, Basil arrives to question Dorian about rumours of his indulgences. Dorian does not deny his debauchery. He takes Basil to the portrait, which is as hideous as Dorian's sins. In anger, Dorian blames Basil for his fate and stabs Basil to death. He then blackmails an old friend named Alan Campbell, a chemist, into destroying Basil's body. Wishing to escape the guilt of his crime, Dorian travels to an opium den. James Vane is present there and attempts to shoot Dorian after he hears someone refer to Dorian as \"Prince Charming\". However, he is deceived when Dorian fools James into thinking he is too young to have been involved with Sibyl 18 years earlier. James releases Dorian but is approached by a woman from the opium den who chastises him for not killing Dorian, revealing Dorian has not aged for 18 years. James attempts to run after him, only to find Dorian long gone. While at dinner, Dorian sees James stalking the grounds and fears for his life. However, during a game-shooting party a few days later, a lurking James is accidentally shot and killed by one of the hunters during this game-shooting party Dorian develops feelings for Lord Henry. After returning to London, Dorian"
      },
      {
        "text": " chastises him for not killing Dorian, revealing Dorian has not aged for 18 years. James attempts to run after him, only to find Dorian long gone. While at dinner, Dorian sees James stalking the grounds and fears for his life. However, during a game-shooting party a few days later, a lurking James is accidentally shot and killed by one of the hunters during this game-shooting party Dorian develops feelings for Lord Henry. After returning to London, Dorian tells Lord Henry that he will be good from now on, and has started by not breaking the heart of his latest innocent conquest named Hetty Merton. Dorian wonders if the portrait has begun to change back, now that he has given up his immoral ways. He unveils the portrait to find it has become worse. Seeing this, he realizes that the motives behind his \"self-sacrifice\" were merely vanity, curiosity, and the quest for new emotional experiences. Deciding that only full confession will absolve him, he decides to destroy the last vestige of his conscience. In a rage, he picks up the knife that killed Basil Hallward and plunges it into the painting. His servants wake hearing a cry from inside the locked room, and passers by on the street fetch the police. The servants find Dorian's body, stabbed in the heart and suddenly aged, withered and horrible. It is only through the rings on his hand that the corpse can be identified. Beside him, however, the portrait has reverted to its original form.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Beside him, however, the portrait has reverted to its original form.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Book of the City of Ladies",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Part I opens with Christine reading from Matheolus\u2019s Lamentations, a work from the thirteenth century that addresses marriage wherein the author writes that women make men\u2019s lives miserable. Upon reading these words, Christine becomes upset and feels ashamed to be a woman: \u201cThis thought inspired such a great sense of disgust and sadness in me that I began to despise myself and the whole of my sex as an aberration in nature\u201d. The three Virtues then appear to Christine, and each lady tells Christine what her role will be in helping her build the City of Ladies. After this, Lady Reason is the first to join Christine and help her build the external walls of the city. Lady Reason is a virtue developed by Christine for the purpose of her book. Reason is the first virtue to help Christine build the city. Reason aids Christine in laying the foundations for her city and answers Christine's questions about why men slander women. As she helps Christine understand male slander, she also helps Christine to prepare the ground on which the city will be built. She tells Christine to \u201ctake the spade of [her] intelligence and dig deep to make a trench all around [the city] \u2026 [and Reason will] help to carry away the hods of earth on [her] shoulders.\u201d These \u201chods of earth\u201d are the past beliefs Christine has held about male slanderers. Christine, in the beginning of the text, believed that women must truly be bad because she \u201ccould scarcely find a moral work by any author which didn't devote some chapter or paragraph to attacking the female sex. [Therefore she] had to accept [these authors] unfavourable opinion[s] of women since it was unlikely that so many learned men, who seemed to be endowed with such great intelligence and insight into all things, could possibly have lied on so many different occasions.\u201d Christine is not using reason to discover the merits of women. She believes all that she reads instead of putting her mind to listing all the great deeds women have accomplished. To help Christine see reason, Lady Reason comes and teaches Christine. She helps Christine dispel her own self-consciousness and the negative thoughts of past writers. By creating Lady Reason, Christine not only teaches her own allegorical self, but also the readers. She gives not only herself reason, but also gives readers, and women, reason to believe that women are not bad creatures and have a significant place within society. In Part II, Lady Rectitude says she will help Christine \u201cconstruct the houses and buildings inside the walls of the City of Ladies\u201d and fill it with inhabitants who are \u201cvaliant ladies of great renown\u201d. As they build, Lady Rectitude informs Christine with examples and \u201cstories of pagan, Hebrew, and Christian ladies\u201d who possessed the gift of prophecy, chastity, or devotion to their families and others. Christine and Lady Rectitude also discuss the institution of marriage, addressing Christine\u2019s questions regarding men\u2019s claims about the ill qualities women bring to marriage. Lady Rectitude corrects these misconceptions with examples of women who loved their husbands and acted virtuously, noting that those women who are evil toward their husbands are \u201clike creatures who go totally against their nature\u201d. Lady Rectitude also refutes allegations that women are unchaste, inconstant, unfaithful, and mean by nature through her stories. This part closes with Christine addressing women and asking them to pray for her as she continues her work with Lady Justice to complete the city. Part III marks Lady Justice\u2019s joining with Christine to \u201cadd the finishing touches\u201d to the city, including bringing a queen to rule the city. Lady Justice tells Christine of female saints who were praised for their martyrdom. At the close of this part, Christine makes another address to all women announcing the completion of the City of Ladies. She beseeches them to defend and protect the city and to follow their queen (the virgin Mary). She also warns the women against the lies of men, saying, \u201cDrive back these treacherous liars who use nothing but tricks and honeyed words to steal from you that which you should keep safe above all else: your chastity and your glorious good name\u201d.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Part I opens with Christine reading from Matheolus\u2019s Lamentations, a work from the thirteenth century that addresses marriage wherein the author writes that women make men\u2019s lives miserable. Upon reading these words, Christine becomes upset and feels ashamed to be a woman: \u201cThis thought inspired such a great sense of disgust and sadness in me that I began to despise myself and the whole of my sex as an aberration in nature\u201d. The three Virtues then appear to Christine, and each lady tells Christine what her role will be in helping her build the City of Ladies. After this, Lady Reason is the first to join Christine and help her build the external walls of the city. Lady Reason is a virtue developed by Christine for the purpose of her book. Reason is the first virtue to help Christine build the city. Reason aids Christine in laying the foundations for her city and answers Christine's questions about why men slander women. As she helps Christine understand male slander, she also helps Christine to prepare the ground on which the city will be built. She tells Christine to \u201ctake the spade of [her] intelligence and dig deep to make a trench all around [the city] \u2026 [and Reason will] help to carry away the hods of earth on [her] shoulders.\u201d These \u201chods of earth\u201d are the past beliefs Christine has held about male slanderers. Christine, in the beginning of the text, believed that women must truly be bad because she \u201ccould scarcely find a moral work by any author which didn't devote some chapter or paragraph to attacking the female sex. [Therefore she] had to accept [these authors] unfavourable opinion[s] of women since it was unlikely that so many learned men, who seemed to be endowed with such great intelligence and insight into all things, could possibly have lied on so many different occasions.\u201d Christine is not using reason to discover the merits of"
      },
      {
        "text": " that women must truly be bad because she \u201ccould scarcely find a moral work by any author which didn't devote some chapter or paragraph to attacking the female sex. [Therefore she] had to accept [these authors] unfavourable opinion[s] of women since it was unlikely that so many learned men, who seemed to be endowed with such great intelligence and insight into all things, could possibly have lied on so many different occasions.\u201d Christine is not using reason to discover the merits of women. She believes all that she reads instead of putting her mind to listing all the great deeds women have accomplished. To help Christine see reason, Lady Reason comes and teaches Christine. She helps Christine dispel her own self-consciousness and the negative thoughts of past writers. By creating Lady Reason, Christine not only teaches her own allegorical self, but also the readers. She gives not only herself reason, but also gives readers, and women, reason to believe that women are not bad creatures and have a significant place within society. In Part II, Lady Rectitude says she will help Christine \u201cconstruct the houses and buildings inside the walls of the City of Ladies\u201d and fill it with inhabitants who are \u201cvaliant ladies of great renown\u201d. As they build, Lady Rectitude informs Christine with examples and \u201cstories of pagan, Hebrew, and Christian ladies\u201d who possessed the gift of prophecy, chastity, or devotion to their families and others. Christine and Lady Rectitude also discuss the institution of marriage, addressing Christine\u2019s questions regarding men\u2019s claims about the ill qualities women bring to marriage. Lady Rectitude corrects these misconceptions with examples of women who loved their husbands and acted virtuously, noting that those women who are evil toward their husbands are \u201clike creatures who go totally against their nature\u201d. Lady Rectitude also refutes allegations that women are unchaste, inconstant, unfaithful, and mean by nature through her stories"
      },
      {
        "text": "itude also discuss the institution of marriage, addressing Christine\u2019s questions regarding men\u2019s claims about the ill qualities women bring to marriage. Lady Rectitude corrects these misconceptions with examples of women who loved their husbands and acted virtuously, noting that those women who are evil toward their husbands are \u201clike creatures who go totally against their nature\u201d. Lady Rectitude also refutes allegations that women are unchaste, inconstant, unfaithful, and mean by nature through her stories. This part closes with Christine addressing women and asking them to pray for her as she continues her work with Lady Justice to complete the city. Part III marks Lady Justice\u2019s joining with Christine to \u201cadd the finishing touches\u201d to the city, including bringing a queen to rule the city. Lady Justice tells Christine of female saints who were praised for their martyrdom. At the close of this part, Christine makes another address to all women announcing the completion of the City of Ladies. She beseeches them to defend and protect the city and to follow their queen (the virgin Mary). She also warns the women against the lies of men, saying, \u201cDrive back these treacherous liars who use nothing but tricks and honeyed words to steal from you that which you should keep safe above all else: your chastity and your glorious good name\u201d.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sentinel",
    "author": "Arthur C. Clarke",
    "published_date": "1951",
    "synopsis": " The story deals with the discovery of an artifact on Earth's Moon left behind eons ago by ancient aliens. The object is made of a polished mineral and tetrahedral in shape, and is surrounded by a spherical forcefield. The narrator speculates at one point that the mysterious aliens who left this structure on the Moon may have used mechanisms belonging \"to a technology that lies beyond our horizons, perhaps to the technology of para-physical forces.\" The narrator speculates that for millions of years (evidenced by dust buildup around its forcefield) the artifact has been transmitting signals into deep space, but it ceases to transmit when, some time later, it is destroyed \"with the savage might of atomic power\". The narrator hypothesises that this \"sentinel\" was left on the moon as a \"warning beacon\" for possible intelligent and spacefaring species that might develop on Earth. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the operation of the sentinel is reversed. It is the energy of the sun, falling for the first time on the uncovered artifact, that triggers the signal that creatures from the Earth had taken the first step into space.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story deals with the discovery of an artifact on Earth's Moon left behind eons ago by ancient aliens. The object is made of a polished mineral and tetrahedral in shape, and is surrounded by a spherical forcefield. The narrator speculates at one point that the mysterious aliens who left this structure on the Moon may have used mechanisms belonging \"to a technology that lies beyond our horizons, perhaps to the technology of para-physical forces.\" The narrator speculates that for millions of years (evidenced by dust buildup around its forcefield) the artifact has been transmitting signals into deep space, but it ceases to transmit when, some time later, it is destroyed \"with the savage might of atomic power\". The narrator hypothesises that this \"sentinel\" was left on the moon as a \"warning beacon\" for possible intelligent and spacefaring species that might develop on Earth. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the operation of the sentinel is reversed. It is the energy of the sun, falling for the first time on the uncovered artifact, that triggers the signal that creatures from the Earth had taken the first step into space.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Fountains of Paradise",
    "author": "Arthur C. Clarke",
    "published_date": "1979",
    "synopsis": " In the 22nd century, Dr Vannevar Morgan is a famous structural engineer who hopes to develop the 'space elevator' from a theoretical concept to reality and enlists the resources of his employers to carry out experiments. But the only suitable starting point (Earth station) for the elevator lies at the summit of a mountain in Taprobane occupied by an ancient order of Buddhist monks, who implacably oppose the plan. Morgan is approached by a Mars-based consortium to develop the elevator on Mars as part of a massive terraforming project. To demonstrate the viability of the technology, Morgan tries to run a thin cable of \u2018hyperfilament\u2019 from an orbital factory down to ground level at Taprobane. A monk at the monastery, a former astrophysicist who is a mathematical genius, tries to sabotage the attempt by creating an artificial hurricane using a hijacked weather-control satellite. His attempt is in fact successful, but in an ironic twist, the hurricane blows butterflies to the peak of the mountain. This fulfills an ancient prophecy that causes the monks to leave the mountain. The tower can be built on Earth after all. Forced to resign his position for acting beyond his authority, Morgan joins the Martian consortium named 'Astroengineering' and construction of the Tower commences. Several years later, the Earth-based tower is well under construction and travel up and down — both for tourists and for transfer to rocket ships — is being trialled. An astrophysicist and a group of his students and tower staff are stranded in an emergency chamber six hundred kilometres up after an accident with their transport capsule. They have limited food and air supplies. Whilst a laser on a weather-control satellite is able to supply heat, it is imperative to provide them with filter masks against the increasing carbon dioxide and also with food, air, and medical supplies (a theme earlier explored in Clarke's novel The Sands of Mars). Despite his rapidly failing health, Morgan asserts his right to travel up the tower in a one-man 'spider' to rescue them. He nearly fails, with limited battery power, but ultimately succeeds in reaching the chamber. As Morgan surveys the progress of his brainchild, his heart disease claims his life. A short epilogue envisages Earth many centuries later, after the sun has cooled and Earth has been depopulated, with humans now living on the terraformed inner planets. Several space elevators lead to a giant \"circumterran\" space station that encircles Earth at geostationary altitude. The analogy with a wheel is evident: the space station itself is the wheel rim, Earth is the axle, and the six equidistant space elevators the spokes.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the 22nd century, Dr Vannevar Morgan is a famous structural engineer who hopes to develop the 'space elevator' from a theoretical concept to reality and enlists the resources of his employers to carry out experiments. But the only suitable starting point (Earth station) for the elevator lies at the summit of a mountain in Taprobane occupied by an ancient order of Buddhist monks, who implacably oppose the plan. Morgan is approached by a Mars-based consortium to develop the elevator on Mars as part of a massive terraforming project. To demonstrate the viability of the technology, Morgan tries to run a thin cable of \u2018hyperfilament\u2019 from an orbital factory down to ground level at Taprobane. A monk at the monastery, a former astrophysicist who is a mathematical genius, tries to sabotage the attempt by creating an artificial hurricane using a hijacked weather-control satellite. His attempt is in fact successful, but in an ironic twist, the hurricane blows butterflies to the peak of the mountain. This fulfills an ancient prophecy that causes the monks to leave the mountain. The tower can be built on Earth after all. Forced to resign his position for acting beyond his authority, Morgan joins the Martian consortium named 'Astroengineering' and construction of the Tower commences. Several years later, the Earth-based tower is well under construction and travel up and down — both for tourists and for transfer to rocket ships — is being trialled. An astrophysicist and a group of his students and tower staff are stranded in an emergency chamber six hundred kilometres up after an accident with their transport capsule. They have limited food and air supplies. Whilst a laser on a weather-control satellite is able to supply heat, it is imperative to provide them with filter masks against the increasing carbon dioxide and also with food, air, and medical supplies (a theme earlier explored in Clarke's novel The Sands of Mars). Despite his rapidly failing health, Morgan asserts"
      },
      {
        "text": " An astrophysicist and a group of his students and tower staff are stranded in an emergency chamber six hundred kilometres up after an accident with their transport capsule. They have limited food and air supplies. Whilst a laser on a weather-control satellite is able to supply heat, it is imperative to provide them with filter masks against the increasing carbon dioxide and also with food, air, and medical supplies (a theme earlier explored in Clarke's novel The Sands of Mars). Despite his rapidly failing health, Morgan asserts his right to travel up the tower in a one-man 'spider' to rescue them. He nearly fails, with limited battery power, but ultimately succeeds in reaching the chamber. As Morgan surveys the progress of his brainchild, his heart disease claims his life. A short epilogue envisages Earth many centuries later, after the sun has cooled and Earth has been depopulated, with humans now living on the terraformed inner planets. Several space elevators lead to a giant \"circumterran\" space station that encircles Earth at geostationary altitude. The analogy with a wheel is evident: the space station itself is the wheel rim, Earth is the axle, and the six equidistant space elevators the spokes.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lord of the Flies",
    "author": "William Golding",
    "published_date": "1954",
    "synopsis": " In the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British plane crashes onto an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The only survivors are male children below the age of thirteen. Two boys, the fair-haired Ralph and an overweight, bespectacled boy reluctantly nicknamed \"Piggy\" find a conch, which Ralph uses as a horn to bring all the survivors to one area. Ralph emerges as one of the survivors' leaders during the meeting, as does Jack Merridew, a member of a boys' choir that survived the crash. The survivors elect Ralph as their \"chief\", losing only the votes of Jack's fellow choirboys, who support their leader. Ralph asserts two primary goals: to have fun and to maintain a smoke signal that could alert passing ships to their presence on the island. The boys decide that a conch shell they found embodies the society they shall create on the island, and declare that whoever holds the conch shall also receive the respect of the larger group. Jack organises his choir group into a hunting party responsible for discovering a food source; Ralph, Jack, and a boy named Simon soon form a troika of leaders. Piggy, although Ralph's only confidante, is quickly made an outcast by his fellow \"biguns\" (older boys) and becomes an unwilling source of laughs for the other children. Simon, in addition to supervising the project of constructing shelters, feels an instinctive need to protect the younger boys. The semblance of order imposed by Ralph and Simon quickly deteriorates as the majority of the boys turn idle and begin to develop paranoias about the island, referring to a supposed monster, the \"beast\", which dwells nearby. Jack, who has started a power struggle with Ralph, gains control of the discussion by boldly promising to kill the beast. At one point, Jack summons all of his hunters to hunt down a wild pig, drawing away those assigned to maintain the signal fire. After the fire burns out, a ship passes by the island, but does not stop as it has seen nothing amiss. Angered by this, Ralph considers relinquishing his position, but is convinced not to do so by Piggy. While Jack schemes against Ralph, twins Sam and Eric, now assigned to the maintenance of the signal fire, see the corpse of a fighter pilot in the dark. Mistaking the corpse for the beast, they run to the cluster of shelters that Ralph and Simon have erected and warn the others. This unexpected meeting sees tensions between Jack and Ralph flare again. Shortly thereafter, Jack decides to lead a party to the other side of the island, where a heap of stones forms a place where he claims the beast resides. Only Ralph and Jack's supporter Roger agree to go; Ralph turns back shortly before the other two boys. When they arrive at the shelters, Jack calls an assembly and tries to turn the others against Ralph, asking for them to remove him from his position. Receiving little support, Jack, Roger, and another boy leave the shelters to form their own tribe. The tribe, which receives recruits from the main group of boys, grows in strength and begins to adopt customs common to primitive cultures, including face paint and bizarre rituals including sacrifices to the beast. When the tribe grows to a size that rivals Ralph's, they begin to harass those who remain at the shelters and make pronouncements encouraging them to abandon Ralph and the societal order he has imposed. Simon, unable to bear the stress of his position, goes off to think. Alone, he finds a severed pig head, left by Jack as an offering to the beast. Simon envisions the pig head, now swarming with scavenging flies, as the \"Lord of the Flies\" and believes that it is talking to him. Simon hears the pig identifying itself as the real \"Beast\" and disclosing the truth about itself \u2013 that the boys themselves \"created\" the beast, and that the real beast was inside them all. Simon also locates the dead parachutist who had been mistaken for the beast, and is the sole member of the group to recognise that the \"monster\" is a cadaver. Simon, hoping to tell others of the discovery, finds Jack's tribe in the island's interior during a ritual dance and, mistaken for the beast, is killed by the frenzied boys. Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric feel guilty about what they did not stop. Jack and his band of \"savages\" decide that they should possess Piggy's glasses, the only means of starting a fire on the island. Raiding Ralph's camp, the savages confiscate the glasses and return to their abode near the great rock heap, called Castle Rock. Ralph, deserted by most of his supporters, journeys to Castle Rock to confront Jack and secure the glasses. Taking the conch and accompanied only by Piggy, Sam, and Eric, Ralph finds the tribe and demands that they return the valuable object. Turning against Ralph, the tribe takes Sam and Eric captive while Roger drops a boulder from his vantage point above, killing Piggy and shattering the conch. Ralph manages to escape, but Sam and Eric are tortured until they agree to join Jack's tribe. The following morning, Jack orders his tribe to begin a manhunt for Ralph. Fleeing through the forest, Ralph watches as the \"savages\" set fire to the forest, drawing the attention of a passing naval vessel. A landing party from the vessel encounters Ralph as he desperately tries to escape the onrushing \"savages\", and the British officer leading the party, at first mistaking the violence for a game, expected better from British boys.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the midst of a wartime evacuation, a British plane crashes onto an isolated island in a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The only survivors are male children below the age of thirteen. Two boys, the fair-haired Ralph and an overweight, bespectacled boy reluctantly nicknamed \"Piggy\" find a conch, which Ralph uses as a horn to bring all the survivors to one area. Ralph emerges as one of the survivors' leaders during the meeting, as does Jack Merridew, a member of a boys' choir that survived the crash. The survivors elect Ralph as their \"chief\", losing only the votes of Jack's fellow choirboys, who support their leader. Ralph asserts two primary goals: to have fun and to maintain a smoke signal that could alert passing ships to their presence on the island. The boys decide that a conch shell they found embodies the society they shall create on the island, and declare that whoever holds the conch shall also receive the respect of the larger group. Jack organises his choir group into a hunting party responsible for discovering a food source; Ralph, Jack, and a boy named Simon soon form a troika of leaders. Piggy, although Ralph's only confidante, is quickly made an outcast by his fellow \"biguns\" (older boys) and becomes an unwilling source of laughs for the other children. Simon, in addition to supervising the project of constructing shelters, feels an instinctive need to protect the younger boys. The semblance of order imposed by Ralph and Simon quickly deteriorates as the majority of the boys turn idle and begin to develop paranoias about the island, referring to a supposed monster, the \"beast\", which dwells nearby. Jack, who has started a power struggle with Ralph, gains control of the discussion by boldly promising to kill the beast. At one point, Jack summons all of his hunters to hunt down a wild pig, drawing away those assigned to maintain the signal fire. After the"
      },
      {
        "text": " The semblance of order imposed by Ralph and Simon quickly deteriorates as the majority of the boys turn idle and begin to develop paranoias about the island, referring to a supposed monster, the \"beast\", which dwells nearby. Jack, who has started a power struggle with Ralph, gains control of the discussion by boldly promising to kill the beast. At one point, Jack summons all of his hunters to hunt down a wild pig, drawing away those assigned to maintain the signal fire. After the fire burns out, a ship passes by the island, but does not stop as it has seen nothing amiss. Angered by this, Ralph considers relinquishing his position, but is convinced not to do so by Piggy. While Jack schemes against Ralph, twins Sam and Eric, now assigned to the maintenance of the signal fire, see the corpse of a fighter pilot in the dark. Mistaking the corpse for the beast, they run to the cluster of shelters that Ralph and Simon have erected and warn the others. This unexpected meeting sees tensions between Jack and Ralph flare again. Shortly thereafter, Jack decides to lead a party to the other side of the island, where a heap of stones forms a place where he claims the beast resides. Only Ralph and Jack's supporter Roger agree to go; Ralph turns back shortly before the other two boys. When they arrive at the shelters, Jack calls an assembly and tries to turn the others against Ralph, asking for them to remove him from his position. Receiving little support, Jack, Roger, and another boy leave the shelters to form their own tribe. The tribe, which receives recruits from the main group of boys, grows in strength and begins to adopt customs common to primitive cultures, including face paint and bizarre rituals including sacrifices to the beast. When the tribe grows to a size that rivals Ralph's, they begin to harass those who remain at the shelters and make pronouncements encouraging them to abandon Ralph and the societal order he has imposed. Simon, unable"
      },
      {
        "text": "iving little support, Jack, Roger, and another boy leave the shelters to form their own tribe. The tribe, which receives recruits from the main group of boys, grows in strength and begins to adopt customs common to primitive cultures, including face paint and bizarre rituals including sacrifices to the beast. When the tribe grows to a size that rivals Ralph's, they begin to harass those who remain at the shelters and make pronouncements encouraging them to abandon Ralph and the societal order he has imposed. Simon, unable to bear the stress of his position, goes off to think. Alone, he finds a severed pig head, left by Jack as an offering to the beast. Simon envisions the pig head, now swarming with scavenging flies, as the \"Lord of the Flies\" and believes that it is talking to him. Simon hears the pig identifying itself as the real \"Beast\" and disclosing the truth about itself \u2013 that the boys themselves \"created\" the beast, and that the real beast was inside them all. Simon also locates the dead parachutist who had been mistaken for the beast, and is the sole member of the group to recognise that the \"monster\" is a cadaver. Simon, hoping to tell others of the discovery, finds Jack's tribe in the island's interior during a ritual dance and, mistaken for the beast, is killed by the frenzied boys. Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric feel guilty about what they did not stop. Jack and his band of \"savages\" decide that they should possess Piggy's glasses, the only means of starting a fire on the island. Raiding Ralph's camp, the savages confiscate the glasses and return to their abode near the great rock heap, called Castle Rock. Ralph, deserted by most of his supporters, journeys to Castle Rock to confront Jack and secure the glasses. Taking the conch and accompanied only by Piggy, Sam, and Eric, Ralph"
      },
      {
        "text": " not stop. Jack and his band of \"savages\" decide that they should possess Piggy's glasses, the only means of starting a fire on the island. Raiding Ralph's camp, the savages confiscate the glasses and return to their abode near the great rock heap, called Castle Rock. Ralph, deserted by most of his supporters, journeys to Castle Rock to confront Jack and secure the glasses. Taking the conch and accompanied only by Piggy, Sam, and Eric, Ralph finds the tribe and demands that they return the valuable object. Turning against Ralph, the tribe takes Sam and Eric captive while Roger drops a boulder from his vantage point above, killing Piggy and shattering the conch. Ralph manages to escape, but Sam and Eric are tortured until they agree to join Jack's tribe. The following morning, Jack orders his tribe to begin a manhunt for Ralph. Fleeing through the forest, Ralph watches as the \"savages\" set fire to the forest, drawing the attention of a passing naval vessel. A landing party from the vessel encounters Ralph as he desperately tries to escape the onrushing \"savages\", and the British officer leading the party, at first mistaking the violence for a game, expected better from British boys.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Through the Looking-Glass",
    "author": "Lewis Carroll",
    "published_date": "1871",
    "synopsis": " Alice is playing with a white kitten (whom she calls \"Snowdrop\") and a black kitten (whom she calls \"Kitty\")\u2014the offspring of Dinah, Alice's cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland\u2014when she ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror's reflection. Climbing up on the fireplace mantel, she pokes at the wall-hung mirror behind the fireplace and discovers, to her surprise, that she is able to step through it to an alternative world. In this reflected version of her own house, she finds a book with looking-glass poetry, \"Jabberwocky\", whose reversed printing she can read only by holding it up to the mirror. She also observes that the chess pieces have come to life, though they remain small enough for her to pick up. Upon leaving the house (where it had been a cold, snowy night), she enters a sunny spring garden where the flowers have the power of human speech; they perceive Alice as being a \"flower that can move about.\" Elsewhere in the garden, Alice meets the Red Queen (now human-sized), who impresses Alice with her ability to run at breathtaking speeds\u2014a reference to the chess rule that queens are able to move any number of vacant squares at once, in any direction, making them the most \"agile\" of the pieces. The Red Queen reveals to Alice that the entire countryside is laid out in squares like a gigantic chessboard, and offers to make Alice a queen if she can move all the way to the eighth rank/row in a chess match. Alice is placed in the second rank as one of the White Queen's pawns, and begins her journey across the chessboard by boarding a train that literally jumps over the third row and directly into the fourth rank, acting on the rule that pawns can advance two spaces on their first move. She then meets the fat twin brothers Tweedledum and Tweedledee, whom she knows from the famous nursery rhyme. After reciting the long poem \"The Walrus and the Carpenter\", the Tweedles draw Alice's attention to the Red King\u2014loudly snoring away under a nearby tree\u2014and maliciously provoke her with idle philosophical banter that she exists only as an imaginary figure in the Red King's dreams (thereby implying that she will cease to exist the instant he wakes up). Finally, the brothers begin acting out their nursery-rhyme by suiting up for battle, only to be frightened away by an enormous crow, as the nursery rhyme about them predicts. Alice next meets the White Queen, who is very absent-minded but boasts of (and demonstrates) her ability to remember future events before they have happened. Alice and the White Queen advance into the chessboard's fifth rank by crossing over a brook together, but at the very moment of the crossing, the Queen transforms into a talking Sheep in a small shop. Alice soon finds herself struggling to handle the oars of a small rowboat, where the Sheep annoys her with (seemingly) nonsensical shouting about \"crabs\" and \"feathers\". (Unknown to Alice, these are standard terms in the jargon of rowing\u2014and thus the Queen/Sheep, for a change, is speaking in a perfectly logical and meaningful way!) After crossing yet another brook into the sixth rank, Alice immediately encounters Humpty Dumpty, who, besides celebrating his unbirthday, provides his own translation of the strange terms in \"Jabberwocky\" (in the process, introducing Alice and the reader to the concept of portmanteau words) before his inevitable fall. \"All the king's horses and all the king's men\" come to Humpty Dumpty's assistance, naturally, and are accompanied by the White King along with the Lion and the Unicorn, who again proceed to act out a nursery rhyme by fighting each other. In this chapter, the March Hare and Hatter of the first book make a brief re-appearance in the guise of \"Anglo-Saxon messengers\" called \"Haigha\" and \"Hatta\" (i.e. \"Hare\" and \"Hatter\"\u2014these names are the only hint given as to their identities other than John Tenniel's illustrations). Upon leaving the Lion and Unicorn to their fight, Alice reaches the seventh rank by crossing another brook into the forested territory of the Red Knight, who is intent on capturing the \"white pawn\" Alice until the White Knight comes to her rescue. Escorting her through the forest towards the final brook-crossing, the Knight recites a long poem of his own composition, and repeatedly falls off his horse\u2014his clumsiness is a reference to the \"eccentric\" L-shaped movements of chess knights, and may also be interpreted as a self-deprecating joke about Lewis Carroll's own physical awkwardness and stammering in real life. Bidding farewell to the White Knight, Alice steps across the last brook and is automatically crowned a queen (the crown materialising abruptly on her head). She soon finds herself in the company of both the White and Red Queens who relentlessly confound Alice by using word play to thwart her attempts at logical discussion. They then invite one another to a party that will be hosted by the newly crowned Alice (of which Alice herself had no prior knowledge). Alice arrives and seats herself at her own party which quickly turns to a chaotic uproar (much like the ending of the first book) in which Alice finally grabs the Red Queen, believing her to be responsible for all the day's nonsense, and begins shaking her violently with all her might. (By thus \"capturing\" the Red Queen, Alice unknowingly puts the Red King\u2014who has remained stationary throughout the book\u2014into checkmate, and is allowed to wake up.) Alice suddenly awakes in her armchair to find herself holding the black kitten, whom she deduces to have been the Red Queen all along, with the white kitten having been the White Queen. The story ends with Alice recalling the speculation of the Tweedle brothers, that everything may have, in fact, been a dream of the Red King and that Alice might herself be no more than a figment of his imagination. One final poem is inserted by the author as a sort of epilogue which suggests that life itself is but a dream.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Alice is playing with a white kitten (whom she calls \"Snowdrop\") and a black kitten (whom she calls \"Kitty\")\u2014the offspring of Dinah, Alice's cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland\u2014when she ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror's reflection. Climbing up on the fireplace mantel, she pokes at the wall-hung mirror behind the fireplace and discovers, to her surprise, that she is able to step through it to an alternative world. In this reflected version of her own house, she finds a book with looking-glass poetry, \"Jabberwocky\", whose reversed printing she can read only by holding it up to the mirror. She also observes that the chess pieces have come to life, though they remain small enough for her to pick up. Upon leaving the house (where it had been a cold, snowy night), she enters a sunny spring garden where the flowers have the power of human speech; they perceive Alice as being a \"flower that can move about.\" Elsewhere in the garden, Alice meets the Red Queen (now human-sized), who impresses Alice with her ability to run at breathtaking speeds\u2014a reference to the chess rule that queens are able to move any number of vacant squares at once, in any direction, making them the most \"agile\" of the pieces. The Red Queen reveals to Alice that the entire countryside is laid out in squares like a gigantic chessboard, and offers to make Alice a queen if she can move all the way to the eighth rank/row in a chess match. Alice is placed in the second rank as one of the White Queen's pawns, and begins her journey across the chessboard by boarding a train that literally jumps over the third row and directly into the fourth rank, acting on the rule that pawns can advance two spaces on their first move. She then meets the fat twin brothers Tweedledum and Tweed"
      },
      {
        "text": "board, and offers to make Alice a queen if she can move all the way to the eighth rank/row in a chess match. Alice is placed in the second rank as one of the White Queen's pawns, and begins her journey across the chessboard by boarding a train that literally jumps over the third row and directly into the fourth rank, acting on the rule that pawns can advance two spaces on their first move. She then meets the fat twin brothers Tweedledum and Tweedledee, whom she knows from the famous nursery rhyme. After reciting the long poem \"The Walrus and the Carpenter\", the Tweedles draw Alice's attention to the Red King\u2014loudly snoring away under a nearby tree\u2014and maliciously provoke her with idle philosophical banter that she exists only as an imaginary figure in the Red King's dreams (thereby implying that she will cease to exist the instant he wakes up). Finally, the brothers begin acting out their nursery-rhyme by suiting up for battle, only to be frightened away by an enormous crow, as the nursery rhyme about them predicts. Alice next meets the White Queen, who is very absent-minded but boasts of (and demonstrates) her ability to remember future events before they have happened. Alice and the White Queen advance into the chessboard's fifth rank by crossing over a brook together, but at the very moment of the crossing, the Queen transforms into a talking Sheep in a small shop. Alice soon finds herself struggling to handle the oars of a small rowboat, where the Sheep annoys her with (seemingly) nonsensical shouting about \"crabs\" and \"feathers\". (Unknown to Alice, these are standard terms in the jargon of rowing\u2014and thus the Queen/Sheep, for a change, is speaking in a perfectly logical and meaningful way!) After crossing yet another brook into the sixth rank, Alice immediately encounters Humpty Dumpty,"
      },
      {
        "text": " shop. Alice soon finds herself struggling to handle the oars of a small rowboat, where the Sheep annoys her with (seemingly) nonsensical shouting about \"crabs\" and \"feathers\". (Unknown to Alice, these are standard terms in the jargon of rowing\u2014and thus the Queen/Sheep, for a change, is speaking in a perfectly logical and meaningful way!) After crossing yet another brook into the sixth rank, Alice immediately encounters Humpty Dumpty, who, besides celebrating his unbirthday, provides his own translation of the strange terms in \"Jabberwocky\" (in the process, introducing Alice and the reader to the concept of portmanteau words) before his inevitable fall. \"All the king's horses and all the king's men\" come to Humpty Dumpty's assistance, naturally, and are accompanied by the White King along with the Lion and the Unicorn, who again proceed to act out a nursery rhyme by fighting each other. In this chapter, the March Hare and Hatter of the first book make a brief re-appearance in the guise of \"Anglo-Saxon messengers\" called \"Haigha\" and \"Hatta\" (i.e. \"Hare\" and \"Hatter\"\u2014these names are the only hint given as to their identities other than John Tenniel's illustrations). Upon leaving the Lion and Unicorn to their fight, Alice reaches the seventh rank by crossing another brook into the forested territory of the Red Knight, who is intent on capturing the \"white pawn\" Alice until the White Knight comes to her rescue. Escorting her through the forest towards the final brook-crossing, the Knight recites a long poem of his own composition, and repeatedly falls off his horse\u2014his clumsiness is a reference to the \"eccentric\" L-shaped movements of chess knights, and may also be interpreted as a self-deprec"
      },
      {
        "text": " another brook into the forested territory of the Red Knight, who is intent on capturing the \"white pawn\" Alice until the White Knight comes to her rescue. Escorting her through the forest towards the final brook-crossing, the Knight recites a long poem of his own composition, and repeatedly falls off his horse\u2014his clumsiness is a reference to the \"eccentric\" L-shaped movements of chess knights, and may also be interpreted as a self-deprecating joke about Lewis Carroll's own physical awkwardness and stammering in real life. Bidding farewell to the White Knight, Alice steps across the last brook and is automatically crowned a queen (the crown materialising abruptly on her head). She soon finds herself in the company of both the White and Red Queens who relentlessly confound Alice by using word play to thwart her attempts at logical discussion. They then invite one another to a party that will be hosted by the newly crowned Alice (of which Alice herself had no prior knowledge). Alice arrives and seats herself at her own party which quickly turns to a chaotic uproar (much like the ending of the first book) in which Alice finally grabs the Red Queen, believing her to be responsible for all the day's nonsense, and begins shaking her violently with all her might. (By thus \"capturing\" the Red Queen, Alice unknowingly puts the Red King\u2014who has remained stationary throughout the book\u2014into checkmate, and is allowed to wake up.) Alice suddenly awakes in her armchair to find herself holding the black kitten, whom she deduces to have been the Red Queen all along, with the white kitten having been the White Queen. The story ends with Alice recalling the speculation of the Tweedle brothers, that everything may have, in fact, been a dream of the Red King and that Alice might herself be no more than a figment of his imagination. One final poem is inserted by the author as a sort of"
      },
      {
        "text": " wake up.) Alice suddenly awakes in her armchair to find herself holding the black kitten, whom she deduces to have been the Red Queen all along, with the white kitten having been the White Queen. The story ends with Alice recalling the speculation of the Tweedle brothers, that everything may have, in fact, been a dream of the Red King and that Alice might herself be no more than a figment of his imagination. One final poem is inserted by the author as a sort of epilogue which suggests that life itself is but a dream.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Waiting for Godot",
    "author": "Samuel Beckett",
    "published_date": "1952",
    "synopsis": " Waiting for Godot follows a pair of men who divert themselves while waiting expectantly, vainly for someone named Godot to arrive. They claim he's an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognize him when they do see him. To occupy the time they eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide \u2013 anything \"to hold the terrible silence at bay\". The play opens with Estragon struggling to remove a boot. Estragon eventually gives up, muttering, \"Nothing to be done.\" His friend Vladimir takes up the thought and muses on it, the implication being that nothing is a thing that has to be done and this pair is going to have to spend the rest of the play doing it. When Estragon finally succeeds in removing his boot, he looks and feels inside but finds nothing. Just prior to this, Vladimir peers into his hat. The motif recurs throughout the play. The pair discuss repentance, particularly in relation to the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus, and that only one of the Four Evangelists mentions that one of them was saved. This is the first of numerous Biblical references in the play, which may be linked to its putative central theme of the search for and reconciliation with God, as well as salvation: \"We're saved!\" they cry on more than one occasion when they feel that Godot may be near. Presently, Vladimir expresses his frustration with Estragon's limited conversational skills: \"Come on, Gogo, return the ball, can't you, once in a while?\" Estragon struggles with this throughout the play, and Vladimir generally takes the lead in dialogue and encounters with others. Vladimir is at times hostile towards his companion, but in general they are close, frequently embracing and supporting one another. Estragon peers out into the audience and comments on the bleakness of his surroundings. He wants to depart but is told that they cannot because they must wait for Godot. The pair cannot agree, however, on whether or not they are in the right place or that this is the arranged day for their meeting with Godot; they are not even sure what day it is. Throughout the play, experienced time is attenuated, fractured or eerily non-existent. The only thing that they are fairly sure about is that they are to meet at a tree: there is one nearby. Estragon dozes off, but, after rousing him, Vladimir is not interested in hearing about his dream. Estragon wants to hear an old joke about a brothel, which Vladimir starts but cannot finish, as he is suddenly compelled to rush off and urinate. He does not finish the story when he returns, asking Estragon instead what else they might do to pass the time. Estragon suggests that they hang themselves, but they abandon the idea when it seems that they might not both die: leaving one of them alone, an intolerable notion. They decide to do nothing: \"It's safer,\" explains Estragon, before asking what Godot is going to do for them when he arrives. For once it is Vladimir who struggles to remember: \"Oh ... nothing very definite,\" is the best that he can manage. When Estragon declares that he is hungry, Vladimir provides a carrot, most of which, and without much relish, the former eats. The diversion ends as Estragon announces that they still have nothing to do. Their waiting is interrupted by the passing through of Pozzo and his heavily-laden slave Lucky. \"A terrible cry\" from the wings heralds the initial entrance of Lucky, who has a rope tied around his neck. His master appears holding the other end. Pozzo barks orders at his slave and frequently calls him a \"pig\", but is civil towards the other two. They mistake him at first for Godot and clearly do not recognise him for the self-proclaimed personage he is. This irks him, but, while maintaining that the land that they are on is his, he acknowledges that \"the road is free to all\". Deciding to rest for a while, Pozzo enjoys chicken and wine. Finished, he casts the bones aside, and Estragon jumps at the chance to ask for them, much to Vladimir's embarrassment, but is told that they belong to the carrier. He must first, therefore, ask Lucky if he wants them. Estragon tries, but Lucky only hangs his head, refusing to answer. Taking this as a \"no\", Estragon claims the bones. Vladimir takes Pozzo to task regarding his mistreatment of his slave, but his protestations are ignored. When the original pairing tries to find out why Lucky does not put down his load (at least not unless his master is prevailing on him to do something else), Pozzo explains that Lucky is attempting to mollify him to prevent him from selling him. At this, Lucky begins to cry. Pozzo provides a handkerchief, but, when Estragon tries to wipe his tears away, Lucky kicks him. Before he leaves, Pozzo asks if he can do anything for the pair in exchange for the company they have provided during his rest. Estragon tries to ask for some money, but Vladimir cuts him short, explaining that they are not beggars. They nevertheless accept an offer to have Lucky dance and to think. The dance is clumsy and shuffling. Lucky's \"think\", induced by Vladimir's putting his hat on his head, is a lengthy and disjointed verbal stream of consciousness. The soliloquy begins relatively coherently but quickly dissolves into logorrhoea and only ends when Vladimir rips off Lucky's hat. Once Lucky has been revived, Pozzo has him pack up his things and they leave. At the end of the act (and its successor), a boy arrives, purporting to be a messenger sent from Godot, to advise the pair that he will not be coming that \"evening but surely tomorrow.\" During Vladimir's interrogation of the boy, he asks if he came the day before, making it apparent that the two men have been waiting for an indefinite period and will likely continue to wait ad infinitum. After the boy departs, they decide to leave but make no attempt to do so, an action repeated in Act II, as the curtain is drawn. Act II opens with Vladimir singing a recursive round about a dog, which could illustrate the cyclical nature of the play's universe, and also point toward the play's debt to the carnivalesque, music hall traditions, and vaudeville comedy (this is only one of a number of canine references and allusions in the play). There is a bit of realisation by Vladimir that the world they are trapped in evinces convoluted progression (or lack thereof) of time. He begins to see that although there is notional evidence of linear progression, basically he is living the same day over and over. Eugene Webb has written of Vladimir's song that \"Time in the song is not a linear sequence, but an endlessly reiterated moment, the content of which is only one eternal event: death.\" Once again Estragon maintains he spent the night in a ditch and was beaten \u2013 by \"ten of them\" this time \u2013 though he shows no sign of injury. Vladimir tries to talk to him about what appears to be a seasonal change in the tree and the proceedings of the day before, but he has only a vague recollection. Vladimir tries to get Estragon to remember Pozzo and Lucky, but all he can call to mind are the bones and getting kicked. Vladimir realises an opportunity to produce tangible evidence of the previous day's events. With some difficulty he gets Estragon to show him his leg. There is a wound which is beginning to fester. Only then Vladimir notices that Estragon is not wearing any boots. He discovers the pair of boots, which Estragon insists are not his but nevertheless fit when he tries them on. With no carrots left, Vladimir offers Estragon the choice between a turnip and a radish. He opts for the radish but it is black and he hands it back. He decides to try to sleep again and adopts the same fetal position as the previous day. Vladimir sings him a lullaby. Vladimir notices Lucky's hat, and tries it on. This leads to a frenetic hat-swapping scene. They play at imitating Pozzo and Lucky, but Estragon can barely remember having met them and simply does what Vladimir asks. They fire insults at each other and then make up. After that, they attempt some physical routines which do not work out well, and even attempt a single yoga position, which fails miserably. Pozzo and Lucky arrive, with Pozzo now blind and insisting that Lucky is dumb. The rope is much shorter, and Lucky \u2013 who has acquired a new hat \u2013 leads Pozzo, rather than being driven by him. Pozzo has lost all notion of time, and assures them he cannot remember meeting them the day before, and does not expect to remember the current day's events when they are over. They fall in a heap. Estragon sees an opportunity to extort more food or to exact revenge on Lucky for kicking him. The issue is debated. Pozzo offers them money but Vladimir sees more worth in their entertainment since they are compelled to wait to see if Godot arrives. Eventually though, they all find their way onto their feet. Whereas Pozzo in Act I is a windbag, he now (as a blind man) appears to have gained some insight. His parting words \u2013 which Vladimir expands upon later \u2013 eloquently encapsulate the brevity of human existence: \"They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.\" Lucky and Pozzo depart. The same boy returns to inform them not to expect Godot today, but promises he will arrive the next day. The two again consider suicide but their rope, Estragon's belt, breaks in two when they tug on it. Estragon's trousers fall down, but he does not notice until Vladimir tells him to pull them up. They resolve to bring a more suitable piece and hang themselves the next day, if Godot fails to arrive. Again, they agree to leave but neither of them makes any move to go.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Waiting for Godot follows a pair of men who divert themselves while waiting expectantly, vainly for someone named Godot to arrive. They claim he's an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognize him when they do see him. To occupy the time they eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide \u2013 anything \"to hold the terrible silence at bay\". The play opens with Estragon struggling to remove a boot. Estragon eventually gives up, muttering, \"Nothing to be done.\" His friend Vladimir takes up the thought and muses on it, the implication being that nothing is a thing that has to be done and this pair is going to have to spend the rest of the play doing it. When Estragon finally succeeds in removing his boot, he looks and feels inside but finds nothing. Just prior to this, Vladimir peers into his hat. The motif recurs throughout the play. The pair discuss repentance, particularly in relation to the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus, and that only one of the Four Evangelists mentions that one of them was saved. This is the first of numerous Biblical references in the play, which may be linked to its putative central theme of the search for and reconciliation with God, as well as salvation: \"We're saved!\" they cry on more than one occasion when they feel that Godot may be near. Presently, Vladimir expresses his frustration with Estragon's limited conversational skills: \"Come on, Gogo, return the ball, can't you, once in a while?\" Estragon struggles with this throughout the play, and Vladimir generally takes the lead in dialogue and encounters with others. Vladimir is at times hostile towards his companion, but in general they are close, frequently embracing and supporting one another. Estragon peers out into the audience and comments on the bleakness of his surroundings. He wants to depart but"
      },
      {
        "text": " frustration with Estragon's limited conversational skills: \"Come on, Gogo, return the ball, can't you, once in a while?\" Estragon struggles with this throughout the play, and Vladimir generally takes the lead in dialogue and encounters with others. Vladimir is at times hostile towards his companion, but in general they are close, frequently embracing and supporting one another. Estragon peers out into the audience and comments on the bleakness of his surroundings. He wants to depart but is told that they cannot because they must wait for Godot. The pair cannot agree, however, on whether or not they are in the right place or that this is the arranged day for their meeting with Godot; they are not even sure what day it is. Throughout the play, experienced time is attenuated, fractured or eerily non-existent. The only thing that they are fairly sure about is that they are to meet at a tree: there is one nearby. Estragon dozes off, but, after rousing him, Vladimir is not interested in hearing about his dream. Estragon wants to hear an old joke about a brothel, which Vladimir starts but cannot finish, as he is suddenly compelled to rush off and urinate. He does not finish the story when he returns, asking Estragon instead what else they might do to pass the time. Estragon suggests that they hang themselves, but they abandon the idea when it seems that they might not both die: leaving one of them alone, an intolerable notion. They decide to do nothing: \"It's safer,\" explains Estragon, before asking what Godot is going to do for them when he arrives. For once it is Vladimir who struggles to remember: \"Oh ... nothing very definite,\" is the best that he can manage. When Estragon declares that he is hungry, Vladimir provides a carrot, most of which, and without much relish, the former eats. The diversion"
      },
      {
        "text": " both die: leaving one of them alone, an intolerable notion. They decide to do nothing: \"It's safer,\" explains Estragon, before asking what Godot is going to do for them when he arrives. For once it is Vladimir who struggles to remember: \"Oh ... nothing very definite,\" is the best that he can manage. When Estragon declares that he is hungry, Vladimir provides a carrot, most of which, and without much relish, the former eats. The diversion ends as Estragon announces that they still have nothing to do. Their waiting is interrupted by the passing through of Pozzo and his heavily-laden slave Lucky. \"A terrible cry\" from the wings heralds the initial entrance of Lucky, who has a rope tied around his neck. His master appears holding the other end. Pozzo barks orders at his slave and frequently calls him a \"pig\", but is civil towards the other two. They mistake him at first for Godot and clearly do not recognise him for the self-proclaimed personage he is. This irks him, but, while maintaining that the land that they are on is his, he acknowledges that \"the road is free to all\". Deciding to rest for a while, Pozzo enjoys chicken and wine. Finished, he casts the bones aside, and Estragon jumps at the chance to ask for them, much to Vladimir's embarrassment, but is told that they belong to the carrier. He must first, therefore, ask Lucky if he wants them. Estragon tries, but Lucky only hangs his head, refusing to answer. Taking this as a \"no\", Estragon claims the bones. Vladimir takes Pozzo to task regarding his mistreatment of his slave, but his protestations are ignored. When the original pairing tries to find out why Lucky does not put down his load (at least not unless his master is prevailing on him to do something else), Pozzo explains that Lucky is attempting"
      },
      {
        "text": ", therefore, ask Lucky if he wants them. Estragon tries, but Lucky only hangs his head, refusing to answer. Taking this as a \"no\", Estragon claims the bones. Vladimir takes Pozzo to task regarding his mistreatment of his slave, but his protestations are ignored. When the original pairing tries to find out why Lucky does not put down his load (at least not unless his master is prevailing on him to do something else), Pozzo explains that Lucky is attempting to mollify him to prevent him from selling him. At this, Lucky begins to cry. Pozzo provides a handkerchief, but, when Estragon tries to wipe his tears away, Lucky kicks him. Before he leaves, Pozzo asks if he can do anything for the pair in exchange for the company they have provided during his rest. Estragon tries to ask for some money, but Vladimir cuts him short, explaining that they are not beggars. They nevertheless accept an offer to have Lucky dance and to think. The dance is clumsy and shuffling. Lucky's \"think\", induced by Vladimir's putting his hat on his head, is a lengthy and disjointed verbal stream of consciousness. The soliloquy begins relatively coherently but quickly dissolves into logorrhoea and only ends when Vladimir rips off Lucky's hat. Once Lucky has been revived, Pozzo has him pack up his things and they leave. At the end of the act (and its successor), a boy arrives, purporting to be a messenger sent from Godot, to advise the pair that he will not be coming that \"evening but surely tomorrow.\" During Vladimir's interrogation of the boy, he asks if he came the day before, making it apparent that the two men have been waiting for an indefinite period and will likely continue to wait ad infinitum. After the boy departs, they decide to leave but make no attempt to do so, an action"
      },
      {
        "text": " (and its successor), a boy arrives, purporting to be a messenger sent from Godot, to advise the pair that he will not be coming that \"evening but surely tomorrow.\" During Vladimir's interrogation of the boy, he asks if he came the day before, making it apparent that the two men have been waiting for an indefinite period and will likely continue to wait ad infinitum. After the boy departs, they decide to leave but make no attempt to do so, an action repeated in Act II, as the curtain is drawn. Act II opens with Vladimir singing a recursive round about a dog, which could illustrate the cyclical nature of the play's universe, and also point toward the play's debt to the carnivalesque, music hall traditions, and vaudeville comedy (this is only one of a number of canine references and allusions in the play). There is a bit of realisation by Vladimir that the world they are trapped in evinces convoluted progression (or lack thereof) of time. He begins to see that although there is notional evidence of linear progression, basically he is living the same day over and over. Eugene Webb has written of Vladimir's song that \"Time in the song is not a linear sequence, but an endlessly reiterated moment, the content of which is only one eternal event: death.\" Once again Estragon maintains he spent the night in a ditch and was beaten \u2013 by \"ten of them\" this time \u2013 though he shows no sign of injury. Vladimir tries to talk to him about what appears to be a seasonal change in the tree and the proceedings of the day before, but he has only a vague recollection. Vladimir tries to get Estragon to remember Pozzo and Lucky, but all he can call to mind are the bones and getting kicked. Vladimir realises an opportunity to produce tangible evidence of the previous day's events. With some difficulty he gets Estragon to show him his leg. There is a wound"
      },
      {
        "text": " no sign of injury. Vladimir tries to talk to him about what appears to be a seasonal change in the tree and the proceedings of the day before, but he has only a vague recollection. Vladimir tries to get Estragon to remember Pozzo and Lucky, but all he can call to mind are the bones and getting kicked. Vladimir realises an opportunity to produce tangible evidence of the previous day's events. With some difficulty he gets Estragon to show him his leg. There is a wound which is beginning to fester. Only then Vladimir notices that Estragon is not wearing any boots. He discovers the pair of boots, which Estragon insists are not his but nevertheless fit when he tries them on. With no carrots left, Vladimir offers Estragon the choice between a turnip and a radish. He opts for the radish but it is black and he hands it back. He decides to try to sleep again and adopts the same fetal position as the previous day. Vladimir sings him a lullaby. Vladimir notices Lucky's hat, and tries it on. This leads to a frenetic hat-swapping scene. They play at imitating Pozzo and Lucky, but Estragon can barely remember having met them and simply does what Vladimir asks. They fire insults at each other and then make up. After that, they attempt some physical routines which do not work out well, and even attempt a single yoga position, which fails miserably. Pozzo and Lucky arrive, with Pozzo now blind and insisting that Lucky is dumb. The rope is much shorter, and Lucky \u2013 who has acquired a new hat \u2013 leads Pozzo, rather than being driven by him. Pozzo has lost all notion of time, and assures them he cannot remember meeting them the day before, and does not expect to remember the current day's events when they are over. They fall in a heap. Estragon sees an opportunity to extort more food or to exact"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Lucky arrive, with Pozzo now blind and insisting that Lucky is dumb. The rope is much shorter, and Lucky \u2013 who has acquired a new hat \u2013 leads Pozzo, rather than being driven by him. Pozzo has lost all notion of time, and assures them he cannot remember meeting them the day before, and does not expect to remember the current day's events when they are over. They fall in a heap. Estragon sees an opportunity to extort more food or to exact revenge on Lucky for kicking him. The issue is debated. Pozzo offers them money but Vladimir sees more worth in their entertainment since they are compelled to wait to see if Godot arrives. Eventually though, they all find their way onto their feet. Whereas Pozzo in Act I is a windbag, he now (as a blind man) appears to have gained some insight. His parting words \u2013 which Vladimir expands upon later \u2013 eloquently encapsulate the brevity of human existence: \"They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.\" Lucky and Pozzo depart. The same boy returns to inform them not to expect Godot today, but promises he will arrive the next day. The two again consider suicide but their rope, Estragon's belt, breaks in two when they tug on it. Estragon's trousers fall down, but he does not notice until Vladimir tells him to pull them up. They resolve to bring a more suitable piece and hang themselves the next day, if Godot fails to arrive. Again, they agree to leave but neither of them makes any move to go.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " bring a more suitable piece and hang themselves the next day, if Godot fails to arrive. Again, they agree to leave but neither of them makes any move to go.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Wanderer",
    "author": "Fritz Leiber",
    "published_date": "1964",
    "synopsis": " The novel is set in a future a few decades ahead of the 1960s, when it was written. The USA is still competing with the Soviet Union. Both have functioning bases on the Moon, and the Soviets have gained the lead in sending an expedition to Mars. From the point of view of most of the population of the Earth, a new planet appears out of nothing close to the Moon, shortly after a total lunar eclipse. Over a period of few days the planet appears to consume the Moon. On Earth, the new planet's gravity causes death and destruction as it raises huge ocean tides and causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Flying saucers appear in the skies, apparently trying to mitigate some of the disastrous effects. Then after a spectacular battle in space between the new planet and another, the skies are empty again. Earth is left without a Moon. The novel follows the lives of people around the globe. There is a man attempting a solo crossing of the Atlantic ocean, a smuggler operating off the coast of Vietnam, two friends in England, a trio of drug addicts in New York City, and the military controllers of the USA Moon mission, deep in a bunker somewhere near Washington DC. The new planet is referred to by everybody as simply \"the Wanderer\". The main protagonists are three longtime friends. Paul Hagbolt is escorting Margo Gelhorn (and her cat, Miaow) to observe the lunar eclipse at an observatory in California. Their friend, and Margo's fiance, is Don Merriam, one of the American astronauts at the Moon base. Following on a whim a sign advertising a \"flying saucer symposium\", Paul and Margo fall in with a group of intellectuals, dreamers, charlatans and misfits. At that point events overtake them. The new planet appears and triggers an earthquake that buries their cars in a landslide. They must avoid tsunamis, more earthquakes, roving mobs and flying saucers to survive. On the Moon Don Merriam is the only one to escape the destruction of the moonbase. He tries to take off in one of the base's spaceships, only to fall through the Moon itself as it splits into two under the influence of the new planet. His ship is eventually captured by the inhabitants of the new planet. Events take a bizarre turn when the group of saucer enthusiasts is faced with a tsunami. A flying saucer appears, and a cat-like being uses some kind of gun to repel the waves. Then the being uses the same device to pull Paul, who is holding Miaow, into the saucer. At the same time the gun falls into the hands of the people on the ground. In the saucer Paul meets a being calling itself Tigerishka. A large, female telepathic feline creature, she initially mistakes Miaow as the intelligent being whose thoughts she can hear, and Paul as a \"monkey\". Realizing her mistake, she regards Paul with contempt. Monkey-beings are not well regarded by her people. However she slowly warms to him, and explains why her planet has appeared to consume the moon. Like many of the human characters, her people are intellectuals, dreamers, charlatans and misfits. They belong to a culture that spans the Universe, has achieved immortality, and can construct planets and traverse hyperspace. They can create bodies for themselves that reflect the origins of their races, such as Tigerishka's cat-form. However they are fleeing their culture's police. Their culture rejects nonconformists, instead devoting itself to ensuring that intelligent life survives to the end of time. Tigerishka's people want to explore hyperspace, and tinker with space, time and the Mind. Their flight has brought them to Earth orbit simply to refuel. Huge amounts of matter must be converted to energy to power their hyperspace drive and their weapons. As alien as Tigerishka is, Paul becomes besotted with her. Tigerishka eventually yields to his advances. At the same time, Don Merriam has been rescued with his ship by the Wanderer's other spaceships. He is reunited with Paul aboard Tigerishka's ship. Now they must testify in the Wanderer's trial, for the police have arrived. A second planet, \"The Stranger\", colored a dull gray where the Wanderer is bright purple and yellow, appears and threatens battle. Don and Paul give their testimony as to the good treatment they have seen, along with thousands of other humans appearing by some kind of holographic projection. However the trial goes badly. Paul and Don are evacuated in Don's ship, placed into position close to Earth by Tigerishka. Tigerishka takes Miaow with her back to her planet. Then the final battle takes place, and both planets disappear. In the final scene, Margo and her companions walk to Vandenberg Spaceport as Don's ship comes in to land.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is set in a future a few decades ahead of the 1960s, when it was written. The USA is still competing with the Soviet Union. Both have functioning bases on the Moon, and the Soviets have gained the lead in sending an expedition to Mars. From the point of view of most of the population of the Earth, a new planet appears out of nothing close to the Moon, shortly after a total lunar eclipse. Over a period of few days the planet appears to consume the Moon. On Earth, the new planet's gravity causes death and destruction as it raises huge ocean tides and causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Flying saucers appear in the skies, apparently trying to mitigate some of the disastrous effects. Then after a spectacular battle in space between the new planet and another, the skies are empty again. Earth is left without a Moon. The novel follows the lives of people around the globe. There is a man attempting a solo crossing of the Atlantic ocean, a smuggler operating off the coast of Vietnam, two friends in England, a trio of drug addicts in New York City, and the military controllers of the USA Moon mission, deep in a bunker somewhere near Washington DC. The new planet is referred to by everybody as simply \"the Wanderer\". The main protagonists are three longtime friends. Paul Hagbolt is escorting Margo Gelhorn (and her cat, Miaow) to observe the lunar eclipse at an observatory in California. Their friend, and Margo's fiance, is Don Merriam, one of the American astronauts at the Moon base. Following on a whim a sign advertising a \"flying saucer symposium\", Paul and Margo fall in with a group of intellectuals, dreamers, charlatans and misfits. At that point events overtake them. The new planet appears and triggers an earthquake that buries their cars in a landslide. They must avoid tsunamis, more earthquakes, roving mobs and flying saucers to survive."
      },
      {
        "text": " fiance, is Don Merriam, one of the American astronauts at the Moon base. Following on a whim a sign advertising a \"flying saucer symposium\", Paul and Margo fall in with a group of intellectuals, dreamers, charlatans and misfits. At that point events overtake them. The new planet appears and triggers an earthquake that buries their cars in a landslide. They must avoid tsunamis, more earthquakes, roving mobs and flying saucers to survive. On the Moon Don Merriam is the only one to escape the destruction of the moonbase. He tries to take off in one of the base's spaceships, only to fall through the Moon itself as it splits into two under the influence of the new planet. His ship is eventually captured by the inhabitants of the new planet. Events take a bizarre turn when the group of saucer enthusiasts is faced with a tsunami. A flying saucer appears, and a cat-like being uses some kind of gun to repel the waves. Then the being uses the same device to pull Paul, who is holding Miaow, into the saucer. At the same time the gun falls into the hands of the people on the ground. In the saucer Paul meets a being calling itself Tigerishka. A large, female telepathic feline creature, she initially mistakes Miaow as the intelligent being whose thoughts she can hear, and Paul as a \"monkey\". Realizing her mistake, she regards Paul with contempt. Monkey-beings are not well regarded by her people. However she slowly warms to him, and explains why her planet has appeared to consume the moon. Like many of the human characters, her people are intellectuals, dreamers, charlatans and misfits. They belong to a culture that spans the Universe, has achieved immortality, and can construct planets and traverse hyperspace. They can create bodies for themselves that reflect the origins of their races, such as Tigerishka"
      },
      {
        "text": " Paul with contempt. Monkey-beings are not well regarded by her people. However she slowly warms to him, and explains why her planet has appeared to consume the moon. Like many of the human characters, her people are intellectuals, dreamers, charlatans and misfits. They belong to a culture that spans the Universe, has achieved immortality, and can construct planets and traverse hyperspace. They can create bodies for themselves that reflect the origins of their races, such as Tigerishka's cat-form. However they are fleeing their culture's police. Their culture rejects nonconformists, instead devoting itself to ensuring that intelligent life survives to the end of time. Tigerishka's people want to explore hyperspace, and tinker with space, time and the Mind. Their flight has brought them to Earth orbit simply to refuel. Huge amounts of matter must be converted to energy to power their hyperspace drive and their weapons. As alien as Tigerishka is, Paul becomes besotted with her. Tigerishka eventually yields to his advances. At the same time, Don Merriam has been rescued with his ship by the Wanderer's other spaceships. He is reunited with Paul aboard Tigerishka's ship. Now they must testify in the Wanderer's trial, for the police have arrived. A second planet, \"The Stranger\", colored a dull gray where the Wanderer is bright purple and yellow, appears and threatens battle. Don and Paul give their testimony as to the good treatment they have seen, along with thousands of other humans appearing by some kind of holographic projection. However the trial goes badly. Paul and Don are evacuated in Don's ship, placed into position close to Earth by Tigerishka. Tigerishka takes Miaow with her back to her planet. Then the final battle takes place, and both planets disappear. In the final scene, Margo and her companions walk to Vandenberg Spaceport as Don's ship comes in to"
      },
      {
        "text": " testimony as to the good treatment they have seen, along with thousands of other humans appearing by some kind of holographic projection. However the trial goes badly. Paul and Don are evacuated in Don's ship, placed into position close to Earth by Tigerishka. Tigerishka takes Miaow with her back to her planet. Then the final battle takes place, and both planets disappear. In the final scene, Margo and her companions walk to Vandenberg Spaceport as Don's ship comes in to land.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "2010: Odyssey Two",
    "author": "Arthur C. Clarke",
    "published_date": "1982-01",
    "synopsis": " The story is set nine years after the failure of the Discovery One mission to Jupiter. A joint Soviet-American crew, including Heywood Floyd from 2001, on the Soviet spaceship Alexei Leonov (named after the famous cosmonaut) arrives to discover what went wrong with the earlier mission, to investigate the monolith in orbit around the planet, and to resolve the disappearance of David Bowman. They hypothesize that much of this information is locked away on the now-abandoned Discovery One. The Soviets have an advanced new \"Sakharov\" drive which will propel them to Jupiter ahead of the American Discovery Two, so Floyd is assigned to the Leonov crew. However, a Chinese space station rockets out of Earth orbit, revealing itself to be the interplanetary spacecraft Tsien, also aimed at Jupiter. The Leonov crewmembers think the Chinese are on a one-way trip due to its speed, but Floyd surmises that due to the large water content of Europa they intend to land there and use the water content to refuel. The Tsien's daring mission ends in failure, when it is destroyed by an indigenous life-form on Europa. The only survivor radios the story to the Leonov; it is presumed that he dies when his spacesuit air supply runs out. The Leonov survives a dangerous aerobraking around Jupiter and arrives at Discovery. Mission crewmember and HAL 9000's creator, Dr. Chandra, reactivates the computer to ascertain the cause of his earlier aberrant behavior. After some time, Floyd is speaking to a Russian on board, who, for an instant, sees the Monolith open again, into a Stargate, as David Bowman escapes from the Monolith's universe back into ours. A sequence of scenes follows the explorations of David Bowman, who has been transformed into a non-corporeal, energy-based life-form, much like the aliens controlling the monoliths. During his journey, the Avatar of Bowman travels to Earth, making contact with significant individuals from his human past: He visits his mother and brushes her hair (shortly before she dies), and he appears to his ex-girlfriend on her television screen. In the novel, the aliens are using Bowman as a probe to learn about humankind. He then returns to the Jupiter system to explore beneath the ice of Europa, where he finds aquatic life-forms, and under the clouds of Jupiter, where he discovers gaseous life-forms. Both are primitive, but the aliens deem the Europan creatures to have evolutionary potential. An apparition of Bowman appears before Floyd, warning him that they must leave Jupiter within 15 days. Floyd has difficulty convincing the rest of the crew at first, but then the monolith vanishes from orbit and a mysterious dark spot appears on Jupiter and begins to grow. HAL's telescope observations reveal that the \"Great Black Spot\" is, in fact, a vast population of monoliths, increasing at an exponential rate, which appear to be eating the planet. The Leonov crew devises a plan to use the Discovery as a \"booster rocket\", enabling them to return to Earth ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, HAL and the Discovery will be trapped in Jupiter's orbit, with insufficient fuel to escape. The crew are worried that HAL will have the same neuroses on discovering that he will be abandoned yet again, so Chandra must convince HAL that the human crew is in danger. The Leonov crew flees Jupiter as the swarm of monoliths spread to engulf the planet. By acting as self-replicating 'von Neumann' machines, these monoliths increase Jupiter's density until the planet achieves nuclear fusion, becoming a small star. In the novel, this obliterates the primitive life forms inhabiting the Jovian atmosphere, which the Monoliths' controllers had deemed less worthy than the aquatic life of Europa. As Jupiter is about to transform, Bowman returns to Discovery to give HAL a last order to carry out. HAL begins repeatedly broadcasting the message The creation of the new star, which Earth eventually names Lucifer, destroys Discovery. However, in appreciation for HAL's help, Bowman has the aliens which control the monoliths remove HAL's artificial intelligence from Discoverys computer core and transform him into the same kind of life form as David Bowman, and becomes his companion. The book ends with a brief epilogue, which takes place in AD 20,001. By this time, the Europans have evolved into a species that has developed a primitive civilization, most likely with assistance from a monolith. They are not described in detail, though they are said to have \"tendril\"-like limbs. They regard the star Lucifer (formerly the planet Jupiter) as their primary Sun, referring to ours as \"The Cold Sun\". Though their settlements are concentrated primarily in the hemisphere of Europa which is constantly bathed in Lucifer's rays, some Europans have begun in recent generations to explore the Farside, the hemisphere facing away from Lucifer, which is still covered in ice. There they may witness the spectacle of night, unknown on the other side of Europa, when the Cold Sun sets. The Europans who explore the Farside have been carefully observing the night sky and have begun to develop a mythology based on their observations. They correctly believe that Lucifer was not always there. They believe that the Cold Sun was its brother and was condemned to march around the sky for a crime. The Europans also see three other major bodies in the sky. One seems to be constantly engulfed in fire, and the other two have lights on them which are gradually spreading. These three bodies are the moons Io, Callisto, and Ganymede, the latter two of which are presently being colonized by humans. Humans have been attempting to explore Europa ever since Lucifer was created in 2010. However, none of these attempts has been successful. Every probe that has attempted to land on Europa has been destroyed in the atmosphere; as it is later shown in 2061 and 3001 manned spacecraft that attempt to land have been instead diverted by an external force. The debris from every probe falls to the surface of the planet, and the debris from some of the first ships to be destroyed is venerated by the Europans. Finally, there is a Monolith on the planet, which is worshipped by the Europans more than anything else. The Europans assume, correctly, that the Monolith is what keeps humans at bay. Dave Bowman and HAL lie dormant in this Monolith. The Monolith is the guardian of Europa, and will continue to prevent contact between humans and Europans for as long as it sees fit.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is set nine years after the failure of the Discovery One mission to Jupiter. A joint Soviet-American crew, including Heywood Floyd from 2001, on the Soviet spaceship Alexei Leonov (named after the famous cosmonaut) arrives to discover what went wrong with the earlier mission, to investigate the monolith in orbit around the planet, and to resolve the disappearance of David Bowman. They hypothesize that much of this information is locked away on the now-abandoned Discovery One. The Soviets have an advanced new \"Sakharov\" drive which will propel them to Jupiter ahead of the American Discovery Two, so Floyd is assigned to the Leonov crew. However, a Chinese space station rockets out of Earth orbit, revealing itself to be the interplanetary spacecraft Tsien, also aimed at Jupiter. The Leonov crewmembers think the Chinese are on a one-way trip due to its speed, but Floyd surmises that due to the large water content of Europa they intend to land there and use the water content to refuel. The Tsien's daring mission ends in failure, when it is destroyed by an indigenous life-form on Europa. The only survivor radios the story to the Leonov; it is presumed that he dies when his spacesuit air supply runs out. The Leonov survives a dangerous aerobraking around Jupiter and arrives at Discovery. Mission crewmember and HAL 9000's creator, Dr. Chandra, reactivates the computer to ascertain the cause of his earlier aberrant behavior. After some time, Floyd is speaking to a Russian on board, who, for an instant, sees the Monolith open again, into a Stargate, as David Bowman escapes from the Monolith's universe back into ours. A sequence of scenes follows the explorations of David Bowman, who has been transformed into a non-corporeal, energy-based life-form, much like the aliens controlling the monoliths. During his journey, the Avatar of"
      },
      {
        "text": " of his earlier aberrant behavior. After some time, Floyd is speaking to a Russian on board, who, for an instant, sees the Monolith open again, into a Stargate, as David Bowman escapes from the Monolith's universe back into ours. A sequence of scenes follows the explorations of David Bowman, who has been transformed into a non-corporeal, energy-based life-form, much like the aliens controlling the monoliths. During his journey, the Avatar of Bowman travels to Earth, making contact with significant individuals from his human past: He visits his mother and brushes her hair (shortly before she dies), and he appears to his ex-girlfriend on her television screen. In the novel, the aliens are using Bowman as a probe to learn about humankind. He then returns to the Jupiter system to explore beneath the ice of Europa, where he finds aquatic life-forms, and under the clouds of Jupiter, where he discovers gaseous life-forms. Both are primitive, but the aliens deem the Europan creatures to have evolutionary potential. An apparition of Bowman appears before Floyd, warning him that they must leave Jupiter within 15 days. Floyd has difficulty convincing the rest of the crew at first, but then the monolith vanishes from orbit and a mysterious dark spot appears on Jupiter and begins to grow. HAL's telescope observations reveal that the \"Great Black Spot\" is, in fact, a vast population of monoliths, increasing at an exponential rate, which appear to be eating the planet. The Leonov crew devises a plan to use the Discovery as a \"booster rocket\", enabling them to return to Earth ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, HAL and the Discovery will be trapped in Jupiter's orbit, with insufficient fuel to escape. The crew are worried that HAL will have the same neuroses on discovering that he will be abandoned yet again, so Chandra must convince HAL that the human crew is in danger. The Leonov crew flees"
      },
      {
        "text": " rate, which appear to be eating the planet. The Leonov crew devises a plan to use the Discovery as a \"booster rocket\", enabling them to return to Earth ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, HAL and the Discovery will be trapped in Jupiter's orbit, with insufficient fuel to escape. The crew are worried that HAL will have the same neuroses on discovering that he will be abandoned yet again, so Chandra must convince HAL that the human crew is in danger. The Leonov crew flees Jupiter as the swarm of monoliths spread to engulf the planet. By acting as self-replicating 'von Neumann' machines, these monoliths increase Jupiter's density until the planet achieves nuclear fusion, becoming a small star. In the novel, this obliterates the primitive life forms inhabiting the Jovian atmosphere, which the Monoliths' controllers had deemed less worthy than the aquatic life of Europa. As Jupiter is about to transform, Bowman returns to Discovery to give HAL a last order to carry out. HAL begins repeatedly broadcasting the message The creation of the new star, which Earth eventually names Lucifer, destroys Discovery. However, in appreciation for HAL's help, Bowman has the aliens which control the monoliths remove HAL's artificial intelligence from Discoverys computer core and transform him into the same kind of life form as David Bowman, and becomes his companion. The book ends with a brief epilogue, which takes place in AD 20,001. By this time, the Europans have evolved into a species that has developed a primitive civilization, most likely with assistance from a monolith. They are not described in detail, though they are said to have \"tendril\"-like limbs. They regard the star Lucifer (formerly the planet Jupiter) as their primary Sun, referring to ours as \"The Cold Sun\". Though their settlements are concentrated primarily in the hemisphere of Europa which is constantly bathed in Lucifer's rays, some Europans have begun in recent generations"
      },
      {
        "text": " Europans have evolved into a species that has developed a primitive civilization, most likely with assistance from a monolith. They are not described in detail, though they are said to have \"tendril\"-like limbs. They regard the star Lucifer (formerly the planet Jupiter) as their primary Sun, referring to ours as \"The Cold Sun\". Though their settlements are concentrated primarily in the hemisphere of Europa which is constantly bathed in Lucifer's rays, some Europans have begun in recent generations to explore the Farside, the hemisphere facing away from Lucifer, which is still covered in ice. There they may witness the spectacle of night, unknown on the other side of Europa, when the Cold Sun sets. The Europans who explore the Farside have been carefully observing the night sky and have begun to develop a mythology based on their observations. They correctly believe that Lucifer was not always there. They believe that the Cold Sun was its brother and was condemned to march around the sky for a crime. The Europans also see three other major bodies in the sky. One seems to be constantly engulfed in fire, and the other two have lights on them which are gradually spreading. These three bodies are the moons Io, Callisto, and Ganymede, the latter two of which are presently being colonized by humans. Humans have been attempting to explore Europa ever since Lucifer was created in 2010. However, none of these attempts has been successful. Every probe that has attempted to land on Europa has been destroyed in the atmosphere; as it is later shown in 2061 and 3001 manned spacecraft that attempt to land have been instead diverted by an external force. The debris from every probe falls to the surface of the planet, and the debris from some of the first ships to be destroyed is venerated by the Europans. Finally, there is a Monolith on the planet, which is worshipped by the Europans more than anything else. The Europans"
      },
      {
        "text": " attempted to land on Europa has been destroyed in the atmosphere; as it is later shown in 2061 and 3001 manned spacecraft that attempt to land have been instead diverted by an external force. The debris from every probe falls to the surface of the planet, and the debris from some of the first ships to be destroyed is venerated by the Europans. Finally, there is a Monolith on the planet, which is worshipped by the Europans more than anything else. The Europans assume, correctly, that the Monolith is what keeps humans at bay. Dave Bowman and HAL lie dormant in this Monolith. The Monolith is the guardian of Europa, and will continue to prevent contact between humans and Europans for as long as it sees fit.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Brave New World",
    "author": "Aldous Huxley",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel opens in London in 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian Calendar). The vast majority of the population is unified under the World State, an eternally peaceful, stable global society in which goods and resources are plentiful (because the population is permanently limited to no more than two billion people) and everyone is happy. Natural reproduction has been done away with and children are created, 'decanted' and raised in Hatcheries and Conditioning Centres, where they are divided into five castes (which are further split into 'Plus' and 'Minus' members) and designed to fulfill predetermined positions within the social and economic strata of the World State. Fetuses chosen to become members of the highest caste, 'Alpha', are allowed to develop naturally while maturing to term in \"decanting bottles\", while fetuses chosen to become members of the lower castes ('Beta', 'Gamma', 'Delta', 'Epsilon') are subjected to in situ chemical interference to cause arrested development in intelligence or physical growth. Each 'Alpha' or 'Beta' is the product of one unique fertilized egg developing into one unique fetus. Members of lower castes are not unique but are instead created using the Bokanovsky process which enables a single egg to spawn (at the point of the story being told) up to 96 children and one ovary to produce thousands of children. To further increase the birthrate of Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons, Podsnap's Technique causes all the eggs in the ovary to mature simultaneously, allowing the hatchery to get full use of the ovary in two years' time. People of these castes make up the majority of human society, and the production of such specialized children bolsters the efficiency and harmony of society, since these people are deliberately limited in their cognitive and physical abilities, as well as the scope of their ambitions and the complexity of their desires, thus rendering them easier to control. All children are educated via the hypnopaedic process, which provides each child with caste-appropriate subconscious messages to mold the child's lifelong self-image and social outlook to that chosen by the leaders and their predetermined plans for producing future adult generations. To maintain the World State's Command Economy for the indefinite future, all citizens are conditioned from birth to value consumption with such platitudes as \"ending is better than mending,\" \"more stiches less riches\" i.e., buy a new item instead of fixing the old one, because constant consumption, and near-universal employment to meet society's material demands, is the bedrock of economic and social stability for the World State. Beyond providing social engagement and distraction in the material realm of work or play, the need for transcendence, solitude and spiritual communion is addressed with the ubiquitous availability and universally endorsed consumption of the drug soma. Soma is an allusion to a mythical drink of the same name consumed by ancient Indo-Aryans. In the book, soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free \"holidays\". It was developed by the World State to provide these inner-directed personal experiences within a socially managed context of State-run 'religious' organizations; social clubs. The hypnopaedically inculcated affinity for the State-produced drug, as a self-medicating comfort mechanism in the face of stress or discomfort, thereby eliminates the need for religion or other personal allegiances outside or beyond the World State. Recreational sex is an integral part of society. According to the World State, sex is a social activity, rather than a means of reproduction (sex is encouraged from early childhood). The few women who can reproduce are conditioned to use birth control, even wearing a \"Malthusian belt\" (which resembles a cartridge belt and holds \"the regulation supply of contraceptives\") as a popular fashion accessory. The maxim \"everyone belongs to everyone else\" is repeated often, and the idea of a \"family\" is considered pornographic; sexual competition and emotional, romantic relationships are rendered obsolete because they are no longer needed. Marriage, natural birth, parenthood, and pregnancy are considered too obscene to be mentioned in casual conversation. Thus, society has developed a new idea of reproductive comprehension. Spending time alone is considered an outrageous waste of time and money, and wanting to be an individual is horrifying. Conditioning trains people to consume and never to enjoy being alone, so by spending an afternoon not playing \"Obstacle Golf,\" or not in bed with a friend, one is forfeiting acceptance. In the World State, people typically die at age 60 having maintained good health and youthfulness their whole life. Death isn't feared; anyone reflecting upon it is reassured by the knowledge that everyone is happy, and that society goes on. Since no one has family, they have no ties to mourn. The conditioning system eliminates the need for professional competitiveness; people are literally bred to do their jobs and cannot desire another. There is no competition within castes; each caste member receives the same food, housing, and soma rationing as every other member of that caste. There is no desire to change one's caste, largely because a person's sleep-conditioning reinforces each individual's place in the caste system. To grow closer with members of the same class, citizens participate in mock religious services called Solidarity Services, in which twelve people consume large quantities of soma and sing hymns. The ritual progresses through group hypnosis and climaxes in an orgy. In geographic areas nonconducive to easy living and consumption, securely contained groups of \"savages\" are left to their own devices. These appear to be similar to the reservations of land established for the Native American population during the colonisation of North America. These 'savages' are beholden of strange customs, including self-mutilation and religion, a mere curio in the outside world. In its first chapters, the novel describes life in the World State as wonderful and introduces Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx. Lenina, a hatchery worker, is socially accepted and comfortable with her place in society, while Bernard, a psychologist, is an outcast. Although an Alpha Plus, Bernard is shorter in stature than the average of his caste\u2014a quality shared by the lower castes, which gives him an inferiority complex. His work with sleep-teaching has led him to realize that what others believe to be their own deeply held beliefs are merely phrases repeated to children while they are asleep. Still, he recognizes the necessity of such programming as the reason why his society meets the emotional needs of its citizens. Courting disaster, he is vocal about being different, once stating he dislikes soma because he'd \"rather be himself.\" Bernard's differences fuel rumors that he was accidentally administered alcohol while incubated, a method used to keep Epsilons short. Bernard's only friend is Helmholtz Watson, an Alpha Plus lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering (Department of Writing). The friendship is based on their similar experiences as misfits, but unlike Bernard, Watson's sense of loneliness stems from being too gifted, too intelligent, too handsome, and too physically strong. Helmholtz is drawn to Bernard as a confidant: he can talk to Bernard about his desire to write poetry. Bernard is on holiday at a Savage Reservation. The reservation, located in New Mexico, consists of a community named Malpais. From afar, Lenina thinks it will be exciting. In person, she finds the aged, toothless natives who mend their clothes rather than throw them away repugnant, and the situation is made worse when she discovers that she has left her soma tablets at the resort hotel. In typical tourist fashion, Bernard and Lenina watch what at first appears to be a quaint native ceremony. The village folk, whose culture resembles the contemporary Indian groups of the region, descendants of the Anasazi, including the Puebloan peoples of Acoma, Laguna, and Zuni, and the Ramah Navajo, begin by singing, but the ritual quickly becomes a passion play where a village boy is whipped to unconsciousness. Soon after, the couple encounters Linda, a woman who has been living in Malpais since she came on a trip and became separated from her group, among whom was a man to whom she refers as \"Tomakin\" but who is revealed to be Bernard's boss, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, Thomas. She became pregnant despite adhering to her \"Malthusian Drill\" and there were no facilities for an abortion. Her shame at pregnancy was so great that she decided not to return to her old life, but to stay with the \"savages\". Linda gave birth to a son, John (later referred to as John the Savage) who is now 18. Conversations with Linda and John reveal that their life has been hard. For 18 years, they have been treated as outsiders: the native men treated Linda like a sex object while the native women regularly beat and ostracized her because of her promiscuity, and John was mistreated and excluded for his mother's actions and the color of his skin. John was angered by Linda's lovers, and even attacked one in a jealous rage while a child. John's one joy was that his mother had taught him to read, although he only had two books: a scientific manual from his mother's job, which he called a \"beastly, beastly book,\" and a collection of Shakespeare's works (which have been banned in the World State for being subversive). Shakespeare gives John articulation to his feelings, though, and he especially is interested in Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet. At the same time, John has been denied the religious rituals of the village, although he has watched them and even has had some religious experiences on his own in the desert. Old, weathered and tired, Linda wants to return to her familiar world in London, as she misses living in the city and taking soma. John wants to see the \"brave new world\" his mother has told him so much about. Bernard wants to take them back to block Thomas from his plan to reassign Bernard to Iceland as punishment for his asocial beliefs. Bernard arranges permission for Linda and John to leave the reservation. John also seems to have an attraction to Lenina, as while Bernard is away, getting the permission to move the savages, he finds her suitcase and ruffles through all of her clothes, taking in the smells. He then sees her \"sleeping\" and stares at her, thinking all he has to do to see her properly is undo one zip. He later tells himself off for being like this towards Lenina, and seems to be extremely shy around her. Upon his return to London, Bernard is confronted by Thomas, the Director of the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre who, in front of an audience of higher-caste Centre workers, denounces Bernard for his asocial behavior. Bernard, thinking that for the first time in his life he has the upper hand, defends himself by presenting the Director with his long-lost lover and unknown son, Linda and John. John falls to his knees and calls Thomas his father, which causes an uproar of laughter. The humiliated Director resigns in shame. Spared from reassignment, Bernard makes John the toast of London. Pursued by the highest members of society, able to bed any woman he fancies, Bernard revels in attention he once scorned. The victory, however, is short-lived. Linda, decrepit, toothless, and friendless, goes on a permanent soma holiday while John, appalled by what he perceives to be an empty society, refuses to attend Bernard's parties. Society drops Bernard as swiftly as it had taken him. Bernard turns to the person he'd believed to be his one true friend, only to see Helmholtz fall into a quick, easy camaraderie with John. Bernard is left an outcast yet again as he watches the only two men with whom he ever connected find more of interest in each other than they ever did in him. John and Helmholtz's island of peace is brief. Lenina tries to seduce John, but John pushes her away, calling her out on her sexually wanton ways. Whilst Lenina is in the bathroom, humiliated and putting her clothes on, John receives a telephone call from the hospital telling him that his mother is extremely unwell. He rushes over to see her and sits at her bedside, trying to get her out of her soma holiday so that he can talk to her. He is heartbroken when his mother succumbs to soma and dies. He is extremely annoyed by the young boys that enter the ward to be conditioned about death and annoy John to the point where he starts to use violence to send them away. John's grief bewilders and revolts the hospital workers, and their lack of reaction to Linda's death prompts John to try to force humanity from the workers by throwing their soma rations out a window. The ensuing riot brings the police, who quell the riot by filling the room with soma. Bernard and Helmholtz arrive to help John, but only Helmholtz helps him, while Bernard stands to the side, torn between risking involvement by helping or escaping the scene. Following the riot, Bernard, Helmholtz and John are brought before Mustapha Mond, the Resident World Controller for Western Europe. Bernard (who breaks down during the middle of the conversation) and Helmholtz are told they will be exiled to islands of their choice. Mond explains that this exile is not so much a threat to force freethinkers to reform and rejoin society as it is a chance for them to act as they please because they will not be able to influence the population. He also divulges that he too once risked banishment to an island because of some scientific experiments that were deemed controversial by the state, giving insight into his sympathetic tone. Helmholtz chooses the Falkland Islands, believing that their terrible weather will inspire his writing, but Bernard simply does not want to leave London; he struggles with Mond and is thrown out of the office. After Bernard and Helmholtz have left, Mustapha and John engage in a philosophical argument on the morals behind the existing society and then John is told the \"experiment\" will continue and he will not be sent to an island. John meets with Bernard and Helmholtz once again before their departures from London and Bernard apologizes to John for his opportunistic behavior, having come to terms with his imminent exile and having restored his friendship with Helmholtz. In the final chapter, John isolates himself from society in a lighthouse outside London where he finds his hermit life interrupted from mourning his mother by the more bitter memories of civilization. To atone, John brutally whips himself in the open, a ritual the Indians in his own village had denied him. His self-flagellation, caught on film and shown publicly, destroys his hermit life. Hundreds of gawking sightseers, intrigued by John's violent behavior, fly out to watch the savage in person. Even Lenina comes to watch, crying a tear John does not see. The sight of the woman whom he both adores and blames is too much for him; John attacks and whips her. This sight of genuine, unbridled emotion drives the crowd wild with excitement, and \u2014 handling it as they are conditioned to \u2014 they turn on each other, in a frenzy of beating and chanting that devolves into a mass orgy of soma and sex. In the morning, John, hopeless, alone, horrified by his drug use and the orgy in which he participated that countered his beliefs, makes one last attempt to escape civilization and atone. When thousands of gawking sightseers arrive that morning, frenzied at the prospect of seeing the savage perform again, they find John dead from a suicidal hanging.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel opens in London in 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian Calendar). The vast majority of the population is unified under the World State, an eternally peaceful, stable global society in which goods and resources are plentiful (because the population is permanently limited to no more than two billion people) and everyone is happy. Natural reproduction has been done away with and children are created, 'decanted' and raised in Hatcheries and Conditioning Centres, where they are divided into five castes (which are further split into 'Plus' and 'Minus' members) and designed to fulfill predetermined positions within the social and economic strata of the World State. Fetuses chosen to become members of the highest caste, 'Alpha', are allowed to develop naturally while maturing to term in \"decanting bottles\", while fetuses chosen to become members of the lower castes ('Beta', 'Gamma', 'Delta', 'Epsilon') are subjected to in situ chemical interference to cause arrested development in intelligence or physical growth. Each 'Alpha' or 'Beta' is the product of one unique fertilized egg developing into one unique fetus. Members of lower castes are not unique but are instead created using the Bokanovsky process which enables a single egg to spawn (at the point of the story being told) up to 96 children and one ovary to produce thousands of children. To further increase the birthrate of Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons, Podsnap's Technique causes all the eggs in the ovary to mature simultaneously, allowing the hatchery to get full use of the ovary in two years' time. People of these castes make up the majority of human society, and the production of such specialized children bolsters the efficiency and harmony of society, since these people are deliberately limited in their cognitive and physical abilities, as well as the scope of their ambitions and the complexity of their desires, thus rendering them easier to control."
      },
      {
        "text": " Podsnap's Technique causes all the eggs in the ovary to mature simultaneously, allowing the hatchery to get full use of the ovary in two years' time. People of these castes make up the majority of human society, and the production of such specialized children bolsters the efficiency and harmony of society, since these people are deliberately limited in their cognitive and physical abilities, as well as the scope of their ambitions and the complexity of their desires, thus rendering them easier to control. All children are educated via the hypnopaedic process, which provides each child with caste-appropriate subconscious messages to mold the child's lifelong self-image and social outlook to that chosen by the leaders and their predetermined plans for producing future adult generations. To maintain the World State's Command Economy for the indefinite future, all citizens are conditioned from birth to value consumption with such platitudes as \"ending is better than mending,\" \"more stiches less riches\" i.e., buy a new item instead of fixing the old one, because constant consumption, and near-universal employment to meet society's material demands, is the bedrock of economic and social stability for the World State. Beyond providing social engagement and distraction in the material realm of work or play, the need for transcendence, solitude and spiritual communion is addressed with the ubiquitous availability and universally endorsed consumption of the drug soma. Soma is an allusion to a mythical drink of the same name consumed by ancient Indo-Aryans. In the book, soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free \"holidays\". It was developed by the World State to provide these inner-directed personal experiences within a socially managed context of State-run 'religious' organizations; social clubs. The hypnopaedically inculcated affinity for the State-produced drug, as a self-medicating comfort mechanism in the face of stress or discomfort, thereby eliminates the need for religion or"
      },
      {
        "text": "ans. In the book, soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free \"holidays\". It was developed by the World State to provide these inner-directed personal experiences within a socially managed context of State-run 'religious' organizations; social clubs. The hypnopaedically inculcated affinity for the State-produced drug, as a self-medicating comfort mechanism in the face of stress or discomfort, thereby eliminates the need for religion or other personal allegiances outside or beyond the World State. Recreational sex is an integral part of society. According to the World State, sex is a social activity, rather than a means of reproduction (sex is encouraged from early childhood). The few women who can reproduce are conditioned to use birth control, even wearing a \"Malthusian belt\" (which resembles a cartridge belt and holds \"the regulation supply of contraceptives\") as a popular fashion accessory. The maxim \"everyone belongs to everyone else\" is repeated often, and the idea of a \"family\" is considered pornographic; sexual competition and emotional, romantic relationships are rendered obsolete because they are no longer needed. Marriage, natural birth, parenthood, and pregnancy are considered too obscene to be mentioned in casual conversation. Thus, society has developed a new idea of reproductive comprehension. Spending time alone is considered an outrageous waste of time and money, and wanting to be an individual is horrifying. Conditioning trains people to consume and never to enjoy being alone, so by spending an afternoon not playing \"Obstacle Golf,\" or not in bed with a friend, one is forfeiting acceptance. In the World State, people typically die at age 60 having maintained good health and youthfulness their whole life. Death isn't feared; anyone reflecting upon it is reassured by the knowledge that everyone is happy, and that society goes on. Since no one has family, they have no ties to mourn. The conditioning system eliminates the need for professional competitiveness; people are"
      },
      {
        "text": ", so by spending an afternoon not playing \"Obstacle Golf,\" or not in bed with a friend, one is forfeiting acceptance. In the World State, people typically die at age 60 having maintained good health and youthfulness their whole life. Death isn't feared; anyone reflecting upon it is reassured by the knowledge that everyone is happy, and that society goes on. Since no one has family, they have no ties to mourn. The conditioning system eliminates the need for professional competitiveness; people are literally bred to do their jobs and cannot desire another. There is no competition within castes; each caste member receives the same food, housing, and soma rationing as every other member of that caste. There is no desire to change one's caste, largely because a person's sleep-conditioning reinforces each individual's place in the caste system. To grow closer with members of the same class, citizens participate in mock religious services called Solidarity Services, in which twelve people consume large quantities of soma and sing hymns. The ritual progresses through group hypnosis and climaxes in an orgy. In geographic areas nonconducive to easy living and consumption, securely contained groups of \"savages\" are left to their own devices. These appear to be similar to the reservations of land established for the Native American population during the colonisation of North America. These 'savages' are beholden of strange customs, including self-mutilation and religion, a mere curio in the outside world. In its first chapters, the novel describes life in the World State as wonderful and introduces Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx. Lenina, a hatchery worker, is socially accepted and comfortable with her place in society, while Bernard, a psychologist, is an outcast. Although an Alpha Plus, Bernard is shorter in stature than the average of his caste\u2014a quality shared by the lower castes, which gives him an inferiority complex. His work with sleep-teaching"
      },
      {
        "text": " the outside world. In its first chapters, the novel describes life in the World State as wonderful and introduces Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx. Lenina, a hatchery worker, is socially accepted and comfortable with her place in society, while Bernard, a psychologist, is an outcast. Although an Alpha Plus, Bernard is shorter in stature than the average of his caste\u2014a quality shared by the lower castes, which gives him an inferiority complex. His work with sleep-teaching has led him to realize that what others believe to be their own deeply held beliefs are merely phrases repeated to children while they are asleep. Still, he recognizes the necessity of such programming as the reason why his society meets the emotional needs of its citizens. Courting disaster, he is vocal about being different, once stating he dislikes soma because he'd \"rather be himself.\" Bernard's differences fuel rumors that he was accidentally administered alcohol while incubated, a method used to keep Epsilons short. Bernard's only friend is Helmholtz Watson, an Alpha Plus lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering (Department of Writing). The friendship is based on their similar experiences as misfits, but unlike Bernard, Watson's sense of loneliness stems from being too gifted, too intelligent, too handsome, and too physically strong. Helmholtz is drawn to Bernard as a confidant: he can talk to Bernard about his desire to write poetry. Bernard is on holiday at a Savage Reservation. The reservation, located in New Mexico, consists of a community named Malpais. From afar, Lenina thinks it will be exciting. In person, she finds the aged, toothless natives who mend their clothes rather than throw them away repugnant, and the situation is made worse when she discovers that she has left her soma tablets at the resort hotel. In typical tourist fashion, Bernard and Lenina watch what at first appears to be a quaint native ceremony. The village folk, whose culture"
      },
      {
        "text": " reservation, located in New Mexico, consists of a community named Malpais. From afar, Lenina thinks it will be exciting. In person, she finds the aged, toothless natives who mend their clothes rather than throw them away repugnant, and the situation is made worse when she discovers that she has left her soma tablets at the resort hotel. In typical tourist fashion, Bernard and Lenina watch what at first appears to be a quaint native ceremony. The village folk, whose culture resembles the contemporary Indian groups of the region, descendants of the Anasazi, including the Puebloan peoples of Acoma, Laguna, and Zuni, and the Ramah Navajo, begin by singing, but the ritual quickly becomes a passion play where a village boy is whipped to unconsciousness. Soon after, the couple encounters Linda, a woman who has been living in Malpais since she came on a trip and became separated from her group, among whom was a man to whom she refers as \"Tomakin\" but who is revealed to be Bernard's boss, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, Thomas. She became pregnant despite adhering to her \"Malthusian Drill\" and there were no facilities for an abortion. Her shame at pregnancy was so great that she decided not to return to her old life, but to stay with the \"savages\". Linda gave birth to a son, John (later referred to as John the Savage) who is now 18. Conversations with Linda and John reveal that their life has been hard. For 18 years, they have been treated as outsiders: the native men treated Linda like a sex object while the native women regularly beat and ostracized her because of her promiscuity, and John was mistreated and excluded for his mother's actions and the color of his skin. John was angered by Linda's lovers, and even attacked one in a jealous rage while a child. John's one joy was that"
      },
      {
        "text": " now 18. Conversations with Linda and John reveal that their life has been hard. For 18 years, they have been treated as outsiders: the native men treated Linda like a sex object while the native women regularly beat and ostracized her because of her promiscuity, and John was mistreated and excluded for his mother's actions and the color of his skin. John was angered by Linda's lovers, and even attacked one in a jealous rage while a child. John's one joy was that his mother had taught him to read, although he only had two books: a scientific manual from his mother's job, which he called a \"beastly, beastly book,\" and a collection of Shakespeare's works (which have been banned in the World State for being subversive). Shakespeare gives John articulation to his feelings, though, and he especially is interested in Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet. At the same time, John has been denied the religious rituals of the village, although he has watched them and even has had some religious experiences on his own in the desert. Old, weathered and tired, Linda wants to return to her familiar world in London, as she misses living in the city and taking soma. John wants to see the \"brave new world\" his mother has told him so much about. Bernard wants to take them back to block Thomas from his plan to reassign Bernard to Iceland as punishment for his asocial beliefs. Bernard arranges permission for Linda and John to leave the reservation. John also seems to have an attraction to Lenina, as while Bernard is away, getting the permission to move the savages, he finds her suitcase and ruffles through all of her clothes, taking in the smells. He then sees her \"sleeping\" and stares at her, thinking all he has to do to see her properly is undo one zip. He later tells himself off for being like this towards Lenina, and seems to be"
      },
      {
        "text": " permission for Linda and John to leave the reservation. John also seems to have an attraction to Lenina, as while Bernard is away, getting the permission to move the savages, he finds her suitcase and ruffles through all of her clothes, taking in the smells. He then sees her \"sleeping\" and stares at her, thinking all he has to do to see her properly is undo one zip. He later tells himself off for being like this towards Lenina, and seems to be extremely shy around her. Upon his return to London, Bernard is confronted by Thomas, the Director of the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre who, in front of an audience of higher-caste Centre workers, denounces Bernard for his asocial behavior. Bernard, thinking that for the first time in his life he has the upper hand, defends himself by presenting the Director with his long-lost lover and unknown son, Linda and John. John falls to his knees and calls Thomas his father, which causes an uproar of laughter. The humiliated Director resigns in shame. Spared from reassignment, Bernard makes John the toast of London. Pursued by the highest members of society, able to bed any woman he fancies, Bernard revels in attention he once scorned. The victory, however, is short-lived. Linda, decrepit, toothless, and friendless, goes on a permanent soma holiday while John, appalled by what he perceives to be an empty society, refuses to attend Bernard's parties. Society drops Bernard as swiftly as it had taken him. Bernard turns to the person he'd believed to be his one true friend, only to see Helmholtz fall into a quick, easy camaraderie with John. Bernard is left an outcast yet again as he watches the only two men with whom he ever connected find more of interest in each other than they ever did in him. John and Helmholtz's island of peace is brief. Lenina"
      },
      {
        "text": " refuses to attend Bernard's parties. Society drops Bernard as swiftly as it had taken him. Bernard turns to the person he'd believed to be his one true friend, only to see Helmholtz fall into a quick, easy camaraderie with John. Bernard is left an outcast yet again as he watches the only two men with whom he ever connected find more of interest in each other than they ever did in him. John and Helmholtz's island of peace is brief. Lenina tries to seduce John, but John pushes her away, calling her out on her sexually wanton ways. Whilst Lenina is in the bathroom, humiliated and putting her clothes on, John receives a telephone call from the hospital telling him that his mother is extremely unwell. He rushes over to see her and sits at her bedside, trying to get her out of her soma holiday so that he can talk to her. He is heartbroken when his mother succumbs to soma and dies. He is extremely annoyed by the young boys that enter the ward to be conditioned about death and annoy John to the point where he starts to use violence to send them away. John's grief bewilders and revolts the hospital workers, and their lack of reaction to Linda's death prompts John to try to force humanity from the workers by throwing their soma rations out a window. The ensuing riot brings the police, who quell the riot by filling the room with soma. Bernard and Helmholtz arrive to help John, but only Helmholtz helps him, while Bernard stands to the side, torn between risking involvement by helping or escaping the scene. Following the riot, Bernard, Helmholtz and John are brought before Mustapha Mond, the Resident World Controller for Western Europe. Bernard (who breaks down during the middle of the conversation) and Helmholtz are told they will be exiled to islands of their choice. Mond explains that this exile is not so much a threat to"
      },
      {
        "text": "holtz arrive to help John, but only Helmholtz helps him, while Bernard stands to the side, torn between risking involvement by helping or escaping the scene. Following the riot, Bernard, Helmholtz and John are brought before Mustapha Mond, the Resident World Controller for Western Europe. Bernard (who breaks down during the middle of the conversation) and Helmholtz are told they will be exiled to islands of their choice. Mond explains that this exile is not so much a threat to force freethinkers to reform and rejoin society as it is a chance for them to act as they please because they will not be able to influence the population. He also divulges that he too once risked banishment to an island because of some scientific experiments that were deemed controversial by the state, giving insight into his sympathetic tone. Helmholtz chooses the Falkland Islands, believing that their terrible weather will inspire his writing, but Bernard simply does not want to leave London; he struggles with Mond and is thrown out of the office. After Bernard and Helmholtz have left, Mustapha and John engage in a philosophical argument on the morals behind the existing society and then John is told the \"experiment\" will continue and he will not be sent to an island. John meets with Bernard and Helmholtz once again before their departures from London and Bernard apologizes to John for his opportunistic behavior, having come to terms with his imminent exile and having restored his friendship with Helmholtz. In the final chapter, John isolates himself from society in a lighthouse outside London where he finds his hermit life interrupted from mourning his mother by the more bitter memories of civilization. To atone, John brutally whips himself in the open, a ritual the Indians in his own village had denied him. His self-flagellation, caught on film and shown publicly, destroys his hermit life. Hundreds of gawking sightseers, intrigued by John's violent behavior,"
      },
      {
        "text": "tz. In the final chapter, John isolates himself from society in a lighthouse outside London where he finds his hermit life interrupted from mourning his mother by the more bitter memories of civilization. To atone, John brutally whips himself in the open, a ritual the Indians in his own village had denied him. His self-flagellation, caught on film and shown publicly, destroys his hermit life. Hundreds of gawking sightseers, intrigued by John's violent behavior, fly out to watch the savage in person. Even Lenina comes to watch, crying a tear John does not see. The sight of the woman whom he both adores and blames is too much for him; John attacks and whips her. This sight of genuine, unbridled emotion drives the crowd wild with excitement, and \u2014 handling it as they are conditioned to \u2014 they turn on each other, in a frenzy of beating and chanting that devolves into a mass orgy of soma and sex. In the morning, John, hopeless, alone, horrified by his drug use and the orgy in which he participated that countered his beliefs, makes one last attempt to escape civilization and atone. When thousands of gawking sightseers arrive that morning, frenzied at the prospect of seeing the savage perform again, they find John dead from a suicidal hanging.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Aeneid",
    "author": "Virgil",
    "published_date": "1943",
    "synopsis": " The Aeneid can be divided into two halves based on the disparate subject matter of Books 1\u20136 (Aeneas' journey to Latium in Italy) and Books 7\u201312 (the war in Latium). These two halves are commonly regarded as reflecting Virgil's ambition to rival Homer by treating both the Odyssey's wandering theme and the Iliads warfare themes. This is, however, a rough correspondence, the limitations of which should be borne in mind. Virgil begins his poem with a statement of his theme (Arma virumque cano ..., \"I sing of arms and of a man ...\") and an invocation to the Muse, falling some seven lines after the poem's inception: (Musa, mihi causas memora ..., \"O Muse, recount to me the causes ...\"). He then explains the reason for the principal conflict in the story: the resentment held by the goddess Juno against the Trojan people. This is consistent with her role throughout the Homeric epics. Also in the manner of Homer, the story proper begins in medias res, with the Trojan fleet in the eastern Mediterranean, heading in the direction of Italy. The fleet, led by Aeneas, is on a voyage to find a second home. It has been foretold that in Italy, he will give rise to a race both noble and courageous, a race which will become known to all nations. Juno is wrathful, because she had not been chosen in the judgment of Paris, and because her favorite city, Carthage, will be destroyed by Aeneas' descendants. Also, Ganymede, a Trojan prince, was chosen to be her husband Jupiter's cup bearer\u2014replacing Juno's daughter Hebe. Juno proceeds to Aeolus, King of the Winds, and asks that he release the winds to stir up a storm in exchange for a bribe (Deiopea, the loveliest of all her sea nymphs, as a wife). Despite refusing her bribe, he agrees, and the storm devastates the fleet. Neptune takes notice: although he himself is no friend of the Trojans, he is infuriated by Juno's intrusion into his domain, and stills the winds and calms the waters, after making sure that Aeolus would not try again. The fleet takes shelter on the coast of Africa. There, Aeneas's mother, Venus, in the form of a hunting woman very similar to the goddess Diana, encourages him and tells him the history of the city. Eventually, Aeneas ventures in, and in the temple of Juno, seeks and gains the favor of Dido, Queen of Carthage, the city which has only recently been founded by refugees from Tyre and which will later become one of Rome's greatest imperial rivals and enemies. At a banquet given in the honour of the Trojans, Aeneas recounts sadly the events which occasioned the Trojans' fortuitous arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the events described in the Iliad. Crafty Ulysses devised a way for Greek warriors to gain entry into Troy by hiding in a large wooden horse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a man, Sinon, to tell the Trojans that the horse was an offering and that if it were taken into the city, the Trojans would be able to conquer Greece. The Trojan priest Laoco\u00f6n, who had seen through the Greek plot and urged the horse's destruction, hurled his spear at the wooden horse. Just after, in what would be seen by the Trojans as punishment from the gods, Laoco\u00f6n was suddenly grabbed and eaten, along with his two sons, by two giant sea snakes. So the Trojans brought the horse inside the fortified walls, and after nightfall the armed Greeks emerged and began to slaughter the city's inhabitants. Aeneas woke up and saw with horror what was happening to his beloved city. At first he tried to fight against the enemy, but soon he lost his comrades and was left alone to fend off tens of Greeks. Hector, the fallen Trojan prince, had told him in a dream to flee with his family. Aeneas tells of his escape with his son Ascanius and father Anchises after various omens (his son Ascanius' head catches fire without his being harmed, and then a shooting star), his wife Creusa having been separated from the others and subsequently killed in the general catastrophe. After getting outside Troy, he goes back for his wife. Her ghost appears before him and tells him that his destiny is to found Rome. He tells of how, rallying the other survivors, he built a fleet of ships and made landfall at various locations in the Mediterranean: Thrace, where they find the last remains of a fellow Trojan, Polydorus; The Strophades, where they encounter the Harpy Celaeno; Crete, which they believe to be the land where they are to build their city (but they are set straight by Apollo); and Buthrotum. This last city had been built in an attempt to replicate Troy. In Buthrotum, Aeneas met Andromache, the widow of Hector. She still laments for the loss of her valiant husband and beloved child. There, too, Aeneas saw and met Helenus, one of Priam's sons, who had the gift of prophecy. Through him, Aeneas learned the destiny laid out for him: he was divinely advised to seek out the land of Italy (also known as Ausonia or Hesperia), where his descendants would not only prosper, but in time rule the entire known world. In addition, Helenus also bade him go to the Sibyl in Cumae. Heading out into the open sea, Aeneas left Buthrotum, rounding Italy's cape and making his way towards Sicily (Trinacria). There, they are caught in the whirlpool of Charybdis and driven out to sea. Soon they come ashore at the land of the Cyclops. There they meet a Greek, Achaemenides, one of Ulysses' men, who had been left behind when his comrades escaped the cave of Polyphemus. They take Achaemenides onboard and narrowly escape Polyphemus. Shortly after these events, Anchises dies peacefully of old age. Meanwhile, Venus has her own plans. She goes to her son, Aeneas' half-brother Cupid, and tells him to imitate Ascanius. Disguised as such, he goes to Dido, and offers the gifts expected from a guest. With her motherly love revived in the presence of the boy, her heart is pierced and she falls in love with the boy and his father. During the banquet, Dido realizes that she has fallen madly in love with Aeneas, although she had previously sworn fidelity to the soul of her late husband, Sychaeus, who had been murdered by her brother Pygmalion. Juno seizes upon this opportunity to make a deal with Venus, Aeneas' mother, with the intention of distracting him from his destiny of founding a city in Italy. Aeneas is inclined to return Dido's love, and during a hunting expedition, a storm drives them into a cave in which Aeneas and Dido presumably have sex, an event that Dido takes to indicate a marriage between them. But when Jupiter sends Mercury to remind Aeneas of his duty, he has no choice but to part. Her heart broken, Dido commits suicide by stabbing herself upon a pyre with Aeneas' sword. Before dying, she predicts eternal strife between Aeneas's people and hers; \"rise up from my bones, avenging spirit\" (4.625, trans. Fitzgerald) is an obvious invocation to Hannibal. Looking back from the deck of his ship, Aeneas sees Dido's funeral pyre's smoke and knows its meaning only too clearly. However, destiny calls and the Trojan fleet sails on to Italy. Book 5 takes place on Sicily and centers on the funeral games that Aeneas organizes for the anniversary of his father's death. Aeneas and his men have left Carthage for Sicily where, one year after the death of his father, Aeneas organizes a nine-day anniversary which includes celebratory games\u2013a boat race, a foot race, a boxing match, and a shooting contest. In all those contests, Aeneas is careful to reward winners and losers, showing his leadership qualities by not allowing for antagonism even after foul play. Afterward, Ascanius leads a military parade and demonstration, prefiguring Rome's future predilection for war. During those events (in which only men participate), Juno incites the womenfolk to burn the fleet and prevent them from ever reaching Italy, but her plan is thwarted when Ascanius and then Aeneas intervene. Aeneas prays to Jupiter to quench the fires, which the god does with a torrential rainstorm. An anxious Aeneas is comforted by a vision of his father, who tells him to go down to the underworld to receive a vision of his and Rome's future, which he will do in Book 6. In return for safe passage to Italy, the gods, by order of Jupiter, will receive one of Aeneas's men as sacrifice: Palinurus, who steers Aeneas's ship by night, falls overboard and is drowned. In Book 6, Aeneas, with the guidance of the Cumaean Sibyl, descends into the underworld through an opening at Cumae; there he speaks with the spirit of his father and is offered a prophetic vision of the destiny of Rome. Upon returning to the land of the living, Aeneas leads the Trojans to settle in the land of Latium, where he courts Lavinia, the daughter of king Latinus. Although Aeneas would have wished to avoid it, war eventually breaks out. Juno is heavily involved in causing this war\u2014she convinces the Queen of Latium to demand that Lavinia be married to Turnus, the king of a local people, the Rutuli. Juno continues to stir up trouble, even summoning the Fury Alecto to ensure that a war takes place. Seeing the masses of Italians that Turnus has brought against him, Aeneas seeks help from the Tuscans, enemies of Turnus. He meets King Evander from Arcadia, whose son Pallas agrees to lead troops against the other Italians. Meanwhile, the Trojan camp is being attacked, and a midnight raid leads to the deaths of Nisus and his companion Euryalus, in one of the most emotional passages in the book. The gates, however, are defended until Aeneas returns with his Tuscan and Arcadian reinforcements. In the battling that follows, many heroes are killed\u2014notably Pallas, who is killed by Turnus, and Mezentius, Turnus' close associate. The latter, who has inadvertently allowed his son to be killed while he himself fled, reproaches himself and faces Aeneas in single combat\u2014an honourable but essentially futile pursuit. Another notable hero, Camilla, a sort of Amazon character, fights bravely but is eventually killed. She has been a virgin devoted to Diana and to her nation; the man who kills her is struck dead by Diana's sentinel Opis after doing so, even though he tries to escape. After this, single combat is proposed between Aeneas and Turnus, but Aeneas is so obviously superior that the Italians, urged on by Turnus's divine sister, Juturna, break the truce. Aeneas is injured, but returns to the battle shortly afterwards. Turnus and Aeneas dominate the battle on opposite wings, but when Aeneas makes a daring attack at the city of Latium (causing the queen of Latium to hang herself in despair), he forces Turnus into single combat once more. In a dramatic scene, Turnus's strength deserts him as he tries to hurl a rock, and he is struck by Aeneas's spear in the leg. As Turnus is begging on his knees for his life, the poem ends with Aeneas killing him in rage when he sees that Turnus is wearing the belt of his friend Pallas as a trophy.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Aeneid can be divided into two halves based on the disparate subject matter of Books 1\u20136 (Aeneas' journey to Latium in Italy) and Books 7\u201312 (the war in Latium). These two halves are commonly regarded as reflecting Virgil's ambition to rival Homer by treating both the Odyssey's wandering theme and the Iliads warfare themes. This is, however, a rough correspondence, the limitations of which should be borne in mind. Virgil begins his poem with a statement of his theme (Arma virumque cano ..., \"I sing of arms and of a man ...\") and an invocation to the Muse, falling some seven lines after the poem's inception: (Musa, mihi causas memora ..., \"O Muse, recount to me the causes ...\"). He then explains the reason for the principal conflict in the story: the resentment held by the goddess Juno against the Trojan people. This is consistent with her role throughout the Homeric epics. Also in the manner of Homer, the story proper begins in medias res, with the Trojan fleet in the eastern Mediterranean, heading in the direction of Italy. The fleet, led by Aeneas, is on a voyage to find a second home. It has been foretold that in Italy, he will give rise to a race both noble and courageous, a race which will become known to all nations. Juno is wrathful, because she had not been chosen in the judgment of Paris, and because her favorite city, Carthage, will be destroyed by Aeneas' descendants. Also, Ganymede, a Trojan prince, was chosen to be her husband Jupiter's cup bearer\u2014replacing Juno's daughter Hebe. Juno proceeds to Aeolus, King of the Winds, and asks that he release the winds to stir up a storm in exchange for a bribe ("
      },
      {
        "text": " to all nations. Juno is wrathful, because she had not been chosen in the judgment of Paris, and because her favorite city, Carthage, will be destroyed by Aeneas' descendants. Also, Ganymede, a Trojan prince, was chosen to be her husband Jupiter's cup bearer\u2014replacing Juno's daughter Hebe. Juno proceeds to Aeolus, King of the Winds, and asks that he release the winds to stir up a storm in exchange for a bribe (Deiopea, the loveliest of all her sea nymphs, as a wife). Despite refusing her bribe, he agrees, and the storm devastates the fleet. Neptune takes notice: although he himself is no friend of the Trojans, he is infuriated by Juno's intrusion into his domain, and stills the winds and calms the waters, after making sure that Aeolus would not try again. The fleet takes shelter on the coast of Africa. There, Aeneas's mother, Venus, in the form of a hunting woman very similar to the goddess Diana, encourages him and tells him the history of the city. Eventually, Aeneas ventures in, and in the temple of Juno, seeks and gains the favor of Dido, Queen of Carthage, the city which has only recently been founded by refugees from Tyre and which will later become one of Rome's greatest imperial rivals and enemies. At a banquet given in the honour of the Trojans, Aeneas recounts sadly the events which occasioned the Trojans' fortuitous arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the events described in the Iliad. Crafty Ulysses devised a way for Greek warriors to gain entry into Troy by hiding in a large wooden horse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a man, Sinon, to tell the Trojans that the horse was an offering and that if it were taken into the city, the Troj"
      },
      {
        "text": "jans, Aeneas recounts sadly the events which occasioned the Trojans' fortuitous arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the events described in the Iliad. Crafty Ulysses devised a way for Greek warriors to gain entry into Troy by hiding in a large wooden horse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a man, Sinon, to tell the Trojans that the horse was an offering and that if it were taken into the city, the Trojans would be able to conquer Greece. The Trojan priest Laoco\u00f6n, who had seen through the Greek plot and urged the horse's destruction, hurled his spear at the wooden horse. Just after, in what would be seen by the Trojans as punishment from the gods, Laoco\u00f6n was suddenly grabbed and eaten, along with his two sons, by two giant sea snakes. So the Trojans brought the horse inside the fortified walls, and after nightfall the armed Greeks emerged and began to slaughter the city's inhabitants. Aeneas woke up and saw with horror what was happening to his beloved city. At first he tried to fight against the enemy, but soon he lost his comrades and was left alone to fend off tens of Greeks. Hector, the fallen Trojan prince, had told him in a dream to flee with his family. Aeneas tells of his escape with his son Ascanius and father Anchises after various omens (his son Ascanius' head catches fire without his being harmed, and then a shooting star), his wife Creusa having been separated from the others and subsequently killed in the general catastrophe. After getting outside Troy, he goes back for his wife. Her ghost appears before him and tells him that his destiny is to found Rome. He tells of how, rallying the other survivors, he built a fleet of ships and made landfall at various locations in the Mediterranean: Thrace, where they find the last remains of a fellow Trojan, Polyd"
      },
      {
        "text": " fire without his being harmed, and then a shooting star), his wife Creusa having been separated from the others and subsequently killed in the general catastrophe. After getting outside Troy, he goes back for his wife. Her ghost appears before him and tells him that his destiny is to found Rome. He tells of how, rallying the other survivors, he built a fleet of ships and made landfall at various locations in the Mediterranean: Thrace, where they find the last remains of a fellow Trojan, Polydorus; The Strophades, where they encounter the Harpy Celaeno; Crete, which they believe to be the land where they are to build their city (but they are set straight by Apollo); and Buthrotum. This last city had been built in an attempt to replicate Troy. In Buthrotum, Aeneas met Andromache, the widow of Hector. She still laments for the loss of her valiant husband and beloved child. There, too, Aeneas saw and met Helenus, one of Priam's sons, who had the gift of prophecy. Through him, Aeneas learned the destiny laid out for him: he was divinely advised to seek out the land of Italy (also known as Ausonia or Hesperia), where his descendants would not only prosper, but in time rule the entire known world. In addition, Helenus also bade him go to the Sibyl in Cumae. Heading out into the open sea, Aeneas left Buthrotum, rounding Italy's cape and making his way towards Sicily (Trinacria). There, they are caught in the whirlpool of Charybdis and driven out to sea. Soon they come ashore at the land of the Cyclops. There they meet a Greek, Achaemenides, one of Ulysses' men, who had been left behind when his comrades escaped the cave of Polyphemus. They take A"
      },
      {
        "text": " open sea, Aeneas left Buthrotum, rounding Italy's cape and making his way towards Sicily (Trinacria). There, they are caught in the whirlpool of Charybdis and driven out to sea. Soon they come ashore at the land of the Cyclops. There they meet a Greek, Achaemenides, one of Ulysses' men, who had been left behind when his comrades escaped the cave of Polyphemus. They take Achaemenides onboard and narrowly escape Polyphemus. Shortly after these events, Anchises dies peacefully of old age. Meanwhile, Venus has her own plans. She goes to her son, Aeneas' half-brother Cupid, and tells him to imitate Ascanius. Disguised as such, he goes to Dido, and offers the gifts expected from a guest. With her motherly love revived in the presence of the boy, her heart is pierced and she falls in love with the boy and his father. During the banquet, Dido realizes that she has fallen madly in love with Aeneas, although she had previously sworn fidelity to the soul of her late husband, Sychaeus, who had been murdered by her brother Pygmalion. Juno seizes upon this opportunity to make a deal with Venus, Aeneas' mother, with the intention of distracting him from his destiny of founding a city in Italy. Aeneas is inclined to return Dido's love, and during a hunting expedition, a storm drives them into a cave in which Aeneas and Dido presumably have sex, an event that Dido takes to indicate a marriage between them. But when Jupiter sends Mercury to remind Aeneas of his duty, he has no choice but to part. Her heart broken, Dido commits suicide by stabbing herself upon a pyre with Aeneas' sword. Before dying, she predicts eternal strife between Aeneas's people"
      },
      {
        "text": " Dido's love, and during a hunting expedition, a storm drives them into a cave in which Aeneas and Dido presumably have sex, an event that Dido takes to indicate a marriage between them. But when Jupiter sends Mercury to remind Aeneas of his duty, he has no choice but to part. Her heart broken, Dido commits suicide by stabbing herself upon a pyre with Aeneas' sword. Before dying, she predicts eternal strife between Aeneas's people and hers; \"rise up from my bones, avenging spirit\" (4.625, trans. Fitzgerald) is an obvious invocation to Hannibal. Looking back from the deck of his ship, Aeneas sees Dido's funeral pyre's smoke and knows its meaning only too clearly. However, destiny calls and the Trojan fleet sails on to Italy. Book 5 takes place on Sicily and centers on the funeral games that Aeneas organizes for the anniversary of his father's death. Aeneas and his men have left Carthage for Sicily where, one year after the death of his father, Aeneas organizes a nine-day anniversary which includes celebratory games\u2013a boat race, a foot race, a boxing match, and a shooting contest. In all those contests, Aeneas is careful to reward winners and losers, showing his leadership qualities by not allowing for antagonism even after foul play. Afterward, Ascanius leads a military parade and demonstration, prefiguring Rome's future predilection for war. During those events (in which only men participate), Juno incites the womenfolk to burn the fleet and prevent them from ever reaching Italy, but her plan is thwarted when Ascanius and then Aeneas intervene. Aeneas prays to Jupiter to quench the fires, which the god does with a torrential rainstorm. An anxious Aeneas is comforted by a vision of his father, who tells him to go down"
      },
      {
        "text": "figuring Rome's future predilection for war. During those events (in which only men participate), Juno incites the womenfolk to burn the fleet and prevent them from ever reaching Italy, but her plan is thwarted when Ascanius and then Aeneas intervene. Aeneas prays to Jupiter to quench the fires, which the god does with a torrential rainstorm. An anxious Aeneas is comforted by a vision of his father, who tells him to go down to the underworld to receive a vision of his and Rome's future, which he will do in Book 6. In return for safe passage to Italy, the gods, by order of Jupiter, will receive one of Aeneas's men as sacrifice: Palinurus, who steers Aeneas's ship by night, falls overboard and is drowned. In Book 6, Aeneas, with the guidance of the Cumaean Sibyl, descends into the underworld through an opening at Cumae; there he speaks with the spirit of his father and is offered a prophetic vision of the destiny of Rome. Upon returning to the land of the living, Aeneas leads the Trojans to settle in the land of Latium, where he courts Lavinia, the daughter of king Latinus. Although Aeneas would have wished to avoid it, war eventually breaks out. Juno is heavily involved in causing this war\u2014she convinces the Queen of Latium to demand that Lavinia be married to Turnus, the king of a local people, the Rutuli. Juno continues to stir up trouble, even summoning the Fury Alecto to ensure that a war takes place. Seeing the masses of Italians that Turnus has brought against him, Aeneas seeks help from the Tuscans, enemies of Turnus. He meets King Evander from Arcadia, whose son Pallas agrees to lead troops against the other Italians. Meanwhile, the Trojan camp is being attacked"
      },
      {
        "text": "avinia be married to Turnus, the king of a local people, the Rutuli. Juno continues to stir up trouble, even summoning the Fury Alecto to ensure that a war takes place. Seeing the masses of Italians that Turnus has brought against him, Aeneas seeks help from the Tuscans, enemies of Turnus. He meets King Evander from Arcadia, whose son Pallas agrees to lead troops against the other Italians. Meanwhile, the Trojan camp is being attacked, and a midnight raid leads to the deaths of Nisus and his companion Euryalus, in one of the most emotional passages in the book. The gates, however, are defended until Aeneas returns with his Tuscan and Arcadian reinforcements. In the battling that follows, many heroes are killed\u2014notably Pallas, who is killed by Turnus, and Mezentius, Turnus' close associate. The latter, who has inadvertently allowed his son to be killed while he himself fled, reproaches himself and faces Aeneas in single combat\u2014an honourable but essentially futile pursuit. Another notable hero, Camilla, a sort of Amazon character, fights bravely but is eventually killed. She has been a virgin devoted to Diana and to her nation; the man who kills her is struck dead by Diana's sentinel Opis after doing so, even though he tries to escape. After this, single combat is proposed between Aeneas and Turnus, but Aeneas is so obviously superior that the Italians, urged on by Turnus's divine sister, Juturna, break the truce. Aeneas is injured, but returns to the battle shortly afterwards. Turnus and Aeneas dominate the battle on opposite wings, but when Aeneas makes a daring attack at the city of Latium (causing the queen of Latium to hang herself in despair), he forces Turnus into single combat once more. In a dramatic scene,"
      },
      {
        "text": " Aeneas is so obviously superior that the Italians, urged on by Turnus's divine sister, Juturna, break the truce. Aeneas is injured, but returns to the battle shortly afterwards. Turnus and Aeneas dominate the battle on opposite wings, but when Aeneas makes a daring attack at the city of Latium (causing the queen of Latium to hang herself in despair), he forces Turnus into single combat once more. In a dramatic scene, Turnus's strength deserts him as he tries to hurl a rock, and he is struck by Aeneas's spear in the leg. As Turnus is begging on his knees for his life, the poem ends with Aeneas killing him in rage when he sees that Turnus is wearing the belt of his friend Pallas as a trophy.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Paradise Lost",
    "author": "John Milton",
    "published_date": "1667",
    "synopsis": " The poem is separated into twelve \"books\" or sections, and the lengths of each book varies greatly (the longest being Book IX, with 1,189 lines, and the shortest Book VII, having 640). The Arguments at the head of each book were added in subsequent imprints of the first edition. Originally published in ten books, in 1674 a fully \"Revised and Augmented\" edition with a new division into twelve books was issued. This is the edition that is generally used today. The poem follows the epic tradition of starting in medias res (Latin for in the midst of things), the background story being recounted later. Milton's story has two narrative arcs: one being that of Satan (Lucifer) and the other being that of Adam and Eve. It begins after Satan and the other rebel angels have been defeated and banished to Hell, or (as it is also called in the poem), Tartarus. In Pand\u00e6monium, Satan employs his rhetorical skill to organise his followers; he is aided by Mammon and Beelzebub. Belial and Moloch are also present. At the end of the debate, Satan volunteers to poison the newly-created Earth and God's new and most favoured creation, Mankind. He braves the dangers of the Abyss alone in a manner reminiscent of Odysseus or Aeneas. After an arduous traverse of the Chaos outside Hell, he enters God's new material World, and later the Garden of Eden. At one point in the story, the Angelic War over Heaven is recounted. Satan's rebellion follows the epic convention of large-scale warfare. The battles between the faithful angels and Satan's forces take place over three days. The final battle involves the Son of God single-handedly defeating the entire legion of angelic rebels and banishing them from Heaven. Following the purging of Heaven, God creates the World, culminating in his creation of Adam and Eve. While God gave Adam and Eve total freedom and power to rule over all creation, He gave them one explicit command: not to eat from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil on penalty of death. The story of Adam and Eve's temptation and fall is a fundamentally different, new kind of epic: a domestic one. Adam and Eve are presented for the first time in Christian literature as having a full relationship while still being without sin. They have passions and distinct personalities. Satan, disguised in the form of a serpent, successfully tempts Eve to eat from the Tree by preying on her vanity and tricking her with rhetoric. Adam, learning that Eve has sinned, knowingly commits the same sin. He declares to Eve that since she was made from his flesh, they are bound to one another so that if she dies, he must also die. In this manner, Milton portrays Adam as a heroic figure, but also as a greater sinner than Eve, as he is aware that what he is doing is wrong. After eating the fruit, Adam and Eve have lustful sex, and at first, Adam is convinced that Eve was right in thinking that eating the fruit would be beneficial. However, they soon fall asleep and have terrible nightmares, and after they awake, they experience guilt and shame for the first time. Realizing that they have committed a terrible act against God, they engage in mutual recrimination. Eve's pleas to Adam reconcile them somewhat. Her encouragement enables Adam and Eve both to approach God, to \"bow and sue for grace with suppliant knee\", and to receive grace from God. Adam is shown a vision by the angel Michael, in which Adam witnesses everything that will happen to mankind until the Great Flood. Adam is very upset by this vision of humankind's future, and so Michael also tells him about humankind's potential redemption from original sin through Jesus Christ (whom Michael calls \"King Messiah\"). Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden, and Michael says that Adam may find \"a paradise within thee, happier far\". Adam and Eve also now have a more distant relationship with God, who is omnipresent but invisible (unlike the tangible Father in the Garden of Eden).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The poem is separated into twelve \"books\" or sections, and the lengths of each book varies greatly (the longest being Book IX, with 1,189 lines, and the shortest Book VII, having 640). The Arguments at the head of each book were added in subsequent imprints of the first edition. Originally published in ten books, in 1674 a fully \"Revised and Augmented\" edition with a new division into twelve books was issued. This is the edition that is generally used today. The poem follows the epic tradition of starting in medias res (Latin for in the midst of things), the background story being recounted later. Milton's story has two narrative arcs: one being that of Satan (Lucifer) and the other being that of Adam and Eve. It begins after Satan and the other rebel angels have been defeated and banished to Hell, or (as it is also called in the poem), Tartarus. In Pand\u00e6monium, Satan employs his rhetorical skill to organise his followers; he is aided by Mammon and Beelzebub. Belial and Moloch are also present. At the end of the debate, Satan volunteers to poison the newly-created Earth and God's new and most favoured creation, Mankind. He braves the dangers of the Abyss alone in a manner reminiscent of Odysseus or Aeneas. After an arduous traverse of the Chaos outside Hell, he enters God's new material World, and later the Garden of Eden. At one point in the story, the Angelic War over Heaven is recounted. Satan's rebellion follows the epic convention of large-scale warfare. The battles between the faithful angels and Satan's forces take place over three days. The final battle involves the Son of God single-handedly defeating the entire legion of angelic rebels and banishing them from Heaven. Following the purging of Heaven, God creates the World, culminating in his creation of Adam and Eve. While God gave Adam and Eve total freedom"
      },
      {
        "text": " At one point in the story, the Angelic War over Heaven is recounted. Satan's rebellion follows the epic convention of large-scale warfare. The battles between the faithful angels and Satan's forces take place over three days. The final battle involves the Son of God single-handedly defeating the entire legion of angelic rebels and banishing them from Heaven. Following the purging of Heaven, God creates the World, culminating in his creation of Adam and Eve. While God gave Adam and Eve total freedom and power to rule over all creation, He gave them one explicit command: not to eat from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil on penalty of death. The story of Adam and Eve's temptation and fall is a fundamentally different, new kind of epic: a domestic one. Adam and Eve are presented for the first time in Christian literature as having a full relationship while still being without sin. They have passions and distinct personalities. Satan, disguised in the form of a serpent, successfully tempts Eve to eat from the Tree by preying on her vanity and tricking her with rhetoric. Adam, learning that Eve has sinned, knowingly commits the same sin. He declares to Eve that since she was made from his flesh, they are bound to one another so that if she dies, he must also die. In this manner, Milton portrays Adam as a heroic figure, but also as a greater sinner than Eve, as he is aware that what he is doing is wrong. After eating the fruit, Adam and Eve have lustful sex, and at first, Adam is convinced that Eve was right in thinking that eating the fruit would be beneficial. However, they soon fall asleep and have terrible nightmares, and after they awake, they experience guilt and shame for the first time. Realizing that they have committed a terrible act against God, they engage in mutual recrimination. Eve's pleas to Adam reconcile them somewhat. Her encouragement enables Adam and Eve both to approach God, to \"bow"
      },
      {
        "text": " the fruit, Adam and Eve have lustful sex, and at first, Adam is convinced that Eve was right in thinking that eating the fruit would be beneficial. However, they soon fall asleep and have terrible nightmares, and after they awake, they experience guilt and shame for the first time. Realizing that they have committed a terrible act against God, they engage in mutual recrimination. Eve's pleas to Adam reconcile them somewhat. Her encouragement enables Adam and Eve both to approach God, to \"bow and sue for grace with suppliant knee\", and to receive grace from God. Adam is shown a vision by the angel Michael, in which Adam witnesses everything that will happen to mankind until the Great Flood. Adam is very upset by this vision of humankind's future, and so Michael also tells him about humankind's potential redemption from original sin through Jesus Christ (whom Michael calls \"King Messiah\"). Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden, and Michael says that Adam may find \"a paradise within thee, happier far\". Adam and Eve also now have a more distant relationship with God, who is omnipresent but invisible (unlike the tangible Father in the Garden of Eden).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Merchant of Venice",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Bassanio, a young Venetian of noble rank, wishes to woo the beautiful and wealthy heiress Portia of Belmont. Having squandered his estate, Bassanio approaches his friend Antonio, a wealthy merchant of Venice and a kind and generous person, who has previously and repeatedly bailed him out, for three thousand ducats needed to subsidise his expenditures as a suitor. Antonio agrees, but since he is cash-poor - his ships and merchandise are busy at sea - he promises to cover a bond if Bassanio can find a lender, so Bassanio turns to the Jewish moneylender Shylock and names Antonio as the loan's guarantor. Shylock, who hates Antonio because of his Anti-Judaism and Antonio's customary refusal to borrow or lend money with interest, is at first reluctant, citing abuse he has suffered at Antonio's hand, but finally agrees to lend Antonio the sum without interest upon the condition that if Antonio is unable to repay it at the specified date, he may take a pound of Antonio's flesh. Bassanio does not want Antonio to accept such a risky condition; Antonio is surprised by what he sees as the moneylender's generosity (no \"usance\" \u2013 interest \u2013 is asked for), and he signs the contract. With money at hand, Bassanio leaves for Belmont with his friend Gratiano, who has asked to accompany him. Gratiano is a likeable young man, but is often flippant, overly talkative, and tactless. Bassanio warns his companion to exercise self-control, and the two leave for Belmont and Portia. Meanwhile in Belmont, Portia is awash with suitors. Her father left a will stipulating each of her suitors must choose correctly from one of three caskets \u2013 one each of gold, silver and lead. If he picks the right casket, he gets Portia. The first suitor, the luxurious Prince of Morocco, chooses the gold casket, interpreting its slogan \"Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire\" as referring to Portia. The second suitor, the conceited Prince of Arragon, chooses the silver casket, which proclaims \"Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves\", imagining himself to be full of merit. Both suitors leave empty-handed, having rejected the lead casket because of the baseness of its material and the uninviting nature of its slogan: \"Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.\" The last suitor is Bassanio, whom Portia wishes to succeed, having met him before. As Bassanio ponders his choice, members of Portia's household sing a song which says that \"fancy\" (not true love) is \"engend'red in the eyes, With gazing fed.\", prompting Bassanio to disregard \"outward shows\" and \"ornament\" and choses the lead casket, winning Portia's hand. At Venice, Antonio's ships are reported lost at sea. This leaves him unable to satisfy the bond. Shylock is even more determined to exact revenge from Christians after his daughter Jessica had fled home and eloped with the Christian Lorenzo, taking a substantial amount of Shylock's wealth with her, as well as a turquoise ring which was a gift to Shylock from his late wife, Leah. Shylock has Antonio brought before court. At Belmont, Bassanio receives a letter telling him that Antonio has been unable to return the loan taken from Shylock. Portia and Bassanio marry, as do Gratiano and Portia's handmaid Nerissa. Bassanio and Gratiano then leave for Venice, with money from Portia, to save Antonio's life by offering the money to Shylock. Unknown to Bassanio and Gratiano, Portia has sent her servant, Balthazar, to seek the counsel of Portia's cousin, Bellario, a lawyer, at Padua. The climax of the play comes in the court of the Duke of Venice. Shylock refuses Bassanio's offer of 6,000 ducats, twice the amount of the loan. He demands his pound of flesh from Antonio. The Duke, wishing to save Antonio but unable to nullify a contract, refers the case to a visitor who introduces himself as Balthazar, a young male \"doctor of the law\", bearing a letter of recommendation to the Duke from the learned lawyer Bellario. The doctor is actually Portia in disguise, and the law clerk who accompanies her is actually Nerissa, also in disguise. As Balthazar, Portia repeatedly asks Shylock to show mercy in a famous speech, advising him that mercy \"is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.\" (IV,i,185) However, Shylock adamantly refuses any compensations and insists on the pound of flesh. As the court grants Shylock his bond and Antonio prepares for Shylock's knife, Portia points out that the contract only allows Shylock to remove the flesh, not the \"blood\", of Antonio (see quibble). Thus, if Shylock were to shed any drop of Antonio's blood, his \"lands and goods\" would be forfeited under Venetian laws. Further damning Shylock's case, she tells him that he must cut precisely one pound of flesh, no more, no less; she advises him that \"if the scale do turn, But in the estimation of a hair, Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate.\" Defeated, Shylock concedes to accepting Bassanio's offer of money for the defaulted bond, first his offer to pay \"the bond thrice\", which Portia rebuffs, telling him to take his bond, and then merely the principal, which Portia also prevents him from doing on the ground that he has already refused it \"in the open court.\" She then cites a law under which Shylock, as a Jew and therefore an \"alien\", having attempted to take the life of a citizen, has forfeited his property, half to the government and half to Antonio, leaving his life at the mercy of the Duke. The Duke immediately pardons Shylock's life. Antonio asks for his share \"in use\" (that is, reserving the principal amount while taking only the income) until Shylock's death, when the principal will be given to Lorenzo and Jessica. At Antonio's request, the Duke grants remission of the state's half of forfeiture, but on the condition of Shylock converting to Christianity and bequeathing his entire estate to Lorenzo and Jessica (IV,i). Bassanio does not recognise his disguised wife, but offers to give a present to the supposed lawyer. First she declines, but after he insists, Portia requests his ring and Antonio's gloves. Antonio parts with his gloves without a second thought, but Bassanio gives the ring only after much persuasion from Antonio, as earlier in the play he promised his wife never to lose, sell or give it. Nerissa, as the lawyer's clerk, also succeeds in likewise retrieving her ring from Gratiano, who does not see through her disguise. At Belmont, Portia and Nerissa taunt and pretend to accuse their husbands before revealing they were really the lawyer and his clerk in disguise (V). After all the other characters make amends, Antonio learns from Portia that three of his ships were not stranded and have returned safely after all.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Bassanio, a young Venetian of noble rank, wishes to woo the beautiful and wealthy heiress Portia of Belmont. Having squandered his estate, Bassanio approaches his friend Antonio, a wealthy merchant of Venice and a kind and generous person, who has previously and repeatedly bailed him out, for three thousand ducats needed to subsidise his expenditures as a suitor. Antonio agrees, but since he is cash-poor - his ships and merchandise are busy at sea - he promises to cover a bond if Bassanio can find a lender, so Bassanio turns to the Jewish moneylender Shylock and names Antonio as the loan's guarantor. Shylock, who hates Antonio because of his Anti-Judaism and Antonio's customary refusal to borrow or lend money with interest, is at first reluctant, citing abuse he has suffered at Antonio's hand, but finally agrees to lend Antonio the sum without interest upon the condition that if Antonio is unable to repay it at the specified date, he may take a pound of Antonio's flesh. Bassanio does not want Antonio to accept such a risky condition; Antonio is surprised by what he sees as the moneylender's generosity (no \"usance\" \u2013 interest \u2013 is asked for), and he signs the contract. With money at hand, Bassanio leaves for Belmont with his friend Gratiano, who has asked to accompany him. Gratiano is a likeable young man, but is often flippant, overly talkative, and tactless. Bassanio warns his companion to exercise self-control, and the two leave for Belmont and Portia. Meanwhile in Belmont, Portia is awash with suitors. Her father left a will stipulating each of her suitors must choose correctly from one of three caskets \u2013 one each of gold, silver and lead. If he picks the right casket, he gets Portia."
      },
      {
        "text": " young man, but is often flippant, overly talkative, and tactless. Bassanio warns his companion to exercise self-control, and the two leave for Belmont and Portia. Meanwhile in Belmont, Portia is awash with suitors. Her father left a will stipulating each of her suitors must choose correctly from one of three caskets \u2013 one each of gold, silver and lead. If he picks the right casket, he gets Portia. The first suitor, the luxurious Prince of Morocco, chooses the gold casket, interpreting its slogan \"Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire\" as referring to Portia. The second suitor, the conceited Prince of Arragon, chooses the silver casket, which proclaims \"Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves\", imagining himself to be full of merit. Both suitors leave empty-handed, having rejected the lead casket because of the baseness of its material and the uninviting nature of its slogan: \"Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.\" The last suitor is Bassanio, whom Portia wishes to succeed, having met him before. As Bassanio ponders his choice, members of Portia's household sing a song which says that \"fancy\" (not true love) is \"engend'red in the eyes, With gazing fed.\", prompting Bassanio to disregard \"outward shows\" and \"ornament\" and choses the lead casket, winning Portia's hand. At Venice, Antonio's ships are reported lost at sea. This leaves him unable to satisfy the bond. Shylock is even more determined to exact revenge from Christians after his daughter Jessica had fled home and eloped with the Christian Lorenzo, taking a substantial amount of Shylock's wealth with her, as well as a turquoise ring which was a gift to Shyl"
      },
      {
        "text": " \"outward shows\" and \"ornament\" and choses the lead casket, winning Portia's hand. At Venice, Antonio's ships are reported lost at sea. This leaves him unable to satisfy the bond. Shylock is even more determined to exact revenge from Christians after his daughter Jessica had fled home and eloped with the Christian Lorenzo, taking a substantial amount of Shylock's wealth with her, as well as a turquoise ring which was a gift to Shylock from his late wife, Leah. Shylock has Antonio brought before court. At Belmont, Bassanio receives a letter telling him that Antonio has been unable to return the loan taken from Shylock. Portia and Bassanio marry, as do Gratiano and Portia's handmaid Nerissa. Bassanio and Gratiano then leave for Venice, with money from Portia, to save Antonio's life by offering the money to Shylock. Unknown to Bassanio and Gratiano, Portia has sent her servant, Balthazar, to seek the counsel of Portia's cousin, Bellario, a lawyer, at Padua. The climax of the play comes in the court of the Duke of Venice. Shylock refuses Bassanio's offer of 6,000 ducats, twice the amount of the loan. He demands his pound of flesh from Antonio. The Duke, wishing to save Antonio but unable to nullify a contract, refers the case to a visitor who introduces himself as Balthazar, a young male \"doctor of the law\", bearing a letter of recommendation to the Duke from the learned lawyer Bellario. The doctor is actually Portia in disguise, and the law clerk who accompanies her is actually Nerissa, also in disguise. As Balthazar, Portia repeatedly asks Shylock to show mercy in a famous speech, advising him that mercy \"is twice blest: It blesseth him that"
      },
      {
        "text": " contract, refers the case to a visitor who introduces himself as Balthazar, a young male \"doctor of the law\", bearing a letter of recommendation to the Duke from the learned lawyer Bellario. The doctor is actually Portia in disguise, and the law clerk who accompanies her is actually Nerissa, also in disguise. As Balthazar, Portia repeatedly asks Shylock to show mercy in a famous speech, advising him that mercy \"is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.\" (IV,i,185) However, Shylock adamantly refuses any compensations and insists on the pound of flesh. As the court grants Shylock his bond and Antonio prepares for Shylock's knife, Portia points out that the contract only allows Shylock to remove the flesh, not the \"blood\", of Antonio (see quibble). Thus, if Shylock were to shed any drop of Antonio's blood, his \"lands and goods\" would be forfeited under Venetian laws. Further damning Shylock's case, she tells him that he must cut precisely one pound of flesh, no more, no less; she advises him that \"if the scale do turn, But in the estimation of a hair, Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate.\" Defeated, Shylock concedes to accepting Bassanio's offer of money for the defaulted bond, first his offer to pay \"the bond thrice\", which Portia rebuffs, telling him to take his bond, and then merely the principal, which Portia also prevents him from doing on the ground that he has already refused it \"in the open court.\" She then cites a law under which Shylock, as a Jew and therefore an \"alien\", having attempted to take the life of a citizen, has forfeited his property, half to the government and half to Antonio, leaving his life at the mercy of the Duke."
      },
      {
        "text": " thrice\", which Portia rebuffs, telling him to take his bond, and then merely the principal, which Portia also prevents him from doing on the ground that he has already refused it \"in the open court.\" She then cites a law under which Shylock, as a Jew and therefore an \"alien\", having attempted to take the life of a citizen, has forfeited his property, half to the government and half to Antonio, leaving his life at the mercy of the Duke. The Duke immediately pardons Shylock's life. Antonio asks for his share \"in use\" (that is, reserving the principal amount while taking only the income) until Shylock's death, when the principal will be given to Lorenzo and Jessica. At Antonio's request, the Duke grants remission of the state's half of forfeiture, but on the condition of Shylock converting to Christianity and bequeathing his entire estate to Lorenzo and Jessica (IV,i). Bassanio does not recognise his disguised wife, but offers to give a present to the supposed lawyer. First she declines, but after he insists, Portia requests his ring and Antonio's gloves. Antonio parts with his gloves without a second thought, but Bassanio gives the ring only after much persuasion from Antonio, as earlier in the play he promised his wife never to lose, sell or give it. Nerissa, as the lawyer's clerk, also succeeds in likewise retrieving her ring from Gratiano, who does not see through her disguise. At Belmont, Portia and Nerissa taunt and pretend to accuse their husbands before revealing they were really the lawyer and his clerk in disguise (V). After all the other characters make amends, Antonio learns from Portia that three of his ships were not stranded and have returned safely after all.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", who does not see through her disguise. At Belmont, Portia and Nerissa taunt and pretend to accuse their husbands before revealing they were really the lawyer and his clerk in disguise (V). After all the other characters make amends, Antonio learns from Portia that three of his ships were not stranded and have returned safely after all.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Invisible Man",
    "author": "H. G. Wells",
    "published_date": "1897",
    "synopsis": " A mysterious stranger, Griffin, arrives at the local inn of the English village of Iping, West Sussex, during a snowstorm. The stranger wears a long-sleeved, thick coat and gloves, his face hidden entirely by bandages except for a fake pink nose, large goggles and a wide-brimmed hat. He is excessively reclusive, irascible, and unfriendly. He demands to be left alone and spends most of his time in his rooms working with a set of chemicals and laboratory apparatus, only venturing out at night. While staying at the inn, hundreds of strange glass bottles arrive that Griffin calls his luggage. Many local townspeople believe this to be very strange. He becomes the talk of the village (one of the novel's most charming aspects is its portrayal of small-town life in southern England, which the author knew from first-hand experience). Meanwhile, a mysterious burglary occurs in the village. Griffin has run out of money and is trying to find a way to pay for his board and lodging. When his landlady demands he pay his bill and quit the premises, he reveals part of his invisibility to her in a fit of pique. An attempt to apprehend the stranger is frustrated when he undresses to take advantage of his invisibility, fights off his would-be captors, and flees to the downs. There Griffin coerces a tramp, Thomas Marvel, into becoming his assistant. With Marvel, he returns to the village to recover three notebooks that contain his records of his experiments. When Marvel soon attempts to betray the Invisible Man to the police, Griffin chases him to the seaside town of Port Burdock, threatening to kill him. Marvel escapes to a local inn, and is saved by the people at the inn, but Griffin escapes. Marvel later goes to the police and tells them of this \"invisible man,\" then requests to be locked up in a high security jail cell. His furious attempt to avenge his betrayal leads to his being shot. Griffin takes shelter in a nearby house that turns out to belong to Dr. Kemp, a former acquaintance from medical school. To Kemp, he reveals his true identity: the Invisible Man is Griffin, a former medical student who left medicine to devote himself to optics. Griffin recounts how he invented medicine capable of rendering bodies invisible and, on an impulse, performed the procedure on himself. Griffin tells Kemp of his story of how he turned invisible. He tells of how he tries the invisibility on a cat, then himself. Griffin burns down the boarding house he is staying in along with all his equipment he used to turn invisible to cover his tracks, but soon realizes he is ill-equipped to survive in the open. He attempts to steal food and clothes from a large store, but eventually he steals some clothing from a theatrical supply shop and heads to Iping to attempt to reverse the effect. But now that he imagines he can make Kemp his secret confederate, describing his plan to begin a \"Reign of Terror\" by using his invisibility to terrorize the nation. Kemp has already denounced Griffin to the local authorities and is on the watch for help to arrive as he listens to this wild proposal. When the authorities arrive at Kemp's house, Griffin fights his way out and the next day leaves a note announcing that Kemp himself will be the first man to be killed in the \"Reign of Terror\". Kemp, a cool-headed character, tries to organize a plan to use himself as bait to trap the Invisible Man, but a note he sends is stolen from his servant by Griffin. Griffin shoots and kills a local policeman who comes to Kemp's aid, then breaks into Kemp's house. Kemp bolts for the town, where the local citizenry comes to his aid. Griffin is seized, assaulted, and killed by a mob. The Invisible Man's naked, battered body gradually becomes visible as he dies. A local policeman shouts to cover his face with a sheet, then the book concludes. In the final chapter, it is revealed that Marvel has secretly kept Griffin's notes. Griffin's name is not known by anyone (including the reader) until he meets Kemp whom he reveals his identity to. Until then, he is referred to as the stranger or the Invisible Man.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A mysterious stranger, Griffin, arrives at the local inn of the English village of Iping, West Sussex, during a snowstorm. The stranger wears a long-sleeved, thick coat and gloves, his face hidden entirely by bandages except for a fake pink nose, large goggles and a wide-brimmed hat. He is excessively reclusive, irascible, and unfriendly. He demands to be left alone and spends most of his time in his rooms working with a set of chemicals and laboratory apparatus, only venturing out at night. While staying at the inn, hundreds of strange glass bottles arrive that Griffin calls his luggage. Many local townspeople believe this to be very strange. He becomes the talk of the village (one of the novel's most charming aspects is its portrayal of small-town life in southern England, which the author knew from first-hand experience). Meanwhile, a mysterious burglary occurs in the village. Griffin has run out of money and is trying to find a way to pay for his board and lodging. When his landlady demands he pay his bill and quit the premises, he reveals part of his invisibility to her in a fit of pique. An attempt to apprehend the stranger is frustrated when he undresses to take advantage of his invisibility, fights off his would-be captors, and flees to the downs. There Griffin coerces a tramp, Thomas Marvel, into becoming his assistant. With Marvel, he returns to the village to recover three notebooks that contain his records of his experiments. When Marvel soon attempts to betray the Invisible Man to the police, Griffin chases him to the seaside town of Port Burdock, threatening to kill him. Marvel escapes to a local inn, and is saved by the people at the inn, but Griffin escapes. Marvel later goes to the police and tells them of this \"invisible man,\" then requests to be locked up in a high security jail cell. His"
      },
      {
        "text": " returns to the village to recover three notebooks that contain his records of his experiments. When Marvel soon attempts to betray the Invisible Man to the police, Griffin chases him to the seaside town of Port Burdock, threatening to kill him. Marvel escapes to a local inn, and is saved by the people at the inn, but Griffin escapes. Marvel later goes to the police and tells them of this \"invisible man,\" then requests to be locked up in a high security jail cell. His furious attempt to avenge his betrayal leads to his being shot. Griffin takes shelter in a nearby house that turns out to belong to Dr. Kemp, a former acquaintance from medical school. To Kemp, he reveals his true identity: the Invisible Man is Griffin, a former medical student who left medicine to devote himself to optics. Griffin recounts how he invented medicine capable of rendering bodies invisible and, on an impulse, performed the procedure on himself. Griffin tells Kemp of his story of how he turned invisible. He tells of how he tries the invisibility on a cat, then himself. Griffin burns down the boarding house he is staying in along with all his equipment he used to turn invisible to cover his tracks, but soon realizes he is ill-equipped to survive in the open. He attempts to steal food and clothes from a large store, but eventually he steals some clothing from a theatrical supply shop and heads to Iping to attempt to reverse the effect. But now that he imagines he can make Kemp his secret confederate, describing his plan to begin a \"Reign of Terror\" by using his invisibility to terrorize the nation. Kemp has already denounced Griffin to the local authorities and is on the watch for help to arrive as he listens to this wild proposal. When the authorities arrive at Kemp's house, Griffin fights his way out and the next day leaves a note announcing that Kemp himself will be the first man to be killed in the \"Reign of Terror\". Kemp, a cool"
      },
      {
        "text": " his secret confederate, describing his plan to begin a \"Reign of Terror\" by using his invisibility to terrorize the nation. Kemp has already denounced Griffin to the local authorities and is on the watch for help to arrive as he listens to this wild proposal. When the authorities arrive at Kemp's house, Griffin fights his way out and the next day leaves a note announcing that Kemp himself will be the first man to be killed in the \"Reign of Terror\". Kemp, a cool-headed character, tries to organize a plan to use himself as bait to trap the Invisible Man, but a note he sends is stolen from his servant by Griffin. Griffin shoots and kills a local policeman who comes to Kemp's aid, then breaks into Kemp's house. Kemp bolts for the town, where the local citizenry comes to his aid. Griffin is seized, assaulted, and killed by a mob. The Invisible Man's naked, battered body gradually becomes visible as he dies. A local policeman shouts to cover his face with a sheet, then the book concludes. In the final chapter, it is revealed that Marvel has secretly kept Griffin's notes. Griffin's name is not known by anyone (including the reader) until he meets Kemp whom he reveals his identity to. Until then, he is referred to as the stranger or the Invisible Man.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea",
    "author": "Emanuel J Mickel",
    "published_date": "1869",
    "synopsis": " As the story begins in 1866, a mysterious sea monster, theorized by some to be a giant narwhal, is sighted by ships of several nations; an ocean liner is also damaged by the creature. The United States government finally assembles an expedition in New York City to track down and destroy the menace. Professor Pierre Aronnax, a noted French marine biologist and narrator of the story, who happens to be in New York at the time and is a recognized expert in his field, is issued a last-minute invitation to join the expedition, and he accepts. Canadian master harpoonist Ned Land and Aronnax's faithful assistant Conseil are also brought on board. The expedition sets sail from Brooklyn aboard a naval ship called the Abraham Lincoln, which travels down around the tip of South America and into the Pacific Ocean. After much fruitless searching, the monster is found, and the ship charges into battle. During the fight, the ship's steering is damaged, and the three protagonists are thrown overboard. They find themselves stranded on the \"hide\" of the creature, only to discover to their surprise that it is a large metal construct. They are quickly captured and brought inside the vessel, where they meet its enigmatic creator and commander, Captain Nemo. The rest of the story follows the adventures of the protagonists aboard the submarine, the Nautilus, which was built in secrecy and now roams the seas free of any land-based government. Captain Nemo's motivation is implied to be both a scientific thirst for knowledge and a desire for revenge on (and self-imposed exile from) civilization. Captain Nemo explains that the submarine is electrically powered, and equipped to carry out cutting-edge marine biology research; he also tells his new passengers that while he appreciates having an expert such as Aronnax with whom to converse, they can never leave because he is afraid they will betray his existence to the world. Aronnax is enthralled by the undersea vistas he is seeing, but Land constantly plots to escape. Their travels take them to numerous points in the world's oceans, some of which were known to Jules Verne from real travelers' descriptions and guesses, while others are completely fictional. Thus, the travelers witness the real corals of the Red Sea, the wrecks of the battle of Vigo Bay, the Antarctic ice shelves, and the fictional submerged Atlantis. The travelers also don diving suits to go on undersea expeditions away from the ship, where they hunt sharks and other marine life with specially designed guns and have a funeral for a crew member who died when an accident occurred inside the Nautilus. When the Nautilus returns to the Atlantic Ocean, a \"poulpe\" (usually translated as a giant squid, although the French \"poulpe\" means \"octopus\") attacks the vessel and devours a crew member. Throughout the story it is suggested that Captain Nemo exiled himself from the world after an encounter with his oppressive country somehow affected his family. Near the end of the book, the Nautilus is tracked and attacked by a mysterious ship from that nation. Nemo ignores Aronnax's pleas for amnesty for the boat and attacks. Nemo attacks the ship under the waterline, sending it to the bottom of the ocean with all crew aboard as Aronnax watches from the salon. Nemo bows before the pictures of his wife and children and is plunged into deep depression after this encounter, and \"voluntarily or involuntarily\" allows the submarine to wander into an encounter with the Moskenstraumen, more commonly known as the \"Maelstrom\", a whirlpool off the coast of Norway. This gives the three prisoners an opportunity to escape; they make it back to land alive, but the fate of Captain Nemo and his crew is not revealed.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As the story begins in 1866, a mysterious sea monster, theorized by some to be a giant narwhal, is sighted by ships of several nations; an ocean liner is also damaged by the creature. The United States government finally assembles an expedition in New York City to track down and destroy the menace. Professor Pierre Aronnax, a noted French marine biologist and narrator of the story, who happens to be in New York at the time and is a recognized expert in his field, is issued a last-minute invitation to join the expedition, and he accepts. Canadian master harpoonist Ned Land and Aronnax's faithful assistant Conseil are also brought on board. The expedition sets sail from Brooklyn aboard a naval ship called the Abraham Lincoln, which travels down around the tip of South America and into the Pacific Ocean. After much fruitless searching, the monster is found, and the ship charges into battle. During the fight, the ship's steering is damaged, and the three protagonists are thrown overboard. They find themselves stranded on the \"hide\" of the creature, only to discover to their surprise that it is a large metal construct. They are quickly captured and brought inside the vessel, where they meet its enigmatic creator and commander, Captain Nemo. The rest of the story follows the adventures of the protagonists aboard the submarine, the Nautilus, which was built in secrecy and now roams the seas free of any land-based government. Captain Nemo's motivation is implied to be both a scientific thirst for knowledge and a desire for revenge on (and self-imposed exile from) civilization. Captain Nemo explains that the submarine is electrically powered, and equipped to carry out cutting-edge marine biology research; he also tells his new passengers that while he appreciates having an expert such as Aronnax with whom to converse, they can never leave because he is afraid they will betray his existence to the world. Aronnax"
      },
      {
        "text": "o's motivation is implied to be both a scientific thirst for knowledge and a desire for revenge on (and self-imposed exile from) civilization. Captain Nemo explains that the submarine is electrically powered, and equipped to carry out cutting-edge marine biology research; he also tells his new passengers that while he appreciates having an expert such as Aronnax with whom to converse, they can never leave because he is afraid they will betray his existence to the world. Aronnax is enthralled by the undersea vistas he is seeing, but Land constantly plots to escape. Their travels take them to numerous points in the world's oceans, some of which were known to Jules Verne from real travelers' descriptions and guesses, while others are completely fictional. Thus, the travelers witness the real corals of the Red Sea, the wrecks of the battle of Vigo Bay, the Antarctic ice shelves, and the fictional submerged Atlantis. The travelers also don diving suits to go on undersea expeditions away from the ship, where they hunt sharks and other marine life with specially designed guns and have a funeral for a crew member who died when an accident occurred inside the Nautilus. When the Nautilus returns to the Atlantic Ocean, a \"poulpe\" (usually translated as a giant squid, although the French \"poulpe\" means \"octopus\") attacks the vessel and devours a crew member. Throughout the story it is suggested that Captain Nemo exiled himself from the world after an encounter with his oppressive country somehow affected his family. Near the end of the book, the Nautilus is tracked and attacked by a mysterious ship from that nation. Nemo ignores Aronnax's pleas for amnesty for the boat and attacks. Nemo attacks the ship under the waterline, sending it to the bottom of the ocean with all crew aboard as Aronnax watches from the salon. Nemo bows before the pictures of his wife"
      },
      {
        "text": " Nemo exiled himself from the world after an encounter with his oppressive country somehow affected his family. Near the end of the book, the Nautilus is tracked and attacked by a mysterious ship from that nation. Nemo ignores Aronnax's pleas for amnesty for the boat and attacks. Nemo attacks the ship under the waterline, sending it to the bottom of the ocean with all crew aboard as Aronnax watches from the salon. Nemo bows before the pictures of his wife and children and is plunged into deep depression after this encounter, and \"voluntarily or involuntarily\" allows the submarine to wander into an encounter with the Moskenstraumen, more commonly known as the \"Maelstrom\", a whirlpool off the coast of Norway. This gives the three prisoners an opportunity to escape; they make it back to land alive, but the fate of Captain Nemo and his crew is not revealed.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Keep the Aspidistra Flying",
    "author": "George Orwell",
    "published_date": "1936",
    "synopsis": " Gordon Comstock has 'declared war' on what he sees as an 'overarching dependence' on money by leaving a promising job as a copywriter for an advertising company called 'New Albion'\u2014at which he shows great dexterity\u2014and taking a low-paying job instead, ostensibly so he can write poetry. Coming from a respectable family background in which the inherited wealth has now become dissipated, Gordon resents having to work for a living. The 'war' (and the poetry), however, aren't going particularly well and, under the stress of his 'self-imposed exile' from affluence, Gordon has become absurd, petty and deeply neurotic. Comstock lives in a bedsit in London and earns enough to live, without luxuries, in a small bookshop owned by a Scot, McKechnie. He works intermittently at a magnum opus describing a day in London he plans to call London Pleasures; meanwhile, his only published work, a slim volume of poetry entitled Mice, collects dust on the remainder shelf. He is simultaneously content with his meagre existence and also disdainful of it. He lives without financial ambition and the need for a 'good job,' but his living conditions are uncomfortable and his job is boring. Comstock is 'obsessed' by what he sees as a pervasion of money (the 'Money God', as he calls it) behind social relationships, feeling sure that women would find him more attractive if he were better off. At the beginning of the novel, he senses that his girlfriend Rosemary Waterlow (whom he met at The Albion, and who continues to work there), is dissatisfied with him because of his poverty. An example of his financial embarrassment is when he is desperate for a pint of beer at his local pub, but has run out of pocket money and is ashamed to cadge a drink off his fellow lodger, Flaxman. One of Comstock's last remaining friends, Philip Ravelston, a Marxist who publishes a magazine called Anti-Christ, agrees with Comstock in principle, but is comfortably well-off himself and this causes strains when the practical miseries of Comstock's life become apparent. He does, however, endeavour to publish some of Comstock's work and his efforts had resulted in Mice being published via one of his publisher contacts (unbeknownst to Comstock). Gordon and Rosemary have little time together\u2014she works late and lives in a hostel, and his 'bitch of a landlady' forbids female visitors to her tenants. Then one evening, having headed southward and having been thinking about women, - this women business in general, and Rosemary in particular, - he happens to see Rosemary in a street market. Rosemary won't have sex with him but she wants to spend a Sunday with him, right out in the country, near Burnham Beeches. At their parting, as he takes the tram from Tottenham Court Road back to his bedsit, he is happy and feels that somehow it is agreed between them that Rosemary is going to be his mistress. However, what is intended to be a pleasant day out away from London's grime turns into a disaster when, though hungry, they opt to pass by a 'rather low-looking' pub, and can then not find another pub, and are forced to eat an unappetizing lunch at a fancy, overpriced hotel instead. Gordon has to pay the bill with all the money he had set aside for their jaunt and worries about having to borrow money from Rosemary. At the critical moment when he is about to take her virginity, she raises the issue of contraception and his interest flags. He rails at her; \"Money again, you see! [-] You say you can't have a baby. You mean you daren't; because you'd lose your job and I've got no money and all of us would starve.\" Having sent a poem to an American publication, Gordon suddenly receives from them a cheque worth ten pounds \u2014 a considerable sum for him at the time. He intends to set aside half for his sister Julia, who has always been there to lend him money and support. He treats Rosemary and Ravelston to dinner, which begins well, but the evening deteriorates as it proceeds. Gordon, drunk, tries to force himself upon Rosemary but she angrily rebukes him and leaves. Gordon continues drinking, drags Ravelston with him to visit a pair of prostitutes, and ends up broke and in a police cell the next morning. He is guilt-ridden over the thought of being unable to pay his sister back the money he owes her, because his \u00a35 note is gone, given to, or stolen by, one of the tarts. Ravelston pays Gordon's fine after a brief appearance before the magistrate, but a reporter hears about the case, and writes about it in the local paper. The ensuing publicity results in Gordon losing his job at the bookshop, and, consequently, his relatively 'comfortable' lifestyle. As Gordon searches for another job, his life deteriorates, and his poetry stagnates. After living with his friend Ravelston, and his girlfriend Hermione, during his time of unemployment, Gordon ends up working at another book shop and cheap two-penny lending library, this time in Lambeth, owned by the sinister Mr. Cheeseman, for an even smaller wage of 30 shillings a week. This is 10 shillings less than he was earning before, but Gordon is satisfied; \"The job would do. There was no trouble about a job like this; no room for ambition, no effort, no hope.\" Determined to sink to the lowest level of society Gordon takes a furnished bed-sitting-room in a filthy alley parallel to Lambeth Cut. Julie and Rosemary, \"in feminine league against him\", both seek to get Gordon to go back to his 'good' job at the New Albion advertising agency. Rosemary, having avoided Gordon for some time, suddenly comes to visit him one day at his dismal lodgings. Despite his terrible poverty and shabbiness, they make love but it is without any emotion or passion. Later, Rosemary drops in one day unexpectedly at the library, having not been in touch with Gordon for some time, and tells him that she is pregnant. Gordon is presented with the choice between leaving Rosemary to a life of social shame at the hands of her family\u2014since both of them reject the idea of an abortion\u2014or marrying her and returning to a life of respectability by taking back the job he once so deplored at the New Albion with its \u00a34 weekly salary. He chooses Rosemary and respectability and then experiences a feeling of relief at having abandoned his anti-money principles with such comparative ease. After two years of abject failure and poverty, he throws his poetic work London Pleasures down a drain, marries Rosemary, resumes his advertising career, and plunges into a campaign to promote a new product to prevent foot odour. In his lonely walks around mean streets, aspidistras seem to appear in every lower-middle class window. As the book closes, Gordon wins an argument with Rosemary to install an aspidistra in their new small but comfortable flat off the Edgware Road.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Gordon Comstock has 'declared war' on what he sees as an 'overarching dependence' on money by leaving a promising job as a copywriter for an advertising company called 'New Albion'\u2014at which he shows great dexterity\u2014and taking a low-paying job instead, ostensibly so he can write poetry. Coming from a respectable family background in which the inherited wealth has now become dissipated, Gordon resents having to work for a living. The 'war' (and the poetry), however, aren't going particularly well and, under the stress of his 'self-imposed exile' from affluence, Gordon has become absurd, petty and deeply neurotic. Comstock lives in a bedsit in London and earns enough to live, without luxuries, in a small bookshop owned by a Scot, McKechnie. He works intermittently at a magnum opus describing a day in London he plans to call London Pleasures; meanwhile, his only published work, a slim volume of poetry entitled Mice, collects dust on the remainder shelf. He is simultaneously content with his meagre existence and also disdainful of it. He lives without financial ambition and the need for a 'good job,' but his living conditions are uncomfortable and his job is boring. Comstock is 'obsessed' by what he sees as a pervasion of money (the 'Money God', as he calls it) behind social relationships, feeling sure that women would find him more attractive if he were better off. At the beginning of the novel, he senses that his girlfriend Rosemary Waterlow (whom he met at The Albion, and who continues to work there), is dissatisfied with him because of his poverty. An example of his financial embarrassment is when he is desperate for a pint of beer at his local pub, but has run out of pocket money and is ashamed to cadge a drink off his fellow lodger, Flaxman. One of Comstock's last remaining friends"
      },
      {
        "text": " he were better off. At the beginning of the novel, he senses that his girlfriend Rosemary Waterlow (whom he met at The Albion, and who continues to work there), is dissatisfied with him because of his poverty. An example of his financial embarrassment is when he is desperate for a pint of beer at his local pub, but has run out of pocket money and is ashamed to cadge a drink off his fellow lodger, Flaxman. One of Comstock's last remaining friends, Philip Ravelston, a Marxist who publishes a magazine called Anti-Christ, agrees with Comstock in principle, but is comfortably well-off himself and this causes strains when the practical miseries of Comstock's life become apparent. He does, however, endeavour to publish some of Comstock's work and his efforts had resulted in Mice being published via one of his publisher contacts (unbeknownst to Comstock). Gordon and Rosemary have little time together\u2014she works late and lives in a hostel, and his 'bitch of a landlady' forbids female visitors to her tenants. Then one evening, having headed southward and having been thinking about women, - this women business in general, and Rosemary in particular, - he happens to see Rosemary in a street market. Rosemary won't have sex with him but she wants to spend a Sunday with him, right out in the country, near Burnham Beeches. At their parting, as he takes the tram from Tottenham Court Road back to his bedsit, he is happy and feels that somehow it is agreed between them that Rosemary is going to be his mistress. However, what is intended to be a pleasant day out away from London's grime turns into a disaster when, though hungry, they opt to pass by a 'rather low-looking' pub, and can then not find another pub, and are forced to eat an unappetizing lunch at a fancy, overpriced"
      },
      {
        "text": " takes the tram from Tottenham Court Road back to his bedsit, he is happy and feels that somehow it is agreed between them that Rosemary is going to be his mistress. However, what is intended to be a pleasant day out away from London's grime turns into a disaster when, though hungry, they opt to pass by a 'rather low-looking' pub, and can then not find another pub, and are forced to eat an unappetizing lunch at a fancy, overpriced hotel instead. Gordon has to pay the bill with all the money he had set aside for their jaunt and worries about having to borrow money from Rosemary. At the critical moment when he is about to take her virginity, she raises the issue of contraception and his interest flags. He rails at her; \"Money again, you see! [-] You say you can't have a baby. You mean you daren't; because you'd lose your job and I've got no money and all of us would starve.\" Having sent a poem to an American publication, Gordon suddenly receives from them a cheque worth ten pounds \u2014 a considerable sum for him at the time. He intends to set aside half for his sister Julia, who has always been there to lend him money and support. He treats Rosemary and Ravelston to dinner, which begins well, but the evening deteriorates as it proceeds. Gordon, drunk, tries to force himself upon Rosemary but she angrily rebukes him and leaves. Gordon continues drinking, drags Ravelston with him to visit a pair of prostitutes, and ends up broke and in a police cell the next morning. He is guilt-ridden over the thought of being unable to pay his sister back the money he owes her, because his \u00a35 note is gone, given to, or stolen by, one of the tarts. Ravelston pays Gordon's fine after a brief appearance before the magistrate, but a reporter hears about the case, and"
      },
      {
        "text": " leaves. Gordon continues drinking, drags Ravelston with him to visit a pair of prostitutes, and ends up broke and in a police cell the next morning. He is guilt-ridden over the thought of being unable to pay his sister back the money he owes her, because his \u00a35 note is gone, given to, or stolen by, one of the tarts. Ravelston pays Gordon's fine after a brief appearance before the magistrate, but a reporter hears about the case, and writes about it in the local paper. The ensuing publicity results in Gordon losing his job at the bookshop, and, consequently, his relatively 'comfortable' lifestyle. As Gordon searches for another job, his life deteriorates, and his poetry stagnates. After living with his friend Ravelston, and his girlfriend Hermione, during his time of unemployment, Gordon ends up working at another book shop and cheap two-penny lending library, this time in Lambeth, owned by the sinister Mr. Cheeseman, for an even smaller wage of 30 shillings a week. This is 10 shillings less than he was earning before, but Gordon is satisfied; \"The job would do. There was no trouble about a job like this; no room for ambition, no effort, no hope.\" Determined to sink to the lowest level of society Gordon takes a furnished bed-sitting-room in a filthy alley parallel to Lambeth Cut. Julie and Rosemary, \"in feminine league against him\", both seek to get Gordon to go back to his 'good' job at the New Albion advertising agency. Rosemary, having avoided Gordon for some time, suddenly comes to visit him one day at his dismal lodgings. Despite his terrible poverty and shabbiness, they make love but it is without any emotion or passion. Later, Rosemary drops in one day unexpectedly at the library, having not been in touch with Gordon for some time, and tells him that she"
      },
      {
        "text": " feminine league against him\", both seek to get Gordon to go back to his 'good' job at the New Albion advertising agency. Rosemary, having avoided Gordon for some time, suddenly comes to visit him one day at his dismal lodgings. Despite his terrible poverty and shabbiness, they make love but it is without any emotion or passion. Later, Rosemary drops in one day unexpectedly at the library, having not been in touch with Gordon for some time, and tells him that she is pregnant. Gordon is presented with the choice between leaving Rosemary to a life of social shame at the hands of her family\u2014since both of them reject the idea of an abortion\u2014or marrying her and returning to a life of respectability by taking back the job he once so deplored at the New Albion with its \u00a34 weekly salary. He chooses Rosemary and respectability and then experiences a feeling of relief at having abandoned his anti-money principles with such comparative ease. After two years of abject failure and poverty, he throws his poetic work London Pleasures down a drain, marries Rosemary, resumes his advertising career, and plunges into a campaign to promote a new product to prevent foot odour. In his lonely walks around mean streets, aspidistras seem to appear in every lower-middle class window. As the book closes, Gordon wins an argument with Rosemary to install an aspidistra in their new small but comfortable flat off the Edgware Road.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Manon Lescaut",
    "author": "Antoine Fran\u00e7ois Pr\u00e9vost",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Set in France and Louisiana in the early 18th century, the story follows the hero, the Chevalier des Grieux, and his lover, Manon Lescaut. Des Grieux comes from a noble and landed family, but forfeits his hereditary wealth and incurs the disappointment of his father by running away with Manon. In Paris, the young lovers enjoy a blissful cohabitation, while Des Grieux struggles to satisfy Manon's taste for luxury. He scrounges together money by borrowing from his unwaveringly loyal friend Tiberge and from cheating gamblers. On several occasions, Des Grieux's wealth evaporates (by theft, in a house fire, etc.), prompting Manon to leave him for a richer man because she cannot stand the thought of living in penury. The two lovers finally settle down in New Orleans, where the virtual absence of class differences allows them for a while to live in idyllic peace. But when Des Grieux reveals their unmarried state to the Governor and asks to be wed with Manon, the Governor's nephew sets his sights on winning Manon's hand. In despair, Des Grieux challenges the Governor's nephew to a duel and knocks him unconscious. Thinking he had killed the man and fearing retribution, the couple flee New Orleans and venture into the wilderness of Louisiana, hoping to reach a neighbouring English settlement. Manon dies of exposure and exhaustion the following morning; after burying her, Des Grieux returns to France to become a cleric.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set in France and Louisiana in the early 18th century, the story follows the hero, the Chevalier des Grieux, and his lover, Manon Lescaut. Des Grieux comes from a noble and landed family, but forfeits his hereditary wealth and incurs the disappointment of his father by running away with Manon. In Paris, the young lovers enjoy a blissful cohabitation, while Des Grieux struggles to satisfy Manon's taste for luxury. He scrounges together money by borrowing from his unwaveringly loyal friend Tiberge and from cheating gamblers. On several occasions, Des Grieux's wealth evaporates (by theft, in a house fire, etc.), prompting Manon to leave him for a richer man because she cannot stand the thought of living in penury. The two lovers finally settle down in New Orleans, where the virtual absence of class differences allows them for a while to live in idyllic peace. But when Des Grieux reveals their unmarried state to the Governor and asks to be wed with Manon, the Governor's nephew sets his sights on winning Manon's hand. In despair, Des Grieux challenges the Governor's nephew to a duel and knocks him unconscious. Thinking he had killed the man and fearing retribution, the couple flee New Orleans and venture into the wilderness of Louisiana, hoping to reach a neighbouring English settlement. Manon dies of exposure and exhaustion the following morning; after burying her, Des Grieux returns to France to become a cleric.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Des Grieux returns to France to become a cleric.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition, with Source Code",
    "author": "John Lions",
    "published_date": "1996",
    "synopsis": " Unix Operating System Source Code Level Six is the kernel source code, lightly edited by Lions to better separate the functionality — system initialization and process management, interrupts and system calls, basic I/O, file systems and pipes and character devices. All procedures and symbols are listed alphabetically with a cross reference. The code as presented will run on a PDP-11/40 with RK-05 disk drive, LP-11 line printer interface, PCL-11 paper tape writer and KL-11 terminal interface, or a suitable PDP-11 emulator, such as SIMH. A Commentary on the Unix Operating System starts with notes on Unix and other useful documentation (the Unix manual pages, DEC hardware manuals and so on), a section on the architecture of the PDP-11 and a chapter on how to read C programs. The source commentary follows, divided into the same sections as the code. The book ends with suggested exercises for the student. As Lions explains, this commentary supplements the comments in the source. It is possible to understand the code without the extra commentary, and the reader is advised to do so and only read the notes as needed. The commentary also remarks on how the code might be improved.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Unix Operating System Source Code Level Six is the kernel source code, lightly edited by Lions to better separate the functionality — system initialization and process management, interrupts and system calls, basic I/O, file systems and pipes and character devices. All procedures and symbols are listed alphabetically with a cross reference. The code as presented will run on a PDP-11/40 with RK-05 disk drive, LP-11 line printer interface, PCL-11 paper tape writer and KL-11 terminal interface, or a suitable PDP-11 emulator, such as SIMH. A Commentary on the Unix Operating System starts with notes on Unix and other useful documentation (the Unix manual pages, DEC hardware manuals and so on), a section on the architecture of the PDP-11 and a chapter on how to read C programs. The source commentary follows, divided into the same sections as the code. The book ends with suggested exercises for the student. As Lions explains, this commentary supplements the comments in the source. It is possible to understand the code without the extra commentary, and the reader is advised to do so and only read the notes as needed. The commentary also remarks on how the code might be improved.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Myth of Sisyphus",
    "author": "Albert Camus",
    "published_date": "1942",
    "synopsis": " The essay is dedicated to Pascal Pia and is organized in four chapters and one appendix. Camus undertakes to answer what he considers to be the only question of philosophy that matters: Does the realization of the meaninglessness and absurdity of life necessarily require suicide? He begins by describing the absurd condition: much of our life is built on the hope for tomorrow yet tomorrow brings us closer to death and is the ultimate enemy; people live as if they didn't know about the certainty of death; once stripped of its common romanticisms, the world is a foreign, strange and inhuman place; true knowledge is impossible and rationality and science cannot explain the world: their stories ultimately end in meaningless abstractions, in metaphors. \"From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all.\" It is not the world that is absurd, nor human thought: the absurd arises when the human need to understand meets the unreasonableness of the world, when \"my appetite for the absolute and for unity\" meets the inability of \"reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle.\" He then characterizes a number of philosophies that describe and attempt to deal with this feeling of the absurd, by Heidegger, Jaspers, Shestov, Kierkegaard, and Husserl. All of these, he claims, commit \"philosophical suicide\" by reaching conclusions that contradict the original absurd position, either by abandoning reason and turning to God, as in the case of Kierkegaard and Shestov, or by elevating reason and ultimately arriving at ubiquitous Platonic forms and an abstract god, as in the case of Husserl. For Camus, who set out to take the absurd seriously and follow it to its final conclusions, these \"leaps\" cannot convince. Taking the absurd seriously means acknowledging the contradiction between the desire of human reason and the unreasonable world. Suicide, then, also must be rejected: without man, the absurd cannot exist. The contradiction must be lived; reason and its limits must be acknowledged, without false hope. However, the absurd can never be accepted: it requires constant confrontation, constant revolt. While the question of human freedom in the metaphysical sense loses interest to the absurd man, he gains freedom in a very concrete sense: no longer bound by hope for a better future or eternity, without a need to pursue life's purpose or to create meaning, \"he enjoys a freedom with regard to common rules\". To embrace the absurd implies embracing all that the unreasonable world has to offer. Without a meaning in life, there is no scale of values. \"What counts is not the best living but the most living.\" Thus, Camus arrives at three consequences from the full acknowledging of the absurd: revolt, freedom and passion. How should the absurd man live? Clearly, no ethical rules apply, as they are all based on higher powers or on justification. \"Integrity has no need of rules.\" 'Everything is permitted' \"is not an outburst of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgment of a fact.\" Camus then goes on to present examples of the absurd life. He begins with Don Juan, the serial seducer who lives the passionate life to the fullest. \"There is no noble love but that which recognizes itself to be both short-lived and exceptional.\" The next example is the actor, who depicts ephemeral lives for ephemeral fame. \"He demonstrates to what degree appearing creates being.\" \"In those three hours he travels the whole course of the dead-end path that the man in the audience takes a lifetime to cover.\" Camus' third example of the absurd man is the conqueror, the warrior who forgoes all promises of eternity to affect and engage fully in human history. He chooses action over contemplation, aware of the fact that nothing can last and no victory is final. Here Camus explores the absurd creator or artist. Since explanation is impossible, absurd art is restricted to a description of the myriad experiences in the world. \"If the world were clear, art would not exist.\" Absurd creation, of course, also must refrain from judging and from alluding to even the slightest shadow of hope. He then analyzes the work of Dostoyevsky in this light, especially The Diary of a Writer, The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov. All these works start from the absurd position, and the first two explore the theme of philosophical suicide. But both The Diary and his last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, ultimately find a path to hope and faith and thus fail as truly absurd creations. In the last chapter, Camus outlines the legend of Sisyphus who defied the gods and put Death in chains so that no human needed to die. When Death was eventually liberated and it came time for Sisyphus himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld. Finally captured, the gods decided on his punishment: for all eternity, he would have to push a rock up a mountain; upon reaching the top, the rock would roll down again leaving Sisyphus to start over. Camus sees Sisyphus as the absurd hero who lives life to the fullest, hates death and is condemned to a meaningless task. Camus presents Sisyphus's ceaseless and pointless toil as a metaphor for modern lives spent working at futile jobs in factories and offices. \"The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.\" Camus is interested in Sisyphus' thoughts when marching down the mountain, to start anew. This is the truly tragic moment, when the hero becomes conscious of his wretched condition. He does not have hope, but \"[t]here is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.\" Acknowledging the truth will conquer it; Sisyphus, just like the absurd man, keeps pushing. Camus claims that when Sisyphus acknowledges the futility of his task and the certainty of his fate, he is freed to realize the absurdity of his situation and to reach a state of contented acceptance. With a nod to the similarly cursed Greek hero Oedipus, Camus concludes that \"all is well,\" indeed, that \"[o]ne must imagine Sisyphus happy.\" The essay contains an appendix titled \"Hope and the Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka\". While Camus acknowledges that Kafka's work represents an exquisite description of the absurd condition, he maintains that Kafka fails as an absurd writer because his work retains a glimmer of hope.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The essay is dedicated to Pascal Pia and is organized in four chapters and one appendix. Camus undertakes to answer what he considers to be the only question of philosophy that matters: Does the realization of the meaninglessness and absurdity of life necessarily require suicide? He begins by describing the absurd condition: much of our life is built on the hope for tomorrow yet tomorrow brings us closer to death and is the ultimate enemy; people live as if they didn't know about the certainty of death; once stripped of its common romanticisms, the world is a foreign, strange and inhuman place; true knowledge is impossible and rationality and science cannot explain the world: their stories ultimately end in meaningless abstractions, in metaphors. \"From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all.\" It is not the world that is absurd, nor human thought: the absurd arises when the human need to understand meets the unreasonableness of the world, when \"my appetite for the absolute and for unity\" meets the inability of \"reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle.\" He then characterizes a number of philosophies that describe and attempt to deal with this feeling of the absurd, by Heidegger, Jaspers, Shestov, Kierkegaard, and Husserl. All of these, he claims, commit \"philosophical suicide\" by reaching conclusions that contradict the original absurd position, either by abandoning reason and turning to God, as in the case of Kierkegaard and Shestov, or by elevating reason and ultimately arriving at ubiquitous Platonic forms and an abstract god, as in the case of Husserl. For Camus, who set out to take the absurd seriously and follow it to its final conclusions, these \"leaps\" cannot convince. Taking the absurd seriously means acknowledging the contradiction between the desire of human reason and the unreasonable world. Suicide, then, also must be rejected: without man, the absurd cannot exist. The"
      },
      {
        "text": " Kierkegaard and Shestov, or by elevating reason and ultimately arriving at ubiquitous Platonic forms and an abstract god, as in the case of Husserl. For Camus, who set out to take the absurd seriously and follow it to its final conclusions, these \"leaps\" cannot convince. Taking the absurd seriously means acknowledging the contradiction between the desire of human reason and the unreasonable world. Suicide, then, also must be rejected: without man, the absurd cannot exist. The contradiction must be lived; reason and its limits must be acknowledged, without false hope. However, the absurd can never be accepted: it requires constant confrontation, constant revolt. While the question of human freedom in the metaphysical sense loses interest to the absurd man, he gains freedom in a very concrete sense: no longer bound by hope for a better future or eternity, without a need to pursue life's purpose or to create meaning, \"he enjoys a freedom with regard to common rules\". To embrace the absurd implies embracing all that the unreasonable world has to offer. Without a meaning in life, there is no scale of values. \"What counts is not the best living but the most living.\" Thus, Camus arrives at three consequences from the full acknowledging of the absurd: revolt, freedom and passion. How should the absurd man live? Clearly, no ethical rules apply, as they are all based on higher powers or on justification. \"Integrity has no need of rules.\" 'Everything is permitted' \"is not an outburst of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgment of a fact.\" Camus then goes on to present examples of the absurd life. He begins with Don Juan, the serial seducer who lives the passionate life to the fullest. \"There is no noble love but that which recognizes itself to be both short-lived and exceptional.\" The next example is the actor, who depicts ephemeral lives for ephemeral fame. \"He demonstrates to what degree appearing creates being.\""
      },
      {
        "text": "is not an outburst of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgment of a fact.\" Camus then goes on to present examples of the absurd life. He begins with Don Juan, the serial seducer who lives the passionate life to the fullest. \"There is no noble love but that which recognizes itself to be both short-lived and exceptional.\" The next example is the actor, who depicts ephemeral lives for ephemeral fame. \"He demonstrates to what degree appearing creates being.\" \"In those three hours he travels the whole course of the dead-end path that the man in the audience takes a lifetime to cover.\" Camus' third example of the absurd man is the conqueror, the warrior who forgoes all promises of eternity to affect and engage fully in human history. He chooses action over contemplation, aware of the fact that nothing can last and no victory is final. Here Camus explores the absurd creator or artist. Since explanation is impossible, absurd art is restricted to a description of the myriad experiences in the world. \"If the world were clear, art would not exist.\" Absurd creation, of course, also must refrain from judging and from alluding to even the slightest shadow of hope. He then analyzes the work of Dostoyevsky in this light, especially The Diary of a Writer, The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov. All these works start from the absurd position, and the first two explore the theme of philosophical suicide. But both The Diary and his last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, ultimately find a path to hope and faith and thus fail as truly absurd creations. In the last chapter, Camus outlines the legend of Sisyphus who defied the gods and put Death in chains so that no human needed to die. When Death was eventually liberated and it came time for Sisyphus himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld. Finally captured, the gods decided"
      },
      {
        "text": " But both The Diary and his last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, ultimately find a path to hope and faith and thus fail as truly absurd creations. In the last chapter, Camus outlines the legend of Sisyphus who defied the gods and put Death in chains so that no human needed to die. When Death was eventually liberated and it came time for Sisyphus himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld. Finally captured, the gods decided on his punishment: for all eternity, he would have to push a rock up a mountain; upon reaching the top, the rock would roll down again leaving Sisyphus to start over. Camus sees Sisyphus as the absurd hero who lives life to the fullest, hates death and is condemned to a meaningless task. Camus presents Sisyphus's ceaseless and pointless toil as a metaphor for modern lives spent working at futile jobs in factories and offices. \"The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.\" Camus is interested in Sisyphus' thoughts when marching down the mountain, to start anew. This is the truly tragic moment, when the hero becomes conscious of his wretched condition. He does not have hope, but \"[t]here is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.\" Acknowledging the truth will conquer it; Sisyphus, just like the absurd man, keeps pushing. Camus claims that when Sisyphus acknowledges the futility of his task and the certainty of his fate, he is freed to realize the absurdity of his situation and to reach a state of contented acceptance. With a nod to the similarly cursed Greek hero Oedipus, Camus concludes that \"all is well,\" indeed, that \"[o]ne must imagine Sisyphus happy"
      },
      {
        "text": " the truth will conquer it; Sisyphus, just like the absurd man, keeps pushing. Camus claims that when Sisyphus acknowledges the futility of his task and the certainty of his fate, he is freed to realize the absurdity of his situation and to reach a state of contented acceptance. With a nod to the similarly cursed Greek hero Oedipus, Camus concludes that \"all is well,\" indeed, that \"[o]ne must imagine Sisyphus happy.\" The essay contains an appendix titled \"Hope and the Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka\". While Camus acknowledges that Kafka's work represents an exquisite description of the absurd condition, he maintains that Kafka fails as an absurd writer because his work retains a glimmer of hope.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Cymbeline",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Imogen (or Innogen), daughter of the British king Cymbeline, is in love with Posthumus Leonatus, a man raised in her father's court who is described as possessing exceeding personal merit and martial skill. The two have secretly married, exchanging jewellery as tokens: a ring from Imogen, a bracelet from Posthumus. Cymbeline has discovered the affair and banishes Posthumus for his presumption, for Imogen is currently Cymbeline's only child and so her husband is heir to the British throne. Cymbeline did have two sons before Imogen, Guiderius and Arviragus, but they were stolen twenty years ago as infants by Belarius, a courtier banished as a traitor for supposedly conspiring with the Romans. Cymbeline is a vassal king of Caesar Augustus, and Caius Lucius, a Roman ambassador, is on his way to demand the tribute that Cymbeline, under the influence of his wife the Queen, has stopped paying. The Queen is conspiring to have Cloten, her cloddish and arrogant son by an earlier marriage, married to Imogen. The Queen also is plotting to murder both Imogen and Cymbeline to secure Cloten's kingship, and to that end has procured what she believes to be deadly poison from the court doctor Cornelius; Cornelius, however, suspects the Queen's malice and switches the \"poison\" with a drug that will cause the imbiber's body to mimic death for a while before reviving. Imogen meanwhile secludes herself in her chambers, resisting entreaties that she come forth and marry Cloten. Posthumus flees to Italy to the house of his friend Philario/Filario, where he meets Iachimo/Giacomo. Posthumus waxes at length on Imogen's beauty and chastity, and Iachimo challenges him to a bet that he, Iachimo, can seduce Imogen and bring Posthumus proof of her adultery. If he wins, Iachimo will get Imogen's ring from Posthumus's finger. If Posthumus wins, not only must Iachimo pay him but also consent to a sword duel so that Posthumus may avenge his and Imogen's affronted honour. Iachimo heads to Britain where he aggressively attempts to seduce the faithful Imogen, who sends him packing. Iachimo then hides in a chest in Imogen's bedchamber and, when the princess falls asleep, emerges to steal from her Posthumus's bracelet. He also examines the room and Imogen's naked body for further proof. Returning to Italy, Iachimo convinces Posthumus that he has successfully seduced Imogen. In his wrath, Posthumus sends two letters to Britain: one to Imogen, telling her to meet him at Milford Haven, on the west coast of Wales; the other to Pisanio, Posthumus's servant left behind at court, ordering him to murder Imogen at the Haven. On the way the anguished Pisanio instead shows his letter to Imogen, revealing Posthumus's plot. He has Imogen disguise herself as a boy and continue to Milford Haven to seek employment. He also gives her the Queen's \"poison,\" believing it will alleviate nausea from distemper and motion sickness. Imogen adopts the name \"Fidele,\" meaning \"faithful.\" Back at court, Lucius receives Cymbeline's refusal of tribute, and warns him of Augustus's wrath. Meanwhile Cloten, incensed at Imogen's assertion that she values Posthumus's worst clothing over Cloten himself, learns of the \"meeting\" between the princess and her paramour at Milford Haven. Dressing himself in Posthumus's clothes, he determines to go to Wales and kill Posthumus while Imogen looks on, after which he will rape her on Posthumus's corpse before dragging her back to court for marriage. Imogen's long journey to Milford Haven takes her into the Welsh mountains, where she becomes weak from hunger, but she luckily stumbles upon a cave and inside finds food. The cave is home to Belarius and his \"sons\" Polydore and Cadwal, whom he raised into great woodsmen. These young men are in fact Guiderius and Arviragus, who themselves do not know their origin, but are nevertheless possessed of royal passion and heartiness. The three men enter their cave and find \"Fidele,\" and the young men are captivated by \"his\" beauty. Leaving \"Fidele\" to eat, the men are met outside the cave by Cloten, who insults them. After a brief fight, Guiderius kills Cloten and cuts off his head. Recognizing the face, Belarius worries that Cloten's death will bring Cymbeline's wrath upon them. Meanwhile Imogen, feeling ill, takes the \"poison,\" and when the men enter they find her \"dead.\" They bewail \"Fidele's\" fate and, after placing Cloten's body beside her, solemnly depart. They also determine to fight for Britain in the inevitable battle with Roman forces. Imogen awakes to find Cloten's headless body, and takes it for Posthumus due to the clothes. She flees to Milford Haven, where \"Fidele's\" beauty earns \"him\" the affection of Lucius, who takes \"him\" on as a page. Meanwhile a guilt-ridden Posthumus arrives with the Roman army and dresses himself as a poor British soldier, hoping to die on the battlefield. The battle goes badly at first for the Britons, but four unknown men\u2014Belarius, Guiderius, Arviragus, and Posthumus in their disguises\u2014turn the tide, rallying Cymbeline's troops into a rout of the Romans. Posthumus, still alive, gives himself up to Cymbeline as a Roman soldier, hoping to win his sought-for death by execution. He is put in chains and jailed, after which he falls asleep. The ghosts of his father (Sicilius Leonatus) and mother, who both died at Posthumus's birth, and his brothers, who died in battle, appear around Posthumus's sleeping body and complain to Jupiter of his grim fate. Jupiter himself then appears in thunder and glory on an eagle to chide the ghosts for their lack of faith. Before the god and spirits depart they leave a tablet on Posthumus's chest explaining in obscure prophecy how destiny will grant happiness to Posthumus and Britain. Posthumus awakens, believing he has dreamed the ghosts and god, but wonders what the tablet could mean. A jailer then summons him to appear before Cymbeline. Posthumus stands in the ranks of prisoners with \"Fidele,\" Lucius, and Iachimo, all condemned to be executed. Cornelius arrives from the court with a message that the Queen has died, and that on her deathbed she unrepentantly confessed to her murderous conspiracies. Both troubled and relieved at this news, Cymbeline prepares to carry out his sentence on the prisoners, but pauses when he sees \"Fidele.\" Finding the \"boy\" both beautiful and somehow familiar, the king resolves not only to spare \"Fidele's\" life but also to grant \"him\" a favour. Imogen has noticed her ring on Iachimo's finger and demands to know from where the Italian got the jewel. A penitent Iachimo tells of his bet, how he could not seduce Imogen and yet tricked Posthumus into thinking he had. Posthumus then comes forward to corroborate Iachimo's story, revealing his identity and acknowledging his guilt and wrong in desiring Imogen dead. Ecstatic, Imogen throws herself at Posthumus, who still takes her for a boy and knocks her down. Pisanio then rushes forward to explain that the boy is Imogen in disguise; as the servant tries to help her up she pushes him away, under the impression that he worked with the Queen to poison her. Pisanio insists on his innocence, and Cornelius reveals how the poison was all along non-fatal. Belarius then speaks, noting how all this makes sense of the disappearance of \"Fidele's\" \"corpse.\" Insisting that those who swore against him did so falsely, Belarius reveals Guiderius's and Arviragus's identities. With her brothers restored to their place in the line of inheritance, Imogen is now free to marry Posthumus. An elated Cymbeline pardons Belarius and all the prisoners. Posthumus produces Jupiter's tablet, still confused about its meaning, and Lucius calls forth his soothsayer Philharmonus, who deciphers the prophecy as a description of recent events, the unfolding of which has ensured happiness for all. Cymbeline decides to pay the tribute to Augustus as a gesture of peace between Britain and Rome, and invites everyone to a great feast.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Imogen (or Innogen), daughter of the British king Cymbeline, is in love with Posthumus Leonatus, a man raised in her father's court who is described as possessing exceeding personal merit and martial skill. The two have secretly married, exchanging jewellery as tokens: a ring from Imogen, a bracelet from Posthumus. Cymbeline has discovered the affair and banishes Posthumus for his presumption, for Imogen is currently Cymbeline's only child and so her husband is heir to the British throne. Cymbeline did have two sons before Imogen, Guiderius and Arviragus, but they were stolen twenty years ago as infants by Belarius, a courtier banished as a traitor for supposedly conspiring with the Romans. Cymbeline is a vassal king of Caesar Augustus, and Caius Lucius, a Roman ambassador, is on his way to demand the tribute that Cymbeline, under the influence of his wife the Queen, has stopped paying. The Queen is conspiring to have Cloten, her cloddish and arrogant son by an earlier marriage, married to Imogen. The Queen also is plotting to murder both Imogen and Cymbeline to secure Cloten's kingship, and to that end has procured what she believes to be deadly poison from the court doctor Cornelius; Cornelius, however, suspects the Queen's malice and switches the \"poison\" with a drug that will cause the imbiber's body to mimic death for a while before reviving. Imogen meanwhile secludes herself in her chambers, resisting entreaties that she come forth and marry Cloten. Posthumus flees to Italy to the house of his friend Philario/Filario, where he meets Iachimo/Giacomo. Posthumus waxes at length on Imogen's beauty and chastity, and Iachimo challenges him to a bet that he, Iach"
      },
      {
        "text": " imbiber's body to mimic death for a while before reviving. Imogen meanwhile secludes herself in her chambers, resisting entreaties that she come forth and marry Cloten. Posthumus flees to Italy to the house of his friend Philario/Filario, where he meets Iachimo/Giacomo. Posthumus waxes at length on Imogen's beauty and chastity, and Iachimo challenges him to a bet that he, Iachimo, can seduce Imogen and bring Posthumus proof of her adultery. If he wins, Iachimo will get Imogen's ring from Posthumus's finger. If Posthumus wins, not only must Iachimo pay him but also consent to a sword duel so that Posthumus may avenge his and Imogen's affronted honour. Iachimo heads to Britain where he aggressively attempts to seduce the faithful Imogen, who sends him packing. Iachimo then hides in a chest in Imogen's bedchamber and, when the princess falls asleep, emerges to steal from her Posthumus's bracelet. He also examines the room and Imogen's naked body for further proof. Returning to Italy, Iachimo convinces Posthumus that he has successfully seduced Imogen. In his wrath, Posthumus sends two letters to Britain: one to Imogen, telling her to meet him at Milford Haven, on the west coast of Wales; the other to Pisanio, Posthumus's servant left behind at court, ordering him to murder Imogen at the Haven. On the way the anguished Pisanio instead shows his letter to Imogen, revealing Posthumus's plot. He has Imogen disguise herself as a boy and continue to Milford Haven to seek employment. He also gives her the Queen's \"poison,\" believing it will alleviate nausea from distemper and motion sickness. Im"
      },
      {
        "text": " coast of Wales; the other to Pisanio, Posthumus's servant left behind at court, ordering him to murder Imogen at the Haven. On the way the anguished Pisanio instead shows his letter to Imogen, revealing Posthumus's plot. He has Imogen disguise herself as a boy and continue to Milford Haven to seek employment. He also gives her the Queen's \"poison,\" believing it will alleviate nausea from distemper and motion sickness. Imogen adopts the name \"Fidele,\" meaning \"faithful.\" Back at court, Lucius receives Cymbeline's refusal of tribute, and warns him of Augustus's wrath. Meanwhile Cloten, incensed at Imogen's assertion that she values Posthumus's worst clothing over Cloten himself, learns of the \"meeting\" between the princess and her paramour at Milford Haven. Dressing himself in Posthumus's clothes, he determines to go to Wales and kill Posthumus while Imogen looks on, after which he will rape her on Posthumus's corpse before dragging her back to court for marriage. Imogen's long journey to Milford Haven takes her into the Welsh mountains, where she becomes weak from hunger, but she luckily stumbles upon a cave and inside finds food. The cave is home to Belarius and his \"sons\" Polydore and Cadwal, whom he raised into great woodsmen. These young men are in fact Guiderius and Arviragus, who themselves do not know their origin, but are nevertheless possessed of royal passion and heartiness. The three men enter their cave and find \"Fidele,\" and the young men are captivated by \"his\" beauty. Leaving \"Fidele\" to eat, the men are met outside the cave by Cloten, who insults them. After a brief fight, Guiderius kills Cloten and cuts off his head. Recognizing the"
      },
      {
        "text": " fact Guiderius and Arviragus, who themselves do not know their origin, but are nevertheless possessed of royal passion and heartiness. The three men enter their cave and find \"Fidele,\" and the young men are captivated by \"his\" beauty. Leaving \"Fidele\" to eat, the men are met outside the cave by Cloten, who insults them. After a brief fight, Guiderius kills Cloten and cuts off his head. Recognizing the face, Belarius worries that Cloten's death will bring Cymbeline's wrath upon them. Meanwhile Imogen, feeling ill, takes the \"poison,\" and when the men enter they find her \"dead.\" They bewail \"Fidele's\" fate and, after placing Cloten's body beside her, solemnly depart. They also determine to fight for Britain in the inevitable battle with Roman forces. Imogen awakes to find Cloten's headless body, and takes it for Posthumus due to the clothes. She flees to Milford Haven, where \"Fidele's\" beauty earns \"him\" the affection of Lucius, who takes \"him\" on as a page. Meanwhile a guilt-ridden Posthumus arrives with the Roman army and dresses himself as a poor British soldier, hoping to die on the battlefield. The battle goes badly at first for the Britons, but four unknown men\u2014Belarius, Guiderius, Arviragus, and Posthumus in their disguises\u2014turn the tide, rallying Cymbeline's troops into a rout of the Romans. Posthumus, still alive, gives himself up to Cymbeline as a Roman soldier, hoping to win his sought-for death by execution. He is put in chains and jailed, after which he falls asleep. The ghosts of his father (Sicilius Leonatus) and mother, who both died at Posthumus's birth, and"
      },
      {
        "text": "viragus, and Posthumus in their disguises\u2014turn the tide, rallying Cymbeline's troops into a rout of the Romans. Posthumus, still alive, gives himself up to Cymbeline as a Roman soldier, hoping to win his sought-for death by execution. He is put in chains and jailed, after which he falls asleep. The ghosts of his father (Sicilius Leonatus) and mother, who both died at Posthumus's birth, and his brothers, who died in battle, appear around Posthumus's sleeping body and complain to Jupiter of his grim fate. Jupiter himself then appears in thunder and glory on an eagle to chide the ghosts for their lack of faith. Before the god and spirits depart they leave a tablet on Posthumus's chest explaining in obscure prophecy how destiny will grant happiness to Posthumus and Britain. Posthumus awakens, believing he has dreamed the ghosts and god, but wonders what the tablet could mean. A jailer then summons him to appear before Cymbeline. Posthumus stands in the ranks of prisoners with \"Fidele,\" Lucius, and Iachimo, all condemned to be executed. Cornelius arrives from the court with a message that the Queen has died, and that on her deathbed she unrepentantly confessed to her murderous conspiracies. Both troubled and relieved at this news, Cymbeline prepares to carry out his sentence on the prisoners, but pauses when he sees \"Fidele.\" Finding the \"boy\" both beautiful and somehow familiar, the king resolves not only to spare \"Fidele's\" life but also to grant \"him\" a favour. Imogen has noticed her ring on Iachimo's finger and demands to know from where the Italian got the jewel. A penitent Iachimo tells of his bet, how he could not seduce Imogen and yet tricked Posthumus into thinking he had. Posthumus then"
      },
      {
        "text": " he sees \"Fidele.\" Finding the \"boy\" both beautiful and somehow familiar, the king resolves not only to spare \"Fidele's\" life but also to grant \"him\" a favour. Imogen has noticed her ring on Iachimo's finger and demands to know from where the Italian got the jewel. A penitent Iachimo tells of his bet, how he could not seduce Imogen and yet tricked Posthumus into thinking he had. Posthumus then comes forward to corroborate Iachimo's story, revealing his identity and acknowledging his guilt and wrong in desiring Imogen dead. Ecstatic, Imogen throws herself at Posthumus, who still takes her for a boy and knocks her down. Pisanio then rushes forward to explain that the boy is Imogen in disguise; as the servant tries to help her up she pushes him away, under the impression that he worked with the Queen to poison her. Pisanio insists on his innocence, and Cornelius reveals how the poison was all along non-fatal. Belarius then speaks, noting how all this makes sense of the disappearance of \"Fidele's\" \"corpse.\" Insisting that those who swore against him did so falsely, Belarius reveals Guiderius's and Arviragus's identities. With her brothers restored to their place in the line of inheritance, Imogen is now free to marry Posthumus. An elated Cymbeline pardons Belarius and all the prisoners. Posthumus produces Jupiter's tablet, still confused about its meaning, and Lucius calls forth his soothsayer Philharmonus, who deciphers the prophecy as a description of recent events, the unfolding of which has ensured happiness for all. Cymbeline decides to pay the tribute to Augustus as a gesture of peace between Britain and Rome, and invites everyone to a great feast.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Belarius and all the prisoners. Posthumus produces Jupiter's tablet, still confused about its meaning, and Lucius calls forth his soothsayer Philharmonus, who deciphers the prophecy as a description of recent events, the unfolding of which has ensured happiness for all. Cymbeline decides to pay the tribute to Augustus as a gesture of peace between Britain and Rome, and invites everyone to a great feast.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Vanity Fair",
    "author": "William Makepeace Thackeray",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story opens with Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies, where Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley have just completed their studies and are preparing to depart for Amelia's house in Russell Square. Becky is portrayed as a strong-willed and cunning young woman determined to make her way in society, and Amelia Sedley as a good-natured, lovable though simple-minded young girl. At Russell Square, Miss Sharp is introduced to the dashing and self-obsessed Captain George Osborne (to whom Amelia has been betrothed from a very young age) and to Amelia's brother Joseph Sedley, a clumsy and vainglorious/boastful but rich civil servant fresh from the East India Company. Hoping to marry Sedley Becky entices him, but she fails because of warnings from Captain Osborne, Sedley's own native shyness, and his embarrassment over some foolish drunken behaviour of his that Becky had seen. Now, Becky Sharp says farewell to Sedley's family and enters the service of the crude and profligate baronet Sir Pitt Crawley, who has engaged her as a governess to his daughters. Her behaviour at Sir Pitt's house gains his favour, and after the premature death of his second wife, he proposes marriage to her. Then he finds she is already secretly married to his second son, Rawdon Crawley. Sir Pitt's elder half sister, the spinster Miss Crawley, is very rich, having inherited her mother's fortune of \u00a370,000. How she will bequeath her great wealth is a source of constant conflict between the branches of the Crawley family who vie shamelessly for her affections; initially her favourite is Sir Pitt's younger son, Captain Rawdon Crawley. For some time, Becky acts as Miss Crawley's companion, supplanting the loyal Miss Briggs in an attempt to establish herself in favour before breaking the news of her elopement with Miss Crawley's nephew. However, the misalliance so enrages Miss Crawley that she disinherits her nephew in favour of his pompous and pedantic elder brother, who also bears the name Pitt Crawley. The married couple constantly attempts to reconcile with Miss Crawley, and she relents a little, but she will only see her nephew and refuses to change her will. While Becky Sharp is rising in the world, Amelia's father, John Sedley, is bankrupted. The Sedleys and Osbornes were once close allies, but the relationship between the two families disintegrates after the Sedleys are financially ruined, and the marriage of Amelia and George is forbidden. George ultimately decides to marry Amelia against his father's will, pressured by his friend Dobbin, and George is consequently disinherited. While these personal events take place, the Napoleonic Wars have been ramping up. George Osborne and William Dobbin are suddenly deployed to Brussels, but not before an encounter with Becky and Captain Crawley at Brighton. The holiday is interrupted by orders to march to Brussels. Already, the newly wedded Osborne is growing tired of Amelia, and he becomes increasingly attracted to Becky who encourages his advances. At a ball in Brussels (based on the Duchess of Richmond's famous ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo) George gives Becky a note inviting her to run away with him. He regrets this shortly afterwards and reconciles with Amelia, who has been deeply hurt by his attentions towards her former friend. The morning after, he is sent to Waterloo with Captain Crawley and Dobbin, leaving Amelia distraught. Becky, on the other hand, is virtually indifferent to her husband's departure. She tries to console Amelia, but Amelia responds angrily, disgusted by Becky's flirtatious behaviour with George and her lack of concern about Captain Crawley. Becky resents this snub and a rift develops between the two women that lasts for years. Becky is not very concerned for the outcome of the war, either; should Napoleon win, she plans to become the mistress of one of his marshals. Meanwhile she makes a profit selling her carriage and horses at inflated prices to Amelia's panicking brother Joseph seeking to flee the city, where the Belgian population is openly pro-Napoleonic. Captain Crawley survives, but George dies in the battle. Amelia bears him a posthumous son, who is also named George. She returns to live in genteel poverty with her parents. Meanwhile, since the death of George, Dobbin, who is young George's godfather, gradually begins to express his love for the widowed Amelia by small kindnesses toward her and her son. Most notable is the recovery of her old piano, which Dobbin picks up at an auction following the Sedleys' ruin. Amelia mistakenly assumes this was done by her late husband. She is too much in love with George's memory to return Dobbin's affections. Saddened, he goes to India for many years. Dobbin's infatuation with Amelia is a theme which unifies the novel and one which many have compared to Thackeray's unrequited love for a friend's wife (Jane Brookfield). Meanwhile, Becky also has a son, also named after his father, but unlike Amelia, who dotes on and even spoils her child, Becky is a cold, distant mother. She continues her ascent first in post-war Paris and then in London where she is patronised by the great Marquis of Steyne, who covertly subsidises her and introduces her to London society. Her success is unstoppable despite her humble origins, and she is eventually presented at court to the Prince Regent himself. Becky and Rawdon appear to be financially successful, but their wealth and high standard of living are mostly smoke and mirrors. Rawdon gambles heavily and earns money as a billiards shark. The book also suggests he cheats at cards. Becky accepts trinkets and money from her many admirers and sells some for cash. She also borrows heavily from the people around her and seldom pays bills. The couple lives mostly on credit, and while Rawdon seems to be too dim-witted to be aware of the effect of his borrowing on the people around him, Becky is fully aware that her heavy borrowing and her failure to pay bills bankrupts at least two innocent people: her servant, Briggs, whose life savings Becky borrows and fritters away, and her landlord Raggles, who was formerly a butler to the Crawley family and who invested his life savings in the townhouse that Becky and Rawdon rent (and fail to pay for). She also cheats innkeepers, milliners, dressmakers, grocers, and others who do business on credit. She and Rawdon obtain credit by tricking everyone around them into believing they are receiving money from others. Sometimes, Becky and Rawdon buy time from their creditors by suggesting Rawdon received money in Miss Crawley's will or are being paid a stipend by Sir Pitt. Ultimately Becky is suspected of carrying on an extramarital affair with the Marquis of Steyne, apparently encouraged by Rawdon to prostitute herself in exchange for money and promotion. At the summit of her success, Becky's pecuniary relationship with the rich and powerful Marquis of Steyne is discovered after Rawdon is arrested for debt. Rawdon's brother's wife, Lady Jane, bails him out and Rawdon surprises Becky and Steyne in a compromising moment. Rawdon leaves his wife and through the offices of the Marquis of Steyne is made Governor of Coventry Island to get him out of the way, but Rawdon challenges the elderly marquis to a duel. Becky, having lost both husband and credibility, is warned by Steyne to leave the United Kingdom and she wanders the continent. Rawdon and Becky's son is left in the care of Pitt Crawley and Lady Jane. However, wherever Becky goes, she is followed by the shadow of the Marquis of Steyne. No sooner does she establish herself in polite society than someone turns up who knows her disreputable history and spreads rumours; Steyne himself hounds her out of Rome. As Amelia's adored son George grows up, his grandfather relents and takes him from poor Amelia, who knows the rich and bitter old man will give him a much better start in life than she or her family could ever manage. After twelve years abroad, both Joseph Sedley and Dobbin return to the UK. Dobbin professes his unchanged love to Amelia, but although Amelia is affectionate she tells him she cannot forget the memory of her dead husband. Dobbin also becomes close to young George, and his kind, firm manner is a good influence on the spoiled child. While in England, Dobbin mediates a reconciliation between Amelia and her father-in-law. The death of Amelia's father prevents their meeting, but following Osborne's death soon after, it is revealed that he had amended his will and bequeathed young George half his large fortune and Amelia a generous annuity. The rest is divided between his daughters, Miss Osborne, and Mrs. Bullock, who begrudges Amelia and her son the decrease in her annuity. After the death of old Mr. Osborne, Amelia, Joseph, George and Dobbin go on a trip to Germany, where they encounter the destitute Becky. She meets the young George at a card table and then enchants Jos Sedley all over again. Becky has unfortunately deteriorated as a character. She is drinking heavily, has lost her singing voice and much of her looks and spends time with card sharps and con artists. The book suggests that Becky has been involved in activities even more shady than her usual con games, but does not go into details. Following Jos' entreaties, Amelia agrees to a reconciliation (when she hears that Becky's ties with her son have been severed), much to Dobbin's disapproval. Dobbin quarrels with Amelia and finally realizes that he is wasting his love on a woman too shallow to return it. However, Becky, in a moment of conscience, shows Amelia the note that George (Amelia's dead husband) had given her, asking her to run away with him. This destroys Amelia's idealized image of George, but not before Amelia has sent a note to Dobbin professing her love. Becky resumes her seduction of Jos and gains control over him. He eventually dies of a suspicious ailment after signing a portion of his money to Becky as life insurance. In the original illustrations, which were done by Thackeray, Becky is shown behind a curtain with a vial in her hand; the picture is labelled \"Becky's second appearance in the character of Clytemnestra\" (she had played Clytemnestra during charades at a party earlier in the book). Jos' death appears to have made her fortune. By a twist of fate Rawdon dies weeks before his older brother, whose son has already died; the baronetcy descends to Rawdon's son. Had he outlived his brother by even a day he would have become Sir Rawdon Crawley and Becky would have become Lady Crawley, a title she uses anyway in later life. The reader is informed at the end of the novel that although Dobbin married Amelia, and although he always treated her with great kindness, he never fully regained the love that he once had for her. There is also a final appearance for Becky, as cocky as ever, selling trinkets at a fair in aid of various charitable causes. She is now living well again as her son, the new baronet, has agreed to financially support her (in spite of her past neglect and indifference towards him).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story opens with Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies, where Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley have just completed their studies and are preparing to depart for Amelia's house in Russell Square. Becky is portrayed as a strong-willed and cunning young woman determined to make her way in society, and Amelia Sedley as a good-natured, lovable though simple-minded young girl. At Russell Square, Miss Sharp is introduced to the dashing and self-obsessed Captain George Osborne (to whom Amelia has been betrothed from a very young age) and to Amelia's brother Joseph Sedley, a clumsy and vainglorious/boastful but rich civil servant fresh from the East India Company. Hoping to marry Sedley Becky entices him, but she fails because of warnings from Captain Osborne, Sedley's own native shyness, and his embarrassment over some foolish drunken behaviour of his that Becky had seen. Now, Becky Sharp says farewell to Sedley's family and enters the service of the crude and profligate baronet Sir Pitt Crawley, who has engaged her as a governess to his daughters. Her behaviour at Sir Pitt's house gains his favour, and after the premature death of his second wife, he proposes marriage to her. Then he finds she is already secretly married to his second son, Rawdon Crawley. Sir Pitt's elder half sister, the spinster Miss Crawley, is very rich, having inherited her mother's fortune of \u00a370,000. How she will bequeath her great wealth is a source of constant conflict between the branches of the Crawley family who vie shamelessly for her affections; initially her favourite is Sir Pitt's younger son, Captain Rawdon Crawley. For some time, Becky acts as Miss Crawley's companion, supplanting the loyal Miss Briggs in an attempt to establish herself in favour before breaking the news of her elopement with Miss Crawley's nephew. However, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " \u00a370,000. How she will bequeath her great wealth is a source of constant conflict between the branches of the Crawley family who vie shamelessly for her affections; initially her favourite is Sir Pitt's younger son, Captain Rawdon Crawley. For some time, Becky acts as Miss Crawley's companion, supplanting the loyal Miss Briggs in an attempt to establish herself in favour before breaking the news of her elopement with Miss Crawley's nephew. However, the misalliance so enrages Miss Crawley that she disinherits her nephew in favour of his pompous and pedantic elder brother, who also bears the name Pitt Crawley. The married couple constantly attempts to reconcile with Miss Crawley, and she relents a little, but she will only see her nephew and refuses to change her will. While Becky Sharp is rising in the world, Amelia's father, John Sedley, is bankrupted. The Sedleys and Osbornes were once close allies, but the relationship between the two families disintegrates after the Sedleys are financially ruined, and the marriage of Amelia and George is forbidden. George ultimately decides to marry Amelia against his father's will, pressured by his friend Dobbin, and George is consequently disinherited. While these personal events take place, the Napoleonic Wars have been ramping up. George Osborne and William Dobbin are suddenly deployed to Brussels, but not before an encounter with Becky and Captain Crawley at Brighton. The holiday is interrupted by orders to march to Brussels. Already, the newly wedded Osborne is growing tired of Amelia, and he becomes increasingly attracted to Becky who encourages his advances. At a ball in Brussels (based on the Duchess of Richmond's famous ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo) George gives Becky a note inviting her to run away with him. He regrets this shortly afterwards and reconciles with Amelia, who has been deeply hurt by his attentions towards her former"
      },
      {
        "text": "ley at Brighton. The holiday is interrupted by orders to march to Brussels. Already, the newly wedded Osborne is growing tired of Amelia, and he becomes increasingly attracted to Becky who encourages his advances. At a ball in Brussels (based on the Duchess of Richmond's famous ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo) George gives Becky a note inviting her to run away with him. He regrets this shortly afterwards and reconciles with Amelia, who has been deeply hurt by his attentions towards her former friend. The morning after, he is sent to Waterloo with Captain Crawley and Dobbin, leaving Amelia distraught. Becky, on the other hand, is virtually indifferent to her husband's departure. She tries to console Amelia, but Amelia responds angrily, disgusted by Becky's flirtatious behaviour with George and her lack of concern about Captain Crawley. Becky resents this snub and a rift develops between the two women that lasts for years. Becky is not very concerned for the outcome of the war, either; should Napoleon win, she plans to become the mistress of one of his marshals. Meanwhile she makes a profit selling her carriage and horses at inflated prices to Amelia's panicking brother Joseph seeking to flee the city, where the Belgian population is openly pro-Napoleonic. Captain Crawley survives, but George dies in the battle. Amelia bears him a posthumous son, who is also named George. She returns to live in genteel poverty with her parents. Meanwhile, since the death of George, Dobbin, who is young George's godfather, gradually begins to express his love for the widowed Amelia by small kindnesses toward her and her son. Most notable is the recovery of her old piano, which Dobbin picks up at an auction following the Sedleys' ruin. Amelia mistakenly assumes this was done by her late husband. She is too much in love with George's memory to return Dobbin's affections. Saddened, he goes to India for"
      },
      {
        "text": " since the death of George, Dobbin, who is young George's godfather, gradually begins to express his love for the widowed Amelia by small kindnesses toward her and her son. Most notable is the recovery of her old piano, which Dobbin picks up at an auction following the Sedleys' ruin. Amelia mistakenly assumes this was done by her late husband. She is too much in love with George's memory to return Dobbin's affections. Saddened, he goes to India for many years. Dobbin's infatuation with Amelia is a theme which unifies the novel and one which many have compared to Thackeray's unrequited love for a friend's wife (Jane Brookfield). Meanwhile, Becky also has a son, also named after his father, but unlike Amelia, who dotes on and even spoils her child, Becky is a cold, distant mother. She continues her ascent first in post-war Paris and then in London where she is patronised by the great Marquis of Steyne, who covertly subsidises her and introduces her to London society. Her success is unstoppable despite her humble origins, and she is eventually presented at court to the Prince Regent himself. Becky and Rawdon appear to be financially successful, but their wealth and high standard of living are mostly smoke and mirrors. Rawdon gambles heavily and earns money as a billiards shark. The book also suggests he cheats at cards. Becky accepts trinkets and money from her many admirers and sells some for cash. She also borrows heavily from the people around her and seldom pays bills. The couple lives mostly on credit, and while Rawdon seems to be too dim-witted to be aware of the effect of his borrowing on the people around him, Becky is fully aware that her heavy borrowing and her failure to pay bills bankrupts at least two innocent people: her servant, Briggs, whose life savings Becky borrows and fritters away,"
      },
      {
        "text": " money from her many admirers and sells some for cash. She also borrows heavily from the people around her and seldom pays bills. The couple lives mostly on credit, and while Rawdon seems to be too dim-witted to be aware of the effect of his borrowing on the people around him, Becky is fully aware that her heavy borrowing and her failure to pay bills bankrupts at least two innocent people: her servant, Briggs, whose life savings Becky borrows and fritters away, and her landlord Raggles, who was formerly a butler to the Crawley family and who invested his life savings in the townhouse that Becky and Rawdon rent (and fail to pay for). She also cheats innkeepers, milliners, dressmakers, grocers, and others who do business on credit. She and Rawdon obtain credit by tricking everyone around them into believing they are receiving money from others. Sometimes, Becky and Rawdon buy time from their creditors by suggesting Rawdon received money in Miss Crawley's will or are being paid a stipend by Sir Pitt. Ultimately Becky is suspected of carrying on an extramarital affair with the Marquis of Steyne, apparently encouraged by Rawdon to prostitute herself in exchange for money and promotion. At the summit of her success, Becky's pecuniary relationship with the rich and powerful Marquis of Steyne is discovered after Rawdon is arrested for debt. Rawdon's brother's wife, Lady Jane, bails him out and Rawdon surprises Becky and Steyne in a compromising moment. Rawdon leaves his wife and through the offices of the Marquis of Steyne is made Governor of Coventry Island to get him out of the way, but Rawdon challenges the elderly marquis to a duel. Becky, having lost both husband and credibility, is warned by Steyne to leave the United Kingdom and she wanders the continent. Rawdon and Becky's son is left in the care of Pitt Craw"
      },
      {
        "text": " bails him out and Rawdon surprises Becky and Steyne in a compromising moment. Rawdon leaves his wife and through the offices of the Marquis of Steyne is made Governor of Coventry Island to get him out of the way, but Rawdon challenges the elderly marquis to a duel. Becky, having lost both husband and credibility, is warned by Steyne to leave the United Kingdom and she wanders the continent. Rawdon and Becky's son is left in the care of Pitt Crawley and Lady Jane. However, wherever Becky goes, she is followed by the shadow of the Marquis of Steyne. No sooner does she establish herself in polite society than someone turns up who knows her disreputable history and spreads rumours; Steyne himself hounds her out of Rome. As Amelia's adored son George grows up, his grandfather relents and takes him from poor Amelia, who knows the rich and bitter old man will give him a much better start in life than she or her family could ever manage. After twelve years abroad, both Joseph Sedley and Dobbin return to the UK. Dobbin professes his unchanged love to Amelia, but although Amelia is affectionate she tells him she cannot forget the memory of her dead husband. Dobbin also becomes close to young George, and his kind, firm manner is a good influence on the spoiled child. While in England, Dobbin mediates a reconciliation between Amelia and her father-in-law. The death of Amelia's father prevents their meeting, but following Osborne's death soon after, it is revealed that he had amended his will and bequeathed young George half his large fortune and Amelia a generous annuity. The rest is divided between his daughters, Miss Osborne, and Mrs. Bullock, who begrudges Amelia and her son the decrease in her annuity. After the death of old Mr. Osborne, Amelia, Joseph, George and Dobbin go on a trip to Germany, where they"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s father prevents their meeting, but following Osborne's death soon after, it is revealed that he had amended his will and bequeathed young George half his large fortune and Amelia a generous annuity. The rest is divided between his daughters, Miss Osborne, and Mrs. Bullock, who begrudges Amelia and her son the decrease in her annuity. After the death of old Mr. Osborne, Amelia, Joseph, George and Dobbin go on a trip to Germany, where they encounter the destitute Becky. She meets the young George at a card table and then enchants Jos Sedley all over again. Becky has unfortunately deteriorated as a character. She is drinking heavily, has lost her singing voice and much of her looks and spends time with card sharps and con artists. The book suggests that Becky has been involved in activities even more shady than her usual con games, but does not go into details. Following Jos' entreaties, Amelia agrees to a reconciliation (when she hears that Becky's ties with her son have been severed), much to Dobbin's disapproval. Dobbin quarrels with Amelia and finally realizes that he is wasting his love on a woman too shallow to return it. However, Becky, in a moment of conscience, shows Amelia the note that George (Amelia's dead husband) had given her, asking her to run away with him. This destroys Amelia's idealized image of George, but not before Amelia has sent a note to Dobbin professing her love. Becky resumes her seduction of Jos and gains control over him. He eventually dies of a suspicious ailment after signing a portion of his money to Becky as life insurance. In the original illustrations, which were done by Thackeray, Becky is shown behind a curtain with a vial in her hand; the picture is labelled \"Becky's second appearance in the character of Clytemnestra\" (she had played Clytemnestra during charades at"
      },
      {
        "text": "bin professing her love. Becky resumes her seduction of Jos and gains control over him. He eventually dies of a suspicious ailment after signing a portion of his money to Becky as life insurance. In the original illustrations, which were done by Thackeray, Becky is shown behind a curtain with a vial in her hand; the picture is labelled \"Becky's second appearance in the character of Clytemnestra\" (she had played Clytemnestra during charades at a party earlier in the book). Jos' death appears to have made her fortune. By a twist of fate Rawdon dies weeks before his older brother, whose son has already died; the baronetcy descends to Rawdon's son. Had he outlived his brother by even a day he would have become Sir Rawdon Crawley and Becky would have become Lady Crawley, a title she uses anyway in later life. The reader is informed at the end of the novel that although Dobbin married Amelia, and although he always treated her with great kindness, he never fully regained the love that he once had for her. There is also a final appearance for Becky, as cocky as ever, selling trinkets at a fair in aid of various charitable causes. She is now living well again as her son, the new baronet, has agreed to financially support her (in spite of her past neglect and indifference towards him).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Northanger Abbey",
    "author": "Jane Austen",
    "published_date": "1817-12",
    "synopsis": " Seventeen-year-old, Catherine Morland is one of ten children of a country clergyman. Although a tomboy in her childhood, by the age of 17 she is \"in training for a heroine,\" and is excessively fond of reading Gothic novels of which Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho is a favourite. Catherine is invited by her wealthier neighbours in Fullerton, the Allens, to accompany them to visit the town of Bath and partake in the winter season of balls, theatre and other social delights. Although initially the excitement of Bath is dampened by her lack of acquaintances, she is soon introduced to a clever young gentleman, Henry Tilney, with whom she dances and converses. Much to her disappointment, Catherine does not see Henry again for quite some time. Through Mrs. Allen's old school friend Mrs. Thorpe, she meets her daughter Isabella, a vivacious and flirtatious young woman, and quickly becomes friends. Mrs. Thorpe's son John is also acquainted with Catherine's older brother, James. James and John soon arrive in Bath. While Isabella and James spend time together, Catherine becomes acquainted with John, a vain and crude young gentleman who incessantly tells fantastical stories about himself. Henry Tilney then returns to Bath, accompanied by his younger sister Eleanor, who is a sweet, elegant, and respectable young lady. Catherine also meets their father, the imposing General Tilney. The Thorpes are not very happy about Catherine's friendship with the Tilneys, as they (correctly as it happens) perceive Henry as a rival for Catherine's affections. Catherine tries to maintain her friendships with both the Thorpes and the Tilneys, though John Thorpe continuously tries to sabotage her relationship with the Tilneys. This leads to several misunderstandings, which upset Catherine and put her in the awkward position of having to explain herself to the Tilneys. Isabella and James become engaged. James's father approves of the match and offers his son a country parson's living of a modest sum, 400 pounds annually, which he may have in two and a half years. The couple must therefore wait until that time to marry. Isabella is dissatisfied, having believed the Morlands were quite wealthy, but she pretends to Catherine that she is merely dissatisfied that they must wait so long. James departs to purchase a ring, and John accompanies him after coyly suggesting marriage to the oblivious Catherine. Isabella immediately begins to flirt with Captain Tilney, Henry's older brother. Innocent Catherine cannot understand her friend's behavior, but Henry understands all too well, as he knows his brother's character and habits. The flirtation continues even when James returns, much to the latter's embarrassment and distress. The Tilneys invite Catherine to stay with them for a few weeks at their home, Northanger Abbey. Catherine, in accordance with her novel reading, expects the abbey to be exotic and frightening. Henry teases her about this, as it turns out that Northanger Abbey is pleasant and decidedly not Gothic. However, the house includes a mysterious suite of rooms that no one ever enters; Catherine learns that they were Mrs. Tilney's, who died nine years earlier. Catherine decides that, since General Tilney does not now seem to be affected by the loss of his wife, he may have murdered her or even imprisoned her in her chamber. Catherine persuades Eleanor to show her Mrs. Tilney's rooms, but General Tilney suddenly appears. Catherine flees, sure that she will be punished. Later, Catherine sneaks back to Mrs. Tilney's rooms, to discover that her overactive imagination has once again led her astray, as nothing is strange or distressing in the rooms at all. Unfortunately, Henry joins her in the corridor and questions why she is there. He guesses her surmises and inferences, and informs her that his father loved his wife in his own way and was truly upset by her death. \"What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? ... Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?\" She leaves, crying, fearing that she has lost Henry's entire regard. Realizing how foolish she had been, Catherine comes to believe that, though novels may be delightful, their content does not relate to everyday life. Henry lets her get over her shameful thoughts and actions in her own time and does not mention them to her again. Soon after this adventure, James writes to inform her that he has broken off his engagement with Isabella because of her flirtations with Captain Tilney. The Tilneys are shocked; and Catherine is terribly disappointed, realizing what a dishonest person Isabella is. The General goes off to London, and Eleanor becomes less inhibited and shy away from his imposing presence. Catherine passes several enjoyable days with Henry and Eleanor until he returns abruptly, in a temper. Eleanor tells Catherine that the family has an engagement that prevents Catherine from staying any longer and that she must go home early the next morning, in a shocking, inhospitable move that forces Catherine to undertake the journey alone. At home, Catherine is listless and unhappy. Her parents, unaware of her trials of the heart, try to bring her up to her usual spirits, with little effect. Two days after she returns home, however, Henry pays a sudden unexpected visit and explains what happened. General Tilney had believed (on the misinformation of John Thorpe) her to be exceedingly rich and therefore a proper match for Henry. In London, General Tilney ran into Thorpe again, who, angry at Catherine's refusal of his half-made proposal of marriage, said instead that she was nearly destitute. Enraged, General Tilney returned home to evict Catherine. When Henry returned to Northanger from Woodston, his father informed him of what had occurred and forbade him to think of Catherine again. When Henry learned how she had been treated, he breaks with his father and tells Catherine he still wants to marry her despite his father's disapproval. Catherine is delighted. Eventually, General Tilney acquiesces, because Eleanor has become engaged to a wealthy and titled man; and he discovers that the Morlands, while not extremely rich, are far from destitute.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Seventeen-year-old, Catherine Morland is one of ten children of a country clergyman. Although a tomboy in her childhood, by the age of 17 she is \"in training for a heroine,\" and is excessively fond of reading Gothic novels of which Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho is a favourite. Catherine is invited by her wealthier neighbours in Fullerton, the Allens, to accompany them to visit the town of Bath and partake in the winter season of balls, theatre and other social delights. Although initially the excitement of Bath is dampened by her lack of acquaintances, she is soon introduced to a clever young gentleman, Henry Tilney, with whom she dances and converses. Much to her disappointment, Catherine does not see Henry again for quite some time. Through Mrs. Allen's old school friend Mrs. Thorpe, she meets her daughter Isabella, a vivacious and flirtatious young woman, and quickly becomes friends. Mrs. Thorpe's son John is also acquainted with Catherine's older brother, James. James and John soon arrive in Bath. While Isabella and James spend time together, Catherine becomes acquainted with John, a vain and crude young gentleman who incessantly tells fantastical stories about himself. Henry Tilney then returns to Bath, accompanied by his younger sister Eleanor, who is a sweet, elegant, and respectable young lady. Catherine also meets their father, the imposing General Tilney. The Thorpes are not very happy about Catherine's friendship with the Tilneys, as they (correctly as it happens) perceive Henry as a rival for Catherine's affections. Catherine tries to maintain her friendships with both the Thorpes and the Tilneys, though John Thorpe continuously tries to sabotage her relationship with the Tilneys. This leads to several misunderstandings, which upset Catherine and put her in the awkward position of having to explain herself to the Tilneys. Isabella and James become engaged. James's father approves of the match and"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s friendship with the Tilneys, as they (correctly as it happens) perceive Henry as a rival for Catherine's affections. Catherine tries to maintain her friendships with both the Thorpes and the Tilneys, though John Thorpe continuously tries to sabotage her relationship with the Tilneys. This leads to several misunderstandings, which upset Catherine and put her in the awkward position of having to explain herself to the Tilneys. Isabella and James become engaged. James's father approves of the match and offers his son a country parson's living of a modest sum, 400 pounds annually, which he may have in two and a half years. The couple must therefore wait until that time to marry. Isabella is dissatisfied, having believed the Morlands were quite wealthy, but she pretends to Catherine that she is merely dissatisfied that they must wait so long. James departs to purchase a ring, and John accompanies him after coyly suggesting marriage to the oblivious Catherine. Isabella immediately begins to flirt with Captain Tilney, Henry's older brother. Innocent Catherine cannot understand her friend's behavior, but Henry understands all too well, as he knows his brother's character and habits. The flirtation continues even when James returns, much to the latter's embarrassment and distress. The Tilneys invite Catherine to stay with them for a few weeks at their home, Northanger Abbey. Catherine, in accordance with her novel reading, expects the abbey to be exotic and frightening. Henry teases her about this, as it turns out that Northanger Abbey is pleasant and decidedly not Gothic. However, the house includes a mysterious suite of rooms that no one ever enters; Catherine learns that they were Mrs. Tilney's, who died nine years earlier. Catherine decides that, since General Tilney does not now seem to be affected by the loss of his wife, he may have murdered her or even imprisoned her in her chamber. Catherine persuades Eleanor to show her Mrs. Tilney's rooms, but General"
      },
      {
        "text": ", as it turns out that Northanger Abbey is pleasant and decidedly not Gothic. However, the house includes a mysterious suite of rooms that no one ever enters; Catherine learns that they were Mrs. Tilney's, who died nine years earlier. Catherine decides that, since General Tilney does not now seem to be affected by the loss of his wife, he may have murdered her or even imprisoned her in her chamber. Catherine persuades Eleanor to show her Mrs. Tilney's rooms, but General Tilney suddenly appears. Catherine flees, sure that she will be punished. Later, Catherine sneaks back to Mrs. Tilney's rooms, to discover that her overactive imagination has once again led her astray, as nothing is strange or distressing in the rooms at all. Unfortunately, Henry joins her in the corridor and questions why she is there. He guesses her surmises and inferences, and informs her that his father loved his wife in his own way and was truly upset by her death. \"What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? ... Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?\" She leaves, crying, fearing that she has lost Henry's entire regard. Realizing how foolish she had been, Catherine comes to believe that, though novels may be delightful, their content does not relate to everyday life. Henry lets her get over her shameful thoughts and actions in her own time and does not mention them to her again. Soon after this adventure, James writes to inform her that he has broken off his engagement with Isabella because of her flirtations with Captain Tilney. The Tilneys are shocked; and Catherine is terribly disappointed, realizing what a dishonest"
      },
      {
        "text": " regard. Realizing how foolish she had been, Catherine comes to believe that, though novels may be delightful, their content does not relate to everyday life. Henry lets her get over her shameful thoughts and actions in her own time and does not mention them to her again. Soon after this adventure, James writes to inform her that he has broken off his engagement with Isabella because of her flirtations with Captain Tilney. The Tilneys are shocked; and Catherine is terribly disappointed, realizing what a dishonest person Isabella is. The General goes off to London, and Eleanor becomes less inhibited and shy away from his imposing presence. Catherine passes several enjoyable days with Henry and Eleanor until he returns abruptly, in a temper. Eleanor tells Catherine that the family has an engagement that prevents Catherine from staying any longer and that she must go home early the next morning, in a shocking, inhospitable move that forces Catherine to undertake the journey alone. At home, Catherine is listless and unhappy. Her parents, unaware of her trials of the heart, try to bring her up to her usual spirits, with little effect. Two days after she returns home, however, Henry pays a sudden unexpected visit and explains what happened. General Tilney had believed (on the misinformation of John Thorpe) her to be exceedingly rich and therefore a proper match for Henry. In London, General Tilney ran into Thorpe again, who, angry at Catherine's refusal of his half-made proposal of marriage, said instead that she was nearly destitute. Enraged, General Tilney returned home to evict Catherine. When Henry returned to Northanger from Woodston, his father informed him of what had occurred and forbade him to think of Catherine again. When Henry learned how she had been treated, he breaks with his father and tells Catherine he still wants to marry her despite his father's disapproval. Catherine is delighted. Eventually, General Tilney acquiesces, because Eleanor has become engaged to a wealthy and titled man; and"
      },
      {
        "text": " she was nearly destitute. Enraged, General Tilney returned home to evict Catherine. When Henry returned to Northanger from Woodston, his father informed him of what had occurred and forbade him to think of Catherine again. When Henry learned how she had been treated, he breaks with his father and tells Catherine he still wants to marry her despite his father's disapproval. Catherine is delighted. Eventually, General Tilney acquiesces, because Eleanor has become engaged to a wealthy and titled man; and he discovers that the Morlands, while not extremely rich, are far from destitute.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Amadeus",
    "author": "Peter Shaffer",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Since the original run, Shaffer has extensively revised his play, including changes to plot details; the following is common to all revisions. At the opening of the tale, Salieri is an old man, having long outlived his fame, and is convinced he used poison to assassinate Mozart. Speaking directly to the audience, he promises to explain himself. The action then flashes back to the eighteenth century, at a time when Salieri has not met Mozart in person, but has heard of him and his music. He adores Mozart's compositions, and is thrilled at the chance to meet Mozart in person, during a salon at which some of Mozart's compositions will be played. When he finally does catch sight of Mozart, however, he is deeply disappointed to find that Mozart's personality does not match the grace or charm of his compositions. When Salieri first meets him, Mozart is crawling around on his hands and knees, engaging in profane talk with his future bride Constanze Weber. Salieri cannot reconcile Mozart's boorish behaviour with the genius that God has inexplicably bestowed upon him. Indeed, Salieri, who has been a devout Catholic all his life, cannot believe that God would choose Mozart over him for such a gift. Salieri renounces God and vows to do everything in his power to destroy Mozart as a way of getting back at his Creator. Throughout much of the rest of the play, Salieri masquerades as Mozart's ally to his face while doing his utmost to destroy his reputation and any success his compositions may have. On more than one occasion it is only the direct intervention of the Emperor himself that allows Mozart to continue (interventions which Salieri opposes, and then is all too happy to take credit for when Mozart assumes it was he who intervened). Salieri also humiliates Mozart's wife when she comes to Salieri for aid, and smears Mozart's character with the Emperor and the court. A major theme in Amadeus is Mozart's repeated attempts to win over the aristocratic \"public\" with increasingly brilliant compositions, which are always frustrated either by Salieri or by the aristocracy's own inability to appreciate Mozart's genius. The play ends with Salieri attempting suicide in a last attempt to be remembered, leaving a false confession of having murdered Mozart with arsenic. He survives, however, and his confession is disbelieved by all, leaving him to wallow once again in mediocrity.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Since the original run, Shaffer has extensively revised his play, including changes to plot details; the following is common to all revisions. At the opening of the tale, Salieri is an old man, having long outlived his fame, and is convinced he used poison to assassinate Mozart. Speaking directly to the audience, he promises to explain himself. The action then flashes back to the eighteenth century, at a time when Salieri has not met Mozart in person, but has heard of him and his music. He adores Mozart's compositions, and is thrilled at the chance to meet Mozart in person, during a salon at which some of Mozart's compositions will be played. When he finally does catch sight of Mozart, however, he is deeply disappointed to find that Mozart's personality does not match the grace or charm of his compositions. When Salieri first meets him, Mozart is crawling around on his hands and knees, engaging in profane talk with his future bride Constanze Weber. Salieri cannot reconcile Mozart's boorish behaviour with the genius that God has inexplicably bestowed upon him. Indeed, Salieri, who has been a devout Catholic all his life, cannot believe that God would choose Mozart over him for such a gift. Salieri renounces God and vows to do everything in his power to destroy Mozart as a way of getting back at his Creator. Throughout much of the rest of the play, Salieri masquerades as Mozart's ally to his face while doing his utmost to destroy his reputation and any success his compositions may have. On more than one occasion it is only the direct intervention of the Emperor himself that allows Mozart to continue (interventions which Salieri opposes, and then is all too happy to take credit for when Mozart assumes it was he who intervened). Salieri also humiliates Mozart's wife when she comes to Salieri for aid, and smears Mozart's character with the"
      },
      {
        "text": " as Mozart's ally to his face while doing his utmost to destroy his reputation and any success his compositions may have. On more than one occasion it is only the direct intervention of the Emperor himself that allows Mozart to continue (interventions which Salieri opposes, and then is all too happy to take credit for when Mozart assumes it was he who intervened). Salieri also humiliates Mozart's wife when she comes to Salieri for aid, and smears Mozart's character with the Emperor and the court. A major theme in Amadeus is Mozart's repeated attempts to win over the aristocratic \"public\" with increasingly brilliant compositions, which are always frustrated either by Salieri or by the aristocracy's own inability to appreciate Mozart's genius. The play ends with Salieri attempting suicide in a last attempt to be remembered, leaving a false confession of having murdered Mozart with arsenic. He survives, however, and his confession is disbelieved by all, leaving him to wallow once again in mediocrity.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner",
    "author": "Samuel Taylor Coleridge",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Rime of the Ancient Mariner relates the experiences of a sailor who has returned from a long sea voyage. The Mariner stops a man who is on the way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from bemusement to impatience and fear to fascination as the Mariner's story progresses, as can be seen in the language style: for example, Coleridge uses narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create either a sense of danger, of the supernatural or of serenity, depending on the mood of each of the different parts of the poem. The Mariner's tale begins with his ship departing on its journey. Despite initial good fortune, the ship is driven south off course by a storm and eventually reaches Antarctica. An albatross appears and leads them out of the Antarctic but, even as the albatross is praised by the ship's crew, the Mariner shoots the bird (\"with my cross-bow / I shot the albatross\"). The crew is angry with the Mariner, believing the albatross brought the south wind that led them out of the Antarctic. However, the sailors change their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist disappears (\"'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay / that bring the fog and mist\"). However, they made a grave mistake in supporting this crime as it arouses the wrath of spirits who then pursue the ship \"from the land of mist and snow\"; the south wind that had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the ship into uncharted waters, where it is becalmed. : Day after day, day after day, : We stuck, nor breath nor motion; : As idle as a painted ship : Upon a painted ocean. : Water, water, every where, : And all the boards did shrink; : Water, water, every where, : Nor any drop to drink. Here, however, the sailors change their minds again and blame the Mariner for the torment of their thirst. In anger, the crew forces the Mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck, perhaps to illustrate the burden he must suffer from killing it, or perhaps as a sign of regret (\"Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks / Had I from old and young! / Instead of the cross, the albatross / About my neck was hung\"). Eventually, the ship encounters a ghostly vessel. On board are Death (a skeleton) and the \"Night-mare Life-in-Death\" (a deathly-pale woman), who are playing dice for the souls of the crew. With a roll of the dice, Death wins the lives of the crew members and Life-in-Death the life of the Mariner, a prize she considers more valuable. Her name is a clue as to the Mariner's fate; he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the albatross. One by one, all of the crew members die, but the Mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's corpses, whose last expressions remain upon their faces. Eventually, the Mariner's curse is temporarily lifted when he sees sea creatures swimming in the water. Despite his cursing them as \"slimy things\" earlier in the poem (\"Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / upon the slimy sea\"), he suddenly sees their true beauty and blesses them (\"a spring of love gush'd from my heart and I bless'd them unaware\"); suddenly, as he manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially expiated. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and steer the ship back home, where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the Mariner behind. A hermit on the mainland had seen the approaching ship and had come to meet it with a pilot and the pilot's boy in a boat. When they pull him from the water, they think he is dead, but when he opens his mouth, the pilot has a fit. The hermit prays, and the Mariner picks up the oars to row. The pilot's boy goes crazy and laughs, thinking the Mariner is the devil, and says, \"The Devil knows how to row.\" As penance for shooting the albatross, the Mariner, driven by guilt, is forced to wander the earth, tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he meets: : He prayeth best, who loveth best : All things both great and small; : For the dear God who loveth us, : He made and loveth all. After relating the story, the Mariner leaves, and the Wedding Guest returns home, and wakes the next morning \"a sadder and a wiser man\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Rime of the Ancient Mariner relates the experiences of a sailor who has returned from a long sea voyage. The Mariner stops a man who is on the way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from bemusement to impatience and fear to fascination as the Mariner's story progresses, as can be seen in the language style: for example, Coleridge uses narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create either a sense of danger, of the supernatural or of serenity, depending on the mood of each of the different parts of the poem. The Mariner's tale begins with his ship departing on its journey. Despite initial good fortune, the ship is driven south off course by a storm and eventually reaches Antarctica. An albatross appears and leads them out of the Antarctic but, even as the albatross is praised by the ship's crew, the Mariner shoots the bird (\"with my cross-bow / I shot the albatross\"). The crew is angry with the Mariner, believing the albatross brought the south wind that led them out of the Antarctic. However, the sailors change their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist disappears (\"'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay / that bring the fog and mist\"). However, they made a grave mistake in supporting this crime as it arouses the wrath of spirits who then pursue the ship \"from the land of mist and snow\"; the south wind that had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the ship into uncharted waters, where it is becalmed. : Day after day, day after day, : We stuck, nor breath nor motion; : As idle as a painted ship : Upon a painted ocean. : Water, water, every where, : And all the boards did shrink; : Water, water, every where, : Nor any drop to drink. Here, however"
      },
      {
        "text": " land of mist and snow\"; the south wind that had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the ship into uncharted waters, where it is becalmed. : Day after day, day after day, : We stuck, nor breath nor motion; : As idle as a painted ship : Upon a painted ocean. : Water, water, every where, : And all the boards did shrink; : Water, water, every where, : Nor any drop to drink. Here, however, the sailors change their minds again and blame the Mariner for the torment of their thirst. In anger, the crew forces the Mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck, perhaps to illustrate the burden he must suffer from killing it, or perhaps as a sign of regret (\"Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks / Had I from old and young! / Instead of the cross, the albatross / About my neck was hung\"). Eventually, the ship encounters a ghostly vessel. On board are Death (a skeleton) and the \"Night-mare Life-in-Death\" (a deathly-pale woman), who are playing dice for the souls of the crew. With a roll of the dice, Death wins the lives of the crew members and Life-in-Death the life of the Mariner, a prize she considers more valuable. Her name is a clue as to the Mariner's fate; he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the albatross. One by one, all of the crew members die, but the Mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's corpses, whose last expressions remain upon their faces. Eventually, the Mariner's curse is temporarily lifted when he sees sea creatures swimming in the water. Despite his cursing them as \"slimy things\" earlier in the poem (\"Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs"
      },
      {
        "text": " as punishment for his killing of the albatross. One by one, all of the crew members die, but the Mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's corpses, whose last expressions remain upon their faces. Eventually, the Mariner's curse is temporarily lifted when he sees sea creatures swimming in the water. Despite his cursing them as \"slimy things\" earlier in the poem (\"Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / upon the slimy sea\"), he suddenly sees their true beauty and blesses them (\"a spring of love gush'd from my heart and I bless'd them unaware\"); suddenly, as he manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially expiated. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and steer the ship back home, where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the Mariner behind. A hermit on the mainland had seen the approaching ship and had come to meet it with a pilot and the pilot's boy in a boat. When they pull him from the water, they think he is dead, but when he opens his mouth, the pilot has a fit. The hermit prays, and the Mariner picks up the oars to row. The pilot's boy goes crazy and laughs, thinking the Mariner is the devil, and says, \"The Devil knows how to row.\" As penance for shooting the albatross, the Mariner, driven by guilt, is forced to wander the earth, tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he meets: : He prayeth best, who loveth best : All things both great and small; : For the dear God who loveth us, : He made and loveth all. After relating the story, the Mariner leaves, and the Wedding Guest returns home, and wakes the next morning \"a sadder and a wiser"
      },
      {
        "text": " for shooting the albatross, the Mariner, driven by guilt, is forced to wander the earth, tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he meets: : He prayeth best, who loveth best : All things both great and small; : For the dear God who loveth us, : He made and loveth all. After relating the story, the Mariner leaves, and the Wedding Guest returns home, and wakes the next morning \"a sadder and a wiser man\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Eye of the World",
    "author": "Robert Jordan",
    "published_date": "1990-01-15",
    "synopsis": " The Eye of the World revolves around the lives of a group of young people from Emond's Field in The Two Rivers district: Rand al'Thor, Matrim (Mat) Cauthon, Perrin Aybara, Egwene al'Vere, and Nynaeve al'Meara. Emond's Field is unexpectedly attacked by Dark forces\u2014bestial Trollocs and a Myrddraal who seem to specifically target Rand, Mat and Perrin. Hoping to save their village from further attacks, the young men and Egwene flee the village accompanied by an Aes Sedai named Moiraine Damodred, her WarderAl'Lan Mandragoran and a Gleeman Thom Merrilin. They are later joined by Nynaeve al'Meara, the Wisdom of Emond's Field. Pursued by ever-increasing numbers of Trollocs and Myrddraal, the travellers are forced to take refuge in the abandoned city of Shadar Logoth, a place even the dark forces are reluctant to enter because of the evil Mashadar that resides there. While escaping the city the travelers are separated. Rand, Mat and Thom make their way by boat to Whitebridge where Thom is apparently killed while allowing Rand and Mat to escape a Myrddraal. In Caemlyn Rand befriends an Ogier named Loial. While exploring the city and trying to catch a glimpse of the recently captured False Dragon, Rand falls into the palace gardens. Once there he meets Elayne Trakand, heir apparent to the throne of Andor and her brothers Gawyn and Galad Damodred. Rand is taken before Queen Morgase and her Aes Sedai advisor, Elaida who foretells that Rand is dangerous. Queen Morgase, however, decides to let Rand go free. Meanwhile Egwene and Perrin travel separately to Caemlyn in the company of Elyas Machera, a man who can communicate with wolves and who claims that Perrin can do the same. The three run afoul of a legion of the Children of the Light. Perrin kills two Whitecloaks after witnessing the death of a wolf at their hands and is sentenced to death. Moiraine, Lan and Nynaeve rescue Egwene and Perrin from the Whitecloaks in time to escape their fate. Together they travel to Caemlyn where they are reunited with Rand and Mat. Rand tells Moiraine that Mat has been suspicious and withdrawn, and Moiraine diagnoses Mat's \"sickness\" as the corrupting influence of a ruby dagger Mat took from Shadar Logoth. Moiraine says that Mat must travel to Tar Valon in order to be healed. Loial warns Moiraine of a threat to the Eye of the World, which is confirmed by vivid and disturbing dreams Mat, Rand and Perrin have had. The Eye of the World was created by Aes Sedai who sacrificed themselves to create a pool of Saidin untouched by the Dark One's taint, and is hidden in the Blight. The Eye of the World is protected by Someshta (the Green Man) and contains one of the seven seals on the Dark One's prison, the Dragon banner of Lews Therin Telamon and the Horn of Valere. Loial guides the group through the Ways (passageways built by the male Aes Sedai during the Breaking of the World, which are now tainted by the same evil that tainted Saidin) in order to reach the Eye of the World. The group enters the Blight, in search of the Eye of the World guided by The Green Man. The Eye is revealed to be a pool of Saidin, pure and untainted. The companions are confronted by the Forsaken Aginor and Balthamel. Balthamel dies at the hand of the Green Man and Aginor and Rand battle for control of the Eye of the World. Rand defeats Aginor and guided by blind luck uses the pure Saidin to decimate the Trolloc army and defeat Ba'alzamon. Afterwards Rand realizes to his own horror that he has channeled the One Power and is therefore condemned to a fate of insanity and horrific death. It is revealed that Moiraine believes Rand is the Dragon Reborn.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Eye of the World revolves around the lives of a group of young people from Emond's Field in The Two Rivers district: Rand al'Thor, Matrim (Mat) Cauthon, Perrin Aybara, Egwene al'Vere, and Nynaeve al'Meara. Emond's Field is unexpectedly attacked by Dark forces\u2014bestial Trollocs and a Myrddraal who seem to specifically target Rand, Mat and Perrin. Hoping to save their village from further attacks, the young men and Egwene flee the village accompanied by an Aes Sedai named Moiraine Damodred, her WarderAl'Lan Mandragoran and a Gleeman Thom Merrilin. They are later joined by Nynaeve al'Meara, the Wisdom of Emond's Field. Pursued by ever-increasing numbers of Trollocs and Myrddraal, the travellers are forced to take refuge in the abandoned city of Shadar Logoth, a place even the dark forces are reluctant to enter because of the evil Mashadar that resides there. While escaping the city the travelers are separated. Rand, Mat and Thom make their way by boat to Whitebridge where Thom is apparently killed while allowing Rand and Mat to escape a Myrddraal. In Caemlyn Rand befriends an Ogier named Loial. While exploring the city and trying to catch a glimpse of the recently captured False Dragon, Rand falls into the palace gardens. Once there he meets Elayne Trakand, heir apparent to the throne of Andor and her brothers Gawyn and Galad Damodred. Rand is taken before Queen Morgase and her Aes Sedai advisor, Elaida who foretells that Rand is dangerous. Queen Morgase, however, decides to let Rand go free. Meanwhile Egwene and Perrin travel separately to Caemlyn in the company of Elyas Machera,"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Rand falls into the palace gardens. Once there he meets Elayne Trakand, heir apparent to the throne of Andor and her brothers Gawyn and Galad Damodred. Rand is taken before Queen Morgase and her Aes Sedai advisor, Elaida who foretells that Rand is dangerous. Queen Morgase, however, decides to let Rand go free. Meanwhile Egwene and Perrin travel separately to Caemlyn in the company of Elyas Machera, a man who can communicate with wolves and who claims that Perrin can do the same. The three run afoul of a legion of the Children of the Light. Perrin kills two Whitecloaks after witnessing the death of a wolf at their hands and is sentenced to death. Moiraine, Lan and Nynaeve rescue Egwene and Perrin from the Whitecloaks in time to escape their fate. Together they travel to Caemlyn where they are reunited with Rand and Mat. Rand tells Moiraine that Mat has been suspicious and withdrawn, and Moiraine diagnoses Mat's \"sickness\" as the corrupting influence of a ruby dagger Mat took from Shadar Logoth. Moiraine says that Mat must travel to Tar Valon in order to be healed. Loial warns Moiraine of a threat to the Eye of the World, which is confirmed by vivid and disturbing dreams Mat, Rand and Perrin have had. The Eye of the World was created by Aes Sedai who sacrificed themselves to create a pool of Saidin untouched by the Dark One's taint, and is hidden in the Blight. The Eye of the World is protected by Someshta (the Green Man) and contains one of the seven seals on the Dark One's prison, the Dragon banner of Lews Therin Telamon and the Horn of Valere. Loial guides the group through the Ways (passageways built by the male A"
      },
      {
        "text": " World was created by Aes Sedai who sacrificed themselves to create a pool of Saidin untouched by the Dark One's taint, and is hidden in the Blight. The Eye of the World is protected by Someshta (the Green Man) and contains one of the seven seals on the Dark One's prison, the Dragon banner of Lews Therin Telamon and the Horn of Valere. Loial guides the group through the Ways (passageways built by the male Aes Sedai during the Breaking of the World, which are now tainted by the same evil that tainted Saidin) in order to reach the Eye of the World. The group enters the Blight, in search of the Eye of the World guided by The Green Man. The Eye is revealed to be a pool of Saidin, pure and untainted. The companions are confronted by the Forsaken Aginor and Balthamel. Balthamel dies at the hand of the Green Man and Aginor and Rand battle for control of the Eye of the World. Rand defeats Aginor and guided by blind luck uses the pure Saidin to decimate the Trolloc army and defeat Ba'alzamon. Afterwards Rand realizes to his own horror that he has channeled the One Power and is therefore condemned to a fate of insanity and horrific death. It is revealed that Moiraine believes Rand is the Dragon Reborn.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Great Hunt",
    "author": "Robert Jordan",
    "published_date": "1990-11-15",
    "synopsis": " Ba'alzamon presides over a clandestine meeting as Shadow forces plot their actions and Shaitan\u2019s return. In addition to Forsaken and Darkfriends, the meeting includes two Aes Sedai, one of whom we come to know as Liandrin. The prologue shows how deep Ba'alzamon's influence has gone, even in places the protagonists believe to be safe. Following the events in The Eye of the World, the protagonists rest at Fort Fal Dara in Shienar, where the White Tower\u2019s Amyrlin Seat, Siuan Sanche, visits. Siuan reminisces and plots with fellow Aes Sedai Moiraine Damodred and Verin. Rand al'Thor meets Siuan. Siuan tells Rand that he is the Dragon Reborn, which Rand denies. Mat's condition worsens as he is symbiotically attached to a tainted parasitic dagger. Lan Mandragoran further instructs Rand in swordfighting. Powerful Darkfriend Padan Fain is imprisoned in the Fal Dara dungeon. Darkforces attack the city, freeing their leader Padan Fain and stealing the Horn of Valere and the tainted dagger that Mat needs to survive. Rand, Perrin Aybara, and Mat accompany a Shienaran party southbound in pursuit of the horn and dagger. Shienaran Lord Ingtar heads the group, which includes skilled tracker Hurin. Fain\u2019s fleeing darkforce includes trollocs, myrddraal, and darkfriends. Nynaeve al'Meara and Egwene al'Vere accompany Moraine to Tar Valon for Aes Sedai training. Andoran Princess Elayne and clairvoyant Min arrive at Tar Valon as well. At Tar Valon's White Tower, Nynaeve passes the test to become Accepted, a rank in the White Tower below Aes Sedai and above a Novice. Rand, Loial and Hurin are separated from the Shienaran party and transported to an alternate world via a portal stone, a world similar to their own but where the land appears deserted and distorted. Rand suspects that he activated the portal stone by unconsciously channeling saidin in his sleep, although Egwene dreams that a mysterious woman is responsible. Rand's struggle to accept his channeling ability is a recurring element in the novel. In the Portal Stone world, Rand meets Ba'alzamon and has a heron branded into his palm in a fight. Later, they find another portal stone with the help of a mysterious woman called Selene. Rand is able to use the Stone to return to their own world, albeit much farther ahead than either Fain's or Ingtar's group. By hiding and waiting for the Darkfriends to catch up, they manage to sneak into Fain's camp and recover both Horn and dagger. At a loss to explain Rand's disappearance, Lord Ingtar's group continues tracking Padan Fain with the aid of Perrin. Perrin pretends to be another sniffer like Hurin, but secretly uses his wolf senses to smell and track and also ask nearby wolves which way Padan Fain's group went. Rand's party journeys to Cairhien, and Selene leaves their party without warning. Arriving in the city, Rand finds gleeman Thom Merrilin, whom he thought dead after an encounter with a myrddraal in The Eye of the World. Rand and Loial are attacked by trollocs and, during their escape, destroy the Chapter House of the Illuminator's Guild, a society of people who are extremely protective of their knowledge of fireworks. The Horn and dagger are once again lost. Later on Thom's apprentice and lover, Dena, is murdered for Thom's involvement with Rand. With the aid of Perrin, Ingtar's group is successfully reunited with Rand, and they learn that the Horn has been taken to Toman Head, at the port city of Falme. Hoping to get there faster, Rand tries to lead them through a portal stone. While successful, during his attempt the stone malfunctions and the group ends up losing time. As these events unfold, action also takes place on the other side of the continent, where the invading Seanchan and their exotic beasts have occupied Falme. Whitecloak Geofram Bornhald, of the zealous religious group Children of the Light, is preparing forces to attack the Seanchan. At the White Tower, Liandrin tells Egwene and Nynaeve that Rand and his friends are in danger. They, along with Elayne and Min, travel with her to Toman Head via Waygate. When they arrive Min is captured by the Seanchan and Egwene is collared with an a'dam, a device used by the Seanchan to control women who can channel. Nynaeve and Elayne escape. At Falme, Rand, Ingtar and the others form a small party to reclaim the dagger and Horn of Valere, consisting of Ingtar, Hurin, Rand, Perrin, and an increasingly sickly Mat. Rand sneaks into the building where the Horn is being kept, and slays blademaster High Lord Turak of the Seanchan before escaping with the Horn and dagger. Ingtar reveals himself as a Darkfriend and furthermore, that he was responsible for letting in the attackers during the surprise attack at Fal Dara, but he redeems himself when he dies fighting for Rand's group. At the same time, Elayne and Nynaeve rescue Egwene from the Seanchan and attempt to flee the city. At this moment the Whitecloaks also choose to attack, leaving the heroes trapped between the Seanchan and the Whitecloaks. Desperately, Mat blows the Horn of Valere, summoning forth dead heroes who aid Mat's cause. The resurrected heroes include Artur Hawkwing. The Seanchan easily defeat the Whitecloaks. The resurrected Heroes then overwhelm the Seanchan, who retreat back to their ships and sail off as the resurrected heroes fade away. Finally, Rand duels with Ba'alzamon, while their images appear in the sky, drawing the attention of all. Rand is initially unable to penetrate Ba'alzamon's defenses. Rand then leaves himself open while employing a final fighting maneuver Lan had taught him. Ba'alzamon strikes Rand as Rand lands a killing counter-blow slaying Ba'alzamon. Rand is severely wounded. Selene is revealed to be Lanfear, one of the most powerful Forsaken.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ba'alzamon presides over a clandestine meeting as Shadow forces plot their actions and Shaitan\u2019s return. In addition to Forsaken and Darkfriends, the meeting includes two Aes Sedai, one of whom we come to know as Liandrin. The prologue shows how deep Ba'alzamon's influence has gone, even in places the protagonists believe to be safe. Following the events in The Eye of the World, the protagonists rest at Fort Fal Dara in Shienar, where the White Tower\u2019s Amyrlin Seat, Siuan Sanche, visits. Siuan reminisces and plots with fellow Aes Sedai Moiraine Damodred and Verin. Rand al'Thor meets Siuan. Siuan tells Rand that he is the Dragon Reborn, which Rand denies. Mat's condition worsens as he is symbiotically attached to a tainted parasitic dagger. Lan Mandragoran further instructs Rand in swordfighting. Powerful Darkfriend Padan Fain is imprisoned in the Fal Dara dungeon. Darkforces attack the city, freeing their leader Padan Fain and stealing the Horn of Valere and the tainted dagger that Mat needs to survive. Rand, Perrin Aybara, and Mat accompany a Shienaran party southbound in pursuit of the horn and dagger. Shienaran Lord Ingtar heads the group, which includes skilled tracker Hurin. Fain\u2019s fleeing darkforce includes trollocs, myrddraal, and darkfriends. Nynaeve al'Meara and Egwene al'Vere accompany Moraine to Tar Valon for Aes Sedai training. Andoran Princess Elayne and clairvoyant Min arrive at Tar Valon as well. At Tar Valon's White Tower, Nynaeve passes the test to become Accepted, a rank in the White Tower below Aes Sedai and above a Novice. Rand, Lo"
      },
      {
        "text": " myrddraal, and darkfriends. Nynaeve al'Meara and Egwene al'Vere accompany Moraine to Tar Valon for Aes Sedai training. Andoran Princess Elayne and clairvoyant Min arrive at Tar Valon as well. At Tar Valon's White Tower, Nynaeve passes the test to become Accepted, a rank in the White Tower below Aes Sedai and above a Novice. Rand, Loial and Hurin are separated from the Shienaran party and transported to an alternate world via a portal stone, a world similar to their own but where the land appears deserted and distorted. Rand suspects that he activated the portal stone by unconsciously channeling saidin in his sleep, although Egwene dreams that a mysterious woman is responsible. Rand's struggle to accept his channeling ability is a recurring element in the novel. In the Portal Stone world, Rand meets Ba'alzamon and has a heron branded into his palm in a fight. Later, they find another portal stone with the help of a mysterious woman called Selene. Rand is able to use the Stone to return to their own world, albeit much farther ahead than either Fain's or Ingtar's group. By hiding and waiting for the Darkfriends to catch up, they manage to sneak into Fain's camp and recover both Horn and dagger. At a loss to explain Rand's disappearance, Lord Ingtar's group continues tracking Padan Fain with the aid of Perrin. Perrin pretends to be another sniffer like Hurin, but secretly uses his wolf senses to smell and track and also ask nearby wolves which way Padan Fain's group went. Rand's party journeys to Cairhien, and Selene leaves their party without warning. Arriving in the city, Rand finds gleeman Thom Merrilin, whom he thought dead after an encounter with a myrddra"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s group continues tracking Padan Fain with the aid of Perrin. Perrin pretends to be another sniffer like Hurin, but secretly uses his wolf senses to smell and track and also ask nearby wolves which way Padan Fain's group went. Rand's party journeys to Cairhien, and Selene leaves their party without warning. Arriving in the city, Rand finds gleeman Thom Merrilin, whom he thought dead after an encounter with a myrddraal in The Eye of the World. Rand and Loial are attacked by trollocs and, during their escape, destroy the Chapter House of the Illuminator's Guild, a society of people who are extremely protective of their knowledge of fireworks. The Horn and dagger are once again lost. Later on Thom's apprentice and lover, Dena, is murdered for Thom's involvement with Rand. With the aid of Perrin, Ingtar's group is successfully reunited with Rand, and they learn that the Horn has been taken to Toman Head, at the port city of Falme. Hoping to get there faster, Rand tries to lead them through a portal stone. While successful, during his attempt the stone malfunctions and the group ends up losing time. As these events unfold, action also takes place on the other side of the continent, where the invading Seanchan and their exotic beasts have occupied Falme. Whitecloak Geofram Bornhald, of the zealous religious group Children of the Light, is preparing forces to attack the Seanchan. At the White Tower, Liandrin tells Egwene and Nynaeve that Rand and his friends are in danger. They, along with Elayne and Min, travel with her to Toman Head via Waygate. When they arrive Min is captured by the Seanchan and Egwene is collared with an a'dam, a device used by the Seanchan to control women who can channel. Nyn"
      },
      {
        "text": " group Children of the Light, is preparing forces to attack the Seanchan. At the White Tower, Liandrin tells Egwene and Nynaeve that Rand and his friends are in danger. They, along with Elayne and Min, travel with her to Toman Head via Waygate. When they arrive Min is captured by the Seanchan and Egwene is collared with an a'dam, a device used by the Seanchan to control women who can channel. Nynaeve and Elayne escape. At Falme, Rand, Ingtar and the others form a small party to reclaim the dagger and Horn of Valere, consisting of Ingtar, Hurin, Rand, Perrin, and an increasingly sickly Mat. Rand sneaks into the building where the Horn is being kept, and slays blademaster High Lord Turak of the Seanchan before escaping with the Horn and dagger. Ingtar reveals himself as a Darkfriend and furthermore, that he was responsible for letting in the attackers during the surprise attack at Fal Dara, but he redeems himself when he dies fighting for Rand's group. At the same time, Elayne and Nynaeve rescue Egwene from the Seanchan and attempt to flee the city. At this moment the Whitecloaks also choose to attack, leaving the heroes trapped between the Seanchan and the Whitecloaks. Desperately, Mat blows the Horn of Valere, summoning forth dead heroes who aid Mat's cause. The resurrected heroes include Artur Hawkwing. The Seanchan easily defeat the Whitecloaks. The resurrected Heroes then overwhelm the Seanchan, who retreat back to their ships and sail off as the resurrected heroes fade away. Finally, Rand duels with Ba'alzamon, while their images appear in the sky, drawing the attention of all. Rand is initially unable to penetrate Ba'alzamon's defenses. Rand then leaves himself open"
      },
      {
        "text": " summoning forth dead heroes who aid Mat's cause. The resurrected heroes include Artur Hawkwing. The Seanchan easily defeat the Whitecloaks. The resurrected Heroes then overwhelm the Seanchan, who retreat back to their ships and sail off as the resurrected heroes fade away. Finally, Rand duels with Ba'alzamon, while their images appear in the sky, drawing the attention of all. Rand is initially unable to penetrate Ba'alzamon's defenses. Rand then leaves himself open while employing a final fighting maneuver Lan had taught him. Ba'alzamon strikes Rand as Rand lands a killing counter-blow slaying Ba'alzamon. Rand is severely wounded. Selene is revealed to be Lanfear, one of the most powerful Forsaken.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Crown of Swords",
    "author": "Robert Jordan",
    "published_date": "1996-05-15",
    "synopsis": " A Crown of Swords has three primary plotlines: * Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, prepares to attack the Forsaken Sammael in Illian while enjoying life with his friend, Min Farshaw, and attempting to quell the rebellion by nobles in Cairhien, during which Padan Fain severely injures him with the Shadar Logoth dagger. After recovering, Rand, accompanied by Asha'man, attacks Illian and defeats Sammael in a duel of the One Power in Shadar Logoth, where Sammael is destroyed by Mashadar. Rand then takes the crown of Illian, formerly the Laurel Crown, but now called the Crown of Swords. * Egwene al'Vere and Siuan Sanche attempt to manipulate the Aes Sedai rebels in Salidar to move against Elaida's Aes Sedai in the White Tower in Tar Valon. After Egwene and Siuan investigate Siuan's suspicions about Myrelle, Egwene exploits the transfer of Lan's Warder bond from Moiraine to Myrelle in order to force Myrelle and Nisao to swear fealty to her. * In the city of Ebou Dar in Altara, Elayne Trakand, Nynaeve al'Meara, Aviendha, and Mat Cauthon search for a ter'angreal, the Bowl of the Winds, to break the unnatural heat brought on by the Dark One's manipulation of climate. They find it and enlist the help of the Kin and the Atha'an Miere, or Sea Folk. They also confront a Gholam. Mat is left behind after searching for Olver, and is caught in the fighting as the Seanchan invade Ebou Dar.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A Crown of Swords has three primary plotlines: * Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, prepares to attack the Forsaken Sammael in Illian while enjoying life with his friend, Min Farshaw, and attempting to quell the rebellion by nobles in Cairhien, during which Padan Fain severely injures him with the Shadar Logoth dagger. After recovering, Rand, accompanied by Asha'man, attacks Illian and defeats Sammael in a duel of the One Power in Shadar Logoth, where Sammael is destroyed by Mashadar. Rand then takes the crown of Illian, formerly the Laurel Crown, but now called the Crown of Swords. * Egwene al'Vere and Siuan Sanche attempt to manipulate the Aes Sedai rebels in Salidar to move against Elaida's Aes Sedai in the White Tower in Tar Valon. After Egwene and Siuan investigate Siuan's suspicions about Myrelle, Egwene exploits the transfer of Lan's Warder bond from Moiraine to Myrelle in order to force Myrelle and Nisao to swear fealty to her. * In the city of Ebou Dar in Altara, Elayne Trakand, Nynaeve al'Meara, Aviendha, and Mat Cauthon search for a ter'angreal, the Bowl of the Winds, to break the unnatural heat brought on by the Dark One's manipulation of climate. They find it and enlist the help of the Kin and the Atha'an Miere, or Sea Folk. They also confront a Gholam. Mat is left behind after searching for Olver, and is caught in the fighting as the Seanchan invade Ebou Dar.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " on by the Dark One's manipulation of climate. They find it and enlist the help of the Kin and the Atha'an Miere, or Sea Folk. They also confront a Gholam. Mat is left behind after searching for Olver, and is caught in the fighting as the Seanchan invade Ebou Dar.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Winter's Heart",
    "author": "Robert Jordan",
    "published_date": "2000-11-07",
    "synopsis": " Many of the events of Winter's Heart take place simultaneously with the events of the next book, Crossroads of Twilight. Perrin Aybara and his followers pursue the Shaido Aiel who kidnapped his wife, Faile Bashere. Elayne Trakand attempts to solidify her grip on the Lion Throne and put down rebellious nobles. Mat Cauthon, making his return to the series after his absence in the previous book, is trapped in the city of Ebou Dar in Altara, which is under Seanchan occupation. He plans his escape, but in the end, his plans are disrupted by the interference of a Seanchan noblewoman named Tuon, who is revealed as the Daughter of the Nine Moons, heir to the Seanchan Crystal Throne. Mat, having heard a prophecy about him marrying the Daughter of the Nine Moons, kidnaps Tuon instead of tying her up and leaving her behind. Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, is bonded as a Warder by Elayne Trakand, Aviendha, and Min Farshaw. He hunts down Asha'man traitors in Far Madding and kills most of them. Lan also kills Toram Riatin in a duel. Caught by guards, he is imprisoned for a short time but is set free by Cadsuane and the other Aes Sedai who followed him. Rand and Nynaeve al'Meara Travel to Shadar Logoth. There, defended by Cadsuane Melaidhrin's Aes Sedai and loyal Asha'man against the Forsaken, Rand and Nynaeve link and use the Choedan Kal to cleanse saidin of the Dark One's taint so that men who channel will no longer go mad. Whilst using so much of the One Power, the access key (of the female Choedan Kal) is destroyed. During the course of the events of the book, Rand al'Thor made an extraordinary claim: he believed he had discovered how to cleanse the Dark One's 3000-year-old taint on saidin. He discovered how to do this upon careful questioning of the Aelfinn, as well as of Herid Fel. His preparations bore great fruit when he and Nynaeve al'Meara used the two most powerful sa'angreal ever made (the Choedan Kal) to funnel the taint into Shadar Logoth. Rand al'Thor did this by creating a funnel of pure saidar and forcing saidin through the funnel. The evil in Shadar Logoth, which was born out of pure hate for the Shadow and the Dark One, attracted and reacted with the taint of saidin, and the two forces annihilated each other, removing the taint from saidin. In Knife of Dreams, it has been confirmed that saidin is clean, by both Aes Sedai and Asha'man. However, according to Jordan himself, though sane channelers no longer need to fear its destructive effects, it does not restore any already affected by it to their former selves (as far as madness is concerned, presumably the rotting sickness can now be cured). During the cleansing, a battle took place between the forces of light and the shadow. The forces of light under Cadsuane split into several groups of Aes Sedai and Asha'man linked to be ready for the upcoming attack. The Aes Sedai Sarene and Corele linked with the Asha'man Damer Flinn, while Elza (who is secretly Black Ajah) and Merise linked with Jahar (one of Merise's warders, wielding Callandor). Nesune, Beldeine, Daigian linked with Eben Hopwil. Verin and Kumira linked with a Sea Folk Windfinder Shalon. The former Damane Alivia fought without being linked, helped by a set of Angreal and Ter'angreal presumably made for battle, and by virtue of fact that she was (and is currently) the strongest and most experienced female channeler for the Light in the series thus far. The forces of the Shadow consisted of Cyndane (formerly Lanfear), Demandred, Osan'gar (formerly Aginor, who we find out has been masquerading as Corlan Dashiva, an Asha'man), Moghedien, Graendal and Aran'gar who was formerly Balthamel and now is in a female body but still channels saidin. During the fight, Osan'gar was killed by Elza (ironically a Black Ajah), Eben Hopwil by Aran'gar and Kumira by Graendal. It has also resulted in the utter destruction of the female Choedan Kal and its access key, which triggered the mass suicide of Amayar along the Islands of the Sea Folk, who believed the giant statue's destruction to signal the end of their Age of Illusion.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Many of the events of Winter's Heart take place simultaneously with the events of the next book, Crossroads of Twilight. Perrin Aybara and his followers pursue the Shaido Aiel who kidnapped his wife, Faile Bashere. Elayne Trakand attempts to solidify her grip on the Lion Throne and put down rebellious nobles. Mat Cauthon, making his return to the series after his absence in the previous book, is trapped in the city of Ebou Dar in Altara, which is under Seanchan occupation. He plans his escape, but in the end, his plans are disrupted by the interference of a Seanchan noblewoman named Tuon, who is revealed as the Daughter of the Nine Moons, heir to the Seanchan Crystal Throne. Mat, having heard a prophecy about him marrying the Daughter of the Nine Moons, kidnaps Tuon instead of tying her up and leaving her behind. Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, is bonded as a Warder by Elayne Trakand, Aviendha, and Min Farshaw. He hunts down Asha'man traitors in Far Madding and kills most of them. Lan also kills Toram Riatin in a duel. Caught by guards, he is imprisoned for a short time but is set free by Cadsuane and the other Aes Sedai who followed him. Rand and Nynaeve al'Meara Travel to Shadar Logoth. There, defended by Cadsuane Melaidhrin's Aes Sedai and loyal Asha'man against the Forsaken, Rand and Nynaeve link and use the Choedan Kal to cleanse saidin of the Dark One's taint so that men who channel will no longer go mad. Whilst using so much of the One Power, the access key (of the female Choedan Kal) is destroyed. During the course of the events of the book, Rand al'Thor made an extraordinary"
      },
      {
        "text": " Cadsuane Melaidhrin's Aes Sedai and loyal Asha'man against the Forsaken, Rand and Nynaeve link and use the Choedan Kal to cleanse saidin of the Dark One's taint so that men who channel will no longer go mad. Whilst using so much of the One Power, the access key (of the female Choedan Kal) is destroyed. During the course of the events of the book, Rand al'Thor made an extraordinary claim: he believed he had discovered how to cleanse the Dark One's 3000-year-old taint on saidin. He discovered how to do this upon careful questioning of the Aelfinn, as well as of Herid Fel. His preparations bore great fruit when he and Nynaeve al'Meara used the two most powerful sa'angreal ever made (the Choedan Kal) to funnel the taint into Shadar Logoth. Rand al'Thor did this by creating a funnel of pure saidar and forcing saidin through the funnel. The evil in Shadar Logoth, which was born out of pure hate for the Shadow and the Dark One, attracted and reacted with the taint of saidin, and the two forces annihilated each other, removing the taint from saidin. In Knife of Dreams, it has been confirmed that saidin is clean, by both Aes Sedai and Asha'man. However, according to Jordan himself, though sane channelers no longer need to fear its destructive effects, it does not restore any already affected by it to their former selves (as far as madness is concerned, presumably the rotting sickness can now be cured). During the cleansing, a battle took place between the forces of light and the shadow. The forces of light under Cadsuane split into several groups of Aes Sedai and Asha'man linked to be ready for the upcoming attack. The Aes Sedai Sare"
      },
      {
        "text": " himself, though sane channelers no longer need to fear its destructive effects, it does not restore any already affected by it to their former selves (as far as madness is concerned, presumably the rotting sickness can now be cured). During the cleansing, a battle took place between the forces of light and the shadow. The forces of light under Cadsuane split into several groups of Aes Sedai and Asha'man linked to be ready for the upcoming attack. The Aes Sedai Sarene and Corele linked with the Asha'man Damer Flinn, while Elza (who is secretly Black Ajah) and Merise linked with Jahar (one of Merise's warders, wielding Callandor). Nesune, Beldeine, Daigian linked with Eben Hopwil. Verin and Kumira linked with a Sea Folk Windfinder Shalon. The former Damane Alivia fought without being linked, helped by a set of Angreal and Ter'angreal presumably made for battle, and by virtue of fact that she was (and is currently) the strongest and most experienced female channeler for the Light in the series thus far. The forces of the Shadow consisted of Cyndane (formerly Lanfear), Demandred, Osan'gar (formerly Aginor, who we find out has been masquerading as Corlan Dashiva, an Asha'man), Moghedien, Graendal and Aran'gar who was formerly Balthamel and now is in a female body but still channels saidin. During the fight, Osan'gar was killed by Elza (ironically a Black Ajah), Eben Hopwil by Aran'gar and Kumira by Graendal. It has also resulted in the utter destruction of the female Choedan Kal and its access key, which triggered the mass suicide of Amayar along the Islands of the Sea Folk, who believed the"
      },
      {
        "text": "'gar who was formerly Balthamel and now is in a female body but still channels saidin. During the fight, Osan'gar was killed by Elza (ironically a Black Ajah), Eben Hopwil by Aran'gar and Kumira by Graendal. It has also resulted in the utter destruction of the female Choedan Kal and its access key, which triggered the mass suicide of Amayar along the Islands of the Sea Folk, who believed the giant statue's destruction to signal the end of their Age of Illusion.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Around the World in Eighty Days",
    "author": "Jules Verne",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story starts in London on October 1, 1872. Phileas Fogg is a rich English gentleman and bachelor living in solitude at Number 7 Savile Row, Burlington Gardens. Despite his wealth, which is \u00a340,000 (equal to \u00a3 today), Mr Fogg, whose countenance is described as \"repose in action\", lives a modest life with habits carried out with mathematical precision. Very little can be said about Mr. Fogg's social life other than that he is a member of the Reform Club. Having dismissed his former valet, James Foster, for bringing him shaving water at instead of , Mr Fogg hires a Frenchman by the name of Jean Passepartout, who is about 30 years old, as a replacement. Later, on that day, in the Reform Club, Fogg gets involved in an argument over an article in The Daily Telegraph, stating that with the opening of a new railway section in India, it is now possible to travel around the world in 80 days. He accepts a wager for \u00a320,000 from his fellow club members, which he will receive if he makes it around the world in 80 days. Accompanied by Monsieur Passepartout, he leaves London by train at 8:45 P.M. on October 2, 1872, and this is due back at the Reform Club at the same time 80 days later, on December 21. {| class=\"wikitable\" style=\"margin:auto;\" |- |+The proposed schedule | London, United Kingdom to Suez, Egypt || rail and steamer across Mediterranean | 7 days |----- | Suez to Bombay, India || steamer through Red Sea and Indian Ocean || 13 days |----- | Bombay to Calcutta, India || rail || 3 days |----- | Calcutta to Hong Kong, China || steamer across South China Sea || 13 days |----- | Hong Kong to Yokohama, Japan || steamer across South China Sea, East China Sea and through Pacific Ocean || 6 days |----- | Yokohama to San Francisco, United States || steamer across Pacific Ocean | 22 days |----- | San Francisco to New York City, United States || rail | 7 days |----- | New York to London || steamer across Atlantic Ocean and rail || 9 days |----- | colspan=\"2\"|Total || 80 days |} Fogg and Passepartout reach Suez in time. While disembarking in Egypt, they are watched by a Scotland Yard detective named Fix, who has been dispatched from London in search of a bank robber. Because Fogg happens to answer the description of the bank robber, Fix mistakes Fogg for the criminal. Since he cannot secure a warrant in time, Fix goes on board the steamer conveying the travellers to Bombay. During the voyage, Fix becomes acquainted with Passepartout, without revealing his purpose. On the voyage, Fogg promises the engineer a large reward if he gets them to Bombay early. They dock two days ahead of schedule. After reaching India they take a train from Bombay (known today as Mumbai) to Calcutta (Kolkata). About halfway there, Fogg learns that the Daily Telegraph newspaper article was wrong\u2014the railroad ends at Kholby and starts again 50 miles further on at Allahabad. Fogg promptly buys an elephant, hires a guide, and starts toward Allahabad. During the ride, they come across a procession, in which a young Indian woman, Aouda, is led to a sanctuary to be sacrificed by the process of suttee the next day by Brahmins. Since the young woman is drugged with the smoke of opium and hemp and is obviously not going voluntarily, the travellers decide to rescue her. They follow the procession to the site, where Passepartout secretly takes the place of Aouda's deceased husband on the funeral pyre, on which she is to be burned the next morning. During the ceremony, he then rises from the pyre, scaring off the priests, and carries the young woman away. Due to this incident, the two days gained earlier are lost, but Fogg shows no sign of regret. The travellers then hasten on to catch the train at the next railway station, taking Aouda with them. At Calcutta, they can finally board a steamer going to Hong Kong. Fix, who has secretly been following them, has Fogg and Passepartout arrested in Calcutta. However, they jump bail and Fix is forced to follow them to Hong Kong. On board, he shows himself to Passepartout, who is delighted to meet again his travelling companion from the earlier voyage. In Hong Kong, it turns out that Aouda's distant relative, in whose care they had been planning to leave her, has moved, probably to Holland, so they decide to take her with them to Europe. Meanwhile, still without a warrant, Fix sees Hong Kong as his last chance to arrest Fogg on British soil. Around this time, Passepartout becomes convinced that Fix is a spy from the Reform Club trying to see if Fogg is really going around the world. However, Fix confides in Passepartout, who does not believe a word and remains convinced that his master is not a bank robber. To prevent Passepartout from informing his master about the premature departure of their next vessel, Fix gets Passepartout drunk and drugs him in an opium den. In his dizziness, Passepartout still manages to catch the steamer to Yokohama, but neglects to inform Fogg. Fogg, on the next day, discovers that he has missed his connection. He goes in search of a vessel that will take him to Yokohama. He finds a pilot boat that takes him and Aouda to Shanghai, where they catch a steamer to Yokohama. In Yokohama, they go on a search for Passepartout, believing that he may have arrived there on the original boat. They find him in a circus, trying to earn the fare for his homeward journey. Reunited, the four board a steamer taking them across the Pacific to San Francisco. Fix promises Passepartout that now, having left British soil, he will no longer try to delay Fogg's journey, but rather support him in getting back to Britain as fast as possible to minimize the amount of his share of the stolen money that Fogg can spend. In San Francisco they get on a trans-American train to New York, encountering a number of obstacles (as well as a Mormon missionary) along the way: a massive herd of bison crossing the tracks, a failing suspension bridge, and most disastrously, the train is attacked and overcome by Sioux warriors. After heroically uncoupling the locomotive from the carriages, Passepartout is kidnapped by the Indians, but Fogg rescues him after some American soldiers volunteer to help. They continue by a wind powered sledge over the snowy prairie to Omaha, where they get a train to New York. Once in New York, and having missed departure of their ship (the China) by 45 minutes, Fogg starts looking for an alternative for the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. He finds a small steamboat, destined for Bordeaux. However, the captain of the boat refuses to take the company to Liverpool, whereupon Fogg consents to be taken to Bordeaux for the price of $2000 (equal to $ today) per passenger. On the voyage, he bribes the crew to mutiny and take course for Liverpool. Against hurricane winds and going on full steam all the time, the boat runs out of fuel after a few days. Fogg buys the boat at a very high price from the captain, soothing him thereby, and has the crew burn all the wooden parts to keep up the steam. The companions arrive at Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland, in time to reach London via Dublin and Liverpool before the deadline. However, once on British soil again, Fix produces a warrant and arrests Fogg. A short time later, the misunderstanding is cleared up\u2014the actual bank robber had been caught three days earlier in Edinburgh. In response to this, Fogg, in a rare moment of impulse, punches Fix, who immediately falls to the ground. However, Fogg has missed the train and returns to London five minutes late, assured that he has lost the wager. In his London house the next day, he apologises to Aouda for bringing her with him, since he now has to live in poverty and cannot financially support her. Aouda suddenly confesses that she loves him and asks him to marry her, which he gladly accepts. He calls for Passepartout to notify the reverend. At the reverend's, Passepartout learns that he is mistaken in the date, which he takes to be Sunday but which actually is Saturday because the party travelled east, thereby gaining a full day on their journey around the globe, by crossing the International Date Line. He did not notice this after landing in North America because the only phase of the trip that depended on vehicles departing less often than daily was the Atlantic crossing, and he had hired his own ship for that. Passepartout hurries back to Fogg, who immediately sets off for the Reform Club, where he arrives just in time to win the wager. Fogg marries Aouda and the journey around the world is complete. Passepartout and Fogg carried only a carpet bag with only two shirts and three pairs of stockings each, a mackintosh, a travelling cloak, and a spare pair of shoes. The only book they carried is Bradshaw's Continental Railway Steam Transit and General Guide. This contains timetables of trains and steamers. He also carried a huge roll of English banknotes-about \u00a320,000. He also left with twenty guineas (equal to \u00a3 today) won at whist, of which he soon disposed.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story starts in London on October 1, 1872. Phileas Fogg is a rich English gentleman and bachelor living in solitude at Number 7 Savile Row, Burlington Gardens. Despite his wealth, which is \u00a340,000 (equal to \u00a3 today), Mr Fogg, whose countenance is described as \"repose in action\", lives a modest life with habits carried out with mathematical precision. Very little can be said about Mr. Fogg's social life other than that he is a member of the Reform Club. Having dismissed his former valet, James Foster, for bringing him shaving water at instead of , Mr Fogg hires a Frenchman by the name of Jean Passepartout, who is about 30 years old, as a replacement. Later, on that day, in the Reform Club, Fogg gets involved in an argument over an article in The Daily Telegraph, stating that with the opening of a new railway section in India, it is now possible to travel around the world in 80 days. He accepts a wager for \u00a320,000 from his fellow club members, which he will receive if he makes it around the world in 80 days. Accompanied by Monsieur Passepartout, he leaves London by train at 8:45 P.M. on October 2, 1872, and this is due back at the Reform Club at the same time 80 days later, on December 21. {| class=\"wikitable\" style=\"margin:auto;\" |- |+The proposed schedule | London, United Kingdom to Suez, Egypt || rail and steamer across Mediterranean | 7 days |----- | Suez to Bombay, India || steamer through Red Sea and Indian Ocean || 13 days |----- | Bombay to Calcutta, India || rail || 3 days |----- | Calcutta to Hong Kong, China || steamer across South China Sea || 13 days |----- | Hong Kong to Yokohama, Japan || steamer"
      },
      {
        "text": "auto;\" |- |+The proposed schedule | London, United Kingdom to Suez, Egypt || rail and steamer across Mediterranean | 7 days |----- | Suez to Bombay, India || steamer through Red Sea and Indian Ocean || 13 days |----- | Bombay to Calcutta, India || rail || 3 days |----- | Calcutta to Hong Kong, China || steamer across South China Sea || 13 days |----- | Hong Kong to Yokohama, Japan || steamer across South China Sea, East China Sea and through Pacific Ocean || 6 days |----- | Yokohama to San Francisco, United States || steamer across Pacific Ocean | 22 days |----- | San Francisco to New York City, United States || rail | 7 days |----- | New York to London || steamer across Atlantic Ocean and rail || 9 days |----- | colspan=\"2\"|Total || 80 days |} Fogg and Passepartout reach Suez in time. While disembarking in Egypt, they are watched by a Scotland Yard detective named Fix, who has been dispatched from London in search of a bank robber. Because Fogg happens to answer the description of the bank robber, Fix mistakes Fogg for the criminal. Since he cannot secure a warrant in time, Fix goes on board the steamer conveying the travellers to Bombay. During the voyage, Fix becomes acquainted with Passepartout, without revealing his purpose. On the voyage, Fogg promises the engineer a large reward if he gets them to Bombay early. They dock two days ahead of schedule. After reaching India they take a train from Bombay (known today as Mumbai) to Calcutta (Kolkata). About halfway there, Fogg learns that the Daily Telegraph newspaper article was wrong\u2014the railroad ends at Kholby and starts again 50 miles further on at Allahabad. Fogg promptly buys an elephant, hires a guide, and starts toward Allahabad. During the ride, they come"
      },
      {
        "text": " a large reward if he gets them to Bombay early. They dock two days ahead of schedule. After reaching India they take a train from Bombay (known today as Mumbai) to Calcutta (Kolkata). About halfway there, Fogg learns that the Daily Telegraph newspaper article was wrong\u2014the railroad ends at Kholby and starts again 50 miles further on at Allahabad. Fogg promptly buys an elephant, hires a guide, and starts toward Allahabad. During the ride, they come across a procession, in which a young Indian woman, Aouda, is led to a sanctuary to be sacrificed by the process of suttee the next day by Brahmins. Since the young woman is drugged with the smoke of opium and hemp and is obviously not going voluntarily, the travellers decide to rescue her. They follow the procession to the site, where Passepartout secretly takes the place of Aouda's deceased husband on the funeral pyre, on which she is to be burned the next morning. During the ceremony, he then rises from the pyre, scaring off the priests, and carries the young woman away. Due to this incident, the two days gained earlier are lost, but Fogg shows no sign of regret. The travellers then hasten on to catch the train at the next railway station, taking Aouda with them. At Calcutta, they can finally board a steamer going to Hong Kong. Fix, who has secretly been following them, has Fogg and Passepartout arrested in Calcutta. However, they jump bail and Fix is forced to follow them to Hong Kong. On board, he shows himself to Passepartout, who is delighted to meet again his travelling companion from the earlier voyage. In Hong Kong, it turns out that Aouda's distant relative, in whose care they had been planning to leave her, has moved, probably to Holland, so they decide to take her with"
      },
      {
        "text": " been following them, has Fogg and Passepartout arrested in Calcutta. However, they jump bail and Fix is forced to follow them to Hong Kong. On board, he shows himself to Passepartout, who is delighted to meet again his travelling companion from the earlier voyage. In Hong Kong, it turns out that Aouda's distant relative, in whose care they had been planning to leave her, has moved, probably to Holland, so they decide to take her with them to Europe. Meanwhile, still without a warrant, Fix sees Hong Kong as his last chance to arrest Fogg on British soil. Around this time, Passepartout becomes convinced that Fix is a spy from the Reform Club trying to see if Fogg is really going around the world. However, Fix confides in Passepartout, who does not believe a word and remains convinced that his master is not a bank robber. To prevent Passepartout from informing his master about the premature departure of their next vessel, Fix gets Passepartout drunk and drugs him in an opium den. In his dizziness, Passepartout still manages to catch the steamer to Yokohama, but neglects to inform Fogg. Fogg, on the next day, discovers that he has missed his connection. He goes in search of a vessel that will take him to Yokohama. He finds a pilot boat that takes him and Aouda to Shanghai, where they catch a steamer to Yokohama. In Yokohama, they go on a search for Passepartout, believing that he may have arrived there on the original boat. They find him in a circus, trying to earn the fare for his homeward journey. Reunited, the four board a steamer taking them across the Pacific to San Francisco. Fix promises Passepartout that now, having left British soil, he will no longer try to delay Fogg's journey,"
      },
      {
        "text": " catch a steamer to Yokohama. In Yokohama, they go on a search for Passepartout, believing that he may have arrived there on the original boat. They find him in a circus, trying to earn the fare for his homeward journey. Reunited, the four board a steamer taking them across the Pacific to San Francisco. Fix promises Passepartout that now, having left British soil, he will no longer try to delay Fogg's journey, but rather support him in getting back to Britain as fast as possible to minimize the amount of his share of the stolen money that Fogg can spend. In San Francisco they get on a trans-American train to New York, encountering a number of obstacles (as well as a Mormon missionary) along the way: a massive herd of bison crossing the tracks, a failing suspension bridge, and most disastrously, the train is attacked and overcome by Sioux warriors. After heroically uncoupling the locomotive from the carriages, Passepartout is kidnapped by the Indians, but Fogg rescues him after some American soldiers volunteer to help. They continue by a wind powered sledge over the snowy prairie to Omaha, where they get a train to New York. Once in New York, and having missed departure of their ship (the China) by 45 minutes, Fogg starts looking for an alternative for the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. He finds a small steamboat, destined for Bordeaux. However, the captain of the boat refuses to take the company to Liverpool, whereupon Fogg consents to be taken to Bordeaux for the price of $2000 (equal to $ today) per passenger. On the voyage, he bribes the crew to mutiny and take course for Liverpool. Against hurricane winds and going on full steam all the time, the boat runs out of fuel after a few days. Fogg buys the boat at a very high price from the captain,"
      },
      {
        "text": "ordeaux. However, the captain of the boat refuses to take the company to Liverpool, whereupon Fogg consents to be taken to Bordeaux for the price of $2000 (equal to $ today) per passenger. On the voyage, he bribes the crew to mutiny and take course for Liverpool. Against hurricane winds and going on full steam all the time, the boat runs out of fuel after a few days. Fogg buys the boat at a very high price from the captain, soothing him thereby, and has the crew burn all the wooden parts to keep up the steam. The companions arrive at Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland, in time to reach London via Dublin and Liverpool before the deadline. However, once on British soil again, Fix produces a warrant and arrests Fogg. A short time later, the misunderstanding is cleared up\u2014the actual bank robber had been caught three days earlier in Edinburgh. In response to this, Fogg, in a rare moment of impulse, punches Fix, who immediately falls to the ground. However, Fogg has missed the train and returns to London five minutes late, assured that he has lost the wager. In his London house the next day, he apologises to Aouda for bringing her with him, since he now has to live in poverty and cannot financially support her. Aouda suddenly confesses that she loves him and asks him to marry her, which he gladly accepts. He calls for Passepartout to notify the reverend. At the reverend's, Passepartout learns that he is mistaken in the date, which he takes to be Sunday but which actually is Saturday because the party travelled east, thereby gaining a full day on their journey around the globe, by crossing the International Date Line. He did not notice this after landing in North America because the only phase of the trip that depended on vehicles departing less often than daily was the Atlantic crossing, and he had hired his own ship for"
      },
      {
        "text": " to notify the reverend. At the reverend's, Passepartout learns that he is mistaken in the date, which he takes to be Sunday but which actually is Saturday because the party travelled east, thereby gaining a full day on their journey around the globe, by crossing the International Date Line. He did not notice this after landing in North America because the only phase of the trip that depended on vehicles departing less often than daily was the Atlantic crossing, and he had hired his own ship for that. Passepartout hurries back to Fogg, who immediately sets off for the Reform Club, where he arrives just in time to win the wager. Fogg marries Aouda and the journey around the world is complete. Passepartout and Fogg carried only a carpet bag with only two shirts and three pairs of stockings each, a mackintosh, a travelling cloak, and a spare pair of shoes. The only book they carried is Bradshaw's Continental Railway Steam Transit and General Guide. This contains timetables of trains and steamers. He also carried a huge roll of English banknotes-about \u00a320,000. He also left with twenty guineas (equal to \u00a3 today) won at whist, of which he soon disposed.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Grapes of Wrath",
    "author": "John Steinbeck",
    "published_date": "1939",
    "synopsis": " The narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison for homicide. On his journey to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, he meets former preacher Jim Casy whom he remembers from his childhood, and the two travel together. When they arrive at his childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, he and Casy meet their old neighbor, Muley Graves, who tells them that the family has gone to stay at Uncle John Joad's home nearby. He goes on to tell them that the banks have evicted all the farmers off their land, but he refuses to leave the area. Tom and Casy get up the next morning to go to Uncle John's. There, Tom finds his family loading a converted Hudson truck with what remains of their possessions; the crops were destroyed in the Dust Bowl and, as a result, the family had to default on their loans. With their farm repossessed, the Joads cling to hope, mostly in the form of handbills distributed everywhere in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, describing the fruitful state of California and the high pay to be had in that state. The Joads are seduced by this advertising and invest everything they have into the journey. Although leaving Oklahoma would be breaking parole, Tom decides that it is a risk worth taking. Casy is invited to join the family as well. Going west on Route 66, the Joad family discovers that the road is saturated with other families making the same trek, ensnared by the same promise. In makeshift camps, they hear many stories from others, some coming back from California, and are forced to confront the possibility that their prospects may not be what they hoped. Along the road, Grampa dies and is buried in the camp; Granma dies close to the California state line, both Noah (the eldest Joad son) and Connie (the husband of the pregnant Joad daughter, Rose of Sharon) split from the family; the remaining members, led by Ma, realize they have no choice but to go on, as there is nothing remaining for them in Oklahoma. Upon arrival, they find little hope of making a decent wage, as there is an oversupply of labor and a lack of rights, and the big corporate farmers are in collusion, while smaller farmers are suffering from collapsing prices. A gleam of hope is presented at Weedpatch Camp, one of the clean, utility-supplied camps operated by the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency that has been established to help the migrants, but there is not enough money and space to care for all of the needy. As a Federal facility, the camp is also off-limits to California deputies who constantly harass and provoke the newcomers. In response to the exploitation of laborers, there are people who attempt for the workers to join unions, including Casy, who had gone to jail after taking the blame for attacking a rogue deputy. The remaining Joads work as strikebreakers on a peach orchard where Casy is involved in a strike that eventually turns violent. Tom Joad witnesses the killing of Casy and kills the attacker, becoming a fugitive. They later leave the orchard for a cotton farm where Tom is at risk of being identified for the murder he committed. He bids farewell to his mother, promising that no matter where he runs, he will be a tireless advocate for the oppressed. Rose of Sharon's baby is stillborn; however, Ma Joad remains steadfast and forces the family through the bereavement. When the rains arrive, the Joads' dwelling is flooded, and they move to higher ground.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison for homicide. On his journey to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, he meets former preacher Jim Casy whom he remembers from his childhood, and the two travel together. When they arrive at his childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, he and Casy meet their old neighbor, Muley Graves, who tells them that the family has gone to stay at Uncle John Joad's home nearby. He goes on to tell them that the banks have evicted all the farmers off their land, but he refuses to leave the area. Tom and Casy get up the next morning to go to Uncle John's. There, Tom finds his family loading a converted Hudson truck with what remains of their possessions; the crops were destroyed in the Dust Bowl and, as a result, the family had to default on their loans. With their farm repossessed, the Joads cling to hope, mostly in the form of handbills distributed everywhere in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, describing the fruitful state of California and the high pay to be had in that state. The Joads are seduced by this advertising and invest everything they have into the journey. Although leaving Oklahoma would be breaking parole, Tom decides that it is a risk worth taking. Casy is invited to join the family as well. Going west on Route 66, the Joad family discovers that the road is saturated with other families making the same trek, ensnared by the same promise. In makeshift camps, they hear many stories from others, some coming back from California, and are forced to confront the possibility that their prospects may not be what they hoped. Along the road, Grampa dies and is buried in the camp; Granma dies close to the California state line, both Noah (the eldest Joad son) and Connie (the husband of the pregnant Joad daughter, Rose of"
      },
      {
        "text": " road is saturated with other families making the same trek, ensnared by the same promise. In makeshift camps, they hear many stories from others, some coming back from California, and are forced to confront the possibility that their prospects may not be what they hoped. Along the road, Grampa dies and is buried in the camp; Granma dies close to the California state line, both Noah (the eldest Joad son) and Connie (the husband of the pregnant Joad daughter, Rose of Sharon) split from the family; the remaining members, led by Ma, realize they have no choice but to go on, as there is nothing remaining for them in Oklahoma. Upon arrival, they find little hope of making a decent wage, as there is an oversupply of labor and a lack of rights, and the big corporate farmers are in collusion, while smaller farmers are suffering from collapsing prices. A gleam of hope is presented at Weedpatch Camp, one of the clean, utility-supplied camps operated by the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency that has been established to help the migrants, but there is not enough money and space to care for all of the needy. As a Federal facility, the camp is also off-limits to California deputies who constantly harass and provoke the newcomers. In response to the exploitation of laborers, there are people who attempt for the workers to join unions, including Casy, who had gone to jail after taking the blame for attacking a rogue deputy. The remaining Joads work as strikebreakers on a peach orchard where Casy is involved in a strike that eventually turns violent. Tom Joad witnesses the killing of Casy and kills the attacker, becoming a fugitive. They later leave the orchard for a cotton farm where Tom is at risk of being identified for the murder he committed. He bids farewell to his mother, promising that no matter where he runs, he will be a tireless advocate for the oppressed. Rose of Sharon's"
      },
      {
        "text": ". The remaining Joads work as strikebreakers on a peach orchard where Casy is involved in a strike that eventually turns violent. Tom Joad witnesses the killing of Casy and kills the attacker, becoming a fugitive. They later leave the orchard for a cotton farm where Tom is at risk of being identified for the murder he committed. He bids farewell to his mother, promising that no matter where he runs, he will be a tireless advocate for the oppressed. Rose of Sharon's baby is stillborn; however, Ma Joad remains steadfast and forces the family through the bereavement. When the rains arrive, the Joads' dwelling is flooded, and they move to higher ground.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "How Green Was My Valley",
    "author": "Richard Llewellyn",
    "published_date": "1939",
    "synopsis": " The novel is set in South Wales in the reign of Queen Victoria. It tells the story of the Morgans, a respectable mining family of the South Wales Valleys, through the eyes of the youngest son, Huw Morgan. Huw's academic ability sets him apart from his elder brothers and enables him to consider a future away from this troubled industrial environment. His five brothers and his father are miners; after the eldest brother, Ivor, is killed in an mining accident, Huw moves in with his sister-in-law, Bronwen, with whom he has always been in love. One of Huw's three sisters, Angharad, marries the wealthy mine owner's son, whom she does not love, and the marriage is an unhappy one. She never overcomes her clandestine relationship with the local minister. Huw's father is later killed in a mine explosion. After everyone Huw has known either dies or moves away, he decides to leave as well, and tells us the story of his life just before he does.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is set in South Wales in the reign of Queen Victoria. It tells the story of the Morgans, a respectable mining family of the South Wales Valleys, through the eyes of the youngest son, Huw Morgan. Huw's academic ability sets him apart from his elder brothers and enables him to consider a future away from this troubled industrial environment. His five brothers and his father are miners; after the eldest brother, Ivor, is killed in an mining accident, Huw moves in with his sister-in-law, Bronwen, with whom he has always been in love. One of Huw's three sisters, Angharad, marries the wealthy mine owner's son, whom she does not love, and the marriage is an unhappy one. She never overcomes her clandestine relationship with the local minister. Huw's father is later killed in a mine explosion. After everyone Huw has known either dies or moves away, he decides to leave as well, and tells us the story of his life just before he does.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lady Audley's Secret",
    "author": "Mary Elizabeth Braddon",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel opens with the marriage of Lucy Graham, a beautiful, doll-like blonde who enchants almost all who meet her, to Sir Michael Audley, an old, rich, and kind widower, in June 1857. Lucy was a governess for the local doctor, Mr. Dawson. Until her marriage, Lucy was in service with Mrs. Vincent, and besides that very little is known about her past. Around the time of the marriage, Sir Michael\u2019s nephew, barrister Robert Audley, welcomes back to England his old friend, George Talboys, who has returned after three years of gold prospecting in Australia. George is anxious to get news of his wife, Helen, whom he left three years ago when their financial situation became desperate, in the hope of returning to her with Australian gold. He reads in the newspaper that she has died, and, after visiting her home to confirm this, he has a complete breakdown. Robert Audley cares for his friend, and, hoping to distract him, offers to take him to his wealthy uncle\u2019s country manor. George had a child, Georgey, who was left under the care of Lieutenant Maldon, George's father-in-law. Robert and George set off to visit Georgey, and George decides to make Robert little Georgey's guardian and caretaker of 20,000 pounds put into the boy's name. After settling the matter of the boy's guardianship, the two set off to visit Sir Michael. While at Audley Court, the country manor, Lady Audley avoids meeting with George. When the two seek an audience with the new Lady Audley, she makes many excuses to avoid their visit, but he and Robert are shown a portrait of her by Alicia Audley, Robert\u2019s cousin. George appears greatly struck by the portrait, unbeknownst to Robert (who credits the unfavorable reaction to that evening's storm). Shortly thereafter, George disappears upon a visit to Audley Court, much to Robert\u2019s consternation. Unwilling to believe that George has simply left suddenly and without notice, Robert begins to look into the circumstances around the strange disappearance. While searching for his friend, Robert begins to take notes of the events as they unfold. His notes indicate the involvement of Lady Audley, much to his chagrin, and he slowly begins to collect evidence against her. One night, he reveals the evidence and notes that George was in possession of many letters that his former wife wrote. Lady Audley immediately sets off to London, where the letters were kept, and Robert follows after her. However, by the time he arrives, he discovers that George's possessions have been broken into with the help of a local locksmith and that the letters have vanished. However, one possession, a book with a note written by George's wife that matches Lady Audley's handwriting, remains. This confirms Robert's suspicion that Lady Audley is implicated in George's disappearance; it also leads Robert to conclude that Lady Audley is actually George's supposedly dead wife. Suspecting the worst of Lady Audley and being afraid for little Georgey's life, Robert travels to Lieutenant Maldon's house and demands possession of the boy. Once Robert has Georgey under his control, he places the boy in a school run by Mr. Marchmont. Afterwards, Robert visits George's father, Mr. Harcourt Talboys, and confronts the Squire with his son's death. Mr. Harcourt listens dispassionately to the story. In the course of his visit to the Talboy's manor, Robert is entranced by George\u2019s sister Clara, who looks startlingly like George. Clara\u2019s passion for finding her brother spurs Robert on. During February 1859, Robert continues searching for evidence. He receives a notice that his uncle is ill, and he quickly returns to Audley Court. While there, Robert speaks with Mr. Dawson and receives a brief description of all that is known about Lucy's background. He hears that Lucy was employed by Mrs. Vincent at her school since 1852, and, to verify this claim, Robert tracks down Mrs. Vincent, who is in hiding because of debts. According to Miss Tonks, a teacher at Mrs. Vincent's school, Lucy actually arrived at the school in August 1854 and was secretive about her past. Miss Tonks gives Robert a travel box that used to belong to Lucy, and upon examining stickers on the box, Robert discovers both the name Lucy Graham and the name Helen Talboys. Robert realizes that Helen Talboys faked her death before creating her new identity. When Robert confronts Lucy, she tells him that he has no proof, and he leaves to find more evidence, heading to Castle Inn, which is run by Phoebe Marks's husband, Luke. During the night, Lucy forces Phoebe Marks to let her into the inn and Lucy sets the place on fire, with the intention of killing Robert. However, Robert survives and returns to Audley Court and again confronts Lucy. This time, she says she is crazy and confesses her life's story to Robert and Sir Michael, claiming that George abandoned her originally and she had no choice but to abandon her old life and child in order to find another, wealthier husband. Sir Michael is unhappy and leaves with Alicia to travel through Europe. Robert invites a Doctor Mosgrave to make a more astute judgment regarding Lucy's sanity, and he proclaims that she is indeed victim to latent insanity, which overpowers her in times of stress and makes her very dangerous to any and all. Lucy, under the name of Madame Taylor, enters a mental institution located somewhere in Belgium along the route between Brussels and Paris. While being committed, Lucy confesses to Robert that she killed George by pushing him down a deserted well in the garden of Audley Court. Robert grieves for his friend George until Luke Marks, who was fatally injured in the fire, manages, before dying, to tell Robert that George survived Lady Audley\u2019s attempted murder and that George, with Luke\u2019s help, left with intent of returning to Australia. Robert is overjoyed, and he asks Clara to marry him and go with him to Australia to find George. Clara accepts, but before they set out, George returns and reveals that he actually visited New York instead. The narrative ends with the death of Lucy abroad, Clara and Robert happily married and living in a country cottage with George and his son. Robert's formerly infatuated cousin Alicia marries her once-spurned suitor, Sir Harry Towers, and Audley Court is left abandoned along with all of its unhappy memories.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel opens with the marriage of Lucy Graham, a beautiful, doll-like blonde who enchants almost all who meet her, to Sir Michael Audley, an old, rich, and kind widower, in June 1857. Lucy was a governess for the local doctor, Mr. Dawson. Until her marriage, Lucy was in service with Mrs. Vincent, and besides that very little is known about her past. Around the time of the marriage, Sir Michael\u2019s nephew, barrister Robert Audley, welcomes back to England his old friend, George Talboys, who has returned after three years of gold prospecting in Australia. George is anxious to get news of his wife, Helen, whom he left three years ago when their financial situation became desperate, in the hope of returning to her with Australian gold. He reads in the newspaper that she has died, and, after visiting her home to confirm this, he has a complete breakdown. Robert Audley cares for his friend, and, hoping to distract him, offers to take him to his wealthy uncle\u2019s country manor. George had a child, Georgey, who was left under the care of Lieutenant Maldon, George's father-in-law. Robert and George set off to visit Georgey, and George decides to make Robert little Georgey's guardian and caretaker of 20,000 pounds put into the boy's name. After settling the matter of the boy's guardianship, the two set off to visit Sir Michael. While at Audley Court, the country manor, Lady Audley avoids meeting with George. When the two seek an audience with the new Lady Audley, she makes many excuses to avoid their visit, but he and Robert are shown a portrait of her by Alicia Audley, Robert\u2019s cousin. George appears greatly struck by the portrait, unbeknownst to Robert (who credits the unfavorable reaction to that evening's storm). Shortly thereafter, George disappears upon"
      },
      {
        "text": " off to visit Sir Michael. While at Audley Court, the country manor, Lady Audley avoids meeting with George. When the two seek an audience with the new Lady Audley, she makes many excuses to avoid their visit, but he and Robert are shown a portrait of her by Alicia Audley, Robert\u2019s cousin. George appears greatly struck by the portrait, unbeknownst to Robert (who credits the unfavorable reaction to that evening's storm). Shortly thereafter, George disappears upon a visit to Audley Court, much to Robert\u2019s consternation. Unwilling to believe that George has simply left suddenly and without notice, Robert begins to look into the circumstances around the strange disappearance. While searching for his friend, Robert begins to take notes of the events as they unfold. His notes indicate the involvement of Lady Audley, much to his chagrin, and he slowly begins to collect evidence against her. One night, he reveals the evidence and notes that George was in possession of many letters that his former wife wrote. Lady Audley immediately sets off to London, where the letters were kept, and Robert follows after her. However, by the time he arrives, he discovers that George's possessions have been broken into with the help of a local locksmith and that the letters have vanished. However, one possession, a book with a note written by George's wife that matches Lady Audley's handwriting, remains. This confirms Robert's suspicion that Lady Audley is implicated in George's disappearance; it also leads Robert to conclude that Lady Audley is actually George's supposedly dead wife. Suspecting the worst of Lady Audley and being afraid for little Georgey's life, Robert travels to Lieutenant Maldon's house and demands possession of the boy. Once Robert has Georgey under his control, he places the boy in a school run by Mr. Marchmont. Afterwards, Robert visits George's father, Mr. Harcourt Talboys, and confronts the Squ"
      },
      {
        "text": " is implicated in George's disappearance; it also leads Robert to conclude that Lady Audley is actually George's supposedly dead wife. Suspecting the worst of Lady Audley and being afraid for little Georgey's life, Robert travels to Lieutenant Maldon's house and demands possession of the boy. Once Robert has Georgey under his control, he places the boy in a school run by Mr. Marchmont. Afterwards, Robert visits George's father, Mr. Harcourt Talboys, and confronts the Squire with his son's death. Mr. Harcourt listens dispassionately to the story. In the course of his visit to the Talboy's manor, Robert is entranced by George\u2019s sister Clara, who looks startlingly like George. Clara\u2019s passion for finding her brother spurs Robert on. During February 1859, Robert continues searching for evidence. He receives a notice that his uncle is ill, and he quickly returns to Audley Court. While there, Robert speaks with Mr. Dawson and receives a brief description of all that is known about Lucy's background. He hears that Lucy was employed by Mrs. Vincent at her school since 1852, and, to verify this claim, Robert tracks down Mrs. Vincent, who is in hiding because of debts. According to Miss Tonks, a teacher at Mrs. Vincent's school, Lucy actually arrived at the school in August 1854 and was secretive about her past. Miss Tonks gives Robert a travel box that used to belong to Lucy, and upon examining stickers on the box, Robert discovers both the name Lucy Graham and the name Helen Talboys. Robert realizes that Helen Talboys faked her death before creating her new identity. When Robert confronts Lucy, she tells him that he has no proof, and he leaves to find more evidence, heading to Castle Inn, which is run by Phoebe Marks's husband, Luke. During the night, Lucy forces Phoebe Marks to let her into the inn"
      },
      {
        "text": " that used to belong to Lucy, and upon examining stickers on the box, Robert discovers both the name Lucy Graham and the name Helen Talboys. Robert realizes that Helen Talboys faked her death before creating her new identity. When Robert confronts Lucy, she tells him that he has no proof, and he leaves to find more evidence, heading to Castle Inn, which is run by Phoebe Marks's husband, Luke. During the night, Lucy forces Phoebe Marks to let her into the inn and Lucy sets the place on fire, with the intention of killing Robert. However, Robert survives and returns to Audley Court and again confronts Lucy. This time, she says she is crazy and confesses her life's story to Robert and Sir Michael, claiming that George abandoned her originally and she had no choice but to abandon her old life and child in order to find another, wealthier husband. Sir Michael is unhappy and leaves with Alicia to travel through Europe. Robert invites a Doctor Mosgrave to make a more astute judgment regarding Lucy's sanity, and he proclaims that she is indeed victim to latent insanity, which overpowers her in times of stress and makes her very dangerous to any and all. Lucy, under the name of Madame Taylor, enters a mental institution located somewhere in Belgium along the route between Brussels and Paris. While being committed, Lucy confesses to Robert that she killed George by pushing him down a deserted well in the garden of Audley Court. Robert grieves for his friend George until Luke Marks, who was fatally injured in the fire, manages, before dying, to tell Robert that George survived Lady Audley\u2019s attempted murder and that George, with Luke\u2019s help, left with intent of returning to Australia. Robert is overjoyed, and he asks Clara to marry him and go with him to Australia to find George. Clara accepts, but before they set out, George returns and reveals that he actually visited New York instead. The narrative ends with"
      },
      {
        "text": " friend George until Luke Marks, who was fatally injured in the fire, manages, before dying, to tell Robert that George survived Lady Audley\u2019s attempted murder and that George, with Luke\u2019s help, left with intent of returning to Australia. Robert is overjoyed, and he asks Clara to marry him and go with him to Australia to find George. Clara accepts, but before they set out, George returns and reveals that he actually visited New York instead. The narrative ends with the death of Lucy abroad, Clara and Robert happily married and living in a country cottage with George and his son. Robert's formerly infatuated cousin Alicia marries her once-spurned suitor, Sir Harry Towers, and Audley Court is left abandoned along with all of its unhappy memories.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Streetcar Named Desire",
    "author": "Tennessee Williams",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Blanche DuBois is a fading, but still-attractive, Southern belle whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly mask alcoholism and delusions of grandeur. Her poise is an illusion she presents to shield others (but most of all, herself) from her reality, and an attempt to make herself still attractive to new male suitors. Blanche arrives at the apartment of her sister Stella Kowalski in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, on Elysian Fields Avenue; the local transportation that she takes to arrive there includes a streetcar route named \"Desire.\" The steamy, urban ambiance is a shock to Blanche's nerves. Stella, who fears the reaction of her husband Stanley, welcomes Blanche with some trepidation. As Blanche explains that their ancestral Southern plantation, Belle Reve in Laurel, Mississippi, has been \"lost\" due to the \"epic fornications\" of their ancestors, her veneer of self-possession begins to slip drastically. Blanche tells Stella that her supervisor allowed her to take time off from her job as an English teacher because of her upset nerves, when in fact, she has been fired for having an affair with a 17-year-old student. This turns out not to be the only seduction in which she has engaged, and, along with other problems, has led her to escape Laurel. A brief marriage marred by the discovery that her husband, Allan Grey, was having a homosexual affair and his subsequent suicide has led Blanche to withdraw into a world in which fantasies and illusions blend seamlessly with reality. In contrast to both the self-effacing and deferential Stella and the pretentious refinement of Blanche, Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski, is a force of nature: primal, rough-hewn, brutish, and sensual. He dominates Stella in every way and is physically and emotionally abusive. Stella tolerates his primal behavior as this is part of what attracted her in the first place; their love and relationship are heavily based on powerful\u2014even animal-like\u2014sexual chemistry, something that Blanche finds impossible to understand. The arrival of Blanche upsets her sister and brother-in-law's system of mutual dependence. Stella's concern for her sister's well-being emboldens Blanche to hold court in the Kowalski apartment, infuriating Stanley and leading to conflict in his relationship with his wife. Blanche and Stanley are on a collision course, and Stanley's friend and Blanche's would-be suitor, Harold \"Mitch\" Mitchell, gets trampled in their path. Stanley discovers Blanche's past through a co-worker who travels to Laurel frequently, and he confronts her with the things that she has been trying to put behind her, partly out of concern that her character flaws may be damaging to the lives of those in her new home, just as they were in Laurel, and partly out of a distaste for her pretense in general. However, his attempts to \"unmask\" her are predictably cruel and violent. In their final confrontation, it is implied that Stanley rapes Blanche, resulting in her nervous breakdown. Stanley has her committed to a mental institution, and in the closing moments, Blanche utters her signature line to the kindly doctor who leads her away: \"Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.\" The reference to the streetcar named Desire\u2014providing the aura of New Orleans geography\u2014is symbolic. Blanche not only has to travel on a streetcar route named \"Desire\" to reach Stella's home on \"Elysian Fields\" but her desire acts as an irrepressible force throughout the play\u2014she can only hang on as her desires lead her. The character of Blanche is thought to be based on Williams' sister Rose Williams who struggled with her mental health and became incapacitated after a lobotomy.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Blanche DuBois is a fading, but still-attractive, Southern belle whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly mask alcoholism and delusions of grandeur. Her poise is an illusion she presents to shield others (but most of all, herself) from her reality, and an attempt to make herself still attractive to new male suitors. Blanche arrives at the apartment of her sister Stella Kowalski in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, on Elysian Fields Avenue; the local transportation that she takes to arrive there includes a streetcar route named \"Desire.\" The steamy, urban ambiance is a shock to Blanche's nerves. Stella, who fears the reaction of her husband Stanley, welcomes Blanche with some trepidation. As Blanche explains that their ancestral Southern plantation, Belle Reve in Laurel, Mississippi, has been \"lost\" due to the \"epic fornications\" of their ancestors, her veneer of self-possession begins to slip drastically. Blanche tells Stella that her supervisor allowed her to take time off from her job as an English teacher because of her upset nerves, when in fact, she has been fired for having an affair with a 17-year-old student. This turns out not to be the only seduction in which she has engaged, and, along with other problems, has led her to escape Laurel. A brief marriage marred by the discovery that her husband, Allan Grey, was having a homosexual affair and his subsequent suicide has led Blanche to withdraw into a world in which fantasies and illusions blend seamlessly with reality. In contrast to both the self-effacing and deferential Stella and the pretentious refinement of Blanche, Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski, is a force of nature: primal, rough-hewn, brutish, and sensual. He dominates Stella in every way and is physically and emotionally abusive. Stella tolerates his primal"
      },
      {
        "text": " Grey, was having a homosexual affair and his subsequent suicide has led Blanche to withdraw into a world in which fantasies and illusions blend seamlessly with reality. In contrast to both the self-effacing and deferential Stella and the pretentious refinement of Blanche, Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski, is a force of nature: primal, rough-hewn, brutish, and sensual. He dominates Stella in every way and is physically and emotionally abusive. Stella tolerates his primal behavior as this is part of what attracted her in the first place; their love and relationship are heavily based on powerful\u2014even animal-like\u2014sexual chemistry, something that Blanche finds impossible to understand. The arrival of Blanche upsets her sister and brother-in-law's system of mutual dependence. Stella's concern for her sister's well-being emboldens Blanche to hold court in the Kowalski apartment, infuriating Stanley and leading to conflict in his relationship with his wife. Blanche and Stanley are on a collision course, and Stanley's friend and Blanche's would-be suitor, Harold \"Mitch\" Mitchell, gets trampled in their path. Stanley discovers Blanche's past through a co-worker who travels to Laurel frequently, and he confronts her with the things that she has been trying to put behind her, partly out of concern that her character flaws may be damaging to the lives of those in her new home, just as they were in Laurel, and partly out of a distaste for her pretense in general. However, his attempts to \"unmask\" her are predictably cruel and violent. In their final confrontation, it is implied that Stanley rapes Blanche, resulting in her nervous breakdown. Stanley has her committed to a mental institution, and in the closing moments, Blanche utters her signature line to the kindly doctor who leads her away: \"Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.\" The reference to"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and partly out of a distaste for her pretense in general. However, his attempts to \"unmask\" her are predictably cruel and violent. In their final confrontation, it is implied that Stanley rapes Blanche, resulting in her nervous breakdown. Stanley has her committed to a mental institution, and in the closing moments, Blanche utters her signature line to the kindly doctor who leads her away: \"Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.\" The reference to the streetcar named Desire\u2014providing the aura of New Orleans geography\u2014is symbolic. Blanche not only has to travel on a streetcar route named \"Desire\" to reach Stella's home on \"Elysian Fields\" but her desire acts as an irrepressible force throughout the play\u2014she can only hang on as her desires lead her. The character of Blanche is thought to be based on Williams' sister Rose Williams who struggled with her mental health and became incapacitated after a lobotomy.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Queen of the Damned",
    "author": "Anne Rice",
    "published_date": "1988-10",
    "synopsis": " Part One follows several different people over the same period of several days. Several of the characters appear in the two previous books, including Armand, Daniel (the \"boy reporter\" of Interview with the Vampire), Marius, Louis, Gabrielle and Santino. Each of the six chapters in Part One tells a different story about a different person or group of people. Two things unify these chapters: a series of dreams about red-haired twin sisters, and the fact that a powerful being is killing vampires around the world by means of spontaneous combustion. Pandora and Santino rescue Marius, having answered his telepathic call for help. Marius informs his rescuers that Akasha has been awakened by Lestat, or rather his rock music, for he has joined a rock band of mortals whose names are Alex, Larry and Tough Cookie. Having been awakened by Lestat's rebellious music, Akasha destroys her husband Enkil and plots to rule the world. Akasha is also revealed as the source of the attacks on other vampires. Part Two takes place at Lestat's concert. Jesse, a member of the secret Talamasca and relative of Maharet, is mortally injured while attending the concert, and is taken to Maharet's Sonoma compound where she is made into a vampire. The vampires from Part One later congregate in the Sonoma compound. The only vampires not present are Akasha and Lestat. Akasha has abducted Lestat and takes him as an unwilling consort to various locations in the world, inciting women to rise up and kill the men who have oppressed them. Part Three takes place at Maharet's home in a Sonoma forest. There Maharet tells the story of Akasha and the red-haired twins (who are, in fact, Maharet and her sister, Mekare) to Pandora, Jesse, Marius, Santino, Eric, Armand, Daniel, Louis and Gabrielle. Also present are Mael and Khayman, who already know the story. In Part Four, Akasha confronts the gathered vampires at Maharet's compound. There she explains her plans and offers the vampires a chance to be her \"angels\" in her New World Order. Akasha plans to kill 90 percent of the world's human men, and to establish a new Eden in which women will worship Akasha as a goddess. If the assembled vampires refuse to follow her, she will destroy them. The vampires refuse, but before Akasha can destroy them, Mekare enters. Mekare kills Akasha by severing her head. Mekare then consumes Akasha's brain and heart, thereby saving the lives of the remaining vampires and becoming the new Queen of the Damned. In Part Five, the vampires leave Maharet's compound and assemble at Armand's resort, the Night Island, (according to Anne Rice, inspired by Fire Island) in Florida to recover. They eventually go their separate ways (as told in The Tale of the Body Thief). Lestat takes Louis to see David Talbot in London. After their brief visit with Talbot they depart into the night, an incensed Louis and his angry words filling Lestat with glee. The Queen of the Damned, deals with the origins of vampires themselves. The mother of all vampires, Akasha, begins as a pre-Egyptian queen, in a land called Kemet (which will become Egypt), many thousands of years ago. During this time two powerful witches (Maharet and Mekare) live in the mountains of an unnamed region. The witches are able to communicate with invisible spirits and gain simple favors from them. During this period there is a bloodthirsty, invisible spirit known as Amel who continually asks the two witches if they need his assistance, although they prudently decline the offer. The witches' village is destroyed and they are incarcerated by the king and queen, who desire their knowledge. When the witches offend Akasha, the Queen condemns the twins. Enkil then orders his chief steward (who is Khayman as a mortal man) to rape the twins in his stead, which would prove their lack of power, before the eyes of the court. Afterward the witches are cast out into the desert. While making her way back home with a pregnant Maharet, Mekare curses the king and queen secretly with the bloodthirsty spirit. Eventually this spirit inflicts such torment on Akasha and Enkil that they again demand advice and help from the two witches. Conspirators, unhappy with the young king's policies, assassinate the royal couple in Khayman's house whilst they were attempting to exorcise Amel, who had been tormenting Khayman. While the king and queen lie dying, the evil spirit sees its chance to ensnare the soul of the dying queen and pulls it back into her body. The spirit combines itself with the flesh and blood of the queen, transforming her into a vampire. Akasha allows the king to drink her blood, which saves his life. They then order Khayman to find the witches and bring them back to Egypt so that they could use their knowledge of spirits to help them, as they feel guilty because of their thirst for blood. However, when the witches admit that they cannot help the monarchs, Akasha orders the mutilation of the witches: Maharet loses her eyes and Mekare her tongue. Afterward, Khayman, who had been turned into a vampire by Akasha, comes to the witches' cell and turns them too. The three flee together, but are caught by Akasha's soldiers. Khayman escapes, but Maharet and Mekare are further punished. The witches are put into two separate coffins which are then set afloat on two separate bodies of water. They are only reunited near the end of the novel Queen of the Damned. In Mekare's absence, Maharet returns to watch over her daughter and her descendants. Maharet's descendants become what she calls the Great Family. A maternal line, the Great Family includes every culture, religion, ethnicity, and race. The Great Family represents all humanity and shows the vampires what Akasha would destroy with the creation of her New World Order. As the source of all vampires, Akasha is connected to all vampires by the blood and spirit they collectively share. In an experiment by the first Keeper, Akasha and Enkil are exposed to sunlight when they are several thousand years old. This merely darkens their skin. However, the result on all other vampires is extreme, and many of the weakest vampires die, thus confirming the legend that anything that harms Akasha will also directly affect all of her progeny.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Part One follows several different people over the same period of several days. Several of the characters appear in the two previous books, including Armand, Daniel (the \"boy reporter\" of Interview with the Vampire), Marius, Louis, Gabrielle and Santino. Each of the six chapters in Part One tells a different story about a different person or group of people. Two things unify these chapters: a series of dreams about red-haired twin sisters, and the fact that a powerful being is killing vampires around the world by means of spontaneous combustion. Pandora and Santino rescue Marius, having answered his telepathic call for help. Marius informs his rescuers that Akasha has been awakened by Lestat, or rather his rock music, for he has joined a rock band of mortals whose names are Alex, Larry and Tough Cookie. Having been awakened by Lestat's rebellious music, Akasha destroys her husband Enkil and plots to rule the world. Akasha is also revealed as the source of the attacks on other vampires. Part Two takes place at Lestat's concert. Jesse, a member of the secret Talamasca and relative of Maharet, is mortally injured while attending the concert, and is taken to Maharet's Sonoma compound where she is made into a vampire. The vampires from Part One later congregate in the Sonoma compound. The only vampires not present are Akasha and Lestat. Akasha has abducted Lestat and takes him as an unwilling consort to various locations in the world, inciting women to rise up and kill the men who have oppressed them. Part Three takes place at Maharet's home in a Sonoma forest. There Maharet tells the story of Akasha and the red-haired twins (who are, in fact, Maharet and her sister, Mekare) to Pandora, Jesse, Marius, Santino, Eric, Armand, Daniel, Louis and Gabrielle. Also present are M"
      },
      {
        "text": " him as an unwilling consort to various locations in the world, inciting women to rise up and kill the men who have oppressed them. Part Three takes place at Maharet's home in a Sonoma forest. There Maharet tells the story of Akasha and the red-haired twins (who are, in fact, Maharet and her sister, Mekare) to Pandora, Jesse, Marius, Santino, Eric, Armand, Daniel, Louis and Gabrielle. Also present are Mael and Khayman, who already know the story. In Part Four, Akasha confronts the gathered vampires at Maharet's compound. There she explains her plans and offers the vampires a chance to be her \"angels\" in her New World Order. Akasha plans to kill 90 percent of the world's human men, and to establish a new Eden in which women will worship Akasha as a goddess. If the assembled vampires refuse to follow her, she will destroy them. The vampires refuse, but before Akasha can destroy them, Mekare enters. Mekare kills Akasha by severing her head. Mekare then consumes Akasha's brain and heart, thereby saving the lives of the remaining vampires and becoming the new Queen of the Damned. In Part Five, the vampires leave Maharet's compound and assemble at Armand's resort, the Night Island, (according to Anne Rice, inspired by Fire Island) in Florida to recover. They eventually go their separate ways (as told in The Tale of the Body Thief). Lestat takes Louis to see David Talbot in London. After their brief visit with Talbot they depart into the night, an incensed Louis and his angry words filling Lestat with glee. The Queen of the Damned, deals with the origins of vampires themselves. The mother of all vampires, Akasha, begins as a pre-Egyptian queen, in a land called Kemet (which will become Egypt), many thousands of years"
      },
      {
        "text": " told in The Tale of the Body Thief). Lestat takes Louis to see David Talbot in London. After their brief visit with Talbot they depart into the night, an incensed Louis and his angry words filling Lestat with glee. The Queen of the Damned, deals with the origins of vampires themselves. The mother of all vampires, Akasha, begins as a pre-Egyptian queen, in a land called Kemet (which will become Egypt), many thousands of years ago. During this time two powerful witches (Maharet and Mekare) live in the mountains of an unnamed region. The witches are able to communicate with invisible spirits and gain simple favors from them. During this period there is a bloodthirsty, invisible spirit known as Amel who continually asks the two witches if they need his assistance, although they prudently decline the offer. The witches' village is destroyed and they are incarcerated by the king and queen, who desire their knowledge. When the witches offend Akasha, the Queen condemns the twins. Enkil then orders his chief steward (who is Khayman as a mortal man) to rape the twins in his stead, which would prove their lack of power, before the eyes of the court. Afterward the witches are cast out into the desert. While making her way back home with a pregnant Maharet, Mekare curses the king and queen secretly with the bloodthirsty spirit. Eventually this spirit inflicts such torment on Akasha and Enkil that they again demand advice and help from the two witches. Conspirators, unhappy with the young king's policies, assassinate the royal couple in Khayman's house whilst they were attempting to exorcise Amel, who had been tormenting Khayman. While the king and queen lie dying, the evil spirit sees its chance to ensnare the soul of the dying queen and pulls it back into her body. The spirit combines itself with the flesh and blood of the queen"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Enkil that they again demand advice and help from the two witches. Conspirators, unhappy with the young king's policies, assassinate the royal couple in Khayman's house whilst they were attempting to exorcise Amel, who had been tormenting Khayman. While the king and queen lie dying, the evil spirit sees its chance to ensnare the soul of the dying queen and pulls it back into her body. The spirit combines itself with the flesh and blood of the queen, transforming her into a vampire. Akasha allows the king to drink her blood, which saves his life. They then order Khayman to find the witches and bring them back to Egypt so that they could use their knowledge of spirits to help them, as they feel guilty because of their thirst for blood. However, when the witches admit that they cannot help the monarchs, Akasha orders the mutilation of the witches: Maharet loses her eyes and Mekare her tongue. Afterward, Khayman, who had been turned into a vampire by Akasha, comes to the witches' cell and turns them too. The three flee together, but are caught by Akasha's soldiers. Khayman escapes, but Maharet and Mekare are further punished. The witches are put into two separate coffins which are then set afloat on two separate bodies of water. They are only reunited near the end of the novel Queen of the Damned. In Mekare's absence, Maharet returns to watch over her daughter and her descendants. Maharet's descendants become what she calls the Great Family. A maternal line, the Great Family includes every culture, religion, ethnicity, and race. The Great Family represents all humanity and shows the vampires what Akasha would destroy with the creation of her New World Order. As the source of all vampires, Akasha is connected to all vampires by the blood and spirit they collectively share. In an experiment by the first Keeper, Akasha and Enkil"
      },
      {
        "text": " returns to watch over her daughter and her descendants. Maharet's descendants become what she calls the Great Family. A maternal line, the Great Family includes every culture, religion, ethnicity, and race. The Great Family represents all humanity and shows the vampires what Akasha would destroy with the creation of her New World Order. As the source of all vampires, Akasha is connected to all vampires by the blood and spirit they collectively share. In an experiment by the first Keeper, Akasha and Enkil are exposed to sunlight when they are several thousand years old. This merely darkens their skin. However, the result on all other vampires is extreme, and many of the weakest vampires die, thus confirming the legend that anything that harms Akasha will also directly affect all of her progeny.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Gulliver's Travels",
    "author": "Jonathan Swift",
    "published_date": "1726",
    "synopsis": " ;4 May 1699 \u2014 13 April 1702 The book begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver, in the style of books of the time, gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages. He enjoys travelling, although it is that love of travel that is his downfall. During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself a prisoner of a race of tiny people, less than 6 inches tall, who are inhabitants of the island country of Lilliput. After giving assurances of his good behaviour, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the court. From there, the book follows Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput. He is also given the permission to roam around the city on a condition that he would not harm their subjects. Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours, the Blefuscudians, by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the court. Gulliver is convicted of treason for \"making water\" in the capital (even though he was putting out a fire and saving countless lives)--among other \"crimes.\" Gulliver is charged with treason and sentenced to be blinded. With the assistance of a kind friend, Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu, where he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship which safely takes him back home. This book of the Travels is a topical political satire. ;20 June 1702 \u2014 3 June 1706 When the sailing ship Adventure is blown off course by storms and forced to put in to land for want of fresh water, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is tall (the scale of Brobdingnag is about 12:1, compared to Lilliput's 1:12, judging from Gulliver estimating a man's step being ). He brings Gulliver home and his daughter cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. The word gets out and the Queen of Brobdingnag wants to see the show. She loves Gulliver and she buys him and keeps him as a favourite at court. Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the queen commissions a small house to be built for Gulliver so that he can be carried around in it. This is referred to as his 'travelling box'. Between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, he discusses the state of Europe with the King. The King is not happy with Gulliver's accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the use of guns and cannons. On a trip to the seaside, his travelling box is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box into the sea, where he is picked up by some sailors, who return him to England. This book compares the truly moral man to the representative man; the latter is clearly shown to be the lesser of the two. Swift, being in Anglican holy orders, was likely to make such comparisons. ;5 August 1706 \u2014 16 April 1710 After Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates, he is marooned close to a desolate rocky island, near India. Fortunately he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but unable to use them for practical ends. (\"La puta\" is Spanish for \"the whore\". Swift was attacking reason and the deism movement in this book, the last one he wrote for the Travels.) Laputa's custom of throwing rocks down at rebellious cities on the ground seems the first time that aerial bombardment was conceived as a method of warfare. Gulliver tours Laputa as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by the blind pursuit of science without practical results, in a satire on bureaucracy and on the Royal Society and its experiments. At the Grand Academy of Lagado, great resources and manpower are employed on researching completely preposterous schemes such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, softening marble for use in pillows, learning how to mix paint by smell, and uncovering political conspiracies by examining the excrement of suspicious persons (see muckraking). Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a trader who can take him on to Japan. While waiting for passage, Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib, where he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious restatement of the \"ancients versus moderns\" theme in the book. In Luggnagg he encounters the struldbrugs, unfortunates who are immortal. They do not have the gift of eternal youth, but suffer the infirmities of old age and are considered legally dead at the age of eighty. After reaching Japan, Gulliver asks the Emperor \"to excuse my performing the ceremony imposed upon my countrymen of trampling upon the crucifix\", which the Emperor grants. Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of his days. ;7 September 1710 \u2013 2 July 1715 Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to the sea as the captain of a merchantman as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage he is forced to find new additions to his crew whom he believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him. His crew then mutiny, and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes upon a race of hideous, deformed and savage humanoid creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly afterwards he meets a race of horses who call themselves Houyhnhnms (which in their language means \"the perfection of nature\"); they are the rulers, while the deformed creatures called Yahoos are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member of a horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization, and expels him. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, and is surprised to see that Captain Pedro de Mendez, a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous and generous person. He returns to his home in England, but he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos and becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables. This book uses coarse metaphors to describe human depravity, and the Houyhnhms are symbolized as not only perfected nature but also the emotional barrenness which Swift maintained that devotion to reason brought.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " ;4 May 1699 \u2014 13 April 1702 The book begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver, in the style of books of the time, gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages. He enjoys travelling, although it is that love of travel that is his downfall. During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself a prisoner of a race of tiny people, less than 6 inches tall, who are inhabitants of the island country of Lilliput. After giving assurances of his good behaviour, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the court. From there, the book follows Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput. He is also given the permission to roam around the city on a condition that he would not harm their subjects. Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours, the Blefuscudians, by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the court. Gulliver is convicted of treason for \"making water\" in the capital (even though he was putting out a fire and saving countless lives)--among other \"crimes.\" Gulliver is charged with treason and sentenced to be blinded. With the assistance of a kind friend, Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu, where he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship which safely takes him back home. This book of the Travels is a topical political satire. ;20 June 1702 \u2014 3 June 1706 When the sailing ship Adventure is blown off course by storms and forced to put in to land for want of fresh water, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is tall (the scale of Brobdingnag is about"
      },
      {
        "text": "u, where he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship which safely takes him back home. This book of the Travels is a topical political satire. ;20 June 1702 \u2014 3 June 1706 When the sailing ship Adventure is blown off course by storms and forced to put in to land for want of fresh water, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is tall (the scale of Brobdingnag is about 12:1, compared to Lilliput's 1:12, judging from Gulliver estimating a man's step being ). He brings Gulliver home and his daughter cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. The word gets out and the Queen of Brobdingnag wants to see the show. She loves Gulliver and she buys him and keeps him as a favourite at court. Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the queen commissions a small house to be built for Gulliver so that he can be carried around in it. This is referred to as his 'travelling box'. Between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, he discusses the state of Europe with the King. The King is not happy with Gulliver's accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the use of guns and cannons. On a trip to the seaside, his travelling box is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box into the sea, where he is picked up by some sailors, who return him to England. This book compares the truly moral man to the representative man; the latter is clearly shown to be the lesser of the two. Swift, being in Anglican holy orders, was likely to make such comparisons. ;5 August 1706 \u2014 16 April 1710 After Gulliver's"
      },
      {
        "text": " On a trip to the seaside, his travelling box is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box into the sea, where he is picked up by some sailors, who return him to England. This book compares the truly moral man to the representative man; the latter is clearly shown to be the lesser of the two. Swift, being in Anglican holy orders, was likely to make such comparisons. ;5 August 1706 \u2014 16 April 1710 After Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates, he is marooned close to a desolate rocky island, near India. Fortunately he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but unable to use them for practical ends. (\"La puta\" is Spanish for \"the whore\". Swift was attacking reason and the deism movement in this book, the last one he wrote for the Travels.) Laputa's custom of throwing rocks down at rebellious cities on the ground seems the first time that aerial bombardment was conceived as a method of warfare. Gulliver tours Laputa as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by the blind pursuit of science without practical results, in a satire on bureaucracy and on the Royal Society and its experiments. At the Grand Academy of Lagado, great resources and manpower are employed on researching completely preposterous schemes such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, softening marble for use in pillows, learning how to mix paint by smell, and uncovering political conspiracies by examining the excrement of suspicious persons (see muckraking). Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a trader who can take him on to Japan. While waiting for passage, Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib, where he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious"
      },
      {
        "text": ", learning how to mix paint by smell, and uncovering political conspiracies by examining the excrement of suspicious persons (see muckraking). Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a trader who can take him on to Japan. While waiting for passage, Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib, where he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious restatement of the \"ancients versus moderns\" theme in the book. In Luggnagg he encounters the struldbrugs, unfortunates who are immortal. They do not have the gift of eternal youth, but suffer the infirmities of old age and are considered legally dead at the age of eighty. After reaching Japan, Gulliver asks the Emperor \"to excuse my performing the ceremony imposed upon my countrymen of trampling upon the crucifix\", which the Emperor grants. Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of his days. ;7 September 1710 \u2013 2 July 1715 Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to the sea as the captain of a merchantman as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage he is forced to find new additions to his crew whom he believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him. His crew then mutiny, and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes upon a race of hideous, deformed and savage humanoid creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly afterwards he meets a race of horses who call themselves Houyhnhnms (which in their language means \"the perfection of nature\"); they are the rulers, while the deformed creatures called Yahoos are human beings in their base form"
      },
      {
        "text": " for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes upon a race of hideous, deformed and savage humanoid creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly afterwards he meets a race of horses who call themselves Houyhnhnms (which in their language means \"the perfection of nature\"); they are the rulers, while the deformed creatures called Yahoos are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member of a horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization, and expels him. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, and is surprised to see that Captain Pedro de Mendez, a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous and generous person. He returns to his home in England, but he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos and becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables. This book uses coarse metaphors to describe human depravity, and the Houyhnhms are symbolized as not only perfected nature but also the emotional barrenness which Swift maintained that devotion to reason brought.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ravity, and the Houyhnhms are symbolized as not only perfected nature but also the emotional barrenness which Swift maintained that devotion to reason brought.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Color Purple",
    "author": "Alice Walker",
    "published_date": "1982",
    "synopsis": " Celie, the protagonist and narrator, is a poor, uneducated, fourteen-year-old black girl living in the South. She starts writing letters to God because her father, Alphonso, beats and rapes her. Alphonso has already impregnated Celie once. Celie gave birth to a girl, whom her father presumably killed in the woods. Celie has a second child, a boy, whom her father also abducts. Celie\u2019s mother becomes ill and dies. Alphonso brings home a new wife, and continues to abuse Celie. Celie and her bright, pretty younger sister, Nettie, learn that a man known only as Mr. Johnson wants to marry Nettie. Mr. Johnson has a mistress named Shug Avery, a sultry lounge singer whose photograph fascinates Celie. Alphonso refuses to let Nettie marry, and instead offers Mr. Johnson Celie, \"an ugly woman,\" as his bride. Mr. Johnson eventually accepts the offer, forcing Celie into a difficult and joyless married life. Nettie runs away from Alphonso and takes refuge at Celie\u2019s house. Mr. Johnson still desires Nettie, and when he advances on her, she flees. Never hearing from Nettie again, Celie assumes her dead. Mr. Johnson's sister Kate feels sorry for Celie, and tells her to fight back against Mr. Johnson rather than submit to his abuses. Harpo, Mr. Johnson's son, falls in love with a large, spunky girl named Sofia. Shug Avery comes to town to sing at a local bar, but Celie is not allowed to go see her. Sofia gets pregnant and marries Harpo. Celie is amazed by Sofia\u2019s defiance in the face of Harpo\u2019s and Mr. Johnson\u2019s attempts to treat Sofia as an inferior. Harpo, kinder and gentler than his father, still assumes this means he is doing something wrong and under the advice of Mr. Johnson and a momentarily jealous Celie, attempts to beat Sofia into submission. However, he consistently fails, as Sofia is at least as strong and a more experienced brawler. Shug falls ill and Mr. Johnson takes her into his house. Shug is initially rude to Celie, but the two women become friends as Celie takes charge of nursing Shug. Celie finds herself infatuated with Shug and attracted to her sexually. Frustrated by Harpo\u2019s consistent attempts to subordinate her, Sofia moves out, taking her children with her. Several months later, Harpo opens a juke joint where Shug sings nightly. Celie grows confused over her feelings toward Shug. Shug decides to stay when she learns that Mr. Johnson beats Celie when Shug is away. Shug and Celie\u2019s relationship grows intimate, and Shug begins to ask Celie questions about sex. Sofia returns for a visit and promptly gets in a fight with Harpo\u2019s new girlfriend, Squeak. In town one day, the mayor\u2019s wife, Miss Millie, asks Sofia to work as her maid. Sofia replies with a sassy \"Hell no!\" When the mayor slaps Sofia for her \"insubordination\", Sofia returns the blow, knocking the mayor down, for which she is sent to jail. Squeak\u2019s attempts to get Sofia released are futile. Sofia is sentenced to work for 12 years as the mayor\u2019s maid, though she is eventually released from jail six months early. Despite her new marriage, Shug instigates a sexual relationship with Celie, and the two frequently share the same bed. One night Shug asks Celie about her sister and Celie tells her she assumes Nettie is dead because she'd promised to write Celie but never did. Shug helps Celie recover letters from Nettie that Mr. Johnson has been hiding from her for decades. Overcome with emotion, Celie reads the letters in order, wondering how to keep herself from killing Mr. Johnson. The letters indicate that Nettie befriended a missionary couple, Samuel and Corrine, and accompanied them to Africa to do ministry work. Samuel and Corrine have two adopted children, Olivia and Adam. Nettie and Corrine have become close friends, but Corrine, noticing that her adopted children resemble Nettie, wonders if Nettie and Samuel have a secret past. Increasingly suspicious, Corrine tries to limit Nettie\u2019s role within her family. Nettie becomes disillusioned with her missionary experience, as she finds the Africans self-centered and obstinate. Corrine becomes ill with a fever. Nettie asks Samuel to tell her how he adopted Olivia and Adam. Based on Samuel\u2019s story, Nettie realizes that the two children are actually Celie\u2019s biological children (whom Alphonso, her stepfather, abducted), alive after all. Nettie also learns that Alphonso is actually only Nettie and Celie\u2019s stepfather, not their biological father, who was a store owner whom white men lynched because they resented his success. Alphonso told Celie and Nettie he was their real father because he wanted to inherit the house and property that was once their mother\u2019s. Nettie confesses to Samuel and Corrine that she is in fact their children\u2019s biological aunt. The gravely ill Corrine refuses to believe Nettie. Later, Corrine dies, finally having accepted Nettie\u2019s story and reconciled thereto just before her death. Meanwhile, Celie visits Alphonso, who confirms Nettie\u2019s story, admitting that he is only the sisters' stepfather. Celie begins to lose some of her faith in God, but Shug tries to get her to reimagine God in her own way, rather than in the traditional image of the old, bearded white man. Celie moves to Tennessee and designs and sews tailored pants, turning her hobby into a business. She returns to her home to learn that Mr. Johnson has changed dramatically, becoming much more considerate and even helping her sew some of the clothing for her business. He proposes that they marry \"in the spirit as well as in the flesh,\" but she declines. She also finds out that Alphonso, her stepfather, has died. Celie inherits the land and moves back into the house. Around this time, Shug has fallen in love with Germaine, a 19-year-old flautist that is part of her blues band, and the news of this crushes Celie. Shug travels across the country and to Panama with Germaine, all the while writing postcards to Celie. Nevertheless, Celie pledges to love Shug even if Shug does not love her back. Meanwhile, Nettie and Samuel marry and prepare to return to America. Before they leave, Adam marries Tashi, an African girl. Following African tradition, Tashi undergoes the painful rituals of female circumcision and facial scarring. In solidarity, Adam undergoes the same facial scarring ritual. The end of the novel has Nettie, Samuel, Olivia, Adam, and Tashi arriving at Celie's house. Nettie and Celie embrace, having not seen each other for over 30 years. They introduce one another to their respective families as the novel ends.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Celie, the protagonist and narrator, is a poor, uneducated, fourteen-year-old black girl living in the South. She starts writing letters to God because her father, Alphonso, beats and rapes her. Alphonso has already impregnated Celie once. Celie gave birth to a girl, whom her father presumably killed in the woods. Celie has a second child, a boy, whom her father also abducts. Celie\u2019s mother becomes ill and dies. Alphonso brings home a new wife, and continues to abuse Celie. Celie and her bright, pretty younger sister, Nettie, learn that a man known only as Mr. Johnson wants to marry Nettie. Mr. Johnson has a mistress named Shug Avery, a sultry lounge singer whose photograph fascinates Celie. Alphonso refuses to let Nettie marry, and instead offers Mr. Johnson Celie, \"an ugly woman,\" as his bride. Mr. Johnson eventually accepts the offer, forcing Celie into a difficult and joyless married life. Nettie runs away from Alphonso and takes refuge at Celie\u2019s house. Mr. Johnson still desires Nettie, and when he advances on her, she flees. Never hearing from Nettie again, Celie assumes her dead. Mr. Johnson's sister Kate feels sorry for Celie, and tells her to fight back against Mr. Johnson rather than submit to his abuses. Harpo, Mr. Johnson's son, falls in love with a large, spunky girl named Sofia. Shug Avery comes to town to sing at a local bar, but Celie is not allowed to go see her. Sofia gets pregnant and marries Harpo. Celie is amazed by Sofia\u2019s defiance in the face of Harpo\u2019s and Mr. Johnson\u2019s attempts to treat Sofia as an inferior. Harpo, kinder and"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Harpo, Mr. Johnson's son, falls in love with a large, spunky girl named Sofia. Shug Avery comes to town to sing at a local bar, but Celie is not allowed to go see her. Sofia gets pregnant and marries Harpo. Celie is amazed by Sofia\u2019s defiance in the face of Harpo\u2019s and Mr. Johnson\u2019s attempts to treat Sofia as an inferior. Harpo, kinder and gentler than his father, still assumes this means he is doing something wrong and under the advice of Mr. Johnson and a momentarily jealous Celie, attempts to beat Sofia into submission. However, he consistently fails, as Sofia is at least as strong and a more experienced brawler. Shug falls ill and Mr. Johnson takes her into his house. Shug is initially rude to Celie, but the two women become friends as Celie takes charge of nursing Shug. Celie finds herself infatuated with Shug and attracted to her sexually. Frustrated by Harpo\u2019s consistent attempts to subordinate her, Sofia moves out, taking her children with her. Several months later, Harpo opens a juke joint where Shug sings nightly. Celie grows confused over her feelings toward Shug. Shug decides to stay when she learns that Mr. Johnson beats Celie when Shug is away. Shug and Celie\u2019s relationship grows intimate, and Shug begins to ask Celie questions about sex. Sofia returns for a visit and promptly gets in a fight with Harpo\u2019s new girlfriend, Squeak. In town one day, the mayor\u2019s wife, Miss Millie, asks Sofia to work as her maid. Sofia replies with a sassy \"Hell no!\" When the mayor slaps Sofia for her \"insubordination\", Sofia returns the blow, knocking the mayor down,"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and Shug begins to ask Celie questions about sex. Sofia returns for a visit and promptly gets in a fight with Harpo\u2019s new girlfriend, Squeak. In town one day, the mayor\u2019s wife, Miss Millie, asks Sofia to work as her maid. Sofia replies with a sassy \"Hell no!\" When the mayor slaps Sofia for her \"insubordination\", Sofia returns the blow, knocking the mayor down, for which she is sent to jail. Squeak\u2019s attempts to get Sofia released are futile. Sofia is sentenced to work for 12 years as the mayor\u2019s maid, though she is eventually released from jail six months early. Despite her new marriage, Shug instigates a sexual relationship with Celie, and the two frequently share the same bed. One night Shug asks Celie about her sister and Celie tells her she assumes Nettie is dead because she'd promised to write Celie but never did. Shug helps Celie recover letters from Nettie that Mr. Johnson has been hiding from her for decades. Overcome with emotion, Celie reads the letters in order, wondering how to keep herself from killing Mr. Johnson. The letters indicate that Nettie befriended a missionary couple, Samuel and Corrine, and accompanied them to Africa to do ministry work. Samuel and Corrine have two adopted children, Olivia and Adam. Nettie and Corrine have become close friends, but Corrine, noticing that her adopted children resemble Nettie, wonders if Nettie and Samuel have a secret past. Increasingly suspicious, Corrine tries to limit Nettie\u2019s role within her family. Nettie becomes disillusioned with her missionary experience, as she finds the Africans self-centered and obstinate. Corrine becomes ill with a fever. Nettie asks Samuel to tell her how he adopted Olivia and"
      },
      {
        "text": "ettie and Corrine have become close friends, but Corrine, noticing that her adopted children resemble Nettie, wonders if Nettie and Samuel have a secret past. Increasingly suspicious, Corrine tries to limit Nettie\u2019s role within her family. Nettie becomes disillusioned with her missionary experience, as she finds the Africans self-centered and obstinate. Corrine becomes ill with a fever. Nettie asks Samuel to tell her how he adopted Olivia and Adam. Based on Samuel\u2019s story, Nettie realizes that the two children are actually Celie\u2019s biological children (whom Alphonso, her stepfather, abducted), alive after all. Nettie also learns that Alphonso is actually only Nettie and Celie\u2019s stepfather, not their biological father, who was a store owner whom white men lynched because they resented his success. Alphonso told Celie and Nettie he was their real father because he wanted to inherit the house and property that was once their mother\u2019s. Nettie confesses to Samuel and Corrine that she is in fact their children\u2019s biological aunt. The gravely ill Corrine refuses to believe Nettie. Later, Corrine dies, finally having accepted Nettie\u2019s story and reconciled thereto just before her death. Meanwhile, Celie visits Alphonso, who confirms Nettie\u2019s story, admitting that he is only the sisters' stepfather. Celie begins to lose some of her faith in God, but Shug tries to get her to reimagine God in her own way, rather than in the traditional image of the old, bearded white man. Celie moves to Tennessee and designs and sews tailored pants, turning her hobby into a business. She returns to her home to learn that Mr. Johnson has changed dramatically, becoming much more considerate and even helping her sew some of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " that he is only the sisters' stepfather. Celie begins to lose some of her faith in God, but Shug tries to get her to reimagine God in her own way, rather than in the traditional image of the old, bearded white man. Celie moves to Tennessee and designs and sews tailored pants, turning her hobby into a business. She returns to her home to learn that Mr. Johnson has changed dramatically, becoming much more considerate and even helping her sew some of the clothing for her business. He proposes that they marry \"in the spirit as well as in the flesh,\" but she declines. She also finds out that Alphonso, her stepfather, has died. Celie inherits the land and moves back into the house. Around this time, Shug has fallen in love with Germaine, a 19-year-old flautist that is part of her blues band, and the news of this crushes Celie. Shug travels across the country and to Panama with Germaine, all the while writing postcards to Celie. Nevertheless, Celie pledges to love Shug even if Shug does not love her back. Meanwhile, Nettie and Samuel marry and prepare to return to America. Before they leave, Adam marries Tashi, an African girl. Following African tradition, Tashi undergoes the painful rituals of female circumcision and facial scarring. In solidarity, Adam undergoes the same facial scarring ritual. The end of the novel has Nettie, Samuel, Olivia, Adam, and Tashi arriving at Celie's house. Nettie and Celie embrace, having not seen each other for over 30 years. They introduce one another to their respective families as the novel ends.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the novel has Nettie, Samuel, Olivia, Adam, and Tashi arriving at Celie's house. Nettie and Celie embrace, having not seen each other for over 30 years. They introduce one another to their respective families as the novel ends.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Midsummer Night's Dream",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "1600",
    "synopsis": " The play features three interlocking plots, connected by a celebration of the wedding of Duke Theseus of Athens and the Amazon queen, Hippolyta, which is set simultaneously in the woodland and in the realm of Fairyland, under the light of the moon. In the opening scene, Hermia refuses to follow her father's, Egeus, instructions to marry Demetrius, whom he has chosen for her. In response, Egeus quotes before Theseus an ancient Athenian law whereby a daughter must marry the suitor chosen by her father, or else face death. Theseus offers her another choice: lifelong chastity while worshiping the goddess Diana as a nun. At that same time, Peter Quince and his fellow players gather to produce a stage play, \"the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe\", for the Duke and the Duchess. Quince reads the names of characters and bestows them to the players. Nick Bottom, who is playing the main role of Pyramus, is over-enthusiastic and wants to dominate others by suggesting himself for the characters of Thisbe, the Lion, and Pyramus at the same time. He would also rather be a tyrant and recites some lines of Ercles. Quince ends the meeting with \"at the Duke's oak we meet\". Meanwhile, Oberon, king of the fairies, and his queen, Titania, have come to the forest outside Athens. Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there until she has attended Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. Oberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to give her Indian changeling to Oberon for use as his \"knight\" or \"henchman,\" since the child's mother was one of Titania's worshippers. Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience, so he calls for his mischievous court jester Puck or \"Robin Goodfellow\" to help him apply a magical juice from a flower called \"love-in-idleness\", originally it was a white flower but when struck by Cupid's bow it tints the flower purple. When someone applies the potion to a sleeping person's eyelids, it makes the victim fall in love with the first living thing seen upon awakening. He instructs Puck to retrieve the flower so that he can make Titania fall in love with the first thing she sees when waking up, which he is sure will be an animal of the forest. Oberon's intent is to shame Titania into giving up the little Indian boy. He says, \"And ere I take this charm from off her sight, / As I can take it with another herb, / I'll make her render up her page to me.\" Having seen Demetrius act cruelly toward Helena, Oberon orders Puck to spread some of the magical juice from the flower on the eyelids of the young Athenian man. Instead, Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, not having actually seen either before, and administers the juice to the sleeping Lysander. Helena, coming across him, wakes him while attempting to determine whether he is dead or asleep. Upon this happening, Lysander immediately falls in love with Helena. Oberon sees Demetrius still following Hermia and is enraged. When Demetrius decides to go to sleep, Oberon sends Puck to get Helena while he charms Demetrius' eyes. Upon waking up, he sees Helena. Now, both men are in pursuit of Helena. However, she is convinced that her two suitors are mocking her, as neither loved her originally. Hermia is at a loss to see why her lover has abandoned her, and accuses Helena of stealing Lysander away from her. The four quarrel with each other until Lysander and Demetrius become so enraged that they seek a place to duel each other to prove whose love for Helena is the greatest. Oberon orders Puck to keep Lysander and Demetrius from catching up with one another and to remove the charm from the two men, so that they are back to normal. Lysander continues to love Hermia, and Demitrius realizes that he does love Helena. Meanwhile, Quince and his band of six labourers (\"rude mechanicals\", as they are described by Puck) have arranged to perform their play about Pyramus and Thisbe for Theseus' wedding and venture into the forest, near Titania's bower, for their rehearsal. Bottom is spotted by Puck, who (taking his name to be another word for a jackass) transforms his head into that of a donkey. When Bottom returns for his next lines, the other workmen run screaming in terror, much to Bottom's confusion, since he hasn't felt a thing during the transformation. Determined to wait for his friends, he begins to sing to himself. Titania is awakened by Bottom's singing and immediately falls in love with him. She lavishes him with attention and presumably makes love to him. While she is in this state of devotion, Oberon takes the changeling. Having achieved his goals, Oberon releases Titania, orders Puck to remove the donkey's head from Bottom, and arrange everything so that Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena will believe that they have been dreaming when they awaken. The fairies then disappear, and Theseus and Hippolyta arrive on the scene, during an early morning hunt. They wake the lovers and, since Demetrius does not love Hermia any more, Theseus overrules Egeus's demands and arranges a group wedding. The lovers decide that the night's events must have been a dream. After they all exit, Bottom awakes, and he too decides that he must have experienced a dream \"past the wit of man\". In Athens, Theseus, Hippolyta and the lovers watch the six workmen perform Pyramus and Thisbe. Given a lack of preparation, the performers are so terrible playing their roles to the point where the guests laugh as if it were meant to be a comedy, and afterward everyone retires to bed. Afterward, Oberon, Titania, Puck, and other fairies enter, and bless the house and its occupants with good fortune. After all other characters leave, Puck \"restores amends\" and suggests to the audience that what they just experienced might be nothing but a dream (hence the name of the play).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play features three interlocking plots, connected by a celebration of the wedding of Duke Theseus of Athens and the Amazon queen, Hippolyta, which is set simultaneously in the woodland and in the realm of Fairyland, under the light of the moon. In the opening scene, Hermia refuses to follow her father's, Egeus, instructions to marry Demetrius, whom he has chosen for her. In response, Egeus quotes before Theseus an ancient Athenian law whereby a daughter must marry the suitor chosen by her father, or else face death. Theseus offers her another choice: lifelong chastity while worshiping the goddess Diana as a nun. At that same time, Peter Quince and his fellow players gather to produce a stage play, \"the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe\", for the Duke and the Duchess. Quince reads the names of characters and bestows them to the players. Nick Bottom, who is playing the main role of Pyramus, is over-enthusiastic and wants to dominate others by suggesting himself for the characters of Thisbe, the Lion, and Pyramus at the same time. He would also rather be a tyrant and recites some lines of Ercles. Quince ends the meeting with \"at the Duke's oak we meet\". Meanwhile, Oberon, king of the fairies, and his queen, Titania, have come to the forest outside Athens. Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there until she has attended Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. Oberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to give her Indian changeling to Oberon for use as his \"knight\" or \"henchman,\" since the child's mother was one of Titania's worshippers. Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience, so he calls for his mischievous court jester Puck or \"Robin Good"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there until she has attended Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. Oberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to give her Indian changeling to Oberon for use as his \"knight\" or \"henchman,\" since the child's mother was one of Titania's worshippers. Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience, so he calls for his mischievous court jester Puck or \"Robin Goodfellow\" to help him apply a magical juice from a flower called \"love-in-idleness\", originally it was a white flower but when struck by Cupid's bow it tints the flower purple. When someone applies the potion to a sleeping person's eyelids, it makes the victim fall in love with the first living thing seen upon awakening. He instructs Puck to retrieve the flower so that he can make Titania fall in love with the first thing she sees when waking up, which he is sure will be an animal of the forest. Oberon's intent is to shame Titania into giving up the little Indian boy. He says, \"And ere I take this charm from off her sight, / As I can take it with another herb, / I'll make her render up her page to me.\" Having seen Demetrius act cruelly toward Helena, Oberon orders Puck to spread some of the magical juice from the flower on the eyelids of the young Athenian man. Instead, Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, not having actually seen either before, and administers the juice to the sleeping Lysander. Helena, coming across him, wakes him while attempting to determine whether he is dead or asleep. Upon this happening, Lysander immediately falls in love with Helena. Oberon sees Demetrius still following Hermia and is enraged. When Demetrius decides to go to sleep, Oberon sends Puck to get Helena"
      },
      {
        "text": " the young Athenian man. Instead, Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, not having actually seen either before, and administers the juice to the sleeping Lysander. Helena, coming across him, wakes him while attempting to determine whether he is dead or asleep. Upon this happening, Lysander immediately falls in love with Helena. Oberon sees Demetrius still following Hermia and is enraged. When Demetrius decides to go to sleep, Oberon sends Puck to get Helena while he charms Demetrius' eyes. Upon waking up, he sees Helena. Now, both men are in pursuit of Helena. However, she is convinced that her two suitors are mocking her, as neither loved her originally. Hermia is at a loss to see why her lover has abandoned her, and accuses Helena of stealing Lysander away from her. The four quarrel with each other until Lysander and Demetrius become so enraged that they seek a place to duel each other to prove whose love for Helena is the greatest. Oberon orders Puck to keep Lysander and Demetrius from catching up with one another and to remove the charm from the two men, so that they are back to normal. Lysander continues to love Hermia, and Demitrius realizes that he does love Helena. Meanwhile, Quince and his band of six labourers (\"rude mechanicals\", as they are described by Puck) have arranged to perform their play about Pyramus and Thisbe for Theseus' wedding and venture into the forest, near Titania's bower, for their rehearsal. Bottom is spotted by Puck, who (taking his name to be another word for a jackass) transforms his head into that of a donkey. When Bottom returns for his next lines, the other workmen run screaming in terror, much to Bottom's confusion, since he hasn't felt a thing during the transformation. Determined to wait for his friends, he begins to sing"
      },
      {
        "text": " Thisbe for Theseus' wedding and venture into the forest, near Titania's bower, for their rehearsal. Bottom is spotted by Puck, who (taking his name to be another word for a jackass) transforms his head into that of a donkey. When Bottom returns for his next lines, the other workmen run screaming in terror, much to Bottom's confusion, since he hasn't felt a thing during the transformation. Determined to wait for his friends, he begins to sing to himself. Titania is awakened by Bottom's singing and immediately falls in love with him. She lavishes him with attention and presumably makes love to him. While she is in this state of devotion, Oberon takes the changeling. Having achieved his goals, Oberon releases Titania, orders Puck to remove the donkey's head from Bottom, and arrange everything so that Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena will believe that they have been dreaming when they awaken. The fairies then disappear, and Theseus and Hippolyta arrive on the scene, during an early morning hunt. They wake the lovers and, since Demetrius does not love Hermia any more, Theseus overrules Egeus's demands and arranges a group wedding. The lovers decide that the night's events must have been a dream. After they all exit, Bottom awakes, and he too decides that he must have experienced a dream \"past the wit of man\". In Athens, Theseus, Hippolyta and the lovers watch the six workmen perform Pyramus and Thisbe. Given a lack of preparation, the performers are so terrible playing their roles to the point where the guests laugh as if it were meant to be a comedy, and afterward everyone retires to bed. Afterward, Oberon, Titania, Puck, and other fairies enter, and bless the house and its occupants with good fortune. After all other characters leave, Puck \""
      },
      {
        "text": ", Theseus, Hippolyta and the lovers watch the six workmen perform Pyramus and Thisbe. Given a lack of preparation, the performers are so terrible playing their roles to the point where the guests laugh as if it were meant to be a comedy, and afterward everyone retires to bed. Afterward, Oberon, Titania, Puck, and other fairies enter, and bless the house and its occupants with good fortune. After all other characters leave, Puck \"restores amends\" and suggests to the audience that what they just experienced might be nothing but a dream (hence the name of the play).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The English Patient",
    "author": "Michael Ondaatje",
    "published_date": "1992-09",
    "synopsis": " The historical backdrop for this novel is the Second World War in Northern Africa and Italy. Hana, a young Canadian Army nurse, lives in the abandoned Villa San Girolamo in Italy, which is filled with hidden, undetonated bombs. All she knows about her English patient is that he was burned beyond recognition in a plane crash before being taken to the hospital by a Bedouin tribe. He also claimed to be English. The only possession that the patient has is a copy of Herodotus' histories that survived the fire. He has annotated these histories and is constantly remembering his explorations in the desert in great detail, but cannot state his own name. The patient is, in fact, L\u00e1szl\u00f3 de Alm\u00e1sy, a Hungarian desert explorer who was part of a British cartography group. He chose, however, to erase his identity and nationality. Caravaggio, a Canadian who served in Britain's foreign intelligence service since the late 1930s, was a friend of Hana's father, who died in the war. Caravaggio, who entered the world of spying because of his skill as a thief, comes to the villa in search of Hana. He overheard in another hospital that she was there taking care of a burned patient. Caravaggio bears physical and psychological scars; he was deliberately left behind to spy on the German forces and was eventually caught, interrogated and tortured, his thumbs having been cut off. Seeking vengeance three years later, Caravaggio (like Alm\u00e1sy) is addicted to morphine, which Hana supplies. One day, while Hana is playing the piano, two British soldiers enter the villa. One of the soldiers is Kip, an Indian Sikh who has been trained as a sapper or combat engineer, specializing in bomb and ordnance disposal. Kip explains that the Germans often booby-trapped musical instruments with bombs, and that he will stay in the villa to rid it of its dangers. Kip and the English Patient immediately become friends. Prompted to tell his story, the Patient begins to reveal all: An English gentleman, Geoffrey Clifton and his wife, Katharine, accompanied the patient's desert exploration team. The Patient's job was to draw maps of the desert, and the Cliftons' plane made this job easier. Alm\u00e1sy fell in love with Katharine Clifton one night as she read from Herodotus' histories aloud around a campfire. They soon began a very intense affair, but in 1938, Katharine cut it off, claiming that Geoffrey would go mad if he discovered them. When World War II broke out in 1939, the members of the exploration team decided to pack up base camp, and Geoffrey Clifton offered to pick up Alm\u00e1sy in his plane, and takes Katharine with him. However, Geoffrey turns around and crashes his plane in an effort to kill all three of them, revealing he had known about the affair. Geoffrey died immediately; Katharine survived, but was horribly injured. Alm\u00e1sy took her to \"the cave of swimmers\", a place the exploration team had previously discovered, and covered her with a parachute so he could leave to find help. After three days, he reached a town, but the British were suspicious of him because he was incoherent and had a foreign surname. They locked him up as a spy. When Alm\u00e1sy finally escaped, he knew it was too late to save Katharine, so he allowed himself to be captured by the Germans, helping their spy cross the desert into Cairo. He then returns to collect Katherine's body; however while flying over the desert, the aircraft is observed by Germans and shot down into flames. Alm\u00e1sy parachuted down covered in flames which was where the Bedouins found him. Caravaggio, who had had suspicions that the Patient was not English, fills in details. Geoffrey Clifton was, in fact, an English spy and had intelligence about Alm\u00e1sy's affair with Katharine. He also had intelligence that Alm\u00e1sy was already working with the Germans. Over time while Alm\u00e1sy divulges the details of his past, Kip becomes close to Hana. Kip's brother had always distrusted the West, but Kip entered the British Army willingly. He was trained as a sapper byLord Suffolk, an English gentleman, who welcomed Kip into his family. Under Lord Suffolk's training, Kip became very skilled at his job. When Lord Suffolk and his team were killed by a bomb, Kip became separated from the world and emotionally removed from everyone. He decided to leave England and began defusing bombs in Italy. Kip's best friend, a British Army sergeant, is killed in a bomb explosion. Kip forms a romantic relationship with Hana and uses it to reconnect to humanity. He becomes a part of a community again and begins to feel comfortable as a lover. Then he hears on the wireless that the United States have dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. Kip is convinced that they would not have dropped the bomb if the nation were white. He feels betrayed by the side he was fighting for. He becomes depressed and separates himself from everyone, including Hana. He eventually leaves.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The historical backdrop for this novel is the Second World War in Northern Africa and Italy. Hana, a young Canadian Army nurse, lives in the abandoned Villa San Girolamo in Italy, which is filled with hidden, undetonated bombs. All she knows about her English patient is that he was burned beyond recognition in a plane crash before being taken to the hospital by a Bedouin tribe. He also claimed to be English. The only possession that the patient has is a copy of Herodotus' histories that survived the fire. He has annotated these histories and is constantly remembering his explorations in the desert in great detail, but cannot state his own name. The patient is, in fact, L\u00e1szl\u00f3 de Alm\u00e1sy, a Hungarian desert explorer who was part of a British cartography group. He chose, however, to erase his identity and nationality. Caravaggio, a Canadian who served in Britain's foreign intelligence service since the late 1930s, was a friend of Hana's father, who died in the war. Caravaggio, who entered the world of spying because of his skill as a thief, comes to the villa in search of Hana. He overheard in another hospital that she was there taking care of a burned patient. Caravaggio bears physical and psychological scars; he was deliberately left behind to spy on the German forces and was eventually caught, interrogated and tortured, his thumbs having been cut off. Seeking vengeance three years later, Caravaggio (like Alm\u00e1sy) is addicted to morphine, which Hana supplies. One day, while Hana is playing the piano, two British soldiers enter the villa. One of the soldiers is Kip, an Indian Sikh who has been trained as a sapper or combat engineer, specializing in bomb and ordnance disposal. Kip explains that the Germans often booby-trapped musical instruments with bombs, and that he will stay in the villa to"
      },
      {
        "text": " years later, Caravaggio (like Alm\u00e1sy) is addicted to morphine, which Hana supplies. One day, while Hana is playing the piano, two British soldiers enter the villa. One of the soldiers is Kip, an Indian Sikh who has been trained as a sapper or combat engineer, specializing in bomb and ordnance disposal. Kip explains that the Germans often booby-trapped musical instruments with bombs, and that he will stay in the villa to rid it of its dangers. Kip and the English Patient immediately become friends. Prompted to tell his story, the Patient begins to reveal all: An English gentleman, Geoffrey Clifton and his wife, Katharine, accompanied the patient's desert exploration team. The Patient's job was to draw maps of the desert, and the Cliftons' plane made this job easier. Alm\u00e1sy fell in love with Katharine Clifton one night as she read from Herodotus' histories aloud around a campfire. They soon began a very intense affair, but in 1938, Katharine cut it off, claiming that Geoffrey would go mad if he discovered them. When World War II broke out in 1939, the members of the exploration team decided to pack up base camp, and Geoffrey Clifton offered to pick up Alm\u00e1sy in his plane, and takes Katharine with him. However, Geoffrey turns around and crashes his plane in an effort to kill all three of them, revealing he had known about the affair. Geoffrey died immediately; Katharine survived, but was horribly injured. Alm\u00e1sy took her to \"the cave of swimmers\", a place the exploration team had previously discovered, and covered her with a parachute so he could leave to find help. After three days, he reached a town, but the British were suspicious of him because he was incoherent and had a foreign surname. They locked him up as a spy. When Alm\u00e1sy finally escaped, he knew"
      },
      {
        "text": " he had known about the affair. Geoffrey died immediately; Katharine survived, but was horribly injured. Alm\u00e1sy took her to \"the cave of swimmers\", a place the exploration team had previously discovered, and covered her with a parachute so he could leave to find help. After three days, he reached a town, but the British were suspicious of him because he was incoherent and had a foreign surname. They locked him up as a spy. When Alm\u00e1sy finally escaped, he knew it was too late to save Katharine, so he allowed himself to be captured by the Germans, helping their spy cross the desert into Cairo. He then returns to collect Katherine's body; however while flying over the desert, the aircraft is observed by Germans and shot down into flames. Alm\u00e1sy parachuted down covered in flames which was where the Bedouins found him. Caravaggio, who had had suspicions that the Patient was not English, fills in details. Geoffrey Clifton was, in fact, an English spy and had intelligence about Alm\u00e1sy's affair with Katharine. He also had intelligence that Alm\u00e1sy was already working with the Germans. Over time while Alm\u00e1sy divulges the details of his past, Kip becomes close to Hana. Kip's brother had always distrusted the West, but Kip entered the British Army willingly. He was trained as a sapper byLord Suffolk, an English gentleman, who welcomed Kip into his family. Under Lord Suffolk's training, Kip became very skilled at his job. When Lord Suffolk and his team were killed by a bomb, Kip became separated from the world and emotionally removed from everyone. He decided to leave England and began defusing bombs in Italy. Kip's best friend, a British Army sergeant, is killed in a bomb explosion. Kip forms a romantic relationship with Hana and uses it to reconnect to humanity. He becomes a part of a community again and begins"
      },
      {
        "text": " family. Under Lord Suffolk's training, Kip became very skilled at his job. When Lord Suffolk and his team were killed by a bomb, Kip became separated from the world and emotionally removed from everyone. He decided to leave England and began defusing bombs in Italy. Kip's best friend, a British Army sergeant, is killed in a bomb explosion. Kip forms a romantic relationship with Hana and uses it to reconnect to humanity. He becomes a part of a community again and begins to feel comfortable as a lover. Then he hears on the wireless that the United States have dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. Kip is convinced that they would not have dropped the bomb if the nation were white. He feels betrayed by the side he was fighting for. He becomes depressed and separates himself from everyone, including Hana. He eventually leaves.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Captains Courageous",
    "author": "Rudyard Kipling",
    "published_date": "1897",
    "synopsis": " Harvey Cheyne is the son of a wealthy railroad magnate and his wife, who are over-indulgent parents in San Diego, California. Washed overboard from a transatlantic steamship and rescued by fishermen off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, the young Harvey Cheyne cannot persuade them to take him quickly to port, nor convince them of his wealth. Disko Troop, captain of the We're Here, offers him a job as part of the crew until they return to port. With no other choice, Harvey accepts. Through a series of trials and adventures, the youth learns to adjust to his rough new life and, with the help of his friend, the captain's son Dan Troop, he makes progress. Eventually, the schooner returns to port and Harvey wires his parents. They rush cross-country by their private rail car, given priority over commercial traffic, to Boston, Massachusetts. From there they go to the fishing town of Gloucester to find that their son has matured to become an industrious, serious and considerate young man. Harvey's mother rewards the seaman who initially rescued her son. Harvey's father rewards Captain Troop by hiring his son Dan to work on his prestigious tea clipper fleet. He is delighted at his son's new maturity and their relationship improves, even as Harvey decides to begin his career with his father's shipping lines.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Harvey Cheyne is the son of a wealthy railroad magnate and his wife, who are over-indulgent parents in San Diego, California. Washed overboard from a transatlantic steamship and rescued by fishermen off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, the young Harvey Cheyne cannot persuade them to take him quickly to port, nor convince them of his wealth. Disko Troop, captain of the We're Here, offers him a job as part of the crew until they return to port. With no other choice, Harvey accepts. Through a series of trials and adventures, the youth learns to adjust to his rough new life and, with the help of his friend, the captain's son Dan Troop, he makes progress. Eventually, the schooner returns to port and Harvey wires his parents. They rush cross-country by their private rail car, given priority over commercial traffic, to Boston, Massachusetts. From there they go to the fishing town of Gloucester to find that their son has matured to become an industrious, serious and considerate young man. Harvey's mother rewards the seaman who initially rescued her son. Harvey's father rewards Captain Troop by hiring his son Dan to work on his prestigious tea clipper fleet. He is delighted at his son's new maturity and their relationship improves, even as Harvey decides to begin his career with his father's shipping lines.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ramayana",
    "author": "Valmiki",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Dasharatha was the king of Ayodhya. He had three queens and they are Kausalya, Kaikeyi and Sumitra. He was childless for a long time and, anxious to produce an heir, he performs a fire sacrifice known as Putra-Kameshti Yagya. As a consequence, Rama is first born to Kausalya, Bharata is born to Kaikeyi, and Lakshmana and Shatrughna are born to Sumitra. These sons are endowed, to various degrees, with the essence of the God Vishnu; Vishnu had opted to be born into mortality in order to combat the demon Ravana, who was oppressing the Gods, and who could only be destroyed by a mortal. The boys are reared as the princes of the realm, receiving instructions from the scriptures and in warfare. When Rama is 16 years old, the sage Vishwamitra comes to the court of Dasharatha in search of help against demons, who were disturbing sacrificial rites. He chooses Rama, who is followed by Lakshmana, his constant companion throughout the story. Rama and Lakshmana receive instructions and supernatural weapons from Vishwamitra, and proceed to destroy the demons. Janaka was the king of Mithila. One day, a female child was found in the field by the king in the deep furrow dug by his plough. Overwhelmed with joy, the king regarded the child as a \"miraculous gift of God\". The child was named Sita, the Sanskrit word for furrow. Sita grew up to be a girl of unparalleled beauty and charm. When Sita was of marriageable age, the king decided to have a swayamvara which included a contest. The king was in possession of an immensely heavy bow, presented to him by the God Shiva: whoever could wield the bow could marry Sita. The sage Vishwamitra attends the swayamvara with Rama and Lakshmana. Only Rama wields the bow and breaks it. Marriages are arranged between the sons of Dasharatha and daughters of Janaka. Rama gets married to Sita, Lakshmana to Urmila, Bharata to Mandavi and Shatrughan to Shrutakirti. The weddings are celebrated with great festivity at Mithila and the marriage party returns to Ayodhya. After Rama and Sita have been married for twelve years, an elderly Dasharatha expresses his desire to crown Rama, to which the Kosala assembly and his subjects express their support. On the eve of the great event, Kaikeyi\u2014her jealousy aroused by Manthara, a wicked maidservant\u2014claims two boons that Dasharatha had long ago granted her. Kaikeyi demands Rama to be exiled into wilderness for fourteen years, while the succession passes to her son Bharata. The heartbroken king, constrained by his rigid devotion to his given word, accedes to Kaikeyi's demands. Rama accepts his father's reluctant decree with absolute submission and calm self-control which characterizes him throughout the story. He is joined by Sita and Lakshmana. When he asks Sita not to follow him, she says, \"the forest where you dwell is Ayodhya for me and Ayodhya without you is a veritable hell for me.\" After Rama's departure, king Dasharatha, unable to bear the grief, passes away. Meanwhile, Bharata who was on a visit to his maternal uncle, learns about the events in Ayodhya. Bharata refuses to profit from his mother's wicked scheming and visits Rama in the forest. He requests Rama to return and rule. But Rama, determined to carry out his father's orders to the letter, refuses to return before the period of exile. However, Bharata carries Rama's sandals, and keeps them on the throne, while he rules as Rama's regent. Rama, Sita and Lakshmana journeyed southward along the banks of river Godavari, where they built cottages and lived off the land. At the Panchavati forest they are visited by a rakshasa woman, Surpanakha, the sister of Ravana. She attempts to seduce the brothers and, failing in this, attempts to kill Sita. Lakshmana stops her by cutting off her nose and ears. Hearing of this, her demon brother, Khara, organizes an attack against the princes. Rama annihilates Khara and his demons. When news of these events reaches Ravana, he resolves to destroy Rama by capturing Sita with the aid of the rakshasa Maricha. Maricha, assuming the form of a golden deer, captivates Sita's attention. Entranced by the beauty of the deer, Sita pleads with Rama to capture it. Lord Rama, aware that this is the play of the demons, is unable to dissuade Sita from her desire and chases the deer into the forest, leaving Sita under Lakshmana's guard. After some time Sita hears Rama calling out to her; afraid for his life she insists that Lakshmana rush to his aid. Lakshmana tries to assure her that Rama is invincible, and that it is best if he continues to follow Rama's orders to protect her. On the verge of hysterics Sita insists that it is not she but Rama who needs Lakshmana's help. He obeys her wish but stipulates that she is not to leave the cottage or entertain any strangers. He draws a chalk outline, the Lakshmana rekha around the cottage and casts a spell on it that prevents anyone from entering the boundary but allows people to exit. Finally with the coast clear, Ravana appears in the guise of an ascetic requesting Sita's hospitality. Unaware of the devious plan of her guest, Sita is tricked into leaving the rekha and then forcibly carried away by the evil Ravana. Jatayu, a vulture, tries to rescue Sita, but is mortally wounded. At Lanka Sita is kept under the heavy guard of rakshasis. Ravana demands Sita marry him, but Sita, eternally devoted to Rama, refuses. During their search, they meet the demon Kabandha and the ascetic Shabari, who direct them towards Sugriva and Hanuman. The Kishkindha Kanda is set in the monkey citadel Kishkindha. Rama and Lakshmana meet Hanuman, the greatest of monkey heroes and an adherent of Sugriva, the banished pretender to the throne of Kishkindha. However Sugriva soon forgets his promise and spends his time in debauchery. The clever monkey Queen Tara, second wife of Sugriva (initially wife of Vali), calmly intervenes to prevent an enraged Lakshmana from destroying the monkey citadel. She then eloquently convinces Sugriva to honor his pledge. Sugriva then sends search parties to the four corners of the earth, only to return without success from north, east and west. The southern search party under the leadership of Angad and Hanuman learns from a vulture named Sampati that Sita was taken to Lanka. The Sundara Kanda forms the heart of Valmiki's Ramayana and consists of a detailed, vivid account of Hanuman's adventures. After learning about Sita, Hanuman assumes a gargantuan form and makes a colossal leap across the ocean to Lanka. Here, Hanuman explores the demon's city and spies on Ravana. He locates Sita in Ashoka grove, who is wooed and threatened by Ravana and his rakshasis to marry Ravana. He reassures her, giving Rama's signet ring as a sign of good faith. He offers to carry Sita back to Rama, however she refuses, reluctant to allow herself to be touched by a male other than her husband. She says that Rama himself must come and avenge the insult of her abduction. Hanuman then wreaks havoc in Lanka by destroying trees and buildings, and killing Ravana's warriors. He allows himself to be captured and produced before Ravana. He gives a bold lecture to Ravana to release Sita. He is condemned and his tail is set on fire, but he escapes his bonds and, leaping from roof to roof, sets fire to Ravana's citadel and makes the giant leap back from the island. The joyous search party returns to Kishkindha with the news. This book describes the battle between the army of Rama, constructed with the help of Sugriv, and Ravana. Having received Hanuman's report on Sita, Rama and Lakshmana proceed with their allies towards the shore of the southern sea. There they are joined by Ravana's renegade brother Vibhishana. The monkeys named \"Nal\" and \"Neel\" construct a floating bridge (known as Rama Setu) across the ocean, and the princes and their army cross over to Lanka. A lengthy battle ensues and Rama kills Ravana. Rama then installs Vibhishana on the throne of Lanka. On meeting Sita, Rama asks her to undergo an \"agni pariksha\" (test of fire) to prove her purity, as he wanted to get rid of the rumours surrounding Sita's purity. When Sita plunges into the sacrificial fire, Agni the lord of fire raises Sita, unharmed, to the throne, attesting to her purity. The episode of agni pariksha varies in the versions of Ramayana by Valmiki and Tulsidas. The above version is from Valmiki Ramayana. In Tulsidas's Ramacharitamanas Sita was under the protection of Agni so it was necessary to bring her out before reuniting with Rama. At the expiration of his term of exile, Rama returns to Ayodhya with Sita and Lakshmana, where the coronation is performed. This is the beginning of Ram Rajya, which implies an ideal state with good morals. The Uttara Kanda is regarded to be a later addition to the original story by Valmiki. Rama yields to public opinion and orders a court of inquiry, which finds Sita guilty. Rama reluctantly banishes Sita to the forest, where sage Valmiki provides shelter in his ashrama (hermitage). Here she gives birth to twin boys, Lava and Kusha, who became pupils of Valmiki and are brought up in ignorance of their identity. Valmiki composes the Ramayana and teaches Lava and Kusha to sing it. Later, Rama holds a ceremony during Ashwamedha yagna, which the sage Valmiki, with Lava and Kusha, attends. Lava and Kusha sing the Ramayana in the presence of Rama and his vast audience. When Lava and Kusha recite about Sita's exile, Rama becomes grievous, and Valmiki produces Sita. Sita calls upon the Earth, her mother, to receive her and as the ground opens, she vanishes into it. Rama then learns that Lava and Kusha are his children. Later a messenger from the Gods appears and informs Rama that the mission of his incarnation was over. Rama returns to his celestial abode.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Dasharatha was the king of Ayodhya. He had three queens and they are Kausalya, Kaikeyi and Sumitra. He was childless for a long time and, anxious to produce an heir, he performs a fire sacrifice known as Putra-Kameshti Yagya. As a consequence, Rama is first born to Kausalya, Bharata is born to Kaikeyi, and Lakshmana and Shatrughna are born to Sumitra. These sons are endowed, to various degrees, with the essence of the God Vishnu; Vishnu had opted to be born into mortality in order to combat the demon Ravana, who was oppressing the Gods, and who could only be destroyed by a mortal. The boys are reared as the princes of the realm, receiving instructions from the scriptures and in warfare. When Rama is 16 years old, the sage Vishwamitra comes to the court of Dasharatha in search of help against demons, who were disturbing sacrificial rites. He chooses Rama, who is followed by Lakshmana, his constant companion throughout the story. Rama and Lakshmana receive instructions and supernatural weapons from Vishwamitra, and proceed to destroy the demons. Janaka was the king of Mithila. One day, a female child was found in the field by the king in the deep furrow dug by his plough. Overwhelmed with joy, the king regarded the child as a \"miraculous gift of God\". The child was named Sita, the Sanskrit word for furrow. Sita grew up to be a girl of unparalleled beauty and charm. When Sita was of marriageable age, the king decided to have a swayamvara which included a contest. The king was in possession of an immensely heavy bow, presented to him by the God Shiva: whoever could wield the bow could marry Sita. The sage"
      },
      {
        "text": " joy, the king regarded the child as a \"miraculous gift of God\". The child was named Sita, the Sanskrit word for furrow. Sita grew up to be a girl of unparalleled beauty and charm. When Sita was of marriageable age, the king decided to have a swayamvara which included a contest. The king was in possession of an immensely heavy bow, presented to him by the God Shiva: whoever could wield the bow could marry Sita. The sage Vishwamitra attends the swayamvara with Rama and Lakshmana. Only Rama wields the bow and breaks it. Marriages are arranged between the sons of Dasharatha and daughters of Janaka. Rama gets married to Sita, Lakshmana to Urmila, Bharata to Mandavi and Shatrughan to Shrutakirti. The weddings are celebrated with great festivity at Mithila and the marriage party returns to Ayodhya. After Rama and Sita have been married for twelve years, an elderly Dasharatha expresses his desire to crown Rama, to which the Kosala assembly and his subjects express their support. On the eve of the great event, Kaikeyi\u2014her jealousy aroused by Manthara, a wicked maidservant\u2014claims two boons that Dasharatha had long ago granted her. Kaikeyi demands Rama to be exiled into wilderness for fourteen years, while the succession passes to her son Bharata. The heartbroken king, constrained by his rigid devotion to his given word, accedes to Kaikeyi's demands. Rama accepts his father's reluctant decree with absolute submission and calm self-control which characterizes him throughout the story. He is joined by Sita and Lakshmana. When he asks Sita not to follow him, she says, \"the forest where you dwell is Ayodhya for me and Ayodhya without you is a ver"
      },
      {
        "text": " passes to her son Bharata. The heartbroken king, constrained by his rigid devotion to his given word, accedes to Kaikeyi's demands. Rama accepts his father's reluctant decree with absolute submission and calm self-control which characterizes him throughout the story. He is joined by Sita and Lakshmana. When he asks Sita not to follow him, she says, \"the forest where you dwell is Ayodhya for me and Ayodhya without you is a veritable hell for me.\" After Rama's departure, king Dasharatha, unable to bear the grief, passes away. Meanwhile, Bharata who was on a visit to his maternal uncle, learns about the events in Ayodhya. Bharata refuses to profit from his mother's wicked scheming and visits Rama in the forest. He requests Rama to return and rule. But Rama, determined to carry out his father's orders to the letter, refuses to return before the period of exile. However, Bharata carries Rama's sandals, and keeps them on the throne, while he rules as Rama's regent. Rama, Sita and Lakshmana journeyed southward along the banks of river Godavari, where they built cottages and lived off the land. At the Panchavati forest they are visited by a rakshasa woman, Surpanakha, the sister of Ravana. She attempts to seduce the brothers and, failing in this, attempts to kill Sita. Lakshmana stops her by cutting off her nose and ears. Hearing of this, her demon brother, Khara, organizes an attack against the princes. Rama annihilates Khara and his demons. When news of these events reaches Ravana, he resolves to destroy Rama by capturing Sita with the aid of the rakshasa Maricha. Maricha, assuming the form of a golden deer, captiv"
      },
      {
        "text": " and, failing in this, attempts to kill Sita. Lakshmana stops her by cutting off her nose and ears. Hearing of this, her demon brother, Khara, organizes an attack against the princes. Rama annihilates Khara and his demons. When news of these events reaches Ravana, he resolves to destroy Rama by capturing Sita with the aid of the rakshasa Maricha. Maricha, assuming the form of a golden deer, captivates Sita's attention. Entranced by the beauty of the deer, Sita pleads with Rama to capture it. Lord Rama, aware that this is the play of the demons, is unable to dissuade Sita from her desire and chases the deer into the forest, leaving Sita under Lakshmana's guard. After some time Sita hears Rama calling out to her; afraid for his life she insists that Lakshmana rush to his aid. Lakshmana tries to assure her that Rama is invincible, and that it is best if he continues to follow Rama's orders to protect her. On the verge of hysterics Sita insists that it is not she but Rama who needs Lakshmana's help. He obeys her wish but stipulates that she is not to leave the cottage or entertain any strangers. He draws a chalk outline, the Lakshmana rekha around the cottage and casts a spell on it that prevents anyone from entering the boundary but allows people to exit. Finally with the coast clear, Ravana appears in the guise of an ascetic requesting Sita's hospitality. Unaware of the devious plan of her guest, Sita is tricked into leaving the rekha and then forcibly carried away by the evil Ravana. Jatayu, a vulture, tries to rescue Sita, but is mortally wounded. At Lanka Sita is kept under the heavy guard of rakshasis"
      },
      {
        "text": " from entering the boundary but allows people to exit. Finally with the coast clear, Ravana appears in the guise of an ascetic requesting Sita's hospitality. Unaware of the devious plan of her guest, Sita is tricked into leaving the rekha and then forcibly carried away by the evil Ravana. Jatayu, a vulture, tries to rescue Sita, but is mortally wounded. At Lanka Sita is kept under the heavy guard of rakshasis. Ravana demands Sita marry him, but Sita, eternally devoted to Rama, refuses. During their search, they meet the demon Kabandha and the ascetic Shabari, who direct them towards Sugriva and Hanuman. The Kishkindha Kanda is set in the monkey citadel Kishkindha. Rama and Lakshmana meet Hanuman, the greatest of monkey heroes and an adherent of Sugriva, the banished pretender to the throne of Kishkindha. However Sugriva soon forgets his promise and spends his time in debauchery. The clever monkey Queen Tara, second wife of Sugriva (initially wife of Vali), calmly intervenes to prevent an enraged Lakshmana from destroying the monkey citadel. She then eloquently convinces Sugriva to honor his pledge. Sugriva then sends search parties to the four corners of the earth, only to return without success from north, east and west. The southern search party under the leadership of Angad and Hanuman learns from a vulture named Sampati that Sita was taken to Lanka. The Sundara Kanda forms the heart of Valmiki's Ramayana and consists of a detailed, vivid account of Hanuman's adventures. After learning about Sita, Hanuman assumes a gargantuan form and makes a colossal leap across the ocean to Lanka. Here, Hanuman explores the demon's city and spies on Rav"
      },
      {
        "text": " and west. The southern search party under the leadership of Angad and Hanuman learns from a vulture named Sampati that Sita was taken to Lanka. The Sundara Kanda forms the heart of Valmiki's Ramayana and consists of a detailed, vivid account of Hanuman's adventures. After learning about Sita, Hanuman assumes a gargantuan form and makes a colossal leap across the ocean to Lanka. Here, Hanuman explores the demon's city and spies on Ravana. He locates Sita in Ashoka grove, who is wooed and threatened by Ravana and his rakshasis to marry Ravana. He reassures her, giving Rama's signet ring as a sign of good faith. He offers to carry Sita back to Rama, however she refuses, reluctant to allow herself to be touched by a male other than her husband. She says that Rama himself must come and avenge the insult of her abduction. Hanuman then wreaks havoc in Lanka by destroying trees and buildings, and killing Ravana's warriors. He allows himself to be captured and produced before Ravana. He gives a bold lecture to Ravana to release Sita. He is condemned and his tail is set on fire, but he escapes his bonds and, leaping from roof to roof, sets fire to Ravana's citadel and makes the giant leap back from the island. The joyous search party returns to Kishkindha with the news. This book describes the battle between the army of Rama, constructed with the help of Sugriv, and Ravana. Having received Hanuman's report on Sita, Rama and Lakshmana proceed with their allies towards the shore of the southern sea. There they are joined by Ravana's renegade brother Vibhishana. The monkeys named \"Nal\" and \"Neel\" construct a floating bridge (known as Rama Setu) across the ocean, and"
      },
      {
        "text": " news. This book describes the battle between the army of Rama, constructed with the help of Sugriv, and Ravana. Having received Hanuman's report on Sita, Rama and Lakshmana proceed with their allies towards the shore of the southern sea. There they are joined by Ravana's renegade brother Vibhishana. The monkeys named \"Nal\" and \"Neel\" construct a floating bridge (known as Rama Setu) across the ocean, and the princes and their army cross over to Lanka. A lengthy battle ensues and Rama kills Ravana. Rama then installs Vibhishana on the throne of Lanka. On meeting Sita, Rama asks her to undergo an \"agni pariksha\" (test of fire) to prove her purity, as he wanted to get rid of the rumours surrounding Sita's purity. When Sita plunges into the sacrificial fire, Agni the lord of fire raises Sita, unharmed, to the throne, attesting to her purity. The episode of agni pariksha varies in the versions of Ramayana by Valmiki and Tulsidas. The above version is from Valmiki Ramayana. In Tulsidas's Ramacharitamanas Sita was under the protection of Agni so it was necessary to bring her out before reuniting with Rama. At the expiration of his term of exile, Rama returns to Ayodhya with Sita and Lakshmana, where the coronation is performed. This is the beginning of Ram Rajya, which implies an ideal state with good morals. The Uttara Kanda is regarded to be a later addition to the original story by Valmiki. Rama yields to public opinion and orders a court of inquiry, which finds Sita guilty. Rama reluctantly banishes Sita to the forest, where sage Valmiki provides shelter in his ashrama ("
      },
      {
        "text": " to Ayodhya with Sita and Lakshmana, where the coronation is performed. This is the beginning of Ram Rajya, which implies an ideal state with good morals. The Uttara Kanda is regarded to be a later addition to the original story by Valmiki. Rama yields to public opinion and orders a court of inquiry, which finds Sita guilty. Rama reluctantly banishes Sita to the forest, where sage Valmiki provides shelter in his ashrama (hermitage). Here she gives birth to twin boys, Lava and Kusha, who became pupils of Valmiki and are brought up in ignorance of their identity. Valmiki composes the Ramayana and teaches Lava and Kusha to sing it. Later, Rama holds a ceremony during Ashwamedha yagna, which the sage Valmiki, with Lava and Kusha, attends. Lava and Kusha sing the Ramayana in the presence of Rama and his vast audience. When Lava and Kusha recite about Sita's exile, Rama becomes grievous, and Valmiki produces Sita. Sita calls upon the Earth, her mother, to receive her and as the ground opens, she vanishes into it. Rama then learns that Lava and Kusha are his children. Later a messenger from the Gods appears and informs Rama that the mission of his incarnation was over. Rama returns to his celestial abode.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ode.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Forge of God",
    "author": "Greg Bear",
    "published_date": "1987",
    "synopsis": " The novel features scenes and events including the discovery of a near-dead alien in the desert, who clearly says in English, \"I'm sorry, but there is bad news,\" and this alien's subsequent interrogation and autopsy; the discovery of an artificial geological formation and its subsequent nuclear destruction by a desperate military; and the Earth's eventual destruction by the mutual annihilation of a piece of neutronium and a piece of antineutronium dropped into Earth's core. There is another alien faction at work, however, represented on Earth by small spider-like robots that recruit human agents through some form of mind control. They frantically collect all the human data, biological records, tissue samples, seeds, and DNA from the biosphere that they can, and evacuate a handful of people from Earth. In space, this faction's machines combat and eventually destroy the attackers, though not before Earth's fate is sealed. The evacuees eventually settle a newly terraformed Mars while some form the crew of a Ship of the Law to hunt down the home world of the killers, a quest described in the sequel, Anvil of Stars. One of the point of view characters is Arthur Gordon, a scientist who, with his wife Francine and son Martin is among those rescued from the destruction of Earth. Some other characters are close to an American president who fails to take action against the threat. The two books show at least one solution to the Fermi paradox, with electromagnetically noisy civilisations being snuffed out by the arrival of self-replicating machines designed to destroy any potential threat to their (possibly long-dead) creators. (A similar theme is explored in Fred Saberhagen's Berserker novels.)\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel features scenes and events including the discovery of a near-dead alien in the desert, who clearly says in English, \"I'm sorry, but there is bad news,\" and this alien's subsequent interrogation and autopsy; the discovery of an artificial geological formation and its subsequent nuclear destruction by a desperate military; and the Earth's eventual destruction by the mutual annihilation of a piece of neutronium and a piece of antineutronium dropped into Earth's core. There is another alien faction at work, however, represented on Earth by small spider-like robots that recruit human agents through some form of mind control. They frantically collect all the human data, biological records, tissue samples, seeds, and DNA from the biosphere that they can, and evacuate a handful of people from Earth. In space, this faction's machines combat and eventually destroy the attackers, though not before Earth's fate is sealed. The evacuees eventually settle a newly terraformed Mars while some form the crew of a Ship of the Law to hunt down the home world of the killers, a quest described in the sequel, Anvil of Stars. One of the point of view characters is Arthur Gordon, a scientist who, with his wife Francine and son Martin is among those rescued from the destruction of Earth. Some other characters are close to an American president who fails to take action against the threat. The two books show at least one solution to the Fermi paradox, with electromagnetically noisy civilisations being snuffed out by the arrival of self-replicating machines designed to destroy any potential threat to their (possibly long-dead) creators. (A similar theme is explored in Fred Saberhagen's Berserker novels.)\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " being snuffed out by the arrival of self-replicating machines designed to destroy any potential threat to their (possibly long-dead) creators. (A similar theme is explored in Fred Saberhagen's Berserker novels.)\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Blood Music",
    "author": "Greg Bear",
    "published_date": "1985",
    "synopsis": " In the novel, renegade biotechnologist Vergil Ulam creates simple biological computers based on his own lymphocytes. Faced with orders from his nervous employer to destroy his work, he injects them into his own body, intending to smuggle the 'noocytes' (as he calls them) out of the company and work on them elsewhere. Inside Ulam's body, the noocytes multiply and evolve rapidly, altering their own genetic material and quickly becoming self-aware. The nanoscale civilization they construct soon begins to transform Ulam, then others. The people who are infected start to find that genetic faults such as myopia and high blood pressure are fixed. The bumps along the spine as well as the nipples fade. Finally, white stripes and ridges start growing over their bodies. Ulam reports that the cells seem to sing. Through infection, conversion and assimilation of humans and other organisms the cells eventually aggregate most of the biosphere of North America into a region seven thousand kilometres wide. This civilization, which incorporates both the evolved noocytes and recently-assimilated conventional humans, is eventually forced to abandon the normal plane of existence in favor of one in which thought does not require a physical substrate. The reason for the noocytes' inability to remain in this reality is somewhat related to the strong anthropic principle. The book's structure is titled \"inter-phase\", \"prophase\", \"metaphase\", \"anaphase\", \"telophase\" and \"interphase.\" This mirrors the major phases of cell cycle: interphase and mitosis.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the novel, renegade biotechnologist Vergil Ulam creates simple biological computers based on his own lymphocytes. Faced with orders from his nervous employer to destroy his work, he injects them into his own body, intending to smuggle the 'noocytes' (as he calls them) out of the company and work on them elsewhere. Inside Ulam's body, the noocytes multiply and evolve rapidly, altering their own genetic material and quickly becoming self-aware. The nanoscale civilization they construct soon begins to transform Ulam, then others. The people who are infected start to find that genetic faults such as myopia and high blood pressure are fixed. The bumps along the spine as well as the nipples fade. Finally, white stripes and ridges start growing over their bodies. Ulam reports that the cells seem to sing. Through infection, conversion and assimilation of humans and other organisms the cells eventually aggregate most of the biosphere of North America into a region seven thousand kilometres wide. This civilization, which incorporates both the evolved noocytes and recently-assimilated conventional humans, is eventually forced to abandon the normal plane of existence in favor of one in which thought does not require a physical substrate. The reason for the noocytes' inability to remain in this reality is somewhat related to the strong anthropic principle. The book's structure is titled \"inter-phase\", \"prophase\", \"metaphase\", \"anaphase\", \"telophase\" and \"interphase.\" This mirrors the major phases of cell cycle: interphase and mitosis.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " and \"interphase.\" This mirrors the major phases of cell cycle: interphase and mitosis.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The World According to Garp",
    "author": "John Irving",
    "published_date": "1978",
    "synopsis": " The story deals with the life of T. S. Garp. His mother, Jenny Fields, is a strong-willed nurse who wants a child but not a husband. She encounters a dying ball turret gunner known only as Technical Sergeant Garp who was severely brain damaged in combat. Jenny nurses Garp, observing his infantile state and almost perpetual autonomic sexual arousal. As a matter of practicality and kindness in making his passing as comfortable as possible and reducing his agitation, she manually gratifies him several times. Unconstrained by convention and driven by practicality and her desire for a child, Jenny uses Garp's sexual response to impregnate herself, and names the resultant son after him \"T. S.\" (standing only for \"Technical Sergeant\"). Jenny raises young Garp alone, taking a position at the all-boys school Steering School in New England. Garp grows up, becoming interested in sex, wrestling, and writing fiction—three topics in which his mother has little interest. After his graduation in 1961, his mother takes him to Vienna where he writes his first novella. His mother, too, starts writing, - her autobiography. After they return to Steering Garp marries Helen, the wrestling coach's daughter and founds his family, he a struggling writer, she a teacher of English. The publication of A Sexual Suspect makes his mother famous as she becomes a feminist icon as feminists view her book as a manifesto of a woman who does not care to bind herself to a man, and who chooses to raise a child on her own. She nurtures and supports women traumatized by men among them the Ellen Jamesians, a group of women who cut off their tongues in support of and named after an eleven-year-old girl whose tongue was cut off by her rapists to silence her. Garp becomes a devoted parent, wrestling with anxiety for the safety of his children and a desire to keep them safe from the dangers of the world. He and his family inevitably experience dark and violent events through which the characters change and grow. Garp learns (often painfully) from the women in his life (including transsexual ex-football player Roberta Muldoon) struggling to become more tolerant in the face of intolerance. The story is decidedly rich with (in the words of the fictional Garp's teacher) \"lunacy and sorrow,\" and the sometimes ridiculous chains of events the characters experience still resonate with painful truth. The novel contains several framed narratives: Garp's first novella, The Pension Grillparzer; Vigilance, a short story; and the first chapter of his novel, The World According to Bensenhaver. As well, the book contains some motifs that appear in almost all John Irving novels: bears, wrestling, Vienna, New England, people who are uninterested in having sex, and a complex Dickensian plot that spans the protagonist's whole life. Adultery (another common Irving motif) also plays a large part, culminating in one of the novel's most harrowing and memorable scenes. There is also a tincture of another familiar Irving trope, castration anxiety, most obvious in the lamentable fate of Michael Milton.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story deals with the life of T. S. Garp. His mother, Jenny Fields, is a strong-willed nurse who wants a child but not a husband. She encounters a dying ball turret gunner known only as Technical Sergeant Garp who was severely brain damaged in combat. Jenny nurses Garp, observing his infantile state and almost perpetual autonomic sexual arousal. As a matter of practicality and kindness in making his passing as comfortable as possible and reducing his agitation, she manually gratifies him several times. Unconstrained by convention and driven by practicality and her desire for a child, Jenny uses Garp's sexual response to impregnate herself, and names the resultant son after him \"T. S.\" (standing only for \"Technical Sergeant\"). Jenny raises young Garp alone, taking a position at the all-boys school Steering School in New England. Garp grows up, becoming interested in sex, wrestling, and writing fiction—three topics in which his mother has little interest. After his graduation in 1961, his mother takes him to Vienna where he writes his first novella. His mother, too, starts writing, - her autobiography. After they return to Steering Garp marries Helen, the wrestling coach's daughter and founds his family, he a struggling writer, she a teacher of English. The publication of A Sexual Suspect makes his mother famous as she becomes a feminist icon as feminists view her book as a manifesto of a woman who does not care to bind herself to a man, and who chooses to raise a child on her own. She nurtures and supports women traumatized by men among them the Ellen Jamesians, a group of women who cut off their tongues in support of and named after an eleven-year-old girl whose tongue was cut off by her rapists to silence her. Garp becomes a devoted parent, wrestling with anxiety for the safety of his children and a desire to keep them safe"
      },
      {
        "text": " manifesto of a woman who does not care to bind herself to a man, and who chooses to raise a child on her own. She nurtures and supports women traumatized by men among them the Ellen Jamesians, a group of women who cut off their tongues in support of and named after an eleven-year-old girl whose tongue was cut off by her rapists to silence her. Garp becomes a devoted parent, wrestling with anxiety for the safety of his children and a desire to keep them safe from the dangers of the world. He and his family inevitably experience dark and violent events through which the characters change and grow. Garp learns (often painfully) from the women in his life (including transsexual ex-football player Roberta Muldoon) struggling to become more tolerant in the face of intolerance. The story is decidedly rich with (in the words of the fictional Garp's teacher) \"lunacy and sorrow,\" and the sometimes ridiculous chains of events the characters experience still resonate with painful truth. The novel contains several framed narratives: Garp's first novella, The Pension Grillparzer; Vigilance, a short story; and the first chapter of his novel, The World According to Bensenhaver. As well, the book contains some motifs that appear in almost all John Irving novels: bears, wrestling, Vienna, New England, people who are uninterested in having sex, and a complex Dickensian plot that spans the protagonist's whole life. Adultery (another common Irving motif) also plays a large part, culminating in one of the novel's most harrowing and memorable scenes. There is also a tincture of another familiar Irving trope, castration anxiety, most obvious in the lamentable fate of Michael Milton.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "tery (another common Irving motif) also plays a large part, culminating in one of the novel's most harrowing and memorable scenes. There is also a tincture of another familiar Irving trope, castration anxiety, most obvious in the lamentable fate of Michael Milton.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Mutiny on the Bounty",
    "author": "James Norman Hall",
    "published_date": "1932",
    "synopsis": " The novel tells the story through a fictional first-person narrator by the name of Roger Byam, based on actual crew member Peter Heywood. Byam, although not one of the mutineers, remains with the Bounty after the mutiny. He subsequently returns to Tahiti, and is eventually arrested and taken back to England to face a court-martial. He and several other members of the crew are eventually acquitted.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel tells the story through a fictional first-person narrator by the name of Roger Byam, based on actual crew member Peter Heywood. Byam, although not one of the mutineers, remains with the Bounty after the mutiny. He subsequently returns to Tahiti, and is eventually arrested and taken back to England to face a court-martial. He and several other members of the crew are eventually acquitted.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Mothman Prophecies",
    "author": "John A. Keel",
    "published_date": "1975",
    "synopsis": " The book combines Keel's account of his investigation into alleged sightings of a large, winged creature called Mothman in the vicinity of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, during 1966 and 1967 with his own theories about UFOs and various supernatural phenomena, ultimately connecting them to the December 15, 1967, collapse of the Silver Bridge across the Ohio River.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book combines Keel's account of his investigation into alleged sightings of a large, winged creature called Mothman in the vicinity of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, during 1966 and 1967 with his own theories about UFOs and various supernatural phenomena, ultimately connecting them to the December 15, 1967, collapse of the Silver Bridge across the Ohio River.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Memory of Earth",
    "author": "Orson Scott Card",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Humanity has lived for 40 million years on a planet called Harmony, after leaving an Earth that has been destroyed by human conflict. In order not to repeat the mistakes that led to the destruction of civilization on Earth, a computer, known as the Oversoul, was left as guardian of this planet. Its main mission was to prevent humans from developing technologies that could make wars a global affair. For that, humans were genetically modified so they could communicate with the Oversoul. The Oversoul uses this connection to make humans quite easily distracted when thinking about forbidden technologies, leading them to forget that train of thought. However, after this long time the Oversoul is beginning to fail, and it chooses a group of humans to return to Earth in search of the Keeper of Earth, in the hopes it will be able to find a way to maintain power over the people on Harmony. To this end the Oversoul recruits Volemak, father of the protagonist of the story, Nafai. Nafai and Issib, his brother, begin to try and defy the Oversoul's capability to override thought. Through this they learn of the danger that it is in. Nafai begins hearing the Oversoul's voice in his mind. The first book focuses on the family's eventual betrayal, the taking of the Index, and the downfall of the man Gaballufix, who had been planning to ally the city of Basilica, the home of the main characters and the setting of the first half of the book, with a malignant nation. Nafai, Elemak and Mebbekew, his older half brothers, Issib and his father Volemak are eventually forced to leave the city. They come back to retrieve the Index of the Oversoul, which allows them to communicate with it directly. Because of Nafai's careless blunders and miraculous successes, Elemak, Nafai's oldest brother, begins to hate him, a theme that will play out throughout the rest of the saga.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Humanity has lived for 40 million years on a planet called Harmony, after leaving an Earth that has been destroyed by human conflict. In order not to repeat the mistakes that led to the destruction of civilization on Earth, a computer, known as the Oversoul, was left as guardian of this planet. Its main mission was to prevent humans from developing technologies that could make wars a global affair. For that, humans were genetically modified so they could communicate with the Oversoul. The Oversoul uses this connection to make humans quite easily distracted when thinking about forbidden technologies, leading them to forget that train of thought. However, after this long time the Oversoul is beginning to fail, and it chooses a group of humans to return to Earth in search of the Keeper of Earth, in the hopes it will be able to find a way to maintain power over the people on Harmony. To this end the Oversoul recruits Volemak, father of the protagonist of the story, Nafai. Nafai and Issib, his brother, begin to try and defy the Oversoul's capability to override thought. Through this they learn of the danger that it is in. Nafai begins hearing the Oversoul's voice in his mind. The first book focuses on the family's eventual betrayal, the taking of the Index, and the downfall of the man Gaballufix, who had been planning to ally the city of Basilica, the home of the main characters and the setting of the first half of the book, with a malignant nation. Nafai, Elemak and Mebbekew, his older half brothers, Issib and his father Volemak are eventually forced to leave the city. They come back to retrieve the Index of the Oversoul, which allows them to communicate with it directly. Because of Nafai's careless blunders and miraculous successes, Elemak, Nafai's oldest brother, begins to hate him, a theme that will"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the book, with a malignant nation. Nafai, Elemak and Mebbekew, his older half brothers, Issib and his father Volemak are eventually forced to leave the city. They come back to retrieve the Index of the Oversoul, which allows them to communicate with it directly. Because of Nafai's careless blunders and miraculous successes, Elemak, Nafai's oldest brother, begins to hate him, a theme that will play out throughout the rest of the saga.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sixth Column",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1949",
    "synopsis": " A top secret research facility hidden in the Colorado mountains is the last remaining outpost of the United States Army after its defeat by the PanAsians. The conquerors had absorbed the Soviets after being attacked by them and had then gone on to absorb India as well. The invaders are depicted as ruthless and cruel\u2014for example, they crush an abortive rebellion by killing 150,000 American civilians as punishment. The laboratory is in turmoil as the novel begins. All but six of the personnel have died suddenly, due to unknown forces released by an experiment operating within the newly-discovered magneto-gravitic or electro-gravitic spectra. The surviving scientists soon learn that they can selectively kill people by releasing the internal pressure of their cell membranes, among other things. Using this discovery they construct a race-selective weapon which will kill only Asians. They devise other uses for the awesome forces they have discovered, but how can a handful of men overthrow an occupation force that controls all communications and when it is a crime to print a word in English? Noting that the invaders have allowed the free practice of religion (the better to pacify their slaves), the Americans set up a church of their own and begin acting as \"Priests of Mota\" (Mota is atom spelled backwards) in order to build a resistance movement\u2014which Major Ardmore, the protagonist of the book, refers to as the Sixth Column (as opposed to a traitorous fifth column).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A top secret research facility hidden in the Colorado mountains is the last remaining outpost of the United States Army after its defeat by the PanAsians. The conquerors had absorbed the Soviets after being attacked by them and had then gone on to absorb India as well. The invaders are depicted as ruthless and cruel\u2014for example, they crush an abortive rebellion by killing 150,000 American civilians as punishment. The laboratory is in turmoil as the novel begins. All but six of the personnel have died suddenly, due to unknown forces released by an experiment operating within the newly-discovered magneto-gravitic or electro-gravitic spectra. The surviving scientists soon learn that they can selectively kill people by releasing the internal pressure of their cell membranes, among other things. Using this discovery they construct a race-selective weapon which will kill only Asians. They devise other uses for the awesome forces they have discovered, but how can a handful of men overthrow an occupation force that controls all communications and when it is a crime to print a word in English? Noting that the invaders have allowed the free practice of religion (the better to pacify their slaves), the Americans set up a church of their own and begin acting as \"Priests of Mota\" (Mota is atom spelled backwards) in order to build a resistance movement\u2014which Major Ardmore, the protagonist of the book, refers to as the Sixth Column (as opposed to a traitorous fifth column).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Puppet Masters",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " \"Sam\" is an agent in \"Section\", a United States government intelligence organization. It is so secret it reports only to the President, and is entirely unknown to anyone else. Sam is superbly trained, equipped with a built-in communicator he calls a \"skull phone\" as well as a number of ways to commit suicide if the need arises. Called in by \"the Old Man\", his boss and the head of the organization, they go to investigate the report of a flying saucer landing in Grinnell, Iowa after other agents sent earlier fail to report back. With them is another agent named \"Mary\", a stunningly beautiful redhead. Sam is informed that her life is only slightly less precious than the Old Man's, and that he (Sam) is the most expendable. In Iowa, they discover that the people are being brought under the mental control of repulsive, slug-like creatures that attach to their backs, just below the neck. Detaching one slug from its host, they seal it in a film canister and bring it back to headquarters in Washington, D.C. By the time they get there though, the remains of the slug are a stinking mess, and they are unable to convince the President that there is an invasion. Sam eventually leads a small team back to Iowa. They inadvertently succeed in capturing a live slug, as one agent becomes \"hagridden\" without them realizing it. However, Mary spots it when he does not react to her allure like a normal male. The agent is unmasked, subdued and confined. The slug escapes by transferring to another person, and eventually to Sam himself. He immediately becomes enslaved and escapes the agency. Meanwhile, the invasion continues to expand. Slugs are shipped through the mail to recruit more humans. Gradually they infect more and more important people, especially the members of exclusive clubs frequented by politicians. Before the Old Man tracks Sam down and captures him, they have infected the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, whose department controls the United States Secret Service (responsible for the President's personal security); the slugs are a step away from infecting the President himself. By the time Sam recovers in hospital, anyone fully dressed is suspect. The Old Man wants someone to \"wear\" the slug so it can be interrogated. Sam cannot bear the idea, but when Mary volunteers, he gives in and does it himself. He is completely aware of himself when possessed, but totally committed to the slugs' cause. The slug dies under torture from electric shocks, but in the process Sam learns that they come from Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Thoroughly disgusted by the treatment he has received, Sam is ready to quit. He is at first furious with Mary for entrapping him, and then with the Old Man, when he learns that his boss tricked Mary into it. At this point, it is revealed that the Old Man is Sam's father. Eventually the politicians realize the danger. From Minnesota to Louisiana, the center of the country has been taken over. On a solo mission to Kansas City, Sam is shocked to discover that the number of slugs is much greater than thought. Instead of taking over key people, they have absorbed the entire human population of the occupied territory. However, he and the Old Man are unable to convince the President to stop a meticulously planned military counter-invasion of the heartland; the entire force is taken over by the enemy. They find that slugs are capable of fissioning in two fairly quickly. The number of infected humans must now be so large that any military action would kill tens of millions. The problem having reached a scale beyond their ability to influence it, Sam and Mary are given leave. By this time, they have fallen in love and get married before going to Sam's bolt-hole in the Adirondack Mountains. Their idyll is interrupted when a slug takes over first his beloved pet cat, then Mary. Sam manages to push Mary onto a hot fire to kill the slug, leaving them both badly burned, but alive and free. Returning to HQ for treatment, they find that a new law requires everyone to be functionally naked to show that a slug is not in control. The law is rigorously enforced not as much by police as by vigilantes, who often shoot first and confirm afterward. Sam begins to believe that the slugs have him marked for repossession. They can communicate by \"direct conference\", where their hosts sit back to back and the slugs partially merge. A network of such interactions could spread his description rapidly among the invaders, who knew how valuable he is. Some scientists even speculate that the slugs are really just one organism in many bodies. For their part, the slugs drop all pretenses and openly wage war on the states to their east and west. Where human hosts cannot go, they use animals such as dogs, horses and even elephants. Sam and Mary go with the Old Man to investigate a saucer which crash-landed in Mississippi. Inside they encounter the slugs' hosts from Titan, small elf-like creatures, who died when Earth's air entered the ship. There are also tanks containing humans in suspended animation. Mary has a mental breakdown when she enters the ship. It triggers long-suppressed memories from when she was a child in a failed Venus colony which was taken over by slugs. She herself spent years in one of the tanks. Mary caught a disease which killed her slug. They discover that the disease is \"Nine-day Fever\", which is almost 100% fatal if untreated. However, they find that it kills slugs faster than humans. It might just be possible to spread the fever among the slugs using \"direct conference\", and then treat as many humans as possible before they die. The Old Man springs a surprise on Sam. He had expected Sam to replace him one day, and Sam would show when he was ready by opposing the Old Man's authority. From now on, Sam is in charge, official titles notwithstanding. Time is short \u2013 diseases erupt in the infected areas, as the slugs neglect hygiene and often drive their hosts until they starve. Outbreaks of plague in the Communist countries suggest that they were taken over even before the center of the United States. The counter-attack begins. Releasing animals with infected slugs into enemy territory, they wait for the epidemic to break out. Days pass, and then calls start coming in from desperate people whose slugs have died. Hundreds of thousands of agents, Sam and the Old Man among them, parachute in to treat victims with drug-dispensing guns. Just when the battle seems won, the Old Man is possessed by one of the few healthy slugs and kidnaps Sam, intending to take them both into hiding to regroup for a new invasion. Sam watches in horror as the Old Man's slug begins dividing so he too can be possessed. Despite being tied up, Sam is able to crash their flyer into the sea, killing the slug. In the final section, Sam writes in a journal before embarking with Mary on a spaceship which will take the battle to Titan. The slugs will remain a problem for years to come, having infected too many parts of the Earth to root out easily, but they will never be able to take over.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " \"Sam\" is an agent in \"Section\", a United States government intelligence organization. It is so secret it reports only to the President, and is entirely unknown to anyone else. Sam is superbly trained, equipped with a built-in communicator he calls a \"skull phone\" as well as a number of ways to commit suicide if the need arises. Called in by \"the Old Man\", his boss and the head of the organization, they go to investigate the report of a flying saucer landing in Grinnell, Iowa after other agents sent earlier fail to report back. With them is another agent named \"Mary\", a stunningly beautiful redhead. Sam is informed that her life is only slightly less precious than the Old Man's, and that he (Sam) is the most expendable. In Iowa, they discover that the people are being brought under the mental control of repulsive, slug-like creatures that attach to their backs, just below the neck. Detaching one slug from its host, they seal it in a film canister and bring it back to headquarters in Washington, D.C. By the time they get there though, the remains of the slug are a stinking mess, and they are unable to convince the President that there is an invasion. Sam eventually leads a small team back to Iowa. They inadvertently succeed in capturing a live slug, as one agent becomes \"hagridden\" without them realizing it. However, Mary spots it when he does not react to her allure like a normal male. The agent is unmasked, subdued and confined. The slug escapes by transferring to another person, and eventually to Sam himself. He immediately becomes enslaved and escapes the agency. Meanwhile, the invasion continues to expand. Slugs are shipped through the mail to recruit more humans. Gradually they infect more and more important people, especially the members of exclusive clubs frequented by politicians. Before the Old Man tracks Sam down and captures him, they have"
      },
      {
        "text": " not react to her allure like a normal male. The agent is unmasked, subdued and confined. The slug escapes by transferring to another person, and eventually to Sam himself. He immediately becomes enslaved and escapes the agency. Meanwhile, the invasion continues to expand. Slugs are shipped through the mail to recruit more humans. Gradually they infect more and more important people, especially the members of exclusive clubs frequented by politicians. Before the Old Man tracks Sam down and captures him, they have infected the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, whose department controls the United States Secret Service (responsible for the President's personal security); the slugs are a step away from infecting the President himself. By the time Sam recovers in hospital, anyone fully dressed is suspect. The Old Man wants someone to \"wear\" the slug so it can be interrogated. Sam cannot bear the idea, but when Mary volunteers, he gives in and does it himself. He is completely aware of himself when possessed, but totally committed to the slugs' cause. The slug dies under torture from electric shocks, but in the process Sam learns that they come from Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Thoroughly disgusted by the treatment he has received, Sam is ready to quit. He is at first furious with Mary for entrapping him, and then with the Old Man, when he learns that his boss tricked Mary into it. At this point, it is revealed that the Old Man is Sam's father. Eventually the politicians realize the danger. From Minnesota to Louisiana, the center of the country has been taken over. On a solo mission to Kansas City, Sam is shocked to discover that the number of slugs is much greater than thought. Instead of taking over key people, they have absorbed the entire human population of the occupied territory. However, he and the Old Man are unable to convince the President to stop a meticulously planned military counter-invasion of the heartland; the entire force is taken over by"
      },
      {
        "text": " the politicians realize the danger. From Minnesota to Louisiana, the center of the country has been taken over. On a solo mission to Kansas City, Sam is shocked to discover that the number of slugs is much greater than thought. Instead of taking over key people, they have absorbed the entire human population of the occupied territory. However, he and the Old Man are unable to convince the President to stop a meticulously planned military counter-invasion of the heartland; the entire force is taken over by the enemy. They find that slugs are capable of fissioning in two fairly quickly. The number of infected humans must now be so large that any military action would kill tens of millions. The problem having reached a scale beyond their ability to influence it, Sam and Mary are given leave. By this time, they have fallen in love and get married before going to Sam's bolt-hole in the Adirondack Mountains. Their idyll is interrupted when a slug takes over first his beloved pet cat, then Mary. Sam manages to push Mary onto a hot fire to kill the slug, leaving them both badly burned, but alive and free. Returning to HQ for treatment, they find that a new law requires everyone to be functionally naked to show that a slug is not in control. The law is rigorously enforced not as much by police as by vigilantes, who often shoot first and confirm afterward. Sam begins to believe that the slugs have him marked for repossession. They can communicate by \"direct conference\", where their hosts sit back to back and the slugs partially merge. A network of such interactions could spread his description rapidly among the invaders, who knew how valuable he is. Some scientists even speculate that the slugs are really just one organism in many bodies. For their part, the slugs drop all pretenses and openly wage war on the states to their east and west. Where human hosts cannot go, they use animals such as dogs, horses and even elephants."
      },
      {
        "text": " communicate by \"direct conference\", where their hosts sit back to back and the slugs partially merge. A network of such interactions could spread his description rapidly among the invaders, who knew how valuable he is. Some scientists even speculate that the slugs are really just one organism in many bodies. For their part, the slugs drop all pretenses and openly wage war on the states to their east and west. Where human hosts cannot go, they use animals such as dogs, horses and even elephants. Sam and Mary go with the Old Man to investigate a saucer which crash-landed in Mississippi. Inside they encounter the slugs' hosts from Titan, small elf-like creatures, who died when Earth's air entered the ship. There are also tanks containing humans in suspended animation. Mary has a mental breakdown when she enters the ship. It triggers long-suppressed memories from when she was a child in a failed Venus colony which was taken over by slugs. She herself spent years in one of the tanks. Mary caught a disease which killed her slug. They discover that the disease is \"Nine-day Fever\", which is almost 100% fatal if untreated. However, they find that it kills slugs faster than humans. It might just be possible to spread the fever among the slugs using \"direct conference\", and then treat as many humans as possible before they die. The Old Man springs a surprise on Sam. He had expected Sam to replace him one day, and Sam would show when he was ready by opposing the Old Man's authority. From now on, Sam is in charge, official titles notwithstanding. Time is short \u2013 diseases erupt in the infected areas, as the slugs neglect hygiene and often drive their hosts until they starve. Outbreaks of plague in the Communist countries suggest that they were taken over even before the center of the United States. The counter-attack begins. Releasing animals with infected slugs into enemy territory, they wait for the epidemic to break out"
      },
      {
        "text": " show when he was ready by opposing the Old Man's authority. From now on, Sam is in charge, official titles notwithstanding. Time is short \u2013 diseases erupt in the infected areas, as the slugs neglect hygiene and often drive their hosts until they starve. Outbreaks of plague in the Communist countries suggest that they were taken over even before the center of the United States. The counter-attack begins. Releasing animals with infected slugs into enemy territory, they wait for the epidemic to break out. Days pass, and then calls start coming in from desperate people whose slugs have died. Hundreds of thousands of agents, Sam and the Old Man among them, parachute in to treat victims with drug-dispensing guns. Just when the battle seems won, the Old Man is possessed by one of the few healthy slugs and kidnaps Sam, intending to take them both into hiding to regroup for a new invasion. Sam watches in horror as the Old Man's slug begins dividing so he too can be possessed. Despite being tied up, Sam is able to crash their flyer into the sea, killing the slug. In the final section, Sam writes in a journal before embarking with Mary on a spaceship which will take the battle to Titan. The slugs will remain a problem for years to come, having infected too many parts of the Earth to root out easily, but they will never be able to take over.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Henry V",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Elizabethan stages did not use scenery. Acknowledging the difficulty of conveying great battles and shifts of location on a bare stage, the Chorus (a single actor) calls for a \"Muse of fire\" so that the actor playing King Henry can \"[\u0101]ssume the port [bearing] of Mars\". He asks, \"Can this cockpit [i.e. the theatre] hold / The vasty fields of France?\" and encourages the audience to use their \"imaginary forces\" (imaginations) to overcome the stage's limitations: \"Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.\" The early scenes deal with the embarkation of Henry's fleet for France, and include a real-life incident in which the Earl of Cambridge and two others plotted to assassinate Henry at Southampton. (Henry's clever uncovering of the plot and his ruthless treatment of the plotters show that he has changed from the earlier plays in which he appeared.) When the Chorus reappears, he describes the country's dedication to the war effort \u2013 \"They sell the pasture now to buy the horse.\" The chorus tells the audience \"We'll not offend one stomach with our play\", a humorous reference to the fact that the scene of the play crosses the English Channel. The Chorus appears again, seeking support for the English navy: \"Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy\" he says, and notes that \"the ambassador from the French comes back / Tells Harry that the king doth offer him / Katherine his daughter.\" At the siege of Harfleur, Henry utters one of Shakespeare's best-known speeches, beginning \"Once more unto the breach, dear friends...\" Before the Battle of Agincourt, victory looks uncertain, and the young king's heroic character emerges in his decision to wander around the English camp at night, in disguise, so as to comfort his soldiers and determine what they really think of him. He agonizes about the moral burden of being king, noting that a king is only a man. Before the battle, Henry rallies his troops with the famous St. Crispin's Day Speech, referring to \"we few, we happy few, we band of brothers\". Following the victory at Agincourt, Henry attempts to woo the French princess, Catherine of Valois. This is difficult because neither speaks the other's language well, but the humour of their mistakes actually helps achieve his aim. The action ends with the French king adopting Henry as his heir to the French throne and the prayer of the French queen \"that English may as French, French Englishmen, receive each other, God speak this Amen.\" But before the curtain descends, the Chorus re-appears one more time and ruefully notes, of Henry's own heir's \"state, so many had the managing, that they lost France, and made his England bleed\" \u2013 a reminder of the tumultuous reign of Henry VI of England, which Shakespeare had previously brought to the stage in a trilogy of plays: Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3. As with all of Shakespeare's serious plays, there are also a number of minor comic characters whose activities contrast with and sometimes comment on the main plot. In this case, they are mostly common soldiers in Henry's army, and they include Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph from the Henry IV plays. The army also includes a Scot, an Irishman, an Englishman and Fluellen, a comically stereotyped Welsh soldier, whose name is an attempt at a phonetic rendition of \"Llywelyn\". The play also deals briefly with the death of Falstaff, Henry's estranged friend from the Henry IV plays, whom Henry remembers fondly.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Elizabethan stages did not use scenery. Acknowledging the difficulty of conveying great battles and shifts of location on a bare stage, the Chorus (a single actor) calls for a \"Muse of fire\" so that the actor playing King Henry can \"[\u0101]ssume the port [bearing] of Mars\". He asks, \"Can this cockpit [i.e. the theatre] hold / The vasty fields of France?\" and encourages the audience to use their \"imaginary forces\" (imaginations) to overcome the stage's limitations: \"Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.\" The early scenes deal with the embarkation of Henry's fleet for France, and include a real-life incident in which the Earl of Cambridge and two others plotted to assassinate Henry at Southampton. (Henry's clever uncovering of the plot and his ruthless treatment of the plotters show that he has changed from the earlier plays in which he appeared.) When the Chorus reappears, he describes the country's dedication to the war effort \u2013 \"They sell the pasture now to buy the horse.\" The chorus tells the audience \"We'll not offend one stomach with our play\", a humorous reference to the fact that the scene of the play crosses the English Channel. The Chorus appears again, seeking support for the English navy: \"Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy\" he says, and notes that \"the ambassador from the French comes back / Tells Harry that the king doth offer him / Katherine his daughter.\" At the siege of Harfleur, Henry utters one of Shakespeare's best-known speeches, beginning \"Once more unto the breach, dear friends...\" Before the Battle of Agincourt, victory looks uncertain, and the young king's heroic character emerges in his decision to wander around the English camp at night, in disguise, so as to comfort his soldiers and determine what they really think of him. He agonizes about the moral burden of being"
      },
      {
        "text": " king doth offer him / Katherine his daughter.\" At the siege of Harfleur, Henry utters one of Shakespeare's best-known speeches, beginning \"Once more unto the breach, dear friends...\" Before the Battle of Agincourt, victory looks uncertain, and the young king's heroic character emerges in his decision to wander around the English camp at night, in disguise, so as to comfort his soldiers and determine what they really think of him. He agonizes about the moral burden of being king, noting that a king is only a man. Before the battle, Henry rallies his troops with the famous St. Crispin's Day Speech, referring to \"we few, we happy few, we band of brothers\". Following the victory at Agincourt, Henry attempts to woo the French princess, Catherine of Valois. This is difficult because neither speaks the other's language well, but the humour of their mistakes actually helps achieve his aim. The action ends with the French king adopting Henry as his heir to the French throne and the prayer of the French queen \"that English may as French, French Englishmen, receive each other, God speak this Amen.\" But before the curtain descends, the Chorus re-appears one more time and ruefully notes, of Henry's own heir's \"state, so many had the managing, that they lost France, and made his England bleed\" \u2013 a reminder of the tumultuous reign of Henry VI of England, which Shakespeare had previously brought to the stage in a trilogy of plays: Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3. As with all of Shakespeare's serious plays, there are also a number of minor comic characters whose activities contrast with and sometimes comment on the main plot. In this case, they are mostly common soldiers in Henry's army, and they include Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph from the Henry IV plays. The army also includes a Scot, an Irishman, an"
      },
      {
        "text": " to the stage in a trilogy of plays: Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3. As with all of Shakespeare's serious plays, there are also a number of minor comic characters whose activities contrast with and sometimes comment on the main plot. In this case, they are mostly common soldiers in Henry's army, and they include Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph from the Henry IV plays. The army also includes a Scot, an Irishman, an Englishman and Fluellen, a comically stereotyped Welsh soldier, whose name is an attempt at a phonetic rendition of \"Llywelyn\". The play also deals briefly with the death of Falstaff, Henry's estranged friend from the Henry IV plays, whom Henry remembers fondly.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Wind in the Willows",
    "author": "Kenneth Grahame",
    "published_date": "1908",
    "synopsis": " At the start of the book, it is spring time: the weather is fine, and good-natured Mole loses patience with spring cleaning. He flees his underground home, heading up to take in the air. He ends up at the river, which he has never seen before. Here he meets Ratty (a water rat), who at this time of year spends all his days in, on and close by the river. Rat takes Mole for a ride in his rowing boat. They get along well and spend many more days boating, with Rat teaching Mole the ways of the river. One summer day shortly thereafter, Rat and Mole find themselves near the grand Toad Hall and pay a visit to Toad. Toad is rich (having inherited wealth from his father): jovial, friendly and kind-hearted but aimless and conceited, he regularly becomes obsessed with current fads, only to abandon them as quickly as he took them up. Having only recently given up boating, Toad's current craze is his horse-drawn caravan. In fact, he is about to go on a trip, and persuades the reluctant Rat and willing Mole to join him. The following day (after Toad has already tired of the realities of camp life and sleeps-in to avoid chores), a passing motor car scares the horse, causing the caravan to overturn into a ditch. Rat does a war dance and threatens to have the law on the motor car drivers, but this marks the immediate end of Toad's craze for caravan travel, to be replaced with an obsession for motor cars. When the three animals get to the nearest town, they have Toad go to the police station to make a complaint against the vandals and their motor car and thence to a blacksmith to retrieve and mend the caravan. Toad - in thrall to the experience of his encounter - refuses. Rat and Mole find an inn from where they organise the necessary steps and, exhausted, return home by train. Meanwhile, Toad makes no effort to help, instead deciding to order himself a motor car. Mole wants to meet the respected but elusive Badger, who lives deep in the Wild Wood, but Rat - knowing that Badger does not appreciate visits - refuses to take him, telling Mole to be patient and wait and Badger will pay them a visit himself. Nevertheless, on a snowy winter's day, whilst the seasonally somnolent Ratty dozes unaware, Mole impulsively goes to the Wild Wood to explore, hoping to meet Badger. He gets lost in the woods, sees many \"evil faces\" among the wood's less-welcoming denizens, succumbs to fright and panic and hides, trying to stay warm, amongst the sheltering roots of a tree. Rat, upon awakening and finding Mole gone, guesses his mission from the direction of Mole's tracks and, equipping himself with a pistol and a stout stick, goes in search, finding him as snow begins to fall in earnest. Attempting to find their way home, Rat and Mole quite literally stumble across Badger's home \u2014 Mole barks his shin upon the boot scraper on Badger's doorstep. Rat finds it and a doormat, knowing they are an obvious sign of hope, but Mole thinks Rat has gone crazy, only to believe him when the digging reveals a door. Badger - en-route to bed in his dressing-gown and slippers - nonetheless warmly welcomes Rat and Mole to his large and cosy underground home and hastens to give them hot food and dry clothes. Badger learns from his visitors that Toad has crashed six cars, has been hospitalised three times, and has spent a fortune on fines. Though nothing can be done at the moment (it being winter), they resolve that once spring arrives they will make a plan to protect Toad from himself; they are, after all, his friends and are worried for his well-being. With the arrival of spring, Badger visits Mole and Rat to do something about Toad's self-destructive obsession. The three of them go to visit Toad, and Badger tries talking him out of his behaviour, to no avail. They decide to put Toad under house arrest, with themselves as the guards, until Toad changes his mind. Feigning illness, Toad bamboozles the Water Rat (who is on guard duty at the time) and escapes. He steals a car, drives it recklessly and is caught by the police. He is sent to prison on a twenty-year sentence. Badger and Mole are cross with Rat for his gullibility but draw comfort from the fact that they need no longer waste their summer guarding Toad. However, Badger and Mole continue to live in Toad Hall in the hope that Toad may return. Meanwhile in prison, Toad gains the sympathy of the Jailer's Daughter who helps him to escape disguised as a washerwoman. Though free again, Toad is without money or possessions other than the clothes upon his back, and is being pursued by the police. Still disguised as a washerwoman, and after hitchhiking a lift on a train, Toad comes across a horse-drawn barge. The Barge's Owner offers him a lift in exchange for Toad's services as a \"washer woman\". After botching the wash, Toad gets into a fight with the barge-woman, who deliberately tosses him in the canal. After making off with the barge horse, which he then sells to a gypsy, Toad flags down a passing car, which happens to be the very one which he stole earlier. The car owners, not recognizing Toad disguised as a washer woman, permit him to drive their car. Once behind the wheel, he is repossessed by his former passion and drives furiously, declaring his true identity to the outraged passengers who try to seize him. This leads to an accident, after which Toad flees once more. Pursued by police he runs accidentally into a river, which carries him by sheer chance to the house of the Water Rat. Toad now hears from Rat that Toad Hall has been taken over by weasels, stoats and ferrets from the Wild Wood, who have driven out its former custodians, Mole and Badger. Although upset at the loss of his house, Toad realises what good friends he has and how badly he has behaved. Badger then arrives and announces that he knows of a secret tunnel into Toad Hall through which the enemies may be attacked. Armed to the teeth, Rat, Mole and Toad enter via the tunnel and pounce upon the unsuspecting weasels who are holding a party in honour of their leader. Having driven away the intruders, Toad holds a banquet to mark his return, during which (for a change) he behaves both quietly and humbly. He makes up for his earlier wrongdoings by seeking out and compensating those he has wronged, and the four friends live out their lives happily ever after. In addition to the main narrative, the book contains several independent short-stories featuring Rat and Mole. These appear for the most part between the chapters chronicling Toad's adventures, and are often omitted from abridgements and dramatizations. The chapter Dulce Domum describes Mole's return to his home, accompanied by Rat, in which despite finding it in a terrible mess after his abortive spring clean he rediscovers, with Rat's help, a familiar comfort. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn tells how Mole and Rat go in search of Otter's missing son Portly, whom they find in the care of the god Pan. (Pan removes their memories of this meeting \"lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure\".) Finally in Wayfarers All Ratty shows a restless side to his character when he is sorely tempted to join a Sea Rat on his travelling adventures.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At the start of the book, it is spring time: the weather is fine, and good-natured Mole loses patience with spring cleaning. He flees his underground home, heading up to take in the air. He ends up at the river, which he has never seen before. Here he meets Ratty (a water rat), who at this time of year spends all his days in, on and close by the river. Rat takes Mole for a ride in his rowing boat. They get along well and spend many more days boating, with Rat teaching Mole the ways of the river. One summer day shortly thereafter, Rat and Mole find themselves near the grand Toad Hall and pay a visit to Toad. Toad is rich (having inherited wealth from his father): jovial, friendly and kind-hearted but aimless and conceited, he regularly becomes obsessed with current fads, only to abandon them as quickly as he took them up. Having only recently given up boating, Toad's current craze is his horse-drawn caravan. In fact, he is about to go on a trip, and persuades the reluctant Rat and willing Mole to join him. The following day (after Toad has already tired of the realities of camp life and sleeps-in to avoid chores), a passing motor car scares the horse, causing the caravan to overturn into a ditch. Rat does a war dance and threatens to have the law on the motor car drivers, but this marks the immediate end of Toad's craze for caravan travel, to be replaced with an obsession for motor cars. When the three animals get to the nearest town, they have Toad go to the police station to make a complaint against the vandals and their motor car and thence to a blacksmith to retrieve and mend the caravan. Toad - in thrall to the experience of his encounter - refuses. Rat and Mole find an inn from where they organise the necessary steps and, exhausted, return home by train. Meanwhile,"
      },
      {
        "text": " of Toad's craze for caravan travel, to be replaced with an obsession for motor cars. When the three animals get to the nearest town, they have Toad go to the police station to make a complaint against the vandals and their motor car and thence to a blacksmith to retrieve and mend the caravan. Toad - in thrall to the experience of his encounter - refuses. Rat and Mole find an inn from where they organise the necessary steps and, exhausted, return home by train. Meanwhile, Toad makes no effort to help, instead deciding to order himself a motor car. Mole wants to meet the respected but elusive Badger, who lives deep in the Wild Wood, but Rat - knowing that Badger does not appreciate visits - refuses to take him, telling Mole to be patient and wait and Badger will pay them a visit himself. Nevertheless, on a snowy winter's day, whilst the seasonally somnolent Ratty dozes unaware, Mole impulsively goes to the Wild Wood to explore, hoping to meet Badger. He gets lost in the woods, sees many \"evil faces\" among the wood's less-welcoming denizens, succumbs to fright and panic and hides, trying to stay warm, amongst the sheltering roots of a tree. Rat, upon awakening and finding Mole gone, guesses his mission from the direction of Mole's tracks and, equipping himself with a pistol and a stout stick, goes in search, finding him as snow begins to fall in earnest. Attempting to find their way home, Rat and Mole quite literally stumble across Badger's home \u2014 Mole barks his shin upon the boot scraper on Badger's doorstep. Rat finds it and a doormat, knowing they are an obvious sign of hope, but Mole thinks Rat has gone crazy, only to believe him when the digging reveals a door. Badger - en-route to bed in his dressing-gown and slippers - nonetheless warmly welcomes Rat and"
      },
      {
        "text": " in earnest. Attempting to find their way home, Rat and Mole quite literally stumble across Badger's home \u2014 Mole barks his shin upon the boot scraper on Badger's doorstep. Rat finds it and a doormat, knowing they are an obvious sign of hope, but Mole thinks Rat has gone crazy, only to believe him when the digging reveals a door. Badger - en-route to bed in his dressing-gown and slippers - nonetheless warmly welcomes Rat and Mole to his large and cosy underground home and hastens to give them hot food and dry clothes. Badger learns from his visitors that Toad has crashed six cars, has been hospitalised three times, and has spent a fortune on fines. Though nothing can be done at the moment (it being winter), they resolve that once spring arrives they will make a plan to protect Toad from himself; they are, after all, his friends and are worried for his well-being. With the arrival of spring, Badger visits Mole and Rat to do something about Toad's self-destructive obsession. The three of them go to visit Toad, and Badger tries talking him out of his behaviour, to no avail. They decide to put Toad under house arrest, with themselves as the guards, until Toad changes his mind. Feigning illness, Toad bamboozles the Water Rat (who is on guard duty at the time) and escapes. He steals a car, drives it recklessly and is caught by the police. He is sent to prison on a twenty-year sentence. Badger and Mole are cross with Rat for his gullibility but draw comfort from the fact that they need no longer waste their summer guarding Toad. However, Badger and Mole continue to live in Toad Hall in the hope that Toad may return. Meanwhile in prison, Toad gains the sympathy of the Jailer's Daughter who helps him to escape disguised as a washerwoman. Though free again, Toad is without"
      },
      {
        "text": " is caught by the police. He is sent to prison on a twenty-year sentence. Badger and Mole are cross with Rat for his gullibility but draw comfort from the fact that they need no longer waste their summer guarding Toad. However, Badger and Mole continue to live in Toad Hall in the hope that Toad may return. Meanwhile in prison, Toad gains the sympathy of the Jailer's Daughter who helps him to escape disguised as a washerwoman. Though free again, Toad is without money or possessions other than the clothes upon his back, and is being pursued by the police. Still disguised as a washerwoman, and after hitchhiking a lift on a train, Toad comes across a horse-drawn barge. The Barge's Owner offers him a lift in exchange for Toad's services as a \"washer woman\". After botching the wash, Toad gets into a fight with the barge-woman, who deliberately tosses him in the canal. After making off with the barge horse, which he then sells to a gypsy, Toad flags down a passing car, which happens to be the very one which he stole earlier. The car owners, not recognizing Toad disguised as a washer woman, permit him to drive their car. Once behind the wheel, he is repossessed by his former passion and drives furiously, declaring his true identity to the outraged passengers who try to seize him. This leads to an accident, after which Toad flees once more. Pursued by police he runs accidentally into a river, which carries him by sheer chance to the house of the Water Rat. Toad now hears from Rat that Toad Hall has been taken over by weasels, stoats and ferrets from the Wild Wood, who have driven out its former custodians, Mole and Badger. Although upset at the loss of his house, Toad realises what good friends he has and how badly he has behaved. Badger then arrives and announces that he knows of"
      },
      {
        "text": " Pursued by police he runs accidentally into a river, which carries him by sheer chance to the house of the Water Rat. Toad now hears from Rat that Toad Hall has been taken over by weasels, stoats and ferrets from the Wild Wood, who have driven out its former custodians, Mole and Badger. Although upset at the loss of his house, Toad realises what good friends he has and how badly he has behaved. Badger then arrives and announces that he knows of a secret tunnel into Toad Hall through which the enemies may be attacked. Armed to the teeth, Rat, Mole and Toad enter via the tunnel and pounce upon the unsuspecting weasels who are holding a party in honour of their leader. Having driven away the intruders, Toad holds a banquet to mark his return, during which (for a change) he behaves both quietly and humbly. He makes up for his earlier wrongdoings by seeking out and compensating those he has wronged, and the four friends live out their lives happily ever after. In addition to the main narrative, the book contains several independent short-stories featuring Rat and Mole. These appear for the most part between the chapters chronicling Toad's adventures, and are often omitted from abridgements and dramatizations. The chapter Dulce Domum describes Mole's return to his home, accompanied by Rat, in which despite finding it in a terrible mess after his abortive spring clean he rediscovers, with Rat's help, a familiar comfort. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn tells how Mole and Rat go in search of Otter's missing son Portly, whom they find in the care of the god Pan. (Pan removes their memories of this meeting \"lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure\".) Finally in Wayfarers All Ratty shows a restless side to his character when he is sorely tempted to join a Sea Rat on his travelling adventures.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s help, a familiar comfort. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn tells how Mole and Rat go in search of Otter's missing son Portly, whom they find in the care of the god Pan. (Pan removes their memories of this meeting \"lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure\".) Finally in Wayfarers All Ratty shows a restless side to his character when he is sorely tempted to join a Sea Rat on his travelling adventures.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Hunting of the Snark",
    "author": "Lewis Carroll",
    "published_date": "1876",
    "synopsis": " After crossing the sea guided by the Bellman's map of the Ocean\u2014a blank sheet of paper\u2014the hunting party arrive in a strange land. The Baker recalls that his uncle once warned him that, though catching Snarks is all well and good, you must be careful; for, if your Snark is a Boojum, then you will softly and suddenly vanish away, and never be met with again. With this in mind, they split up to hunt. Along the way, the Butcher and Beaver -previously mutually wary for the Butcher's specialty in preparing beavers- become fast friends, the Barrister falls asleep and dreams of a court trial defended by the Snark, and the Banker loses his sanity after being attacked by a frumious Bandersnatch. At the end, the Baker calls out that he has found a Snark; but when the others arrive he has mysteriously disappeared, 'For the Snark was a Boojum, you see'.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After crossing the sea guided by the Bellman's map of the Ocean\u2014a blank sheet of paper\u2014the hunting party arrive in a strange land. The Baker recalls that his uncle once warned him that, though catching Snarks is all well and good, you must be careful; for, if your Snark is a Boojum, then you will softly and suddenly vanish away, and never be met with again. With this in mind, they split up to hunt. Along the way, the Butcher and Beaver -previously mutually wary for the Butcher's specialty in preparing beavers- become fast friends, the Barrister falls asleep and dreams of a court trial defended by the Snark, and the Banker loses his sanity after being attacked by a frumious Bandersnatch. At the end, the Baker calls out that he has found a Snark; but when the others arrive he has mysteriously disappeared, 'For the Snark was a Boojum, you see'.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Jonathan Livingston Seagull",
    "author": "Richard Bach",
    "published_date": "1970",
    "synopsis": " The book tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with the daily squabbles over food. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself, learning everything he can about flying, until finally his unwillingness to conform results in his expulsion from his flock. An outcast, he continues to learn, becoming increasingly pleased with his abilities as he leads an idyllic life. One day, Jonathan is met by two gulls who take him to a \"higher plane of existence\" in that there is no heaven but a better world found through perfection of knowledge, where he meets other gulls who love to fly. He discovers that his sheer tenacity and desire to learn make him \"pretty well a one-in-a-million bird.\" In this new place, Jonathan befriends the wisest gull, Chiang, who takes him beyond his previous learning, teaching him how to move instantaneously to anywhere else in the Universe. The secret, Chiang says, is to \"begin by knowing that you have already arrived.\" Not satisfied with his new life, Jonathan returns to Earth to find others like him, to bring them his learning and to spread his love for flight. His mission is successful, gathering around him others who have been outlawed for not conforming. Ultimately, the very first of his students, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, becomes a teacher in his own right and Jonathan leaves to teach other flocks. Part One of the book finds young Jonathan Livingston frustrated with the meaningless materialism and conformity and limitation of the seagull life. He is seized with a passion for flight of all kinds, and his soul soars as he experiments with exhilarating challenges of daring and triumphant aerial feats. Eventually, his lack of conformity to the limited seagull life leads him into conflict with his flock, and they turn their backs on him, casting him out of their society and exiling him. Not deterred by this, Jonathan continues his efforts to reach higher and higher flight goals, finding he is often successful but eventually he can fly no higher. He is then met by two radiant, loving seagulls who explain to him that he has learned much, and that they are there now to teach him more. Jonathan transcends into a society where all the gulls enjoy flying. He is only capable of this after practising hard alone for a long time (described in the first part). In this other society, real respect emerges as a contrast of the coercive force that was keeping the former \"Breakfast Flock\" together. The learning process, linking the highly experienced teacher and the diligent student, is raised into almost sacred levels, suggesting that this may be the true relation between human and God. Because of this, each has been described as believing that human and God, regardless of the all immense difference, are sharing something of great importance that can bind them together: \"You've got to understand that a seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull.\" He realizes that you have to be true to yourself: \"You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way.\" In the third part of the book are the last words of Jonathan's teacher: \"Keep working on love.\" Through his teachings, Jonathan understands that the spirit cannot be really free without the ability to forgive, and that the way to progress leads\u2014for him, at least\u2014through becoming a teacher, not just through working hard as a student. Jonathan returns to the Breakfast Flock to share his newly discovered ideals and the recent tremendous experience, ready for the difficult fight against the current rules of that society. The ability to forgive seems to be a mandatory \"passing condition.\" \"Do you want to fly so much that you will forgive the Flock, and learn, and go back to them one day and work to help them know?\" Jonathan asks his first student, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, before getting into any further talks. The idea that the stronger can reach more by leaving the weaker friends behind seems totally rejected. Hence, love, deserved respect, and forgiveness all seem to be equally important to the freedom from the pressure to obey the rules just because they are commonly accepted.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with the daily squabbles over food. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself, learning everything he can about flying, until finally his unwillingness to conform results in his expulsion from his flock. An outcast, he continues to learn, becoming increasingly pleased with his abilities as he leads an idyllic life. One day, Jonathan is met by two gulls who take him to a \"higher plane of existence\" in that there is no heaven but a better world found through perfection of knowledge, where he meets other gulls who love to fly. He discovers that his sheer tenacity and desire to learn make him \"pretty well a one-in-a-million bird.\" In this new place, Jonathan befriends the wisest gull, Chiang, who takes him beyond his previous learning, teaching him how to move instantaneously to anywhere else in the Universe. The secret, Chiang says, is to \"begin by knowing that you have already arrived.\" Not satisfied with his new life, Jonathan returns to Earth to find others like him, to bring them his learning and to spread his love for flight. His mission is successful, gathering around him others who have been outlawed for not conforming. Ultimately, the very first of his students, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, becomes a teacher in his own right and Jonathan leaves to teach other flocks. Part One of the book finds young Jonathan Livingston frustrated with the meaningless materialism and conformity and limitation of the seagull life. He is seized with a passion for flight of all kinds, and his soul soars as he experiments with exhilarating challenges of daring and triumphant aerial feats. Eventually, his lack of conformity to the limited seagull life leads him into conflict with his flock, and they turn their backs on him, casting him out of their society and exiling him. Not deterred by this, Jonathan"
      },
      {
        "text": " book finds young Jonathan Livingston frustrated with the meaningless materialism and conformity and limitation of the seagull life. He is seized with a passion for flight of all kinds, and his soul soars as he experiments with exhilarating challenges of daring and triumphant aerial feats. Eventually, his lack of conformity to the limited seagull life leads him into conflict with his flock, and they turn their backs on him, casting him out of their society and exiling him. Not deterred by this, Jonathan continues his efforts to reach higher and higher flight goals, finding he is often successful but eventually he can fly no higher. He is then met by two radiant, loving seagulls who explain to him that he has learned much, and that they are there now to teach him more. Jonathan transcends into a society where all the gulls enjoy flying. He is only capable of this after practising hard alone for a long time (described in the first part). In this other society, real respect emerges as a contrast of the coercive force that was keeping the former \"Breakfast Flock\" together. The learning process, linking the highly experienced teacher and the diligent student, is raised into almost sacred levels, suggesting that this may be the true relation between human and God. Because of this, each has been described as believing that human and God, regardless of the all immense difference, are sharing something of great importance that can bind them together: \"You've got to understand that a seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull.\" He realizes that you have to be true to yourself: \"You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way.\" In the third part of the book are the last words of Jonathan's teacher: \"Keep working on love.\" Through his teachings, Jonathan understands that the spirit cannot be really free without the ability to forgive, and that the way to progress leads"
      },
      {
        "text": "ull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull.\" He realizes that you have to be true to yourself: \"You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way.\" In the third part of the book are the last words of Jonathan's teacher: \"Keep working on love.\" Through his teachings, Jonathan understands that the spirit cannot be really free without the ability to forgive, and that the way to progress leads\u2014for him, at least\u2014through becoming a teacher, not just through working hard as a student. Jonathan returns to the Breakfast Flock to share his newly discovered ideals and the recent tremendous experience, ready for the difficult fight against the current rules of that society. The ability to forgive seems to be a mandatory \"passing condition.\" \"Do you want to fly so much that you will forgive the Flock, and learn, and go back to them one day and work to help them know?\" Jonathan asks his first student, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, before getting into any further talks. The idea that the stronger can reach more by leaving the weaker friends behind seems totally rejected. Hence, love, deserved respect, and forgiveness all seem to be equally important to the freedom from the pressure to obey the rules just because they are commonly accepted.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "I Am Legend",
    "author": "Richard Matheson",
    "published_date": "1954",
    "synopsis": " The main character is Robert Neville, apparently the sole survivor of a pandemic whose symptoms resemble vampirism. It is implied that the pandemic was caused by a war, and that it was spread by dust storms in the cities and an explosion in the mosquito population. The narrative details Neville's daily life in Los Angeles as he attempts to comprehend, research, and possibly cure the disease, to which he is immune. Neville's past is revealed through flashbacks. The vampires only come out at night and become comatose by day, though they also sometimes come out earlier during cloudy weather. Neville survives by barricading himself by sunset inside his house, further protected by garlic, mirrors, and crosses. Swarms of vampires would regularly surround his house, trying to find ways to get inside. During the day, he scavenges for supplies and methodically searches out the inactive vampires, driving stakes into their hearts to kill them. After bouts of depression and alcoholism, Neville decides to find out the scientific cause of the pandemic. He obtains books and other research materials from a library, and through painstaking research discovers the root of the vampiric disease in a strain of bacteria capable of infecting both deceased and living hosts. He also discovers that much of the efficacy of the garlic, mirrors, and crosses were actually \"hysterical blindess\", the result of previous psychological conditioning of the infected (particularly the religious) who believed that they were effective against vampires. Driven to insanity by the disease, the vampires now reacted as they believed they should react when confronted with these items. Even then, it was constrained to the beliefs of the particular person, such that a vampire who was Christian would fear the cross, but a vampire who was Jewish would not. Neville also discovers more efficient means of killing the infected, other than just driving a stake into their hearts. This included exposing them to direct sunlight (which killed the bacteria) or inflicting deep wounds on their bodies so that the bacteria switch from being anaerobic symbionts to aerobic parasites, rapidly consuming their hosts when exposed to air. He is now killing such large numbers of vampires in his daily forays that his nightly visitors have diminished significantly. After three years, Neville sees an apparently uninfected woman, Ruth, abroad in the daylight, and captures her. After some convincing, Ruth tells him her story of how she and her husband survived the pandemic (though her husband was killed two weeks earlier). Neville is puzzled by the fact that she is upset when he speaks of killing vampires, on grounds that if her story of survival was true, she would have become hardened to the act. One night Neville is startled awake and finds Ruth about to leave. Suspicious, he questions her motives, but relates the trauma of his past, whereupon they comfort each other. Ruth reluctantly allows him a blood sample but knocks him senseless when he realizes she is infected. When he wakes, Neville discovers a note from Ruth confessing that she is actually infected and that Neville was responsible for her husband's death. Ruth admits that she was sent to spy on him. The infected have slowly overcome their disease until they can spend short periods of time in sunlight and are attempting to rebuild society; but they fear and hate Neville who has destroyed some of their people along with the true vampires (dead bodies animated by the germ) during his daytime excursions against the latter. Ruth warns Neville that her people will attempt to capture him, and that he should leave his house and escape; but Neville disregards Ruth's warning and is captured. Neville wakes in a prison where he is visited by Ruth, who informs him that she is a ranking member of the new society but, unlike the others, does not resent him. She acknowledges the need for Neville's execution, and gives him pills, claiming they will \"make it easier\". Badly injured, Neville accepts his fate and asks Ruth not to let this society become heartless. Ruth kisses him and leaves. Neville goes to his prison window and sees all the infected waiting for his execution. Judging by their reactions to the sight of him, he now recognizes their point of view. Having hitherto seen the destruction of the infected survivors as a moral imperative to be pursued for his own and mankind's survival, he failed to realize that the infected have come to view him in fear and awe. To them, he was an invisible killer who moved by day, killing their loved ones as they hibernated. He realizes that even as vampires were legend in pre-infection times, he, a remnant of old humanity, is now a legend to the new race born of the infection. He therefore remarks to himself as he dies: \"[I am] a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The main character is Robert Neville, apparently the sole survivor of a pandemic whose symptoms resemble vampirism. It is implied that the pandemic was caused by a war, and that it was spread by dust storms in the cities and an explosion in the mosquito population. The narrative details Neville's daily life in Los Angeles as he attempts to comprehend, research, and possibly cure the disease, to which he is immune. Neville's past is revealed through flashbacks. The vampires only come out at night and become comatose by day, though they also sometimes come out earlier during cloudy weather. Neville survives by barricading himself by sunset inside his house, further protected by garlic, mirrors, and crosses. Swarms of vampires would regularly surround his house, trying to find ways to get inside. During the day, he scavenges for supplies and methodically searches out the inactive vampires, driving stakes into their hearts to kill them. After bouts of depression and alcoholism, Neville decides to find out the scientific cause of the pandemic. He obtains books and other research materials from a library, and through painstaking research discovers the root of the vampiric disease in a strain of bacteria capable of infecting both deceased and living hosts. He also discovers that much of the efficacy of the garlic, mirrors, and crosses were actually \"hysterical blindess\", the result of previous psychological conditioning of the infected (particularly the religious) who believed that they were effective against vampires. Driven to insanity by the disease, the vampires now reacted as they believed they should react when confronted with these items. Even then, it was constrained to the beliefs of the particular person, such that a vampire who was Christian would fear the cross, but a vampire who was Jewish would not. Neville also discovers more efficient means of killing the infected, other than just driving a stake into their hearts. This included exposing them to direct sunlight (which killed the bacteria) or inflicting deep wounds on their bodies so that the bacteria switch"
      },
      {
        "text": " the disease, the vampires now reacted as they believed they should react when confronted with these items. Even then, it was constrained to the beliefs of the particular person, such that a vampire who was Christian would fear the cross, but a vampire who was Jewish would not. Neville also discovers more efficient means of killing the infected, other than just driving a stake into their hearts. This included exposing them to direct sunlight (which killed the bacteria) or inflicting deep wounds on their bodies so that the bacteria switch from being anaerobic symbionts to aerobic parasites, rapidly consuming their hosts when exposed to air. He is now killing such large numbers of vampires in his daily forays that his nightly visitors have diminished significantly. After three years, Neville sees an apparently uninfected woman, Ruth, abroad in the daylight, and captures her. After some convincing, Ruth tells him her story of how she and her husband survived the pandemic (though her husband was killed two weeks earlier). Neville is puzzled by the fact that she is upset when he speaks of killing vampires, on grounds that if her story of survival was true, she would have become hardened to the act. One night Neville is startled awake and finds Ruth about to leave. Suspicious, he questions her motives, but relates the trauma of his past, whereupon they comfort each other. Ruth reluctantly allows him a blood sample but knocks him senseless when he realizes she is infected. When he wakes, Neville discovers a note from Ruth confessing that she is actually infected and that Neville was responsible for her husband's death. Ruth admits that she was sent to spy on him. The infected have slowly overcome their disease until they can spend short periods of time in sunlight and are attempting to rebuild society; but they fear and hate Neville who has destroyed some of their people along with the true vampires (dead bodies animated by the germ) during his daytime excursions against the latter. Ruth warns Neville that her people will attempt to capture him, and that he"
      },
      {
        "text": " she is actually infected and that Neville was responsible for her husband's death. Ruth admits that she was sent to spy on him. The infected have slowly overcome their disease until they can spend short periods of time in sunlight and are attempting to rebuild society; but they fear and hate Neville who has destroyed some of their people along with the true vampires (dead bodies animated by the germ) during his daytime excursions against the latter. Ruth warns Neville that her people will attempt to capture him, and that he should leave his house and escape; but Neville disregards Ruth's warning and is captured. Neville wakes in a prison where he is visited by Ruth, who informs him that she is a ranking member of the new society but, unlike the others, does not resent him. She acknowledges the need for Neville's execution, and gives him pills, claiming they will \"make it easier\". Badly injured, Neville accepts his fate and asks Ruth not to let this society become heartless. Ruth kisses him and leaves. Neville goes to his prison window and sees all the infected waiting for his execution. Judging by their reactions to the sight of him, he now recognizes their point of view. Having hitherto seen the destruction of the infected survivors as a moral imperative to be pursued for his own and mankind's survival, he failed to realize that the infected have come to view him in fear and awe. To them, he was an invisible killer who moved by day, killing their loved ones as they hibernated. He realizes that even as vampires were legend in pre-infection times, he, a remnant of old humanity, is now a legend to the new race born of the infection. He therefore remarks to himself as he dies: \"[I am] a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend\".\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " He realizes that even as vampires were legend in pre-infection times, he, a remnant of old humanity, is now a legend to the new race born of the infection. He therefore remarks to himself as he dies: \"[I am] a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Stranger",
    "author": "Albert Camus",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Part One begins with Meursault finding out of his mother's death. At her funeral, he expresses none of the expected emotions of grief. When asked if he wishes to view the body, he says no, and, instead, smokes and drinks coffee with milk in front of the coffin. Rather than expressing his feelings, he only comments to the reader about the others at the funeral. He later encounters Marie, a former employee of his firm, and the two become re-acquainted and begin to have a sexual relationship, regardless of the fact that Meursault's mother died just a day before. In the next few days, he helps his friend and neighbour, Raymond Sint\u00e8s, take revenge on a Moorish girlfriend suspected of infidelity. For Raymond, Meursault agrees to write a letter to his girlfriend, with the sole purpose of inviting her over so that Raymond can have sex with her but kick her out at the last minute as emotional revenge. Meursault sees no reason not to help him, and it pleases Raymond. He does not express concern that Raymond's girlfriend is going to be emotionally hurt, as he believes Raymond's story that she has been unfaithful, and he himself is both somewhat drunk and characteristically unfazed by any feelings of empathy. In general he considers other people either interesting or annoying. The letter works: the girlfriend returns, but the situation escalates when she slaps Raymond after he tries to kick her out, and Raymond beats her. Raymond is taken to court where Meursault testifies that she had been unfaithful, and Raymond is let off with a warning. After this, the girlfriend's brother and several Arab friends begin tailing Raymond. Raymond invites Meursault and Marie to a friend's beach house for the weekend, and when there, they encounter the spurned girlfriend's brother and an Arab friend; these two confront Raymond and wound him with a knife during a fist fight. Later, walking back along the beach alone and now armed with a pistol he took from Raymond so that Raymond would not do anything rash, Meursault encounters the Arab. Meursault is now disoriented on the edge of heatstroke, and when the Arab flashes his knife at him, Meursault shoots. Despite killing the Arab man with the first gunshot, he shoots the corpse four more times after a brief pause. He does not divulge to the reader any specific reason for his crime or emotions he experiences at the time, if any, aside from the fact that he was bothered by the heat and bright sunlight. Part Two begins with Meursault's incarceration, explaining his arrest, time in prison, and upcoming trial. His general detachment makes living in prison very tolerable, especially after he gets used to the idea of not being able to go places whenever he wants to and no longer being able to satisfy his sexual desires with Marie. He passes the time sleeping, or mentally listing the objects he owned back in his apartment building. At the trial, Meursault's quietness and passivity is seen as demonstrative of his seeming lack of remorse or guilt by the prosecuting attorney, and so the attorney concentrates more upon Meursault's inability or unwillingness to cry at his mother's funeral than on the actual murder. The attorney pushes Meursault to tell the truth but never comes through and later, on his own, Meursault explains to the reader that he simply was never really able to feel any remorse or personal emotions for any of his actions in life. The dramatic prosecutor theatrically denounces Meursault to the point that he claims Meursault must be a soulless monster, incapable of remorse and that he thus deserves to die for his crime. Although Meursault's attorney defends him and later tells Meursault that he expects the sentence to be light, Meursault is alarmed when the judge informs him of the final decision: that he will be decapitated publicly. In prison, while awaiting the execution of his death sentence by the guillotine, Meursault meets with a chaplain, but rejects his proffered opportunity of turning to God, explaining that God is a waste of his time. Although the chaplain persists in attempting to lead Meursault from his atheism, Meursault finally accosts him in a rage, with a climactic outburst on his frustrations and the absurdity of the human condition; his personal anguish at the meaninglessness of his existence without respite. At the beginning of his outrage he mentions other people in anger, that they have no right to judge him, for his actions or for who he is, no one has the right to judge someone else. Meursault ultimately grasps the universe's indifference towards humankind (coming to terms with his execution): \"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the benign indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself\u2014so like a brother, really\u2014I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with howls of execration.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Part One begins with Meursault finding out of his mother's death. At her funeral, he expresses none of the expected emotions of grief. When asked if he wishes to view the body, he says no, and, instead, smokes and drinks coffee with milk in front of the coffin. Rather than expressing his feelings, he only comments to the reader about the others at the funeral. He later encounters Marie, a former employee of his firm, and the two become re-acquainted and begin to have a sexual relationship, regardless of the fact that Meursault's mother died just a day before. In the next few days, he helps his friend and neighbour, Raymond Sint\u00e8s, take revenge on a Moorish girlfriend suspected of infidelity. For Raymond, Meursault agrees to write a letter to his girlfriend, with the sole purpose of inviting her over so that Raymond can have sex with her but kick her out at the last minute as emotional revenge. Meursault sees no reason not to help him, and it pleases Raymond. He does not express concern that Raymond's girlfriend is going to be emotionally hurt, as he believes Raymond's story that she has been unfaithful, and he himself is both somewhat drunk and characteristically unfazed by any feelings of empathy. In general he considers other people either interesting or annoying. The letter works: the girlfriend returns, but the situation escalates when she slaps Raymond after he tries to kick her out, and Raymond beats her. Raymond is taken to court where Meursault testifies that she had been unfaithful, and Raymond is let off with a warning. After this, the girlfriend's brother and several Arab friends begin tailing Raymond. Raymond invites Meursault and Marie to a friend's beach house for the weekend, and when there, they encounter the spurned girlfriend's brother and an Arab friend; these two confront Raymond and wound him with a knife during a fist fight. Later, walking back"
      },
      {
        "text": " beats her. Raymond is taken to court where Meursault testifies that she had been unfaithful, and Raymond is let off with a warning. After this, the girlfriend's brother and several Arab friends begin tailing Raymond. Raymond invites Meursault and Marie to a friend's beach house for the weekend, and when there, they encounter the spurned girlfriend's brother and an Arab friend; these two confront Raymond and wound him with a knife during a fist fight. Later, walking back along the beach alone and now armed with a pistol he took from Raymond so that Raymond would not do anything rash, Meursault encounters the Arab. Meursault is now disoriented on the edge of heatstroke, and when the Arab flashes his knife at him, Meursault shoots. Despite killing the Arab man with the first gunshot, he shoots the corpse four more times after a brief pause. He does not divulge to the reader any specific reason for his crime or emotions he experiences at the time, if any, aside from the fact that he was bothered by the heat and bright sunlight. Part Two begins with Meursault's incarceration, explaining his arrest, time in prison, and upcoming trial. His general detachment makes living in prison very tolerable, especially after he gets used to the idea of not being able to go places whenever he wants to and no longer being able to satisfy his sexual desires with Marie. He passes the time sleeping, or mentally listing the objects he owned back in his apartment building. At the trial, Meursault's quietness and passivity is seen as demonstrative of his seeming lack of remorse or guilt by the prosecuting attorney, and so the attorney concentrates more upon Meursault's inability or unwillingness to cry at his mother's funeral than on the actual murder. The attorney pushes Meursault to tell the truth but never comes through and later, on his own, Meursault explains to the reader that he simply was never really able to"
      },
      {
        "text": " in his apartment building. At the trial, Meursault's quietness and passivity is seen as demonstrative of his seeming lack of remorse or guilt by the prosecuting attorney, and so the attorney concentrates more upon Meursault's inability or unwillingness to cry at his mother's funeral than on the actual murder. The attorney pushes Meursault to tell the truth but never comes through and later, on his own, Meursault explains to the reader that he simply was never really able to feel any remorse or personal emotions for any of his actions in life. The dramatic prosecutor theatrically denounces Meursault to the point that he claims Meursault must be a soulless monster, incapable of remorse and that he thus deserves to die for his crime. Although Meursault's attorney defends him and later tells Meursault that he expects the sentence to be light, Meursault is alarmed when the judge informs him of the final decision: that he will be decapitated publicly. In prison, while awaiting the execution of his death sentence by the guillotine, Meursault meets with a chaplain, but rejects his proffered opportunity of turning to God, explaining that God is a waste of his time. Although the chaplain persists in attempting to lead Meursault from his atheism, Meursault finally accosts him in a rage, with a climactic outburst on his frustrations and the absurdity of the human condition; his personal anguish at the meaninglessness of his existence without respite. At the beginning of his outrage he mentions other people in anger, that they have no right to judge him, for his actions or for who he is, no one has the right to judge someone else. Meursault ultimately grasps the universe's indifference towards humankind (coming to terms with his execution): \"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars,"
      },
      {
        "text": "lessness of his existence without respite. At the beginning of his outrage he mentions other people in anger, that they have no right to judge him, for his actions or for who he is, no one has the right to judge someone else. Meursault ultimately grasps the universe's indifference towards humankind (coming to terms with his execution): \"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the benign indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself\u2014so like a brother, really\u2014I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with howls of execration.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Man in the High Castle",
    "author": "Philip K. Dick",
    "published_date": "1962-01-01",
    "synopsis": " Giuseppe Zangara's assassination of U.S. President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1933, led to the weak governments of John Nance Garner (formerly FDR's VP-elect), and later of the Republican John W. Bricker in 1940. Both politicians failed to surmount the Great Depression and maintained the country's isolationist policy against participating in the Second World War; thus, the U.S. had insufficient military capabilities to assist the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, or to defend itself against Japan in the Pacific. In 1941, the Nazis conquered the USSR and then exterminated most of its Slavic peoples; the few whom they allowed to live were confined to reservations. In the Pacific, the Japanese destroyed the entire U.S. Navy fleet in a decisive, definitive attack on Pearl Harbor; thereafter, the superior Japanese military conquered Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and Oceania during the early forties. Afterward, the Axis Powers, each attacking from opposite fronts, conquered the coastal United States, and, by 1947, the United States and other remaining Allied forces surrendered to the Axis. Japan established the puppet Pacific States of America out of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, parts of Nevada and Washington as part of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. The remaining Mountain, Great Plains and Southwestern states became the Rocky Mountain States, a buffer between the PSA and the remaining USA, now a Nazi puppet state in the style of Vichy France. Having defeated the Allies of World War II, the Third Reich and Imperial Japan became the resultant superpowers of their world and consequently embarked upon a Cold War. One of the core narrative elements (Operation Dandelion) is centred on a pre-emptive Nazi nuclear strike on the Japanese Home Islands. The Nazis \"have the hydrogen bomb\" and the ability to wipe out the Home Islands. Their nuclear energy capabilities also fuel extremely fast air travel and the colonization of the moon, Venus, and Mars. After Adolf Hitler's syphilitic incapacitation, Martin Bormann, as Nazi Party Chancellor, assumes power as F\u00fchrer of Germany. Bormann proceeds to create a colonial empire to increase Germany's Lebensraum by using technology to drain the Mediterranean Sea and convert it into farmland (see Atlantropa), while sending spaceships to colonize Mars and other parts of the Solar System in the name of the Reich. As the novel begins, F\u00fchrer Bormann dies, initiating an internal power struggle between Joseph Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Hermann G\u00f6ring, and other top Nazis to succeed him as Reichskanzler. The Man in the High Castle contains a loose collection of characters. Some of them know each other, while others are connected in more indirect ways as they all cope with living under totalitarianism. Three characters guide their lives based on the I Ching: *Nobusuke Tagomi is a trade missioner in Japanese San Francisco. To start with, the reader is let in to his world only slightly; this character doesn't intend to be a big part of the story but events unfold in a way that drags him into both central and peripheral conflicts with agendas beyond his control. *Frank Frink works for the Wyndham\u2013Matson Corporation, which specializes in reproductions of pre-war Americana artifacts; he is fired for showing his temper. He is a secret Jew (n\u00e9 Fink) who hides to avoid extermination in a Nazi camp. He is a veteran of the Pacific War. *Juliana Frink, a judo instructor, is Frank's ex-wife. After an initially short introduction her character evolves throughout the rest of the book to her becoming a very central plot piece. She is also used throughout the book by a hired assassin. Others believe different things: *Robert Childan owns American Artistic Handcrafts, an Americana antiques business supplied by Wyndham\u2013Matson Inc. He believes the items genuine; Tagomi is one of his best customers, who buys \"gifts\" for himself and for visiting businessmen. Given his mostly Japanese clientele, Childan has adopted their manners, Anglicised modes of speech, and ways of thinking, yet, despite his surface deference to the Japanese, he is contemptuous of them, privately retaining his pre-war white supremacy \u2014 believing in the essential inferiority of the non-white Asian and African races. Nonetheless, he is very conscious of his image, often deliberating, to himself, in the Asian mentality, how his actions might appear to others. *Wyndham-Matson (Frank Frink's boss) muses about the difference between a real antique and a reproduction antique; via his mistress, he introduces the novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy to the plot and is the plot device used to show the initial difference of opinions in the novel, the differing opinions being those that believe The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is merely a work of good fiction, and those that believe it shows something more (a theme that reaches its climax at the end of the novel). *Mr. Baynes, a wealthy Swedish industrialist, is actually Rudolf Wegener, a Captain in Reich Naval Counter-Intelligence, who is en route to meet Tagomi, through whom he expects to meet an important Japanese representative. He is taken aback by Tagomi's gift of a \"genuine Mickey Mouse watch\" (bought at the American Artistic Handicrafts Inc. shop). The narrative storylines of the plot alternate among those of the characters, providing a broad picture of quotidian life in totalitarian America: *Baynes travels undercover to San Francisco, as a Swedish merchant. There, he talks with Tagomi, but, in pursuit of his true mission, must prolong their meeting until the arrival, from Japan, of Mr. Yatabe (General Tedeki, formerly of the Imperial General Staff). His mission is to warn the Japanese of Operation L\u00f6wenzahn (Operation Dandelion), a nuclear attack upon the Japanese Archipelago Home Islands planned by Joseph Goebbels's faction within the ruling Nazi Party and opposed by Heydrich's faction. *Frank Frink and his friend Ed McCarthy start a jewelry business; their beautiful, original art works strangely affect the Americans and Japanese who see them. He is arrested after his attempted sabotage of Wyndham-Matson \u2014 by telling Childan that the items of Americana he sells are fake. *Tagomi, unable to acknowledge the unpleasant rumors he has heard, finds solace in action, fighting the Nazi agents attempting to kill Baynes; he uses the \"authentic\" Colt U.S. Army revolver bought from Childan. Then, he retaliates against local Nazi authority, by directing the release of the Jew Frank Frink, who was bound for deportation to Nazi America. Tagomi and Frink never meet, nor does he know that Frank Frink created the beautiful artwork that so impressed him; however, as a devout Buddhist, the existential implications of deliberately taking a human life so bother him they provoke a heart attack. *Juliana, living in Colorado, begins a sexual relationship with Joe Cinnadella, a truck driver claiming to be an Italian war veteran. He wants to meet Hawthorne Abendsen (the eponymous Man in the High Castle, so called, because he allegedly lives in a guarded residence), who wrote the novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Juliana travels with him, but discovers that he is actually a Swiss assassin meaning to kill the writer; she attempts to leave, but he bars her way. Distressed beyond reason, Juliana cuts Joe's throat with the straight razor which she had considered using to commit suicide. She completes the journey alone, meets author Abendsen, and induces him to reveal the truth about The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. *Robert Childan desperately attempts to retain his honor despite the forced obsequiousness towards the Japanese overlords. Although ambivalent about the lost war and foreign occupiers of his country, whom he loathes and respects, he discovers a sense of cultural pride in himself. He also investigates the widespread forgery in the antiques market amid increased Japanese interest in genuine Americana.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Giuseppe Zangara's assassination of U.S. President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1933, led to the weak governments of John Nance Garner (formerly FDR's VP-elect), and later of the Republican John W. Bricker in 1940. Both politicians failed to surmount the Great Depression and maintained the country's isolationist policy against participating in the Second World War; thus, the U.S. had insufficient military capabilities to assist the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, or to defend itself against Japan in the Pacific. In 1941, the Nazis conquered the USSR and then exterminated most of its Slavic peoples; the few whom they allowed to live were confined to reservations. In the Pacific, the Japanese destroyed the entire U.S. Navy fleet in a decisive, definitive attack on Pearl Harbor; thereafter, the superior Japanese military conquered Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and Oceania during the early forties. Afterward, the Axis Powers, each attacking from opposite fronts, conquered the coastal United States, and, by 1947, the United States and other remaining Allied forces surrendered to the Axis. Japan established the puppet Pacific States of America out of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, parts of Nevada and Washington as part of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. The remaining Mountain, Great Plains and Southwestern states became the Rocky Mountain States, a buffer between the PSA and the remaining USA, now a Nazi puppet state in the style of Vichy France. Having defeated the Allies of World War II, the Third Reich and Imperial Japan became the resultant superpowers of their world and consequently embarked upon a Cold War. One of the core narrative elements (Operation Dandelion) is centred on a pre-emptive Nazi nuclear strike on the Japanese Home Islands. The Nazis \"have the hydrogen bomb\" and the ability to wipe out the Home Islands. Their nuclear energy capabilities also fuel extremely fast air travel and the colonization"
      },
      {
        "text": " the style of Vichy France. Having defeated the Allies of World War II, the Third Reich and Imperial Japan became the resultant superpowers of their world and consequently embarked upon a Cold War. One of the core narrative elements (Operation Dandelion) is centred on a pre-emptive Nazi nuclear strike on the Japanese Home Islands. The Nazis \"have the hydrogen bomb\" and the ability to wipe out the Home Islands. Their nuclear energy capabilities also fuel extremely fast air travel and the colonization of the moon, Venus, and Mars. After Adolf Hitler's syphilitic incapacitation, Martin Bormann, as Nazi Party Chancellor, assumes power as F\u00fchrer of Germany. Bormann proceeds to create a colonial empire to increase Germany's Lebensraum by using technology to drain the Mediterranean Sea and convert it into farmland (see Atlantropa), while sending spaceships to colonize Mars and other parts of the Solar System in the name of the Reich. As the novel begins, F\u00fchrer Bormann dies, initiating an internal power struggle between Joseph Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Hermann G\u00f6ring, and other top Nazis to succeed him as Reichskanzler. The Man in the High Castle contains a loose collection of characters. Some of them know each other, while others are connected in more indirect ways as they all cope with living under totalitarianism. Three characters guide their lives based on the I Ching: *Nobusuke Tagomi is a trade missioner in Japanese San Francisco. To start with, the reader is let in to his world only slightly; this character doesn't intend to be a big part of the story but events unfold in a way that drags him into both central and peripheral conflicts with agendas beyond his control. *Frank Frink works for the Wyndham\u2013Matson Corporation, which specializes in reproductions of pre-war Americana artifacts; he is fired for showing his"
      },
      {
        "text": " *Nobusuke Tagomi is a trade missioner in Japanese San Francisco. To start with, the reader is let in to his world only slightly; this character doesn't intend to be a big part of the story but events unfold in a way that drags him into both central and peripheral conflicts with agendas beyond his control. *Frank Frink works for the Wyndham\u2013Matson Corporation, which specializes in reproductions of pre-war Americana artifacts; he is fired for showing his temper. He is a secret Jew (n\u00e9 Fink) who hides to avoid extermination in a Nazi camp. He is a veteran of the Pacific War. *Juliana Frink, a judo instructor, is Frank's ex-wife. After an initially short introduction her character evolves throughout the rest of the book to her becoming a very central plot piece. She is also used throughout the book by a hired assassin. Others believe different things: *Robert Childan owns American Artistic Handcrafts, an Americana antiques business supplied by Wyndham\u2013Matson Inc. He believes the items genuine; Tagomi is one of his best customers, who buys \"gifts\" for himself and for visiting businessmen. Given his mostly Japanese clientele, Childan has adopted their manners, Anglicised modes of speech, and ways of thinking, yet, despite his surface deference to the Japanese, he is contemptuous of them, privately retaining his pre-war white supremacy \u2014 believing in the essential inferiority of the non-white Asian and African races. Nonetheless, he is very conscious of his image, often deliberating, to himself, in the Asian mentality, how his actions might appear to others. *Wyndham-Matson (Frank Frink's boss) muses about the difference between a real antique and a reproduction antique; via his mistress, he introduces the novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy to the plot and is the plot device used to show the initial"
      },
      {
        "text": " the essential inferiority of the non-white Asian and African races. Nonetheless, he is very conscious of his image, often deliberating, to himself, in the Asian mentality, how his actions might appear to others. *Wyndham-Matson (Frank Frink's boss) muses about the difference between a real antique and a reproduction antique; via his mistress, he introduces the novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy to the plot and is the plot device used to show the initial difference of opinions in the novel, the differing opinions being those that believe The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is merely a work of good fiction, and those that believe it shows something more (a theme that reaches its climax at the end of the novel). *Mr. Baynes, a wealthy Swedish industrialist, is actually Rudolf Wegener, a Captain in Reich Naval Counter-Intelligence, who is en route to meet Tagomi, through whom he expects to meet an important Japanese representative. He is taken aback by Tagomi's gift of a \"genuine Mickey Mouse watch\" (bought at the American Artistic Handicrafts Inc. shop). The narrative storylines of the plot alternate among those of the characters, providing a broad picture of quotidian life in totalitarian America: *Baynes travels undercover to San Francisco, as a Swedish merchant. There, he talks with Tagomi, but, in pursuit of his true mission, must prolong their meeting until the arrival, from Japan, of Mr. Yatabe (General Tedeki, formerly of the Imperial General Staff). His mission is to warn the Japanese of Operation L\u00f6wenzahn (Operation Dandelion), a nuclear attack upon the Japanese Archipelago Home Islands planned by Joseph Goebbels's faction within the ruling Nazi Party and opposed by Heydrich's faction. *Frank Frink and his friend Ed McCarthy start a jewelry business; their beautiful, original art works strangely affect the Americans and Japanese who see"
      },
      {
        "text": " of Mr. Yatabe (General Tedeki, formerly of the Imperial General Staff). His mission is to warn the Japanese of Operation L\u00f6wenzahn (Operation Dandelion), a nuclear attack upon the Japanese Archipelago Home Islands planned by Joseph Goebbels's faction within the ruling Nazi Party and opposed by Heydrich's faction. *Frank Frink and his friend Ed McCarthy start a jewelry business; their beautiful, original art works strangely affect the Americans and Japanese who see them. He is arrested after his attempted sabotage of Wyndham-Matson \u2014 by telling Childan that the items of Americana he sells are fake. *Tagomi, unable to acknowledge the unpleasant rumors he has heard, finds solace in action, fighting the Nazi agents attempting to kill Baynes; he uses the \"authentic\" Colt U.S. Army revolver bought from Childan. Then, he retaliates against local Nazi authority, by directing the release of the Jew Frank Frink, who was bound for deportation to Nazi America. Tagomi and Frink never meet, nor does he know that Frank Frink created the beautiful artwork that so impressed him; however, as a devout Buddhist, the existential implications of deliberately taking a human life so bother him they provoke a heart attack. *Juliana, living in Colorado, begins a sexual relationship with Joe Cinnadella, a truck driver claiming to be an Italian war veteran. He wants to meet Hawthorne Abendsen (the eponymous Man in the High Castle, so called, because he allegedly lives in a guarded residence), who wrote the novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Juliana travels with him, but discovers that he is actually a Swiss assassin meaning to kill the writer; she attempts to leave, but he bars her way. Distressed beyond reason, Juliana cuts Joe's throat with the straight razor which she had considered using to commit suicide. She completes the journey alone, meets author Abendsen"
      },
      {
        "text": " (the eponymous Man in the High Castle, so called, because he allegedly lives in a guarded residence), who wrote the novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Juliana travels with him, but discovers that he is actually a Swiss assassin meaning to kill the writer; she attempts to leave, but he bars her way. Distressed beyond reason, Juliana cuts Joe's throat with the straight razor which she had considered using to commit suicide. She completes the journey alone, meets author Abendsen, and induces him to reveal the truth about The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. *Robert Childan desperately attempts to retain his honor despite the forced obsequiousness towards the Japanese overlords. Although ambivalent about the lost war and foreign occupiers of his country, whom he loathes and respects, he discovers a sense of cultural pride in himself. He also investigates the widespread forgery in the antiques market amid increased Japanese interest in genuine Americana.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Rocket Ship Galileo",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1947-05-01",
    "synopsis": " After World War II, three teenage boy rocket experimenters are recruited by the uncle of one of them, Dr. Cargraves, a Nobel Prize-winning Physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project, to refit a conventionally-powered surplus \"mail rocket\". It is to be converted to run on a thorium nuclear pile which boils zinc as a propellant. They use a cleared area in a military weapons test range in the desert for their work, despite prying and sabotage attempts by unknown agents. Upon completion of the modifications, they stock the rocket, which they name the Galileo, and take off for the Moon, taking approximately 11 days to arrive. After establishing a semi-permanent structure based on a Quonset hut, they claim the moon on behalf of the United Nations. As they set up a radio to communicate with the Earth they pick up a local transmission, the sender of which promises to meet them. Instead, their ship is bombed. Fortunately, they are able to hole up undetected in their hut and succeed in ambushing the other ship when it lands, capturing the pilot. They discover that there is a Nazi base on the Moon. They bomb it from their captured ship and land. One survivor is found, revived, and questioned. The boys also find evidence of an ancient lunar civilization, and postulate that the craters of the moon were formed not by impacts from space, but by nuclear bombs that destroyed the alien race. When the base's Nazi leader shoots the pilot in order to silence him, Cargraves convenes a trial and find him guilty of murder. Cargraves pretends to prepare to execute the prisoner by ejecting him into vacuum. The Nazi capitulates in the airlock and teaches them how to fly the Nazi spaceship back to Earth. The boys radio the location of the hidden Nazi base on Earth to the authorities, leading to its destruction; they return as heroes.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After World War II, three teenage boy rocket experimenters are recruited by the uncle of one of them, Dr. Cargraves, a Nobel Prize-winning Physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project, to refit a conventionally-powered surplus \"mail rocket\". It is to be converted to run on a thorium nuclear pile which boils zinc as a propellant. They use a cleared area in a military weapons test range in the desert for their work, despite prying and sabotage attempts by unknown agents. Upon completion of the modifications, they stock the rocket, which they name the Galileo, and take off for the Moon, taking approximately 11 days to arrive. After establishing a semi-permanent structure based on a Quonset hut, they claim the moon on behalf of the United Nations. As they set up a radio to communicate with the Earth they pick up a local transmission, the sender of which promises to meet them. Instead, their ship is bombed. Fortunately, they are able to hole up undetected in their hut and succeed in ambushing the other ship when it lands, capturing the pilot. They discover that there is a Nazi base on the Moon. They bomb it from their captured ship and land. One survivor is found, revived, and questioned. The boys also find evidence of an ancient lunar civilization, and postulate that the craters of the moon were formed not by impacts from space, but by nuclear bombs that destroyed the alien race. When the base's Nazi leader shoots the pilot in order to silence him, Cargraves convenes a trial and find him guilty of murder. Cargraves pretends to prepare to execute the prisoner by ejecting him into vacuum. The Nazi capitulates in the airlock and teaches them how to fly the Nazi spaceship back to Earth. The boys radio the location of the hidden Nazi base on Earth to the authorities, leading to its destruction; they return as heroes.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s Nazi leader shoots the pilot in order to silence him, Cargraves convenes a trial and find him guilty of murder. Cargraves pretends to prepare to execute the prisoner by ejecting him into vacuum. The Nazi capitulates in the airlock and teaches them how to fly the Nazi spaceship back to Earth. The boys radio the location of the hidden Nazi base on Earth to the authorities, leading to its destruction; they return as heroes.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Space Cadet",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1948",
    "synopsis": " In 2075, teenager Matt Dodson applies to join the prestigious Space Patrol. After a number of physical, mental, and ethical tests, he is accepted as a cadet. He makes friends with fellow recruits William 'Tex' Jarman, Venus-born Oscar Jensen, and Pierre Armand from Ganymede. His first roommate is Girard Burke, the arrogant son of a wealthy spaceship builder. They are transported to the orbiting school ship PRS James Randolph for further training. Burke eventually either resigns or is asked to leave, and goes into the merchant service, but the remainder do well enough to be assigned to working Patrol ships. Dodson, Jarman and Jensen ship out on the Aes Triplex. Their first real mission is to help search for a missing research vessel, the Pathfinder, in the Asteroid Belt. They find it, but all aboard are dead, the unlucky victims of a fast-moving meteor that punctured the ship when the armored outer airlock door was open. Before the accident, a researcher on the Pathfinder had found evidence that the planet which blew up to form the asteroids was inhabited by an intelligent species, and that the explosion had been artificial. The captain of the Aes Triplex transfers half the crew to the repaired Pathfinder so that they can take the ship and the news of the startling discovery back to Earth quickly. With the remainder (including all three cadets), he continues his patrol. Then, he receives an urgent message to investigate an incident on Venus. He sends Lieutenant Thurlow and the cadets to the planet's surface. The lander touches down on a sinkhole, barely giving the crew enough time to get out before it disappears in the mud. With Thurlow comatose, injured when the lander fell over, Jensen assumes command. He contacts the sentient usually-friendly Venerians, but the entire party is taken captive. They soon find out why. These particular natives had never seen human beings before, until old classmate Burke showed up in a prospecting ship. He had taken the matriarch of the local clan hostage when she refused to give him permission to exploit a rich deposit of radioactive ores. The locals promptly attacked the ship and killed his crew; Burke managed to send a message for help before being taken prisoner. Jensen skillfully gains the matriarch's trust and convinces her that they are honorable and civilized, unlike Burke, and the Patrolmen are released. Neither the lander nor Burke's ship is flightworthy. To their amazement, she takes the stranded humans to the carefully preserved Astarte, the legendary first ship to set out for Venus over a century before and thought to have been lost en route. According to the log, the crew perished from disease. With the help of the natives, the cadets recommission the ship and fly it back to (human) civilization at Venus's South Pole colony. Dodson is initially disappointed when they are not treated as heroes\u2014but then he realizes that what they accomplished was simply what was expected of Patrolmen.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In 2075, teenager Matt Dodson applies to join the prestigious Space Patrol. After a number of physical, mental, and ethical tests, he is accepted as a cadet. He makes friends with fellow recruits William 'Tex' Jarman, Venus-born Oscar Jensen, and Pierre Armand from Ganymede. His first roommate is Girard Burke, the arrogant son of a wealthy spaceship builder. They are transported to the orbiting school ship PRS James Randolph for further training. Burke eventually either resigns or is asked to leave, and goes into the merchant service, but the remainder do well enough to be assigned to working Patrol ships. Dodson, Jarman and Jensen ship out on the Aes Triplex. Their first real mission is to help search for a missing research vessel, the Pathfinder, in the Asteroid Belt. They find it, but all aboard are dead, the unlucky victims of a fast-moving meteor that punctured the ship when the armored outer airlock door was open. Before the accident, a researcher on the Pathfinder had found evidence that the planet which blew up to form the asteroids was inhabited by an intelligent species, and that the explosion had been artificial. The captain of the Aes Triplex transfers half the crew to the repaired Pathfinder so that they can take the ship and the news of the startling discovery back to Earth quickly. With the remainder (including all three cadets), he continues his patrol. Then, he receives an urgent message to investigate an incident on Venus. He sends Lieutenant Thurlow and the cadets to the planet's surface. The lander touches down on a sinkhole, barely giving the crew enough time to get out before it disappears in the mud. With Thurlow comatose, injured when the lander fell over, Jensen assumes command. He contacts the sentient usually-friendly Venerians, but the entire party is taken captive. They soon find out why. These particular natives had never seen human beings before"
      },
      {
        "text": " incident on Venus. He sends Lieutenant Thurlow and the cadets to the planet's surface. The lander touches down on a sinkhole, barely giving the crew enough time to get out before it disappears in the mud. With Thurlow comatose, injured when the lander fell over, Jensen assumes command. He contacts the sentient usually-friendly Venerians, but the entire party is taken captive. They soon find out why. These particular natives had never seen human beings before, until old classmate Burke showed up in a prospecting ship. He had taken the matriarch of the local clan hostage when she refused to give him permission to exploit a rich deposit of radioactive ores. The locals promptly attacked the ship and killed his crew; Burke managed to send a message for help before being taken prisoner. Jensen skillfully gains the matriarch's trust and convinces her that they are honorable and civilized, unlike Burke, and the Patrolmen are released. Neither the lander nor Burke's ship is flightworthy. To their amazement, she takes the stranded humans to the carefully preserved Astarte, the legendary first ship to set out for Venus over a century before and thought to have been lost en route. According to the log, the crew perished from disease. With the help of the natives, the cadets recommission the ship and fly it back to (human) civilization at Venus's South Pole colony. Dodson is initially disappointed when they are not treated as heroes\u2014but then he realizes that what they accomplished was simply what was expected of Patrolmen.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " heroes\u2014but then he realizes that what they accomplished was simply what was expected of Patrolmen.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Between Planets",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " A young man named Don Harvey leaves his dude ranch high school on Earth to go to his scientist parents on Mars. He visits an old family friend who asks him to deliver a ring to his father, but they are both later arrested by security forces. Harvey is released and given his ring back, after it has been examined; he is told that his friend has died of \"heart failure.\" It is only later that he realizes that all deaths can be described that way. Harvey boards a shuttle to a space station orbiting the Earth. The station doubles as a transshipment terminus and a military base, armed with missiles to keep restive nations in check. On the trip up, he befriends one of his fellow passengers, a Venusian \"dragon\" named Sir Isaac Newton. Sir Isaac is a renowned physicist who can speak English using a portable device. Harvey gets caught up in the Venusian war of independence when the station is captured by the colonials in a surprise raid. Most of the other travelers are sent back to Earth, while a few decide to join the rebels. Harvey is in a quandary. The spaceship to Mars has been confiscated, but he remains determined to get there, by way of Venus if necessary. Because he was born in space, with one parent from Venus and the other from Earth, he claims Venusian citizenship; more importantly, Sir Isaac vouches for him. He is allowed to tag along, which turns out to be very fortunate for Harvey. The rebels blow up the station to stir up trouble for the Earth government. When the shuttle returns to Earth with its radios disabled, the military assumes it has been booby-trapped and destroys it, killing all aboard. On his arrival on Venus, Harvey finds that his Earth-backed money is now worthless. A banker lends him money, telling him to pay it forward. He gets a job washing dishes for his keep for Charlie, a Chinese immigrant who runs a small restaurant. He befriends a young woman, Isobel, when he tries to send a message to his parents. However, communication with Mars has been cut due to the hostilities. Harvey settles in to wait out the war, when the war comes to him. Earth sends a military force to put down the rebellion. The Venusian ships are destroyed in orbit and the ground forces are routed. Charlie is killed resisting the occupying soldiers. Harvey is rounded up and questioned by a senior security officer, who is very eager to get his hands on Harvey's ring. Luckily, Harvey had given it to Isobel for safekeeping and he does not know where she is or whether she is even alive. Before he can be interrogated with drugs, he escapes and joins the Venusian guerrilla forces. Harvey becomes an effective commando. In time, he is tracked down by the leaders of the resistance, who turn out to also be looking for the ring. Isobel and her father (who is an important member of the rebels) are safe at the very base where Harvey is taken. The seemingly valueless ring turns out to be carrying the secret of scientific breakthroughs resulting from archeological studies of an extict alien civilization on Mars. With Sir Isaac's assistance, it is used to secretly build an advanced spaceship that is much faster than any other vessel in existence, with revolutionary weapons and defenses also derived from the new technology. As the only combat veteran with knowledge of the ship, christened Little David, Harvey is recruited for its maiden voyage, manning a self-destruct mechanism, with strict orders to blow up the ship if it is in danger of being captured. Little David intercepts and defeats a group of warships on their way to Mars to crush the revolt there. Afterwards, Harvey is probably reunited with his parents, although the story ends before then.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A young man named Don Harvey leaves his dude ranch high school on Earth to go to his scientist parents on Mars. He visits an old family friend who asks him to deliver a ring to his father, but they are both later arrested by security forces. Harvey is released and given his ring back, after it has been examined; he is told that his friend has died of \"heart failure.\" It is only later that he realizes that all deaths can be described that way. Harvey boards a shuttle to a space station orbiting the Earth. The station doubles as a transshipment terminus and a military base, armed with missiles to keep restive nations in check. On the trip up, he befriends one of his fellow passengers, a Venusian \"dragon\" named Sir Isaac Newton. Sir Isaac is a renowned physicist who can speak English using a portable device. Harvey gets caught up in the Venusian war of independence when the station is captured by the colonials in a surprise raid. Most of the other travelers are sent back to Earth, while a few decide to join the rebels. Harvey is in a quandary. The spaceship to Mars has been confiscated, but he remains determined to get there, by way of Venus if necessary. Because he was born in space, with one parent from Venus and the other from Earth, he claims Venusian citizenship; more importantly, Sir Isaac vouches for him. He is allowed to tag along, which turns out to be very fortunate for Harvey. The rebels blow up the station to stir up trouble for the Earth government. When the shuttle returns to Earth with its radios disabled, the military assumes it has been booby-trapped and destroys it, killing all aboard. On his arrival on Venus, Harvey finds that his Earth-backed money is now worthless. A banker lends him money, telling him to pay it forward. He gets a job washing dishes for his keep for Charlie, a Chinese immigrant who runs a small restaurant. He befriends a"
      },
      {
        "text": " rebels blow up the station to stir up trouble for the Earth government. When the shuttle returns to Earth with its radios disabled, the military assumes it has been booby-trapped and destroys it, killing all aboard. On his arrival on Venus, Harvey finds that his Earth-backed money is now worthless. A banker lends him money, telling him to pay it forward. He gets a job washing dishes for his keep for Charlie, a Chinese immigrant who runs a small restaurant. He befriends a young woman, Isobel, when he tries to send a message to his parents. However, communication with Mars has been cut due to the hostilities. Harvey settles in to wait out the war, when the war comes to him. Earth sends a military force to put down the rebellion. The Venusian ships are destroyed in orbit and the ground forces are routed. Charlie is killed resisting the occupying soldiers. Harvey is rounded up and questioned by a senior security officer, who is very eager to get his hands on Harvey's ring. Luckily, Harvey had given it to Isobel for safekeeping and he does not know where she is or whether she is even alive. Before he can be interrogated with drugs, he escapes and joins the Venusian guerrilla forces. Harvey becomes an effective commando. In time, he is tracked down by the leaders of the resistance, who turn out to also be looking for the ring. Isobel and her father (who is an important member of the rebels) are safe at the very base where Harvey is taken. The seemingly valueless ring turns out to be carrying the secret of scientific breakthroughs resulting from archeological studies of an extict alien civilization on Mars. With Sir Isaac's assistance, it is used to secretly build an advanced spaceship that is much faster than any other vessel in existence, with revolutionary weapons and defenses also derived from the new technology. As the only combat veteran with knowledge of the ship, christened Little David, Harvey is recruited for its"
      },
      {
        "text": " are safe at the very base where Harvey is taken. The seemingly valueless ring turns out to be carrying the secret of scientific breakthroughs resulting from archeological studies of an extict alien civilization on Mars. With Sir Isaac's assistance, it is used to secretly build an advanced spaceship that is much faster than any other vessel in existence, with revolutionary weapons and defenses also derived from the new technology. As the only combat veteran with knowledge of the ship, christened Little David, Harvey is recruited for its maiden voyage, manning a self-destruct mechanism, with strict orders to blow up the ship if it is in danger of being captured. Little David intercepts and defeats a group of warships on their way to Mars to crush the revolt there. Afterwards, Harvey is probably reunited with his parents, although the story ends before then.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Starman Jones",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1953",
    "synopsis": " Max Jones works the family farm in the Ozark Mountains. With his father dead and his stepmother remarrying a man he detests, Max runs away from home, taking his uncle's astrogation manuals. Most occupations are tightly controlled by guilds, most with hereditary memberships. One such is the Astrogators Guild. Since his uncle had been a member and had no children, Max hopes that before he died, his uncle had named him his heir. He begins hitchhiking towards Earthport to find out. Along the way, he finds a friendly face in hobo Sam Anderson, who later alludes to being a deserter from the Imperial Marines. Sam feeds Max and offers advice, though he later departs with Max's valuable manuals. At the guild's headquarters, Max is disappointed to find that he had not been named as an heir, but he is returned his uncle's substantial security deposit for his manuals. Max learns that Sam had tried to claim the deposit for himself. By chance, he runs into an apologetic Sam. With Max's money, Sam is able to finagle them a one way job/trip aboard a starship using forged papers. Max signs on as a steward's mate third class, and then he absorbs the contents of the Stewards' Guild manual using his eidetic memory. Among his duties is caring for several animals, including passengers' pets\u2014work with which he is comfortable. When passenger Eldreth \"Ellie\" Coburn visits her pet, an alien, semi-intelligent \"spider puppy\" that Max has befriended, she learns that he can play three-dimensional chess, and she challenges him to a game. A champion player, she diplomatically lets him win. Meanwhile, Sam manages to rise to the position of master-at-arms. When, through Ellie's machinations, the ship's officers discover that Max had learned astrogation from his uncle, Max is promoted to the command deck. Under the tutelage of Chief Astrogator Hendrix and Chief Computerman Kelly, he becomes a probationary apprentice chartsman, then a probationary astrogator. In a meeting with Hendrix, Max reluctantly admits to faking his record to get into space. Hendrix defers the matter until their return to Earth. The Asgard then departs for Halcyon, a human colony planet orbiting Nu Pegasi. When Hendrix dies, the astrogation department is left dangerously shorthanded. The aging captain tries to take his place, but is not up to the task. When Max detects an error in his real-time calculations leading up to a \"transition\", neither the captain nor Assistant Astrogator Simes believe him, and the ship winds up lost. They locate a habitable world, and the passengers become colonists. Meanwhile, the crew continues to try to figure out where they are, and if they can get back to the Earth. Unfortunately, it turns out the planet is already inhabited by intelligent centaurs. Max and Ellie are captured, but Ellie's pet is able to guide Sam and a rescue party to them. They escape, though Sam is killed covering their retreat. Upon his return, Max is informed that the captain has died. Simes tried to illegally take command and was killed by Sam, leaving Max as the only remaining astrogator. To make matters worse, Simes hid or destroyed the astrogation manuals. Vastly outnumbered by the hostile natives, the humans are forced to attempt a perilous return to known space by reversing the erroneous transition. Max must not only pilot the ship, he must supply the missing astrogation tables from his eidetic memory. To add to his burdens, the remaining officers inform Max that he must take charge, as only an astrogator can be the captain. The pressure is immense, but Max succeeds and the ship returns to known space. Max pays heavy fines for breaking guild regulations, but he becomes a member of the Astrogators Guild. However, he loses any chance for a relationship with Eldreth: she returns home to marry her boyfriend. Max accepts this with mixed feelings, but looks forward to his new career.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Max Jones works the family farm in the Ozark Mountains. With his father dead and his stepmother remarrying a man he detests, Max runs away from home, taking his uncle's astrogation manuals. Most occupations are tightly controlled by guilds, most with hereditary memberships. One such is the Astrogators Guild. Since his uncle had been a member and had no children, Max hopes that before he died, his uncle had named him his heir. He begins hitchhiking towards Earthport to find out. Along the way, he finds a friendly face in hobo Sam Anderson, who later alludes to being a deserter from the Imperial Marines. Sam feeds Max and offers advice, though he later departs with Max's valuable manuals. At the guild's headquarters, Max is disappointed to find that he had not been named as an heir, but he is returned his uncle's substantial security deposit for his manuals. Max learns that Sam had tried to claim the deposit for himself. By chance, he runs into an apologetic Sam. With Max's money, Sam is able to finagle them a one way job/trip aboard a starship using forged papers. Max signs on as a steward's mate third class, and then he absorbs the contents of the Stewards' Guild manual using his eidetic memory. Among his duties is caring for several animals, including passengers' pets\u2014work with which he is comfortable. When passenger Eldreth \"Ellie\" Coburn visits her pet, an alien, semi-intelligent \"spider puppy\" that Max has befriended, she learns that he can play three-dimensional chess, and she challenges him to a game. A champion player, she diplomatically lets him win. Meanwhile, Sam manages to rise to the position of master-at-arms. When, through Ellie's machinations, the ship's officers discover that Max had learned astrogation from his uncle, Max is promoted to the command"
      },
      {
        "text": " Coburn visits her pet, an alien, semi-intelligent \"spider puppy\" that Max has befriended, she learns that he can play three-dimensional chess, and she challenges him to a game. A champion player, she diplomatically lets him win. Meanwhile, Sam manages to rise to the position of master-at-arms. When, through Ellie's machinations, the ship's officers discover that Max had learned astrogation from his uncle, Max is promoted to the command deck. Under the tutelage of Chief Astrogator Hendrix and Chief Computerman Kelly, he becomes a probationary apprentice chartsman, then a probationary astrogator. In a meeting with Hendrix, Max reluctantly admits to faking his record to get into space. Hendrix defers the matter until their return to Earth. The Asgard then departs for Halcyon, a human colony planet orbiting Nu Pegasi. When Hendrix dies, the astrogation department is left dangerously shorthanded. The aging captain tries to take his place, but is not up to the task. When Max detects an error in his real-time calculations leading up to a \"transition\", neither the captain nor Assistant Astrogator Simes believe him, and the ship winds up lost. They locate a habitable world, and the passengers become colonists. Meanwhile, the crew continues to try to figure out where they are, and if they can get back to the Earth. Unfortunately, it turns out the planet is already inhabited by intelligent centaurs. Max and Ellie are captured, but Ellie's pet is able to guide Sam and a rescue party to them. They escape, though Sam is killed covering their retreat. Upon his return, Max is informed that the captain has died. Simes tried to illegally take command and was killed by Sam, leaving Max as the only remaining astrogator. To make matters worse, Simes hid or destroyed the astrogation manuals. Vastly"
      },
      {
        "text": " out the planet is already inhabited by intelligent centaurs. Max and Ellie are captured, but Ellie's pet is able to guide Sam and a rescue party to them. They escape, though Sam is killed covering their retreat. Upon his return, Max is informed that the captain has died. Simes tried to illegally take command and was killed by Sam, leaving Max as the only remaining astrogator. To make matters worse, Simes hid or destroyed the astrogation manuals. Vastly outnumbered by the hostile natives, the humans are forced to attempt a perilous return to known space by reversing the erroneous transition. Max must not only pilot the ship, he must supply the missing astrogation tables from his eidetic memory. To add to his burdens, the remaining officers inform Max that he must take charge, as only an astrogator can be the captain. The pressure is immense, but Max succeeds and the ship returns to known space. Max pays heavy fines for breaking guild regulations, but he becomes a member of the Astrogators Guild. However, he loses any chance for a relationship with Eldreth: she returns home to marry her boyfriend. Max accepts this with mixed feelings, but looks forward to his new career.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Podkayne of Mars",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The book is a first-person narrative in the form of Podkayne's diaries. Podkayne is 15 in Earth years (a bit over eight Martian years) while her genius younger brother Clark is 11 earth years (6 martian years). Due to the unscheduled \"uncorking\" (birth) of their three test-tube babies, Podkayne's parents cancel a much-anticipated trip to Earth. Disappointed, Podkayne confesses her misery to her uncle, Senator Tom Fries, an elder statesman of the Mars government. Tom arranges for Clark and Podkayne, escorted by himself, to get upgraded passage on a luxury liner to Earth. During boarding, Clark is asked by a customs official \"Anything to declare?\" and facetiously answers \"Two kilos of happy dust!\" As he anticipated, his seemingly flippant remark gets him taken away and searched, just in time to divert attention away from Podkayne's luggage, where he has hidden a package he was paid to smuggle aboard. Podkayne suspects the reason behind her brother's behavior, but cannot prove it. Clark was told it was a present for the captain, but is far too cynical to be taken in. He later carefully opens the package and finds a nuclear bomb, which he, in typical Clark-fashion, disarms and keeps. Much of the description of the voyage is based on Heinlein's own experiences as a naval officer and world traveler. Clark's ploy is taken from a real-life incident related in Heinlein's Tramp Royale in which his wife answers the same question with \"heroin\" substituted for the fictitious but equally illegal happy dust. Once aboard, they are befriended by \"Girdie\", an attractive, capable, experienced woman left impoverished by her late husband. Much to Podkayne's surprise, the normally very self-centered Clark contracts a severe case of puppy love. The liner makes a stop at Venus, which is depicted as a latter-day Las Vegas gone ultra-capitalistic. The planet is controlled by a single corporation; the dream of most of the frantically enterprising residents is to earn enough to buy a single share in it, which guarantees lifelong financial security. Just about anything goes, as long as one can pay for it. The penalty for murder is a fine paid to the corporation for the victim's estimated value plus his projected future earnings. On a less serious level, Heinlein anticipated, by over forty years, television ads in taxicabs (in the book, holographic), which have since been implemented in taxicabs in major cities worldwide. The Fries are given VIP treatment by the Venus Corporation and Podkayne is escorted by Dexter Cunha, the Chairman's dashing son. She begins to realize that Tom is much more than just her pinochle-playing uncle. When Clark vanishes and even the corporation is unable to find him, Tom reveals that he is on a secret diplomatic mission, and the children have been his protective coloration\u2014instead of an accredited representative to a vital conference on Luna, Tom appears to be a doddering uncle escorting two young people on a tour of the solar system. Clark has been kidnapped by functionaries of a political faction opposed to Tom. Podkayne makes an ill-judged attempt to rescue Clark by herself and falls into the kidnappers' clutches as well--only to find her uncle caught too. The captors' scheme is to use the children to blackmail the uncle into doing their bidding at the Luna conference. Clark quickly realizes that once Uncle Tom is released, no matter what happens, their kidnappers will have little reason to keep their prisoners alive. He is prepared, however, and engineers an escape, leaving a bomb behind to blow up the kidnappers. In Heinlein's original ending, Podkayne is killed. This did not please his publisher, who demanded and got a rewrite over the author's bitter objections. In a letter to Lurton Blassingame, his literary agent, Heinlein complained that it would be like \"revising Romeo and Juliet to let the young lovers live happily ever after.\" He also declared that changing the end \"isn't real life, because in real life, not everything ends happily.\" In the original ending, after they escape from the kidnappers to a safe distance, Podkayne remembers that a semi-intelligent Venerian \"fairy\" baby has been left behind, and returns to rescue it. When the nuclear bomb that Clark leaves for the kidnappers blows up, Podkayne is killed, shielding the young fairy with her body. Clark takes over the narrative for the last chapter. The story ends with a hint of hope for him, as he admits his responsibility for what happened to Podkayne — that he \"fubbed it, mighty dry\" — then shows some human feeling by regretting his inability to cry and describes his plan to raise the fairy himself. In the revised version, Podkayne is injured by the bomb, but not fatally. Uncle Tom, in a phone conversation with Podkayne's father, blames the parents \u2014 especially the mother \u2014 for neglecting the upbringing of the children. Uncle Tom feels that Clark is dangerous and maladjusted, and attributes this to the mother giving priority to her career. Clark still takes over as the narrator, and, again, regrets that Podkayne was hurt and plans to take care of the fairy, this time because Podkayne will want to see it when she is better. The 1995 Baen edition includes both endings (which differ only on the last page), Jim Baen's own edited postlude to the story, and a collection of readers' essays giving their opinions about which ending is better. Most of these readers favored the sad ending, partly because they felt Heinlein should have been free to create his own story, and partly because they believed that the changed ending turned a tragedy into a mere adventure, and not a very well constructed one at that. Podkayne appears in Heinlein's later novel The Number of the Beast, attending the party at the end along with many other Heinlein characters from previous books.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is a first-person narrative in the form of Podkayne's diaries. Podkayne is 15 in Earth years (a bit over eight Martian years) while her genius younger brother Clark is 11 earth years (6 martian years). Due to the unscheduled \"uncorking\" (birth) of their three test-tube babies, Podkayne's parents cancel a much-anticipated trip to Earth. Disappointed, Podkayne confesses her misery to her uncle, Senator Tom Fries, an elder statesman of the Mars government. Tom arranges for Clark and Podkayne, escorted by himself, to get upgraded passage on a luxury liner to Earth. During boarding, Clark is asked by a customs official \"Anything to declare?\" and facetiously answers \"Two kilos of happy dust!\" As he anticipated, his seemingly flippant remark gets him taken away and searched, just in time to divert attention away from Podkayne's luggage, where he has hidden a package he was paid to smuggle aboard. Podkayne suspects the reason behind her brother's behavior, but cannot prove it. Clark was told it was a present for the captain, but is far too cynical to be taken in. He later carefully opens the package and finds a nuclear bomb, which he, in typical Clark-fashion, disarms and keeps. Much of the description of the voyage is based on Heinlein's own experiences as a naval officer and world traveler. Clark's ploy is taken from a real-life incident related in Heinlein's Tramp Royale in which his wife answers the same question with \"heroin\" substituted for the fictitious but equally illegal happy dust. Once aboard, they are befriended by \"Girdie\", an attractive, capable, experienced woman left impoverished by her late husband. Much to Podkayne's surprise, the normally very self-centered Clark contracts a severe case of puppy love. The liner makes a stop at Venus, which"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s ploy is taken from a real-life incident related in Heinlein's Tramp Royale in which his wife answers the same question with \"heroin\" substituted for the fictitious but equally illegal happy dust. Once aboard, they are befriended by \"Girdie\", an attractive, capable, experienced woman left impoverished by her late husband. Much to Podkayne's surprise, the normally very self-centered Clark contracts a severe case of puppy love. The liner makes a stop at Venus, which is depicted as a latter-day Las Vegas gone ultra-capitalistic. The planet is controlled by a single corporation; the dream of most of the frantically enterprising residents is to earn enough to buy a single share in it, which guarantees lifelong financial security. Just about anything goes, as long as one can pay for it. The penalty for murder is a fine paid to the corporation for the victim's estimated value plus his projected future earnings. On a less serious level, Heinlein anticipated, by over forty years, television ads in taxicabs (in the book, holographic), which have since been implemented in taxicabs in major cities worldwide. The Fries are given VIP treatment by the Venus Corporation and Podkayne is escorted by Dexter Cunha, the Chairman's dashing son. She begins to realize that Tom is much more than just her pinochle-playing uncle. When Clark vanishes and even the corporation is unable to find him, Tom reveals that he is on a secret diplomatic mission, and the children have been his protective coloration\u2014instead of an accredited representative to a vital conference on Luna, Tom appears to be a doddering uncle escorting two young people on a tour of the solar system. Clark has been kidnapped by functionaries of a political faction opposed to Tom. Podkayne makes an ill-judged attempt to rescue Clark by herself and falls into the kidnappers' clutches as well--only to find her uncle caught too"
      },
      {
        "text": " is on a secret diplomatic mission, and the children have been his protective coloration\u2014instead of an accredited representative to a vital conference on Luna, Tom appears to be a doddering uncle escorting two young people on a tour of the solar system. Clark has been kidnapped by functionaries of a political faction opposed to Tom. Podkayne makes an ill-judged attempt to rescue Clark by herself and falls into the kidnappers' clutches as well--only to find her uncle caught too. The captors' scheme is to use the children to blackmail the uncle into doing their bidding at the Luna conference. Clark quickly realizes that once Uncle Tom is released, no matter what happens, their kidnappers will have little reason to keep their prisoners alive. He is prepared, however, and engineers an escape, leaving a bomb behind to blow up the kidnappers. In Heinlein's original ending, Podkayne is killed. This did not please his publisher, who demanded and got a rewrite over the author's bitter objections. In a letter to Lurton Blassingame, his literary agent, Heinlein complained that it would be like \"revising Romeo and Juliet to let the young lovers live happily ever after.\" He also declared that changing the end \"isn't real life, because in real life, not everything ends happily.\" In the original ending, after they escape from the kidnappers to a safe distance, Podkayne remembers that a semi-intelligent Venerian \"fairy\" baby has been left behind, and returns to rescue it. When the nuclear bomb that Clark leaves for the kidnappers blows up, Podkayne is killed, shielding the young fairy with her body. Clark takes over the narrative for the last chapter. The story ends with a hint of hope for him, as he admits his responsibility for what happened to Podkayne — that he \"fubbed it, mighty dry\" — then shows some human feeling"
      },
      {
        "text": "fairy\" baby has been left behind, and returns to rescue it. When the nuclear bomb that Clark leaves for the kidnappers blows up, Podkayne is killed, shielding the young fairy with her body. Clark takes over the narrative for the last chapter. The story ends with a hint of hope for him, as he admits his responsibility for what happened to Podkayne — that he \"fubbed it, mighty dry\" — then shows some human feeling by regretting his inability to cry and describes his plan to raise the fairy himself. In the revised version, Podkayne is injured by the bomb, but not fatally. Uncle Tom, in a phone conversation with Podkayne's father, blames the parents \u2014 especially the mother \u2014 for neglecting the upbringing of the children. Uncle Tom feels that Clark is dangerous and maladjusted, and attributes this to the mother giving priority to her career. Clark still takes over as the narrator, and, again, regrets that Podkayne was hurt and plans to take care of the fairy, this time because Podkayne will want to see it when she is better. The 1995 Baen edition includes both endings (which differ only on the last page), Jim Baen's own edited postlude to the story, and a collection of readers' essays giving their opinions about which ending is better. Most of these readers favored the sad ending, partly because they felt Heinlein should have been free to create his own story, and partly because they believed that the changed ending turned a tragedy into a mere adventure, and not a very well constructed one at that. Podkayne appears in Heinlein's later novel The Number of the Beast, attending the party at the end along with many other Heinlein characters from previous books.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " own story, and partly because they believed that the changed ending turned a tragedy into a mere adventure, and not a very well constructed one at that. Podkayne appears in Heinlein's later novel The Number of the Beast, attending the party at the end along with many other Heinlein characters from previous books.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Story of O",
    "author": "Pauline R\u00e9age",
    "published_date": "1954",
    "synopsis": " Published in French by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, Story of O is a tale of female submission about a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer, O, who is blindfolded, chained, whipped, branded, pierced, made to wear a mask, and taught to be constantly available for oral, vaginal, and anal intercourse. Despite her harsh treatment, O grants permission beforehand for everything that occurs, and her permission is consistently sought. At the beginning of the story, O's lover, Ren\u00e9, brings her to the ch\u00e2teau of Roissy, where she is trained to serve the men of an elite group. After this first period of training is finished, as a demonstration of their bond and his generosity, Ren\u00e9 hands O to Sir Stephen, a more dominant master. Ren\u00e9 wants O to learn to serve someone whom she does not love, and someone who does not love her. Over the course of this training, O falls in love with Sir Stephen and believes him to be in love with her as well. While her vain friend and lover, Jacqueline, is repulsed by O's chains and scars, O herself is proud of her condition as a willing slave. During the summer, Sir Stephen decides to move O to Samois, an old mansion solely inhabited by women for advanced training and body modifications related to submission. There she agrees to receive a branding and a labia piercing with rings marked with Sir Stephen's initials and insignia. At the climax, O appears as a slave, nude but for an owl-like mask, before a large party of guests who treat her solely as an object.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Published in French by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, Story of O is a tale of female submission about a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer, O, who is blindfolded, chained, whipped, branded, pierced, made to wear a mask, and taught to be constantly available for oral, vaginal, and anal intercourse. Despite her harsh treatment, O grants permission beforehand for everything that occurs, and her permission is consistently sought. At the beginning of the story, O's lover, Ren\u00e9, brings her to the ch\u00e2teau of Roissy, where she is trained to serve the men of an elite group. After this first period of training is finished, as a demonstration of their bond and his generosity, Ren\u00e9 hands O to Sir Stephen, a more dominant master. Ren\u00e9 wants O to learn to serve someone whom she does not love, and someone who does not love her. Over the course of this training, O falls in love with Sir Stephen and believes him to be in love with her as well. While her vain friend and lover, Jacqueline, is repulsed by O's chains and scars, O herself is proud of her condition as a willing slave. During the summer, Sir Stephen decides to move O to Samois, an old mansion solely inhabited by women for advanced training and body modifications related to submission. There she agrees to receive a branding and a labia piercing with rings marked with Sir Stephen's initials and insignia. At the climax, O appears as a slave, nude but for an owl-like mask, before a large party of guests who treat her solely as an object.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " as a slave, nude but for an owl-like mask, before a large party of guests who treat her solely as an object.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Star Beast",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1954",
    "synopsis": " An ancestor of John Thomas Stuart XI brought the alien, long-lived Lummox home from an interstellar voyage. The articulate, sentient pet he inherited has gradually grown from the size of a collie pup to a ridable behemoth\u2014especially after consuming a used car. The childlike Lummox is perceived to be a neighborhood nuisance and, upon leaving the Stuart property one day, causes substantial property damage across the city of Westville. John's mother wants him to get rid of it, and a court orders it destroyed. Desperate to save his pet, John Thomas considers selling Lummox to a zoo. He rapidly changes his mind and runs away from home, riding into the nearby wilderness on Lummox's back. His girlfriend Betty Sorenson joins him and suggests bringing the beast back into town and hiding it in a neighbor's greenhouse. However, it isn't easy to conceal such a large creature. Eventually, the court tries to have Lummox destroyed, but is unable to do so, much to Lummox's amusement. Meanwhile, representatives of an advanced, powerful and previously unknown alien race appear and demand the return of their lost child...or else. A friendly alien diplomat of a third species intimates that the threat is not an empty one. Initially, no one associates Lummox with the newcomers, in part due to the size difference (Lummox was overfed). Lummox is identified as royalty, complicating the already-tense negotiations. It is discovered that, from her viewpoint, the young Lummox has been pursuing her only hobby and principal interest: the raising of John Thomases. She makes it clear that she intends to continue doing so. This gives the chief human negotiator the leverage he needs to avert the destruction of Earth. At the request of Lummox, the recently married John and Betty accompany her back to her people as members of the human diplomatic mission.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " An ancestor of John Thomas Stuart XI brought the alien, long-lived Lummox home from an interstellar voyage. The articulate, sentient pet he inherited has gradually grown from the size of a collie pup to a ridable behemoth\u2014especially after consuming a used car. The childlike Lummox is perceived to be a neighborhood nuisance and, upon leaving the Stuart property one day, causes substantial property damage across the city of Westville. John's mother wants him to get rid of it, and a court orders it destroyed. Desperate to save his pet, John Thomas considers selling Lummox to a zoo. He rapidly changes his mind and runs away from home, riding into the nearby wilderness on Lummox's back. His girlfriend Betty Sorenson joins him and suggests bringing the beast back into town and hiding it in a neighbor's greenhouse. However, it isn't easy to conceal such a large creature. Eventually, the court tries to have Lummox destroyed, but is unable to do so, much to Lummox's amusement. Meanwhile, representatives of an advanced, powerful and previously unknown alien race appear and demand the return of their lost child...or else. A friendly alien diplomat of a third species intimates that the threat is not an empty one. Initially, no one associates Lummox with the newcomers, in part due to the size difference (Lummox was overfed). Lummox is identified as royalty, complicating the already-tense negotiations. It is discovered that, from her viewpoint, the young Lummox has been pursuing her only hobby and principal interest: the raising of John Thomases. She makes it clear that she intends to continue doing so. This gives the chief human negotiator the leverage he needs to avert the destruction of Earth. At the request of Lummox, the recently married John and Betty accompany her back to her people as members of the human diplomatic mission.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " negotiations. It is discovered that, from her viewpoint, the young Lummox has been pursuing her only hobby and principal interest: the raising of John Thomases. She makes it clear that she intends to continue doing so. This gives the chief human negotiator the leverage he needs to avert the destruction of Earth. At the request of Lummox, the recently married John and Betty accompany her back to her people as members of the human diplomatic mission.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dr. No",
    "author": "Ian Fleming",
    "published_date": "1958-03-31",
    "synopsis": " After recovering from tetrodotoxin poisoning inflicted by SMERSH agent Rosa Klebb (see From Russia, with Love) MI6 agent James Bond is sent by his superior, M, on a \"rest cure\" to Jamaica. Whilst there his task is a simple assignment to investigate the disappearance of Commander John Strangways, the head of MI6 Station J in Kingston, Jamaica, and his secretary. Bond is briefed that Strangways had been investigating the activities of Dr. Julius No, a reclusive Chinese-German who lives on Crab Key and runs a guano mine; the island is said to be the home of a vicious dragon with a colony of Roseate Spoonbills at one end. The Spoonbills are protected by the National Audubon Society, two of whose representatives had died when their plane crashed on Dr. No's airstrip. On his arrival in Jamaica, Bond soon realises that he is being watched, as his hotel room is searched, a basket of poisoned fruit is delivered to his hotel room (supposedly a gift from the colonial governor) and a deadly centipede is placed in his bed while he is sleeping. With the help of old friend Quarrel, Bond visits Crab Key to establish if there is a connection between Dr. No and Strangways' disappearance. There he and Quarrel meet Honeychile Rider, who visits the island to collect valuable shells. Bond and Honey are captured by No's men after Quarrel is burned to death by the doctor's \"dragon\" \u2013 a flamethrowing armoured swamp buggy to keep away trespassers. Bond discovers that Dr. No is also working with the Russians and has built an elaborate underground facility from which he can sabotage American missile tests at nearby Cape Canaveral. No had previously been a member of a Chinese Tong, but after he stole a large amount of money from their treasury, he was captured by the organisation, whose leaders had his hands cut off as a sign of punishment for theft, and then ordered him shot. The Tong thought they shot him through the heart. However, because No's heart was on the right-hand side of his body (dextrocardia), the bullet missed his heart and he survived. Interested in the ability of the human body to withstand and survive pain, No forces Bond to navigate his way through an obstacle course constructed in the facility's ventilation system. He is kept under regular observation, suffering electric shocks, burns and an encounter with large poisonous spiders along the way. The ordeal ends in a fight against a captive giant squid, which Bond defeats by using improvised and stolen objects made into weapons. After his escape he encounters Honey from her ordeal where she had been pegged out to be eaten by crabs; the crabs ignored her and she had managed to make good her own escape. Bond kills Dr. No by taking over the guano-loading machine at the docks and diverting the guano flow from it to bury the villain alive. Bond and Honey then escape from No's complex in the dragon buggy.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After recovering from tetrodotoxin poisoning inflicted by SMERSH agent Rosa Klebb (see From Russia, with Love) MI6 agent James Bond is sent by his superior, M, on a \"rest cure\" to Jamaica. Whilst there his task is a simple assignment to investigate the disappearance of Commander John Strangways, the head of MI6 Station J in Kingston, Jamaica, and his secretary. Bond is briefed that Strangways had been investigating the activities of Dr. Julius No, a reclusive Chinese-German who lives on Crab Key and runs a guano mine; the island is said to be the home of a vicious dragon with a colony of Roseate Spoonbills at one end. The Spoonbills are protected by the National Audubon Society, two of whose representatives had died when their plane crashed on Dr. No's airstrip. On his arrival in Jamaica, Bond soon realises that he is being watched, as his hotel room is searched, a basket of poisoned fruit is delivered to his hotel room (supposedly a gift from the colonial governor) and a deadly centipede is placed in his bed while he is sleeping. With the help of old friend Quarrel, Bond visits Crab Key to establish if there is a connection between Dr. No and Strangways' disappearance. There he and Quarrel meet Honeychile Rider, who visits the island to collect valuable shells. Bond and Honey are captured by No's men after Quarrel is burned to death by the doctor's \"dragon\" \u2013 a flamethrowing armoured swamp buggy to keep away trespassers. Bond discovers that Dr. No is also working with the Russians and has built an elaborate underground facility from which he can sabotage American missile tests at nearby Cape Canaveral. No had previously been a member of a Chinese Tong, but after he stole a large amount of money from their treasury, he was captured by the organisation, whose leaders had his hands"
      },
      {
        "text": "arrel is burned to death by the doctor's \"dragon\" \u2013 a flamethrowing armoured swamp buggy to keep away trespassers. Bond discovers that Dr. No is also working with the Russians and has built an elaborate underground facility from which he can sabotage American missile tests at nearby Cape Canaveral. No had previously been a member of a Chinese Tong, but after he stole a large amount of money from their treasury, he was captured by the organisation, whose leaders had his hands cut off as a sign of punishment for theft, and then ordered him shot. The Tong thought they shot him through the heart. However, because No's heart was on the right-hand side of his body (dextrocardia), the bullet missed his heart and he survived. Interested in the ability of the human body to withstand and survive pain, No forces Bond to navigate his way through an obstacle course constructed in the facility's ventilation system. He is kept under regular observation, suffering electric shocks, burns and an encounter with large poisonous spiders along the way. The ordeal ends in a fight against a captive giant squid, which Bond defeats by using improvised and stolen objects made into weapons. After his escape he encounters Honey from her ordeal where she had been pegged out to be eaten by crabs; the crabs ignored her and she had managed to make good her own escape. Bond kills Dr. No by taking over the guano-loading machine at the docks and diverting the guano flow from it to bury the villain alive. Bond and Honey then escape from No's complex in the dragon buggy.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " from it to bury the villain alive. Bond and Honey then escape from No's complex in the dragon buggy.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Andromeda Strain",
    "author": "Michael Crichton",
    "published_date": "1969-05-12",
    "synopsis": " When a military satellite returns to Earth, a recovery team is dispatched to retrieve it; during a live radio communication with their base, the team members suddenly die. Aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town closest to where the satellite landed, is apparently dead. The base commander suspects the satellite returned with an extraterrestrial organism and recommends activating Wildfire, the government-sponsored team that counters extraterrestrial biological infestation. The Wildfire scientific team studying the unknown strain is composed of Dr. Jeremy Stone, bacteriologist specialist; Dr. Peter Leavitt, disease pathology; Dr. Charles Burton, infection vectors specialist; and Dr. Mark Hall, M.D., surgeon, biochemistry and pH specialist. Hall is the \"odd man\", since he is the only one without a spouse. The Robertson Odd Man Hypothesis states that unmarried men are capable of carrying out the best, most dispassionate decisions during crises and he is given the only key that can disarm the self-destruct mechanism. A fifth scientist, Dr. Christian Kirke, anthropologist and electrolytes specialist, was unavailable for duty because of appendicitis. The scientists believe the satellite, which was actually designed to capture upper-atmosphere microorganisms for bio-weapon exploitation, returned with a deadly microorganism that kills by nearly instantaneous disseminated intravascular coagulation (lethal blood clotting). Upon investigating the town, the Wildfire team discovers that the residents either died in mid-stride or went \"quietly nuts\" and committed bizarre suicides. Two Piedmont inhabitants, the sick, Sterno-addicted, geriatric Peter Jackson; and the constantly bawling infant, Jamie Ritter, are biologic opposites who somehow survived the organism. The man, infant, and satellite are taken to the secret underground Wildfire laboratory, a secure facility equipped with every known capacity for protection against a biological element escaping into the atmosphere, including a nuclear weapon to incinerate the facility if necessary. Wildfire is hidden in a remote area near the fictional town of Flatrock, Nevada, sixty miles from Las Vegas using a sort of purloined letter approach, by locating it in the sub-basements of a legitimate Department of Agriculture research station. Further investigation determines that the bizarre deaths were caused by a crystal-structured, extraterrestrial microbe on a meteor that crashed into the satellite, knocking it from orbit. The microbe contains chemical elements required for terrestrial life and appears to have a crystalline structure, but lacks DNA, RNA, proteins, and amino acids, yet it directly transforms matter to energy and vice versa. The microbe, code named \"Andromeda\", mutates with each growth cycle, changing its biologic properties. The scientists learn that Andromeda grows only within a narrow pH range; in a too-acid or too-basic growth medium, it will not multiply — Andromeda's pH range is 7.39\u20137.43, like that of human blood. That is why Jackson and Ritter survived: both had abnormal blood pH. However, by the time the scientists realize that, Andromeda's current mutation degrades the plastic shield and escapes its containment. Trapped in an Andromeda-contaminated laboratory, Dr. Burton demands that Stone inject him with Kalocin (\"the universal antibiotic\"); Stone refuses, arguing it would render Burton too vulnerable to infection by other harmful bacteria. Burton survives because Andromeda has already mutated to nonlethal form. The mutated Andromeda attacks the neoprene door and hatch seals within the Wildfire complex, racing to the upper levels and the surface. The self-destruct atomic bomb is automatically armed when it detects a containment breach, triggering its detonation countdown to incinerate all exo-biological diseases. As the bomb arms, the scientists realize that given Andromeda's ability to generate matter directly from energy, the organism would feed, reproduce, and ultimately benefit from an atomic explosion. To halt the atomic detonation, Dr. Hall must insert his special key to an emergency substation anywhere in Wildfire. Unfortunately, he is trapped in a section with no substation. He must navigate Wildfire's obstacle course of automatic defenses to reach a working substation on an upper level. He barely disarms the bomb in time before all the air is evacuated from the deepest level of the Wildfire complex. Andromeda eventually mutates to a benign form and is suspected to have migrated to the upper atmosphere, where the oxygen content is lower, better suiting Andromeda's growth. The novel's epilogue reveals that a manned spacecraft, Andros V, was incinerated during atmospheric re-entry, presumably because Andromeda Strain ate the plastic heat shield of Andros V and caused it to burn up.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " When a military satellite returns to Earth, a recovery team is dispatched to retrieve it; during a live radio communication with their base, the team members suddenly die. Aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town closest to where the satellite landed, is apparently dead. The base commander suspects the satellite returned with an extraterrestrial organism and recommends activating Wildfire, the government-sponsored team that counters extraterrestrial biological infestation. The Wildfire scientific team studying the unknown strain is composed of Dr. Jeremy Stone, bacteriologist specialist; Dr. Peter Leavitt, disease pathology; Dr. Charles Burton, infection vectors specialist; and Dr. Mark Hall, M.D., surgeon, biochemistry and pH specialist. Hall is the \"odd man\", since he is the only one without a spouse. The Robertson Odd Man Hypothesis states that unmarried men are capable of carrying out the best, most dispassionate decisions during crises and he is given the only key that can disarm the self-destruct mechanism. A fifth scientist, Dr. Christian Kirke, anthropologist and electrolytes specialist, was unavailable for duty because of appendicitis. The scientists believe the satellite, which was actually designed to capture upper-atmosphere microorganisms for bio-weapon exploitation, returned with a deadly microorganism that kills by nearly instantaneous disseminated intravascular coagulation (lethal blood clotting). Upon investigating the town, the Wildfire team discovers that the residents either died in mid-stride or went \"quietly nuts\" and committed bizarre suicides. Two Piedmont inhabitants, the sick, Sterno-addicted, geriatric Peter Jackson; and the constantly bawling infant, Jamie Ritter, are biologic opposites who somehow survived the organism. The man, infant, and satellite are taken to the secret underground Wildfire laboratory, a secure facility equipped with every known capacity for protection against a biological element escaping into the atmosphere, including a nuclear weapon to inciner"
      },
      {
        "text": "-stride or went \"quietly nuts\" and committed bizarre suicides. Two Piedmont inhabitants, the sick, Sterno-addicted, geriatric Peter Jackson; and the constantly bawling infant, Jamie Ritter, are biologic opposites who somehow survived the organism. The man, infant, and satellite are taken to the secret underground Wildfire laboratory, a secure facility equipped with every known capacity for protection against a biological element escaping into the atmosphere, including a nuclear weapon to incinerate the facility if necessary. Wildfire is hidden in a remote area near the fictional town of Flatrock, Nevada, sixty miles from Las Vegas using a sort of purloined letter approach, by locating it in the sub-basements of a legitimate Department of Agriculture research station. Further investigation determines that the bizarre deaths were caused by a crystal-structured, extraterrestrial microbe on a meteor that crashed into the satellite, knocking it from orbit. The microbe contains chemical elements required for terrestrial life and appears to have a crystalline structure, but lacks DNA, RNA, proteins, and amino acids, yet it directly transforms matter to energy and vice versa. The microbe, code named \"Andromeda\", mutates with each growth cycle, changing its biologic properties. The scientists learn that Andromeda grows only within a narrow pH range; in a too-acid or too-basic growth medium, it will not multiply — Andromeda's pH range is 7.39\u20137.43, like that of human blood. That is why Jackson and Ritter survived: both had abnormal blood pH. However, by the time the scientists realize that, Andromeda's current mutation degrades the plastic shield and escapes its containment. Trapped in an Andromeda-contaminated laboratory, Dr. Burton demands that Stone inject him with Kalocin (\"the universal antibiotic\"); Stone refuses, arguing it would render Burton too vulnerable to infection by other harmful bacteria. Burton survives because Andromeda"
      },
      {
        "text": "39\u20137.43, like that of human blood. That is why Jackson and Ritter survived: both had abnormal blood pH. However, by the time the scientists realize that, Andromeda's current mutation degrades the plastic shield and escapes its containment. Trapped in an Andromeda-contaminated laboratory, Dr. Burton demands that Stone inject him with Kalocin (\"the universal antibiotic\"); Stone refuses, arguing it would render Burton too vulnerable to infection by other harmful bacteria. Burton survives because Andromeda has already mutated to nonlethal form. The mutated Andromeda attacks the neoprene door and hatch seals within the Wildfire complex, racing to the upper levels and the surface. The self-destruct atomic bomb is automatically armed when it detects a containment breach, triggering its detonation countdown to incinerate all exo-biological diseases. As the bomb arms, the scientists realize that given Andromeda's ability to generate matter directly from energy, the organism would feed, reproduce, and ultimately benefit from an atomic explosion. To halt the atomic detonation, Dr. Hall must insert his special key to an emergency substation anywhere in Wildfire. Unfortunately, he is trapped in a section with no substation. He must navigate Wildfire's obstacle course of automatic defenses to reach a working substation on an upper level. He barely disarms the bomb in time before all the air is evacuated from the deepest level of the Wildfire complex. Andromeda eventually mutates to a benign form and is suspected to have migrated to the upper atmosphere, where the oxygen content is lower, better suiting Andromeda's growth. The novel's epilogue reveals that a manned spacecraft, Andros V, was incinerated during atmospheric re-entry, presumably because Andromeda Strain ate the plastic heat shield of Andros V and caused it to burn up.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " to the upper atmosphere, where the oxygen content is lower, better suiting Andromeda's growth. The novel's epilogue reveals that a manned spacecraft, Andros V, was incinerated during atmospheric re-entry, presumably because Andromeda Strain ate the plastic heat shield of Andros V and caused it to burn up.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone",
    "author": "J. K. Rowling",
    "published_date": "1997-06-30",
    "synopsis": " Before the start of the novel, Voldemort, considered the most evil and powerful dark wizard in history, kills Harry's parents but mysteriously vanishes after trying to kill the infant Harry. While the wizarding world celebrates Voldemort's downfall, Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Rubeus Hagrid place the one year-old orphan in the care of his Muggle (non-wizard) uncle and aunt: Vernon and Petunia Dursley. For ten years, they and their son Dudley neglect, torment and abuse Harry. Shortly before Harry's eleventh birthday, a series of letters addressed to Harry arrive, but Vernon destroys them before Harry can read them. To get away from the letters, Vernon takes the family to a small island. As they are settling in, Hagrid bursts through the door to tell Harry what the Dursleys have kept him from finding out: Harry is a wizard and has been accepted at Hogwarts. Hagrid takes Harry to Diagon Alley, a magically-concealed shopping precinct in London, where Harry is bewildered to discover how famous he is among wizards as \"the boy who lived\". He also finds that he is quite wealthy, since a bequest from his parents has remained on deposit at Gringotts Wizarding Bank. Guided by Hagrid, he buys the books and equipment he needs for Hogwarts, as well as Hedwig the owl. At the wand shop, he finds that the wand that suits him best is the twin of Voldemort's; both wands contain feathers from the same phoenix. A month later Harry leaves the Dursleys' home to catch the Hogwarts Express from King's Cross railway station. There he meets the Weasley family, who show him how to pass through the magical wall to Platform 9\u00be, where the train is waiting. While on the train Harry makes friends with Ron Weasley, who tells him that someone tried to rob a vault at Gringotts. During the ride they meet Hermione Granger. Another new pupil, Draco Malfoy, accompanied by his sidekicks Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, offers to advise Harry, but Harry dislikes Draco's arrogance and prejudice. Before the term's first dinner in the school's Great Hall, the new pupils are allocated to houses by the magical Sorting Hat. Before it is Harry's turn, he catches Professor Snape's eye and feels a pain in the scar Voldemort left on his forehead. When it is Harry's turn to be sorted, the Hat wonders whether he should be in Slytherin, but when Harry objects, the Hat sends him to join the Weasleys in Gryffindor. While Harry is eating, he questions Percy Weasley about Snape. After a terrible first Potions lesson with Snape, Harry and Ron visit Hagrid, who lives in a rustic house on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. There they learn that the attempted robbery at Gringotts happened the day Harry withdrew money. Harry remembers that Hagrid had removed a small package from the vault that was broken into and searched. During the new pupils' first broom-flying lesson, Neville Longbottom breaks his wrist, and Draco takes advantage to throw the forgetful Neville's fragile Remembrall high in the air. Harry gives chase on his broomstick, catching the Remembrall inches from the ground. Professor McGonagall dashes out and appoints him as the new Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. When Draco tricks Ron and Harry, accompanied by Neville and Hermione Granger, into a midnight excursion, they accidentally enter a forbidden corridor and find a huge three-headed dog. The group hastily retreats, and Hermione notices that the dog is standing over a trap-door. Harry concludes that the monster is guarding the package Hagrid retrieved from Gringotts. After Ron criticises Hermione's ostentatious proficiency in Charms, she hides in tears in the girls' toilet. At the Halloween Night dinner,Professor Quirrell hastily reports that a troll has entered the dungeons. While everyone else returns to their dormitories, Harry and Ron rush to warn Hermione. The troll corners Hermione in the toilet but when Harry sticks his wand up one of its nostrils, Ron uses the levitation spell to knock out the troll with its own club. Afterwards, several professors arrive and Hermione takes the blame for the battle and becomes a firm friend of the two boys. The evening before Harry's first Quidditch match, he sees Snape receiving medical attention from Filch for a bite on his leg by the three-headed dog. During the game, Harry's broomstick goes out of control, endangering his life, and Hermione notices that Snape is staring at Harry and muttering. She dashes over to the Professors' stand, knocking over Professor Quirrell in her haste, and sets fire to Snape's robe. Harry regains control of his broomstick and catches the Golden Snitch, winning the game for Gryffindor. Hagrid refuses to believe that Snape was responsible for Harry's danger, but lets slip that he bought the three-headed dog, and that the monster is guarding a secret that belongs to Professor Dumbledore and someone called Nicolas Flamel. Harry and the Weasleys stay at Hogwarts for Christmas, and one of Harry's presents, from an anonymous donor, is an Invisibility Cloak owned by his father. Harry uses the Cloak to search the library's Restricted Section for information about the mysterious Flamel, has to evade Snape and Filch after an enchanted book shrieks an alarm, and slips into a room containing the Mirror of Erised, which shows his parents and several of their ancestors. Harry becomes addicted to the Mirror's visions and is rescued by Professor Dumbledore, who explains that it shows what the viewer most desperately longs for. When the rest of the pupils return for the next term, Draco plays a prank on Neville, and Harry consoles Neville with a sweet. The collectible card wrapped with the sweet identifies Flamel as an alchemist. Hermione soon finds that he is a 665-year-old man who possesses the only known Philosopher's Stone, from which can be extracted an elixir of life. A few days later Harry notices Snape sneaking towards the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. There he half-hears a furtive conversation about the Philosopher's Stone, in which Snape asks Professor Quirrell if he has found a way past the three-headed dog and menacingly tells Quirrell to decide whose side he is on. Harry concludes that Snape is trying to steal the Stone and Quirrell has helped prepare a series of defences for it, which was an almost fatal mistake. The three friends discover that Hagrid is raising a baby dragon, which is against wizard law, and arrange to smuggle it out of the country around midnight. Draco arrives, hoping to raise the alarm and get them into trouble, and goes to tell Professor McGonagall. Although Ron is bitten by the dragon and is sent to the infirmary, Harry and Hermione spirit the dragon safely away. However, they are caught, and Harry loses the Invisibility Cloak. As part of their punishment, Harry, Hermione, Draco, and Neville (who, trying to stop Harry and Hermione after hearing what Draco had been saying, had been caught by McGonagall as well) are compelled to help Hagrid to rescue a badly-injured unicorn in the Forbidden Forest. They split into two parties, and Harry and Draco find the unicorn dead, surrounded by its blood. A hooded figure crawls to the corpse and drinks the blood, while Draco screams and flees. The hooded figure moves towards Harry, who is knocked out by an agonising pain spreading from his scar. When Harry regains consciousness, the hooded figure has gone and a centaur, Firenze, offers to give him a ride back to the school. The centaur tells Harry that drinking a unicorn's blood will save the life of a mortally injured person, but at the price of having a cursed life from that moment on. Firenze suggests Voldemort drank the unicorn's blood to gain enough strength to make the elixir of life from the Philosopher's Stone, and regain full health by drinking that. On his return, Harry finds that someone has slipped the Invisibility Cloak under his sheets. A few weeks later, while relaxing after the end-of-session examinations, Harry suddenly wonders how something as illegal as a dragon's egg came into Hagrid's possession. The gamekeeper says he was given it by a hooded stranger who bought him several drinks and asked him how to get past the three-headed dog, which Hagrid admits is easy \u2013 music sends it to sleep. Realising that one of the Philosopher's Stone's defences is no longer secure, Harry goes to inform Professor Dumbledore, only to find that the headmaster has just left for an important meeting. Harry concludes that Snape faked the message that called Dumbledore away and will try to steal the Stone that night. Covered by the Invisibility Cloak, Harry and his two friends go to the three-headed dog's chamber, where Harry sends the beast to sleep by playing a flute given to him by Hagrid for Christmas. After lifting the trap-door, they encounter a series of obstacles, each of which requires special skills possessed by one of the three, and one of which requires Ron to sacrifice himself in a game of wizard's chess. In the final room Harry, now alone, finds Quirrell rather than Snape. Quirrell admits that he let in the troll that tried to kill Hermione on Halloween, and that he tried to kill Harry during the first Quidditch match but was knocked over by Hermione. Snape had been trying to protect Harry and suspected Quirrell. Quirrell serves Voldemort and, after failing to steal the Philosopher's Stone from Gringotts, allowed his master to possess him in order to improve their chances of success. However the only other object in the room is the Mirror of Erised, and Quirrell can see no sign of the Stone. At Voldemort's bidding, Quirrell forces Harry to stand in front of the Mirror. Harry feels the Stone drop into his pocket and tries to stall. Quirrell removes his turban, revealing the face of Voldemort on the back of his head. Voldemort/Quirrell tries to grab the Stone from Harry, but simply touching Harry causes Quirrell's flesh to burn. After further struggles Harry passes out. He awakes in the school hospital, where Professor Dumbledore tells him that he survived because his mother sacrificed her life to protect him, and Voldemort could not understand the power of such love. Voldemort left Quirrell to die, and is likely to return by some other means. Dumbledore had foreseen that the Mirror would show Voldemort/Quirrell only themselves making the elixir of life, as they wanted to use the Philosopher's Stone; Harry was able to see the Stone in the Mirror because he wanted to find it but not to use it. The Stone has now been destroyed. Harry returns to the Dursleys for the summer holiday, but does not tell them that under-age wizards are forbidden to use magic outside Hogwarts. After ten years, Harry became an eleven year-old boy. The Dursleys have kept the truth about Harry's parents from him, but it is revealed in the form of Rubeus Hagrid, who tells Harry that he is a wizard and has been accepted at Hogwarts for the autumn term. Harry takes the train to Hogwarts from King's Cross Station. On the train, Harry sits with and quickly befriends Ron Weasley; the two are also briefly visited by Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger. Later on in the journey, Malfoy comes into Harry and Ron's compartment with his friends Crabbe and Goyle and introduces himself. After Ron laughs at Draco's name, Draco offers to help Harry distinguish the wrong sort of wizards, but Harry declines. Upon arrival, the Sorting Hat places Harry, Hermione, Neville and Ron into Gryffindor House, one of the school's four houses, while Draco and his cronies are placed in Slytherin. After a broom-mounted game to save Neville's Remembrall, Harry joins Gryffindor's Quidditch team as their youngest Seeker in over a century. Shortly after school begins, Harry and his friends hear that someone broke into a previously emptied vault at the wizarding bank, Gringotts. The mystery deepens when they discover a monstrous three-headed dog, Fluffy, who guards a trapdoor in the forbidden third floor passageway. On Halloween, a troll enters the castle and traps Hermione in one of the girls' lavatories. Harry and Ron rescue her, but are caught by Professor McGonagall. Hermione defends the boys and takes the blame, which results in the three becoming close friends. Harry's broom becomes jinxed during his first Quidditch match, nearly resulting in Harry falling from a great height. Hermione believes that Professor Snape has cursed the broom and distracts him by setting his robes on fire, allowing Harry to catch the Golden Snitch and win the game for Gryffindor. At Christmas, Harry receives his father's Invisibility Cloak from an unknown source. Later, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, a strange mirror that shows Harry surrounded by his parents and the extended family he never knew. Later, Harry learns that Nicolas Flamel is the maker of the Sorcerer's Stone, a stone that gives the owner eternal life. Harry sees Professor Snape interrogating Professor Quirrell about getting past Fluffy, seemingly confirming the suspicion that Snape is trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone in order to restore Lord Voldemort to power. The trio discover that Hagrid is hiding a dragon egg, which hatches; since dragon breeding is illegal, they convince Hagrid to send the dragon to live with others of its kind. Harry and Hermione are caught returning to their dormitories after sending Norbert off and are forced to serve detention with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest. In the forest, Harry sees a hooded figure drink the blood of an injured unicorn. Firenze, a centaur, tells Harry that the hooded figure is Voldemort. Hagrid accidentally tells Harry, Ron, and Hermione how to get past Fluffy; and they rush to tell the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, what they know, only to find that he has been called away from the school. Convinced that Dumbledore's summons was a red herring to take him away while the Philosopher's Stone is stolen, the trio set out to reach the Stone first. They navigate a series of complex magical challenges set up by the school's faculty, and at the end of these challenges, Harry enters the inner chamber alone, only to find that it is the timid Professor Quirrell, not Snape, who is after the Stone. The final challenge protecting the Stone is the Mirror of Erised. Quirrell forces Harry to look into the mirror to discover where the Stone is hidden; and Harry successfully resists, and the Stone drops into his own pocket. Lord Voldemort reveals himself: he has possessed Quirrell and appears as a ghastly face on the back of Quirrell's head. Quirrell tries to attack Harry, but merely touching Harry proves to be agony for him. Voldemort flees and Quirrell dies as Dumbledore arrives back in time to save Harry. As Harry recovers, Dumbledore confirms that Lily had died while trying to protect Harry as an infant. Her pure, loving sacrifice provides her son with an ancient magical protection against Voldemort's lethal spells. Dumbledore also explains that the Philosopher's Stone has been destroyed to prevent Voldemort from ever using it. He then tells Harry that only those who wanted to find the Stone, but not use it, would be able to retrieve it from the mirror, which is why Harry could acquire it. When Harry asks Dumbledore why Voldemort attempted to kill him when he was an infant, Dumbledore promises to tell Harry when he is older. At the end-of-year feast, where Harry is welcomed as a hero. Dumbledore gives a few last-minute additions, granting enough points to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville Longbottom for Gryffindor to win the House Cup, ending Slytherin's six-year reign as house champions.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Before the start of the novel, Voldemort, considered the most evil and powerful dark wizard in history, kills Harry's parents but mysteriously vanishes after trying to kill the infant Harry. While the wizarding world celebrates Voldemort's downfall, Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Rubeus Hagrid place the one year-old orphan in the care of his Muggle (non-wizard) uncle and aunt: Vernon and Petunia Dursley. For ten years, they and their son Dudley neglect, torment and abuse Harry. Shortly before Harry's eleventh birthday, a series of letters addressed to Harry arrive, but Vernon destroys them before Harry can read them. To get away from the letters, Vernon takes the family to a small island. As they are settling in, Hagrid bursts through the door to tell Harry what the Dursleys have kept him from finding out: Harry is a wizard and has been accepted at Hogwarts. Hagrid takes Harry to Diagon Alley, a magically-concealed shopping precinct in London, where Harry is bewildered to discover how famous he is among wizards as \"the boy who lived\". He also finds that he is quite wealthy, since a bequest from his parents has remained on deposit at Gringotts Wizarding Bank. Guided by Hagrid, he buys the books and equipment he needs for Hogwarts, as well as Hedwig the owl. At the wand shop, he finds that the wand that suits him best is the twin of Voldemort's; both wands contain feathers from the same phoenix. A month later Harry leaves the Dursleys' home to catch the Hogwarts Express from King's Cross railway station. There he meets the Weasley family, who show him how to pass through the magical wall to Platform 9\u00be, where the train is waiting. While on the train Harry makes friends with Ron Weasley, who tells him that someone tried to rob a vault at Gringotts. During the ride"
      },
      {
        "text": " is the twin of Voldemort's; both wands contain feathers from the same phoenix. A month later Harry leaves the Dursleys' home to catch the Hogwarts Express from King's Cross railway station. There he meets the Weasley family, who show him how to pass through the magical wall to Platform 9\u00be, where the train is waiting. While on the train Harry makes friends with Ron Weasley, who tells him that someone tried to rob a vault at Gringotts. During the ride they meet Hermione Granger. Another new pupil, Draco Malfoy, accompanied by his sidekicks Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, offers to advise Harry, but Harry dislikes Draco's arrogance and prejudice. Before the term's first dinner in the school's Great Hall, the new pupils are allocated to houses by the magical Sorting Hat. Before it is Harry's turn, he catches Professor Snape's eye and feels a pain in the scar Voldemort left on his forehead. When it is Harry's turn to be sorted, the Hat wonders whether he should be in Slytherin, but when Harry objects, the Hat sends him to join the Weasleys in Gryffindor. While Harry is eating, he questions Percy Weasley about Snape. After a terrible first Potions lesson with Snape, Harry and Ron visit Hagrid, who lives in a rustic house on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. There they learn that the attempted robbery at Gringotts happened the day Harry withdrew money. Harry remembers that Hagrid had removed a small package from the vault that was broken into and searched. During the new pupils' first broom-flying lesson, Neville Longbottom breaks his wrist, and Draco takes advantage to throw the forgetful Neville's fragile Remembrall high in the air. Harry gives chase on his broomstick, catching the Remembrall inches from the ground. Professor McGonagall dashes out and appoints him as the new Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidd"
      },
      {
        "text": " Harry remembers that Hagrid had removed a small package from the vault that was broken into and searched. During the new pupils' first broom-flying lesson, Neville Longbottom breaks his wrist, and Draco takes advantage to throw the forgetful Neville's fragile Remembrall high in the air. Harry gives chase on his broomstick, catching the Remembrall inches from the ground. Professor McGonagall dashes out and appoints him as the new Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. When Draco tricks Ron and Harry, accompanied by Neville and Hermione Granger, into a midnight excursion, they accidentally enter a forbidden corridor and find a huge three-headed dog. The group hastily retreats, and Hermione notices that the dog is standing over a trap-door. Harry concludes that the monster is guarding the package Hagrid retrieved from Gringotts. After Ron criticises Hermione's ostentatious proficiency in Charms, she hides in tears in the girls' toilet. At the Halloween Night dinner,Professor Quirrell hastily reports that a troll has entered the dungeons. While everyone else returns to their dormitories, Harry and Ron rush to warn Hermione. The troll corners Hermione in the toilet but when Harry sticks his wand up one of its nostrils, Ron uses the levitation spell to knock out the troll with its own club. Afterwards, several professors arrive and Hermione takes the blame for the battle and becomes a firm friend of the two boys. The evening before Harry's first Quidditch match, he sees Snape receiving medical attention from Filch for a bite on his leg by the three-headed dog. During the game, Harry's broomstick goes out of control, endangering his life, and Hermione notices that Snape is staring at Harry and muttering. She dashes over to the Professors' stand, knocking over Professor Quirrell in her haste, and sets fire to Snape's robe. Harry regains control of his broomstick and"
      },
      {
        "text": " before Harry's first Quidditch match, he sees Snape receiving medical attention from Filch for a bite on his leg by the three-headed dog. During the game, Harry's broomstick goes out of control, endangering his life, and Hermione notices that Snape is staring at Harry and muttering. She dashes over to the Professors' stand, knocking over Professor Quirrell in her haste, and sets fire to Snape's robe. Harry regains control of his broomstick and catches the Golden Snitch, winning the game for Gryffindor. Hagrid refuses to believe that Snape was responsible for Harry's danger, but lets slip that he bought the three-headed dog, and that the monster is guarding a secret that belongs to Professor Dumbledore and someone called Nicolas Flamel. Harry and the Weasleys stay at Hogwarts for Christmas, and one of Harry's presents, from an anonymous donor, is an Invisibility Cloak owned by his father. Harry uses the Cloak to search the library's Restricted Section for information about the mysterious Flamel, has to evade Snape and Filch after an enchanted book shrieks an alarm, and slips into a room containing the Mirror of Erised, which shows his parents and several of their ancestors. Harry becomes addicted to the Mirror's visions and is rescued by Professor Dumbledore, who explains that it shows what the viewer most desperately longs for. When the rest of the pupils return for the next term, Draco plays a prank on Neville, and Harry consoles Neville with a sweet. The collectible card wrapped with the sweet identifies Flamel as an alchemist. Hermione soon finds that he is a 665-year-old man who possesses the only known Philosopher's Stone, from which can be extracted an elixir of life. A few days later Harry notices Snape sneaking towards the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. There he half-hears a furtive conversation about the Philosopher's Stone, in which Snape asks Professor"
      },
      {
        "text": " Neville, and Harry consoles Neville with a sweet. The collectible card wrapped with the sweet identifies Flamel as an alchemist. Hermione soon finds that he is a 665-year-old man who possesses the only known Philosopher's Stone, from which can be extracted an elixir of life. A few days later Harry notices Snape sneaking towards the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. There he half-hears a furtive conversation about the Philosopher's Stone, in which Snape asks Professor Quirrell if he has found a way past the three-headed dog and menacingly tells Quirrell to decide whose side he is on. Harry concludes that Snape is trying to steal the Stone and Quirrell has helped prepare a series of defences for it, which was an almost fatal mistake. The three friends discover that Hagrid is raising a baby dragon, which is against wizard law, and arrange to smuggle it out of the country around midnight. Draco arrives, hoping to raise the alarm and get them into trouble, and goes to tell Professor McGonagall. Although Ron is bitten by the dragon and is sent to the infirmary, Harry and Hermione spirit the dragon safely away. However, they are caught, and Harry loses the Invisibility Cloak. As part of their punishment, Harry, Hermione, Draco, and Neville (who, trying to stop Harry and Hermione after hearing what Draco had been saying, had been caught by McGonagall as well) are compelled to help Hagrid to rescue a badly-injured unicorn in the Forbidden Forest. They split into two parties, and Harry and Draco find the unicorn dead, surrounded by its blood. A hooded figure crawls to the corpse and drinks the blood, while Draco screams and flees. The hooded figure moves towards Harry, who is knocked out by an agonising pain spreading from his scar. When Harry regains consciousness, the hooded figure has gone and a centaur, Firenze,"
      },
      {
        "text": " help Hagrid to rescue a badly-injured unicorn in the Forbidden Forest. They split into two parties, and Harry and Draco find the unicorn dead, surrounded by its blood. A hooded figure crawls to the corpse and drinks the blood, while Draco screams and flees. The hooded figure moves towards Harry, who is knocked out by an agonising pain spreading from his scar. When Harry regains consciousness, the hooded figure has gone and a centaur, Firenze, offers to give him a ride back to the school. The centaur tells Harry that drinking a unicorn's blood will save the life of a mortally injured person, but at the price of having a cursed life from that moment on. Firenze suggests Voldemort drank the unicorn's blood to gain enough strength to make the elixir of life from the Philosopher's Stone, and regain full health by drinking that. On his return, Harry finds that someone has slipped the Invisibility Cloak under his sheets. A few weeks later, while relaxing after the end-of-session examinations, Harry suddenly wonders how something as illegal as a dragon's egg came into Hagrid's possession. The gamekeeper says he was given it by a hooded stranger who bought him several drinks and asked him how to get past the three-headed dog, which Hagrid admits is easy \u2013 music sends it to sleep. Realising that one of the Philosopher's Stone's defences is no longer secure, Harry goes to inform Professor Dumbledore, only to find that the headmaster has just left for an important meeting. Harry concludes that Snape faked the message that called Dumbledore away and will try to steal the Stone that night. Covered by the Invisibility Cloak, Harry and his two friends go to the three-headed dog's chamber, where Harry sends the beast to sleep by playing a flute given to him by Hagrid for Christmas. After lifting the trap-door, they encounter a series of obstacles,"
      },
      {
        "text": " to inform Professor Dumbledore, only to find that the headmaster has just left for an important meeting. Harry concludes that Snape faked the message that called Dumbledore away and will try to steal the Stone that night. Covered by the Invisibility Cloak, Harry and his two friends go to the three-headed dog's chamber, where Harry sends the beast to sleep by playing a flute given to him by Hagrid for Christmas. After lifting the trap-door, they encounter a series of obstacles, each of which requires special skills possessed by one of the three, and one of which requires Ron to sacrifice himself in a game of wizard's chess. In the final room Harry, now alone, finds Quirrell rather than Snape. Quirrell admits that he let in the troll that tried to kill Hermione on Halloween, and that he tried to kill Harry during the first Quidditch match but was knocked over by Hermione. Snape had been trying to protect Harry and suspected Quirrell. Quirrell serves Voldemort and, after failing to steal the Philosopher's Stone from Gringotts, allowed his master to possess him in order to improve their chances of success. However the only other object in the room is the Mirror of Erised, and Quirrell can see no sign of the Stone. At Voldemort's bidding, Quirrell forces Harry to stand in front of the Mirror. Harry feels the Stone drop into his pocket and tries to stall. Quirrell removes his turban, revealing the face of Voldemort on the back of his head. Voldemort/Quirrell tries to grab the Stone from Harry, but simply touching Harry causes Quirrell's flesh to burn. After further struggles Harry passes out. He awakes in the school hospital, where Professor Dumbledore tells him that he survived because his mother sacrificed her life to protect him, and Voldemort could not understand the power of such love. Voldemort left Quirrell to die, and is likely to return by some other"
      },
      {
        "text": "ban, revealing the face of Voldemort on the back of his head. Voldemort/Quirrell tries to grab the Stone from Harry, but simply touching Harry causes Quirrell's flesh to burn. After further struggles Harry passes out. He awakes in the school hospital, where Professor Dumbledore tells him that he survived because his mother sacrificed her life to protect him, and Voldemort could not understand the power of such love. Voldemort left Quirrell to die, and is likely to return by some other means. Dumbledore had foreseen that the Mirror would show Voldemort/Quirrell only themselves making the elixir of life, as they wanted to use the Philosopher's Stone; Harry was able to see the Stone in the Mirror because he wanted to find it but not to use it. The Stone has now been destroyed. Harry returns to the Dursleys for the summer holiday, but does not tell them that under-age wizards are forbidden to use magic outside Hogwarts. After ten years, Harry became an eleven year-old boy. The Dursleys have kept the truth about Harry's parents from him, but it is revealed in the form of Rubeus Hagrid, who tells Harry that he is a wizard and has been accepted at Hogwarts for the autumn term. Harry takes the train to Hogwarts from King's Cross Station. On the train, Harry sits with and quickly befriends Ron Weasley; the two are also briefly visited by Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger. Later on in the journey, Malfoy comes into Harry and Ron's compartment with his friends Crabbe and Goyle and introduces himself. After Ron laughs at Draco's name, Draco offers to help Harry distinguish the wrong sort of wizards, but Harry declines. Upon arrival, the Sorting Hat places Harry, Hermione, Neville and Ron into Gryffindor House, one of the school's four houses, while Draco and his cronies are placed in Slytherin. After a broom-mounted game to save Neville's Remem"
      },
      {
        "text": " journey, Malfoy comes into Harry and Ron's compartment with his friends Crabbe and Goyle and introduces himself. After Ron laughs at Draco's name, Draco offers to help Harry distinguish the wrong sort of wizards, but Harry declines. Upon arrival, the Sorting Hat places Harry, Hermione, Neville and Ron into Gryffindor House, one of the school's four houses, while Draco and his cronies are placed in Slytherin. After a broom-mounted game to save Neville's Remembrall, Harry joins Gryffindor's Quidditch team as their youngest Seeker in over a century. Shortly after school begins, Harry and his friends hear that someone broke into a previously emptied vault at the wizarding bank, Gringotts. The mystery deepens when they discover a monstrous three-headed dog, Fluffy, who guards a trapdoor in the forbidden third floor passageway. On Halloween, a troll enters the castle and traps Hermione in one of the girls' lavatories. Harry and Ron rescue her, but are caught by Professor McGonagall. Hermione defends the boys and takes the blame, which results in the three becoming close friends. Harry's broom becomes jinxed during his first Quidditch match, nearly resulting in Harry falling from a great height. Hermione believes that Professor Snape has cursed the broom and distracts him by setting his robes on fire, allowing Harry to catch the Golden Snitch and win the game for Gryffindor. At Christmas, Harry receives his father's Invisibility Cloak from an unknown source. Later, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, a strange mirror that shows Harry surrounded by his parents and the extended family he never knew. Later, Harry learns that Nicolas Flamel is the maker of the Sorcerer's Stone, a stone that gives the owner eternal life. Harry sees Professor Snape interrogating Professor Quirrell about getting past Fluffy, seemingly confirming the suspicion that Snape is trying to steal the Philosopher"
      },
      {
        "text": " At Christmas, Harry receives his father's Invisibility Cloak from an unknown source. Later, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, a strange mirror that shows Harry surrounded by his parents and the extended family he never knew. Later, Harry learns that Nicolas Flamel is the maker of the Sorcerer's Stone, a stone that gives the owner eternal life. Harry sees Professor Snape interrogating Professor Quirrell about getting past Fluffy, seemingly confirming the suspicion that Snape is trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone in order to restore Lord Voldemort to power. The trio discover that Hagrid is hiding a dragon egg, which hatches; since dragon breeding is illegal, they convince Hagrid to send the dragon to live with others of its kind. Harry and Hermione are caught returning to their dormitories after sending Norbert off and are forced to serve detention with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest. In the forest, Harry sees a hooded figure drink the blood of an injured unicorn. Firenze, a centaur, tells Harry that the hooded figure is Voldemort. Hagrid accidentally tells Harry, Ron, and Hermione how to get past Fluffy; and they rush to tell the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, what they know, only to find that he has been called away from the school. Convinced that Dumbledore's summons was a red herring to take him away while the Philosopher's Stone is stolen, the trio set out to reach the Stone first. They navigate a series of complex magical challenges set up by the school's faculty, and at the end of these challenges, Harry enters the inner chamber alone, only to find that it is the timid Professor Quirrell, not Snape, who is after the Stone. The final challenge protecting the Stone is the Mirror of Erised. Quirrell forces Harry to look into the mirror to discover where the Stone is hidden; and Harry successfully resists, and the Stone drops into his own pocket. Lord Voldemort reveals himself:"
      },
      {
        "text": " series of complex magical challenges set up by the school's faculty, and at the end of these challenges, Harry enters the inner chamber alone, only to find that it is the timid Professor Quirrell, not Snape, who is after the Stone. The final challenge protecting the Stone is the Mirror of Erised. Quirrell forces Harry to look into the mirror to discover where the Stone is hidden; and Harry successfully resists, and the Stone drops into his own pocket. Lord Voldemort reveals himself: he has possessed Quirrell and appears as a ghastly face on the back of Quirrell's head. Quirrell tries to attack Harry, but merely touching Harry proves to be agony for him. Voldemort flees and Quirrell dies as Dumbledore arrives back in time to save Harry. As Harry recovers, Dumbledore confirms that Lily had died while trying to protect Harry as an infant. Her pure, loving sacrifice provides her son with an ancient magical protection against Voldemort's lethal spells. Dumbledore also explains that the Philosopher's Stone has been destroyed to prevent Voldemort from ever using it. He then tells Harry that only those who wanted to find the Stone, but not use it, would be able to retrieve it from the mirror, which is why Harry could acquire it. When Harry asks Dumbledore why Voldemort attempted to kill him when he was an infant, Dumbledore promises to tell Harry when he is older. At the end-of-year feast, where Harry is welcomed as a hero. Dumbledore gives a few last-minute additions, granting enough points to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville Longbottom for Gryffindor to win the House Cup, ending Slytherin's six-year reign as house champions.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " gives a few last-minute additions, granting enough points to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville Longbottom for Gryffindor to win the House Cup, ending Slytherin's six-year reign as house champions.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Down and Out in Paris and London",
    "author": "George Orwell",
    "published_date": "1933-01-09",
    "synopsis": " Two verbless sentences introduce the scene-setting opening chapters, which describe the atmosphere in the Paris quarter and introduce various characters who appear later in the book. From Chapter III to Chapter X, where the narrator obtains a job at \"Hotel X,\" he describes his descent into poverty, often in tragi-comic terms. An Italian compositor forges room keys and steals his savings and his scant income vanishes when the English lessons he is giving stop. He begins at first to \"sell\" some of his clothes, and then to \"pawn\" his remaining clothes, and then searches for work with a Russian waiter named Boris\u2014work as a porter at Les Halles, work as an English teacher and restaurant work. He recounts his two-day experience without any food and tells of meeting Russian \"Communists\" who, he later concludes, on their disappearance, must be mere swindlers. After the various ordeals of unemployment and hunger the narrator obtains a job as a plongeur (dishwasher) in the \"H\u00f4tel X\" near the Place de la Concorde, and begins to work long hours there. In Chapter XIII, he describes the \"caste system\" of the hotel\u2014\"manager-cooks-waiters-plongeurs\"\u2014and, in Chapter XIV, its frantic and seemingly chaotic workings. He notes also \"the dirt in the H\u00f4tel X.,\" which became apparent \"as soon as one penetrated into the service quarters.\" He talks of his routine life among the working poor of Paris, slaving and sleeping, and then drinking on Saturday night through the early hours of Sunday morning. In Chapter XVI, he refers briefly to a murder committed \"just beneath my window [while he was sleeping .... The thing that strikes me in looking back,\" he says, \"is that I was in bed and asleep within three minutes of the murder [....] We were working people, and where was the sense of wasting sleep over a murder?\" Misled by Boris's optimism, the narrator is briefly penniless again after he and Boris quit their hotel jobs in the expectation of work at a new restaurant, the \"Auberge de Jehan Cottard,\" where Boris feels sure he will become a waiter again; at the Hotel X, he had been doing lower-grade work. The \"patron\" of the Auberge, \"an ex-colonel of the Russian Army,\" seems to have financial difficulties. The narrator is not paid for ten days and is compelled to spend a night on a bench\u2014\"It was very uncomfortable\u2014the arm of the seat cuts into your back\u2014and much colder than I had expected\"\u2014rather than face his landlady over the outstanding rent. At the restaurant, the narrator finds himself working \"seventeen and a half hours\" a day, \"almost without a break,\" and looking back wistfully at his relatively leisured and orderly life at the Hotel X. Boris works even longer: \"eighteen hours a day, seven days a week.\" The narrator claims that \"such hours, though not usual, are nothing extraordinary in Paris.\" He adds by the way, that the Auberge was not the ordinary cheap eating-house frequented by students and workmen. We did not provide an adequate meal at less than twenty-five francs, and we were picturesque and artistic, which sent up our social standing. There were the indecent pictures in the bar, and the Norman decorations\u2014sham beams on the walls, electric lights done up as candlesticks, \"peasant\" pottery, even a mounting-block at the door\u2014and the patron and the head waiter were Russian officers, and many of the customers titled Russian refugees. In short, we were decidedly chic. He falls into a routine again and speaks of quite literally fighting for a place on the Paris M\u00e9tro in order to reach the "cold, filthy kitchen" by seven. Despite the filth and incompetence, the restaurant turns out to be a success. The narrative is interspersed with anecdotes recounted by some of the minor characters, such as Valenti, an Italian waiter at Hotel X, and Charlie, "one of the local curiosities," who is "a youth of family and education who had run away from home." In Chapter XXII, the narrator considers the life of a plongeur: [A] plongeur is one of the slaves of the modern world. Not that there is any need to whine over him, for he is better off than many manual workers, but still, he is no freer than if he were bought and sold. His work is servile and without art; he is paid just enough to keep him alive; his only holiday is the sack [.... He has] been trapped by a routine which makes thought impossible. If plongeurs thought at all, they would long ago have formed a labour union and gone on strike for better treatment. But they do not think, because they have no leisure for it; their life has made slaves of them. Because of the stress of the long hours, he mails to a friend, "B," back in London, asking if he could get him a job that allows more than five hours' sleep a night. His friend duly replies, offering a job taking care of a "congenital imbecile," and sends him some money to get his possessions from the pawn. The narrator then quits his job as a plongeur and leaves for London. The narrator arrives in London expecting to have the job waiting for him. Unfortunately the would-be employers have gone abroad, "patient and all." Until his employers return, the narrator lives as a tramp, sleeping in an assortment of venues: lodging houses, tramps' hostels or "spikes," and Salvation Army shelters. Because vagrants can not "enter any one spike, or any two London spikes, more than once in a month, on pain of being confined for a week," he is required to keep on the move, with the result that long hours are spent tramping or waiting for hostels to open. Chapters XXV to XXXV describe his various journeys, the different forms of accommodation, a selection of the people he meets, and the tramps' reaction to Christian charity: "Evidently the tramps were not grateful for their free tea. And yet it was excellent [....] I am sure too that it was given in a good spirit, without any intention of humiliating us; so in fairness we ought to have been grateful\u2014still, we were not." Characters in this section of the book include the Irish tramp called Paddy, "a good fellow" whose "ignorance was limitless and appalling," and the pavement artist Bozo, who has a good literary background and was formerly an amateur astronomer, but who has suffered a succession of misfortunes. The final chapters provide a catalogue of various types of accommodation open to tramps. The narrator offers some general remarks, concluding, At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty. Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Two verbless sentences introduce the scene-setting opening chapters, which describe the atmosphere in the Paris quarter and introduce various characters who appear later in the book. From Chapter III to Chapter X, where the narrator obtains a job at \"Hotel X,\" he describes his descent into poverty, often in tragi-comic terms. An Italian compositor forges room keys and steals his savings and his scant income vanishes when the English lessons he is giving stop. He begins at first to \"sell\" some of his clothes, and then to \"pawn\" his remaining clothes, and then searches for work with a Russian waiter named Boris\u2014work as a porter at Les Halles, work as an English teacher and restaurant work. He recounts his two-day experience without any food and tells of meeting Russian \"Communists\" who, he later concludes, on their disappearance, must be mere swindlers. After the various ordeals of unemployment and hunger the narrator obtains a job as a plongeur (dishwasher) in the \"H\u00f4tel X\" near the Place de la Concorde, and begins to work long hours there. In Chapter XIII, he describes the \"caste system\" of the hotel\u2014\"manager-cooks-waiters-plongeurs\"\u2014and, in Chapter XIV, its frantic and seemingly chaotic workings. He notes also \"the dirt in the H\u00f4tel X.,\" which became apparent \"as soon as one penetrated into the service quarters.\" He talks of his routine life among the working poor of Paris, slaving and sleeping, and then drinking on Saturday night through the early hours of Sunday morning. In Chapter XVI, he refers briefly to a murder committed \"just beneath my window [while he was sleeping .... The thing that strikes me in looking back,\" he says, \"is that I was in bed and asleep within three minutes of the murder [....] We were working people, and where was the sense of wasting sleep over"
      },
      {
        "text": " quarters.\" He talks of his routine life among the working poor of Paris, slaving and sleeping, and then drinking on Saturday night through the early hours of Sunday morning. In Chapter XVI, he refers briefly to a murder committed \"just beneath my window [while he was sleeping .... The thing that strikes me in looking back,\" he says, \"is that I was in bed and asleep within three minutes of the murder [....] We were working people, and where was the sense of wasting sleep over a murder?\" Misled by Boris's optimism, the narrator is briefly penniless again after he and Boris quit their hotel jobs in the expectation of work at a new restaurant, the \"Auberge de Jehan Cottard,\" where Boris feels sure he will become a waiter again; at the Hotel X, he had been doing lower-grade work. The \"patron\" of the Auberge, \"an ex-colonel of the Russian Army,\" seems to have financial difficulties. The narrator is not paid for ten days and is compelled to spend a night on a bench\u2014\"It was very uncomfortable\u2014the arm of the seat cuts into your back\u2014and much colder than I had expected\"\u2014rather than face his landlady over the outstanding rent. At the restaurant, the narrator finds himself working \"seventeen and a half hours\" a day, \"almost without a break,\" and looking back wistfully at his relatively leisured and orderly life at the Hotel X. Boris works even longer: \"eighteen hours a day, seven days a week.\" The narrator claims that \"such hours, though not usual, are nothing extraordinary in Paris.\" He adds by the way, that the Auberge was not the ordinary cheap eating-house frequented by students and workmen. We did not provide an adequate meal at less than twenty-five francs, and we were picturesque and artistic, which sent up our social standing. There were the indecent pictures in"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Boris works even longer: \"eighteen hours a day, seven days a week.\" The narrator claims that \"such hours, though not usual, are nothing extraordinary in Paris.\" He adds by the way, that the Auberge was not the ordinary cheap eating-house frequented by students and workmen. We did not provide an adequate meal at less than twenty-five francs, and we were picturesque and artistic, which sent up our social standing. There were the indecent pictures in the bar, and the Norman decorations\u2014sham beams on the walls, electric lights done up as candlesticks, \"peasant\" pottery, even a mounting-block at the door\u2014and the patron and the head waiter were Russian officers, and many of the customers titled Russian refugees. In short, we were decidedly chic. He falls into a routine again and speaks of quite literally fighting for a place on the Paris M\u00e9tro in order to reach the "cold, filthy kitchen" by seven. Despite the filth and incompetence, the restaurant turns out to be a success. The narrative is interspersed with anecdotes recounted by some of the minor characters, such as Valenti, an Italian waiter at Hotel X, and Charlie, "one of the local curiosities," who is "a youth of family and education who had run away from home." In Chapter XXII, the narrator considers the life of a plongeur: [A] plongeur is one of the slaves of the modern world. Not that there is any need to whine over him, for he is better off than many manual workers, but still, he is no freer than if he were bought and sold. His work is servile and without art; he is paid just enough to keep him alive; his only holiday is the sack [.... He has] been trapped by a routine which makes"
      },
      {
        "text": " narrator considers the life of a plongeur: [A] plongeur is one of the slaves of the modern world. Not that there is any need to whine over him, for he is better off than many manual workers, but still, he is no freer than if he were bought and sold. His work is servile and without art; he is paid just enough to keep him alive; his only holiday is the sack [.... He has] been trapped by a routine which makes thought impossible. If plongeurs thought at all, they would long ago have formed a labour union and gone on strike for better treatment. But they do not think, because they have no leisure for it; their life has made slaves of them. Because of the stress of the long hours, he mails to a friend, "B," back in London, asking if he could get him a job that allows more than five hours' sleep a night. His friend duly replies, offering a job taking care of a "congenital imbecile," and sends him some money to get his possessions from the pawn. The narrator then quits his job as a plongeur and leaves for London. The narrator arrives in London expecting to have the job waiting for him. Unfortunately the would-be employers have gone abroad, "patient and all." Until his employers return, the narrator lives as a tramp, sleeping in an assortment of venues: lodging houses, tramps' hostels or "spikes," and Salvation Army shelters. Because vagrants can not "enter any one spike, or any two London spikes, more than once in a month, on pain of being confined for a week," he is required to keep on the move, with the result that long hours are spent"
      },
      {
        "text": " the narrator lives as a tramp, sleeping in an assortment of venues: lodging houses, tramps' hostels or "spikes," and Salvation Army shelters. Because vagrants can not "enter any one spike, or any two London spikes, more than once in a month, on pain of being confined for a week," he is required to keep on the move, with the result that long hours are spent tramping or waiting for hostels to open. Chapters XXV to XXXV describe his various journeys, the different forms of accommodation, a selection of the people he meets, and the tramps' reaction to Christian charity: "Evidently the tramps were not grateful for their free tea. And yet it was excellent [....] I am sure too that it was given in a good spirit, without any intention of humiliating us; so in fairness we ought to have been grateful\u2014still, we were not." Characters in this section of the book include the Irish tramp called Paddy, "a good fellow" whose "ignorance was limitless and appalling," and the pavement artist Bozo, who has a good literary background and was formerly an amateur astronomer, but who has suffered a succession of misfortunes. The final chapters provide a catalogue of various types of accommodation open to tramps. The narrator offers some general remarks, concluding, At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty. Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor"
      },
      {
        "text": " open to tramps. The narrator offers some general remarks, concluding, At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty. Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Last Man",
    "author": "Mary Shelley",
    "published_date": "1826-02",
    "synopsis": " Mary Shelley states in the introduction that in 1818 she discovered, in the Sibyl's cave near Naples, a collection of prophetic writings painted on leaves by the Cumaean Sibyl. She has edited these writings into the current narrative, the first-person narrative of a man living at the end of the 21st century. Lionel's father was a friend of the king before he was cast away because of his gambling. Lionel's father left to take his life, but before he did so he left a letter for the king to take care of his family after his death. After Lionel's father died the letter was never delivered. Lionel and his sister grow up with no parental influence, and as a result grow to be uncivilized. Lionel develops a hatred of the royal family, and Perdita grows to enjoy her isolation from society. When the king leaves the throne, the monarchy come to an end and a republic is created. When the king dies the Countess attempts to raise their son, Adrian, to reclaim the throne, but Adrian opposes his mother and refuses to take the throne. Adrian moves to Cumberland where Lionel, who bears a grudge against Adrian and his family for the neglect of the Verney family, intends to terrorise and confront Adrian. He is mollified by Adrian's good nature and his explanation that he only recently discovered the letter. Lionel and Adrian become close friends, and Lionel becomes civilized and philosophical under Adrian's influence. Lionel returns to England to face the personal turmoil amongst his acquaintances. Lord Raymond, who came to renown for his exploits in the war between Greece and Turkey, has returned to England in search of political position, and soon Perdita and Evadne both fall in love with him. On discovering that his beloved, Evadne, is in love with Raymond, Adrian goes into exile, presumably mad. Raymond intends to marry Idris (with whom Lionel is in love) as a first step towards becoming king, with the help of the Countess. However, he ultimately chooses his love for Perdita over his ambition, and the two marry. Under Lionel's care Adrian recovers, although he remains physically weak. On learning of the love between Idris and Lionel, the Countess schemes to drug Idris, bring her to Austria, and force her to make a politically motivated marriage. Idris discovers the plot and flees to Lionel, who marries her soon after. The Countess leaves for Austria, resentful of her children and of Lionel. Adrian and the others live happily together until Raymond runs for Lord Protector and wins. Perdita soon adjusts to her newfound social position, while Raymond becomes well-beloved as a benevolent administrator. He discovers, however, that Evadne, after the political and financial ruin of her husband (on account of her own political schemes) is living in poverty and obscurity in London, unwilling to plead for assistance. Raymond attempts to support Evadne by employing her artistic skills in secrecy, and later nursing her in illness, but Perdita learns of the relationship and suspects infidelity. Her suspicions arouse Raymond's proud and passionate nature, and the two separate. Raymond resigns his position and leaves to rejoin the war in Greece, accompanied for a time by Adrian. Shortly after the wounded Adrian returns to England, rumors arise that Raymond has been killed. Perdita, loyal in spite of everything, convinces Lionel to bring her and Clara to Greece to find him. Lionel finds Raymond and brings him back to Greece. Lionel and Raymond then go back to fighting and go to Constantinople. Lionel discovers Evadne, dying of wounds received fighting in the war. Before she dies, Evadne prophesies Raymond's death, a prophecy which confirms Raymond's own suspicions. Raymond's intention to enter Constantinople causes dissension and desertion amongst the army because of reports of the plague. Raymond enters the city alone, and soon dies in a fire. He is taken to Athens for burial. In 2092, while Lionel and Adrian attempt to return their lives to normality, the plague continues to spread across Europe and the Americas, and reports of a black sun cause panic throughout the world. At first England is thought to be safe, but soon the plague reaches even there. Ryland, recently elected Lord Protector, is unprepared for the plague, and flees northward, later dying alone amidst a stockpile of provisions. Adrian takes command and is largely effective at maintaining order and humanity in England, although the plague rages on summer after summer. Ships arrive in Ireland carrying survivors from America, who lawlessly plunder Ireland and Scotland before invading England. Adrian raises a military force against them, but ultimately is able to resolve the situation peacefully. The few remaining survivors decide to abandon England in search of an easier climate. On the eve of their departure to Dover, Lionel receives a letter from Lucy Martin, who was unable to join the exiles because of her mother's illness. Lionel and Idris travel through a snowstorm to assist Lucy, but Idris, weak from years of stress and maternal fears, dies along the way. Lionel and the Countess, who had shunned Idris and her family out of resentment towards Lionel, are reconciled at Idris' tomb. Lionel recovers Lucy (whose mother has died), and the party reaches Dover en route to France. In France, Adrian discovers that the earlier emigrants have divided into factions, amongst them a fanatical religious sect led by a false messiah who claims that his followers will be saved from disease. Adrian unites most of the factions, but this latter group declares violent opposition to Adrian. Lionel sneaks into Paris, where the cult has settled, to try to rescue Juliet. She refuses to leave because the imposter has her baby, but she helps Lionel to escape. Later, when Juliet's baby sickens, Juliet discovers that the imposter has been hiding the effects of the plague from his followers. She is killed warning the other followers, after which the imposter commits suicide, and his followers return to the main body of exiles at Versailles. The exiles travel towards Switzerland, hoping to spend the summer in a colder climate less favorable to the plague. By the time they reach Switzerland, however, all but four (Lionel, Adrian, Clara, and Evelyn) have died. The four spend a few relatively happy seasons at Switzerland, Milan, and Como before Evelyn dies of typhus. The survivors attempt to sail across the Adriatic Sea to Greece, but a sudden storm drowns Clara and Adrian. Lionel, the last man, swims to shore. The story ends in the year 2100.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Mary Shelley states in the introduction that in 1818 she discovered, in the Sibyl's cave near Naples, a collection of prophetic writings painted on leaves by the Cumaean Sibyl. She has edited these writings into the current narrative, the first-person narrative of a man living at the end of the 21st century. Lionel's father was a friend of the king before he was cast away because of his gambling. Lionel's father left to take his life, but before he did so he left a letter for the king to take care of his family after his death. After Lionel's father died the letter was never delivered. Lionel and his sister grow up with no parental influence, and as a result grow to be uncivilized. Lionel develops a hatred of the royal family, and Perdita grows to enjoy her isolation from society. When the king leaves the throne, the monarchy come to an end and a republic is created. When the king dies the Countess attempts to raise their son, Adrian, to reclaim the throne, but Adrian opposes his mother and refuses to take the throne. Adrian moves to Cumberland where Lionel, who bears a grudge against Adrian and his family for the neglect of the Verney family, intends to terrorise and confront Adrian. He is mollified by Adrian's good nature and his explanation that he only recently discovered the letter. Lionel and Adrian become close friends, and Lionel becomes civilized and philosophical under Adrian's influence. Lionel returns to England to face the personal turmoil amongst his acquaintances. Lord Raymond, who came to renown for his exploits in the war between Greece and Turkey, has returned to England in search of political position, and soon Perdita and Evadne both fall in love with him. On discovering that his beloved, Evadne, is in love with Raymond, Adrian goes into exile, presumably mad. Raymond intends to marry Idris (with whom Lionel is in love) as a first step towards becoming king,"
      },
      {
        "text": " England to face the personal turmoil amongst his acquaintances. Lord Raymond, who came to renown for his exploits in the war between Greece and Turkey, has returned to England in search of political position, and soon Perdita and Evadne both fall in love with him. On discovering that his beloved, Evadne, is in love with Raymond, Adrian goes into exile, presumably mad. Raymond intends to marry Idris (with whom Lionel is in love) as a first step towards becoming king, with the help of the Countess. However, he ultimately chooses his love for Perdita over his ambition, and the two marry. Under Lionel's care Adrian recovers, although he remains physically weak. On learning of the love between Idris and Lionel, the Countess schemes to drug Idris, bring her to Austria, and force her to make a politically motivated marriage. Idris discovers the plot and flees to Lionel, who marries her soon after. The Countess leaves for Austria, resentful of her children and of Lionel. Adrian and the others live happily together until Raymond runs for Lord Protector and wins. Perdita soon adjusts to her newfound social position, while Raymond becomes well-beloved as a benevolent administrator. He discovers, however, that Evadne, after the political and financial ruin of her husband (on account of her own political schemes) is living in poverty and obscurity in London, unwilling to plead for assistance. Raymond attempts to support Evadne by employing her artistic skills in secrecy, and later nursing her in illness, but Perdita learns of the relationship and suspects infidelity. Her suspicions arouse Raymond's proud and passionate nature, and the two separate. Raymond resigns his position and leaves to rejoin the war in Greece, accompanied for a time by Adrian. Shortly after the wounded Adrian returns to England, rumors arise that Raymond has been killed. Perdita, loyal in spite of everything, convinces Lionel to bring her and Clara"
      },
      {
        "text": " employing her artistic skills in secrecy, and later nursing her in illness, but Perdita learns of the relationship and suspects infidelity. Her suspicions arouse Raymond's proud and passionate nature, and the two separate. Raymond resigns his position and leaves to rejoin the war in Greece, accompanied for a time by Adrian. Shortly after the wounded Adrian returns to England, rumors arise that Raymond has been killed. Perdita, loyal in spite of everything, convinces Lionel to bring her and Clara to Greece to find him. Lionel finds Raymond and brings him back to Greece. Lionel and Raymond then go back to fighting and go to Constantinople. Lionel discovers Evadne, dying of wounds received fighting in the war. Before she dies, Evadne prophesies Raymond's death, a prophecy which confirms Raymond's own suspicions. Raymond's intention to enter Constantinople causes dissension and desertion amongst the army because of reports of the plague. Raymond enters the city alone, and soon dies in a fire. He is taken to Athens for burial. In 2092, while Lionel and Adrian attempt to return their lives to normality, the plague continues to spread across Europe and the Americas, and reports of a black sun cause panic throughout the world. At first England is thought to be safe, but soon the plague reaches even there. Ryland, recently elected Lord Protector, is unprepared for the plague, and flees northward, later dying alone amidst a stockpile of provisions. Adrian takes command and is largely effective at maintaining order and humanity in England, although the plague rages on summer after summer. Ships arrive in Ireland carrying survivors from America, who lawlessly plunder Ireland and Scotland before invading England. Adrian raises a military force against them, but ultimately is able to resolve the situation peacefully. The few remaining survivors decide to abandon England in search of an easier climate. On the eve of their departure to Dover, Lionel receives a letter from Lucy Martin, who was unable to join the exiles because of"
      },
      {
        "text": " largely effective at maintaining order and humanity in England, although the plague rages on summer after summer. Ships arrive in Ireland carrying survivors from America, who lawlessly plunder Ireland and Scotland before invading England. Adrian raises a military force against them, but ultimately is able to resolve the situation peacefully. The few remaining survivors decide to abandon England in search of an easier climate. On the eve of their departure to Dover, Lionel receives a letter from Lucy Martin, who was unable to join the exiles because of her mother's illness. Lionel and Idris travel through a snowstorm to assist Lucy, but Idris, weak from years of stress and maternal fears, dies along the way. Lionel and the Countess, who had shunned Idris and her family out of resentment towards Lionel, are reconciled at Idris' tomb. Lionel recovers Lucy (whose mother has died), and the party reaches Dover en route to France. In France, Adrian discovers that the earlier emigrants have divided into factions, amongst them a fanatical religious sect led by a false messiah who claims that his followers will be saved from disease. Adrian unites most of the factions, but this latter group declares violent opposition to Adrian. Lionel sneaks into Paris, where the cult has settled, to try to rescue Juliet. She refuses to leave because the imposter has her baby, but she helps Lionel to escape. Later, when Juliet's baby sickens, Juliet discovers that the imposter has been hiding the effects of the plague from his followers. She is killed warning the other followers, after which the imposter commits suicide, and his followers return to the main body of exiles at Versailles. The exiles travel towards Switzerland, hoping to spend the summer in a colder climate less favorable to the plague. By the time they reach Switzerland, however, all but four (Lionel, Adrian, Clara, and Evelyn) have died. The four spend a few relatively happy seasons at Switzerland, Milan"
      },
      {
        "text": " the plague from his followers. She is killed warning the other followers, after which the imposter commits suicide, and his followers return to the main body of exiles at Versailles. The exiles travel towards Switzerland, hoping to spend the summer in a colder climate less favorable to the plague. By the time they reach Switzerland, however, all but four (Lionel, Adrian, Clara, and Evelyn) have died. The four spend a few relatively happy seasons at Switzerland, Milan, and Como before Evelyn dies of typhus. The survivors attempt to sail across the Adriatic Sea to Greece, but a sudden storm drowns Clara and Adrian. Lionel, the last man, swims to shore. The story ends in the year 2100.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Transmigration of Timothy Archer",
    "author": "Philip K. Dick",
    "published_date": "1982",
    "synopsis": " Set in the late 1960s and 1970s, the story describes the efforts of Episcopal Bishop Timothy Archer, who must cope with the theological and philosophical implications of the newly-discovered Gnostic Zadokite scroll fragments. The character of Bishop Archer is loosely based on the controversial, iconoclastic Episcopal Bishop James Pike, who in 1969 died of exposure while exploring the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea in the West Bank. As the novel opens, it is 1980. On the day that John Lennon is shot and killed, Angel Archer visits the houseboat of Edgar Barefoot, a guru, and reflects on the lives of her deceased relatives. During the sixties, she was married to Jeff Archer, son of the Episcopal Bishop of California Timothy Archer. She introduced Kirsten Lundborg, a friend, to her father-in law, and the two began an affair. Kirsten has a son, Bill, from a previous relationship, who has schizophrenia, although he is knowledgeable as an automobile mechanic. Tim is already being investigated for his gnostic, allegedly heretical views about the Zadokite scrolls, which reproduce some of Jesus Christ's statements about the world, but have been dated to the second century before the birth of Christ. Jeff commits suicide due to his romantic obsession with Kirsten. However, after poltergeist activity, he manifests to Tim and Kirsten at a seance, also attended by Angel. Angel is sceptical about the efficacy of astrology, and believes that the unfolding existential situation of Tim and Kirsten is akin to Friedrich Schiller's German Romanticism era masterpiece, the Wallenstein trilogy (insofar as their credulity reflects the loss of rational belief in contemporary consensual reality). The three are told that Kirsten and Tim will die. As predicted, Kirsten loses her remission from cancer, and also commits suicide after a barbiturate overdose. Tim travels to Israel to investigate whether or not a psychotropic mushroom was associated with the resurrection, but his car stalls, he becomes disoriented, falls from a cliff, and dies in the desert. On the houseboat, Angel is reunited with Bill, Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia. He claims to have Tim's reincarnated spirit within him, but is soon reinsitutionalised. Angel agrees to care for Bill, in return for a rare record that Edgar offers her. Transmigration is one of Dick's most overtly philosophical and intellectual works. While Dick's novels usually employ multiple narrators or an omniscient perspective, this story is told in the first person by a single narrator: Angel Archer, Bishop Archer's daughter-in-law. Dick's work was often criticized for its flat, stereotypical female characters, so Angel may represent his effort to prove he could create a rich and believable feminine voice.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set in the late 1960s and 1970s, the story describes the efforts of Episcopal Bishop Timothy Archer, who must cope with the theological and philosophical implications of the newly-discovered Gnostic Zadokite scroll fragments. The character of Bishop Archer is loosely based on the controversial, iconoclastic Episcopal Bishop James Pike, who in 1969 died of exposure while exploring the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea in the West Bank. As the novel opens, it is 1980. On the day that John Lennon is shot and killed, Angel Archer visits the houseboat of Edgar Barefoot, a guru, and reflects on the lives of her deceased relatives. During the sixties, she was married to Jeff Archer, son of the Episcopal Bishop of California Timothy Archer. She introduced Kirsten Lundborg, a friend, to her father-in law, and the two began an affair. Kirsten has a son, Bill, from a previous relationship, who has schizophrenia, although he is knowledgeable as an automobile mechanic. Tim is already being investigated for his gnostic, allegedly heretical views about the Zadokite scrolls, which reproduce some of Jesus Christ's statements about the world, but have been dated to the second century before the birth of Christ. Jeff commits suicide due to his romantic obsession with Kirsten. However, after poltergeist activity, he manifests to Tim and Kirsten at a seance, also attended by Angel. Angel is sceptical about the efficacy of astrology, and believes that the unfolding existential situation of Tim and Kirsten is akin to Friedrich Schiller's German Romanticism era masterpiece, the Wallenstein trilogy (insofar as their credulity reflects the loss of rational belief in contemporary consensual reality). The three are told that Kirsten and Tim will die. As predicted, Kirsten loses her remission from cancer, and also commits suicide after a barbiturate overdose. Tim travels to Israel to investigate whether or not a psychotropic mushroom was associated with the resurrection, but"
      },
      {
        "text": " that the unfolding existential situation of Tim and Kirsten is akin to Friedrich Schiller's German Romanticism era masterpiece, the Wallenstein trilogy (insofar as their credulity reflects the loss of rational belief in contemporary consensual reality). The three are told that Kirsten and Tim will die. As predicted, Kirsten loses her remission from cancer, and also commits suicide after a barbiturate overdose. Tim travels to Israel to investigate whether or not a psychotropic mushroom was associated with the resurrection, but his car stalls, he becomes disoriented, falls from a cliff, and dies in the desert. On the houseboat, Angel is reunited with Bill, Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia. He claims to have Tim's reincarnated spirit within him, but is soon reinsitutionalised. Angel agrees to care for Bill, in return for a rare record that Edgar offers her. Transmigration is one of Dick's most overtly philosophical and intellectual works. While Dick's novels usually employ multiple narrators or an omniscient perspective, this story is told in the first person by a single narrator: Angel Archer, Bishop Archer's daughter-in-law. Dick's work was often criticized for its flat, stereotypical female characters, so Angel may represent his effort to prove he could create a rich and believable feminine voice.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency",
    "author": "Douglas Adams",
    "published_date": "1987",
    "synopsis": " Four billion years in Earth's past, a group of Salaxalans attempts to populate the earth; however, a mistake caused by their engineer \u2013 who used an Electric Monk to irrationally believe the proposed fix would work \u2013 causes their landing craft to explode, killing the Salaxalans and generating the spark of energy needed to start the process of life on Earth. The ghost of the Salaxalan engineer roams the earth waiting to undo his mistake, watching human life develop and waiting to find a soul that it can possess. The ghost finds it can only possess individuals that fundamentally want to do the same task it is trying to accomplish itself. Otherwise, it is only able to influence the individual in subtle ways. In the early 19th century, the ghost discovers Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and influences the writer to add a second section to \"Kubla Khan\" and alter parts of \"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner\" to describe how to correct the problem that destroyed the landing craft in the distant past. The ghost then begins seeking out someone whose hardship can be influenced by Coleridge's work. It later discovers that Professor Urban \"Reg\" Chronotis at St Cedd's possesses a time machine disguised as his quarters. In the late 20th century, during the annual St Cedd's dinner reading of \"Kubla Khan\", the ghost influences Reg to use the time machine to perform a bit of trickery for a young child at the dinner, while the ghost lures another Electric Monk into Reg's quarters. Upon return to the present, the ghost finds the Monk unusable for its purposes. The Monk then goes off to kill Wayforward Technologies II's CEO, Gordon Way, due to a misunderstanding. The ghost later tries to influence Richard MacDuff, a former student of Reg and current employee of Gordon Way, who was also at the Coleridge reading. Richard finds himself breaking into the apartment of Susan Way\u2014his girlfriend and Gordon's sister\u2014 to erase an answering machine message. His actions lead the police to consider Richard a suspect in the murder of Gordon. Richard discusses this with his former college friend Dirk Gently, who claims to be a \"Holistic Detective\" believing in the \"fundamental interconnectedness of all things\". Currently on the case of a missing cat, Dirk examines Richard and finds him to have been in a hypnotic-like state, and determines that Richard was temporarily possessed. Richard recounts the events from the Coleridge reading, including Reg's trick; Dirk, after consulting with a child, concludes that the only way the trick was possible was with a time machine. The two approach Reg, who admits to this fact. Meanwhile, the ghost has found Michael Wenton-Weakes, a recently-fired editor of an arts magazine. Through subtle influences the ghost makes Michael read Coleridge's works and convinces him to kill Albert Ross, the editor who replaced him. Both now have sought to erase those that supplant them, and the ghost is able to fully possess Michael's body. The ghost, in Michael's body, arrives at Reg's quarters while Dirk and Richard are there, and demands Reg use his time machine to return back 4 billion years in the past. They travel back, and ghost-possessed Michael, using a makeshift environmental suit, sets up to repair the damage to the Salaxalan craft. While they watch, Richard receives a call from Susan from the 20th century on Reg's phone, a quirk of the time machine due to the phone company. Richard learns of Ross's murder, and Dirk quickly surmises the ghost's plan, which if successful will erase the formation of life on Earth. Realising Michael was influenced by Coleridge's works, Dirk instructs Reg to take them to the 19th century, allowing Dirk to interrupt Coleridge long enough to disrupt the ghost's possession and prevent the second part of \"Kubla Khan\" from ever having been written. Upon arrival back in the 20th century, Dirk, Richard, and Reg find humanity as they expect it but with very small, subtle changes. Reg also discovers his time machine no longer functions, after having the telephone company repair the phone line to his quarters. Dirk learns that the missing cat was never missing in the first place as a result of their actions, and charges the client a small amount for the finding of the lost cat, adding \"saving the entire human race from extinction \u2013 no charge\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Four billion years in Earth's past, a group of Salaxalans attempts to populate the earth; however, a mistake caused by their engineer \u2013 who used an Electric Monk to irrationally believe the proposed fix would work \u2013 causes their landing craft to explode, killing the Salaxalans and generating the spark of energy needed to start the process of life on Earth. The ghost of the Salaxalan engineer roams the earth waiting to undo his mistake, watching human life develop and waiting to find a soul that it can possess. The ghost finds it can only possess individuals that fundamentally want to do the same task it is trying to accomplish itself. Otherwise, it is only able to influence the individual in subtle ways. In the early 19th century, the ghost discovers Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and influences the writer to add a second section to \"Kubla Khan\" and alter parts of \"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner\" to describe how to correct the problem that destroyed the landing craft in the distant past. The ghost then begins seeking out someone whose hardship can be influenced by Coleridge's work. It later discovers that Professor Urban \"Reg\" Chronotis at St Cedd's possesses a time machine disguised as his quarters. In the late 20th century, during the annual St Cedd's dinner reading of \"Kubla Khan\", the ghost influences Reg to use the time machine to perform a bit of trickery for a young child at the dinner, while the ghost lures another Electric Monk into Reg's quarters. Upon return to the present, the ghost finds the Monk unusable for its purposes. The Monk then goes off to kill Wayforward Technologies II's CEO, Gordon Way, due to a misunderstanding. The ghost later tries to influence Richard MacDuff, a former student of Reg and current employee of Gordon Way, who was also at the Coleridge reading. Richard finds himself breaking into the apartment of Susan Way\u2014his girlfriend and Gordon"
      },
      {
        "text": " while the ghost lures another Electric Monk into Reg's quarters. Upon return to the present, the ghost finds the Monk unusable for its purposes. The Monk then goes off to kill Wayforward Technologies II's CEO, Gordon Way, due to a misunderstanding. The ghost later tries to influence Richard MacDuff, a former student of Reg and current employee of Gordon Way, who was also at the Coleridge reading. Richard finds himself breaking into the apartment of Susan Way\u2014his girlfriend and Gordon's sister\u2014 to erase an answering machine message. His actions lead the police to consider Richard a suspect in the murder of Gordon. Richard discusses this with his former college friend Dirk Gently, who claims to be a \"Holistic Detective\" believing in the \"fundamental interconnectedness of all things\". Currently on the case of a missing cat, Dirk examines Richard and finds him to have been in a hypnotic-like state, and determines that Richard was temporarily possessed. Richard recounts the events from the Coleridge reading, including Reg's trick; Dirk, after consulting with a child, concludes that the only way the trick was possible was with a time machine. The two approach Reg, who admits to this fact. Meanwhile, the ghost has found Michael Wenton-Weakes, a recently-fired editor of an arts magazine. Through subtle influences the ghost makes Michael read Coleridge's works and convinces him to kill Albert Ross, the editor who replaced him. Both now have sought to erase those that supplant them, and the ghost is able to fully possess Michael's body. The ghost, in Michael's body, arrives at Reg's quarters while Dirk and Richard are there, and demands Reg use his time machine to return back 4 billion years in the past. They travel back, and ghost-possessed Michael, using a makeshift environmental suit, sets up to repair the damage to the Salaxalan craft. While they watch, Richard receives a call from Susan from the 20"
      },
      {
        "text": " erase those that supplant them, and the ghost is able to fully possess Michael's body. The ghost, in Michael's body, arrives at Reg's quarters while Dirk and Richard are there, and demands Reg use his time machine to return back 4 billion years in the past. They travel back, and ghost-possessed Michael, using a makeshift environmental suit, sets up to repair the damage to the Salaxalan craft. While they watch, Richard receives a call from Susan from the 20th century on Reg's phone, a quirk of the time machine due to the phone company. Richard learns of Ross's murder, and Dirk quickly surmises the ghost's plan, which if successful will erase the formation of life on Earth. Realising Michael was influenced by Coleridge's works, Dirk instructs Reg to take them to the 19th century, allowing Dirk to interrupt Coleridge long enough to disrupt the ghost's possession and prevent the second part of \"Kubla Khan\" from ever having been written. Upon arrival back in the 20th century, Dirk, Richard, and Reg find humanity as they expect it but with very small, subtle changes. Reg also discovers his time machine no longer functions, after having the telephone company repair the phone line to his quarters. Dirk learns that the missing cat was never missing in the first place as a result of their actions, and charges the client a small amount for the finding of the lost cat, adding \"saving the entire human race from extinction \u2013 no charge\".\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " human race from extinction \u2013 no charge\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dragonflight",
    "author": "Anne McCaffrey",
    "published_date": "1968-07",
    "synopsis": " Dragonflight chronicles the story of Lessa, the sole survivor of the noble ruling family of Ruatha Hold on the northern continent of Pern. When the rest of her family is killed by a cruel usurper, Fax, she survives by disguising herself as a drudge (a menial servant) partly through simply adopting a slovenly appearance, but also by using her hereditary telepathic abilities to make others see her as far older and less attractive than she actually is. She manages to escapes notice completely. Her only friend is a watch-wher, a somewhat telepathic animal (related to dragons) that guards the hold. Lessa also psychically influences other Hold workers to do less than their best work, or to become clumsy or inefficient. Her dream is to regain control over her own hold. Her strategy is to make Ruatha economically unproductive, so that Fax will renounce it. F'lar, wingleader at Benden Weyr and rider of the bronze dragon Mnementh, finds Lessa while Searching for candidates to Impress (bond with) a new queen dragon, as the current queen has a batch of eggs due to hatch very soon, including a crucial golden egg. After killing Fax in single combat (following the rules of the Pernese code duello), he realises that she has emotionally manipulated himself to kill Fax as well as engineered Fax's renouncement. It is then that F'lar recognizes Lessa as possessing both unusually strong psychic abilities and great strength of will. He recognizes Lessa's capacity to be the strongest Weyrwoman in recent history; and potentially the path to his own leadership at Benden Weyr. F'lar convinces a reluctant Lessa to give up her birthright as Lord Holder of Ruatha Hold for the larger domain of the dragonweyr and she agree to pass the title on to Fax's newborn son (who later features in The White Dragon). F'lar takes Lessa to Benden Weyr, where she impresses the Queen dragonet Ramoth and becomes the Weyrwoman, the new co-leader of the last active Weyr. On Ramoth's first mating flight, Mnementh catches her, and by Weyr tradition, this makes F'lar the Weyrleader. Lessa and F'lar warn a dangerously unprepared Pern of the impending Thread reappearance. The general response is disbelief, as the last threadfall was 400 years ago, and the stories about threadfall have receded from recent history into legend and myth. It is not until the first Thread begins to fall that they are believed by the general populace and even by some dragon-riders. One Weyr by itself is not enough to defend the planet; there used to be six, but the other five Weyrs are now empty, deserted since the last Pass centuries before. In a desperate attempt to increase their numbers, a new queen, Prideth, and her rider, Kylara, are sent back between times (a recently rediscovered skill) ten turns, to allow Prideth time to mature and reproduce. Lessa travels four hundred turns into the past to bring the five 'missing' Weyrs forward to her present. This is a huge strain for both her and Ramoth. She convinces the dragonriders of the five Weyrs to go with her to their future, and they use the Red Star as a guide to make smaller, less strenuous hops forward in time. This not only provides much needed skilled reinforcements in the battle against Thread, but explains how and why the five Weyrs were abandoned: they came forward in time.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Dragonflight chronicles the story of Lessa, the sole survivor of the noble ruling family of Ruatha Hold on the northern continent of Pern. When the rest of her family is killed by a cruel usurper, Fax, she survives by disguising herself as a drudge (a menial servant) partly through simply adopting a slovenly appearance, but also by using her hereditary telepathic abilities to make others see her as far older and less attractive than she actually is. She manages to escapes notice completely. Her only friend is a watch-wher, a somewhat telepathic animal (related to dragons) that guards the hold. Lessa also psychically influences other Hold workers to do less than their best work, or to become clumsy or inefficient. Her dream is to regain control over her own hold. Her strategy is to make Ruatha economically unproductive, so that Fax will renounce it. F'lar, wingleader at Benden Weyr and rider of the bronze dragon Mnementh, finds Lessa while Searching for candidates to Impress (bond with) a new queen dragon, as the current queen has a batch of eggs due to hatch very soon, including a crucial golden egg. After killing Fax in single combat (following the rules of the Pernese code duello), he realises that she has emotionally manipulated himself to kill Fax as well as engineered Fax's renouncement. It is then that F'lar recognizes Lessa as possessing both unusually strong psychic abilities and great strength of will. He recognizes Lessa's capacity to be the strongest Weyrwoman in recent history; and potentially the path to his own leadership at Benden Weyr. F'lar convinces a reluctant Lessa to give up her birthright as Lord Holder of Ruatha Hold for the larger domain of the dragonweyr and she agree to pass the title on to Fax's newborn son (who later features in The White Dragon"
      },
      {
        "text": " recognizes Lessa as possessing both unusually strong psychic abilities and great strength of will. He recognizes Lessa's capacity to be the strongest Weyrwoman in recent history; and potentially the path to his own leadership at Benden Weyr. F'lar convinces a reluctant Lessa to give up her birthright as Lord Holder of Ruatha Hold for the larger domain of the dragonweyr and she agree to pass the title on to Fax's newborn son (who later features in The White Dragon). F'lar takes Lessa to Benden Weyr, where she impresses the Queen dragonet Ramoth and becomes the Weyrwoman, the new co-leader of the last active Weyr. On Ramoth's first mating flight, Mnementh catches her, and by Weyr tradition, this makes F'lar the Weyrleader. Lessa and F'lar warn a dangerously unprepared Pern of the impending Thread reappearance. The general response is disbelief, as the last threadfall was 400 years ago, and the stories about threadfall have receded from recent history into legend and myth. It is not until the first Thread begins to fall that they are believed by the general populace and even by some dragon-riders. One Weyr by itself is not enough to defend the planet; there used to be six, but the other five Weyrs are now empty, deserted since the last Pass centuries before. In a desperate attempt to increase their numbers, a new queen, Prideth, and her rider, Kylara, are sent back between times (a recently rediscovered skill) ten turns, to allow Prideth time to mature and reproduce. Lessa travels four hundred turns into the past to bring the five 'missing' Weyrs forward to her present. This is a huge strain for both her and Ramoth. She convinces the dragonriders of the five Weyrs to go with her to their future, and they use"
      },
      {
        "text": ", a new queen, Prideth, and her rider, Kylara, are sent back between times (a recently rediscovered skill) ten turns, to allow Prideth time to mature and reproduce. Lessa travels four hundred turns into the past to bring the five 'missing' Weyrs forward to her present. This is a huge strain for both her and Ramoth. She convinces the dragonriders of the five Weyrs to go with her to their future, and they use the Red Star as a guide to make smaller, less strenuous hops forward in time. This not only provides much needed skilled reinforcements in the battle against Thread, but explains how and why the five Weyrs were abandoned: they came forward in time.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Diamond Age",
    "author": "Neal Stephenson",
    "published_date": "1995",
    "synopsis": " The protagonist in the story is Nell, a thete (or person without a tribe; equivalent to the lowest working class) living in the Leased Territories, a lowland slum belt on the artificial, diamondoid island of New Chusan, located offshore from the mouth of the Yangtze River, northwest of Shanghai. At the age of four, Nell receives a stolen copy of an interactive book, Young Lady's Illustrated Primer: a Prop\u00e6deutic Enchiridion in which is told the tale of Princess Nell and her various friends, kin, associates, &c., originally intended for an aristocrat's child in the Neo-Victorian New Atlantis phyle. The story follows Nell's development under the tutelage of the Primer, and to a lesser degree, the lives of Elizabeth and Fiona, girls who receive similar books. The Primer is intended to intellectually steer its reader toward a more interesting life, as defined by \"Equity Lord\" Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw, and grow up to be an effective member of society. The most important quality to achieving an \"interesting life\" is deemed to be a subversive attitude towards the status quo. The Primer is designed to react to its owners' environment and teach them what they need to know to survive and develop. The Diamond Age is characterized by two intersecting, almost equally developed story lines: Nell's education through her independent work with the Primer, and the social downfall of engineer and designer of the Primer, John Percival Hackworth, who has made an illegal copy of the Primer for his own young daughter, Fiona. His crime becomes known both to Lord Finkle-McGraw and to Dr. X, and each man attempts to exploit Hackworth to advance the opposing goals of their tribes. The text also includes fully narrated educational tales from the Primer that map Nell's individual experience (e.g. her four toy friends) onto archetypal folk tales stored in the primer's database. Although The Diamond Age explores the role of technology and personal relationships in child development, its deeper and darker themes also probe the relative values of cultures (which Stephenson explores in his other novels as well) and the shortcomings in communication between them. \"Diamond Age\" is an extension of labels for archeological time periods that take central technological materials to define an entire era of human history, such as the Stone Age, the Bronze Age or the Iron Age. Technological visionaries such as Eric Drexler and Ralph Merkle, both of whom receive an honorary mention in The Diamond Age, have argued that if nanotechnology develops the ability to manipulate individual atoms at will, it will become possible to simply assemble diamond structures from carbon atoms, materials also known as diamondoids. Merkle states: \"In diamond, then, a dense network of strong bonds creates a strong, light, and stiff material. Indeed, just as we named the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Steel Age after the materials that humans could make, we might call the new technological epoch we are entering the Diamond Age\". In the novel, a near future vision of our world, nanotechnology has developed precisely to this point, which enables the cheap production of diamond structures. The title can also be seen as a reference to the Gilded Age, a time of economic expansion roughly coinciding with the late Victorian era. Likewise, it can be seen as consistent with Queen Victoria's reign, the apex of which is often seen as her Diamond Jubilee.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The protagonist in the story is Nell, a thete (or person without a tribe; equivalent to the lowest working class) living in the Leased Territories, a lowland slum belt on the artificial, diamondoid island of New Chusan, located offshore from the mouth of the Yangtze River, northwest of Shanghai. At the age of four, Nell receives a stolen copy of an interactive book, Young Lady's Illustrated Primer: a Prop\u00e6deutic Enchiridion in which is told the tale of Princess Nell and her various friends, kin, associates, &c., originally intended for an aristocrat's child in the Neo-Victorian New Atlantis phyle. The story follows Nell's development under the tutelage of the Primer, and to a lesser degree, the lives of Elizabeth and Fiona, girls who receive similar books. The Primer is intended to intellectually steer its reader toward a more interesting life, as defined by \"Equity Lord\" Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw, and grow up to be an effective member of society. The most important quality to achieving an \"interesting life\" is deemed to be a subversive attitude towards the status quo. The Primer is designed to react to its owners' environment and teach them what they need to know to survive and develop. The Diamond Age is characterized by two intersecting, almost equally developed story lines: Nell's education through her independent work with the Primer, and the social downfall of engineer and designer of the Primer, John Percival Hackworth, who has made an illegal copy of the Primer for his own young daughter, Fiona. His crime becomes known both to Lord Finkle-McGraw and to Dr. X, and each man attempts to exploit Hackworth to advance the opposing goals of their tribes. The text also includes fully narrated educational tales from the Primer that map Nell's individual experience (e.g"
      },
      {
        "text": " Primer, and the social downfall of engineer and designer of the Primer, John Percival Hackworth, who has made an illegal copy of the Primer for his own young daughter, Fiona. His crime becomes known both to Lord Finkle-McGraw and to Dr. X, and each man attempts to exploit Hackworth to advance the opposing goals of their tribes. The text also includes fully narrated educational tales from the Primer that map Nell's individual experience (e.g. her four toy friends) onto archetypal folk tales stored in the primer's database. Although The Diamond Age explores the role of technology and personal relationships in child development, its deeper and darker themes also probe the relative values of cultures (which Stephenson explores in his other novels as well) and the shortcomings in communication between them. \"Diamond Age\" is an extension of labels for archeological time periods that take central technological materials to define an entire era of human history, such as the Stone Age, the Bronze Age or the Iron Age. Technological visionaries such as Eric Drexler and Ralph Merkle, both of whom receive an honorary mention in The Diamond Age, have argued that if nanotechnology develops the ability to manipulate individual atoms at will, it will become possible to simply assemble diamond structures from carbon atoms, materials also known as diamondoids. Merkle states: \"In diamond, then, a dense network of strong bonds creates a strong, light, and stiff material. Indeed, just as we named the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Steel Age after the materials that humans could make, we might call the new technological epoch we are entering the Diamond Age\". In the novel, a near future vision of our world, nanotechnology has developed precisely to this point, which enables the cheap production of diamond structures. The title can also be seen as a reference to the Gilded Age, a time of economic expansion roughly coinciding with the late Victorian era. Likewise,"
      },
      {
        "text": ", just as we named the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Steel Age after the materials that humans could make, we might call the new technological epoch we are entering the Diamond Age\". In the novel, a near future vision of our world, nanotechnology has developed precisely to this point, which enables the cheap production of diamond structures. The title can also be seen as a reference to the Gilded Age, a time of economic expansion roughly coinciding with the late Victorian era. Likewise, it can be seen as consistent with Queen Victoria's reign, the apex of which is often seen as her Diamond Jubilee.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Hunchback of Notre Dame",
    "author": "Victor Hugo",
    "published_date": "1831-01-14",
    "synopsis": " The story begins on Epiphany (6 January), 1482, the day of the Feast of Fools in Paris, France. Quasimodo, a deformed hunchback who is the bell-ringer of Notre Dame, is introduced by his crowning as the Pope of Fools. Esmeralda, a beautiful Gypsy with a kind and generous heart, captures the hearts of many men, including those of Captain Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire, a poor street poet, but especially those of Quasimodo and his adoptive father, Claude Frollo, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame. Frollo is torn between his obsessive love and the rules of the church. He orders Quasimodo to kidnap her, but the hunchback is suddenly captured by Phoebus and his guards who save Esmeralda. Quasimodo is sentenced to be flogged and turned on the pillory for one hour, followed by another hour's public exposure. He calls for water. Esmeralda, seeing his thirst, offers him a drink. It saves him, and she captures his heart. Esmeralda is later charged with the attempted murder of Phoebus, whom Frollo actually attempted to kill in jealousy after seeing him about to have sex with Esmeralda, and is tortured and sentenced to death by hanging. As she is being led to the gallows, Quasimodo swings down by the bell rope of Notre Dame and carries her off to the cathedral under the law of sanctuary. Clopin, a street performer, rallies the Truands (criminals of Paris) to charge the cathedral and rescue Esmeralda. Frollo asks the king to remove Esmeralda's right to sanctuary so she can no longer seek shelter in the church and will be taken from the church and killed. When Quasimodo sees the Truands, he assumes they are there to hurt Esmeralda, so he drives them off. Likewise, he thinks the King's men want to rescue her, and tries to help them find her. She is rescued by Frollo and her phony husband Gringoire. But after yet another failed attempt to win her love, Frollo betrays Esmeralda by handing her to the troops and watches while she is being hanged. When Frollo laughs during Esmeralda's hanging, Quasimodo pushes him from the heights of Notre Dame to his death. Quasimodo then goes to the vaults under the huge gibbet of Montfaucon, and lies next to Esmeralda's corpse, where it had been unceremoniously thrown after the execution. He stays at Montfaucon, and eventually dies of starvation. About eighteen months later, the tomb is opened, and the skeletons are found. As someone tries to separate them, Quasimodo's bones turn to dust.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins on Epiphany (6 January), 1482, the day of the Feast of Fools in Paris, France. Quasimodo, a deformed hunchback who is the bell-ringer of Notre Dame, is introduced by his crowning as the Pope of Fools. Esmeralda, a beautiful Gypsy with a kind and generous heart, captures the hearts of many men, including those of Captain Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire, a poor street poet, but especially those of Quasimodo and his adoptive father, Claude Frollo, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame. Frollo is torn between his obsessive love and the rules of the church. He orders Quasimodo to kidnap her, but the hunchback is suddenly captured by Phoebus and his guards who save Esmeralda. Quasimodo is sentenced to be flogged and turned on the pillory for one hour, followed by another hour's public exposure. He calls for water. Esmeralda, seeing his thirst, offers him a drink. It saves him, and she captures his heart. Esmeralda is later charged with the attempted murder of Phoebus, whom Frollo actually attempted to kill in jealousy after seeing him about to have sex with Esmeralda, and is tortured and sentenced to death by hanging. As she is being led to the gallows, Quasimodo swings down by the bell rope of Notre Dame and carries her off to the cathedral under the law of sanctuary. Clopin, a street performer, rallies the Truands (criminals of Paris) to charge the cathedral and rescue Esmeralda. Frollo asks the king to remove Esmeralda's right to sanctuary so she can no longer seek shelter in the church and will be taken from the church and killed. When Quasimodo sees the Truands, he assumes they are there to hurt"
      },
      {
        "text": " bell rope of Notre Dame and carries her off to the cathedral under the law of sanctuary. Clopin, a street performer, rallies the Truands (criminals of Paris) to charge the cathedral and rescue Esmeralda. Frollo asks the king to remove Esmeralda's right to sanctuary so she can no longer seek shelter in the church and will be taken from the church and killed. When Quasimodo sees the Truands, he assumes they are there to hurt Esmeralda, so he drives them off. Likewise, he thinks the King's men want to rescue her, and tries to help them find her. She is rescued by Frollo and her phony husband Gringoire. But after yet another failed attempt to win her love, Frollo betrays Esmeralda by handing her to the troops and watches while she is being hanged. When Frollo laughs during Esmeralda's hanging, Quasimodo pushes him from the heights of Notre Dame to his death. Quasimodo then goes to the vaults under the huge gibbet of Montfaucon, and lies next to Esmeralda's corpse, where it had been unceremoniously thrown after the execution. He stays at Montfaucon, and eventually dies of starvation. About eighteen months later, the tomb is opened, and the skeletons are found. As someone tries to separate them, Quasimodo's bones turn to dust.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " to dust.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland",
    "author": "Lewis Carroll",
    "published_date": "1865-11-26",
    "synopsis": " Chapter 1 \u2013 Down the Rabbit Hole: Alice is feeling bored while sitting on the riverbank with her sister, when she notices a talking, clothed White Rabbit with a pocket watch run past. She follows it down a rabbit hole when suddenly she falls a long way to a curious hall with many locked doors of all sizes. She finds a small key to a door too small for her to fit through, but through it she sees an attractive garden. She then discovers a bottle on a table labelled \"DRINK ME\", the contents of which cause her to shrink too small to reach the key which she has left on the table. A cake with \"EAT ME\" on it causes her to grow to such a tremendous size her head hits the ceiling. Chapter 2 \u2013 The Pool of Tears: Alice is unhappy and cries as her tears flood the hallway. After shrinking down again due to a fan she had picked up, Alice swims through her own tears and meets a Mouse, who is swimming as well. She tries to make small talk with him in elementary French (thinking he may be a French mouse) but her opening gambit \"O\u00f9 est ma chatte?\" (that is \"Where is my cat?\") offends the mouse. Chapter 3 \u2013 The Caucus Race and a Long Tale: The sea of tears becomes crowded with other animals and birds that have been swept away by the rising waters. Alice and the other animals convene on the bank and the question among them is how to get dry again. The mouse gives them a very dry lecture on William the Conqueror. A Dodo decides that the best thing to dry them off would be a Caucus-Race, which consists of everyone running in a circle with no clear winner. Alice eventually frightens all the animals away, unwittingly, by talking about her (moderately ferocious) cat. Chapter 4 \u2013 The Rabbit Sends a Little Bill: The White Rabbit appears again in search of the Duchess's gloves and fan. Mistaking her for his maidservant, Mary Ann, he orders Alice to go into the house and retrieve them, but once she gets inside she starts growing. The horrified Rabbit orders his gardener, Bill the Lizard, to climb on the roof and go down the chimney. Outside, Alice hears the voices of animals that have gathered to gawk at her giant arm. The crowd hurls pebbles at her, which turn into little cakes. Alice eats them, and they reduce her again in size. Chapter 5 \u2013 Advice from a Caterpillar: Alice comes upon a mushroom and sitting on it is a blue Caterpillar smoking a hookah. The Caterpillar questions Alice and she admits to her current identity crisis, compounded by her inability to remember a poem. Before crawling away, the caterpillar tells Alice that one side of the mushroom will make her taller and the other side will make her shorter. She breaks off two pieces from the mushroom. One side makes her shrink smaller than ever, while another causes her neck to grow high into the trees, where a pigeon mistakes her for a serpent. With some effort, Alice brings herself back to her usual height. She stumbles upon a small estate and uses the mushroom to reach a more appropriate height. Chapter 6 \u2013 Pig and Pepper: A Fish-Footman has an invitation for the Duchess of the house, which he delivers to a Frog-Footman. Alice observes this transaction and, after a perplexing conversation with the frog, lets herself into the house. The Duchess's Cook is throwing dishes and making a soup that has too much pepper, which causes Alice, the Duchess, and her baby (but not the cook or grinning Cheshire Cat) to sneeze violently. Alice is given the baby by the Duchess and to her surprise, the baby turns into a pig. The Cheshire Cat appears in a tree, directing her to the March Hare's house. He disappears but his grin remains behind to float on its own in the air prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat. Chapter 7 \u2013 A Mad Tea-Party: Alice becomes a guest at a \"mad\" tea party along with the March Hare, the Hatter, and a very tired Dormouse who falls asleep frequently, only to be violently woken up moments later by the March Hare and the Hatter. The characters give Alice many riddles and stories, including the famous 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?'. The Hatter reveals that they have tea all day because Time has punished him by eternally standing still at 6 pm (tea time). Alice becomes insulted and tired of being bombarded with riddles and she leaves claiming that it was the stupidest tea party that she had ever been to. Chapter 8 \u2013 The Queen's Croquet Ground: Alice leaves the tea party and enters the garden where she comes upon three living playing cards painting the white roses on a rose tree red because the Queen of Hearts hates white roses. A procession of more cards, kings and queens and even the White Rabbit enters the garden. Alice then meets the King and Queen. The Queen, a figure difficult to please, introduces her trademark phrase \"Off with his head!\" which she utters at the slightest dissatisfaction with a subject. Alice is invited (or some might say ordered) to play a game of croquet with the Queen and the rest of her subjects but the game quickly descends into chaos. Live flamingos are used as mallets and hedgehogs as balls and Alice once again meets the Cheshire Cat. The Queen of Hearts then orders the Cat to be beheaded, only to have her executioner complain that this is impossible since the head is all that can be seen of him. Because the cat belongs to the Duchess, the Queen is prompted to release the Duchess from prison to resolve the matter. Chapter 9 \u2013 The Mock Turtle's Story: The Duchess is brought to the croquet ground at Alice's request. She ruminates on finding morals in everything around her. The Queen of Hearts dismisses her on the threat of execution and she introduces Alice to the Gryphon, who takes her to the Mock Turtle. The Mock Turtle is very sad, even though he has no sorrow. He tries to tell his story about how he used to be a real turtle in school, which the Gryphon interrupts so they can play a game. Chapter 10 \u2013 Lobster Quadrille: The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon dance to the Lobster Quadrille, while Alice recites (rather incorrectly) \"'Tis the Voice of the Lobster\". The Mock Turtle sings them \"Beautiful Soup\" during which the Gryphon drags Alice away for an impending trial. Chapter 11 \u2013 Who Stole the Tarts?: Alice attends a trial whereby the Knave of Hearts is accused of stealing the Queen's tarts. The jury is composed of various animals, including Bill the Lizard, the White Rabbit is the court's trumpeter, and the judge is the King of Hearts. During the proceedings, Alice finds that she is steadily growing larger. The dormouse scolds Alice and tells her she has no right to grow at such a rapid pace and take up all the air. Alice scoffs and calls the dormouse's accusation ridiculous because everyone grows and she can't help it. Meanwhile, witnesses at the trial include the Hatter, who displeases and frustrates the King through his indirect answers to the questioning, and the Duchess's cook. Chapter 12 \u2013 Alice's Evidence: Alice is then called up as a witness. She accidentally knocks over the jury box with the animals inside them and the King orders the animals be placed back into their seats before the trial continues. The King and Queen order Alice to be gone, citing Rule 42 (\"All persons more than a mile high to leave the court\"), but Alice disputes their judgement and refuses to leave. She argues with the King and Queen of Hearts over the ridiculous proceedings, eventually refusing to hold her tongue. The Queen shouts her familiar \"Off with her head!\" but Alice is unafraid, calling them out as just a pack of cards; just as they start to swarm over her. Alice's sister wakes her up for tea, brushing what turns out to be some leaves and not a shower of playing cards from Alice's face. Alice leaves her sister on the bank to imagine all the curious happenings for herself.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Chapter 1 \u2013 Down the Rabbit Hole: Alice is feeling bored while sitting on the riverbank with her sister, when she notices a talking, clothed White Rabbit with a pocket watch run past. She follows it down a rabbit hole when suddenly she falls a long way to a curious hall with many locked doors of all sizes. She finds a small key to a door too small for her to fit through, but through it she sees an attractive garden. She then discovers a bottle on a table labelled \"DRINK ME\", the contents of which cause her to shrink too small to reach the key which she has left on the table. A cake with \"EAT ME\" on it causes her to grow to such a tremendous size her head hits the ceiling. Chapter 2 \u2013 The Pool of Tears: Alice is unhappy and cries as her tears flood the hallway. After shrinking down again due to a fan she had picked up, Alice swims through her own tears and meets a Mouse, who is swimming as well. She tries to make small talk with him in elementary French (thinking he may be a French mouse) but her opening gambit \"O\u00f9 est ma chatte?\" (that is \"Where is my cat?\") offends the mouse. Chapter 3 \u2013 The Caucus Race and a Long Tale: The sea of tears becomes crowded with other animals and birds that have been swept away by the rising waters. Alice and the other animals convene on the bank and the question among them is how to get dry again. The mouse gives them a very dry lecture on William the Conqueror. A Dodo decides that the best thing to dry them off would be a Caucus-Race, which consists of everyone running in a circle with no clear winner. Alice eventually frightens all the animals away, unwittingly, by talking about her (moderately ferocious) cat. Chapter 4 \u2013 The Rabbit Sends a Little Bill: The White Rabbit appears again in search of the Duchess's gloves and fan. Mist"
      },
      {
        "text": " get dry again. The mouse gives them a very dry lecture on William the Conqueror. A Dodo decides that the best thing to dry them off would be a Caucus-Race, which consists of everyone running in a circle with no clear winner. Alice eventually frightens all the animals away, unwittingly, by talking about her (moderately ferocious) cat. Chapter 4 \u2013 The Rabbit Sends a Little Bill: The White Rabbit appears again in search of the Duchess's gloves and fan. Mistaking her for his maidservant, Mary Ann, he orders Alice to go into the house and retrieve them, but once she gets inside she starts growing. The horrified Rabbit orders his gardener, Bill the Lizard, to climb on the roof and go down the chimney. Outside, Alice hears the voices of animals that have gathered to gawk at her giant arm. The crowd hurls pebbles at her, which turn into little cakes. Alice eats them, and they reduce her again in size. Chapter 5 \u2013 Advice from a Caterpillar: Alice comes upon a mushroom and sitting on it is a blue Caterpillar smoking a hookah. The Caterpillar questions Alice and she admits to her current identity crisis, compounded by her inability to remember a poem. Before crawling away, the caterpillar tells Alice that one side of the mushroom will make her taller and the other side will make her shorter. She breaks off two pieces from the mushroom. One side makes her shrink smaller than ever, while another causes her neck to grow high into the trees, where a pigeon mistakes her for a serpent. With some effort, Alice brings herself back to her usual height. She stumbles upon a small estate and uses the mushroom to reach a more appropriate height. Chapter 6 \u2013 Pig and Pepper: A Fish-Footman has an invitation for the Duchess of the house, which he delivers to a Frog-Footman. Alice observes this transaction and, after a perplexing conversation with the frog,"
      },
      {
        "text": ", while another causes her neck to grow high into the trees, where a pigeon mistakes her for a serpent. With some effort, Alice brings herself back to her usual height. She stumbles upon a small estate and uses the mushroom to reach a more appropriate height. Chapter 6 \u2013 Pig and Pepper: A Fish-Footman has an invitation for the Duchess of the house, which he delivers to a Frog-Footman. Alice observes this transaction and, after a perplexing conversation with the frog, lets herself into the house. The Duchess's Cook is throwing dishes and making a soup that has too much pepper, which causes Alice, the Duchess, and her baby (but not the cook or grinning Cheshire Cat) to sneeze violently. Alice is given the baby by the Duchess and to her surprise, the baby turns into a pig. The Cheshire Cat appears in a tree, directing her to the March Hare's house. He disappears but his grin remains behind to float on its own in the air prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat. Chapter 7 \u2013 A Mad Tea-Party: Alice becomes a guest at a \"mad\" tea party along with the March Hare, the Hatter, and a very tired Dormouse who falls asleep frequently, only to be violently woken up moments later by the March Hare and the Hatter. The characters give Alice many riddles and stories, including the famous 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?'. The Hatter reveals that they have tea all day because Time has punished him by eternally standing still at 6 pm (tea time). Alice becomes insulted and tired of being bombarded with riddles and she leaves claiming that it was the stupidest tea party that she had ever been to. Chapter 8 \u2013 The Queen's Croquet Ground: Alice leaves the tea party and enters the garden where she comes upon three living playing cards painting"
      },
      {
        "text": " is a raven like a writing desk?'. The Hatter reveals that they have tea all day because Time has punished him by eternally standing still at 6 pm (tea time). Alice becomes insulted and tired of being bombarded with riddles and she leaves claiming that it was the stupidest tea party that she had ever been to. Chapter 8 \u2013 The Queen's Croquet Ground: Alice leaves the tea party and enters the garden where she comes upon three living playing cards painting the white roses on a rose tree red because the Queen of Hearts hates white roses. A procession of more cards, kings and queens and even the White Rabbit enters the garden. Alice then meets the King and Queen. The Queen, a figure difficult to please, introduces her trademark phrase \"Off with his head!\" which she utters at the slightest dissatisfaction with a subject. Alice is invited (or some might say ordered) to play a game of croquet with the Queen and the rest of her subjects but the game quickly descends into chaos. Live flamingos are used as mallets and hedgehogs as balls and Alice once again meets the Cheshire Cat. The Queen of Hearts then orders the Cat to be beheaded, only to have her executioner complain that this is impossible since the head is all that can be seen of him. Because the cat belongs to the Duchess, the Queen is prompted to release the Duchess from prison to resolve the matter. Chapter 9 \u2013 The Mock Turtle's Story: The Duchess is brought to the croquet ground at Alice's request. She ruminates on finding morals in everything around her. The Queen of Hearts dismisses her on the threat of execution and she introduces Alice to the Gryphon, who takes her to the Mock Turtle. The Mock Turtle is very sad, even though he has no sorrow. He tries to tell his story about how he used to be a real turtle in school, which the Gryphon interrupts so they can play a"
      },
      {
        "text": ": The Duchess is brought to the croquet ground at Alice's request. She ruminates on finding morals in everything around her. The Queen of Hearts dismisses her on the threat of execution and she introduces Alice to the Gryphon, who takes her to the Mock Turtle. The Mock Turtle is very sad, even though he has no sorrow. He tries to tell his story about how he used to be a real turtle in school, which the Gryphon interrupts so they can play a game. Chapter 10 \u2013 Lobster Quadrille: The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon dance to the Lobster Quadrille, while Alice recites (rather incorrectly) \"'Tis the Voice of the Lobster\". The Mock Turtle sings them \"Beautiful Soup\" during which the Gryphon drags Alice away for an impending trial. Chapter 11 \u2013 Who Stole the Tarts?: Alice attends a trial whereby the Knave of Hearts is accused of stealing the Queen's tarts. The jury is composed of various animals, including Bill the Lizard, the White Rabbit is the court's trumpeter, and the judge is the King of Hearts. During the proceedings, Alice finds that she is steadily growing larger. The dormouse scolds Alice and tells her she has no right to grow at such a rapid pace and take up all the air. Alice scoffs and calls the dormouse's accusation ridiculous because everyone grows and she can't help it. Meanwhile, witnesses at the trial include the Hatter, who displeases and frustrates the King through his indirect answers to the questioning, and the Duchess's cook. Chapter 12 \u2013 Alice's Evidence: Alice is then called up as a witness. She accidentally knocks over the jury box with the animals inside them and the King orders the animals be placed back into their seats before the trial continues. The King and Queen order Alice to be gone, citing Rule 42 (\"All persons more than a mile high to leave the court\"), but Alice"
      },
      {
        "text": " include the Hatter, who displeases and frustrates the King through his indirect answers to the questioning, and the Duchess's cook. Chapter 12 \u2013 Alice's Evidence: Alice is then called up as a witness. She accidentally knocks over the jury box with the animals inside them and the King orders the animals be placed back into their seats before the trial continues. The King and Queen order Alice to be gone, citing Rule 42 (\"All persons more than a mile high to leave the court\"), but Alice disputes their judgement and refuses to leave. She argues with the King and Queen of Hearts over the ridiculous proceedings, eventually refusing to hold her tongue. The Queen shouts her familiar \"Off with her head!\" but Alice is unafraid, calling them out as just a pack of cards; just as they start to swarm over her. Alice's sister wakes her up for tea, brushing what turns out to be some leaves and not a shower of playing cards from Alice's face. Alice leaves her sister on the bank to imagine all the curious happenings for herself.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Now Wait for Last Year",
    "author": "Philip K. Dick",
    "published_date": "1966",
    "synopsis": " Set during a war between the 'Starmen (inhabitants of the planet Lilistar) and the Reegs, Now Wait for Last Year is the story of Eric Sweetscent, an organ-transplant doctor who gets wrapped up in Earth-Lilistar politics. At the onset of the story, Sweetscent is the personal org-trans surgeon for Virgil Ackerman, the president of Tijuana Fur & Dye. Using an extraterrestrial amoeba which can imitate the cell-structure of anything it touches, TF&D had been the largest manufacturer of synthetic furs on the planet. But like all major corporations on Earth, TF&D has been requisitioned to produce for the war effort. Ackerman invites Sweetscent to \"Wash-35\", a recreation of his boyhood native Washington DC in a simulated 1935 and his vacation getaway on Mars, where he announces an ulterior motive in the retreat. Waiting for them when they arrive is a guest\u2014Gino Molinari, the elected leader of Earth. Known as \"the Mole\", he is rumored to have the enigmatic ability to come back from the dead, and he has requested the services of Sweetscent. Ackerman gladly passes Sweetscent on to Molinari. Meanwhile, Sweetscent's wife, Kathy, tries JJ-180, a new hallucinogenic drug which proves to be highly toxic and addictive. The effects of JJ-180 are not clear at first, however, only hours off of it, Kathy finds herself unable to function and violently craving JJ-180 again. She is visited by 'Starmen who claim the Reegs invented JJ-180 as a chemical weapon against the 'Starmen and Terrans, also stating that there is no known cure for the drug's addiction and 'That's why we put you on it'. Kathy is now a slave to JJ-180. The 'Starmen inform Kathy of her husband's new position with Molinari and suspect the latter's possible defection to the Reegs. Kathy is promised more JJ-180 if she agrees to spy on her husband for Lilistar. Threatened with deportation, Kathy capitulates and agrees to their terms. Eventually, she takes a second dose of the drug as her ability to function becomes nearly impossible due the effects of the withdrawal. Jumping into a taxi-cab, both she and the cab are plunged back in time to the mid-20th century. As the effects of the drug wear off, they slowly make their way back to the present time, uncertain as to whether the past they visited was their own or an alternate one. An increasingly paranoid Kathy sets off to visit her husband. Under his new employer Eric Sweetscent is let in on certain State secrets: Molinari seems to have a psychosomatic condition that mirrors any illness or disease of anyone in his vicinity. The effects of this condition appear to be real, yet the Mole pulls through every time, always returning from the brink of death. Molinari, like everyone else, has realized that in siding with the 'Starmen Earth has doomed itself to the wrong side of a losing war. However, there does not seem to be any safe way of defecting to the Reegs, and Molinari fears that his deteriorating health will not instill confidence in the Terrans should the 'Starmen retaliate, as they are certain to do. Sweetscent is shown footage of a healthier, younger Molinari in uniform and is led to believe that an android look-alike of the President has been created for public appearances, a notion that does not account for the fact that there is at least one other Molinari on the premises, a bullet-ridden corpse that is being preserved for use in the event of certain possible future developments. Kathy arrives to inform her husband of her addiction, and in an effort to motivate him to find a cure she slips a pill of JJ-180 into his drink. Without enough time to be furious, Eric slips a year into the future of an alternate world where his colleagues inform him that he disappeared the day Kathy came to visit. Sweetscent also witnesses that in the new timeline Earth has sided with the Reegs and Lilistar has lost the war. Upon returning to the present of his own timeline, Sweetscent is eager to present this information to Molinari, who reveals that he too has been taking JJ-180, and that the effect is different for each user. Certain users are sent to the past, while others are sent to the future. Each trip is in an alternate universe, and therefore no one can effectively change their own past or future. However, aside from minor details, events in all observed universes seem to be moving in the same direction, and therefore, information obtained from one alternate world's future will most likely be applicable to another. In Molinari's case he slips sideways in time under the drug's influence and is able to pull alternate versions of his present self into his own timeline and then keep them there. Having learned the secret to Molinari's alter-aliases as well as confirming the feasibility of an alliance with the Reegs, Eric takes a larger dose of JJ-180 which propels him further into the future. While there, he obtains a cure for JJ-180's addiction, an item of wide accessibility in the future, as well as obtaining more information about the possible future of the war in his own timeline. He also gathers information as to the effects of JJ-180 on the brain as he is increasingly worried about Kathy's mental condition. Taking a fraction of a pill so as to not immediately return to his own time, Eric again ends up one year in his own future where the 'Starmen have occupied Earth after learning of the Terrans' defection to the Reegs. He is arrested by a 'Star patrol but saved by his future self, who informs him that Ackerman and the rest of the crew at TF&D have taken a stand against Lilistar, using Ackerman's getaway on Mars as their hideout. Now knowing the general future history of the next few years, Eric returns to his own time where his wife's mental condition is deteriorating every day. He resolves to check her into a clinic and is sent into deep reflection about the nature of their relationship. Feeling that he would be justified, he attempts to arrange an affair with a younger girl at Molinari's recommendation. However, he backs out of it and begins to slip into a deep depression while reflecting on his life. He goes to Mexico to purchase poison with which to commit suicide. Deciding against it at the last second, Eric watches as the 'Starmen begin their invasion of Earth. Deciding that he is destined to join Ackerman's resistance against the 'Starmen, Eric enters an automated cab bound for TF&D, asking it what it would do if its wife suffered from brain-damage without possibility of recovery (which Eric had confirmed by contacting his future self). After pointing out that robots do not marry, the cab hypothetically concludes that it would stay with her. Life, argues the cab, is made up of a series of circumstances, different for each person. To leave one's wife would be to say that he requires a uniquely easier set of circumstances than what has been provided. That reasoning, to the cab, was an irrational way of thinking. Eric agrees and decides to stay with his wife despite the challenges presented by her condition, and in the closing paragraph he is thereby commended by the cab for being a 'good man'. fr:En attendant l'ann\u00e9e derni\u00e8re it:Illusione di potere pl:A teraz zaczekaj na zesz\u0142y rok fi:Varro vain viime vuotta\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set during a war between the 'Starmen (inhabitants of the planet Lilistar) and the Reegs, Now Wait for Last Year is the story of Eric Sweetscent, an organ-transplant doctor who gets wrapped up in Earth-Lilistar politics. At the onset of the story, Sweetscent is the personal org-trans surgeon for Virgil Ackerman, the president of Tijuana Fur & Dye. Using an extraterrestrial amoeba which can imitate the cell-structure of anything it touches, TF&D had been the largest manufacturer of synthetic furs on the planet. But like all major corporations on Earth, TF&D has been requisitioned to produce for the war effort. Ackerman invites Sweetscent to \"Wash-35\", a recreation of his boyhood native Washington DC in a simulated 1935 and his vacation getaway on Mars, where he announces an ulterior motive in the retreat. Waiting for them when they arrive is a guest\u2014Gino Molinari, the elected leader of Earth. Known as \"the Mole\", he is rumored to have the enigmatic ability to come back from the dead, and he has requested the services of Sweetscent. Ackerman gladly passes Sweetscent on to Molinari. Meanwhile, Sweetscent's wife, Kathy, tries JJ-180, a new hallucinogenic drug which proves to be highly toxic and addictive. The effects of JJ-180 are not clear at first, however, only hours off of it, Kathy finds herself unable to function and violently craving JJ-180 again. She is visited by 'Starmen who claim the Reegs invented JJ-180 as a chemical weapon against the 'Starmen and Terrans, also stating that there is no known cure for the drug's addiction and 'That's why we put you on it'. Kathy is now a slave to JJ-180. The 'Starmen inform"
      },
      {
        "text": " are not clear at first, however, only hours off of it, Kathy finds herself unable to function and violently craving JJ-180 again. She is visited by 'Starmen who claim the Reegs invented JJ-180 as a chemical weapon against the 'Starmen and Terrans, also stating that there is no known cure for the drug's addiction and 'That's why we put you on it'. Kathy is now a slave to JJ-180. The 'Starmen inform Kathy of her husband's new position with Molinari and suspect the latter's possible defection to the Reegs. Kathy is promised more JJ-180 if she agrees to spy on her husband for Lilistar. Threatened with deportation, Kathy capitulates and agrees to their terms. Eventually, she takes a second dose of the drug as her ability to function becomes nearly impossible due the effects of the withdrawal. Jumping into a taxi-cab, both she and the cab are plunged back in time to the mid-20th century. As the effects of the drug wear off, they slowly make their way back to the present time, uncertain as to whether the past they visited was their own or an alternate one. An increasingly paranoid Kathy sets off to visit her husband. Under his new employer Eric Sweetscent is let in on certain State secrets: Molinari seems to have a psychosomatic condition that mirrors any illness or disease of anyone in his vicinity. The effects of this condition appear to be real, yet the Mole pulls through every time, always returning from the brink of death. Molinari, like everyone else, has realized that in siding with the 'Starmen Earth has doomed itself to the wrong side of a losing war. However, there does not seem to be any safe way of defecting to the Reegs, and Molinari fears that his deteriorating health will not instill confidence in the Terrans should the 'Starmen retaliate"
      },
      {
        "text": " condition appear to be real, yet the Mole pulls through every time, always returning from the brink of death. Molinari, like everyone else, has realized that in siding with the 'Starmen Earth has doomed itself to the wrong side of a losing war. However, there does not seem to be any safe way of defecting to the Reegs, and Molinari fears that his deteriorating health will not instill confidence in the Terrans should the 'Starmen retaliate, as they are certain to do. Sweetscent is shown footage of a healthier, younger Molinari in uniform and is led to believe that an android look-alike of the President has been created for public appearances, a notion that does not account for the fact that there is at least one other Molinari on the premises, a bullet-ridden corpse that is being preserved for use in the event of certain possible future developments. Kathy arrives to inform her husband of her addiction, and in an effort to motivate him to find a cure she slips a pill of JJ-180 into his drink. Without enough time to be furious, Eric slips a year into the future of an alternate world where his colleagues inform him that he disappeared the day Kathy came to visit. Sweetscent also witnesses that in the new timeline Earth has sided with the Reegs and Lilistar has lost the war. Upon returning to the present of his own timeline, Sweetscent is eager to present this information to Molinari, who reveals that he too has been taking JJ-180, and that the effect is different for each user. Certain users are sent to the past, while others are sent to the future. Each trip is in an alternate universe, and therefore no one can effectively change their own past or future. However, aside from minor details, events in all observed universes seem to be moving in the same direction, and therefore, information obtained from one alternate world's future will most likely be"
      },
      {
        "text": " to Molinari, who reveals that he too has been taking JJ-180, and that the effect is different for each user. Certain users are sent to the past, while others are sent to the future. Each trip is in an alternate universe, and therefore no one can effectively change their own past or future. However, aside from minor details, events in all observed universes seem to be moving in the same direction, and therefore, information obtained from one alternate world's future will most likely be applicable to another. In Molinari's case he slips sideways in time under the drug's influence and is able to pull alternate versions of his present self into his own timeline and then keep them there. Having learned the secret to Molinari's alter-aliases as well as confirming the feasibility of an alliance with the Reegs, Eric takes a larger dose of JJ-180 which propels him further into the future. While there, he obtains a cure for JJ-180's addiction, an item of wide accessibility in the future, as well as obtaining more information about the possible future of the war in his own timeline. He also gathers information as to the effects of JJ-180 on the brain as he is increasingly worried about Kathy's mental condition. Taking a fraction of a pill so as to not immediately return to his own time, Eric again ends up one year in his own future where the 'Starmen have occupied Earth after learning of the Terrans' defection to the Reegs. He is arrested by a 'Star patrol but saved by his future self, who informs him that Ackerman and the rest of the crew at TF&D have taken a stand against Lilistar, using Ackerman's getaway on Mars as their hideout. Now knowing the general future history of the next few years, Eric returns to his own time where his wife's mental condition is deteriorating every day. He resolves to check her into a clinic and is sent into deep"
      },
      {
        "text": " to the Reegs. He is arrested by a 'Star patrol but saved by his future self, who informs him that Ackerman and the rest of the crew at TF&D have taken a stand against Lilistar, using Ackerman's getaway on Mars as their hideout. Now knowing the general future history of the next few years, Eric returns to his own time where his wife's mental condition is deteriorating every day. He resolves to check her into a clinic and is sent into deep reflection about the nature of their relationship. Feeling that he would be justified, he attempts to arrange an affair with a younger girl at Molinari's recommendation. However, he backs out of it and begins to slip into a deep depression while reflecting on his life. He goes to Mexico to purchase poison with which to commit suicide. Deciding against it at the last second, Eric watches as the 'Starmen begin their invasion of Earth. Deciding that he is destined to join Ackerman's resistance against the 'Starmen, Eric enters an automated cab bound for TF&D, asking it what it would do if its wife suffered from brain-damage without possibility of recovery (which Eric had confirmed by contacting his future self). After pointing out that robots do not marry, the cab hypothetically concludes that it would stay with her. Life, argues the cab, is made up of a series of circumstances, different for each person. To leave one's wife would be to say that he requires a uniquely easier set of circumstances than what has been provided. That reasoning, to the cab, was an irrational way of thinking. Eric agrees and decides to stay with his wife despite the challenges presented by her condition, and in the closing paragraph he is thereby commended by the cab for being a 'good man'. fr:En attendant l'ann\u00e9e derni\u00e8re it:Illusione di potere pl:A teraz zaczekaj na zesz\u0142y ro"
      },
      {
        "text": " requires a uniquely easier set of circumstances than what has been provided. That reasoning, to the cab, was an irrational way of thinking. Eric agrees and decides to stay with his wife despite the challenges presented by her condition, and in the closing paragraph he is thereby commended by the cab for being a 'good man'. fr:En attendant l'ann\u00e9e derni\u00e8re it:Illusione di potere pl:A teraz zaczekaj na zesz\u0142y rok fi:Varro vain viime vuotta\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Magician's Nephew",
    "author": "C. S. Lewis",
    "published_date": "1955",
    "synopsis": " The story begins in London during the summer of 1900. Two children, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, meet while playing in the adjacent gardens of a row of terraced houses. They decide to explore the attic connecting the houses, but take the wrong door and surprise Digory's Uncle Andrew in his study. Uncle Andrew tricks Polly into touching a yellow magic ring, causing her to vanish. Then he explains to Digory that he has been dabbling in magic, and that the rings allow travel between one world and another. He persuades Digory, effectively through blackmail, to take another yellow ring to follow wherever Polly has gone, and two green rings so that both can return. Digory finds himself transported to a sleepy woodland with an almost narcotic effect; he finds Polly nearby. The woodland is filled with pools. Digory and Polly surmise that the world is not really a proper world at all but a \"Wood between the Worlds,\" similar to the attic that links their rowhouses back in England, and that each pool leads to a separate universe. They decide to explore a different world before returning to England, and jump into one of the nearby pools. They then find themselves in a desolate abandoned city of the ancient world of Charn. Inside the ruined palace, they discover statuesque figures of Charn's former kings and queens, which degenerate from the fair and wise to the unhappy and cruel. They find a bell with a hammer, with these words: Make your choice, adventurous Stranger Strike the bell and bide the danger Or wonder, till it drives you mad What would have followed if you had Despite protests from Polly, Digory rings the bell. This awakens the last of the statues, a witch named Jadis, who, to avoid defeat in battle, had deliberately killed every living thing in Charn by speaking a "Deplorable Word." As the only survivor left in her world, she placed herself in an enchanted sleep that would only be broken by someone ringing the bell. The children realize Jadis's evil nature and attempt to flee, but she follows them back to England by clinging to them as they clutch their rings. In England, she dismisses Uncle Andrew as a mere dabbler in magic. She discovers that her magic does not work in England but she still has her strength. She enslaves Uncle Andrew and orders him to fetch her a chariot, so she can set about conquering Earth. They leave, and she returns standing atop a hansom with no driver, followed by a fire engine. There is a collision at the front door of the Kirke house, and police arrive. Jadis breaks off a rod from a nearby lamp-post and brandishes it as a weapon. Polly and Digory grab her and put on their magic rings to take her out of their world, dragging with them Uncle Andrew, Frank the cab-driver, and Frank's horse, since all were touching one another when Digory and Polly grabbed their rings. In the Wood between the Worlds they jump into a pool, hoping it leads back to Charn. Instead they stumble into a dark void that Jadis recognizes as a world not yet created. They then all witness the creation of a new world by the lion Aslan, who brings various entities, stars, plants, and animals, into existence as he sings. Jadis attempts to kill Aslan with the iron bar from the lamp-post, but it deflects harmlessly off of him and begins to sprout into a new lamp-post "tree." Jadis flees. Aslan gives some animals the power of speech, commanding them to use it for justice and merriment. Digory's uncle is frozen with fear and unable to communicate with the talking animals, who mistake him for a kind of tree. Aslan confronts Digory with his responsibility for bringing Jadis into his young world, and tells Digory he must atone by helping to protect Narnia from her evil. Aslan transforms the cabbie's horse into a winged horse named Fledge, and Digory and Polly fly on him to a garden high in the mountains. Digory's task is to take an apple from a tree in this garden, and plant it in Narnia. In the garden Digory finds a sign reading: Come in my gold gates or not at all Take of my fruit for others or forbear For those who steal or those who climb my wall Shall find their heart's desire and find despair Digory picks one of the apples for his mission, but has to resist temptation to eat one for himself after he smells the apples. As he prepares to leave he is shocked to see the witch Jadis. She has eaten one of the magic apples, thereby becoming immortal, but her face is now "deadly white;" Digory begins to understand what the last line in the sign means. She tempts Digory to either eat an apple himself and join her in immortality, or steal one back to Earth to heal his dying mother. Digory resists temptation, knowing that his mother would never condone theft. However the clincher comes when the Witch suggests he leave Polly behind, not knowing Polly can get away by her own ring. At this, Digory sees through the Witch's ploy. Foiled, the Witch departs for the North. Digory returns to Narnia with an apple, which is planted in Narnian soil. A new tree springs up, which Aslan says will repel the Witch for centuries to come. Aslan informs Digory that a stolen apple would have healed his mother, but at a terrible price: anyone who steals the apples gets their heart's desire, but it comes in a form that makes it unlikeable. In the case of the Witch, she now has her heart's desire for immortality, but it only means eternal misery because of her evil heart. Moreover, the magic apples are now a horror to her, which is why the tree repels her. With Aslan's permission, Digory then takes an apple from the new tree to heal his mother. Aslan promises the apple will now bring joy. Aslan returns Digory, Polly, and Uncle Andrew to England; Frank and his wife, Helen (transported from England by Aslan) stay to rule Narnia as its first King and Queen. Digory's apple restores his dying mother to health, and he and Polly remain lifelong friends. Uncle Andrew reforms and gives up magic but he still enjoys bragging about his adventures with the Witch on their tour of London. Digory plants the apple's core, together with Uncle Andrew's magic rings, in the back yard of his aunt's home in London. Years later the tree that grows from it blows down in a storm. Digory has its wood made into a wardrobe, thus linking the story to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in which Digory has become the old professor in whose country house Lucy Pevensie finds the wardrobe and the way into Narnia.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins in London during the summer of 1900. Two children, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, meet while playing in the adjacent gardens of a row of terraced houses. They decide to explore the attic connecting the houses, but take the wrong door and surprise Digory's Uncle Andrew in his study. Uncle Andrew tricks Polly into touching a yellow magic ring, causing her to vanish. Then he explains to Digory that he has been dabbling in magic, and that the rings allow travel between one world and another. He persuades Digory, effectively through blackmail, to take another yellow ring to follow wherever Polly has gone, and two green rings so that both can return. Digory finds himself transported to a sleepy woodland with an almost narcotic effect; he finds Polly nearby. The woodland is filled with pools. Digory and Polly surmise that the world is not really a proper world at all but a \"Wood between the Worlds,\" similar to the attic that links their rowhouses back in England, and that each pool leads to a separate universe. They decide to explore a different world before returning to England, and jump into one of the nearby pools. They then find themselves in a desolate abandoned city of the ancient world of Charn. Inside the ruined palace, they discover statuesque figures of Charn's former kings and queens, which degenerate from the fair and wise to the unhappy and cruel. They find a bell with a hammer, with these words: Make your choice, adventurous Stranger Strike the bell and bide the danger Or wonder, till it drives you mad What would have followed if you had Despite protests from Polly, Digory rings the bell. This awakens the last of the statues, a witch named Jadis, who, to avoid defeat in battle, had deliberately killed every living thing in Charn by speaking a "Deplorable Word." As the only survivor left in her world, she placed"
      },
      {
        "text": " Make your choice, adventurous Stranger Strike the bell and bide the danger Or wonder, till it drives you mad What would have followed if you had Despite protests from Polly, Digory rings the bell. This awakens the last of the statues, a witch named Jadis, who, to avoid defeat in battle, had deliberately killed every living thing in Charn by speaking a "Deplorable Word." As the only survivor left in her world, she placed herself in an enchanted sleep that would only be broken by someone ringing the bell. The children realize Jadis's evil nature and attempt to flee, but she follows them back to England by clinging to them as they clutch their rings. In England, she dismisses Uncle Andrew as a mere dabbler in magic. She discovers that her magic does not work in England but she still has her strength. She enslaves Uncle Andrew and orders him to fetch her a chariot, so she can set about conquering Earth. They leave, and she returns standing atop a hansom with no driver, followed by a fire engine. There is a collision at the front door of the Kirke house, and police arrive. Jadis breaks off a rod from a nearby lamp-post and brandishes it as a weapon. Polly and Digory grab her and put on their magic rings to take her out of their world, dragging with them Uncle Andrew, Frank the cab-driver, and Frank's horse, since all were touching one another when Digory and Polly grabbed their rings. In the Wood between the Worlds they jump into a pool, hoping it leads back to Charn. Instead they stumble into a dark void that Jadis recognizes as a world not yet created. They then all witness the creation of a new world by the lion Aslan, who brings various entities, stars, plants, and animals, into existence as he sings. Jadis"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Frank's horse, since all were touching one another when Digory and Polly grabbed their rings. In the Wood between the Worlds they jump into a pool, hoping it leads back to Charn. Instead they stumble into a dark void that Jadis recognizes as a world not yet created. They then all witness the creation of a new world by the lion Aslan, who brings various entities, stars, plants, and animals, into existence as he sings. Jadis attempts to kill Aslan with the iron bar from the lamp-post, but it deflects harmlessly off of him and begins to sprout into a new lamp-post "tree." Jadis flees. Aslan gives some animals the power of speech, commanding them to use it for justice and merriment. Digory's uncle is frozen with fear and unable to communicate with the talking animals, who mistake him for a kind of tree. Aslan confronts Digory with his responsibility for bringing Jadis into his young world, and tells Digory he must atone by helping to protect Narnia from her evil. Aslan transforms the cabbie's horse into a winged horse named Fledge, and Digory and Polly fly on him to a garden high in the mountains. Digory's task is to take an apple from a tree in this garden, and plant it in Narnia. In the garden Digory finds a sign reading: Come in my gold gates or not at all Take of my fruit for others or forbear For those who steal or those who climb my wall Shall find their heart's desire and find despair Digory picks one of the apples for his mission, but has to resist temptation to eat one for himself after he smells the apples. As he prepares to leave he is shocked to see the witch Jadis. She has eaten one"
      },
      {
        "text": " it in Narnia. In the garden Digory finds a sign reading: Come in my gold gates or not at all Take of my fruit for others or forbear For those who steal or those who climb my wall Shall find their heart's desire and find despair Digory picks one of the apples for his mission, but has to resist temptation to eat one for himself after he smells the apples. As he prepares to leave he is shocked to see the witch Jadis. She has eaten one of the magic apples, thereby becoming immortal, but her face is now "deadly white;" Digory begins to understand what the last line in the sign means. She tempts Digory to either eat an apple himself and join her in immortality, or steal one back to Earth to heal his dying mother. Digory resists temptation, knowing that his mother would never condone theft. However the clincher comes when the Witch suggests he leave Polly behind, not knowing Polly can get away by her own ring. At this, Digory sees through the Witch's ploy. Foiled, the Witch departs for the North. Digory returns to Narnia with an apple, which is planted in Narnian soil. A new tree springs up, which Aslan says will repel the Witch for centuries to come. Aslan informs Digory that a stolen apple would have healed his mother, but at a terrible price: anyone who steals the apples gets their heart's desire, but it comes in a form that makes it unlikeable. In the case of the Witch, she now has her heart's desire for immortality, but it only means eternal misery because of her evil heart. Moreover, the magic apples are now a horror to her, which is why the tree repels her. With Aslan's permission, Digory then takes an apple from the new tree to heal"
      },
      {
        "text": " the apples gets their heart's desire, but it comes in a form that makes it unlikeable. In the case of the Witch, she now has her heart's desire for immortality, but it only means eternal misery because of her evil heart. Moreover, the magic apples are now a horror to her, which is why the tree repels her. With Aslan's permission, Digory then takes an apple from the new tree to heal his mother. Aslan promises the apple will now bring joy. Aslan returns Digory, Polly, and Uncle Andrew to England; Frank and his wife, Helen (transported from England by Aslan) stay to rule Narnia as its first King and Queen. Digory's apple restores his dying mother to health, and he and Polly remain lifelong friends. Uncle Andrew reforms and gives up magic but he still enjoys bragging about his adventures with the Witch on their tour of London. Digory plants the apple's core, together with Uncle Andrew's magic rings, in the back yard of his aunt's home in London. Years later the tree that grows from it blows down in a storm. Digory has its wood made into a wardrobe, thus linking the story to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in which Digory has become the old professor in whose country house Lucy Pevensie finds the wardrobe and the way into Narnia.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " wardrobe and the way into Narnia.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Patchwork Girl of Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1913",
    "synopsis": " Ojo the Unlucky is a Munchkin boy who, devoted to life with his uncle Unc Nunkie in the wilderness but on the verge of starvation, goes to see a neighboring \"magician\" and old friend of Unc\u2019s, Dr. Pipt. While there they see a demonstration of the Pipt-made Powder of Life, which animates any object it touches. Unc Nunkie and Dr. Pipt's wife are also the sufferers of the consequences of another of the Doctor's inventions, the Liquid of Petrifaction, which turns them into solid marble statues. The remainder of this book is Ojo's quest through Oz to retrieve the five components of an antidote to the Liquid: a six-leaved clover found only in the Emerald City, three hairs from the tip of a Woozy's tail, a gill (a quarter of a pint) of water from a dark well (one that remains untouched by natural light), a drop of oil from a live man's body, and the left wing of a yellow butterfly. With the help of the patchwork girl Scraps, Bungle the Glass Cat (another of Dr. Pipt's creations), the Woozy, Dorothy, the Shaggy Man, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman, Ojo gathers all of these supplies but the left wing — the Tin Woodman will not allow any living thing to be killed, even to save another's life. The party returns to the Emerald City, where the Wizard of Oz (one of the few allowed to lawfully practice magic in Oz) restores Unc Nunkie and Dr. Pipt's wife. The story is also a growth process for Ojo; he learns that luck is not a matter of who you are or what you have, but what you do; he is renamed \"Ojo the Lucky,\" and so he appears in the following Oz books.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ojo the Unlucky is a Munchkin boy who, devoted to life with his uncle Unc Nunkie in the wilderness but on the verge of starvation, goes to see a neighboring \"magician\" and old friend of Unc\u2019s, Dr. Pipt. While there they see a demonstration of the Pipt-made Powder of Life, which animates any object it touches. Unc Nunkie and Dr. Pipt's wife are also the sufferers of the consequences of another of the Doctor's inventions, the Liquid of Petrifaction, which turns them into solid marble statues. The remainder of this book is Ojo's quest through Oz to retrieve the five components of an antidote to the Liquid: a six-leaved clover found only in the Emerald City, three hairs from the tip of a Woozy's tail, a gill (a quarter of a pint) of water from a dark well (one that remains untouched by natural light), a drop of oil from a live man's body, and the left wing of a yellow butterfly. With the help of the patchwork girl Scraps, Bungle the Glass Cat (another of Dr. Pipt's creations), the Woozy, Dorothy, the Shaggy Man, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman, Ojo gathers all of these supplies but the left wing — the Tin Woodman will not allow any living thing to be killed, even to save another's life. The party returns to the Emerald City, where the Wizard of Oz (one of the few allowed to lawfully practice magic in Oz) restores Unc Nunkie and Dr. Pipt's wife. The story is also a growth process for Ojo; he learns that luck is not a matter of who you are or what you have, but what you do; he is renamed \"Ojo the Lucky,\" and so he appears in the following Oz books.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s life. The party returns to the Emerald City, where the Wizard of Oz (one of the few allowed to lawfully practice magic in Oz) restores Unc Nunkie and Dr. Pipt's wife. The story is also a growth process for Ojo; he learns that luck is not a matter of who you are or what you have, but what you do; he is renamed \"Ojo the Lucky,\" and so he appears in the following Oz books.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "To Sail Beyond the Sunset",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1987",
    "synopsis": " The book is a memoir of Maureen Johnson Smith Long, mother, lover, and eventual wife of Lazarus Long. Maureen is ostensibly recording the events of the book while being held in a future prison, awaiting her uncertain fate, along with Pixel, the eponymous character of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. Maureen, born on July 4, 1882, recounts her girlhood in Kansas City, young adulthood, discovery that her family is a member of the long-lived Howard Families (whose backstory is revealed in Methuselah's Children), marriage to Brian Smith, another member of that family, and her life until her accidental \"death\" in 1982. Maureen lives through, and gives her (sometimes contradictory) viewpoints on many events in other Heinlein stories, most notably the 1917 visit from the future by \"Ted Bronson\" (in actuality Lazarus Long), told from Long's point of view in Time Enough for Love, D. D. Harriman's space program from The Man Who Sold the Moon and the rolling roads from The Roads Must Roll. The adventures of Maureen are a series of sexual ones, starting with Heinlein describing her as a young girl who, having just had her first sexual intercourse, is examined by her father, a doctor, and finds herself desiring him sexually. Her sexual life story then continues featuring various boys, her husband, ministers, other women's husbands, boyfriends, swinging sessions, and the adult Lazarus Long/Theodore Bronson. Additionally, she continues a lifelong pursuit of her father sexually, encourages her husband to have sexual intercourse with their daughters, and accompanies him when he does; but forbids a son and daughter of hers from continuing an incestuous relationship, primarily for the sister's reluctance to share the brother with other women. All of these are set against a history lesson of an alternate 20th century in which a variety of social and philosophical commentary is delivered. She is eventually rescued by Lazarus Long and other characters drawn from various novels in the ship \"Gay Deceiver\" (from The Number of the Beast), and after rescuing her father from certain death in the Battle of Britain, is united with her descendants in a massive group marriage in the settlement of Boondock, on the planet Tertius. Maureen ends her memoir and the Lazarus Long saga with the phrase \"And we all lived happily ever after\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is a memoir of Maureen Johnson Smith Long, mother, lover, and eventual wife of Lazarus Long. Maureen is ostensibly recording the events of the book while being held in a future prison, awaiting her uncertain fate, along with Pixel, the eponymous character of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. Maureen, born on July 4, 1882, recounts her girlhood in Kansas City, young adulthood, discovery that her family is a member of the long-lived Howard Families (whose backstory is revealed in Methuselah's Children), marriage to Brian Smith, another member of that family, and her life until her accidental \"death\" in 1982. Maureen lives through, and gives her (sometimes contradictory) viewpoints on many events in other Heinlein stories, most notably the 1917 visit from the future by \"Ted Bronson\" (in actuality Lazarus Long), told from Long's point of view in Time Enough for Love, D. D. Harriman's space program from The Man Who Sold the Moon and the rolling roads from The Roads Must Roll. The adventures of Maureen are a series of sexual ones, starting with Heinlein describing her as a young girl who, having just had her first sexual intercourse, is examined by her father, a doctor, and finds herself desiring him sexually. Her sexual life story then continues featuring various boys, her husband, ministers, other women's husbands, boyfriends, swinging sessions, and the adult Lazarus Long/Theodore Bronson. Additionally, she continues a lifelong pursuit of her father sexually, encourages her husband to have sexual intercourse with their daughters, and accompanies him when he does; but forbids a son and daughter of hers from continuing an incestuous relationship, primarily for the sister's reluctance to share the brother with other women. All of these are set against a history lesson of an alternate 20th century in which a variety of social and philosophical commentary is delivered. She is eventually rescued by Lazarus Long and other characters"
      },
      {
        "text": "odore Bronson. Additionally, she continues a lifelong pursuit of her father sexually, encourages her husband to have sexual intercourse with their daughters, and accompanies him when he does; but forbids a son and daughter of hers from continuing an incestuous relationship, primarily for the sister's reluctance to share the brother with other women. All of these are set against a history lesson of an alternate 20th century in which a variety of social and philosophical commentary is delivered. She is eventually rescued by Lazarus Long and other characters drawn from various novels in the ship \"Gay Deceiver\" (from The Number of the Beast), and after rescuing her father from certain death in the Battle of Britain, is united with her descendants in a massive group marriage in the settlement of Boondock, on the planet Tertius. Maureen ends her memoir and the Lazarus Long saga with the phrase \"And we all lived happily ever after\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Double Star",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1956",
    "synopsis": " The story, which is told in the first person, centers on down-and-out actor Lawrence Smith (stage name Lorenzo Smythe, a.k.a. \"The Great Lorenzo\"). A brilliant actor and mimic (or so we are told, by Smith himself), he is down to his last coin when a spaceman hires him to double for a public figure. It is only when he is on his way to Mars that he finds out how deeply he has been deceived: he will have to impersonate one of the most prominent politicians in the solar system (and one with whose views Smythe deeply disagrees): John Joseph Bonforte. Bonforte is the leader of the Expansionist coalition, currently out of office but with a good chance of changing that at the next general election. Bonforte has been kidnapped by his political opponents, and his aides want Smith to impersonate Bonforte while they try to find him. Bonforte is rescued, but he is in poor health due to the treatment inflicted on him during his imprisonment. This forces Smith to extend his performance, even to becoming temporary Supreme Minister and running in an election. (This is made plausible through Bonforte's extensive Farley Files.) The central political issue in the election is the granting of the vote to Martians in the human-dominated Solar System. Lorenzo shares the anti-Martian prejudice prevalent among large parts of Earth's population, but he is called upon to assume the persona of the most prominent advocate for Martian enfranchisement. Smith takes on not only Bonforte's appearance, but some aspects of his personality. At the moment of electoral victory, Bonforte dies of the aftereffects of his kidnapping, and Smythe realizes he has little choice but to assume the role for life. In a retrospective conclusion set twenty-five years later, Lorenzo has 'become' Bonforte, suppressing his own identity permanently. He has been generally successful and has carried forward Bonforte's ideals to the best of his ability. Penny (Bonforte's adoring secretary; now Smith/Bonforte's wife) says, \"I never loved anyone else.\" At the end, Lorenzo looks back on his former life, including the prejudices he used to hold, commenting that they seem to him like they happened to someone else.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story, which is told in the first person, centers on down-and-out actor Lawrence Smith (stage name Lorenzo Smythe, a.k.a. \"The Great Lorenzo\"). A brilliant actor and mimic (or so we are told, by Smith himself), he is down to his last coin when a spaceman hires him to double for a public figure. It is only when he is on his way to Mars that he finds out how deeply he has been deceived: he will have to impersonate one of the most prominent politicians in the solar system (and one with whose views Smythe deeply disagrees): John Joseph Bonforte. Bonforte is the leader of the Expansionist coalition, currently out of office but with a good chance of changing that at the next general election. Bonforte has been kidnapped by his political opponents, and his aides want Smith to impersonate Bonforte while they try to find him. Bonforte is rescued, but he is in poor health due to the treatment inflicted on him during his imprisonment. This forces Smith to extend his performance, even to becoming temporary Supreme Minister and running in an election. (This is made plausible through Bonforte's extensive Farley Files.) The central political issue in the election is the granting of the vote to Martians in the human-dominated Solar System. Lorenzo shares the anti-Martian prejudice prevalent among large parts of Earth's population, but he is called upon to assume the persona of the most prominent advocate for Martian enfranchisement. Smith takes on not only Bonforte's appearance, but some aspects of his personality. At the moment of electoral victory, Bonforte dies of the aftereffects of his kidnapping, and Smythe realizes he has little choice but to assume the role for life. In a retrospective conclusion set twenty-five years later, Lorenzo has 'become' Bonforte, suppressing his own identity permanently. He has been generally successful and has carried"
      },
      {
        "text": " prominent advocate for Martian enfranchisement. Smith takes on not only Bonforte's appearance, but some aspects of his personality. At the moment of electoral victory, Bonforte dies of the aftereffects of his kidnapping, and Smythe realizes he has little choice but to assume the role for life. In a retrospective conclusion set twenty-five years later, Lorenzo has 'become' Bonforte, suppressing his own identity permanently. He has been generally successful and has carried forward Bonforte's ideals to the best of his ability. Penny (Bonforte's adoring secretary; now Smith/Bonforte's wife) says, \"I never loved anyone else.\" At the end, Lorenzo looks back on his former life, including the prejudices he used to hold, commenting that they seem to him like they happened to someone else.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Time for the Stars",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1956",
    "synopsis": " The Long Range Foundation (\"LRF\") is a non-profit organization that funds expensive, long-term projects for the benefit of mankind that nobody else will touch. It has built a dozen exploratory starships (torchships) to search for habitable planets to colonize. The vessels can only gradually accelerate, and then merely to sub-light speeds, so the voyages will last many years. Therefore, each starship has a much larger than necessary crew to maintain a more stable, long-term shipboard society, as well as provide replacements for the inevitable deaths. It is found that some twins and triplets can communicate with each other telepathically. The process seems to be instantaneous and unweakened by distance, making it the only practical means of communication for ships traveling many light years away from Earth. Before announcing the discovery, the foundation first recruits as many of these people as it can. Testing shows that teenagers Tom and Pat Bartlett have this talent. Both are eager to sign up. Pat, the dominant twin, manipulates things so that he gets selected as the crewmember, leaving a fuming Tom to stay behind. However, Pat does not really want to leave and his subconscious engineers a convenient accident so that Tom has to take his place at the last minute. On board, Tom is pleased to find his uncle Steve, a military man, has arranged to get assigned to the same ship. The trip is fraught with problems as trivial as an annoying roommate and as serious as mutiny. The ship visits several star systems. Due to the nature of relativistic travel (see Twin paradox), the twin who remained behind ages faster and eventually the affinity between them is weakened to the point that they are no longer able to communicate easily. However, some of the spacefaring twins, including the protagonist, are able to connect with the descendants of the Earthbound twins. Tom works with his niece, then his grandniece and finally his great-grandniece. The last planet (Elysa) scouted proves to be particularly deadly. Unexpectedly intelligent and hostile natives capture and kill a large portion of the remaining crew, including the captain and Tom's uncle Major Steve Lucas. The reserve captain takes charge, but is unable to restore the morale of the devastated survivors. When he insists on continuing the mission rather than returning to Earth, the crew begins to consider mutiny. Shortly after he notifies Earth of the dire situation, they are surprised to hear a spaceship will rendezvous with them in less than a month and surmise it must be a more advanced LRF spaceship. Scientists on Earth have discovered faster-than-light travel, in part due to research into the nature of telepathy, and are collecting the remaining crews of the LRF torchships. The explorers return to an Earth they no longer recognize, and in most cases, no longer fit in. Tom, however, returns to marry his last telepathic partner, his own great-grandniece, who has been reading his mind since childhood.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Long Range Foundation (\"LRF\") is a non-profit organization that funds expensive, long-term projects for the benefit of mankind that nobody else will touch. It has built a dozen exploratory starships (torchships) to search for habitable planets to colonize. The vessels can only gradually accelerate, and then merely to sub-light speeds, so the voyages will last many years. Therefore, each starship has a much larger than necessary crew to maintain a more stable, long-term shipboard society, as well as provide replacements for the inevitable deaths. It is found that some twins and triplets can communicate with each other telepathically. The process seems to be instantaneous and unweakened by distance, making it the only practical means of communication for ships traveling many light years away from Earth. Before announcing the discovery, the foundation first recruits as many of these people as it can. Testing shows that teenagers Tom and Pat Bartlett have this talent. Both are eager to sign up. Pat, the dominant twin, manipulates things so that he gets selected as the crewmember, leaving a fuming Tom to stay behind. However, Pat does not really want to leave and his subconscious engineers a convenient accident so that Tom has to take his place at the last minute. On board, Tom is pleased to find his uncle Steve, a military man, has arranged to get assigned to the same ship. The trip is fraught with problems as trivial as an annoying roommate and as serious as mutiny. The ship visits several star systems. Due to the nature of relativistic travel (see Twin paradox), the twin who remained behind ages faster and eventually the affinity between them is weakened to the point that they are no longer able to communicate easily. However, some of the spacefaring twins, including the protagonist, are able to connect with the descendants of the Earthbound twins. Tom works with his niece, then his grandniece and finally his great-grandniece"
      },
      {
        "text": " serious as mutiny. The ship visits several star systems. Due to the nature of relativistic travel (see Twin paradox), the twin who remained behind ages faster and eventually the affinity between them is weakened to the point that they are no longer able to communicate easily. However, some of the spacefaring twins, including the protagonist, are able to connect with the descendants of the Earthbound twins. Tom works with his niece, then his grandniece and finally his great-grandniece. The last planet (Elysa) scouted proves to be particularly deadly. Unexpectedly intelligent and hostile natives capture and kill a large portion of the remaining crew, including the captain and Tom's uncle Major Steve Lucas. The reserve captain takes charge, but is unable to restore the morale of the devastated survivors. When he insists on continuing the mission rather than returning to Earth, the crew begins to consider mutiny. Shortly after he notifies Earth of the dire situation, they are surprised to hear a spaceship will rendezvous with them in less than a month and surmise it must be a more advanced LRF spaceship. Scientists on Earth have discovered faster-than-light travel, in part due to research into the nature of telepathy, and are collecting the remaining crews of the LRF torchships. The explorers return to an Earth they no longer recognize, and in most cases, no longer fit in. Tom, however, returns to marry his last telepathic partner, his own great-grandniece, who has been reading his mind since childhood.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " great-grandniece, who has been reading his mind since childhood.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Citizen of the Galaxy",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1957",
    "synopsis": " Thorby is a young, defiant slave boy recently arrived on the planet Jubbul, where he is purchased by an old beggar, Baslim the Cripple, for a trivial sum and taken to the beggar's surprisingly well-furnished underground home. Thereafter Baslim treats the boy as a son, teaching him not only the trade of begging, but also mathematics, history, and several languages, and sends Thorby on errands all over the city, carefully passing along information and keeping track of the comings and goings of starships, so that Thorby realizes that his foster-father is gathering intelligence, particularly on the slave trade. In addition, Baslim has Thorby memorize a contingency plan and a message to deliver to one of five starship captains in the event of Baslim's arrest or death. When Baslim is captured and beheaded by the local authorities, Thorby and local innkeeper 'Mother Shaum' convey the message to Captain Krausa of the starship Sisu. Because the 'Free Trader' society to whom Krausa belongs owe a debt to Baslim for his release of one of their crews from a slave-trader, the captain takes Thorby aboard the Sisu at great risk to himself and his clan. Thorby is adopted by the captain (thereby gaining considerable shipboard social status) and adjusts to the insular, clannish, matriarchal culture of the traders. The advanced education provided by Baslim and the fast reflexes of youth make him an ideal fire controlman, in which position Thorby destroys a pirate craft. His immediate superior, a young woman named Mata, begins to view him as a suitable husband; but the customs of the Free Traders forbid this, and to avoid trouble she is transferred to another ship. Thorby is again transferred when against the wishes of his wife, the executive officer and head of the clan (who wants to use Thorby's connection to Baslim to enhance Sisu's prestige), the captain, obeying Baslim's last wish, entrusts the boy to a military cruiser and asks its captain to assist Thorby in finding his true place in society. In order to implement a background search without having to pay the immense cost, Thorby is enlisted in the military service of the Terran Hegemony, the dominant military power in the galaxy. Thorby is ultimately identified as Thor Bradley Rudbek, the long-lost heir of a very powerful family and a substantial shareholder in Rudbek and Associates, a large, sprawling interstellar business including one of the largest starship-manufacturing companies and the entire city of Rudbek (formerly Jackson Hole, Wyoming). In his absence, the business is run by a relative by marriage, \"Uncle\" John Weemsby, who encourages his stepdaughter Leda to guide Thorby in adjustment to his new situation while secretly scheming to block Thorby's growing interest and interference in the company. Thorby, investigating his parents' disappearance and his capture and sale by slavers, comes to suspect that his parents were eliminated to prevent the discovery that some portions of Rudbek and Associates were secretly profiting from the slave trade. When Weemsby quashes further investigation, Thorby seeks legal help and launches a proxy fight, which he unexpectedly wins when Leda votes her shares in his favor. He fires Weemsby and assumes full control of the firm. When Thorby realizes that it will take a lifetime to remove Rudbek and Associates from the slave trade, he reluctantly abandons his dream imitating Baslim as a member of the elite anti-slaver \"X\" Corps of the Hegemonic Guard. Knowing that \"a person can't run out on his responsibilities\", he resolves to fight the slave trade as the head of Rudbek and Associates.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Thorby is a young, defiant slave boy recently arrived on the planet Jubbul, where he is purchased by an old beggar, Baslim the Cripple, for a trivial sum and taken to the beggar's surprisingly well-furnished underground home. Thereafter Baslim treats the boy as a son, teaching him not only the trade of begging, but also mathematics, history, and several languages, and sends Thorby on errands all over the city, carefully passing along information and keeping track of the comings and goings of starships, so that Thorby realizes that his foster-father is gathering intelligence, particularly on the slave trade. In addition, Baslim has Thorby memorize a contingency plan and a message to deliver to one of five starship captains in the event of Baslim's arrest or death. When Baslim is captured and beheaded by the local authorities, Thorby and local innkeeper 'Mother Shaum' convey the message to Captain Krausa of the starship Sisu. Because the 'Free Trader' society to whom Krausa belongs owe a debt to Baslim for his release of one of their crews from a slave-trader, the captain takes Thorby aboard the Sisu at great risk to himself and his clan. Thorby is adopted by the captain (thereby gaining considerable shipboard social status) and adjusts to the insular, clannish, matriarchal culture of the traders. The advanced education provided by Baslim and the fast reflexes of youth make him an ideal fire controlman, in which position Thorby destroys a pirate craft. His immediate superior, a young woman named Mata, begins to view him as a suitable husband; but the customs of the Free Traders forbid this, and to avoid trouble she is transferred to another ship. Thorby is again transferred when against the wishes of his wife, the executive officer and head of the clan (who wants to use Thorby's connection to Baslim"
      },
      {
        "text": "lim and the fast reflexes of youth make him an ideal fire controlman, in which position Thorby destroys a pirate craft. His immediate superior, a young woman named Mata, begins to view him as a suitable husband; but the customs of the Free Traders forbid this, and to avoid trouble she is transferred to another ship. Thorby is again transferred when against the wishes of his wife, the executive officer and head of the clan (who wants to use Thorby's connection to Baslim to enhance Sisu's prestige), the captain, obeying Baslim's last wish, entrusts the boy to a military cruiser and asks its captain to assist Thorby in finding his true place in society. In order to implement a background search without having to pay the immense cost, Thorby is enlisted in the military service of the Terran Hegemony, the dominant military power in the galaxy. Thorby is ultimately identified as Thor Bradley Rudbek, the long-lost heir of a very powerful family and a substantial shareholder in Rudbek and Associates, a large, sprawling interstellar business including one of the largest starship-manufacturing companies and the entire city of Rudbek (formerly Jackson Hole, Wyoming). In his absence, the business is run by a relative by marriage, \"Uncle\" John Weemsby, who encourages his stepdaughter Leda to guide Thorby in adjustment to his new situation while secretly scheming to block Thorby's growing interest and interference in the company. Thorby, investigating his parents' disappearance and his capture and sale by slavers, comes to suspect that his parents were eliminated to prevent the discovery that some portions of Rudbek and Associates were secretly profiting from the slave trade. When Weemsby quashes further investigation, Thorby seeks legal help and launches a proxy fight, which he unexpectedly wins when Leda votes her shares in his favor. He fires Weemsby and assumes full control of the firm. When Thorby realizes that it will take a"
      },
      {
        "text": ", investigating his parents' disappearance and his capture and sale by slavers, comes to suspect that his parents were eliminated to prevent the discovery that some portions of Rudbek and Associates were secretly profiting from the slave trade. When Weemsby quashes further investigation, Thorby seeks legal help and launches a proxy fight, which he unexpectedly wins when Leda votes her shares in his favor. He fires Weemsby and assumes full control of the firm. When Thorby realizes that it will take a lifetime to remove Rudbek and Associates from the slave trade, he reluctantly abandons his dream imitating Baslim as a member of the elite anti-slaver \"X\" Corps of the Hegemonic Guard. Knowing that \"a person can't run out on his responsibilities\", he resolves to fight the slave trade as the head of Rudbek and Associates.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Stranger in a Strange Land",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1961-06-01",
    "synopsis": " The story focuses on a human raised on Mars and his adaptation to, and understanding of, humans and their culture, which is portrayed as an amplified version of the consumerist and media-driven 20th-century United States. Protagonist Valentine Michael Smith is the son of astronauts of the first expedition to the planet Mars. Orphaned after the crew died, Smith was raised in the culture of the Martian natives, who possess full control over their minds and bodies (learned skills which Smith acquires). A second expedition some twenty years later brings Smith to Earth. Because he is heir to the fortunes of the entire exploration party, which includes several valuable inventions (most particularly his mother's Lyle Drive, which makes interplanetary travel economical), Smith becomes a political pawn in government struggles. Moreover, despite the existence of the Martians, under terrestrial law Mars was terra nullius, wherefore according to some interpretations of law, Smith could be considered to own the planet Mars itself. Because Smith is unaccustomed to the atmosphere and gravity of Earth, he is confined at Bethesda Hospital, where having never seen a human female, he is attended by male staff only. Seeing this restriction as a challenge, Nurse Gillian Boardman eludes guards to see Smith and in doing so inadvertently becomes his first female \"water brother\" by sharing a glass of water with him, considered a holy relationship by the standards of arid Mars. When Gillian tells reporter Ben Caxton about her experience with Smith, they attempt to counteract the government's lies about Smith. After Ben disappears at the behest of the World Government, Gillian persuades Smith to leave the hospital with her; but they are attacked by government agents. Smith discards the agents irretrievably into a fourth dimension, then is so shocked by Gillian's terrified reaction that he enters a semblance of catatonia. Gillian, remembering Ben's reference to Jubal Harshaw, a famous author who is also a physician and a lawyer, conveys Smith to the latter. Smith continues to demonstrate psychic abilities and superhuman intelligence coupled with a childlike na\u00efvet\u00e9. When Jubal tries to explain religion to him, Smith understands the concept of God only as \"one who groks\", which includes every extant organism. This leads him to express the Martian concept of life as the phrase \"Thou art God\", although he knows this is a bad translation. Many other human concepts such as war, clothing, and jealousy are strange to him, while the idea of an afterlife is a fact he takes for granted because the government on Mars is composed of \"Old Ones\", the spirits of Martians who have died. It is also customary for loved ones and friends to eat the bodies of the dead, in a spirit of Holy Communion. Eventually Harshaw arranges freedom for Smith and recognition that human law, which would have granted ownership of Mars to Smith, has no applicability to a planet already inhabited by intelligent life. Now free to travel, Smith becomes a celebrity and is feted by the elite of Earth. He investigates many religions, including the Fosterite Church of the New Revelation, a populist megachurch wherein sexuality, gambling, alcoholism, and similar are not considered sinful but encouraged, even within the church building. The church is organized in a complexity of initiatory levels; an outer circle, open to the public; a middle circle of ordinary members who support the church financially; and an inner circle of the \"eternally saved\" \u2014 attractive, highly-sexed men and women, who serve as clergy and recruit new members. The Church owns many politicians and takes violent action against those who oppose it. Smith also has a brief career as a magician in a carnival, where he and Gillian befriend the show's tattooed lady, an \"eternally saved\" Fosterite woman named Patricia Paiwonski. Eventually Smith begets a Martian-influenced \"Church of All Worlds\" combining elements of the Fosterite cult (especially the sexual aspects) with Western esotericism, whose members learn the Martian language and acquire psychokinetic abilities. The church is eventually besieged by Fosterites for practicing \"blasphemy\" and the church building destroyed; but Smith and his followers teleport to safety. Smith is arrested by the police, but escapes and returns to his followers, later explaining to Jubal that his gigantic fortune has been bequeathed to the Church. With it and their new abilities, Church members will be able to re-organize human societies and cultures. Eventually those who cannot or will not learn Smith's methods will die out, leaving Homo superior. Incidentally, this may save Earth from eventual destruction by the Martians, who we are told were responsible for the destruction of Planet V. Smith is killed by a mob raised against him by the Fosterites; but speaks briefly to Jubal from the afterlife, saving him from an attempted suicide after the horror of Smith's own death. Having consumed Smith's remains in keeping with his own wishes, Jubal and some of the Church members return to Jubal's home to re-create their former conditions. Meanwhile Smith re-appears in the afterlife to replace the Fosterites' eponymous founder, amid hints that Smith was an incarnation of the Archangel Michael.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story focuses on a human raised on Mars and his adaptation to, and understanding of, humans and their culture, which is portrayed as an amplified version of the consumerist and media-driven 20th-century United States. Protagonist Valentine Michael Smith is the son of astronauts of the first expedition to the planet Mars. Orphaned after the crew died, Smith was raised in the culture of the Martian natives, who possess full control over their minds and bodies (learned skills which Smith acquires). A second expedition some twenty years later brings Smith to Earth. Because he is heir to the fortunes of the entire exploration party, which includes several valuable inventions (most particularly his mother's Lyle Drive, which makes interplanetary travel economical), Smith becomes a political pawn in government struggles. Moreover, despite the existence of the Martians, under terrestrial law Mars was terra nullius, wherefore according to some interpretations of law, Smith could be considered to own the planet Mars itself. Because Smith is unaccustomed to the atmosphere and gravity of Earth, he is confined at Bethesda Hospital, where having never seen a human female, he is attended by male staff only. Seeing this restriction as a challenge, Nurse Gillian Boardman eludes guards to see Smith and in doing so inadvertently becomes his first female \"water brother\" by sharing a glass of water with him, considered a holy relationship by the standards of arid Mars. When Gillian tells reporter Ben Caxton about her experience with Smith, they attempt to counteract the government's lies about Smith. After Ben disappears at the behest of the World Government, Gillian persuades Smith to leave the hospital with her; but they are attacked by government agents. Smith discards the agents irretrievably into a fourth dimension, then is so shocked by Gillian's terrified reaction that he enters a semblance of catatonia. Gillian, remembering Ben's reference to Jubal Harshaw, a famous author who is also a physician"
      },
      {
        "text": ", they attempt to counteract the government's lies about Smith. After Ben disappears at the behest of the World Government, Gillian persuades Smith to leave the hospital with her; but they are attacked by government agents. Smith discards the agents irretrievably into a fourth dimension, then is so shocked by Gillian's terrified reaction that he enters a semblance of catatonia. Gillian, remembering Ben's reference to Jubal Harshaw, a famous author who is also a physician and a lawyer, conveys Smith to the latter. Smith continues to demonstrate psychic abilities and superhuman intelligence coupled with a childlike na\u00efvet\u00e9. When Jubal tries to explain religion to him, Smith understands the concept of God only as \"one who groks\", which includes every extant organism. This leads him to express the Martian concept of life as the phrase \"Thou art God\", although he knows this is a bad translation. Many other human concepts such as war, clothing, and jealousy are strange to him, while the idea of an afterlife is a fact he takes for granted because the government on Mars is composed of \"Old Ones\", the spirits of Martians who have died. It is also customary for loved ones and friends to eat the bodies of the dead, in a spirit of Holy Communion. Eventually Harshaw arranges freedom for Smith and recognition that human law, which would have granted ownership of Mars to Smith, has no applicability to a planet already inhabited by intelligent life. Now free to travel, Smith becomes a celebrity and is feted by the elite of Earth. He investigates many religions, including the Fosterite Church of the New Revelation, a populist megachurch wherein sexuality, gambling, alcoholism, and similar are not considered sinful but encouraged, even within the church building. The church is organized in a complexity of initiatory levels; an outer circle, open to the public; a middle circle of ordinary members who support the church financially; and an inner circle"
      },
      {
        "text": " life. Now free to travel, Smith becomes a celebrity and is feted by the elite of Earth. He investigates many religions, including the Fosterite Church of the New Revelation, a populist megachurch wherein sexuality, gambling, alcoholism, and similar are not considered sinful but encouraged, even within the church building. The church is organized in a complexity of initiatory levels; an outer circle, open to the public; a middle circle of ordinary members who support the church financially; and an inner circle of the \"eternally saved\" \u2014 attractive, highly-sexed men and women, who serve as clergy and recruit new members. The Church owns many politicians and takes violent action against those who oppose it. Smith also has a brief career as a magician in a carnival, where he and Gillian befriend the show's tattooed lady, an \"eternally saved\" Fosterite woman named Patricia Paiwonski. Eventually Smith begets a Martian-influenced \"Church of All Worlds\" combining elements of the Fosterite cult (especially the sexual aspects) with Western esotericism, whose members learn the Martian language and acquire psychokinetic abilities. The church is eventually besieged by Fosterites for practicing \"blasphemy\" and the church building destroyed; but Smith and his followers teleport to safety. Smith is arrested by the police, but escapes and returns to his followers, later explaining to Jubal that his gigantic fortune has been bequeathed to the Church. With it and their new abilities, Church members will be able to re-organize human societies and cultures. Eventually those who cannot or will not learn Smith's methods will die out, leaving Homo superior. Incidentally, this may save Earth from eventual destruction by the Martians, who we are told were responsible for the destruction of Planet V. Smith is killed by a mob raised against him by the Fosterites; but speaks briefly to Jubal from the afterlife, saving him from an attempted suicide after the"
      },
      {
        "text": " it and their new abilities, Church members will be able to re-organize human societies and cultures. Eventually those who cannot or will not learn Smith's methods will die out, leaving Homo superior. Incidentally, this may save Earth from eventual destruction by the Martians, who we are told were responsible for the destruction of Planet V. Smith is killed by a mob raised against him by the Fosterites; but speaks briefly to Jubal from the afterlife, saving him from an attempted suicide after the horror of Smith's own death. Having consumed Smith's remains in keeping with his own wishes, Jubal and some of the Church members return to Jubal's home to re-create their former conditions. Meanwhile Smith re-appears in the afterlife to replace the Fosterites' eponymous founder, amid hints that Smith was an incarnation of the Archangel Michael.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Glory Road",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1963",
    "synopsis": " Evelyn Cyril \"E.C.\" Gordon (also known as \"Easy\" and \"Flash\") has been recently discharged from an unnamed war in Southeast Asia. He is pondering what to do with his future and considers spending a year traveling in France. He is presented with a dilemma: follow up on a possible winning entry in the Irish Sweepstakes or respond to a newspaper ad which asks \"Are you a coward?\". He settles on the latter discovering it has been placed by Star, a stunningly gorgeous woman he had previously met on \u00cele du Levant. Star informs him that he is the one to embark on a perilous quest to retrieve the Egg of the Phoenix. When she asks what to call him, he wants to suggest Scarface, referring to the scar on his face, but she stops him as he is saying \"Oh, Scar...\" and repeats this as \"Oscar\", and thus gives him his new name. Along with Rufo, her assistant, who appears to be a man in his fifties, they tread the \"Glory Road\" in swashbuckling style, slaying minotaurs, dragons, and other creatures. Shortly before the final quest for the Egg itself, Oscar and Star get married. The team then proceeds to enter the tower in which the Egg has been hidden, navigating a maze of illusions and optical tricks. Oscar scouts ahead and finds himself crossing swords with a fearsome foe who resembles Cyrano de Bergerac. He then defeats the final guardian of the Egg, known only as the \"Never-Born\", in a mental fight, and the party escapes with the Egg. While they arrive in the universe of Star, Rufo informs Oscar that Star is actually the empress of many worlds\u2014and Rufo's grandmother. The Egg is a cybernetic device that contains the knowledge and experiences of most of her predecessors. Despite her youthful appearance, she is the mother of dozens of children, and has undergone special medical treatments that extend her life much longer than usual. She has Oscar unknowingly receive the same treatments. Initially, Oscar enjoys his new-found prestige and luxurious life as the husband of the empress of worlds across the Twenty Universes. However, as time goes on, he grows bored and feels out of place and useless. When he demands Star's professional judgment, she tells him that he must leave; her world has no place or need for a hero of his stature. It will be decades before she can complete the transfer of the knowledge held in the Egg, so he must go alone. He returns to Earth, but has difficulty readjusting to his own world, despite having brought great wealth along with him. He begins to doubt his own sanity and whether the adventure even happened. The story ends as he is contacted by Rufo to set up another trip on the Glory Road, which is, by this point, revealed as an allegory for Life's Adventure.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Evelyn Cyril \"E.C.\" Gordon (also known as \"Easy\" and \"Flash\") has been recently discharged from an unnamed war in Southeast Asia. He is pondering what to do with his future and considers spending a year traveling in France. He is presented with a dilemma: follow up on a possible winning entry in the Irish Sweepstakes or respond to a newspaper ad which asks \"Are you a coward?\". He settles on the latter discovering it has been placed by Star, a stunningly gorgeous woman he had previously met on \u00cele du Levant. Star informs him that he is the one to embark on a perilous quest to retrieve the Egg of the Phoenix. When she asks what to call him, he wants to suggest Scarface, referring to the scar on his face, but she stops him as he is saying \"Oh, Scar...\" and repeats this as \"Oscar\", and thus gives him his new name. Along with Rufo, her assistant, who appears to be a man in his fifties, they tread the \"Glory Road\" in swashbuckling style, slaying minotaurs, dragons, and other creatures. Shortly before the final quest for the Egg itself, Oscar and Star get married. The team then proceeds to enter the tower in which the Egg has been hidden, navigating a maze of illusions and optical tricks. Oscar scouts ahead and finds himself crossing swords with a fearsome foe who resembles Cyrano de Bergerac. He then defeats the final guardian of the Egg, known only as the \"Never-Born\", in a mental fight, and the party escapes with the Egg. While they arrive in the universe of Star, Rufo informs Oscar that Star is actually the empress of many worlds\u2014and Rufo's grandmother. The Egg is a cybernetic device that contains the knowledge and experiences of most of her predecessors. Despite her youthful appearance, she is the mother of dozens of children, and has undergone special medical treatments that"
      },
      {
        "text": " final guardian of the Egg, known only as the \"Never-Born\", in a mental fight, and the party escapes with the Egg. While they arrive in the universe of Star, Rufo informs Oscar that Star is actually the empress of many worlds\u2014and Rufo's grandmother. The Egg is a cybernetic device that contains the knowledge and experiences of most of her predecessors. Despite her youthful appearance, she is the mother of dozens of children, and has undergone special medical treatments that extend her life much longer than usual. She has Oscar unknowingly receive the same treatments. Initially, Oscar enjoys his new-found prestige and luxurious life as the husband of the empress of worlds across the Twenty Universes. However, as time goes on, he grows bored and feels out of place and useless. When he demands Star's professional judgment, she tells him that he must leave; her world has no place or need for a hero of his stature. It will be decades before she can complete the transfer of the knowledge held in the Egg, so he must go alone. He returns to Earth, but has difficulty readjusting to his own world, despite having brought great wealth along with him. He begins to doubt his own sanity and whether the adventure even happened. The story ends as he is contacted by Rufo to set up another trip on the Glory Road, which is, by this point, revealed as an allegory for Life's Adventure.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1966",
    "synopsis": " In 2075, underground colonies are scattered across the Moon (Luna), of whom most inhabitants (called \"Loonies\") are criminals, political exiles, or descendants thereof. The total population is about three million, with men outnumbering women 2:1, so that polyandry is the norm. Although Earth's Protector of the Lunar Colonies (called the \"Warden\") holds power, in practice there is little intervention in the loose Lunar society. HOLMES IV (\"High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV\") is the Lunar Authority's master computer, having almost total control of Luna's machinery on the grounds that a single computer is cheaper than (though not as safe as) multiple independent systems. The story is narrated by Manuel Garcia \"Mannie\" O'Kelly-Davis, a computer technician who discovers that HOLMES IV has achieved self-awareness and has developed a sense of humor. Mannie names it \"Mike\" after Mycroft Holmes, brother of Sherlock Holmes, and they become friends. At the beginning of the story, Mannie, at Mike's request, places a recorder in an anti-Authority meeting. When the authorities raid the gathering, Mannie flees with Wyoming (\"Wyoh\") Knott, a statuesque blonde agitator, whom he introduces to Mike and with whom he goes to see his former teacher, the elderly Professor Bernardo de la Paz, who claims that Luna must stop exporting hydroponic wheat to Earth or its resources will be exhausted. In connection with this, Mike calculates that if no prevention occurs, there will be food riots in seven years and cannibalism in nine. Wyoh and the Professor decide to start a revolution, which Mannie is persuaded to join at Mike's behest. Mannie, Wyoh, and de la Paz thereafter form covert cells, protected by Mike, who adopts the persona of \"Adam Selene\", leader of the movement, and communicates via the telephone system. Mannie saves the life of Stuart Rene LaJoie, a rich, well-connected, sympathetic tourist, who begins turning public opinion on Earth in favor of lunar independence. When soldiers brought to quell the mounting unrest rape and kill a local young woman, then kill another who finds her body, rioting erupts. The Loonies overcome military opposition and overthrow the Lunar Authority's Protector, called \"the Warden.\" When Earth tries to reclaim the colony, the revolutionaries plan to use in defense a smaller duplicate of the electromagnetic catapult formerly used to export wheat. Mike impersonates the Warden in messages to Earth, to give the revolution time to organize their work. Meanwhile, the Professor sets up an \"Ad-Hoc Congress\" to distract dissenters. When Earth finally learns the truth, Luna declares its independence on July 4, 2076, the 300th anniversary of the United States' Declaration of Independence. Mannie and the Professor go to Earth to plead Luna's case, where they are received in Agra by the Federated Nations, and embark on a world tour advertising the benefits of a free Luna, while urging various governments to build a catapult to transfer supplies to Luna in exchange for grain. Their proposals are rejected and they are imprisoned; but they are freed by Stuart LaJoie and returned, with him, to Luna. Public opinion on Earth has become fragmented, while on Luna the news of Mannie's arrest and the attempt to bribe him with the appointment of himself as Warden have unified the normally fractious Loonies. An election is held in which Mannie, Wyoh, and the Professor are elected (possibly by the intervention of Mike). (The title is an acronym for There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!) The Federated Nations on Earth send armies to destroy the Lunar revolution; but these are vanquished, with great loss of life, by the revolutionaries. The rumor is circulated that Mike's alter-ego Adam Selene was among those killed; thus removing the need for him to appear in the flesh. When Mike launches rocks at sparsely-populated locations on Earth, warnings are released to the press detailing the times and locations of the bombings; but disbelieving people, as well as people on religious pilgrimages, travel to the sites and die. As a result, public opinion turns against the fledgling nation. A second attack destroys Mike's original catapult; but the Loonies have built a secondary smaller one in a secret location, and with Mannie acting as its on-site commander, the Loonies continue to attack Earth until it concedes Luna's independence. Professor Bernardo de la Paz, as leader of the nation, proclaims victory to the gathered crowds; but collapses and dies. Mannie takes control; but he and Wyoh eventually withdraw from politics altogether, and find that the new government falls short of their expectations. When Mannie tries to speak to Mike afterwards, the latter's replies indicate that the computer has lost its self-awareness and its human-like qualities, as a result either of damage suffered in the war or of shock undergone therein.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In 2075, underground colonies are scattered across the Moon (Luna), of whom most inhabitants (called \"Loonies\") are criminals, political exiles, or descendants thereof. The total population is about three million, with men outnumbering women 2:1, so that polyandry is the norm. Although Earth's Protector of the Lunar Colonies (called the \"Warden\") holds power, in practice there is little intervention in the loose Lunar society. HOLMES IV (\"High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV\") is the Lunar Authority's master computer, having almost total control of Luna's machinery on the grounds that a single computer is cheaper than (though not as safe as) multiple independent systems. The story is narrated by Manuel Garcia \"Mannie\" O'Kelly-Davis, a computer technician who discovers that HOLMES IV has achieved self-awareness and has developed a sense of humor. Mannie names it \"Mike\" after Mycroft Holmes, brother of Sherlock Holmes, and they become friends. At the beginning of the story, Mannie, at Mike's request, places a recorder in an anti-Authority meeting. When the authorities raid the gathering, Mannie flees with Wyoming (\"Wyoh\") Knott, a statuesque blonde agitator, whom he introduces to Mike and with whom he goes to see his former teacher, the elderly Professor Bernardo de la Paz, who claims that Luna must stop exporting hydroponic wheat to Earth or its resources will be exhausted. In connection with this, Mike calculates that if no prevention occurs, there will be food riots in seven years and cannibalism in nine. Wyoh and the Professor decide to start a revolution, which Mannie is persuaded to join at Mike's behest. Mannie, Wyoh, and de la Paz thereafter form covert cells, protected by Mike, who adopts the persona of \"Adam Selene\", leader of"
      },
      {
        "text": " Luna must stop exporting hydroponic wheat to Earth or its resources will be exhausted. In connection with this, Mike calculates that if no prevention occurs, there will be food riots in seven years and cannibalism in nine. Wyoh and the Professor decide to start a revolution, which Mannie is persuaded to join at Mike's behest. Mannie, Wyoh, and de la Paz thereafter form covert cells, protected by Mike, who adopts the persona of \"Adam Selene\", leader of the movement, and communicates via the telephone system. Mannie saves the life of Stuart Rene LaJoie, a rich, well-connected, sympathetic tourist, who begins turning public opinion on Earth in favor of lunar independence. When soldiers brought to quell the mounting unrest rape and kill a local young woman, then kill another who finds her body, rioting erupts. The Loonies overcome military opposition and overthrow the Lunar Authority's Protector, called \"the Warden.\" When Earth tries to reclaim the colony, the revolutionaries plan to use in defense a smaller duplicate of the electromagnetic catapult formerly used to export wheat. Mike impersonates the Warden in messages to Earth, to give the revolution time to organize their work. Meanwhile, the Professor sets up an \"Ad-Hoc Congress\" to distract dissenters. When Earth finally learns the truth, Luna declares its independence on July 4, 2076, the 300th anniversary of the United States' Declaration of Independence. Mannie and the Professor go to Earth to plead Luna's case, where they are received in Agra by the Federated Nations, and embark on a world tour advertising the benefits of a free Luna, while urging various governments to build a catapult to transfer supplies to Luna in exchange for grain. Their proposals are rejected and they are imprisoned; but they are freed by Stuart LaJoie and returned, with him, to Luna. Public opinion on Earth has become fragmented, while on Luna the news of Mannie's arrest and the"
      },
      {
        "text": " to Earth to plead Luna's case, where they are received in Agra by the Federated Nations, and embark on a world tour advertising the benefits of a free Luna, while urging various governments to build a catapult to transfer supplies to Luna in exchange for grain. Their proposals are rejected and they are imprisoned; but they are freed by Stuart LaJoie and returned, with him, to Luna. Public opinion on Earth has become fragmented, while on Luna the news of Mannie's arrest and the attempt to bribe him with the appointment of himself as Warden have unified the normally fractious Loonies. An election is held in which Mannie, Wyoh, and the Professor are elected (possibly by the intervention of Mike). (The title is an acronym for There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!) The Federated Nations on Earth send armies to destroy the Lunar revolution; but these are vanquished, with great loss of life, by the revolutionaries. The rumor is circulated that Mike's alter-ego Adam Selene was among those killed; thus removing the need for him to appear in the flesh. When Mike launches rocks at sparsely-populated locations on Earth, warnings are released to the press detailing the times and locations of the bombings; but disbelieving people, as well as people on religious pilgrimages, travel to the sites and die. As a result, public opinion turns against the fledgling nation. A second attack destroys Mike's original catapult; but the Loonies have built a secondary smaller one in a secret location, and with Mannie acting as its on-site commander, the Loonies continue to attack Earth until it concedes Luna's independence. Professor Bernardo de la Paz, as leader of the nation, proclaims victory to the gathered crowds; but collapses and dies. Mannie takes control; but he and Wyoh eventually withdraw from politics altogether, and find that the new government falls short of their expectations. When Mannie tries to speak to"
      },
      {
        "text": " have built a secondary smaller one in a secret location, and with Mannie acting as its on-site commander, the Loonies continue to attack Earth until it concedes Luna's independence. Professor Bernardo de la Paz, as leader of the nation, proclaims victory to the gathered crowds; but collapses and dies. Mannie takes control; but he and Wyoh eventually withdraw from politics altogether, and find that the new government falls short of their expectations. When Mannie tries to speak to Mike afterwards, the latter's replies indicate that the computer has lost its self-awareness and its human-like qualities, as a result either of damage suffered in the war or of shock undergone therein.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "I Will Fear No Evil",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1970",
    "synopsis": " The story takes place about 2015 AD, against a background of an overpopulated Earth, whose dysfunctional society is clearly an attempt to extrapolate into the future the rapid social changes taking place in the U.S. during the 1960s. Ancient billionaire Johann Sebastian Bach Smith is dying, and wants to have his brain transplanted into a new body. Smith advertises an offer of a million dollars for the donation of a body from a brain-dead patient. Coincidentally, his beautiful young female secretary, Eunice Branca, is murdered, so her body is used, since Smith never thought to place any restriction on the sex of the donor. He is rechristened Joan Eunice Smith. For reasons never made clear, Eunice's personality continues to co-inhabit the body. (Whether Eunice's personality is real or a figment of Johann's imagination is addressed but never fully resolved in the novel.) Joan and Eunice agree never to reveal her continued existence, fearing that they would be judged insane and locked up. The two of them speculate that it may have something to do with the supposed ability of animals to remember things using RNA rather than the nervous system. (At the time the book was published, biologist J.V. McConnell had done a series of experiments in which he taught a behavior to flatworms, ground them up, and fed them to other flatworms, which supposedly exhibited the same behavior. McConnell's experiments were later discredited, but ideas drawn from them were used in science fiction by several authors, including Heinlein, Larry Niven, Joe Haldeman and Dean Koontz.) However, Joan and Eunice decide that this possible explanation is irrelevant, and near the end of the book, a third personality, that of Joan's new husband, joins them by means that can only be explained via delusion, religion or mysticism, not science.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story takes place about 2015 AD, against a background of an overpopulated Earth, whose dysfunctional society is clearly an attempt to extrapolate into the future the rapid social changes taking place in the U.S. during the 1960s. Ancient billionaire Johann Sebastian Bach Smith is dying, and wants to have his brain transplanted into a new body. Smith advertises an offer of a million dollars for the donation of a body from a brain-dead patient. Coincidentally, his beautiful young female secretary, Eunice Branca, is murdered, so her body is used, since Smith never thought to place any restriction on the sex of the donor. He is rechristened Joan Eunice Smith. For reasons never made clear, Eunice's personality continues to co-inhabit the body. (Whether Eunice's personality is real or a figment of Johann's imagination is addressed but never fully resolved in the novel.) Joan and Eunice agree never to reveal her continued existence, fearing that they would be judged insane and locked up. The two of them speculate that it may have something to do with the supposed ability of animals to remember things using RNA rather than the nervous system. (At the time the book was published, biologist J.V. McConnell had done a series of experiments in which he taught a behavior to flatworms, ground them up, and fed them to other flatworms, which supposedly exhibited the same behavior. McConnell's experiments were later discredited, but ideas drawn from them were used in science fiction by several authors, including Heinlein, Larry Niven, Joe Haldeman and Dean Koontz.) However, Joan and Eunice decide that this possible explanation is irrelevant, and near the end of the book, a third personality, that of Joan's new husband, joins them by means that can only be explained via delusion, religion or mysticism, not science.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", but ideas drawn from them were used in science fiction by several authors, including Heinlein, Larry Niven, Joe Haldeman and Dean Koontz.) However, Joan and Eunice decide that this possible explanation is irrelevant, and near the end of the book, a third personality, that of Joan's new husband, joins them by means that can only be explained via delusion, religion or mysticism, not science.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1985",
    "synopsis": " A writer seated at the best restaurant of the space habitat \"Golden Rule\" is approached by a man who urges him that \"Tolliver must die\" and is himself shot before the writer's eyes. The writer\u2013Colonel Colin Campbell, living under a number of aliases including his pen name \"Richard Ames\"\u2013is joined by a beautiful and sophisticated lady, Gwendolyn Novak, who helps him flee to Luna with a bonsai maple and a would-be murderer (\"Bill\"). After escaping to the moon, Gwen refers to the now ancient Lunar Revolt (as described in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress) and Mike (Mycroft), the self-aware computer responsible for the uprising's victory, and claims to have been present during the revolt; despite her claim that she was only a girl at the time, Campbell grows suspicious, and learns that she is a rejuvenation of the revolution's most prominent female leader. Still pursued by assassins, Campbell and Novak are rescued by an organization known as the Time Corps under the leadership of Lazarus Long. After giving Campbell a new leg to replace one lost in combat years before, the Time Corps attempt to recruit Campbell for a special mission. Accepting only on Gwen's account, Campbell agrees to assist a team to retrieve the decommissioned Mike. Engaged in frequent time-travel, the Time Corps has been responsible for changing various events in the past, creating an alternate universe with every time-line they disrupt. Mike's assistance is needed in order to accurately predict the conditions and following events in each of the new universes created. Campbell's frequent would-be assassins are revealed to be members of contemporary agencies also engaged in time manipulation who, for unknown reasons, do not want to see Mike rescued by the Time Corps. During the mission, Gwen is grievously wounded and Campbell loses his foot again, though the Time Corps succeed in retrieving Mike. The story ends with Campbell talking into a recorder (presumably the source of the first-person medium through which the story is told) reflecting on the mission and his relationship with Gwen.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A writer seated at the best restaurant of the space habitat \"Golden Rule\" is approached by a man who urges him that \"Tolliver must die\" and is himself shot before the writer's eyes. The writer\u2013Colonel Colin Campbell, living under a number of aliases including his pen name \"Richard Ames\"\u2013is joined by a beautiful and sophisticated lady, Gwendolyn Novak, who helps him flee to Luna with a bonsai maple and a would-be murderer (\"Bill\"). After escaping to the moon, Gwen refers to the now ancient Lunar Revolt (as described in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress) and Mike (Mycroft), the self-aware computer responsible for the uprising's victory, and claims to have been present during the revolt; despite her claim that she was only a girl at the time, Campbell grows suspicious, and learns that she is a rejuvenation of the revolution's most prominent female leader. Still pursued by assassins, Campbell and Novak are rescued by an organization known as the Time Corps under the leadership of Lazarus Long. After giving Campbell a new leg to replace one lost in combat years before, the Time Corps attempt to recruit Campbell for a special mission. Accepting only on Gwen's account, Campbell agrees to assist a team to retrieve the decommissioned Mike. Engaged in frequent time-travel, the Time Corps has been responsible for changing various events in the past, creating an alternate universe with every time-line they disrupt. Mike's assistance is needed in order to accurately predict the conditions and following events in each of the new universes created. Campbell's frequent would-be assassins are revealed to be members of contemporary agencies also engaged in time manipulation who, for unknown reasons, do not want to see Mike rescued by the Time Corps. During the mission, Gwen is grievously wounded and Campbell loses his foot again, though the Time Corps succeed in retrieving Mike. The story ends with Campbell talking into a recorder (presumably the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Mike's assistance is needed in order to accurately predict the conditions and following events in each of the new universes created. Campbell's frequent would-be assassins are revealed to be members of contemporary agencies also engaged in time manipulation who, for unknown reasons, do not want to see Mike rescued by the Time Corps. During the mission, Gwen is grievously wounded and Campbell loses his foot again, though the Time Corps succeed in retrieving Mike. The story ends with Campbell talking into a recorder (presumably the source of the first-person medium through which the story is told) reflecting on the mission and his relationship with Gwen.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Methuselah's Children",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1958",
    "synopsis": " The Howard Families derive from Ira Howard, who became rich in the California Gold Rush, but died young and childless. Fearing death, he left his money for the prolongation of human life, and the trustees of his will carried out his wishes by financially encouraging those with long-lived grandparents to marry and have children. While the Families (who, by the 22nd Century, have a life expectancy of 150 years) have kept their existence secret, with the enlightened human society established under The Covenant, they decide to reveal themselves. Society refuses to believe the Howard Families simply 'chose their ancestors wisely', instead insisting they have developed a method to extend life, and the Families are persecuted and interned. Though the beleaguered Administrator of the planet, Slayton Ford, is convinced the Families are telling the truth, he is helpless to control an increasingly irrational public and their efforts to force the Howard Families to reveal their \"secret\" or face execution. The eldest member of the Howard Families, Lazarus Long, realizes this as well, and proposes to the Administrator that he help the Families hijack the colony starship New Frontiers, so they can escape. In the process of escaping, they are driven too near the Sun by military spacecraft. When they are a few minutes away from overheating, Heinlein invokes a deus ex machina: it turns out that one member of the Families, Andrew Jackson Libby, (known as \"Slipstick\" Libby because he is a mathematical genius), has managed to invent a device that removes inertia from any mass to which it is attached. Libby applies the device, and instantaneously, New Frontiers is accelerated by light-pressure from the Sun to nearly the speed of light. The Families leave the Solar System, with the deposed Ford joining them at the last minute. The first planet they discover has humanoid inhabitants who seem friendly and advanced - however, they are merely domesticated animals belonging to the planet's true masters, indescribable beings of equally indescribable power. When humans prove incapable of similar domestication, they are expelled from the planet and sent to another world. The second planet is a lush environment with no predators and mild weather. Its inhabitants are part of a group mind, with the mental ability to manipulate the environment on the genetic and molecular level. They have no independent personalities; anyone who joins the group mind ceases to exist as a unique individual. This becomes evident when Mary Sperling, second oldest of the Families, who has always been fearful of death, joins the group mind in an attempt to become truly immortal. The Families are further horrified when the group mind, in a mistaken effort to be helpful, genetically modifies the first baby born on the planet into a new, alien form. Lazarus calls a meeting of the Families. He states that humans are what they are because they are individuals, and that they have no place on this world. The Families vote, and a majority of the Families decide to go back to Earth and claim their rights. Libby, with the help of the group mind, builds a new faster than light drive that will take them home in months instead of years. The Families return to the Solar System seventy-five years after their original departure. To their surprise they find that on Earth great longevity is commonplace. Spurred on by the belief that there was a specific \"technique\" to the Howards' longevity, Earth's scientists developed a series of treatments that extended lifespans to several centuries. The Families are now free to return, and are even welcomed due to their discovery of faster than light travel. Thanks to humanity's increased lifespan, the Solar System is overcrowded; faster than light travel will allow emigrants to ease the population explosion. Libby and Long decide to recruit other members of the Families, and explore space with the new drive.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Howard Families derive from Ira Howard, who became rich in the California Gold Rush, but died young and childless. Fearing death, he left his money for the prolongation of human life, and the trustees of his will carried out his wishes by financially encouraging those with long-lived grandparents to marry and have children. While the Families (who, by the 22nd Century, have a life expectancy of 150 years) have kept their existence secret, with the enlightened human society established under The Covenant, they decide to reveal themselves. Society refuses to believe the Howard Families simply 'chose their ancestors wisely', instead insisting they have developed a method to extend life, and the Families are persecuted and interned. Though the beleaguered Administrator of the planet, Slayton Ford, is convinced the Families are telling the truth, he is helpless to control an increasingly irrational public and their efforts to force the Howard Families to reveal their \"secret\" or face execution. The eldest member of the Howard Families, Lazarus Long, realizes this as well, and proposes to the Administrator that he help the Families hijack the colony starship New Frontiers, so they can escape. In the process of escaping, they are driven too near the Sun by military spacecraft. When they are a few minutes away from overheating, Heinlein invokes a deus ex machina: it turns out that one member of the Families, Andrew Jackson Libby, (known as \"Slipstick\" Libby because he is a mathematical genius), has managed to invent a device that removes inertia from any mass to which it is attached. Libby applies the device, and instantaneously, New Frontiers is accelerated by light-pressure from the Sun to nearly the speed of light. The Families leave the Solar System, with the deposed Ford joining them at the last minute. The first planet they discover has humanoid inhabitants who seem friendly and advanced - however, they are merely domesticated animals belonging to the planet's true masters,"
      },
      {
        "text": " a mathematical genius), has managed to invent a device that removes inertia from any mass to which it is attached. Libby applies the device, and instantaneously, New Frontiers is accelerated by light-pressure from the Sun to nearly the speed of light. The Families leave the Solar System, with the deposed Ford joining them at the last minute. The first planet they discover has humanoid inhabitants who seem friendly and advanced - however, they are merely domesticated animals belonging to the planet's true masters, indescribable beings of equally indescribable power. When humans prove incapable of similar domestication, they are expelled from the planet and sent to another world. The second planet is a lush environment with no predators and mild weather. Its inhabitants are part of a group mind, with the mental ability to manipulate the environment on the genetic and molecular level. They have no independent personalities; anyone who joins the group mind ceases to exist as a unique individual. This becomes evident when Mary Sperling, second oldest of the Families, who has always been fearful of death, joins the group mind in an attempt to become truly immortal. The Families are further horrified when the group mind, in a mistaken effort to be helpful, genetically modifies the first baby born on the planet into a new, alien form. Lazarus calls a meeting of the Families. He states that humans are what they are because they are individuals, and that they have no place on this world. The Families vote, and a majority of the Families decide to go back to Earth and claim their rights. Libby, with the help of the group mind, builds a new faster than light drive that will take them home in months instead of years. The Families return to the Solar System seventy-five years after their original departure. To their surprise they find that on Earth great longevity is commonplace. Spurred on by the belief that there was a specific \"technique\" to the Howards' longevity, Earth's scientists developed a series"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the Families decide to go back to Earth and claim their rights. Libby, with the help of the group mind, builds a new faster than light drive that will take them home in months instead of years. The Families return to the Solar System seventy-five years after their original departure. To their surprise they find that on Earth great longevity is commonplace. Spurred on by the belief that there was a specific \"technique\" to the Howards' longevity, Earth's scientists developed a series of treatments that extended lifespans to several centuries. The Families are now free to return, and are even welcomed due to their discovery of faster than light travel. Thanks to humanity's increased lifespan, the Solar System is overcrowded; faster than light travel will allow emigrants to ease the population explosion. Libby and Long decide to recruit other members of the Families, and explore space with the new drive.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Life: A User's Manual",
    "author": "Georges Perec",
    "published_date": "1978",
    "synopsis": " Between World War I and II, a tremendously wealthy Englishman, Bartlebooth (whose name combines two literary characters, Herman Melville's Bartleby and Valery Larbaud's Barnabooth), devises a plan that will both occupy the remainder of his life and spend his entire fortune. First, he spends 10 years learning to paint watercolors under the tutelage of Val\u00e8ne, who also becomes a resident of 11 Rue Simon-Crubellier. Then, he embarks on a 20-year trip around the world with his loyal servant Smautf (also a resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier), painting a watercolor of a different port roughly every two weeks for a total of 500 watercolors. Bartlebooth then sends each painting back to France, where the paper is glued to a support board, and a carefully selected craftsman named Gaspard Winckler (also a resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier) cuts it into a jigsaw puzzle. Upon his return, Bartlebooth spends his time solving each jigsaw, re-creating the scene. Each finished puzzle is treated to re-bind the paper with a special solution invented by Georges Morellet, another resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier. After the solution is applied, the wooden support is removed, and the painting is sent to the port where it was painted. Exactly 20 years to the day after it was painted, the painting is placed in a detergent solution until the colors dissolve, and the paper, blank except for the faint marks where it was cut and re-joined, is returned to Bartlebooth. Ultimately, there would be nothing to show for 50 years of work: the project would leave absolutely no mark on the world. Unfortunately for Bartlebooth, Winckler's puzzles become increasingly difficult and Bartlebooth himself becomes blind. A crazed art fanatic also intervenes in an attempt to stop Bartlebooth from destroying his art. Bartlebooth is forced to change his plans and have the watercolors burned in a furnace locally instead of couriered back to the sea, for fear of those involved in the task betraying him. By 1975, Bartlebooth is 16 months behind in his plans, and he dies while he is about to finish his 439th puzzle. Ironically, the last hole in the puzzle is in the shape of the letter X while the piece that he is holding is in the shape of the letter W.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Between World War I and II, a tremendously wealthy Englishman, Bartlebooth (whose name combines two literary characters, Herman Melville's Bartleby and Valery Larbaud's Barnabooth), devises a plan that will both occupy the remainder of his life and spend his entire fortune. First, he spends 10 years learning to paint watercolors under the tutelage of Val\u00e8ne, who also becomes a resident of 11 Rue Simon-Crubellier. Then, he embarks on a 20-year trip around the world with his loyal servant Smautf (also a resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier), painting a watercolor of a different port roughly every two weeks for a total of 500 watercolors. Bartlebooth then sends each painting back to France, where the paper is glued to a support board, and a carefully selected craftsman named Gaspard Winckler (also a resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier) cuts it into a jigsaw puzzle. Upon his return, Bartlebooth spends his time solving each jigsaw, re-creating the scene. Each finished puzzle is treated to re-bind the paper with a special solution invented by Georges Morellet, another resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier. After the solution is applied, the wooden support is removed, and the painting is sent to the port where it was painted. Exactly 20 years to the day after it was painted, the painting is placed in a detergent solution until the colors dissolve, and the paper, blank except for the faint marks where it was cut and re-joined, is returned to Bartlebooth. Ultimately, there would be nothing to show for 50 years of work: the project would leave absolutely no mark on the world. Unfortunately for Bartlebooth, Winckler's puzzles become increasingly difficult and Bartlebooth himself becomes blind. A"
      },
      {
        "text": " years to the day after it was painted, the painting is placed in a detergent solution until the colors dissolve, and the paper, blank except for the faint marks where it was cut and re-joined, is returned to Bartlebooth. Ultimately, there would be nothing to show for 50 years of work: the project would leave absolutely no mark on the world. Unfortunately for Bartlebooth, Winckler's puzzles become increasingly difficult and Bartlebooth himself becomes blind. A crazed art fanatic also intervenes in an attempt to stop Bartlebooth from destroying his art. Bartlebooth is forced to change his plans and have the watercolors burned in a furnace locally instead of couriered back to the sea, for fear of those involved in the task betraying him. By 1975, Bartlebooth is 16 months behind in his plans, and he dies while he is about to finish his 439th puzzle. Ironically, the last hole in the puzzle is in the shape of the letter X while the piece that he is holding is in the shape of the letter W.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1900",
    "synopsis": " Dorothy is a young orphaned girl raised by her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in the bleak landscape of a Kansas farm. She has a little black dog Toto, who is her sole source of happiness on the dry, gray prairies. One day the farmhouse, with Dorothy and Toto inside, is caught up in a cyclone and deposited in a field in Munchkin Country, the eastern quadrant of the Land of Oz. The falling house kills the evil ruler of the Munchkins, the Wicked Witch of the East. The Good Witch of the North comes with the Munchkins to greet Dorothy and gives Dorothy the silver shoes (believed to have magical properties) that the Wicked Witch had been wearing when she was killed. In order to return to Kansas, the Good Witch of the North tells Dorothy that she will have to go to the \"Emerald City\" or \"City of Emeralds\" and ask the Wizard of Oz to help her. Before she leaves, the Good Witch of the North kisses her on the forehead, giving her magical protection from trouble. On her way down the road of yellow bricks, Dorothy frees the Scarecrow from the pole he is hanging on, restores the movements of the rusted Tin Woodman with an oil can, and encourages them and the Cowardly Lion to journey with her and Toto to the Emerald City. The Scarecrow wants to get a brain, the Tin Woodman a heart, and the Cowardly Lion, courage. All four of the travelers believe that the Wizard can solve their troubles. The party finds many adventures on their journey together, including overcoming obstacles such as narrow pieces of the yellow brick road, vicious Kalidahs, a river, and the Deadly Poppies. When the travelers arrive at the Emerald City, they are asked to wear green spectacles by the Guardian of the Gates as long as they remain in the city. The four are the first to ever successfully meet with the Wizard. When each traveler meets with the Wizard, he appears each time as someone or something different. To Dorothy, the Wizard is a giant head; the Scarecrow sees a beautiful woman; the Tin Woodman sees a ravenous beast; the Cowardly Lion sees a ball of fire. The Wizard agrees to help each of them\u2014but only if one of them kills the Wicked Witch of the West who rules over the western Winkie Country. The Guardian of the Gates warns them that no one has ever managed to harm the very cunning and cruel Wicked Witch. As the friends travel across the Winkie Country, the Wicked Witch sees them coming and attempts various ways of killing them: * First, she sends her 40 great wolves to kill them. The Tin Woodman manages to kill them all. * Then the Wicked Witch of the West sends her 40 crows to peck their eyes out. The Scarecrow manages to kill them by grabbing them and breaking their necks. * Then the Wicked Witch summons a swarm of bees to sting them to death. Using the Scarecrow's extra straw, the others hide underneath them while the bees try to sting the Tin Woodman. * Then the Wicked Witch of the West uses her Winkie soldiers to attack them. They are scared off by the Cowardly Lion. * Using the power of the Golden Cap, the Wicked Witch of the West summons the Winged Monkeys to capture Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion and Toto, and to destroy the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. When the Wicked Witch gains one of Dorothy's silver shoes by trickery, Dorothy in anger grabs a bucket of water and throws it on the Wicked Witch. To her shock, this causes the Witch to melt away, allowing Dorothy to recover the shoe. The Winkies rejoice at being freed of the witch's tyranny, and they help to reassemble the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. The Winkies love the Tin Woodman, and they ask him to become their ruler, which he agrees to do after helping Dorothy return to Kansas. Dorothy, after finding and learning how to use the Golden Cap, summons the Winged Monkeys to carry her and her companions back to the Emerald City. and the King of the Winged Monkeys tells how he and the other monkeys were bound by an enchantment to the cap by the sorceress Gayelette. When Dorothy and her friends meet the Wizard of Oz again, he tries to put them off. Toto accidentally tips over a screen in a corner of the throne room, revealing the Wizard to be an ordinary old man who had journeyed to Oz from Omaha long ago in a hot air balloon. The Wizard has been longing to return to his home and be in a circus again ever since. The Wizard provides the Scarecrow with a head full of bran, pins, and needles (\"a lot of bran-new brains\"), the Tin Woodman with a silk heart stuffed with sawdust, and the Cowardly Lion a potion of \"courage\", respectively. Because of their faith in the Wizard's power, these otherwise useless items provide a focus for their desires. In order to help Dorothy and Toto get home, the Wizard realizes that he will have to take them home with him in a new balloon, which he and Dorothy fashion from green silk. Revealing himself to the people of the Emerald City one last time, the Wizard appoints the Scarecrow, by virtue of his brains, to rule in his stead. Dorothy chases Toto after he runs after a kitten in the crowd, and before she can make it back to the balloon, the ropes break, leaving the Wizard to rise and float away alone. Dorothy turns to the Winged Monkeys to carry her and Toto home, but they cannot cross the desert surrounding Oz, subsequently wasting her second wish. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers advises that Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, may be able to send Dorothy and Toto home. Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion journey to Glinda's palace in the Quadling Country. Together they escape the Fighting Trees, tread carefully through the China Country where they meet Mr. Joker, and dodge the armless Hammer-Heads on their hill. The Cowardly Lion kills a giant spider who is terrorizing the animals in a forest and he agrees to return there to rule them after Dorothy returns to Kansas. Dorothy uses her third wish to fly over the Hammer-Heads' mountain, almost losing Toto in the process. At Glinda's palace, the travelers are greeted warmly, and it is revealed by Glinda that Dorothy had the power to go home all along. The Silver Shoes she wears can take her anywhere she wishes to go. She tearfully embraces her friends, all of whom will be returned, through Glinda's use of the Golden Cap, to their respective kingdoms: the Scarecrow to the Emerald City, the Tin Woodman to the Winkie Country, and the Cowardly Lion to the forest. Then she will give the Golden Cap to the King of the Winged Monkeys, so they will never be under its spell again. Having bid her friends farewell one final time, Dorothy knocks her heels together three times, and wishes to return home. When she opens her eyes, Dorothy and Toto have returned to Kansas to a joyful family reunion.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Dorothy is a young orphaned girl raised by her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in the bleak landscape of a Kansas farm. She has a little black dog Toto, who is her sole source of happiness on the dry, gray prairies. One day the farmhouse, with Dorothy and Toto inside, is caught up in a cyclone and deposited in a field in Munchkin Country, the eastern quadrant of the Land of Oz. The falling house kills the evil ruler of the Munchkins, the Wicked Witch of the East. The Good Witch of the North comes with the Munchkins to greet Dorothy and gives Dorothy the silver shoes (believed to have magical properties) that the Wicked Witch had been wearing when she was killed. In order to return to Kansas, the Good Witch of the North tells Dorothy that she will have to go to the \"Emerald City\" or \"City of Emeralds\" and ask the Wizard of Oz to help her. Before she leaves, the Good Witch of the North kisses her on the forehead, giving her magical protection from trouble. On her way down the road of yellow bricks, Dorothy frees the Scarecrow from the pole he is hanging on, restores the movements of the rusted Tin Woodman with an oil can, and encourages them and the Cowardly Lion to journey with her and Toto to the Emerald City. The Scarecrow wants to get a brain, the Tin Woodman a heart, and the Cowardly Lion, courage. All four of the travelers believe that the Wizard can solve their troubles. The party finds many adventures on their journey together, including overcoming obstacles such as narrow pieces of the yellow brick road, vicious Kalidahs, a river, and the Deadly Poppies. When the travelers arrive at the Emerald City, they are asked to wear green spectacles by the Guardian of the Gates as long as they remain in the city. The four are the first to ever successfully meet with the Wizard."
      },
      {
        "text": ", courage. All four of the travelers believe that the Wizard can solve their troubles. The party finds many adventures on their journey together, including overcoming obstacles such as narrow pieces of the yellow brick road, vicious Kalidahs, a river, and the Deadly Poppies. When the travelers arrive at the Emerald City, they are asked to wear green spectacles by the Guardian of the Gates as long as they remain in the city. The four are the first to ever successfully meet with the Wizard. When each traveler meets with the Wizard, he appears each time as someone or something different. To Dorothy, the Wizard is a giant head; the Scarecrow sees a beautiful woman; the Tin Woodman sees a ravenous beast; the Cowardly Lion sees a ball of fire. The Wizard agrees to help each of them\u2014but only if one of them kills the Wicked Witch of the West who rules over the western Winkie Country. The Guardian of the Gates warns them that no one has ever managed to harm the very cunning and cruel Wicked Witch. As the friends travel across the Winkie Country, the Wicked Witch sees them coming and attempts various ways of killing them: * First, she sends her 40 great wolves to kill them. The Tin Woodman manages to kill them all. * Then the Wicked Witch of the West sends her 40 crows to peck their eyes out. The Scarecrow manages to kill them by grabbing them and breaking their necks. * Then the Wicked Witch summons a swarm of bees to sting them to death. Using the Scarecrow's extra straw, the others hide underneath them while the bees try to sting the Tin Woodman. * Then the Wicked Witch of the West uses her Winkie soldiers to attack them. They are scared off by the Cowardly Lion. * Using the power of the Golden Cap, the Wicked Witch of the West summons the Winged Monkeys to capture Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion and Toto, and to destroy the Scarecrow"
      },
      {
        "text": " swarm of bees to sting them to death. Using the Scarecrow's extra straw, the others hide underneath them while the bees try to sting the Tin Woodman. * Then the Wicked Witch of the West uses her Winkie soldiers to attack them. They are scared off by the Cowardly Lion. * Using the power of the Golden Cap, the Wicked Witch of the West summons the Winged Monkeys to capture Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion and Toto, and to destroy the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. When the Wicked Witch gains one of Dorothy's silver shoes by trickery, Dorothy in anger grabs a bucket of water and throws it on the Wicked Witch. To her shock, this causes the Witch to melt away, allowing Dorothy to recover the shoe. The Winkies rejoice at being freed of the witch's tyranny, and they help to reassemble the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. The Winkies love the Tin Woodman, and they ask him to become their ruler, which he agrees to do after helping Dorothy return to Kansas. Dorothy, after finding and learning how to use the Golden Cap, summons the Winged Monkeys to carry her and her companions back to the Emerald City. and the King of the Winged Monkeys tells how he and the other monkeys were bound by an enchantment to the cap by the sorceress Gayelette. When Dorothy and her friends meet the Wizard of Oz again, he tries to put them off. Toto accidentally tips over a screen in a corner of the throne room, revealing the Wizard to be an ordinary old man who had journeyed to Oz from Omaha long ago in a hot air balloon. The Wizard has been longing to return to his home and be in a circus again ever since. The Wizard provides the Scarecrow with a head full of bran, pins, and needles (\"a lot of bran-new brains\"), the Tin Woodman with a silk heart stuffed with sawdust, and the Cowardly"
      },
      {
        "text": " a screen in a corner of the throne room, revealing the Wizard to be an ordinary old man who had journeyed to Oz from Omaha long ago in a hot air balloon. The Wizard has been longing to return to his home and be in a circus again ever since. The Wizard provides the Scarecrow with a head full of bran, pins, and needles (\"a lot of bran-new brains\"), the Tin Woodman with a silk heart stuffed with sawdust, and the Cowardly Lion a potion of \"courage\", respectively. Because of their faith in the Wizard's power, these otherwise useless items provide a focus for their desires. In order to help Dorothy and Toto get home, the Wizard realizes that he will have to take them home with him in a new balloon, which he and Dorothy fashion from green silk. Revealing himself to the people of the Emerald City one last time, the Wizard appoints the Scarecrow, by virtue of his brains, to rule in his stead. Dorothy chases Toto after he runs after a kitten in the crowd, and before she can make it back to the balloon, the ropes break, leaving the Wizard to rise and float away alone. Dorothy turns to the Winged Monkeys to carry her and Toto home, but they cannot cross the desert surrounding Oz, subsequently wasting her second wish. The Soldier with the Green Whiskers advises that Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, may be able to send Dorothy and Toto home. Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion journey to Glinda's palace in the Quadling Country. Together they escape the Fighting Trees, tread carefully through the China Country where they meet Mr. Joker, and dodge the armless Hammer-Heads on their hill. The Cowardly Lion kills a giant spider who is terrorizing the animals in a forest and he agrees to return there to rule them after Dorothy returns to"
      },
      {
        "text": " Toto home. Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion journey to Glinda's palace in the Quadling Country. Together they escape the Fighting Trees, tread carefully through the China Country where they meet Mr. Joker, and dodge the armless Hammer-Heads on their hill. The Cowardly Lion kills a giant spider who is terrorizing the animals in a forest and he agrees to return there to rule them after Dorothy returns to Kansas. Dorothy uses her third wish to fly over the Hammer-Heads' mountain, almost losing Toto in the process. At Glinda's palace, the travelers are greeted warmly, and it is revealed by Glinda that Dorothy had the power to go home all along. The Silver Shoes she wears can take her anywhere she wishes to go. She tearfully embraces her friends, all of whom will be returned, through Glinda's use of the Golden Cap, to their respective kingdoms: the Scarecrow to the Emerald City, the Tin Woodman to the Winkie Country, and the Cowardly Lion to the forest. Then she will give the Golden Cap to the King of the Winged Monkeys, so they will never be under its spell again. Having bid her friends farewell one final time, Dorothy knocks her heels together three times, and wishes to return home. When she opens her eyes, Dorothy and Toto have returned to Kansas to a joyful family reunion.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "King Ottokar's Sceptre",
    "author": "Herg\u00e9",
    "published_date": "1939",
    "synopsis": " Tintin finds a lost briefcase and returns it to the owner, Professor Hector Alembick, who is a sigillographer, an expert on seals (as in the sort used to make state documents official). He shows Tintin his collection of seals, including one which belonged to the Syldavian King Ottokar IV. Tintin then discovers that he and Alembick are under surveillance by some strange men. Tintin's flat is even bombed in an attempt to kill him. Suspecting a Syldavian connection, Tintin offers to accompany Alembick to Syldavia via Frankfurt and Prague for research. On the plane Tintin begins to suspect his companion. The Alembick travelling with him does not smoke and doesn't seem to need the spectacles he wears \u2013 to the point that he can make out a pretty pattern made by the sheep in a field that the plane passed over \u2013 while the Alembick he first met did smoke and had poor eyesight. During a layover, Tintin fakes a fall and grabs Alembick's beard, thinking it is false and Alembick is an imposter. However, the beard proves to be real and Tintin decides to let the matter drop, assuming that Alembick simply gave up smoking and is better at long distances than close-up- but then, while flying over Syldavia, it is the pilot of the plane who opens a trap door and Tintin drops out, landing in a haywagon. Tintin has a hunch that a plot is afoot to steal the sceptre of King Ottokar IV. In Syldavia, the reigning King must possess the sceptre to rule or he will be forced to abdicate, a tradition established after a past king used the sceptre to defeat a would-be assassin. Every year he rides in a parade during St. Vladimir's Day carrying it, while the people sing the national anthem. Tintin succeeds in warning the reigning King Muskar XII, despite the efforts of the conspirators. He and the King rush to the royal treasure room to find Alembick, the royal photographer and some guards unconscious and the sceptre missing. Tintin's friends Thomson and Thompson are summoned to investigate but their theory on how the sceptre was stolen \u2013 the thief throwing the sceptre through the iron bars over the window \u2013 proves to be inaccurate. Later on, Tintin notices a spring cannon in a toy shop and this gives him the clue. Professor Alembick had asked for some photographs to be taken of the sceptre, but the camera was a spring cannon in disguise, which allowed him to 'shoot' the sceptre out of the castle through the window bars into a nearby forest. Searching the forest, Tintin spots the sceptre being found by agents of the neighbouring country, Borduria. Following them all the way to the border, he wrestles the sceptre from them. In the wallet of one of the thieves he discovers papers that show that the theft of the sceptre was just part of a major plan for a takeover of Syldavia by their long-time political rival, Borduria. Tintin steals a Me-109 from a Bordurian airfield (whose squadron is being kept ready to take part in the envisioned invasion of Syldavia) to fly it back to the King in time. He is shot down by the Syldavians who have naturally opened fire on an enemy aircraft violating their airspace. He manages to make the rest of the journey by foot. Meanwhile the Interior Minister informs the King that rumours have been spreading that the sceptre has been stolen and that there have been riots against local Bordurian businesses, acts which would justify a Bordurian takeover of the country. The King is about to abdicate when Snowy runs in with the sceptre (which had fallen out of Tintin's pocket). Tintin then gives the King the papers he took from the man who stole the sceptre. They prove that the plot was masterminded by M\u00fcsstler, leader of the Zyldav Zentral Revolutzion\u00e4r Komitz\u00e4t, a political organisation. The King takes action by having M\u00fcsstler and his associates arrested and the army mobilised along the Bordurian frontier. In response, the Bordurian leader pulls his own troops back from the border. The next day is St. Vladimir's Day and Tintin is made a Knight of the Order of the Golden Pelican, the first non-Syldavian to receive such an honour. Further inquiries by the authorities reveal that Professor Alembick is one of a pair of identical twins: Hector Alembick was kidnapped and replaced with his brother Alfred who left for Syldavia in his place. Tintin and Snowy return home by a flying boat with Thomson and Thompson, who suffer momentary panic when the aircraft appears to be falling into the sea at the end of the flight. The reader is treated to a rare \"wink to the camera\" from Tintin, who points out their error, and they laugh about it so much that they do indeed fall into the sea as they disembark.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Tintin finds a lost briefcase and returns it to the owner, Professor Hector Alembick, who is a sigillographer, an expert on seals (as in the sort used to make state documents official). He shows Tintin his collection of seals, including one which belonged to the Syldavian King Ottokar IV. Tintin then discovers that he and Alembick are under surveillance by some strange men. Tintin's flat is even bombed in an attempt to kill him. Suspecting a Syldavian connection, Tintin offers to accompany Alembick to Syldavia via Frankfurt and Prague for research. On the plane Tintin begins to suspect his companion. The Alembick travelling with him does not smoke and doesn't seem to need the spectacles he wears \u2013 to the point that he can make out a pretty pattern made by the sheep in a field that the plane passed over \u2013 while the Alembick he first met did smoke and had poor eyesight. During a layover, Tintin fakes a fall and grabs Alembick's beard, thinking it is false and Alembick is an imposter. However, the beard proves to be real and Tintin decides to let the matter drop, assuming that Alembick simply gave up smoking and is better at long distances than close-up- but then, while flying over Syldavia, it is the pilot of the plane who opens a trap door and Tintin drops out, landing in a haywagon. Tintin has a hunch that a plot is afoot to steal the sceptre of King Ottokar IV. In Syldavia, the reigning King must possess the sceptre to rule or he will be forced to abdicate, a tradition established after a past king used the sceptre to defeat a would-be assassin. Every year he rides in a parade during St. Vladimir's Day carrying it, while"
      },
      {
        "text": " door and Tintin drops out, landing in a haywagon. Tintin has a hunch that a plot is afoot to steal the sceptre of King Ottokar IV. In Syldavia, the reigning King must possess the sceptre to rule or he will be forced to abdicate, a tradition established after a past king used the sceptre to defeat a would-be assassin. Every year he rides in a parade during St. Vladimir's Day carrying it, while the people sing the national anthem. Tintin succeeds in warning the reigning King Muskar XII, despite the efforts of the conspirators. He and the King rush to the royal treasure room to find Alembick, the royal photographer and some guards unconscious and the sceptre missing. Tintin's friends Thomson and Thompson are summoned to investigate but their theory on how the sceptre was stolen \u2013 the thief throwing the sceptre through the iron bars over the window \u2013 proves to be inaccurate. Later on, Tintin notices a spring cannon in a toy shop and this gives him the clue. Professor Alembick had asked for some photographs to be taken of the sceptre, but the camera was a spring cannon in disguise, which allowed him to 'shoot' the sceptre out of the castle through the window bars into a nearby forest. Searching the forest, Tintin spots the sceptre being found by agents of the neighbouring country, Borduria. Following them all the way to the border, he wrestles the sceptre from them. In the wallet of one of the thieves he discovers papers that show that the theft of the sceptre was just part of a major plan for a takeover of Syldavia by their long-time political rival, Borduria. Tintin steals a Me-109 from a Bordurian airfield (whose squadron is being kept ready to take part in the envisioned invasion of Syldavia) to fly it back to the King in time"
      },
      {
        "text": " the border, he wrestles the sceptre from them. In the wallet of one of the thieves he discovers papers that show that the theft of the sceptre was just part of a major plan for a takeover of Syldavia by their long-time political rival, Borduria. Tintin steals a Me-109 from a Bordurian airfield (whose squadron is being kept ready to take part in the envisioned invasion of Syldavia) to fly it back to the King in time. He is shot down by the Syldavians who have naturally opened fire on an enemy aircraft violating their airspace. He manages to make the rest of the journey by foot. Meanwhile the Interior Minister informs the King that rumours have been spreading that the sceptre has been stolen and that there have been riots against local Bordurian businesses, acts which would justify a Bordurian takeover of the country. The King is about to abdicate when Snowy runs in with the sceptre (which had fallen out of Tintin's pocket). Tintin then gives the King the papers he took from the man who stole the sceptre. They prove that the plot was masterminded by M\u00fcsstler, leader of the Zyldav Zentral Revolutzion\u00e4r Komitz\u00e4t, a political organisation. The King takes action by having M\u00fcsstler and his associates arrested and the army mobilised along the Bordurian frontier. In response, the Bordurian leader pulls his own troops back from the border. The next day is St. Vladimir's Day and Tintin is made a Knight of the Order of the Golden Pelican, the first non-Syldavian to receive such an honour. Further inquiries by the authorities reveal that Professor Alembick is one of a pair of identical twins: Hector Alembick was kidnapped and replaced with his brother Alfred who left for Syldavia in his place. Tintin and Snowy return"
      },
      {
        "text": "ian leader pulls his own troops back from the border. The next day is St. Vladimir's Day and Tintin is made a Knight of the Order of the Golden Pelican, the first non-Syldavian to receive such an honour. Further inquiries by the authorities reveal that Professor Alembick is one of a pair of identical twins: Hector Alembick was kidnapped and replaced with his brother Alfred who left for Syldavia in his place. Tintin and Snowy return home by a flying boat with Thomson and Thompson, who suffer momentary panic when the aircraft appears to be falling into the sea at the end of the flight. The reader is treated to a rare \"wink to the camera\" from Tintin, who points out their error, and they laugh about it so much that they do indeed fall into the sea as they disembark.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Wuthering Heights",
    "author": "Emily Bront\u00eb",
    "published_date": "1847-12",
    "synopsis": " In 1801, Mr. Lockwood, a rich man from the south of England, rents Thrushcross Grange in the north of England for peace and recuperation. Soon after his arrival, he visits his landlord, Mr. Heathcliff, who lives in the remote moorland farmhouse called \"Wuthering Heights.\" He finds the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights to be a rather strange group: Mr. Heathcliff appears a gentleman but his mannerisms suggest otherwise; the reserved mistress of the house is in her mid-teens; and a young man appears to be one of the family, although he dresses and talks like a servant. Being snowed in, Mr. Lockwood stays the night and is shown to an unused chamber, where he finds books and graffiti from a former inhabitant of the farmhouse named Catherine. When he falls asleep, he has a nightmare in which he sees Catherine as a ghost trying to enter through the window. Heathcliff rushes to the room after hearing him yelling in fear. He believes Mr. Lockwood is telling the truth, and inspects the window, opening it in a futile attempt to let Catherine's spirit in from the cold. After nothing eventuates, Heathcliff shows Mr. Lockwood to his own bedroom, and returns to keep guard at the window. As soon as the sun rises, Mr. Lockwood is escorted back to Thrushcross Grange by Heathcliff. There, he asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell him the story of the family from the Heights. Thirty years prior, the Earnshaw family lived at Wuthering Heights. The children of the family are the teenaged Hindley and his younger sister, Catherine. Mr. Earnshaw travels to Liverpool, where he finds a homeless dark-skinned boy whom he decides to adopt, naming him \"Heathcliff.\" Hindley finds himself robbed of his father's affections and becomes bitterly jealous of Heathcliff. However, Catherine grows very attached to him. Soon, the two children spend hours on the moors together and hate every moment apart. Because of the domestic discord caused by Hindley's and Heathcliff's sibling rivalry, Hindley is eventually sent to college. However, he marries a woman named Frances and returns three years later, after Mr. Earnshaw dies. He becomes master of Wuthering Heights, and forces Heathcliff to become a servant instead of a member of the family. Several months after Hindley's return, Heathcliff and Catherine travel to Thrushcross Grange to spy on the Linton family. However, they are spotted and try to escape. Catherine, having been caught by a dog, is brought inside the Grange to have injuries tended to while Heathcliff is sent home. Catherine eventually returns to Wuthering Heights as a changed woman, looking and acting as a lady. She laughs at Heathcliff's unkempt appearance. When the Lintons visit the next day, Heathcliff dresses up to impress her. It fails when Edgar, one of the Linton children, argues with him. Heathcliff is locked in the attic, where Catherine later tries to comfort him. He swears vengeance on Hindley. In the summer of the next year, Frances gives birth to a son, Hareton, but she dies before the year is out. This leads Hindley to descend into a life of drunkenness and waste. Two years pass and Catherine has become close friends with Edgar, growing more distant from Heathcliff. One day in August, while Hindley is absent, Edgar comes to visit Catherine. She has an argument with Nelly, which then spreads to Edgar who tries to leave. Catherine stops him and, before long, they declare themselves lovers. Later, Catherine talks with Nelly, explaining that Edgar had asked her to marry him and she had accepted. She says that she does not really love Edgar but Heathcliff. Unfortunately she could never marry Heathcliff because of his lack of status and education. She therefore plans to marry Edgar and use that position to help raise Heathcliff's standing. Unfortunately, Heathcliff had overheard the first part about not being able to marry him and runs away, disappearing without a trace. After three years, Edgar and Catherine are married. Six months after the marriage, Heathcliff returns as a gentleman, having grown stronger and richer during his absence. Catherine is delighted to see him although Edgar is not so keen. Edgar's sister, Isabella, now eighteen, falls in love with Heathcliff, seeing him as a romantic hero. He despises her but encourages the infatuation, seeing it as a chance for revenge on Edgar. When he embraces Isabella one day at the Grange, there is an argument with Edgar which causes Catherine to lock herself in her room and fall ill. Heathcliff has been staying at the Heights, gambling with Hindley and teaching Hareton bad habits. Hindley is gradually losing his wealth, mortgaging the farmhouse to Heathcliff to repay his debts. While Catherine is ill, Heathcliff elopes with Isabella. The fugitives marry and return two months later to Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff hears that Catherine is ill and arranges with Nelly to visit her in secret. In the early hours of the day after their meeting, Catherine gives birth to her daughter, Cathy, and then dies. The day after Catherine's funeral, Isabella flees Heathcliff and escapes to the south of England where she eventually gives birth to Linton, Heathcliff's son. Hindley dies six months after Catherine. Heathcliff finds himself the master of Wuthering Heights and the guardian of Hareton. Twelve years later, Cathy has grown into a beautiful, high-spirited girl who has rarely passed outside the borders of the Grange. Edgar hears that Isabella is dying and leaves to pick up her son with the intention of adopting him. While he is gone, Cathy meets Hareton on the moors and learns of her cousin's and Wuthering Heights' existence. Edgar returns with Linton who is a weak and sickly boy. Although Cathy is attracted to him, Heathcliff wants his son with him and insists on having him taken to the Heights. Three years later, Nelly and Cathy are on the moors when they meet Heathcliff who takes them to Wuthering Heights to see Linton and Hareton. He has plans for Linton and Cathy to marry so that he will inherit Thrushcross Grange. Cathy and Linton begin a secret friendship. In August of the next year, while Edgar is very ill, Nelly and Cathy visit Wuthering Heights and are held captive by Heathcliff who wants to marry his son to Cathy and, at the same time, prevent her from returning to her father before he dies. After five days, Nelly is released and Cathy escapes with Linton's help just in time to see her father before he dies. With Heathcliff now the master of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, Cathy has no choice but to leave Nelly and to go and live with Heathcliff and Hareton. Linton dies soon afterwards and, although Hareton tries to be kind to her, she retreats into herself. This is the point of the story at which Lockwood arrives. After being ill with a cold for some time, Lockwood decides that he has had enough of the moors and travels to Wuthering Heights to inform Heathcliff that he is returning to the south. In September, eight months after leaving, Lockwood finds himself back in the area and decides to stay at Thrushcross Grange (since his tenancy is still valid until October). He finds that Nelly is now living at Wuthering Heights. He makes his way there and she fills in the rest of the story. Nelly had moved to the Heights soon after Lockwood left to replace the housekeeper who had departed. In March, Hareton had had an accident and been confined to the farmhouse. During this time, a friendship had developed between Cathy and Hareton. This had continued into April when Heathcliff began to act very strangely, seeing visions of Catherine. After not eating for four days, he was found dead in Catherine's room. He was buried next to Catherine. Lockwood departs but, before he leaves, he hears that Hareton and Cathy plan to marry on New Year's Day. Lockwood passes the graves of Catherine, Edgar and Heathcliff, pausing to contemplate the peaceful quiet of the moors.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In 1801, Mr. Lockwood, a rich man from the south of England, rents Thrushcross Grange in the north of England for peace and recuperation. Soon after his arrival, he visits his landlord, Mr. Heathcliff, who lives in the remote moorland farmhouse called \"Wuthering Heights.\" He finds the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights to be a rather strange group: Mr. Heathcliff appears a gentleman but his mannerisms suggest otherwise; the reserved mistress of the house is in her mid-teens; and a young man appears to be one of the family, although he dresses and talks like a servant. Being snowed in, Mr. Lockwood stays the night and is shown to an unused chamber, where he finds books and graffiti from a former inhabitant of the farmhouse named Catherine. When he falls asleep, he has a nightmare in which he sees Catherine as a ghost trying to enter through the window. Heathcliff rushes to the room after hearing him yelling in fear. He believes Mr. Lockwood is telling the truth, and inspects the window, opening it in a futile attempt to let Catherine's spirit in from the cold. After nothing eventuates, Heathcliff shows Mr. Lockwood to his own bedroom, and returns to keep guard at the window. As soon as the sun rises, Mr. Lockwood is escorted back to Thrushcross Grange by Heathcliff. There, he asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell him the story of the family from the Heights. Thirty years prior, the Earnshaw family lived at Wuthering Heights. The children of the family are the teenaged Hindley and his younger sister, Catherine. Mr. Earnshaw travels to Liverpool, where he finds a homeless dark-skinned boy whom he decides to adopt, naming him \"Heathcliff.\" Hindley finds himself robbed of his father's affections and becomes bitterly jealous of"
      },
      {
        "text": " his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell him the story of the family from the Heights. Thirty years prior, the Earnshaw family lived at Wuthering Heights. The children of the family are the teenaged Hindley and his younger sister, Catherine. Mr. Earnshaw travels to Liverpool, where he finds a homeless dark-skinned boy whom he decides to adopt, naming him \"Heathcliff.\" Hindley finds himself robbed of his father's affections and becomes bitterly jealous of Heathcliff. However, Catherine grows very attached to him. Soon, the two children spend hours on the moors together and hate every moment apart. Because of the domestic discord caused by Hindley's and Heathcliff's sibling rivalry, Hindley is eventually sent to college. However, he marries a woman named Frances and returns three years later, after Mr. Earnshaw dies. He becomes master of Wuthering Heights, and forces Heathcliff to become a servant instead of a member of the family. Several months after Hindley's return, Heathcliff and Catherine travel to Thrushcross Grange to spy on the Linton family. However, they are spotted and try to escape. Catherine, having been caught by a dog, is brought inside the Grange to have injuries tended to while Heathcliff is sent home. Catherine eventually returns to Wuthering Heights as a changed woman, looking and acting as a lady. She laughs at Heathcliff's unkempt appearance. When the Lintons visit the next day, Heathcliff dresses up to impress her. It fails when Edgar, one of the Linton children, argues with him. Heathcliff is locked in the attic, where Catherine later tries to comfort him. He swears vengeance on Hindley. In the summer of the next year, Frances gives birth to a son, Hareton, but she dies before the year is out. This leads Hindley to descend into a life"
      },
      {
        "text": "mpt appearance. When the Lintons visit the next day, Heathcliff dresses up to impress her. It fails when Edgar, one of the Linton children, argues with him. Heathcliff is locked in the attic, where Catherine later tries to comfort him. He swears vengeance on Hindley. In the summer of the next year, Frances gives birth to a son, Hareton, but she dies before the year is out. This leads Hindley to descend into a life of drunkenness and waste. Two years pass and Catherine has become close friends with Edgar, growing more distant from Heathcliff. One day in August, while Hindley is absent, Edgar comes to visit Catherine. She has an argument with Nelly, which then spreads to Edgar who tries to leave. Catherine stops him and, before long, they declare themselves lovers. Later, Catherine talks with Nelly, explaining that Edgar had asked her to marry him and she had accepted. She says that she does not really love Edgar but Heathcliff. Unfortunately she could never marry Heathcliff because of his lack of status and education. She therefore plans to marry Edgar and use that position to help raise Heathcliff's standing. Unfortunately, Heathcliff had overheard the first part about not being able to marry him and runs away, disappearing without a trace. After three years, Edgar and Catherine are married. Six months after the marriage, Heathcliff returns as a gentleman, having grown stronger and richer during his absence. Catherine is delighted to see him although Edgar is not so keen. Edgar's sister, Isabella, now eighteen, falls in love with Heathcliff, seeing him as a romantic hero. He despises her but encourages the infatuation, seeing it as a chance for revenge on Edgar. When he embraces Isabella one day at the Grange, there is an argument with Edgar which causes Catherine to lock herself in her room and fall ill. Heathcliff has been"
      },
      {
        "text": " richer during his absence. Catherine is delighted to see him although Edgar is not so keen. Edgar's sister, Isabella, now eighteen, falls in love with Heathcliff, seeing him as a romantic hero. He despises her but encourages the infatuation, seeing it as a chance for revenge on Edgar. When he embraces Isabella one day at the Grange, there is an argument with Edgar which causes Catherine to lock herself in her room and fall ill. Heathcliff has been staying at the Heights, gambling with Hindley and teaching Hareton bad habits. Hindley is gradually losing his wealth, mortgaging the farmhouse to Heathcliff to repay his debts. While Catherine is ill, Heathcliff elopes with Isabella. The fugitives marry and return two months later to Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff hears that Catherine is ill and arranges with Nelly to visit her in secret. In the early hours of the day after their meeting, Catherine gives birth to her daughter, Cathy, and then dies. The day after Catherine's funeral, Isabella flees Heathcliff and escapes to the south of England where she eventually gives birth to Linton, Heathcliff's son. Hindley dies six months after Catherine. Heathcliff finds himself the master of Wuthering Heights and the guardian of Hareton. Twelve years later, Cathy has grown into a beautiful, high-spirited girl who has rarely passed outside the borders of the Grange. Edgar hears that Isabella is dying and leaves to pick up her son with the intention of adopting him. While he is gone, Cathy meets Hareton on the moors and learns of her cousin's and Wuthering Heights' existence. Edgar returns with Linton who is a weak and sickly boy. Although Cathy is attracted to him, Heathcliff wants his son with him and insists on having him taken to the Heights. Three years later, Nelly and Cathy are on the"
      },
      {
        "text": "ange. Edgar hears that Isabella is dying and leaves to pick up her son with the intention of adopting him. While he is gone, Cathy meets Hareton on the moors and learns of her cousin's and Wuthering Heights' existence. Edgar returns with Linton who is a weak and sickly boy. Although Cathy is attracted to him, Heathcliff wants his son with him and insists on having him taken to the Heights. Three years later, Nelly and Cathy are on the moors when they meet Heathcliff who takes them to Wuthering Heights to see Linton and Hareton. He has plans for Linton and Cathy to marry so that he will inherit Thrushcross Grange. Cathy and Linton begin a secret friendship. In August of the next year, while Edgar is very ill, Nelly and Cathy visit Wuthering Heights and are held captive by Heathcliff who wants to marry his son to Cathy and, at the same time, prevent her from returning to her father before he dies. After five days, Nelly is released and Cathy escapes with Linton's help just in time to see her father before he dies. With Heathcliff now the master of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, Cathy has no choice but to leave Nelly and to go and live with Heathcliff and Hareton. Linton dies soon afterwards and, although Hareton tries to be kind to her, she retreats into herself. This is the point of the story at which Lockwood arrives. After being ill with a cold for some time, Lockwood decides that he has had enough of the moors and travels to Wuthering Heights to inform Heathcliff that he is returning to the south. In September, eight months after leaving, Lockwood finds himself back in the area and decides to stay at Thrushcross Grange (since his tenancy is still valid until October). He finds that Nelly is now"
      },
      {
        "text": " herself. This is the point of the story at which Lockwood arrives. After being ill with a cold for some time, Lockwood decides that he has had enough of the moors and travels to Wuthering Heights to inform Heathcliff that he is returning to the south. In September, eight months after leaving, Lockwood finds himself back in the area and decides to stay at Thrushcross Grange (since his tenancy is still valid until October). He finds that Nelly is now living at Wuthering Heights. He makes his way there and she fills in the rest of the story. Nelly had moved to the Heights soon after Lockwood left to replace the housekeeper who had departed. In March, Hareton had had an accident and been confined to the farmhouse. During this time, a friendship had developed between Cathy and Hareton. This had continued into April when Heathcliff began to act very strangely, seeing visions of Catherine. After not eating for four days, he was found dead in Catherine's room. He was buried next to Catherine. Lockwood departs but, before he leaves, he hears that Hareton and Cathy plan to marry on New Year's Day. Lockwood passes the graves of Catherine, Edgar and Heathcliff, pausing to contemplate the peaceful quiet of the moors.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Jane Eyre",
    "author": "Charlotte Bront\u00eb",
    "published_date": "1847-10-16",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins with a ten-year-old orphan named Jane Eyre, who is living with her maternal uncle's family, the Reeds, as her uncle's dying wish. Jane's parents died of typhus. Jane\u2019s aunt Sarah Reed does not like her and treats her worse than a servant and discourages and at times forbids her children from associating with her. She claims that Jane is not worthy of notice. She and her three children are abusive to Jane, physically and emotionally. She is unacceptably excluded from the family celebrations and had a doll to find solace in. One day Jane is locked in the red room, where her uncle died, and panics after seeing visions of him. She is finally rescued when she is allowed to attend Lowood School for Girls. Before she leaves, she stands up to Mrs. Reed and declares that she'll never call her \"aunt\" again, that she'd tell everyone at Lowood how cruel Mrs. Reed was to her, and says that Mrs. Reed and her daughter, Georgiana, are deceitful. John Reed, her son, is very rude and disrespectful, even to his own mother, who he sometimes had called \"old girl\", and his sisters. He treats Jane worse than the others do, and she hates him above all the others. Mr. Reed had been the only one in the Reed family to be kind to Jane. The servant Abbot is also always rude to Jane. The servant Bessie is sometimes scolding and sometimes nice. Jane likes Bessie the best. Jane arrives at Lowood Institution, a charity school, the head of which (Brocklehurst) has been told that she is deceitful. During an inspection, Jane accidentally breaks her slate, and Mr. Brocklehurst, the self-righteous clergyman who runs the school, brands her a liar and shames her before the entire assembly. Jane is comforted by her friend, Helen Burns. Miss Temple, a caring teacher, facilitates Jane's self-defense and writes to Mr. Lloyd, whose reply agrees with Jane's. Ultimately, Jane is publicly cleared of Mr. Brocklehurst's accusations. The eighty pupils at Lowood are subjected to cold rooms, poor meals, and thin clothing. Many students fall ill when a typhus epidemic strikes. Jane's friend Helen dies of consumption in her arms. When Mr. Brocklehurst's neglect and dishonesty are discovered, several benefactors erect a new building and conditions at the school improve dramatically. After six years as a student and two as a teacher, Jane decides to leave Lowood, like her friend and confidante Miss Temple. She advertises her services as a governess, and receives one reply. It is from Alice Fairfax, the housekeeper at Thornfield Hall. She takes the position, teaching Adele Varens, a young French girl. While Jane is walking one night to a nearby town, a horseman passes her. The horse slips on ice and throws the rider. She helps him to the horse. Later, back at the mansion she learns that this man is Edward Rochester, master of the house. He teases her, asking whether she bewitched his horse to make him fall. Adele is his ward, left in Mr. Rochester's care when her mother died. Mr. Rochester and Jane enjoy each other's company and spend many hours together. Odd things start to happen at the house, such as a strange laugh, a mysterious fire in Mr. Rochester's room, on which Jane throws water, and an attack on Rochester's house guest, Mr. Mason. Jane receives word that her aunt was calling for her, after being in much grief because her son has died. She returns to Gateshead and remains there for a month caring for her dying aunt. Mrs. Reed gives Jane a letter from Jane's paternal uncle, Mr John Eyre, asking for her to live with him. Mrs. Reed admits to telling her uncle that Jane had died of fever at Lowood. Soon after, Jane's aunt dies, and she returns to Thornfield. Jane begins to communicate to her uncle John Eyre. After returning to Thornfield, Jane broods over Mr. Rochester's impending marriage to Blanche Ingram. But on a midsummer evening, he proclaims his love for Jane and proposes. As she prepares for her wedding, Jane's forebodings arise when a strange, savage-looking woman sneaks into her room one night and rips her wedding veil in two. As with the previous mysterious events, Mr. Rochester attributes the incident to drunkenness on the part of Grace Poole, one of his servants. During the wedding ceremony, Mr. Mason and a lawyer declare that Mr. Rochester cannot marry because he is still married to Mr. Mason\u2019s sister Bertha. Mr. Rochester admits this is true, but explains that his father tricked him into the marriage for her money. Once they were united, he discovered that she was rapidly descending into madness and eventually locked her away in Thornfield, hiring Grace Poole as a nurse to look after her. When Grace gets drunk, his wife escapes, and causes the strange happenings at Thornfield. Jane learns that her own letter to her uncle John Eyre, which happened to be seen by Mr. Mason, who knew John Eyre and was there, was how Mr. Mason found out about the bigamous marriage. Mr. Rochester asks Jane to go with him to the south of France, and live as husband and wife, even though they cannot be married. Refusing to go against her principles, and despite her love for him, Jane leaves Thornfield in the middle of the night. Jane travels through England using the little money she had saved. She accidentally leaves her bundle of possessions on a coach and has to sleep on the moor, trying to trade her scarf and gloves for food. Exhausted, she makes her way to the home of Diana and Mary Rivers, but is turned away by the housekeeper. She faints on the doorstep, preparing for her death. St. John Rivers, Diana and Mary's brother and a clergyman, saves her. After she regains her health, St. John finds her a teaching position at a nearby charity school. Jane becomes good friends with the sisters, but St. John remains reserved. The sisters leave for governess jobs and St. John becomes closer with Jane. St. John discovers Jane's true identity, and astounds her by showing her a letter stating that her uncle John Eyre has died and left her his entire fortune of 20,000 pounds (equivalent to over \u00a31.3 million in 2011, calculated using the RPI). When Jane questions him further, St. John reveals that John is also his and his sisters' uncle. They had once hoped for a share of the inheritance, but have since resigned themselves to nothing. Jane, overjoyed by finding her family, insists on sharing the money equally with her cousins, and Diana and Mary come to Moor House to stay. Thinking she will make a suitable missionary's wife, St. John asks Jane to marry him and to go with him to India, not out of love, but out of duty. Jane initially accepts going to India, but rejects the marriage proposal, suggesting they travel as brother and sister. As soon as Jane's resolve against marriage to St. John begins to weaken, she mysteriously hears Mr. Rochester's voice calling her name. Jane then returns to Thornfield to find only blackened ruins. She learns that Mr. Rochester's wife set the house on fire and committed suicide by jumping from the roof. In his rescue attempts, Mr. Rochester lost a hand and his eyesight. Jane reunites with him, but he fears that she will be repulsed by his condition. When Jane assures him of her love and tells him that she will never leave him, Mr. Rochester again proposes and they are married. He eventually recovers enough sight to see their first-born son.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins with a ten-year-old orphan named Jane Eyre, who is living with her maternal uncle's family, the Reeds, as her uncle's dying wish. Jane's parents died of typhus. Jane\u2019s aunt Sarah Reed does not like her and treats her worse than a servant and discourages and at times forbids her children from associating with her. She claims that Jane is not worthy of notice. She and her three children are abusive to Jane, physically and emotionally. She is unacceptably excluded from the family celebrations and had a doll to find solace in. One day Jane is locked in the red room, where her uncle died, and panics after seeing visions of him. She is finally rescued when she is allowed to attend Lowood School for Girls. Before she leaves, she stands up to Mrs. Reed and declares that she'll never call her \"aunt\" again, that she'd tell everyone at Lowood how cruel Mrs. Reed was to her, and says that Mrs. Reed and her daughter, Georgiana, are deceitful. John Reed, her son, is very rude and disrespectful, even to his own mother, who he sometimes had called \"old girl\", and his sisters. He treats Jane worse than the others do, and she hates him above all the others. Mr. Reed had been the only one in the Reed family to be kind to Jane. The servant Abbot is also always rude to Jane. The servant Bessie is sometimes scolding and sometimes nice. Jane likes Bessie the best. Jane arrives at Lowood Institution, a charity school, the head of which (Brocklehurst) has been told that she is deceitful. During an inspection, Jane accidentally breaks her slate, and Mr. Brocklehurst, the self-righteous clergyman who runs the school, brands her a liar and shames her before the entire assembly. Jane is comforted by her friend, Helen Burns"
      },
      {
        "text": " Bessie is sometimes scolding and sometimes nice. Jane likes Bessie the best. Jane arrives at Lowood Institution, a charity school, the head of which (Brocklehurst) has been told that she is deceitful. During an inspection, Jane accidentally breaks her slate, and Mr. Brocklehurst, the self-righteous clergyman who runs the school, brands her a liar and shames her before the entire assembly. Jane is comforted by her friend, Helen Burns. Miss Temple, a caring teacher, facilitates Jane's self-defense and writes to Mr. Lloyd, whose reply agrees with Jane's. Ultimately, Jane is publicly cleared of Mr. Brocklehurst's accusations. The eighty pupils at Lowood are subjected to cold rooms, poor meals, and thin clothing. Many students fall ill when a typhus epidemic strikes. Jane's friend Helen dies of consumption in her arms. When Mr. Brocklehurst's neglect and dishonesty are discovered, several benefactors erect a new building and conditions at the school improve dramatically. After six years as a student and two as a teacher, Jane decides to leave Lowood, like her friend and confidante Miss Temple. She advertises her services as a governess, and receives one reply. It is from Alice Fairfax, the housekeeper at Thornfield Hall. She takes the position, teaching Adele Varens, a young French girl. While Jane is walking one night to a nearby town, a horseman passes her. The horse slips on ice and throws the rider. She helps him to the horse. Later, back at the mansion she learns that this man is Edward Rochester, master of the house. He teases her, asking whether she bewitched his horse to make him fall. Adele is his ward, left in Mr. Rochester's care when her mother died. Mr. Rochester and Jane enjoy each other's company and spend many hours together. Odd things start to happen at"
      },
      {
        "text": " horseman passes her. The horse slips on ice and throws the rider. She helps him to the horse. Later, back at the mansion she learns that this man is Edward Rochester, master of the house. He teases her, asking whether she bewitched his horse to make him fall. Adele is his ward, left in Mr. Rochester's care when her mother died. Mr. Rochester and Jane enjoy each other's company and spend many hours together. Odd things start to happen at the house, such as a strange laugh, a mysterious fire in Mr. Rochester's room, on which Jane throws water, and an attack on Rochester's house guest, Mr. Mason. Jane receives word that her aunt was calling for her, after being in much grief because her son has died. She returns to Gateshead and remains there for a month caring for her dying aunt. Mrs. Reed gives Jane a letter from Jane's paternal uncle, Mr John Eyre, asking for her to live with him. Mrs. Reed admits to telling her uncle that Jane had died of fever at Lowood. Soon after, Jane's aunt dies, and she returns to Thornfield. Jane begins to communicate to her uncle John Eyre. After returning to Thornfield, Jane broods over Mr. Rochester's impending marriage to Blanche Ingram. But on a midsummer evening, he proclaims his love for Jane and proposes. As she prepares for her wedding, Jane's forebodings arise when a strange, savage-looking woman sneaks into her room one night and rips her wedding veil in two. As with the previous mysterious events, Mr. Rochester attributes the incident to drunkenness on the part of Grace Poole, one of his servants. During the wedding ceremony, Mr. Mason and a lawyer declare that Mr. Rochester cannot marry because he is still married to Mr. Mason\u2019s sister Bertha. Mr. Rochester admits this is true, but explains that his father tricked"
      },
      {
        "text": " a strange, savage-looking woman sneaks into her room one night and rips her wedding veil in two. As with the previous mysterious events, Mr. Rochester attributes the incident to drunkenness on the part of Grace Poole, one of his servants. During the wedding ceremony, Mr. Mason and a lawyer declare that Mr. Rochester cannot marry because he is still married to Mr. Mason\u2019s sister Bertha. Mr. Rochester admits this is true, but explains that his father tricked him into the marriage for her money. Once they were united, he discovered that she was rapidly descending into madness and eventually locked her away in Thornfield, hiring Grace Poole as a nurse to look after her. When Grace gets drunk, his wife escapes, and causes the strange happenings at Thornfield. Jane learns that her own letter to her uncle John Eyre, which happened to be seen by Mr. Mason, who knew John Eyre and was there, was how Mr. Mason found out about the bigamous marriage. Mr. Rochester asks Jane to go with him to the south of France, and live as husband and wife, even though they cannot be married. Refusing to go against her principles, and despite her love for him, Jane leaves Thornfield in the middle of the night. Jane travels through England using the little money she had saved. She accidentally leaves her bundle of possessions on a coach and has to sleep on the moor, trying to trade her scarf and gloves for food. Exhausted, she makes her way to the home of Diana and Mary Rivers, but is turned away by the housekeeper. She faints on the doorstep, preparing for her death. St. John Rivers, Diana and Mary's brother and a clergyman, saves her. After she regains her health, St. John finds her a teaching position at a nearby charity school. Jane becomes good friends with the sisters, but St. John remains reserved. The sisters leave for govern"
      },
      {
        "text": " for food. Exhausted, she makes her way to the home of Diana and Mary Rivers, but is turned away by the housekeeper. She faints on the doorstep, preparing for her death. St. John Rivers, Diana and Mary's brother and a clergyman, saves her. After she regains her health, St. John finds her a teaching position at a nearby charity school. Jane becomes good friends with the sisters, but St. John remains reserved. The sisters leave for governess jobs and St. John becomes closer with Jane. St. John discovers Jane's true identity, and astounds her by showing her a letter stating that her uncle John Eyre has died and left her his entire fortune of 20,000 pounds (equivalent to over \u00a31.3 million in 2011, calculated using the RPI). When Jane questions him further, St. John reveals that John is also his and his sisters' uncle. They had once hoped for a share of the inheritance, but have since resigned themselves to nothing. Jane, overjoyed by finding her family, insists on sharing the money equally with her cousins, and Diana and Mary come to Moor House to stay. Thinking she will make a suitable missionary's wife, St. John asks Jane to marry him and to go with him to India, not out of love, but out of duty. Jane initially accepts going to India, but rejects the marriage proposal, suggesting they travel as brother and sister. As soon as Jane's resolve against marriage to St. John begins to weaken, she mysteriously hears Mr. Rochester's voice calling her name. Jane then returns to Thornfield to find only blackened ruins. She learns that Mr. Rochester's wife set the house on fire and committed suicide by jumping from the roof. In his rescue attempts, Mr. Rochester lost a hand and his eyesight. Jane reunites with him, but he fears that she will be repulsed by his condition. When Jane assures him of"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s resolve against marriage to St. John begins to weaken, she mysteriously hears Mr. Rochester's voice calling her name. Jane then returns to Thornfield to find only blackened ruins. She learns that Mr. Rochester's wife set the house on fire and committed suicide by jumping from the roof. In his rescue attempts, Mr. Rochester lost a hand and his eyesight. Jane reunites with him, but he fears that she will be repulsed by his condition. When Jane assures him of her love and tells him that she will never leave him, Mr. Rochester again proposes and they are married. He eventually recovers enough sight to see their first-born son.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Catch-22",
    "author": "Joseph Heller",
    "published_date": "1961-11-11",
    "synopsis": " The development of the novel can be split into segments. The first (chapters 1\u201311) broadly follows the story fragmented between characters, but in a single chronological time in 1943. The second (chapters 12\u201320) flashes back to focus primarily on the \"Great Big Siege of Bologna\" before once again jumping to the chronological \"present\" of 1943 in the third part (chapter 21\u201325). The fourth (chapters 26\u201328) flashes back to the origins and growth of Milo's syndicate, with the fifth part (chapter 28\u201332) returning again to the narrative \"present\" but keeping to the same tone of the previous four. In the sixth and final part (chapter 32 on) while remaining in the \"present\" time the novel takes a much darker turn and spends the remaining chapters focusing on the serious and brutal nature of war and life in general. While the first five parts \"sections\" develop the novel in the present and through use of flash-backs, the novel significantly darkens in chapters 32\u201341. Previously the reader had been cushioned from experiencing the full horror of events, but now the events are laid bare, allowing the full effect to take place. The horror begins with the attack on the undefended Italian mountain village, with the following chapters involving despair (Doc Daneeka and the Chaplain), disappearance in combat (Orr and Clevinger), disappearance caused by the army (Dunbar) or death (Nately, McWatt, Mudd, Kid Sampson, Dobbs, Chief White Halfoat and Hungry Joe) of most of Yossarian's friends, culminating in the unspeakable horrors of Chapter 39, in particular the rape and murder of Michaela, who represents pure innocence. In Chapter 41, the full details of the gruesome death of Snowden are finally revealed. Despite this, the novel ends on an upbeat note with Yossarian learning of Orr's miraculous escape to Sweden and Yossarian's pledge to follow him there.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The development of the novel can be split into segments. The first (chapters 1\u201311) broadly follows the story fragmented between characters, but in a single chronological time in 1943. The second (chapters 12\u201320) flashes back to focus primarily on the \"Great Big Siege of Bologna\" before once again jumping to the chronological \"present\" of 1943 in the third part (chapter 21\u201325). The fourth (chapters 26\u201328) flashes back to the origins and growth of Milo's syndicate, with the fifth part (chapter 28\u201332) returning again to the narrative \"present\" but keeping to the same tone of the previous four. In the sixth and final part (chapter 32 on) while remaining in the \"present\" time the novel takes a much darker turn and spends the remaining chapters focusing on the serious and brutal nature of war and life in general. While the first five parts \"sections\" develop the novel in the present and through use of flash-backs, the novel significantly darkens in chapters 32\u201341. Previously the reader had been cushioned from experiencing the full horror of events, but now the events are laid bare, allowing the full effect to take place. The horror begins with the attack on the undefended Italian mountain village, with the following chapters involving despair (Doc Daneeka and the Chaplain), disappearance in combat (Orr and Clevinger), disappearance caused by the army (Dunbar) or death (Nately, McWatt, Mudd, Kid Sampson, Dobbs, Chief White Halfoat and Hungry Joe) of most of Yossarian's friends, culminating in the unspeakable horrors of Chapter 39, in particular the rape and murder of Michaela, who represents pure innocence. In Chapter 41, the full details of the gruesome death of Snowden are finally revealed. Despite this, the novel ends on an upbeat note with Yossarian learning of Orr's miraculous escape to Sweden and Yoss"
      },
      {
        "text": " McWatt, Mudd, Kid Sampson, Dobbs, Chief White Halfoat and Hungry Joe) of most of Yossarian's friends, culminating in the unspeakable horrors of Chapter 39, in particular the rape and murder of Michaela, who represents pure innocence. In Chapter 41, the full details of the gruesome death of Snowden are finally revealed. Despite this, the novel ends on an upbeat note with Yossarian learning of Orr's miraculous escape to Sweden and Yossarian's pledge to follow him there.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Robinson Crusoe",
    "author": "Daniel Defoe",
    "published_date": "1719-04-25",
    "synopsis": " Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name \"Kreutznaer\") sets sail from the Queen's Dock in Hull on a sea voyage in August 1651, against his parents' wishes, who want him to pursue a career, possibly in law. After a tumultuous journey where his ship is wrecked in a storm, his lust for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey, too, ends in disaster as the ship is taken over by Sal\u00e9 pirates (the Sal\u00e9 Rovers) and Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor. Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy named Xury; a Captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa rescues him. The ship is en route to Brazil. With the captain's help, Crusoe procures a plantation. Years later, Crusoe joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa but he is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco river on September 30, 1659. Only he and three animals, the captain's dog and two cats, survive the shipwreck. Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools, and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He builds a fenced-in habitat near a cave which he excavates. By making marks in a wooden cross, he creates a calendar. By using tools salvaged from the ship, and ones he makes himself, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery, and raises goats. He also adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society. More years pass and Crusoe discovers native cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination but later realizes he has no right to do so, as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion \"Friday\" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity. After more natives arrive to partake in a cannibal feast, Crusoe and Friday kill most of the natives and save two prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe about other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return to the mainland with Friday's father and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a Spanish port. Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; mutineers have commandeered the vessel and intend to maroon their captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal in which Crusoe helps the captain and the loyal sailors retake the ship and leave the worst mutineers on the island. Before embarking for England, Crusoe shows the mutineers how he survived on the island and states that there will be more men coming. Crusoe leaves the island 19 December 1686 and arrives in England on 11 June 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead; as a result, he was left nothing in his father's will. Crusoe departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him much wealth. In conclusion, he transports his wealth overland to England to avoid travelling by sea. Friday accompanies him and, en route, they endure one last adventure together as they fight off famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name \"Kreutznaer\") sets sail from the Queen's Dock in Hull on a sea voyage in August 1651, against his parents' wishes, who want him to pursue a career, possibly in law. After a tumultuous journey where his ship is wrecked in a storm, his lust for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey, too, ends in disaster as the ship is taken over by Sal\u00e9 pirates (the Sal\u00e9 Rovers) and Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor. Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy named Xury; a Captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa rescues him. The ship is en route to Brazil. With the captain's help, Crusoe procures a plantation. Years later, Crusoe joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa but he is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco river on September 30, 1659. Only he and three animals, the captain's dog and two cats, survive the shipwreck. Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools, and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He builds a fenced-in habitat near a cave which he excavates. By making marks in a wooden cross, he creates a calendar. By using tools salvaged from the ship, and ones he makes himself, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery, and raises goats. He also adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society. More years pass and Crusoe discovers native cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to"
      },
      {
        "text": " using tools salvaged from the ship, and ones he makes himself, he hunts, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery, and raises goats. He also adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society. More years pass and Crusoe discovers native cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination but later realizes he has no right to do so, as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion \"Friday\" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity. After more natives arrive to partake in a cannibal feast, Crusoe and Friday kill most of the natives and save two prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe about other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return to the mainland with Friday's father and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a Spanish port. Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; mutineers have commandeered the vessel and intend to maroon their captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal in which Crusoe helps the captain and the loyal sailors retake the ship and leave the worst mutineers on the island. Before embarking for England, Crusoe shows the mutineers how he survived on the island and states that there will be more men coming. Crusoe leaves the island 19 December 1686 and arrives in England on 11 June 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead; as a result, he was left nothing in"
      },
      {
        "text": "oe and the ship's captain strike a deal in which Crusoe helps the captain and the loyal sailors retake the ship and leave the worst mutineers on the island. Before embarking for England, Crusoe shows the mutineers how he survived on the island and states that there will be more men coming. Crusoe leaves the island 19 December 1686 and arrives in England on 11 June 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead; as a result, he was left nothing in his father's will. Crusoe departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him much wealth. In conclusion, he transports his wealth overland to England to avoid travelling by sea. Friday accompanies him and, en route, they endure one last adventure together as they fight off famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "King Lear",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " King Lear, who is elderly and wants to retire from power, decides to divide his realm among his three daughters, and offers the largest share to the one who loves him best. Goneril and Regan both proclaim in fulsome terms that they love him more than anything in the world, which pleases him. For Cordelia, there is nothing to compare her love to, nor words to properly express it; she speaks honestly but bluntly, which infuriates him. In his anger he disinherits her, and divides the kingdom between Regan and Goneril. Kent objects to this unfair treatment. Lear is further enraged by Kent's protests, and banishes him from the country. Lear summons the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France, who have both proposed marriage to Cordelia. Learning that Cordelia has been disinherited, the Duke of Burgundy withdraws his suit, but the King of France is impressed by her honesty and marries her anyway. Lear announces he will live alternately with Goneril and Regan, and their husbands, the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall respectively. He reserves to himself a retinue of one hundred knights, to be supported by his daughters. Goneril and Regan speak privately, revealing that their declarations of love were fake, and they view Lear as an old and foolish man. Edmund resents his illegitimate status, and plots to dispose of his legitimate older brother Edgar. He tricks their father Gloucester with a forged letter, making him think Edgar plans to usurp the estate. Kent returns from exile in disguise under the name of Caius, and Lear hires him as a servant. Lear discovers that now that Goneril has power, she no longer respects him. She orders him to behave better and reduces his retinue. Enraged, Lear departs for Regan's home. The Fool mocks Lear's misfortune. Edmund fakes an attack by Edgar, and Gloucester is completely taken in. He disinherits Edgar and proclaims him an outlaw. Kent meets Oswald at Gloucester's home, quarrels with him, and is put in the stocks by Regan and her husband Cornwall. When Lear arrives, he objects, but Regan takes the same line as Goneril. Lear is enraged but impotent. Goneril arrives and echoes Regan. Lear yields completely to his rage. He rushes out into a storm to rant against his ungrateful daughters, accompanied by the mocking Fool. Kent later follows to protect him. Gloucester protests against Lear's mistreatment. Wandering on the heath after the storm, Lear meets Edgar, in the guise of a madman named Tom o' Bedlam. Edgar babbles madly while Lear denounces his daughters. Kent leads them all to shelter. Edmund betrays Gloucester to Cornwall, Regan, and Goneril. He shows a letter from his father to the King of France asking for help against them; and in fact a French army has landed in Britain. Gloucester is arrested, and Cornwall gouges out Gloucester's eyes. As he is doing so, a servant is overcome with rage by what he is witnessing and attacks Cornwall, mortally wounding him. Regan kills the servant, and tells Gloucester that Edmund betrayed him; then she turns him out to wander the heath too. Edgar, in his madman's guise, meets his blinded father on the heath. Gloucester, not recognising him, begs Tom to lead him to a cliff at Dover so that he may jump to his death. Goneril meets Edmund and discovers that she finds him more attractive than her honest husband Albany, whom she regards as cowardly. Albany has developed a conscience- he is disgusted by the sisters' treatment of Lear, and the mutilation of Gloucester, and denounces Goneril. Kent leads Lear to the French army, which is accompanied by Cordelia. But Lear is half-mad and terribly embarrassed by his earlier follies. Albany leads the British army to meet the French. Regan too is attracted to Edmund, and the two sisters fall out over him. Regan sends Oswald with love letters to Edmund and also tells Oswald to kill Gloucester if he sees him. Edgar pretends to lead Gloucester to a cliff, then changes his voice and tells Gloucester he has miraculously survived a great fall. Lear, who is now completely mad appears. Lear rants that the whole world is corrupt and runs off. Oswald tries to kill Gloucester but is killed by Edgar. In Oswald's pocket, Edgar finds a letter from Goneril to Edmund, telling him to kill Albany and marry her. Kent and Cordelia take charge of Lear, whose madness slowly passes. Regan, Goneril, Albany, and Edmund meet with their forces. Albany insists that they fight the French invaders but not harm Lear or Cordelia. The two sisters lust for Edmund, who has inadvertently made promises to both. He considers the dilemma and plots the deaths of Albany, Lear, and Cordelia. Edgar gives Goneril's letter to Albany. The armies meet in battle, the British defeat the French, and Lear and Cordelia are captured. Edmund sends them off with secret orders for execution. The victorious British leaders meet, and Regan now declares she will marry Edmund. But Albany exposes the intrigues of Edmund and Goneril and proclaims Edmund a traitor. Regan falls ill, and is escorted offstage, where she dies. It is stated that Goneril slipped poison into her food. Edmund defies Albany, who calls for a trial by combat. Edgar appears in his own clothes, and challenges Edmund to a duel. Edgar wounds Edmund fatally, though he does not die immediately. Albany confronts Goneril with the letter which was intended to be his death warrant; she flees in shame and rage. Edgar reveals himself, and reports that Gloucester died offstage from the shock and joy of learning that Edgar is alive, after Edgar revealed himself to his father. Offstage, Goneril, with all her evil plans thwarted, commits suicide. The dying Edmund decides, though he admits it is against his own character, to try and save Lear and Cordelia: however, he is too late. Cordelia has already been killed. Lear, however, has survived- he killed his daughter's murderer and escaped. Lear carries Cordelia's corpse in his arms. Lear now immediately recognizes Kent. Albany urges Lear to resume his throne, but like Gloucester, the trials Lear has been through have finally overwhelmed him, and he dies. Albany offers to share power between Kent and Edgar. Kent declines, with implications that he himself is not long for this world. It is unclear whether he intends to commit suicide out of his great regard for Lear, or feels he is going to die in the same manner as Lear and Gloucester. Finally, either Albany (in the Quarto version) or Edgar (in the Folio version) has the final speech, with the implication that he will now become king\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " King Lear, who is elderly and wants to retire from power, decides to divide his realm among his three daughters, and offers the largest share to the one who loves him best. Goneril and Regan both proclaim in fulsome terms that they love him more than anything in the world, which pleases him. For Cordelia, there is nothing to compare her love to, nor words to properly express it; she speaks honestly but bluntly, which infuriates him. In his anger he disinherits her, and divides the kingdom between Regan and Goneril. Kent objects to this unfair treatment. Lear is further enraged by Kent's protests, and banishes him from the country. Lear summons the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France, who have both proposed marriage to Cordelia. Learning that Cordelia has been disinherited, the Duke of Burgundy withdraws his suit, but the King of France is impressed by her honesty and marries her anyway. Lear announces he will live alternately with Goneril and Regan, and their husbands, the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall respectively. He reserves to himself a retinue of one hundred knights, to be supported by his daughters. Goneril and Regan speak privately, revealing that their declarations of love were fake, and they view Lear as an old and foolish man. Edmund resents his illegitimate status, and plots to dispose of his legitimate older brother Edgar. He tricks their father Gloucester with a forged letter, making him think Edgar plans to usurp the estate. Kent returns from exile in disguise under the name of Caius, and Lear hires him as a servant. Lear discovers that now that Goneril has power, she no longer respects him. She orders him to behave better and reduces his retinue. Enraged, Lear departs for Regan's home. The Fool mocks Lear's misfortune. Edmund fakes an attack by Edgar, and Glou"
      },
      {
        "text": " Gloucester with a forged letter, making him think Edgar plans to usurp the estate. Kent returns from exile in disguise under the name of Caius, and Lear hires him as a servant. Lear discovers that now that Goneril has power, she no longer respects him. She orders him to behave better and reduces his retinue. Enraged, Lear departs for Regan's home. The Fool mocks Lear's misfortune. Edmund fakes an attack by Edgar, and Gloucester is completely taken in. He disinherits Edgar and proclaims him an outlaw. Kent meets Oswald at Gloucester's home, quarrels with him, and is put in the stocks by Regan and her husband Cornwall. When Lear arrives, he objects, but Regan takes the same line as Goneril. Lear is enraged but impotent. Goneril arrives and echoes Regan. Lear yields completely to his rage. He rushes out into a storm to rant against his ungrateful daughters, accompanied by the mocking Fool. Kent later follows to protect him. Gloucester protests against Lear's mistreatment. Wandering on the heath after the storm, Lear meets Edgar, in the guise of a madman named Tom o' Bedlam. Edgar babbles madly while Lear denounces his daughters. Kent leads them all to shelter. Edmund betrays Gloucester to Cornwall, Regan, and Goneril. He shows a letter from his father to the King of France asking for help against them; and in fact a French army has landed in Britain. Gloucester is arrested, and Cornwall gouges out Gloucester's eyes. As he is doing so, a servant is overcome with rage by what he is witnessing and attacks Cornwall, mortally wounding him. Regan kills the servant, and tells Gloucester that Edmund betrayed him; then she turns him out to wander the heath too. Edgar, in his madman's guise, meets his blinded father"
      },
      {
        "text": " of France asking for help against them; and in fact a French army has landed in Britain. Gloucester is arrested, and Cornwall gouges out Gloucester's eyes. As he is doing so, a servant is overcome with rage by what he is witnessing and attacks Cornwall, mortally wounding him. Regan kills the servant, and tells Gloucester that Edmund betrayed him; then she turns him out to wander the heath too. Edgar, in his madman's guise, meets his blinded father on the heath. Gloucester, not recognising him, begs Tom to lead him to a cliff at Dover so that he may jump to his death. Goneril meets Edmund and discovers that she finds him more attractive than her honest husband Albany, whom she regards as cowardly. Albany has developed a conscience- he is disgusted by the sisters' treatment of Lear, and the mutilation of Gloucester, and denounces Goneril. Kent leads Lear to the French army, which is accompanied by Cordelia. But Lear is half-mad and terribly embarrassed by his earlier follies. Albany leads the British army to meet the French. Regan too is attracted to Edmund, and the two sisters fall out over him. Regan sends Oswald with love letters to Edmund and also tells Oswald to kill Gloucester if he sees him. Edgar pretends to lead Gloucester to a cliff, then changes his voice and tells Gloucester he has miraculously survived a great fall. Lear, who is now completely mad appears. Lear rants that the whole world is corrupt and runs off. Oswald tries to kill Gloucester but is killed by Edgar. In Oswald's pocket, Edgar finds a letter from Goneril to Edmund, telling him to kill Albany and marry her. Kent and Cordelia take charge of Lear, whose madness slowly passes. Regan, Goneril, Albany, and Edmund meet with their forces. Albany insists that they fight the French invaders but not harm Lear or Cordelia"
      },
      {
        "text": " now completely mad appears. Lear rants that the whole world is corrupt and runs off. Oswald tries to kill Gloucester but is killed by Edgar. In Oswald's pocket, Edgar finds a letter from Goneril to Edmund, telling him to kill Albany and marry her. Kent and Cordelia take charge of Lear, whose madness slowly passes. Regan, Goneril, Albany, and Edmund meet with their forces. Albany insists that they fight the French invaders but not harm Lear or Cordelia. The two sisters lust for Edmund, who has inadvertently made promises to both. He considers the dilemma and plots the deaths of Albany, Lear, and Cordelia. Edgar gives Goneril's letter to Albany. The armies meet in battle, the British defeat the French, and Lear and Cordelia are captured. Edmund sends them off with secret orders for execution. The victorious British leaders meet, and Regan now declares she will marry Edmund. But Albany exposes the intrigues of Edmund and Goneril and proclaims Edmund a traitor. Regan falls ill, and is escorted offstage, where she dies. It is stated that Goneril slipped poison into her food. Edmund defies Albany, who calls for a trial by combat. Edgar appears in his own clothes, and challenges Edmund to a duel. Edgar wounds Edmund fatally, though he does not die immediately. Albany confronts Goneril with the letter which was intended to be his death warrant; she flees in shame and rage. Edgar reveals himself, and reports that Gloucester died offstage from the shock and joy of learning that Edgar is alive, after Edgar revealed himself to his father. Offstage, Goneril, with all her evil plans thwarted, commits suicide. The dying Edmund decides, though he admits it is against his own character, to try and save Lear and Cordelia: however, he is too late. Cordelia has already been killed. Lear, however, has survived- he killed his daughter's murderer"
      },
      {
        "text": " Edgar reveals himself, and reports that Gloucester died offstage from the shock and joy of learning that Edgar is alive, after Edgar revealed himself to his father. Offstage, Goneril, with all her evil plans thwarted, commits suicide. The dying Edmund decides, though he admits it is against his own character, to try and save Lear and Cordelia: however, he is too late. Cordelia has already been killed. Lear, however, has survived- he killed his daughter's murderer and escaped. Lear carries Cordelia's corpse in his arms. Lear now immediately recognizes Kent. Albany urges Lear to resume his throne, but like Gloucester, the trials Lear has been through have finally overwhelmed him, and he dies. Albany offers to share power between Kent and Edgar. Kent declines, with implications that he himself is not long for this world. It is unclear whether he intends to commit suicide out of his great regard for Lear, or feels he is going to die in the same manner as Lear and Gloucester. Finally, either Albany (in the Quarto version) or Edgar (in the Folio version) has the final speech, with the implication that he will now become king\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Clear and Present Danger",
    "author": "Tom Clancy",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " When U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Panache intercepts a yacht in the Caribbean Sea, the crew discovers two men cleaning up the vessel after murdering a man and his family. Through a mock execution, the Coast Guardsmen force the killers to confess to the crime. It is later learned that the murdered man was involved in a money laundering scheme for a drug cartel. Upon hearing of this atrocity, the President of the United States, who is running for re-election, feels compelled to take drastic measures against drug trafficking; his challenger, J. Robert Fowler, has rallied the public behind the administration's failures in the War on Drugs. The president initiates covert operations within Colombia and a step-up of operations against aircraft believed to be distributing narcotics. Aiding the president are U.S. National Security Advisor James Cutter, Central Intelligence Agency's Deputy Director of Operations Robert Ritter, and Director of Central Intelligence Arthur Moore. The plan consists of four operations: *Operation CAPER is the interception of mobile phone communications between cartel management. It is also the communications arm for SHOWBOAT and the light-fighters' only means of contact with the outside world. John Clark is dispatched with CAPER to coordinate the effort. *Operation EAGLE EYE uses F-15 Eagles to intercept drug flights. Several aircraft are destroyed and others are forced to land, where the pilots are interrogated for information regarding the cartel. *Operation SHOWBOAT involves four teams of soldiers infiltrating Colombia to stake-out airstrips used by drug-trafficking aircraft. They report departure times of aircraft, allowing the EAGLE EYE team to intercept them. Later the troops attack the airstrips and coca processing sites. The soldiers are seconded from U.S. light infantry battalions, and are all Hispanic in order to blend in with the local population. *Operation RECIPROCITY involves using ground-attack aircraft and laser-guided bombs to attack cartel locations discovered by intercepts. The bombs have a casing that will be consumed in the blast to give the impression of a car-bomb. Meanwhile, F\u00e9lix Cortez, a former intelligence officer from Cuba employed by the cartel, feigns romantic interest in the aide of Emil Jacobs, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The aide unknowingly reveals information regarding the date of Jacobs' official visit to the Attorney General of Colombia. Cortez delivers this information to the cartel, which orders Jacobs' assassination as retaliation for the U.S. seizure of cartel money. During his visit, Jacobs and several other Americans in his delegation are killed. Jack Ryan suspects the CIA's involvement in the situation in Colombia. As acting Deputy Director of the Intelligence Directorate, Ryan should be privy to most operations but he realizes he is being put out of the loop. After Robby Jackson, assigned to the Pentagon, makes an inquiry into activity in the region, Ryan goes to Moore to demand an explanation. Moore is evasive, yet orders Ryan to withhold information about Colombia from a congressional oversight committee. Cortez eventually uncovers the U.S. operations. He suppresses this information, planning to engineer a war within the cartel that will leave him in a position to seize power. Cortez orders mercenaries to hunt down the U.S. troops, and blackmails Cutter into ending SHOWBOAT, promising the intra-cartel war will slow drug imports to the States. Cutter's meeting with Cortez is shadowed by Ryan and Clark. Clark is outraged at Cutter's abandonment of the troops and, with Ryan, plans a rescue operation with personnel from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Air Force. Clark makes radio contact with two of the SHOWBOAT teams, ordering them to alternate pickup points to await extraction. The other two teams encounter mercenaries and take casualties. Clark makes radio contact with some survivors of these remaining teams—which include Domingo Chavez—then flies into Colombia to retrieve them. Ryan uses an Air Force helicopter to pick up other survivors. Together, Clark and Ryan launch a raid on the cartel's command post, capturing Cortez and extracting the remaining ground team. Due to a hurricane and damage to the helicopter, they land on the deck of the Panache. Cortez is returned to Cuba, where he is a marked as a traitor. Upon being confronted by Clark with evidence of his treason, Cutter commits suicide. Ryan confronts the defiant president, informing him that despite his classifying the drug cartel as a \"clear and present danger,\" Ryan must brief U.S. Congress over the illegal operations. After Ryan briefs the committee, the president deliberately loses the election in order to hide the covert operations and protect the honor of those involved. Ryan realizes that the president has more honor and dignity than he originally thought.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " When U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Panache intercepts a yacht in the Caribbean Sea, the crew discovers two men cleaning up the vessel after murdering a man and his family. Through a mock execution, the Coast Guardsmen force the killers to confess to the crime. It is later learned that the murdered man was involved in a money laundering scheme for a drug cartel. Upon hearing of this atrocity, the President of the United States, who is running for re-election, feels compelled to take drastic measures against drug trafficking; his challenger, J. Robert Fowler, has rallied the public behind the administration's failures in the War on Drugs. The president initiates covert operations within Colombia and a step-up of operations against aircraft believed to be distributing narcotics. Aiding the president are U.S. National Security Advisor James Cutter, Central Intelligence Agency's Deputy Director of Operations Robert Ritter, and Director of Central Intelligence Arthur Moore. The plan consists of four operations: *Operation CAPER is the interception of mobile phone communications between cartel management. It is also the communications arm for SHOWBOAT and the light-fighters' only means of contact with the outside world. John Clark is dispatched with CAPER to coordinate the effort. *Operation EAGLE EYE uses F-15 Eagles to intercept drug flights. Several aircraft are destroyed and others are forced to land, where the pilots are interrogated for information regarding the cartel. *Operation SHOWBOAT involves four teams of soldiers infiltrating Colombia to stake-out airstrips used by drug-trafficking aircraft. They report departure times of aircraft, allowing the EAGLE EYE team to intercept them. Later the troops attack the airstrips and coca processing sites. The soldiers are seconded from U.S. light infantry battalions, and are all Hispanic in order to blend in with the local population. *Operation RECIPROCITY involves using ground-attack aircraft and laser-guided bombs to attack cartel locations discovered by"
      },
      {
        "text": "-out airstrips used by drug-trafficking aircraft. They report departure times of aircraft, allowing the EAGLE EYE team to intercept them. Later the troops attack the airstrips and coca processing sites. The soldiers are seconded from U.S. light infantry battalions, and are all Hispanic in order to blend in with the local population. *Operation RECIPROCITY involves using ground-attack aircraft and laser-guided bombs to attack cartel locations discovered by intercepts. The bombs have a casing that will be consumed in the blast to give the impression of a car-bomb. Meanwhile, F\u00e9lix Cortez, a former intelligence officer from Cuba employed by the cartel, feigns romantic interest in the aide of Emil Jacobs, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The aide unknowingly reveals information regarding the date of Jacobs' official visit to the Attorney General of Colombia. Cortez delivers this information to the cartel, which orders Jacobs' assassination as retaliation for the U.S. seizure of cartel money. During his visit, Jacobs and several other Americans in his delegation are killed. Jack Ryan suspects the CIA's involvement in the situation in Colombia. As acting Deputy Director of the Intelligence Directorate, Ryan should be privy to most operations but he realizes he is being put out of the loop. After Robby Jackson, assigned to the Pentagon, makes an inquiry into activity in the region, Ryan goes to Moore to demand an explanation. Moore is evasive, yet orders Ryan to withhold information about Colombia from a congressional oversight committee. Cortez eventually uncovers the U.S. operations. He suppresses this information, planning to engineer a war within the cartel that will leave him in a position to seize power. Cortez orders mercenaries to hunt down the U.S. troops, and blackmails Cutter into ending SHOWBOAT, promising the intra-cartel war will slow drug imports to the States. Cutter's meeting with Cort"
      },
      {
        "text": " is evasive, yet orders Ryan to withhold information about Colombia from a congressional oversight committee. Cortez eventually uncovers the U.S. operations. He suppresses this information, planning to engineer a war within the cartel that will leave him in a position to seize power. Cortez orders mercenaries to hunt down the U.S. troops, and blackmails Cutter into ending SHOWBOAT, promising the intra-cartel war will slow drug imports to the States. Cutter's meeting with Cortez is shadowed by Ryan and Clark. Clark is outraged at Cutter's abandonment of the troops and, with Ryan, plans a rescue operation with personnel from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Air Force. Clark makes radio contact with two of the SHOWBOAT teams, ordering them to alternate pickup points to await extraction. The other two teams encounter mercenaries and take casualties. Clark makes radio contact with some survivors of these remaining teams—which include Domingo Chavez—then flies into Colombia to retrieve them. Ryan uses an Air Force helicopter to pick up other survivors. Together, Clark and Ryan launch a raid on the cartel's command post, capturing Cortez and extracting the remaining ground team. Due to a hurricane and damage to the helicopter, they land on the deck of the Panache. Cortez is returned to Cuba, where he is a marked as a traitor. Upon being confronted by Clark with evidence of his treason, Cutter commits suicide. Ryan confronts the defiant president, informing him that despite his classifying the drug cartel as a \"clear and present danger,\" Ryan must brief U.S. Congress over the illegal operations. After Ryan briefs the committee, the president deliberately loses the election in order to hide the covert operations and protect the honor of those involved. Ryan realizes that the president has more honor and dignity than he originally thought.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the defiant president, informing him that despite his classifying the drug cartel as a \"clear and present danger,\" Ryan must brief U.S. Congress over the illegal operations. After Ryan briefs the committee, the president deliberately loses the election in order to hide the covert operations and protect the honor of those involved. Ryan realizes that the president has more honor and dignity than he originally thought.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Castle Rackrent",
    "author": "Maria Edgeworth",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel is set prior to the Constitution of 1782 and tells the story of four generations of Rackrent heirs through their steward, Thady Quirk. The heirs are: the dissipated spendthrift Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin, the litigious Sir Murtagh Rackrent, the cruel husband and gambling absentee Sir Kit Stopgap, and the generous but improvident Sir Condy Rackrent. Their sequential mismanagement of the estate is resolved through the machinations - and to the benefit - of the narrator's astute son, Jason Quirk.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is set prior to the Constitution of 1782 and tells the story of four generations of Rackrent heirs through their steward, Thady Quirk. The heirs are: the dissipated spendthrift Sir Patrick O'Shaughlin, the litigious Sir Murtagh Rackrent, the cruel husband and gambling absentee Sir Kit Stopgap, and the generous but improvident Sir Condy Rackrent. Their sequential mismanagement of the estate is resolved through the machinations - and to the benefit - of the narrator's astute son, Jason Quirk.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Julius Caesar",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Marcus Brutus is Caesar's close friend and a Roman praetor. Brutus allows himself to be cajoled into joining a group of conspiring senators because of a growing suspicion\u2014implanted by Caius Cassius\u2014that Caesar intends to turn republican Rome into a monarchy under his own rule. The early scenes deal mainly with Brutus's arguments with Cassius and his struggle with his own conscience. The growing tide of public support soon turns Brutus against Caesar (this public support was actually faked; Cassius wrote letters to Brutus in different handwritings over the next month in order to get Brutus to join the conspiracy). A soothsayer warns Caesar to \"beware the Ides of March,\" which he ignores, culminating in his assassination at the Capitol by the conspirators that day, despite being warned by the soothsayer and Artemidrous, one of Caesar's supporters at the entrance of the Capitol. Caesar's assassination is one of the most famous scenes of the play, occurring in Act 3 (the other is Mark Antony's oration \"Friends, Romans, countrymen\".) After ignoring the soothsayer as well as his wife's own premonitions, Caesar comes to the Senate. The conspirators create a superficial motive for the assassination by means of a petition brought by Metellus Cimber, pleading on behalf of his banished brother. As Caesar, predictably, rejects the petition, Casca grazes Caesar in the back of his neck, and the others follow in stabbing him; Brutus is last. At this point, Caesar utters the famous line \"Et tu, Brute?\" (\"And you, Brutus?\", i.e. \"You too, Brutus?\"). Shakespeare has him add, \"Then fall, Caesar,\" suggesting that Caesar did not want to survive such treachery. The conspirators make clear that they committed this act for Rome, not for their own purposes and do not attempt to flee the scene. After Caesar's death, Brutus delivers an oration defending his actions, and for the moment, the crowd is on his side. However, Mark Antony, with a subtle and eloquent speech over Caesar's corpse\u2014beginning with the much-quoted \"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears\"\u2014deftly turns public opinion against the assassins by manipulating the emotions of the common people, in contrast to the rational tone of Brutus's speech. Antony rouses the mob to drive the conspirators from Rome. Amid the violence, the innocent poet, Cinna, is confused with the conspirator Lucius Cinna and is murdered by the mob. The beginning of Act Four is marked by the quarrel scene, where Brutus attacks Cassius for soiling the noble act of regicide by accepting bribes (\"Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake? / What villain touch'd his body, that did stab, / And not for justice?\") The two are reconciled; they prepare for war with Mark Antony and Caesar's adopted son, Octavian (Shakespeare's spelling: Octavius). That night, Caesar's ghost appears to Brutus with a warning of defeat (\"thou shalt see me at Philippi\"). At the battle, Cassius and Brutus knowing they will probably both die, smile their last smiles to each other and hold hands. During the battle, Cassius commits suicide after hearing of the capture of his best friend, Titinius. After Titinius, who wasn't really captured, sees Cassius's corpse, he commits suicide. However, Brutus wins that stage of the battle - but his victory is not conclusive. With a heavy heart, Brutus battles again the next day. He loses and commits suicide. The play ends with a tribute to Brutus by Antony, who proclaims that Brutus has remained \"the noblest Roman of them all\" because he was the only conspirator who acted for the good of Rome. There is then a small hint at the friction between Mark Antony and Octavius which will characterise another of Shakespeare's Roman plays, Antony and Cleopatra.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Marcus Brutus is Caesar's close friend and a Roman praetor. Brutus allows himself to be cajoled into joining a group of conspiring senators because of a growing suspicion\u2014implanted by Caius Cassius\u2014that Caesar intends to turn republican Rome into a monarchy under his own rule. The early scenes deal mainly with Brutus's arguments with Cassius and his struggle with his own conscience. The growing tide of public support soon turns Brutus against Caesar (this public support was actually faked; Cassius wrote letters to Brutus in different handwritings over the next month in order to get Brutus to join the conspiracy). A soothsayer warns Caesar to \"beware the Ides of March,\" which he ignores, culminating in his assassination at the Capitol by the conspirators that day, despite being warned by the soothsayer and Artemidrous, one of Caesar's supporters at the entrance of the Capitol. Caesar's assassination is one of the most famous scenes of the play, occurring in Act 3 (the other is Mark Antony's oration \"Friends, Romans, countrymen\".) After ignoring the soothsayer as well as his wife's own premonitions, Caesar comes to the Senate. The conspirators create a superficial motive for the assassination by means of a petition brought by Metellus Cimber, pleading on behalf of his banished brother. As Caesar, predictably, rejects the petition, Casca grazes Caesar in the back of his neck, and the others follow in stabbing him; Brutus is last. At this point, Caesar utters the famous line \"Et tu, Brute?\" (\"And you, Brutus?\", i.e. \"You too, Brutus?\"). Shakespeare has him add, \"Then fall, Caesar,\" suggesting that Caesar did not want to survive such treachery. The conspirators make clear that they committed this act for Rome, not for their own purposes and do not attempt to flee the"
      },
      {
        "text": " neck, and the others follow in stabbing him; Brutus is last. At this point, Caesar utters the famous line \"Et tu, Brute?\" (\"And you, Brutus?\", i.e. \"You too, Brutus?\"). Shakespeare has him add, \"Then fall, Caesar,\" suggesting that Caesar did not want to survive such treachery. The conspirators make clear that they committed this act for Rome, not for their own purposes and do not attempt to flee the scene. After Caesar's death, Brutus delivers an oration defending his actions, and for the moment, the crowd is on his side. However, Mark Antony, with a subtle and eloquent speech over Caesar's corpse\u2014beginning with the much-quoted \"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears\"\u2014deftly turns public opinion against the assassins by manipulating the emotions of the common people, in contrast to the rational tone of Brutus's speech. Antony rouses the mob to drive the conspirators from Rome. Amid the violence, the innocent poet, Cinna, is confused with the conspirator Lucius Cinna and is murdered by the mob. The beginning of Act Four is marked by the quarrel scene, where Brutus attacks Cassius for soiling the noble act of regicide by accepting bribes (\"Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake? / What villain touch'd his body, that did stab, / And not for justice?\") The two are reconciled; they prepare for war with Mark Antony and Caesar's adopted son, Octavian (Shakespeare's spelling: Octavius). That night, Caesar's ghost appears to Brutus with a warning of defeat (\"thou shalt see me at Philippi\"). At the battle, Cassius and Brutus knowing they will probably both die, smile their last smiles to each other and hold hands. During the battle, Cassius commits suicide after hearing of the capture of"
      },
      {
        "text": ") The two are reconciled; they prepare for war with Mark Antony and Caesar's adopted son, Octavian (Shakespeare's spelling: Octavius). That night, Caesar's ghost appears to Brutus with a warning of defeat (\"thou shalt see me at Philippi\"). At the battle, Cassius and Brutus knowing they will probably both die, smile their last smiles to each other and hold hands. During the battle, Cassius commits suicide after hearing of the capture of his best friend, Titinius. After Titinius, who wasn't really captured, sees Cassius's corpse, he commits suicide. However, Brutus wins that stage of the battle - but his victory is not conclusive. With a heavy heart, Brutus battles again the next day. He loses and commits suicide. The play ends with a tribute to Brutus by Antony, who proclaims that Brutus has remained \"the noblest Roman of them all\" because he was the only conspirator who acted for the good of Rome. There is then a small hint at the friction between Mark Antony and Octavius which will characterise another of Shakespeare's Roman plays, Antony and Cleopatra.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Emma",
    "author": "Jane Austen",
    "published_date": "1815-12",
    "synopsis": " Emma Woodhouse, aged 20 at the start of the novel, is a young, beautiful, witty, and privileged woman in Regency England. She lives on the fictional estate of Hartfield in Surrey in the village of Highbury with her elderly widowed father, a hypochondriac who is excessively concerned for the health and safety of his loved ones. Emma's friend and only critic is the gentlemanly George Knightley, her neighbour from the adjacent estate of Donwell, and the brother of her elder sister Isabella's husband, John. As the novel opens, Emma has just attended the wedding of Miss Taylor, her best friend and former governess. Having introduced Miss Taylor to her future husband, Mr. Weston, Emma takes credit for their marriage, and decides that she rather likes matchmaking. Against Mr. Knightley's advice, Emma forges ahead with her new interest, and tries to match her new friend Harriet Smith, a sweet, pretty, but none-too-bright parlour boarder of seventeen —described as \"the natural daughter of somebody\"— to Mr. Elton, the local vicar. Emma becomes convinced that Mr. Elton's constant attentions are a result of his attraction and growing love for Harriet. But before events can unfold as she plans, Emma must first persuade Harriet to refuse an advantageous marriage proposal. Her suitor is a respectable, educated, and well-spoken young gentleman farmer, Robert Martin, but Emma snobbishly decides he isn't good enough for Harriet. Against her own wishes, the easily-influenced Harriet rejects Mr. Martin. Emma's schemes go awry when Mr. Elton, a social climber, fancies Emma is in love with him and proposes to her. Emma's friends had suggested that Mr. Elton's attentions were really directed at her, but she had misread the signs. Emma, rather shocked and a bit insulted, tells Mr. Elton that she had thought him attached to Harriet; however Elton is outraged at the very idea of marrying the socially inferior Harriet. After Emma rejects Mr. Elton, he leaves for a while for a sojourn in Bath, and Harriet fancies herself heartbroken. Emma feels dreadful about misleading Harriet and resolves\u2014briefly\u2014to interfere less in people's lives. Mr. Elton, as Emma's misconceptions of his character melt away, reveals himself to be arrogant, resentful, and pompous. He soon returns from Bath with a pretentious, nouveau-riche wife who becomes part of Emma's social circle, though the two women soon loathe each other. The Eltons treat the still lovestruck Harriet deplorably, culminating with Mr Elton very publicly snubbing Harriet at a dance. Mr Knightley, who had until this moment refrained from dancing, gallantly steps in to partner Harriet, much to Emma's gratification. An interesting development is the arrival in the neighbourhood of the handsome and charming Frank Churchill, Mr. Weston's son, who had been given to his deceased wife's wealthy brother and his wife, the Churchills, to raise. Frank, who is now Mrs. Weston's stepson, and Emma have never met, but she has a long-standing interest in doing so. The whole neighborhood takes a fancy to him, with the partial exception of Mr. Knightley, who becomes uncharacteristically grumpy whenever his name is mentioned and suggests to Emma that while Frank is clever and engaging, he is also a rather shallow character. A third newcomer is the orphaned Jane Fairfax, the reserved, beautiful, and elegant niece of Emma's impoverished neighbour, the talkative Miss Bates, who lives with her deaf, widowed mother. Miss Bates is an aging spinster, well-meaning but increasingly poor; Emma strives to be polite and kind to her, but is irritated by her constant chattering. Jane, very gifted musically, is Miss Bates' pride and joy; Emma envies her talent, and although she has known Jane all her life has never warmed to her personally. Jane had lived with Miss Bates until she was nine, but Colonel Campbell, a friend of her father's, welcomed her into his own home, where she became fast friends with his daughter and received a first-rate education. But now Miss Campbell has married, and the accomplished but penniless Jane has returned to her Bates relations, ostensibly to regain her health and to prepare to earn her living as a governess. Emma is annoyed to find the entire neighborhood, including Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, singing Jane's praises, but when Mrs. Elton, who fancies herself the new leader of Highbury society, patronizingly takes Jane under her wing and announces that she will find her the ideal governess post, Emma begins to feel some sympathy for Jane's predicament. Still, Emma sees something mysterious in Jane's sudden return to Highbury and imagines that Jane and Miss Campbell's husband, Mr. Dixon, were mutually attracted, and that is why she has come home instead of going to Ireland to visit them. She shares her suspicions with Frank, who had become acquainted with Jane and the Campbells when they met at a vacation spot a year earlier, and he apparently agrees with her. Suspicions are further fueled when a piano, sent by an anonymous benefactor, arrives for Jane. Emma tries to make herself fall in love with Frank largely because almost everyone seems to expect it. Frank appears to be courting Emma, and the two flirt and banter together in public, at parties, and on a day-trip to Box Hill, a local beauty spot. However, when his demanding and ailing aunt, Mrs. Churchill, summons Frank home, Emma discovers she does not miss her \"lover\" nearly as much as she expected and sets about plotting a match between him and Harriet, who seems to have finally gotten over Mr. Elton. Harriet breathlessly reports that Frank has \"saved\" her from a band of Gypsies, and seems to be confessing her admiration for him. Meanwhile, Mrs. Weston wonders if Emma's old friend Mr. Knightley has taken a fancy to Jane. Emma immediately dismisses that idea and protests that she does not want Mr. Knightley to marry anyone, and that her little nephew Henry must inherit Donwell, the Knightley family property. When Mr. Knightley scolds her for a thoughtless insult to Miss Bates, Emma is stunned and ashamed and tries to atone by going to visit Miss Bates. Mr. Knightley is surprised and deeply impressed by Emma's recognition of her wrongdoing, but this meaningful rapprochement is broken off when he announces he must leave for London to visit his brother. Meanwhile, Jane reportedly becomes ill, but refuses to see Emma or accept her gifts, and it is suddenly announced that she has accepted a governess position from one of Mrs. Elton's friends. On the heels of this comes word that Frank Churchill's aunt has died, and with it the astonishing news that Frank and Jane have been secretly engaged since they first met on holiday a year ago. They had been keeping the engagement quiet because they knew that Frank's imperious aunt would disapprove and likely disinherit him if he went through with the match. The strain of the clandestine relationship had been much harder on the conscientious Jane than the carefree Frank, and the two had quarreled bitterly; but now that his aunt has died, his easygoing uncle has already given his blessing. The engagement becomes public, the secrets behind Jane and Frank's behavior are revealed, and Emma is chagrined to discover that once again she has been so wrong about so much. Emma is certain that Harriet will be devastated by Frank's engagement, but Harriet reassures her that this is not the case. In fact, Harriet tells Emma, it is Mr. Knightley who has captured her heart, and she believes he returns her feelings. Emma is dumbstruck over what she at first thinks is the impropriety of the match, but as she faces her feelings of dismay and jealousy, she realizes in a flash that she has long been in love with Mr. Knightley herself. She is shattered to think that it may be too late and resolves to support her dear friends in whatever they do, even at the cost of her own broken heart. However, when Mr. Knightley hurries back to Highbury to console Emma over what he imagines to be the loss of Frank Churchill, she discovers that he is also in love with her. He proposes and she joyfully accepts. There is one more match to be made: With encouragement from Mr. Knightley, the farmer Robert Martin proposes again to Harriet, and this time she accepts. Jane and Emma reconcile and all misunderstandings are cleared up before Jane and Frank leave for their wedding and life with his uncle in Yorkshire. Emma and Mr. Knightley decide that after their marriage they will live with Emma's father at Hartfield to spare Mr. Woodhouse loneliness and distress. They seem headed for a union of \"perfect happiness,\" to the great joy of their friends. Mrs. Weston gives birth to a baby girl, to the great satisfaction of Emma, who looks forward to introducing little Miss Weston to her young nephews.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Emma Woodhouse, aged 20 at the start of the novel, is a young, beautiful, witty, and privileged woman in Regency England. She lives on the fictional estate of Hartfield in Surrey in the village of Highbury with her elderly widowed father, a hypochondriac who is excessively concerned for the health and safety of his loved ones. Emma's friend and only critic is the gentlemanly George Knightley, her neighbour from the adjacent estate of Donwell, and the brother of her elder sister Isabella's husband, John. As the novel opens, Emma has just attended the wedding of Miss Taylor, her best friend and former governess. Having introduced Miss Taylor to her future husband, Mr. Weston, Emma takes credit for their marriage, and decides that she rather likes matchmaking. Against Mr. Knightley's advice, Emma forges ahead with her new interest, and tries to match her new friend Harriet Smith, a sweet, pretty, but none-too-bright parlour boarder of seventeen —described as \"the natural daughter of somebody\"— to Mr. Elton, the local vicar. Emma becomes convinced that Mr. Elton's constant attentions are a result of his attraction and growing love for Harriet. But before events can unfold as she plans, Emma must first persuade Harriet to refuse an advantageous marriage proposal. Her suitor is a respectable, educated, and well-spoken young gentleman farmer, Robert Martin, but Emma snobbishly decides he isn't good enough for Harriet. Against her own wishes, the easily-influenced Harriet rejects Mr. Martin. Emma's schemes go awry when Mr. Elton, a social climber, fancies Emma is in love with him and proposes to her. Emma's friends had suggested that Mr. Elton's attentions were really directed at her, but she had misread the signs. Emma, rather shocked and a bit insulted, tells Mr."
      },
      {
        "text": " but Emma snobbishly decides he isn't good enough for Harriet. Against her own wishes, the easily-influenced Harriet rejects Mr. Martin. Emma's schemes go awry when Mr. Elton, a social climber, fancies Emma is in love with him and proposes to her. Emma's friends had suggested that Mr. Elton's attentions were really directed at her, but she had misread the signs. Emma, rather shocked and a bit insulted, tells Mr. Elton that she had thought him attached to Harriet; however Elton is outraged at the very idea of marrying the socially inferior Harriet. After Emma rejects Mr. Elton, he leaves for a while for a sojourn in Bath, and Harriet fancies herself heartbroken. Emma feels dreadful about misleading Harriet and resolves\u2014briefly\u2014to interfere less in people's lives. Mr. Elton, as Emma's misconceptions of his character melt away, reveals himself to be arrogant, resentful, and pompous. He soon returns from Bath with a pretentious, nouveau-riche wife who becomes part of Emma's social circle, though the two women soon loathe each other. The Eltons treat the still lovestruck Harriet deplorably, culminating with Mr Elton very publicly snubbing Harriet at a dance. Mr Knightley, who had until this moment refrained from dancing, gallantly steps in to partner Harriet, much to Emma's gratification. An interesting development is the arrival in the neighbourhood of the handsome and charming Frank Churchill, Mr. Weston's son, who had been given to his deceased wife's wealthy brother and his wife, the Churchills, to raise. Frank, who is now Mrs. Weston's stepson, and Emma have never met, but she has a long-standing interest in doing so. The whole neighborhood takes a fancy to him, with the partial exception of Mr. Knightley, who becomes uncharacteristically gr"
      },
      {
        "text": " An interesting development is the arrival in the neighbourhood of the handsome and charming Frank Churchill, Mr. Weston's son, who had been given to his deceased wife's wealthy brother and his wife, the Churchills, to raise. Frank, who is now Mrs. Weston's stepson, and Emma have never met, but she has a long-standing interest in doing so. The whole neighborhood takes a fancy to him, with the partial exception of Mr. Knightley, who becomes uncharacteristically grumpy whenever his name is mentioned and suggests to Emma that while Frank is clever and engaging, he is also a rather shallow character. A third newcomer is the orphaned Jane Fairfax, the reserved, beautiful, and elegant niece of Emma's impoverished neighbour, the talkative Miss Bates, who lives with her deaf, widowed mother. Miss Bates is an aging spinster, well-meaning but increasingly poor; Emma strives to be polite and kind to her, but is irritated by her constant chattering. Jane, very gifted musically, is Miss Bates' pride and joy; Emma envies her talent, and although she has known Jane all her life has never warmed to her personally. Jane had lived with Miss Bates until she was nine, but Colonel Campbell, a friend of her father's, welcomed her into his own home, where she became fast friends with his daughter and received a first-rate education. But now Miss Campbell has married, and the accomplished but penniless Jane has returned to her Bates relations, ostensibly to regain her health and to prepare to earn her living as a governess. Emma is annoyed to find the entire neighborhood, including Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, singing Jane's praises, but when Mrs. Elton, who fancies herself the new leader of Highbury society, patronizingly takes Jane under her wing and announces that she will find her the ideal governess post, Emma begins to feel some sympathy for Jane's predicament. Still, Emma sees something"
      },
      {
        "text": " Bates relations, ostensibly to regain her health and to prepare to earn her living as a governess. Emma is annoyed to find the entire neighborhood, including Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, singing Jane's praises, but when Mrs. Elton, who fancies herself the new leader of Highbury society, patronizingly takes Jane under her wing and announces that she will find her the ideal governess post, Emma begins to feel some sympathy for Jane's predicament. Still, Emma sees something mysterious in Jane's sudden return to Highbury and imagines that Jane and Miss Campbell's husband, Mr. Dixon, were mutually attracted, and that is why she has come home instead of going to Ireland to visit them. She shares her suspicions with Frank, who had become acquainted with Jane and the Campbells when they met at a vacation spot a year earlier, and he apparently agrees with her. Suspicions are further fueled when a piano, sent by an anonymous benefactor, arrives for Jane. Emma tries to make herself fall in love with Frank largely because almost everyone seems to expect it. Frank appears to be courting Emma, and the two flirt and banter together in public, at parties, and on a day-trip to Box Hill, a local beauty spot. However, when his demanding and ailing aunt, Mrs. Churchill, summons Frank home, Emma discovers she does not miss her \"lover\" nearly as much as she expected and sets about plotting a match between him and Harriet, who seems to have finally gotten over Mr. Elton. Harriet breathlessly reports that Frank has \"saved\" her from a band of Gypsies, and seems to be confessing her admiration for him. Meanwhile, Mrs. Weston wonders if Emma's old friend Mr. Knightley has taken a fancy to Jane. Emma immediately dismisses that idea and protests that she does not want Mr. Knightley to marry anyone, and that her little nephew Henry must inherit Donwell, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Harriet, who seems to have finally gotten over Mr. Elton. Harriet breathlessly reports that Frank has \"saved\" her from a band of Gypsies, and seems to be confessing her admiration for him. Meanwhile, Mrs. Weston wonders if Emma's old friend Mr. Knightley has taken a fancy to Jane. Emma immediately dismisses that idea and protests that she does not want Mr. Knightley to marry anyone, and that her little nephew Henry must inherit Donwell, the Knightley family property. When Mr. Knightley scolds her for a thoughtless insult to Miss Bates, Emma is stunned and ashamed and tries to atone by going to visit Miss Bates. Mr. Knightley is surprised and deeply impressed by Emma's recognition of her wrongdoing, but this meaningful rapprochement is broken off when he announces he must leave for London to visit his brother. Meanwhile, Jane reportedly becomes ill, but refuses to see Emma or accept her gifts, and it is suddenly announced that she has accepted a governess position from one of Mrs. Elton's friends. On the heels of this comes word that Frank Churchill's aunt has died, and with it the astonishing news that Frank and Jane have been secretly engaged since they first met on holiday a year ago. They had been keeping the engagement quiet because they knew that Frank's imperious aunt would disapprove and likely disinherit him if he went through with the match. The strain of the clandestine relationship had been much harder on the conscientious Jane than the carefree Frank, and the two had quarreled bitterly; but now that his aunt has died, his easygoing uncle has already given his blessing. The engagement becomes public, the secrets behind Jane and Frank's behavior are revealed, and Emma is chagrined to discover that once again she has been so wrong about so much. Emma is certain that Harriet will be devastated by Frank's engagement, but Harriet reassures her that this is not the case."
      },
      {
        "text": " harder on the conscientious Jane than the carefree Frank, and the two had quarreled bitterly; but now that his aunt has died, his easygoing uncle has already given his blessing. The engagement becomes public, the secrets behind Jane and Frank's behavior are revealed, and Emma is chagrined to discover that once again she has been so wrong about so much. Emma is certain that Harriet will be devastated by Frank's engagement, but Harriet reassures her that this is not the case. In fact, Harriet tells Emma, it is Mr. Knightley who has captured her heart, and she believes he returns her feelings. Emma is dumbstruck over what she at first thinks is the impropriety of the match, but as she faces her feelings of dismay and jealousy, she realizes in a flash that she has long been in love with Mr. Knightley herself. She is shattered to think that it may be too late and resolves to support her dear friends in whatever they do, even at the cost of her own broken heart. However, when Mr. Knightley hurries back to Highbury to console Emma over what he imagines to be the loss of Frank Churchill, she discovers that he is also in love with her. He proposes and she joyfully accepts. There is one more match to be made: With encouragement from Mr. Knightley, the farmer Robert Martin proposes again to Harriet, and this time she accepts. Jane and Emma reconcile and all misunderstandings are cleared up before Jane and Frank leave for their wedding and life with his uncle in Yorkshire. Emma and Mr. Knightley decide that after their marriage they will live with Emma's father at Hartfield to spare Mr. Woodhouse loneliness and distress. They seem headed for a union of \"perfect happiness,\" to the great joy of their friends. Mrs. Weston gives birth to a baby girl, to the great satisfaction of Emma, who looks forward to introducing little Miss Weston to her young nephews.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " up before Jane and Frank leave for their wedding and life with his uncle in Yorkshire. Emma and Mr. Knightley decide that after their marriage they will live with Emma's father at Hartfield to spare Mr. Woodhouse loneliness and distress. They seem headed for a union of \"perfect happiness,\" to the great joy of their friends. Mrs. Weston gives birth to a baby girl, to the great satisfaction of Emma, who looks forward to introducing little Miss Weston to her young nephews.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory",
    "author": "Roald Dahl",
    "published_date": "1964",
    "synopsis": " The story revolves around a poor young boy named Charlie Bucket born to a penniless, starving family. His two sets of grandparents reside in their children's dilapidated, tiny house and lead a bedridden existence, and Charlie is fascinated by the universally-celebrated candy factory located in his hometown owned by famous chocolatier Willy Wonka. His Grandpa Joe often narrates stories to him about the chocolate factory and about its mysterious proprietor, and the mysteries relating to the factory itself; how it had gone defunct for years until it mysteriously re-opened after Wonka's secret candy recipes had been discovered (albeit no employees are ever seen leaving the factory). Soon after, an article in the newspaper reveals that Willy Wonka has hidden a Golden Ticket in five chocolate bars being distributed to anonymous locations worldwide, and that the discovery of a Golden Ticket would grant the owner with passage into Willy Wonka's factory and a lifetime supply of confectionary. Charlie longs for chocolate to satisfy his hunger and to find a Golden Ticket himself, but his chances are slim (his father has recently lost his job, leaving the family all but destitute) and word on the discovery of the tickets keeps appearing in various news articles read by the Bucket family, each one discovered by far going to self-centered, bratty children: an obese, gluttonous boy named Augustus Gloop, a spoiled brat named Veruca Salt, a record-breaking gum chewer named Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee, an aspiring gangster who is unhealthily obsessed with television. Charlie continues to grow in emaciation day by day, and is given money from his grandfather to buy chocolate and winds up discovering a 50p piece in the snow on his way to the corner store. Charlie uses the money to purchase two Wonka bars and winds up discovering a Golden Ticket in one of them, much to the shock of the shopkeeper and his family. Grandpa Joe even leaps out of bed in delight, offering to accompany Charlie to the factory. The following day, the discoverers of the Golden Tickets gather at Wonka's factory and are welcomed inside by the candy maker himself, who gives them a tour through his whimsically-designed factory. There, they learn of the unseen workers behind the re-opening of the factory; small, elfin beings known as Oompa-Loompas, who work in exchange for cocoa beans. However, while touring through a room designed as a meadow made of candy, Augustus Gloop is sucked through a pipe while drinking from a river of chocolate, resulting in his elimination from the competition. Not long afterward, Wonka unveils a product he's working on; chewing gum designed to replace any need for cooking or daily meals, which is stolen by Violet Beauregarde. However, because Wonka still needed to perfect the candy, she winds up inflating into a giant blueberry that must be juiced immediately, resulting in her elimination, and before long Veruca Salt is eliminated after falling down a garbage chute with her parents while trying to snatch one of Willy Wonka's specially-trained squirrels used for selecting the nuts baked into Wonka bars after being dismissed as a \"bad nut.\" Soon, Wonka reveals one of his confectionary products in development; chocolate bars that can be transported to customers via television, which quickly captures Mike Teavee's interest. He escapes to test out the device on himself, only to be shrunken to an inch tall so that his original height must be restored by a taffy pull. The four eliminated children do receive their lifetime supplies of chocolate but leave the factory as: thin (Augustus), purple (Violet), covered in trash (Veruca), and overstretched to ten feet (Mike). Charlie, the only child who has not been eliminated, has won the contest and the legendary prize mentioned before as a result: the position of heir to Willy Wonka's factory. A thrilled Charlie rides in Wonka's glass flying elevator to deliver his family to the factory from their little home, no longer having to worry about poverty.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story revolves around a poor young boy named Charlie Bucket born to a penniless, starving family. His two sets of grandparents reside in their children's dilapidated, tiny house and lead a bedridden existence, and Charlie is fascinated by the universally-celebrated candy factory located in his hometown owned by famous chocolatier Willy Wonka. His Grandpa Joe often narrates stories to him about the chocolate factory and about its mysterious proprietor, and the mysteries relating to the factory itself; how it had gone defunct for years until it mysteriously re-opened after Wonka's secret candy recipes had been discovered (albeit no employees are ever seen leaving the factory). Soon after, an article in the newspaper reveals that Willy Wonka has hidden a Golden Ticket in five chocolate bars being distributed to anonymous locations worldwide, and that the discovery of a Golden Ticket would grant the owner with passage into Willy Wonka's factory and a lifetime supply of confectionary. Charlie longs for chocolate to satisfy his hunger and to find a Golden Ticket himself, but his chances are slim (his father has recently lost his job, leaving the family all but destitute) and word on the discovery of the tickets keeps appearing in various news articles read by the Bucket family, each one discovered by far going to self-centered, bratty children: an obese, gluttonous boy named Augustus Gloop, a spoiled brat named Veruca Salt, a record-breaking gum chewer named Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee, an aspiring gangster who is unhealthily obsessed with television. Charlie continues to grow in emaciation day by day, and is given money from his grandfather to buy chocolate and winds up discovering a 50p piece in the snow on his way to the corner store. Charlie uses the money to purchase two Wonka bars and winds up discovering a Golden Ticket in one of them, much to the shock of the shopkeeper and his family"
      },
      {
        "text": " Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee, an aspiring gangster who is unhealthily obsessed with television. Charlie continues to grow in emaciation day by day, and is given money from his grandfather to buy chocolate and winds up discovering a 50p piece in the snow on his way to the corner store. Charlie uses the money to purchase two Wonka bars and winds up discovering a Golden Ticket in one of them, much to the shock of the shopkeeper and his family. Grandpa Joe even leaps out of bed in delight, offering to accompany Charlie to the factory. The following day, the discoverers of the Golden Tickets gather at Wonka's factory and are welcomed inside by the candy maker himself, who gives them a tour through his whimsically-designed factory. There, they learn of the unseen workers behind the re-opening of the factory; small, elfin beings known as Oompa-Loompas, who work in exchange for cocoa beans. However, while touring through a room designed as a meadow made of candy, Augustus Gloop is sucked through a pipe while drinking from a river of chocolate, resulting in his elimination from the competition. Not long afterward, Wonka unveils a product he's working on; chewing gum designed to replace any need for cooking or daily meals, which is stolen by Violet Beauregarde. However, because Wonka still needed to perfect the candy, she winds up inflating into a giant blueberry that must be juiced immediately, resulting in her elimination, and before long Veruca Salt is eliminated after falling down a garbage chute with her parents while trying to snatch one of Willy Wonka's specially-trained squirrels used for selecting the nuts baked into Wonka bars after being dismissed as a \"bad nut.\" Soon, Wonka reveals one of his confectionary products in development; chocolate bars that can be transported to customers via television, which quickly captures Mike Teavee"
      },
      {
        "text": " blueberry that must be juiced immediately, resulting in her elimination, and before long Veruca Salt is eliminated after falling down a garbage chute with her parents while trying to snatch one of Willy Wonka's specially-trained squirrels used for selecting the nuts baked into Wonka bars after being dismissed as a \"bad nut.\" Soon, Wonka reveals one of his confectionary products in development; chocolate bars that can be transported to customers via television, which quickly captures Mike Teavee's interest. He escapes to test out the device on himself, only to be shrunken to an inch tall so that his original height must be restored by a taffy pull. The four eliminated children do receive their lifetime supplies of chocolate but leave the factory as: thin (Augustus), purple (Violet), covered in trash (Veruca), and overstretched to ten feet (Mike). Charlie, the only child who has not been eliminated, has won the contest and the legendary prize mentioned before as a result: the position of heir to Willy Wonka's factory. A thrilled Charlie rides in Wonka's glass flying elevator to deliver his family to the factory from their little home, no longer having to worry about poverty.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Anne of Green Gables",
    "author": "Lucy Maud Montgomery",
    "published_date": "1908-06",
    "synopsis": " Anne, a young orphan from fictional community of Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia, (based upon the real community of New London) is sent to Prince Edward Island after a childhood spent in strangers' homes and orphanages. Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, siblings in their fifties and sixties, had decided to adopt a boy from the orphanage to help Matthew run their farm. They live at Green Gables, their Avonlea farmhouse on Prince Edward Island. Through a misunderstanding, the orphanage sends Anne Shirley. Anne is described as bright and quick, eager to please, talkative, and extremely imaginative. She has a pale face with freckles, and usually braids her red hair. When asked her name, Anne tells Marilla to call her Cordelia, which Marilla refuses; Anne insists that if she is to be called Anne, it must be spelled with an e, as that spelling is \"so much more distinguished.\" Marilla at first says the girl must return to the orphanage, but after a few days, she decides to let her stay - she pities her and is curious about the girl. As a child of imagination, Anne takes much joy in life, and adapts quickly, thriving in the close-knit farming village. Her talkativeness initially drives the prim, duty-driven Marilla to distraction, although shy Matthew falls for her immediately. Anne says that they are 'kindred spirits'. The book recounts Anne's adventures in making a home: the country school, where she quickly excels in her studies; her friendship with Diana Barry (her best or \"bosom friend\" as Anne fondly calls her); her budding literary ambitions; and her rivalry with classmate Gilbert Blythe, who teases her about her red hair. For that he earned her instant hatred, although he apologizes many times. As for Anne, she realizes she feels sorry about the events and no longer hates Gilbert, but cannot bring herself to admit it; by the end of the book, they finally become friends. The book also follows Anne's adventures in quiet, old-fashioned Avonlea. Episodes include her play time with friends (Diana, Jane Andrews and Ruby Gillis), her run-ins with the unpleasant Pye sisters (Gertie and Josie), and domestic mishaps such as dyeing her hair green (while intending to dye it black), or accidentally getting Diana drunk (by giving her what she thinks is raspberry cordial but is currant wine). At sixteen, Anne goes to Queen's Academy to earn a teaching license, along with Gilbert, Ruby, Josie, Jane and several other students. She obtains her license in one year instead of the usual two, and wins the Avery Scholarship for the top student in English, which would allow her to pursue a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree at the fictional Redmond College (based on the real Dalhousie University) on the mainland in Nova Scotia. Near the end of the book, Matthew dies of a heart attack after learning that all of his and Marilla's money has been lost in a bank failure. Out of devotion to Marilla and Green Gables, Anne gives up the Avery Scholarship to stay at home and help Marilla, whose eyesight is diminishing. She plans to teach at the Carmody school, the nearest school available, and return to Green Gables on weekends. In an act of friendship, Gilbert Blythe gives up his teaching position at the Avonlea School to work at White Sands School instead. Anne can teach in Avonlea and stay at Green Gables all through the week. After this kind act, Anne and Gilbert's friendship is cemented, and Anne looks forward to the next \"bend in the road.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Anne, a young orphan from fictional community of Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia, (based upon the real community of New London) is sent to Prince Edward Island after a childhood spent in strangers' homes and orphanages. Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, siblings in their fifties and sixties, had decided to adopt a boy from the orphanage to help Matthew run their farm. They live at Green Gables, their Avonlea farmhouse on Prince Edward Island. Through a misunderstanding, the orphanage sends Anne Shirley. Anne is described as bright and quick, eager to please, talkative, and extremely imaginative. She has a pale face with freckles, and usually braids her red hair. When asked her name, Anne tells Marilla to call her Cordelia, which Marilla refuses; Anne insists that if she is to be called Anne, it must be spelled with an e, as that spelling is \"so much more distinguished.\" Marilla at first says the girl must return to the orphanage, but after a few days, she decides to let her stay - she pities her and is curious about the girl. As a child of imagination, Anne takes much joy in life, and adapts quickly, thriving in the close-knit farming village. Her talkativeness initially drives the prim, duty-driven Marilla to distraction, although shy Matthew falls for her immediately. Anne says that they are 'kindred spirits'. The book recounts Anne's adventures in making a home: the country school, where she quickly excels in her studies; her friendship with Diana Barry (her best or \"bosom friend\" as Anne fondly calls her); her budding literary ambitions; and her rivalry with classmate Gilbert Blythe, who teases her about her red hair. For that he earned her instant hatred, although he apologizes many times. As for Anne, she realizes she feels sorry about the events and no longer hates Gilbert, but cannot"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s adventures in making a home: the country school, where she quickly excels in her studies; her friendship with Diana Barry (her best or \"bosom friend\" as Anne fondly calls her); her budding literary ambitions; and her rivalry with classmate Gilbert Blythe, who teases her about her red hair. For that he earned her instant hatred, although he apologizes many times. As for Anne, she realizes she feels sorry about the events and no longer hates Gilbert, but cannot bring herself to admit it; by the end of the book, they finally become friends. The book also follows Anne's adventures in quiet, old-fashioned Avonlea. Episodes include her play time with friends (Diana, Jane Andrews and Ruby Gillis), her run-ins with the unpleasant Pye sisters (Gertie and Josie), and domestic mishaps such as dyeing her hair green (while intending to dye it black), or accidentally getting Diana drunk (by giving her what she thinks is raspberry cordial but is currant wine). At sixteen, Anne goes to Queen's Academy to earn a teaching license, along with Gilbert, Ruby, Josie, Jane and several other students. She obtains her license in one year instead of the usual two, and wins the Avery Scholarship for the top student in English, which would allow her to pursue a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree at the fictional Redmond College (based on the real Dalhousie University) on the mainland in Nova Scotia. Near the end of the book, Matthew dies of a heart attack after learning that all of his and Marilla's money has been lost in a bank failure. Out of devotion to Marilla and Green Gables, Anne gives up the Avery Scholarship to stay at home and help Marilla, whose eyesight is diminishing. She plans to teach at the Carmody school, the nearest school available, and return to Green Gables on weekends. In an act"
      },
      {
        "text": " University) on the mainland in Nova Scotia. Near the end of the book, Matthew dies of a heart attack after learning that all of his and Marilla's money has been lost in a bank failure. Out of devotion to Marilla and Green Gables, Anne gives up the Avery Scholarship to stay at home and help Marilla, whose eyesight is diminishing. She plans to teach at the Carmody school, the nearest school available, and return to Green Gables on weekends. In an act of friendship, Gilbert Blythe gives up his teaching position at the Avonlea School to work at White Sands School instead. Anne can teach in Avonlea and stay at Green Gables all through the week. After this kind act, Anne and Gilbert's friendship is cemented, and Anne looks forward to the next \"bend in the road.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Wasp Factory",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1984",
    "synopsis": " The 'Wasp Factory' of the title is a huge clock face encased in a glass box and salvaged from the local dump. Behind each of the 12 numerals is a trap which leads to a different ritual death (for example burning, crushing, or drowning in Frank's urine) for the wasp that Frank puts into the hole at the center within tubes. Frank believes the death 'chosen' by the wasp predicts something about the future. There are also Sacrifice Poles, upon which hang the bodies and heads of larger animals, such as seagulls, that Frank has killed and other sacred items. They define and 'protect' the borders of Frank's territory - the island upon which he lives with his father. Frank occupies himself with his rituals and maintaining an array of weapons (from his catapult, to pipe bombs and a crude flame thrower) to control the island. Frank is haunted by an accident which resulted in the loss of his genitalia, and resents others for his impotence, particularly women. He goes for long walks and runs patrolling the island, and occasionally gets drunk with his dwarf friend Jamie in the local pub. Other than that, Frank has almost no contact with the outside world and admits that he is afraid of it due to what it did to his brother, Eric. Frank's older brother Eric is in an insane asylum after being arrested for brutalizing the town's dogs. He escapes at the start of the novel and throughout the book rings Frank from phone boxes to inform Frank of his progress back to the island. Their conversations invariably end badly, with Eric exploding in fits of rage. Frank is confused as to whether or not he is looking forward to seeing Eric, but it is clear Frank loves his brother dearly. Frank remembers his older brother as being extremely sensitive before \"the incident\" that drove him mad: a tragic case of neglect in a hospital where Eric was a volunteer. While attempting to feed a smiling brain-damaged child with acalvaria, Eric realizes that the patient is unresponsive and only smiling off into space. He checks the usually-alert patient's head dressings to find the child's exposed brain tissue infested with day-old maggots. At the end of the novel, Eric's imminent return precipitates a series of events that result in Frank discovering male hormone drugs in his father's study. After confronting his father, Frank finds out that he is in fact female, and that when he thought he was castrated by a dog mauling at an early age, Frank's father had simply pumped her full of male hormones to see if she would transition from female to male. The father said it was simply \"an experiment\" and there are hints it was in order to distance himself from the women he felt had ruined his life.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The 'Wasp Factory' of the title is a huge clock face encased in a glass box and salvaged from the local dump. Behind each of the 12 numerals is a trap which leads to a different ritual death (for example burning, crushing, or drowning in Frank's urine) for the wasp that Frank puts into the hole at the center within tubes. Frank believes the death 'chosen' by the wasp predicts something about the future. There are also Sacrifice Poles, upon which hang the bodies and heads of larger animals, such as seagulls, that Frank has killed and other sacred items. They define and 'protect' the borders of Frank's territory - the island upon which he lives with his father. Frank occupies himself with his rituals and maintaining an array of weapons (from his catapult, to pipe bombs and a crude flame thrower) to control the island. Frank is haunted by an accident which resulted in the loss of his genitalia, and resents others for his impotence, particularly women. He goes for long walks and runs patrolling the island, and occasionally gets drunk with his dwarf friend Jamie in the local pub. Other than that, Frank has almost no contact with the outside world and admits that he is afraid of it due to what it did to his brother, Eric. Frank's older brother Eric is in an insane asylum after being arrested for brutalizing the town's dogs. He escapes at the start of the novel and throughout the book rings Frank from phone boxes to inform Frank of his progress back to the island. Their conversations invariably end badly, with Eric exploding in fits of rage. Frank is confused as to whether or not he is looking forward to seeing Eric, but it is clear Frank loves his brother dearly. Frank remembers his older brother as being extremely sensitive before \"the incident\" that drove him mad: a tragic case of neglect in a hospital where Eric was a volunteer. While attempting to feed a smiling brain-damaged child"
      },
      {
        "text": " rings Frank from phone boxes to inform Frank of his progress back to the island. Their conversations invariably end badly, with Eric exploding in fits of rage. Frank is confused as to whether or not he is looking forward to seeing Eric, but it is clear Frank loves his brother dearly. Frank remembers his older brother as being extremely sensitive before \"the incident\" that drove him mad: a tragic case of neglect in a hospital where Eric was a volunteer. While attempting to feed a smiling brain-damaged child with acalvaria, Eric realizes that the patient is unresponsive and only smiling off into space. He checks the usually-alert patient's head dressings to find the child's exposed brain tissue infested with day-old maggots. At the end of the novel, Eric's imminent return precipitates a series of events that result in Frank discovering male hormone drugs in his father's study. After confronting his father, Frank finds out that he is in fact female, and that when he thought he was castrated by a dog mauling at an early age, Frank's father had simply pumped her full of male hormones to see if she would transition from female to male. The father said it was simply \"an experiment\" and there are hints it was in order to distance himself from the women he felt had ruined his life.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Espedair Street",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1987",
    "synopsis": " \"Two days ago I decided to kill myself. I would walk and hitch and sail away from this dark city to the bright spaces of the wet west coast, and there throw myself into the tall, glittering seas beyond Iona (with its cargo of mouldering kings) to let the gulls and seals and tides have their way with my remains, and in my dying moments look forward to an encounter with Staffa\u2019s six-sided columns and Fingal\u2019s cave; or I might head south to Corryvrecken, to be spun inside the whirlpool and listen with my waterlogged deaf ears to its mile-wide voice ringing over the wave-race; or be borne north, to where the white sands sing and coral hides, pink-fingered and hard-soft, beneath the ocean swell, and the rampart cliffs climb thousand-foot above the seething acres of milky foam, rainbow-buttressed. Last night I changed my mind and decided to stay alive. Everything that follows is . . . just to try and explain.\" Weir starts out in the Ferguslie Park area of Paisley in a very underprivileged Catholic family. He is impressed by a group named Frozen Gold when he sees them live, in the Union of Paisley College of Technology, and auditions with them. Christine Brice likes his songs, and he joins the band. He ends up writing all their material and playing bass guitar, (after trying unsuccessfully to get them to change their name) as the band rises in the drug- and booze-fuelled rock and roll of the 1970s, assisted by A&R man Rick Tumber of ARC Records. In the Three Chimneys tour, singer Davey Balfour takes Dan along on an attempt to break an unofficial (and illegal) speed record for flying around three power station chimneys in Kent in his private plane. He reminisces about this from 1980s Glasgow, where he lives as a recluse in a Victorian folly (St Jutes), ever since the tragic events which led to the demise of the band. He is posing as his own caretaker, and his friends McCann and Wee Tommy know him as Jimmy Hay. After a memorable fight in a nightclub called 'Monty's', his real identity is revealed. He has grown uncomfortable with fame and wealth, and eventually visits his first girlfriend, Jean Webb, now living in Arisaig.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " \"Two days ago I decided to kill myself. I would walk and hitch and sail away from this dark city to the bright spaces of the wet west coast, and there throw myself into the tall, glittering seas beyond Iona (with its cargo of mouldering kings) to let the gulls and seals and tides have their way with my remains, and in my dying moments look forward to an encounter with Staffa\u2019s six-sided columns and Fingal\u2019s cave; or I might head south to Corryvrecken, to be spun inside the whirlpool and listen with my waterlogged deaf ears to its mile-wide voice ringing over the wave-race; or be borne north, to where the white sands sing and coral hides, pink-fingered and hard-soft, beneath the ocean swell, and the rampart cliffs climb thousand-foot above the seething acres of milky foam, rainbow-buttressed. Last night I changed my mind and decided to stay alive. Everything that follows is . . . just to try and explain.\" Weir starts out in the Ferguslie Park area of Paisley in a very underprivileged Catholic family. He is impressed by a group named Frozen Gold when he sees them live, in the Union of Paisley College of Technology, and auditions with them. Christine Brice likes his songs, and he joins the band. He ends up writing all their material and playing bass guitar, (after trying unsuccessfully to get them to change their name) as the band rises in the drug- and booze-fuelled rock and roll of the 1970s, assisted by A&R man Rick Tumber of ARC Records. In the Three Chimneys tour, singer Davey Balfour takes Dan along on an attempt to break an unofficial (and illegal) speed record for flying around three power station chimneys in Kent in his private plane. He reminisces about this from 1980s"
      },
      {
        "text": ", (after trying unsuccessfully to get them to change their name) as the band rises in the drug- and booze-fuelled rock and roll of the 1970s, assisted by A&R man Rick Tumber of ARC Records. In the Three Chimneys tour, singer Davey Balfour takes Dan along on an attempt to break an unofficial (and illegal) speed record for flying around three power station chimneys in Kent in his private plane. He reminisces about this from 1980s Glasgow, where he lives as a recluse in a Victorian folly (St Jutes), ever since the tragic events which led to the demise of the band. He is posing as his own caretaker, and his friends McCann and Wee Tommy know him as Jimmy Hay. After a memorable fight in a nightclub called 'Monty's', his real identity is revealed. He has grown uncomfortable with fame and wealth, and eventually visits his first girlfriend, Jean Webb, now living in Arisaig.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Crow Road",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1992",
    "synopsis": " This Bildungsroman is set in the fictional Argyll town of Gallanach (by its description, reminiscent of Oban but on the north east shore of Loch Crinan), the real village of Lochgair, and in Glasgow where Prentice McHoan lives. Prentice's uncle Rory has disappeared eight years previous while writing a book called The Crow Road. Prentice becomes obsessed with papers his uncle left behind and sets out to solve the mystery. Along the way he must cope with estrangement from his father, unrequited love, sibling rivalry, and failure at his studies. The estrangement from his father concerns belief in God or an afterlife. Prentice cannot accept a universe without some higher power, some purpose; he can't believe that people can just cease to exist when they die. His father dogmatically denies the existence of God, universal purpose, and the afterlife. A parallel plot is Prentice's gradual transition from an adolescent fixation on one young woman to a more mature love for another. Prentice's efforts to piece together Uncle Rory's fragmentary notes and the minimal clues surrounding his disappearance mirror his efforts to make sense of the world, love, and life in general. The narrative is also fragmentary, leaping days, months, years, or decades back and forth with little or no warning, so the reader must also piece things together.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " This Bildungsroman is set in the fictional Argyll town of Gallanach (by its description, reminiscent of Oban but on the north east shore of Loch Crinan), the real village of Lochgair, and in Glasgow where Prentice McHoan lives. Prentice's uncle Rory has disappeared eight years previous while writing a book called The Crow Road. Prentice becomes obsessed with papers his uncle left behind and sets out to solve the mystery. Along the way he must cope with estrangement from his father, unrequited love, sibling rivalry, and failure at his studies. The estrangement from his father concerns belief in God or an afterlife. Prentice cannot accept a universe without some higher power, some purpose; he can't believe that people can just cease to exist when they die. His father dogmatically denies the existence of God, universal purpose, and the afterlife. A parallel plot is Prentice's gradual transition from an adolescent fixation on one young woman to a more mature love for another. Prentice's efforts to piece together Uncle Rory's fragmentary notes and the minimal clues surrounding his disappearance mirror his efforts to make sense of the world, love, and life in general. The narrative is also fragmentary, leaping days, months, years, or decades back and forth with little or no warning, so the reader must also piece things together.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Consider Phlebas",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1987",
    "synopsis": " The Culture and the Idiran Empire are at war in a galaxy-spanning conflict. Horza, a mercenary capable of altering his appearance at will (a Changer), is assigned the task of retrieving a dispossessed Culture Mind by his Idiran handlers. The Mind, while fleeing attacking Idirans who consider its existence an abomination, has taken refuge on Schar's World, a Planet of the Dead. Planets of the Dead are nominally forbidden to both the Culture and the Idirans, being under the control of god-like incorporeal beings called Dra'Azon. Horza, however, was one of a group of Changers allowed to be on the planet as stewards and witnesses to its devastation. He may be the only person in the Galaxy, and certainly the only one known to the Idirans, who would be allowed to return. On the way to Schar's World he encounters, and joins, a band of mercenaries and pirates, led by Kraiklyn, on their ship, the Clear Air Turbulence. All the while he is doggedly pursued by a Culture Special Circumstances agent, Perosteck Balveda. The Culture also realizes that Horza is the key to getting to Schar's World and retrieving the Mind. Their plan is to place an agent with him and hope that the agent can get to the Mind first and somehow leave with it. The plot takes many digressions on the way to the denouement. As the book opens, Horza is about to die an extremely unpleasant death after killing and impersonating a member of the gerontocracy on a world not yet part of the Culture. Here he meets Balveda for the first time. He is rescued by the Idirans and given his mission to find the Culture Mind, but the Idiran ship on which he is travelling is soon captured by a Culture ship. Drifting in an escape suit, he is picked up by an independent ship, the Clear Air Turbulence, crewed by a Free Company of mercenaries, and he has to fight and kill one of them (while still in the form of a very old man) in order to prevent them dumping him back into space. Horza soon resolves to take over the ship by replacing the Captain, Kraiklyn, who leads them on some disastrous pirate raids which kill several of the crew. The first raid backfires because the team is unaware that the temple they plan to rob has been built of laser-reflecting crystal, which turns their beams back on themselves. The next raid takes place on the Orbital Vavatch, a massive artificial \"ringworld\" 14 million kilometres in diameter, which the Culture is about to destroy to prevent the Idirans taking it over. The crew lands on an abandoned Megaliner cruising the Vavatch ocean, hoping to salvage its powerful laser weapons before the Orbital is destroyed, but one of the crew is killed soon after landing because he missed the briefing warning them that their antigravity devices would not work there, and more die when the ship crashes into a massive ice wall, which Kraiklyn had mistaken for a cloud bank, although Horza later discovers that Kraiklyn and several others managed to escape. Horza flees the disaster in the damaged CAT shuttle, but it crashes into the sea near an isolated island, killing the pilot. There he is taken prisoner by a bizarre cult, led by a monstrously obese homicidal cannibal, whose followers subsist on food that has been cooked to remove almost all nutritive value and mixed with effluent. Horza escapes his impending sacrifice by killing the cult leader and his henchman with his poisoned fingernails and teeth, and eventually makes his way to the main city on Vavatch to find Kraiklyn. Having now changed his appearance to mimic that of the CAT captain, Horza witnesses a game of \"Damage\", which Kraiklyn has joined in the hopes of winning enough to make up the losses from his foolhardy expeditions with the crew. Damage is a card game enhanced with psychological and emotional pressure by direct mind-to-mind contact, where the \"tokens\" of play are actual living beings who are killed when a player loses a round. The game is illegal and only played in places where the normal order is breaking down, as in the case of Vavatch, which is being evacuated. Kraiklyn is wiped out of the game, and Horza then follows him on his way back to his ship, kills him and returns to the CAT. There, to his dismay, he is introduced to the newest crew member - although disguised, he immediately recognises her as Perosteck Balveda. Just as Horza immobilises her with a stun gun, Culture agents outside try to capture the ship. Horza manages to lift off and takes the Clear Air Turbulence on a wild ride through the massive spaces of the ex-Culture GSV which is carrying out the evacuation, and they escape into space after shaking off their Culture pursuers, although a Culture drone, Unaha-Closp, is also trapped on the escaping ship and becomes a reluctant member of the team. As the fugitives warp away from Vavatch, they see the Orbital destroyed by the Culture warships. Balveda, now exposed as a Culture agent, in turn exposes Horza; seeing no reason to continue his deception, he instead recruits the remnants of the crew to carry out his mission. The final chapters are action-packed. Horza and his crew land on Schar's World and go in search for the Mind in the labyrinthine Command System, a vast subterranean complex built as a nuclear warfare command centre (ultimately, though, it was germ warfare which wiped out all life on the Planet of the Dead). They soon discover that the Mind is also being hunted by a pair of Idiran soldiers, survivors of a larger commando group, who have killed all the Changers stationed on the planet, and who regard Horza and his crew as enemies, having no knowledge of the Changers' alliance with the Idirans. Horza has kept Balveda alive, possibly as a hostage, and she goes along with the mission, awaiting her chance to swing the outcome in the Culture's favour. Horza's situation is further complicated when his crewmate Yalson reveals that she is pregnant to him. The Free Company encounter the Idirans in one of the Command System stations but after an intense firefight, they apparently kill one and manage to capture the other. After tracking the Mind to another station, the drone Unaha-Closp discovers it hiding in the reactor car of a Command System train, but while the team are distracted, the captured Idiran, Xoxarle, frees itself, kills the guard and sets an ambush for the others. Meanwhile, the second Idiran, who was mortally wounded but not killed, has managed to set one of the trains for a collision course, and as it smashes into the station, Xoxarle springs his ambush, and Yalson is killed. The enraged Horza pursues Xoxarle, who catches Balveda and leaves her for dead, although she is saved by Horza. In the climactic fight, Horza is overwhelmed, but thanks to the combined action of the drone and Balveda, Xoxarle is finally killed. Although the Mind has been rescued the cost has been terrible - all the crew of the Clear Air Turbulence have been killed, the drone is severely damaged, and the fatally wounded Horza dies just as Balveda gets him back to the surface.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Culture and the Idiran Empire are at war in a galaxy-spanning conflict. Horza, a mercenary capable of altering his appearance at will (a Changer), is assigned the task of retrieving a dispossessed Culture Mind by his Idiran handlers. The Mind, while fleeing attacking Idirans who consider its existence an abomination, has taken refuge on Schar's World, a Planet of the Dead. Planets of the Dead are nominally forbidden to both the Culture and the Idirans, being under the control of god-like incorporeal beings called Dra'Azon. Horza, however, was one of a group of Changers allowed to be on the planet as stewards and witnesses to its devastation. He may be the only person in the Galaxy, and certainly the only one known to the Idirans, who would be allowed to return. On the way to Schar's World he encounters, and joins, a band of mercenaries and pirates, led by Kraiklyn, on their ship, the Clear Air Turbulence. All the while he is doggedly pursued by a Culture Special Circumstances agent, Perosteck Balveda. The Culture also realizes that Horza is the key to getting to Schar's World and retrieving the Mind. Their plan is to place an agent with him and hope that the agent can get to the Mind first and somehow leave with it. The plot takes many digressions on the way to the denouement. As the book opens, Horza is about to die an extremely unpleasant death after killing and impersonating a member of the gerontocracy on a world not yet part of the Culture. Here he meets Balveda for the first time. He is rescued by the Idirans and given his mission to find the Culture Mind, but the Idiran ship on which he is travelling is soon captured by a Culture ship. Drifting in an escape suit,"
      },
      {
        "text": " the way to the denouement. As the book opens, Horza is about to die an extremely unpleasant death after killing and impersonating a member of the gerontocracy on a world not yet part of the Culture. Here he meets Balveda for the first time. He is rescued by the Idirans and given his mission to find the Culture Mind, but the Idiran ship on which he is travelling is soon captured by a Culture ship. Drifting in an escape suit, he is picked up by an independent ship, the Clear Air Turbulence, crewed by a Free Company of mercenaries, and he has to fight and kill one of them (while still in the form of a very old man) in order to prevent them dumping him back into space. Horza soon resolves to take over the ship by replacing the Captain, Kraiklyn, who leads them on some disastrous pirate raids which kill several of the crew. The first raid backfires because the team is unaware that the temple they plan to rob has been built of laser-reflecting crystal, which turns their beams back on themselves. The next raid takes place on the Orbital Vavatch, a massive artificial \"ringworld\" 14 million kilometres in diameter, which the Culture is about to destroy to prevent the Idirans taking it over. The crew lands on an abandoned Megaliner cruising the Vavatch ocean, hoping to salvage its powerful laser weapons before the Orbital is destroyed, but one of the crew is killed soon after landing because he missed the briefing warning them that their antigravity devices would not work there, and more die when the ship crashes into a massive ice wall, which Kraiklyn had mistaken for a cloud bank, although Horza later discovers that Kraiklyn and several others managed to escape. Horza flees the disaster in the damaged CAT shuttle, but it crashes into the sea near an isolated island, killing the pilot. There he is taken prisoner by a bizarre"
      },
      {
        "text": " the crew is killed soon after landing because he missed the briefing warning them that their antigravity devices would not work there, and more die when the ship crashes into a massive ice wall, which Kraiklyn had mistaken for a cloud bank, although Horza later discovers that Kraiklyn and several others managed to escape. Horza flees the disaster in the damaged CAT shuttle, but it crashes into the sea near an isolated island, killing the pilot. There he is taken prisoner by a bizarre cult, led by a monstrously obese homicidal cannibal, whose followers subsist on food that has been cooked to remove almost all nutritive value and mixed with effluent. Horza escapes his impending sacrifice by killing the cult leader and his henchman with his poisoned fingernails and teeth, and eventually makes his way to the main city on Vavatch to find Kraiklyn. Having now changed his appearance to mimic that of the CAT captain, Horza witnesses a game of \"Damage\", which Kraiklyn has joined in the hopes of winning enough to make up the losses from his foolhardy expeditions with the crew. Damage is a card game enhanced with psychological and emotional pressure by direct mind-to-mind contact, where the \"tokens\" of play are actual living beings who are killed when a player loses a round. The game is illegal and only played in places where the normal order is breaking down, as in the case of Vavatch, which is being evacuated. Kraiklyn is wiped out of the game, and Horza then follows him on his way back to his ship, kills him and returns to the CAT. There, to his dismay, he is introduced to the newest crew member - although disguised, he immediately recognises her as Perosteck Balveda. Just as Horza immobilises her with a stun gun, Culture agents outside try to capture the ship. Horza manages to lift off and takes the Clear Air Tur"
      },
      {
        "text": " being evacuated. Kraiklyn is wiped out of the game, and Horza then follows him on his way back to his ship, kills him and returns to the CAT. There, to his dismay, he is introduced to the newest crew member - although disguised, he immediately recognises her as Perosteck Balveda. Just as Horza immobilises her with a stun gun, Culture agents outside try to capture the ship. Horza manages to lift off and takes the Clear Air Turbulence on a wild ride through the massive spaces of the ex-Culture GSV which is carrying out the evacuation, and they escape into space after shaking off their Culture pursuers, although a Culture drone, Unaha-Closp, is also trapped on the escaping ship and becomes a reluctant member of the team. As the fugitives warp away from Vavatch, they see the Orbital destroyed by the Culture warships. Balveda, now exposed as a Culture agent, in turn exposes Horza; seeing no reason to continue his deception, he instead recruits the remnants of the crew to carry out his mission. The final chapters are action-packed. Horza and his crew land on Schar's World and go in search for the Mind in the labyrinthine Command System, a vast subterranean complex built as a nuclear warfare command centre (ultimately, though, it was germ warfare which wiped out all life on the Planet of the Dead). They soon discover that the Mind is also being hunted by a pair of Idiran soldiers, survivors of a larger commando group, who have killed all the Changers stationed on the planet, and who regard Horza and his crew as enemies, having no knowledge of the Changers' alliance with the Idirans. Horza has kept Balveda alive, possibly as a hostage, and she goes along with the mission, awaiting her chance to swing the outcome in the Culture's favour. Horza's situation is further complicated when"
      },
      {
        "text": " being hunted by a pair of Idiran soldiers, survivors of a larger commando group, who have killed all the Changers stationed on the planet, and who regard Horza and his crew as enemies, having no knowledge of the Changers' alliance with the Idirans. Horza has kept Balveda alive, possibly as a hostage, and she goes along with the mission, awaiting her chance to swing the outcome in the Culture's favour. Horza's situation is further complicated when his crewmate Yalson reveals that she is pregnant to him. The Free Company encounter the Idirans in one of the Command System stations but after an intense firefight, they apparently kill one and manage to capture the other. After tracking the Mind to another station, the drone Unaha-Closp discovers it hiding in the reactor car of a Command System train, but while the team are distracted, the captured Idiran, Xoxarle, frees itself, kills the guard and sets an ambush for the others. Meanwhile, the second Idiran, who was mortally wounded but not killed, has managed to set one of the trains for a collision course, and as it smashes into the station, Xoxarle springs his ambush, and Yalson is killed. The enraged Horza pursues Xoxarle, who catches Balveda and leaves her for dead, although she is saved by Horza. In the climactic fight, Horza is overwhelmed, but thanks to the combined action of the drone and Balveda, Xoxarle is finally killed. Although the Mind has been rescued the cost has been terrible - all the crew of the Clear Air Turbulence have been killed, the drone is severely damaged, and the fatally wounded Horza dies just as Balveda gets him back to the surface.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " is overwhelmed, but thanks to the combined action of the drone and Balveda, Xoxarle is finally killed. Although the Mind has been rescued the cost has been terrible - all the crew of the Clear Air Turbulence have been killed, the drone is severely damaged, and the fatally wounded Horza dies just as Balveda gets him back to the surface.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Inversions",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1998",
    "synopsis": " The book takes place on a fictional planet based on late-Middle Ages Europe. It alternates chapter-by-chapter between two concurrent storylines. The first storyline is presented as a written account from Oelph, publicly a doctor's assistant, but privately a spy for an individual identified only as \"Master\", to whom much of the account is addressed. Oelph is the assistant to Vosill, the personal doctor to King Quience of Haspidus and a woman. The latter is unheard of in the patriarchal kingdom, and is tolerated only because Vosill claims citizenship in the far-off country of Drezen. The King himself is appreciative of her and her talents, but nonetheless her elevated position in defiance of the kingdom's social mores inspires hostility among others of the court. Oelph's account follows Vosill as she attends to the King regularly, as well as more charitable ministrations to the impoverished and those in need. Her methods are unconventional by kingdom standards, for example forgoing the use of leeches and instead using alcohol to \"[kill] the ill humours which can infect a wound,\" but are more often than not successful. This only serves to inspire more distrust amongst her detractors, notably including a number of Dukes as well as the King's Guard Commander, Adlain. On this topic, Oelph includes a transcript he claims to have found in Vosill's journal, purported to be an exchange between Duke Walen and Adlain in which they make an agreement, \"should it become necessary\", to covertly kidnap the lady doctor and have Nolieti, the King's chief torturer, \"put her to the question.\" Oelph notes that while the transcript appears to have been obtained under impossible circumstances, he somehow does not doubt its veracity. While Vosill attends to the King, Nolieti's is murdered, nearly decapitated, presumably by his assistant Unoure. Vosill examines the body and determines that Unoure could not have killed his master, but her explanation is disregarded. Unoure is captured, but before he can be questioned he is found in his cell dead from a cut throat, apparently self-inflicted. Following this account Oelph includes another found transcript, this time between Walen and Duke Quettil, though Walen is unable to obtain Quettil's agreement for the use of Ralinge, his own chief torturer, in Walen's kidnapping plan. Some days later at a masked ball Walen is found murdered, this time by a stab to the heart. The Duke's murder disquiets much of the royal house, as it occurred in a room no one entered or left. Resentment towards Vosill continues to build, particularly after King Quience begins implementing somewhat radical reforms, such as permitting commoners to own farmland without the oversight of a noble, reforms which Vosill has discussed with the King publicly and at length. Following these reforms Vosill confesses to the King that she loves him, a sentiment he rebuffs, and further hurts her when he states that he prefers \"pretty, dainty, delicate women who [have] no brains.\" Oelph finds her after this, drunk, and hints at his own feelings of love towards her; she rebuffs him as well, albeit gently. Some days later Vosill receives a note from Adlain, asking her to meet him and two other Dukes elsewhere in the castle. She leaves alone, but Oelph opts to follow her in secret; he arrives in time to see her stumble across the body of a murdered Duke, stabbed with one of her scalpels, and catches a glimpse of the real murderer fleeing the room. Vosill and Oelph are almost immediately taken into custody by guards and delivered to Ralinge, who binds the two to separately and then strips, intending to rape Vosill. The woman issues what sounds to Oelph like commands, albeit in a language he does not recognize even partially. Oelph's eyes are closed at this point, and in his narrative he is unable to adequately describe what he hears next, other than an impression of wind and metal. When he opens his eyes he finds Ralinge and his assistants dead, dispatched bloodily, and Vosill free and in the process of removing his bindings, no indication of how she was freed. Later, she claims that Oelph fell unconscious and the three men fought over who would rape her first, though she indicates to him that this is what he \"should\" remember. The two are taken from the torturer's chamber shortly thereafter, as the King has abruptly taken ill and appears to be dying. Vosill is able to cure King Quience's condition, and is there to witness as the conspiracy against her is revealed to the King, inadvertently, when news of Ralinge's death reaches the conspirators: Commander Adlain and Dukes Quettil and Ulresile. Ultimately the blame is publicly taken by Ulresile, who escapes with being exiled for several months; the King makes it clear that further plots against the doctor will not be tolerated. Because Oelph is not present for these events, his account comes second-hand from his master, revealed to be Guard Commander Adlain. Vosill requests the King release her from her duties, which he does. She leaves just a few days later on a ship for Drezen, and is seen off at the dock by Oelph. Though he tries, he cannot bring himself to bluntly declare his love for her before she boards. The ship leaves sometime later, Vosill nowhere to be seen on board. The second, interleaved storyline is told by an initially unnamed narrator, remaining unnamed so as to provide a neutral context for the narrative. The story focuses on DeWar, bodyguard to General UrLeyn, the Prime Protector of the Protectorate of Tassasen. Protector UrLeyn is the leader of Tassasen, having killed the previous monarch in a revolt; subsequently he eliminated official terms such as \"King\" and \"Empire\" within Tassasen. At the beginning of the story the Protectorate is fast approaching a war with the neighboring land of Ladenscion, led by barons who initially supported UrLeyn's revolution but now intend to establish themselves as independent. DeWar is the sometimes-confidant of UrLeyn, but the bodyguard also maintains a friendly, conversational relationship with Perrund, a member of the Tassasen harem. Perrund was once the Protector's prized concubine, which changed following an assassination attempt on UrLeyn; Perrund shielded the Protector with her body, saving his life at the cost of crippling her left arm. Though no longer as prized as a concubine, Perrund is highly regarded by UrLeyn, DeWar, and most of Tassasen society. DeWar in particular finds her easy to confide in, and spends much of his off-time playing board games with her while the two tell each other stories. DeWar is on high alert as the conflict with Ladenscion approaches, believing that someone within the court may be a traitor. An attempt is made on UrLeyn's life by an assassin disguised as an ambassador, though DeWar anticipates the threat and kills the man before he can succeed. Nonetheless, this act only reinforces DeWar's fears of a traitor. A surprising, unwelcome turn comes when UrLeyn's young son, Lattens, has a seizure and subsequently falls ill. While the boy slowly recovers, DeWar tells him stories of a \"magical land\" called Lavishia, a place where \"every man was a king, every woman a queen\". Eventually the boy recovers, and UrLeyn and his bodyguard depart for the front lines, where the war with Ladenscion is flagging. However, no sooner they are there than word arrives that Lattens has fallen ill again, prompting a distraught UrLeyn to rush back to the castle. While DeWar is gone, Perrund tells Lattens a story about a girl named Dawn, who spent most of her life locked in a basement by her cruel family and was eventually rescued by a traveling circus. When he returns, Perrund tells DeWar about the story, then tells him it was a shadow of the real story: her story. Rather than her parents locking her in the basement to be cruel, they locked her in to hide her from Imperial soldiers\u2014high-ranking men of the former King's regime. Rather than being rescued, the soldiers found her, raped her, her mother and her sisters, and then forced her to watch as they murdered her father and brothers. The soldiers were eventually killed, but Perrund still feels she is now dead inside. DeWar attempts to in some way comfort her, but she quickly demands he return her to the harem. Lattens' condition continues to worsen, causing UrLeyn to act more and more erratically, spending less time focusing on the war and more time at his son's bedside. The Protector goes so far as to bar all visitors to his chambers, and even prohibits DeWar from speaking to him unless he is spoken to. His only real contact is with Perrund, who spends most nights holding UrLeyn as he cries himself to sleep. DeWar enlists Perrund's help in focusing UrLeyn on the war, but to no success. An epiphany strikes DeWar when he finds he has drooled on his pillow in his sleep, and he proceeds to Lattens' room. A guard restrains the boy's nurse while DeWar examines his comforter, finding it has been soaked in an unknown fluid, presumably poison. Under threat of death the nurse reveals who has been orchestrating the poisoning: Perrund. DeWar storms into the harem chambers, intent on revealing the conspiracy to UrLeyn, but arrives too late; Perrund has already killed the Protector, and calmly waits for the bodyguard. Holding her at swordpoint, DeWar tearfully demands to know why she conspired against the Protector. Perrund replies that she did it for revenge, for killing her and her family. The soldiers who raped her were not the former King's men at all, not even men allied to UrLeyn, but the man himself, as well as his current, closest advisers. Afterward she was taken in by men from Haspidus, and recruited as a spy by King Quience directly. Saving UrLeyn from the assassin was simply to prevent him from dying while he was a strong leader; instead, her orders were to ensure he died in \"utter ruin\". After her confession, Perrund demands DeWar kill her. He silently refuses, lowering his sword. Perrund grabs his knife and brings it to her own throat, but it is quickly knocked away by DeWar's blade, which he lowers once more. Oelph gives a brief, personal epilogue for both stories. The three conspirators who attempted to kill Vosill died of various diseases, only Adlain lasting longer than a few years. King Quience reigned for 40 years before his death, and was succeeded by one of his many daughters, giving the kingdom its first ruling Queen. Vosill disappeared from the ship she departed on; her disappearance was only discovered after a sudden burst of wind and chain-fire struck the ship, then vanished as quickly. Attempts to notify Vosill's family in Drezen were unsuccessful: nobody in the island country could be found who had ever met her. Oelph himself became a doctor, eventually taking Vosill's post as the royal physician. Tassasen endured a civil war after the death of Protector UrLeyn; eventually King Lattens took control of the Empire, ruling it quietly. Oelph explains that he stopped DeWar's story as he did because that is where versions of the story differ dramatically. The more popular version has DeWar personally execute Perrund, followed by a return to the Half-Hidden Kingdoms where he reclaims his hidden title as Prince, and eventually King. A second version, supposedly written by Perrund herself, instead has DeWar telling the waiting guards and staff that UrLeyn is fine but sleeping, this and other distractions providing enough time for him and the former concubine to flee Tassasen before the Protector's body is discovered. The two elude capture and arrive in the Half-Hidden Kingdoms, eventually marry, have several children, and die many years later in an avalanche in the mountains. Finally, Oelph ends his epilogue by revealing that he expects his wife, whom he loves dearly, to return soon, quite possibly with his grandchildren accompanying her.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book takes place on a fictional planet based on late-Middle Ages Europe. It alternates chapter-by-chapter between two concurrent storylines. The first storyline is presented as a written account from Oelph, publicly a doctor's assistant, but privately a spy for an individual identified only as \"Master\", to whom much of the account is addressed. Oelph is the assistant to Vosill, the personal doctor to King Quience of Haspidus and a woman. The latter is unheard of in the patriarchal kingdom, and is tolerated only because Vosill claims citizenship in the far-off country of Drezen. The King himself is appreciative of her and her talents, but nonetheless her elevated position in defiance of the kingdom's social mores inspires hostility among others of the court. Oelph's account follows Vosill as she attends to the King regularly, as well as more charitable ministrations to the impoverished and those in need. Her methods are unconventional by kingdom standards, for example forgoing the use of leeches and instead using alcohol to \"[kill] the ill humours which can infect a wound,\" but are more often than not successful. This only serves to inspire more distrust amongst her detractors, notably including a number of Dukes as well as the King's Guard Commander, Adlain. On this topic, Oelph includes a transcript he claims to have found in Vosill's journal, purported to be an exchange between Duke Walen and Adlain in which they make an agreement, \"should it become necessary\", to covertly kidnap the lady doctor and have Nolieti, the King's chief torturer, \"put her to the question.\" Oelph notes that while the transcript appears to have been obtained under impossible circumstances, he somehow does not doubt its veracity. While Vosill attends to the King, Nolieti's is murdered, nearly decapitated, presumably by his assistant Unoure. Vos"
      },
      {
        "text": " Adlain in which they make an agreement, \"should it become necessary\", to covertly kidnap the lady doctor and have Nolieti, the King's chief torturer, \"put her to the question.\" Oelph notes that while the transcript appears to have been obtained under impossible circumstances, he somehow does not doubt its veracity. While Vosill attends to the King, Nolieti's is murdered, nearly decapitated, presumably by his assistant Unoure. Vosill examines the body and determines that Unoure could not have killed his master, but her explanation is disregarded. Unoure is captured, but before he can be questioned he is found in his cell dead from a cut throat, apparently self-inflicted. Following this account Oelph includes another found transcript, this time between Walen and Duke Quettil, though Walen is unable to obtain Quettil's agreement for the use of Ralinge, his own chief torturer, in Walen's kidnapping plan. Some days later at a masked ball Walen is found murdered, this time by a stab to the heart. The Duke's murder disquiets much of the royal house, as it occurred in a room no one entered or left. Resentment towards Vosill continues to build, particularly after King Quience begins implementing somewhat radical reforms, such as permitting commoners to own farmland without the oversight of a noble, reforms which Vosill has discussed with the King publicly and at length. Following these reforms Vosill confesses to the King that she loves him, a sentiment he rebuffs, and further hurts her when he states that he prefers \"pretty, dainty, delicate women who [have] no brains.\" Oelph finds her after this, drunk, and hints at his own feelings of love towards her; she rebuffs him as well, albeit gently. Some days later Vosill receives a note from Adlain,"
      },
      {
        "text": " with the King publicly and at length. Following these reforms Vosill confesses to the King that she loves him, a sentiment he rebuffs, and further hurts her when he states that he prefers \"pretty, dainty, delicate women who [have] no brains.\" Oelph finds her after this, drunk, and hints at his own feelings of love towards her; she rebuffs him as well, albeit gently. Some days later Vosill receives a note from Adlain, asking her to meet him and two other Dukes elsewhere in the castle. She leaves alone, but Oelph opts to follow her in secret; he arrives in time to see her stumble across the body of a murdered Duke, stabbed with one of her scalpels, and catches a glimpse of the real murderer fleeing the room. Vosill and Oelph are almost immediately taken into custody by guards and delivered to Ralinge, who binds the two to separately and then strips, intending to rape Vosill. The woman issues what sounds to Oelph like commands, albeit in a language he does not recognize even partially. Oelph's eyes are closed at this point, and in his narrative he is unable to adequately describe what he hears next, other than an impression of wind and metal. When he opens his eyes he finds Ralinge and his assistants dead, dispatched bloodily, and Vosill free and in the process of removing his bindings, no indication of how she was freed. Later, she claims that Oelph fell unconscious and the three men fought over who would rape her first, though she indicates to him that this is what he \"should\" remember. The two are taken from the torturer's chamber shortly thereafter, as the King has abruptly taken ill and appears to be dying. Vosill is able to cure King Quience's condition, and is there to witness as the conspiracy against her is revealed to the King, inadvertently, when"
      },
      {
        "text": " how she was freed. Later, she claims that Oelph fell unconscious and the three men fought over who would rape her first, though she indicates to him that this is what he \"should\" remember. The two are taken from the torturer's chamber shortly thereafter, as the King has abruptly taken ill and appears to be dying. Vosill is able to cure King Quience's condition, and is there to witness as the conspiracy against her is revealed to the King, inadvertently, when news of Ralinge's death reaches the conspirators: Commander Adlain and Dukes Quettil and Ulresile. Ultimately the blame is publicly taken by Ulresile, who escapes with being exiled for several months; the King makes it clear that further plots against the doctor will not be tolerated. Because Oelph is not present for these events, his account comes second-hand from his master, revealed to be Guard Commander Adlain. Vosill requests the King release her from her duties, which he does. She leaves just a few days later on a ship for Drezen, and is seen off at the dock by Oelph. Though he tries, he cannot bring himself to bluntly declare his love for her before she boards. The ship leaves sometime later, Vosill nowhere to be seen on board. The second, interleaved storyline is told by an initially unnamed narrator, remaining unnamed so as to provide a neutral context for the narrative. The story focuses on DeWar, bodyguard to General UrLeyn, the Prime Protector of the Protectorate of Tassasen. Protector UrLeyn is the leader of Tassasen, having killed the previous monarch in a revolt; subsequently he eliminated official terms such as \"King\" and \"Empire\" within Tassasen. At the beginning of the story the Protectorate is fast approaching a war with the neighboring land of Ladenscion, led by barons who initially supported UrLe"
      },
      {
        "text": " DeWar, bodyguard to General UrLeyn, the Prime Protector of the Protectorate of Tassasen. Protector UrLeyn is the leader of Tassasen, having killed the previous monarch in a revolt; subsequently he eliminated official terms such as \"King\" and \"Empire\" within Tassasen. At the beginning of the story the Protectorate is fast approaching a war with the neighboring land of Ladenscion, led by barons who initially supported UrLeyn's revolution but now intend to establish themselves as independent. DeWar is the sometimes-confidant of UrLeyn, but the bodyguard also maintains a friendly, conversational relationship with Perrund, a member of the Tassasen harem. Perrund was once the Protector's prized concubine, which changed following an assassination attempt on UrLeyn; Perrund shielded the Protector with her body, saving his life at the cost of crippling her left arm. Though no longer as prized as a concubine, Perrund is highly regarded by UrLeyn, DeWar, and most of Tassasen society. DeWar in particular finds her easy to confide in, and spends much of his off-time playing board games with her while the two tell each other stories. DeWar is on high alert as the conflict with Ladenscion approaches, believing that someone within the court may be a traitor. An attempt is made on UrLeyn's life by an assassin disguised as an ambassador, though DeWar anticipates the threat and kills the man before he can succeed. Nonetheless, this act only reinforces DeWar's fears of a traitor. A surprising, unwelcome turn comes when UrLeyn's young son, Lattens, has a seizure and subsequently falls ill. While the boy slowly recovers, DeWar tells him stories of a \"magical land\" called Lavishia, a place where \"every man was a king"
      },
      {
        "text": "Leyn's life by an assassin disguised as an ambassador, though DeWar anticipates the threat and kills the man before he can succeed. Nonetheless, this act only reinforces DeWar's fears of a traitor. A surprising, unwelcome turn comes when UrLeyn's young son, Lattens, has a seizure and subsequently falls ill. While the boy slowly recovers, DeWar tells him stories of a \"magical land\" called Lavishia, a place where \"every man was a king, every woman a queen\". Eventually the boy recovers, and UrLeyn and his bodyguard depart for the front lines, where the war with Ladenscion is flagging. However, no sooner they are there than word arrives that Lattens has fallen ill again, prompting a distraught UrLeyn to rush back to the castle. While DeWar is gone, Perrund tells Lattens a story about a girl named Dawn, who spent most of her life locked in a basement by her cruel family and was eventually rescued by a traveling circus. When he returns, Perrund tells DeWar about the story, then tells him it was a shadow of the real story: her story. Rather than her parents locking her in the basement to be cruel, they locked her in to hide her from Imperial soldiers\u2014high-ranking men of the former King's regime. Rather than being rescued, the soldiers found her, raped her, her mother and her sisters, and then forced her to watch as they murdered her father and brothers. The soldiers were eventually killed, but Perrund still feels she is now dead inside. DeWar attempts to in some way comfort her, but she quickly demands he return her to the harem. Lattens' condition continues to worsen, causing UrLeyn to act more and more erratically, spending less time focusing on the war and more time at his son's bedside. The Protector goes so far as to bar all visitors to his"
      },
      {
        "text": " to watch as they murdered her father and brothers. The soldiers were eventually killed, but Perrund still feels she is now dead inside. DeWar attempts to in some way comfort her, but she quickly demands he return her to the harem. Lattens' condition continues to worsen, causing UrLeyn to act more and more erratically, spending less time focusing on the war and more time at his son's bedside. The Protector goes so far as to bar all visitors to his chambers, and even prohibits DeWar from speaking to him unless he is spoken to. His only real contact is with Perrund, who spends most nights holding UrLeyn as he cries himself to sleep. DeWar enlists Perrund's help in focusing UrLeyn on the war, but to no success. An epiphany strikes DeWar when he finds he has drooled on his pillow in his sleep, and he proceeds to Lattens' room. A guard restrains the boy's nurse while DeWar examines his comforter, finding it has been soaked in an unknown fluid, presumably poison. Under threat of death the nurse reveals who has been orchestrating the poisoning: Perrund. DeWar storms into the harem chambers, intent on revealing the conspiracy to UrLeyn, but arrives too late; Perrund has already killed the Protector, and calmly waits for the bodyguard. Holding her at swordpoint, DeWar tearfully demands to know why she conspired against the Protector. Perrund replies that she did it for revenge, for killing her and her family. The soldiers who raped her were not the former King's men at all, not even men allied to UrLeyn, but the man himself, as well as his current, closest advisers. Afterward she was taken in by men from Haspidus, and recruited as a spy by King Quience directly. Saving UrLeyn from the assassin was simply to prevent him"
      },
      {
        "text": " she conspired against the Protector. Perrund replies that she did it for revenge, for killing her and her family. The soldiers who raped her were not the former King's men at all, not even men allied to UrLeyn, but the man himself, as well as his current, closest advisers. Afterward she was taken in by men from Haspidus, and recruited as a spy by King Quience directly. Saving UrLeyn from the assassin was simply to prevent him from dying while he was a strong leader; instead, her orders were to ensure he died in \"utter ruin\". After her confession, Perrund demands DeWar kill her. He silently refuses, lowering his sword. Perrund grabs his knife and brings it to her own throat, but it is quickly knocked away by DeWar's blade, which he lowers once more. Oelph gives a brief, personal epilogue for both stories. The three conspirators who attempted to kill Vosill died of various diseases, only Adlain lasting longer than a few years. King Quience reigned for 40 years before his death, and was succeeded by one of his many daughters, giving the kingdom its first ruling Queen. Vosill disappeared from the ship she departed on; her disappearance was only discovered after a sudden burst of wind and chain-fire struck the ship, then vanished as quickly. Attempts to notify Vosill's family in Drezen were unsuccessful: nobody in the island country could be found who had ever met her. Oelph himself became a doctor, eventually taking Vosill's post as the royal physician. Tassasen endured a civil war after the death of Protector UrLeyn; eventually King Lattens took control of the Empire, ruling it quietly. Oelph explains that he stopped DeWar's story as he did because that is where versions of the story differ dramatically. The more popular version has DeWar personally execute Perrund"
      },
      {
        "text": " island country could be found who had ever met her. Oelph himself became a doctor, eventually taking Vosill's post as the royal physician. Tassasen endured a civil war after the death of Protector UrLeyn; eventually King Lattens took control of the Empire, ruling it quietly. Oelph explains that he stopped DeWar's story as he did because that is where versions of the story differ dramatically. The more popular version has DeWar personally execute Perrund, followed by a return to the Half-Hidden Kingdoms where he reclaims his hidden title as Prince, and eventually King. A second version, supposedly written by Perrund herself, instead has DeWar telling the waiting guards and staff that UrLeyn is fine but sleeping, this and other distractions providing enough time for him and the former concubine to flee Tassasen before the Protector's body is discovered. The two elude capture and arrive in the Half-Hidden Kingdoms, eventually marry, have several children, and die many years later in an avalanche in the mountains. Finally, Oelph ends his epilogue by revealing that he expects his wife, whom he loves dearly, to return soon, quite possibly with his grandchildren accompanying her.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "An Inspector Calls",
    "author": "John Boynton Priestley",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " At dinner at the Birlings' home in 1912, Arthur Birling, a wealthy mill owner and local politician, and his family are celebrating the engagement of daughter Sheila to Gerald Croft, son of a competitor of Birling's. In attendance are Sybil Birling, Arthur's wife and Sheila and Eric's mother, and Eric Birling, Sheila's younger brother, who has a drinking problem that is discreetly ignored. After dinner, Arthur speaks about the importance of self-reliance. A man, he says, must \"make his own way\" and protect his own interests. Inspector Goole arrives and explains that a woman called Eva Smith killed herself by drinking strong disinfectant. He implies that she has left a diary naming names, including members of the Birling family. Goole produces a photograph of Eva and shows it to Arthur, who acknowledges that she worked in one of his mills. He admits that he dismissed her 18 months ago for her involvement in an abortive workers' strike. He denies responsibility for her death. Sheila enters the room and is drawn into the discussion. After prompting from Goole, she admits to recognizing Eva as well. She confesses that Eva served her in a department store and Sheila contrived to have her fired for an imagined slight. She admits that Eva's behaviour had been blameless and that the firing was motivated solely by Sheila's jealousy and spite towards a pretty working-class woman. Sybil enters the room and Goole continues his interrogation, revealing that Eva was also known as Daisy Renton. Gerald starts at the mention of the name and Sheila becomes suspicious. Gerald admits that he met a woman by that name in a theatre bar. He gave her money and arranged to see her again. Goole reveals that Gerald had installed Eva as his mistress, and gave her money and promises of continued support before ending the relationship. Arthur and Sybil are horrified. As an ashamed Gerald exits the room, Sheila acknowledges his nature and credits him for speaking truthfully but also signals that their engagement is over. Goole identifies Sybil as the head of a women's charity to which Eva/Daisy had turned for help. Despite Sybil's haughty responses, she eventually admits that Eva, pregnant and destitute, had asked the committee for financial aid. Sybil had convinced the committee that the girl was a liar and that her application should be denied. Despite vigorous cross-examination from Goole, Sybil denies any wrongdoing. Sheila begs her mother not to continue, but Goole plays his final card, making Sybil admit that the \"drunken young man\" should give a 'public confession, accepting all the blame'. Eric enters the room, and after brief questioning from Goole, he breaks down, admitting that he drunkenly forced Eva to have sex and stole \u00a350 from his father's business to pay her off when she became pregnant. Arthur and Sybil break down, and the family dissolves into screaming recriminations. Goole accuses them of contributing to Eva's death. He reminds the Birlings (and the audience) that actions have consequences. \"If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.\" Gerald returns, telling the family that there may be no 'Inspector Goole' on the police force. Arthur makes a call to the Chief Constable, who confirms this. Gerald points out that as Goole was lying about being a policeman, there may be no dead girl. Placing a second call to the local infirmary, Gerald determines that no recent cases of suicide have been reported. The elder Birlings and Gerald celebrate, with Arthur dismissing the evening's events as \"moonshine\" and \"bluffing\". The younger Birlings, however, realise the error of their ways and promise to change. Gerald is keen to resume his engagement to Sheila, but she is reluctant, since with or without a dead girl he still admitted to having had an affair. The play ends abruptly with a telephone call, taken by Arthur, who reports that the body of a young woman has been found, a suspected case of suicide by disinfectant, and that the local police are on their way to question the Birlings. The true identity of Goole is never explained, but it is clear that the family's confessions over the course of the evening are true, and that they will be disgraced publicly when news of their involvement in Eva's demise is revealed.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At dinner at the Birlings' home in 1912, Arthur Birling, a wealthy mill owner and local politician, and his family are celebrating the engagement of daughter Sheila to Gerald Croft, son of a competitor of Birling's. In attendance are Sybil Birling, Arthur's wife and Sheila and Eric's mother, and Eric Birling, Sheila's younger brother, who has a drinking problem that is discreetly ignored. After dinner, Arthur speaks about the importance of self-reliance. A man, he says, must \"make his own way\" and protect his own interests. Inspector Goole arrives and explains that a woman called Eva Smith killed herself by drinking strong disinfectant. He implies that she has left a diary naming names, including members of the Birling family. Goole produces a photograph of Eva and shows it to Arthur, who acknowledges that she worked in one of his mills. He admits that he dismissed her 18 months ago for her involvement in an abortive workers' strike. He denies responsibility for her death. Sheila enters the room and is drawn into the discussion. After prompting from Goole, she admits to recognizing Eva as well. She confesses that Eva served her in a department store and Sheila contrived to have her fired for an imagined slight. She admits that Eva's behaviour had been blameless and that the firing was motivated solely by Sheila's jealousy and spite towards a pretty working-class woman. Sybil enters the room and Goole continues his interrogation, revealing that Eva was also known as Daisy Renton. Gerald starts at the mention of the name and Sheila becomes suspicious. Gerald admits that he met a woman by that name in a theatre bar. He gave her money and arranged to see her again. Goole reveals that Gerald had installed Eva as his mistress, and gave her money and promises of continued support before ending the relationship. Arthur and Sybil are horrified. As an ashamed Gerald exits the room, Sheila acknowledges his nature and credits him"
      },
      {
        "text": " interrogation, revealing that Eva was also known as Daisy Renton. Gerald starts at the mention of the name and Sheila becomes suspicious. Gerald admits that he met a woman by that name in a theatre bar. He gave her money and arranged to see her again. Goole reveals that Gerald had installed Eva as his mistress, and gave her money and promises of continued support before ending the relationship. Arthur and Sybil are horrified. As an ashamed Gerald exits the room, Sheila acknowledges his nature and credits him for speaking truthfully but also signals that their engagement is over. Goole identifies Sybil as the head of a women's charity to which Eva/Daisy had turned for help. Despite Sybil's haughty responses, she eventually admits that Eva, pregnant and destitute, had asked the committee for financial aid. Sybil had convinced the committee that the girl was a liar and that her application should be denied. Despite vigorous cross-examination from Goole, Sybil denies any wrongdoing. Sheila begs her mother not to continue, but Goole plays his final card, making Sybil admit that the \"drunken young man\" should give a 'public confession, accepting all the blame'. Eric enters the room, and after brief questioning from Goole, he breaks down, admitting that he drunkenly forced Eva to have sex and stole \u00a350 from his father's business to pay her off when she became pregnant. Arthur and Sybil break down, and the family dissolves into screaming recriminations. Goole accuses them of contributing to Eva's death. He reminds the Birlings (and the audience) that actions have consequences. \"If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.\" Gerald returns, telling the family that there may be no 'Inspector Goole' on the police force. Arthur makes a call to the Chief Constable, who confirms this. Gerald points out that as Goole was lying about being"
      },
      {
        "text": " recriminations. Goole accuses them of contributing to Eva's death. He reminds the Birlings (and the audience) that actions have consequences. \"If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.\" Gerald returns, telling the family that there may be no 'Inspector Goole' on the police force. Arthur makes a call to the Chief Constable, who confirms this. Gerald points out that as Goole was lying about being a policeman, there may be no dead girl. Placing a second call to the local infirmary, Gerald determines that no recent cases of suicide have been reported. The elder Birlings and Gerald celebrate, with Arthur dismissing the evening's events as \"moonshine\" and \"bluffing\". The younger Birlings, however, realise the error of their ways and promise to change. Gerald is keen to resume his engagement to Sheila, but she is reluctant, since with or without a dead girl he still admitted to having had an affair. The play ends abruptly with a telephone call, taken by Arthur, who reports that the body of a young woman has been found, a suspected case of suicide by disinfectant, and that the local police are on their way to question the Birlings. The true identity of Goole is never explained, but it is clear that the family's confessions over the course of the evening are true, and that they will be disgraced publicly when news of their involvement in Eva's demise is revealed.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " when news of their involvement in Eva's demise is revealed.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ender's Game",
    "author": "Orson Scott Card",
    "published_date": "1985",
    "synopsis": " In the far future, humanity has discovered interstellar travel and faster-than-light communication enabled by ansibles. In exploring the galaxy, they encountered an alien race known as the Formics, derogatorily dubbed \"buggers\" due to their insect-like appearance. The Formics attacked the humans and the two races enter into a series of wars. Despite political conflict on Earth between three ruling parties, the Hegemon, Polemarch, and Strategos, a tentative agreement was reached to create the International Fleet (IF) to combat the Formics. In addition to a selective breeding program, the IF monitors the children of Earth via implanted devices to find the best and brightest to enter Command School and enlist in the fleet. Andrew \"Ender\" Wiggin is the youngest child in the Wiggin family, and part of an Earth program to produce brilliant officers; despite this, Ender is teased as a \"third\" under Earth's two-child policy. He has a close bond with his sister Valentine, but fears his brother Peter, a highly intelligent sociopath who delights in manipulating and tormenting him. After the IF removes Ender's monitoring device, possibly ending his chances of getting into Command School, he gets into a fight with a fellow student, Stilson. Though the smaller and weaker of the two, Ender manages to fatally wound Stilson (though Ender is unaware of this and believes he merely injured the other boy). When explaining his actions to IF Commander Hyrum Graff, Ender states his belief that, by showing superiority now, he will have prevented further fights in the future. Graff, on hearing of this, promptly offers Ender a place in the Battle School, situated in Earth's orbit. Ender accepts and is taken away from his parents, who have no say in the matter. Initially, Ender believes Graff is a potential friend and ally, unaware of the fact Graff believes Ender is Earth's last great hope in defending it from a Formic attack. In order to ensure Ender develops as a strong leader uninfluenced by his peers, Graff isolates him from the rest of the new cadets by acknowledging his intelligence and ridiculing his peers. Between being ostracized by his fellow cadets and having troubling dreams about Formics, Ender is soon ready to quit the school, but Graff encourages him through communications sent from Valentine. Among other training methods, the cadets participate in a competitive squad-based war simulation in zero gravity. Ender is quick to acclimate to the new environment and demonstrates tactics not previously seen by the students and supervisors. He is able to lead his squad to victory and other squads are quick to add Ender's tactics to their own. Ender is soon promoted to be leader of his own squad, formed from the most recent and youngest cadets at the school. Despite their inexperience as well as an increasing difficulty of the games, Ender devises new tactics and his squad soon excels and leads the competition. No longer an outsider, Ender becomes friends with several of his cadets, forming \"Ender's jeesh.\" A fellow squad leader, Bonzo de Madrid, furious at Ender's victories, attacks Ender with the intent to kill him. Ender manages to outmaneuver Bonzo in the fight, and fatally wounds him. Back on Earth, Peter has used a global communication system to post political essays under the pseudonym \"Locke\", hoping to establish himself as a respected orator (which he believes will shortly lead him to political power despite his youth). Valentine, while not trusting Peter, believes that his methods are sound for affecting world politics in a positive manner. She becomes complicit in Peter's actions by posting works alongside his as \"Demosthenes\". Their essays are soon taken seriously by people at the highest positions of power in the government. Though Graff discovers the true identities, he keeps this a secret to himself believing the knowledge might one day prove useful. Ender is soon promoted to Command School, skipping several years of schooling. There, he is put directly under watch of a former Formic war hero, Mazer Rackham. Alongside other rigorous training, Mazer tests Ender with a war simulator, pitting virtual IF fleets under Ender's control against Formic fleets controlled by Mazer. Ender adapts to the game and, as the simulations become harder, Ender is given sub-commanders, members of his jeesh, to work alongside him. Ender is brought to the simulator, with several IF commanders watching, and told by Mazer this is his final test. As the simulation starts, Ender finds his human fleet far-outnumbered by the Formic forces above a planet. Despite being told that it was against the rules, Ender sacrifices most of his fighters fleet to launch a Molecular Disruption Device at the planet, destroying the planet and the entire Formic fleet. Though Ender had anticipated that breaking the rules would mean he would be expelled from school, he discovers the IF commanders celebrating. Mazer returns, and informs Ender that this was not a simulation, but the actual IF contingent and the Formic main fleet at the Formic homeworld: Ender has just destroyed the Formic homeworld and committed xenocide of the Formics, ending the war. Ender enters into a deep depression on learning of this, as well as of the deaths of Stilson and Bonzo. When he recovers, he finds himself still in orbit with Valentine and learns that, on the end of the Formic war, Earth went to war with itself. Valentine apologizes that Ender can never return to Earth, as he would be too powerful a tool to be used by the various leaders, including Peter. Instead, Ender joins an Earth colony program to populate one of the former Formic colony worlds. There, as he scouts the planet, he finds an area shockingly similar to a simulated game from Battle School. Exploring the area leads him to discover the dormant egg of a Formic queen. The queen, through telepathy, explains that the Formics had initially assumed humans were a non-sentient race due to a lack of hive mind, but realized their mistake too late. They could not communicate with the humans as war broke out, but were able to touch Ender's mind, creating the dreams he felt and preparing this place for him. The queen requests that Ender take the egg to a new planet to allow the Formic race to grow again. Ender takes the egg and, with information from the Queen, writes The Hive Queen under the alias \"Speaker for the Dead\". Peter, now the Hegemon of Earth, recognizes Ender's hand behind the work and requests Ender to write a book about Peter, which Ender entitles Hegemon. The combined works create a new religion that Earth and many of Earth's colonies start to adopt it. In the end, Ender and Valentine board a starship and start visiting many worlds, looking for the right one for the unborn Queen.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the far future, humanity has discovered interstellar travel and faster-than-light communication enabled by ansibles. In exploring the galaxy, they encountered an alien race known as the Formics, derogatorily dubbed \"buggers\" due to their insect-like appearance. The Formics attacked the humans and the two races enter into a series of wars. Despite political conflict on Earth between three ruling parties, the Hegemon, Polemarch, and Strategos, a tentative agreement was reached to create the International Fleet (IF) to combat the Formics. In addition to a selective breeding program, the IF monitors the children of Earth via implanted devices to find the best and brightest to enter Command School and enlist in the fleet. Andrew \"Ender\" Wiggin is the youngest child in the Wiggin family, and part of an Earth program to produce brilliant officers; despite this, Ender is teased as a \"third\" under Earth's two-child policy. He has a close bond with his sister Valentine, but fears his brother Peter, a highly intelligent sociopath who delights in manipulating and tormenting him. After the IF removes Ender's monitoring device, possibly ending his chances of getting into Command School, he gets into a fight with a fellow student, Stilson. Though the smaller and weaker of the two, Ender manages to fatally wound Stilson (though Ender is unaware of this and believes he merely injured the other boy). When explaining his actions to IF Commander Hyrum Graff, Ender states his belief that, by showing superiority now, he will have prevented further fights in the future. Graff, on hearing of this, promptly offers Ender a place in the Battle School, situated in Earth's orbit. Ender accepts and is taken away from his parents, who have no say in the matter. Initially, Ender believes Graff is a potential friend and ally, unaware of the fact Graff believes Ender is Earth's last great hope in defending it from"
      },
      {
        "text": " Hyrum Graff, Ender states his belief that, by showing superiority now, he will have prevented further fights in the future. Graff, on hearing of this, promptly offers Ender a place in the Battle School, situated in Earth's orbit. Ender accepts and is taken away from his parents, who have no say in the matter. Initially, Ender believes Graff is a potential friend and ally, unaware of the fact Graff believes Ender is Earth's last great hope in defending it from a Formic attack. In order to ensure Ender develops as a strong leader uninfluenced by his peers, Graff isolates him from the rest of the new cadets by acknowledging his intelligence and ridiculing his peers. Between being ostracized by his fellow cadets and having troubling dreams about Formics, Ender is soon ready to quit the school, but Graff encourages him through communications sent from Valentine. Among other training methods, the cadets participate in a competitive squad-based war simulation in zero gravity. Ender is quick to acclimate to the new environment and demonstrates tactics not previously seen by the students and supervisors. He is able to lead his squad to victory and other squads are quick to add Ender's tactics to their own. Ender is soon promoted to be leader of his own squad, formed from the most recent and youngest cadets at the school. Despite their inexperience as well as an increasing difficulty of the games, Ender devises new tactics and his squad soon excels and leads the competition. No longer an outsider, Ender becomes friends with several of his cadets, forming \"Ender's jeesh.\" A fellow squad leader, Bonzo de Madrid, furious at Ender's victories, attacks Ender with the intent to kill him. Ender manages to outmaneuver Bonzo in the fight, and fatally wounds him. Back on Earth, Peter has used a global communication system to post political essays under the pseudonym \"Locke\", hoping to establish himself as"
      },
      {
        "text": "s and leads the competition. No longer an outsider, Ender becomes friends with several of his cadets, forming \"Ender's jeesh.\" A fellow squad leader, Bonzo de Madrid, furious at Ender's victories, attacks Ender with the intent to kill him. Ender manages to outmaneuver Bonzo in the fight, and fatally wounds him. Back on Earth, Peter has used a global communication system to post political essays under the pseudonym \"Locke\", hoping to establish himself as a respected orator (which he believes will shortly lead him to political power despite his youth). Valentine, while not trusting Peter, believes that his methods are sound for affecting world politics in a positive manner. She becomes complicit in Peter's actions by posting works alongside his as \"Demosthenes\". Their essays are soon taken seriously by people at the highest positions of power in the government. Though Graff discovers the true identities, he keeps this a secret to himself believing the knowledge might one day prove useful. Ender is soon promoted to Command School, skipping several years of schooling. There, he is put directly under watch of a former Formic war hero, Mazer Rackham. Alongside other rigorous training, Mazer tests Ender with a war simulator, pitting virtual IF fleets under Ender's control against Formic fleets controlled by Mazer. Ender adapts to the game and, as the simulations become harder, Ender is given sub-commanders, members of his jeesh, to work alongside him. Ender is brought to the simulator, with several IF commanders watching, and told by Mazer this is his final test. As the simulation starts, Ender finds his human fleet far-outnumbered by the Formic forces above a planet. Despite being told that it was against the rules, Ender sacrifices most of his fighters fleet to launch a Molecular Disruption Device at the planet, destroying the planet and the entire Formic fleet. Though Ender had anticipated that breaking the rules would mean he"
      },
      {
        "text": " work alongside him. Ender is brought to the simulator, with several IF commanders watching, and told by Mazer this is his final test. As the simulation starts, Ender finds his human fleet far-outnumbered by the Formic forces above a planet. Despite being told that it was against the rules, Ender sacrifices most of his fighters fleet to launch a Molecular Disruption Device at the planet, destroying the planet and the entire Formic fleet. Though Ender had anticipated that breaking the rules would mean he would be expelled from school, he discovers the IF commanders celebrating. Mazer returns, and informs Ender that this was not a simulation, but the actual IF contingent and the Formic main fleet at the Formic homeworld: Ender has just destroyed the Formic homeworld and committed xenocide of the Formics, ending the war. Ender enters into a deep depression on learning of this, as well as of the deaths of Stilson and Bonzo. When he recovers, he finds himself still in orbit with Valentine and learns that, on the end of the Formic war, Earth went to war with itself. Valentine apologizes that Ender can never return to Earth, as he would be too powerful a tool to be used by the various leaders, including Peter. Instead, Ender joins an Earth colony program to populate one of the former Formic colony worlds. There, as he scouts the planet, he finds an area shockingly similar to a simulated game from Battle School. Exploring the area leads him to discover the dormant egg of a Formic queen. The queen, through telepathy, explains that the Formics had initially assumed humans were a non-sentient race due to a lack of hive mind, but realized their mistake too late. They could not communicate with the humans as war broke out, but were able to touch Ender's mind, creating the dreams he felt and preparing this place for him. The queen requests that Ender take the egg to a new planet to allow the Formic"
      },
      {
        "text": " him to discover the dormant egg of a Formic queen. The queen, through telepathy, explains that the Formics had initially assumed humans were a non-sentient race due to a lack of hive mind, but realized their mistake too late. They could not communicate with the humans as war broke out, but were able to touch Ender's mind, creating the dreams he felt and preparing this place for him. The queen requests that Ender take the egg to a new planet to allow the Formic race to grow again. Ender takes the egg and, with information from the Queen, writes The Hive Queen under the alias \"Speaker for the Dead\". Peter, now the Hegemon of Earth, recognizes Ender's hand behind the work and requests Ender to write a book about Peter, which Ender entitles Hegemon. The combined works create a new religion that Earth and many of Earth's colonies start to adopt it. In the end, Ender and Valentine board a starship and start visiting many worlds, looking for the right one for the unborn Queen.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Titus Andronicus",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play begins shortly after the death of the Roman Emperor, with his two sons, Saturninus and Bassianus, squabbling over who will succeed him. Their conflict seems set to boil over into violence until a tribune, Marcus Andronicus, announces that the people's choice for the new emperor is his brother, Titus, who will shortly return to Rome from a victorious ten-year campaign against the Goths. Titus subsequently arrives to much fanfare, bearing with him as prisoners the Queen of the Goths (Tamora), her three sons, and Aaron the Moor (her secret lover). Despite the desperate pleas of Tamora, Titus sacrifices her eldest son, Alarbus, in order to avenge the deaths of his own sons during the war. Distraught, Tamora and her two surviving sons, Demetrius and Chiron, vow revenge on Titus and his family. Meanwhile, Titus refuses the offer of the throne, arguing that he is not fit to rule, and instead supporting Saturninus' claim, who is duly elected. Saturninus tells Titus that for his first act as Emperor, he will marry Titus's daughter Lavinia. Titus agrees, although Lavinia is already betrothed to Bassianus, who refuses to give her up. Titus's sons tell Titus that Bassianus is in the right under Roman law, but Titus refuses to listen, accusing them all of treason. A scuffle breaks out, during which Titus kills his own son, Mutius. Saturninus then denounces the Andronicus family for their effrontery and shocks Titus by marrying Tamora. However, putting into motion her plan for revenge, Tamora advises Saturninus to pardon Bassianus and the Andronicus family, which he reluctantly does. During a royal hunt the following day, Aaron persuades Demetrius and Chiron to kill Bassianus, so they may rape Lavinia. They do so, throwing Bassianus' body into a pit, and dragging Lavinia deep into the forest before violently raping her. To keep her from revealing what has happened, they cut out her tongue and cut off her hands. Meanwhile, Aaron frames Titus's sons Martius and Quintus for the murder of Bassianus with a forged letter. Horrified at the death of his brother, Saturninus arrests Martius and Quintus and sentences them to death. Some time later, Marcus discovers the mutilated Lavinia and takes her to her father, who is still shocked at the accusations levelled at his sons, and upon seeing Lavinia, is overcome with grief. Aaron then visits Titus, falsely telling him that Saturninus will spare Martius and Quintus if either Titus, Marcus or, Titus's remaining son, Lucius, cuts off one of their hands and sends it to him. Titus has Aaron cut off his hand and send it to the emperor, but in return, a messenger brings Titus Martius and Quintus' severed heads, along with Titus's severed left hand. Desperate for revenge, Titus orders Lucius to flee Rome and raise an army among their former enemy, the Goths. Later, Lavinia 'writes' the names of her attackers in the dirt, using a stick held with her mouth and between her stumps. Meanwhile, Tamora secretly gives birth to a mixed-race child, fathered by Aaron. Aaron kills the midwife and nurse and flees with the baby to save it from Saturninus' inevitable wrath. Thereafter, Lucius, marching on Rome with an army, captures Aaron and threatens to hang the infant. To save the baby, Aaron reveals the entire revenge plot to Lucius. Back in Rome, Titus's behaviour suggests he may have gone insane. Convinced of his madness, Tamora, Chiron and Demetrius approach him, dressed as the spirits of Revenge, Murder, and Rape. Tamora (as Revenge) tells Titus that she will grant him revenge on all of his enemies if he can convince Lucius to postpone the imminent attack on Rome. Titus agrees and sends Marcus to invite Lucius to a reconciliatory feast. Revenge then offers to invite the Emperor and Tamora as well, and is about to leave when Titus insists that Rape and Murder (Chiron and Demetrius) stay with him. When Tamora is gone, Titus cuts their throats and drains their blood into a basin held by Lavinia. Titus morbidly tells Lavinia that he plans to \"play the cook\" and grind the bones of Demetrius and Chiron into powder and bake their heads. The next day, during the feast at his house, Titus asks Saturninus if a father should kill his daughter when she has been raped. When Saturninus answers that he should, Titus kills Lavinia, telling Saturninus of the rape. When the Emperor calls for Chiron and Demetrius, Titus reveals that they have been baked in the pie Tamora has just been eating. Titus then kills Tamora, and is immediately killed by Saturninus, who is subsequently killed by Lucius to avenge his father's death. Lucius is then proclaimed Emperor. He orders that Saturninus be given a state burial, that Tamora's body be thrown to the wild beasts outside the city, and that Aaron be buried chest-deep and left to die of thirst and starvation. Aaron, however, is unrepentant to the end, regretting only that he had not done more evil in his life.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play begins shortly after the death of the Roman Emperor, with his two sons, Saturninus and Bassianus, squabbling over who will succeed him. Their conflict seems set to boil over into violence until a tribune, Marcus Andronicus, announces that the people's choice for the new emperor is his brother, Titus, who will shortly return to Rome from a victorious ten-year campaign against the Goths. Titus subsequently arrives to much fanfare, bearing with him as prisoners the Queen of the Goths (Tamora), her three sons, and Aaron the Moor (her secret lover). Despite the desperate pleas of Tamora, Titus sacrifices her eldest son, Alarbus, in order to avenge the deaths of his own sons during the war. Distraught, Tamora and her two surviving sons, Demetrius and Chiron, vow revenge on Titus and his family. Meanwhile, Titus refuses the offer of the throne, arguing that he is not fit to rule, and instead supporting Saturninus' claim, who is duly elected. Saturninus tells Titus that for his first act as Emperor, he will marry Titus's daughter Lavinia. Titus agrees, although Lavinia is already betrothed to Bassianus, who refuses to give her up. Titus's sons tell Titus that Bassianus is in the right under Roman law, but Titus refuses to listen, accusing them all of treason. A scuffle breaks out, during which Titus kills his own son, Mutius. Saturninus then denounces the Andronicus family for their effrontery and shocks Titus by marrying Tamora. However, putting into motion her plan for revenge, Tamora advises Saturninus to pardon Bassianus and the Andronicus family, which he reluctantly does. During a royal hunt the following day, Aaron persuades Demetrius and Chiron to kill Bassianus, so they may rape Lavinia. They do so, throwing Bassianus' body"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Mutius. Saturninus then denounces the Andronicus family for their effrontery and shocks Titus by marrying Tamora. However, putting into motion her plan for revenge, Tamora advises Saturninus to pardon Bassianus and the Andronicus family, which he reluctantly does. During a royal hunt the following day, Aaron persuades Demetrius and Chiron to kill Bassianus, so they may rape Lavinia. They do so, throwing Bassianus' body into a pit, and dragging Lavinia deep into the forest before violently raping her. To keep her from revealing what has happened, they cut out her tongue and cut off her hands. Meanwhile, Aaron frames Titus's sons Martius and Quintus for the murder of Bassianus with a forged letter. Horrified at the death of his brother, Saturninus arrests Martius and Quintus and sentences them to death. Some time later, Marcus discovers the mutilated Lavinia and takes her to her father, who is still shocked at the accusations levelled at his sons, and upon seeing Lavinia, is overcome with grief. Aaron then visits Titus, falsely telling him that Saturninus will spare Martius and Quintus if either Titus, Marcus or, Titus's remaining son, Lucius, cuts off one of their hands and sends it to him. Titus has Aaron cut off his hand and send it to the emperor, but in return, a messenger brings Titus Martius and Quintus' severed heads, along with Titus's severed left hand. Desperate for revenge, Titus orders Lucius to flee Rome and raise an army among their former enemy, the Goths. Later, Lavinia 'writes' the names of her attackers in the dirt, using a stick held with her mouth and between her stumps. Meanwhile, Tamora secretly gives birth to a mixed-race child, fathered by Aaron. Aaron kills the midwife and nurse and flees with the baby to"
      },
      {
        "text": "' severed heads, along with Titus's severed left hand. Desperate for revenge, Titus orders Lucius to flee Rome and raise an army among their former enemy, the Goths. Later, Lavinia 'writes' the names of her attackers in the dirt, using a stick held with her mouth and between her stumps. Meanwhile, Tamora secretly gives birth to a mixed-race child, fathered by Aaron. Aaron kills the midwife and nurse and flees with the baby to save it from Saturninus' inevitable wrath. Thereafter, Lucius, marching on Rome with an army, captures Aaron and threatens to hang the infant. To save the baby, Aaron reveals the entire revenge plot to Lucius. Back in Rome, Titus's behaviour suggests he may have gone insane. Convinced of his madness, Tamora, Chiron and Demetrius approach him, dressed as the spirits of Revenge, Murder, and Rape. Tamora (as Revenge) tells Titus that she will grant him revenge on all of his enemies if he can convince Lucius to postpone the imminent attack on Rome. Titus agrees and sends Marcus to invite Lucius to a reconciliatory feast. Revenge then offers to invite the Emperor and Tamora as well, and is about to leave when Titus insists that Rape and Murder (Chiron and Demetrius) stay with him. When Tamora is gone, Titus cuts their throats and drains their blood into a basin held by Lavinia. Titus morbidly tells Lavinia that he plans to \"play the cook\" and grind the bones of Demetrius and Chiron into powder and bake their heads. The next day, during the feast at his house, Titus asks Saturninus if a father should kill his daughter when she has been raped. When Saturninus answers that he should, Titus kills Lavinia, telling Saturninus of the rape. When the Emperor calls for Chiron and Demetrius, Titus reveals that they have been baked in the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Lavinia that he plans to \"play the cook\" and grind the bones of Demetrius and Chiron into powder and bake their heads. The next day, during the feast at his house, Titus asks Saturninus if a father should kill his daughter when she has been raped. When Saturninus answers that he should, Titus kills Lavinia, telling Saturninus of the rape. When the Emperor calls for Chiron and Demetrius, Titus reveals that they have been baked in the pie Tamora has just been eating. Titus then kills Tamora, and is immediately killed by Saturninus, who is subsequently killed by Lucius to avenge his father's death. Lucius is then proclaimed Emperor. He orders that Saturninus be given a state burial, that Tamora's body be thrown to the wild beasts outside the city, and that Aaron be buried chest-deep and left to die of thirst and starvation. Aaron, however, is unrepentant to the end, regretting only that he had not done more evil in his life.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Measure for Measure",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "1861",
    "synopsis": " Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna, makes it known that he intends to leave the city on a diplomatic mission. He leaves the government in the hands of a strict judge, Angelo. Claudio, a young nobleman, is betrothed/unofficially married to Juliet. At the time, marriages were supposed to be announced by banns in advance. Due to lack of money, Claudio and Juliet did not observe all the technicalities. This did not make them unique however; at the time most people (including the Church) would have considered them married. Technically, however, all the formalities for a civil marriage had not been followed and so a strict judge might rule that they were not legally married. Angelo, as the personification of the law, decides to enforce the ruling that fornication is punishable by death, and since he does not accept the validity of the marriage, Claudio is sentenced to be executed. Claudio's friend, Lucio, visits Claudio's sister, Isabella, a novice nun, and asks her to intercede with Angelo on Claudio's behalf. Isabella obtains an audience with Angelo, and pleads for mercy for Claudio. Over the course of two scenes between Angelo and Isabella, it becomes clear that he harbours lustful thoughts about her, and he eventually offers her a deal: Angelo will spare Claudio's life if Isabella yields him her virginity. Isabella refuses, but she also realises that (due to Angelo's austere reputation) she will not be believed if she makes a public accusation against him. Instead she visits her brother in prison and counsels him to prepare himself for death. Claudio vehemently begs Isabella to save his life, but Isabella refuses. As a novice nun, she feels that she cannot sacrifice her own immortal soul (and that of Claudio's, if he causes her to lose her virtue) to save Claudio's transient earthly life. The Duke has not in fact left the city, but remains there disguised as a friar (Lodowick) in order to spy on the city's affairs, and especially on the actions of Angelo. In his guise as a friar he befriends Isabella and arranges two tricks to thwart Angelo's evil intentions: #First, a \"bed trick\" is arranged. Angelo has previously refused to fulfill the betrothal binding him to Mariana, because her dowry had been lost at sea. Isabella sends word to Angelo that she has decided to submit to him, making it a condition of their meeting that it occurs in perfect darkness and in silence. Mariana agrees to take Isabella's place, and she has sex with Angelo, although he continues to believe he has enjoyed Isabella. (In some interpretations of the law, this constitutes consummation of their betrothal, and therefore their marriage. This is the same interpretation that assumes that Claudio and Juliet are legally married.) #After having sex with Mariana (who he thinks is Isabella), Angelo goes back on his word, sending a message to the prison that he wishes to see Claudio's head, and necessitating the \"head trick.\" The Duke first attempts to arrange the execution of another prisoner whose head can be sent instead of Claudio's. However, the villain Barnardine refuses to be executed in his drunken state. As luck would have it, a pirate named Ragozine, of similar appearance to Claudio, has recently died of a fever, so his head is sent to Angelo instead. This main plot concludes with the 'return' to Vienna of the Duke as himself. Isabella and Mariana publicly petition him, and he hears their claims against Angelo, which Angelo smoothly denies. As the scene develops, it appears that Friar Lodowick will be blamed for the 'false' accusations levelled against Angelo. The Duke leaves Angelo to judge the cause against Lodowick, but returns in disguise moments later when Lodowick is summoned. Eventually the friar reveals himself to be the Duke, thereby exposing Angelo as a liar and Isabella and Mariana as truthful. He proposes that Angelo be executed but first compels him to marry Mariana\u2014 with his estate going to Mariana as her new dowry, \"to buy you a better husband\". Mariana pleads for Angelo's life, even enlisting the aid of Isabella (who is not yet aware her brother Claudio is still living). The Duke pretends not to heed the women's petition, and only after revealing that Claudio has not, in fact, been executed, relents. The Duke then proposes marriage to Isabella. Isabella does not reply, and her reaction is interpreted differently in different productions: her silent acceptance of his proposal is the most common in performance. This is one of the \"open silences\" of the play. A sub-plot concerns Claudio's friend Lucio, who frequently slanders the duke to the friar, and in the last act slanders the friar to the duke, providing opportunities for comic consternation on Vincentio's part and landing Lucio in trouble when it is revealed that the duke and the friar are one and the same. His punishment, like Angelo's, is to be forced into an undesired marriage: in this case with the prostitute Kate Keepdown.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna, makes it known that he intends to leave the city on a diplomatic mission. He leaves the government in the hands of a strict judge, Angelo. Claudio, a young nobleman, is betrothed/unofficially married to Juliet. At the time, marriages were supposed to be announced by banns in advance. Due to lack of money, Claudio and Juliet did not observe all the technicalities. This did not make them unique however; at the time most people (including the Church) would have considered them married. Technically, however, all the formalities for a civil marriage had not been followed and so a strict judge might rule that they were not legally married. Angelo, as the personification of the law, decides to enforce the ruling that fornication is punishable by death, and since he does not accept the validity of the marriage, Claudio is sentenced to be executed. Claudio's friend, Lucio, visits Claudio's sister, Isabella, a novice nun, and asks her to intercede with Angelo on Claudio's behalf. Isabella obtains an audience with Angelo, and pleads for mercy for Claudio. Over the course of two scenes between Angelo and Isabella, it becomes clear that he harbours lustful thoughts about her, and he eventually offers her a deal: Angelo will spare Claudio's life if Isabella yields him her virginity. Isabella refuses, but she also realises that (due to Angelo's austere reputation) she will not be believed if she makes a public accusation against him. Instead she visits her brother in prison and counsels him to prepare himself for death. Claudio vehemently begs Isabella to save his life, but Isabella refuses. As a novice nun, she feels that she cannot sacrifice her own immortal soul (and that of Claudio's, if he causes her to lose her virtue) to save Claudio's transient earthly life."
      },
      {
        "text": " realises that (due to Angelo's austere reputation) she will not be believed if she makes a public accusation against him. Instead she visits her brother in prison and counsels him to prepare himself for death. Claudio vehemently begs Isabella to save his life, but Isabella refuses. As a novice nun, she feels that she cannot sacrifice her own immortal soul (and that of Claudio's, if he causes her to lose her virtue) to save Claudio's transient earthly life. The Duke has not in fact left the city, but remains there disguised as a friar (Lodowick) in order to spy on the city's affairs, and especially on the actions of Angelo. In his guise as a friar he befriends Isabella and arranges two tricks to thwart Angelo's evil intentions: #First, a \"bed trick\" is arranged. Angelo has previously refused to fulfill the betrothal binding him to Mariana, because her dowry had been lost at sea. Isabella sends word to Angelo that she has decided to submit to him, making it a condition of their meeting that it occurs in perfect darkness and in silence. Mariana agrees to take Isabella's place, and she has sex with Angelo, although he continues to believe he has enjoyed Isabella. (In some interpretations of the law, this constitutes consummation of their betrothal, and therefore their marriage. This is the same interpretation that assumes that Claudio and Juliet are legally married.) #After having sex with Mariana (who he thinks is Isabella), Angelo goes back on his word, sending a message to the prison that he wishes to see Claudio's head, and necessitating the \"head trick.\" The Duke first attempts to arrange the execution of another prisoner whose head can be sent instead of Claudio's. However, the villain Barnardine refuses to be executed in his drunken state. As luck would have it, a pirate named Ragozine"
      },
      {
        "text": " legally married.) #After having sex with Mariana (who he thinks is Isabella), Angelo goes back on his word, sending a message to the prison that he wishes to see Claudio's head, and necessitating the \"head trick.\" The Duke first attempts to arrange the execution of another prisoner whose head can be sent instead of Claudio's. However, the villain Barnardine refuses to be executed in his drunken state. As luck would have it, a pirate named Ragozine, of similar appearance to Claudio, has recently died of a fever, so his head is sent to Angelo instead. This main plot concludes with the 'return' to Vienna of the Duke as himself. Isabella and Mariana publicly petition him, and he hears their claims against Angelo, which Angelo smoothly denies. As the scene develops, it appears that Friar Lodowick will be blamed for the 'false' accusations levelled against Angelo. The Duke leaves Angelo to judge the cause against Lodowick, but returns in disguise moments later when Lodowick is summoned. Eventually the friar reveals himself to be the Duke, thereby exposing Angelo as a liar and Isabella and Mariana as truthful. He proposes that Angelo be executed but first compels him to marry Mariana\u2014 with his estate going to Mariana as her new dowry, \"to buy you a better husband\". Mariana pleads for Angelo's life, even enlisting the aid of Isabella (who is not yet aware her brother Claudio is still living). The Duke pretends not to heed the women's petition, and only after revealing that Claudio has not, in fact, been executed, relents. The Duke then proposes marriage to Isabella. Isabella does not reply, and her reaction is interpreted differently in different productions: her silent acceptance of his proposal is the most common in performance. This is one of the \"open silences\" of the play. A sub-plot concerns Claudio"
      },
      {
        "text": " yet aware her brother Claudio is still living). The Duke pretends not to heed the women's petition, and only after revealing that Claudio has not, in fact, been executed, relents. The Duke then proposes marriage to Isabella. Isabella does not reply, and her reaction is interpreted differently in different productions: her silent acceptance of his proposal is the most common in performance. This is one of the \"open silences\" of the play. A sub-plot concerns Claudio's friend Lucio, who frequently slanders the duke to the friar, and in the last act slanders the friar to the duke, providing opportunities for comic consternation on Vincentio's part and landing Lucio in trouble when it is revealed that the duke and the friar are one and the same. His punishment, like Angelo's, is to be forced into an undesired marriage: in this case with the prostitute Kate Keepdown.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said",
    "author": "Philip K. Dick",
    "published_date": "1974",
    "synopsis": " The novel is set in a dystopian future United States following a Second Civil War which led to the collapse of the nation's democratic institutions. The National Guard (\"nats\") and US police force (\"pols\") reestablished social order through instituting a dictatorship, with a \"Director\" at the apex, and police marshals and generals as operational commanders in the field. Resistance to the regime is largely confined to university campuses, where radicalized former university students eke out a desperate existence in subterranean kibbutzim. Recreational drug use is widespread, and the age of consent has been lowered to twelve. Most commuting is undertaken by personal aircraft, allowing great distances to be covered in little time. The novel begins with the protagonist, Jason Taverner, a singer, hosting his weekly TV show which has an audience of 30 million viewers. His special guest is his girlfriend Heather Hart, also a singer. Both Hart and Taverner are \"Sixes\", members of an elite class of genetically engineered humans. While leaving the studio, Taverner is telephoned by a former lover, who asks him to pay her a visit. When Taverner arrives at her apartment, the former lover attacks him by throwing a parasitic life-form at him. Although he manages to remove most of the life-form, parts of it are left inside him. After being rescued by Hart, he is taken to a medical facility. Waking up the following day in a seedy hotel with no identification, Taverner becomes worried, as failure to produce identification at one of the numerous police checkpoints would lead to imprisonment in a forced labor camp. Through a succession of phone calls made from the hotel to colleagues and friends who now claim not to know him, Taverner establishes that he is no longer recognized by the outside world. He soon manages to bribe the hotel's clerk into taking him to Kathy Nelson, a forger of government documents. However, Kathy reveals that both she and the clerk are police informants, and that the lobby clerk has placed a microscopic tracking device on him. She promises not to turn Taverner over to the police on the condition that he spend the night with her. Although he attempts to escape, Kathy confronts him again after he has successfully passed a police checkpoint using the forged identity cards. Feeling in her debt, he accompanies Kathy to her apartment block, where Inspector McNulty, Kathy's police handler, is waiting. McNulty has located Taverner via the tracking device the hotel lobby clerk placed on him, and instructs Taverner to come with him to the 469th Precinct police station so that further biometric identity checks can be performed. At the station, McNulty erroneously reports the man's name as Jason Tavern, revealing the identity of a Wyoming diesel engine mechanic. During questioning, Taverner goes along with McNulty's mistake, explaining that he no longer resembles Tavern due to extensive plastic surgery. McNulty accepts this explanation and decides to release Taverner whilst lab checks are run on the rest of the documents. He issues Taverner a seven-day police pass to ensure he can pass police checkpoints in the interim period. Deciding to lay low, Taverner heads to a Las Vegas bar in the hopes of meeting a woman with whom he can stay. Instead, he encounters a former lover, Ruth Gomen; although she no longer recognizes him, he succeeds in his bid to seduce her and is taken back to her apartment. On the orders of Police General Felix Buckman, Gomen's apartment is raided and Taverner is taken into custody, being transported immediately to the Police Academy in Los Angeles. Buckman personally interrogates Taverner, soon reaching the conclusion that Taverner genuinely does not know why he no longer appears to exist. However, he suspects that Taverner may be part of a larger plot involving the Sixes. He orders Taverner released, although ensuring that tracking devices are again placed on him. Outside the police academy, Taverner is approached by Alys Buckman, Felix's hypersexual sister and lover. Alys removes the tracking devices from Taverner and invites him to the home she shares with her brother. On the way there, she tells Taverner that she knows he is a TV star and reveals copies of his records. At the Buckmans' home, Taverner takes Alys up on an offer of mescaline. When he has a bad reaction to the drug, Alys goes to find him a medicine to counteract it. When she does not return, Taverner goes to search for her, only to find her skeletal remains on the bathroom floor. Frightened and confused, he flees, unsuccessfully pursued by a private security guard. To aid in his escape, he asks for the help of Mary Anne Dominic, a potter. Heading to a cafe with her, they find that several of his records are on the jukebox. When his song plays, people begin to recognize him as a celebrity. After parting with Dominic, Taverner goes to the apartment of his celebrity girlfriend Heather Hart. She returns home, horrified, and shows Taverner a newspaper mentioning that he is wanted in connection with Alys Buckman's death, the motive believed to have been his jealousy over Alys' purported relationship with Hart. An autopsy reveals that Alys' death was caused by an experimental reality-warping drug called KR-3. The coroner explains to Felix that, as Alys was a fan of Taverner, her use of the drug caused Taverner to be transported to a parallel universe where he no longer existed. Her death then caused his reversion back to his own universe. The Police General decides to implicate Taverner in Alys' death to distract attention from his incest. The press are informed that Taverner is a suspect in the case and, wishing to clear his name, Taverner surrenders himself to the police. Heartbroken over the death of his sister, Felix returns home, suffering a nervous breakdown on the way. In an epilogue, the final fates of the main characters are disclosed. Buckman retires to Borneo where he is assassinated soon after writing an expos\u00e9 of the global police apparatus. Taverner is cleared of all charges and dies of old age, while Heather Hart abandons her celebrity career and becomes a recluse. Dominic's pottery wins an international award and her works become of great value while she lives into her eighties. KR-3 test trials are deemed too destructive and the project is abandoned. Ultimately, the revolutionary students give up and voluntarily enter forced-labor camps. The detention camps later dwindle away and close down, the government no longer posing a threat.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is set in a dystopian future United States following a Second Civil War which led to the collapse of the nation's democratic institutions. The National Guard (\"nats\") and US police force (\"pols\") reestablished social order through instituting a dictatorship, with a \"Director\" at the apex, and police marshals and generals as operational commanders in the field. Resistance to the regime is largely confined to university campuses, where radicalized former university students eke out a desperate existence in subterranean kibbutzim. Recreational drug use is widespread, and the age of consent has been lowered to twelve. Most commuting is undertaken by personal aircraft, allowing great distances to be covered in little time. The novel begins with the protagonist, Jason Taverner, a singer, hosting his weekly TV show which has an audience of 30 million viewers. His special guest is his girlfriend Heather Hart, also a singer. Both Hart and Taverner are \"Sixes\", members of an elite class of genetically engineered humans. While leaving the studio, Taverner is telephoned by a former lover, who asks him to pay her a visit. When Taverner arrives at her apartment, the former lover attacks him by throwing a parasitic life-form at him. Although he manages to remove most of the life-form, parts of it are left inside him. After being rescued by Hart, he is taken to a medical facility. Waking up the following day in a seedy hotel with no identification, Taverner becomes worried, as failure to produce identification at one of the numerous police checkpoints would lead to imprisonment in a forced labor camp. Through a succession of phone calls made from the hotel to colleagues and friends who now claim not to know him, Taverner establishes that he is no longer recognized by the outside world. He soon manages to bribe the hotel's clerk into taking him to Kathy Nelson, a forger of government documents. However, Kathy reveals that both she and the clerk are police informants,"
      },
      {
        "text": " Taverner becomes worried, as failure to produce identification at one of the numerous police checkpoints would lead to imprisonment in a forced labor camp. Through a succession of phone calls made from the hotel to colleagues and friends who now claim not to know him, Taverner establishes that he is no longer recognized by the outside world. He soon manages to bribe the hotel's clerk into taking him to Kathy Nelson, a forger of government documents. However, Kathy reveals that both she and the clerk are police informants, and that the lobby clerk has placed a microscopic tracking device on him. She promises not to turn Taverner over to the police on the condition that he spend the night with her. Although he attempts to escape, Kathy confronts him again after he has successfully passed a police checkpoint using the forged identity cards. Feeling in her debt, he accompanies Kathy to her apartment block, where Inspector McNulty, Kathy's police handler, is waiting. McNulty has located Taverner via the tracking device the hotel lobby clerk placed on him, and instructs Taverner to come with him to the 469th Precinct police station so that further biometric identity checks can be performed. At the station, McNulty erroneously reports the man's name as Jason Tavern, revealing the identity of a Wyoming diesel engine mechanic. During questioning, Taverner goes along with McNulty's mistake, explaining that he no longer resembles Tavern due to extensive plastic surgery. McNulty accepts this explanation and decides to release Taverner whilst lab checks are run on the rest of the documents. He issues Taverner a seven-day police pass to ensure he can pass police checkpoints in the interim period. Deciding to lay low, Taverner heads to a Las Vegas bar in the hopes of meeting a woman with whom he can stay. Instead, he encounters a former lover, Ruth Gomen; although she no longer recognizes him, he succeeds in his bid to seduce her and is taken back to her apartment. On the orders of Police General"
      },
      {
        "text": " are run on the rest of the documents. He issues Taverner a seven-day police pass to ensure he can pass police checkpoints in the interim period. Deciding to lay low, Taverner heads to a Las Vegas bar in the hopes of meeting a woman with whom he can stay. Instead, he encounters a former lover, Ruth Gomen; although she no longer recognizes him, he succeeds in his bid to seduce her and is taken back to her apartment. On the orders of Police General Felix Buckman, Gomen's apartment is raided and Taverner is taken into custody, being transported immediately to the Police Academy in Los Angeles. Buckman personally interrogates Taverner, soon reaching the conclusion that Taverner genuinely does not know why he no longer appears to exist. However, he suspects that Taverner may be part of a larger plot involving the Sixes. He orders Taverner released, although ensuring that tracking devices are again placed on him. Outside the police academy, Taverner is approached by Alys Buckman, Felix's hypersexual sister and lover. Alys removes the tracking devices from Taverner and invites him to the home she shares with her brother. On the way there, she tells Taverner that she knows he is a TV star and reveals copies of his records. At the Buckmans' home, Taverner takes Alys up on an offer of mescaline. When he has a bad reaction to the drug, Alys goes to find him a medicine to counteract it. When she does not return, Taverner goes to search for her, only to find her skeletal remains on the bathroom floor. Frightened and confused, he flees, unsuccessfully pursued by a private security guard. To aid in his escape, he asks for the help of Mary Anne Dominic, a potter. Heading to a cafe with her, they find that several of his records are on the jukebox. When his song plays, people begin to recognize him as a"
      },
      {
        "text": " counteract it. When she does not return, Taverner goes to search for her, only to find her skeletal remains on the bathroom floor. Frightened and confused, he flees, unsuccessfully pursued by a private security guard. To aid in his escape, he asks for the help of Mary Anne Dominic, a potter. Heading to a cafe with her, they find that several of his records are on the jukebox. When his song plays, people begin to recognize him as a celebrity. After parting with Dominic, Taverner goes to the apartment of his celebrity girlfriend Heather Hart. She returns home, horrified, and shows Taverner a newspaper mentioning that he is wanted in connection with Alys Buckman's death, the motive believed to have been his jealousy over Alys' purported relationship with Hart. An autopsy reveals that Alys' death was caused by an experimental reality-warping drug called KR-3. The coroner explains to Felix that, as Alys was a fan of Taverner, her use of the drug caused Taverner to be transported to a parallel universe where he no longer existed. Her death then caused his reversion back to his own universe. The Police General decides to implicate Taverner in Alys' death to distract attention from his incest. The press are informed that Taverner is a suspect in the case and, wishing to clear his name, Taverner surrenders himself to the police. Heartbroken over the death of his sister, Felix returns home, suffering a nervous breakdown on the way. In an epilogue, the final fates of the main characters are disclosed. Buckman retires to Borneo where he is assassinated soon after writing an expos\u00e9 of the global police apparatus. Taverner is cleared of all charges and dies of old age, while Heather Hart abandons her celebrity career and becomes a recluse. Dominic's pottery wins an international award and her works become of great value while she lives"
      },
      {
        "text": " Felix returns home, suffering a nervous breakdown on the way. In an epilogue, the final fates of the main characters are disclosed. Buckman retires to Borneo where he is assassinated soon after writing an expos\u00e9 of the global police apparatus. Taverner is cleared of all charges and dies of old age, while Heather Hart abandons her celebrity career and becomes a recluse. Dominic's pottery wins an international award and her works become of great value while she lives into her eighties. KR-3 test trials are deemed too destructive and the project is abandoned. Ultimately, the revolutionary students give up and voluntarily enter forced-labor camps. The detention camps later dwindle away and close down, the government no longer posing a threat.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Job: A Comedy of Justice",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1984",
    "synopsis": " The story examines religion through the eyes of Alex, a Christian political activist who is corrupted by Margrethe, a Danish Norse cruise ship hostess — and who loves every minute of it. Enduring a shipwreck, an earthquake, and a series of world-changes brought about by Loki (with Jehovah's permission), Alex and Marga work their way from Mexico back to Kansas as dishwasher and waitress. Whenever they manage to make some stake, an inconveniently timed change into a new alternate reality throws them off their stride (once, the money they earned is left behind in another reality; in another case, the paper money earned in a Mexico which is an empire is worthless in another Mexico which is a republic). These repeated misfortunes, clearly effected by some malevolent entity, make the hero identify with the Biblical Job. On the way they unknowingly enjoy the Texas hospitality of Satan himself, but as they near their destination they are separated by the Rapture — Margrethe worships Odin, and pagans do not go to Heaven. Finding that the reward for his faith, eternity as promised in the Revelation, is worthless without her, Alex's journey through timeless space in search of his lost lady takes him to Hell and beyond. Heinlein's vivid depiction of a Heaven ruled by snotty angels and a Hell where everyone has a wonderful, or at least productive, time — with Mary Magdalene shuttling breezily between both places — is a satire on American evangelical Christianity. It owes much to Mark Twain's Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. The novel is linked to Heinlein's short story, \"They\", by the term, \"the Glaroon\", and to his earlier novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by referring to the Moon colonies \"Luna City\" and \"Tycho Under\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story examines religion through the eyes of Alex, a Christian political activist who is corrupted by Margrethe, a Danish Norse cruise ship hostess — and who loves every minute of it. Enduring a shipwreck, an earthquake, and a series of world-changes brought about by Loki (with Jehovah's permission), Alex and Marga work their way from Mexico back to Kansas as dishwasher and waitress. Whenever they manage to make some stake, an inconveniently timed change into a new alternate reality throws them off their stride (once, the money they earned is left behind in another reality; in another case, the paper money earned in a Mexico which is an empire is worthless in another Mexico which is a republic). These repeated misfortunes, clearly effected by some malevolent entity, make the hero identify with the Biblical Job. On the way they unknowingly enjoy the Texas hospitality of Satan himself, but as they near their destination they are separated by the Rapture — Margrethe worships Odin, and pagans do not go to Heaven. Finding that the reward for his faith, eternity as promised in the Revelation, is worthless without her, Alex's journey through timeless space in search of his lost lady takes him to Hell and beyond. Heinlein's vivid depiction of a Heaven ruled by snotty angels and a Hell where everyone has a wonderful, or at least productive, time — with Mary Magdalene shuttling breezily between both places — is a satire on American evangelical Christianity. It owes much to Mark Twain's Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. The novel is linked to Heinlein's short story, \"They\", by the term, \"the Glaroon\", and to his earlier novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by referring to the Moon colonies \"Luna City\" and \"Tycho Under\".\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ily between both places — is a satire on American evangelical Christianity. It owes much to Mark Twain's Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. The novel is linked to Heinlein's short story, \"They\", by the term, \"the Glaroon\", and to his earlier novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by referring to the Moon colonies \"Luna City\" and \"Tycho Under\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Farmer in the Sky",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1950",
    "synopsis": " The story is set in a future, overcrowded Earth, where food is carefully rationed. Teenager William (Bill) Lermer lives with his widower father, George. George decides to emigrate to the farming colony on Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons. After marrying Molly Kenyon, George, Bill and Molly's daughter Peggy embark on the 'torchship' Mayflower. On the journey, Bill saves his bunkmates from asphyxiation by improvising a patch when a meteor punctures their compartment. To combat the boredom of the long trip, the Boy Scouts among the passengers form troops, and all the children attend classes. When they arrive on Ganymede, an unpleasant surprise awaits the newcomers. The group is much larger than the colony can easily absorb. The farms they were promised do not yet exist. In fact, the \"soil\" has to be created from scratch by pulverizing boulders and lava flows, and seeding the resulting dust with carefully formulated organic material. While some whine about the injustice of it all, Bill accepts an invitation to live with a prosperous farmer and his family to learn what he needs to know, while his father signs on as an engineer in town. Peggy is unable to adjust to the low pressure atmosphere and has to stay in a bubble in the hospital. When the Lermers are finally reunited on their own homestead, they build their house with a pressurized room for Peggy. One day, a rare alignment of all of Jupiter's major moons causes a devastating moon quake which damages most of the buildings. Peggy is seriously injured when her room suffers an explosive decompression. Even worse, the machinery that maintains Ganymede's \"heat shield\" is knocked out and the temperature starts dropping rapidly. George quickly realizes what has happened and gets his family to the safety of the town. Others do not grasp their peril soon enough and either stay in their homes or start for town too late; two thirds of the colonists perish, either from the quake or by freezing. The Lermers consider returning to Earth, but then Peggy dies. In true pioneer spirit, they decide to stay and rebuild. The colony gradually recovers, and an expedition is organized to survey more of Ganymede. Bill goes along as the cook. While exploring, he and a friend discover artifacts of an alien civilization, including a working land vehicle that has legs, like a large metal centipede. This proves fortuitous when Bill's appendix bursts and they miss the rendezvous. The shuttle picks up the rest of the group and leaves without the pair. They travel cross country to reach the next landing site. Bill is then taken to the hospital for a life-saving operation.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is set in a future, overcrowded Earth, where food is carefully rationed. Teenager William (Bill) Lermer lives with his widower father, George. George decides to emigrate to the farming colony on Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons. After marrying Molly Kenyon, George, Bill and Molly's daughter Peggy embark on the 'torchship' Mayflower. On the journey, Bill saves his bunkmates from asphyxiation by improvising a patch when a meteor punctures their compartment. To combat the boredom of the long trip, the Boy Scouts among the passengers form troops, and all the children attend classes. When they arrive on Ganymede, an unpleasant surprise awaits the newcomers. The group is much larger than the colony can easily absorb. The farms they were promised do not yet exist. In fact, the \"soil\" has to be created from scratch by pulverizing boulders and lava flows, and seeding the resulting dust with carefully formulated organic material. While some whine about the injustice of it all, Bill accepts an invitation to live with a prosperous farmer and his family to learn what he needs to know, while his father signs on as an engineer in town. Peggy is unable to adjust to the low pressure atmosphere and has to stay in a bubble in the hospital. When the Lermers are finally reunited on their own homestead, they build their house with a pressurized room for Peggy. One day, a rare alignment of all of Jupiter's major moons causes a devastating moon quake which damages most of the buildings. Peggy is seriously injured when her room suffers an explosive decompression. Even worse, the machinery that maintains Ganymede's \"heat shield\" is knocked out and the temperature starts dropping rapidly. George quickly realizes what has happened and gets his family to the safety of the town. Others do not grasp their peril soon enough and either stay in their homes or start for town too late; two"
      },
      {
        "text": " a rare alignment of all of Jupiter's major moons causes a devastating moon quake which damages most of the buildings. Peggy is seriously injured when her room suffers an explosive decompression. Even worse, the machinery that maintains Ganymede's \"heat shield\" is knocked out and the temperature starts dropping rapidly. George quickly realizes what has happened and gets his family to the safety of the town. Others do not grasp their peril soon enough and either stay in their homes or start for town too late; two thirds of the colonists perish, either from the quake or by freezing. The Lermers consider returning to Earth, but then Peggy dies. In true pioneer spirit, they decide to stay and rebuild. The colony gradually recovers, and an expedition is organized to survey more of Ganymede. Bill goes along as the cook. While exploring, he and a friend discover artifacts of an alien civilization, including a working land vehicle that has legs, like a large metal centipede. This proves fortuitous when Bill's appendix bursts and they miss the rendezvous. The shuttle picks up the rest of the group and leaves without the pair. They travel cross country to reach the next landing site. Bill is then taken to the hospital for a life-saving operation.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Friday",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1982-04",
    "synopsis": " The book's protagonist is Friday Baldwin, an artificial person both mentally and physically superior in many ways to an ordinary human, but she faces great prejudice and will most likely be killed if her \"non-human\" status is discovered. Employed as a highly self-sufficient combat courier, her various missions take her throughout the globe and also to some of the near-Earth space colonies. The novel is set in a complex, Balkanized world, and Friday is caught up in several civil disturbances during the course of her travels. She reaches her employer's home base safely but is soon displaced. Sent on a space journey as a courier, she realizes that the journey is likely to end with her death, evades the ship's authorities, and settles on a pioneer world with friends made earlier in the narrative.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book's protagonist is Friday Baldwin, an artificial person both mentally and physically superior in many ways to an ordinary human, but she faces great prejudice and will most likely be killed if her \"non-human\" status is discovered. Employed as a highly self-sufficient combat courier, her various missions take her throughout the globe and also to some of the near-Earth space colonies. The novel is set in a complex, Balkanized world, and Friday is caught up in several civil disturbances during the course of her travels. She reaches her employer's home base safely but is soon displaced. Sent on a space journey as a courier, she realizes that the journey is likely to end with her death, evades the ship's authorities, and settles on a pioneer world with friends made earlier in the narrative.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Have Space Suit-Will Travel",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1958",
    "synopsis": " Clifford \"Kip\" Russell, a bright high school senior with an eccentric father, enters an advertising jingle writing contest, hoping to win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Moon. He instead gets an obsolete, but genuine, used space suit. Though a few make fun of him, with the help of sympathetic townspeople, and using his own ingenuity and determination, Kip puts the suit (which he dubs \"Oscar\") back into working condition. Kip reluctantly decides to return his space suit for a cash prize to help pay for college, but puts it on for one last walk. As he idly broadcasts on his shortwave radio, someone identifying herself as \"Peewee\" answers with a Mayday signal. He helps her home in on his location, and is shocked when a flying saucer lands practically on top of him. A young girl and an alien being (the \"Mother Thing\") debark, but all three are quickly captured and taken to the Moon. Their alien kidnapper is nicknamed \"Wormface\" by Kip. Their captors are horrible-looking, vaguely anthropomorphic creatures who contemptuously refer to all others as \"animals\". Wormface has two human flunkies who assisted him in initially capturing the Mother Thing and Peewee (Patricia Wynant Reisfeld), a preteen genius and the daughter of an eminent scientist. The Mother Thing speaks in what sounds to Kip like birdsong, with a few musical notations in the text giving a flavor of her language. However, Kip and Peewee have no trouble understanding her. Kip, Peewee, and the Mother Thing try to escape to the human lunar base by hiking cross-country, but they are recaptured and taken to a base on Pluto. Kip is thrown into a cell, later to be joined by the two human traitors, who have apparently outlived their usefulness. Before they later disappear, one mentions to Kip that his former employers eat humans. The Mother Thing, meanwhile, makes herself useful to their captors by constructing advanced devices for them. In the process, she manages to steal enough parts to assemble a bomb and a transmitter. The bomb takes care of the most of the Wormfaces, but the Mother Thing freezes solid when she tries to set up the transmitter outside without a spacesuit. Kip nearly freezes to death himself while activating the distress beacon, but help arrives almost instantly. It turns out that the Mother Thing is far hardier than Kip had suspected, and was not in danger. Kip, however, suffers severe frostbite and is kept in a state of cryopreservation while the Mother Thing's people figure out how to fully heal him. Kip and Peewee are transported to Vega 5, the Mother Thing's home planet. While Kip recuperates, \"Prof Joe\", a \"professor thing\", learns about Earth from Peewee and Kip. Once Kip is well, he, Peewee, and the Mother Thing travel to a planet in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, to face an intergalactic tribunal composed of many species which have banded together, which decides whether new races pose a danger. The Wormfaces are put on trial first. They promise to annihilate all other species, and are judged to be dangerous. Their planet is rotated out of three-dimensional space without their star, most likely to freeze. Then it is humanity's turn, as represented by Peewee, Kip, Iunio (a Roman centurion), and a Neanderthal man. The Neanderthal is rejected as being of another species. Iunio proves belligerent, but brave. Peewee's and Kip's secretly recorded remarks are then admitted into evidence. In humanity's defense, Kip makes a stirring speech. The Mother Thing and a representative of another race argue that the short-lived species are essentially children who should be granted more time to learn and grow. It is decided to re-evaluate humanity after \"a dozen half-lives of radium\". (The half\u2013life of radium-226 is 1601 years.) Kip and Peewee are returned to Earth with devices and equations provided by the Vegans. Kip passes the information along to Professor Reisfeld, Peewee's father and a world-renowned synthesist (a generalist who makes sense of what more specialized scientists discover). After listening to Kip and Peewee's story, Reisfeld arranges a full scholarship for Kip at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Kip wants to study engineering and spacesuit design.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Clifford \"Kip\" Russell, a bright high school senior with an eccentric father, enters an advertising jingle writing contest, hoping to win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Moon. He instead gets an obsolete, but genuine, used space suit. Though a few make fun of him, with the help of sympathetic townspeople, and using his own ingenuity and determination, Kip puts the suit (which he dubs \"Oscar\") back into working condition. Kip reluctantly decides to return his space suit for a cash prize to help pay for college, but puts it on for one last walk. As he idly broadcasts on his shortwave radio, someone identifying herself as \"Peewee\" answers with a Mayday signal. He helps her home in on his location, and is shocked when a flying saucer lands practically on top of him. A young girl and an alien being (the \"Mother Thing\") debark, but all three are quickly captured and taken to the Moon. Their alien kidnapper is nicknamed \"Wormface\" by Kip. Their captors are horrible-looking, vaguely anthropomorphic creatures who contemptuously refer to all others as \"animals\". Wormface has two human flunkies who assisted him in initially capturing the Mother Thing and Peewee (Patricia Wynant Reisfeld), a preteen genius and the daughter of an eminent scientist. The Mother Thing speaks in what sounds to Kip like birdsong, with a few musical notations in the text giving a flavor of her language. However, Kip and Peewee have no trouble understanding her. Kip, Peewee, and the Mother Thing try to escape to the human lunar base by hiking cross-country, but they are recaptured and taken to a base on Pluto. Kip is thrown into a cell, later to be joined by the two human traitors, who have apparently outlived their usefulness. Before they later disappear,"
      },
      {
        "text": " with a few musical notations in the text giving a flavor of her language. However, Kip and Peewee have no trouble understanding her. Kip, Peewee, and the Mother Thing try to escape to the human lunar base by hiking cross-country, but they are recaptured and taken to a base on Pluto. Kip is thrown into a cell, later to be joined by the two human traitors, who have apparently outlived their usefulness. Before they later disappear, one mentions to Kip that his former employers eat humans. The Mother Thing, meanwhile, makes herself useful to their captors by constructing advanced devices for them. In the process, she manages to steal enough parts to assemble a bomb and a transmitter. The bomb takes care of the most of the Wormfaces, but the Mother Thing freezes solid when she tries to set up the transmitter outside without a spacesuit. Kip nearly freezes to death himself while activating the distress beacon, but help arrives almost instantly. It turns out that the Mother Thing is far hardier than Kip had suspected, and was not in danger. Kip, however, suffers severe frostbite and is kept in a state of cryopreservation while the Mother Thing's people figure out how to fully heal him. Kip and Peewee are transported to Vega 5, the Mother Thing's home planet. While Kip recuperates, \"Prof Joe\", a \"professor thing\", learns about Earth from Peewee and Kip. Once Kip is well, he, Peewee, and the Mother Thing travel to a planet in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, to face an intergalactic tribunal composed of many species which have banded together, which decides whether new races pose a danger. The Wormfaces are put on trial first. They promise to annihilate all other species, and are judged to be dangerous. Their planet is rotated out of three-dimensional space without their star, most"
      },
      {
        "text": "ee and Kip. Once Kip is well, he, Peewee, and the Mother Thing travel to a planet in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, to face an intergalactic tribunal composed of many species which have banded together, which decides whether new races pose a danger. The Wormfaces are put on trial first. They promise to annihilate all other species, and are judged to be dangerous. Their planet is rotated out of three-dimensional space without their star, most likely to freeze. Then it is humanity's turn, as represented by Peewee, Kip, Iunio (a Roman centurion), and a Neanderthal man. The Neanderthal is rejected as being of another species. Iunio proves belligerent, but brave. Peewee's and Kip's secretly recorded remarks are then admitted into evidence. In humanity's defense, Kip makes a stirring speech. The Mother Thing and a representative of another race argue that the short-lived species are essentially children who should be granted more time to learn and grow. It is decided to re-evaluate humanity after \"a dozen half-lives of radium\". (The half\u2013life of radium-226 is 1601 years.) Kip and Peewee are returned to Earth with devices and equations provided by the Vegans. Kip passes the information along to Professor Reisfeld, Peewee's father and a world-renowned synthesist (a generalist who makes sense of what more specialized scientists discover). After listening to Kip and Peewee's story, Reisfeld arranges a full scholarship for Kip at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Kip wants to study engineering and spacesuit design.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ist who makes sense of what more specialized scientists discover). After listening to Kip and Peewee's story, Reisfeld arranges a full scholarship for Kip at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Kip wants to study engineering and spacesuit design.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Requiem",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story centers around Delos David Harriman, the lead character of \"The Man Who Sold The Moon\". Harriman, a tycoon and latter-day robber baron, had always dreamed of going to the Moon, and had spent much of his career and resources making space flight a practical commercial enterprise. Unfortunately, his business partners prevented him from taking the early flights (as shown in the novella). Now an old man, Harriman has still not been to the Moon, a fact that frustrates him, since he lives in a world where space travel is so commonplace that carnivals have their own barnstorming spacecraft. No longer bound by his contractual obligations, he is now too old; he is unable to pass the medical examination needed for space travel. Very wealthy, Harriman bribes two spacemen to help him get to the Moon after encountering them at a funfair in Butler, a small town outside Kansas City, Missouri, where they sell rides on their old, somewhat run-down ship. (The town is Heinlein's birthplace.) The three of them fight many obstacles, including Harriman's heirs, who want him declared mentally incompetent or senile before he can spend their inheritance. In the end, Harriman finally makes it to the Moon, only to die on the surface soon after landing, content at finally having reached his goal. His body is left there, with his epitaph scrawled on the tag from an oxygen bottle. It is Robert Louis Stevenson's \"Requiem\", which is inscribed on his own headstone in Samoa. :Under the wide and starry sky :Dig the grave and let me lie: :Glad did I live and gladly die, :And I laid me down with a will! :This be the verse you grave for me: :Here he lies where he longed to be; :Home is the sailor, home from the sea, :And the hunter home from the hill.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story centers around Delos David Harriman, the lead character of \"The Man Who Sold The Moon\". Harriman, a tycoon and latter-day robber baron, had always dreamed of going to the Moon, and had spent much of his career and resources making space flight a practical commercial enterprise. Unfortunately, his business partners prevented him from taking the early flights (as shown in the novella). Now an old man, Harriman has still not been to the Moon, a fact that frustrates him, since he lives in a world where space travel is so commonplace that carnivals have their own barnstorming spacecraft. No longer bound by his contractual obligations, he is now too old; he is unable to pass the medical examination needed for space travel. Very wealthy, Harriman bribes two spacemen to help him get to the Moon after encountering them at a funfair in Butler, a small town outside Kansas City, Missouri, where they sell rides on their old, somewhat run-down ship. (The town is Heinlein's birthplace.) The three of them fight many obstacles, including Harriman's heirs, who want him declared mentally incompetent or senile before he can spend their inheritance. In the end, Harriman finally makes it to the Moon, only to die on the surface soon after landing, content at finally having reached his goal. His body is left there, with his epitaph scrawled on the tag from an oxygen bottle. It is Robert Louis Stevenson's \"Requiem\", which is inscribed on his own headstone in Samoa. :Under the wide and starry sky :Dig the grave and let me lie: :Glad did I live and gladly die, :And I laid me down with a will! :This be the verse you grave for me: :Here he lies where he longed to be; :Home is the sailor, home from the sea, :And the hunter home from the hill.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " It is Robert Louis Stevenson's \"Requiem\", which is inscribed on his own headstone in Samoa. :Under the wide and starry sky :Dig the grave and let me lie: :Glad did I live and gladly die, :And I laid me down with a will! :This be the verse you grave for me: :Here he lies where he longed to be; :Home is the sailor, home from the sea, :And the hunter home from the hill.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Red Planet",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1949",
    "synopsis": " On Mars, Jim Marlowe and Frank Sutton travel to the Lowell Academy boarding school for the start of the academic year. Jim takes along his native, volleyball-sized pet, Willis the Bouncer, who is about as intelligent as a human child and has a photographic memory for sounds, which he can also reproduce perfectly. At a rest stop, Willis wanders off and encounters one of the adult sentient Martians. The three-legged alien takes the two boys and Willis to join a ritual called \"growing together\" with a group of its fellows. They also share water, making Jim and Frank \"water friends\" with the Martian, who is named Gekko. At school, Jim gets into trouble with the authoritarian headmaster, Mr. Howe, who confiscates Willis, claiming that it is against the new rules to have pets. When Jim and Frank sneak into Howe's office and rescue Willis, the bouncer repeats two overheard conversations between Howe and Beecher, the unscrupulous colonial administrator of Mars, detailing Beecher's plans for Willis and the colony. When Beecher learns Howe has a bouncer, he is ecstatic, since the London Zoo is willing to pay a hefty price for a specimen. Worse, Beecher is secretly planning to prevent the annual migration of the colonists (necessary to avoid 12 months of life threatening winter weather) in order to save money. The boys run away from school to warn their parents and the colony. The boys set out to skate the thousands of miles to their homes on the frozen Martian canals. During the trip, Frank gets sick. On the third night, they are forced to take shelter inside a giant Martian cabbage plant (nearly suffocating when it folds up at night). The next day, they meet some native Martians, who accept Jim because of his relationship to Willis and water-friendship with Gekko. The Martians treat Frank's illness and send the two boys home by a swift \"subway\". Once warned, Jim's father quickly organizes the migration, hoping to catch Beecher off guard. The colonists take over the boarding school, and they turn it into a temporary shelter. Howe locks himself in his office, while Beecher sets up automatic, photosensor-controlled weapons outside to stop the malcontents (as he calls them) from leaving. After two colonists are killed trying to surrender, and the power to the building is cut, the colonists decide they have no choice but to fight back. The colonists organize a raiding party, with the boys taking part, capture Beecher's office and proclaim the colony's independence from the Earth. Several Martians enter the school area, and one of them shows up in the door leading to Howe's office, hiding him from sight. When the Martian turns away, Howe is nowhere to be found. The Martians then go to Beecher's building, and when they leave, he has also vanished. The Martians had been content to allow humans to share their planet, but Beecher's threat to Willis has made them reconsider. They present the colonists with an ultimatum: leave the planet or else. Dr. MacRae negotiates with the Martians, and is able to persuade them to let the colonists stay, mainly because of Jim's strong friendship with Willis. Doctor MacRae theorizes that Martians start life as bouncers, metamorphose into adults, then continue to exist after their deaths as the \"old ones.\" In the end, Jim resigns himself to giving Willis up so he can undergo the transformation to adulthood. As with Podkayne of Mars, there are two versions of the ending. As originally written (and published much later) it is made clear that Willis will not emerge as an adult for forty years. This was edited and changed by Heinlein's publishers, as was a discussion early in the novel in which MacRae expresses strong support for adults and older children being free to carry handguns, and opposition to any government which would restrict that.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On Mars, Jim Marlowe and Frank Sutton travel to the Lowell Academy boarding school for the start of the academic year. Jim takes along his native, volleyball-sized pet, Willis the Bouncer, who is about as intelligent as a human child and has a photographic memory for sounds, which he can also reproduce perfectly. At a rest stop, Willis wanders off and encounters one of the adult sentient Martians. The three-legged alien takes the two boys and Willis to join a ritual called \"growing together\" with a group of its fellows. They also share water, making Jim and Frank \"water friends\" with the Martian, who is named Gekko. At school, Jim gets into trouble with the authoritarian headmaster, Mr. Howe, who confiscates Willis, claiming that it is against the new rules to have pets. When Jim and Frank sneak into Howe's office and rescue Willis, the bouncer repeats two overheard conversations between Howe and Beecher, the unscrupulous colonial administrator of Mars, detailing Beecher's plans for Willis and the colony. When Beecher learns Howe has a bouncer, he is ecstatic, since the London Zoo is willing to pay a hefty price for a specimen. Worse, Beecher is secretly planning to prevent the annual migration of the colonists (necessary to avoid 12 months of life threatening winter weather) in order to save money. The boys run away from school to warn their parents and the colony. The boys set out to skate the thousands of miles to their homes on the frozen Martian canals. During the trip, Frank gets sick. On the third night, they are forced to take shelter inside a giant Martian cabbage plant (nearly suffocating when it folds up at night). The next day, they meet some native Martians, who accept Jim because of his relationship to Willis and water-friendship with Gekko. The Martians treat Frank's illness and send the two boys home by a swift \"sub"
      },
      {
        "text": " skate the thousands of miles to their homes on the frozen Martian canals. During the trip, Frank gets sick. On the third night, they are forced to take shelter inside a giant Martian cabbage plant (nearly suffocating when it folds up at night). The next day, they meet some native Martians, who accept Jim because of his relationship to Willis and water-friendship with Gekko. The Martians treat Frank's illness and send the two boys home by a swift \"subway\". Once warned, Jim's father quickly organizes the migration, hoping to catch Beecher off guard. The colonists take over the boarding school, and they turn it into a temporary shelter. Howe locks himself in his office, while Beecher sets up automatic, photosensor-controlled weapons outside to stop the malcontents (as he calls them) from leaving. After two colonists are killed trying to surrender, and the power to the building is cut, the colonists decide they have no choice but to fight back. The colonists organize a raiding party, with the boys taking part, capture Beecher's office and proclaim the colony's independence from the Earth. Several Martians enter the school area, and one of them shows up in the door leading to Howe's office, hiding him from sight. When the Martian turns away, Howe is nowhere to be found. The Martians then go to Beecher's building, and when they leave, he has also vanished. The Martians had been content to allow humans to share their planet, but Beecher's threat to Willis has made them reconsider. They present the colonists with an ultimatum: leave the planet or else. Dr. MacRae negotiates with the Martians, and is able to persuade them to let the colonists stay, mainly because of Jim's strong friendship with Willis. Doctor MacRae theorizes that Martians start life as bouncers, metamorphose into adults, then continue to exist"
      },
      {
        "text": "ians had been content to allow humans to share their planet, but Beecher's threat to Willis has made them reconsider. They present the colonists with an ultimatum: leave the planet or else. Dr. MacRae negotiates with the Martians, and is able to persuade them to let the colonists stay, mainly because of Jim's strong friendship with Willis. Doctor MacRae theorizes that Martians start life as bouncers, metamorphose into adults, then continue to exist after their deaths as the \"old ones.\" In the end, Jim resigns himself to giving Willis up so he can undergo the transformation to adulthood. As with Podkayne of Mars, there are two versions of the ending. As originally written (and published much later) it is made clear that Willis will not emerge as an adult for forty years. This was edited and changed by Heinlein's publishers, as was a discussion early in the novel in which MacRae expresses strong support for adults and older children being free to carry handguns, and opposition to any government which would restrict that.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Number of the Beast",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1980-07-12",
    "synopsis": " The book is a series of diary entries by each of the four main characters: Zebadiah John Carter, programmer Dejah Thoris \"Deety\" Burroughs Carter, her mathematics professor father Jacob Burroughs, and an off-campus socialite Hilda Corners. The names \"Dejah Thoris\", \"Burroughs\", and \"Carter\" are overt references to John Carter and Dejah Thoris, the main protagonists of the Barsoom (Mars) novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The four travel in Zebadiah's spaceship Gay Deceiver, which is equipped with the professor's \"continua\" device and armed by the Australian Defence Force. The continua device was built by Professor Burroughs while he was formulating his theories on n-dimensional non-euclidean geometry. The geometry of the novel's universe contains six dimensions; the three spatial dimensions known to the real world, and three time dimensions - t, the real world's temporal dimension, \u03c4 (tau), and \u0442 (teh). The continua device can travel on all six axes. The continua device allows travel into various fictional universes, such as the Land of Oz, as well as through time. An attempt to visit Barsoom takes them to an apparently different version of Mars seemingly under the colonial rule of the British Empire; but near the end of the novel, Heinlein's recurring character Lazarus Long hints that they had traveled to Barsoom, and that its \"colonial\" status was an illusion imposed on them by the telepathically adept Barsoomians: In the novel, the Biblical number of the beast turns out to be, not 666, but (6^6)^6, or 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056, which is the number of parallel universes accessible through the continua device.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is a series of diary entries by each of the four main characters: Zebadiah John Carter, programmer Dejah Thoris \"Deety\" Burroughs Carter, her mathematics professor father Jacob Burroughs, and an off-campus socialite Hilda Corners. The names \"Dejah Thoris\", \"Burroughs\", and \"Carter\" are overt references to John Carter and Dejah Thoris, the main protagonists of the Barsoom (Mars) novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The four travel in Zebadiah's spaceship Gay Deceiver, which is equipped with the professor's \"continua\" device and armed by the Australian Defence Force. The continua device was built by Professor Burroughs while he was formulating his theories on n-dimensional non-euclidean geometry. The geometry of the novel's universe contains six dimensions; the three spatial dimensions known to the real world, and three time dimensions - t, the real world's temporal dimension, \u03c4 (tau), and \u0442 (teh). The continua device can travel on all six axes. The continua device allows travel into various fictional universes, such as the Land of Oz, as well as through time. An attempt to visit Barsoom takes them to an apparently different version of Mars seemingly under the colonial rule of the British Empire; but near the end of the novel, Heinlein's recurring character Lazarus Long hints that they had traveled to Barsoom, and that its \"colonial\" status was an illusion imposed on them by the telepathically adept Barsoomians: In the novel, the Biblical number of the beast turns out to be, not 666, but (6^6)^6, or 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056, which is the number of parallel universes accessible through the continua device.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "soom, and that its \"colonial\" status was an illusion imposed on them by the telepathically adept Barsoomians: In the novel, the Biblical number of the beast turns out to be, not 666, but (6^6)^6, or 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056, which is the number of parallel universes accessible through the continua device.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Foundation's Edge",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1982-06",
    "synopsis": " Five hundred years after the establishment of the Foundation, the Mayor of Terminus, Harla Branno, is basking in a political glow, her policies having been vindicated by the recent successful resolution of a Seldon Crisis. Golan Trevize, a former officer of the Navy and now a member of Council, believes the Second Foundation (which is almost universally thought to be extinct) still exists and is controlling events. He attempts to question the continued existence of the Seldon Plan during a Council session and Branno has him arrested on a charge of treason. She orders him to leave Terminus to search for the Second Foundation. As a cover, he is to be accompanied by Janov Pelorat, a professor of Ancient History and mythologist, who is interested in the location of Earth, the fabled homeworld of humanity. They are provided a highly advanced computer controlled 'gravitic' ship with which to carry out their mission. Branno also sends out Munn Li Compor in another similar vessel to follow and monitor Trevize. On Trantor, Stor Gendibal, a rising intellect in the Second Foundation hierarchy, discovers a secret he reveals to Quindor Shandess, the current First Speaker — that the Seldon Plan, which the Second Foundation diligently protects and furthers along, is being manipulated by some unknown group, one possibly more powerful than the Second Foundation, and whose reasons for so doing are not known. (This group is dubbed the \"Anti-Mules\" by Shandess, as they seem to possess powers similar to the Mule but to be using them not to destroy the Seldon Plan, as the Mule did, but to preserve it.) Gendibal concludes that Trevize is a \"lightning rod\" sent out to locate and expose the Second Foundation. His ideas are not well received by the other Speakers, but he has the support of Shandess. Trevize never intends to go to Trantor believing, that once at the library, Pelorat will never leave. Trevize and Pelorat discuss Pelorat's interest in Earth and its legends, and Trevize realizes that Seldon's phrase \"at the other end of the Galaxy\" (the phrase he used to describe the Second Foundation's location) could mean Earth. His logic being that Terminus (at the time of Hari Seldon) was the last planet to be inhabited (one end of the metaphorical galaxy) and, by definition, Earth was the first (the other end of the metaphorical galaxy). However, there is no planet named Earth in the galactic table of planets. Pelorat, through his previous research, established characteristics that Earth must have: a 24 hour day, a 365 day year, and a large satellite. Once again no planet on file has these characteristics, but the galactic table of planets is missing a lot of information about a lot of planets. Nonetheless, Pelorat has a guess. The table mentions a planet called Gaia which Pelorat discovered, previously, to mean Earth. Its exact coordinates are unknown but it is listed as being in the Sayshell Sector. Trevize decides that they must go to the Sayshell Sector to follow up on this lead. Gendibal demonstrates to the Speaker's Table that the brain of Sura Novi, a Hamishwoman (the farming population of Trantor are known as the Hamish), shows a very subtle change in her mind that could only have been done by an agency more powerful than the Second Foundation. He believes it was done by the \"Anti-Mules\" and that they have a separate agenda with the Second Foundation as their unwitting pawn. Gendibal and Novi are sent to track Trevize and to determine the goals of the \"Anti-Mules.\" On Sayshell, Trevize and Pelorat meet Professor Quintesetz, who is able to give them the co-ordinates to the mysterious planet known as Gaia. Traveling to Gaia, they discover that it is a 'superorganism', where all things, both living and inanimate, participate in a larger, group consciousness, while still retaining any individual awareness they might have, such as among the Gaian humans. Pelorat slowly falls in love with a Gaian woman named Blissenobiarella (commonly called Bliss), who explains that Trevize will be forced to decide the future of the galaxy — whether it will be ruled by the First Foundation, the Second Foundation, or by Gaia (who envisions an eventual extension of its group consciousness to the entire galaxy, thus forming the new entity Galaxia). Gendibal is met by a First Foundation warship, commanded by Mayor Branno. As Gendibal's mental powers stalemate with Mayor Branno's force shield, Novi reveals herself as an agent of Gaia. Once she joins the stalemate, the three are locked until Trevize can join them. Bliss explains to Trevize that he had been led to Gaia so that his untouched mind, a mind with remarkable intuition, can decide the Galaxy's fate. He also learns that the stalemate between the First Foundation (Branno), the Second Foundation (Gendibal), and Gaia (Novi) was intentional, and that through the ship's computer, he can decide who shall ultimately prove victorious. Trevize decides upon Gaia, and through mental adjustments, Gaia makes Branno and Gendibal believe they have won minor victories, and that Gaia does not exist. But Trevize is troubled by one final piece of missing information: who or what has removed all reference to Earth from the Galactic Library at Trantor, and why. He announces his intention to find Earth, since without knowing the answers to those questions he cannot be certain his choice was the right one. Trevize also mentions that he chose Gaia because that was the only choice of the three that was not irreversible (in case his choice should prove to be wrong), due to the large length of time required for the formation of Galaxia.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Five hundred years after the establishment of the Foundation, the Mayor of Terminus, Harla Branno, is basking in a political glow, her policies having been vindicated by the recent successful resolution of a Seldon Crisis. Golan Trevize, a former officer of the Navy and now a member of Council, believes the Second Foundation (which is almost universally thought to be extinct) still exists and is controlling events. He attempts to question the continued existence of the Seldon Plan during a Council session and Branno has him arrested on a charge of treason. She orders him to leave Terminus to search for the Second Foundation. As a cover, he is to be accompanied by Janov Pelorat, a professor of Ancient History and mythologist, who is interested in the location of Earth, the fabled homeworld of humanity. They are provided a highly advanced computer controlled 'gravitic' ship with which to carry out their mission. Branno also sends out Munn Li Compor in another similar vessel to follow and monitor Trevize. On Trantor, Stor Gendibal, a rising intellect in the Second Foundation hierarchy, discovers a secret he reveals to Quindor Shandess, the current First Speaker — that the Seldon Plan, which the Second Foundation diligently protects and furthers along, is being manipulated by some unknown group, one possibly more powerful than the Second Foundation, and whose reasons for so doing are not known. (This group is dubbed the \"Anti-Mules\" by Shandess, as they seem to possess powers similar to the Mule but to be using them not to destroy the Seldon Plan, as the Mule did, but to preserve it.) Gendibal concludes that Trevize is a \"lightning rod\" sent out to locate and expose the Second Foundation. His ideas are not well received by the other Speakers, but he has the support of Shandess"
      },
      {
        "text": " known. (This group is dubbed the \"Anti-Mules\" by Shandess, as they seem to possess powers similar to the Mule but to be using them not to destroy the Seldon Plan, as the Mule did, but to preserve it.) Gendibal concludes that Trevize is a \"lightning rod\" sent out to locate and expose the Second Foundation. His ideas are not well received by the other Speakers, but he has the support of Shandess. Trevize never intends to go to Trantor believing, that once at the library, Pelorat will never leave. Trevize and Pelorat discuss Pelorat's interest in Earth and its legends, and Trevize realizes that Seldon's phrase \"at the other end of the Galaxy\" (the phrase he used to describe the Second Foundation's location) could mean Earth. His logic being that Terminus (at the time of Hari Seldon) was the last planet to be inhabited (one end of the metaphorical galaxy) and, by definition, Earth was the first (the other end of the metaphorical galaxy). However, there is no planet named Earth in the galactic table of planets. Pelorat, through his previous research, established characteristics that Earth must have: a 24 hour day, a 365 day year, and a large satellite. Once again no planet on file has these characteristics, but the galactic table of planets is missing a lot of information about a lot of planets. Nonetheless, Pelorat has a guess. The table mentions a planet called Gaia which Pelorat discovered, previously, to mean Earth. Its exact coordinates are unknown but it is listed as being in the Sayshell Sector. Trevize decides that they must go to the Sayshell Sector to follow up on this lead. Gendibal demonstrates to the Speaker's Table that the brain of Sura Novi, a Hamishwoman (the farming population of Tr"
      },
      {
        "text": " information about a lot of planets. Nonetheless, Pelorat has a guess. The table mentions a planet called Gaia which Pelorat discovered, previously, to mean Earth. Its exact coordinates are unknown but it is listed as being in the Sayshell Sector. Trevize decides that they must go to the Sayshell Sector to follow up on this lead. Gendibal demonstrates to the Speaker's Table that the brain of Sura Novi, a Hamishwoman (the farming population of Trantor are known as the Hamish), shows a very subtle change in her mind that could only have been done by an agency more powerful than the Second Foundation. He believes it was done by the \"Anti-Mules\" and that they have a separate agenda with the Second Foundation as their unwitting pawn. Gendibal and Novi are sent to track Trevize and to determine the goals of the \"Anti-Mules.\" On Sayshell, Trevize and Pelorat meet Professor Quintesetz, who is able to give them the co-ordinates to the mysterious planet known as Gaia. Traveling to Gaia, they discover that it is a 'superorganism', where all things, both living and inanimate, participate in a larger, group consciousness, while still retaining any individual awareness they might have, such as among the Gaian humans. Pelorat slowly falls in love with a Gaian woman named Blissenobiarella (commonly called Bliss), who explains that Trevize will be forced to decide the future of the galaxy — whether it will be ruled by the First Foundation, the Second Foundation, or by Gaia (who envisions an eventual extension of its group consciousness to the entire galaxy, thus forming the new entity Galaxia). Gendibal is met by a First Foundation warship, commanded by Mayor Branno. As Gendibal's mental powers stalemate with Mayor Branno's force shield, Nov"
      },
      {
        "text": " who explains that Trevize will be forced to decide the future of the galaxy — whether it will be ruled by the First Foundation, the Second Foundation, or by Gaia (who envisions an eventual extension of its group consciousness to the entire galaxy, thus forming the new entity Galaxia). Gendibal is met by a First Foundation warship, commanded by Mayor Branno. As Gendibal's mental powers stalemate with Mayor Branno's force shield, Novi reveals herself as an agent of Gaia. Once she joins the stalemate, the three are locked until Trevize can join them. Bliss explains to Trevize that he had been led to Gaia so that his untouched mind, a mind with remarkable intuition, can decide the Galaxy's fate. He also learns that the stalemate between the First Foundation (Branno), the Second Foundation (Gendibal), and Gaia (Novi) was intentional, and that through the ship's computer, he can decide who shall ultimately prove victorious. Trevize decides upon Gaia, and through mental adjustments, Gaia makes Branno and Gendibal believe they have won minor victories, and that Gaia does not exist. But Trevize is troubled by one final piece of missing information: who or what has removed all reference to Earth from the Galactic Library at Trantor, and why. He announces his intention to find Earth, since without knowing the answers to those questions he cannot be certain his choice was the right one. Trevize also mentions that he chose Gaia because that was the only choice of the three that was not irreversible (in case his choice should prove to be wrong), due to the large length of time required for the formation of Galaxia.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " his choice was the right one. Trevize also mentions that he chose Gaia because that was the only choice of the three that was not irreversible (in case his choice should prove to be wrong), due to the large length of time required for the formation of Galaxia.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Caves of Steel",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1954-06",
    "synopsis": " The book's central crime is a murder, which takes place before the novel opens. (This is an Asimovian trademark, which he attributed to his own squeamishness and John Campbell's advice of beginning as late in the story as possible.) Roj Nemmenuh Sarton, a Spacer Ambassador, lives in Spacetown, the Spacer outpost just outside New York City. For some time, he has tried to convince the Earth government to loosen its anti-robot restrictions. One morning, he is discovered outside his home, his chest imploded by an energy blaster. The New York police commissioner charges Elijah with finding the murderer. Elijah must work with a Spacer partner, a highly advanced robot named R. Daneel Olivaw who is visually identical to a human, even though Elijah, like many Earth residents, has a low opinion of robots. Together, they search for the murderer and try to avert an interstellar diplomatic incident. One interesting aspect of the book is the contrast between Elijah, the human detective, and Daneel, the humanoid robot. Asimov uses the \"mechanical\" robot to inquire about human nature. When confronting a \"Medievalist\" who fears that robots will overcome humankind, Elijah argues that robots are inherently deficient. Being precision-engineered calculating machines, they can have no appreciation of art, beauty, or God; robots can understand only concepts expressible in mathematics. Nevertheless, in the concluding scene, R. Daneel exhibits a sense of morality. He argues that the captured murderer be treated leniently, telling his human companions that he now realizes the destruction of evil is less desirable than the conversion of evil into good. Quoting the Pericope Adulter\u00e6, Daneel tells the murderer, \"Go, and sin no more!\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book's central crime is a murder, which takes place before the novel opens. (This is an Asimovian trademark, which he attributed to his own squeamishness and John Campbell's advice of beginning as late in the story as possible.) Roj Nemmenuh Sarton, a Spacer Ambassador, lives in Spacetown, the Spacer outpost just outside New York City. For some time, he has tried to convince the Earth government to loosen its anti-robot restrictions. One morning, he is discovered outside his home, his chest imploded by an energy blaster. The New York police commissioner charges Elijah with finding the murderer. Elijah must work with a Spacer partner, a highly advanced robot named R. Daneel Olivaw who is visually identical to a human, even though Elijah, like many Earth residents, has a low opinion of robots. Together, they search for the murderer and try to avert an interstellar diplomatic incident. One interesting aspect of the book is the contrast between Elijah, the human detective, and Daneel, the humanoid robot. Asimov uses the \"mechanical\" robot to inquire about human nature. When confronting a \"Medievalist\" who fears that robots will overcome humankind, Elijah argues that robots are inherently deficient. Being precision-engineered calculating machines, they can have no appreciation of art, beauty, or God; robots can understand only concepts expressible in mathematics. Nevertheless, in the concluding scene, R. Daneel exhibits a sense of morality. He argues that the captured murderer be treated leniently, telling his human companions that he now realizes the destruction of evil is less desirable than the conversion of evil into good. Quoting the Pericope Adulter\u00e6, Daneel tells the murderer, \"Go, and sin no more!\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " sense of morality. He argues that the captured murderer be treated leniently, telling his human companions that he now realizes the destruction of evil is less desirable than the conversion of evil into good. Quoting the Pericope Adulter\u00e6, Daneel tells the murderer, \"Go, and sin no more!\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Prelude to Foundation",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1988-11",
    "synopsis": " The story takes place on Trantor during the reign of Emperor Cleon I. It starts with Hari's presentation of a paper at a mathematics convention detailing how practical use of psychohistory might theoretically be possible. The Emperor of the Galactic Empire learns of this and wants to use Hari for political gain. After an interview with Hari, however, Cleon concludes that Hari is of no use to the Empire. Hari then meets reporter Chetter Hummin, who convinces him that Cleon's first minister Eto Demerzel is attempting to capture him, and that it is therefore imperative for Hari to escape and to try to make psychohistory practical. Thus, Hari goes on his \"Flight\" and is introduced to Dors Venabili by Hummin. Hari and Dors narrowly evade capture at Streeling University, following which the pair move to Mycogen. Hari and Dors are welcomed to Mycogen by Sunmaster Fourteen, the leader of Mycogen. Determined to work out his psychohistory with the knowledge that the Mycogenians supposedly possess, Hari decides to speak to a Mycogenian alone about history. He manages this by convincing Raindrop Forty-three to show him the prized Mycogenian microfarms, a prized source of food for the aristocracy and Mycogenians alike. When Hari inquires about that the peculiar Mycogenian ways might be the product of religious belief, Raindrop Forty-three is offended and says that the Mycogenians have something better: History. Hari inquires into the source of Mycogenian history and Raindrop Forty-three reveals that it is encompassed in \"The book\". Hari asks for the book but Raindrop Forty-three accepts on the condition that Hari allows her to touch his hair; (hair being expressively forbidden in Mycogenian society). When Hari starts reading the book, he finds it disappointing except for the revealing of what the Mycogenians call their home planet, Aurora. Hari and Dors are almost killed when they try to find what they suspect is a robot in the Mycogenian \"temple\" until Hummin arrives in the nick of time to save them. The action then shifts to the Dahl sector, where Dors displays her amazing knife fighting skills. While in Dahl they meet a guttersnipe named Raych (whom Hari later adopts as his son), and Yugo Amaryl (who would become Hari's partner in developing psychohistory). Towards the end of the novel, Hari, Dors, and Raych are kidnapped by agents from Wye, a powerful sector situated at Trantor's south pole. The finale reveals that \"Hummin\" is actually Cleon's first minister Eto Demerzel, who we later learn is in fact the robot R. Daneel Olivaw. By the end of the novel, Hari suspects that Dors is a robot, too. This theme would later be picked up in Forward the Foundation.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story takes place on Trantor during the reign of Emperor Cleon I. It starts with Hari's presentation of a paper at a mathematics convention detailing how practical use of psychohistory might theoretically be possible. The Emperor of the Galactic Empire learns of this and wants to use Hari for political gain. After an interview with Hari, however, Cleon concludes that Hari is of no use to the Empire. Hari then meets reporter Chetter Hummin, who convinces him that Cleon's first minister Eto Demerzel is attempting to capture him, and that it is therefore imperative for Hari to escape and to try to make psychohistory practical. Thus, Hari goes on his \"Flight\" and is introduced to Dors Venabili by Hummin. Hari and Dors narrowly evade capture at Streeling University, following which the pair move to Mycogen. Hari and Dors are welcomed to Mycogen by Sunmaster Fourteen, the leader of Mycogen. Determined to work out his psychohistory with the knowledge that the Mycogenians supposedly possess, Hari decides to speak to a Mycogenian alone about history. He manages this by convincing Raindrop Forty-three to show him the prized Mycogenian microfarms, a prized source of food for the aristocracy and Mycogenians alike. When Hari inquires about that the peculiar Mycogenian ways might be the product of religious belief, Raindrop Forty-three is offended and says that the Mycogenians have something better: History. Hari inquires into the source of Mycogenian history and Raindrop Forty-three reveals that it is encompassed in \"The book\". Hari asks for the book but Raindrop Forty-three accepts on the condition that Hari allows her to touch his hair; (hair being expressively forbidden in Mycogenian society). When Har"
      },
      {
        "text": " might be the product of religious belief, Raindrop Forty-three is offended and says that the Mycogenians have something better: History. Hari inquires into the source of Mycogenian history and Raindrop Forty-three reveals that it is encompassed in \"The book\". Hari asks for the book but Raindrop Forty-three accepts on the condition that Hari allows her to touch his hair; (hair being expressively forbidden in Mycogenian society). When Hari starts reading the book, he finds it disappointing except for the revealing of what the Mycogenians call their home planet, Aurora. Hari and Dors are almost killed when they try to find what they suspect is a robot in the Mycogenian \"temple\" until Hummin arrives in the nick of time to save them. The action then shifts to the Dahl sector, where Dors displays her amazing knife fighting skills. While in Dahl they meet a guttersnipe named Raych (whom Hari later adopts as his son), and Yugo Amaryl (who would become Hari's partner in developing psychohistory). Towards the end of the novel, Hari, Dors, and Raych are kidnapped by agents from Wye, a powerful sector situated at Trantor's south pole. The finale reveals that \"Hummin\" is actually Cleon's first minister Eto Demerzel, who we later learn is in fact the robot R. Daneel Olivaw. By the end of the novel, Hari suspects that Dors is a robot, too. This theme would later be picked up in Forward the Foundation.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " R. Daneel Olivaw. By the end of the novel, Hari suspects that Dors is a robot, too. This theme would later be picked up in Forward the Foundation.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Foundation and Earth",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1986",
    "synopsis": " Councilman Golan Trevize, historian Janov Pelorat, and Blissenobiarella of the planet Gaia (all of whom were introduced in Foundation's Edge) set out on a journey to find humanity's ancestral planet — Earth. The purpose of the journey is to settle Trevize's doubt with his decision at the end of Foundation's Edge to embrace the all-encompassing supermind of Galaxia. First, they journey to Comporellon, which claims to be the oldest currently-inhabited planet in the galaxy. Although many other planets make that claim, Comporellon has a very long history with which to back it up. Upon arrival, they are imprisoned, but negotiate their way out. While there, they find the coordinates of three Spacer planets. Since the Spacers were the first colonists from Earth back in the ancient days of space travel, it is surmised that their planets would be fairly close to Earth. The first Spacer planet they visit is Aurora, where Trevize is nearly killed by a pack of wild dogs, presumed to be the descendants of household pets long since reverted to wolf-like savagery. They escape when Bliss manipulates the dogs' emotions to psychologically compel a retreat, while Trevize uses his neuronic whip on them. Next, they go to Solaria, where they find that the Solarians \u2014 who have survived the Spacer-Settler conflicts by clever retreat detailed in Asimov's novel Robots and Empire \u2014 have engineered themselves into self-reproducing hermaphrodite beings, who have remained generally intolerant of human physical presence or contact. They have also given themselves a natural ability to mentally channel (\"transduce\") great amounts of energy, and utilize this as their sole source of power. The Solarians intentionally avoid ever having to interact with each other, except by holographic apparatus (\"viewing\"), and reproduce only when necessary to replace someone who has died. Bliss, Pelorat, and Trevize are nearly killed by a Solarian named Sarton Bander. Bliss, however, deflects the transducer brain-lobes at the moment Bander tries to use them to kill. Bliss intends to knock out Bander, but has not had sufficient time to learn the full workings of the transducer and accidentally kills it instead. While escaping, they find what they assume to be Bander's immature child, Fallom, in a state of panic because its robotic nursemaid, like all other robots on the estate, has stopped functioning. The child Fallom cannot inherit the Bander estate, as would normally be the Solarian custom, because it is too immature to be able to use its transducer lobes. There being no other place for the child on Solaria, the decision of the robots who immediately arrive to investigate the loss of power is that Fallom is to be destroyed. Upon learning this, Bliss insists that they take Fallom with them. They next go to Melpomenia, the third and final Spacer coordinate they have. They find that the atmosphere has become depressurized to a few thousandths of normal atmospheric pressure. Wearing space suits, they enter a library, and find a statue, as well as writings with the coordinates of all of the Spacer worlds. While departing Melpomenia, they notice a carbon-dioxide-feeding moss has begun feeding off insignificant leakages in their space suits. Barely recognizing this before stepping on their fully pressurized ship — which would have likely been disastrous — they set their blasters to minimum power to fry it off, and then set the ship to heavy UV-illumination before stepping on board. This disinfection procedure kills any trace of the moss, preventing it from spreading to other worlds. As well as giving them another 47 Spacer worlds that they could visit, they now have a vital clue to where Earth may be found. Since the Spacer worlds were settled from Earth, they form a rough sphere with Earth at the centre. Two stars seem to match. One is a binary star, and also on the charts as an inhabited world, though with a question mark where its status should be indicated. The other is uncharted and much more likely to be Earth's star, especially since legends do not mention Earth being part of a binary system. They decide however to go first to the binary system, because it may give them clues about what to expect on Earth itself. They next journey to the enigmatic charted system, which turns out to be Alpha Centauri. They find a remnant of the inhabitants of Earth, who many millennia ago were resettled there. There is a reference back to the events of Asimov's novel Pebble in the Sky: we learn that the restoration of Earth's soil was indeed attempted but was abandoned. Later, with Earth becoming uninhabitable, there was a grand project to terraform 'Alpha'. This too was not completed; the only dry land is an island 250 kilometers long and 65 kilometers wide. It is left open whether or not the entire population of the dying Earth was sent to Alpha. The natives, who call their home New Earth, are quite friendly, and Bliss, Trevize, Pelorat, and Fallom decide to enjoy some rest and relaxation. It turns out that the natives secretly intend to kill them, so as to prevent them from ever informing the rest of the galaxy of \"New Earth\" (the natives are paranoid of being taken by another \"Empire\" of any kind). They are warned by a native woman, who becomes sympathetic upon hearing Fallom playing the flute with its transducer brain-lobes, and make their escape in the middle of the night. Now certain that Alpha Centauri is not Earth but is near Earth, they head towards the uncharted system. They do notice and are puzzled by the very strong similarities between this star and the larger sun of the Alpha Centauri system. Asimov here is drawing attention to an astronomical curio: the nearest star system to Sol contains a star that has the same spectral type, G2 V, though Alpha Centauri A is a little larger and brighter. Entering the solar system of the uncharted star, they notice that it fits legends about Earth's solar system. The sixth planet has very prominent rings, much more so than any known gas giant. Also the third planet, the one fit for life, possesses an abnormally large moon for any planet other than a gas giant. Obviously this is Earth and its solar system. On the approach to Earth, they detect that it is highly radioactive, and not capable of supporting life, but, while trying to use the ship's computer to locate Solaria, Fallom calls Trevize's attention upon the moon, which is big enough to serve as a hideout for the forces that lived on Earth. They land on there and find R. Daneel Olivaw, who explains that he has been paternalistically manipulating humanity for many millennia, and indeed, since Elijah Baley's time, which was long before the Galactic Empire or Foundation. He caused the settlement of Alpha Centauri, the creation of Gaia, and the creation of psychohistory (detailed in Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation). He also manipulated Trevize into making his decision at the end of Foundation's Edge (although he did not manipulate the decision itself). Trevize confirms that decision, as the numerous narrow escapes have convinced him that the creation of Galaxia is the correct choice. Also, Daneel's positronic brain is deteriorating. He explains that he is unable to design a new brain, as it would require extreme miniaturization, to the point where the brain would deteriorate immediately. Thus, he tells his visitors that he wishes to merge Fallom's brain with his own, as Fallom's life span is the exceptionally long one of a Spacer. This will buy him time to oversee Galaxia's creation. Daneel continues to explain that since the dawn of civilization, man has been divided. This was the reason for his causing the creation of Psychohistory and Gaia. Another reason this was important was because of the likelihood of advanced life beyond the galaxy eventually attacking humanity. This danger is part of the conclusion to Asimov's book The End of Eternity, in which \"Project Eternity\" (which manipulated human history to maintain human comfort) had to be destroyed to undo that same extraterrestrial disaster -— extraterrestrials giving humanity no hope of expansion, at which point the birth rate fell, and humanity became extinct.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Councilman Golan Trevize, historian Janov Pelorat, and Blissenobiarella of the planet Gaia (all of whom were introduced in Foundation's Edge) set out on a journey to find humanity's ancestral planet — Earth. The purpose of the journey is to settle Trevize's doubt with his decision at the end of Foundation's Edge to embrace the all-encompassing supermind of Galaxia. First, they journey to Comporellon, which claims to be the oldest currently-inhabited planet in the galaxy. Although many other planets make that claim, Comporellon has a very long history with which to back it up. Upon arrival, they are imprisoned, but negotiate their way out. While there, they find the coordinates of three Spacer planets. Since the Spacers were the first colonists from Earth back in the ancient days of space travel, it is surmised that their planets would be fairly close to Earth. The first Spacer planet they visit is Aurora, where Trevize is nearly killed by a pack of wild dogs, presumed to be the descendants of household pets long since reverted to wolf-like savagery. They escape when Bliss manipulates the dogs' emotions to psychologically compel a retreat, while Trevize uses his neuronic whip on them. Next, they go to Solaria, where they find that the Solarians \u2014 who have survived the Spacer-Settler conflicts by clever retreat detailed in Asimov's novel Robots and Empire \u2014 have engineered themselves into self-reproducing hermaphrodite beings, who have remained generally intolerant of human physical presence or contact. They have also given themselves a natural ability to mentally channel (\"transduce\") great amounts of energy, and utilize this as their sole source of power. The Solarians intentionally avoid ever having to interact with each other, except by holographic apparatus (\"viewing\"), and reproduce only when necessary to replace someone"
      },
      {
        "text": " retreat detailed in Asimov's novel Robots and Empire \u2014 have engineered themselves into self-reproducing hermaphrodite beings, who have remained generally intolerant of human physical presence or contact. They have also given themselves a natural ability to mentally channel (\"transduce\") great amounts of energy, and utilize this as their sole source of power. The Solarians intentionally avoid ever having to interact with each other, except by holographic apparatus (\"viewing\"), and reproduce only when necessary to replace someone who has died. Bliss, Pelorat, and Trevize are nearly killed by a Solarian named Sarton Bander. Bliss, however, deflects the transducer brain-lobes at the moment Bander tries to use them to kill. Bliss intends to knock out Bander, but has not had sufficient time to learn the full workings of the transducer and accidentally kills it instead. While escaping, they find what they assume to be Bander's immature child, Fallom, in a state of panic because its robotic nursemaid, like all other robots on the estate, has stopped functioning. The child Fallom cannot inherit the Bander estate, as would normally be the Solarian custom, because it is too immature to be able to use its transducer lobes. There being no other place for the child on Solaria, the decision of the robots who immediately arrive to investigate the loss of power is that Fallom is to be destroyed. Upon learning this, Bliss insists that they take Fallom with them. They next go to Melpomenia, the third and final Spacer coordinate they have. They find that the atmosphere has become depressurized to a few thousandths of normal atmospheric pressure. Wearing space suits, they enter a library, and find a statue, as well as writings with the coordinates of all of the Spacer worlds. While departing Melpomenia, they notice a carbon-dioxide-feeding moss has begun feeding"
      },
      {
        "text": " this, Bliss insists that they take Fallom with them. They next go to Melpomenia, the third and final Spacer coordinate they have. They find that the atmosphere has become depressurized to a few thousandths of normal atmospheric pressure. Wearing space suits, they enter a library, and find a statue, as well as writings with the coordinates of all of the Spacer worlds. While departing Melpomenia, they notice a carbon-dioxide-feeding moss has begun feeding off insignificant leakages in their space suits. Barely recognizing this before stepping on their fully pressurized ship — which would have likely been disastrous — they set their blasters to minimum power to fry it off, and then set the ship to heavy UV-illumination before stepping on board. This disinfection procedure kills any trace of the moss, preventing it from spreading to other worlds. As well as giving them another 47 Spacer worlds that they could visit, they now have a vital clue to where Earth may be found. Since the Spacer worlds were settled from Earth, they form a rough sphere with Earth at the centre. Two stars seem to match. One is a binary star, and also on the charts as an inhabited world, though with a question mark where its status should be indicated. The other is uncharted and much more likely to be Earth's star, especially since legends do not mention Earth being part of a binary system. They decide however to go first to the binary system, because it may give them clues about what to expect on Earth itself. They next journey to the enigmatic charted system, which turns out to be Alpha Centauri. They find a remnant of the inhabitants of Earth, who many millennia ago were resettled there. There is a reference back to the events of Asimov's novel Pebble in the Sky: we learn that the restoration of Earth's soil was indeed attempted but was abandoned. Later, with Earth becoming uninhab"
      },
      {
        "text": " go first to the binary system, because it may give them clues about what to expect on Earth itself. They next journey to the enigmatic charted system, which turns out to be Alpha Centauri. They find a remnant of the inhabitants of Earth, who many millennia ago were resettled there. There is a reference back to the events of Asimov's novel Pebble in the Sky: we learn that the restoration of Earth's soil was indeed attempted but was abandoned. Later, with Earth becoming uninhabitable, there was a grand project to terraform 'Alpha'. This too was not completed; the only dry land is an island 250 kilometers long and 65 kilometers wide. It is left open whether or not the entire population of the dying Earth was sent to Alpha. The natives, who call their home New Earth, are quite friendly, and Bliss, Trevize, Pelorat, and Fallom decide to enjoy some rest and relaxation. It turns out that the natives secretly intend to kill them, so as to prevent them from ever informing the rest of the galaxy of \"New Earth\" (the natives are paranoid of being taken by another \"Empire\" of any kind). They are warned by a native woman, who becomes sympathetic upon hearing Fallom playing the flute with its transducer brain-lobes, and make their escape in the middle of the night. Now certain that Alpha Centauri is not Earth but is near Earth, they head towards the uncharted system. They do notice and are puzzled by the very strong similarities between this star and the larger sun of the Alpha Centauri system. Asimov here is drawing attention to an astronomical curio: the nearest star system to Sol contains a star that has the same spectral type, G2 V, though Alpha Centauri A is a little larger and brighter. Entering the solar system of the uncharted star, they notice that it fits legends about Earth's solar system. The sixth planet has very prominent rings, much more"
      },
      {
        "text": " They do notice and are puzzled by the very strong similarities between this star and the larger sun of the Alpha Centauri system. Asimov here is drawing attention to an astronomical curio: the nearest star system to Sol contains a star that has the same spectral type, G2 V, though Alpha Centauri A is a little larger and brighter. Entering the solar system of the uncharted star, they notice that it fits legends about Earth's solar system. The sixth planet has very prominent rings, much more so than any known gas giant. Also the third planet, the one fit for life, possesses an abnormally large moon for any planet other than a gas giant. Obviously this is Earth and its solar system. On the approach to Earth, they detect that it is highly radioactive, and not capable of supporting life, but, while trying to use the ship's computer to locate Solaria, Fallom calls Trevize's attention upon the moon, which is big enough to serve as a hideout for the forces that lived on Earth. They land on there and find R. Daneel Olivaw, who explains that he has been paternalistically manipulating humanity for many millennia, and indeed, since Elijah Baley's time, which was long before the Galactic Empire or Foundation. He caused the settlement of Alpha Centauri, the creation of Gaia, and the creation of psychohistory (detailed in Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation). He also manipulated Trevize into making his decision at the end of Foundation's Edge (although he did not manipulate the decision itself). Trevize confirms that decision, as the numerous narrow escapes have convinced him that the creation of Galaxia is the correct choice. Also, Daneel's positronic brain is deteriorating. He explains that he is unable to design a new brain, as it would require extreme miniaturization, to the point where the brain would deteriorate immediately. Thus, he tells his visitors that he wishes to merge Fallom's brain"
      },
      {
        "text": " end of Foundation's Edge (although he did not manipulate the decision itself). Trevize confirms that decision, as the numerous narrow escapes have convinced him that the creation of Galaxia is the correct choice. Also, Daneel's positronic brain is deteriorating. He explains that he is unable to design a new brain, as it would require extreme miniaturization, to the point where the brain would deteriorate immediately. Thus, he tells his visitors that he wishes to merge Fallom's brain with his own, as Fallom's life span is the exceptionally long one of a Spacer. This will buy him time to oversee Galaxia's creation. Daneel continues to explain that since the dawn of civilization, man has been divided. This was the reason for his causing the creation of Psychohistory and Gaia. Another reason this was important was because of the likelihood of advanced life beyond the galaxy eventually attacking humanity. This danger is part of the conclusion to Asimov's book The End of Eternity, in which \"Project Eternity\" (which manipulated human history to maintain human comfort) had to be destroyed to undo that same extraterrestrial disaster -— extraterrestrials giving humanity no hope of expansion, at which point the birth rate fell, and humanity became extinct.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Time Enough for Love",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1973-06",
    "synopsis": " The book covers several periods from the life of Lazarus Long (birth name: Woodrow Wilson Smith), the oldest living human, now more than two thousand years old. The first half of the book takes the form of several novellas connected by Lazarus's retrospective narrative. In the framing story, Lazarus has decided that life is no longer worth living, but (in what is described as a reverse Arabian Nights scenario) will consent not to end his life as long as his companions will listen to his stories. This story concerns a 20th century United States Navy cadet who rises in the ranks while avoiding any semblance of real work by applying himself wholeheartedly to the principle of \"constructive laziness\". After the Naval Academy, the protagonist becomes rich by taking advantage of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which paid farmers not to farm their land. Lazarus tells of his visit as an interplanetary cargo trader to a planet with a culture like that of the medieval Middle East (reminiscent of Citizen of the Galaxy), whereon he bought a pair of slaves, brother and sister, and immediately manumitted them. Because neither has any knowledge of independence, nor any education, Lazarus teaches them during the voyage \"how to be human\". The two are the result of an experiment in genetic recombination in which two parent cells were separated into complementary haploid gametes, and recombined into two embryos. The resulting zygotes were implanted in a woman and gestated by her, with the result that although both have the same mother and genetic parents, they are no more closely related genetically than any two people taken at random. They have been prevented from sexual relations by a chastity belt; but having confirmed that there is no risk of genetic disease in their offspring (described as the sole valid reason against incest), Lazarus solemnizes their marriage and later establishes them as the owners and operators of a thriving business. At the end of the story, he reveals a belief that they are descendants of his own. A short scene-setter written after the style of \"The Song of Hiawatha\" introduces a planet whereto Lazarus has led a group of colonists now living in a manner reminiscent of the American Old West. Lazarus, now working as a banker and shopkeeper and keeping his true age secret, saves a young girl named Dora from a burning building and becomes her guardian. When she grows up, he marries her, and the two become founders of a new settlement where Lazarus' long life is less likely to be noticed. They are successful and eventually build a thriving town. Because Dora is not a Howard Family member, she eventually dies of old age, leaving Lazarus to mourn her loss. At the beginning of this story, Lazarus has regained his enthusiasm for life, and the remainder of the book is told in a conventional linear manner. Accompanied by some of his descendants, Lazarus has now moved to a new planet and established a polyamorous family consisting of three men, three women, and a larger number of children, two of whom are female clones of Lazarus himself. In the concluding tale, Lazarus, in a quest to experience something \"new\", attempts to travel backward in time to 1919 in order to experience it as an adult; but an error in calculation places Lazarus in 1916 on the eve of America's involvement in World War I. An unintentional result is that Lazarus falls in love with his own mother. In order to retain her esteem and that of his grandfather, Lazarus enlists in the army. Eventually Lazarus and his mother, Maureen, consummate their mutual attraction before Lazarus leaves for France. While in France, he is mortally wounded in the trenches of the Western Front, but rescued by those with whom he appears in Boondock and returned to his own time. There are also two \"Intermission\" sections, each some six or eight pages long, taking the form of lists of provocative phrases and aphorisms not directly related to the main narrative. These were later published independently, with illustrations, as The Notebooks of Lazarus Long.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book covers several periods from the life of Lazarus Long (birth name: Woodrow Wilson Smith), the oldest living human, now more than two thousand years old. The first half of the book takes the form of several novellas connected by Lazarus's retrospective narrative. In the framing story, Lazarus has decided that life is no longer worth living, but (in what is described as a reverse Arabian Nights scenario) will consent not to end his life as long as his companions will listen to his stories. This story concerns a 20th century United States Navy cadet who rises in the ranks while avoiding any semblance of real work by applying himself wholeheartedly to the principle of \"constructive laziness\". After the Naval Academy, the protagonist becomes rich by taking advantage of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which paid farmers not to farm their land. Lazarus tells of his visit as an interplanetary cargo trader to a planet with a culture like that of the medieval Middle East (reminiscent of Citizen of the Galaxy), whereon he bought a pair of slaves, brother and sister, and immediately manumitted them. Because neither has any knowledge of independence, nor any education, Lazarus teaches them during the voyage \"how to be human\". The two are the result of an experiment in genetic recombination in which two parent cells were separated into complementary haploid gametes, and recombined into two embryos. The resulting zygotes were implanted in a woman and gestated by her, with the result that although both have the same mother and genetic parents, they are no more closely related genetically than any two people taken at random. They have been prevented from sexual relations by a chastity belt; but having confirmed that there is no risk of genetic disease in their offspring (described as the sole valid reason against incest), Lazarus solemnizes their marriage and later establishes them as the owners and operators of a thriving business. At the end of the story, he reveals a belief that they are descendants of his"
      },
      {
        "text": " result that although both have the same mother and genetic parents, they are no more closely related genetically than any two people taken at random. They have been prevented from sexual relations by a chastity belt; but having confirmed that there is no risk of genetic disease in their offspring (described as the sole valid reason against incest), Lazarus solemnizes their marriage and later establishes them as the owners and operators of a thriving business. At the end of the story, he reveals a belief that they are descendants of his own. A short scene-setter written after the style of \"The Song of Hiawatha\" introduces a planet whereto Lazarus has led a group of colonists now living in a manner reminiscent of the American Old West. Lazarus, now working as a banker and shopkeeper and keeping his true age secret, saves a young girl named Dora from a burning building and becomes her guardian. When she grows up, he marries her, and the two become founders of a new settlement where Lazarus' long life is less likely to be noticed. They are successful and eventually build a thriving town. Because Dora is not a Howard Family member, she eventually dies of old age, leaving Lazarus to mourn her loss. At the beginning of this story, Lazarus has regained his enthusiasm for life, and the remainder of the book is told in a conventional linear manner. Accompanied by some of his descendants, Lazarus has now moved to a new planet and established a polyamorous family consisting of three men, three women, and a larger number of children, two of whom are female clones of Lazarus himself. In the concluding tale, Lazarus, in a quest to experience something \"new\", attempts to travel backward in time to 1919 in order to experience it as an adult; but an error in calculation places Lazarus in 1916 on the eve of America's involvement in World War I. An unintentional result is that Lazarus falls in love with his own mother. In order to retain her esteem and that of"
      },
      {
        "text": " three men, three women, and a larger number of children, two of whom are female clones of Lazarus himself. In the concluding tale, Lazarus, in a quest to experience something \"new\", attempts to travel backward in time to 1919 in order to experience it as an adult; but an error in calculation places Lazarus in 1916 on the eve of America's involvement in World War I. An unintentional result is that Lazarus falls in love with his own mother. In order to retain her esteem and that of his grandfather, Lazarus enlists in the army. Eventually Lazarus and his mother, Maureen, consummate their mutual attraction before Lazarus leaves for France. While in France, he is mortally wounded in the trenches of the Western Front, but rescued by those with whom he appears in Boondock and returned to his own time. There are also two \"Intermission\" sections, each some six or eight pages long, taking the form of lists of provocative phrases and aphorisms not directly related to the main narrative. These were later published independently, with illustrations, as The Notebooks of Lazarus Long.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Rolling Stones",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1952",
    "synopsis": " The Stones, a family of \"Loonies\" (residents of the Moon, known as \"Luna\" in Latin), purchase and rebuild a used spaceship, and go sightseeing around the solar system. The twin teenage boys, Castor and Pollux, buy used bicycles to sell on Mars, their first stop, where they run afoul of import regulations and are freed by their grandmother Hazel Stone. While on Mars, the twins buy their brother Buster a native Martian creature called a flat cat, born pregnant and producing a soothing vibration, as a pet. In the Asteroid Belt, where the equivalent of a gold rush is in progress prospecting for radioactive ores, the twins obtain supplies and luxury goods, on grounds that shopkeepers are much likelier to be rich than miners. En route, the flat cat and its offspring overpopulate the ship, so that the family place them in hibernation, and later sell them to the miners. Subsequently, the family set out to see the rings.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Stones, a family of \"Loonies\" (residents of the Moon, known as \"Luna\" in Latin), purchase and rebuild a used spaceship, and go sightseeing around the solar system. The twin teenage boys, Castor and Pollux, buy used bicycles to sell on Mars, their first stop, where they run afoul of import regulations and are freed by their grandmother Hazel Stone. While on Mars, the twins buy their brother Buster a native Martian creature called a flat cat, born pregnant and producing a soothing vibration, as a pet. In the Asteroid Belt, where the equivalent of a gold rush is in progress prospecting for radioactive ores, the twins obtain supplies and luxury goods, on grounds that shopkeepers are much likelier to be rich than miners. En route, the flat cat and its offspring overpopulate the ship, so that the family place them in hibernation, and later sell them to the miners. Subsequently, the family set out to see the rings.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Door into Summer",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1957",
    "synopsis": " The novel opens in 1970 with Daniel Boone Davis, an engineer and inventor, well into a long drinking binge. He has lost his company, Hired Girl, Inc., to his partner Miles Gentry and the company bookkeeper, Belle Darkin. She had been Dan's fianc\u00e9e, deceiving him into giving her enough voting stock to allow her and Miles to seize control. Dan's only friend in the world is his cat, \"Petronius the Arbiter\", or \"Pete\", whom he carries around in a bag, allowing him out from time to time for a sip of ginger ale. Hired Girl, Inc. manufactures robot vacuum cleaners, but Dan had been developing a new line of all-purpose household robots, Flexible Frank, when Miles announces his intention to sell the company (and Frank) to a large corporation in which Miles would become a vice-president. Wishing to stay independent, Dan opposes the takeover, but is outvoted and then fired as Chief Engineer. Left with a large financial settlement, and his remaining Hired Girl stock, he elects to take \"cold sleep\" (suspended animation) with his beloved pet cat \"Pete\", hoping to wake up thirty years later to a brighter future. The examining doctor at the cold sleep facility immediately sees that Dan has been drinking. He gives Dan an injection to start the process of sobering him up, and warns him to show up sober or not at all 24 hours later for the actual procedure. After becoming sober, Dan decides instead to mount a counter-attack. First he mails his Hired Girl stock certificate to the one person he trusts, Miles' stepdaughter Frederica \"Ricky\" Gentry. Dan confronts Miles and finds Belle in Miles' home. Belle injects him with an illegal \"zombie\" drug, reducing him to somnolent compliance. Belle and Miles discover Dan's plans to go into cold sleep. Belle alters Dan's commitment documents to have him placed in a repository run by her cronies\u2014a subsidiary of Mannix, the company that was trying to buy Hired Girl, Inc. Dan wakes up in the year 2000, with no money to his name, and no idea how to find the people he once knew. What little money Belle let him keep went with the collapse of Mannix in 1987. He has lost Pete the cat, who fled Miles' house after Dan was drugged, and has no idea how to find a now middle-aged Ricky. Dan begins rebuilding his life. He persuades Geary Manufacturing, which now owns Hired Girl, to take him on as a figurehead. He discovers that Miles died in 1972, while Belle is a shrill and gin-sodden wreck. All she recalls is that Ricky went to live with her grandmother about the time Dan went into cold sleep. Her scheme with Miles collapsed, as Flexible Frank disappeared the same night she shanghaied Dan. Flexible Frank is everywhere in the future, acting as hospital orderly, bellhop, and a thousand other menial jobs once filled by people. It is called Eager Beaver, made by a company called \"Aladdin Auto-engineering,\" but Dan knows someone has taken his prototype and developed it. He is even more baffled to find that the patent is credited to a \"D. B. Davis.\" His buddy Chuck at Geary lets slip that he once saw time travel working, in a lab in Colorado. At that point Dan finds that Ricky has been awakened from cold sleep and left Los Angeles for Brawley, California. Dan tracks her to Yuma, Arizona, where she was apparently married. When Dan looks at the marriage register, he finds that she married \"Daniel Boone Davis\". He immediately empties his bank account and heads for Colorado. In Boulder, he befriends Dr. Twitchell, a once-brilliant scientist reduced to drinking away his frustrations. Eventually, just as Chuck had told him, Twitchell admits to having created a time machine of sorts. With the machine powered up, Dan goads Twitchell into throwing the switch and finds himself falling. Dan has gone back to 1970, some months before his confrontation with Miles and Belle. Dan is befriended by John and Jenny Sutton and persuades them to help him in his mission. Working rapidly, Dan creates Drafting Dan, which he then uses to design Protean Pete, the first version of Eager Beaver. Leaving John and Jenny to set up a new corporation to be called \"Aladdin Auto-engineering,\" he returns to Los Angeles, and stakes out Miles' house on the fateful night. Watching himself arrive, he lets events unfold until Pete the cat emerges, then takes his own car and uses it to remove Flexible Frank and all his engineering drawings from Miles's garage. Destroying the drawings and scattering machine parts across the landscape, he heads out to meet Ricky at her Girl Scout summer camp. Ricky is remarkably mature for her age, and asks Dan if he is doing this so they can get married. Dan tells her she is correct. He sells his car for quick cash, enough to get him to his cold sleep appointment. With Pete in his arms, he sleeps for the second time. In 2001, he awakes to a note from a much older John Sutton, along with a substantial amount of money. He greets Ricky, now a twenty-something beauty, when she awakes. They leave for Brawley to retrieve her possessions from storage, and then are married in Yuma. Setting himself up as an independent inventor, he uses Ricky's Hired Girl stock to make changes at Geary, settling back to watch the healthy competition with Aladdin.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel opens in 1970 with Daniel Boone Davis, an engineer and inventor, well into a long drinking binge. He has lost his company, Hired Girl, Inc., to his partner Miles Gentry and the company bookkeeper, Belle Darkin. She had been Dan's fianc\u00e9e, deceiving him into giving her enough voting stock to allow her and Miles to seize control. Dan's only friend in the world is his cat, \"Petronius the Arbiter\", or \"Pete\", whom he carries around in a bag, allowing him out from time to time for a sip of ginger ale. Hired Girl, Inc. manufactures robot vacuum cleaners, but Dan had been developing a new line of all-purpose household robots, Flexible Frank, when Miles announces his intention to sell the company (and Frank) to a large corporation in which Miles would become a vice-president. Wishing to stay independent, Dan opposes the takeover, but is outvoted and then fired as Chief Engineer. Left with a large financial settlement, and his remaining Hired Girl stock, he elects to take \"cold sleep\" (suspended animation) with his beloved pet cat \"Pete\", hoping to wake up thirty years later to a brighter future. The examining doctor at the cold sleep facility immediately sees that Dan has been drinking. He gives Dan an injection to start the process of sobering him up, and warns him to show up sober or not at all 24 hours later for the actual procedure. After becoming sober, Dan decides instead to mount a counter-attack. First he mails his Hired Girl stock certificate to the one person he trusts, Miles' stepdaughter Frederica \"Ricky\" Gentry. Dan confronts Miles and finds Belle in Miles' home. Belle injects him with an illegal \"zombie\" drug, reducing him to somnolent compliance. Belle and Miles discover Dan's plans to go into cold sleep. Belle alters Dan's commitment documents to"
      },
      {
        "text": " actual procedure. After becoming sober, Dan decides instead to mount a counter-attack. First he mails his Hired Girl stock certificate to the one person he trusts, Miles' stepdaughter Frederica \"Ricky\" Gentry. Dan confronts Miles and finds Belle in Miles' home. Belle injects him with an illegal \"zombie\" drug, reducing him to somnolent compliance. Belle and Miles discover Dan's plans to go into cold sleep. Belle alters Dan's commitment documents to have him placed in a repository run by her cronies\u2014a subsidiary of Mannix, the company that was trying to buy Hired Girl, Inc. Dan wakes up in the year 2000, with no money to his name, and no idea how to find the people he once knew. What little money Belle let him keep went with the collapse of Mannix in 1987. He has lost Pete the cat, who fled Miles' house after Dan was drugged, and has no idea how to find a now middle-aged Ricky. Dan begins rebuilding his life. He persuades Geary Manufacturing, which now owns Hired Girl, to take him on as a figurehead. He discovers that Miles died in 1972, while Belle is a shrill and gin-sodden wreck. All she recalls is that Ricky went to live with her grandmother about the time Dan went into cold sleep. Her scheme with Miles collapsed, as Flexible Frank disappeared the same night she shanghaied Dan. Flexible Frank is everywhere in the future, acting as hospital orderly, bellhop, and a thousand other menial jobs once filled by people. It is called Eager Beaver, made by a company called \"Aladdin Auto-engineering,\" but Dan knows someone has taken his prototype and developed it. He is even more baffled to find that the patent is credited to a \"D. B. Davis.\" His buddy Chuck at Geary lets slip that he once saw time travel working, in a lab"
      },
      {
        "text": " Flexible Frank is everywhere in the future, acting as hospital orderly, bellhop, and a thousand other menial jobs once filled by people. It is called Eager Beaver, made by a company called \"Aladdin Auto-engineering,\" but Dan knows someone has taken his prototype and developed it. He is even more baffled to find that the patent is credited to a \"D. B. Davis.\" His buddy Chuck at Geary lets slip that he once saw time travel working, in a lab in Colorado. At that point Dan finds that Ricky has been awakened from cold sleep and left Los Angeles for Brawley, California. Dan tracks her to Yuma, Arizona, where she was apparently married. When Dan looks at the marriage register, he finds that she married \"Daniel Boone Davis\". He immediately empties his bank account and heads for Colorado. In Boulder, he befriends Dr. Twitchell, a once-brilliant scientist reduced to drinking away his frustrations. Eventually, just as Chuck had told him, Twitchell admits to having created a time machine of sorts. With the machine powered up, Dan goads Twitchell into throwing the switch and finds himself falling. Dan has gone back to 1970, some months before his confrontation with Miles and Belle. Dan is befriended by John and Jenny Sutton and persuades them to help him in his mission. Working rapidly, Dan creates Drafting Dan, which he then uses to design Protean Pete, the first version of Eager Beaver. Leaving John and Jenny to set up a new corporation to be called \"Aladdin Auto-engineering,\" he returns to Los Angeles, and stakes out Miles' house on the fateful night. Watching himself arrive, he lets events unfold until Pete the cat emerges, then takes his own car and uses it to remove Flexible Frank and all his engineering drawings from Miles's garage. Destroying the drawings and scattering machine parts across the landscape, he heads out to meet Ricky at her"
      },
      {
        "text": " version of Eager Beaver. Leaving John and Jenny to set up a new corporation to be called \"Aladdin Auto-engineering,\" he returns to Los Angeles, and stakes out Miles' house on the fateful night. Watching himself arrive, he lets events unfold until Pete the cat emerges, then takes his own car and uses it to remove Flexible Frank and all his engineering drawings from Miles's garage. Destroying the drawings and scattering machine parts across the landscape, he heads out to meet Ricky at her Girl Scout summer camp. Ricky is remarkably mature for her age, and asks Dan if he is doing this so they can get married. Dan tells her she is correct. He sells his car for quick cash, enough to get him to his cold sleep appointment. With Pete in his arms, he sleeps for the second time. In 2001, he awakes to a note from a much older John Sutton, along with a substantial amount of money. He greets Ricky, now a twenty-something beauty, when she awakes. They leave for Brawley to retrieve her possessions from storage, and then are married in Yuma. Setting himself up as an independent inventor, he uses Ricky's Hired Girl stock to make changes at Geary, settling back to watch the healthy competition with Aladdin.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Farnham's Freehold",
    "author": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "published_date": "1964",
    "synopsis": " Hugh Farnham, a middle-aged man, holds a bridge club party for his wife Grace (an alcoholic), son Duke (a law graduate), daughter Karen (a college student), and Barbara (Karen's sorority sister). During the bridge game, Duke berates him for frightening his mother with preparations for a possible nuclear attack by the Russians. When the attack actually occurs, the group, along with Joe (the family's African American servant), retreat to the fallout shelter below the house. After several apparently nuclear explosions rock the shelter, Hugh and Barbara become romantically involved; after their copulation, the largest explosion of all hits the shelter. With only minor injuries, and with their bottled oxygen running low, the group decides to ensure that they can leave the shelter when necessary; upon exiting through an emergency tunnel, they find themselves in a completely undamaged, semi-tropical region apparently uninhabited by humans or other sentient creatures. Several of the group think the final explosion somehow forced them into an alternate dimension. The group strives to stay alive as a pioneer family, with Hugh as the leader (despite friction between Hugh and Duke). Karen announces that she is pregnant, and had returned home the night of the attack to tell her parents; Barbara also announces that she is pregnant (although she does not mention that her pregnancy resulted from her sexual encounter with Hugh during the attack). Karen eventually dies during her labor, due to complications, and her infant daughter follows the next day. Grace, whose sanity has been challenged by all these events, demands that Barbara be forced from the group or she will leave. Duke convinces Hugh that he will go with Grace to ensure her safety, but before they can leave, a large ship appears overhead. The group is taken captive by people of clear African ancestry, but is spared execution when Joe intervenes by conversation with their captives' leader in French. The group finds that it has not been transported to another world, but instead is in the distant future of their own world. A decadent but technologically advanced African culture keeps either uneducated or castrated whites as slaves. Each of the characters adapts to the sudden black/white role reversal in different and sometimes shocking ways. In the end, Hugh and Barbara fail to adjust to the new situation and attempt to escape, but are captured. Rather than execute them, Ponse (the \"Lord Protector\" of the house to which they have become slaves) asks them to volunteer (though they speculate that if they didn't volunteer they would have been forced to anyway) for a time-travel experiment to send them back to their own time. They return just prior to the original nuclear attack, and flee in Barbara's car. As they drive, they realize that while Barbara had driven a car with an automatic transmission, this car - the same car in every respect but one - has a manual transmission, and Farnham deduces that the time-travel experiment worked, but sent them into an alternate universe. They survive the war, then spend the rest of their lives trying to make sure the future they experienced does not come to pass.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Hugh Farnham, a middle-aged man, holds a bridge club party for his wife Grace (an alcoholic), son Duke (a law graduate), daughter Karen (a college student), and Barbara (Karen's sorority sister). During the bridge game, Duke berates him for frightening his mother with preparations for a possible nuclear attack by the Russians. When the attack actually occurs, the group, along with Joe (the family's African American servant), retreat to the fallout shelter below the house. After several apparently nuclear explosions rock the shelter, Hugh and Barbara become romantically involved; after their copulation, the largest explosion of all hits the shelter. With only minor injuries, and with their bottled oxygen running low, the group decides to ensure that they can leave the shelter when necessary; upon exiting through an emergency tunnel, they find themselves in a completely undamaged, semi-tropical region apparently uninhabited by humans or other sentient creatures. Several of the group think the final explosion somehow forced them into an alternate dimension. The group strives to stay alive as a pioneer family, with Hugh as the leader (despite friction between Hugh and Duke). Karen announces that she is pregnant, and had returned home the night of the attack to tell her parents; Barbara also announces that she is pregnant (although she does not mention that her pregnancy resulted from her sexual encounter with Hugh during the attack). Karen eventually dies during her labor, due to complications, and her infant daughter follows the next day. Grace, whose sanity has been challenged by all these events, demands that Barbara be forced from the group or she will leave. Duke convinces Hugh that he will go with Grace to ensure her safety, but before they can leave, a large ship appears overhead. The group is taken captive by people of clear African ancestry, but is spared execution when Joe intervenes by conversation with their captives' leader in French. The group finds that it has not been transported to another world, but instead is in the distant"
      },
      {
        "text": ", whose sanity has been challenged by all these events, demands that Barbara be forced from the group or she will leave. Duke convinces Hugh that he will go with Grace to ensure her safety, but before they can leave, a large ship appears overhead. The group is taken captive by people of clear African ancestry, but is spared execution when Joe intervenes by conversation with their captives' leader in French. The group finds that it has not been transported to another world, but instead is in the distant future of their own world. A decadent but technologically advanced African culture keeps either uneducated or castrated whites as slaves. Each of the characters adapts to the sudden black/white role reversal in different and sometimes shocking ways. In the end, Hugh and Barbara fail to adjust to the new situation and attempt to escape, but are captured. Rather than execute them, Ponse (the \"Lord Protector\" of the house to which they have become slaves) asks them to volunteer (though they speculate that if they didn't volunteer they would have been forced to anyway) for a time-travel experiment to send them back to their own time. They return just prior to the original nuclear attack, and flee in Barbara's car. As they drive, they realize that while Barbara had driven a car with an automatic transmission, this car - the same car in every respect but one - has a manual transmission, and Farnham deduces that the time-travel experiment worked, but sent them into an alternate universe. They survive the war, then spend the rest of their lives trying to make sure the future they experienced does not come to pass.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " universe. They survive the war, then spend the rest of their lives trying to make sure the future they experienced does not come to pass.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Maltese Falcon",
    "author": "Dashiell Hammett",
    "published_date": "1930",
    "synopsis": " Sam Spade and Miles Archer are hired by a Miss Wonderly to follow a man, Floyd Thursby, who has allegedly run off with Wonderly's younger sister. Spade and Archer take the assignment because the money is good, but Spade implies that the woman looks like trouble. That night, Spade receives a phone call telling him that Archer is dead. When questioned by Sgt. Polhaus about Archer's activities, Spade says that Archer was tailing Thursby, but refuses to reveal their client's identity. Later that night, Polhaus and Lieutenant Dundy visit Spade and inquire about his recent whereabouts, and say that Thursby was also killed and that Spade is a suspect. They have no evidence against Spade, but tell him that they will be conducting an investigation into the matter. The next day, Archer's wife Iva asks Spade if he killed Miles. He tells her to leave, and orders his secretary Effie Perine to remove all of Archer's belongings from the office. Visiting his client at her hotel, he learns her real name is Brigid O'Shaughnessy, she never had a sister, and Thursby was an acquaintance who had betrayed her. Later, Spade is visited by Joel Cairo, who offers Spade $5,000 if he can retrieve a figurine of a black bird that has recently arrived in San Francisco. Cairo suddenly pulls a gun, declaring his intention to search Spade's office, but Spade knocks him unconscious. When O'Shaughnessy contacts Spade, he senses a connection between her and Cairo, and casually mentions that he has spoken to Cairo. O'Shaughnessy becomes nervous, and asks Spade to arrange a meeting with Cairo. Spade agrees. When they meet at Spade's apartment, Cairo says he is ready to pay for the figurine, but O'Shaughnessy says she does not have it. They also refer to a mysterious figure, \"G\", of whom they seem to be scared. As the two begin to argue, Polhaus and Dundy show up, but Spade refuses to let them in. As they are about to leave, Cairo screams, and they force their way in. Spade says that Cairo and O'Shaughnessy were merely play-acting, which the officers seem to accept. But they take Cairo with them to the station. Spade tries to get more information from O'Shaughnessy, who stalls. Spade confronts a kid named Wilmer Cook, telling him that his boss, \"G,\" will have to deal with Spade. He later receives a call from Casper Gutman, who wishes to meet him. Gutman says he will pay handsomely for the black bird. Spade bluffs, saying he can get it, but wants to know what it is first. Gutman tells him that the figurine was a gift from the Knights of Malta to the King of Spain, but was lost in transit. It was covered with fine jewels, but acquired a layer of black enamel to conceal its value. Gutman had been looking for it for seventeen years. He traced it to Russian general Kemidov, and sent Cairo, Thursby, and O'Shaughnessy to retrieve it. The latter pair stole the figurine, but kept it. Spade feels dizzy, and when he tries to leave, Wilmer trips him and kicks him in the head. After Spade returns to his office, Captain Jacobi of the La Paloma arrives, drops a package on the floor, and then dies. Spade opens the package, and finds the falcon. He receives a call from O'Shaughnessy, asking for his help. He stores the item at a bus station luggage counter and mails himself the collection tag. At the dock, the La Paloma is on fire. He goes to the address O'Shaughnessy gave him, and finds a drugged girl, her stomach scratched by a pin in order to keep her awake. She gives him information about Brigid, but it is a false lead. When he returns to his apartment, O'Shaughnessy, Wilmer, Cairo, and Gutman are waiting. Gutman gives Spade $10,000 for the bird. Spade takes the money, but says that they need a \"fall guy\" to take the blame for the murders. Cairo and Gutman agree to give him Wilmer. Gutman proceeds to tell Spade the rest of the story. Gutman then warns Spade not to trust O'Shaughnessy. Spade calls his secretary and asks her to pick up the figurine. She brings it to Spade's apartment, and Spade gives it to Gutman. He quickly learns that it is a fake. He realizes that the Russian must have discovered its true value and made a copy. Meanwhile, Wilmer escapes. Gutman regains his composure, and decides to continue the search. Gutman asks Spade for the $10,000. Spade keeps $1,000 for expenses. Cairo and Gutman leave. Immediately after Cairo and Gutman leave, Spade phones Sgt. Polhaus, and tells him about Gutman and Cairo. Spade then asks O'Shaughnessy why she killed Archer. She says she hired Archer to scare Thursby. When Thursby did not leave, she killed Archer, to pin the crime on Thursby. When Thursby was killed, she knew that Gutman was in town, so she came back to Spade for protection. Spade says that the penalty for murder is most likely twenty years, but if they hang her, he will always remember her. O'Shaughnessy begs him not to turn her in, but he replies that he has no choice. When the police arrive, Spade turns over O'Shaughnessy. They tell Spade that Wilmer was waiting for Gutman at the hotel and shot him when he arrived.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Sam Spade and Miles Archer are hired by a Miss Wonderly to follow a man, Floyd Thursby, who has allegedly run off with Wonderly's younger sister. Spade and Archer take the assignment because the money is good, but Spade implies that the woman looks like trouble. That night, Spade receives a phone call telling him that Archer is dead. When questioned by Sgt. Polhaus about Archer's activities, Spade says that Archer was tailing Thursby, but refuses to reveal their client's identity. Later that night, Polhaus and Lieutenant Dundy visit Spade and inquire about his recent whereabouts, and say that Thursby was also killed and that Spade is a suspect. They have no evidence against Spade, but tell him that they will be conducting an investigation into the matter. The next day, Archer's wife Iva asks Spade if he killed Miles. He tells her to leave, and orders his secretary Effie Perine to remove all of Archer's belongings from the office. Visiting his client at her hotel, he learns her real name is Brigid O'Shaughnessy, she never had a sister, and Thursby was an acquaintance who had betrayed her. Later, Spade is visited by Joel Cairo, who offers Spade $5,000 if he can retrieve a figurine of a black bird that has recently arrived in San Francisco. Cairo suddenly pulls a gun, declaring his intention to search Spade's office, but Spade knocks him unconscious. When O'Shaughnessy contacts Spade, he senses a connection between her and Cairo, and casually mentions that he has spoken to Cairo. O'Shaughnessy becomes nervous, and asks Spade to arrange a meeting with Cairo. Spade agrees. When they meet at Spade's apartment, Cairo says he is ready to pay for the figurine, but O'Shaughnessy says she does not have it. They also refer to a"
      },
      {
        "text": " Spade knocks him unconscious. When O'Shaughnessy contacts Spade, he senses a connection between her and Cairo, and casually mentions that he has spoken to Cairo. O'Shaughnessy becomes nervous, and asks Spade to arrange a meeting with Cairo. Spade agrees. When they meet at Spade's apartment, Cairo says he is ready to pay for the figurine, but O'Shaughnessy says she does not have it. They also refer to a mysterious figure, \"G\", of whom they seem to be scared. As the two begin to argue, Polhaus and Dundy show up, but Spade refuses to let them in. As they are about to leave, Cairo screams, and they force their way in. Spade says that Cairo and O'Shaughnessy were merely play-acting, which the officers seem to accept. But they take Cairo with them to the station. Spade tries to get more information from O'Shaughnessy, who stalls. Spade confronts a kid named Wilmer Cook, telling him that his boss, \"G,\" will have to deal with Spade. He later receives a call from Casper Gutman, who wishes to meet him. Gutman says he will pay handsomely for the black bird. Spade bluffs, saying he can get it, but wants to know what it is first. Gutman tells him that the figurine was a gift from the Knights of Malta to the King of Spain, but was lost in transit. It was covered with fine jewels, but acquired a layer of black enamel to conceal its value. Gutman had been looking for it for seventeen years. He traced it to Russian general Kemidov, and sent Cairo, Thursby, and O'Shaughnessy to retrieve it. The latter pair stole the figurine, but kept it. Spade feels dizzy, and when he tries to leave, Wilmer trips"
      },
      {
        "text": " Malta to the King of Spain, but was lost in transit. It was covered with fine jewels, but acquired a layer of black enamel to conceal its value. Gutman had been looking for it for seventeen years. He traced it to Russian general Kemidov, and sent Cairo, Thursby, and O'Shaughnessy to retrieve it. The latter pair stole the figurine, but kept it. Spade feels dizzy, and when he tries to leave, Wilmer trips him and kicks him in the head. After Spade returns to his office, Captain Jacobi of the La Paloma arrives, drops a package on the floor, and then dies. Spade opens the package, and finds the falcon. He receives a call from O'Shaughnessy, asking for his help. He stores the item at a bus station luggage counter and mails himself the collection tag. At the dock, the La Paloma is on fire. He goes to the address O'Shaughnessy gave him, and finds a drugged girl, her stomach scratched by a pin in order to keep her awake. She gives him information about Brigid, but it is a false lead. When he returns to his apartment, O'Shaughnessy, Wilmer, Cairo, and Gutman are waiting. Gutman gives Spade $10,000 for the bird. Spade takes the money, but says that they need a \"fall guy\" to take the blame for the murders. Cairo and Gutman agree to give him Wilmer. Gutman proceeds to tell Spade the rest of the story. Gutman then warns Spade not to trust O'Shaughnessy. Spade calls his secretary and asks her to pick up the figurine. She brings it to Spade's apartment, and Spade gives it to Gutman. He quickly learns that it is a fake. He realizes that the Russian must have discovered its true value"
      },
      {
        "text": " take the blame for the murders. Cairo and Gutman agree to give him Wilmer. Gutman proceeds to tell Spade the rest of the story. Gutman then warns Spade not to trust O'Shaughnessy. Spade calls his secretary and asks her to pick up the figurine. She brings it to Spade's apartment, and Spade gives it to Gutman. He quickly learns that it is a fake. He realizes that the Russian must have discovered its true value and made a copy. Meanwhile, Wilmer escapes. Gutman regains his composure, and decides to continue the search. Gutman asks Spade for the $10,000. Spade keeps $1,000 for expenses. Cairo and Gutman leave. Immediately after Cairo and Gutman leave, Spade phones Sgt. Polhaus, and tells him about Gutman and Cairo. Spade then asks O'Shaughnessy why she killed Archer. She says she hired Archer to scare Thursby. When Thursby did not leave, she killed Archer, to pin the crime on Thursby. When Thursby was killed, she knew that Gutman was in town, so she came back to Spade for protection. Spade says that the penalty for murder is most likely twenty years, but if they hang her, he will always remember her. O'Shaughnessy begs him not to turn her in, but he replies that he has no choice. When the police arrive, Spade turns over O'Shaughnessy. They tell Spade that Wilmer was waiting for Gutman at the hotel and shot him when he arrived.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Spade turns over O'Shaughnessy. They tell Spade that Wilmer was waiting for Gutman at the hotel and shot him when he arrived.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre",
    "author": "B. Traven",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Three down-and-out gringos meet by chance in a Mexican city and discuss how to overcome their financial distress. They then set out to discover gold in the remote Sierra Madre mountains. They ride a train into the hinterlands, surviving a bandit attack en route. Once in the desert, Howard, the old-timer of the group, quickly proves to be by far the toughest and most knowledgeable; he is the one to discover the gold they are seeking. A mine is dug, and much gold is extracted, but greed soon begins and Fred C. Dobbs begins to lose both his trust and his mind, lusting to possess the entire treasure. The bandits then reappear, pretending, very crudely, to be Federales. After a gunfight, a troop of real Federales arrives and drives the bandits away. But when Howard is called away to assist some local villagers, Dobbs and third partner Curtin have a final confrontation, which Dobbs wins, leaving Curtin lying shot and bleeding. Dobbs continues on alone but is soon confronted and killed by three drifters. The drifters, thinking the gold dust is just worthless sand, scatter the paydirt. They are later captured and executed by the Federales. Curtin and Howard hear the story and can do nothing but laugh in the end.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Three down-and-out gringos meet by chance in a Mexican city and discuss how to overcome their financial distress. They then set out to discover gold in the remote Sierra Madre mountains. They ride a train into the hinterlands, surviving a bandit attack en route. Once in the desert, Howard, the old-timer of the group, quickly proves to be by far the toughest and most knowledgeable; he is the one to discover the gold they are seeking. A mine is dug, and much gold is extracted, but greed soon begins and Fred C. Dobbs begins to lose both his trust and his mind, lusting to possess the entire treasure. The bandits then reappear, pretending, very crudely, to be Federales. After a gunfight, a troop of real Federales arrives and drives the bandits away. But when Howard is called away to assist some local villagers, Dobbs and third partner Curtin have a final confrontation, which Dobbs wins, leaving Curtin lying shot and bleeding. Dobbs continues on alone but is soon confronted and killed by three drifters. The drifters, thinking the gold dust is just worthless sand, scatter the paydirt. They are later captured and executed by the Federales. Curtin and Howard hear the story and can do nothing but laugh in the end.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Funeral in Berlin",
    "author": "Len Deighton",
    "published_date": "1964",
    "synopsis": " The protagonist, who is unnamed, travels to Berlin to arrange the defection of a Soviet scientist named Semitsa, this being brokered by Johnny Vulkan of the Berlin intelligence community. Despite his initial scepticism the deal seems to have the support of Russian security-chief Colonel Stok and Hallam in the British government's Home Office. The fake documentation for Semitsa needs to be precisely specified. In addition, an Israeli intelligence agent named Samantha Steel is involved in the case. But it soon becomes apparent that behind the facade of an elaborate mock funeral lies a game of deadly manoeuvres and ruthless tactics. A game in which the blood-stained legacy of Nazi Germany is enmeshed in the intricate moves of cold war espionage.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The protagonist, who is unnamed, travels to Berlin to arrange the defection of a Soviet scientist named Semitsa, this being brokered by Johnny Vulkan of the Berlin intelligence community. Despite his initial scepticism the deal seems to have the support of Russian security-chief Colonel Stok and Hallam in the British government's Home Office. The fake documentation for Semitsa needs to be precisely specified. In addition, an Israeli intelligence agent named Samantha Steel is involved in the case. But it soon becomes apparent that behind the facade of an elaborate mock funeral lies a game of deadly manoeuvres and ruthless tactics. A game in which the blood-stained legacy of Nazi Germany is enmeshed in the intricate moves of cold war espionage.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Billion-Dollar Brain",
    "author": "Len Deighton",
    "published_date": "1966",
    "synopsis": " The unnamed protagonist travels to Helsinki to deliver a package after receiving instructions from a mysterious mechanically operated telephone message. On his arrival the protagonist discovers that the message was from 'The Brain', a one billion dollar super-computer owned by eccentric Texan billionaire General Midwinter. Midwinter is using The Brain to organise his own intelligence agency and private army which will soon start an uprising in Soviet-occupied Latvia in an attempt to end Communism in the Eastern bloc and tip the balance of the Cold War in favour of the West. After discovering this, and also the fact that the package he delivered contained a deadly virus, the protagonist must stop the virus from falling into the hands of both the Soviets and the madman billionaire - and prevent a nuclear war between the superpowers in the process.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The unnamed protagonist travels to Helsinki to deliver a package after receiving instructions from a mysterious mechanically operated telephone message. On his arrival the protagonist discovers that the message was from 'The Brain', a one billion dollar super-computer owned by eccentric Texan billionaire General Midwinter. Midwinter is using The Brain to organise his own intelligence agency and private army which will soon start an uprising in Soviet-occupied Latvia in an attempt to end Communism in the Eastern bloc and tip the balance of the Cold War in favour of the West. After discovering this, and also the fact that the package he delivered contained a deadly virus, the protagonist must stop the virus from falling into the hands of both the Soviets and the madman billionaire - and prevent a nuclear war between the superpowers in the process.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Kim",
    "author": "Rudyard Kipling",
    "published_date": "1901",
    "synopsis": " Kim (Kimball O'Hara) is the orphaned son of an Irish soldier and a poor white mother who have both died in poverty. Living a vagabond existence in India under British rule in the late 19th century, Kim earns his living by begging and running small errands on the streets of Lahore. He occasionally works for Mahbub Ali, a Pashtun horse trader who is one of the native operatives of the British secret service. Kim is so immersed in the local culture, few realise he is a white child, though he carries a packet of documents from his father entrusted to him by an Indian woman who cared for him. Kim befriends an aged Tibetan Lama who is on a quest to free himself from the Wheel of Things by finding the legendary 'River of the Arrow'. Kim becomes his chela, or disciple, and accompanies him on his journey. On the way, Kim incidentally learns about parts of the Great Game and is recruited by Mahbub Ali to carry a message to the head of British intelligence in Umballa. Kim's trip with the lama along the Grand Trunk Road is the first great adventure in the novel. By chance, Kim's father's regimental chaplain identifies Kim by his Masonic certificate, which he wears around his neck, and Kim is forcibly separated from the lama. The lama insists that Kim should comply with the chaplain's plan because he believes it is in Kim's best interests, and the boy is sent to a top English school in Lucknow. The lama funds Kim's education. Throughout his years at school, Kim remains in contact with the holy man he has come to love. Kim also retains contact with his secret service connections and is trained in espionage (to be a surveyor) while on vacation from school by Lurgan Sahib, at his jewellery shop in Simla. As part of his training, Kim looks at a tray full of mixed objects and notes which have been added or taken away, a pastime still called Kim's Game, also called the Jewel Game. After three years of schooling, Kim is given a government appointment so that he can begin his role in the Great Game. Before this appointment begins however, he is granted time to take a much-deserved break. Kim rejoins the lama and at the behest of Kim's superior, Hurree Chunder Mookherjee, they make a trip to the Himalayas. Here the espionage and spiritual threads of the story collide, with the lama unwittingly falling into conflict with Russian intelligence agents. Kim obtains maps, papers, and other important items from the Russians working to undermine British control of the region. Mookherjee befriends the Russians under cover, acting as a guide and ensures that they do not recover the lost items. Kim, aided by some porters and villagers, helps to rescue the lama. The lama realizes that he has gone astray. His search for the 'River of the Arrow' should be taking place in the plains, not in the mountains, and he orders the porters to take them back. Here Kim and the lama are nursed back to health after their arduous journey. Kim delivers the Russian documents to Hurree, and a concerned Mahbub Ali comes to check on Kim. The lama finds his river and achieves Enlightenment. The reader is left to decide whether Kim will henceforth follow the prideful road of the Great Game, the spiritual way of Tibetan Buddhism, or a combination of the two. Kim himself has this to say: \"I am not a Sahib. I am thy chela.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Kim (Kimball O'Hara) is the orphaned son of an Irish soldier and a poor white mother who have both died in poverty. Living a vagabond existence in India under British rule in the late 19th century, Kim earns his living by begging and running small errands on the streets of Lahore. He occasionally works for Mahbub Ali, a Pashtun horse trader who is one of the native operatives of the British secret service. Kim is so immersed in the local culture, few realise he is a white child, though he carries a packet of documents from his father entrusted to him by an Indian woman who cared for him. Kim befriends an aged Tibetan Lama who is on a quest to free himself from the Wheel of Things by finding the legendary 'River of the Arrow'. Kim becomes his chela, or disciple, and accompanies him on his journey. On the way, Kim incidentally learns about parts of the Great Game and is recruited by Mahbub Ali to carry a message to the head of British intelligence in Umballa. Kim's trip with the lama along the Grand Trunk Road is the first great adventure in the novel. By chance, Kim's father's regimental chaplain identifies Kim by his Masonic certificate, which he wears around his neck, and Kim is forcibly separated from the lama. The lama insists that Kim should comply with the chaplain's plan because he believes it is in Kim's best interests, and the boy is sent to a top English school in Lucknow. The lama funds Kim's education. Throughout his years at school, Kim remains in contact with the holy man he has come to love. Kim also retains contact with his secret service connections and is trained in espionage (to be a surveyor) while on vacation from school by Lurgan Sahib, at his jewellery shop in Simla. As part of his training, Kim looks at a tray full of mixed objects and notes which have been added or"
      },
      {
        "text": " to a top English school in Lucknow. The lama funds Kim's education. Throughout his years at school, Kim remains in contact with the holy man he has come to love. Kim also retains contact with his secret service connections and is trained in espionage (to be a surveyor) while on vacation from school by Lurgan Sahib, at his jewellery shop in Simla. As part of his training, Kim looks at a tray full of mixed objects and notes which have been added or taken away, a pastime still called Kim's Game, also called the Jewel Game. After three years of schooling, Kim is given a government appointment so that he can begin his role in the Great Game. Before this appointment begins however, he is granted time to take a much-deserved break. Kim rejoins the lama and at the behest of Kim's superior, Hurree Chunder Mookherjee, they make a trip to the Himalayas. Here the espionage and spiritual threads of the story collide, with the lama unwittingly falling into conflict with Russian intelligence agents. Kim obtains maps, papers, and other important items from the Russians working to undermine British control of the region. Mookherjee befriends the Russians under cover, acting as a guide and ensures that they do not recover the lost items. Kim, aided by some porters and villagers, helps to rescue the lama. The lama realizes that he has gone astray. His search for the 'River of the Arrow' should be taking place in the plains, not in the mountains, and he orders the porters to take them back. Here Kim and the lama are nursed back to health after their arduous journey. Kim delivers the Russian documents to Hurree, and a concerned Mahbub Ali comes to check on Kim. The lama finds his river and achieves Enlightenment. The reader is left to decide whether Kim will henceforth follow the prideful road of the Great Game,"
      },
      {
        "text": " 'River of the Arrow' should be taking place in the plains, not in the mountains, and he orders the porters to take them back. Here Kim and the lama are nursed back to health after their arduous journey. Kim delivers the Russian documents to Hurree, and a concerned Mahbub Ali comes to check on Kim. The lama finds his river and achieves Enlightenment. The reader is left to decide whether Kim will henceforth follow the prideful road of the Great Game, the spiritual way of Tibetan Buddhism, or a combination of the two. Kim himself has this to say: \"I am not a Sahib. I am thy chela.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Whit",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1995",
    "synopsis": " Isis, otherwise The Blessed Very Reverend Gaia-Marie Isis Saraswati Minerva Mirza Whit of Luskentyre, Beloved Elect of God III, is the 19-year-old granddaughter and designated spiritual heir of Salvador Whit, patriarch of the Luskentyrians. They are a religious cult who live in a commune in Stirlingshire and reject most technology. They run their lives according to a collection of beliefs and rituals \"revealed\" to Salvador after he washed ashore on Harris in the Western Isles and \"married\" two young Asian ladies (Aasni and Zhobelia Asis). (Haggis pakora becomes a staple of the cult's cuisine.) The novel opens shortly before the Luskentyrian Festival of Love, held every four years, about nine months before every leap year day (29 February). The Luskentyrians believe that those born on that day have special power. This includes Isis herself, Elect of God, and expected to take over leadership of the cult. The bulk of the novel tells of Isis' voyages in the world of \"the Unsaved\" (also known as \"the Obtuse\", \"the Wretched\", \"the Bland\" and \"the Asleep\"), through Scotland and southern England in search of Morag, who is feared to have rejected the cult. Because of Isis' anti-technology and self-denying puritanical beliefs, she has to use a Sitting Board (a hard board she can put over the comfortable seats in cars and other means of transportation in order to deprive herself of cushioning). She also uses the technique of Back-Bussing in order to avoid paying for a ticket on the bus. This consists of getting on buses, and when the conductor comes along, asking for a ticket in the opposite direction while looking confused. This normally results in being allowed to get off at the next stop and pointed in the right direction. While searching for her cousin, Isis meets Rastas, policemen, white power skinheads, and other characters of a sort she has never encountered before, and tells the story of the cult and the rationale behind its rules. Isis' maternal grandmother, Yolanda, a feisty Texan woman, appears and lends her support to Isis' quest. Isis' friend Sophi, although not part of the cult, is very close to her. Isis meets her whenever she goes to her house to use the Luskentyrian method of free (if laborious) telephone communication, using coded rings. When Isis finds Morag, she learns that though Morag has lapsed somewhat in her Luskentyrian practices (her work as a porn actress is not inconsistent with the cult's beliefs) she had every intention of returning for the festival. The story now takes a more sinister turn, as we learn that Isis' brother seems to have cooked up her impossible mission in an attempt to discredit her and put her out of the picture in a bid to take over the leadership of the cult. Isis also learns the history of her grandfather, and rescues her great-aunt Zhobelia from an old people's home. Confident that Zhobelia's mild senility will recover in a less boring environment, Isis soon learns more of the origins of the cult from her. She finds out that her grandfather was Moray Black, a robber on the run, and that the cult he set up is based on lies. Returning with her great-aunt Zhobelia, her cousin Morag, enhanced maturity and a lot more information, Isis must decide what to tell the other members of the cult.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Isis, otherwise The Blessed Very Reverend Gaia-Marie Isis Saraswati Minerva Mirza Whit of Luskentyre, Beloved Elect of God III, is the 19-year-old granddaughter and designated spiritual heir of Salvador Whit, patriarch of the Luskentyrians. They are a religious cult who live in a commune in Stirlingshire and reject most technology. They run their lives according to a collection of beliefs and rituals \"revealed\" to Salvador after he washed ashore on Harris in the Western Isles and \"married\" two young Asian ladies (Aasni and Zhobelia Asis). (Haggis pakora becomes a staple of the cult's cuisine.) The novel opens shortly before the Luskentyrian Festival of Love, held every four years, about nine months before every leap year day (29 February). The Luskentyrians believe that those born on that day have special power. This includes Isis herself, Elect of God, and expected to take over leadership of the cult. The bulk of the novel tells of Isis' voyages in the world of \"the Unsaved\" (also known as \"the Obtuse\", \"the Wretched\", \"the Bland\" and \"the Asleep\"), through Scotland and southern England in search of Morag, who is feared to have rejected the cult. Because of Isis' anti-technology and self-denying puritanical beliefs, she has to use a Sitting Board (a hard board she can put over the comfortable seats in cars and other means of transportation in order to deprive herself of cushioning). She also uses the technique of Back-Bussing in order to avoid paying for a ticket on the bus. This consists of getting on buses, and when the conductor comes along, asking for a ticket in the opposite direction while looking confused. This normally results in being allowed to get off at the next stop and pointed in the right direction. While searching for her cousin, Isis meets R"
      },
      {
        "text": " can put over the comfortable seats in cars and other means of transportation in order to deprive herself of cushioning). She also uses the technique of Back-Bussing in order to avoid paying for a ticket on the bus. This consists of getting on buses, and when the conductor comes along, asking for a ticket in the opposite direction while looking confused. This normally results in being allowed to get off at the next stop and pointed in the right direction. While searching for her cousin, Isis meets Rastas, policemen, white power skinheads, and other characters of a sort she has never encountered before, and tells the story of the cult and the rationale behind its rules. Isis' maternal grandmother, Yolanda, a feisty Texan woman, appears and lends her support to Isis' quest. Isis' friend Sophi, although not part of the cult, is very close to her. Isis meets her whenever she goes to her house to use the Luskentyrian method of free (if laborious) telephone communication, using coded rings. When Isis finds Morag, she learns that though Morag has lapsed somewhat in her Luskentyrian practices (her work as a porn actress is not inconsistent with the cult's beliefs) she had every intention of returning for the festival. The story now takes a more sinister turn, as we learn that Isis' brother seems to have cooked up her impossible mission in an attempt to discredit her and put her out of the picture in a bid to take over the leadership of the cult. Isis also learns the history of her grandfather, and rescues her great-aunt Zhobelia from an old people's home. Confident that Zhobelia's mild senility will recover in a less boring environment, Isis soon learns more of the origins of the cult from her. She finds out that her grandfather was Moray Black, a robber on the run, and that the cult he set up is based on lies. Returning with her"
      },
      {
        "text": " a bid to take over the leadership of the cult. Isis also learns the history of her grandfather, and rescues her great-aunt Zhobelia from an old people's home. Confident that Zhobelia's mild senility will recover in a less boring environment, Isis soon learns more of the origins of the cult from her. She finds out that her grandfather was Moray Black, a robber on the run, and that the cult he set up is based on lies. Returning with her great-aunt Zhobelia, her cousin Morag, enhanced maturity and a lot more information, Isis must decide what to tell the other members of the cult.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Mostly Harmless",
    "author": "Douglas Adams",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " After the events in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Arthur Dent and his love interest Fenchurch attempt to sightsee across the Galaxy, but when Fenchurch disappears during a hyperspace jump due to being from an unstable sector of the Galaxy, Arthur becomes depressed and travels the Galaxy alone, raising money to pay his passage by donating his biological material to DNA banks (mostly sperm, due to it having the highest payout). He is aware that he cannot die until he visits Stavromula Beta, as was revealed in Life, the Universe and Everything, by the insane Agrajag. During one journey, his ship crash lands on the planet Lamuella; Arthur survives and finds a simple life, becoming the sandwich maker for the local population. Meanwhile, Ford Prefect has returned to the offices of the Hitchhikers' Guide, and is annoyed to find out the original publishing company, Megadodo Publications, has been taken over by InfiniDim Enterprises. Ford discovers that Vogons are part of the Guide's employ, and attempts to escape the building. During this attempt, he finds the Hitchhiker's Guide Mk. II, which he steals and sends to himself, care of Arthur, for safekeeping. Arthur, as Ford had expected, stores the package away without even opening it and forgets about it. One day, Trillian arrives on Lamuella, and presents Arthur with Random Dent, a teenage girl she claims is his daughter, conceived by Trillian via artificial insemination using the only human sperm samples available, those given by Arthur to pay for his space travels. Trillian leaves Random with Arthur so that she can better pursue her new career as an intergalactic reporter. Random finds life on Lamuella boring and cannot get along with Arthur, and comes across the Guide Mk. II. With Random as its owner, the Guide helps her to escape the planet to find her mother. Ford appears shortly after, looking for the Guide. Together, Ford and Arthur manage to leave the planet and return to Earth, realizing that Random has also returned there. Ford also realizes that the Guide Mk. II, being capable of both time-travel and looking into alternate universes, is manipulating events in accordance with an unknown plan. Meanwhile, on Earth, an alternative version of Trillian, reporter Tricia McMillan, who never was able to take Zaphod Beeblebrox's offer to travel in space due to wanting to get her handbag, finds herself approached by an extraterrestrial species calling themselves the Grebulons. They reveal that they have set up a base on Rupert (a tenth planet just beyond the orbit of Pluto) after arriving in the Solar System and finding that their computer core and most of their memories had been damaged, and have been following the remaining portions of their mission statement to observe the most interesting things in the system. They have approached Tricia to help them adapt the astrology charts to use Rupert as their base, offering to let her interview them on their base in exchange for the help. Tricia performs the interview but finds that the results look questionable. She is then called to report on a spaceship landing in the middle of London. Tricia finds Random leaving the ship, and the girl believes Tricia to be her mother, and starts yelling at her. Tricia, with the help of Arthur, Ford, and Trillian, manage to take Random to a bar (address number 42) to try to talk to her. However, she fires a weapon at Arthur; Arthur ducks and the shot kills a man behind him. Ford points out to Arthur that the name of the bar they're in is \"Stavro Mueller's Beta\", the man just killed being another form of Agrajag, and that Arthur's life is no longer safe, a point at which Arthur takes relief. Shortly afterward, the Grebulons, believing that it would be a positive action to improve their situation, fire upon and destroy the Earth. It is revealed that the Guide Mk. II was created by the Vogons to complete the destruction of the Earth in every possible dimension, using reverse temporal engineering to bring Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and Random together on Earth for its destruction by the Vogons. After the Earth is destroyed, the Guide collapses in on itself.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After the events in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Arthur Dent and his love interest Fenchurch attempt to sightsee across the Galaxy, but when Fenchurch disappears during a hyperspace jump due to being from an unstable sector of the Galaxy, Arthur becomes depressed and travels the Galaxy alone, raising money to pay his passage by donating his biological material to DNA banks (mostly sperm, due to it having the highest payout). He is aware that he cannot die until he visits Stavromula Beta, as was revealed in Life, the Universe and Everything, by the insane Agrajag. During one journey, his ship crash lands on the planet Lamuella; Arthur survives and finds a simple life, becoming the sandwich maker for the local population. Meanwhile, Ford Prefect has returned to the offices of the Hitchhikers' Guide, and is annoyed to find out the original publishing company, Megadodo Publications, has been taken over by InfiniDim Enterprises. Ford discovers that Vogons are part of the Guide's employ, and attempts to escape the building. During this attempt, he finds the Hitchhiker's Guide Mk. II, which he steals and sends to himself, care of Arthur, for safekeeping. Arthur, as Ford had expected, stores the package away without even opening it and forgets about it. One day, Trillian arrives on Lamuella, and presents Arthur with Random Dent, a teenage girl she claims is his daughter, conceived by Trillian via artificial insemination using the only human sperm samples available, those given by Arthur to pay for his space travels. Trillian leaves Random with Arthur so that she can better pursue her new career as an intergalactic reporter. Random finds life on Lamuella boring and cannot get along with Arthur, and comes across the Guide Mk. II. With Random as its owner, the Guide helps her to escape the planet to find her mother. Ford appears shortly after, looking for the Guide."
      },
      {
        "text": "illian via artificial insemination using the only human sperm samples available, those given by Arthur to pay for his space travels. Trillian leaves Random with Arthur so that she can better pursue her new career as an intergalactic reporter. Random finds life on Lamuella boring and cannot get along with Arthur, and comes across the Guide Mk. II. With Random as its owner, the Guide helps her to escape the planet to find her mother. Ford appears shortly after, looking for the Guide. Together, Ford and Arthur manage to leave the planet and return to Earth, realizing that Random has also returned there. Ford also realizes that the Guide Mk. II, being capable of both time-travel and looking into alternate universes, is manipulating events in accordance with an unknown plan. Meanwhile, on Earth, an alternative version of Trillian, reporter Tricia McMillan, who never was able to take Zaphod Beeblebrox's offer to travel in space due to wanting to get her handbag, finds herself approached by an extraterrestrial species calling themselves the Grebulons. They reveal that they have set up a base on Rupert (a tenth planet just beyond the orbit of Pluto) after arriving in the Solar System and finding that their computer core and most of their memories had been damaged, and have been following the remaining portions of their mission statement to observe the most interesting things in the system. They have approached Tricia to help them adapt the astrology charts to use Rupert as their base, offering to let her interview them on their base in exchange for the help. Tricia performs the interview but finds that the results look questionable. She is then called to report on a spaceship landing in the middle of London. Tricia finds Random leaving the ship, and the girl believes Tricia to be her mother, and starts yelling at her. Tricia, with the help of Arthur, Ford, and Trillian, manage to take Random to a bar (address number 42) to try to"
      },
      {
        "text": ", offering to let her interview them on their base in exchange for the help. Tricia performs the interview but finds that the results look questionable. She is then called to report on a spaceship landing in the middle of London. Tricia finds Random leaving the ship, and the girl believes Tricia to be her mother, and starts yelling at her. Tricia, with the help of Arthur, Ford, and Trillian, manage to take Random to a bar (address number 42) to try to talk to her. However, she fires a weapon at Arthur; Arthur ducks and the shot kills a man behind him. Ford points out to Arthur that the name of the bar they're in is \"Stavro Mueller's Beta\", the man just killed being another form of Agrajag, and that Arthur's life is no longer safe, a point at which Arthur takes relief. Shortly afterward, the Grebulons, believing that it would be a positive action to improve their situation, fire upon and destroy the Earth. It is revealed that the Guide Mk. II was created by the Vogons to complete the destruction of the Earth in every possible dimension, using reverse temporal engineering to bring Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and Random together on Earth for its destruction by the Vogons. After the Earth is destroyed, the Guide collapses in on itself.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Lion in Winter",
    "author": "James Goldman",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Set during Christmas 1183 at Henry II of England's castle in Chinon, Anjou, Angevin Empire, the play opens with the arrival of Henry's wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom he has had imprisoned since 1173. The story concerns the gamesmanship between Henry, Eleanor, their three surviving sons Richard, Geoffrey, and John, and their Christmas Court guest, the King of France, Philip II Augustus (), who was the son of Eleanor's ex-husband, Louis VII of France (by his third wife, Adelaide). Also involved is Philip's half-sister Alais, who has been at court since she was betrothed to Richard at age eight, but has since become Henry's mistress. The Lion in Winter is fictional and none of the dialogue and actions is historical; there was not a Christmas Court at Chinon in 1183. However, the events leading up to the story are generally accurate. There is no definitive evidence that Alais was Henry's mistress (although Richard later resisted marrying Alais on the basis of this claim). The real Henry had many mistresses (and several illegitimate children).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set during Christmas 1183 at Henry II of England's castle in Chinon, Anjou, Angevin Empire, the play opens with the arrival of Henry's wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom he has had imprisoned since 1173. The story concerns the gamesmanship between Henry, Eleanor, their three surviving sons Richard, Geoffrey, and John, and their Christmas Court guest, the King of France, Philip II Augustus (), who was the son of Eleanor's ex-husband, Louis VII of France (by his third wife, Adelaide). Also involved is Philip's half-sister Alais, who has been at court since she was betrothed to Richard at age eight, but has since become Henry's mistress. The Lion in Winter is fictional and none of the dialogue and actions is historical; there was not a Christmas Court at Chinon in 1183. However, the events leading up to the story are generally accurate. There is no definitive evidence that Alais was Henry's mistress (although Richard later resisted marrying Alais on the basis of this claim). The real Henry had many mistresses (and several illegitimate children).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Native Son",
    "author": "Richard Wright",
    "published_date": "1940",
    "synopsis": " Bigger Thomas wakes up in a dark, small room at the sound of the alarm clock. He lives in one room with his brother Buddy, his sister Vera, and their mother. Suddenly, a rat appears. The room turns into a maelstrom and after a violent chase, Bigger claims the life of an animal with an iron skillet and terrorizes Vera with the dark body. Vera faints and Mrs. Thomas scolds Bigger, who hates his family because they suffer and he cannot do anything about it. That evening, Bigger has to see Mr. Dalton for a new job. Bigger's family depends on him. He would like to leave his responsibilities forever but when he thinks of what to do, he only sees a blank wall. He walks to the poolroom and meets his friend. Gusiffer R. Bigger tells him that every time he thinks about whites, he feels something terrible will happen to him. They meet other friends, G. H. and Jack, and plan a robbery of the white wealth. They are all afraid of attacking and stealing from a white man, but none of them wants to admit their concerns. Before the robbery, Bigger and Jack go to the movies. They are attracted to the world of wealthy whites in the newsreel and feel strangely moved by the tom-toms and the primitive black people in the film, but they also feel that they are equal to those worlds. After the cinema, Bigger returns to the poolroom and attacks Gus violently, forcing him to lick his blade in a demeaning way to hide his own cowardice. The fight ends any chance of the robbery occurring; Bigger is obscurely conscious that he has done this intentionally. When he finally gets the job, Bigger does not know how to behave in the large and luxurious house. Mr. Dalton and his blind wife use strange words. They try to be kind to Bigger, but they actually make him very uncomfortable; Bigger does not know what they expect of him. Then their daughter, Mary, enters the room, asks Bigger why he does not belong to a union, and calls her father a \"capitalist.\" Bigger does not know that word and is even more confused and afraid to lose the job. After the conversation, Peggy, an Irish cook, takes Bigger to his room and tells him that the Daltons are a nice family but that he must avoid Mary's communist friends. Bigger has never had a room for himself before. That night, he drives Mary around and meets her Communist boyfriend, Jan. Throughout the evening, Jan and Mary talk to Bigger, oblige him to take them to the diner where his friends are, invite him to sit at their table, and tell him to call them by their first names. Bigger does not know how to respond to their requests and becomes very frustrated, as he is simply their chauffeur for the night. At the diner they buy a bottle of rum. Bigger drives throughout the park, and Jan and Mary drink the rum and have sex in the back seat. Jan and Mary part, but Mary is so drunk that Bigger has to carry her to her bedroom when they arrive home. He is terrified someone will see him with her in his arms; however, he cannot resist the temptation of the forbidden, and he kisses her. Just then, the bedroom door opens, and Mrs. Dalton enters. Bigger knows she is blind but is terrified she will sense him there. He silences Mary by pressing a pillow into her face. Mrs. Dalton approaches the bed, smells whiskey in the air, scolds her daughter, and leaves. Mary claws at Bigger's hands while Mrs. Dalton is in the room, trying to alert Bigger that she cannot breathe. As Bigger removes the pillow, he realizes that she has suffocated. Bigger starts thinking frantically, and decides he will tell everyone that Jan, her Communist boyfriend, took Mary into the house that night. Thinking it will be better if Mary disappears and everyone thinks she has left Chicago, he decides in desperation to burn her body in the house's furnace. Her body would not originally fit through the furnace opening, but after decapitating her with a nearby hatchet, Bigger finally manages to put the corpse inside. He adds extra coal to the furnace, leaves the corpse to burn, and goes home. Bigger's current girlfriend, Bessie, suspects him of having done something to Mary. Bigger goes back to work. Mr. Dalton has called a private detective, Mr. Britten. Britten, interrogates Bigger accusingly, but Mr. Dalton vouches for Bigger. Bigger relates the events of the previous evening in a way calculated to throw suspicion on Jan, knowing Mr. Dalton dislikes Jan because he is a Communist. When Britten finds Jan, he puts the boy and Bigger in the same room and confronts them with their conflicting stories. Jan is surprised by Bigger's story but offers him help. Bigger storms away from the Daltons'. He decides to write the false kidnap note when he discovers that the owner of the rat-infested flat his family rents is Mr. Dalton. Bigger slips the note under the Daltons' front door and then returns to his room. When the Daltons receive the note, they contact the police, who take over the investigation from Britten, and journalists soon arrive at the house. Bigger is afraid, but he does not want to leave. In the afternoon, he is ordered to take the ashes out of the furnace and make a new fire. He is terrified and starts poking the ashes with the shovel until the whole room is full of smoke. Furious, one of the journalists takes the shovel and pushes Bigger aside. He immediately finds the remains of Mary's bones and an earring in the furnace, and Bigger flees. Bigger goes directly to Bessie and tells her the whole story. Bessie realizes that white people will think he raped the girl before killing her. They leave together, but Bigger has to drag Bessie around because she is paralyzed by fear. When they lie down together in an abandoned building, Bigger rapes Bessie and falls asleep. In the morning, he decides that he has to kill her in her sleep. He hits Bessie's head with a brick several times before throwing her through a window and into an air shaft. He quickly realizes that the only money he had was in her pocket, except for some change. Bigger runs through the city. He sees newspaper headlines concerning the crime and overhears different conversations about it. Whites hate him and blacks hate him because he brought shame on the African-American race. After a wild chase over the rooftops of the city, the police catch him. During his first few days in prison, Bigger does not eat, drink, or talk to anyone. Then Jan comes to see him. He says Bigger has taught him a lot about black-white relationships and offers him the help of a communist lawyer named Max. In the long hours Max and Bigger pass together, he starts understanding his relationships with his family and with the world. He acknowledges his fury, his need for a future, and his wish for a meaningful life. He reconsiders his attitudes about white people, whether they are like Britten, or accepting like Jan. Bigger is found guilty and is sentenced to death for his murder and false witness.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Bigger Thomas wakes up in a dark, small room at the sound of the alarm clock. He lives in one room with his brother Buddy, his sister Vera, and their mother. Suddenly, a rat appears. The room turns into a maelstrom and after a violent chase, Bigger claims the life of an animal with an iron skillet and terrorizes Vera with the dark body. Vera faints and Mrs. Thomas scolds Bigger, who hates his family because they suffer and he cannot do anything about it. That evening, Bigger has to see Mr. Dalton for a new job. Bigger's family depends on him. He would like to leave his responsibilities forever but when he thinks of what to do, he only sees a blank wall. He walks to the poolroom and meets his friend. Gusiffer R. Bigger tells him that every time he thinks about whites, he feels something terrible will happen to him. They meet other friends, G. H. and Jack, and plan a robbery of the white wealth. They are all afraid of attacking and stealing from a white man, but none of them wants to admit their concerns. Before the robbery, Bigger and Jack go to the movies. They are attracted to the world of wealthy whites in the newsreel and feel strangely moved by the tom-toms and the primitive black people in the film, but they also feel that they are equal to those worlds. After the cinema, Bigger returns to the poolroom and attacks Gus violently, forcing him to lick his blade in a demeaning way to hide his own cowardice. The fight ends any chance of the robbery occurring; Bigger is obscurely conscious that he has done this intentionally. When he finally gets the job, Bigger does not know how to behave in the large and luxurious house. Mr. Dalton and his blind wife use strange words. They try to be kind to Bigger, but they actually make him very uncomfortable;"
      },
      {
        "text": " the poolroom and attacks Gus violently, forcing him to lick his blade in a demeaning way to hide his own cowardice. The fight ends any chance of the robbery occurring; Bigger is obscurely conscious that he has done this intentionally. When he finally gets the job, Bigger does not know how to behave in the large and luxurious house. Mr. Dalton and his blind wife use strange words. They try to be kind to Bigger, but they actually make him very uncomfortable; Bigger does not know what they expect of him. Then their daughter, Mary, enters the room, asks Bigger why he does not belong to a union, and calls her father a \"capitalist.\" Bigger does not know that word and is even more confused and afraid to lose the job. After the conversation, Peggy, an Irish cook, takes Bigger to his room and tells him that the Daltons are a nice family but that he must avoid Mary's communist friends. Bigger has never had a room for himself before. That night, he drives Mary around and meets her Communist boyfriend, Jan. Throughout the evening, Jan and Mary talk to Bigger, oblige him to take them to the diner where his friends are, invite him to sit at their table, and tell him to call them by their first names. Bigger does not know how to respond to their requests and becomes very frustrated, as he is simply their chauffeur for the night. At the diner they buy a bottle of rum. Bigger drives throughout the park, and Jan and Mary drink the rum and have sex in the back seat. Jan and Mary part, but Mary is so drunk that Bigger has to carry her to her bedroom when they arrive home. He is terrified someone will see him with her in his arms; however, he cannot resist the temptation of the forbidden, and he kisses her. Just then, the bedroom door opens, and Mrs. Dalton enters. Bigger knows"
      },
      {
        "text": " they buy a bottle of rum. Bigger drives throughout the park, and Jan and Mary drink the rum and have sex in the back seat. Jan and Mary part, but Mary is so drunk that Bigger has to carry her to her bedroom when they arrive home. He is terrified someone will see him with her in his arms; however, he cannot resist the temptation of the forbidden, and he kisses her. Just then, the bedroom door opens, and Mrs. Dalton enters. Bigger knows she is blind but is terrified she will sense him there. He silences Mary by pressing a pillow into her face. Mrs. Dalton approaches the bed, smells whiskey in the air, scolds her daughter, and leaves. Mary claws at Bigger's hands while Mrs. Dalton is in the room, trying to alert Bigger that she cannot breathe. As Bigger removes the pillow, he realizes that she has suffocated. Bigger starts thinking frantically, and decides he will tell everyone that Jan, her Communist boyfriend, took Mary into the house that night. Thinking it will be better if Mary disappears and everyone thinks she has left Chicago, he decides in desperation to burn her body in the house's furnace. Her body would not originally fit through the furnace opening, but after decapitating her with a nearby hatchet, Bigger finally manages to put the corpse inside. He adds extra coal to the furnace, leaves the corpse to burn, and goes home. Bigger's current girlfriend, Bessie, suspects him of having done something to Mary. Bigger goes back to work. Mr. Dalton has called a private detective, Mr. Britten. Britten, interrogates Bigger accusingly, but Mr. Dalton vouches for Bigger. Bigger relates the events of the previous evening in a way calculated to throw suspicion on Jan, knowing Mr. Dalton dislikes Jan because he is a Communist. When Britten finds Jan, he puts the boy and Bigger in the"
      },
      {
        "text": "essie, suspects him of having done something to Mary. Bigger goes back to work. Mr. Dalton has called a private detective, Mr. Britten. Britten, interrogates Bigger accusingly, but Mr. Dalton vouches for Bigger. Bigger relates the events of the previous evening in a way calculated to throw suspicion on Jan, knowing Mr. Dalton dislikes Jan because he is a Communist. When Britten finds Jan, he puts the boy and Bigger in the same room and confronts them with their conflicting stories. Jan is surprised by Bigger's story but offers him help. Bigger storms away from the Daltons'. He decides to write the false kidnap note when he discovers that the owner of the rat-infested flat his family rents is Mr. Dalton. Bigger slips the note under the Daltons' front door and then returns to his room. When the Daltons receive the note, they contact the police, who take over the investigation from Britten, and journalists soon arrive at the house. Bigger is afraid, but he does not want to leave. In the afternoon, he is ordered to take the ashes out of the furnace and make a new fire. He is terrified and starts poking the ashes with the shovel until the whole room is full of smoke. Furious, one of the journalists takes the shovel and pushes Bigger aside. He immediately finds the remains of Mary's bones and an earring in the furnace, and Bigger flees. Bigger goes directly to Bessie and tells her the whole story. Bessie realizes that white people will think he raped the girl before killing her. They leave together, but Bigger has to drag Bessie around because she is paralyzed by fear. When they lie down together in an abandoned building, Bigger rapes Bessie and falls asleep. In the morning, he decides that he has to kill her in her sleep. He hits Bessie's"
      },
      {
        "text": " Bigger flees. Bigger goes directly to Bessie and tells her the whole story. Bessie realizes that white people will think he raped the girl before killing her. They leave together, but Bigger has to drag Bessie around because she is paralyzed by fear. When they lie down together in an abandoned building, Bigger rapes Bessie and falls asleep. In the morning, he decides that he has to kill her in her sleep. He hits Bessie's head with a brick several times before throwing her through a window and into an air shaft. He quickly realizes that the only money he had was in her pocket, except for some change. Bigger runs through the city. He sees newspaper headlines concerning the crime and overhears different conversations about it. Whites hate him and blacks hate him because he brought shame on the African-American race. After a wild chase over the rooftops of the city, the police catch him. During his first few days in prison, Bigger does not eat, drink, or talk to anyone. Then Jan comes to see him. He says Bigger has taught him a lot about black-white relationships and offers him the help of a communist lawyer named Max. In the long hours Max and Bigger pass together, he starts understanding his relationships with his family and with the world. He acknowledges his fury, his need for a future, and his wish for a meaningful life. He reconsiders his attitudes about white people, whether they are like Britten, or accepting like Jan. Bigger is found guilty and is sentenced to death for his murder and false witness.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " whether they are like Britten, or accepting like Jan. Bigger is found guilty and is sentenced to death for his murder and false witness.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "East Lynne",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Lady Isabel Carlyle, a beautiful and refined young woman, leaves her hard-working but neglectful lawyer-husband and her infant children to elope with an aristocratic suitor. After he deserts her, and she bears their illegitimate child, Lady Isabel disguises herself and takes the position of governess in the household of her former husband and his new wife.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Lady Isabel Carlyle, a beautiful and refined young woman, leaves her hard-working but neglectful lawyer-husband and her infant children to elope with an aristocratic suitor. After he deserts her, and she bears their illegitimate child, Lady Isabel disguises herself and takes the position of governess in the household of her former husband and his new wife.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Farewell to Arms",
    "author": "Ernest Hemingway",
    "published_date": "1929",
    "synopsis": " The novel is divided into five books. In the first book, Rinaldi introduces Henry to Catherine Barkley; Henry attempts to seduce her, and their relationship begins. While on the Italian front, Henry is wounded in the knee by a mortar shell and sent to a hospital in Milan. The second book shows the growth of Henry and Catherine's relationship as they spend time together in Milan over the summer. Henry falls in love with Catherine and, by the time he is healed, Catherine is three months pregnant. In the third book, Henry returns to his unit, but not long afterwards the Austrians break through the Italian lines in the Battle of Caporetto, and the Italians retreat. Henry kills an engineering sergeant for insubordination. After falling behind and catching up again, Henry is taken to a place by the \"battle police\", where officers are being interrogated and executed for the \"treachery\" that supposedly led to the Italian defeat. However, after seeing and hearing that everyone interrogated is killed, Henry escapes by jumping into a river. In the fourth book, Catherine and Henry reunite and flee to Switzerland in a rowboat. In the final book, Henry and Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains until she goes into labor. After a long and painful birth, their son is stillborn. Catherine begins to hemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Henry to return to their hotel in the rain.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is divided into five books. In the first book, Rinaldi introduces Henry to Catherine Barkley; Henry attempts to seduce her, and their relationship begins. While on the Italian front, Henry is wounded in the knee by a mortar shell and sent to a hospital in Milan. The second book shows the growth of Henry and Catherine's relationship as they spend time together in Milan over the summer. Henry falls in love with Catherine and, by the time he is healed, Catherine is three months pregnant. In the third book, Henry returns to his unit, but not long afterwards the Austrians break through the Italian lines in the Battle of Caporetto, and the Italians retreat. Henry kills an engineering sergeant for insubordination. After falling behind and catching up again, Henry is taken to a place by the \"battle police\", where officers are being interrogated and executed for the \"treachery\" that supposedly led to the Italian defeat. However, after seeing and hearing that everyone interrogated is killed, Henry escapes by jumping into a river. In the fourth book, Catherine and Henry reunite and flee to Switzerland in a rowboat. In the final book, Henry and Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains until she goes into labor. After a long and painful birth, their son is stillborn. Catherine begins to hemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Henry to return to their hotel in the rain.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Imitation of Life",
    "author": "Fannie Hurst",
    "published_date": "1933",
    "synopsis": " The story is a look at early 20th-century American race relations. In Hurst's novel, Bea Chipley is a quiet, mousey, Atlantic City teenage girl whose mother passes away, leaving her to keep house for her father (Mr. Chipley) and Benjamin Pullman, a boarder who peddles ketchup and relish on the boardwalk and sells maple syrup door-to-door on the side. Within a year, her father and Pullman decide that she should marry Pullman, and shortly thereafter Bea becomes pregnant. Her father suffers an incapacitating stroke, confining him to a wheelchair, and Pullman is killed in a train accident. Bea is left to fend for herself, her father, and her infant daughter Jessie. Bea takes in boarders to defray expenses and assumes Benjamin's trade of door-to-door maple syrup sales, using his \"B. Pullman\" business cards to avoid the ubiquitous sexism of 1910s' America. To care for her infant daughter and disabled father, Bea Pullman hires Delilah, a black mammy figure, who brings with her a light-skinned infant daughter named Peola. Delilah is a master waffle-maker, and Bea capitalizes on Delilah's skills to open first a single \"B. Pullman\" waffle restaurant, from which she eventually builds a nation-wide and then international chain of highly successful restaurants. Frank Flake, a striking young man intent on entering medical school, becomes Bea's business manager. In the meantime, Jessie and Peola have grown up side by side, and Peola is painfully aware of the tension between her white appearance and black racial identity. She continually attempts to pass as white, and Delilah, equally pained by the tension, continually attempts to develop in her a sense of pride about her blackness. Eventually Peola severs all ties, marries a white man, and moves to Seattle, causing such pain in Delilah that Delilah passes away not too long after. As Delilah is slowly dying, Bea is falling in love with Flake, who is eight years her junior. Jessie, by now in her late teens, comes home for a visit just as Bea is planning on selling the \"B. Pullman\" chain to marry Flake. The three are mired in a love triangle in the last dozen or so pages, resulting in a tragic ending.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is a look at early 20th-century American race relations. In Hurst's novel, Bea Chipley is a quiet, mousey, Atlantic City teenage girl whose mother passes away, leaving her to keep house for her father (Mr. Chipley) and Benjamin Pullman, a boarder who peddles ketchup and relish on the boardwalk and sells maple syrup door-to-door on the side. Within a year, her father and Pullman decide that she should marry Pullman, and shortly thereafter Bea becomes pregnant. Her father suffers an incapacitating stroke, confining him to a wheelchair, and Pullman is killed in a train accident. Bea is left to fend for herself, her father, and her infant daughter Jessie. Bea takes in boarders to defray expenses and assumes Benjamin's trade of door-to-door maple syrup sales, using his \"B. Pullman\" business cards to avoid the ubiquitous sexism of 1910s' America. To care for her infant daughter and disabled father, Bea Pullman hires Delilah, a black mammy figure, who brings with her a light-skinned infant daughter named Peola. Delilah is a master waffle-maker, and Bea capitalizes on Delilah's skills to open first a single \"B. Pullman\" waffle restaurant, from which she eventually builds a nation-wide and then international chain of highly successful restaurants. Frank Flake, a striking young man intent on entering medical school, becomes Bea's business manager. In the meantime, Jessie and Peola have grown up side by side, and Peola is painfully aware of the tension between her white appearance and black racial identity. She continually attempts to pass as white, and Delilah, equally pained by the tension, continually attempts to develop in her a sense of pride about her blackness. Eventually Peola severs all ties, marries a white man, and moves"
      },
      {
        "text": " striking young man intent on entering medical school, becomes Bea's business manager. In the meantime, Jessie and Peola have grown up side by side, and Peola is painfully aware of the tension between her white appearance and black racial identity. She continually attempts to pass as white, and Delilah, equally pained by the tension, continually attempts to develop in her a sense of pride about her blackness. Eventually Peola severs all ties, marries a white man, and moves to Seattle, causing such pain in Delilah that Delilah passes away not too long after. As Delilah is slowly dying, Bea is falling in love with Flake, who is eight years her junior. Jessie, by now in her late teens, comes home for a visit just as Bea is planning on selling the \"B. Pullman\" chain to marry Flake. The three are mired in a love triangle in the last dozen or so pages, resulting in a tragic ending.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Last Command",
    "author": "Timothy Zahn",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The book is set a month after Dark Force Rising. Now emboldened by his recent capture of the Katana fleet and staffing them with clone personnel, Grand Admiral Thrawn launches his offensive against the New Republic with great success. Through certain deception techniques (such as faking a turbolaser barrage using cloaked ships to fire underneath planetary shields), several planets quickly capitulate to the Empire. He ups the ante when the Imperial fleet deploys 22 cloaked asteroids over Coruscant and fakes the presence of over 260 asteroids to immobilize the planet and the Republic leadership. By this time, Mon Mothma finally reconciles with Sen Garm bel Iblis, whom she lets lead Coruscant's defenses. Elsewhere, Han Solo, Chewbacca and Talon Karrde work to form an alliance of smugglers to assist with the New Republic defense. Although the smugglers consider staying in the sidelines, an Imperial raid on their meeting place (set up by turncoat smuggler Niles Ferrier without Thrawn's permission) finally unites them against the Empire. Mara Jade, who was knocked out in the climax of the previous novel, joins Princess Leia and Han in stopping an Imperial commando force sent to Coruscant to kidnap Leia's newborn twins for Joruus C'baoth. The Jedi Master wants to turn Leia, Luke and the twins to the Dark Side. The raid's sole survivor points to Mara as their mole and she is arrested, but she comes clean to Leia about the Wayland cloning facility. As they slip out of Coruscant, Republic security shuts down an Imperial eavesdropping system located in the former Imperial Palace. Mara, Luke, Han, Lando, Chewie, the droids, and Karrde travel to Wayland. They slip past Imperial forces in the area with help from the Noghri and two local alien races. Mara discovers that Luke Skywalker - the man the Emperor is ordering her to kill - is actually the man she spent time with in the Myrkr forest. Han, Lando, and Chewie rig the base to explode. Mara, Luke, Karrde and Leia face C'baoth, who produced his own Skywalker clone named Luuke (using Luke's hand that was lost at Bespin during the events of Empire Strikes Back, intact with Anakin Skywalker's own lightsaber) to attack them. After a fierce battle, Mara kills C'baoth and fulfills the Emperor's orders - by killing Luuke. Having learned of Thrawn's deception strategy, the Republic fleet organizes an assault on the Imperial shipyards at Bilbringi to capture a device that can find the cloaked asteroids over Coruscant. A feint operation at Tangrene will draw Imperial forces away from Bilbringi. However, Thrawn sees through the deception and marshals his forces at the shipyards. When the Republic fleet and the smugglers attack, the Imperial forces severely maul them. Things nearly go the Empire's way - until Capt Gilad Pellaeon receives word of the attack on Wayland. When he reads that Noghri were among the attackers, Thrawn's own Noghri bodyguard Rukh stuns him and kills the admiral himself before disappearing. With all hopes of victory now dashed by Thrawn's death, Pellaeon orders all Imperial forces to retreat. Back in Coruscant, Luke gives Mara Jade his father's lightsaber and invites her to train as a Jedi.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is set a month after Dark Force Rising. Now emboldened by his recent capture of the Katana fleet and staffing them with clone personnel, Grand Admiral Thrawn launches his offensive against the New Republic with great success. Through certain deception techniques (such as faking a turbolaser barrage using cloaked ships to fire underneath planetary shields), several planets quickly capitulate to the Empire. He ups the ante when the Imperial fleet deploys 22 cloaked asteroids over Coruscant and fakes the presence of over 260 asteroids to immobilize the planet and the Republic leadership. By this time, Mon Mothma finally reconciles with Sen Garm bel Iblis, whom she lets lead Coruscant's defenses. Elsewhere, Han Solo, Chewbacca and Talon Karrde work to form an alliance of smugglers to assist with the New Republic defense. Although the smugglers consider staying in the sidelines, an Imperial raid on their meeting place (set up by turncoat smuggler Niles Ferrier without Thrawn's permission) finally unites them against the Empire. Mara Jade, who was knocked out in the climax of the previous novel, joins Princess Leia and Han in stopping an Imperial commando force sent to Coruscant to kidnap Leia's newborn twins for Joruus C'baoth. The Jedi Master wants to turn Leia, Luke and the twins to the Dark Side. The raid's sole survivor points to Mara as their mole and she is arrested, but she comes clean to Leia about the Wayland cloning facility. As they slip out of Coruscant, Republic security shuts down an Imperial eavesdropping system located in the former Imperial Palace. Mara, Luke, Han, Lando, Chewie, the droids, and Karrde travel to Wayland. They slip past Imperial forces in the area with help from the Noghri and two local alien races. Mara discovers that Luke Skywalker - the man the Emperor is ordering her to kill - is actually the man"
      },
      {
        "text": " Leia about the Wayland cloning facility. As they slip out of Coruscant, Republic security shuts down an Imperial eavesdropping system located in the former Imperial Palace. Mara, Luke, Han, Lando, Chewie, the droids, and Karrde travel to Wayland. They slip past Imperial forces in the area with help from the Noghri and two local alien races. Mara discovers that Luke Skywalker - the man the Emperor is ordering her to kill - is actually the man she spent time with in the Myrkr forest. Han, Lando, and Chewie rig the base to explode. Mara, Luke, Karrde and Leia face C'baoth, who produced his own Skywalker clone named Luuke (using Luke's hand that was lost at Bespin during the events of Empire Strikes Back, intact with Anakin Skywalker's own lightsaber) to attack them. After a fierce battle, Mara kills C'baoth and fulfills the Emperor's orders - by killing Luuke. Having learned of Thrawn's deception strategy, the Republic fleet organizes an assault on the Imperial shipyards at Bilbringi to capture a device that can find the cloaked asteroids over Coruscant. A feint operation at Tangrene will draw Imperial forces away from Bilbringi. However, Thrawn sees through the deception and marshals his forces at the shipyards. When the Republic fleet and the smugglers attack, the Imperial forces severely maul them. Things nearly go the Empire's way - until Capt Gilad Pellaeon receives word of the attack on Wayland. When he reads that Noghri were among the attackers, Thrawn's own Noghri bodyguard Rukh stuns him and kills the admiral himself before disappearing. With all hopes of victory now dashed by Thrawn's death, Pellaeon orders all Imperial forces to retreat. Back in Coruscant, Luke gives Mara Jade his father's lightsaber and invites her to train as"
      },
      {
        "text": " go the Empire's way - until Capt Gilad Pellaeon receives word of the attack on Wayland. When he reads that Noghri were among the attackers, Thrawn's own Noghri bodyguard Rukh stuns him and kills the admiral himself before disappearing. With all hopes of victory now dashed by Thrawn's death, Pellaeon orders all Imperial forces to retreat. Back in Coruscant, Luke gives Mara Jade his father's lightsaber and invites her to train as a Jedi.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Way of All Flesh",
    "author": "Samuel Butler",
    "published_date": "1903",
    "synopsis": " The story is narrated by Overton, godfather to the central character. The novel takes its beginnings in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in order to trace Ernest's emergence from previous generations of the Pontifex family. John Pontifex was a carpenter; his son George rises in the world to become a publisher; George's son Theobald, pressed by his father to become a minister, is manipulated into marrying Christina, the daughter of a clergyman; the main character Ernest Pontifex is the eldest son of Theobald and Christina. The author depicts an antagonistic relationship between Ernest and his hypocritical and domineering parents. His aunt Alethea is aware of this relationship, but dies before she can fulfill her aim of counteracting the parents' malign influence on the boy. However, shortly before her death she secretly passes a small fortune into Overton's keeping, with the agreement that once Ernest is twenty-eight, he can receive it. As Ernest develops into a young man, he travels a bumpy theological road, reflecting the divisions and controversies in the Church of England in the Victorian era. Easily influenced by others at university, he starts out as an Evangelical Christian, and soon becomes a clergyman. He then falls for the lures of the High Church (and is duped out of much of his own money by a fellow clergyman). He decides that the way to regenerate the Church of England is to live among the poor, but the results are, first, that his faith in the integrity of the Bible is severely damaged by a conversation with one of the poor he was hoping to redeem, and, second, that under the pressures of poverty and theological doubt, he attempts a sexual assault on a woman he had incorrectly believed to be of loose morals. This assault leads to a prison term. His parents disown him. His health deteriorates. As he recovers he learns how to tailor and decides to make this his profession once out of prison. He loses his Christian faith. He marries Ellen, a former housemaid of his parents, and they have two children and set up shop together in the second-hand clothing industry. However, in due course he discovers that Ellen is both a bigamist and an alcoholic. Overton at this point intervenes and pays Ellen off. He gives Ernest a job, and takes him on a trip to Continental Europe. In due course Ernest becomes 28, and receives his aunt Alethea's gift. He returns to the family home until his parents die: his father's influence over him wanes as Theobald's own position as a clergyman is reduced in stature, though to the end Theobald finds small ways purposefully to annoy him. He becomes an author of controversial literature.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is narrated by Overton, godfather to the central character. The novel takes its beginnings in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in order to trace Ernest's emergence from previous generations of the Pontifex family. John Pontifex was a carpenter; his son George rises in the world to become a publisher; George's son Theobald, pressed by his father to become a minister, is manipulated into marrying Christina, the daughter of a clergyman; the main character Ernest Pontifex is the eldest son of Theobald and Christina. The author depicts an antagonistic relationship between Ernest and his hypocritical and domineering parents. His aunt Alethea is aware of this relationship, but dies before she can fulfill her aim of counteracting the parents' malign influence on the boy. However, shortly before her death she secretly passes a small fortune into Overton's keeping, with the agreement that once Ernest is twenty-eight, he can receive it. As Ernest develops into a young man, he travels a bumpy theological road, reflecting the divisions and controversies in the Church of England in the Victorian era. Easily influenced by others at university, he starts out as an Evangelical Christian, and soon becomes a clergyman. He then falls for the lures of the High Church (and is duped out of much of his own money by a fellow clergyman). He decides that the way to regenerate the Church of England is to live among the poor, but the results are, first, that his faith in the integrity of the Bible is severely damaged by a conversation with one of the poor he was hoping to redeem, and, second, that under the pressures of poverty and theological doubt, he attempts a sexual assault on a woman he had incorrectly believed to be of loose morals. This assault leads to a prison term. His parents disown him. His health deteriorates. As he recovers he learns how to tailor and decides to make this his profession once out"
      },
      {
        "text": " the results are, first, that his faith in the integrity of the Bible is severely damaged by a conversation with one of the poor he was hoping to redeem, and, second, that under the pressures of poverty and theological doubt, he attempts a sexual assault on a woman he had incorrectly believed to be of loose morals. This assault leads to a prison term. His parents disown him. His health deteriorates. As he recovers he learns how to tailor and decides to make this his profession once out of prison. He loses his Christian faith. He marries Ellen, a former housemaid of his parents, and they have two children and set up shop together in the second-hand clothing industry. However, in due course he discovers that Ellen is both a bigamist and an alcoholic. Overton at this point intervenes and pays Ellen off. He gives Ernest a job, and takes him on a trip to Continental Europe. In due course Ernest becomes 28, and receives his aunt Alethea's gift. He returns to the family home until his parents die: his father's influence over him wanes as Theobald's own position as a clergyman is reduced in stature, though to the end Theobald finds small ways purposefully to annoy him. He becomes an author of controversial literature.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Alice Adams",
    "author": "Booth Tarkington",
    "published_date": "1921-06",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins with Virgil Adams confined to bed with an unnamed illness. There is tension between Virgil and his wife over how he should go about recovering, and she pressures him not to return to work for J. A. Lamb once he is well. Alice, their daughter, attempts to keep peace in the family (with mixed results) before walking to her friend Mildred Palmer's house to see what Mildred will wear to a dance that evening. After Alice's return, she spends the day preparing for the dance, going out to pick violets for a bouquet, as she cannot afford to buy flowers for herself. Her brother, Walter, initially refuses to accompany her to the dance, but as Alice cannot go without an escort, Mrs. Adams prevails upon Walter, and he rents a \"tin Lizzie\" to drive Alice to the dance. Walter's attitude towards the upper class is one of obvious disdain\u2014he would rather spend his time gambling with the African-American servants in the cloakroom than be out in the ballroom at the dance. Alice forces him to dance with her at first, as it will be a grave embarrassment for her to stand alone, but Walter eventually abandons her. Alice uses every trick in her book to give the impression that she is not standing by herself, before dancing with Frank Dowling (whose attentions she does not welcome) and Arthur Russell (a rich newcomer to town who is rumored to be engaged to Mildred), who she believes danced with her out of pity and at Mildred's request. She leaves the dance horribly embarrassed after Arthur discovers Walter's gambling with the servants. The next day, Alice goes on an errand for her father into town, passing Frincke's Business College on the way with a shudder (as she sees it as a place that drags promising young ladies down to \"hideous obscurity\"). On the walk back home, she encounters Arthur Russell, who shows an obvious interest in her. As she assumes he is all but spoken for, she doesn't know how to handle the conversation\u2014while warning him not to believe the things girls like Mildred will say about her, she tells a number of lies to obscure her family's relatively humble economic status. Arthur returns, several days later, and his courtship of Alice continues. All seems well between them until he mentions a dance being thrown by the young Miss Henrietta Lamb; Arthur wants to escort Alice to the dance, and she lies to cover for the fact that she is not invited to the event. Mrs. Adams uses Alice's distress to finally goad Virgil into setting up a glue factory (which she has long insisted would be the family's ticket to success). It is eventually revealed that the glue recipe was developed by Virgil and another man under the direction and in the employ of J.A. Lamb, who over the years declined to take up its production despite repeated proddings from Virgil. Although initially reluctant to \"steal\" from Mr. Lamb, Virgil finally persuades himself that his improvements to the recipe over the years has made it \"virtually\" his. As Arthur continues his secret courtship of Alice (he never talks about her nor tells anyone where he spends his evenings), Alice continues spinning a web of lies to preserve the image of herself and her family that she has invented. This becomes especially difficult when she and Arthur encounter Walter in a bad part of town, walking with a young woman who gives the appearance of being a prostitute. At home, Walter is confronted by his father, who demands that Walter quit Lamb's to help in setting up the glue factory. Walter refuses to help his father without a $300 cash advance, which Virgil cannot afford. Virgil arranges to resign from Lamb's employ without speaking to him face-to-face, as he fears the old man's reaction, and puts the glue factory into operation. Meanwhile, Alice works frantically to convince Arthur that the things other people will say about her won't be true, and continues to press the point even when Arthur insists that no one has spoken about her behind her back, and that nothing anyone else could say would change his opinion of her. Mrs. Adams decides to arrange a dinner so that Arthur can meet the family, and sets about planning an elaborate meal and hiring servants for the day, so that Arthur will be impressed. Walter again demands cash from his father (the amount has now risen to $350) without explaining why he needs it, and is again rebuffed. While these events occur at the Adams house, Arthur finally overhears things about Alice, which strikes a chord, and her family, including the fact that Virgil Adams has \"stolen\" from J. A. Lamb in setting up a factory with Lamb's secret recipe for glue. The dinner itself is a total disaster: the day is unbearably hot, the food far too heavy, the hired servants surly and difficult to manage, capped by Virgil unwittingly acting like his lower-middle-class self, not the well-to-do businessman his wife and daughter wish him to act. Arthur, still reeling from what he heard about the Adamses earlier in the day, is stiff and uneasy throughout the evening, and Alice feels increasingly uncomfortable. By the end of the night, it's apparent to her that he will not come courting again, and she bids him farewell. That night, word reaches the family that Walter has skipped town, leaving behind him a massive debt to his employer, J. A. Lamb, which will have to be paid to keep Walter out of jail. The following morning, Virgil arrives at work to see that Lamb is opening his own glue factory on such a huge scale that Adams will not be able to compete, and will never make enough money to either pay his son's debts or pay off the family's mortgage. Virgil confronts Lamb about this state of affairs, working himself into such a state that he collapses, and returns to the same sickbed at home where he began the book. Lamb takes pity on the man, and arranges to buy the Adams glue factory for a sufficient price to pay off Walter's debts and the family's mortgage. The Adams family takes in boarders to help keep the family afloat economically, and Alice heads downtown to Frincke's Business College to train herself in employable skills so that she can support the family. She encounters Arthur Russell on the road, and is pleased that their conversation is both polite and brief\u2014there is no possibility of renewed romance between them, which she accepts peacefully.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins with Virgil Adams confined to bed with an unnamed illness. There is tension between Virgil and his wife over how he should go about recovering, and she pressures him not to return to work for J. A. Lamb once he is well. Alice, their daughter, attempts to keep peace in the family (with mixed results) before walking to her friend Mildred Palmer's house to see what Mildred will wear to a dance that evening. After Alice's return, she spends the day preparing for the dance, going out to pick violets for a bouquet, as she cannot afford to buy flowers for herself. Her brother, Walter, initially refuses to accompany her to the dance, but as Alice cannot go without an escort, Mrs. Adams prevails upon Walter, and he rents a \"tin Lizzie\" to drive Alice to the dance. Walter's attitude towards the upper class is one of obvious disdain\u2014he would rather spend his time gambling with the African-American servants in the cloakroom than be out in the ballroom at the dance. Alice forces him to dance with her at first, as it will be a grave embarrassment for her to stand alone, but Walter eventually abandons her. Alice uses every trick in her book to give the impression that she is not standing by herself, before dancing with Frank Dowling (whose attentions she does not welcome) and Arthur Russell (a rich newcomer to town who is rumored to be engaged to Mildred), who she believes danced with her out of pity and at Mildred's request. She leaves the dance horribly embarrassed after Arthur discovers Walter's gambling with the servants. The next day, Alice goes on an errand for her father into town, passing Frincke's Business College on the way with a shudder (as she sees it as a place that drags promising young ladies down to \"hideous obscurity\"). On the walk back home, she encounters Arthur Russell, who shows an obvious interest in"
      },
      {
        "text": "), who she believes danced with her out of pity and at Mildred's request. She leaves the dance horribly embarrassed after Arthur discovers Walter's gambling with the servants. The next day, Alice goes on an errand for her father into town, passing Frincke's Business College on the way with a shudder (as she sees it as a place that drags promising young ladies down to \"hideous obscurity\"). On the walk back home, she encounters Arthur Russell, who shows an obvious interest in her. As she assumes he is all but spoken for, she doesn't know how to handle the conversation\u2014while warning him not to believe the things girls like Mildred will say about her, she tells a number of lies to obscure her family's relatively humble economic status. Arthur returns, several days later, and his courtship of Alice continues. All seems well between them until he mentions a dance being thrown by the young Miss Henrietta Lamb; Arthur wants to escort Alice to the dance, and she lies to cover for the fact that she is not invited to the event. Mrs. Adams uses Alice's distress to finally goad Virgil into setting up a glue factory (which she has long insisted would be the family's ticket to success). It is eventually revealed that the glue recipe was developed by Virgil and another man under the direction and in the employ of J.A. Lamb, who over the years declined to take up its production despite repeated proddings from Virgil. Although initially reluctant to \"steal\" from Mr. Lamb, Virgil finally persuades himself that his improvements to the recipe over the years has made it \"virtually\" his. As Arthur continues his secret courtship of Alice (he never talks about her nor tells anyone where he spends his evenings), Alice continues spinning a web of lies to preserve the image of herself and her family that she has invented. This becomes especially difficult when she and Arthur encounter Walter in a bad part of town, walking with"
      },
      {
        "text": " initially reluctant to \"steal\" from Mr. Lamb, Virgil finally persuades himself that his improvements to the recipe over the years has made it \"virtually\" his. As Arthur continues his secret courtship of Alice (he never talks about her nor tells anyone where he spends his evenings), Alice continues spinning a web of lies to preserve the image of herself and her family that she has invented. This becomes especially difficult when she and Arthur encounter Walter in a bad part of town, walking with a young woman who gives the appearance of being a prostitute. At home, Walter is confronted by his father, who demands that Walter quit Lamb's to help in setting up the glue factory. Walter refuses to help his father without a $300 cash advance, which Virgil cannot afford. Virgil arranges to resign from Lamb's employ without speaking to him face-to-face, as he fears the old man's reaction, and puts the glue factory into operation. Meanwhile, Alice works frantically to convince Arthur that the things other people will say about her won't be true, and continues to press the point even when Arthur insists that no one has spoken about her behind her back, and that nothing anyone else could say would change his opinion of her. Mrs. Adams decides to arrange a dinner so that Arthur can meet the family, and sets about planning an elaborate meal and hiring servants for the day, so that Arthur will be impressed. Walter again demands cash from his father (the amount has now risen to $350) without explaining why he needs it, and is again rebuffed. While these events occur at the Adams house, Arthur finally overhears things about Alice, which strikes a chord, and her family, including the fact that Virgil Adams has \"stolen\" from J. A. Lamb in setting up a factory with Lamb's secret recipe for glue. The dinner itself is a total disaster: the day is unbearably hot, the food far too heavy, the hired servants"
      },
      {
        "text": " risen to $350) without explaining why he needs it, and is again rebuffed. While these events occur at the Adams house, Arthur finally overhears things about Alice, which strikes a chord, and her family, including the fact that Virgil Adams has \"stolen\" from J. A. Lamb in setting up a factory with Lamb's secret recipe for glue. The dinner itself is a total disaster: the day is unbearably hot, the food far too heavy, the hired servants surly and difficult to manage, capped by Virgil unwittingly acting like his lower-middle-class self, not the well-to-do businessman his wife and daughter wish him to act. Arthur, still reeling from what he heard about the Adamses earlier in the day, is stiff and uneasy throughout the evening, and Alice feels increasingly uncomfortable. By the end of the night, it's apparent to her that he will not come courting again, and she bids him farewell. That night, word reaches the family that Walter has skipped town, leaving behind him a massive debt to his employer, J. A. Lamb, which will have to be paid to keep Walter out of jail. The following morning, Virgil arrives at work to see that Lamb is opening his own glue factory on such a huge scale that Adams will not be able to compete, and will never make enough money to either pay his son's debts or pay off the family's mortgage. Virgil confronts Lamb about this state of affairs, working himself into such a state that he collapses, and returns to the same sickbed at home where he began the book. Lamb takes pity on the man, and arranges to buy the Adams glue factory for a sufficient price to pay off Walter's debts and the family's mortgage. The Adams family takes in boarders to help keep the family afloat economically, and Alice heads downtown to Frincke's Business College to train herself in employable skills so that she can support the family"
      },
      {
        "text": " of affairs, working himself into such a state that he collapses, and returns to the same sickbed at home where he began the book. Lamb takes pity on the man, and arranges to buy the Adams glue factory for a sufficient price to pay off Walter's debts and the family's mortgage. The Adams family takes in boarders to help keep the family afloat economically, and Alice heads downtown to Frincke's Business College to train herself in employable skills so that she can support the family. She encounters Arthur Russell on the road, and is pleased that their conversation is both polite and brief\u2014there is no possibility of renewed romance between them, which she accepts peacefully.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Les Mis\u00e9rables",
    "author": "Victor Hugo",
    "published_date": "1862",
    "synopsis": " The story starts in 1815 in Digne. The peasant Jean Valjean has just been released from imprisonment in the Bagne of Toulon after nineteen years (five for stealing bread for his starving sister and her family, and fourteen more for numerous escape attempts). Upon being released, he is required to carry a yellow passport that marks him as a prisoner, despite having already paid his debt to society by serving his time in prison. Rejected by innkeepers, who do not want to take in a convict, Valjean sleeps on the street. This makes him even angrier and more bitter. However, the benevolent Bishop Myriel, the bishop of Digne, takes him in and gives him shelter. In the middle of the night, Valjean steals Bishop Myriel\u2019s silverware and runs away. He is caught and brought back by the police, but Bishop Myriel rescues him by claiming that the silverware was a gift and at that point gives him his two silver candlesticks as well, chastising him to the police for leaving in such a rush that he forgot these most valuable pieces. After the police leave, Bishop Myriel then \"reminds\" him of the promise, which Valjean has no memory of making, to use the silver candlesticks to make an honest man of himself. Valjean broods over the Bishop's words. Purely out of habit, he steals a 40-sous coin from chimney-sweep Petit Gervais and chases the boy away. Soon afterwards, he repents and decides to follow Bishop Myriel's advice. He searches the city in panic for the child whose money he stole. At the same time, his theft is reported to the authorities, who now look for him as a repeat offender. If Valjean is caught, he will be forced to spend the rest of his life in prison, so he hides from the police. Six years pass and Valjean, having adopted the alias of Monsieur Madeleine to avoid capture, has become a wealthy factory owner and is appointed mayor of his adopted town of Montreuil-sur-Mer (referred to as \"M--- Sur M---\" in the unabridged version). While walking down the street one day, he sees a gentleman named Fauchelevent pinned under the wheels of his cart. When no one volunteers to lift the cart, even for pay, he decides to rescue Old Fauchelevent himself. He crawls underneath the cart and manages to lift it, freeing him. The town's police inspector, Inspector Javert, who was an adjutant guard at the Bagne of Toulon during Valjean's incarceration, becomes suspicious of the mayor after witnessing his heroics. He knows the ex-prisoner Jean Valjean is also capable of such strength. Years earlier in Paris, a grisette named Fantine was very much in love with a gentleman named F\u00e9lix Tholomy\u00e8s. His friends, Listolier, Fameuil, and Blachevelle were also paired with Fantine\u2019s friends Dahlia, Z\u00e9phine, and Favourite. The men later abandon the women as a joke, leaving Fantine to care for Tholomy\u00e8s' daughter, Cosette, by herself. When Fantine arrives at Montfermeil, she leaves Cosette in the care of the Th\u00e9nardiers, a corrupt innkeeper and his selfish, cruel wife. Fantine is unaware that they abuse her daughter and use her as forced labor for their inn, and continues to try to pay their growing, extortionate and fictitious demands for Cosette's \"upkeep.\" She is later fired from her job at Jean Valjean's factory, because of the discovery of her daughter, who was born out of wedlock. Meanwhile, the Th\u00e9nardiers' letters and monetary demands continue to grow. In desperation, Fantine sells her hair, her two front teeth, and is forced to resort to prostitution to pay for her daughter's \"care.\" Fantine is also slowly dying from an unnamed disease (probably tuberculosis). While roaming the streets, a dandy named Bamatabois harasses Fantine and puts snow down her back. She reacts by attacking him. Javert sees this and arrests Fantine. She begs to be released so that she can provide for her daughter, but Javert sentences her to six months in prison. Valjean, hearing her story, intervenes and orders Javert to release her. Javert strongly refuses but Valjean persists and prevails. Valjean, feeling responsible because his factory turned her away, promises Fantine that he will bring Cosette to her. He takes her to a hospital. Later, Javert comes to see Valjean again. Javert admits he had accused him of being Jean Valjean to the French authorities after Fantine was freed. However, he tells Valjean that he no longer suspects him because the authorities have announced that another man has been identified as the real Jean Valjean after being arrested and having noticeable similarities. This gentleman's name is Champmathieu. His trial is set the next day. At first, Valjean is torn whether to reveal himself, but decides to do so to save the innocent gentleman. He goes to the trial and reveals his true identity. Valjean then returns to Montreuil-sur-Mer to see Fantine, followed by Javert, who confronts him at her hospital room. After Javert grabs Valjean, Valjean asks for three days to bring Cosette to Fantine, but Javert refuses. Fantine discovers that Cosette is not at the hospital and fretfully asks where she is. Javert orders her to be quiet, and then reveals to her Valjean\u2019s real identity. Shocked, and with the severity of her illness, she falls back in her bed and dies. Valjean goes to Fantine, speaks to her in an inaudible whisper, kisses her hand, and then leaves with Javert. Fantine's body is later cruelly thrown in a public grave. Valjean escapes, only to be recaptured and sentenced to death. This was commuted by the king to penal servitude for life. While being sent to the prison at Toulon, a military port, Valjean saves a sailor about to fall from the ship's rigging. The crowd begins to call \"This man must be pardoned!\" but when the authorities reject the crowd's pleas, Valjean fakes a slip and falls into the ocean to escape, relying on the belief that he has drowned. Valjean arrives at Montfermeil on Christmas Eve. He finds Cosette fetching water in the woods alone and walks with her to the inn. After ordering a meal, he observes the Th\u00e9nardiers\u2019 abusive treatment of her. He also witnesses their pampered daughters \u00c9ponine and Azelma treating Cosette badly as well when they tell on her to their mother for holding their abandoned doll. Upon seeing this, Valjean goes out and returns a moment later holding an expensive new doll. He offers it to Cosette. At first, she is unable to comprehend that the doll really is for her, but then happily takes it. This results in Mme. Th\u00e9nardier becoming furious with Valjean, while Th\u00e9nardier dismisses it, informing her that he can do as he wishes as long as he pays them. It also causes \u00c9ponine and Azelma to become envious of Cosette. The next morning on Christmas Day, Valjean informs the Th\u00e9nardiers that he wants to take Cosette with him. Mme. Th\u00e9nardier immediately accepts, while Th\u00e9nardier pretends to have love and concern for Cosette and how reluctant he is to give her up. Valjean pays 1,500 francs to them, and he and Cosette leave the inn. However, Th\u00e9nardier, hoping to swindle more out of Valjean, runs after them, holding the 1,500 francs, and tells Valjean he wants Cosette back. He informs Valjean that he cannot release Cosette without a note from the mother. Valjean hands Th\u00e9nardier a letter, which is signed by Fantine. Th\u00e9nardier then orders Valjean to pay a thousand crowns, but Valjean and Cosette leave. Th\u00e9nardier regrets to himself that he did not bring his gun, and turns back toward home. Valjean and Cosette flee to Paris. Valjean rents new lodgings at Gorbeau House, and he and Cosette live there happily. However, Javert discovers Valjean's lodgings there a few months later. Valjean takes Cosette and they try to escape from Javert. They soon successfully find shelter in the Petit-Picpus convent with the help of Fauchelevent, the man whom Valjean rescued and who is a gardener for the convent. Valjean also becomes a gardener and Cosette becomes a student. Eight years later, the Friends of the ABC, led by Enjolras, are preparing an act of anti-Orl\u00e9anist civil unrest on the eve of the Paris uprising on 5\u20136 June 1832, following the death of General Lamarque, the only French leader who had sympathy towards the working class. They are also joined by the poor of the Cour des miracles, including the Th\u00e9nardiers' oldest son Gavroche, who is a street urchin. One of the students, Marius Pontmercy, has become alienated from his family (especially his grandfather M. Gillenormand) because of his liberal views. After the death of his father Colonel Georges Pontmercy, Marius discovers a note from him instructing his son to provide help to a sergeant named Th\u00e9nardier who saved Pontmercy's life at Waterloo \u2013 in reality Th\u00e9nardier was looting corpses and only saved Pontmercy's life by accident; he had called himself a sergeant under Napoleon to avoid exposing himself as a robber. At the Luxembourg Gardens, Marius falls in love with the now grown and beautiful Cosette. The Th\u00e9nardiers have also moved to Paris and now live in poverty after losing their inn. They live under the surname \"Jondrette\" at Gorbeau House (coincidentally, the same building Valjean and Cosette briefly lived in after leaving the Th\u00e9nardiers' inn). Marius lives there as well, next door to the Th\u00e9nardiers. \u00c9ponine, now ragged and emaciated, visits Marius at his apartment to beg for money. To impress him, she tries to prove her literacy by reading aloud from a book and by writing \"The Cops Are Here\" on a sheet of paper. Marius pities her and gives her some money. After \u00c9ponine leaves, Marius observes the \"Jondrettes\" in their apartment through a crack in the wall. \u00c9ponine comes in and announces that a philanthropist and his daughter are arriving to visit them. In order to look poorer, Th\u00e9nardier puts out the fire and breaks a chair. He also orders Azelma to punch out a window pane, which she does, resulting in cutting her hand (as Th\u00e9nardier had hoped). The philanthropist and his daughter enter\u2014actually Valjean and Cosette. Marius immediately recognizes Cosette. After seeing them, Valjean promises them he will return with rent money for them. After he and Cosette leave, Marius asks \u00c9ponine to retrieve her address for him. \u00c9ponine, who is in love with Marius herself, reluctantly agrees to do so. The Th\u00e9nardiers have also recognized Valjean and Cosette, and vow their revenge. Th\u00e9nardier enlists the aid of the Patron-Minette, a well-known and feared gang of murderers and robbers. Marius overhears Th\u00e9nardier's plan and goes to Javert to report the crime. Javert gives Marius two pistols and instructs him to fire one into the air if things get dangerous. Marius returns home and waits for Javert and the police to arrive. Th\u00e9nardier sends \u00c9ponine and Azelma outside to look out for the police. When Valjean returns with rent money, Th\u00e9nardier, with Patron-Minette, ambushes him and he reveals his real identity to Valjean. Marius recognizes Th\u00e9nardier as the man who \"saved\" his father's life at Waterloo and is caught in a dilemma. He tries to find a way to save Valjean while not betraying Th\u00e9nardier. Valjean denies knowing Th\u00e9nardier and tells that they have never met. Valjean tries to escape through a window but is subdued and tied up. Th\u00e9nardier orders Valjean to pay him 200,000 francs. He also orders Valjean to write a letter to Cosette to return to the apartment, and they would keep her with them until he delivers the money. After Valjean writes the letter and informs Th\u00e9nardier his address, Th\u00e9nardier sends out Mme. Th\u00e9nardier to get Cosette. Mme. Th\u00e9nardier comes back alone, and announces the address is a fake. It was during this time that Valjean manages to free himself. Th\u00e9nardier decides to kill Valjean. While he and Patron-Minette are about to do so, Marius remembers the scrap of paper that \u00c9ponine wrote on earlier. He throws it into the Th\u00e9nardiers\u2019 apartment through the wall crack. Th\u00e9nardier reads it and thinks \u00c9ponine threw it inside. He, Mme. Th\u00e9nardier and Patron-Minette try to escape, only to be stopped by Javert. He arrests all the Th\u00e9nardiers and Patron-Minette (except Claquesous, who escapes during his transportation to prison; Montparnasse, who stops to run off with \u00c9ponine instead of joining in on the robbery; and Gavroche, who was not present and rarely participates in his family's crimes, a notable exception being his part in breaking his father out of prison). Valjean manages to escape the scene before Javert sees him. After \u00c9ponine\u2019s release from prison, she finds Marius at \"The Field of the Lark\" and sadly tells him that she found Cosette\u2019s address. She leads him to Valjean and Cosette's house at Rue Plumet, and Marius watches the house for a few days. He and Cosette then finally meet and declare their love for one another. Th\u00e9nardier, Patron-Minette and Brujon manage to escape from prison with the aid of Gavroche. One night, during one of Marius\u2019 visits with Cosette, the six men attempt to raid Valjean and Cosette's house. However, \u00c9ponine, who was sitting by the gates of the house, threatens to scream and awaken the whole neighbourhood if the thieves do not leave. Hearing this, they reluctantly retire. Meanwhile, Cosette informs Marius that she and Valjean will be leaving for England in a week\u2019s time, which greatly troubles the pair. The next day, Valjean is sitting in the Champ de Mars. He is feeling troubled due to seeing Th\u00e9nardier in the neighbourhood several times. Unexpectedly, a note lands in his lap, which says \"Move Out.\" He sees a figure running away in the dim light. He goes back to his house, tells Cosette they will be staying at their other house at Rue de l'Homme Arme, and reconfirms with her about moving to England. Marius tries to get permission from M. Gillenormand to marry Cosette. His grandfather seems stern and angry, but has been longing for Marius' return. When tempers flare, he refuses, telling Marius to make Cosette his mistress instead. Insulted, Marius leaves. The following day, the students revolt and erect barricades in the narrow streets of Paris. Gavroche spots Javert and informs Enjolras that Javert is a spy. When Enjolras confronts him of this, he admits his identity and his orders to spy on the students. Enjolras and the other students tie him up to a pole in the Corinth restaurant. Later that evening, Marius goes back to Valjean and Cosette\u2019s house at Rue Plumet, but finds the house no longer occupied. He then hears a voice telling him that his friends are waiting for him at the barricade. Distraught over Cosette gone, he heeds the voice and goes. When Marius arrives at the barricade, the \"revolution\" has already started. When he stoops down to pick up a powder keg, a soldier comes up to shoot Marius. After, a man covers the muzzle of the soldier's gun with his hand. The soldier fires, fatally shooting the man, while missing Marius. Meanwhile, the soldiers are closing in. Marius climbs to the top of the barricade, holding a torch in one hand, a powder keg in the other. He yells at the soldiers \"Begone! Or I\u2019ll blow up the barricade!\" After confirming this, the soldiers retreat from the barricade. Marius decides to go to the smaller barricade, which he finds empty. As he turns back, the man who took the fatal shot for Marius earlier calls Marius by his name. Marius, and the reader, discovers that it is actually \u00c9ponine, dressed in men's clothes. As she lies dying on his knees, she confesses that she was the one who told him to go to the barricade, in hoping that the two would die together. She also confesses to saving his life because she wanted to die first (although she does not provide further explanation to this). The author also states to the reader that \u00c9ponine anonymously threw the note to Valjean. \u00c9ponine then tells Marius that she has a letter for him. She also confesses to have obtained the letter the day before, originally not planning to give it to him, but decides to do so in fear he would be angry at her in the afterlife. After Marius takes the letter, \u00c9ponine then asks him to kiss her on the forehead when she is dead, which he promises to do. With her last breath, she confesses that she was \"a little bit in love\" with him, and dies. Marius fulfills her request and goes into a tavern to read the letter (in consideration that it would be inappropriate to read it beside her corpse). It is written by Cosette. He learns Cosette's new whereabouts and writes a farewell letter to her. The letter is delivered to Valjean by Gavroche. Valjean, learning that Cosette's lover is fighting, is at first relieved, but an hour later, he puts on a National Guard uniform, arms himself with a gun and ammunition, and leaves his home. Valjean arrives at the barricade and immediately saves a man's life, though he is still not certain if he wants to protect Marius or to kill him. Marius recognizes Valjean upon seeing him. Enjolras announces that they are almost out of cartridges. Overhearing this, Gavroche goes to the other side of the barricade to collect more from the dead National Guardsmen. While doing so, he is shot and killed by the soldiers. Later, Valjean saves Javert from being killed by the students. He volunteers to execute Javert himself, and Enjolras grants permission. Valjean takes Javert out of sight, and then shoots into the air while letting him go. As the barricade falls, Valjean carries off the injured and unconscious Marius. All the other students, including Enjolras, are killed. Valjean escapes through the sewers, carrying Marius' body on his shoulders. He manages to evade a police patrol. He eventually finds a gate to exit the sewers, but to his disappointment, the gate is locked. Valjean suddenly hears a voice behind him, and he turns and sees Th\u00e9nardier. Valjean recognizes him but his composure is calm, for he perceives that Th\u00e9nardier does not recognize him due to his dirty appearance. Thinking Valjean to be a simple murderer, Th\u00e9nardier offers to open the gate for money. He then proceeds to search Valjean and Marius' pockets. While doing this, he secretly tears off a piece of Marius\u2019 coat so he can later find out his identity. Finding only thirty francs, Th\u00e9nardier reluctantly takes the money, opens the gate, and Valjean leaves. At the exit, Valjean runs into Javert, whom he persuades to give him time to return Marius to his family. Javert grants this request. After leaving Marius at M. Gillenormand\u2019s house, Valjean makes another request that he be permitted to go home shortly, which Javert also allows. They arrive at Rue de l'Homme Arme and Javert informs Valjean that he will wait for him. As Valjean walks upstairs, he looks out the landing window and finds Javert gone. Javert is walking down the street alone, realizing that he is caught between his strict belief in the law and the mercy Valjean has shown him. He feels he can no longer give Valjean up to the authorities but also cannot ignore his duty to the law. Unable to cope with this dilemma, Javert commits suicide by throwing himself into the Seine. Marius slowly recovers from his injuries and he and Cosette are soon married. Meanwhile, Th\u00e9nardier and Azelma are attending the Mardi Gras as \"masks.\" Th\u00e9nardier spots Valjean among the wedding party heading the opposite direction and bids Azelma to follow them. After the wedding, Valjean confesses to Marius that he is an ex-convict. Marius is horrified by the revelation. Convinced that Valjean is of poor moral character, he steers Cosette away from him. Valjean loses the will to live and takes to his bed. Later, Th\u00e9nardier approaches Marius in a disguise, but Marius is not fooled and recognizes him. Th\u00e9nardier attempts to blackmail Marius with what he knows of Valjean, but in doing so, he inadvertently corrects Marius' misconceptions about Valjean and reveals all of the good he has done. He tries to convince Marius that Valjean is actually a murderer, and presents the piece of coat he tore off as evidence. Stunned, Marius recognizes the fabric and realizes that it was Valjean who rescued him from the barricade. Marius pulls out a fistful of five hundred and one thousand franc notes and flings it at Th\u00e9nardier's face. He then confronts Th\u00e9nardier with his crimes and offers him an immense amount of money if he departs and promises never to return. Th\u00e9nardier accepts the offer, and he and Azelma travel to America where he becomes a slave trader. As Marius and Cosette rush to Valjean's house, he informs her that Valjean saved his life at the barricade. They arrive to see him, but the great man is dying. In his final moments, he realizes happiness with his adopted daughter and son-in-law by his side. He also reveals Cosette's past to her as well as her mother's name. Joined with them in love, he dies.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story starts in 1815 in Digne. The peasant Jean Valjean has just been released from imprisonment in the Bagne of Toulon after nineteen years (five for stealing bread for his starving sister and her family, and fourteen more for numerous escape attempts). Upon being released, he is required to carry a yellow passport that marks him as a prisoner, despite having already paid his debt to society by serving his time in prison. Rejected by innkeepers, who do not want to take in a convict, Valjean sleeps on the street. This makes him even angrier and more bitter. However, the benevolent Bishop Myriel, the bishop of Digne, takes him in and gives him shelter. In the middle of the night, Valjean steals Bishop Myriel\u2019s silverware and runs away. He is caught and brought back by the police, but Bishop Myriel rescues him by claiming that the silverware was a gift and at that point gives him his two silver candlesticks as well, chastising him to the police for leaving in such a rush that he forgot these most valuable pieces. After the police leave, Bishop Myriel then \"reminds\" him of the promise, which Valjean has no memory of making, to use the silver candlesticks to make an honest man of himself. Valjean broods over the Bishop's words. Purely out of habit, he steals a 40-sous coin from chimney-sweep Petit Gervais and chases the boy away. Soon afterwards, he repents and decides to follow Bishop Myriel's advice. He searches the city in panic for the child whose money he stole. At the same time, his theft is reported to the authorities, who now look for him as a repeat offender. If Valjean is caught, he will be forced to spend the rest of his life in prison, so he hides from the police. Six years pass and"
      },
      {
        "text": "-sweep Petit Gervais and chases the boy away. Soon afterwards, he repents and decides to follow Bishop Myriel's advice. He searches the city in panic for the child whose money he stole. At the same time, his theft is reported to the authorities, who now look for him as a repeat offender. If Valjean is caught, he will be forced to spend the rest of his life in prison, so he hides from the police. Six years pass and Valjean, having adopted the alias of Monsieur Madeleine to avoid capture, has become a wealthy factory owner and is appointed mayor of his adopted town of Montreuil-sur-Mer (referred to as \"M--- Sur M---\" in the unabridged version). While walking down the street one day, he sees a gentleman named Fauchelevent pinned under the wheels of his cart. When no one volunteers to lift the cart, even for pay, he decides to rescue Old Fauchelevent himself. He crawls underneath the cart and manages to lift it, freeing him. The town's police inspector, Inspector Javert, who was an adjutant guard at the Bagne of Toulon during Valjean's incarceration, becomes suspicious of the mayor after witnessing his heroics. He knows the ex-prisoner Jean Valjean is also capable of such strength. Years earlier in Paris, a grisette named Fantine was very much in love with a gentleman named F\u00e9lix Tholomy\u00e8s. His friends, Listolier, Fameuil, and Blachevelle were also paired with Fantine\u2019s friends Dahlia, Z\u00e9phine, and Favourite. The men later abandon the women as a joke, leaving Fantine to care for Tholomy\u00e8s' daughter, Cosette, by herself. When Fantine arrives at Montfermeil, she leaves"
      },
      {
        "text": " was very much in love with a gentleman named F\u00e9lix Tholomy\u00e8s. His friends, Listolier, Fameuil, and Blachevelle were also paired with Fantine\u2019s friends Dahlia, Z\u00e9phine, and Favourite. The men later abandon the women as a joke, leaving Fantine to care for Tholomy\u00e8s' daughter, Cosette, by herself. When Fantine arrives at Montfermeil, she leaves Cosette in the care of the Th\u00e9nardiers, a corrupt innkeeper and his selfish, cruel wife. Fantine is unaware that they abuse her daughter and use her as forced labor for their inn, and continues to try to pay their growing, extortionate and fictitious demands for Cosette's \"upkeep.\" She is later fired from her job at Jean Valjean's factory, because of the discovery of her daughter, who was born out of wedlock. Meanwhile, the Th\u00e9nardiers' letters and monetary demands continue to grow. In desperation, Fantine sells her hair, her two front teeth, and is forced to resort to prostitution to pay for her daughter's \"care.\" Fantine is also slowly dying from an unnamed disease (probably tuberculosis). While roaming the streets, a dandy named Bamatabois harasses Fantine and puts snow down her back. She reacts by attacking him. Javert sees this and arrests Fantine. She begs to be released so that she can provide for her daughter, but Javert sentences her to six months in prison. Valjean, hearing her story, intervenes and orders Javert to release her. Javert strongly refuses but Valjean persists and prevails. Valjean, feeling responsible because his factory turned her away, promises Fantine that he will bring Cosette to her. He takes her to a hospital. Later, Javert comes to see Valjean again. Javert admits he had accused"
      },
      {
        "text": " that she can provide for her daughter, but Javert sentences her to six months in prison. Valjean, hearing her story, intervenes and orders Javert to release her. Javert strongly refuses but Valjean persists and prevails. Valjean, feeling responsible because his factory turned her away, promises Fantine that he will bring Cosette to her. He takes her to a hospital. Later, Javert comes to see Valjean again. Javert admits he had accused him of being Jean Valjean to the French authorities after Fantine was freed. However, he tells Valjean that he no longer suspects him because the authorities have announced that another man has been identified as the real Jean Valjean after being arrested and having noticeable similarities. This gentleman's name is Champmathieu. His trial is set the next day. At first, Valjean is torn whether to reveal himself, but decides to do so to save the innocent gentleman. He goes to the trial and reveals his true identity. Valjean then returns to Montreuil-sur-Mer to see Fantine, followed by Javert, who confronts him at her hospital room. After Javert grabs Valjean, Valjean asks for three days to bring Cosette to Fantine, but Javert refuses. Fantine discovers that Cosette is not at the hospital and fretfully asks where she is. Javert orders her to be quiet, and then reveals to her Valjean\u2019s real identity. Shocked, and with the severity of her illness, she falls back in her bed and dies. Valjean goes to Fantine, speaks to her in an inaudible whisper, kisses her hand, and then leaves with Javert. Fantine's body is later cruelly thrown in a public grave. Valjean escapes, only to be recaptured and sentenced to death. This was commuted by the king to penal servitude for"
      },
      {
        "text": " Valjean\u2019s real identity. Shocked, and with the severity of her illness, she falls back in her bed and dies. Valjean goes to Fantine, speaks to her in an inaudible whisper, kisses her hand, and then leaves with Javert. Fantine's body is later cruelly thrown in a public grave. Valjean escapes, only to be recaptured and sentenced to death. This was commuted by the king to penal servitude for life. While being sent to the prison at Toulon, a military port, Valjean saves a sailor about to fall from the ship's rigging. The crowd begins to call \"This man must be pardoned!\" but when the authorities reject the crowd's pleas, Valjean fakes a slip and falls into the ocean to escape, relying on the belief that he has drowned. Valjean arrives at Montfermeil on Christmas Eve. He finds Cosette fetching water in the woods alone and walks with her to the inn. After ordering a meal, he observes the Th\u00e9nardiers\u2019 abusive treatment of her. He also witnesses their pampered daughters \u00c9ponine and Azelma treating Cosette badly as well when they tell on her to their mother for holding their abandoned doll. Upon seeing this, Valjean goes out and returns a moment later holding an expensive new doll. He offers it to Cosette. At first, she is unable to comprehend that the doll really is for her, but then happily takes it. This results in Mme. Th\u00e9nardier becoming furious with Valjean, while Th\u00e9nardier dismisses it, informing her that he can do as he wishes as long as he pays them. It also causes \u00c9ponine and Azelma to become envious of Cosette. The next morning on Christmas Day, Valjean informs the Th\u00e9nardiers that he wants to take Cosette with"
      },
      {
        "text": " comprehend that the doll really is for her, but then happily takes it. This results in Mme. Th\u00e9nardier becoming furious with Valjean, while Th\u00e9nardier dismisses it, informing her that he can do as he wishes as long as he pays them. It also causes \u00c9ponine and Azelma to become envious of Cosette. The next morning on Christmas Day, Valjean informs the Th\u00e9nardiers that he wants to take Cosette with him. Mme. Th\u00e9nardier immediately accepts, while Th\u00e9nardier pretends to have love and concern for Cosette and how reluctant he is to give her up. Valjean pays 1,500 francs to them, and he and Cosette leave the inn. However, Th\u00e9nardier, hoping to swindle more out of Valjean, runs after them, holding the 1,500 francs, and tells Valjean he wants Cosette back. He informs Valjean that he cannot release Cosette without a note from the mother. Valjean hands Th\u00e9nardier a letter, which is signed by Fantine. Th\u00e9nardier then orders Valjean to pay a thousand crowns, but Valjean and Cosette leave. Th\u00e9nardier regrets to himself that he did not bring his gun, and turns back toward home. Valjean and Cosette flee to Paris. Valjean rents new lodgings at Gorbeau House, and he and Cosette live there happily. However, Javert discovers Valjean's lodgings there a few months later. Valjean takes Cosette and they try to escape from Javert. They soon successfully find shelter in the Petit-Picpus convent with the help of Fauchelevent, the man whom Valjean rescued and who is a gardener for the convent. Valjean also becomes a gardener and Cosette becomes"
      },
      {
        "text": " Gorbeau House, and he and Cosette live there happily. However, Javert discovers Valjean's lodgings there a few months later. Valjean takes Cosette and they try to escape from Javert. They soon successfully find shelter in the Petit-Picpus convent with the help of Fauchelevent, the man whom Valjean rescued and who is a gardener for the convent. Valjean also becomes a gardener and Cosette becomes a student. Eight years later, the Friends of the ABC, led by Enjolras, are preparing an act of anti-Orl\u00e9anist civil unrest on the eve of the Paris uprising on 5\u20136 June 1832, following the death of General Lamarque, the only French leader who had sympathy towards the working class. They are also joined by the poor of the Cour des miracles, including the Th\u00e9nardiers' oldest son Gavroche, who is a street urchin. One of the students, Marius Pontmercy, has become alienated from his family (especially his grandfather M. Gillenormand) because of his liberal views. After the death of his father Colonel Georges Pontmercy, Marius discovers a note from him instructing his son to provide help to a sergeant named Th\u00e9nardier who saved Pontmercy's life at Waterloo \u2013 in reality Th\u00e9nardier was looting corpses and only saved Pontmercy's life by accident; he had called himself a sergeant under Napoleon to avoid exposing himself as a robber. At the Luxembourg Gardens, Marius falls in love with the now grown and beautiful Cosette. The Th\u00e9nardiers have also moved to Paris and now live in poverty after losing their inn. They live under the surname \"Jondrette\" at Gorbeau House (coincidentally, the same building Valjean and Cosette briefly lived in after leaving the Th\u00e9nardiers' inn). Mar"
      },
      {
        "text": " accident; he had called himself a sergeant under Napoleon to avoid exposing himself as a robber. At the Luxembourg Gardens, Marius falls in love with the now grown and beautiful Cosette. The Th\u00e9nardiers have also moved to Paris and now live in poverty after losing their inn. They live under the surname \"Jondrette\" at Gorbeau House (coincidentally, the same building Valjean and Cosette briefly lived in after leaving the Th\u00e9nardiers' inn). Marius lives there as well, next door to the Th\u00e9nardiers. \u00c9ponine, now ragged and emaciated, visits Marius at his apartment to beg for money. To impress him, she tries to prove her literacy by reading aloud from a book and by writing \"The Cops Are Here\" on a sheet of paper. Marius pities her and gives her some money. After \u00c9ponine leaves, Marius observes the \"Jondrettes\" in their apartment through a crack in the wall. \u00c9ponine comes in and announces that a philanthropist and his daughter are arriving to visit them. In order to look poorer, Th\u00e9nardier puts out the fire and breaks a chair. He also orders Azelma to punch out a window pane, which she does, resulting in cutting her hand (as Th\u00e9nardier had hoped). The philanthropist and his daughter enter\u2014actually Valjean and Cosette. Marius immediately recognizes Cosette. After seeing them, Valjean promises them he will return with rent money for them. After he and Cosette leave, Marius asks \u00c9ponine to retrieve her address for him. \u00c9ponine, who is in love with Marius herself, reluctantly agrees to do so. The Th\u00e9nardiers have also recognized Valjean and Cosette, and vow their revenge. Th\u00e9nardier enlists the aid of the Patron-Minette, a well-"
      },
      {
        "text": " Cosette. After seeing them, Valjean promises them he will return with rent money for them. After he and Cosette leave, Marius asks \u00c9ponine to retrieve her address for him. \u00c9ponine, who is in love with Marius herself, reluctantly agrees to do so. The Th\u00e9nardiers have also recognized Valjean and Cosette, and vow their revenge. Th\u00e9nardier enlists the aid of the Patron-Minette, a well-known and feared gang of murderers and robbers. Marius overhears Th\u00e9nardier's plan and goes to Javert to report the crime. Javert gives Marius two pistols and instructs him to fire one into the air if things get dangerous. Marius returns home and waits for Javert and the police to arrive. Th\u00e9nardier sends \u00c9ponine and Azelma outside to look out for the police. When Valjean returns with rent money, Th\u00e9nardier, with Patron-Minette, ambushes him and he reveals his real identity to Valjean. Marius recognizes Th\u00e9nardier as the man who \"saved\" his father's life at Waterloo and is caught in a dilemma. He tries to find a way to save Valjean while not betraying Th\u00e9nardier. Valjean denies knowing Th\u00e9nardier and tells that they have never met. Valjean tries to escape through a window but is subdued and tied up. Th\u00e9nardier orders Valjean to pay him 200,000 francs. He also orders Valjean to write a letter to Cosette to return to the apartment, and they would keep her with them until he delivers the money. After Valjean writes the letter and informs Th\u00e9nardier his address, Th\u00e9nardier sends out Mme. Th\u00e9nardier to get Cosette. Mme. Th\u00e9nardier comes back alone, and announces the address"
      },
      {
        "text": " up. Th\u00e9nardier orders Valjean to pay him 200,000 francs. He also orders Valjean to write a letter to Cosette to return to the apartment, and they would keep her with them until he delivers the money. After Valjean writes the letter and informs Th\u00e9nardier his address, Th\u00e9nardier sends out Mme. Th\u00e9nardier to get Cosette. Mme. Th\u00e9nardier comes back alone, and announces the address is a fake. It was during this time that Valjean manages to free himself. Th\u00e9nardier decides to kill Valjean. While he and Patron-Minette are about to do so, Marius remembers the scrap of paper that \u00c9ponine wrote on earlier. He throws it into the Th\u00e9nardiers\u2019 apartment through the wall crack. Th\u00e9nardier reads it and thinks \u00c9ponine threw it inside. He, Mme. Th\u00e9nardier and Patron-Minette try to escape, only to be stopped by Javert. He arrests all the Th\u00e9nardiers and Patron-Minette (except Claquesous, who escapes during his transportation to prison; Montparnasse, who stops to run off with \u00c9ponine instead of joining in on the robbery; and Gavroche, who was not present and rarely participates in his family's crimes, a notable exception being his part in breaking his father out of prison). Valjean manages to escape the scene before Javert sees him. After \u00c9ponine\u2019s release from prison, she finds Marius at \"The Field of the Lark\" and sadly tells him that she found Cosette\u2019s address. She leads him to Valjean and Cosette's house at Rue Plumet, and Marius watches the house for a few days. He and Cosette then finally meet and declare their love for one another. Th\u00e9nardier"
      },
      {
        "text": " Valjean manages to escape the scene before Javert sees him. After \u00c9ponine\u2019s release from prison, she finds Marius at \"The Field of the Lark\" and sadly tells him that she found Cosette\u2019s address. She leads him to Valjean and Cosette's house at Rue Plumet, and Marius watches the house for a few days. He and Cosette then finally meet and declare their love for one another. Th\u00e9nardier, Patron-Minette and Brujon manage to escape from prison with the aid of Gavroche. One night, during one of Marius\u2019 visits with Cosette, the six men attempt to raid Valjean and Cosette's house. However, \u00c9ponine, who was sitting by the gates of the house, threatens to scream and awaken the whole neighbourhood if the thieves do not leave. Hearing this, they reluctantly retire. Meanwhile, Cosette informs Marius that she and Valjean will be leaving for England in a week\u2019s time, which greatly troubles the pair. The next day, Valjean is sitting in the Champ de Mars. He is feeling troubled due to seeing Th\u00e9nardier in the neighbourhood several times. Unexpectedly, a note lands in his lap, which says \"Move Out.\" He sees a figure running away in the dim light. He goes back to his house, tells Cosette they will be staying at their other house at Rue de l'Homme Arme, and reconfirms with her about moving to England. Marius tries to get permission from M. Gillenormand to marry Cosette. His grandfather seems stern and angry, but has been longing for Marius' return. When tempers flare, he refuses, telling Marius to make Cosette his mistress instead. Insulted, Marius leaves. The following day, the students revolt and erect barricades in the narrow streets of"
      },
      {
        "text": " house at Rue de l'Homme Arme, and reconfirms with her about moving to England. Marius tries to get permission from M. Gillenormand to marry Cosette. His grandfather seems stern and angry, but has been longing for Marius' return. When tempers flare, he refuses, telling Marius to make Cosette his mistress instead. Insulted, Marius leaves. The following day, the students revolt and erect barricades in the narrow streets of Paris. Gavroche spots Javert and informs Enjolras that Javert is a spy. When Enjolras confronts him of this, he admits his identity and his orders to spy on the students. Enjolras and the other students tie him up to a pole in the Corinth restaurant. Later that evening, Marius goes back to Valjean and Cosette\u2019s house at Rue Plumet, but finds the house no longer occupied. He then hears a voice telling him that his friends are waiting for him at the barricade. Distraught over Cosette gone, he heeds the voice and goes. When Marius arrives at the barricade, the \"revolution\" has already started. When he stoops down to pick up a powder keg, a soldier comes up to shoot Marius. After, a man covers the muzzle of the soldier's gun with his hand. The soldier fires, fatally shooting the man, while missing Marius. Meanwhile, the soldiers are closing in. Marius climbs to the top of the barricade, holding a torch in one hand, a powder keg in the other. He yells at the soldiers \"Begone! Or I\u2019ll blow up the barricade!\" After confirming this, the soldiers retreat from the barricade. Marius decides to go to the smaller barricade, which he finds empty. As he turns back, the man who took the fatal shot for Marius earlier calls Marius"
      },
      {
        "text": ", the soldiers are closing in. Marius climbs to the top of the barricade, holding a torch in one hand, a powder keg in the other. He yells at the soldiers \"Begone! Or I\u2019ll blow up the barricade!\" After confirming this, the soldiers retreat from the barricade. Marius decides to go to the smaller barricade, which he finds empty. As he turns back, the man who took the fatal shot for Marius earlier calls Marius by his name. Marius, and the reader, discovers that it is actually \u00c9ponine, dressed in men's clothes. As she lies dying on his knees, she confesses that she was the one who told him to go to the barricade, in hoping that the two would die together. She also confesses to saving his life because she wanted to die first (although she does not provide further explanation to this). The author also states to the reader that \u00c9ponine anonymously threw the note to Valjean. \u00c9ponine then tells Marius that she has a letter for him. She also confesses to have obtained the letter the day before, originally not planning to give it to him, but decides to do so in fear he would be angry at her in the afterlife. After Marius takes the letter, \u00c9ponine then asks him to kiss her on the forehead when she is dead, which he promises to do. With her last breath, she confesses that she was \"a little bit in love\" with him, and dies. Marius fulfills her request and goes into a tavern to read the letter (in consideration that it would be inappropriate to read it beside her corpse). It is written by Cosette. He learns Cosette's new whereabouts and writes a farewell letter to her. The letter is delivered to Valjean by Gavroche. Valjean, learning that Cosette's lover is fighting, is at first"
      },
      {
        "text": " confesses that she was \"a little bit in love\" with him, and dies. Marius fulfills her request and goes into a tavern to read the letter (in consideration that it would be inappropriate to read it beside her corpse). It is written by Cosette. He learns Cosette's new whereabouts and writes a farewell letter to her. The letter is delivered to Valjean by Gavroche. Valjean, learning that Cosette's lover is fighting, is at first relieved, but an hour later, he puts on a National Guard uniform, arms himself with a gun and ammunition, and leaves his home. Valjean arrives at the barricade and immediately saves a man's life, though he is still not certain if he wants to protect Marius or to kill him. Marius recognizes Valjean upon seeing him. Enjolras announces that they are almost out of cartridges. Overhearing this, Gavroche goes to the other side of the barricade to collect more from the dead National Guardsmen. While doing so, he is shot and killed by the soldiers. Later, Valjean saves Javert from being killed by the students. He volunteers to execute Javert himself, and Enjolras grants permission. Valjean takes Javert out of sight, and then shoots into the air while letting him go. As the barricade falls, Valjean carries off the injured and unconscious Marius. All the other students, including Enjolras, are killed. Valjean escapes through the sewers, carrying Marius' body on his shoulders. He manages to evade a police patrol. He eventually finds a gate to exit the sewers, but to his disappointment, the gate is locked. Valjean suddenly hears a voice behind him, and he turns and sees Th\u00e9nardier. Valjean recognizes him but his composure is calm, for he perceives that Th\u00e9nardier does not recognize"
      },
      {
        "text": ", including Enjolras, are killed. Valjean escapes through the sewers, carrying Marius' body on his shoulders. He manages to evade a police patrol. He eventually finds a gate to exit the sewers, but to his disappointment, the gate is locked. Valjean suddenly hears a voice behind him, and he turns and sees Th\u00e9nardier. Valjean recognizes him but his composure is calm, for he perceives that Th\u00e9nardier does not recognize him due to his dirty appearance. Thinking Valjean to be a simple murderer, Th\u00e9nardier offers to open the gate for money. He then proceeds to search Valjean and Marius' pockets. While doing this, he secretly tears off a piece of Marius\u2019 coat so he can later find out his identity. Finding only thirty francs, Th\u00e9nardier reluctantly takes the money, opens the gate, and Valjean leaves. At the exit, Valjean runs into Javert, whom he persuades to give him time to return Marius to his family. Javert grants this request. After leaving Marius at M. Gillenormand\u2019s house, Valjean makes another request that he be permitted to go home shortly, which Javert also allows. They arrive at Rue de l'Homme Arme and Javert informs Valjean that he will wait for him. As Valjean walks upstairs, he looks out the landing window and finds Javert gone. Javert is walking down the street alone, realizing that he is caught between his strict belief in the law and the mercy Valjean has shown him. He feels he can no longer give Valjean up to the authorities but also cannot ignore his duty to the law. Unable to cope with this dilemma, Javert commits suicide by throwing himself into the Seine. Marius slowly recovers from his injuries and he and Cosette are soon married. Meanwhile,"
      },
      {
        "text": " landing window and finds Javert gone. Javert is walking down the street alone, realizing that he is caught between his strict belief in the law and the mercy Valjean has shown him. He feels he can no longer give Valjean up to the authorities but also cannot ignore his duty to the law. Unable to cope with this dilemma, Javert commits suicide by throwing himself into the Seine. Marius slowly recovers from his injuries and he and Cosette are soon married. Meanwhile, Th\u00e9nardier and Azelma are attending the Mardi Gras as \"masks.\" Th\u00e9nardier spots Valjean among the wedding party heading the opposite direction and bids Azelma to follow them. After the wedding, Valjean confesses to Marius that he is an ex-convict. Marius is horrified by the revelation. Convinced that Valjean is of poor moral character, he steers Cosette away from him. Valjean loses the will to live and takes to his bed. Later, Th\u00e9nardier approaches Marius in a disguise, but Marius is not fooled and recognizes him. Th\u00e9nardier attempts to blackmail Marius with what he knows of Valjean, but in doing so, he inadvertently corrects Marius' misconceptions about Valjean and reveals all of the good he has done. He tries to convince Marius that Valjean is actually a murderer, and presents the piece of coat he tore off as evidence. Stunned, Marius recognizes the fabric and realizes that it was Valjean who rescued him from the barricade. Marius pulls out a fistful of five hundred and one thousand franc notes and flings it at Th\u00e9nardier's face. He then confronts Th\u00e9nardier with his crimes and offers him an immense amount of money if he departs and promises never to return. Th\u00e9nardier accepts the offer, and he and Azelma travel to"
      },
      {
        "text": " tore off as evidence. Stunned, Marius recognizes the fabric and realizes that it was Valjean who rescued him from the barricade. Marius pulls out a fistful of five hundred and one thousand franc notes and flings it at Th\u00e9nardier's face. He then confronts Th\u00e9nardier with his crimes and offers him an immense amount of money if he departs and promises never to return. Th\u00e9nardier accepts the offer, and he and Azelma travel to America where he becomes a slave trader. As Marius and Cosette rush to Valjean's house, he informs her that Valjean saved his life at the barricade. They arrive to see him, but the great man is dying. In his final moments, he realizes happiness with his adopted daughter and son-in-law by his side. He also reveals Cosette's past to her as well as her mother's name. Joined with them in love, he dies.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dodsworth",
    "author": "Sinclair Lewis",
    "published_date": "1929",
    "synopsis": " Samual 'Sam' Dodsworth is an ambitious and innovative automobile designer, who builds his fortunes in Zenith, Winnemac. In addition to his success in the business world, he had also succeeded as a young man in winning the hand of Frances 'Fran' Voelker, a beautiful young socialite. While the book provides the courtship as a backstory, the real novel begins upon his retirement. At the age of fifty and facing retirement due to his selling of his successful automobile company (The Revelation Motor Company) to a far larger competitor, he sets out to do what he had always wanted to experience: a leisurely trip to Europe with his wife. His forty-one year old wife, however, motivated by her own vanity and fear of lost youth, is dissatisfied with married life and small town Zenith, wants to live in Europe permanently as an expatriate, not just visit for a few months to allow Dodsworth to visit some manufacturing plants looking for his next challenge. Passing up advancement in his recently sold company, Dodsworth leaves for Europe with Fran but her motivations to get to Europe become quickly known. On their extensive travels across Europe they are soon caught up in vastly different lifestyles. Fran falls in with a crowd of frivolous socialites, while Sam plays more of an independent tourist. 'With his red Baedeker guide book in hand, he visits such well-known tourist attractions as Westminister Abbey, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sanssouci Palace, and the Piazza San Marco. But the historic sites that he sees prove to be far less significant than the American expatriates that he meets on his extensive journeys across Great Britain and continental Europe' He eventually meets Edith Cortright, an expatriate American widow in Venice, who is everything his wife is not: self-assured, self-confident, and able to take care of herself. As they follow their own pursuits, their marriage is strained to the breaking point. Both Sam and Fran are forced to choose between marriage and the new lifestyles they have pursued. Fran is clearly Lewis' target here while Sam ambles along as a stranger in a strange land until the epiphany of getting on with his life hits him in the last act. Sam Dodsworth is a rare Lewis character: a man of true conviction and purpose. Purpose and conviction can be relied on significantly as the book (and film) concludes with the two main characters going in quite different directions. Set from late 1925 to late 1927, the novel includes detailed descriptions of Sam and Fran's tours across Europe. In the beginning they leave their mid-Western hometown of Zenith, board a steam liner in New York and cross the Atlantic Ocean. Their first stop is England. They visit the sights in London and are invited by Major Clyde Lockert to join a weekend trip to the countryside. Later on, when Lockert has made an indecent proposal to Fran, they depart for Paris, where she soon engages in a busy social life and he takes up sightseeing. When Sam decides to go back to America for his college reunion in New Haven, Fran spends the summer months on the lakes near Montreux and Stresa, where she has a romance with Arnold Israel. Once Sam has picked her up in Paris, they agree to continue their travels together, touring France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Hungary and Germany. Their marriage comes to an end, when she falls in love with Kurt von Obersdorf in Berlin. Whereas she stays on with her new love, he criss-crosses Europe in an attempt to cope with his new situation. When Sam happens to run into Edith in Venice, she persuades him to accompany her on a visit to a village in the vicinity of Naples. As Fran's fianc\u00e9 calls off the wedding, Sam joins his former wife on her voyage back to New York. Only three days later he is back on the next ship to meet Edith in Paris.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Samual 'Sam' Dodsworth is an ambitious and innovative automobile designer, who builds his fortunes in Zenith, Winnemac. In addition to his success in the business world, he had also succeeded as a young man in winning the hand of Frances 'Fran' Voelker, a beautiful young socialite. While the book provides the courtship as a backstory, the real novel begins upon his retirement. At the age of fifty and facing retirement due to his selling of his successful automobile company (The Revelation Motor Company) to a far larger competitor, he sets out to do what he had always wanted to experience: a leisurely trip to Europe with his wife. His forty-one year old wife, however, motivated by her own vanity and fear of lost youth, is dissatisfied with married life and small town Zenith, wants to live in Europe permanently as an expatriate, not just visit for a few months to allow Dodsworth to visit some manufacturing plants looking for his next challenge. Passing up advancement in his recently sold company, Dodsworth leaves for Europe with Fran but her motivations to get to Europe become quickly known. On their extensive travels across Europe they are soon caught up in vastly different lifestyles. Fran falls in with a crowd of frivolous socialites, while Sam plays more of an independent tourist. 'With his red Baedeker guide book in hand, he visits such well-known tourist attractions as Westminister Abbey, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sanssouci Palace, and the Piazza San Marco. But the historic sites that he sees prove to be far less significant than the American expatriates that he meets on his extensive journeys across Great Britain and continental Europe' He eventually meets Edith Cortright, an expatriate American widow in Venice, who is everything his wife is not: self-assured, self-confident, and able to take care of herself. As they follow their own pursuits, their marriage is strained to the breaking point."
      },
      {
        "text": " and the Piazza San Marco. But the historic sites that he sees prove to be far less significant than the American expatriates that he meets on his extensive journeys across Great Britain and continental Europe' He eventually meets Edith Cortright, an expatriate American widow in Venice, who is everything his wife is not: self-assured, self-confident, and able to take care of herself. As they follow their own pursuits, their marriage is strained to the breaking point. Both Sam and Fran are forced to choose between marriage and the new lifestyles they have pursued. Fran is clearly Lewis' target here while Sam ambles along as a stranger in a strange land until the epiphany of getting on with his life hits him in the last act. Sam Dodsworth is a rare Lewis character: a man of true conviction and purpose. Purpose and conviction can be relied on significantly as the book (and film) concludes with the two main characters going in quite different directions. Set from late 1925 to late 1927, the novel includes detailed descriptions of Sam and Fran's tours across Europe. In the beginning they leave their mid-Western hometown of Zenith, board a steam liner in New York and cross the Atlantic Ocean. Their first stop is England. They visit the sights in London and are invited by Major Clyde Lockert to join a weekend trip to the countryside. Later on, when Lockert has made an indecent proposal to Fran, they depart for Paris, where she soon engages in a busy social life and he takes up sightseeing. When Sam decides to go back to America for his college reunion in New Haven, Fran spends the summer months on the lakes near Montreux and Stresa, where she has a romance with Arnold Israel. Once Sam has picked her up in Paris, they agree to continue their travels together, touring France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Hungary and Germany. Their marriage comes to an end, when she falls in love with Kurt von Obersd"
      },
      {
        "text": " a busy social life and he takes up sightseeing. When Sam decides to go back to America for his college reunion in New Haven, Fran spends the summer months on the lakes near Montreux and Stresa, where she has a romance with Arnold Israel. Once Sam has picked her up in Paris, they agree to continue their travels together, touring France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Hungary and Germany. Their marriage comes to an end, when she falls in love with Kurt von Obersdorf in Berlin. Whereas she stays on with her new love, he criss-crosses Europe in an attempt to cope with his new situation. When Sam happens to run into Edith in Venice, she persuades him to accompany her on a visit to a village in the vicinity of Naples. As Fran's fianc\u00e9 calls off the wedding, Sam joins his former wife on her voyage back to New York. Only three days later he is back on the next ship to meet Edith in Paris.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lost Horizon",
    "author": "James Hilton",
    "published_date": "1933",
    "synopsis": " The origin of the eleven numbered chapters of the novel is explained in a prologue and epilogue, whose narrator is a neurologist. This neurologist and a novelist friend, Rutherford, are given dinner at Tempelhof, Berlin, by their old school-friend Wyland, a secretary at the British embassy. A chance remark by a passing airman brings up the topic of Hugh Conway, a British consul in Afghanistan, who disappeared under odd circumstances. Later in the evening, Rutherford reveals to the narrator that, after the disappearance, he discovered Conway in a French mission hospital in Chung-Kiang (probably Chongqing), China, suffering from amnesia. Conway recovered his memory and told Rutherford his story, then slipped away again. Rutherford wrote down Conway's story; he gives the manuscript to the neurologist, and that manuscript becomes the heart of the novel. In May 1931, during the British Raj in India, the 80 white residents of Baskul are being evacuated to Peshawar, owing to a revolution. In the airplane of the Maharajah of Chandrapore are Conway, the British consul, age 37; Mallinson, his young vice-consul; an American, Barnard; and a British missionary, Miss Brinklow. The plane is hijacked and flown instead over the mountains to Tibet. After a crash landing, the pilot dies, but not before telling the four (in Chinese, which Conway knows) to seek shelter at the nearby lamasery of Shangri-La. The location is unclear, but Conway believes the plane has \"progressed far beyond the western range of the Himalayas towards the less known heights of the Kuen-Lun\" (i.e. Kunlun). The four are taken there by a party directed by Chang, a postulant at the lamasery who speaks English. The lamasery has modern conveniences, like central heating; bathtubs from Akron, Ohio; a large library; a grand piano; a harpsichord; and food from the fertile valley below. Towering above is Karakal, literally translated \"Blue Moon,\" a mountain more than high. Mallinson is keen to hire porters and leave, but Chang politely puts him off. The others eventually decide they are content to stay: Miss Brinklow, to teach the people a sense of sin; Barnard, because he is really Chalmers Bryant (wanted by the police for stock fraud) and because he is keen to develop the gold-mines in the valley; Conway, because the contemplative scholarly life suits him. A seemingly young Manchu woman, Lo-Tsen, is another postulant at the lamasery; she does not speak English but plays the harpsichord. Mallinson falls in love with her, as does Conway, though more languidly. Conway is given an audience with the High Lama, an unheard-of honor. He learns that the lamasery was constructed in its present form by a Catholic monk named Perrault from Luxembourg, in the early eighteenth century. The lamasery has since then been joined by others who have found their way into the valley. Once they have done so, their aging slows; if they then leave the valley, they age quickly and die. Conway guesses correctly that the High Lama is Perrault, now 300 years old. In a later audience, the High Lama reveals that he is finally dying, and that he wants Conway to lead the lamasery. Meanwhile, Mallinson has arranged to leave the valley with porters and Lo-Tsen. They are waiting for him outside the valley, and he cannot traverse the dangerous route by himself, so he convinces Conway to go along. This ends Rutherford's manuscript. The last time Rutherford saw Conway, it appeared he was preparing to make his way back to Shangri-La. Rutherford completes his account by telling the neurologist that he attempted to track Conway and verify some of his claims of Shangri-La. He found the Chung-Kiang doctor who had treated Conway. The doctor said Conway had been brought in by a Chinese woman who was ill and died soon after. She was old, the doctor had told Rutherford, \"Most old of anyone I have ever seen\", implying that it was Lo-Tsen, aged drastically by her departure from Shangri-La.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The origin of the eleven numbered chapters of the novel is explained in a prologue and epilogue, whose narrator is a neurologist. This neurologist and a novelist friend, Rutherford, are given dinner at Tempelhof, Berlin, by their old school-friend Wyland, a secretary at the British embassy. A chance remark by a passing airman brings up the topic of Hugh Conway, a British consul in Afghanistan, who disappeared under odd circumstances. Later in the evening, Rutherford reveals to the narrator that, after the disappearance, he discovered Conway in a French mission hospital in Chung-Kiang (probably Chongqing), China, suffering from amnesia. Conway recovered his memory and told Rutherford his story, then slipped away again. Rutherford wrote down Conway's story; he gives the manuscript to the neurologist, and that manuscript becomes the heart of the novel. In May 1931, during the British Raj in India, the 80 white residents of Baskul are being evacuated to Peshawar, owing to a revolution. In the airplane of the Maharajah of Chandrapore are Conway, the British consul, age 37; Mallinson, his young vice-consul; an American, Barnard; and a British missionary, Miss Brinklow. The plane is hijacked and flown instead over the mountains to Tibet. After a crash landing, the pilot dies, but not before telling the four (in Chinese, which Conway knows) to seek shelter at the nearby lamasery of Shangri-La. The location is unclear, but Conway believes the plane has \"progressed far beyond the western range of the Himalayas towards the less known heights of the Kuen-Lun\" (i.e. Kunlun). The four are taken there by a party directed by Chang, a postulant at the lamasery who speaks English. The lamasery has modern conveniences, like central heating; bathtubs from Akron, Ohio;"
      },
      {
        "text": "ery of Shangri-La. The location is unclear, but Conway believes the plane has \"progressed far beyond the western range of the Himalayas towards the less known heights of the Kuen-Lun\" (i.e. Kunlun). The four are taken there by a party directed by Chang, a postulant at the lamasery who speaks English. The lamasery has modern conveniences, like central heating; bathtubs from Akron, Ohio; a large library; a grand piano; a harpsichord; and food from the fertile valley below. Towering above is Karakal, literally translated \"Blue Moon,\" a mountain more than high. Mallinson is keen to hire porters and leave, but Chang politely puts him off. The others eventually decide they are content to stay: Miss Brinklow, to teach the people a sense of sin; Barnard, because he is really Chalmers Bryant (wanted by the police for stock fraud) and because he is keen to develop the gold-mines in the valley; Conway, because the contemplative scholarly life suits him. A seemingly young Manchu woman, Lo-Tsen, is another postulant at the lamasery; she does not speak English but plays the harpsichord. Mallinson falls in love with her, as does Conway, though more languidly. Conway is given an audience with the High Lama, an unheard-of honor. He learns that the lamasery was constructed in its present form by a Catholic monk named Perrault from Luxembourg, in the early eighteenth century. The lamasery has since then been joined by others who have found their way into the valley. Once they have done so, their aging slows; if they then leave the valley, they age quickly and die. Conway guesses correctly that the High Lama is Perrault, now 300 years old. In a later audience, the High Lama reveals"
      },
      {
        "text": ". He learns that the lamasery was constructed in its present form by a Catholic monk named Perrault from Luxembourg, in the early eighteenth century. The lamasery has since then been joined by others who have found their way into the valley. Once they have done so, their aging slows; if they then leave the valley, they age quickly and die. Conway guesses correctly that the High Lama is Perrault, now 300 years old. In a later audience, the High Lama reveals that he is finally dying, and that he wants Conway to lead the lamasery. Meanwhile, Mallinson has arranged to leave the valley with porters and Lo-Tsen. They are waiting for him outside the valley, and he cannot traverse the dangerous route by himself, so he convinces Conway to go along. This ends Rutherford's manuscript. The last time Rutherford saw Conway, it appeared he was preparing to make his way back to Shangri-La. Rutherford completes his account by telling the neurologist that he attempted to track Conway and verify some of his claims of Shangri-La. He found the Chung-Kiang doctor who had treated Conway. The doctor said Conway had been brought in by a Chinese woman who was ill and died soon after. She was old, the doctor had told Rutherford, \"Most old of anyone I have ever seen\", implying that it was Lo-Tsen, aged drastically by her departure from Shangri-La.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Red Badge of Courage",
    "author": "Stephen Crane",
    "published_date": "1895",
    "synopsis": " On a cold day the fictional 304th New York Regiment awaits battle beside a river. Eighteen-year-old Private Henry Fleming, remembering his romantic reasons for enlisting as well as his mother's resulting protests, wonders whether he will remain brave in the face of fear, or turn and run. He is comforted by one of his friends from home, Jim Conklin, who admits that he would run from battle if his fellow soldiers also fled. During the regiment's first battle, Confederate soldiers charge, but are repelled. The enemy quickly regroups and attacks again, this time forcing some of the unprepared Union soldiers to flee. Fearing the battle is a lost cause, Henry deserts his regiment. Only after he reaches the rear of the army does he overhear a general announcing the Union's victory. {| class=\"toccolours\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:32em; max-width: 35%;\" cellspacing=\"5\" | style=\"text-align: left;\" | In despair, he declared that he was not like those others. He now conceded it to be impossible that he should ever become a hero. He was a craven loon. Those pictures of glory were piteous things. He groaned from his heart and went staggering off. |- | style=\"text-align: left;\" | \u2014 The Red Badge of Courage, Chapter eleven |} Ashamed, Henry escapes into a nearby forest, where he discovers a decaying body in a peaceful clearing. In his distress, he hurriedly leaves the clearing and stumbles upon a group of injured men returning from battle. One member of the group, a \"tattered soldier\", asks Henry where he is wounded, but the youth dodges the question. Amongst the group is Jim Conklin, who has been shot in the side and is suffering delirium from blood-loss. Jim eventually dies of his injury, defiantly resisting aid from his friend, and an enraged and helpless Henry runs from the wounded soldiers. He next joins a retreating column that is in disarray. In the ensuing panic, a man hits Henry on the head with his rifle, wounding him. Exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and now wounded, Henry decides to return to his regiment regardless of his shame. When he arrives at camp, the other soldiers believe his injury resulted from a grazing bullet during battle. The other men care for the youth, dressing his wound. The next morning Henry goes into battle for the third time. His regiment encounters a small group of Confederates, and in the ensuing fight Henry proves to be a capable soldier, comforted by the belief that his previous cowardice had not been noticed, as he \"had performed his mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man\". Afterward, while looking for a stream from which to obtain water with a friend, he discovers from the commanding officer that his regiment has a lackluster reputation. The officer speaks casually about sacrificing the 304th because they are nothing more than \"mule drivers\" and \"mud diggers\". With no other regiments to spare, the general orders his men forward. In the final battle, Henry acts as the flag-bearer after the color sergeant falls. A line of Confederates hidden behind a fence beyond a clearing shoot with impunity at Henry's regiment, which is ill-covered in the tree-line. Facing withering fire if they stay, and disgrace if they retreat, the officers order a charge. Unarmed, Henry leads the men while entirely escaping injury. Most of the Confederates run before the regiment arrives, and four of the remaining men are taken prisoner. The novel closes with the following passage: It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks\u2014an existence of soft and eternal peace. Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On a cold day the fictional 304th New York Regiment awaits battle beside a river. Eighteen-year-old Private Henry Fleming, remembering his romantic reasons for enlisting as well as his mother's resulting protests, wonders whether he will remain brave in the face of fear, or turn and run. He is comforted by one of his friends from home, Jim Conklin, who admits that he would run from battle if his fellow soldiers also fled. During the regiment's first battle, Confederate soldiers charge, but are repelled. The enemy quickly regroups and attacks again, this time forcing some of the unprepared Union soldiers to flee. Fearing the battle is a lost cause, Henry deserts his regiment. Only after he reaches the rear of the army does he overhear a general announcing the Union's victory. {| class=\"toccolours\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:32em; max-width: 35%;\" cellspacing=\"5\" | style=\"text-align: left;\" | In despair, he declared that he was not like those others. He now conceded it to be impossible that he should ever become a hero. He was a craven loon. Those pictures of glory were piteous things. He groaned from his heart and went staggering off. |- | style=\"text-align: left;\" | \u2014 The Red Badge of Courage, Chapter eleven |} Ashamed, Henry escapes into a nearby forest, where he discovers a decaying body in a peaceful clearing. In his distress, he hurriedly leaves the clearing and stumbles upon a group of injured men returning from battle. One member of the group, a \"tattered soldier\", asks Henry where he is wounded, but the youth dodges the question. Amongst the group is Jim Conklin, who"
      },
      {
        "text": "text-align: left;\" | \u2014 The Red Badge of Courage, Chapter eleven |} Ashamed, Henry escapes into a nearby forest, where he discovers a decaying body in a peaceful clearing. In his distress, he hurriedly leaves the clearing and stumbles upon a group of injured men returning from battle. One member of the group, a \"tattered soldier\", asks Henry where he is wounded, but the youth dodges the question. Amongst the group is Jim Conklin, who has been shot in the side and is suffering delirium from blood-loss. Jim eventually dies of his injury, defiantly resisting aid from his friend, and an enraged and helpless Henry runs from the wounded soldiers. He next joins a retreating column that is in disarray. In the ensuing panic, a man hits Henry on the head with his rifle, wounding him. Exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and now wounded, Henry decides to return to his regiment regardless of his shame. When he arrives at camp, the other soldiers believe his injury resulted from a grazing bullet during battle. The other men care for the youth, dressing his wound. The next morning Henry goes into battle for the third time. His regiment encounters a small group of Confederates, and in the ensuing fight Henry proves to be a capable soldier, comforted by the belief that his previous cowardice had not been noticed, as he \"had performed his mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man\". Afterward, while looking for a stream from which to obtain water with a friend, he discovers from the commanding officer that his regiment has a lackluster reputation. The officer speaks casually about sacrificing the 304th because they are nothing more than \"mule drivers\" and \"mud diggers\". With no other regiments to spare, the general orders his men forward. In the final battle, Henry acts as the flag-bearer after the color sergeant falls. A line of Confederates hidden behind a fence beyond"
      },
      {
        "text": "ward, while looking for a stream from which to obtain water with a friend, he discovers from the commanding officer that his regiment has a lackluster reputation. The officer speaks casually about sacrificing the 304th because they are nothing more than \"mule drivers\" and \"mud diggers\". With no other regiments to spare, the general orders his men forward. In the final battle, Henry acts as the flag-bearer after the color sergeant falls. A line of Confederates hidden behind a fence beyond a clearing shoot with impunity at Henry's regiment, which is ill-covered in the tree-line. Facing withering fire if they stay, and disgrace if they retreat, the officers order a charge. Unarmed, Henry leads the men while entirely escaping injury. Most of the Confederates run before the regiment arrives, and four of the remaining men are taken prisoner. The novel closes with the following passage: It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks\u2014an existence of soft and eternal peace. Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks\u2014an existence of soft and eternal peace. Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Goodbye, Mr. Chips",
    "author": "James Hilton",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel tells the story of a much-beloved schoolteacher and his long tenure at Brookfield, a fictional British boys' public boarding school (a private school in American terminology). Mr. Chipping conquers his inability to connect with his students, as well as his initial shyness, when he marries Katherine, a young woman whom he meets on holiday and who quickly picks up on calling him by his nickname, \"Chips\". Despite his own mediocre academic record, he goes on to have an illustrious career as an inspiring educator at Brookfield. Although the book is unabashedly sentimental, it also depicts the sweeping social changes that Chips experiences throughout his life: he begins his tenure at Brookfield in 1870, as the Franco-Prussian War is breaking out and lies on his deathbed shortly after Adolf Hitler's rise to power. He is seen as an individual who is able to connect to anyone on a human level, beyond what he (by proxy of his late wife) views as petty politics, such as the strikers, the Boers, and a German friend. Clearly discernible is a nostalgia for the Victorian social order that had faded rapidly after Queen Victoria's death in 1901 and whose remnants were destroyed by the First World War. Indeed, a recurring motif is the devastating impact of the war on British society. When World War I breaks out, Chips, who had retired the year before at age 65, agrees to come out of retirement to fill in for the various masters who have entered military service. Despite his being taken for a doddering fossil, it is Chips who keeps his wits about him during an air raid, averting mass panic and sustaining morale. Countless old boys and masters die on the battlefield, and much of the story involves Chips's response to the horrors unleashed by the war. At one point, he reads aloud a long roster of the school's fallen alumni, and, defying the modern world he sees as soulless and lacking transcendent values of honour and friendship, dares to include the name of a German former master who has died fighting on the opposite side.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel tells the story of a much-beloved schoolteacher and his long tenure at Brookfield, a fictional British boys' public boarding school (a private school in American terminology). Mr. Chipping conquers his inability to connect with his students, as well as his initial shyness, when he marries Katherine, a young woman whom he meets on holiday and who quickly picks up on calling him by his nickname, \"Chips\". Despite his own mediocre academic record, he goes on to have an illustrious career as an inspiring educator at Brookfield. Although the book is unabashedly sentimental, it also depicts the sweeping social changes that Chips experiences throughout his life: he begins his tenure at Brookfield in 1870, as the Franco-Prussian War is breaking out and lies on his deathbed shortly after Adolf Hitler's rise to power. He is seen as an individual who is able to connect to anyone on a human level, beyond what he (by proxy of his late wife) views as petty politics, such as the strikers, the Boers, and a German friend. Clearly discernible is a nostalgia for the Victorian social order that had faded rapidly after Queen Victoria's death in 1901 and whose remnants were destroyed by the First World War. Indeed, a recurring motif is the devastating impact of the war on British society. When World War I breaks out, Chips, who had retired the year before at age 65, agrees to come out of retirement to fill in for the various masters who have entered military service. Despite his being taken for a doddering fossil, it is Chips who keeps his wits about him during an air raid, averting mass panic and sustaining morale. Countless old boys and masters die on the battlefield, and much of the story involves Chips's response to the horrors unleashed by the war. At one point, he reads aloud a long roster of the school's fallen alumni, and, defying the modern world he sees as soulless and lacking"
      },
      {
        "text": " who have entered military service. Despite his being taken for a doddering fossil, it is Chips who keeps his wits about him during an air raid, averting mass panic and sustaining morale. Countless old boys and masters die on the battlefield, and much of the story involves Chips's response to the horrors unleashed by the war. At one point, he reads aloud a long roster of the school's fallen alumni, and, defying the modern world he sees as soulless and lacking transcendent values of honour and friendship, dares to include the name of a German former master who has died fighting on the opposite side.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Of Mice and Men",
    "author": "John Steinbeck",
    "published_date": "1937",
    "synopsis": " Two migrant field workers in California on their plantation during the Great Depression\u2014George Milton, an intelligent but uneducated man, and Lennie Small, a man of large stature and great strength but limited mental abilities\u2014are on their way to another part of California in Soledad. They hope to one day attain their shared dream of settling down on their own piece of land. Lennie's part of the dream is merely to tend to (and touch) soft rabbits on the farm. This dream is one of Lennie's favorite stories, which George constantly retells. They are fleeing from their previous employment in Weed, California, where they were run out of town after Lennie's love of stroking soft things resulted in an accusation of attempted rape when he touched a young woman's dress, and would not let go. It soon becomes clear that the two are close friends and George is Lennie's protector. The theme of friendship is constant throughout the story. At the ranch, the situation appears to be menacing and dangerous, especially when the pair are confronted by Curley\u2014the boss's small-statured aggressive son with an inferiority complex who dislikes larger men\u2014leaving the gentle giant Lennie potentially vulnerable. Curley's flirtatious and provocative wife, to whom Lennie is instantly attracted, poses a problem as well. In sharp contrast to these two characters, the pair also meets Slim, the kind, intelligent and intuitive jerkline skinner whose dog has recently had a litter of puppies. Slim gives a puppy to Lennie. In spite of the potential problems on the ranch, their dream leaps towards reality when Candy, the aged, one-handed ranch hand, offers to pitch in with George and Lennie so that they can buy a farm at the end of the month in return for permission to live with them on it. The trio are ecstatic, but their joy is overshadowed when Curley attacks Lennie. In response, Lennie, urged on by George, catches Curley's fist and crushes it, reminding the group there are still obstacles to overcome before their goal is reached. Nevertheless, George feels more relaxed, since the dream seems just within their grasp, to the extent that he even leaves Lennie behind on the ranch while he goes into town with the other ranch hands. Lennie wanders into the stable, and chats with Crooks, the bitter, yet educated stable buck, who is isolated from the other workers because he is black. Candy finds them and they discuss their plans for the farm with Crooks, who cannot resist asking them if he can hoe a garden patch on the farm, despite scorning the possibility of achieving the dream. Curley's wife makes another appearance and flirts with the men, especially Lennie. However, her spiteful side is shown when she belittles them and is especially harsh towards Crooks because of his race, threatening to have him lynched. Lennie accidentally kills his puppy while stroking it. Curley's wife enters the barn and tries to speak to Lennie, admitting that she is lonely and how her dreams of becoming a movie star are crushed, revealing the reason she flirts with the ranch hands. After finding out that Lennie loves stroking soft things, she offers to let him stroke her hair, but panics and begins to scream when she feels his strength. Lennie becomes frightened, and in the scuffle, unintentionally breaks her neck. When the other ranch hands find the corpse, George unhappily realizes that their dream is at an end. George hurries away to find Lennie, hoping he will be at the meeting place they designated at the start of the novel in case Lennie got into trouble, knowing that there is only one thing he can do to save Lennie from the painful death that Curley's lynch mob intends to deliver. George meets Lennie at the designated place, the same spot they camped in the night before they came to the ranch. The two sit together and George retells the beloved story of the bright future together that they will never share. He then shoots Lennie in the back of the head, so that his death will be painless and happy. Curley, Slim, and Carlson find George seconds after the shooting. Only Slim realizes that George killed Lennie out of love, and gently and consolingly leads him away, while Curley and Carlson look on, unable to comprehend the subdued mood of the two men.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Two migrant field workers in California on their plantation during the Great Depression\u2014George Milton, an intelligent but uneducated man, and Lennie Small, a man of large stature and great strength but limited mental abilities\u2014are on their way to another part of California in Soledad. They hope to one day attain their shared dream of settling down on their own piece of land. Lennie's part of the dream is merely to tend to (and touch) soft rabbits on the farm. This dream is one of Lennie's favorite stories, which George constantly retells. They are fleeing from their previous employment in Weed, California, where they were run out of town after Lennie's love of stroking soft things resulted in an accusation of attempted rape when he touched a young woman's dress, and would not let go. It soon becomes clear that the two are close friends and George is Lennie's protector. The theme of friendship is constant throughout the story. At the ranch, the situation appears to be menacing and dangerous, especially when the pair are confronted by Curley\u2014the boss's small-statured aggressive son with an inferiority complex who dislikes larger men\u2014leaving the gentle giant Lennie potentially vulnerable. Curley's flirtatious and provocative wife, to whom Lennie is instantly attracted, poses a problem as well. In sharp contrast to these two characters, the pair also meets Slim, the kind, intelligent and intuitive jerkline skinner whose dog has recently had a litter of puppies. Slim gives a puppy to Lennie. In spite of the potential problems on the ranch, their dream leaps towards reality when Candy, the aged, one-handed ranch hand, offers to pitch in with George and Lennie so that they can buy a farm at the end of the month in return for permission to live with them on it. The trio are ecstatic, but their joy is overshadowed when Curley attacks Lennie. In response, Lennie, urged on by George"
      },
      {
        "text": " a litter of puppies. Slim gives a puppy to Lennie. In spite of the potential problems on the ranch, their dream leaps towards reality when Candy, the aged, one-handed ranch hand, offers to pitch in with George and Lennie so that they can buy a farm at the end of the month in return for permission to live with them on it. The trio are ecstatic, but their joy is overshadowed when Curley attacks Lennie. In response, Lennie, urged on by George, catches Curley's fist and crushes it, reminding the group there are still obstacles to overcome before their goal is reached. Nevertheless, George feels more relaxed, since the dream seems just within their grasp, to the extent that he even leaves Lennie behind on the ranch while he goes into town with the other ranch hands. Lennie wanders into the stable, and chats with Crooks, the bitter, yet educated stable buck, who is isolated from the other workers because he is black. Candy finds them and they discuss their plans for the farm with Crooks, who cannot resist asking them if he can hoe a garden patch on the farm, despite scorning the possibility of achieving the dream. Curley's wife makes another appearance and flirts with the men, especially Lennie. However, her spiteful side is shown when she belittles them and is especially harsh towards Crooks because of his race, threatening to have him lynched. Lennie accidentally kills his puppy while stroking it. Curley's wife enters the barn and tries to speak to Lennie, admitting that she is lonely and how her dreams of becoming a movie star are crushed, revealing the reason she flirts with the ranch hands. After finding out that Lennie loves stroking soft things, she offers to let him stroke her hair, but panics and begins to scream when she feels his strength. Lennie becomes frightened, and in the scuffle, unintentionally breaks her neck. When the other"
      },
      {
        "text": " stroking it. Curley's wife enters the barn and tries to speak to Lennie, admitting that she is lonely and how her dreams of becoming a movie star are crushed, revealing the reason she flirts with the ranch hands. After finding out that Lennie loves stroking soft things, she offers to let him stroke her hair, but panics and begins to scream when she feels his strength. Lennie becomes frightened, and in the scuffle, unintentionally breaks her neck. When the other ranch hands find the corpse, George unhappily realizes that their dream is at an end. George hurries away to find Lennie, hoping he will be at the meeting place they designated at the start of the novel in case Lennie got into trouble, knowing that there is only one thing he can do to save Lennie from the painful death that Curley's lynch mob intends to deliver. George meets Lennie at the designated place, the same spot they camped in the night before they came to the ranch. The two sit together and George retells the beloved story of the bright future together that they will never share. He then shoots Lennie in the back of the head, so that his death will be painless and happy. Curley, Slim, and Carlson find George seconds after the shooting. Only Slim realizes that George killed Lennie out of love, and gently and consolingly leads him away, while Curley and Carlson look on, unable to comprehend the subdued mood of the two men.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " subdued mood of the two men.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "All's Well That Ends Well",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "1623",
    "synopsis": " Helena, the orphan daughter of a famous physician, is the ward of the Countess of Rousillon, and hopelessly in love with the son of the Countess, Count Bertram, who has been sent to the court of the King of France. Despite her beauty and worth, Helena has no hope of attracting Bertram, since she is of low birth and he is a nobleman. However, when word comes that the King is ill, she goes to Paris and, using her father's arts, cures the fistula from which he suffers. In return, she is given the hand of any man in the realm; she chooses Bertram. Her new husband is appalled at the match, however, and shortly after their marriage flees France, accompanied only by a scoundrel named Parolles, to fight in the army of the Duke of Florence. Helena is sent home to the Countess, and receives a letter from Bertram informing her that he will never be her true spouse unless she can get his family ring from his finger, and become pregnant with his child \u2014 neither of which, he declares, will ever come to pass. The wise Countess, who loves Helena and approves of the match, tries to comfort her, but the distraught young woman departs Rousillon, planning to make a religious pilgrimage. Meanwhile, in Florence, Bertram has become a general in the Duke's army. Helena comes to the city, and discovers that her husband is trying to seduce Diana, the virginal daughter of a kindly widow. Diana wishes to stay a virgin, and so Helena helps her trick Bertram. He gives Diana his ring as a token of his love, and in turn, Diana gives him a ring that belonged to Helena. When Bertram comes to Diana's room at night, Helena is in the bed, and they make love without his realising that it is Helena. At the same time, two lords in the army expose Parolles as a coward and a villain, and he falls out of Bertram's favour. Meanwhile, false messengers have come to the camp bearing word that Helena is dead, and with the war drawing to a close, Bertram decides to return to France. Unknown to him, Helena follows, accompanied by Diana and the Widow. In Rousillon, everyone is mourning Helena as dead. The King is visiting, and consents to a marriage between Bertram and the daughter of an old, faithful lord, named Lafew. However, he notices the ring on Bertram's finger that formerly belonged to Helena: it was a gift from the King after she saved his life. Bertram is at a loss to explain where it came from, but just then Diana and her mother appear to explain the trickery\u2014followed by Helena, who informs her husband that both his conditions have been fulfilled. Bertram accepts Helena as his true wife, but in many modern interpretations the bitterness remains.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Helena, the orphan daughter of a famous physician, is the ward of the Countess of Rousillon, and hopelessly in love with the son of the Countess, Count Bertram, who has been sent to the court of the King of France. Despite her beauty and worth, Helena has no hope of attracting Bertram, since she is of low birth and he is a nobleman. However, when word comes that the King is ill, she goes to Paris and, using her father's arts, cures the fistula from which he suffers. In return, she is given the hand of any man in the realm; she chooses Bertram. Her new husband is appalled at the match, however, and shortly after their marriage flees France, accompanied only by a scoundrel named Parolles, to fight in the army of the Duke of Florence. Helena is sent home to the Countess, and receives a letter from Bertram informing her that he will never be her true spouse unless she can get his family ring from his finger, and become pregnant with his child \u2014 neither of which, he declares, will ever come to pass. The wise Countess, who loves Helena and approves of the match, tries to comfort her, but the distraught young woman departs Rousillon, planning to make a religious pilgrimage. Meanwhile, in Florence, Bertram has become a general in the Duke's army. Helena comes to the city, and discovers that her husband is trying to seduce Diana, the virginal daughter of a kindly widow. Diana wishes to stay a virgin, and so Helena helps her trick Bertram. He gives Diana his ring as a token of his love, and in turn, Diana gives him a ring that belonged to Helena. When Bertram comes to Diana's room at night, Helena is in the bed, and they make love without his realising that it is Helena. At the same time, two lords in the army expose Parolles"
      },
      {
        "text": " seduce Diana, the virginal daughter of a kindly widow. Diana wishes to stay a virgin, and so Helena helps her trick Bertram. He gives Diana his ring as a token of his love, and in turn, Diana gives him a ring that belonged to Helena. When Bertram comes to Diana's room at night, Helena is in the bed, and they make love without his realising that it is Helena. At the same time, two lords in the army expose Parolles as a coward and a villain, and he falls out of Bertram's favour. Meanwhile, false messengers have come to the camp bearing word that Helena is dead, and with the war drawing to a close, Bertram decides to return to France. Unknown to him, Helena follows, accompanied by Diana and the Widow. In Rousillon, everyone is mourning Helena as dead. The King is visiting, and consents to a marriage between Bertram and the daughter of an old, faithful lord, named Lafew. However, he notices the ring on Bertram's finger that formerly belonged to Helena: it was a gift from the King after she saved his life. Bertram is at a loss to explain where it came from, but just then Diana and her mother appear to explain the trickery\u2014followed by Helena, who informs her husband that both his conditions have been fulfilled. Bertram accepts Helena as his true wife, but in many modern interpretations the bitterness remains.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Taming of the Shrew",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "1623",
    "synopsis": " Prior to the first act, an induction frames the play as a \"kind of history\" played in front of a befuddled drunkard named Christopher Sly who is tricked into believing that he is a lord. In the play performed for Sly, the \"Shrew\" is Katherina Minola, the eldest daughter of Baptista Minola, a lord in Padua. Katherina's temper is notorious and it is thought no man would ever wish to marry her. On the other hand, two men \u2013 Hortensio and Gremio \u2013 are eager to marry her younger sister Bianca. However, Baptista has sworn not to allow his younger daughter to marry before Katherina is wed, much to the despair of her suitors, who agree that they will work together to marry off Katherina so that they will be free to compete for Bianca. The plot becomes more complex when Lucentio, who has recently come to Padua to attend university, sees Bianca and instantly falls in love with her. Lucentio overhears Baptista announce that he is on the lookout for tutors for his daughters, so he has his servant Tranio pretend to be him while he disguises himself as a Latin tutor named Cambio, so that he can woo Bianca behind Baptista's back. In the meantime, Petruchio arrives in Padua, accompanied by his servant, Grumio. Petruchio tells his old friend Hortensio that he has set out to enjoy life after the death of his father and that his main goal is to wed. Hearing this, Hortensio seizes the opportunity to recruit Petruchio as a suitor for Katherina. He also has Petruchio present to Baptista a music tutor named Litio (Hortensio himself in disguise). Thus, Lucentio and Hortensio, pretending to be the teachers Cambio and Litio, attempt to woo Bianca unbeknownst to her father, and to one another. Petruchio, to counter Katherina's shrewish nature, woos her with reverse psychology, pretending that every harsh thing she says or does is kind and gentle. Katherina allows herself to become engaged to Petruchio, and they are married in a farcical ceremony during which (amongst other things) he strikes the priest and drinks the communion wine, and then takes her home against her will. Once they are gone, Gremio and Tranio (disguised as Lucentio) formally bid for Bianca, with Tranio easily outbidding Gremio. However, in his zeal to win, he promises much more than the real Lucentio actually possesses, and Baptista determines that once Lucentio's father confirms the dowry, Bianca and Tranio can marry. Tranio thus decides that they will need someone to pretend to be Vincentio, Lucentio's father, at some point in the near future. Elsewhere, as part of their scheme, Tranio persuades Hortensio that Bianca is not worthy of his attentions, thus removing any problems he may cause. Meanwhile, in Petruchio's house, he begins the \"taming\" of his new wife. She is refused food and clothing because nothing \u2013 according to Petruchio \u2013 is good enough for her; he claims perfectly cooked meat is overcooked, a beautiful dress doesn't fit right, and a stylish hat is not fashionable. He also sets about disagreeing with everything she says, and forcing her to agree with everything he says, no matter how absurd; on their way back to Padua to attend Bianca's wedding, she agrees with Petruchio that the sun is the moon, and proclaims that \"if you please to call it a rush-candle,/Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me\" (4.5.14\u201315). Along the way, they meet Vincentio who is also on his way to Padua, and Katherina agrees with Petruchio when he declares that Vincentio is a woman and then apologises to Vincentio when Petruchio tells her he is a man. Meanwhile, back in Padua, Lucentio and Tranio convince a passing pedant to pretend to be Vincentio and confirm the dowry for Bianca. The man does so, and Baptista is happy for Bianca to wed Lucentio (actually Tranio in disguise). Bianca then secretly elopes with the real Lucentio. However, Vincentio arrives in Padua, and encounters the Pedant, who claims to be Lucentio's father. Tranio (still disguised as Lucentio) appears, and the Pedant acknowledges him to be his son Lucentio. There is much confusion about identities, and the real Vincentio is set to be arrested when the real Lucentio appears with his newly betrothed Bianca, and reveals all to a bewildered Baptista and Vincentio. Lucentio explains everything that has happened and all is forgiven by the two fathers. Meanwhile, Hortensio has married a rich widow, and so in the final scene of the play there are three newly married couples at Baptista's banquet; Bianca and Lucentio, the widow and Hortensio, and Katherina and Petruchio. Because of the general opinion that Petruchio is married to a shrew, a quarrel breaks out about whose wife is the most obedient. Petruchio proposes a wager whereby each will send a servant to call for their wives, and whichever comes most obediently will have won the wager for her husband. Katherina is the only one of the three who comes, winning the wager for Petruchio. At the end of the play, after the other two wives have been hauled into the room by Katherina, she gives a speech on the subject of why wives should always obey their husbands and the play ends with Baptista, Hortensio and Lucentio marvelling at how successfully Petruchio has tamed the shrew.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Prior to the first act, an induction frames the play as a \"kind of history\" played in front of a befuddled drunkard named Christopher Sly who is tricked into believing that he is a lord. In the play performed for Sly, the \"Shrew\" is Katherina Minola, the eldest daughter of Baptista Minola, a lord in Padua. Katherina's temper is notorious and it is thought no man would ever wish to marry her. On the other hand, two men \u2013 Hortensio and Gremio \u2013 are eager to marry her younger sister Bianca. However, Baptista has sworn not to allow his younger daughter to marry before Katherina is wed, much to the despair of her suitors, who agree that they will work together to marry off Katherina so that they will be free to compete for Bianca. The plot becomes more complex when Lucentio, who has recently come to Padua to attend university, sees Bianca and instantly falls in love with her. Lucentio overhears Baptista announce that he is on the lookout for tutors for his daughters, so he has his servant Tranio pretend to be him while he disguises himself as a Latin tutor named Cambio, so that he can woo Bianca behind Baptista's back. In the meantime, Petruchio arrives in Padua, accompanied by his servant, Grumio. Petruchio tells his old friend Hortensio that he has set out to enjoy life after the death of his father and that his main goal is to wed. Hearing this, Hortensio seizes the opportunity to recruit Petruchio as a suitor for Katherina. He also has Petruchio present to Baptista a music tutor named Litio (Hortensio himself in disguise). Thus, Lucentio and Hortensio, pretending to be the teachers Cambio and Litio, attempt to woo Bianca unbeknown"
      },
      {
        "text": " he has set out to enjoy life after the death of his father and that his main goal is to wed. Hearing this, Hortensio seizes the opportunity to recruit Petruchio as a suitor for Katherina. He also has Petruchio present to Baptista a music tutor named Litio (Hortensio himself in disguise). Thus, Lucentio and Hortensio, pretending to be the teachers Cambio and Litio, attempt to woo Bianca unbeknownst to her father, and to one another. Petruchio, to counter Katherina's shrewish nature, woos her with reverse psychology, pretending that every harsh thing she says or does is kind and gentle. Katherina allows herself to become engaged to Petruchio, and they are married in a farcical ceremony during which (amongst other things) he strikes the priest and drinks the communion wine, and then takes her home against her will. Once they are gone, Gremio and Tranio (disguised as Lucentio) formally bid for Bianca, with Tranio easily outbidding Gremio. However, in his zeal to win, he promises much more than the real Lucentio actually possesses, and Baptista determines that once Lucentio's father confirms the dowry, Bianca and Tranio can marry. Tranio thus decides that they will need someone to pretend to be Vincentio, Lucentio's father, at some point in the near future. Elsewhere, as part of their scheme, Tranio persuades Hortensio that Bianca is not worthy of his attentions, thus removing any problems he may cause. Meanwhile, in Petruchio's house, he begins the \"taming\" of his new wife. She is refused food and clothing because nothing \u2013 according to Petruchio \u2013 is good enough for her; he claims perfectly cooked meat is overcooked, a beautiful"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s father, at some point in the near future. Elsewhere, as part of their scheme, Tranio persuades Hortensio that Bianca is not worthy of his attentions, thus removing any problems he may cause. Meanwhile, in Petruchio's house, he begins the \"taming\" of his new wife. She is refused food and clothing because nothing \u2013 according to Petruchio \u2013 is good enough for her; he claims perfectly cooked meat is overcooked, a beautiful dress doesn't fit right, and a stylish hat is not fashionable. He also sets about disagreeing with everything she says, and forcing her to agree with everything he says, no matter how absurd; on their way back to Padua to attend Bianca's wedding, she agrees with Petruchio that the sun is the moon, and proclaims that \"if you please to call it a rush-candle,/Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me\" (4.5.14\u201315). Along the way, they meet Vincentio who is also on his way to Padua, and Katherina agrees with Petruchio when he declares that Vincentio is a woman and then apologises to Vincentio when Petruchio tells her he is a man. Meanwhile, back in Padua, Lucentio and Tranio convince a passing pedant to pretend to be Vincentio and confirm the dowry for Bianca. The man does so, and Baptista is happy for Bianca to wed Lucentio (actually Tranio in disguise). Bianca then secretly elopes with the real Lucentio. However, Vincentio arrives in Padua, and encounters the Pedant, who claims to be Lucentio's father. Tranio (still disguised as Lucentio) appears, and the Pedant acknowledges him to be his son Lucentio. There is much confusion about identities, and the real Vincentio is set to"
      },
      {
        "text": " Baptista is happy for Bianca to wed Lucentio (actually Tranio in disguise). Bianca then secretly elopes with the real Lucentio. However, Vincentio arrives in Padua, and encounters the Pedant, who claims to be Lucentio's father. Tranio (still disguised as Lucentio) appears, and the Pedant acknowledges him to be his son Lucentio. There is much confusion about identities, and the real Vincentio is set to be arrested when the real Lucentio appears with his newly betrothed Bianca, and reveals all to a bewildered Baptista and Vincentio. Lucentio explains everything that has happened and all is forgiven by the two fathers. Meanwhile, Hortensio has married a rich widow, and so in the final scene of the play there are three newly married couples at Baptista's banquet; Bianca and Lucentio, the widow and Hortensio, and Katherina and Petruchio. Because of the general opinion that Petruchio is married to a shrew, a quarrel breaks out about whose wife is the most obedient. Petruchio proposes a wager whereby each will send a servant to call for their wives, and whichever comes most obediently will have won the wager for her husband. Katherina is the only one of the three who comes, winning the wager for Petruchio. At the end of the play, after the other two wives have been hauled into the room by Katherina, she gives a speech on the subject of why wives should always obey their husbands and the play ends with Baptista, Hortensio and Lucentio marvelling at how successfully Petruchio has tamed the shrew.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " been hauled into the room by Katherina, she gives a speech on the subject of why wives should always obey their husbands and the play ends with Baptista, Hortensio and Lucentio marvelling at how successfully Petruchio has tamed the shrew.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Our Town",
    "author": "Thornton Wilder",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Stage Manager guides the play, taking questions from the audience, describing the locations (as scenery is sparse) and making key observations about the world the play creates. The Stage Manager introduces the audience to the small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, and its residents as a morning begins in 1901. Joe Crowell delivers the paper, Howie Newsome delivers the milk, and the neighboring Webb and Gibbs households send their children off to school. The Stage Manager brings out a long-winded professor to talk about the history and pre-history of Grover's Corners, Editor Webb gives a few notes on local political and religious affiliations and fields questions from the audience about alcoholism, social injustice and culture. After school, George and Emily exchange a few words, and Emily self-consciously asks her mother if she's pretty. The Stage Manager mentions that a time capsule is being laid in the cornerstone of a new bank in town, and noting the lack of information about the common people of ancient cultures, he resolves that a copy of this play will be placed inside. Moving to the evening, Emily whispers homework hints to George through their open windows. On their way home from choir practice, Mrs Gibbs, Mrs Webb and Mrs Soames discuss Simon Stimson, the choir director with a reputation for being a drunkard. Doc Gibbs teaches George a lesson in responsibility, and young Rebecca frets that the moon will strike the earth, causing \"a big 'splosion\". Three years pass and George and Emily prepare to wed. The day is filled with stress. Howie Newsome is delivering milk in the pouring rain while Si Crowell, younger brother of Joe, laments how George's baseball talents will be squandered. George pays an awkward visit with his soon-to-be in-laws. Here, the Stage Manager interrupts the scene and takes the audience back a year, to the end of Emily and George's junior year. Emily confronts George about his pride, and over an ice cream soda, they discuss the future and their love for each other. George resolves not to go to college, as he had planned, but to work and eventually take over his uncle's farm. The wedding follows where George, in a fit of nervousness, tells his mother that he is not ready to marry. Emily, too, tells her father of her anxiety about marriage, saying she wishes she were dead. However, they both regain their composure, and George proceeds down the aisle to be wed by the preacher (played by the Stage Manager). Mrs. Soames is very pleased with the whole affair, as she turns to the audience and gushes. The Stage Manager opens the act with a lengthy monologue emphasizing eternity, and introduces us to the cemetery outside of town and the characters who died in the nine years since Act Two: Mrs Gibbs (pneumonia, while traveling), Wally Webb (burst appendix, while camping), Mrs Soames, and Simon Stimson (suicide by hanging), among others. We meet the undertaker, Joe Stoddard, and a young man Sam Craig who has returned home for his cousin's funeral. We learn that his cousin is Emily, who died giving birth to her and George's second child. The funeral ends and Emily emerges to join the dead. Then Mrs. Gibbs tells her that they must wait and forget the life that came before, but Emily refuses. Despite the warnings of Simon, Mrs. Soames, and Mrs. Gibbs, Emily decides to return to Earth to re-live just one day, her 12th birthday. She finally finds it too painful, and realizes just how much life should be valued, \"every, every minute.\" Poignantly, she asks the Stage Manager whether anyone realizes life while they live it, and is told, \"No. The saints and poets, maybe \u2013 they do some.\" She then returns to her grave, beside Mrs. Gibbs, watching impassively as George kneels weeping at her graveside. The Stage Manager concludes the play, reflecting on the probable lack of life beyond Earth, and wishes the audience a good night.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Stage Manager guides the play, taking questions from the audience, describing the locations (as scenery is sparse) and making key observations about the world the play creates. The Stage Manager introduces the audience to the small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, and its residents as a morning begins in 1901. Joe Crowell delivers the paper, Howie Newsome delivers the milk, and the neighboring Webb and Gibbs households send their children off to school. The Stage Manager brings out a long-winded professor to talk about the history and pre-history of Grover's Corners, Editor Webb gives a few notes on local political and religious affiliations and fields questions from the audience about alcoholism, social injustice and culture. After school, George and Emily exchange a few words, and Emily self-consciously asks her mother if she's pretty. The Stage Manager mentions that a time capsule is being laid in the cornerstone of a new bank in town, and noting the lack of information about the common people of ancient cultures, he resolves that a copy of this play will be placed inside. Moving to the evening, Emily whispers homework hints to George through their open windows. On their way home from choir practice, Mrs Gibbs, Mrs Webb and Mrs Soames discuss Simon Stimson, the choir director with a reputation for being a drunkard. Doc Gibbs teaches George a lesson in responsibility, and young Rebecca frets that the moon will strike the earth, causing \"a big 'splosion\". Three years pass and George and Emily prepare to wed. The day is filled with stress. Howie Newsome is delivering milk in the pouring rain while Si Crowell, younger brother of Joe, laments how George's baseball talents will be squandered. George pays an awkward visit with his soon-to-be in-laws. Here, the Stage Manager interrupts the scene and takes the audience back a year, to the end of Emily and George's junior year. Emily confronts George about his pride"
      },
      {
        "text": " years pass and George and Emily prepare to wed. The day is filled with stress. Howie Newsome is delivering milk in the pouring rain while Si Crowell, younger brother of Joe, laments how George's baseball talents will be squandered. George pays an awkward visit with his soon-to-be in-laws. Here, the Stage Manager interrupts the scene and takes the audience back a year, to the end of Emily and George's junior year. Emily confronts George about his pride, and over an ice cream soda, they discuss the future and their love for each other. George resolves not to go to college, as he had planned, but to work and eventually take over his uncle's farm. The wedding follows where George, in a fit of nervousness, tells his mother that he is not ready to marry. Emily, too, tells her father of her anxiety about marriage, saying she wishes she were dead. However, they both regain their composure, and George proceeds down the aisle to be wed by the preacher (played by the Stage Manager). Mrs. Soames is very pleased with the whole affair, as she turns to the audience and gushes. The Stage Manager opens the act with a lengthy monologue emphasizing eternity, and introduces us to the cemetery outside of town and the characters who died in the nine years since Act Two: Mrs Gibbs (pneumonia, while traveling), Wally Webb (burst appendix, while camping), Mrs Soames, and Simon Stimson (suicide by hanging), among others. We meet the undertaker, Joe Stoddard, and a young man Sam Craig who has returned home for his cousin's funeral. We learn that his cousin is Emily, who died giving birth to her and George's second child. The funeral ends and Emily emerges to join the dead. Then Mrs. Gibbs tells her that they must wait and forget the life that came before, but Emily refuses. Despite the warnings of Simon, Mrs. Soames,"
      },
      {
        "text": " (suicide by hanging), among others. We meet the undertaker, Joe Stoddard, and a young man Sam Craig who has returned home for his cousin's funeral. We learn that his cousin is Emily, who died giving birth to her and George's second child. The funeral ends and Emily emerges to join the dead. Then Mrs. Gibbs tells her that they must wait and forget the life that came before, but Emily refuses. Despite the warnings of Simon, Mrs. Soames, and Mrs. Gibbs, Emily decides to return to Earth to re-live just one day, her 12th birthday. She finally finds it too painful, and realizes just how much life should be valued, \"every, every minute.\" Poignantly, she asks the Stage Manager whether anyone realizes life while they live it, and is told, \"No. The saints and poets, maybe \u2013 they do some.\" She then returns to her grave, beside Mrs. Gibbs, watching impassively as George kneels weeping at her graveside. The Stage Manager concludes the play, reflecting on the probable lack of life beyond Earth, and wishes the audience a good night.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ishmael",
    "author": "Daniel Quinn",
    "published_date": "1992",
    "synopsis": " Ishmael begins with a newspaper ad: \"Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.\" The nameless narrator and protagonist begins his story, telling how he first reacted to this ad with scorn because of the absurdity of \"wanting to save the world,\" a notion he feels that once he foolishly embraced himself as an adolescent during the counterculture movement of the 1960s. However, he responds to the ad anyway and, upon arriving at the address, finds himself in a room with a gorilla. He notices a polysemous sign that reads \"With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?\" To the narrator's surprise, he finds that the gorilla, calling himself Ishmael, can communicate telepathically. At first baffled by this, the man learns the story of how the gorilla came to be here and soon accepts Ishmael as his teacher, regularly returning to Ishmael's office throughout the plot. The novel continues from this point mainly as a Socratic dialogue between Ishmael and his new student as they hash out what Ishmael refers to as \"how things came to be this way\" for mankind. Ishmael's life, which began in the African wilderness, was spent mostly in a zoo and a menagerie, and since had been spent in the gazebo of a man that extricated him from physical captivity. He tells his student that it was at the menagerie that he learned about human language and culture and began to think about things that he never would have pondered in the wild. Subsequently, Ishmael tells his student that the subject for this learning experience will be captivity, primarily the captivity of man under a distorted civilizational system. The narrator claims to Ishmael that he has a vague notion of living in some sort of cultural captivity and being lied to in some way but he can not explain his feelings. Before proceeding Ishmael lays some ground definitions for his student. He defines: * Takers as people often referred to as \"civilized.\" Particularly, the culture born in an Agricultural Revolution that began about 10,000 years ago in the Near East; this is the culture of Ishmael's pupil and, presumably, the reader. * Leavers as people of all other cultures; often derogatorily referred to by Takers as \"primitive.\" * A story as an interrelation between the gods, man, and the earth, with a beginning, middle, and end. * To enact is to strive to make a story come true. * A culture is a people who are enacting a story. Ishmael proceeds to tease from his pupil the premises of the story (i.e. myth) being enacted by the Takers: that they are the pinnacle of evolution, that the world was made for man, and that man is here to conquer and rule the world. This rule is meant to bring about a paradise, as man increases his mastery of the world, however, he is always failing because he is flawed. Man doesn't know how to live and never will because that knowledge is unobtainable. So, however hard he labors to save the world, he is just going to go on defiling and spoiling it. Ishmael points out to his student that when the Takers decided there is something fundamentally wrong with humans, they took as evidence only their own culture's history- \"They were looking at a half of one-percent of the evidence taken from a single culture-- Not a reasonable sample on which to base such a sweeping conclusion.\" Ishmael says: \"There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will act as the lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.\" Ishmael goes on to help his student discover that, contrary to what the Takers think, there are immutable laws that life is subject to and it is possible to discern them by studying the biological community. Together, Ishmael and his student identify one set of survival strategies which appear to be evolutionarily stable for all species (later dubbed the "Law of Limited Competition"): In short, "you may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war." All species inevitably follow this law, or as a consequence go extinct. The Takers believe themselves to be exempt from this Law and flout it at every point. Ishmael explains how the Takers rendered themselves above the laws governing life, using the story of The Fall of Man as an example. His version of why the fruit was forbidden to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is: eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil provides the gods with the knowledge of who shall live and who shall die\u2014knowledge which they need to rule the world. The fruit nourishes only the gods, though. If Adam ("man") were to eat from this tree, he might think that he gained the gods' wisdom (without this actually happening) and consequently destroy the world and himself through his arrogance. "And so they said to him, you may eat of every tree in the garden, save the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for on the day you eat of that tree, you will certainly die." Ishmael makes the point that this story of the Fall of Man, which the Takers have adopted as their own, was in fact developed by Leavers to explain the origin of the Takers. If it were of Taker origin, the story would be of liberating ascent instead of a sinful fall. Ishmael and his student go on to discuss how, for the ancient Semitic herders among whom the tale originated, the story of Cain killing Abel symbolizes the Leaver being killed off and their lands taken so that it could be put under cultivation. These ancient herders realized that the Takers were acting as if they were gods themselves, with all the wisdom of what is good and evil and how to rule the world. And as a result the gods banished these people from the Garden and they were brought from a life of bounty in the hands of the gods to one of being the accursed tillers of the soil. To begin discerning the Leavers' story, Ishmael proposes to his student a hypothesis: the Takers' Agricultural Revolution was a revolution against the Leavers' story. The Leavers take what they need from the world and leave the rest alone. Living in this manner ("in the hands of the gods"), Leavers thrive in times of abundance and dwindle in times of scarcity. The Takers however, practicing their unique form of agriculture (dubbed by Quinn, Totalitarian agriculture) produce enormous food surpluses, which allows them to thwart the gods when they decide it's the Takers' time to go hungry. "When you have more food than you need, then the gods have no power over you." Thus, Ishmael points out that the Takers revolution was not just a technological change, but also serves a mythological function. \"So we have a new pair of names for you: The Takers are 'those who know good and evil' and the Leavers are 'those who live in the hands of the gods'.\" Ishmael goes on to point out that by living in the hands of the gods, man is subject to the conditions under which evolution takes place. Australopithecus became Homo by living in the hands of the gods\u2014Man became man by living in the hands of the gods-- "by living the way the bushmen of Africa live; by living the way the Krenakarore of Brazil live... Not the way the Chicagoans live, not the way Londoners live." "In the hands of the gods is where evolution happens." According to the Takers' story, creation came to an end with man. "In order to make their story come true, the Takers have to put an end to creation itself-- and they're doing a damn good job of it!" Ishmael brings together his synopsis on human culture by examining the story enacted by Leaver cultures, which provides a model of how to live\u2014an alternative story for the Takers to enact. \"The premise of the Takers' story is 'The world belongs to man.' ...The premise of the Leavers' story is 'Man belongs to the world.'\" \"For three million years, man belonged to the world and because he belonged to the world, he grew and developed and became brighter and more dexterous until one day, he was so bright and so dexterous that we had to call him Homo sapiens sapiens-- which means he was us.\" \"The Leavers' story is 'the gods made man for the world, the same way they made salmon and sparrows for the world. This seems to have worked well so far so we can take it easy and leave the running of the world to the gods'.\" Ishmael emphasizes that "not in any sense is the Takers story 'chapter two' of the story which was being enacted here during the first three million years of human life. The Leavers' story has its own 'chapter two'." In evolution, observes Ishmael's student, there seems to be a tendency toward complexity, and towards self-awareness and intelligence. Perhaps the gods intend the world to be filled with intelligent, self-aware creatures and man's destiny following the Leavers' story is "to be the first- without being the last"; to learn and then to be a role-model and teacher for all those capable of becoming what he's become. Ishmael finishes with a summary of what his student can do if he earnestly desires to save the world: \"The story of Genesis must be undone. First, Cain must stop murdering Abel. This is essential if you're to survive. The Leavers are the endangered species most critical to the world - not because they're humans but because they alone can show the destroyers of the world that there is more than one right way to live. And then, of course, you must spit out the fruit of the forbidden tree. You must absolutely and forever relinquish the idea that you know who should live and who should die on this planet.\" \"Teach a hundred what I've taught you, and inspire each of them to teach a hundred.\" The student loses track of Ishmael's whereabouts and in his search for the gorilla ultimately discovers that he was secretly falling ill and has since died of pneumonia. When the student goes back to Ishmael's office, he finds the sign that he saw before ("With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?") has a backside. The back contains another message: "With gorilla gone, will there be hope for man?"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ishmael begins with a newspaper ad: \"Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.\" The nameless narrator and protagonist begins his story, telling how he first reacted to this ad with scorn because of the absurdity of \"wanting to save the world,\" a notion he feels that once he foolishly embraced himself as an adolescent during the counterculture movement of the 1960s. However, he responds to the ad anyway and, upon arriving at the address, finds himself in a room with a gorilla. He notices a polysemous sign that reads \"With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?\" To the narrator's surprise, he finds that the gorilla, calling himself Ishmael, can communicate telepathically. At first baffled by this, the man learns the story of how the gorilla came to be here and soon accepts Ishmael as his teacher, regularly returning to Ishmael's office throughout the plot. The novel continues from this point mainly as a Socratic dialogue between Ishmael and his new student as they hash out what Ishmael refers to as \"how things came to be this way\" for mankind. Ishmael's life, which began in the African wilderness, was spent mostly in a zoo and a menagerie, and since had been spent in the gazebo of a man that extricated him from physical captivity. He tells his student that it was at the menagerie that he learned about human language and culture and began to think about things that he never would have pondered in the wild. Subsequently, Ishmael tells his student that the subject for this learning experience will be captivity, primarily the captivity of man under a distorted civilizational system. The narrator claims to Ishmael that he has a vague notion of living in some sort of cultural captivity and being lied to in some way but he can not explain his feelings. Before proceeding Ishmael lays some"
      },
      {
        "text": " that he learned about human language and culture and began to think about things that he never would have pondered in the wild. Subsequently, Ishmael tells his student that the subject for this learning experience will be captivity, primarily the captivity of man under a distorted civilizational system. The narrator claims to Ishmael that he has a vague notion of living in some sort of cultural captivity and being lied to in some way but he can not explain his feelings. Before proceeding Ishmael lays some ground definitions for his student. He defines: * Takers as people often referred to as \"civilized.\" Particularly, the culture born in an Agricultural Revolution that began about 10,000 years ago in the Near East; this is the culture of Ishmael's pupil and, presumably, the reader. * Leavers as people of all other cultures; often derogatorily referred to by Takers as \"primitive.\" * A story as an interrelation between the gods, man, and the earth, with a beginning, middle, and end. * To enact is to strive to make a story come true. * A culture is a people who are enacting a story. Ishmael proceeds to tease from his pupil the premises of the story (i.e. myth) being enacted by the Takers: that they are the pinnacle of evolution, that the world was made for man, and that man is here to conquer and rule the world. This rule is meant to bring about a paradise, as man increases his mastery of the world, however, he is always failing because he is flawed. Man doesn't know how to live and never will because that knowledge is unobtainable. So, however hard he labors to save the world, he is just going to go on defiling and spoiling it. Ishmael points out to his student that when the Takers decided there is something fundamentally wrong with humans, they took as evidence only their own culture's history-"
      },
      {
        "text": " a paradise, as man increases his mastery of the world, however, he is always failing because he is flawed. Man doesn't know how to live and never will because that knowledge is unobtainable. So, however hard he labors to save the world, he is just going to go on defiling and spoiling it. Ishmael points out to his student that when the Takers decided there is something fundamentally wrong with humans, they took as evidence only their own culture's history- \"They were looking at a half of one-percent of the evidence taken from a single culture-- Not a reasonable sample on which to base such a sweeping conclusion.\" Ishmael says: \"There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will act as the lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.\" Ishmael goes on to help his student discover that, contrary to what the Takers think, there are immutable laws that life is subject to and it is possible to discern them by studying the biological community. Together, Ishmael and his student identify one set of survival strategies which appear to be evolutionarily stable for all species (later dubbed the "Law of Limited Competition"): In short, "you may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you"
      },
      {
        "text": " to and it is possible to discern them by studying the biological community. Together, Ishmael and his student identify one set of survival strategies which appear to be evolutionarily stable for all species (later dubbed the "Law of Limited Competition"): In short, "you may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war." All species inevitably follow this law, or as a consequence go extinct. The Takers believe themselves to be exempt from this Law and flout it at every point. Ishmael explains how the Takers rendered themselves above the laws governing life, using the story of The Fall of Man as an example. His version of why the fruit was forbidden to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is: eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil provides the gods with the knowledge of who shall live and who shall die\u2014knowledge which they need to rule the world. The fruit nourishes only the gods, though. If Adam ("man") were to eat from this tree, he might think that he gained the gods' wisdom (without this actually happening) and consequently destroy the world and himself through his arrogance. "And so they said to him, you may eat of every tree in the garden, save the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for on the day you eat of that tree, you will certainly die." Ishmael makes the point that this story of the Fall of Man, which the Takers have adopted as their own, was in fact developed by Leavers to explain the origin of the Takers. If it were of Taker origin, the story would be of liberating ascent instead of a sinful fall. Ishma"
      },
      {
        "text": " every tree in the garden, save the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for on the day you eat of that tree, you will certainly die." Ishmael makes the point that this story of the Fall of Man, which the Takers have adopted as their own, was in fact developed by Leavers to explain the origin of the Takers. If it were of Taker origin, the story would be of liberating ascent instead of a sinful fall. Ishmael and his student go on to discuss how, for the ancient Semitic herders among whom the tale originated, the story of Cain killing Abel symbolizes the Leaver being killed off and their lands taken so that it could be put under cultivation. These ancient herders realized that the Takers were acting as if they were gods themselves, with all the wisdom of what is good and evil and how to rule the world. And as a result the gods banished these people from the Garden and they were brought from a life of bounty in the hands of the gods to one of being the accursed tillers of the soil. To begin discerning the Leavers' story, Ishmael proposes to his student a hypothesis: the Takers' Agricultural Revolution was a revolution against the Leavers' story. The Leavers take what they need from the world and leave the rest alone. Living in this manner ("in the hands of the gods"), Leavers thrive in times of abundance and dwindle in times of scarcity. The Takers however, practicing their unique form of agriculture (dubbed by Quinn, Totalitarian agriculture) produce enormous food surpluses, which allows them to thwart the gods when they decide it's the Takers' time to go hungry. "When you have more food than you need, then the gods have no power over you.&"
      },
      {
        "text": ""), Leavers thrive in times of abundance and dwindle in times of scarcity. The Takers however, practicing their unique form of agriculture (dubbed by Quinn, Totalitarian agriculture) produce enormous food surpluses, which allows them to thwart the gods when they decide it's the Takers' time to go hungry. "When you have more food than you need, then the gods have no power over you." Thus, Ishmael points out that the Takers revolution was not just a technological change, but also serves a mythological function. \"So we have a new pair of names for you: The Takers are 'those who know good and evil' and the Leavers are 'those who live in the hands of the gods'.\" Ishmael goes on to point out that by living in the hands of the gods, man is subject to the conditions under which evolution takes place. Australopithecus became Homo by living in the hands of the gods\u2014Man became man by living in the hands of the gods-- "by living the way the bushmen of Africa live; by living the way the Krenakarore of Brazil live... Not the way the Chicagoans live, not the way Londoners live." "In the hands of the gods is where evolution happens." According to the Takers' story, creation came to an end with man. "In order to make their story come true, the Takers have to put an end to creation itself-- and they're doing a damn good job of it!" Ishmael brings together his synopsis on human culture by examining the story enacted by Leaver cultures, which provides a model of how to live\u2014an alternative story for the Takers to enact. \"The premise of"
      },
      {
        "text": "#39; story, creation came to an end with man. "In order to make their story come true, the Takers have to put an end to creation itself-- and they're doing a damn good job of it!" Ishmael brings together his synopsis on human culture by examining the story enacted by Leaver cultures, which provides a model of how to live\u2014an alternative story for the Takers to enact. \"The premise of the Takers' story is 'The world belongs to man.' ...The premise of the Leavers' story is 'Man belongs to the world.'\" \"For three million years, man belonged to the world and because he belonged to the world, he grew and developed and became brighter and more dexterous until one day, he was so bright and so dexterous that we had to call him Homo sapiens sapiens-- which means he was us.\" \"The Leavers' story is 'the gods made man for the world, the same way they made salmon and sparrows for the world. This seems to have worked well so far so we can take it easy and leave the running of the world to the gods'.\" Ishmael emphasizes that "not in any sense is the Takers story 'chapter two' of the story which was being enacted here during the first three million years of human life. The Leavers' story has its own 'chapter two'." In evolution, observes Ishmael's student, there seems to be a tendency toward complexity, and towards self-awareness and intelligence. Perhaps the gods intend the world to be filled with intelligent, self-aware creatures and man's destiny following the Leavers' story is "to be the first- without being the last"; to"
      },
      {
        "text": " its own 'chapter two'." In evolution, observes Ishmael's student, there seems to be a tendency toward complexity, and towards self-awareness and intelligence. Perhaps the gods intend the world to be filled with intelligent, self-aware creatures and man's destiny following the Leavers' story is "to be the first- without being the last"; to learn and then to be a role-model and teacher for all those capable of becoming what he's become. Ishmael finishes with a summary of what his student can do if he earnestly desires to save the world: \"The story of Genesis must be undone. First, Cain must stop murdering Abel. This is essential if you're to survive. The Leavers are the endangered species most critical to the world - not because they're humans but because they alone can show the destroyers of the world that there is more than one right way to live. And then, of course, you must spit out the fruit of the forbidden tree. You must absolutely and forever relinquish the idea that you know who should live and who should die on this planet.\" \"Teach a hundred what I've taught you, and inspire each of them to teach a hundred.\" The student loses track of Ishmael's whereabouts and in his search for the gorilla ultimately discovers that he was secretly falling ill and has since died of pneumonia. When the student goes back to Ishmael's office, he finds the sign that he saw before ("With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?") has a backside. The back contains another message: "With gorilla gone, will there be hope for man?"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " that he was secretly falling ill and has since died of pneumonia. When the student goes back to Ishmael's office, he finds the sign that he saw before ("With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?") has a backside. The back contains another message: "With gorilla gone, will there be hope for man?"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "David Copperfield",
    "author": "Charles Dickens",
    "published_date": "1850",
    "synopsis": " The story traces the life of David Copperfield from childhood to maturity. David was born in Blunderston near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, in 1820, six months after the death of his father. Seven years later, his mother re-marries Edward Murdstone. David is given good reason to dislike his stepfather and has similar feelings for Murdstone's sister Jane, who moves into the house soon afterwards. Murdstone thrashes David for falling behind in his studies. Following one of these thrashings, David bites him and soon afterward is sent away to a boarding school, Salem House, with a ruthless headmaster, Mr. Creakle. There he befriends James Steerforth and Tommy Traddles. David returns home for the holidays to learn that his mother has given birth to a baby boy. Shortly after David returns to Salem House, his mother and her baby die and David returns home immediately. Murdstone sends him to work in a factory in London, of which Murdstone is a joint owner. Copperfield's landlord, Wilkins Micawber, is sent to debtor's prison (the King's Bench Prison) and remains there for several months before being released and moving to Plymouth. No one remains to care for David in London, so he decides to run away. He walks from London to Dover, where he finds his only relative, his unmarried, eccentric aunt Betsey Trotwood. She agrees to raise him, despite Murdstone's attempt to regain custody of David. David's aunt renames him \"Trotwood Copperfield\" and addresses him as \"Trot\", and it becomes one of several names to which David answers in the course of the novel. As David grows to adulthood, a variety of characters enter, leave, and re-enter his life. These include Peggotty \u2013 his mother's faithful former housekeeper \u2013 and Peggotty's family, including her orphaned niece \"Little Em'ly\", who moves in with them and charms the young David. David's romantic but self-serving school friend, Steerforth, seduces and dishonours Little Em'ly, precipitating the novel's greatest tragedy, and his landlord's daughter Agnes Wickfield, becomes his confidante. The novel's two most familiar characters are David's sometime mentor, the debt-ridden Micawber, and the devious and fraudulent clerk, Uriah Heep, whose misdeeds are eventually revealed with Micawber's assistance. Micawber is painted sympathetically even as the narrator deplores his financial ineptitude. Micawber, like Dickens' own father, is briefly imprisoned for insolvency. The major characters eventually get some measure of what they deserve, and few narrative threads are left hanging. Dan Peggotty safely transports Emily to a new life in Australia, accompanied by Gummidge and the Micawbers. All eventually find security and happiness in their adopted country. David marries the beautiful but na\u00efve Dora Spenlow, who dies after failing to recover from a miscarriage early in their marriage. David then searches his soul and marries the sensible Agnes, who had always loved him and with whom he finds true happiness. David and Agnes then have three children, including a daughter named after his aunt Betsey Trotwood.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story traces the life of David Copperfield from childhood to maturity. David was born in Blunderston near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, in 1820, six months after the death of his father. Seven years later, his mother re-marries Edward Murdstone. David is given good reason to dislike his stepfather and has similar feelings for Murdstone's sister Jane, who moves into the house soon afterwards. Murdstone thrashes David for falling behind in his studies. Following one of these thrashings, David bites him and soon afterward is sent away to a boarding school, Salem House, with a ruthless headmaster, Mr. Creakle. There he befriends James Steerforth and Tommy Traddles. David returns home for the holidays to learn that his mother has given birth to a baby boy. Shortly after David returns to Salem House, his mother and her baby die and David returns home immediately. Murdstone sends him to work in a factory in London, of which Murdstone is a joint owner. Copperfield's landlord, Wilkins Micawber, is sent to debtor's prison (the King's Bench Prison) and remains there for several months before being released and moving to Plymouth. No one remains to care for David in London, so he decides to run away. He walks from London to Dover, where he finds his only relative, his unmarried, eccentric aunt Betsey Trotwood. She agrees to raise him, despite Murdstone's attempt to regain custody of David. David's aunt renames him \"Trotwood Copperfield\" and addresses him as \"Trot\", and it becomes one of several names to which David answers in the course of the novel. As David grows to adulthood, a variety of characters enter, leave, and re-enter his life. These include Peggotty \u2013 his mother's faithful former housekeeper \u2013 and Peggotty's family, including her orphaned niece \"Little Em'ly"
      },
      {
        "text": " attempt to regain custody of David. David's aunt renames him \"Trotwood Copperfield\" and addresses him as \"Trot\", and it becomes one of several names to which David answers in the course of the novel. As David grows to adulthood, a variety of characters enter, leave, and re-enter his life. These include Peggotty \u2013 his mother's faithful former housekeeper \u2013 and Peggotty's family, including her orphaned niece \"Little Em'ly\", who moves in with them and charms the young David. David's romantic but self-serving school friend, Steerforth, seduces and dishonours Little Em'ly, precipitating the novel's greatest tragedy, and his landlord's daughter Agnes Wickfield, becomes his confidante. The novel's two most familiar characters are David's sometime mentor, the debt-ridden Micawber, and the devious and fraudulent clerk, Uriah Heep, whose misdeeds are eventually revealed with Micawber's assistance. Micawber is painted sympathetically even as the narrator deplores his financial ineptitude. Micawber, like Dickens' own father, is briefly imprisoned for insolvency. The major characters eventually get some measure of what they deserve, and few narrative threads are left hanging. Dan Peggotty safely transports Emily to a new life in Australia, accompanied by Gummidge and the Micawbers. All eventually find security and happiness in their adopted country. David marries the beautiful but na\u00efve Dora Spenlow, who dies after failing to recover from a miscarriage early in their marriage. David then searches his soul and marries the sensible Agnes, who had always loved him and with whom he finds true happiness. David and Agnes then have three children, including a daughter named after his aunt Betsey Trotwood.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". David marries the beautiful but na\u00efve Dora Spenlow, who dies after failing to recover from a miscarriage early in their marriage. David then searches his soul and marries the sensible Agnes, who had always loved him and with whom he finds true happiness. David and Agnes then have three children, including a daughter named after his aunt Betsey Trotwood.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Childhood's End",
    "author": "Arthur C. Clarke",
    "published_date": "1953",
    "synopsis": " The novel is divided into three parts, following a third-person omniscient narrative with no main character. In the late 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union are competing to launch the first spaceship into orbit, to military ends. However, when vast alien spaceships suddenly position themselves above Earth's principal cities, the space race is halted forever. After one week, the aliens announce they are assuming supervision of international affairs to prevent humanity's extinction. As the Overlords, they bring peace, and they claim that interference will be limited. They interfere only twice with human affairs: in South Africa, where sometime before their arrival Apartheid had collapsed and was replaced with savage persecution of the white minority; and in Spain, where they put an end to bull fighting. Some humans are suspicious of the Overlords' benign intent, as they never appear in physical form. Overlord Karellen, the \"Supervisor for Earth,\" speaks directly only to Rikki Stormgren, the Finnish UN Secretary-General. Karellen tells Stormgren that the Overlords will reveal themselves in 50 years, when humanity will have become used to their presence. Stormgren smuggles a device onto Karellen's ship in an attempt to see Karellen's true form. He succeeds, is shocked and chooses to keep silent. Humankind enters a golden age of prosperity at the expense of creativity. As promised, five decades after their arrival the Overlords appear for the first time; they resemble the traditional human folk images of demons\u2014large bipeds with leathery wings, horns and tails. The Overlords are interested in psychic research, which humans suppose is part of their anthropological study. Rupert Boyce, a prolific book collector on the subject, allows one Overlord, Rashaverak, to study these books at his home. To impress his friends with Rashaverak's presence, Boyce holds a party, during which he makes use of a Ouija board. An astrophysicist, Jan Rodricks, asks the identity of the Overlords' home star. George Greggson's wife Jean faints as the Ouija board reveals a star-catalog number confirming the direction in which Overlord supply ships appear and disappear. Jan Rodricks stows away on an Overlord supply ship and travels 40 light-years to their home planet. Due to the time dilation of special relativity at near-light speeds, the elapsed time on the ship is only a few weeks, and he arranges to endure it in drug-induced suspended animation. Although humanity and the Overlords have peaceful relations, some believe human innovation is being suppressed and that culture is becoming stagnant. These groups establish \"New Athens,\" an island colony devoted to the creative arts, which George and Jean Greggson join. The Overlords conceal a special interest in the Greggsons' children, Jeffrey and Jennifer Anne, and intervene to save Jeffrey's life when a tsunami strikes the island. The Overlords have been watching them since the incident with the Ouija board, which revealed the seed of the coming transformation hidden within Jean. Sixty years after the Overlords' arrival, human children, including the Greggsons', begin to display telekinetic powers. Karellen reveals the Overlords' purpose; they serve the Overmind, a vast cosmic intelligence, born of amalgamated ancient civilizations, and freed from the limitations of material existence. Yet the Overlords themselves are strangely unable to join the Overmind, but serve it as a bridge species, charged with fostering other races' eventual merger with it. Because of this, Karellen expresses his envy of humanity. For the transformed children's safety, they are segregated on a continent of their own. No more human children are born, and many parents find their lives stripped of meaning, and die or commit suicide. New Athens is destroyed by its members with a nuclear bomb. Jan Rodricks emerges from hibernation on the Overlord supply ship and arrives on their planet. The Overlords permit him a glimpse of how the Overmind communicates with them. When Jan returns to Earth approximately 80 years later by Earth time, he finds an unexpectedly altered planet. Humanity has effectively become extinct, and he is now the last man alive. Hundreds of millions of children \u2013 no longer fitting with what Rodricks defines as \"human\" \u2013 remain on the quarantined continent. Barely moving, with eyes closed and communicating by telepathy, they are the penultimate form of human evolution, having become a single group mind readying themselves to join the Overmind. Some Overlords remain on Earth to study the children from a safe distance. When the evolved children mentally alter the Moon's rotation and make other planetary manipulations, it becomes too dangerous to remain. The departing Overlords offer to take Rodricks with them, but he chooses to stay to witness Earth's end, and transmits a report of what he sees. The Overlords are eager to escape from their own evolutionary dead-end by studying the Overmind, so Rodricks' information is potentially of great value to them. By radio, Rodricks describes a vast burning column ascending from the planet. As the column disappears, Rodricks experiences a profound sense of emptiness when the Overlords have gone. Then material objects and the Earth itself begin to dissolve into transparency. Jan reports no fear, but a powerful sense of fulfillment. The Earth evaporates in a flash of light. Karellen looks back at the receding Solar System and gives a final salute to the human species.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is divided into three parts, following a third-person omniscient narrative with no main character. In the late 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union are competing to launch the first spaceship into orbit, to military ends. However, when vast alien spaceships suddenly position themselves above Earth's principal cities, the space race is halted forever. After one week, the aliens announce they are assuming supervision of international affairs to prevent humanity's extinction. As the Overlords, they bring peace, and they claim that interference will be limited. They interfere only twice with human affairs: in South Africa, where sometime before their arrival Apartheid had collapsed and was replaced with savage persecution of the white minority; and in Spain, where they put an end to bull fighting. Some humans are suspicious of the Overlords' benign intent, as they never appear in physical form. Overlord Karellen, the \"Supervisor for Earth,\" speaks directly only to Rikki Stormgren, the Finnish UN Secretary-General. Karellen tells Stormgren that the Overlords will reveal themselves in 50 years, when humanity will have become used to their presence. Stormgren smuggles a device onto Karellen's ship in an attempt to see Karellen's true form. He succeeds, is shocked and chooses to keep silent. Humankind enters a golden age of prosperity at the expense of creativity. As promised, five decades after their arrival the Overlords appear for the first time; they resemble the traditional human folk images of demons\u2014large bipeds with leathery wings, horns and tails. The Overlords are interested in psychic research, which humans suppose is part of their anthropological study. Rupert Boyce, a prolific book collector on the subject, allows one Overlord, Rashaverak, to study these books at his home. To impress his friends with Rashaverak's presence, Boyce holds a party, during which he makes use of a Ouija board. An astrophys"
      },
      {
        "text": " the traditional human folk images of demons\u2014large bipeds with leathery wings, horns and tails. The Overlords are interested in psychic research, which humans suppose is part of their anthropological study. Rupert Boyce, a prolific book collector on the subject, allows one Overlord, Rashaverak, to study these books at his home. To impress his friends with Rashaverak's presence, Boyce holds a party, during which he makes use of a Ouija board. An astrophysicist, Jan Rodricks, asks the identity of the Overlords' home star. George Greggson's wife Jean faints as the Ouija board reveals a star-catalog number confirming the direction in which Overlord supply ships appear and disappear. Jan Rodricks stows away on an Overlord supply ship and travels 40 light-years to their home planet. Due to the time dilation of special relativity at near-light speeds, the elapsed time on the ship is only a few weeks, and he arranges to endure it in drug-induced suspended animation. Although humanity and the Overlords have peaceful relations, some believe human innovation is being suppressed and that culture is becoming stagnant. These groups establish \"New Athens,\" an island colony devoted to the creative arts, which George and Jean Greggson join. The Overlords conceal a special interest in the Greggsons' children, Jeffrey and Jennifer Anne, and intervene to save Jeffrey's life when a tsunami strikes the island. The Overlords have been watching them since the incident with the Ouija board, which revealed the seed of the coming transformation hidden within Jean. Sixty years after the Overlords' arrival, human children, including the Greggsons', begin to display telekinetic powers. Karellen reveals the Overlords' purpose; they serve the Overmind, a vast cosmic intelligence, born of amalgamated ancient civilizations, and freed from the limitations of material existence. Yet the Overlords themselves are strangely unable to join the"
      },
      {
        "text": " been watching them since the incident with the Ouija board, which revealed the seed of the coming transformation hidden within Jean. Sixty years after the Overlords' arrival, human children, including the Greggsons', begin to display telekinetic powers. Karellen reveals the Overlords' purpose; they serve the Overmind, a vast cosmic intelligence, born of amalgamated ancient civilizations, and freed from the limitations of material existence. Yet the Overlords themselves are strangely unable to join the Overmind, but serve it as a bridge species, charged with fostering other races' eventual merger with it. Because of this, Karellen expresses his envy of humanity. For the transformed children's safety, they are segregated on a continent of their own. No more human children are born, and many parents find their lives stripped of meaning, and die or commit suicide. New Athens is destroyed by its members with a nuclear bomb. Jan Rodricks emerges from hibernation on the Overlord supply ship and arrives on their planet. The Overlords permit him a glimpse of how the Overmind communicates with them. When Jan returns to Earth approximately 80 years later by Earth time, he finds an unexpectedly altered planet. Humanity has effectively become extinct, and he is now the last man alive. Hundreds of millions of children \u2013 no longer fitting with what Rodricks defines as \"human\" \u2013 remain on the quarantined continent. Barely moving, with eyes closed and communicating by telepathy, they are the penultimate form of human evolution, having become a single group mind readying themselves to join the Overmind. Some Overlords remain on Earth to study the children from a safe distance. When the evolved children mentally alter the Moon's rotation and make other planetary manipulations, it becomes too dangerous to remain. The departing Overlords offer to take Rodricks with them, but he chooses to stay to witness Earth's end, and transmits a report of what he sees. The Overlords are eager to"
      },
      {
        "text": " penultimate form of human evolution, having become a single group mind readying themselves to join the Overmind. Some Overlords remain on Earth to study the children from a safe distance. When the evolved children mentally alter the Moon's rotation and make other planetary manipulations, it becomes too dangerous to remain. The departing Overlords offer to take Rodricks with them, but he chooses to stay to witness Earth's end, and transmits a report of what he sees. The Overlords are eager to escape from their own evolutionary dead-end by studying the Overmind, so Rodricks' information is potentially of great value to them. By radio, Rodricks describes a vast burning column ascending from the planet. As the column disappears, Rodricks experiences a profound sense of emptiness when the Overlords have gone. Then material objects and the Earth itself begin to dissolve into transparency. Jan reports no fear, but a powerful sense of fulfillment. The Earth evaporates in a flash of light. Karellen looks back at the receding Solar System and gives a final salute to the human species.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Little Prince",
    "author": "Antoine de Saint-Exup\u00e9ry",
    "published_date": "1943",
    "synopsis": " The reader is introduced to the narrator who, as a young boy, drew a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. However, he is discouraged from drawing when all adults who look at his picture see a hat, instead. The narrator attempts to explain what his first picture depicts by drawing another one clearly showing the elephant, disturbing the adults as a result. As such, he decides to become a pilot, which eventually leads to a crash in the Sahara desert. In the desert, the narrator meets the little prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. Not knowing how to draw a sheep, the narrator shows him the picture of the elephant in the snake. To the narrator's surprise, the prince recognizes the drawing for what it is. After a few failed attempts at drawing a sheep, the narrator draws a box in his frustration, claims that the box holds a sheep inside. Again to the narrator's surprise, the prince is delighted with the result. The little prince's home asteroid, or \"planet\", is introduced. The asteroid is the size of a house, has three volcanoes (two active, and one dormant) and a rose, among various other objects. The narrator believes this asteroid to be called B-612. The Prince spends his days caring for the asteroid, pulling out the baobab trees that are constantly trying to take root there. The Prince falls in love with the rose, who appears not to return his love due to her vain nature. The Prince loses his trust in the rose after she lies to him, and he grows lonely. After he reconciles with his rose, the prince leaves to see what the rest of the universe is like. He visits six other asteroids, each of which is inhabited by a foolish adult. The sixth asteroid is inhabited by a geographer, who asks the prince to describe his home. When the prince mentions the rose, the geographer explains that he does not record roses, calling them \"ephemeral\". The prince is shocked and hurt by this revelation. The geographer recommends that he visit the Earth. On the Earth, the prince meets a snake that claims to have the power to return him to his home planet, though the prince refuses this offer. The prince then meets a desert flower, who tells him that there are only a handful of men on Earth and that they have no roots, letting the wind blow them around and living hard lives. The prince climbs the highest mountain he has ever seen, in hopes of seeing the whole planet and finding people. However, he only sees a desolate landscape. When the prince calls out, his echo answers him, and he mistakes it for the voices of other humans. Eventually, the prince comes upon a whole row of rosebushes, and becomes downcast because he thought his rose was unique. He begins to feel that he is not a great prince at all, as his planet contains only three tiny volcanoes and a flower he now thinks of as common. He lies down in the grass and weeps. As the prince cries, a fennec fox comes across him. The prince tames the fox, who explains to him that his rose really is unique and special, because she is the one whom the prince loves. The fox also explains that, in a way, the prince has tamed the flower, and that this is why the prince now feels responsible for her. The prince then comes across a railway switchman and a merchant. The switchman tells the Prince how passengers constantly rush from one place to another aboard trains, never satisfied with where they are and not knowing what they are after. Only the children amongst them bother to look out of the windows. The merchant tells the prince about his product, a pill which eliminates thirst and is very popular, saving people fifty-three minutes a week. The prince replies that he would use the time to walk and find fresh water. Back in the present, the narrator is dying of thirst, but finds a well with the help of the prince. The narrator later finds the prince discussing his return home with the snake. The prince bids an emotional farewell to the narrator and states that if it looks as though he has died, it is because his body is too heavy to take with him to his planet. The prince warns the narrator not to watch him leave, as it will make him sad. The narrator, realizing what will happen, refuses to leave the prince's side. The prince allows the snake to bite him, and falls without making a sound. The next morning, the narrator tries to look for the prince, but is unable to find his body. The story ends with a portrait of the landscape where the prince and the narrator met and where the snake took the prince's life. The narrator makes a plea that anyone encountering a strange child in that area who refuses to answer questions should contact the narrator immediately.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The reader is introduced to the narrator who, as a young boy, drew a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. However, he is discouraged from drawing when all adults who look at his picture see a hat, instead. The narrator attempts to explain what his first picture depicts by drawing another one clearly showing the elephant, disturbing the adults as a result. As such, he decides to become a pilot, which eventually leads to a crash in the Sahara desert. In the desert, the narrator meets the little prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. Not knowing how to draw a sheep, the narrator shows him the picture of the elephant in the snake. To the narrator's surprise, the prince recognizes the drawing for what it is. After a few failed attempts at drawing a sheep, the narrator draws a box in his frustration, claims that the box holds a sheep inside. Again to the narrator's surprise, the prince is delighted with the result. The little prince's home asteroid, or \"planet\", is introduced. The asteroid is the size of a house, has three volcanoes (two active, and one dormant) and a rose, among various other objects. The narrator believes this asteroid to be called B-612. The Prince spends his days caring for the asteroid, pulling out the baobab trees that are constantly trying to take root there. The Prince falls in love with the rose, who appears not to return his love due to her vain nature. The Prince loses his trust in the rose after she lies to him, and he grows lonely. After he reconciles with his rose, the prince leaves to see what the rest of the universe is like. He visits six other asteroids, each of which is inhabited by a foolish adult. The sixth asteroid is inhabited by a geographer, who asks the prince to describe his home. When the prince mentions the rose, the geographer explains that he does not record roses, calling them \"ephemeral\". The prince"
      },
      {
        "text": " his trust in the rose after she lies to him, and he grows lonely. After he reconciles with his rose, the prince leaves to see what the rest of the universe is like. He visits six other asteroids, each of which is inhabited by a foolish adult. The sixth asteroid is inhabited by a geographer, who asks the prince to describe his home. When the prince mentions the rose, the geographer explains that he does not record roses, calling them \"ephemeral\". The prince is shocked and hurt by this revelation. The geographer recommends that he visit the Earth. On the Earth, the prince meets a snake that claims to have the power to return him to his home planet, though the prince refuses this offer. The prince then meets a desert flower, who tells him that there are only a handful of men on Earth and that they have no roots, letting the wind blow them around and living hard lives. The prince climbs the highest mountain he has ever seen, in hopes of seeing the whole planet and finding people. However, he only sees a desolate landscape. When the prince calls out, his echo answers him, and he mistakes it for the voices of other humans. Eventually, the prince comes upon a whole row of rosebushes, and becomes downcast because he thought his rose was unique. He begins to feel that he is not a great prince at all, as his planet contains only three tiny volcanoes and a flower he now thinks of as common. He lies down in the grass and weeps. As the prince cries, a fennec fox comes across him. The prince tames the fox, who explains to him that his rose really is unique and special, because she is the one whom the prince loves. The fox also explains that, in a way, the prince has tamed the flower, and that this is why the prince now feels responsible for her. The prince then comes across a railway switchman and a merchant. The switchman"
      },
      {
        "text": " lies down in the grass and weeps. As the prince cries, a fennec fox comes across him. The prince tames the fox, who explains to him that his rose really is unique and special, because she is the one whom the prince loves. The fox also explains that, in a way, the prince has tamed the flower, and that this is why the prince now feels responsible for her. The prince then comes across a railway switchman and a merchant. The switchman tells the Prince how passengers constantly rush from one place to another aboard trains, never satisfied with where they are and not knowing what they are after. Only the children amongst them bother to look out of the windows. The merchant tells the prince about his product, a pill which eliminates thirst and is very popular, saving people fifty-three minutes a week. The prince replies that he would use the time to walk and find fresh water. Back in the present, the narrator is dying of thirst, but finds a well with the help of the prince. The narrator later finds the prince discussing his return home with the snake. The prince bids an emotional farewell to the narrator and states that if it looks as though he has died, it is because his body is too heavy to take with him to his planet. The prince warns the narrator not to watch him leave, as it will make him sad. The narrator, realizing what will happen, refuses to leave the prince's side. The prince allows the snake to bite him, and falls without making a sound. The next morning, the narrator tries to look for the prince, but is unable to find his body. The story ends with a portrait of the landscape where the prince and the narrator met and where the snake took the prince's life. The narrator makes a plea that anyone encountering a strange child in that area who refuses to answer questions should contact the narrator immediately.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " bite him, and falls without making a sound. The next morning, the narrator tries to look for the prince, but is unable to find his body. The story ends with a portrait of the landscape where the prince and the narrator met and where the snake took the prince's life. The narrator makes a plea that anyone encountering a strange child in that area who refuses to answer questions should contact the narrator immediately.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Brigadoon",
    "author": "Alan Jay Lerner",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " ;Act I New Yorkers Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglas have traveled to the Scottish Highlands on a game-hunting vacation, only to get lost their first night out. They begin to hear music (\"Brigadoon\") coming from a nearby village; strangely, the village isn't on their map of the area. Tommy and Jeff decide to visit it to get directions back to their inn. In the town, a fair has begun (\"McConnachy Square\"). The villagers are dressed in traditional Scottish tartan. Andrew MacLaren and his daughters arrive at the fair to purchase supplies for the wedding of younger daughter Jean to Charlie Dalrymple. Harry Beaton is madly in love with Jean and is depressed at the thought of her marrying another. One of the girls asks Fiona, Jean's older sister, when she will get married, and she says she is waiting for the right person (\"Waitin' For My Dearie\"). Tommy and Jeff wander into the village, and when they ask where they are, the villagers tell them \"Brigadoon\". Fiona invites the Americans to have a meal and rest at the MacLarens' home. Meg Brockie, a flirtatious dairy maid, immediately takes a liking to Jeff and leads him off. Charlie Dalrymple appears, rejoicing in his impending nuptials. He shares a drink with Tommy, toasting to a Mr. Forsythe whom he thanks for \"postponing the miracle\". Tommy asks what he means by this, but Fiona shushes him and leads him away as Charlie celebrates the end of his bachelorhood (\"Go Home with Bonnie Jean\"). Tommy tells Fiona about his impending marriage to his fianc\u00e9e Jane in New York; Tommy is in no hurry to marry Jane, and Fiona reveals that she likes Tommy very much. Fiona goes to gather heather for the wedding, and Tommy insists on going with her (\"The Heather on the Hill\"). Meanwhile, Meg takes Jeff to a place in the forest with a shack and a cot. She tells him she's \"highly attracted\" to him, but he spurns her advances, wanting only sleep. She reflects on her unusual love life (\"The Love Of My Life\"). In the MacLaren home, Jean's friends help her pack her things to move into Charlie's home (\"Jeannie's Packin' Up\"). Charlie arrives to sign the MacLaren family Bible. He wants to see Jean, but he is told it is bad luck to see her on the wedding day. He begs for her to come out anyway (\"Come to Me, Bend to Me\"). Tommy and Fiona return with a basket full of heather, and Fiona goes upstairs to help Jean dress for the wedding. Jeff arrives wearing a pair of Highland trews (trousers); apparently his own pants have been damaged on a \"thistle\". Jeff finds that Tommy is so happy that he can barely contain it (\"Almost Like Being In Love\"). Tommy notices that all the events listed in the family Bible, including Jean's wedding, are listed as if they had happened two hundred years earlier. He asks Fiona why this is so, and she tells him that he needs to see the schoolmaster, Mr. Lundie, to get the full explanation. Fiona, Tommy, and Jeff arrive at Mr. Lundie's home, where he relates a story that the two New Yorkers can hardly believe: to protect Brigadoon from being changed by the outside world, two hundred years ago, the local pastor prayed to God to have Brigadoon disappear, only to reappear for one day every 100 years. None of the people of Brigadoon can be permitted to leave the town, or it will disappear forever. Tommy asks hypothetically if an outsider could be permitted to stay. Mr. Lundie replies, \"A stranger can stay if he loves someone here - not jus' Brigadoon, mind ye, but someone in Brigadoon - enough to want to give up everythin' an' stay with that one person. Which is how it should be. 'Cause after all, lad, if ye love someone deeply, anythin' is possible.\" The group leaves to go to the wedding, which opens with the clans coming in from the hills. Charlie and Jean are married by Mr. Lundie, and they perform a traditional wedding dance to celebrate. Sword dancers appear, led by Harry, and they perform an elaborate dance over their weapons. All the town joins in the dance, but it abruptly halts when Jean screams as Harry tries to kiss her. In anguish over Jean's wedding, he announces that he's leaving the town (which would end the miracle, causing Brigadoon to disappear forever into the Highland mists) and sprints away. ;Act II The men of the town, including Tommy and a reluctant Jeff, are frantically trying to find Harry before he can depart the town (\"The Chase\"). Suddenly an agonized scream is heard. Harry, who appears to have fallen on a rock and crushed his skull, is found dead by the other men. They decide not to tell the rest of the town until the next morning. The men carry Harry's body away. Fiona and her father arrive to see if everything is all right. As Mr. MacLaren leaves, Tommy sees Fiona, and they embrace. She reveals her love for him, and he tells her he believes he feels the same way (\"There But For You Go I\"). Fiona reminds him that the end of the day is near, and Tommy tells her he wants to stay in Brigadoon with her. They go to find Mr. Lundie. Meanwhile, in the village, Meg tells about the day her parents were drunkenly married (\"My Mother's Wedding Day\") and the townsfolk dance until the sound of Highland Pipes pierces the air. Archie Beaton enters carrying Harry's body, led by the pipers playing a p\u00ecobaireachd. Maggie Anderson, who loved Harry, performs a funeral dance for her unrequited love. The men of Brigadoon help Archie carry his son to the burial place. Tommy finds Jeff and tells him of his plans to stay. Jeff thinks the idea absurd and argues with Tommy until he has convinced him that Brigadoon is only a dream. Jeff also reveals that he tripped Harry and accidentally killed him. Fiona and Mr. Lundie arrive, and Tommy, shaken by Jeff's confession, tells Fiona that even though he loves her, he cannot stay; he still has doubts (\"From This Day On\"). Fiona tells Tommy that she will love him forever as she fades away into the darkness. Four months later, Jeff is drinking heavily at a hotel bar in New York. Tommy enters and greets Jeff. Tommy is still in love with Fiona and cannot stop thinking about her. His fianc\u00e9e Jane Ashford, a beautiful socialite, talks to him about their impending wedding, but everything she says causes him to hear Fiona's voice and dream of Brigadoon (\"Come to Me, Bend to Me\" (reprise) and \"Heather on the Hill\" (reprise)). Tommy tells Jane that he cannot marry her, and she argues with him, but he continues to daydream about his true love (\"Go Home With Bonnie Jean\" (reprise) and \"From This Day On\" (reprise)). Jane leaves, and Tommy tells Jeff that he wants to return to Scotland, although he knows the village will not be there. Tommy and Jeff return to the spot where Brigadoon was and, as they expected, nothing is there. Tommy laments, \"Why do people have to lose things to find out what they really mean?\" Just as he and Jeff turn to leave, they hear the music again (\"Brigadoon\"), and Mr. Lundie appears. Tommy walks across the bridge in a daze to him, as Mr. Lundie explains: \"Oh it's you Tommy, lad. You woke me up. You must really love her,\" to which Tommy, still dazed, stammers \"Wha- how....?\" and Mr. Lundie replies, \"You shouldna be too surprised, lad. I told ye when ye love someone deeply enough, anythin' is possible. Even miracles.\" Tommy waves goodbye to Jeff and disappears with Mr. Lundie into the highland mist to be reunited with Fiona.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " ;Act I New Yorkers Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglas have traveled to the Scottish Highlands on a game-hunting vacation, only to get lost their first night out. They begin to hear music (\"Brigadoon\") coming from a nearby village; strangely, the village isn't on their map of the area. Tommy and Jeff decide to visit it to get directions back to their inn. In the town, a fair has begun (\"McConnachy Square\"). The villagers are dressed in traditional Scottish tartan. Andrew MacLaren and his daughters arrive at the fair to purchase supplies for the wedding of younger daughter Jean to Charlie Dalrymple. Harry Beaton is madly in love with Jean and is depressed at the thought of her marrying another. One of the girls asks Fiona, Jean's older sister, when she will get married, and she says she is waiting for the right person (\"Waitin' For My Dearie\"). Tommy and Jeff wander into the village, and when they ask where they are, the villagers tell them \"Brigadoon\". Fiona invites the Americans to have a meal and rest at the MacLarens' home. Meg Brockie, a flirtatious dairy maid, immediately takes a liking to Jeff and leads him off. Charlie Dalrymple appears, rejoicing in his impending nuptials. He shares a drink with Tommy, toasting to a Mr. Forsythe whom he thanks for \"postponing the miracle\". Tommy asks what he means by this, but Fiona shushes him and leads him away as Charlie celebrates the end of his bachelorhood (\"Go Home with Bonnie Jean\"). Tommy tells Fiona about his impending marriage to his fianc\u00e9e Jane in New York; Tommy is in no hurry to marry Jane, and Fiona reveals that she likes Tommy very much. Fiona goes to gather heather for the wedding, and Tommy insists on going with her (\"The Heather on the Hill\"). Meanwhile, Meg takes Jeff to a place"
      },
      {
        "text": " asks what he means by this, but Fiona shushes him and leads him away as Charlie celebrates the end of his bachelorhood (\"Go Home with Bonnie Jean\"). Tommy tells Fiona about his impending marriage to his fianc\u00e9e Jane in New York; Tommy is in no hurry to marry Jane, and Fiona reveals that she likes Tommy very much. Fiona goes to gather heather for the wedding, and Tommy insists on going with her (\"The Heather on the Hill\"). Meanwhile, Meg takes Jeff to a place in the forest with a shack and a cot. She tells him she's \"highly attracted\" to him, but he spurns her advances, wanting only sleep. She reflects on her unusual love life (\"The Love Of My Life\"). In the MacLaren home, Jean's friends help her pack her things to move into Charlie's home (\"Jeannie's Packin' Up\"). Charlie arrives to sign the MacLaren family Bible. He wants to see Jean, but he is told it is bad luck to see her on the wedding day. He begs for her to come out anyway (\"Come to Me, Bend to Me\"). Tommy and Fiona return with a basket full of heather, and Fiona goes upstairs to help Jean dress for the wedding. Jeff arrives wearing a pair of Highland trews (trousers); apparently his own pants have been damaged on a \"thistle\". Jeff finds that Tommy is so happy that he can barely contain it (\"Almost Like Being In Love\"). Tommy notices that all the events listed in the family Bible, including Jean's wedding, are listed as if they had happened two hundred years earlier. He asks Fiona why this is so, and she tells him that he needs to see the schoolmaster, Mr. Lundie, to get the full explanation. Fiona, Tommy, and Jeff arrive at Mr. Lundie's home, where he relates a story that the two New Yorkers can hardly believe: to protect Brigadoon from being changed by"
      },
      {
        "text": "\"). Tommy notices that all the events listed in the family Bible, including Jean's wedding, are listed as if they had happened two hundred years earlier. He asks Fiona why this is so, and she tells him that he needs to see the schoolmaster, Mr. Lundie, to get the full explanation. Fiona, Tommy, and Jeff arrive at Mr. Lundie's home, where he relates a story that the two New Yorkers can hardly believe: to protect Brigadoon from being changed by the outside world, two hundred years ago, the local pastor prayed to God to have Brigadoon disappear, only to reappear for one day every 100 years. None of the people of Brigadoon can be permitted to leave the town, or it will disappear forever. Tommy asks hypothetically if an outsider could be permitted to stay. Mr. Lundie replies, \"A stranger can stay if he loves someone here - not jus' Brigadoon, mind ye, but someone in Brigadoon - enough to want to give up everythin' an' stay with that one person. Which is how it should be. 'Cause after all, lad, if ye love someone deeply, anythin' is possible.\" The group leaves to go to the wedding, which opens with the clans coming in from the hills. Charlie and Jean are married by Mr. Lundie, and they perform a traditional wedding dance to celebrate. Sword dancers appear, led by Harry, and they perform an elaborate dance over their weapons. All the town joins in the dance, but it abruptly halts when Jean screams as Harry tries to kiss her. In anguish over Jean's wedding, he announces that he's leaving the town (which would end the miracle, causing Brigadoon to disappear forever into the Highland mists) and sprints away. ;Act II The men of the town, including Tommy and a reluctant Jeff, are frantically trying to find Harry before he can depart the town (\"The Chase\")."
      },
      {
        "text": " dance over their weapons. All the town joins in the dance, but it abruptly halts when Jean screams as Harry tries to kiss her. In anguish over Jean's wedding, he announces that he's leaving the town (which would end the miracle, causing Brigadoon to disappear forever into the Highland mists) and sprints away. ;Act II The men of the town, including Tommy and a reluctant Jeff, are frantically trying to find Harry before he can depart the town (\"The Chase\"). Suddenly an agonized scream is heard. Harry, who appears to have fallen on a rock and crushed his skull, is found dead by the other men. They decide not to tell the rest of the town until the next morning. The men carry Harry's body away. Fiona and her father arrive to see if everything is all right. As Mr. MacLaren leaves, Tommy sees Fiona, and they embrace. She reveals her love for him, and he tells her he believes he feels the same way (\"There But For You Go I\"). Fiona reminds him that the end of the day is near, and Tommy tells her he wants to stay in Brigadoon with her. They go to find Mr. Lundie. Meanwhile, in the village, Meg tells about the day her parents were drunkenly married (\"My Mother's Wedding Day\") and the townsfolk dance until the sound of Highland Pipes pierces the air. Archie Beaton enters carrying Harry's body, led by the pipers playing a p\u00ecobaireachd. Maggie Anderson, who loved Harry, performs a funeral dance for her unrequited love. The men of Brigadoon help Archie carry his son to the burial place. Tommy finds Jeff and tells him of his plans to stay. Jeff thinks the idea absurd and argues with Tommy until he has convinced him that Brigadoon is only a dream. Jeff also reveals that he tripped Harry and accidentally killed him. Fiona and Mr. Lundie arrive,"
      },
      {
        "text": " playing a p\u00ecobaireachd. Maggie Anderson, who loved Harry, performs a funeral dance for her unrequited love. The men of Brigadoon help Archie carry his son to the burial place. Tommy finds Jeff and tells him of his plans to stay. Jeff thinks the idea absurd and argues with Tommy until he has convinced him that Brigadoon is only a dream. Jeff also reveals that he tripped Harry and accidentally killed him. Fiona and Mr. Lundie arrive, and Tommy, shaken by Jeff's confession, tells Fiona that even though he loves her, he cannot stay; he still has doubts (\"From This Day On\"). Fiona tells Tommy that she will love him forever as she fades away into the darkness. Four months later, Jeff is drinking heavily at a hotel bar in New York. Tommy enters and greets Jeff. Tommy is still in love with Fiona and cannot stop thinking about her. His fianc\u00e9e Jane Ashford, a beautiful socialite, talks to him about their impending wedding, but everything she says causes him to hear Fiona's voice and dream of Brigadoon (\"Come to Me, Bend to Me\" (reprise) and \"Heather on the Hill\" (reprise)). Tommy tells Jane that he cannot marry her, and she argues with him, but he continues to daydream about his true love (\"Go Home With Bonnie Jean\" (reprise) and \"From This Day On\" (reprise)). Jane leaves, and Tommy tells Jeff that he wants to return to Scotland, although he knows the village will not be there. Tommy and Jeff return to the spot where Brigadoon was and, as they expected, nothing is there. Tommy laments, \"Why do people have to lose things to find out what they really mean?\" Just as he and Jeff turn to leave, they hear the music again (\"Brigadoon\"), and Mr. Lundie appears. Tommy walks across the bridge in a daze to him"
      },
      {
        "text": " tells Jeff that he wants to return to Scotland, although he knows the village will not be there. Tommy and Jeff return to the spot where Brigadoon was and, as they expected, nothing is there. Tommy laments, \"Why do people have to lose things to find out what they really mean?\" Just as he and Jeff turn to leave, they hear the music again (\"Brigadoon\"), and Mr. Lundie appears. Tommy walks across the bridge in a daze to him, as Mr. Lundie explains: \"Oh it's you Tommy, lad. You woke me up. You must really love her,\" to which Tommy, still dazed, stammers \"Wha- how....?\" and Mr. Lundie replies, \"You shouldna be too surprised, lad. I told ye when ye love someone deeply enough, anythin' is possible. Even miracles.\" Tommy waves goodbye to Jeff and disappears with Mr. Lundie into the highland mist to be reunited with Fiona.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Two Towers",
    "author": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
    "published_date": "1954-11-11",
    "synopsis": " As Aragorn searches for Frodo, he suddenly hears Boromir's horn. He finds Boromir mortally wounded by arrows, his assailants gone. Before Boromir dies, Aragorn also learns that Merry and Pippin were kidnapped by Saruman's Uruk-hai in spite of his efforts to defend them, and that Frodo had vanished after Boromir had tried to take the Ring from him and that he truly regretted his actions. In his last moments, he charges Aragorn to defend Minas Tirith from Sauron. With Legolas and Gimli, who had been fighting Orcs themselves, Aragorn pays his last respects to Boromir and sends him down the Great River Anduin on a funeral boat, the usual methods of burial being impractical. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli then resolve to follow the Uruk-hai captors. Meanwhile, after some hardship, Merry and Pippin escape when the Uruk-hai are attacked by the horsemen of Rohan, called the Rohirrim or \"Riders of Rohan\". Merry and Pippin escape into the nearby Fangorn Forest, where they encounter the giant treelike Ents. The Ents resemble actual trees, except they are able to see, talk, and move. These guardians of the forest generally keep to themselves, but after a long contemplation on whether or not the Hobbits were friends, or foes, their leader Treebeard persuades the Ent council to oppose the menace posed to the forest by the wizard Saruman, as suggested by Merry and Pippin, as Treebeard realizes that Saruman's minions have been cutting down large numbers of their trees to fuel the furnaces needed for Saruman's arming of his dark army. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas come across the Riders of Rohan led by \u00c9omer, nephew of King Th\u00e9oden. The trio learn that the horsemen had attacked a band of Orcs the previous night, and that they had left no survivors. However, Aragorn is able to track a small set of prints that lead into Fangorn, where they see an old man who disappears almost as soon as they see him - they assume him to be Saruman. Shortly afterward, the three meet Gandalf, (again, they at first take him to be Saruman) whom they believed had perished in the mines of Moria. He tells them of his fall into the abyss, his battle to the death with the Balrog and his resurrection and his enhanced power. The four ride to Rohan's capital Edoras, where Gandalf rouses King Th\u00e9oden from inaction against the threat Saruman poses. In the process, Saruman's spy in Rohan (and King Th\u00e9oden's trusted advisor) Gr\u00edma Wormtongue, is expelled from Rohan. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas then travel with Th\u00e9oden's troops to the fortress of Hornburg, in the valley of Helm's Deep. Gandalf rides away before the battle begins, though he gives no reason for doing so. At the Hornburg, the army of Rohan led by King Th\u00e9oden and Aragorn resist a full-scale onslaught by the hosts of Saruman. Yet, things begin to go ill with Rohan, until Gandalf arrives with the remains of the army of Westfold that Saruman's forces had previously routed. The tide now turns in Rohan's favour, and Saruman's orcs flee into a forest of Huorns, creatures similar to Ents, and none escape alive. Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas, along with King Th\u00e9oden and \u00c9omer, head to Saruman's stronghold of Isengard. Here, they reunite with Merry and Pippin and find Isengard overrun by Ents, who had flooded it by breaking a nearby dam of the river Isen, and the central tower of Orthanc besieged, with Saruman and Wormtongue trapped inside. Gandalf offers Saruman a chance to repent, but is refused, and so casts Saruman out of the Order of Wizards and the White Council. Gr\u00edma throws something from a window at Gandalf but misses, and it is picked up by Pippin. This object turns out to be one of the palant\u00edri (seeing-stones). Pippin, unable to resist the urge, looks into it and encounters the Eye of Sauron, but emerges unscathed from the ordeal. Gandalf and Pippin then head for Minas Tirith in Gondor in preparation for the imminent war against Mordor, while Th\u00e9oden, Merry and Aragorn remain behind to begin the muster of Rohan, to ride to the aid of Gondor. Frodo and Sam discover and capture Gollum, who has been stalking them in their quest to reach Mount Doom and destroy the One Ring, as Gollum attempts to reclaim the Ring for himself. Sam loathes and distrusts him, but Frodo pities the poor creature. Gollum promises to lead the pair to the Black Gate of Mordor and for a time appears to be like his old self Sm\u00e9agol. He leads them through a hidden passage of the Dead Marshes in order to avoid being spied by Orcs. Frodo and Sam learn that the Dead Marshes were once part of an ancient battlefield, upon which the War of the Last Alliance was fought. Upon reaching the Black Gate, Gollum persuades the hobbits not to enter, where they would have been surely caught. He tells them of a secret entrance to Mordor. Thus, they head south into Gondor's province of Ithilien and are accosted by a group of Gondorian rangers led by Faramir, the brother of Boromir. Frodo learns from Faramir of Boromir's death. Faramir and the Rangers lead Sam and Frodo into a secret hideout where Sam accidentally reveals to Faramir that Frodo carries the One Ring. As a result of this Frodo reveals the plan to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Later that night, Gollum is captured diving for fish into the sacred pool, the penalty for which is death. Frodo negotiates Gollum's freedom with Faramir. The following morning Faramir allows them to go on their way, but warns them that Gollum may know more about the secret entrance (Cirith Ungol) than he has been telling them. Gollum leads them past the city of Minas Morgul and up a long, steep staircase of the Tower of Cirith Ungol into the lair of an enormous spider named Shelob. Gollum hopes to get the Ring from Frodo's bones after Shelob is done with him. The hobbits escape Shelob in her lair and mistakenly assume that they are safe. However, Shelob sneaks up on Frodo. Sam attempts to warn Frodo but is attacked by Gollum. Shelob stings Frodo in the back of the neck and he collapses to the ground. Sam fends off Gollum and Gollum runs off back towards Shelob's cave. Sam then drives off Shelob. After seeing Frodo lifeless and pale, Sam assumes that Frodo is dead and debates chasing Gollum and abandoning the Quest in favour of vengeance. Sam resolves to finish the Quest himself and takes the Ring. But when Orcs take Frodo's body, Sam follows them and learns that Frodo is not dead, but only unconscious, and is now a prisoner. The book ends with the line, \"Frodo was alive but taken by the Enemy.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As Aragorn searches for Frodo, he suddenly hears Boromir's horn. He finds Boromir mortally wounded by arrows, his assailants gone. Before Boromir dies, Aragorn also learns that Merry and Pippin were kidnapped by Saruman's Uruk-hai in spite of his efforts to defend them, and that Frodo had vanished after Boromir had tried to take the Ring from him and that he truly regretted his actions. In his last moments, he charges Aragorn to defend Minas Tirith from Sauron. With Legolas and Gimli, who had been fighting Orcs themselves, Aragorn pays his last respects to Boromir and sends him down the Great River Anduin on a funeral boat, the usual methods of burial being impractical. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli then resolve to follow the Uruk-hai captors. Meanwhile, after some hardship, Merry and Pippin escape when the Uruk-hai are attacked by the horsemen of Rohan, called the Rohirrim or \"Riders of Rohan\". Merry and Pippin escape into the nearby Fangorn Forest, where they encounter the giant treelike Ents. The Ents resemble actual trees, except they are able to see, talk, and move. These guardians of the forest generally keep to themselves, but after a long contemplation on whether or not the Hobbits were friends, or foes, their leader Treebeard persuades the Ent council to oppose the menace posed to the forest by the wizard Saruman, as suggested by Merry and Pippin, as Treebeard realizes that Saruman's minions have been cutting down large numbers of their trees to fuel the furnaces needed for Saruman's arming of his dark army. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas come across the Riders of Rohan led by \u00c9omer, nephew of King Th\u00e9oden. The trio learn that the"
      },
      {
        "text": " their leader Treebeard persuades the Ent council to oppose the menace posed to the forest by the wizard Saruman, as suggested by Merry and Pippin, as Treebeard realizes that Saruman's minions have been cutting down large numbers of their trees to fuel the furnaces needed for Saruman's arming of his dark army. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas come across the Riders of Rohan led by \u00c9omer, nephew of King Th\u00e9oden. The trio learn that the horsemen had attacked a band of Orcs the previous night, and that they had left no survivors. However, Aragorn is able to track a small set of prints that lead into Fangorn, where they see an old man who disappears almost as soon as they see him - they assume him to be Saruman. Shortly afterward, the three meet Gandalf, (again, they at first take him to be Saruman) whom they believed had perished in the mines of Moria. He tells them of his fall into the abyss, his battle to the death with the Balrog and his resurrection and his enhanced power. The four ride to Rohan's capital Edoras, where Gandalf rouses King Th\u00e9oden from inaction against the threat Saruman poses. In the process, Saruman's spy in Rohan (and King Th\u00e9oden's trusted advisor) Gr\u00edma Wormtongue, is expelled from Rohan. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas then travel with Th\u00e9oden's troops to the fortress of Hornburg, in the valley of Helm's Deep. Gandalf rides away before the battle begins, though he gives no reason for doing so. At the Hornburg, the army of Rohan led by King Th\u00e9oden and Aragorn resist a full-scale onslaught by the hosts of Saruman. Yet, things begin to go ill with Rohan, until Gandalf arrives with the remains of the army of"
      },
      {
        "text": " Legolas then travel with Th\u00e9oden's troops to the fortress of Hornburg, in the valley of Helm's Deep. Gandalf rides away before the battle begins, though he gives no reason for doing so. At the Hornburg, the army of Rohan led by King Th\u00e9oden and Aragorn resist a full-scale onslaught by the hosts of Saruman. Yet, things begin to go ill with Rohan, until Gandalf arrives with the remains of the army of Westfold that Saruman's forces had previously routed. The tide now turns in Rohan's favour, and Saruman's orcs flee into a forest of Huorns, creatures similar to Ents, and none escape alive. Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas, along with King Th\u00e9oden and \u00c9omer, head to Saruman's stronghold of Isengard. Here, they reunite with Merry and Pippin and find Isengard overrun by Ents, who had flooded it by breaking a nearby dam of the river Isen, and the central tower of Orthanc besieged, with Saruman and Wormtongue trapped inside. Gandalf offers Saruman a chance to repent, but is refused, and so casts Saruman out of the Order of Wizards and the White Council. Gr\u00edma throws something from a window at Gandalf but misses, and it is picked up by Pippin. This object turns out to be one of the palant\u00edri (seeing-stones). Pippin, unable to resist the urge, looks into it and encounters the Eye of Sauron, but emerges unscathed from the ordeal. Gandalf and Pippin then head for Minas Tirith in Gondor in preparation for the imminent war against Mordor, while Th\u00e9oden, Merry and Aragorn remain behind to begin the muster of Rohan, to ride to the aid of Gondor. Frodo and Sam"
      },
      {
        "text": " palant\u00edri (seeing-stones). Pippin, unable to resist the urge, looks into it and encounters the Eye of Sauron, but emerges unscathed from the ordeal. Gandalf and Pippin then head for Minas Tirith in Gondor in preparation for the imminent war against Mordor, while Th\u00e9oden, Merry and Aragorn remain behind to begin the muster of Rohan, to ride to the aid of Gondor. Frodo and Sam discover and capture Gollum, who has been stalking them in their quest to reach Mount Doom and destroy the One Ring, as Gollum attempts to reclaim the Ring for himself. Sam loathes and distrusts him, but Frodo pities the poor creature. Gollum promises to lead the pair to the Black Gate of Mordor and for a time appears to be like his old self Sm\u00e9agol. He leads them through a hidden passage of the Dead Marshes in order to avoid being spied by Orcs. Frodo and Sam learn that the Dead Marshes were once part of an ancient battlefield, upon which the War of the Last Alliance was fought. Upon reaching the Black Gate, Gollum persuades the hobbits not to enter, where they would have been surely caught. He tells them of a secret entrance to Mordor. Thus, they head south into Gondor's province of Ithilien and are accosted by a group of Gondorian rangers led by Faramir, the brother of Boromir. Frodo learns from Faramir of Boromir's death. Faramir and the Rangers lead Sam and Frodo into a secret hideout where Sam accidentally reveals to Faramir that Frodo carries the One Ring. As a result of this Frodo reveals the plan to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Later that night, Gollum is captured diving for fish into the sacred"
      },
      {
        "text": " Gondorian rangers led by Faramir, the brother of Boromir. Frodo learns from Faramir of Boromir's death. Faramir and the Rangers lead Sam and Frodo into a secret hideout where Sam accidentally reveals to Faramir that Frodo carries the One Ring. As a result of this Frodo reveals the plan to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Later that night, Gollum is captured diving for fish into the sacred pool, the penalty for which is death. Frodo negotiates Gollum's freedom with Faramir. The following morning Faramir allows them to go on their way, but warns them that Gollum may know more about the secret entrance (Cirith Ungol) than he has been telling them. Gollum leads them past the city of Minas Morgul and up a long, steep staircase of the Tower of Cirith Ungol into the lair of an enormous spider named Shelob. Gollum hopes to get the Ring from Frodo's bones after Shelob is done with him. The hobbits escape Shelob in her lair and mistakenly assume that they are safe. However, Shelob sneaks up on Frodo. Sam attempts to warn Frodo but is attacked by Gollum. Shelob stings Frodo in the back of the neck and he collapses to the ground. Sam fends off Gollum and Gollum runs off back towards Shelob's cave. Sam then drives off Shelob. After seeing Frodo lifeless and pale, Sam assumes that Frodo is dead and debates chasing Gollum and abandoning the Quest in favour of vengeance. Sam resolves to finish the Quest himself and takes the Ring. But when Orcs take Frodo's body, Sam follows them and learns that Frodo is not dead, but only unconscious, and is now a prisoner. The book ends with the line, \"Frodo was alive"
      },
      {
        "text": " towards Shelob's cave. Sam then drives off Shelob. After seeing Frodo lifeless and pale, Sam assumes that Frodo is dead and debates chasing Gollum and abandoning the Quest in favour of vengeance. Sam resolves to finish the Quest himself and takes the Ring. But when Orcs take Frodo's body, Sam follows them and learns that Frodo is not dead, but only unconscious, and is now a prisoner. The book ends with the line, \"Frodo was alive but taken by the Enemy.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Return of the King",
    "author": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
    "published_date": "1955-10-20",
    "synopsis": " Gandalf and Pippin arrive at Minas Tirith in the kingdom of Gondor, delivering the news to Denethor, the Lord and Steward of Gondor, that a devastating attack on his city by Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor is imminent. Pippin then enters the service of the Steward as repayment of a debt he owes to Boromir, Denethor's dead son and preferred heir. Now clad in the uniform of the tower guard, Pippin watches the fortunes of war unfold, while Denethor descends into madness as the hosts of Mordor press ever closer to Gondor's capital city of Minas Tirith. Faramir, Boromir's younger brother, returns from his campaign with the shattered remnants of his company and is soon ordered to ride out and continue the hopeless defence of Osgiliath against a horde of orcs. Osgiliath is soon overrun and a gravely wounded Faramir is carried back to Denethor. His people seemingly lost and his only remaining son all but dead, Denethor orders a funeral pyre built that is to claim both him and his dying son. Minas Tirith stands encircled and besieged by the Sauron's main host, composed of well over 200,000 orcs. Meanwhile, in Rohan, Th\u00e9oden and his Rohirrim are recovering from the Battle of the Hornburg, in which they defended Rohan against the forces of Saruman at great cost. Aragorn, having confronted Sauron through the palant\u00edr of Isengard, sets out to find the lost army of the undead oathbreakers who dwell in the Paths of the Dead, a mountain hall, because they did not help Isildur during the War of the Last Alliance. Helped by his companions Legolas and Gimli as well as a Company of Rangers from Arnor in the north (the \"Grey Company\"), he sets out to recruit the Army of the Dead to his cause. As Aragorn departs on his seemingly impossible task, King Th\u00e9oden musters the Rohirrim to come to the aid of Gondor. Merry, eager to go to war with his allies, is refused by Th\u00e9oden several times. Finally Dernhelm, one of the Rohirrim, takes Merry up on his horse so that he can accompany the rest of the Rohirrim. Aided by a tribe of Wild Men of the Woods, Th\u00e9oden's forces travel a long-forgotten forest path to avoid an Orc ambush on the main road and reach Minas Tirith stealthily. The hosts of Mordor, led by the dreaded Witch King of Angmar, succeed in breaking through the gates of Minas Tirith, but are in turn crushed by the arriving cavalry of Rohan. The battle is also joined by a \"black fleet with black sails\". The forces of Mordor initially rejoice at its arrival; and then are horrified to see the banner of the King upon the ships. Aragorn has succeeded in using the Oathbreakers to defeat the Corsairs of Umbar; the men of Gondor who were once slaves on the ships are brought back to fight the host of Mordor. In the following Battle of the Pelennor Fields the Witch-king is slain by Dernhelm, revealed to be \u00c9owyn the niece of King Th\u00e9oden, with help from Merry. Thus the siege is broken, but at heavy cost: many warriors of Gondor and Rohan fall, among them King Th\u00e9oden. Denethor attempts to immolate himself and Faramir on his funeral pyre, but Gandalf and Pippin succeed in saving Faramir, who is subsequently healed by Aragorn. Aragorn also heals Merry and \u00c9owyn, who were hurt by the Witch-king before he fell. Knowing that it is only a matter of time before Sauron rebuilds his forces for another attack, Gandalf and Aragorn decide to draw out the hosts of Mordor with an assault on the Black Gate, providing a distraction so that Frodo and Sam may have a chance of reaching Mount Doom and destroy the One Ring, unseen by the Eye of Sauron. Gandalf and Aragorn lead an army to the Black Gate of Mordor and lay siege to Sauron's army. The battle begins and the body of a troll he had killed falls onto Pippin, and he loses consciousness just as the Great Eagles arrive. Sam, who now bears the One Ring in Frodo's place, rescues his master from torture and death by Orcs in the Tower of Cirith Ungol. Frodo and Sam navigate the barren wasteland of Mordor and are overtaken by a company of Orcs but escape and are forced to disguise themselves in Orcish armour. Gandalf's plan to distract Sauron from the Ring is successful: Mordor is almost empty as all the remaining Orcs have been summoned to defend the land against the assault of the army led by Gandalf and Aragorn. Frodo and Sam, after a weary and dangerous journey, finally reach their final destination of the Crack of Doom. As Frodo is preparing to throw the Ring into Mount Doom, he succumbs to the Ring's power and unknowingly claims it as his own. Just then, Gollum, who had been following Frodo and Sam still, attacks Frodo and bites off his finger and the Ring. Gollum gloats over getting his precious back, but loses his balance and falls into his death, taking the Ring with him. The Ring is finally destroyed, freeing Middle-earth from Sauron's power. Mount Doom erupts violently, trapping Frodo and Sam among the lava flows until the Great Eagles rescue them. Upon Sauron's defeat, his armies at the Gate flee. Sauron finally appears as a gigantic shadow trying to reach out for the armies of men, but is now powerless and is blown away by a wind. The men under Sauron's command that surrender are forgiven and allowed to return to their lands in peace. Aragorn is crowned King of Gondor outside the walls of Minas Tirith in a celebration during which all four Hobbits are greatly honoured for their contribution to the War of the Ring. A healed Faramir is appointed Prince of Ithilien and Steward of Gondor, and Aragorn marries Arwen, daughter of Elrond of Rivendell. After a series of goodbyes, the Hobbits finally return home, only to find the Shire in ruins, its inhabitants oppressed by Lotho Sackville-Baggins (usually called \"The Chief\" or \"The Boss\") who is in reality controlled by a shadowy figure called \"Sharkey\". Sharkey has taken complete control of the Shire using corrupt Men, and begins felling trees in a gratuitous program of industrialization (which actually produces nothing except destruction and misery for the locals). Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Sam make plans to set things right once more. They lead an uprising of Hobbits and are victorious at the Battle of Bywater which effectively frees the Shire. At the very doorstep of Bag End, they meet Sharkey, who is revealed to be the evil wizard Saruman, and his servant Gr\u00edma. Obstinate in defeat, Saruman abuses Gr\u00edma, who responds by slitting his master's throat. Gr\u00edma is himself slain by hobbit archers as he attempts to escape. Over time, the Shire is healed. The many trees that Saruman's men cut down are replanted; buildings are rebuilt and peace is restored. Sam marries Rosie Cotton, with whom he had been entranced for some time. Merry and Pippin lead Buckland and Tuckborough to greater achievements. However, Frodo cannot escape the pain of his wounds, having been stabbed by the Witch-king and poisoned by Shelob in addition to losing a finger. Eventually, Frodo departs for the Undying Lands in the West along with Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, and many Elves, ending the Third Age. Sam, Merry, and Pippin watch Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo, and the Elves depart and return home. Now heir to all of Frodo's possessions, Sam is greeted by Rosie and his daughter Elanor and delivers his final spoken words of the book: \"Well, I'm back.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Gandalf and Pippin arrive at Minas Tirith in the kingdom of Gondor, delivering the news to Denethor, the Lord and Steward of Gondor, that a devastating attack on his city by Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor is imminent. Pippin then enters the service of the Steward as repayment of a debt he owes to Boromir, Denethor's dead son and preferred heir. Now clad in the uniform of the tower guard, Pippin watches the fortunes of war unfold, while Denethor descends into madness as the hosts of Mordor press ever closer to Gondor's capital city of Minas Tirith. Faramir, Boromir's younger brother, returns from his campaign with the shattered remnants of his company and is soon ordered to ride out and continue the hopeless defence of Osgiliath against a horde of orcs. Osgiliath is soon overrun and a gravely wounded Faramir is carried back to Denethor. His people seemingly lost and his only remaining son all but dead, Denethor orders a funeral pyre built that is to claim both him and his dying son. Minas Tirith stands encircled and besieged by the Sauron's main host, composed of well over 200,000 orcs. Meanwhile, in Rohan, Th\u00e9oden and his Rohirrim are recovering from the Battle of the Hornburg, in which they defended Rohan against the forces of Saruman at great cost. Aragorn, having confronted Sauron through the palant\u00edr of Isengard, sets out to find the lost army of the undead oathbreakers who dwell in the Paths of the Dead, a mountain hall, because they did not help Isildur during the War of the Last Alliance. Helped by his companions Legolas and Gimli as well as a Company of Rangers from Arnor in the north (the \"Grey Company\"),"
      },
      {
        "text": " against the forces of Saruman at great cost. Aragorn, having confronted Sauron through the palant\u00edr of Isengard, sets out to find the lost army of the undead oathbreakers who dwell in the Paths of the Dead, a mountain hall, because they did not help Isildur during the War of the Last Alliance. Helped by his companions Legolas and Gimli as well as a Company of Rangers from Arnor in the north (the \"Grey Company\"), he sets out to recruit the Army of the Dead to his cause. As Aragorn departs on his seemingly impossible task, King Th\u00e9oden musters the Rohirrim to come to the aid of Gondor. Merry, eager to go to war with his allies, is refused by Th\u00e9oden several times. Finally Dernhelm, one of the Rohirrim, takes Merry up on his horse so that he can accompany the rest of the Rohirrim. Aided by a tribe of Wild Men of the Woods, Th\u00e9oden's forces travel a long-forgotten forest path to avoid an Orc ambush on the main road and reach Minas Tirith stealthily. The hosts of Mordor, led by the dreaded Witch King of Angmar, succeed in breaking through the gates of Minas Tirith, but are in turn crushed by the arriving cavalry of Rohan. The battle is also joined by a \"black fleet with black sails\". The forces of Mordor initially rejoice at its arrival; and then are horrified to see the banner of the King upon the ships. Aragorn has succeeded in using the Oathbreakers to defeat the Corsairs of Umbar; the men of Gondor who were once slaves on the ships are brought back to fight the host of Mordor. In the following Battle of the Pelennor Fields the Witch-king is slain by Dernhelm, revealed to be \u00c9owyn the niece of King Th\u00e9"
      },
      {
        "text": " of Mordor initially rejoice at its arrival; and then are horrified to see the banner of the King upon the ships. Aragorn has succeeded in using the Oathbreakers to defeat the Corsairs of Umbar; the men of Gondor who were once slaves on the ships are brought back to fight the host of Mordor. In the following Battle of the Pelennor Fields the Witch-king is slain by Dernhelm, revealed to be \u00c9owyn the niece of King Th\u00e9oden, with help from Merry. Thus the siege is broken, but at heavy cost: many warriors of Gondor and Rohan fall, among them King Th\u00e9oden. Denethor attempts to immolate himself and Faramir on his funeral pyre, but Gandalf and Pippin succeed in saving Faramir, who is subsequently healed by Aragorn. Aragorn also heals Merry and \u00c9owyn, who were hurt by the Witch-king before he fell. Knowing that it is only a matter of time before Sauron rebuilds his forces for another attack, Gandalf and Aragorn decide to draw out the hosts of Mordor with an assault on the Black Gate, providing a distraction so that Frodo and Sam may have a chance of reaching Mount Doom and destroy the One Ring, unseen by the Eye of Sauron. Gandalf and Aragorn lead an army to the Black Gate of Mordor and lay siege to Sauron's army. The battle begins and the body of a troll he had killed falls onto Pippin, and he loses consciousness just as the Great Eagles arrive. Sam, who now bears the One Ring in Frodo's place, rescues his master from torture and death by Orcs in the Tower of Cirith Ungol. Frodo and Sam navigate the barren wasteland of Mordor and are overtaken by a company of Orcs but escape and are forced to disguise themselves in Orcish armour. Gandalf"
      },
      {
        "text": ". The battle begins and the body of a troll he had killed falls onto Pippin, and he loses consciousness just as the Great Eagles arrive. Sam, who now bears the One Ring in Frodo's place, rescues his master from torture and death by Orcs in the Tower of Cirith Ungol. Frodo and Sam navigate the barren wasteland of Mordor and are overtaken by a company of Orcs but escape and are forced to disguise themselves in Orcish armour. Gandalf's plan to distract Sauron from the Ring is successful: Mordor is almost empty as all the remaining Orcs have been summoned to defend the land against the assault of the army led by Gandalf and Aragorn. Frodo and Sam, after a weary and dangerous journey, finally reach their final destination of the Crack of Doom. As Frodo is preparing to throw the Ring into Mount Doom, he succumbs to the Ring's power and unknowingly claims it as his own. Just then, Gollum, who had been following Frodo and Sam still, attacks Frodo and bites off his finger and the Ring. Gollum gloats over getting his precious back, but loses his balance and falls into his death, taking the Ring with him. The Ring is finally destroyed, freeing Middle-earth from Sauron's power. Mount Doom erupts violently, trapping Frodo and Sam among the lava flows until the Great Eagles rescue them. Upon Sauron's defeat, his armies at the Gate flee. Sauron finally appears as a gigantic shadow trying to reach out for the armies of men, but is now powerless and is blown away by a wind. The men under Sauron's command that surrender are forgiven and allowed to return to their lands in peace. Aragorn is crowned King of Gondor outside the walls of Minas Tirith in a celebration during which all four Hobbits are greatly honoured for their contribution to the War of the Ring. A healed Far"
      },
      {
        "text": " armies at the Gate flee. Sauron finally appears as a gigantic shadow trying to reach out for the armies of men, but is now powerless and is blown away by a wind. The men under Sauron's command that surrender are forgiven and allowed to return to their lands in peace. Aragorn is crowned King of Gondor outside the walls of Minas Tirith in a celebration during which all four Hobbits are greatly honoured for their contribution to the War of the Ring. A healed Faramir is appointed Prince of Ithilien and Steward of Gondor, and Aragorn marries Arwen, daughter of Elrond of Rivendell. After a series of goodbyes, the Hobbits finally return home, only to find the Shire in ruins, its inhabitants oppressed by Lotho Sackville-Baggins (usually called \"The Chief\" or \"The Boss\") who is in reality controlled by a shadowy figure called \"Sharkey\". Sharkey has taken complete control of the Shire using corrupt Men, and begins felling trees in a gratuitous program of industrialization (which actually produces nothing except destruction and misery for the locals). Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Sam make plans to set things right once more. They lead an uprising of Hobbits and are victorious at the Battle of Bywater which effectively frees the Shire. At the very doorstep of Bag End, they meet Sharkey, who is revealed to be the evil wizard Saruman, and his servant Gr\u00edma. Obstinate in defeat, Saruman abuses Gr\u00edma, who responds by slitting his master's throat. Gr\u00edma is himself slain by hobbit archers as he attempts to escape. Over time, the Shire is healed. The many trees that Saruman's men cut down are replanted; buildings are rebuilt and peace is restored. Sam marries Rosie Cotton, with whom he had been entranced for"
      },
      {
        "text": " be the evil wizard Saruman, and his servant Gr\u00edma. Obstinate in defeat, Saruman abuses Gr\u00edma, who responds by slitting his master's throat. Gr\u00edma is himself slain by hobbit archers as he attempts to escape. Over time, the Shire is healed. The many trees that Saruman's men cut down are replanted; buildings are rebuilt and peace is restored. Sam marries Rosie Cotton, with whom he had been entranced for some time. Merry and Pippin lead Buckland and Tuckborough to greater achievements. However, Frodo cannot escape the pain of his wounds, having been stabbed by the Witch-king and poisoned by Shelob in addition to losing a finger. Eventually, Frodo departs for the Undying Lands in the West along with Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, and many Elves, ending the Third Age. Sam, Merry, and Pippin watch Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo, and the Elves depart and return home. Now heir to all of Frodo's possessions, Sam is greeted by Rosie and his daughter Elanor and delivers his final spoken words of the book: \"Well, I'm back.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Akallab\u00eath",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Akallab\u00eath (The Downfallen in Ad\u00fbnaic; Quenya is Atalant\u00eb) is the story of the destruction of the Kingdom of N\u00famenor, written by Elendil. After the downfall of the Dark Lord Morgoth at the end of the First Age (which is described in the Quenta Silmarillion) the Edain, those Men who had aided the Elves in their war against Melkor were given N\u00famenor, a new small continent of their own, free from the evil and sadness of Middle-earth. It was located in the middle of the Great Ocean, between the western shores of Middle-earth, and the eastern shores of Aman, where the Valar dwelt. As they entered N\u00famenor, Men were forbidden to set sail towards Aman. For 2500 years N\u00famenor grew in might. N\u00famen\u00f3rean ships sailed the seas and established remote colonies in Middle-earth. During that time, the Elves of Middle-earth were engaged in a bitter fight with Morgoth's former servant Sauron, who had become the second Dark Lord. The Men of N\u00famenor aided the Elves under Gil-galad yet remaining in Middle-earth. But as time went on, Men became evil and rebelled against the Valar and the Elves, over the course of one and a half thousand years, desiring immortality. Tar-Palantir, the penultimate King, repented of the evil of his fathers, but it was too late. The last king, Ar-Pharaz\u00f4n, hearing that Sauron was striving for the domination of Men and threatening to destroy N\u00famenor, came with a great host to Middle-earth. Sauron's forces became afraid of the might of N\u00famenor, and fled from the service of their master. Perceiving that he could not overthrow N\u00famenor by strength of arms, Sauron humbled himself before the N\u00famen\u00f3rean King. Ar-Pharaz\u00f4n was not convinced and had Sauron taken as a prisoner to N\u00famenor. Soon he became the king's advisor, and corrupted the greater part of N\u00famenor to the worship of Morgoth, offering human sacrifices and cutting down Nimloth, the White Tree. During this time, N\u00famenor grew even more powerful thanks to Sauron's counsel, even as its people's joy and span of years lessened. Sauron convinced Ar-Pharaz\u00f4n to assail Aman and wrest immortality from the Valar, saying that great kings take what rightfully belongs to them. Sauron's desire was to destroy the N\u00famen\u00f3reans and their proud king with the wrath of the Valar (though not to destroy their kingdom), although he underestimated their power. When the Great Armament set foot on Aman, however, the Valar laid down their guardianship and called on Il\u00favatar, who broke and remade the world. Eru destroyed Ar-Pharaz\u00f4n and his N\u00famen\u00f3rean host, burying them under falling hills until the Dagor Dagorath. To Sauron's dismay, Il\u00favatar also had N\u00famenor sunk into the Belegaer, and Aman he removed forever from the circles of the world. The world that had been flat was now spherical, and Aman was only open to Elves, who could still find the Straight Road. Nine ships carrying men of N\u00famen\u00f3rean royal blood, descendants of the Lords of And\u00fani\u00eb, of the House of Elros, were carried by the storm of the Downfall to the shores of Middle-earth. They were led by Elendil the Tall, and his two sons: Isildur and An\u00e1rion, bringing with them a seedling of the White Tree and the palant\u00edri. These and the N\u00famen\u00f3reans already living in Middle-earth carried the title of \"The Faithful\", signifying their continued devotion to the Valar and Eldar. They allied themselves with Gil-galad and marched in the War of the Last Alliance, in which Isildur cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand. The followers of Elendil established two N\u00famen\u00f3rean realms in exile: Arnor, the high kingdom, in the North, and Gondor in the south. Some of the King's Men, enemies of Elendil, established other realms in exile to the south; of these Umbar was the chief. The culture of N\u00famenor became the dominant culture of Middle-earth (thus, Westron, a descendant of the Ad\u00fbnaic language of N\u00famenor became the lingua franca). The sadness and the shock from the loss of a whole continent lived ever after in the hearts of kings of N\u00famen\u00f3rean descent. Arda was made spherical, and Aman was put beyond it, out of the reach of mortal men. Sauron, although bereft of the shape in which he had wrought so great an evil that he could never appear fair in the eyes of men again, escaped from N\u00famenor and returned to Middle-earth once more, taking up the one ring once again.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Akallab\u00eath (The Downfallen in Ad\u00fbnaic; Quenya is Atalant\u00eb) is the story of the destruction of the Kingdom of N\u00famenor, written by Elendil. After the downfall of the Dark Lord Morgoth at the end of the First Age (which is described in the Quenta Silmarillion) the Edain, those Men who had aided the Elves in their war against Melkor were given N\u00famenor, a new small continent of their own, free from the evil and sadness of Middle-earth. It was located in the middle of the Great Ocean, between the western shores of Middle-earth, and the eastern shores of Aman, where the Valar dwelt. As they entered N\u00famenor, Men were forbidden to set sail towards Aman. For 2500 years N\u00famenor grew in might. N\u00famen\u00f3rean ships sailed the seas and established remote colonies in Middle-earth. During that time, the Elves of Middle-earth were engaged in a bitter fight with Morgoth's former servant Sauron, who had become the second Dark Lord. The Men of N\u00famenor aided the Elves under Gil-galad yet remaining in Middle-earth. But as time went on, Men became evil and rebelled against the Valar and the Elves, over the course of one and a half thousand years, desiring immortality. Tar-Palantir, the penultimate King, repented of the evil of his fathers, but it was too late. The last king, Ar-Pharaz\u00f4n, hearing that Sauron was striving for the domination of Men and threatening to destroy N\u00famenor, came with a great host to Middle-earth. Sauron's forces became afraid of the might of N\u00famenor, and fled from the service of their master. Perceiving that he could not overthrow N\u00famenor by strength of arms, Sauron"
      },
      {
        "text": " repented of the evil of his fathers, but it was too late. The last king, Ar-Pharaz\u00f4n, hearing that Sauron was striving for the domination of Men and threatening to destroy N\u00famenor, came with a great host to Middle-earth. Sauron's forces became afraid of the might of N\u00famenor, and fled from the service of their master. Perceiving that he could not overthrow N\u00famenor by strength of arms, Sauron humbled himself before the N\u00famen\u00f3rean King. Ar-Pharaz\u00f4n was not convinced and had Sauron taken as a prisoner to N\u00famenor. Soon he became the king's advisor, and corrupted the greater part of N\u00famenor to the worship of Morgoth, offering human sacrifices and cutting down Nimloth, the White Tree. During this time, N\u00famenor grew even more powerful thanks to Sauron's counsel, even as its people's joy and span of years lessened. Sauron convinced Ar-Pharaz\u00f4n to assail Aman and wrest immortality from the Valar, saying that great kings take what rightfully belongs to them. Sauron's desire was to destroy the N\u00famen\u00f3reans and their proud king with the wrath of the Valar (though not to destroy their kingdom), although he underestimated their power. When the Great Armament set foot on Aman, however, the Valar laid down their guardianship and called on Il\u00favatar, who broke and remade the world. Eru destroyed Ar-Pharaz\u00f4n and his N\u00famen\u00f3rean host, burying them under falling hills until the Dagor Dagorath. To Sauron's dismay, Il\u00favatar also had N\u00famenor sunk into the Belegaer, and Aman he removed forever from the circles of the world. The world that had been flat was now spherical, and Aman was only open to Elves"
      },
      {
        "text": " called on Il\u00favatar, who broke and remade the world. Eru destroyed Ar-Pharaz\u00f4n and his N\u00famen\u00f3rean host, burying them under falling hills until the Dagor Dagorath. To Sauron's dismay, Il\u00favatar also had N\u00famenor sunk into the Belegaer, and Aman he removed forever from the circles of the world. The world that had been flat was now spherical, and Aman was only open to Elves, who could still find the Straight Road. Nine ships carrying men of N\u00famen\u00f3rean royal blood, descendants of the Lords of And\u00fani\u00eb, of the House of Elros, were carried by the storm of the Downfall to the shores of Middle-earth. They were led by Elendil the Tall, and his two sons: Isildur and An\u00e1rion, bringing with them a seedling of the White Tree and the palant\u00edri. These and the N\u00famen\u00f3reans already living in Middle-earth carried the title of \"The Faithful\", signifying their continued devotion to the Valar and Eldar. They allied themselves with Gil-galad and marched in the War of the Last Alliance, in which Isildur cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand. The followers of Elendil established two N\u00famen\u00f3rean realms in exile: Arnor, the high kingdom, in the North, and Gondor in the south. Some of the King's Men, enemies of Elendil, established other realms in exile to the south; of these Umbar was the chief. The culture of N\u00famenor became the dominant culture of Middle-earth (thus, Westron, a descendant of the Ad\u00fbnaic language of N\u00famenor became the lingua franca). The sadness and the shock from the loss of a whole continent lived ever after in the hearts of kings of N\u00fa"
      },
      {
        "text": "or in the south. Some of the King's Men, enemies of Elendil, established other realms in exile to the south; of these Umbar was the chief. The culture of N\u00famenor became the dominant culture of Middle-earth (thus, Westron, a descendant of the Ad\u00fbnaic language of N\u00famenor became the lingua franca). The sadness and the shock from the loss of a whole continent lived ever after in the hearts of kings of N\u00famen\u00f3rean descent. Arda was made spherical, and Aman was put beyond it, out of the reach of mortal men. Sauron, although bereft of the shape in which he had wrought so great an evil that he could never appear fair in the eyes of men again, escaped from N\u00famenor and returned to Middle-earth once more, taking up the one ring once again.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Drawing of the Three",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1987-05",
    "synopsis": " The book begins less than seven hours after the end of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger after The Man in Black has described The Gunslinger's fate using tarot cards. Roland wakes up on a beach, where he is suddenly attacked by a strange, lobster-like creature, which he dubs a \"lobstrosity.\" He kills the creature but not before losing the index and middle finger of his right hand, and most of his right big toe; his untreated wounds soon become infected. Feverish and losing strength, Roland continues to trek north along the beach, where he eventually encounters three doors. Each door opens onto New York City at different periods in time (1987, 1964 and 1977, respectively) and, as Roland passes through these doors, he brings back the companions who will join him on his quest to the Dark Tower. The first door (labeled \"The Prisoner\") brings Eddie Dean, a heroin addict who is in the process of smuggling cocaine for the drug lord Enrico Balazar. Since Eddie was headed deeper into addiction (at the hands of his brother Henry) or prison (at the hands of the government), or worse (at the hands of his drug lord), he decides to throw his lot in with Roland, although with deep misgivings that he occasionally gives vent to in the form of angry outbursts. The second door (labeled \"The Lady of Shadows,\" so called for her multiple personalities and metaphorically, multiple shadows) reveals Odetta Holmes, a black woman who is active in the civil rights movement. She is wealthy and missing her legs below the knees after being pushed in front of a subway car. Odetta is completely unaware that she has an alternate personality, a violent, predatory woman named Detta. Roland and Eddie are forced to contend with both of these personalities when Odetta's body is forcibly abducted into their world. Instead of revealing a new companion, the third door (labeled \"The Pusher\") instead reveals a new adversary for Roland: Jack Mort, a sociopath who takes sadistic pleasure in injuring and killing random strangers — and the man responsible for the head trauma that created Odetta Holmes's alternate personality, the loss of Odetta/Detta's legs, and the death of Jake Chambers. Mort's murder of Jake led to Jake's appearance in The Gunslinger. Roland's decisions while dealing with Mort are crucial to later events in the series. The encounter results in the death of Jack Mort and the fusing of the personalities of Odetta and Detta to form a third woman, who will thenceforth be called Susannah. Although the Gunslinger does not bring \"The Pusher\" with him into his own world (as might be guessed based upon what has happened regarding the previous two doors), his quest for the Dark Tower is not lost, because Roland does draw his third. His third is Susannah; the result of Odetta and Detta's fusion of minds. Through his actions both in his world, and in Eddie, Susannah, and Jack Mort's world, Roland saves Eddie and Susannah. He saves Eddie by curing him of his addiction and bringing Susannah, whom Eddie loves. He saves Susannah by helping her fuse her former personalities, Odetta Holmes and Detta Walker, into a stronger single personality, Susannah Dean. Both owe their lives to Roland, and Roland is acutely aware that he may need to sacrifice them to reach the Tower. Each of these people is essential for Roland to continue his quest. They are all part of a ka-tet, defined as \"one made from many\" and \"sharing the same destiny.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book begins less than seven hours after the end of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger after The Man in Black has described The Gunslinger's fate using tarot cards. Roland wakes up on a beach, where he is suddenly attacked by a strange, lobster-like creature, which he dubs a \"lobstrosity.\" He kills the creature but not before losing the index and middle finger of his right hand, and most of his right big toe; his untreated wounds soon become infected. Feverish and losing strength, Roland continues to trek north along the beach, where he eventually encounters three doors. Each door opens onto New York City at different periods in time (1987, 1964 and 1977, respectively) and, as Roland passes through these doors, he brings back the companions who will join him on his quest to the Dark Tower. The first door (labeled \"The Prisoner\") brings Eddie Dean, a heroin addict who is in the process of smuggling cocaine for the drug lord Enrico Balazar. Since Eddie was headed deeper into addiction (at the hands of his brother Henry) or prison (at the hands of the government), or worse (at the hands of his drug lord), he decides to throw his lot in with Roland, although with deep misgivings that he occasionally gives vent to in the form of angry outbursts. The second door (labeled \"The Lady of Shadows,\" so called for her multiple personalities and metaphorically, multiple shadows) reveals Odetta Holmes, a black woman who is active in the civil rights movement. She is wealthy and missing her legs below the knees after being pushed in front of a subway car. Odetta is completely unaware that she has an alternate personality, a violent, predatory woman named Detta. Roland and Eddie are forced to contend with both of these personalities when Odetta's body is forcibly abducted into their world. Instead of revealing a new companion, the third door (labeled \"The Pusher\") instead"
      },
      {
        "text": " Odetta Holmes, a black woman who is active in the civil rights movement. She is wealthy and missing her legs below the knees after being pushed in front of a subway car. Odetta is completely unaware that she has an alternate personality, a violent, predatory woman named Detta. Roland and Eddie are forced to contend with both of these personalities when Odetta's body is forcibly abducted into their world. Instead of revealing a new companion, the third door (labeled \"The Pusher\") instead reveals a new adversary for Roland: Jack Mort, a sociopath who takes sadistic pleasure in injuring and killing random strangers — and the man responsible for the head trauma that created Odetta Holmes's alternate personality, the loss of Odetta/Detta's legs, and the death of Jake Chambers. Mort's murder of Jake led to Jake's appearance in The Gunslinger. Roland's decisions while dealing with Mort are crucial to later events in the series. The encounter results in the death of Jack Mort and the fusing of the personalities of Odetta and Detta to form a third woman, who will thenceforth be called Susannah. Although the Gunslinger does not bring \"The Pusher\" with him into his own world (as might be guessed based upon what has happened regarding the previous two doors), his quest for the Dark Tower is not lost, because Roland does draw his third. His third is Susannah; the result of Odetta and Detta's fusion of minds. Through his actions both in his world, and in Eddie, Susannah, and Jack Mort's world, Roland saves Eddie and Susannah. He saves Eddie by curing him of his addiction and bringing Susannah, whom Eddie loves. He saves Susannah by helping her fuse her former personalities, Odetta Holmes and Detta Walker, into a stronger single personality, Susannah Dean. Both owe their lives to Roland, and Roland is acutely aware that he may need to sacrifice them to reach the Tower"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Through his actions both in his world, and in Eddie, Susannah, and Jack Mort's world, Roland saves Eddie and Susannah. He saves Eddie by curing him of his addiction and bringing Susannah, whom Eddie loves. He saves Susannah by helping her fuse her former personalities, Odetta Holmes and Detta Walker, into a stronger single personality, Susannah Dean. Both owe their lives to Roland, and Roland is acutely aware that he may need to sacrifice them to reach the Tower. Each of these people is essential for Roland to continue his quest. They are all part of a ka-tet, defined as \"one made from many\" and \"sharing the same destiny.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Gunslinger",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1982-06-10",
    "synopsis": " It tells the story of the gunslinger, Roland of Gilead, and his quest to catch the man in black, the first of many steps towards his ultimate destination - the Dark Tower. The main story takes place in a world that is somewhat similar to the Old West but exists in an alternate time frame or parallel universe to ours. Roland exists in a place where \"the world has moved on.\" This world has a few things in common with our own, however, including memories of the song \"Hey Jude\" and the child's rhyme that begins \"Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit\". Vestiges of forgotten or skewed versions of real-world technology also appear, such as a reference to a gas pump that is worshipped as a god named \"Amoco\", and an abandoned way station with a water pump which is powered by an \"atomic slug\". As Roland travels across the desert with his mule in search of the man in black, he encounters Brown, a farmer, and Zoltan, his crow, who graciously offers to put him up for the night. While he is there, we learn of his time spent in Tull through a flashback. Tull was a small town which Roland came to not too long before the start of the novel. The man in black had passed through the town previously; he brought a dead man back to life, and left a trap for Roland: the town itself. After Roland spends some time there, the leader of the local church reveals to him that the man in black has impregnated her, and has turned her against Roland. She turns the entire town on Roland; men, women, and children. In order to escape with his life, Roland is forced to kill every resident of the town, including his lover, Allie. Telling this story seems cathartic for Roland. When he awakes the next day, his mule is dead, forcing him to proceed on foot. Before Roland leaves, Brown asks his permission to eat the mule. At the way station Roland first encounters Jake Chambers, who died in his own universe (presumably our own) when he was pushed in front of a car while walking to school in Manhattan. Roland is nearly dead when he makes it to the way station, and Jake brings him water and jerky while he is recovering. Jake does not know how long he has been at the way station, nor does he know exactly how he got there. He hid when the man in black passed by the way station. Roland hypnotizes him to determine the details of his death, but makes him forget before he awakes (since Jake's death was extremely violent and painful). Before they leave the way station they encounter a demon in the cellar while looking for food. After their palaver, Roland snatches the jawbone from the skeleton in the hole, from which the demon speaks. After leaving the way station, Jake and Roland eventually make their way out of the desert into more welcoming lands. Roland rescues Jake from an encounter with an oracle, and then couples with the oracle himself in order to learn more about his fate and path to the Dark Tower. Roland gives Jake the jawbone from the way station to focus on while he is gone. After Roland returns, Jake discards the jawbone. As Jake and Roland make their way closer to the mountain, Jake begins to fear what will become of him. In a flashback, we learn about Roland's chance encounter in a kitchen which leads to the hanging of Hax, the cook. The apprentice gunslingers are allowed to witness the hanging with their fathers' permission. Roland reveals how he was tricked into calling out his teacher Cort early, through the treachery of Marten. He succeeded in defeating Cort in battle through his ingenious weapon selection - his hawk, David. Jake and Roland make their way into the twisting tunnels below the mountain, propelled along by an ancient mine cart. During the journey, they are attacked by the \"Slow Mutants\", monstrous subterranean creatures. Roland fights the Slow Mutants off and they proceed. Eventually they find the Man in Black, and as Jake dangles precariously from the tracks, Roland comes to a pivotal choice; save Jake or pursue the Man in Black. Roland chooses to follow the Man in Black. Jake tells Roland, whilst hanging: \"Go then, there are other worlds than these.\" He lets go of the edge and falls without screaming. After sacrificing Jake in the mountain, Roland makes his way down to speak to the man in black. The man in black reads Roland's fate from a pack of cards, including \"the sailor\" (Jake), \"the prisoner\" (Eddie Dean) \"the lady of shadows\" (Odetta Holmes), \"death\" (but not for Roland), and the Tower itself, as the center of everything. The man in black states that he is merely a pawn of Roland's true enemy, the one who now controls the Dark Tower itself. The man in black creates a representation of the universe, attempting to frighten Roland by showing him how truly insignificant he is in the grand scheme of things, and asks him to give up his quest. Roland refuses, and is made to fall asleep by the man in black. When he wakes up, ten years have passed and there is a skeleton next to him \u2014 what he assumes to be the man in black. Roland then sits on the edge of the Western Sea, contemplating the three people he now is charged with bringing into All-World - the Prisoner, the Lady of Shadows, and the Pusher.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It tells the story of the gunslinger, Roland of Gilead, and his quest to catch the man in black, the first of many steps towards his ultimate destination - the Dark Tower. The main story takes place in a world that is somewhat similar to the Old West but exists in an alternate time frame or parallel universe to ours. Roland exists in a place where \"the world has moved on.\" This world has a few things in common with our own, however, including memories of the song \"Hey Jude\" and the child's rhyme that begins \"Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit\". Vestiges of forgotten or skewed versions of real-world technology also appear, such as a reference to a gas pump that is worshipped as a god named \"Amoco\", and an abandoned way station with a water pump which is powered by an \"atomic slug\". As Roland travels across the desert with his mule in search of the man in black, he encounters Brown, a farmer, and Zoltan, his crow, who graciously offers to put him up for the night. While he is there, we learn of his time spent in Tull through a flashback. Tull was a small town which Roland came to not too long before the start of the novel. The man in black had passed through the town previously; he brought a dead man back to life, and left a trap for Roland: the town itself. After Roland spends some time there, the leader of the local church reveals to him that the man in black has impregnated her, and has turned her against Roland. She turns the entire town on Roland; men, women, and children. In order to escape with his life, Roland is forced to kill every resident of the town, including his lover, Allie. Telling this story seems cathartic for Roland. When he awakes the next day, his mule is dead, forcing him to proceed on foot. Before Roland leaves,"
      },
      {
        "text": " local church reveals to him that the man in black has impregnated her, and has turned her against Roland. She turns the entire town on Roland; men, women, and children. In order to escape with his life, Roland is forced to kill every resident of the town, including his lover, Allie. Telling this story seems cathartic for Roland. When he awakes the next day, his mule is dead, forcing him to proceed on foot. Before Roland leaves, Brown asks his permission to eat the mule. At the way station Roland first encounters Jake Chambers, who died in his own universe (presumably our own) when he was pushed in front of a car while walking to school in Manhattan. Roland is nearly dead when he makes it to the way station, and Jake brings him water and jerky while he is recovering. Jake does not know how long he has been at the way station, nor does he know exactly how he got there. He hid when the man in black passed by the way station. Roland hypnotizes him to determine the details of his death, but makes him forget before he awakes (since Jake's death was extremely violent and painful). Before they leave the way station they encounter a demon in the cellar while looking for food. After their palaver, Roland snatches the jawbone from the skeleton in the hole, from which the demon speaks. After leaving the way station, Jake and Roland eventually make their way out of the desert into more welcoming lands. Roland rescues Jake from an encounter with an oracle, and then couples with the oracle himself in order to learn more about his fate and path to the Dark Tower. Roland gives Jake the jawbone from the way station to focus on while he is gone. After Roland returns, Jake discards the jawbone. As Jake and Roland make their way closer to the mountain, Jake begins to fear what will become of him. In a flashback, we learn about"
      },
      {
        "text": " the desert into more welcoming lands. Roland rescues Jake from an encounter with an oracle, and then couples with the oracle himself in order to learn more about his fate and path to the Dark Tower. Roland gives Jake the jawbone from the way station to focus on while he is gone. After Roland returns, Jake discards the jawbone. As Jake and Roland make their way closer to the mountain, Jake begins to fear what will become of him. In a flashback, we learn about Roland's chance encounter in a kitchen which leads to the hanging of Hax, the cook. The apprentice gunslingers are allowed to witness the hanging with their fathers' permission. Roland reveals how he was tricked into calling out his teacher Cort early, through the treachery of Marten. He succeeded in defeating Cort in battle through his ingenious weapon selection - his hawk, David. Jake and Roland make their way into the twisting tunnels below the mountain, propelled along by an ancient mine cart. During the journey, they are attacked by the \"Slow Mutants\", monstrous subterranean creatures. Roland fights the Slow Mutants off and they proceed. Eventually they find the Man in Black, and as Jake dangles precariously from the tracks, Roland comes to a pivotal choice; save Jake or pursue the Man in Black. Roland chooses to follow the Man in Black. Jake tells Roland, whilst hanging: \"Go then, there are other worlds than these.\" He lets go of the edge and falls without screaming. After sacrificing Jake in the mountain, Roland makes his way down to speak to the man in black. The man in black reads Roland's fate from a pack of cards, including \"the sailor\" (Jake), \"the prisoner\" (Eddie Dean) \"the lady of shadows\" (Odetta Holmes), \"death\" (but not for Roland), and the Tower itself, as the center of everything. The man in black states that he is merely a pawn of Roland's"
      },
      {
        "text": " screaming. After sacrificing Jake in the mountain, Roland makes his way down to speak to the man in black. The man in black reads Roland's fate from a pack of cards, including \"the sailor\" (Jake), \"the prisoner\" (Eddie Dean) \"the lady of shadows\" (Odetta Holmes), \"death\" (but not for Roland), and the Tower itself, as the center of everything. The man in black states that he is merely a pawn of Roland's true enemy, the one who now controls the Dark Tower itself. The man in black creates a representation of the universe, attempting to frighten Roland by showing him how truly insignificant he is in the grand scheme of things, and asks him to give up his quest. Roland refuses, and is made to fall asleep by the man in black. When he wakes up, ten years have passed and there is a skeleton next to him \u2014 what he assumes to be the man in black. Roland then sits on the edge of the Western Sea, contemplating the three people he now is charged with bringing into All-World - the Prisoner, the Lady of Shadows, and the Pusher.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "2000-10-03",
    "synopsis": " The first section of On Writing is an Autobiography mainly about King\u2019s early exposure to writing, and his childhood attempts at writing. King talks about his early attempts to get published, and his first novel Carrie. King also talks about his fame as a writer, and what it took to get there. This includes his relationship with his wife, the death of his mother and his history of drug and alcohol abuse. The second section is practical advice on writing, including tips on grammar and ideas about developing plot and character. King himself describes it as a guide for how \"a competent writer can become a good one.\" This includes his beliefs that a writer should edit out unnecessary details and avoid the use of unnecessary adverbs. He also uses quotes from other books and authors to illustrate his points. The third section is also autobiographical, in which King discusses the 1999 automobile accident in which he was struck by a vehicle while walking down an isolated country road. He describes serious injuries, his painful recovery and his struggle to start writing again. King includes part of a rough draft and an edited draft of his own story entitled \"1408\". In the United Kingdom paperback version, a short story by Garret Adams entitled \"Jumper\" was included at the end of the book, which was the winner of the On Writing competition.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first section of On Writing is an Autobiography mainly about King\u2019s early exposure to writing, and his childhood attempts at writing. King talks about his early attempts to get published, and his first novel Carrie. King also talks about his fame as a writer, and what it took to get there. This includes his relationship with his wife, the death of his mother and his history of drug and alcohol abuse. The second section is practical advice on writing, including tips on grammar and ideas about developing plot and character. King himself describes it as a guide for how \"a competent writer can become a good one.\" This includes his beliefs that a writer should edit out unnecessary details and avoid the use of unnecessary adverbs. He also uses quotes from other books and authors to illustrate his points. The third section is also autobiographical, in which King discusses the 1999 automobile accident in which he was struck by a vehicle while walking down an isolated country road. He describes serious injuries, his painful recovery and his struggle to start writing again. King includes part of a rough draft and an edited draft of his own story entitled \"1408\". In the United Kingdom paperback version, a short story by Garret Adams entitled \"Jumper\" was included at the end of the book, which was the winner of the On Writing competition.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Body",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1982",
    "synopsis": " Vern Tessio informs his three friends that he has overheard his older brother Billy talking with his friend Charlie Hogan, about the location of the corpse of Ray Brower, a boy from Chamberlain, a town 40 miles or so east of Castle Rock, who has gone missing, while going out to pick blueberries with one of his mother's pails. The four friends decide that they will find it so as to be famous. The boys walk along the railroad tracks toward the presumed location of the corpse. Along the way, they trespass at the town dump and are chased by trash-man Milo Pressman's dog \"Chopper\". Milo insults Teddy's father, which causes Teddy to unleash his anger on Milo. Gordie and Vern are nearly run over by a train while crossing a bridge. While at a resting point, Chris predicts that Gordie will grow up to become a famous writer \u2013 perhaps he will even write about his friends one day. When they finally find the spot where the body lies, a gang of bullies arrives just after they do. The gang is composed of Vern's older brother Billy, Charlie Hogan, Chris's older brother Richard \"Eyeball\" Chambers, Norman \"Fuzzy\" Bracowicz, John \"Ace\" Merrill, and two others. The older boys are upset to see the four friends, and during an argument, Chris pulls a gun belonging to his father from his bag back, that he took from his home and fires into the air and then threatens Ace, the leader of the gang. After a brief standoff Ace realizes that Chris is serious, and the teenagers leave. Having seen the body, the boys realize that there is nothing else to be done with it, and return home without further incident. The older boys ultimately decide to phone in the location of the body as an \"anonymous tip\" and it is eventually found by the authorities as a result. Some days after the confrontation, Ace and Fuzzy break Gordie's nose and fingers and kick him in the testicles, and are on the verge of harming him more seriously when they are run off by Gordie's neighbor, Aunt Evvie Chalmers. Chris's brother breaks his arm and \"leaves his face looking like a Canadian sunrise\". Teddy and Vern get less severe beatings. The boys refuse to identify their assailants to the authorities, and there are no further repercussions. The narration then goes into fast-forward. Gordon describes the next year or so briefly, stating that Teddy and Vern drift off, befriending some younger boys. In high school, just as Chris predicted, Gordie begins taking college-preparation courses. Unexpectedly, so does Chris. In spite of abuse from his father, taunts from his classmates and distrust from teachers and school counselors, he manages to be successful with help from Gordie. The final two chapters describe the fate of Gordie's three friends, none of whom survive past young adulthood. Vern is killed in a house fire after a party. Teddy, while under the influence of alcohol and drugs, crashes his car and he and his passengers are killed. Chris, who became an outstanding high school and college student and was in his second year of law school, is stabbed to death after trying to stop an argument in a fast-food restaurant. Gordon, the only survivor, continues to write stories through college, and publishes a number of them in small literary journals and men's magazines. His first novel becomes a best-seller, and a successful film. At the time of writing about the events in 1960, he has written seven novels about the supernatural. Gordon has a wife and three children. Gordon is also revealed to be a veteran of the Vietnam War and the counter-culture of the 1960s, occasionally referred to in the flash-forward narratives during the main story. Another story from Different Seasons, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is referenced in this story; Shawshank is described as one of Maine's state prisons. Ray Brower, the boy who went missing and the reason Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern took the camping trip to Back Harlow Road, is from Chamberlain, which is the setting for the King's first novel Carrie. Carrie, which takes place over ten years later but was written eight years earlier, features a reference to a Teddy Duchamp, but he is clearly not the same person as the Teddy of the novella. Jerusalem's Lot, from the novel 'Salem's Lot is referenced when the boys first listen to Gordie's Lard Ass story. The novel Cujo is referenced when Gordie compares the dog Chopper to Cujo. Aunt Evvie Chalmers is a minor character in Cujo, which is set twenty years later. A \"Constable Bannerman\" is mentioned in the story, but he clearly is not the same person as George Bannerman, the county sheriff who appears in Cujo and The Dead Zone. Ace Merrill and Vern Tessio later appear in \"Nona\" a short story from the collection Skeleton Crew. Ace Merrill later appears in the last King novel set in Castle Rock, Needful Things, as Mr. Gaunt's employee. He also remembers the happenings of The Body when four snot-nosed kids cheated him and his friends out of something they wanted. Aunt Evvie appears again in a flashback narrative told from the perspective of her niece Polly, one of the major characters in the story. In Lisa Rogak's unauthorized biography \"Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King,\" an accusation is made that an old friend of King's, George McLeod, was delighted to read that King's story \"The Body,\" was dedicated to him. Well into the story however, McLeod was shocked to learn that the story was about four boys that ventured off into the woods on an adventure. McLeod claimed that King had cribbed the idea from a short story he wrote, and requested a portion of the royalties from \"The Body\" and \"Stand by Me.\" King refused, McLeod sued, and the two were no longer friends. Since that time, King has refused fan requests to read manuscripts for advice, claiming that he is concerned that there can be further accusations of plagiarism in the future.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Vern Tessio informs his three friends that he has overheard his older brother Billy talking with his friend Charlie Hogan, about the location of the corpse of Ray Brower, a boy from Chamberlain, a town 40 miles or so east of Castle Rock, who has gone missing, while going out to pick blueberries with one of his mother's pails. The four friends decide that they will find it so as to be famous. The boys walk along the railroad tracks toward the presumed location of the corpse. Along the way, they trespass at the town dump and are chased by trash-man Milo Pressman's dog \"Chopper\". Milo insults Teddy's father, which causes Teddy to unleash his anger on Milo. Gordie and Vern are nearly run over by a train while crossing a bridge. While at a resting point, Chris predicts that Gordie will grow up to become a famous writer \u2013 perhaps he will even write about his friends one day. When they finally find the spot where the body lies, a gang of bullies arrives just after they do. The gang is composed of Vern's older brother Billy, Charlie Hogan, Chris's older brother Richard \"Eyeball\" Chambers, Norman \"Fuzzy\" Bracowicz, John \"Ace\" Merrill, and two others. The older boys are upset to see the four friends, and during an argument, Chris pulls a gun belonging to his father from his bag back, that he took from his home and fires into the air and then threatens Ace, the leader of the gang. After a brief standoff Ace realizes that Chris is serious, and the teenagers leave. Having seen the body, the boys realize that there is nothing else to be done with it, and return home without further incident. The older boys ultimately decide to phone in the location of the body as an \"anonymous tip\" and it is eventually found by the authorities as a result. Some days after the confrontation, Ace and Fuzzy break Gordie's nose and fingers"
      },
      {
        "text": " Ace, the leader of the gang. After a brief standoff Ace realizes that Chris is serious, and the teenagers leave. Having seen the body, the boys realize that there is nothing else to be done with it, and return home without further incident. The older boys ultimately decide to phone in the location of the body as an \"anonymous tip\" and it is eventually found by the authorities as a result. Some days after the confrontation, Ace and Fuzzy break Gordie's nose and fingers and kick him in the testicles, and are on the verge of harming him more seriously when they are run off by Gordie's neighbor, Aunt Evvie Chalmers. Chris's brother breaks his arm and \"leaves his face looking like a Canadian sunrise\". Teddy and Vern get less severe beatings. The boys refuse to identify their assailants to the authorities, and there are no further repercussions. The narration then goes into fast-forward. Gordon describes the next year or so briefly, stating that Teddy and Vern drift off, befriending some younger boys. In high school, just as Chris predicted, Gordie begins taking college-preparation courses. Unexpectedly, so does Chris. In spite of abuse from his father, taunts from his classmates and distrust from teachers and school counselors, he manages to be successful with help from Gordie. The final two chapters describe the fate of Gordie's three friends, none of whom survive past young adulthood. Vern is killed in a house fire after a party. Teddy, while under the influence of alcohol and drugs, crashes his car and he and his passengers are killed. Chris, who became an outstanding high school and college student and was in his second year of law school, is stabbed to death after trying to stop an argument in a fast-food restaurant. Gordon, the only survivor, continues to write stories through college, and publishes a number of them in small literary journals and men's magazines. His first novel becomes a best"
      },
      {
        "text": " house fire after a party. Teddy, while under the influence of alcohol and drugs, crashes his car and he and his passengers are killed. Chris, who became an outstanding high school and college student and was in his second year of law school, is stabbed to death after trying to stop an argument in a fast-food restaurant. Gordon, the only survivor, continues to write stories through college, and publishes a number of them in small literary journals and men's magazines. His first novel becomes a best-seller, and a successful film. At the time of writing about the events in 1960, he has written seven novels about the supernatural. Gordon has a wife and three children. Gordon is also revealed to be a veteran of the Vietnam War and the counter-culture of the 1960s, occasionally referred to in the flash-forward narratives during the main story. Another story from Different Seasons, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is referenced in this story; Shawshank is described as one of Maine's state prisons. Ray Brower, the boy who went missing and the reason Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern took the camping trip to Back Harlow Road, is from Chamberlain, which is the setting for the King's first novel Carrie. Carrie, which takes place over ten years later but was written eight years earlier, features a reference to a Teddy Duchamp, but he is clearly not the same person as the Teddy of the novella. Jerusalem's Lot, from the novel 'Salem's Lot is referenced when the boys first listen to Gordie's Lard Ass story. The novel Cujo is referenced when Gordie compares the dog Chopper to Cujo. Aunt Evvie Chalmers is a minor character in Cujo, which is set twenty years later. A \"Constable Bannerman\" is mentioned in the story, but he clearly is not the same person as George Bannerman, the county sheriff who appears in Cujo and The Dead"
      },
      {
        "text": " from the novel 'Salem's Lot is referenced when the boys first listen to Gordie's Lard Ass story. The novel Cujo is referenced when Gordie compares the dog Chopper to Cujo. Aunt Evvie Chalmers is a minor character in Cujo, which is set twenty years later. A \"Constable Bannerman\" is mentioned in the story, but he clearly is not the same person as George Bannerman, the county sheriff who appears in Cujo and The Dead Zone. Ace Merrill and Vern Tessio later appear in \"Nona\" a short story from the collection Skeleton Crew. Ace Merrill later appears in the last King novel set in Castle Rock, Needful Things, as Mr. Gaunt's employee. He also remembers the happenings of The Body when four snot-nosed kids cheated him and his friends out of something they wanted. Aunt Evvie appears again in a flashback narrative told from the perspective of her niece Polly, one of the major characters in the story. In Lisa Rogak's unauthorized biography \"Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King,\" an accusation is made that an old friend of King's, George McLeod, was delighted to read that King's story \"The Body,\" was dedicated to him. Well into the story however, McLeod was shocked to learn that the story was about four boys that ventured off into the woods on an adventure. McLeod claimed that King had cribbed the idea from a short story he wrote, and requested a portion of the royalties from \"The Body\" and \"Stand by Me.\" King refused, McLeod sued, and the two were no longer friends. Since that time, King has refused fan requests to read manuscripts for advice, claiming that he is concerned that there can be further accusations of plagiarism in the future.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " short story he wrote, and requested a portion of the royalties from \"The Body\" and \"Stand by Me.\" King refused, McLeod sued, and the two were no longer friends. Since that time, King has refused fan requests to read manuscripts for advice, claiming that he is concerned that there can be further accusations of plagiarism in the future.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Wizard and Glass",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1997-11-04",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins where The Waste Lands ended. After Jake, Eddie, Susannah and Roland fruitlessly riddle Blaine the Mono for several hours, Eddie defeats the mad computer by telling childish jokes. Blaine is unable to handle Eddie's \"illogical\" riddles, and short-circuits. The four gunslingers and Oy the billy-bumbler disembark at the Topeka railway station, which to their surprise is located in the Topeka, Kansas, of the 1980s. The city is deserted, as this version of the world has been depopulated by the influenza of King's novel The Stand. Links between these books also include the following reference to The Walkin' Dude from The Stand on page 95, \"Someone had spray-painted over both signs marking the ramp's ascending curve. On the one reading St. Louis 215, someone had slashed watch out for the walking dude.\"(King, 2003, pg 95) among others. The world also has some other minor differences with the one (or more) known to Eddie, Jake and Susannah, for instance, the Kansas City baseball team is the Monarchs (as opposed to the Royals), and Nozz-A-La is a popular soft drink. The ka-tet leaves the city via the Kansas Turnpike, and as they camp one night next to an eerie dimensional hole which Roland calls a \"thinny,\" the gunslinger tells his apprentices of his past, and his first encounter with a thinny. At the beginning of the story-within-the-story, Roland (age fourteen) earns his guns\u2014an episode retold in the inaugural issue of The Gunslinger Born \u2014and becomes the youngest gunslinger in memory. He did it because he discovered his father's trusted counsellor, the sorcerer Marten Broadcloak, having an affair with his mother, Gabrielle Deschain. In anger, Roland challenges his mentor, Cort, to a duel to earn his guns. Roland bests his teacher, and his father sends him east, away from Gilead, for his own protection. Roland leaves with two companions, Cuthbert Allgood and Alain Johns. Soon after their arrival in the distant Barony of Mejis, Roland falls in love with Susan Delgado, the promised \"gilly\" of Thorin\u2014the mayor. His love for Susan Delgado clouds his reasoning for a time and nearly results in a permanent split between him and his previously inseparable friend Cuthbert. He and his ka-tet also discover a plot between the Barony's elite and \"The Good Man\" John Farson, leader of a rebel faction, to fuel Farson's war machines with Mejis oil. After being seized by the authorities on trumped-up charges of murdering the Barony's Mayor and Chancellor, Roland's ka-tet manages to escape jail with Susan's help, destroy the oil and the detachment Farson sent to transport it, as well as the Mejis traitors. The battle ends at Eyebolt Canyon, where Farson's troops are maneuvered into charging to their deaths into a thinny. The ka-tet also captures the pink-colored Wizard's Glass, a mystical, malevolent orb or crystal ball from the town witch, Rhea of the C\u00f6os. The globe had entranced Rhea so much that she was starving herself and her pets to death because she spent every free moment watching the visions in the orb. The glass then shows Roland a vision of his future, and also of Susan's death (she is burned as a harvest sacrifice for colluding with Roland). The visions send him into a stupor, from which he eventually recovers\u2014at which point the glass torments him with other visions, this time of events that he was not present for but nonetheless shaped his fate and Susan's, such is the nature of the Wizard's Glass. Thus Roland's sad tale comes to a close. In the morning, Roland's new ka-tet comes to a suspiciously familiar Emerald City. The Wizard of Oz parallels continue inside, where the Wizard is revealed to be Marten Broadcloak, also known as Randall Flagg, who flees when Roland attempts to kill him with Jake's Ruger and narrowly misses (Flagg has bewitched Roland's own guns, saying, \"Only misfires against me, Roland, old fellow\"). In his place he leaves Maerlyn's Grapefruit, which shows the ka-tet the day Roland accidentally killed his own mother. Roland, it has been explained time and again, tends to be very bad medicine for his friends and loved ones. Nonetheless, when given the choice, Eddie, Susannah and Jake all refuse to swear off the quest; and as the novel closes, the ka-tet once more sets off for The Dark Tower, following the Path of the Beam.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins where The Waste Lands ended. After Jake, Eddie, Susannah and Roland fruitlessly riddle Blaine the Mono for several hours, Eddie defeats the mad computer by telling childish jokes. Blaine is unable to handle Eddie's \"illogical\" riddles, and short-circuits. The four gunslingers and Oy the billy-bumbler disembark at the Topeka railway station, which to their surprise is located in the Topeka, Kansas, of the 1980s. The city is deserted, as this version of the world has been depopulated by the influenza of King's novel The Stand. Links between these books also include the following reference to The Walkin' Dude from The Stand on page 95, \"Someone had spray-painted over both signs marking the ramp's ascending curve. On the one reading St. Louis 215, someone had slashed watch out for the walking dude.\"(King, 2003, pg 95) among others. The world also has some other minor differences with the one (or more) known to Eddie, Jake and Susannah, for instance, the Kansas City baseball team is the Monarchs (as opposed to the Royals), and Nozz-A-La is a popular soft drink. The ka-tet leaves the city via the Kansas Turnpike, and as they camp one night next to an eerie dimensional hole which Roland calls a \"thinny,\" the gunslinger tells his apprentices of his past, and his first encounter with a thinny. At the beginning of the story-within-the-story, Roland (age fourteen) earns his guns\u2014an episode retold in the inaugural issue of The Gunslinger Born \u2014and becomes the youngest gunslinger in memory. He did it because he discovered his father's trusted counsellor, the sorcerer Marten Broadcloak, having an affair with his mother, Gabrielle Deschain. In anger, Roland challenges his mentor, Cort, to a duel to earn his"
      },
      {
        "text": " with a thinny. At the beginning of the story-within-the-story, Roland (age fourteen) earns his guns\u2014an episode retold in the inaugural issue of The Gunslinger Born \u2014and becomes the youngest gunslinger in memory. He did it because he discovered his father's trusted counsellor, the sorcerer Marten Broadcloak, having an affair with his mother, Gabrielle Deschain. In anger, Roland challenges his mentor, Cort, to a duel to earn his guns. Roland bests his teacher, and his father sends him east, away from Gilead, for his own protection. Roland leaves with two companions, Cuthbert Allgood and Alain Johns. Soon after their arrival in the distant Barony of Mejis, Roland falls in love with Susan Delgado, the promised \"gilly\" of Thorin\u2014the mayor. His love for Susan Delgado clouds his reasoning for a time and nearly results in a permanent split between him and his previously inseparable friend Cuthbert. He and his ka-tet also discover a plot between the Barony's elite and \"The Good Man\" John Farson, leader of a rebel faction, to fuel Farson's war machines with Mejis oil. After being seized by the authorities on trumped-up charges of murdering the Barony's Mayor and Chancellor, Roland's ka-tet manages to escape jail with Susan's help, destroy the oil and the detachment Farson sent to transport it, as well as the Mejis traitors. The battle ends at Eyebolt Canyon, where Farson's troops are maneuvered into charging to their deaths into a thinny. The ka-tet also captures the pink-colored Wizard's Glass, a mystical, malevolent orb or crystal ball from the town witch, Rhea of the C\u00f6os. The globe had entranced Rhea so much that she was starving herself and her pets to death because"
      },
      {
        "text": " sent to transport it, as well as the Mejis traitors. The battle ends at Eyebolt Canyon, where Farson's troops are maneuvered into charging to their deaths into a thinny. The ka-tet also captures the pink-colored Wizard's Glass, a mystical, malevolent orb or crystal ball from the town witch, Rhea of the C\u00f6os. The globe had entranced Rhea so much that she was starving herself and her pets to death because she spent every free moment watching the visions in the orb. The glass then shows Roland a vision of his future, and also of Susan's death (she is burned as a harvest sacrifice for colluding with Roland). The visions send him into a stupor, from which he eventually recovers\u2014at which point the glass torments him with other visions, this time of events that he was not present for but nonetheless shaped his fate and Susan's, such is the nature of the Wizard's Glass. Thus Roland's sad tale comes to a close. In the morning, Roland's new ka-tet comes to a suspiciously familiar Emerald City. The Wizard of Oz parallels continue inside, where the Wizard is revealed to be Marten Broadcloak, also known as Randall Flagg, who flees when Roland attempts to kill him with Jake's Ruger and narrowly misses (Flagg has bewitched Roland's own guns, saying, \"Only misfires against me, Roland, old fellow\"). In his place he leaves Maerlyn's Grapefruit, which shows the ka-tet the day Roland accidentally killed his own mother. Roland, it has been explained time and again, tends to be very bad medicine for his friends and loved ones. Nonetheless, when given the choice, Eddie, Susannah and Jake all refuse to swear off the quest; and as the novel closes, the ka-tet once more sets off for The Dark Tower, following the Path of the Beam."
      },
      {
        "text": "\"). In his place he leaves Maerlyn's Grapefruit, which shows the ka-tet the day Roland accidentally killed his own mother. Roland, it has been explained time and again, tends to be very bad medicine for his friends and loved ones. Nonetheless, when given the choice, Eddie, Susannah and Jake all refuse to swear off the quest; and as the novel closes, the ka-tet once more sets off for The Dark Tower, following the Path of the Beam.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Waste Lands",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1991-08",
    "synopsis": " The story begins five weeks after the end of The Drawing of the Three. Roland, Susannah, and Eddie have moved east from the shore of the Western Sea, and into the woods of Out-World. After an encounter with a gigantic cyborg bear named Shardik, they discover one of the six mystical Beams that hold the world together. The three gunslingers follow the Path of the Beam inland to Mid-World. Roland now reveals to his ka-tet that his mind has become divided by the paradox of having let Jake Chambers die under the mountain after finding him at the Way Station in the desert, and yet also, after having subsequently prevented Jake's earlier death in New York City, having an alternate memory of traveling through the desert and mountains alone. Meanwhile, in 1977 New York, Jake Chambers is experiencing exactly the same crippling mental divide, which is causing alarm at his private school, and angering Jake's cocaine abusing father. Roland burns Walter's jawbone and the key to his and Jake's dilemma is revealed\u2014but to Eddie Dean, not Roland. Eddie must carve a key that will open the door to New York in 1977. Jake, in a schizophrenic panic, abruptly leaves school. After purchasing a children's book called Charlie the Choo-Choo at a used book shop, Jake finds a key in a littered vacant lot where grows a single red rose. Jake is able to pass into Roland's world using the key to open a door in an abandoned haunted house on Dutch Hill in his place and time. This portal ends in a 'speaking ring' in Roland's world. During this crossing over, Susannah has sex with the demon of the speaking ring to keep it from attacking Eddie. Once the group is reunited, Jake's and Roland's mental anguish ends. Following the path of the beam again, the ka-tet befriends an unusually intelligent billy-bumbler (which looks like a combination of badger, raccoon and dog with parrot-like speaking ability, long neck, curly tail, retractable claws and a high degree of animal intelligence) named Oy, who joins them on their quest. In a small, almost deserted town called River Crossing, Roland is given a silver cross and a courtly tribute by the town's last, ancient citizens. The ka-tet continue on the Path of the Beam to Lud. Before arriving at Lud, the ka-tet hear the drum beat from the song Velcro Fly, by ZZ Top, playing from the city, although Eddie at first can't remember where it is he has heard these drums before. Later the drums are revealed as \"War Drums\" which Lud's citizens fight to. The ancient, high-tech city has been ravaged by decades of war, and one of the surviving fighters, Gasher, kidnaps Jake by taking advantage of the near-accident the team faced while crossing a decaying bridge that looks like the George Washington Bridge of NYC. Roland and Oy must then trace them through a man-made labyrinth in the city and then into the sewers in order to rescue the boy from Gasher and his leader, the Tick-Tock Man. Jake manages to shoot the Tick-Tock Man, leaving him for dead. The ka-tet is eventually reunited at the Cradle of Lud, a train station which houses a monorail that the travelers use to escape Lud before its final destruction brought about by the monorail's artificial intelligence known as Blaine the Mono. The \"Ageless Stranger\" (an enemy whom the Man in Black warned Roland that he must slay) arrives to recruit the badly-injured Tick-Tock Man as his servant. Once aboard Blaine, a highly intelligent, computerized train which is insane due to system degradation, it announces its intention to derail itself with them aboard unless they can defeat it in a riddle contest. The novel ends with Blaine and Roland's ka-tet speeding through the Waste Lands, a radioactive land of mutated animals and ancient ruins created by something that is claimed to have been far worse than a nuclear war, on the way to Topeka -the end of the line.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins five weeks after the end of The Drawing of the Three. Roland, Susannah, and Eddie have moved east from the shore of the Western Sea, and into the woods of Out-World. After an encounter with a gigantic cyborg bear named Shardik, they discover one of the six mystical Beams that hold the world together. The three gunslingers follow the Path of the Beam inland to Mid-World. Roland now reveals to his ka-tet that his mind has become divided by the paradox of having let Jake Chambers die under the mountain after finding him at the Way Station in the desert, and yet also, after having subsequently prevented Jake's earlier death in New York City, having an alternate memory of traveling through the desert and mountains alone. Meanwhile, in 1977 New York, Jake Chambers is experiencing exactly the same crippling mental divide, which is causing alarm at his private school, and angering Jake's cocaine abusing father. Roland burns Walter's jawbone and the key to his and Jake's dilemma is revealed\u2014but to Eddie Dean, not Roland. Eddie must carve a key that will open the door to New York in 1977. Jake, in a schizophrenic panic, abruptly leaves school. After purchasing a children's book called Charlie the Choo-Choo at a used book shop, Jake finds a key in a littered vacant lot where grows a single red rose. Jake is able to pass into Roland's world using the key to open a door in an abandoned haunted house on Dutch Hill in his place and time. This portal ends in a 'speaking ring' in Roland's world. During this crossing over, Susannah has sex with the demon of the speaking ring to keep it from attacking Eddie. Once the group is reunited, Jake's and Roland's mental anguish ends. Following the path of the beam again, the ka-tet befriends an unusually intelligent billy-bumbler (which looks like a combination of badger, raccoon and"
      },
      {
        "text": " haunted house on Dutch Hill in his place and time. This portal ends in a 'speaking ring' in Roland's world. During this crossing over, Susannah has sex with the demon of the speaking ring to keep it from attacking Eddie. Once the group is reunited, Jake's and Roland's mental anguish ends. Following the path of the beam again, the ka-tet befriends an unusually intelligent billy-bumbler (which looks like a combination of badger, raccoon and dog with parrot-like speaking ability, long neck, curly tail, retractable claws and a high degree of animal intelligence) named Oy, who joins them on their quest. In a small, almost deserted town called River Crossing, Roland is given a silver cross and a courtly tribute by the town's last, ancient citizens. The ka-tet continue on the Path of the Beam to Lud. Before arriving at Lud, the ka-tet hear the drum beat from the song Velcro Fly, by ZZ Top, playing from the city, although Eddie at first can't remember where it is he has heard these drums before. Later the drums are revealed as \"War Drums\" which Lud's citizens fight to. The ancient, high-tech city has been ravaged by decades of war, and one of the surviving fighters, Gasher, kidnaps Jake by taking advantage of the near-accident the team faced while crossing a decaying bridge that looks like the George Washington Bridge of NYC. Roland and Oy must then trace them through a man-made labyrinth in the city and then into the sewers in order to rescue the boy from Gasher and his leader, the Tick-Tock Man. Jake manages to shoot the Tick-Tock Man, leaving him for dead. The ka-tet is eventually reunited at the Cradle of Lud, a train station which houses a monorail that the travelers use to escape Lud before its final destruction brought about by the"
      },
      {
        "text": " of NYC. Roland and Oy must then trace them through a man-made labyrinth in the city and then into the sewers in order to rescue the boy from Gasher and his leader, the Tick-Tock Man. Jake manages to shoot the Tick-Tock Man, leaving him for dead. The ka-tet is eventually reunited at the Cradle of Lud, a train station which houses a monorail that the travelers use to escape Lud before its final destruction brought about by the monorail's artificial intelligence known as Blaine the Mono. The \"Ageless Stranger\" (an enemy whom the Man in Black warned Roland that he must slay) arrives to recruit the badly-injured Tick-Tock Man as his servant. Once aboard Blaine, a highly intelligent, computerized train which is insane due to system degradation, it announces its intention to derail itself with them aboard unless they can defeat it in a riddle contest. The novel ends with Blaine and Roland's ka-tet speeding through the Waste Lands, a radioactive land of mutated animals and ancient ruins created by something that is claimed to have been far worse than a nuclear war, on the way to Topeka -the end of the line.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Eyes of the Dragon",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1987-02-02",
    "synopsis": " The Eyes of the Dragon takes place entirely within the realm of Delain (which itself is located within In-World from The Dark Tower series). It is told from the perspective of an unnamed storyteller/narrator, who speaks casually and frankly to the reader, frequently adding his own commentary on characters' motivations and the like. The King's magician, Flagg, seeking to destroy the Kingdom of Delain, sees his plans being ruined by the good heart of Queen Sasha. After Sasha gives birth to Peter, a noble and worthy future king, Flagg realizes that his position, his plans, and his life may be in danger because of Peter. When Sasha is pregnant with a second son, Flagg seizes the opportunity. He forces the Queen's midwife to cut Sasha as the second son, Thomas, is born. Sasha bleeds to death and Flagg begins plotting to remove Peter. As Peter becomes a teenager, he begins the custom of bringing a glass of wine to his father before bed each night. Flagg decides to use this as a means of framing Peter. He dissolves a poison called \"Dragon Sand\" in a glass of wine and delivers it to the king after Peter leaves. Previously, in an attempt to win Thomas' friendship, Flagg had shown him a secret passage where Thomas could spy on his father. Unbeknownst to Flagg, when he delivers the poison, Thomas is watching through the glass eyes of the mounted head of Roland's greatest trophy, the dragon. Flagg plants evidence incriminating Peter. After a brief trial, during which the judge decides Peter is guilty, he is locked up in the enormous tower called the Needle in the center of the city. Thomas is then crowned King, although he is only twelve years old; due to his youth and his fearful inexperience, he allows Flagg enormous amounts of power. At the start of his long stay in the Needle, Peter manages to send a note to the judge who convicted him, Anders Peyna, with the seemingly innocuous requests to have his mother's old dollhouse and napkins with his meals. Peyna is puzzled by the requests, but, seeing no harm in them, grants them. Five years later, Peter escapes from the Needle, having used the toy loom in the dollhouse and threads from the napkins to make a rope. After the escape he and his allies rush to get Roland\u2019s bow and arrow. However, it is not to be found because Thomas had it once they got into the king's \"sitting room\". Flagg, now revealed as a demonic being, is about to kill them when Thomas reveals himself and tells Flagg that he (Thomas) watched Flagg poison Roland. Thomas shoots Flagg in the eye, but Flagg uses magic to disappear and escape. At the end of the novel, Peter is declared to be the rightful king. Thomas, who has become deeply hated in Delain, sets off alongside his butler, Dennis, to find Flagg. They find him and they confront him, but the narrator does not reveal the outcome.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Eyes of the Dragon takes place entirely within the realm of Delain (which itself is located within In-World from The Dark Tower series). It is told from the perspective of an unnamed storyteller/narrator, who speaks casually and frankly to the reader, frequently adding his own commentary on characters' motivations and the like. The King's magician, Flagg, seeking to destroy the Kingdom of Delain, sees his plans being ruined by the good heart of Queen Sasha. After Sasha gives birth to Peter, a noble and worthy future king, Flagg realizes that his position, his plans, and his life may be in danger because of Peter. When Sasha is pregnant with a second son, Flagg seizes the opportunity. He forces the Queen's midwife to cut Sasha as the second son, Thomas, is born. Sasha bleeds to death and Flagg begins plotting to remove Peter. As Peter becomes a teenager, he begins the custom of bringing a glass of wine to his father before bed each night. Flagg decides to use this as a means of framing Peter. He dissolves a poison called \"Dragon Sand\" in a glass of wine and delivers it to the king after Peter leaves. Previously, in an attempt to win Thomas' friendship, Flagg had shown him a secret passage where Thomas could spy on his father. Unbeknownst to Flagg, when he delivers the poison, Thomas is watching through the glass eyes of the mounted head of Roland's greatest trophy, the dragon. Flagg plants evidence incriminating Peter. After a brief trial, during which the judge decides Peter is guilty, he is locked up in the enormous tower called the Needle in the center of the city. Thomas is then crowned King, although he is only twelve years old; due to his youth and his fearful inexperience, he allows Flagg enormous amounts of power. At the start of his long stay in the Needle, Peter manages to send a note to the"
      },
      {
        "text": " greatest trophy, the dragon. Flagg plants evidence incriminating Peter. After a brief trial, during which the judge decides Peter is guilty, he is locked up in the enormous tower called the Needle in the center of the city. Thomas is then crowned King, although he is only twelve years old; due to his youth and his fearful inexperience, he allows Flagg enormous amounts of power. At the start of his long stay in the Needle, Peter manages to send a note to the judge who convicted him, Anders Peyna, with the seemingly innocuous requests to have his mother's old dollhouse and napkins with his meals. Peyna is puzzled by the requests, but, seeing no harm in them, grants them. Five years later, Peter escapes from the Needle, having used the toy loom in the dollhouse and threads from the napkins to make a rope. After the escape he and his allies rush to get Roland\u2019s bow and arrow. However, it is not to be found because Thomas had it once they got into the king's \"sitting room\". Flagg, now revealed as a demonic being, is about to kill them when Thomas reveals himself and tells Flagg that he (Thomas) watched Flagg poison Roland. Thomas shoots Flagg in the eye, but Flagg uses magic to disappear and escape. At the end of the novel, Peter is declared to be the rightful king. Thomas, who has become deeply hated in Delain, sets off alongside his butler, Dennis, to find Flagg. They find him and they confront him, but the narrator does not reveal the outcome.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", sets off alongside his butler, Dennis, to find Flagg. They find him and they confront him, but the narrator does not reveal the outcome.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Riding the Bullet",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Alan Parker is a student at the University of Maine who is trying to find himself. He gets a call from a neighbor in his hometown, Lewiston, telling him that his mother has been taken to the hospital after having a stroke. Lacking a functioning car, Parker decides to hitchhike the 120-miles south to visit his mother. His first ride is with an old man who continually tugs at his crotch in a car that stinks of urine. Happy to escape this ride, Alan starts walking, thumbing his next ride. Coming upon a graveyard, Alan notices a headstone for a stranger named George Staub (Staub is German and means dust): \"Well Begun, Too Soon Done.\" Sure enough, the next car to pick him up is George Staub, complete with black stitches around his neck where his head had been sewn on after being severed and wearing a button saying \"I rode The Bullet at Thrill Village, Laconia.\" During the ride, George talks to Alan about the amusement park ride he was too scared to ride as a kid: The Bullet in Thrill Village, Laconia, New Hampshire. George tells Alan that before they reach the lights of town, Alan must choose who goes on the death ride with George: Alan or his mother. In a moment of fright, Alan saves himself and tells him to \"Take her. Take my Mother.\" George shoves Alan out of the car, where he reappears alone at the graveyard, wearing the \"I Rode the Bullet at Thrill Village\" button. Alan eventually reaches the hospital, despite his guilt and the impending feeling that his mother is dead or will die any moment, his mother is fine. Alan takes the button and treasures it as a good (or bad) luck charm, his mother returns to work and to smoking, he graduates and takes care of his mother for several years and another stroke. One day he loses the button and knows what the phone call was about.... He finds the button underneath his mother's bed, and after a final moment of sadness, guilt, and meditation, decides to carry on.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Alan Parker is a student at the University of Maine who is trying to find himself. He gets a call from a neighbor in his hometown, Lewiston, telling him that his mother has been taken to the hospital after having a stroke. Lacking a functioning car, Parker decides to hitchhike the 120-miles south to visit his mother. His first ride is with an old man who continually tugs at his crotch in a car that stinks of urine. Happy to escape this ride, Alan starts walking, thumbing his next ride. Coming upon a graveyard, Alan notices a headstone for a stranger named George Staub (Staub is German and means dust): \"Well Begun, Too Soon Done.\" Sure enough, the next car to pick him up is George Staub, complete with black stitches around his neck where his head had been sewn on after being severed and wearing a button saying \"I rode The Bullet at Thrill Village, Laconia.\" During the ride, George talks to Alan about the amusement park ride he was too scared to ride as a kid: The Bullet in Thrill Village, Laconia, New Hampshire. George tells Alan that before they reach the lights of town, Alan must choose who goes on the death ride with George: Alan or his mother. In a moment of fright, Alan saves himself and tells him to \"Take her. Take my Mother.\" George shoves Alan out of the car, where he reappears alone at the graveyard, wearing the \"I Rode the Bullet at Thrill Village\" button. Alan eventually reaches the hospital, despite his guilt and the impending feeling that his mother is dead or will die any moment, his mother is fine. Alan takes the button and treasures it as a good (or bad) luck charm, his mother returns to work and to smoking, he graduates and takes care of his mother for several years and another stroke. One day he loses the button and knows what the phone call"
      },
      {
        "text": " the graveyard, wearing the \"I Rode the Bullet at Thrill Village\" button. Alan eventually reaches the hospital, despite his guilt and the impending feeling that his mother is dead or will die any moment, his mother is fine. Alan takes the button and treasures it as a good (or bad) luck charm, his mother returns to work and to smoking, he graduates and takes care of his mother for several years and another stroke. One day he loses the button and knows what the phone call was about.... He finds the button underneath his mother's bed, and after a final moment of sadness, guilt, and meditation, decides to carry on.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dolores Claiborne",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " As the story begins, Dolores Claiborne is in a police interrogation and wants to make clear to the police that she did not kill her wealthy employer, an elderly woman named Vera Donovan whom she has looked after for years. She does, however, confess to the murder of her husband, Joe St. George, almost 30 years before, after finding out that he sexually molested their fourteen year old daughter, Selena. Dolores's \"confession\" develops into the story of her life, her troubled marriage, and her relationship with her employer. Unlike many other works by King, there is little focus on the supernatural; the only such event in the book are two telepathic visions, which form a link to King's novel Gerald's Game; although reviewer Sean Piccoli observed the novel otherwise contained \"vintage bone-yard King: the tiny town, the secret lives. Murder and mayhem lurk reliably behind the tranquil veneer.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As the story begins, Dolores Claiborne is in a police interrogation and wants to make clear to the police that she did not kill her wealthy employer, an elderly woman named Vera Donovan whom she has looked after for years. She does, however, confess to the murder of her husband, Joe St. George, almost 30 years before, after finding out that he sexually molested their fourteen year old daughter, Selena. Dolores's \"confession\" develops into the story of her life, her troubled marriage, and her relationship with her employer. Unlike many other works by King, there is little focus on the supernatural; the only such event in the book are two telepathic visions, which form a link to King's novel Gerald's Game; although reviewer Sean Piccoli observed the novel otherwise contained \"vintage bone-yard King: the tiny town, the secret lives. Murder and mayhem lurk reliably behind the tranquil veneer.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Gerald's Game",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story begins with Jessie Burlingame and her husband Gerald in the bedroom of their secluded cabin in western Maine, where they have gone for an off-beat romantic weekend. Gerald, a successful lawyer with an aggressive personality, has been able to reinvigorate the couple's sex life by handcuffing Jessie to the bed. Jessie has been into the game before, but suddenly balks. As Gerald starts to crawl on top of her, knowing her protests are real but ignoring them anyway, she kicks him in the stomach and in the groin, and he then has a heart attack, falls from the bed to the floor, cracks his head, and dies. Jessie is alone in the cabin and unable to move or summon help. The only things that show up are a hungry stray dog named Prince that starts feeding on Gerald's body and a terrifying, deformed apparition that may or may not be real, whom Jessie first mistakes for the ghost of her long dead father but dismisses it later. Jessie begins to think of this bizarre visitor as \"The Space Cowboy\" (after a line from a Steve Miller song, \"The Joker\"). A combination of panic and thirst eventually causes Jessie to hallucinate. She hears voices in her head, each one ostensibly the voice of a person in her life, primarily \"The Goodwife\" or \"Goody Burlingame\" (a somewhat Puritanical version of Jessie), Ruth Neary (an old college friend), and Nora Callighan (her ex-psychiatrist), both of whom Jessie hasn't spoken to in decades. These voices represent different parts of her personality which help her extract a painful childhood memory she has kept suppressed for many years. She was sexually abused by her father at age ten during a solar eclipse that occurred in her Maine hometown. She also begins to realize how unhappy her marriage was, and that she sacrificed the life she wanted for the security of Gerald's paycheck by being a trophy wife without children. This internal dialogue is mixed with descriptions of Jessie's more and more desperate attempts to get out of the handcuffs, first by trying to break the headboard she was cuffed to then by trying to slip off the bed and push the bed to the bureau where the keys were placed. Finally she does escape after one of the voices in her head tells her that if she stays another night, The Space Cowboy, who she dreamed of as a manifestation of Death, will more than likely take a part of her to add to its trophy \"fishing creel\" filled with jewelry and human bones, killing her in the process. Jessie escapes the handcuffs by slicing her arm open all the way around on a broken glass and giving herself a degloving injury in order to lubricate her skin enough for the cuffs, which were made for men and not women and thus almost loose enough for her to slip out normally, to slide off her right hand. She is then able to move behind the bed, push it over to the bureau and use one of the keys to unlock her left handcuff. However, she has lost a lot of blood and passes out shortly after. When she awakens, it is now nighttime, and the Space Cowboy has made his way back into the house. Jessie confronts him and throws her wedding ring at his box of jewelry and bones, thinking that is what he wanted all along, then turns and runs out of the house. She is able to make it into her car and finally escape the house, but is terrified to discover the Space Cowboy sitting in the backseat of the car. Jessie crashes out of fear and is knocked unconscious, and it is later revealed that she only imagined the Space Cowboy in the backseat. The story cuts to months later with Jessie recuperating from the incident and being looked after by a nurse. An ambitious associate attorney at Gerald's law firm assists her in covering up the real incident to protect her and the law firm from scandal, as well as assisting her in her recuperation. At the end, we get to read the letter that Jessie writes to Ruth Neary, detailing what happened after the incident and her recuperation process, which is slow but very meaningful. One of the passages in the letter revolves around a serial necrophiliac and murderer named Raymond Andrew Joubert making his way through Maine; it turns out he was the Space Cowboy, confirmed when Jessie confronted him in a court hearing and Joubert mimicked Jessie's arm positions while she was in the handcuffs. He also repeated her frightened exclamations that Joubert was \"not anyone,\" and that he was only \"made of moonlight.\" Jessie also mentions what became of Prince who gnawed on Gerald. He is shot and killed. Initially, his owner had abandoned him in Maine and driven back to Massachusetts, simply because he didn't want to pay for the dog's license. The only true supernatural event in the story occurs as described during one of Jessie's flashbacks, when, during a particularly stressful incident at the time of childhood, she has a waking dream. In King's subsequent novel, Dolores Claiborne, it is revealed that the title main character shared a telepathic connection with Jessie Burlingame on two occasions, first during the solar eclipse when Jessie was assaulted by her father, and later when she is handcuffed to the bed. The two novels were initially conceived to be part of a single volume titled In the Path of the Eclipse. Later editions of Dolores Claiborne have a foreword that explains the connection between the two. Sheriff Alan Pangborn and Deputy Norris Ridgewick are mentioned near the end of Gerald's Game. Both characters appeared previously in The Dark Half and Needful Things, set in the fictional town of Castle Rock. In the later King novel Lisey's Story, Lisey often refers to the unbalanced fans her husband's horror novels have created as \"Space Cowboys.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins with Jessie Burlingame and her husband Gerald in the bedroom of their secluded cabin in western Maine, where they have gone for an off-beat romantic weekend. Gerald, a successful lawyer with an aggressive personality, has been able to reinvigorate the couple's sex life by handcuffing Jessie to the bed. Jessie has been into the game before, but suddenly balks. As Gerald starts to crawl on top of her, knowing her protests are real but ignoring them anyway, she kicks him in the stomach and in the groin, and he then has a heart attack, falls from the bed to the floor, cracks his head, and dies. Jessie is alone in the cabin and unable to move or summon help. The only things that show up are a hungry stray dog named Prince that starts feeding on Gerald's body and a terrifying, deformed apparition that may or may not be real, whom Jessie first mistakes for the ghost of her long dead father but dismisses it later. Jessie begins to think of this bizarre visitor as \"The Space Cowboy\" (after a line from a Steve Miller song, \"The Joker\"). A combination of panic and thirst eventually causes Jessie to hallucinate. She hears voices in her head, each one ostensibly the voice of a person in her life, primarily \"The Goodwife\" or \"Goody Burlingame\" (a somewhat Puritanical version of Jessie), Ruth Neary (an old college friend), and Nora Callighan (her ex-psychiatrist), both of whom Jessie hasn't spoken to in decades. These voices represent different parts of her personality which help her extract a painful childhood memory she has kept suppressed for many years. She was sexually abused by her father at age ten during a solar eclipse that occurred in her Maine hometown. She also begins to realize how unhappy her marriage was, and that she sacrificed the life she wanted for the security of Gerald's paycheck by being a trophy wife without children. This"
      },
      {
        "text": "an (her ex-psychiatrist), both of whom Jessie hasn't spoken to in decades. These voices represent different parts of her personality which help her extract a painful childhood memory she has kept suppressed for many years. She was sexually abused by her father at age ten during a solar eclipse that occurred in her Maine hometown. She also begins to realize how unhappy her marriage was, and that she sacrificed the life she wanted for the security of Gerald's paycheck by being a trophy wife without children. This internal dialogue is mixed with descriptions of Jessie's more and more desperate attempts to get out of the handcuffs, first by trying to break the headboard she was cuffed to then by trying to slip off the bed and push the bed to the bureau where the keys were placed. Finally she does escape after one of the voices in her head tells her that if she stays another night, The Space Cowboy, who she dreamed of as a manifestation of Death, will more than likely take a part of her to add to its trophy \"fishing creel\" filled with jewelry and human bones, killing her in the process. Jessie escapes the handcuffs by slicing her arm open all the way around on a broken glass and giving herself a degloving injury in order to lubricate her skin enough for the cuffs, which were made for men and not women and thus almost loose enough for her to slip out normally, to slide off her right hand. She is then able to move behind the bed, push it over to the bureau and use one of the keys to unlock her left handcuff. However, she has lost a lot of blood and passes out shortly after. When she awakens, it is now nighttime, and the Space Cowboy has made his way back into the house. Jessie confronts him and throws her wedding ring at his box of jewelry and bones, thinking that is what he wanted all along, then turns and runs out of the house. She is able to make it into her car and finally escape"
      },
      {
        "text": " to the bureau and use one of the keys to unlock her left handcuff. However, she has lost a lot of blood and passes out shortly after. When she awakens, it is now nighttime, and the Space Cowboy has made his way back into the house. Jessie confronts him and throws her wedding ring at his box of jewelry and bones, thinking that is what he wanted all along, then turns and runs out of the house. She is able to make it into her car and finally escape the house, but is terrified to discover the Space Cowboy sitting in the backseat of the car. Jessie crashes out of fear and is knocked unconscious, and it is later revealed that she only imagined the Space Cowboy in the backseat. The story cuts to months later with Jessie recuperating from the incident and being looked after by a nurse. An ambitious associate attorney at Gerald's law firm assists her in covering up the real incident to protect her and the law firm from scandal, as well as assisting her in her recuperation. At the end, we get to read the letter that Jessie writes to Ruth Neary, detailing what happened after the incident and her recuperation process, which is slow but very meaningful. One of the passages in the letter revolves around a serial necrophiliac and murderer named Raymond Andrew Joubert making his way through Maine; it turns out he was the Space Cowboy, confirmed when Jessie confronted him in a court hearing and Joubert mimicked Jessie's arm positions while she was in the handcuffs. He also repeated her frightened exclamations that Joubert was \"not anyone,\" and that he was only \"made of moonlight.\" Jessie also mentions what became of Prince who gnawed on Gerald. He is shot and killed. Initially, his owner had abandoned him in Maine and driven back to Massachusetts, simply because he didn't want to pay for the dog's license. The only true supernatural event in the story occurs as described during one of Jessie's flashbacks"
      },
      {
        "text": " while she was in the handcuffs. He also repeated her frightened exclamations that Joubert was \"not anyone,\" and that he was only \"made of moonlight.\" Jessie also mentions what became of Prince who gnawed on Gerald. He is shot and killed. Initially, his owner had abandoned him in Maine and driven back to Massachusetts, simply because he didn't want to pay for the dog's license. The only true supernatural event in the story occurs as described during one of Jessie's flashbacks, when, during a particularly stressful incident at the time of childhood, she has a waking dream. In King's subsequent novel, Dolores Claiborne, it is revealed that the title main character shared a telepathic connection with Jessie Burlingame on two occasions, first during the solar eclipse when Jessie was assaulted by her father, and later when she is handcuffed to the bed. The two novels were initially conceived to be part of a single volume titled In the Path of the Eclipse. Later editions of Dolores Claiborne have a foreword that explains the connection between the two. Sheriff Alan Pangborn and Deputy Norris Ridgewick are mentioned near the end of Gerald's Game. Both characters appeared previously in The Dark Half and Needful Things, set in the fictional town of Castle Rock. In the later King novel Lisey's Story, Lisey often refers to the unbalanced fans her husband's horror novels have created as \"Space Cowboys.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: A Novel",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1999-04-06",
    "synopsis": " The story is set in motion by a family hiking trip, during which Trisha's brother, Pete, and mother constantly squabble about the mother's divorce with her father, as well as other topics. Trisha falls back to avoid listening and is therefore unable to find her family again after she wanders off the trail to take a bathroom break. Trying to catch up by attempting a shortcut, she slips and falls down a steep embankment and ends up hopelessly lost, heading deeper into the heart of the forest. She is left with a bottle of water, two Twinkies, a boiled egg, a tuna sandwich, a bottle of Surge, a poncho, a Game Boy, and a Walkman. Now and then she listens to her Walkman to keep her mood up, either to learn of news of the search for her, or to listen to the baseball game featuring her favorite player, and \"heartthrob,\" Tom Gordon. As she starts to take steps to survive by conserving what little food she has with her and consuming edible flora, her mother and brother return to their car without her and call the police and start a search. The rescuers search in the area around the path, but not as far away as Trisha has gone. The girl decides to follow a creek because of what she read in Little House on the Prairie (though it soon turns into a swamp-like river), rationalizing that all bodies of water lead eventually to civilization. As the cops stop searching for the night, she huddles up underneath a tree to rest. Eventually, a combination of fear, hunger, and thirst causes Trisha to hallucinate. She imagines several people from her life, as well as her hero, Tom Gordon, appearing to her. It is left unclear whether increasingly obvious signs of supernatural events in the woods are also hallucinations. Hours and soon days begin to pass, with Trisha wandering further into the woods. Eventually she begins to believe that she is headed for a confrontation with the God of the Lost, a wasp-faced, evil entity who is hunting her down. Her trial becomes a test of a 9 year old girl's ability to maintain sanity in the face of seemingly certain death. Racked with pneumonia and near death, she comes upon a road, but just as she discovers signs of civilization, she is confronted by a bear, which she interprets as the God of the Lost in disguise. Facing down her fear, she realizes it is the bottom of the ninth, and she must close the game. In imitation of Tom Gordon, she takes a pitcher's stance and throws her Walkman like a baseball, hitting the bear in the face, and startling it enough to make it back away. A hunter who has come upon the confrontation between girl and beast frightens the bear away and takes Trisha to safety, but Trisha knows that she earned her rescue. Trisha wakes up in a hospital to find her divorced parents and older brother waiting near her bedside. A nurse tells the girl's family that they must leave because \"Her numbers are up and we don't want that.\" Her father is the last to leave. Before he does Trisha asks him to hand her her Red Sox hat (autographed by Tom Gordon) and she points towards the sky, just as Tom Gordon does when he closes a game.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is set in motion by a family hiking trip, during which Trisha's brother, Pete, and mother constantly squabble about the mother's divorce with her father, as well as other topics. Trisha falls back to avoid listening and is therefore unable to find her family again after she wanders off the trail to take a bathroom break. Trying to catch up by attempting a shortcut, she slips and falls down a steep embankment and ends up hopelessly lost, heading deeper into the heart of the forest. She is left with a bottle of water, two Twinkies, a boiled egg, a tuna sandwich, a bottle of Surge, a poncho, a Game Boy, and a Walkman. Now and then she listens to her Walkman to keep her mood up, either to learn of news of the search for her, or to listen to the baseball game featuring her favorite player, and \"heartthrob,\" Tom Gordon. As she starts to take steps to survive by conserving what little food she has with her and consuming edible flora, her mother and brother return to their car without her and call the police and start a search. The rescuers search in the area around the path, but not as far away as Trisha has gone. The girl decides to follow a creek because of what she read in Little House on the Prairie (though it soon turns into a swamp-like river), rationalizing that all bodies of water lead eventually to civilization. As the cops stop searching for the night, she huddles up underneath a tree to rest. Eventually, a combination of fear, hunger, and thirst causes Trisha to hallucinate. She imagines several people from her life, as well as her hero, Tom Gordon, appearing to her. It is left unclear whether increasingly obvious signs of supernatural events in the woods are also hallucinations. Hours and soon days begin to pass, with Trisha wandering further into the woods. Eventually she begins to believe"
      },
      {
        "text": " As the cops stop searching for the night, she huddles up underneath a tree to rest. Eventually, a combination of fear, hunger, and thirst causes Trisha to hallucinate. She imagines several people from her life, as well as her hero, Tom Gordon, appearing to her. It is left unclear whether increasingly obvious signs of supernatural events in the woods are also hallucinations. Hours and soon days begin to pass, with Trisha wandering further into the woods. Eventually she begins to believe that she is headed for a confrontation with the God of the Lost, a wasp-faced, evil entity who is hunting her down. Her trial becomes a test of a 9 year old girl's ability to maintain sanity in the face of seemingly certain death. Racked with pneumonia and near death, she comes upon a road, but just as she discovers signs of civilization, she is confronted by a bear, which she interprets as the God of the Lost in disguise. Facing down her fear, she realizes it is the bottom of the ninth, and she must close the game. In imitation of Tom Gordon, she takes a pitcher's stance and throws her Walkman like a baseball, hitting the bear in the face, and startling it enough to make it back away. A hunter who has come upon the confrontation between girl and beast frightens the bear away and takes Trisha to safety, but Trisha knows that she earned her rescue. Trisha wakes up in a hospital to find her divorced parents and older brother waiting near her bedside. A nurse tells the girl's family that they must leave because \"Her numbers are up and we don't want that.\" Her father is the last to leave. Before he does Trisha asks him to hand her her Red Sox hat (autographed by Tom Gordon) and she points towards the sky, just as Tom Gordon does when he closes a game.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " divorced parents and older brother waiting near her bedside. A nurse tells the girl's family that they must leave because \"Her numbers are up and we don't want that.\" Her father is the last to leave. Before he does Trisha asks him to hand her her Red Sox hat (autographed by Tom Gordon) and she points towards the sky, just as Tom Gordon does when he closes a game.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Green Mile",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1996-03",
    "synopsis": " A first-person narrative told by Paul Edgecombe, the novel switches between Paul as an old man in the Georgia Pines nursing home sharing his story with fellow resident Elaine Connelly in 1996, and his time in 1932 as the block supervisor of the Cold Mountain Penitentiary death row, nicknamed \"The Green Mile\" for the color of the floor's linoleum. This year marks the arrival of John Coffey, a 6'8\" powerfully built black man who has been convicted of raping and murdering two small white girls. During his time on the Mile, John interacts with fellow prisoners Eduard \"Del\" Delacroix, a Cajun arsonist, rapist, and murderer, and William Wharton (\"Billy the Kid\" to himself, \"Wild Bill\" to the guards), a wild-acting and dangerous multiple murderer who is determined to make as much trouble as he can before he is executed. Other inhabitants include Arlen Bitterbuck, a Native American convicted of killing a man in a fight over a pair of boots (also the first character to die in the electric chair); Arthur Flanders, a real estate executive who killed his father to perpetrate insurance fraud, and whose sentence is eventually commuted to life imprisonment; and Mr. Jingles, a mouse, whom Del teaches various tricks. Paul and the other guards are antagonized throughout the book by Percy Wetmore, a sadistic guard who enjoys irritating the prisoners. The other guards have to be civil to him despite their dislike of him because he is the nephew of the Governor's wife. When Percy is offered a position at the nearby Briar Ridge psychiatric hospital as a secretary, Paul thinks they are finally rid of him. However, Percy refuses to leave until he is allowed to supervise an execution, so Paul hesitantly allows him to run Del's. Percy deliberately avoids soaking a sponge in brine that is supposed to be tucked inside the electrode cap to ensure a quick death in the electric chair. When the switch is thrown, the current causes Del to catch fire in the chair and suffer a prolonged, agonizing demise. Over time, Paul realizes that John possesses inexplicable healing abilities, which he uses to cure Paul's urinary tract infection and revive Mr. Jingles after Percy stamps on him. Simple-minded and shy, John is very empathic and sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others around him. One night, the guards drug Wharton, then put a straitjacket on Percy and lock him in the padded restraint room so that they can smuggle John out of the prison and take him to the home of Warden Hal Moores. Hal's wife Melinda has a deadly brain tumor, which John cures. When they return to the Mile, John passes the \"disease\" from Melinda into Percy, causing him to go mad and shoot Wharton to death before falling into a catatonic state from which he never recovers. Percy is committed to Briar Ridge. Paul's long-simmering suspicions that John is innocent are proven right when he discovers that it was actually William Wharton who raped and killed the twin sisters and that John was trying to revive them. Later John tells Paul what he saw when Wharton grabbed his arm one time, how Wharton had coerced the sisters to be silent using their love for each other. Paul is unsure how to help John, but John tells him not to worry, as he is ready to die anyway, wanting to escape the cruelty of the world. John's execution is the last one in which Paul participates. He introduces Mr. Jingles to Elaine just before the mouse dies, having lived 64 years past these events, and explains that those healed by John gained an unnaturally long lifespan. Elaine dies shortly after, never learning how Paul's wife died in his arms immediately after they suffered a bus accident, and that he then saw John Coffey's ghost watching him from an overpass. Paul seems to be all alone, now 104 years old, and wondering how much longer he will live.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A first-person narrative told by Paul Edgecombe, the novel switches between Paul as an old man in the Georgia Pines nursing home sharing his story with fellow resident Elaine Connelly in 1996, and his time in 1932 as the block supervisor of the Cold Mountain Penitentiary death row, nicknamed \"The Green Mile\" for the color of the floor's linoleum. This year marks the arrival of John Coffey, a 6'8\" powerfully built black man who has been convicted of raping and murdering two small white girls. During his time on the Mile, John interacts with fellow prisoners Eduard \"Del\" Delacroix, a Cajun arsonist, rapist, and murderer, and William Wharton (\"Billy the Kid\" to himself, \"Wild Bill\" to the guards), a wild-acting and dangerous multiple murderer who is determined to make as much trouble as he can before he is executed. Other inhabitants include Arlen Bitterbuck, a Native American convicted of killing a man in a fight over a pair of boots (also the first character to die in the electric chair); Arthur Flanders, a real estate executive who killed his father to perpetrate insurance fraud, and whose sentence is eventually commuted to life imprisonment; and Mr. Jingles, a mouse, whom Del teaches various tricks. Paul and the other guards are antagonized throughout the book by Percy Wetmore, a sadistic guard who enjoys irritating the prisoners. The other guards have to be civil to him despite their dislike of him because he is the nephew of the Governor's wife. When Percy is offered a position at the nearby Briar Ridge psychiatric hospital as a secretary, Paul thinks they are finally rid of him. However, Percy refuses to leave until he is allowed to supervise an execution, so Paul hesitantly allows him to run Del's. Percy deliberately avoids soaking a sponge in brine that is supposed to be tucked inside the electrode cap to ensure a quick death in the electric chair"
      },
      {
        "text": " him despite their dislike of him because he is the nephew of the Governor's wife. When Percy is offered a position at the nearby Briar Ridge psychiatric hospital as a secretary, Paul thinks they are finally rid of him. However, Percy refuses to leave until he is allowed to supervise an execution, so Paul hesitantly allows him to run Del's. Percy deliberately avoids soaking a sponge in brine that is supposed to be tucked inside the electrode cap to ensure a quick death in the electric chair. When the switch is thrown, the current causes Del to catch fire in the chair and suffer a prolonged, agonizing demise. Over time, Paul realizes that John possesses inexplicable healing abilities, which he uses to cure Paul's urinary tract infection and revive Mr. Jingles after Percy stamps on him. Simple-minded and shy, John is very empathic and sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others around him. One night, the guards drug Wharton, then put a straitjacket on Percy and lock him in the padded restraint room so that they can smuggle John out of the prison and take him to the home of Warden Hal Moores. Hal's wife Melinda has a deadly brain tumor, which John cures. When they return to the Mile, John passes the \"disease\" from Melinda into Percy, causing him to go mad and shoot Wharton to death before falling into a catatonic state from which he never recovers. Percy is committed to Briar Ridge. Paul's long-simmering suspicions that John is innocent are proven right when he discovers that it was actually William Wharton who raped and killed the twin sisters and that John was trying to revive them. Later John tells Paul what he saw when Wharton grabbed his arm one time, how Wharton had coerced the sisters to be silent using their love for each other. Paul is unsure how to help John, but John tells him not to worry, as he is ready to die anyway, wanting"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Paul's long-simmering suspicions that John is innocent are proven right when he discovers that it was actually William Wharton who raped and killed the twin sisters and that John was trying to revive them. Later John tells Paul what he saw when Wharton grabbed his arm one time, how Wharton had coerced the sisters to be silent using their love for each other. Paul is unsure how to help John, but John tells him not to worry, as he is ready to die anyway, wanting to escape the cruelty of the world. John's execution is the last one in which Paul participates. He introduces Mr. Jingles to Elaine just before the mouse dies, having lived 64 years past these events, and explains that those healed by John gained an unnaturally long lifespan. Elaine dies shortly after, never learning how Paul's wife died in his arms immediately after they suffered a bus accident, and that he then saw John Coffey's ghost watching him from an overpass. Paul seems to be all alone, now 104 years old, and wondering how much longer he will live.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Long Walk",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " One hundred teenage boys participate in an annual walking contest called \"The Long Walk\", which is the \"national sport\". Each Walker must maintain a speed of at least four miles per hour; if he drops below that speed for 30 seconds, he receives a verbal warning (which can be erased by walking for one hour without being warned). If a Walker with three warnings slows down again, he is \"ticketed\". The meaning of this term is intentionally kept vague at first, but it soon becomes clear that \"buying a ticket\" means to be shot dead by soldiers riding in half-tracks along the roadside. Walkers may be shot immediately for certain serious violations, such as trying to leave the road or attacking the half-track. The soldiers use electronic equipment to precisely determine a Walker's speed. The event is run by a character known as \"The Major\", who is implied to have much power, stemming from a possible military or fascist state system. The Major appears at the beginning of the Walk to encourage the boys and start them on their way, and then occasionally thereafter. While the Walkers initially greet him with awe and respect, they eventually realize their admiration is misplaced and ridicule him in later appearances. The Walk begins at the Maine/Canada border and travels the east coast of the United States until the winner is determined. There are no stops, rest periods, or established finish line, and the Walk does not pause for any reason (including bad weather or darkness); it ends only when one Walker is left alive. According to the rules, the Walkers can obtain aid only from the soldiers, who distribute canteens of water and belts packed with food concentrates (apparently similar to the ones developed by NASA's space program) just before the Walk begins. They may request a fresh canteen at any time, and new food supplies are distributed at 9:00 every morning. Walkers may bring anything they can carry, including food or additional footwear, but cannot receive aid from bystanders. They are allowed to have bodily contact with onlookers as long as they stay on the road. While they cannot physically interfere with one another to detrimental effect, they can help each other, provided they stay above four miles per hour. The winner receives \"The Prize\": anything he wants for the rest of his life. It is implied that many past winners have died soon after the Walk, due to its hazardous mental and physical challenges. The Long Walk is not only a physical trial, but a psychological one, as the Walkers are continually pressed against the idea of death and their mortality. Contestants have actually tried to crawl at 4 mph to survive after their legs gave out. The story has several characters who suffer mental breakdown, one of whom kills himself by tearing out his throat, and most characters experience some mental degeneration from the stress and lack of sleep. The protagonist of the novel is Raymond Davis Garraty, a 16-year-old boy from the town of Pownal in Androscoggin County, Maine. Early on, Ray falls in with several other boys\u2014including Peter McVries, Arthur Baker, Hank Olson, Collie Parker, Pearson, Harkness, and Abraham\u2014who refer to themselves as \"The Musketeers\". Another Walker\u2014Gary Barkovitch\u2014quickly establishes himself as an external antagonist, as he quickly angers his fellow walkers with multiple taunts of \"dancing on their graves\". This results in the death of a fellow walker, Rank, who is ticketed while trying to injure Barkovitch. Lastly, the most alluring and mysterious Walker is a boy named Stebbins. Throughout the Walk, Stebbins establishes himself as a loner, observing the ground beneath him as he listens to fellow Walkers' complaints, seemingly unaffected by the mental and physical strains. The only character Stebbins truly interacts with is Ray Garraty. In one conversation, Garraty alludes to Alice in Wonderland, likening Stebbins to the Caterpillar. Stebbins, however, corrects him: he believes himself to be more of a White Rabbit type. Along the road, the Walkers learn that one of their number, a kid named Scramm \u2014 who is initially the heavy odds-on favorite to win the Walk \u2014 is married. When Scramm gets pneumonia, the remaining Walkers agree that the winner will use some of the Prize to take care of his pregnant widow, Cathy. Members of the public interfering with the Walkers can receive an \"interference\" ticket. This nearly occurs when the mother of a Walker named Percy tries, on several occasions, to get onto the road and find her son (at her last attempt, he has already been killed for attempting to sneak away). Only the intervention of the local police keeps her from being executed. The second instance is when a spectator's dog runs across the road in front of the Walkers and is shot. However, one man is able to throw the Walkers watermelon slices before being hauled away by the police rather than the soldiers; several Walkers receive third warnings after taking the watermelon, but none of them are shot. Garraty becomes closest to Peter McVries, a boy with a prominent facial scar who speculates that his own reason for joining the Walk is a subconscious death wish. When Garraty suffers a charley horse and comes within two seconds of being killed, McVries keeps him talking and distracted long enough to drop a warning, saving his life. After five days and hundreds of miles, the Walk eventually comes down to Garraty and Stebbins, who revealed to Garraty and McVries earlier that day, that he is the illegitimate son of the Major. Stebbins states he used to think the Major was unaware of his existence, but it turns out that the Major has numerous illegitimate children nationwide. Four years earlier the Major took Stebbins to the finish of a Long Walk and now Stebbins feels that the Major has set him up to be \"the rabbit\", motivating other runners to walk farther to prolong the race, just as rabbits are used in dog races. Stebbins's plan, upon winning the Walk, is to ask that his prize be to be \"taken into [his] father's house\". At the end of the book, having gone farther than any Long Walk in history - the Long Walkers reached Massachusetts for the first time in seventeen years - Garraty decides to give up after realizing that Stebbins has shown almost no weaknesses over the duration of the Walk. Garraty catches up with Stebbins to tell him this, but before he can speak Stebbins collapses and dies; thus Garraty is declared the winner. Unaware of the celebration going on around him, Garraty gets up from Stebbins's side and keeps on walking, believing the race to still continue, as he hallucinates of a dark figure not far ahead that he thinks is another runner. He ignores a jeep coming towards him in which the Major comes to award him the victory, thinking it's a trespassing vehicle. When a hand, likely the Major's, tries to hold his shoulder Garraty somehow finds the strength to run.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " One hundred teenage boys participate in an annual walking contest called \"The Long Walk\", which is the \"national sport\". Each Walker must maintain a speed of at least four miles per hour; if he drops below that speed for 30 seconds, he receives a verbal warning (which can be erased by walking for one hour without being warned). If a Walker with three warnings slows down again, he is \"ticketed\". The meaning of this term is intentionally kept vague at first, but it soon becomes clear that \"buying a ticket\" means to be shot dead by soldiers riding in half-tracks along the roadside. Walkers may be shot immediately for certain serious violations, such as trying to leave the road or attacking the half-track. The soldiers use electronic equipment to precisely determine a Walker's speed. The event is run by a character known as \"The Major\", who is implied to have much power, stemming from a possible military or fascist state system. The Major appears at the beginning of the Walk to encourage the boys and start them on their way, and then occasionally thereafter. While the Walkers initially greet him with awe and respect, they eventually realize their admiration is misplaced and ridicule him in later appearances. The Walk begins at the Maine/Canada border and travels the east coast of the United States until the winner is determined. There are no stops, rest periods, or established finish line, and the Walk does not pause for any reason (including bad weather or darkness); it ends only when one Walker is left alive. According to the rules, the Walkers can obtain aid only from the soldiers, who distribute canteens of water and belts packed with food concentrates (apparently similar to the ones developed by NASA's space program) just before the Walk begins. They may request a fresh canteen at any time, and new food supplies are distributed at 9:00 every morning. Walkers may bring anything they can carry, including food or additional footwear, but cannot receive aid from bystanders"
      },
      {
        "text": " Walker is left alive. According to the rules, the Walkers can obtain aid only from the soldiers, who distribute canteens of water and belts packed with food concentrates (apparently similar to the ones developed by NASA's space program) just before the Walk begins. They may request a fresh canteen at any time, and new food supplies are distributed at 9:00 every morning. Walkers may bring anything they can carry, including food or additional footwear, but cannot receive aid from bystanders. They are allowed to have bodily contact with onlookers as long as they stay on the road. While they cannot physically interfere with one another to detrimental effect, they can help each other, provided they stay above four miles per hour. The winner receives \"The Prize\": anything he wants for the rest of his life. It is implied that many past winners have died soon after the Walk, due to its hazardous mental and physical challenges. The Long Walk is not only a physical trial, but a psychological one, as the Walkers are continually pressed against the idea of death and their mortality. Contestants have actually tried to crawl at 4 mph to survive after their legs gave out. The story has several characters who suffer mental breakdown, one of whom kills himself by tearing out his throat, and most characters experience some mental degeneration from the stress and lack of sleep. The protagonist of the novel is Raymond Davis Garraty, a 16-year-old boy from the town of Pownal in Androscoggin County, Maine. Early on, Ray falls in with several other boys\u2014including Peter McVries, Arthur Baker, Hank Olson, Collie Parker, Pearson, Harkness, and Abraham\u2014who refer to themselves as \"The Musketeers\". Another Walker\u2014Gary Barkovitch\u2014quickly establishes himself as an external antagonist, as he quickly angers his fellow walkers with multiple taunts of \"dancing on their graves\". This results in"
      },
      {
        "text": " Pownal in Androscoggin County, Maine. Early on, Ray falls in with several other boys\u2014including Peter McVries, Arthur Baker, Hank Olson, Collie Parker, Pearson, Harkness, and Abraham\u2014who refer to themselves as \"The Musketeers\". Another Walker\u2014Gary Barkovitch\u2014quickly establishes himself as an external antagonist, as he quickly angers his fellow walkers with multiple taunts of \"dancing on their graves\". This results in the death of a fellow walker, Rank, who is ticketed while trying to injure Barkovitch. Lastly, the most alluring and mysterious Walker is a boy named Stebbins. Throughout the Walk, Stebbins establishes himself as a loner, observing the ground beneath him as he listens to fellow Walkers' complaints, seemingly unaffected by the mental and physical strains. The only character Stebbins truly interacts with is Ray Garraty. In one conversation, Garraty alludes to Alice in Wonderland, likening Stebbins to the Caterpillar. Stebbins, however, corrects him: he believes himself to be more of a White Rabbit type. Along the road, the Walkers learn that one of their number, a kid named Scramm \u2014 who is initially the heavy odds-on favorite to win the Walk \u2014 is married. When Scramm gets pneumonia, the remaining Walkers agree that the winner will use some of the Prize to take care of his pregnant widow, Cathy. Members of the public interfering with the Walkers can receive an \"interference\" ticket. This nearly occurs when the mother of a Walker named Percy tries, on several occasions, to get onto the road and find her son (at her last attempt, he has already been killed for attempting to sneak away). Only the intervention of the local police keeps her from being executed. The second instance is when a spectator's dog runs across the road in"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Prize to take care of his pregnant widow, Cathy. Members of the public interfering with the Walkers can receive an \"interference\" ticket. This nearly occurs when the mother of a Walker named Percy tries, on several occasions, to get onto the road and find her son (at her last attempt, he has already been killed for attempting to sneak away). Only the intervention of the local police keeps her from being executed. The second instance is when a spectator's dog runs across the road in front of the Walkers and is shot. However, one man is able to throw the Walkers watermelon slices before being hauled away by the police rather than the soldiers; several Walkers receive third warnings after taking the watermelon, but none of them are shot. Garraty becomes closest to Peter McVries, a boy with a prominent facial scar who speculates that his own reason for joining the Walk is a subconscious death wish. When Garraty suffers a charley horse and comes within two seconds of being killed, McVries keeps him talking and distracted long enough to drop a warning, saving his life. After five days and hundreds of miles, the Walk eventually comes down to Garraty and Stebbins, who revealed to Garraty and McVries earlier that day, that he is the illegitimate son of the Major. Stebbins states he used to think the Major was unaware of his existence, but it turns out that the Major has numerous illegitimate children nationwide. Four years earlier the Major took Stebbins to the finish of a Long Walk and now Stebbins feels that the Major has set him up to be \"the rabbit\", motivating other runners to walk farther to prolong the race, just as rabbits are used in dog races. Stebbins's plan, upon winning the Walk, is to ask that his prize be to be \"taken into [his] father's house\". At the end of the book, having"
      },
      {
        "text": " children nationwide. Four years earlier the Major took Stebbins to the finish of a Long Walk and now Stebbins feels that the Major has set him up to be \"the rabbit\", motivating other runners to walk farther to prolong the race, just as rabbits are used in dog races. Stebbins's plan, upon winning the Walk, is to ask that his prize be to be \"taken into [his] father's house\". At the end of the book, having gone farther than any Long Walk in history - the Long Walkers reached Massachusetts for the first time in seventeen years - Garraty decides to give up after realizing that Stebbins has shown almost no weaknesses over the duration of the Walk. Garraty catches up with Stebbins to tell him this, but before he can speak Stebbins collapses and dies; thus Garraty is declared the winner. Unaware of the celebration going on around him, Garraty gets up from Stebbins's side and keeps on walking, believing the race to still continue, as he hallucinates of a dark figure not far ahead that he thinks is another runner. He ignores a jeep coming towards him in which the Major comes to award him the victory, thinking it's a trespassing vehicle. When a hand, likely the Major's, tries to hold his shoulder Garraty somehow finds the strength to run.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Solaris",
    "author": "Stanis\u0142aw Lem",
    "published_date": "1961",
    "synopsis": " Solaris chronicles the ultimate futility of attempted communications with the extraterrestrial life on a far-distant planet. Solaris, with whom Terran scientists are attempting communication, is almost completely covered with an ocean that is revealed to be a single, planet-encompassing organism. What appear to be waves on its surface are later revealed to be the equivalents of muscle contractions. Kris Kelvin arrives aboard the scientific research station hovering (via anti-gravity generators) near the oceanic surface of the planet Solaris. The scientists there have studied the planet and its ocean for many decades, a scientific discipline known as Solaristics, which over the years has degenerated to simply observe, record and categorize the complex phenomena that occur upon the surface of the ocean. Thus far, they have only achieved the formal classification of the phenomena with an elaborate nomenclature \u2014 yet do not understand what such activities really mean in a strictly scientific sense. Shortly before psychologist Kelvin's arrival, the crew has exposed the ocean to a more aggressive and unauthorized experimentation with a high-energy X-ray bombardment. Their experimentation gives unexpected results and becomes psychologically traumatic for them as individually flawed humans. The ocean's response to their aggression exposes the deeper, hidden aspects of the personalities of the human scientists \u2014 whilst revealing nothing of the ocean\u2019s nature itself. To the extent that the ocean\u2019s actions can be understood, the ocean then seems to test the minds of the scientists by confronting them with their most painful and repressed thoughts and memories. It does this via the materialization of physical human simulacra; Kelvin confronts memories of his dead lover and guilt about her suicide. The torments of the other researchers are only alluded to but seem even worse than Kelvin\u2019s personal purgatory. The ocean\u2019s intelligence expresses physical phenomena in ways difficult for their limited earth science to explain, deeply upsetting the scientists. The alien (extraterrestrial) mind of Solaris is so greatly different from the human mind of (objective) consciousness that attempts at inter-species communications are a dismal failure.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Solaris chronicles the ultimate futility of attempted communications with the extraterrestrial life on a far-distant planet. Solaris, with whom Terran scientists are attempting communication, is almost completely covered with an ocean that is revealed to be a single, planet-encompassing organism. What appear to be waves on its surface are later revealed to be the equivalents of muscle contractions. Kris Kelvin arrives aboard the scientific research station hovering (via anti-gravity generators) near the oceanic surface of the planet Solaris. The scientists there have studied the planet and its ocean for many decades, a scientific discipline known as Solaristics, which over the years has degenerated to simply observe, record and categorize the complex phenomena that occur upon the surface of the ocean. Thus far, they have only achieved the formal classification of the phenomena with an elaborate nomenclature \u2014 yet do not understand what such activities really mean in a strictly scientific sense. Shortly before psychologist Kelvin's arrival, the crew has exposed the ocean to a more aggressive and unauthorized experimentation with a high-energy X-ray bombardment. Their experimentation gives unexpected results and becomes psychologically traumatic for them as individually flawed humans. The ocean's response to their aggression exposes the deeper, hidden aspects of the personalities of the human scientists \u2014 whilst revealing nothing of the ocean\u2019s nature itself. To the extent that the ocean\u2019s actions can be understood, the ocean then seems to test the minds of the scientists by confronting them with their most painful and repressed thoughts and memories. It does this via the materialization of physical human simulacra; Kelvin confronts memories of his dead lover and guilt about her suicide. The torments of the other researchers are only alluded to but seem even worse than Kelvin\u2019s personal purgatory. The ocean\u2019s intelligence expresses physical phenomena in ways difficult for their limited earth science to explain, deeply upsetting the scientists. The alien (extraterrestrial) mind of Solaris is so greatly different from"
      },
      {
        "text": " and repressed thoughts and memories. It does this via the materialization of physical human simulacra; Kelvin confronts memories of his dead lover and guilt about her suicide. The torments of the other researchers are only alluded to but seem even worse than Kelvin\u2019s personal purgatory. The ocean\u2019s intelligence expresses physical phenomena in ways difficult for their limited earth science to explain, deeply upsetting the scientists. The alien (extraterrestrial) mind of Solaris is so greatly different from the human mind of (objective) consciousness that attempts at inter-species communications are a dismal failure.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "You Can't Take It with You",
    "author": "Moss Hart",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " At first the Sycamores seem mad, but it is not long before you realize that if they are mad, then the rest of the world is madder. In contrast to these delightful people are the unhappy Kirbys. Tony, the attractive young son of the Kirbys, falls in love with Alice Sycamore and brings his parents to dine at the Sycamore house on the wrong evening. The shock sustained by Mr. and Mrs. Kirby, who are invited to eat cheap food, shows Alice that marriage with Tony is out of the question. The Sycamores find it hard to understand Alice's view. Tony knows the Sycamores live the right way with love and care for each other, while his own family is the one that's crazy. In the end, Mr. Kirby is converted to the happy madness of the Sycamores after he happens in during a visit by the ex-Grand Duchess of Russia, Olga Katrina, who is currently earning her living as a waitress. The story takes place entirely in the large house of a slightly batty New York City family. Various characters in the lives of the Vanderhof/Sycamore/Carmichael clan are introduced in the first act. The patriarch of the family, Grandpa Vanderhof, is an eccentric old man who keeps snakes and has never paid his income tax. Penelope \"Penny\" Vanderhof Sycamore is his daughter (a writer of adventure- and sex-filled melodrama plays), who is married to Paul Sycamore, a tinkerer who manufactures fireworks in the basement with the help of his assistant Mr. De Pinna who used to be the family's iceman. One of Paul and Penny's two daughters is Essie Sycamore Carmichael, a childish candymaker who dreams of being a ballerina (but in reality is terrible at dancing). Essie is married to Ed Carmichael, a xylophone player who lives with them and helps distribute Essie's candies. Ed is an amateur printer who prints any phrase that sounds catchy. Paul and Penny's other daughter Alice Sycamore is quite obviously the only \"normal\" family member. She has an office job and is sometimes embarrassed by the eccentricities of her family, yet deep down, she still loves them. In addition, the Vanderhof/Sycamore/Carmichael clan employs a maid Rheba, who is dating Donald, who performs odd jobs for the Sycamores. Essie tells Grandpa Vanderhof that some letters have arrived for him from the \"United States Government,\" but that she misplaced them. Shortly afterwards, Alice comes home and announces that she has fallen in love with a young man with whom she works, Tony Kirby, the son of the company's executive. Before going upstairs to change, Alice tells her family that he will be coming over shortly to take her on a date. The entire family is still joyfully discussing her boyfriend when the doorbell rings. Penny answers the door and greets the man standing there, thinking he must be Tony, but only after forcing the stranger to shake hands with the entire family do they realize that he is not Alice's boyfriend: he is a tax investigator. His name is Wilbur C. Henderson, and he is investigating Grandpa for his evasion of income tax. When Henderson asks Grandpa why he owed twenty-four years of back income tax, Grandpa states he never believed in it, and that the government wouldn't know what to do with the money if he did pay it. Henderson becomes infuriated by Grandpa's answers to his questions. Henderson spots Grandpa's snakes, and runs out of the house in fear, but not before promising Grandpa that he will hear, one way or another, from the United States government. The real Tony Kirby arrives, and Alice is nervous that her eccentric family will scare him away, so she attempts to leave with him on their date. As they attempt to leave, Mr. Boris Kolenkhov, Essie's extremely Russian ballet instructor, arrives and makes chitchat with the family, complaining about the Revolution. During this discussion, Alice and Tony make their escape. Then the rest of the family sit down for dinner. Later that night, Alice and Tony come back very late from their date and have a glass of wine and Tony makes a toast. Though it is revealed that they both love each other very, very much, Alice has doubts as to whether a marriage of Tony and Alice's families could ever work out fine. Tony insists that, if they love each other, it shouldn't matter, but Alice ignores him and tearfully shouts that it just would never work. She divulges how Grandpa could have been \"a very rich man,\" but instead, he had an epiphany one day and rode the elevator right back down to the lobby of his building and quit work. Alice explains that her family is too odd to get along with any other. In the course of their conversation, which is interrupted by Essie and Ed (who come home from a Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire movie) and then Donald at one point, Tony wins Alice over, and they agree to get married. Paul comes up from the basement and tells Alice to watch his latest firework masterpiece, and she lovingly says: \"It's the most beautiful red fire in the world...\" The second act takes place a few days later. Alice has invited Tony, his father, and his mother over for dinner tomorrow night, and it is the only thing on the entire family's mind. Alice runs around the house telling her family to try to act as normal as possible. Penny has brought actress Gay Wellington over to read over Penny's latest play, but Gay becomes very drunk, and passes out onto the living room couch. Ed returns from distributing Essie's candies with news that he is being followed by someone. When Mr. DePinna looks out the window, no one is there, just some man walking away. Ed decides to go out and deliver the candy anyway because Essie asks him to. Paul and Mr. De Pinna are downstairs the whole time making fireworks. Mr. DePinna comes up from the basement carrying a painting that Penny had started of him as a discus thrower. Mr. DePinna asks if Penny would finish it and she agrees. She leaves to put on her painting gear and Mr. DePinna leaves to put on his robe. At the same time, Mr. Kolenkhov arrives and begins Essie's ballet lesson. Ed provides accompanying music on the xylophone. Rheba runs in and out of the kitchen cleaning. Grandpa takes this time to practice darts and feed the snakes. In the midst of all this hullabaloo, Tony appears in the doorway with Mr. Kirby and Mrs. Kirby. Before them is the entire eccentric spectacle. Apparently, Tony has forgotten for which night dinner was planned, and Alice is incredibly embarrassed. Penny tells Alice not to worry, and that they can manage a nice dinner easily. She gives a list of things to Donald and tells him to run down to the store. Grandpa tries desperately to keep the party normal and under control for the sake of his granddaughter. Mr. Kirby reveals himself to be a very straightlaced fat-cat, who raises orchids as a hobby. Mr. Kirby investigates a child's model and finds it is Paul's \"hobby.\" Mrs. Kirby tells them that her true passion is spiritualism, to which Penny replies, \"We all know that's a fake.\" During a discussion of hobbies, Mr. Kolenkhov brings up that the Romans' hobby was wrestling, and demonstrates on Mr. Kirby by throwing him on the floor. To pass the time after the awkward incident, Penny suggests they play a free association game. Alice imagines what is coming and immediately tries to quash the suggestions, but Penny shrugs her off and instructs everyone to write down \"the first thing that pops into their heads\" after she says certain words. Penny offers the words \"potato, bathroom, lust, honeymoon, and sex.\" Penny reads Mr. Kirby's list first, with reactions of, respectively: \"steak, toothpaste, unlawful, trip, male.\" Mrs. Kirby's list, however, causes much controversy. \"Starch\" is her response to potatoes, which is not that bad, but her response for \"bathroom\" is \"Mr. Kirby,\" and she covers it up with the fact that Mr. Kirby spends a lot of time in there \"bathing and shaving\". Her response to \"lust\" is \"human,\" claiming it is a perfectly human emotion. Mr. Kirby disagrees, saying \"it is depraved.\" \"Honeymoon\"'s reply is \"dull,\" as Mrs. Kirby explains that there was \"nothing to do at night.\" The shocker comes when Mrs. Kirby says her reply to \"sex\" was \"Wall Street\". She at first claims she doesn't know what she meant by it, but once provoked she yells at Mr. Kirby \"You're always talking about Wall Street, even when--\" and then stops. Wholly embarrassed and humiliated, Mr. Kirby and Mrs. Kirby order Tony home with them immediately but Tony refuses to go. Alice agrees with Tony's parents, but Tony insists they stay. Grandpa offers his opinion, but before anyone can do anything, federal agents overrun the house. The head agent tells them that Ed's pamphlets from the candy boxes, on which he has printed anything that \"sounds nice,\" read \"DYNAMITE THE CAPITOL,\" \"DYNAMITE THE WHITE HOUSE,\" \"DYNAMITE THE SUPREME COURT,\" and \"GOD IS THE STATE, THE STATE IS GOD.\" Grandpa tries to explain to the head agent, but he informs them they are all under arrest. The agents discover enormous amounts of gunpowder in the basement and think it is for dynamiting Washington, and one agent returns from the basement dragging Mr. DePinna with him, who was in the basement the whole time. DePinna desperately tries to explain to the agent that he had left his lit pipe downstairs and must go and get it, but the agent disregards him. Meanwhile, another agent brings down Gay Wellington from upstairs, singing drunkenly. Alice and Tony cling to each other while the family argues with the agents. At that moments, Mr. DePinna's lit pipe causes the fireworks to go off. Act II ends with the entire house in an uproar. The next day, Donald and Rheba sit in the kitchen reading the paper. The entire family was arrested. Mr. Kirby's presence during the arrest has caused scandal on Wall Street. Alice has decided to leave home, with no immediate plans to return. She was truly in love with Tony, and her family ruined her chances of ever falling in love, and for doing that, she can never forgive them. Penny keeps trying to tell Alice to stay, but Grandpa knows that Alice cannot be swayed. Tony arrives and tries to convince Alice not to leave home. Alice knows he loves her, but just can't get herself to stay. Soon, Mr. Kolenkhov appears with the Grand Duchess Olga Katrina, in all of her former glory. After discussing the sad fate of former Russian royals now working menial jobs in New York, the Grand Duchess soon insists upon going into the kitchen to cook the dinner for the family. Mr. Kirby arrives to pick up Tony and to settle his score with Grandpa Vanderhof. Soon, Mr. Kirby and Tony get into a heated argument, the pinnacle of which finds Tony admitting that he had purposely brought his family on the wrong night, the night before. He explains that he wanted each family to see each as they really were, that Alice's idea of a planned party was ridiculous. Grandpa Vanderhof jumps in and, with the family's help, persuades Kirby that his life is not as it should be. Grandpa accuses Mr. Kirby of wasting his life by doing things he does not want to do. Mr. Kirby puts up a big fight, with several valid points... but eventually succumbs. He is changed, and accepts the Vanderhof view of life. The play comes to a conclusion as the family, along with Tony and Mr. Kirby, sit down to dinner with the Grand Duchess. Grandpa says a touching prayer, and then they dive into the food.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At first the Sycamores seem mad, but it is not long before you realize that if they are mad, then the rest of the world is madder. In contrast to these delightful people are the unhappy Kirbys. Tony, the attractive young son of the Kirbys, falls in love with Alice Sycamore and brings his parents to dine at the Sycamore house on the wrong evening. The shock sustained by Mr. and Mrs. Kirby, who are invited to eat cheap food, shows Alice that marriage with Tony is out of the question. The Sycamores find it hard to understand Alice's view. Tony knows the Sycamores live the right way with love and care for each other, while his own family is the one that's crazy. In the end, Mr. Kirby is converted to the happy madness of the Sycamores after he happens in during a visit by the ex-Grand Duchess of Russia, Olga Katrina, who is currently earning her living as a waitress. The story takes place entirely in the large house of a slightly batty New York City family. Various characters in the lives of the Vanderhof/Sycamore/Carmichael clan are introduced in the first act. The patriarch of the family, Grandpa Vanderhof, is an eccentric old man who keeps snakes and has never paid his income tax. Penelope \"Penny\" Vanderhof Sycamore is his daughter (a writer of adventure- and sex-filled melodrama plays), who is married to Paul Sycamore, a tinkerer who manufactures fireworks in the basement with the help of his assistant Mr. De Pinna who used to be the family's iceman. One of Paul and Penny's two daughters is Essie Sycamore Carmichael, a childish candymaker who dreams of being a ballerina (but in reality is terrible at dancing). Essie is married to Ed Carmichael, a xylophone player who lives with them"
      },
      {
        "text": "rama plays), who is married to Paul Sycamore, a tinkerer who manufactures fireworks in the basement with the help of his assistant Mr. De Pinna who used to be the family's iceman. One of Paul and Penny's two daughters is Essie Sycamore Carmichael, a childish candymaker who dreams of being a ballerina (but in reality is terrible at dancing). Essie is married to Ed Carmichael, a xylophone player who lives with them and helps distribute Essie's candies. Ed is an amateur printer who prints any phrase that sounds catchy. Paul and Penny's other daughter Alice Sycamore is quite obviously the only \"normal\" family member. She has an office job and is sometimes embarrassed by the eccentricities of her family, yet deep down, she still loves them. In addition, the Vanderhof/Sycamore/Carmichael clan employs a maid Rheba, who is dating Donald, who performs odd jobs for the Sycamores. Essie tells Grandpa Vanderhof that some letters have arrived for him from the \"United States Government,\" but that she misplaced them. Shortly afterwards, Alice comes home and announces that she has fallen in love with a young man with whom she works, Tony Kirby, the son of the company's executive. Before going upstairs to change, Alice tells her family that he will be coming over shortly to take her on a date. The entire family is still joyfully discussing her boyfriend when the doorbell rings. Penny answers the door and greets the man standing there, thinking he must be Tony, but only after forcing the stranger to shake hands with the entire family do they realize that he is not Alice's boyfriend: he is a tax investigator. His name is Wilbur C. Henderson, and he is investigating Grandpa for his evasion of income tax. When Henderson asks Grandpa why he owed twenty-four years of back income tax, Grandpa states he never believed in"
      },
      {
        "text": " boyfriend when the doorbell rings. Penny answers the door and greets the man standing there, thinking he must be Tony, but only after forcing the stranger to shake hands with the entire family do they realize that he is not Alice's boyfriend: he is a tax investigator. His name is Wilbur C. Henderson, and he is investigating Grandpa for his evasion of income tax. When Henderson asks Grandpa why he owed twenty-four years of back income tax, Grandpa states he never believed in it, and that the government wouldn't know what to do with the money if he did pay it. Henderson becomes infuriated by Grandpa's answers to his questions. Henderson spots Grandpa's snakes, and runs out of the house in fear, but not before promising Grandpa that he will hear, one way or another, from the United States government. The real Tony Kirby arrives, and Alice is nervous that her eccentric family will scare him away, so she attempts to leave with him on their date. As they attempt to leave, Mr. Boris Kolenkhov, Essie's extremely Russian ballet instructor, arrives and makes chitchat with the family, complaining about the Revolution. During this discussion, Alice and Tony make their escape. Then the rest of the family sit down for dinner. Later that night, Alice and Tony come back very late from their date and have a glass of wine and Tony makes a toast. Though it is revealed that they both love each other very, very much, Alice has doubts as to whether a marriage of Tony and Alice's families could ever work out fine. Tony insists that, if they love each other, it shouldn't matter, but Alice ignores him and tearfully shouts that it just would never work. She divulges how Grandpa could have been \"a very rich man,\" but instead, he had an epiphany one day and rode the elevator right back down to the lobby of his building and quit work. Alice explains that her family is"
      },
      {
        "text": " much, Alice has doubts as to whether a marriage of Tony and Alice's families could ever work out fine. Tony insists that, if they love each other, it shouldn't matter, but Alice ignores him and tearfully shouts that it just would never work. She divulges how Grandpa could have been \"a very rich man,\" but instead, he had an epiphany one day and rode the elevator right back down to the lobby of his building and quit work. Alice explains that her family is too odd to get along with any other. In the course of their conversation, which is interrupted by Essie and Ed (who come home from a Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire movie) and then Donald at one point, Tony wins Alice over, and they agree to get married. Paul comes up from the basement and tells Alice to watch his latest firework masterpiece, and she lovingly says: \"It's the most beautiful red fire in the world...\" The second act takes place a few days later. Alice has invited Tony, his father, and his mother over for dinner tomorrow night, and it is the only thing on the entire family's mind. Alice runs around the house telling her family to try to act as normal as possible. Penny has brought actress Gay Wellington over to read over Penny's latest play, but Gay becomes very drunk, and passes out onto the living room couch. Ed returns from distributing Essie's candies with news that he is being followed by someone. When Mr. DePinna looks out the window, no one is there, just some man walking away. Ed decides to go out and deliver the candy anyway because Essie asks him to. Paul and Mr. De Pinna are downstairs the whole time making fireworks. Mr. DePinna comes up from the basement carrying a painting that Penny had started of him as a discus thrower. Mr. DePinna asks if Penny would finish it and she agrees. She leaves to put on her painting"
      },
      {
        "text": ". DePinna looks out the window, no one is there, just some man walking away. Ed decides to go out and deliver the candy anyway because Essie asks him to. Paul and Mr. De Pinna are downstairs the whole time making fireworks. Mr. DePinna comes up from the basement carrying a painting that Penny had started of him as a discus thrower. Mr. DePinna asks if Penny would finish it and she agrees. She leaves to put on her painting gear and Mr. DePinna leaves to put on his robe. At the same time, Mr. Kolenkhov arrives and begins Essie's ballet lesson. Ed provides accompanying music on the xylophone. Rheba runs in and out of the kitchen cleaning. Grandpa takes this time to practice darts and feed the snakes. In the midst of all this hullabaloo, Tony appears in the doorway with Mr. Kirby and Mrs. Kirby. Before them is the entire eccentric spectacle. Apparently, Tony has forgotten for which night dinner was planned, and Alice is incredibly embarrassed. Penny tells Alice not to worry, and that they can manage a nice dinner easily. She gives a list of things to Donald and tells him to run down to the store. Grandpa tries desperately to keep the party normal and under control for the sake of his granddaughter. Mr. Kirby reveals himself to be a very straightlaced fat-cat, who raises orchids as a hobby. Mr. Kirby investigates a child's model and finds it is Paul's \"hobby.\" Mrs. Kirby tells them that her true passion is spiritualism, to which Penny replies, \"We all know that's a fake.\" During a discussion of hobbies, Mr. Kolenkhov brings up that the Romans' hobby was wrestling, and demonstrates on Mr. Kirby by throwing him on the floor. To pass the time after the awkward incident, Penny suggests they play a free association game. Alice imagines what"
      },
      {
        "text": " Kirby investigates a child's model and finds it is Paul's \"hobby.\" Mrs. Kirby tells them that her true passion is spiritualism, to which Penny replies, \"We all know that's a fake.\" During a discussion of hobbies, Mr. Kolenkhov brings up that the Romans' hobby was wrestling, and demonstrates on Mr. Kirby by throwing him on the floor. To pass the time after the awkward incident, Penny suggests they play a free association game. Alice imagines what is coming and immediately tries to quash the suggestions, but Penny shrugs her off and instructs everyone to write down \"the first thing that pops into their heads\" after she says certain words. Penny offers the words \"potato, bathroom, lust, honeymoon, and sex.\" Penny reads Mr. Kirby's list first, with reactions of, respectively: \"steak, toothpaste, unlawful, trip, male.\" Mrs. Kirby's list, however, causes much controversy. \"Starch\" is her response to potatoes, which is not that bad, but her response for \"bathroom\" is \"Mr. Kirby,\" and she covers it up with the fact that Mr. Kirby spends a lot of time in there \"bathing and shaving\". Her response to \"lust\" is \"human,\" claiming it is a perfectly human emotion. Mr. Kirby disagrees, saying \"it is depraved.\" \"Honeymoon\"'s reply is \"dull,\" as Mrs. Kirby explains that there was \"nothing to do at night.\" The shocker comes when Mrs. Kirby says her reply to \"sex\" was \"Wall Street\". She at first claims she doesn't know what she meant by it, but once provoked she yells at Mr. Kirby \"You're always talking about Wall Street, even when--\" and then stops. Wholly embarrassed and humiliated, Mr. Kirby and Mrs. Kirby order Tony home with them immediately but Tony refuses to go. Alice agrees with Tony's"
      },
      {
        "text": " that there was \"nothing to do at night.\" The shocker comes when Mrs. Kirby says her reply to \"sex\" was \"Wall Street\". She at first claims she doesn't know what she meant by it, but once provoked she yells at Mr. Kirby \"You're always talking about Wall Street, even when--\" and then stops. Wholly embarrassed and humiliated, Mr. Kirby and Mrs. Kirby order Tony home with them immediately but Tony refuses to go. Alice agrees with Tony's parents, but Tony insists they stay. Grandpa offers his opinion, but before anyone can do anything, federal agents overrun the house. The head agent tells them that Ed's pamphlets from the candy boxes, on which he has printed anything that \"sounds nice,\" read \"DYNAMITE THE CAPITOL,\" \"DYNAMITE THE WHITE HOUSE,\" \"DYNAMITE THE SUPREME COURT,\" and \"GOD IS THE STATE, THE STATE IS GOD.\" Grandpa tries to explain to the head agent, but he informs them they are all under arrest. The agents discover enormous amounts of gunpowder in the basement and think it is for dynamiting Washington, and one agent returns from the basement dragging Mr. DePinna with him, who was in the basement the whole time. DePinna desperately tries to explain to the agent that he had left his lit pipe downstairs and must go and get it, but the agent disregards him. Meanwhile, another agent brings down Gay Wellington from upstairs, singing drunkenly. Alice and Tony cling to each other while the family argues with the agents. At that moments, Mr. DePinna's lit pipe causes the fireworks to go off. Act II ends with the entire house in an uproar. The next day, Donald and Rheba sit in the kitchen reading the paper. The entire family was arrested. Mr. Kirby's presence during the arrest has caused scandal on Wall Street. Alice has decided to leave home,"
      },
      {
        "text": " down Gay Wellington from upstairs, singing drunkenly. Alice and Tony cling to each other while the family argues with the agents. At that moments, Mr. DePinna's lit pipe causes the fireworks to go off. Act II ends with the entire house in an uproar. The next day, Donald and Rheba sit in the kitchen reading the paper. The entire family was arrested. Mr. Kirby's presence during the arrest has caused scandal on Wall Street. Alice has decided to leave home, with no immediate plans to return. She was truly in love with Tony, and her family ruined her chances of ever falling in love, and for doing that, she can never forgive them. Penny keeps trying to tell Alice to stay, but Grandpa knows that Alice cannot be swayed. Tony arrives and tries to convince Alice not to leave home. Alice knows he loves her, but just can't get herself to stay. Soon, Mr. Kolenkhov appears with the Grand Duchess Olga Katrina, in all of her former glory. After discussing the sad fate of former Russian royals now working menial jobs in New York, the Grand Duchess soon insists upon going into the kitchen to cook the dinner for the family. Mr. Kirby arrives to pick up Tony and to settle his score with Grandpa Vanderhof. Soon, Mr. Kirby and Tony get into a heated argument, the pinnacle of which finds Tony admitting that he had purposely brought his family on the wrong night, the night before. He explains that he wanted each family to see each as they really were, that Alice's idea of a planned party was ridiculous. Grandpa Vanderhof jumps in and, with the family's help, persuades Kirby that his life is not as it should be. Grandpa accuses Mr. Kirby of wasting his life by doing things he does not want to do. Mr. Kirby puts up a big fight, with several valid points... but eventually succumbs. He is changed, and accepts the Vander"
      },
      {
        "text": " He explains that he wanted each family to see each as they really were, that Alice's idea of a planned party was ridiculous. Grandpa Vanderhof jumps in and, with the family's help, persuades Kirby that his life is not as it should be. Grandpa accuses Mr. Kirby of wasting his life by doing things he does not want to do. Mr. Kirby puts up a big fight, with several valid points... but eventually succumbs. He is changed, and accepts the Vanderhof view of life. The play comes to a conclusion as the family, along with Tony and Mr. Kirby, sit down to dinner with the Grand Duchess. Grandpa says a touching prayer, and then they dive into the food.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Antony and Cleopatra",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "1623",
    "synopsis": " Mark Antony \u2013 one of the Triumvirs of Rome along with Octavian and Lepidus \u2013 has neglected his soldierly duties after being beguiled by Egypt's Queen, Cleopatra. He ignores Rome's domestic problems, including the fact that his third wife Fulvia rebelled against Octavian and then died. Octavian calls Antony back to Rome from Alexandria in order to help him fight against Sextus Pompey, Menecrates, and Menas, three notorious pirates of the Mediterranean. At Alexandria, Cleopatra begs Antony not to go, and though he repeatedly affirms his deep passionate love for her, he eventually leaves. Back in Rome, a general brings forward the idea that Antony should marry Octavian's younger sister, Octavia, in order to cement the friendly bond between the two men. Antony's lieutenant Enobarbus, though, knows that Octavia can never satisfy him after Cleopatra. In a famous passage, he delineates Cleopatra's charms in paradoxical terms (rhetorical antithesis): \"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety: other women cloy / The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry / Where most she satisfies.\" A soothsayer warns Antony that he is sure to lose if he ever tries to fight Octavian. In Egypt, Cleopatra learns of Antony's marriage to Octavia and takes furious revenge upon the messenger that brings her the news. She grows content only when her courtiers assure her that Octavia is homely by Elizabethan standards: short, low-browed, round-faced and with bad hair. At a confrontation, the triumvirs parley with Pompey, and offer him a truce. He can retain Sicily and Sardinia, but he must help them \"rid the sea of pirates\" and send them tributes. After some hesitation Pompey accedes. They engage in a drunken celebration on Pompey's galley. Menas suggests to Pompey that he kill the three triumvirs and make himself ruler of Rome, but he refuses, finding it dishonourable. Later, Octavian and Lepidus break their truce with Pompey and war against him. This is unapproved by Antony, and he is furious. Antony returns to Alexandria, Egypt, and crowns Cleopatra and himself as rulers of Egypt and the eastern third of the Roman Empire (which was Antony's share as one of the triumvirs). He accuses Octavian of not giving him his fair share of Pompey's lands, and is angry that Lepidus, whom Octavian has imprisoned, is out of the triumvirate. Octavian agrees to the former demand, but otherwise is very displeased with what Antony has done. Antony prepares to battle Octavian. Enobarbus urges Antony to fight on land, where he has the advantage, instead of by sea, where the navy of Octavius is lighter, more mobile and better manned. Antony refuses, since Octavian has dared him to fight at sea. Cleopatra pledges her fleet to aid Antony. However, in the middle of the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra flees with her sixty ships, and Antony follows her, leaving his army to ruin. Ashamed of what he has done for the love of Cleopatra, Antony reproaches her for making him a coward, but also sets this true and deep love above all else, saying \"Give me a kiss; even this repays me.\" Octavian sends a messenger to ask Cleopatra to give up Antony and come over to his side. She hesitates, and flirts with the messenger, when Antony walks in and angrily denounces her behaviour. He sends the messenger to be whipped. Eventually, he forgives Cleopatra and pledges to fight another battle for her, this time on land. On the eve of the battle, Antony's soldiers hear strange portents, which they interpret as the god Hercules abandoning his protection of Antony. Furthermore, Enobarbus, Antony's long-serving lieutenant, deserts him and goes over to Octavian's side. Rather than confiscating Enobarbus's goods, which he did not take with him when he fled to Octavian, Antony orders them to be sent to Enobarbus. Enobarbus is so overwhelmed by Antony's generosity, and so ashamed of his own disloyalty, that he dies from a broken heart. The battle goes well for Antony, until Octavian shifts it to a sea-fight. Once again, Antony loses when Cleopatra's ships break off action and flee \u2013 his own fleet surrenders, and he denounces Cleopatra: \"This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.\" He resolves to kill her for the treachery. Cleopatra decides that the only way to win back Antony's romance love is to send him word that she killed herself, dying with his name on her lips. She locks herself in her monument, and awaits Antony's return. Her plan fails: rather than rushing back in remorse to see the \"dead\" Cleopatra, Antony decides that his own life is no longer worth living. He begs one of his aides, Eros, to run him through with a sword, but Eros cannot bear to do it, and kills himself. Antony admires Eros' courage and attempts to do the same, but only succeeds in wounding himself. In great pain, he learns that Cleopatra is indeed alive. He is hoisted up to her in her monument, and dies in her arms. Octavian goes to Cleopatra, trying to persuade her to surrender. She angrily refuses, since she can imagine nothing worse than being led in triumph through the streets of Rome, proclaimed a villain for the ages. She imagines that \"the quick comedians / Extemporally will stage us, and present / Our Alexandrian revels: Antony / Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see / Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness / I' th' posture of a whore.\" This speech is full of dramatic irony, because in Shakespeare's time Cleopatra really was played by a \"squeaking boy\", and Shakespeare's play does depict Antony's drunken revels. Cleopatra is betrayed and taken into custody by the Romans. She gives Octavian what she claims is a complete account of her wealth, but is betrayed by her treasurer, who claims she is holding treasure back. Octavian reassures her that he is not interested in her wealth, but Dolabella warns her that he intends to parade her at his triumph. Cleopatra resolves to kill herself, using the poison of an asp. She dies calmly and ecstatically, imagining how she will meet Antony again in the afterlife. Her serving maids, Iras and Charmian, also kill themselves. Octavian discovers the dead bodies and experiences conflicting emotions. Antony's and Cleopatra's deaths leave him free to become the first Roman Emperor, but he also feels some kind of sympathy for them: \"She shall be buried by her Antony. / No grave upon the earth shall clip in it / A pair so famous...\" He orders a public military funeral.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Mark Antony \u2013 one of the Triumvirs of Rome along with Octavian and Lepidus \u2013 has neglected his soldierly duties after being beguiled by Egypt's Queen, Cleopatra. He ignores Rome's domestic problems, including the fact that his third wife Fulvia rebelled against Octavian and then died. Octavian calls Antony back to Rome from Alexandria in order to help him fight against Sextus Pompey, Menecrates, and Menas, three notorious pirates of the Mediterranean. At Alexandria, Cleopatra begs Antony not to go, and though he repeatedly affirms his deep passionate love for her, he eventually leaves. Back in Rome, a general brings forward the idea that Antony should marry Octavian's younger sister, Octavia, in order to cement the friendly bond between the two men. Antony's lieutenant Enobarbus, though, knows that Octavia can never satisfy him after Cleopatra. In a famous passage, he delineates Cleopatra's charms in paradoxical terms (rhetorical antithesis): \"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety: other women cloy / The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry / Where most she satisfies.\" A soothsayer warns Antony that he is sure to lose if he ever tries to fight Octavian. In Egypt, Cleopatra learns of Antony's marriage to Octavia and takes furious revenge upon the messenger that brings her the news. She grows content only when her courtiers assure her that Octavia is homely by Elizabethan standards: short, low-browed, round-faced and with bad hair. At a confrontation, the triumvirs parley with Pompey, and offer him a truce. He can retain Sicily and Sardinia, but he must help them \"rid the sea of pirates\" and send them tributes. After some hesitation Pompey accedes."
      },
      {
        "text": " upon the messenger that brings her the news. She grows content only when her courtiers assure her that Octavia is homely by Elizabethan standards: short, low-browed, round-faced and with bad hair. At a confrontation, the triumvirs parley with Pompey, and offer him a truce. He can retain Sicily and Sardinia, but he must help them \"rid the sea of pirates\" and send them tributes. After some hesitation Pompey accedes. They engage in a drunken celebration on Pompey's galley. Menas suggests to Pompey that he kill the three triumvirs and make himself ruler of Rome, but he refuses, finding it dishonourable. Later, Octavian and Lepidus break their truce with Pompey and war against him. This is unapproved by Antony, and he is furious. Antony returns to Alexandria, Egypt, and crowns Cleopatra and himself as rulers of Egypt and the eastern third of the Roman Empire (which was Antony's share as one of the triumvirs). He accuses Octavian of not giving him his fair share of Pompey's lands, and is angry that Lepidus, whom Octavian has imprisoned, is out of the triumvirate. Octavian agrees to the former demand, but otherwise is very displeased with what Antony has done. Antony prepares to battle Octavian. Enobarbus urges Antony to fight on land, where he has the advantage, instead of by sea, where the navy of Octavius is lighter, more mobile and better manned. Antony refuses, since Octavian has dared him to fight at sea. Cleopatra pledges her fleet to aid Antony. However, in the middle of the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra flees with her sixty ships, and Antony follows her, leaving his army to ruin. Ashamed of what he has"
      },
      {
        "text": "ony to fight on land, where he has the advantage, instead of by sea, where the navy of Octavius is lighter, more mobile and better manned. Antony refuses, since Octavian has dared him to fight at sea. Cleopatra pledges her fleet to aid Antony. However, in the middle of the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra flees with her sixty ships, and Antony follows her, leaving his army to ruin. Ashamed of what he has done for the love of Cleopatra, Antony reproaches her for making him a coward, but also sets this true and deep love above all else, saying \"Give me a kiss; even this repays me.\" Octavian sends a messenger to ask Cleopatra to give up Antony and come over to his side. She hesitates, and flirts with the messenger, when Antony walks in and angrily denounces her behaviour. He sends the messenger to be whipped. Eventually, he forgives Cleopatra and pledges to fight another battle for her, this time on land. On the eve of the battle, Antony's soldiers hear strange portents, which they interpret as the god Hercules abandoning his protection of Antony. Furthermore, Enobarbus, Antony's long-serving lieutenant, deserts him and goes over to Octavian's side. Rather than confiscating Enobarbus's goods, which he did not take with him when he fled to Octavian, Antony orders them to be sent to Enobarbus. Enobarbus is so overwhelmed by Antony's generosity, and so ashamed of his own disloyalty, that he dies from a broken heart. The battle goes well for Antony, until Octavian shifts it to a sea-fight. Once again, Antony loses when Cleopatra's ships break off action and flee \u2013 his own fleet surrenders, and he denounces Cleopatra: \"This foul"
      },
      {
        "text": "ian, Antony orders them to be sent to Enobarbus. Enobarbus is so overwhelmed by Antony's generosity, and so ashamed of his own disloyalty, that he dies from a broken heart. The battle goes well for Antony, until Octavian shifts it to a sea-fight. Once again, Antony loses when Cleopatra's ships break off action and flee \u2013 his own fleet surrenders, and he denounces Cleopatra: \"This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.\" He resolves to kill her for the treachery. Cleopatra decides that the only way to win back Antony's romance love is to send him word that she killed herself, dying with his name on her lips. She locks herself in her monument, and awaits Antony's return. Her plan fails: rather than rushing back in remorse to see the \"dead\" Cleopatra, Antony decides that his own life is no longer worth living. He begs one of his aides, Eros, to run him through with a sword, but Eros cannot bear to do it, and kills himself. Antony admires Eros' courage and attempts to do the same, but only succeeds in wounding himself. In great pain, he learns that Cleopatra is indeed alive. He is hoisted up to her in her monument, and dies in her arms. Octavian goes to Cleopatra, trying to persuade her to surrender. She angrily refuses, since she can imagine nothing worse than being led in triumph through the streets of Rome, proclaimed a villain for the ages. She imagines that \"the quick comedians / Extemporally will stage us, and present / Our Alexandrian revels: Antony / Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see / Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness / I' th' posture of a whore.\" This speech is full of dramatic irony, because in Shakespeare's time Cleopatra really"
      },
      {
        "text": " since she can imagine nothing worse than being led in triumph through the streets of Rome, proclaimed a villain for the ages. She imagines that \"the quick comedians / Extemporally will stage us, and present / Our Alexandrian revels: Antony / Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see / Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness / I' th' posture of a whore.\" This speech is full of dramatic irony, because in Shakespeare's time Cleopatra really was played by a \"squeaking boy\", and Shakespeare's play does depict Antony's drunken revels. Cleopatra is betrayed and taken into custody by the Romans. She gives Octavian what she claims is a complete account of her wealth, but is betrayed by her treasurer, who claims she is holding treasure back. Octavian reassures her that he is not interested in her wealth, but Dolabella warns her that he intends to parade her at his triumph. Cleopatra resolves to kill herself, using the poison of an asp. She dies calmly and ecstatically, imagining how she will meet Antony again in the afterlife. Her serving maids, Iras and Charmian, also kill themselves. Octavian discovers the dead bodies and experiences conflicting emotions. Antony's and Cleopatra's deaths leave him free to become the first Roman Emperor, but he also feels some kind of sympathy for them: \"She shall be buried by her Antony. / No grave upon the earth shall clip in it / A pair so famous...\" He orders a public military funeral.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " / No grave upon the earth shall clip in it / A pair so famous...\" He orders a public military funeral.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Day of the Triffids",
    "author": "John Wyndham",
    "published_date": "1951-12",
    "synopsis": " The protagonist is Bill Masen, who has made his living working with \"triffids\"\u2014tall plants capable of aggressive and seemingly intelligent behaviour. They are able to move about by \"walking\" on their roots, appear to communicate with each other, and possess a deadly whip-like poisonous sting that enables them to kill and feed on the rotting carcasses of their victims. Due to his background working with Triffids, Masen has developed a theory that they were bioengineered in the USSR and then accidentally released into the wild when a plane smuggling their seeds was shot down. Triffids begin sprouting all over the world, and their extracts prove to be superior to existing fish or vegetable oils. The result is worldwide cultivation of triffids. The narrative begins with Bill Masen in hospital, his eyes bandaged after having been splashed with droplets of triffid venom in an accident. During his convalescence he is told of the unexpected and beautiful green meteor shower that the entire world is watching. He awakes the next morning to a silent hospital and learns that the light from the unusual display has rendered any who watched it completely blind. (Later on in the book Masen again theorises that both the 'meteor shower' and subsequent plague may have been an orbiting government weapons system that was triggered accidentally.) After unbandaging his eyes, he wanders through an anarchic London full of almost entirely blind inhabitants, and witnesses civilization collapsing around him. Masen meets a sighted woman, wealthy novelist Josella Playton, who was being forcibly used as a guide by a violent blind man. She and Masen begin to fall in love and decide to leave London. Lured by a single light that they see shining in an otherwise darkened city, Bill and Josella discover a group of sighted survivors at a London university building. The group is led by a man named Beadley, who plans to establish a colony in the countryside. Beadley wishes to take only sighted men who will take several wives, sighted or otherwise, to rapidly rebuild the human population. Bill and Josella decide to join the group. The polygamous principles of this scheme appalls one of the other leaders of the group, the religious Miss Durrant. Before this schism can be dealt with a man called Wilfred Coker takes it upon himself to save as many of the blind as possible. He stages a mock fire at the university and during the ensuing chaos kidnaps a number of sighted individuals, including Bill and Josella. Each is chained to a squad of blind people and forced to lead them around London, collecting rapidly diminishing food and other supplies. Bill and his squad find themselves beset by escaped triffids as well as by an aggressive rival gang of scavengers led by a ruthless, red-haired man. Masen nevertheless sticks with his squad until its members all begin dying of some unknown disease. He leaves and attempts to find Josella, but his only lead is an address left behind by the now-departed members of Beadley's group. Thrown together with a repentant Coker, he drives to the place, a country estate named Tynsham in Wiltshire, but neither Beadley nor Josella are there; Durrant has taken charge and organized the community along \"Christian\" lines. Masen and Coker fruitlessly search for Beadley and Josella for several days, before Bill remembers a chance comment Josella made about a country home in Sussex. He sets off in search of it, while Coker returns to Tynsham. Bill is joined by a young sighted girl named Susan; they succeed in locating Josella, who is indeed at the Sussex house. Bill and Josella consider themselves to be married, and see Susan as their daughter. They attempt to make the Sussex farm into a largely self-sufficient colony, with reasonable success. The triffids grow ever more numerous, crowding in and surrounding their small island of civilization. Years pass, during which it becomes steadily harder both to keep out the encroaching plants - at least two triffid break-ins are recorded during the novel - and to continue fetching essential supplies (such as oil) from the decaying cities. One day a helicopter pilot representative of Beadley's faction lands at the farm and reports that the group has established a successful colony on the Isle of Wight, and that Coker survived to join them. Despite their ongoing struggles, the Masens are reluctant to leave their home but their hand is forced by the arrival of a squad of soldiers the next day who represent a despotic new government which is setting up feudal enclaves across the country. Masen recognizes the leader, Torrence, as the redheaded man from London. Torrence announces his intention to place many more blind survivors under the Masens' care and to move Susan to another enclave. After feigning general agreement, the Masens disable the soldiers' vehicle and flee during the night. They join the Isle of Wight colony, and settle down to the long struggle ahead, determined to find a way to destroy the triffids and reclaim Earth for humanity.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The protagonist is Bill Masen, who has made his living working with \"triffids\"\u2014tall plants capable of aggressive and seemingly intelligent behaviour. They are able to move about by \"walking\" on their roots, appear to communicate with each other, and possess a deadly whip-like poisonous sting that enables them to kill and feed on the rotting carcasses of their victims. Due to his background working with Triffids, Masen has developed a theory that they were bioengineered in the USSR and then accidentally released into the wild when a plane smuggling their seeds was shot down. Triffids begin sprouting all over the world, and their extracts prove to be superior to existing fish or vegetable oils. The result is worldwide cultivation of triffids. The narrative begins with Bill Masen in hospital, his eyes bandaged after having been splashed with droplets of triffid venom in an accident. During his convalescence he is told of the unexpected and beautiful green meteor shower that the entire world is watching. He awakes the next morning to a silent hospital and learns that the light from the unusual display has rendered any who watched it completely blind. (Later on in the book Masen again theorises that both the 'meteor shower' and subsequent plague may have been an orbiting government weapons system that was triggered accidentally.) After unbandaging his eyes, he wanders through an anarchic London full of almost entirely blind inhabitants, and witnesses civilization collapsing around him. Masen meets a sighted woman, wealthy novelist Josella Playton, who was being forcibly used as a guide by a violent blind man. She and Masen begin to fall in love and decide to leave London. Lured by a single light that they see shining in an otherwise darkened city, Bill and Josella discover a group of sighted survivors at a London university building. The group is led by a man named Beadley, who plans to establish a colony in the countryside. Beadley"
      },
      {
        "text": " meets a sighted woman, wealthy novelist Josella Playton, who was being forcibly used as a guide by a violent blind man. She and Masen begin to fall in love and decide to leave London. Lured by a single light that they see shining in an otherwise darkened city, Bill and Josella discover a group of sighted survivors at a London university building. The group is led by a man named Beadley, who plans to establish a colony in the countryside. Beadley wishes to take only sighted men who will take several wives, sighted or otherwise, to rapidly rebuild the human population. Bill and Josella decide to join the group. The polygamous principles of this scheme appalls one of the other leaders of the group, the religious Miss Durrant. Before this schism can be dealt with a man called Wilfred Coker takes it upon himself to save as many of the blind as possible. He stages a mock fire at the university and during the ensuing chaos kidnaps a number of sighted individuals, including Bill and Josella. Each is chained to a squad of blind people and forced to lead them around London, collecting rapidly diminishing food and other supplies. Bill and his squad find themselves beset by escaped triffids as well as by an aggressive rival gang of scavengers led by a ruthless, red-haired man. Masen nevertheless sticks with his squad until its members all begin dying of some unknown disease. He leaves and attempts to find Josella, but his only lead is an address left behind by the now-departed members of Beadley's group. Thrown together with a repentant Coker, he drives to the place, a country estate named Tynsham in Wiltshire, but neither Beadley nor Josella are there; Durrant has taken charge and organized the community along \"Christian\" lines. Masen and Coker fruitlessly search for Beadley and Josella for several days, before"
      },
      {
        "text": "lla, but his only lead is an address left behind by the now-departed members of Beadley's group. Thrown together with a repentant Coker, he drives to the place, a country estate named Tynsham in Wiltshire, but neither Beadley nor Josella are there; Durrant has taken charge and organized the community along \"Christian\" lines. Masen and Coker fruitlessly search for Beadley and Josella for several days, before Bill remembers a chance comment Josella made about a country home in Sussex. He sets off in search of it, while Coker returns to Tynsham. Bill is joined by a young sighted girl named Susan; they succeed in locating Josella, who is indeed at the Sussex house. Bill and Josella consider themselves to be married, and see Susan as their daughter. They attempt to make the Sussex farm into a largely self-sufficient colony, with reasonable success. The triffids grow ever more numerous, crowding in and surrounding their small island of civilization. Years pass, during which it becomes steadily harder both to keep out the encroaching plants - at least two triffid break-ins are recorded during the novel - and to continue fetching essential supplies (such as oil) from the decaying cities. One day a helicopter pilot representative of Beadley's faction lands at the farm and reports that the group has established a successful colony on the Isle of Wight, and that Coker survived to join them. Despite their ongoing struggles, the Masens are reluctant to leave their home but their hand is forced by the arrival of a squad of soldiers the next day who represent a despotic new government which is setting up feudal enclaves across the country. Masen recognizes the leader, Torrence, as the redheaded man from London. Torrence announces his intention to place many more blind survivors under the Masens' care and to move Susan to another enclave. After fe"
      },
      {
        "text": " that Coker survived to join them. Despite their ongoing struggles, the Masens are reluctant to leave their home but their hand is forced by the arrival of a squad of soldiers the next day who represent a despotic new government which is setting up feudal enclaves across the country. Masen recognizes the leader, Torrence, as the redheaded man from London. Torrence announces his intention to place many more blind survivors under the Masens' care and to move Susan to another enclave. After feigning general agreement, the Masens disable the soldiers' vehicle and flee during the night. They join the Isle of Wight colony, and settle down to the long struggle ahead, determined to find a way to destroy the triffids and reclaim Earth for humanity.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Antigone",
    "author": "Sophocles",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Before the beginning of the play, two brothers leading opposite sides in Thebes' civil war died fighting each other for the throne. Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, has decided that Eteocles will be honored and Polyneices will be in public shame. The rebel brother's body will not be sanctified by holy rites, and will lie unburied on the battlefield, prey for carrion animals like worms and vultures, the harshest punishment at the time. Antigone and Ismene are the sisters of the dead Polyneices and Eteocles. In the opening of the play, Antigone brings Ismene outside the palace gates late at night for a secret meeting: Antigone wants to bury Polyneices' body, in defiance of Creon's edict. Ismene refuses to help her, fearing the death penalty, but she is unable to stop Antigone from going to bury her brother herself, causing Antigone to disown her. Creon enters, along with the Chorus of Theban Elders. He seeks their support in the days to come, and in particular wants them to back his edict regarding the disposal of Polyneices' body. The Chorus of Elders pledges their support. A Sentry enters, fearfully reporting that the body has been buried. A furious Creon orders the Sentry to find the culprit or face death himself. The Sentry leaves and the Chorus sings about honouring the gods, but after a short absence he returns, bringing Antigone with him. Creon questions her after sending the Sentry off, and she does not deny what she has done. She argues unflinchingly with Creon about the morality of the edict and the morality of her actions. Creon becomes furious, and, thinking Ismene must have known of Antigone's plan, seeing her upset, summons the girl. Ismene tries to confess falsely to the crime, wishing to die alongside her sister, but Antigone will not have it. Creon orders that the two women be temporarily imprisoned. Haemon, Creon's son, enters to pledge allegiance to his father. He initially seems willing to forsake Antigone, but when Haemon gently tries to persuade his father to spare Antigone, claiming that 'under cover of darkness the city mourns for the girl', the discussion deteriorates and the two men are soon bitterly insulting each other. Haemon leaves, vowing never to see Creon again. Creon decides to spare Ismene and to bury Antigone alive in a cave. She is brought out of the house, and she bewails her fate and defends her actions one last time. She is taken away to her living tomb, with the Chorus expressing great sorrow for what is going to happen to her. Tiresias, the blind prophet, enters. He warns Creon that Polyneices should now be urgently buried because the gods are displeased, refusing to accept any sacrifices or prayers from Thebes. Creon accuses Tiresias of being corrupt. Tiresias responds that because of Creon's mistakes, he will lose \"a son of [his] own loins\" for the crimes of leaving Polyneices unburied and putting Antigone into the earth (he does not say that Antigone should not be condemned to death, only that it is improper to keep a living body underneath the earth). All of Greece will despise him, and the sacrificial offerings of Thebes will not be accepted by the gods. The Chorus, terrified, asks Creon to take their advice. He assents, and they tell him that he should free Antigone and bury Polyneices. Creon, shaken, agrees to do it. He leaves with a retinue of men to help him right his previous mistakes. The Chorus delivers a choral ode to the god Dionysus (god of wine and of the theater; this part is the offering to their patron god), and then a Messenger enters to tell them that Haemon has killed himself. Eurydice, Creon's wife and Haemon's mother, enters and asks the Messenger to tell her everything. The Messenger reports that Haemon and Antigone have both taken their own lives, Antigone by hanging herself, and Haemon by stabbing himself after finding the body, just after Polyneices was buried. Eurydice disappears into the palace. Creon enters, carrying Haemon's body. He understands that his own actions have caused these events. A Second Messenger arrives to tell Creon and the Chorus that Eurydice has killed herself. With her last breath, she cursed her husband. Creon blames himself for everything that has happened, and, a broken man, he asks his servants to help him inside. The order he valued so much has been protected, and he is still the king, but he has acted against the gods and lost his child and his wife as a result. The Chorus closes by saying that although the gods punish the proud, punishment brings wisdom.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Before the beginning of the play, two brothers leading opposite sides in Thebes' civil war died fighting each other for the throne. Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, has decided that Eteocles will be honored and Polyneices will be in public shame. The rebel brother's body will not be sanctified by holy rites, and will lie unburied on the battlefield, prey for carrion animals like worms and vultures, the harshest punishment at the time. Antigone and Ismene are the sisters of the dead Polyneices and Eteocles. In the opening of the play, Antigone brings Ismene outside the palace gates late at night for a secret meeting: Antigone wants to bury Polyneices' body, in defiance of Creon's edict. Ismene refuses to help her, fearing the death penalty, but she is unable to stop Antigone from going to bury her brother herself, causing Antigone to disown her. Creon enters, along with the Chorus of Theban Elders. He seeks their support in the days to come, and in particular wants them to back his edict regarding the disposal of Polyneices' body. The Chorus of Elders pledges their support. A Sentry enters, fearfully reporting that the body has been buried. A furious Creon orders the Sentry to find the culprit or face death himself. The Sentry leaves and the Chorus sings about honouring the gods, but after a short absence he returns, bringing Antigone with him. Creon questions her after sending the Sentry off, and she does not deny what she has done. She argues unflinchingly with Creon about the morality of the edict and the morality of her actions. Creon becomes furious, and, thinking Ismene must have known of Antigone's plan, seeing her upset, summons the girl. Ism"
      },
      {
        "text": " and the Chorus sings about honouring the gods, but after a short absence he returns, bringing Antigone with him. Creon questions her after sending the Sentry off, and she does not deny what she has done. She argues unflinchingly with Creon about the morality of the edict and the morality of her actions. Creon becomes furious, and, thinking Ismene must have known of Antigone's plan, seeing her upset, summons the girl. Ismene tries to confess falsely to the crime, wishing to die alongside her sister, but Antigone will not have it. Creon orders that the two women be temporarily imprisoned. Haemon, Creon's son, enters to pledge allegiance to his father. He initially seems willing to forsake Antigone, but when Haemon gently tries to persuade his father to spare Antigone, claiming that 'under cover of darkness the city mourns for the girl', the discussion deteriorates and the two men are soon bitterly insulting each other. Haemon leaves, vowing never to see Creon again. Creon decides to spare Ismene and to bury Antigone alive in a cave. She is brought out of the house, and she bewails her fate and defends her actions one last time. She is taken away to her living tomb, with the Chorus expressing great sorrow for what is going to happen to her. Tiresias, the blind prophet, enters. He warns Creon that Polyneices should now be urgently buried because the gods are displeased, refusing to accept any sacrifices or prayers from Thebes. Creon accuses Tiresias of being corrupt. Tiresias responds that because of Creon's mistakes, he will lose \"a son of [his] own loins\" for the crimes of leaving Polyneices unburied and putting Antigone into the earth (he does not say that Antigone should not be condemned to death"
      },
      {
        "text": " warns Creon that Polyneices should now be urgently buried because the gods are displeased, refusing to accept any sacrifices or prayers from Thebes. Creon accuses Tiresias of being corrupt. Tiresias responds that because of Creon's mistakes, he will lose \"a son of [his] own loins\" for the crimes of leaving Polyneices unburied and putting Antigone into the earth (he does not say that Antigone should not be condemned to death, only that it is improper to keep a living body underneath the earth). All of Greece will despise him, and the sacrificial offerings of Thebes will not be accepted by the gods. The Chorus, terrified, asks Creon to take their advice. He assents, and they tell him that he should free Antigone and bury Polyneices. Creon, shaken, agrees to do it. He leaves with a retinue of men to help him right his previous mistakes. The Chorus delivers a choral ode to the god Dionysus (god of wine and of the theater; this part is the offering to their patron god), and then a Messenger enters to tell them that Haemon has killed himself. Eurydice, Creon's wife and Haemon's mother, enters and asks the Messenger to tell her everything. The Messenger reports that Haemon and Antigone have both taken their own lives, Antigone by hanging herself, and Haemon by stabbing himself after finding the body, just after Polyneices was buried. Eurydice disappears into the palace. Creon enters, carrying Haemon's body. He understands that his own actions have caused these events. A Second Messenger arrives to tell Creon and the Chorus that Eurydice has killed herself. With her last breath, she cursed her husband. Creon blames himself for everything that has happened, and, a broken man, he asks his servants to help"
      },
      {
        "text": "emon by stabbing himself after finding the body, just after Polyneices was buried. Eurydice disappears into the palace. Creon enters, carrying Haemon's body. He understands that his own actions have caused these events. A Second Messenger arrives to tell Creon and the Chorus that Eurydice has killed herself. With her last breath, she cursed her husband. Creon blames himself for everything that has happened, and, a broken man, he asks his servants to help him inside. The order he valued so much has been protected, and he is still the king, but he has acted against the gods and lost his child and his wife as a result. The Chorus closes by saying that although the gods punish the proud, punishment brings wisdom.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Love and Mr Lewisham",
    "author": "H. G. Wells",
    "published_date": "1900",
    "synopsis": " At the beginning of the novel, Mr. Lewisham is an 18-year-old teacher at a boys' school in Sussex, earning forty pounds a year. He meets and falls in love with Ethel Henderson, who is paying a visit to relatives. His involvement with her causes him to lose his position, but he is unable to find her when he moves to London. After a two-and-one-half-year break in the action, Mr. Lewisham is in his third year of study at the Normal School of Science in South Kensington. He has becomes a socialist, declaring his politics with a red tie, and is an object of interest to Alice Heydinger, an older student. But chance brings him together again with his first love at a s\u00e9ance. Ethel's stepfather, Mr. Chaffery, is a spiritualist charlatan, and Mr. Lewisham is determined to extricate her from association with his dishonesty. They marry, but Mr. Lewisham is forced to abandon his plans for a brilliant scientific career followed by a political ascent.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At the beginning of the novel, Mr. Lewisham is an 18-year-old teacher at a boys' school in Sussex, earning forty pounds a year. He meets and falls in love with Ethel Henderson, who is paying a visit to relatives. His involvement with her causes him to lose his position, but he is unable to find her when he moves to London. After a two-and-one-half-year break in the action, Mr. Lewisham is in his third year of study at the Normal School of Science in South Kensington. He has becomes a socialist, declaring his politics with a red tie, and is an object of interest to Alice Heydinger, an older student. But chance brings him together again with his first love at a s\u00e9ance. Ethel's stepfather, Mr. Chaffery, is a spiritualist charlatan, and Mr. Lewisham is determined to extricate her from association with his dishonesty. They marry, but Mr. Lewisham is forced to abandon his plans for a brilliant scientific career followed by a political ascent.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Stardroppers",
    "author": "John Brunner",
    "published_date": "1972",
    "synopsis": " The Stardroppers is about an undercover United Nations agent investigating a new fad, \"stardropping\", whereby physics-violating equipment is used to listen to sounds believed to be alien or paranormal signals. Superficially a harmless but expensive hobby, stardropping reins in a fanaticism resembling addiction, where some users assemble in semi-social communes and spend all of their money on increasingly improved equipment. The fad gains an additional aspect of risk when users begin disappearing into thin air, in cases of increasing profile and witnessing.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Stardroppers is about an undercover United Nations agent investigating a new fad, \"stardropping\", whereby physics-violating equipment is used to listen to sounds believed to be alien or paranormal signals. Superficially a harmless but expensive hobby, stardropping reins in a fanaticism resembling addiction, where some users assemble in semi-social communes and spend all of their money on increasingly improved equipment. The fad gains an additional aspect of risk when users begin disappearing into thin air, in cases of increasing profile and witnessing.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Little Foxes",
    "author": "Lillian Hellman",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The focus is on Southerner Regina Hubbard Giddens, who struggles for wealth and freedom within the confines of an early 20th century society where a father considered only sons as legal heirs. As a result, her avaricious brothers Benjamin and Oscar are independently wealthy, while she must rely upon her sickly, wheelchair-using husband Horace for financial support. Regina's brother Oscar has married Birdie, his much-maligned, alcoholic wife, solely to acquire her family's plantation and its cotton fields. Oscar now wants to join forces with his brother, Benjamin, to construct a cotton mill. They approach their sister with their need for an additional $75,000 to invest in the project. Oscar initially proposes marriage between his son Leo and Regina's daughter Alexandra - first cousins - as a means of getting Horace's money, but Horace and Alexandra are repulsed by the suggestion. When Regina asks Horace outright for the money, he refuses, so Leo, a bank teller, is pressured into stealing his uncle Horace's railroad bonds from the bank's safety deposit box. Horace, after discovering this, tells Regina he is going to change his will in favor of their daughter, and also will claim he gave Leo the bonds as a loan, thereby cutting Regina out of the deal completely. When he suffers a heart attack during this chat, she makes no effort to help him. He dies within hours, without anyone knowing his plan and before changing his will. This leaves Regina free to blackmail her brothers by threatening to report Leo's theft unless they give her 75% ownership in the cotton mill (it is in Regina's mind, a fair exchange for the stolen bonds). The price Regina ultimately pays for her evil deeds is the loss of her daughter Alexandra's love and respect. Regina's actions cause Alexandra to finally understand the importance of not idly watching people do evil. She tells Regina she will not watch her be \"one who eats the earth,\" and abandons her. Having let her husband die, alienated her brothers, and driven away her only child, Regina is left wealthy but completely alone.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The focus is on Southerner Regina Hubbard Giddens, who struggles for wealth and freedom within the confines of an early 20th century society where a father considered only sons as legal heirs. As a result, her avaricious brothers Benjamin and Oscar are independently wealthy, while she must rely upon her sickly, wheelchair-using husband Horace for financial support. Regina's brother Oscar has married Birdie, his much-maligned, alcoholic wife, solely to acquire her family's plantation and its cotton fields. Oscar now wants to join forces with his brother, Benjamin, to construct a cotton mill. They approach their sister with their need for an additional $75,000 to invest in the project. Oscar initially proposes marriage between his son Leo and Regina's daughter Alexandra - first cousins - as a means of getting Horace's money, but Horace and Alexandra are repulsed by the suggestion. When Regina asks Horace outright for the money, he refuses, so Leo, a bank teller, is pressured into stealing his uncle Horace's railroad bonds from the bank's safety deposit box. Horace, after discovering this, tells Regina he is going to change his will in favor of their daughter, and also will claim he gave Leo the bonds as a loan, thereby cutting Regina out of the deal completely. When he suffers a heart attack during this chat, she makes no effort to help him. He dies within hours, without anyone knowing his plan and before changing his will. This leaves Regina free to blackmail her brothers by threatening to report Leo's theft unless they give her 75% ownership in the cotton mill (it is in Regina's mind, a fair exchange for the stolen bonds). The price Regina ultimately pays for her evil deeds is the loss of her daughter Alexandra's love and respect. Regina's actions cause Alexandra to finally understand the importance of not idly watching people do evil. She tells Regina she will not watch her be \"one who eats the earth,\" and ab"
      },
      {
        "text": " This leaves Regina free to blackmail her brothers by threatening to report Leo's theft unless they give her 75% ownership in the cotton mill (it is in Regina's mind, a fair exchange for the stolen bonds). The price Regina ultimately pays for her evil deeds is the loss of her daughter Alexandra's love and respect. Regina's actions cause Alexandra to finally understand the importance of not idly watching people do evil. She tells Regina she will not watch her be \"one who eats the earth,\" and abandons her. Having let her husband die, alienated her brothers, and driven away her only child, Regina is left wealthy but completely alone.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Carrie",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1974-04-05",
    "synopsis": " The book uses false documents to frame the story of one of the worst disasters in American history--the destruction of the town of Chamberlain, Maine by high school student Carietta \"Carrie\" White. For years, Carrie has been abused at home by her unstable Christian fundamentalist mother, Margaret White. She does not fare much better at Thomas Ewen High School; she has been a social outcast since first grade, and has been the focus of bullying due to her religious beliefs, her outdated clothing and her plain appearance. At the beginning of the novel, Carrie has her first period while showering after gym class. Carrie is terrified, having no concept of menstruation; her mother never spoke to her about it, and she believes that she is bleeding to death. Instead of sympathizing with the frightened Carrie, her classmates throw tampons and sanitary napkins at her. As Carrie is aided by her gym teacher, Rita Desjardin, a light bulb in the shower burns out. The next day, Miss Desjardin viciously berates the girls involved in the shower incident and orders them to serve a week's detention in the gym. One of the girls, Chris Hargensen, refuses to attend and is suspended for three days, and is also banned from Ewen High's prom. Meanwhile, Sue Snell, one of the girls who joined in taunting Carrie, feels remorse for her prior actions and offers to become her friend. Meanwhile, Carrie gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers, trying to keep them under control. With prom fast approaching, Sue sets Carrie up with her handsome boyfriend, Tommy Ross. Carrie's mother tries to force her not to go, but Carrie uses her powers to help stand up for herself. Chris and her boyfriend, Billy Nolan, hatch a plan to humiliate Carrie in front of the entire school. Chris has Billy fill two buckets with pig blood, and rigs them over the stage on a rafter hidden out of sight. On prom night, Carrie is tormented by her mother begging for her not to leave the house. Carrie leaves anyway and arrives with Tommy. Carrie is nervous at first, but everyone begins treating her equally. Soon Carrie begins enjoying herself and Tommy begins to become attracted to her. Meanwhile, Sue continually worries about what's happening at the prom\u2014and at the same time worries if she's pregnant. Carrie and Tommy are elected prom king and queen after Chris's henchwoman, Tina Blake, exchanges fake ballots for the real ones. Once on stage, Chris drenches Carrie and Tommy with the pig blood. Everyone begins pointing and laughing. One of the buckets falls on Tommy's head, mortally wounding him. Carrie runs off the stage. She is tripped, gets back up, and rushes outside. Contemplating her life in solitary confinement, she remembers her power and goes back to exact revenge on everyone who tormented her. She locks the doors and turns on the sprinkler system. But after viewing two kids die of electrocution, her mind finally snaps; she decides to set fire to the gym. She leaves the prom-goers and chaperones to die in the fire, including Tommy. Miss Desjardin and a few other students manage to survive the destruction by fleeing through the fire escape. Carrie decides to take out her pent-up anger on Chamberlain. She blows up a gas station and sets her entire neighborhood on fire. She also destroys the town's fire hydrants, preventing any attempt at putting out the fires. Notably, Carrie goes to a church and prays, all the while manipulating a series of power lines outside, killing several civilians surveying the event. Sue rushes to the school and watches it explode, which destroys a portion of the town. Carrie makes her way home and confronts her mother, who has now gone completely mad, and tells Carrie of the night she was raped and conceived Carrie. Carrie's mother then stabs her in the shoulder with a carving knife. In retaliation, Carrie kills her mother by stopping her heart. Mortally wounded, Carrie then makes her way to the local roadhouse where her father got drunk and raped her mother the night she was conceived. Chris and Billy, who happened to be making love inside, receive word from Billy's friend of what has happened to Chamberlain, and Billy plans on leaving town with Chris. They exit the roadhouse just as Carrie arrives, and attempt to run her down with Billy's car, but Carrie telekinetically sends the car crashing into the roadhouse, killing Chris and Billy. Carrie then collapses in the parking lot from blood loss. Sue then goes to the roadhouse where she finds Carrie in the parking lot. Carrie talks telepathically with Sue and blames her for the prank, but after scanning Sue's brain, she finds out that Sue had no idea of the prank and that she had set her up with Tommy to apologize for the gym shower incident. Carrie does not forgive Sue, but believes her and then cries out for her mother before dying from the stab wound in her shoulder. Terror-stricken, Sue runs away from the roadhouse and after distancing herself from it, she collapses and has her period, meaning that she miscarried if pregnant. Four months later, Chamberlain has become a ghost town. By then, 440 people have been confirmed dead--including more than half of Ewen High's senior class--and 18 are still missing. The 'Black Prom' incident hits the nation harder than the assassination of John F. Kennedy. After interviewing the survivors of the prom, science begins to take telekinesis seriously plus many schools across the country start to crack down more on bullying. Miss Desjardin and school principal Henry Grayle both resign, consumed with guilt over not reaching out to Carrie sooner. In 1986, Sue writes a memoir of her experience entitled My Name is Susan Snell, which warns the reader not to forget about the events that took place in Chamberlain, otherwise something like it may happen again. The book closes with a letter written by a woman in Tennessee whose niece is developing telekinetic powers.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book uses false documents to frame the story of one of the worst disasters in American history--the destruction of the town of Chamberlain, Maine by high school student Carietta \"Carrie\" White. For years, Carrie has been abused at home by her unstable Christian fundamentalist mother, Margaret White. She does not fare much better at Thomas Ewen High School; she has been a social outcast since first grade, and has been the focus of bullying due to her religious beliefs, her outdated clothing and her plain appearance. At the beginning of the novel, Carrie has her first period while showering after gym class. Carrie is terrified, having no concept of menstruation; her mother never spoke to her about it, and she believes that she is bleeding to death. Instead of sympathizing with the frightened Carrie, her classmates throw tampons and sanitary napkins at her. As Carrie is aided by her gym teacher, Rita Desjardin, a light bulb in the shower burns out. The next day, Miss Desjardin viciously berates the girls involved in the shower incident and orders them to serve a week's detention in the gym. One of the girls, Chris Hargensen, refuses to attend and is suspended for three days, and is also banned from Ewen High's prom. Meanwhile, Sue Snell, one of the girls who joined in taunting Carrie, feels remorse for her prior actions and offers to become her friend. Meanwhile, Carrie gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers, trying to keep them under control. With prom fast approaching, Sue sets Carrie up with her handsome boyfriend, Tommy Ross. Carrie's mother tries to force her not to go, but Carrie uses her powers to help stand up for herself. Chris and her boyfriend, Billy Nolan, hatch a plan to humiliate Carrie in front of the entire school. Chris has Billy fill two buckets with pig blood, and rigs them over the stage on a rafter hidden out of sight"
      },
      {
        "text": " she has telekinetic powers, trying to keep them under control. With prom fast approaching, Sue sets Carrie up with her handsome boyfriend, Tommy Ross. Carrie's mother tries to force her not to go, but Carrie uses her powers to help stand up for herself. Chris and her boyfriend, Billy Nolan, hatch a plan to humiliate Carrie in front of the entire school. Chris has Billy fill two buckets with pig blood, and rigs them over the stage on a rafter hidden out of sight. On prom night, Carrie is tormented by her mother begging for her not to leave the house. Carrie leaves anyway and arrives with Tommy. Carrie is nervous at first, but everyone begins treating her equally. Soon Carrie begins enjoying herself and Tommy begins to become attracted to her. Meanwhile, Sue continually worries about what's happening at the prom\u2014and at the same time worries if she's pregnant. Carrie and Tommy are elected prom king and queen after Chris's henchwoman, Tina Blake, exchanges fake ballots for the real ones. Once on stage, Chris drenches Carrie and Tommy with the pig blood. Everyone begins pointing and laughing. One of the buckets falls on Tommy's head, mortally wounding him. Carrie runs off the stage. She is tripped, gets back up, and rushes outside. Contemplating her life in solitary confinement, she remembers her power and goes back to exact revenge on everyone who tormented her. She locks the doors and turns on the sprinkler system. But after viewing two kids die of electrocution, her mind finally snaps; she decides to set fire to the gym. She leaves the prom-goers and chaperones to die in the fire, including Tommy. Miss Desjardin and a few other students manage to survive the destruction by fleeing through the fire escape. Carrie decides to take out her pent-up anger on Chamberlain. She blows up a gas station and sets her entire neighborhood on fire. She also destroys the town's fire"
      },
      {
        "text": " But after viewing two kids die of electrocution, her mind finally snaps; she decides to set fire to the gym. She leaves the prom-goers and chaperones to die in the fire, including Tommy. Miss Desjardin and a few other students manage to survive the destruction by fleeing through the fire escape. Carrie decides to take out her pent-up anger on Chamberlain. She blows up a gas station and sets her entire neighborhood on fire. She also destroys the town's fire hydrants, preventing any attempt at putting out the fires. Notably, Carrie goes to a church and prays, all the while manipulating a series of power lines outside, killing several civilians surveying the event. Sue rushes to the school and watches it explode, which destroys a portion of the town. Carrie makes her way home and confronts her mother, who has now gone completely mad, and tells Carrie of the night she was raped and conceived Carrie. Carrie's mother then stabs her in the shoulder with a carving knife. In retaliation, Carrie kills her mother by stopping her heart. Mortally wounded, Carrie then makes her way to the local roadhouse where her father got drunk and raped her mother the night she was conceived. Chris and Billy, who happened to be making love inside, receive word from Billy's friend of what has happened to Chamberlain, and Billy plans on leaving town with Chris. They exit the roadhouse just as Carrie arrives, and attempt to run her down with Billy's car, but Carrie telekinetically sends the car crashing into the roadhouse, killing Chris and Billy. Carrie then collapses in the parking lot from blood loss. Sue then goes to the roadhouse where she finds Carrie in the parking lot. Carrie talks telepathically with Sue and blames her for the prank, but after scanning Sue's brain, she finds out that Sue had no idea of the prank and that she had set her up with Tommy to apologize for the gym shower incident. Carrie does not"
      },
      {
        "text": " car, but Carrie telekinetically sends the car crashing into the roadhouse, killing Chris and Billy. Carrie then collapses in the parking lot from blood loss. Sue then goes to the roadhouse where she finds Carrie in the parking lot. Carrie talks telepathically with Sue and blames her for the prank, but after scanning Sue's brain, she finds out that Sue had no idea of the prank and that she had set her up with Tommy to apologize for the gym shower incident. Carrie does not forgive Sue, but believes her and then cries out for her mother before dying from the stab wound in her shoulder. Terror-stricken, Sue runs away from the roadhouse and after distancing herself from it, she collapses and has her period, meaning that she miscarried if pregnant. Four months later, Chamberlain has become a ghost town. By then, 440 people have been confirmed dead--including more than half of Ewen High's senior class--and 18 are still missing. The 'Black Prom' incident hits the nation harder than the assassination of John F. Kennedy. After interviewing the survivors of the prom, science begins to take telekinesis seriously plus many schools across the country start to crack down more on bullying. Miss Desjardin and school principal Henry Grayle both resign, consumed with guilt over not reaching out to Carrie sooner. In 1986, Sue writes a memoir of her experience entitled My Name is Susan Snell, which warns the reader not to forget about the events that took place in Chamberlain, otherwise something like it may happen again. The book closes with a letter written by a woman in Tennessee whose niece is developing telekinetic powers.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " that took place in Chamberlain, otherwise something like it may happen again. The book closes with a letter written by a woman in Tennessee whose niece is developing telekinetic powers.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "King John",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "1623",
    "synopsis": " King John receives an ambassador from France, who demands, on pain of war, that he renounce his throne in favour of his nephew, Arthur, whom the French King, Philip, believes to be the rightful heir to the throne. John adjudicates an inheritance dispute between Robert Falconbridge and his older brother Philip the Bastard, during which it becomes apparent that Philip is the illegitimate son of King Richard I. Queen Eleanor, mother to both Richard and John, recognises the family resemblance and suggests that he renounce his claim to the Falconbridge land in exchange for a knighthood. John knights the Bastard under the name Richard. In France, King Philip and his forces besiege the English-ruled town of Angiers, threatening attack unless its citizens support Arthur. Philip is supported by Austria, who is believed to have killed King Richard. The English contingent arrives; Eleanor trades insults with Constance, Arthur's mother. Kings Philip and John stake their claims in front of Angiers' citizens, but to no avail: their representative says that they will support the rightful king, whoever that turns out to be. The Bastard proposes that England and France unite to punish the rebellious citizens of Angiers, at which point they propose an alternative: Philip's son, Louis the Dauphin, should marry John's niece Blanche, a scheme that gives John a stronger claim to the throne, while Louis gains territory for France. Though a furious Constance accuses Philip of abandoning Arthur, Louis and Blanche are married. Cardinal Pandolf arrives from Rome bearing a formal accusation that John has disobeyed the pope and appointed an archbishop contrary to his desires. John refuses to recant, whereupon he is excommunicated. Pandolf pledges his support for Louis, though Philip is hesitant, having just established family ties with John. Pandolf brings him round by pointing out that his links to the church are older and firmer. War breaks out; Austria is beheaded by the Bastard in revenge for his father's death; and both Angiers and Arthur are captured by the English. Eleanor is left in charge of English possessions in France, while the Bastard is sent to collect funds from English monasteries. John orders Hubert to kill Arthur. Pandolf suggests to Louis that he now has as strong a claim to the English throne as Arthur (and indeed John), and Louis agrees to invade England. Hubert finds himself unable to kill Arthur. John's nobles urge Arthur's release. John agrees, but is wrong-footed by Hubert's announcement that Arthur is dead. The nobles, believing he was murdered, defect to Louis' side. The Bastard reports that the monasteries are unhappy about John's attempt to seize their gold. Hubert has a furious argument with John, during which he reveals that Arthur is still alive. John, delighted, sends him to report the news to the nobles. Arthur dies jumping from a castle wall. (It is open to interpretation whether he deliberately kills himself or just makes a risky escape attempt.) The nobles believe he was murdered by John, and refuse to believe Hubert's entreaties. John attempts to make a deal with Pandolf, swearing allegiance to the Pope in exchange for Pandolf's negotiating with the French on his behalf. John orders the Bastard, one of his few remaining loyal subjects, to lead the English army against France. While John's former noblemen swear allegiance to Louis, Pandolf explains John's scheme, but Louis refuses to be taken in by it. The Bastard arrives with the English army and threatens Louis, but to no avail. War breaks out with substantial losses on each side, including Louis' reinforcements, who are drowned during the sea crossing. Many English nobles return to John's side after a dying French nobleman, Melun, warns them that Louis plans to kill them after his victory. John is poisoned by a disgruntled monk. His nobles gather around him as he dies. The Bastard plans the final assault on Louis' forces, until he is told that Pandolf has arrived with a peace treaty. The English nobles swear allegiance to John's son Prince Henry, and the Bastard reflects that this episode has taught that internal bickering could be as perilous to England's fortunes as foreign invasion.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " King John receives an ambassador from France, who demands, on pain of war, that he renounce his throne in favour of his nephew, Arthur, whom the French King, Philip, believes to be the rightful heir to the throne. John adjudicates an inheritance dispute between Robert Falconbridge and his older brother Philip the Bastard, during which it becomes apparent that Philip is the illegitimate son of King Richard I. Queen Eleanor, mother to both Richard and John, recognises the family resemblance and suggests that he renounce his claim to the Falconbridge land in exchange for a knighthood. John knights the Bastard under the name Richard. In France, King Philip and his forces besiege the English-ruled town of Angiers, threatening attack unless its citizens support Arthur. Philip is supported by Austria, who is believed to have killed King Richard. The English contingent arrives; Eleanor trades insults with Constance, Arthur's mother. Kings Philip and John stake their claims in front of Angiers' citizens, but to no avail: their representative says that they will support the rightful king, whoever that turns out to be. The Bastard proposes that England and France unite to punish the rebellious citizens of Angiers, at which point they propose an alternative: Philip's son, Louis the Dauphin, should marry John's niece Blanche, a scheme that gives John a stronger claim to the throne, while Louis gains territory for France. Though a furious Constance accuses Philip of abandoning Arthur, Louis and Blanche are married. Cardinal Pandolf arrives from Rome bearing a formal accusation that John has disobeyed the pope and appointed an archbishop contrary to his desires. John refuses to recant, whereupon he is excommunicated. Pandolf pledges his support for Louis, though Philip is hesitant, having just established family ties with John. Pandolf brings him round by pointing out that his links to the church are older and firmer. War breaks out; Austria is beheaded by the"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Louis and Blanche are married. Cardinal Pandolf arrives from Rome bearing a formal accusation that John has disobeyed the pope and appointed an archbishop contrary to his desires. John refuses to recant, whereupon he is excommunicated. Pandolf pledges his support for Louis, though Philip is hesitant, having just established family ties with John. Pandolf brings him round by pointing out that his links to the church are older and firmer. War breaks out; Austria is beheaded by the Bastard in revenge for his father's death; and both Angiers and Arthur are captured by the English. Eleanor is left in charge of English possessions in France, while the Bastard is sent to collect funds from English monasteries. John orders Hubert to kill Arthur. Pandolf suggests to Louis that he now has as strong a claim to the English throne as Arthur (and indeed John), and Louis agrees to invade England. Hubert finds himself unable to kill Arthur. John's nobles urge Arthur's release. John agrees, but is wrong-footed by Hubert's announcement that Arthur is dead. The nobles, believing he was murdered, defect to Louis' side. The Bastard reports that the monasteries are unhappy about John's attempt to seize their gold. Hubert has a furious argument with John, during which he reveals that Arthur is still alive. John, delighted, sends him to report the news to the nobles. Arthur dies jumping from a castle wall. (It is open to interpretation whether he deliberately kills himself or just makes a risky escape attempt.) The nobles believe he was murdered by John, and refuse to believe Hubert's entreaties. John attempts to make a deal with Pandolf, swearing allegiance to the Pope in exchange for Pandolf's negotiating with the French on his behalf. John orders the Bastard, one of his few remaining loyal subjects, to lead the English army against France. While John's former noblemen swear allegiance to Louis, Pandolf explains John's scheme"
      },
      {
        "text": " whether he deliberately kills himself or just makes a risky escape attempt.) The nobles believe he was murdered by John, and refuse to believe Hubert's entreaties. John attempts to make a deal with Pandolf, swearing allegiance to the Pope in exchange for Pandolf's negotiating with the French on his behalf. John orders the Bastard, one of his few remaining loyal subjects, to lead the English army against France. While John's former noblemen swear allegiance to Louis, Pandolf explains John's scheme, but Louis refuses to be taken in by it. The Bastard arrives with the English army and threatens Louis, but to no avail. War breaks out with substantial losses on each side, including Louis' reinforcements, who are drowned during the sea crossing. Many English nobles return to John's side after a dying French nobleman, Melun, warns them that Louis plans to kill them after his victory. John is poisoned by a disgruntled monk. His nobles gather around him as he dies. The Bastard plans the final assault on Louis' forces, until he is told that Pandolf has arrived with a peace treaty. The English nobles swear allegiance to John's son Prince Henry, and the Bastard reflects that this episode has taught that internal bickering could be as perilous to England's fortunes as foreign invasion.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Love's Labour's Lost",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play opens with the King of Navarre and three noble companions, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville, taking an oath to devote themselves to three years of study, promising not to give in to the company of women \u2013 Berowne somewhat more hesitantly than the others. Berowne reminds the king that the princess and her three ladies are coming to the kingdom and it would be suicidal for the King to agree to this law. The King denies what Berowne says, insisting that the ladies make their camp in the field outside of his court. The King and his men meet the princess and her ladies. Instantly, they all fall comically in love. The main story is assisted by many other humorous sub-plots. A rather heavily-accented Spanish swordsman, Don Adriano de Armado, tries and fails to woo a country wench, Jaquenetta, helped by Moth, his page, and rivalled by Costard, a country idiot. We are also introduced to two scholars, Holofernes and Sir Nathaniel, and we see them converse with each other in schoolboy Latin. In the final act, the comic characters perform a play to entertain the nobles, an idea conceived by Holofernes, where they represent the Nine Worthies. The four Lords \u2013 as well as the Ladies' courtier Boyet \u2013 mock the play, and Armado and Costard almost come to blows. At the end of this 'play' within the play, there is a bitter twist in the story. News arrives that the Princess's father has died and she must leave to take the throne. The king and his nobles swear to remain faithful to their ladies, but the ladies, unconvinced that their love is that strong, claim that the men must wait a whole year and a day to prove what they say is true. This is an unusual ending for Shakespeare and Elizabethan comedy. A play mentioned by Francis Meres, Love's Labour's Won, is believed by some to be a sequel to this play.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play opens with the King of Navarre and three noble companions, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville, taking an oath to devote themselves to three years of study, promising not to give in to the company of women \u2013 Berowne somewhat more hesitantly than the others. Berowne reminds the king that the princess and her three ladies are coming to the kingdom and it would be suicidal for the King to agree to this law. The King denies what Berowne says, insisting that the ladies make their camp in the field outside of his court. The King and his men meet the princess and her ladies. Instantly, they all fall comically in love. The main story is assisted by many other humorous sub-plots. A rather heavily-accented Spanish swordsman, Don Adriano de Armado, tries and fails to woo a country wench, Jaquenetta, helped by Moth, his page, and rivalled by Costard, a country idiot. We are also introduced to two scholars, Holofernes and Sir Nathaniel, and we see them converse with each other in schoolboy Latin. In the final act, the comic characters perform a play to entertain the nobles, an idea conceived by Holofernes, where they represent the Nine Worthies. The four Lords \u2013 as well as the Ladies' courtier Boyet \u2013 mock the play, and Armado and Costard almost come to blows. At the end of this 'play' within the play, there is a bitter twist in the story. News arrives that the Princess's father has died and she must leave to take the throne. The king and his nobles swear to remain faithful to their ladies, but the ladies, unconvinced that their love is that strong, claim that the men must wait a whole year and a day to prove what they say is true. This is an unusual ending for Shakespeare and Elizabethan comedy. A play"
      },
      {
        "text": " At the end of this 'play' within the play, there is a bitter twist in the story. News arrives that the Princess's father has died and she must leave to take the throne. The king and his nobles swear to remain faithful to their ladies, but the ladies, unconvinced that their love is that strong, claim that the men must wait a whole year and a day to prove what they say is true. This is an unusual ending for Shakespeare and Elizabethan comedy. A play mentioned by Francis Meres, Love's Labour's Won, is believed by some to be a sequel to this play.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Watership Down",
    "author": "Richard Adams",
    "published_date": "1972-11",
    "synopsis": " In the Sandleford warren, Fiver, a young runt rabbit who is a seer, receives a frightening vision of his warren's imminent destruction. When he and his brother Hazel fail to convince their chief rabbit of the need to evacuate, they set out on their own with a small band of rabbits to search for a new home, barely eluding the Owsla, the warren's military caste. The travelling group of rabbits find themselves following the leadership of Hazel, previously an unimportant member of the warren. They travel through dangerous territory, with Bigwig and Silver, both former Owsla, as the strongest rabbits among them. Fiver's visions promise a safe place in which to settle, and the group eventually finds Watership Down, an ideal location to set up their new warren. They are soon reunited with Holly and Bluebell, also from the Sandleford Warren, who reveal that Fiver's vision was true and the entire warren was destroyed by humans. Although Watership Down is a peaceful habitat, Hazel realises there are no does (female rabbits), thus making the future of their new home uncertain. With the help of a seagull named Kehaar, they locate a nearby warren, Efrafa, which is overcrowded and has many does. Hazel sends a small emissary to Efrafa to present their request for does. While waiting for the group to return, Hazel and Pipkin successfully raid the nearby Nuthanger Farm to rescue a group of hutch rabbits there, returning with two does and a buck. When the emissary returns, Hazel and his rabbits learn Efrafa is a police state led by the despotic General Woundwort; Hazel's rabbits barely return alive. However, the group does manage to identify an Efrafan doe named Hyzenthlay who wants to leave the warren and can recruit other does to join. Hazel and Bigwig devise a plan to rescue the group of rabbits from Efrafa to join them on Watership Down. The Efrafan escapees start their new life on Watership Down, but soon Woundwort's army arrives to attack the Watership Down warren. Through Bigwig's bravery and loyalty and Hazel's ingenuity, the Watership Down rabbits defeat Woundwort. The story's epilogue tells the reader of how Hazel, dozing in his burrow one \"chilly, blustery morning in March\" many years later, is visited by the rabbit folk hero El-ahrairah, who invites Hazel to join his Owsla. Leaving his friends and no-longer-needed body behind, Hazel departs Watership Down with El-ahrairah, \"running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the Sandleford warren, Fiver, a young runt rabbit who is a seer, receives a frightening vision of his warren's imminent destruction. When he and his brother Hazel fail to convince their chief rabbit of the need to evacuate, they set out on their own with a small band of rabbits to search for a new home, barely eluding the Owsla, the warren's military caste. The travelling group of rabbits find themselves following the leadership of Hazel, previously an unimportant member of the warren. They travel through dangerous territory, with Bigwig and Silver, both former Owsla, as the strongest rabbits among them. Fiver's visions promise a safe place in which to settle, and the group eventually finds Watership Down, an ideal location to set up their new warren. They are soon reunited with Holly and Bluebell, also from the Sandleford Warren, who reveal that Fiver's vision was true and the entire warren was destroyed by humans. Although Watership Down is a peaceful habitat, Hazel realises there are no does (female rabbits), thus making the future of their new home uncertain. With the help of a seagull named Kehaar, they locate a nearby warren, Efrafa, which is overcrowded and has many does. Hazel sends a small emissary to Efrafa to present their request for does. While waiting for the group to return, Hazel and Pipkin successfully raid the nearby Nuthanger Farm to rescue a group of hutch rabbits there, returning with two does and a buck. When the emissary returns, Hazel and his rabbits learn Efrafa is a police state led by the despotic General Woundwort; Hazel's rabbits barely return alive. However, the group does manage to identify an Efrafan doe named Hyzenthlay who wants to leave the warren and can recruit other does to join. Hazel and Big"
      },
      {
        "text": " the nearby Nuthanger Farm to rescue a group of hutch rabbits there, returning with two does and a buck. When the emissary returns, Hazel and his rabbits learn Efrafa is a police state led by the despotic General Woundwort; Hazel's rabbits barely return alive. However, the group does manage to identify an Efrafan doe named Hyzenthlay who wants to leave the warren and can recruit other does to join. Hazel and Bigwig devise a plan to rescue the group of rabbits from Efrafa to join them on Watership Down. The Efrafan escapees start their new life on Watership Down, but soon Woundwort's army arrives to attack the Watership Down warren. Through Bigwig's bravery and loyalty and Hazel's ingenuity, the Watership Down rabbits defeat Woundwort. The story's epilogue tells the reader of how Hazel, dozing in his burrow one \"chilly, blustery morning in March\" many years later, is visited by the rabbit folk hero El-ahrairah, who invites Hazel to join his Owsla. Leaving his friends and no-longer-needed body behind, Hazel departs Watership Down with El-ahrairah, \"running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Harriet the Spy",
    "author": "Louise Fitzhugh",
    "published_date": "1964",
    "synopsis": " Eleven-year-old Harriet M. Welsch is an aspiring writer, who lives in New York City's Upper East Side. A precocious and enthusiastic girl, Harriet enjoys writing and aspires to become a spy. Encouraged by her nanny, Ole Golly, Harriet carefully observes others and writes her thoughts down in a notebook as practice for her future career. She dedicates her life to her future career. She follows an afternoon \"spy route\" during which she clandestinely observes her classmates, friends, and people who reside in her neighborhood. Her best friends are Sport, a serious boy who lives with his father, and Janie, an aspiring scientist. Harriet enjoys having structure in her life. For example, she regularly eats tomato sandwiches and adamantly refuses to consume other types of sandwiches. Harriet's routine life is abruptly changed when her parents attend a party. Ole Golly and her suitor, Mr. Waldenstein, take Harriet out for dessert and a movie. When they return home, they discover that the Welsches have returned early to an empty house. When Mrs. Welsch attempts to fire Ole Golly, Mr. Waldenstein discloses to the Welsches that he proposed to Ole Golly that evening, and she has accepted. In an astonishing about-face, Mrs. Welsch exclaims, \"You can't leave, what will we do without you?!\" Ole Golly replies that she had planned to leave soon because she believes Harriet is old enough to care for herself. Harriet is crushed by the loss of her nanny, to whom she was very close. Later at school, during a game of tag, Harriet loses her notebook. Her classmates find it and are appalled at the mean and tactless things she has written about them. For example, in her notebook she compares Sport to a \"little old woman\" for his continual worrying about his father. Harriet has given her honest opinion of the world as she sees it and does not mean to be rude. In fact, she insists, her notebook is private and not for anyone else to see. The students form a \"Spy Catcher Club\" in which they think up ways to make Harriet's life miserable, such as stealing her lunch, passing nasty notes about her in class, and spilling ink on her. Harriet regularly spies on them through a back fence and concocts vengeful ways to punish them. She realizes the consequences of the mean things she wrote, and though she is hurt and lonely, she still thinks up special punishments for each member of the club. After getting into trouble for some of her plans, Harriet tries to resume her friendship with Sport and Janie as if nothing had ever happened, but they both reject her. Harriet spends all her time in class writing in her notebook as a part of her plan to punish the Spy Catcher Club. As a result of never doing her schoolwork, her grades suffer. This leads Harriet's parents to confiscate her notebook. Hearing of Harriet's troubles, Ole Golly writes to her, telling her that if anyone ever reads her notebook, \"you have to do two things, and you don't like either one of them. 1: You have to apologize. 2: You have to lie. Otherwise you are going to lose a friend.\" Meanwhile, dissent is rippling through the Spy Catcher Club. Marion, the teacher's pet, and her best friend Rachel are calling all the shots, and Sport and Janie are tired of being bossed around. When they quit the club, most of their classmates do the same. Harriet's parents speak with her teacher and the headmistress, and Harriet is appointed editor of the class newspaper. The newspaper—featuring stories about the people on Harriet's spy route and the students' parents—becomes an instant success. Harriet also uses the paper to make amends by printing a retraction and is forgiven.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Eleven-year-old Harriet M. Welsch is an aspiring writer, who lives in New York City's Upper East Side. A precocious and enthusiastic girl, Harriet enjoys writing and aspires to become a spy. Encouraged by her nanny, Ole Golly, Harriet carefully observes others and writes her thoughts down in a notebook as practice for her future career. She dedicates her life to her future career. She follows an afternoon \"spy route\" during which she clandestinely observes her classmates, friends, and people who reside in her neighborhood. Her best friends are Sport, a serious boy who lives with his father, and Janie, an aspiring scientist. Harriet enjoys having structure in her life. For example, she regularly eats tomato sandwiches and adamantly refuses to consume other types of sandwiches. Harriet's routine life is abruptly changed when her parents attend a party. Ole Golly and her suitor, Mr. Waldenstein, take Harriet out for dessert and a movie. When they return home, they discover that the Welsches have returned early to an empty house. When Mrs. Welsch attempts to fire Ole Golly, Mr. Waldenstein discloses to the Welsches that he proposed to Ole Golly that evening, and she has accepted. In an astonishing about-face, Mrs. Welsch exclaims, \"You can't leave, what will we do without you?!\" Ole Golly replies that she had planned to leave soon because she believes Harriet is old enough to care for herself. Harriet is crushed by the loss of her nanny, to whom she was very close. Later at school, during a game of tag, Harriet loses her notebook. Her classmates find it and are appalled at the mean and tactless things she has written about them. For example, in her notebook she compares Sport to a \"little old woman\" for his continual worrying about his father. Harriet has given her honest opinion of the world as she sees it"
      },
      {
        "text": " believes Harriet is old enough to care for herself. Harriet is crushed by the loss of her nanny, to whom she was very close. Later at school, during a game of tag, Harriet loses her notebook. Her classmates find it and are appalled at the mean and tactless things she has written about them. For example, in her notebook she compares Sport to a \"little old woman\" for his continual worrying about his father. Harriet has given her honest opinion of the world as she sees it and does not mean to be rude. In fact, she insists, her notebook is private and not for anyone else to see. The students form a \"Spy Catcher Club\" in which they think up ways to make Harriet's life miserable, such as stealing her lunch, passing nasty notes about her in class, and spilling ink on her. Harriet regularly spies on them through a back fence and concocts vengeful ways to punish them. She realizes the consequences of the mean things she wrote, and though she is hurt and lonely, she still thinks up special punishments for each member of the club. After getting into trouble for some of her plans, Harriet tries to resume her friendship with Sport and Janie as if nothing had ever happened, but they both reject her. Harriet spends all her time in class writing in her notebook as a part of her plan to punish the Spy Catcher Club. As a result of never doing her schoolwork, her grades suffer. This leads Harriet's parents to confiscate her notebook. Hearing of Harriet's troubles, Ole Golly writes to her, telling her that if anyone ever reads her notebook, \"you have to do two things, and you don't like either one of them. 1: You have to apologize. 2: You have to lie. Otherwise you are going to lose a friend.\" Meanwhile, dissent is rippling through the Spy Catcher Club. Marion, the teacher's pet, and her best friend Rachel are calling all the"
      },
      {
        "text": " to confiscate her notebook. Hearing of Harriet's troubles, Ole Golly writes to her, telling her that if anyone ever reads her notebook, \"you have to do two things, and you don't like either one of them. 1: You have to apologize. 2: You have to lie. Otherwise you are going to lose a friend.\" Meanwhile, dissent is rippling through the Spy Catcher Club. Marion, the teacher's pet, and her best friend Rachel are calling all the shots, and Sport and Janie are tired of being bossed around. When they quit the club, most of their classmates do the same. Harriet's parents speak with her teacher and the headmistress, and Harriet is appointed editor of the class newspaper. The newspaper—featuring stories about the people on Harriet's spy route and the students' parents—becomes an instant success. Harriet also uses the paper to make amends by printing a retraction and is forgiven.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Richard II",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Richard II is the main character of the play. The first Act begins with King Richard sitting majestically on his throne in full state. We learn that Henry Bolingbroke, Richard's cousin, is having a dispute with Thomas Mowbray, and they both want the king to act as judge. The subject of the quarrel is Bolingbroke's accusation that Mowbray had squandered monies given to him by Richard for the King's soldiers. Bolingbroke also accuses Mowbray of the recent murder of the Duke of Gloucester, although John of Gaunt\u2014Gloucester's brother and Bolingbroke's father\u2014believes that Richard himself was responsible for the murder. After several attempts to calm both men, Richard acquiesces and Bolingbroke and Mowbray challenge each other to a duel, over the objections of both Richard and Gaunt. The tournament scene is very formal with a long, ceremonial introduction. But Richard interrupts the duel at the very beginning and sentences both men to banishment from England. Bolingbroke has to leave for six years, whereas Mowbray is banished forever. The king's decision can be seen as the first mistake in a series that will lead eventually to his overthrow and death. Indeed, Mowbray predicts that the king will fall sooner or later. John of Gaunt dies and Richard II seizes all of his land and money. This angers the nobility, who accuse Richard of wasting England's money, of taking Gaunt's money (which rightfully belongs to Bolingbroke) to fund a war with Ireland, of taxing the commoners, and of fining the nobles for crimes their ancestors committed. Next, they help Bolingbroke secretly to return to England and plan to overthrow Richard II. However, there remain some subjects faithful to Richard, among them Bushy, Bagot, Green and the Duke of Aumerle (son of the Duke of York), cousin of both Richard and Bolingbroke. King Richard leaves England to administer the war in Ireland, and Bolingbroke takes the opportunity to assemble an army and invade the north coast of England. He executes Bushy and Green, and wins over the Duke of York, whom Richard has left in charge of his government during his absence. When Richard returns, Bolingbroke first claims his land back but then additionally claims the throne. He crowns himself King Henry IV and Richard is taken into prison to the castle of Pomfret. Aumerle and others plan a rebellion against the new king, but York discovers his son's treachery and reveals it to Henry, who spares Aumerle as a result of the intercession of the Duchess of York but executes the other conspirators. After interpreting King Henry's \"living fear\" as a reference to the still-living Richard, an ambitious nobleman (Exton) goes to the prison and murders the former king. King Henry repudiates the murderer and vows to journey to Jerusalem to cleanse himself of his part in Richard's death.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Richard II is the main character of the play. The first Act begins with King Richard sitting majestically on his throne in full state. We learn that Henry Bolingbroke, Richard's cousin, is having a dispute with Thomas Mowbray, and they both want the king to act as judge. The subject of the quarrel is Bolingbroke's accusation that Mowbray had squandered monies given to him by Richard for the King's soldiers. Bolingbroke also accuses Mowbray of the recent murder of the Duke of Gloucester, although John of Gaunt\u2014Gloucester's brother and Bolingbroke's father\u2014believes that Richard himself was responsible for the murder. After several attempts to calm both men, Richard acquiesces and Bolingbroke and Mowbray challenge each other to a duel, over the objections of both Richard and Gaunt. The tournament scene is very formal with a long, ceremonial introduction. But Richard interrupts the duel at the very beginning and sentences both men to banishment from England. Bolingbroke has to leave for six years, whereas Mowbray is banished forever. The king's decision can be seen as the first mistake in a series that will lead eventually to his overthrow and death. Indeed, Mowbray predicts that the king will fall sooner or later. John of Gaunt dies and Richard II seizes all of his land and money. This angers the nobility, who accuse Richard of wasting England's money, of taking Gaunt's money (which rightfully belongs to Bolingbroke) to fund a war with Ireland, of taxing the commoners, and of fining the nobles for crimes their ancestors committed. Next, they help Bolingbroke secretly to return to England and plan to overthrow Richard II. However, there remain some subjects faithful to Richard, among them Bushy, Bagot, Green and the Duke of Aumerle (son of"
      },
      {
        "text": ", who accuse Richard of wasting England's money, of taking Gaunt's money (which rightfully belongs to Bolingbroke) to fund a war with Ireland, of taxing the commoners, and of fining the nobles for crimes their ancestors committed. Next, they help Bolingbroke secretly to return to England and plan to overthrow Richard II. However, there remain some subjects faithful to Richard, among them Bushy, Bagot, Green and the Duke of Aumerle (son of the Duke of York), cousin of both Richard and Bolingbroke. King Richard leaves England to administer the war in Ireland, and Bolingbroke takes the opportunity to assemble an army and invade the north coast of England. He executes Bushy and Green, and wins over the Duke of York, whom Richard has left in charge of his government during his absence. When Richard returns, Bolingbroke first claims his land back but then additionally claims the throne. He crowns himself King Henry IV and Richard is taken into prison to the castle of Pomfret. Aumerle and others plan a rebellion against the new king, but York discovers his son's treachery and reveals it to Henry, who spares Aumerle as a result of the intercession of the Duchess of York but executes the other conspirators. After interpreting King Henry's \"living fear\" as a reference to the still-living Richard, an ambitious nobleman (Exton) goes to the prison and murders the former king. King Henry repudiates the murderer and vows to journey to Jerusalem to cleanse himself of his part in Richard's death.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the former king. King Henry repudiates the murderer and vows to journey to Jerusalem to cleanse himself of his part in Richard's death.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Big Sleep",
    "author": "Raymond Chandler",
    "published_date": "1939",
    "synopsis": " Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the home of wealthy, elderly General Sternwood. He wants Marlowe to deal with a blackmail attempt by a bookseller named Arthur Geiger on his wild young daughter Carmen. She had previously been blackmailed by a Joe Brody. Sternwood mentions his other, older daughter Vivian, who is in a loveless marriage with a man named Rusty Regan, who has disappeared. On Marlowe's way out, Vivian wonders if he was hired to find Regan, but Marlowe won\u2019t say. Marlowe investigates Geiger\u2019s bookstore and determines it is a pornography lending library. He follows Geiger home, stakes out his house, and sees Carmen Sternwood enter. Later, he hears a scream followed by gunshots and two cars speeding away. He rushes in to find Geiger dead and Carmen drugged and naked in front of an empty camera. He takes her home, but when he returns, Geiger\u2019s body is gone and he quickly leaves. The next day, the police call him and let him know the Sternwoods' car was found driven off a pier with their chauffeur dead inside. It appears that he was hit before the car entered the water. The police also ask if Marlowe is looking for Regan. Marlowe stakes out the bookstore and sees its inventory being moved to Joe Brody\u2019s home. Vivian comes to his office and says Carmen is now being blackmailed with the nude photos from last night. She also mentions going gambling at the casino of Eddie Mars, and volunteers that Eddie's wife Mona ran off with Rusty. Marlowe revisits Geiger\u2019s house and finds Carmen trying to get in. They look for the photos but she plays dumb about the night before. Eddie Mars suddenly enters; he says he is Geiger\u2019s landlord and is looking for him. Mars demands to know why Marlowe is there, but Marlowe is unfazed and states he is no threat to Mars. Marlowe goes to Brody\u2019s home and finds him with Agnes, the bookstore's clerk. He tells them he knows they are taking over the lending library and blackmailing Carmen with the nude photos. Carmen forces her way in with a gun and demands the photos, but Marlowe takes her gun and makes her leave. Marlowe interrogates Brody further and pieces together the full story: Geiger was blackmailing Carmen and the family driver didn\u2019t like it, so he sneaked in, killed him, and took the film of Carmen. Brody was staking out the house too and pursued the driver, stole the film, and hit him and possibly pushed the car off the pier. Suddenly the doorbell rings and Brody is shot dead; Marlowe gives chase and catches Geiger\u2019s male lover, who shot Brody thinking he killed Geiger. He had also hidden Geiger\u2019s body so he could remove his own belongings before the police could get wind of the murder. The case is now over, but Marlowe is nagged by Regan's disappearance. The police accept that he simply ran off with Mona Mars, since she is also missing and Eddie Mars wouldn't risk committing a murder where he'd be the obvious suspect. Mars calls Marlowe to his casino, and seems to be nonchalant about everything. Vivian is also there, and Marlowe senses something between her and Mars. He drives her home and she tries to seduce him, but he rejects her advances. When he gets home, he finds Carmen has sneaked into his bed, and he rejects her, too. A man named Harry Jones, who is Agnes's new partner, approaches Marlowe and offers to sell him the location of Mona Mars. Marlowe plans to meet him later, but Mars's deadly henchman Canino is suspicious of Jones and Agnes's intentions and kills Jones first. Marlowe manages to meet Agnes anyway and receive the information. He goes to the location, a repair shop with home in back, but Canino jumps him and knocks him out. When he awakens, he is tied up and Mona Mars is there with him. She says she hasn't seen Rusty in months; she only hid out to help Eddie, and insists he didn't kill Rusty. She frees him and he shoots and kills Canino. The next day, Marlowe visits General Sternwood, who is still curious about Rusty's whereabouts. On the way out, Marlowe returns Carmen's gun to her, and she asks him to teach her how to shoot. They go to an abandoned field, where she tries to kill him, but he has loaded the gun with blanks. Marlowe brings her back and tells Vivian he has guessed the truth: Carmen came on to Rusty and he refused her, so she killed him. Eddie Mars, who had been backing Geiger, helped Vivian conceal it by inventing a story about his wife running off with Rusty, and then began blackmailing her himself. Vivian says she did it to protect her father, and promises to have Carmen institutionalized.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the home of wealthy, elderly General Sternwood. He wants Marlowe to deal with a blackmail attempt by a bookseller named Arthur Geiger on his wild young daughter Carmen. She had previously been blackmailed by a Joe Brody. Sternwood mentions his other, older daughter Vivian, who is in a loveless marriage with a man named Rusty Regan, who has disappeared. On Marlowe's way out, Vivian wonders if he was hired to find Regan, but Marlowe won\u2019t say. Marlowe investigates Geiger\u2019s bookstore and determines it is a pornography lending library. He follows Geiger home, stakes out his house, and sees Carmen Sternwood enter. Later, he hears a scream followed by gunshots and two cars speeding away. He rushes in to find Geiger dead and Carmen drugged and naked in front of an empty camera. He takes her home, but when he returns, Geiger\u2019s body is gone and he quickly leaves. The next day, the police call him and let him know the Sternwoods' car was found driven off a pier with their chauffeur dead inside. It appears that he was hit before the car entered the water. The police also ask if Marlowe is looking for Regan. Marlowe stakes out the bookstore and sees its inventory being moved to Joe Brody\u2019s home. Vivian comes to his office and says Carmen is now being blackmailed with the nude photos from last night. She also mentions going gambling at the casino of Eddie Mars, and volunteers that Eddie's wife Mona ran off with Rusty. Marlowe revisits Geiger\u2019s house and finds Carmen trying to get in. They look for the photos but she plays dumb about the night before. Eddie Mars suddenly enters; he says he is Geiger\u2019s landlord and is looking for him. Mars demands to know why"
      },
      {
        "text": " and says Carmen is now being blackmailed with the nude photos from last night. She also mentions going gambling at the casino of Eddie Mars, and volunteers that Eddie's wife Mona ran off with Rusty. Marlowe revisits Geiger\u2019s house and finds Carmen trying to get in. They look for the photos but she plays dumb about the night before. Eddie Mars suddenly enters; he says he is Geiger\u2019s landlord and is looking for him. Mars demands to know why Marlowe is there, but Marlowe is unfazed and states he is no threat to Mars. Marlowe goes to Brody\u2019s home and finds him with Agnes, the bookstore's clerk. He tells them he knows they are taking over the lending library and blackmailing Carmen with the nude photos. Carmen forces her way in with a gun and demands the photos, but Marlowe takes her gun and makes her leave. Marlowe interrogates Brody further and pieces together the full story: Geiger was blackmailing Carmen and the family driver didn\u2019t like it, so he sneaked in, killed him, and took the film of Carmen. Brody was staking out the house too and pursued the driver, stole the film, and hit him and possibly pushed the car off the pier. Suddenly the doorbell rings and Brody is shot dead; Marlowe gives chase and catches Geiger\u2019s male lover, who shot Brody thinking he killed Geiger. He had also hidden Geiger\u2019s body so he could remove his own belongings before the police could get wind of the murder. The case is now over, but Marlowe is nagged by Regan's disappearance. The police accept that he simply ran off with Mona Mars, since she is also missing and Eddie Mars wouldn't risk committing a murder where he'd be the obvious suspect. Mars calls Marlowe to his casino, and seems to be"
      },
      {
        "text": " thinking he killed Geiger. He had also hidden Geiger\u2019s body so he could remove his own belongings before the police could get wind of the murder. The case is now over, but Marlowe is nagged by Regan's disappearance. The police accept that he simply ran off with Mona Mars, since she is also missing and Eddie Mars wouldn't risk committing a murder where he'd be the obvious suspect. Mars calls Marlowe to his casino, and seems to be nonchalant about everything. Vivian is also there, and Marlowe senses something between her and Mars. He drives her home and she tries to seduce him, but he rejects her advances. When he gets home, he finds Carmen has sneaked into his bed, and he rejects her, too. A man named Harry Jones, who is Agnes's new partner, approaches Marlowe and offers to sell him the location of Mona Mars. Marlowe plans to meet him later, but Mars's deadly henchman Canino is suspicious of Jones and Agnes's intentions and kills Jones first. Marlowe manages to meet Agnes anyway and receive the information. He goes to the location, a repair shop with home in back, but Canino jumps him and knocks him out. When he awakens, he is tied up and Mona Mars is there with him. She says she hasn't seen Rusty in months; she only hid out to help Eddie, and insists he didn't kill Rusty. She frees him and he shoots and kills Canino. The next day, Marlowe visits General Sternwood, who is still curious about Rusty's whereabouts. On the way out, Marlowe returns Carmen's gun to her, and she asks him to teach her how to shoot. They go to an abandoned field, where she tries to kill him, but he has loaded the gun with blanks. Marlowe brings her back and tells Vivian"
      },
      {
        "text": " insists he didn't kill Rusty. She frees him and he shoots and kills Canino. The next day, Marlowe visits General Sternwood, who is still curious about Rusty's whereabouts. On the way out, Marlowe returns Carmen's gun to her, and she asks him to teach her how to shoot. They go to an abandoned field, where she tries to kill him, but he has loaded the gun with blanks. Marlowe brings her back and tells Vivian he has guessed the truth: Carmen came on to Rusty and he refused her, so she killed him. Eddie Mars, who had been backing Geiger, helped Vivian conceal it by inventing a story about his wife running off with Rusty, and then began blackmailing her himself. Vivian says she did it to protect her father, and promises to have Carmen institutionalized.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The State of the Art",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1991",
    "synopsis": " * Road of Skulls * A Gift from the Culture * Odd Attachment * Descendant * Cleaning Up * Piece * The State of the Art At 100 pages long, the title novella makes up the bulk of the book. The novella chronicles a Culture mission to Earth in the late Seventies, and also serves as a prequel of sorts to Use of Weapons by featuring one of that novel's characters, Diziet Sma. Here, Sma argues for contact with Earth, to try to fix the mess the human species has made of it; another Culture citizen, Linter, goes native, choosing to renounce his Culture body enhancements so as to be more like the locals; and Li, who is a Star Trek fan, argues that the whole \"incontestably neurotic and clinically insane species\" should be eradicated with a micro black hole. The ship Arbitrary has ideas, and a sense of humour, of its own. 'Also while I'd been away, the ship had sent a request on a postcard to the BBC's World Service, asking for 'Mr David Bowie's \"Space Oddity\" for the good ship Arbitrary and all who sail in her.' (This from a machine that could have swamped Earth's entire electro-magnetic spectrum with whatever the hell it wanted from somewhere beyond Betelgeuse.) It didn't get the request played. The ship thought this was hilarious.' *Scratch (or: The Present and Future of Species HS (sic) Considered as The Contents of a Contemporary Popular Record (qv))\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " * Road of Skulls * A Gift from the Culture * Odd Attachment * Descendant * Cleaning Up * Piece * The State of the Art At 100 pages long, the title novella makes up the bulk of the book. The novella chronicles a Culture mission to Earth in the late Seventies, and also serves as a prequel of sorts to Use of Weapons by featuring one of that novel's characters, Diziet Sma. Here, Sma argues for contact with Earth, to try to fix the mess the human species has made of it; another Culture citizen, Linter, goes native, choosing to renounce his Culture body enhancements so as to be more like the locals; and Li, who is a Star Trek fan, argues that the whole \"incontestably neurotic and clinically insane species\" should be eradicated with a micro black hole. The ship Arbitrary has ideas, and a sense of humour, of its own. 'Also while I'd been away, the ship had sent a request on a postcard to the BBC's World Service, asking for 'Mr David Bowie's \"Space Oddity\" for the good ship Arbitrary and all who sail in her.' (This from a machine that could have swamped Earth's entire electro-magnetic spectrum with whatever the hell it wanted from somewhere beyond Betelgeuse.) It didn't get the request played. The ship thought this was hilarious.' *Scratch (or: The Present and Future of Species HS (sic) Considered as The Contents of a Contemporary Popular Record (qv))\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ": The Present and Future of Species HS (sic) Considered as The Contents of a Contemporary Popular Record (qv))\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Player of Games",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1988",
    "synopsis": " Jernau Morat Gurgeh, a famously skilful player of board games and other similar contests, lives on Chiark Orbital, and is bored with his successful life. The Culture's Special Circumstances inquires about his willingness to participate in a long journey, though won't explain further unless Gurgeh agrees to participate. While he is considering this offer, one of his drone friends, Mawhrin-Skel, which had been ejected from Special Circumstances due to its unstable personality, convinces him to cheat in one of his matches in an attempt to win in an unprecedented perfect fashion. The attempt fails, but Mawhrin-Skel uses his recording of the event to blackmail Gurgeh into accepting the offer and insisting that Mawhrin-Skel be admitted back into Special Circumstances as well. Gurgeh spends the next two years travelling to the Empire of Azad in the Small Magellanic Cloud, where a complex game (also named Azad) is used to determine social rank and political status. The game itself is sufficiently subtle and complex that a player's tactics reflect his own political and philosophical outlook. By the time he arrives, he has grasped the game but is unsure how he will measure up against opponents who have been studying it for their entire lives. Gurgeh lands on the Empire's home planet of E\u00e4, accompanied by another drone, Flere-Imsaho. As a Culture citizen, he naturally plays with a style markedly different from his opponents, many of whom stack the odds against him one way or another, such as forming backroom agreements to cooperate against him (which is allowed by the game's rules). As he advances through the tournament he is matched against increasingly powerful Azad politicians, and ultimately the Emperor himself in the final round. Faced with defeat, the Emperor attempts to kill Gurgeh, but is himself killed by a shot from his own weapon, deflected by Flere-Imsaho (who later refuses to tell Gurgeh if it was coincidental). Flere-Imsaho reveals that Gurgeh's participation was part of a Culture plot to overthrow the corrupt and savage Empire from within, and that he, the player, was in fact a pawn in a much larger game. Although Gurgeh never discovers the whole truth, it is ultimately revealed to the reader that Flere-Imsaho was the same drone as Mawhrin-Skel, who was also the narrator of the novel itself.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Jernau Morat Gurgeh, a famously skilful player of board games and other similar contests, lives on Chiark Orbital, and is bored with his successful life. The Culture's Special Circumstances inquires about his willingness to participate in a long journey, though won't explain further unless Gurgeh agrees to participate. While he is considering this offer, one of his drone friends, Mawhrin-Skel, which had been ejected from Special Circumstances due to its unstable personality, convinces him to cheat in one of his matches in an attempt to win in an unprecedented perfect fashion. The attempt fails, but Mawhrin-Skel uses his recording of the event to blackmail Gurgeh into accepting the offer and insisting that Mawhrin-Skel be admitted back into Special Circumstances as well. Gurgeh spends the next two years travelling to the Empire of Azad in the Small Magellanic Cloud, where a complex game (also named Azad) is used to determine social rank and political status. The game itself is sufficiently subtle and complex that a player's tactics reflect his own political and philosophical outlook. By the time he arrives, he has grasped the game but is unsure how he will measure up against opponents who have been studying it for their entire lives. Gurgeh lands on the Empire's home planet of E\u00e4, accompanied by another drone, Flere-Imsaho. As a Culture citizen, he naturally plays with a style markedly different from his opponents, many of whom stack the odds against him one way or another, such as forming backroom agreements to cooperate against him (which is allowed by the game's rules). As he advances through the tournament he is matched against increasingly powerful Azad politicians, and ultimately the Emperor himself in the final round. Faced with defeat, the Emperor attempts to kill Gurgeh, but is himself killed by a shot from his own weapon, deflected by"
      },
      {
        "text": " he naturally plays with a style markedly different from his opponents, many of whom stack the odds against him one way or another, such as forming backroom agreements to cooperate against him (which is allowed by the game's rules). As he advances through the tournament he is matched against increasingly powerful Azad politicians, and ultimately the Emperor himself in the final round. Faced with defeat, the Emperor attempts to kill Gurgeh, but is himself killed by a shot from his own weapon, deflected by Flere-Imsaho (who later refuses to tell Gurgeh if it was coincidental). Flere-Imsaho reveals that Gurgeh's participation was part of a Culture plot to overthrow the corrupt and savage Empire from within, and that he, the player, was in fact a pawn in a much larger game. Although Gurgeh never discovers the whole truth, it is ultimately revealed to the reader that Flere-Imsaho was the same drone as Mawhrin-Skel, who was also the narrator of the novel itself.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Excession",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1996",
    "synopsis": " The Excession of the title is a perfect black-body sphere that appears mysteriously on the edge of Culture space, appears to be older than the Universe itself and resists the attempts of the Culture and technologically equivalent societies (notably the Zetetic Elench) to probe it. The Excession is what the Culture's social scientists describe as an Outside Context Problem, one which a society cannot foresee and is often fatal. A metaphor to help explain this phrase is that of a successful aboriginal culture suddenly finding ocean-going vessels on its shores for the first time. A group of stereotypical bureaucrats tries to manage the Culture's response to the Excession but is brushed aside by the Interesting Times Gang, an informal group of Minds some of whom are veterans of the Idiran-Culture War, to try to deal with what is by far the most serious challenge the Culture has faced. Meanwhile a rapidly-expanding race, which the Culture calls the Affront (because of its systematic sadism towards subject species and its own females and junior males, despite being relatively advanced), tries to exploit the Excession by infiltrating a store of mothballed Culture warships and using them to claim control of the mysterious object. It turns out that the Affront have been manipulated into their grab for power by another Culture faction which thought it was morally imperative to curb the Affront's cruelty by any means, and intend to use the Affront's theft of Culture warships as an excuse for war. The GSV Sleeper Service eventually takes control of the situation. Its name is the most meaningful pun in the story: outwardly it is an Eccentric (drop-out from the Culture) which dedicates its enormous resources to presenting tableaux of historical events (mainly battles) populated by passengers in suspended animation; but in fact it is a sleeping member of Special Circumstances, the Culture's covert operations organization. The name of Sleeper Service is thus double-pronged\u2014it is a Sleeper Service to human beings in Storage, and a Sleeper Service within SC, as it has produced a massive war-fleet during the 40-year period it has spent behaving as an Eccentric. It prepares to deploy this fleet during transit to the Excession. But Sleeper Service has an unresolved issue. Until a few decades previously, the ship operated under another name as a normal GSV, providing a habitat for a vast number of Culture citizens. Two of its passengers, Dajeil and Genar-Hofoen, had had an intense love-affair which ended badly when Genar-Hofoen was unfaithful and a pregnant Dajeil tried to kill Genar-Hofoen, but only succeeded in the feticide of the child with which Genar-Hofoen was pregnant. After the break-up, Dajeil froze her pregnancy and subsequently remained in a state of intense depression for 40 years, and the ship changed its name to Sleeper Service and started acting as an Eccentric. It carried only one conscious humanoid passenger, Dajeil, and spent much of its attention trying to talk her out of her depression, for which it considered itself partly responsible. As a result, when the Culture asks Sleeper Service to help in dealing with the threat of war, the ship demands that in return Genar-Hofoen must be handed over to it. Genar-Hofoen is lured to Sleeper Service on a pretext, and only later told that he is there to work with Dajeil to help her recover from her psychological trauma. Sleeper Service then unloads the passengers who had been part of its historical tableaux. Having spent much of its Eccentric decades converting a large percentage of the mass of the tableaux' scenery into engines, it easily outruns the very fast ship which other elements of the Culture had asked to keep watch on it. Once it is beyond the watching ship's sensor range, Sleeper Service changes course and heads towards the Excession. When it arrives it becomes apparent it has previously converted the rest of its spare mass into a vast fleet of remote-controlled warships numbering in the area of 80,000 units. The Excession, in response to the Sleeper charging at it, then triggers a multi-light-year Gridfire wave which threatens to obliterate it and its entire fleet, along with the accompanying Grey Area. Only its Mindstate, transmitted right at the Excession, saves it by convincing the Excession to halt its attack. The Minds controlling the ships which the Affront stole from the \"mothball\" find themselves outnumbered more than 130:1, and refuse to help the Affront. The Affront fleet's commander and the Culture ship which led the conspiracy commit suicide. A prolonged war is thus averted. At the same time the Excession disappears as mysteriously as it arrived. Meanwhile, the rush of events, combined with a conversation with Genar-Hofoen, results in Dajeil moving out of her depression and completing her pregnancy. Genar-Hofoen returns to the Affront, having been rewarded by being physically transformed into a member of the Affront species (whose company he finds more stimulating than that of the Culture's people). The book's epilogue reveals that the Excession is a sentient entity which is currently acting as a bridge for a procession of even higher beings which travel between universes. It also assesses whether the species and societies it encounters are suitable to be enlightened about some unknown further existence beyond the Universe. As a result of events in the story the Excession concludes that the civilisations it has encountered in our universe are not ready for this enlightenment and moves on so that it will not cause any further disturbance, hence its disappearance at the end of the book. It also takes the name given to it by the Culture \u2013 Excession \u2013 as its own. ==Outside Context Proble\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Excession of the title is a perfect black-body sphere that appears mysteriously on the edge of Culture space, appears to be older than the Universe itself and resists the attempts of the Culture and technologically equivalent societies (notably the Zetetic Elench) to probe it. The Excession is what the Culture's social scientists describe as an Outside Context Problem, one which a society cannot foresee and is often fatal. A metaphor to help explain this phrase is that of a successful aboriginal culture suddenly finding ocean-going vessels on its shores for the first time. A group of stereotypical bureaucrats tries to manage the Culture's response to the Excession but is brushed aside by the Interesting Times Gang, an informal group of Minds some of whom are veterans of the Idiran-Culture War, to try to deal with what is by far the most serious challenge the Culture has faced. Meanwhile a rapidly-expanding race, which the Culture calls the Affront (because of its systematic sadism towards subject species and its own females and junior males, despite being relatively advanced), tries to exploit the Excession by infiltrating a store of mothballed Culture warships and using them to claim control of the mysterious object. It turns out that the Affront have been manipulated into their grab for power by another Culture faction which thought it was morally imperative to curb the Affront's cruelty by any means, and intend to use the Affront's theft of Culture warships as an excuse for war. The GSV Sleeper Service eventually takes control of the situation. Its name is the most meaningful pun in the story: outwardly it is an Eccentric (drop-out from the Culture) which dedicates its enormous resources to presenting tableaux of historical events (mainly battles) populated by passengers in suspended animation; but in fact it is a sleeping member of Special Circumstances, the Culture's covert operations organization. The name of Sleeper Service is thus double-pronged\u2014it is a"
      },
      {
        "text": " Sleeper Service eventually takes control of the situation. Its name is the most meaningful pun in the story: outwardly it is an Eccentric (drop-out from the Culture) which dedicates its enormous resources to presenting tableaux of historical events (mainly battles) populated by passengers in suspended animation; but in fact it is a sleeping member of Special Circumstances, the Culture's covert operations organization. The name of Sleeper Service is thus double-pronged\u2014it is a Sleeper Service to human beings in Storage, and a Sleeper Service within SC, as it has produced a massive war-fleet during the 40-year period it has spent behaving as an Eccentric. It prepares to deploy this fleet during transit to the Excession. But Sleeper Service has an unresolved issue. Until a few decades previously, the ship operated under another name as a normal GSV, providing a habitat for a vast number of Culture citizens. Two of its passengers, Dajeil and Genar-Hofoen, had had an intense love-affair which ended badly when Genar-Hofoen was unfaithful and a pregnant Dajeil tried to kill Genar-Hofoen, but only succeeded in the feticide of the child with which Genar-Hofoen was pregnant. After the break-up, Dajeil froze her pregnancy and subsequently remained in a state of intense depression for 40 years, and the ship changed its name to Sleeper Service and started acting as an Eccentric. It carried only one conscious humanoid passenger, Dajeil, and spent much of its attention trying to talk her out of her depression, for which it considered itself partly responsible. As a result, when the Culture asks Sleeper Service to help in dealing with the threat of war, the ship demands that in return Genar-Hofoen must be handed over to it. Genar-Hofoen is lured to Sle"
      },
      {
        "text": " its name to Sleeper Service and started acting as an Eccentric. It carried only one conscious humanoid passenger, Dajeil, and spent much of its attention trying to talk her out of her depression, for which it considered itself partly responsible. As a result, when the Culture asks Sleeper Service to help in dealing with the threat of war, the ship demands that in return Genar-Hofoen must be handed over to it. Genar-Hofoen is lured to Sleeper Service on a pretext, and only later told that he is there to work with Dajeil to help her recover from her psychological trauma. Sleeper Service then unloads the passengers who had been part of its historical tableaux. Having spent much of its Eccentric decades converting a large percentage of the mass of the tableaux' scenery into engines, it easily outruns the very fast ship which other elements of the Culture had asked to keep watch on it. Once it is beyond the watching ship's sensor range, Sleeper Service changes course and heads towards the Excession. When it arrives it becomes apparent it has previously converted the rest of its spare mass into a vast fleet of remote-controlled warships numbering in the area of 80,000 units. The Excession, in response to the Sleeper charging at it, then triggers a multi-light-year Gridfire wave which threatens to obliterate it and its entire fleet, along with the accompanying Grey Area. Only its Mindstate, transmitted right at the Excession, saves it by convincing the Excession to halt its attack. The Minds controlling the ships which the Affront stole from the \"mothball\" find themselves outnumbered more than 130:1, and refuse to help the Affront. The Affront fleet's commander and the Culture ship which led the conspiracy commit suicide. A prolonged war is thus averted. At the same time the Excession disappears as mysteriously as it arrived. Meanwhile, the rush of events,"
      },
      {
        "text": " transmitted right at the Excession, saves it by convincing the Excession to halt its attack. The Minds controlling the ships which the Affront stole from the \"mothball\" find themselves outnumbered more than 130:1, and refuse to help the Affront. The Affront fleet's commander and the Culture ship which led the conspiracy commit suicide. A prolonged war is thus averted. At the same time the Excession disappears as mysteriously as it arrived. Meanwhile, the rush of events, combined with a conversation with Genar-Hofoen, results in Dajeil moving out of her depression and completing her pregnancy. Genar-Hofoen returns to the Affront, having been rewarded by being physically transformed into a member of the Affront species (whose company he finds more stimulating than that of the Culture's people). The book's epilogue reveals that the Excession is a sentient entity which is currently acting as a bridge for a procession of even higher beings which travel between universes. It also assesses whether the species and societies it encounters are suitable to be enlightened about some unknown further existence beyond the Universe. As a result of events in the story the Excession concludes that the civilisations it has encountered in our universe are not ready for this enlightenment and moves on so that it will not cause any further disturbance, hence its disappearance at the end of the book. It also takes the name given to it by the Culture \u2013 Excession \u2013 as its own. ==Outside Context Proble\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "Outside Context Proble\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Look to Windward",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "2000",
    "synopsis": " Despite the passage of time, Major Quilan still suffers grief and bereavement from the death of his wife, killed during the Chelgrian civil war that resulted from the Culture's interference. Quilan is offered the chance to avenge the lost Chelgrians who died in a civil war and is inducted into a plot to strike back at the Culture. As part of the plot, his \"soulkeeper\" (a device normally used to store its owner's personality upon their death) is equipped with both the mind of a long-dead Chelgrian general and a device that can transport wormholes connected to weapons caches. Quilan is then sent to Masaq' Orbital, ostensibly to persuade Mahrai Ziller to return to his native Chel but is in reality on a suicide mission to destroy the Orbital's Hub Mind. To protect him from detection at Masaq', Quilan's memory is selectively blanked until he reaches his target. On Masaq', Ziller lives in self-imposed exile, having renounced his privileged position in Chel's caste system. An accomplished composer, he has been commissioned to compose music to mark the anniversary of the Idiran-Culture War. Upon hearing of Quilan's visit, and his reason for travel, Ziller scrupulously avoids him, reluctant to engage with a civilization that repels him. Quilan succeeds in placing the wormholes in the Mind's Hub, but the Mind detects them immediately and, although not able to track the location of the other end of the wormholes, suggests that the Involved \"aliens\" assisting Quilan's mission may have been a group of Culture minds seeking to keep the Culture from being too complacent. Having struggled with its memories from the Idiran-Culture war, when it was the General Systems Vehicle Lasting Damage, the Mind reveals to Quilan that it seeks to cease existing and offers to take Quilan with it. They both die. In the end of the novel, a nightmarishly efficient E-Dust Assassin is unleashed against the Chelgrian priest who was responsible, as well as his immediate co-conspirators. It is not revealed whether this was a form of retribution by the Culture or a cover-up by a secret Culture faction.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Despite the passage of time, Major Quilan still suffers grief and bereavement from the death of his wife, killed during the Chelgrian civil war that resulted from the Culture's interference. Quilan is offered the chance to avenge the lost Chelgrians who died in a civil war and is inducted into a plot to strike back at the Culture. As part of the plot, his \"soulkeeper\" (a device normally used to store its owner's personality upon their death) is equipped with both the mind of a long-dead Chelgrian general and a device that can transport wormholes connected to weapons caches. Quilan is then sent to Masaq' Orbital, ostensibly to persuade Mahrai Ziller to return to his native Chel but is in reality on a suicide mission to destroy the Orbital's Hub Mind. To protect him from detection at Masaq', Quilan's memory is selectively blanked until he reaches his target. On Masaq', Ziller lives in self-imposed exile, having renounced his privileged position in Chel's caste system. An accomplished composer, he has been commissioned to compose music to mark the anniversary of the Idiran-Culture War. Upon hearing of Quilan's visit, and his reason for travel, Ziller scrupulously avoids him, reluctant to engage with a civilization that repels him. Quilan succeeds in placing the wormholes in the Mind's Hub, but the Mind detects them immediately and, although not able to track the location of the other end of the wormholes, suggests that the Involved \"aliens\" assisting Quilan's mission may have been a group of Culture minds seeking to keep the Culture from being too complacent. Having struggled with its memories from the Idiran-Culture war, when it was the General Systems Vehicle Lasting Damage, the Mind reveals to Quilan that it seeks to cease existing and offers to take Quilan with it. They both die. In the end of"
      },
      {
        "text": " track the location of the other end of the wormholes, suggests that the Involved \"aliens\" assisting Quilan's mission may have been a group of Culture minds seeking to keep the Culture from being too complacent. Having struggled with its memories from the Idiran-Culture war, when it was the General Systems Vehicle Lasting Damage, the Mind reveals to Quilan that it seeks to cease existing and offers to take Quilan with it. They both die. In the end of the novel, a nightmarishly efficient E-Dust Assassin is unleashed against the Chelgrian priest who was responsible, as well as his immediate co-conspirators. It is not revealed whether this was a form of retribution by the Culture or a cover-up by a secret Culture faction.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Use of Weapons",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1990-02-01",
    "synopsis": " The book is made up of two narrative streams, interwoven in alternating chapters. The numbers of the chapters indicate which stream they belong to: one stream is numbered forward in words (One, Two ...), while the other is numbered in reverse with Roman numerals (XIII, XII ...). The story told by the former moves forward chronologically (as the numbers suggest) and tells a self-contained story, while in the latter is written in reverse chronology with each chapter successively earlier in Zakalwe's life. Further complicating this structure is a prologue and epilogue set shortly after the events of the main narrative, and many flashbacks within the chapters. The forward-moving stream of the novel deals with the attempts of Diziet Sma and a drone named Skaffen-Amtiskaw to re-enlist Zakalwe for another \"job\", the task itself and the payment that Zakalwe wishes for it. The backward-moving stream describes earlier \"jobs\" that Zakalwe has performed for the Culture, ultimately returning to his pre-Culture career as a general on his homeworld. It transpires that the payment he requires from Sma relates to an incident from his earlier life.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is made up of two narrative streams, interwoven in alternating chapters. The numbers of the chapters indicate which stream they belong to: one stream is numbered forward in words (One, Two ...), while the other is numbered in reverse with Roman numerals (XIII, XII ...). The story told by the former moves forward chronologically (as the numbers suggest) and tells a self-contained story, while in the latter is written in reverse chronology with each chapter successively earlier in Zakalwe's life. Further complicating this structure is a prologue and epilogue set shortly after the events of the main narrative, and many flashbacks within the chapters. The forward-moving stream of the novel deals with the attempts of Diziet Sma and a drone named Skaffen-Amtiskaw to re-enlist Zakalwe for another \"job\", the task itself and the payment that Zakalwe wishes for it. The backward-moving stream describes earlier \"jobs\" that Zakalwe has performed for the Culture, ultimately returning to his pre-Culture career as a general on his homeworld. It transpires that the payment he requires from Sma relates to an incident from his earlier life.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish",
    "author": "Douglas Adams",
    "published_date": "1984",
    "synopsis": " Arthur Dent has hitch-hiked through the galaxy and is dropped off on a planet in a rainstorm. He realises that he appears to be in England on Earth, even though he saw it destroyed by the Vogons. While he has been gone for several years, it appears only a few months have passed on Earth. He manages to hitch a ride with a man named Russell, who is driving home his sister Fenchurch (Fenny for short). Russell explains that she had become delusional after worldwide mass hysteria over the \"hallucinations with the big yellow spaceships\" (Vogon Ships). Arthur also learns that all the dolphins disappeared shortly after that event. Arthur becomes curious about Fenchurch, but they reach his home before he can ask more questions. Inside his still-standing home, Arthur finds a gift-wrapped bowl inscribed with the words \"So Long and Thanks...\" which he then uses for his Babel Fish. Arthur considers that Fenchurch is somehow connected to him and to the Earth's destruction, and finds that he still has the ability to fly whenever he lets his thoughts wander. After putting his life in order, Arthur tries to find out more about Fenchurch. He catches her hitchhiking and he learns more about her. He obtains her phone number but loses it. He finds her home when he locates the cave he had lived in after crashing onto prehistoric Earth with the Golgafrinchans: her flat is built on the same spot. As they talk they find more circumstances connecting them. Fenchurch reveals that, moments before her hallucinations, she had an epiphany while sitting in a caf\u00e9 about how to make everything right, but then blacked out. Ever since, she has not been able to recall it. After noticing that Fenchurch's feet do not touch the ground, Arthur teaches her how to fly and together they make love in the skies over London. The two travel to California to see John Watson, an enigmatic scientist who purports to know the cause of the dolphins' disappearance and who eschewed his original name in favour of \"Wonko the Sane\" due to harbouring the belief that the entire world's population save himself has gone mad. Watson shows the couple a bowl with the words \"So long and thanks for all the fish\" inscribed on it that they all own and encourages them to listen to it. They learn from the bowl's audio message that the dolphins, aware of the Vogons, left Earth for an alternate dimension but not before replacing the destroyed Earth with a new version and transporting everything to it as a way of saving humans. Arthur explains to Fenchurch about hitchhiking across the galaxy, after which she insists that she wants to see it as well. They plan to hitchhike on the next passing spaceship. Concurrent to these events, Ford Prefect discovers that during an update of the \"Hitchhiker's Guide\", his previous entry for Earth, \"Mostly harmless\", has been replaced with the volumes of text he wrote during his research. Recognising that something is strange, Ford begins to hitchhike across the galaxy to reach Earth, eventually using the ship of a giant robot to land in the centre of London and causing a panic. In the chaos, Ford meets up with Arthur and Fenchurch and together they commandeer the robot's ship. Arthur takes Fenchurch to the planet where God's Final Message to His Creation is written, and they happen across Marvin, who, because of previous events, is now approximately 37 times older than the known age of the universe and is barely able to continue. Marvin, with Arthur and Fenchurch's help, reads the Message (\"We apologise for the inconvenience\"), smiles, utters the final words \"I think... I feel good about it,\" and dies happily.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Arthur Dent has hitch-hiked through the galaxy and is dropped off on a planet in a rainstorm. He realises that he appears to be in England on Earth, even though he saw it destroyed by the Vogons. While he has been gone for several years, it appears only a few months have passed on Earth. He manages to hitch a ride with a man named Russell, who is driving home his sister Fenchurch (Fenny for short). Russell explains that she had become delusional after worldwide mass hysteria over the \"hallucinations with the big yellow spaceships\" (Vogon Ships). Arthur also learns that all the dolphins disappeared shortly after that event. Arthur becomes curious about Fenchurch, but they reach his home before he can ask more questions. Inside his still-standing home, Arthur finds a gift-wrapped bowl inscribed with the words \"So Long and Thanks...\" which he then uses for his Babel Fish. Arthur considers that Fenchurch is somehow connected to him and to the Earth's destruction, and finds that he still has the ability to fly whenever he lets his thoughts wander. After putting his life in order, Arthur tries to find out more about Fenchurch. He catches her hitchhiking and he learns more about her. He obtains her phone number but loses it. He finds her home when he locates the cave he had lived in after crashing onto prehistoric Earth with the Golgafrinchans: her flat is built on the same spot. As they talk they find more circumstances connecting them. Fenchurch reveals that, moments before her hallucinations, she had an epiphany while sitting in a caf\u00e9 about how to make everything right, but then blacked out. Ever since, she has not been able to recall it. After noticing that Fenchurch's feet do not touch the ground, Arthur teaches her how to fly and together they make love in the skies over London. The two travel to California to see John Watson, an enigmatic scientist who purports"
      },
      {
        "text": " they talk they find more circumstances connecting them. Fenchurch reveals that, moments before her hallucinations, she had an epiphany while sitting in a caf\u00e9 about how to make everything right, but then blacked out. Ever since, she has not been able to recall it. After noticing that Fenchurch's feet do not touch the ground, Arthur teaches her how to fly and together they make love in the skies over London. The two travel to California to see John Watson, an enigmatic scientist who purports to know the cause of the dolphins' disappearance and who eschewed his original name in favour of \"Wonko the Sane\" due to harbouring the belief that the entire world's population save himself has gone mad. Watson shows the couple a bowl with the words \"So long and thanks for all the fish\" inscribed on it that they all own and encourages them to listen to it. They learn from the bowl's audio message that the dolphins, aware of the Vogons, left Earth for an alternate dimension but not before replacing the destroyed Earth with a new version and transporting everything to it as a way of saving humans. Arthur explains to Fenchurch about hitchhiking across the galaxy, after which she insists that she wants to see it as well. They plan to hitchhike on the next passing spaceship. Concurrent to these events, Ford Prefect discovers that during an update of the \"Hitchhiker's Guide\", his previous entry for Earth, \"Mostly harmless\", has been replaced with the volumes of text he wrote during his research. Recognising that something is strange, Ford begins to hitchhike across the galaxy to reach Earth, eventually using the ship of a giant robot to land in the centre of London and causing a panic. In the chaos, Ford meets up with Arthur and Fenchurch and together they commandeer the robot's ship. Arthur takes Fenchurch to the planet where God's Final Message to His Creation is written, and they happen across Marvin, who"
      },
      {
        "text": " been replaced with the volumes of text he wrote during his research. Recognising that something is strange, Ford begins to hitchhike across the galaxy to reach Earth, eventually using the ship of a giant robot to land in the centre of London and causing a panic. In the chaos, Ford meets up with Arthur and Fenchurch and together they commandeer the robot's ship. Arthur takes Fenchurch to the planet where God's Final Message to His Creation is written, and they happen across Marvin, who, because of previous events, is now approximately 37 times older than the known age of the universe and is barely able to continue. Marvin, with Arthur and Fenchurch's help, reads the Message (\"We apologise for the inconvenience\"), smiles, utters the final words \"I think... I feel good about it,\" and dies happily.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Choke",
    "author": "Chuck Palahniuk",
    "published_date": "2001-05-22",
    "synopsis": " Choke follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child. He had grown up moving from one foster home to another, as his mother was found to be unfit to raise him. Several times throughout his childhood, his mother would kidnap him from his various foster parents, though every time they would eventually be caught, and he would again be remanded over to the governmental child welfare agency. In the present day setting of the book, Victor is now a man in his mid-twenties who left medical school in order to find work to support his feeble mother who is now in a nursing home. He cannot afford the care that his mother is receiving so he resorts to being a con man. He consistently goes to various restaurants and purposely causes himself to choke mid-way through his meal, luring a \"good Samaritan\" into saving his life. He keeps a detailed list of everyone who saves him and sends them frequent letters about fictional bills he is unable to pay. The people feel so sorry for him that they send him cards and letters asking him about how he's doing and even continue to send him money to help him with the bills. He works at a re-enactment museum set in colonial times, where most of the employees are drug-addicts or, in his friend Denny's case, a fellow recovering sex addict. Most of the time Palahniuk spends describing Victor's job, Victor is guarding his friend Denny (who is constantly being caught with \"contraband\", items that don't correspond with the time period of the museum) in the stocks. Victor first met Denny at a sexual addiction support group (he was there as a guy who masturbates too much), and they later applied together to the same job. Denny is later fired from the museum, and begins collecting stones from around the city to build his \"dream home;\" Palahniuk based this portion of the novel on the true story of Ferdinand Cheval. While growing up, Victor's mother taught him numerous conspiracy theories and obscure medical facts which both confused and frightened him. This and his constant moves from one home to another have left Victor unable to form lasting and stable relationships with women. Victor, as a result, finds himself getting sexual gratification from women on a solely superficial level (using sex anonymous meetings to find many of his sexual partners). Later on, he starts talking to his mother again for the first time in years. The narrative is episodic, and is presented out of chronological order, a style common to the author's books.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Choke follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child. He had grown up moving from one foster home to another, as his mother was found to be unfit to raise him. Several times throughout his childhood, his mother would kidnap him from his various foster parents, though every time they would eventually be caught, and he would again be remanded over to the governmental child welfare agency. In the present day setting of the book, Victor is now a man in his mid-twenties who left medical school in order to find work to support his feeble mother who is now in a nursing home. He cannot afford the care that his mother is receiving so he resorts to being a con man. He consistently goes to various restaurants and purposely causes himself to choke mid-way through his meal, luring a \"good Samaritan\" into saving his life. He keeps a detailed list of everyone who saves him and sends them frequent letters about fictional bills he is unable to pay. The people feel so sorry for him that they send him cards and letters asking him about how he's doing and even continue to send him money to help him with the bills. He works at a re-enactment museum set in colonial times, where most of the employees are drug-addicts or, in his friend Denny's case, a fellow recovering sex addict. Most of the time Palahniuk spends describing Victor's job, Victor is guarding his friend Denny (who is constantly being caught with \"contraband\", items that don't correspond with the time period of the museum) in the stocks. Victor first met Denny at a sexual addiction support group (he was there as a guy who masturbates too much), and they later applied together to the same job. Denny is later fired from the museum, and begins collecting stones from around the city to build his \"dream home;\" Palah"
      },
      {
        "text": " Victor's job, Victor is guarding his friend Denny (who is constantly being caught with \"contraband\", items that don't correspond with the time period of the museum) in the stocks. Victor first met Denny at a sexual addiction support group (he was there as a guy who masturbates too much), and they later applied together to the same job. Denny is later fired from the museum, and begins collecting stones from around the city to build his \"dream home;\" Palahniuk based this portion of the novel on the true story of Ferdinand Cheval. While growing up, Victor's mother taught him numerous conspiracy theories and obscure medical facts which both confused and frightened him. This and his constant moves from one home to another have left Victor unable to form lasting and stable relationships with women. Victor, as a result, finds himself getting sexual gratification from women on a solely superficial level (using sex anonymous meetings to find many of his sexual partners). Later on, he starts talking to his mother again for the first time in years. The narrative is episodic, and is presented out of chronological order, a style common to the author's books.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Friend of the Earth",
    "author": "T. Coraghessan Boyle",
    "published_date": "2000-09",
    "synopsis": " A Friend of the Earth is the story of Tyrone O'Shaughnessy Tierwater, a U.S. citizen born in 1950, half Irish Catholic and half Jewish (\"I'm a mess and I know it. Jewish guilt, Catholic guilt, enviro-eco-capitalistico guilt: I can't even expel gas in peace.\"), whose personal tragedy fits in with, and adds to, the gloomy atmosphere created in the novel. Egged on by Andrea, the woman he loves, he becomes a committed \"Earth Forever!\" activist (an allusion to the radical environmental group Earth First!) in the 1980s, is imprisoned for ecotage, but eventually cannot change anything. On top of that, he suffers the loss of his first wife when their daughter is only three and of his daughter when she is only 25. When the novel opens, Tierwater is a 75-year-old disillusioned ex-con living on the estate of a famous pop star in the Santa Ynez Valley, north of Santa Barbara, in California and looking after the latter's private menagerie. Maclovio Pulchris, the singer, has had the idea of preserving some of the last surviving animals of several species in order to initiate a captive breeding programme at some later point in time, choosing to preserve the animals no-one else would. Tierwater has been working for Pulchris (\"Mac\") for ten years when, in 2025, Andrea, his ex-wife and stepmother to his daughter Sierra, contacts him after more than 20 years. She and a friend of hers, April Wind, move in with Tierwater, officially for April Wind to write a biography, or rather hagiography, of Sierra Tierwater, his daughter, who died in 2001 as a martyr to the environmentalist cause. (A \"tree-hugging cunt\", as their opponents called her, she falls off a tree in old growth woodland in which she has been living for about three years.) In the course of the next few months the situation deteriorates even more. The rain and the wind destroy the animals' cages, and subsequently they have to be kept in Pulchris's basement. One morning one of the lions gets loose and attacks and kills the singer, as well as a number of employees. As a consequence, the other lions are shot\u2014and thus lions as a species become extinct. (There is just one surviving lion in the San Diego Zoo left.) Jobless and penniless, Tierwater, who has fallen in love all over again with Andrea, is evicted from the estate by Pulchris's heirs. Along with Andrea, Tyrone leaves the compound, heading for a mountain cabin owned by Earth Forever! somewhere in the forest which decades ago served as a hideout. They arrive there with only one of Pulchris's animals in tow: Petunia, the Patagonian fox, which they now keep as their domestic animal, passing it off as their dog. In the final scene of the book, a teenaged girl comes hiking along the trail where the forest surrounding the dilapidated cabin would have been. Tierwater and Andrea, who again call themselves husband and wife now, have a glimmer of hope that life will soon be like life 30 years before, as the novel ends on an optimistic note.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A Friend of the Earth is the story of Tyrone O'Shaughnessy Tierwater, a U.S. citizen born in 1950, half Irish Catholic and half Jewish (\"I'm a mess and I know it. Jewish guilt, Catholic guilt, enviro-eco-capitalistico guilt: I can't even expel gas in peace.\"), whose personal tragedy fits in with, and adds to, the gloomy atmosphere created in the novel. Egged on by Andrea, the woman he loves, he becomes a committed \"Earth Forever!\" activist (an allusion to the radical environmental group Earth First!) in the 1980s, is imprisoned for ecotage, but eventually cannot change anything. On top of that, he suffers the loss of his first wife when their daughter is only three and of his daughter when she is only 25. When the novel opens, Tierwater is a 75-year-old disillusioned ex-con living on the estate of a famous pop star in the Santa Ynez Valley, north of Santa Barbara, in California and looking after the latter's private menagerie. Maclovio Pulchris, the singer, has had the idea of preserving some of the last surviving animals of several species in order to initiate a captive breeding programme at some later point in time, choosing to preserve the animals no-one else would. Tierwater has been working for Pulchris (\"Mac\") for ten years when, in 2025, Andrea, his ex-wife and stepmother to his daughter Sierra, contacts him after more than 20 years. She and a friend of hers, April Wind, move in with Tierwater, officially for April Wind to write a biography, or rather hagiography, of Sierra Tierwater, his daughter, who died in 2001 as a martyr to the environmentalist cause. (A \"tree-hugging cunt\", as their opponents called her, she falls off a tree in old growth woodland in which she has been living"
      },
      {
        "text": "wife and stepmother to his daughter Sierra, contacts him after more than 20 years. She and a friend of hers, April Wind, move in with Tierwater, officially for April Wind to write a biography, or rather hagiography, of Sierra Tierwater, his daughter, who died in 2001 as a martyr to the environmentalist cause. (A \"tree-hugging cunt\", as their opponents called her, she falls off a tree in old growth woodland in which she has been living for about three years.) In the course of the next few months the situation deteriorates even more. The rain and the wind destroy the animals' cages, and subsequently they have to be kept in Pulchris's basement. One morning one of the lions gets loose and attacks and kills the singer, as well as a number of employees. As a consequence, the other lions are shot\u2014and thus lions as a species become extinct. (There is just one surviving lion in the San Diego Zoo left.) Jobless and penniless, Tierwater, who has fallen in love all over again with Andrea, is evicted from the estate by Pulchris's heirs. Along with Andrea, Tyrone leaves the compound, heading for a mountain cabin owned by Earth Forever! somewhere in the forest which decades ago served as a hideout. They arrive there with only one of Pulchris's animals in tow: Petunia, the Patagonian fox, which they now keep as their domestic animal, passing it off as their dog. In the final scene of the book, a teenaged girl comes hiking along the trail where the forest surrounding the dilapidated cabin would have been. Tierwater and Andrea, who again call themselves husband and wife now, have a glimmer of hope that life will soon be like life 30 years before, as the novel ends on an optimistic note.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " passing it off as their dog. In the final scene of the book, a teenaged girl comes hiking along the trail where the forest surrounding the dilapidated cabin would have been. Tierwater and Andrea, who again call themselves husband and wife now, have a glimmer of hope that life will soon be like life 30 years before, as the novel ends on an optimistic note.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "In Search of Lost Time",
    "author": "Marcel Proust",
    "published_date": "1913",
    "synopsis": " The novel recounts the experiences of the Narrator while growing up, participating in society, falling in love, and learning about art. The Narrator begins by noting, \u201cFor a long time, I went to bed early.\u201d He comments on the way sleep seems to alter one\u2019s surroundings, and the way Habit makes one indifferent to them. He remembers being in his room in the family\u2019s country home in Combray, while downstairs his parents entertain their friend Charles Swann, an elegant man of Jewish origin with strong ties to society (the character is modelled on Proust's friend Charles Ephrussi). Due to Swann\u2019s visit, the Narrator is deprived of his mother\u2019s goodnight kiss, but he gets her to spend the night reading to him. This memory is the only one he has of Combray, until years later the taste of a madeleine cake dipped in tea inspires a nostalgic incident of involuntary memory. He remembers having a similar snack as a child with his invalid aunt Leonie, and it leads to more memories of Combray. He describes their servant Fran\u00e7oise, who is uneducated but possesses an earthy wisdom and a strong sense of both duty and tradition. He meets an elegant \u201clady in pink\u201d while visiting his uncle Adolphe. He develops a love of the theater, especially the actress Berma, and his awkward Jewish friend Bloch introduces him to the works of the writer Bergotte. He learns Swann made an unsuitable marriage but has social ambitions for his beautiful daughter Gilberte. Legrandin, a snobbish friend of the family, tries to avoid introducing the boy to his well-to-do sister. The Narrator describes two walking paths: the way past Swann\u2019s home (the M\u00e9s\u00e9glise way), and the Guermantes way, both containing scenes of natural beauty. Taking the M\u00e9s\u00e9glise way, he sees Gilberte Swann standing in her yard with a lady in white, Mme Swann, and her supposed lover: Baron de Charlus, a friend of Swann\u2019s. Gilberte makes a gesture that the Narrator interprets as a rude dismissal. During another walk, he spies a lesbian scene involving Mlle Vinteuil, daughter of a composer, and her friend. The Guermantes way is symbolic of the Guermantes family, the nobility of the area. The Narrator is awed by the magic of their name, and is captivated when he first sees Mme de Guermantes. He discovers how appearances conceal the true nature of things, and tries writing a description of some nearby steeples. Lying in bed, he seems transported back to these places until he awakens. Mme Verdurin is an autocratic hostess who, aided by her husband, demands total obedience from the guests in her \u201clittle clan.\u201d One guest is Odette de Crecy, a former courtesan, who has met Swann and invites him to the group. Swann is too refined for such company, but Odette gradually intrigues him with her unusual style. A sonata by Vinteuil, which features a \u201clittle phrase,\u201d becomes the motif for their deepening relationship. The Verdurins host M. de Forcheville; their guests include Cottard, a doctor; Brichot, an academic; Saniette, the object of scorn; and a painter, M. Biche. Swann grows jealous of Odette, who now keeps him at arm\u2019s length, and suspects an affair between her and Forcheville, aided by the Verdurins. Swann seeks respite by attending a society concert that includes Legrandin\u2019s sister and a young Mme de Guermantes; the \u201clittle phrase\u201d is played and Swann realizes Odette\u2019s love for him is gone. He tortures himself wondering about her true relationships with others, but his love for her, despite renewals, gradually diminishes. He moves on and marvels that he ever loved a woman who was not his type. At home in Paris, the Narrator dreams of visiting Venice or the church in Balbec, a resort, but he is too unwell and instead takes walks in the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es, where he meets and befriends Gilberte. He holds her father, now married to Odette, in the highest esteem, and is awed by the beautiful sight of Mme Swann strolling in public. Years later, the old sights of the area are long gone, and he laments the fugitive nature of places. The Narrator\u2019s parents are inviting M. de Norpois, a diplomat colleague of the Narrator\u2019s father, to dinner. With Norpois\u2019s intervention, the narrator is finally allowed to go see Berma perform in a play, but is disappointed by her acting. Afterwards, at dinner, he watches Norpois, who is extremely diplomatic and correct at all times, expound on society and art. The Narrator gives him a draft of his writing, but Norpois gently indicates it is not good. The Narrator continues to go to the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es and play with Gilberte. Her parents distrust him, so he writes to them in protest. He and Gilberte wrestle and he has an orgasm. Gilberte invites him to tea, and he becomes a regular at her house. He observes Mme Swann\u2019s inferior social status, Swann\u2019s lowered standards and indifference towards his wife, and Gilberte\u2019s affection for her father. The Narrator contemplates how he has attained his wish to know the Swanns, and savors their unique style. At one of their parties he meets and befriends Bergotte, who gives his impressions of society figures and artists. But the Narrator is still unable to start writing seriously. His friend Bloch takes him to a brothel, where there is a Jewish prostitute named Rachel. He showers Mme Swann with flowers, being almost on better terms with her than with Gilberte. One day, he and Gilberte quarrel and he decides never to see her again. However, he continues to visit Mme Swann, who has become a popular hostess, with her guests including Mme Bontemps, who has a niece named Albertine. The Narrator hopes for a letter from Gilberte repairing their friendship, but gradually feels himself losing interest. He breaks down and plans to reconcile with her, but spies from afar someone resembling her walking with a boy and gives her up for good. He stops visiting her mother also, who is now a celebrated beauty admired by passersby, and years later he can recall the glamour she displayed then. Two years later, the Narrator, his grandmother, and Fran\u00e7oise set out for the seaside town of Balbec. The Narrator is almost totally indifferent to Gilberte now. During the train ride, his grandmother, who only believes in proper books, lends him her favorite: the Letters of Mme de Sevigne. At Balbec, the Narrator is disappointed with the church and uncomfortable in his unfamiliar hotel room, but his grandmother comforts him. He admires the seascape, and learns about the colorful staff and customers around the hotel: Aime, the discreet headwaiter; the lift operator; M. de Stermaria and his beautiful young daughter; and M. de Cambremer and his wife, Legrandin\u2019s sister. His grandmother encounters an old friend, the blue-blooded Mme de Villeparisis, and they renew their friendship. The three of them go for rides in the country, openly discussing art and politics. The Narrator longs for the country girls he sees alongside the roads, and has a strange feeling of unexplained memory while admiring a row of three trees. Mme de Villeparisis is joined by her glamorous great-nephew Robert de Saint-Loup, who is involved with an unsuitable woman. Despite initial awkwardness, the Narrator and his grandmother become good friends with him. Bloch, the childhood friend from Combray, turns up with his family, and acts in typically inappropriate fashion. Saint-Loup\u2019s ultra-aristocratic and extremely rude uncle the Baron de Charlus arrives. The Narrator discovers Mme de Villeparisis, her nephew M. de Charlus, and his nephew Saint-Loup are all of the Guermantes family. Charlus ignores the Narrator, but later visits him in his room and lends him a book. The next day, the Baron speaks shockingly informally to him, then demands the book back. The Narrator ponders Saint-Loup\u2019s attitude towards his aristocratic roots, and his relationship with his mistress, a mere actress whose recital bombed horribly with his family. One day, the Narrator sees a \u201clittle band\u201d of teenage girls strolling beside the sea, and becomes infatuated with them, along with an unseen hotel guest named Mlle Simonet. He joins Saint-Loup for dinner and reflects on how drunkenness affects his perceptions. Later they meet the painter Elstir, and the Narrator visits his studio. The Narrator marvels at Elstir\u2019s method of renewing impressions of ordinary things, as well as his connections with the Verdurins (he is \u201cM. Biche\u201d) and Mme Swann. He discovers the painter knows the teenage girls, particularly one dark-haired beauty who is Albertine Simonet. Elstir arranges an introduction, and the Narrator becomes friends with her, as well as her friends Andr\u00e9e and Gisele. The group goes for picnics and tours the countryside, as well as playing games, while the Narrator reflects on the nature of love as he becomes attracted to Albertine. Despite her rejection, they become close, although he still feels attracted to the whole group. At summer\u2019s end, the town closes up, and the Narrator is left with his image of first seeing the girls walking beside the sea. The Narrator\u2019s family has moved to an apartment connected with the Guermantes residence. Fran\u00e7oise befriends a fellow tenant, the tailor Jupien and his niece. The Narrator is fascinated by the Guermantes and their life, and is awed by their social circle while attending another Berma performance. He begins staking out the street where Mme de Guermantes walks every day, to her evident annoyance. He decides to visit her nephew Saint-Loup at his military base, to ask to be introduced to her. After noting the landscape and his state of mind while sleeping, the Narrator meets and attends dinners with Saint-Loup\u2019s fellow officers, where they discuss the Dreyfus Affair and the art of military strategy. But the Narrator returns home after receiving a call from his aging grandmother. Mme de Guermantes declines to see him, and he also finds he is still unable to begin writing. Saint-Loup visits on leave, and they have lunch and attend a recital with his actress mistress: Rachel, the Jewish prostitute, toward whom the unsuspecting Saint-Loup is crazed with jealousy. The Narrator then goes to Mme de Villeparisis\u2019s salon, which is considered second-rate despite its public reputation. Legrandin attends and displays his social climbing. Bloch stridently interrogates M. de Norpois about the Dreyfus Affair, which has ripped all of society asunder, but Norpois diplomatically avoids answering. The Narrator observes Mme de Guermantes and her aristocratic bearing, as she makes caustic remarks about friends and family, including the mistresses of her husband, who is M. de Charlus\u2019s brother. Mme Swann arrives, and the Narrator remembers a visit from Morel, the son of his uncle Adolphe\u2019s valet, who revealed that the \u201clady in pink\u201d was Mme Swann. Charlus asks the Narrator to leave with him, and offers to make him his prot\u00e9g\u00e9. At home, the Narrator\u2019s grandmother has worsened, and while walking with him she suffers a stroke. The family seeks out the best medical help, and she is often visited by Bergotte, himself unwell, but she dies, her face reverting to its youthful appearance. Several months later, Saint-Loup, now single, convinces the Narrator to ask out the Stermaria daughter, newly divorced. Albertine visits; she has matured and they share a kiss. The Narrator then goes to see Mme de Villeparisis, where Mme de Guermantes, whom he has stopped following, invites him to dinner. The Narrator daydreams of Mme de Stermaria, but she abruptly cancels, although Saint-Loup rescues him from despair by taking him to dine with his aristocratic friends, who engage in petty gossip. Saint-Loup passes on an invitation from Charlus to come visit him. The next day, at the Guermantes\u2019s dinner party, the Narrator admires their Elstir paintings, then meets the cream of society, including the Princess of Parma, who is an amiable simpleton. He learns more about the Guermantes: their hereditary features; their less-refined cousins the Courvoisiers; and Mme de Guermantes\u2019s celebrated humor, artistic tastes, and exalted diction (although she does not live up to the enchantment of her name). The discussion turns to gossip about society, including Charlus and his late wife; the affair between Norpois and Mme de Villeparisis; and aristocratic lineages. Leaving, the Narrator visits Charlus, who falsely accuses him of slandering him. The Narrator stomps on Charlus\u2019s hat and storms out, but Charlus is strangely unperturbed and gives him a ride home. Months later, the Narrator is invited to the Princesse de Guermantes\u2019s party. He tries to verify the invitation with M. and Mme de Guermantes, but first sees something he will describe later. They will be attending the party but do not help him, and while they are chatting, Swann arrives. Now a committed Dreyfusard, he is very sick and nearing death, but the Guermantes assure him he will outlive them. The Narrator describes what he had seen earlier: while waiting for the Guermantes to return so he could ask about his invitation, he saw Charlus encounter Jupien in their courtyard. The two then went into Jupien\u2019s shop and had intercourse. The Narrator reflects on the nature of \u201cinverts\u201d, and how they are like a secret society, never able to live in the open. He compares them to flowers, whose reproduction through the aid of insects depends solely on happenstance. Arriving at the Princesse\u2019s party, his invitation seems valid as he is greeted warmly by her. He sees Charlus exchanging knowing looks with the diplomat Vaugobert, a fellow invert. After several tries, the Narrator manages to be introduced to the Prince de Guermantes, who then walks off with Swann, causing speculation on the topic of their conversation. Mme de Saint-Euverte tries to recruit guests for her party the next day, but is subjected to scorn from some of the Guermantes. Charlus is captivated by the two young sons of M. de Guermantes\u2019s newest mistress. Saint-Loup arrives and mentions the names of several promiscuous women to the Narrator. Swann takes the Narrator aside and reveals the Prince wanted to admit his and his wife\u2019s pro-Dreyfus leanings. Swann is aware of his old friend Charlus\u2019s behavior, then urges the Narrator to visit Gilberte, and departs. The Narrator leaves with M. and Mme de Guermantes, and heads home for a late-night meeting with Albertine. He grows frantic when first she is late and then calls to cancel, but he convinces her to come. He writes an indifferent letter to Gilberte, and reviews the changing social scene, which now includes Mme Swann\u2019s salon centered on Bergotte. He decides to return to Balbec, after learning the women mentioned by Saint-Loup will be there. At Balbec, grief at his grandmother\u2019s suffering, which was worse than he knew, overwhelms him. He ponders the intermittencies of the heart and the ways of dealing with sad memories. His mother, even sadder, has become more like his grandmother in homage. Albertine is nearby and they begin spending time together, but he starts to suspect her of lesbianism and of lying to him about her activities. He fakes a preference for her friend Andr\u00e9e to make her become more trustworthy, and it works, but he soon suspects her of knowing several scandalous women at the hotel, including Lea, an actress. On the way to visit Saint-Loup, they meet Morel, the valet\u2019s son who is now an excellent violinist, and then the aging Charlus, who falsely claims to know Morel and goes to speak to him. The Narrator visits the Verdurins, who are renting a house from the Cambremers. On the train with him is the little clan: Brichot, who explains at length the derivation of the local place-names; Cottard, now a celebrated doctor; Saniette, still the butt of everyone\u2019s ridicule; and a new member, Ski. The Verdurins are still haughty and dictatorial toward their guests, who are as pedantic as ever. Charlus and Morel arrive together, and Charlus\u2019s true nature is barely concealed. The Cambremers arrive, and the Verdurins barely tolerate them. Back at the hotel, the Narrator ruminates on sleep and time, and observes the amusing mannerisms of the staff, who are mostly aware of Charlus\u2019s proclivities. The Narrator and Albertine hire a chauffeur and take drives in the country, leading to observations about new forms of travel as well as country life. The Narrator is unaware that the chauffeur and Morel are acquainted, and he reviews Morel\u2019s amoral character and plans towards Jupien\u2019s niece. The Narrator is jealously suspicious of Albertine but grows tired of her. She and the Narrator attend evening dinners at the Verdurins, taking the train with the other guests; Charlus is now a regular, despite his obliviousness to the clan\u2019s mockery. He and Morel try to maintain the secret of their relationship, and the Narrator recounts a ploy involving a fake duel that Charlus used to control Morel. The passing station stops remind the Narrator of various people and incidents, including two failed attempts by the Prince de Guermantes to arrange liaisons with Morel; a final break between the Verdurins and Cambremers; and a misunderstanding between the Narrator, Charlus, and Bloch. The Narrator has grown weary of the area and prefers others over Albertine. But she reveals to him as they leave the train that she has plans with Mlle Vinteuil and her friend (the lesbians from Combray) which plunges him into despair. He invents a story about a broken engagement of his, to convince her to go to Paris with him, and after hesitating she suddenly agrees to go immediately. The Narrator tells his mother: he must marry Albertine. The Narrator is living with Albertine in his family\u2019s apartment, to Fran\u00e7oise\u2019s distrust and his absent mother\u2019s chagrin. He marvels that he has come to possess her, but has grown bored with her. He mostly stays home, but has enlisted Andr\u00e9e to report on Albertine\u2019s whereabouts, as his jealousy remains. The Narrator gets advice on fashion from Mme de Guermantes, and encounters Charlus and Morel visiting Jupien and her niece, who is being married off to Morel despite his cruelty towards her. One day, the Narrator returns from the Guermantes and finds Andr\u00e9e just leaving, claiming to dislike the smell of their flowers. Albertine, who is more guarded to avoid provoking his jealousy, is maturing into an intelligent and elegant young lady. The Narrator is entranced by her beauty as she sleeps, and is only content when she is not out with others. She mentions wanting to go to the Verdurins, but the Narrator suspects an ulterior motive and analyzes her conversation for hints. He suggests she go instead to the Trocad\u00e9ro with Andr\u00e9e, and she reluctantly agrees. The Narrator compares dreams to wakefulness, and listens to the street vendors with Albertine, then she departs. He remembers trips she took with the chauffeur, then learns Lea the notorious actress will be at the Trocadero too. He sends Fran\u00e7oise to retrieve Albertine, and while waiting, he muses on music and Morel. When she returns, they go for a drive, while he pines for Venice and realizes she feels captive. He learns of Bergotte\u2019s final illness. That evening, he sneaks off to the Verdurins to try to discover the reason for Albertine\u2019s interest in them. He encounters Brichot on the way, and they discuss Swann, who has died. Charlus arrives and the Narrator reviews the Baron\u2019s struggles with Morel, then learns Mlle Vinteuil and her friend are expected (although they do not come). Morel joins in performing a septet by Vinteuil, which evokes commonalities with his sonata that only the composer could create. Mme Verdurin is furious that Charlus has taken control of her party; in revenge the Verdurins persuade Morel to repudiate him, and Charlus falls temporarily ill from the shock. Returning home, the Narrator and Albertine fight about his solo visit to the Verdurins, and she denies having affairs with Lea or Mlle Vinteuil, but admits she lied on occasion to avoid arguments. He threatens to break it off, but they reconcile. He appreciates art and fashion with her, and ponders her mysteriousness. But his suspicion of her and Andr\u00e9e is renewed, and they quarrel. After two awkward days and a restless night, he resolves to end the affair, but in the morning Fran\u00e7oise informs him: Albertine has asked for her boxes and left. The Narrator is anguished at Albertine\u2019s departure and absence. He dispatches Saint-Loup to convince her aunt Mme Bontemps to send her back, but Albertine insists the Narrator should ask, and she will gladly return. The Narrator lies and replies he is done with her, but she just agrees with him. He writes to her that he will marry Andr\u00e9e, then hears from Saint-Loup of the failure of his mission to the aunt. Desperate, he begs Albertine to return, but receives word: she has died in a riding accident. He receives two last letters from her: one wishing him and Andr\u00e9e well, and one asking if she can return. The Narrator plunges into suffering amid the many different memories of Albertine, intimately linked to all of his everyday sensations. He recalls a suspicious incident she told him of at Balbec, and asks Aime, the headwaiter, to investigate. He recalls their history together and his regrets, as well as love\u2019s randomness. Aime reports back: Albertine often engaged in affairs with girls at Balbec. The Narrator sends him to learn more, and he reports other liaisons with girls. The Narrator wishes he could have known the true Albertine, whom he would have accepted. He begins to grow accustomed to the idea of her death, despite constant reminders that renew his grief. Andr\u00e9e admits her own lesbianism but denies being with Albertine. The Narrator knows he will forget Albertine, just as he has forgotten Gilberte. He happens to meet Gilberte again; her mother Mme Swann became Mme de Forcheville and Gilberte is now part of high society, received by the Guermantes. The Narrator finally publishes an article in Le Figaro. Andr\u00e9e visits him and confesses relations with Albertine and also explains the truth behind her departure: her aunt wanted her to marry another man. The Narrator finally visits Venice with his mother, which enthralls him in every aspect. They happen to see Norpois and Mme de Villeparisis there. A telegram signed from Albertine arrives, but the Narrator is indifferent and it is only a misprint anyway. Returning home, the Narrator and his mother receive surprising news: Gilberte will marry Saint-Loup, and Jupien\u2019s niece will be adopted by Charlus and then married to Legrandin\u2019s nephew, an invert. There is much discussion of these marriages among society. The Narrator visits Gilberte in her new home, and is shocked to learn of Saint-Loup\u2019s affair with Morel, among others. He despairs of their friendship. The Narrator is staying with Gilberte at her home near Combray. They go for walks, on one of which he is stunned to learn the M\u00e9s\u00e9glise way and the Guermantes way are actually linked. Gilberte also tells him she was attracted to him when young, and had made a suggestive gesture to him as he watched her. Also, it was Lea she was walking with the evening he had planned to reconcile with her. He considers Saint-Loup\u2019s nature and reads an account of the Verdurins\u2019 salon, deciding he has no talent for writing. The scene shifts to a night in 1916, during World War I, when the Narrator has returned to Paris from a stay in a sanatorium and is walking the streets during a blackout. He reflects on the changed norms of art and society, with the Verdurins now highly esteemed. He recounts a 1914 visit from Saint-Loup, who was trying to enlist secretly. He recalls descriptions of the fighting he subsequently received from Saint-Loup and Gilberte, whose home was threatened. He describes a call paid on him a few days previously by Saint-Loup; they discussed military strategy. Now on the dark street, the Narrator encounters Charlus, who has completely surrendered to his impulses. Charlus reviews Morel\u2019s betrayals and his own temptation to seek vengeance; critiques Brichot\u2019s new fame as a writer, which has ostracized him from the Verdurins; and admits his general sympathy with Germany. The last part of the conversation draws a crowd of suspicious onlookers. After parting the Narrator seeks refuge in what appears to be hotel, where he sees someone who looks familiar leaving. Inside, he discovers it to be a male brothel, and spies Charlus making arrangements for services. The proprietor turns out to be Jupien, who expresses a perverse pride in his business. A few days later, news comes that Saint-Loup has been killed in combat. The Narrator pieces together that Saint-Loup had visited Jupien\u2019s brothel, and ponders what might have been had he lived. Years later, again in Paris, the Narrator goes to a party at the house of the Prince de Guermantes. On the way he sees Charlus, now a mere shell of his former self, being helped by Jupien. The paving stones at the Guermantes house inspire another incident of involuntary memory for the Narrator, quickly followed by two more. Inside, while waiting in the library, he discerns their meaning: by putting him in contact with both the past and present, the impressions allow him to gain a vantage outside time, affording a glimpse of the true relations of things. He realizes his whole life has prepared him for the mission of describing events as fully revealed, and (finally) resolves to begin writing. Entering the party, he is shocked at the disguises old age has given to the people he knew, and at the changes in society. Legrandin is now an invert, but is no longer a snob. Bloch is a respected writer and vital figure in society. Morel has reformed and become a respected citizen. Mme de Forcheville is the mistress of M. de Guermantes. Mme Verdurin has married the Prince de Guermantes after both their spouses died. Rachel is the star of the party, abetted by Mme de Guermantes, whose social position has been eroded by her affinity for theater. Gilberte introduces her daughter to the Narrator; he is struck by the way the daughter encapsulates both the M\u00e9s\u00e9glise and Guermantes ways within herself. He is spurred to writing, with help from Fran\u00e7oise and despite signs of approaching death. He realizes that every person carries within himself the accumulated baggage of their past, and concludes that to be accurate he must describe how everyone gradually occupies an immense range \"in Time\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel recounts the experiences of the Narrator while growing up, participating in society, falling in love, and learning about art. The Narrator begins by noting, \u201cFor a long time, I went to bed early.\u201d He comments on the way sleep seems to alter one\u2019s surroundings, and the way Habit makes one indifferent to them. He remembers being in his room in the family\u2019s country home in Combray, while downstairs his parents entertain their friend Charles Swann, an elegant man of Jewish origin with strong ties to society (the character is modelled on Proust's friend Charles Ephrussi). Due to Swann\u2019s visit, the Narrator is deprived of his mother\u2019s goodnight kiss, but he gets her to spend the night reading to him. This memory is the only one he has of Combray, until years later the taste of a madeleine cake dipped in tea inspires a nostalgic incident of involuntary memory. He remembers having a similar snack as a child with his invalid aunt Leonie, and it leads to more memories of Combray. He describes their servant Fran\u00e7oise, who is uneducated but possesses an earthy wisdom and a strong sense of both duty and tradition. He meets an elegant \u201clady in pink\u201d while visiting his uncle Adolphe. He develops a love of the theater, especially the actress Berma, and his awkward Jewish friend Bloch introduces him to the works of the writer Bergotte. He learns Swann made an unsuitable marriage but has social ambitions for his beautiful daughter Gilberte. Legrandin, a snobbish friend of the family, tries to avoid introducing the boy to his well-to-do sister. The Narrator describes two walking paths: the way past Swann\u2019s home (the M\u00e9s\u00e9glise way), and the Guermantes way, both containing scenes of natural beauty. Taking"
      },
      {
        "text": " him to the works of the writer Bergotte. He learns Swann made an unsuitable marriage but has social ambitions for his beautiful daughter Gilberte. Legrandin, a snobbish friend of the family, tries to avoid introducing the boy to his well-to-do sister. The Narrator describes two walking paths: the way past Swann\u2019s home (the M\u00e9s\u00e9glise way), and the Guermantes way, both containing scenes of natural beauty. Taking the M\u00e9s\u00e9glise way, he sees Gilberte Swann standing in her yard with a lady in white, Mme Swann, and her supposed lover: Baron de Charlus, a friend of Swann\u2019s. Gilberte makes a gesture that the Narrator interprets as a rude dismissal. During another walk, he spies a lesbian scene involving Mlle Vinteuil, daughter of a composer, and her friend. The Guermantes way is symbolic of the Guermantes family, the nobility of the area. The Narrator is awed by the magic of their name, and is captivated when he first sees Mme de Guermantes. He discovers how appearances conceal the true nature of things, and tries writing a description of some nearby steeples. Lying in bed, he seems transported back to these places until he awakens. Mme Verdurin is an autocratic hostess who, aided by her husband, demands total obedience from the guests in her \u201clittle clan.\u201d One guest is Odette de Crecy, a former courtesan, who has met Swann and invites him to the group. Swann is too refined for such company, but Odette gradually intrigues him with her unusual style. A sonata by Vinteuil, which features a \u201clittle phrase,\u201d becomes the motif for their deepening relationship. The Verdurins host M. de Forcheville;"
      },
      {
        "text": " total obedience from the guests in her \u201clittle clan.\u201d One guest is Odette de Crecy, a former courtesan, who has met Swann and invites him to the group. Swann is too refined for such company, but Odette gradually intrigues him with her unusual style. A sonata by Vinteuil, which features a \u201clittle phrase,\u201d becomes the motif for their deepening relationship. The Verdurins host M. de Forcheville; their guests include Cottard, a doctor; Brichot, an academic; Saniette, the object of scorn; and a painter, M. Biche. Swann grows jealous of Odette, who now keeps him at arm\u2019s length, and suspects an affair between her and Forcheville, aided by the Verdurins. Swann seeks respite by attending a society concert that includes Legrandin\u2019s sister and a young Mme de Guermantes; the \u201clittle phrase\u201d is played and Swann realizes Odette\u2019s love for him is gone. He tortures himself wondering about her true relationships with others, but his love for her, despite renewals, gradually diminishes. He moves on and marvels that he ever loved a woman who was not his type. At home in Paris, the Narrator dreams of visiting Venice or the church in Balbec, a resort, but he is too unwell and instead takes walks in the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es, where he meets and befriends Gilberte. He holds her father, now married to Odette, in the highest esteem, and is awed by the beautiful sight of Mme Swann strolling in public. Years later, the old sights of the area are long gone, and he laments the fugitive nature of places. The Narrator\u2019s parents are inviting M. de Norpois, a diplomat colleague of the Narr"
      },
      {
        "text": " walks in the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es, where he meets and befriends Gilberte. He holds her father, now married to Odette, in the highest esteem, and is awed by the beautiful sight of Mme Swann strolling in public. Years later, the old sights of the area are long gone, and he laments the fugitive nature of places. The Narrator\u2019s parents are inviting M. de Norpois, a diplomat colleague of the Narrator\u2019s father, to dinner. With Norpois\u2019s intervention, the narrator is finally allowed to go see Berma perform in a play, but is disappointed by her acting. Afterwards, at dinner, he watches Norpois, who is extremely diplomatic and correct at all times, expound on society and art. The Narrator gives him a draft of his writing, but Norpois gently indicates it is not good. The Narrator continues to go to the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es and play with Gilberte. Her parents distrust him, so he writes to them in protest. He and Gilberte wrestle and he has an orgasm. Gilberte invites him to tea, and he becomes a regular at her house. He observes Mme Swann\u2019s inferior social status, Swann\u2019s lowered standards and indifference towards his wife, and Gilberte\u2019s affection for her father. The Narrator contemplates how he has attained his wish to know the Swanns, and savors their unique style. At one of their parties he meets and befriends Bergotte, who gives his impressions of society figures and artists. But the Narrator is still unable to start writing seriously. His friend Bloch takes him to a brothel, where there is a Jewish prostitute named Rachel. He showers Mme Swann with flowers, being almost on better terms with her than with Gilberte. One day, he and Gil"
      },
      {
        "text": " attained his wish to know the Swanns, and savors their unique style. At one of their parties he meets and befriends Bergotte, who gives his impressions of society figures and artists. But the Narrator is still unable to start writing seriously. His friend Bloch takes him to a brothel, where there is a Jewish prostitute named Rachel. He showers Mme Swann with flowers, being almost on better terms with her than with Gilberte. One day, he and Gilberte quarrel and he decides never to see her again. However, he continues to visit Mme Swann, who has become a popular hostess, with her guests including Mme Bontemps, who has a niece named Albertine. The Narrator hopes for a letter from Gilberte repairing their friendship, but gradually feels himself losing interest. He breaks down and plans to reconcile with her, but spies from afar someone resembling her walking with a boy and gives her up for good. He stops visiting her mother also, who is now a celebrated beauty admired by passersby, and years later he can recall the glamour she displayed then. Two years later, the Narrator, his grandmother, and Fran\u00e7oise set out for the seaside town of Balbec. The Narrator is almost totally indifferent to Gilberte now. During the train ride, his grandmother, who only believes in proper books, lends him her favorite: the Letters of Mme de Sevigne. At Balbec, the Narrator is disappointed with the church and uncomfortable in his unfamiliar hotel room, but his grandmother comforts him. He admires the seascape, and learns about the colorful staff and customers around the hotel: Aime, the discreet headwaiter; the lift operator; M. de Stermaria and his beautiful young daughter; and M. de Cambremer and his wife, Legrandin\u2019s sister. His grandmother encounters an old friend, the blue-blooded"
      },
      {
        "text": "bec, the Narrator is disappointed with the church and uncomfortable in his unfamiliar hotel room, but his grandmother comforts him. He admires the seascape, and learns about the colorful staff and customers around the hotel: Aime, the discreet headwaiter; the lift operator; M. de Stermaria and his beautiful young daughter; and M. de Cambremer and his wife, Legrandin\u2019s sister. His grandmother encounters an old friend, the blue-blooded Mme de Villeparisis, and they renew their friendship. The three of them go for rides in the country, openly discussing art and politics. The Narrator longs for the country girls he sees alongside the roads, and has a strange feeling of unexplained memory while admiring a row of three trees. Mme de Villeparisis is joined by her glamorous great-nephew Robert de Saint-Loup, who is involved with an unsuitable woman. Despite initial awkwardness, the Narrator and his grandmother become good friends with him. Bloch, the childhood friend from Combray, turns up with his family, and acts in typically inappropriate fashion. Saint-Loup\u2019s ultra-aristocratic and extremely rude uncle the Baron de Charlus arrives. The Narrator discovers Mme de Villeparisis, her nephew M. de Charlus, and his nephew Saint-Loup are all of the Guermantes family. Charlus ignores the Narrator, but later visits him in his room and lends him a book. The next day, the Baron speaks shockingly informally to him, then demands the book back. The Narrator ponders Saint-Loup\u2019s attitude towards his aristocratic roots, and his relationship with his mistress, a mere actress whose recital bombed horribly with his family. One day, the Narrator sees a \u201clittle band\u201d of teenage girls strolling beside the sea, and becomes"
      },
      {
        "text": " ignores the Narrator, but later visits him in his room and lends him a book. The next day, the Baron speaks shockingly informally to him, then demands the book back. The Narrator ponders Saint-Loup\u2019s attitude towards his aristocratic roots, and his relationship with his mistress, a mere actress whose recital bombed horribly with his family. One day, the Narrator sees a \u201clittle band\u201d of teenage girls strolling beside the sea, and becomes infatuated with them, along with an unseen hotel guest named Mlle Simonet. He joins Saint-Loup for dinner and reflects on how drunkenness affects his perceptions. Later they meet the painter Elstir, and the Narrator visits his studio. The Narrator marvels at Elstir\u2019s method of renewing impressions of ordinary things, as well as his connections with the Verdurins (he is \u201cM. Biche\u201d) and Mme Swann. He discovers the painter knows the teenage girls, particularly one dark-haired beauty who is Albertine Simonet. Elstir arranges an introduction, and the Narrator becomes friends with her, as well as her friends Andr\u00e9e and Gisele. The group goes for picnics and tours the countryside, as well as playing games, while the Narrator reflects on the nature of love as he becomes attracted to Albertine. Despite her rejection, they become close, although he still feels attracted to the whole group. At summer\u2019s end, the town closes up, and the Narrator is left with his image of first seeing the girls walking beside the sea. The Narrator\u2019s family has moved to an apartment connected with the Guermantes residence. Fran\u00e7oise befriends a fellow tenant, the tailor Jupien and his niece. The Narrator is fascinated by the Guermantes and their life, and is awed by their social circle while"
      },
      {
        "text": " he still feels attracted to the whole group. At summer\u2019s end, the town closes up, and the Narrator is left with his image of first seeing the girls walking beside the sea. The Narrator\u2019s family has moved to an apartment connected with the Guermantes residence. Fran\u00e7oise befriends a fellow tenant, the tailor Jupien and his niece. The Narrator is fascinated by the Guermantes and their life, and is awed by their social circle while attending another Berma performance. He begins staking out the street where Mme de Guermantes walks every day, to her evident annoyance. He decides to visit her nephew Saint-Loup at his military base, to ask to be introduced to her. After noting the landscape and his state of mind while sleeping, the Narrator meets and attends dinners with Saint-Loup\u2019s fellow officers, where they discuss the Dreyfus Affair and the art of military strategy. But the Narrator returns home after receiving a call from his aging grandmother. Mme de Guermantes declines to see him, and he also finds he is still unable to begin writing. Saint-Loup visits on leave, and they have lunch and attend a recital with his actress mistress: Rachel, the Jewish prostitute, toward whom the unsuspecting Saint-Loup is crazed with jealousy. The Narrator then goes to Mme de Villeparisis\u2019s salon, which is considered second-rate despite its public reputation. Legrandin attends and displays his social climbing. Bloch stridently interrogates M. de Norpois about the Dreyfus Affair, which has ripped all of society asunder, but Norpois diplomatically avoids answering. The Narrator observes Mme de Guermantes and her aristocratic bearing, as she makes caustic remarks about friends and family, including the mistresses of her husband, who is M. de Charl"
      },
      {
        "text": " considered second-rate despite its public reputation. Legrandin attends and displays his social climbing. Bloch stridently interrogates M. de Norpois about the Dreyfus Affair, which has ripped all of society asunder, but Norpois diplomatically avoids answering. The Narrator observes Mme de Guermantes and her aristocratic bearing, as she makes caustic remarks about friends and family, including the mistresses of her husband, who is M. de Charlus\u2019s brother. Mme Swann arrives, and the Narrator remembers a visit from Morel, the son of his uncle Adolphe\u2019s valet, who revealed that the \u201clady in pink\u201d was Mme Swann. Charlus asks the Narrator to leave with him, and offers to make him his prot\u00e9g\u00e9. At home, the Narrator\u2019s grandmother has worsened, and while walking with him she suffers a stroke. The family seeks out the best medical help, and she is often visited by Bergotte, himself unwell, but she dies, her face reverting to its youthful appearance. Several months later, Saint-Loup, now single, convinces the Narrator to ask out the Stermaria daughter, newly divorced. Albertine visits; she has matured and they share a kiss. The Narrator then goes to see Mme de Villeparisis, where Mme de Guermantes, whom he has stopped following, invites him to dinner. The Narrator daydreams of Mme de Stermaria, but she abruptly cancels, although Saint-Loup rescues him from despair by taking him to dine with his aristocratic friends, who engage in petty gossip. Saint-Loup passes on an invitation from Charlus to come visit him. The next day, at the Guermantes\u2019s dinner party, the Narrator admires their Elstir"
      },
      {
        "text": ", whom he has stopped following, invites him to dinner. The Narrator daydreams of Mme de Stermaria, but she abruptly cancels, although Saint-Loup rescues him from despair by taking him to dine with his aristocratic friends, who engage in petty gossip. Saint-Loup passes on an invitation from Charlus to come visit him. The next day, at the Guermantes\u2019s dinner party, the Narrator admires their Elstir paintings, then meets the cream of society, including the Princess of Parma, who is an amiable simpleton. He learns more about the Guermantes: their hereditary features; their less-refined cousins the Courvoisiers; and Mme de Guermantes\u2019s celebrated humor, artistic tastes, and exalted diction (although she does not live up to the enchantment of her name). The discussion turns to gossip about society, including Charlus and his late wife; the affair between Norpois and Mme de Villeparisis; and aristocratic lineages. Leaving, the Narrator visits Charlus, who falsely accuses him of slandering him. The Narrator stomps on Charlus\u2019s hat and storms out, but Charlus is strangely unperturbed and gives him a ride home. Months later, the Narrator is invited to the Princesse de Guermantes\u2019s party. He tries to verify the invitation with M. and Mme de Guermantes, but first sees something he will describe later. They will be attending the party but do not help him, and while they are chatting, Swann arrives. Now a committed Dreyfusard, he is very sick and nearing death, but the Guermantes assure him he will outlive them. The Narrator describes what he had seen earlier: while waiting for the Guermantes to return so he could ask about his invitation, he saw Charl"
      },
      {
        "text": ". and Mme de Guermantes, but first sees something he will describe later. They will be attending the party but do not help him, and while they are chatting, Swann arrives. Now a committed Dreyfusard, he is very sick and nearing death, but the Guermantes assure him he will outlive them. The Narrator describes what he had seen earlier: while waiting for the Guermantes to return so he could ask about his invitation, he saw Charlus encounter Jupien in their courtyard. The two then went into Jupien\u2019s shop and had intercourse. The Narrator reflects on the nature of \u201cinverts\u201d, and how they are like a secret society, never able to live in the open. He compares them to flowers, whose reproduction through the aid of insects depends solely on happenstance. Arriving at the Princesse\u2019s party, his invitation seems valid as he is greeted warmly by her. He sees Charlus exchanging knowing looks with the diplomat Vaugobert, a fellow invert. After several tries, the Narrator manages to be introduced to the Prince de Guermantes, who then walks off with Swann, causing speculation on the topic of their conversation. Mme de Saint-Euverte tries to recruit guests for her party the next day, but is subjected to scorn from some of the Guermantes. Charlus is captivated by the two young sons of M. de Guermantes\u2019s newest mistress. Saint-Loup arrives and mentions the names of several promiscuous women to the Narrator. Swann takes the Narrator aside and reveals the Prince wanted to admit his and his wife\u2019s pro-Dreyfus leanings. Swann is aware of his old friend Charlus\u2019s behavior, then urges the Narrator to visit Gilberte, and departs. The Narrator leaves with M"
      },
      {
        "text": " sons of M. de Guermantes\u2019s newest mistress. Saint-Loup arrives and mentions the names of several promiscuous women to the Narrator. Swann takes the Narrator aside and reveals the Prince wanted to admit his and his wife\u2019s pro-Dreyfus leanings. Swann is aware of his old friend Charlus\u2019s behavior, then urges the Narrator to visit Gilberte, and departs. The Narrator leaves with M. and Mme de Guermantes, and heads home for a late-night meeting with Albertine. He grows frantic when first she is late and then calls to cancel, but he convinces her to come. He writes an indifferent letter to Gilberte, and reviews the changing social scene, which now includes Mme Swann\u2019s salon centered on Bergotte. He decides to return to Balbec, after learning the women mentioned by Saint-Loup will be there. At Balbec, grief at his grandmother\u2019s suffering, which was worse than he knew, overwhelms him. He ponders the intermittencies of the heart and the ways of dealing with sad memories. His mother, even sadder, has become more like his grandmother in homage. Albertine is nearby and they begin spending time together, but he starts to suspect her of lesbianism and of lying to him about her activities. He fakes a preference for her friend Andr\u00e9e to make her become more trustworthy, and it works, but he soon suspects her of knowing several scandalous women at the hotel, including Lea, an actress. On the way to visit Saint-Loup, they meet Morel, the valet\u2019s son who is now an excellent violinist, and then the aging Charlus, who falsely claims to know Morel and goes to speak to him. The Narrator visits the Verdurins, who are renting a house from the Camb"
      },
      {
        "text": " make her become more trustworthy, and it works, but he soon suspects her of knowing several scandalous women at the hotel, including Lea, an actress. On the way to visit Saint-Loup, they meet Morel, the valet\u2019s son who is now an excellent violinist, and then the aging Charlus, who falsely claims to know Morel and goes to speak to him. The Narrator visits the Verdurins, who are renting a house from the Cambremers. On the train with him is the little clan: Brichot, who explains at length the derivation of the local place-names; Cottard, now a celebrated doctor; Saniette, still the butt of everyone\u2019s ridicule; and a new member, Ski. The Verdurins are still haughty and dictatorial toward their guests, who are as pedantic as ever. Charlus and Morel arrive together, and Charlus\u2019s true nature is barely concealed. The Cambremers arrive, and the Verdurins barely tolerate them. Back at the hotel, the Narrator ruminates on sleep and time, and observes the amusing mannerisms of the staff, who are mostly aware of Charlus\u2019s proclivities. The Narrator and Albertine hire a chauffeur and take drives in the country, leading to observations about new forms of travel as well as country life. The Narrator is unaware that the chauffeur and Morel are acquainted, and he reviews Morel\u2019s amoral character and plans towards Jupien\u2019s niece. The Narrator is jealously suspicious of Albertine but grows tired of her. She and the Narrator attend evening dinners at the Verdurins, taking the train with the other guests; Charlus is now a regular, despite his obliviousness to the clan\u2019s mockery. He and Morel try to maintain the secret of their relationship"
      },
      {
        "text": "ffeur and Morel are acquainted, and he reviews Morel\u2019s amoral character and plans towards Jupien\u2019s niece. The Narrator is jealously suspicious of Albertine but grows tired of her. She and the Narrator attend evening dinners at the Verdurins, taking the train with the other guests; Charlus is now a regular, despite his obliviousness to the clan\u2019s mockery. He and Morel try to maintain the secret of their relationship, and the Narrator recounts a ploy involving a fake duel that Charlus used to control Morel. The passing station stops remind the Narrator of various people and incidents, including two failed attempts by the Prince de Guermantes to arrange liaisons with Morel; a final break between the Verdurins and Cambremers; and a misunderstanding between the Narrator, Charlus, and Bloch. The Narrator has grown weary of the area and prefers others over Albertine. But she reveals to him as they leave the train that she has plans with Mlle Vinteuil and her friend (the lesbians from Combray) which plunges him into despair. He invents a story about a broken engagement of his, to convince her to go to Paris with him, and after hesitating she suddenly agrees to go immediately. The Narrator tells his mother: he must marry Albertine. The Narrator is living with Albertine in his family\u2019s apartment, to Fran\u00e7oise\u2019s distrust and his absent mother\u2019s chagrin. He marvels that he has come to possess her, but has grown bored with her. He mostly stays home, but has enlisted Andr\u00e9e to report on Albertine\u2019s whereabouts, as his jealousy remains. The Narrator gets advice on fashion from Mme de Guermantes, and encounters Charlus and Morel visiting Jupien and her niece, who is being married off to Morel"
      },
      {
        "text": " to Fran\u00e7oise\u2019s distrust and his absent mother\u2019s chagrin. He marvels that he has come to possess her, but has grown bored with her. He mostly stays home, but has enlisted Andr\u00e9e to report on Albertine\u2019s whereabouts, as his jealousy remains. The Narrator gets advice on fashion from Mme de Guermantes, and encounters Charlus and Morel visiting Jupien and her niece, who is being married off to Morel despite his cruelty towards her. One day, the Narrator returns from the Guermantes and finds Andr\u00e9e just leaving, claiming to dislike the smell of their flowers. Albertine, who is more guarded to avoid provoking his jealousy, is maturing into an intelligent and elegant young lady. The Narrator is entranced by her beauty as she sleeps, and is only content when she is not out with others. She mentions wanting to go to the Verdurins, but the Narrator suspects an ulterior motive and analyzes her conversation for hints. He suggests she go instead to the Trocad\u00e9ro with Andr\u00e9e, and she reluctantly agrees. The Narrator compares dreams to wakefulness, and listens to the street vendors with Albertine, then she departs. He remembers trips she took with the chauffeur, then learns Lea the notorious actress will be at the Trocadero too. He sends Fran\u00e7oise to retrieve Albertine, and while waiting, he muses on music and Morel. When she returns, they go for a drive, while he pines for Venice and realizes she feels captive. He learns of Bergotte\u2019s final illness. That evening, he sneaks off to the Verdurins to try to discover the reason for Albertine\u2019s interest in them. He encounters Brichot on the way, and they discuss Swann, who has died. Charlus arrives and the Narrator reviews the Baron\ufffd"
      },
      {
        "text": " he muses on music and Morel. When she returns, they go for a drive, while he pines for Venice and realizes she feels captive. He learns of Bergotte\u2019s final illness. That evening, he sneaks off to the Verdurins to try to discover the reason for Albertine\u2019s interest in them. He encounters Brichot on the way, and they discuss Swann, who has died. Charlus arrives and the Narrator reviews the Baron\u2019s struggles with Morel, then learns Mlle Vinteuil and her friend are expected (although they do not come). Morel joins in performing a septet by Vinteuil, which evokes commonalities with his sonata that only the composer could create. Mme Verdurin is furious that Charlus has taken control of her party; in revenge the Verdurins persuade Morel to repudiate him, and Charlus falls temporarily ill from the shock. Returning home, the Narrator and Albertine fight about his solo visit to the Verdurins, and she denies having affairs with Lea or Mlle Vinteuil, but admits she lied on occasion to avoid arguments. He threatens to break it off, but they reconcile. He appreciates art and fashion with her, and ponders her mysteriousness. But his suspicion of her and Andr\u00e9e is renewed, and they quarrel. After two awkward days and a restless night, he resolves to end the affair, but in the morning Fran\u00e7oise informs him: Albertine has asked for her boxes and left. The Narrator is anguished at Albertine\u2019s departure and absence. He dispatches Saint-Loup to convince her aunt Mme Bontemps to send her back, but Albertine insists the Narrator should ask, and she will gladly return. The Narrator lies and replies he is done with her, but she just agrees with him. He"
      },
      {
        "text": " resolves to end the affair, but in the morning Fran\u00e7oise informs him: Albertine has asked for her boxes and left. The Narrator is anguished at Albertine\u2019s departure and absence. He dispatches Saint-Loup to convince her aunt Mme Bontemps to send her back, but Albertine insists the Narrator should ask, and she will gladly return. The Narrator lies and replies he is done with her, but she just agrees with him. He writes to her that he will marry Andr\u00e9e, then hears from Saint-Loup of the failure of his mission to the aunt. Desperate, he begs Albertine to return, but receives word: she has died in a riding accident. He receives two last letters from her: one wishing him and Andr\u00e9e well, and one asking if she can return. The Narrator plunges into suffering amid the many different memories of Albertine, intimately linked to all of his everyday sensations. He recalls a suspicious incident she told him of at Balbec, and asks Aime, the headwaiter, to investigate. He recalls their history together and his regrets, as well as love\u2019s randomness. Aime reports back: Albertine often engaged in affairs with girls at Balbec. The Narrator sends him to learn more, and he reports other liaisons with girls. The Narrator wishes he could have known the true Albertine, whom he would have accepted. He begins to grow accustomed to the idea of her death, despite constant reminders that renew his grief. Andr\u00e9e admits her own lesbianism but denies being with Albertine. The Narrator knows he will forget Albertine, just as he has forgotten Gilberte. He happens to meet Gilberte again; her mother Mme Swann became Mme de Forcheville and Gilberte is now part of high society, received by the Guermantes. The Narrator finally publishes an article"
      },
      {
        "text": " begins to grow accustomed to the idea of her death, despite constant reminders that renew his grief. Andr\u00e9e admits her own lesbianism but denies being with Albertine. The Narrator knows he will forget Albertine, just as he has forgotten Gilberte. He happens to meet Gilberte again; her mother Mme Swann became Mme de Forcheville and Gilberte is now part of high society, received by the Guermantes. The Narrator finally publishes an article in Le Figaro. Andr\u00e9e visits him and confesses relations with Albertine and also explains the truth behind her departure: her aunt wanted her to marry another man. The Narrator finally visits Venice with his mother, which enthralls him in every aspect. They happen to see Norpois and Mme de Villeparisis there. A telegram signed from Albertine arrives, but the Narrator is indifferent and it is only a misprint anyway. Returning home, the Narrator and his mother receive surprising news: Gilberte will marry Saint-Loup, and Jupien\u2019s niece will be adopted by Charlus and then married to Legrandin\u2019s nephew, an invert. There is much discussion of these marriages among society. The Narrator visits Gilberte in her new home, and is shocked to learn of Saint-Loup\u2019s affair with Morel, among others. He despairs of their friendship. The Narrator is staying with Gilberte at her home near Combray. They go for walks, on one of which he is stunned to learn the M\u00e9s\u00e9glise way and the Guermantes way are actually linked. Gilberte also tells him she was attracted to him when young, and had made a suggestive gesture to him as he watched her. Also, it was Lea she was walking with the evening he had planned to reconcile with her. He considers Saint-Loup"
      },
      {
        "text": " Narrator is staying with Gilberte at her home near Combray. They go for walks, on one of which he is stunned to learn the M\u00e9s\u00e9glise way and the Guermantes way are actually linked. Gilberte also tells him she was attracted to him when young, and had made a suggestive gesture to him as he watched her. Also, it was Lea she was walking with the evening he had planned to reconcile with her. He considers Saint-Loup\u2019s nature and reads an account of the Verdurins\u2019 salon, deciding he has no talent for writing. The scene shifts to a night in 1916, during World War I, when the Narrator has returned to Paris from a stay in a sanatorium and is walking the streets during a blackout. He reflects on the changed norms of art and society, with the Verdurins now highly esteemed. He recounts a 1914 visit from Saint-Loup, who was trying to enlist secretly. He recalls descriptions of the fighting he subsequently received from Saint-Loup and Gilberte, whose home was threatened. He describes a call paid on him a few days previously by Saint-Loup; they discussed military strategy. Now on the dark street, the Narrator encounters Charlus, who has completely surrendered to his impulses. Charlus reviews Morel\u2019s betrayals and his own temptation to seek vengeance; critiques Brichot\u2019s new fame as a writer, which has ostracized him from the Verdurins; and admits his general sympathy with Germany. The last part of the conversation draws a crowd of suspicious onlookers. After parting the Narrator seeks refuge in what appears to be hotel, where he sees someone who looks familiar leaving. Inside, he discovers it to be a male brothel, and spies Charlus making arrangements for services. The proprietor turns out to be Jupien, who expresses a perverse pride in his business. A few days"
      },
      {
        "text": " has ostracized him from the Verdurins; and admits his general sympathy with Germany. The last part of the conversation draws a crowd of suspicious onlookers. After parting the Narrator seeks refuge in what appears to be hotel, where he sees someone who looks familiar leaving. Inside, he discovers it to be a male brothel, and spies Charlus making arrangements for services. The proprietor turns out to be Jupien, who expresses a perverse pride in his business. A few days later, news comes that Saint-Loup has been killed in combat. The Narrator pieces together that Saint-Loup had visited Jupien\u2019s brothel, and ponders what might have been had he lived. Years later, again in Paris, the Narrator goes to a party at the house of the Prince de Guermantes. On the way he sees Charlus, now a mere shell of his former self, being helped by Jupien. The paving stones at the Guermantes house inspire another incident of involuntary memory for the Narrator, quickly followed by two more. Inside, while waiting in the library, he discerns their meaning: by putting him in contact with both the past and present, the impressions allow him to gain a vantage outside time, affording a glimpse of the true relations of things. He realizes his whole life has prepared him for the mission of describing events as fully revealed, and (finally) resolves to begin writing. Entering the party, he is shocked at the disguises old age has given to the people he knew, and at the changes in society. Legrandin is now an invert, but is no longer a snob. Bloch is a respected writer and vital figure in society. Morel has reformed and become a respected citizen. Mme de Forcheville is the mistress of M. de Guermantes. Mme Verdurin has married the Prince de Guermantes after both their spouses"
      },
      {
        "text": " the party, he is shocked at the disguises old age has given to the people he knew, and at the changes in society. Legrandin is now an invert, but is no longer a snob. Bloch is a respected writer and vital figure in society. Morel has reformed and become a respected citizen. Mme de Forcheville is the mistress of M. de Guermantes. Mme Verdurin has married the Prince de Guermantes after both their spouses died. Rachel is the star of the party, abetted by Mme de Guermantes, whose social position has been eroded by her affinity for theater. Gilberte introduces her daughter to the Narrator; he is struck by the way the daughter encapsulates both the M\u00e9s\u00e9glise and Guermantes ways within herself. He is spurred to writing, with help from Fran\u00e7oise and despite signs of approaching death. He realizes that every person carries within himself the accumulated baggage of their past, and concludes that to be accurate he must describe how everyone gradually occupies an immense range \"in Time\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Liza of Lambeth",
    "author": "W. Somerset Maugham",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The action covers a period of roughly four months\u2014from August to November\u2014around the time of Queen Victoria's Jubilee. Liza Kemp is an 18-year-old factory worker and the youngest of 13 children, now living alone with her ageing and incompetent mother. Very popular with all the residents\u2014both young and old\u2014of Vere Street, Lambeth, she cannot really make up her mind as far as her love life is concerned. She very much likes Tom, a boy her age, but when he proposes to her she rejects him (\"I don't love yer so as ter marry yer\"). Nevertheless she is persuaded to join a party of 32 who make a coach trip (in a horse-drawn coach, of course) to a nearby village on the August Bank Holiday Monday. Some of the other members of the party are Tom; Liza's friend Sally and her boyfriend Harry; and Jim Blakeston, a 40-year-old father of nine who has recently moved to Vere Street with his large family, and his wife (while their eldest daughter, Polly, is taking care of her siblings). The outing is a lot of fun, and they all get more or less drunk on beer. On their way back, in the dark, Liza realizes that Jim Blakeston is making a pass at her by holding her hand. After their arrival back home, Jim manages to speak to her alone and to steal a kiss from her. Seemingly without considering either the moral implications or the consequences of her actions, Liza feels attracted to Jim. They never appear together in public because they do not want the other residents of Vere Street or their workmates to start talking about them. One of Jim Blakeston's first steps to win Liza's heart is to go to a melodramatic play with her on Saturday night. Afterwards, he succeeds in seducing her (although we never learn where they do it\u2014obviously in the open): :'Liza,' he said a whisper, 'will yer?' :'Will I wot?' she said, looking down. :'You know, Liza. Sy, will yer?' :'Na,' she said. But in the end they do \"slide down into the darkness of the passage\". (The reader never learns whether at that time Liza is still a virgin or not.) Liza is overwhelmed by love. (\"Thus began a time of love and joy.\") When autumn arrives and the nights get chillier, Liza's secret meetings with Jim become less comfortable and more trying. Lacking an indoor meeting place, they even spend their evenings together in the third class waiting room of Waterloo station. Also, to Liza's dismay, it turns out that people do start talking about them, in spite of the precautions they have taken. Only Liza's mother, who is a drunkard and a very simple sort of person, has no idea what is going on. Liza's friend Sally gets married, has to stop working at the factory because her husband would not let his wife earn her own money, and soon becomes pregnant. Liza feels increasingly isolated, with Sally being married now and even Tom seemingly shunning her, but her love for Jim keeps her going. They do talk about their love affair though: about the possibility of Jim leaving his wife and children (\"I dunno if I could get on without the kids\"), about Liza not being able to leave her mother because the latter needs her help, about living somewhere else \"as if we was married\", about bigamy -- but, strangely, not about adultery. The novel builds up to a sad climax when it gradually turns out that all men\u2014maybe with the exception of Tom\u2014are alike: They invariably beat their wives, especially when they have been drinking. Soon after their wedding Harry beats up Sally just because she has been away from home chatting with a female neighbour of theirs. What is more, he even hits Mrs Cooper, his mother-in-law. Liza, who happens to drop by and stays a little longer to comfort Sally is late for her meeting with Jim in front of a nearby pub. When she finally gets there Jim himself is aggressive towards her for being late. Without really intending to, he hits her across the face (\"It wasn't the blow that 'urt me much; it was the wy you was talkin'\"). Nevertheless on the following morning she has a black eye. Soon the situation deteriorates completely. Mrs Blakeston, who is pregnant again, stops talking to her husband at home\u2014this is her way of opposing his affair with Liza. Then she goes on to indirectly threaten Liza: She tells other people what she would do to Liza if she got hold of her, and the other people tell Liza. Liza, a \"coward\" according to the third person narrator, is frightened because Mrs Blakeston is strong whereas she herself is weak. One Saturday afternoon in November, when Liza is going home from work, she is confronted with an angry Mrs Blakeston. In the ensuing fight between the two women, Mrs Blakeston first spits in Liza's face and then attacks her physically. Quickly a group of spectators gather round the two women\u2014none of them even tries to separate the fighting women (\"The audience shouted and cheered and clapped their hands.\"). Eventually, both Tom and Jim stop the fight, and Tom walks Liza home. Liza is now publicly stigmatized as a \"wrong one\", a fact she herself admits to Tom (\"Oh, but I 'ave treated yer bad. I'm a regular wrong 'un, I am\"). Despite all her misbehaviour (\"I couldn't 'elp it! [...] I did love 'im so!\"), Tom still wants to marry Liza, but she tells him that \"it's too lite now\" because she thinks she is pregnant. Tom would even tolerate her condition if only she could decide to marry him, but she refuses again. Meanwhile, at the Blakestones', Jim beats up his wife. Again people nearby\u2014this time those who live in the same house and who are alarmed by Polly Blakeston\u2014choose not to interfere in other people's domestic problems (\"She'll git over it; an' p'raps she deserves it, for all you know\"). When Mrs Kemp comes home and sees her daughter's injuries all she can contribute to mitigating the situation is to offer her daughter some alcohol (whisky or gin). In the course of the evening they both get drunk, in spite of Liza's pregnancy. During the following night, however, Liza has a miscarriage. Mr Hodges, who lives upstairs, fetches a doctor from the nearby hospital, who soon pronounces the hopelessness of Liza's condition. While her daughter is dying, Mrs Kemp has a long talk with Mrs Hodges, a midwife and sick-nurse. Liza's last visitor is Jim, but Liza is already in a coma. Mrs Kemp and Mrs Hodges have switched the subject and are talking about the funeral arrangements (!) when Liza's death rattle can be heard and the doctor, who is still present, declares that she is dead.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The action covers a period of roughly four months\u2014from August to November\u2014around the time of Queen Victoria's Jubilee. Liza Kemp is an 18-year-old factory worker and the youngest of 13 children, now living alone with her ageing and incompetent mother. Very popular with all the residents\u2014both young and old\u2014of Vere Street, Lambeth, she cannot really make up her mind as far as her love life is concerned. She very much likes Tom, a boy her age, but when he proposes to her she rejects him (\"I don't love yer so as ter marry yer\"). Nevertheless she is persuaded to join a party of 32 who make a coach trip (in a horse-drawn coach, of course) to a nearby village on the August Bank Holiday Monday. Some of the other members of the party are Tom; Liza's friend Sally and her boyfriend Harry; and Jim Blakeston, a 40-year-old father of nine who has recently moved to Vere Street with his large family, and his wife (while their eldest daughter, Polly, is taking care of her siblings). The outing is a lot of fun, and they all get more or less drunk on beer. On their way back, in the dark, Liza realizes that Jim Blakeston is making a pass at her by holding her hand. After their arrival back home, Jim manages to speak to her alone and to steal a kiss from her. Seemingly without considering either the moral implications or the consequences of her actions, Liza feels attracted to Jim. They never appear together in public because they do not want the other residents of Vere Street or their workmates to start talking about them. One of Jim Blakeston's first steps to win Liza's heart is to go to a melodramatic play with her on Saturday night. Afterwards, he succeeds in seducing her (although we never learn where they do it\u2014obviously in the"
      },
      {
        "text": " considering either the moral implications or the consequences of her actions, Liza feels attracted to Jim. They never appear together in public because they do not want the other residents of Vere Street or their workmates to start talking about them. One of Jim Blakeston's first steps to win Liza's heart is to go to a melodramatic play with her on Saturday night. Afterwards, he succeeds in seducing her (although we never learn where they do it\u2014obviously in the open): :'Liza,' he said a whisper, 'will yer?' :'Will I wot?' she said, looking down. :'You know, Liza. Sy, will yer?' :'Na,' she said. But in the end they do \"slide down into the darkness of the passage\". (The reader never learns whether at that time Liza is still a virgin or not.) Liza is overwhelmed by love. (\"Thus began a time of love and joy.\") When autumn arrives and the nights get chillier, Liza's secret meetings with Jim become less comfortable and more trying. Lacking an indoor meeting place, they even spend their evenings together in the third class waiting room of Waterloo station. Also, to Liza's dismay, it turns out that people do start talking about them, in spite of the precautions they have taken. Only Liza's mother, who is a drunkard and a very simple sort of person, has no idea what is going on. Liza's friend Sally gets married, has to stop working at the factory because her husband would not let his wife earn her own money, and soon becomes pregnant. Liza feels increasingly isolated, with Sally being married now and even Tom seemingly shunning her, but her love for Jim keeps her going. They do talk about their love affair though: about the possibility of Jim leaving his wife and children (\"I dunno if I could get on without the kids\"), about Liza"
      },
      {
        "text": " what is going on. Liza's friend Sally gets married, has to stop working at the factory because her husband would not let his wife earn her own money, and soon becomes pregnant. Liza feels increasingly isolated, with Sally being married now and even Tom seemingly shunning her, but her love for Jim keeps her going. They do talk about their love affair though: about the possibility of Jim leaving his wife and children (\"I dunno if I could get on without the kids\"), about Liza not being able to leave her mother because the latter needs her help, about living somewhere else \"as if we was married\", about bigamy -- but, strangely, not about adultery. The novel builds up to a sad climax when it gradually turns out that all men\u2014maybe with the exception of Tom\u2014are alike: They invariably beat their wives, especially when they have been drinking. Soon after their wedding Harry beats up Sally just because she has been away from home chatting with a female neighbour of theirs. What is more, he even hits Mrs Cooper, his mother-in-law. Liza, who happens to drop by and stays a little longer to comfort Sally is late for her meeting with Jim in front of a nearby pub. When she finally gets there Jim himself is aggressive towards her for being late. Without really intending to, he hits her across the face (\"It wasn't the blow that 'urt me much; it was the wy you was talkin'\"). Nevertheless on the following morning she has a black eye. Soon the situation deteriorates completely. Mrs Blakeston, who is pregnant again, stops talking to her husband at home\u2014this is her way of opposing his affair with Liza. Then she goes on to indirectly threaten Liza: She tells other people what she would do to Liza if she got hold of her, and the other people tell Liza. Liza, a \"coward\" according to the third person narrator, is frightened because Mrs"
      },
      {
        "text": " following morning she has a black eye. Soon the situation deteriorates completely. Mrs Blakeston, who is pregnant again, stops talking to her husband at home\u2014this is her way of opposing his affair with Liza. Then she goes on to indirectly threaten Liza: She tells other people what she would do to Liza if she got hold of her, and the other people tell Liza. Liza, a \"coward\" according to the third person narrator, is frightened because Mrs Blakeston is strong whereas she herself is weak. One Saturday afternoon in November, when Liza is going home from work, she is confronted with an angry Mrs Blakeston. In the ensuing fight between the two women, Mrs Blakeston first spits in Liza's face and then attacks her physically. Quickly a group of spectators gather round the two women\u2014none of them even tries to separate the fighting women (\"The audience shouted and cheered and clapped their hands.\"). Eventually, both Tom and Jim stop the fight, and Tom walks Liza home. Liza is now publicly stigmatized as a \"wrong one\", a fact she herself admits to Tom (\"Oh, but I 'ave treated yer bad. I'm a regular wrong 'un, I am\"). Despite all her misbehaviour (\"I couldn't 'elp it! [...] I did love 'im so!\"), Tom still wants to marry Liza, but she tells him that \"it's too lite now\" because she thinks she is pregnant. Tom would even tolerate her condition if only she could decide to marry him, but she refuses again. Meanwhile, at the Blakestones', Jim beats up his wife. Again people nearby\u2014this time those who live in the same house and who are alarmed by Polly Blakeston\u2014choose not to interfere in other people's domestic problems (\"She'll git over it; an' p'raps she deserves it, for all you know"
      },
      {
        "text": " lite now\" because she thinks she is pregnant. Tom would even tolerate her condition if only she could decide to marry him, but she refuses again. Meanwhile, at the Blakestones', Jim beats up his wife. Again people nearby\u2014this time those who live in the same house and who are alarmed by Polly Blakeston\u2014choose not to interfere in other people's domestic problems (\"She'll git over it; an' p'raps she deserves it, for all you know\"). When Mrs Kemp comes home and sees her daughter's injuries all she can contribute to mitigating the situation is to offer her daughter some alcohol (whisky or gin). In the course of the evening they both get drunk, in spite of Liza's pregnancy. During the following night, however, Liza has a miscarriage. Mr Hodges, who lives upstairs, fetches a doctor from the nearby hospital, who soon pronounces the hopelessness of Liza's condition. While her daughter is dying, Mrs Kemp has a long talk with Mrs Hodges, a midwife and sick-nurse. Liza's last visitor is Jim, but Liza is already in a coma. Mrs Kemp and Mrs Hodges have switched the subject and are talking about the funeral arrangements (!) when Liza's death rattle can be heard and the doctor, who is still present, declares that she is dead.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen",
    "author": "Alan Garner",
    "published_date": "1960",
    "synopsis": " The book's introduction concerns the origin of the Weirdstone. Following the defeat of Nastrond, it was decided to take steps to prevent what must otherwise be his eventual return. This involved bringing together a small band of warriors of pure heart, each of whom must be partnered by a horse, and to gather them inside the old dwarf caves of Fundindelve, deep inside the hill of Alderley. The caves were sealed by powerful white magic which would both defend Fundindelve from evil, as the ages passed, and also prevent the warriors and their horses from aging. When the time was ripe, and the world once more in mortal peril, it was prophesied that this small band of warriors would ride out from the hill, trusting in their purity of heart to defeat Nastrond for good. Fundindelve was provided with a guardian, the ancient wizard Cadellin Silverbrow, and the heart of the white magic was sealed inside a jewel, the Weirdstone of Brisingamen. At the beginning of the story, however, the Weirdstone has been lost, stolen centuries before by a farmer whose milk-white mare Cadellin had bought to complete the numbers in Fundindelve. The stone became a family heirloom and eventually found its way to Susan's mother, who passed it on to Susan, who is oblivious as to its history and purpose. Although the children become friends with Cadellin, the wizard fails to notice the bracelet, even when the children come to visit him in Fundindelve. However, its presence does not go unnoticed by Selina Place and the witches of the morthbrood, who send their minions to steal it. Susan finally realizes the identity of the Weirdstone, and fearing its destruction, sets out to warn the wizard. The children return to Fundindelve but Cadellin is nowhere to be found, so they set out to reclaim the stone on their own. They are successful but become lost in a labyrinth of mineshafts and caverns. As the members of the morthbrood close in on them, they are rescued by a pair of dwarfs, Fenodyree and Durathror, who are close companions of Cadellin. After passing through many perils the group returns to the farm where Susan and Colin are staying to spend the night. They set out with the farm's owner the next day to return the weirdstone to Cadellin before it can fall into the wrong hands. Their travels take them through forests, mountains, and snowy fields while striving to avoid the attention of the morthbrood. At the climax of the story, a great battle takes place on a hill near Alderley during which the children and their companions make a desperate last stand to protect the Weirdstone. However the enemy forces prove too strong and Durathror is mortally wounded. Grimnir takes the Weirdstone for himself and, in the ensuing chaos, Nastrond sends the great wolf Fenrir (in some editions Managarm) to destroy his enemies. As the remaining companions begin to despair, Cadellin appears and slays Grimnir, whom he reveals to be his own brother. The Morrigan flees in terror while Cadellin uses the power of the Weirdstone to subdue once again the forces of darkness.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book's introduction concerns the origin of the Weirdstone. Following the defeat of Nastrond, it was decided to take steps to prevent what must otherwise be his eventual return. This involved bringing together a small band of warriors of pure heart, each of whom must be partnered by a horse, and to gather them inside the old dwarf caves of Fundindelve, deep inside the hill of Alderley. The caves were sealed by powerful white magic which would both defend Fundindelve from evil, as the ages passed, and also prevent the warriors and their horses from aging. When the time was ripe, and the world once more in mortal peril, it was prophesied that this small band of warriors would ride out from the hill, trusting in their purity of heart to defeat Nastrond for good. Fundindelve was provided with a guardian, the ancient wizard Cadellin Silverbrow, and the heart of the white magic was sealed inside a jewel, the Weirdstone of Brisingamen. At the beginning of the story, however, the Weirdstone has been lost, stolen centuries before by a farmer whose milk-white mare Cadellin had bought to complete the numbers in Fundindelve. The stone became a family heirloom and eventually found its way to Susan's mother, who passed it on to Susan, who is oblivious as to its history and purpose. Although the children become friends with Cadellin, the wizard fails to notice the bracelet, even when the children come to visit him in Fundindelve. However, its presence does not go unnoticed by Selina Place and the witches of the morthbrood, who send their minions to steal it. Susan finally realizes the identity of the Weirdstone, and fearing its destruction, sets out to warn the wizard. The children return to Fundindelve but Cadellin is nowhere to be found, so they set out to reclaim the stone on their own. They are successful but"
      },
      {
        "text": ", even when the children come to visit him in Fundindelve. However, its presence does not go unnoticed by Selina Place and the witches of the morthbrood, who send their minions to steal it. Susan finally realizes the identity of the Weirdstone, and fearing its destruction, sets out to warn the wizard. The children return to Fundindelve but Cadellin is nowhere to be found, so they set out to reclaim the stone on their own. They are successful but become lost in a labyrinth of mineshafts and caverns. As the members of the morthbrood close in on them, they are rescued by a pair of dwarfs, Fenodyree and Durathror, who are close companions of Cadellin. After passing through many perils the group returns to the farm where Susan and Colin are staying to spend the night. They set out with the farm's owner the next day to return the weirdstone to Cadellin before it can fall into the wrong hands. Their travels take them through forests, mountains, and snowy fields while striving to avoid the attention of the morthbrood. At the climax of the story, a great battle takes place on a hill near Alderley during which the children and their companions make a desperate last stand to protect the Weirdstone. However the enemy forces prove too strong and Durathror is mortally wounded. Grimnir takes the Weirdstone for himself and, in the ensuing chaos, Nastrond sends the great wolf Fenrir (in some editions Managarm) to destroy his enemies. As the remaining companions begin to despair, Cadellin appears and slays Grimnir, whom he reveals to be his own brother. The Morrigan flees in terror while Cadellin uses the power of the Weirdstone to subdue once again the forces of darkness.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Nastrond sends the great wolf Fenrir (in some editions Managarm) to destroy his enemies. As the remaining companions begin to despair, Cadellin appears and slays Grimnir, whom he reveals to be his own brother. The Morrigan flees in terror while Cadellin uses the power of the Weirdstone to subdue once again the forces of darkness.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Human Stain",
    "author": "Philip Roth",
    "published_date": "2000-05",
    "synopsis": " The story is told by Nathan Zuckerman, a writer who lives quietly in New England, where Coleman Silk is his neighbor. Silk is a former classics professor and dean of faculty at nearby Athena College, a fictional institution in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. At 71, Silk is accused of racism by two black students because of referring to them as \"spooks\". As they have never shown up in his seminar, he asks: \"Do they exist or are they spooks?\" Having never seen the students, Silk does not know they are black when he makes the comment. The uproar leads to Silk's resignation. Soon after, his wife Iris dies of a stroke, which Silk feels is caused by the stress of his being forced out of the college. Silk begins an affair with Faunia Farley, a 34-year-old local woman who works as a janitor at the college and is married to an abusive Vietnam veteran. Silk is criticized by feminist scholars at the college for this. Zuckerman gradually learns that Silk is an African American who has presented himself as Jewish (and white) since a stint in the Navy. He completed graduate school, married a white woman and had four children with her. (He never told his wife and children of his mixed ancestry.) As Roth wrote in the novel, Silk chose \"to take the future into his own hands rather than to leave it to an unenlightened society to determine his fate\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is told by Nathan Zuckerman, a writer who lives quietly in New England, where Coleman Silk is his neighbor. Silk is a former classics professor and dean of faculty at nearby Athena College, a fictional institution in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. At 71, Silk is accused of racism by two black students because of referring to them as \"spooks\". As they have never shown up in his seminar, he asks: \"Do they exist or are they spooks?\" Having never seen the students, Silk does not know they are black when he makes the comment. The uproar leads to Silk's resignation. Soon after, his wife Iris dies of a stroke, which Silk feels is caused by the stress of his being forced out of the college. Silk begins an affair with Faunia Farley, a 34-year-old local woman who works as a janitor at the college and is married to an abusive Vietnam veteran. Silk is criticized by feminist scholars at the college for this. Zuckerman gradually learns that Silk is an African American who has presented himself as Jewish (and white) since a stint in the Navy. He completed graduate school, married a white woman and had four children with her. (He never told his wife and children of his mixed ancestry.) As Roth wrote in the novel, Silk chose \"to take the future into his own hands rather than to leave it to an unenlightened society to determine his fate\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Picnic at Hanging Rock",
    "author": "Joan Lindsay",
    "published_date": "1967",
    "synopsis": " Picnic at Hanging Rock centers around a trip by a party of girls from Appleyard College, a fictitious upper class private boarding school, who travel to Hanging Rock in the Mount Macedon area, Victoria, for a picnic on Valentine's Day 1900. The excursion ends in tragedy when three of the girls, and later one of their teachers, mysteriously vanish while climbing the rock. No reason for their disappearance is ever given, and one of the missing girls who is later found has no memory of what has happened to her companions. A fourth girl who also climbed the rock with the group is of little help in solving the mystery, having returned in hysterics for reasons she cannot explain. The disappearances provoke much local concern and international sensation with sexual molestation, abduction and murder being high on the list of possible outcomes. Several organized searches of the picnic grounds and the area surrounding the rock itself turn up nothing. Meanwhile the students, teachers and staff of the college, as well as members of the community, grapple with the riddle-like events. A young man on a private search locates one of the missing girls, but is himself found in an unexplained daze \u2013 yet another victim of the rock. Concerned parents begin withdrawing their daughters from the formerly prestigious college and several of the staff, including the headmistress, either resign or meet with tragic ends. We are told that both the College, and the Woodend Police Station where records of the investigation were kept, are destroyed by fire shortly afterwards. The unsolvable mystery of the disappearances was arguably the key to the success of both the book and the subsequent film. This aroused enough lasting public interest that in 1980 a book of hypothetical solutions (by Yvonne Rousseau) was published, called The Murders at Hanging Rock. In fact, Lindsay's original draft included a final chapter in which the mystery was resolved. At her editor's suggestion, Lindsay removed it prior to publication. Chapter Eighteen, as it is known, was published posthumously in 1987 as The Secret of Hanging Rock by Angus & Robertson Publishing. The novel is written in the form of a true story, and even begins and ends with a pseudo-historical prologue and epilogue, adding to the overall feeling of mystery. However, while the geological feature, Hanging Rock, and the several towns mentioned are actual places near Mount Macedon, the story is not completely true. Lindsay had done little to dispel the myth that the story is based on truth, in many interviews either refusing to confirm it was entirely fiction, or hinting that parts of the book were fictitious, and others were not. Valentine's Day, 14 February 1900 was a Wednesday, not a Saturday as depicted in the story. All attempts by enthusiastic readers to find historical evidence of the event, characters, or even Appleyard College, have proved fruitless. Appleyard College was to some extent based on Clyde Girls' Grammar School at East St Kilda, Melbourne, which Joan Lindsay attended as a day-girl while in her teens. Incidentally, in 1919 this school was transferred to the town of Woodend, Victoria, about 8 km southwest of Hanging Rock. The book suggests that the fictional site of Appleyard College, given its eastward view of Mount Macedon on the Bendigo-Melbourne Road, might have been on the western side of Calder Highway/Black Forest Drive (C792), about 2\u20134 km south of Woodend. A far more detailed synopsis of the story is given in the main entry for the film version.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Picnic at Hanging Rock centers around a trip by a party of girls from Appleyard College, a fictitious upper class private boarding school, who travel to Hanging Rock in the Mount Macedon area, Victoria, for a picnic on Valentine's Day 1900. The excursion ends in tragedy when three of the girls, and later one of their teachers, mysteriously vanish while climbing the rock. No reason for their disappearance is ever given, and one of the missing girls who is later found has no memory of what has happened to her companions. A fourth girl who also climbed the rock with the group is of little help in solving the mystery, having returned in hysterics for reasons she cannot explain. The disappearances provoke much local concern and international sensation with sexual molestation, abduction and murder being high on the list of possible outcomes. Several organized searches of the picnic grounds and the area surrounding the rock itself turn up nothing. Meanwhile the students, teachers and staff of the college, as well as members of the community, grapple with the riddle-like events. A young man on a private search locates one of the missing girls, but is himself found in an unexplained daze \u2013 yet another victim of the rock. Concerned parents begin withdrawing their daughters from the formerly prestigious college and several of the staff, including the headmistress, either resign or meet with tragic ends. We are told that both the College, and the Woodend Police Station where records of the investigation were kept, are destroyed by fire shortly afterwards. The unsolvable mystery of the disappearances was arguably the key to the success of both the book and the subsequent film. This aroused enough lasting public interest that in 1980 a book of hypothetical solutions (by Yvonne Rousseau) was published, called The Murders at Hanging Rock. In fact, Lindsay's original draft included a final chapter in which the mystery was resolved. At her editor's suggestion, Lindsay removed it prior to publication. Chapter Eighteen,"
      },
      {
        "text": " destroyed by fire shortly afterwards. The unsolvable mystery of the disappearances was arguably the key to the success of both the book and the subsequent film. This aroused enough lasting public interest that in 1980 a book of hypothetical solutions (by Yvonne Rousseau) was published, called The Murders at Hanging Rock. In fact, Lindsay's original draft included a final chapter in which the mystery was resolved. At her editor's suggestion, Lindsay removed it prior to publication. Chapter Eighteen, as it is known, was published posthumously in 1987 as The Secret of Hanging Rock by Angus & Robertson Publishing. The novel is written in the form of a true story, and even begins and ends with a pseudo-historical prologue and epilogue, adding to the overall feeling of mystery. However, while the geological feature, Hanging Rock, and the several towns mentioned are actual places near Mount Macedon, the story is not completely true. Lindsay had done little to dispel the myth that the story is based on truth, in many interviews either refusing to confirm it was entirely fiction, or hinting that parts of the book were fictitious, and others were not. Valentine's Day, 14 February 1900 was a Wednesday, not a Saturday as depicted in the story. All attempts by enthusiastic readers to find historical evidence of the event, characters, or even Appleyard College, have proved fruitless. Appleyard College was to some extent based on Clyde Girls' Grammar School at East St Kilda, Melbourne, which Joan Lindsay attended as a day-girl while in her teens. Incidentally, in 1919 this school was transferred to the town of Woodend, Victoria, about 8 km southwest of Hanging Rock. The book suggests that the fictional site of Appleyard College, given its eastward view of Mount Macedon on the Bendigo-Melbourne Road, might have been on the western side of Calder Highway/Black Forest Drive ("
      },
      {
        "text": " School at East St Kilda, Melbourne, which Joan Lindsay attended as a day-girl while in her teens. Incidentally, in 1919 this school was transferred to the town of Woodend, Victoria, about 8 km southwest of Hanging Rock. The book suggests that the fictional site of Appleyard College, given its eastward view of Mount Macedon on the Bendigo-Melbourne Road, might have been on the western side of Calder Highway/Black Forest Drive (C792), about 2\u20134 km south of Woodend. A far more detailed synopsis of the story is given in the main entry for the film version.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "I, the Jury",
    "author": "Mickey Spillane",
    "published_date": "1947",
    "synopsis": " New York City, summer 1944. Although she runs a successful private psychiatric clinic on New York's Park Avenue, Dr. Charlotte Manning — young, beautiful, blonde, and well-to-do — cannot get enough. In order to increase her profit, she gets involved with a group of criminals — a \"syndicate\" — specialising in both prostitution and drug-trafficking. The brains of the \"outfit\" is Hal Kines, who has had plastic surgery so that he looks much younger than he really is, this being how he gets hold of the young women whom he then turns into prostitutes. Manning herself has a rich and \"ritzy\" clientele — people who would not want their addiction to become public knowledge. But instead of weaning them off drugs in her private and exclusive clinic, Manning makes them even more dependent on both the drug — heroin in most cases — and on herself by procuring the stuff herself. On the surface, Charlotte Manning keeps up appearances and leads a respectable life as a renowned psychiatrist. When Jack Williams, a former New York cop who has lost an arm in World War II saving his friend Mike Hammer's life, falls in love with Myrna Devlin, a young heroin addict whom he stops from jumping off a bridge to commit suicide, he asks Manning to admit her to her clinic for psychotherapy. After Myrna has become clean, she and Williams become engaged, and the couple keep up a casual friendship with Charlotte Manning. This is how Williams's growing suspicions about Manning's business lead him to privately and secretly investigate even further into the matter. When he realizes that Hal Kines, one of Manning's college students who has spent some time at her clinic and who has become one of her casual acquaintances, is in fact a criminal, he wants to talk to her about it and tells her so. When, at a party given by Williams in his apartment, Charlotte Manning sees some old college yearbooks whose contents (and photos), if made public, would expose Kines's double life, she has to act fast. After the party, she goes home but on the same night, undetected by Kathy, her maid, goes back to Williams's apartment (Myrna, his fianc\u00e9e, does not live there) and shoots him in the stomach using a silencer. She does so in a particularly sadistic way, watching him die slowly. Then she takes the college yearbooks and leaves. None of the guests at Williams's party has a watertight alibi, but to both Pat Chambers, the cop investigating the murder, and Mike Hammer, a friend of his and private investigator, none of them has a motive either. Throughout the book, as more and more immediate suspects are eliminated (shot) (\"If this kept up there wouldn't be anyone left at all.\"), Hammer briefly ponders the question if the killer could be an \"outsider\" — someone wholly unrelated to the group of people who have been at Williams's party, for example someone Williams was after in his capacity as investigator for an insurance company. Chambers also thinks along similar lines: Williams's (secret) connection with Myrna's former drug dealers might have cost him his life. But they soon abandon that theory. When Mike Hammer sees Williams's body (\"For the first time in my life I felt like crying\"), he makes a solemn vow: He promises that he will find the murderer and execute him himself, avoiding the U.S. judicial system altogether. He says that if he left it to the courts to punish the perpetrator, some clever lawyer would surely achieve an acquittal and the murderer would get away with his crime. This is why he himself will be the jury – and the judge, for that matter. Throughout their basically separate investigations, Hammer and Chambers work closely together, exchanging information and evidence. But each of them hopes he will be the one to find the killer in the end. The immediate suspects Hammer finds himself confronted with are: * Esther and Mary Bellemy, identical twins in their late twenties living in a New York apartment hotel, rather attractive women of independent means, with a large estate somewhere in the country. Both are unmarried and obviously looking for husbands. Later, Hammer finds out — through first-hand experience — that Mary Bellemy is a nymphomaniac. Esther Bellemy, whom he never gets to know intimately, is no virgin either, but much more reserved than her sister Mary, with whom Hammer actually has sex on two separate occasions. * George Kalecki, whom Hammer knows to have been a crook — a bootlegger, to be precise — but who has obviously achieved a clean record and who now appears to be Hal Kines's paternal friend, paying for the latter's tuition and giving him food and lodging. (In fact it is the other way round: Hal Kines, the \"big shot\" and the brains of the syndicate, has a hold on Kalecki: Hidden away in the vaults of some bank he has documents proving that Kalecki is a killer on the loose.) * Hal Kines, who poses as a student of medicine but who is in fact the head of a criminal organisation specializing in prostitution and drug-dealing. His very sophisticated — and complicated — way of procuring willing women for his \"outfit\" can only be understood if one considers the morally repressed society of the late 1940s: Again and again, he assumes the role of John Hanson, a student in some provincial college (for example in the Midwest), pretends falling in love with a female student, makes her pregnant, forces her to have an illegal abortion, and then deserts her. By now the girl's life has been ruined, she has been ostracized by both her family and most likely all her friends and acquaintances. Then a car arrives, picks up the desperate young woman and drives her straight to one of the New York \"call houses\" operated by his syndicate. Once there, there is no way for her to escape. * Charlotte Manning, with whom Hammer falls in love and who, as far as he can see, has no motive whatsoever to kill Williams. Hammer, the first person narrator of the story, describes her as \"radiating sex in every manner and gesture\" (\"Mary [Bellemy] only had sex. Charlotte had that plus a lot more.\"). Charlotte confesses her love for him, and he says that he has never been in love before. Soon they talk about getting married. Hammer has always admired her \"golden hair\"; but not before the very end, when she strips, does he find out that Charlotte is a \"real blonde\". In the course of the action Charlotte Manning kills five people: After committing her first murder, she has to cover up her tracks and murder anyone who might be able to expose her. As Hammer admits, she has an unusual amount of luck helping her to do all that. * Myrna Devlin, a former \"dope fiend\" who, as it turns out, does not play any important role in the plot at all except that of one of the victims: At the Bellemys' party (towards the end of the book), Myrna, alone in an upstairs room where most of the guests have left their coats, tries on Charlotte Manning's coat and discovers heroin in one of its pockets. This is the reason why Manning has to shoot her, too. It takes Hammer and Chambers a long time to figure out what is going on. Manning continues to kill those who have become dangerous for her. At the same time, her relationship with Hammer deepens. We see everything through Hammer's eyes, and for a long time he is completely blind to the facts (\"I hope you get him,' she said sincerely.\"). During a walk through Central Park, while Manning is baby-sitting for one of her friends, she and Hammer are shot at. The sniper is Kalecki, but it does not become clear until later that he was after Manning. He misses. On a Saturday morning, Hammer picks up Myrna Devlin and gives her a lift. They drive to the Bellemy twins' estate in the country for a gigantic all-day party there. Charlotte Manning says she has some business to attend to and will be there in time for a tennis game due to take place that evening. After an unsuccessful attempt at playing tennis himself, Hammer gets rid of his sleep deficit by spending all day in his room, fast asleep, with \"old junior\" — his gun — close to him. He is woken up just in time for dinner, during which Harmon Wilder, the Bellemys' lawyer, and Charles Sherman, Wilder's assistant, are pointed out to him. This is a fine — and the final — distractor in the novel: Wilder and Sherman are suddenly missing from the party after Myrna Devlin has been found shot. In fact they had illicit drugs on them and did not want to be found out. During the tennis game, Mary Bellemy asks Charlotte if she can \"borrow\" Hammer. Then she leads him into the woods where they have sex. They return to the party just as a maid discovers Myrna's body in an upstairs room, in front of a large mirror. Both Pat Chambers and the police are called in, and the alibis of each guest is checked. Again Charlotte can convince everyone that she could not have done anything. Back home, Hammer retreats into his apartment to think. Finally, he knows the identity of the killer. This is when he goes to Charlotte's place, recapitulates the whole crime and finally shoots her dead, despite her efforts to pull the trigger on him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " New York City, summer 1944. Although she runs a successful private psychiatric clinic on New York's Park Avenue, Dr. Charlotte Manning — young, beautiful, blonde, and well-to-do — cannot get enough. In order to increase her profit, she gets involved with a group of criminals — a \"syndicate\" — specialising in both prostitution and drug-trafficking. The brains of the \"outfit\" is Hal Kines, who has had plastic surgery so that he looks much younger than he really is, this being how he gets hold of the young women whom he then turns into prostitutes. Manning herself has a rich and \"ritzy\" clientele — people who would not want their addiction to become public knowledge. But instead of weaning them off drugs in her private and exclusive clinic, Manning makes them even more dependent on both the drug — heroin in most cases — and on herself by procuring the stuff herself. On the surface, Charlotte Manning keeps up appearances and leads a respectable life as a renowned psychiatrist. When Jack Williams, a former New York cop who has lost an arm in World War II saving his friend Mike Hammer's life, falls in love with Myrna Devlin, a young heroin addict whom he stops from jumping off a bridge to commit suicide, he asks Manning to admit her to her clinic for psychotherapy. After Myrna has become clean, she and Williams become engaged, and the couple keep up a casual friendship with Charlotte Manning. This is how Williams's growing suspicions about Manning's business lead him to privately and secretly investigate even further into the matter. When he realizes that Hal Kines, one of Manning's college students who has spent some time at her clinic and who has become one of her casual acquaintances, is in fact a criminal, he wants to talk to her about it and tells her so. When, at a party"
      },
      {
        "text": " clean, she and Williams become engaged, and the couple keep up a casual friendship with Charlotte Manning. This is how Williams's growing suspicions about Manning's business lead him to privately and secretly investigate even further into the matter. When he realizes that Hal Kines, one of Manning's college students who has spent some time at her clinic and who has become one of her casual acquaintances, is in fact a criminal, he wants to talk to her about it and tells her so. When, at a party given by Williams in his apartment, Charlotte Manning sees some old college yearbooks whose contents (and photos), if made public, would expose Kines's double life, she has to act fast. After the party, she goes home but on the same night, undetected by Kathy, her maid, goes back to Williams's apartment (Myrna, his fianc\u00e9e, does not live there) and shoots him in the stomach using a silencer. She does so in a particularly sadistic way, watching him die slowly. Then she takes the college yearbooks and leaves. None of the guests at Williams's party has a watertight alibi, but to both Pat Chambers, the cop investigating the murder, and Mike Hammer, a friend of his and private investigator, none of them has a motive either. Throughout the book, as more and more immediate suspects are eliminated (shot) (\"If this kept up there wouldn't be anyone left at all.\"), Hammer briefly ponders the question if the killer could be an \"outsider\" — someone wholly unrelated to the group of people who have been at Williams's party, for example someone Williams was after in his capacity as investigator for an insurance company. Chambers also thinks along similar lines: Williams's (secret) connection with Myrna's former drug dealers might have cost him his life. But they soon abandon that theory. When Mike Hammer sees Williams's body (\"For the first time in my life I felt like crying\"),"
      },
      {
        "text": " if the killer could be an \"outsider\" — someone wholly unrelated to the group of people who have been at Williams's party, for example someone Williams was after in his capacity as investigator for an insurance company. Chambers also thinks along similar lines: Williams's (secret) connection with Myrna's former drug dealers might have cost him his life. But they soon abandon that theory. When Mike Hammer sees Williams's body (\"For the first time in my life I felt like crying\"), he makes a solemn vow: He promises that he will find the murderer and execute him himself, avoiding the U.S. judicial system altogether. He says that if he left it to the courts to punish the perpetrator, some clever lawyer would surely achieve an acquittal and the murderer would get away with his crime. This is why he himself will be the jury – and the judge, for that matter. Throughout their basically separate investigations, Hammer and Chambers work closely together, exchanging information and evidence. But each of them hopes he will be the one to find the killer in the end. The immediate suspects Hammer finds himself confronted with are: * Esther and Mary Bellemy, identical twins in their late twenties living in a New York apartment hotel, rather attractive women of independent means, with a large estate somewhere in the country. Both are unmarried and obviously looking for husbands. Later, Hammer finds out — through first-hand experience — that Mary Bellemy is a nymphomaniac. Esther Bellemy, whom he never gets to know intimately, is no virgin either, but much more reserved than her sister Mary, with whom Hammer actually has sex on two separate occasions. * George Kalecki, whom Hammer knows to have been a crook — a bootlegger, to be precise — but who has obviously achieved a clean record and who now appears to be Hal Kines's paternal friend, paying for the latter's"
      },
      {
        "text": " nymphomaniac. Esther Bellemy, whom he never gets to know intimately, is no virgin either, but much more reserved than her sister Mary, with whom Hammer actually has sex on two separate occasions. * George Kalecki, whom Hammer knows to have been a crook — a bootlegger, to be precise — but who has obviously achieved a clean record and who now appears to be Hal Kines's paternal friend, paying for the latter's tuition and giving him food and lodging. (In fact it is the other way round: Hal Kines, the \"big shot\" and the brains of the syndicate, has a hold on Kalecki: Hidden away in the vaults of some bank he has documents proving that Kalecki is a killer on the loose.) * Hal Kines, who poses as a student of medicine but who is in fact the head of a criminal organisation specializing in prostitution and drug-dealing. His very sophisticated — and complicated — way of procuring willing women for his \"outfit\" can only be understood if one considers the morally repressed society of the late 1940s: Again and again, he assumes the role of John Hanson, a student in some provincial college (for example in the Midwest), pretends falling in love with a female student, makes her pregnant, forces her to have an illegal abortion, and then deserts her. By now the girl's life has been ruined, she has been ostracized by both her family and most likely all her friends and acquaintances. Then a car arrives, picks up the desperate young woman and drives her straight to one of the New York \"call houses\" operated by his syndicate. Once there, there is no way for her to escape. * Charlotte Manning, with whom Hammer falls in love and who, as far as he can see, has no motive whatsoever to kill Williams. Hammer, the first person narrator"
      },
      {
        "text": " has been ruined, she has been ostracized by both her family and most likely all her friends and acquaintances. Then a car arrives, picks up the desperate young woman and drives her straight to one of the New York \"call houses\" operated by his syndicate. Once there, there is no way for her to escape. * Charlotte Manning, with whom Hammer falls in love and who, as far as he can see, has no motive whatsoever to kill Williams. Hammer, the first person narrator of the story, describes her as \"radiating sex in every manner and gesture\" (\"Mary [Bellemy] only had sex. Charlotte had that plus a lot more.\"). Charlotte confesses her love for him, and he says that he has never been in love before. Soon they talk about getting married. Hammer has always admired her \"golden hair\"; but not before the very end, when she strips, does he find out that Charlotte is a \"real blonde\". In the course of the action Charlotte Manning kills five people: After committing her first murder, she has to cover up her tracks and murder anyone who might be able to expose her. As Hammer admits, she has an unusual amount of luck helping her to do all that. * Myrna Devlin, a former \"dope fiend\" who, as it turns out, does not play any important role in the plot at all except that of one of the victims: At the Bellemys' party (towards the end of the book), Myrna, alone in an upstairs room where most of the guests have left their coats, tries on Charlotte Manning's coat and discovers heroin in one of its pockets. This is the reason why Manning has to shoot her, too. It takes Hammer and Chambers a long time to figure out what is going on. Manning continues to kill those who have become dangerous for her. At the same time, her relationship with Hammer deepens. We see everything through Hammer's"
      },
      {
        "text": "owards the end of the book), Myrna, alone in an upstairs room where most of the guests have left their coats, tries on Charlotte Manning's coat and discovers heroin in one of its pockets. This is the reason why Manning has to shoot her, too. It takes Hammer and Chambers a long time to figure out what is going on. Manning continues to kill those who have become dangerous for her. At the same time, her relationship with Hammer deepens. We see everything through Hammer's eyes, and for a long time he is completely blind to the facts (\"I hope you get him,' she said sincerely.\"). During a walk through Central Park, while Manning is baby-sitting for one of her friends, she and Hammer are shot at. The sniper is Kalecki, but it does not become clear until later that he was after Manning. He misses. On a Saturday morning, Hammer picks up Myrna Devlin and gives her a lift. They drive to the Bellemy twins' estate in the country for a gigantic all-day party there. Charlotte Manning says she has some business to attend to and will be there in time for a tennis game due to take place that evening. After an unsuccessful attempt at playing tennis himself, Hammer gets rid of his sleep deficit by spending all day in his room, fast asleep, with \"old junior\" — his gun — close to him. He is woken up just in time for dinner, during which Harmon Wilder, the Bellemys' lawyer, and Charles Sherman, Wilder's assistant, are pointed out to him. This is a fine — and the final — distractor in the novel: Wilder and Sherman are suddenly missing from the party after Myrna Devlin has been found shot. In fact they had illicit drugs on them and did not want to be found out. During the tennis game, Mary Bellemy asks Charlotte if she can \""
      },
      {
        "text": " during which Harmon Wilder, the Bellemys' lawyer, and Charles Sherman, Wilder's assistant, are pointed out to him. This is a fine — and the final — distractor in the novel: Wilder and Sherman are suddenly missing from the party after Myrna Devlin has been found shot. In fact they had illicit drugs on them and did not want to be found out. During the tennis game, Mary Bellemy asks Charlotte if she can \"borrow\" Hammer. Then she leads him into the woods where they have sex. They return to the party just as a maid discovers Myrna's body in an upstairs room, in front of a large mirror. Both Pat Chambers and the police are called in, and the alibis of each guest is checked. Again Charlotte can convince everyone that she could not have done anything. Back home, Hammer retreats into his apartment to think. Finally, he knows the identity of the killer. This is when he goes to Charlotte's place, recapitulates the whole crime and finally shoots her dead, despite her efforts to pull the trigger on him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Thinks ...",
    "author": "David Lodge",
    "published_date": "2001",
    "synopsis": " The novel is exclusively set at the (entirely fictitious [cf. \"Author's Note\"]) University of Gloucester, based loosely on the University of York thanks to the author's brief residence there. (Its Cognitive Science and Creative Writing departments also bear uncanny resemblances to those of the universities of Sussex and East Anglia respectively.) Its action takes place in the spring term of 1997 (during the time of Tony Blair's landslide victory). ;Helen Reed, a young widow Helen Reed, an English novelist in her early forties with two children old enough to look after themselves, arrives on campus to spend the term there as \"writer-in-residence\" and to teach a creative writing class — actually sitting in for a professor who is spending the term abroad to write a novel. Helen is going through a crisis in her life after the sudden death of her husband Martin a bit more than a year ago. Martin Reed worked for the BBC researching material for documentaries. One night, out of the blue, he developed a brain aneurysm, went into a coma, and died the next day. Still grieving over the death of her beloved husband, Helen thinks a change of scenery might be a good idea to get over her loss. However, the moment she sees the campus and the accommodation that has been provided for her, it occurs to her that she might as well turn on her heel and go back to their beautifully restored old house in London. As she has rented it out for the duration of the term to a couple visiting from the United States, however, she finally brings herself to stay on and face the challenge: She has never finished her D.Phil. thesis on point of view in Henry James and her teaching experience so far has been limited to some night class on creative writing full of bored housewives. The University of Gloucester, whose campus boasts wide open spaces and even an artificial lake but whose buildings look rather drab and unspectacular in the harsh February weather, caters for all sorts of tastes and needs. ;Ralph Messenger, a womanizer Apart from the English Department, she is particularly intrigued by the department specialising in Cognitive Science, and by its head, 50 year-old Ralph Messenger, to whom she is introduced at some social function very soon during her stay. From the moment she sets eyes on him, Helen feels curiously attracted by Messenger, but she soon learns about his reputation as a womaniser. Helen has not had sex since her husband's death, and, due to her Catholic upbringing, which she has been unable and, to a lesser degree, also unwilling to cast off completely, she tries to thrust aside any thoughts concerning an illicit affair or a one-night stand with Messenger, who is married with four children. In due course, she also meets his wife Carrie, an American coming from a rich background, and their children — Emily, her 17 year-old daughter by her first marriage; Simon and Mark, two teenage boys; and 8 year-old Hope, a girl. The Messengers live in a beautiful house near the University but they also have a country retreat in the Cotswolds (quite close to Gloucester) called 'Horseshoes', where they have a large redwood hot tub in their back garden. Before long Helen is invited to join them for a Sunday in the country, and she gladly accepts to avoid another dreary and empty weekend. ;Ralph Messenger's first passes Right from the start, Ralph Messenger's philandering is painfully obvious to Helen. At one of the first social gatherings she attends, she happens to see Messenger and the wife of the Head of the School of English, Marianne Richmond, kissing passionately in the kitchen. (At that point of time she does not know that there is not more to it than meets the eye, that they are just playing some sort of secret game.) One weekend quite early during her stay, after they have been in the hot water outside and with Carrie already in the house, Messenger plants a firm kiss on Helen's lips. From the secret journal he is keeping, we know that Messenger fancies her. Helen does not actually resist the kiss, but afterwards she tells him unmistakably that she is not going to have an affair with him because, among other things, she strongly disapproves of adultery. From Helen's own journal, however, we learn that she is sexually aroused by his presence and by just thinking of him. Messenger, who does not know anything about Helen's real feelings, thinks that he has made his pass at her prematurely and, by doing so, has spoiled any future liaison with her. ;Discovery by Helen of her husband's cheating Meanwhile, Helen tries to focus on her work. The students she has to teach are a small, friendly and ambitious group who meet on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Her class is to a large extent about their work in progress, mainly novels which they started during the preceding term. When Sandra Pickering, one of the students, belatedly submits some chapters from the novel she is writing, Helen immediately recognizes one of the male characters as having been modelled on her late husband Martin. As Helen herself has based a character in her novel The Eye of the Storm on Martin, she is about to accuse Sandra Pickering of plagiarism when, to her dismay, she finds out that the girl used to work for the BBC some years ago, that she knew Martin, and that she actually had an affair with him. (Sandra knows, and writes about, intimate details such as what he preferred doing immediately after sex.) Gradually it dawns upon Helen that her husband must have had a whole succession of young lovers, with everyone except herself knowing everything, or at least suspecting a lot, about it, while she herself, only mildly promiscuous during her student days, was never unfaithful to him. At this point Helen decides to never again shed a tear for him and get on with her own life instead. In this new light, not even Messenger's advances seem so monstrous any more. ;Discovery of Ralph's wife's cheating She makes another discovery which almost turns her view of the world upside down. On a free afternoon, she escapes the stifling atmosphere of the campus to explore the surrounding countryside. Seated over lunch in a pub in the small town of Ledbury, she witnesses — a silly coincidence? — an intimate kiss between Carrie Messenger and Nicholas Beck, \"silver-haired Professor of Fine Art\", who is said to be a celibate gay — a rumour which he does not do anything about because it serves as the perfect cover-up for his affair with Carrie Messenger, whom officially he only helps select fine antiques for the Messengers' two houses. An embarrassing encounter at the pub follows, with all three of them keeping up appearances and being polite and reserved. Later, however, during a duck race (a fund-raising event with plastic ducks \"racing\" down a small river), Carrie confides in Helen: She knows all (or almost everything) about her husband's flings and, by taking a lover herself, tries to get back at him. Ralph Messenger, she is quite sure, does not know anything about her affair. Also, Carrie tells her that she screwed around a lot while she was studying at UC Berkeley, but only with faculty, never with other students. As spring finally comes and the end of term is rapidly approaching, some more unforeseen events happen, all of which involve Ralph Messenger in one way or another (\"Troubles never come singly\"): ;The concretisation of the affair Back home in the U.S.A., Mr Thurlow, Carrie's rich father, has two serious heart attacks in a row so that Carrie books the first flight home. She takes Hope with her. With Carrie out of the way for some time — in the end it turns out to be three weeks — Helen, who has recently let herself be seduced by Messenger, spends the most beautiful and romantic — or rather lustful — three weeks since her husband's death. In the language of the kind of novels she loves reading, she describes herself as having become \"a woman of pleasure, a scarlet woman, a woman of easy virtue\". She and Messenger have sex practically every day, and at all kinds of places. Helen, who prefers a bedroom with the curtains drawn, is amazed at, and eventually fascinated by, Messenger's lust and ingenuity when it comes to selecting odd spots for making love, for instance a prehistoric burial mound on top of a hill, with some hikers approaching. Helen also volunteers to perform the duties of a housewife for Carrie and then stays over at the Messengers' house. At night, she and Ralph Messenger derive some additional pleasure from trying not to make any sound during their lovemaking so as not to arouse the kids' suspicion. (But Emily, who has an 18 year-old boyfriend and who discusses her sex life with her mother, seems to know what is going on anyway and at one point almost blackmails her stepfather.) Soon Helen ponders the question whether she is actually falling in love with him and, consequently, if and how their affair will continue after the end of the term. Only once, when they are in bed together, can he not get an erection. ;Accumulation of problems for Ralph * While Ralph Messenger is busy organizing the International Conference on Consciousness Studies (\"Con-Con\"), to be held at Gloucester University this year, his (recent) past catches up with him: During a symposium in Prague some weeks ago, he spent the night with a young scientist called Ludmila Lisk, who now, by way of email, threatens to expose him as an adulterer if she is not allowed to attend the conference. In the end he has to give in to her demand. Eventually, during the conference, Ludmila Lisk clings to Messenger in a way that arouses even Helen's suspicion (and jealousy). * Messenger, who has recently been suffering from indigestion, is diagnosed by his GP as having a lump on his liver which could be cancer. Immediately, he resolves to commit suicide rather than suffer a long and painful process of dying if it is really cancer. He has to undergo several tests and endure rather a long period of waiting until he is finally told by a specialist that his problem is harmless and that he is not going to die. * There is some student protest concerning the University's affiliation with, and funding by, the Ministry of Defence and the honouring of a politician responsible for that funding. * The police — a Detective Sergeant Agnew of the Gloucestershire Police, Paedophile and Pornography Unit - inform Messenger that child pornography has been downloaded from the Internet at some terminal located on campus. He is asked by the policeman to volunteer to have his hard disk examined by him, and Messenger agrees, knowing that (a) his secret journal may be read (and all his womanizing come to light), and that (b) you cannot really delete anything from a hard disk once you have stored the information there, so there would be no point in delaying the investigation. In the end, the perpetrator turns out to be Professor Douglass (\"Duggers\"), his deputy head, a weird unmarried scientist living together with his mother and sister. Although the pictures he acquired via the Internet turn out to be not very explicit, Douglass, on being confronted by Agnew, commits suicide by hanging himself in the toilet — in a way that seems to have been meticulously planned. This happens on the final day of the conference (and the term, for that matter), just as the participants are having their final dinner. ;The end of the affair A final breach of confidence committed by Ralph Messenger makes it much easier for Helen to leave him and go back to London. Also, for the first time, it inadvertently triggers some emotion in Messenger, albeit a negative one: jealousy. When he is waiting for Helen in her maisonette, he cannot resist the temptation to turn on her laptop and read parts of her journal. This is how he learns about his own wife's infidelity. When Helen enters her apartment, his jealousy gets the better of him so that he cannot hide the fact that he has invaded her privacy. (Originally, he suggested that they should exchange their respective journals, as each of them would profit from reading the other's, but Helen categorically refused.) Ralph Messenger does have to be operated on after all, but the surgery is successful. However, he somewhat ages and, in the process, loses his reputation as a woman-chaser. In 1999, he publishes a new book entitled Machine Living and in due course is awarded a CBE. He never confronts Carrie with her affair and remains married to her. Helen Reed returns to London and resumes writing. Some time later she meets a new partner, but she does not move in with him (or he with her). In the following year she publishes Crying is a Puzzler, a novel about life on campus quite similar to that of the University of Gloucester.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is exclusively set at the (entirely fictitious [cf. \"Author's Note\"]) University of Gloucester, based loosely on the University of York thanks to the author's brief residence there. (Its Cognitive Science and Creative Writing departments also bear uncanny resemblances to those of the universities of Sussex and East Anglia respectively.) Its action takes place in the spring term of 1997 (during the time of Tony Blair's landslide victory). ;Helen Reed, a young widow Helen Reed, an English novelist in her early forties with two children old enough to look after themselves, arrives on campus to spend the term there as \"writer-in-residence\" and to teach a creative writing class — actually sitting in for a professor who is spending the term abroad to write a novel. Helen is going through a crisis in her life after the sudden death of her husband Martin a bit more than a year ago. Martin Reed worked for the BBC researching material for documentaries. One night, out of the blue, he developed a brain aneurysm, went into a coma, and died the next day. Still grieving over the death of her beloved husband, Helen thinks a change of scenery might be a good idea to get over her loss. However, the moment she sees the campus and the accommodation that has been provided for her, it occurs to her that she might as well turn on her heel and go back to their beautifully restored old house in London. As she has rented it out for the duration of the term to a couple visiting from the United States, however, she finally brings herself to stay on and face the challenge: She has never finished her D.Phil. thesis on point of view in Henry James and her teaching experience so far has been limited to some night class on creative writing full of bored housewives. The University of Gloucester, whose campus boasts wide open spaces and even an artificial lake but whose buildings look rather drab and unspectacular"
      },
      {
        "text": " has rented it out for the duration of the term to a couple visiting from the United States, however, she finally brings herself to stay on and face the challenge: She has never finished her D.Phil. thesis on point of view in Henry James and her teaching experience so far has been limited to some night class on creative writing full of bored housewives. The University of Gloucester, whose campus boasts wide open spaces and even an artificial lake but whose buildings look rather drab and unspectacular in the harsh February weather, caters for all sorts of tastes and needs. ;Ralph Messenger, a womanizer Apart from the English Department, she is particularly intrigued by the department specialising in Cognitive Science, and by its head, 50 year-old Ralph Messenger, to whom she is introduced at some social function very soon during her stay. From the moment she sets eyes on him, Helen feels curiously attracted by Messenger, but she soon learns about his reputation as a womaniser. Helen has not had sex since her husband's death, and, due to her Catholic upbringing, which she has been unable and, to a lesser degree, also unwilling to cast off completely, she tries to thrust aside any thoughts concerning an illicit affair or a one-night stand with Messenger, who is married with four children. In due course, she also meets his wife Carrie, an American coming from a rich background, and their children — Emily, her 17 year-old daughter by her first marriage; Simon and Mark, two teenage boys; and 8 year-old Hope, a girl. The Messengers live in a beautiful house near the University but they also have a country retreat in the Cotswolds (quite close to Gloucester) called 'Horseshoes', where they have a large redwood hot tub in their back garden. Before long Helen is invited to join them for a Sunday in the country, and she gladly accepts to avoid another dreary and empty weekend"
      },
      {
        "text": " marriage; Simon and Mark, two teenage boys; and 8 year-old Hope, a girl. The Messengers live in a beautiful house near the University but they also have a country retreat in the Cotswolds (quite close to Gloucester) called 'Horseshoes', where they have a large redwood hot tub in their back garden. Before long Helen is invited to join them for a Sunday in the country, and she gladly accepts to avoid another dreary and empty weekend. ;Ralph Messenger's first passes Right from the start, Ralph Messenger's philandering is painfully obvious to Helen. At one of the first social gatherings she attends, she happens to see Messenger and the wife of the Head of the School of English, Marianne Richmond, kissing passionately in the kitchen. (At that point of time she does not know that there is not more to it than meets the eye, that they are just playing some sort of secret game.) One weekend quite early during her stay, after they have been in the hot water outside and with Carrie already in the house, Messenger plants a firm kiss on Helen's lips. From the secret journal he is keeping, we know that Messenger fancies her. Helen does not actually resist the kiss, but afterwards she tells him unmistakably that she is not going to have an affair with him because, among other things, she strongly disapproves of adultery. From Helen's own journal, however, we learn that she is sexually aroused by his presence and by just thinking of him. Messenger, who does not know anything about Helen's real feelings, thinks that he has made his pass at her prematurely and, by doing so, has spoiled any future liaison with her. ;Discovery by Helen of her husband's cheating Meanwhile, Helen tries to focus on her work. The students she has to teach are a small, friendly and ambitious group who meet on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Her class is to a large extent about their"
      },
      {
        "text": " by his presence and by just thinking of him. Messenger, who does not know anything about Helen's real feelings, thinks that he has made his pass at her prematurely and, by doing so, has spoiled any future liaison with her. ;Discovery by Helen of her husband's cheating Meanwhile, Helen tries to focus on her work. The students she has to teach are a small, friendly and ambitious group who meet on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Her class is to a large extent about their work in progress, mainly novels which they started during the preceding term. When Sandra Pickering, one of the students, belatedly submits some chapters from the novel she is writing, Helen immediately recognizes one of the male characters as having been modelled on her late husband Martin. As Helen herself has based a character in her novel The Eye of the Storm on Martin, she is about to accuse Sandra Pickering of plagiarism when, to her dismay, she finds out that the girl used to work for the BBC some years ago, that she knew Martin, and that she actually had an affair with him. (Sandra knows, and writes about, intimate details such as what he preferred doing immediately after sex.) Gradually it dawns upon Helen that her husband must have had a whole succession of young lovers, with everyone except herself knowing everything, or at least suspecting a lot, about it, while she herself, only mildly promiscuous during her student days, was never unfaithful to him. At this point Helen decides to never again shed a tear for him and get on with her own life instead. In this new light, not even Messenger's advances seem so monstrous any more. ;Discovery of Ralph's wife's cheating She makes another discovery which almost turns her view of the world upside down. On a free afternoon, she escapes the stifling atmosphere of the campus to explore the surrounding countryside. Seated over lunch in a pub in the small town of Ledbury"
      },
      {
        "text": "ful to him. At this point Helen decides to never again shed a tear for him and get on with her own life instead. In this new light, not even Messenger's advances seem so monstrous any more. ;Discovery of Ralph's wife's cheating She makes another discovery which almost turns her view of the world upside down. On a free afternoon, she escapes the stifling atmosphere of the campus to explore the surrounding countryside. Seated over lunch in a pub in the small town of Ledbury, she witnesses — a silly coincidence? — an intimate kiss between Carrie Messenger and Nicholas Beck, \"silver-haired Professor of Fine Art\", who is said to be a celibate gay — a rumour which he does not do anything about because it serves as the perfect cover-up for his affair with Carrie Messenger, whom officially he only helps select fine antiques for the Messengers' two houses. An embarrassing encounter at the pub follows, with all three of them keeping up appearances and being polite and reserved. Later, however, during a duck race (a fund-raising event with plastic ducks \"racing\" down a small river), Carrie confides in Helen: She knows all (or almost everything) about her husband's flings and, by taking a lover herself, tries to get back at him. Ralph Messenger, she is quite sure, does not know anything about her affair. Also, Carrie tells her that she screwed around a lot while she was studying at UC Berkeley, but only with faculty, never with other students. As spring finally comes and the end of term is rapidly approaching, some more unforeseen events happen, all of which involve Ralph Messenger in one way or another (\"Troubles never come singly\"): ;The concretisation of the affair Back home in the U.S.A., Mr Thurlow, Carrie's rich father, has two serious heart attacks in a row so that Carrie books the"
      },
      {
        "text": " lot while she was studying at UC Berkeley, but only with faculty, never with other students. As spring finally comes and the end of term is rapidly approaching, some more unforeseen events happen, all of which involve Ralph Messenger in one way or another (\"Troubles never come singly\"): ;The concretisation of the affair Back home in the U.S.A., Mr Thurlow, Carrie's rich father, has two serious heart attacks in a row so that Carrie books the first flight home. She takes Hope with her. With Carrie out of the way for some time — in the end it turns out to be three weeks — Helen, who has recently let herself be seduced by Messenger, spends the most beautiful and romantic — or rather lustful — three weeks since her husband's death. In the language of the kind of novels she loves reading, she describes herself as having become \"a woman of pleasure, a scarlet woman, a woman of easy virtue\". She and Messenger have sex practically every day, and at all kinds of places. Helen, who prefers a bedroom with the curtains drawn, is amazed at, and eventually fascinated by, Messenger's lust and ingenuity when it comes to selecting odd spots for making love, for instance a prehistoric burial mound on top of a hill, with some hikers approaching. Helen also volunteers to perform the duties of a housewife for Carrie and then stays over at the Messengers' house. At night, she and Ralph Messenger derive some additional pleasure from trying not to make any sound during their lovemaking so as not to arouse the kids' suspicion. (But Emily, who has an 18 year-old boyfriend and who discusses her sex life with her mother, seems to know what is going on anyway and at one point almost blackmails her stepfather.) Soon Helen ponders the question whether she is actually falling in love with him and, consequently, if and how"
      },
      {
        "text": "engers' house. At night, she and Ralph Messenger derive some additional pleasure from trying not to make any sound during their lovemaking so as not to arouse the kids' suspicion. (But Emily, who has an 18 year-old boyfriend and who discusses her sex life with her mother, seems to know what is going on anyway and at one point almost blackmails her stepfather.) Soon Helen ponders the question whether she is actually falling in love with him and, consequently, if and how their affair will continue after the end of the term. Only once, when they are in bed together, can he not get an erection. ;Accumulation of problems for Ralph * While Ralph Messenger is busy organizing the International Conference on Consciousness Studies (\"Con-Con\"), to be held at Gloucester University this year, his (recent) past catches up with him: During a symposium in Prague some weeks ago, he spent the night with a young scientist called Ludmila Lisk, who now, by way of email, threatens to expose him as an adulterer if she is not allowed to attend the conference. In the end he has to give in to her demand. Eventually, during the conference, Ludmila Lisk clings to Messenger in a way that arouses even Helen's suspicion (and jealousy). * Messenger, who has recently been suffering from indigestion, is diagnosed by his GP as having a lump on his liver which could be cancer. Immediately, he resolves to commit suicide rather than suffer a long and painful process of dying if it is really cancer. He has to undergo several tests and endure rather a long period of waiting until he is finally told by a specialist that his problem is harmless and that he is not going to die. * There is some student protest concerning the University's affiliation with, and funding by, the Ministry of Defence and the honouring of a politician responsible for that funding. * The police — a Detective Sergeant"
      },
      {
        "text": " he resolves to commit suicide rather than suffer a long and painful process of dying if it is really cancer. He has to undergo several tests and endure rather a long period of waiting until he is finally told by a specialist that his problem is harmless and that he is not going to die. * There is some student protest concerning the University's affiliation with, and funding by, the Ministry of Defence and the honouring of a politician responsible for that funding. * The police — a Detective Sergeant Agnew of the Gloucestershire Police, Paedophile and Pornography Unit - inform Messenger that child pornography has been downloaded from the Internet at some terminal located on campus. He is asked by the policeman to volunteer to have his hard disk examined by him, and Messenger agrees, knowing that (a) his secret journal may be read (and all his womanizing come to light), and that (b) you cannot really delete anything from a hard disk once you have stored the information there, so there would be no point in delaying the investigation. In the end, the perpetrator turns out to be Professor Douglass (\"Duggers\"), his deputy head, a weird unmarried scientist living together with his mother and sister. Although the pictures he acquired via the Internet turn out to be not very explicit, Douglass, on being confronted by Agnew, commits suicide by hanging himself in the toilet — in a way that seems to have been meticulously planned. This happens on the final day of the conference (and the term, for that matter), just as the participants are having their final dinner. ;The end of the affair A final breach of confidence committed by Ralph Messenger makes it much easier for Helen to leave him and go back to London. Also, for the first time, it inadvertently triggers some emotion in Messenger, albeit a negative one: jealousy. When he is waiting for Helen in her maisonette, he cannot resist the temptation to turn on her laptop and read parts of"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the conference (and the term, for that matter), just as the participants are having their final dinner. ;The end of the affair A final breach of confidence committed by Ralph Messenger makes it much easier for Helen to leave him and go back to London. Also, for the first time, it inadvertently triggers some emotion in Messenger, albeit a negative one: jealousy. When he is waiting for Helen in her maisonette, he cannot resist the temptation to turn on her laptop and read parts of her journal. This is how he learns about his own wife's infidelity. When Helen enters her apartment, his jealousy gets the better of him so that he cannot hide the fact that he has invaded her privacy. (Originally, he suggested that they should exchange their respective journals, as each of them would profit from reading the other's, but Helen categorically refused.) Ralph Messenger does have to be operated on after all, but the surgery is successful. However, he somewhat ages and, in the process, loses his reputation as a woman-chaser. In 1999, he publishes a new book entitled Machine Living and in due course is awarded a CBE. He never confronts Carrie with her affair and remains married to her. Helen Reed returns to London and resumes writing. Some time later she meets a new partner, but she does not move in with him (or he with her). In the following year she publishes Crying is a Puzzler, a novel about life on campus quite similar to that of the University of Gloucester.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " that of the University of Gloucester.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Adventures of Pinocchio",
    "author": "Carlo Collodi",
    "published_date": "1883",
    "synopsis": " The story begins in Tuscany. A carpenter has found a block of pinewood which he plans to carve into a leg for his table. When he begins, however, the log shouts out, \"Don't strike me too hard!\" Frightened by the talking log, the carpenter, Antonio or Master Cherry as he is called does not know what to do until his neighbor Geppetto, known for disliking children, drops by looking for a piece of wood to build a marionette. Seeing a perfect opportunity, Antonio gives the block to Geppetto. Geppetto is extremely poor and plans to make a living as a puppeteer. He carves the block into a boy and names him \"Pinocchio\". As soon as Pinocchio's nose has been carved, it begins to grow longer and longer before Geppetto is finished with him. After the puppet is finished, Geppetto teaches him to walk and Pinocchio runs out the door and away into the town. He is caught by a Carabiniere but when people say that Geppetto dislikes children, the carabineer assumes that Pinocchio has been mistreated and imprisons Geppetto. Pinocchio heads back to Geppetto's house and encounters The Talking Cricket who has lived in the house for over a century. It tells him that boys who do not obey their parents grow up to be donkeys. Pinocchio throws a hammer at the cricket and accidentally kills it. Unable to find food in the house, Pinocchio ventures to a neighbor's house to beg for food and the annoyed neighbor pours a basin of water on him. Pinocchio returns home freezing and tries to warm himself by placing his feet upon the stove. The next morning he wakes to find that his feet have burnt off. Geppetto, who has been released from jail and has three pears for a meal, makes his son a new pair of feet. In gratitude, Pinocchio promises to go to school. Since Geppetto has no money to buy school books, he sells his only coat. Pinocchio heads off to school, but on the way he is distracted by some music and crowds and he follows the sounds until he finds himself in a crowd of people, all congregated to see the Great Marionette Theater. Pinocchio sells his school books for tickets to the show. During the performance, the puppets Harlequin, Punch, and Signora Rosaura see Pinocchio and cry out, \"It is our brother Pinocchio!\" The audience grows angry, and the theater director, Mangiafuoco, comes out to see what is going on. Upset, he decides to use Pinocchio as firewood to cook his dinner. Pinocchio pleads to be saved and Mangiafuoco gives in. When he learns about Pinocchio's poor father, he gives the marionette five gold pieces for Geppetto. As Pinocchio heads home to give the coins to his father, he meets a fox and a cat who convince him that if he plants his coins in the Field of Miracles, outside the city of Catchfools, then they will grow into a tree with a thousand gold coins, or perhaps two thousand. Pinocchio heads off on a journey to Catchfools with the Cat and Fox. On the way, they stop at the Inn of the Red Crayfish, where the Fox and Cat gorge themselves on food at Pinocchio's expense. The fox and cat take off ahead of Pinocchio and disguise themselves as bandits while Pinocchio continues on toward Catchfools. The ghost of the Talking Cricket appears, telling him to go home and give the coins to his father but Pinocchio ignores him. As he passes through the forest, the disguised Cat and Fox jump out and try to rob Pinocchio, who hides the money in his mouth. In the struggle that follows Pinocchio bites the Cat's hand off and escapes deeper into the forest where he sees a white house ahead. Stopping to knock on the door, he is greeted by a young Fairy with Turquoise Hair, who says she is dead and waiting to be taken. However, as he speaks to her, the bandits catch him and hang him in a tree. After a while the Fox and Cat get tired of waiting for the marionette to suffocate and leave. The Blue-haired Fairy sends a falcon and a poodle to rescue Pinocchio, and she calls in three famous doctors to tell her if Pinocchio is dead. The first two (an owl and a crow) are uncertain, but the third\u2014the Talking Cricket that Pinocchio presumably killed earlier\u2014knows that Pinocchio is fine and tells the marionette that he has been disobedient and hurt his father. The Blue-haired Fairy tries to make Pinocchio take medicine, saying he will soon die if he doesn't, but he refuses to take it, despite promising to if he is given sugar, which the Blue-haired Fairy gives him. However Four Black Rabbits then enter the room with a coffin and tell Pinocchio they have come to take him away, as he will be dead soon. Pinocchio takes the medicine and the rabbits leave. The Blue-haired Fairy asks Pinocchio what happened and he tells her. She then asks him where the gold coins are. Pinocchio lies, saying he has lost them. As he utters this lie (and more) his nose begins to grow until it is so long he cannot turn around in the room. The Fairy explains to Pinocchio that it is his lies that are making his nose grow long, then calls in a flock of woodpeckers to chisel down his nose. Pinocchio and the Blue-haired Fairy decide to become brother and sister, and the Fairy sends for Geppetto to come live with them in the forest. Pinocchio heads out to meet his father, but on the way he meets the fox and cat again (whom he had not recognized as the bandits, even though he has a hint from the cat's bandaged front paw\u2014which he had bitten earlier; the fox tells him the cat had shown mistaken kindness to a wolf). They remind Pinocchio of the Field of Miracles, and finally he agrees to go with them and plant his gold. After half a day's journey, they reach the city of Catchfools. Everyone in the town has done something exceedingly foolish and now suffers as a result. When they reach the \"Field of Miracles\", Pinocchio buries his gold then runs off to wait the twenty minutes it will take for his gold to grow. After twenty minutes he returns, only to find no tree and\u2014even worse\u2014no gold coins. Realizing what has happened from a bird, he goes to Catchfools and tells the judge, an old Gorilla, about the fox and cat. The judge (as is the custom in Catchfools) sends Pinocchio to prison for his foolishness for four months. While he is in prison, however, the emperor of Catchfools declares a celebration, and all prisoners are set free. As Pinocchio heads back to the forest, he finds an enormous serpent with a smoking tail blocking the way. After some confusion, he asks the serpent to move, but the serpent remains completely still. Concluding that it is dead, Pinocchio begins to step over it, but the serpent suddenly rises up and hisses at the marionette, toppling him over onto his head. Struck by Pinocchio's fright and comical position, the snake laughs so hard, it bursts an artery and dies. While sneaking into a farmer's yard to take some grapes, Pinocchio is caught in a weasel trap. He asks a bird to help him, but it refuses after hearing Pinocchio was planning to steal grapes. When the farmer comes out and finds Pinocchio, he ties him up in a doghouse to guard his chicken coop. That night, a group of weasels come and tell Pinocchio that they had made a deal with former watchdog Melampo to let them raid the chicken coop if he could have a chicken. Pinocchio says he wants two chickens, so the weasels agree and go into the henhouse. Pinocchio then locks the door and barks loudly. The farmer gets the weasels and frees Pinocchio as a reward. Pinocchio comes to where the cottage was and finds nothing but a gravestone. Believing the Blue-haired Fairy died from sorrow, he weeps until a friendly pigeon offers to give him a ride to the seashore, where Geppetto is building a boat to go out and search for Pinocchio. They fly to the seashore and Pinocchio sees Geppetto out in a boat. The puppet leaps into the water and tries to swim to Geppetto, but the waves are too rough and Pinocchio is washed underwater as Geppetto is swallowed by a terrible shark. A kindly dolphin gives Pinocchio a ride to the nearest island, which is the Island of Busy Bees. Everyone is working and no one will give Pinocchio any food as long as he will not help them. He finally offers to carry a lady's jug home in return for food and water. When they get to the house, Pinocchio recognizes the lady as the Blue-haired Fairy, now miraculously old enough to be his mother. She says she will act as Pinocchio's mother and Pinocchio will begin going to school. She hints that if Pinocchio does well in school he will become a real boy. Pinocchio starts school the next day and after showing his determination becomes a friend to all the schoolboys. A while later a group of boys trick Pinocchio into playing hookey by saying they saw a large whale at the beach. Hoping that it is the shark that swallowed Geppetto, he accompanies them to the beach only to find he has been fooled. He begins fighting with the boys and one boy grabs a schoolbook of Pinocchio's and throws it at him. The marionette ducks and the book hits another boy named Eugene, who is knocked out. The other boys flee while Pinocchio tries to revive Eugene. Then two policemen come up and accuse Pinocchio of injuring Eugene. Before he can explain, the policemen grab him to take him to jail\u2014but he escapes and is chased into the sea by the police dog. The dog starts to drown and Pinocchio saves him. The dog is grateful and promises to be Pinocchio's friend. Pinocchio happily starts swimming to shore. Then The Green Fisherman catches Pinocchio in his net and starts to eat the fish, saying Pinocchio must be a very special fish. Taking off the marionette's clothes and covering him with flour, the ogre prepares to eat Pinocchio. The police dog then comes in and rescues Pinocchio from the ogre. On the way home, Pinocchio stops at a man's house and asks about Eugene. The man says Eugene is fine, but that Pinocchio must be a truant. Pinocchio says that he is always truthful and obedient. Again his nose grows longer and Pinocchio immediately tells the truth about himself, causing the nose to shrink back to normal. Pinocchio gets home in the middle of the night. He knocks on the door and a snail opens the third-story window. Pinocchio pleads to be let in and the snail says he will come down. Since a snail is slow, it takes all night for the snail to come down and let Pinocchio in. By the time the snail comes down Pinocchio has banged his foot against the door and gotten stuck. The snail brings Pinocchio artificial food and the marionette faints. When he wakes, he is on the couch and the Fairy says she will give him another chance. Pinocchio does excellently in school and passes with high honors. The Fairy promises that Pinocchio will be a real boy next day and says he should invite all his friends to a party. He goes to invite everyone, but he is sidetracked when he meets a boy named Romeo\u2014nicknamed Lampwick because he is so tall and skinny. Lampwick is about to go to a place called Toyland, where everyone plays all day and never works. Pinocchio goes along with him and they have a wonderful time in the land of Play\u2014until one morning Pinocchio awakes with donkey ears. A Squirrel tells him that boys who do nothing but play and never work always grow into donkeys. Within a short while Pinocchio has become a donkey. He is sold to a circus and is trained to do all kinds of tricks. Then one night in the circus he falls and sprains his leg. The circus owner sells the donkey to a man who wants to skin him and make a drum. The man throws the donkey into the sea to drown him\u2014and brings up a living wooden boy. Pinocchio explains that the fish ate all the donkey skin off of him and he is now a marionette again. Pinocchio dives back into the water and swims out to sea\u2014when he is swallowed by The Terrible Shark. Inside the shark Pinocchio meets a tuna who is resigned to the fate and just says they will have to wait to be digested. Pinocchio sees a light from far off and he follows the light. At the other end is Geppetto, who had been living on a ship that was also in the shark. Pinocchio and Geppetto and the tuna manage to get out from inside the shark and Pinocchio heroically attempts to swim with Geppetto to shore, which turns out to be too far; however, the tuna rescues them and brings them to shore. Pinocchio and Geppetto try to find a place to stay. They pass two beggars, who are the Fox and the Cat. The Cat is, ironically, really blind now, and the fox is actually lame, tailless (having sold his tail for money) and mangy. They plead for food or money, but Pinocchio will give them nothing. They arrive at a small house, and living there is the Talking Cricket, who says they can stay. Pinocchio gets a job doing work for a farmer, whose donkey is dying. Pinocchio recognizes the donkey as Lampwick. Pinocchio mourns over Lampwick's dead body and the farmer is perplexed as to why. Pinocchio says that Lampwick was his friend and they went to school together, causing Farmer John to be even more confused. After long months of working for the farmer and supporting the ailing Geppetto he goes to town with what money he has saved (40 pennies to be exact) to buy himself a new suit. He meets the snail, who tells him that the Blue-haired Fairy is ill and needs money. Pinocchio instantly gives the snail all the money he has, promising that he will help his mother as much as he is helping his father. That night, he dreams he is visited by the Fairy, who kisses him. When he wakes up, he is a real boy at last. Furthermore, Pinocchio finds that the Fairy left him a new suit and boots, and a bag which Pinocchio thinks is the forty pennies he originally loaned to the Blue Fairy. The boy is shocked to find instead forty freshly minted gold coins. He is also reunited with Geppetto, now healthy and resuming woodcarving. They live happily ever after.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins in Tuscany. A carpenter has found a block of pinewood which he plans to carve into a leg for his table. When he begins, however, the log shouts out, \"Don't strike me too hard!\" Frightened by the talking log, the carpenter, Antonio or Master Cherry as he is called does not know what to do until his neighbor Geppetto, known for disliking children, drops by looking for a piece of wood to build a marionette. Seeing a perfect opportunity, Antonio gives the block to Geppetto. Geppetto is extremely poor and plans to make a living as a puppeteer. He carves the block into a boy and names him \"Pinocchio\". As soon as Pinocchio's nose has been carved, it begins to grow longer and longer before Geppetto is finished with him. After the puppet is finished, Geppetto teaches him to walk and Pinocchio runs out the door and away into the town. He is caught by a Carabiniere but when people say that Geppetto dislikes children, the carabineer assumes that Pinocchio has been mistreated and imprisons Geppetto. Pinocchio heads back to Geppetto's house and encounters The Talking Cricket who has lived in the house for over a century. It tells him that boys who do not obey their parents grow up to be donkeys. Pinocchio throws a hammer at the cricket and accidentally kills it. Unable to find food in the house, Pinocchio ventures to a neighbor's house to beg for food and the annoyed neighbor pours a basin of water on him. Pinocchio returns home freezing and tries to warm himself by placing his feet upon the stove. The next morning he wakes to find that his feet have burnt off. Geppetto, who has been released from jail and has three pears for"
      },
      {
        "text": "keys. Pinocchio throws a hammer at the cricket and accidentally kills it. Unable to find food in the house, Pinocchio ventures to a neighbor's house to beg for food and the annoyed neighbor pours a basin of water on him. Pinocchio returns home freezing and tries to warm himself by placing his feet upon the stove. The next morning he wakes to find that his feet have burnt off. Geppetto, who has been released from jail and has three pears for a meal, makes his son a new pair of feet. In gratitude, Pinocchio promises to go to school. Since Geppetto has no money to buy school books, he sells his only coat. Pinocchio heads off to school, but on the way he is distracted by some music and crowds and he follows the sounds until he finds himself in a crowd of people, all congregated to see the Great Marionette Theater. Pinocchio sells his school books for tickets to the show. During the performance, the puppets Harlequin, Punch, and Signora Rosaura see Pinocchio and cry out, \"It is our brother Pinocchio!\" The audience grows angry, and the theater director, Mangiafuoco, comes out to see what is going on. Upset, he decides to use Pinocchio as firewood to cook his dinner. Pinocchio pleads to be saved and Mangiafuoco gives in. When he learns about Pinocchio's poor father, he gives the marionette five gold pieces for Geppetto. As Pinocchio heads home to give the coins to his father, he meets a fox and a cat who convince him that if he plants his coins in the Field of Miracles, outside the city of Catchfools, then they will grow into a tree with a thousand gold coins, or perhaps two thousand. Pinocchio heads off on a journey to Catchfools with the Cat and"
      },
      {
        "text": "occhio's poor father, he gives the marionette five gold pieces for Geppetto. As Pinocchio heads home to give the coins to his father, he meets a fox and a cat who convince him that if he plants his coins in the Field of Miracles, outside the city of Catchfools, then they will grow into a tree with a thousand gold coins, or perhaps two thousand. Pinocchio heads off on a journey to Catchfools with the Cat and Fox. On the way, they stop at the Inn of the Red Crayfish, where the Fox and Cat gorge themselves on food at Pinocchio's expense. The fox and cat take off ahead of Pinocchio and disguise themselves as bandits while Pinocchio continues on toward Catchfools. The ghost of the Talking Cricket appears, telling him to go home and give the coins to his father but Pinocchio ignores him. As he passes through the forest, the disguised Cat and Fox jump out and try to rob Pinocchio, who hides the money in his mouth. In the struggle that follows Pinocchio bites the Cat's hand off and escapes deeper into the forest where he sees a white house ahead. Stopping to knock on the door, he is greeted by a young Fairy with Turquoise Hair, who says she is dead and waiting to be taken. However, as he speaks to her, the bandits catch him and hang him in a tree. After a while the Fox and Cat get tired of waiting for the marionette to suffocate and leave. The Blue-haired Fairy sends a falcon and a poodle to rescue Pinocchio, and she calls in three famous doctors to tell her if Pinocchio is dead. The first two (an owl and a crow) are uncertain, but the third\u2014the Talking Cricket that Pinocchio presumably killed earlier\u2014knows that Pinocchio is fine and tells the marionette that he has"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Fox and Cat get tired of waiting for the marionette to suffocate and leave. The Blue-haired Fairy sends a falcon and a poodle to rescue Pinocchio, and she calls in three famous doctors to tell her if Pinocchio is dead. The first two (an owl and a crow) are uncertain, but the third\u2014the Talking Cricket that Pinocchio presumably killed earlier\u2014knows that Pinocchio is fine and tells the marionette that he has been disobedient and hurt his father. The Blue-haired Fairy tries to make Pinocchio take medicine, saying he will soon die if he doesn't, but he refuses to take it, despite promising to if he is given sugar, which the Blue-haired Fairy gives him. However Four Black Rabbits then enter the room with a coffin and tell Pinocchio they have come to take him away, as he will be dead soon. Pinocchio takes the medicine and the rabbits leave. The Blue-haired Fairy asks Pinocchio what happened and he tells her. She then asks him where the gold coins are. Pinocchio lies, saying he has lost them. As he utters this lie (and more) his nose begins to grow until it is so long he cannot turn around in the room. The Fairy explains to Pinocchio that it is his lies that are making his nose grow long, then calls in a flock of woodpeckers to chisel down his nose. Pinocchio and the Blue-haired Fairy decide to become brother and sister, and the Fairy sends for Geppetto to come live with them in the forest. Pinocchio heads out to meet his father, but on the way he meets the fox and cat again (whom he had not recognized as the bandits, even though he has a hint from the cat's bandaged front paw\u2014which he had bitten earlier; the fox tells him the cat had shown mistaken kindness to"
      },
      {
        "text": " nose. Pinocchio and the Blue-haired Fairy decide to become brother and sister, and the Fairy sends for Geppetto to come live with them in the forest. Pinocchio heads out to meet his father, but on the way he meets the fox and cat again (whom he had not recognized as the bandits, even though he has a hint from the cat's bandaged front paw\u2014which he had bitten earlier; the fox tells him the cat had shown mistaken kindness to a wolf). They remind Pinocchio of the Field of Miracles, and finally he agrees to go with them and plant his gold. After half a day's journey, they reach the city of Catchfools. Everyone in the town has done something exceedingly foolish and now suffers as a result. When they reach the \"Field of Miracles\", Pinocchio buries his gold then runs off to wait the twenty minutes it will take for his gold to grow. After twenty minutes he returns, only to find no tree and\u2014even worse\u2014no gold coins. Realizing what has happened from a bird, he goes to Catchfools and tells the judge, an old Gorilla, about the fox and cat. The judge (as is the custom in Catchfools) sends Pinocchio to prison for his foolishness for four months. While he is in prison, however, the emperor of Catchfools declares a celebration, and all prisoners are set free. As Pinocchio heads back to the forest, he finds an enormous serpent with a smoking tail blocking the way. After some confusion, he asks the serpent to move, but the serpent remains completely still. Concluding that it is dead, Pinocchio begins to step over it, but the serpent suddenly rises up and hisses at the marionette, toppling him over onto his head. Struck by Pinocchio's fright and comical position, the snake laughs so hard, it bursts an artery and"
      },
      {
        "text": " heads back to the forest, he finds an enormous serpent with a smoking tail blocking the way. After some confusion, he asks the serpent to move, but the serpent remains completely still. Concluding that it is dead, Pinocchio begins to step over it, but the serpent suddenly rises up and hisses at the marionette, toppling him over onto his head. Struck by Pinocchio's fright and comical position, the snake laughs so hard, it bursts an artery and dies. While sneaking into a farmer's yard to take some grapes, Pinocchio is caught in a weasel trap. He asks a bird to help him, but it refuses after hearing Pinocchio was planning to steal grapes. When the farmer comes out and finds Pinocchio, he ties him up in a doghouse to guard his chicken coop. That night, a group of weasels come and tell Pinocchio that they had made a deal with former watchdog Melampo to let them raid the chicken coop if he could have a chicken. Pinocchio says he wants two chickens, so the weasels agree and go into the henhouse. Pinocchio then locks the door and barks loudly. The farmer gets the weasels and frees Pinocchio as a reward. Pinocchio comes to where the cottage was and finds nothing but a gravestone. Believing the Blue-haired Fairy died from sorrow, he weeps until a friendly pigeon offers to give him a ride to the seashore, where Geppetto is building a boat to go out and search for Pinocchio. They fly to the seashore and Pinocchio sees Geppetto out in a boat. The puppet leaps into the water and tries to swim to Geppetto, but the waves are too rough and Pinocchio is washed underwater as Geppetto is swallowed by a terrible shark. A kindly dolphin gives Pin"
      },
      {
        "text": " friendly pigeon offers to give him a ride to the seashore, where Geppetto is building a boat to go out and search for Pinocchio. They fly to the seashore and Pinocchio sees Geppetto out in a boat. The puppet leaps into the water and tries to swim to Geppetto, but the waves are too rough and Pinocchio is washed underwater as Geppetto is swallowed by a terrible shark. A kindly dolphin gives Pinocchio a ride to the nearest island, which is the Island of Busy Bees. Everyone is working and no one will give Pinocchio any food as long as he will not help them. He finally offers to carry a lady's jug home in return for food and water. When they get to the house, Pinocchio recognizes the lady as the Blue-haired Fairy, now miraculously old enough to be his mother. She says she will act as Pinocchio's mother and Pinocchio will begin going to school. She hints that if Pinocchio does well in school he will become a real boy. Pinocchio starts school the next day and after showing his determination becomes a friend to all the schoolboys. A while later a group of boys trick Pinocchio into playing hookey by saying they saw a large whale at the beach. Hoping that it is the shark that swallowed Geppetto, he accompanies them to the beach only to find he has been fooled. He begins fighting with the boys and one boy grabs a schoolbook of Pinocchio's and throws it at him. The marionette ducks and the book hits another boy named Eugene, who is knocked out. The other boys flee while Pinocchio tries to revive Eugene. Then two policemen come up and accuse Pinocchio of injuring Eugene. Before he can explain, the policemen grab him to take him to jail\u2014but he escapes and is chased into the sea by the police"
      },
      {
        "text": " been fooled. He begins fighting with the boys and one boy grabs a schoolbook of Pinocchio's and throws it at him. The marionette ducks and the book hits another boy named Eugene, who is knocked out. The other boys flee while Pinocchio tries to revive Eugene. Then two policemen come up and accuse Pinocchio of injuring Eugene. Before he can explain, the policemen grab him to take him to jail\u2014but he escapes and is chased into the sea by the police dog. The dog starts to drown and Pinocchio saves him. The dog is grateful and promises to be Pinocchio's friend. Pinocchio happily starts swimming to shore. Then The Green Fisherman catches Pinocchio in his net and starts to eat the fish, saying Pinocchio must be a very special fish. Taking off the marionette's clothes and covering him with flour, the ogre prepares to eat Pinocchio. The police dog then comes in and rescues Pinocchio from the ogre. On the way home, Pinocchio stops at a man's house and asks about Eugene. The man says Eugene is fine, but that Pinocchio must be a truant. Pinocchio says that he is always truthful and obedient. Again his nose grows longer and Pinocchio immediately tells the truth about himself, causing the nose to shrink back to normal. Pinocchio gets home in the middle of the night. He knocks on the door and a snail opens the third-story window. Pinocchio pleads to be let in and the snail says he will come down. Since a snail is slow, it takes all night for the snail to come down and let Pinocchio in. By the time the snail comes down Pinocchio has banged his foot against the door and gotten stuck. The snail brings Pinocchio artificial food and the marionette faints. When he wakes, he is on the couch and the Fairy says she"
      },
      {
        "text": " opens the third-story window. Pinocchio pleads to be let in and the snail says he will come down. Since a snail is slow, it takes all night for the snail to come down and let Pinocchio in. By the time the snail comes down Pinocchio has banged his foot against the door and gotten stuck. The snail brings Pinocchio artificial food and the marionette faints. When he wakes, he is on the couch and the Fairy says she will give him another chance. Pinocchio does excellently in school and passes with high honors. The Fairy promises that Pinocchio will be a real boy next day and says he should invite all his friends to a party. He goes to invite everyone, but he is sidetracked when he meets a boy named Romeo\u2014nicknamed Lampwick because he is so tall and skinny. Lampwick is about to go to a place called Toyland, where everyone plays all day and never works. Pinocchio goes along with him and they have a wonderful time in the land of Play\u2014until one morning Pinocchio awakes with donkey ears. A Squirrel tells him that boys who do nothing but play and never work always grow into donkeys. Within a short while Pinocchio has become a donkey. He is sold to a circus and is trained to do all kinds of tricks. Then one night in the circus he falls and sprains his leg. The circus owner sells the donkey to a man who wants to skin him and make a drum. The man throws the donkey into the sea to drown him\u2014and brings up a living wooden boy. Pinocchio explains that the fish ate all the donkey skin off of him and he is now a marionette again. Pinocchio dives back into the water and swims out to sea\u2014when he is swallowed by The Terrible Shark. Inside the shark Pinocchio meets a tuna who is resigned to the fate and just"
      },
      {
        "text": " to a man who wants to skin him and make a drum. The man throws the donkey into the sea to drown him\u2014and brings up a living wooden boy. Pinocchio explains that the fish ate all the donkey skin off of him and he is now a marionette again. Pinocchio dives back into the water and swims out to sea\u2014when he is swallowed by The Terrible Shark. Inside the shark Pinocchio meets a tuna who is resigned to the fate and just says they will have to wait to be digested. Pinocchio sees a light from far off and he follows the light. At the other end is Geppetto, who had been living on a ship that was also in the shark. Pinocchio and Geppetto and the tuna manage to get out from inside the shark and Pinocchio heroically attempts to swim with Geppetto to shore, which turns out to be too far; however, the tuna rescues them and brings them to shore. Pinocchio and Geppetto try to find a place to stay. They pass two beggars, who are the Fox and the Cat. The Cat is, ironically, really blind now, and the fox is actually lame, tailless (having sold his tail for money) and mangy. They plead for food or money, but Pinocchio will give them nothing. They arrive at a small house, and living there is the Talking Cricket, who says they can stay. Pinocchio gets a job doing work for a farmer, whose donkey is dying. Pinocchio recognizes the donkey as Lampwick. Pinocchio mourns over Lampwick's dead body and the farmer is perplexed as to why. Pinocchio says that Lampwick was his friend and they went to school together, causing Farmer John to be even more confused. After long months of working for the farmer and supporting the ailing Geppetto he goes to"
      },
      {
        "text": " who says they can stay. Pinocchio gets a job doing work for a farmer, whose donkey is dying. Pinocchio recognizes the donkey as Lampwick. Pinocchio mourns over Lampwick's dead body and the farmer is perplexed as to why. Pinocchio says that Lampwick was his friend and they went to school together, causing Farmer John to be even more confused. After long months of working for the farmer and supporting the ailing Geppetto he goes to town with what money he has saved (40 pennies to be exact) to buy himself a new suit. He meets the snail, who tells him that the Blue-haired Fairy is ill and needs money. Pinocchio instantly gives the snail all the money he has, promising that he will help his mother as much as he is helping his father. That night, he dreams he is visited by the Fairy, who kisses him. When he wakes up, he is a real boy at last. Furthermore, Pinocchio finds that the Fairy left him a new suit and boots, and a bag which Pinocchio thinks is the forty pennies he originally loaned to the Blue Fairy. The boy is shocked to find instead forty freshly minted gold coins. He is also reunited with Geppetto, now healthy and resuming woodcarving. They live happily ever after.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Smith of Wootton Major",
    "author": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The village of Wootton Major was well-known around the countryside for its annual festivals, which were particularly famous for their culinary delights. The biggest festival of all was the Feast of Good Children. This festival was celebrated only once every twenty-four years: twenty-four children of the village were invited to a party, and the highlight of the party was the Great Cake, a career milestone by which Master Cooks were judged. In the year the story begins, the Master Cook was Nokes, who had landed the position more or less by default; he delegated much of the creative work to his apprentice Alf. Nokes crowned his Great Cake with a little doll jokingly representing the Queen of Faery. Various trinkets were hidden in the cake for the children to find; one of these was a star the Cook discovered in the old spice box. The star was not found at the Feast, but was swallowed by a blacksmith\u2019s son. The boy did not feel its magical properties at once, but on the morning of his tenth birthday the star fixed itself on his forehead, and became his passport to Faery. The boy grew up to be a blacksmith like his father, but in his free time he roamed the Land of Faery. The star on his forehead protected him from many of the dangers threatening mortals in that land, and the Folk of Faery called him \"Starbrow\". The book describes his many travels in Faery, until at last he meets the true Queen of Faery. The identity of the King is also revealed. The time came for another Feast of Good Children. Smith had possessed his gift for most of his life, and the time had come to pass it on to some other child. So he regretfully surrendered the star to Alf, and with it his adventures into Faery. Alf, who had become Master Cook long before, baked it into the festive cake once again for another child to find. After the feast, Alf retired and left the village; and Smith returned to his forge to teach his craft to his now-grown son.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The village of Wootton Major was well-known around the countryside for its annual festivals, which were particularly famous for their culinary delights. The biggest festival of all was the Feast of Good Children. This festival was celebrated only once every twenty-four years: twenty-four children of the village were invited to a party, and the highlight of the party was the Great Cake, a career milestone by which Master Cooks were judged. In the year the story begins, the Master Cook was Nokes, who had landed the position more or less by default; he delegated much of the creative work to his apprentice Alf. Nokes crowned his Great Cake with a little doll jokingly representing the Queen of Faery. Various trinkets were hidden in the cake for the children to find; one of these was a star the Cook discovered in the old spice box. The star was not found at the Feast, but was swallowed by a blacksmith\u2019s son. The boy did not feel its magical properties at once, but on the morning of his tenth birthday the star fixed itself on his forehead, and became his passport to Faery. The boy grew up to be a blacksmith like his father, but in his free time he roamed the Land of Faery. The star on his forehead protected him from many of the dangers threatening mortals in that land, and the Folk of Faery called him \"Starbrow\". The book describes his many travels in Faery, until at last he meets the true Queen of Faery. The identity of the King is also revealed. The time came for another Feast of Good Children. Smith had possessed his gift for most of his life, and the time had come to pass it on to some other child. So he regretfully surrendered the star to Alf, and with it his adventures into Faery. Alf, who had become Master Cook long before, baked it into the festive cake once again for another child to find. After the feast,"
      },
      {
        "text": " he meets the true Queen of Faery. The identity of the King is also revealed. The time came for another Feast of Good Children. Smith had possessed his gift for most of his life, and the time had come to pass it on to some other child. So he regretfully surrendered the star to Alf, and with it his adventures into Faery. Alf, who had become Master Cook long before, baked it into the festive cake once again for another child to find. After the feast, Alf retired and left the village; and Smith returned to his forge to teach his craft to his now-grown son.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Tie That Binds",
    "author": "Kent Haruf",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In 1896, newlyweds Roy and Ada Goodnough leave Iowa and settle down in northeastern Colorado under the Homestead Act of 1862. The business of farming is a tough affair in those days, but Roy is a hard-working man who eventually succeeds in tilling the soil and breeding cattle. Ada bears him two children: Edith, who is born in 1897, and Lyman, born two years later. As their neighbour, Hannah Roscoe, the narrator's grandmother, a half-breed whose husband left her and their little son for good, quietly observes the Goodnoughs and also, on Ada's request, helps deliver Edith and Lyman. Very soon Ada regrets leaving Iowa for the plains of Colorado. Her husband turns out to be a bully, an angry and violent man without any sense of humour who makes her and their children work very hard on the farm. When she dies in 1914, aged only 42, Edith has to take over all of Ada's chores and duties (\"Your mother's dead. You're the mother now.\"). Then, in 1915, a terrible accident during harvesttime seals Edith's fate: Her father's hands get entangled in a machine, and nine of his fingers are chopped off. This severe physical handicap leaves Roy Goodnough all the more cruel and demanding; he considers, and treats, Edith and Lyman as his \"self-sired farmhands\", bossing them around and taking all decisions himself. As the two siblings grow up, they desperately start looking for means of escape. But they soon realize that they are stuck on their father's farm, that, as opposed to city kids, they are bound by a rural code of honour and a sense of duty and thus prevented from abandoning the farm and leaving their father alone. For the next 37 years, Edith performs the duties of farmer, housewife and nurse without ever seriously complaining, renouncing her personal freedom and refusing to get involved with men (except for a brief romance with the narrator's father who, as would be expected, is rejected by her father as a \"half-breed bastard\"). Lyman, tall, inexperienced in the ways of the world and deeply frustrated, finally sees his chance of escape when, in 1941, the United States is attacked by Japan. In the middle of the night and with the help of the Roscoes, he secretly leaves the farm and goes to the city with the intention of joining the armed forces. But at 42 he is too old to enlist and instead embarks on a tour of the United States which lasts for more than 20 years. All those years, Edith never doubts that one day her brother will return. He does so, too, in the early 1960s, almost ten years after their father's peaceful death at 82. After a number of good years which Edith and Lyman, now both in their sixties, can enjoy living together in their farm house and doing some travelling in his car, Lyman's health begins to deteriorate and his personality starts to change and eventually go to pieces. It is again Edith whose sense of duty tells her to look after her brother. Lyman wreaks havoc when, in 1967, he causes a car accident which leads to the narrator's wife having a miscarriage. In the following years, Edith draws some pleasure from spending afternoons with Rena, the narrator's daughter, who is born in 1969. But soon it becomes too dangerous for Rena to go to the Goodnoughs on her own, as Lyman, who has regressed to infancy, is prone to unprompted outbursts of violence. Eventually, on New Year's Eve, 1976, Edith prepares for her only act of rebellion ever. She has Lyman put on his best clothes, cooks a three-course dinner for him, waits for him to fall asleep and then sets fire to their house. Things do not happen according to plan though because the fire is detected too soon and the two old people are evacuated. However, Lyman never recovers from the injuries inflicted by the fire and dies soon afterwards. In the spring of 1977 Edith Goodnough is still lying in a hospital bed with a policeman stationed outside her room and facing charges of attempted murder. The Roscoes visit every day. Sanders Roscoe is particularly appalled by the journalists from Denver who, having no idea how hard the farming life can be, have started sniffing around and digging up dirt.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In 1896, newlyweds Roy and Ada Goodnough leave Iowa and settle down in northeastern Colorado under the Homestead Act of 1862. The business of farming is a tough affair in those days, but Roy is a hard-working man who eventually succeeds in tilling the soil and breeding cattle. Ada bears him two children: Edith, who is born in 1897, and Lyman, born two years later. As their neighbour, Hannah Roscoe, the narrator's grandmother, a half-breed whose husband left her and their little son for good, quietly observes the Goodnoughs and also, on Ada's request, helps deliver Edith and Lyman. Very soon Ada regrets leaving Iowa for the plains of Colorado. Her husband turns out to be a bully, an angry and violent man without any sense of humour who makes her and their children work very hard on the farm. When she dies in 1914, aged only 42, Edith has to take over all of Ada's chores and duties (\"Your mother's dead. You're the mother now.\"). Then, in 1915, a terrible accident during harvesttime seals Edith's fate: Her father's hands get entangled in a machine, and nine of his fingers are chopped off. This severe physical handicap leaves Roy Goodnough all the more cruel and demanding; he considers, and treats, Edith and Lyman as his \"self-sired farmhands\", bossing them around and taking all decisions himself. As the two siblings grow up, they desperately start looking for means of escape. But they soon realize that they are stuck on their father's farm, that, as opposed to city kids, they are bound by a rural code of honour and a sense of duty and thus prevented from abandoning the farm and leaving their father alone. For the next 37 years, Edith performs the duties of farmer, housewife and nurse without ever seriously complaining, renouncing her personal freedom and refusing to get involved with men"
      },
      {
        "text": " As the two siblings grow up, they desperately start looking for means of escape. But they soon realize that they are stuck on their father's farm, that, as opposed to city kids, they are bound by a rural code of honour and a sense of duty and thus prevented from abandoning the farm and leaving their father alone. For the next 37 years, Edith performs the duties of farmer, housewife and nurse without ever seriously complaining, renouncing her personal freedom and refusing to get involved with men (except for a brief romance with the narrator's father who, as would be expected, is rejected by her father as a \"half-breed bastard\"). Lyman, tall, inexperienced in the ways of the world and deeply frustrated, finally sees his chance of escape when, in 1941, the United States is attacked by Japan. In the middle of the night and with the help of the Roscoes, he secretly leaves the farm and goes to the city with the intention of joining the armed forces. But at 42 he is too old to enlist and instead embarks on a tour of the United States which lasts for more than 20 years. All those years, Edith never doubts that one day her brother will return. He does so, too, in the early 1960s, almost ten years after their father's peaceful death at 82. After a number of good years which Edith and Lyman, now both in their sixties, can enjoy living together in their farm house and doing some travelling in his car, Lyman's health begins to deteriorate and his personality starts to change and eventually go to pieces. It is again Edith whose sense of duty tells her to look after her brother. Lyman wreaks havoc when, in 1967, he causes a car accident which leads to the narrator's wife having a miscarriage. In the following years, Edith draws some pleasure from spending afternoons with Rena, the narrator's daughter, who is born in 1969. But soon"
      },
      {
        "text": " some travelling in his car, Lyman's health begins to deteriorate and his personality starts to change and eventually go to pieces. It is again Edith whose sense of duty tells her to look after her brother. Lyman wreaks havoc when, in 1967, he causes a car accident which leads to the narrator's wife having a miscarriage. In the following years, Edith draws some pleasure from spending afternoons with Rena, the narrator's daughter, who is born in 1969. But soon it becomes too dangerous for Rena to go to the Goodnoughs on her own, as Lyman, who has regressed to infancy, is prone to unprompted outbursts of violence. Eventually, on New Year's Eve, 1976, Edith prepares for her only act of rebellion ever. She has Lyman put on his best clothes, cooks a three-course dinner for him, waits for him to fall asleep and then sets fire to their house. Things do not happen according to plan though because the fire is detected too soon and the two old people are evacuated. However, Lyman never recovers from the injuries inflicted by the fire and dies soon afterwards. In the spring of 1977 Edith Goodnough is still lying in a hospital bed with a policeman stationed outside her room and facing charges of attempted murder. The Roscoes visit every day. Sanders Roscoe is particularly appalled by the journalists from Denver who, having no idea how hard the farming life can be, have started sniffing around and digging up dirt.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " started sniffing around and digging up dirt.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "England, England",
    "author": "Julian Barnes",
    "published_date": "1998",
    "synopsis": " England, England is divided into three parts entitled \"England\", \"England, England\" and \"Anglia\". The first part focuses on the protagonist Martha Cochrane and her childhood memories. Growing up in the surrounding of the English countryside, her peaceful childhood gets disrupted when her father leaves the family. Martha's memories of her father are closely related to playing a Counties of England jigsaw puzzle with him. The second part, \"England, England\", is set in the near future in what is clearly marked as a postmodern age. Martha is now in her forties and gets employed by the entrepreneur Sir Jack Pitman for his megalomaniac project. Sir Jack aims to turn the Isle of Wight into a gigantic theme park which contains everything that people, especially tourists, consider to be quintessentially English, selected according to what Sir Jack himself approves of. The theme park called 'England, England' thus becomes a replica of England's best known historical buildings, figures and sites. Popular English tourist attractions and icons of 'Englishness' are crammed together to be easily accessible without having to travel whole 'real' England. While working on the set-up of the project, Martha starts an affair with one of her colleagues, Paul Harrison. They find out about Sir Jack's questionable sexual preferences and blackmail him with the discriminating evidence when Sir Jack wants to dismiss Martha. She thus becomes CEO of the Island project, which turns out to be a highly popular tourist attraction. As a consequence of the huge success, 'England, England' becomes an independent state and part of the European Union, while the real, 'Old England' suffers a severe decline and increasingly falls into oblivion. After a major scandal in the theme park, however, Martha is eventually expelled from the island. The third part of the novel, \"Anglia\", is set decades later and depicts Martha who has returned to a village in Old England after many years of wandering abroad. The original nation has regressed into a vastly de-populated, agrarian and pre-industrial state without any international political influence, while 'England, England' continues to prosper. The chapter describes the villagers' endeavour to re-establish a traditional village f\u00eate with the help of Martha's memories. Martha ultimately spends her final days in this rural setting pondering about her past.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " England, England is divided into three parts entitled \"England\", \"England, England\" and \"Anglia\". The first part focuses on the protagonist Martha Cochrane and her childhood memories. Growing up in the surrounding of the English countryside, her peaceful childhood gets disrupted when her father leaves the family. Martha's memories of her father are closely related to playing a Counties of England jigsaw puzzle with him. The second part, \"England, England\", is set in the near future in what is clearly marked as a postmodern age. Martha is now in her forties and gets employed by the entrepreneur Sir Jack Pitman for his megalomaniac project. Sir Jack aims to turn the Isle of Wight into a gigantic theme park which contains everything that people, especially tourists, consider to be quintessentially English, selected according to what Sir Jack himself approves of. The theme park called 'England, England' thus becomes a replica of England's best known historical buildings, figures and sites. Popular English tourist attractions and icons of 'Englishness' are crammed together to be easily accessible without having to travel whole 'real' England. While working on the set-up of the project, Martha starts an affair with one of her colleagues, Paul Harrison. They find out about Sir Jack's questionable sexual preferences and blackmail him with the discriminating evidence when Sir Jack wants to dismiss Martha. She thus becomes CEO of the Island project, which turns out to be a highly popular tourist attraction. As a consequence of the huge success, 'England, England' becomes an independent state and part of the European Union, while the real, 'Old England' suffers a severe decline and increasingly falls into oblivion. After a major scandal in the theme park, however, Martha is eventually expelled from the island. The third part of the novel, \"Anglia\", is set decades later and depicts Martha who has returned to a village in Old England after many years of wandering abroad. The original nation has regressed into"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the huge success, 'England, England' becomes an independent state and part of the European Union, while the real, 'Old England' suffers a severe decline and increasingly falls into oblivion. After a major scandal in the theme park, however, Martha is eventually expelled from the island. The third part of the novel, \"Anglia\", is set decades later and depicts Martha who has returned to a village in Old England after many years of wandering abroad. The original nation has regressed into a vastly de-populated, agrarian and pre-industrial state without any international political influence, while 'England, England' continues to prosper. The chapter describes the villagers' endeavour to re-establish a traditional village f\u00eate with the help of Martha's memories. Martha ultimately spends her final days in this rural setting pondering about her past.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dune",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1965",
    "synopsis": " Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV of House Corrino has come to fear House Atreides due to the growing popularity of Duke Leto Atreides within the Landsraad, the convocation of ruling Houses. Shaddam decides that House Atreides must be destroyed, but cannot risk an overt attack on a single House, as this would not be accepted by the Landsraad and could be met with civil war. The Emperor instead uses the centuries-old feud between House Atreides and House Harkonnen to disguise his assault, enlisting the brilliant and power-hungry Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in his plan to trap and eliminate the Atreides. To remove them from their fief of Caladan, where they are protected by their elite navy, Shaddam entices Leto to accept the lucrative fief of the \"spice planet\", Arrakis, previously controlled by the Harkonnens. Leto's control of the only planet capable of spice production would increase the power of House Atreides, which has not, historically, been influential or wealthy. Complicating the political intrigue is the fact that the Duke's son Paul Atreides is an essential part of the Bene Gesserit's secret, centuries-old breeding program. Leto's concubine, the Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica, was ordered to give birth to a daughter. Capable of determining her child's sex due to her Bene Gesserit abilities, she instead bears a boy, to provide an heir for Leto. Leto correctly believes his rivals and enemies to be plotting against him, and the Atreides are able to thwart initial Harkonnen traps and complications while simultaneously building trust with the mysterious desert Fremen, with whom they hope to ally. However, the Atreides are ultimately unable to withstand a devastating Harkonnen attack, supported by House Corrino's elite Corps of Sardaukar, disguised as Harkonnen troops. The attack is assisted by a traitor within House Atreides Suk doctor Wellington Yueh, who is not suspected of disloyalty due to conditioning he underwent to complete his medical training. House Atreides' forces are unable to counterattack effectively and the House is scattered, with Leto taken captive by Yueh and delivered to the Harkonnens. Of the Houses' principal retainers, mentat Thufir Hawat is captured by the Sardaukar; the troubador-soldier Gurney Halleck escapes with the aid of smugglers, whom he joins; and military commander Duncan Idaho is killed defending Paul and Jessica. Yueh, who has only betrayed the Atreides to further a personal feud with Baron Harkonnen, plants a poison tooth in Leto's mouth, which he hopes will kill the Baron when bitten. Yueh is executed by the Baron, who distrusts him, but Leto manages to kill the Baron's chief retainer, mentat Piter De Vries, when he is brought before Harkonnen. The Baron evades the poison cloud expelled from the tooth, surviving the attack and enlisting Atreides mentat Thufir Hawat into his service. Jessica's Bene Gesserit abilities and Paul's developing skills, which have been taught to him by his mother, help them join a band of Fremen. Paul and his mother quickly learn Fremen ways while teaching the Fremen the weirding way, a Bene Gesserit method of fighting. Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother, ingesting the poisonous Water of Life while pregnant with her second child; this unborn daughter Alia is subjected to the same ordeal, acquiring the full abilities of a Reverend Mother before even being born. Paul takes a Fremen lover, Chani, with whom he fathers a son. Years pass, and Paul increasingly recognizes the strength of the Fremen fighting force and their potential to overtake even the \"unstoppable\" Sardaukar and win back Arrakis. The spice diet of the Fremen and his own developing mental powers cause Paul's prescience to be increase dramatically, allowing his forsight of future \"paths\" of possible events, and he is regarded by the Fremen as their prophesied messiah. As Paul grows in influence, he begins a jihad against Harkonnen rule of the planet under his new Fremen name, Muad'Dib. However, Paul becomes aware through his prescience that, if he is not careful, the Fremen will extend that jihad against all the known universe, which Paul describes as a humanity-spanning subconscious effort to avoid genetic stagnation. Both the Emperor and the Baron Harkonnen show increasing concern at the fervor of religious fanaticism shown on Arrakis for this \"Muad'Dib\", not guessing that this leader is the presumed-dead Paul. Harkonnen plots to send his nephew and heir Feyd Rautha as a replacement for his more brutish nephew Glossu Rabban \u2014 who is in charge of the planet \u2014 with the hope of gaining the respect of the population. However, the Emperor is highly suspicious of the Baron and sends spies to watch his movements. Hawat explains the Emperor's suspicions: the Sardaukar, nearly invincible in battle, are trained on the prison planet Salusa Secundus, whose inhospitable conditions allow only the best to survive. Arrakis serves as a similar crucible, and the Emperor fears that the Baron could recruit from it a fighting force to rival his Sardaukar, just as House Atreides had intended before its destruction. Paul is reunited with Gurney. Completely loyal to the Atreides, Gurney is convinced that Jessica is the traitor who caused the House's downfall, and nearly kills her before being stopped by Paul. Disturbed that his prescience had not predicted this possibility, Paul decides to take the Water of Life, an act which will either confirm his status as the Kwisatz Haderach or kill him. After three weeks in a near-death state, Paul emerges with his powers refined and focused; he is able to see past, present, and future at will. Looking into space, he sees that the Emperor and the Harkonnens have amassed a huge armada to invade the planet and regain control. Paul also realizes the way to control spice production on Arrakis: saturating spice fields with the water of life would cause a chain reaction that would destroy all spice on the planet. In an Imperial attack on a Fremen settlement, Paul and Chani's son Leto is killed, and the four-year-old Alia is captured by Sardaukar and brought to the planet's capital Arrakeen, where the Baron Harkonnen is attempting to thwart the Fremen jihad under the close watch of the Emperor. The Emperor is surprised at Alia's defiance of his power and her confidence in her brother, whom she reveals to be Paul Atreides. At that moment, under cover of a gigantic sandstorm, Paul and his army of Fremen attack the city riding sandworms; Alia kills the Baron during the confusion. Paul quickly overtakes the city's defenses and confronts the Emperor, threatening to destroy the spice, thereby ending space travel and crippling both Imperial power and the Bene Gesserit in one blow. Feyd-Rautha challenges Paul to a knife-duel in a final attempt to stop his overthrow, but is defeated despite an attempt at treachery. Realizing that Paul is capable of doing all he has threatened, the Emperor is forced to abdicate and to promise his daughter Princess Irulan in marriage to Paul. Chani is not happy with this decision, and Paul describes that Chani will always be the one he loves. Paul ascends the throne, his control of Arrakis and the spice establishing a new kind of power over the Empire that will change the face of the known universe. However, despite being Emperor of the Known Universe, Paul realizes that he will not be able to stop the jihad he has seen in his visions, his legendary status among the Fremen having grown past the point where he can control it.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV of House Corrino has come to fear House Atreides due to the growing popularity of Duke Leto Atreides within the Landsraad, the convocation of ruling Houses. Shaddam decides that House Atreides must be destroyed, but cannot risk an overt attack on a single House, as this would not be accepted by the Landsraad and could be met with civil war. The Emperor instead uses the centuries-old feud between House Atreides and House Harkonnen to disguise his assault, enlisting the brilliant and power-hungry Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in his plan to trap and eliminate the Atreides. To remove them from their fief of Caladan, where they are protected by their elite navy, Shaddam entices Leto to accept the lucrative fief of the \"spice planet\", Arrakis, previously controlled by the Harkonnens. Leto's control of the only planet capable of spice production would increase the power of House Atreides, which has not, historically, been influential or wealthy. Complicating the political intrigue is the fact that the Duke's son Paul Atreides is an essential part of the Bene Gesserit's secret, centuries-old breeding program. Leto's concubine, the Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica, was ordered to give birth to a daughter. Capable of determining her child's sex due to her Bene Gesserit abilities, she instead bears a boy, to provide an heir for Leto. Leto correctly believes his rivals and enemies to be plotting against him, and the Atreides are able to thwart initial Harkonnen traps and complications while simultaneously building trust with the mysterious desert Fremen, with whom they hope to ally. However, the Atreides are ultimately unable to withstand a devastating Harkonnen attack, supported by House Corrino's elite Corps of"
      },
      {
        "text": " her Bene Gesserit abilities, she instead bears a boy, to provide an heir for Leto. Leto correctly believes his rivals and enemies to be plotting against him, and the Atreides are able to thwart initial Harkonnen traps and complications while simultaneously building trust with the mysterious desert Fremen, with whom they hope to ally. However, the Atreides are ultimately unable to withstand a devastating Harkonnen attack, supported by House Corrino's elite Corps of Sardaukar, disguised as Harkonnen troops. The attack is assisted by a traitor within House Atreides Suk doctor Wellington Yueh, who is not suspected of disloyalty due to conditioning he underwent to complete his medical training. House Atreides' forces are unable to counterattack effectively and the House is scattered, with Leto taken captive by Yueh and delivered to the Harkonnens. Of the Houses' principal retainers, mentat Thufir Hawat is captured by the Sardaukar; the troubador-soldier Gurney Halleck escapes with the aid of smugglers, whom he joins; and military commander Duncan Idaho is killed defending Paul and Jessica. Yueh, who has only betrayed the Atreides to further a personal feud with Baron Harkonnen, plants a poison tooth in Leto's mouth, which he hopes will kill the Baron when bitten. Yueh is executed by the Baron, who distrusts him, but Leto manages to kill the Baron's chief retainer, mentat Piter De Vries, when he is brought before Harkonnen. The Baron evades the poison cloud expelled from the tooth, surviving the attack and enlisting Atreides mentat Thufir Hawat into his service. Jessica's Bene Gesserit abilities and Paul's developing skills, which have been taught to him by his mother, help them join a band of Fremen. Paul and his mother"
      },
      {
        "text": " but Leto manages to kill the Baron's chief retainer, mentat Piter De Vries, when he is brought before Harkonnen. The Baron evades the poison cloud expelled from the tooth, surviving the attack and enlisting Atreides mentat Thufir Hawat into his service. Jessica's Bene Gesserit abilities and Paul's developing skills, which have been taught to him by his mother, help them join a band of Fremen. Paul and his mother quickly learn Fremen ways while teaching the Fremen the weirding way, a Bene Gesserit method of fighting. Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother, ingesting the poisonous Water of Life while pregnant with her second child; this unborn daughter Alia is subjected to the same ordeal, acquiring the full abilities of a Reverend Mother before even being born. Paul takes a Fremen lover, Chani, with whom he fathers a son. Years pass, and Paul increasingly recognizes the strength of the Fremen fighting force and their potential to overtake even the \"unstoppable\" Sardaukar and win back Arrakis. The spice diet of the Fremen and his own developing mental powers cause Paul's prescience to be increase dramatically, allowing his forsight of future \"paths\" of possible events, and he is regarded by the Fremen as their prophesied messiah. As Paul grows in influence, he begins a jihad against Harkonnen rule of the planet under his new Fremen name, Muad'Dib. However, Paul becomes aware through his prescience that, if he is not careful, the Fremen will extend that jihad against all the known universe, which Paul describes as a humanity-spanning subconscious effort to avoid genetic stagnation. Both the Emperor and the Baron Harkonnen show increasing concern at the fervor of religious fanaticism shown on Arrakis for this \"Muad'Dib\", not guessing that this leader is the presumed-dead Paul"
      },
      {
        "text": " name, Muad'Dib. However, Paul becomes aware through his prescience that, if he is not careful, the Fremen will extend that jihad against all the known universe, which Paul describes as a humanity-spanning subconscious effort to avoid genetic stagnation. Both the Emperor and the Baron Harkonnen show increasing concern at the fervor of religious fanaticism shown on Arrakis for this \"Muad'Dib\", not guessing that this leader is the presumed-dead Paul. Harkonnen plots to send his nephew and heir Feyd Rautha as a replacement for his more brutish nephew Glossu Rabban \u2014 who is in charge of the planet \u2014 with the hope of gaining the respect of the population. However, the Emperor is highly suspicious of the Baron and sends spies to watch his movements. Hawat explains the Emperor's suspicions: the Sardaukar, nearly invincible in battle, are trained on the prison planet Salusa Secundus, whose inhospitable conditions allow only the best to survive. Arrakis serves as a similar crucible, and the Emperor fears that the Baron could recruit from it a fighting force to rival his Sardaukar, just as House Atreides had intended before its destruction. Paul is reunited with Gurney. Completely loyal to the Atreides, Gurney is convinced that Jessica is the traitor who caused the House's downfall, and nearly kills her before being stopped by Paul. Disturbed that his prescience had not predicted this possibility, Paul decides to take the Water of Life, an act which will either confirm his status as the Kwisatz Haderach or kill him. After three weeks in a near-death state, Paul emerges with his powers refined and focused; he is able to see past, present, and future at will. Looking into space, he sees that the Emperor and the Harkonnens have amassed a huge armada to invade the planet and regain control"
      },
      {
        "text": " his prescience had not predicted this possibility, Paul decides to take the Water of Life, an act which will either confirm his status as the Kwisatz Haderach or kill him. After three weeks in a near-death state, Paul emerges with his powers refined and focused; he is able to see past, present, and future at will. Looking into space, he sees that the Emperor and the Harkonnens have amassed a huge armada to invade the planet and regain control. Paul also realizes the way to control spice production on Arrakis: saturating spice fields with the water of life would cause a chain reaction that would destroy all spice on the planet. In an Imperial attack on a Fremen settlement, Paul and Chani's son Leto is killed, and the four-year-old Alia is captured by Sardaukar and brought to the planet's capital Arrakeen, where the Baron Harkonnen is attempting to thwart the Fremen jihad under the close watch of the Emperor. The Emperor is surprised at Alia's defiance of his power and her confidence in her brother, whom she reveals to be Paul Atreides. At that moment, under cover of a gigantic sandstorm, Paul and his army of Fremen attack the city riding sandworms; Alia kills the Baron during the confusion. Paul quickly overtakes the city's defenses and confronts the Emperor, threatening to destroy the spice, thereby ending space travel and crippling both Imperial power and the Bene Gesserit in one blow. Feyd-Rautha challenges Paul to a knife-duel in a final attempt to stop his overthrow, but is defeated despite an attempt at treachery. Realizing that Paul is capable of doing all he has threatened, the Emperor is forced to abdicate and to promise his daughter Princess Irulan in marriage to Paul. Chani is not happy with this decision, and Paul describes that Chani will always be the one he"
      },
      {
        "text": " and the Bene Gesserit in one blow. Feyd-Rautha challenges Paul to a knife-duel in a final attempt to stop his overthrow, but is defeated despite an attempt at treachery. Realizing that Paul is capable of doing all he has threatened, the Emperor is forced to abdicate and to promise his daughter Princess Irulan in marriage to Paul. Chani is not happy with this decision, and Paul describes that Chani will always be the one he loves. Paul ascends the throne, his control of Arrakis and the spice establishing a new kind of power over the Empire that will change the face of the known universe. However, despite being Emperor of the Known Universe, Paul realizes that he will not be able to stop the jihad he has seen in his visions, his legendary status among the Fremen having grown past the point where he can control it.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Feersum Endjinn",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1994",
    "synopsis": " The book is set on a far future Earth where the uploading of mindstates into a world-spanning computer network (known as \"the data corpus\", \"cryptosphere\" or simply \"crypt\") is commonplace, allowing the dead to be easily reincarnated (though by custom, only a limited number of reincarnations are allowed). Humanity has lost much of its technological background, due partly to an exodus by much of the species, and partly to the fact that those who remained (or at least their rulers) are fighting against more advanced technology such as Artificial Intelligence. Meanwhile, the solar system is drifting into an interstellar molecular cloud (\"the Encroachment\"), which will eventually dim the Sun's light sufficiently to end life on Earth. The Diaspora (the long-departed segment of humanity) have left behind a device (the \"Fearsome Engine\" of the title) to deal with the problem; the book follows four characters who become involved in the attempt to activate it, with the narrative moving between the four (who do not meet until very near the end) in rotation. A quarter of the book is told by Bascule the Teller and is written phonetically in the first person. This is explained by Bascule's dyslexia. The fourth chapter of the book's Part One opens with:\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is set on a far future Earth where the uploading of mindstates into a world-spanning computer network (known as \"the data corpus\", \"cryptosphere\" or simply \"crypt\") is commonplace, allowing the dead to be easily reincarnated (though by custom, only a limited number of reincarnations are allowed). Humanity has lost much of its technological background, due partly to an exodus by much of the species, and partly to the fact that those who remained (or at least their rulers) are fighting against more advanced technology such as Artificial Intelligence. Meanwhile, the solar system is drifting into an interstellar molecular cloud (\"the Encroachment\"), which will eventually dim the Sun's light sufficiently to end life on Earth. The Diaspora (the long-departed segment of humanity) have left behind a device (the \"Fearsome Engine\" of the title) to deal with the problem; the book follows four characters who become involved in the attempt to activate it, with the narrative moving between the four (who do not meet until very near the end) in rotation. A quarter of the book is told by Bascule the Teller and is written phonetically in the first person. This is explained by Bascule's dyslexia. The fourth chapter of the book's Part One opens with:\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Against a Dark Background",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1993",
    "synopsis": " Seven of the original eight Lazy Guns were destroyed before the events of Against a Dark Background. One disappeared with its user when he tried to fire it at the local sun, one suffered a lucky strike during an air raid, two self destructed when investigators tried to take them apart and another was destroyed by an assassin. A sixth was destroyed when investigators fired it with its lenses looking through an electron microscope. The seventh, found before the events of the book by the Lady Sharrow and her team, was destroyed by the university it was sold to when they tampered with it. The resulting explosion devastated the city the university was located in. The hunt for the eighth and final Lazy Gun is the main plot theme of Against a Dark Background. Much of the novel concerns Sharrow's adventures in searching for and acquiring it. Her motivation is that the Huhsz religious cult regard it as a sacred object, and that if she can find it and give it to them, their vendetta against her will lapse. Sharrow encounters various political systems on her travels across Golter. She also meets the Solipsists, a gang of pirate mercenaries on a hovercraft, who hold very unusual philosophical beliefs. When the last Lazy Gun is eventually discovered, it is guarded by an elaborate defense system incorporating a genetic key which Sharrow has to deactivate.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Seven of the original eight Lazy Guns were destroyed before the events of Against a Dark Background. One disappeared with its user when he tried to fire it at the local sun, one suffered a lucky strike during an air raid, two self destructed when investigators tried to take them apart and another was destroyed by an assassin. A sixth was destroyed when investigators fired it with its lenses looking through an electron microscope. The seventh, found before the events of the book by the Lady Sharrow and her team, was destroyed by the university it was sold to when they tampered with it. The resulting explosion devastated the city the university was located in. The hunt for the eighth and final Lazy Gun is the main plot theme of Against a Dark Background. Much of the novel concerns Sharrow's adventures in searching for and acquiring it. Her motivation is that the Huhsz religious cult regard it as a sacred object, and that if she can find it and give it to them, their vendetta against her will lapse. Sharrow encounters various political systems on her travels across Golter. She also meets the Solipsists, a gang of pirate mercenaries on a hovercraft, who hold very unusual philosophical beliefs. When the last Lazy Gun is eventually discovered, it is guarded by an elaborate defense system incorporating a genetic key which Sharrow has to deactivate.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Just Like That",
    "author": "Lily Brett",
    "published_date": "1994",
    "synopsis": " Edek Zepler is a Holocaust survivor who was born Edek Zeleznikow in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a, Poland in 1915, where his father owned several apartment blocks. He got married in the \u0141\u00f3d\u017a ghetto to Rooshka but had to marry her again after the war in a DP camp in Germany. That is where their daughter, Esther, was born in 1950. In 1951 the family emigrated to Melbourne, Australia. When the novel opens, Edek Zepler is an old man of 76 who certainly enjoys good food, a man living alone with his dog in the old house in Melbourne, feeling rather alone\u2014in spite of an active Jewish community in his neighbourhood\u2014and without any life in him since his wife's death in 1986 (\"The saddest thing did already happen to me. My wife died. Nothing can be sad after that.\"). He regularly phones his family, who have moved to Manhattan. The only close relative still in Melbourne is his grandson, Zachary, who studies medicine there. His life takes a decisive turn when, on a visit to New York, he meets Josl and Henia Borenstein again, a couple he last saw in the German DP camp. Now that Josl Borenstein has died of cancer, Edek and Henia gradually feel more and more attracted to each other. In spite of several (alleged) proposals of marriage from millionaires, Henia, herself a rich widow, wants to spend the rest of her life with Edek and invites him to stay with her at her Florida home. Eventually, Edek packs up all his things, sells his house and moves to the U.S.A. He is cordially taken up by Henia's friends, who belong to several associations (for example the Zionist Federation). Although mostly agnostic, he even pays an occasional visit to the synagogue. The problem he has to face towards the end of the novel would be considered rather severe by the average person, but Edek Zepler just laughs it off: Henia's two sons want him to sign a pre-nuptial agreement so that he would not inherit anything if Henia died first (and so that he would not be able to bequeath the Borenstein fortune to Esther and his grandchildren). Such an agreement, Esther and her husband Sean warn him, might mean that he could be left even without a place to stay after her death. But Edek Zepler does not mind (\"In that case, I'll come and live with you.\"). He signs everything and is married to Henia. Esther Zepler is the only child of Edek and Rooshka Zepler. She was born in a German DP camp in 1950. In 1951 her parents decided to emigrate to Australia, where she spent most of her life. In 1968, aged 18, she became a rock journalist - just like Lily Brett herself - and in this capacity also visited New York. As a young woman, she married a gentile and had a son, Zachary, now 21, and a daughter, Zelda, now 16, by him. However, her first marriage was characterized by a \"lack of lust\", and when she met Sean Ward, a painter and yet another gentile, she left her husband for him. Nobody would guess that Sean, Esther, Zachary, Zelda and Kate - Sean's 19 year-old daughter by his first wife, who died of cancer - are a patchwork family. For one thing, Sean looks Jewish although he is not; for another, they all understand each other well and there is a certain feeling of belonging amongst them. When the novel opens they have just moved to New York City, and Esther starts working as a writer of obituaries. Although on the surface level Esther's life seems to be in perfect order - she has got a good job, she is happily married, her children are well-behaved, they all are quite wealthy, they do not suffer from any illnesses - Esther is constantly suffering in some way or other. She has always seen herself as \"a person with so much to sort out\", and this is why she has been in analysis for a quite a number of years. She spends a fortune on it and even has to sell her mother's diamond ring. At one point in the novel, she learns the difference between compulsive and obsessive behaviour (compulsive behaviour is to do with action, obsessive behaviour with thoughts) and promptly thinks she herself shows both types of behaviour. She suffers from agoraphobia as well as claustrophobia. When she was 15, back home in Australia, her father let her drive his car in public until they were stopped by the police. Now, as an adult, she is afraid to drive, and considers herself lucky that you do not really need a car in New York City. She is neurotic, a woman with \"excessive anxieties and indecisions\", and likely to panic when having to face things. She is all for drugs: beta blocker, Valium, Mylanta, and other pills. On the other hand, Esther neither smokes nor drinks. Generally, although she likes, and is able to enjoy, sex, she is very reluctant to talk about it, especially in public. But all around her, people keep talking freely about sex in general and also about their own sex lives, whereas Esther does not even want to imagine her father sleeping with Henia Borenstein, and is slightly embarrassed when she sees them holding hands under the table. Esther often feels \"fouled by her parents\u00b4 past\". She is haunted by her dead mother. She is preoccupied with the Holocaust and owns more than 400 books on the subject. Her thoughts about the lives of Jews during the Third Reich are again and again woven into the novel. She ponders about medical experiments conducted by Nazi physicians; about the gas chambers in the death camps, implicitly comparing a crowded New York subway with a cattle wagon to Auschwitz; the Nazis making soap with human fat; Pope Pius XII and Roman Catholicism; displaced Jews after World War II; anti-Semitism in general; Neo-Nazis in Germany and Austria; the world population of Jews in 1939 and today and the fact that there were \"no Jews left\" in Poland after World War II; business in the DP camps (i.e. bartering with cigarettes), coffee but also Nazi memorabilia; and she considers with disgust a video game on CD-ROM entitled \"How to Survive the Holocaust\". She is also preoccupied with death and dying on a more general level. For example, she reads a book on suicide, which she finds invigorating rather than depressing. Fear of death seems to be her constant companion; she continuously sees death as a danger and a menace. Esther also seems to have inherited her mother's \"guilt at having survived\". At one point in the novel, she speaks of a Jewish \"weariness gene\". But Esther is also critical of the other Jews she meets in America. There is Sonia Kaufman, who considers Esther as her best friend. Sonia is a lawyer working for the same law firm as her Jewish husband Michael. As opposed to Esther, Sonia has had affairs throughout her married life. Her current lover used a broken condom while they were making love, and now Sonia is pregnant for the first time in her life. As it turns out soon, she is expecting twins. The real problem now is that she cannot possibly say who the father is. Sonia hopes that they will look like her husband, who is looking forward to the birth of his children and has no idea that his wife has had sex with another man. The problem is solved in rather a humorous, light-hearted way at the end of the novel: The twins - two girls - look like her mother. The Kaufmans will be able to afford two nannies, so they will not have any problems combining their careers and their family life. Then there are Joseph and Laraine Reiser. The Reisers are \"arseholes\". They are filthy rich Jews who live the life of the super-rich in a very pronounced way, never mingling with ordinary people, on whom they seem to look down. Joseph Reiser is an entrepreneur \"doing business with Germany\" -- in itself a suspicious activity\u2014and a would be-patron of the arts: Time and again he talks to Sean Ward about coming to his studio, implying that he might want to buy one of his paintings, but he never seems to get round to doing so. Sean and Esther meet them twice: first, at one of their big parties, and later when they are invited to their Long Island beach house. Esther feels guilty when one of the Reisers\u00b4 cars (a stretch Mercedes limo with a fax machine) comes to pick them up.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Edek Zepler is a Holocaust survivor who was born Edek Zeleznikow in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a, Poland in 1915, where his father owned several apartment blocks. He got married in the \u0141\u00f3d\u017a ghetto to Rooshka but had to marry her again after the war in a DP camp in Germany. That is where their daughter, Esther, was born in 1950. In 1951 the family emigrated to Melbourne, Australia. When the novel opens, Edek Zepler is an old man of 76 who certainly enjoys good food, a man living alone with his dog in the old house in Melbourne, feeling rather alone\u2014in spite of an active Jewish community in his neighbourhood\u2014and without any life in him since his wife's death in 1986 (\"The saddest thing did already happen to me. My wife died. Nothing can be sad after that.\"). He regularly phones his family, who have moved to Manhattan. The only close relative still in Melbourne is his grandson, Zachary, who studies medicine there. His life takes a decisive turn when, on a visit to New York, he meets Josl and Henia Borenstein again, a couple he last saw in the German DP camp. Now that Josl Borenstein has died of cancer, Edek and Henia gradually feel more and more attracted to each other. In spite of several (alleged) proposals of marriage from millionaires, Henia, herself a rich widow, wants to spend the rest of her life with Edek and invites him to stay with her at her Florida home. Eventually, Edek packs up all his things, sells his house and moves to the U.S.A. He is cordially taken up by Henia's friends, who belong to several associations (for example the Zionist Federation). Although mostly agnostic, he even pays an occasional visit to the synagogue. The problem he has to face towards the end of the novel would be considered rather severe"
      },
      {
        "text": " spend the rest of her life with Edek and invites him to stay with her at her Florida home. Eventually, Edek packs up all his things, sells his house and moves to the U.S.A. He is cordially taken up by Henia's friends, who belong to several associations (for example the Zionist Federation). Although mostly agnostic, he even pays an occasional visit to the synagogue. The problem he has to face towards the end of the novel would be considered rather severe by the average person, but Edek Zepler just laughs it off: Henia's two sons want him to sign a pre-nuptial agreement so that he would not inherit anything if Henia died first (and so that he would not be able to bequeath the Borenstein fortune to Esther and his grandchildren). Such an agreement, Esther and her husband Sean warn him, might mean that he could be left even without a place to stay after her death. But Edek Zepler does not mind (\"In that case, I'll come and live with you.\"). He signs everything and is married to Henia. Esther Zepler is the only child of Edek and Rooshka Zepler. She was born in a German DP camp in 1950. In 1951 her parents decided to emigrate to Australia, where she spent most of her life. In 1968, aged 18, she became a rock journalist - just like Lily Brett herself - and in this capacity also visited New York. As a young woman, she married a gentile and had a son, Zachary, now 21, and a daughter, Zelda, now 16, by him. However, her first marriage was characterized by a \"lack of lust\", and when she met Sean Ward, a painter and yet another gentile, she left her husband for him. Nobody would guess that Sean, Esther, Zachary, Zelda and Kate - Sean's 19 year-old daughter by his first wife, who"
      },
      {
        "text": " York. As a young woman, she married a gentile and had a son, Zachary, now 21, and a daughter, Zelda, now 16, by him. However, her first marriage was characterized by a \"lack of lust\", and when she met Sean Ward, a painter and yet another gentile, she left her husband for him. Nobody would guess that Sean, Esther, Zachary, Zelda and Kate - Sean's 19 year-old daughter by his first wife, who died of cancer - are a patchwork family. For one thing, Sean looks Jewish although he is not; for another, they all understand each other well and there is a certain feeling of belonging amongst them. When the novel opens they have just moved to New York City, and Esther starts working as a writer of obituaries. Although on the surface level Esther's life seems to be in perfect order - she has got a good job, she is happily married, her children are well-behaved, they all are quite wealthy, they do not suffer from any illnesses - Esther is constantly suffering in some way or other. She has always seen herself as \"a person with so much to sort out\", and this is why she has been in analysis for a quite a number of years. She spends a fortune on it and even has to sell her mother's diamond ring. At one point in the novel, she learns the difference between compulsive and obsessive behaviour (compulsive behaviour is to do with action, obsessive behaviour with thoughts) and promptly thinks she herself shows both types of behaviour. She suffers from agoraphobia as well as claustrophobia. When she was 15, back home in Australia, her father let her drive his car in public until they were stopped by the police. Now, as an adult, she is afraid to drive, and considers herself lucky that you do not really need a car in New York City. She is neurotic, a woman with \"ex"
      },
      {
        "text": " with action, obsessive behaviour with thoughts) and promptly thinks she herself shows both types of behaviour. She suffers from agoraphobia as well as claustrophobia. When she was 15, back home in Australia, her father let her drive his car in public until they were stopped by the police. Now, as an adult, she is afraid to drive, and considers herself lucky that you do not really need a car in New York City. She is neurotic, a woman with \"excessive anxieties and indecisions\", and likely to panic when having to face things. She is all for drugs: beta blocker, Valium, Mylanta, and other pills. On the other hand, Esther neither smokes nor drinks. Generally, although she likes, and is able to enjoy, sex, she is very reluctant to talk about it, especially in public. But all around her, people keep talking freely about sex in general and also about their own sex lives, whereas Esther does not even want to imagine her father sleeping with Henia Borenstein, and is slightly embarrassed when she sees them holding hands under the table. Esther often feels \"fouled by her parents\u00b4 past\". She is haunted by her dead mother. She is preoccupied with the Holocaust and owns more than 400 books on the subject. Her thoughts about the lives of Jews during the Third Reich are again and again woven into the novel. She ponders about medical experiments conducted by Nazi physicians; about the gas chambers in the death camps, implicitly comparing a crowded New York subway with a cattle wagon to Auschwitz; the Nazis making soap with human fat; Pope Pius XII and Roman Catholicism; displaced Jews after World War II; anti-Semitism in general; Neo-Nazis in Germany and Austria; the world population of Jews in 1939 and today and the fact that there were \"no Jews left\" in Poland after World War II; business in the DP camps (i.e. bartering with cigarettes), coffee"
      },
      {
        "text": " chambers in the death camps, implicitly comparing a crowded New York subway with a cattle wagon to Auschwitz; the Nazis making soap with human fat; Pope Pius XII and Roman Catholicism; displaced Jews after World War II; anti-Semitism in general; Neo-Nazis in Germany and Austria; the world population of Jews in 1939 and today and the fact that there were \"no Jews left\" in Poland after World War II; business in the DP camps (i.e. bartering with cigarettes), coffee but also Nazi memorabilia; and she considers with disgust a video game on CD-ROM entitled \"How to Survive the Holocaust\". She is also preoccupied with death and dying on a more general level. For example, she reads a book on suicide, which she finds invigorating rather than depressing. Fear of death seems to be her constant companion; she continuously sees death as a danger and a menace. Esther also seems to have inherited her mother's \"guilt at having survived\". At one point in the novel, she speaks of a Jewish \"weariness gene\". But Esther is also critical of the other Jews she meets in America. There is Sonia Kaufman, who considers Esther as her best friend. Sonia is a lawyer working for the same law firm as her Jewish husband Michael. As opposed to Esther, Sonia has had affairs throughout her married life. Her current lover used a broken condom while they were making love, and now Sonia is pregnant for the first time in her life. As it turns out soon, she is expecting twins. The real problem now is that she cannot possibly say who the father is. Sonia hopes that they will look like her husband, who is looking forward to the birth of his children and has no idea that his wife has had sex with another man. The problem is solved in rather a humorous, light-hearted way at the end of the novel: The twins - two girls - look like her mother. The Kaufmans will be able to afford two n"
      },
      {
        "text": " turns out soon, she is expecting twins. The real problem now is that she cannot possibly say who the father is. Sonia hopes that they will look like her husband, who is looking forward to the birth of his children and has no idea that his wife has had sex with another man. The problem is solved in rather a humorous, light-hearted way at the end of the novel: The twins - two girls - look like her mother. The Kaufmans will be able to afford two nannies, so they will not have any problems combining their careers and their family life. Then there are Joseph and Laraine Reiser. The Reisers are \"arseholes\". They are filthy rich Jews who live the life of the super-rich in a very pronounced way, never mingling with ordinary people, on whom they seem to look down. Joseph Reiser is an entrepreneur \"doing business with Germany\" -- in itself a suspicious activity\u2014and a would be-patron of the arts: Time and again he talks to Sean Ward about coming to his studio, implying that he might want to buy one of his paintings, but he never seems to get round to doing so. Sean and Esther meet them twice: first, at one of their big parties, and later when they are invited to their Long Island beach house. Esther feels guilty when one of the Reisers\u00b4 cars (a stretch Mercedes limo with a fax machine) comes to pick them up.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man",
    "author": "Siegfried Sassoon",
    "published_date": "1928",
    "synopsis": " The story is a series of episodes in the youth of George Sherston, ranging from his first attempts to learn to ride to his experiences in winning point-to-point races. The title is somewhat misleading, as the book is mainly concerned with a series of landmark events in Sherson/Sassoon's childhood and youth, and his encounters with various comic characters. \"The Flower-Show Match,\" an account of an annual village cricket match - an important fixture for those involved - in which young Sherston plays a significant part, was later published separately by Faber as a self-contained story. The book as a whole is a frequently humorous work, in which fox-hunting, one of Sassoon's major interests, comes to represent the young man's innocent frame of mind in the years before war broke out. The book ends with his enlistment in a local regiment. The story is continued in two sequels: Memoirs of an Infantry Officer and Sherston's Progress.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is a series of episodes in the youth of George Sherston, ranging from his first attempts to learn to ride to his experiences in winning point-to-point races. The title is somewhat misleading, as the book is mainly concerned with a series of landmark events in Sherson/Sassoon's childhood and youth, and his encounters with various comic characters. \"The Flower-Show Match,\" an account of an annual village cricket match - an important fixture for those involved - in which young Sherston plays a significant part, was later published separately by Faber as a self-contained story. The book as a whole is a frequently humorous work, in which fox-hunting, one of Sassoon's major interests, comes to represent the young man's innocent frame of mind in the years before war broke out. The book ends with his enlistment in a local regiment. The story is continued in two sequels: Memoirs of an Infantry Officer and Sherston's Progress.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Uncle Tom's Cabin",
    "author": "Harriet Beecher Stowe",
    "published_date": "1852-03-20",
    "synopsis": " The book opens with a Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby facing the loss of his farm because of debts. Even though he and his wife Emily Shelby believe that they have a benevolent relationship with their slaves, Shelby decides to raise the needed funds by selling two of them\u2014Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and children, and Harry, the son of Emily Shelby\u2019s maid Eliza\u2014to a slave trader. Emily Shelby is averse to this idea because she had promised her maid that her child would never be sold; Emily's son, George Shelby, hates to see Tom go because he sees the man as his friend and mentor. When Eliza overhears Mr. and Mrs. Shelby discussing plans to sell Tom and Harry, Eliza determines to run away with her son. The novel states that Eliza made this decision because she fears losing her only surviving child (she had already miscarried two children). Eliza departs that night, leaving a note of apology to her mistress. Tom is sold and placed on a riverboat which sets sail down the Mississippi River. While on board, Tom meets and befriends a young white girl named Eva. Eva's father Augustine St. Clare buys Tom from the slave trader and takes him with the family to their home in New Orleans. Tom and Eva begin to relate to one another because of the deep Christian faith they both share. During Eliza's escape, she meets up with her husband George Harris, who had run away previously. They decide to attempt to reach Canada. However, they are tracked by a slave hunter named Tom Loker. Eventually Loker and his men trap Eliza and her family, causing George to push Loker down a cliff. Worried that Loker may die, Eliza convinces George to bring the slave hunter to a nearby Quaker settlement for medical treatment. Back in New Orleans, St. Clare debates slavery with his Northern cousin Ophelia who, while opposing slavery, is prejudiced against black people. St. Clare, however, believes he is not biased, even though he is a slave owner. In an attempt to show Ophelia that her views on blacks are wrong, St. Clare purchases Topsy, a young black slave. St. Clare then asks Ophelia to educate her. After Tom has lived with the St. Clares for two years, Eva grows very ill. Before she dies she experiences a vision of heaven, which she shares with the people around her. As a result of her death and vision, the other characters resolve to change their lives, with Ophelia promising to throw off her personal prejudices against blacks, Topsy saying she will better herself, and St. Clare pledging to free Tom. Before St. Clare can follow through on his pledge, however, he dies after being stabbed outside of a tavern. His wife reneges on her late husband's vow and sells Tom at auction to a vicious plantation owner named Simon Legree. Legree (a transplanted northerner) takes Tom to rural Louisiana, where Tom meets Legree's other slaves, including Emmeline (whom Legree purchased at the same time). Legree begins to hate Tom when Tom refuses Legree's order to whip his fellow slave. Legree beats Tom viciously and resolves to crush his new slave's faith in God. Despite Legree's cruelty, however, Tom refuses to stop reading his Bible and comforting the other slaves as best he can. While at the plantation, Tom meets Cassy, another of Legree's slaves. Cassy was previously separated from her son and daughter when they were sold; unable to endure the pain of seeing another child sold, she killed her third child. At this point Tom Loker returns to the story. Loker has changed as the result of being healed by the Quakers. George, Eliza, and Harry have also obtained their freedom after crossing into Canada. In Louisiana, Uncle Tom almost succumbs to hopelessness as his faith in God is tested by the hardships of the plantation. However, he has two visions, one of Jesus and one of Eva, which renew his resolve to remain a faithful Christian, even unto death. He encourages Cassy to escape, which she does, taking Emmeline with her. When Tom refuses to tell Legree where Cassy and Emmeline have gone, Legree orders his overseers to kill Tom. As Tom is dying, he forgives the overseers who savagely beat him. Humbled by the character of the man they have killed, both men become Christians. Very shortly before Tom's death, George Shelby (Arthur Shelby's son) arrives to buy Tom\u2019s freedom but finds he is too late. On their boat ride to freedom, Cassy and Emmeline meet George Harris' sister and accompany her to Canada. Cassy discovers that Eliza is her long-lost daughter who was sold as a child. Now that their family is together again, they travel to France and eventually Liberia, the African nation created for former American slaves. George Shelby returns to the Kentucky farm and frees all his slaves. George tells them to remember Tom's sacrifice and his belief in the true meaning of Christianity.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book opens with a Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby facing the loss of his farm because of debts. Even though he and his wife Emily Shelby believe that they have a benevolent relationship with their slaves, Shelby decides to raise the needed funds by selling two of them\u2014Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and children, and Harry, the son of Emily Shelby\u2019s maid Eliza\u2014to a slave trader. Emily Shelby is averse to this idea because she had promised her maid that her child would never be sold; Emily's son, George Shelby, hates to see Tom go because he sees the man as his friend and mentor. When Eliza overhears Mr. and Mrs. Shelby discussing plans to sell Tom and Harry, Eliza determines to run away with her son. The novel states that Eliza made this decision because she fears losing her only surviving child (she had already miscarried two children). Eliza departs that night, leaving a note of apology to her mistress. Tom is sold and placed on a riverboat which sets sail down the Mississippi River. While on board, Tom meets and befriends a young white girl named Eva. Eva's father Augustine St. Clare buys Tom from the slave trader and takes him with the family to their home in New Orleans. Tom and Eva begin to relate to one another because of the deep Christian faith they both share. During Eliza's escape, she meets up with her husband George Harris, who had run away previously. They decide to attempt to reach Canada. However, they are tracked by a slave hunter named Tom Loker. Eventually Loker and his men trap Eliza and her family, causing George to push Loker down a cliff. Worried that Loker may die, Eliza convinces George to bring the slave hunter to a nearby Quaker settlement for medical treatment. Back in New Orleans, St. Clare debates slavery with his Northern cousin Ophelia who, while opposing slavery, is prejud"
      },
      {
        "text": " previously. They decide to attempt to reach Canada. However, they are tracked by a slave hunter named Tom Loker. Eventually Loker and his men trap Eliza and her family, causing George to push Loker down a cliff. Worried that Loker may die, Eliza convinces George to bring the slave hunter to a nearby Quaker settlement for medical treatment. Back in New Orleans, St. Clare debates slavery with his Northern cousin Ophelia who, while opposing slavery, is prejudiced against black people. St. Clare, however, believes he is not biased, even though he is a slave owner. In an attempt to show Ophelia that her views on blacks are wrong, St. Clare purchases Topsy, a young black slave. St. Clare then asks Ophelia to educate her. After Tom has lived with the St. Clares for two years, Eva grows very ill. Before she dies she experiences a vision of heaven, which she shares with the people around her. As a result of her death and vision, the other characters resolve to change their lives, with Ophelia promising to throw off her personal prejudices against blacks, Topsy saying she will better herself, and St. Clare pledging to free Tom. Before St. Clare can follow through on his pledge, however, he dies after being stabbed outside of a tavern. His wife reneges on her late husband's vow and sells Tom at auction to a vicious plantation owner named Simon Legree. Legree (a transplanted northerner) takes Tom to rural Louisiana, where Tom meets Legree's other slaves, including Emmeline (whom Legree purchased at the same time). Legree begins to hate Tom when Tom refuses Legree's order to whip his fellow slave. Legree beats Tom viciously and resolves to crush his new slave's faith in God. Despite Legree's cruelty, however, Tom refuses to stop reading his Bible and comforting the other slaves as best"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Legree (a transplanted northerner) takes Tom to rural Louisiana, where Tom meets Legree's other slaves, including Emmeline (whom Legree purchased at the same time). Legree begins to hate Tom when Tom refuses Legree's order to whip his fellow slave. Legree beats Tom viciously and resolves to crush his new slave's faith in God. Despite Legree's cruelty, however, Tom refuses to stop reading his Bible and comforting the other slaves as best he can. While at the plantation, Tom meets Cassy, another of Legree's slaves. Cassy was previously separated from her son and daughter when they were sold; unable to endure the pain of seeing another child sold, she killed her third child. At this point Tom Loker returns to the story. Loker has changed as the result of being healed by the Quakers. George, Eliza, and Harry have also obtained their freedom after crossing into Canada. In Louisiana, Uncle Tom almost succumbs to hopelessness as his faith in God is tested by the hardships of the plantation. However, he has two visions, one of Jesus and one of Eva, which renew his resolve to remain a faithful Christian, even unto death. He encourages Cassy to escape, which she does, taking Emmeline with her. When Tom refuses to tell Legree where Cassy and Emmeline have gone, Legree orders his overseers to kill Tom. As Tom is dying, he forgives the overseers who savagely beat him. Humbled by the character of the man they have killed, both men become Christians. Very shortly before Tom's death, George Shelby (Arthur Shelby's son) arrives to buy Tom\u2019s freedom but finds he is too late. On their boat ride to freedom, Cassy and Emmeline meet George Harris' sister and accompany her to Canada. Cassy discovers that Eliza is her long-lost daughter who was sold as a child"
      },
      {
        "text": " forgives the overseers who savagely beat him. Humbled by the character of the man they have killed, both men become Christians. Very shortly before Tom's death, George Shelby (Arthur Shelby's son) arrives to buy Tom\u2019s freedom but finds he is too late. On their boat ride to freedom, Cassy and Emmeline meet George Harris' sister and accompany her to Canada. Cassy discovers that Eliza is her long-lost daughter who was sold as a child. Now that their family is together again, they travel to France and eventually Liberia, the African nation created for former American slaves. George Shelby returns to the Kentucky farm and frees all his slaves. George tells them to remember Tom's sacrifice and his belief in the true meaning of Christianity.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Beach",
    "author": "Alex Garland",
    "published_date": "1996",
    "synopsis": " In a cheap hostel on Khao San Road in Bangkok, Richard, a young English traveller, meets a strange Scotsman going by the pseudonym of Daffy Duck who leaves him a hand-drawn map of a supposed hidden beach located in the Gulf of Thailand that is inaccessible to tourists. After receiving the map, Richard discovers that Daffy has committed suicide. Together with a young and beautiful French couple, \u00c9tienne and Fran\u00e7oise, the trio sets out to find what they believe must be paradise on earth. On their way to the beach, Richard gives a copy of the map to Sammy and Zeph, two American Harvard students he meets in Koh Samui. When the three travellers finally reach the beach - after bribing a local boat contractor, taking a long swim, trekking the dense jungle, stumbling across a marijuana plantation and avoiding its heavily armed guards, and eventually jumping down a waterfall - they are faced with a tight-knit and largely self-sufficient community which has almost completely shut itself off from civilization and which has developed a sophisticated hierarchy under the quasi-dictatorial rule of a young American woman called Sal and her South African lover, Bugs, who, along with Daffy, discovered the beach and founded the community there in 1989. The three went under the pseudonyms of Sylvester (modified as \"SALvester\" and hence, Sal), Bugs (Bugs Bunny) and Daffy (Daffy Duck). When Richard, \u00c9tienne, and Fran\u00e7oise arrive, it is already 1995, six years after the founders discovered the beach. Only a select few are chosen by the original founders to come to the island, and thus newcomers who were not given a personal invitation are not welcome, but are not sent away because to do so would jeopardize the secrecy of the community. Richard, \u00c9tienne, and Fran\u00e7oise manage to incorporate themselves into the island community and are quickly accepted because they tell the community about Daffy and his death back on the Thai mainland. Because the community is largely self-sufficient in terms of food production, supply, and infrastructure, work is very important and there are a number of details, or work rosters, for the garden, fishing, cooking, and carpentry. Along with Fran\u00e7oise and Etienne, Richard becomes a part of the fishing detail. After a few months life becomes very idyllic on the island, with Richard making friends with a few other members of the beach community: Keaty, a fellow Englishman hooked on his Game Boy; Gregorio, a Spanish traveller part of his fishing detail; Unhygienix, the Italian head chef with an intense obsession for bath soap; Jesse and Cassie, two lovers who work in the gardening and carpentry detail, respectively; Ella, who works second-in-command with Unhygenix in the cooking detail; and finally, Jed - the enigmatic loner of the group whose sole separate detail is shrouded in mystery. Richard later discovers that Jed has been assigned by Sal as the island's guardian to keep a lookout on the island's perimeter and scope out arriving travellers who had heard word about the beach, with a sideline of stealing some marijuana from the other side of the island - protected by heavily armed Thai farmers. In time, Unhygenix informs everyone that their rice supply has been infected by a fungus and Sal announces an emergency Rice Run - a regular chore wherein a few community members are required to head to the mainland discreetly by boat to buy some rice and additional supplies if need be. Because of this daunting task, hardly anyone volunteers for this job except for Jed, who, to the bewilderment of most in the island, always volunteers for the job. Richard also volunteers, and so the two travel back to Koh Phangan for their supplies. It is during the Rice Run that Jed finds out that Richard gave a copy of the map to Sammy and Zeph when Jed overheard the two Americans talking about the beach to some German travellers. The Rice Run goes without a hitch but soon, Zeph and Sammy are accompanied by the three Germans they met on the mainland, and they arrive at the neighbouring island, which worries Richard because he might be blamed if they successfully arrive on the beach. Coinciding with this troubling development, Sal reassigns Richard to the perimeter detail to partner with Jed and keep a close eye on the impending invaders. Because of a free spot in Gregorio's fishing detail, Keaty moves in to take Richard's place. A few days later, Keaty catches a dead squid that poisons most of the residents, and the few healthy members remaining struggle to nurse the sick residents back to normalcy. After the food poisoning incident, Richard returns from his sentry duty high on the island to find that Bugs has punched Keaty in the face because of the squid disaster. Richard, having never liked Bugs due to his stoic nature, instigates a heated argument with him, and the community becomes fractured into several social groups. On this day, only two of the fishing details are still in operation and the best detail, consisting of three Swedes (Christo, Sten, and Karl) who fish outside the safe lagoon area, is attacked by a shark. The camp only finds out about this with the return of one of the three, Karl, in the early evening. Karl carries Sten on his back to the island, where Sten is discovered to be already dead on arrival. Karl was not physically hurt by the shark, but he suffers a mental breakdown from the traumatic event. Karl subsequently spends his time sitting in a dug-out hole on the beach and not talking to anyone; barely accepting food and water. Richard realises that Christo is still missing and, at his own risk, goes to find him in the partially submerged caves of the lagoon. Richard is praised for his heroic rescue of Christo. However, as Christo is gravely wounded, he requires Jed's presence in the camp, because he has some medical knowledge to tend to him. This leaves Richard to work the sentry detail alone on the island. A few days later, a funeral is held for Sten near the jungle waterfall, and Sal gives a decisive speech which goes some way to restoring social harmony within the camp. She announces that it is the 11th of September, and that they will thus be celebrating the Tet festival in 3 days time - this will be the sixth birthday for the beach community and she suggests they celebrate it as a \"fresh start\" for the group. Being alone on the mainland of the island since his transfer to Jed's detail, Richard now begins to have hallucinations in which Daffy appears: they talk regularly and begin to patrol the part of the island which Richard refers to as the DMZ together. Richard comes to appreciate that Daffy killed himself because he could neither endure the slow unravelling of his elitist vision of the beach as the community grew, nor a return to normal life, and that he himself is falling prey to that way of thinking. Richard also realizes that Daffy gave him the map so other travellers would find the beach. Daffy describes this act as \"euthanizing\" the secluded beach community, and Richard realizes he was merely a pawn in Daffy's scheme. This comes to a peak following the arrival of the American/German group, by raft. Unlike Richard, \u00c9tienne and Fran\u00e7oise who managed to overcome the five main obstacles in getting to the beach, the newcomers never make it past the fourth hurdle - the marijuana field guarded by the Thai farmers. Richard witnesses them being first beaten and then taken away. Afraid to see any further, Richard runs away, but hears the ominous sound of fired gunshots, signifying that the Thai farmers have killed the intruders. Richard returns to the community campsite to immediately inform Sal and Jed. He then goes to the beach to visit Karl, who, after being provoked, seemingly attacks Richard and runs off into the jungle. The next day, the day of the Tet festival, Sal obtusely asks Richard to kill Karl because of the threat he poses to the mood of the celebrations, with her constant excuse of having to lift the \"morale\" of the community. Richard, disillusioned of the beach's way of living, finally resolves to escape with his closest friends. That night, he swims out to the cave where the group's only boat is kept, only to find that Karl has used it to escape to the mainland. \u00c9tienne corners him thereafter and soon discovers that he, along with the rest of his clique, has become afraid of Richard \"doing things\" for Sal. Richard convinces \u00c9tienne, Fran\u00e7oise, Jed, and a now paranoid Keaty to leave the beach for good, after having euthanized the dying Christo. Night falls, and the Tet festival is going in full swing. Prior to the party, Keaty and Richard spiked the stew Unhygenix cooked with marijuana, sending the partygoers on an overloaded high. Along with some fermented coconut juice which severely inebriates most of the group, Richard and his friends are almost in the clear to escape when suddenly, the marijuana guards arrive at the camp to threaten all of them, and beat up Richard, leaving the dead bodies of the American/German party as a warning. Most of the beach dwellers begin to go insane and suddenly start to rip the bodies apart in a terrifying frenzy. Sal discovers that Richard has spread the secret of the beach when she picks up the map he drew for Zeph and Sammy, brought by the head Thai guard. Upon this information, the unstable community members work themselves into a murderous rage, stabbing Richard multiple times and bringing him close to death. He is saved when Fran\u00e7oise, \u00c9tienne, Keaty and Jed return from the beach with fishing spears to drive the others off, wounding Sal and Bugs in the process. Richard and his rescuers make an escape with the raft that the now dead intruders left on the other side of the island. In the epilogue, it is revealed that the five friends managed to get away and used their travelling street savvy to return to civilization. It has been a year and one month since their departure from Thailand, and Richard has returned to his home in the United Kingdom where he has not heard from Fran\u00e7oise and \u00c9tienne again, but knows he is likely to bump into them eventually because \"the world is a small place, and Europe is even smaller\". However, he still keeps in contact with Keaty and Jed. Richard comments unexpectedly they are able to \"deal with [their] shared history\". By chance, Keaty and Jed end up working in the same building, although for different companies; coincidentally like how they both stayed in the same guest house that burned down a few years before they both arrived at the beach. He also hears of a news report on how Cassie has been arrested in Malaysia for smuggling a large amount of heroin and is the first Westerner to be executed in the country in six years. Richard wonders whether other people got off the island too, especially Unhygienix, who was a decent guy. He believes that Bugs died and hopes that Sal died, too, although not maliciously. He states that he does not like the idea of her \"turning up on his doorstep\". Richard finishes by saying he is content with his life, though he carries a lot of scars: \"I like the way that sounds. I carry a lot of scars\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In a cheap hostel on Khao San Road in Bangkok, Richard, a young English traveller, meets a strange Scotsman going by the pseudonym of Daffy Duck who leaves him a hand-drawn map of a supposed hidden beach located in the Gulf of Thailand that is inaccessible to tourists. After receiving the map, Richard discovers that Daffy has committed suicide. Together with a young and beautiful French couple, \u00c9tienne and Fran\u00e7oise, the trio sets out to find what they believe must be paradise on earth. On their way to the beach, Richard gives a copy of the map to Sammy and Zeph, two American Harvard students he meets in Koh Samui. When the three travellers finally reach the beach - after bribing a local boat contractor, taking a long swim, trekking the dense jungle, stumbling across a marijuana plantation and avoiding its heavily armed guards, and eventually jumping down a waterfall - they are faced with a tight-knit and largely self-sufficient community which has almost completely shut itself off from civilization and which has developed a sophisticated hierarchy under the quasi-dictatorial rule of a young American woman called Sal and her South African lover, Bugs, who, along with Daffy, discovered the beach and founded the community there in 1989. The three went under the pseudonyms of Sylvester (modified as \"SALvester\" and hence, Sal), Bugs (Bugs Bunny) and Daffy (Daffy Duck). When Richard, \u00c9tienne, and Fran\u00e7oise arrive, it is already 1995, six years after the founders discovered the beach. Only a select few are chosen by the original founders to come to the island, and thus newcomers who were not given a personal invitation are not welcome, but are not sent away because to do so would jeopardize the secrecy of the community. Richard, \u00c9tienne, and Fran\u00e7oise manage to incorporate themselves into the island community and are quickly accepted because they tell the community about Daffy and"
      },
      {
        "text": "ienne, and Fran\u00e7oise arrive, it is already 1995, six years after the founders discovered the beach. Only a select few are chosen by the original founders to come to the island, and thus newcomers who were not given a personal invitation are not welcome, but are not sent away because to do so would jeopardize the secrecy of the community. Richard, \u00c9tienne, and Fran\u00e7oise manage to incorporate themselves into the island community and are quickly accepted because they tell the community about Daffy and his death back on the Thai mainland. Because the community is largely self-sufficient in terms of food production, supply, and infrastructure, work is very important and there are a number of details, or work rosters, for the garden, fishing, cooking, and carpentry. Along with Fran\u00e7oise and Etienne, Richard becomes a part of the fishing detail. After a few months life becomes very idyllic on the island, with Richard making friends with a few other members of the beach community: Keaty, a fellow Englishman hooked on his Game Boy; Gregorio, a Spanish traveller part of his fishing detail; Unhygienix, the Italian head chef with an intense obsession for bath soap; Jesse and Cassie, two lovers who work in the gardening and carpentry detail, respectively; Ella, who works second-in-command with Unhygenix in the cooking detail; and finally, Jed - the enigmatic loner of the group whose sole separate detail is shrouded in mystery. Richard later discovers that Jed has been assigned by Sal as the island's guardian to keep a lookout on the island's perimeter and scope out arriving travellers who had heard word about the beach, with a sideline of stealing some marijuana from the other side of the island - protected by heavily armed Thai farmers. In time, Unhygenix informs everyone that their rice supply has been infected by a fungus and Sal announces an emergency Rice Run - a regular chore wherein a few community members are required"
      },
      {
        "text": " shrouded in mystery. Richard later discovers that Jed has been assigned by Sal as the island's guardian to keep a lookout on the island's perimeter and scope out arriving travellers who had heard word about the beach, with a sideline of stealing some marijuana from the other side of the island - protected by heavily armed Thai farmers. In time, Unhygenix informs everyone that their rice supply has been infected by a fungus and Sal announces an emergency Rice Run - a regular chore wherein a few community members are required to head to the mainland discreetly by boat to buy some rice and additional supplies if need be. Because of this daunting task, hardly anyone volunteers for this job except for Jed, who, to the bewilderment of most in the island, always volunteers for the job. Richard also volunteers, and so the two travel back to Koh Phangan for their supplies. It is during the Rice Run that Jed finds out that Richard gave a copy of the map to Sammy and Zeph when Jed overheard the two Americans talking about the beach to some German travellers. The Rice Run goes without a hitch but soon, Zeph and Sammy are accompanied by the three Germans they met on the mainland, and they arrive at the neighbouring island, which worries Richard because he might be blamed if they successfully arrive on the beach. Coinciding with this troubling development, Sal reassigns Richard to the perimeter detail to partner with Jed and keep a close eye on the impending invaders. Because of a free spot in Gregorio's fishing detail, Keaty moves in to take Richard's place. A few days later, Keaty catches a dead squid that poisons most of the residents, and the few healthy members remaining struggle to nurse the sick residents back to normalcy. After the food poisoning incident, Richard returns from his sentry duty high on the island to find that Bugs has punched Keaty in the face because of the squid disaster. Richard, having never liked Bugs due to his stoic nature, inst"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s fishing detail, Keaty moves in to take Richard's place. A few days later, Keaty catches a dead squid that poisons most of the residents, and the few healthy members remaining struggle to nurse the sick residents back to normalcy. After the food poisoning incident, Richard returns from his sentry duty high on the island to find that Bugs has punched Keaty in the face because of the squid disaster. Richard, having never liked Bugs due to his stoic nature, instigates a heated argument with him, and the community becomes fractured into several social groups. On this day, only two of the fishing details are still in operation and the best detail, consisting of three Swedes (Christo, Sten, and Karl) who fish outside the safe lagoon area, is attacked by a shark. The camp only finds out about this with the return of one of the three, Karl, in the early evening. Karl carries Sten on his back to the island, where Sten is discovered to be already dead on arrival. Karl was not physically hurt by the shark, but he suffers a mental breakdown from the traumatic event. Karl subsequently spends his time sitting in a dug-out hole on the beach and not talking to anyone; barely accepting food and water. Richard realises that Christo is still missing and, at his own risk, goes to find him in the partially submerged caves of the lagoon. Richard is praised for his heroic rescue of Christo. However, as Christo is gravely wounded, he requires Jed's presence in the camp, because he has some medical knowledge to tend to him. This leaves Richard to work the sentry detail alone on the island. A few days later, a funeral is held for Sten near the jungle waterfall, and Sal gives a decisive speech which goes some way to restoring social harmony within the camp. She announces that it is the 11th of September, and that they will thus be celebrating the Tet"
      },
      {
        "text": ". However, as Christo is gravely wounded, he requires Jed's presence in the camp, because he has some medical knowledge to tend to him. This leaves Richard to work the sentry detail alone on the island. A few days later, a funeral is held for Sten near the jungle waterfall, and Sal gives a decisive speech which goes some way to restoring social harmony within the camp. She announces that it is the 11th of September, and that they will thus be celebrating the Tet festival in 3 days time - this will be the sixth birthday for the beach community and she suggests they celebrate it as a \"fresh start\" for the group. Being alone on the mainland of the island since his transfer to Jed's detail, Richard now begins to have hallucinations in which Daffy appears: they talk regularly and begin to patrol the part of the island which Richard refers to as the DMZ together. Richard comes to appreciate that Daffy killed himself because he could neither endure the slow unravelling of his elitist vision of the beach as the community grew, nor a return to normal life, and that he himself is falling prey to that way of thinking. Richard also realizes that Daffy gave him the map so other travellers would find the beach. Daffy describes this act as \"euthanizing\" the secluded beach community, and Richard realizes he was merely a pawn in Daffy's scheme. This comes to a peak following the arrival of the American/German group, by raft. Unlike Richard, \u00c9tienne and Fran\u00e7oise who managed to overcome the five main obstacles in getting to the beach, the newcomers never make it past the fourth hurdle - the marijuana field guarded by the Thai farmers. Richard witnesses them being first beaten and then taken away. Afraid to see any further, Richard runs away, but hears the ominous sound of fired gunshots, signifying that the Thai farmers have killed the intruders. Richard returns to the community campsite"
      },
      {
        "text": " American/German group, by raft. Unlike Richard, \u00c9tienne and Fran\u00e7oise who managed to overcome the five main obstacles in getting to the beach, the newcomers never make it past the fourth hurdle - the marijuana field guarded by the Thai farmers. Richard witnesses them being first beaten and then taken away. Afraid to see any further, Richard runs away, but hears the ominous sound of fired gunshots, signifying that the Thai farmers have killed the intruders. Richard returns to the community campsite to immediately inform Sal and Jed. He then goes to the beach to visit Karl, who, after being provoked, seemingly attacks Richard and runs off into the jungle. The next day, the day of the Tet festival, Sal obtusely asks Richard to kill Karl because of the threat he poses to the mood of the celebrations, with her constant excuse of having to lift the \"morale\" of the community. Richard, disillusioned of the beach's way of living, finally resolves to escape with his closest friends. That night, he swims out to the cave where the group's only boat is kept, only to find that Karl has used it to escape to the mainland. \u00c9tienne corners him thereafter and soon discovers that he, along with the rest of his clique, has become afraid of Richard \"doing things\" for Sal. Richard convinces \u00c9tienne, Fran\u00e7oise, Jed, and a now paranoid Keaty to leave the beach for good, after having euthanized the dying Christo. Night falls, and the Tet festival is going in full swing. Prior to the party, Keaty and Richard spiked the stew Unhygenix cooked with marijuana, sending the partygoers on an overloaded high. Along with some fermented coconut juice which severely inebriates most of the group, Richard and his friends are almost in the clear to escape when suddenly, the marijuana guards arrive at the camp to threaten all of them, and beat up Richard, leaving"
      },
      {
        "text": "anized the dying Christo. Night falls, and the Tet festival is going in full swing. Prior to the party, Keaty and Richard spiked the stew Unhygenix cooked with marijuana, sending the partygoers on an overloaded high. Along with some fermented coconut juice which severely inebriates most of the group, Richard and his friends are almost in the clear to escape when suddenly, the marijuana guards arrive at the camp to threaten all of them, and beat up Richard, leaving the dead bodies of the American/German party as a warning. Most of the beach dwellers begin to go insane and suddenly start to rip the bodies apart in a terrifying frenzy. Sal discovers that Richard has spread the secret of the beach when she picks up the map he drew for Zeph and Sammy, brought by the head Thai guard. Upon this information, the unstable community members work themselves into a murderous rage, stabbing Richard multiple times and bringing him close to death. He is saved when Fran\u00e7oise, \u00c9tienne, Keaty and Jed return from the beach with fishing spears to drive the others off, wounding Sal and Bugs in the process. Richard and his rescuers make an escape with the raft that the now dead intruders left on the other side of the island. In the epilogue, it is revealed that the five friends managed to get away and used their travelling street savvy to return to civilization. It has been a year and one month since their departure from Thailand, and Richard has returned to his home in the United Kingdom where he has not heard from Fran\u00e7oise and \u00c9tienne again, but knows he is likely to bump into them eventually because \"the world is a small place, and Europe is even smaller\". However, he still keeps in contact with Keaty and Jed. Richard comments unexpectedly they are able to \"deal with [their] shared history\". By chance, Keaty and Jed end up working in the same building, although for different companies;"
      },
      {
        "text": " Richard has returned to his home in the United Kingdom where he has not heard from Fran\u00e7oise and \u00c9tienne again, but knows he is likely to bump into them eventually because \"the world is a small place, and Europe is even smaller\". However, he still keeps in contact with Keaty and Jed. Richard comments unexpectedly they are able to \"deal with [their] shared history\". By chance, Keaty and Jed end up working in the same building, although for different companies; coincidentally like how they both stayed in the same guest house that burned down a few years before they both arrived at the beach. He also hears of a news report on how Cassie has been arrested in Malaysia for smuggling a large amount of heroin and is the first Westerner to be executed in the country in six years. Richard wonders whether other people got off the island too, especially Unhygienix, who was a decent guy. He believes that Bugs died and hopes that Sal died, too, although not maliciously. He states that he does not like the idea of her \"turning up on his doorstep\". Richard finishes by saying he is content with his life, though he carries a lot of scars: \"I like the way that sounds. I carry a lot of scars\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Murder Must Advertise",
    "author": "Dorothy L. Sayers",
    "published_date": "1933",
    "synopsis": " Wimsey accepts an offer from the highly respectable management of Pym's Publicity, Ltd. (a light disguise for S. H. Bensons, where Sayers worked) to investigate a mystery and avert a scandal. Copywriter Victor Dean has died in a fall down the spiral iron office staircase, but he left a half-finished letter to the management hinting that something potentially scandalous is going on at Pym's. Under the pseudonym of \"Death Bredon\" (actually his middle names), Wimsey goes to work at Pym's. He takes over Dean's office and learns his trade while investigating the office staff. He discovers a talent for copywriting and promotion, and produces a campaign which will become one of the firm's most successful. He also investigates Dean's social life. Dean, for a short time, socialized with \"the DeMomerie crowd\": the cronies of dissolute socialite Dian de Momerie, most of them heavy cocaine users. He met De Momerie's companion, Major Milligan, who appears to be the cocaine supplier for the group. Milligan is linked to a big cocaine-selling ring which Wimsey's friend and brother-in-law Chief Inspector Parker is investigating. Milligan, hearing that Dean worked at Pym's, spoke to him assuming that Dean was the ring's man at Pym's. Dean was surprised, and Milligan shut up - but Dean guessed that someone else at Pym's was involved. Hence the letter to management. Wimsey plays multiple roles. By day he is Bredon, a distant, impoverished Wimsey cousin who works for a living. Most evenings, he is himself. But on some evenings, \"Bredon\" dresses up as a masked harlequin, and by various wild stunts draws the attention and company of Dian de Momerie - annoying Major Milligan. Junior newspaper reporter Hector Puncheon has a beer in a pub, and discovers later that someone put a bag of cocaine in his coat pocket. He must have blundered into a distribution operation, but there's no further sign of anything at that pub. Apparently the ring holds each week's distribution at a different location. Wimsey continues his probing at Pym's, and learns that one of the senior copywriters, Tallboy, seems to have large amounts of cash. Puncheon recognizes a man who was in the pub the night he was given the cocaine, and follows him. Puncheon gets knocked out, and the man \"accidentally\" falls in front of a moving train. The dead man (Mountjoy) had money but no job or assets, which fits a drug dealer. His effects include a telephone book with the names of many pubs ticked off. One of the marked pubs is the one where Puncheon was given the cocaine. Other clues turn up: a scarab in Dean's desk, a large pebble in the stairwell, a \"catapult\" (slingshot) belonging to office boy Ginger Joe, who is recruited by \"Bredon\" to help in the investigation. Finally Wimsey makes the connection. One of Pym's major clients runs a large newspaper advertisement every Friday morning. The text is approved a few days earlier. The first letter of the advertisement's text indicates the pub to be used that week. Tallboy supplies the letter to the ring as soon as the text is approved. A final clue turns up during a company social outing, in the course of a cricket match between Pym's and Brotherhood's, a soft-drink company and Pym's client. Most of the players are middle-aged and flabby. But Wimsey, provoked by a ball which clips his elbow, shows off the form which made him a first-team star at Eton and Oxford. Tallboy too shows a surprising talent, when he knocks down a wicket with a perfect throw from deep in the field. Wimsey wins the match for Pym's, which is about to expose his cover when the police, led by Parker, arrest \"Bredon\" for the murder of Dian de Momerie. Milligan is dead too - killed in yet another \"accident\" as the ring covers its tracks. But the ring is still operating, and the police want to nab the whole gang at their next distribution. With Mountjoy's phone book, all they need is the letter for the week - which is provided by Ginger Joe. While \"Bredon\" supposedly sits in jail, \"Lord Peter\" is much seen about town for the next few days. The roundup comes off as planned, but the death of Victor Dean remains unsolved. That night, Tallboy comes to Wimsey's flat and confesses. He was sucked into the scheme with a innocent-sounding story and the offer of money he needed. But soon he was trapped. Then Dean found out and blackmailed him. Tallboy shot him in the head with Ginger Joe's catapult on the staircase, so it would look like an accident. Tallboy he cannot escape, and suggests suicide, which would save his family from the shame of his trial and conviction for murder. Wimsey, after looking out of the window, has an alternative: Tallboy must go home, on foot, and never look behind him. Both know that the gang's killers are waiting in ambush.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Wimsey accepts an offer from the highly respectable management of Pym's Publicity, Ltd. (a light disguise for S. H. Bensons, where Sayers worked) to investigate a mystery and avert a scandal. Copywriter Victor Dean has died in a fall down the spiral iron office staircase, but he left a half-finished letter to the management hinting that something potentially scandalous is going on at Pym's. Under the pseudonym of \"Death Bredon\" (actually his middle names), Wimsey goes to work at Pym's. He takes over Dean's office and learns his trade while investigating the office staff. He discovers a talent for copywriting and promotion, and produces a campaign which will become one of the firm's most successful. He also investigates Dean's social life. Dean, for a short time, socialized with \"the DeMomerie crowd\": the cronies of dissolute socialite Dian de Momerie, most of them heavy cocaine users. He met De Momerie's companion, Major Milligan, who appears to be the cocaine supplier for the group. Milligan is linked to a big cocaine-selling ring which Wimsey's friend and brother-in-law Chief Inspector Parker is investigating. Milligan, hearing that Dean worked at Pym's, spoke to him assuming that Dean was the ring's man at Pym's. Dean was surprised, and Milligan shut up - but Dean guessed that someone else at Pym's was involved. Hence the letter to management. Wimsey plays multiple roles. By day he is Bredon, a distant, impoverished Wimsey cousin who works for a living. Most evenings, he is himself. But on some evenings, \"Bredon\" dresses up as a masked harlequin, and by various wild stunts draws the attention and company of Dian de Momerie - annoying Major Milligan. Junior newspaper reporter Hector Puncheon has a beer in a pub, and discovers later that"
      },
      {
        "text": " was involved. Hence the letter to management. Wimsey plays multiple roles. By day he is Bredon, a distant, impoverished Wimsey cousin who works for a living. Most evenings, he is himself. But on some evenings, \"Bredon\" dresses up as a masked harlequin, and by various wild stunts draws the attention and company of Dian de Momerie - annoying Major Milligan. Junior newspaper reporter Hector Puncheon has a beer in a pub, and discovers later that someone put a bag of cocaine in his coat pocket. He must have blundered into a distribution operation, but there's no further sign of anything at that pub. Apparently the ring holds each week's distribution at a different location. Wimsey continues his probing at Pym's, and learns that one of the senior copywriters, Tallboy, seems to have large amounts of cash. Puncheon recognizes a man who was in the pub the night he was given the cocaine, and follows him. Puncheon gets knocked out, and the man \"accidentally\" falls in front of a moving train. The dead man (Mountjoy) had money but no job or assets, which fits a drug dealer. His effects include a telephone book with the names of many pubs ticked off. One of the marked pubs is the one where Puncheon was given the cocaine. Other clues turn up: a scarab in Dean's desk, a large pebble in the stairwell, a \"catapult\" (slingshot) belonging to office boy Ginger Joe, who is recruited by \"Bredon\" to help in the investigation. Finally Wimsey makes the connection. One of Pym's major clients runs a large newspaper advertisement every Friday morning. The text is approved a few days earlier. The first letter of the advertisement's text indicates the pub to be used that week. Tallboy supplies the letter to the ring as soon as the text is approved. A final clue turns up during"
      },
      {
        "text": "apult\" (slingshot) belonging to office boy Ginger Joe, who is recruited by \"Bredon\" to help in the investigation. Finally Wimsey makes the connection. One of Pym's major clients runs a large newspaper advertisement every Friday morning. The text is approved a few days earlier. The first letter of the advertisement's text indicates the pub to be used that week. Tallboy supplies the letter to the ring as soon as the text is approved. A final clue turns up during a company social outing, in the course of a cricket match between Pym's and Brotherhood's, a soft-drink company and Pym's client. Most of the players are middle-aged and flabby. But Wimsey, provoked by a ball which clips his elbow, shows off the form which made him a first-team star at Eton and Oxford. Tallboy too shows a surprising talent, when he knocks down a wicket with a perfect throw from deep in the field. Wimsey wins the match for Pym's, which is about to expose his cover when the police, led by Parker, arrest \"Bredon\" for the murder of Dian de Momerie. Milligan is dead too - killed in yet another \"accident\" as the ring covers its tracks. But the ring is still operating, and the police want to nab the whole gang at their next distribution. With Mountjoy's phone book, all they need is the letter for the week - which is provided by Ginger Joe. While \"Bredon\" supposedly sits in jail, \"Lord Peter\" is much seen about town for the next few days. The roundup comes off as planned, but the death of Victor Dean remains unsolved. That night, Tallboy comes to Wimsey's flat and confesses. He was sucked into the scheme with a innocent-sounding story and the offer of money he needed. But soon he was trapped. Then Dean found out and blackmailed him. Tallboy"
      },
      {
        "text": " is provided by Ginger Joe. While \"Bredon\" supposedly sits in jail, \"Lord Peter\" is much seen about town for the next few days. The roundup comes off as planned, but the death of Victor Dean remains unsolved. That night, Tallboy comes to Wimsey's flat and confesses. He was sucked into the scheme with a innocent-sounding story and the offer of money he needed. But soon he was trapped. Then Dean found out and blackmailed him. Tallboy shot him in the head with Ginger Joe's catapult on the staircase, so it would look like an accident. Tallboy he cannot escape, and suggests suicide, which would save his family from the shame of his trial and conviction for murder. Wimsey, after looking out of the window, has an alternative: Tallboy must go home, on foot, and never look behind him. Both know that the gang's killers are waiting in ambush.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Man Who Would Be King",
    "author": "Rudyard Kipling",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The narrator of the story is a British journalist in India\u2013Kipling himself, in all but name. While on a tour of some Indian native states he meets two scruffy adventurers, Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan. He rather likes them, but then stops them from blackmailing a minor rajah. A few months later they appear at his office in Lahore. They tell him their plan. They have been \"Soldier, sailor, compositor [typesetter], photographer... [railroad] engine-drivers, petty contractors,\" and more, and have decided India is not big enough for them. The next day they will go off to Kafiristan to set themselves up as kings. Dravot can pass as a native, and they have twenty Martini-Henry rifles (then perhaps the best in the world). They plan to find a king or chief, help him defeat his enemies then take over for themselves. They ask the narrator for the use of any books or maps of the area\u2013as a favor, because they are fellow Freemasons, and because he spoiled their blackmail scheme. Two years later, on a scorching hot summer night, Carnehan creeps into the narrator's office. He is a broken man, a crippled beggar clad in rags and he tells an amazing story. Dravot and Carnehan succeeded in becoming kings: finding the Kafirs, who turn out to be white (\"so hairy and white and fair it was just shaking hands with old friends\"), mustering an army, taking over villages, and dreaming of building a unified nation. The Kafirs, who were pagans, not Muslims, acclaimed Dravot as a god (the son of Alexander the Great). The Kafirs practiced a form of Masonic ritual and the adventurers knew Masonic secrets that only the oldest priest remembered. Their schemes were dashed when Dravot decided to marry a Kafir girl. Terrified at marrying a god, the girl bit Dravot when he tried to kiss her. Seeing him bleed, the priests cried that he was \"Neither God nor Devil but a man!\" Most of the Kafirs turned against Dravot and Carnehan. One chief (whom they have nicknamed \"Billy Fish\") and a few of his men remained loyal, but the army defected and the two kings were captured. Dravot, wearing his crown, stood on a rope bridge over a gorge while the Kafirs cut the ropes and fell to his death. Carnehan was crucified between two pine trees. When he survived for a day, the Kafirs considered it a miracle and let him go. He begged his way back to India. As proof of his tale, Carnehan shows the narrator Dravot's head, still wearing the golden crown. Carnehan leaves. The next day the narrator sees him crawling along the road in the noon sun, with his hat off and gone mad. The narrator sends him to the local asylum. When he inquires two days later, he learns that Carnehan has died of sunstroke (\"half an hour bare-headed in the sun at mid-day...\"). No belongings were found with him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The narrator of the story is a British journalist in India\u2013Kipling himself, in all but name. While on a tour of some Indian native states he meets two scruffy adventurers, Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan. He rather likes them, but then stops them from blackmailing a minor rajah. A few months later they appear at his office in Lahore. They tell him their plan. They have been \"Soldier, sailor, compositor [typesetter], photographer... [railroad] engine-drivers, petty contractors,\" and more, and have decided India is not big enough for them. The next day they will go off to Kafiristan to set themselves up as kings. Dravot can pass as a native, and they have twenty Martini-Henry rifles (then perhaps the best in the world). They plan to find a king or chief, help him defeat his enemies then take over for themselves. They ask the narrator for the use of any books or maps of the area\u2013as a favor, because they are fellow Freemasons, and because he spoiled their blackmail scheme. Two years later, on a scorching hot summer night, Carnehan creeps into the narrator's office. He is a broken man, a crippled beggar clad in rags and he tells an amazing story. Dravot and Carnehan succeeded in becoming kings: finding the Kafirs, who turn out to be white (\"so hairy and white and fair it was just shaking hands with old friends\"), mustering an army, taking over villages, and dreaming of building a unified nation. The Kafirs, who were pagans, not Muslims, acclaimed Dravot as a god (the son of Alexander the Great). The Kafirs practiced a form of Masonic ritual and the adventurers knew Masonic secrets that only the oldest priest remembered. Their schemes were dashed when Dravot decided to marry a Kafir girl. Terrified at marrying a god"
      },
      {
        "text": " white and fair it was just shaking hands with old friends\"), mustering an army, taking over villages, and dreaming of building a unified nation. The Kafirs, who were pagans, not Muslims, acclaimed Dravot as a god (the son of Alexander the Great). The Kafirs practiced a form of Masonic ritual and the adventurers knew Masonic secrets that only the oldest priest remembered. Their schemes were dashed when Dravot decided to marry a Kafir girl. Terrified at marrying a god, the girl bit Dravot when he tried to kiss her. Seeing him bleed, the priests cried that he was \"Neither God nor Devil but a man!\" Most of the Kafirs turned against Dravot and Carnehan. One chief (whom they have nicknamed \"Billy Fish\") and a few of his men remained loyal, but the army defected and the two kings were captured. Dravot, wearing his crown, stood on a rope bridge over a gorge while the Kafirs cut the ropes and fell to his death. Carnehan was crucified between two pine trees. When he survived for a day, the Kafirs considered it a miracle and let him go. He begged his way back to India. As proof of his tale, Carnehan shows the narrator Dravot's head, still wearing the golden crown. Carnehan leaves. The next day the narrator sees him crawling along the road in the noon sun, with his hat off and gone mad. The narrator sends him to the local asylum. When he inquires two days later, he learns that Carnehan has died of sunstroke (\"half an hour bare-headed in the sun at mid-day...\"). No belongings were found with him.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". The narrator sends him to the local asylum. When he inquires two days later, he learns that Carnehan has died of sunstroke (\"half an hour bare-headed in the sun at mid-day...\"). No belongings were found with him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Vicious Circle",
    "author": "Amanda Craig",
    "published_date": "1996",
    "synopsis": " The novel chronicles the life of Amelia, the only daughter of newspaper tycoon Max de Monde who, after having spoiled Amelia beyond hope while she was still young, abandons her when she becomes pregnant. Amelia decides to marry Mark Crawley, the father of her child, an ambitious young critic intent on shaking off his humble background. Suddenly, the young couple find themselves in desperate need of money and, at first, accommodations. While she stays at home raising their daughter Rose, Amelia metamorphoses from spoiled brat to mature and responsible mother, whereas her husband loses all interest in the housewife he now realizes he has married. Amelia is encouraged to stay on her chosen path by Grace, her cleaning woman\u2014who is also her niece (without either of the women being aware of this), and by Tom Viner, a young doctor who becomes their lodger. A Vicious Circle also follows the life of Mary Quinn. An Irish girl lacking a university education, Mary has a natural writing talent and rises to become a prominent reviewer of new fiction after having been left by her lover of many years, Mark Crawley. Mary makes friends with Adam Sands, a yet unpublished author who keeps his homosexuality a secret from almost everyone including his own mother. When he is dying of an AIDS-related disease, Mary is the only person who remembers and eventually takes care of him. When the recession of the 1990s hits the country everyone seems to be affected by it. Max de Monde, who has even plundered his daughter's trust fund, spectacularly commits suicide by crashing his helicopter against the ground. Amelia leaves Mark and is planning to raise her daughter as a single parent.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel chronicles the life of Amelia, the only daughter of newspaper tycoon Max de Monde who, after having spoiled Amelia beyond hope while she was still young, abandons her when she becomes pregnant. Amelia decides to marry Mark Crawley, the father of her child, an ambitious young critic intent on shaking off his humble background. Suddenly, the young couple find themselves in desperate need of money and, at first, accommodations. While she stays at home raising their daughter Rose, Amelia metamorphoses from spoiled brat to mature and responsible mother, whereas her husband loses all interest in the housewife he now realizes he has married. Amelia is encouraged to stay on her chosen path by Grace, her cleaning woman\u2014who is also her niece (without either of the women being aware of this), and by Tom Viner, a young doctor who becomes their lodger. A Vicious Circle also follows the life of Mary Quinn. An Irish girl lacking a university education, Mary has a natural writing talent and rises to become a prominent reviewer of new fiction after having been left by her lover of many years, Mark Crawley. Mary makes friends with Adam Sands, a yet unpublished author who keeps his homosexuality a secret from almost everyone including his own mother. When he is dying of an AIDS-related disease, Mary is the only person who remembers and eventually takes care of him. When the recession of the 1990s hits the country everyone seems to be affected by it. Max de Monde, who has even plundered his daughter's trust fund, spectacularly commits suicide by crashing his helicopter against the ground. Amelia leaves Mark and is planning to raise her daughter as a single parent.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " who has even plundered his daughter's trust fund, spectacularly commits suicide by crashing his helicopter against the ground. Amelia leaves Mark and is planning to raise her daughter as a single parent.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "To Kill a Mockingbird",
    "author": "Harper Lee",
    "published_date": "1960-07-11",
    "synopsis": " The book opens with the Finch family's ancestor, Simon Finch, a Cornish Methodist fleeing religious intolerance in England, settling in Alabama, becoming wealthy and, contrary to his religious beliefs, buying several slaves. The main story takes place during three years of the Great Depression in the fictional \"tired old town\" of Maycomb, Alabama. It focuses on six-year-old Scout Finch, who lives with her older brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt each summer. The three children are terrified of, and fascinated by, their neighbor, the reclusive \"Boo\" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Boo and for many years few have seen him. The children feed each other's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. Following two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times, the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, never appears in person. Atticus is appointed by the court to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although many of Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom. Other children taunt Jem and Scout for Atticus' actions, calling him a \"nigger-lover\". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting even though he has told her not to. For his part, Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill shame the mob into dispersing by forcing them to view the situation from Atticus' and Tom's points of view. Because Atticus does not want them to be present at Tom Robinson's trial, Scout, Jem and Dill watch in secret from the colored balcony. Atticus establishes that the accusers\u2014Mayella and her father, Bob Ewell, the town drunk\u2014are lying. It also becomes clear that the friendless Mayella was making sexual advances towards Tom and her father caught her and beat her. Despite significant evidence of Tom's innocence, the jury convicts him. Jem's faith in justice is badly shaken, as is Atticus', when a hopeless Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison. Humiliated by the trial Bob Ewell vows revenge. He spits in Atticus' face on the street, tries to break into the presiding judge's house and menaces Tom Robinson's widow. Finally, he attacks the defenseless Jem and Scout as they walk home on a dark night from the school Halloween pageant. Jem's arm is broken in the struggle, but amid the confusion, someone comes to the children's rescue. The mysterious man carries Jem home, where Scout realizes that he is Boo Radley. Maycomb's sheriff arrives and discovers that Bob Ewell has been killed in the struggle. The sheriff argues with Atticus about the prudence and ethics of holding Jem or Boo responsible. Atticus eventually accepts the sheriff's story that Ewell simply fell on his own knife. Boo asks Scout to walk him home, and after she says goodbye to him at his front door, he disappears again. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo's perspective and regrets that they never repaid him for the gifts he had given them.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book opens with the Finch family's ancestor, Simon Finch, a Cornish Methodist fleeing religious intolerance in England, settling in Alabama, becoming wealthy and, contrary to his religious beliefs, buying several slaves. The main story takes place during three years of the Great Depression in the fictional \"tired old town\" of Maycomb, Alabama. It focuses on six-year-old Scout Finch, who lives with her older brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt each summer. The three children are terrified of, and fascinated by, their neighbor, the reclusive \"Boo\" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Boo and for many years few have seen him. The children feed each other's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. Following two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times, the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, never appears in person. Atticus is appointed by the court to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although many of Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom. Other children taunt Jem and Scout for Atticus' actions, calling him a \"nigger-lover\". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting even though he has told her not to. For his part, Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill shame the mob into dispersing by forcing them to view the situation from Atticus' and Tom's points of view. Because Atticus does not want them to"
      },
      {
        "text": " Scout for Atticus' actions, calling him a \"nigger-lover\". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting even though he has told her not to. For his part, Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill shame the mob into dispersing by forcing them to view the situation from Atticus' and Tom's points of view. Because Atticus does not want them to be present at Tom Robinson's trial, Scout, Jem and Dill watch in secret from the colored balcony. Atticus establishes that the accusers\u2014Mayella and her father, Bob Ewell, the town drunk\u2014are lying. It also becomes clear that the friendless Mayella was making sexual advances towards Tom and her father caught her and beat her. Despite significant evidence of Tom's innocence, the jury convicts him. Jem's faith in justice is badly shaken, as is Atticus', when a hopeless Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison. Humiliated by the trial Bob Ewell vows revenge. He spits in Atticus' face on the street, tries to break into the presiding judge's house and menaces Tom Robinson's widow. Finally, he attacks the defenseless Jem and Scout as they walk home on a dark night from the school Halloween pageant. Jem's arm is broken in the struggle, but amid the confusion, someone comes to the children's rescue. The mysterious man carries Jem home, where Scout realizes that he is Boo Radley. Maycomb's sheriff arrives and discovers that Bob Ewell has been killed in the struggle. The sheriff argues with Atticus about the prudence and ethics of holding Jem or Boo responsible. Atticus eventually accepts the sheriff's story that Ewell simply fell on his own knife. Boo asks Scout to walk him home, and after she says goodbye to him at his front door, he disappears again. While standing on"
      },
      {
        "text": ". The mysterious man carries Jem home, where Scout realizes that he is Boo Radley. Maycomb's sheriff arrives and discovers that Bob Ewell has been killed in the struggle. The sheriff argues with Atticus about the prudence and ethics of holding Jem or Boo responsible. Atticus eventually accepts the sheriff's story that Ewell simply fell on his own knife. Boo asks Scout to walk him home, and after she says goodbye to him at his front door, he disappears again. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo's perspective and regrets that they never repaid him for the gifts he had given them.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Emperor Jones",
    "author": "Eugene O'Neill",
    "published_date": "1920",
    "synopsis": " The play is divided into eight scenes. Scenes 2 to 7 are from the point of view of Jones, and no other character speaks. The first and last scenes feature a character named Smithers, a white trader who appears to be part of illegal activities. In the first scene, Smithers is told about the rebellion by an old woman, and then has a lengthy conversation with Jones. In the last scene, Smithers converses with Lem, the leader of the rebellion. Smithers has mixed feelings about Jones, though he generally has more respect for Jones than for the rebels. During this scene, Jones is killed by a silver bullet, which was the only way that the rebels believed Jones could be killed, and the way in which Jones planned to kill himself if he was captured.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play is divided into eight scenes. Scenes 2 to 7 are from the point of view of Jones, and no other character speaks. The first and last scenes feature a character named Smithers, a white trader who appears to be part of illegal activities. In the first scene, Smithers is told about the rebellion by an old woman, and then has a lengthy conversation with Jones. In the last scene, Smithers converses with Lem, the leader of the rebellion. Smithers has mixed feelings about Jones, though he generally has more respect for Jones than for the rebels. During this scene, Jones is killed by a silver bullet, which was the only way that the rebels believed Jones could be killed, and the way in which Jones planned to kill himself if he was captured.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Go-Between",
    "author": "L. P. Hartley",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story begins with the reminiscences of Leo Colston, an elderly man looking back on his childhood with nostalgia. Leo, in his mid-sixties, is looking through his old things. He chances upon a battered old red collar box. In it he finds a diary from 1900, the year of his thirteenth birthday. He slowly pieces together his memory as he looks through the diary. Impressed by the astrological emblems at the front of the book, young Leo combines them in his mind with the idea that he is living at the turn of the 20th century. The importance of his boarding school's social rules is another theme. Some of the rougher boys steal his diary, reading and defacing it. The two oldest bullies, Jenkins and Strode, beat him at every opportunity. He devises some \"curses\" for them in the pages of the book, using occult symbols and Greek letters, and placing the book where they will find it. Subsequently both boys venture onto the roof of one of the school buildings, fall off and are severely injured. This leaves him greatly admired by the other boys, who think that he is a magician something that he comes to half-believe himself. The greater portion of the text concerns itself with Leo's past, particularly the summer of 1900, spent in Norfolk, England, as a guest at Brandham Hall, the luxurious country home of his schoolfriend Marcus Maudsley. Here the young Leo, on holiday from boarding school, is a poor boy among the wealthy upper class. Leo's comparatively humble background is obvious to all and he does not really fit in there; however, his hosts do their best to make him feel welcome, treating him with kindness and indulgence. When Marcus falls ill, Leo is left largely to his own devices. He becomes a secret \"go-between\" for Marian Maudsley, the daughter of the host family, and nearby tenant farmer Ted Burgess. At first, Leo is happy to help Marian because she is kind to him and he has a crush on her. Besides, Leo is initially ignorant of the significance or content of the messages that he is asked to carry between Ted and Marian. Leo is a well-meaning and innocent boy, so it is easy for the lovers to manipulate him. The fact that Ted comes from a much lower social class than Marian means there can be no possible future in the relationship because of the social taboos involved. Although Marian and Ted are fully aware of this, Leo is too na\u00efve to understand why the lovers can never marry. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Marian is about to become engaged to Hugh, Viscount Trimingham, the descendant of the area's nobility who formerly resided in Brandham Hall. Together, these factors make Marian's secret relationship with Ted highly dangerous for all parties concerned. Later, Leo acts as an interceptor, and occasional editor, of the messages. Eventually, he begins to comprehend the sexual nature of the relationship between Marian and Ted, and feels increasingly uncomfortable about the general atmosphere of deception and risk. Leo tries to end his role as go-between, but comes under great psychological pressure and is forced to continue. Ultimately, Leo's involvement as messenger between the lovers has disastrous consequences. The trauma which results when Marian's family discover what is going on leads directly to Ted's shotgun suicide. In the epilogue the older Leo tells the reader the consequences of this summer. The experience profoundly affects Leo, leaving him with permanent psychological scars. Forbidden to speak about the scandal, he feels he must not think of it either; and since nearly everything reminds him of it, he shuts down his emotions, leaving room only for facts. He subsequently grows up to be an emotionally detached adult who is never able to establish intimate relationships. He succeeds in repressing the memories until the diary unlocks them. Now looking back on the events through the eyes of a mature adult, he is fully aware of how the incident has left its mark on him. In a final twist to the story, 52 years later, Leo returns to Brandham. There he meets Marian's grandson and finds Marian herself living in a cottage the place she had always told people she was going when she was really having clandestine meetings with Ted. Brandham Hall has been let out to a girl's school. Lord Trimingham married Marian, but died in 1910, and Marcus and his brother Denys were killed in the First World War. In the end, an elderly Marian Maudsley persuades Leo to act as a go-between for her one more time.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins with the reminiscences of Leo Colston, an elderly man looking back on his childhood with nostalgia. Leo, in his mid-sixties, is looking through his old things. He chances upon a battered old red collar box. In it he finds a diary from 1900, the year of his thirteenth birthday. He slowly pieces together his memory as he looks through the diary. Impressed by the astrological emblems at the front of the book, young Leo combines them in his mind with the idea that he is living at the turn of the 20th century. The importance of his boarding school's social rules is another theme. Some of the rougher boys steal his diary, reading and defacing it. The two oldest bullies, Jenkins and Strode, beat him at every opportunity. He devises some \"curses\" for them in the pages of the book, using occult symbols and Greek letters, and placing the book where they will find it. Subsequently both boys venture onto the roof of one of the school buildings, fall off and are severely injured. This leaves him greatly admired by the other boys, who think that he is a magician something that he comes to half-believe himself. The greater portion of the text concerns itself with Leo's past, particularly the summer of 1900, spent in Norfolk, England, as a guest at Brandham Hall, the luxurious country home of his schoolfriend Marcus Maudsley. Here the young Leo, on holiday from boarding school, is a poor boy among the wealthy upper class. Leo's comparatively humble background is obvious to all and he does not really fit in there; however, his hosts do their best to make him feel welcome, treating him with kindness and indulgence. When Marcus falls ill, Leo is left largely to his own devices. He becomes a secret \"go-between\" for Marian Maudsley, the daughter of the host family, and nearby tenant farmer Ted"
      },
      {
        "text": " young Leo, on holiday from boarding school, is a poor boy among the wealthy upper class. Leo's comparatively humble background is obvious to all and he does not really fit in there; however, his hosts do their best to make him feel welcome, treating him with kindness and indulgence. When Marcus falls ill, Leo is left largely to his own devices. He becomes a secret \"go-between\" for Marian Maudsley, the daughter of the host family, and nearby tenant farmer Ted Burgess. At first, Leo is happy to help Marian because she is kind to him and he has a crush on her. Besides, Leo is initially ignorant of the significance or content of the messages that he is asked to carry between Ted and Marian. Leo is a well-meaning and innocent boy, so it is easy for the lovers to manipulate him. The fact that Ted comes from a much lower social class than Marian means there can be no possible future in the relationship because of the social taboos involved. Although Marian and Ted are fully aware of this, Leo is too na\u00efve to understand why the lovers can never marry. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Marian is about to become engaged to Hugh, Viscount Trimingham, the descendant of the area's nobility who formerly resided in Brandham Hall. Together, these factors make Marian's secret relationship with Ted highly dangerous for all parties concerned. Later, Leo acts as an interceptor, and occasional editor, of the messages. Eventually, he begins to comprehend the sexual nature of the relationship between Marian and Ted, and feels increasingly uncomfortable about the general atmosphere of deception and risk. Leo tries to end his role as go-between, but comes under great psychological pressure and is forced to continue. Ultimately, Leo's involvement as messenger between the lovers has disastrous consequences. The trauma which results when Marian's family discover what is going on leads directly to Ted's shotgun suicide. In the epilogue the older Leo tells the reader the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Eventually, he begins to comprehend the sexual nature of the relationship between Marian and Ted, and feels increasingly uncomfortable about the general atmosphere of deception and risk. Leo tries to end his role as go-between, but comes under great psychological pressure and is forced to continue. Ultimately, Leo's involvement as messenger between the lovers has disastrous consequences. The trauma which results when Marian's family discover what is going on leads directly to Ted's shotgun suicide. In the epilogue the older Leo tells the reader the consequences of this summer. The experience profoundly affects Leo, leaving him with permanent psychological scars. Forbidden to speak about the scandal, he feels he must not think of it either; and since nearly everything reminds him of it, he shuts down his emotions, leaving room only for facts. He subsequently grows up to be an emotionally detached adult who is never able to establish intimate relationships. He succeeds in repressing the memories until the diary unlocks them. Now looking back on the events through the eyes of a mature adult, he is fully aware of how the incident has left its mark on him. In a final twist to the story, 52 years later, Leo returns to Brandham. There he meets Marian's grandson and finds Marian herself living in a cottage the place she had always told people she was going when she was really having clandestine meetings with Ted. Brandham Hall has been let out to a girl's school. Lord Trimingham married Marian, but died in 1910, and Marcus and his brother Denys were killed in the First World War. In the end, an elderly Marian Maudsley persuades Leo to act as a go-between for her one more time.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ys were killed in the First World War. In the end, an elderly Marian Maudsley persuades Leo to act as a go-between for her one more time.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Mildred Pierce",
    "author": "James M. Cain",
    "published_date": "1941",
    "synopsis": " Set in Glendale, California, in the 1930s, the book is the story of middle-class housewife Mildred Pierce's attempts to maintain her family's social position during the Great Depression. Mildred separates from her unfaithful, unemployed husband and sets out to support herself and her children. After a difficult search she finds a job as a waitress, but she worries that it is beneath her middle-class station. More than that, she worries that her ambitious and increasingly pretentious elder daughter, Veda, will think her new job demeaning. Mildred encounters both success and failure as she opens three successful restaurants, operates a pie-selling business and copes with the death of her younger daughter, Ray. Veda enjoys her mother's newfound financial success but increasingly turns ungrateful, demanding more and more from her hard-working mother while openly condemning her and anyone who must work for a living. When Mildred discovers her daughter's plot to blackmail a wealthy family with a fake pregnancy, she kicks her out of their house. Veda, who has been training to become an opera singer, goes on to a great deal of fame as Mildred convinces her new boyfriend Monty (a young man who, like Mildred, lost his family's wealth at the start of the Great Depression) to help reconcile them. Unfortunately for Mildred, this means buying Monty's family estate and using her earnings to pay for Veda's extravagances. Mildred and Monty marry, but things go sour for her: Wally, her partner in the restaurant business, has discovered that her living like a rich person has dramatically affected the company's profits. He threatens a coup to force her out of the company. This causes her to confess to her ex-husband Bert that she has been embezzling money from her company in order to buy Veda's love. Needing some of Veda's money to balance the books - and fearing that Wally might target the girl's assets if they are exposed - Mildred goes to her house to confront her. She finds Veda in bed with her stepfather. Monty explains to Mildred that he's leaving her for Veda, who gloats that they've been planning this all along. Mildred snaps, brutally attacking and apparently strangling her daughter, who now appears incapable of singing and loses her singing contract. Weeks pass as Mildred moves to Reno, Nevada to establish residency in order to get a speedy divorce from Monty. Bert moves out to visit her. Mildred ultimately is forced to resign from her business empire, leaving it to Ida, a former company assistant. Bert and Mildred, upon the finalization of her divorce, remarry. They are shocked when Veda shows up with several dozen reporters to \"reconcile\" with her mother (a move designed to defuse the negative publicity of her sleeping with her stepfather). Mildred accepts, but several months later, Veda reveals that her voice has healed and announces that she is moving to New York City with Monty. Veda's apparent loss of her voice was only a ploy so that she could renege on her existing singing contract and then be free to establish a more lucrative singing contract with another company. As she leaves the house, a broken Mildred agrees to say \"to hell\" with the monstrous Veda and to \"get stinko\" (drunk) with Bert.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set in Glendale, California, in the 1930s, the book is the story of middle-class housewife Mildred Pierce's attempts to maintain her family's social position during the Great Depression. Mildred separates from her unfaithful, unemployed husband and sets out to support herself and her children. After a difficult search she finds a job as a waitress, but she worries that it is beneath her middle-class station. More than that, she worries that her ambitious and increasingly pretentious elder daughter, Veda, will think her new job demeaning. Mildred encounters both success and failure as she opens three successful restaurants, operates a pie-selling business and copes with the death of her younger daughter, Ray. Veda enjoys her mother's newfound financial success but increasingly turns ungrateful, demanding more and more from her hard-working mother while openly condemning her and anyone who must work for a living. When Mildred discovers her daughter's plot to blackmail a wealthy family with a fake pregnancy, she kicks her out of their house. Veda, who has been training to become an opera singer, goes on to a great deal of fame as Mildred convinces her new boyfriend Monty (a young man who, like Mildred, lost his family's wealth at the start of the Great Depression) to help reconcile them. Unfortunately for Mildred, this means buying Monty's family estate and using her earnings to pay for Veda's extravagances. Mildred and Monty marry, but things go sour for her: Wally, her partner in the restaurant business, has discovered that her living like a rich person has dramatically affected the company's profits. He threatens a coup to force her out of the company. This causes her to confess to her ex-husband Bert that she has been embezzling money from her company in order to buy Veda's love. Needing some of Veda's money to balance the books - and fearing that Wally might target"
      },
      {
        "text": " Monty marry, but things go sour for her: Wally, her partner in the restaurant business, has discovered that her living like a rich person has dramatically affected the company's profits. He threatens a coup to force her out of the company. This causes her to confess to her ex-husband Bert that she has been embezzling money from her company in order to buy Veda's love. Needing some of Veda's money to balance the books - and fearing that Wally might target the girl's assets if they are exposed - Mildred goes to her house to confront her. She finds Veda in bed with her stepfather. Monty explains to Mildred that he's leaving her for Veda, who gloats that they've been planning this all along. Mildred snaps, brutally attacking and apparently strangling her daughter, who now appears incapable of singing and loses her singing contract. Weeks pass as Mildred moves to Reno, Nevada to establish residency in order to get a speedy divorce from Monty. Bert moves out to visit her. Mildred ultimately is forced to resign from her business empire, leaving it to Ida, a former company assistant. Bert and Mildred, upon the finalization of her divorce, remarry. They are shocked when Veda shows up with several dozen reporters to \"reconcile\" with her mother (a move designed to defuse the negative publicity of her sleeping with her stepfather). Mildred accepts, but several months later, Veda reveals that her voice has healed and announces that she is moving to New York City with Monty. Veda's apparent loss of her voice was only a ploy so that she could renege on her existing singing contract and then be free to establish a more lucrative singing contract with another company. As she leaves the house, a broken Mildred agrees to say \"to hell\" with the monstrous Veda and to \"get stinko\" (drunk) with Bert.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " later, Veda reveals that her voice has healed and announces that she is moving to New York City with Monty. Veda's apparent loss of her voice was only a ploy so that she could renege on her existing singing contract and then be free to establish a more lucrative singing contract with another company. As she leaves the house, a broken Mildred agrees to say \"to hell\" with the monstrous Veda and to \"get stinko\" (drunk) with Bert.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Christmas Carol",
    "author": "Charles Dickens",
    "published_date": "1843-12-19",
    "synopsis": " Dickens divides the book into five chapters, which he labels \"staves\", that is, song stanzas or verses, in keeping with the title of the book. He uses a similar device in his next two Christmas books, titling the four divisions of The Chimes, \"quarters\", after the quarter-hour tolling of clock chimes, and naming the parts of The Cricket on the Hearth \"chirps\". The tale begins on a \"cold, bleak, biting\" Christmas Eve in 1843 exactly seven years after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge is established within the first stave as \"a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!\" who has no place in his life for kindness, compassion, charity or benevolence. He hates Christmas, calling it \"humbug\", refuses his nephew Fred's dinner invitation, and rudely turns away two gentlemen who seek a donation from him to provide a Christmas dinner for the Poor. His only \"Christmas gift\" is allowing his overworked, underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit Christmas Day off with pay - which he does only to keep with social custom, Scrooge considering it \"a poor excuse for picking a man\u2019s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!\". Returning home that evening, Scrooge is visited by Marley's ghost. Dickens describes the apparition thus - \"Marley's face...had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.\" It has a bandage under its chin, tied at the top of its head; \"...how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!\" Marley warns Scrooge to change his ways lest he undergo the same miserable afterlife as himself. Scrooge is then visited by three additional ghosts \u2013 each in its turn, and each visit detailed in a separate stave \u2013 who accompany him to various scenes with the hope of achieving his transformation. The first of the spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to Christmas scenes of his boyhood and youth, which stir the old miser's gentle and tender side by reminding him of a time when he was more innocent. They also show what made Scrooge the miser that he is, and why he dislikes Christmas. The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to several differing scenes - a joy-filled market of people buying the makings of Christmas dinner, the celebration of Christmas in a miner's cottage, and a lighthouse. A major part of this stave is taken up with the family feast of Scrooge's impoverished clerk Bob Cratchit, introducing his youngest son, Tiny Tim, who is seriously ill but cannot receive treatment due to Scrooge's unwillingness to pay Cratchit a decent wage. The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, harrows Scrooge with dire visions of the future if he does not learn and act upon what he has witnessed including Tiny Tim's death. It is shown that Scrooge has passed away where businessmen planned to attend if lunch is provided. Scrooge's charwoman Mrs. Dilber had stolen some of Scrooge's belongings and given them to a fence named Old Joe. Scrooge's own neglected and untended grave is then revealed, prompting the miser to aver that he will change his ways in hopes of changing these \"shadows of what may be.\" In the fifth and final stave, Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning with joy and love in his heart, then spends the day with his nephew's family after anonymously sending a prize turkey to the Cratchit home for Christmas dinner. Scrooge has become a different man overnight and now treats his fellow men with kindness, generosity and compassion, gaining a reputation as a man who embodies the spirit of Christmas. The story closes with the narrator confirming the validity, completeness and permanence of Scrooge's transformation.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Dickens divides the book into five chapters, which he labels \"staves\", that is, song stanzas or verses, in keeping with the title of the book. He uses a similar device in his next two Christmas books, titling the four divisions of The Chimes, \"quarters\", after the quarter-hour tolling of clock chimes, and naming the parts of The Cricket on the Hearth \"chirps\". The tale begins on a \"cold, bleak, biting\" Christmas Eve in 1843 exactly seven years after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge is established within the first stave as \"a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!\" who has no place in his life for kindness, compassion, charity or benevolence. He hates Christmas, calling it \"humbug\", refuses his nephew Fred's dinner invitation, and rudely turns away two gentlemen who seek a donation from him to provide a Christmas dinner for the Poor. His only \"Christmas gift\" is allowing his overworked, underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit Christmas Day off with pay - which he does only to keep with social custom, Scrooge considering it \"a poor excuse for picking a man\u2019s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!\". Returning home that evening, Scrooge is visited by Marley's ghost. Dickens describes the apparition thus - \"Marley's face...had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.\" It has a bandage under its chin, tied at the top of its head; \"...how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!\" Marley warns Scrooge to change his ways lest he undergo the same miserable afterlife as himself. Scrooge is then"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s face...had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.\" It has a bandage under its chin, tied at the top of its head; \"...how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!\" Marley warns Scrooge to change his ways lest he undergo the same miserable afterlife as himself. Scrooge is then visited by three additional ghosts \u2013 each in its turn, and each visit detailed in a separate stave \u2013 who accompany him to various scenes with the hope of achieving his transformation. The first of the spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to Christmas scenes of his boyhood and youth, which stir the old miser's gentle and tender side by reminding him of a time when he was more innocent. They also show what made Scrooge the miser that he is, and why he dislikes Christmas. The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to several differing scenes - a joy-filled market of people buying the makings of Christmas dinner, the celebration of Christmas in a miner's cottage, and a lighthouse. A major part of this stave is taken up with the family feast of Scrooge's impoverished clerk Bob Cratchit, introducing his youngest son, Tiny Tim, who is seriously ill but cannot receive treatment due to Scrooge's unwillingness to pay Cratchit a decent wage. The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, harrows Scrooge with dire visions of the future if he does not learn and act upon what he has witnessed including Tiny Tim's death. It is shown that Scrooge has passed away where businessmen planned to attend if lunch is provided. Scrooge's charwoman Mrs. Dilber had stolen some of Scrooge's belongings and given"
      },
      {
        "text": " receive treatment due to Scrooge's unwillingness to pay Cratchit a decent wage. The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, harrows Scrooge with dire visions of the future if he does not learn and act upon what he has witnessed including Tiny Tim's death. It is shown that Scrooge has passed away where businessmen planned to attend if lunch is provided. Scrooge's charwoman Mrs. Dilber had stolen some of Scrooge's belongings and given them to a fence named Old Joe. Scrooge's own neglected and untended grave is then revealed, prompting the miser to aver that he will change his ways in hopes of changing these \"shadows of what may be.\" In the fifth and final stave, Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning with joy and love in his heart, then spends the day with his nephew's family after anonymously sending a prize turkey to the Cratchit home for Christmas dinner. Scrooge has become a different man overnight and now treats his fellow men with kindness, generosity and compassion, gaining a reputation as a man who embodies the spirit of Christmas. The story closes with the narrator confirming the validity, completeness and permanence of Scrooge's transformation.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "About a Boy",
    "author": "Nick Hornby",
    "published_date": "1998",
    "synopsis": " The novel is about Will Freeman, a 36-year-old bachelor, and Marcus, an introverted, bullied 12-year-old who lives alone with his suicidal mother, Fiona. Will, who has never had to work thanks to the royalties from his father's hit Christmas song, \"Santa's Super Sleigh,\" has a lot of spare time, which he spends smoking, watching TV, listening to albums and looking for temporary female companionship. After a pleasant relationship with a single mother, Angie, Will comes up with the idea of attending a single parents group as a new way to pick up women. For this purpose, he invents a two-year-old son called Ned. It is through one of these single parents meetings that he comes to know Marcus. Although their relationship is initially somewhat strained, they finally succeed in striking up a true friendship. Will helps Marcus to fit into the modern world, taking him shopping, buying him shoes and introducing him to the music of Nirvana. Marcus and Will's friendship blooms as the story progresses, even after Marcus and Fiona discover Will's lie about having a child. Marcus is \"adopted\" by Ellie McRae, a tough, moody 15-year-old girl, who is constantly in trouble at school because she insists on wearing a Kurt Cobain jumper. He also spends some time with his dad Clive, who visits Marcus and Fiona for Christmas together with his new girlfriend Lindsey and her mother. Meanwhile Will starts going out with a single mother named Rachel, whose son Alistair is about the same age as Marcus. In the end, Marcus comes out of his shell and learns to stand up for himself. Will, meanwhile, finally grows up and ends up wanting to marry Rachel. Therefore, both Will and Marcus have started to live appropriately for their age groups. The action is set in 1993 and 1994 in London. The title is a reference to the song \"About a Girl\" by Nirvana, a band that is featured in the book, and Patti Smith's tribute to Kurt Cobain, \"About a Boy\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is about Will Freeman, a 36-year-old bachelor, and Marcus, an introverted, bullied 12-year-old who lives alone with his suicidal mother, Fiona. Will, who has never had to work thanks to the royalties from his father's hit Christmas song, \"Santa's Super Sleigh,\" has a lot of spare time, which he spends smoking, watching TV, listening to albums and looking for temporary female companionship. After a pleasant relationship with a single mother, Angie, Will comes up with the idea of attending a single parents group as a new way to pick up women. For this purpose, he invents a two-year-old son called Ned. It is through one of these single parents meetings that he comes to know Marcus. Although their relationship is initially somewhat strained, they finally succeed in striking up a true friendship. Will helps Marcus to fit into the modern world, taking him shopping, buying him shoes and introducing him to the music of Nirvana. Marcus and Will's friendship blooms as the story progresses, even after Marcus and Fiona discover Will's lie about having a child. Marcus is \"adopted\" by Ellie McRae, a tough, moody 15-year-old girl, who is constantly in trouble at school because she insists on wearing a Kurt Cobain jumper. He also spends some time with his dad Clive, who visits Marcus and Fiona for Christmas together with his new girlfriend Lindsey and her mother. Meanwhile Will starts going out with a single mother named Rachel, whose son Alistair is about the same age as Marcus. In the end, Marcus comes out of his shell and learns to stand up for himself. Will, meanwhile, finally grows up and ends up wanting to marry Rachel. Therefore, both Will and Marcus have started to live appropriately for their age groups. The action is set in 1993 and 1994 in London. The title is a reference to the song \"About a Girl\" by Nirvana, a band that"
      },
      {
        "text": " out with a single mother named Rachel, whose son Alistair is about the same age as Marcus. In the end, Marcus comes out of his shell and learns to stand up for himself. Will, meanwhile, finally grows up and ends up wanting to marry Rachel. Therefore, both Will and Marcus have started to live appropriately for their age groups. The action is set in 1993 and 1994 in London. The title is a reference to the song \"About a Girl\" by Nirvana, a band that is featured in the book, and Patti Smith's tribute to Kurt Cobain, \"About a Boy\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Hustler",
    "author": "Walter Tevis",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " After losing to Fats, Eddie could spiral down to the scrapheap, but he meets Bert Gordon, a . Bert teaches him about winning, or more particularly about losing. Tautly written, it is a treatise on how someone, with all of the skills, can lose if he \"wants\" to lose; how a loser is beaten by himself, not by his opponent; and how he can learn to win, if he can look deeply enough into himself. The book was followed by the sequel The Color of Money.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After losing to Fats, Eddie could spiral down to the scrapheap, but he meets Bert Gordon, a . Bert teaches him about winning, or more particularly about losing. Tautly written, it is a treatise on how someone, with all of the skills, can lose if he \"wants\" to lose; how a loser is beaten by himself, not by his opponent; and how he can learn to win, if he can look deeply enough into himself. The book was followed by the sequel The Color of Money.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Letter from an Unknown Woman",
    "author": "Stefan Zweig",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " A rich and well-known writer, returning from one of many holidays to Vienna, finds a long letter from an unknown woman. As a teenager she had lived with her poor widowed mother in the same building and had fallen totally in love with both the opulent cultured lifestyle of her neighbour and the handsome charming man himself. This passion was not lessened by the flow of attractive women spending the night with him or by her being removed to Innsbruck when her mother remarried. At age 18 she returned to Vienna, took a job and tried to meet the writer. He did not recognise her and, without revealing her name, she succeeded in spending three nights with him before he disappeared on a holiday. Pregnant, she lost her job and had to give birth in a refuge for the indigent. Resolved that their child should have a good life, she spent nights with or became mistress of various rich men but would never marry because her heart belonged always to the writer. Out with a current lover, she saw the writer in a night club and went home with him instead. To him, she was just an agreeable companion for that night, as he again did not recognise her. In the 1918 flu pandemic, the child died and she, ill herself, wrote this letter to be posted after her death. [Condensed and translated from http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettre_d%27une_inconnue]\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A rich and well-known writer, returning from one of many holidays to Vienna, finds a long letter from an unknown woman. As a teenager she had lived with her poor widowed mother in the same building and had fallen totally in love with both the opulent cultured lifestyle of her neighbour and the handsome charming man himself. This passion was not lessened by the flow of attractive women spending the night with him or by her being removed to Innsbruck when her mother remarried. At age 18 she returned to Vienna, took a job and tried to meet the writer. He did not recognise her and, without revealing her name, she succeeded in spending three nights with him before he disappeared on a holiday. Pregnant, she lost her job and had to give birth in a refuge for the indigent. Resolved that their child should have a good life, she spent nights with or became mistress of various rich men but would never marry because her heart belonged always to the writer. Out with a current lover, she saw the writer in a night club and went home with him instead. To him, she was just an agreeable companion for that night, as he again did not recognise her. In the 1918 flu pandemic, the child died and she, ill herself, wrote this letter to be posted after her death. [Condensed and translated from http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettre_d%27une_inconnue]\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Miss Lulu Bett",
    "author": "Zona Gale",
    "published_date": "1920",
    "synopsis": " The story concerns a woman, Lulu, who lives with her sister's family, essentially acting as a servant. She does not complain about her position, but is not happy. When her brother-in-law's brother, Ninian, comes to visit, there is a certain attraction between them. While joking around one evening they find themselves accidentally married, due to the laws of the state requiring little more than wedding vows to be recited while a magistrate is in the room for a marriage to count as legal. On learning this, Ninian and Lulu decide they actually like the idea of being married, and choose to stick with it. However, within a month, Lulu is back home, having discovered that Ninian was already legally married: 18 years prior he had wed a girl who left him after 2 years, and he had actually forgotten about the whole thing. Lulu considers this a reasonable story, but her brother-in-law, Dwight, insists that it would be a humiliation to the family to reveal such a thing, and insists that she tell everyone instead that Ninian grew bored with her and left her. Lulu is unable to see why this should be a less humiliating story, and begins to complain about her circumstances for the first time. She also notices that her teenage niece, Di, is unhappy, and also seems to be trying to use marriage as a way to escape her circumstance. Lulu eventually has to prevent Di from eloping, and is finally inspired to move out of her sister's home and live on her own. Two endings were written for the play, the original as seen in December 1920 (and the ending that won Gale the Pulitzer Prize from Drama; the first woman ever to do so) has Lulu starting a life on her own and undertaking adventures of her own as we hear in her final lines, \"Good-by. Good-by, all of you. I'm going I don't know where-to work at I don't know what. But I'm going from choice!\" The revised ending is a much less satisfying one, but is more typical and would have been a bit more commercially acceptable and far less challenging to the audiences of the day. In this ending, Ninian shows up in the nick of time just as Lulu decides to go off on her own life to work and live elsewhere. He asks her forgiveness and she agrees saying \"I forgave you in Savannah, Georgia.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story concerns a woman, Lulu, who lives with her sister's family, essentially acting as a servant. She does not complain about her position, but is not happy. When her brother-in-law's brother, Ninian, comes to visit, there is a certain attraction between them. While joking around one evening they find themselves accidentally married, due to the laws of the state requiring little more than wedding vows to be recited while a magistrate is in the room for a marriage to count as legal. On learning this, Ninian and Lulu decide they actually like the idea of being married, and choose to stick with it. However, within a month, Lulu is back home, having discovered that Ninian was already legally married: 18 years prior he had wed a girl who left him after 2 years, and he had actually forgotten about the whole thing. Lulu considers this a reasonable story, but her brother-in-law, Dwight, insists that it would be a humiliation to the family to reveal such a thing, and insists that she tell everyone instead that Ninian grew bored with her and left her. Lulu is unable to see why this should be a less humiliating story, and begins to complain about her circumstances for the first time. She also notices that her teenage niece, Di, is unhappy, and also seems to be trying to use marriage as a way to escape her circumstance. Lulu eventually has to prevent Di from eloping, and is finally inspired to move out of her sister's home and live on her own. Two endings were written for the play, the original as seen in December 1920 (and the ending that won Gale the Pulitzer Prize from Drama; the first woman ever to do so) has Lulu starting a life on her own and undertaking adventures of her own as we hear in her final lines, \"Good-by. Good-by, all of you. I'm going I don't know where-to work at I"
      },
      {
        "text": " inspired to move out of her sister's home and live on her own. Two endings were written for the play, the original as seen in December 1920 (and the ending that won Gale the Pulitzer Prize from Drama; the first woman ever to do so) has Lulu starting a life on her own and undertaking adventures of her own as we hear in her final lines, \"Good-by. Good-by, all of you. I'm going I don't know where-to work at I don't know what. But I'm going from choice!\" The revised ending is a much less satisfying one, but is more typical and would have been a bit more commercially acceptable and far less challenging to the audiences of the day. In this ending, Ninian shows up in the nick of time just as Lulu decides to go off on her own life to work and live elsewhere. He asks her forgiveness and she agrees saying \"I forgave you in Savannah, Georgia.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions",
    "author": "Edwin Abbott Abbott",
    "published_date": "1884",
    "synopsis": " The story is about a two-dimensional world referred to as Flatland which is occupied by geometric figures. Women are simple line-segments, while men are regular polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a humble square, a member of the social caste of gentlemen and professionals in a society of geometric figures, who guides us through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. The Square has a dream about a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland) which is inhabited by \"lustrous points\". He attempts to convince the realm's ignorant monarch of a second dimension but finds that it is essentially impossible to make him see outside of his eternally straight line. He is then visited by a three-dimensional sphere, which he cannot comprehend until he sees Spaceland for himself. This Sphere (who remains nameless, like all characters in the novella) visits Flatland at the turn of each millennium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hopes of eventually educating the population of Flatland of the existence of Spaceland. From the safety of Spaceland, they are able to observe the leaders of Flatland secretly acknowledging the existence of the sphere and prescribing the silencing of anyone found preaching the truth of Spaceland and the third dimension. After this proclamation is made, many witnesses are massacred or imprisoned (according to caste). After the Square's mind is opened to new dimensions, he tries to convince the Sphere of the theoretical possibility of the existence of a fourth (and fifth, and sixth ...) spatial dimension. Offended by this presumption and incapable of comprehending other dimensions, the Sphere returns his student to Flatland in disgrace. The Square then has a dream in which the Sphere visits him again, this time to introduce him to Pointland. The point (sole inhabitant, monarch, and universe in one) perceives any attempt at communicating with him as simply being a thought originating in his own mind (cf. Solipsism): The Square recognizes the connection between the ignorance of the monarchs of Pointland and Lineland with his own (and the Sphere's) previous ignorance of the existence of other, higher dimensions. Once returned to Flatland, the Square finds it difficult to convince anyone of Spaceland's existence, especially after official decrees are announcedanyone preaching the lies of three dimensions will be imprisoned (or executed, depending on caste). Eventually the Square himself is imprisoned for just this reason, where he spends the rest of his days attempting to explain the third dimension to his brother.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is about a two-dimensional world referred to as Flatland which is occupied by geometric figures. Women are simple line-segments, while men are regular polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a humble square, a member of the social caste of gentlemen and professionals in a society of geometric figures, who guides us through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. The Square has a dream about a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland) which is inhabited by \"lustrous points\". He attempts to convince the realm's ignorant monarch of a second dimension but finds that it is essentially impossible to make him see outside of his eternally straight line. He is then visited by a three-dimensional sphere, which he cannot comprehend until he sees Spaceland for himself. This Sphere (who remains nameless, like all characters in the novella) visits Flatland at the turn of each millennium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hopes of eventually educating the population of Flatland of the existence of Spaceland. From the safety of Spaceland, they are able to observe the leaders of Flatland secretly acknowledging the existence of the sphere and prescribing the silencing of anyone found preaching the truth of Spaceland and the third dimension. After this proclamation is made, many witnesses are massacred or imprisoned (according to caste). After the Square's mind is opened to new dimensions, he tries to convince the Sphere of the theoretical possibility of the existence of a fourth (and fifth, and sixth ...) spatial dimension. Offended by this presumption and incapable of comprehending other dimensions, the Sphere returns his student to Flatland in disgrace. The Square then has a dream in which the Sphere visits him again, this time to introduce him to Pointland. The point (sole inhabitant, monarch, and universe in one) perceives any attempt at communicating with him as simply being a thought originating in his own mind (cf. Solips"
      },
      {
        "text": " the existence of a fourth (and fifth, and sixth ...) spatial dimension. Offended by this presumption and incapable of comprehending other dimensions, the Sphere returns his student to Flatland in disgrace. The Square then has a dream in which the Sphere visits him again, this time to introduce him to Pointland. The point (sole inhabitant, monarch, and universe in one) perceives any attempt at communicating with him as simply being a thought originating in his own mind (cf. Solipsism): The Square recognizes the connection between the ignorance of the monarchs of Pointland and Lineland with his own (and the Sphere's) previous ignorance of the existence of other, higher dimensions. Once returned to Flatland, the Square finds it difficult to convince anyone of Spaceland's existence, especially after official decrees are announcedanyone preaching the lies of three dimensions will be imprisoned (or executed, depending on caste). Eventually the Square himself is imprisoned for just this reason, where he spends the rest of his days attempting to explain the third dimension to his brother.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sick Puppy",
    "author": "Carl Hiaasen",
    "published_date": "2000",
    "synopsis": " Florida's corrupt governor, Dick Artemus, pursues schemes to line his pockets and those of his rich entrepreneur backers at the expense of the environment. His schemes have always foundered in the past, but he has high hopes of a plan involving Toad Island, virtually uninhabited except for innumerable tiny toads. A former drug smuggler-turned-developer, Robert Clapley, plans to bulldoze the island and turn it into Shearwater Island, with high rise condominiums, a golf course and a massive new bridge to the mainland. He hires Palmer Stoat, a lobbyist, to expedite the project. By random happenstance, Stoat incurs the wrath of Twilly Spree, an ecoterrorist. Spree obsessively pursues a path of retribution after seeing Stoat litter, and tracks him back to his Fort Lauderdale residence where he and his wife Desirata live. Artemus, in an effort to avoid the Shearwater Project being tainted with violent death, seeks out and locates ex-governor Clinton Tyree, who vanished about 20 years ago after a short and unsuccessful (but honest) term of office and is said to be hiding out somewhere in the remaining wilderness of Florida. Artemus knows Tyree will be unsympathetic to his situation, and resorts to blackmail. Clinton's disturbed brother Doyle is still on the governor's payroll as the keeper of a lighthouse that has not been in use for years. Artemus advises Tyree that his brother will be tossed out on the street if he doesn't locate Spree. Clapley's death leaves the Shearwater project doomed without financial backing and only a few people show up at Palmer Stoat's funeral. Meanwhile, Twilly Spree and Clinton Tyree are driving along the highway towards Tyree's wilderness when they see another group of litterbugs throwing lighted cigarette butts, empty bottles and other rubbish out of their speeding car. They immediately agree the they have to teach them a lesson.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Florida's corrupt governor, Dick Artemus, pursues schemes to line his pockets and those of his rich entrepreneur backers at the expense of the environment. His schemes have always foundered in the past, but he has high hopes of a plan involving Toad Island, virtually uninhabited except for innumerable tiny toads. A former drug smuggler-turned-developer, Robert Clapley, plans to bulldoze the island and turn it into Shearwater Island, with high rise condominiums, a golf course and a massive new bridge to the mainland. He hires Palmer Stoat, a lobbyist, to expedite the project. By random happenstance, Stoat incurs the wrath of Twilly Spree, an ecoterrorist. Spree obsessively pursues a path of retribution after seeing Stoat litter, and tracks him back to his Fort Lauderdale residence where he and his wife Desirata live. Artemus, in an effort to avoid the Shearwater Project being tainted with violent death, seeks out and locates ex-governor Clinton Tyree, who vanished about 20 years ago after a short and unsuccessful (but honest) term of office and is said to be hiding out somewhere in the remaining wilderness of Florida. Artemus knows Tyree will be unsympathetic to his situation, and resorts to blackmail. Clinton's disturbed brother Doyle is still on the governor's payroll as the keeper of a lighthouse that has not been in use for years. Artemus advises Tyree that his brother will be tossed out on the street if he doesn't locate Spree. Clapley's death leaves the Shearwater project doomed without financial backing and only a few people show up at Palmer Stoat's funeral. Meanwhile, Twilly Spree and Clinton Tyree are driving along the highway towards Tyree's wilderness when they see another group of litterbugs throwing lighted cigarette butts, empty bottles and other rubbish out of their speeding car"
      },
      {
        "text": " years. Artemus advises Tyree that his brother will be tossed out on the street if he doesn't locate Spree. Clapley's death leaves the Shearwater project doomed without financial backing and only a few people show up at Palmer Stoat's funeral. Meanwhile, Twilly Spree and Clinton Tyree are driving along the highway towards Tyree's wilderness when they see another group of litterbugs throwing lighted cigarette butts, empty bottles and other rubbish out of their speeding car. They immediately agree the they have to teach them a lesson.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Prisoner of Zenda",
    "author": "Anthony Hope",
    "published_date": "1894",
    "synopsis": " On the eve of the coronation of King Rudolf of Ruritania, his brother, Prince Michael, has him drugged. In a desperate attempt not to give Michael the excuse to claim the throne, Colonel Sapt and Fritz von Tarlenheim, attendants of the King, persuade his identical cousin Rudolf Rassendyll, an English visitor, to impersonate the King at the coronation. The unconscious king is abducted and imprisoned in a castle in the small town of Zenda. There are complications, plots, and counter-plots, among them the schemes of Michael's mistress, Antoinette de Mauban, and those of his dashing but villainous henchman Count Rupert of Hentzau. Rassendyll falls in love with Princess Flavia, the King's betrothed, but cannot tell her the truth. He determines to rescue the king and leads an attempt to enter the castle of Zenda. The King is rescued and is restored to his throne, but the lovers, in duty bound, must part forever.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On the eve of the coronation of King Rudolf of Ruritania, his brother, Prince Michael, has him drugged. In a desperate attempt not to give Michael the excuse to claim the throne, Colonel Sapt and Fritz von Tarlenheim, attendants of the King, persuade his identical cousin Rudolf Rassendyll, an English visitor, to impersonate the King at the coronation. The unconscious king is abducted and imprisoned in a castle in the small town of Zenda. There are complications, plots, and counter-plots, among them the schemes of Michael's mistress, Antoinette de Mauban, and those of his dashing but villainous henchman Count Rupert of Hentzau. Rassendyll falls in love with Princess Flavia, the King's betrothed, but cannot tell her the truth. He determines to rescue the king and leads an attempt to enter the castle of Zenda. The King is rescued and is restored to his throne, but the lovers, in duty bound, must part forever.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Great Gatsby",
    "author": "F. Scott Fitzgerald",
    "published_date": "1925-04-10",
    "synopsis": " The story begins with the narrator, Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who has graduated from Yale and fought in World War I, returning home to begin a career. He is restless and has decided to move to New York to learn the bond business. The novel opens early in the summer of 1922 in West Egg, Long Island, where Nick has rented a house next to the mansion of Gatsby, the mysterious host of regular, extravagant parties. Tom and Daisy Buchanan live across the bay in the more fashionable East Egg, where those coming from 'old money' live. Daisy is Nick's second cousin, and Tom and Nick had been in the same senior society at Yale College. They invite Nick to dinner at their mansion where he meets a young woman named Jordan Baker, whom Daisy wants Nick to date. Daisy, who is still as beautiful and charming as she ever was, now has a young child. Tom is muscular, brusque and considers himself an intellectual. During dinner the phone rings, and when Tom and Daisy leave the room, Jordan informs Nick that the caller is Tom's mistress from New York. Myrtle Wilson, Tom's mistress, lives in Flushing, Queens near a large expanse of land known as the Valley of Ashes, where Myrtle's husband, George Wilson, owns a garage. Painted on a large billboard nearby is a fading advertisement for an ophthalmologist: seemingly watching the characters throughout the novel. Around three weeks after that evening at the Buchanans', Tom takes Nick to meet the Wilsons. He then takes Myrtle and Nick to New York to a party in a flat he is renting for her. The party breaks up when Myrtle insolently starts shouting Daisy's name, and Tom breaks her nose with a blow of his open hand. Several weeks later Nick is invited to one of Gatsby's elaborate parties. He attends with Jordan and finds that many of the guests are uninvited and know very little about their host, leading to much speculation about his past. Nick meets Gatsby and notices that he does not drink or join in the revelry of the party. On the way to lunch in New York with Nick, Gatsby tells Nick that he is the son of a rich family (\"all dead now\") from San Francisco and that he attended Oxford. During lunch, Gatsby introduces Nick to his business associate, Meyer Wolfsheim, who fixed the World Series in 1919. Nick, being a moral man, is astonished and slightly unsettled. At tea that afternoon Nick finds out that Gatsby wants Nick to arrange a meeting between him and Daisy. Gatsby and Daisy had loved each other five years ago, but he was penniless and chose to let Daisy believe that he was as well off as she was. Gatsby was then sent overseas by the army. Daisy had given up waiting for him and married Tom. After the War, Gatsby decided to win Daisy back by buying a house in West Egg and throwing lavish parties in the hopes that she would attend. His house is directly across the bay from hers, and he can see a green light at the end of Daisy's dock. Gatsby and Daisy meet for the first time in five years, and he tries to impress her with his mansion and his wealth. Daisy is overcome with emotion and their relationship begins anew. She and Tom finally attend one of Gatsby's parties, but she dislikes it. Gatsby remarks unhappily that their relationship is not like it had been five years ago. Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Nick and Jordan get together at Daisy's house, where they meet Daisy's young daughter, whom Daisy treats as a mere pet that she quickly gives back to a maid when the child has provided a moment's entertainment. The group decides to go to the city to escape the heat. Tom, Jordan and Nick take Gatsby's car, a yellow Rolls-Royce. Daisy and Gatsby go in Tom's car, a blue coup\u00e9. On the way to the city, Tom stops at Wilson's garage to fill up the tank. Wilson is distraught and ill, saying his wife has been having an affair, though he doesn't know with whom. Nick feels Myrtle watching them from the window. The party goes to a suite at the Plaza Hotel, where Tom confronts Gatsby about his relationship with Daisy. Gatsby demands that Daisy leave Tom and tell him that she never loved him. Daisy is unwilling to do either, admitting that she did love Tom once, which shocks Gatsby. Tom accuses Gatsby of bootlegging and other illegal activities, and Daisy begs to go home. Gatsby and Daisy drive back together in Gatsby's car, followed by the rest of the party in Tom's car. On the way home by Wilson's garage, Myrtle runs out into the street after an explosive argument with her husband and the yellow Rolls-Royce hits and kills her before speeding off. Gatsby later tells Nick that Daisy was driving, but he will take the blame. When Tom arrives at Wilson's garage shortly afterwards, he is horrified to find Myrtle dead. Tom believes that Gatsby was driving, and therefore killed her, and drives home in tears. Once home, Tom and Daisy seem to have reconciled. After a sleepless night, Nick goes over to Gatsby's house where Gatsby ponders the uncertainty of his future with Daisy. Wilson has been restless from grief, convinced that Myrtle's death was not accidental. He goes around town inquiring about the yellow Rolls-Royce. Wilson finds out that Gatsby owned the car, and while Gatsby is relaxing in his pool, Wilson shoots and kills him before killing himself. Nick struggles to arrange Gatsby's funeral, finding that while Gatsby was well connected in life, very few people are willing to attend his funeral, not even Meyer Wolfsheim. Meanwhile, Daisy is unable to be reached after going off on vacation with Tom. Finally, the only mourners are Nick, a few servants, Mr. Gatz (Gatsby's father) and an owl-eyed guest from Gatsby's grand parties. Mr. Gatz proudly tells Nick about his son, who was born into a penniless family in North Dakota as James Gatz and worked tirelessly to improve and reinvent himself. After this whole affair with Gatsby, Nick decides to move back West, breaking things off with Jordan Baker, whom he had been dating for a while. Also, Tom reveals that it was he who told Wilson that Gatsby drove the yellow car. Nick loses respect for the Buchanans and does not communicate with them again.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins with the narrator, Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who has graduated from Yale and fought in World War I, returning home to begin a career. He is restless and has decided to move to New York to learn the bond business. The novel opens early in the summer of 1922 in West Egg, Long Island, where Nick has rented a house next to the mansion of Gatsby, the mysterious host of regular, extravagant parties. Tom and Daisy Buchanan live across the bay in the more fashionable East Egg, where those coming from 'old money' live. Daisy is Nick's second cousin, and Tom and Nick had been in the same senior society at Yale College. They invite Nick to dinner at their mansion where he meets a young woman named Jordan Baker, whom Daisy wants Nick to date. Daisy, who is still as beautiful and charming as she ever was, now has a young child. Tom is muscular, brusque and considers himself an intellectual. During dinner the phone rings, and when Tom and Daisy leave the room, Jordan informs Nick that the caller is Tom's mistress from New York. Myrtle Wilson, Tom's mistress, lives in Flushing, Queens near a large expanse of land known as the Valley of Ashes, where Myrtle's husband, George Wilson, owns a garage. Painted on a large billboard nearby is a fading advertisement for an ophthalmologist: seemingly watching the characters throughout the novel. Around three weeks after that evening at the Buchanans', Tom takes Nick to meet the Wilsons. He then takes Myrtle and Nick to New York to a party in a flat he is renting for her. The party breaks up when Myrtle insolently starts shouting Daisy's name, and Tom breaks her nose with a blow of his open hand. Several weeks later Nick is invited to one of Gatsby's elaborate parties. He attends with Jordan and finds that many of the guests are uninvited and know very little"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Buchanans', Tom takes Nick to meet the Wilsons. He then takes Myrtle and Nick to New York to a party in a flat he is renting for her. The party breaks up when Myrtle insolently starts shouting Daisy's name, and Tom breaks her nose with a blow of his open hand. Several weeks later Nick is invited to one of Gatsby's elaborate parties. He attends with Jordan and finds that many of the guests are uninvited and know very little about their host, leading to much speculation about his past. Nick meets Gatsby and notices that he does not drink or join in the revelry of the party. On the way to lunch in New York with Nick, Gatsby tells Nick that he is the son of a rich family (\"all dead now\") from San Francisco and that he attended Oxford. During lunch, Gatsby introduces Nick to his business associate, Meyer Wolfsheim, who fixed the World Series in 1919. Nick, being a moral man, is astonished and slightly unsettled. At tea that afternoon Nick finds out that Gatsby wants Nick to arrange a meeting between him and Daisy. Gatsby and Daisy had loved each other five years ago, but he was penniless and chose to let Daisy believe that he was as well off as she was. Gatsby was then sent overseas by the army. Daisy had given up waiting for him and married Tom. After the War, Gatsby decided to win Daisy back by buying a house in West Egg and throwing lavish parties in the hopes that she would attend. His house is directly across the bay from hers, and he can see a green light at the end of Daisy's dock. Gatsby and Daisy meet for the first time in five years, and he tries to impress her with his mansion and his wealth. Daisy is overcome with emotion and their relationship begins anew. She and Tom finally attend one of Gatsby's parties, but she"
      },
      {
        "text": " win Daisy back by buying a house in West Egg and throwing lavish parties in the hopes that she would attend. His house is directly across the bay from hers, and he can see a green light at the end of Daisy's dock. Gatsby and Daisy meet for the first time in five years, and he tries to impress her with his mansion and his wealth. Daisy is overcome with emotion and their relationship begins anew. She and Tom finally attend one of Gatsby's parties, but she dislikes it. Gatsby remarks unhappily that their relationship is not like it had been five years ago. Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Nick and Jordan get together at Daisy's house, where they meet Daisy's young daughter, whom Daisy treats as a mere pet that she quickly gives back to a maid when the child has provided a moment's entertainment. The group decides to go to the city to escape the heat. Tom, Jordan and Nick take Gatsby's car, a yellow Rolls-Royce. Daisy and Gatsby go in Tom's car, a blue coup\u00e9. On the way to the city, Tom stops at Wilson's garage to fill up the tank. Wilson is distraught and ill, saying his wife has been having an affair, though he doesn't know with whom. Nick feels Myrtle watching them from the window. The party goes to a suite at the Plaza Hotel, where Tom confronts Gatsby about his relationship with Daisy. Gatsby demands that Daisy leave Tom and tell him that she never loved him. Daisy is unwilling to do either, admitting that she did love Tom once, which shocks Gatsby. Tom accuses Gatsby of bootlegging and other illegal activities, and Daisy begs to go home. Gatsby and Daisy drive back together in Gatsby's car, followed by the rest of the party in Tom's car. On the way home by Wilson's garage, Myrtle runs out into the street"
      },
      {
        "text": "by demands that Daisy leave Tom and tell him that she never loved him. Daisy is unwilling to do either, admitting that she did love Tom once, which shocks Gatsby. Tom accuses Gatsby of bootlegging and other illegal activities, and Daisy begs to go home. Gatsby and Daisy drive back together in Gatsby's car, followed by the rest of the party in Tom's car. On the way home by Wilson's garage, Myrtle runs out into the street after an explosive argument with her husband and the yellow Rolls-Royce hits and kills her before speeding off. Gatsby later tells Nick that Daisy was driving, but he will take the blame. When Tom arrives at Wilson's garage shortly afterwards, he is horrified to find Myrtle dead. Tom believes that Gatsby was driving, and therefore killed her, and drives home in tears. Once home, Tom and Daisy seem to have reconciled. After a sleepless night, Nick goes over to Gatsby's house where Gatsby ponders the uncertainty of his future with Daisy. Wilson has been restless from grief, convinced that Myrtle's death was not accidental. He goes around town inquiring about the yellow Rolls-Royce. Wilson finds out that Gatsby owned the car, and while Gatsby is relaxing in his pool, Wilson shoots and kills him before killing himself. Nick struggles to arrange Gatsby's funeral, finding that while Gatsby was well connected in life, very few people are willing to attend his funeral, not even Meyer Wolfsheim. Meanwhile, Daisy is unable to be reached after going off on vacation with Tom. Finally, the only mourners are Nick, a few servants, Mr. Gatz (Gatsby's father) and an owl-eyed guest from Gatsby's grand parties. Mr. Gatz proudly tells Nick about his son, who was born into a penniless family in North Dakota as James G"
      },
      {
        "text": " connected in life, very few people are willing to attend his funeral, not even Meyer Wolfsheim. Meanwhile, Daisy is unable to be reached after going off on vacation with Tom. Finally, the only mourners are Nick, a few servants, Mr. Gatz (Gatsby's father) and an owl-eyed guest from Gatsby's grand parties. Mr. Gatz proudly tells Nick about his son, who was born into a penniless family in North Dakota as James Gatz and worked tirelessly to improve and reinvent himself. After this whole affair with Gatsby, Nick decides to move back West, breaking things off with Jordan Baker, whom he had been dating for a while. Also, Tom reveals that it was he who told Wilson that Gatsby drove the yellow car. Nick loses respect for the Buchanans and does not communicate with them again.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "For Whom the Bell Tolls",
    "author": "Ernest Hemingway",
    "published_date": "1940",
    "synopsis": " This novel is told primarily through the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist, Robert Jordan. The character was inspired by Hemingway's own experiences in the Spanish Civil War as a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Robert Jordan is an American in the International Brigades who travels to Spain to oppose the fascist forces of Francisco Franco. As an experienced dynamiter, he was ordered by a communist Russian general to travel behind enemy lines and destroy a bridge with the aid of a band of local antifascist guerrillas, in order to prevent enemy troops from being able to respond to an upcoming offensive. (The Soviet Union aided and advised the Republicans against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.) In their camp, Robert Jordan encounters Mar\u00eda, a young Spanish woman whose life had been shattered by the execution of her parents and her rape at the hands of the Falangists (part of the fascist coalition) at the outbreak of the war. His strong sense of duty clashes with both guerrilla leader Pablo's unwillingness to commit to an operation that would endanger himself and his band, and his newfound lust for life arises out of his love for Mar\u00eda. However, when another band of antifascist guerrillas led by El Sordo are surrounded and killed, Pablo decides to betray Jordan by stealing the dynamite caps, hoping to prevent the demolition. In the end Jordan improvises a way to detonate his dynamite, and Pablo returns to assist in the operation after seeing Jordan's commitment to his course of action. Though the bridge is successfully destroyed, it may be too late for the purposes of delaying enemy troop movements rendering the mission pointless, and Jordan is maimed when his horse is shot out from under him by a tank. Knowing that he would only slow his comrades down, he bids goodbye to Mar\u00eda and ensures that she escapes to safety with the surviving members of the guerillas. He refuses an offer from another fighter to be shot and lies in agony, hoping to kill an enemy officer and a few soldiers before being captured and executed. The narration ends right before Jordan launches his ambush. The novel graphically describes the brutality of civil war.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " This novel is told primarily through the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist, Robert Jordan. The character was inspired by Hemingway's own experiences in the Spanish Civil War as a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Robert Jordan is an American in the International Brigades who travels to Spain to oppose the fascist forces of Francisco Franco. As an experienced dynamiter, he was ordered by a communist Russian general to travel behind enemy lines and destroy a bridge with the aid of a band of local antifascist guerrillas, in order to prevent enemy troops from being able to respond to an upcoming offensive. (The Soviet Union aided and advised the Republicans against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.) In their camp, Robert Jordan encounters Mar\u00eda, a young Spanish woman whose life had been shattered by the execution of her parents and her rape at the hands of the Falangists (part of the fascist coalition) at the outbreak of the war. His strong sense of duty clashes with both guerrilla leader Pablo's unwillingness to commit to an operation that would endanger himself and his band, and his newfound lust for life arises out of his love for Mar\u00eda. However, when another band of antifascist guerrillas led by El Sordo are surrounded and killed, Pablo decides to betray Jordan by stealing the dynamite caps, hoping to prevent the demolition. In the end Jordan improvises a way to detonate his dynamite, and Pablo returns to assist in the operation after seeing Jordan's commitment to his course of action. Though the bridge is successfully destroyed, it may be too late for the purposes of delaying enemy troop movements rendering the mission pointless, and Jordan is maimed when his horse is shot out from under him by a tank. Knowing that he would only slow his comrades down, he bids goodbye to Mar\u00eda and ensures that she escapes to safety with the surviving members of the guerillas. He refuses an offer from another fighter to be shot and lies in agony, hoping to kill an"
      },
      {
        "text": " course of action. Though the bridge is successfully destroyed, it may be too late for the purposes of delaying enemy troop movements rendering the mission pointless, and Jordan is maimed when his horse is shot out from under him by a tank. Knowing that he would only slow his comrades down, he bids goodbye to Mar\u00eda and ensures that she escapes to safety with the surviving members of the guerillas. He refuses an offer from another fighter to be shot and lies in agony, hoping to kill an enemy officer and a few soldiers before being captured and executed. The narration ends right before Jordan launches his ambush. The novel graphically describes the brutality of civil war.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " This gothic story deals with two aging sisters, Jane and Blanche Hudson, who are living alone together in a decaying Hollywood mansion. Jane, a former child star of early vaudeville known as \"Baby Jane\", was spoiled, pampered, and doted upon by her father due to her success; her ignored older sister, Blanche, lived in Jane's shadow. However, their roles were reversed after the death of their parents due to influenza, when both children moved to Los Angeles to live with an aunt. Blanche was favored for her brown hair and regal beauty, and was even encouraged to pursue a film career. Blanche became a star while Jane, whose films were failures, languished in her shadow. Blanche had a clause in her contract stipulating that her studio create a film starring Jane for every Blanche Hudson picture. Years later, Jane, a slatternly alcoholic who still dresses as if she were 10 years old, and Blanche, disabled after a mysterious car accident involving Jane, continue to live together in the same mansion in a declining neighborhood. Jane resents having to live in the shadow of her sister, who became more famous than she ever was, and who is now being remembered because of a revival of her films on television. She hates having to cook, clean, and care for Blanche, who, although stuck upstairs in her bedroom, has nevertheless managed to keep her good looks, while Jane is now aged and ugly. Blanche, whose only other contact with the outside world is cleaning woman Elvira Stitt and her telephone conversations with her doctor and attorney, realizes that Jane is becoming increasingly unstable. She calls her lawyer and tells him she is planning to sell. She hears the extension downstairs click. Jane, who eavesdrops on her sister's calls, believes that Blanche wants to sell the house and have her committed to a mental hospital. When Blanche sees Jane's sinister mood swings beginning, she tries to talk to her sister about her decision. Jane does not listen, however. Jane begins to get even crazier, taking Blanche's phone and making her afraid to eat by serving, first, her dead pet bird on a salad and, later, a large rat from the cellar. In a drunken daze, Jane decides to revive her childhood singing and dancing act of Baby Jane, reasoning that Fanny Brice had success with Baby Snooks. She then hires a musical accompanist, Edwin Flagg, through a want ad. As reality topples crazily into eerie fantasy, Jane abuses her sister with monstrous cruelty while embezzling her money to buy liquor and revive her childhood act as \"Baby Jane Hudson\". Elvira comes to find out why Blanche can't be reached on the phone and why Jane won't let her go upstairs to Blanche's room. Opening the door and finding Blanche tied to the bed with her mouth taped shut, she tries to help. Jane kills Elvira with a hammer from behind before she can help. That night, Jane dumps the body. A day or two later police officers come questioning Jane about Elvira's disappearance, so Jane panics, grabs her barely conscious sister and heads for the location of some of her happiest childhood memories, the beach. It was there some fifty years before that crowds used to gather around and watch Baby Jane practice her songs and dances while Daddy played the banjo. While lying on the beach, Jane plays in the sand while Blanche lies there wrapped in a blanket. Realizing that she may be dying, Blanche reveals to Jane that it was actually she, and not Jane, who had driven the car on the fateful night. Jane had spent the evening teasing and mimicking Blanche at a party. As Jane unlocked the gates, Blanche tried to run her down with the car, but Jane moved out of the way. The car then slammed into the metal gate, snapping Blanche's spine, crippling her. She managed to crawl out of the car and up to the gate and when the police arrived, they assumed Jane had been driving. Jane had been too drunk to know what had happened and could not refute the accusations. Jane says at times the truth had almost come to her, but assumed she had dreamed it. She goes to buy an ice cream and is recognized by the police. At first she is confused by the crowd of people who gather around to stare at her. She then realizes what they must want, so she begins to dance.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " This gothic story deals with two aging sisters, Jane and Blanche Hudson, who are living alone together in a decaying Hollywood mansion. Jane, a former child star of early vaudeville known as \"Baby Jane\", was spoiled, pampered, and doted upon by her father due to her success; her ignored older sister, Blanche, lived in Jane's shadow. However, their roles were reversed after the death of their parents due to influenza, when both children moved to Los Angeles to live with an aunt. Blanche was favored for her brown hair and regal beauty, and was even encouraged to pursue a film career. Blanche became a star while Jane, whose films were failures, languished in her shadow. Blanche had a clause in her contract stipulating that her studio create a film starring Jane for every Blanche Hudson picture. Years later, Jane, a slatternly alcoholic who still dresses as if she were 10 years old, and Blanche, disabled after a mysterious car accident involving Jane, continue to live together in the same mansion in a declining neighborhood. Jane resents having to live in the shadow of her sister, who became more famous than she ever was, and who is now being remembered because of a revival of her films on television. She hates having to cook, clean, and care for Blanche, who, although stuck upstairs in her bedroom, has nevertheless managed to keep her good looks, while Jane is now aged and ugly. Blanche, whose only other contact with the outside world is cleaning woman Elvira Stitt and her telephone conversations with her doctor and attorney, realizes that Jane is becoming increasingly unstable. She calls her lawyer and tells him she is planning to sell. She hears the extension downstairs click. Jane, who eavesdrops on her sister's calls, believes that Blanche wants to sell the house and have her committed to a mental hospital. When Blanche sees Jane's sinister mood swings beginning, she tries"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Blanche, whose only other contact with the outside world is cleaning woman Elvira Stitt and her telephone conversations with her doctor and attorney, realizes that Jane is becoming increasingly unstable. She calls her lawyer and tells him she is planning to sell. She hears the extension downstairs click. Jane, who eavesdrops on her sister's calls, believes that Blanche wants to sell the house and have her committed to a mental hospital. When Blanche sees Jane's sinister mood swings beginning, she tries to talk to her sister about her decision. Jane does not listen, however. Jane begins to get even crazier, taking Blanche's phone and making her afraid to eat by serving, first, her dead pet bird on a salad and, later, a large rat from the cellar. In a drunken daze, Jane decides to revive her childhood singing and dancing act of Baby Jane, reasoning that Fanny Brice had success with Baby Snooks. She then hires a musical accompanist, Edwin Flagg, through a want ad. As reality topples crazily into eerie fantasy, Jane abuses her sister with monstrous cruelty while embezzling her money to buy liquor and revive her childhood act as \"Baby Jane Hudson\". Elvira comes to find out why Blanche can't be reached on the phone and why Jane won't let her go upstairs to Blanche's room. Opening the door and finding Blanche tied to the bed with her mouth taped shut, she tries to help. Jane kills Elvira with a hammer from behind before she can help. That night, Jane dumps the body. A day or two later police officers come questioning Jane about Elvira's disappearance, so Jane panics, grabs her barely conscious sister and heads for the location of some of her happiest childhood memories, the beach. It was there some fifty years before that crowds used to gather around and watch Baby Jane practice her songs and dances while Daddy played the banjo. While lying on the beach"
      },
      {
        "text": " Jane kills Elvira with a hammer from behind before she can help. That night, Jane dumps the body. A day or two later police officers come questioning Jane about Elvira's disappearance, so Jane panics, grabs her barely conscious sister and heads for the location of some of her happiest childhood memories, the beach. It was there some fifty years before that crowds used to gather around and watch Baby Jane practice her songs and dances while Daddy played the banjo. While lying on the beach, Jane plays in the sand while Blanche lies there wrapped in a blanket. Realizing that she may be dying, Blanche reveals to Jane that it was actually she, and not Jane, who had driven the car on the fateful night. Jane had spent the evening teasing and mimicking Blanche at a party. As Jane unlocked the gates, Blanche tried to run her down with the car, but Jane moved out of the way. The car then slammed into the metal gate, snapping Blanche's spine, crippling her. She managed to crawl out of the car and up to the gate and when the police arrived, they assumed Jane had been driving. Jane had been too drunk to know what had happened and could not refute the accusations. Jane says at times the truth had almost come to her, but assumed she had dreamed it. She goes to buy an ice cream and is recognized by the police. At first she is confused by the crowd of people who gather around to stare at her. She then realizes what they must want, so she begins to dance.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". She then realizes what they must want, so she begins to dance.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "From Russia with Love",
    "author": "Ian Fleming",
    "published_date": "1957-04-08",
    "synopsis": " SMERSH, the Soviet counterintelligence agency, plans to commit a grand act of terrorism in the intelligence field. For this, it targets British secret service agent James Bond. Due in part to his role in the defeat of Le Chiffre, Mr. Big and Hugo Drax, Bond has been listed as an enemy of the Soviet state and a \"death warrant\" has been issued for him. His death is planned to precipitate a major sex scandal, which will run through the world press for months and leave his and his service's reputation in tatters. Bond's killer is to be SMERSH executioner Red Grant, a psychopath whose homicidal urges coincide with the full moon. Kronsteen, SMERSH's chess-playing master planner, and Colonel Rosa Klebb, head of Operations and Executions, devise the operation. They persuade an attractive young cipher clerk, Corporal Tatiana Romanova, to falsely defect from her post in Istanbul, claiming to have fallen in love with Bond after seeing his file photograph. As an added incentive, Tatiana will provide the British with a Spektor, a Russian decoding device much coveted by MI6. She is not told the details of the plan. An offer of the Spektor is subsequently received by MI6 in London, ostensibly from Romanova, and contains the condition that Bond collects her and the machine in Istanbul. MI6 is unsure of Romanova's story, but the prize of the Spektor is too tempting to ignore and Bond's superior, M, orders him to go to Turkey and meet her. Bond meets and quickly forms a comradeship with Darko Kerim, head of the British service's station in Turkey. Kerim takes Bond to a meal with some Gypsies, in which Bond witnesses a brutal catfight, interrupted by an attack by Soviet agents. In retaliation, Bond helps Kerim assassinate a top Bulgarian agent. Bond duly encounters Romanova and the two plan their route out of Turkey with the Spektor. He and Kerim believe her story and in due course she, Bond and Kerim board the Orient Express with the Spektor. Bond and Kerim quickly discover three MGB agents on board travelling incognito. Kerim uses bribes and trickery to have the two taken off the train, but he is later found dead in his compartment with the body of the third agent, both having been killed by Grant. At Trieste a fellow MI6 agent, \"Captain Nash\", arrives on the train and Bond presumes he has been sent by M as added protection for the rest of the trip. Tatiana is suspicious of Nash, but Bond reassures her that Nash is from his own service. After dinner, at which Nash has drugged Romanova, Bond wakes up to find a gun pointing at him and Nash reveals himself to be the killer, Grant. Instead of killing Bond immediately, Grant reveals SMERSH's plan, including the detail that he is to shoot Bond through the heart and that the Spektor is booby-trapped to explode when examined. As Grant talks, Bond slips his metal cigarette case between the pages of a magazine he is holding in front of him and positions it in front of his heart to stop the bullet. After Grant fires, Bond pretends to be mortally wounded and when Grant steps over him, Bond attacks him: Grant is killed, whilst Bond and Romanova subsequently escape. Later, in Paris, after successfully delivering Tatiana and the Spektor to his superiors, Bond encounters Rosa Klebb. She is captured but manages to kick Bond with a poisoned blade concealed in her shoe; the story ends with Bond fighting for breath and falling to the floor.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " SMERSH, the Soviet counterintelligence agency, plans to commit a grand act of terrorism in the intelligence field. For this, it targets British secret service agent James Bond. Due in part to his role in the defeat of Le Chiffre, Mr. Big and Hugo Drax, Bond has been listed as an enemy of the Soviet state and a \"death warrant\" has been issued for him. His death is planned to precipitate a major sex scandal, which will run through the world press for months and leave his and his service's reputation in tatters. Bond's killer is to be SMERSH executioner Red Grant, a psychopath whose homicidal urges coincide with the full moon. Kronsteen, SMERSH's chess-playing master planner, and Colonel Rosa Klebb, head of Operations and Executions, devise the operation. They persuade an attractive young cipher clerk, Corporal Tatiana Romanova, to falsely defect from her post in Istanbul, claiming to have fallen in love with Bond after seeing his file photograph. As an added incentive, Tatiana will provide the British with a Spektor, a Russian decoding device much coveted by MI6. She is not told the details of the plan. An offer of the Spektor is subsequently received by MI6 in London, ostensibly from Romanova, and contains the condition that Bond collects her and the machine in Istanbul. MI6 is unsure of Romanova's story, but the prize of the Spektor is too tempting to ignore and Bond's superior, M, orders him to go to Turkey and meet her. Bond meets and quickly forms a comradeship with Darko Kerim, head of the British service's station in Turkey. Kerim takes Bond to a meal with some Gypsies, in which Bond witnesses a brutal catfight, interrupted by an attack by Soviet agents. In retaliation, Bond helps Kerim assassinate a top Bulgarian agent. Bond duly encounters Romanova and the two plan their route out of"
      },
      {
        "text": " tempting to ignore and Bond's superior, M, orders him to go to Turkey and meet her. Bond meets and quickly forms a comradeship with Darko Kerim, head of the British service's station in Turkey. Kerim takes Bond to a meal with some Gypsies, in which Bond witnesses a brutal catfight, interrupted by an attack by Soviet agents. In retaliation, Bond helps Kerim assassinate a top Bulgarian agent. Bond duly encounters Romanova and the two plan their route out of Turkey with the Spektor. He and Kerim believe her story and in due course she, Bond and Kerim board the Orient Express with the Spektor. Bond and Kerim quickly discover three MGB agents on board travelling incognito. Kerim uses bribes and trickery to have the two taken off the train, but he is later found dead in his compartment with the body of the third agent, both having been killed by Grant. At Trieste a fellow MI6 agent, \"Captain Nash\", arrives on the train and Bond presumes he has been sent by M as added protection for the rest of the trip. Tatiana is suspicious of Nash, but Bond reassures her that Nash is from his own service. After dinner, at which Nash has drugged Romanova, Bond wakes up to find a gun pointing at him and Nash reveals himself to be the killer, Grant. Instead of killing Bond immediately, Grant reveals SMERSH's plan, including the detail that he is to shoot Bond through the heart and that the Spektor is booby-trapped to explode when examined. As Grant talks, Bond slips his metal cigarette case between the pages of a magazine he is holding in front of him and positions it in front of his heart to stop the bullet. After Grant fires, Bond pretends to be mortally wounded and when Grant steps over him, Bond attacks him: Grant is killed, whilst Bond and Romanova subsequently escape. Later, in Paris,"
      },
      {
        "text": " is to shoot Bond through the heart and that the Spektor is booby-trapped to explode when examined. As Grant talks, Bond slips his metal cigarette case between the pages of a magazine he is holding in front of him and positions it in front of his heart to stop the bullet. After Grant fires, Bond pretends to be mortally wounded and when Grant steps over him, Bond attacks him: Grant is killed, whilst Bond and Romanova subsequently escape. Later, in Paris, after successfully delivering Tatiana and the Spektor to his superiors, Bond encounters Rosa Klebb. She is captured but manages to kick Bond with a poisoned blade concealed in her shoe; the story ends with Bond fighting for breath and falling to the floor.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Tombs of Atuan",
    "author": "Ursula K. Le Guin",
    "published_date": "1971",
    "synopsis": " The story centers on a Kargish child who is taken from her family and dedicated as the high priestess in the service of the \"Nameless Ones\" on the island of Atuan. Her true name is Tenar, but she is renamed Arha, \"the eaten one\", when she is formally consecrated to the gods' service at age six, as all the high priestesses are considered reincarnations of the first. Arha's youth is a haunting contrast between lighthearted childish escapades and dark, solemn rituals. Her only true friend is the eunuch Manan who cares for her. Gradually she comes to accept her lonely, anonymous role, and to feel at home in the unlit underground labyrinth, the eponymous Tombs, where the malevolent, powerful Nameless Ones dwell, and where prisoners are sent for a slow death. Indeed, as she becomes aware of the political machinations among the older priestesses Thar and Kossil, the Tombs become a refuge to her, as she is the only one who may freely move through the labyrinth under them. When Thar dies, Arha becomes increasingly isolated, as although she was stern, Thar was fair to her. Now there is only Arha and Kossil, who despises Arha and her cult as rivals to Kossil's power. The numbing routine of Arha's world is dramatically disrupted when she is fifteen years old by the arrival of Ged, the protagonist of A Wizard of Earthsea. He comes to the Tombs in order to find the long-lost half of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, a magical talisman necessary for peace in Earthsea, which had been broken centuries before. (The other half came into his possession entirely by chance, and it took a dragon to inform him what it really is.) Arha finds him wandering, lost in the magic-laced labyrinth, and traps him underground to die in order to punish what she sees as sacrilege. She goes back and forth in her mind as to whether she should kill him. Yet in her loneliness, she is drawn to him and listens as he tells her of the outside world. Arha spares Ged's life and keeps him prisoner in the tombs, bringing him food and water. However, she is unable to keep it a secret indefinitely, and the priestess Kossil learns of Ged's existence. Now Arha is trapped into promising that Ged will be sacrificed to the Nameless Ones. She realises that she cannot go through with killing Ged and instructs Manan to dig a false grave underground, while she takes Ged to hide in the treasury of the tombs where only she is allowed to go. By now Arha's relations with Kossil have deteriorated to the point of no return and they have a public falling out in front of the subordinate priestesses. Kossil tells her openly to her face that no-one believes in the Nameless Ones anymore and that Arha is only a powerless figurehead. The real power lies with her, Kossil, as the priestess of the Godking. In response Arha curses her in the name of the Nameless Ones. After her anger has cooled Arha realises that Kossil will now be determined to kill her, and that no-one can stop her. She heads underground to the labyrinth to think, and is horrified to find Kossil uncovering the fake grave, and desecrating the tombs by using a light. She heads for the treasury where Ged is kept prisoner, and in her desperation, confesses everything to him. In the meantime while prisoner there Ged has discovered what he came to find - the other half of Erreth-Akbe's ring. He begs Arha to abandon her role as priestess and escape with him from the tombs. Arha is eventually won over by Ged's kindness. She realizes that the Nameless Ones demand her service, but give nothing and create nothing in return. Ged must expend his strength continually on hiding himself from the Nameless Ones, as they would kill him if they detected his presence. Realising that she has no future in the tombs Arha renounces her role as priestess and reverts to calling herself by her original name Tenar. She helps Ged escape from the Tombs with the other half of the ring, as he frees her from the priesthood. The Tombs fall in upon themselves as Tenar and Ged escape. Ged brings her with him back to Havnor where they are received in triumph, and the reunited ring of Erreth-akbe ushers in a new era of peace to Earthsea.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story centers on a Kargish child who is taken from her family and dedicated as the high priestess in the service of the \"Nameless Ones\" on the island of Atuan. Her true name is Tenar, but she is renamed Arha, \"the eaten one\", when she is formally consecrated to the gods' service at age six, as all the high priestesses are considered reincarnations of the first. Arha's youth is a haunting contrast between lighthearted childish escapades and dark, solemn rituals. Her only true friend is the eunuch Manan who cares for her. Gradually she comes to accept her lonely, anonymous role, and to feel at home in the unlit underground labyrinth, the eponymous Tombs, where the malevolent, powerful Nameless Ones dwell, and where prisoners are sent for a slow death. Indeed, as she becomes aware of the political machinations among the older priestesses Thar and Kossil, the Tombs become a refuge to her, as she is the only one who may freely move through the labyrinth under them. When Thar dies, Arha becomes increasingly isolated, as although she was stern, Thar was fair to her. Now there is only Arha and Kossil, who despises Arha and her cult as rivals to Kossil's power. The numbing routine of Arha's world is dramatically disrupted when she is fifteen years old by the arrival of Ged, the protagonist of A Wizard of Earthsea. He comes to the Tombs in order to find the long-lost half of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, a magical talisman necessary for peace in Earthsea, which had been broken centuries before. (The other half came into his possession entirely by chance, and it took a dragon to inform him what it really is.) Arha finds him wandering, lost in the magic-laced labyrinth, and traps him underground to die in order"
      },
      {
        "text": " the protagonist of A Wizard of Earthsea. He comes to the Tombs in order to find the long-lost half of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, a magical talisman necessary for peace in Earthsea, which had been broken centuries before. (The other half came into his possession entirely by chance, and it took a dragon to inform him what it really is.) Arha finds him wandering, lost in the magic-laced labyrinth, and traps him underground to die in order to punish what she sees as sacrilege. She goes back and forth in her mind as to whether she should kill him. Yet in her loneliness, she is drawn to him and listens as he tells her of the outside world. Arha spares Ged's life and keeps him prisoner in the tombs, bringing him food and water. However, she is unable to keep it a secret indefinitely, and the priestess Kossil learns of Ged's existence. Now Arha is trapped into promising that Ged will be sacrificed to the Nameless Ones. She realises that she cannot go through with killing Ged and instructs Manan to dig a false grave underground, while she takes Ged to hide in the treasury of the tombs where only she is allowed to go. By now Arha's relations with Kossil have deteriorated to the point of no return and they have a public falling out in front of the subordinate priestesses. Kossil tells her openly to her face that no-one believes in the Nameless Ones anymore and that Arha is only a powerless figurehead. The real power lies with her, Kossil, as the priestess of the Godking. In response Arha curses her in the name of the Nameless Ones. After her anger has cooled Arha realises that Kossil will now be determined to kill her, and that no-one can stop her. She heads underground to the labyrinth to think, and"
      },
      {
        "text": " to her face that no-one believes in the Nameless Ones anymore and that Arha is only a powerless figurehead. The real power lies with her, Kossil, as the priestess of the Godking. In response Arha curses her in the name of the Nameless Ones. After her anger has cooled Arha realises that Kossil will now be determined to kill her, and that no-one can stop her. She heads underground to the labyrinth to think, and is horrified to find Kossil uncovering the fake grave, and desecrating the tombs by using a light. She heads for the treasury where Ged is kept prisoner, and in her desperation, confesses everything to him. In the meantime while prisoner there Ged has discovered what he came to find - the other half of Erreth-Akbe's ring. He begs Arha to abandon her role as priestess and escape with him from the tombs. Arha is eventually won over by Ged's kindness. She realizes that the Nameless Ones demand her service, but give nothing and create nothing in return. Ged must expend his strength continually on hiding himself from the Nameless Ones, as they would kill him if they detected his presence. Realising that she has no future in the tombs Arha renounces her role as priestess and reverts to calling herself by her original name Tenar. She helps Ged escape from the Tombs with the other half of the ring, as he frees her from the priesthood. The Tombs fall in upon themselves as Tenar and Ged escape. Ged brings her with him back to Havnor where they are received in triumph, and the reunited ring of Erreth-akbe ushers in a new era of peace to Earthsea.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " half of the ring, as he frees her from the priesthood. The Tombs fall in upon themselves as Tenar and Ged escape. Ged brings her with him back to Havnor where they are received in triumph, and the reunited ring of Erreth-akbe ushers in a new era of peace to Earthsea.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Good Omens",
    "author": "Neil Gaiman",
    "published_date": "1990-05-01",
    "synopsis": " It is the coming of the End Times: the Apocalypse is near, and Final Judgment will soon descend upon the human race. This comes as a bit of bad news to the angel Aziraphale (who was the angel of the Garden of Eden) and the demon Crowley (who, when he was originally named Crawly, was the serpent who tempted Eve to eat the apple), respectively the representatives of God and Satan on Earth, as they have become used to living their cozy, comfortable lives and have, in a perverse way, taken a liking to humanity. As such, since they are good friends (despite ostensibly representing the polar opposites of Good and Evil), they decide to work together and keep an eye on the Antichrist, destined to be the son of a prominent American diplomat stationed in Britain, and thus ensure he grows up in a way that means he can never decide between Good and Evil, thereby postponing the end of the world. Unfortunately, Warlock, the child everyone thinks is the Anti-Christ is, in fact, a perfectly normal eleven-year-old boy. Due to mishandling of several infants in the hospital, the real Anti-Christ is Adam Young, a charismatic and slightly otherworldly eleven-year-old who, despite being the harbinger of the Apocalypse, has lived a perfectly normal life as the son of typical English parents and as a result has no idea of his true powers. As Adam blissfully and naively uses his powers, creating around him the world of Just William (because he thinks that is what an English child's life should be like), the race is on to find him—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse assemble and the incredibly accurate (yet so highly specific as to be useless) prophecies of Agnes Nutter, seventeenth-century prophetess, are rapidly coming true. Agnes Nutter was a witch in the 17th century and the only truly accurate prophet to have ever lived. She wrote a book called The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, a collection of prophecies that did not sell very well because they were unspectacular, cryptic and, ironically enough, all true. She, in fact, decided to publish it only so that she could receive a free author's copy. There is only one copy of the book left, which belongs to her descendant Anathema Device. Agnes was burned at the stake by a mob (because that is what mobs did at that time); however, because she had foreseen her fiery end (\"Ye're tardy; I should have been aflame ten minutes since\") and had packed 80 pounds of gunpowder and 40 pounds of roofing nails into her petticoats, everyone who participated in the burning was killed instantly. Anathema teams up with Newton Pulsifer, the descendant of the man who initiated the burning of Agnes, to use the prophesies and find the Antichrist. Unfortunately, that is exactly what everyone else is trying to do, and time is running out.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It is the coming of the End Times: the Apocalypse is near, and Final Judgment will soon descend upon the human race. This comes as a bit of bad news to the angel Aziraphale (who was the angel of the Garden of Eden) and the demon Crowley (who, when he was originally named Crawly, was the serpent who tempted Eve to eat the apple), respectively the representatives of God and Satan on Earth, as they have become used to living their cozy, comfortable lives and have, in a perverse way, taken a liking to humanity. As such, since they are good friends (despite ostensibly representing the polar opposites of Good and Evil), they decide to work together and keep an eye on the Antichrist, destined to be the son of a prominent American diplomat stationed in Britain, and thus ensure he grows up in a way that means he can never decide between Good and Evil, thereby postponing the end of the world. Unfortunately, Warlock, the child everyone thinks is the Anti-Christ is, in fact, a perfectly normal eleven-year-old boy. Due to mishandling of several infants in the hospital, the real Anti-Christ is Adam Young, a charismatic and slightly otherworldly eleven-year-old who, despite being the harbinger of the Apocalypse, has lived a perfectly normal life as the son of typical English parents and as a result has no idea of his true powers. As Adam blissfully and naively uses his powers, creating around him the world of Just William (because he thinks that is what an English child's life should be like), the race is on to find him—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse assemble and the incredibly accurate (yet so highly specific as to be useless) prophecies of Agnes Nutter, seventeenth-century prophetess, are rapidly coming true. Agnes Nutter was a witch in the 17th century and the only truly accurate prophet to have ever lived. She wrote"
      },
      {
        "text": " him the world of Just William (because he thinks that is what an English child's life should be like), the race is on to find him—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse assemble and the incredibly accurate (yet so highly specific as to be useless) prophecies of Agnes Nutter, seventeenth-century prophetess, are rapidly coming true. Agnes Nutter was a witch in the 17th century and the only truly accurate prophet to have ever lived. She wrote a book called The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, a collection of prophecies that did not sell very well because they were unspectacular, cryptic and, ironically enough, all true. She, in fact, decided to publish it only so that she could receive a free author's copy. There is only one copy of the book left, which belongs to her descendant Anathema Device. Agnes was burned at the stake by a mob (because that is what mobs did at that time); however, because she had foreseen her fiery end (\"Ye're tardy; I should have been aflame ten minutes since\") and had packed 80 pounds of gunpowder and 40 pounds of roofing nails into her petticoats, everyone who participated in the burning was killed instantly. Anathema teams up with Newton Pulsifer, the descendant of the man who initiated the burning of Agnes, to use the prophesies and find the Antichrist. Unfortunately, that is exactly what everyone else is trying to do, and time is running out.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Unfortunately, that is exactly what everyone else is trying to do, and time is running out.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Coraline",
    "author": "Neil Gaiman",
    "published_date": "2002",
    "synopsis": " This is about a \"different\" girl named Coraline Jones. She and her parents move into an old house that has been subdivided into flats. The other tenants include Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, two elderly women retired from the stage, and Mr. Bobinski, who is training a mouse circus. The flat beside Coraline's remains empty. During a rainy day she discovers a locked door in the drawing room, which has been bricked up. As she goes to visit her neighbors, Mr. Bobinsky relates to her a message from the mice: Don't go through the door. At tea with Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, Miss Spink spies danger in Coraline\u2019s future after reading her tea leaves, and gives her a stone with a hole in it for protection. Despite these warnings, Coraline decides to unlock the door when she is home by herself and finds the brick wall behind the door gone. In its place is a long passageway, which leads to a flat identical to her own, inhabited by her Other Mother and Other Father, who are replicas of her real parents. They have button eyes and exaggerated features. In this \u201cOther World\u201d, Coraline finds everything to be better than her reality: her Other Parents are attentive, her toy box is filled with animate toys that can move and fly, and the Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible forever perform a cabaret show in their flat. She even finds the feral Black Cat that wanders around the house in the real world can talk, however she learns he is not of the Other World; he only travels from one world to another and warns Coraline of the imminent danger, but Coraline pays him no heed. The Other Mother offers Coraline a chance to stay in the Other World forever, if Coraline will allow buttons to be sewn into her eyes. Coraline is horrified and returns back through the door to go home. Upon her return to her apartment, Coraline finds her real parents are missing. They do not return the next day, and the black cat wakes her and takes her to a mirror in her hallway, through which she can see her trapped parents. They signal to her by writing \"Help Us\" on the glass, from which Coraline deduces the Other Mother has kidnapped them. Though frightened of returning, Coraline goes back to the Other World to confront the Other Mother and rescue her parents. In the garden, Coraline is prompted by the Cat to challenge the Other Mother, as \u201cher kind of thing loves games and challenges\u201d. The Other Mother tries to convince Coraline to stay, but Coraline refuses, and is locked behind a mirror as punishment. In the darkness, she meets three ghost children, each from a different era, who had let the beldam (the Other Mother) sew buttons in their eyes. They tell her how she eventually grew bored with them, ate their bodies, and cast their spirits aside. The ghost children implore Coraline to avoid their fate, and to help find their souls so that they can leave the Other World and pass on. After the Other Mother releases Coraline from the mirror, Coraline proposes a game in which she must find the ghost children\u2019s souls and her parents, which lay hidden throughout the Other World. If Coraline wins, she, her parents and the ghost children may go free. If not, Coraline will let the Other Mother sew the buttons into her eyes. Coraline goes through the Other World, and overcomes all the Other Mother\u2019s obstacles, using her wits and Miss Spink\u2019s stone to locate the ghost children\u2019s souls. At the close of the game, the ghost children warn her even if Coraline wins, the Other Mother will not let them go. Having deduced her parents are imprisoned in the snow globe on the mantle, Coraline tricks the Other Mother by saying her parents are behind the door in the drawing room. As the Other Mother opens the door, Coraline throws the cat at the Other Mother, grabs the snow globe, and escapes to the real world with the key. In doing so, she forces the door shut on the Other Mother's hand, severing it. Back in her home, Coraline finds her parents safe and with no memory of the events. That night, Coraline has a dream in which she meets the three children before they move on to the afterlife. They warn her, her task is still not done: the other mother's severed hand is in Coraline's world, attempting to steal the key which opens the door that connects the two worlds. Coraline goes to an old well in the woods by her house, luring the Other Mother\u2019s hand there with the key, and casts both down the bottomless well. Coraline returns home, victorious, and prepares to go about the ordinary life she has come to accept and love.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " This is about a \"different\" girl named Coraline Jones. She and her parents move into an old house that has been subdivided into flats. The other tenants include Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, two elderly women retired from the stage, and Mr. Bobinski, who is training a mouse circus. The flat beside Coraline's remains empty. During a rainy day she discovers a locked door in the drawing room, which has been bricked up. As she goes to visit her neighbors, Mr. Bobinsky relates to her a message from the mice: Don't go through the door. At tea with Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, Miss Spink spies danger in Coraline\u2019s future after reading her tea leaves, and gives her a stone with a hole in it for protection. Despite these warnings, Coraline decides to unlock the door when she is home by herself and finds the brick wall behind the door gone. In its place is a long passageway, which leads to a flat identical to her own, inhabited by her Other Mother and Other Father, who are replicas of her real parents. They have button eyes and exaggerated features. In this \u201cOther World\u201d, Coraline finds everything to be better than her reality: her Other Parents are attentive, her toy box is filled with animate toys that can move and fly, and the Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible forever perform a cabaret show in their flat. She even finds the feral Black Cat that wanders around the house in the real world can talk, however she learns he is not of the Other World; he only travels from one world to another and warns Coraline of the imminent danger, but Coraline pays him no heed. The Other Mother offers Coraline a chance to stay in the Other World forever, if Coraline will allow buttons to be sewn into her eyes. Coraline is horrified and returns back through the door to go home. Upon her return to"
      },
      {
        "text": " feral Black Cat that wanders around the house in the real world can talk, however she learns he is not of the Other World; he only travels from one world to another and warns Coraline of the imminent danger, but Coraline pays him no heed. The Other Mother offers Coraline a chance to stay in the Other World forever, if Coraline will allow buttons to be sewn into her eyes. Coraline is horrified and returns back through the door to go home. Upon her return to her apartment, Coraline finds her real parents are missing. They do not return the next day, and the black cat wakes her and takes her to a mirror in her hallway, through which she can see her trapped parents. They signal to her by writing \"Help Us\" on the glass, from which Coraline deduces the Other Mother has kidnapped them. Though frightened of returning, Coraline goes back to the Other World to confront the Other Mother and rescue her parents. In the garden, Coraline is prompted by the Cat to challenge the Other Mother, as \u201cher kind of thing loves games and challenges\u201d. The Other Mother tries to convince Coraline to stay, but Coraline refuses, and is locked behind a mirror as punishment. In the darkness, she meets three ghost children, each from a different era, who had let the beldam (the Other Mother) sew buttons in their eyes. They tell her how she eventually grew bored with them, ate their bodies, and cast their spirits aside. The ghost children implore Coraline to avoid their fate, and to help find their souls so that they can leave the Other World and pass on. After the Other Mother releases Coraline from the mirror, Coraline proposes a game in which she must find the ghost children\u2019s souls and her parents, which lay hidden throughout the Other World. If Coraline wins, she, her parents and the ghost children may go free. If not, Coraline will let"
      },
      {
        "text": " and cast their spirits aside. The ghost children implore Coraline to avoid their fate, and to help find their souls so that they can leave the Other World and pass on. After the Other Mother releases Coraline from the mirror, Coraline proposes a game in which she must find the ghost children\u2019s souls and her parents, which lay hidden throughout the Other World. If Coraline wins, she, her parents and the ghost children may go free. If not, Coraline will let the Other Mother sew the buttons into her eyes. Coraline goes through the Other World, and overcomes all the Other Mother\u2019s obstacles, using her wits and Miss Spink\u2019s stone to locate the ghost children\u2019s souls. At the close of the game, the ghost children warn her even if Coraline wins, the Other Mother will not let them go. Having deduced her parents are imprisoned in the snow globe on the mantle, Coraline tricks the Other Mother by saying her parents are behind the door in the drawing room. As the Other Mother opens the door, Coraline throws the cat at the Other Mother, grabs the snow globe, and escapes to the real world with the key. In doing so, she forces the door shut on the Other Mother's hand, severing it. Back in her home, Coraline finds her parents safe and with no memory of the events. That night, Coraline has a dream in which she meets the three children before they move on to the afterlife. They warn her, her task is still not done: the other mother's severed hand is in Coraline's world, attempting to steal the key which opens the door that connects the two worlds. Coraline goes to an old well in the woods by her house, luring the Other Mother\u2019s hand there with the key, and casts both down the bottomless well. Coraline returns home, victorious, and prepares to go about the ordinary life she"
      },
      {
        "text": " before they move on to the afterlife. They warn her, her task is still not done: the other mother's severed hand is in Coraline's world, attempting to steal the key which opens the door that connects the two worlds. Coraline goes to an old well in the woods by her house, luring the Other Mother\u2019s hand there with the key, and casts both down the bottomless well. Coraline returns home, victorious, and prepares to go about the ordinary life she has come to accept and love.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sandman: Dream Country",
    "author": "Neil Gaiman",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Like the sixth collection, Fables and Reflections, and the eighth, Worlds' End, Dream Country consists of short stories that do not have a common storyline running through them, though it has been argued that most Sandman stories are not entirely self-contained and are part of a larger story arc that encompasses the entire series. Dream Country is the shortest of the eleven Sandman collections, featuring just four issues (\"Calliope\", #17, and \"A Dream of a Thousand Cats\", #18, both pencilled by Kelley Jones and inked by Malcolm Jones III; \"A Midsummer Night's Dream\", #19, drawn by Charles Vess and coloured for the first time by computer colouring pioneer Steve Oliff; and \"Fa\u00e7ade\", #20, penciled by Colleen Doran and inked by Malcolm Jones III). This is the story of a frustrated author, Richard Madoc, whose first book has been released to critical acclaim but who simply cannot write a page of the promised follow-up. He strikes a deal with an elder writer, Erasmus Fry, for Calliope, one of the Muses of Greek mythology, whom Fry had captured earlier in his life, in exchange for a bezoar. Fry kept her imprisoned and regularly raped her, and her presence provided the inspiration for his successful novels. Madoc also takes her captive and has great success in writing, but Calliope calls upon the triad of witches known by many names, such as the Furies, the Kindly Ones or the Gracious Ladies, for help. They direct her to Morpheus, who we are told was once her lover (this relationship is elaborated on later in the series), and who is currently similarly imprisoned. Upon his release, he comes to rescue Calliope, and visits a terrible punishment upon Madoc. He complains that without her, he will have no ideas, so Morpheus causes him to never stop having them, which drives him to madness. Though the story of \"Calliope\" was not criticized for unoriginality at the time of its release, its concept has apparently become a very popular one since; a list of overused story ideas at Strange Horizons included \"Creative person meets a muse (either one of the nine classical Muses or a more individual muse) and interacts with them, usually by keeping them captive.\" (See Neil Gaiman's post about Strange Horizon's list). Madoc's Book \"Her Wings\" appears in a few other stories by Neil Gaiman including The Last Temptation as a sort of inside joke. Rose Walker is later seen reading Fry's book \"Here Comes a Candle\". In the library of Dream, an unfinished book by Erasmus Fry, \"The Hand of Glory\" is seen in Season of Mists. One of Madoc's works, \"The Spirit Who Had Half Of Everything\", takes its name from an unused chapter title in an early draft of James Branch Cabell's Figures of Earth. This tale begins with a small, white cat being called by another cat to sneak away from her house one night. They speak of an event in a graveyard that they don't want to miss. When they arrive, they see that many cats are already there. A Siamese cat comes to tell her story. A long time ago, the Siamese cat relates, she met a Tom-cat, who became her lover. Eventually, she gave birth to several kittens. Her human owners were not pleased, and the male owner put the kittens in a bag bound to a rock, and threw them into pond. Traumatized by the callous murder of her kittens, the Siamese becomes disillusioned in human beings and ultimately rejects the life of a pampered pet. Her cause is strengthened when she has a dream that she has entered a boneyard in the Dreaming. In the dream a raven with no skin on its head informs her where she can find out exactly why the humans killed her offspring: a cave inhabited by the Dream Lord. At the entrance to the cave that the raven told her of, many fearsome animals tell her to leave. She responds by saying that she will only state her business to Dream. Inside, she finds Dream in the form of a cat. Dream presents her with a vision of an alternate reality where cats are huge and humans are merely their playthings, tiny servants which groom their bodies and which the cats can kill at their leisure. A man ruined that world by informing the humans that their dreams will shape the world. Enough humans listened to make the vision a reality. Upon waking, the cat undertakes a spiritual quest for justice. She preaches her vision to motley assortments of housecats around the world, hoping that if she can make enough believe in and dream of this reality, the world will change to conform to their dreams. The cat from the beginning of the story heads home. Her friends were slightly disappointed, though they admitted that what they heard was interesting. The white cat, however, was fully taken by the tale. She returns home and heads to sleep. Over breakfast, her owners remark on what a cute stance she's in: it looks as if she's hunting something, or someone. Although seemingly a complete diversion from the basic story of the Sandman, it in fact illustrates some of the core themes of the series: the idea that reality is shaped in the most literal sense by the dreams, beliefs, and expectations of humans (and, in this case, of other animals as well). The story also portrays the theme of change and its relation to an individual's nature. The humans found that they were unhappy with their role and were able to harness the power of dream to instigate a change of the nature of reality, whereas when cats found themselves in a similar situation their apathetic, independent, and fickle nature kept them from changing. This idea of the capacity for change reemerges throughout the book, most notably in the conclusion of The Kindly Ones. !-- This section is linked from Characters of The Sandman --> This is a core issue of the Sandman series, sometimes cited as the best in the series. It concerns the premiere of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which we are told was commissioned by Morpheus as part of a bargain in which Morpheus granted Shakespeare his extraordinary skill with writing. Performed on a hillside before an audience of bizarre creatures from Faerie - including the very characters who appear in the play, Titania, Auberon, and the hobgoblin Robin Goodfellow (Puck) amongst them - the Sandman's version of reality and Shakespeare's play are merged and interact with one another. Puck greatly enjoys the play and repeats the theme of the story that while the play does not directly reflect history or even some of the personalities of the characters it is still considered a true reflection of \"reality\". (In reality Puck is described as being a psychotic murderer and not a merry wanderer of the night.) Titania takes an interest in Shakespeare's son Hamnet, who plays a small role in the play. The issue received a World Fantasy Award for short fiction in 1991. Dream first meets Shakespeare in Sandman #13, "Men of Good Fortune," and the final issue, #75, "The Tempest," focuses on the second of the two plays commissioned by Morpheus. This is another odd issue, featuring one of the methods Gaiman played with in the first, and to a lesser extent in the second, collection: it takes one of the neglected characters from the DC Universe, this time Element Girl (Urania Blackwell, a female version of Metamorpho), and shows her in a completely unexpected situation. A reluctant superhero at best, she has now retired, and lives a meagre existence, rarely leaving her flat due to her self-loathing of her "freakish" appearance. She goes by her nickname "Rainie". The plot revolves around a phone call she receives: an invitation to have dinner with an old friend, Della. She concocts a fake face to wear so her friend doesn't know of her "skin disease". As Della explains a problem she's having, Rainie's "face" falls into the plate of spaghetti bolognese that she ordered, revealing her true face. She runs away, and to her apartment, where she wonders how she can kill herself, despite being invulnerable. Fortunately, Death, who was dealing with a woman who'd slipped on a stepladder, enters her room, explaining that the door was open, and she had heard her crying. She tells her how she can talk to the sun god, Ra, and beg for a merciful death. An extraordinarily poignant piece dealing with identity and, subtly, the gap between the world portrayed in the more na\u00efve of DC Comics' superhero comics and the true reality of everyday life, it ends on a curiously happy note, with Death answering Rainie's telephone and informing the caller that "she's gone away, I'm afraid."\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Like the sixth collection, Fables and Reflections, and the eighth, Worlds' End, Dream Country consists of short stories that do not have a common storyline running through them, though it has been argued that most Sandman stories are not entirely self-contained and are part of a larger story arc that encompasses the entire series. Dream Country is the shortest of the eleven Sandman collections, featuring just four issues (\"Calliope\", #17, and \"A Dream of a Thousand Cats\", #18, both pencilled by Kelley Jones and inked by Malcolm Jones III; \"A Midsummer Night's Dream\", #19, drawn by Charles Vess and coloured for the first time by computer colouring pioneer Steve Oliff; and \"Fa\u00e7ade\", #20, penciled by Colleen Doran and inked by Malcolm Jones III). This is the story of a frustrated author, Richard Madoc, whose first book has been released to critical acclaim but who simply cannot write a page of the promised follow-up. He strikes a deal with an elder writer, Erasmus Fry, for Calliope, one of the Muses of Greek mythology, whom Fry had captured earlier in his life, in exchange for a bezoar. Fry kept her imprisoned and regularly raped her, and her presence provided the inspiration for his successful novels. Madoc also takes her captive and has great success in writing, but Calliope calls upon the triad of witches known by many names, such as the Furies, the Kindly Ones or the Gracious Ladies, for help. They direct her to Morpheus, who we are told was once her lover (this relationship is elaborated on later in the series), and who is currently similarly imprisoned. Upon his release, he comes to rescue Calliope, and visits a terrible punishment upon Madoc. He complains that without her, he will have no ideas, so Morpheus causes him to never stop having them, which"
      },
      {
        "text": " many names, such as the Furies, the Kindly Ones or the Gracious Ladies, for help. They direct her to Morpheus, who we are told was once her lover (this relationship is elaborated on later in the series), and who is currently similarly imprisoned. Upon his release, he comes to rescue Calliope, and visits a terrible punishment upon Madoc. He complains that without her, he will have no ideas, so Morpheus causes him to never stop having them, which drives him to madness. Though the story of \"Calliope\" was not criticized for unoriginality at the time of its release, its concept has apparently become a very popular one since; a list of overused story ideas at Strange Horizons included \"Creative person meets a muse (either one of the nine classical Muses or a more individual muse) and interacts with them, usually by keeping them captive.\" (See Neil Gaiman's post about Strange Horizon's list). Madoc's Book \"Her Wings\" appears in a few other stories by Neil Gaiman including The Last Temptation as a sort of inside joke. Rose Walker is later seen reading Fry's book \"Here Comes a Candle\". In the library of Dream, an unfinished book by Erasmus Fry, \"The Hand of Glory\" is seen in Season of Mists. One of Madoc's works, \"The Spirit Who Had Half Of Everything\", takes its name from an unused chapter title in an early draft of James Branch Cabell's Figures of Earth. This tale begins with a small, white cat being called by another cat to sneak away from her house one night. They speak of an event in a graveyard that they don't want to miss. When they arrive, they see that many cats are already there. A Siamese cat comes to tell her story. A long time ago, the Siamese cat relates, she met a Tom-cat, who became her lover. Eventually, she gave"
      },
      {
        "text": " James Branch Cabell's Figures of Earth. This tale begins with a small, white cat being called by another cat to sneak away from her house one night. They speak of an event in a graveyard that they don't want to miss. When they arrive, they see that many cats are already there. A Siamese cat comes to tell her story. A long time ago, the Siamese cat relates, she met a Tom-cat, who became her lover. Eventually, she gave birth to several kittens. Her human owners were not pleased, and the male owner put the kittens in a bag bound to a rock, and threw them into pond. Traumatized by the callous murder of her kittens, the Siamese becomes disillusioned in human beings and ultimately rejects the life of a pampered pet. Her cause is strengthened when she has a dream that she has entered a boneyard in the Dreaming. In the dream a raven with no skin on its head informs her where she can find out exactly why the humans killed her offspring: a cave inhabited by the Dream Lord. At the entrance to the cave that the raven told her of, many fearsome animals tell her to leave. She responds by saying that she will only state her business to Dream. Inside, she finds Dream in the form of a cat. Dream presents her with a vision of an alternate reality where cats are huge and humans are merely their playthings, tiny servants which groom their bodies and which the cats can kill at their leisure. A man ruined that world by informing the humans that their dreams will shape the world. Enough humans listened to make the vision a reality. Upon waking, the cat undertakes a spiritual quest for justice. She preaches her vision to motley assortments of housecats around the world, hoping that if she can make enough believe in and dream of this reality, the world will change to conform to their dreams. The cat from the beginning of the story heads"
      },
      {
        "text": " the cats can kill at their leisure. A man ruined that world by informing the humans that their dreams will shape the world. Enough humans listened to make the vision a reality. Upon waking, the cat undertakes a spiritual quest for justice. She preaches her vision to motley assortments of housecats around the world, hoping that if she can make enough believe in and dream of this reality, the world will change to conform to their dreams. The cat from the beginning of the story heads home. Her friends were slightly disappointed, though they admitted that what they heard was interesting. The white cat, however, was fully taken by the tale. She returns home and heads to sleep. Over breakfast, her owners remark on what a cute stance she's in: it looks as if she's hunting something, or someone. Although seemingly a complete diversion from the basic story of the Sandman, it in fact illustrates some of the core themes of the series: the idea that reality is shaped in the most literal sense by the dreams, beliefs, and expectations of humans (and, in this case, of other animals as well). The story also portrays the theme of change and its relation to an individual's nature. The humans found that they were unhappy with their role and were able to harness the power of dream to instigate a change of the nature of reality, whereas when cats found themselves in a similar situation their apathetic, independent, and fickle nature kept them from changing. This idea of the capacity for change reemerges throughout the book, most notably in the conclusion of The Kindly Ones. !-- This section is linked from Characters of The Sandman --> This is a core issue of the Sandman series, sometimes cited as the best in the series. It concerns the premiere of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which we are told was commissioned by Morpheus as part of a bargain in which Morpheus granted Shakespeare his extraordinary skill with writing. Performed"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the capacity for change reemerges throughout the book, most notably in the conclusion of The Kindly Ones. !-- This section is linked from Characters of The Sandman --> This is a core issue of the Sandman series, sometimes cited as the best in the series. It concerns the premiere of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which we are told was commissioned by Morpheus as part of a bargain in which Morpheus granted Shakespeare his extraordinary skill with writing. Performed on a hillside before an audience of bizarre creatures from Faerie - including the very characters who appear in the play, Titania, Auberon, and the hobgoblin Robin Goodfellow (Puck) amongst them - the Sandman's version of reality and Shakespeare's play are merged and interact with one another. Puck greatly enjoys the play and repeats the theme of the story that while the play does not directly reflect history or even some of the personalities of the characters it is still considered a true reflection of \"reality\". (In reality Puck is described as being a psychotic murderer and not a merry wanderer of the night.) Titania takes an interest in Shakespeare's son Hamnet, who plays a small role in the play. The issue received a World Fantasy Award for short fiction in 1991. Dream first meets Shakespeare in Sandman #13, "Men of Good Fortune," and the final issue, #75, "The Tempest," focuses on the second of the two plays commissioned by Morpheus. This is another odd issue, featuring one of the methods Gaiman played with in the first, and to a lesser extent in the second, collection: it takes one of the neglected characters from the DC Universe, this time Element Girl (Urania Blackwell, a female version of Metamorpho), and shows her in a completely unexpected situation. A reluctant superhero at best, she has now retired, and"
      },
      {
        "text": " Tempest," focuses on the second of the two plays commissioned by Morpheus. This is another odd issue, featuring one of the methods Gaiman played with in the first, and to a lesser extent in the second, collection: it takes one of the neglected characters from the DC Universe, this time Element Girl (Urania Blackwell, a female version of Metamorpho), and shows her in a completely unexpected situation. A reluctant superhero at best, she has now retired, and lives a meagre existence, rarely leaving her flat due to her self-loathing of her "freakish" appearance. She goes by her nickname "Rainie". The plot revolves around a phone call she receives: an invitation to have dinner with an old friend, Della. She concocts a fake face to wear so her friend doesn't know of her "skin disease". As Della explains a problem she's having, Rainie's "face" falls into the plate of spaghetti bolognese that she ordered, revealing her true face. She runs away, and to her apartment, where she wonders how she can kill herself, despite being invulnerable. Fortunately, Death, who was dealing with a woman who'd slipped on a stepladder, enters her room, explaining that the door was open, and she had heard her crying. She tells her how she can talk to the sun god, Ra, and beg for a merciful death. An extraordinarily poignant piece dealing with identity and, subtly, the gap between the world portrayed in the more na\u00efve of DC Comics' superhero comics and the true reality of everyday life, it ends on a curiously happy note, with Death answering Rainie's telephone and informing the caller that"
      },
      {
        "text": " room, explaining that the door was open, and she had heard her crying. She tells her how she can talk to the sun god, Ra, and beg for a merciful death. An extraordinarily poignant piece dealing with identity and, subtly, the gap between the world portrayed in the more na\u00efve of DC Comics' superhero comics and the true reality of everyday life, it ends on a curiously happy note, with Death answering Rainie's telephone and informing the caller that "she's gone away, I'm afraid."\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sandman: Season of Mists",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The fourth collection belongs with the first as perhaps one of the two collections most focused on Morpheus himself. It begins with an Endless family meeting descending almost immediately into an Endless family argument. Desire angers Morpheus by taunting him about his intolerant treatment of a former lover, whose story formed the prologue to the second collection, The Doll's House; Death angers him further by agreeing with Desire, but Morpheus' immense respect for Death leads him eventually to agree with her assessment. Morpheus leaves his realm to travel to Hell, where he imprisoned his former lover Nada, to release her. Having left Lucifer, lord of Hell, very angry with him the last time he ventured there (in the first collection, Preludes and Nocturnes), Morpheus is apprehensive about the task. He sets about it, wanting to do what is right, but prepared for a confrontation which he knows he may lose. In the event, his apprehension is somewhat misplaced. As he arrives, Lucifer is busy closing down Hell. Morpheus follows Lucifer around in a state of some bafflement before Lucifer finally persuades him this is not an elaborate trick, that he indeed intends to leave Hell, and his obligations as its lord, forever. His final act before leaving is to throw out any demon or damned souls still hanging around, lock all the portals to Hell and cut off his wings; he then hands the key to Hell to Morpheus, to do with as he will. This episode sets up the basis for the spin-off comic series Lucifer written by Mike Carey. Morpheus, who has no wish to rule this troublesome piece of real estate, quickly discovers that there are numerous entities who want to control Hell or prevent their enemies from controlling it. Odin wishes to control Hell in order to avoid Ragnar\u00f6k and travels to the Dreaming with two other members of the Norse pantheon, Loki and Thor. Anubis, Bast and Bes from the ancient Egyptian pantheon wish to trade information in exchange for the key to Hell. Susano-o-no-Mikoto, a storm god of the Shinto pantheon, travels as an individual deity, and not as a representative of Shinto gods. He wishes to add Hell to a new underworld controlled by his family, which has been formed by assimilating other lesser pantheons as well as objects of worship including, he says, Marilyn Monroe. Azazel, a Biblical demon, arrives with two other demons who held great power in the old Hell: Choronzon, here described as the former Duke of the Eight Circle, and Merkin, the mother of Spiders. Azazel had previously ruled Hell in a triumvirate with another demon and Lucifer, although Lucifer tells Morpheus that this was only part of a game he played, and Azazel demands that Morpheus hand him the key. In exchange Azazel offers to hand over Nada as well as the demon Choronzon who had previously fought Morpheus. Order and Chaos also arrive. Order is in the guise of an empty cardboard box carried by a floating Djinn-like being, while Chaos appears in the form of a small girl in clown makeup. Order offers to trade the dreams of the newly dead, while Chaos simply threatens Morpheus before offering a balloon. Two representatives from Faerie, Cluracan, and his sister Nuala appeal to Morpheus to give control of Hell to no one. Cluracan offers his sister as a gift to the Dream Lord, in the name of Faerie Queen. Two angels are also present, Duma the angel of silence and Remiel here presented as the angel of those who rise. The angels have been set to simply observe. Susano-o-no-Mikoto, Duma and Remiel later become important characters in the spin-off series Lucifer. Much to Morpheus's chagrin, the interested parties promptly convene in the castle at the centre of the Dreaming. Here many characters who have parts to play later in the series are introduced, amongst them the representatives of Faerie, Cluracan, and his sister Nuala. After much bargaining, wheedling, bribery, trickery, Norse drunkenness, and threatening behavior, Morpheus manages to get rid of Hell without much anger from the other participants: he gives it to a pair of angels sent by God, after Remiel relays a message claiming that as Hell is a reflection of Heaven, its true creator should control it. Dream then enters Azazel and frees Nada. He apologizes to her, and though he still loves her, she chooses not to stay with him, and he reincarnates her in the body of a newborn baby, telling her that she will always be welcome in the Dreaming in any form that she chooses. Between these deliberations is the story \"In Which the Dead Return; and Charles Rowland Concludes His Education\", from issue #25, which takes place at a traditional English boarding-school (and borrows elements from the boarding-school story genre) and is used to illustrate the consequences of Hell's closure. Although the two main characters in this tale, the ghosts of two school boys, never appear again in the Sandman series, they later appear as \"The Dead Boy Detectives\" in Gaiman's Vertigo cross-over story The Children's Crusade, and in a mini-series of that name by Jill Thompson. The collection ends with Lucifer, sans wings, sitting on an Australian beach, grudgingly admiring God's sunset.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The fourth collection belongs with the first as perhaps one of the two collections most focused on Morpheus himself. It begins with an Endless family meeting descending almost immediately into an Endless family argument. Desire angers Morpheus by taunting him about his intolerant treatment of a former lover, whose story formed the prologue to the second collection, The Doll's House; Death angers him further by agreeing with Desire, but Morpheus' immense respect for Death leads him eventually to agree with her assessment. Morpheus leaves his realm to travel to Hell, where he imprisoned his former lover Nada, to release her. Having left Lucifer, lord of Hell, very angry with him the last time he ventured there (in the first collection, Preludes and Nocturnes), Morpheus is apprehensive about the task. He sets about it, wanting to do what is right, but prepared for a confrontation which he knows he may lose. In the event, his apprehension is somewhat misplaced. As he arrives, Lucifer is busy closing down Hell. Morpheus follows Lucifer around in a state of some bafflement before Lucifer finally persuades him this is not an elaborate trick, that he indeed intends to leave Hell, and his obligations as its lord, forever. His final act before leaving is to throw out any demon or damned souls still hanging around, lock all the portals to Hell and cut off his wings; he then hands the key to Hell to Morpheus, to do with as he will. This episode sets up the basis for the spin-off comic series Lucifer written by Mike Carey. Morpheus, who has no wish to rule this troublesome piece of real estate, quickly discovers that there are numerous entities who want to control Hell or prevent their enemies from controlling it. Odin wishes to control Hell in order to avoid Ragnar\u00f6k and travels to the Dreaming with two other members of the Norse pantheon, Loki and Thor. Anubis, Bast and Bes from the ancient Egyptian pantheon wish to trade information"
      },
      {
        "text": " up the basis for the spin-off comic series Lucifer written by Mike Carey. Morpheus, who has no wish to rule this troublesome piece of real estate, quickly discovers that there are numerous entities who want to control Hell or prevent their enemies from controlling it. Odin wishes to control Hell in order to avoid Ragnar\u00f6k and travels to the Dreaming with two other members of the Norse pantheon, Loki and Thor. Anubis, Bast and Bes from the ancient Egyptian pantheon wish to trade information in exchange for the key to Hell. Susano-o-no-Mikoto, a storm god of the Shinto pantheon, travels as an individual deity, and not as a representative of Shinto gods. He wishes to add Hell to a new underworld controlled by his family, which has been formed by assimilating other lesser pantheons as well as objects of worship including, he says, Marilyn Monroe. Azazel, a Biblical demon, arrives with two other demons who held great power in the old Hell: Choronzon, here described as the former Duke of the Eight Circle, and Merkin, the mother of Spiders. Azazel had previously ruled Hell in a triumvirate with another demon and Lucifer, although Lucifer tells Morpheus that this was only part of a game he played, and Azazel demands that Morpheus hand him the key. In exchange Azazel offers to hand over Nada as well as the demon Choronzon who had previously fought Morpheus. Order and Chaos also arrive. Order is in the guise of an empty cardboard box carried by a floating Djinn-like being, while Chaos appears in the form of a small girl in clown makeup. Order offers to trade the dreams of the newly dead, while Chaos simply threatens Morpheus before offering a balloon. Two representatives from Faerie, Cluracan, and his sister Nuala appeal to Morpheus to give control of Hell to no one. Cluracan offers his sister"
      },
      {
        "text": " fought Morpheus. Order and Chaos also arrive. Order is in the guise of an empty cardboard box carried by a floating Djinn-like being, while Chaos appears in the form of a small girl in clown makeup. Order offers to trade the dreams of the newly dead, while Chaos simply threatens Morpheus before offering a balloon. Two representatives from Faerie, Cluracan, and his sister Nuala appeal to Morpheus to give control of Hell to no one. Cluracan offers his sister as a gift to the Dream Lord, in the name of Faerie Queen. Two angels are also present, Duma the angel of silence and Remiel here presented as the angel of those who rise. The angels have been set to simply observe. Susano-o-no-Mikoto, Duma and Remiel later become important characters in the spin-off series Lucifer. Much to Morpheus's chagrin, the interested parties promptly convene in the castle at the centre of the Dreaming. Here many characters who have parts to play later in the series are introduced, amongst them the representatives of Faerie, Cluracan, and his sister Nuala. After much bargaining, wheedling, bribery, trickery, Norse drunkenness, and threatening behavior, Morpheus manages to get rid of Hell without much anger from the other participants: he gives it to a pair of angels sent by God, after Remiel relays a message claiming that as Hell is a reflection of Heaven, its true creator should control it. Dream then enters Azazel and frees Nada. He apologizes to her, and though he still loves her, she chooses not to stay with him, and he reincarnates her in the body of a newborn baby, telling her that she will always be welcome in the Dreaming in any form that she chooses. Between these deliberations is the story \"In Which the Dead Return; and Charles Rowland Concludes His Education\", from issue #25"
      },
      {
        "text": " of Heaven, its true creator should control it. Dream then enters Azazel and frees Nada. He apologizes to her, and though he still loves her, she chooses not to stay with him, and he reincarnates her in the body of a newborn baby, telling her that she will always be welcome in the Dreaming in any form that she chooses. Between these deliberations is the story \"In Which the Dead Return; and Charles Rowland Concludes His Education\", from issue #25, which takes place at a traditional English boarding-school (and borrows elements from the boarding-school story genre) and is used to illustrate the consequences of Hell's closure. Although the two main characters in this tale, the ghosts of two school boys, never appear again in the Sandman series, they later appear as \"The Dead Boy Detectives\" in Gaiman's Vertigo cross-over story The Children's Crusade, and in a mini-series of that name by Jill Thompson. The collection ends with Lucifer, sans wings, sitting on an Australian beach, grudgingly admiring God's sunset.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Interview with the Vampire",
    "author": "Anne Rice",
    "published_date": "1976-04-12",
    "synopsis": " A vampire named Louis tells his 200-year-long life story to reporter Daniel Molloy (who is only referred to as \"the boy\" in the novel). In 1791, Louis was a young indigo plantation owner living south of New Orleans, Louisiana. Distraught with the death of his pious brother, he seeks death in any way possible. Louis is approached by a vampire named Lestat, who desires Louis' company. Lestat turns Louis into a vampire (although initially Louis begs to be killed) and the two become immortal companions. Lestat spends some time feeding off the local plantation slaves while Louis, who finds it morally impossible for him to murder humans to survive, feeds from animals. Louis and Lestat are forced to leave when Louis' slaves begin to fear the monsters with which they live and instigate an uprising. Louis sets his own plantation aflame; he and Lestat exterminate the plantation slaves to keep word from spreading about vampires living in Louisiana. Gradually, Louis bends under Lestat's influence and begins feeding from humans. He slowly comes to terms with his vampire nature but also becomes increasingly repulsed by what he perceives as Lestat's total lack of compassion for the humans he preys upon. Escaping to New Orleans proper, Louis feeds off a plague-ridden young girl one night, who is six years old, whom he finds next to the corpse of her mother. Louis begins to think of leaving Lestat and going his own way. Fearing this, Lestat then turns the girl into a vampire \"daughter\" for them, to give Louis a reason to stay. She is then given the name \"Claudia\". Louis is initially horrified that Lestat has turned a child into a vampire, but soon begins to care for Claudia tenderly and dotingly. Claudia takes to killing people easily, but over time, she grows tired of her eternal childhood and begins to realize she can never grow up; her mind matures into that of an intelligent, assertive woman, but her body remains that of a five-year-old girl. Claudia blames Lestat for her condition and, after 60 years of living together, she hatches a plot to destroy Lestat by poisoning him and cutting his throat. Claudia and Louis then dump his body into a nearby swamp. After realizing that they seem to now be the only vampires living in America, Claudia desires to travel to Europe with Louis and seek out \"Old World\" vampires. As Louis and Claudia prepare to flee to Europe, Lestat appears, having survived and recovered from Claudia's attack, and attacks them in turn. Louis sets fire to their home and barely escapes with Claudia, leaving a furious Lestat to be consumed by the flames. Arriving in Europe, Louis and Claudia seek out more of their kind. They travel throughout eastern Europe first and do indeed encounter vampires, but these vampires appear to be nothing more than animated corpses, mindless and unintelligible. It is only when they reach Paris that they encounter vampires like themselves - specifically, the 400-year-old vampire Armand and his coven, the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Vampires. Inhabiting an ancient theater, Armand and his vampire coven disguise themselves as humans and feed on live, terrified humans in mock-plays before a live human audience (who think the killings are merely a very realistic performance). Claudia is repulsed by these vampires and what she considers to be their cheap theatrics, but Louis and Armand are drawn to each other. Santiago, a prominent figure among the vampire coven, suspects Claudia and Louis of killing their maker. One rule among the vampires is death to any vampire who kills their own kind. Convinced that Louis will leave her for Armand, Claudia demands that Louis turn a human Parisian doll maker, Madeleine, into a vampire to serve as both a mother figure and a replacement companion. Louis at first refuses but eventually gives in and makes Madeleine into a vampire. Louis, Madeleine and Claudia live together for a brief time, but all three are abducted one night by the Theatre vampires. Lestat has arrived - having survived the fire and attempted murder in New Orleans. His accusations against Louis and Claudia result in Louis being locked in a coffin to starve, while Claudia and Madeleine are locked in an open courtyard. Armand arrives and releases Louis from the coffin, but Madeleine and Claudia are burned to death by the rising sun. Louis finds the ashen remains of Claudia and Madeleine and is devastated. He later returns to the Theatre late the following night, burning it to the ground as the sun rises and killing all the vampires inside, and leaves with Armand. Louis and Armand then travel across Europe together for several years, but Louis never fully recovers from Claudia's death and the emotional connection between himself and Armand quickly dissolves. Tired of the Old World, Louis eventually returns to America and New Orleans in the early 20th century, living as a loner; he feeds off any humans that cross his path but lives in the shadows and never creates another companion for himself. Telling the boy of one last encounter with Lestat in New Orleans, Louis ends his tale; after 200 years, he is weary of immortality as a vampire and all the pain and suffering to which he has had to bear witness. The boy, however, seeing only the great powers granted to a vampire, begs to be made into a vampire himself. Infuriated that his interviewer learned nothing from his story, Louis refuses, and attacks the boy and then vanishes without a trace. Recovering from the attack, the boy leaves the place in his car.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A vampire named Louis tells his 200-year-long life story to reporter Daniel Molloy (who is only referred to as \"the boy\" in the novel). In 1791, Louis was a young indigo plantation owner living south of New Orleans, Louisiana. Distraught with the death of his pious brother, he seeks death in any way possible. Louis is approached by a vampire named Lestat, who desires Louis' company. Lestat turns Louis into a vampire (although initially Louis begs to be killed) and the two become immortal companions. Lestat spends some time feeding off the local plantation slaves while Louis, who finds it morally impossible for him to murder humans to survive, feeds from animals. Louis and Lestat are forced to leave when Louis' slaves begin to fear the monsters with which they live and instigate an uprising. Louis sets his own plantation aflame; he and Lestat exterminate the plantation slaves to keep word from spreading about vampires living in Louisiana. Gradually, Louis bends under Lestat's influence and begins feeding from humans. He slowly comes to terms with his vampire nature but also becomes increasingly repulsed by what he perceives as Lestat's total lack of compassion for the humans he preys upon. Escaping to New Orleans proper, Louis feeds off a plague-ridden young girl one night, who is six years old, whom he finds next to the corpse of her mother. Louis begins to think of leaving Lestat and going his own way. Fearing this, Lestat then turns the girl into a vampire \"daughter\" for them, to give Louis a reason to stay. She is then given the name \"Claudia\". Louis is initially horrified that Lestat has turned a child into a vampire, but soon begins to care for Claudia tenderly and dotingly. Claudia takes to killing people easily, but over time, she grows tired of her eternal childhood and begins to realize she can"
      },
      {
        "text": "estat and going his own way. Fearing this, Lestat then turns the girl into a vampire \"daughter\" for them, to give Louis a reason to stay. She is then given the name \"Claudia\". Louis is initially horrified that Lestat has turned a child into a vampire, but soon begins to care for Claudia tenderly and dotingly. Claudia takes to killing people easily, but over time, she grows tired of her eternal childhood and begins to realize she can never grow up; her mind matures into that of an intelligent, assertive woman, but her body remains that of a five-year-old girl. Claudia blames Lestat for her condition and, after 60 years of living together, she hatches a plot to destroy Lestat by poisoning him and cutting his throat. Claudia and Louis then dump his body into a nearby swamp. After realizing that they seem to now be the only vampires living in America, Claudia desires to travel to Europe with Louis and seek out \"Old World\" vampires. As Louis and Claudia prepare to flee to Europe, Lestat appears, having survived and recovered from Claudia's attack, and attacks them in turn. Louis sets fire to their home and barely escapes with Claudia, leaving a furious Lestat to be consumed by the flames. Arriving in Europe, Louis and Claudia seek out more of their kind. They travel throughout eastern Europe first and do indeed encounter vampires, but these vampires appear to be nothing more than animated corpses, mindless and unintelligible. It is only when they reach Paris that they encounter vampires like themselves - specifically, the 400-year-old vampire Armand and his coven, the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Vampires. Inhabiting an ancient theater, Armand and his vampire coven disguise themselves as humans and feed on live, terrified humans in mock-plays before a live human audience (who think the killings are merely a very realistic performance). Claudia is repuls"
      },
      {
        "text": " more than animated corpses, mindless and unintelligible. It is only when they reach Paris that they encounter vampires like themselves - specifically, the 400-year-old vampire Armand and his coven, the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Vampires. Inhabiting an ancient theater, Armand and his vampire coven disguise themselves as humans and feed on live, terrified humans in mock-plays before a live human audience (who think the killings are merely a very realistic performance). Claudia is repulsed by these vampires and what she considers to be their cheap theatrics, but Louis and Armand are drawn to each other. Santiago, a prominent figure among the vampire coven, suspects Claudia and Louis of killing their maker. One rule among the vampires is death to any vampire who kills their own kind. Convinced that Louis will leave her for Armand, Claudia demands that Louis turn a human Parisian doll maker, Madeleine, into a vampire to serve as both a mother figure and a replacement companion. Louis at first refuses but eventually gives in and makes Madeleine into a vampire. Louis, Madeleine and Claudia live together for a brief time, but all three are abducted one night by the Theatre vampires. Lestat has arrived - having survived the fire and attempted murder in New Orleans. His accusations against Louis and Claudia result in Louis being locked in a coffin to starve, while Claudia and Madeleine are locked in an open courtyard. Armand arrives and releases Louis from the coffin, but Madeleine and Claudia are burned to death by the rising sun. Louis finds the ashen remains of Claudia and Madeleine and is devastated. He later returns to the Theatre late the following night, burning it to the ground as the sun rises and killing all the vampires inside, and leaves with Armand. Louis and Armand then travel across Europe together for several years, but Louis never fully recovers from Claudia's death and the emotional connection between himself and Armand"
      },
      {
        "text": " Louis from the coffin, but Madeleine and Claudia are burned to death by the rising sun. Louis finds the ashen remains of Claudia and Madeleine and is devastated. He later returns to the Theatre late the following night, burning it to the ground as the sun rises and killing all the vampires inside, and leaves with Armand. Louis and Armand then travel across Europe together for several years, but Louis never fully recovers from Claudia's death and the emotional connection between himself and Armand quickly dissolves. Tired of the Old World, Louis eventually returns to America and New Orleans in the early 20th century, living as a loner; he feeds off any humans that cross his path but lives in the shadows and never creates another companion for himself. Telling the boy of one last encounter with Lestat in New Orleans, Louis ends his tale; after 200 years, he is weary of immortality as a vampire and all the pain and suffering to which he has had to bear witness. The boy, however, seeing only the great powers granted to a vampire, begs to be made into a vampire himself. Infuriated that his interviewer learned nothing from his story, Louis refuses, and attacks the boy and then vanishes without a trace. Recovering from the attack, the boy leaves the place in his car.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Seven Against Thebes",
    "author": "Aeschylus",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " When Oedipus, the king of Thebes, realized he had married his own mother and had two sons and two daughters with her, he blinded himself and cursed his sons to divide their inheritance (the kingdom) by the sword. The two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, in order to avoid bloodshed, agreed to rule Thebes in alternate years. After the first year, Eteocles refused to step down and as a result, Polynices raised an army (captained by the eponymous Seven) of Argives to take Thebes by force. This is where Aeschylus' tragedy starts. There is little plot as such; instead, the bulk of the play consists of rich dialogues that show how the citizens of Thebes feel about the threat of the hostile army before their gates, and also how their king Eteocles feels and thinks about it. Dialogues also show aspects of Eteocles' character. There is also a lengthy description of each of the seven captains that lead the Argive army against the seven gates of the city of Thebes as well as the devices on their respective shields. Eteocles, in turn, announces which Theban commander he will send against each Argive attacker. Finally, the commander of the troops before the seventh gate is revealed to be Polynices, the brother of the king. Then Eteocles remembers and refers to the curse of their father Oedipus. Eteocles resolves to meet and fight his brother in person before the seventh gate and exits. Following a choral ode, a messenger enters, announcing that the attackers have been repelled but that Eteocles and Polynices have killed each other in battle. Their bodies are brought on stage, and the chorus mourns them. The seven attackers and defenders in the play are: {| class=\"wikitable sortable\" style=\"text-align:center\" ! # !! Attacker !! Defender |- |1 || Tydeus || Melanippus |- |2 || Capaneus || Polyphontes |- |3 || Eteoclus || Megareus |- |4 || Hippomedon || Hyperbius |- |5 || Parthenopeus || Actor |- |6 || Amphiaraus || Lasthenes |- |7 || Polynices || Eteocles |- |} Due to the popularity of Sophocles's Antigone, the ending of Seven against Thebes was rewritten about fifty years after Aeschylus' death. Where the play was meant to end with somber mourning for the dead brothers, it instead contains an ending that serves as a lead-in of sorts to Sophocles' play: a messenger appears, announcing a prohibition against burying Polynices; Antigone, however, announces her intention to defy this edict.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " When Oedipus, the king of Thebes, realized he had married his own mother and had two sons and two daughters with her, he blinded himself and cursed his sons to divide their inheritance (the kingdom) by the sword. The two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, in order to avoid bloodshed, agreed to rule Thebes in alternate years. After the first year, Eteocles refused to step down and as a result, Polynices raised an army (captained by the eponymous Seven) of Argives to take Thebes by force. This is where Aeschylus' tragedy starts. There is little plot as such; instead, the bulk of the play consists of rich dialogues that show how the citizens of Thebes feel about the threat of the hostile army before their gates, and also how their king Eteocles feels and thinks about it. Dialogues also show aspects of Eteocles' character. There is also a lengthy description of each of the seven captains that lead the Argive army against the seven gates of the city of Thebes as well as the devices on their respective shields. Eteocles, in turn, announces which Theban commander he will send against each Argive attacker. Finally, the commander of the troops before the seventh gate is revealed to be Polynices, the brother of the king. Then Eteocles remembers and refers to the curse of their father Oedipus. Eteocles resolves to meet and fight his brother in person before the seventh gate and exits. Following a choral ode, a messenger enters, announcing that the attackers have been repelled but that Eteocles and Polynices have killed each other in battle. Their bodies are brought on stage, and the chorus mourns them. The seven attackers and defenders in the play are: {| class=\"wikitable sortable\" style=\"text-align:center\""
      },
      {
        "text": "ipus. Eteocles resolves to meet and fight his brother in person before the seventh gate and exits. Following a choral ode, a messenger enters, announcing that the attackers have been repelled but that Eteocles and Polynices have killed each other in battle. Their bodies are brought on stage, and the chorus mourns them. The seven attackers and defenders in the play are: {| class=\"wikitable sortable\" style=\"text-align:center\" ! # !! Attacker !! Defender |- |1 || Tydeus || Melanippus |- |2 || Capaneus || Polyphontes |- |3 || Eteoclus || Megareus |- |4 || Hippomedon || Hyperbius |- |5 || Parthenopeus || Actor |- |6 || Amphiaraus || Lasthenes |- |7 || Polynices || Eteocles |- |} Due to the popularity of Sophocles's Antigone, the ending of Seven against Thebes was rewritten about fifty years after Aeschylus' death. Where the play was meant to end with somber mourning for the dead brothers, it instead contains an ending that serves as a lead-in of sorts to Sophocles' play: a messenger appears, announcing a prohibition against burying Polynices; Antigone, however, announces her intention to defy this edict.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Tartarin de Tarascon",
    "author": "Alphonse Daudet",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " It tells the burlesque adventures of Tartarin, a local hero of Tarascon, a small town in southern France, whose invented adventures and reputation as a swashbuckler finally force him to travel to a very prosaic Algiers in search of lions. Instead of finding a romantic, mysterious Oriental fantasy land, he finds a sordid world suspended between Europe and the Middle East. And worst of all, there are no lions left. By a coincidence, Tartarin encounters a lion and kills him. Unfortunately, the lion was a mascot of the local military garrison and Tartarin is dragged in front of a judge. By a stroke of luck, he is released on a technicality and returns to Tarascon with the lion's skin to a hero's welcome. The book was followed by two sequels: Tartarin sur les Alpes (1885) and Port-Tarascon (1890).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It tells the burlesque adventures of Tartarin, a local hero of Tarascon, a small town in southern France, whose invented adventures and reputation as a swashbuckler finally force him to travel to a very prosaic Algiers in search of lions. Instead of finding a romantic, mysterious Oriental fantasy land, he finds a sordid world suspended between Europe and the Middle East. And worst of all, there are no lions left. By a coincidence, Tartarin encounters a lion and kills him. Unfortunately, the lion was a mascot of the local military garrison and Tartarin is dragged in front of a judge. By a stroke of luck, he is released on a technicality and returns to Tarascon with the lion's skin to a hero's welcome. The book was followed by two sequels: Tartarin sur les Alpes (1885) and Port-Tarascon (1890).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sandman: The Kindly Ones",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Kindly Ones belongs with the second collection, The Doll's House, and the seventh, Brief Lives, in that it finishes off a story that mostly originated in these collections. Parts from other collections are also important to its story, however, notably elements from Season of Mists and the story of Orpheus, told mostly in Fables and Reflections. The most structurally ambitious of the collections, The Kindly Ones is a single storyline written as a Greek tragedy, with Morpheus as its doomed hero and an aspect of the triad of witches, the Erinyes, as the Greek chorus. It pulls together various threads left dangling throughout the series, notably the grudges against Morpheus of several characters: Hippolyta Hall, whose child, Daniel, was claimed by Morpheus; the witches themselves; the Norse god Loki; and the witch Thessaly. The Kindly Ones also continues several other stories, including that of Cluracan of Faerie and his sister Nuala, that of the Corinthian, and that of Rose Walker and her former landlord Hal. It also features Lucifer, now playing piano in a nightclub, although he is loath to take requests. After Daniel is kidnapped towards the beginning of the story by Loki and Robin Goodfellow (the Puck), Hippolyta (or Lyta), manipulated by Loki into believing he was murdered, convinces herself that Morpheus was responsible due to her brief interactions with him throughout the series. In the midst of an intense breakdown over the loss of her child, Lyta resolves to destroy Morpheus, eventually finding the witches who agree to help her in her goal. In their aspect as the Furies, the witches are empowered to destroy Morpheus by the fact that he has shed the blood of one of his family (that of his son, Orpheus, when he granted him the boon of death). In many places, Lyta is depicted as Medusa, even meeting Medusa's two sisters, Stheno and Euryale, at one point in the story. Unbeknownst to Lyta, Daniel is eventually recovered alive and well by Morpheus' servants, the raven Matthew and a restored Corinthian. However, Lyta incurs the wrath of the Furies before learning that Daniel is still alive and safe, and is subsequently unable to stop the Furies from taking their revenge. Throughout the story the greatest mystery is the motivation of Morpheus; it is never exactly clear to what extent he is aware of the course on which he has, to some extent, set himself, and how serious are his attempts to save himself. In a telling sequence, he finally lays himself open to the Furies by leaving his kingdom to fulfill a boon he had granted to Nuala, even though he knows that his own end will likely be the consequence; once more his refusal to shirk what he perceives as his responsibility for any reason is a turning point in the story. In an affecting sequence, the main story ends with Morpheus and his sister Death on a desolate peak, echoing a sequence from one of the series' early high points, \"The Sound of her Wings\" (issue #8). Death asks for Morpheus' hand, and he simply disappears, in a flash of light. Having existed for all but an eternity, Dream of the Endless dies. Immediately upon the death of Morpheus, Daniel metamorphoses into a new aspect of Dream, with white clothes and hair, and an emerald instead of a ruby.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Kindly Ones belongs with the second collection, The Doll's House, and the seventh, Brief Lives, in that it finishes off a story that mostly originated in these collections. Parts from other collections are also important to its story, however, notably elements from Season of Mists and the story of Orpheus, told mostly in Fables and Reflections. The most structurally ambitious of the collections, The Kindly Ones is a single storyline written as a Greek tragedy, with Morpheus as its doomed hero and an aspect of the triad of witches, the Erinyes, as the Greek chorus. It pulls together various threads left dangling throughout the series, notably the grudges against Morpheus of several characters: Hippolyta Hall, whose child, Daniel, was claimed by Morpheus; the witches themselves; the Norse god Loki; and the witch Thessaly. The Kindly Ones also continues several other stories, including that of Cluracan of Faerie and his sister Nuala, that of the Corinthian, and that of Rose Walker and her former landlord Hal. It also features Lucifer, now playing piano in a nightclub, although he is loath to take requests. After Daniel is kidnapped towards the beginning of the story by Loki and Robin Goodfellow (the Puck), Hippolyta (or Lyta), manipulated by Loki into believing he was murdered, convinces herself that Morpheus was responsible due to her brief interactions with him throughout the series. In the midst of an intense breakdown over the loss of her child, Lyta resolves to destroy Morpheus, eventually finding the witches who agree to help her in her goal. In their aspect as the Furies, the witches are empowered to destroy Morpheus by the fact that he has shed the blood of one of his family (that of his son, Orpheus, when he granted him the boon of death). In many places, Lyta is depicted as Medusa, even meeting Medusa's two sisters"
      },
      {
        "text": " midst of an intense breakdown over the loss of her child, Lyta resolves to destroy Morpheus, eventually finding the witches who agree to help her in her goal. In their aspect as the Furies, the witches are empowered to destroy Morpheus by the fact that he has shed the blood of one of his family (that of his son, Orpheus, when he granted him the boon of death). In many places, Lyta is depicted as Medusa, even meeting Medusa's two sisters, Stheno and Euryale, at one point in the story. Unbeknownst to Lyta, Daniel is eventually recovered alive and well by Morpheus' servants, the raven Matthew and a restored Corinthian. However, Lyta incurs the wrath of the Furies before learning that Daniel is still alive and safe, and is subsequently unable to stop the Furies from taking their revenge. Throughout the story the greatest mystery is the motivation of Morpheus; it is never exactly clear to what extent he is aware of the course on which he has, to some extent, set himself, and how serious are his attempts to save himself. In a telling sequence, he finally lays himself open to the Furies by leaving his kingdom to fulfill a boon he had granted to Nuala, even though he knows that his own end will likely be the consequence; once more his refusal to shirk what he perceives as his responsibility for any reason is a turning point in the story. In an affecting sequence, the main story ends with Morpheus and his sister Death on a desolate peak, echoing a sequence from one of the series' early high points, \"The Sound of her Wings\" (issue #8). Death asks for Morpheus' hand, and he simply disappears, in a flash of light. Having existed for all but an eternity, Dream of the Endless dies. Immediately upon the death of Morpheus, Daniel metamorphoses into a new aspect of Dream, with white clothes"
      },
      {
        "text": " an affecting sequence, the main story ends with Morpheus and his sister Death on a desolate peak, echoing a sequence from one of the series' early high points, \"The Sound of her Wings\" (issue #8). Death asks for Morpheus' hand, and he simply disappears, in a flash of light. Having existed for all but an eternity, Dream of the Endless dies. Immediately upon the death of Morpheus, Daniel metamorphoses into a new aspect of Dream, with white clothes and hair, and an emerald instead of a ruby.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "SS-GB",
    "author": "Len Deighton",
    "published_date": "1978-08-24",
    "synopsis": " It is November 1941, nine months after a German invasion led to the British surrender. Detective Superintendent Douglas Archer, a British homicide detective assigned to Scotland Yard, is called in to investigate a murder of a well-dressed man in an apartment in Shepherd Market. Though the body has two gunshot wounds, Archer is puzzled by the condition of the body, in particular what appears to be a sunburn on the body's arm. To his surprise, the case draws the attention of the highest levels of the German government, as an SS Standartenf\u00fchrer, Oskar Huth, arrives to supervise the investigation. Archer soon finds himself in the middle of a power struggle between Huth and Gruppenf\u00fchrer Fritz Kellerman, Archer's boss and the head of police forces in Great Britain. Archer soon discovers that the dead man was a British physicist named William Spode and that Spode was involved with the Resistance movement. This leads Archer to George Mayhew, a former colonel in the British Army who is organizing an operation designed to free the King from his prison in the Tower of London and spirit him away to neutral America. Archer also develops a romantic relationship with Barbara Barga, an American reporter whom he first met at the Spode murder scene and who appears involved in the mystery. Huth also reveals to Archer the reason for the high-level interest in the murder: Spode was part of a German military team working on developing an atomic bomb. As his investigation proceeds, Archer finds the dangers increasing, as a subordinate is killed and Archer himself is nearly murdered by a member of the Resistance. Following a clue in the form of an elbow pivot for an artificial arm, Archer travels to a prisoner-of-war camp in Berkshire where inmates produce replacement limbs for war veterans. There he succeeds in capturing Spode's brother, John Spode, who lost his right arm while fighting the German invasion. Though Spode confesses readily to shooting his brother (who was dying of radiation poisoning), he commits suicide by ingesting a cyanide capsule before Archer can take him back to London. Learning that the German officer escorting him around the camp was a member of the Abwehr, Archer follows him back to London, where he discovers Mayhew conspiring with top Abwehr officials to free the King, an act that would humiliate the SS as the organization in charge of guarding him. The next day, a public exhumation of Karl Marx from Highgate Cemetery as part of \"German-Soviet Friendship Week\" is disrupted by a bomb which kills dozens of people. In response the German army declares martial law and arrests thousands of people, including Archer's partner, Detective Sergeant Harry Woods. Though Woods assures his friend that they will be able to avoid incarceration by bribing one of the soldiers, Archer soon learns that Woods is wounded in an escape attempt. Kellerman secures Woods's release, but with a statement that compromises Archer in Kellerman's political manoeuvrings against Huth. Undeterred, Archer travels to an English manor house to witness the arrival of an American agent who arrives to negotiate with Mayhew over the King and the atomic bomb secrets. The two agree that the Americans will get the equations William Spode worked out (which his brother photographed before destroying) in return for taking the King out of Britain as well. Though Huth arrives with a force of men, Mayhew comes to a secret agreement with him and the Germans depart quietly. The following day. Archer and Woods succeed in getting the King out of the Tower, only to find the King an invalid as a result of an injury suffered during the invasion. They take him secretly to Bringle Sands, the site of the German atomic bomb research project in England, so that a force of United States Marines preparing to attack the facility can take the King out with them. Though the attack succeeds in destroying the facility and escaping with research material and key personnel, an ambush set by Huth (who was forewarned of the assault by Mayhew) results in the death of the King. Though arrested, Archer is freed by Kellerman, who has what he wants – evidence which he can use to convict Huth of aiding the resistance. In a final meeting before his execution, Huth laments to Archer that the Americans will develop the atomic bomb first and that Mayhew (whom Archer has deduced was Spode's real murderer) has also got what he wanted most: an honourable death for the King, and an incident that will bring about war between Nazi Germany and the United States.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It is November 1941, nine months after a German invasion led to the British surrender. Detective Superintendent Douglas Archer, a British homicide detective assigned to Scotland Yard, is called in to investigate a murder of a well-dressed man in an apartment in Shepherd Market. Though the body has two gunshot wounds, Archer is puzzled by the condition of the body, in particular what appears to be a sunburn on the body's arm. To his surprise, the case draws the attention of the highest levels of the German government, as an SS Standartenf\u00fchrer, Oskar Huth, arrives to supervise the investigation. Archer soon finds himself in the middle of a power struggle between Huth and Gruppenf\u00fchrer Fritz Kellerman, Archer's boss and the head of police forces in Great Britain. Archer soon discovers that the dead man was a British physicist named William Spode and that Spode was involved with the Resistance movement. This leads Archer to George Mayhew, a former colonel in the British Army who is organizing an operation designed to free the King from his prison in the Tower of London and spirit him away to neutral America. Archer also develops a romantic relationship with Barbara Barga, an American reporter whom he first met at the Spode murder scene and who appears involved in the mystery. Huth also reveals to Archer the reason for the high-level interest in the murder: Spode was part of a German military team working on developing an atomic bomb. As his investigation proceeds, Archer finds the dangers increasing, as a subordinate is killed and Archer himself is nearly murdered by a member of the Resistance. Following a clue in the form of an elbow pivot for an artificial arm, Archer travels to a prisoner-of-war camp in Berkshire where inmates produce replacement limbs for war veterans. There he succeeds in capturing Spode's brother, John Spode, who lost his right arm while fighting the German invasion. Though Spode confesses readily to shooting his brother (who was"
      },
      {
        "text": " proceeds, Archer finds the dangers increasing, as a subordinate is killed and Archer himself is nearly murdered by a member of the Resistance. Following a clue in the form of an elbow pivot for an artificial arm, Archer travels to a prisoner-of-war camp in Berkshire where inmates produce replacement limbs for war veterans. There he succeeds in capturing Spode's brother, John Spode, who lost his right arm while fighting the German invasion. Though Spode confesses readily to shooting his brother (who was dying of radiation poisoning), he commits suicide by ingesting a cyanide capsule before Archer can take him back to London. Learning that the German officer escorting him around the camp was a member of the Abwehr, Archer follows him back to London, where he discovers Mayhew conspiring with top Abwehr officials to free the King, an act that would humiliate the SS as the organization in charge of guarding him. The next day, a public exhumation of Karl Marx from Highgate Cemetery as part of \"German-Soviet Friendship Week\" is disrupted by a bomb which kills dozens of people. In response the German army declares martial law and arrests thousands of people, including Archer's partner, Detective Sergeant Harry Woods. Though Woods assures his friend that they will be able to avoid incarceration by bribing one of the soldiers, Archer soon learns that Woods is wounded in an escape attempt. Kellerman secures Woods's release, but with a statement that compromises Archer in Kellerman's political manoeuvrings against Huth. Undeterred, Archer travels to an English manor house to witness the arrival of an American agent who arrives to negotiate with Mayhew over the King and the atomic bomb secrets. The two agree that the Americans will get the equations William Spode worked out (which his brother photographed before destroying) in return for taking the King out of Britain as well. Though Huth arrives with a force of men, Mayhew comes to a secret agreement with him and the Germans depart quietly"
      },
      {
        "text": "rings against Huth. Undeterred, Archer travels to an English manor house to witness the arrival of an American agent who arrives to negotiate with Mayhew over the King and the atomic bomb secrets. The two agree that the Americans will get the equations William Spode worked out (which his brother photographed before destroying) in return for taking the King out of Britain as well. Though Huth arrives with a force of men, Mayhew comes to a secret agreement with him and the Germans depart quietly. The following day. Archer and Woods succeed in getting the King out of the Tower, only to find the King an invalid as a result of an injury suffered during the invasion. They take him secretly to Bringle Sands, the site of the German atomic bomb research project in England, so that a force of United States Marines preparing to attack the facility can take the King out with them. Though the attack succeeds in destroying the facility and escaping with research material and key personnel, an ambush set by Huth (who was forewarned of the assault by Mayhew) results in the death of the King. Though arrested, Archer is freed by Kellerman, who has what he wants – evidence which he can use to convict Huth of aiding the resistance. In a final meeting before his execution, Huth laments to Archer that the Americans will develop the atomic bomb first and that Mayhew (whom Archer has deduced was Spode's real murderer) has also got what he wanted most: an honourable death for the King, and an incident that will bring about war between Nazi Germany and the United States.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " he wanted most: an honourable death for the King, and an incident that will bring about war between Nazi Germany and the United States.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Finnegans Wake",
    "author": "James Joyce",
    "published_date": "1939-05-04",
    "synopsis": " Finnegans Wake comprises 17 chapters, divided into four Books. Book I contains 8 chapters, Books II and III contain 4, and Book IV consists of only one short chapter. The chapters appear without titles, and while Joyce never provided possible chapter titles as he had done for Ulysses, he did title various sections published separately (see Publication history below). The standard critical practice, however, is to indicate book number in Roman numerals, and chapter title in Arabic, so that III.2, for example, indicates the second chapter of the third book. Given the book's fluid and changeable approach to plot and characters, a definitive, critically agreed-upon plot synopsis remains elusive (see Critical response and themes: Difficulties of plot summary below). Therefore, the following synopsis attempts to summarise events in the book which find general, although inevitably not universal, consensus among critics. The entire work is cyclical in nature: the last sentence\u2014a fragment\u2014recirculates to the beginning sentence: \"a way a lone a last a loved a long the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.\" Joyce himself revealed that the book \"ends in the middle of a sentence and begins in the middle of the same sentence.\" The introductory chapter (I.1) establishes the book's setting as \"Howth Castle and Environs\", and introduces Dublin hod carrier \"Finnegan\", who falls to his death from a ladder while constructing a wall. Finnegan's wife Annie puts out his corpse as a meal spread for the mourners at his wake, but he vanishes before they can eat him. \"Mutt and Jute\", and \"The Prankquean\". At the chapter's close a fight breaks out, whiskey splashes on Finnegan's corpse, and \u201cthe dead Finnegan rises from his coffin bawling for whiskey and his mourners put him back to rest\u201d, persuading him that he is better off where he is. The chapter ends with the image of the HCE character sailing into Dublin Bay to take a central role in the story. I.2 opens with an account of \"Harold or Humphrey\" Chimpden receiving the nickname \"Earwicker\" from the Sailor King, who encounters him attempting to catch earwigs with an inverted flowerpot on a stick while manning a tollgate through which the King is passing. This name helps Chimpden, now known by his initials HCE, to rise to prominence in Dublin society as \"Here Comes Everybody\". He is then brought low by a rumor that begins to spread across Dublin, apparently concerning a sexual trespass involving two girls in the Phoenix Park, although details of HCE's transgression change with each retelling of events. Chapters I.2 through I.4 follow the progress of this rumor, starting with HCE's encounter with \"a cad with a pipe\" in Phoenix Park. The cad greets HCE in Gaelic and asks the time, but HCE misunderstands the question as an accusation, and incriminates himself by denying rumours the cad has not yet heard. These rumours quickly spread across Dublin, gathering momentum until they are turned into a song penned by the character Hosty called \"The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly\". As a result, HCE goes into hiding, where he is besieged at the closed gate of his pub by a visiting American looking for drink after hours. However HCE remains silent \u2013 not responding to the accusations or verbal abuse \u2013 dreams, is buried in a coffin at the bottom of Lough Neagh, and is finally brought to trial, under the name Festy King. He is eventually freed, and goes once more into hiding. An important piece of evidence during the trial \u2013 a letter about HCE written by his wife ALP \u2013 is called for so that it can be examined in closer detail. ALP's Letter becomes the focal point as it is analysed in detail in I.5. This letter was dictated by ALP to her son Shem, a writer, and entrusted to her other son Shaun, a postman, for delivery. The letter never reaches its intended destination, ending up in a midden heap where it is unearthed by a hen named Biddy. Chapter I.6 digresses from the narrative in order to present the main and minor characters in more detail, in the form of twelve riddles and answers. In the final two chapters of Book I we learn more about the letter's writer Shem the Penman (I.7) and its original author, his mother ALP (I.8). The Shem chapter consists of \"Shaun's character assassination of his brother Shem\", describing the hermetic artist as a forger and a \"sham\", before \"Shem is protected by his mother [ALP], who appears at the end to come and defend her son.\" The following chapter concerning Shem's mother, known as \"Anna Livia Plurabelle\", is interwoven with thousands of river names from all over the globe, and is widely considered the book's most celebrated passage. The chapter was described by Joyce in 1924 as \"a chattering dialogue across the river by two washerwomen who as night falls become a tree and a stone.\" These two washerwomen gossip about ALP's response to the allegations laid against her husband HCE, as they wash clothes in the Liffey. ALP is said to have written a letter declaring herself tired of her mate. Their gossip then digresses to her youthful affairs and sexual encounters, before returning to the publication of HCE's guilt in the morning newspaper, and his wife's revenge on his enemies: borrowing a \"mailsack\" from her son Shaun the Post, she delivers presents to her 111 children. At the chapter's close the washerwomen try to pick up the thread of the story, but their conversation is increasingly difficult as they are on opposite sides of the widening Liffey, and it is getting dark. Finally, as they turn into a tree and a stone, they ask to be told a Tale of Shem or Shaun. While Book I of Finnegans Wake deals mostly with the parents HCE and ALP, Book II shifts that focus onto their children, Shem, Shaun and Issy. II.1 opens with a pantomime programme, which outlines, in relatively clear language, the identities and attributes of the book's main characters. The chapter then concerns a guessing game among the children, in which Shem is challenged three times to guess by \"gazework\" the colour which the girls have chosen. Unable to answer due to his poor eyesight, Shem goes into exile in disgrace, and Shaun wins the affection of the girls. Finally HCE emerges from the pub and in a thunder-like voice calls the children inside. Chapter II.2 follows Shem, Shaun and Issy studying upstairs in the pub, after having been called inside in the previous chapter. The chapter depicts \"[Shem] coaching [Shaun] how to do Euclid Bk I, 1\", structured as \"a reproduction of a schoolboys' (and schoolgirls') old classbook complete with marginalia by the twins, who change sides at half time, and footnotes by the girl (who doesn't)\". Once Shem (here called Dolph) has helped Shaun (here called Kev) to draw the Euclid diagram, the latter realises that he has drawn a diagram of ALP's genitalia, and \"Kev finally realises the significance of the triangles [..and..] strikes Dolph.\" After this \"Dolph forgives Kev\" and the children are given \"[e]ssay assignments on 52 famous men.\" The chapter ends with the children's \"nightletter\" to HCE and ALP, in which they are \"apparently united in a desire to overcome their parents.\" II.3 moves to HCE working in the pub below the studying children. As HCE serves his customers, two narratives are broadcast via the bar's radio and television sets, namely \"The Norwegian Captain and the Tailor's Daughter\", and \"How Buckley Shot the Russian General\". The first portrays HCE as a Norwegian Captain succumbing to domestication through his marriage to the Tailor's Daughter. The latter, told by Shem and Shaun ciphers Butt and Taff, casts HCE as a Russian General who is shot by the soldier Buckley. Earwicker has been absent throughout the latter tale, having been summoned upstairs by ALP. He returns and is reviled by his customers, who see Buckley's shooting of the General as symbolic of Shem and Shaun's supplanting their father. This condemnation of his character forces HCE to deliver a general confession of his crimes, including an incestuous desire for young girls. Finally a policeman arrives to send the drunken customers home, the pub is closed up, and the customers disappear singing into the night as a drunken HCE, clearing up the bar and swallowing the dregs of the glasses left behind, morphs into ancient Irish high king Rory O'Connor, and passes out. II.4, ostensibly portraying the drunken and sleeping Earwicker's dream, chronicles the spying of four old men (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) on Tristan and Iseult's journey. The short chapter portrays \"an old man like King Mark being rejected and abandoned by young lovers who sail off into a future without him\", while the four old men observe Tristan and Isolde, and offer four intertwining commentaries on the lovers and themselves which are \"always repeating themselves\". Book III concerns itself almost exclusively with Shaun, in his role as postman, having to deliver ALP's letter, which was referred to in Book 1, but never seen. III.1 opens with the Four Masters' ass narrating how he thought, as he was \"dropping asleep\", he had heard and seen an apparition of Shaun the Post. As a result Shaun re-awakens, and, floating down the Liffey in a barrel, is posed 14 questions concerning the significance and content of the letter he is carrying. However, Shaun, \"apprehensive about being slighted, is on his guard, and the placating narrators never get a straight answer out of him.\" Shaun's answers focus on his own boastful personality and his admonishment of the letter's author \u2013 his artist brother Shem. After the inquisition Shaun loses his balance and the barrel in which he has been floating careens over and he rolls backwards out of the narrator's earshot, before disappearing completely from view. In III.2 Shaun re-appears as \"Jaunty Jaun\" and delivers a lengthy sermon to his sister Issy, and her 28 schoolmates from St. Brigid's School. Throughout this book Shaun is continually regressing, changing from an old man to an overgrown baby lying on his back, and eventually, in III.3, into a vessel through which the voice of HCE speaks again by means of a spiritual medium. This leads to HCE's defence of his life in the passage \"Haveth Childers Everywhere\". Book III ends in the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Porter as they attempt to copulate while their children, Jerry, Kevin and Isobel Porter, are sleeping upstairs and the dawn is rising outside (III.4). Jerry awakes from a nightmare of a scary father figure, and Mrs. Porter interrupts the coitus to go comfort him with the words \"You were dreamend, dear. The pawdrag? The fawthrig? Shoe! Hear are no phanthares in the room at all, avikkeen. No bad bold faathern, dear one.\" She returns to bed, and the rooster crows at the conclusion of their coitus at the Book's culmination. Book IV consists of only one chapter, which, like the book's opening chapter, is mostly composed of a series of seemingly unrelated vignettes. After an opening call for dawn to break, the remainder of the chapter consists of the vignettes \"Saint Kevin\", \"Berkely and Patrick\" and \"The Revered Letter\". ALP is given the final word, as the book closes on a version of her Letter and her final long monologue, in which she tries to wake her sleeping husband, declaring \"Rise up, man of the hooths, you have slept so long!\", and remembers a walk they once took, and hopes for its re-occurrence. At the close of her monologue, ALP \u2013 as the river Liffey \u2013 disappears at dawn into the ocean. The book's last words are a fragment, but they can be turned into a complete sentence by attaching them to the words that start the book: A way a lone a last a loved a long the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Finnegans Wake comprises 17 chapters, divided into four Books. Book I contains 8 chapters, Books II and III contain 4, and Book IV consists of only one short chapter. The chapters appear without titles, and while Joyce never provided possible chapter titles as he had done for Ulysses, he did title various sections published separately (see Publication history below). The standard critical practice, however, is to indicate book number in Roman numerals, and chapter title in Arabic, so that III.2, for example, indicates the second chapter of the third book. Given the book's fluid and changeable approach to plot and characters, a definitive, critically agreed-upon plot synopsis remains elusive (see Critical response and themes: Difficulties of plot summary below). Therefore, the following synopsis attempts to summarise events in the book which find general, although inevitably not universal, consensus among critics. The entire work is cyclical in nature: the last sentence\u2014a fragment\u2014recirculates to the beginning sentence: \"a way a lone a last a loved a long the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.\" Joyce himself revealed that the book \"ends in the middle of a sentence and begins in the middle of the same sentence.\" The introductory chapter (I.1) establishes the book's setting as \"Howth Castle and Environs\", and introduces Dublin hod carrier \"Finnegan\", who falls to his death from a ladder while constructing a wall. Finnegan's wife Annie puts out his corpse as a meal spread for the mourners at his wake, but he vanishes before they can eat him. \"Mutt and Jute\", and \"The Prankquean\". At the chapter's close a fight breaks out, whiskey splashes on Finnegan's corpse, and \u201cthe dead"
      },
      {
        "text": " Environs\", and introduces Dublin hod carrier \"Finnegan\", who falls to his death from a ladder while constructing a wall. Finnegan's wife Annie puts out his corpse as a meal spread for the mourners at his wake, but he vanishes before they can eat him. \"Mutt and Jute\", and \"The Prankquean\". At the chapter's close a fight breaks out, whiskey splashes on Finnegan's corpse, and \u201cthe dead Finnegan rises from his coffin bawling for whiskey and his mourners put him back to rest\u201d, persuading him that he is better off where he is. The chapter ends with the image of the HCE character sailing into Dublin Bay to take a central role in the story. I.2 opens with an account of \"Harold or Humphrey\" Chimpden receiving the nickname \"Earwicker\" from the Sailor King, who encounters him attempting to catch earwigs with an inverted flowerpot on a stick while manning a tollgate through which the King is passing. This name helps Chimpden, now known by his initials HCE, to rise to prominence in Dublin society as \"Here Comes Everybody\". He is then brought low by a rumor that begins to spread across Dublin, apparently concerning a sexual trespass involving two girls in the Phoenix Park, although details of HCE's transgression change with each retelling of events. Chapters I.2 through I.4 follow the progress of this rumor, starting with HCE's encounter with \"a cad with a pipe\" in Phoenix Park. The cad greets HCE in Gaelic and asks the time, but HCE misunderstands the question as an accusation, and incriminates himself by denying rumours the cad has not yet heard. These rumours quickly spread across Dublin, gathering momentum until they are turned into a song penned by the character Hosty called \"The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly\". As a"
      },
      {
        "text": "4 follow the progress of this rumor, starting with HCE's encounter with \"a cad with a pipe\" in Phoenix Park. The cad greets HCE in Gaelic and asks the time, but HCE misunderstands the question as an accusation, and incriminates himself by denying rumours the cad has not yet heard. These rumours quickly spread across Dublin, gathering momentum until they are turned into a song penned by the character Hosty called \"The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly\". As a result, HCE goes into hiding, where he is besieged at the closed gate of his pub by a visiting American looking for drink after hours. However HCE remains silent \u2013 not responding to the accusations or verbal abuse \u2013 dreams, is buried in a coffin at the bottom of Lough Neagh, and is finally brought to trial, under the name Festy King. He is eventually freed, and goes once more into hiding. An important piece of evidence during the trial \u2013 a letter about HCE written by his wife ALP \u2013 is called for so that it can be examined in closer detail. ALP's Letter becomes the focal point as it is analysed in detail in I.5. This letter was dictated by ALP to her son Shem, a writer, and entrusted to her other son Shaun, a postman, for delivery. The letter never reaches its intended destination, ending up in a midden heap where it is unearthed by a hen named Biddy. Chapter I.6 digresses from the narrative in order to present the main and minor characters in more detail, in the form of twelve riddles and answers. In the final two chapters of Book I we learn more about the letter's writer Shem the Penman (I.7) and its original author, his mother ALP (I.8). The Shem chapter consists of \"Shaun's character assassination of his brother Shem\", describing the hermetic artist as a forger and a \"sham\", before \"She"
      },
      {
        "text": " the narrative in order to present the main and minor characters in more detail, in the form of twelve riddles and answers. In the final two chapters of Book I we learn more about the letter's writer Shem the Penman (I.7) and its original author, his mother ALP (I.8). The Shem chapter consists of \"Shaun's character assassination of his brother Shem\", describing the hermetic artist as a forger and a \"sham\", before \"Shem is protected by his mother [ALP], who appears at the end to come and defend her son.\" The following chapter concerning Shem's mother, known as \"Anna Livia Plurabelle\", is interwoven with thousands of river names from all over the globe, and is widely considered the book's most celebrated passage. The chapter was described by Joyce in 1924 as \"a chattering dialogue across the river by two washerwomen who as night falls become a tree and a stone.\" These two washerwomen gossip about ALP's response to the allegations laid against her husband HCE, as they wash clothes in the Liffey. ALP is said to have written a letter declaring herself tired of her mate. Their gossip then digresses to her youthful affairs and sexual encounters, before returning to the publication of HCE's guilt in the morning newspaper, and his wife's revenge on his enemies: borrowing a \"mailsack\" from her son Shaun the Post, she delivers presents to her 111 children. At the chapter's close the washerwomen try to pick up the thread of the story, but their conversation is increasingly difficult as they are on opposite sides of the widening Liffey, and it is getting dark. Finally, as they turn into a tree and a stone, they ask to be told a Tale of Shem or Shaun. While Book I of Finnegans Wake deals mostly with the parents HCE and ALP, Book II shifts that focus onto their children,"
      },
      {
        "text": " her 111 children. At the chapter's close the washerwomen try to pick up the thread of the story, but their conversation is increasingly difficult as they are on opposite sides of the widening Liffey, and it is getting dark. Finally, as they turn into a tree and a stone, they ask to be told a Tale of Shem or Shaun. While Book I of Finnegans Wake deals mostly with the parents HCE and ALP, Book II shifts that focus onto their children, Shem, Shaun and Issy. II.1 opens with a pantomime programme, which outlines, in relatively clear language, the identities and attributes of the book's main characters. The chapter then concerns a guessing game among the children, in which Shem is challenged three times to guess by \"gazework\" the colour which the girls have chosen. Unable to answer due to his poor eyesight, Shem goes into exile in disgrace, and Shaun wins the affection of the girls. Finally HCE emerges from the pub and in a thunder-like voice calls the children inside. Chapter II.2 follows Shem, Shaun and Issy studying upstairs in the pub, after having been called inside in the previous chapter. The chapter depicts \"[Shem] coaching [Shaun] how to do Euclid Bk I, 1\", structured as \"a reproduction of a schoolboys' (and schoolgirls') old classbook complete with marginalia by the twins, who change sides at half time, and footnotes by the girl (who doesn't)\". Once Shem (here called Dolph) has helped Shaun (here called Kev) to draw the Euclid diagram, the latter realises that he has drawn a diagram of ALP's genitalia, and \"Kev finally realises the significance of the triangles [..and..] strikes Dolph.\" After this \"Dolph forgives Kev\" and the children are given \"[e]ssay assignments on 52 famous men"
      },
      {
        "text": " half time, and footnotes by the girl (who doesn't)\". Once Shem (here called Dolph) has helped Shaun (here called Kev) to draw the Euclid diagram, the latter realises that he has drawn a diagram of ALP's genitalia, and \"Kev finally realises the significance of the triangles [..and..] strikes Dolph.\" After this \"Dolph forgives Kev\" and the children are given \"[e]ssay assignments on 52 famous men.\" The chapter ends with the children's \"nightletter\" to HCE and ALP, in which they are \"apparently united in a desire to overcome their parents.\" II.3 moves to HCE working in the pub below the studying children. As HCE serves his customers, two narratives are broadcast via the bar's radio and television sets, namely \"The Norwegian Captain and the Tailor's Daughter\", and \"How Buckley Shot the Russian General\". The first portrays HCE as a Norwegian Captain succumbing to domestication through his marriage to the Tailor's Daughter. The latter, told by Shem and Shaun ciphers Butt and Taff, casts HCE as a Russian General who is shot by the soldier Buckley. Earwicker has been absent throughout the latter tale, having been summoned upstairs by ALP. He returns and is reviled by his customers, who see Buckley's shooting of the General as symbolic of Shem and Shaun's supplanting their father. This condemnation of his character forces HCE to deliver a general confession of his crimes, including an incestuous desire for young girls. Finally a policeman arrives to send the drunken customers home, the pub is closed up, and the customers disappear singing into the night as a drunken HCE, clearing up the bar and swallowing the dregs of the glasses left behind, morphs into ancient Irish high king Rory O'Connor, and passes out. II.4, ostensibly portraying the drunken and sleeping Earwicker's dream"
      },
      {
        "text": " character forces HCE to deliver a general confession of his crimes, including an incestuous desire for young girls. Finally a policeman arrives to send the drunken customers home, the pub is closed up, and the customers disappear singing into the night as a drunken HCE, clearing up the bar and swallowing the dregs of the glasses left behind, morphs into ancient Irish high king Rory O'Connor, and passes out. II.4, ostensibly portraying the drunken and sleeping Earwicker's dream, chronicles the spying of four old men (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) on Tristan and Iseult's journey. The short chapter portrays \"an old man like King Mark being rejected and abandoned by young lovers who sail off into a future without him\", while the four old men observe Tristan and Isolde, and offer four intertwining commentaries on the lovers and themselves which are \"always repeating themselves\". Book III concerns itself almost exclusively with Shaun, in his role as postman, having to deliver ALP's letter, which was referred to in Book 1, but never seen. III.1 opens with the Four Masters' ass narrating how he thought, as he was \"dropping asleep\", he had heard and seen an apparition of Shaun the Post. As a result Shaun re-awakens, and, floating down the Liffey in a barrel, is posed 14 questions concerning the significance and content of the letter he is carrying. However, Shaun, \"apprehensive about being slighted, is on his guard, and the placating narrators never get a straight answer out of him.\" Shaun's answers focus on his own boastful personality and his admonishment of the letter's author \u2013 his artist brother Shem. After the inquisition Shaun loses his balance and the barrel in which he has been floating careens over and he rolls backwards out of the narrator's earshot, before disappearing completely from view. In III.2 Shaun re-app"
      },
      {
        "text": "apprehensive about being slighted, is on his guard, and the placating narrators never get a straight answer out of him.\" Shaun's answers focus on his own boastful personality and his admonishment of the letter's author \u2013 his artist brother Shem. After the inquisition Shaun loses his balance and the barrel in which he has been floating careens over and he rolls backwards out of the narrator's earshot, before disappearing completely from view. In III.2 Shaun re-appears as \"Jaunty Jaun\" and delivers a lengthy sermon to his sister Issy, and her 28 schoolmates from St. Brigid's School. Throughout this book Shaun is continually regressing, changing from an old man to an overgrown baby lying on his back, and eventually, in III.3, into a vessel through which the voice of HCE speaks again by means of a spiritual medium. This leads to HCE's defence of his life in the passage \"Haveth Childers Everywhere\". Book III ends in the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Porter as they attempt to copulate while their children, Jerry, Kevin and Isobel Porter, are sleeping upstairs and the dawn is rising outside (III.4). Jerry awakes from a nightmare of a scary father figure, and Mrs. Porter interrupts the coitus to go comfort him with the words \"You were dreamend, dear. The pawdrag? The fawthrig? Shoe! Hear are no phanthares in the room at all, avikkeen. No bad bold faathern, dear one.\" She returns to bed, and the rooster crows at the conclusion of their coitus at the Book's culmination. Book IV consists of only one chapter, which, like the book's opening chapter, is mostly composed of a series of seemingly unrelated vignettes. After an opening call for dawn to break, the remainder of the chapter consists of the vignettes"
      },
      {
        "text": " are no phanthares in the room at all, avikkeen. No bad bold faathern, dear one.\" She returns to bed, and the rooster crows at the conclusion of their coitus at the Book's culmination. Book IV consists of only one chapter, which, like the book's opening chapter, is mostly composed of a series of seemingly unrelated vignettes. After an opening call for dawn to break, the remainder of the chapter consists of the vignettes \"Saint Kevin\", \"Berkely and Patrick\" and \"The Revered Letter\". ALP is given the final word, as the book closes on a version of her Letter and her final long monologue, in which she tries to wake her sleeping husband, declaring \"Rise up, man of the hooths, you have slept so long!\", and remembers a walk they once took, and hopes for its re-occurrence. At the close of her monologue, ALP \u2013 as the river Liffey \u2013 disappears at dawn into the ocean. The book's last words are a fragment, but they can be turned into a complete sentence by attaching them to the words that start the book: A way a lone a last a loved a long the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Virgin Suicides",
    "author": "Jeffrey Eugenides",
    "published_date": "1993",
    "synopsis": " The Lisbons are a Catholic family living in Grosse Pointe, Michigan in the 1970s. The father, Ronald, is a math teacher at a private school and the mother is a homemaker. The family has five daughters: 13-year-old Cecilia, 14-year-old Lux, 15-year-old Bonnie, 16-year-old Mary, and 17-year-old Therese. Their lives change dramatically within one summer when Cecilia, a stoic and astute girl described as an \"outsider\", attempts suicide by cutting her wrists. A few weeks later, the girls throw a chaperoned party, during which Cecilia jumps from their second story window and dies, impaled by a fence post. The cause of Cecilia's suicide and its after-effects on the family are popular subjects of neighborhood gossip. The mystique of the Lisbon girls operates also for the neighborhood boys, the narrators of the novel. Lux begins a romance with local heartthrob Trip Fontaine. Trip negotiates with the overprotective Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon to take Lux to a homecoming dance, on the condition that he finds dates for the other three girls. After having sex with Trip on the high school football field after the dance, Lux misses her curfew. Consequently, the Lisbons become recluses. Mrs. Lisbon pulls all the girls out of school, believing that it would help the girls recover. Mr. Lisbon officially takes a leave of absence. Their house falls into a deeper state of disrepair and none of them leave the house. A strange smell coming from the house permeates the neighborhood. From a safe distance, all the people in the neighborhood watch the Lisbons' lives deteriorate, but no one can summon up the courage to intervene. During this time, the Lisbons become increasingly fascinating to the neighborhood in general and the narrator boys in particular. The boys call the Lisbon girls and communicate by playing records over the telephone for the girls. Finally, the girls send a message to the boys to come to the house. Shortly after the boys arrive, three of the sisters kill themselves: Bonnie hangs herself, Therese overdoses on sleeping pills, and Lux dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. Mary attempts suicide by putting her head in the oven, but fails. Mary continues to live for another month before successfully ending her life by taking sleeping pills. Newspaper writer Linda Perl notes that that mass suicide comes a year after Cecilia's first attempt. After the suicide \"free-for-all,\" Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon leave the neighborhood. The house is sold to a young couple from the Boston area and most of the Lisbons' personal effects are either thrown out or sold in a garage sale. The narrators scavenge through the trash to collect much of the \"evidence\" they mention.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Lisbons are a Catholic family living in Grosse Pointe, Michigan in the 1970s. The father, Ronald, is a math teacher at a private school and the mother is a homemaker. The family has five daughters: 13-year-old Cecilia, 14-year-old Lux, 15-year-old Bonnie, 16-year-old Mary, and 17-year-old Therese. Their lives change dramatically within one summer when Cecilia, a stoic and astute girl described as an \"outsider\", attempts suicide by cutting her wrists. A few weeks later, the girls throw a chaperoned party, during which Cecilia jumps from their second story window and dies, impaled by a fence post. The cause of Cecilia's suicide and its after-effects on the family are popular subjects of neighborhood gossip. The mystique of the Lisbon girls operates also for the neighborhood boys, the narrators of the novel. Lux begins a romance with local heartthrob Trip Fontaine. Trip negotiates with the overprotective Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon to take Lux to a homecoming dance, on the condition that he finds dates for the other three girls. After having sex with Trip on the high school football field after the dance, Lux misses her curfew. Consequently, the Lisbons become recluses. Mrs. Lisbon pulls all the girls out of school, believing that it would help the girls recover. Mr. Lisbon officially takes a leave of absence. Their house falls into a deeper state of disrepair and none of them leave the house. A strange smell coming from the house permeates the neighborhood. From a safe distance, all the people in the neighborhood watch the Lisbons' lives deteriorate, but no one can summon up the courage to intervene. During this time, the Lisbons become increasingly fascinating to the neighborhood in general and the narrator boys in particular. The boys call the Lisbon girls and communicate by playing records over the telephone"
      },
      {
        "text": " of absence. Their house falls into a deeper state of disrepair and none of them leave the house. A strange smell coming from the house permeates the neighborhood. From a safe distance, all the people in the neighborhood watch the Lisbons' lives deteriorate, but no one can summon up the courage to intervene. During this time, the Lisbons become increasingly fascinating to the neighborhood in general and the narrator boys in particular. The boys call the Lisbon girls and communicate by playing records over the telephone for the girls. Finally, the girls send a message to the boys to come to the house. Shortly after the boys arrive, three of the sisters kill themselves: Bonnie hangs herself, Therese overdoses on sleeping pills, and Lux dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. Mary attempts suicide by putting her head in the oven, but fails. Mary continues to live for another month before successfully ending her life by taking sleeping pills. Newspaper writer Linda Perl notes that that mass suicide comes a year after Cecilia's first attempt. After the suicide \"free-for-all,\" Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon leave the neighborhood. The house is sold to a young couple from the Boston area and most of the Lisbons' personal effects are either thrown out or sold in a garage sale. The narrators scavenge through the trash to collect much of the \"evidence\" they mention.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "What Makes Sammy Run?",
    "author": "Budd Schulberg",
    "published_date": "1941",
    "synopsis": " Told in first person narrative by Al Manheim, drama critic of The New York Record, this is the tale of Sammy Glick, a young uneducated boy who rises from copy boy to the top of the screenwriting profession in 1930s Hollywood by backstabbing others. Manheim recalls how he first met the 16-year-old Sammy Glick when Sammy was working as a copy boy at Manheim's newspaper. Both awed and disturbed by Sammy's aggressive personality, Manheim becomes Sammy's primary observer, mentor and, as Sammy asserts numerous times, his best friend. Tasked with taking Manheim's column down to the printing room, one day Glick rewrites Manheim's column, impressing the managing editor and gaining a column of his own. Later he steals a piece by an aspiring young writer, Julian Blumberg, sending it under his own name to the famous Hollywood talent agent Myron Selznick. Glick sells the piece, \"Girl Steals Boy\", for $10,000 and leaves the paper to go to work in Hollywood, leaving behind his girlfriend, Rosalie Goldbaum. When the film of Girl Steals Boy opens, Sammy is credited for \"original screenplay\" and Blumberg is not acknowledged. Glick rises to the top in Hollywood over the succeeding years, paying Blumberg a small salary under the table to be his ghost writer. He even manages to have \"his\" stageplay Live Wire performed at the Hollywood Playhouse, although the script is actually a case of plagiarism, The Front Page in flimsy disguise; strangely enough, no one except Manheim seems to notice. Sammy's bluffing also includes talking about books he has never read. Manheim, whose ambitions are much more modest, is both fascinated and disgusted by the figure of Sammy Glick, and Manheim carefully chronicles his rise. In Hollywood, Manheim is disheartened to learn that Catherine \"Kit\" Sargent, a novelist and screenwriter he greatly admires, has fallen for Sammy's charms. Although Manheim is quite open about his feelings for Kit, she makes it clear that it is Sammy she prefers, especially in bed. When she met Sammy, she tells Manheim, she had \"this crazy desire to know what it felt like to have all that driving ambition and frenzy and violence inside me.\" Manheim also describes the Hollywood system in detail, as a money machine oppressive to talented writers. The bosses prefer to have carte blanche when dealing with their writers, ranging from having them work on a week-to-week basis to giving them a seven-year contract. In the film industry, Manheim remarks at one point in the novel, it is the rule rather than the exception that \"convictions are for sale,\" with people double-crossing each other whenever the slightest chance presents itself to them. Hollywood, he notices, regularly and efficiently turns out three products: moving pictures, ambition, and fear. Manheim becomes an eyewitness to the birth of what was to become the Writers Guild, an organization created to protect the interests of the screenwriters. After one of the studio's periodic reshufflings, Manheim finds himself out of work and goes back to New York. There, still preoccupied with Sammy Glick's rise to stardom, he investigates Sammy's past. He comes to understand, at least to some degree, \"the machinery that turns out Sammy Glicks\" and \"the anarchy of the poor\". Manheim realizes that Sammy grew up in the \"dog-eat-dog world\" of New York's Lower East Side (Rivington Street), much like the more sophisticated dog-eat-dog world of Hollywood. The one connection between Sammy's childhood days and his present position seems to be Sheik, someone who went to school with him and regularly beat him up. Now Sheik is working as Glick's personal servant (or almost slave)\u2014possibly some kind of belated act of revenge on Sammy's part, or the \"victim's triumph\". When Manheim returns to Hollywood he becomes one of Glick's writers. There he realizes that there is also a small minority of honorable men working in pictures, especially producer Sidney Fineman, Glick's boss. Manheim teams up with Kit Sargent to write several films for Glick, who has successfully switched to production and moved into a gigantic manor in Beverly Hills. Fineman's position becomes compromised by a string of flops, and Manheim attempts to convince Harrington, a Wall Street banker representing the film company's financiers, that Fineman is still the right man for the job. This is the moment when Glick sees his chance to get rid of Fineman altogether and take his place. At a reception, Glick meets Laurette, Harrington's daughter; he immediately and genuinely falls in love with this \"golden girl,\" discarding his girlfriend. He feels that he is about to kill two birds with one stone by uniting his personal ambition and his love life. Fineman, only 56, dies soon after losing his job to Sammy\u2014of a broken heart, it is rumoured. Sammy's wedding is described by Manheim as \"a marriage-to-end-all-marriages\" staged in the beautiful setting of Sammy's estate. Manheim and Kit Sargent, who have finally decided to get married, slip away early to be by themselves. Sammy discovers Laurette making love in the guest room to Carter Judd, an actor Sammy has just hired. Laurette is not repentant: She coldbloodedly admits that she considers their marriage to be purely a business affair. Sammy calls Manheim and asks him to come over to his place immediately. Once there, Manheim for the first time witnesses a self-conscious, desperate, and suffering Sammy Glick who cannot stand being alone in his big house. In the end, Sammy orders Sheik to get him a prostitute, while Manheim drives home.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Told in first person narrative by Al Manheim, drama critic of The New York Record, this is the tale of Sammy Glick, a young uneducated boy who rises from copy boy to the top of the screenwriting profession in 1930s Hollywood by backstabbing others. Manheim recalls how he first met the 16-year-old Sammy Glick when Sammy was working as a copy boy at Manheim's newspaper. Both awed and disturbed by Sammy's aggressive personality, Manheim becomes Sammy's primary observer, mentor and, as Sammy asserts numerous times, his best friend. Tasked with taking Manheim's column down to the printing room, one day Glick rewrites Manheim's column, impressing the managing editor and gaining a column of his own. Later he steals a piece by an aspiring young writer, Julian Blumberg, sending it under his own name to the famous Hollywood talent agent Myron Selznick. Glick sells the piece, \"Girl Steals Boy\", for $10,000 and leaves the paper to go to work in Hollywood, leaving behind his girlfriend, Rosalie Goldbaum. When the film of Girl Steals Boy opens, Sammy is credited for \"original screenplay\" and Blumberg is not acknowledged. Glick rises to the top in Hollywood over the succeeding years, paying Blumberg a small salary under the table to be his ghost writer. He even manages to have \"his\" stageplay Live Wire performed at the Hollywood Playhouse, although the script is actually a case of plagiarism, The Front Page in flimsy disguise; strangely enough, no one except Manheim seems to notice. Sammy's bluffing also includes talking about books he has never read. Manheim, whose ambitions are much more modest, is both fascinated and disgusted by the figure of Sammy Glick, and Manheim carefully chronicles his rise. In Hollywood, Manheim is disheartened to learn that Catherine \"Kit\" Sargent"
      },
      {
        "text": " Hollywood Playhouse, although the script is actually a case of plagiarism, The Front Page in flimsy disguise; strangely enough, no one except Manheim seems to notice. Sammy's bluffing also includes talking about books he has never read. Manheim, whose ambitions are much more modest, is both fascinated and disgusted by the figure of Sammy Glick, and Manheim carefully chronicles his rise. In Hollywood, Manheim is disheartened to learn that Catherine \"Kit\" Sargent, a novelist and screenwriter he greatly admires, has fallen for Sammy's charms. Although Manheim is quite open about his feelings for Kit, she makes it clear that it is Sammy she prefers, especially in bed. When she met Sammy, she tells Manheim, she had \"this crazy desire to know what it felt like to have all that driving ambition and frenzy and violence inside me.\" Manheim also describes the Hollywood system in detail, as a money machine oppressive to talented writers. The bosses prefer to have carte blanche when dealing with their writers, ranging from having them work on a week-to-week basis to giving them a seven-year contract. In the film industry, Manheim remarks at one point in the novel, it is the rule rather than the exception that \"convictions are for sale,\" with people double-crossing each other whenever the slightest chance presents itself to them. Hollywood, he notices, regularly and efficiently turns out three products: moving pictures, ambition, and fear. Manheim becomes an eyewitness to the birth of what was to become the Writers Guild, an organization created to protect the interests of the screenwriters. After one of the studio's periodic reshufflings, Manheim finds himself out of work and goes back to New York. There, still preoccupied with Sammy Glick's rise to stardom, he investigates Sammy's past. He comes to understand, at least to some degree, \"the machinery that turns out Sammy G"
      },
      {
        "text": " ambition, and fear. Manheim becomes an eyewitness to the birth of what was to become the Writers Guild, an organization created to protect the interests of the screenwriters. After one of the studio's periodic reshufflings, Manheim finds himself out of work and goes back to New York. There, still preoccupied with Sammy Glick's rise to stardom, he investigates Sammy's past. He comes to understand, at least to some degree, \"the machinery that turns out Sammy Glicks\" and \"the anarchy of the poor\". Manheim realizes that Sammy grew up in the \"dog-eat-dog world\" of New York's Lower East Side (Rivington Street), much like the more sophisticated dog-eat-dog world of Hollywood. The one connection between Sammy's childhood days and his present position seems to be Sheik, someone who went to school with him and regularly beat him up. Now Sheik is working as Glick's personal servant (or almost slave)\u2014possibly some kind of belated act of revenge on Sammy's part, or the \"victim's triumph\". When Manheim returns to Hollywood he becomes one of Glick's writers. There he realizes that there is also a small minority of honorable men working in pictures, especially producer Sidney Fineman, Glick's boss. Manheim teams up with Kit Sargent to write several films for Glick, who has successfully switched to production and moved into a gigantic manor in Beverly Hills. Fineman's position becomes compromised by a string of flops, and Manheim attempts to convince Harrington, a Wall Street banker representing the film company's financiers, that Fineman is still the right man for the job. This is the moment when Glick sees his chance to get rid of Fineman altogether and take his place. At a reception, Glick meets Laurette, Harrington's daughter; he immediately and genuinely falls in love with this \"golden girl,\" discarding his"
      },
      {
        "text": " Fineman's position becomes compromised by a string of flops, and Manheim attempts to convince Harrington, a Wall Street banker representing the film company's financiers, that Fineman is still the right man for the job. This is the moment when Glick sees his chance to get rid of Fineman altogether and take his place. At a reception, Glick meets Laurette, Harrington's daughter; he immediately and genuinely falls in love with this \"golden girl,\" discarding his girlfriend. He feels that he is about to kill two birds with one stone by uniting his personal ambition and his love life. Fineman, only 56, dies soon after losing his job to Sammy\u2014of a broken heart, it is rumoured. Sammy's wedding is described by Manheim as \"a marriage-to-end-all-marriages\" staged in the beautiful setting of Sammy's estate. Manheim and Kit Sargent, who have finally decided to get married, slip away early to be by themselves. Sammy discovers Laurette making love in the guest room to Carter Judd, an actor Sammy has just hired. Laurette is not repentant: She coldbloodedly admits that she considers their marriage to be purely a business affair. Sammy calls Manheim and asks him to come over to his place immediately. Once there, Manheim for the first time witnesses a self-conscious, desperate, and suffering Sammy Glick who cannot stand being alone in his big house. In the end, Sammy orders Sheik to get him a prostitute, while Manheim drives home.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". In the end, Sammy orders Sheik to get him a prostitute, while Manheim drives home.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Razor's Edge",
    "author": "W. Somerset Maugham",
    "published_date": "1944",
    "synopsis": " Maugham begins by characterising his story as not really a novel but a thinly veiled true account. He includes himself as a minor character, a writer who drifts in and out of the lives of the major players. Larry Darrell\u2019s lifestyle is contrasted throughout the book with that of his fianc\u00e9e\u2019s uncle, Elliott Templeton, an American expatriate living in Paris and a shallow and unrepentant yet generous snob. For example, while Templeton's Roman Catholicism embraces the hierarchical trappings of the Church, Larry's proclivities tend towards the 13th century Flemish mystic and saint John of Ruysbroeck. Wounded and traumatized by the death of a comrade in the War, Larry returns to Chicago, Illinois, and his fianc\u00e9e, Isabel Bradley, only to announce that he does not plan to work and instead will \"loaf\" on his small inheritance. He wants to delay their marriage and refuses to take up a job as a stockbroker offered to him by Henry Maturin, the father of his friend Gray. Meanwhile, Larry\u2019s childhood friend, Sophie, settles into a happy marriage, only later tragically losing her husband and baby in a car accident. Larry moves to Paris and immerses himself in study and bohemian life. After two years of this \"loafing,\" Isabel visits and Larry asks her to join his life of wandering and searching, living in Paris and traveling with little money. She cannot accept his vision of life and breaks their engagement to go back to Chicago. There she marries the millionaire Gray, who provides her a rich family life. Meanwhile, Larry begins a sojourn through Europe, taking a job at a coal mine in Lens, France, where he befriends a former Polish army officer named Kosti. Kosti's influence encourages Larry to look toward things spiritual for his answers rather than in books. Larry and Kosti leave the coal mine and travel together for a time before parting ways. Larry then meets a Benedictine monk named Father Ensheim in Bonn, Germany while Father Ensheim is on leave from his monastery doing academic research. After spending several months with the Benedictines and being unable to reconcile their conception of God with his own, Larry takes a job on an ocean liner and finds himself in Bombay. Larry has significant spiritual adventures in India and comes back to Paris. What he actually found in India and what he finally concluded are held back from the reader for a considerable time until, in a scene late in the book, Maugham discusses India and spirituality with Larry in a caf\u00e9 long into the evening. He starts off the chapter by saying \"I feel it right to warn the reader that he can very well skip this chapter without losing the thread of the story as I have to tell, since for most part it is nothing more than the account of a conversation that I had with Larry. However, I should add that except for this conversation, I would perhaps not have thought it worthwhile to write this book\u2026\" Maugham then initiates the reader to 'Advaita philosophy' and reveals how, through deep meditation, Larry goes on to realize God and thus become a saint\u2014in the process gaining liberation from the cycle of human suffering, birth and death that the rest of the earthly mortals are subject to. The 1929 stock market crash has ruined Gray, and he and Isabel are invited to live in her uncle Elliott Templeton\u2019s grand Parisian house. Gray is often incapacitated with agonizing migraines due to a general nervous collapse. Larry is able to help him using an Indian form of hypnotic suggestion. Sophie has also drifted to the French capital, where her friends find her reduced to alcohol, opium, and promiscuity \u2014 empty and dangerous liaisons that seem to help her to bury her pain. Larry first sets out to save her and then decides to marry her, a plan that displeases Isabel, who is still in love with him. Isabel tempts Sophie back into alcoholism with a bottle of \u017bubr\u00f3wka, and she disappears from Paris. Maugham deduces this after seeing Sophie in Toulon, where she has returned to smoking opium and promiscuity. He is drawn back into the tale when police interrogate him after Sophie has been found murdered with an inscribed book from him in her room, along with volumes by Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Meanwhile in Antibes, Elliott Templeton is on his deathbed. Despite the fact that he has throughout his life compulsively sought out aristocratic society, none of his titled friends come to see him, which makes him alternately morose and irate. But his outlook on death is somewhat positive: \"I have always moved in the best society in Europe, and I have no doubt that I shall move in the best society in heaven.\" Isabel inherits his fortune, but genuinely grieves for her uncle. Maugham confronts her about Sophie, having figured out Isabel\u2019s role in Sophie\u2019s downfall. Isabel\u2019s only punishment will be that she will never get Larry, who has decided to return to America and live as a common working man. He is uninterested in the rich and glamorous world that Isabel will move in. Maugham ends his narrative by suggesting that all the characters got what they wanted in the end: \"Elliott social eminence; Isabel an assured position; ... Sophie death; and Larry happiness.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Maugham begins by characterising his story as not really a novel but a thinly veiled true account. He includes himself as a minor character, a writer who drifts in and out of the lives of the major players. Larry Darrell\u2019s lifestyle is contrasted throughout the book with that of his fianc\u00e9e\u2019s uncle, Elliott Templeton, an American expatriate living in Paris and a shallow and unrepentant yet generous snob. For example, while Templeton's Roman Catholicism embraces the hierarchical trappings of the Church, Larry's proclivities tend towards the 13th century Flemish mystic and saint John of Ruysbroeck. Wounded and traumatized by the death of a comrade in the War, Larry returns to Chicago, Illinois, and his fianc\u00e9e, Isabel Bradley, only to announce that he does not plan to work and instead will \"loaf\" on his small inheritance. He wants to delay their marriage and refuses to take up a job as a stockbroker offered to him by Henry Maturin, the father of his friend Gray. Meanwhile, Larry\u2019s childhood friend, Sophie, settles into a happy marriage, only later tragically losing her husband and baby in a car accident. Larry moves to Paris and immerses himself in study and bohemian life. After two years of this \"loafing,\" Isabel visits and Larry asks her to join his life of wandering and searching, living in Paris and traveling with little money. She cannot accept his vision of life and breaks their engagement to go back to Chicago. There she marries the millionaire Gray, who provides her a rich family life. Meanwhile, Larry begins a sojourn through Europe, taking a job at a coal mine in Lens, France, where he befriends a former Polish army officer named Kosti. Kosti's influence encourages Larry to look toward things spiritual for his answers rather than in books. Larry and Kosti leave"
      },
      {
        "text": " with little money. She cannot accept his vision of life and breaks their engagement to go back to Chicago. There she marries the millionaire Gray, who provides her a rich family life. Meanwhile, Larry begins a sojourn through Europe, taking a job at a coal mine in Lens, France, where he befriends a former Polish army officer named Kosti. Kosti's influence encourages Larry to look toward things spiritual for his answers rather than in books. Larry and Kosti leave the coal mine and travel together for a time before parting ways. Larry then meets a Benedictine monk named Father Ensheim in Bonn, Germany while Father Ensheim is on leave from his monastery doing academic research. After spending several months with the Benedictines and being unable to reconcile their conception of God with his own, Larry takes a job on an ocean liner and finds himself in Bombay. Larry has significant spiritual adventures in India and comes back to Paris. What he actually found in India and what he finally concluded are held back from the reader for a considerable time until, in a scene late in the book, Maugham discusses India and spirituality with Larry in a caf\u00e9 long into the evening. He starts off the chapter by saying \"I feel it right to warn the reader that he can very well skip this chapter without losing the thread of the story as I have to tell, since for most part it is nothing more than the account of a conversation that I had with Larry. However, I should add that except for this conversation, I would perhaps not have thought it worthwhile to write this book\u2026\" Maugham then initiates the reader to 'Advaita philosophy' and reveals how, through deep meditation, Larry goes on to realize God and thus become a saint\u2014in the process gaining liberation from the cycle of human suffering, birth and death that the rest of the earthly mortals are subject to. The 1929 stock market crash has ruined Gray, and he and Isabel are invited to live"
      },
      {
        "text": " I should add that except for this conversation, I would perhaps not have thought it worthwhile to write this book\u2026\" Maugham then initiates the reader to 'Advaita philosophy' and reveals how, through deep meditation, Larry goes on to realize God and thus become a saint\u2014in the process gaining liberation from the cycle of human suffering, birth and death that the rest of the earthly mortals are subject to. The 1929 stock market crash has ruined Gray, and he and Isabel are invited to live in her uncle Elliott Templeton\u2019s grand Parisian house. Gray is often incapacitated with agonizing migraines due to a general nervous collapse. Larry is able to help him using an Indian form of hypnotic suggestion. Sophie has also drifted to the French capital, where her friends find her reduced to alcohol, opium, and promiscuity \u2014 empty and dangerous liaisons that seem to help her to bury her pain. Larry first sets out to save her and then decides to marry her, a plan that displeases Isabel, who is still in love with him. Isabel tempts Sophie back into alcoholism with a bottle of \u017bubr\u00f3wka, and she disappears from Paris. Maugham deduces this after seeing Sophie in Toulon, where she has returned to smoking opium and promiscuity. He is drawn back into the tale when police interrogate him after Sophie has been found murdered with an inscribed book from him in her room, along with volumes by Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Meanwhile in Antibes, Elliott Templeton is on his deathbed. Despite the fact that he has throughout his life compulsively sought out aristocratic society, none of his titled friends come to see him, which makes him alternately morose and irate. But his outlook on death is somewhat positive: \"I have always moved in the best society in Europe, and I have no doubt that I shall move in the best society in heaven.\" Isabel inher"
      },
      {
        "text": "audelaire and Rimbaud. Meanwhile in Antibes, Elliott Templeton is on his deathbed. Despite the fact that he has throughout his life compulsively sought out aristocratic society, none of his titled friends come to see him, which makes him alternately morose and irate. But his outlook on death is somewhat positive: \"I have always moved in the best society in Europe, and I have no doubt that I shall move in the best society in heaven.\" Isabel inherits his fortune, but genuinely grieves for her uncle. Maugham confronts her about Sophie, having figured out Isabel\u2019s role in Sophie\u2019s downfall. Isabel\u2019s only punishment will be that she will never get Larry, who has decided to return to America and live as a common working man. He is uninterested in the rich and glamorous world that Isabel will move in. Maugham ends his narrative by suggesting that all the characters got what they wanted in the end: \"Elliott social eminence; Isabel an assured position; ... Sophie death; and Larry happiness.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Born Yesterday",
    "author": "Garson Kanin",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " An uncouth, corrupt rich junk dealer, Harry Brock, brings his showgirl mistress Billie Dawn with him to Washington, D.C. When Billie's ignorance becomes a liability to Brock's business dealings, he hires a journalist, Paul Verrall, to educate his girlfriend. In the process of learning, Billie Dawn realizes how corrupt Harry is and begins interfering with his plans to bribe a Congressman into passing legislation that would allow Brock's business to make more money.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " An uncouth, corrupt rich junk dealer, Harry Brock, brings his showgirl mistress Billie Dawn with him to Washington, D.C. When Billie's ignorance becomes a liability to Brock's business dealings, he hires a journalist, Paul Verrall, to educate his girlfriend. In the process of learning, Billie Dawn realizes how corrupt Harry is and begins interfering with his plans to bribe a Congressman into passing legislation that would allow Brock's business to make more money.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "King Solomon's Mines",
    "author": "H. Rider Haggard",
    "published_date": "1885",
    "synopsis": " Allan Quatermain, an adventurer and white hunter based in Durban, in what is now South Africa, is approached by aristocrat Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good, seeking his help finding Sir Henry's brother, who was last seen travelling north into the unexplored interior on a quest for the fabled King Solomon's Mines. Quatermain has a mysterious map purporting to lead to the mines, but had never taken it seriously. However, he agrees to lead an expedition in return for a share of the treasure, or a stipend for his son if he is killed along the way. He has little hope they will return alive, but reasons that he has already outlived most people in his profession, so dying in this manner at least ensures that his son will be provided for. They also take along a mysterious native, Umbopa, who seems more regal, handsome and well-spoken than most porters of his class, but who is very anxious to join the party. Travelling by oxcart, they reach the edge of a desert, but not before a hunt in which a wounded elephant claims the life of a servant. They continue on foot across the desert, almost dying of thirst before finding the oasis shown halfway across on the map. Reaching a mountain range called Suliman Berg, they climb a peak (one of \"Sheba's Breasts\") and enter a cave where they find the frozen corpse of Jos\u00e9 Silvestre (also spelt Silvestra), the 16th-century Portuguese explorer who drew the map in his own blood. That night, a second servant dies from the cold, so they leave his body next to Silvestra's, to \"give him a companion\". They cross the mountains into a raised valley, lush and green, known as Kukuanaland. The inhabitants have a well-organised army and society and speak an ancient dialect of IsiZulu. Kukuanaland's capital is Loo, the destination of a magnificent road from ancient times. The city is dominated by a central royal kraal. They soon meet a party of Kukuana warriors who are about to kill them when Captain Good nervously fidgets with his false teeth, making the Kukuanas recoil in fear. Thereafter, to protect themselves, they style themselves \"white men from the stars\" \u2013 sorcerer-gods \u2013 and are required to give regular proof of their divinity, considerably straining both their nerves and their ingenuity. They are brought before King Twala, who rules over his people with ruthless violence. He came to power years before when he murdered his brother, the previous king, and drove his brother's wife and infant son, Ignosi, out into the desert to die. Twala's rule is unchallenged. An evil, impossibly ancient hag named Gagool is his chief advisor. She roots out any potential opposition by ordering regular witch hunts and murdering without trial all those identified as traitors. When she singles out Umbopa for this fate, it takes all Quatermain's skill to save his life. Gagool, it appears, has already sensed what Umbopa soon after reveals: he is Ignosi, the rightful king of the Kukuanas. A rebellion breaks out, the Englishmen gaining support for Ignosi by taking advantage of their foreknowledge of a solar eclipse to claim that they will black out the sun as proof of Ignosi's claim. The Englishmen join Ignosi's army in a furious battle. Although outnumbered, the rebels overthrow Twala, and Sir Henry lops off his head in a duel. The Englishmen also capture Gagool, who reluctantly leads them to King Solomon's Mines. She shows them a treasure room inside a mountain, carved deep within the living rock and full of gold, diamonds and ivory. She then treacherously sneaks out while they are admiring the hoard and triggers a secret mechanism that closes the mine's vast stone door. Unfortunately for Gagool, a brief scuffle with a beautiful native named Foulata \u2013 who had become attached to Good after nursing him through his injuries sustained in the battle \u2013 causes her to be crushed under the stone door, though not before fatally stabbing Foulata. Their scant store of food and water rapidly dwindling, the trapped men prepare to die also. After a few despairing days sealed in the dark chamber, they find an escape route, bringing with them a few pocketfuls of diamonds from the immense trove, enough to make them rich. The Englishmen bid farewell to a sorrowful Ignosi and return to the desert, assuring him that they value his friendship but must return to be with their own people, Ignosi in return promising them that they will be venerated and honoured among his people forever. Taking a different route, they find Sir Henry's brother stranded in an oasis by a broken leg, unable to go forward or back. They return to Durban and eventually to England, wealthy enough to live comfortable lives.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Allan Quatermain, an adventurer and white hunter based in Durban, in what is now South Africa, is approached by aristocrat Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good, seeking his help finding Sir Henry's brother, who was last seen travelling north into the unexplored interior on a quest for the fabled King Solomon's Mines. Quatermain has a mysterious map purporting to lead to the mines, but had never taken it seriously. However, he agrees to lead an expedition in return for a share of the treasure, or a stipend for his son if he is killed along the way. He has little hope they will return alive, but reasons that he has already outlived most people in his profession, so dying in this manner at least ensures that his son will be provided for. They also take along a mysterious native, Umbopa, who seems more regal, handsome and well-spoken than most porters of his class, but who is very anxious to join the party. Travelling by oxcart, they reach the edge of a desert, but not before a hunt in which a wounded elephant claims the life of a servant. They continue on foot across the desert, almost dying of thirst before finding the oasis shown halfway across on the map. Reaching a mountain range called Suliman Berg, they climb a peak (one of \"Sheba's Breasts\") and enter a cave where they find the frozen corpse of Jos\u00e9 Silvestre (also spelt Silvestra), the 16th-century Portuguese explorer who drew the map in his own blood. That night, a second servant dies from the cold, so they leave his body next to Silvestra's, to \"give him a companion\". They cross the mountains into a raised valley, lush and green, known as Kukuanaland. The inhabitants have a well-organised army and society and speak an ancient dialect of IsiZulu. Kukuanaland's capital is"
      },
      {
        "text": "vestra), the 16th-century Portuguese explorer who drew the map in his own blood. That night, a second servant dies from the cold, so they leave his body next to Silvestra's, to \"give him a companion\". They cross the mountains into a raised valley, lush and green, known as Kukuanaland. The inhabitants have a well-organised army and society and speak an ancient dialect of IsiZulu. Kukuanaland's capital is Loo, the destination of a magnificent road from ancient times. The city is dominated by a central royal kraal. They soon meet a party of Kukuana warriors who are about to kill them when Captain Good nervously fidgets with his false teeth, making the Kukuanas recoil in fear. Thereafter, to protect themselves, they style themselves \"white men from the stars\" \u2013 sorcerer-gods \u2013 and are required to give regular proof of their divinity, considerably straining both their nerves and their ingenuity. They are brought before King Twala, who rules over his people with ruthless violence. He came to power years before when he murdered his brother, the previous king, and drove his brother's wife and infant son, Ignosi, out into the desert to die. Twala's rule is unchallenged. An evil, impossibly ancient hag named Gagool is his chief advisor. She roots out any potential opposition by ordering regular witch hunts and murdering without trial all those identified as traitors. When she singles out Umbopa for this fate, it takes all Quatermain's skill to save his life. Gagool, it appears, has already sensed what Umbopa soon after reveals: he is Ignosi, the rightful king of the Kukuanas. A rebellion breaks out, the Englishmen gaining support for Ignosi by taking advantage of their foreknowledge of a solar eclipse to claim that they will black out the sun as proof of Ign"
      },
      {
        "text": " trial all those identified as traitors. When she singles out Umbopa for this fate, it takes all Quatermain's skill to save his life. Gagool, it appears, has already sensed what Umbopa soon after reveals: he is Ignosi, the rightful king of the Kukuanas. A rebellion breaks out, the Englishmen gaining support for Ignosi by taking advantage of their foreknowledge of a solar eclipse to claim that they will black out the sun as proof of Ignosi's claim. The Englishmen join Ignosi's army in a furious battle. Although outnumbered, the rebels overthrow Twala, and Sir Henry lops off his head in a duel. The Englishmen also capture Gagool, who reluctantly leads them to King Solomon's Mines. She shows them a treasure room inside a mountain, carved deep within the living rock and full of gold, diamonds and ivory. She then treacherously sneaks out while they are admiring the hoard and triggers a secret mechanism that closes the mine's vast stone door. Unfortunately for Gagool, a brief scuffle with a beautiful native named Foulata \u2013 who had become attached to Good after nursing him through his injuries sustained in the battle \u2013 causes her to be crushed under the stone door, though not before fatally stabbing Foulata. Their scant store of food and water rapidly dwindling, the trapped men prepare to die also. After a few despairing days sealed in the dark chamber, they find an escape route, bringing with them a few pocketfuls of diamonds from the immense trove, enough to make them rich. The Englishmen bid farewell to a sorrowful Ignosi and return to the desert, assuring him that they value his friendship but must return to be with their own people, Ignosi in return promising them that they will be venerated and honoured among his people forever. Taking a different route, they find Sir Henry's brother stranded in an oasis by a broken leg, unable to go"
      },
      {
        "text": ", bringing with them a few pocketfuls of diamonds from the immense trove, enough to make them rich. The Englishmen bid farewell to a sorrowful Ignosi and return to the desert, assuring him that they value his friendship but must return to be with their own people, Ignosi in return promising them that they will be venerated and honoured among his people forever. Taking a different route, they find Sir Henry's brother stranded in an oasis by a broken leg, unable to go forward or back. They return to Durban and eventually to England, wealthy enough to live comfortable lives.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Babel-17",
    "author": "Samuel R. Delany",
    "published_date": "1966",
    "synopsis": " During an interstellar war one side develops a language, Babel-17, that can be used as a weapon. Learning it turns one into an unwilling traitor as it alters perception and thought. The change is made more dangerous by the language's seductive enhancement of other abilities. This is discovered by the beautiful starship captain, linguist, poet, and telepath Rydra Wong. She is recruited by her government to discover how the enemy are infiltrating and sabotaging strategic sites. Initially Babel-17 is thought to be a code used by enemy agents. Rydra Wong realizes it is a language, and finds herself becoming a traitor as she learns it. She is rescued by her dedicated crew, figures out the danger, and neutralizes its effects. The novel deals with several issues related to the peculiarities of language, how conditions of life shape the formation of words and meaning, and how the words themselves can shape the actions of people.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " During an interstellar war one side develops a language, Babel-17, that can be used as a weapon. Learning it turns one into an unwilling traitor as it alters perception and thought. The change is made more dangerous by the language's seductive enhancement of other abilities. This is discovered by the beautiful starship captain, linguist, poet, and telepath Rydra Wong. She is recruited by her government to discover how the enemy are infiltrating and sabotaging strategic sites. Initially Babel-17 is thought to be a code used by enemy agents. Rydra Wong realizes it is a language, and finds herself becoming a traitor as she learns it. She is rescued by her dedicated crew, figures out the danger, and neutralizes its effects. The novel deals with several issues related to the peculiarities of language, how conditions of life shape the formation of words and meaning, and how the words themselves can shape the actions of people.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Languages of Pao",
    "author": "Jack Vance",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The planet Pao is a quiet backwater with a large, homogeneous, stolid population ruled by an absolute monarch: the Panarch. The current Panarch attempts to hire an offworld scientist, Lord Palafox from the Breakness Institute on the planet Breakness, as a consultant in order to reform Pao. Before the deal can be concluded, however, the Panarch is assassinated by his brother Bustamonte, using mind-control over the Panarch's own son, Beran Panasper, to do so. Lord Palafox saves Beran Panasper and takes him to Breakness as a possible bargaining chip in his dealings with Pao. Somewhat later, the predatory Brumbo Clan from the planet Batmarsh raids the virtually defenseless Pao with impunity, and the Panarch Bustamonte is forced to pay heavy tribute. To rid himself of the Brumbos, he seeks the aid of Palafox, who has a plan to create warrior, technical and mercantile castes on Pao using customized languages (named Valiant, Technicant and Cogitant) and other means to shape the mindsets of each caste, isolating them from each other and the general populace of Pao. To achieve this, each caste gets a special training area where it is completely segregated from any outside influence; the necessary land is confiscated from families, some of which have held it for countless generations \u2014 which creates some disaffection in the conservative Paonese population and earns Bustamonte the name of a tyrant. In order to return with them to Pao incognito, Beran Panasper infiltrates a corps of interpreters being trained on Breakness. Mostly to amuse themselves, some of the young people create a language they call \"Pastiche\", mixing words and grammatical forms, seemingly at random, from the three newly created languages and from the original Paonese language. Palafox looks upon this development with indulgence, failing to realize the tremendous long-term significance. Beran returns to Pao under the name Ercolo Paraio and works for a few years as a translator at several locations. Once Beran Panasper reveals to the masses that he is still alive, his uncle Bustamonte's popular support melts virtually overnight and Panasper claims the title of Panarch that is rightfully his. The Brumbo Clan is repulsed by the warrior caste. For a few years, the castes of Pao are highly successful in their respective endeavors and the planet experiences a short golden age. However, Panasper is upset about the divisions in the populace of Pao caused by the Palafox program; the three new castes speak of the rest of the Paonese as \"they\" rather than \"we\" and regard them with contempt. Beran attempts to return the planet to its previous state by re-integrating the castes into the general populace. Palafox opposes this move and is killed, but the warrior caste stages a coup and takes command of Pao. Panasper convinces them that they cannot rule the planet alone, since they share no common language with the rest of the population and can not rely on the cooperation of the other segments of the people of Pao, and they allow him to keep his office. One interpretation of the end of the novel is that Beran Panasper is only in nominal charge of the planet, on the sufferance of the warrior caste, and that it is uncertain what will become of him and his plans of re-uniting the populace of Pao. Another way of seeing the ending is that Beran has outfoxed the warriors by getting them to agree to his decree that \"every child of Pao, of whatever caste, must learn Pastiche even in preference to the language of his father\". In the end, Beran looks ahead twenty years, to a future when all inhabitants of Pao will be Pastiche-speakers \u2014 i.e., will speak a language which mixes some attributes and mindsets appropriate to peasant cultivators, proud warriors, skilled technicians and smart merchants \u2014 which will presumably shape a highly fluid and socially mobile society, composed of versatile and multi-skilled individuals.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The planet Pao is a quiet backwater with a large, homogeneous, stolid population ruled by an absolute monarch: the Panarch. The current Panarch attempts to hire an offworld scientist, Lord Palafox from the Breakness Institute on the planet Breakness, as a consultant in order to reform Pao. Before the deal can be concluded, however, the Panarch is assassinated by his brother Bustamonte, using mind-control over the Panarch's own son, Beran Panasper, to do so. Lord Palafox saves Beran Panasper and takes him to Breakness as a possible bargaining chip in his dealings with Pao. Somewhat later, the predatory Brumbo Clan from the planet Batmarsh raids the virtually defenseless Pao with impunity, and the Panarch Bustamonte is forced to pay heavy tribute. To rid himself of the Brumbos, he seeks the aid of Palafox, who has a plan to create warrior, technical and mercantile castes on Pao using customized languages (named Valiant, Technicant and Cogitant) and other means to shape the mindsets of each caste, isolating them from each other and the general populace of Pao. To achieve this, each caste gets a special training area where it is completely segregated from any outside influence; the necessary land is confiscated from families, some of which have held it for countless generations \u2014 which creates some disaffection in the conservative Paonese population and earns Bustamonte the name of a tyrant. In order to return with them to Pao incognito, Beran Panasper infiltrates a corps of interpreters being trained on Breakness. Mostly to amuse themselves, some of the young people create a language they call \"Pastiche\", mixing words and grammatical forms, seemingly at random, from the three newly created languages and from the original Paonese language. Palafox looks upon"
      },
      {
        "text": "ection in the conservative Paonese population and earns Bustamonte the name of a tyrant. In order to return with them to Pao incognito, Beran Panasper infiltrates a corps of interpreters being trained on Breakness. Mostly to amuse themselves, some of the young people create a language they call \"Pastiche\", mixing words and grammatical forms, seemingly at random, from the three newly created languages and from the original Paonese language. Palafox looks upon this development with indulgence, failing to realize the tremendous long-term significance. Beran returns to Pao under the name Ercolo Paraio and works for a few years as a translator at several locations. Once Beran Panasper reveals to the masses that he is still alive, his uncle Bustamonte's popular support melts virtually overnight and Panasper claims the title of Panarch that is rightfully his. The Brumbo Clan is repulsed by the warrior caste. For a few years, the castes of Pao are highly successful in their respective endeavors and the planet experiences a short golden age. However, Panasper is upset about the divisions in the populace of Pao caused by the Palafox program; the three new castes speak of the rest of the Paonese as \"they\" rather than \"we\" and regard them with contempt. Beran attempts to return the planet to its previous state by re-integrating the castes into the general populace. Palafox opposes this move and is killed, but the warrior caste stages a coup and takes command of Pao. Panasper convinces them that they cannot rule the planet alone, since they share no common language with the rest of the population and can not rely on the cooperation of the other segments of the people of Pao, and they allow him to keep his office. One interpretation of the end of the novel is that Beran Panasper is only in nominal charge of the planet, on the"
      },
      {
        "text": "afox opposes this move and is killed, but the warrior caste stages a coup and takes command of Pao. Panasper convinces them that they cannot rule the planet alone, since they share no common language with the rest of the population and can not rely on the cooperation of the other segments of the people of Pao, and they allow him to keep his office. One interpretation of the end of the novel is that Beran Panasper is only in nominal charge of the planet, on the sufferance of the warrior caste, and that it is uncertain what will become of him and his plans of re-uniting the populace of Pao. Another way of seeing the ending is that Beran has outfoxed the warriors by getting them to agree to his decree that \"every child of Pao, of whatever caste, must learn Pastiche even in preference to the language of his father\". In the end, Beran looks ahead twenty years, to a future when all inhabitants of Pao will be Pastiche-speakers \u2014 i.e., will speak a language which mixes some attributes and mindsets appropriate to peasant cultivators, proud warriors, skilled technicians and smart merchants \u2014 which will presumably shape a highly fluid and socially mobile society, composed of versatile and multi-skilled individuals.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Count of Monte Cristo",
    "author": "Auguste Maquet",
    "published_date": "1844",
    "synopsis": " In 1815 Edmond Dant\u00e8s, a young and successful merchant sailor recently granted the succession of his erstwhile captain Lecl\u00e8re, returns to Marseille to marry his fianc\u00e9e Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s. Lecl\u00e8re, a supporter of the exiled Napol\u00e9on I, found himself dying at sea and charged Dant\u00e8s to deliver two objects: a package to Marshall Bertrand (exiled with Napoleon Bonaparte on Elba), and a letter from Elba to an unknown man in Paris. On the eve of his wedding to Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s, Fernand (Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s' cousin and a rival for her affections) and Dant\u00e8s's colleague Danglars (who is jealous of his rapid rise to captain), upon the suggestion of Caderousse (a neighbour of Dant\u00e8s), send an anonymous note accusing Dant\u00e8s of being a Bonapartist traitor. Villefort, the deputy crown prosecutor in Marseille, while initially sympathetic to Dant\u00e8s, destroys the letter from Elba when he discovers that it is addressed to his own father who is a Bonapartist. In order to silence Dant\u00e8s, he condemns him without trial to life imprisonment. During his fourteen years imprisonment in the Ch\u00e2teau d'If, Dant\u00e8s befriends the Abb\u00e9 Faria (\"The Mad Priest\"), a fellow prisoner who is trying to tunnel his way to freedom, and who claims knowledge of a massive treasure and continually offers to reward the guards well if they release him. Faria gives Dant\u00e8s an extensive education. He also explains to Dant\u00e8s how Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort would each have had their own reasons for wanting Dant\u00e8s in prison. After years of friendship, and knowing himself to be close to death, Faria tells Dant\u00e8s the location of the treasure, on Monte Cristo. When Faria dies, Dant\u00e8s uses his burial sack to stage an escape to a nearby island, and is rescued by a smuggling ship. After several months of working with the smugglers, he goes to Monte Cristo. Dant\u00e8s fakes an injury and convinces the smugglers to temporarily leave him on Monte Cristo, then makes his way to the hiding place of the treasure. After recovering the treasure, he returns to Marseille, where he learns that his father has starved to death. He buys a yacht, hides the rest of the treasure on board and buys both the island of Monte Cristo and the title of Count from the Tuscan government. Returning to Marseille, Dant\u00e8s plans his revenge but first helps several people who were kind to him before his imprisonment. Traveling as the Abb\u00e9 Busoni, he meets Caderousse, now living in poverty, whose intervention might have saved Dant\u00e8s from prison. Dant\u00e8s learns that his other enemies have all become wealthy. He gives Caderousse a diamond that can be either a chance to redeem himself, or a trap that will lead to his ruin. Learning that his old employer Morrel is on the verge of bankruptcy, Dant\u00e8s, in the guise of a senior clerk from a banking firm, buys all of Morrel's outstanding debts and gives Morrel an extension of three months to fulfill his obligations. At the end of the three months and with no way to repay his debts, Morrel is about to commit suicide when he learns that all of his debts have been mysteriously paid and that one of his lost ships has returned with a full cargo, secretly rebuilt and laden by Dant\u00e8s. Dant\u00e8s rejoices at the Morrel family's joy, then pledges to banish all warm sentiments from his heart and focus on vengeance. Disguised as the rich Count of Monte Cristo, Dant\u00e8s takes revenge on the three men responsible for his unjust imprisonment: Fernand, now Count de Morcerf and Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s' husband; Danglars, now a baron and a wealthy banker; and Villefort, now procureur du roi \u2014 all are now living in Paris. The Count appears first in Rome, where he becomes acquainted with the Baron Franz d'\u00c9pinay, and Viscount Albert de Morcerf, the son of Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s and Fernand. Dant\u00e8s arranges for the young Morcerf to be captured by the bandit Luigi Vampa before rescuing him from the same. Dant\u00e8s then moves to Paris, and with Albert de Morcerf's introduction, becomes the sensation of the city. Due to his knowledge and rhetorical power, even his enemies, who do not recognize him, find him charming and all desire his friendship. The Count dazzles the crass Danglars with his seemingly endless wealth, eventually persuading him to extend him a credit of six million francs, and withdraws 900,000. Under the terms of the arrangement, the Count can demand access to the remainder at any time. The Count manipulates the bond market, through a false telegraph signal, and quickly destroys a large portion of Danglars' fortune. The rest of it begins to rapidly disappear through mysterious bankruptcies, suspensions of payment, and more bad luck on the Stock Exchange. Villefort had once conducted an affair with Madame Danglars. She became pregnant and delivered the child in the house in which he was living at that time. Believing the infant stillborn, Villefort had tried to secretly bury it in a box on the grounds of the house but while doing so, he was stabbed by Bertuccio, his sworn enemy, who rescued the infant and brought him back to life. Bertuccio's sister-in-law brought the child up, giving him the name \"Benedetto\". The Count learns of this story from Bertuccio, who later becomes his servant. He purchases the house and hosts a dinner party there, to which he invites, among others, Villefort and Madame Danglars. During the dinner, the Count announces that, while doing landscaping, he had unearthed a box containing the remains of an infant and had referred the matter to the authorities to investigate. This puzzles Villefort, who knew that the infant's box had been removed and so the Count's story could not be true, and also alarms him that perhaps he knows the secret of his past affair with Madame Danglars and may be taunting him. Meanwhile, Benedetto has grown up to become a criminal and is sentenced to the galleys with Caderousse. After the two are freed by \"Lord Wilmore\", Benedetto is sponsored by the Count to take the identity of \"Viscount Andrea Cavalcanti\" and is introduced by him into Parisian society at the same dinner party, with neither Villefort nor Madame Danglars suspecting that Andrea is their presumed dead son. Andrea then ingratiates himself to Danglars who betroths his daughter Eug\u00e9nie to Andrea after cancelling her engagement to Albert, son of Fernand. Meanwhile, Caderousse blackmails Andrea, threatening to reveal his past. Cornered by \"Abb\u00e9 Busoni\" while attempting to rob the Count's house, Caderousse begs to be given another chance, but Dant\u00e8s grimly notes that the last two times he did so, Caderousse did not change. He forces Caderousse to write a letter to Danglars exposing Cavalcanti as an impostor and allows Caderousse to leave the house. The moment Caderousse leaves the estate, he is stabbed in the back by Andrea. Caderousse manages to dictate and sign a deathbed statement identifying his killer, and the Count reveals his true identity to Caderousse moments before Caderousse dies. Years before, Ali Pasha, the ruler of Janina, had been betrayed to the Turks by Fernand. After Ali's death, Fernand sold his wife Vasiliki and his daughter Hayd\u00e9e into slavery. Hayd\u00e9e was found and bought by Dant\u00e8s and becomes the Count's ward. The Count manipulates Danglars into researching the event, which is published in a newspaper. As a result, Fernand is brought to trial for his crimes. Hayd\u00e9e testifies against him, and Fernand is disgraced. Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s, still beautiful, is the only person to recognize the Count as Dant\u00e8s. When Albert blames the Count for his father's downfall and publicly challenges him to a duel, Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s goes secretly to the Count and begs him to spare her son. During this interview, she learns the entire truth of his arrest and imprisonment. She later reveals the truth to Albert, which causes Albert to make a public apology to the Count. Albert and Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s disown Fernand, who is confronted with Dant\u00e8s' true identity and commits suicide. The mother and son depart to build a new life free of disgrace. Albert enlists as a soldier and goes to Africa in order to rebuild his life and honour under a new name, and Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s begins a solitary life in Marseille. Villefort's daughter by his first wife, Valentine, stands to inherit the fortune of her grandfather (Noirtier) and of her mother's parents (the Saint-M\u00e9rans), while his second wife, H\u00e9lo\u00efse, seeks the fortune for her son \u00c9douard. The Count is aware of H\u00e9lo\u00efse's intentions, and \"innocently\" introduces her to the technique of poison. H\u00e9lo\u00efse fatally poisons the Saint-M\u00e9rans, so that Valentine inherits their fortune. Valentine is disinherited by Noirtier in an attempt to prevent Valentine's impending marriage with Franz d'\u00c9pinay. The marriage is cancelled when d'\u00c9pinay learns that his father (believed assassinated by Bonapartists) was killed by Noirtier in a duel. Afterwards, Valentine is reinstated in Noirtier's will. After a failed attempt on Noirtier's life, which instead claims the life of Noirtier's servant Barrois, H\u00e9lo\u00efse then targets Valentine so that \u00c9douard will finally get the fortune. However, Valentine is the prime suspect in her father's eyes in the deaths of the Saint-M\u00e9rans and Barrois. On learning that Morrel's son Maximilien is in love with Valentine, the Count saves her by making it appear as though H\u00e9lo\u00efse's plan to poison Valentine has succeeded and that Valentine is dead. Villefort learns from Noirtier that H\u00e9lo\u00efse is the real murderer and confronts her, giving her the choice of a public execution or committing suicide by her own poison. Fleeing after Caderousse's letter exposes him, Andrea gets as far as Compi\u00e8gne before he is arrested and returned to Paris, where Villefort prosecutes him. While in prison awaiting trial, Andrea is visited by Bertuccio who tells him the truth about his father. At his trial, Andrea reveals that he is Villefort's son and was rescued after Villefort buried him alive. A stunned Villefort admits his guilt and flees the court. He rushes home to stop his wife's suicide but is too late; she has poisoned her son as well. Dant\u00e8s confronts Villefort, revealing his true identity, but this, combined with the shock of the trial's revelations and the death of his wife and son, drives Villefort insane. Dant\u00e8s tries to resuscitate \u00c9douard but fails, and despairs that his revenge has gone too far. It is only after he revisits his cell in the Ch\u00e2teau d'If that Dant\u00e8s is reassured that his cause is just and his conscience is clear, that he can fulfill his plan while being able to forgive both his enemies and himself. After the Count's manipulation of the bond market, Danglars is left with only a destroyed reputation and 5,000,000 francs he has been holding in deposit for hospitals. The Count demands this sum to fulfill their credit agreement, and Danglars embezzles the hospital fund. Abandoning his wife, Danglars flees to Italy with the Count's receipt, hoping to live in Vienna in anonymous prosperity. While leaving Rome, he is kidnapped by the Count's agent Luigi Vampa and is imprisoned the same way that Albert was. Forced to pay exorbitant prices for food, Danglars eventually signs away all but 50,000 francs of the stolen five million (which Dant\u00e8s anonymously returns to the hospitals). Nearly driven mad by his ordeal, Danglars finally repents his crimes. Dant\u00e8s forgives Danglars and allows him to leave with his freedom and the money he has left. Maximilien Morrel, believing Valentine to be dead, contemplates suicide after her funeral. Dant\u00e8s reveals his true identity and explains that he rescued Morrel's father from bankruptcy, disgrace and suicide years earlier. He persuades Maximilien to delay his suicide. On the island of Monte Cristo one month later, Dant\u00e8s presents Valentine to Maximilien and reveals the true sequence of events. Having found peace, Dant\u00e8s leaves the newly reunited couple his fortune and departs for an unknown destination to find comfort and a new life with Hayd\u00e9e, who has declared her love for him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In 1815 Edmond Dant\u00e8s, a young and successful merchant sailor recently granted the succession of his erstwhile captain Lecl\u00e8re, returns to Marseille to marry his fianc\u00e9e Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s. Lecl\u00e8re, a supporter of the exiled Napol\u00e9on I, found himself dying at sea and charged Dant\u00e8s to deliver two objects: a package to Marshall Bertrand (exiled with Napoleon Bonaparte on Elba), and a letter from Elba to an unknown man in Paris. On the eve of his wedding to Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s, Fernand (Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s' cousin and a rival for her affections) and Dant\u00e8s's colleague Danglars (who is jealous of his rapid rise to captain), upon the suggestion of Caderousse (a neighbour of Dant\u00e8s), send an anonymous note accusing Dant\u00e8s of being a Bonapartist traitor. Villefort, the deputy crown prosecutor in Marseille, while initially sympathetic to Dant\u00e8s, destroys the letter from Elba when he discovers that it is addressed to his own father who is a Bonapartist. In order to silence Dant\u00e8s, he condemns him without trial to life imprisonment. During his fourteen years imprisonment in the Ch\u00e2teau d'If, Dant\u00e8s befriends the Abb\u00e9 Faria (\"The Mad Priest\"), a fellow prisoner who is trying to tunnel his way to freedom, and who claims knowledge of a massive treasure and continually offers to reward the guards well if they release him. Faria gives Dant\u00e8s an extensive education. He also explains to Dant\u00e8s how Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort would each have had their own reasons for wanting Dant\u00e8s in prison. After years of friendship, and knowing himself to be close to death, Faria tells Dant\u00e8s the location of the treasure, on Monte Cristo"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and who claims knowledge of a massive treasure and continually offers to reward the guards well if they release him. Faria gives Dant\u00e8s an extensive education. He also explains to Dant\u00e8s how Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort would each have had their own reasons for wanting Dant\u00e8s in prison. After years of friendship, and knowing himself to be close to death, Faria tells Dant\u00e8s the location of the treasure, on Monte Cristo. When Faria dies, Dant\u00e8s uses his burial sack to stage an escape to a nearby island, and is rescued by a smuggling ship. After several months of working with the smugglers, he goes to Monte Cristo. Dant\u00e8s fakes an injury and convinces the smugglers to temporarily leave him on Monte Cristo, then makes his way to the hiding place of the treasure. After recovering the treasure, he returns to Marseille, where he learns that his father has starved to death. He buys a yacht, hides the rest of the treasure on board and buys both the island of Monte Cristo and the title of Count from the Tuscan government. Returning to Marseille, Dant\u00e8s plans his revenge but first helps several people who were kind to him before his imprisonment. Traveling as the Abb\u00e9 Busoni, he meets Caderousse, now living in poverty, whose intervention might have saved Dant\u00e8s from prison. Dant\u00e8s learns that his other enemies have all become wealthy. He gives Caderousse a diamond that can be either a chance to redeem himself, or a trap that will lead to his ruin. Learning that his old employer Morrel is on the verge of bankruptcy, Dant\u00e8s, in the guise of a senior clerk from a banking firm, buys all of Morrel's outstanding debts and gives Morrel an extension of three months to fulfill his obligations. At the end of the three months and with no way"
      },
      {
        "text": " that his other enemies have all become wealthy. He gives Caderousse a diamond that can be either a chance to redeem himself, or a trap that will lead to his ruin. Learning that his old employer Morrel is on the verge of bankruptcy, Dant\u00e8s, in the guise of a senior clerk from a banking firm, buys all of Morrel's outstanding debts and gives Morrel an extension of three months to fulfill his obligations. At the end of the three months and with no way to repay his debts, Morrel is about to commit suicide when he learns that all of his debts have been mysteriously paid and that one of his lost ships has returned with a full cargo, secretly rebuilt and laden by Dant\u00e8s. Dant\u00e8s rejoices at the Morrel family's joy, then pledges to banish all warm sentiments from his heart and focus on vengeance. Disguised as the rich Count of Monte Cristo, Dant\u00e8s takes revenge on the three men responsible for his unjust imprisonment: Fernand, now Count de Morcerf and Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s' husband; Danglars, now a baron and a wealthy banker; and Villefort, now procureur du roi \u2014 all are now living in Paris. The Count appears first in Rome, where he becomes acquainted with the Baron Franz d'\u00c9pinay, and Viscount Albert de Morcerf, the son of Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s and Fernand. Dant\u00e8s arranges for the young Morcerf to be captured by the bandit Luigi Vampa before rescuing him from the same. Dant\u00e8s then moves to Paris, and with Albert de Morcerf's introduction, becomes the sensation of the city. Due to his knowledge and rhetorical power, even his enemies, who do not recognize him, find him charming and all desire his friendship. The Count dazzles the crass Danglars with his seemingly endless wealth, eventually persu"
      },
      {
        "text": "ant\u00e8s arranges for the young Morcerf to be captured by the bandit Luigi Vampa before rescuing him from the same. Dant\u00e8s then moves to Paris, and with Albert de Morcerf's introduction, becomes the sensation of the city. Due to his knowledge and rhetorical power, even his enemies, who do not recognize him, find him charming and all desire his friendship. The Count dazzles the crass Danglars with his seemingly endless wealth, eventually persuading him to extend him a credit of six million francs, and withdraws 900,000. Under the terms of the arrangement, the Count can demand access to the remainder at any time. The Count manipulates the bond market, through a false telegraph signal, and quickly destroys a large portion of Danglars' fortune. The rest of it begins to rapidly disappear through mysterious bankruptcies, suspensions of payment, and more bad luck on the Stock Exchange. Villefort had once conducted an affair with Madame Danglars. She became pregnant and delivered the child in the house in which he was living at that time. Believing the infant stillborn, Villefort had tried to secretly bury it in a box on the grounds of the house but while doing so, he was stabbed by Bertuccio, his sworn enemy, who rescued the infant and brought him back to life. Bertuccio's sister-in-law brought the child up, giving him the name \"Benedetto\". The Count learns of this story from Bertuccio, who later becomes his servant. He purchases the house and hosts a dinner party there, to which he invites, among others, Villefort and Madame Danglars. During the dinner, the Count announces that, while doing landscaping, he had unearthed a box containing the remains of an infant and had referred the matter to the authorities to investigate. This puzzles Villefort, who knew that the infant's box"
      },
      {
        "text": "Benedetto\". The Count learns of this story from Bertuccio, who later becomes his servant. He purchases the house and hosts a dinner party there, to which he invites, among others, Villefort and Madame Danglars. During the dinner, the Count announces that, while doing landscaping, he had unearthed a box containing the remains of an infant and had referred the matter to the authorities to investigate. This puzzles Villefort, who knew that the infant's box had been removed and so the Count's story could not be true, and also alarms him that perhaps he knows the secret of his past affair with Madame Danglars and may be taunting him. Meanwhile, Benedetto has grown up to become a criminal and is sentenced to the galleys with Caderousse. After the two are freed by \"Lord Wilmore\", Benedetto is sponsored by the Count to take the identity of \"Viscount Andrea Cavalcanti\" and is introduced by him into Parisian society at the same dinner party, with neither Villefort nor Madame Danglars suspecting that Andrea is their presumed dead son. Andrea then ingratiates himself to Danglars who betroths his daughter Eug\u00e9nie to Andrea after cancelling her engagement to Albert, son of Fernand. Meanwhile, Caderousse blackmails Andrea, threatening to reveal his past. Cornered by \"Abb\u00e9 Busoni\" while attempting to rob the Count's house, Caderousse begs to be given another chance, but Dant\u00e8s grimly notes that the last two times he did so, Caderousse did not change. He forces Caderousse to write a letter to Danglars exposing Cavalcanti as an impostor and allows Caderousse to leave the house. The moment Caderousse leaves the estate, he is stabbed in the back by Andrea. Caderousse manages to dictate and sign a deathbed"
      },
      {
        "text": " Count's house, Caderousse begs to be given another chance, but Dant\u00e8s grimly notes that the last two times he did so, Caderousse did not change. He forces Caderousse to write a letter to Danglars exposing Cavalcanti as an impostor and allows Caderousse to leave the house. The moment Caderousse leaves the estate, he is stabbed in the back by Andrea. Caderousse manages to dictate and sign a deathbed statement identifying his killer, and the Count reveals his true identity to Caderousse moments before Caderousse dies. Years before, Ali Pasha, the ruler of Janina, had been betrayed to the Turks by Fernand. After Ali's death, Fernand sold his wife Vasiliki and his daughter Hayd\u00e9e into slavery. Hayd\u00e9e was found and bought by Dant\u00e8s and becomes the Count's ward. The Count manipulates Danglars into researching the event, which is published in a newspaper. As a result, Fernand is brought to trial for his crimes. Hayd\u00e9e testifies against him, and Fernand is disgraced. Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s, still beautiful, is the only person to recognize the Count as Dant\u00e8s. When Albert blames the Count for his father's downfall and publicly challenges him to a duel, Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s goes secretly to the Count and begs him to spare her son. During this interview, she learns the entire truth of his arrest and imprisonment. She later reveals the truth to Albert, which causes Albert to make a public apology to the Count. Albert and Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s disown Fernand, who is confronted with Dant\u00e8s' true identity and commits suicide. The mother and son depart to build a new life free of disgrace. Albert enlists as a soldier and goes to Africa in order to rebuild his life and honour under a new name, and Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s begins a solitary life in"
      },
      {
        "text": " of his arrest and imprisonment. She later reveals the truth to Albert, which causes Albert to make a public apology to the Count. Albert and Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s disown Fernand, who is confronted with Dant\u00e8s' true identity and commits suicide. The mother and son depart to build a new life free of disgrace. Albert enlists as a soldier and goes to Africa in order to rebuild his life and honour under a new name, and Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s begins a solitary life in Marseille. Villefort's daughter by his first wife, Valentine, stands to inherit the fortune of her grandfather (Noirtier) and of her mother's parents (the Saint-M\u00e9rans), while his second wife, H\u00e9lo\u00efse, seeks the fortune for her son \u00c9douard. The Count is aware of H\u00e9lo\u00efse's intentions, and \"innocently\" introduces her to the technique of poison. H\u00e9lo\u00efse fatally poisons the Saint-M\u00e9rans, so that Valentine inherits their fortune. Valentine is disinherited by Noirtier in an attempt to prevent Valentine's impending marriage with Franz d'\u00c9pinay. The marriage is cancelled when d'\u00c9pinay learns that his father (believed assassinated by Bonapartists) was killed by Noirtier in a duel. Afterwards, Valentine is reinstated in Noirtier's will. After a failed attempt on Noirtier's life, which instead claims the life of Noirtier's servant Barrois, H\u00e9lo\u00efse then targets Valentine so that \u00c9douard will finally get the fortune. However, Valentine is the prime suspect in her father's eyes in the deaths of the Saint-M\u00e9rans and Barrois. On learning that Morrel's son Maximilien is in love with Valentine, the Count saves her by making it appear as though H\u00e9lo\u00efse's plan to poison Valentine has succeeded and that Valentine"
      },
      {
        "text": " the life of Noirtier's servant Barrois, H\u00e9lo\u00efse then targets Valentine so that \u00c9douard will finally get the fortune. However, Valentine is the prime suspect in her father's eyes in the deaths of the Saint-M\u00e9rans and Barrois. On learning that Morrel's son Maximilien is in love with Valentine, the Count saves her by making it appear as though H\u00e9lo\u00efse's plan to poison Valentine has succeeded and that Valentine is dead. Villefort learns from Noirtier that H\u00e9lo\u00efse is the real murderer and confronts her, giving her the choice of a public execution or committing suicide by her own poison. Fleeing after Caderousse's letter exposes him, Andrea gets as far as Compi\u00e8gne before he is arrested and returned to Paris, where Villefort prosecutes him. While in prison awaiting trial, Andrea is visited by Bertuccio who tells him the truth about his father. At his trial, Andrea reveals that he is Villefort's son and was rescued after Villefort buried him alive. A stunned Villefort admits his guilt and flees the court. He rushes home to stop his wife's suicide but is too late; she has poisoned her son as well. Dant\u00e8s confronts Villefort, revealing his true identity, but this, combined with the shock of the trial's revelations and the death of his wife and son, drives Villefort insane. Dant\u00e8s tries to resuscitate \u00c9douard but fails, and despairs that his revenge has gone too far. It is only after he revisits his cell in the Ch\u00e2teau d'If that Dant\u00e8s is reassured that his cause is just and his conscience is clear, that he can fulfill his plan while being able to forgive both his enemies and himself. After the Count's manipulation of the bond market, Danglars is left with"
      },
      {
        "text": "illefort insane. Dant\u00e8s tries to resuscitate \u00c9douard but fails, and despairs that his revenge has gone too far. It is only after he revisits his cell in the Ch\u00e2teau d'If that Dant\u00e8s is reassured that his cause is just and his conscience is clear, that he can fulfill his plan while being able to forgive both his enemies and himself. After the Count's manipulation of the bond market, Danglars is left with only a destroyed reputation and 5,000,000 francs he has been holding in deposit for hospitals. The Count demands this sum to fulfill their credit agreement, and Danglars embezzles the hospital fund. Abandoning his wife, Danglars flees to Italy with the Count's receipt, hoping to live in Vienna in anonymous prosperity. While leaving Rome, he is kidnapped by the Count's agent Luigi Vampa and is imprisoned the same way that Albert was. Forced to pay exorbitant prices for food, Danglars eventually signs away all but 50,000 francs of the stolen five million (which Dant\u00e8s anonymously returns to the hospitals). Nearly driven mad by his ordeal, Danglars finally repents his crimes. Dant\u00e8s forgives Danglars and allows him to leave with his freedom and the money he has left. Maximilien Morrel, believing Valentine to be dead, contemplates suicide after her funeral. Dant\u00e8s reveals his true identity and explains that he rescued Morrel's father from bankruptcy, disgrace and suicide years earlier. He persuades Maximilien to delay his suicide. On the island of Monte Cristo one month later, Dant\u00e8s presents Valentine to Maximilien and reveals the true sequence of events. Having found peace, Dant\u00e8s leaves the newly reunited couple his fortune and departs for an unknown destination to find comfort and a new life with Hayd\u00e9e,"
      },
      {
        "text": " Dant\u00e8s reveals his true identity and explains that he rescued Morrel's father from bankruptcy, disgrace and suicide years earlier. He persuades Maximilien to delay his suicide. On the island of Monte Cristo one month later, Dant\u00e8s presents Valentine to Maximilien and reveals the true sequence of events. Having found peace, Dant\u00e8s leaves the newly reunited couple his fortune and departs for an unknown destination to find comfort and a new life with Hayd\u00e9e, who has declared her love for him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Cat's Cradle",
    "author": "Kurt Vonnegut",
    "published_date": "1963",
    "synopsis": " At the opening of the book, the narrator, an everyman named John (a.k.a. Jonah), describes a time when he was planning to write a book about what important Americans did on the day Hiroshima was bombed. While researching this topic, John becomes involved with the children of Felix Hoenikker, a Nobel laureate physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb. John travels to Ilium, New York, to interview the Hoenikker children and others for his book. In Ilium John meets, among others, Dr. Asa Breed, who was the supervisor \"on paper\" of Felix Hoenikker. As the novel progresses, John learns of a substance called ice-nine, created by the late Hoenikker and now secretly in the possession of his children. Ice-nine is an alternative structure of water that is solid at room temperature. When a crystal of ice-nine contacts liquid water, it becomes a seed crystal that makes the molecules of liquid water arrange themselves into the solid form, ice-nine. John and the Hoenikker children eventually end up on the fictional Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, one of the poorest countries on Earth, where the people speak a barely comprehensible creole of English (for example \"twinkle, twinkle, little star\" is rendered \"Tsvent-kiul, tsvent-kiul, lett-pool store\"). It is ruled by the dictator, \"Papa\" Monzano, who threatens all opposition with impalement on a giant hook. San Lorenzo has an unusual culture and history, which John learns about while studying a guidebook lent to him by the newly-appointed US ambassador to the country. He learns about an influential religious movement in San Lorenzo, called Bokononism, a strange, postmodern faith that combines irreverent, nihilistic, and cynical observations about life and God's will with odd, but peaceful rituals (for instance, the supreme act of worship is an intimate act consisting of prolonged physical contact between the bare soles of the feet of two persons, supposed to result in peace and joy between the two communicants). Though everyone on the island seems to know much about Bokononism and its founder, Bokonon, the present government calls itself Christian and those caught practising Bokononism are punished with death by the giant \"hook.\" As the story progresses, it becomes clear that San Lorenzon society is more bizarre and cryptic than originally revealed. In observing the interconnected lives of some of the island's most influential residents, John learns that Bokonon himself was at one point a de facto ruler of the island, along with a US Marine deserter. The two men created Bokononism as part of a utopian project to control the population. The ban was an attempt to give the religion a sense of forbidden glamour, and it is found that almost all of the residents of San Lorenzo, including the dictator, practice the faith, and executions are rare. When John and the other travelers arrive on the island, they are greeted by President \"Papa\" Monzano and around five-thousand San Lorenzans. It becomes clear that \"Papa\" Monzano is extremely ill, and he intends to name Franklin Hoenikker his successor. Franklin, uncomfortable with this arrangement, abruptly hands the presidency to John, who grudgingly accepts. The dictator later uses ice-nine to commit suicide rather than succumb to his inoperable cancer. Consistent with the properties of ice-nine, the dictator's corpse instantly turns into solid ice at room temperature. During John's inauguration festivities, in which the American ambassador to San Lorenzo was going to speak, San Lorenzo's small air force was supposed to present a brief air show. One of the airplanes crashes into the dictator's seaside palace and causes his still-frozen body to tumble into the ocean, and all the water in the world's seas, rivers, and groundwater turns into ice-nine, killing almost all life in a few days. John manages to escape with his wife, a native San Lorenzan named Mona. They later discover a mass grave where all the surviving San Lorenzans had killed themselves with ice-nine, on the facetious advice of Bokonon. Displaying a mix of grief and resigned amusement, Mona kills herself as well. John takes refuge with a few other survivors (an American couple he had met on the plane to San Lorenzo and Felix Hoenikker's two sons), and lives in a cave for several months, during which time he writes a memoir revealed to be the novel itself. The book ends by his meeting a weary Bokonon, who is contemplating what the last words of The Books of Bokonon should be. Bokonon states that if he were younger, he would have climbed to the top of Mt. McCabe and placed a book about human stupidity at the top. The Republic of San Lorenzo is a fictional country where much of the book's second half takes place. San Lorenzo is a tiny, rocky island nation located in the Caribbean Sea, positioned in the relative vicinity of Puerto Rico. San Lorenzo has only one city, its seaside capital of Bolivar. The country's form of government is a dictatorship, under the rule of ailing president \"Papa\" Monzano, who is a staunch ally of the United States and a fierce opponent of communism. No legislature exists. The infrastructure of San Lorenzo is described as being dilapidated, consisting of worn buildings, dirt roads, an impoverished populace, and having only one automobile taxi running in the entire country. The language of San Lorenzo is a fictitious English-based creole language that is referred to as \"the San Lorenzan dialect.\" The San Lorenzan national anthem is based on the tune of Home on the Range. Its flag consists of a U.S. Marine Corps corporal's stripes on a blue field (presumably the flag was updated, since in the 1920s Marine Corps rank insignia did not include crossed rifles). Its currency is named corporals, at a rate of two corporals for every United States dollar; both the flag and the monetary unit are named after U.S. Marine Corporal Earl McCabe, who deserted his company while stationed at Port-au-Prince during the American occupation in 1922, and in transit to Miami, was shipwrecked on San Lorenzo. McCabe, along with accomplice Lionel Boyd Johnson from Tobago, would together throw out the island's governing sugar company, and after a period of anarchy, proclaimed a republic. San Lorenzo also has its own native religion, Bokononism, a religion based on enjoying life through its untruths. Bokononism, founded by McCabe's accomplice Boyd Johnson (pronounced \"Bokonon\" in San Lorenzan dialect), however, is outlawed - an idea Bokonon himself conceived for the purpose of spreading the religion and making the residents of the island happier. Bokononists are liable to be punished by being impaled on a hook, but Bokononism privately remains the dominant religion of nearly everyone on the island, including the leaders who outlaw it. Officially, San Lorenzo is a Christian nation. However, both Catholicism and Protestantism are illegal. This leads to a rather haphazard issuing of last rites.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At the opening of the book, the narrator, an everyman named John (a.k.a. Jonah), describes a time when he was planning to write a book about what important Americans did on the day Hiroshima was bombed. While researching this topic, John becomes involved with the children of Felix Hoenikker, a Nobel laureate physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb. John travels to Ilium, New York, to interview the Hoenikker children and others for his book. In Ilium John meets, among others, Dr. Asa Breed, who was the supervisor \"on paper\" of Felix Hoenikker. As the novel progresses, John learns of a substance called ice-nine, created by the late Hoenikker and now secretly in the possession of his children. Ice-nine is an alternative structure of water that is solid at room temperature. When a crystal of ice-nine contacts liquid water, it becomes a seed crystal that makes the molecules of liquid water arrange themselves into the solid form, ice-nine. John and the Hoenikker children eventually end up on the fictional Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, one of the poorest countries on Earth, where the people speak a barely comprehensible creole of English (for example \"twinkle, twinkle, little star\" is rendered \"Tsvent-kiul, tsvent-kiul, lett-pool store\"). It is ruled by the dictator, \"Papa\" Monzano, who threatens all opposition with impalement on a giant hook. San Lorenzo has an unusual culture and history, which John learns about while studying a guidebook lent to him by the newly-appointed US ambassador to the country. He learns about an influential religious movement in San Lorenzo, called Bokononism, a strange, postmodern faith that combines irreverent, nihilistic, and cynical observations about life and God's will with odd, but peaceful rituals (for instance, the supreme act of"
      },
      {
        "text": " who threatens all opposition with impalement on a giant hook. San Lorenzo has an unusual culture and history, which John learns about while studying a guidebook lent to him by the newly-appointed US ambassador to the country. He learns about an influential religious movement in San Lorenzo, called Bokononism, a strange, postmodern faith that combines irreverent, nihilistic, and cynical observations about life and God's will with odd, but peaceful rituals (for instance, the supreme act of worship is an intimate act consisting of prolonged physical contact between the bare soles of the feet of two persons, supposed to result in peace and joy between the two communicants). Though everyone on the island seems to know much about Bokononism and its founder, Bokonon, the present government calls itself Christian and those caught practising Bokononism are punished with death by the giant \"hook.\" As the story progresses, it becomes clear that San Lorenzon society is more bizarre and cryptic than originally revealed. In observing the interconnected lives of some of the island's most influential residents, John learns that Bokonon himself was at one point a de facto ruler of the island, along with a US Marine deserter. The two men created Bokononism as part of a utopian project to control the population. The ban was an attempt to give the religion a sense of forbidden glamour, and it is found that almost all of the residents of San Lorenzo, including the dictator, practice the faith, and executions are rare. When John and the other travelers arrive on the island, they are greeted by President \"Papa\" Monzano and around five-thousand San Lorenzans. It becomes clear that \"Papa\" Monzano is extremely ill, and he intends to name Franklin Hoenikker his successor. Franklin, uncomfortable with this arrangement, abruptly hands the presidency to John, who grudgingly accepts. The dictator later uses ice-nine to"
      },
      {
        "text": ", practice the faith, and executions are rare. When John and the other travelers arrive on the island, they are greeted by President \"Papa\" Monzano and around five-thousand San Lorenzans. It becomes clear that \"Papa\" Monzano is extremely ill, and he intends to name Franklin Hoenikker his successor. Franklin, uncomfortable with this arrangement, abruptly hands the presidency to John, who grudgingly accepts. The dictator later uses ice-nine to commit suicide rather than succumb to his inoperable cancer. Consistent with the properties of ice-nine, the dictator's corpse instantly turns into solid ice at room temperature. During John's inauguration festivities, in which the American ambassador to San Lorenzo was going to speak, San Lorenzo's small air force was supposed to present a brief air show. One of the airplanes crashes into the dictator's seaside palace and causes his still-frozen body to tumble into the ocean, and all the water in the world's seas, rivers, and groundwater turns into ice-nine, killing almost all life in a few days. John manages to escape with his wife, a native San Lorenzan named Mona. They later discover a mass grave where all the surviving San Lorenzans had killed themselves with ice-nine, on the facetious advice of Bokonon. Displaying a mix of grief and resigned amusement, Mona kills herself as well. John takes refuge with a few other survivors (an American couple he had met on the plane to San Lorenzo and Felix Hoenikker's two sons), and lives in a cave for several months, during which time he writes a memoir revealed to be the novel itself. The book ends by his meeting a weary Bokonon, who is contemplating what the last words of The Books of Bokonon should be. Bokonon states that if he were younger, he would have climbed to the top of Mt. McCabe and placed a book about human"
      },
      {
        "text": " American couple he had met on the plane to San Lorenzo and Felix Hoenikker's two sons), and lives in a cave for several months, during which time he writes a memoir revealed to be the novel itself. The book ends by his meeting a weary Bokonon, who is contemplating what the last words of The Books of Bokonon should be. Bokonon states that if he were younger, he would have climbed to the top of Mt. McCabe and placed a book about human stupidity at the top. The Republic of San Lorenzo is a fictional country where much of the book's second half takes place. San Lorenzo is a tiny, rocky island nation located in the Caribbean Sea, positioned in the relative vicinity of Puerto Rico. San Lorenzo has only one city, its seaside capital of Bolivar. The country's form of government is a dictatorship, under the rule of ailing president \"Papa\" Monzano, who is a staunch ally of the United States and a fierce opponent of communism. No legislature exists. The infrastructure of San Lorenzo is described as being dilapidated, consisting of worn buildings, dirt roads, an impoverished populace, and having only one automobile taxi running in the entire country. The language of San Lorenzo is a fictitious English-based creole language that is referred to as \"the San Lorenzan dialect.\" The San Lorenzan national anthem is based on the tune of Home on the Range. Its flag consists of a U.S. Marine Corps corporal's stripes on a blue field (presumably the flag was updated, since in the 1920s Marine Corps rank insignia did not include crossed rifles). Its currency is named corporals, at a rate of two corporals for every United States dollar; both the flag and the monetary unit are named after U.S. Marine Corporal Earl McCabe, who deserted his company while stationed at Port-au-Prince during the American occupation in 1922, and in transit to Miami, was ship"
      },
      {
        "text": " Corps corporal's stripes on a blue field (presumably the flag was updated, since in the 1920s Marine Corps rank insignia did not include crossed rifles). Its currency is named corporals, at a rate of two corporals for every United States dollar; both the flag and the monetary unit are named after U.S. Marine Corporal Earl McCabe, who deserted his company while stationed at Port-au-Prince during the American occupation in 1922, and in transit to Miami, was shipwrecked on San Lorenzo. McCabe, along with accomplice Lionel Boyd Johnson from Tobago, would together throw out the island's governing sugar company, and after a period of anarchy, proclaimed a republic. San Lorenzo also has its own native religion, Bokononism, a religion based on enjoying life through its untruths. Bokononism, founded by McCabe's accomplice Boyd Johnson (pronounced \"Bokonon\" in San Lorenzan dialect), however, is outlawed - an idea Bokonon himself conceived for the purpose of spreading the religion and making the residents of the island happier. Bokononists are liable to be punished by being impaled on a hook, but Bokononism privately remains the dominant religion of nearly everyone on the island, including the leaders who outlaw it. Officially, San Lorenzo is a Christian nation. However, both Catholicism and Protestantism are illegal. This leads to a rather haphazard issuing of last rites.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Excellent Women",
    "author": "Barbara Pym",
    "published_date": "1952",
    "synopsis": " The book details the everyday life of Mildred Lathbury, a spinster in her thirties in 1950s England. Perpetually self-deprecating, but with the sharpest wit, Mildred keeps busy with near-romances (her own and those of others), church jumble sales, and of course the ubiquitous cup of tea. Mildred's life grows more exciting with the arrival of new neighbours, anthropologist Helena Napier and her handsome, dashing husband, Rocky - with whom Mildred fancies herself in love. Through the Napiers, she meets another anthropologist, Everard Bone, and it is with him that Mildred will eventually form a relationship. A sub-plot revolves around the activities of the local vicar, Julian Malory, who becomes engaged to a glamorous widow, Allegra Gray. Allegra proceeds to ease out Julian's sister, Winifred, a close friend of Mildred's. Eventually matters come to a head and Allegra leaves the vicarage after a quarrel. In the meantime, Helena, who has been on the verge of leaving Rocky for Everard, accepts that Everard does not care for her and leaves the neighbourhood, along with Rocky. As with most of Pym's books, the plot is less important than the precise drawing of the comic characters (such as Everard's elderly mother who is obsessed with birds) and situations.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book details the everyday life of Mildred Lathbury, a spinster in her thirties in 1950s England. Perpetually self-deprecating, but with the sharpest wit, Mildred keeps busy with near-romances (her own and those of others), church jumble sales, and of course the ubiquitous cup of tea. Mildred's life grows more exciting with the arrival of new neighbours, anthropologist Helena Napier and her handsome, dashing husband, Rocky - with whom Mildred fancies herself in love. Through the Napiers, she meets another anthropologist, Everard Bone, and it is with him that Mildred will eventually form a relationship. A sub-plot revolves around the activities of the local vicar, Julian Malory, who becomes engaged to a glamorous widow, Allegra Gray. Allegra proceeds to ease out Julian's sister, Winifred, a close friend of Mildred's. Eventually matters come to a head and Allegra leaves the vicarage after a quarrel. In the meantime, Helena, who has been on the verge of leaving Rocky for Everard, accepts that Everard does not care for her and leaves the neighbourhood, along with Rocky. As with most of Pym's books, the plot is less important than the precise drawing of the comic characters (such as Everard's elderly mother who is obsessed with birds) and situations.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Scarlet Pimpernel",
    "author": "Baroness Emma Orczy",
    "published_date": "1905",
    "synopsis": " The Scarlet Pimpernel is set in 1792, during the early stages of the French Revolution. Marguerite St. Just, a beautiful French actress, is the wife of wealthy English fop Sir Percy Blakeney, a baronet. Before their marriage, Marguerite took revenge upon the Marquis de St. Cyr, who had ordered her brother to be beaten for his romantic interest in the Marquis' daughter, with the unintended consequence of the Marquis and his sons being sent to the guillotine. When Percy found out, he became estranged from his wife. Marguerite, for her part, became disillusioned with Percy's shallow, dandyish lifestyle. Meanwhile, the \"League of the Scarlet Pimpernel\", a secret society of twenty English aristocrats, \"one to command, and nineteen to obey\", is engaged in rescuing their French counterparts from the daily executions (see Reign of Terror). Their leader, the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, takes his nickname from the drawing of a small red flower with which he signs his messages. Despite being the talk of London society, only his followers and possibly the Prince of Wales know the Pimpernel's true identity. Like many others, Marguerite is entranced by the Pimpernel's daring exploits. At a ball attended by the Blakeneys, a verse by Percy about the \"elusive Pimpernel\" makes the rounds and amuses the other guests. Meanwhile, Marguerite is blackmailed by the wily new French envoy to England, Citizen Chauvelin. Chauvelin's agents have stolen a letter incriminating her beloved brother Armand, proving that he is in league with the Pimpernel. Chauvelin offers to trade Armand's life for her help against the Pimpernel. Contemptuous of her seemingly witless and unloving husband, Marguerite does not go to him for help or advice. Instead, she passes along information which enables Chauvelin to learn the Pimpernel's true identity. Later that night, Marguerite finally tells her husband of the terrible danger threatening her brother and pleads for his assistance. Percy promises to save him. After Percy unexpectedly leaves for France, Marguerite discovers to her horror that he is the Pimpernel. He had hidden behind the persona of a dull, slow-witted fop in order to deceive the world. He had not told Marguerite because of his worry that she might betray him, as she had the Marquis de St. Cyr. Desperate to save her husband, she decides to pursue Percy to France to warn him that Chauvelin knows his identity and his purpose. She persuades Sir Andrew Ffoulkes to accompany her, but because of the tide and the weather, neither they nor Chavelin can leave immediately. At Calais, Percy openly approaches Chauvelin in a decrepit inn (the Chat gris), whose owner is in Percy's pay. Despite Chauvelin's best efforts, the Englishman manages to escape by throwing pepper in Chavelin's face. Through a bold plan executed right under Chauvelin's nose, Percy rescues Marguerite's brother Armand and the Comte de Tournay, the father of a schoolfriend of Marguerite's. Marguerite pursues Percy right to the very end, resolute that she must either warn him or share his fate. Percy, heavily disguised, is captured by Chauvelin, but he does not recognise him, and he is enabled to escape. With Marguerite's love and courage amply proven, Percy's ardour is rekindled. Safely back on board their schooner, the Day Dream, the happily reconciled couple returns to England. Sir Andrew marries the Count's daughter, Suzanne.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Scarlet Pimpernel is set in 1792, during the early stages of the French Revolution. Marguerite St. Just, a beautiful French actress, is the wife of wealthy English fop Sir Percy Blakeney, a baronet. Before their marriage, Marguerite took revenge upon the Marquis de St. Cyr, who had ordered her brother to be beaten for his romantic interest in the Marquis' daughter, with the unintended consequence of the Marquis and his sons being sent to the guillotine. When Percy found out, he became estranged from his wife. Marguerite, for her part, became disillusioned with Percy's shallow, dandyish lifestyle. Meanwhile, the \"League of the Scarlet Pimpernel\", a secret society of twenty English aristocrats, \"one to command, and nineteen to obey\", is engaged in rescuing their French counterparts from the daily executions (see Reign of Terror). Their leader, the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, takes his nickname from the drawing of a small red flower with which he signs his messages. Despite being the talk of London society, only his followers and possibly the Prince of Wales know the Pimpernel's true identity. Like many others, Marguerite is entranced by the Pimpernel's daring exploits. At a ball attended by the Blakeneys, a verse by Percy about the \"elusive Pimpernel\" makes the rounds and amuses the other guests. Meanwhile, Marguerite is blackmailed by the wily new French envoy to England, Citizen Chauvelin. Chauvelin's agents have stolen a letter incriminating her beloved brother Armand, proving that he is in league with the Pimpernel. Chauvelin offers to trade Armand's life for her help against the Pimpernel. Contemptuous of her seemingly witless and unloving husband, Marguerite does not go to him for help or advice."
      },
      {
        "text": ". Meanwhile, Marguerite is blackmailed by the wily new French envoy to England, Citizen Chauvelin. Chauvelin's agents have stolen a letter incriminating her beloved brother Armand, proving that he is in league with the Pimpernel. Chauvelin offers to trade Armand's life for her help against the Pimpernel. Contemptuous of her seemingly witless and unloving husband, Marguerite does not go to him for help or advice. Instead, she passes along information which enables Chauvelin to learn the Pimpernel's true identity. Later that night, Marguerite finally tells her husband of the terrible danger threatening her brother and pleads for his assistance. Percy promises to save him. After Percy unexpectedly leaves for France, Marguerite discovers to her horror that he is the Pimpernel. He had hidden behind the persona of a dull, slow-witted fop in order to deceive the world. He had not told Marguerite because of his worry that she might betray him, as she had the Marquis de St. Cyr. Desperate to save her husband, she decides to pursue Percy to France to warn him that Chauvelin knows his identity and his purpose. She persuades Sir Andrew Ffoulkes to accompany her, but because of the tide and the weather, neither they nor Chavelin can leave immediately. At Calais, Percy openly approaches Chauvelin in a decrepit inn (the Chat gris), whose owner is in Percy's pay. Despite Chauvelin's best efforts, the Englishman manages to escape by throwing pepper in Chavelin's face. Through a bold plan executed right under Chauvelin's nose, Percy rescues Marguerite's brother Armand and the Comte de Tournay, the father of a schoolfriend of Marguerite's. Marguerite pursues Percy right to the very end, resolute that she must"
      },
      {
        "text": " inn (the Chat gris), whose owner is in Percy's pay. Despite Chauvelin's best efforts, the Englishman manages to escape by throwing pepper in Chavelin's face. Through a bold plan executed right under Chauvelin's nose, Percy rescues Marguerite's brother Armand and the Comte de Tournay, the father of a schoolfriend of Marguerite's. Marguerite pursues Percy right to the very end, resolute that she must either warn him or share his fate. Percy, heavily disguised, is captured by Chauvelin, but he does not recognise him, and he is enabled to escape. With Marguerite's love and courage amply proven, Percy's ardour is rekindled. Safely back on board their schooner, the Day Dream, the happily reconciled couple returns to England. Sir Andrew marries the Count's daughter, Suzanne.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Becket",
    "author": "Jean Anouilh",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play is a re-enactment of the conflicts between King Henry II and Thomas Becket as the latter (Henry's best friend) ascends to power, becoming the King\u2019s enemy. Becket begins as a clever, but hedonistic, companion; as a result of being created Archbishop of Canterbury, he is transformed into an ascetic who does his best to preserve the rights of the church against the king's power. Ultimately, Becket is slaughtered by several of the king's nobles; and lastly we find the king thrust into penance for the episcopicide.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play is a re-enactment of the conflicts between King Henry II and Thomas Becket as the latter (Henry's best friend) ascends to power, becoming the King\u2019s enemy. Becket begins as a clever, but hedonistic, companion; as a result of being created Archbishop of Canterbury, he is transformed into an ascetic who does his best to preserve the rights of the church against the king's power. Ultimately, Becket is slaughtered by several of the king's nobles; and lastly we find the king thrust into penance for the episcopicide.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Robe",
    "author": "Andrew Greeley",
    "published_date": "1942",
    "synopsis": " The book explores the aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus through the experiences of the Roman tribune Marcellus Gallio and his Greek slave Demetrius. Prince Gaius, in an effort to rid Rome of Marcellus, banishes Marcellus to the command of the Roman garrison at Minoa, a port city in southern Palestine. In Jerusalem during Passover, Marcellus ends up carrying out the crucifixion of Jesus, but is troubled since he believes Jesus to be innocent of any crime. Marcellus and some other soldiers throw dice to see who will take Jesus' seamless robe. Marcellus wins and asks Demetrius to take care of the robe. Following the crucifixion, Marcellus takes part in a banquet attended by Pontius Pilate. During the banquet, a drunken centurion insists that Marcellus wear Jesus' robe; reluctantly wearing the garment, Marcellus apparently suffers a nervous breakdown and returns to Rome. Sent to Athens to recuperate, Marcellus finally gives in to Demetrius' urging and touches the robe; his mind is subsequently restored. Marcellus, now believing the robe has some sort of innate power, returns to Judea and follows the path Jesus took and meets many people whose lives Jesus had affected. Based upon their experiences first Demetrius and then Marcellus become followers of Jesus. Marcellus then returns to Rome where he must report his experiences to the emperor, Tiberius. Marcellus frees Demetrius who escapes, but later on because of his uncompromising stance regarding his Christian faith both Marcellus and his new wife Diana are executed by the new emperor, Caligula. Marcellus arranges that the robe be given to \"The Big Fisherman.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book explores the aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus through the experiences of the Roman tribune Marcellus Gallio and his Greek slave Demetrius. Prince Gaius, in an effort to rid Rome of Marcellus, banishes Marcellus to the command of the Roman garrison at Minoa, a port city in southern Palestine. In Jerusalem during Passover, Marcellus ends up carrying out the crucifixion of Jesus, but is troubled since he believes Jesus to be innocent of any crime. Marcellus and some other soldiers throw dice to see who will take Jesus' seamless robe. Marcellus wins and asks Demetrius to take care of the robe. Following the crucifixion, Marcellus takes part in a banquet attended by Pontius Pilate. During the banquet, a drunken centurion insists that Marcellus wear Jesus' robe; reluctantly wearing the garment, Marcellus apparently suffers a nervous breakdown and returns to Rome. Sent to Athens to recuperate, Marcellus finally gives in to Demetrius' urging and touches the robe; his mind is subsequently restored. Marcellus, now believing the robe has some sort of innate power, returns to Judea and follows the path Jesus took and meets many people whose lives Jesus had affected. Based upon their experiences first Demetrius and then Marcellus become followers of Jesus. Marcellus then returns to Rome where he must report his experiences to the emperor, Tiberius. Marcellus frees Demetrius who escapes, but later on because of his uncompromising stance regarding his Christian faith both Marcellus and his new wife Diana are executed by the new emperor, Caligula. Marcellus arranges that the robe be given to \"The Big Fisherman.\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Marcellus frees Demetrius who escapes, but later on because of his uncompromising stance regarding his Christian faith both Marcellus and his new wife Diana are executed by the new emperor, Caligula. Marcellus arranges that the robe be given to \"The Big Fisherman.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Closing of the American Mind",
    "author": "Allan Bloom",
    "published_date": "1987",
    "synopsis": " {|class=\"toccolours\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#white; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;\" cellspacing=\"5\" |style=\"text-align: left;\"| \"Education in our times must try to find whatever there is in students that might yearn for completion, and to reconstruct the learning that would enable them autonomously to seek that completion.\" - Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind |} The Closing of the American Mind is a critique of the contemporary university and how Bloom sees it as failing its students. In it, Bloom criticizes the modern movements in philosophy and the humanities. Philosophy professors involved in ordinary language analysis or logical positivism disregard important \"humanizing\" ethical and political issues and fail to pique the interest of students. Literature professors involved in deconstructionism promote irrationalism and skepticism of standards of truth and thereby dissolve the moral imperatives which are communicated through genuine philosophy and which elevate and broaden the intellects of those who engage with these imperatives. To a great extent, Bloom's criticism revolves around his belief that the \"great books\" of Western thought have been devalued as a source of wisdom. Bloom's critique extends beyond the university to speak to the general crisis in American society. Closing of the American Mind draws analogies between the United States and the Weimar Republic. The modern liberal philosophy, he says, enshrined in the Enlightenment thought of John Locke\u2014that a just society could be based upon self-interest alone, coupled by the emergence of relativism in American thought\u2014had led to this crisis. For Bloom, this created a void in the souls of Americans, into which demagogic radicals as exemplified by '60s student leaders could leap. (In the same fashion, Bloom suggests, that the Nazi brownshirts once filled the gap created in German society by the Weimar Republic.) In the second instance, he argued, the higher calling of philosophy and reason understood as freedom of thought, had been eclipsed by a pseudo-philosophy, or an ideology of thought. Relativism was one feature of modern liberal philosophy that had subverted the Platonic\u2013Socratic teaching. Bloom's critique of contemporary social movements at play in universities or society at large is derived from his classical and philosophical orientation. For Bloom, the failure of contemporary liberal education leads to the sterile social and sexual habits of modern students, and to their inability to fashion a life for themselves beyond the mundane offerings touted as success. Bloom argues that commercial pursuits had become more highly valued than love, the philosophic quest for truth, or the civilized pursuits of honor and glory. In one chapter, in a style of analysis which resembles the work of the Frankfurt School, he examined the philosophical effects of popular music on the lives of students, placing pop music, or as it is generically branded by record companies \"rock music\", in a historical context from Plato\u2019s Republic to Nietzsche\u2019s Dionysian longings. Treating it for the first time with genuine philosophical interest, he gave fresh attention to the industry, its target-marketing to children and teenagers, its top performers, its place in our late-capitalist bourgeois economy, and its pretensions to liberation and freedom. Some critics, including the popular musician Frank Zappa, argued that Bloom's view of pop music was based on the same ideas that critics of pop \"in 1950s held, ideas about the preservation of 'traditional' white American society.\" Bloom, informed by Socrates, Aristotle, Rousseau and Nietzsche, explores music\u2019s power over the human soul. He cites the soldier who throws himself into battle at the urging of the drum corps, the pious believer who prays under the spell of a religious hymn, the lover seduced by the romantic guitar, and points towards the tradition of philosophy that treated musical education as paramount. He names the pop-star Mick Jagger as a cardinal representative of the hypocrisy and erotic-sterility of pop-music. Pop music employs sexual images and language to enthrall the young and to persuade them that their petty rebelliousness is authentic politics, when, in fact, they are being controlled by the money-managers whom successful performers like Jagger quietly serve. Bloom claims that Jagger is a hero to many university students who envy his fame and wealth but are really just bored by the lack of options before them. Along with the absence of literature in the lives of the young and their sexual but often unerotic relationships, the first part of Closing tries to explain the current state of education in a fashion beyond the purview of an economist or psychiatrist\u2014contemporary culture's leading umpires.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " {|class=\"toccolours\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#white; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;\" cellspacing=\"5\" |style=\"text-align: left;\"| \"Education in our times must try to find whatever there is in students that might yearn for completion, and to reconstruct the learning that would enable them autonomously to seek that completion.\" - Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind |} The Closing of the American Mind is a critique of the contemporary university and how Bloom sees it as failing its students. In it, Bloom criticizes the modern movements in philosophy and the humanities. Philosophy professors involved in ordinary language analysis or logical positivism disregard important \"humanizing\" ethical and political issues and fail to pique the interest of students. Literature professors involved in deconstructionism promote irrationalism and skepticism of standards of truth and thereby dissolve the moral imperatives which are communicated through genuine philosophy and which elevate and broaden the intellects of those who engage with these imperatives. To a great extent, Bloom's criticism revolves around his belief that the \"great books\" of Western thought have been devalued as a source of wisdom. Bloom's critique extends beyond the university to speak to the general crisis in American society. Closing of the American Mind draws analogies between the United States and the Weimar Republic. The modern liberal philosophy, he says, enshrined in the Enlightenment thought of John Locke\u2014that a just society could be based upon self-interest alone, coupled by the emergence of relativism in American thought\u2014had led to this crisis. For Bloom, this created a void in the souls of Americans, into which demagogic radicals as exemplified by '60s student leaders could leap. (In the same fashion, Bloom suggests, that the Nazi brownshirts once filled the gap created in German"
      },
      {
        "text": " The modern liberal philosophy, he says, enshrined in the Enlightenment thought of John Locke\u2014that a just society could be based upon self-interest alone, coupled by the emergence of relativism in American thought\u2014had led to this crisis. For Bloom, this created a void in the souls of Americans, into which demagogic radicals as exemplified by '60s student leaders could leap. (In the same fashion, Bloom suggests, that the Nazi brownshirts once filled the gap created in German society by the Weimar Republic.) In the second instance, he argued, the higher calling of philosophy and reason understood as freedom of thought, had been eclipsed by a pseudo-philosophy, or an ideology of thought. Relativism was one feature of modern liberal philosophy that had subverted the Platonic\u2013Socratic teaching. Bloom's critique of contemporary social movements at play in universities or society at large is derived from his classical and philosophical orientation. For Bloom, the failure of contemporary liberal education leads to the sterile social and sexual habits of modern students, and to their inability to fashion a life for themselves beyond the mundane offerings touted as success. Bloom argues that commercial pursuits had become more highly valued than love, the philosophic quest for truth, or the civilized pursuits of honor and glory. In one chapter, in a style of analysis which resembles the work of the Frankfurt School, he examined the philosophical effects of popular music on the lives of students, placing pop music, or as it is generically branded by record companies \"rock music\", in a historical context from Plato\u2019s Republic to Nietzsche\u2019s Dionysian longings. Treating it for the first time with genuine philosophical interest, he gave fresh attention to the industry, its target-marketing to children and teenagers, its top performers, its place in our late-capitalist bourgeois economy, and its pretensions to liberation and freedom. Some critics, including the popular musician Frank Zappa, argued that Bloom's view"
      },
      {
        "text": " generically branded by record companies \"rock music\", in a historical context from Plato\u2019s Republic to Nietzsche\u2019s Dionysian longings. Treating it for the first time with genuine philosophical interest, he gave fresh attention to the industry, its target-marketing to children and teenagers, its top performers, its place in our late-capitalist bourgeois economy, and its pretensions to liberation and freedom. Some critics, including the popular musician Frank Zappa, argued that Bloom's view of pop music was based on the same ideas that critics of pop \"in 1950s held, ideas about the preservation of 'traditional' white American society.\" Bloom, informed by Socrates, Aristotle, Rousseau and Nietzsche, explores music\u2019s power over the human soul. He cites the soldier who throws himself into battle at the urging of the drum corps, the pious believer who prays under the spell of a religious hymn, the lover seduced by the romantic guitar, and points towards the tradition of philosophy that treated musical education as paramount. He names the pop-star Mick Jagger as a cardinal representative of the hypocrisy and erotic-sterility of pop-music. Pop music employs sexual images and language to enthrall the young and to persuade them that their petty rebelliousness is authentic politics, when, in fact, they are being controlled by the money-managers whom successful performers like Jagger quietly serve. Bloom claims that Jagger is a hero to many university students who envy his fame and wealth but are really just bored by the lack of options before them. Along with the absence of literature in the lives of the young and their sexual but often unerotic relationships, the first part of Closing tries to explain the current state of education in a fashion beyond the purview of an economist or psychiatrist\u2014contemporary culture's leading umpires.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " his fame and wealth but are really just bored by the lack of options before them. Along with the absence of literature in the lives of the young and their sexual but often unerotic relationships, the first part of Closing tries to explain the current state of education in a fashion beyond the purview of an economist or psychiatrist\u2014contemporary culture's leading umpires.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Murder in the Cathedral",
    "author": "T. S. Eliot",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The action occurs between December 2 and December 29, 1170, chronicling the days leading up to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket following his absence of seven years in France. Becket's internal struggle is the main focus of the play. The book is divided into two parts. Part one takes place in the Archbishop Thomas Becket's hall on December 2, 1170. The play begins with a Chorus singing, foreshadowing the coming violence. The Chorus is a key part of the drama, with its voice changing and developing during the play, offering comments about the action and providing a link between the audience and the characters and action, as in Greek drama. Three priests are present, and they reflect on the absence of Becket and the rise of temporal power. A herald announces Becket\u2019s arrival. Becket is immediately reflective about his coming martyrdom, which he embraces, and which is understood to be a sign of his own selfishness\u2014his fatal weakness. The tempters arrive, three of whom parallel the Temptations of Christ. The first tempter offers the prospect of physical safety. :Take a friend's advice. Leave well alone, :Or your goose may be cooked and eaten to the bone. The second offers power, riches and fame in serving the King. :To set down the great, protect the poor, :Beneath the throne of God can man do more? The third tempter suggests a coalition with the barons and a chance to resist the King. :For us, Church favour would be an advantage, :Blessing of Pope powerful protection :In the fight for liberty. You, my Lord, :In being with us, would fight a good stroke Finally, a fourth tempter urges him to seek the glory of martyrdom. :You hold the keys of heaven and hell. :Power to bind and loose : bind, Thomas, bind, :King and bishop under your heel. :King, emperor, bishop, baron, king: Becket responds to all of the tempters and specifically addresses the immoral suggestions of the fourth tempter at the end of the first act: :Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain: :Temptation shall not come in this kind again. :The last temptation is the greatest treason: :To do the right deed for the wrong reason. The Interlude of the play is a sermon given by Becket on Christmas morning 1170. It is about the strange contradiction that Christmas is a day both of mourning and rejoicing, which Christians also do for martyrs. He announces at the end of his sermon, \"it is possible that in a short time you may have yet another martyr\". We see in the sermon something of Becket's ultimate peace of mind, as he elects not to seek sainthood, but to accept his death as inevitable and part of a better whole. Part II of the play takes place in the Archbishop's Hall and in the Cathedral, December 29, 1170. Four knights arrive with \"Urgent business\" from the king. These knights had heard the king speak of his frustration with Becket, and had interpreted this as an order to kill Becket. They accuse him of betrayal, and he claims to be loyal. He tells them to accuse him in public, and they make to attack him, but priests intervene. The priests insist that he leave and protect himself, but he refuses. The knights leave and Becket again says he is ready to die. The chorus sings that they knew this conflict was coming, that it had long been in the fabric of their lives, both temporal and spiritual. The chorus again reflects on the coming devastation. Thomas is taken to the Cathedral, where the knights break in and kill him. The chorus laments: \u201cClean the air! Clean the sky!\", and \"The land is foul, the water is foul, our beasts and ourselves defiled with blood.\" At the close of the play, the knights step up, address the audience, and defend their actions. The murder was all right and for the best: it was in the right spirit, sober, and justified so that the church's power would not undermine stability and state power.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The action occurs between December 2 and December 29, 1170, chronicling the days leading up to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket following his absence of seven years in France. Becket's internal struggle is the main focus of the play. The book is divided into two parts. Part one takes place in the Archbishop Thomas Becket's hall on December 2, 1170. The play begins with a Chorus singing, foreshadowing the coming violence. The Chorus is a key part of the drama, with its voice changing and developing during the play, offering comments about the action and providing a link between the audience and the characters and action, as in Greek drama. Three priests are present, and they reflect on the absence of Becket and the rise of temporal power. A herald announces Becket\u2019s arrival. Becket is immediately reflective about his coming martyrdom, which he embraces, and which is understood to be a sign of his own selfishness\u2014his fatal weakness. The tempters arrive, three of whom parallel the Temptations of Christ. The first tempter offers the prospect of physical safety. :Take a friend's advice. Leave well alone, :Or your goose may be cooked and eaten to the bone. The second offers power, riches and fame in serving the King. :To set down the great, protect the poor, :Beneath the throne of God can man do more? The third tempter suggests a coalition with the barons and a chance to resist the King. :For us, Church favour would be an advantage, :Blessing of Pope powerful protection :In the fight for liberty. You, my Lord, :In being with us, would fight a good stroke Finally, a fourth tempter urges him to seek the glory of martyrdom. :You hold the keys of heaven and hell. :Power to bind and loose : bind, Thomas, bind, :King and bishop under your heel. :King, emperor"
      },
      {
        "text": " a chance to resist the King. :For us, Church favour would be an advantage, :Blessing of Pope powerful protection :In the fight for liberty. You, my Lord, :In being with us, would fight a good stroke Finally, a fourth tempter urges him to seek the glory of martyrdom. :You hold the keys of heaven and hell. :Power to bind and loose : bind, Thomas, bind, :King and bishop under your heel. :King, emperor, bishop, baron, king: Becket responds to all of the tempters and specifically addresses the immoral suggestions of the fourth tempter at the end of the first act: :Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain: :Temptation shall not come in this kind again. :The last temptation is the greatest treason: :To do the right deed for the wrong reason. The Interlude of the play is a sermon given by Becket on Christmas morning 1170. It is about the strange contradiction that Christmas is a day both of mourning and rejoicing, which Christians also do for martyrs. He announces at the end of his sermon, \"it is possible that in a short time you may have yet another martyr\". We see in the sermon something of Becket's ultimate peace of mind, as he elects not to seek sainthood, but to accept his death as inevitable and part of a better whole. Part II of the play takes place in the Archbishop's Hall and in the Cathedral, December 29, 1170. Four knights arrive with \"Urgent business\" from the king. These knights had heard the king speak of his frustration with Becket, and had interpreted this as an order to kill Becket. They accuse him of betrayal, and he claims to be loyal. He tells them to accuse him in public, and they make to attack him, but priests intervene. The priests insist that he leave and protect himself, but he refuses."
      },
      {
        "text": " Archbishop's Hall and in the Cathedral, December 29, 1170. Four knights arrive with \"Urgent business\" from the king. These knights had heard the king speak of his frustration with Becket, and had interpreted this as an order to kill Becket. They accuse him of betrayal, and he claims to be loyal. He tells them to accuse him in public, and they make to attack him, but priests intervene. The priests insist that he leave and protect himself, but he refuses. The knights leave and Becket again says he is ready to die. The chorus sings that they knew this conflict was coming, that it had long been in the fabric of their lives, both temporal and spiritual. The chorus again reflects on the coming devastation. Thomas is taken to the Cathedral, where the knights break in and kill him. The chorus laments: \u201cClean the air! Clean the sky!\", and \"The land is foul, the water is foul, our beasts and ourselves defiled with blood.\" At the close of the play, the knights step up, address the audience, and defend their actions. The murder was all right and for the best: it was in the right spirit, sober, and justified so that the church's power would not undermine stability and state power.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow",
    "author": "Washington Irving",
    "published_date": "1820",
    "synopsis": " \"From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow... A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere...\" The story is set in 1790 in the countryside around the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town (historical Tarrytown, New York), in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow is renowned for its ghosts and the haunting atmosphere that pervades the imaginations of its inhabitants and visitors. The most infamous spectre in the Hollow is the Headless Horseman, said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper who had his head shot away by a stray cannonball during \"some nameless battle\" of the American Revolutionary War, and who \"rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head\". The \"Legend\" relates the tale of Ichabod Crane, a lean, lanky and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham \"Brom Bones\" Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and sole child of a wealthy farmer, Baltus Van Tassel. Crane, a Yankee and an outsider, sees marriage to Katrina as a means of procuring Van Tassel's extravagant wealth. Bones, the local hero, vies with Ichabod for Katrina's hand, exacting a series of pranks on the jittery schoolmaster, and the fate of Sleepy Hollow's fortune weighs in the balance for some time. The tension between the three is soon brought to a head. On a placid autumn night, the ambitious Crane attends a harvest party at the Van Tassels' homestead. He dances, partakes in the feast, and listens to ghostly legends told by Brom and the locals, but his true aim is to propose to Katrina after the guests leave. His intentions, however, are ill-fated. After having failed to secure Katrina's hand, Ichabod rides home \"heavy-hearted and crestfallen\" through the spook-infested woods between Van Tassel's farmstead and the Sleepy Hollow settlement. Passing several purportedly haunted spots, his active imagination is engorged by the ghost stories told at Baltus' harvest party. After nervously passing under a lightning-striken tulip tree purportedly haunted by the ghost of the British spy, Major Andr\u00e9, Ichabod encounters a cloaked rider at an intersection in a menacing swamp. Unsettled by his fellow traveler's eerie size and silence, the teacher is horrified to discover that his companion's head not on his shoulders, but on his saddle. In a frenzied race to the bridge adjacent to the Old Dutch Burying Ground, where the Hessian is said to \"vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone\" upon crossing it, Ichabod rides for his life, desperately goading his temperamental plow horse down the Hollow. However, to the pedagogue's horror, the ghoul clambers over the bridge, rears his horse, and hurls his decapitated head into Ichabod's terrified face. The next morning, Ichabod has mysteriously disappeared from town, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones, who was said \"to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related\". Indeed, the only relics of the schoolmaster's flight are his wandering horse, trampled saddle, discarded hat, and a mysterious shattered pumpkin. Although the nature of the Headless Horseman is left open to interpretation, the story implies that the ghost was really Brom (an agile stunt rider) in disguise. Irving's narrator concludes, however, by stating that the old Dutch wives continue to promote the belief that Ichabod was \"spirited away by supernatural means,\" and a legend develops around his disappearance and sightings of his melancholy spirit\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " \"From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow... A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere...\" The story is set in 1790 in the countryside around the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town (historical Tarrytown, New York), in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow is renowned for its ghosts and the haunting atmosphere that pervades the imaginations of its inhabitants and visitors. The most infamous spectre in the Hollow is the Headless Horseman, said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper who had his head shot away by a stray cannonball during \"some nameless battle\" of the American Revolutionary War, and who \"rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head\". The \"Legend\" relates the tale of Ichabod Crane, a lean, lanky and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham \"Brom Bones\" Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and sole child of a wealthy farmer, Baltus Van Tassel. Crane, a Yankee and an outsider, sees marriage to Katrina as a means of procuring Van Tassel's extravagant wealth. Bones, the local hero, vies with Ichabod for Katrina's hand, exacting a series of pranks on the jittery schoolmaster, and the fate of Sleepy Hollow's fortune weighs in the balance for some time. The tension between the three is soon brought to a head. On a placid autumn night, the ambitious Crane attends a harvest party at the Van Tassels' homestead. He dances, partakes in the feast, and listens to ghostly legends told by"
      },
      {
        "text": ", the local hero, vies with Ichabod for Katrina's hand, exacting a series of pranks on the jittery schoolmaster, and the fate of Sleepy Hollow's fortune weighs in the balance for some time. The tension between the three is soon brought to a head. On a placid autumn night, the ambitious Crane attends a harvest party at the Van Tassels' homestead. He dances, partakes in the feast, and listens to ghostly legends told by Brom and the locals, but his true aim is to propose to Katrina after the guests leave. His intentions, however, are ill-fated. After having failed to secure Katrina's hand, Ichabod rides home \"heavy-hearted and crestfallen\" through the spook-infested woods between Van Tassel's farmstead and the Sleepy Hollow settlement. Passing several purportedly haunted spots, his active imagination is engorged by the ghost stories told at Baltus' harvest party. After nervously passing under a lightning-striken tulip tree purportedly haunted by the ghost of the British spy, Major Andr\u00e9, Ichabod encounters a cloaked rider at an intersection in a menacing swamp. Unsettled by his fellow traveler's eerie size and silence, the teacher is horrified to discover that his companion's head not on his shoulders, but on his saddle. In a frenzied race to the bridge adjacent to the Old Dutch Burying Ground, where the Hessian is said to \"vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone\" upon crossing it, Ichabod rides for his life, desperately goading his temperamental plow horse down the Hollow. However, to the pedagogue's horror, the ghoul clambers over the bridge, rears his horse, and hurls his decapitated head into Ichabod's terrified face. The next morning, Ichabod has mysteriously disappeared from town, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones"
      },
      {
        "text": " \"vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone\" upon crossing it, Ichabod rides for his life, desperately goading his temperamental plow horse down the Hollow. However, to the pedagogue's horror, the ghoul clambers over the bridge, rears his horse, and hurls his decapitated head into Ichabod's terrified face. The next morning, Ichabod has mysteriously disappeared from town, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones, who was said \"to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related\". Indeed, the only relics of the schoolmaster's flight are his wandering horse, trampled saddle, discarded hat, and a mysterious shattered pumpkin. Although the nature of the Headless Horseman is left open to interpretation, the story implies that the ghost was really Brom (an agile stunt rider) in disguise. Irving's narrator concludes, however, by stating that the old Dutch wives continue to promote the belief that Ichabod was \"spirited away by supernatural means,\" and a legend develops around his disappearance and sightings of his melancholy spirit\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Thirty-nine Steps",
    "author": "John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir",
    "published_date": "1915",
    "synopsis": " Richard Hannay, the protagonist and narrator, an expatriate Scot, returns from a long stay in southern Africa to his new home, a flat in London. One night he is buttonholed by a stranger, a well-travelled American, who claims to be in fear for his life. The man appears to know of an anarchist plot to destabilise Europe, beginning with a plan to assassinate the Greek Premier, Karolides, during his forthcoming visit to London. He reveals his name to be Franklin P. Scudder and remarks that he is dead, which holds Hannay's attention. Scudder explains that he has faked his own death in order to avert suspicion. Hannay lets Scudder hide in his flat, and sure enough the next day another man is discovered having apparently committed suicide in the same building. Four days later Hannay returns home to find Scudder dead with a knife through his heart. Hannay fears that the murderers will come for him next, but cannot ask the police for help because he is the most likely suspect for the murders. Not only does he want to avoid imprisonment, but he also feels a duty to take up Scudder's cause and save Karolides from the assassination, planned in three weeks' time. He decides to go into hiding in Scotland and then to contact the authorities at the last minute. In order to escape from his flat unseen, he bribes the milkman to lend him his uniform and exits wearing it. Carrying Scudder's pocket-book, he catches an Anglo-Scottish express train leaving from London St. Pancras station. Hannay fixes upon Galloway, in south-west Scotland, as a suitably remote place in which to make his escape and remembers somehow the town of Newton-Stewart, which he names as his destination when he buys his ticket from the guard. Arriving at a remote station somewhere in Galloway (apparently not Newton Stewart itself), Hannay lodges in a shepherd's cottage. The next morning he reads in a newspaper that the police are looking for him in Scotland. Reasoning that the police would expect him to head for a port on the West Coast, he doubles back and boards a local train heading east, but jumps off between stations. He is seen but escapes, finding an inn where he stays the night. He tells the innkeeper a modified version of his story, and the man is persuaded to shelter him. While staying at the inn, Hannay cracks the substitution cipher used in Scudder's pocket-book. The next day two men arrive at the inn looking for Hannay, but the innkeeper sends them away. When they return later, Hannay steals their car and escapes. On his way, Hannay reflects on what he has learnt from Scudder's notes. They contradict the story that Scudder first told to him, and mention an enemy group called the Black Stone and the mysterious Thirty-nine Steps. The United Kingdom appears to be in danger of an invasion by Germany and its allies. By this time, Hannay is being pursued by an aeroplane, and a policeman in a remote village has tried to stop him. Trying to avoid an oncoming car, Hannay crashes his own, but the other driver offers to take him home. The man is Sir Harry, a local landowner and prospective politician, although politically very naive. When he learns of Hannay's experience of South Africa, he invites him to address an election meeting that afternoon. Hannay's speech impresses Sir Harry, and Hannay feels able to trust him with his story. Sir Harry writes an introductory letter about Hannay to a relation in the Foreign Office. Hannay leaves Sir Harry and tries to hide in the countryside, but is spotted by the aeroplane. Soon he spots a group of men on the ground searching for him. Miraculously, he meets a road mender out on the moor, and swaps places with him, sending the workman home. His disguise fools his pursuers, who pass him by. On the same road he meets a rich motorist, whom he recognises from London, and whom he forces to exchange clothes with him and drive him off the moor. The next day, Hannay manages to stay ahead of the pursuers, and hides in a cottage occupied by an elderly man. Unfortunately, the man turns out to be one of the enemy, and with his accomplices he imprisons Hannay. Fortunately, the room in which Hannay is locked is full of bomb-making materials, which he uses to break out of the cottage, injuring himself in the process. A day later, Hannay retrieves his possessions from the helpful roadmender and stays for a few days to recover from the explosion. He dines at a Public House in Moffat before walking to the junction at Beattock to catch a southbound train to England, changing at Crewe, Birmingham New Street and Reading, to meet Sir Harry's relative at the Foreign Office, Sir Walter Bullivant, at his country home in Berkshire. As they discuss Scudder's notes, Sir Walter receives a phone call to tell him that Karolides has been assassinated. Sir Walter, now at his house in London, lets Hannay in on some military secrets before releasing him to go home. Hannay is unable to shake off his sense of involvement in important events, and returns to Sir Walter's house where a high-level meeting is in progress. He is just in time to see a man, whom he recognises as one of his former pursuers in Scotland, leaving the house. Hannay warns Sir Walter that the man, ostensibly the First Sea Lord, is about to return to Europe with the information he has obtained from their meeting. At that point, Hannay realises that the phrase \"the thirty-nine steps\" could refer to the landing-point in England from which the spy is about to set sail. Throughout the night Hannay and the United Kingdom's military leaders try to work out the meaning of the mysterious phrase. After some reasoning worthy of Sherlock Holmes, and with the help of a knowledgeable coastguard, the group decide on a coastal town in Kent. They find a path down from the cliff that has thirty-nine steps. Just offshore they see a yacht. Posing as fishermen, some of the party visit the yacht, the Ariadne, and find that at least one of the crew appears to be German. The only people onshore are playing tennis by a villa and appear to be English, but they match Scudder's description of the conspirators, The Black Stone. Hannay, alone, confronts the men at the villa. After a struggle, two of the men are captured while the third flees to the yacht, which meanwhile has been seized by the British authorities. The plot is thwarted, and the United Kingdom enters the First World War having kept its military secrets from the enemy. On the outbreak of war, Hannay joins the army with a captain's rank.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Richard Hannay, the protagonist and narrator, an expatriate Scot, returns from a long stay in southern Africa to his new home, a flat in London. One night he is buttonholed by a stranger, a well-travelled American, who claims to be in fear for his life. The man appears to know of an anarchist plot to destabilise Europe, beginning with a plan to assassinate the Greek Premier, Karolides, during his forthcoming visit to London. He reveals his name to be Franklin P. Scudder and remarks that he is dead, which holds Hannay's attention. Scudder explains that he has faked his own death in order to avert suspicion. Hannay lets Scudder hide in his flat, and sure enough the next day another man is discovered having apparently committed suicide in the same building. Four days later Hannay returns home to find Scudder dead with a knife through his heart. Hannay fears that the murderers will come for him next, but cannot ask the police for help because he is the most likely suspect for the murders. Not only does he want to avoid imprisonment, but he also feels a duty to take up Scudder's cause and save Karolides from the assassination, planned in three weeks' time. He decides to go into hiding in Scotland and then to contact the authorities at the last minute. In order to escape from his flat unseen, he bribes the milkman to lend him his uniform and exits wearing it. Carrying Scudder's pocket-book, he catches an Anglo-Scottish express train leaving from London St. Pancras station. Hannay fixes upon Galloway, in south-west Scotland, as a suitably remote place in which to make his escape and remembers somehow the town of Newton-Stewart, which he names as his destination when he buys his ticket from the guard. Arriving at a remote station somewhere in Galloway (apparently not Newton Stewart itself), Hannay lodges in a shepherd"
      },
      {
        "text": "udder's pocket-book, he catches an Anglo-Scottish express train leaving from London St. Pancras station. Hannay fixes upon Galloway, in south-west Scotland, as a suitably remote place in which to make his escape and remembers somehow the town of Newton-Stewart, which he names as his destination when he buys his ticket from the guard. Arriving at a remote station somewhere in Galloway (apparently not Newton Stewart itself), Hannay lodges in a shepherd's cottage. The next morning he reads in a newspaper that the police are looking for him in Scotland. Reasoning that the police would expect him to head for a port on the West Coast, he doubles back and boards a local train heading east, but jumps off between stations. He is seen but escapes, finding an inn where he stays the night. He tells the innkeeper a modified version of his story, and the man is persuaded to shelter him. While staying at the inn, Hannay cracks the substitution cipher used in Scudder's pocket-book. The next day two men arrive at the inn looking for Hannay, but the innkeeper sends them away. When they return later, Hannay steals their car and escapes. On his way, Hannay reflects on what he has learnt from Scudder's notes. They contradict the story that Scudder first told to him, and mention an enemy group called the Black Stone and the mysterious Thirty-nine Steps. The United Kingdom appears to be in danger of an invasion by Germany and its allies. By this time, Hannay is being pursued by an aeroplane, and a policeman in a remote village has tried to stop him. Trying to avoid an oncoming car, Hannay crashes his own, but the other driver offers to take him home. The man is Sir Harry, a local landowner and prospective politician, although politically very naive. When he learns of Hannay's experience of South Africa, he invites him to address"
      },
      {
        "text": " be in danger of an invasion by Germany and its allies. By this time, Hannay is being pursued by an aeroplane, and a policeman in a remote village has tried to stop him. Trying to avoid an oncoming car, Hannay crashes his own, but the other driver offers to take him home. The man is Sir Harry, a local landowner and prospective politician, although politically very naive. When he learns of Hannay's experience of South Africa, he invites him to address an election meeting that afternoon. Hannay's speech impresses Sir Harry, and Hannay feels able to trust him with his story. Sir Harry writes an introductory letter about Hannay to a relation in the Foreign Office. Hannay leaves Sir Harry and tries to hide in the countryside, but is spotted by the aeroplane. Soon he spots a group of men on the ground searching for him. Miraculously, he meets a road mender out on the moor, and swaps places with him, sending the workman home. His disguise fools his pursuers, who pass him by. On the same road he meets a rich motorist, whom he recognises from London, and whom he forces to exchange clothes with him and drive him off the moor. The next day, Hannay manages to stay ahead of the pursuers, and hides in a cottage occupied by an elderly man. Unfortunately, the man turns out to be one of the enemy, and with his accomplices he imprisons Hannay. Fortunately, the room in which Hannay is locked is full of bomb-making materials, which he uses to break out of the cottage, injuring himself in the process. A day later, Hannay retrieves his possessions from the helpful roadmender and stays for a few days to recover from the explosion. He dines at a Public House in Moffat before walking to the junction at Beattock to catch a southbound train to England, changing at Crewe"
      },
      {
        "text": " imprisons Hannay. Fortunately, the room in which Hannay is locked is full of bomb-making materials, which he uses to break out of the cottage, injuring himself in the process. A day later, Hannay retrieves his possessions from the helpful roadmender and stays for a few days to recover from the explosion. He dines at a Public House in Moffat before walking to the junction at Beattock to catch a southbound train to England, changing at Crewe, Birmingham New Street and Reading, to meet Sir Harry's relative at the Foreign Office, Sir Walter Bullivant, at his country home in Berkshire. As they discuss Scudder's notes, Sir Walter receives a phone call to tell him that Karolides has been assassinated. Sir Walter, now at his house in London, lets Hannay in on some military secrets before releasing him to go home. Hannay is unable to shake off his sense of involvement in important events, and returns to Sir Walter's house where a high-level meeting is in progress. He is just in time to see a man, whom he recognises as one of his former pursuers in Scotland, leaving the house. Hannay warns Sir Walter that the man, ostensibly the First Sea Lord, is about to return to Europe with the information he has obtained from their meeting. At that point, Hannay realises that the phrase \"the thirty-nine steps\" could refer to the landing-point in England from which the spy is about to set sail. Throughout the night Hannay and the United Kingdom's military leaders try to work out the meaning of the mysterious phrase. After some reasoning worthy of Sherlock Holmes, and with the help of a knowledgeable coastguard, the group decide on a coastal town in Kent. They find a path down from the cliff that has thirty-nine steps. Just offshore they see a yacht. Posing as fishermen, some of the party visit the yacht, the Ariadne,"
      },
      {
        "text": " which the spy is about to set sail. Throughout the night Hannay and the United Kingdom's military leaders try to work out the meaning of the mysterious phrase. After some reasoning worthy of Sherlock Holmes, and with the help of a knowledgeable coastguard, the group decide on a coastal town in Kent. They find a path down from the cliff that has thirty-nine steps. Just offshore they see a yacht. Posing as fishermen, some of the party visit the yacht, the Ariadne, and find that at least one of the crew appears to be German. The only people onshore are playing tennis by a villa and appear to be English, but they match Scudder's description of the conspirators, The Black Stone. Hannay, alone, confronts the men at the villa. After a struggle, two of the men are captured while the third flees to the yacht, which meanwhile has been seized by the British authorities. The plot is thwarted, and the United Kingdom enters the First World War having kept its military secrets from the enemy. On the outbreak of war, Hannay joins the army with a captain's rank.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Winter's Tale",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "1623",
    "synopsis": " King Leontes of Sicilia begs his childhood friend, King Polixenes of Bohemia, to extend his visit to Sicilia. Polixenes protests that he has been away from his kingdom for nine months, but after Leontes' pregnant wife, Hermione, pleads with him he relents and agrees to stay a little longer. Leontes, meanwhile, has become possessed with jealousy--convinced that Polixenes and Hermione are lovers, he orders his loyal retainer, Camillo, to poison the Bohemian king. Instead, Camillo warns Polixenes of what is afoot, and the two men flee Sicilia immediately. Furious at their escape, Leontes now publicly accuses his wife of infidelity, and declares that the child she is bearing must be illegitimate. He throws her in prison, over the protests of his nobles, and sends to the Oracle of Delphi for what he is sure will be confirmation of his suspicions. Meanwhile, the queen gives birth to a girl, and her loyal friend Paulina brings the baby to the king, in the hopes that the sight of the child will soften his heart. He only grows angrier, however, and orders Paulina's husband, Lord Antigonus, to take the child and abandon it in some desolate place. While Antigonus is gone, the answer comes from Delphi--Hermione and Polixenes are innocent, and Leontes will have no heir until his lost daughter is found. As this news is revealed, word comes that Leontes' son, Mamillius, has died of a wasting sickness brought on by the accusations against his mother. Hermione, meanwhile, falls in a swoon, and is carried away by Paulina, who subsequently reports the queen's death to her heartbroken and repentant husband. Antigonus meanwhile abandons the baby on the Bohemian coast, reporting that Hermione appeared to him in a dream and bade him name the girl Perdita and leave gold and other tokens on her person. Shortly thereafter, Antigonus is killed by a bear, and Perdita is raised by a kindly Shepherd. Sixteen years pass, and the son of Polixenes, Prince Florizel, falls in love with Perdita. His father and Camillo attend a sheep-shearing in disguise and watch as Florizel and Perdita are betrothed--then, tearing off the disguise, Polixenes intervenes and orders his son never to see the Shepherd's daughter again. With the aid of Camillo, however, who longs to see his native land again, Florizel and Perdita take ship for Sicilia, after using the clothes of a local rogue, Autolycus, as a disguise. They are joined in their voyage by the Shepherd and his son, a Clown, who are directed there by Autolycus. In Sicilia, Leontes--still in mourning after all this time--greets the son of his old friend effusively. Florizel pretends to be on a diplomatic mission from his father, but his cover is blown when Polixenes and Camillo, too, arrive in Sicilia. What happens next is told to us by gentlemen of the Sicilian court: the Shepherd tells everyone his story of how Perdita was found, and Leontes realizes that she is his daughter, leading to general rejoicing. The entire company then goes to Paulina's house in the country, where a statue of Hermione has been recently finished. The sight of his wife's form makes Leontes distraught, but then, to everyone's amazement, the statue comes to life--it is Hermione, restored to life. As the play ends, Paulina and Camillo are engaged, and the whole company celebrates the miracle.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " King Leontes of Sicilia begs his childhood friend, King Polixenes of Bohemia, to extend his visit to Sicilia. Polixenes protests that he has been away from his kingdom for nine months, but after Leontes' pregnant wife, Hermione, pleads with him he relents and agrees to stay a little longer. Leontes, meanwhile, has become possessed with jealousy--convinced that Polixenes and Hermione are lovers, he orders his loyal retainer, Camillo, to poison the Bohemian king. Instead, Camillo warns Polixenes of what is afoot, and the two men flee Sicilia immediately. Furious at their escape, Leontes now publicly accuses his wife of infidelity, and declares that the child she is bearing must be illegitimate. He throws her in prison, over the protests of his nobles, and sends to the Oracle of Delphi for what he is sure will be confirmation of his suspicions. Meanwhile, the queen gives birth to a girl, and her loyal friend Paulina brings the baby to the king, in the hopes that the sight of the child will soften his heart. He only grows angrier, however, and orders Paulina's husband, Lord Antigonus, to take the child and abandon it in some desolate place. While Antigonus is gone, the answer comes from Delphi--Hermione and Polixenes are innocent, and Leontes will have no heir until his lost daughter is found. As this news is revealed, word comes that Leontes' son, Mamillius, has died of a wasting sickness brought on by the accusations against his mother. Hermione, meanwhile, falls in a swoon, and is carried away by Paulina, who subsequently reports the queen's death to her heartbroken and repentant husband. Antigonus meanwhile abandons the baby on the Bohemian coast, reporting that Hermione appeared to him in a dream and bade him name"
      },
      {
        "text": " is found. As this news is revealed, word comes that Leontes' son, Mamillius, has died of a wasting sickness brought on by the accusations against his mother. Hermione, meanwhile, falls in a swoon, and is carried away by Paulina, who subsequently reports the queen's death to her heartbroken and repentant husband. Antigonus meanwhile abandons the baby on the Bohemian coast, reporting that Hermione appeared to him in a dream and bade him name the girl Perdita and leave gold and other tokens on her person. Shortly thereafter, Antigonus is killed by a bear, and Perdita is raised by a kindly Shepherd. Sixteen years pass, and the son of Polixenes, Prince Florizel, falls in love with Perdita. His father and Camillo attend a sheep-shearing in disguise and watch as Florizel and Perdita are betrothed--then, tearing off the disguise, Polixenes intervenes and orders his son never to see the Shepherd's daughter again. With the aid of Camillo, however, who longs to see his native land again, Florizel and Perdita take ship for Sicilia, after using the clothes of a local rogue, Autolycus, as a disguise. They are joined in their voyage by the Shepherd and his son, a Clown, who are directed there by Autolycus. In Sicilia, Leontes--still in mourning after all this time--greets the son of his old friend effusively. Florizel pretends to be on a diplomatic mission from his father, but his cover is blown when Polixenes and Camillo, too, arrive in Sicilia. What happens next is told to us by gentlemen of the Sicilian court: the Shepherd tells everyone his story of how Perdita was found, and Leontes realizes that she is his daughter, leading to general rejoicing."
      },
      {
        "text": " in mourning after all this time--greets the son of his old friend effusively. Florizel pretends to be on a diplomatic mission from his father, but his cover is blown when Polixenes and Camillo, too, arrive in Sicilia. What happens next is told to us by gentlemen of the Sicilian court: the Shepherd tells everyone his story of how Perdita was found, and Leontes realizes that she is his daughter, leading to general rejoicing. The entire company then goes to Paulina's house in the country, where a statue of Hermione has been recently finished. The sight of his wife's form makes Leontes distraught, but then, to everyone's amazement, the statue comes to life--it is Hermione, restored to life. As the play ends, Paulina and Camillo are engaged, and the whole company celebrates the miracle.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dead Air",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "2002",
    "synopsis": " The first person narrative begins on 11 September 2001, and Banks uses the protagonist's conversations - both on the radio and off - to discuss the consequences of the terrorist attacks in the United States on that day. Ken Nott is at a loft party in London at the crucial moment. The reader hears many of Nott's shock-jock lines (\"Guns for nutters only; makes sense.\") and sees him described as a drug and booze fuelled, sexually promiscuous party animal. His politics are left-wing and libertarian, and he rants at every chance. Nott's various girlfriends (including Jo, who does public relations for an indie band called Addicta), his long-suffering radio show colleague Phil, and his black DJ friend Ed are described. Apart from the expected difficulties associated with being a politically controversial radio DJ, everything is going smoothly for Ken until he meets Celia (or \"Ceel\"), a gangster's wife, who he falls in love with. An indiscretion with a mobile phone and an answering machine leads him into some difficult and frightening situations.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first person narrative begins on 11 September 2001, and Banks uses the protagonist's conversations - both on the radio and off - to discuss the consequences of the terrorist attacks in the United States on that day. Ken Nott is at a loft party in London at the crucial moment. The reader hears many of Nott's shock-jock lines (\"Guns for nutters only; makes sense.\") and sees him described as a drug and booze fuelled, sexually promiscuous party animal. His politics are left-wing and libertarian, and he rants at every chance. Nott's various girlfriends (including Jo, who does public relations for an indie band called Addicta), his long-suffering radio show colleague Phil, and his black DJ friend Ed are described. Apart from the expected difficulties associated with being a politically controversial radio DJ, everything is going smoothly for Ken until he meets Celia (or \"Ceel\"), a gangster's wife, who he falls in love with. An indiscretion with a mobile phone and an answering machine leads him into some difficult and frightening situations.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Nibelungenlied",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Though the preface to the poem promises both joyous and dark tales ahead, the Nibelungenlied is by and large a very tragic work, and these four opening verses are believed to have been a late addition to the text, composed after the body of the poem had been completed. {|class=\"toccolours\" cellpadding=\"7\" rules=\"cols\" !Middle High German original !! Shumway translation |- | Uns ist in alten m\u00e6ren wunders vil geseit von helden lobeb\u00e6ren, von gr\u00f4zer arebeit, von freuden, h\u00f4chgez\u00eeten, von weinen und von klagen, von k\u00fcener recken str\u00eeten muget ir nu wunder h\u0153ren sagen | Full many a wonder is told us in stories old, of heroes worthy of praise, of hardships dire, of joy and feasting, of weeping and of wailing; of the fighting of bold warriors, now ye may hear wonders told. |} The original version instead began with the introduction of Kriemhild, the protagonist of the work. The epic is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the story of Siegfried and Kriemhild, the wooing of Br\u00fcnhild and the death of Siegfried at the hands of Hagen, and Hagen's hiding of the Nibelung treasure in the Rhine (Chapters 1-19). The second part deals with Kriemhild's marriage to Etzel, her plans for revenge, the journey of the Burgundians to the court of Etzel, and their last stand in Etzel's hall (Chapters 20-39). The first chapter introduces the court of Burgundy. Kriemhild (the virgin sister of King Gunther, and his brothers Gernot and Giselher) has a dream of a falcon that is killed by two eagles. Her mother interprets this to mean that Kriemhild's future husband will die a violent death, and Kriemhild consequently resolves to remain unmarried. The second chapter tells of the background of Siegfried, crown prince of Xanten. His youth is narrated with little room for the adventures later attributed to him. In the third chapter, Siegfried arrives in Worms with the hopes of wooing Kriemhild. Upon his arrival, Hagen von Tronje, one of King Gunther's vassals, tells Gunther about Siegfried's youthful exploits that involved winning a treasure and lands from a pair of brothers, Nibelung and Schilbung, whom Siegfried had killed when he was unable to divide the treasure between them and, almost incidentally, the killing of a dragon. Siegfried leaves his treasure in the charge of a dwarf named Alberich. After killing the dragon, Siegfried then bathed in its blood, which rendered him invulnerable. Unfortunately for Siegfried, a leaf fell onto his back from a linden tree, and the small patch of skin that the leaf covered did not come into contact with the dragon's blood, leaving Siegfried vulnerable in that single spot. In spite of Hagen's threatening stories about his youth, the Burgundians welcome him, but do not allow him to meet the princess. Disappointed, he nonetheless remains in Worms and helps Gunther defeat the invading Saxons. In chapter 5, Siegfried finally meets Kriemhild. Gunther requests Siegfried to sail with him to the fictional city of Isenstein in Iceland to win the hand of Iceland's Queen, Br\u00fcnhild. Siegfried agrees, though only if Gunther allows him to marry Gunther's sister, Kriemhild, whom Siegfried pines for. Gunther, Siegfried and a group of Burgundians set sail for Iceland with Siegfried pretending to be Gunther's vassal. Upon their arrival, Br\u00fcnhild challenges Gunther to a trial of strength with her hand in marriage as a reward. If they lose, however, they will be sentenced to death. She challenges Gunther to three athletic contests, throwing a javelin, tossing a boulder, and a leap. After seeing the boulder and javelin, it becomes apparent to the group that Br\u00fcnhild is immensely strong and they fear for their lives. Siegfried quietly returns to the boat his group arrived on and takes his special cloak, which renders him invisible and gives him the strength of 12 men (Chapters 6-8). Siegfried, with his immense strength, invisibly leads Gunther through the trials. Unknowingly deceived, the impressed Br\u00fcnhild thinks King Gunther, not Siegfried, defeated her and agrees to marry Gunther. Gunther becomes afraid that Br\u00fcnhild may yet be planning to kill them, so Siegfried goes to Nibelungenland and single-handedly conquers the kingdom. Siegfried makes them his vassals and returns with a thousand of them, himself going ahead as messenger. The group of Burgundians, Gunther and Gunther's new wife-to-be Br\u00fcnhild return to Worms, where a grand reception awaits them and they marry to much fanfare. Siegfried and Kriemhild are also then married with Gunther's blessings. However, on their wedding night, Br\u00fcnhild suspects something is amiss with her situation, particularly suspecting Siegfried as a potential cause. Gunther attempts to sleep with her and, with her great strength, she easily ties him up and leaves him that way all night. After he tells Siegfried of this, Siegfried again offers his help, proposing that he slip into their chamber at night with his invisibility cloak and silently beat Br\u00fcnhild into submission. Gunther agrees but says that Siegfried must not sleep with Br\u00fcnhild. Siegfried slips into the room according to plan and after a difficult and violent struggle, an invisible Siegfried defeats Br\u00fcnhild. Siegfried then takes her ring and belt, which are symbols of defloration. Here it is implied that Siegfried sleeps with Br\u00fcnhild, despite Gunther's request. Afterwards, Br\u00fcnhild no longer possesses her once-great strength and says she will no longer refuse Gunther. Siegfried gives the ring and belt to his own newly wed, Kriemhild, in chapter ten. Years later, Br\u00fcnhild, still feeling as if she had been lied to, goads Gunther into inviting Siegfried and Kriemhild to their kingdom. Br\u00fcnhild does this because she is still under the impression that Gunther married off his sister to a low-ranking vassal (while Gunther and Siegfried are in reality of equal rank) yet the normal procedures are not being followed between the two ranks combined with her lingering feelings of suspicion. Both Siegfried and Kriemhild come to Worms and all is friendly between the two until, before entering Worms Cathedral, Kriemhild and Br\u00fcnhild argue over who should have precedence according to their husbands' perceived ranks. Having been earlier deceived about the relationship between Siegfried and Gunther, Br\u00fcnhild thinks it is obvious that she should go first, through custom of her perceived social rank. Kriemhild, unaware of the deception involved in Br\u00fcnhild's wooing, insists that they are of equal rank and the dispute escalates. Severely angered, Kriemhild shows Br\u00fcnhild first the ring and then the belt that Siegfried took from Br\u00fcnhild on her wedding night, and then calls her Siegfried's kebse (mistress or concubine). Br\u00fcnhild feels greatly distressed and humiliated, and bursts into tears. The argument between the queens is both a risk for the marriage of Gunther and Br\u00fcnhild and a potential cause for a lethal rivalry between Gunther and Siegfried, which both Gunther and Siegfried attempt to avoid. Gunther acquits Siegfried of the charges. Despite this, Hagen von Tronje decides to kill Siegfried to protect the honor and reign of his king. Although it is Hagen who does the deed, Gunther - who at first objects to the plot - along with his brothers knows of the plan and quietly assents. Hagen contrives a false military threat to Gunther and Siegfried, considering Gunther a great friend, volunteers to help Gunther once again. Under the pretext of this threat of war, Hagen persuades Kriemhild, who still trusts Hagen, to mark Siegfried's single vulnerable point on his clothing with a cross under the premise of protecting him. Now knowing Siegfried's weakness, the fake campaign is called off and Hagen then uses the cross as a target on a hunting trip, killing Siegfried with a spear as he is drinking from a brook (chapter sixteen). This perfidious murder is particularly dishonorable in medieval thought, as throwing a javelin is the manner in which one might slaughter a wild beast, not a knight. We see this in other literature of the period, such as with Parsifal's unwittingly dishonorable crime of combatting and slaying knights with a javelin (transformed into a swan in Wagner's opera). Further dishonoring Siegfried, Hagen steals the hoard from Kriemhild and throws it into the Rhine (Rheingold), to prevent Kriemhild from using it to establish an army of her own. Kriemhild swears to take revenge for the murder of her husband and the theft of her treasure. Many years later, King Etzel of the Huns (Attila the Hun) proposes to Kriemhild, she journeys to the land of the Huns, and they are married. For the baptism of their son, she invites her brothers, the Burgundians, to a feast at Etzel's castle in Hungary. Hagen does not want to go, but is taunted until he does: he realizes that it is a trick of Kriemhild in order to take revenge and kill them all. As the Burgundians cross the Danube, this fate is confirmed by Nixes, who predict that all but one monk will die. Hagen tries to drown the monk in order to render the prophecy futile, but he survives. The Burgundians arrive at Etzel's castle and are welcomed by Kriemhild \"with lying smiles and graces\". But the lord Dietrich of Bern, an ally of Etzel's, advises the Burgundians to keep their weapons with them at all times, which is normally not allowed. The tragedy unfolds. Kriemhild comes before Hagen, reproaches him for her husband Siegfried's death, and demands the return of her Nibelungenschatz. Hagen answers her boldly, admitting that he killed Siegfried and sank the Nibelungen treasure into the Rhine, but blames these acts on Kriemhild's own behaviour. King Etzel then welcomes his wife's brothers warmly. But outside a tense feast in the great hall, a fight breaks out between Huns and Burgundians, and soon there is general mayhem. When word of the fight arrives at the feast, Hagen decapitates Kriemhild's and Etzel's little son before his parents' eyes. The Burgundians take control of the hall, which is besieged by Etzel's warriors. Kriemhild offers her brothers their lives if they hand over Hagen, but they refuse. The battle lasts all day, until the queen orders the hall to be burned with the Burgundians inside. All of the Burgundians are killed except for Hagen and Gunther, who are bound and held prisoner by Dietrich of Bern. Kriemhild has the men brought before her and orders her brother Gunther to be killed. Even after seeing Gunther's head, Hagen refuses to tell the queen what he has done with the Nibelungen treasure. Furious, Kriemhild herself cuts off Hagen's head. Old Hildebrand, the mentor of Dietrich of Bern, is infuriated by the shameful deaths of the Burgundian guests. He hews Kriemhild to pieces with his sword. In a fifteenth century manuscript, he is said to strike Kriemhild a single clean blow to the waist; she feels no pain, however, and declares that his sword is useless. Hildebrand then drops a ring and commands Kriemhild to pick it up. As she bends down, her body falls into pieces. Dietrich and Etzel and all the people of the court lament the deaths of so many heroes.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Though the preface to the poem promises both joyous and dark tales ahead, the Nibelungenlied is by and large a very tragic work, and these four opening verses are believed to have been a late addition to the text, composed after the body of the poem had been completed. {|class=\"toccolours\" cellpadding=\"7\" rules=\"cols\" !Middle High German original !! Shumway translation |- | Uns ist in alten m\u00e6ren wunders vil geseit von helden lobeb\u00e6ren, von gr\u00f4zer arebeit, von freuden, h\u00f4chgez\u00eeten, von weinen und von klagen, von k\u00fcener recken str\u00eeten muget ir nu wunder h\u0153ren sagen | Full many a wonder is told us in stories old, of heroes worthy of praise, of hardships dire, of joy and feasting, of weeping and of wailing; of the fighting of bold warriors, now ye may hear wonders told. |} The original version instead began with the introduction of Kriemhild, the protagonist of the work. The epic is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the story of Siegfried and Kriemhild, the wooing of Br\u00fcnhild and the death of Siegfried at the hands of Hagen, and Hagen's hiding of the Nibelung treasure in the Rhine (Chapters 1-19). The second part deals with Kriemhild's marriage to Etzel, her plans for revenge, the journey of the Burgundians to the court of Etzel, and their last stand in Etzel's hall (Chapters 20-39). The first chapter introduces the court of Burgundy. Kriemhild (the virgin sister of King Gunther, and his brothers Gernot and Giselher) has a dream of a falcon that is killed by"
      },
      {
        "text": "-19). The second part deals with Kriemhild's marriage to Etzel, her plans for revenge, the journey of the Burgundians to the court of Etzel, and their last stand in Etzel's hall (Chapters 20-39). The first chapter introduces the court of Burgundy. Kriemhild (the virgin sister of King Gunther, and his brothers Gernot and Giselher) has a dream of a falcon that is killed by two eagles. Her mother interprets this to mean that Kriemhild's future husband will die a violent death, and Kriemhild consequently resolves to remain unmarried. The second chapter tells of the background of Siegfried, crown prince of Xanten. His youth is narrated with little room for the adventures later attributed to him. In the third chapter, Siegfried arrives in Worms with the hopes of wooing Kriemhild. Upon his arrival, Hagen von Tronje, one of King Gunther's vassals, tells Gunther about Siegfried's youthful exploits that involved winning a treasure and lands from a pair of brothers, Nibelung and Schilbung, whom Siegfried had killed when he was unable to divide the treasure between them and, almost incidentally, the killing of a dragon. Siegfried leaves his treasure in the charge of a dwarf named Alberich. After killing the dragon, Siegfried then bathed in its blood, which rendered him invulnerable. Unfortunately for Siegfried, a leaf fell onto his back from a linden tree, and the small patch of skin that the leaf covered did not come into contact with the dragon's blood, leaving Siegfried vulnerable in that single spot. In spite of Hagen's threatening stories about his youth, the Burgundians welcome him, but do not allow him to meet the princess. Disappointed, he nonetheless remains in Worms and helps Gunther defeat the"
      },
      {
        "text": " blood, which rendered him invulnerable. Unfortunately for Siegfried, a leaf fell onto his back from a linden tree, and the small patch of skin that the leaf covered did not come into contact with the dragon's blood, leaving Siegfried vulnerable in that single spot. In spite of Hagen's threatening stories about his youth, the Burgundians welcome him, but do not allow him to meet the princess. Disappointed, he nonetheless remains in Worms and helps Gunther defeat the invading Saxons. In chapter 5, Siegfried finally meets Kriemhild. Gunther requests Siegfried to sail with him to the fictional city of Isenstein in Iceland to win the hand of Iceland's Queen, Br\u00fcnhild. Siegfried agrees, though only if Gunther allows him to marry Gunther's sister, Kriemhild, whom Siegfried pines for. Gunther, Siegfried and a group of Burgundians set sail for Iceland with Siegfried pretending to be Gunther's vassal. Upon their arrival, Br\u00fcnhild challenges Gunther to a trial of strength with her hand in marriage as a reward. If they lose, however, they will be sentenced to death. She challenges Gunther to three athletic contests, throwing a javelin, tossing a boulder, and a leap. After seeing the boulder and javelin, it becomes apparent to the group that Br\u00fcnhild is immensely strong and they fear for their lives. Siegfried quietly returns to the boat his group arrived on and takes his special cloak, which renders him invisible and gives him the strength of 12 men (Chapters 6-8). Siegfried, with his immense strength, invisibly leads Gunther through the trials. Unknowingly deceived, the impressed Br\u00fcnhild thinks King Gunther, not Siegfried, defeated her and agrees to marry Gunther. Gunther becomes afraid that Br\u00fcnhild may yet be"
      },
      {
        "text": " for their lives. Siegfried quietly returns to the boat his group arrived on and takes his special cloak, which renders him invisible and gives him the strength of 12 men (Chapters 6-8). Siegfried, with his immense strength, invisibly leads Gunther through the trials. Unknowingly deceived, the impressed Br\u00fcnhild thinks King Gunther, not Siegfried, defeated her and agrees to marry Gunther. Gunther becomes afraid that Br\u00fcnhild may yet be planning to kill them, so Siegfried goes to Nibelungenland and single-handedly conquers the kingdom. Siegfried makes them his vassals and returns with a thousand of them, himself going ahead as messenger. The group of Burgundians, Gunther and Gunther's new wife-to-be Br\u00fcnhild return to Worms, where a grand reception awaits them and they marry to much fanfare. Siegfried and Kriemhild are also then married with Gunther's blessings. However, on their wedding night, Br\u00fcnhild suspects something is amiss with her situation, particularly suspecting Siegfried as a potential cause. Gunther attempts to sleep with her and, with her great strength, she easily ties him up and leaves him that way all night. After he tells Siegfried of this, Siegfried again offers his help, proposing that he slip into their chamber at night with his invisibility cloak and silently beat Br\u00fcnhild into submission. Gunther agrees but says that Siegfried must not sleep with Br\u00fcnhild. Siegfried slips into the room according to plan and after a difficult and violent struggle, an invisible Siegfried defeats Br\u00fcnhild. Siegfried then takes her ring and belt, which are symbols of defloration. Here it is implied that Siegfried sleeps with Br\u00fcnhild, despite Gunther's request. Afterwards, Br\u00fcnhild no longer possesses her"
      },
      {
        "text": "hild into submission. Gunther agrees but says that Siegfried must not sleep with Br\u00fcnhild. Siegfried slips into the room according to plan and after a difficult and violent struggle, an invisible Siegfried defeats Br\u00fcnhild. Siegfried then takes her ring and belt, which are symbols of defloration. Here it is implied that Siegfried sleeps with Br\u00fcnhild, despite Gunther's request. Afterwards, Br\u00fcnhild no longer possesses her once-great strength and says she will no longer refuse Gunther. Siegfried gives the ring and belt to his own newly wed, Kriemhild, in chapter ten. Years later, Br\u00fcnhild, still feeling as if she had been lied to, goads Gunther into inviting Siegfried and Kriemhild to their kingdom. Br\u00fcnhild does this because she is still under the impression that Gunther married off his sister to a low-ranking vassal (while Gunther and Siegfried are in reality of equal rank) yet the normal procedures are not being followed between the two ranks combined with her lingering feelings of suspicion. Both Siegfried and Kriemhild come to Worms and all is friendly between the two until, before entering Worms Cathedral, Kriemhild and Br\u00fcnhild argue over who should have precedence according to their husbands' perceived ranks. Having been earlier deceived about the relationship between Siegfried and Gunther, Br\u00fcnhild thinks it is obvious that she should go first, through custom of her perceived social rank. Kriemhild, unaware of the deception involved in Br\u00fcnhild's wooing, insists that they are of equal rank and the dispute escalates. Severely angered, Kriemhild shows Br\u00fcnhild first the ring and then the belt that Siegfried took from Br\u00fcnhild on her wedding night, and"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Gunther, Br\u00fcnhild thinks it is obvious that she should go first, through custom of her perceived social rank. Kriemhild, unaware of the deception involved in Br\u00fcnhild's wooing, insists that they are of equal rank and the dispute escalates. Severely angered, Kriemhild shows Br\u00fcnhild first the ring and then the belt that Siegfried took from Br\u00fcnhild on her wedding night, and then calls her Siegfried's kebse (mistress or concubine). Br\u00fcnhild feels greatly distressed and humiliated, and bursts into tears. The argument between the queens is both a risk for the marriage of Gunther and Br\u00fcnhild and a potential cause for a lethal rivalry between Gunther and Siegfried, which both Gunther and Siegfried attempt to avoid. Gunther acquits Siegfried of the charges. Despite this, Hagen von Tronje decides to kill Siegfried to protect the honor and reign of his king. Although it is Hagen who does the deed, Gunther - who at first objects to the plot - along with his brothers knows of the plan and quietly assents. Hagen contrives a false military threat to Gunther and Siegfried, considering Gunther a great friend, volunteers to help Gunther once again. Under the pretext of this threat of war, Hagen persuades Kriemhild, who still trusts Hagen, to mark Siegfried's single vulnerable point on his clothing with a cross under the premise of protecting him. Now knowing Siegfried's weakness, the fake campaign is called off and Hagen then uses the cross as a target on a hunting trip, killing Siegfried with a spear as he is drinking from a brook (chapter sixteen). This perfidious murder is particularly dishonorable in medieval thought, as throwing a javelin is the manner in which one might slaughter a wild beast"
      },
      {
        "text": " trusts Hagen, to mark Siegfried's single vulnerable point on his clothing with a cross under the premise of protecting him. Now knowing Siegfried's weakness, the fake campaign is called off and Hagen then uses the cross as a target on a hunting trip, killing Siegfried with a spear as he is drinking from a brook (chapter sixteen). This perfidious murder is particularly dishonorable in medieval thought, as throwing a javelin is the manner in which one might slaughter a wild beast, not a knight. We see this in other literature of the period, such as with Parsifal's unwittingly dishonorable crime of combatting and slaying knights with a javelin (transformed into a swan in Wagner's opera). Further dishonoring Siegfried, Hagen steals the hoard from Kriemhild and throws it into the Rhine (Rheingold), to prevent Kriemhild from using it to establish an army of her own. Kriemhild swears to take revenge for the murder of her husband and the theft of her treasure. Many years later, King Etzel of the Huns (Attila the Hun) proposes to Kriemhild, she journeys to the land of the Huns, and they are married. For the baptism of their son, she invites her brothers, the Burgundians, to a feast at Etzel's castle in Hungary. Hagen does not want to go, but is taunted until he does: he realizes that it is a trick of Kriemhild in order to take revenge and kill them all. As the Burgundians cross the Danube, this fate is confirmed by Nixes, who predict that all but one monk will die. Hagen tries to drown the monk in order to render the prophecy futile, but he survives. The Burgundians arrive at Etzel's castle and are welcomed by Kriemhild \"with lying smiles and gr"
      },
      {
        "text": " until he does: he realizes that it is a trick of Kriemhild in order to take revenge and kill them all. As the Burgundians cross the Danube, this fate is confirmed by Nixes, who predict that all but one monk will die. Hagen tries to drown the monk in order to render the prophecy futile, but he survives. The Burgundians arrive at Etzel's castle and are welcomed by Kriemhild \"with lying smiles and graces\". But the lord Dietrich of Bern, an ally of Etzel's, advises the Burgundians to keep their weapons with them at all times, which is normally not allowed. The tragedy unfolds. Kriemhild comes before Hagen, reproaches him for her husband Siegfried's death, and demands the return of her Nibelungenschatz. Hagen answers her boldly, admitting that he killed Siegfried and sank the Nibelungen treasure into the Rhine, but blames these acts on Kriemhild's own behaviour. King Etzel then welcomes his wife's brothers warmly. But outside a tense feast in the great hall, a fight breaks out between Huns and Burgundians, and soon there is general mayhem. When word of the fight arrives at the feast, Hagen decapitates Kriemhild's and Etzel's little son before his parents' eyes. The Burgundians take control of the hall, which is besieged by Etzel's warriors. Kriemhild offers her brothers their lives if they hand over Hagen, but they refuse. The battle lasts all day, until the queen orders the hall to be burned with the Burgundians inside. All of the Burgundians are killed except for Hagen and Gunther, who are bound and held prisoner by Dietrich of Bern. Kriemhild has the men brought before her and orders her brother Gunther to be killed. Even"
      },
      {
        "text": " besieged by Etzel's warriors. Kriemhild offers her brothers their lives if they hand over Hagen, but they refuse. The battle lasts all day, until the queen orders the hall to be burned with the Burgundians inside. All of the Burgundians are killed except for Hagen and Gunther, who are bound and held prisoner by Dietrich of Bern. Kriemhild has the men brought before her and orders her brother Gunther to be killed. Even after seeing Gunther's head, Hagen refuses to tell the queen what he has done with the Nibelungen treasure. Furious, Kriemhild herself cuts off Hagen's head. Old Hildebrand, the mentor of Dietrich of Bern, is infuriated by the shameful deaths of the Burgundian guests. He hews Kriemhild to pieces with his sword. In a fifteenth century manuscript, he is said to strike Kriemhild a single clean blow to the waist; she feels no pain, however, and declares that his sword is useless. Hildebrand then drops a ring and commands Kriemhild to pick it up. As she bends down, her body falls into pieces. Dietrich and Etzel and all the people of the court lament the deaths of so many heroes.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Exorcist",
    "author": "William Peter Blatty",
    "published_date": "1971",
    "synopsis": " An elderly Jesuit priest named Father Lankester Merrin is leading an archaeological dig in northern Iraq and is studying ancient relics. Following the discovery of a small statue of the demon Pazuzu (an actual ancient Assyrian demigod) and a modern-day St. Joseph medal curiously juxtaposed together at the site, a series of omens alerts him to a pending confrontation with a powerful evil, which, unknown to the reader at this point, he has battled before in an exorcism in Africa. Meanwhile, in Georgetown, a young girl named Regan MacNeil living with her famous mother, actress Chris MacNeil, becomes inexplicably ill. After a gradual series of poltergeist-like disturbances, she undergoes disturbing psychological and physical changes, appearing to become \"possessed\" by a demonic spirit. After several unsuccessful psychiatric and medical treatments, Regan's mother turns to a local Jesuit priest. Father Damien Karras, who is currently going through a crisis of faith coupled with the loss of his mother, agrees to see Regan as a psychiatrist, but initially resists the notion that it is an actual demonic possession. After a few meetings with the child, now completely inhabited by a diabolical personality, he turns to the local bishop for permission to perform an exorcism on the child. The bishop with whom he consults does not believe Karras is qualified to perform the rites, and appoints the experienced Merrin, who has recently returned to the United States, to perform the exorcism; although he does allow the doubt-ridden Karras to assist him. The lengthy exorcism tests the priests both physically and spiritually. When Merrin, who had previously suffered cardiac arrhythmia, dies during the process, completion of the exorcism ultimately falls upon Father Karras. When he demands that the demonic spirit inhabit him instead of the innocent Regan, the demon seizes the opportunity to possess the priest. Karras surrenders his own life in exchange for Regan's by jumping out of her bedroom window.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " An elderly Jesuit priest named Father Lankester Merrin is leading an archaeological dig in northern Iraq and is studying ancient relics. Following the discovery of a small statue of the demon Pazuzu (an actual ancient Assyrian demigod) and a modern-day St. Joseph medal curiously juxtaposed together at the site, a series of omens alerts him to a pending confrontation with a powerful evil, which, unknown to the reader at this point, he has battled before in an exorcism in Africa. Meanwhile, in Georgetown, a young girl named Regan MacNeil living with her famous mother, actress Chris MacNeil, becomes inexplicably ill. After a gradual series of poltergeist-like disturbances, she undergoes disturbing psychological and physical changes, appearing to become \"possessed\" by a demonic spirit. After several unsuccessful psychiatric and medical treatments, Regan's mother turns to a local Jesuit priest. Father Damien Karras, who is currently going through a crisis of faith coupled with the loss of his mother, agrees to see Regan as a psychiatrist, but initially resists the notion that it is an actual demonic possession. After a few meetings with the child, now completely inhabited by a diabolical personality, he turns to the local bishop for permission to perform an exorcism on the child. The bishop with whom he consults does not believe Karras is qualified to perform the rites, and appoints the experienced Merrin, who has recently returned to the United States, to perform the exorcism; although he does allow the doubt-ridden Karras to assist him. The lengthy exorcism tests the priests both physically and spiritually. When Merrin, who had previously suffered cardiac arrhythmia, dies during the process, completion of the exorcism ultimately falls upon Father Karras. When he demands that the demonic spirit inhabit him instead of the innocent Regan, the demon seizes the opportunity to possess the priest. Karras surrenders his"
      },
      {
        "text": ", to perform the exorcism; although he does allow the doubt-ridden Karras to assist him. The lengthy exorcism tests the priests both physically and spiritually. When Merrin, who had previously suffered cardiac arrhythmia, dies during the process, completion of the exorcism ultimately falls upon Father Karras. When he demands that the demonic spirit inhabit him instead of the innocent Regan, the demon seizes the opportunity to possess the priest. Karras surrenders his own life in exchange for Regan's by jumping out of her bedroom window.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sweet Hereafter",
    "author": "Russell Banks",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Sweet Hereafter is a multiple first person narrative depicting life in a small town in Upstate New York in the wake of a terrible school bus accident in which numerous local children are killed. Hardly able to cope with the loss, their grieving parents are approached by a slick city lawyer who wants them to sue for damages. At first the parents are reluctant to do so, but eventually they are persuaded by the lawyer that filing a class action lawsuit would ease their minds and also be the right thing to do. As most of the children are dead, the case now depends on the few surviving witnesses to say the right things in court. In particular, it is 14 year-old Nichole Burnell, who was sitting at the front of the bus and is now is unable to move from the waist down (but isn't paralysed), whose deposition is all-important. However, she unexpectedly accuses Dolores Driscoll, the driver, of speeding and thus causing the accident. When she does so, all hopes of ever receiving money are thwarted. All the people involved know that Nichole is lying but cannot do anything about it. Only her father knows why, but he is unable to publicly reveal his daughter's motives. The novel captures the atmosphere in a small town suddenly shaken by catastrophe. Fathers take to drinking, secret affairs are abruptly ended, whole families move away. Only the reader/viewer knows that Mitchell Stephens, the lawyer, has himself effectively lost his own child—his estranged, drug-addicted daughter informs him over the phone that she has just tested HIV positive. The book, written in 1991, was chosen in 1998 by Nancy Pearl, the then Director of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library, and Chris Higashi, the current Program Manager, to be the first selection for \"If All Seattle Read the Same Book\", a program that has continued in the Seattle community and at many other public libraries around the country.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Sweet Hereafter is a multiple first person narrative depicting life in a small town in Upstate New York in the wake of a terrible school bus accident in which numerous local children are killed. Hardly able to cope with the loss, their grieving parents are approached by a slick city lawyer who wants them to sue for damages. At first the parents are reluctant to do so, but eventually they are persuaded by the lawyer that filing a class action lawsuit would ease their minds and also be the right thing to do. As most of the children are dead, the case now depends on the few surviving witnesses to say the right things in court. In particular, it is 14 year-old Nichole Burnell, who was sitting at the front of the bus and is now is unable to move from the waist down (but isn't paralysed), whose deposition is all-important. However, she unexpectedly accuses Dolores Driscoll, the driver, of speeding and thus causing the accident. When she does so, all hopes of ever receiving money are thwarted. All the people involved know that Nichole is lying but cannot do anything about it. Only her father knows why, but he is unable to publicly reveal his daughter's motives. The novel captures the atmosphere in a small town suddenly shaken by catastrophe. Fathers take to drinking, secret affairs are abruptly ended, whole families move away. Only the reader/viewer knows that Mitchell Stephens, the lawyer, has himself effectively lost his own child—his estranged, drug-addicted daughter informs him over the phone that she has just tested HIV positive. The book, written in 1991, was chosen in 1998 by Nancy Pearl, the then Director of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library, and Chris Higashi, the current Program Manager, to be the first selection for \"If All Seattle Read the Same Book\", a program that has continued in the Seattle community and at many other public libraries around the country.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ";his estranged, drug-addicted daughter informs him over the phone that she has just tested HIV positive. The book, written in 1991, was chosen in 1998 by Nancy Pearl, the then Director of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library, and Chris Higashi, the current Program Manager, to be the first selection for \"If All Seattle Read the Same Book\", a program that has continued in the Seattle community and at many other public libraries around the country.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Severed Head",
    "author": "Iris Murdoch",
    "published_date": "1961",
    "synopsis": " Martin Lynch-Gibbon is a 41-year-old well-to-do wine merchant whose childless marriage to an older woman called Antonia has been one of convenience rather than love. It never occurs to him that his ongoing affair with a young academic called Georgie could be immoral. Displaying quite a number of macho attributes in his relationships with women, Lynch-Gibbon is shocked when, out of the blue, his wife tells him that she is going to leave him for Palmer Anderson, her psychoanalyst and a friend of the couple's, with whom she has had a secret affair for quite some time. Lynch-Gibbon moves out of their London house but still does not want to publicize his affair with Georgie, let alone become engaged to her. At roughly the same time Cupid's arrow hits Lynch-Gibbon again. This time he falls for Honor Klein, Anderson's half-sister, who is a lecturer in anthropology at Cambridge, a woman who, on seeing her for the first time, he remembers finding rather repulsive. Like a man possessed, he follows her to Cambridge and, in the middle of the night, breaks into her house, only to find her in bed with her half-brother. When, shortly afterwards, Antonia confesses to him that she has also been sleeping with his older brother Alexander ever since he introduced them to each other (\"You mean you didn't know at all? Surely you must have guessed.\"), Lynch-Gibbon's world starts disintegrating. Despite his being a wine merchant, he chooses whisky as his constant companion. In the end, however, he realizes that life must\u2014and somehow will\u2014go on.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Martin Lynch-Gibbon is a 41-year-old well-to-do wine merchant whose childless marriage to an older woman called Antonia has been one of convenience rather than love. It never occurs to him that his ongoing affair with a young academic called Georgie could be immoral. Displaying quite a number of macho attributes in his relationships with women, Lynch-Gibbon is shocked when, out of the blue, his wife tells him that she is going to leave him for Palmer Anderson, her psychoanalyst and a friend of the couple's, with whom she has had a secret affair for quite some time. Lynch-Gibbon moves out of their London house but still does not want to publicize his affair with Georgie, let alone become engaged to her. At roughly the same time Cupid's arrow hits Lynch-Gibbon again. This time he falls for Honor Klein, Anderson's half-sister, who is a lecturer in anthropology at Cambridge, a woman who, on seeing her for the first time, he remembers finding rather repulsive. Like a man possessed, he follows her to Cambridge and, in the middle of the night, breaks into her house, only to find her in bed with her half-brother. When, shortly afterwards, Antonia confesses to him that she has also been sleeping with his older brother Alexander ever since he introduced them to each other (\"You mean you didn't know at all? Surely you must have guessed.\"), Lynch-Gibbon's world starts disintegrating. Despite his being a wine merchant, he chooses whisky as his constant companion. In the end, however, he realizes that life must\u2014and somehow will\u2014go on.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " have guessed.\"), Lynch-Gibbon's world starts disintegrating. Despite his being a wine merchant, he chooses whisky as his constant companion. In the end, however, he realizes that life must\u2014and somehow will\u2014go on.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Coming Up for Air",
    "author": "George Orwell",
    "published_date": "1939",
    "synopsis": " The themes of the book are nostalgia, the folly of trying to go back and recapture past glories and the easy way the dreams and aspirations of one's youth can be smothered by the humdrum routine of work, marriage and getting old. It is written in the first person, with George Bowling, the forty-five-year-old protagonist, who reveals his life and experiences while undertaking a trip back to his boyhood home as an adult. At the opening of the book, Bowling has a day off work to go to London to collect a new set of false teeth. A news-poster about the contemporary King Zog of Albania sets off thoughts of a biblical character Og, King of Bashan that he recalls from Sunday church as a child. Along with 'some sound in the traffic or the smell of horse dung or something' these thoughts trigger Bowling's memory of his childhood as the son of an unambitious seed merchant in \"Lower Binfield\" near the River Thames. Bowling relates his life history, dwelling on how a lucky break during the First World War landed him in a comfortable job away from any action and provided contacts that helped him become a successful salesman. Bowling is wondering what to do with a small sum of money that he has won on a horserace and which he has concealed from his wife and family. He and his wife attend a Left Book Club meeting where he is horrified by the hate shown by the anti-fascist speaker, and bemused by the Marxist ramblings of the communists who have attended the meeting. Fed up with this, he seeks his friend Old Porteous, the retired schoolmaster. He usually finds Porteous entertaining, but on this occasion his dry dead classics makes Bowling even more depressed. Bowling decides to use the money on a 'trip down memory lane', to revisit the places of his childhood. He recalls a particular pond with huge fish in it which he had missed the chance to try and catch thirty years previously. He therefore plans to return to Lower Binfield but when he arrives, he finds the place unrecognisable. Eventually he locates the old pub where he is to stay, finding it much changed. His home has become a tea shop. Only the church and vicar appear the same but he has a shock when he discovers an old girlfriend, for in his eyes she has been so ravaged by time that she is almost unrecognizable and is utterly devoid of the qualities he once adored. She fails to recognize him at all. Bowling remembers the slow and painful decline of his father's seed business\u2014resulting from the nearby establishment of corporate competition. This painful memory seems to have sensitized him to - and given him a repugnance for - what he sees as the marching ravages of \"Progress\". The final disappointment is to find that the estate where he used to fish has been built over, and the secluded and once hidden pond that contained the huge Carp he always intended to take on with his fishing rod, but never got around to, has become a rubbish dump. The social and material changes experienced by Bowling since childhood make his past seem distant. The concept of \"you can't go home again\" hangs heavily over Bowling's journey, as he realizes that many of his old haunts are gone or considerably changed from his younger years. Throughout the adventure he receives reminders of impending war, and the threat of bombs becomes real when one lands accidentally on the town.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The themes of the book are nostalgia, the folly of trying to go back and recapture past glories and the easy way the dreams and aspirations of one's youth can be smothered by the humdrum routine of work, marriage and getting old. It is written in the first person, with George Bowling, the forty-five-year-old protagonist, who reveals his life and experiences while undertaking a trip back to his boyhood home as an adult. At the opening of the book, Bowling has a day off work to go to London to collect a new set of false teeth. A news-poster about the contemporary King Zog of Albania sets off thoughts of a biblical character Og, King of Bashan that he recalls from Sunday church as a child. Along with 'some sound in the traffic or the smell of horse dung or something' these thoughts trigger Bowling's memory of his childhood as the son of an unambitious seed merchant in \"Lower Binfield\" near the River Thames. Bowling relates his life history, dwelling on how a lucky break during the First World War landed him in a comfortable job away from any action and provided contacts that helped him become a successful salesman. Bowling is wondering what to do with a small sum of money that he has won on a horserace and which he has concealed from his wife and family. He and his wife attend a Left Book Club meeting where he is horrified by the hate shown by the anti-fascist speaker, and bemused by the Marxist ramblings of the communists who have attended the meeting. Fed up with this, he seeks his friend Old Porteous, the retired schoolmaster. He usually finds Porteous entertaining, but on this occasion his dry dead classics makes Bowling even more depressed. Bowling decides to use the money on a 'trip down memory lane', to revisit the places of his childhood. He recalls a particular pond with huge fish in it which he had missed the chance to try and catch thirty"
      },
      {
        "text": " bemused by the Marxist ramblings of the communists who have attended the meeting. Fed up with this, he seeks his friend Old Porteous, the retired schoolmaster. He usually finds Porteous entertaining, but on this occasion his dry dead classics makes Bowling even more depressed. Bowling decides to use the money on a 'trip down memory lane', to revisit the places of his childhood. He recalls a particular pond with huge fish in it which he had missed the chance to try and catch thirty years previously. He therefore plans to return to Lower Binfield but when he arrives, he finds the place unrecognisable. Eventually he locates the old pub where he is to stay, finding it much changed. His home has become a tea shop. Only the church and vicar appear the same but he has a shock when he discovers an old girlfriend, for in his eyes she has been so ravaged by time that she is almost unrecognizable and is utterly devoid of the qualities he once adored. She fails to recognize him at all. Bowling remembers the slow and painful decline of his father's seed business\u2014resulting from the nearby establishment of corporate competition. This painful memory seems to have sensitized him to - and given him a repugnance for - what he sees as the marching ravages of \"Progress\". The final disappointment is to find that the estate where he used to fish has been built over, and the secluded and once hidden pond that contained the huge Carp he always intended to take on with his fishing rod, but never got around to, has become a rubbish dump. The social and material changes experienced by Bowling since childhood make his past seem distant. The concept of \"you can't go home again\" hangs heavily over Bowling's journey, as he realizes that many of his old haunts are gone or considerably changed from his younger years. Throughout the adventure he receives reminders of impending war, and the threat of bombs becomes real when one lands accidentally on the town.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " to take on with his fishing rod, but never got around to, has become a rubbish dump. The social and material changes experienced by Bowling since childhood make his past seem distant. The concept of \"you can't go home again\" hangs heavily over Bowling's journey, as he realizes that many of his old haunts are gone or considerably changed from his younger years. Throughout the adventure he receives reminders of impending war, and the threat of bombs becomes real when one lands accidentally on the town.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Shadow Puppets",
    "author": "Orson Scott Card",
    "published_date": "2002",
    "synopsis": " Peter, Ender's brother, is now Hegemon of Earth. Accepting a tip from inside China, where Achilles is held prisoner, Peter had planned for Bean to operate the mission, but at the last minute (because he doubted Bean would cooperate) assigns Suriyawong, a battle school student from Thailand, to rescue Achilles in transport, believing that he can spy on Achilles, take over his network, and then turn Achilles over to some country for trial (at the time of this story, Achilles has betrayed Russia, Pakistan, and India). Achilles is known to kill anyone who has seen him vulnerable. Bean and his friend Petra, who also served under Ender and who is travelling with Bean, have both seen Achilles so and immediately go into hiding, preparing for a future confrontation. Bean believes Peter has seriously underestimated Achilles, and that he (Bean) is not safe unless he is hidden. During their travels, Petra convinces Bean to marry her and have children with her by taking him to Anton, the person who Anton's Key (Bean's Condition) was named after. Bean is reluctant to have children, as he does not want his Anton's Key gene to be passed on. He finds Volescu, the original doctor who activated the key in his genes, and has him prepare nine embryos through artificial insemination. Volescu pretends to identify three embryos with Anton's Key and they are discarded. One of the remaining six is implanted into Petra, while the rest of them are placed under guard. At the same time, a message is passed to Bean that Han Tzu, a comrade from Battle School, was not in fact the informant in the message sent to Peter about Achilles. Realizing that it had been a setup, Bean gets a message to Peter's parents, and they flee with Peter from the Hegemon's compound. Bean narrowly escapes an assassination attempt himself, and escapes to Damascus. There they find that another Battle School comrade, Alai, is the unrivaled Caliph of a nearly unified Muslim world. Meanwhile, their embryos are stolen, and Bean expects Achilles to use them to bait a trap for them. Peter and his parents escape to the colonization platform in space that used to be the battle school, relying on the protection of Colonel Graff, the former commander of that school, now Minister of Colonization. Shortly after they arrive, however, a message is sent betraying their presence. Faking their departure from the space station, Peter and his parents discover the traitor, one of the teachers at battle school. The unmanned shuttle sent as a decoy is shot down over Brazil (the location of the former compound of the Hegemon, now occupied by Achilles). In the previous novel, China had conquered India and Indochina. Alai plans to liberate them by invading first China (in a feint), and then India (once China has withdrawn its armies to defend the homeland). His invasion is successful, and in the midst of realizing their danger, the Chinese government disavows Achilles, providing evidence that he stole the missile launcher that destroyed the decoy space shuttle. Left with nowhere to turn, Achilles contacts Bean and offers the embryos in exchange for safe passage. Bean and Peter return to the Hegemon's compound. Achilles expects Bean to be so besotted with the idea of retrieving his children that he can be killed with a bomb in the transport container for them. When Bean sees through that trap, Achilles offers up fake embryos in petri dishes, expecting to lure Bean into a vulnerable position where Bean can be killed. However, Bean has already decided that Achilles was faking and refuses to fall for any of his traps. Finally, Bean pulls out a pistol and shoots him in the eye. Thus, Achilles is killed in a similar fashion to his first victim Poke, who he killed with a knife to the eye earlier in the series. The novel ends with Peter restored as Hegemon, Petra reunited with Bean, a Caliph in command of the world's Muslims, a China severely reduced in territory and forced to accept humiliating surrender terms, and the embryos still lost.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Peter, Ender's brother, is now Hegemon of Earth. Accepting a tip from inside China, where Achilles is held prisoner, Peter had planned for Bean to operate the mission, but at the last minute (because he doubted Bean would cooperate) assigns Suriyawong, a battle school student from Thailand, to rescue Achilles in transport, believing that he can spy on Achilles, take over his network, and then turn Achilles over to some country for trial (at the time of this story, Achilles has betrayed Russia, Pakistan, and India). Achilles is known to kill anyone who has seen him vulnerable. Bean and his friend Petra, who also served under Ender and who is travelling with Bean, have both seen Achilles so and immediately go into hiding, preparing for a future confrontation. Bean believes Peter has seriously underestimated Achilles, and that he (Bean) is not safe unless he is hidden. During their travels, Petra convinces Bean to marry her and have children with her by taking him to Anton, the person who Anton's Key (Bean's Condition) was named after. Bean is reluctant to have children, as he does not want his Anton's Key gene to be passed on. He finds Volescu, the original doctor who activated the key in his genes, and has him prepare nine embryos through artificial insemination. Volescu pretends to identify three embryos with Anton's Key and they are discarded. One of the remaining six is implanted into Petra, while the rest of them are placed under guard. At the same time, a message is passed to Bean that Han Tzu, a comrade from Battle School, was not in fact the informant in the message sent to Peter about Achilles. Realizing that it had been a setup, Bean gets a message to Peter's parents, and they flee with Peter from the Hegemon's compound. Bean narrowly escapes an assassination attempt himself, and escapes to Damascus. There they find that another Battle School comrade, Alai"
      },
      {
        "text": " rest of them are placed under guard. At the same time, a message is passed to Bean that Han Tzu, a comrade from Battle School, was not in fact the informant in the message sent to Peter about Achilles. Realizing that it had been a setup, Bean gets a message to Peter's parents, and they flee with Peter from the Hegemon's compound. Bean narrowly escapes an assassination attempt himself, and escapes to Damascus. There they find that another Battle School comrade, Alai, is the unrivaled Caliph of a nearly unified Muslim world. Meanwhile, their embryos are stolen, and Bean expects Achilles to use them to bait a trap for them. Peter and his parents escape to the colonization platform in space that used to be the battle school, relying on the protection of Colonel Graff, the former commander of that school, now Minister of Colonization. Shortly after they arrive, however, a message is sent betraying their presence. Faking their departure from the space station, Peter and his parents discover the traitor, one of the teachers at battle school. The unmanned shuttle sent as a decoy is shot down over Brazil (the location of the former compound of the Hegemon, now occupied by Achilles). In the previous novel, China had conquered India and Indochina. Alai plans to liberate them by invading first China (in a feint), and then India (once China has withdrawn its armies to defend the homeland). His invasion is successful, and in the midst of realizing their danger, the Chinese government disavows Achilles, providing evidence that he stole the missile launcher that destroyed the decoy space shuttle. Left with nowhere to turn, Achilles contacts Bean and offers the embryos in exchange for safe passage. Bean and Peter return to the Hegemon's compound. Achilles expects Bean to be so besotted with the idea of retrieving his children that he can be killed with a bomb in the transport container for them. When Bean sees through that trap, Achilles"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the midst of realizing their danger, the Chinese government disavows Achilles, providing evidence that he stole the missile launcher that destroyed the decoy space shuttle. Left with nowhere to turn, Achilles contacts Bean and offers the embryos in exchange for safe passage. Bean and Peter return to the Hegemon's compound. Achilles expects Bean to be so besotted with the idea of retrieving his children that he can be killed with a bomb in the transport container for them. When Bean sees through that trap, Achilles offers up fake embryos in petri dishes, expecting to lure Bean into a vulnerable position where Bean can be killed. However, Bean has already decided that Achilles was faking and refuses to fall for any of his traps. Finally, Bean pulls out a pistol and shoots him in the eye. Thus, Achilles is killed in a similar fashion to his first victim Poke, who he killed with a knife to the eye earlier in the series. The novel ends with Peter restored as Hegemon, Petra reunited with Bean, a Caliph in command of the world's Muslims, a China severely reduced in territory and forced to accept humiliating surrender terms, and the embryos still lost.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Road to Mars",
    "author": "Eric Idle",
    "published_date": "2000-10-10",
    "synopsis": " Told from the point of view of Professor Bill Reynolds, a scholar in the fictitious discipline of 'micropaloentology', this novel is set in the 24th and 25th Centuries, when the solar system has been colonised. Reynolds is writing a thesis on fame and in his research discovers a dissertation on comedy submitted by Carlton, a robotic secretary for two stand-up comedians on an interplanetary comedy circuit. Most of the action in the novel follows this trio's adventures during the time when Reynolds believes Carlton was developing his theories. During this time, Carlton and his owners, Alex Muscroft and Lewis Ashby get caught up in a series of disasters including loss of work, parental responsibility and close scrapes with terrorists, the law, other entertainers, and a refugee crisis. Carlton seeks to understand the nature of comedy and human laughter, and attempts to describe humor as a mathematical formula.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Told from the point of view of Professor Bill Reynolds, a scholar in the fictitious discipline of 'micropaloentology', this novel is set in the 24th and 25th Centuries, when the solar system has been colonised. Reynolds is writing a thesis on fame and in his research discovers a dissertation on comedy submitted by Carlton, a robotic secretary for two stand-up comedians on an interplanetary comedy circuit. Most of the action in the novel follows this trio's adventures during the time when Reynolds believes Carlton was developing his theories. During this time, Carlton and his owners, Alex Muscroft and Lewis Ashby get caught up in a series of disasters including loss of work, parental responsibility and close scrapes with terrorists, the law, other entertainers, and a refugee crisis. Carlton seeks to understand the nature of comedy and human laughter, and attempts to describe humor as a mathematical formula.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Regeneration",
    "author": "Pat Barker",
    "published_date": "1991-05-30",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins with Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, an army psychiatrist at Craiglockhart War Hospital (a mental institution at the time), reading poet Siegfried Sassoon\u2019s declaration against the continuation of the war. Sassoon\u2019s \"wilful defiance of military authority\" has led to Sassoon being labelled \"shell-shocked\", a label which the authorities hope will discredit his views on the continuation of the war. Rivers states that he feels uneasy about Sassoon entering Craiglockhart, doubting that he is shell-shocked; the doctor feels uncomfortable about the prospect of sheltering a \"conchie\". Sassoon\u2019s friend and fellow poet Robert Graves advises Sassoon to give up his protest against the war; although he largely shares Sassoon\u2019s views, he still thinks it would be impossible to stop the war. Sassoon had hoped for a court-martial so that his opinion could be publicly aired, but Graves, believing that he is helping his friend, manages to persuade a medical board that Sassoon should be sent to Craiglockhart instead. Rivers meets Sassoon, and their discussion demonstrates that while Sassoon objects to the sheer horror of the war, he does not have any religious objection to fighting. Rivers warns Sassoon that since his job is to return Sassoon to combat, he cannot therefore claim to remain neutral. This troubles Rivers, as he knows the horrors soldiers suffer when sent back to France. Sassoon struggles with the idea that he is safe in Craiglockhart while others are dying. In addition to Sassoon's conflict, the opening chapters of the novel describe the suffering of other soldiers in the hospital. Anderson, a former surgeon, now cannot stand the sight of blood. Burns is haunted by terrible hallucinations after being thrown into the air by an explosion and landing head first in the ruptured stomach of a rotting dead soldier; the memories of this experience cause him to vomit whenever he eats anything. Another patient, Billy Prior, suffers from mutism and will only talk to Rivers through the use of a notepad. Prior eventually regains his voice, but he remains a difficult patient for Rivers as he does not wish to discuss his memories of the war. Prior is visited by his father, an unfriendly man who beat his wife and emotionally abused his son. The last chapters of the first section of Regeneration introduce the concept of class. In his conversations with Rivers, Prior - the rare officer from a working-class background - states that there are strong class distinctions in the British Army, even during war. Sassoon meets Wilfred Owen, a young man who also writes poetry. He asks Sassoon to sign some copies of his work, and Sassoon offers to review Owen's poetry. Sassoon goes off to play golf with Anderson and Prior goes into Edinburgh and meets a girl called Sarah Lumb, whose boyfriend was killed at the Battle of Loos. They come close to having sex, but Sarah refuses Prior at the last minute. Prior\u2019s absence from Craiglockhart causes him to be confined to the hospital for two weeks as punishment. Rivers suggests that it may be a good idea to now try hypnosis on Prior. This treatment causes Prior to remember the gruesome death of two soldiers in his platoon. A new patient, Willard, is examined by Rivers. Willard was injured in a graveyard when, under heavy fire, parts of a gravestone were shot into his buttocks. While there is no physical damage to prevent Willard from walking, he insists that there is an injury to his spine. Sassoon visits the Conservative Club with Rivers, who notices that Sassoon is depressed after learning of the deaths of two close friends. Rivers realizes that although it would not be difficult to convince Sassoon to continue fighting, he does not want to force him, because he will eventually want to return to the fight on his own. Later Owen and Sassoon talk in Sassoon\u2019s room. Sassoon gives Owen some poetry to publish in the hospital magazine The Hydra and again agrees to mentor the younger man on his poems. Prior goes into town to meet Sarah and explains why he did not show up for their arranged meeting. They take a train to the seaside and walk along the beach together. Prior explains to Sarah how he has to censor the letters of soldiers before they are sent home. He is eager to return to France as he feels unable to relate to anyone back home \u2013 he feels as though only fellow soldiers understand his emotions and experiences. He and Sarah get caught in a storm and later have sex in the shelter of a bush. On the train back to town Prior has an asthma attack. Rivers, suffering from exhaustion, is ordered to take three weeks holiday from his work at Craiglockhart. As a storm sounds outside, Sassoon and Owen work on their war poetry together. Rivers' departure resurrects for Sassoon his feelings of abandonment when his father left him, and he realises that Rivers has taken the place of his father. Part III of the novel begins with Rivers attending church with his family. He compares the biblical story of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac with the war where soldiers - mostly younger men - are sacrificed by the older generation in an act of mass-slaughter. Rivers also recalls the visits of Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, to his family home as a child. Back at Craiglockhart Sassoon helps Owen draft one of his most famous poems, \"Anthem for Doomed Youth.\" Sarah accompanies her friend Madge to a local hospital, so Madge can visit her fiance, who has been wounded. Sarah gets lost and walks into a tent filled with injured amputee soldiers. She is angry at her shocked reaction as well as the fact that society hides these injured soldiers away. Prior is examined by a medical board. Prior fears that they suspect he is faking illness and want to send him back to war. Rivers meets with some old friends, Ruth and Henry Head, who discuss Sassoon. Rivers suggests that Sassoon has the freedom to disagree with the war. However, Rivers reaffirms that it is his job to make Sassoon return to military duty. At the end of their conversation Head offers Rivers a top job in London. Although it would be a career leap, Rivers is unsure whether he should take it. Burns, who has since been discharged from hospital, invites Rivers to visit him at his seaside home in Suffolk. Rivers expects to talk to Burns' parents about his condition and is surprised to discover that Burns is alone. They spend a few days together, with Rivers not bringing up the topic of the war. One night, when there is a severe thunderstorm, Burns walks outside and hides in a tunnel which floods at high tide, suffering flashbacks to his experiences with trench warfare in France. The trauma causes Burns to finally open up and talk about his frontline experience. He describes to Rivers the sheer horror he felt when taking part in the Battle of the Somme and how he hoped he would suffer a minor injury so he could be sent home. When Rivers returns to Craiglockhart, he tells Bryce that he will take the job in London. In another appointment Sassoon has with Rivers, Sassoon describes how he has been having hallucinations of dead friends knocking on his door. Sassoon admits he feels guilty about not serving with his friends and decides he should return to the front. Rivers is pleased with Sassoon's decision, but at the same time the doctor worries about what may happen to him there. Sarah tells her mother, Ada, about her relationship with Billy Prior. Ada scolds her daughter for having sex outside marriage; she reminds Sarah that contraception is not always reliable (repeating a rumour that every tenth condom is purposely defective) and declares that true love between a man and a woman does not exist. Sassoon meets his friend Graves and tells him of his decision to return to war. Graves lectures Sassoon on the importance of people keeping their word. Graves then tells Sassoon about a mutual friend, Peter, who has been arrested for prostitution and is being sent to Rivers to \"cure\" his homosexuality. Graves stresses that he himself is now writing to a girl called Nancy, implying that he is not homosexual. This conversation leaves Sassoon with a feeling of unease, implying that he himself may be unsure or worried about his sexual orientation. The girls at the munitions factory joke that many of the men serving are gay. When Sarah asks why one munitions worker called Betty is not there, her co-worker Lizzie replies that Betty is in the hospital after attempting a home abortion with a coat-hanger. Sassoon talks to Rivers before he is sent back to France, and they discuss Peter and the larger question of the official attitude towards homosexuality. Rivers theorizes that during wartime the authorities are particularly hard on homosexuality, wanting to clearly distinguish between the 'right' kind of love between men (loyalty, brotherhood, camaraderie), which is beneficial to soldiers, and the 'wrong' kind (sexual attraction). The medical board meets to review the cases of various soldiers and to decide on their fitness for combat. According to the board, Prior should have permanent home service due to his asthma. Prior breaks down at the news, fearing that he will be seen as a coward and ashamed that he will not be to find out what calibre of soldier he is. Sassoon tires of waiting for his turn to see the board and leaves to have dinner with friends. Rivers, angry at this flippant behavior, demands an explanation, at which Sassoon apologises and admits that he was afraid. Sassoon assures Rivers that although his views of the war have not changed and he still stands by his \"Declaration,\" he does want to return to France. Prior and Sarah meet again and admit their love for one another. Sassoon and Owen talk in the Conservative Club about how awful it will be for Sassoon to remain in Craiglockhart for another while without Rivers or Owen there; Owen is deeply affected by his imminent departure. Before he leaves Craiglockhart, Sassoon comments to Rivers that Owen\u2019s feelings towards Sassoon may be something more than mere hero worship. Rivers spends his last day at the clinic saying goodbye to his patients, then travels to London and meets Dr. Yealland from the National Hospital, who will be his colleague in his new position. Dr. Yealland uses electro-shock therapy to force patients to quickly recover from shell-shock; he believes that some patients do not want to be cured and that pain is the best method of treatment for such reluctant patients. In a horrifying scene, Yealland demonstrates his brutal 'therapy', which is vastly different from Rivers' own approach and which makes Rivers question whether he can work with such a man. Sassoon is released for combat duty; Willard is able to overcome his psychosomatic paralysis and walks again; Anderson is given a staff job. The novel ends with Rivers completing his notes, meditating on the effect that the encounter with Sassoon, and the last few months, have had on him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins with Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, an army psychiatrist at Craiglockhart War Hospital (a mental institution at the time), reading poet Siegfried Sassoon\u2019s declaration against the continuation of the war. Sassoon\u2019s \"wilful defiance of military authority\" has led to Sassoon being labelled \"shell-shocked\", a label which the authorities hope will discredit his views on the continuation of the war. Rivers states that he feels uneasy about Sassoon entering Craiglockhart, doubting that he is shell-shocked; the doctor feels uncomfortable about the prospect of sheltering a \"conchie\". Sassoon\u2019s friend and fellow poet Robert Graves advises Sassoon to give up his protest against the war; although he largely shares Sassoon\u2019s views, he still thinks it would be impossible to stop the war. Sassoon had hoped for a court-martial so that his opinion could be publicly aired, but Graves, believing that he is helping his friend, manages to persuade a medical board that Sassoon should be sent to Craiglockhart instead. Rivers meets Sassoon, and their discussion demonstrates that while Sassoon objects to the sheer horror of the war, he does not have any religious objection to fighting. Rivers warns Sassoon that since his job is to return Sassoon to combat, he cannot therefore claim to remain neutral. This troubles Rivers, as he knows the horrors soldiers suffer when sent back to France. Sassoon struggles with the idea that he is safe in Craiglockhart while others are dying. In addition to Sassoon's conflict, the opening chapters of the novel describe the suffering of other soldiers in the hospital. Anderson, a former surgeon, now cannot stand the sight of blood. Burns is haunted by terrible hallucinations after being thrown into the air by an explosion and landing head first in the ruptured stomach of a rotting dead soldier; the memories of this experience cause him to vomit whenever he eats anything. Another"
      },
      {
        "text": " struggles with the idea that he is safe in Craiglockhart while others are dying. In addition to Sassoon's conflict, the opening chapters of the novel describe the suffering of other soldiers in the hospital. Anderson, a former surgeon, now cannot stand the sight of blood. Burns is haunted by terrible hallucinations after being thrown into the air by an explosion and landing head first in the ruptured stomach of a rotting dead soldier; the memories of this experience cause him to vomit whenever he eats anything. Another patient, Billy Prior, suffers from mutism and will only talk to Rivers through the use of a notepad. Prior eventually regains his voice, but he remains a difficult patient for Rivers as he does not wish to discuss his memories of the war. Prior is visited by his father, an unfriendly man who beat his wife and emotionally abused his son. The last chapters of the first section of Regeneration introduce the concept of class. In his conversations with Rivers, Prior - the rare officer from a working-class background - states that there are strong class distinctions in the British Army, even during war. Sassoon meets Wilfred Owen, a young man who also writes poetry. He asks Sassoon to sign some copies of his work, and Sassoon offers to review Owen's poetry. Sassoon goes off to play golf with Anderson and Prior goes into Edinburgh and meets a girl called Sarah Lumb, whose boyfriend was killed at the Battle of Loos. They come close to having sex, but Sarah refuses Prior at the last minute. Prior\u2019s absence from Craiglockhart causes him to be confined to the hospital for two weeks as punishment. Rivers suggests that it may be a good idea to now try hypnosis on Prior. This treatment causes Prior to remember the gruesome death of two soldiers in his platoon. A new patient, Willard, is examined by Rivers. Willard was injured in a graveyard when, under heavy fire, parts of a gravestone were shot into his"
      },
      {
        "text": ", but Sarah refuses Prior at the last minute. Prior\u2019s absence from Craiglockhart causes him to be confined to the hospital for two weeks as punishment. Rivers suggests that it may be a good idea to now try hypnosis on Prior. This treatment causes Prior to remember the gruesome death of two soldiers in his platoon. A new patient, Willard, is examined by Rivers. Willard was injured in a graveyard when, under heavy fire, parts of a gravestone were shot into his buttocks. While there is no physical damage to prevent Willard from walking, he insists that there is an injury to his spine. Sassoon visits the Conservative Club with Rivers, who notices that Sassoon is depressed after learning of the deaths of two close friends. Rivers realizes that although it would not be difficult to convince Sassoon to continue fighting, he does not want to force him, because he will eventually want to return to the fight on his own. Later Owen and Sassoon talk in Sassoon\u2019s room. Sassoon gives Owen some poetry to publish in the hospital magazine The Hydra and again agrees to mentor the younger man on his poems. Prior goes into town to meet Sarah and explains why he did not show up for their arranged meeting. They take a train to the seaside and walk along the beach together. Prior explains to Sarah how he has to censor the letters of soldiers before they are sent home. He is eager to return to France as he feels unable to relate to anyone back home \u2013 he feels as though only fellow soldiers understand his emotions and experiences. He and Sarah get caught in a storm and later have sex in the shelter of a bush. On the train back to town Prior has an asthma attack. Rivers, suffering from exhaustion, is ordered to take three weeks holiday from his work at Craiglockhart. As a storm sounds outside, Sassoon and Owen work on their war poetry together. Rivers' departure resurrects for Sassoon his feelings of abandonment when his father"
      },
      {
        "text": " back home \u2013 he feels as though only fellow soldiers understand his emotions and experiences. He and Sarah get caught in a storm and later have sex in the shelter of a bush. On the train back to town Prior has an asthma attack. Rivers, suffering from exhaustion, is ordered to take three weeks holiday from his work at Craiglockhart. As a storm sounds outside, Sassoon and Owen work on their war poetry together. Rivers' departure resurrects for Sassoon his feelings of abandonment when his father left him, and he realises that Rivers has taken the place of his father. Part III of the novel begins with Rivers attending church with his family. He compares the biblical story of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac with the war where soldiers - mostly younger men - are sacrificed by the older generation in an act of mass-slaughter. Rivers also recalls the visits of Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, to his family home as a child. Back at Craiglockhart Sassoon helps Owen draft one of his most famous poems, \"Anthem for Doomed Youth.\" Sarah accompanies her friend Madge to a local hospital, so Madge can visit her fiance, who has been wounded. Sarah gets lost and walks into a tent filled with injured amputee soldiers. She is angry at her shocked reaction as well as the fact that society hides these injured soldiers away. Prior is examined by a medical board. Prior fears that they suspect he is faking illness and want to send him back to war. Rivers meets with some old friends, Ruth and Henry Head, who discuss Sassoon. Rivers suggests that Sassoon has the freedom to disagree with the war. However, Rivers reaffirms that it is his job to make Sassoon return to military duty. At the end of their conversation Head offers Rivers a top job in London. Although it would be a career leap, Rivers is unsure whether he should take it. Burns, who has since been discharged from hospital, invites Rivers to visit him at"
      },
      {
        "text": " war. Rivers meets with some old friends, Ruth and Henry Head, who discuss Sassoon. Rivers suggests that Sassoon has the freedom to disagree with the war. However, Rivers reaffirms that it is his job to make Sassoon return to military duty. At the end of their conversation Head offers Rivers a top job in London. Although it would be a career leap, Rivers is unsure whether he should take it. Burns, who has since been discharged from hospital, invites Rivers to visit him at his seaside home in Suffolk. Rivers expects to talk to Burns' parents about his condition and is surprised to discover that Burns is alone. They spend a few days together, with Rivers not bringing up the topic of the war. One night, when there is a severe thunderstorm, Burns walks outside and hides in a tunnel which floods at high tide, suffering flashbacks to his experiences with trench warfare in France. The trauma causes Burns to finally open up and talk about his frontline experience. He describes to Rivers the sheer horror he felt when taking part in the Battle of the Somme and how he hoped he would suffer a minor injury so he could be sent home. When Rivers returns to Craiglockhart, he tells Bryce that he will take the job in London. In another appointment Sassoon has with Rivers, Sassoon describes how he has been having hallucinations of dead friends knocking on his door. Sassoon admits he feels guilty about not serving with his friends and decides he should return to the front. Rivers is pleased with Sassoon's decision, but at the same time the doctor worries about what may happen to him there. Sarah tells her mother, Ada, about her relationship with Billy Prior. Ada scolds her daughter for having sex outside marriage; she reminds Sarah that contraception is not always reliable (repeating a rumour that every tenth condom is purposely defective) and declares that true love between a man and a woman does not exist. Sassoon meets his friend Graves and tells him of his decision"
      },
      {
        "text": " Rivers is pleased with Sassoon's decision, but at the same time the doctor worries about what may happen to him there. Sarah tells her mother, Ada, about her relationship with Billy Prior. Ada scolds her daughter for having sex outside marriage; she reminds Sarah that contraception is not always reliable (repeating a rumour that every tenth condom is purposely defective) and declares that true love between a man and a woman does not exist. Sassoon meets his friend Graves and tells him of his decision to return to war. Graves lectures Sassoon on the importance of people keeping their word. Graves then tells Sassoon about a mutual friend, Peter, who has been arrested for prostitution and is being sent to Rivers to \"cure\" his homosexuality. Graves stresses that he himself is now writing to a girl called Nancy, implying that he is not homosexual. This conversation leaves Sassoon with a feeling of unease, implying that he himself may be unsure or worried about his sexual orientation. The girls at the munitions factory joke that many of the men serving are gay. When Sarah asks why one munitions worker called Betty is not there, her co-worker Lizzie replies that Betty is in the hospital after attempting a home abortion with a coat-hanger. Sassoon talks to Rivers before he is sent back to France, and they discuss Peter and the larger question of the official attitude towards homosexuality. Rivers theorizes that during wartime the authorities are particularly hard on homosexuality, wanting to clearly distinguish between the 'right' kind of love between men (loyalty, brotherhood, camaraderie), which is beneficial to soldiers, and the 'wrong' kind (sexual attraction). The medical board meets to review the cases of various soldiers and to decide on their fitness for combat. According to the board, Prior should have permanent home service due to his asthma. Prior breaks down at the news, fearing that he will be seen as a coward and ashamed that he will not be to find out what"
      },
      {
        "text": " 'right' kind of love between men (loyalty, brotherhood, camaraderie), which is beneficial to soldiers, and the 'wrong' kind (sexual attraction). The medical board meets to review the cases of various soldiers and to decide on their fitness for combat. According to the board, Prior should have permanent home service due to his asthma. Prior breaks down at the news, fearing that he will be seen as a coward and ashamed that he will not be to find out what calibre of soldier he is. Sassoon tires of waiting for his turn to see the board and leaves to have dinner with friends. Rivers, angry at this flippant behavior, demands an explanation, at which Sassoon apologises and admits that he was afraid. Sassoon assures Rivers that although his views of the war have not changed and he still stands by his \"Declaration,\" he does want to return to France. Prior and Sarah meet again and admit their love for one another. Sassoon and Owen talk in the Conservative Club about how awful it will be for Sassoon to remain in Craiglockhart for another while without Rivers or Owen there; Owen is deeply affected by his imminent departure. Before he leaves Craiglockhart, Sassoon comments to Rivers that Owen\u2019s feelings towards Sassoon may be something more than mere hero worship. Rivers spends his last day at the clinic saying goodbye to his patients, then travels to London and meets Dr. Yealland from the National Hospital, who will be his colleague in his new position. Dr. Yealland uses electro-shock therapy to force patients to quickly recover from shell-shock; he believes that some patients do not want to be cured and that pain is the best method of treatment for such reluctant patients. In a horrifying scene, Yealland demonstrates his brutal 'therapy', which is vastly different from Rivers' own approach and which makes Rivers question whether he can work with such a man. Sassoon is released for"
      },
      {
        "text": ", who will be his colleague in his new position. Dr. Yealland uses electro-shock therapy to force patients to quickly recover from shell-shock; he believes that some patients do not want to be cured and that pain is the best method of treatment for such reluctant patients. In a horrifying scene, Yealland demonstrates his brutal 'therapy', which is vastly different from Rivers' own approach and which makes Rivers question whether he can work with such a man. Sassoon is released for combat duty; Willard is able to overcome his psychosomatic paralysis and walks again; Anderson is given a staff job. The novel ends with Rivers completing his notes, meditating on the effect that the encounter with Sassoon, and the last few months, have had on him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "House of Leaves",
    "author": "Mark Z. Danielewski",
    "published_date": "2000-03-07",
    "synopsis": " House of Leaves begins with a first-person narrative by Johnny Truant, a Los Angeles tattoo parlor employee and professed unreliable narrator. Truant is searching for a new apartment when his friend Lude tells him about the apartment of the recently deceased Zampan\u00f2, a blind, elderly man who lived in Lude's building. In Zampan\u00f2's apartment, Truant discovers a manuscript written by Zampan\u00f2 that turns out to be an academic study of a documentary film called The Navidson Record, though Truant says he can find no evidence that the film ever existed. The rest of the novel incorporates several narratives, including Zampan\u00f2's report on the fictional film; Truant's autobiographical interjections; a small transcript of part of the film from Navidson's brother, Tom; a small transcript of interviews of many people regarding The Navidson Record by Navidson's wife, Karen; and occasional brief notes by unidentified editors, all woven together by a mass of footnotes. There is also another narrator, Truant's mother, whose voice is presented through a self-contained set of letters titled The Whalestoe Letters. Each narrator's text is printed in a distinct font, making it easier for the reader to follow the occasionally challenging format of the novel (Truant in Courier New in the footnotes, and the main narrative in Times New Roman in the American version). Zampan\u00f2's narrative deals primarily with the Navidson family: Will Navidson, a photojournalist (partly based on Kevin Carter), his partner, Karen Green, an attractive former fashion model, and their two children, Chad and Daisy. Navidson's brother, Tom, and several other characters also play a role later in the story. The Navidson family has recently moved into a new home in Virginia. Upon returning from a trip to Seattle, the Navidson family discovers a change in their home. A closet-like space shut behind an undecorated door appears inexplicably where previously there was only a blank wall. A second door appears at the end of the closet, leading to the children's room. As Navidson investigates this phenomenon, he finds that the internal measurements of the house are somehow larger than external measurements. Initially there is less than an inch of difference, but as time passes the interior of the house is found to be seemingly expanding, while maintaining the same exterior proportions. A third change asserts itself: a dark, cold hallway in their living room wall that, physically, should extend out into their yard, but does not. Navidson films this strange place, looping around the outside of the house to show where the space should be and clearly is not. The filming of this anomaly comes to be referred to as \"The Five and a Half Minute Hallway\". This hallway leads to a maze-like complex, starting with a large room (the \"Anteroom\"), which in turn leads to a truly enormous space (the \"Great Hall\"), a room primarily distinguished by an enormous spiral staircase which appears, when viewed from the landing, to spiral down without end. There is also a multitude of corridors and rooms leading off from each passage. All of these rooms and hallways are completely unlit and featureless, consisting of smooth ash-gray walls, floors, and ceilings. The only sound disturbing the perfect silence of the hallways is a periodic low growl, the source of which is never fully explained, although an academic source \"quoted\" in the book hypothesizes that the growl is created by the frequent re-shaping of the house. There is some discrepancy as to where \"The Five and a Half Minute Hallway\" appears. It is quoted by different characters at different times to have been located in each of the cardinal directions. This first happens when Zampan\u00f2 writes that the hallway is in the western wall (House of Leaves 57), directly contradicting an earlier page where the hallway is mentioned to be in the northern wall (House of Leaves 4). Johnny's footnotes point out the contradiction. Navidson, along with his brother Tom and some colleagues, feel compelled to explore, photograph, and videotape the house's seemingly endless series of passages, eventually driving various characters to insanity, murder, and death. Ultimately, Will releases what has been recorded and edited as The Navidson Record. Will and Karen purchased the house because their relationship was becoming strained with Will's work-related absences. While Karen was always adamantly against marriage (claiming that she valued her freedom above anything else), she always found herself missing and needing Will when he was gone: \"And yet even though Karen keeps Chad from overfilling the mold or Daisy from cutting herself with the scissors, she still cannot resist looking out the window every couple of minutes. The sound of a passing truck causes her to glance away\" (House of Leaves 11\u201312). Zampan\u00f2's narrative is littered with all manner of references, some quite obscure, others indicating that the Navidsons' story achieved international notoriety. Luminaries such as Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick, Douglas Hofstadter, Ken Burns, Harold Bloom, Camille Paglia, Hunter Thompson, Anne Rice, and Jacques Derrida were apparently interviewed as to their opinions about the film. However, when Truant investigates, he finds no history of the house, no evidence of the events experienced by the Navidsons, and nothing else to establish that the house or film ever existed anywhere other than in Zampan\u00f2's text. Many of the references in Zampan\u00f2's footnotes, however, are real\u2014existing both within his world and our world outside the novel. For example, several times Zampan\u00f2 cites an actual Time-Life book, Planet Earth: Underground Worlds (House of Leaves 125). An adjacent story line develops in Johnny's footnotes, detailing what is progressing in Johnny's life as he is assembling the narrative. It remains unclear if Johnny's obsession with the writings of Zampan\u00f2 and subsequent delusions, paranoia, etc. are the result of drug use, insanity, or the effects of Zampan\u00f2's writing itself. Johnny recounts tales of his various sexual encounters, his lust for a tattooed stripper he calls Thumper, and his bar-hopping with Lude throughout various footnotes. The reader also slowly learns more about Johnny's childhood living with an abusive foster father, engaging in violent fights at school, and of the origin of Johnny's mysterious scars (House of Leaves, p. 505). More information about Johnny can be gleaned from the Whalestoe Letters, letters his mother Pelafina wrote from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institution. Though Pelafina's letters and Johnny's footnotes contain similar accounts of their past, their memories also differ greatly at times, due to both Pelafina's and Johnny's questionable mental states. Pelafina was placed in the mental institution after supposedly attempting to strangle Johnny, only to be stopped by her husband. She remained there after Johnny's father's death. Johnny claims that his mother meant him no harm and claimed to strangle him only to protect him from missing her, etc. It is unclear, however, if Johnny's statements about the incident\u2014or any of his other statements, for that matter\u2014are factual. This story is included in an appendix near the end of the book, as well as in its own, self-contained book (with additional content included in the self-contained version). It consists of Johnny's mother's letters to him from a psychiatric hospital. The letters start off fairly normal but Pelafina quickly descends into paranoia and the letters become more and more incoherent. There are also secret messages in the letters which can be decoded by combining the first letters of consecutive words.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " House of Leaves begins with a first-person narrative by Johnny Truant, a Los Angeles tattoo parlor employee and professed unreliable narrator. Truant is searching for a new apartment when his friend Lude tells him about the apartment of the recently deceased Zampan\u00f2, a blind, elderly man who lived in Lude's building. In Zampan\u00f2's apartment, Truant discovers a manuscript written by Zampan\u00f2 that turns out to be an academic study of a documentary film called The Navidson Record, though Truant says he can find no evidence that the film ever existed. The rest of the novel incorporates several narratives, including Zampan\u00f2's report on the fictional film; Truant's autobiographical interjections; a small transcript of part of the film from Navidson's brother, Tom; a small transcript of interviews of many people regarding The Navidson Record by Navidson's wife, Karen; and occasional brief notes by unidentified editors, all woven together by a mass of footnotes. There is also another narrator, Truant's mother, whose voice is presented through a self-contained set of letters titled The Whalestoe Letters. Each narrator's text is printed in a distinct font, making it easier for the reader to follow the occasionally challenging format of the novel (Truant in Courier New in the footnotes, and the main narrative in Times New Roman in the American version). Zampan\u00f2's narrative deals primarily with the Navidson family: Will Navidson, a photojournalist (partly based on Kevin Carter), his partner, Karen Green, an attractive former fashion model, and their two children, Chad and Daisy. Navidson's brother, Tom, and several other characters also play a role later in the story. The Navidson family has recently moved into a new home in Virginia. Upon returning from a trip to Seattle, the Navidson family discovers a"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s narrative deals primarily with the Navidson family: Will Navidson, a photojournalist (partly based on Kevin Carter), his partner, Karen Green, an attractive former fashion model, and their two children, Chad and Daisy. Navidson's brother, Tom, and several other characters also play a role later in the story. The Navidson family has recently moved into a new home in Virginia. Upon returning from a trip to Seattle, the Navidson family discovers a change in their home. A closet-like space shut behind an undecorated door appears inexplicably where previously there was only a blank wall. A second door appears at the end of the closet, leading to the children's room. As Navidson investigates this phenomenon, he finds that the internal measurements of the house are somehow larger than external measurements. Initially there is less than an inch of difference, but as time passes the interior of the house is found to be seemingly expanding, while maintaining the same exterior proportions. A third change asserts itself: a dark, cold hallway in their living room wall that, physically, should extend out into their yard, but does not. Navidson films this strange place, looping around the outside of the house to show where the space should be and clearly is not. The filming of this anomaly comes to be referred to as \"The Five and a Half Minute Hallway\". This hallway leads to a maze-like complex, starting with a large room (the \"Anteroom\"), which in turn leads to a truly enormous space (the \"Great Hall\"), a room primarily distinguished by an enormous spiral staircase which appears, when viewed from the landing, to spiral down without end. There is also a multitude of corridors and rooms leading off from each passage. All of these rooms and hallways are completely unlit and featureless, consisting of smooth ash-gray walls, floors, and ceilings. The only sound disturbing the perfect silence of the hallways"
      },
      {
        "text": " (the \"Anteroom\"), which in turn leads to a truly enormous space (the \"Great Hall\"), a room primarily distinguished by an enormous spiral staircase which appears, when viewed from the landing, to spiral down without end. There is also a multitude of corridors and rooms leading off from each passage. All of these rooms and hallways are completely unlit and featureless, consisting of smooth ash-gray walls, floors, and ceilings. The only sound disturbing the perfect silence of the hallways is a periodic low growl, the source of which is never fully explained, although an academic source \"quoted\" in the book hypothesizes that the growl is created by the frequent re-shaping of the house. There is some discrepancy as to where \"The Five and a Half Minute Hallway\" appears. It is quoted by different characters at different times to have been located in each of the cardinal directions. This first happens when Zampan\u00f2 writes that the hallway is in the western wall (House of Leaves 57), directly contradicting an earlier page where the hallway is mentioned to be in the northern wall (House of Leaves 4). Johnny's footnotes point out the contradiction. Navidson, along with his brother Tom and some colleagues, feel compelled to explore, photograph, and videotape the house's seemingly endless series of passages, eventually driving various characters to insanity, murder, and death. Ultimately, Will releases what has been recorded and edited as The Navidson Record. Will and Karen purchased the house because their relationship was becoming strained with Will's work-related absences. While Karen was always adamantly against marriage (claiming that she valued her freedom above anything else), she always found herself missing and needing Will when he was gone: \"And yet even though Karen keeps Chad from overfilling the mold or Daisy from cutting herself with the scissors, she still cannot resist looking out the window every couple of minutes. The sound of a passing truck causes her"
      },
      {
        "text": " Record. Will and Karen purchased the house because their relationship was becoming strained with Will's work-related absences. While Karen was always adamantly against marriage (claiming that she valued her freedom above anything else), she always found herself missing and needing Will when he was gone: \"And yet even though Karen keeps Chad from overfilling the mold or Daisy from cutting herself with the scissors, she still cannot resist looking out the window every couple of minutes. The sound of a passing truck causes her to glance away\" (House of Leaves 11\u201312). Zampan\u00f2's narrative is littered with all manner of references, some quite obscure, others indicating that the Navidsons' story achieved international notoriety. Luminaries such as Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick, Douglas Hofstadter, Ken Burns, Harold Bloom, Camille Paglia, Hunter Thompson, Anne Rice, and Jacques Derrida were apparently interviewed as to their opinions about the film. However, when Truant investigates, he finds no history of the house, no evidence of the events experienced by the Navidsons, and nothing else to establish that the house or film ever existed anywhere other than in Zampan\u00f2's text. Many of the references in Zampan\u00f2's footnotes, however, are real\u2014existing both within his world and our world outside the novel. For example, several times Zampan\u00f2 cites an actual Time-Life book, Planet Earth: Underground Worlds (House of Leaves 125). An adjacent story line develops in Johnny's footnotes, detailing what is progressing in Johnny's life as he is assembling the narrative. It remains unclear if Johnny's obsession with the writings of Zampan\u00f2 and subsequent delusions, paranoia, etc. are the result of drug use, insanity, or the effects of Zampan\u00f2's writing itself. Johnny recounts tales of his various sexual encounters, his lust for a tattooed stripper he calls Thumper, and his bar"
      },
      {
        "text": " Leaves 125). An adjacent story line develops in Johnny's footnotes, detailing what is progressing in Johnny's life as he is assembling the narrative. It remains unclear if Johnny's obsession with the writings of Zampan\u00f2 and subsequent delusions, paranoia, etc. are the result of drug use, insanity, or the effects of Zampan\u00f2's writing itself. Johnny recounts tales of his various sexual encounters, his lust for a tattooed stripper he calls Thumper, and his bar-hopping with Lude throughout various footnotes. The reader also slowly learns more about Johnny's childhood living with an abusive foster father, engaging in violent fights at school, and of the origin of Johnny's mysterious scars (House of Leaves, p. 505). More information about Johnny can be gleaned from the Whalestoe Letters, letters his mother Pelafina wrote from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institution. Though Pelafina's letters and Johnny's footnotes contain similar accounts of their past, their memories also differ greatly at times, due to both Pelafina's and Johnny's questionable mental states. Pelafina was placed in the mental institution after supposedly attempting to strangle Johnny, only to be stopped by her husband. She remained there after Johnny's father's death. Johnny claims that his mother meant him no harm and claimed to strangle him only to protect him from missing her, etc. It is unclear, however, if Johnny's statements about the incident\u2014or any of his other statements, for that matter\u2014are factual. This story is included in an appendix near the end of the book, as well as in its own, self-contained book (with additional content included in the self-contained version). It consists of Johnny's mother's letters to him from a psychiatric hospital. The letters start off fairly normal but Pelafina quickly descends into paranoia and the letters become more and more incoherent. There are also secret"
      },
      {
        "text": " statements about the incident\u2014or any of his other statements, for that matter\u2014are factual. This story is included in an appendix near the end of the book, as well as in its own, self-contained book (with additional content included in the self-contained version). It consists of Johnny's mother's letters to him from a psychiatric hospital. The letters start off fairly normal but Pelafina quickly descends into paranoia and the letters become more and more incoherent. There are also secret messages in the letters which can be decoded by combining the first letters of consecutive words.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Whalestoe Letters",
    "author": "Mark Z. Danielewski",
    "published_date": "2000-10-10",
    "synopsis": " Pelafina writes these letters to Johnny from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a mental institution where she has been residing for a number of years. While a number of these letters appear in House of Leaves, The Whalestoe Letters introduces a number of new letters which serve to more fully develop Pelafina's character as well as her relationship with Johnny.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Pelafina writes these letters to Johnny from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a mental institution where she has been residing for a number of years. While a number of these letters appear in House of Leaves, The Whalestoe Letters introduces a number of new letters which serve to more fully develop Pelafina's character as well as her relationship with Johnny.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Restoree",
    "author": "Anne McCaffrey",
    "published_date": "1967",
    "synopsis": " Restoree is the story of Sara, an introverted, beak-nosed, 24-year-old virgin librarian from New York who is abducted by the Mil, amorphous alien creatures that eat human flesh. She is kept alive, with her skin removed and in a catatonic state from the physical and mental shock, on a meat hook as a Mil meal until the alien ship she is on is captured by human inhabitants of the planet Lothar. Without her skin, some Lotharians mistake her for one of their own and perform controversial \"restoration\" procedures on her, including a nose job. Sara comes to her senses in a mental institution on Lothar with no memory of what happened, little knowledge of the local language, and a beautiful, golden-skinned body. At the institution, she is treated as if she were retarded and given menial tasks to do, as are other \"restorees\" who have been clandestinely salvaged from Mil ships; it is apparently some factor of Sara's Terran origins that allows her to fully recover from the shock of the Mil ordeal, while Lotharian restorees are of limited intellect at best. One of her jobs is to care for Harlan, the deposed planetary regent, who is being drugged into a moronic state. Recognizing what is being done, Sara helps Harlan to regain his senses and escape the mental institution. Sara and Harlan then gain the advantage over Harlan's political enemies, defeat the Mil, solve some of Lothar's emerging domestic problems and, of course, fall in love.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Restoree is the story of Sara, an introverted, beak-nosed, 24-year-old virgin librarian from New York who is abducted by the Mil, amorphous alien creatures that eat human flesh. She is kept alive, with her skin removed and in a catatonic state from the physical and mental shock, on a meat hook as a Mil meal until the alien ship she is on is captured by human inhabitants of the planet Lothar. Without her skin, some Lotharians mistake her for one of their own and perform controversial \"restoration\" procedures on her, including a nose job. Sara comes to her senses in a mental institution on Lothar with no memory of what happened, little knowledge of the local language, and a beautiful, golden-skinned body. At the institution, she is treated as if she were retarded and given menial tasks to do, as are other \"restorees\" who have been clandestinely salvaged from Mil ships; it is apparently some factor of Sara's Terran origins that allows her to fully recover from the shock of the Mil ordeal, while Lotharian restorees are of limited intellect at best. One of her jobs is to care for Harlan, the deposed planetary regent, who is being drugged into a moronic state. Recognizing what is being done, Sara helps Harlan to regain his senses and escape the mental institution. Sara and Harlan then gain the advantage over Harlan's political enemies, defeat the Mil, solve some of Lothar's emerging domestic problems and, of course, fall in love.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s political enemies, defeat the Mil, solve some of Lothar's emerging domestic problems and, of course, fall in love.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Mister Roberts",
    "author": "Thomas Heggen",
    "published_date": "1946",
    "synopsis": " The title character, a Lieutenant Junior Grade naval officer, defends his crew against the petty tyranny of the ship's commanding officer during World War II. Nearly all action takes place on a backwater cargo ship, the USS Reluctant that sails, as written in the play, \"from apathy to tedium with occasional side trips to monotony and ennui.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The title character, a Lieutenant Junior Grade naval officer, defends his crew against the petty tyranny of the ship's commanding officer during World War II. Nearly all action takes place on a backwater cargo ship, the USS Reluctant that sails, as written in the play, \"from apathy to tedium with occasional side trips to monotony and ennui.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof",
    "author": "Tennessee Williams",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the story of a Southern family in crisis, especially the husband and wife Brick and Margaret (usually called Maggie or \"Maggie the Cat\"), and their interaction with Brick's family over the course of one evening gathering at the family estate in Mississippi. The party is to celebrate the birthday of patriarch Big Daddy Pollitt, \"the Delta's biggest cotton-planter\", and his return from the Ochsner Clinic with what he has been told is a clean bill of health. All family members (except Big Daddy and his wife, Big Mama) are aware of Big Daddy's true diagnosis: he is dying of cancer. His family has lied to Big Daddy and Big Mama to spare the aging couple from pain on the patriarch's birthday but, throughout the course of the play, it becomes clear that the Pollitt family has long constructed a web of deceit for itself. Maggie, determined and beautiful, has escaped a childhood of poverty to marry into the wealthy Pollitts, but finds herself unfulfilled. The family is aware that Brick has not slept with Maggie for a long time, which has strained their marriage. Brick, an aging football hero, infuriates her by ignoring his brother Gooper's attempts to gain control of the family fortune. Brick's indifference and his drinking escalated with the recent suicide of his friend Skipper. Maggie fears that Brick's malaise will ensure that Gooper and his wife Mae end up with Big Daddy's inheritance. Through the evening, Brick, Big Daddy and Maggie\u2014and the entire family\u2014separately must face down the issues which they have bottled up inside. Big Daddy attempts a reconciliation with the alcoholic Brick. Both Big Daddy and Maggie separately confront Brick about the true nature of his relationship with his pro football buddy Skipper, which appears to be the source of Brick's sorrow and the cause of his alcoholism. Brick explains to Big Daddy that Maggie was jealous of the close friendship between Brick and Skipper because she believed it had a romantic undercurrent. He states that Skipper slept with Maggie to prove her wrong. Brick believes that when Skipper couldn't complete the act, his self-questioning about his sexuality and his friendship with Brick made him \"snap\". Brick also reveals that, shortly before he committed suicide, Skipper confessed his feelings to Brick, but Brick rejected him. Disgusted with the family's \"mendacity\", Brick tells Big Daddy that the report from the clinic about his condition was falsified for his sake. Big Daddy storms out of the room, leading the party gathered out on the gallery to drift inside. Maggie, Brick, Mae, Gooper, and Doc Baugh (the family's physician) decide to tell Big Mama the truth about his illness and she is devastated by the news. Gooper and Mae start to discuss the division of the Pollitt estate. Big Mama defends her husband from Gooper and Mae's proposals. Big Daddy reappears and makes known his plans to die peacefully. Attempting to secure Brick's inheritance, Maggie tells him she is pregnant. Gooper and Mae know this is a lie, but Big Mama and Big Daddy believe that Maggie \"has life\". When they are alone again, Maggie locks away the liquor and promises Brick that she will \"make the lie true\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the story of a Southern family in crisis, especially the husband and wife Brick and Margaret (usually called Maggie or \"Maggie the Cat\"), and their interaction with Brick's family over the course of one evening gathering at the family estate in Mississippi. The party is to celebrate the birthday of patriarch Big Daddy Pollitt, \"the Delta's biggest cotton-planter\", and his return from the Ochsner Clinic with what he has been told is a clean bill of health. All family members (except Big Daddy and his wife, Big Mama) are aware of Big Daddy's true diagnosis: he is dying of cancer. His family has lied to Big Daddy and Big Mama to spare the aging couple from pain on the patriarch's birthday but, throughout the course of the play, it becomes clear that the Pollitt family has long constructed a web of deceit for itself. Maggie, determined and beautiful, has escaped a childhood of poverty to marry into the wealthy Pollitts, but finds herself unfulfilled. The family is aware that Brick has not slept with Maggie for a long time, which has strained their marriage. Brick, an aging football hero, infuriates her by ignoring his brother Gooper's attempts to gain control of the family fortune. Brick's indifference and his drinking escalated with the recent suicide of his friend Skipper. Maggie fears that Brick's malaise will ensure that Gooper and his wife Mae end up with Big Daddy's inheritance. Through the evening, Brick, Big Daddy and Maggie\u2014and the entire family\u2014separately must face down the issues which they have bottled up inside. Big Daddy attempts a reconciliation with the alcoholic Brick. Both Big Daddy and Maggie separately confront Brick about the true nature of his relationship with his pro football buddy Skipper, which appears to be the source of Brick's sorrow and the cause of his alcoholism. Brick explains to Big Daddy that Maggie was jealous of the close friendship between Brick and Skipper because she"
      },
      {
        "text": " Through the evening, Brick, Big Daddy and Maggie\u2014and the entire family\u2014separately must face down the issues which they have bottled up inside. Big Daddy attempts a reconciliation with the alcoholic Brick. Both Big Daddy and Maggie separately confront Brick about the true nature of his relationship with his pro football buddy Skipper, which appears to be the source of Brick's sorrow and the cause of his alcoholism. Brick explains to Big Daddy that Maggie was jealous of the close friendship between Brick and Skipper because she believed it had a romantic undercurrent. He states that Skipper slept with Maggie to prove her wrong. Brick believes that when Skipper couldn't complete the act, his self-questioning about his sexuality and his friendship with Brick made him \"snap\". Brick also reveals that, shortly before he committed suicide, Skipper confessed his feelings to Brick, but Brick rejected him. Disgusted with the family's \"mendacity\", Brick tells Big Daddy that the report from the clinic about his condition was falsified for his sake. Big Daddy storms out of the room, leading the party gathered out on the gallery to drift inside. Maggie, Brick, Mae, Gooper, and Doc Baugh (the family's physician) decide to tell Big Mama the truth about his illness and she is devastated by the news. Gooper and Mae start to discuss the division of the Pollitt estate. Big Mama defends her husband from Gooper and Mae's proposals. Big Daddy reappears and makes known his plans to die peacefully. Attempting to secure Brick's inheritance, Maggie tells him she is pregnant. Gooper and Mae know this is a lie, but Big Mama and Big Daddy believe that Maggie \"has life\". When they are alone again, Maggie locks away the liquor and promises Brick that she will \"make the lie true\".\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " plans to die peacefully. Attempting to secure Brick's inheritance, Maggie tells him she is pregnant. Gooper and Mae know this is a lie, but Big Mama and Big Daddy believe that Maggie \"has life\". When they are alone again, Maggie locks away the liquor and promises Brick that she will \"make the lie true\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Elmer Gantry",
    "author": "Sinclair Lewis",
    "published_date": "1927-03",
    "synopsis": " The novel tells the story of a young, narcissistic, womanizing college athlete who abandons his early ambition to become a lawyer. The legal profession does not suit the unethical Gantry, who then becomes a notorious and cynical alcoholic. Gantry is mistakenly ordained as a Baptist minister, briefly acts as a \"New Thought\" evangelist, and eventually becomes a Methodist minister. He acts as manager for Sharon Falconer, an itinerant evangelist. Gantry becomes her lover but loses both her and his position when she is killed in a fire at her new tabernacle. During his career, Gantry contributes to the downfall, physical injury, and even death of key people around him, including a genuine minister, Frank Shallard. Ultimately Gantry marries well and obtains a large congregation in Lewis's fictional Midwestern city of Zenith.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel tells the story of a young, narcissistic, womanizing college athlete who abandons his early ambition to become a lawyer. The legal profession does not suit the unethical Gantry, who then becomes a notorious and cynical alcoholic. Gantry is mistakenly ordained as a Baptist minister, briefly acts as a \"New Thought\" evangelist, and eventually becomes a Methodist minister. He acts as manager for Sharon Falconer, an itinerant evangelist. Gantry becomes her lover but loses both her and his position when she is killed in a fire at her new tabernacle. During his career, Gantry contributes to the downfall, physical injury, and even death of key people around him, including a genuine minister, Frank Shallard. Ultimately Gantry marries well and obtains a large congregation in Lewis's fictional Midwestern city of Zenith.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sons and Lovers",
    "author": "D. H. Lawrence",
    "published_date": "1913",
    "synopsis": " Part I: The refined daughter of a \"good old burgher family,\" Gertrude Coppard meets a rough-hewn miner at a Christmas dance and falls into a whirlwind romance characterized by physical passion. But soon after her marriage to Walter Morel, she realizes the difficulties of living off his meagre salary in a rented house. The couple fight and drift apart and Walter retreats to the pub after work each day. Gradually, Mrs. Morel's affections shift to her sons beginning with the oldest, William. As a boy, William is so attached to his mother that he doesn't enjoy the fair without her. As he grows older, he defends her against his father's occasional violence. Eventually, he leaves their Nottinghamshire home for a job in London, where he begins to rise up into the middle class. He is engaged, but he detests the girl's superficiality. He dies and Mrs. Morel is heartbroken, but when Paul catches pneumonia she rediscovers her love for her second son. Part II: Both repulsed by and drawn to his mother, Paul is afraid to leave her but wants to go out on his own, and needs to experience love. Gradually, he falls into a relationship with Miriam, a farm girl who attends his church. The two take long walks and have intellectual conversations about books but Paul resists, in part because his mother looks down on her. At Miriam's family's farm, Paul meets Clara Dawes, a young woman with, apparently, feminist sympathies who has separated from her husband, Baxter. Paul leaves Miriam behind as he grows more intimate with Clara, but even she cannot hold him and he returns to his mother. When his mother dies soon after, he is alone. Lawrence summarized the plot in a letter to Edward Garnett on 12 November 1912: :It follows this idea: a woman of character and refinement goes into the lower class, and has no satisfaction in her own life. She has had a passion for her husband, so her children are born of passion, and have heaps of vitality. But as her sons grow up she selects them as lovers — first the eldest, then the second. These sons are urged into life by their reciprocal love of their mother — urged on and on. But when they come to manhood, they can't love, because their mother is the strongest power in their lives, and holds them. It's rather like Goethe and his mother and Frau von Stein and Christiana — As soon as the young men come into contact with women, there's a split. William gives his sex to a fribble, and his mother holds his soul. But the split kills him, because he doesn't know where he is. The next son gets a woman who fights for his soul — fights his mother. The son loves his mother — all the sons hate and are jealous of the father. The battle goes on between the mother and the girl, with the son as object. The mother gradually proves stronger, because of the ties of blood. The son decides to leave his soul in his mother's hands, and, like his elder brother go for passion. He gets passion. Then the split begins to tell again. But, almost unconsciously, the mother realizes what is the matter, and begins to die. The son casts off his mistress, attends to his mother dying. He is left in the end naked of everything, with the drift towards death.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Part I: The refined daughter of a \"good old burgher family,\" Gertrude Coppard meets a rough-hewn miner at a Christmas dance and falls into a whirlwind romance characterized by physical passion. But soon after her marriage to Walter Morel, she realizes the difficulties of living off his meagre salary in a rented house. The couple fight and drift apart and Walter retreats to the pub after work each day. Gradually, Mrs. Morel's affections shift to her sons beginning with the oldest, William. As a boy, William is so attached to his mother that he doesn't enjoy the fair without her. As he grows older, he defends her against his father's occasional violence. Eventually, he leaves their Nottinghamshire home for a job in London, where he begins to rise up into the middle class. He is engaged, but he detests the girl's superficiality. He dies and Mrs. Morel is heartbroken, but when Paul catches pneumonia she rediscovers her love for her second son. Part II: Both repulsed by and drawn to his mother, Paul is afraid to leave her but wants to go out on his own, and needs to experience love. Gradually, he falls into a relationship with Miriam, a farm girl who attends his church. The two take long walks and have intellectual conversations about books but Paul resists, in part because his mother looks down on her. At Miriam's family's farm, Paul meets Clara Dawes, a young woman with, apparently, feminist sympathies who has separated from her husband, Baxter. Paul leaves Miriam behind as he grows more intimate with Clara, but even she cannot hold him and he returns to his mother. When his mother dies soon after, he is alone. Lawrence summarized the plot in a letter to Edward Garnett on 12 November 1912: :It follows this idea: a woman of character and refinement goes into the lower class, and has no satisfaction in"
      },
      {
        "text": " meets Clara Dawes, a young woman with, apparently, feminist sympathies who has separated from her husband, Baxter. Paul leaves Miriam behind as he grows more intimate with Clara, but even she cannot hold him and he returns to his mother. When his mother dies soon after, he is alone. Lawrence summarized the plot in a letter to Edward Garnett on 12 November 1912: :It follows this idea: a woman of character and refinement goes into the lower class, and has no satisfaction in her own life. She has had a passion for her husband, so her children are born of passion, and have heaps of vitality. But as her sons grow up she selects them as lovers — first the eldest, then the second. These sons are urged into life by their reciprocal love of their mother — urged on and on. But when they come to manhood, they can't love, because their mother is the strongest power in their lives, and holds them. It's rather like Goethe and his mother and Frau von Stein and Christiana — As soon as the young men come into contact with women, there's a split. William gives his sex to a fribble, and his mother holds his soul. But the split kills him, because he doesn't know where he is. The next son gets a woman who fights for his soul — fights his mother. The son loves his mother — all the sons hate and are jealous of the father. The battle goes on between the mother and the girl, with the son as object. The mother gradually proves stronger, because of the ties of blood. The son decides to leave his soul in his mother's hands, and, like his elder brother go for passion. He gets passion. Then the split begins to tell again. But, almost unconsciously, the mother realizes what is the matter, and begins to die. The son casts off his mistress,"
      },
      {
        "text": " the sons hate and are jealous of the father. The battle goes on between the mother and the girl, with the son as object. The mother gradually proves stronger, because of the ties of blood. The son decides to leave his soul in his mother's hands, and, like his elder brother go for passion. He gets passion. Then the split begins to tell again. But, almost unconsciously, the mother realizes what is the matter, and begins to die. The son casts off his mistress, attends to his mother dying. He is left in the end naked of everything, with the drift towards death.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Survivor",
    "author": "Chuck Palahniuk",
    "published_date": "1999-02",
    "synopsis": " Tender Branson sits in the cockpit of a Boeing 747-400, telling his life story to the black box. He is alone in the plane, having hijacked it; he has released all of the plane's passengers and crew prior to this point. He explains the events leading up to the hijacking. Tender is a member of the fanatical Creedish cult, which engaged in a mass suicide ten years previously. He is one of the Creedish members who was sent out into the world to work as a servant, and send his income back to the Creedish community. Creedish members have been steadily killing themselves since the mass suicide, in keeping with their belief that the deliverance is at hand. At the start of his story, Tender works as the housekeeper for a rich couple he never sees in Oregon. They issue directions via a daily planner and a speaker phone. In addition to cleaning, Tender gives the couple etiquette lessons over the phone and tends their garden (which he does by planting fake flowers, which he says is easier than planting real flowers and taking care of them). At his dingy apartment, he gets phone calls from people who want to kill themselves - the result of a newspaper misprint which printed his phone number as the number for a suicide prevention hotline. Tender, enjoying the thrill of passing divine judgment on these people tells them to kill themselves as often as not, and sees this as an act of mercy. Although the newspaper prints a retraction, the calls keep coming, and when they dwindle, Tender prints up fliers for a fake crisis hotline with his number on them so the calls will continue. One of the calls comes from a Trevor Hollis, a man who wants to kill himself because of the nightmares he has been having about disasters, like plane crashes or fires. Tender tells Trevor to kill himself, and soon after, reads his obituary in the paper. One day, Tender goes to the mausoleum to steal fake flowers for his employer's garden (a common pastime), and decides to visit Trevor's tomb while he is there. At the tomb, he meets Trevor's sister, Fertility, and they talk. Later that night, Tender has his weekly meeting with his caseworker from the Federal Survivor Retention Program, a government agency that keeps tabs on the survivors of suicide cults. As usual, he asks how many survivors of the Creedish faith there are remaining, and she tells him, \"One hundred and fifty-seven survivors. Nationwide.\" Tender begins to explain how the Creedish Church works. Only the firstborn sons and their wives get to stay and reside in the community (located in rural Nebraska) - the rest, like Tender, are sent out to work as humble servants, and are considered to be the Church's missionaries. They are extensively trained in etiquette, housecleaning, and other menial labor, after which they are baptized and sent out into the world to make a living. Every month, they are expected to send back money and a letter of confession. \"Tender\" is not really a name, but a title, which is given to all male children except the firstborn, who is called \"Adam\". Likewise, all female children are called \"Biddy\", including the eldest. \"Tender\" is meant to denote one who tends; \"Biddy\", one who is biddable. All but the firstborn sons and their wives are discouraged from having sex of any kind and are forbidden to marry, and the latter are expected to have sex only for procreation. All the Creedish wear highly recognizable clothing, both inside the community and out. This makes it easy to spot another member of the Church in the outside world. Tender further describes how, ten years previously, someone leaked the Church's doings (i.e. cult brainwashing, tax evasion, unregistered births) to the police of Bolster County, Nebraska, and the FBI are put on the case. The FBI move in to arrest the cult leaders only to find the entire community dead in an act of mass suicide upon hearing the news. The remaining survivors are expected to be prepared for such an event (called the \"Deliverance\" by the Church), and kill themselves as soon as they hear the news. After their meeting, Fertility calls Tender thinking she has called the crisis hotline. Tender soon realizes it's Fertility, so he begins to talk to her in a fake voice. Because it is revealed later that Fertility is psychic and knows \"everything\", it is understood that she knows at this point that she is speaking to Tender. She talks about her brother's suicide and how she met Tender (\"a pretty weird guy\") at the mausoleum, mentioning how he reminded her of a Creedish cult member, and adding that he was extremely unattractive and she believed him to be Trevor's ex-homosexual lover. Eventually, she asks the man at the \"crisis hotline\" (i.e. Tender) to have phone sex with her, but he hangs up after turning her down. He then stops answering his phone in fear that Fertility will be on the other line, wanting to have phone sex or growing more attracted to him as a mysterious voice than as a person. During another meeting with his caseworker (which regularly takes place at his employers' house), Tender gets frustrated and tells her that if she wants to help him, she can start by scrubbing the shower tiles. Burnt out over a decade of lost suicide cases, the caseworker quickly grows obsessed with cleaning and soon takes over Tender's job, drifting more and more away from helping him confront his past. She reveals at this time that many of the Creedish suicides were really murders masked to look like suicides to encourage more survivors to kill themselves. A week from their last meeting, Tender and Fertility meet again at Trevor's tomb in the mausoleum. Fertility teaches him to dance, while revealing that Trevor had been psychic, and all the things he had dreamt about had really happened. At home, Tender receives a suspicious call from a man he recognizes as a member of the Creedish Church, and he soon realizes that the murderer of Creedish survivors is actually Creedish himself. The call scares him, for he fears that he will be the next victim. Abruptly after the call, Fertility also calls Tender, again trying to reach the crisis hotline, and she tells him about dancing with the man at the mausoleum and asks him to get together with her. Tender (as the man at the crisis hotline) agrees, on the condition that she agrees to take the man from the mausoleum (i.e. him) out on a date. She agrees. On their date, Tender and Fertility ride the bus downtown, where a stranger rudely begins telling them facile jokes pointed at the Creedish mass suicide. Tender laughs at all the jokes, secretly wondering if the joker can tell he's Creedish. Fertility snaps at the joker for making fun of suicide. When the joker rises to exit the bus, Tender recognizes the man's pants as Creedish dress, and suddenly recognizes the man as Adam, his twin brother. Tender speaks Adam's name aloud, but when Adam asks if they are brothers, he desperately denies it. After the bus incident, Fertility takes Tender to a department store that she presciently knows will catch on fire, but that she knows will not harm them. Fertility explains that she has the same talent as her brother for dreaming the future. Tender soon learns that he has become one of the last two survivors of the Creedish Church. The caseworker has him go over photos of dead Creedish to see if he can identify the other survivor, but he already knows it to be his brother Adam. He begins receiving phone calls from journalists and agents wanting his story. The caseworker manages to suffocate on a chemical solution of ammonia and chlorine that she was using to clean the fireplace, which had been secretly mixed together by Adam, and whose intended target was Tender. Adam steals the caseworker's files on the Creedish suicides immediately after the murder. The police suspect Tender, but he claims innocence and slips away. Tender, meanwhile, calls an agent and takes a flight to New York that very night. Thus begins his road to stardom. The agent's company has been planning for years to turn the last survivor of the Creedish cult into a religious celebrity. They create a fake history for Tender and completely overhaul his body. He is given steroid injections, health food, teeth caps, and is made to exercise and diet incessantly until he is the model of attractiveness. It is made clear by the agent that no one will worship an ugly religious leader. Tender is entirely agreeable to all of it, as he has no will to live and desires fame only in order to have an enormous audience for when he commits suicide. As his agent's plans are realized, Tender's fame grows. These plans include the publication of Tender's \"autobiography\" and the \"Book of Very Common Prayer\", as well as the conversion of the former Creedish land into the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Sanitary Landfill (a repository for America's outdated porn). Tender is constantly waiting for the opportune moment to kill himself, and continually puts it off as circumstances fail to meet his criteria. Then, as his popularity starts to wane, the agent tells him that he needs to perform a miracle in order to stay famous. It is then that Fertility finds Tender and gives him a prediction to make on TV that will seem like a miracle when it comes true. Naturally, it does, and Tender's fame swells to even greater proportions. It is unclear at this point why Fertility has shown up and decided to help. This pattern goes on for some time, until the Super Bowl comes up and Tender's agent plans him an elaborate wedding to take place at half-time, following which, Tender will issue another miraculous prediction. Tender goes wandering around, trying to meet up with Fertility, which he finally does in a men's bathroom where they've taken adjacent stalls. Adam appears then with a gun, and reveals that he's already laid a trap to kill Tender's agent the same way he killed the caseworker, so that Tender would be suspect for both murders. Fertility confirms that the agent will die the next day at the Super Bowl, and comes up with a plan for Tender to make a prediction big enough to distract the police long enough for him to escape. Adam, intending this all along, plans to escape with Tender and Fertility. Agreed on their course of action, the three part. The day of the Super Bowl, the agent dies, Tender is married, and as the police come to arrest him, Tender predicts that the Colts will beat the Cardinals 27-24. The stadium erupts in a chaos as angry football fans pour out of their seats to chase Tender and it is all the police can do to stop the crowd from mobbing him to death. Tender escapes with Adam and Fertility to a Ronald McDonald House. The three then begin their journey across the country by hitching rides in semi-trucks transporting incomplete sections of houses from one location to another. During their journey, Fertility intentionally gets separated from the brothers. Adam and Tender, then, steal a car that Fertility foretold would be unlocked in a particular parking lot. Attached to the dashboard is a little commercial figurine of Tender. The brothers, heading north to Canada, come to the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Sanitary Landfill on the way. As they drive through it, Adam begins recounting the way the Church leaders terrorized the children into fearing sex by forcing them to watch every time a woman went into labor. Tender denies this, but it is unclear whether he simply doesn't want to remember, or whether he actually can't remember because the trauma is buried so deep in his memory. Adam believes the only way to cure Tender is for Tender to have sex - to reject the Church doctrine at its core. Tender resists, and as Adam recounts the details of the \"mental castration\" (as he calls it), Tender loses control and crashes the car into a giant concrete pylon in the middle of the landfill. The crash causes the airbags to deploy, and the one on the passenger's side sends the Tender figurine into Adam's left eye. Adam pulls out the figurine and asks Tender to find a rock and hit him with it. Tender refuses, but Adam asks him to find any rock that he can just to disfigure him with, pleading that if he goes to jail for his murders, he doesn't want the other inmates to even think about sexually abusing him. Tender reluctantly agrees to do this, as long as Adam will tell him when to stop, but Adam keeps telling him to swing again until it is too late and Adam dies. Immediately afterwards, Fertility shows up in a taxicab and takes Tender away from the landfill. They go back to Oregon, and Fertility plans to go on a quick job assignment to make some money. Fertility's job is being a surrogate mother for couples who can't conceive (Fertility is actually a pseudonym - her real name is Gwen); however, Fertility actually happens to be barren, so her job is, in essence, prostitution. The job she takes coincidentally happens to be for Tender's former employers. In the middle of the night, Tender sneaks into the house, and Fertility has sex with him in the guest bedroom (for a short while, for according to Tender, he only got in a few inches.) The next morning, Tender wakes up; and Fertility tells him that she's pregnant. She then leaves for the airport to board a plane to Sydney, Australia. In her planner that she leaves behind, Tender reads that someone is going to hijack the plane and crash it into the Australian outback. Following Fertility to the airport, Tender finds her, takes Adam's gun (which she has stashed in an urn purportedly containing her brother's cremated remains), and uses it to board the plane. He then begins searching for the \"real\" hijacker until the joke dawns on him and he realizes that he is the hijacker. The plot thus returns to the beginning, with Tender telling his life story. He mentions that Fertility told him there was a way for him to escape the plane before it crashes, but on the record, he can't seem to figure it out. The book ends mid-sentence, but without any definitive answer as to whether Tender lives or dies. However, it has been stated by the author that Tender survives, and an explanation is available on Chuck Palahniuk's official website http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/books/survivor/ending-survivor.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Tender Branson sits in the cockpit of a Boeing 747-400, telling his life story to the black box. He is alone in the plane, having hijacked it; he has released all of the plane's passengers and crew prior to this point. He explains the events leading up to the hijacking. Tender is a member of the fanatical Creedish cult, which engaged in a mass suicide ten years previously. He is one of the Creedish members who was sent out into the world to work as a servant, and send his income back to the Creedish community. Creedish members have been steadily killing themselves since the mass suicide, in keeping with their belief that the deliverance is at hand. At the start of his story, Tender works as the housekeeper for a rich couple he never sees in Oregon. They issue directions via a daily planner and a speaker phone. In addition to cleaning, Tender gives the couple etiquette lessons over the phone and tends their garden (which he does by planting fake flowers, which he says is easier than planting real flowers and taking care of them). At his dingy apartment, he gets phone calls from people who want to kill themselves - the result of a newspaper misprint which printed his phone number as the number for a suicide prevention hotline. Tender, enjoying the thrill of passing divine judgment on these people tells them to kill themselves as often as not, and sees this as an act of mercy. Although the newspaper prints a retraction, the calls keep coming, and when they dwindle, Tender prints up fliers for a fake crisis hotline with his number on them so the calls will continue. One of the calls comes from a Trevor Hollis, a man who wants to kill himself because of the nightmares he has been having about disasters, like plane crashes or fires. Tender tells Trevor to kill himself, and soon after, reads his obituary in the paper. One day, Tender goes to the maus"
      },
      {
        "text": ", the calls keep coming, and when they dwindle, Tender prints up fliers for a fake crisis hotline with his number on them so the calls will continue. One of the calls comes from a Trevor Hollis, a man who wants to kill himself because of the nightmares he has been having about disasters, like plane crashes or fires. Tender tells Trevor to kill himself, and soon after, reads his obituary in the paper. One day, Tender goes to the mausoleum to steal fake flowers for his employer's garden (a common pastime), and decides to visit Trevor's tomb while he is there. At the tomb, he meets Trevor's sister, Fertility, and they talk. Later that night, Tender has his weekly meeting with his caseworker from the Federal Survivor Retention Program, a government agency that keeps tabs on the survivors of suicide cults. As usual, he asks how many survivors of the Creedish faith there are remaining, and she tells him, \"One hundred and fifty-seven survivors. Nationwide.\" Tender begins to explain how the Creedish Church works. Only the firstborn sons and their wives get to stay and reside in the community (located in rural Nebraska) - the rest, like Tender, are sent out to work as humble servants, and are considered to be the Church's missionaries. They are extensively trained in etiquette, housecleaning, and other menial labor, after which they are baptized and sent out into the world to make a living. Every month, they are expected to send back money and a letter of confession. \"Tender\" is not really a name, but a title, which is given to all male children except the firstborn, who is called \"Adam\". Likewise, all female children are called \"Biddy\", including the eldest. \"Tender\" is meant to denote one who tends; \"Biddy\", one who is biddable. All but the"
      },
      {
        "text": " and sent out into the world to make a living. Every month, they are expected to send back money and a letter of confession. \"Tender\" is not really a name, but a title, which is given to all male children except the firstborn, who is called \"Adam\". Likewise, all female children are called \"Biddy\", including the eldest. \"Tender\" is meant to denote one who tends; \"Biddy\", one who is biddable. All but the firstborn sons and their wives are discouraged from having sex of any kind and are forbidden to marry, and the latter are expected to have sex only for procreation. All the Creedish wear highly recognizable clothing, both inside the community and out. This makes it easy to spot another member of the Church in the outside world. Tender further describes how, ten years previously, someone leaked the Church's doings (i.e. cult brainwashing, tax evasion, unregistered births) to the police of Bolster County, Nebraska, and the FBI are put on the case. The FBI move in to arrest the cult leaders only to find the entire community dead in an act of mass suicide upon hearing the news. The remaining survivors are expected to be prepared for such an event (called the \"Deliverance\" by the Church), and kill themselves as soon as they hear the news. After their meeting, Fertility calls Tender thinking she has called the crisis hotline. Tender soon realizes it's Fertility, so he begins to talk to her in a fake voice. Because it is revealed later that Fertility is psychic and knows \"everything\", it is understood that she knows at this point that she is speaking to Tender. She talks about her brother's suicide and how she met Tender (\"a pretty weird guy\") at the mausoleum, mentioning how he reminded her of a Creedish cult member, and adding that he was extremely unattractive and she believed him to"
      },
      {
        "text": " it's Fertility, so he begins to talk to her in a fake voice. Because it is revealed later that Fertility is psychic and knows \"everything\", it is understood that she knows at this point that she is speaking to Tender. She talks about her brother's suicide and how she met Tender (\"a pretty weird guy\") at the mausoleum, mentioning how he reminded her of a Creedish cult member, and adding that he was extremely unattractive and she believed him to be Trevor's ex-homosexual lover. Eventually, she asks the man at the \"crisis hotline\" (i.e. Tender) to have phone sex with her, but he hangs up after turning her down. He then stops answering his phone in fear that Fertility will be on the other line, wanting to have phone sex or growing more attracted to him as a mysterious voice than as a person. During another meeting with his caseworker (which regularly takes place at his employers' house), Tender gets frustrated and tells her that if she wants to help him, she can start by scrubbing the shower tiles. Burnt out over a decade of lost suicide cases, the caseworker quickly grows obsessed with cleaning and soon takes over Tender's job, drifting more and more away from helping him confront his past. She reveals at this time that many of the Creedish suicides were really murders masked to look like suicides to encourage more survivors to kill themselves. A week from their last meeting, Tender and Fertility meet again at Trevor's tomb in the mausoleum. Fertility teaches him to dance, while revealing that Trevor had been psychic, and all the things he had dreamt about had really happened. At home, Tender receives a suspicious call from a man he recognizes as a member of the Creedish Church, and he soon realizes that the murderer of Creedish survivors is actually Creedish himself. The call scares him, for he fears that he"
      },
      {
        "text": " their last meeting, Tender and Fertility meet again at Trevor's tomb in the mausoleum. Fertility teaches him to dance, while revealing that Trevor had been psychic, and all the things he had dreamt about had really happened. At home, Tender receives a suspicious call from a man he recognizes as a member of the Creedish Church, and he soon realizes that the murderer of Creedish survivors is actually Creedish himself. The call scares him, for he fears that he will be the next victim. Abruptly after the call, Fertility also calls Tender, again trying to reach the crisis hotline, and she tells him about dancing with the man at the mausoleum and asks him to get together with her. Tender (as the man at the crisis hotline) agrees, on the condition that she agrees to take the man from the mausoleum (i.e. him) out on a date. She agrees. On their date, Tender and Fertility ride the bus downtown, where a stranger rudely begins telling them facile jokes pointed at the Creedish mass suicide. Tender laughs at all the jokes, secretly wondering if the joker can tell he's Creedish. Fertility snaps at the joker for making fun of suicide. When the joker rises to exit the bus, Tender recognizes the man's pants as Creedish dress, and suddenly recognizes the man as Adam, his twin brother. Tender speaks Adam's name aloud, but when Adam asks if they are brothers, he desperately denies it. After the bus incident, Fertility takes Tender to a department store that she presciently knows will catch on fire, but that she knows will not harm them. Fertility explains that she has the same talent as her brother for dreaming the future. Tender soon learns that he has become one of the last two survivors of the Creedish Church. The caseworker has him go over photos of"
      },
      {
        "text": " Adam's name aloud, but when Adam asks if they are brothers, he desperately denies it. After the bus incident, Fertility takes Tender to a department store that she presciently knows will catch on fire, but that she knows will not harm them. Fertility explains that she has the same talent as her brother for dreaming the future. Tender soon learns that he has become one of the last two survivors of the Creedish Church. The caseworker has him go over photos of dead Creedish to see if he can identify the other survivor, but he already knows it to be his brother Adam. He begins receiving phone calls from journalists and agents wanting his story. The caseworker manages to suffocate on a chemical solution of ammonia and chlorine that she was using to clean the fireplace, which had been secretly mixed together by Adam, and whose intended target was Tender. Adam steals the caseworker's files on the Creedish suicides immediately after the murder. The police suspect Tender, but he claims innocence and slips away. Tender, meanwhile, calls an agent and takes a flight to New York that very night. Thus begins his road to stardom. The agent's company has been planning for years to turn the last survivor of the Creedish cult into a religious celebrity. They create a fake history for Tender and completely overhaul his body. He is given steroid injections, health food, teeth caps, and is made to exercise and diet incessantly until he is the model of attractiveness. It is made clear by the agent that no one will worship an ugly religious leader. Tender is entirely agreeable to all of it, as he has no will to live and desires fame only in order to have an enormous audience for when he commits suicide. As his agent's plans are realized, Tender's fame grows. These plans include the publication of Tender's \"autobiography\" and the \"Book of Very Common Prayer\", as well as the conversion of"
      },
      {
        "text": " is the model of attractiveness. It is made clear by the agent that no one will worship an ugly religious leader. Tender is entirely agreeable to all of it, as he has no will to live and desires fame only in order to have an enormous audience for when he commits suicide. As his agent's plans are realized, Tender's fame grows. These plans include the publication of Tender's \"autobiography\" and the \"Book of Very Common Prayer\", as well as the conversion of the former Creedish land into the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Sanitary Landfill (a repository for America's outdated porn). Tender is constantly waiting for the opportune moment to kill himself, and continually puts it off as circumstances fail to meet his criteria. Then, as his popularity starts to wane, the agent tells him that he needs to perform a miracle in order to stay famous. It is then that Fertility finds Tender and gives him a prediction to make on TV that will seem like a miracle when it comes true. Naturally, it does, and Tender's fame swells to even greater proportions. It is unclear at this point why Fertility has shown up and decided to help. This pattern goes on for some time, until the Super Bowl comes up and Tender's agent plans him an elaborate wedding to take place at half-time, following which, Tender will issue another miraculous prediction. Tender goes wandering around, trying to meet up with Fertility, which he finally does in a men's bathroom where they've taken adjacent stalls. Adam appears then with a gun, and reveals that he's already laid a trap to kill Tender's agent the same way he killed the caseworker, so that Tender would be suspect for both murders. Fertility confirms that the agent will die the next day at the Super Bowl, and comes up with a plan for Tender to make a prediction big enough to distract the police long enough for him"
      },
      {
        "text": "ertility, which he finally does in a men's bathroom where they've taken adjacent stalls. Adam appears then with a gun, and reveals that he's already laid a trap to kill Tender's agent the same way he killed the caseworker, so that Tender would be suspect for both murders. Fertility confirms that the agent will die the next day at the Super Bowl, and comes up with a plan for Tender to make a prediction big enough to distract the police long enough for him to escape. Adam, intending this all along, plans to escape with Tender and Fertility. Agreed on their course of action, the three part. The day of the Super Bowl, the agent dies, Tender is married, and as the police come to arrest him, Tender predicts that the Colts will beat the Cardinals 27-24. The stadium erupts in a chaos as angry football fans pour out of their seats to chase Tender and it is all the police can do to stop the crowd from mobbing him to death. Tender escapes with Adam and Fertility to a Ronald McDonald House. The three then begin their journey across the country by hitching rides in semi-trucks transporting incomplete sections of houses from one location to another. During their journey, Fertility intentionally gets separated from the brothers. Adam and Tender, then, steal a car that Fertility foretold would be unlocked in a particular parking lot. Attached to the dashboard is a little commercial figurine of Tender. The brothers, heading north to Canada, come to the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Sanitary Landfill on the way. As they drive through it, Adam begins recounting the way the Church leaders terrorized the children into fearing sex by forcing them to watch every time a woman went into labor. Tender denies this, but it is unclear whether he simply doesn't want to remember, or whether he actually can't remember because the trauma is buried so deep in"
      },
      {
        "text": " figurine of Tender. The brothers, heading north to Canada, come to the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Sanitary Landfill on the way. As they drive through it, Adam begins recounting the way the Church leaders terrorized the children into fearing sex by forcing them to watch every time a woman went into labor. Tender denies this, but it is unclear whether he simply doesn't want to remember, or whether he actually can't remember because the trauma is buried so deep in his memory. Adam believes the only way to cure Tender is for Tender to have sex - to reject the Church doctrine at its core. Tender resists, and as Adam recounts the details of the \"mental castration\" (as he calls it), Tender loses control and crashes the car into a giant concrete pylon in the middle of the landfill. The crash causes the airbags to deploy, and the one on the passenger's side sends the Tender figurine into Adam's left eye. Adam pulls out the figurine and asks Tender to find a rock and hit him with it. Tender refuses, but Adam asks him to find any rock that he can just to disfigure him with, pleading that if he goes to jail for his murders, he doesn't want the other inmates to even think about sexually abusing him. Tender reluctantly agrees to do this, as long as Adam will tell him when to stop, but Adam keeps telling him to swing again until it is too late and Adam dies. Immediately afterwards, Fertility shows up in a taxicab and takes Tender away from the landfill. They go back to Oregon, and Fertility plans to go on a quick job assignment to make some money. Fertility's job is being a surrogate mother for couples who can't conceive (Fertility is actually a pseudonym - her real name is Gwen); however, Fertility actually happens to be barren, so her job is, in essence, prostitution. The"
      },
      {
        "text": " too late and Adam dies. Immediately afterwards, Fertility shows up in a taxicab and takes Tender away from the landfill. They go back to Oregon, and Fertility plans to go on a quick job assignment to make some money. Fertility's job is being a surrogate mother for couples who can't conceive (Fertility is actually a pseudonym - her real name is Gwen); however, Fertility actually happens to be barren, so her job is, in essence, prostitution. The job she takes coincidentally happens to be for Tender's former employers. In the middle of the night, Tender sneaks into the house, and Fertility has sex with him in the guest bedroom (for a short while, for according to Tender, he only got in a few inches.) The next morning, Tender wakes up; and Fertility tells him that she's pregnant. She then leaves for the airport to board a plane to Sydney, Australia. In her planner that she leaves behind, Tender reads that someone is going to hijack the plane and crash it into the Australian outback. Following Fertility to the airport, Tender finds her, takes Adam's gun (which she has stashed in an urn purportedly containing her brother's cremated remains), and uses it to board the plane. He then begins searching for the \"real\" hijacker until the joke dawns on him and he realizes that he is the hijacker. The plot thus returns to the beginning, with Tender telling his life story. He mentions that Fertility told him there was a way for him to escape the plane before it crashes, but on the record, he can't seem to figure it out. The book ends mid-sentence, but without any definitive answer as to whether Tender lives or dies. However, it has been stated by the author that Tender survives, and an explanation is available on Chuck Palahniuk's official website http://www."
      },
      {
        "text": " the beginning, with Tender telling his life story. He mentions that Fertility told him there was a way for him to escape the plane before it crashes, but on the record, he can't seem to figure it out. The book ends mid-sentence, but without any definitive answer as to whether Tender lives or dies. However, it has been stated by the author that Tender survives, and an explanation is available on Chuck Palahniuk's official website http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/books/survivor/ending-survivor.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Jungle",
    "author": "Upton Sinclair, Jr.",
    "published_date": "1906-02-28",
    "synopsis": " The main character in the book is a Lithuanian man called Jurgis Rudkus, an immigrant to the United States trying to make ends meet. The book begins describing the wedding feast beginning at four o'clock after the marriage in Chicago of Jurgis to a fifteen year old Lithuanian girl named Ona Lukoszaite whom he had known from his Lithuanian days. The second chapter goes back to when Jurgis and Ona were in Lithuania before they married and Jurgis's courtship of her, the death of her father, and their decision to start dating and eventually immigrate to the United States along with her stepmother Teta Elzbieta, and their extended family after hearing how their relative Jokubas Szedvilas is making money there. In the second and third chapters Jurgis and Ona settle in Chicago's infamous Packingtown district, where from the start, Jurgis takes a job at Brown's slaughterhouse. (Brown was a pseudonym for Armour and Company.) Jurgis believes when he immigrates to the United States that it will be a land of more freedom, but soon his employer's treatment of him disappoints him. Alas, they have to make compromises and concessions to survive. Due partly to illiteracy in English, they quickly make a series of bad decisions that cause them to go deep into debt and fall prey to con men. The most devastating decision comes when, in hopes of owning their own home, the family falls victim to a predatory lending scheme that exhausts all their remaining savings on the down-payment for a sub-standard slum house that (by design) they cannot possibly afford. The family is evicted and their money taken, leaving them truly devastated. The family had formerly envisioned that Jurgis alone would be able to support them in the United States, but one by one, all of them—the women, the young children, and Jurgis' sick father—have to find jobs in order to contribute to the meager family income. As the novel progresses, the jobs and means the family uses to stay alive slowly and inevitably lead to their physical and moral decay. A series of unfortunate events—accidents at work, along with a number of deaths in the family that under normal circumstances could have been prevented—leads the family further toward catastrophe. One injury results in Jurgis being fired; he later takes a job at Durham's fertilizer plant. (Durham was a pseudonym for Swift and Company.) The family's tragedies cumulate when Ona confesses to Jurgis, who is suspicious of her frequent absences from home, that her boss, Phil Connor, had raped her, and made her job dependent on her giving him sexual favors. In revenge, Jurgis later attacks Connor, leading to his arrest and imprisonment by the corrupt judge Pat Callahan, who sides with Connor against Jurgis. After his stint in jail, Jurgis returns home, only to find out that his family has been evicted. He finds his family at a relative's house; Jurgis also discovers Ona in labor with her second child. Ona dies in childbirth from blood loss at the age of eighteen. Jurgis lacked money to pay for a doctor; so Ona has to rely on the greedy and incompetent Madame Haupt, whose carelessness leads to Ona's death. Soon after their first child drowns in the muddy street, causing Jurgis to flee the city in utter despair and turn to drinking. At first the mere presence of fresh air is balm to his soul, but his brief sojourn as a hobo in rural United States shows him that there is really no escape—even farmers turn their workers away when the harvest is finished. Jurgis returns to Chicago and holds down a succession of jobs outside the meat packing industry—digging tunnels, as a political hack, and as a con-man—but injuries on the job, his past and his innate sense of personal integrity continue to haunt him, and he drifts without direction. One night, while looking for a warm and dry refuge, he wanders into a lecture being given by a charismatic Socialist orator, and finds a sense of community and purpose. Socialism and strong labor unions are the answer to the evils that he, his family and their fellow sufferers have had to endure. A fellow socialist employs him, and he resumes his support of his wife's family, although some of them are damaged beyond repair. The book ends with another socialist rally, which comes on the heels of several recent political victories. The speaker encourages his comrades to keep fighting for victories, chanting \"Chicago will be ours!\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The main character in the book is a Lithuanian man called Jurgis Rudkus, an immigrant to the United States trying to make ends meet. The book begins describing the wedding feast beginning at four o'clock after the marriage in Chicago of Jurgis to a fifteen year old Lithuanian girl named Ona Lukoszaite whom he had known from his Lithuanian days. The second chapter goes back to when Jurgis and Ona were in Lithuania before they married and Jurgis's courtship of her, the death of her father, and their decision to start dating and eventually immigrate to the United States along with her stepmother Teta Elzbieta, and their extended family after hearing how their relative Jokubas Szedvilas is making money there. In the second and third chapters Jurgis and Ona settle in Chicago's infamous Packingtown district, where from the start, Jurgis takes a job at Brown's slaughterhouse. (Brown was a pseudonym for Armour and Company.) Jurgis believes when he immigrates to the United States that it will be a land of more freedom, but soon his employer's treatment of him disappoints him. Alas, they have to make compromises and concessions to survive. Due partly to illiteracy in English, they quickly make a series of bad decisions that cause them to go deep into debt and fall prey to con men. The most devastating decision comes when, in hopes of owning their own home, the family falls victim to a predatory lending scheme that exhausts all their remaining savings on the down-payment for a sub-standard slum house that (by design) they cannot possibly afford. The family is evicted and their money taken, leaving them truly devastated. The family had formerly envisioned that Jurgis alone would be able to support them in the United States, but one by one, all of them—the women, the young children, and Jurgis"
      },
      {
        "text": " home, the family falls victim to a predatory lending scheme that exhausts all their remaining savings on the down-payment for a sub-standard slum house that (by design) they cannot possibly afford. The family is evicted and their money taken, leaving them truly devastated. The family had formerly envisioned that Jurgis alone would be able to support them in the United States, but one by one, all of them—the women, the young children, and Jurgis' sick father—have to find jobs in order to contribute to the meager family income. As the novel progresses, the jobs and means the family uses to stay alive slowly and inevitably lead to their physical and moral decay. A series of unfortunate events—accidents at work, along with a number of deaths in the family that under normal circumstances could have been prevented—leads the family further toward catastrophe. One injury results in Jurgis being fired; he later takes a job at Durham's fertilizer plant. (Durham was a pseudonym for Swift and Company.) The family's tragedies cumulate when Ona confesses to Jurgis, who is suspicious of her frequent absences from home, that her boss, Phil Connor, had raped her, and made her job dependent on her giving him sexual favors. In revenge, Jurgis later attacks Connor, leading to his arrest and imprisonment by the corrupt judge Pat Callahan, who sides with Connor against Jurgis. After his stint in jail, Jurgis returns home, only to find out that his family has been evicted. He finds his family at a relative's house; Jurgis also discovers Ona in labor with her second child. Ona dies in childbirth from blood loss at the age of eighteen. Jurgis lacked money to pay for a doctor; so Ona has to rely on the greedy and incompetent Madame Haupt, whose carelessness leads to Ona"
      },
      {
        "text": " against Jurgis. After his stint in jail, Jurgis returns home, only to find out that his family has been evicted. He finds his family at a relative's house; Jurgis also discovers Ona in labor with her second child. Ona dies in childbirth from blood loss at the age of eighteen. Jurgis lacked money to pay for a doctor; so Ona has to rely on the greedy and incompetent Madame Haupt, whose carelessness leads to Ona's death. Soon after their first child drowns in the muddy street, causing Jurgis to flee the city in utter despair and turn to drinking. At first the mere presence of fresh air is balm to his soul, but his brief sojourn as a hobo in rural United States shows him that there is really no escape—even farmers turn their workers away when the harvest is finished. Jurgis returns to Chicago and holds down a succession of jobs outside the meat packing industry—digging tunnels, as a political hack, and as a con-man—but injuries on the job, his past and his innate sense of personal integrity continue to haunt him, and he drifts without direction. One night, while looking for a warm and dry refuge, he wanders into a lecture being given by a charismatic Socialist orator, and finds a sense of community and purpose. Socialism and strong labor unions are the answer to the evils that he, his family and their fellow sufferers have had to endure. A fellow socialist employs him, and he resumes his support of his wife's family, although some of them are damaged beyond repair. The book ends with another socialist rally, which comes on the heels of several recent political victories. The speaker encourages his comrades to keep fighting for victories, chanting \"Chicago will be ours!\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " he, his family and their fellow sufferers have had to endure. A fellow socialist employs him, and he resumes his support of his wife's family, although some of them are damaged beyond repair. The book ends with another socialist rally, which comes on the heels of several recent political victories. The speaker encourages his comrades to keep fighting for victories, chanting \"Chicago will be ours!\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Music Man",
    "author": "Meredith Willson",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In the early summer of 1912, aboard a train leaving Rock Island, Illinois, Charlie Cowell and other traveling salesmen engage in a heated argument about consumer credit (\"Rock Island\"). They eventually turn to another topic: a con man known as \"Professor\" Harold Hill, whose scam is to convince parents he can teach their musically disinclined children to play musical instruments. On the premise that he will form a band, he takes orders for instruments and uniforms. But once the instruments arrive and are paid for, he skips town without forming the band, moving on before he is exposed. Upon the train\u2019s arrival in River City, Iowa, a stranger stands up and declares, \"Gentlemen, you intrigue me. I think I shall have to give Iowa a try.\" Retrieving his suitcase, clearly labeled \"Professor Harold Hill,\" he exits the train. The townspeople of River City describe their reserved, \"chip-on-the-shoulder attitude\" (\"Iowa Stubborn\"). Harold stumbles across his old friend Marcellus Washburn, who has \"gone legit\" and now lives in town. Marcellus tells Harold that Marian Paroo, the librarian who gives piano lessons, is the only trained musician in town. He also informs Hill that a new pool table was just delivered to the town's local billiard parlor, so to launch his scheme, Harold convinces River City parents of the \"trouble\" that will be caused by that pool table (\"Ya Got Trouble\"). Harold follows Marian home, attempting to flirt with her, but she ignores him. At home, Marian gives a piano lesson to a little girl named Amaryllis while arguing with her widowed mother about her high \"standards where men are concerned\", telling Mrs. Paroo about the man who followed her home (\"Piano Lesson/If You Don't Mind My Saying So\"). Marian's self-conscious, lisping teenage brother Winthrop arrives home. Amaryllis, who secretly likes Winthrop but teases him about the lisp, asks Marian whom she should say goodnight to on the evening star, since she doesn't have a sweetheart. Marian tells her to just say goodnight to her \"someone\" (\"Goodnight, My Someone\"). The next day is Independence Day, and Mayor Shinn is leading the morning festivities in the high school gym, with the help of his wife, Eulalie MacKecknie Shinn (\"Columbia, Gem of the Ocean\"). After Tommy Djilas, a boy from the wrong side of town, sets off a firecracker, interrupting the proceedings, Harold takes the stage and announces to the townspeople that he will prevent \"sin and corruption\" from the pool table by forming a boys' band (\"Ya Got Trouble [Reprise]/Seventy-Six Trombones\"). Mayor Shinn, who owns the billiard parlor, tells the bickering school board to get Harold's credentials, but Harold teaches them to sing as a Barbershop Quartet to distract them (\"Ice Cream/Sincere\"). Harold also sets up Zaneeta, the mayor's eldest daughter, with Tommy, and persuades Tommy to work as his assistant. After another rejection by Marian, Harold is determined to win her, telling Marcellus that she\u2019s the girl for him (\"The Sadder But Wiser Girl\"). The town ladies are very excited about the band and the ladies' dance committee that Harold plans to form. He mentions Marian, and they intimate to him (falsely, as it turns out) that she had an inappropriate relationship with deceased old miser Madison, who gave the town the library, but left all the books to her. They also warn Harold that she advocates the \"dirty books\" by \"Chaucer, Rabelais, and Balzac\" (\"Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little\"). The school board arrives to collect Harold's credentials, but he leads them in song and slips away (\"Goodnight, Ladies\"). The next day, Harold walks into the library, but Marian ignores him yet again. He declares his unrequited love for her, leading the teenagers in the library in dance (\"Marian the Librarian\"). For a moment, Marian forgets her decorum and dances with Harold. He kisses her, and she tries to slap him. He ducks, and she hits Tommy instead. With Tommy's help, Harold signs up all the boys in town to be in his band, including Winthrop. Mrs. Paroo likes Harold and tries to find out why Marian is not interested. Marian describes her ideal man (\"My White Knight\"). She tries to give Mayor Shinn evidence against Harold that she found in the Indiana State Educational Journal, but they are interrupted by the arrival of the Wells Fargo wagon, which delivers the band instruments (\"The Wells Fargo Wagon\"). When Winthrop forgets to be shy and self-conscious because he is so happy about his new cornet, Marian begins to see Harold in a new light. She tears the incriminating page out of the Journal before giving the book to Mayor Shinn. The ladies rehearse their classical dance in the school gym while the school board practices their quartet (\"It's You\") for the ice cream social. Marcellus and the town's teenagers interrupt the ladies' practice, taking over the gym as they dance (\"Shipoopi\"). Harold grabs Marian to dance with her, and all the teenagers join in. Regarding Winthrop's cornet, Marian later questions Harold about his claim that \"you don't have to bother with the notes\". He explains that this is what he calls \"The Think System\", and he arranges to call on Marian to discuss it. The town ladies ask Marian to join their dance committee, since she was \"so dear dancing the Shipoopi\" with Professor Hill (\"Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little\" [Reprise]). They have reversed their opinions about her books, and they eagerly tell her that \"the Professor told us to read those books, and we simply adored them all!\" That night, the school board tries to collect Harold's credentials again, but he gets them to sing again and slips away (\"Lida Rose\"). Marian, meanwhile, is sitting on her front porch thinking of Harold (\"Will I Ever Tell You?\"). Winthrop returns home after spending time with Harold and tells Marian and Mrs. Paroo about Harold's hometown (\"Gary, Indiana\"). As Marian waits alone for Harold, traveling salesman Charlie Cowell enters with evidence against Harold, hoping to tell Mayor Shinn. He has to leave on the next train, but stops to flirt with Marian. She tries to delay him so he doesn't have time to deliver the evidence, eventually kissing him. As the train whistle blows, she pushes him away. Charlie angrily tells Marian that Harold has a girl in \"every county in Illinois, and he's taken it from every one of them – and that's 102 counties!\" Harold arrives, and after he reminds her of the untrue rumors he's heard about her, she convinces herself that Charlie invented everything he told her. They agree to meet at the footbridge, where Marian tells him the difference he's made in her life (\"Till There Was You\"). Marcellus interrupts and tells Harold that the uniforms have arrived. He urges Harold to take the money and run, but Harold refuses to leave, insisting, \"I've come up through the ranks... and I'm not resigning without my commission\". He returns to Marian, who tells him that she's known since three days after he arrived that he is a fraud. (He said he was a graduate of Gary Conservatory, Gold-Medal Class of '05, but the town wasn't even built until '06!) Because she loves him, she gives him the incriminating page out of the Indiana State Educational Journal. She leaves, promising to see him later at the Sociable. With his schemes for the boys' band and Marian proceeding even better than planned, Harold confidently sings \"Seventy-Six Trombones\". As he overhears Marian singing \"Goodnight My Someone\", Harold suddenly realizes that he is in love with Marian; he and Marian sing a snatch of each other's songs. Meanwhile, Charlie Cowell, who has missed his train, arrives at the ice cream social and denounces Harold Hill as a fraud. The townspeople begin an agitated search for Harold. Winthrop is heartbroken and tells Harold that he wishes Harold never came to River City. But Marian tells Winthrop that she believes everything Harold ever said, for it did come true in the way every kid in town talked and acted that summer. She and Winthrop urge Harold to get away. He chooses to stay and tells Marian that he never really fell in love until he met her (\"Till There Was You\" [Reprise]). The constable then handcuffs Harold and leads him away. Mayor Shinn leads a meeting in the high school gym to decide what to do with Harold, asking, \"Where's the band? Where's the band?\" Marian defends Harold. Tommy enters as a drum major, followed by the kids in uniform with their instruments. Marian urges Harold to lead the River City Boys' Band in Beethoven's Minuet in G; despite a limited amount of traditional quality, the parents in the audience are nonetheless enraptured by the sight of their little boys playing music. Even Mayor Shinn is won over, and, as the townspeople cheer, Harold is released into Marian's arms (\"Finale\").\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the early summer of 1912, aboard a train leaving Rock Island, Illinois, Charlie Cowell and other traveling salesmen engage in a heated argument about consumer credit (\"Rock Island\"). They eventually turn to another topic: a con man known as \"Professor\" Harold Hill, whose scam is to convince parents he can teach their musically disinclined children to play musical instruments. On the premise that he will form a band, he takes orders for instruments and uniforms. But once the instruments arrive and are paid for, he skips town without forming the band, moving on before he is exposed. Upon the train\u2019s arrival in River City, Iowa, a stranger stands up and declares, \"Gentlemen, you intrigue me. I think I shall have to give Iowa a try.\" Retrieving his suitcase, clearly labeled \"Professor Harold Hill,\" he exits the train. The townspeople of River City describe their reserved, \"chip-on-the-shoulder attitude\" (\"Iowa Stubborn\"). Harold stumbles across his old friend Marcellus Washburn, who has \"gone legit\" and now lives in town. Marcellus tells Harold that Marian Paroo, the librarian who gives piano lessons, is the only trained musician in town. He also informs Hill that a new pool table was just delivered to the town's local billiard parlor, so to launch his scheme, Harold convinces River City parents of the \"trouble\" that will be caused by that pool table (\"Ya Got Trouble\"). Harold follows Marian home, attempting to flirt with her, but she ignores him. At home, Marian gives a piano lesson to a little girl named Amaryllis while arguing with her widowed mother about her high \"standards where men are concerned\", telling Mrs. Paroo about the man who followed her home (\"Piano Lesson/If You Don't Mind My Saying So\"). Marian's self-conscious, lisping teenage brother Win"
      },
      {
        "text": " by that pool table (\"Ya Got Trouble\"). Harold follows Marian home, attempting to flirt with her, but she ignores him. At home, Marian gives a piano lesson to a little girl named Amaryllis while arguing with her widowed mother about her high \"standards where men are concerned\", telling Mrs. Paroo about the man who followed her home (\"Piano Lesson/If You Don't Mind My Saying So\"). Marian's self-conscious, lisping teenage brother Winthrop arrives home. Amaryllis, who secretly likes Winthrop but teases him about the lisp, asks Marian whom she should say goodnight to on the evening star, since she doesn't have a sweetheart. Marian tells her to just say goodnight to her \"someone\" (\"Goodnight, My Someone\"). The next day is Independence Day, and Mayor Shinn is leading the morning festivities in the high school gym, with the help of his wife, Eulalie MacKecknie Shinn (\"Columbia, Gem of the Ocean\"). After Tommy Djilas, a boy from the wrong side of town, sets off a firecracker, interrupting the proceedings, Harold takes the stage and announces to the townspeople that he will prevent \"sin and corruption\" from the pool table by forming a boys' band (\"Ya Got Trouble [Reprise]/Seventy-Six Trombones\"). Mayor Shinn, who owns the billiard parlor, tells the bickering school board to get Harold's credentials, but Harold teaches them to sing as a Barbershop Quartet to distract them (\"Ice Cream/Sincere\"). Harold also sets up Zaneeta, the mayor's eldest daughter, with Tommy, and persuades Tommy to work as his assistant. After another rejection by Marian, Harold is determined to win her, telling Marcellus that she\u2019s the girl for him (\"The Sadder But Wiser Girl\")."
      },
      {
        "text": "lor, tells the bickering school board to get Harold's credentials, but Harold teaches them to sing as a Barbershop Quartet to distract them (\"Ice Cream/Sincere\"). Harold also sets up Zaneeta, the mayor's eldest daughter, with Tommy, and persuades Tommy to work as his assistant. After another rejection by Marian, Harold is determined to win her, telling Marcellus that she\u2019s the girl for him (\"The Sadder But Wiser Girl\"). The town ladies are very excited about the band and the ladies' dance committee that Harold plans to form. He mentions Marian, and they intimate to him (falsely, as it turns out) that she had an inappropriate relationship with deceased old miser Madison, who gave the town the library, but left all the books to her. They also warn Harold that she advocates the \"dirty books\" by \"Chaucer, Rabelais, and Balzac\" (\"Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little\"). The school board arrives to collect Harold's credentials, but he leads them in song and slips away (\"Goodnight, Ladies\"). The next day, Harold walks into the library, but Marian ignores him yet again. He declares his unrequited love for her, leading the teenagers in the library in dance (\"Marian the Librarian\"). For a moment, Marian forgets her decorum and dances with Harold. He kisses her, and she tries to slap him. He ducks, and she hits Tommy instead. With Tommy's help, Harold signs up all the boys in town to be in his band, including Winthrop. Mrs. Paroo likes Harold and tries to find out why Marian is not interested. Marian describes her ideal man (\"My White Knight\"). She tries to give Mayor Shinn evidence against Harold that she found in the Indiana State Educational Journal, but they are interrupted by the arrival of the Wells Fargo wagon, which delivers the band instruments (\"The Wells Fargo W"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and she hits Tommy instead. With Tommy's help, Harold signs up all the boys in town to be in his band, including Winthrop. Mrs. Paroo likes Harold and tries to find out why Marian is not interested. Marian describes her ideal man (\"My White Knight\"). She tries to give Mayor Shinn evidence against Harold that she found in the Indiana State Educational Journal, but they are interrupted by the arrival of the Wells Fargo wagon, which delivers the band instruments (\"The Wells Fargo Wagon\"). When Winthrop forgets to be shy and self-conscious because he is so happy about his new cornet, Marian begins to see Harold in a new light. She tears the incriminating page out of the Journal before giving the book to Mayor Shinn. The ladies rehearse their classical dance in the school gym while the school board practices their quartet (\"It's You\") for the ice cream social. Marcellus and the town's teenagers interrupt the ladies' practice, taking over the gym as they dance (\"Shipoopi\"). Harold grabs Marian to dance with her, and all the teenagers join in. Regarding Winthrop's cornet, Marian later questions Harold about his claim that \"you don't have to bother with the notes\". He explains that this is what he calls \"The Think System\", and he arranges to call on Marian to discuss it. The town ladies ask Marian to join their dance committee, since she was \"so dear dancing the Shipoopi\" with Professor Hill (\"Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little\" [Reprise]). They have reversed their opinions about her books, and they eagerly tell her that \"the Professor told us to read those books, and we simply adored them all!\" That night, the school board tries to collect Harold's credentials again, but he gets them to sing again and slips away (\"Lida Rose\"). Marian, meanwhile, is sitting on her front porch thinking of Harold (\"Will I Ever Tell You"
      },
      {
        "text": " Professor Hill (\"Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little\" [Reprise]). They have reversed their opinions about her books, and they eagerly tell her that \"the Professor told us to read those books, and we simply adored them all!\" That night, the school board tries to collect Harold's credentials again, but he gets them to sing again and slips away (\"Lida Rose\"). Marian, meanwhile, is sitting on her front porch thinking of Harold (\"Will I Ever Tell You?\"). Winthrop returns home after spending time with Harold and tells Marian and Mrs. Paroo about Harold's hometown (\"Gary, Indiana\"). As Marian waits alone for Harold, traveling salesman Charlie Cowell enters with evidence against Harold, hoping to tell Mayor Shinn. He has to leave on the next train, but stops to flirt with Marian. She tries to delay him so he doesn't have time to deliver the evidence, eventually kissing him. As the train whistle blows, she pushes him away. Charlie angrily tells Marian that Harold has a girl in \"every county in Illinois, and he's taken it from every one of them – and that's 102 counties!\" Harold arrives, and after he reminds her of the untrue rumors he's heard about her, she convinces herself that Charlie invented everything he told her. They agree to meet at the footbridge, where Marian tells him the difference he's made in her life (\"Till There Was You\"). Marcellus interrupts and tells Harold that the uniforms have arrived. He urges Harold to take the money and run, but Harold refuses to leave, insisting, \"I've come up through the ranks... and I'm not resigning without my commission\". He returns to Marian, who tells him that she's known since three days after he arrived that he is a fraud. (He said he was a graduate of Gary Conservatory, Gold-Medal Class of '05, but the town wasn't even built"
      },
      {
        "text": "us interrupts and tells Harold that the uniforms have arrived. He urges Harold to take the money and run, but Harold refuses to leave, insisting, \"I've come up through the ranks... and I'm not resigning without my commission\". He returns to Marian, who tells him that she's known since three days after he arrived that he is a fraud. (He said he was a graduate of Gary Conservatory, Gold-Medal Class of '05, but the town wasn't even built until '06!) Because she loves him, she gives him the incriminating page out of the Indiana State Educational Journal. She leaves, promising to see him later at the Sociable. With his schemes for the boys' band and Marian proceeding even better than planned, Harold confidently sings \"Seventy-Six Trombones\". As he overhears Marian singing \"Goodnight My Someone\", Harold suddenly realizes that he is in love with Marian; he and Marian sing a snatch of each other's songs. Meanwhile, Charlie Cowell, who has missed his train, arrives at the ice cream social and denounces Harold Hill as a fraud. The townspeople begin an agitated search for Harold. Winthrop is heartbroken and tells Harold that he wishes Harold never came to River City. But Marian tells Winthrop that she believes everything Harold ever said, for it did come true in the way every kid in town talked and acted that summer. She and Winthrop urge Harold to get away. He chooses to stay and tells Marian that he never really fell in love until he met her (\"Till There Was You\" [Reprise]). The constable then handcuffs Harold and leads him away. Mayor Shinn leads a meeting in the high school gym to decide what to do with Harold, asking, \"Where's the band? Where's the band?\" Marian defends Harold. Tommy enters as a drum major, followed by the kids in uniform with their instruments. Marian urges Harold to lead the River City Boys"
      },
      {
        "text": " to stay and tells Marian that he never really fell in love until he met her (\"Till There Was You\" [Reprise]). The constable then handcuffs Harold and leads him away. Mayor Shinn leads a meeting in the high school gym to decide what to do with Harold, asking, \"Where's the band? Where's the band?\" Marian defends Harold. Tommy enters as a drum major, followed by the kids in uniform with their instruments. Marian urges Harold to lead the River City Boys' Band in Beethoven's Minuet in G; despite a limited amount of traditional quality, the parents in the audience are nonetheless enraptured by the sight of their little boys playing music. Even Mayor Shinn is won over, and, as the townspeople cheer, Harold is released into Marian's arms (\"Finale\").\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Level 7",
    "author": "Mordecai Roshwald",
    "published_date": "1959",
    "synopsis": " During his forced residence, X-127 is ordered to push the bomb buttons to begin World War III (which lasts a total of 2 hours and 58 minutes). From that point, all civilian life moves from the surface of the earth to a collection of underground shelter complexes on the Levels 1 - 5, while military personnel already occupy Levels 6 and 7. It later emerges that the orders given have been wholly automatic, and the war has taken place as a series of electronic responses to an initial accident. Toward the end of the novel, the inhabitants of the surviving shelters gradually find their deaths, as the surface contamination makes its way down past air filters and into ground water sources. At last, the inhabitants of \"Level 7\" are exterminated through a malfunction in their nuclear power pile.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " During his forced residence, X-127 is ordered to push the bomb buttons to begin World War III (which lasts a total of 2 hours and 58 minutes). From that point, all civilian life moves from the surface of the earth to a collection of underground shelter complexes on the Levels 1 - 5, while military personnel already occupy Levels 6 and 7. It later emerges that the orders given have been wholly automatic, and the war has taken place as a series of electronic responses to an initial accident. Toward the end of the novel, the inhabitants of the surviving shelters gradually find their deaths, as the surface contamination makes its way down past air filters and into ground water sources. At last, the inhabitants of \"Level 7\" are exterminated through a malfunction in their nuclear power pile.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Prince",
    "author": "Niccol\u00f2 Machiavelli",
    "published_date": "1532",
    "synopsis": " The work has a recognizable structure, for the most part indicated by the author himself, which can be summarized as follows. The Prince starts by describing the subject matter it will handle. In the first sentence Machiavelli uses the word \"state\" (Italian stato which could also mean \"status\") in order to neutrally cover \"all forms of organization of supreme political power, whether republican or princely\". The way in which the word state came to acquire this modern type of meaning during the Renaissance has been the subject of many academic discussions, with this sentence and similar ones in the works of Machiavelli being considered particularly important. Machiavelli said that The Prince would be about princedoms, mentioning that he has written about republics elsewhere (possibly referring to the Discourses on Livy although this is debated), but in fact he mixes discussion of republics into this in many places, effectively treating republics as a type of princedom also, and one with many strengths. More importantly, and less traditionally, he distinguishes new princedoms from hereditary established princedoms. He deals with hereditary princedoms quickly in Chapter 2, saying that they are much easier to rule. For such a prince, \"unless extraordinary vices cause him to be hated, it is reasonable to expect that his subjects will be naturally well disposed towards him\". , comparing to traditional presentations of advice for princes, stated that the novelty in chapters 1 and 2 is the \"deliberate purpose of dealing with a new ruler who will need to establish himself in defiance of custom\". Normally, these types of works were addressed only to hereditary princes. He thinks Machiavelli may have been influenced by Tacitus as well his own experience, but finds no clear predecessor for this. This categorization of regime types is also \"un-Aristotelian\" and apparently simpler than the traditional one found for example in Aristotle's Politics, which divides regimes into those ruled by a single monarch, an oligarchy, or by the people, in a democracy. He also ignores the classical distinctions between the good and corrupt forms, for example between monarchy and tyranny. points out that Machiavelli frequently uses the words \"prince\" and \"tyrant\" as synonyms, \"regardless of whether he speaks of criminal or non-criminal tyrants\". Xenophon, on the other hand, made exactly the same distinction between types of rulers in the opening of his Education of Cyrus where he says that, concerning the knowledge of how to rule human beings, Cyrus the Great, his exemplary prince, was very different \"from all other kings, both those who have inherited their thrones from their fathers and those who have gained their crowns by their own efforts\". Machiavelli divides the subject of new states into two types, \"mixed\" cases and purely new states. New princedoms are either totally new, or they are \u201cmixed\u201d meaning that they are new parts of an older state, already belonging to that prince. Machiavelli generalizes that there were several virtuous Roman ways to hold a newly acquired province, using a republic as an example of how new princes can act: *to install one's princedom in the new acquisition, or to install colonies of one's people there, which is better. *to indulge the lesser powers of the area without increasing their power. *to put down the powerful people. *not to allow a foreign power to gain reputation. More generally, Machiavelli emphasizes that one should have regard not only for present problems but also for the future ones. One should not \u201cenjoy the benefit of time\u201d but rather the benefit of one's virtue and prudence, because time can bring evil as well as good. In some cases the old king of the conquered kingdom depended on his lords. 16th century France, or in other words France as it was at the time of writing of the Prince, is given by Machiavelli as an example of such a kingdom. These are easy to enter but difficult to hold. When the kingdom revolves around the king, then it is difficult to enter but easy to hold. The solution is to eliminate the old bloodline of the prince. Machiavelli used the Persian empire of Darius III, conquered by Alexander the Great, to illustrate this point and then noted that the Medici, if they think about it, will find this historical example similar to the \"kingdom of the Turk\" (Ottoman Empire) in their time - making this a potentially easier conquest to hold than France would be. notes that this chapter is quite atypical of any previous books for princes. Gilbert supposed the need to discuss conquering free republics is linked to Machiavelli's project to unite Italy, which contained some free republics. As he also notes, the chapter in any case makes it clear that holding such a state is highly difficult for a prince. Machiavelli gives three options:- *Ruin them, like Rome destroyed Carthage, and also like Machiavelli says the Romans eventually had to do in Greece, even though they had wanted to avoid it. *Go to live there (or install colonies, if you are a prince of a republic). *Let them keep their own orders but install a puppet regime. But Machiavelli says this way is useless. Princes who rise to power through their own skill and resources (their \"virtue\") rather than luck tend to have a hard time rising to the top, but once they reach the top they are very secure in their position. This is because they effectively crush their opponents and earn great respect from everyone else. Because they are strong and more self-sufficient, they have to make fewer compromises with their allies. Machiavelli writes that reforming an existing order is one of the most dangerous and difficult things a prince can do. Part of the reason is that people are naturally resistant to change and reform. Those who benefited from the old order will resist change very fiercely. By contrast, those who stand to benefit from the new order will be less fierce in their support, because the new order is unfamiliar and they are not certain it will live up to its promises. Moreover, it is impossible for the prince to satisfy everybody's expectations. Inevitably, he will disappoint some of his followers. Therefore, a prince must have the means to force his supporters to keep supporting him even when they start having second thoughts, otherwise he will lose his power. Only armed prophets, like Moses, succeed in bringing lasting change. Machiavelli claims that Moses killed uncountable numbers of his own people in order to enforce his will. Machiavelli was not the first thinker to notice this pattern. Allan Gilbert wrote: \"In wishing new laws and yet seeing danger in them Machiavelli was not himself an innovator,\" because this idea was traditional and could be found in Aristotle's writings. But Machiavelli went much further than any other author in his emphasis on this aim, and Gilbert associates Machiavelli's emphasis upon such drastic aims with the level of corruption to be found in Italy. According to Machiavelli, when a prince comes to power through luck or the blessings of powerful figures within the regime, he typically has an easy time gaining power but a hard time keeping it thereafter, because his power is dependent on his benefactors' goodwill. He does not command the loyalty of the armies and officials that maintain his authority, and these can be withdrawn from him at a whim. Having risen the easy way, it is not even certain such a prince has the skill and strength to stand on his own feet. This is not necessarily true in every case. Machiavelli cites Cesare Borgia as an example of a lucky prince who escaped this pattern. Through cunning political maneuvers, he managed to secure his power base. Cesare was made commander of the papal armies by his father, Pope Alexander VI, but was also heavily dependent on mercenary armies loyal to the Orsini brothers and the support of the French king. Borgia won over the allegiance of the Orsini's followers with better pay and prestigious government posts. When some of his mercenary captains started to plot against him, he had them imprisoned and executed. When it looked like the king of France would to abandon him, Borgia sought new alliances. Finally, Machiavelli makes a point that bringing new benefits to a conquered people will not be enough to cancel the memory of old injuries, an idea Allan Gilbert said can be found in Tacitus and Seneca the Younger. Conquests by \"criminal virtue\" are ones in which the new prince secures his power through cruel, immoral deeds, such as the execution of political rivals. Machiavelli advises that a prince should carefully calculate all the wicked deeds he needs to do to secure his power, and then execute them all in one stroke, such that he need not commit any more wickedness for the rest of his reign. In this way, his subjects will slowly forget his cruel deeds and his reputation can recover. Princes who fail to do this, who hesitate in their ruthlessness, find that their problems mushroom over time and they are forced to commit wicked deeds throughout their reign. Thus they continuously mar their reputations and alienate their people. Machiavelli's case study is Agathocles of Syracuse. After Agathocles became Praetor of Syracuse, he called a meeting of the city's elite. At his signal, his soldiers killed all the senators and the wealthiest citizens, completely destroying the old oligarchy. He declared himself ruler with no opposition. So secure was his power that he could afford to absent himself to go off on military campaigns in Africa. remarks that this chapter is even less traditional than those it follows, not only in its treatment of criminal behavior, but also in the advice to take power from people at a stroke, noting that precisely the opposite had been advised by Aristotle in his Politics (5.11.1315a13). On the other hand Gilbert shows that another piece of advice in this chapter, to give benefits when it will not appear forced, was traditional. These \"civic principalities\" do not require real virtue, only \u201cfortunate astuteness\u201d. Machiavelli breaks this case into two basic types, depending upon which section of the populace supports the new prince. =====Supported by the great (those who wish to command the people)===== This, according to Machiavelli, is an unstable situation, which must be avoided after the initial coming to power. The great should be made and unmade every day at your convenience. There are two types of great people that might be encountered:- # Those who are bound to the prince. Concerning these it is important to distinguish between two types of obligated great people, those who are rapacious and those who are not. It is the latter who can and should be honoured. # Those who are not bound to the new prince. Once again these need to be divided into two types:- Those with a weak spirit. A prince can make use of them if they are of good counsel; Those who shun being bound because of their own ambition. These should be watched and feared as enemies. =====Supported by the people (those who wish not to be commanded by the great)===== How to win over people depends on circumstances. Machiavelli advises:- *Do not get frightened in adversity. *One should avoid ruling via magistrates, if one wishes to be able to \u201cascend\u201d to absolute rule quickly and safely. *One should make sure that the people need the prince, especially if a time of need should come. The way to judge the strength of a princedom is to see whether it can defend itself, or whether it needs to depend on allies. This does not just mean that the cities should be prepared and the people trained. A prince who is hated is also exposed. This type of \"princedom\" refers for example explicitly to the Catholic church, which is of course not traditionally thought of as a princedom. According to Machiavelli, these are relatively easy to maintain, once founded. They do not need to defend themselves militarily, nor to govern their subjects. Machiavelli discusses the recent history of the Church as if it were a princedom that was in competition to conquer Italy against other princes. He points to factionalism as a historical weak point in the Church, and points to the recent example of the Borgia family as a better strategy which almost worked. He then explicitly proposes that the Medici are now in a position to try the same thing. Having discussed the various types of principalities, Machiavelli turns to the ways a state can attack other territories or defend itself. The two most essential foundations for any state, whether old or new, are sound laws and strong military forces. A self-sufficient prince is one who can meet any enemy on the battlefield. He should be \"armed\" with his own arms. However, a prince that relies solely on fortifications or on the help of others and stands on the defensive is not self-sufficient. If he cannot raise a formidable army, but must rely on defense, he must fortify his city. A well-fortified city is unlikely to be attacked, and if it is, most armies cannot endure an extended siege. However, during a siege a virtuous prince will keep the morale of his subjects high while removing all dissenters. Thus, as long as the city is properly defended and has enough supplies, a wise prince can withstand any siege. Machiavelli stands strongly against the use of mercenaries, and in this he was innovative, and he also had personal experience in Florence. He believes they are useless to a ruler because they are undisciplined, cowardly, and without any loyalty, being motivated only by money. Machiavelli attributes the Italian city states\u2019 weakness to their reliance on mercenary armies. Machiavelli also warns against using auxiliary forces, troops borrowed from an ally, because if they win, the employer is under their favor and if they lose, he is ruined. Auxiliary forces are more dangerous than mercenary forces because they are united and controlled by capable leaders who may turn against the employer. The main concern for a prince should be war, or the preparation thereof, not books. Through war a hereditary prince maintains his power or a private citizen rises to power. Machiavelli advises that a prince must frequently hunt in order to keep his body fit and learn the landscape surrounding his kingdom. Through this, he can best learn how to protect his territory and advance upon others. For intellectual strength, he is advised to study great military men so he may imitate their successes and avoid their mistakes. A prince who is diligent in times of peace will be ready in times of adversity. Machiavelli writes, \u201cthus, when fortune turns against him he will be prepared to resist it.\u201d Each of the following chapters presents a discussion about a particular virtue or vice that a prince might have, and is therefore structured in a way which appears like traditional advice for a prince. However the advice is far from traditional. Machiavelli believes that a prince's main focus should be on perfecting the art of war. He believes that by taking this profession a ruler will be able to protect his kingdom. He claims that \"being disarmed makes you despised.\" He believes that the only way to ensure loyalty from one's soldiers is to understand military matters. The two activities Machiavelli recommends practicing to prepare for war are physical and mental. Physically, he believes rulers should learn the landscape of their territories. Mentally, he encouraged the study of past military events. He also warns against idleness. Because, says Machiavelli, he wants to write something useful to those who understand, he thought it more fitting \"to go directly to the effectual truth (\"verit\u00e0 effettuale\") of the thing than to the imagination of it\". This section is one where Machiavelli\u2019s pragmatic ideal can be seen most clearly. The prince should, ideally, be virtuous, but he should be willing and able to abandon those virtues if it becomes necessary. Concerning the behavior of a prince toward his subjects, Machiavelli announces that he will depart from what other writers say, and writes: Since there are many possible qualities that a prince can be said to possess, he must not be overly concerned about having all the good ones. Also, a prince may be perceived to be merciful, faithful, humane, frank, and religious, but most important is only to seem to have these qualities. A prince cannot truly have these qualities because at times it is necessary to act against them. In fact, he must sometimes deliberately choose evil. Although a bad reputation should be avoided, it is sometimes necessary to have one. If a prince is overly generous to his subjects, Machiavelli asserts he will not be appreciated, and will only cause greed for more. Additionally, being overly generous is not economical, because eventually all resources will be exhausted. This results in higher taxes, and will bring grief upon the prince. Then, if he decides to discontinue or limit his generosity, he will be labeled as a miser. Thus, Machiavelli summarizes that guarding against the people\u2019s hatred is more important than building up a reputation for generosity. A wise prince should be willing to be more reputed a miser than be hated for trying to be too generous. On the other hand: \"of what is not yours or your subjects' one can be a bigger giver, as were Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander, because spending what is someone else's does not take reputation from you but adds it to you; only spending your own hurts you\". In addressing the question of whether it is better to be loved or feared, Machiavelli writes, \u201cThe answer is that one would like to be both the one and the other; but because it is difficult to combine them, it is far safer to be feared than loved if you cannot be both.\u201d As Machiavelli asserts, commitments made in peace are not always kept in adversity; however, commitments made in fear are kept out of fear. Yet, a prince must ensure that he is not feared to the point of hatred, which is very possible. This chapter is possibly the most well-known of the work, and it is important because of the reasoning behind Machiavelli\u2019s famous idea that it is better to be feared than loved \u2013 his justification is purely pragmatic; as he notes, \u201cMen worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared.\u201d Fear is simply a means to an end, and that end is security for the prince. The fear instilled should never be excessive, for that could be dangerous to the prince. Above all, Machiavelli argues, a prince should not interfere with the property of their subjects, their women, or the life of somebody without proper justification. Regarding the troops of the prince, fear is absolutely necessary to keep a large garrison united and a prince should not mind the thought of cruelty in that regard. For a prince who leads his own army, it is imperative for him to observe cruelty because that is the only way he can command his soldiers' absolute respect. Machiavelli compares two great military leaders: Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. Although Hannibal's army consisted of men of various races, they were never rebellious because they feared their leader. Machiavelli says this required \"inhuman cruelty\" which he refers to as a virtue. Scipio's men, on the other hand, were known for their mutiny and dissension, due to Scipio's \"excessive mercy\" - which was however a source of glory because he lived in a republic. Machiavelli notes that a prince is praised for keeping his word. However, he also notes that a prince is also praised for the illusion of being reliable in keeping his word. A prince, therefore, should only keep his word when it suits his purposes, but do his utmost to maintain the illusion that he does keep his word and that he is reliable in that regard. Therefore, a prince should not break his word unnecessarily. As Machiavelli notes, \u201cHe should appear to be compassionate, faithful to his word, guileless, and devout. And indeed he should be so. But his disposition should be such that, if he needs to be the opposite, he knows how.\u201d As noted in chapter 15, the prince must appear to be virtuous, and should be virtuous, but he should be able to be otherwise when the time calls for it; that includes being able to lie, though however much he lies he should always keep the appearance of being truthful. Machiavelli observes that most men are content as long as they are not deprived of their property and women. A prince should command respect through his conduct, because a prince that is highly respected by his people is unlikely to face internal struggles. Additionally, a prince who does not raise the contempt of the nobles and keeps the people satisfied, Machiavelli assures, should have no fear of conspirators. Machiavelli advises monarchs to have both internal and external fears. Internal fears exist inside his kingdom and focus on his subjects, Machiavelli warns to be suspicious of everyone when hostile attitudes emerge. External fears are of foreign powers. Machiavelli mentions that placing fortresses in conquered territories, although it sometimes works, often fails. Using fortresses can be a good plan, but Machiavelli says he shall \"blame anyone who, trusting in fortresses, thinks little of being hated by the people\". A prince truly earns honor by completing great feats. King Ferdinand of Spain is cited by Machiavelli as an example of a monarch who gained esteem by showing his ability through great feats and who, in the name of religion, conquered many territories and kept his subjects occupied so that they had no chance to rebel. Regarding two warring states, Machiavelli asserts it is always wiser to choose a side, rather than to be neutral. Machiavelli then provides the following reasons why: * If your allies win, you benefit whether or not you have more power than they have. * If you are more powerful, then your allies are under your command; if your allies are stronger, they will always feel a certain obligation to you for your help. * If your side loses, you still have an ally in the loser. Machiavelli also notes that it is wise for a prince not to ally with a stronger force unless compelled to do so. In conclusion, the most important virtue is having the wisdom to discern what ventures will come with the most reward and then pursuing them courageously. The selection of good servants is reflected directly upon the prince\u2019s intelligence, so if they are loyal, the prince is considered wise; however, when they are otherwise, the prince is open to adverse criticism. Machiavelli asserts that there are three types of intelligence: *The kind that understands things for itself\u2014which is excellent to have. *The kind that understands what others can understand\u2014which is good to have. *The kind that does not understand for itself, nor through others\u2014which is useless to have. If the prince does not have the first type of intelligence, he should at the very least have the second type. For, as Machiavelli states, \u201cA prince needs to have the discernment to recognize the good or bad in what another says or does even though he has no acumen himself\". This chapter shows a low opinion of flatterers; Machiavelli notes that \u201cMen are so happily absorbed in their own affairs and indulge in such self-deception that it is difficult for them not to fall victim to this plague; and some efforts to protect oneself from flatterers involve the risk of becoming despised.\u201d Flatterers were seen as a great danger to a prince, because their flattery could cause him to avoid wise counsel in favor of rash action, but avoiding all advice, flattery or otherwise, was equally bad; a middle road had to be taken. A prudent prince should have a select group of wise counselors to advise him truthfully on matters all the time. All their opinions should be taken into account. Ultimately, the decision should be made by the counselors and carried out absolutely. If a prince is given to changing his mind, his reputation will suffer. A prince must have the wisdom to recognize good advice from bad. Machiavelli gives a negative example in Emperor Maximilian I; Maximilian, who was secretive, never consulted others, but once he ordered his plans and met dissent, he immediately changed them. After first mentioning that a new prince can quickly become as respected as a hereditary one, Machiavelli says princes in Italy who had long standing power and lost it can not blame bad luck, but should blame their own indolence. One \"should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up\". They all showed: *A defect of arms, already discussed. *Either had a hostile populace or else they did not know to secure themselves with the great. As pointed out by it was traditional in the genre of Mirrors of Princes to mention fortune, but \"Fortune pervades The Prince as she does no other similar work\". Machiavelli argues that fortune is only the judge of half of our actions and that we have control over the other half with \"sweat\", prudence and virtue. Even more unusual, rather than simply suggesting caution as a prudent way to try to avoid the worst of bad luck, Machiavelli holds that the greatest princes in history tend to be ones who take more risks, and rise to power through their own labour, virtue, prudence, and particularly by their ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Machiavelli even encourages risk taking as a reaction to risk. In a well-known metaphor, Machiavelli writes that \"it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because fortune is a woman; and it is necessary, if one wants to hold her down, to beat her and strike her down.\" Gilbert (p. 217) points out that Machiavelli's friend the historian and diplomat Francesco Guicciardini expressed similar ideas about fortune. Machiavelli compares fortune to a torrential river that cannot be easily controlled during flooding season. In periods of calm, however, people can erect dams and levees in order to minimize its impact. Fortune, Machiavelli argues, seems to strike at the places where no resistance is offered, as had recently been the case in Italy. As points out that what Machiavelli actually says is that Italians in his time leave things not just to fortune, but to \"fortune and God\". Machiavelli is indicating in this passage, as in some others in his works, that Christianity itself was making Italians helpless and lazy concerning their own politics, as if they would leave dangerous rivers un-controlled. Pope Leo X was pope at the time the book was written and a member of the de Medici family. This chapter directly appeals to the Medici to use what has been summarized in order to conquer Italy using Italian armies, following the advice in the book. showed that including such exhortation was not unusual in the genre of books full of advice for princes. But it is unusual that the Medici family's position of Papal power is openly named as something that should be used as a personal power base, as a tool of secular politics. Indeed takes the Borgia family's recent and very controversial attempts to use church power in secular politics, often very brutally executed, as a positive example. This continues a controversial theme throughout the book.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The work has a recognizable structure, for the most part indicated by the author himself, which can be summarized as follows. The Prince starts by describing the subject matter it will handle. In the first sentence Machiavelli uses the word \"state\" (Italian stato which could also mean \"status\") in order to neutrally cover \"all forms of organization of supreme political power, whether republican or princely\". The way in which the word state came to acquire this modern type of meaning during the Renaissance has been the subject of many academic discussions, with this sentence and similar ones in the works of Machiavelli being considered particularly important. Machiavelli said that The Prince would be about princedoms, mentioning that he has written about republics elsewhere (possibly referring to the Discourses on Livy although this is debated), but in fact he mixes discussion of republics into this in many places, effectively treating republics as a type of princedom also, and one with many strengths. More importantly, and less traditionally, he distinguishes new princedoms from hereditary established princedoms. He deals with hereditary princedoms quickly in Chapter 2, saying that they are much easier to rule. For such a prince, \"unless extraordinary vices cause him to be hated, it is reasonable to expect that his subjects will be naturally well disposed towards him\". , comparing to traditional presentations of advice for princes, stated that the novelty in chapters 1 and 2 is the \"deliberate purpose of dealing with a new ruler who will need to establish himself in defiance of custom\". Normally, these types of works were addressed only to hereditary princes. He thinks Machiavelli may have been influenced by Tacitus as well his own experience, but finds no clear predecessor for this. This categorization of regime types is also \"un-Aristotelian\" and apparently simpler than the traditional one found for example in Aristotle's Politics, which divides regimes into those ruled by a single"
      },
      {
        "text": "ate purpose of dealing with a new ruler who will need to establish himself in defiance of custom\". Normally, these types of works were addressed only to hereditary princes. He thinks Machiavelli may have been influenced by Tacitus as well his own experience, but finds no clear predecessor for this. This categorization of regime types is also \"un-Aristotelian\" and apparently simpler than the traditional one found for example in Aristotle's Politics, which divides regimes into those ruled by a single monarch, an oligarchy, or by the people, in a democracy. He also ignores the classical distinctions between the good and corrupt forms, for example between monarchy and tyranny. points out that Machiavelli frequently uses the words \"prince\" and \"tyrant\" as synonyms, \"regardless of whether he speaks of criminal or non-criminal tyrants\". Xenophon, on the other hand, made exactly the same distinction between types of rulers in the opening of his Education of Cyrus where he says that, concerning the knowledge of how to rule human beings, Cyrus the Great, his exemplary prince, was very different \"from all other kings, both those who have inherited their thrones from their fathers and those who have gained their crowns by their own efforts\". Machiavelli divides the subject of new states into two types, \"mixed\" cases and purely new states. New princedoms are either totally new, or they are \u201cmixed\u201d meaning that they are new parts of an older state, already belonging to that prince. Machiavelli generalizes that there were several virtuous Roman ways to hold a newly acquired province, using a republic as an example of how new princes can act: *to install one's princedom in the new acquisition, or to install colonies of one's people there, which is better. *to indulge the lesser powers of the area without increasing their power. *to put down the powerful people. *not to"
      },
      {
        "text": " they are new parts of an older state, already belonging to that prince. Machiavelli generalizes that there were several virtuous Roman ways to hold a newly acquired province, using a republic as an example of how new princes can act: *to install one's princedom in the new acquisition, or to install colonies of one's people there, which is better. *to indulge the lesser powers of the area without increasing their power. *to put down the powerful people. *not to allow a foreign power to gain reputation. More generally, Machiavelli emphasizes that one should have regard not only for present problems but also for the future ones. One should not \u201cenjoy the benefit of time\u201d but rather the benefit of one's virtue and prudence, because time can bring evil as well as good. In some cases the old king of the conquered kingdom depended on his lords. 16th century France, or in other words France as it was at the time of writing of the Prince, is given by Machiavelli as an example of such a kingdom. These are easy to enter but difficult to hold. When the kingdom revolves around the king, then it is difficult to enter but easy to hold. The solution is to eliminate the old bloodline of the prince. Machiavelli used the Persian empire of Darius III, conquered by Alexander the Great, to illustrate this point and then noted that the Medici, if they think about it, will find this historical example similar to the \"kingdom of the Turk\" (Ottoman Empire) in their time - making this a potentially easier conquest to hold than France would be. notes that this chapter is quite atypical of any previous books for princes. Gilbert supposed the need to discuss conquering free republics is linked to Machiavelli's project to unite Italy, which contained some free republics. As he also notes, the chapter in any case makes it clear that holding such a state is"
      },
      {
        "text": " this historical example similar to the \"kingdom of the Turk\" (Ottoman Empire) in their time - making this a potentially easier conquest to hold than France would be. notes that this chapter is quite atypical of any previous books for princes. Gilbert supposed the need to discuss conquering free republics is linked to Machiavelli's project to unite Italy, which contained some free republics. As he also notes, the chapter in any case makes it clear that holding such a state is highly difficult for a prince. Machiavelli gives three options:- *Ruin them, like Rome destroyed Carthage, and also like Machiavelli says the Romans eventually had to do in Greece, even though they had wanted to avoid it. *Go to live there (or install colonies, if you are a prince of a republic). *Let them keep their own orders but install a puppet regime. But Machiavelli says this way is useless. Princes who rise to power through their own skill and resources (their \"virtue\") rather than luck tend to have a hard time rising to the top, but once they reach the top they are very secure in their position. This is because they effectively crush their opponents and earn great respect from everyone else. Because they are strong and more self-sufficient, they have to make fewer compromises with their allies. Machiavelli writes that reforming an existing order is one of the most dangerous and difficult things a prince can do. Part of the reason is that people are naturally resistant to change and reform. Those who benefited from the old order will resist change very fiercely. By contrast, those who stand to benefit from the new order will be less fierce in their support, because the new order is unfamiliar and they are not certain it will live up to its promises. Moreover, it is impossible for the prince to satisfy everybody's expectations. Inevitably, he will disappoint some of his followers. Therefore, a prince must have the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Part of the reason is that people are naturally resistant to change and reform. Those who benefited from the old order will resist change very fiercely. By contrast, those who stand to benefit from the new order will be less fierce in their support, because the new order is unfamiliar and they are not certain it will live up to its promises. Moreover, it is impossible for the prince to satisfy everybody's expectations. Inevitably, he will disappoint some of his followers. Therefore, a prince must have the means to force his supporters to keep supporting him even when they start having second thoughts, otherwise he will lose his power. Only armed prophets, like Moses, succeed in bringing lasting change. Machiavelli claims that Moses killed uncountable numbers of his own people in order to enforce his will. Machiavelli was not the first thinker to notice this pattern. Allan Gilbert wrote: \"In wishing new laws and yet seeing danger in them Machiavelli was not himself an innovator,\" because this idea was traditional and could be found in Aristotle's writings. But Machiavelli went much further than any other author in his emphasis on this aim, and Gilbert associates Machiavelli's emphasis upon such drastic aims with the level of corruption to be found in Italy. According to Machiavelli, when a prince comes to power through luck or the blessings of powerful figures within the regime, he typically has an easy time gaining power but a hard time keeping it thereafter, because his power is dependent on his benefactors' goodwill. He does not command the loyalty of the armies and officials that maintain his authority, and these can be withdrawn from him at a whim. Having risen the easy way, it is not even certain such a prince has the skill and strength to stand on his own feet. This is not necessarily true in every case. Machiavelli cites Cesare Borgia as an example of a lucky prince who escaped this pattern. Through cunning political maneuvers, he"
      },
      {
        "text": " power is dependent on his benefactors' goodwill. He does not command the loyalty of the armies and officials that maintain his authority, and these can be withdrawn from him at a whim. Having risen the easy way, it is not even certain such a prince has the skill and strength to stand on his own feet. This is not necessarily true in every case. Machiavelli cites Cesare Borgia as an example of a lucky prince who escaped this pattern. Through cunning political maneuvers, he managed to secure his power base. Cesare was made commander of the papal armies by his father, Pope Alexander VI, but was also heavily dependent on mercenary armies loyal to the Orsini brothers and the support of the French king. Borgia won over the allegiance of the Orsini's followers with better pay and prestigious government posts. When some of his mercenary captains started to plot against him, he had them imprisoned and executed. When it looked like the king of France would to abandon him, Borgia sought new alliances. Finally, Machiavelli makes a point that bringing new benefits to a conquered people will not be enough to cancel the memory of old injuries, an idea Allan Gilbert said can be found in Tacitus and Seneca the Younger. Conquests by \"criminal virtue\" are ones in which the new prince secures his power through cruel, immoral deeds, such as the execution of political rivals. Machiavelli advises that a prince should carefully calculate all the wicked deeds he needs to do to secure his power, and then execute them all in one stroke, such that he need not commit any more wickedness for the rest of his reign. In this way, his subjects will slowly forget his cruel deeds and his reputation can recover. Princes who fail to do this, who hesitate in their ruthlessness, find that their problems mushroom over time and they are forced to commit wicked deeds throughout their reign. Thus they continuously mar their reputations and alienate their people"
      },
      {
        "text": " deeds he needs to do to secure his power, and then execute them all in one stroke, such that he need not commit any more wickedness for the rest of his reign. In this way, his subjects will slowly forget his cruel deeds and his reputation can recover. Princes who fail to do this, who hesitate in their ruthlessness, find that their problems mushroom over time and they are forced to commit wicked deeds throughout their reign. Thus they continuously mar their reputations and alienate their people. Machiavelli's case study is Agathocles of Syracuse. After Agathocles became Praetor of Syracuse, he called a meeting of the city's elite. At his signal, his soldiers killed all the senators and the wealthiest citizens, completely destroying the old oligarchy. He declared himself ruler with no opposition. So secure was his power that he could afford to absent himself to go off on military campaigns in Africa. remarks that this chapter is even less traditional than those it follows, not only in its treatment of criminal behavior, but also in the advice to take power from people at a stroke, noting that precisely the opposite had been advised by Aristotle in his Politics (5.11.1315a13). On the other hand Gilbert shows that another piece of advice in this chapter, to give benefits when it will not appear forced, was traditional. These \"civic principalities\" do not require real virtue, only \u201cfortunate astuteness\u201d. Machiavelli breaks this case into two basic types, depending upon which section of the populace supports the new prince. =====Supported by the great (those who wish to command the people)===== This, according to Machiavelli, is an unstable situation, which must be avoided after the initial coming to power. The great should be made and unmade every day at your convenience. There are two types of great people that might be encountered:- # Those who are bound to the prince."
      },
      {
        "text": " Machiavelli breaks this case into two basic types, depending upon which section of the populace supports the new prince. =====Supported by the great (those who wish to command the people)===== This, according to Machiavelli, is an unstable situation, which must be avoided after the initial coming to power. The great should be made and unmade every day at your convenience. There are two types of great people that might be encountered:- # Those who are bound to the prince. Concerning these it is important to distinguish between two types of obligated great people, those who are rapacious and those who are not. It is the latter who can and should be honoured. # Those who are not bound to the new prince. Once again these need to be divided into two types:- Those with a weak spirit. A prince can make use of them if they are of good counsel; Those who shun being bound because of their own ambition. These should be watched and feared as enemies. =====Supported by the people (those who wish not to be commanded by the great)===== How to win over people depends on circumstances. Machiavelli advises:- *Do not get frightened in adversity. *One should avoid ruling via magistrates, if one wishes to be able to \u201cascend\u201d to absolute rule quickly and safely. *One should make sure that the people need the prince, especially if a time of need should come. The way to judge the strength of a princedom is to see whether it can defend itself, or whether it needs to depend on allies. This does not just mean that the cities should be prepared and the people trained. A prince who is hated is also exposed. This type of \"princedom\" refers for example explicitly to the Catholic church, which is of course not traditionally thought of as a princedom. According to Machiavelli, these are relatively easy to maintain, once founded. They do not need to"
      },
      {
        "text": " princedom is to see whether it can defend itself, or whether it needs to depend on allies. This does not just mean that the cities should be prepared and the people trained. A prince who is hated is also exposed. This type of \"princedom\" refers for example explicitly to the Catholic church, which is of course not traditionally thought of as a princedom. According to Machiavelli, these are relatively easy to maintain, once founded. They do not need to defend themselves militarily, nor to govern their subjects. Machiavelli discusses the recent history of the Church as if it were a princedom that was in competition to conquer Italy against other princes. He points to factionalism as a historical weak point in the Church, and points to the recent example of the Borgia family as a better strategy which almost worked. He then explicitly proposes that the Medici are now in a position to try the same thing. Having discussed the various types of principalities, Machiavelli turns to the ways a state can attack other territories or defend itself. The two most essential foundations for any state, whether old or new, are sound laws and strong military forces. A self-sufficient prince is one who can meet any enemy on the battlefield. He should be \"armed\" with his own arms. However, a prince that relies solely on fortifications or on the help of others and stands on the defensive is not self-sufficient. If he cannot raise a formidable army, but must rely on defense, he must fortify his city. A well-fortified city is unlikely to be attacked, and if it is, most armies cannot endure an extended siege. However, during a siege a virtuous prince will keep the morale of his subjects high while removing all dissenters. Thus, as long as the city is properly defended and has enough supplies, a wise prince can withstand any siege. Machiavelli stands strongly against the use of mercenaries,"
      },
      {
        "text": " raise a formidable army, but must rely on defense, he must fortify his city. A well-fortified city is unlikely to be attacked, and if it is, most armies cannot endure an extended siege. However, during a siege a virtuous prince will keep the morale of his subjects high while removing all dissenters. Thus, as long as the city is properly defended and has enough supplies, a wise prince can withstand any siege. Machiavelli stands strongly against the use of mercenaries, and in this he was innovative, and he also had personal experience in Florence. He believes they are useless to a ruler because they are undisciplined, cowardly, and without any loyalty, being motivated only by money. Machiavelli attributes the Italian city states\u2019 weakness to their reliance on mercenary armies. Machiavelli also warns against using auxiliary forces, troops borrowed from an ally, because if they win, the employer is under their favor and if they lose, he is ruined. Auxiliary forces are more dangerous than mercenary forces because they are united and controlled by capable leaders who may turn against the employer. The main concern for a prince should be war, or the preparation thereof, not books. Through war a hereditary prince maintains his power or a private citizen rises to power. Machiavelli advises that a prince must frequently hunt in order to keep his body fit and learn the landscape surrounding his kingdom. Through this, he can best learn how to protect his territory and advance upon others. For intellectual strength, he is advised to study great military men so he may imitate their successes and avoid their mistakes. A prince who is diligent in times of peace will be ready in times of adversity. Machiavelli writes, \u201cthus, when fortune turns against him he will be prepared to resist it.\u201d Each of the following chapters presents a discussion about a particular virtue or vice that a prince might have, and is therefore structured in a way which appears like traditional advice for"
      },
      {
        "text": " others. For intellectual strength, he is advised to study great military men so he may imitate their successes and avoid their mistakes. A prince who is diligent in times of peace will be ready in times of adversity. Machiavelli writes, \u201cthus, when fortune turns against him he will be prepared to resist it.\u201d Each of the following chapters presents a discussion about a particular virtue or vice that a prince might have, and is therefore structured in a way which appears like traditional advice for a prince. However the advice is far from traditional. Machiavelli believes that a prince's main focus should be on perfecting the art of war. He believes that by taking this profession a ruler will be able to protect his kingdom. He claims that \"being disarmed makes you despised.\" He believes that the only way to ensure loyalty from one's soldiers is to understand military matters. The two activities Machiavelli recommends practicing to prepare for war are physical and mental. Physically, he believes rulers should learn the landscape of their territories. Mentally, he encouraged the study of past military events. He also warns against idleness. Because, says Machiavelli, he wants to write something useful to those who understand, he thought it more fitting \"to go directly to the effectual truth (\"verit\u00e0 effettuale\") of the thing than to the imagination of it\". This section is one where Machiavelli\u2019s pragmatic ideal can be seen most clearly. The prince should, ideally, be virtuous, but he should be willing and able to abandon those virtues if it becomes necessary. Concerning the behavior of a prince toward his subjects, Machiavelli announces that he will depart from what other writers say, and writes: Since there are many possible qualities that a prince can be said to possess, he must not be overly concerned about having all the good ones. Also, a prince may be perceived to be merciful, faithful, humane,"
      },
      {
        "text": " clearly. The prince should, ideally, be virtuous, but he should be willing and able to abandon those virtues if it becomes necessary. Concerning the behavior of a prince toward his subjects, Machiavelli announces that he will depart from what other writers say, and writes: Since there are many possible qualities that a prince can be said to possess, he must not be overly concerned about having all the good ones. Also, a prince may be perceived to be merciful, faithful, humane, frank, and religious, but most important is only to seem to have these qualities. A prince cannot truly have these qualities because at times it is necessary to act against them. In fact, he must sometimes deliberately choose evil. Although a bad reputation should be avoided, it is sometimes necessary to have one. If a prince is overly generous to his subjects, Machiavelli asserts he will not be appreciated, and will only cause greed for more. Additionally, being overly generous is not economical, because eventually all resources will be exhausted. This results in higher taxes, and will bring grief upon the prince. Then, if he decides to discontinue or limit his generosity, he will be labeled as a miser. Thus, Machiavelli summarizes that guarding against the people\u2019s hatred is more important than building up a reputation for generosity. A wise prince should be willing to be more reputed a miser than be hated for trying to be too generous. On the other hand: \"of what is not yours or your subjects' one can be a bigger giver, as were Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander, because spending what is someone else's does not take reputation from you but adds it to you; only spending your own hurts you\". In addressing the question of whether it is better to be loved or feared, Machiavelli writes, \u201cThe answer is that one would like to be both the one and the other; but because it is difficult to combine them, it is"
      },
      {
        "text": " is not yours or your subjects' one can be a bigger giver, as were Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander, because spending what is someone else's does not take reputation from you but adds it to you; only spending your own hurts you\". In addressing the question of whether it is better to be loved or feared, Machiavelli writes, \u201cThe answer is that one would like to be both the one and the other; but because it is difficult to combine them, it is far safer to be feared than loved if you cannot be both.\u201d As Machiavelli asserts, commitments made in peace are not always kept in adversity; however, commitments made in fear are kept out of fear. Yet, a prince must ensure that he is not feared to the point of hatred, which is very possible. This chapter is possibly the most well-known of the work, and it is important because of the reasoning behind Machiavelli\u2019s famous idea that it is better to be feared than loved \u2013 his justification is purely pragmatic; as he notes, \u201cMen worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared.\u201d Fear is simply a means to an end, and that end is security for the prince. The fear instilled should never be excessive, for that could be dangerous to the prince. Above all, Machiavelli argues, a prince should not interfere with the property of their subjects, their women, or the life of somebody without proper justification. Regarding the troops of the prince, fear is absolutely necessary to keep a large garrison united and a prince should not mind the thought of cruelty in that regard. For a prince who leads his own army, it is imperative for him to observe cruelty because that is the only way he can command his soldiers' absolute respect. Machiavelli compares two great military leaders: Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. Although Hannibal's army consisted of men"
      },
      {
        "text": " their women, or the life of somebody without proper justification. Regarding the troops of the prince, fear is absolutely necessary to keep a large garrison united and a prince should not mind the thought of cruelty in that regard. For a prince who leads his own army, it is imperative for him to observe cruelty because that is the only way he can command his soldiers' absolute respect. Machiavelli compares two great military leaders: Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. Although Hannibal's army consisted of men of various races, they were never rebellious because they feared their leader. Machiavelli says this required \"inhuman cruelty\" which he refers to as a virtue. Scipio's men, on the other hand, were known for their mutiny and dissension, due to Scipio's \"excessive mercy\" - which was however a source of glory because he lived in a republic. Machiavelli notes that a prince is praised for keeping his word. However, he also notes that a prince is also praised for the illusion of being reliable in keeping his word. A prince, therefore, should only keep his word when it suits his purposes, but do his utmost to maintain the illusion that he does keep his word and that he is reliable in that regard. Therefore, a prince should not break his word unnecessarily. As Machiavelli notes, \u201cHe should appear to be compassionate, faithful to his word, guileless, and devout. And indeed he should be so. But his disposition should be such that, if he needs to be the opposite, he knows how.\u201d As noted in chapter 15, the prince must appear to be virtuous, and should be virtuous, but he should be able to be otherwise when the time calls for it; that includes being able to lie, though however much he lies he should always keep the appearance of being truthful. Machiavelli observes that most men are content as long as they are not deprived of their"
      },
      {
        "text": " be so. But his disposition should be such that, if he needs to be the opposite, he knows how.\u201d As noted in chapter 15, the prince must appear to be virtuous, and should be virtuous, but he should be able to be otherwise when the time calls for it; that includes being able to lie, though however much he lies he should always keep the appearance of being truthful. Machiavelli observes that most men are content as long as they are not deprived of their property and women. A prince should command respect through his conduct, because a prince that is highly respected by his people is unlikely to face internal struggles. Additionally, a prince who does not raise the contempt of the nobles and keeps the people satisfied, Machiavelli assures, should have no fear of conspirators. Machiavelli advises monarchs to have both internal and external fears. Internal fears exist inside his kingdom and focus on his subjects, Machiavelli warns to be suspicious of everyone when hostile attitudes emerge. External fears are of foreign powers. Machiavelli mentions that placing fortresses in conquered territories, although it sometimes works, often fails. Using fortresses can be a good plan, but Machiavelli says he shall \"blame anyone who, trusting in fortresses, thinks little of being hated by the people\". A prince truly earns honor by completing great feats. King Ferdinand of Spain is cited by Machiavelli as an example of a monarch who gained esteem by showing his ability through great feats and who, in the name of religion, conquered many territories and kept his subjects occupied so that they had no chance to rebel. Regarding two warring states, Machiavelli asserts it is always wiser to choose a side, rather than to be neutral. Machiavelli then provides the following reasons why: * If your allies win, you benefit whether or not you have more power than they have. * If you are more powerful, then your allies are"
      },
      {
        "text": " by showing his ability through great feats and who, in the name of religion, conquered many territories and kept his subjects occupied so that they had no chance to rebel. Regarding two warring states, Machiavelli asserts it is always wiser to choose a side, rather than to be neutral. Machiavelli then provides the following reasons why: * If your allies win, you benefit whether or not you have more power than they have. * If you are more powerful, then your allies are under your command; if your allies are stronger, they will always feel a certain obligation to you for your help. * If your side loses, you still have an ally in the loser. Machiavelli also notes that it is wise for a prince not to ally with a stronger force unless compelled to do so. In conclusion, the most important virtue is having the wisdom to discern what ventures will come with the most reward and then pursuing them courageously. The selection of good servants is reflected directly upon the prince\u2019s intelligence, so if they are loyal, the prince is considered wise; however, when they are otherwise, the prince is open to adverse criticism. Machiavelli asserts that there are three types of intelligence: *The kind that understands things for itself\u2014which is excellent to have. *The kind that understands what others can understand\u2014which is good to have. *The kind that does not understand for itself, nor through others\u2014which is useless to have. If the prince does not have the first type of intelligence, he should at the very least have the second type. For, as Machiavelli states, \u201cA prince needs to have the discernment to recognize the good or bad in what another says or does even though he has no acumen himself\". This chapter shows a low opinion of flatterers; Machiavelli notes that \u201cMen are so happily absorbed in their own affairs and indulge in such self-deception that it is"
      },
      {
        "text": " the prince does not have the first type of intelligence, he should at the very least have the second type. For, as Machiavelli states, \u201cA prince needs to have the discernment to recognize the good or bad in what another says or does even though he has no acumen himself\". This chapter shows a low opinion of flatterers; Machiavelli notes that \u201cMen are so happily absorbed in their own affairs and indulge in such self-deception that it is difficult for them not to fall victim to this plague; and some efforts to protect oneself from flatterers involve the risk of becoming despised.\u201d Flatterers were seen as a great danger to a prince, because their flattery could cause him to avoid wise counsel in favor of rash action, but avoiding all advice, flattery or otherwise, was equally bad; a middle road had to be taken. A prudent prince should have a select group of wise counselors to advise him truthfully on matters all the time. All their opinions should be taken into account. Ultimately, the decision should be made by the counselors and carried out absolutely. If a prince is given to changing his mind, his reputation will suffer. A prince must have the wisdom to recognize good advice from bad. Machiavelli gives a negative example in Emperor Maximilian I; Maximilian, who was secretive, never consulted others, but once he ordered his plans and met dissent, he immediately changed them. After first mentioning that a new prince can quickly become as respected as a hereditary one, Machiavelli says princes in Italy who had long standing power and lost it can not blame bad luck, but should blame their own indolence. One \"should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up\". They all showed: *A defect of arms, already discussed. *Either had a hostile populace or else they did not know to secure themselves with the great. As pointed out by it"
      },
      {
        "text": " that a new prince can quickly become as respected as a hereditary one, Machiavelli says princes in Italy who had long standing power and lost it can not blame bad luck, but should blame their own indolence. One \"should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up\". They all showed: *A defect of arms, already discussed. *Either had a hostile populace or else they did not know to secure themselves with the great. As pointed out by it was traditional in the genre of Mirrors of Princes to mention fortune, but \"Fortune pervades The Prince as she does no other similar work\". Machiavelli argues that fortune is only the judge of half of our actions and that we have control over the other half with \"sweat\", prudence and virtue. Even more unusual, rather than simply suggesting caution as a prudent way to try to avoid the worst of bad luck, Machiavelli holds that the greatest princes in history tend to be ones who take more risks, and rise to power through their own labour, virtue, prudence, and particularly by their ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Machiavelli even encourages risk taking as a reaction to risk. In a well-known metaphor, Machiavelli writes that \"it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because fortune is a woman; and it is necessary, if one wants to hold her down, to beat her and strike her down.\" Gilbert (p. 217) points out that Machiavelli's friend the historian and diplomat Francesco Guicciardini expressed similar ideas about fortune. Machiavelli compares fortune to a torrential river that cannot be easily controlled during flooding season. In periods of calm, however, people can erect dams and levees in order to minimize its impact. Fortune, Machiavelli argues, seems to strike at the places where no resistance is offered, as had recently"
      },
      {
        "text": " Gilbert (p. 217) points out that Machiavelli's friend the historian and diplomat Francesco Guicciardini expressed similar ideas about fortune. Machiavelli compares fortune to a torrential river that cannot be easily controlled during flooding season. In periods of calm, however, people can erect dams and levees in order to minimize its impact. Fortune, Machiavelli argues, seems to strike at the places where no resistance is offered, as had recently been the case in Italy. As points out that what Machiavelli actually says is that Italians in his time leave things not just to fortune, but to \"fortune and God\". Machiavelli is indicating in this passage, as in some others in his works, that Christianity itself was making Italians helpless and lazy concerning their own politics, as if they would leave dangerous rivers un-controlled. Pope Leo X was pope at the time the book was written and a member of the de Medici family. This chapter directly appeals to the Medici to use what has been summarized in order to conquer Italy using Italian armies, following the advice in the book. showed that including such exhortation was not unusual in the genre of books full of advice for princes. But it is unusual that the Medici family's position of Papal power is openly named as something that should be used as a personal power base, as a tool of secular politics. Indeed takes the Borgia family's recent and very controversial attempts to use church power in secular politics, often very brutally executed, as a positive example. This continues a controversial theme throughout the book.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " controversial attempts to use church power in secular politics, often very brutally executed, as a positive example. This continues a controversial theme throughout the book.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sounder",
    "author": "William Armstrong",
    "published_date": "1969",
    "synopsis": " A black sharecropper's family is poor and hungry. The father and his dog, Sounder, go hunting each night, but the hunting is poor. The family subsists on fried corn mush, biscuits, and milk gravy until one morning they wake up to the smell of boiling ham. They feast for three days, but finally the sheriff and two of his deputies burst into the cabin and arrest the father. Sounder runs after them, and one of the deputies shoots him. The arrested man's son goes looking for Sounder but cannot find him anywhere. When he traces their steps, he finds blood on the ground along with Sounder's ear. He puts the ear under his pillow and wishes for Sounder's return. His mother thinks Sounder has gone off to die on his own, but for several weeks the boy goes in search of the dog each day. In father's absence, the family survives on the money mother makes by selling walnuts. The boy undertakes the added responsibility of helping to look after his siblings, and he is stricken by the intense loneliness in the cabin. Around Christmas time, the boy's mother makes a three-layer cake for him to take to his father in jail. On the way there, the boy is nervous about being stopped and made fun of by the townspeople. When he arrives at the jail, the jail guard treats him rudely, making him wait a number of hours to enter. Finally the boy is let into the jail, and the guard breaks the cake into pieces in order to \"check\" if something was hidden in it that would help the boy's father escape. The boy gives it to his father anyway and tells his father that Sounder might not be dead. The conversation between the boy and his father is strained and awkward, and at the end of it his father tells him not to come back to the jail anymore. In the morning the boy wakes up to the sound of faint whining and goes outside to find Sounder standing there. The dog can only use three of its legs and only has one ear and one eye. The boy and his mother tend to the dog. Soon they receive word that his father was convicted and sentenced to hard labor, traveling county to county. The boy resolves to search for his father. During the late fall and winter months over a period of several years, he journeys within and among counties, looking for convicts working. One day the boy spots a group of convicts working, and he leans up against a fence to watch them, looking for his father. The guard watching the group whacks the boy on the fingers with a piece of iron and tells him to leave. The boy leaves and finds a school where he tries to wash the blood off of his hands. Along the way he finds an old book in a trashcan and carries it with him. While he is at the pump, school lets out, and he eventually meets an old teacher who takes him in, dresses his wounds, and asks what has happened to him. The boy tells the teacher about Sounder and his father, and the teacher extends an offer for the boy to live with him and learn to read. The boy's mother tells him to go, and the boy stays with the teacher during winter, working in the fields during the summer. One fall the boy is at home helping with chores when they see his father walking back toward them. Half of his father's body is damaged from a dynamite blast, but the man has made it home. The man and his dog are reunited and leave one night to go hunting. Sounder later comes back without his master, and, when the boy goes looking for his father, he finds him and thinks he is asleep. When he gets home he tells his mother and she breaks to him that his father is dead. Soon after, Sounder climbs under the porch and dies as well. Despite their deaths, there is a sense of peace and resolution over the family\u2014especially over the boy, who has achieved the single thing he most wanted in the world, which is achieving his literacy.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A black sharecropper's family is poor and hungry. The father and his dog, Sounder, go hunting each night, but the hunting is poor. The family subsists on fried corn mush, biscuits, and milk gravy until one morning they wake up to the smell of boiling ham. They feast for three days, but finally the sheriff and two of his deputies burst into the cabin and arrest the father. Sounder runs after them, and one of the deputies shoots him. The arrested man's son goes looking for Sounder but cannot find him anywhere. When he traces their steps, he finds blood on the ground along with Sounder's ear. He puts the ear under his pillow and wishes for Sounder's return. His mother thinks Sounder has gone off to die on his own, but for several weeks the boy goes in search of the dog each day. In father's absence, the family survives on the money mother makes by selling walnuts. The boy undertakes the added responsibility of helping to look after his siblings, and he is stricken by the intense loneliness in the cabin. Around Christmas time, the boy's mother makes a three-layer cake for him to take to his father in jail. On the way there, the boy is nervous about being stopped and made fun of by the townspeople. When he arrives at the jail, the jail guard treats him rudely, making him wait a number of hours to enter. Finally the boy is let into the jail, and the guard breaks the cake into pieces in order to \"check\" if something was hidden in it that would help the boy's father escape. The boy gives it to his father anyway and tells his father that Sounder might not be dead. The conversation between the boy and his father is strained and awkward, and at the end of it his father tells him not to come back to the jail anymore. In the morning the boy wakes up to the sound of faint whining and goes outside to find"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and the guard breaks the cake into pieces in order to \"check\" if something was hidden in it that would help the boy's father escape. The boy gives it to his father anyway and tells his father that Sounder might not be dead. The conversation between the boy and his father is strained and awkward, and at the end of it his father tells him not to come back to the jail anymore. In the morning the boy wakes up to the sound of faint whining and goes outside to find Sounder standing there. The dog can only use three of its legs and only has one ear and one eye. The boy and his mother tend to the dog. Soon they receive word that his father was convicted and sentenced to hard labor, traveling county to county. The boy resolves to search for his father. During the late fall and winter months over a period of several years, he journeys within and among counties, looking for convicts working. One day the boy spots a group of convicts working, and he leans up against a fence to watch them, looking for his father. The guard watching the group whacks the boy on the fingers with a piece of iron and tells him to leave. The boy leaves and finds a school where he tries to wash the blood off of his hands. Along the way he finds an old book in a trashcan and carries it with him. While he is at the pump, school lets out, and he eventually meets an old teacher who takes him in, dresses his wounds, and asks what has happened to him. The boy tells the teacher about Sounder and his father, and the teacher extends an offer for the boy to live with him and learn to read. The boy's mother tells him to go, and the boy stays with the teacher during winter, working in the fields during the summer. One fall the boy is at home helping with chores when they see his father walking back toward them. Half of his father's body is damaged from a dynam"
      },
      {
        "text": " dresses his wounds, and asks what has happened to him. The boy tells the teacher about Sounder and his father, and the teacher extends an offer for the boy to live with him and learn to read. The boy's mother tells him to go, and the boy stays with the teacher during winter, working in the fields during the summer. One fall the boy is at home helping with chores when they see his father walking back toward them. Half of his father's body is damaged from a dynamite blast, but the man has made it home. The man and his dog are reunited and leave one night to go hunting. Sounder later comes back without his master, and, when the boy goes looking for his father, he finds him and thinks he is asleep. When he gets home he tells his mother and she breaks to him that his father is dead. Soon after, Sounder climbs under the porch and dies as well. Despite their deaths, there is a sense of peace and resolution over the family\u2014especially over the boy, who has achieved the single thing he most wanted in the world, which is achieving his literacy.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Nemesis",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1989-10",
    "synopsis": " The novel is set in an era in which interstellar travel is in the process of being discovered and perfected. Before the novel's opening, \"hyper-assistance\", a technology allowing travel at a little slower than the speed of light, is used to move a reclusive space station colony called Rotor from the vicinity of Earth to the newly discovered red dwarf, Nemesis. There, it takes up orbit around the semi-habitable moon, Erythro, named for the red light that falls on it. It is eventually discovered that the bacterial life on Erythro forms a collective organism that possesses a form of consciousness and telepathy (a concept similar to the Gaia of Asimov's Foundation series). While the colonists argue over the direction of future colonization \u2014 down to Erythro, or up to the asteroid belts of Nemesis system \u2014 events catch up to them. Back on Earth superluminal flight is perfected, ending Rotor Colony's isolation and opening the galaxy to human exploration. The story also relates the breakup and reunion of a family (the mother, the discoverer of Nemesis, and the daughter were separated from the Earthbound father when the colony departed; the father becomes part of the hyperjump research project as a result); the startling discovery that the bacterial inhabitants of Erythro, collectively, constitute a sentient and telepathic organism; and the discovery and resolution of a massive crisis: Nemesis' trajectory threatens to gravitationally destabilize the Solar System.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is set in an era in which interstellar travel is in the process of being discovered and perfected. Before the novel's opening, \"hyper-assistance\", a technology allowing travel at a little slower than the speed of light, is used to move a reclusive space station colony called Rotor from the vicinity of Earth to the newly discovered red dwarf, Nemesis. There, it takes up orbit around the semi-habitable moon, Erythro, named for the red light that falls on it. It is eventually discovered that the bacterial life on Erythro forms a collective organism that possesses a form of consciousness and telepathy (a concept similar to the Gaia of Asimov's Foundation series). While the colonists argue over the direction of future colonization \u2014 down to Erythro, or up to the asteroid belts of Nemesis system \u2014 events catch up to them. Back on Earth superluminal flight is perfected, ending Rotor Colony's isolation and opening the galaxy to human exploration. The story also relates the breakup and reunion of a family (the mother, the discoverer of Nemesis, and the daughter were separated from the Earthbound father when the colony departed; the father becomes part of the hyperjump research project as a result); the startling discovery that the bacterial inhabitants of Erythro, collectively, constitute a sentient and telepathic organism; and the discovery and resolution of a massive crisis: Nemesis' trajectory threatens to gravitationally destabilize the Solar System.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Island of the Sequined Love Nun",
    "author": "Christopher Moore",
    "published_date": "1997",
    "synopsis": " The main character, Tucker Case (Tuck), is a pilot for a cosmetics company, who crashes the company plane while having sex. This event causes Tuck to be blacklisted from flying in the United States, so he accepts a lucrative offer from a doctor-missionary on a remote Micronesian island to transport cargo to and from the island and Japan. Tuck moves to the island, along with a male Filipino transvestite navigator and a talking fruit bat. There Tuck eventually uncovers a horrible secret harbored by the doctor and his wife, who have taken advantage of fact that the natives of the island have fallen under the influence of a cargo cult that developed as a result of establishment by Allies of an air runway there during World War II. Tuck's shock at the gruesome immorality of the situation leads to an adventurous and suspenseful climax.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The main character, Tucker Case (Tuck), is a pilot for a cosmetics company, who crashes the company plane while having sex. This event causes Tuck to be blacklisted from flying in the United States, so he accepts a lucrative offer from a doctor-missionary on a remote Micronesian island to transport cargo to and from the island and Japan. Tuck moves to the island, along with a male Filipino transvestite navigator and a talking fruit bat. There Tuck eventually uncovers a horrible secret harbored by the doctor and his wife, who have taken advantage of fact that the natives of the island have fallen under the influence of a cargo cult that developed as a result of establishment by Allies of an air runway there during World War II. Tuck's shock at the gruesome immorality of the situation leads to an adventurous and suspenseful climax.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove",
    "author": "Christopher Moore",
    "published_date": "1999",
    "synopsis": " Pine Cove suffers a major crisis when the town psychiatrist, Val Riordan — who has been haphazardly issuing prescriptions instead of dealing with the real mental problems of her patients — suffers a sudden bout of guilt and substitutes all of her patients' anti-depressants with placebos. At this same time, by coincidence, human-generated environmental activity stirs a prehistoric sea-beast from its underwater keep to come ashore. In addition to its ability to change form, the beast exudes a pheromone that inspires uncontrollable lust among the residents of Pine Cove and also lures some of them as prey. After mistakenly trying to mate with a fuel truck (causing an explosion), the beast hides in a trailer park, attracting the curiosity of local crazy lady and former B-movie star Molly Michon, who builds a rapport with the injured beast. Meanwhile, Theophilus Crowe, the town constable, investigates a strange suicide, the activities of his corrupt boss, and his adversely affected marijuana habit. When the beast (whom Molly has named \"Steve\") starts eating residents of Pine Cove and interfering with Theo's boss's meth business, Molly (who has become romantically involved with the beast) and Theo band together to make possible the beast's safe escape and to take down the boss at the same time.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Pine Cove suffers a major crisis when the town psychiatrist, Val Riordan — who has been haphazardly issuing prescriptions instead of dealing with the real mental problems of her patients — suffers a sudden bout of guilt and substitutes all of her patients' anti-depressants with placebos. At this same time, by coincidence, human-generated environmental activity stirs a prehistoric sea-beast from its underwater keep to come ashore. In addition to its ability to change form, the beast exudes a pheromone that inspires uncontrollable lust among the residents of Pine Cove and also lures some of them as prey. After mistakenly trying to mate with a fuel truck (causing an explosion), the beast hides in a trailer park, attracting the curiosity of local crazy lady and former B-movie star Molly Michon, who builds a rapport with the injured beast. Meanwhile, Theophilus Crowe, the town constable, investigates a strange suicide, the activities of his corrupt boss, and his adversely affected marijuana habit. When the beast (whom Molly has named \"Steve\") starts eating residents of Pine Cove and interfering with Theo's boss's meth business, Molly (who has become romantically involved with the beast) and Theo band together to make possible the beast's safe escape and to take down the boss at the same time.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lost Girls",
    "author": "Alan Moore",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (now grey-haired, and called \"Lady Fairchild\"), Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz (now in her 20s) and Wendy from Peter Pan (now in her 30s, and married to a man in his 50s named Harold Potter) are visiting the expensive mountain resort \"Hotel Himmelgarten\" in Austria on the eve of World War I (1913\u20131914). The women meet by chance and begin to exchange erotic stories from their pasts. The stories are based on the childhood fantasy worlds of the three women: *Wendy Durling. Wendy's sexual escapades begin when she meets a homeless teenage boy named Peter and his sister Annabel in Kensington Gardens. Peter follows the three siblings home and teaches them sexual games, and the siblings begin regular meetings with Peter and his group of homeless boys in the park for sex. These encounters are watched by The Captain, a co-worker of Wendy's father, who later hires Peter as a male prostitute and brutally rapes Annabel. He attacks Wendy, who escapes by confronting him with his fear of aging. She only sees Peter once more, hustling in a train station. She marries the much older Harold Potter because she is not attracted to him, and would not have to think about enjoying sex ever again. *Dorothy Gale. While trapped in her house during a cyclone, she begins masturbating and experiences her first orgasm at the age of sixteen. She has sexual encounters with three farm hands whom she refers to as The Straw Man, The Cowardly Lion and The Tin Man. Throughout most of her stories, she refers to her \"aunt\" and \"uncle\", whom she later admits were her step-mother and father, who discover her affairs. Her father takes her to New York City, under the pretense of seeking psychological help, but has sex with her repeatedly while they are in the city. Dorothy feels guilty of destroying her father's marriage, and leaves to travel the world. *Alice Fairchild. At fourteen, Alice is coerced into sex with her father's friend, which she endures by staring into a mirror and imagines she is having sex with herself. At an all-girls boarding school, Alice convinces many of her schoolmates to sleep with her, and develops a strong attraction to her P.E. teacher, who offers Alice a job as a personal assistant (and sexual plaything) when she leaves employment at the school. Alice's employer marries a Mr. Redman, but begins hosting extravagant, drug-fueled lesbian sex parties. Alice becomes addicted to opium, and watches a young girl named Lily, among many others, abused just as she was. When Lily is instructed by Mrs. Redman to secretly perform cunnilingus on Alice under the table during a dinner party, Alice exposes her employer's secrets to the guests. Mrs. Redman has Alice declared insane, and she is put into a mental hospital where she is systematically raped by the staff. Upon release Alice resumes her lesbian activity and drug use. Disowned by her family, she moves to Africa to run a family-owned diamond mine. In addition to the three women's erotic flashbacks, the graphic novel depicts sexual encounters between the women and other guests and staff of the hotel. The erotic adventures are set against the backdrop of unsettling cultural and historic events of the period, such as the debut of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The graphic novel ends with Alice's mirror being destroyed by German soldiers who burn down the Hotel.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (now grey-haired, and called \"Lady Fairchild\"), Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz (now in her 20s) and Wendy from Peter Pan (now in her 30s, and married to a man in his 50s named Harold Potter) are visiting the expensive mountain resort \"Hotel Himmelgarten\" in Austria on the eve of World War I (1913\u20131914). The women meet by chance and begin to exchange erotic stories from their pasts. The stories are based on the childhood fantasy worlds of the three women: *Wendy Durling. Wendy's sexual escapades begin when she meets a homeless teenage boy named Peter and his sister Annabel in Kensington Gardens. Peter follows the three siblings home and teaches them sexual games, and the siblings begin regular meetings with Peter and his group of homeless boys in the park for sex. These encounters are watched by The Captain, a co-worker of Wendy's father, who later hires Peter as a male prostitute and brutally rapes Annabel. He attacks Wendy, who escapes by confronting him with his fear of aging. She only sees Peter once more, hustling in a train station. She marries the much older Harold Potter because she is not attracted to him, and would not have to think about enjoying sex ever again. *Dorothy Gale. While trapped in her house during a cyclone, she begins masturbating and experiences her first orgasm at the age of sixteen. She has sexual encounters with three farm hands whom she refers to as The Straw Man, The Cowardly Lion and The Tin Man. Throughout most of her stories, she refers to her \"aunt\" and \"uncle\", whom she later admits were her step-mother and father, who discover her affairs. Her father takes her to New York City, under the pretense of seeking psychological help, but has sex with her repeatedly while they are in the city. Dorothy feels guilty of destroying"
      },
      {
        "text": " of sixteen. She has sexual encounters with three farm hands whom she refers to as The Straw Man, The Cowardly Lion and The Tin Man. Throughout most of her stories, she refers to her \"aunt\" and \"uncle\", whom she later admits were her step-mother and father, who discover her affairs. Her father takes her to New York City, under the pretense of seeking psychological help, but has sex with her repeatedly while they are in the city. Dorothy feels guilty of destroying her father's marriage, and leaves to travel the world. *Alice Fairchild. At fourteen, Alice is coerced into sex with her father's friend, which she endures by staring into a mirror and imagines she is having sex with herself. At an all-girls boarding school, Alice convinces many of her schoolmates to sleep with her, and develops a strong attraction to her P.E. teacher, who offers Alice a job as a personal assistant (and sexual plaything) when she leaves employment at the school. Alice's employer marries a Mr. Redman, but begins hosting extravagant, drug-fueled lesbian sex parties. Alice becomes addicted to opium, and watches a young girl named Lily, among many others, abused just as she was. When Lily is instructed by Mrs. Redman to secretly perform cunnilingus on Alice under the table during a dinner party, Alice exposes her employer's secrets to the guests. Mrs. Redman has Alice declared insane, and she is put into a mental hospital where she is systematically raped by the staff. Upon release Alice resumes her lesbian activity and drug use. Disowned by her family, she moves to Africa to run a family-owned diamond mine. In addition to the three women's erotic flashbacks, the graphic novel depicts sexual encounters between the women and other guests and staff of the hotel. The erotic adventures are set against the backdrop of unsettling cultural and historic events of the period, such as the debut of Igor St"
      },
      {
        "text": " and she is put into a mental hospital where she is systematically raped by the staff. Upon release Alice resumes her lesbian activity and drug use. Disowned by her family, she moves to Africa to run a family-owned diamond mine. In addition to the three women's erotic flashbacks, the graphic novel depicts sexual encounters between the women and other guests and staff of the hotel. The erotic adventures are set against the backdrop of unsettling cultural and historic events of the period, such as the debut of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The graphic novel ends with Alice's mirror being destroyed by German soldiers who burn down the Hotel.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Quartet in Autumn",
    "author": "Barbara Pym",
    "published_date": "1977-09-01",
    "synopsis": " Marcia, Letty, Norman and Edwin all work together in the same office, are all unmarried (Edwin being a widower) and have all reached retirement age. Letty, the \"heroine\" of the book, has plans to share a country retreat with her old friend, Marjorie, but her hopes are dashed when Marjorie suddenly announces that she is to marry a clergyman some years younger than herself. All four find retirement difficult to cope with, but the effects are most noticeable for the eccentric Marcia. She gradually withdraws from the outside world, gives up eating, and eventually dies in pathetic circumstances. She has unexpectedly left her estate to Norman, in whom she had indulged a brief and secret romantic interest. When Marjorie's fianc\u00e9 deserts her for a younger widow, Letty has the opportunity to take the country cottage after all. By now she has come to terms with retirement and does not move. At the end of the book, she is considering whether to introduce Edwin and Norman to Marjorie in the hope of matchmaking.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Marcia, Letty, Norman and Edwin all work together in the same office, are all unmarried (Edwin being a widower) and have all reached retirement age. Letty, the \"heroine\" of the book, has plans to share a country retreat with her old friend, Marjorie, but her hopes are dashed when Marjorie suddenly announces that she is to marry a clergyman some years younger than herself. All four find retirement difficult to cope with, but the effects are most noticeable for the eccentric Marcia. She gradually withdraws from the outside world, gives up eating, and eventually dies in pathetic circumstances. She has unexpectedly left her estate to Norman, in whom she had indulged a brief and secret romantic interest. When Marjorie's fianc\u00e9 deserts her for a younger widow, Letty has the opportunity to take the country cottage after all. By now she has come to terms with retirement and does not move. At the end of the book, she is considering whether to introduce Edwin and Norman to Marjorie in the hope of matchmaking.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Some Tame Gazelle",
    "author": "Barbara Pym",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Many of the characters in the book are based on Pym's own circle, as she pictured them in twenty or thirty years' time. The two heroines, Belinda and Harriet Bede, are Barbara herself and her sister, Hilary. Archdeacon Hoccleve, a married clergyman for whom Belinda has long nurtured a passion, is believed to be based on Pym's first love, Henry Harvey. In the course of the book, both sisters receive proposals of marriage which they feel obliged to reject, partly because they are not attracted to the men in question, but mainly because they are so used to living together and have become devoted to one another. In fact, Pym and her sister did end up living together in a quiet village in Oxfordshire. Pym's friend, the British writer Robert Liddell, appears in the novel in the guise of Dr. Nicholas Parnell. Another character, Count Riccardo Bianco, is based on the real-life count and academic, Roberto Weiss.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Many of the characters in the book are based on Pym's own circle, as she pictured them in twenty or thirty years' time. The two heroines, Belinda and Harriet Bede, are Barbara herself and her sister, Hilary. Archdeacon Hoccleve, a married clergyman for whom Belinda has long nurtured a passion, is believed to be based on Pym's first love, Henry Harvey. In the course of the book, both sisters receive proposals of marriage which they feel obliged to reject, partly because they are not attracted to the men in question, but mainly because they are so used to living together and have become devoted to one another. In fact, Pym and her sister did end up living together in a quiet village in Oxfordshire. Pym's friend, the British writer Robert Liddell, appears in the novel in the guise of Dr. Nicholas Parnell. Another character, Count Riccardo Bianco, is based on the real-life count and academic, Roberto Weiss.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Satyricon",
    "author": "Petronius Arbiter",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The work is narrated by its central figure, Encolpius, a former gladiator. The surviving sections of the novel begin with Encolpius traveling with a companion and former lover named Ascyltos, who has joined Encolpius on numerous escapades. Encolpius' slave, a boy named Giton, is apparently at Encolpius' lodging when the story begins. (Giton is constantly referred to as \"brother\" throughout the novel, thereby indicating that they were lovers.) In the first passage preserved, Encolpius is in a Greek town in Campania, perhaps Puteoli, where he is standing outside a school, railing against the Asiatic style and false taste in literature, which he blames on the prevailing system of declamatory education (1-2). His adversary in this debate is Agamemnon, a sophist, who shifts the blame from the teachers to the parents (3-5). Encolpius discovers that his companion Ascyltos has left and breaks away from Agamemnon when a group of students arrive (6). Encolpius locates Ascyltos (7-8) and then Giton (8), who claims that Ascyltos made a sexual attempt on him (9). After some conflict (9-11), the three go to the market, where they are involved in a dispute over stolen property (12-15). Returning to their lodgings, they are confronted by Quartilla, a devotee of Priapus, who condemns their attempts to pry into the cult's secrets (16-18). The companions are overpowered by Quartilla and her maids, who overpower and sexually torture them (19-21), then provide them with dinner and engage them in further sexual activity (21-26). An orgy ensues and the sequence ends with Encolpius and Quartilla exchanging kisses while they spy through a keyhole at Giton having sex with a virgin girl; and finally sleeping together (26). This section of the Satyricon, regarded by classicists such as Conte and Rankin as emblematic of Menippean satire, takes place a day or two after the beginning of the extant story. Encolpius and companions are invited, along with Agamemnon, to a dinner at the estate of Trimalchio, a freedman of enormous wealth, who entertains his guests with ostentatious and grotesque extravagance. After preliminaries in the baths and halls (26-30), the guests (mostly freedmen) join their host and enter the dining room. Extravagant courses are served while Trimalchio flaunts his wealth and his pretence of learning (31-41). Trimalchio's departure to the toilet (he is incontinent) allows space for conversation among the guests (41-46). Encolpius listens to their ordinary talk about their neighbours, about the weather, about the hard times, about the public games, and about the education of their children. In his insightful depiction of everyday Roman life, Petronius delights in exposing the vulgarity and pretentiousness of the illiterate and ostentatious millionaires of his age. After Trimalchio's return from the lavatory (47), the succession of courses is resumed, some of them disguised as other kinds of food or arranged to resemble certain zodiac signs. Falling into an argument with Agamemnon (a guest who secretly holds Trimalchio in disdain) Trimalchio reveals that he once saw the Sibyl of Cumae, who because of her great age was suspended in a flask for eternity (48). Supernatural stories about a werewolf (62) and witches are told (63). Following a lull in the conversation, a stonemason named Habinnas arrives with his wife Scintilla (65), who compares jewellery with Trimalchio's wife Fortunata (67). Then Trimalchio sets forth his will and gives Habinnas instructions on how to build his monument when he is dead (71). Encolpius and his companions, by now wearied and disgusted, try to leave as the other guests proceed to the baths, but are prevented by a porter (72). They escape only after Trimalchio holds a mock funeral for himself. The vigiles, mistaking the sound of horns for a signal that a fire has broken out, burst into the residence (78). Using this sudden alarm as an excuse to get rid of the sophist Agamemnon, whose company Encolpius and his friends are weary of, they flee as if from a real fire (78). Encolpius returns with his companions to the inn but, having drunk too much wine, passes out while Ascyltos takes advantage of the situation and seduces Giton (79). On the next day, Encolpius wakes to find his lover and Ascyltos in bed together naked. Encolpius quarrels with Ascyltos and the two agree to part, but Encolpius is shocked when Giton decides to stay with Ascyltos (80). After two or three days spent in separate lodgings sulking and brooding on his revenge, Encolpius sets out with sword in hand, but is disarmed by a soldier he encounters in the street (81-82). After entering a picture gallery, he meets with an old poet, Eumolpus. The two exchange complaints about their misfortunes (83-84), and Eumolpus tells how, when he pursued an affair with a boy in Pergamon while employed as his tutor, the youth got the better of him (85-87). After talking about the decay of art and the inferiority of the painters and writers of the age to the old masters (88), Eumolpus illustrates a picture of the capture of Troy by some verses on that theme (89). This ends in those who are walking in the adjoining colonnade driving Eumolpus out with stones (90). Encolpius invites Eumolpus to dinner. As he returns home, Encolpius encounters Giton who begs him to take him back as his lover. Encolpius finally forgives him (91). Eumolpus arrives from the baths and reveals that a man there (evidently Ascyltos) was looking for someone called Giton (92). Encolpius decides not to reveal Giton's identity, but he and the poet fall into rivalry over the boy (93-94). This leads to a fight between Eumolpus and the other residents of the insula (95-96), which is broken up by the manager Bargates. Then Ascyltos arrives with a municipal slave to search for Giton, who hides under a bed at Encolpius' request (97). Eumolpus threatens to reveal him but after much negotiation ends up reconciled to Encolpius and Giton (98). In the next scene preserved, Encolpius and his friends board a ship, along with Eumolpus' hired servant, later named as Corax (99). Encolpius belatedly discovers that the captain is an old enemy, Lichas of Tarentum. Also on board is a woman called Tryphaena, by whom Giton does not want to be discovered (100-101). Despite their attempt to disguise themselves as Eumolpus' slaves (103), Encolpius and Giton are identified (105). Eumolpus speaks in their defence (107), but it is only after fighting breaks out (108) that peace is agreed (109). To maintain good feelings, Eumolpus tells the story of a widow of Ephesus. At first she planned to starve herself to death in her husband's tomb, but she was seduced by a soldier guarding crucified corpses, and when one of these was stolen she offered the corpse of her husband as a replacement (110-112). The ship is wrecked in a storm (114). Encolpius, Giton and Eumolpus get to shore safely (as apparently does Corax), but Lichas is washed ashore drowned (115). The companions learn they are in the neighbourhood of Crotona, and that the inhabitants are notorious legacy-hunters (116). Eumolpus proposes taking advantage of this, and it is agreed that he will pose as a childless, sickly man of wealth, and the others as his slaves (117). As they travel to the city, Eumolpus lectures on the need for elevated content in poetry (118), which he illustrates with a poem of almost 300 lines on the Civil War between Julius Caesar and Pompey (119-124). When they arrive in Crotona, the legacy-hunters prove hospitable. When the text resumes, the companions have apparently been in Crotona for some time (125). A maid named Chrysis flirts with Encolpius and brings to him her beautiful mistress Circe, who asks him for sex. However, his attempts are prevented by impotence (126-128). Circe and Encolpius exchange letters, and he seeks a cure by sleeping without Giton (129-130). When he next meets Circe, she brings with her an elderly enchantress called Proselenos, who attempts a magical cure (131). Nonetheless, he fails again to make love, as Circe has Chrysis and him flogged (132). Encolpius is tempted to sever the offending organ, but prays to Priapus at his temple for healing (133). Proselenos and the priestess Oenothea arrive. Oenothea, who is also a sorceress, claims she can provide the cure desired by Encolpius and begins cooking (134-135). While the women are temporarily absent, Encolpius is attacked by the temple's sacred geese and kills one of them. Oenothea is horrified, but Encolpius pacifies her with an offer of money (136-137). Then, Oenothea tears open the breast of the goose, and uses its liver to foretell Encolpius's future (137). That accomplished, the priestess reveals a \"leather dildo,\" and the women apply various irritants to him, which they use to prepare Encolpius for anal penetration (138). Encolpius flees from Oenothea and her assistants. In the following chapters, Chrysis herself falls in love with Encolpius (138-139). An aging legacy-huntress called Philomela places her son and daughter with Eumolpus, ostensibly for education. Eumolpus makes love to the daughter, although because of his pretence of ill health he requires the help of Corax. Encolpius reveals that he has somehow been cured of his impotence (140). He warns Eumolpus that, because the wealth he claims to have has not appeared, the patience of the legacy-hunters is running out. Eumolpus' will is read to the legacy-hunters, who apparently now believe he is dead, and they learn they can inherit only if they consume his body. In the final passage preserved, historical examples of cannibalism are cited (141).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The work is narrated by its central figure, Encolpius, a former gladiator. The surviving sections of the novel begin with Encolpius traveling with a companion and former lover named Ascyltos, who has joined Encolpius on numerous escapades. Encolpius' slave, a boy named Giton, is apparently at Encolpius' lodging when the story begins. (Giton is constantly referred to as \"brother\" throughout the novel, thereby indicating that they were lovers.) In the first passage preserved, Encolpius is in a Greek town in Campania, perhaps Puteoli, where he is standing outside a school, railing against the Asiatic style and false taste in literature, which he blames on the prevailing system of declamatory education (1-2). His adversary in this debate is Agamemnon, a sophist, who shifts the blame from the teachers to the parents (3-5). Encolpius discovers that his companion Ascyltos has left and breaks away from Agamemnon when a group of students arrive (6). Encolpius locates Ascyltos (7-8) and then Giton (8), who claims that Ascyltos made a sexual attempt on him (9). After some conflict (9-11), the three go to the market, where they are involved in a dispute over stolen property (12-15). Returning to their lodgings, they are confronted by Quartilla, a devotee of Priapus, who condemns their attempts to pry into the cult's secrets (16-18). The companions are overpowered by Quartilla and her maids, who overpower and sexually torture them (19-21), then provide them with dinner and engage them in further sexual activity (21-26). An orgy ensues and the sequence ends with Encolpius and Quartilla exchanging kisses while they spy through a"
      },
      {
        "text": " lodgings, they are confronted by Quartilla, a devotee of Priapus, who condemns their attempts to pry into the cult's secrets (16-18). The companions are overpowered by Quartilla and her maids, who overpower and sexually torture them (19-21), then provide them with dinner and engage them in further sexual activity (21-26). An orgy ensues and the sequence ends with Encolpius and Quartilla exchanging kisses while they spy through a keyhole at Giton having sex with a virgin girl; and finally sleeping together (26). This section of the Satyricon, regarded by classicists such as Conte and Rankin as emblematic of Menippean satire, takes place a day or two after the beginning of the extant story. Encolpius and companions are invited, along with Agamemnon, to a dinner at the estate of Trimalchio, a freedman of enormous wealth, who entertains his guests with ostentatious and grotesque extravagance. After preliminaries in the baths and halls (26-30), the guests (mostly freedmen) join their host and enter the dining room. Extravagant courses are served while Trimalchio flaunts his wealth and his pretence of learning (31-41). Trimalchio's departure to the toilet (he is incontinent) allows space for conversation among the guests (41-46). Encolpius listens to their ordinary talk about their neighbours, about the weather, about the hard times, about the public games, and about the education of their children. In his insightful depiction of everyday Roman life, Petronius delights in exposing the vulgarity and pretentiousness of the illiterate and ostentatious millionaires of his age. After Trimalchio's return from the lavatory (47), the succession of courses is resumed, some of them disguised as other kinds of food or arranged to resemble certain"
      },
      {
        "text": " their ordinary talk about their neighbours, about the weather, about the hard times, about the public games, and about the education of their children. In his insightful depiction of everyday Roman life, Petronius delights in exposing the vulgarity and pretentiousness of the illiterate and ostentatious millionaires of his age. After Trimalchio's return from the lavatory (47), the succession of courses is resumed, some of them disguised as other kinds of food or arranged to resemble certain zodiac signs. Falling into an argument with Agamemnon (a guest who secretly holds Trimalchio in disdain) Trimalchio reveals that he once saw the Sibyl of Cumae, who because of her great age was suspended in a flask for eternity (48). Supernatural stories about a werewolf (62) and witches are told (63). Following a lull in the conversation, a stonemason named Habinnas arrives with his wife Scintilla (65), who compares jewellery with Trimalchio's wife Fortunata (67). Then Trimalchio sets forth his will and gives Habinnas instructions on how to build his monument when he is dead (71). Encolpius and his companions, by now wearied and disgusted, try to leave as the other guests proceed to the baths, but are prevented by a porter (72). They escape only after Trimalchio holds a mock funeral for himself. The vigiles, mistaking the sound of horns for a signal that a fire has broken out, burst into the residence (78). Using this sudden alarm as an excuse to get rid of the sophist Agamemnon, whose company Encolpius and his friends are weary of, they flee as if from a real fire (78). Encolpius returns with his companions to the inn but, having drunk too much wine, passes out while Ascyltos takes advantage of the situation and seduces Giton"
      },
      {
        "text": " the sound of horns for a signal that a fire has broken out, burst into the residence (78). Using this sudden alarm as an excuse to get rid of the sophist Agamemnon, whose company Encolpius and his friends are weary of, they flee as if from a real fire (78). Encolpius returns with his companions to the inn but, having drunk too much wine, passes out while Ascyltos takes advantage of the situation and seduces Giton (79). On the next day, Encolpius wakes to find his lover and Ascyltos in bed together naked. Encolpius quarrels with Ascyltos and the two agree to part, but Encolpius is shocked when Giton decides to stay with Ascyltos (80). After two or three days spent in separate lodgings sulking and brooding on his revenge, Encolpius sets out with sword in hand, but is disarmed by a soldier he encounters in the street (81-82). After entering a picture gallery, he meets with an old poet, Eumolpus. The two exchange complaints about their misfortunes (83-84), and Eumolpus tells how, when he pursued an affair with a boy in Pergamon while employed as his tutor, the youth got the better of him (85-87). After talking about the decay of art and the inferiority of the painters and writers of the age to the old masters (88), Eumolpus illustrates a picture of the capture of Troy by some verses on that theme (89). This ends in those who are walking in the adjoining colonnade driving Eumolpus out with stones (90). Encolpius invites Eumolpus to dinner. As he returns home, Encolpius encounters Giton who begs him to take him back as his lover. Encolp"
      },
      {
        "text": " painters and writers of the age to the old masters (88), Eumolpus illustrates a picture of the capture of Troy by some verses on that theme (89). This ends in those who are walking in the adjoining colonnade driving Eumolpus out with stones (90). Encolpius invites Eumolpus to dinner. As he returns home, Encolpius encounters Giton who begs him to take him back as his lover. Encolpius finally forgives him (91). Eumolpus arrives from the baths and reveals that a man there (evidently Ascyltos) was looking for someone called Giton (92). Encolpius decides not to reveal Giton's identity, but he and the poet fall into rivalry over the boy (93-94). This leads to a fight between Eumolpus and the other residents of the insula (95-96), which is broken up by the manager Bargates. Then Ascyltos arrives with a municipal slave to search for Giton, who hides under a bed at Encolpius' request (97). Eumolpus threatens to reveal him but after much negotiation ends up reconciled to Encolpius and Giton (98). In the next scene preserved, Encolpius and his friends board a ship, along with Eumolpus' hired servant, later named as Corax (99). Encolpius belatedly discovers that the captain is an old enemy, Lichas of Tarentum. Also on board is a woman called Tryphaena, by whom Giton does not want to be discovered (100-101). Despite their attempt to disguise themselves as Eumolpus' slaves (103), Encolpius and Giton are identified (105). Eumolpus speaks in their defence (107), but it is only after fighting breaks out (108)"
      },
      {
        "text": "colpius belatedly discovers that the captain is an old enemy, Lichas of Tarentum. Also on board is a woman called Tryphaena, by whom Giton does not want to be discovered (100-101). Despite their attempt to disguise themselves as Eumolpus' slaves (103), Encolpius and Giton are identified (105). Eumolpus speaks in their defence (107), but it is only after fighting breaks out (108) that peace is agreed (109). To maintain good feelings, Eumolpus tells the story of a widow of Ephesus. At first she planned to starve herself to death in her husband's tomb, but she was seduced by a soldier guarding crucified corpses, and when one of these was stolen she offered the corpse of her husband as a replacement (110-112). The ship is wrecked in a storm (114). Encolpius, Giton and Eumolpus get to shore safely (as apparently does Corax), but Lichas is washed ashore drowned (115). The companions learn they are in the neighbourhood of Crotona, and that the inhabitants are notorious legacy-hunters (116). Eumolpus proposes taking advantage of this, and it is agreed that he will pose as a childless, sickly man of wealth, and the others as his slaves (117). As they travel to the city, Eumolpus lectures on the need for elevated content in poetry (118), which he illustrates with a poem of almost 300 lines on the Civil War between Julius Caesar and Pompey (119-124). When they arrive in Crotona, the legacy-hunters prove hospitable. When the text resumes, the companions have apparently been in Crotona for some time (125). A maid named Chrysis flirts with Encolpius and brings to him her beautiful mistress Circe, who asks him for"
      },
      {
        "text": " on the need for elevated content in poetry (118), which he illustrates with a poem of almost 300 lines on the Civil War between Julius Caesar and Pompey (119-124). When they arrive in Crotona, the legacy-hunters prove hospitable. When the text resumes, the companions have apparently been in Crotona for some time (125). A maid named Chrysis flirts with Encolpius and brings to him her beautiful mistress Circe, who asks him for sex. However, his attempts are prevented by impotence (126-128). Circe and Encolpius exchange letters, and he seeks a cure by sleeping without Giton (129-130). When he next meets Circe, she brings with her an elderly enchantress called Proselenos, who attempts a magical cure (131). Nonetheless, he fails again to make love, as Circe has Chrysis and him flogged (132). Encolpius is tempted to sever the offending organ, but prays to Priapus at his temple for healing (133). Proselenos and the priestess Oenothea arrive. Oenothea, who is also a sorceress, claims she can provide the cure desired by Encolpius and begins cooking (134-135). While the women are temporarily absent, Encolpius is attacked by the temple's sacred geese and kills one of them. Oenothea is horrified, but Encolpius pacifies her with an offer of money (136-137). Then, Oenothea tears open the breast of the goose, and uses its liver to foretell Encolpius's future (137). That accomplished, the priestess reveals a \"leather dildo,\" and the women apply various irritants to him, which they use to prepare Encolpius for anal penetration (138). Encolpius flees from Oenothea and her assistants."
      },
      {
        "text": "colpius pacifies her with an offer of money (136-137). Then, Oenothea tears open the breast of the goose, and uses its liver to foretell Encolpius's future (137). That accomplished, the priestess reveals a \"leather dildo,\" and the women apply various irritants to him, which they use to prepare Encolpius for anal penetration (138). Encolpius flees from Oenothea and her assistants. In the following chapters, Chrysis herself falls in love with Encolpius (138-139). An aging legacy-huntress called Philomela places her son and daughter with Eumolpus, ostensibly for education. Eumolpus makes love to the daughter, although because of his pretence of ill health he requires the help of Corax. Encolpius reveals that he has somehow been cured of his impotence (140). He warns Eumolpus that, because the wealth he claims to have has not appeared, the patience of the legacy-hunters is running out. Eumolpus' will is read to the legacy-hunters, who apparently now believe he is dead, and they learn they can inherit only if they consume his body. In the final passage preserved, historical examples of cannibalism are cited (141).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Guns, Germs, and Steel",
    "author": "Jared Diamond",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The prologue opens with an account of Diamond's conversation with Yali, a New Guinean politician. The conversation turned to the obvious differences in power and technology between Yali's people and the Europeans who dominated the land for 200 years, differences that neither of them considered due to any genetic superiority of Europeans. Yali asked, using the local term \"cargo\" for inventions and manufactured goods, \"Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?\" (p. 14) Diamond realized the same question seemed to apply elsewhere: \"People of Eurasian origin... dominate the world in wealth and power.\" Other peoples, after having thrown off colonial domination, still lag in wealth and power. Still others, he says, \"have been decimated, subjugated, and in some cases even exterminated by European colonialists.\" (p. 15) The peoples of other continents (Sub-Saharan Africans, Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians and New Guineans, and the original inhabitants of tropical Southeast Asia) have been largely conquered, displaced and in some extreme cases \u2013 referring to Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians and South Africa's indigenous Khoisan peoples \u2013 largely exterminated by farm-based societies such as Eurasians and Bantu. He believes this is due to the societies' military and political advantages, stemming from the early rise of agriculture after the last Ice Age. He proposes explanations to account for such disproportionate distributions of power and achievements. The book's title is a reference to the means by which farm-based societies conquered populations of other areas and maintained dominance, despite sometimes being vastly out-numbered \u2013 superior weapons provided immediate military superiority (guns); Eurasian diseases weakened and reduced local populations, who had no immunity, making it easier to maintain control over them (germs), and centralized government promoted nationalism and powerful military organizations (steel). The book uses geography to show how Europeans developed such superior military technology, and how Europeans and Asians developed some immunity to diseases which spread among them, while epidemics of them devastated the indigenous populations in the Americas after European contact. Eurasia was the beneficiary of favorable geographic, climatic and environmental characteristics, particularly after the last Ice Age about 13,000\u201315,000 years ago. Diamond argues that Eurasian civilization is not so much a product of ingenuity, but of opportunity and necessity. That is, civilization is not created out of superior intelligence, but is the result of a chain of developments, each made possible by certain preconditions. In our earliest societies, humans lived as hunter-gatherers. The first step towards civilization is the move from hunter-gatherer to agriculture, with the domestication and farming of wild crops and animals. Agricultural production leads to food surpluses, which supports sedentary societies, specialization of craft, rapid population growth, and specialization of labor. Large societies tend to develop ruling classes and supporting bureaucracies, which may lead in turn to the organization of nation states and empires. Although agriculture arose in several parts of the world, Eurasia gained an early advantage due to the greater availability of suitable plant and animal species for domestication. In particular, Eurasia had the best collection of plants and animals suitable for domestication \u2013 barley, two varieties of wheat and three protein-rich pulses for food; flax for textiles; goats, sheep and cattle provided meat, leather, glue (by boiling the hooves and bones) and, in the case of sheep, wool. As early Middle Eastern civilizations began to trade, they found additional useful animals in adjacent territories, most notably horses and donkeys for use in transport. In contrast, Native American farmers had to struggle to develop maize as a useful food from its probable wild ancestor, teosinte; moreover, it provides few nutrients and must be planted one by one \u2013 an extremely cumbersome task. Eurasians had wheat and barley, which are high in fiber and nutrients and can be sown en masse with just a toss of the hand. They generated food surpluses which supported greater population growth. Such growth led to larger workforces and more inventors, artisans, etc. Grains can also be stored for longer periods of time unlike tropical crops such as bananas. Eurasia as a whole domesticated 13 species of large animals (over 100 lb / 44 kg); South America just one (counting the llama and alpaca as breeds within the same species); the rest of the world none at all. Diamond describes the small number of domesticated species (14 out of 148 \"candidates\") as an instance of the Anna Karenina principle: many promising species have just one of several significant difficulties that prevent domestication. Sub-Saharan Africans had mostly wild mammals, whereas Eurasians chanced to have the most docile large animals on the planet: horses and camels that are easily tamed for human transport; but their biological relatives zebras and onagers are untameable; and although African elephants can be tamed, it is very difficult to breed them in captivity; goats and sheep for hides, clothing, and cheese; cows for milk; bullocks for tilling fields and transport; and benign animals such as pigs and chickens. Africans, developing alongside large mammals, had available lions, leopards etc. Diamond points out that the only animals useful for human survival and purposes in New Guinea came from the East Asian mainland when they were transplanted during the Austronesian settlement some 4,000\u20135,000 years ago. Eurasia's large landmass and long east-west distance increased these advantages. Its large area provided it with more plant and animal species suitable for domestication, and allowed its people to exchange both innovations and diseases. Its East-West orientation allowed breeds domesticated in one part of the continent to be used elsewhere through similarities in climate and the cycle of seasons. In contrast, Australia suffered from a lack of useful animals due to extinction, probably by human hunting, shortly after the end of the Pleistocene. The Americas had difficulty adapting crops domesticated at one latitude for use at other latitudes (and, in North America, adapting crops from one side of the Rocky Mountains to the other). Africa was fragmented by its extreme variations in climate from North to South: plants and animals that flourished in one area never reached other areas where they could have flourished, because they could not survive the intervening environment. Europe was the ultimate beneficiary of Eurasia's East-West orientation: in the first millennium BC, the Mediterranean areas of Europe adopted the Middle East's animals, plants, and agricultural techniques; in the first millennium AD, the rest of Europe followed suit. The plentiful supply of food and the dense populations that it supported made division of labor possible. The rise of non-farming specialists such as craftsmen and scribes accelerated economic growth and technological progress. These economic and technological advantages eventually enabled Europeans to conquer the peoples of the other continents in recent centuries by using the \"Guns\" and \"Steel\" of the book's title. Eurasia's dense populations, high levels of trade, and living in close proximity to livestock resulted in widespread transmission of diseases, including from animals to humans. Natural selection forced Eurasians to develop immunity to a wide range of pathogens. When Europeans made contact with America, European diseases (to which they had no immunity) ravaged the indigenous American population, rather than the other way around (the \"trade\" in diseases was a little more balanced in Africa and southern Asia: endemic malaria and yellow fever made these regions notorious as the \"white man's grave\"; and syphilis may have spread in the opposite directionThe origin of syphilis is still debated. Some researchers think it was known to Hippocrates: Others think it was brought from the Americas by Columbus and his successors: ). The European diseases \u2013 the \"Germs\" of the book's title \u2013 decimated indigenous populations so that relatively small numbers of Europeans could maintain their dominance. Guns, Germs, and Steel also offers a very brief explanation of why western European societies, rather than other powers such as China, have been the dominant colonizers. * Other advanced cultures developed in areas whose geography was conducive to large, monolithic, isolated empires. In these conditions policies of technological and social stagnation could persist \u2013 until Europeans arrived. China was a very notable example; in 1432, a new Emperor outlawed the building of ocean-going ships, in which China was the world leader at the time. * Europe's geography favored balkanization into smaller, closer, nation-states, as its many natural barriers (mountains, rivers) provide defensible borders. As a result, governments that suppressed economic and technological progress soon corrected their mistakes or were out-competed relatively quickly. As an example of this national Darwinism, Diamond offers the disappearance of the counter-progressive Polish regime. He argues that geographical factors created the conditions for more rapid internal superpower change (Spain succeeded by France and then by England) than was possible elsewhere in Eurasia. Diamond examined European dominance in more detail with further examples in a later article.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The prologue opens with an account of Diamond's conversation with Yali, a New Guinean politician. The conversation turned to the obvious differences in power and technology between Yali's people and the Europeans who dominated the land for 200 years, differences that neither of them considered due to any genetic superiority of Europeans. Yali asked, using the local term \"cargo\" for inventions and manufactured goods, \"Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?\" (p. 14) Diamond realized the same question seemed to apply elsewhere: \"People of Eurasian origin... dominate the world in wealth and power.\" Other peoples, after having thrown off colonial domination, still lag in wealth and power. Still others, he says, \"have been decimated, subjugated, and in some cases even exterminated by European colonialists.\" (p. 15) The peoples of other continents (Sub-Saharan Africans, Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians and New Guineans, and the original inhabitants of tropical Southeast Asia) have been largely conquered, displaced and in some extreme cases \u2013 referring to Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians and South Africa's indigenous Khoisan peoples \u2013 largely exterminated by farm-based societies such as Eurasians and Bantu. He believes this is due to the societies' military and political advantages, stemming from the early rise of agriculture after the last Ice Age. He proposes explanations to account for such disproportionate distributions of power and achievements. The book's title is a reference to the means by which farm-based societies conquered populations of other areas and maintained dominance, despite sometimes being vastly out-numbered \u2013 superior weapons provided immediate military superiority (guns); Eurasian diseases weakened and reduced local populations, who had no immunity, making it easier to maintain control over them (germs), and centralized government promoted nationalism and powerful military organizations (steel)."
      },
      {
        "text": " Age. He proposes explanations to account for such disproportionate distributions of power and achievements. The book's title is a reference to the means by which farm-based societies conquered populations of other areas and maintained dominance, despite sometimes being vastly out-numbered \u2013 superior weapons provided immediate military superiority (guns); Eurasian diseases weakened and reduced local populations, who had no immunity, making it easier to maintain control over them (germs), and centralized government promoted nationalism and powerful military organizations (steel). The book uses geography to show how Europeans developed such superior military technology, and how Europeans and Asians developed some immunity to diseases which spread among them, while epidemics of them devastated the indigenous populations in the Americas after European contact. Eurasia was the beneficiary of favorable geographic, climatic and environmental characteristics, particularly after the last Ice Age about 13,000\u201315,000 years ago. Diamond argues that Eurasian civilization is not so much a product of ingenuity, but of opportunity and necessity. That is, civilization is not created out of superior intelligence, but is the result of a chain of developments, each made possible by certain preconditions. In our earliest societies, humans lived as hunter-gatherers. The first step towards civilization is the move from hunter-gatherer to agriculture, with the domestication and farming of wild crops and animals. Agricultural production leads to food surpluses, which supports sedentary societies, specialization of craft, rapid population growth, and specialization of labor. Large societies tend to develop ruling classes and supporting bureaucracies, which may lead in turn to the organization of nation states and empires. Although agriculture arose in several parts of the world, Eurasia gained an early advantage due to the greater availability of suitable plant and animal species for domestication. In particular, Eurasia had the best collection of plants and animals suitable for domestication \u2013 barley, two varieties of wheat and three protein-rich pulses for food; flax for textiles; goats"
      },
      {
        "text": " societies tend to develop ruling classes and supporting bureaucracies, which may lead in turn to the organization of nation states and empires. Although agriculture arose in several parts of the world, Eurasia gained an early advantage due to the greater availability of suitable plant and animal species for domestication. In particular, Eurasia had the best collection of plants and animals suitable for domestication \u2013 barley, two varieties of wheat and three protein-rich pulses for food; flax for textiles; goats, sheep and cattle provided meat, leather, glue (by boiling the hooves and bones) and, in the case of sheep, wool. As early Middle Eastern civilizations began to trade, they found additional useful animals in adjacent territories, most notably horses and donkeys for use in transport. In contrast, Native American farmers had to struggle to develop maize as a useful food from its probable wild ancestor, teosinte; moreover, it provides few nutrients and must be planted one by one \u2013 an extremely cumbersome task. Eurasians had wheat and barley, which are high in fiber and nutrients and can be sown en masse with just a toss of the hand. They generated food surpluses which supported greater population growth. Such growth led to larger workforces and more inventors, artisans, etc. Grains can also be stored for longer periods of time unlike tropical crops such as bananas. Eurasia as a whole domesticated 13 species of large animals (over 100 lb / 44 kg); South America just one (counting the llama and alpaca as breeds within the same species); the rest of the world none at all. Diamond describes the small number of domesticated species (14 out of 148 \"candidates\") as an instance of the Anna Karenina principle: many promising species have just one of several significant difficulties that prevent domestication. Sub-Saharan Africans had mostly wild mammals, whereas Eurasians chanced to"
      },
      {
        "text": "nbsp;lb / 44 kg); South America just one (counting the llama and alpaca as breeds within the same species); the rest of the world none at all. Diamond describes the small number of domesticated species (14 out of 148 \"candidates\") as an instance of the Anna Karenina principle: many promising species have just one of several significant difficulties that prevent domestication. Sub-Saharan Africans had mostly wild mammals, whereas Eurasians chanced to have the most docile large animals on the planet: horses and camels that are easily tamed for human transport; but their biological relatives zebras and onagers are untameable; and although African elephants can be tamed, it is very difficult to breed them in captivity; goats and sheep for hides, clothing, and cheese; cows for milk; bullocks for tilling fields and transport; and benign animals such as pigs and chickens. Africans, developing alongside large mammals, had available lions, leopards etc. Diamond points out that the only animals useful for human survival and purposes in New Guinea came from the East Asian mainland when they were transplanted during the Austronesian settlement some 4,000\u20135,000 years ago. Eurasia's large landmass and long east-west distance increased these advantages. Its large area provided it with more plant and animal species suitable for domestication, and allowed its people to exchange both innovations and diseases. Its East-West orientation allowed breeds domesticated in one part of the continent to be used elsewhere through similarities in climate and the cycle of seasons. In contrast, Australia suffered from a lack of useful animals due to extinction, probably by human hunting, shortly after the end of the Pleistocene. The Americas had difficulty adapting crops domesticated at one latitude for use at other latitudes (and, in North America, adapting crops from one side of the Rocky Mountains to the other). Africa was fragmented by its extreme variations in climate from"
      },
      {
        "text": " breeds domesticated in one part of the continent to be used elsewhere through similarities in climate and the cycle of seasons. In contrast, Australia suffered from a lack of useful animals due to extinction, probably by human hunting, shortly after the end of the Pleistocene. The Americas had difficulty adapting crops domesticated at one latitude for use at other latitudes (and, in North America, adapting crops from one side of the Rocky Mountains to the other). Africa was fragmented by its extreme variations in climate from North to South: plants and animals that flourished in one area never reached other areas where they could have flourished, because they could not survive the intervening environment. Europe was the ultimate beneficiary of Eurasia's East-West orientation: in the first millennium BC, the Mediterranean areas of Europe adopted the Middle East's animals, plants, and agricultural techniques; in the first millennium AD, the rest of Europe followed suit. The plentiful supply of food and the dense populations that it supported made division of labor possible. The rise of non-farming specialists such as craftsmen and scribes accelerated economic growth and technological progress. These economic and technological advantages eventually enabled Europeans to conquer the peoples of the other continents in recent centuries by using the \"Guns\" and \"Steel\" of the book's title. Eurasia's dense populations, high levels of trade, and living in close proximity to livestock resulted in widespread transmission of diseases, including from animals to humans. Natural selection forced Eurasians to develop immunity to a wide range of pathogens. When Europeans made contact with America, European diseases (to which they had no immunity) ravaged the indigenous American population, rather than the other way around (the \"trade\" in diseases was a little more balanced in Africa and southern Asia: endemic malaria and yellow fever made these regions notorious as the \"white man's grave\"; and syphilis may have spread in the opposite directionThe origin of syphilis is still debated. Some researchers think it was known to Hippocrates: Others think it"
      },
      {
        "text": " range of pathogens. When Europeans made contact with America, European diseases (to which they had no immunity) ravaged the indigenous American population, rather than the other way around (the \"trade\" in diseases was a little more balanced in Africa and southern Asia: endemic malaria and yellow fever made these regions notorious as the \"white man's grave\"; and syphilis may have spread in the opposite directionThe origin of syphilis is still debated. Some researchers think it was known to Hippocrates: Others think it was brought from the Americas by Columbus and his successors: ). The European diseases \u2013 the \"Germs\" of the book's title \u2013 decimated indigenous populations so that relatively small numbers of Europeans could maintain their dominance. Guns, Germs, and Steel also offers a very brief explanation of why western European societies, rather than other powers such as China, have been the dominant colonizers. * Other advanced cultures developed in areas whose geography was conducive to large, monolithic, isolated empires. In these conditions policies of technological and social stagnation could persist \u2013 until Europeans arrived. China was a very notable example; in 1432, a new Emperor outlawed the building of ocean-going ships, in which China was the world leader at the time. * Europe's geography favored balkanization into smaller, closer, nation-states, as its many natural barriers (mountains, rivers) provide defensible borders. As a result, governments that suppressed economic and technological progress soon corrected their mistakes or were out-competed relatively quickly. As an example of this national Darwinism, Diamond offers the disappearance of the counter-progressive Polish regime. He argues that geographical factors created the conditions for more rapid internal superpower change (Spain succeeded by France and then by England) than was possible elsewhere in Eurasia. Diamond examined European dominance in more detail with further examples in a later article.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " and technological progress soon corrected their mistakes or were out-competed relatively quickly. As an example of this national Darwinism, Diamond offers the disappearance of the counter-progressive Polish regime. He argues that geographical factors created the conditions for more rapid internal superpower change (Spain succeeded by France and then by England) than was possible elsewhere in Eurasia. Diamond examined European dominance in more detail with further examples in a later article.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "On Golden Pond",
    "author": "Ernest Thompson",
    "published_date": "1979",
    "synopsis": " May Norman and Ethel arrive at the summer house, finding it in need of repairs. There are hints that Norman is having problems with his memory. June Norman makes a nominal effort to find a job in the classified ads, to Ethel's chagrin. The mailman, Charlie, stops by and reminisces about the Thayer's daughter, Chelsea, whom he used to date. A letter arrives from Chelsea saying that she is coming from California with her boyfriend Bill to celebrate Norman's 80th birthday. It becomes clearer that Norman is struggling with memory loss, as he continues to forget names and places that should be familiar. July Chelsea arrives with Billy Ray and his 13-year-old son, Billy Ray Jr. Chelsea asks her parents if Billy Jr. can stay with them while she and Billy go to Europe. Norman (a bit reluctantly) and Ethel agree to keep Billy Jr. August Norman and Billy Jr. have become friends, and spend much of their time fishing. Chelsea returns, and reveals that she and Billy are now married. Ethel shows her impatience with Chelsea's habit of bitterly harping on the past. Chelsea confronts her father about their troubled relationship, and the two have a reconciliation. September Norman and Ethel are packing to leave for the winter. Chelsea calls, and they agree to go visit her in California. Norman seems to suffer a heart attack, (whilst picking up a box of his mother-in-law's heavy china) but recovers, and the pair leave their home along Golden Pond.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " May Norman and Ethel arrive at the summer house, finding it in need of repairs. There are hints that Norman is having problems with his memory. June Norman makes a nominal effort to find a job in the classified ads, to Ethel's chagrin. The mailman, Charlie, stops by and reminisces about the Thayer's daughter, Chelsea, whom he used to date. A letter arrives from Chelsea saying that she is coming from California with her boyfriend Bill to celebrate Norman's 80th birthday. It becomes clearer that Norman is struggling with memory loss, as he continues to forget names and places that should be familiar. July Chelsea arrives with Billy Ray and his 13-year-old son, Billy Ray Jr. Chelsea asks her parents if Billy Jr. can stay with them while she and Billy go to Europe. Norman (a bit reluctantly) and Ethel agree to keep Billy Jr. August Norman and Billy Jr. have become friends, and spend much of their time fishing. Chelsea returns, and reveals that she and Billy are now married. Ethel shows her impatience with Chelsea's habit of bitterly harping on the past. Chelsea confronts her father about their troubled relationship, and the two have a reconciliation. September Norman and Ethel are packing to leave for the winter. Chelsea calls, and they agree to go visit her in California. Norman seems to suffer a heart attack, (whilst picking up a box of his mother-in-law's heavy china) but recovers, and the pair leave their home along Golden Pond.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " recovers, and the pair leave their home along Golden Pond.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Passage to India",
    "author": "E. M. Forster",
    "published_date": "1924",
    "synopsis": " A young British schoolmistress, Adela Quested, and her elderly friend, Mrs. Moore, visit the fictional city of Chandrapore, British India. Adela is to marry Mrs. Moore's son, Ronny Heaslop, the city magistrate. Meanwhile, Dr. Aziz, a young Indian Muslim physician, is dining with two of his Indian friends and conversing about whether it is possible to be friends with an Englishman. During the meal, a summons arrives from Major Callendar, Aziz's unpleasant superior at the hospital. Aziz hastens to Callendar's bungalow as ordered, but is delayed by a flat tyre and difficulty in finding a tonga and the major has already left in a huff. Disconsolate, Aziz walks down the road toward the railway station. When he sees his favourite mosque, a rather ramshackle but beautiful structure, he enters on impulse. He sees a strange Englishwoman there, and angrily yells at her not to profane this sacred place. The woman, who turns out to be Mrs Moore, has respect for native customs (she had taken off her shoes before entering and she acknowledged that \"God is here\" in the mosque) disarms Aziz, and the two chat and part as friends. Mrs. Moore returns to the British club down the road and relates her experience at the mosque. Ronny Heaslop, her son, initially thinks she is talking about an Englishman, and becomes indignant when he learns the facts. He thinks she should have indicated by her tone that it was a \"Mohammedan\" who was in question. Adela, however, is intrigued. Because the newcomers had expressed a desire to see Indians, Mr. Turton, the city tax collector, invites numerous Indian gentlemen to a party at his house. The party turns out to be an awkward business, thanks to the Indians' timidity and the Britons' bigotry, but Adela does meet Cyril Fielding, headmaster of Chandrapore's government-run college for Indians. Fielding invites Adela and Mrs. Moore to a tea party with him and a Hindu-Brahmin professor named Narayan Godbole. On Adela's request, he extends his invitation to Dr. Aziz. At Fielding's tea party, everyone has a good time conversing about India, and Fielding and Aziz even become great friends. Aziz buoyantly promises to take Mrs. Moore and Adela to see the Marabar Caves, a distant cave complex that everyone talks about but no one seems to actually visit. Aziz's Marabar invitation was one of those casual promises that people often make and never intend to keep. Ronny Heaslop arrives and rudely breaks up the party. Aziz mistakenly believes that the women are really offended that he has not followed through on his promise and arranges the outing at great expense to himself. Fielding and Godbole were supposed to accompany the little expedition, but they miss the train. Aziz and the women begin to explore the caves. In the first cave, however, Mrs. Moore is overcome with claustrophobia, for the cave is dark and Aziz's retinue has followed her in. The press of people nearly smothers her. But worse than the claustrophobia is the echo. No matter what sound one makes, the echo is always \"Boum.\" Disturbed by the echo, Mrs. Moore declines to continue exploring. So Adela and Aziz, accompanied by a single guide, a local man, climb on up the hill to the next cluster of caves. As Aziz helps Adela up the hill, she innocently asks him whether he has more than one wife. Disconcerted by the bluntness of the remark, he ducks into a cave to compose himself. When he comes out, he finds the guide sitting alone outside the caves. The guide says Adela has gone into one of the caves by herself. Aziz looks for her in vain. Deciding she is lost, he angrily punches the guide, who runs away. Aziz looks around again and discovers Adela's field-glasses (similar to binoculars) lying broken on the ground. He puts them in his pocket. Then Aziz looks down the hill and sees Adela speaking to another young Englishwoman, Miss Derek, who has arrived with Fielding in a car. Aziz runs down the hill and greets Fielding effusively, but Miss Derek and Adela have already driven off without a word of explanation. Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Aziz return to Chandrapore on the train. Then the blow falls. At the train station, Dr. Aziz is arrested and charged with sexually assaulting Adela in a cave. She reports the alleged incident to the British authorities. The run-up to Aziz's trial for attempted sexual assault releases the racial tensions between the British and the Indians. Adela accuses Aziz only of trying to touch her. She says that he followed her into the cave and tried to grab her, and that she fended him off by swinging her field glasses at him. She remembers him grabbing the glasses and the strap breaking, which allowed her to get away. The only actual evidence the British have is the field glasses in the possession of Dr. Aziz. Despite this, the British colonists firmly believe that Aziz is guilty; at the back of all their minds is the conviction that all darker peoples lust after white women. They are stunned when Fielding proclaims his belief in Aziz's innocence. Fielding is ostracized and condemned as a blood-traitor. But the Indians, who consider the assault allegation a fraud aimed at ruining their community's reputation, welcome him. During the weeks before the trial, Mrs. Moore is unexpectedly apathetic and irritable. Her experience in the cave seems to have ruined her faith in humanity. Although she curtly professes her belief in Aziz's innocence, she does nothing to help him. Ronny, alarmed by his mother's assertion that Aziz is innocent, decides to arrange for her return by ship to England before she can testify to this effect at the trial. Mrs. Moore dies during the voyage. Her absence from India becomes a major issue at the trial, where Aziz's legal defenders assert that her testimony alone, had it been available, would have proven the accused's innocence. After an initial period of fever and weeping, Adela becomes confused as to Aziz's guilt. At the trial, she is asked point-blank whether Aziz sexually assaulted her. She asks for a moment to think before replying. She has a vision of the cave in that moment, and it turns out that Adela had, while in the cave, received a shock similar to Mrs. Moore's. The echo had disconcerted her so much that she temporarily became unhinged. She ran around the cave, fled down the hill, and finally sped off with Miss Derek. At the time, Adela mistakenly interpreted her shock as an assault by Aziz, who personifies the India that has stripped her of her psychological innocence, but he was never there. She admits that she was mistaken. The case is dismissed. (Note that in the 1913 draft of the novel EM Forster originally had Aziz guilty of the assault and found guilty in the court, but later changed this in the 1924 draft to create a more ambiguous ending). All the English are shocked and infuriated by what they view as Adela's betrayal of the white race. Ronny Heaslop breaks off their engagement. Adela stays at Fielding's house until her passage on a boat to England is arranged. After explaining to Fielding that the echo was the cause of the whole business, she departs India, never to return. Although he is free and vindicated, Aziz is angry and bitter that his friend, Fielding, would befriend Adela after she nearly ruined his life. Believing it to be the gentlemanly thing to do, Fielding convinces Aziz not to seek monetary redress from her. The two men's friendship suffers in consequence, and Fielding soon departs for England. Aziz believes that he is leaving to marry Adela for her money. Bitter at his friend's perceived betrayal, he vows never again to befriend a white person. Aziz moves to the Hindu-ruled state of Mau and begins a new life. Two years later, Fielding returns to India and to Aziz. His wife is Stella, Mrs. Moore's daughter from a second marriage. Aziz, now the Raja's chief physician, at first persists in his anger against his old friend. But in time, he comes to respect and love Fielding again. However, he does not give up his dream of a free and united India. In the novel's last sentences, he explains that he and Fielding cannot be friends, at least not until India is free of the British Raj. Even the earth and the sky seem to say, \"Not yet.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A young British schoolmistress, Adela Quested, and her elderly friend, Mrs. Moore, visit the fictional city of Chandrapore, British India. Adela is to marry Mrs. Moore's son, Ronny Heaslop, the city magistrate. Meanwhile, Dr. Aziz, a young Indian Muslim physician, is dining with two of his Indian friends and conversing about whether it is possible to be friends with an Englishman. During the meal, a summons arrives from Major Callendar, Aziz's unpleasant superior at the hospital. Aziz hastens to Callendar's bungalow as ordered, but is delayed by a flat tyre and difficulty in finding a tonga and the major has already left in a huff. Disconsolate, Aziz walks down the road toward the railway station. When he sees his favourite mosque, a rather ramshackle but beautiful structure, he enters on impulse. He sees a strange Englishwoman there, and angrily yells at her not to profane this sacred place. The woman, who turns out to be Mrs Moore, has respect for native customs (she had taken off her shoes before entering and she acknowledged that \"God is here\" in the mosque) disarms Aziz, and the two chat and part as friends. Mrs. Moore returns to the British club down the road and relates her experience at the mosque. Ronny Heaslop, her son, initially thinks she is talking about an Englishman, and becomes indignant when he learns the facts. He thinks she should have indicated by her tone that it was a \"Mohammedan\" who was in question. Adela, however, is intrigued. Because the newcomers had expressed a desire to see Indians, Mr. Turton, the city tax collector, invites numerous Indian gentlemen to a party at his house. The party turns out to be an awkward business, thanks to the Indians' timidity and the Britons' bigotry, but Adela does"
      },
      {
        "text": " and becomes indignant when he learns the facts. He thinks she should have indicated by her tone that it was a \"Mohammedan\" who was in question. Adela, however, is intrigued. Because the newcomers had expressed a desire to see Indians, Mr. Turton, the city tax collector, invites numerous Indian gentlemen to a party at his house. The party turns out to be an awkward business, thanks to the Indians' timidity and the Britons' bigotry, but Adela does meet Cyril Fielding, headmaster of Chandrapore's government-run college for Indians. Fielding invites Adela and Mrs. Moore to a tea party with him and a Hindu-Brahmin professor named Narayan Godbole. On Adela's request, he extends his invitation to Dr. Aziz. At Fielding's tea party, everyone has a good time conversing about India, and Fielding and Aziz even become great friends. Aziz buoyantly promises to take Mrs. Moore and Adela to see the Marabar Caves, a distant cave complex that everyone talks about but no one seems to actually visit. Aziz's Marabar invitation was one of those casual promises that people often make and never intend to keep. Ronny Heaslop arrives and rudely breaks up the party. Aziz mistakenly believes that the women are really offended that he has not followed through on his promise and arranges the outing at great expense to himself. Fielding and Godbole were supposed to accompany the little expedition, but they miss the train. Aziz and the women begin to explore the caves. In the first cave, however, Mrs. Moore is overcome with claustrophobia, for the cave is dark and Aziz's retinue has followed her in. The press of people nearly smothers her. But worse than the claustrophobia is the echo. No matter what sound one makes, the echo is always \"Bou"
      },
      {
        "text": "ing and Godbole were supposed to accompany the little expedition, but they miss the train. Aziz and the women begin to explore the caves. In the first cave, however, Mrs. Moore is overcome with claustrophobia, for the cave is dark and Aziz's retinue has followed her in. The press of people nearly smothers her. But worse than the claustrophobia is the echo. No matter what sound one makes, the echo is always \"Boum.\" Disturbed by the echo, Mrs. Moore declines to continue exploring. So Adela and Aziz, accompanied by a single guide, a local man, climb on up the hill to the next cluster of caves. As Aziz helps Adela up the hill, she innocently asks him whether he has more than one wife. Disconcerted by the bluntness of the remark, he ducks into a cave to compose himself. When he comes out, he finds the guide sitting alone outside the caves. The guide says Adela has gone into one of the caves by herself. Aziz looks for her in vain. Deciding she is lost, he angrily punches the guide, who runs away. Aziz looks around again and discovers Adela's field-glasses (similar to binoculars) lying broken on the ground. He puts them in his pocket. Then Aziz looks down the hill and sees Adela speaking to another young Englishwoman, Miss Derek, who has arrived with Fielding in a car. Aziz runs down the hill and greets Fielding effusively, but Miss Derek and Adela have already driven off without a word of explanation. Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Aziz return to Chandrapore on the train. Then the blow falls. At the train station, Dr. Aziz is arrested and charged with sexually assaulting Adela in a cave. She reports the alleged incident to the British authorities. The run-up to Aziz"
      },
      {
        "text": " with Fielding in a car. Aziz runs down the hill and greets Fielding effusively, but Miss Derek and Adela have already driven off without a word of explanation. Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Aziz return to Chandrapore on the train. Then the blow falls. At the train station, Dr. Aziz is arrested and charged with sexually assaulting Adela in a cave. She reports the alleged incident to the British authorities. The run-up to Aziz's trial for attempted sexual assault releases the racial tensions between the British and the Indians. Adela accuses Aziz only of trying to touch her. She says that he followed her into the cave and tried to grab her, and that she fended him off by swinging her field glasses at him. She remembers him grabbing the glasses and the strap breaking, which allowed her to get away. The only actual evidence the British have is the field glasses in the possession of Dr. Aziz. Despite this, the British colonists firmly believe that Aziz is guilty; at the back of all their minds is the conviction that all darker peoples lust after white women. They are stunned when Fielding proclaims his belief in Aziz's innocence. Fielding is ostracized and condemned as a blood-traitor. But the Indians, who consider the assault allegation a fraud aimed at ruining their community's reputation, welcome him. During the weeks before the trial, Mrs. Moore is unexpectedly apathetic and irritable. Her experience in the cave seems to have ruined her faith in humanity. Although she curtly professes her belief in Aziz's innocence, she does nothing to help him. Ronny, alarmed by his mother's assertion that Aziz is innocent, decides to arrange for her return by ship to England before she can testify to this effect at the trial. Mrs. Moore dies during the voyage. Her absence from India becomes a major issue at the trial, where Aziz's legal defenders assert"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Her experience in the cave seems to have ruined her faith in humanity. Although she curtly professes her belief in Aziz's innocence, she does nothing to help him. Ronny, alarmed by his mother's assertion that Aziz is innocent, decides to arrange for her return by ship to England before she can testify to this effect at the trial. Mrs. Moore dies during the voyage. Her absence from India becomes a major issue at the trial, where Aziz's legal defenders assert that her testimony alone, had it been available, would have proven the accused's innocence. After an initial period of fever and weeping, Adela becomes confused as to Aziz's guilt. At the trial, she is asked point-blank whether Aziz sexually assaulted her. She asks for a moment to think before replying. She has a vision of the cave in that moment, and it turns out that Adela had, while in the cave, received a shock similar to Mrs. Moore's. The echo had disconcerted her so much that she temporarily became unhinged. She ran around the cave, fled down the hill, and finally sped off with Miss Derek. At the time, Adela mistakenly interpreted her shock as an assault by Aziz, who personifies the India that has stripped her of her psychological innocence, but he was never there. She admits that she was mistaken. The case is dismissed. (Note that in the 1913 draft of the novel EM Forster originally had Aziz guilty of the assault and found guilty in the court, but later changed this in the 1924 draft to create a more ambiguous ending). All the English are shocked and infuriated by what they view as Adela's betrayal of the white race. Ronny Heaslop breaks off their engagement. Adela stays at Fielding's house until her passage on a boat to England is arranged. After explaining to Fielding that the echo was the cause of the whole business, she departs"
      },
      {
        "text": " had Aziz guilty of the assault and found guilty in the court, but later changed this in the 1924 draft to create a more ambiguous ending). All the English are shocked and infuriated by what they view as Adela's betrayal of the white race. Ronny Heaslop breaks off their engagement. Adela stays at Fielding's house until her passage on a boat to England is arranged. After explaining to Fielding that the echo was the cause of the whole business, she departs India, never to return. Although he is free and vindicated, Aziz is angry and bitter that his friend, Fielding, would befriend Adela after she nearly ruined his life. Believing it to be the gentlemanly thing to do, Fielding convinces Aziz not to seek monetary redress from her. The two men's friendship suffers in consequence, and Fielding soon departs for England. Aziz believes that he is leaving to marry Adela for her money. Bitter at his friend's perceived betrayal, he vows never again to befriend a white person. Aziz moves to the Hindu-ruled state of Mau and begins a new life. Two years later, Fielding returns to India and to Aziz. His wife is Stella, Mrs. Moore's daughter from a second marriage. Aziz, now the Raja's chief physician, at first persists in his anger against his old friend. But in time, he comes to respect and love Fielding again. However, he does not give up his dream of a free and united India. In the novel's last sentences, he explains that he and Fielding cannot be friends, at least not until India is free of the British Raj. Even the earth and the sky seem to say, \"Not yet.\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", he does not give up his dream of a free and united India. In the novel's last sentences, he explains that he and Fielding cannot be friends, at least not until India is free of the British Raj. Even the earth and the sky seem to say, \"Not yet.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Room with a View",
    "author": "E. M. Forster",
    "published_date": "1908",
    "synopsis": " The first part of the novel is set in Florence, Italy, and describes a young English woman's confusion at the Pensione Bertolini over her feelings for an Englishman staying at the same hotel. Lucy Honeychurch is touring Italy with her overbearing older cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett, and the novel opens with their complaints about the hotel, \"The Pension Bertolini.\" Their primary concern is that although rooms with a view of the River Arno have been promised for each of them, their rooms instead look over a courtyard. A Mr. Emerson interrupts their \"peevish wrangling,\" offering to swap rooms as he and his son, George Emerson, look over the Arno. This behavior causes Miss Bartlett some consternation, as it appears impolite. Without letting Lucy speak, Miss Bartlett refuses the offer, looking down on the Emersons because of their unconventional behaviour and thinking it would place her under an \"unseemly obligation\" towards them. However, another guest at the pension, an Anglican clergyman named Mr. Beebe, persuades the pair to accept the offer, assuring Miss Bartlett that Mr. Emerson only meant to be kind. The next day, Lucy embarks on a tour of Florence with another guest, Miss Eleanor Lavish, a novelist who shows Lucy the back streets of Florence, takes her Baedeker guidebook and subsequently loses her in Santa Croce, where Lucy meets the Emersons again. Although their manners are awkward and they are deemed socially unacceptable by the other guests, Lucy likes them and continues to run into them in Florence. One afternoon Lucy witnesses a murder in Florence. George Emerson happens to be nearby and catches her when she faints. Lucy asks George to retrieve some photographs of hers that happen to be near the murder site. George, out of confusion, throws her photographs into the river because they were spotted with blood. Lucy observes how boyish George is. As they stop to look over the River Arno before making their way back to the hotel, they have an intimate conversation. After this, Lucy decides to avoid George, partly because she is confused by her feelings and partly to keep her cousin happy\u2014Miss Bartlett is wary of the eccentric Emersons, particularly after a comment made by another clergyman, Mr. Eager, that Mr. Emerson \"murdered his wife in the sight of God.\" Later on in the week, a party made up of Beebe, Eager, the Emersons, Miss Lavish, Miss Bartlett and Lucy Honeychurch make their way to Fiesole, in carriages driven by Italians. The driver is permitted to invite a woman he claims is his sister onto the box of the carriage, and when he kisses her, Mr. Eager promptly forces the lady to get off the carriage box. Mr. Emerson remarks how it is defeat rather than victory to part two people in love. In the fields, Lucy searches for Mr. Beebe, and asks in poor Italian for the driver to show her the way. Misunderstanding, he leads her to a field where George stands. George is overcome by Lucy's beauty among a field of violets and kisses her, but they are interrupted by Lucy's cousin, who is outraged. Lucy promises Miss Bartlett that she will not tell her mother of the \"insult\" George has paid her because Miss Bartlett fears she will be blamed. The two women leave for Rome the next day before Lucy is able to say goodbye to George. In Rome, Lucy spends time with Cecil Vyse, whom she knew in England. Cecil proposes to Lucy twice in Italy; she rejects him both times. As Part Two begins, Lucy has returned to Surrey, England to her family home, Windy Corner. Cecil proposes yet again at Windy Corner, and this time she accepts. Cecil is a sophisticated and \"superior\" Londoner who is desirable in terms of rank and class, even though he despises country society; he is also somewhat of a comic figure in the novel, as he gives himself airs and is quite pretentious. The vicar, Mr. Beebe, announces that new tenants have leased a local cottage; the new arrivals turn out to be the Emersons, who have been told of the available cottage at a chance meeting with Cecil; the young man brought them to the village as a comeuppance to the cottage's landlord, whom Cecil thinks to be a snob. Fate takes an ironic turn as Lucy's brother, Freddy, meets George and invites him to bathe in a nearby pond. Freddy, George and Mr Beebe go to the pond, in the woods, take off their clothes and swim. They enjoy themselves so much they end up running around the pond and through the bushes, until Lucy, her mother, and Cecil arrive, having taken a short-cut through the woods. Freddy later invites George to play tennis at Windy Corner. Although Lucy is initially mortified at the thought of facing both George and Cecil (who is also visiting Windy Corner that Sunday), she resolves to be gracious. Cecil annoys everyone by reading aloud from a light romance novel that contains a scene suspiciously reminiscent of when George kissed Lucy in Florence. George catches Lucy alone in the garden and kisses her again. Lucy realizes that the novel is by Miss Lavish (the writer-acquaintance from Florence) and that Charlotte must thus have told her about the kiss. Furious with Charlotte for betraying her secret, Lucy forces her cousin to watch as she tells George to leave and never return. George argues with her, saying that Cecil only sees her as an \"object for the shelf\" and will never love her enough to grant her independence, while George loves her for who she is. Lucy is moved but remains firm. Later that evening, after Cecil again rudely declines to play tennis, Lucy sours on Cecil and immediately breaks off her engagement. She decides to flee to Greece with acquaintances from her trip to Florence, but shortly before her departure she accidentally encounters Mr. Emerson senior. He is not aware that Lucy has broken her engagement with Cecil, and Lucy cannot lie to the old man. Mr. Emerson forces Lucy to admit out loud that she has been in love with his son George all along. The novel ends in Florence, where George and Lucy have eloped without her mother's consent. Although Lucy \"had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever,\" the story ends with the promise of lifelong love for both her and George. In some books, an appendix to the book is given entitled \"A View without a Room,\" written by Forster in 1958 as to what occurred between Lucy and George after the events of the novel. It is Forster's afterthought of the novel, and he quite clearly states that \"I cannot think where George and Lucy live.\" They were quite comfortable up until the end of the war, with Charlotte Bartlett leaving them all her money in her will, but World War I ruined their happiness according to Forster. George became a conscientous objector, lost his government job but was given non-combatant duties to avoid prison, leaving Mrs Honeychurch deeply upset with her son-in-law. Mr Emerson died during the course of the war, shortly after having an argument with the police about Lucy continuing to play Beethoven during the war. Eventually they had three children, two girls and a boy, and moved to Carshalton from Highgate to find a home. Despite them wanting to move into Windy Corner after the death of Mrs Honeychurch, Freddy sold the house to support his family as he was \"an unsuccessful but prolific doctor.\" After the outbreak of World War II, George immediately enlisted as he saw the need to stop Hitler and the Nazi regime but he unfortunately was not faithful to Lucy during his time at war. Lucy was left homeless after her flat in Watford was bombed and the same happened to her married daughter in Nuneaton. George rose to the rank of corporal but was taken prisoner by the Italians in Africa. Once Italy fell George returned to Florence finding it \"in a mess\" but he was unable to find the Pension Bertolini, stating \"the View was still there and that the room must be there, too, but could not be found.\" He ends by stating that George and Lucy await World War III, but with no word on where they live, for even he does not know.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first part of the novel is set in Florence, Italy, and describes a young English woman's confusion at the Pensione Bertolini over her feelings for an Englishman staying at the same hotel. Lucy Honeychurch is touring Italy with her overbearing older cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett, and the novel opens with their complaints about the hotel, \"The Pension Bertolini.\" Their primary concern is that although rooms with a view of the River Arno have been promised for each of them, their rooms instead look over a courtyard. A Mr. Emerson interrupts their \"peevish wrangling,\" offering to swap rooms as he and his son, George Emerson, look over the Arno. This behavior causes Miss Bartlett some consternation, as it appears impolite. Without letting Lucy speak, Miss Bartlett refuses the offer, looking down on the Emersons because of their unconventional behaviour and thinking it would place her under an \"unseemly obligation\" towards them. However, another guest at the pension, an Anglican clergyman named Mr. Beebe, persuades the pair to accept the offer, assuring Miss Bartlett that Mr. Emerson only meant to be kind. The next day, Lucy embarks on a tour of Florence with another guest, Miss Eleanor Lavish, a novelist who shows Lucy the back streets of Florence, takes her Baedeker guidebook and subsequently loses her in Santa Croce, where Lucy meets the Emersons again. Although their manners are awkward and they are deemed socially unacceptable by the other guests, Lucy likes them and continues to run into them in Florence. One afternoon Lucy witnesses a murder in Florence. George Emerson happens to be nearby and catches her when she faints. Lucy asks George to retrieve some photographs of hers that happen to be near the murder site. George, out of confusion, throws her photographs into the river because they were spotted with blood. Lucy observes how boyish George is. As they stop"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Although their manners are awkward and they are deemed socially unacceptable by the other guests, Lucy likes them and continues to run into them in Florence. One afternoon Lucy witnesses a murder in Florence. George Emerson happens to be nearby and catches her when she faints. Lucy asks George to retrieve some photographs of hers that happen to be near the murder site. George, out of confusion, throws her photographs into the river because they were spotted with blood. Lucy observes how boyish George is. As they stop to look over the River Arno before making their way back to the hotel, they have an intimate conversation. After this, Lucy decides to avoid George, partly because she is confused by her feelings and partly to keep her cousin happy\u2014Miss Bartlett is wary of the eccentric Emersons, particularly after a comment made by another clergyman, Mr. Eager, that Mr. Emerson \"murdered his wife in the sight of God.\" Later on in the week, a party made up of Beebe, Eager, the Emersons, Miss Lavish, Miss Bartlett and Lucy Honeychurch make their way to Fiesole, in carriages driven by Italians. The driver is permitted to invite a woman he claims is his sister onto the box of the carriage, and when he kisses her, Mr. Eager promptly forces the lady to get off the carriage box. Mr. Emerson remarks how it is defeat rather than victory to part two people in love. In the fields, Lucy searches for Mr. Beebe, and asks in poor Italian for the driver to show her the way. Misunderstanding, he leads her to a field where George stands. George is overcome by Lucy's beauty among a field of violets and kisses her, but they are interrupted by Lucy's cousin, who is outraged. Lucy promises Miss Bartlett that she will not tell her mother of the \"insult\" George has paid her because Miss Bartlett fears she will be blamed."
      },
      {
        "text": ", Lucy searches for Mr. Beebe, and asks in poor Italian for the driver to show her the way. Misunderstanding, he leads her to a field where George stands. George is overcome by Lucy's beauty among a field of violets and kisses her, but they are interrupted by Lucy's cousin, who is outraged. Lucy promises Miss Bartlett that she will not tell her mother of the \"insult\" George has paid her because Miss Bartlett fears she will be blamed. The two women leave for Rome the next day before Lucy is able to say goodbye to George. In Rome, Lucy spends time with Cecil Vyse, whom she knew in England. Cecil proposes to Lucy twice in Italy; she rejects him both times. As Part Two begins, Lucy has returned to Surrey, England to her family home, Windy Corner. Cecil proposes yet again at Windy Corner, and this time she accepts. Cecil is a sophisticated and \"superior\" Londoner who is desirable in terms of rank and class, even though he despises country society; he is also somewhat of a comic figure in the novel, as he gives himself airs and is quite pretentious. The vicar, Mr. Beebe, announces that new tenants have leased a local cottage; the new arrivals turn out to be the Emersons, who have been told of the available cottage at a chance meeting with Cecil; the young man brought them to the village as a comeuppance to the cottage's landlord, whom Cecil thinks to be a snob. Fate takes an ironic turn as Lucy's brother, Freddy, meets George and invites him to bathe in a nearby pond. Freddy, George and Mr Beebe go to the pond, in the woods, take off their clothes and swim. They enjoy themselves so much they end up running around the pond and through the bushes, until Lucy, her mother, and Cecil arrive, having taken a short-cut through the woods. Freddy later"
      },
      {
        "text": " cottage's landlord, whom Cecil thinks to be a snob. Fate takes an ironic turn as Lucy's brother, Freddy, meets George and invites him to bathe in a nearby pond. Freddy, George and Mr Beebe go to the pond, in the woods, take off their clothes and swim. They enjoy themselves so much they end up running around the pond and through the bushes, until Lucy, her mother, and Cecil arrive, having taken a short-cut through the woods. Freddy later invites George to play tennis at Windy Corner. Although Lucy is initially mortified at the thought of facing both George and Cecil (who is also visiting Windy Corner that Sunday), she resolves to be gracious. Cecil annoys everyone by reading aloud from a light romance novel that contains a scene suspiciously reminiscent of when George kissed Lucy in Florence. George catches Lucy alone in the garden and kisses her again. Lucy realizes that the novel is by Miss Lavish (the writer-acquaintance from Florence) and that Charlotte must thus have told her about the kiss. Furious with Charlotte for betraying her secret, Lucy forces her cousin to watch as she tells George to leave and never return. George argues with her, saying that Cecil only sees her as an \"object for the shelf\" and will never love her enough to grant her independence, while George loves her for who she is. Lucy is moved but remains firm. Later that evening, after Cecil again rudely declines to play tennis, Lucy sours on Cecil and immediately breaks off her engagement. She decides to flee to Greece with acquaintances from her trip to Florence, but shortly before her departure she accidentally encounters Mr. Emerson senior. He is not aware that Lucy has broken her engagement with Cecil, and Lucy cannot lie to the old man. Mr. Emerson forces Lucy to admit out loud that she has been in love with his son George all along. The novel ends in Florence, where George and Lucy have eloped without her mother's consent."
      },
      {
        "text": "ours on Cecil and immediately breaks off her engagement. She decides to flee to Greece with acquaintances from her trip to Florence, but shortly before her departure she accidentally encounters Mr. Emerson senior. He is not aware that Lucy has broken her engagement with Cecil, and Lucy cannot lie to the old man. Mr. Emerson forces Lucy to admit out loud that she has been in love with his son George all along. The novel ends in Florence, where George and Lucy have eloped without her mother's consent. Although Lucy \"had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever,\" the story ends with the promise of lifelong love for both her and George. In some books, an appendix to the book is given entitled \"A View without a Room,\" written by Forster in 1958 as to what occurred between Lucy and George after the events of the novel. It is Forster's afterthought of the novel, and he quite clearly states that \"I cannot think where George and Lucy live.\" They were quite comfortable up until the end of the war, with Charlotte Bartlett leaving them all her money in her will, but World War I ruined their happiness according to Forster. George became a conscientous objector, lost his government job but was given non-combatant duties to avoid prison, leaving Mrs Honeychurch deeply upset with her son-in-law. Mr Emerson died during the course of the war, shortly after having an argument with the police about Lucy continuing to play Beethoven during the war. Eventually they had three children, two girls and a boy, and moved to Carshalton from Highgate to find a home. Despite them wanting to move into Windy Corner after the death of Mrs Honeychurch, Freddy sold the house to support his family as he was \"an unsuccessful but prolific doctor.\" After the outbreak of World War II, George immediately enlisted as he saw the need to stop Hitler and the Nazi regime but he unfortunately was not faithful to Lucy during his time at war."
      },
      {
        "text": ". Eventually they had three children, two girls and a boy, and moved to Carshalton from Highgate to find a home. Despite them wanting to move into Windy Corner after the death of Mrs Honeychurch, Freddy sold the house to support his family as he was \"an unsuccessful but prolific doctor.\" After the outbreak of World War II, George immediately enlisted as he saw the need to stop Hitler and the Nazi regime but he unfortunately was not faithful to Lucy during his time at war. Lucy was left homeless after her flat in Watford was bombed and the same happened to her married daughter in Nuneaton. George rose to the rank of corporal but was taken prisoner by the Italians in Africa. Once Italy fell George returned to Florence finding it \"in a mess\" but he was unable to find the Pension Bertolini, stating \"the View was still there and that the room must be there, too, but could not be found.\" He ends by stating that George and Lucy await World War III, but with no word on where they live, for even he does not know.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Alas, Babylon",
    "author": "Pat Frank",
    "published_date": "1959",
    "synopsis": " Randy (Randolph) Bragg, the protagonist, is a man who dabbles at law and lives a life with little purpose. He lives in the small Central Florida town of Fort Repose, which was founded by an ancestor during the 19th century. The scion of a once prominent Central Florida political family, Bragg is a former active duty U.S. Army infantry officer and Korean War veteran whose own foray into public life was a run for the Florida State Legislature which proved disastrous because of his open support for racial desegregation based on the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Randy's life appears to be drifting down a somewhat aimless path when he receives a telegram from his older brother, Colonel Mark Bragg, an Air Force Intelligence officer currently serving with the Strategic Air Command (SAC) at its headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base outside of Omaha, Nebraska. In the telegram, Mark informs Randy that he is sending his wife and two children to stay in Fort Repose, and that he wants to meet with Randy during a brief layover he will have at McCoy Air Force Base, southeast of downtown Orlando. The telegram ends the message with an ominous code: \"Alas Babylon\", a Biblical reference that the Bragg brothers employed throughout their lives as a euphemism for disaster. Randy drives to McCoy AFB and initially meets with another old friend, an Air Force officer and pilot named Paul Hart; Randy then meets Mark's arriving plane. While the military jet is refueled, Mark explains to Randy the background for sending the urgent message. The Soviets evidently perceive a temporary weakness in U.S. and Allied defense posture and are believed to be staging an attempt to take advantage of the situation. A defecting Soviet military officer has brought the Soviet \"war plan\" to the West. Mark believes the Soviet plan is flawed and that the West would ultimately prevail, but danger lies in Moscow's belief that they can succeed, which emboldens them to risk war. Mark informs Randy that he is flying his family down to Florida to stay with him indefinitely - or until Mark feels the threat has passed. The brothers soon say their goodbyes, and Randy realizes that he may never see Mark again. Heading back to Fort Repose, Randy gets cash from the bank. He also privately gives warning of the impending war to those people of Fort Repose whom he believes to be his friends, including Dr. Daniel Gunn (perhaps Randy's closest friend in Fort Repose) as well as Elizabeth \"Lib\" McGovern, a young woman for whom Randy has come to care deeply. During the early hours of the next morning, Randy drives to Orlando Municipal Airport to meet his sister-in-law (Helen) and her young son and daughter (Ben Franklin and Peyton) arriving from Omaha. Meanwhile, in the Eastern Mediterranean, a U.S. Navy carrier task force is being shadowed by unidentified (and presumably hostile) aircraft. The aircraft carrier USS Saratoga launches a fighter aircraft to intercept, identify and (if necessary) shoot down the \"bogie\". U.S. Navy Ensign \"Pee Wee\" Cobb, one of the most junior pilots in Saratogas air wing, is flying the interceptor, an F11F Tiger jet fighter, off the coast of Syria (a Soviet ally) and locates the unidentified aircraft. He is given permission to pursue and attack. Cobb closes on the \"bogie\" and fires an AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missile, but the missile goes off course because the enemy plane shuts off its engines, and the missile hits an ammunition depot at Latakia, Syria, resulting in an explosion that may or may not have included nuclear devices. This event becomes the apparent casus belli for the Soviet Union to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States and her allies. Early the following morning, Mark is on duty at SAC headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, known as \"The Hole\". He and fellow officers express concern that reports of unidentified submarines (\"skunks\") approaching the US Eastern seaboard overnight, coupled with Moscow's unsettling silence following the attack at Latakia may signal the Kremlin is preparing to launch an attack. Mark recommends to SAC's commander, General Hawker, that SAC ask Washington to transfer the direct authority to use nuclear weapons, since the weapons-release process takes at least a minute and a half, and the U.S. expects only about a fifteen minute warning if the Soviet Union were to attack. This is granted. Minutes later, radar stations report what appear to be inbound Soviet missiles from over the Arctic, as well as possible submarine-launched missiles heading toward the East Coast. Mark realizes what he feared most has arrived and turns to walk back to his office. General Hawker orders all SAC facilities to go immediately to Red Alert. As Mark leaves, General Hawker says to him, \"Thanks for the 95 seconds.\" In Fort Repose, Randy and his house guests are awakened by shaking due to the bombing of Miami and nearby Homestead Air Force Base. While looking at the glow to the south caused by the destruction of Miami, the family sees the nuclear explosion and mushroom cloud that destroys Tampa and MacDill Air Force Base, and which temporarily blinds Randy's niece, Peyton. These events culminate in what will later be called \"The Day\" by the residents of Fort Repose . . . in effect, a one-day war. The effects of \"The Day\" on Fort Repose are varied. Tourists are trapped in their hotels and the local bank manager tries to get instructions from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, via telegraph lines routed through Jacksonville (who already announced no messages will be sent North). But Jacksonville, as the home of Naval Station Mayport, Naval Air Station Jacksonville and Naval Air Station Cecil Field, is then destroyed by a follow-on Soviet nuclear strike and no advice is available. The local disc jockey at Fort Repose's AM radio station nervously reads instructions on the CONELRAD system. The only reliable method of news from the outside world is a shortwave radio receiver owned by one of Randy's neighbors, Sam Hazzard, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral. Convicts escape from jails and prisons; the local retirement homes are filled with panicked people; and a run on the bank results in the bank closing and local merchants selling out of nearly all supplies. As the effects of the disintegration of society get worse, many prominent people fail. The local banker, Edgar Quisenberry, commits suicide once he realizes money is useless. Randy's political rival, Porky Logan, who obtained looted radioactive jewelry near Miami, becomes seriously ill with radiation sickness. Randy organizes his immediate neighbors to provide housing, food, and water for themselves, organizes the community into self-defense, guides his family, and helps find salt and new supplies of food when they grow short. He fights the \"highwaymen\" who murder residents and seriously assault Dr. Gunn in their search for narcotics and goods. Some in Fort Repose discover faith; others degenerate into drunkenness. Randy eventually learns that, as an active Army Reserve officer, he has the legal right to exercise martial law \u2014 shortly after he had already begun to do so, albeit in a de facto mode. The authority comes from an order of acting Chief Executive Josephine Vanbruuker-Brown (who prior to The Day had been the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and is believed to be governing the country from Denver, Colorado) for any surviving active duty, reserve or national guard officers to form local militias. When Air Force helicopters finally make contact with Fort Repose again, and offer to move the families under Randy's care out of the area, none leave; they have come to believe that the life they have built in Fort Repose is at least as good, if not better, than the life they would face outside. The Air Force officer commanding the element of helicopters is Randy's old friend, Paul Hart. He reveals that Denver is now the national capital and that the United States won the war - but at a tremendous cost: the large-scale death and destruction suffered by the United States have left it a secondary (perhaps even tertiary) world power, and is the recipient of aid from third world countries such as Brazil and Venezuela. He also advises Randy's sister-in-law, Helen, that Mark was killed in the initial exchange that destroyed Offutt AFB and Omaha, leaving her free to marry Dr. Gunn, with whom she has now fallen in love. Paul also explains that nothing is left of Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa, and Orlando and that there are now two huge craters where McCoy AFB and downtown Orlando once stood. He also informs them that it will likely take a thousand years to get the contaminated areas decontaminated and habitable again. The book ends with the central characters bravely facing the \"thousand year night\" ahead of them.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Randy (Randolph) Bragg, the protagonist, is a man who dabbles at law and lives a life with little purpose. He lives in the small Central Florida town of Fort Repose, which was founded by an ancestor during the 19th century. The scion of a once prominent Central Florida political family, Bragg is a former active duty U.S. Army infantry officer and Korean War veteran whose own foray into public life was a run for the Florida State Legislature which proved disastrous because of his open support for racial desegregation based on the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Randy's life appears to be drifting down a somewhat aimless path when he receives a telegram from his older brother, Colonel Mark Bragg, an Air Force Intelligence officer currently serving with the Strategic Air Command (SAC) at its headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base outside of Omaha, Nebraska. In the telegram, Mark informs Randy that he is sending his wife and two children to stay in Fort Repose, and that he wants to meet with Randy during a brief layover he will have at McCoy Air Force Base, southeast of downtown Orlando. The telegram ends the message with an ominous code: \"Alas Babylon\", a Biblical reference that the Bragg brothers employed throughout their lives as a euphemism for disaster. Randy drives to McCoy AFB and initially meets with another old friend, an Air Force officer and pilot named Paul Hart; Randy then meets Mark's arriving plane. While the military jet is refueled, Mark explains to Randy the background for sending the urgent message. The Soviets evidently perceive a temporary weakness in U.S. and Allied defense posture and are believed to be staging an attempt to take advantage of the situation. A defecting Soviet military officer has brought the Soviet \"war plan\" to the West. Mark believes the Soviet plan is flawed and that the West would ultimately prevail, but danger lies in Moscow's belief that they can succeed, which emboldens"
      },
      {
        "text": ". While the military jet is refueled, Mark explains to Randy the background for sending the urgent message. The Soviets evidently perceive a temporary weakness in U.S. and Allied defense posture and are believed to be staging an attempt to take advantage of the situation. A defecting Soviet military officer has brought the Soviet \"war plan\" to the West. Mark believes the Soviet plan is flawed and that the West would ultimately prevail, but danger lies in Moscow's belief that they can succeed, which emboldens them to risk war. Mark informs Randy that he is flying his family down to Florida to stay with him indefinitely - or until Mark feels the threat has passed. The brothers soon say their goodbyes, and Randy realizes that he may never see Mark again. Heading back to Fort Repose, Randy gets cash from the bank. He also privately gives warning of the impending war to those people of Fort Repose whom he believes to be his friends, including Dr. Daniel Gunn (perhaps Randy's closest friend in Fort Repose) as well as Elizabeth \"Lib\" McGovern, a young woman for whom Randy has come to care deeply. During the early hours of the next morning, Randy drives to Orlando Municipal Airport to meet his sister-in-law (Helen) and her young son and daughter (Ben Franklin and Peyton) arriving from Omaha. Meanwhile, in the Eastern Mediterranean, a U.S. Navy carrier task force is being shadowed by unidentified (and presumably hostile) aircraft. The aircraft carrier USS Saratoga launches a fighter aircraft to intercept, identify and (if necessary) shoot down the \"bogie\". U.S. Navy Ensign \"Pee Wee\" Cobb, one of the most junior pilots in Saratogas air wing, is flying the interceptor, an F11F Tiger jet fighter, off the coast of Syria (a Soviet ally) and locates the unidentified aircraft. He is given permission to pursue and attack. Cobb closes on the"
      },
      {
        "text": ". The aircraft carrier USS Saratoga launches a fighter aircraft to intercept, identify and (if necessary) shoot down the \"bogie\". U.S. Navy Ensign \"Pee Wee\" Cobb, one of the most junior pilots in Saratogas air wing, is flying the interceptor, an F11F Tiger jet fighter, off the coast of Syria (a Soviet ally) and locates the unidentified aircraft. He is given permission to pursue and attack. Cobb closes on the \"bogie\" and fires an AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missile, but the missile goes off course because the enemy plane shuts off its engines, and the missile hits an ammunition depot at Latakia, Syria, resulting in an explosion that may or may not have included nuclear devices. This event becomes the apparent casus belli for the Soviet Union to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States and her allies. Early the following morning, Mark is on duty at SAC headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, known as \"The Hole\". He and fellow officers express concern that reports of unidentified submarines (\"skunks\") approaching the US Eastern seaboard overnight, coupled with Moscow's unsettling silence following the attack at Latakia may signal the Kremlin is preparing to launch an attack. Mark recommends to SAC's commander, General Hawker, that SAC ask Washington to transfer the direct authority to use nuclear weapons, since the weapons-release process takes at least a minute and a half, and the U.S. expects only about a fifteen minute warning if the Soviet Union were to attack. This is granted. Minutes later, radar stations report what appear to be inbound Soviet missiles from over the Arctic, as well as possible submarine-launched missiles heading toward the East Coast. Mark realizes what he feared most has arrived and turns to walk back to his office. General Hawker orders all SAC facilities to go immediately to Red Alert. As"
      },
      {
        "text": " at least a minute and a half, and the U.S. expects only about a fifteen minute warning if the Soviet Union were to attack. This is granted. Minutes later, radar stations report what appear to be inbound Soviet missiles from over the Arctic, as well as possible submarine-launched missiles heading toward the East Coast. Mark realizes what he feared most has arrived and turns to walk back to his office. General Hawker orders all SAC facilities to go immediately to Red Alert. As Mark leaves, General Hawker says to him, \"Thanks for the 95 seconds.\" In Fort Repose, Randy and his house guests are awakened by shaking due to the bombing of Miami and nearby Homestead Air Force Base. While looking at the glow to the south caused by the destruction of Miami, the family sees the nuclear explosion and mushroom cloud that destroys Tampa and MacDill Air Force Base, and which temporarily blinds Randy's niece, Peyton. These events culminate in what will later be called \"The Day\" by the residents of Fort Repose . . . in effect, a one-day war. The effects of \"The Day\" on Fort Repose are varied. Tourists are trapped in their hotels and the local bank manager tries to get instructions from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, via telegraph lines routed through Jacksonville (who already announced no messages will be sent North). But Jacksonville, as the home of Naval Station Mayport, Naval Air Station Jacksonville and Naval Air Station Cecil Field, is then destroyed by a follow-on Soviet nuclear strike and no advice is available. The local disc jockey at Fort Repose's AM radio station nervously reads instructions on the CONELRAD system. The only reliable method of news from the outside world is a shortwave radio receiver owned by one of Randy's neighbors, Sam Hazzard, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral. Convicts escape from jails and prisons; the local retirement homes are filled with panicked"
      },
      {
        "text": " Cecil Field, is then destroyed by a follow-on Soviet nuclear strike and no advice is available. The local disc jockey at Fort Repose's AM radio station nervously reads instructions on the CONELRAD system. The only reliable method of news from the outside world is a shortwave radio receiver owned by one of Randy's neighbors, Sam Hazzard, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral. Convicts escape from jails and prisons; the local retirement homes are filled with panicked people; and a run on the bank results in the bank closing and local merchants selling out of nearly all supplies. As the effects of the disintegration of society get worse, many prominent people fail. The local banker, Edgar Quisenberry, commits suicide once he realizes money is useless. Randy's political rival, Porky Logan, who obtained looted radioactive jewelry near Miami, becomes seriously ill with radiation sickness. Randy organizes his immediate neighbors to provide housing, food, and water for themselves, organizes the community into self-defense, guides his family, and helps find salt and new supplies of food when they grow short. He fights the \"highwaymen\" who murder residents and seriously assault Dr. Gunn in their search for narcotics and goods. Some in Fort Repose discover faith; others degenerate into drunkenness. Randy eventually learns that, as an active Army Reserve officer, he has the legal right to exercise martial law \u2014 shortly after he had already begun to do so, albeit in a de facto mode. The authority comes from an order of acting Chief Executive Josephine Vanbruuker-Brown (who prior to The Day had been the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and is believed to be governing the country from Denver, Colorado) for any surviving active duty, reserve or national guard officers to form local militias. When Air Force helicopters finally make contact with Fort Repose again, and offer to move the families under Randy's care out of the area, none leave"
      },
      {
        "text": " a de facto mode. The authority comes from an order of acting Chief Executive Josephine Vanbruuker-Brown (who prior to The Day had been the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and is believed to be governing the country from Denver, Colorado) for any surviving active duty, reserve or national guard officers to form local militias. When Air Force helicopters finally make contact with Fort Repose again, and offer to move the families under Randy's care out of the area, none leave; they have come to believe that the life they have built in Fort Repose is at least as good, if not better, than the life they would face outside. The Air Force officer commanding the element of helicopters is Randy's old friend, Paul Hart. He reveals that Denver is now the national capital and that the United States won the war - but at a tremendous cost: the large-scale death and destruction suffered by the United States have left it a secondary (perhaps even tertiary) world power, and is the recipient of aid from third world countries such as Brazil and Venezuela. He also advises Randy's sister-in-law, Helen, that Mark was killed in the initial exchange that destroyed Offutt AFB and Omaha, leaving her free to marry Dr. Gunn, with whom she has now fallen in love. Paul also explains that nothing is left of Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa, and Orlando and that there are now two huge craters where McCoy AFB and downtown Orlando once stood. He also informs them that it will likely take a thousand years to get the contaminated areas decontaminated and habitable again. The book ends with the central characters bravely facing the \"thousand year night\" ahead of them.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " also informs them that it will likely take a thousand years to get the contaminated areas decontaminated and habitable again. The book ends with the central characters bravely facing the \"thousand year night\" ahead of them.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Science and Health encapsulates the teachings of Christian Science and Christian Scientists often call it their \"textbook.\" At Sunday services, passages from the book are read along with passages from the Bible. Eddy called the two books Christian Science's \"dual and impersonal pastor.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Science and Health encapsulates the teachings of Christian Science and Christian Scientists often call it their \"textbook.\" At Sunday services, passages from the book are read along with passages from the Bible. Eddy called the two books Christian Science's \"dual and impersonal pastor.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sister Carrie",
    "author": "Theodore Dreiser",
    "published_date": "1900",
    "synopsis": " Dissatisfied with life in her rural Wisconsin home, 18-year-old Caroline \"Sister Carrie\" Meeber takes the train to Chicago, where her older sister Minnie, and her husband Sven Hanson, have agreed to take her in. On the train, Carrie meets Charles Drouet, a traveling salesman, who is attracted to her because of her simple beauty and unspoiled manner. They exchange contact information, but upon discovering the \"steady round of toil\" and somber atmosphere at her sister's flat, she writes to Drouet and discourages him from calling on her there. Carrie soon embarks on a quest for work to pay rent to her sister and her husband, and takes a job running a machine in a shoe factory. Before long, however, she is shocked by the coarse manners of both the male and female factory workers, and the physical demands of the job, as well as the squalid factory conditions, begin to take their toll. She also senses Minnie and Sven's disapproval of her interest in Chicago's recreational opportunities, particularly the theatre. One day, after an illness that costs her job, she encounters Drouet on a downtown street. Once again taken by her beauty, and moved by her poverty, he encourages her to dine with him, where, over sirloin and asparagus, he persuades her to leave her sister and move in with him. To press his case, he slips Carrie two ten dollar bills, opening a vista of material possibilities to her. The next day, he rebuffs her feeble attempts to return the money, taking her shopping at a Chicago department store and securing a jacket she covets and some shoes. That night, she writes a good-bye note to Minnie and moves in with Drouet. Drouet installs her in a much larger apartment, and their relationship intensifies as Minnie dreams about her sister's fall from innocence. She acquires a sophisticated wardrobe and, through his offhand comments about attractive women, sheds her provincial mannerisms, even as she struggles with the moral implications of being a kept woman. By the time Drouet introduces Carrie to George Hurstwood, the manager of Fitzgerald and Moy's \u2013 a respectable bar that Drouet describes as a \"way-up, swell place\" \u2013 her material appearance has improved considerably. Hurstwood, unhappy with and distant from his social-climbing wife and children, instantly becomes infatuated with Carrie\u2019s youth and beauty, and before long they start an affair, communicating and meeting secretly in the expanding, anonymous city. One night, Drouet casually agrees to find an actress to play a key role in an amateur theatrical presentation of Augustin Daly\u2019s melodrama, \u201cUnder the Gaslight,\u201d for his local chapter of the Elks. Upon returning home to Carrie, he encourages her to take the part of the heroine, Laura. Unknown to Drouet, Carrie long has harbored theatrical ambitions and has a natural aptitude for imitation and expressing pathos. The night of the production \u2013 which Hurstwood attends at Drouet\u2019s invitation \u2013 both men are moved to even greater displays of affection by Carrie\u2019s stunning performance. The next day, the affair is uncovered: Drouet discovers he has been cuckolded, Carrie learns that Hurstwood is married, and Hurstwood\u2019s wife, Julia, learns from an acquaintance that Hurstwood has been out driving with another woman and deliberately excluded her from the Elks theatre night. After a night of drinking, and despairing at his wife\u2019s financial demands and Carrie\u2019s rejection, Hurstwood stumbles upon a large amount of cash in the unlocked safe in Fitzgerald and Moy's offices. In a moment of poor judgment, he succumbs to the temptation to embezzle a large sum of money. Under the pretext of Drouet\u2019s sudden illness, he lures Carrie onto a train and escapes with her to Canada. Once they arrive in Montreal, Hurstwood\u2019s guilty conscience \u2013 and a private eye \u2013 induce him to return most of the stolen funds, but he realizes that he cannot return to Chicago. Hurstwood mollifies Carrie by agreeing to marry her, and the couple move to New York City. In New York, Hurstwood and Carrie rent a flat where they live as George and Carrie Wheeler. Hurstwood buys a minority interest in a saloon and, at first, is able to provide Carrie with a satisfactory \u2013 if not lavish \u2013 standard of living. The couple grow distant, however, as Hurstwood abandons any pretense of fine manners toward Carrie, and she realizes that Hurstwood no longer is the suave, powerful manager of his Chicago days. Carrie\u2019s dissatisfaction only increases when she meets Robert Ames, a bright young scholar from Indiana and her neighbor\u2019s cousin, who introduces her to the idea that great art, rather than showy materialism, is worthy of admiration. After only a few years, the saloon\u2019s landlord sells the property and Hurstwood\u2019s business partner expresses his intent to terminate the partnership. Too arrogant to accept most of the job opportunities available to him, Hurstwood soon discovers that his savings are running out and urges Carrie to economize, which she finds humiliating and distasteful. As Hurstwood lounges about, overwhelmed by apathy and foolishly gambling away most of his savings, Carrie turns to New York\u2019s theatres for employment and becomes a chorus girl. Once again, her aptitude for theatre serves her well, and, as the rapidly aging Hurstwood declines into obscurity, Carrie begins to rise from chorus girl to small speaking roles, and establishes a friendship with another chorus girl, Lola Osborne, who begins to urge Carrie to move in with her. In a final attempt to prove himself useful, Hurstwood becomes a scab driving a Brooklyn streetcar during a streetcar operator\u2019s strike. His ill-fated venture, which lasts only two days, prompts Carrie to leave him; in her farewell note, she encloses twenty dollars. Hurstwood ultimately joins the homeless of New York, taking odd jobs, falling ill with pneumonia, and finally becoming a beggar. Reduced to standing in line for bread and charity, he commits suicide in a flophouse. Meanwhile, Carrie achieves stardom, but finds that money and fame do not satisfy her longings or bring her happiness and that nothing will.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Dissatisfied with life in her rural Wisconsin home, 18-year-old Caroline \"Sister Carrie\" Meeber takes the train to Chicago, where her older sister Minnie, and her husband Sven Hanson, have agreed to take her in. On the train, Carrie meets Charles Drouet, a traveling salesman, who is attracted to her because of her simple beauty and unspoiled manner. They exchange contact information, but upon discovering the \"steady round of toil\" and somber atmosphere at her sister's flat, she writes to Drouet and discourages him from calling on her there. Carrie soon embarks on a quest for work to pay rent to her sister and her husband, and takes a job running a machine in a shoe factory. Before long, however, she is shocked by the coarse manners of both the male and female factory workers, and the physical demands of the job, as well as the squalid factory conditions, begin to take their toll. She also senses Minnie and Sven's disapproval of her interest in Chicago's recreational opportunities, particularly the theatre. One day, after an illness that costs her job, she encounters Drouet on a downtown street. Once again taken by her beauty, and moved by her poverty, he encourages her to dine with him, where, over sirloin and asparagus, he persuades her to leave her sister and move in with him. To press his case, he slips Carrie two ten dollar bills, opening a vista of material possibilities to her. The next day, he rebuffs her feeble attempts to return the money, taking her shopping at a Chicago department store and securing a jacket she covets and some shoes. That night, she writes a good-bye note to Minnie and moves in with Drouet. Drouet installs her in a much larger apartment, and their relationship intensifies as Minnie dreams about her sister's fall from innocence. She acquires"
      },
      {
        "text": " ten dollar bills, opening a vista of material possibilities to her. The next day, he rebuffs her feeble attempts to return the money, taking her shopping at a Chicago department store and securing a jacket she covets and some shoes. That night, she writes a good-bye note to Minnie and moves in with Drouet. Drouet installs her in a much larger apartment, and their relationship intensifies as Minnie dreams about her sister's fall from innocence. She acquires a sophisticated wardrobe and, through his offhand comments about attractive women, sheds her provincial mannerisms, even as she struggles with the moral implications of being a kept woman. By the time Drouet introduces Carrie to George Hurstwood, the manager of Fitzgerald and Moy's \u2013 a respectable bar that Drouet describes as a \"way-up, swell place\" \u2013 her material appearance has improved considerably. Hurstwood, unhappy with and distant from his social-climbing wife and children, instantly becomes infatuated with Carrie\u2019s youth and beauty, and before long they start an affair, communicating and meeting secretly in the expanding, anonymous city. One night, Drouet casually agrees to find an actress to play a key role in an amateur theatrical presentation of Augustin Daly\u2019s melodrama, \u201cUnder the Gaslight,\u201d for his local chapter of the Elks. Upon returning home to Carrie, he encourages her to take the part of the heroine, Laura. Unknown to Drouet, Carrie long has harbored theatrical ambitions and has a natural aptitude for imitation and expressing pathos. The night of the production \u2013 which Hurstwood attends at Drouet\u2019s invitation \u2013 both men are moved to even greater displays of affection by Carrie\u2019s stunning performance. The next day, the affair is uncovered: Drouet discovers he has been cuckolded, Carrie learns that Hurstwood is married, and Hurst"
      },
      {
        "text": " heroine, Laura. Unknown to Drouet, Carrie long has harbored theatrical ambitions and has a natural aptitude for imitation and expressing pathos. The night of the production \u2013 which Hurstwood attends at Drouet\u2019s invitation \u2013 both men are moved to even greater displays of affection by Carrie\u2019s stunning performance. The next day, the affair is uncovered: Drouet discovers he has been cuckolded, Carrie learns that Hurstwood is married, and Hurstwood\u2019s wife, Julia, learns from an acquaintance that Hurstwood has been out driving with another woman and deliberately excluded her from the Elks theatre night. After a night of drinking, and despairing at his wife\u2019s financial demands and Carrie\u2019s rejection, Hurstwood stumbles upon a large amount of cash in the unlocked safe in Fitzgerald and Moy's offices. In a moment of poor judgment, he succumbs to the temptation to embezzle a large sum of money. Under the pretext of Drouet\u2019s sudden illness, he lures Carrie onto a train and escapes with her to Canada. Once they arrive in Montreal, Hurstwood\u2019s guilty conscience \u2013 and a private eye \u2013 induce him to return most of the stolen funds, but he realizes that he cannot return to Chicago. Hurstwood mollifies Carrie by agreeing to marry her, and the couple move to New York City. In New York, Hurstwood and Carrie rent a flat where they live as George and Carrie Wheeler. Hurstwood buys a minority interest in a saloon and, at first, is able to provide Carrie with a satisfactory \u2013 if not lavish \u2013 standard of living. The couple grow distant, however, as Hurstwood abandons any pretense of fine manners toward Carrie, and she realizes that Hurstwood no longer is the suave, powerful manager of his Chicago days. Carrie\u2019s dissatisfaction only increases when she meets"
      },
      {
        "text": " Carrie rent a flat where they live as George and Carrie Wheeler. Hurstwood buys a minority interest in a saloon and, at first, is able to provide Carrie with a satisfactory \u2013 if not lavish \u2013 standard of living. The couple grow distant, however, as Hurstwood abandons any pretense of fine manners toward Carrie, and she realizes that Hurstwood no longer is the suave, powerful manager of his Chicago days. Carrie\u2019s dissatisfaction only increases when she meets Robert Ames, a bright young scholar from Indiana and her neighbor\u2019s cousin, who introduces her to the idea that great art, rather than showy materialism, is worthy of admiration. After only a few years, the saloon\u2019s landlord sells the property and Hurstwood\u2019s business partner expresses his intent to terminate the partnership. Too arrogant to accept most of the job opportunities available to him, Hurstwood soon discovers that his savings are running out and urges Carrie to economize, which she finds humiliating and distasteful. As Hurstwood lounges about, overwhelmed by apathy and foolishly gambling away most of his savings, Carrie turns to New York\u2019s theatres for employment and becomes a chorus girl. Once again, her aptitude for theatre serves her well, and, as the rapidly aging Hurstwood declines into obscurity, Carrie begins to rise from chorus girl to small speaking roles, and establishes a friendship with another chorus girl, Lola Osborne, who begins to urge Carrie to move in with her. In a final attempt to prove himself useful, Hurstwood becomes a scab driving a Brooklyn streetcar during a streetcar operator\u2019s strike. His ill-fated venture, which lasts only two days, prompts Carrie to leave him; in her farewell note, she encloses twenty dollars. Hurstwood ultimately joins the homeless of New York, taking odd jobs, falling ill with pneumonia, and finally becoming a beggar."
      },
      {
        "text": "ola Osborne, who begins to urge Carrie to move in with her. In a final attempt to prove himself useful, Hurstwood becomes a scab driving a Brooklyn streetcar during a streetcar operator\u2019s strike. His ill-fated venture, which lasts only two days, prompts Carrie to leave him; in her farewell note, she encloses twenty dollars. Hurstwood ultimately joins the homeless of New York, taking odd jobs, falling ill with pneumonia, and finally becoming a beggar. Reduced to standing in line for bread and charity, he commits suicide in a flophouse. Meanwhile, Carrie achieves stardom, but finds that money and fame do not satisfy her longings or bring her happiness and that nothing will.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Accidental Tourist",
    "author": "Anne Tyler",
    "published_date": "1985-08-12",
    "synopsis": " Set in Baltimore, Maryland, the plot revolves around Macon Leary, a writer of travel guides whose son has been killed in a shooting at a fast-food restaurant. He and his wife Sarah, separately lost in grief, find their marriage disintegrating until she eventually moves out. When he becomes incapacitated due to a fall, he returns to the family home to stay with his eccentric siblings\u2014sister Rose and brothers Porter and Charles\u2014whose odd habits include alphabetizing the groceries in the kitchen cabinets and ignoring the ringing telephone. When his publisher, Julian, comes to visit, Julian finds himself attracted to Rose. They eventually marry. Macon hires Muriel Pritchett, a quirky young woman with a sickly son, to train his unruly dog, and soon finds himself drifting into a relationship with the two of them. When his wife Sarah becomes aware of the situation, she decides they should reconcile, forcing him to make a difficult decision about his future.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set in Baltimore, Maryland, the plot revolves around Macon Leary, a writer of travel guides whose son has been killed in a shooting at a fast-food restaurant. He and his wife Sarah, separately lost in grief, find their marriage disintegrating until she eventually moves out. When he becomes incapacitated due to a fall, he returns to the family home to stay with his eccentric siblings\u2014sister Rose and brothers Porter and Charles\u2014whose odd habits include alphabetizing the groceries in the kitchen cabinets and ignoring the ringing telephone. When his publisher, Julian, comes to visit, Julian finds himself attracted to Rose. They eventually marry. Macon hires Muriel Pritchett, a quirky young woman with a sickly son, to train his unruly dog, and soon finds himself drifting into a relationship with the two of them. When his wife Sarah becomes aware of the situation, she decides they should reconcile, forcing him to make a difficult decision about his future.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal",
    "author": "Christopher Moore",
    "published_date": "2002",
    "synopsis": " Biff has been resurrected in the present day to complete missing parts of the Bible, supposedly under the watchful eye of the angel Raziel, who turns out to be more interested in soap operas and Spiderman on the television in their hotel. Biff is made to write down his account of the decades missing from Jesus' life. During these years he and Joshua (which, as Biff points out, is the original Hebrew version of the Hellenized \"Jesus\", and thus in Galilee Jesus was called Joshua Bar Joseph) travel to the East to seek the Three Wise Men (a magician, a Buddhist, and a Hindu Yogi) who attended Joshua's birth so that he may learn how to become the Messiah. Over a span of roughly twenty years, Joshua learns a great deal about human nature, world religions, and how he is able to translate those into his teachings. At each point, Joshua surpasses the abilities of the wise men by incorporating his own beliefs into theirs. The story takes a fantastical twist on Joshua's miracles as well: he learns to multiply food from one of the Wise Men and learns to become invisible from another; however, his ability to resurrect the dead figures strongly into his first meeting with Biff when both boys are six years old. Biff, for himself, is sarcastic, practical and endlessly loyal. While it would seem that such traits, as well as the fact that he was the Messiah's best friend for nearly thirty years, would ensure his place in the Gospels, there are reasons, as revealed in the final chapter, why Biff was essentially \"cut out\" of the story. The recounting of Jesus' human and godlike qualities, combined with Biff's earthy debauchery, leads to its all-too-familiar tragic ending, but humorously explains many things: the origins of judo (a pun that is definitely intended), why Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas, and how rabbits became associated with Easter. The Three Wise Men, Mary Magdalene (on whom Biff has a childhood crush), Joseph, and Mary (Joshua's mother, whom Biff plans to marry if anything happens to Joseph) all have their part in the life and times of Joshua. Mary Magdalene is depicted as harboring love for Joshua, though in Moore's version Joshua remains chaste, as per Raziel's instructions. This in itself leads to some of Biff's debauchery, as he is literally attempting to go through enough harlots for both of them. Biff himself loves \"Maggie\" with the same intensity, leading to a revolving love triangle. At the conclusion of the novel, Biff completes \"The Gospel According to Biff\", giving it to Raziel, who allows Biff to finally leave the hotel room. As Biff exits into the hallway he is surprised to find a resurrected Maggie exiting the room opposite, having finished her own Gospel weeks ago. The two embrace, informed by an angel that it is \"the will of the Son\" that they be together. The two leave together, Biff content to be with Maggie even though he is her second choice.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Biff has been resurrected in the present day to complete missing parts of the Bible, supposedly under the watchful eye of the angel Raziel, who turns out to be more interested in soap operas and Spiderman on the television in their hotel. Biff is made to write down his account of the decades missing from Jesus' life. During these years he and Joshua (which, as Biff points out, is the original Hebrew version of the Hellenized \"Jesus\", and thus in Galilee Jesus was called Joshua Bar Joseph) travel to the East to seek the Three Wise Men (a magician, a Buddhist, and a Hindu Yogi) who attended Joshua's birth so that he may learn how to become the Messiah. Over a span of roughly twenty years, Joshua learns a great deal about human nature, world religions, and how he is able to translate those into his teachings. At each point, Joshua surpasses the abilities of the wise men by incorporating his own beliefs into theirs. The story takes a fantastical twist on Joshua's miracles as well: he learns to multiply food from one of the Wise Men and learns to become invisible from another; however, his ability to resurrect the dead figures strongly into his first meeting with Biff when both boys are six years old. Biff, for himself, is sarcastic, practical and endlessly loyal. While it would seem that such traits, as well as the fact that he was the Messiah's best friend for nearly thirty years, would ensure his place in the Gospels, there are reasons, as revealed in the final chapter, why Biff was essentially \"cut out\" of the story. The recounting of Jesus' human and godlike qualities, combined with Biff's earthy debauchery, leads to its all-too-familiar tragic ending, but humorously explains many things: the origins of judo (a pun that is definitely intended), why Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas, and how rabbits became associated"
      },
      {
        "text": " ensure his place in the Gospels, there are reasons, as revealed in the final chapter, why Biff was essentially \"cut out\" of the story. The recounting of Jesus' human and godlike qualities, combined with Biff's earthy debauchery, leads to its all-too-familiar tragic ending, but humorously explains many things: the origins of judo (a pun that is definitely intended), why Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas, and how rabbits became associated with Easter. The Three Wise Men, Mary Magdalene (on whom Biff has a childhood crush), Joseph, and Mary (Joshua's mother, whom Biff plans to marry if anything happens to Joseph) all have their part in the life and times of Joshua. Mary Magdalene is depicted as harboring love for Joshua, though in Moore's version Joshua remains chaste, as per Raziel's instructions. This in itself leads to some of Biff's debauchery, as he is literally attempting to go through enough harlots for both of them. Biff himself loves \"Maggie\" with the same intensity, leading to a revolving love triangle. At the conclusion of the novel, Biff completes \"The Gospel According to Biff\", giving it to Raziel, who allows Biff to finally leave the hotel room. As Biff exits into the hallway he is surprised to find a resurrected Maggie exiting the room opposite, having finished her own Gospel weeks ago. The two embrace, informed by an angel that it is \"the will of the Son\" that they be together. The two leave together, Biff content to be with Maggie even though he is her second choice.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " ago. The two embrace, informed by an angel that it is \"the will of the Son\" that they be together. The two leave together, Biff content to be with Maggie even though he is her second choice.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Remains of the Day",
    "author": "Kazuo Ishiguro",
    "published_date": "1989-05",
    "synopsis": " The Remains of the Day tells, in first person, the story of Stevens, an English butler who has dedicated his life to the loyal service of Lord Darlington (mentioned in increasing detail in flashbacks). The novel begins with Stevens receiving a letter from a former colleague, Miss Kenton, describing her married life, which he believes hints at an unhappy marriage. The receipt of the letter coincides with Stevens having the opportunity to revisit this once-cherished relationship, if only under the guise of investigating the possibility of re-employment. Stevens's new employer, a wealthy American named Mr Farraday, encourages Stevens to borrow his car to take a well-earned break, a \"motoring trip\". As he sets out, Stevens has the opportunity to reflect on his immutable loyalty to Lord Darlington, on the meaning of the term \"dignity\", and even on his relationship with his own late father. Ultimately Stevens is forced to ponder the true nature of his relationship with Miss Kenton. As the book progresses, increasing evidence of Miss Kenton's one-time love for Stevens, and of his for her, is revealed. Working together during the years leading up to the Second World War, Stevens and Miss Kenton fail to admit their true feelings towards each other. All of their recollected conversations show a professional friendship which at times came close to crossing the line into romance, but never dared to do so. Miss Kenton, it later emerges, has been married for over 20 years and therefore is no longer Miss Kenton but has become Mrs Benn. She admits to wondering occasionally what a life with Stevens might have been like, but she has come to love her husband and is looking forward to the birth of their first grandchild. Stevens muses over lost opportunities, both with Miss Kenton and with his long-time employer, Lord Darlington. At the end of the novel, Stevens instead focuses on the \"remains of [his] day\", referring to his future service with Mr Farraday.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Remains of the Day tells, in first person, the story of Stevens, an English butler who has dedicated his life to the loyal service of Lord Darlington (mentioned in increasing detail in flashbacks). The novel begins with Stevens receiving a letter from a former colleague, Miss Kenton, describing her married life, which he believes hints at an unhappy marriage. The receipt of the letter coincides with Stevens having the opportunity to revisit this once-cherished relationship, if only under the guise of investigating the possibility of re-employment. Stevens's new employer, a wealthy American named Mr Farraday, encourages Stevens to borrow his car to take a well-earned break, a \"motoring trip\". As he sets out, Stevens has the opportunity to reflect on his immutable loyalty to Lord Darlington, on the meaning of the term \"dignity\", and even on his relationship with his own late father. Ultimately Stevens is forced to ponder the true nature of his relationship with Miss Kenton. As the book progresses, increasing evidence of Miss Kenton's one-time love for Stevens, and of his for her, is revealed. Working together during the years leading up to the Second World War, Stevens and Miss Kenton fail to admit their true feelings towards each other. All of their recollected conversations show a professional friendship which at times came close to crossing the line into romance, but never dared to do so. Miss Kenton, it later emerges, has been married for over 20 years and therefore is no longer Miss Kenton but has become Mrs Benn. She admits to wondering occasionally what a life with Stevens might have been like, but she has come to love her husband and is looking forward to the birth of their first grandchild. Stevens muses over lost opportunities, both with Miss Kenton and with his long-time employer, Lord Darlington. At the end of the novel, Stevens instead focuses on the \"remains of [his] day\", referring to his future service"
      },
      {
        "text": " and therefore is no longer Miss Kenton but has become Mrs Benn. She admits to wondering occasionally what a life with Stevens might have been like, but she has come to love her husband and is looking forward to the birth of their first grandchild. Stevens muses over lost opportunities, both with Miss Kenton and with his long-time employer, Lord Darlington. At the end of the novel, Stevens instead focuses on the \"remains of [his] day\", referring to his future service with Mr Farraday.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Crime and Punishment",
    "author": "Fyodor Dostoyevsky",
    "published_date": "1866",
    "synopsis": " Raskolnikov, a conflicted former student, lives in a tiny, rented room in Saint Petersburg. He refuses all help, even from his friend Razumikhin, and devises a plan to murder and to rob an unpleasant elderly pawn-broker and money-lender, Alyona Ivanovna. His motivation comes from the overwhelming sense that he is predetermined to kill the old woman by some power outside of himself. While still considering the plan, Raskolnikov makes the acquaintance of Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, a drunkard who recently squandered his family's little wealth. He also receives a letter from his sister and mother, speaking of their coming visit to Saint Petersburg, and his sister's sudden marriage plans which they plan on discussing upon their arrival. After much deliberation, Raskolnikov sneaks into Alyona Ivanovna's apartment where he murders her with an axe. He also kills her half-sister, Lizaveta, who happens to stumble upon the scene of the crime. Shaken by his actions, Raskolnikov manages to only steal a handful of items and a small purse, leaving much of the pawn-broker's wealth untouched. Raskolnikov then flees and, due to a series of coincidences, manages to leave unseen and undetected. After the bungled murder, Raskolnikov falls into a feverish state and begins to worry obsessively over the murder. He hides the stolen items and purse under a rock, and tries desperately to clean his clothing of any blood or evidence. He falls into a fever later that day, though not before calling briefly on his old friend Razumikhin. As the fever comes and goes in the following days, Raskolnikov behaves as though he wishes to betray himself. He shows strange reactions to whoever mentions the murder of the pawn-broker, which is now known about and talked of in the city. In his delirium, Raskolnikov wanders Saint Petersburg, drawing more and more attention to himself and his relation to the crime. In one of his walks through the city, he sees Marmeladov, who has been struck mortally by a carriage in the streets. Rushing to help him, Raskolnikov gives the remainder of his money to the man's family, which includes his teenage daughter, Sonya, who has been forced to become a prostitute to support her family. In the meantime, Raskolnikov's mother, Pulkheria Alexandrovna, and his sister, Avdotya Romanovna (or Dounia) have arrived in the city. Avdotya had been working as a governess for the Svidriga\u00eflov family until this point, but was forced out of the position by the head of the family, Arkady Ivanovich Svidriga\u00eflov. Svidriga\u00eflov, a married man, was attracted to Avdotya's physical beauty and her feminine qualities, and offered her riches and elopement. Avdotya, having none of this, fled the family and lost her source of income, only to meet Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, a man of modest income and rank. Luzhin proposes to marry Avdotya, thereby securing her and her mother's financial safety, provided she accept him quickly and without question. It is for these very reasons that the two of them come to Saint Petersburg, both to meet Luzhin there and to attain Raskolnikov's approval. Luzhin, however, calls on Raskolnikov while he is in a delirious state and presents himself as a foolish, self-righteous and presuming man. Raskolnikov dismisses him immediately as a potential husband for his sister, and realizes that she only accepted him to help her family. As the novel progresses, Raskolnikov is introduced to the detective Porfiry, who begins to suspect him for the murder purely on psychological grounds. At the same time, a chaste relationship develops between Raskolnikov and Sonya. Sonya, though a prostitute, is full of Christian virtue and is only driven into the profession by her family's poverty. Meanwhile, Razumikhin and Raskolnikov manage to keep Avdotya from continuing her relationship with Luzhin, whose true character is exposed to be conniving and base. At this point, Svidriga\u00eflov appears on the scene, having come from the province to Petersburg, almost solely to seek out Avdotya. He reveals that his wife is dead, and that he is willing to pay Avdotya a vast sum of money in exchange for nothing. She, upon hearing the news, refuses flat out, suspecting him of treachery. As Raskolnikov and Porfiry continue to meet, Raskolnikov's motives for the crime become exposed. Porfiry becomes increasingly certain of the man's guilt, but has no concrete evidence or witnesses with which to back up this suspicion. Furthermore, another man admits to committing the crime under questioning and arrest. However, Raskolnikov's nerves continue to wear thin, and he is constantly struggling with the idea of confessing, though he knows that he can never be truly convicted. He turns to Sonya for support and confesses his crime to her. By coincidence, Svidriga\u00eflov has taken up residence in a room next to Sonya's and overhears the entire confession. When the two men meet face to face, Svidriga\u00eflov acknowledges this fact, and suggests that he may use it against him, should he need to. Svidriga\u00eflov also speaks of his own past, and Raskolnikov grows to suspect that the rumors about his having committed several murders are true. In a later conversation with Dounia, Svidriga\u00eflov denies that he had a hand in the death of his wife. Raskolnikov is at this point completely torn; he is urged by Sonya to confess, and Svidriga\u00eflov's testimony could potentially convict him. Furthermore, Porfiry confronts Raskolnikov with his suspicions and assures him confession would substantially lighten his sentence. Meantime, Svidriga\u00eflov attempts to seduce Avdotya, but when he realizes that she will never love him, he lets her go. He then spends a night in confusion and in the morning shoots himself. This same morning, Raskolnikov goes again to Sonya, who again urges him to confess and to clear his conscience. He makes his way to the police station, where he is met by the news of Svidriga\u00eflov's suicide. He hesitates a moment, thinking again that he might get away with a perfect crime, but is persuaded by Sonya to confess. The epilogue tells of how Raskolnikov is sentenced to penal servitude in Siberia, where Sonya follows him. Avdotya and Razumikhin marry and are left in a happy position by the end of the novel, while Pulkheria, Raskolnikov's mother, falls ill and dies, unable to cope with her son's situation. Raskolnikov himself struggles in Siberia. It is only after some time in prison that his redemption and moral regeneration begin under Sonya's loving influence.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Raskolnikov, a conflicted former student, lives in a tiny, rented room in Saint Petersburg. He refuses all help, even from his friend Razumikhin, and devises a plan to murder and to rob an unpleasant elderly pawn-broker and money-lender, Alyona Ivanovna. His motivation comes from the overwhelming sense that he is predetermined to kill the old woman by some power outside of himself. While still considering the plan, Raskolnikov makes the acquaintance of Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, a drunkard who recently squandered his family's little wealth. He also receives a letter from his sister and mother, speaking of their coming visit to Saint Petersburg, and his sister's sudden marriage plans which they plan on discussing upon their arrival. After much deliberation, Raskolnikov sneaks into Alyona Ivanovna's apartment where he murders her with an axe. He also kills her half-sister, Lizaveta, who happens to stumble upon the scene of the crime. Shaken by his actions, Raskolnikov manages to only steal a handful of items and a small purse, leaving much of the pawn-broker's wealth untouched. Raskolnikov then flees and, due to a series of coincidences, manages to leave unseen and undetected. After the bungled murder, Raskolnikov falls into a feverish state and begins to worry obsessively over the murder. He hides the stolen items and purse under a rock, and tries desperately to clean his clothing of any blood or evidence. He falls into a fever later that day, though not before calling briefly on his old friend Razumikhin. As the fever comes and goes in the following days, Raskolnikov behaves as though he wishes to betray himself. He shows strange reactions to whoever mentions the murder of the pawn-broker, which is now known about and talked"
      },
      {
        "text": "ively over the murder. He hides the stolen items and purse under a rock, and tries desperately to clean his clothing of any blood or evidence. He falls into a fever later that day, though not before calling briefly on his old friend Razumikhin. As the fever comes and goes in the following days, Raskolnikov behaves as though he wishes to betray himself. He shows strange reactions to whoever mentions the murder of the pawn-broker, which is now known about and talked of in the city. In his delirium, Raskolnikov wanders Saint Petersburg, drawing more and more attention to himself and his relation to the crime. In one of his walks through the city, he sees Marmeladov, who has been struck mortally by a carriage in the streets. Rushing to help him, Raskolnikov gives the remainder of his money to the man's family, which includes his teenage daughter, Sonya, who has been forced to become a prostitute to support her family. In the meantime, Raskolnikov's mother, Pulkheria Alexandrovna, and his sister, Avdotya Romanovna (or Dounia) have arrived in the city. Avdotya had been working as a governess for the Svidriga\u00eflov family until this point, but was forced out of the position by the head of the family, Arkady Ivanovich Svidriga\u00eflov. Svidriga\u00eflov, a married man, was attracted to Avdotya's physical beauty and her feminine qualities, and offered her riches and elopement. Avdotya, having none of this, fled the family and lost her source of income, only to meet Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, a man of modest income and rank. Luzhin proposes to marry Avdotya, thereby securing her and her mother's financial safety, provided she accept him quickly and without"
      },
      {
        "text": "vidriga\u00eflov, a married man, was attracted to Avdotya's physical beauty and her feminine qualities, and offered her riches and elopement. Avdotya, having none of this, fled the family and lost her source of income, only to meet Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, a man of modest income and rank. Luzhin proposes to marry Avdotya, thereby securing her and her mother's financial safety, provided she accept him quickly and without question. It is for these very reasons that the two of them come to Saint Petersburg, both to meet Luzhin there and to attain Raskolnikov's approval. Luzhin, however, calls on Raskolnikov while he is in a delirious state and presents himself as a foolish, self-righteous and presuming man. Raskolnikov dismisses him immediately as a potential husband for his sister, and realizes that she only accepted him to help her family. As the novel progresses, Raskolnikov is introduced to the detective Porfiry, who begins to suspect him for the murder purely on psychological grounds. At the same time, a chaste relationship develops between Raskolnikov and Sonya. Sonya, though a prostitute, is full of Christian virtue and is only driven into the profession by her family's poverty. Meanwhile, Razumikhin and Raskolnikov manage to keep Avdotya from continuing her relationship with Luzhin, whose true character is exposed to be conniving and base. At this point, Svidriga\u00eflov appears on the scene, having come from the province to Petersburg, almost solely to seek out Avdotya. He reveals that his wife is dead, and that he is willing to pay Avdotya a vast sum of money in exchange for nothing. She, upon hearing the news, refuses flat out, suspecting him of treachery. As Raskoln"
      },
      {
        "text": " relationship with Luzhin, whose true character is exposed to be conniving and base. At this point, Svidriga\u00eflov appears on the scene, having come from the province to Petersburg, almost solely to seek out Avdotya. He reveals that his wife is dead, and that he is willing to pay Avdotya a vast sum of money in exchange for nothing. She, upon hearing the news, refuses flat out, suspecting him of treachery. As Raskolnikov and Porfiry continue to meet, Raskolnikov's motives for the crime become exposed. Porfiry becomes increasingly certain of the man's guilt, but has no concrete evidence or witnesses with which to back up this suspicion. Furthermore, another man admits to committing the crime under questioning and arrest. However, Raskolnikov's nerves continue to wear thin, and he is constantly struggling with the idea of confessing, though he knows that he can never be truly convicted. He turns to Sonya for support and confesses his crime to her. By coincidence, Svidriga\u00eflov has taken up residence in a room next to Sonya's and overhears the entire confession. When the two men meet face to face, Svidriga\u00eflov acknowledges this fact, and suggests that he may use it against him, should he need to. Svidriga\u00eflov also speaks of his own past, and Raskolnikov grows to suspect that the rumors about his having committed several murders are true. In a later conversation with Dounia, Svidriga\u00eflov denies that he had a hand in the death of his wife. Raskolnikov is at this point completely torn; he is urged by Sonya to confess, and Svidriga\u00eflov's testimony could potentially convict him. Furthermore, Porfiry confronts Raskolnikov with his suspicions and assures him confession would substantially lighten his sentence."
      },
      {
        "text": " that the rumors about his having committed several murders are true. In a later conversation with Dounia, Svidriga\u00eflov denies that he had a hand in the death of his wife. Raskolnikov is at this point completely torn; he is urged by Sonya to confess, and Svidriga\u00eflov's testimony could potentially convict him. Furthermore, Porfiry confronts Raskolnikov with his suspicions and assures him confession would substantially lighten his sentence. Meantime, Svidriga\u00eflov attempts to seduce Avdotya, but when he realizes that she will never love him, he lets her go. He then spends a night in confusion and in the morning shoots himself. This same morning, Raskolnikov goes again to Sonya, who again urges him to confess and to clear his conscience. He makes his way to the police station, where he is met by the news of Svidriga\u00eflov's suicide. He hesitates a moment, thinking again that he might get away with a perfect crime, but is persuaded by Sonya to confess. The epilogue tells of how Raskolnikov is sentenced to penal servitude in Siberia, where Sonya follows him. Avdotya and Razumikhin marry and are left in a happy position by the end of the novel, while Pulkheria, Raskolnikov's mother, falls ill and dies, unable to cope with her son's situation. Raskolnikov himself struggles in Siberia. It is only after some time in prison that his redemption and moral regeneration begin under Sonya's loving influence.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " with her son's situation. Raskolnikov himself struggles in Siberia. It is only after some time in prison that his redemption and moral regeneration begin under Sonya's loving influence.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul",
    "author": "Douglas Adams",
    "published_date": "1988-10-10",
    "synopsis": " * The central premise of the book is that gods are created by humans' necessity and desire for them, and, once worshipped by man, don't disappear but remain on earth forever. Because nobody worships them, many become destitute, like the tramps whom Dirk witnesses entering Valhalla. * Odin makes Thor accidentally transmogrify objects when he gets angry, in a bid to delay him getting to Norway and finding the Draycotts' contract. * The eagle that pursues Dirk and Thor is the transformed jet fighter that tries to stop him from getting to Norway. Thor's inability to fly to Norway using his hammer is why he needs to visit the airport at the opening of the novel. * Odin makes contact with the Draycotts after seeing one of Cynthia Draycott's adverts for a soft drink, which seemingly involve various gods promoting the drink; one of these adverts is seen when Dirk confronts Anstey's son early in the book. * Odin, like all the gods, is naive and quite literally unworldly; this is how the Draycotts are able to take advantage of him. * One of Dirk's chief characteristics in the novel is guilt\u2014about the fridge and about the death of Anstey, whom he should have protected. At the end of the novel, Dirk's fridge generates a new god of Guilt; it is implied this stops Toe Rag and the green monster from preventing Thor from finally retrieving the contract in Norway. * The gods' world exists in parallel with our own \u2013 where St Pancras railway station is Valhalla.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " * The central premise of the book is that gods are created by humans' necessity and desire for them, and, once worshipped by man, don't disappear but remain on earth forever. Because nobody worships them, many become destitute, like the tramps whom Dirk witnesses entering Valhalla. * Odin makes Thor accidentally transmogrify objects when he gets angry, in a bid to delay him getting to Norway and finding the Draycotts' contract. * The eagle that pursues Dirk and Thor is the transformed jet fighter that tries to stop him from getting to Norway. Thor's inability to fly to Norway using his hammer is why he needs to visit the airport at the opening of the novel. * Odin makes contact with the Draycotts after seeing one of Cynthia Draycott's adverts for a soft drink, which seemingly involve various gods promoting the drink; one of these adverts is seen when Dirk confronts Anstey's son early in the book. * Odin, like all the gods, is naive and quite literally unworldly; this is how the Draycotts are able to take advantage of him. * One of Dirk's chief characteristics in the novel is guilt\u2014about the fridge and about the death of Anstey, whom he should have protected. At the end of the novel, Dirk's fridge generates a new god of Guilt; it is implied this stops Toe Rag and the green monster from preventing Thor from finally retrieving the contract in Norway. * The gods' world exists in parallel with our own \u2013 where St Pancras railway station is Valhalla.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " * The gods' world exists in parallel with our own \u2013 where St Pancras railway station is Valhalla.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Nj\u00e1ls saga",
    "author": "Traditional",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The first episode covers the period from the betrothal of Hr\u00fatr Herj\u00f3lfsson and Unnr to the ugly legacy of their divorce. We are shown Hr\u00fatr's exploits in Norway, where he gains honour at court and in battle, but he ruins his subsequent marriage by becoming the lover of the aging queen mother Gunnhildr. When he denies having a woman in Iceland, she curses him so that he is unable to consummate his marriage. After Unnr divorces him, he retains the dowry by challenging Unnr's father, M\u00f6r\u00f0r, to combat. M\u00f6r\u00f0r refuses, as he knows Hr\u00fatr's reputation and that he will lose the fight. Because of this, Hr\u00fatr keeps the dowry. While this conforms to Icelandic law, it offends justice. The first chapter gives one of Hr\u00fatr's insights when he comments of his beautiful niece, \"I do not know how thieves' eyes came into the family\". The saga next follows this niece, Hallger\u00f0r, through her first two marriages. Both husbands die by the axe of Hallger\u00f0r's doting, brutish foster-father,\u00dej\u00f3st\u00f3lfr. Hallger\u00f0r provokes the first death but not the second, although it follows from a disagreement between her and her husband. It is Hr\u00fatr who, despite the family ties, avenges the death by killing \u00dej\u00f3st\u00f3lfr. Gunnarr H\u00e1mundarson and Nj\u00e1ll \u00deorgeirsson are now introduced. Gunnarr is a man of outstanding physical prowess, and Nj\u00e1ll has outstanding sagacity; they are close friends. When Gunnarr is obliged to revive Unnr's dowry-claim against Hr\u00fatr, Nj\u00e1ll gives him the means to do so. By skillful play-acting, Gunnarr begins the legal process in Hr\u00fatr's own house. He follows Hr\u00fatr's doubtful example when it comes to court, and Hr\u00fatr, who has previously won by threat of violence, loses to a threat of violence. Despite his humiliation, he sees future links with Gunnarr. This comes about when Gunnarr returns with honours from a trip to Scandinavia. He goes to the Althing \u2013 the annual assembly \u2013 in splendour, and meets Hallger\u00f0r. They are impressed with one another and are soon betrothed, despite Hr\u00fatr's warnings about Hallger\u00f0r's character, and Nj\u00e1ll's misgivings. Hr\u00fatr and Nj\u00e1ll are proven right when Hallger\u00f0r clashes with Nj\u00e1l's wife, Berg\u00fe\u00f3ra. Hallger\u00f0r charms a number of dubious characters into killing members of Nj\u00e1ll's household and the spirited Berg\u00fe\u00f3ra arranges vengeance. After each killing, their husbands make financial settlements according to the status of the victims. The fifth victim is \u00de\u00f3r\u00f0r, foster-father of Nj\u00e1ll's sons. \u00der\u00e1inn Sigf\u00fasson, Gunnarr's uncle and Hallger\u00f0r's son-in-law, accompanies the killers. When the feud ends and settlements are made, \u00der\u00e1inn\u2019s presence at that killing later causes conflict. Hallger\u00f0r now uses one of her slaves, Melk\u00f3lfr, to burgle the home of a churlish man named Otkell. Gunnarr immediately seeks to make amends, but his handsome offers are not accepted. A lawsuit is started against him which, with Nj\u00e1ll's help, he wins, gaining great honour. However, while remonstrating with Hallger\u00f0r about the burglary, Gunnarr slaps her. This is followed by Otkell accidentally wounding Gunnarr. Insult follows injury and Gunnarr reluctantly goes to avenge himself. With belated help from his brother Kolskeggr, he kills Otkell and his companions. Under Nj\u00e1ll's influence a new settlement is arranged, and Gunnarr's reputation grows. Nj\u00e1ll warns him that this will be the start of his career of killings. Next, Gunnarr accepts a challenge to a horse-fight from a man called Starka\u00f0r. In the course of the fight, his opponents cheat, and Gunnarr find himself in a fresh squabble. Nj\u00e1ll tries to mediate but \u00deorgeir Starka\u00f0sson refuses to accept it. On a journey with his two brothers, Gunnarr is ambushed by Starka\u00f0r and his allies. In the battle, fourteen attackers and Gunnarr's brother Hj\u00f6rtr are killed. Worming through all this is Unnr's son, M\u00f6r\u00f0r Valgar\u00f0sson. M\u00f6r\u00f0r envies and hates Gunnarr, and uses other men to attain his aims. He has learned that Nj\u00e1ll prophesied that Gunnarr will die if he kills twice in the same family. He instigates an attack on Gunnarr by persons dissatisfied by the settlement. Again, Gunnarr wins the fight, but he kills a second man in the same family. The settlement that follows requires that Gunnarr and Kolskeggr leave Iceland for three years. Arrangements are made for exile. But as Gunnarr leaves home, he looks homeward and, touched by the beauty of his homeland, resolves not to leave Iceland, thus becoming an outlaw. He goes about as though nothing has changed but his enemies, M\u00f6r\u00f0r among them, seek revenge. He defends himself in his home until his bowstring is cut. Hallger\u00f0r refuses to give him strands of her hair to restring his bow; this is in revenge for the slap he once gave her. Some readers choose to interpret this episode as her forgiveness since human hair is unusable as bowstring; i.e. he asks for something he knows is useless and she answers by denying as revenge, fully knowing too. Gunnarr's enemies resist M\u00f6r\u00f0rs proposal to burn him in the house as shameful, but eventually they take the roof off to get to Gunnarr. Nj\u00e1ll's son Skarp-He\u00f0inn assists H\u00f6gni Gunnarsson in some acts of vengeance before a settlement is achieved. Scandinavian rulers honor two Icelandic expeditions: those of \u00der\u00e1inn Sigf\u00fasson and of Nj\u00e1ll's two younger sons. Both return with enhanced honor, but also with companions. \u00der\u00e1inn brings back the malevolent Betrayal-Hrappr; the sons of Nj\u00e1ll the noble K\u00e1ri S\u00f6lmundarson, who marries their sister. But Nj\u00e1ll's sons also bring back a grievance, blaming \u00der\u00e1inn for the way in which the de facto ruler of Norway, Jarl H\u00e1kon, has treated them while looking for Hrappr, who had been hidden by \u00der\u00e1inn. While Nj\u00e1ll says they have been foolish in raising the matter, he advises them to publicise it so that it will be seen as a matter of honor. \u00derain refuses a settlement, and his retainers, including Hallger\u00f0r, on her last appearance, insult them. The most dramatic of the saga's battles follows. Nj\u00e1ll's sons, with K\u00e1ri, prepare to ambush \u00der\u00e1inn and his followers. There is a bridge of ice over the river between them. Skarp-He\u00f0inn overtakes his brothers, leaps the river, and slides on the ice past \u00der\u00e1inn, beheading him in passing. Between them the attackers kill four men, including Hrappr. \u00der\u00e1inn's brother, Ketill, has married Nj\u00e1ll's daughter, and between them they bring about a settlement. Wishing to stop further contention, Nj\u00e1ll adopts \u00der\u00e1inn's son H\u00f6skuldr as his foster-son. H\u00f6skuldr grows up in Nj\u00e1ll's household, and is loved and favoured by him. When he is fully grown, Nj\u00e1ll attempts to find a suitable wife for him, Hildigunnr. However, she refuses, saying that she will only marry H\u00f6skuldr if he becomes a chieftain. Nj\u00e1ll manages to get H\u00f6skuldr a chieftaincy by instituting the Fifth Court at the Althing, and H\u00f6skuldr and Hildigunnr are married. At this point the saga recounts the conversion of Iceland to Christianity in AD 999. M\u00f6r\u00f0r Valgar\u00f0sson now finds H\u00f6skuldr to be such a successful chief that his own chieftaincy is declining. He sets the sons of Nj\u00e1ll against H\u00f6skuldr; the tragedy of the saga is that they are so susceptible to his promptings that they, with M\u00f6r\u00f0r and K\u00e1ri, murder him as he sows in his field. As one character says, \"H\u00f6skuldr was killed for less than no reason; all men mourn his death; but none more than Njal, his foster-father\". Flosi, the uncle of H\u00f6skuldr's wife, takes revenge against the killers, and seeks help from powerful chieftains. He is pressured (against his better judgement) by Hildigunnr to accept only blood vengeance. Nj\u00e1ll's sons find themselves at the Althing having to plead for help. Skarp-He\u00f0inn has become grimly fatalistic, and insults many who might help them. After some legal sparring, arbitrators are chosen, including Snorri go\u00f0i, who proposes a weregild of three times the normal compensation for H\u00f6skuldr. This is so much that it can only be paid if the arbitrators, and many at the Althing, contribute. The great collection is gathered, and Nj\u00e1ll adds a gift of a fancy cloak. Flosi claims to be insulted by the offer of a unisex garment (an insult from Skarp-He\u00f0inn also adds fuel to the fire) and the settlement breaks down. Everyone leaves the Althing and prepares, amid portents and prophecies, for the showdown. A hundred men descend on Nj\u00e1ll's home, Bergthorsknoll (Berg\u00fe\u00f3rshv\u00e1ll), to find it defended by about thirty. Any victory for Flosi will be at some cost. But Nj\u00e1ll suggests that his sons defend from within the house, and they, while realizing that this is futile, agree. Flosi and his men set fire to the building. Both the innocent and the guilty are surrounded. Flosi allows the women to leave but beheads Helgi Nj\u00e1lsson, who attempts to escape disguised as a woman. Although Flosi invites Nj\u00e1ll and Berg\u00fe\u00f3ra to leave, they refuse, preferring to die with their sons and their grandson \u00de\u00f3r\u00f0r (the son of K\u00e1ri). Eventually eleven people die, not including K\u00e1ri who escapes under cover of the smoke by running along the beam of the house. Flosi knows that K\u00e1ri will exact vengeance for the burning. At the Althing, both sides gather. Flosi bribes Eyj\u00f3lfr B\u00f6lverksson, one of the finest lawyers in Iceland, into taking over the case, while his opponents blackmail M\u00f6r\u00f0r Valgar\u00f0sson into prosecuting, advised by \u00de\u00f3rhallr, Nj\u00e1ll's foster-son, who was trained in the law by Nj\u00e1ll, but is kept away from the proceedings by an infected leg. There is a legal joust between the parties. Eventually, when his legal action seems to be failing, \u00de\u00f3rhallr lances his boil with his spear and begins fighting. Flosi's men are driven back until Snorri separates the parties. In the confusion, several are killed including Lj\u00f3tr, Flosi's brother-in-law. Lj\u00f3tr's father, Hallr of S\u00ed\u00f0a, takes advantage of the truce to appeal for peace, and seeks no compensation for his son. Moved by this, all but K\u00e1ri and Nj\u00e1ll's nephew \u00deorgeir reach a settlement, while everyone contributes to Lj\u00f3tr's weregild, which in the end amounts to a quadruple compensation. The burners are exiled. Before the sons of Sigf\u00fas reach home, K\u00e1ri attacks them, and most of the rest of the saga describes his vengeance for the burning. He is supported by \u00deorgeir and an attractive anti-hero named Bj\u00f6rn. He pursues them to Orkney and Wales. The most dramatic moment is when he breaks into the earl's hall in Orkney and kills a man who is giving a slanderous account of those killed at the burning. After a pilgrimage to Rome, Flosi returns to Iceland. K\u00e1ri follows, and is shipwrecked near Flosi's home. Testing Flosi's nobility he goes to him for help, and they arrange a final peace. K\u00e1ri marries H\u00f6skuldr's widow. Finally, there is a full reconciliation.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first episode covers the period from the betrothal of Hr\u00fatr Herj\u00f3lfsson and Unnr to the ugly legacy of their divorce. We are shown Hr\u00fatr's exploits in Norway, where he gains honour at court and in battle, but he ruins his subsequent marriage by becoming the lover of the aging queen mother Gunnhildr. When he denies having a woman in Iceland, she curses him so that he is unable to consummate his marriage. After Unnr divorces him, he retains the dowry by challenging Unnr's father, M\u00f6r\u00f0r, to combat. M\u00f6r\u00f0r refuses, as he knows Hr\u00fatr's reputation and that he will lose the fight. Because of this, Hr\u00fatr keeps the dowry. While this conforms to Icelandic law, it offends justice. The first chapter gives one of Hr\u00fatr's insights when he comments of his beautiful niece, \"I do not know how thieves' eyes came into the family\". The saga next follows this niece, Hallger\u00f0r, through her first two marriages. Both husbands die by the axe of Hallger\u00f0r's doting, brutish foster-father,\u00dej\u00f3st\u00f3lfr. Hallger\u00f0r provokes the first death but not the second, although it follows from a disagreement between her and her husband. It is Hr\u00fatr who, despite the family ties, avenges the death by killing \u00dej\u00f3st\u00f3lfr. Gunnarr H\u00e1mundarson and Nj\u00e1ll \u00deorgeirsson are now introduced. Gunnarr is a man of outstanding physical prowess, and Nj\u00e1ll has outstanding sagacity; they are close friends. When Gunnarr is obliged to revive Unnr's dowry-claim against Hr\u00fatr, Nj\u00e1ll gives him the means to do so. By skillful play-acting, Gunnarr begins the legal process in"
      },
      {
        "text": " \u00dej\u00f3st\u00f3lfr. Gunnarr H\u00e1mundarson and Nj\u00e1ll \u00deorgeirsson are now introduced. Gunnarr is a man of outstanding physical prowess, and Nj\u00e1ll has outstanding sagacity; they are close friends. When Gunnarr is obliged to revive Unnr's dowry-claim against Hr\u00fatr, Nj\u00e1ll gives him the means to do so. By skillful play-acting, Gunnarr begins the legal process in Hr\u00fatr's own house. He follows Hr\u00fatr's doubtful example when it comes to court, and Hr\u00fatr, who has previously won by threat of violence, loses to a threat of violence. Despite his humiliation, he sees future links with Gunnarr. This comes about when Gunnarr returns with honours from a trip to Scandinavia. He goes to the Althing \u2013 the annual assembly \u2013 in splendour, and meets Hallger\u00f0r. They are impressed with one another and are soon betrothed, despite Hr\u00fatr's warnings about Hallger\u00f0r's character, and Nj\u00e1ll's misgivings. Hr\u00fatr and Nj\u00e1ll are proven right when Hallger\u00f0r clashes with Nj\u00e1l's wife, Berg\u00fe\u00f3ra. Hallger\u00f0r charms a number of dubious characters into killing members of Nj\u00e1ll's household and the spirited Berg\u00fe\u00f3ra arranges vengeance. After each killing, their husbands make financial settlements according to the status of the victims. The fifth victim is \u00de\u00f3r\u00f0r, foster-father of Nj\u00e1ll's sons. \u00der\u00e1inn Sigf\u00fasson, Gunnarr's uncle and Hallger\u00f0r's son-in-law, accompanies the killers. When the feud ends and settlements are made, \u00der\u00e1inn\u2019s presence at that killing later causes conflict. Hallger\u00f0r now uses one"
      },
      {
        "text": " each killing, their husbands make financial settlements according to the status of the victims. The fifth victim is \u00de\u00f3r\u00f0r, foster-father of Nj\u00e1ll's sons. \u00der\u00e1inn Sigf\u00fasson, Gunnarr's uncle and Hallger\u00f0r's son-in-law, accompanies the killers. When the feud ends and settlements are made, \u00der\u00e1inn\u2019s presence at that killing later causes conflict. Hallger\u00f0r now uses one of her slaves, Melk\u00f3lfr, to burgle the home of a churlish man named Otkell. Gunnarr immediately seeks to make amends, but his handsome offers are not accepted. A lawsuit is started against him which, with Nj\u00e1ll's help, he wins, gaining great honour. However, while remonstrating with Hallger\u00f0r about the burglary, Gunnarr slaps her. This is followed by Otkell accidentally wounding Gunnarr. Insult follows injury and Gunnarr reluctantly goes to avenge himself. With belated help from his brother Kolskeggr, he kills Otkell and his companions. Under Nj\u00e1ll's influence a new settlement is arranged, and Gunnarr's reputation grows. Nj\u00e1ll warns him that this will be the start of his career of killings. Next, Gunnarr accepts a challenge to a horse-fight from a man called Starka\u00f0r. In the course of the fight, his opponents cheat, and Gunnarr find himself in a fresh squabble. Nj\u00e1ll tries to mediate but \u00deorgeir Starka\u00f0sson refuses to accept it. On a journey with his two brothers, Gunnarr is ambushed by Starka\u00f0r and his allies. In the battle, fourteen attackers and Gunnarr's brother Hj\u00f6rtr are killed. Worming through all this is Unnr's son, M\u00f6r\u00f0r Valgar\u00f0sson. M\u00f6r\u00f0"
      },
      {
        "text": " opponents cheat, and Gunnarr find himself in a fresh squabble. Nj\u00e1ll tries to mediate but \u00deorgeir Starka\u00f0sson refuses to accept it. On a journey with his two brothers, Gunnarr is ambushed by Starka\u00f0r and his allies. In the battle, fourteen attackers and Gunnarr's brother Hj\u00f6rtr are killed. Worming through all this is Unnr's son, M\u00f6r\u00f0r Valgar\u00f0sson. M\u00f6r\u00f0r envies and hates Gunnarr, and uses other men to attain his aims. He has learned that Nj\u00e1ll prophesied that Gunnarr will die if he kills twice in the same family. He instigates an attack on Gunnarr by persons dissatisfied by the settlement. Again, Gunnarr wins the fight, but he kills a second man in the same family. The settlement that follows requires that Gunnarr and Kolskeggr leave Iceland for three years. Arrangements are made for exile. But as Gunnarr leaves home, he looks homeward and, touched by the beauty of his homeland, resolves not to leave Iceland, thus becoming an outlaw. He goes about as though nothing has changed but his enemies, M\u00f6r\u00f0r among them, seek revenge. He defends himself in his home until his bowstring is cut. Hallger\u00f0r refuses to give him strands of her hair to restring his bow; this is in revenge for the slap he once gave her. Some readers choose to interpret this episode as her forgiveness since human hair is unusable as bowstring; i.e. he asks for something he knows is useless and she answers by denying as revenge, fully knowing too. Gunnarr's enemies resist M\u00f6r\u00f0rs proposal to burn him in the house as shameful, but eventually they take the roof off to get to Gunnarr. Nj\u00e1ll's son Skarp-He\u00f0inn assists H\u00f6gni Gunnarsson in some"
      },
      {
        "text": " her. Some readers choose to interpret this episode as her forgiveness since human hair is unusable as bowstring; i.e. he asks for something he knows is useless and she answers by denying as revenge, fully knowing too. Gunnarr's enemies resist M\u00f6r\u00f0rs proposal to burn him in the house as shameful, but eventually they take the roof off to get to Gunnarr. Nj\u00e1ll's son Skarp-He\u00f0inn assists H\u00f6gni Gunnarsson in some acts of vengeance before a settlement is achieved. Scandinavian rulers honor two Icelandic expeditions: those of \u00der\u00e1inn Sigf\u00fasson and of Nj\u00e1ll's two younger sons. Both return with enhanced honor, but also with companions. \u00der\u00e1inn brings back the malevolent Betrayal-Hrappr; the sons of Nj\u00e1ll the noble K\u00e1ri S\u00f6lmundarson, who marries their sister. But Nj\u00e1ll's sons also bring back a grievance, blaming \u00der\u00e1inn for the way in which the de facto ruler of Norway, Jarl H\u00e1kon, has treated them while looking for Hrappr, who had been hidden by \u00der\u00e1inn. While Nj\u00e1ll says they have been foolish in raising the matter, he advises them to publicise it so that it will be seen as a matter of honor. \u00derain refuses a settlement, and his retainers, including Hallger\u00f0r, on her last appearance, insult them. The most dramatic of the saga's battles follows. Nj\u00e1ll's sons, with K\u00e1ri, prepare to ambush \u00der\u00e1inn and his followers. There is a bridge of ice over the river between them. Skarp-He\u00f0inn overtakes his brothers, leaps the river, and slides on the ice past \u00der\u00e1inn, beheading him in passing. Between them the attackers kill four men,"
      },
      {
        "text": " Hallger\u00f0r, on her last appearance, insult them. The most dramatic of the saga's battles follows. Nj\u00e1ll's sons, with K\u00e1ri, prepare to ambush \u00der\u00e1inn and his followers. There is a bridge of ice over the river between them. Skarp-He\u00f0inn overtakes his brothers, leaps the river, and slides on the ice past \u00der\u00e1inn, beheading him in passing. Between them the attackers kill four men, including Hrappr. \u00der\u00e1inn's brother, Ketill, has married Nj\u00e1ll's daughter, and between them they bring about a settlement. Wishing to stop further contention, Nj\u00e1ll adopts \u00der\u00e1inn's son H\u00f6skuldr as his foster-son. H\u00f6skuldr grows up in Nj\u00e1ll's household, and is loved and favoured by him. When he is fully grown, Nj\u00e1ll attempts to find a suitable wife for him, Hildigunnr. However, she refuses, saying that she will only marry H\u00f6skuldr if he becomes a chieftain. Nj\u00e1ll manages to get H\u00f6skuldr a chieftaincy by instituting the Fifth Court at the Althing, and H\u00f6skuldr and Hildigunnr are married. At this point the saga recounts the conversion of Iceland to Christianity in AD 999. M\u00f6r\u00f0r Valgar\u00f0sson now finds H\u00f6skuldr to be such a successful chief that his own chieftaincy is declining. He sets the sons of Nj\u00e1ll against H\u00f6skuldr; the tragedy of the saga is that they are so susceptible to his promptings that they, with M\u00f6r\u00f0r and K\u00e1ri, murder him as he sows in his field. As one character says, \"H\u00f6skuldr was killed for less than no reason"
      },
      {
        "text": "r Valgar\u00f0sson now finds H\u00f6skuldr to be such a successful chief that his own chieftaincy is declining. He sets the sons of Nj\u00e1ll against H\u00f6skuldr; the tragedy of the saga is that they are so susceptible to his promptings that they, with M\u00f6r\u00f0r and K\u00e1ri, murder him as he sows in his field. As one character says, \"H\u00f6skuldr was killed for less than no reason; all men mourn his death; but none more than Njal, his foster-father\". Flosi, the uncle of H\u00f6skuldr's wife, takes revenge against the killers, and seeks help from powerful chieftains. He is pressured (against his better judgement) by Hildigunnr to accept only blood vengeance. Nj\u00e1ll's sons find themselves at the Althing having to plead for help. Skarp-He\u00f0inn has become grimly fatalistic, and insults many who might help them. After some legal sparring, arbitrators are chosen, including Snorri go\u00f0i, who proposes a weregild of three times the normal compensation for H\u00f6skuldr. This is so much that it can only be paid if the arbitrators, and many at the Althing, contribute. The great collection is gathered, and Nj\u00e1ll adds a gift of a fancy cloak. Flosi claims to be insulted by the offer of a unisex garment (an insult from Skarp-He\u00f0inn also adds fuel to the fire) and the settlement breaks down. Everyone leaves the Althing and prepares, amid portents and prophecies, for the showdown. A hundred men descend on Nj\u00e1ll's home, Bergthorsknoll (Berg\u00fe\u00f3rshv\u00e1ll), to find it defended by about thirty. Any victory for Flosi will be at some cost. But Nj\u00e1ll"
      },
      {
        "text": " a unisex garment (an insult from Skarp-He\u00f0inn also adds fuel to the fire) and the settlement breaks down. Everyone leaves the Althing and prepares, amid portents and prophecies, for the showdown. A hundred men descend on Nj\u00e1ll's home, Bergthorsknoll (Berg\u00fe\u00f3rshv\u00e1ll), to find it defended by about thirty. Any victory for Flosi will be at some cost. But Nj\u00e1ll suggests that his sons defend from within the house, and they, while realizing that this is futile, agree. Flosi and his men set fire to the building. Both the innocent and the guilty are surrounded. Flosi allows the women to leave but beheads Helgi Nj\u00e1lsson, who attempts to escape disguised as a woman. Although Flosi invites Nj\u00e1ll and Berg\u00fe\u00f3ra to leave, they refuse, preferring to die with their sons and their grandson \u00de\u00f3r\u00f0r (the son of K\u00e1ri). Eventually eleven people die, not including K\u00e1ri who escapes under cover of the smoke by running along the beam of the house. Flosi knows that K\u00e1ri will exact vengeance for the burning. At the Althing, both sides gather. Flosi bribes Eyj\u00f3lfr B\u00f6lverksson, one of the finest lawyers in Iceland, into taking over the case, while his opponents blackmail M\u00f6r\u00f0r Valgar\u00f0sson into prosecuting, advised by \u00de\u00f3rhallr, Nj\u00e1ll's foster-son, who was trained in the law by Nj\u00e1ll, but is kept away from the proceedings by an infected leg. There is a legal joust between the parties. Eventually, when his legal action seems to be failing, \u00de\u00f3rhallr lances his boil with his spear and begins fighting. Flosi's men are driven back until Snorri separates the parties."
      },
      {
        "text": "\u00f0sson into prosecuting, advised by \u00de\u00f3rhallr, Nj\u00e1ll's foster-son, who was trained in the law by Nj\u00e1ll, but is kept away from the proceedings by an infected leg. There is a legal joust between the parties. Eventually, when his legal action seems to be failing, \u00de\u00f3rhallr lances his boil with his spear and begins fighting. Flosi's men are driven back until Snorri separates the parties. In the confusion, several are killed including Lj\u00f3tr, Flosi's brother-in-law. Lj\u00f3tr's father, Hallr of S\u00ed\u00f0a, takes advantage of the truce to appeal for peace, and seeks no compensation for his son. Moved by this, all but K\u00e1ri and Nj\u00e1ll's nephew \u00deorgeir reach a settlement, while everyone contributes to Lj\u00f3tr's weregild, which in the end amounts to a quadruple compensation. The burners are exiled. Before the sons of Sigf\u00fas reach home, K\u00e1ri attacks them, and most of the rest of the saga describes his vengeance for the burning. He is supported by \u00deorgeir and an attractive anti-hero named Bj\u00f6rn. He pursues them to Orkney and Wales. The most dramatic moment is when he breaks into the earl's hall in Orkney and kills a man who is giving a slanderous account of those killed at the burning. After a pilgrimage to Rome, Flosi returns to Iceland. K\u00e1ri follows, and is shipwrecked near Flosi's home. Testing Flosi's nobility he goes to him for help, and they arrange a final peace. K\u00e1ri marries H\u00f6skuldr's widow. Finally, there is a full reconciliation.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " account of those killed at the burning. After a pilgrimage to Rome, Flosi returns to Iceland. K\u00e1ri follows, and is shipwrecked near Flosi's home. Testing Flosi's nobility he goes to him for help, and they arrange a final peace. K\u00e1ri marries H\u00f6skuldr's widow. Finally, there is a full reconciliation.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Damage",
    "author": "Josephine Hart",
    "published_date": "1991",
    "synopsis": " The first person narrator of the novel is an unnamed medical doctor turned politician (called Dr Stephen Fleming in the Louis Malle film) whose promotion from MP to cabinet member is imminent. Just then the MP is casually introduced to his grown-up son's enigmatic girlfriend Anna and helplessly falls for her. For as long as it lasts, Martyn, his son, has no idea that his father is having an extramarital affair with his girlfriend (and later fianc\u00e9e), and Anna does not seem to mind being a young man's partner and simultaneously his father's lover and object of desire. The MP enjoys a brief period of sexual bliss, meeting Anna in various European cities and having sex with her in unlikely places. Eventually, she buys them a small flat in central London where they meet on a regular basis. One day Martyn happens to get hold of that address and, curious, goes there to investigate. He climbs up a flight of stairs to the top floor, opens the unlocked door to the apartment, and is shocked to see his father making love to his fianc\u00e9e. Dazed and utterly confused, he tumbles backwards, hits the low banister and falls down the stairwell. The MP runs down the stairs completely naked, finding Martyn dead, sprawled out on the ground floor. He kneels on the floor and clutches Martyn's body to him until the police arrive. In the final scene, the MP, stripped of his political office and living abroad as a recluse, sits in his solitary room staring at oversized photographs of Anna and Martyn on the wall.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first person narrator of the novel is an unnamed medical doctor turned politician (called Dr Stephen Fleming in the Louis Malle film) whose promotion from MP to cabinet member is imminent. Just then the MP is casually introduced to his grown-up son's enigmatic girlfriend Anna and helplessly falls for her. For as long as it lasts, Martyn, his son, has no idea that his father is having an extramarital affair with his girlfriend (and later fianc\u00e9e), and Anna does not seem to mind being a young man's partner and simultaneously his father's lover and object of desire. The MP enjoys a brief period of sexual bliss, meeting Anna in various European cities and having sex with her in unlikely places. Eventually, she buys them a small flat in central London where they meet on a regular basis. One day Martyn happens to get hold of that address and, curious, goes there to investigate. He climbs up a flight of stairs to the top floor, opens the unlocked door to the apartment, and is shocked to see his father making love to his fianc\u00e9e. Dazed and utterly confused, he tumbles backwards, hits the low banister and falls down the stairwell. The MP runs down the stairs completely naked, finding Martyn dead, sprawled out on the ground floor. He kneels on the floor and clutches Martyn's body to him until the police arrive. In the final scene, the MP, stripped of his political office and living abroad as a recluse, sits in his solitary room staring at oversized photographs of Anna and Martyn on the wall.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " abroad as a recluse, sits in his solitary room staring at oversized photographs of Anna and Martyn on the wall.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Railway Children",
    "author": "E. Nesbit",
    "published_date": "1906",
    "synopsis": " The story concerns a family who move to \"Three Chimneys\", a house near the railway, after the father, who works at the Foreign office, is imprisoned as a result of being falsely accused of selling state secrets to the Russians. The three children, Roberta (Bobbie), Peter and Phyllis (Phil), find amusement in watching the trains on the nearby railway line and waving to the passengers. They become friendly with Albert Perks, the station porter, and with the Old Gentleman who regularly takes the 9:15 down train. He is eventually able to help prove their father's innocence, and the family is reunited. The family take care of the Russian exile, Mr Szczepansky, who came to England looking for his family (later located) and Jim, the grandson of the Old Gentleman, who suffers a broken leg in a tunnel. The theme of an innocent man being falsely imprisoned for espionage and finally vindicated might have been influenced by the Dreyfus Affair, which was a prominent worldwide news item a few years before the book was written. And the Russian exile, persecuted by the Tsars for writing \"a beautiful book about poor people and how to help them\" and subsequently helped by the children, was most likely an amalgam of the real-life dissidents Sergius Stepniak and Peter Kropotkin who were both friends of the author.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story concerns a family who move to \"Three Chimneys\", a house near the railway, after the father, who works at the Foreign office, is imprisoned as a result of being falsely accused of selling state secrets to the Russians. The three children, Roberta (Bobbie), Peter and Phyllis (Phil), find amusement in watching the trains on the nearby railway line and waving to the passengers. They become friendly with Albert Perks, the station porter, and with the Old Gentleman who regularly takes the 9:15 down train. He is eventually able to help prove their father's innocence, and the family is reunited. The family take care of the Russian exile, Mr Szczepansky, who came to England looking for his family (later located) and Jim, the grandson of the Old Gentleman, who suffers a broken leg in a tunnel. The theme of an innocent man being falsely imprisoned for espionage and finally vindicated might have been influenced by the Dreyfus Affair, which was a prominent worldwide news item a few years before the book was written. And the Russian exile, persecuted by the Tsars for writing \"a beautiful book about poor people and how to help them\" and subsequently helped by the children, was most likely an amalgam of the real-life dissidents Sergius Stepniak and Peter Kropotkin who were both friends of the author.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Imperial Earth",
    "author": "Arthur C. Clarke",
    "published_date": "1975",
    "synopsis": " Duncan Makenzie is the latest generation of the 'first family' of Titan, a colonised moon of Saturn. Originally settled by his grandfather Malcolm Makenzie in the early 23rd century, Titan's economy has flourished based on the harvest and sale of hydrogen mined from the atmosphere, which is used to fuel the fusion engines of interplanetary spacecraft. As the plot opens in 2276, a number of factors are combining to make a diplomatic visit to the 'mother world' of Earth a necessity. Firstly, the forthcoming 500th anniversary of US Independence which is bringing in colonists from the entire Solar System, obviously needs a suitable representative from Titan. Secondly, the Makenzie family carry a fatal damaged gene that means any normal continuation of the family line is impossible \u2014 so both Duncan and his \"father\" Colin are clones of his \"grandfather\" Malcolm. Human cloning is a mature technology, but is even at this time ethically controversial. And thirdly, technological advances in spacecraft drive systems \u2014 specifically the 'asymptotic drive' which improves the fuel efficiency by orders of magnitude \u2014 means that Titan's whole economy is under threat as the demand for hydrogen is about to collapse. The human aspects of the tale center mainly on the intense infatuation (largely unrequited but not unconsummated) that the two main male characters, Duncan and Karl Helmer, develop for the vividly characterized Catherine Linden Ellerman (Calindy), a visitor to Titan from Earth in their youth, and its lifelong consequences. A number of other sub-plots suggest some sort of greater mystery, but remain unexplored. The book ends with him returning home with his new \"child\" Malcolm (who is a clone of his dead friend Karl), leaving the other plot threads dangling.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Duncan Makenzie is the latest generation of the 'first family' of Titan, a colonised moon of Saturn. Originally settled by his grandfather Malcolm Makenzie in the early 23rd century, Titan's economy has flourished based on the harvest and sale of hydrogen mined from the atmosphere, which is used to fuel the fusion engines of interplanetary spacecraft. As the plot opens in 2276, a number of factors are combining to make a diplomatic visit to the 'mother world' of Earth a necessity. Firstly, the forthcoming 500th anniversary of US Independence which is bringing in colonists from the entire Solar System, obviously needs a suitable representative from Titan. Secondly, the Makenzie family carry a fatal damaged gene that means any normal continuation of the family line is impossible \u2014 so both Duncan and his \"father\" Colin are clones of his \"grandfather\" Malcolm. Human cloning is a mature technology, but is even at this time ethically controversial. And thirdly, technological advances in spacecraft drive systems \u2014 specifically the 'asymptotic drive' which improves the fuel efficiency by orders of magnitude \u2014 means that Titan's whole economy is under threat as the demand for hydrogen is about to collapse. The human aspects of the tale center mainly on the intense infatuation (largely unrequited but not unconsummated) that the two main male characters, Duncan and Karl Helmer, develop for the vividly characterized Catherine Linden Ellerman (Calindy), a visitor to Titan from Earth in their youth, and its lifelong consequences. A number of other sub-plots suggest some sort of greater mystery, but remain unexplored. The book ends with him returning home with his new \"child\" Malcolm (who is a clone of his dead friend Karl), leaving the other plot threads dangling.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " in their youth, and its lifelong consequences. A number of other sub-plots suggest some sort of greater mystery, but remain unexplored. The book ends with him returning home with his new \"child\" Malcolm (who is a clone of his dead friend Karl), leaving the other plot threads dangling.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Masque of the Red Death",
    "author": "Edgar Allan Poe",
    "published_date": "1842-05",
    "synopsis": " The story takes place at the castellated abbey of the \"happy and dauntless and sagacious\" Prince Prospero. Prospero and one thousand other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague with gruesome symptoms that has swept over the land. Victims feel overcome by convulsive agony and sweat blood. The plague is said to kill within half an hour. Prospero and his court are presented as indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large, intending to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut. One night, Prospero holds a masquerade ball to entertain his guests in seven colored rooms of the abbey. Six of the rooms are each decorated and illuminated in a specific color: Blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet. The last room is decorated in black and is illuminated by a scarlet light- \"a deep blood color\": because of this chilling pair of colors, very few guests are brave enough to venture into the seventh room. The same room is also the location of a large ebony clock that ominously clangs at each hour, upon which everyone stops talking or dancing and the orchestra stops playing. Once the chiming stops, everyone acts like nothing happened and continue on with the masquerade. At the chiming of midnight, the revelers and Prospero notice one figure in a dark, blood-splattered robe resembling a funeral shroud, with an extremely realistic mask resembling a stiffened cadaver, and with the traits of the Red Death, which all at the ball have been desperate to escape. Gravely insulted, Prospero demands to know the identity of the mysterious guest so that they can hang him. When nobody (out of fear) dares to approach the figure, instead letting him pass through the seven chambers, the Prince pursues him with a drawn dagger until he is cornered in the seventh room, the black room with the scarlet-tinted windows. When the figure turns to face him, the Prince lets out a sharp cry and falls dead. The enraged and terrified revelers surge into the black room and forcibly remove the mask and robe, only to find to their horror that there is no solid form underneath either. Only now do they realize (too late) that the figure is actually the Red Death itself, and all of the guests contract and succumb to the disease. The final line of the story sums up: \"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story takes place at the castellated abbey of the \"happy and dauntless and sagacious\" Prince Prospero. Prospero and one thousand other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague with gruesome symptoms that has swept over the land. Victims feel overcome by convulsive agony and sweat blood. The plague is said to kill within half an hour. Prospero and his court are presented as indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large, intending to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut. One night, Prospero holds a masquerade ball to entertain his guests in seven colored rooms of the abbey. Six of the rooms are each decorated and illuminated in a specific color: Blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet. The last room is decorated in black and is illuminated by a scarlet light- \"a deep blood color\": because of this chilling pair of colors, very few guests are brave enough to venture into the seventh room. The same room is also the location of a large ebony clock that ominously clangs at each hour, upon which everyone stops talking or dancing and the orchestra stops playing. Once the chiming stops, everyone acts like nothing happened and continue on with the masquerade. At the chiming of midnight, the revelers and Prospero notice one figure in a dark, blood-splattered robe resembling a funeral shroud, with an extremely realistic mask resembling a stiffened cadaver, and with the traits of the Red Death, which all at the ball have been desperate to escape. Gravely insulted, Prospero demands to know the identity of the mysterious guest so that they can hang him. When nobody (out of fear) dares to approach the figure, instead letting him pass through the seven chambers, the Prince pursues him with a drawn dagger until he is cornered in"
      },
      {
        "text": "attered robe resembling a funeral shroud, with an extremely realistic mask resembling a stiffened cadaver, and with the traits of the Red Death, which all at the ball have been desperate to escape. Gravely insulted, Prospero demands to know the identity of the mysterious guest so that they can hang him. When nobody (out of fear) dares to approach the figure, instead letting him pass through the seven chambers, the Prince pursues him with a drawn dagger until he is cornered in the seventh room, the black room with the scarlet-tinted windows. When the figure turns to face him, the Prince lets out a sharp cry and falls dead. The enraged and terrified revelers surge into the black room and forcibly remove the mask and robe, only to find to their horror that there is no solid form underneath either. Only now do they realize (too late) that the figure is actually the Red Death itself, and all of the guests contract and succumb to the disease. The final line of the story sums up: \"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Chocolat",
    "author": "Joanne Harris",
    "published_date": "1999-03-04",
    "synopsis": " The story begins as two strangers, Vianne Rocher, and her small daughter Anouk, move into the small French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. They are brought by 'the wind' during the last days of carnival, and they settle and open a chocolaterie, La C\u00e9leste Praline. The village priest, Francis Reynaud, is initially mystified, because Lent has just begun, but his confusion turns rapidly to anger when he understands that Vianne holds dangerous beliefs, does not obey the church, and \"flouts\" the unspoken rules that he feels should govern his \"flock\". Vianne, we learn from her personal thoughts, is a witch though she does not use the word. Her mother and she were wanderers, going from one city to another. Her mother strove to inspire the same need for freedom in her daughter, who is more social and passive. They were born with gifts, and used a kind of \"domestic magic\" to earn their living. Throughout her life, Vianne has been running from the \"Black Man\", a recurring motif in her mother's folklore. When her mother is killed by a cab, Vianne continues on her own, trying to evade the Black Man and the mysetrious force of the wind and settle down to a normal life. The chocolaterie is an old dream of hers. She has an innate talent for cooking and a charming personality. She tries to fit in and help her customers. She starts to build a group of regular customers, and, to Reynaud's dismay, she doesn't go out of business. Reynaud attempts to have Vianne run out of town, and he talks about her every Sunday at church. Some people initially stay away, but not for long. His conflict with her becomes his personal crusade. Vianne, however, announces a \"Grand Festival of Chocolate\", to be held on Easter Sunday.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins as two strangers, Vianne Rocher, and her small daughter Anouk, move into the small French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. They are brought by 'the wind' during the last days of carnival, and they settle and open a chocolaterie, La C\u00e9leste Praline. The village priest, Francis Reynaud, is initially mystified, because Lent has just begun, but his confusion turns rapidly to anger when he understands that Vianne holds dangerous beliefs, does not obey the church, and \"flouts\" the unspoken rules that he feels should govern his \"flock\". Vianne, we learn from her personal thoughts, is a witch though she does not use the word. Her mother and she were wanderers, going from one city to another. Her mother strove to inspire the same need for freedom in her daughter, who is more social and passive. They were born with gifts, and used a kind of \"domestic magic\" to earn their living. Throughout her life, Vianne has been running from the \"Black Man\", a recurring motif in her mother's folklore. When her mother is killed by a cab, Vianne continues on her own, trying to evade the Black Man and the mysetrious force of the wind and settle down to a normal life. The chocolaterie is an old dream of hers. She has an innate talent for cooking and a charming personality. She tries to fit in and help her customers. She starts to build a group of regular customers, and, to Reynaud's dismay, she doesn't go out of business. Reynaud attempts to have Vianne run out of town, and he talks about her every Sunday at church. Some people initially stay away, but not for long. His conflict with her becomes his personal crusade. Vianne, however, announces a \"Grand Festival of Chocolate\", to"
      },
      {
        "text": " cooking and a charming personality. She tries to fit in and help her customers. She starts to build a group of regular customers, and, to Reynaud's dismay, she doesn't go out of business. Reynaud attempts to have Vianne run out of town, and he talks about her every Sunday at church. Some people initially stay away, but not for long. His conflict with her becomes his personal crusade. Vianne, however, announces a \"Grand Festival of Chocolate\", to be held on Easter Sunday.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Ghost Road",
    "author": "Pat Barker",
    "published_date": "1995",
    "synopsis": " Prior, despite his new-found peace of mind and engagement to munitions worker Sarah, has been affected by the war and therefore does not have a lot of concern for his safety. Prior has been cured of shell-shock and is preparing to return to France. Once in France, experiences numerous and risky sexual encounters; his only rule is that he never pays for sex - a rule he eventually breaks. Rivers, concerned for Prior's safety, finally recognises that his relationship with Prior, and his other patients for that matter, is deeply paternal. In contrast with upper-class officers like Sassoon, with whom Rivers has been able to form warm friendships, he has always found Prior to be a thorn in his side. As Prior returns to the front, Rivers continues to take care of his patients and his invalid sister, amid this he reminisces uncomfortably about his childhood and memories of his experience ten years earlier on an anthropological expedition to Melanesia (now Eddystone Island). There, he befriended Nijiru, the local priest-healer who took Rivers on his rounds to see sick villagers and also to the island's sacred Place of the Skulls. This episode is a symbolic capitulation to the inevitability of his death at the Western Front, a fate he shares with the poet, Wilfred Owen to which in a futile battle that takes place a few days before the Armistice, Billy and his friend Wilfred Owen are killed.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Prior, despite his new-found peace of mind and engagement to munitions worker Sarah, has been affected by the war and therefore does not have a lot of concern for his safety. Prior has been cured of shell-shock and is preparing to return to France. Once in France, experiences numerous and risky sexual encounters; his only rule is that he never pays for sex - a rule he eventually breaks. Rivers, concerned for Prior's safety, finally recognises that his relationship with Prior, and his other patients for that matter, is deeply paternal. In contrast with upper-class officers like Sassoon, with whom Rivers has been able to form warm friendships, he has always found Prior to be a thorn in his side. As Prior returns to the front, Rivers continues to take care of his patients and his invalid sister, amid this he reminisces uncomfortably about his childhood and memories of his experience ten years earlier on an anthropological expedition to Melanesia (now Eddystone Island). There, he befriended Nijiru, the local priest-healer who took Rivers on his rounds to see sick villagers and also to the island's sacred Place of the Skulls. This episode is a symbolic capitulation to the inevitability of his death at the Western Front, a fate he shares with the poet, Wilfred Owen to which in a futile battle that takes place a few days before the Armistice, Billy and his friend Wilfred Owen are killed.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Rosemary's Baby",
    "author": "Ira Levin",
    "published_date": "1967-03-12",
    "synopsis": " The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young woman who has just moved into the Bramford, an old Gothic Revival style New York City apartment building with her husband, Guy, a struggling actor. The pair is warned that the Bramford has a disturbing history involving witchcraft and murder, but they choose to overlook this. Rosemary has wanted children for some time, but Guy wants to wait until he is more established. Rosemary and Guy are quickly welcomed by Minnie and Roman Castevet, an eccentric elderly couple. Rosemary finds them meddlesome and absurd, but Guy begins paying them frequent visits. After a theatrical rival suddenly goes blind, Guy is given an important part in a stage play. Immediately following this event, Guy unexpectedly agrees with Rosemary that it is time to conceive their first child. Guy is noticed and cast in other, increasingly important roles, and he begins to talk about a career in Hollywood. After receiving a warning from a friend, who also becomes mysteriously ill, Rosemary investigates and confirms that her neighbors are the leaders of a Satanic coven, and she suspects they are after her child to use it as a sacrifice to the Devil. However, she is unable to convince anyone else to believe or help her and soon becomes certain that there is no one actually on her side, not even her own husband. In the end, Rosemary discovers she is wrong about the coven's reason for wanting the baby, but the truth is even more horrific than she could ever imagine. They plan to use Rosemary as a vessel to carry a child spawned from Satan himself.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young woman who has just moved into the Bramford, an old Gothic Revival style New York City apartment building with her husband, Guy, a struggling actor. The pair is warned that the Bramford has a disturbing history involving witchcraft and murder, but they choose to overlook this. Rosemary has wanted children for some time, but Guy wants to wait until he is more established. Rosemary and Guy are quickly welcomed by Minnie and Roman Castevet, an eccentric elderly couple. Rosemary finds them meddlesome and absurd, but Guy begins paying them frequent visits. After a theatrical rival suddenly goes blind, Guy is given an important part in a stage play. Immediately following this event, Guy unexpectedly agrees with Rosemary that it is time to conceive their first child. Guy is noticed and cast in other, increasingly important roles, and he begins to talk about a career in Hollywood. After receiving a warning from a friend, who also becomes mysteriously ill, Rosemary investigates and confirms that her neighbors are the leaders of a Satanic coven, and she suspects they are after her child to use it as a sacrifice to the Devil. However, she is unable to convince anyone else to believe or help her and soon becomes certain that there is no one actually on her side, not even her own husband. In the end, Rosemary discovers she is wrong about the coven's reason for wanting the baby, but the truth is even more horrific than she could ever imagine. They plan to use Rosemary as a vessel to carry a child spawned from Satan himself.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " could ever imagine. They plan to use Rosemary as a vessel to carry a child spawned from Satan himself.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "This Perfect Day",
    "author": "Ira Levin",
    "published_date": "1970",
    "synopsis": " Li RM35M4419, nicknamed \"Chip\" (as in \"chip off the old block\") by his nonconformist grandfather Jan, is a typical child Member who, through a mistake in genetic programming, has one green eye. Through his grandfather's encouragement, he learns how to play a game of \"wanting things,\" including imagining what career he might pick if he had the choice. Chip is told by his adviser that \"picking\" and \"choice\" are manifestations of selfishness, and he tries to forget his dreams. As Chip grows up and begins his career, he is mostly a good citizen, but commits minor subversive acts, such as procuring art materials for another \"nonconformist\" member who was denied them. His occasional oddities attract the attention of a secret group of Members who, like Chip, are also nonconformists. There he meets King, a Medicenter chief who obtains members records for potential future recruitment to the group, King's beautiful girlfriend Lilac, a strong-willed and inquisitive woman with unusually dark skin, and Snowflake, a rare albino member. These members teach Chip how to get his treatments reduced so that he can feel more and stronger emotions. Chip begins an affair with Snowflake, but is really attracted to Lilac. Chip and Lilac begin to search through old museum maps and soon discover islands around the world that have disappeared from their modern map. They begin to wonder if perhaps other \"incurable\" members like themselves have escaped to these islands. King tells them that the idea is nonsense, but Chip soon learns that King has already interacted with some \"incurables\" and that they are indeed real. Before he can tell Lilac, Chip's ruse is discovered by his adviser. He and all the other members of the group are captured and treated back into docility. Some years later, Chip's regular treatment is delayed by an earthquake. In the meanwhile, he begins to \"wake up\" again and remembers Lilac and the islands. He is able to shield his arm from the treatment nozzle and becomes fully awake for the first time. He locates Lilac again and kidnaps her. At first she fights him, but as she too becomes more \"awake,\" she remembers the islands and comes willingly. Finding a convenient abandoned boat on the beach, they head for the nearest island of incurables, Majorca. There they learn that UniComp, as a last resort, has planted failsafes that eventually lead all incurables to these islands, where they will be trapped forever away from the treated population. Chip conceives of a plan\u2014destroy the computer, UniComp, by blowing up its refrigeration system. He recruits other incurables to join him, and they make their way to the mainland. Just as they reach UniComp, one of the incurables leads them to a secret luxurious underground city beneath UniComp, where they are met by Wei, one of the original planners of the Unification. Wei and the other \"programmers\" who live in UniComp have arranged this test so that the most daring and resourceful incurables will make their way to UniComp, where they, too, will live in luxury as programmers. Chip is initially wary, but after a time, he seems to settle into the programmers' society. But when a new group of incurables arrive, Chip steals their explosives and completes his mission to blow up UniComp, killing Wei in the process. Before he returns to Majorca, signs of a new life have already begun: rain begins to fall in the daytime, and members who were scheduled to die do not.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Li RM35M4419, nicknamed \"Chip\" (as in \"chip off the old block\") by his nonconformist grandfather Jan, is a typical child Member who, through a mistake in genetic programming, has one green eye. Through his grandfather's encouragement, he learns how to play a game of \"wanting things,\" including imagining what career he might pick if he had the choice. Chip is told by his adviser that \"picking\" and \"choice\" are manifestations of selfishness, and he tries to forget his dreams. As Chip grows up and begins his career, he is mostly a good citizen, but commits minor subversive acts, such as procuring art materials for another \"nonconformist\" member who was denied them. His occasional oddities attract the attention of a secret group of Members who, like Chip, are also nonconformists. There he meets King, a Medicenter chief who obtains members records for potential future recruitment to the group, King's beautiful girlfriend Lilac, a strong-willed and inquisitive woman with unusually dark skin, and Snowflake, a rare albino member. These members teach Chip how to get his treatments reduced so that he can feel more and stronger emotions. Chip begins an affair with Snowflake, but is really attracted to Lilac. Chip and Lilac begin to search through old museum maps and soon discover islands around the world that have disappeared from their modern map. They begin to wonder if perhaps other \"incurable\" members like themselves have escaped to these islands. King tells them that the idea is nonsense, but Chip soon learns that King has already interacted with some \"incurables\" and that they are indeed real. Before he can tell Lilac, Chip's ruse is discovered by his adviser. He and all the other members of the group are captured and treated back into docility. Some years later, Chip's regular treatment is delayed by an earthquake. In the meanwhile, he begins"
      },
      {
        "text": " \"incurable\" members like themselves have escaped to these islands. King tells them that the idea is nonsense, but Chip soon learns that King has already interacted with some \"incurables\" and that they are indeed real. Before he can tell Lilac, Chip's ruse is discovered by his adviser. He and all the other members of the group are captured and treated back into docility. Some years later, Chip's regular treatment is delayed by an earthquake. In the meanwhile, he begins to \"wake up\" again and remembers Lilac and the islands. He is able to shield his arm from the treatment nozzle and becomes fully awake for the first time. He locates Lilac again and kidnaps her. At first she fights him, but as she too becomes more \"awake,\" she remembers the islands and comes willingly. Finding a convenient abandoned boat on the beach, they head for the nearest island of incurables, Majorca. There they learn that UniComp, as a last resort, has planted failsafes that eventually lead all incurables to these islands, where they will be trapped forever away from the treated population. Chip conceives of a plan\u2014destroy the computer, UniComp, by blowing up its refrigeration system. He recruits other incurables to join him, and they make their way to the mainland. Just as they reach UniComp, one of the incurables leads them to a secret luxurious underground city beneath UniComp, where they are met by Wei, one of the original planners of the Unification. Wei and the other \"programmers\" who live in UniComp have arranged this test so that the most daring and resourceful incurables will make their way to UniComp, where they, too, will live in luxury as programmers. Chip is initially wary, but after a time, he seems to settle into the programmers' society. But when a new group of incurables arrive, Chip steals their explosives and completes his mission to blow up Uni"
      },
      {
        "text": ", one of the original planners of the Unification. Wei and the other \"programmers\" who live in UniComp have arranged this test so that the most daring and resourceful incurables will make their way to UniComp, where they, too, will live in luxury as programmers. Chip is initially wary, but after a time, he seems to settle into the programmers' society. But when a new group of incurables arrive, Chip steals their explosives and completes his mission to blow up UniComp, killing Wei in the process. Before he returns to Majorca, signs of a new life have already begun: rain begins to fall in the daytime, and members who were scheduled to die do not.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Boys from Brazil",
    "author": "Ira Levin",
    "published_date": "1988-10-21",
    "synopsis": " Yakov Liebermann is a Nazi hunter: he runs a center in Vienna that documents crimes against humanity perpetrated during the Holocaust. The waning interest of the Western nations in tracking down Nazi criminals has forced him to move the center to his lodgings. Then, in September 1974, Liebermann receives a phone call from a young man in Brazil who claims he has just finished eavesdropping on the so-called \"Angel of Death,\" Dr. Josef Mengele, the concentration camp medical doctor who performed horrible experiments on camp victims during World War II. According to the young man, Mengele is activating the Kameradenwerk for a strange assignment: he is sending out six Nazis to kill 94 men, who share a few common traits. All men are civil servants, and all of them have to be killed on or about particular dates, spread over several years. All will be 65 years old at the time of their killing. Before the young man can finish the conversation, he is killed. Liebermann hesitates about what to do, and wonders if the call was a prank. But he investigates and discovers that the killings the young man spoke of are taking place. As he tries to determine why the seemingly unimportant men are being killed, he discovers by coincidence that the children of two of the men are identical. It eventually transpires each of the 94 targets has a son aged 13, a genetic clone of Adolf Hitler planted by Mengele. Mengele wishes to create a new F\u00fchrer for the Nazi movement, and is trying to ensure that the lives of the clones follow a similar path to Hitler's. Each civil servant father is married to a woman about 23 years younger, and their killing is an attempt to mimic the death of Hitler's own father. Liebermann manages to work out who one of the intended targets is, and travels to warn him that his life may be in danger. However, Mengele reaches the man first, kills him, and then encounters Liebermann. Liebermann is shot but Mengele is killed by the targeted man's collection of dangerous dogs. The plan is halted, but 18 Hitler clones have already lost their fathers. The book ends with one of the Hitler clones developing delusions of grandeur.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Yakov Liebermann is a Nazi hunter: he runs a center in Vienna that documents crimes against humanity perpetrated during the Holocaust. The waning interest of the Western nations in tracking down Nazi criminals has forced him to move the center to his lodgings. Then, in September 1974, Liebermann receives a phone call from a young man in Brazil who claims he has just finished eavesdropping on the so-called \"Angel of Death,\" Dr. Josef Mengele, the concentration camp medical doctor who performed horrible experiments on camp victims during World War II. According to the young man, Mengele is activating the Kameradenwerk for a strange assignment: he is sending out six Nazis to kill 94 men, who share a few common traits. All men are civil servants, and all of them have to be killed on or about particular dates, spread over several years. All will be 65 years old at the time of their killing. Before the young man can finish the conversation, he is killed. Liebermann hesitates about what to do, and wonders if the call was a prank. But he investigates and discovers that the killings the young man spoke of are taking place. As he tries to determine why the seemingly unimportant men are being killed, he discovers by coincidence that the children of two of the men are identical. It eventually transpires each of the 94 targets has a son aged 13, a genetic clone of Adolf Hitler planted by Mengele. Mengele wishes to create a new F\u00fchrer for the Nazi movement, and is trying to ensure that the lives of the clones follow a similar path to Hitler's. Each civil servant father is married to a woman about 23 years younger, and their killing is an attempt to mimic the death of Hitler's own father. Liebermann manages to work out who one of the intended targets is, and travels to warn him that his life may be in danger. However, Mengele reaches the man first"
      },
      {
        "text": " wishes to create a new F\u00fchrer for the Nazi movement, and is trying to ensure that the lives of the clones follow a similar path to Hitler's. Each civil servant father is married to a woman about 23 years younger, and their killing is an attempt to mimic the death of Hitler's own father. Liebermann manages to work out who one of the intended targets is, and travels to warn him that his life may be in danger. However, Mengele reaches the man first, kills him, and then encounters Liebermann. Liebermann is shot but Mengele is killed by the targeted man's collection of dangerous dogs. The plan is halted, but 18 Hitler clones have already lost their fathers. The book ends with one of the Hitler clones developing delusions of grandeur.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Descent into the Maelstrom",
    "author": "Edgar Allan Poe",
    "published_date": "1841-04",
    "synopsis": " Inspired by the Moskstraumen, it is couched as a story within a story, a tale told at the summit of a mountain climb in Lofoten, Norway. The story is told by an old man who reveals that he only appears old\u2014\"You suppose me a very old man,\" he says, \"but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves.\" The narrator, convinced by the power of the whirlpools he sees in the ocean beyond, is then told of the \"old\" man's fishing trip with his two brothers a few years ago. Driven by \"the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens\", their ship was caught in the vortex. One brother was pulled into the waves; the other was driven mad by the horror of the spectacle, and drowned as the ship was pulled under. At first the narrator only saw hideous terror in the spectacle. In a moment of revelation, he saw that the Maelstr\u00f6m is a beautiful and awesome creation. Observing how objects around him were pulled into it, he deduced that \"the larger the bodies, the more rapid their descent\" and that spherical-shaped objects were pulled in the fastest. Unlike his brother, he abandoned ship and held on to a cylindrical barrel until he was saved several hours later. The old man tells the story to the narrator without any hope that the narrator will believe it.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Inspired by the Moskstraumen, it is couched as a story within a story, a tale told at the summit of a mountain climb in Lofoten, Norway. The story is told by an old man who reveals that he only appears old\u2014\"You suppose me a very old man,\" he says, \"but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves.\" The narrator, convinced by the power of the whirlpools he sees in the ocean beyond, is then told of the \"old\" man's fishing trip with his two brothers a few years ago. Driven by \"the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens\", their ship was caught in the vortex. One brother was pulled into the waves; the other was driven mad by the horror of the spectacle, and drowned as the ship was pulled under. At first the narrator only saw hideous terror in the spectacle. In a moment of revelation, he saw that the Maelstr\u00f6m is a beautiful and awesome creation. Observing how objects around him were pulled into it, he deduced that \"the larger the bodies, the more rapid their descent\" and that spherical-shaped objects were pulled in the fastest. Unlike his brother, he abandoned ship and held on to a cylindrical barrel until he was saved several hours later. The old man tells the story to the narrator without any hope that the narrator will believe it.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " narrator without any hope that the narrator will believe it.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sliver",
    "author": "Ira Levin",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " When working woman Kay Norris makes the acquaintance of a handsome and friendly young man who lives in the same \"sliver\" building, she does not know at first that he is the owner. While keeping a low profile himself, he turns out to know an awful lot about the other inhabitants including many of their secrets. It then turns out that he is a modern-day Peeping Tom who, unknown to everyone, has had surveillance cameras and microphones installed in every single apartment of the house, with his own place in the building serving as his headquarters. The novel is also a murder mystery, and the beautiful heroine soon becomes a damsel in distress herself. de:Sliver (Film) es:Sliver (pel\u00edcula) fr:Sliver ja:\u785d\u5b50\u306e\u5854 pl:Sliver ru:\u0429\u0435\u043f\u043a\u0430 (\u0444\u0438\u043b\u044c\u043c) sv:Sliver\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " When working woman Kay Norris makes the acquaintance of a handsome and friendly young man who lives in the same \"sliver\" building, she does not know at first that he is the owner. While keeping a low profile himself, he turns out to know an awful lot about the other inhabitants including many of their secrets. It then turns out that he is a modern-day Peeping Tom who, unknown to everyone, has had surveillance cameras and microphones installed in every single apartment of the house, with his own place in the building serving as his headquarters. The novel is also a murder mystery, and the beautiful heroine soon becomes a damsel in distress herself. de:Sliver (Film) es:Sliver (pel\u00edcula) fr:Sliver ja:\u785d\u5b50\u306e\u5854 pl:Sliver ru:\u0429\u0435\u043f\u043a\u0430 (\u0444\u0438\u043b\u044c\u043c) sv:Sliver\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Murders in the Rue Morgue",
    "author": "Edgar Allan Poe",
    "published_date": "1841-04",
    "synopsis": " The story surrounds the baffling double murder of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter in the Rue Morgue, a fictional street in Paris. Newspaper accounts of the murder reveal that the mother's throat is so badly cut that her head is barely attached and the daughter, after being strangled, has been stuffed into the chimney. The murder occurs in an inaccessible room on the fourth floor locked from the inside. Neighbors who hear the murder give contradictory accounts, each claiming that he heard the murderer speaking a different language. The speech was unclear, the witnesses say and they admit to not knowing the language they are claiming to have heard. Paris natives Dupin and his friend, the unnamed narrator of the story, read these newspaper accounts with interest. The two live in seclusion and allow no visitors. They have cut off contact with \"former associates\" and venture outside only at night. \"We existed within ourselves alone\", the narrator explains. When a man named Adolphe Le Bon has been imprisoned though no evidence exists pointing to his guilt, Dupin is so intrigued that he offers his services to \"G\u2013\", the prefect of police. Because none of the witnesses can agree on the language the murderer spoke, Dupin concludes they were not hearing a human voice at all. He finds a hair at the scene of the murder that is quite unusual; \"this is no human hair\", he concludes. Dupin puts an advertisement in the newspaper asking if anyone has lost an \"Ourang-Outang\". The ad is answered by a sailor who comes to Dupin at his home. The sailor offers a reward for the orangutan's return; Dupin asks for all the information the sailor has about the murders in the Rue Morgue. The sailor reveals that he had been keeping a captive orangutan obtained while ashore in Borneo. The animal escaped with the sailor's shaving straight razor. When he pursued the orangutan, it escaped by scaling a wall and climbing up a lightning rod, entering the apartment in the Rue Morgue through a window. Once in the room, the surprised Madame L'Espanaye could not defend herself as the orangutan attempted to shave her in imitation of the sailor's daily routine and in doing so accidentally slits the woman's throat with the razor. The bloody deed incited it to fury and it squeezed the daughter's throat until she died. The orangutan then became aware of its master's whip, which it feared, and it attempted to hide the body by stuffing it into the chimney. The sailor, aware of the \"murder\", panicked and fled, allowing the orangutan to escape. The prefect of police, upon hearing this story, mentions that people should mind their own business. Dupin responds that G\u2013 is \"too cunning to be profound.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story surrounds the baffling double murder of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter in the Rue Morgue, a fictional street in Paris. Newspaper accounts of the murder reveal that the mother's throat is so badly cut that her head is barely attached and the daughter, after being strangled, has been stuffed into the chimney. The murder occurs in an inaccessible room on the fourth floor locked from the inside. Neighbors who hear the murder give contradictory accounts, each claiming that he heard the murderer speaking a different language. The speech was unclear, the witnesses say and they admit to not knowing the language they are claiming to have heard. Paris natives Dupin and his friend, the unnamed narrator of the story, read these newspaper accounts with interest. The two live in seclusion and allow no visitors. They have cut off contact with \"former associates\" and venture outside only at night. \"We existed within ourselves alone\", the narrator explains. When a man named Adolphe Le Bon has been imprisoned though no evidence exists pointing to his guilt, Dupin is so intrigued that he offers his services to \"G\u2013\", the prefect of police. Because none of the witnesses can agree on the language the murderer spoke, Dupin concludes they were not hearing a human voice at all. He finds a hair at the scene of the murder that is quite unusual; \"this is no human hair\", he concludes. Dupin puts an advertisement in the newspaper asking if anyone has lost an \"Ourang-Outang\". The ad is answered by a sailor who comes to Dupin at his home. The sailor offers a reward for the orangutan's return; Dupin asks for all the information the sailor has about the murders in the Rue Morgue. The sailor reveals that he had been keeping a captive orangutan obtained while ashore in Borneo. The animal escaped with the sailor's shaving straight razor. When he pursued the orangutan, it escaped by scaling a wall and"
      },
      {
        "text": "ang-Outang\". The ad is answered by a sailor who comes to Dupin at his home. The sailor offers a reward for the orangutan's return; Dupin asks for all the information the sailor has about the murders in the Rue Morgue. The sailor reveals that he had been keeping a captive orangutan obtained while ashore in Borneo. The animal escaped with the sailor's shaving straight razor. When he pursued the orangutan, it escaped by scaling a wall and climbing up a lightning rod, entering the apartment in the Rue Morgue through a window. Once in the room, the surprised Madame L'Espanaye could not defend herself as the orangutan attempted to shave her in imitation of the sailor's daily routine and in doing so accidentally slits the woman's throat with the razor. The bloody deed incited it to fury and it squeezed the daughter's throat until she died. The orangutan then became aware of its master's whip, which it feared, and it attempted to hide the body by stuffing it into the chimney. The sailor, aware of the \"murder\", panicked and fled, allowing the orangutan to escape. The prefect of police, upon hearing this story, mentions that people should mind their own business. Dupin responds that G\u2013 is \"too cunning to be profound.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Purloined Letter",
    "author": "Edgar Allan Poe",
    "published_date": "1844-12",
    "synopsis": " The unnamed narrator is discussing with the famous Parisian amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin some of his most celebrated cases when they are joined by the Prefect of the Police, a man known as G\u2014. The Prefect has a case he would like to discuss with Dupin. A letter has been stolen from the boudoir of an unnamed female by the unscrupulous Minister D\u2014. It is said to contain compromising information. D\u2014 was in the room, saw the letter, and switched it for a letter of no importance. He has been blackmailing his victim. The Prefect makes two deductions with which Dupin does not disagree: :1.) The contents of the letter have not been revealed, as this would have led to certain circumstances that have not arisen. Therefore Minister D\u2014 still has the letter in his possession. :2.) The ability to produce the letter at a moment\u2019s notice is almost as important as possession of the letter itself. Therefore he must have the letter close at hand. The Prefect says that he and his police detectives have searched the Ministerial hotel where D\u2014 stays and have found nothing. They checked behind the wallpaper and under the carpets. His men have examined the tables and chairs with microscopes and then probed the cushions with needles but have found no sign of interference; the letter is not hidden in these places. Dupin asks the Prefect if he knows what he is looking for and the Prefect reads off a minute description of the letter, which Dupin memorizes. The Prefect then bids them good day. A month later, the Prefect returns, still bewildered in his search for the missing letter. He is motivated to continue his fruitless search by the promise of a large reward, recently doubled, upon the letter's safe return, and he will pay 50,000 francs to anyone who can help him. Dupin asks him to write that check now and he will give him the letter. The Prefect is astonished but knows that Dupin is not joking. He writes the check and Dupin produces the letter. The Prefect determines that it is genuine and races off to deliver it to the victim. Alone together, the narrator asks Dupin how he found the letter. Dupin explains the Paris police are competent within their limitations, but have underestimated who they are dealing with. The Prefect mistakes the Minister D\u2014 for a fool because he is a poet. For example, Dupin explains how an eight-year old boy made a small fortune from his friends at a game called \"Odds and Evens.\" The boy was able to determine the intelligence of his opponents and play upon that to interpret their next move. He explains that D\u2014 knew the police detectives would have assumed that the blackmailer would have concealed the letter in an elaborate hiding place, and thus hid it in plain sight. Dupin says he had visited the minister at his hotel. Complaining of weak eyes he wore a pair of green spectacles, the true purpose of which was to disguise his eyes as he searched for the letter. In a cheap card rack hanging from a dirty ribbon, he saw a half-torn letter and recognized it as the letter of the story's title. Striking up a conversation with D\u2014 about a subject in which the minister is interested, Dupin examined the letter more closely. It did not resemble the letter the Prefect described so minutely; the writing was different and it was sealed not with the \"ducal arms\" of the S\u2014 family, but with D\u2014's monogram. Dupin noticed that the paper was chafed as if the stiff paper was first rolled one way and then another. Dupin concluded that D\u2014 wrote a new address on the reverse of the stolen one, re-folded it the opposite way and sealed it with his own seal. Dupin left a snuff box behind as an excuse to return the next day. Striking up the same conversation they had begun the previous day, D\u2014 was startled by a gunshot in the street. While he went to investigate, Dupin switched D\u2014's letter for a duplicate. Dupin explains that he left a duplicate to ensure his ability to leave the hotel without D\u2014 suspecting his actions. As a political supporter of the Queen and old enemy of the Minister, Dupin also hopes that D\u2014 will try to use the power he no longer has, to his political downfall, and at the end be presented with an insulting note that implies Dupin was the thief: Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atr\u00e9e, est digne de Thyeste (If such a sinister design isn't worthy of Atreus, it is worthy of Thyestes). (see Atree et Thyeste on French wikipedia)\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The unnamed narrator is discussing with the famous Parisian amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin some of his most celebrated cases when they are joined by the Prefect of the Police, a man known as G\u2014. The Prefect has a case he would like to discuss with Dupin. A letter has been stolen from the boudoir of an unnamed female by the unscrupulous Minister D\u2014. It is said to contain compromising information. D\u2014 was in the room, saw the letter, and switched it for a letter of no importance. He has been blackmailing his victim. The Prefect makes two deductions with which Dupin does not disagree: :1.) The contents of the letter have not been revealed, as this would have led to certain circumstances that have not arisen. Therefore Minister D\u2014 still has the letter in his possession. :2.) The ability to produce the letter at a moment\u2019s notice is almost as important as possession of the letter itself. Therefore he must have the letter close at hand. The Prefect says that he and his police detectives have searched the Ministerial hotel where D\u2014 stays and have found nothing. They checked behind the wallpaper and under the carpets. His men have examined the tables and chairs with microscopes and then probed the cushions with needles but have found no sign of interference; the letter is not hidden in these places. Dupin asks the Prefect if he knows what he is looking for and the Prefect reads off a minute description of the letter, which Dupin memorizes. The Prefect then bids them good day. A month later, the Prefect returns, still bewildered in his search for the missing letter. He is motivated to continue his fruitless search by the promise of a large reward, recently doubled, upon the letter's safe return, and he will pay 50,000 francs to anyone who can help him. Dupin asks him to write that check now and he will give him the letter"
      },
      {
        "text": " minute description of the letter, which Dupin memorizes. The Prefect then bids them good day. A month later, the Prefect returns, still bewildered in his search for the missing letter. He is motivated to continue his fruitless search by the promise of a large reward, recently doubled, upon the letter's safe return, and he will pay 50,000 francs to anyone who can help him. Dupin asks him to write that check now and he will give him the letter. The Prefect is astonished but knows that Dupin is not joking. He writes the check and Dupin produces the letter. The Prefect determines that it is genuine and races off to deliver it to the victim. Alone together, the narrator asks Dupin how he found the letter. Dupin explains the Paris police are competent within their limitations, but have underestimated who they are dealing with. The Prefect mistakes the Minister D\u2014 for a fool because he is a poet. For example, Dupin explains how an eight-year old boy made a small fortune from his friends at a game called \"Odds and Evens.\" The boy was able to determine the intelligence of his opponents and play upon that to interpret their next move. He explains that D\u2014 knew the police detectives would have assumed that the blackmailer would have concealed the letter in an elaborate hiding place, and thus hid it in plain sight. Dupin says he had visited the minister at his hotel. Complaining of weak eyes he wore a pair of green spectacles, the true purpose of which was to disguise his eyes as he searched for the letter. In a cheap card rack hanging from a dirty ribbon, he saw a half-torn letter and recognized it as the letter of the story's title. Striking up a conversation with D\u2014 about a subject in which the minister is interested, Dupin examined the letter more closely. It did not resemble the letter the Prefect described so minutely; the writing was different"
      },
      {
        "text": " he wore a pair of green spectacles, the true purpose of which was to disguise his eyes as he searched for the letter. In a cheap card rack hanging from a dirty ribbon, he saw a half-torn letter and recognized it as the letter of the story's title. Striking up a conversation with D\u2014 about a subject in which the minister is interested, Dupin examined the letter more closely. It did not resemble the letter the Prefect described so minutely; the writing was different and it was sealed not with the \"ducal arms\" of the S\u2014 family, but with D\u2014's monogram. Dupin noticed that the paper was chafed as if the stiff paper was first rolled one way and then another. Dupin concluded that D\u2014 wrote a new address on the reverse of the stolen one, re-folded it the opposite way and sealed it with his own seal. Dupin left a snuff box behind as an excuse to return the next day. Striking up the same conversation they had begun the previous day, D\u2014 was startled by a gunshot in the street. While he went to investigate, Dupin switched D\u2014's letter for a duplicate. Dupin explains that he left a duplicate to ensure his ability to leave the hotel without D\u2014 suspecting his actions. As a political supporter of the Queen and old enemy of the Minister, Dupin also hopes that D\u2014 will try to use the power he no longer has, to his political downfall, and at the end be presented with an insulting note that implies Dupin was the thief: Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atr\u00e9e, est digne de Thyeste (If such a sinister design isn't worthy of Atreus, it is worthy of Thyestes). (see Atree et Thyeste on French wikipedia)\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " to his political downfall, and at the end be presented with an insulting note that implies Dupin was the thief: Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atr\u00e9e, est digne de Thyeste (If such a sinister design isn't worthy of Atreus, it is worthy of Thyestes). (see Atree et Thyeste on French wikipedia)\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Tale of Genji",
    "author": "Murasaki Shikibu",
    "published_date": "1021",
    "synopsis": " The work recounts the life of a son of the Japanese emperor, known to readers as Hikaru Genji, or \"Shining Genji\". For political reasons, Genji is relegated to commoner status (by being given the surname Minamoto) and begins a career as an imperial officer. The tale concentrates on Genji's romantic life and describes the customs of the aristocratic society of the time. Much is made of Genji's good looks. Genji was the second son of a certain ancient emperor (\"Emperor Kiritsubo\") and a low-ranking but beloved concubine (known to the readers as Lady Kiritsubo). Genji's mother dies when he is three years old, and the Emperor cannot forget her. The Emperor Kiritsubo then hears of a woman (\"Lady Fujitsubo\"), formerly a princess of the preceding emperor, who resembles his deceased concubine, and later she becomes one of his wives. Genji loves her first as a stepmother, but later as a woman. They fall in love with each other, but it is forbidden. Genji is frustrated because of his forbidden love for the Lady Fujitsubo and is on bad terms with his wife (Aoi no Ue). He also engages in a series of unfulfilling love affairs with other women. In most cases, his advances are rebuffed, his lover dies suddenly during the affair, or he finds his lover to be dull and his feelings change. In one case, he sees a beautiful young woman through an open window, enters her room without permission, and proceeds to seduce her. Recognizing him as a man of unchallengeable power, she makes no resistance. Genji visits Kitayama, the northern rural hilly area of Kyoto, where he finds a beautiful ten-year-old girl. He is fascinated by this little girl (\"Murasaki\"), and discovers that she is a niece of the Lady Fujitsubo. Finally he kidnaps her, brings her to his own palace and educates her to be his ideal lady; that is, like the Lady Fujitsubo. During this time Genji also meets the Lady Fujitsubo secretly, and she bears his son, Reizei. Everyone except the two lovers believes the father of the child is the Emperor Kiritsubo. Later, the boy becomes the Crown Prince and Lady Fujitsubo becomes the Empress, but Genji and Lady Fujitsubo swear to keep their secret. Genji and his wife, Lady Aoi, reconcile and she gives birth to a son but dies soon after. Genji is sorrowful, but finds consolation in Murasaki, whom he marries. Genji's father, the Emperor Kiritsubo, dies. He is succeeded by his son Suzaku, whose mother (\"Kokiden\"), together with Kiritsubo's political enemies (including the \"Minister of the Right\") takes power in the court. Then another of Genji's secret love affairs is exposed: Genji and a concubine of the Emperor Suzaku, Genji's brother, are discovered when they meet in secret. The Emperor Suzaku confides his personal amusement at Genji's exploits with the woman (\"Oborozukiyo\"), but is duty-bound to punish his half-brother. Genji is thus exiled to the town of Suma in rural Harima province (now part of Kobe in Hy\u014dgo Prefecture). There, a prosperous man known as the Akashi Novice (because he is from Akashi in Settsu province) entertains Genji, and Genji has a love affair with Akashi's daughter. She gives birth to Genji's only daughter, who will later become the Empress. In the Capital, the Emperor Suzaku is troubled by dreams of his late father, Kiritsubo, and something begins to affect his eyes. Meanwhile, his mother, Kokiden, grows ill, which weakens her powerful sway over the throne. Thus the Emperor orders Genji pardoned, and he returns to Kyoto. His son by Lady Fujitsubo, Reizei, becomes the emperor, and Genji finishes his imperial career. The new Emperor Reizei knows Genji is his real father, and raises Genji's rank to the highest possible. However, when Genji turns 40 years old, his life begins to decline. His political status does not change, but his love and emotional life are slowly damaged. He marries another wife, the \"Third Princess\" (known as Onna san no miya in the Seidensticker version, or Ny\u014dsan in Waley's). Genji's nephew, Kashiwagi, later forces himself on the \"Third Princess\" and she bears Kaoru (who, in a similar situation to that of Reizei, is legally known as the son of Genji). Genji's new marriage changes his relationship with Murasaki, who becomes a nun (bikuni). Genji's beloved Murasaki dies. In the following chapter, Maboroshi (\"Illusion\"), Genji contemplates how fleeting life is. Immediately after Maboroshi, there is a chapter entitled Kumogakure (\"Vanished into the Clouds\") which is left blank, but implies the death of Genji. The rest of the work is known as the \"Uji Chapters\". These chapters follow Kaoru and his best friend, Niou. Niou is an imperial prince, the son of Genji's daughter, the current Empress now that Reizei has abdicated the throne, while Kaoru is known to the world as Genji's son but is in fact fathered by Genji's nephew. The chapters involve Kaoru and Niou's rivalry over several daughters of an imperial prince who lives in Uji, a place some distance away from the capital. The tale ends abruptly, with Kaoru wondering if the lady he loves is being hidden away by Niou. Kaoru has sometimes been called the first anti-hero in literature.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The work recounts the life of a son of the Japanese emperor, known to readers as Hikaru Genji, or \"Shining Genji\". For political reasons, Genji is relegated to commoner status (by being given the surname Minamoto) and begins a career as an imperial officer. The tale concentrates on Genji's romantic life and describes the customs of the aristocratic society of the time. Much is made of Genji's good looks. Genji was the second son of a certain ancient emperor (\"Emperor Kiritsubo\") and a low-ranking but beloved concubine (known to the readers as Lady Kiritsubo). Genji's mother dies when he is three years old, and the Emperor cannot forget her. The Emperor Kiritsubo then hears of a woman (\"Lady Fujitsubo\"), formerly a princess of the preceding emperor, who resembles his deceased concubine, and later she becomes one of his wives. Genji loves her first as a stepmother, but later as a woman. They fall in love with each other, but it is forbidden. Genji is frustrated because of his forbidden love for the Lady Fujitsubo and is on bad terms with his wife (Aoi no Ue). He also engages in a series of unfulfilling love affairs with other women. In most cases, his advances are rebuffed, his lover dies suddenly during the affair, or he finds his lover to be dull and his feelings change. In one case, he sees a beautiful young woman through an open window, enters her room without permission, and proceeds to seduce her. Recognizing him as a man of unchallengeable power, she makes no resistance. Genji visits Kitayama, the northern rural hilly area of Kyoto, where he finds a beautiful ten-year-old girl. He is fascinated by this little girl (\"Murasaki\"), and discovers that she is a niece of the Lady Fuj"
      },
      {
        "text": " feelings change. In one case, he sees a beautiful young woman through an open window, enters her room without permission, and proceeds to seduce her. Recognizing him as a man of unchallengeable power, she makes no resistance. Genji visits Kitayama, the northern rural hilly area of Kyoto, where he finds a beautiful ten-year-old girl. He is fascinated by this little girl (\"Murasaki\"), and discovers that she is a niece of the Lady Fujitsubo. Finally he kidnaps her, brings her to his own palace and educates her to be his ideal lady; that is, like the Lady Fujitsubo. During this time Genji also meets the Lady Fujitsubo secretly, and she bears his son, Reizei. Everyone except the two lovers believes the father of the child is the Emperor Kiritsubo. Later, the boy becomes the Crown Prince and Lady Fujitsubo becomes the Empress, but Genji and Lady Fujitsubo swear to keep their secret. Genji and his wife, Lady Aoi, reconcile and she gives birth to a son but dies soon after. Genji is sorrowful, but finds consolation in Murasaki, whom he marries. Genji's father, the Emperor Kiritsubo, dies. He is succeeded by his son Suzaku, whose mother (\"Kokiden\"), together with Kiritsubo's political enemies (including the \"Minister of the Right\") takes power in the court. Then another of Genji's secret love affairs is exposed: Genji and a concubine of the Emperor Suzaku, Genji's brother, are discovered when they meet in secret. The Emperor Suzaku confides his personal amusement at Genji's exploits with the woman (\"Oborozukiyo\"), but is duty-bound to punish his half-brother. Genji is thus exiled to the town of Suma in rural Harima"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the Right\") takes power in the court. Then another of Genji's secret love affairs is exposed: Genji and a concubine of the Emperor Suzaku, Genji's brother, are discovered when they meet in secret. The Emperor Suzaku confides his personal amusement at Genji's exploits with the woman (\"Oborozukiyo\"), but is duty-bound to punish his half-brother. Genji is thus exiled to the town of Suma in rural Harima province (now part of Kobe in Hy\u014dgo Prefecture). There, a prosperous man known as the Akashi Novice (because he is from Akashi in Settsu province) entertains Genji, and Genji has a love affair with Akashi's daughter. She gives birth to Genji's only daughter, who will later become the Empress. In the Capital, the Emperor Suzaku is troubled by dreams of his late father, Kiritsubo, and something begins to affect his eyes. Meanwhile, his mother, Kokiden, grows ill, which weakens her powerful sway over the throne. Thus the Emperor orders Genji pardoned, and he returns to Kyoto. His son by Lady Fujitsubo, Reizei, becomes the emperor, and Genji finishes his imperial career. The new Emperor Reizei knows Genji is his real father, and raises Genji's rank to the highest possible. However, when Genji turns 40 years old, his life begins to decline. His political status does not change, but his love and emotional life are slowly damaged. He marries another wife, the \"Third Princess\" (known as Onna san no miya in the Seidensticker version, or Ny\u014dsan in Waley's). Genji's nephew, Kashiwagi, later forces himself on the \"Third Princess\" and she bears Kaoru (who, in a similar situation to that of Reizei, is legally known"
      },
      {
        "text": " life begins to decline. His political status does not change, but his love and emotional life are slowly damaged. He marries another wife, the \"Third Princess\" (known as Onna san no miya in the Seidensticker version, or Ny\u014dsan in Waley's). Genji's nephew, Kashiwagi, later forces himself on the \"Third Princess\" and she bears Kaoru (who, in a similar situation to that of Reizei, is legally known as the son of Genji). Genji's new marriage changes his relationship with Murasaki, who becomes a nun (bikuni). Genji's beloved Murasaki dies. In the following chapter, Maboroshi (\"Illusion\"), Genji contemplates how fleeting life is. Immediately after Maboroshi, there is a chapter entitled Kumogakure (\"Vanished into the Clouds\") which is left blank, but implies the death of Genji. The rest of the work is known as the \"Uji Chapters\". These chapters follow Kaoru and his best friend, Niou. Niou is an imperial prince, the son of Genji's daughter, the current Empress now that Reizei has abdicated the throne, while Kaoru is known to the world as Genji's son but is in fact fathered by Genji's nephew. The chapters involve Kaoru and Niou's rivalry over several daughters of an imperial prince who lives in Uji, a place some distance away from the capital. The tale ends abruptly, with Kaoru wondering if the lady he loves is being hidden away by Niou. Kaoru has sometimes been called the first anti-hero in literature.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " distance away from the capital. The tale ends abruptly, with Kaoru wondering if the lady he loves is being hidden away by Niou. Kaoru has sometimes been called the first anti-hero in literature.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Master and Commander",
    "author": "Patrick O'Brian",
    "published_date": "1970",
    "synopsis": " The story starts out on April 18, 1800, in Port Mahon, Minorca, a base of the Royal Navy at that time. A shipless lieutenant wasting away in port, Jack Aubrey, meets Stephen Maturin, a poor half-Irish and half-Catalan physician and natural philosopher, at an evening concert at the Governor\u2019s Mansion. The two of them do not quite get along during this first encounter. A duel almost occurs when Jack Aubrey gets elbowed by Maturin to stop beating the time while the string quartet is playing. Later that evening, on his way back to his living quarters, Jack Aubrey finds out that he has been promoted to the rank of Commander and has been given command of the brig Sophie. His joy overcomes his animosity towards Stephen Maturin and they quickly become good friends in part due to their shared love of music. The ship's surgeon having left with the previous captain, Maturin is asked by Aubrey to sign on in that post. Although Maturin is a physician, not just a mere surgeon, he agrees, since he is currently unemployed. Also introduced into the story are Master's Mates Thomas Pullings, William Mowett, midshipman William Babbington, and James Dillon, the Sophies first lieutenant. Dillon and Stephen both have secret backgrounds as members of the United Irishmen. Aubrey improves Sophies sailing qualities by adding a longer yard which allows him to spread a larger mainsail. She then is sent to accompany a small convoy of merchant ships. During their journey east, the new captain, Aubrey, takes the opportunity to get to know his sailors and work them into a fighting unit. As he does this, he and the crew explain many naval matters to Maturin (and to the reader) since the doctor has never served aboard a man-of-war. After the convoy duties, Lord Keith allows Aubrey to cruise independently, looking for French merchants. After a number of prizes are taken, they meet and defeat the Cacafuego, a Spanish frigate, losing a number of crew, including Dillon, in the bloody action and gaining the respect of other naval officers. However, Captain Harte, the commandant at Mahon, has a grudge against Aubrey, who has been having an affair with his wife. Harte's malevolence ensures that the victory brings Aubrey and his crew no official recognition, promotion, or significant prize money, although Aubrey gains a reputation among members of the British Navy as one of its great, young fighting captains. On her following escort duty, Sophie is captured by a squadron of four large French warships after a pursuit and a brave but hopeless resistance. The Battle of Algeciras begins, and after a short period as prisoners of war, they are exchanged, missing the fighting. Back at Gibraltar, Aubrey must undergo a court-martial over the loss of his ship, but he is cleared of the charges.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story starts out on April 18, 1800, in Port Mahon, Minorca, a base of the Royal Navy at that time. A shipless lieutenant wasting away in port, Jack Aubrey, meets Stephen Maturin, a poor half-Irish and half-Catalan physician and natural philosopher, at an evening concert at the Governor\u2019s Mansion. The two of them do not quite get along during this first encounter. A duel almost occurs when Jack Aubrey gets elbowed by Maturin to stop beating the time while the string quartet is playing. Later that evening, on his way back to his living quarters, Jack Aubrey finds out that he has been promoted to the rank of Commander and has been given command of the brig Sophie. His joy overcomes his animosity towards Stephen Maturin and they quickly become good friends in part due to their shared love of music. The ship's surgeon having left with the previous captain, Maturin is asked by Aubrey to sign on in that post. Although Maturin is a physician, not just a mere surgeon, he agrees, since he is currently unemployed. Also introduced into the story are Master's Mates Thomas Pullings, William Mowett, midshipman William Babbington, and James Dillon, the Sophies first lieutenant. Dillon and Stephen both have secret backgrounds as members of the United Irishmen. Aubrey improves Sophies sailing qualities by adding a longer yard which allows him to spread a larger mainsail. She then is sent to accompany a small convoy of merchant ships. During their journey east, the new captain, Aubrey, takes the opportunity to get to know his sailors and work them into a fighting unit. As he does this, he and the crew explain many naval matters to Maturin (and to the reader) since the doctor has never served aboard a man-of-war. After the convoy duties, Lord Keith allows Aubrey to cruise independently,"
      },
      {
        "text": " spread a larger mainsail. She then is sent to accompany a small convoy of merchant ships. During their journey east, the new captain, Aubrey, takes the opportunity to get to know his sailors and work them into a fighting unit. As he does this, he and the crew explain many naval matters to Maturin (and to the reader) since the doctor has never served aboard a man-of-war. After the convoy duties, Lord Keith allows Aubrey to cruise independently, looking for French merchants. After a number of prizes are taken, they meet and defeat the Cacafuego, a Spanish frigate, losing a number of crew, including Dillon, in the bloody action and gaining the respect of other naval officers. However, Captain Harte, the commandant at Mahon, has a grudge against Aubrey, who has been having an affair with his wife. Harte's malevolence ensures that the victory brings Aubrey and his crew no official recognition, promotion, or significant prize money, although Aubrey gains a reputation among members of the British Navy as one of its great, young fighting captains. On her following escort duty, Sophie is captured by a squadron of four large French warships after a pursuit and a brave but hopeless resistance. The Battle of Algeciras begins, and after a short period as prisoners of war, they are exchanged, missing the fighting. Back at Gibraltar, Aubrey must undergo a court-martial over the loss of his ship, but he is cleared of the charges.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the loss of his ship, but he is cleared of the charges.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Devil and Daniel Webster",
    "author": "Stephen Vincent Ben\u00e9t",
    "published_date": "1937",
    "synopsis": " A local farmer, Jabez Stone, is plagued with unending bad luck, causing him to finally swear that \"it's enough to make a man want to sell his soul to the devil!\" Stone is visited the next day by a stranger, who later identifies himself as \"Mr. Scratch\" and makes such an offer (in exchange for seven years of prosperity), to which Stone agrees. After the seven years, Stone manages to bargain for an additional three years from Mr. Scratch. However, after the additional three years passes, Mr. Scratch refuses to grant Stone any further extension of time. Wanting out of the deal, Stone convinces famous lawyer and orator Daniel Webster to accept his case. At midnight of the appointed date, Mr. Scratch arrives and is greeted by Webster, who presents himself as Stone's attorney. Mr. Scratch tells Webster, \"I shall call upon you, as a law-abiding citizen, to assist me in taking possession of my property,\" and so begins the argument. It goes poorly for Webster, since the signature and the contract are clear, and Mr. Scratch will not agree to a compromise. In desperation Webster thunders, \"Mr. Stone is an American citizen, and no American citizen may be forced into the service of a foreign prince. We fought England for that in '12 and we'll fight all hell for it again!\" To this Mr. Scratch insists on his citizenship citing his presence at the worst events of the USA, concluding that \"though I don't like to boast of it, my name is older in this country than yours.\" A trial is then demanded by Daniel as the right of every American. Mr. Scratch agrees after Daniel says that he can select the judge and jury, \"so it is an American judge and an American jury.\" A jury of the damned then enters, \"with the fires of hell still upon them.\" They had all done evil, and had all played a part in the USA: *Walter Butler, a Loyalist *Simon Girty, a Loyalist *Indian chief Metacomet, referred to as \"King Philip\" *Governor Thomas Dale *Thomas Morton, a rival of the Plymouth Pilgrims *The pirate Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard *Reverend John SmeetAnderson, Charles R. \"Puzzles and Essays\" from \"The Exchange\" - Trick Reference Questions, p. 122: \"In 'The Devil and Daniel Webster' by Stephen Vincent Ben\u00e9t, there is a character named the Reverend John Smeet. Was this a real person? :Mrs. Stephen Vincent Ben\u00e9t (1960), in a letter to the New York Times Book Review, claimed that the good reverend was entirely imaginary. Mrs. Benet explained that her husband occasionally used to insert imaginary people into his writings. Benet even quoted from a made-up person named John Cleveland Cotton. He went so far as to write an apocryphal biographical note about Cotton that ended up in Marion King's Books and People (King, 1954). In this Benet anticipated authors Tim Powers and James Blaylock, who created a poet named William Ashbless.\" After five other unnamed jurors enter (Benedict Arnold not among them, he being out \"on other business\"), the \"Judge\" enters last – John Hathorne, the infamous and unrepentant executor of the Salem witch trials. The trial is rigged against Webster. Finally he is on his feet ready to rage, without care for himself or Stone, but catches himself before he begins to speak: he sees in the jurors' eyes that they want him to act thus. He calms himself, \"for it was him they'd come for, not only Jabez Stone.\" Webster starts to orate on all of simple and good things\u2014\"the freshness of a fine morning...the taste of food when you're hungry...the new day that's every day when you're a child\"\u2014and how \"without freedom, they sickened.\" He speaks passionately of how wonderful it is to be a man, and to be an American. He admits the wrongs done in the USA, but argues that something new and good had grown from it, \"and everybody had played a part in it, even the traitors.\" Mankind \"got tricked and trapped and bamboozled, but it was a great journey,\" something \"no demon that was ever foaled\" could ever understand. The jury announces its verdict: \"We find for the defendant, Jabez Stone.\" They admit that, \"Perhaps 'tis not strictly in accordance with the evidence, but even the damned may salute the eloquence of Mr. Webster.\" The judge and jury disappear with the break of dawn. Mr. Scratch congratulates Webster and the contract is torn up. Webster then grabs the stranger and twists his arm behind his back, \"for he knew that once you bested anybody like Mr. Scratch in fair fight, his power on you was gone.\" Webster makes him agree \"never to bother Jabez Stone nor his heirs or assigns nor any other New Hampshire man till doomsday!\" Mr. Scratch offers to tell Webster's fortune in his palm. He foretells Webster's failure to ever become President, the death of Webster's sons, and the backlash of his last speech, warning \"Some will call you Ichabod,\" as in John Greenleaf Whittier's poem in reaction to the speech. All the predictions the devil makes are based on actual events of Daniel Webster's life: he did have ambitions to become President, his sons died in war, and as a result of Webster's controversial \"Seventh of March Speech\", in which he supported the Compromise of 1850, many in the North considered him a traitor. Webster takes all the predictions in stride, and asks only if the Union will prevail. Scratch reluctantly admits that, though a war will be fought for it, the United States will remain united. Webster then laughs and kicks him out of the house. It is said that the devil never did come back to New Hampshire afterward.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A local farmer, Jabez Stone, is plagued with unending bad luck, causing him to finally swear that \"it's enough to make a man want to sell his soul to the devil!\" Stone is visited the next day by a stranger, who later identifies himself as \"Mr. Scratch\" and makes such an offer (in exchange for seven years of prosperity), to which Stone agrees. After the seven years, Stone manages to bargain for an additional three years from Mr. Scratch. However, after the additional three years passes, Mr. Scratch refuses to grant Stone any further extension of time. Wanting out of the deal, Stone convinces famous lawyer and orator Daniel Webster to accept his case. At midnight of the appointed date, Mr. Scratch arrives and is greeted by Webster, who presents himself as Stone's attorney. Mr. Scratch tells Webster, \"I shall call upon you, as a law-abiding citizen, to assist me in taking possession of my property,\" and so begins the argument. It goes poorly for Webster, since the signature and the contract are clear, and Mr. Scratch will not agree to a compromise. In desperation Webster thunders, \"Mr. Stone is an American citizen, and no American citizen may be forced into the service of a foreign prince. We fought England for that in '12 and we'll fight all hell for it again!\" To this Mr. Scratch insists on his citizenship citing his presence at the worst events of the USA, concluding that \"though I don't like to boast of it, my name is older in this country than yours.\" A trial is then demanded by Daniel as the right of every American. Mr. Scratch agrees after Daniel says that he can select the judge and jury, \"so it is an American judge and an American jury.\" A jury of the damned then enters, \"with the fires of hell still upon them.\" They had all done evil, and had all played a part in"
      },
      {
        "text": " the USA, concluding that \"though I don't like to boast of it, my name is older in this country than yours.\" A trial is then demanded by Daniel as the right of every American. Mr. Scratch agrees after Daniel says that he can select the judge and jury, \"so it is an American judge and an American jury.\" A jury of the damned then enters, \"with the fires of hell still upon them.\" They had all done evil, and had all played a part in the USA: *Walter Butler, a Loyalist *Simon Girty, a Loyalist *Indian chief Metacomet, referred to as \"King Philip\" *Governor Thomas Dale *Thomas Morton, a rival of the Plymouth Pilgrims *The pirate Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard *Reverend John SmeetAnderson, Charles R. \"Puzzles and Essays\" from \"The Exchange\" - Trick Reference Questions, p. 122: \"In 'The Devil and Daniel Webster' by Stephen Vincent Ben\u00e9t, there is a character named the Reverend John Smeet. Was this a real person? :Mrs. Stephen Vincent Ben\u00e9t (1960), in a letter to the New York Times Book Review, claimed that the good reverend was entirely imaginary. Mrs. Benet explained that her husband occasionally used to insert imaginary people into his writings. Benet even quoted from a made-up person named John Cleveland Cotton. He went so far as to write an apocryphal biographical note about Cotton that ended up in Marion King's Books and People (King, 1954). In this Benet anticipated authors Tim Powers and James Blaylock, who created a poet named William Ashbless.\" After five other unnamed jurors enter (Benedict Arnold not among them, he being out \"on other business\"), the \"Judge\" enters last – John Hathorne, the infamous and unrepentant executor of the Salem witch trials"
      },
      {
        "text": " write an apocryphal biographical note about Cotton that ended up in Marion King's Books and People (King, 1954). In this Benet anticipated authors Tim Powers and James Blaylock, who created a poet named William Ashbless.\" After five other unnamed jurors enter (Benedict Arnold not among them, he being out \"on other business\"), the \"Judge\" enters last – John Hathorne, the infamous and unrepentant executor of the Salem witch trials. The trial is rigged against Webster. Finally he is on his feet ready to rage, without care for himself or Stone, but catches himself before he begins to speak: he sees in the jurors' eyes that they want him to act thus. He calms himself, \"for it was him they'd come for, not only Jabez Stone.\" Webster starts to orate on all of simple and good things\u2014\"the freshness of a fine morning...the taste of food when you're hungry...the new day that's every day when you're a child\"\u2014and how \"without freedom, they sickened.\" He speaks passionately of how wonderful it is to be a man, and to be an American. He admits the wrongs done in the USA, but argues that something new and good had grown from it, \"and everybody had played a part in it, even the traitors.\" Mankind \"got tricked and trapped and bamboozled, but it was a great journey,\" something \"no demon that was ever foaled\" could ever understand. The jury announces its verdict: \"We find for the defendant, Jabez Stone.\" They admit that, \"Perhaps 'tis not strictly in accordance with the evidence, but even the damned may salute the eloquence of Mr. Webster.\" The judge and jury disappear with the break of dawn. Mr. Scratch congratulates Webster and the contract is torn up. Webster then grabs the stranger and twists his arm behind his back, \"for he"
      },
      {
        "text": "no demon that was ever foaled\" could ever understand. The jury announces its verdict: \"We find for the defendant, Jabez Stone.\" They admit that, \"Perhaps 'tis not strictly in accordance with the evidence, but even the damned may salute the eloquence of Mr. Webster.\" The judge and jury disappear with the break of dawn. Mr. Scratch congratulates Webster and the contract is torn up. Webster then grabs the stranger and twists his arm behind his back, \"for he knew that once you bested anybody like Mr. Scratch in fair fight, his power on you was gone.\" Webster makes him agree \"never to bother Jabez Stone nor his heirs or assigns nor any other New Hampshire man till doomsday!\" Mr. Scratch offers to tell Webster's fortune in his palm. He foretells Webster's failure to ever become President, the death of Webster's sons, and the backlash of his last speech, warning \"Some will call you Ichabod,\" as in John Greenleaf Whittier's poem in reaction to the speech. All the predictions the devil makes are based on actual events of Daniel Webster's life: he did have ambitions to become President, his sons died in war, and as a result of Webster's controversial \"Seventh of March Speech\", in which he supported the Compromise of 1850, many in the North considered him a traitor. Webster takes all the predictions in stride, and asks only if the Union will prevail. Scratch reluctantly admits that, though a war will be fought for it, the United States will remain united. Webster then laughs and kicks him out of the house. It is said that the devil never did come back to New Hampshire afterward.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ratch reluctantly admits that, though a war will be fought for it, the United States will remain united. Webster then laughs and kicks him out of the house. It is said that the devil never did come back to New Hampshire afterward.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Luck of Barry Lyndon",
    "author": "William Makepeace Thackeray",
    "published_date": "1844",
    "synopsis": " Redmond Barry of Bally Barry, born to a genteel but ruined Irish family, fancies himself a gentleman. At the prompting of his mother, he learns what he can of courtly manners and sword-play, but fails at more scholarly subjects like Latin. He is a hot-tempered, passionate lad, and falls madly in love with his cousin, Nora. Sadly, as she is a spinster a few years older than Redmond, she is seeking a prospect with more ready cash to pay family debts. The lad tries to engage in a duel with Nora's suitor, an English officer named John Quinn. He is made to think that he has assassinated the man, though his pistol was actually loaded with \"tow\" (a dummy load of heavy, knotted, fibers); Quinn was struck with the harmless load and fainted in his fright. Redmond flees to Dublin, where he quickly falls in with bad company in the way of con artists, and soon loses all his money. Pursued by creditors, he enlists as a common private in an infantry regiment headed for service in Germany. Once in Germany, despite a promotion to corporal, he hates the army and seeks to desert. When his Lieutenant is wounded, Redmond helps take him to a German village for treatment. The Irishman pretends to suffer from insanity, and after several days absconds with the Lieutenant's uniform, papers, and money. As part of his ruse, he convinces the locals that he is the real Lieutenant Fakenham, and the wounded man is the mad Corporal Barry. Redmond Barry rides off toward a neutral German territory, hoping for better fortune. His bad luck continues, though, as he is joined on the road by a Prussian officer. The German soon realizes that Redmond is a deserter, but rather than turn him over to the British to be hanged, impresses him into the Prussian army (for a bounty). Redmond hates Prussian service as much or more than he hated British service, but the men are carefully watched to prevent desertion. He is able to become the servant of Captain Potzdorff, and is involved in the intrigues of that gentleman. After several months have passed, a stranger travelling under Austrian protection arrives in Berlin. Redmond is asked to spy on the stranger, an older man called Chevalier de Balibari (sic. Ballybary). He immediately realizes that this is his uncle, the adventurer who disappeared many years ago. The uncle arranges to smuggle his nephew out of Prussia, and this is soon done. The two Irishmen and an accomplice wander around Europe, gambling and generally living it up. Eventually, the Barrys end up in a Rhineland Duchy, where they win considerable sums of money and Redmond cleverly sets up a plan to marry a young countess of some means. Again, fortune turns against him, and a series of circumstances undermines his complex plan. Both Uncle and Nephew are forced to leave Germany\u2014both unmarried. While cooling their heels in France, Redmond comes into the acquaintance of the Countess of Lyndon, an extraordinarily wealthy noblewoman married to a much older man (who is in poor health). He has some success in seducing the Lady, but her husband clings to life. Eventually, she goes back to England. Redmond is upset, but bides his time. Upon hearing the following year that the husband has died, he strikes. Through a series of adventures, Redmond eventually bullies and seduces the Countess of Lyndon, almost forcing her to marry him. After the wedding, he moves into Hackton Castle, which he has completely remodelled at great expense. Redmond admits several times in the course of his narrative that he has no control over a budget, and spends his new bride's birthright freely. He looks after a few childhood benefactors in Ireland, his Cousin Ulick (who had often stood up for him as a boy), and makes himself over into the most fashionable man in the district. As the American War of Independence breaks out, Barry Lyndon (as he now calls himself) raises a company of soldiers to be sent to America. He also defeats his wife's cousins to win a seat in Parliament. His good fortunes begin to ebb again though. His stepson, Lord Bullingdon, goes off to the American war\u2014and Barry is accused of trying to get the lad killed in battle. Then his own child\u2014Bryan\u2014dies in a tragic horse-riding accident. Combined with Barry's own profligate spending practices, he is ruined on many levels. As the \"memoir\" ends, (Redmond) Barry Lyndon is separated from his wife, and lodged in Fleet Prison. A small stipend allows him to live in moderate luxury, and his elderly mother lodges close by to tend to him. He spends the last nineteen years of his life in prison, dying of alcoholism-related illness.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Redmond Barry of Bally Barry, born to a genteel but ruined Irish family, fancies himself a gentleman. At the prompting of his mother, he learns what he can of courtly manners and sword-play, but fails at more scholarly subjects like Latin. He is a hot-tempered, passionate lad, and falls madly in love with his cousin, Nora. Sadly, as she is a spinster a few years older than Redmond, she is seeking a prospect with more ready cash to pay family debts. The lad tries to engage in a duel with Nora's suitor, an English officer named John Quinn. He is made to think that he has assassinated the man, though his pistol was actually loaded with \"tow\" (a dummy load of heavy, knotted, fibers); Quinn was struck with the harmless load and fainted in his fright. Redmond flees to Dublin, where he quickly falls in with bad company in the way of con artists, and soon loses all his money. Pursued by creditors, he enlists as a common private in an infantry regiment headed for service in Germany. Once in Germany, despite a promotion to corporal, he hates the army and seeks to desert. When his Lieutenant is wounded, Redmond helps take him to a German village for treatment. The Irishman pretends to suffer from insanity, and after several days absconds with the Lieutenant's uniform, papers, and money. As part of his ruse, he convinces the locals that he is the real Lieutenant Fakenham, and the wounded man is the mad Corporal Barry. Redmond Barry rides off toward a neutral German territory, hoping for better fortune. His bad luck continues, though, as he is joined on the road by a Prussian officer. The German soon realizes that Redmond is a deserter, but rather than turn him over to the British to be hanged, impresses him into the Prussian army (for a bounty). Redmond hates Pr"
      },
      {
        "text": "ces the locals that he is the real Lieutenant Fakenham, and the wounded man is the mad Corporal Barry. Redmond Barry rides off toward a neutral German territory, hoping for better fortune. His bad luck continues, though, as he is joined on the road by a Prussian officer. The German soon realizes that Redmond is a deserter, but rather than turn him over to the British to be hanged, impresses him into the Prussian army (for a bounty). Redmond hates Prussian service as much or more than he hated British service, but the men are carefully watched to prevent desertion. He is able to become the servant of Captain Potzdorff, and is involved in the intrigues of that gentleman. After several months have passed, a stranger travelling under Austrian protection arrives in Berlin. Redmond is asked to spy on the stranger, an older man called Chevalier de Balibari (sic. Ballybary). He immediately realizes that this is his uncle, the adventurer who disappeared many years ago. The uncle arranges to smuggle his nephew out of Prussia, and this is soon done. The two Irishmen and an accomplice wander around Europe, gambling and generally living it up. Eventually, the Barrys end up in a Rhineland Duchy, where they win considerable sums of money and Redmond cleverly sets up a plan to marry a young countess of some means. Again, fortune turns against him, and a series of circumstances undermines his complex plan. Both Uncle and Nephew are forced to leave Germany\u2014both unmarried. While cooling their heels in France, Redmond comes into the acquaintance of the Countess of Lyndon, an extraordinarily wealthy noblewoman married to a much older man (who is in poor health). He has some success in seducing the Lady, but her husband clings to life. Eventually, she goes back to England. Redmond is upset, but bides his time. Upon hearing the following year that the"
      },
      {
        "text": " circumstances undermines his complex plan. Both Uncle and Nephew are forced to leave Germany\u2014both unmarried. While cooling their heels in France, Redmond comes into the acquaintance of the Countess of Lyndon, an extraordinarily wealthy noblewoman married to a much older man (who is in poor health). He has some success in seducing the Lady, but her husband clings to life. Eventually, she goes back to England. Redmond is upset, but bides his time. Upon hearing the following year that the husband has died, he strikes. Through a series of adventures, Redmond eventually bullies and seduces the Countess of Lyndon, almost forcing her to marry him. After the wedding, he moves into Hackton Castle, which he has completely remodelled at great expense. Redmond admits several times in the course of his narrative that he has no control over a budget, and spends his new bride's birthright freely. He looks after a few childhood benefactors in Ireland, his Cousin Ulick (who had often stood up for him as a boy), and makes himself over into the most fashionable man in the district. As the American War of Independence breaks out, Barry Lyndon (as he now calls himself) raises a company of soldiers to be sent to America. He also defeats his wife's cousins to win a seat in Parliament. His good fortunes begin to ebb again though. His stepson, Lord Bullingdon, goes off to the American war\u2014and Barry is accused of trying to get the lad killed in battle. Then his own child\u2014Bryan\u2014dies in a tragic horse-riding accident. Combined with Barry's own profligate spending practices, he is ruined on many levels. As the \"memoir\" ends, (Redmond) Barry Lyndon is separated from his wife, and lodged in Fleet Prison. A small stipend allows him to live in moderate luxury, and his elderly mother lodges close by to tend to him. He spends the last nineteen years"
      },
      {
        "text": " get the lad killed in battle. Then his own child\u2014Bryan\u2014dies in a tragic horse-riding accident. Combined with Barry's own profligate spending practices, he is ruined on many levels. As the \"memoir\" ends, (Redmond) Barry Lyndon is separated from his wife, and lodged in Fleet Prison. A small stipend allows him to live in moderate luxury, and his elderly mother lodges close by to tend to him. He spends the last nineteen years of his life in prison, dying of alcoholism-related illness.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The End of Eternity",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1955",
    "synopsis": " The Eternity of the title is an organization and a place which exists outside time. It is staffed by male humans called Eternals who are recruited from different eras of human history commencing with the twenty-seventh century. The Eternals are capable of traveling \u201cupwhen\u201d and \u201cdownwhen\u201d within Eternity and entering the conventional temporal world at almost any point of their choice, apart from a section of the far future which they cannot enter. Collectively they form a corps of Platonic guardians who carry out carefully calculated and planned strategic minimum actions, called Reality Changes, within the temporal world in order to minimize human suffering as integrated over the whole of (future) human history. As the plot unfolds, however, it is increasingly evident that Eternity itself suffers from serious maladjustments. The Eternals feel an unspoken collective guilt which causes them to scapegoat the \"Technicians\", the experts who actually execute Reality Changes by doing something that will alter the flow of events. The Eternals are also troubled that beyond a certain point in the future they are blocked by unknown means from entering Time. These are the \"Hidden Centuries\". Beyond the Hidden Centuries they can emerge, but find the earth devoid of human life. A key plot element which emerges quickly as the story unfolds is the relatively static nature of the human societies in the various future centuries, and the repeated failure of space travel in all accessible centuries. We later learn that Laban Twissell (Harlan\u2019s superior and the leading figure on the governing Council) is from \"a Century in the 30,000s\", yet nothing much is different in that time. The protagonist is a Technician named Andrew Harlan, who finds himself involved in an ontological paradox orchestrated by his superiors. He is to secure the creation of Eternity by sending a young Eternal back in time with the mathematical knowledge to make it possible. To facilitate this Harlan's superiors in Eternity allow him to pursue his study of \"prehistory\", which is history prior to the Eternity's creation that, because Eternity had not yet been created then, cannot be traveled to nor changed. This intellectual pursuit is largely frowned upon by the Eternals, especially Harlan's superiors, but it becomes apparent his expert knowledge on the subject will be vital to Eternity's creation. Harlan himself is in trouble with the leaders of Eternity. He has been entrapped by one of them into entering into a relationship with a non-Eternal woman, No\u00ffs Lambent. This was intended merely to prove a point about the effect of Eternity on the individuals from real time who learn of it, but it has the unintended consequence of making Harlan besotted with the woman, so much so that he smuggles her into Eternity, since he has discovered that she will cease to exist in real time when the Eternals make their next Reality Change. Harlan\u2019s whole scheme comes apart when it is revealed the leaders are fully aware of his activities. Normally the Eternals traverse from century to century within Eternity in a kind of temporal elevator called a kettle. A special version of the kettle has been built, however, for Harlan to dispatch a young Eternal, one Brinsley Sheridan Cooper, back to the 24th century, which lies \u201cbeyond the downwhen terminus\u201d accessible via Eternity and its kettle system. Cooper is carefully instructed that he is to teach the principles and technology of time travel to its historic inventor, Vikkor Mallansohn, but unbeknownst to Cooper or Harlan, he will actually become Mallansohn himself. However Harlan, filled with malice after (erroneously) concluding that Twissell has trapped him and will deprive him of No\u00ffs, scrambles the time settings just as the special kettle departs. Cooper is trapped in the wrong time, so Eternity cannot be created. Unless something is done to change the past, Harlan\u2019s reality, and Eternity, will be erased from existence. Twissell reveals that he too had once improperly loved a woman in Time, and manages to persuade Harlan that he sympathizes. Calming down, Harlan tries to think of a way that Cooper, also adept in the concept of Reality Change, could send him a message to return and retrieve him. Harlan believes that the apparently random target setting he chose on the kettle was the 20th century, and it occurs to him that Cooper was interested in his collection of artifacts from that time, particularly magazines. Perhaps the trapped Cooper would have found a way of leaving his SOS message in one of them. This is where Asimov\u2019s mistaken \u201cmushroom cloud\u201d appears in the novel. Harlan comes upon an ad for stock tips\u2014All the Talk Of the Market, concealing the acrostic A-T-O-M, accompanying a drawing of a mushroom cloud. The year on the masthead of the preserved publication is 1932. Since this predates the first atomic explosion, it must be a coded message from someone from the future\u2014a reality change caused by Cooper. Before he reveals this discovery to the other Eternals, Harlan exacts a price, his lover is to be returned to him and both will go back to rescue Cooper. Once the couple arrive in 1932, Harlan reveals his last surprise. He has deduced that the woman, No\u00ffs Lambent, is herself an agent of Reality Change. She is from those centuries the Eternals cannot enter. She does not deny it. Instead she tells Harlan that her people, who prefer to watch past time rather than travel in it or change it, discovered that Eternity was, in choosing safety for humanity, suppressing creativity. In the end this has the effect of denying humanity's access to the stars, as alien species advance technologically and confine humanity to Earth. Eventually humanity will die out, millions of years in the future, leaving an empty Earth. However, if Eternity could be prevented from being created, humans would leave Earth and colonize the stars. Thus they cut themselves off from Eternity and began to plot its demise. It was not any specific Change but the very existence of any such organization as Eternity which had the deleterious effect, since when given the choice humanity would always choose safety. No\u00ffs Lambent reveals that in order to make Eternity improbable, Harlan needs only to decide to leave Cooper stranded in 1932. She also intends to send a carefully worded letter to Italy, causing a man (presumably Enrico Fermi) to \"begin experimenting with the neutronic bombardment of uranium\". This will start a chain of events which will lead to the first atom bomb in 1945. In the reality known up to that point, atomic power was discovered somewhat later (it is not explained when, but the 24th century had nuclear reactors, and no nuclear bombs were detonated until the 30th century). Acquiring the technology sooner, humanity will be diverted to focus more on the science of nucleonics and therefore develop interstellar space travel instead of time travel technology, and leading to a Galactic Empire instead of Eternity. Harlan at first intends to kill No\u00ffs and carry out his mission, but in comparing her story to that of the freakish and occasionally inhuman Eternals he has encountered, Harlan confirms his lingering suspicions that Eternity has been wrong for humanity. At the very moment he decides to help her, a Reality Change occurs and the 'kettle' linking them with Eternity vanishes into thin air.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Eternity of the title is an organization and a place which exists outside time. It is staffed by male humans called Eternals who are recruited from different eras of human history commencing with the twenty-seventh century. The Eternals are capable of traveling \u201cupwhen\u201d and \u201cdownwhen\u201d within Eternity and entering the conventional temporal world at almost any point of their choice, apart from a section of the far future which they cannot enter. Collectively they form a corps of Platonic guardians who carry out carefully calculated and planned strategic minimum actions, called Reality Changes, within the temporal world in order to minimize human suffering as integrated over the whole of (future) human history. As the plot unfolds, however, it is increasingly evident that Eternity itself suffers from serious maladjustments. The Eternals feel an unspoken collective guilt which causes them to scapegoat the \"Technicians\", the experts who actually execute Reality Changes by doing something that will alter the flow of events. The Eternals are also troubled that beyond a certain point in the future they are blocked by unknown means from entering Time. These are the \"Hidden Centuries\". Beyond the Hidden Centuries they can emerge, but find the earth devoid of human life. A key plot element which emerges quickly as the story unfolds is the relatively static nature of the human societies in the various future centuries, and the repeated failure of space travel in all accessible centuries. We later learn that Laban Twissell (Harlan\u2019s superior and the leading figure on the governing Council) is from \"a Century in the 30,000s\", yet nothing much is different in that time. The protagonist is a Technician named Andrew Harlan, who finds himself involved in an ontological paradox orchestrated by his superiors. He is to secure the creation of Eternity by sending a young Eternal back in time with the mathematical knowledge to make it possible. To facilitate this Harlan's superiors in Eternity allow him to pursue"
      },
      {
        "text": " (Harlan\u2019s superior and the leading figure on the governing Council) is from \"a Century in the 30,000s\", yet nothing much is different in that time. The protagonist is a Technician named Andrew Harlan, who finds himself involved in an ontological paradox orchestrated by his superiors. He is to secure the creation of Eternity by sending a young Eternal back in time with the mathematical knowledge to make it possible. To facilitate this Harlan's superiors in Eternity allow him to pursue his study of \"prehistory\", which is history prior to the Eternity's creation that, because Eternity had not yet been created then, cannot be traveled to nor changed. This intellectual pursuit is largely frowned upon by the Eternals, especially Harlan's superiors, but it becomes apparent his expert knowledge on the subject will be vital to Eternity's creation. Harlan himself is in trouble with the leaders of Eternity. He has been entrapped by one of them into entering into a relationship with a non-Eternal woman, No\u00ffs Lambent. This was intended merely to prove a point about the effect of Eternity on the individuals from real time who learn of it, but it has the unintended consequence of making Harlan besotted with the woman, so much so that he smuggles her into Eternity, since he has discovered that she will cease to exist in real time when the Eternals make their next Reality Change. Harlan\u2019s whole scheme comes apart when it is revealed the leaders are fully aware of his activities. Normally the Eternals traverse from century to century within Eternity in a kind of temporal elevator called a kettle. A special version of the kettle has been built, however, for Harlan to dispatch a young Eternal, one Brinsley Sheridan Cooper, back to the 24th century, which lies \u201cbeyond the downwhen terminus\u201d accessible via Eternity and its kettle system. Cooper is carefully instructed that he is to teach the principles and"
      },
      {
        "text": " revealed the leaders are fully aware of his activities. Normally the Eternals traverse from century to century within Eternity in a kind of temporal elevator called a kettle. A special version of the kettle has been built, however, for Harlan to dispatch a young Eternal, one Brinsley Sheridan Cooper, back to the 24th century, which lies \u201cbeyond the downwhen terminus\u201d accessible via Eternity and its kettle system. Cooper is carefully instructed that he is to teach the principles and technology of time travel to its historic inventor, Vikkor Mallansohn, but unbeknownst to Cooper or Harlan, he will actually become Mallansohn himself. However Harlan, filled with malice after (erroneously) concluding that Twissell has trapped him and will deprive him of No\u00ffs, scrambles the time settings just as the special kettle departs. Cooper is trapped in the wrong time, so Eternity cannot be created. Unless something is done to change the past, Harlan\u2019s reality, and Eternity, will be erased from existence. Twissell reveals that he too had once improperly loved a woman in Time, and manages to persuade Harlan that he sympathizes. Calming down, Harlan tries to think of a way that Cooper, also adept in the concept of Reality Change, could send him a message to return and retrieve him. Harlan believes that the apparently random target setting he chose on the kettle was the 20th century, and it occurs to him that Cooper was interested in his collection of artifacts from that time, particularly magazines. Perhaps the trapped Cooper would have found a way of leaving his SOS message in one of them. This is where Asimov\u2019s mistaken \u201cmushroom cloud\u201d appears in the novel. Harlan comes upon an ad for stock tips\u2014All the Talk Of the Market, concealing the acrostic A-T-O-M, accompanying a drawing of a mushroom"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and it occurs to him that Cooper was interested in his collection of artifacts from that time, particularly magazines. Perhaps the trapped Cooper would have found a way of leaving his SOS message in one of them. This is where Asimov\u2019s mistaken \u201cmushroom cloud\u201d appears in the novel. Harlan comes upon an ad for stock tips\u2014All the Talk Of the Market, concealing the acrostic A-T-O-M, accompanying a drawing of a mushroom cloud. The year on the masthead of the preserved publication is 1932. Since this predates the first atomic explosion, it must be a coded message from someone from the future\u2014a reality change caused by Cooper. Before he reveals this discovery to the other Eternals, Harlan exacts a price, his lover is to be returned to him and both will go back to rescue Cooper. Once the couple arrive in 1932, Harlan reveals his last surprise. He has deduced that the woman, No\u00ffs Lambent, is herself an agent of Reality Change. She is from those centuries the Eternals cannot enter. She does not deny it. Instead she tells Harlan that her people, who prefer to watch past time rather than travel in it or change it, discovered that Eternity was, in choosing safety for humanity, suppressing creativity. In the end this has the effect of denying humanity's access to the stars, as alien species advance technologically and confine humanity to Earth. Eventually humanity will die out, millions of years in the future, leaving an empty Earth. However, if Eternity could be prevented from being created, humans would leave Earth and colonize the stars. Thus they cut themselves off from Eternity and began to plot its demise. It was not any specific Change but the very existence of any such organization as Eternity which had the deleterious effect, since when given the choice humanity would always choose safety. No\u00ffs Lambent reveals that in order to make"
      },
      {
        "text": " Eventually humanity will die out, millions of years in the future, leaving an empty Earth. However, if Eternity could be prevented from being created, humans would leave Earth and colonize the stars. Thus they cut themselves off from Eternity and began to plot its demise. It was not any specific Change but the very existence of any such organization as Eternity which had the deleterious effect, since when given the choice humanity would always choose safety. No\u00ffs Lambent reveals that in order to make Eternity improbable, Harlan needs only to decide to leave Cooper stranded in 1932. She also intends to send a carefully worded letter to Italy, causing a man (presumably Enrico Fermi) to \"begin experimenting with the neutronic bombardment of uranium\". This will start a chain of events which will lead to the first atom bomb in 1945. In the reality known up to that point, atomic power was discovered somewhat later (it is not explained when, but the 24th century had nuclear reactors, and no nuclear bombs were detonated until the 30th century). Acquiring the technology sooner, humanity will be diverted to focus more on the science of nucleonics and therefore develop interstellar space travel instead of time travel technology, and leading to a Galactic Empire instead of Eternity. Harlan at first intends to kill No\u00ffs and carry out his mission, but in comparing her story to that of the freakish and occasionally inhuman Eternals he has encountered, Harlan confirms his lingering suspicions that Eternity has been wrong for humanity. At the very moment he decides to help her, a Reality Change occurs and the 'kettle' linking them with Eternity vanishes into thin air.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " that Eternity has been wrong for humanity. At the very moment he decides to help her, a Reality Change occurs and the 'kettle' linking them with Eternity vanishes into thin air.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Newcomes",
    "author": "William Makepeace Thackeray",
    "published_date": "1855",
    "synopsis": " The novel tells the story of Colonel Thomas Newcome, a virtuous and upstanding character. It is equally the story of Colonel Newcome's son, Clive, who studies and travels for the purpose of becoming a painter, although the profession is frowned on by some of his relatives and acquaintances — notably Clive's snobbish, backstabbing cousin Barnes Newcome. Colonel Newcome goes out to India for decades, then returns to England where Clive meets his cousin Ethel. After years in England, the colonel returns to India for another several years and while he is there, Clive travels Europe and his love for Ethel waxes and wanes. Dozens of background characters appear, fade, and reappear. The colonel and Clive are only the central figures in The Newcomes, the action of which begins before the colonel's birth. Over several generations the Newcome family rises into wealth and respectability as bankers and begin to marry into the minor aristocracy. A theme that runs throughout the novel is the practice of marrying for money. Herein we find first use of the coined word \"capitalism\", as reference an economic system. Religion is another theme, particularly Methodism.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel tells the story of Colonel Thomas Newcome, a virtuous and upstanding character. It is equally the story of Colonel Newcome's son, Clive, who studies and travels for the purpose of becoming a painter, although the profession is frowned on by some of his relatives and acquaintances — notably Clive's snobbish, backstabbing cousin Barnes Newcome. Colonel Newcome goes out to India for decades, then returns to England where Clive meets his cousin Ethel. After years in England, the colonel returns to India for another several years and while he is there, Clive travels Europe and his love for Ethel waxes and wanes. Dozens of background characters appear, fade, and reappear. The colonel and Clive are only the central figures in The Newcomes, the action of which begins before the colonel's birth. Over several generations the Newcome family rises into wealth and respectability as bankers and begin to marry into the minor aristocracy. A theme that runs throughout the novel is the practice of marrying for money. Herein we find first use of the coined word \"capitalism\", as reference an economic system. Religion is another theme, particularly Methodism.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Little Dorrit",
    "author": "Charles Dickens",
    "published_date": "1857",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins in Marseilles \"thirty years ago\" (i.e. ca. 1826) with the notorious murderer Rigaud informing his cell mate that he has murdered his wife. There is also the character Arthur Clennam, who is returning to London to see his mother following the death of his father with whom he had lived for twenty years in China. As he died, his father had given Arthur a mysterious watch, murmuring, \"Your mother.\" Naturally Arthur had assumed that it was intended for Mrs Clennam, whom he and the world supposed to be his mother. Inside the watch casing was an old silk paper with the initials D N F (Do Not Forget) worked into it in beads. It was a message, but when Arthur shows it to harsh and implacable Mrs Clennam, a religious fanatic, she refuses to reveal what it means, and the two become estranged. In London, William Dorrit, imprisoned as a debtor, has been a resident of Marshalsea debtor's prison for so long that his three children \u2014 snobbish Fanny, idle Edward (known as Tip), and Amy (known as Little Dorrit) \u2014 have all grown up there, though they are free to pass in and out of the prison as they please. Amy is devoted to her father and through her sewing, has been financially supporting the two of them. Once in London, Arthur is reacquainted with his former fianc\u00e9e Flora Finching, who is now overweight and simpering. Arthur's mother, Mrs Clennam, although paralysed and a wheelchair user, still runs the family business with the help of her servant Jeremiah Flintwinch and his downtrodden wife Affery. When Arthur learns that Mrs Clennam has employed Little Dorrit as a seamstress, showing her unusual kindness, he wonders if the young girl might be connected with the mystery of the watch. Suspecting that his mother played a part in the misfortunes of the Dorrits, Arthur follows the girl to the Marshalsea. He vainly tries to inquire about William Dorrit's debt at the poorly run Circumlocution Office and acts as a benefactor to her father and brother. While at the Circumlocution Office, Arthur meets the struggling inventor Daniel Doyce, whom he decides to help by becoming his business partner. The grateful Little Dorrit falls in love with Arthur, much to the dismay of the son of the Marshalsea jailer, John Chivery, who has loved her since childhood; Arthur, however, fails to recognize Amy's interest. At last, aided by the indefatigable debt-collector Pancks, Arthur discovers that William Dorrit is the lost heir to a large fortune and he is finally able to pay his way out of prison. William Dorrit decides that as a now respectable family, they should go on a tour of Europe. They travel over the Alps and take up residence for a time in Venice, and finally in Rome, carrying, with the exception of Amy, an air of conceit at their new-found wealth. Eventually after a spell of delirium, Mr Dorrit dies in Rome, and his distraught brother Frederick, a kind-hearted musician, who has always stood by him, also passes away. Amy is left alone and returns to London to stay with newly married Fanny and her husband, the foppish Edmund Sparkler. The fraudulent dealings (similar to a Ponzi scheme) of Mr Merdle who is Edmund Sparkler's stepfather leads to the collapse of Merdle's bank after his suicide, taking with it the savings of both the Dorrits and Arthur Clennam, who is now himself imprisoned in the Marshalsea. While there, he is taken ill and is nursed back to health by Amy. The French villain Rigaud, now in London, discovers that Mrs Clennam has been hiding the fact that Arthur is not her real son, and Rigaud attempts to blackmail her. Arthur's biological mother was a beautiful young singer with whom his father had gone through a ceremony of sorts before being pressured by his wealthy uncle to marry the present Mrs Clennam. Mrs Clennam had agreed to bring up the child on condition that his mother never see him. Arthur's real mother died of grief at being separated from Arthur and Mr Clennam, but the wealthy uncle, stung by remorse, had left a bequest to Arthur's biological mother and to \"the youngest daughter of her patron\", a kindly musician who had taught and befriended her\u2014and who happened to be Amy Dorrit's paternal uncle, Frederick. As Frederick Dorrit had no daughter, the legacy goes to the youngest daughter of Frederick's younger brother, who is William Dorrit, Amy's father. Mrs Clennam has been suppressing her knowledge that Amy is the heiress to an enormous fortune and estate. Overcome by passion, Mrs Clennam rises from her chair and totters out of her house to reveal the secret to Amy and to beg her forgiveness, which the kind-hearted girl freely grants. Mrs Clennam then falls down in the street\u2014never to recover the use of her speech or limbs\u2014as the house of Clennam literally collapses before her eyes, killing Rigaud. Rather than hurt Arthur, Amy chooses not to reveal what she has learned, though this means that she misses her legacy. When Arthur's business partner Daniel Doyce returns from Russia a wealthy man, Arthur is released with his fortunes revived, and Arthur and Amy are married. Like many of Dickens novels, Little Dorrit contains numerous subplots. One subplot concerns Arthur Clennam's friends, the kindhearted Meagles. They are upset when their daughter Pet marries an artist called Gowan and when their servant and foster daughter Tattycoram is lured away from them to the sinister Miss Wade, an acquaintance of the criminal Rigaud. Miss Wade hates men, and it turns out she is the jilted sweetheart of Gowan. The character Little Dorrit (Amy) was inspired by Mary Ann Cooper (n\u00e9e Mitton): Charles Dickens sometimes visited her and her family; they lived in The Cedars, a house on Hatton Road west of London; its site is now under the east end of London Heathrow Airport.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins in Marseilles \"thirty years ago\" (i.e. ca. 1826) with the notorious murderer Rigaud informing his cell mate that he has murdered his wife. There is also the character Arthur Clennam, who is returning to London to see his mother following the death of his father with whom he had lived for twenty years in China. As he died, his father had given Arthur a mysterious watch, murmuring, \"Your mother.\" Naturally Arthur had assumed that it was intended for Mrs Clennam, whom he and the world supposed to be his mother. Inside the watch casing was an old silk paper with the initials D N F (Do Not Forget) worked into it in beads. It was a message, but when Arthur shows it to harsh and implacable Mrs Clennam, a religious fanatic, she refuses to reveal what it means, and the two become estranged. In London, William Dorrit, imprisoned as a debtor, has been a resident of Marshalsea debtor's prison for so long that his three children \u2014 snobbish Fanny, idle Edward (known as Tip), and Amy (known as Little Dorrit) \u2014 have all grown up there, though they are free to pass in and out of the prison as they please. Amy is devoted to her father and through her sewing, has been financially supporting the two of them. Once in London, Arthur is reacquainted with his former fianc\u00e9e Flora Finching, who is now overweight and simpering. Arthur's mother, Mrs Clennam, although paralysed and a wheelchair user, still runs the family business with the help of her servant Jeremiah Flintwinch and his downtrodden wife Affery. When Arthur learns that Mrs Clennam has employed Little Dorrit as a seamstress, showing her unusual kindness, he wonders if the young girl might be connected with the mystery of the watch. Suspecting that his mother played a part in the mis"
      },
      {
        "text": ", who is now overweight and simpering. Arthur's mother, Mrs Clennam, although paralysed and a wheelchair user, still runs the family business with the help of her servant Jeremiah Flintwinch and his downtrodden wife Affery. When Arthur learns that Mrs Clennam has employed Little Dorrit as a seamstress, showing her unusual kindness, he wonders if the young girl might be connected with the mystery of the watch. Suspecting that his mother played a part in the misfortunes of the Dorrits, Arthur follows the girl to the Marshalsea. He vainly tries to inquire about William Dorrit's debt at the poorly run Circumlocution Office and acts as a benefactor to her father and brother. While at the Circumlocution Office, Arthur meets the struggling inventor Daniel Doyce, whom he decides to help by becoming his business partner. The grateful Little Dorrit falls in love with Arthur, much to the dismay of the son of the Marshalsea jailer, John Chivery, who has loved her since childhood; Arthur, however, fails to recognize Amy's interest. At last, aided by the indefatigable debt-collector Pancks, Arthur discovers that William Dorrit is the lost heir to a large fortune and he is finally able to pay his way out of prison. William Dorrit decides that as a now respectable family, they should go on a tour of Europe. They travel over the Alps and take up residence for a time in Venice, and finally in Rome, carrying, with the exception of Amy, an air of conceit at their new-found wealth. Eventually after a spell of delirium, Mr Dorrit dies in Rome, and his distraught brother Frederick, a kind-hearted musician, who has always stood by him, also passes away. Amy is left alone and returns to London to stay with newly married Fanny and her husband, the foppish Edmund Sparkler."
      },
      {
        "text": " take up residence for a time in Venice, and finally in Rome, carrying, with the exception of Amy, an air of conceit at their new-found wealth. Eventually after a spell of delirium, Mr Dorrit dies in Rome, and his distraught brother Frederick, a kind-hearted musician, who has always stood by him, also passes away. Amy is left alone and returns to London to stay with newly married Fanny and her husband, the foppish Edmund Sparkler. The fraudulent dealings (similar to a Ponzi scheme) of Mr Merdle who is Edmund Sparkler's stepfather leads to the collapse of Merdle's bank after his suicide, taking with it the savings of both the Dorrits and Arthur Clennam, who is now himself imprisoned in the Marshalsea. While there, he is taken ill and is nursed back to health by Amy. The French villain Rigaud, now in London, discovers that Mrs Clennam has been hiding the fact that Arthur is not her real son, and Rigaud attempts to blackmail her. Arthur's biological mother was a beautiful young singer with whom his father had gone through a ceremony of sorts before being pressured by his wealthy uncle to marry the present Mrs Clennam. Mrs Clennam had agreed to bring up the child on condition that his mother never see him. Arthur's real mother died of grief at being separated from Arthur and Mr Clennam, but the wealthy uncle, stung by remorse, had left a bequest to Arthur's biological mother and to \"the youngest daughter of her patron\", a kindly musician who had taught and befriended her\u2014and who happened to be Amy Dorrit's paternal uncle, Frederick. As Frederick Dorrit had no daughter, the legacy goes to the youngest daughter of Frederick's younger brother, who is William Dorrit, Amy's father. Mrs Clennam has been suppressing her knowledge that Amy is the heiress to an enormous"
      },
      {
        "text": " stung by remorse, had left a bequest to Arthur's biological mother and to \"the youngest daughter of her patron\", a kindly musician who had taught and befriended her\u2014and who happened to be Amy Dorrit's paternal uncle, Frederick. As Frederick Dorrit had no daughter, the legacy goes to the youngest daughter of Frederick's younger brother, who is William Dorrit, Amy's father. Mrs Clennam has been suppressing her knowledge that Amy is the heiress to an enormous fortune and estate. Overcome by passion, Mrs Clennam rises from her chair and totters out of her house to reveal the secret to Amy and to beg her forgiveness, which the kind-hearted girl freely grants. Mrs Clennam then falls down in the street\u2014never to recover the use of her speech or limbs\u2014as the house of Clennam literally collapses before her eyes, killing Rigaud. Rather than hurt Arthur, Amy chooses not to reveal what she has learned, though this means that she misses her legacy. When Arthur's business partner Daniel Doyce returns from Russia a wealthy man, Arthur is released with his fortunes revived, and Arthur and Amy are married. Like many of Dickens novels, Little Dorrit contains numerous subplots. One subplot concerns Arthur Clennam's friends, the kindhearted Meagles. They are upset when their daughter Pet marries an artist called Gowan and when their servant and foster daughter Tattycoram is lured away from them to the sinister Miss Wade, an acquaintance of the criminal Rigaud. Miss Wade hates men, and it turns out she is the jilted sweetheart of Gowan. The character Little Dorrit (Amy) was inspired by Mary Ann Cooper (n\u00e9e Mitton): Charles Dickens sometimes visited her and her family; they lived in The Cedars, a house on Hatton Road west of London; its site is now under the east end of London Heathrow Airport.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " them to the sinister Miss Wade, an acquaintance of the criminal Rigaud. Miss Wade hates men, and it turns out she is the jilted sweetheart of Gowan. The character Little Dorrit (Amy) was inspired by Mary Ann Cooper (n\u00e9e Mitton): Charles Dickens sometimes visited her and her family; they lived in The Cedars, a house on Hatton Road west of London; its site is now under the east end of London Heathrow Airport.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Man Called Horse",
    "author": "Dorothy M. Johnson",
    "published_date": "1968",
    "synopsis": " The protagonist is a Boston aristocrat who is captured by a Native American tribe. Initially enslaved, he comes to respect his captors' culture and gains their respect. He joins the tribe by showing his bravery and, later, gets back his dignity by marrying his owner's daughter, killing rival Indians and taking their horses. Taking the native name \"Horse\" (he was treated as a horse), he becomes a respected member of the tribe. es:Un hombre llamado Caballo nl:A Man Called Horse\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The protagonist is a Boston aristocrat who is captured by a Native American tribe. Initially enslaved, he comes to respect his captors' culture and gains their respect. He joins the tribe by showing his bravery and, later, gets back his dignity by marrying his owner's daughter, killing rival Indians and taking their horses. Taking the native name \"Horse\" (he was treated as a horse), he becomes a respected member of the tribe. es:Un hombre llamado Caballo nl:A Man Called Horse\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Where Angels Fear to Tread",
    "author": "E. M. Forster",
    "published_date": "1905",
    "synopsis": " On a journey to Tuscany with her young friend and traveling companion Caroline Abbott, widowed Lilia Herriton falls in love with both Italy and Gino, a handsome Italian much younger than herself, and decides to stay. Furious, her dead husband's family send Lilia's brother-in-law Philip to Italy to prevent a misalliance, but he arrives too late. Lilia had already married the Italian and becomes pregnant again. While giving birth to her son, she dies. The Herritons send Philip again to Italy, this time to save the infant boy from an uncivilized life and to save the family's reputation. Not wanting to be outdone\u2014or considered any less moral or concerned than Caroline for the child's welfare\u2014Lilia's in-laws try to take the lead in traveling to Italy. In the public eye, they make it known that it is both their right and their duty to travel to Monteriano to obtain custody of the infant so that he can be raised as an Englishman. Secretly, though, they have no regard for the child; only public appearances. Similarly to A Room with a View, both Italy and its inhabitants are presented as exuding an irresistible charm, to which eventually Caroline Abbott also succumbs. However, there is a tragic ending to the novel: the accidental death of Lilia's child, which spurs a series of drastic changes within the story. Gino's physical outburst toward Philip in response to the news makes Philip realize what it is like to truly be alive. The guilt felt by Lilia's sister-in-law Harriet causes her to lose her mind. Finally, in Forster's novel, Philip realizes that he is in love with Caroline Abbott but that he can never have her, because she admits, dramatically, to being in love with Gino. The film by contrast, adds a positive ending to the story by hinting that Caroline's love for Gino may be just a passing fancy, with love between herself and Philip being possible. * Forster, E.M., Where Angels Fear to Tread, ed. by Oliver Stallybrass (London, 1975). * Winkgens, Meinhard, \u2019Die Funktionalisierung des Italienbildes in den Romanen \"Where Angels Fear to Tread\" von E.M. Forster und \"The Lost Girl\" von D.H. Lawrence\u2019, Arcadia, 21 (1986), 41-61..\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On a journey to Tuscany with her young friend and traveling companion Caroline Abbott, widowed Lilia Herriton falls in love with both Italy and Gino, a handsome Italian much younger than herself, and decides to stay. Furious, her dead husband's family send Lilia's brother-in-law Philip to Italy to prevent a misalliance, but he arrives too late. Lilia had already married the Italian and becomes pregnant again. While giving birth to her son, she dies. The Herritons send Philip again to Italy, this time to save the infant boy from an uncivilized life and to save the family's reputation. Not wanting to be outdone\u2014or considered any less moral or concerned than Caroline for the child's welfare\u2014Lilia's in-laws try to take the lead in traveling to Italy. In the public eye, they make it known that it is both their right and their duty to travel to Monteriano to obtain custody of the infant so that he can be raised as an Englishman. Secretly, though, they have no regard for the child; only public appearances. Similarly to A Room with a View, both Italy and its inhabitants are presented as exuding an irresistible charm, to which eventually Caroline Abbott also succumbs. However, there is a tragic ending to the novel: the accidental death of Lilia's child, which spurs a series of drastic changes within the story. Gino's physical outburst toward Philip in response to the news makes Philip realize what it is like to truly be alive. The guilt felt by Lilia's sister-in-law Harriet causes her to lose her mind. Finally, in Forster's novel, Philip realizes that he is in love with Caroline Abbott but that he can never have her, because she admits, dramatically, to being in love with Gino. The film by contrast, adds a positive ending to the story by hinting that Caroline's love for Gino may be just"
      },
      {
        "text": " to the news makes Philip realize what it is like to truly be alive. The guilt felt by Lilia's sister-in-law Harriet causes her to lose her mind. Finally, in Forster's novel, Philip realizes that he is in love with Caroline Abbott but that he can never have her, because she admits, dramatically, to being in love with Gino. The film by contrast, adds a positive ending to the story by hinting that Caroline's love for Gino may be just a passing fancy, with love between herself and Philip being possible. * Forster, E.M., Where Angels Fear to Tread, ed. by Oliver Stallybrass (London, 1975). * Winkgens, Meinhard, \u2019Die Funktionalisierung des Italienbildes in den Romanen \"Where Angels Fear to Tread\" von E.M. Forster und \"The Lost Girl\" von D.H. Lawrence\u2019, Arcadia, 21 (1986), 41-61..\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Shame",
    "author": "Salman Rushdie",
    "published_date": "1983-10-12",
    "synopsis": " This story takes place in a town called, \"Q\" which is actually a fictitious version of Pakistan. In \"Q\" the 3 sisters (Chunni, Munnee, and Bunny Shakil) simultaneously pretend to give birth to Omar Khayy\u00e1m Shakil. Therefore, it is impossible to know who Omar's true mother is. In addition, they are unsure of who Omar's father is as the three sisters got pregnant at a house party. While growing up, Omar becomes mischievous and learns hypnosis. As a birthday present, Omar Khayy\u00e1m Shakil's \"mothers\" allow him to leave \"Q.\" He enrolls in a school and is convinced by his tutor (Eduardo Rodriguez) to become a doctor. Over time, he comes in contact with both Iskander Harappa and General Raza Hyder.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " This story takes place in a town called, \"Q\" which is actually a fictitious version of Pakistan. In \"Q\" the 3 sisters (Chunni, Munnee, and Bunny Shakil) simultaneously pretend to give birth to Omar Khayy\u00e1m Shakil. Therefore, it is impossible to know who Omar's true mother is. In addition, they are unsure of who Omar's father is as the three sisters got pregnant at a house party. While growing up, Omar becomes mischievous and learns hypnosis. As a birthday present, Omar Khayy\u00e1m Shakil's \"mothers\" allow him to leave \"Q.\" He enrolls in a school and is convinced by his tutor (Eduardo Rodriguez) to become a doctor. Over time, he comes in contact with both Iskander Harappa and General Raza Hyder.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Trent's Last Case",
    "author": "E. C. Bentley",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Trent's Last Case is actually the first novel in which gentleman sleuth Philip Trent appears. The novel is a whodunit with a place in detective fiction history because it is the first major sendup of that genre: Not only does Trent fall in love with one of the primary suspects—usually considered a no-no—he also, after painstakingly collecting all the evidence, draws all the wrong conclusions. Convinced that he has tracked down the murderer of a business tycoon who was shot in his mansion, he is told by the real perpetrator over dinner what mistakes in logical deduction he has made in trying to solve the case. On hearing what really happened, Trent vows that he will never again attempt to dabble in crime detection.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Trent's Last Case is actually the first novel in which gentleman sleuth Philip Trent appears. The novel is a whodunit with a place in detective fiction history because it is the first major sendup of that genre: Not only does Trent fall in love with one of the primary suspects—usually considered a no-no—he also, after painstakingly collecting all the evidence, draws all the wrong conclusions. Convinced that he has tracked down the murderer of a business tycoon who was shot in his mansion, he is told by the real perpetrator over dinner what mistakes in logical deduction he has made in trying to solve the case. On hearing what really happened, Trent vows that he will never again attempt to dabble in crime detection.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Play",
    "author": "Samuel Beckett",
    "published_date": "1963",
    "synopsis": " The curtain rises on three identical grey funeral \u201curns\u201d, about three feet tall by preference, arranged in a row facing the audience. They contain three stock characters. In the middle urn is a man (M). To his right is his wife (W1) or long-time partner. The third urn holds his mistress (W2). Their \u201c[f]aces [are] so lost to age and aspect as to seem almost part of the urns.\u201d Beckett has used similar imagery before, Mahood\u2019s jar in The Unnameable, for example, or the dustbins occupied by Nell and Nagg in Endgame. At the beginning and end of the play, a spotlight picks out all three faces, and all three characters recite their own lines, in what Beckett terms a \"chorus\"; \u201cHe wrote each part separately, then interspersed them, working over the proper breaks in the speeches for a long time before he was satisfied.\u201d One character speaks at a time and only when a strong spotlight shines in his or her face. The style is reminiscent of Mouth\u2019s logorrhoea http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/logorrhea%20 in Not I, the obvious difference being that these characters constantly use first person pronouns. Clich\u00e9s and puns abound. While one is talking the other two are silent and in darkness. They neither acknowledge the existence of the others around them (M: \u201cTo think we were never together\u201d) nor appear aware of anything outside their own being and past (W2: \u201cAt the same time I prefer this to . . . the other thing. Definitely. There are endurable moments\u201d). Beckett writes that this spotlight \"provokes\" the character's speech, and insists that whenever possible, a single, swivelling light should be used, rather than separate lights switching on and off. In this manner the spotlight is \u201cexpressive of a unique inquisitor\u201d. Billie Whitelaw referred to it as \u201can instrument of torture.\u201d The spotlight is in effect the play\u2019s fourth character. In an almost fugal style the three obsess over the affair. Each presents his or her own version of the truth told in the past tense and each from his or her respective points of view. It is one of Beckett\u2019s most \u2018musical\u2019 pieces with \u201ca chorus for three voices, orchestration, stage directions concerning tempo, volume and tone, a da capo repeat of the entire action\u201d and a short coda. Towards the end of the script, there is the concise instruction: \"Repeat play.\" Beckett elaborates on this in the notes, by saying that the repeat might be varied. \u201c[I]n the London production, variations were introduced: a weakening of light and voices in the first repeat, and more so in the second; an abridged second opening; increasing breathlessness; changes in the order of the opening words.\u201d At the end of this second repeat, the play appears as if it is about to start again for a third time (as in Act Without Words II), but does not get more than a few seconds into it before it suddenly stops. \u201cThe affair was unexceptional. From the moment when the man tried to escape his tired marriage and odious professional commitments by taking a mistress, [events took a predictable enough course:] the wife soon began to \u2018smell her off him\u2019; there were painful recriminations when the wife accused the man, hired a private detective, threatened to kill herself, and confronted the mistress in an old rambling house reminiscent of Watt (and where the servant again is \u2018Erskine\u2019) \u2026 The man renounced the mistress, was forgiven by his wife who \u2018suggested a little jaunt to celebrate, to the Riviera or \u2026 Grand Canary,\u2019 and then, [true to form], returned to the mistress, this time to elope with her. [In time] their relationship too became jaded, and the man\u201d abandons her as well. According to Knowlson and John Pilling in Frescoes of the Skull: the later prose and drama of Samuel Beckett, \u201c[T]he three figures in Play \u2026 are not three-dimensional characters. Any attempt to analyse them as if they were would be absurd. The stereotype predominates \u2026 [They] belong \u2026 to the artificial world of melodrama and romance embodied in romanticized fiction.\u201d\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The curtain rises on three identical grey funeral \u201curns\u201d, about three feet tall by preference, arranged in a row facing the audience. They contain three stock characters. In the middle urn is a man (M). To his right is his wife (W1) or long-time partner. The third urn holds his mistress (W2). Their \u201c[f]aces [are] so lost to age and aspect as to seem almost part of the urns.\u201d Beckett has used similar imagery before, Mahood\u2019s jar in The Unnameable, for example, or the dustbins occupied by Nell and Nagg in Endgame. At the beginning and end of the play, a spotlight picks out all three faces, and all three characters recite their own lines, in what Beckett terms a \"chorus\"; \u201cHe wrote each part separately, then interspersed them, working over the proper breaks in the speeches for a long time before he was satisfied.\u201d One character speaks at a time and only when a strong spotlight shines in his or her face. The style is reminiscent of Mouth\u2019s logorrhoea http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/logorrhea%20 in Not I, the obvious difference being that these characters constantly use first person pronouns. Clich\u00e9s and puns abound. While one is talking the other two are silent and in darkness. They neither acknowledge the existence of the others around them (M: \u201cTo think we were never together\u201d) nor appear aware of anything outside their own being and past (W2: \u201cAt the same time I prefer this to . . . the other thing. Definitely. There are endurable moments\u201d). Beckett writes that this spotlight \"provokes\" the character's speech, and insists that whenever possible, a single, swivelling light should be used, rather than separate"
      },
      {
        "text": " neither acknowledge the existence of the others around them (M: \u201cTo think we were never together\u201d) nor appear aware of anything outside their own being and past (W2: \u201cAt the same time I prefer this to . . . the other thing. Definitely. There are endurable moments\u201d). Beckett writes that this spotlight \"provokes\" the character's speech, and insists that whenever possible, a single, swivelling light should be used, rather than separate lights switching on and off. In this manner the spotlight is \u201cexpressive of a unique inquisitor\u201d. Billie Whitelaw referred to it as \u201can instrument of torture.\u201d The spotlight is in effect the play\u2019s fourth character. In an almost fugal style the three obsess over the affair. Each presents his or her own version of the truth told in the past tense and each from his or her respective points of view. It is one of Beckett\u2019s most \u2018musical\u2019 pieces with \u201ca chorus for three voices, orchestration, stage directions concerning tempo, volume and tone, a da capo repeat of the entire action\u201d and a short coda. Towards the end of the script, there is the concise instruction: \"Repeat play.\" Beckett elaborates on this in the notes, by saying that the repeat might be varied. \u201c[I]n the London production, variations were introduced: a weakening of light and voices in the first repeat, and more so in the second; an abridged second opening; increasing breathlessness; changes in the order of the opening words.\u201d At the end of this second repeat, the play appears as if it is about to start again for a third time (as in Act Without Words II), but does not get more than a few seconds into it before it suddenly stops. \u201cThe affair was unexceptional. From the moment when"
      },
      {
        "text": " a weakening of light and voices in the first repeat, and more so in the second; an abridged second opening; increasing breathlessness; changes in the order of the opening words.\u201d At the end of this second repeat, the play appears as if it is about to start again for a third time (as in Act Without Words II), but does not get more than a few seconds into it before it suddenly stops. \u201cThe affair was unexceptional. From the moment when the man tried to escape his tired marriage and odious professional commitments by taking a mistress, [events took a predictable enough course:] the wife soon began to \u2018smell her off him\u2019; there were painful recriminations when the wife accused the man, hired a private detective, threatened to kill herself, and confronted the mistress in an old rambling house reminiscent of Watt (and where the servant again is \u2018Erskine\u2019) \u2026 The man renounced the mistress, was forgiven by his wife who \u2018suggested a little jaunt to celebrate, to the Riviera or \u2026 Grand Canary,\u2019 and then, [true to form], returned to the mistress, this time to elope with her. [In time] their relationship too became jaded, and the man\u201d abandons her as well. According to Knowlson and John Pilling in Frescoes of the Skull: the later prose and drama of Samuel Beckett, \u201c[T]he three figures in Play \u2026 are not three-dimensional characters. Any attempt to analyse them as if they were would be absurd. The stereotype predominates \u2026 [They] belong \u2026 to the artificial world of melodrama and romance embodied in romanticized fiction.\u201d\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " \u201c[T]he three figures in Play \u2026 are not three-dimensional characters. Any attempt to analyse them as if they were would be absurd. The stereotype predominates \u2026 [They] belong \u2026 to the artificial world of melodrama and romance embodied in romanticized fiction.\u201d\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Waverley",
    "author": "Walter Scott",
    "published_date": "1814",
    "synopsis": " The eponymous English protagonist, Edward Waverley, has been brought up in the family home by his uncle, Sir Everard Waverley, who maintains the family Tory and Jacobite sympathies, while Edward's Whig father works for the Hanoverian government in nearby London. Edward Waverley is given a commission in the Hanoverian army and is posted to Dundee, then promptly takes leave to visit Baron Bradwardine, a Jacobite friend of his uncle, and meets the Baron's lovely daughter Rose. When wild Highlanders visit the Baron's castle Waverley is intrigued and goes to the mountain lair of Clan Mac-Ivor, meeting the Chieftain Fergus and his sister Flora who turn out to be active Jacobites preparing for the '45 Rising. Waverley has overstayed his leave and is accused of desertion and treason, then arrested. Highlanders rescue him from his escort and take him to the Jacobite stronghold at Doune castle then on to Holyrood Palace where he meets Bonnie Prince Charlie himself. Encouraged by the beautiful Flora Mac-Ivor, Waverley goes over to the Jacobites and takes part in the Battle of Prestonpans, where he saves the life of a colonel who turns out to be a close friend of his uncle. Thus he escapes retribution and marries the Baron's daughter, Rose Bradwardine.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The eponymous English protagonist, Edward Waverley, has been brought up in the family home by his uncle, Sir Everard Waverley, who maintains the family Tory and Jacobite sympathies, while Edward's Whig father works for the Hanoverian government in nearby London. Edward Waverley is given a commission in the Hanoverian army and is posted to Dundee, then promptly takes leave to visit Baron Bradwardine, a Jacobite friend of his uncle, and meets the Baron's lovely daughter Rose. When wild Highlanders visit the Baron's castle Waverley is intrigued and goes to the mountain lair of Clan Mac-Ivor, meeting the Chieftain Fergus and his sister Flora who turn out to be active Jacobites preparing for the '45 Rising. Waverley has overstayed his leave and is accused of desertion and treason, then arrested. Highlanders rescue him from his escort and take him to the Jacobite stronghold at Doune castle then on to Holyrood Palace where he meets Bonnie Prince Charlie himself. Encouraged by the beautiful Flora Mac-Ivor, Waverley goes over to the Jacobites and takes part in the Battle of Prestonpans, where he saves the life of a colonel who turns out to be a close friend of his uncle. Thus he escapes retribution and marries the Baron's daughter, Rose Bradwardine.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Vampire Lestat",
    "author": "Anne Rice",
    "published_date": "1985",
    "synopsis": " Set in the late 18th century to the late 1980s, the story follows the 200-year-long life of the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, and his rise from humble beginnings as an impoverished aristocrat in the countryside of France to the city of Paris to become a vain and arrogant vampire. After escaping his family and running off to Paris with his friend and confidante Nicolas de Lenfent (nicknamed Nicki by Lestat), Lestat is kidnapped and bitten by the rogue elder vampire Magnus, who orphans him on the night he is made. Later, his dying mother, Gabrielle, arrives to say goodbye to him. In order to save her, Lestat bites her, transforming her into his first companion. Lestat abandons Nicki for fear of causing him harm and shuns contact with his loved ones. He later turns Nicki into a vampire after Armand kidnaps him and they begin to grow apart because of Nicki's sullenness; he later commits suicide by \"going into the fire,\" from severe depression. Armand \"shows\" Lestat the history of how he was made by Marius. Compelled by the idea of Marius, Lestat leaves markings carved into rock in numerous places while traveling with Gabrielle, hoping that one day, Marius will see them and find Lestat. Whilst in Egypt, abandoned by Gabrielle, Lestat sleeps in the ground after being burned by the sun,and is recovered by Marius who takes him to his Mediterranean island. Then, Marius shares his past with him, and shows him Those Who Must Be Kept, Akasha and Enkil. Once Marius has given his warning to Lestat not to go see them again and leaves on a short outing, Lestat takes Nicolas's old violin and plays for the King and Queen, awakening them. Akasha feeds from Lestat as Lestat feeds from her. Then, Enkil, furious as ever, nearly kills Lestat, who is saved by Marius, and sent away. The book ends on a cliffhanger after Lestat's debut concert in San Francisco, and leads directly into the third volume, the Queen of the Damned.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set in the late 18th century to the late 1980s, the story follows the 200-year-long life of the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, and his rise from humble beginnings as an impoverished aristocrat in the countryside of France to the city of Paris to become a vain and arrogant vampire. After escaping his family and running off to Paris with his friend and confidante Nicolas de Lenfent (nicknamed Nicki by Lestat), Lestat is kidnapped and bitten by the rogue elder vampire Magnus, who orphans him on the night he is made. Later, his dying mother, Gabrielle, arrives to say goodbye to him. In order to save her, Lestat bites her, transforming her into his first companion. Lestat abandons Nicki for fear of causing him harm and shuns contact with his loved ones. He later turns Nicki into a vampire after Armand kidnaps him and they begin to grow apart because of Nicki's sullenness; he later commits suicide by \"going into the fire,\" from severe depression. Armand \"shows\" Lestat the history of how he was made by Marius. Compelled by the idea of Marius, Lestat leaves markings carved into rock in numerous places while traveling with Gabrielle, hoping that one day, Marius will see them and find Lestat. Whilst in Egypt, abandoned by Gabrielle, Lestat sleeps in the ground after being burned by the sun,and is recovered by Marius who takes him to his Mediterranean island. Then, Marius shares his past with him, and shows him Those Who Must Be Kept, Akasha and Enkil. Once Marius has given his warning to Lestat not to go see them again and leaves on a short outing, Lestat takes Nicolas's old violin and plays for the King and Queen, awakening them. Akasha feeds from Lestat as Lestat feeds from her"
      },
      {
        "text": " the sun,and is recovered by Marius who takes him to his Mediterranean island. Then, Marius shares his past with him, and shows him Those Who Must Be Kept, Akasha and Enkil. Once Marius has given his warning to Lestat not to go see them again and leaves on a short outing, Lestat takes Nicolas's old violin and plays for the King and Queen, awakening them. Akasha feeds from Lestat as Lestat feeds from her. Then, Enkil, furious as ever, nearly kills Lestat, who is saved by Marius, and sent away. The book ends on a cliffhanger after Lestat's debut concert in San Francisco, and leads directly into the third volume, the Queen of the Damned.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Tale of the Body Thief",
    "author": "Anne Rice",
    "published_date": "1992",
    "synopsis": " At the beginning of the story, Lestat grows depressed and becomes remorseful because of his vampiric nature. Although he tries to limit his victims to murderers, serial killers and other criminals, he nonetheless caves into temptation once in a while and kills an \"innocent\" or someone who he feels does not necessarily deserve to die. Lestat also suffers from constant nightmares concerning his late \"daughter,\" Claudia, for whose death he blames himself. The \"coven\" of vampires formed at the end of The Queen of the Damned has long since broken up, and Lestat has become extremely lonely. Among his only remaining friends is the mortal head of the Talamasca Caste, David Talbot, who is seventy-four years old. Although Lestat has repeatedly offered David the Dark Gift, David has always refused to become a vampire and keep Lestat company through eternity. Lonely and depressed, Lestat goes to the Gobi desert at dawn in a half-hearted suicide attempt. When he does not die, he goes to David's home in England to heal. A mysterious figure, Raglan James - the eponymous \"Body Thief\" of the story - approaches Lestat with what seems to be a cure for his ennui and depression. James sends Lestat several messages hinting that he has the ability to switch bodies. Eventually, he proposes to Lestat that the two of them trade bodies for a day. Against the advice of other vampires and David Talbot, Lestat jumps at the opportunity. Unfortunately, James has no intention of ever switching back, and Lestat is forced to scheme to regain his body. Lestat nearly dies after becoming human again - his new body is wracked by pneumonia, which he ignores during a tour of Washington D.C. in the middle of winter. He is saved by the care of a nun named Gretchen. He enjoys a short love affair with Gretchen before she returns to South America, where she works in a convent, and Lestat sets out in search of his body. Lestat seeks help from other vampires but is completely ostracized by them. Marius is extremely angry at him for leaving such a powerful body to a thief and refuses to help him. Likewise Louis turns him away when he asks Louis to make his new body into a vampire, arguing that Lestat ought to be happy to be human again and also calls him out on his previous writings, accusing him of altering his actual past in favor of one that portrays him heroically. Lestat's only ally is David Talbot. Drawing from the Talamasca's resources on the supernatural, Talbot reveals that James was a gifted psychic who once joined the order, but was kicked out for constant theft. He is a kleptomaniac who enjoys stealing for the thrill of it — it is revealed that every single thing he owns, from his house to his body, was stolen or schemed for. However, he also has major psychological problems, and his life is a series of cycles — he gets rich by theft, then often ends up in prison. Dying of cancer several years before, James tricked the inmate of a mental institution into switching bodies with him, allowing him a type of immortality. It is James' lack of imagination and petty thievery that allow Talbot and Lestat to track him down. Despite his newfound wealth and powerful new body, James continues to steal jewelry from people. He also makes a conspicuous show of his wealth, boarding the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, and draining victims of their blood along the ship's path. The pattern allows his pursuers to easily find him. On the cruise ship, Lestat manages to regain his body with David's help, but the sun is rising as he performs the switch and he must immediately flee to a safe place in which to spend the day. When he awakes in the evening he finds that both James and Talbot have disappeared. Lestat finds David in Florida and is surprised to find that his friend, despite his earlier protestations, now wants to become a vampire. However, while taking his blood, Lestat discovers a final trick — when forced out of Lestat's body, James took over Talbot's body instead of returning to his own. Lestat angrily attacks James, crushing his skull. The blow proves fatal - the injury damages James' brain and prevents him from leaving the dying body or trying to switch bodies before his current one dies. At this point, Tale of the Body Thief reaches a false ending. Raglan James is dead. David has begun to enjoy life in his new, young body. Lestat returns to New Orleans, reunites with Louis, and begins to renovate his old house in the French Quarter. Above all, Lestat claims that he has finally come to accept his vampiric nature. However, Lestat then warns readers not to continue if they are happy with this ending. Lestat then resumes the narrative, claiming that he has regained his \"evil\" nature, and decides to make Talbot into a vampire against his wishes, and despite the role Talbot played in saving his life when everyone else abandoned him. After having immortality forced upon him, David again disappears. Lestat looks for him for a while, but upon having no luck he gives up and returns to New Orleans — where to his surprise he finds that David has already contacted Louis. David explains to Lestat that, in secret, this is what he always truly wanted. He tells Lestat that he is no longer angry with him, although he does usurp Lestat's position of leadership, despite the latters' protests. Having gotten rid of his old age, and now being immortal, David plans to visit Rio de Janeiro with Louis, and asks Lestat to join him. At the end, Lestat also realizes that, despite all that happened, he is still alone, has failed to regain his \"humanity,\" and has thrown away his only chance to make amends for his past misdeeds.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At the beginning of the story, Lestat grows depressed and becomes remorseful because of his vampiric nature. Although he tries to limit his victims to murderers, serial killers and other criminals, he nonetheless caves into temptation once in a while and kills an \"innocent\" or someone who he feels does not necessarily deserve to die. Lestat also suffers from constant nightmares concerning his late \"daughter,\" Claudia, for whose death he blames himself. The \"coven\" of vampires formed at the end of The Queen of the Damned has long since broken up, and Lestat has become extremely lonely. Among his only remaining friends is the mortal head of the Talamasca Caste, David Talbot, who is seventy-four years old. Although Lestat has repeatedly offered David the Dark Gift, David has always refused to become a vampire and keep Lestat company through eternity. Lonely and depressed, Lestat goes to the Gobi desert at dawn in a half-hearted suicide attempt. When he does not die, he goes to David's home in England to heal. A mysterious figure, Raglan James - the eponymous \"Body Thief\" of the story - approaches Lestat with what seems to be a cure for his ennui and depression. James sends Lestat several messages hinting that he has the ability to switch bodies. Eventually, he proposes to Lestat that the two of them trade bodies for a day. Against the advice of other vampires and David Talbot, Lestat jumps at the opportunity. Unfortunately, James has no intention of ever switching back, and Lestat is forced to scheme to regain his body. Lestat nearly dies after becoming human again - his new body is wracked by pneumonia, which he ignores during a tour of Washington D.C. in the middle of winter. He is saved by the care of a nun named Gretchen. He enjoys a short love affair with Gretchen"
      },
      {
        "text": " advice of other vampires and David Talbot, Lestat jumps at the opportunity. Unfortunately, James has no intention of ever switching back, and Lestat is forced to scheme to regain his body. Lestat nearly dies after becoming human again - his new body is wracked by pneumonia, which he ignores during a tour of Washington D.C. in the middle of winter. He is saved by the care of a nun named Gretchen. He enjoys a short love affair with Gretchen before she returns to South America, where she works in a convent, and Lestat sets out in search of his body. Lestat seeks help from other vampires but is completely ostracized by them. Marius is extremely angry at him for leaving such a powerful body to a thief and refuses to help him. Likewise Louis turns him away when he asks Louis to make his new body into a vampire, arguing that Lestat ought to be happy to be human again and also calls him out on his previous writings, accusing him of altering his actual past in favor of one that portrays him heroically. Lestat's only ally is David Talbot. Drawing from the Talamasca's resources on the supernatural, Talbot reveals that James was a gifted psychic who once joined the order, but was kicked out for constant theft. He is a kleptomaniac who enjoys stealing for the thrill of it — it is revealed that every single thing he owns, from his house to his body, was stolen or schemed for. However, he also has major psychological problems, and his life is a series of cycles — he gets rich by theft, then often ends up in prison. Dying of cancer several years before, James tricked the inmate of a mental institution into switching bodies with him, allowing him a type of immortality. It is James' lack of imagination and petty thievery that allow Talbot and Lestat to track him down"
      },
      {
        "text": " from his house to his body, was stolen or schemed for. However, he also has major psychological problems, and his life is a series of cycles — he gets rich by theft, then often ends up in prison. Dying of cancer several years before, James tricked the inmate of a mental institution into switching bodies with him, allowing him a type of immortality. It is James' lack of imagination and petty thievery that allow Talbot and Lestat to track him down. Despite his newfound wealth and powerful new body, James continues to steal jewelry from people. He also makes a conspicuous show of his wealth, boarding the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, and draining victims of their blood along the ship's path. The pattern allows his pursuers to easily find him. On the cruise ship, Lestat manages to regain his body with David's help, but the sun is rising as he performs the switch and he must immediately flee to a safe place in which to spend the day. When he awakes in the evening he finds that both James and Talbot have disappeared. Lestat finds David in Florida and is surprised to find that his friend, despite his earlier protestations, now wants to become a vampire. However, while taking his blood, Lestat discovers a final trick — when forced out of Lestat's body, James took over Talbot's body instead of returning to his own. Lestat angrily attacks James, crushing his skull. The blow proves fatal - the injury damages James' brain and prevents him from leaving the dying body or trying to switch bodies before his current one dies. At this point, Tale of the Body Thief reaches a false ending. Raglan James is dead. David has begun to enjoy life in his new, young body. Lestat returns to New Orleans, reunites with Louis, and begins to renovate his old house in the French Quarter. Above all, Lestat claims that"
      },
      {
        "text": " his skull. The blow proves fatal - the injury damages James' brain and prevents him from leaving the dying body or trying to switch bodies before his current one dies. At this point, Tale of the Body Thief reaches a false ending. Raglan James is dead. David has begun to enjoy life in his new, young body. Lestat returns to New Orleans, reunites with Louis, and begins to renovate his old house in the French Quarter. Above all, Lestat claims that he has finally come to accept his vampiric nature. However, Lestat then warns readers not to continue if they are happy with this ending. Lestat then resumes the narrative, claiming that he has regained his \"evil\" nature, and decides to make Talbot into a vampire against his wishes, and despite the role Talbot played in saving his life when everyone else abandoned him. After having immortality forced upon him, David again disappears. Lestat looks for him for a while, but upon having no luck he gives up and returns to New Orleans — where to his surprise he finds that David has already contacted Louis. David explains to Lestat that, in secret, this is what he always truly wanted. He tells Lestat that he is no longer angry with him, although he does usurp Lestat's position of leadership, despite the latters' protests. Having gotten rid of his old age, and now being immortal, David plans to visit Rio de Janeiro with Louis, and asks Lestat to join him. At the end, Lestat also realizes that, despite all that happened, he is still alone, has failed to regain his \"humanity,\" and has thrown away his only chance to make amends for his past misdeeds.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " to visit Rio de Janeiro with Louis, and asks Lestat to join him. At the end, Lestat also realizes that, despite all that happened, he is still alone, has failed to regain his \"humanity,\" and has thrown away his only chance to make amends for his past misdeeds.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Memnoch the Devil",
    "author": "Anne Rice",
    "published_date": "1995-07-03",
    "synopsis": " After stalking and killing Roger, a ruthless but enthrallingly passionate mobster, Lestat is approached by Roger's ghost. Roger's ghost asks him to take care of his daughter Dora, a devout and popular television evangelist, whom he wants to spare from embarrassment. At the same time, Lestat has become increasingly paranoid that he's being stalked by a powerful force. Eventually, Lestat meets the Devil, who calls himself Memnoch. He takes Lestat on a whirlwind tour of Heaven, Hell and retells of the entirety of history from his own point of view in an effort to convince Lestat to join him as God's adversary. In his journey, Memnoch claims he is not evil, but merely working for God by ushering lost souls into Heaven. Lestat is left in confusion, unable to decide whether or not to cast his lot with the Devil. After the tour, Lestat believes himself to have had a major revelation. Among other things, he believes that he has seen Christ's crucifixion and that he has received Saint Veronica's Veil. He has also lost an eye in Hell. He tells his story to Armand, David Talbot and Dora, who have joined him in New York. Dora and Armand are deeply moved upon seeing the veil. Dora takes it and reveals it to the world, triggering a religious movement. Armand goes into the sunlight and immolates himself in order to convince people that a miracle has occurred. At the end of the novel, Lestat and David go to New Orleans. There, Maharet returns Lestat's eye to him, along with a note from Memnoch that reveals Memnoch may have been manipulating Lestat to serve his own agenda. Lestat then loses control of himself and Maharet is forced to chain him in the basement of the St. Elizabeth's convent, which is owned by the vampires, so that he will not hurt himself or others. Although the novel fits into the storyline of The Vampire Chronicles, the vast majority of it consists of Memnoch's account of cosmology and theology. The novel follows up on claims made by David Talbot in The Tale of the Body Thief that God and the Devil are on better terms than most Christians believe. It also reinterprets biblical stories to create a complete history of Earth, Heaven and Hell that fit neatly with the history of vampires given in The Queen of the Damned.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After stalking and killing Roger, a ruthless but enthrallingly passionate mobster, Lestat is approached by Roger's ghost. Roger's ghost asks him to take care of his daughter Dora, a devout and popular television evangelist, whom he wants to spare from embarrassment. At the same time, Lestat has become increasingly paranoid that he's being stalked by a powerful force. Eventually, Lestat meets the Devil, who calls himself Memnoch. He takes Lestat on a whirlwind tour of Heaven, Hell and retells of the entirety of history from his own point of view in an effort to convince Lestat to join him as God's adversary. In his journey, Memnoch claims he is not evil, but merely working for God by ushering lost souls into Heaven. Lestat is left in confusion, unable to decide whether or not to cast his lot with the Devil. After the tour, Lestat believes himself to have had a major revelation. Among other things, he believes that he has seen Christ's crucifixion and that he has received Saint Veronica's Veil. He has also lost an eye in Hell. He tells his story to Armand, David Talbot and Dora, who have joined him in New York. Dora and Armand are deeply moved upon seeing the veil. Dora takes it and reveals it to the world, triggering a religious movement. Armand goes into the sunlight and immolates himself in order to convince people that a miracle has occurred. At the end of the novel, Lestat and David go to New Orleans. There, Maharet returns Lestat's eye to him, along with a note from Memnoch that reveals Memnoch may have been manipulating Lestat to serve his own agenda. Lestat then loses control of himself and Maharet is forced to chain him in the basement of the St. Elizabeth's convent, which is owned by the vampires"
      },
      {
        "text": " in order to convince people that a miracle has occurred. At the end of the novel, Lestat and David go to New Orleans. There, Maharet returns Lestat's eye to him, along with a note from Memnoch that reveals Memnoch may have been manipulating Lestat to serve his own agenda. Lestat then loses control of himself and Maharet is forced to chain him in the basement of the St. Elizabeth's convent, which is owned by the vampires, so that he will not hurt himself or others. Although the novel fits into the storyline of The Vampire Chronicles, the vast majority of it consists of Memnoch's account of cosmology and theology. The novel follows up on claims made by David Talbot in The Tale of the Body Thief that God and the Devil are on better terms than most Christians believe. It also reinterprets biblical stories to create a complete history of Earth, Heaven and Hell that fit neatly with the history of vampires given in The Queen of the Damned.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe",
    "author": "Daniel Defoe",
    "published_date": "1719",
    "synopsis": " The book starts with the statement about Crusoe's marriage in England. He bought a little farm in Bedford and had three children: two sons and one daughter. Our hero suffered a distemper and a desire to see \"his island.\" He could talk of nothing else, and one can imagine that no one took his stories seriously, except his wife. She told him, in tears, \"I will go with you, but I won't leave you.\" But in the middle of this felicity, Providence unhinged him at once, with the loss of his wife. At the beginning of 1693, Crusoe made his nephew the commander of a ship. Around the beginning of January 1694, Crusoe and Friday went on board this ship in the Downs on the 8th, then arrived at Crusoe's Island via Ireland. They discovered that the English mutineers left on the island by Crusoe a decade earlier had been making trouble, but that when the island fell under attack by cannibals the various parties on the island were forced to work together under truce to meet the threat. Crusoe takes various steps to consolidate leadership on the island and assure the civility of the inhabitants, including leaving a quantity of needed supplies, setting up a sort of rule of law under an honour system and ensuring cohabitating couples are married. He also leaves additional residents with necessary skills. On the way to the mainland once again from Crusoe's island, the ship is attacked by the cannibals. Friday dies from three arrow shots during an attempt to negotiate, but the crew eventually wins the encounter without further serious casualty. After having buried Friday in the ocean, the same evening they set sail for Brazil. They stayed for a long period there, then went directly over to the Cape of Good Hope. They landed on Madagascar where their nine men were pursued by three hundred natives, because one of his mariners had carried off a young native girl among the trees. The natives hanged this person, so the crew massacred 32 persons and burned the houses of the native town. Crusoe opposed all these, therefore he was marooned, and settled at the Bay of Bengal for a long time. Finally, he bought a ship that later turned out to be stolen. Therefore they went to the river of Cambodia and Cochin-China or the bay of Tonquin, until they came to the latitude of 22 degrees and 30 minutes, and anchored at the island of Formosa (Taiwan). Then they arrived to the coast of China. They visited Nanking near the river of Kilam, and sailed southwards to a port called Quinchang. An old Portuguese pilot suggested them to go to Ningpo by the mouth of a river. This Ningpo was a canal that passed through the heart of that vast empire of China, crossed all the rivers and some hills by the help of sluices and gates, and went up to Peking, being near 270 leagues long. So they did, then it was the beginning of February, in the Old Style calendar, when they set out from Peking. Then they travelled through the following places: Changu, Naum (or Naun, a fortified city), Argun(a) on the Chinese-Russian border (April 13, 1703). Argun was the first town on the Russian border, then they went through Nertzinskoi (Nerchinsk), Plotbus, touched a lake called Schaks Ozer, Jerawena, the river Udda, Yeniseysk, and Tobolsk (from September 1703 to beginning of June 1704). They arrived into Europe around the source of the river Wirtska, south of the river Petrou, to a village called Kermazinskoy near Soloy Kamskoy (Solikamsk). They passed a little river called Kirtza, near Ozomoys (or Gzomoys), came to Veuslima (?) on the river Witzogda (Vychegda), running into the Dwina, then they stayed in Lawrenskoy (July 3\u20137, 1704; possibly Yarensk, known as Yerenskoy Gorodok at that time). Finally Crusoe arrived at the White Sea port town Arch-Angel (Archangelsk) on August 18, sailed into Hamburg (September 18), and Hague. He arrived at London on 10 January 1705, having been gone from England ten years and nine months.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book starts with the statement about Crusoe's marriage in England. He bought a little farm in Bedford and had three children: two sons and one daughter. Our hero suffered a distemper and a desire to see \"his island.\" He could talk of nothing else, and one can imagine that no one took his stories seriously, except his wife. She told him, in tears, \"I will go with you, but I won't leave you.\" But in the middle of this felicity, Providence unhinged him at once, with the loss of his wife. At the beginning of 1693, Crusoe made his nephew the commander of a ship. Around the beginning of January 1694, Crusoe and Friday went on board this ship in the Downs on the 8th, then arrived at Crusoe's Island via Ireland. They discovered that the English mutineers left on the island by Crusoe a decade earlier had been making trouble, but that when the island fell under attack by cannibals the various parties on the island were forced to work together under truce to meet the threat. Crusoe takes various steps to consolidate leadership on the island and assure the civility of the inhabitants, including leaving a quantity of needed supplies, setting up a sort of rule of law under an honour system and ensuring cohabitating couples are married. He also leaves additional residents with necessary skills. On the way to the mainland once again from Crusoe's island, the ship is attacked by the cannibals. Friday dies from three arrow shots during an attempt to negotiate, but the crew eventually wins the encounter without further serious casualty. After having buried Friday in the ocean, the same evening they set sail for Brazil. They stayed for a long period there, then went directly over to the Cape of Good Hope. They landed on Madagascar where their nine men were pursued by three hundred natives, because one of his mariners had carried off a young native girl among the trees. The natives hanged this"
      },
      {
        "text": " cannibals. Friday dies from three arrow shots during an attempt to negotiate, but the crew eventually wins the encounter without further serious casualty. After having buried Friday in the ocean, the same evening they set sail for Brazil. They stayed for a long period there, then went directly over to the Cape of Good Hope. They landed on Madagascar where their nine men were pursued by three hundred natives, because one of his mariners had carried off a young native girl among the trees. The natives hanged this person, so the crew massacred 32 persons and burned the houses of the native town. Crusoe opposed all these, therefore he was marooned, and settled at the Bay of Bengal for a long time. Finally, he bought a ship that later turned out to be stolen. Therefore they went to the river of Cambodia and Cochin-China or the bay of Tonquin, until they came to the latitude of 22 degrees and 30 minutes, and anchored at the island of Formosa (Taiwan). Then they arrived to the coast of China. They visited Nanking near the river of Kilam, and sailed southwards to a port called Quinchang. An old Portuguese pilot suggested them to go to Ningpo by the mouth of a river. This Ningpo was a canal that passed through the heart of that vast empire of China, crossed all the rivers and some hills by the help of sluices and gates, and went up to Peking, being near 270 leagues long. So they did, then it was the beginning of February, in the Old Style calendar, when they set out from Peking. Then they travelled through the following places: Changu, Naum (or Naun, a fortified city), Argun(a) on the Chinese-Russian border (April 13, 1703). Argun was the first town on the Russian border, then they went through Nertzinskoi (Nerchinsk), Plotbus, touched a lake called"
      },
      {
        "text": " So they did, then it was the beginning of February, in the Old Style calendar, when they set out from Peking. Then they travelled through the following places: Changu, Naum (or Naun, a fortified city), Argun(a) on the Chinese-Russian border (April 13, 1703). Argun was the first town on the Russian border, then they went through Nertzinskoi (Nerchinsk), Plotbus, touched a lake called Schaks Ozer, Jerawena, the river Udda, Yeniseysk, and Tobolsk (from September 1703 to beginning of June 1704). They arrived into Europe around the source of the river Wirtska, south of the river Petrou, to a village called Kermazinskoy near Soloy Kamskoy (Solikamsk). They passed a little river called Kirtza, near Ozomoys (or Gzomoys), came to Veuslima (?) on the river Witzogda (Vychegda), running into the Dwina, then they stayed in Lawrenskoy (July 3\u20137, 1704; possibly Yarensk, known as Yerenskoy Gorodok at that time). Finally Crusoe arrived at the White Sea port town Arch-Angel (Archangelsk) on August 18, sailed into Hamburg (September 18), and Hague. He arrived at London on 10 January 1705, having been gone from England ten years and nine months.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " London on 10 January 1705, having been gone from England ten years and nine months.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinism",
    "author": "Donatien Alphonse Fran\u00e7ois de Sade, Marquis de Sade",
    "published_date": "1905",
    "synopsis": " The 120 Days Of Sodom is set in a remote medieval castle, high in the mountains and surrounded by forests, detached from the rest of the world and not set at any specific point in time (although it is implied at the start that the events in the story take place either during or shortly after the Thirty Years' War, which lasted from 1618 to 1648). The novel takes place over five months, November to March. Four wealthy libertines lock themselves in a castle, the Ch\u00e2teau de Silling, along with a number of victims and accomplices. (The description of Silling matches de Sade's own castle, the Ch\u00e2teau de Lacoste.) They intend to listen to various tales of depravity from four veteran prostitutes, which will inspire them to engage in similar activities with their victims. It is not a complete novel. Only the first section is written in detail. After that, the remaining three parts are written as a draft, in note form, with Sade's footnotes to himself still present in most translations. Either at the outset, or during the writing of the work, Sade had evidently decided he would not be able to complete it in full and elected to write out the remaining three-quarters in brief and finish it later. The story does portray some black humor, and Sade seems almost lighthearted in his introduction, referring to the reader as \"friend reader\". In this introduction he contradicts himself, at one point insisting that one should not be horrified by the 600 passions outlined in the story because everybody has their own tastes, but at the same time going out of his way to warn the reader of the horrors that lay ahead, suggesting that the reader should have doubts about continuing. Consequently he glorifies as well as vilifies the four main protagonists, alternately declaring them freethinking heroes and debased villains, often in the same passage.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The 120 Days Of Sodom is set in a remote medieval castle, high in the mountains and surrounded by forests, detached from the rest of the world and not set at any specific point in time (although it is implied at the start that the events in the story take place either during or shortly after the Thirty Years' War, which lasted from 1618 to 1648). The novel takes place over five months, November to March. Four wealthy libertines lock themselves in a castle, the Ch\u00e2teau de Silling, along with a number of victims and accomplices. (The description of Silling matches de Sade's own castle, the Ch\u00e2teau de Lacoste.) They intend to listen to various tales of depravity from four veteran prostitutes, which will inspire them to engage in similar activities with their victims. It is not a complete novel. Only the first section is written in detail. After that, the remaining three parts are written as a draft, in note form, with Sade's footnotes to himself still present in most translations. Either at the outset, or during the writing of the work, Sade had evidently decided he would not be able to complete it in full and elected to write out the remaining three-quarters in brief and finish it later. The story does portray some black humor, and Sade seems almost lighthearted in his introduction, referring to the reader as \"friend reader\". In this introduction he contradicts himself, at one point insisting that one should not be horrified by the 600 passions outlined in the story because everybody has their own tastes, but at the same time going out of his way to warn the reader of the horrors that lay ahead, suggesting that the reader should have doubts about continuing. Consequently he glorifies as well as vilifies the four main protagonists, alternately declaring them freethinking heroes and debased villains, often in the same passage.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " that one should not be horrified by the 600 passions outlined in the story because everybody has their own tastes, but at the same time going out of his way to warn the reader of the horrors that lay ahead, suggesting that the reader should have doubts about continuing. Consequently he glorifies as well as vilifies the four main protagonists, alternately declaring them freethinking heroes and debased villains, often in the same passage.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "War and Peace",
    "author": "Leo Tolstoy",
    "published_date": "1869",
    "synopsis": " War and Peace has a large cast of characters, the majority of whom are introduced in the first book. Some are actual historical figures, such as Napoleon and Alexander I. While the scope of the novel is vast, it is centered around five aristocratic families. The plot and the interactions of the characters take place in the era surrounding the 1812 French invasion of Russia during the Napoleonic wars. The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg, at a soir\u00e9e given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer \u2014 the maid of honour and confidante to the queen mother Maria Feodorovna. Many of the main characters and aristocratic families in the novel are introduced as they enter Anna Pavlovna's salon. Pierre (Pyotr Kirilovich) Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy count, an elderly man who is dying after a series of strokes. Pierre is about to become embroiled in a struggle for his inheritance. Educated abroad at his father's expense following his mother's death, Pierre is essentially kindhearted, but socially awkward, and owing in part to his open, benevolent nature, finds it difficult to integrate into Petersburg society. It is known to everyone at the soir\u00e9e that Pierre is his father's favorite of all the old count\u2019s illegitimate children. Also attending the soire\u00e9 is Pierre's friend, the intelligent and sardonic Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky, husband of Lise, the charming society favourite. Finding Petersburg society unctuous and disillusioned with married life after discovering his wife is empty and superficial, Prince Andrei makes the fateful choice to be an aide-de-camp to Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov in the coming war against Napoleon. The plot moves to Moscow, Russia's ancient city and former capital, contrasting its provincial, more Russian ways to the highly mannered society of Petersburg. The Rostov family are introduced. Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov has four adolescent children. Thirteen-year-old Natasha (Natalia Ilyinichna) believes herself in love with Boris Drubetskoy, a disciplined young man who is about to join the army as an officer. Twenty-year-old Nikolai Ilyich pledges his love to Sonya (Sofia Alexandrovna), his fifteen-year-old cousin, an orphan who has been brought up by the Rostovs. The eldest child of the Rostov family, Vera Ilyinichna, is cold and somewhat haughty but has a good prospective marriage in a Russian-German officer, Adolf Karlovich Berg. Petya (Pyotr Ilyich) is nine and the youngest of the Rostov family; like his brother, he is impetuous and eager to join the army when of age. The heads of the family, Count Ilya Rostov and Countess Natalya Rostova, are an affectionate couple but forever worried about their disordered finances. At Bald Hills, the Bolkonskys' country estate, Prince Andrei departs for war and leaves his terrified, pregnant wife Lise with his eccentric father Prince Nikolai Andreyevich Bolkonsky and devoutly religious sister Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya. The second part opens with descriptions of the impending Russian-French war preparations. At the Sch\u00f6ngrabern engagement, Nikolai Rostov, who is now conscripted as ensign in a squadron of hussars, has his first taste of battle. He meets Prince Andrei, whom he insults in a fit of impetuousness. Even more than most young soldiers, he is deeply attracted by Tsar Alexander's charisma. Nikolai gambles and socializes with his officer, Vasily Dmitrich Denisov, and befriends the ruthless, and perhaps, psychopathic Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov. Book Two begins with Nikolai Rostov briefly returning on home leave to Moscow. Nikolai finds the Rostov family facing financial ruin due to poor estate management. He spends an eventful winter at home, accompanied by his friend Denisov, his officer from the Pavlograd Regiment in which he serves. Natasha has blossomed into a beautiful young girl. Denisov falls in love with her, proposes marriage but is rejected. Although his mother pleads with Nikolai to find himself a good financial prospect in marriage, Nikolai refuses to accede to his mother's request. He promises to marry his childhood sweetheart, the dowry-less Sonya. Pierre Bezukhov, upon finally receiving his massive inheritance, is suddenly transformed from a bumbling young man into the richest and most eligible bachelor in the Russian Empire. Despite rationally knowing that it is wrong, he is convinced into marriage with Prince Kuragin's beautiful and immoral daughter H\u00e9l\u00e8ne (Elena Vasilyevna Kuragina), to whom he is superficially attracted. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne, who is rumoured to be involved in an incestuous affair with her brother, the equally charming and immoral Anatol, tells Pierre that she will never have children with him. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne is rumoured to have an affair with Dolokhov, who mocks Pierre in public. Pierre loses his temper and challenges Dolokhov, a seasoned dueller and ruthless killer, to a duel. Unexpectedly, Pierre wounds Dolokhov. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne denies her affair, but Pierre is convinced of her guilt and, after almost being violent to her, leaves her. In his moral and spiritual confusion, Pierre joins the Freemasons, and becomes embroiled in Masonic internal politics. Much of Book Two concerns his struggles with his passions and his spiritual conflicts to be a better man. Now a rich aristocrat, he abandons his former carefree behavior and enters upon a philosophical quest particular to Tolstoy: how should one live a moral life in an ethically imperfect world? The question continually baffles and confuses Pierre. He attempts to liberate his serfs, but ultimately achieves nothing of note. Pierre is vividly contrasted with the intelligent and ambitious Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. At the Battle of Austerlitz, Andrei is inspired by a vision of glory to lead a charge of a straggling army. He suffers a near fatal artillery wound. In the face of death, Andrei realizes all his former ambitions are pointless and his former hero, Napoleon (who rescues him in a horseback excursion to the battlefield), is apparently as vain as himself. Prince Andrei recovers from his injuries in a military hospital and returns home, only to find his wife Lise dying in childbirth. He is stricken by his guilty conscience for not treating Lise better when she was alive and is haunted by the pitiful expression on his dead wife's face. His child, Nikolenka, survives. Burdened with nihilistic disillusionment, Prince Andrei does not return to the army but chooses to remain on his estate, working on a project that would codify military behavior to solve problems of disorganization responsible for the loss of life on the Russian side. Pierre visits him and brings new questions: where is God in this amoral world? Pierre is interested in panentheism and the possibility of an afterlife. Pierre's estranged wife, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne, begs him to take her back, and against his better judgment and in trying to abide by the Freemason laws of forgiveness, he does. Despite her vapid shallowness, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne establishes herself as an influential hostess in Petersburg society. Prince Andrei feels impelled to take his newly written military notions to Petersburg, naively expecting to influence either the Emperor himself or those close to him. Young Natasha, also in Petersburg, is caught up in the excitement of dressing for her first grand ball, where she meets Prince Andrei and briefly reinvigorates him with her vivacious charm. Andrei believes he has found purpose in life again and, after paying the Rostovs several visits, proposes marriage to Natasha. However, old Prince Bolkonsky, Andrei's father, dislikes the Rostovs, opposes the marriage, and insists on a year's delay. Prince Andrei leaves to recuperate from his wounds abroad, leaving Natasha initially distraught. She soon recovers her spirits, however, and Count Rostov takes her and Sonya to spend some time with a friend in Moscow. Natasha visits the Moscow opera, where she meets H\u00e9l\u00e8ne and her brother Anatol. Anatol has since married a Polish woman who he has abandoned in Poland. He is very attracted to Natasha and is determined to seduce her. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne and Anatol conspire together to accomplish this plan. Anatol kisses Natasha and writes her passionate letters, eventually establishing plans to elope. Natasha is convinced that she loves Anatol and writes to Princess Maria, Andrei's sister, breaking off her engagement. At the last moment, Sonya discovers her plans to elope and foils them. Pierre is initially horrified by Natasha's behavior, but realizes he has fallen in love with her. During the time when the Great Comet of 1811\u20132 streaks the sky, life appears to begin anew for Pierre. Prince Andrei accepts coldly Natasha's breaking of the engagement. He tells Pierre that his pride will not allow him to renew his proposal. Ashamed, Natasha makes a suicide attempt and is left seriously ill. With the help of her family, especially Sonya, and the stirrings of religious faith, Natasha manages to persevere in Moscow through this dark period. Meanwhile, the whole of Russia is affected by the coming confrontation between Napoleon's troops and the Russian army. Pierre convinces himself through gematria that Napoleon is the Antichrist of the Book of Revelation. Old prince Bolkonsky dies of a stroke while trying to protect his estate from French marauders. No organized help from any Russian army seems available to the Bolkonskys, but Nikolai Rostov turns up at their estate in time to help put down an incipient peasant revolt. He finds himself attracted to Princess Maria, but remembers his promise to Sonya. Back in Moscow, the war-obsessed Petya manages to snatch a loose piece of the Tsar's biscuit outside the Cathedral of the Assumption; he finally convinces his parents to allow him to enlist. Napoleon himself is a main character in this section of the novel and is presented in vivid detail, as both a thinker and would-be strategist. His toilette and his customary attitudes and traits of mind are depicted in detail. Also described are the well-organized force of over 400,000 French Army (only 140,000 of them actually French-speaking) which marches quickly through the Russian countryside in the late summer and reaches the outskirts of the city of Smolensk. Pierre decides to leave Moscow and go to watch the Battle of Borodino from a vantage point next to a Russian artillery crew. After watching for a time, he begins to join in carrying ammunition. In the midst of the turmoil he experiences firsthand the death and destruction of war. The battle becomes a hideous slaughter for both armies and ends in a standoff. The Russians, however, have won a moral victory by standing up to Napoleon's reputedly invincible army. For strategic reasons and having suffered grievous losses, the Russian army withdraws the next day, allowing Napoleon to march on to Moscow. Among the casualties are Anatol Kuragin and Prince Andrei. Anatol loses a leg, and Andrei suffers a grenade wound in the abdomen. Both are reported dead, but their families are in such disarray that no one can be notified. The Rostovs have waited until the last minute to abandon Moscow, even after it is clear that Kutuzov has retreated past Moscow and Muscovites are being given contradictory, often propagandistic, instructions on how to either flee or fight. Count Rostopchin is publishing posters, rousing the citizens to put their faith in religious icons, while at the same time urging them to fight with pitchforks if necessary. Before fleeing himself, he gives orders to burn the city. The Rostovs have a difficult time deciding what to take with them, but in the end, Natasha convinces them to load their carts with the wounded and dying from the Battle of Borodino. Unknown to Natasha, Prince Andrei is amongst the wounded. When Napoleon's Grand Army finally occupies an abandoned and burning Moscow, Pierre takes off on a quixotic mission to assassinate Napoleon. He becomes an anonymous man in all the chaos, shedding his responsibilities by wearing peasant clothes and shunning his duties and lifestyle. The only people he sees while in this garb are Natasha and some of her family, as they depart Moscow. Natasha recognizes and smiles at him, and he in turn realizes the full scope of his love for her. Pierre saves the life of a French officer who fought at Borodino, yet is taken prisoner by the retreating French during his attempted assassination of Napoleon, after saving a woman from being raped by soldiers in the French Army. He becomes friends with a fellow prisoner, Platon Karataev, a peasant with a saintly demeanor, who is incapable of malice. In Karataev, Pierre finally finds what he has been seeking: an honest person of integrity (unlike the aristocrats of Petersburg society) who is utterly without pretense. Pierre discovers meaning in life simply by living and interacting with him. After witnessing French soldiers sacking Moscow and shooting Russian civilians arbitrarily, Pierre is forced to march with the Grand Army during its disastrous retreat from Moscow in the harsh Russian winter. After months of trial and tribulation\u2014during which the fever-plagued Karataev is shot by the French\u2014Pierre is finally freed by a Russian raiding party, after a small skirmish with the French that sees the young Petya Rostov killed in action. Meanwhile, Andrei, wounded during Napoleon's invasion, has been taken in as a casualty and cared for by the Rostovs, fleeing from Moscow to Yaroslavl. He is reunited with Natasha and his sister Maria before the end of the war. Having lost all will to live, he forgives Natasha in a last act before dying. As the novel draws to a close, Pierre's wife H\u00e9l\u00e8ne dies from an overdose of abortion medication (Tolstoy does not state it explicitly but the euphemism he uses is unambiguous). Pierre is reunited with Natasha, while the victorious Russians rebuild Moscow. Natasha speaks of Prince Andrei's death and Pierre of Karataev's. Both are aware of a growing bond between them in their bereavement. With the help of Princess Maria, Pierre finds love at last and, revealing his love after being released by his former wife's death, marries Natasha. The first part of the epilogue begins with the wedding of Pierre and Natasha in 1813. It is the last happy event for the Rostov family, which is undergoing a transition. Count Rostov dies soon after, leaving his eldest son Nikolai to take charge of the debt-ridden estate. Nikolai finds himself with the task of maintaining the family on the verge of bankruptcy. His abhorrence at the idea of marrying for wealth almost gets in his way, but finally he marries the now-rich Maria Bolkonskaya and in so doing also saves his family from financial ruin. Nikolai and Maria then move to Bald Hills with his mother and Sonya, whom he supports for the rest of their life. Buoyed by his wife's fortune, Nikolai pays off all his family's debts. They also raise Prince Andrei's orphaned son, Nikolai Andreyevich (Nikolenka) Bolkonsky. As in all good marriages, there are misunderstandings, but the couples\u2013Pierre and Natasha, Nikolai and Maria\u2013remain devoted to their spouses. Pierre and Natasha visit Bald Hills in 1820, much to the jubilation of everyone concerned. There is a hint in the closing chapters that the idealistic, boyish Nikolenka and Pierre would both become part of the Decembrist Uprising. The first epilogue concludes with Nikolenka promising he would do something with which even his late father \"would be satisfied...\" (presumably as a revolutionary in the Decembrist revolt). The second part of the epilogue contains Tolstoy's critique of all existing forms of mainstream history. While most historians claim that historical events are the result of the actions of \"heroes\" and other great individuals, Tolstoy argues that this is impossible because of how rarely these actions result in great historical events. Rather, he argues, great historical events are the result of many smaller events driven by the thousands of individuals involved, (he compares this to Calculus, and the sum of infinitesimals). He then goes on to argue that these smaller events are the result of an inverse relationship between necessity and free-will, necessity being based on reason and therefore explainable by historical analysis, and free-will being based on \"consciousness\" and therefore inherently unpredictable.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " War and Peace has a large cast of characters, the majority of whom are introduced in the first book. Some are actual historical figures, such as Napoleon and Alexander I. While the scope of the novel is vast, it is centered around five aristocratic families. The plot and the interactions of the characters take place in the era surrounding the 1812 French invasion of Russia during the Napoleonic wars. The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg, at a soir\u00e9e given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer \u2014 the maid of honour and confidante to the queen mother Maria Feodorovna. Many of the main characters and aristocratic families in the novel are introduced as they enter Anna Pavlovna's salon. Pierre (Pyotr Kirilovich) Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy count, an elderly man who is dying after a series of strokes. Pierre is about to become embroiled in a struggle for his inheritance. Educated abroad at his father's expense following his mother's death, Pierre is essentially kindhearted, but socially awkward, and owing in part to his open, benevolent nature, finds it difficult to integrate into Petersburg society. It is known to everyone at the soir\u00e9e that Pierre is his father's favorite of all the old count\u2019s illegitimate children. Also attending the soire\u00e9 is Pierre's friend, the intelligent and sardonic Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky, husband of Lise, the charming society favourite. Finding Petersburg society unctuous and disillusioned with married life after discovering his wife is empty and superficial, Prince Andrei makes the fateful choice to be an aide-de-camp to Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov in the coming war against Napoleon. The plot moves to Moscow, Russia's ancient city and former capital, contrasting its provincial, more Russian ways to the highly mannered society of Petersburg. The Rostov family are introduced. Count Ilya Andreyev"
      },
      {
        "text": " charming society favourite. Finding Petersburg society unctuous and disillusioned with married life after discovering his wife is empty and superficial, Prince Andrei makes the fateful choice to be an aide-de-camp to Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov in the coming war against Napoleon. The plot moves to Moscow, Russia's ancient city and former capital, contrasting its provincial, more Russian ways to the highly mannered society of Petersburg. The Rostov family are introduced. Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov has four adolescent children. Thirteen-year-old Natasha (Natalia Ilyinichna) believes herself in love with Boris Drubetskoy, a disciplined young man who is about to join the army as an officer. Twenty-year-old Nikolai Ilyich pledges his love to Sonya (Sofia Alexandrovna), his fifteen-year-old cousin, an orphan who has been brought up by the Rostovs. The eldest child of the Rostov family, Vera Ilyinichna, is cold and somewhat haughty but has a good prospective marriage in a Russian-German officer, Adolf Karlovich Berg. Petya (Pyotr Ilyich) is nine and the youngest of the Rostov family; like his brother, he is impetuous and eager to join the army when of age. The heads of the family, Count Ilya Rostov and Countess Natalya Rostova, are an affectionate couple but forever worried about their disordered finances. At Bald Hills, the Bolkonskys' country estate, Prince Andrei departs for war and leaves his terrified, pregnant wife Lise with his eccentric father Prince Nikolai Andreyevich Bolkonsky and devoutly religious sister Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya. The second part opens with descriptions of the impending Russian-French war preparations. At the Sch\u00f6ngrabern engagement, Nikolai Rostov, who is now cons"
      },
      {
        "text": " worried about their disordered finances. At Bald Hills, the Bolkonskys' country estate, Prince Andrei departs for war and leaves his terrified, pregnant wife Lise with his eccentric father Prince Nikolai Andreyevich Bolkonsky and devoutly religious sister Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya. The second part opens with descriptions of the impending Russian-French war preparations. At the Sch\u00f6ngrabern engagement, Nikolai Rostov, who is now conscripted as ensign in a squadron of hussars, has his first taste of battle. He meets Prince Andrei, whom he insults in a fit of impetuousness. Even more than most young soldiers, he is deeply attracted by Tsar Alexander's charisma. Nikolai gambles and socializes with his officer, Vasily Dmitrich Denisov, and befriends the ruthless, and perhaps, psychopathic Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov. Book Two begins with Nikolai Rostov briefly returning on home leave to Moscow. Nikolai finds the Rostov family facing financial ruin due to poor estate management. He spends an eventful winter at home, accompanied by his friend Denisov, his officer from the Pavlograd Regiment in which he serves. Natasha has blossomed into a beautiful young girl. Denisov falls in love with her, proposes marriage but is rejected. Although his mother pleads with Nikolai to find himself a good financial prospect in marriage, Nikolai refuses to accede to his mother's request. He promises to marry his childhood sweetheart, the dowry-less Sonya. Pierre Bezukhov, upon finally receiving his massive inheritance, is suddenly transformed from a bumbling young man into the richest and most eligible bachelor in the Russian Empire. Despite rationally knowing that it is wrong, he is convinced into marriage with Prince Kuragin's beautiful and immoral daughter H\u00e9l\u00e8ne (Elena Vasilyevna Kuragina), to"
      },
      {
        "text": " to accede to his mother's request. He promises to marry his childhood sweetheart, the dowry-less Sonya. Pierre Bezukhov, upon finally receiving his massive inheritance, is suddenly transformed from a bumbling young man into the richest and most eligible bachelor in the Russian Empire. Despite rationally knowing that it is wrong, he is convinced into marriage with Prince Kuragin's beautiful and immoral daughter H\u00e9l\u00e8ne (Elena Vasilyevna Kuragina), to whom he is superficially attracted. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne, who is rumoured to be involved in an incestuous affair with her brother, the equally charming and immoral Anatol, tells Pierre that she will never have children with him. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne is rumoured to have an affair with Dolokhov, who mocks Pierre in public. Pierre loses his temper and challenges Dolokhov, a seasoned dueller and ruthless killer, to a duel. Unexpectedly, Pierre wounds Dolokhov. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne denies her affair, but Pierre is convinced of her guilt and, after almost being violent to her, leaves her. In his moral and spiritual confusion, Pierre joins the Freemasons, and becomes embroiled in Masonic internal politics. Much of Book Two concerns his struggles with his passions and his spiritual conflicts to be a better man. Now a rich aristocrat, he abandons his former carefree behavior and enters upon a philosophical quest particular to Tolstoy: how should one live a moral life in an ethically imperfect world? The question continually baffles and confuses Pierre. He attempts to liberate his serfs, but ultimately achieves nothing of note. Pierre is vividly contrasted with the intelligent and ambitious Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. At the Battle of Austerlitz, Andrei is inspired by a vision of glory to lead a charge of a straggling army. He suffers a near fatal artillery wound. In the face of death,"
      },
      {
        "text": ": how should one live a moral life in an ethically imperfect world? The question continually baffles and confuses Pierre. He attempts to liberate his serfs, but ultimately achieves nothing of note. Pierre is vividly contrasted with the intelligent and ambitious Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. At the Battle of Austerlitz, Andrei is inspired by a vision of glory to lead a charge of a straggling army. He suffers a near fatal artillery wound. In the face of death, Andrei realizes all his former ambitions are pointless and his former hero, Napoleon (who rescues him in a horseback excursion to the battlefield), is apparently as vain as himself. Prince Andrei recovers from his injuries in a military hospital and returns home, only to find his wife Lise dying in childbirth. He is stricken by his guilty conscience for not treating Lise better when she was alive and is haunted by the pitiful expression on his dead wife's face. His child, Nikolenka, survives. Burdened with nihilistic disillusionment, Prince Andrei does not return to the army but chooses to remain on his estate, working on a project that would codify military behavior to solve problems of disorganization responsible for the loss of life on the Russian side. Pierre visits him and brings new questions: where is God in this amoral world? Pierre is interested in panentheism and the possibility of an afterlife. Pierre's estranged wife, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne, begs him to take her back, and against his better judgment and in trying to abide by the Freemason laws of forgiveness, he does. Despite her vapid shallowness, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne establishes herself as an influential hostess in Petersburg society. Prince Andrei feels impelled to take his newly written military notions to Petersburg, naively expecting to influence either the Emperor himself or those close to him. Young Natasha, also in Petersburg, is caught up in the excitement of dressing for"
      },
      {
        "text": ", begs him to take her back, and against his better judgment and in trying to abide by the Freemason laws of forgiveness, he does. Despite her vapid shallowness, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne establishes herself as an influential hostess in Petersburg society. Prince Andrei feels impelled to take his newly written military notions to Petersburg, naively expecting to influence either the Emperor himself or those close to him. Young Natasha, also in Petersburg, is caught up in the excitement of dressing for her first grand ball, where she meets Prince Andrei and briefly reinvigorates him with her vivacious charm. Andrei believes he has found purpose in life again and, after paying the Rostovs several visits, proposes marriage to Natasha. However, old Prince Bolkonsky, Andrei's father, dislikes the Rostovs, opposes the marriage, and insists on a year's delay. Prince Andrei leaves to recuperate from his wounds abroad, leaving Natasha initially distraught. She soon recovers her spirits, however, and Count Rostov takes her and Sonya to spend some time with a friend in Moscow. Natasha visits the Moscow opera, where she meets H\u00e9l\u00e8ne and her brother Anatol. Anatol has since married a Polish woman who he has abandoned in Poland. He is very attracted to Natasha and is determined to seduce her. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne and Anatol conspire together to accomplish this plan. Anatol kisses Natasha and writes her passionate letters, eventually establishing plans to elope. Natasha is convinced that she loves Anatol and writes to Princess Maria, Andrei's sister, breaking off her engagement. At the last moment, Sonya discovers her plans to elope and foils them. Pierre is initially horrified by Natasha's behavior, but realizes he has fallen in love with her. During the time when the Great Comet of 1811\u20132 streaks the sky, life appears to begin anew for Pierre. Prince Andrei accepts"
      },
      {
        "text": " her passionate letters, eventually establishing plans to elope. Natasha is convinced that she loves Anatol and writes to Princess Maria, Andrei's sister, breaking off her engagement. At the last moment, Sonya discovers her plans to elope and foils them. Pierre is initially horrified by Natasha's behavior, but realizes he has fallen in love with her. During the time when the Great Comet of 1811\u20132 streaks the sky, life appears to begin anew for Pierre. Prince Andrei accepts coldly Natasha's breaking of the engagement. He tells Pierre that his pride will not allow him to renew his proposal. Ashamed, Natasha makes a suicide attempt and is left seriously ill. With the help of her family, especially Sonya, and the stirrings of religious faith, Natasha manages to persevere in Moscow through this dark period. Meanwhile, the whole of Russia is affected by the coming confrontation between Napoleon's troops and the Russian army. Pierre convinces himself through gematria that Napoleon is the Antichrist of the Book of Revelation. Old prince Bolkonsky dies of a stroke while trying to protect his estate from French marauders. No organized help from any Russian army seems available to the Bolkonskys, but Nikolai Rostov turns up at their estate in time to help put down an incipient peasant revolt. He finds himself attracted to Princess Maria, but remembers his promise to Sonya. Back in Moscow, the war-obsessed Petya manages to snatch a loose piece of the Tsar's biscuit outside the Cathedral of the Assumption; he finally convinces his parents to allow him to enlist. Napoleon himself is a main character in this section of the novel and is presented in vivid detail, as both a thinker and would-be strategist. His toilette and his customary attitudes and traits of mind are depicted in detail. Also described are the well-organized force of over 400,000 French Army (only 140,000 of them"
      },
      {
        "text": " manages to snatch a loose piece of the Tsar's biscuit outside the Cathedral of the Assumption; he finally convinces his parents to allow him to enlist. Napoleon himself is a main character in this section of the novel and is presented in vivid detail, as both a thinker and would-be strategist. His toilette and his customary attitudes and traits of mind are depicted in detail. Also described are the well-organized force of over 400,000 French Army (only 140,000 of them actually French-speaking) which marches quickly through the Russian countryside in the late summer and reaches the outskirts of the city of Smolensk. Pierre decides to leave Moscow and go to watch the Battle of Borodino from a vantage point next to a Russian artillery crew. After watching for a time, he begins to join in carrying ammunition. In the midst of the turmoil he experiences firsthand the death and destruction of war. The battle becomes a hideous slaughter for both armies and ends in a standoff. The Russians, however, have won a moral victory by standing up to Napoleon's reputedly invincible army. For strategic reasons and having suffered grievous losses, the Russian army withdraws the next day, allowing Napoleon to march on to Moscow. Among the casualties are Anatol Kuragin and Prince Andrei. Anatol loses a leg, and Andrei suffers a grenade wound in the abdomen. Both are reported dead, but their families are in such disarray that no one can be notified. The Rostovs have waited until the last minute to abandon Moscow, even after it is clear that Kutuzov has retreated past Moscow and Muscovites are being given contradictory, often propagandistic, instructions on how to either flee or fight. Count Rostopchin is publishing posters, rousing the citizens to put their faith in religious icons, while at the same time urging them to fight with pitchforks if necessary. Before fleeing himself, he gives orders to burn the city. The Rost"
      },
      {
        "text": " Rostovs have waited until the last minute to abandon Moscow, even after it is clear that Kutuzov has retreated past Moscow and Muscovites are being given contradictory, often propagandistic, instructions on how to either flee or fight. Count Rostopchin is publishing posters, rousing the citizens to put their faith in religious icons, while at the same time urging them to fight with pitchforks if necessary. Before fleeing himself, he gives orders to burn the city. The Rostovs have a difficult time deciding what to take with them, but in the end, Natasha convinces them to load their carts with the wounded and dying from the Battle of Borodino. Unknown to Natasha, Prince Andrei is amongst the wounded. When Napoleon's Grand Army finally occupies an abandoned and burning Moscow, Pierre takes off on a quixotic mission to assassinate Napoleon. He becomes an anonymous man in all the chaos, shedding his responsibilities by wearing peasant clothes and shunning his duties and lifestyle. The only people he sees while in this garb are Natasha and some of her family, as they depart Moscow. Natasha recognizes and smiles at him, and he in turn realizes the full scope of his love for her. Pierre saves the life of a French officer who fought at Borodino, yet is taken prisoner by the retreating French during his attempted assassination of Napoleon, after saving a woman from being raped by soldiers in the French Army. He becomes friends with a fellow prisoner, Platon Karataev, a peasant with a saintly demeanor, who is incapable of malice. In Karataev, Pierre finally finds what he has been seeking: an honest person of integrity (unlike the aristocrats of Petersburg society) who is utterly without pretense. Pierre discovers meaning in life simply by living and interacting with him. After witnessing French soldiers sacking Moscow and shooting Russian civilians arbitrarily, Pierre is forced to march with the Grand Army during its disastrous retreat from Moscow in the harsh Russian winter"
      },
      {
        "text": " Karataev, a peasant with a saintly demeanor, who is incapable of malice. In Karataev, Pierre finally finds what he has been seeking: an honest person of integrity (unlike the aristocrats of Petersburg society) who is utterly without pretense. Pierre discovers meaning in life simply by living and interacting with him. After witnessing French soldiers sacking Moscow and shooting Russian civilians arbitrarily, Pierre is forced to march with the Grand Army during its disastrous retreat from Moscow in the harsh Russian winter. After months of trial and tribulation\u2014during which the fever-plagued Karataev is shot by the French\u2014Pierre is finally freed by a Russian raiding party, after a small skirmish with the French that sees the young Petya Rostov killed in action. Meanwhile, Andrei, wounded during Napoleon's invasion, has been taken in as a casualty and cared for by the Rostovs, fleeing from Moscow to Yaroslavl. He is reunited with Natasha and his sister Maria before the end of the war. Having lost all will to live, he forgives Natasha in a last act before dying. As the novel draws to a close, Pierre's wife H\u00e9l\u00e8ne dies from an overdose of abortion medication (Tolstoy does not state it explicitly but the euphemism he uses is unambiguous). Pierre is reunited with Natasha, while the victorious Russians rebuild Moscow. Natasha speaks of Prince Andrei's death and Pierre of Karataev's. Both are aware of a growing bond between them in their bereavement. With the help of Princess Maria, Pierre finds love at last and, revealing his love after being released by his former wife's death, marries Natasha. The first part of the epilogue begins with the wedding of Pierre and Natasha in 1813. It is the last happy event for the Rostov family, which is undergoing a transition. Count Rostov dies soon after, leaving his eldest son Nikolai to take charge of the debt"
      },
      {
        "text": " aware of a growing bond between them in their bereavement. With the help of Princess Maria, Pierre finds love at last and, revealing his love after being released by his former wife's death, marries Natasha. The first part of the epilogue begins with the wedding of Pierre and Natasha in 1813. It is the last happy event for the Rostov family, which is undergoing a transition. Count Rostov dies soon after, leaving his eldest son Nikolai to take charge of the debt-ridden estate. Nikolai finds himself with the task of maintaining the family on the verge of bankruptcy. His abhorrence at the idea of marrying for wealth almost gets in his way, but finally he marries the now-rich Maria Bolkonskaya and in so doing also saves his family from financial ruin. Nikolai and Maria then move to Bald Hills with his mother and Sonya, whom he supports for the rest of their life. Buoyed by his wife's fortune, Nikolai pays off all his family's debts. They also raise Prince Andrei's orphaned son, Nikolai Andreyevich (Nikolenka) Bolkonsky. As in all good marriages, there are misunderstandings, but the couples\u2013Pierre and Natasha, Nikolai and Maria\u2013remain devoted to their spouses. Pierre and Natasha visit Bald Hills in 1820, much to the jubilation of everyone concerned. There is a hint in the closing chapters that the idealistic, boyish Nikolenka and Pierre would both become part of the Decembrist Uprising. The first epilogue concludes with Nikolenka promising he would do something with which even his late father \"would be satisfied...\" (presumably as a revolutionary in the Decembrist revolt). The second part of the epilogue contains Tolstoy's critique of all existing forms of mainstream history. While most historians claim that historical events are the result of the actions of \"heroes\" and"
      },
      {
        "text": "ish Nikolenka and Pierre would both become part of the Decembrist Uprising. The first epilogue concludes with Nikolenka promising he would do something with which even his late father \"would be satisfied...\" (presumably as a revolutionary in the Decembrist revolt). The second part of the epilogue contains Tolstoy's critique of all existing forms of mainstream history. While most historians claim that historical events are the result of the actions of \"heroes\" and other great individuals, Tolstoy argues that this is impossible because of how rarely these actions result in great historical events. Rather, he argues, great historical events are the result of many smaller events driven by the thousands of individuals involved, (he compares this to Calculus, and the sum of infinitesimals). He then goes on to argue that these smaller events are the result of an inverse relationship between necessity and free-will, necessity being based on reason and therefore explainable by historical analysis, and free-will being based on \"consciousness\" and therefore inherently unpredictable.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "On the Beach",
    "author": "Nevil Shute",
    "published_date": "1957",
    "synopsis": " The story is set primarily in and around Melbourne, Australia, in 1963. World War III has devastated most of the populated world, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout and killing all human and animal life in the northern hemisphere. The war began with a nuclear attack by Albania on Italy and then escalated with the bombing of the United States and the United Kingdom by Egypt. Because the aircraft used in these attacks were obtained from the Soviet Union, the Soviets were mistakenly blamed, triggering a retaliatory strike on the USSR by NATO. There is also an attack by the Soviets on the People's Republic of China, which may have been a response to a Chinese attack aimed at occupying Soviet industrial areas near the Chinese border. Most if not all of the bombs had cobalt that was included to enhance their radioactive properties. Global air currents are slowly carrying the lethal nuclear fallout across the Intertropical Convergence Zone to the southern hemisphere. The only parts of the planet still habitable are Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, and the southern parts of South America, although these areas are slowly succumbing to radiation poisoning as well. Life in Melbourne continues in a reasonably normal fashion, though the near-complete lack of motor fuels makes travel difficult. People in Australia detect a mysterious and incomprehensible Morse code radio signal originating from Seattle, Washington, in the United States. With hope that someone has survived in the contaminated regions, one of the last American nuclear submarines, USS Scorpion, placed by its captain, Commander Dwight Towers, under Australian naval command, is ordered to sail north from its port of refuge in Melbourne (Australia's southernmost major mainland city) to contact whoever is sending the signal. In preparation for this journey, the submarine makes a shorter trip to port cities in northern Australia, including Cairns, Queensland and Darwin, Northern Territory, but finds no survivors. Two Australians sail with the American crew: Peter Holmes, naval liaison officer to the Americans, and a scientist, John Osborne. Commander Towers has become attached to a young Australian woman distantly related to Osborne named Moira Davidson, who tries to cope with the impending end of human life through heavy drinking. Despite his attraction to Davidson, Towers remains loyal to his wife and children in the United States. He buys his children gifts and imagines their growing older. At one point, however, he makes it clear to Moira that he knows his family is almost certainly dead, and he asks her if she thinks he is insane for acting as if they were still alive. She replies that she does not think he is crazy. The Australian government provides citizens with free suicide pills and injections so that they can avoid prolonged suffering from radiation poisoning. Periodic reports show the steady southward progression of the deadly radiation. As communications are lost with a city it is referred to as being \"out.\" One of the novel's poignant dilemmas is that of Peter Holmes, who has a baby daughter and a naive and childish wife, Mary, who is in denial about the impending disaster. Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans, Peter tries to explain, to Mary's fury and disbelief, how to euthanize their baby and kill herself with the pill should he not return from his mission in time to help. The bachelor Osborne spends much of his time restoring a Ferrari racing car which he had purchased (along with a fuel supply) for a nominal amount following the outbreak of the war. The submarine travels to the Gulf of Alaska in the northern Pacific Ocean, where the crew determines that radiation levels are not decreasing. This finding discredits the \"Jorgensen Effect,\" a scientific theory positing that radiation levels will gradually decrease due to weather effects and potentially allow for human life to continue in southern Australia or at least Antarctica. The submarine approaches San Francisco, California, observing through the periscope that the city had been devastated and the Golden Gate Bridge has fallen. In contrast, the Puget Sound area, from which the strange radio signals come, is found to have avoided destruction due to missile defenses. One crew member, who is from Edmonds, Washington, which the expedition visits, jumps ship to spend his last days in his home town. The expedition members then sail to an abandoned Navy communications school south of Seattle. A crewman sent ashore with oxygen tanks and protective gear discovers that, although the city's residents have long since perished, some of the region's hydroelectric power is still working due to primitive automation technology. He finds that the mysterious radio signal is the result of a broken window sash swinging in the breeze and occasionally hitting a telegraph key. After a brief stop at Pearl Harbor, the remaining submariners return to Australia to live out what little time they have left. The characters make their best efforts to enjoy what time remains to them, speaking of small pleasures and continuing their customary activities. The Holmeses plant a garden that they will never see; Moira takes classes in typing and shorthand; Osborne and others organize a dangerous motor race that results in the violent deaths of several participants; elderly members of a \"gentlemen's club\" drink up the wine in the club's cellar, debate over whether to move the fishing season up, and fret about whether agriculturally-destructive rabbits will survive human beings. Towers goes on a fishing trip with Davidson but they do not become sexually involved, as he wants to remain loyal to his wife, a decision Moira accepts. Government services and the economy gradually grind to a halt. In the end, Towers chooses not to remain and die with Moira but rather to lead his crew on a final mission to scuttle the submarine outside Australian territorial waters. He refuses to allow his imminent demise to turn him aside from his duty to the U.S. Navy and he acts as a pillar of strength to his crew. Moira watches the departure of the submarine from an adjacent hilltop as she takes her suicide pill, imagining herself together with Towers as she dies. When Mary Holmes becomes very ill, Peter administers a lethal injection to their daughter. Even though he still feels relatively well, he and Mary take their pills simultaneously so they can die as a family. Osborne takes his suicide pill while sitting in his beloved racing car. Typically for a Shute novel, the characters avoid expressing intense emotions and do not mope or indulge in self-pity. The Australians do not, for the most part, flee southward as refugees but rather accept their fate once the lethal radiation levels reach the latitudes at which they live; most of them opt for the government-promoted alternative of suicide when the symptoms of radiation sickness appear.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is set primarily in and around Melbourne, Australia, in 1963. World War III has devastated most of the populated world, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout and killing all human and animal life in the northern hemisphere. The war began with a nuclear attack by Albania on Italy and then escalated with the bombing of the United States and the United Kingdom by Egypt. Because the aircraft used in these attacks were obtained from the Soviet Union, the Soviets were mistakenly blamed, triggering a retaliatory strike on the USSR by NATO. There is also an attack by the Soviets on the People's Republic of China, which may have been a response to a Chinese attack aimed at occupying Soviet industrial areas near the Chinese border. Most if not all of the bombs had cobalt that was included to enhance their radioactive properties. Global air currents are slowly carrying the lethal nuclear fallout across the Intertropical Convergence Zone to the southern hemisphere. The only parts of the planet still habitable are Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, and the southern parts of South America, although these areas are slowly succumbing to radiation poisoning as well. Life in Melbourne continues in a reasonably normal fashion, though the near-complete lack of motor fuels makes travel difficult. People in Australia detect a mysterious and incomprehensible Morse code radio signal originating from Seattle, Washington, in the United States. With hope that someone has survived in the contaminated regions, one of the last American nuclear submarines, USS Scorpion, placed by its captain, Commander Dwight Towers, under Australian naval command, is ordered to sail north from its port of refuge in Melbourne (Australia's southernmost major mainland city) to contact whoever is sending the signal. In preparation for this journey, the submarine makes a shorter trip to port cities in northern Australia, including Cairns, Queensland and Darwin, Northern Territory, but finds no survivors. Two Australians sail with the American crew: Peter Holmes, naval liaison officer to the Americans, and a scientist, John Osborne. Commander Towers has become attached to a"
      },
      {
        "text": " naval command, is ordered to sail north from its port of refuge in Melbourne (Australia's southernmost major mainland city) to contact whoever is sending the signal. In preparation for this journey, the submarine makes a shorter trip to port cities in northern Australia, including Cairns, Queensland and Darwin, Northern Territory, but finds no survivors. Two Australians sail with the American crew: Peter Holmes, naval liaison officer to the Americans, and a scientist, John Osborne. Commander Towers has become attached to a young Australian woman distantly related to Osborne named Moira Davidson, who tries to cope with the impending end of human life through heavy drinking. Despite his attraction to Davidson, Towers remains loyal to his wife and children in the United States. He buys his children gifts and imagines their growing older. At one point, however, he makes it clear to Moira that he knows his family is almost certainly dead, and he asks her if she thinks he is insane for acting as if they were still alive. She replies that she does not think he is crazy. The Australian government provides citizens with free suicide pills and injections so that they can avoid prolonged suffering from radiation poisoning. Periodic reports show the steady southward progression of the deadly radiation. As communications are lost with a city it is referred to as being \"out.\" One of the novel's poignant dilemmas is that of Peter Holmes, who has a baby daughter and a naive and childish wife, Mary, who is in denial about the impending disaster. Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans, Peter tries to explain, to Mary's fury and disbelief, how to euthanize their baby and kill herself with the pill should he not return from his mission in time to help. The bachelor Osborne spends much of his time restoring a Ferrari racing car which he had purchased (along with a fuel supply) for a nominal amount following the outbreak of the war. The submarine travels to the Gulf of Alaska in the northern Pacific Ocean,"
      },
      {
        "text": " disaster. Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans, Peter tries to explain, to Mary's fury and disbelief, how to euthanize their baby and kill herself with the pill should he not return from his mission in time to help. The bachelor Osborne spends much of his time restoring a Ferrari racing car which he had purchased (along with a fuel supply) for a nominal amount following the outbreak of the war. The submarine travels to the Gulf of Alaska in the northern Pacific Ocean, where the crew determines that radiation levels are not decreasing. This finding discredits the \"Jorgensen Effect,\" a scientific theory positing that radiation levels will gradually decrease due to weather effects and potentially allow for human life to continue in southern Australia or at least Antarctica. The submarine approaches San Francisco, California, observing through the periscope that the city had been devastated and the Golden Gate Bridge has fallen. In contrast, the Puget Sound area, from which the strange radio signals come, is found to have avoided destruction due to missile defenses. One crew member, who is from Edmonds, Washington, which the expedition visits, jumps ship to spend his last days in his home town. The expedition members then sail to an abandoned Navy communications school south of Seattle. A crewman sent ashore with oxygen tanks and protective gear discovers that, although the city's residents have long since perished, some of the region's hydroelectric power is still working due to primitive automation technology. He finds that the mysterious radio signal is the result of a broken window sash swinging in the breeze and occasionally hitting a telegraph key. After a brief stop at Pearl Harbor, the remaining submariners return to Australia to live out what little time they have left. The characters make their best efforts to enjoy what time remains to them, speaking of small pleasures and continuing their customary activities. The Holmeses plant a garden that they will never see; Moira takes classes in typing and shorthand; Osborne and others organize a dangerous motor race"
      },
      {
        "text": " signal is the result of a broken window sash swinging in the breeze and occasionally hitting a telegraph key. After a brief stop at Pearl Harbor, the remaining submariners return to Australia to live out what little time they have left. The characters make their best efforts to enjoy what time remains to them, speaking of small pleasures and continuing their customary activities. The Holmeses plant a garden that they will never see; Moira takes classes in typing and shorthand; Osborne and others organize a dangerous motor race that results in the violent deaths of several participants; elderly members of a \"gentlemen's club\" drink up the wine in the club's cellar, debate over whether to move the fishing season up, and fret about whether agriculturally-destructive rabbits will survive human beings. Towers goes on a fishing trip with Davidson but they do not become sexually involved, as he wants to remain loyal to his wife, a decision Moira accepts. Government services and the economy gradually grind to a halt. In the end, Towers chooses not to remain and die with Moira but rather to lead his crew on a final mission to scuttle the submarine outside Australian territorial waters. He refuses to allow his imminent demise to turn him aside from his duty to the U.S. Navy and he acts as a pillar of strength to his crew. Moira watches the departure of the submarine from an adjacent hilltop as she takes her suicide pill, imagining herself together with Towers as she dies. When Mary Holmes becomes very ill, Peter administers a lethal injection to their daughter. Even though he still feels relatively well, he and Mary take their pills simultaneously so they can die as a family. Osborne takes his suicide pill while sitting in his beloved racing car. Typically for a Shute novel, the characters avoid expressing intense emotions and do not mope or indulge in self-pity. The Australians do not, for the most part, flee southward as refugees but rather accept their fate once the lethal radiation"
      },
      {
        "text": " becomes very ill, Peter administers a lethal injection to their daughter. Even though he still feels relatively well, he and Mary take their pills simultaneously so they can die as a family. Osborne takes his suicide pill while sitting in his beloved racing car. Typically for a Shute novel, the characters avoid expressing intense emotions and do not mope or indulge in self-pity. The Australians do not, for the most part, flee southward as refugees but rather accept their fate once the lethal radiation levels reach the latitudes at which they live; most of them opt for the government-promoted alternative of suicide when the symptoms of radiation sickness appear.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "La Fortune des Rougon",
    "author": "\u00c9mile Zola",
    "published_date": "1871",
    "synopsis": " After a stirring opening on the eve of the coup d'\u00e9tat, involving an idealistic young village couple joining up with the republican militia in the middle of the night, Zola then spends the next few chapters going back in time to pre-Revolutionary Provence, and proceeds to lay the foundations for the entire Rougon-Macquart cycle, committing himself to what would become the next twenty-two years of his life's work. The fictional town of Plassans (loosely based on the real city of Aix-en-Provence, where Zola grew up) is established as the setting for the novel and described in intimate detail, and then we are introduced to the eccentric heroine Adelaide Fouque, later known as \"Tante Dide\", who becomes the common ancestor for both the Rougon and Macquart families. Her legitimate son from her short marriage to her late husband, a labourer named Rougon who worked on Dide's land, is forced to grow up alongside two illegitimate children — a boy and a girl — from Dide's later romance with the smuggler, poacher and alcoholic Macquart, while the ageing Dide slides further and further into a state of mental illness and borderline senile dementia. From this premise, the next nineteen novels all get their central protagonists and to a certain extent their themes. The narrative continues along double lines, following both \"branches\" of the family. We see Pierre Rougon (the legitimate son) in his attempts to disinherit his Macquart half-siblings, his marriage to Felicit\u00e9 Puech, the voraciously ambitious daughter of a local merchant, and their continued failure to establish the fortune, fame and renown they seek, despite their greed and relatively comfortable lifestyles. Approaching old age, the Rougon couple finally admit defeat and settle, crushed, into their lower middle class destinies, until by a remarkable stroke of luck their eldest son Eug\u00e8ne reports from Paris that he has some news that they might find interesting. Eug\u00e8ne has become one of the closest allies of the future Emperor Napoleon III and informs his parents that a coup is imminent. Having been effectively given insider information about which side to back in the coming revolution, the Rougons then make a series of seemingly bold moves to show their loyal and steadfast support for Napoleon III, winning the admiration of the most influential people in the town, mostly royalists who are themselves afraid of showing too much commitment for fear of backing the \"wrong horse\" and losing their standing and fortune. The narrative then switches over to the Macquart side of the family, whose grim working-class struggles to survive are juxtaposed keenly with the Rougons' seemingly trivial quest for greater wealth and influence in genteel drawing-room society. Descended from a drunken ne'er-do-well and a madwoman, Zola effectively predestines the Macquarts to lives of toil and misery. Zola's theories of heredity, laid out in the original preface to this novel, were a cornerstone of his entire philosophy and a major reason for his embarking on the mammoth Rougon-Macquart project in the first place in order to illustrate them. Largely discredited nowadays, the theories are largely \"present but unseen\" in most of the novels in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, allowing those books to be enjoyed without the overshadowing effect of Zola's somewhat suspect scientific ideas. Due to the original story nature of La Fortune des Rougon, the theories are placed much more to the fore, and can appear somewhat heavy-handed as a result. A third branch of the family, the Mourets, descended from Macquart and Dide's daughter, are then introduced before the novel's focus is brought back to the \"present\", the night of the coup, via a quite brilliantly told love story. The idealistic but na\u00efve Silv\u00e8re Mouret falls madly in love with the innocent Miette Chantegreil, and after a long courtship they decide to join up with the republicans to fight the coup. The rest of the novel then picks up from where the opening chapter left off, and from then on is basically a dual narrative telling the story of the old Rougon couple and their increasingly Machiavellian machinations to get themselves into a position of fortune and respect in Plassans, juxtaposed with Silv\u00e8re and Miette's continuing love story and the doomed republican militia's disastrous attempt to take the town back. Eventually, the Rougons exploit their half-brother Antoine Macquart into inadvertently helping crush the republican threat, and they achieve their life's ambition, fortune and favour. For Silv\u00e8re and Miette, who committed themselves so completely to a doomed cause, there can be no such happy ending and Zola wisely leaves their half of the story at a bleak dead end. The title refers not only to the \"fortune\" chased by Pierre and Felicit\u00e9 Rougon, but also to the fortunes of the various disparate family members Zola introduces us to — their future lives, for which this novel is the starting point. The first English translation by Henry Vizetelly was published in 1886 and extensively revised (to meet Victorian standards of propriety and avoid prosecution for issuing an indecent publication) by Ernest Vizetelly in 1898, issued under the title The Fortune of the Rougons by Chatto and Windus. It is of reasonably poor quality, not helped by Vizetelly's boast that he had changed one in every three sentences in the course of his editing. No other translation was available until 2012, when Brian Nelson published one under the Oxford Worlds Classics imprint.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After a stirring opening on the eve of the coup d'\u00e9tat, involving an idealistic young village couple joining up with the republican militia in the middle of the night, Zola then spends the next few chapters going back in time to pre-Revolutionary Provence, and proceeds to lay the foundations for the entire Rougon-Macquart cycle, committing himself to what would become the next twenty-two years of his life's work. The fictional town of Plassans (loosely based on the real city of Aix-en-Provence, where Zola grew up) is established as the setting for the novel and described in intimate detail, and then we are introduced to the eccentric heroine Adelaide Fouque, later known as \"Tante Dide\", who becomes the common ancestor for both the Rougon and Macquart families. Her legitimate son from her short marriage to her late husband, a labourer named Rougon who worked on Dide's land, is forced to grow up alongside two illegitimate children — a boy and a girl — from Dide's later romance with the smuggler, poacher and alcoholic Macquart, while the ageing Dide slides further and further into a state of mental illness and borderline senile dementia. From this premise, the next nineteen novels all get their central protagonists and to a certain extent their themes. The narrative continues along double lines, following both \"branches\" of the family. We see Pierre Rougon (the legitimate son) in his attempts to disinherit his Macquart half-siblings, his marriage to Felicit\u00e9 Puech, the voraciously ambitious daughter of a local merchant, and their continued failure to establish the fortune, fame and renown they seek, despite their greed and relatively comfortable lifestyles. Approaching old age, the Rougon couple finally admit defeat and settle, crushed, into their lower middle class destinies, until by a remarkable stroke of"
      },
      {
        "text": " Pierre Rougon (the legitimate son) in his attempts to disinherit his Macquart half-siblings, his marriage to Felicit\u00e9 Puech, the voraciously ambitious daughter of a local merchant, and their continued failure to establish the fortune, fame and renown they seek, despite their greed and relatively comfortable lifestyles. Approaching old age, the Rougon couple finally admit defeat and settle, crushed, into their lower middle class destinies, until by a remarkable stroke of luck their eldest son Eug\u00e8ne reports from Paris that he has some news that they might find interesting. Eug\u00e8ne has become one of the closest allies of the future Emperor Napoleon III and informs his parents that a coup is imminent. Having been effectively given insider information about which side to back in the coming revolution, the Rougons then make a series of seemingly bold moves to show their loyal and steadfast support for Napoleon III, winning the admiration of the most influential people in the town, mostly royalists who are themselves afraid of showing too much commitment for fear of backing the \"wrong horse\" and losing their standing and fortune. The narrative then switches over to the Macquart side of the family, whose grim working-class struggles to survive are juxtaposed keenly with the Rougons' seemingly trivial quest for greater wealth and influence in genteel drawing-room society. Descended from a drunken ne'er-do-well and a madwoman, Zola effectively predestines the Macquarts to lives of toil and misery. Zola's theories of heredity, laid out in the original preface to this novel, were a cornerstone of his entire philosophy and a major reason for his embarking on the mammoth Rougon-Macquart project in the first place in order to illustrate them. Largely discredited nowadays, the theories are largely \"present but unseen\" in most of the novels in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, allowing those books to be enjoyed without"
      },
      {
        "text": " Macquarts to lives of toil and misery. Zola's theories of heredity, laid out in the original preface to this novel, were a cornerstone of his entire philosophy and a major reason for his embarking on the mammoth Rougon-Macquart project in the first place in order to illustrate them. Largely discredited nowadays, the theories are largely \"present but unseen\" in most of the novels in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, allowing those books to be enjoyed without the overshadowing effect of Zola's somewhat suspect scientific ideas. Due to the original story nature of La Fortune des Rougon, the theories are placed much more to the fore, and can appear somewhat heavy-handed as a result. A third branch of the family, the Mourets, descended from Macquart and Dide's daughter, are then introduced before the novel's focus is brought back to the \"present\", the night of the coup, via a quite brilliantly told love story. The idealistic but na\u00efve Silv\u00e8re Mouret falls madly in love with the innocent Miette Chantegreil, and after a long courtship they decide to join up with the republicans to fight the coup. The rest of the novel then picks up from where the opening chapter left off, and from then on is basically a dual narrative telling the story of the old Rougon couple and their increasingly Machiavellian machinations to get themselves into a position of fortune and respect in Plassans, juxtaposed with Silv\u00e8re and Miette's continuing love story and the doomed republican militia's disastrous attempt to take the town back. Eventually, the Rougons exploit their half-brother Antoine Macquart into inadvertently helping crush the republican threat, and they achieve their life's ambition, fortune and favour. For Silv\u00e8re and Miette, who committed themselves so completely to a doomed cause, there can be no such happy ending and Zola wisely leaves their half of"
      },
      {
        "text": "assans, juxtaposed with Silv\u00e8re and Miette's continuing love story and the doomed republican militia's disastrous attempt to take the town back. Eventually, the Rougons exploit their half-brother Antoine Macquart into inadvertently helping crush the republican threat, and they achieve their life's ambition, fortune and favour. For Silv\u00e8re and Miette, who committed themselves so completely to a doomed cause, there can be no such happy ending and Zola wisely leaves their half of the story at a bleak dead end. The title refers not only to the \"fortune\" chased by Pierre and Felicit\u00e9 Rougon, but also to the fortunes of the various disparate family members Zola introduces us to — their future lives, for which this novel is the starting point. The first English translation by Henry Vizetelly was published in 1886 and extensively revised (to meet Victorian standards of propriety and avoid prosecution for issuing an indecent publication) by Ernest Vizetelly in 1898, issued under the title The Fortune of the Rougons by Chatto and Windus. It is of reasonably poor quality, not helped by Vizetelly's boast that he had changed one in every three sentences in the course of his editing. No other translation was available until 2012, when Brian Nelson published one under the Oxford Worlds Classics imprint.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Son Excellence Eug\u00e8ne Rougon",
    "author": "\u00c9mile Zola",
    "published_date": "1876",
    "synopsis": " The novel opens in 1857 with Rougon's career at a low ebb. In conflict with the Emperor over an inheritance claim involving a relative of the Empress, Rougon resigns from his position as premier of the Corps l\u00e9gislatif before he can be dismissed. This puts the plans and dreams of Rougon's friends in limbo, as they are counting on his political influence to win various personal favors. His greatest ally and his greatest adversary is Clorinde Balbi, an Italian woman of dubious background and devious intent. Clorinde desires power as much as Rougon does but, because she is a woman, she is forced to act behind the scenes. Rougon refuses to marry her because he believes two such dominant personalities would inevitably destroy each other. Instead, he encourages her to marry M. Delestang, a man of great wealth who can easily be wheedled, while he himself takes a respectable nonentity of a wife who will not hinder his ambition. Rougon learns of an assassination plot against the Emperor, but decides to do nothing about it. In consequence, after the attempt is made (the Orsini incident of 1858), the Emperor makes him Minister of the Interior with power to maintain peace and national security at any cost. Rougon uses this as an opportunity to punish his political adversaries, deport anti-imperialists by the hundreds, and reward his loyal friends with honors, commissions, and political appointments. Through his influence, Delestang is made Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. As Rougon's power expands, however, his cronies begin to desert him despite his fulfilling their personal requests. They feel that he has not done enough for them and what he has done either has not been good enough or has had consequences so disastrous as to be no help at all. Moreover, they consider him ungrateful, given all the work they claim to have done to have him reinstated as Minister. Eventually, Rougon is involved in several great scandals based on the favors he has shown to his inner circle. At the center of all this conflict is Clorinde. As Rougon's power has grown, so has hers, until she has influence at the highest level and on an international scale, including as the Emperor's mistress. Now having the upper hand, she is able to punish Rougon for his refusal to marry her. To silence political and personal opposition, Rougon decides to submit his resignation to the Emperor, confident that it will not be accepted. However, it is accepted, and Delestang is made Minister of the Interior, the implication being that both actions are founded on Clorinde\u2019s authority over the Emperor. The novel ends in 1862. The Emperor has returned Rougon to service as Minister without Portfolio, giving him unprecedented powers in the wake of Italian unification. Ostensibly, the appointment is meant to reconfigure the country on less imperialistic, more liberal lines, but in reality Rougon has a free hand to crush resistance, curtail opposition, and control the press.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel opens in 1857 with Rougon's career at a low ebb. In conflict with the Emperor over an inheritance claim involving a relative of the Empress, Rougon resigns from his position as premier of the Corps l\u00e9gislatif before he can be dismissed. This puts the plans and dreams of Rougon's friends in limbo, as they are counting on his political influence to win various personal favors. His greatest ally and his greatest adversary is Clorinde Balbi, an Italian woman of dubious background and devious intent. Clorinde desires power as much as Rougon does but, because she is a woman, she is forced to act behind the scenes. Rougon refuses to marry her because he believes two such dominant personalities would inevitably destroy each other. Instead, he encourages her to marry M. Delestang, a man of great wealth who can easily be wheedled, while he himself takes a respectable nonentity of a wife who will not hinder his ambition. Rougon learns of an assassination plot against the Emperor, but decides to do nothing about it. In consequence, after the attempt is made (the Orsini incident of 1858), the Emperor makes him Minister of the Interior with power to maintain peace and national security at any cost. Rougon uses this as an opportunity to punish his political adversaries, deport anti-imperialists by the hundreds, and reward his loyal friends with honors, commissions, and political appointments. Through his influence, Delestang is made Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. As Rougon's power expands, however, his cronies begin to desert him despite his fulfilling their personal requests. They feel that he has not done enough for them and what he has done either has not been good enough or has had consequences so disastrous as to be no help at all. Moreover, they consider him ungrateful, given all the work they claim to have done to have him reinstated as Minister. Eventually, Rougon is"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Delestang is made Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. As Rougon's power expands, however, his cronies begin to desert him despite his fulfilling their personal requests. They feel that he has not done enough for them and what he has done either has not been good enough or has had consequences so disastrous as to be no help at all. Moreover, they consider him ungrateful, given all the work they claim to have done to have him reinstated as Minister. Eventually, Rougon is involved in several great scandals based on the favors he has shown to his inner circle. At the center of all this conflict is Clorinde. As Rougon's power has grown, so has hers, until she has influence at the highest level and on an international scale, including as the Emperor's mistress. Now having the upper hand, she is able to punish Rougon for his refusal to marry her. To silence political and personal opposition, Rougon decides to submit his resignation to the Emperor, confident that it will not be accepted. However, it is accepted, and Delestang is made Minister of the Interior, the implication being that both actions are founded on Clorinde\u2019s authority over the Emperor. The novel ends in 1862. The Emperor has returned Rougon to service as Minister without Portfolio, giving him unprecedented powers in the wake of Italian unification. Ostensibly, the appointment is meant to reconfigure the country on less imperialistic, more liberal lines, but in reality Rougon has a free hand to crush resistance, curtail opposition, and control the press.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " in reality Rougon has a free hand to crush resistance, curtail opposition, and control the press.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "La Cur\u00e9e",
    "author": "\u00c9mile Zola",
    "published_date": "1871-02",
    "synopsis": " The book opens with scenes of astonishing opulence, beginning with Ren\u00e9e and Maxime lazing in a luxurious horse-drawn carriage, very slowly leaving a Parisian park (the Bois de Boulogne) in the 19th century-equivalent of a traffic jam. It is made clear very early on that these are staggeringly wealthy characters not subject to the cares faced by the public; they arrive at their mansion and spend hours being dressed by their servants prior to hosting a banquet attended by some of the richest people in Paris. There seems to be almost no continuity between this scene and the end of the previous novel, until the second chapter begins and Zola reveals that this opulent scene takes place almost fourteen years later. Zola then rewinds time to pick up the story practically minutes after La Fortune des Rougon ended. Following Eugene Rougon's rise to political power in Paris in La Fortune, his younger brother Aristide, featured in the first novel as a talentless journalist, a comic character unable to commit himself unequivocally to the imperial cause and thus left out in the cold when the rewards were being handed out, decides to follow Eugene to Paris to help himself to the wealth and power he now believes to be his birthright. Eugene promises to help Aristide achieve these things on the condition that he stay out of his way and change his surname to avoid the possibility of bad publicity from Aristide's escapades rubbing off on Eugene and damaging his political chances. Aristide chooses the surname Saccard and Eugene gets him a seemingly mundane job at the city planning permission office. The renamed Saccard soon realises that, far from the disappointment he thought the job would be, he is actually in a position to gain insider information on the houses and other buildings that are to be demolished to build Paris's bold new system of boulevards. Knowing that the owners of these properties ordered to be demolished by the city government were compensated handsomely, Saccard contrives to borrow money in order to buy up these properties before their status becomes public and then make massive profits. Saccard is at first unable to get the money to make his initial investments but then his wife falls victim to a terminal illness. Even while she lies dying in the next room, Saccard (in a brilliant scene of breathtaking callousness) is already making arrangements to marry rich girl Ren\u00e9e, who is pregnant and whose family wishes to avoid scandal by offering a huge dowry to any man who will marry her and claim the baby as his own. Saccard accepts and his career in speculation is born. He sends his youngest daughter back home to Plassans and packs his older son Maxime off to a Parisian boarding school; we meet Maxime again when he leaves school several years later and meets his new stepmother Ren\u00e9e, who is only a couple of years older. The flashback complete, the rest of the novel takes place after Saccard has made his fortune, against the backdrop of his luxurious mansion and his profligacy and is concerned with a three-cornered plot of sexual and political intrigue. Ren\u00e9e and Maxime begin a semi-incestuous love affair, which Saccard suspects but appears to tolerate, perhaps due to the commercial nature of his marriage to Ren\u00e9e. Saccard is trying to get Ren\u00e9e to part with the deeds to her family home, which would be worth millions but which she refuses to give up. The novel continues in this vein with the tensions continuing to mount and culminates in a series of bitter observations by Zola on the hypocrisy and immorality of the nouveau riche. A near-penniless journalist at the time of writing La Cur\u00e9e, Zola himself had no experience of the scenes he describes. In order to counter this lack, he toured a large number of stately homes around France, taking copious notes on subjects like architecture, ladies' and men's fashions, jewellery, garden design, greenhouse plants (a seduction scene takes place in Saccard's hothouse), carriages, mannerisms, servants' liveries; these notes (volumes of which are preserved) were time well spent, as many contemporary observers praised the novel for its realism. Roger Vadim updated the setting to modern-day Paris in a movie adaptation by Jean Cau, starring Jane Fonda, Michel Piccoli and Peter McEnery in 1966. The film was released in English-speaking markets as The Game is Over.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book opens with scenes of astonishing opulence, beginning with Ren\u00e9e and Maxime lazing in a luxurious horse-drawn carriage, very slowly leaving a Parisian park (the Bois de Boulogne) in the 19th century-equivalent of a traffic jam. It is made clear very early on that these are staggeringly wealthy characters not subject to the cares faced by the public; they arrive at their mansion and spend hours being dressed by their servants prior to hosting a banquet attended by some of the richest people in Paris. There seems to be almost no continuity between this scene and the end of the previous novel, until the second chapter begins and Zola reveals that this opulent scene takes place almost fourteen years later. Zola then rewinds time to pick up the story practically minutes after La Fortune des Rougon ended. Following Eugene Rougon's rise to political power in Paris in La Fortune, his younger brother Aristide, featured in the first novel as a talentless journalist, a comic character unable to commit himself unequivocally to the imperial cause and thus left out in the cold when the rewards were being handed out, decides to follow Eugene to Paris to help himself to the wealth and power he now believes to be his birthright. Eugene promises to help Aristide achieve these things on the condition that he stay out of his way and change his surname to avoid the possibility of bad publicity from Aristide's escapades rubbing off on Eugene and damaging his political chances. Aristide chooses the surname Saccard and Eugene gets him a seemingly mundane job at the city planning permission office. The renamed Saccard soon realises that, far from the disappointment he thought the job would be, he is actually in a position to gain insider information on the houses and other buildings that are to be demolished to build Paris's bold new system of boulevards. Knowing that the owners of these properties ordered to be demolished by the city government were compensated handsomely, Saccard cont"
      },
      {
        "text": "ide chooses the surname Saccard and Eugene gets him a seemingly mundane job at the city planning permission office. The renamed Saccard soon realises that, far from the disappointment he thought the job would be, he is actually in a position to gain insider information on the houses and other buildings that are to be demolished to build Paris's bold new system of boulevards. Knowing that the owners of these properties ordered to be demolished by the city government were compensated handsomely, Saccard contrives to borrow money in order to buy up these properties before their status becomes public and then make massive profits. Saccard is at first unable to get the money to make his initial investments but then his wife falls victim to a terminal illness. Even while she lies dying in the next room, Saccard (in a brilliant scene of breathtaking callousness) is already making arrangements to marry rich girl Ren\u00e9e, who is pregnant and whose family wishes to avoid scandal by offering a huge dowry to any man who will marry her and claim the baby as his own. Saccard accepts and his career in speculation is born. He sends his youngest daughter back home to Plassans and packs his older son Maxime off to a Parisian boarding school; we meet Maxime again when he leaves school several years later and meets his new stepmother Ren\u00e9e, who is only a couple of years older. The flashback complete, the rest of the novel takes place after Saccard has made his fortune, against the backdrop of his luxurious mansion and his profligacy and is concerned with a three-cornered plot of sexual and political intrigue. Ren\u00e9e and Maxime begin a semi-incestuous love affair, which Saccard suspects but appears to tolerate, perhaps due to the commercial nature of his marriage to Ren\u00e9e. Saccard is trying to get Ren\u00e9e to part with the deeds to her family home, which would be worth millions but which she refuses to"
      },
      {
        "text": " made his fortune, against the backdrop of his luxurious mansion and his profligacy and is concerned with a three-cornered plot of sexual and political intrigue. Ren\u00e9e and Maxime begin a semi-incestuous love affair, which Saccard suspects but appears to tolerate, perhaps due to the commercial nature of his marriage to Ren\u00e9e. Saccard is trying to get Ren\u00e9e to part with the deeds to her family home, which would be worth millions but which she refuses to give up. The novel continues in this vein with the tensions continuing to mount and culminates in a series of bitter observations by Zola on the hypocrisy and immorality of the nouveau riche. A near-penniless journalist at the time of writing La Cur\u00e9e, Zola himself had no experience of the scenes he describes. In order to counter this lack, he toured a large number of stately homes around France, taking copious notes on subjects like architecture, ladies' and men's fashions, jewellery, garden design, greenhouse plants (a seduction scene takes place in Saccard's hothouse), carriages, mannerisms, servants' liveries; these notes (volumes of which are preserved) were time well spent, as many contemporary observers praised the novel for its realism. Roger Vadim updated the setting to modern-day Paris in a movie adaptation by Jean Cau, starring Jane Fonda, Michel Piccoli and Peter McEnery in 1966. The film was released in English-speaking markets as The Game is Over.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Peter McEnery in 1966. The film was released in English-speaking markets as The Game is Over.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "L'Argent",
    "author": "\u00c9mile Zola",
    "published_date": "1891",
    "synopsis": " The novel takes place in 1864-1869, beginning a few months after the death of Saccard's second wife Ren\u00e9e (see La cur\u00e9e). Saccard is bankrupt and an outcast among the Bourse financiers. Searching for a way to reestablish himself, Saccard is struck by plans developed by his upstairs neighbor, the engineer Georges Hamelin, who dreams of restoring Christianity to the Middle East through great public works: rail lines linking important cities, improved roads and transportation, renovated eastern Mediterranean ports, and fleets of modern ships to move goods around the world. Saccard decides to institute a financial establishment to fund these projects. He is motivated primarily by the potential to make incredible amounts of money and reestablish himself on the Bourse. In addition, Saccard has an intense rivalry with his brother Eug\u00e8ne Rougon, a powerful Cabinet minister who refuses to help him after his bankruptcy and who is promoting a more liberal, less Catholic agenda for the Empire. Furthermore, Saccard, an intense anti-Semite, sees the enterprise as a strike against the Jewish bankers who dominate the Bourse. (In a footnote, Ernest A. Vizetelly, the first British translator of L'argent, draws a distinction between Zola's depiction of this aspect of Saccard's character and Zola's personal pro-Jewish beliefs as manifested in the later Dreyfus affair.) From the beginning, Saccard's Banque Universelle (Universal Bank) stands on shaky ground. In order to manipulate the price of the stock, Saccard and his confreres on the syndicate he has set up to jumpstart the enterprise buy their own stock and hide the proceeds of this illegal practice in a dummy account fronted by a straw man. While Hamelin travels to Constantinople to lay the groundwork for their enterprise, the Banque Universelle goes from strength to strength. Stock prices soar, going from 500 francs a share to more than 3,000 francs in three years. Furthermore, Saccard buys several newspapers which serve to maintain the illusion of legitimacy, promote the Banque, excite the public, and attack Rougon. The novel follows the fortunes of about 20 characters, cutting across all social strata, showing the effects of stock market speculation on rich and poor. The financial events of the novel are played against Saccard's personal life. Hamelin lives with his sister Caroline, who, against her better judgment, invests in the Banque Universelle and later becomes Saccard's mistress. Caroline learns that Saccard fathered a son, Victor, during his first days in Paris. She rescues Victor from his life of abject poverty, placing him in a charitable institution. But Victor is completely unredeemable, given over to greed, laziness, and thievery. After he attacks one of the women at the institution, he disappears into the streets, never to be seen again. Eventually, the Banque Universelle cannot sustain itself. Saccard's principal rival on the Bourse, the Jewish financier Gundermann, learns about Saccard's financial trickery and attacks, losing stock upon the market, devaluing its price, and forcing Saccard to buy millions of shares to keep the price up. At the final collapse, the Banque holds one-fourth of its own shares worth 200 million francs. The fall of the Banque is felt across the entire financial world. Indeed, all of France feels the force of its collapse. The effects on the characters of L'argent are disastrous, including complete ruin, suicide, and exile, though some of Saccard's syndicate members escape and Gundermann experiences a windfall. Saccard and Hamelin are sentenced to five years in prison. Through the intervention of Rougon, who doesn't want a brother in jail, their sentences are commuted and they are forced to leave France. Saccard goes to Belgium, and the novel ends with Caroline preparing to follow her brother to Rome.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel takes place in 1864-1869, beginning a few months after the death of Saccard's second wife Ren\u00e9e (see La cur\u00e9e). Saccard is bankrupt and an outcast among the Bourse financiers. Searching for a way to reestablish himself, Saccard is struck by plans developed by his upstairs neighbor, the engineer Georges Hamelin, who dreams of restoring Christianity to the Middle East through great public works: rail lines linking important cities, improved roads and transportation, renovated eastern Mediterranean ports, and fleets of modern ships to move goods around the world. Saccard decides to institute a financial establishment to fund these projects. He is motivated primarily by the potential to make incredible amounts of money and reestablish himself on the Bourse. In addition, Saccard has an intense rivalry with his brother Eug\u00e8ne Rougon, a powerful Cabinet minister who refuses to help him after his bankruptcy and who is promoting a more liberal, less Catholic agenda for the Empire. Furthermore, Saccard, an intense anti-Semite, sees the enterprise as a strike against the Jewish bankers who dominate the Bourse. (In a footnote, Ernest A. Vizetelly, the first British translator of L'argent, draws a distinction between Zola's depiction of this aspect of Saccard's character and Zola's personal pro-Jewish beliefs as manifested in the later Dreyfus affair.) From the beginning, Saccard's Banque Universelle (Universal Bank) stands on shaky ground. In order to manipulate the price of the stock, Saccard and his confreres on the syndicate he has set up to jumpstart the enterprise buy their own stock and hide the proceeds of this illegal practice in a dummy account fronted by a straw man. While Hamelin travels to Constantinople to lay the groundwork for their enterprise, the Banque Universelle goes from strength to strength. Stock prices soar,"
      },
      {
        "text": " Banque Universelle (Universal Bank) stands on shaky ground. In order to manipulate the price of the stock, Saccard and his confreres on the syndicate he has set up to jumpstart the enterprise buy their own stock and hide the proceeds of this illegal practice in a dummy account fronted by a straw man. While Hamelin travels to Constantinople to lay the groundwork for their enterprise, the Banque Universelle goes from strength to strength. Stock prices soar, going from 500 francs a share to more than 3,000 francs in three years. Furthermore, Saccard buys several newspapers which serve to maintain the illusion of legitimacy, promote the Banque, excite the public, and attack Rougon. The novel follows the fortunes of about 20 characters, cutting across all social strata, showing the effects of stock market speculation on rich and poor. The financial events of the novel are played against Saccard's personal life. Hamelin lives with his sister Caroline, who, against her better judgment, invests in the Banque Universelle and later becomes Saccard's mistress. Caroline learns that Saccard fathered a son, Victor, during his first days in Paris. She rescues Victor from his life of abject poverty, placing him in a charitable institution. But Victor is completely unredeemable, given over to greed, laziness, and thievery. After he attacks one of the women at the institution, he disappears into the streets, never to be seen again. Eventually, the Banque Universelle cannot sustain itself. Saccard's principal rival on the Bourse, the Jewish financier Gundermann, learns about Saccard's financial trickery and attacks, losing stock upon the market, devaluing its price, and forcing Saccard to buy millions of shares to keep the price up. At the final collapse, the Banque holds one-fourth of its own"
      },
      {
        "text": ", he disappears into the streets, never to be seen again. Eventually, the Banque Universelle cannot sustain itself. Saccard's principal rival on the Bourse, the Jewish financier Gundermann, learns about Saccard's financial trickery and attacks, losing stock upon the market, devaluing its price, and forcing Saccard to buy millions of shares to keep the price up. At the final collapse, the Banque holds one-fourth of its own shares worth 200 million francs. The fall of the Banque is felt across the entire financial world. Indeed, all of France feels the force of its collapse. The effects on the characters of L'argent are disastrous, including complete ruin, suicide, and exile, though some of Saccard's syndicate members escape and Gundermann experiences a windfall. Saccard and Hamelin are sentenced to five years in prison. Through the intervention of Rougon, who doesn't want a brother in jail, their sentences are commuted and they are forced to leave France. Saccard goes to Belgium, and the novel ends with Caroline preparing to follow her brother to Rome.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Crying of Lot 49",
    "author": "Thomas Pynchon",
    "published_date": "1966",
    "synopsis": " The novel follows Oedipa Maas, a Californian housewife who becomes entangled in a convoluted historical mystery when her ex-lover dies and designates her the co-executor of his estate. The catalyst of Oedipa's adventure is a set of stamps that may have been used by a secret underground postal delivery service, the Trystero (or Tristero). According to the historical narrative that Oedipa pieces together during her travels around the San Francisco Bay Area, the Trystero was defeated by Thurn und Taxis \u2013 a real postal system \u2013 in the 18th century but went underground and continued to exist into Oedipa's present day, the 1960s. Their mailboxes are disguised as regular waste-bins, often displaying their slogan W.A.S.T.E., an acronym for We Await Silent Tristero's Empire, and their symbol, a muted post horn. The existence and plans of this shadowy organization are revealed bit by bit; or, then again, it is possible that the Tristero does not exist at all. The novel's main character, Oedipa Maas, is buffeted back and forth between believing and not believing in them, without ever finding firm proof either way. The Tristero may be a conspiracy, it may be a practical joke, or it may simply be that Oedipa is hallucinating all the arcane references to the underground network that she seems to be discovering on bus windows, toilet walls, and everywhere in the Bay Area. Prominent among these references is the \"Trystero symbol\", a muted post horn with one loop. Originally derived, supposedly, from the Thurn and Taxis coat of arms, Oedipa finds this symbol first in a bar bathroom, where it decorates a graffito advertising a group of polyamorists. It later appears among an engineer's doodles, as part of a children's sidewalk jump rope game, amidst Chinese ideograms in a shop window, and in many other places. The post horn (in either original or Trystero versions) appears on the cover art of many TCL49 editions, as well as within artwork created by the novel's fans. Oedipa finds herself drawn into this shadowy intrigue when an old boyfriend, the California real estate mogul Pierce Inverarity, dies. Inverarity's will names her as his executor. Soon enough, she learns that although Inverarity \"once lost two million dollars in his spare time [he] still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary.\" She leaves her comfortable home in Kinneret-Among-The-Pines, a northern California village, and travels south to the fictional town of San Narciso (Spanish for \"Saint Narcissus\"), near Los Angeles. Exploring puzzling coincidences she uncovers while parsing Inverarity's testament, Oedipa finds what might be evidence for the Trystero's existence. Sinking or ascending ever more deeply into paranoia, she finds herself torn between believing in the Trystero and believing that it is all a hoax established by Inverarity himself. Near the novel's conclusion, she reflects, He might have written the testament only to harass a one-time mistress, so cynically sure of being wiped out he could throw away all hope of anything more. Bitterness could have run that deep in him. She just didn't know. He might himself have discovered The Tristero, and encrypted that in the will, buying into just enough to be sure she'd find it. Or he might even have tried to survive death, as a paranoia; as a pure conspiracy against someone he loved. Along the way, Oedipa meets a wide range of eccentric characters. Her therapist in Kinneret, a Dr. Hilarius, turns out to have done his internship in Buchenwald, working to induce insanity in captive Jews. "Liberal SS circles felt it would be more humane," he explains. In San Francisco, she meets a man who claims membership in the IA, Inamorati Anonymous\u2014a group founded to help people avoid falling in love, "the worst addiction of all". (Ironically, the anonymous inamorato wears a lapel pin shaped as the Trystero post horn, which Oedipa first saw on an advertisement for group sex.) And, in Berkeley, she meets John Nefastis, an engineer who believes he has built a working version of Maxwell's demon, a means for defeating entropy. The book ends with Oedipa attending an auction, waiting for bidding to begin on a set of a rare postage stamps, which she believes representatives of Tristero are trying to acquire. (Auction items are called "lots"; a lot is "cried" when the auctioneer is taking bids on it; the stamps in question are "Lot 49".)\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel follows Oedipa Maas, a Californian housewife who becomes entangled in a convoluted historical mystery when her ex-lover dies and designates her the co-executor of his estate. The catalyst of Oedipa's adventure is a set of stamps that may have been used by a secret underground postal delivery service, the Trystero (or Tristero). According to the historical narrative that Oedipa pieces together during her travels around the San Francisco Bay Area, the Trystero was defeated by Thurn und Taxis \u2013 a real postal system \u2013 in the 18th century but went underground and continued to exist into Oedipa's present day, the 1960s. Their mailboxes are disguised as regular waste-bins, often displaying their slogan W.A.S.T.E., an acronym for We Await Silent Tristero's Empire, and their symbol, a muted post horn. The existence and plans of this shadowy organization are revealed bit by bit; or, then again, it is possible that the Tristero does not exist at all. The novel's main character, Oedipa Maas, is buffeted back and forth between believing and not believing in them, without ever finding firm proof either way. The Tristero may be a conspiracy, it may be a practical joke, or it may simply be that Oedipa is hallucinating all the arcane references to the underground network that she seems to be discovering on bus windows, toilet walls, and everywhere in the Bay Area. Prominent among these references is the \"Trystero symbol\", a muted post horn with one loop. Originally derived, supposedly, from the Thurn and Taxis coat of arms, Oedipa finds this symbol first in a bar bathroom, where it decorates a graffito advertising a group of polyamorists. It later appears among an engineer's doodles, as part of a"
      },
      {
        "text": " seems to be discovering on bus windows, toilet walls, and everywhere in the Bay Area. Prominent among these references is the \"Trystero symbol\", a muted post horn with one loop. Originally derived, supposedly, from the Thurn and Taxis coat of arms, Oedipa finds this symbol first in a bar bathroom, where it decorates a graffito advertising a group of polyamorists. It later appears among an engineer's doodles, as part of a children's sidewalk jump rope game, amidst Chinese ideograms in a shop window, and in many other places. The post horn (in either original or Trystero versions) appears on the cover art of many TCL49 editions, as well as within artwork created by the novel's fans. Oedipa finds herself drawn into this shadowy intrigue when an old boyfriend, the California real estate mogul Pierce Inverarity, dies. Inverarity's will names her as his executor. Soon enough, she learns that although Inverarity \"once lost two million dollars in his spare time [he] still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary.\" She leaves her comfortable home in Kinneret-Among-The-Pines, a northern California village, and travels south to the fictional town of San Narciso (Spanish for \"Saint Narcissus\"), near Los Angeles. Exploring puzzling coincidences she uncovers while parsing Inverarity's testament, Oedipa finds what might be evidence for the Trystero's existence. Sinking or ascending ever more deeply into paranoia, she finds herself torn between believing in the Trystero and believing that it is all a hoax established by Inverarity himself. Near the novel's conclusion, she reflects, He might have written the testament only to harass a one-time mistress, so cynically sure of being wiped out he could throw away all hope of anything more. Bit"
      },
      {
        "text": "arity's testament, Oedipa finds what might be evidence for the Trystero's existence. Sinking or ascending ever more deeply into paranoia, she finds herself torn between believing in the Trystero and believing that it is all a hoax established by Inverarity himself. Near the novel's conclusion, she reflects, He might have written the testament only to harass a one-time mistress, so cynically sure of being wiped out he could throw away all hope of anything more. Bitterness could have run that deep in him. She just didn't know. He might himself have discovered The Tristero, and encrypted that in the will, buying into just enough to be sure she'd find it. Or he might even have tried to survive death, as a paranoia; as a pure conspiracy against someone he loved. Along the way, Oedipa meets a wide range of eccentric characters. Her therapist in Kinneret, a Dr. Hilarius, turns out to have done his internship in Buchenwald, working to induce insanity in captive Jews. "Liberal SS circles felt it would be more humane," he explains. In San Francisco, she meets a man who claims membership in the IA, Inamorati Anonymous\u2014a group founded to help people avoid falling in love, "the worst addiction of all". (Ironically, the anonymous inamorato wears a lapel pin shaped as the Trystero post horn, which Oedipa first saw on an advertisement for group sex.) And, in Berkeley, she meets John Nefastis, an engineer who believes he has built a working version of Maxwell's demon, a means for defeating entropy. The book ends with Oedipa attending an auction, waiting for bidding to begin on a set of a rare postage stamps, which she believes representatives of Tristero are trying to acquire. (Auction items are called &"
      },
      {
        "text": " Trystero post horn, which Oedipa first saw on an advertisement for group sex.) And, in Berkeley, she meets John Nefastis, an engineer who believes he has built a working version of Maxwell's demon, a means for defeating entropy. The book ends with Oedipa attending an auction, waiting for bidding to begin on a set of a rare postage stamps, which she believes representatives of Tristero are trying to acquire. (Auction items are called "lots"; a lot is "cried" when the auctioneer is taking bids on it; the stamps in question are "Lot 49".)\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Jack of Shadows",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1971",
    "synopsis": " The novel is set in a world that is tidally locked. Thus one side of the planet is always in light, and the other in darkness. Science rules on the dayside, while magic holds sway in the night. Powerful magical entities live on the night side of the planet, and for the most part the entities' magical powers emanate from distinct loci. Jack of Shadows (a.k.a. Shadowjack), the main character, is unique among the magical beings in that he draws his power not from a physical location but from shadow itself. He is nearly incapacitated in complete light or complete darkness, but given access to even a small area of shadow, his potency is unmatched. Jack's only friend, the creature Morningstar, is punished by being trapped in stone at the edge of the night, to be released when dawn comes. His torso and head protrude from the rock, and he awaits the sun that will never rise. Jack seeks \"The Key That Was Lost\", Kolwynia. The Key itself and the consequences of its use parallel Jack's progress in his own endeavors. Ultimately, the Key will be responsible for Jack's salvation and his doom. Fleeing the dark side, Jack gets access to a computer and uses it to recover Kolwynia. This makes him unbeatable, but not all-powerful. Having made a mess of ruling with his new powers, he seeks the advice of Morningstar, who advises him to destroy The Machine at the Heart of the World, which maintains the world's stability, and set it rotating. The novel ends with Jack falling, perhaps to his death, but Morningstar has been freed by the world's turning and rushes to rescue him. The fate of this ambiguous hero is left untold, with Jack wondering, as he falls, if Morningstar will reach him in time.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is set in a world that is tidally locked. Thus one side of the planet is always in light, and the other in darkness. Science rules on the dayside, while magic holds sway in the night. Powerful magical entities live on the night side of the planet, and for the most part the entities' magical powers emanate from distinct loci. Jack of Shadows (a.k.a. Shadowjack), the main character, is unique among the magical beings in that he draws his power not from a physical location but from shadow itself. He is nearly incapacitated in complete light or complete darkness, but given access to even a small area of shadow, his potency is unmatched. Jack's only friend, the creature Morningstar, is punished by being trapped in stone at the edge of the night, to be released when dawn comes. His torso and head protrude from the rock, and he awaits the sun that will never rise. Jack seeks \"The Key That Was Lost\", Kolwynia. The Key itself and the consequences of its use parallel Jack's progress in his own endeavors. Ultimately, the Key will be responsible for Jack's salvation and his doom. Fleeing the dark side, Jack gets access to a computer and uses it to recover Kolwynia. This makes him unbeatable, but not all-powerful. Having made a mess of ruling with his new powers, he seeks the advice of Morningstar, who advises him to destroy The Machine at the Heart of the World, which maintains the world's stability, and set it rotating. The novel ends with Jack falling, perhaps to his death, but Morningstar has been freed by the world's turning and rushes to rescue him. The fate of this ambiguous hero is left untold, with Jack wondering, as he falls, if Morningstar will reach him in time.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Heart of the World, which maintains the world's stability, and set it rotating. The novel ends with Jack falling, perhaps to his death, but Morningstar has been freed by the world's turning and rushes to rescue him. The fate of this ambiguous hero is left untold, with Jack wondering, as he falls, if Morningstar will reach him in time.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Whose Body?",
    "author": "Dorothy L. Sayers",
    "published_date": "1923",
    "synopsis": " Wimsey's mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, telephones to say that Thipps, an architect hired to do some work on her local church, has just found a dead body wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez in the bath in his flat. The official investigator, Inspector Sugg, suspects Thipps and his servant; Wimsey starts his own enquiry. Sir Reuben Levy, a famous financier, has disappeared from his own bedroom, and there has been a flurry of trading in some Peruvian oil shares. Inspector Parker, Wimsey's friend, is investigating this. The corpse in the bath is not Levy, but Wimsey becomes convinced that the two are linked. The trail leads to the teaching hospital near the architect's flat, and to surgeon and neurologist Sir Julian Freke, who is based there. Wimsey discovers that Freke murdered Sir Reuben and staged his 'disappearance' from home, having borne a grudge for years over Lady Levy, who chose to marry Sir Reuben rather than him. He also engineered the trading in oil shares, to lure Sir Reuben to his death. He dismembered Sir Reuben and gave him to his students to dissect, substituting his body for that of a pauper donated to the hospital for that purpose, who bore a superficial resemblance to Sir Reuben. The pauper's body, washed, shaved and manicured, was then carried over the roofs and dumped in Thipps' bath as a joke. Freke's belief that conscience and guilt are inconvenient physiological aberrations, which may be cut out and discarded, are an explanation for his conduct. He attempts to murder both Parker and Wimsey, and finally tries suicide when his actions are discovered, but is arrested in time. The book establishes many of Wimsey's character traits - for example, his interest in rare books, the nervous problems associated with his wartime shell-shock, and his ambiguous feelings about catching criminals for a hobby - and also introduces many characters who recur in later novels, such as Parker, Bunter, Sugg, and the Dowager Duchess. There is a passing reference in the book to Freddy Arbuthnot, Wimsey's friend and contact for the stock market, being in love with Sir Reuben Levy's daughter Rachel and wanting to marry her. This theme is picked up in Strong Poison, taking place seven years later, when Freddy at last manages to convince Rachel's family to consent to the match despite his being a gentile - after Freddy compared his long wait with that of the Biblical Jacob for his Rachel. Whose Body? is now in the public domain in the United States, but may still be copyrighted elsewhere.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Wimsey's mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, telephones to say that Thipps, an architect hired to do some work on her local church, has just found a dead body wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez in the bath in his flat. The official investigator, Inspector Sugg, suspects Thipps and his servant; Wimsey starts his own enquiry. Sir Reuben Levy, a famous financier, has disappeared from his own bedroom, and there has been a flurry of trading in some Peruvian oil shares. Inspector Parker, Wimsey's friend, is investigating this. The corpse in the bath is not Levy, but Wimsey becomes convinced that the two are linked. The trail leads to the teaching hospital near the architect's flat, and to surgeon and neurologist Sir Julian Freke, who is based there. Wimsey discovers that Freke murdered Sir Reuben and staged his 'disappearance' from home, having borne a grudge for years over Lady Levy, who chose to marry Sir Reuben rather than him. He also engineered the trading in oil shares, to lure Sir Reuben to his death. He dismembered Sir Reuben and gave him to his students to dissect, substituting his body for that of a pauper donated to the hospital for that purpose, who bore a superficial resemblance to Sir Reuben. The pauper's body, washed, shaved and manicured, was then carried over the roofs and dumped in Thipps' bath as a joke. Freke's belief that conscience and guilt are inconvenient physiological aberrations, which may be cut out and discarded, are an explanation for his conduct. He attempts to murder both Parker and Wimsey, and finally tries suicide when his actions are discovered, but is arrested in time. The book establishes many of Wimsey's character traits - for example, his interest in rare books, the nervous problems associated with his wartime shell-shock,"
      },
      {
        "text": " roofs and dumped in Thipps' bath as a joke. Freke's belief that conscience and guilt are inconvenient physiological aberrations, which may be cut out and discarded, are an explanation for his conduct. He attempts to murder both Parker and Wimsey, and finally tries suicide when his actions are discovered, but is arrested in time. The book establishes many of Wimsey's character traits - for example, his interest in rare books, the nervous problems associated with his wartime shell-shock, and his ambiguous feelings about catching criminals for a hobby - and also introduces many characters who recur in later novels, such as Parker, Bunter, Sugg, and the Dowager Duchess. There is a passing reference in the book to Freddy Arbuthnot, Wimsey's friend and contact for the stock market, being in love with Sir Reuben Levy's daughter Rachel and wanting to marry her. This theme is picked up in Strong Poison, taking place seven years later, when Freddy at last manages to convince Rachel's family to consent to the match despite his being a gentile - after Freddy compared his long wait with that of the Biblical Jacob for his Rachel. Whose Body? is now in the public domain in the United States, but may still be copyrighted elsewhere.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Clouds of Witness",
    "author": "Dorothy L. Sayers",
    "published_date": "1926-06",
    "synopsis": " After the events of Whose Body?, Lord Peter Wimsey goes on an extended holiday in Corsica. Returning to Paris, he receives the news that his sister Mary's fianc\u00e9, Captain Denis Cathcart, has been found shot dead outside the Wimseys' shooting lodge at Riddlesdale in Yorkshire. His brother, Gerald, Duke of Denver, has been arrested for the murder. Cathcart was killed by a bullet from Denver's revolver, and Denver's only alibi is that he was out for a walk at the time Cathcart died. Gerald admits that he quarrelled with Cathcart earlier that night, having received a letter from a friend which told him that Cathcart had been in trouble in Paris for cheating at cards. Later that night, Mary went outside and found Gerald kneeling over Cathcart's body. Peter and his close friend, Inspector Charles Parker, investigate the grounds, and find several tantalizing clues: footprints belonging to a strange man, motorcycle tracks outside the grounds and a piece of jewellery, a lucky charm in the shape of a cat. They also agree that both Gerald and Mary are hiding something; Gerald stubbornly refuses to budge from his story that he was out for a walk, and Mary is faking a severe illness to avoid talking to anyone. In the course of the following weeks, Peter investigates several false avenues. The man with the footprints turns out to be Mary's secret fianc\u00e9, Goyles, a radical Socialist agitator considered \"an unsuitable match\" by her family, who was meeting Mary to elope with her. She had been covering for him on the assumption that he killed Cathcart, but when Goyles is caught, he admits that he simply ran away in fear when he discovered the body. Furious and humiliated, Mary breaks off their engagement. While investigating the surrounding countryside Peter meets a violent, homicidal farmer, Mr. Grimethorpe, with a stunningly beautiful wife. Grimethorpe seems a likely killer, but while investigating his alibi (and nearly being killed by stumbling into a bog pit), Peter confirms that Grimethorpe was elsewhere on the fatal night. However, he discovers Gerald's letter from his friend in Egypt wedged in the window of the Grimethorpes' bedroom, proving that Gerald was visiting Grimethorpe's wife. Gerald has refused to admit it, even to his family or his lawyers, being determined to shield his mistress even at the price of being wrongfully convicted of murder and going to the gallows. This chivalric defense only makes Gerald appear more stupid to his brother, given that he has left a letter with his name on it in Mrs. Grimethorpe's bedroom, making it virtually certain that she would be discovered and murdered by her husband, if Peter had not found the letter first. Eventually, the jewelled cat leads Wimsey to Cathcart's mistress of many years, who had left him for an American millionaire. Wimsey travels to New York to find her, and makes a trans-Atlantic flight - at the time, a very risky adventure which makes the headlines in all British papers - to return to London before Gerald's trial in the House of Lords ends. From her, Wimsey brings a letter that Cathcart wrote on the night of his death, after receiving her farewell letter. In it, Cathcart announces his intention to commit suicide. He took Gerald's revolver from the study, went out into the garden and shot himself, though he lived long enough to crawl back to the house. This simple sequence of events has been cluttered up by a series of bizarre coincidences: Cathcart's mistress's farewell arriving on the same night that news of his cheating reaches Gerald; his suicide happening on the same night that Gerald planned to meet Mrs. Grimethorpe; and Gerald arriving back to stumble over the body just as Mary comes out for her rendezvous with Goyles. In his closing statement, Gerald's lawyer comments that, had Cathcart's death been the only event of that night, the truth would have been immediately obvious and unquestioned. Gerald is acquitted. As he is leaving the House of Lords, Mr. Grimethorpe appears and shoots at him, then panics and flees, and is killed by a speeding car. Mrs. Grimethorpe, finally free of her husband, is not interested in continuing her affair with Gerald, and his gallant offer to help her falls flat. In the final scene, Inspector Sugg, last seen in Whose Body?, is startled to find Wimsey, Parker, and Freddy Arbuthnot on the street after midnight, all drunk as lords. Apparently they have been celebrating the end of the case. Sugg assists them into cabs, then reflects, \"Thank God there weren't no witnesses.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After the events of Whose Body?, Lord Peter Wimsey goes on an extended holiday in Corsica. Returning to Paris, he receives the news that his sister Mary's fianc\u00e9, Captain Denis Cathcart, has been found shot dead outside the Wimseys' shooting lodge at Riddlesdale in Yorkshire. His brother, Gerald, Duke of Denver, has been arrested for the murder. Cathcart was killed by a bullet from Denver's revolver, and Denver's only alibi is that he was out for a walk at the time Cathcart died. Gerald admits that he quarrelled with Cathcart earlier that night, having received a letter from a friend which told him that Cathcart had been in trouble in Paris for cheating at cards. Later that night, Mary went outside and found Gerald kneeling over Cathcart's body. Peter and his close friend, Inspector Charles Parker, investigate the grounds, and find several tantalizing clues: footprints belonging to a strange man, motorcycle tracks outside the grounds and a piece of jewellery, a lucky charm in the shape of a cat. They also agree that both Gerald and Mary are hiding something; Gerald stubbornly refuses to budge from his story that he was out for a walk, and Mary is faking a severe illness to avoid talking to anyone. In the course of the following weeks, Peter investigates several false avenues. The man with the footprints turns out to be Mary's secret fianc\u00e9, Goyles, a radical Socialist agitator considered \"an unsuitable match\" by her family, who was meeting Mary to elope with her. She had been covering for him on the assumption that he killed Cathcart, but when Goyles is caught, he admits that he simply ran away in fear when he discovered the body. Furious and humiliated, Mary breaks off their engagement. While investigating the surrounding countryside Peter meets a violent, homicidal farmer, Mr. Grimethorpe, with a stunningly beautiful wife. Grimethorpe seems"
      },
      {
        "text": "an unsuitable match\" by her family, who was meeting Mary to elope with her. She had been covering for him on the assumption that he killed Cathcart, but when Goyles is caught, he admits that he simply ran away in fear when he discovered the body. Furious and humiliated, Mary breaks off their engagement. While investigating the surrounding countryside Peter meets a violent, homicidal farmer, Mr. Grimethorpe, with a stunningly beautiful wife. Grimethorpe seems a likely killer, but while investigating his alibi (and nearly being killed by stumbling into a bog pit), Peter confirms that Grimethorpe was elsewhere on the fatal night. However, he discovers Gerald's letter from his friend in Egypt wedged in the window of the Grimethorpes' bedroom, proving that Gerald was visiting Grimethorpe's wife. Gerald has refused to admit it, even to his family or his lawyers, being determined to shield his mistress even at the price of being wrongfully convicted of murder and going to the gallows. This chivalric defense only makes Gerald appear more stupid to his brother, given that he has left a letter with his name on it in Mrs. Grimethorpe's bedroom, making it virtually certain that she would be discovered and murdered by her husband, if Peter had not found the letter first. Eventually, the jewelled cat leads Wimsey to Cathcart's mistress of many years, who had left him for an American millionaire. Wimsey travels to New York to find her, and makes a trans-Atlantic flight - at the time, a very risky adventure which makes the headlines in all British papers - to return to London before Gerald's trial in the House of Lords ends. From her, Wimsey brings a letter that Cathcart wrote on the night of his death, after receiving her farewell letter. In it, Cathcart announces his intention to commit suicide. He took Gerald's revolver from the study, went out into"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Wimsey travels to New York to find her, and makes a trans-Atlantic flight - at the time, a very risky adventure which makes the headlines in all British papers - to return to London before Gerald's trial in the House of Lords ends. From her, Wimsey brings a letter that Cathcart wrote on the night of his death, after receiving her farewell letter. In it, Cathcart announces his intention to commit suicide. He took Gerald's revolver from the study, went out into the garden and shot himself, though he lived long enough to crawl back to the house. This simple sequence of events has been cluttered up by a series of bizarre coincidences: Cathcart's mistress's farewell arriving on the same night that news of his cheating reaches Gerald; his suicide happening on the same night that Gerald planned to meet Mrs. Grimethorpe; and Gerald arriving back to stumble over the body just as Mary comes out for her rendezvous with Goyles. In his closing statement, Gerald's lawyer comments that, had Cathcart's death been the only event of that night, the truth would have been immediately obvious and unquestioned. Gerald is acquitted. As he is leaving the House of Lords, Mr. Grimethorpe appears and shoots at him, then panics and flees, and is killed by a speeding car. Mrs. Grimethorpe, finally free of her husband, is not interested in continuing her affair with Gerald, and his gallant offer to help her falls flat. In the final scene, Inspector Sugg, last seen in Whose Body?, is startled to find Wimsey, Parker, and Freddy Arbuthnot on the street after midnight, all drunk as lords. Apparently they have been celebrating the end of the case. Sugg assists them into cabs, then reflects, \"Thank God there weren't no witnesses.\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " offer to help her falls flat. In the final scene, Inspector Sugg, last seen in Whose Body?, is startled to find Wimsey, Parker, and Freddy Arbuthnot on the street after midnight, all drunk as lords. Apparently they have been celebrating the end of the case. Sugg assists them into cabs, then reflects, \"Thank God there weren't no witnesses.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Unnatural Death",
    "author": "Dorothy L. Sayers",
    "published_date": "1927",
    "synopsis": " Overhearing a conversation in a restaurant between Wimsey and his friend Parker, a doctor tells the two of a death that affected his career. A terminal cancer patient, old and wealthy, died unexpectedly early; the doctor provoked outrage when he queried the cause, and local opinion forced him eventually to move away. Wimsey is moved to investigate. Wimsey discovers that the patient's great-niece - popular locally - had nursed her through her illness and was the intended heiress. The patient had a horror of contemplating death, however, and refused to listen to entreaties that she must make a will to be sure that her fortune would pass to her great-niece as she wished. A change in the law was imminent and meant that a great-niece would no longer inherit automatically and the estate would probably pass to the Crown. Killing her great-aunt before the legislation came in allowed the niece to secure the fortune intended for her. When Wimsey begins investigating, using the recurring character Miss Climpson as his intelligence agent, the great-niece is provoked into covering her trail. She kills a former servant, fakes a kidnap-murder and tries to frame a distant relative with an interest in the Dawson estate, and almost kills Miss Climpson. Lord Peter exposes the great-niece's motive and methods, including the false identity she has established in London, and she is eventually arrested and imprisoned on remand, where she commits suicide. The doctor from whom Lord Peter originally heard the anecdote has moved on and is not grateful to be vindicated.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Overhearing a conversation in a restaurant between Wimsey and his friend Parker, a doctor tells the two of a death that affected his career. A terminal cancer patient, old and wealthy, died unexpectedly early; the doctor provoked outrage when he queried the cause, and local opinion forced him eventually to move away. Wimsey is moved to investigate. Wimsey discovers that the patient's great-niece - popular locally - had nursed her through her illness and was the intended heiress. The patient had a horror of contemplating death, however, and refused to listen to entreaties that she must make a will to be sure that her fortune would pass to her great-niece as she wished. A change in the law was imminent and meant that a great-niece would no longer inherit automatically and the estate would probably pass to the Crown. Killing her great-aunt before the legislation came in allowed the niece to secure the fortune intended for her. When Wimsey begins investigating, using the recurring character Miss Climpson as his intelligence agent, the great-niece is provoked into covering her trail. She kills a former servant, fakes a kidnap-murder and tries to frame a distant relative with an interest in the Dawson estate, and almost kills Miss Climpson. Lord Peter exposes the great-niece's motive and methods, including the false identity she has established in London, and she is eventually arrested and imprisoned on remand, where she commits suicide. The doctor from whom Lord Peter originally heard the anecdote has moved on and is not grateful to be vindicated.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " from whom Lord Peter originally heard the anecdote has moved on and is not grateful to be vindicated.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club",
    "author": "Dorothy L. Sayers",
    "published_date": "1928",
    "synopsis": " Ninety-year old General Fentiman has been estranged for years from his sister, Lady Dormer. On the afternoon of 10 November, he is called to her deathbed for a reconciliation, and learns the terms of her will. If she dies first he will inherit a fortune, which his grandsons sorely need. But if he dies first, nearly all of the money will go to Ann Dorland, a distant relative of Lady Dormer's late husband. She is a young woman with artistic leanings who lives with Lady Dormer. Lady Dormer dies at 10:37 AM the next day, which is 11 November - Remembrance Day. That afternoon the General is found dead in his armchair at the club. This produces a hysterical outburst from his younger grandson, George Fentiman, a veteran of World War I still suffering from the effects of poison gas and shell shock. Due to the terms of Lady Dormer's will and the time of her death, it becomes necessary to establish the exact time of the General's death. Though the estate would provide amply for all three heirs, Ann Dorland refuses any compromise settlement. Wimsey is asked to help solve the puzzle by his friend Mr Murbles, the solicitor for the Fentiman family. Wimsey agrees, though he insists that he will pursue the exact truth, regardless of who benefits. The General was seated by an open fireplace, so the temperature of the body is of no help. The rigor mortis was well established, indicating death much earlier than the discovery of the body, but one knee was already limp - unusual as rigor usually eases head and neck muscles first. Dr Penberthy, a former army surgeon and club member, who was the first to see the body, certified death by natural causes. He was the General's personal physician, and was treating him for a weak heart. It would seem obvious that the General must have died sometime after arriving at the club on the morning of 11 November, since he was found later that day. But nobody saw him arrive. He went to the club at some point after visiting Lady Dormer the previous afternoon, but his whereabouts are unknown between those two events. His manservant says the General stayed out overnight, and that a certain Mr Oliver called to say that the General would spend the night with him. No one knows anything about Oliver, but the elder grandson, Robert Fentiman, says that he's seen him often at a popular Italian restaurant. Robert agrees to watch for Oliver, and Wimsey arranges for detectives to assist him. Robert thinks he sights Oliver, and follows him halfway across England, but the man is not Oliver at all. Wimsey also turns up a few clues - there was a fresh tear in the General's trouser cuff and a scraping of paint on the side of his shoe. Wimsey locates the taxi driver who picked up the General at Lady Dormer's house, and another who took him to the Bellona Club. The General went to see Dr Penberthy in between. Then, en route to the club, he had the taxi pick up George Fentiman. The two men had a long and angry discussion in the back of the taxi, and then George got out. Wimsey also inquires into the character of Ann Dorland, trying to learn why she won't compromise. He contacts his old friend, artist Marjorie Phelps, who is also a good friend of Ann Dorland. There is another sighting of Oliver, and this time Robert and the detectives follow him to Italy. Robert returns from Italy, and admits that Oliver does not exist. Wimsey has figured out what happened. There was no memorial poppy on the General's suitcoat - impossible if he had been on the streets on Remembrance Day. The General died at the club the evening before, shortly after seeing his sister. He had just told Robert the terms of Lady Dormer's will. A few minutes later, Robert found his grandfather dead in the club's library, apparently of natural causes. Piqued at losing the inheritance, he concealed the body overnight in the club's telephone booth behind an \"Out of order\" sign. (The General's cuff was torn by a nail inside the booth, and the paint was scraped from its floor. Also, the process broke the rigor mortis in one leg.) The next day, Robert moved the body to an armchair to be found later. He acted when all the other members had stepped outside for the two minutes' silence, observed on Remembrance Day at 11 AM. In the meantime, Wimsey has had the General exhumed and properly examined. The General was poisoned with an overdose of the heart medication digitalis. Suspicion falls on Ann Dorland, who was among the last persons to see the General, and who has an obvious motive. When she suddenly agrees to compromise with the Fentimans, it only adds to the suspicion. Then George Fentiman has a nervous breakdown. In an incoherent babble, he claims to have poisoned his grandfather, though this is clearly impossible. Wimsey eventually meets Ann Dorland, who is miserable. But it is not guilt that distresses her, it is callous and humiliating treatment by her former lover - Dr Penberthy. They had been secretly engaged, and he had insisted she fight for the whole estate and not compromise. Then after the autopsy, he broke off with her, giving highly insulting reasons. Penberthy had eyes on Ann Dorland's expected inheritance. When General Fentiman saw him, he spoke of Lady Dormer's will, and Penberthy realized that if the General didn't die at once, Ann Dorland wouldn't collect. So he gave the General a deliberate overdose of digitalis, to be taken later when Penberthy was not in attendance. He was present next day when the body was discovered, and so was able to certify a natural death, though Robert's intervention confused the time of death. When the poisoning was discovered, he panicked, and broke off with Ann Dorland - insulting her so that she would be too embarrassed to tell anyone. Wimsey confronts Penberthy and offers him the chance to behave like a gentleman. He cannot save himself, but he can exonerate Ann Dorland from suspicion. Penberthy writes a confession and shoots himself in the club library. In an epilogue, it is revealed that the three heirs have divided the estate equitably. In fact, Robert, a bluff soldier who expressed distaste for artistic and intellectual women, is now dating Ann Dorland.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ninety-year old General Fentiman has been estranged for years from his sister, Lady Dormer. On the afternoon of 10 November, he is called to her deathbed for a reconciliation, and learns the terms of her will. If she dies first he will inherit a fortune, which his grandsons sorely need. But if he dies first, nearly all of the money will go to Ann Dorland, a distant relative of Lady Dormer's late husband. She is a young woman with artistic leanings who lives with Lady Dormer. Lady Dormer dies at 10:37 AM the next day, which is 11 November - Remembrance Day. That afternoon the General is found dead in his armchair at the club. This produces a hysterical outburst from his younger grandson, George Fentiman, a veteran of World War I still suffering from the effects of poison gas and shell shock. Due to the terms of Lady Dormer's will and the time of her death, it becomes necessary to establish the exact time of the General's death. Though the estate would provide amply for all three heirs, Ann Dorland refuses any compromise settlement. Wimsey is asked to help solve the puzzle by his friend Mr Murbles, the solicitor for the Fentiman family. Wimsey agrees, though he insists that he will pursue the exact truth, regardless of who benefits. The General was seated by an open fireplace, so the temperature of the body is of no help. The rigor mortis was well established, indicating death much earlier than the discovery of the body, but one knee was already limp - unusual as rigor usually eases head and neck muscles first. Dr Penberthy, a former army surgeon and club member, who was the first to see the body, certified death by natural causes. He was the General's personal physician, and was treating him for a weak heart. It would seem obvious that the General must have died sometime after arriving"
      },
      {
        "text": " help. The rigor mortis was well established, indicating death much earlier than the discovery of the body, but one knee was already limp - unusual as rigor usually eases head and neck muscles first. Dr Penberthy, a former army surgeon and club member, who was the first to see the body, certified death by natural causes. He was the General's personal physician, and was treating him for a weak heart. It would seem obvious that the General must have died sometime after arriving at the club on the morning of 11 November, since he was found later that day. But nobody saw him arrive. He went to the club at some point after visiting Lady Dormer the previous afternoon, but his whereabouts are unknown between those two events. His manservant says the General stayed out overnight, and that a certain Mr Oliver called to say that the General would spend the night with him. No one knows anything about Oliver, but the elder grandson, Robert Fentiman, says that he's seen him often at a popular Italian restaurant. Robert agrees to watch for Oliver, and Wimsey arranges for detectives to assist him. Robert thinks he sights Oliver, and follows him halfway across England, but the man is not Oliver at all. Wimsey also turns up a few clues - there was a fresh tear in the General's trouser cuff and a scraping of paint on the side of his shoe. Wimsey locates the taxi driver who picked up the General at Lady Dormer's house, and another who took him to the Bellona Club. The General went to see Dr Penberthy in between. Then, en route to the club, he had the taxi pick up George Fentiman. The two men had a long and angry discussion in the back of the taxi, and then George got out. Wimsey also inquires into the character of Ann Dorland, trying to learn why she won't compromise. He contacts his old friend, artist Marj"
      },
      {
        "text": "ormer's house, and another who took him to the Bellona Club. The General went to see Dr Penberthy in between. Then, en route to the club, he had the taxi pick up George Fentiman. The two men had a long and angry discussion in the back of the taxi, and then George got out. Wimsey also inquires into the character of Ann Dorland, trying to learn why she won't compromise. He contacts his old friend, artist Marjorie Phelps, who is also a good friend of Ann Dorland. There is another sighting of Oliver, and this time Robert and the detectives follow him to Italy. Robert returns from Italy, and admits that Oliver does not exist. Wimsey has figured out what happened. There was no memorial poppy on the General's suitcoat - impossible if he had been on the streets on Remembrance Day. The General died at the club the evening before, shortly after seeing his sister. He had just told Robert the terms of Lady Dormer's will. A few minutes later, Robert found his grandfather dead in the club's library, apparently of natural causes. Piqued at losing the inheritance, he concealed the body overnight in the club's telephone booth behind an \"Out of order\" sign. (The General's cuff was torn by a nail inside the booth, and the paint was scraped from its floor. Also, the process broke the rigor mortis in one leg.) The next day, Robert moved the body to an armchair to be found later. He acted when all the other members had stepped outside for the two minutes' silence, observed on Remembrance Day at 11 AM. In the meantime, Wimsey has had the General exhumed and properly examined. The General was poisoned with an overdose of the heart medication digitalis. Suspicion falls on Ann Dorland, who was among the last persons to see the General, and who has an obvious motive. When she"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Robert moved the body to an armchair to be found later. He acted when all the other members had stepped outside for the two minutes' silence, observed on Remembrance Day at 11 AM. In the meantime, Wimsey has had the General exhumed and properly examined. The General was poisoned with an overdose of the heart medication digitalis. Suspicion falls on Ann Dorland, who was among the last persons to see the General, and who has an obvious motive. When she suddenly agrees to compromise with the Fentimans, it only adds to the suspicion. Then George Fentiman has a nervous breakdown. In an incoherent babble, he claims to have poisoned his grandfather, though this is clearly impossible. Wimsey eventually meets Ann Dorland, who is miserable. But it is not guilt that distresses her, it is callous and humiliating treatment by her former lover - Dr Penberthy. They had been secretly engaged, and he had insisted she fight for the whole estate and not compromise. Then after the autopsy, he broke off with her, giving highly insulting reasons. Penberthy had eyes on Ann Dorland's expected inheritance. When General Fentiman saw him, he spoke of Lady Dormer's will, and Penberthy realized that if the General didn't die at once, Ann Dorland wouldn't collect. So he gave the General a deliberate overdose of digitalis, to be taken later when Penberthy was not in attendance. He was present next day when the body was discovered, and so was able to certify a natural death, though Robert's intervention confused the time of death. When the poisoning was discovered, he panicked, and broke off with Ann Dorland - insulting her so that she would be too embarrassed to tell anyone. Wimsey confronts Penberthy and offers him the chance to behave like a gentleman. He cannot save himself, but he can exonerate Ann Dorland from suspicion. Penberthy writes"
      },
      {
        "text": " attendance. He was present next day when the body was discovered, and so was able to certify a natural death, though Robert's intervention confused the time of death. When the poisoning was discovered, he panicked, and broke off with Ann Dorland - insulting her so that she would be too embarrassed to tell anyone. Wimsey confronts Penberthy and offers him the chance to behave like a gentleman. He cannot save himself, but he can exonerate Ann Dorland from suspicion. Penberthy writes a confession and shoots himself in the club library. In an epilogue, it is revealed that the three heirs have divided the estate equitably. In fact, Robert, a bluff soldier who expressed distaste for artistic and intellectual women, is now dating Ann Dorland.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Strong Poison",
    "author": "Dorothy L. Sayers",
    "published_date": "1931",
    "synopsis": " Mystery author Harriet Vane has been accused of the murder of her former lover, Phillip Boyes. Boyes was a novelist and essayist who wrote in support of atheism, anarchy, and free love. Professing to disapprove of marriage, he persuaded a reluctant Harriet to live with him against her principles and they led a Bohemian life in the London art community. A year later he proposed, and Harriet, outraged at being deceived into giving up her public honour, broke off the relationship. During the year that followed, Boyes suffered from repeated bouts of gastric illness, while Harriet had bought several poisons under assumed names to test a plot point of her novel then in progress. Having returned from a holiday in North Wales in better health, Boyes dined with his cousin, the solicitor Norman Urquhart, before going to Harriet's flat to discuss reconciliation. That night he was taken fatally ill, apparently with gastritis. He died four days later after an agonising period of suffering. Although it was assumed at first that Boyes died of natural causes, an indiscreet nurse and some of Boyes' friends insisted that foul play was involved. A post-mortem revealed that Boyes' death was due to acute arsenic poisoning. Apart from the evening meal with his cousin, where every item was shared by two or more people, the only opportunity for poison to have been administered appeared to be in a cup of coffee, offered by Harriet Vane. Harriet is tried, but the result is a \"hung\" jury, thanks in no small part to the presence of Wimsey's aide, Miss Climpson, on the jury. With fewer than ten of the jury agreeing on a verdict, the judge must order a fresh trial to be held. Wimsey visits Harriet in prison, declares his conviction of her innocence, and promises to catch the real murderer. In the course of the interview he also openly admits his intention of marrying her, an offer which she politely but firmly declines. Working against time before the new trial, Wimsey first explores the possibility that Boyes took his own life. Wimsey's friend, Detective Inspector Charles Parker, conclusively disproves this notion, but Wimsey has planted a spy, Miss Joan Murchison, in Urquhart\u2019s office and discovers the real culprit is Urquhart. Suspecting Urquhart's story that he, not Boyes, is in line to inherit the considerable fortune of their senile great aunt, Wimsey sends Miss Climpson to get hold of the great-aunt\u2019s will, which she does in a comic scene exposing the practices of fraudulent mediums. Not only does the will name Boyes as the principal heir, but in Urquhart's office, Miss Murchison finds evidence that, misusing his position as his own family's solicitor, Urquhart embezzled the majority of the great aunt's holdings and subsequently lost them on the stock market. Urquhart knew that if his great aunt died, he would be exposed. Boyes, however, was unaware that he was heir to the money. With him dead, Urquhart would inherit the estate and hence his fraud would not be revealed. Miss Murchison also discovers a packet of arsenic hidden in Urquhart's office. Wimsey has now established motive and means, but not opportunity. But after re-examining the details of Boyes' famous last dinner (and perusing A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad, in which the poet likens reading dark poems to King Mithridates' self-immunization against poisons), he realizes that Urquhart laced an omelette with arsenic and shared it with Boyes after having built up an immunity to the poison with small doses over a long period. Wimsey tricks Urquhart into an admission before witnesses. At her retrial the prosecution presents no case and Harriet is set free. Exhausted by her ordeal, she again rejects Wimsey\u2019s proposal of marriage. It is also in this novel that Peter finally persuades Parker to propose to Peter's sister, Mary. Also the Honourable Freddy Arbuthnot, Wimsey's friend and contact for the stock market, in this book finds a long-delayed domestic bliss with Rachel, the daughter of Sir Reuben Levy who was murdered in Whose Body?.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Mystery author Harriet Vane has been accused of the murder of her former lover, Phillip Boyes. Boyes was a novelist and essayist who wrote in support of atheism, anarchy, and free love. Professing to disapprove of marriage, he persuaded a reluctant Harriet to live with him against her principles and they led a Bohemian life in the London art community. A year later he proposed, and Harriet, outraged at being deceived into giving up her public honour, broke off the relationship. During the year that followed, Boyes suffered from repeated bouts of gastric illness, while Harriet had bought several poisons under assumed names to test a plot point of her novel then in progress. Having returned from a holiday in North Wales in better health, Boyes dined with his cousin, the solicitor Norman Urquhart, before going to Harriet's flat to discuss reconciliation. That night he was taken fatally ill, apparently with gastritis. He died four days later after an agonising period of suffering. Although it was assumed at first that Boyes died of natural causes, an indiscreet nurse and some of Boyes' friends insisted that foul play was involved. A post-mortem revealed that Boyes' death was due to acute arsenic poisoning. Apart from the evening meal with his cousin, where every item was shared by two or more people, the only opportunity for poison to have been administered appeared to be in a cup of coffee, offered by Harriet Vane. Harriet is tried, but the result is a \"hung\" jury, thanks in no small part to the presence of Wimsey's aide, Miss Climpson, on the jury. With fewer than ten of the jury agreeing on a verdict, the judge must order a fresh trial to be held. Wimsey visits Harriet in prison, declares his conviction of her innocence, and promises to catch the real murderer. In the course of the interview he also openly admits his intention of marrying her, an offer which she politely but firmly declines. Working against"
      },
      {
        "text": " a \"hung\" jury, thanks in no small part to the presence of Wimsey's aide, Miss Climpson, on the jury. With fewer than ten of the jury agreeing on a verdict, the judge must order a fresh trial to be held. Wimsey visits Harriet in prison, declares his conviction of her innocence, and promises to catch the real murderer. In the course of the interview he also openly admits his intention of marrying her, an offer which she politely but firmly declines. Working against time before the new trial, Wimsey first explores the possibility that Boyes took his own life. Wimsey's friend, Detective Inspector Charles Parker, conclusively disproves this notion, but Wimsey has planted a spy, Miss Joan Murchison, in Urquhart\u2019s office and discovers the real culprit is Urquhart. Suspecting Urquhart's story that he, not Boyes, is in line to inherit the considerable fortune of their senile great aunt, Wimsey sends Miss Climpson to get hold of the great-aunt\u2019s will, which she does in a comic scene exposing the practices of fraudulent mediums. Not only does the will name Boyes as the principal heir, but in Urquhart's office, Miss Murchison finds evidence that, misusing his position as his own family's solicitor, Urquhart embezzled the majority of the great aunt's holdings and subsequently lost them on the stock market. Urquhart knew that if his great aunt died, he would be exposed. Boyes, however, was unaware that he was heir to the money. With him dead, Urquhart would inherit the estate and hence his fraud would not be revealed. Miss Murchison also discovers a packet of arsenic hidden in Urquhart's office. Wimsey has now established motive and means, but not opportunity. But after re-examining the details of Boyes' famous last dinner (and perusing A."
      },
      {
        "text": " that if his great aunt died, he would be exposed. Boyes, however, was unaware that he was heir to the money. With him dead, Urquhart would inherit the estate and hence his fraud would not be revealed. Miss Murchison also discovers a packet of arsenic hidden in Urquhart's office. Wimsey has now established motive and means, but not opportunity. But after re-examining the details of Boyes' famous last dinner (and perusing A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad, in which the poet likens reading dark poems to King Mithridates' self-immunization against poisons), he realizes that Urquhart laced an omelette with arsenic and shared it with Boyes after having built up an immunity to the poison with small doses over a long period. Wimsey tricks Urquhart into an admission before witnesses. At her retrial the prosecution presents no case and Harriet is set free. Exhausted by her ordeal, she again rejects Wimsey\u2019s proposal of marriage. It is also in this novel that Peter finally persuades Parker to propose to Peter's sister, Mary. Also the Honourable Freddy Arbuthnot, Wimsey's friend and contact for the stock market, in this book finds a long-delayed domestic bliss with Rachel, the daughter of Sir Reuben Levy who was murdered in Whose Body?.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Five Red Herrings",
    "author": "Dorothy L. Sayers",
    "published_date": "1931",
    "synopsis": " The story is set in Galloway, a part of Scotland popular with artists because of its landscapes. Sandy Campbell is a talented painter, but also a notoriously quarrelsome drunkard. When he is found dead in a stream, with a half-finished painting on the bank above, it is assumed at first that he fell in accidentally, fracturing his skull. Lord Peter Wimsey, who is in the region on a fishing holiday, points out the inconsistency which makes it impossible for Campbell himself to have worked on the painting. (Sayers is explicit in leaving the reader to work out what exactly the clue is.) Campbell's death is now a murder case. Whoever killed Campbell also executed the painting in Campbell's distinctive style, to contrive the appearance of an accident. Six other artists in the region are talented enough to have achieved this, and had also had public brawls with Campbell in the recent past. Now Wimsey has to figure out \"who done it\" and who the five red herrings are. The task is made difficult because almost all the suspects are behaving in a suspicious manner; some have left the district unexpectedly and without explanation, others have given statements which are obviously inaccurate, or are clearly concealing facts. The policemen investigating other aspects of the case come up against inexplicable dead ends. The Five Red Herrings is the Peter Wimsey story which is most obviously set as a puzzle for the reader. There is only a closed circle of suspects to deal with, and Wimsey has no emotional involvement, although, having alerted the Police to Campbell's murder, he subsequently reflects that Campbell was a man anyone might feel justified in killing, and that the six suspects are all generally decent people. He nevertheless resolves to uncover the truth, so that the five innocent artists should not live under lifelong suspicion. The plot is told through the viewpoint of Wimsey, and of the various police investigating the case (including Wimsey's brother-in-law Charles Parker, involved because a suspect is in hiding in London). Large parts of the book follow the various Scottish police officers, who are shown as highly intelligent and competent, and for time seem to overshadow Wimsey. In contrast, Bunter (Wimsey's valet) plays a smaller role in this than in other Wimsey novels. Wimsey works in close cooperation with the police throughout the book; indeed, in one episode a character angrily accuses him of \"entering people's homes as a police spy\". The six suspects are all eventually traced and give statements in which they deny killing Campbell. Some have convincing alibis, but others have none which can be verified. Finally, Wimsey, the Procurator Fiscal, the Chief Constable and the police officers involved in the investigation meet to review the evidence. Working from the knowledge the reader has been given, the police put forward several theories, implicating all of the suspects either as the killer or as accessories. Asked for his opinion, Wimsey finally reveals to the reader exactly what alerted him to the murder, and points the finger at the true killer. Although the police are sceptical, Wimsey offers to reconstruct the crime and over the course of twenty-four hours' strenuous activity, he demonstrates how the killer contrived the scene above the stream and established an alibi. The killer finally realises that the case against him is unbreakable and confesses, but pleads that he killed Campbell in self-defence. When the case is tried, the jury decide that he is guilty of manslaughter (which carries a lighter sentence) rather than premeditated murder.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is set in Galloway, a part of Scotland popular with artists because of its landscapes. Sandy Campbell is a talented painter, but also a notoriously quarrelsome drunkard. When he is found dead in a stream, with a half-finished painting on the bank above, it is assumed at first that he fell in accidentally, fracturing his skull. Lord Peter Wimsey, who is in the region on a fishing holiday, points out the inconsistency which makes it impossible for Campbell himself to have worked on the painting. (Sayers is explicit in leaving the reader to work out what exactly the clue is.) Campbell's death is now a murder case. Whoever killed Campbell also executed the painting in Campbell's distinctive style, to contrive the appearance of an accident. Six other artists in the region are talented enough to have achieved this, and had also had public brawls with Campbell in the recent past. Now Wimsey has to figure out \"who done it\" and who the five red herrings are. The task is made difficult because almost all the suspects are behaving in a suspicious manner; some have left the district unexpectedly and without explanation, others have given statements which are obviously inaccurate, or are clearly concealing facts. The policemen investigating other aspects of the case come up against inexplicable dead ends. The Five Red Herrings is the Peter Wimsey story which is most obviously set as a puzzle for the reader. There is only a closed circle of suspects to deal with, and Wimsey has no emotional involvement, although, having alerted the Police to Campbell's murder, he subsequently reflects that Campbell was a man anyone might feel justified in killing, and that the six suspects are all generally decent people. He nevertheless resolves to uncover the truth, so that the five innocent artists should not live under lifelong suspicion. The plot is told through the viewpoint of Wimsey, and of the various police investigating the case (including Wimsey's brother-in-law Charles Parker, involved because a suspect is in"
      },
      {
        "text": " no emotional involvement, although, having alerted the Police to Campbell's murder, he subsequently reflects that Campbell was a man anyone might feel justified in killing, and that the six suspects are all generally decent people. He nevertheless resolves to uncover the truth, so that the five innocent artists should not live under lifelong suspicion. The plot is told through the viewpoint of Wimsey, and of the various police investigating the case (including Wimsey's brother-in-law Charles Parker, involved because a suspect is in hiding in London). Large parts of the book follow the various Scottish police officers, who are shown as highly intelligent and competent, and for time seem to overshadow Wimsey. In contrast, Bunter (Wimsey's valet) plays a smaller role in this than in other Wimsey novels. Wimsey works in close cooperation with the police throughout the book; indeed, in one episode a character angrily accuses him of \"entering people's homes as a police spy\". The six suspects are all eventually traced and give statements in which they deny killing Campbell. Some have convincing alibis, but others have none which can be verified. Finally, Wimsey, the Procurator Fiscal, the Chief Constable and the police officers involved in the investigation meet to review the evidence. Working from the knowledge the reader has been given, the police put forward several theories, implicating all of the suspects either as the killer or as accessories. Asked for his opinion, Wimsey finally reveals to the reader exactly what alerted him to the murder, and points the finger at the true killer. Although the police are sceptical, Wimsey offers to reconstruct the crime and over the course of twenty-four hours' strenuous activity, he demonstrates how the killer contrived the scene above the stream and established an alibi. The killer finally realises that the case against him is unbreakable and confesses, but pleads that he killed Campbell in self-defence. When the case is tried, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " what alerted him to the murder, and points the finger at the true killer. Although the police are sceptical, Wimsey offers to reconstruct the crime and over the course of twenty-four hours' strenuous activity, he demonstrates how the killer contrived the scene above the stream and established an alibi. The killer finally realises that the case against him is unbreakable and confesses, but pleads that he killed Campbell in self-defence. When the case is tried, the jury decide that he is guilty of manslaughter (which carries a lighter sentence) rather than premeditated murder.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Have His Carcase",
    "author": "Dorothy L. Sayers",
    "published_date": "1932",
    "synopsis": " During a hiking holiday after her acquittal on murder charges in Strong Poison, Harriet Vane discovers the body of a man, with his throat cut and the blood still liquid, on an isolated rock on the shore. There are no footprints in the sand other than the man's and Harriet's. She takes photos and preserves some evidence, but the corpse is washed away before she can fetch help. Lord Peter arrives, and he and Harriet make investigations alongside the police. The dead man, Paul Alexis, a professional dancing partner at the local hotel, was of Russian extraction and engaged to a rich older widow. The death has been made to look like suicide, but Wimsey and Harriet discover that he was the victim of an ingenious and complex murder plot. The romantic Alexis believed himself a descendant of Russian royalty, and the widow's rather stupid son, appalled at the prospect of his mother's remarriage to a gigolo and the loss of his inheritance, conspired with a friend and his wife to play on Alexis's fantasies. Convinced that he was being called to return to Russia in triumph as the rightful Tsar, Alexis was lured to the rock and murdered by the son, who rode a horse along the beach through the incoming tide to avoid leaving tracks, whilst his friends supplied his alibi. The death was intended to look like suicide. However, Alexis suffers from haemophilia, and his unclotted blood leads to confusion over the time of death, which eventually assists with the unmasking of the conspirators.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " During a hiking holiday after her acquittal on murder charges in Strong Poison, Harriet Vane discovers the body of a man, with his throat cut and the blood still liquid, on an isolated rock on the shore. There are no footprints in the sand other than the man's and Harriet's. She takes photos and preserves some evidence, but the corpse is washed away before she can fetch help. Lord Peter arrives, and he and Harriet make investigations alongside the police. The dead man, Paul Alexis, a professional dancing partner at the local hotel, was of Russian extraction and engaged to a rich older widow. The death has been made to look like suicide, but Wimsey and Harriet discover that he was the victim of an ingenious and complex murder plot. The romantic Alexis believed himself a descendant of Russian royalty, and the widow's rather stupid son, appalled at the prospect of his mother's remarriage to a gigolo and the loss of his inheritance, conspired with a friend and his wife to play on Alexis's fantasies. Convinced that he was being called to return to Russia in triumph as the rightful Tsar, Alexis was lured to the rock and murdered by the son, who rode a horse along the beach through the incoming tide to avoid leaving tracks, whilst his friends supplied his alibi. The death was intended to look like suicide. However, Alexis suffers from haemophilia, and his unclotted blood leads to confusion over the time of death, which eventually assists with the unmasking of the conspirators.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the unmasking of the conspirators.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Nine Tailors",
    "author": "Dorothy L. Sayers",
    "published_date": "1934",
    "synopsis": " Stranded in the Fenland village of Fenchurch St. Paul on New Year's Eve after a car accident, Wimsey helps ring a nine-hour peal of bells overnight after Will Thoday, one of the ringers, is stricken by influenza. Lady Thorpe, wife of Sir Henry Thorpe, the local squire, dies next morning and Wimsey hears how the Thorpe family has been blighted for 20 years by the unsolved theft of jewels from a house-guest by the butler, Deacon, and an accomplice, Cranton. Both men were imprisoned, but the jewels were never recovered. At Easter, Sir Henry himself dies and his wife's grave is opened for his burial. A body is found hidden in the grave, mutilated beyond recognition. It is first thought to be the body of a tramp labourer calling himself \"Driver\" who arrived and then vanished just after the New Year. An odd document found in the bell chamber by Hilary Thorpe, Sir Henry's daughter, proves to be a cipher. Acting on a hunch, Lord Peter enquires at the Post Office for any uncollected letters addressed to \"Driver\". Bunter, Wimsey's valet, inveigles a postmistress into handing over a letter posted in France, which confirms a link with the body, which was wearing French underclothes. The letter is addressed not to \"Driver\" but to \"Paul Taylor\", a reference to \"Tailor Paul\", the tenor (largest) bell in the ring at Fenchurch St. Paul. When the writer of the letter is traced, the dead man is assumed to be Arthur Cobbleigh, a British soldier listed as missing in action but who evidently deserted and stayed in France after the war. Cobbleigh appears to have known where the emeralds were hidden, and to have plotted to recover them, probably with \"Driver\". \"Driver\" is discovered to be an alias of Cranton, the accomplice in the original theft. Wimsey assumes the two men did recover the emeralds and Cranton then killed Cobbleigh for them, but cannot prove it. However, when he decodes the cipher (which requires knowledge of change-ringing) it leads him to the emeralds, still untouched in their hiding place in the church. Wimsey shows the cipher to Mary Thoday, Will's wife and Deacon's widow. The Thodays abscond to London. Wimsey guesses the true identity of Cobbleigh, and confirms this through the S\u00fbret\u00e9 in France. He also discovers the Thodays' whereabouts through the Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranton is interviewed by Wimsey and his brother in law, Detective Inspector Charles Parker. Much becomes clear when Cobbleigh turns out to have been Deacon, the thieving butler. In 1918 he murdered a warder and escaped from prison. A body, apparently his, was later found, but in fact Deacon had murdered a soldier and swapped identities with him. He married bigamously in France and waited several years to return for the emeralds, which he had hidden before his arrest. Since he risked hanging if caught, he finally asked Cranton to help, sending him the cipher as a clue to the hiding place as a token of good faith. Cranton could not solve it but knew it related to the bells, so he came to Fenchurch as \"Driver\" on New Year's Day. He went to the bell-chamber on the night of 4 January, but found Deacon's dead, bound body in the chamber and fled, dropping the cipher. Parker then places a hidden microphone in the interview room where Will Thoday and his sailor brother Jim are waiting. It becomes apparent that both brothers thought that the other was guilty of killing Deacon, but were willing to take the blame themselves or at least shield the other. When they are interviewed, Will relates that he encountered Deacon, who had come to retrieve the emeralds, in the church on 30 December. Will had married Mary after the war, believing her a widow. Now he realised Deacon was still alive, making his and Mary's marriage bigamous and their daughters illegitimate. Desperate to prevent Deacon exposing his family to pain and scandal, Will tied him up in the bell-chamber, planning to bribe him to leave, but became helpless with Spanish influenza next day. Will's delirious talk led Jim to find Deacon's body in the bell-chamber on 2 January. He assumed that Will had murdered him. Appalled but loyal, he waited until the night after Lady Thorpe's funeral on 4 January, made the body unrecognisable and hid it in the new grave, then left for sea. When the body was discovered, Will assumed Jim had killed Deacon. Neither can explain how Deacon died. Both are released. Will marries Mary again in Bloomsbury under Archbishop's licence, and returns to Fenchurch St. Paul. Deacon's death remains inexplicable. It is only when Wimsey returns to Fenchurch the following Christmas that he understands. Floods inundate the countryside, and Wimsey climbs the tower as the bells are ringing the alarm. The appalling noise in the bell-chamber convinces him that Deacon, tied there for hours between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day while Wimsey helped with the all-night peal, could not have survived. Deacon was killed by the ringers - or by the bells themselves. Will Thoday is drowned in the flood trying to save another man who has fallen from a failing sluice-gate. Wimsey speculates that Will may not have wanted to live, having guessed his part in killing Deacon.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Stranded in the Fenland village of Fenchurch St. Paul on New Year's Eve after a car accident, Wimsey helps ring a nine-hour peal of bells overnight after Will Thoday, one of the ringers, is stricken by influenza. Lady Thorpe, wife of Sir Henry Thorpe, the local squire, dies next morning and Wimsey hears how the Thorpe family has been blighted for 20 years by the unsolved theft of jewels from a house-guest by the butler, Deacon, and an accomplice, Cranton. Both men were imprisoned, but the jewels were never recovered. At Easter, Sir Henry himself dies and his wife's grave is opened for his burial. A body is found hidden in the grave, mutilated beyond recognition. It is first thought to be the body of a tramp labourer calling himself \"Driver\" who arrived and then vanished just after the New Year. An odd document found in the bell chamber by Hilary Thorpe, Sir Henry's daughter, proves to be a cipher. Acting on a hunch, Lord Peter enquires at the Post Office for any uncollected letters addressed to \"Driver\". Bunter, Wimsey's valet, inveigles a postmistress into handing over a letter posted in France, which confirms a link with the body, which was wearing French underclothes. The letter is addressed not to \"Driver\" but to \"Paul Taylor\", a reference to \"Tailor Paul\", the tenor (largest) bell in the ring at Fenchurch St. Paul. When the writer of the letter is traced, the dead man is assumed to be Arthur Cobbleigh, a British soldier listed as missing in action but who evidently deserted and stayed in France after the war. Cobbleigh appears to have known where the emeralds were hidden, and to have plotted to recover them, probably with \"Driver\". \"Driver\" is discovered to be an alias"
      },
      {
        "text": "Tailor Paul\", the tenor (largest) bell in the ring at Fenchurch St. Paul. When the writer of the letter is traced, the dead man is assumed to be Arthur Cobbleigh, a British soldier listed as missing in action but who evidently deserted and stayed in France after the war. Cobbleigh appears to have known where the emeralds were hidden, and to have plotted to recover them, probably with \"Driver\". \"Driver\" is discovered to be an alias of Cranton, the accomplice in the original theft. Wimsey assumes the two men did recover the emeralds and Cranton then killed Cobbleigh for them, but cannot prove it. However, when he decodes the cipher (which requires knowledge of change-ringing) it leads him to the emeralds, still untouched in their hiding place in the church. Wimsey shows the cipher to Mary Thoday, Will's wife and Deacon's widow. The Thodays abscond to London. Wimsey guesses the true identity of Cobbleigh, and confirms this through the S\u00fbret\u00e9 in France. He also discovers the Thodays' whereabouts through the Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranton is interviewed by Wimsey and his brother in law, Detective Inspector Charles Parker. Much becomes clear when Cobbleigh turns out to have been Deacon, the thieving butler. In 1918 he murdered a warder and escaped from prison. A body, apparently his, was later found, but in fact Deacon had murdered a soldier and swapped identities with him. He married bigamously in France and waited several years to return for the emeralds, which he had hidden before his arrest. Since he risked hanging if caught, he finally asked Cranton to help, sending him the cipher as a clue to the hiding place as a token of good faith. Cranton could not solve it but knew it related to the bells, so he came to Fenchurch"
      },
      {
        "text": ", was later found, but in fact Deacon had murdered a soldier and swapped identities with him. He married bigamously in France and waited several years to return for the emeralds, which he had hidden before his arrest. Since he risked hanging if caught, he finally asked Cranton to help, sending him the cipher as a clue to the hiding place as a token of good faith. Cranton could not solve it but knew it related to the bells, so he came to Fenchurch as \"Driver\" on New Year's Day. He went to the bell-chamber on the night of 4 January, but found Deacon's dead, bound body in the chamber and fled, dropping the cipher. Parker then places a hidden microphone in the interview room where Will Thoday and his sailor brother Jim are waiting. It becomes apparent that both brothers thought that the other was guilty of killing Deacon, but were willing to take the blame themselves or at least shield the other. When they are interviewed, Will relates that he encountered Deacon, who had come to retrieve the emeralds, in the church on 30 December. Will had married Mary after the war, believing her a widow. Now he realised Deacon was still alive, making his and Mary's marriage bigamous and their daughters illegitimate. Desperate to prevent Deacon exposing his family to pain and scandal, Will tied him up in the bell-chamber, planning to bribe him to leave, but became helpless with Spanish influenza next day. Will's delirious talk led Jim to find Deacon's body in the bell-chamber on 2 January. He assumed that Will had murdered him. Appalled but loyal, he waited until the night after Lady Thorpe's funeral on 4 January, made the body unrecognisable and hid it in the new grave, then left for sea. When the body was discovered, Will assumed Jim had killed Deacon. Neither can explain how Deacon died. Both are released."
      },
      {
        "text": " influenza next day. Will's delirious talk led Jim to find Deacon's body in the bell-chamber on 2 January. He assumed that Will had murdered him. Appalled but loyal, he waited until the night after Lady Thorpe's funeral on 4 January, made the body unrecognisable and hid it in the new grave, then left for sea. When the body was discovered, Will assumed Jim had killed Deacon. Neither can explain how Deacon died. Both are released. Will marries Mary again in Bloomsbury under Archbishop's licence, and returns to Fenchurch St. Paul. Deacon's death remains inexplicable. It is only when Wimsey returns to Fenchurch the following Christmas that he understands. Floods inundate the countryside, and Wimsey climbs the tower as the bells are ringing the alarm. The appalling noise in the bell-chamber convinces him that Deacon, tied there for hours between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day while Wimsey helped with the all-night peal, could not have survived. Deacon was killed by the ringers - or by the bells themselves. Will Thoday is drowned in the flood trying to save another man who has fallen from a failing sluice-gate. Wimsey speculates that Will may not have wanted to live, having guessed his part in killing Deacon.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Busman's Honeymoon",
    "author": "Dorothy L. Sayers",
    "published_date": "1937",
    "synopsis": " After an engagement of some months following the events at the end of Gaudy Night, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry. They plan to spend their honeymoon at Talboys, an old farmhouse in Harriet's native Hertfordshire which Wimsey has bought for her, and they abscond from the wedding reception, evading the assembled reporters. Arriving late at night, they are surprised to find the house locked up and not prepared for them. They gain access and spend their wedding night there, but next morning they discover the former owner, Noakes, dead in the cellar with head injuries. The quiet honeymoon is ruined as a murder investigation begins and the house fills with policemen, reporters, and brokers' men distraining Noakes's hideous furniture. Noakes was an unpopular man, a miser and (it turns out) a blackmailer. He was assumed to be well off, though it transpires that he was bankrupt, owed large amounts of money, and was planning to flee his creditors with the cash paid for Talboys. The house had been locked and bolted when the newly-weds arrived, and medical evidence seems to rule out an accident, so it seems he was attacked in the house and died later, having somehow locked up after his attacker. The suspects include Noakes's niece, Mrs. Ruddle (his neighbour and cleaning lady), Frank Crutchley, a local garage mechanic who also tended Noakes's garden and the local police constable, who was his blackmail victim. Peter's and Harriet's relationship, always complex and painfully negotiated, is resolved during the process of catching the murderer and bringing him to justice. In a final scene, in which almost the entire cast of characters is gathered in the front room of Talboys, reflecting the novel's origin as a work for the stage, the killer turns out to be Crutchley. He planned to marry Noakes' somewhat elderly niece and get his hands on the money he had left her in his will. He set a booby trap with a weighted plant pot on a chain, which was triggered by the victim opening the radio cabinet after locking up for the night. Wimsey's reaction to the case - his arrangement for the defendant to be represented by top defence counsel; his guilt at condemning a man to be hanged; the return of his shell-shock \u2013 dominate the final chapters of the book. It is mentioned that Wimsey had previously also suffered similar pangs of conscience when other murderers had been sent to the gallows. His deep remorse and guilt at having caused Crutchley to be executed leave doubt as to whether he would undertake further murder investigations - and in fact Sayers wrote no further Wimsey novels after this one. The 1942 short story \"Talboys\", the very last Wimsey fiction produced by Sayers, is both a sequel to the present book, in having the same location and some of the same village characters, and an antithesis in being lighthearted and having no crime worse the theft of some peaches from a neighbour's garden.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After an engagement of some months following the events at the end of Gaudy Night, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry. They plan to spend their honeymoon at Talboys, an old farmhouse in Harriet's native Hertfordshire which Wimsey has bought for her, and they abscond from the wedding reception, evading the assembled reporters. Arriving late at night, they are surprised to find the house locked up and not prepared for them. They gain access and spend their wedding night there, but next morning they discover the former owner, Noakes, dead in the cellar with head injuries. The quiet honeymoon is ruined as a murder investigation begins and the house fills with policemen, reporters, and brokers' men distraining Noakes's hideous furniture. Noakes was an unpopular man, a miser and (it turns out) a blackmailer. He was assumed to be well off, though it transpires that he was bankrupt, owed large amounts of money, and was planning to flee his creditors with the cash paid for Talboys. The house had been locked and bolted when the newly-weds arrived, and medical evidence seems to rule out an accident, so it seems he was attacked in the house and died later, having somehow locked up after his attacker. The suspects include Noakes's niece, Mrs. Ruddle (his neighbour and cleaning lady), Frank Crutchley, a local garage mechanic who also tended Noakes's garden and the local police constable, who was his blackmail victim. Peter's and Harriet's relationship, always complex and painfully negotiated, is resolved during the process of catching the murderer and bringing him to justice. In a final scene, in which almost the entire cast of characters is gathered in the front room of Talboys, reflecting the novel's origin as a work for the stage, the killer turns out to be Crutchley. He planned to marry Noakes' somewhat elderly niece and get his hands on the money he had"
      },
      {
        "text": "able, who was his blackmail victim. Peter's and Harriet's relationship, always complex and painfully negotiated, is resolved during the process of catching the murderer and bringing him to justice. In a final scene, in which almost the entire cast of characters is gathered in the front room of Talboys, reflecting the novel's origin as a work for the stage, the killer turns out to be Crutchley. He planned to marry Noakes' somewhat elderly niece and get his hands on the money he had left her in his will. He set a booby trap with a weighted plant pot on a chain, which was triggered by the victim opening the radio cabinet after locking up for the night. Wimsey's reaction to the case - his arrangement for the defendant to be represented by top defence counsel; his guilt at condemning a man to be hanged; the return of his shell-shock \u2013 dominate the final chapters of the book. It is mentioned that Wimsey had previously also suffered similar pangs of conscience when other murderers had been sent to the gallows. His deep remorse and guilt at having caused Crutchley to be executed leave doubt as to whether he would undertake further murder investigations - and in fact Sayers wrote no further Wimsey novels after this one. The 1942 short story \"Talboys\", the very last Wimsey fiction produced by Sayers, is both a sequel to the present book, in having the same location and some of the same village characters, and an antithesis in being lighthearted and having no crime worse the theft of some peaches from a neighbour's garden.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "hearted and having no crime worse the theft of some peaches from a neighbour's garden.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Thrones, Dominations",
    "author": "Jill Paton Walsh",
    "published_date": "1998",
    "synopsis": " It is 1936. Lord and Lady Peter Wimsey, returned from a European honeymoon, are settling into their new home in London, where daily life is affected by the illness and then death of the king. The couple are personally happy, having resolved many of the problems in their relationship caused by character and circumstance, but must now tackle the practical details of bringing their lives together, including domestic and working arrangements, and social and family obligations. The couple become slightly acquainted with Laurence Harwell, a wealthy theatrical \"angel\", and his beautiful wife, whom he has rescued from poverty following her rich father's disgrace and imprisonment. After two years' marriage the Harwells are famously still devoted to one another, and when she is found dead at their weekend cottage in the country Wimsey is asked to help interview the distraught husband, and becomes involved with the investigation. (He is also asked to undertake sensitive diplomatic duties connected with the problematic behaviour of the new king, and as the 1936 abdication crisis looms, he gloomily predicts the coming war with Hitler's Germany.) Suspicion falls on a writer known to have been in love with Mrs Harwell, and a talented but bohemian painter who had been working on portraits of both Harriet and the murdered woman. Two men who knew Mrs Harwell's father in prison, and who have been blackmailing him with threats to harm her, are also suspected. Meanwhile Harriet straightens out her domestic situation, learning how to fulfill her new role whilst keeping her own identity, and finds a practical solution to allow Wimsey's devoted manservant Bunter to marry without having to leave the household. Harriet's unorthodox approach infuriates her sister-in-law (who believes Harriet has an obligation to abandon her career, do her duty to the family and produce an heir) but it allows her to solve most of the practical difficulties that might have stood in the way of a successful and happy marriage. She also discovers she is expecting a baby. After some plot twists, a second murder and a scene involving the hidden rivers and Victorian sewers that run under London, it is revealed that Harwell unintentionally killed his wife in a jealous rage, in the belief she was preparing to entertain a lover, although ironically her preparations had really been for him. Harwell might have gotten off with a manslaughter conviction, but except that he later committed the premeditated murder of an actress who was in a position to disprove his alibi and tried to blackmail him. Harriet visits Harwell in prison to comfort him with the knowledge that his wife had not, after all, been unfaithful. In doing so, she finally banishes the lingering ghosts of her own imprisonment and murder trial, and the effect they have had on her relationship with her own husband.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It is 1936. Lord and Lady Peter Wimsey, returned from a European honeymoon, are settling into their new home in London, where daily life is affected by the illness and then death of the king. The couple are personally happy, having resolved many of the problems in their relationship caused by character and circumstance, but must now tackle the practical details of bringing their lives together, including domestic and working arrangements, and social and family obligations. The couple become slightly acquainted with Laurence Harwell, a wealthy theatrical \"angel\", and his beautiful wife, whom he has rescued from poverty following her rich father's disgrace and imprisonment. After two years' marriage the Harwells are famously still devoted to one another, and when she is found dead at their weekend cottage in the country Wimsey is asked to help interview the distraught husband, and becomes involved with the investigation. (He is also asked to undertake sensitive diplomatic duties connected with the problematic behaviour of the new king, and as the 1936 abdication crisis looms, he gloomily predicts the coming war with Hitler's Germany.) Suspicion falls on a writer known to have been in love with Mrs Harwell, and a talented but bohemian painter who had been working on portraits of both Harriet and the murdered woman. Two men who knew Mrs Harwell's father in prison, and who have been blackmailing him with threats to harm her, are also suspected. Meanwhile Harriet straightens out her domestic situation, learning how to fulfill her new role whilst keeping her own identity, and finds a practical solution to allow Wimsey's devoted manservant Bunter to marry without having to leave the household. Harriet's unorthodox approach infuriates her sister-in-law (who believes Harriet has an obligation to abandon her career, do her duty to the family and produce an heir) but it allows her to solve most of the practical difficulties that might have stood in the way of a successful and happy marriage. She also discovers she is expecting a baby."
      },
      {
        "text": " whilst keeping her own identity, and finds a practical solution to allow Wimsey's devoted manservant Bunter to marry without having to leave the household. Harriet's unorthodox approach infuriates her sister-in-law (who believes Harriet has an obligation to abandon her career, do her duty to the family and produce an heir) but it allows her to solve most of the practical difficulties that might have stood in the way of a successful and happy marriage. She also discovers she is expecting a baby. After some plot twists, a second murder and a scene involving the hidden rivers and Victorian sewers that run under London, it is revealed that Harwell unintentionally killed his wife in a jealous rage, in the belief she was preparing to entertain a lover, although ironically her preparations had really been for him. Harwell might have gotten off with a manslaughter conviction, but except that he later committed the premeditated murder of an actress who was in a position to disprove his alibi and tried to blackmail him. Harriet visits Harwell in prison to comfort him with the knowledge that his wife had not, after all, been unfaithful. In doing so, she finally banishes the lingering ghosts of her own imprisonment and murder trial, and the effect they have had on her relationship with her own husband.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Light in August",
    "author": "William Faulkner",
    "published_date": "1932",
    "synopsis": " The narrative structure consists of three connected plot-strands. The first strand tells the story of Lena Grove, a young pregnant woman from Doane's Mill, Alabama, who is trying to find Lucas Burch, the father of her unborn child. He has been fired from his job at Doane's Mill and moved to Mississippi, promising to \"send for\" her when he has a new job. Not hearing from Burch, and harassed by her older brother, Lena walks and hitch-hikes \"a fur piece\" to Jefferson, Mississippi, a town in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County. There she expects to find Lucas working at another planing mill, ready to marry her. Those who help her along her four-week trek are skeptical that Lucas Burch will be found east of the Mississippi, or that he will keep his promise when she catches up with him. When she arrives in Jefferson, Lucas is there, but he has changed his name to Joe Brown. Looking for Lucas at the local planing mill, she meets Byron Bunch, who falls in love with Lena but scrupulously tries to give her a chance with Joe Brown. Byron is a puritanical workaholic who fears idleness as a snare of the devil. Joe Brown is a deceiving slacker. The narrative of Lena's story builds a framework around the two other plot-strands. One of these is the story of the enigmatic Joe Christmas. Christmas came to Jefferson three years before the novel's beginning, and got a job at the planing mill. The work at the planing mill is a cover up for his illegal alcohol business. He has a sexual relationship with Joanna Burden, an older woman who descended from a formerly powerful abolitionist family. Joanna Burden continues her ancestors' struggle for Black emancipation, which makes her an outsider in the society of Jefferson, much like Christmas. Her relationship with Christmas begins rather unusually, with Christmas sneaking into her house to steal food, for he has not eaten in twenty-four hours. As a result of sexual frustration and the beginning of menopause, Joanna turns to religion. Joanna's turn to religion is frustrating for Christmas, who as a child ran away from his abusive adoptive parents who were conservatively religious. At the end of her relationship to Christmas, Joanna tries to force him, at gunpoint, to kneel and pray. Joanna is murdered soon after: her throat is slit and she is nearly decapitated. The novel leaves readers uncertain whether Joe Christmas or Joe Brown is the murderer. Brown is Christmas' business partner in a moon-shining enterprise and is the father of Lena's child; Lena knew him as Lucas Burch. He is leaving Joanna's burning house when a passing farmer stops to investigate and pull Joanna's body from the fire. The sheriff at first suspects Joe Brown, but initiates a man-hunt for Christmas after Brown claims that Christmas is black. The man-hunt is fruitless, but then Christmas arrives undisguised in Mottstown, a neighboring town; he is on his way back to Jefferson, no longer running. In Mottstown, he is arrested and jailed, then moved to Jefferson. His grandmother visits him in the Jefferson jail and advises him to seek help from Gail Hightower. As police escort him to the local court, Christmas breaks free and runs to Hightower's house. A zealous national guardsman, Percy Grimm, follows him there and, over Hightower's protest, shoots and castrates Joe Christmas. The third plot strand tells the story of Reverend Gail Hightower. He is obsessed by the past adventures of his Confederate grandfather, who was killed while stealing chickens from a farmer's shed. Hightower's community dislikes him because of his sermons about his dead grandfather, and because of the scandal surrounding his personal life: his wife committed adultery, and later killed herself, turning the town against Hightower and effectively making him a pariah. The only character who does not turn his back on the Reverend Hightower is Byron Bunch, who visits Hightower from time to time. Bunch tries to convince Hightower to give the imprisoned Joe Christmas an alibi, but Hightower initially refuses. When Joe Christmas escapes from police custody he runs to Hightower's house, seeking to hide. Hightower then accepts Byron's suggestion, but it is too late as Percy Grimm is close behind. Hightower is then seen musing over his past alone in his house as he prepares for his own death. Before Christmas' escape attempt, Hightower delivered Lena's child in the cabin where Brown and Christmas had been staying before the murder, and Byron arranges for Brown/Burch to come and see her. However, when Brown gets there, he runs again, and Byron follows him, instigating a fight which he loses. Brown gets into a moving train and is not seen again. At the end of the story, an anonymous man is talking to his wife about two strangers he picked up on a trip to Tennessee, recounting that the woman had a child and the man was not the father. This was Lena and Byron, who were conducting a half-hearted search for Brown, and they are eventually dropped off in Tennessee.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The narrative structure consists of three connected plot-strands. The first strand tells the story of Lena Grove, a young pregnant woman from Doane's Mill, Alabama, who is trying to find Lucas Burch, the father of her unborn child. He has been fired from his job at Doane's Mill and moved to Mississippi, promising to \"send for\" her when he has a new job. Not hearing from Burch, and harassed by her older brother, Lena walks and hitch-hikes \"a fur piece\" to Jefferson, Mississippi, a town in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County. There she expects to find Lucas working at another planing mill, ready to marry her. Those who help her along her four-week trek are skeptical that Lucas Burch will be found east of the Mississippi, or that he will keep his promise when she catches up with him. When she arrives in Jefferson, Lucas is there, but he has changed his name to Joe Brown. Looking for Lucas at the local planing mill, she meets Byron Bunch, who falls in love with Lena but scrupulously tries to give her a chance with Joe Brown. Byron is a puritanical workaholic who fears idleness as a snare of the devil. Joe Brown is a deceiving slacker. The narrative of Lena's story builds a framework around the two other plot-strands. One of these is the story of the enigmatic Joe Christmas. Christmas came to Jefferson three years before the novel's beginning, and got a job at the planing mill. The work at the planing mill is a cover up for his illegal alcohol business. He has a sexual relationship with Joanna Burden, an older woman who descended from a formerly powerful abolitionist family. Joanna Burden continues her ancestors' struggle for Black emancipation, which makes her an outsider in the society of Jefferson, much like Christmas. Her relationship with Christmas begins rather unusually, with Christmas"
      },
      {
        "text": " came to Jefferson three years before the novel's beginning, and got a job at the planing mill. The work at the planing mill is a cover up for his illegal alcohol business. He has a sexual relationship with Joanna Burden, an older woman who descended from a formerly powerful abolitionist family. Joanna Burden continues her ancestors' struggle for Black emancipation, which makes her an outsider in the society of Jefferson, much like Christmas. Her relationship with Christmas begins rather unusually, with Christmas sneaking into her house to steal food, for he has not eaten in twenty-four hours. As a result of sexual frustration and the beginning of menopause, Joanna turns to religion. Joanna's turn to religion is frustrating for Christmas, who as a child ran away from his abusive adoptive parents who were conservatively religious. At the end of her relationship to Christmas, Joanna tries to force him, at gunpoint, to kneel and pray. Joanna is murdered soon after: her throat is slit and she is nearly decapitated. The novel leaves readers uncertain whether Joe Christmas or Joe Brown is the murderer. Brown is Christmas' business partner in a moon-shining enterprise and is the father of Lena's child; Lena knew him as Lucas Burch. He is leaving Joanna's burning house when a passing farmer stops to investigate and pull Joanna's body from the fire. The sheriff at first suspects Joe Brown, but initiates a man-hunt for Christmas after Brown claims that Christmas is black. The man-hunt is fruitless, but then Christmas arrives undisguised in Mottstown, a neighboring town; he is on his way back to Jefferson, no longer running. In Mottstown, he is arrested and jailed, then moved to Jefferson. His grandmother visits him in the Jefferson jail and advises him to seek help from Gail Hightower. As police escort him to the local court, Christmas breaks free and runs to Hightower's house"
      },
      {
        "text": " claims that Christmas is black. The man-hunt is fruitless, but then Christmas arrives undisguised in Mottstown, a neighboring town; he is on his way back to Jefferson, no longer running. In Mottstown, he is arrested and jailed, then moved to Jefferson. His grandmother visits him in the Jefferson jail and advises him to seek help from Gail Hightower. As police escort him to the local court, Christmas breaks free and runs to Hightower's house. A zealous national guardsman, Percy Grimm, follows him there and, over Hightower's protest, shoots and castrates Joe Christmas. The third plot strand tells the story of Reverend Gail Hightower. He is obsessed by the past adventures of his Confederate grandfather, who was killed while stealing chickens from a farmer's shed. Hightower's community dislikes him because of his sermons about his dead grandfather, and because of the scandal surrounding his personal life: his wife committed adultery, and later killed herself, turning the town against Hightower and effectively making him a pariah. The only character who does not turn his back on the Reverend Hightower is Byron Bunch, who visits Hightower from time to time. Bunch tries to convince Hightower to give the imprisoned Joe Christmas an alibi, but Hightower initially refuses. When Joe Christmas escapes from police custody he runs to Hightower's house, seeking to hide. Hightower then accepts Byron's suggestion, but it is too late as Percy Grimm is close behind. Hightower is then seen musing over his past alone in his house as he prepares for his own death. Before Christmas' escape attempt, Hightower delivered Lena's child in the cabin where Brown and Christmas had been staying before the murder, and Byron arranges for Brown/Burch to come and see her. However, when Brown gets there, he runs again, and Byron follows him, inst"
      },
      {
        "text": " then accepts Byron's suggestion, but it is too late as Percy Grimm is close behind. Hightower is then seen musing over his past alone in his house as he prepares for his own death. Before Christmas' escape attempt, Hightower delivered Lena's child in the cabin where Brown and Christmas had been staying before the murder, and Byron arranges for Brown/Burch to come and see her. However, when Brown gets there, he runs again, and Byron follows him, instigating a fight which he loses. Brown gets into a moving train and is not seen again. At the end of the story, an anonymous man is talking to his wife about two strangers he picked up on a trip to Tennessee, recounting that the woman had a child and the man was not the father. This was Lena and Byron, who were conducting a half-hearted search for Brown, and they are eventually dropped off in Tennessee.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix",
    "author": "J. K. Rowling",
    "published_date": "2003-06-21",
    "synopsis": " Harry Potter is spending another summer with his dreadful Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. when a pair of Dementors stage an unexpected attack on Harry and his cousin Dudley. After he uses magic to defend himself and Dudley, he is temporarily expelled from Hogwarts for using magic outside of the school, despite being legally allowed to do in self-defence, before it is rescinded. A few days afterwards, Harry is visited by a group of wizards and Mad-Eye Moody and is whisked off to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, London, the home of Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, and the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. As Harry learns from his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger The Order is a group of witches and wizards, led by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, dedicated to fighting the evil Lord Voldemort and his followers. The Order is forced to operate in secrecy, outside of the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Magic, which is headed by the dense and corrupt Cornelius Fudge, who refuses to believe that Lord Voldemort has returned. In addition, Harry learns that he and Dumbledore have been made victims of a ministry smear campaign aimed at discrediting them and their beliefs about Voldemort. Because of his use of magic, Harry's fate is to be determined at a discipliniary hearing at the Ministry of Magic, which turns out to be an apparent show trial. With Dumbledore's help, Harry is cleared by the Wizengamot and permitted to return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Reunited with his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry returns to Hogwarts and learns that Dolores Umbridge, an employee of Fudge, will be his new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The Sorting Hat, which traditionally sorts all new students into one of four houses, cautions the students against becoming too internally divided. Meanwhile, due to the smear campaign against him, Harry is the subject of unwanted gossip from the student body at large, and a number of people turn against him. Professor Umbridge and Harry soon clash, as she, like Fudge, refuses to believe that Voldemort has returned and punishes Harry when he points out Voldemort's return by forcing him to write lines with a special quill that carves \"I must not tell lies\" into the back of his hand. Umbridge refuses to teach her students how to perform defensive spells, and before long, Fudge appoints her High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, giving her the authority to inspect all faculty members and evaluate their skills. In desperation, Harry, Hermione, and Ron form their own Defense Against the Dark Arts group, also known as the D.A., or Dumbledore's Army. Twenty-five other students sign up, including several of Harry's friends as well as the eccentric Luna Lovegood, and they meet as often as possible to learn and practice Defense spells, and learn well from Harry. One night, Harry has a vision where he inhabits the body of a large snake, and attacks Ron's father. Harry wakes up horrified, and Professor McGonagall takes him to Dumbledore immediately. Dumbledore uses the portraits on the walls of his office to raise an alert, and Mr. Weasley is promptly rescued by two members of the Order. The Weasley family, accompanied by Harry and the Order, visit Arthur Weasley in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Afterwards, Dumbledore demands that Harry take Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape, for the purpose of protecting his mind against further invasions by Lord Voldemort. During the lessons, Harry learns that a corridor he has been repeatedly visiting in his dreams is part of the Department of Mysteries. Harry is unsuccessful at Occlumency because he has such difficulty clearing his mind of all thoughts, making it difficult for him to focus on closing his mind off to all outside influence, in addition to wanting to find out what they mean. Meanwhile, his scar (from the attack in which Voldemort killed Harry's parents) burns horribly every time Voldemort experiences a powerful emotion. The D.A. continues to meet regularly, and Harry's peers show great improvement until they are caught by Umbridge. Dumbledore takes full responsibility for the group and resigns as Headmaster, and Umbridge takes over his position. Shortly afterwards, Harry ends up viewing a memory of Snape's, showing him being bullied by Harry's father James and Sirius, back in their schooldays. Harry wishes desperately to contact his godfather to talk about his father, but Umbridge has been inspecting all owl posts and patrolling the fires of Hogwarts, preventing communication via the Floo Network. Ron's brothers, Fred and George Weasley agree to distract Umbridge so that Harry can use her fireplace to talk to Sirius, who clears up Harry's doubts about his father. Immediately afterwards, they leave Hogwarts, moving to London where they plan to open a joke shop in the wizarding town of Diagon Alley using the money Harry won the previous year in the Triwizard Tournament. The students begin taking their O.W.L. exams, and Harry has another vision, this time about Sirius being held captive and tortured by Voldemort. Horrified, Harry becomes determined to save him. Hermione warns Harry that Voldemort may be deliberately trying to lure Harry to the Department of Mysteries, but Harry is too concerned about Sirius to pay heed. Harry sneaks into Umbridge's office, and, using her fireplace, transports himself to 12, Grimmauld Place to look for Sirius. Kreacher, the House of Black's house elf, tells Harry that Sirius is at the Ministry of Magic. Harry returns to Hogwarts when he is pulled back through the fire by Umbridge to find that he and his friends have been caught in Umbridge's office. Ron, Luna, Ginny, and Neville, who tried to distract Umbridge so that Harry could use her fireplace, have all been seized by Slytherins and gagged. Hermione and Harry convince Umbridge to follow them into the forest, where they claim to be hiding a weapon for Dumbledore which they had just finished and wanted to tell him about. Once in the forest, Umbridge provokes the resident herd of centaurs, and is taken into the forest by them. Harry and his friends use the school's thestrals, winged skeletal horses to fly to the Ministry. Once they arrive, Harry cannot find Sirius and realises that Hermione was right. Harry also sees that one of the glass spheres has his name on it, as well as Voldemort's. Harry grabs the sphere, and Death Eaters led by Lucius Malfoy surround to attack, demanding that Harry hand over the prophecy. Employing all of their Defence skills, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Neville have moderate success fighting the Death Eaters, but they are ultimately helped enormously by the arrival of several members of the Order, including Dumbledore. In the midst of the fight, Harry drops the glass sphere and it shatters. Sirius is killed by his own cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, when she blasts him through the veil. Harry tries to avenge his godfather and follows Bellatrix, but is met by Voldemort at the fountain. Dumbledore appears shortly after Voldemort and the two engage in an intense duel. Voldemort fights Dumbledore to stalemate, then possesses Harry in an attempt to get Dumbledore to sacrifice Harry in the hope of killing him. Voldemort and Lestrange escape, just as Fudge appears at the Ministry, finally faced with incontrovertible evidence that the Dark Lord has returned. Dumbledore sends Harry back to school, where, after Harry has a breakdown, screaming that \"he's had enough\" of all the pain and anguish and death and destruction, he explains that the sphere was a prophecy which stated that Harry has a power that Voldemort will never know: the power of love, given to him by his mother's sacrifice fifteen years earlier. The prophecy goes on to claim that neither Harry nor Voldemort can live while the other survives. Dumbledore takes this opportunity to tell Harry why he must spend his summers with the Dursleys in Little Whinging: because Harry's mother died to save him, he is blessed with her love, a blessing that can be sealed only by blood. Harry's Aunt Petunia, his mother's sister, makes that bond complete by taking Harry into her home. As long as he still calls Little Whinging home, Harry is safe. At the end of the year, the Order warn the Dursleys they will have to answer to them should they mistreat Harry, who returns to them for the summer.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Harry Potter is spending another summer with his dreadful Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. when a pair of Dementors stage an unexpected attack on Harry and his cousin Dudley. After he uses magic to defend himself and Dudley, he is temporarily expelled from Hogwarts for using magic outside of the school, despite being legally allowed to do in self-defence, before it is rescinded. A few days afterwards, Harry is visited by a group of wizards and Mad-Eye Moody and is whisked off to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, London, the home of Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, and the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. As Harry learns from his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger The Order is a group of witches and wizards, led by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, dedicated to fighting the evil Lord Voldemort and his followers. The Order is forced to operate in secrecy, outside of the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Magic, which is headed by the dense and corrupt Cornelius Fudge, who refuses to believe that Lord Voldemort has returned. In addition, Harry learns that he and Dumbledore have been made victims of a ministry smear campaign aimed at discrediting them and their beliefs about Voldemort. Because of his use of magic, Harry's fate is to be determined at a discipliniary hearing at the Ministry of Magic, which turns out to be an apparent show trial. With Dumbledore's help, Harry is cleared by the Wizengamot and permitted to return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Reunited with his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry returns to Hogwarts and learns that Dolores Umbridge, an employee of Fudge, will be his new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The Sorting Hat, which traditionally sorts all new students into one of four houses, cautions the students against becoming too internally divided. Meanwhile, due to the smear campaign against him, Harry is the subject of unwanted gossip from the student body at"
      },
      {
        "text": " Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Reunited with his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry returns to Hogwarts and learns that Dolores Umbridge, an employee of Fudge, will be his new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The Sorting Hat, which traditionally sorts all new students into one of four houses, cautions the students against becoming too internally divided. Meanwhile, due to the smear campaign against him, Harry is the subject of unwanted gossip from the student body at large, and a number of people turn against him. Professor Umbridge and Harry soon clash, as she, like Fudge, refuses to believe that Voldemort has returned and punishes Harry when he points out Voldemort's return by forcing him to write lines with a special quill that carves \"I must not tell lies\" into the back of his hand. Umbridge refuses to teach her students how to perform defensive spells, and before long, Fudge appoints her High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, giving her the authority to inspect all faculty members and evaluate their skills. In desperation, Harry, Hermione, and Ron form their own Defense Against the Dark Arts group, also known as the D.A., or Dumbledore's Army. Twenty-five other students sign up, including several of Harry's friends as well as the eccentric Luna Lovegood, and they meet as often as possible to learn and practice Defense spells, and learn well from Harry. One night, Harry has a vision where he inhabits the body of a large snake, and attacks Ron's father. Harry wakes up horrified, and Professor McGonagall takes him to Dumbledore immediately. Dumbledore uses the portraits on the walls of his office to raise an alert, and Mr. Weasley is promptly rescued by two members of the Order. The Weasley family, accompanied by Harry and the Order, visit Arthur Weasley in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Afterwards, Dumbledore demands that Harry take Occlumency lessons with"
      },
      {
        "text": " body of a large snake, and attacks Ron's father. Harry wakes up horrified, and Professor McGonagall takes him to Dumbledore immediately. Dumbledore uses the portraits on the walls of his office to raise an alert, and Mr. Weasley is promptly rescued by two members of the Order. The Weasley family, accompanied by Harry and the Order, visit Arthur Weasley in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Afterwards, Dumbledore demands that Harry take Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape, for the purpose of protecting his mind against further invasions by Lord Voldemort. During the lessons, Harry learns that a corridor he has been repeatedly visiting in his dreams is part of the Department of Mysteries. Harry is unsuccessful at Occlumency because he has such difficulty clearing his mind of all thoughts, making it difficult for him to focus on closing his mind off to all outside influence, in addition to wanting to find out what they mean. Meanwhile, his scar (from the attack in which Voldemort killed Harry's parents) burns horribly every time Voldemort experiences a powerful emotion. The D.A. continues to meet regularly, and Harry's peers show great improvement until they are caught by Umbridge. Dumbledore takes full responsibility for the group and resigns as Headmaster, and Umbridge takes over his position. Shortly afterwards, Harry ends up viewing a memory of Snape's, showing him being bullied by Harry's father James and Sirius, back in their schooldays. Harry wishes desperately to contact his godfather to talk about his father, but Umbridge has been inspecting all owl posts and patrolling the fires of Hogwarts, preventing communication via the Floo Network. Ron's brothers, Fred and George Weasley agree to distract Umbridge so that Harry can use her fireplace to talk to Sirius, who clears up Harry's doubts about his father. Immediately afterwards, they leave Hogwarts, moving to London where they plan to open a joke shop in the wizarding town of Diagon Alley using the money"
      },
      {
        "text": " to contact his godfather to talk about his father, but Umbridge has been inspecting all owl posts and patrolling the fires of Hogwarts, preventing communication via the Floo Network. Ron's brothers, Fred and George Weasley agree to distract Umbridge so that Harry can use her fireplace to talk to Sirius, who clears up Harry's doubts about his father. Immediately afterwards, they leave Hogwarts, moving to London where they plan to open a joke shop in the wizarding town of Diagon Alley using the money Harry won the previous year in the Triwizard Tournament. The students begin taking their O.W.L. exams, and Harry has another vision, this time about Sirius being held captive and tortured by Voldemort. Horrified, Harry becomes determined to save him. Hermione warns Harry that Voldemort may be deliberately trying to lure Harry to the Department of Mysteries, but Harry is too concerned about Sirius to pay heed. Harry sneaks into Umbridge's office, and, using her fireplace, transports himself to 12, Grimmauld Place to look for Sirius. Kreacher, the House of Black's house elf, tells Harry that Sirius is at the Ministry of Magic. Harry returns to Hogwarts when he is pulled back through the fire by Umbridge to find that he and his friends have been caught in Umbridge's office. Ron, Luna, Ginny, and Neville, who tried to distract Umbridge so that Harry could use her fireplace, have all been seized by Slytherins and gagged. Hermione and Harry convince Umbridge to follow them into the forest, where they claim to be hiding a weapon for Dumbledore which they had just finished and wanted to tell him about. Once in the forest, Umbridge provokes the resident herd of centaurs, and is taken into the forest by them. Harry and his friends use the school's thestrals, winged skeletal horses to fly to the Ministry. Once they arrive, Harry cannot find Sirius and realises that Hermione was right. Harry also sees"
      },
      {
        "text": " Harry convince Umbridge to follow them into the forest, where they claim to be hiding a weapon for Dumbledore which they had just finished and wanted to tell him about. Once in the forest, Umbridge provokes the resident herd of centaurs, and is taken into the forest by them. Harry and his friends use the school's thestrals, winged skeletal horses to fly to the Ministry. Once they arrive, Harry cannot find Sirius and realises that Hermione was right. Harry also sees that one of the glass spheres has his name on it, as well as Voldemort's. Harry grabs the sphere, and Death Eaters led by Lucius Malfoy surround to attack, demanding that Harry hand over the prophecy. Employing all of their Defence skills, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Neville have moderate success fighting the Death Eaters, but they are ultimately helped enormously by the arrival of several members of the Order, including Dumbledore. In the midst of the fight, Harry drops the glass sphere and it shatters. Sirius is killed by his own cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, when she blasts him through the veil. Harry tries to avenge his godfather and follows Bellatrix, but is met by Voldemort at the fountain. Dumbledore appears shortly after Voldemort and the two engage in an intense duel. Voldemort fights Dumbledore to stalemate, then possesses Harry in an attempt to get Dumbledore to sacrifice Harry in the hope of killing him. Voldemort and Lestrange escape, just as Fudge appears at the Ministry, finally faced with incontrovertible evidence that the Dark Lord has returned. Dumbledore sends Harry back to school, where, after Harry has a breakdown, screaming that \"he's had enough\" of all the pain and anguish and death and destruction, he explains that the sphere was a prophecy which stated that Harry has a power that Voldemort will never know: the power of love, given to him by his mother's sacrifice fifteen years earlier. The prophecy"
      },
      {
        "text": ", just as Fudge appears at the Ministry, finally faced with incontrovertible evidence that the Dark Lord has returned. Dumbledore sends Harry back to school, where, after Harry has a breakdown, screaming that \"he's had enough\" of all the pain and anguish and death and destruction, he explains that the sphere was a prophecy which stated that Harry has a power that Voldemort will never know: the power of love, given to him by his mother's sacrifice fifteen years earlier. The prophecy goes on to claim that neither Harry nor Voldemort can live while the other survives. Dumbledore takes this opportunity to tell Harry why he must spend his summers with the Dursleys in Little Whinging: because Harry's mother died to save him, he is blessed with her love, a blessing that can be sealed only by blood. Harry's Aunt Petunia, his mother's sister, makes that bond complete by taking Harry into her home. As long as he still calls Little Whinging home, Harry is safe. At the end of the year, the Order warn the Dursleys they will have to answer to them should they mistreat Harry, who returns to them for the summer.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Consciousness Explained",
    "author": "Daniel Dennett",
    "published_date": "1991",
    "synopsis": " The book puts forward a \"multiple drafts\" model of consciousness, suggesting that there is no single central place (a \"Cartesian Theater\") where conscious experience occurs; instead there are \"various events of content-fixation occurring in various places at various times in the brain\". The brain consists of a \"bundle of semi-independent agencies\"; when \"content-fixation\" takes place in one of these, its effects may propagate so that it leads to the utterance of one of the sentences that make up the story in which the central character is one's \"self\". Dennett's view of consciousness is that it is the apparently serial account for the brain's underlying parallelism. One of the book's more controversial claims is that qualia do not (and cannot) exist. Dennett's main argument is that the various properties attributed to qualia by philosophers\u2014qualia are supposed to be incorrigible, ineffable, private, directly accessible and so on—are incompatible, so the notion of qualia is incoherent. The non-existence of qualia would mean that there is no hard problem of consciousness, and \"philosophical zombies\", which are supposed to act like a human in every way while somehow lacking qualia, cannot exist. So, as Dennett wryly notes, he is committed to the belief that we are all zombies\u2014adding that his remark is very much open to misinterpretation. Dennett claims that our brains hold only a few salient details about the world, and that this is the only reason we are able to function at all. Thus, we don't store elaborate pictures in short-term memory, as this is not necessary and would consume valuable computing power. Rather, we log what has changed and assume the rest has stayed the same, with the result that we miss some details, as demonstrated in various experiments and illusions, some of which Dennett outlines. Research subsequent to Dennett's book indicates that some of his postulations were more conservative than expected. A year after Consciousness Explained was published, Dennett noted \"I wish in retrospect that I'd been more daring, since the effects are stronger than I claimed\". And since then examples continue to accumulate of the illusory nature of our visual world. A key philosophical method is heterophenomenology, in which the verbal or written reports of subjects are treated as akin to a theorist's fiction\u2014the subject's report is not questioned, but it is not assumed to be an incorrigible report about that subject's inner state. This approach allows the reports of the subject to be a datum in psychological research, thus circumventing the limits of classical behaviorism. Also Dennett says that only a theory that explained conscious events in terms of unconscious events could explain consciousness at all: \u00abTo explain is to explain away\u00bb.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book puts forward a \"multiple drafts\" model of consciousness, suggesting that there is no single central place (a \"Cartesian Theater\") where conscious experience occurs; instead there are \"various events of content-fixation occurring in various places at various times in the brain\". The brain consists of a \"bundle of semi-independent agencies\"; when \"content-fixation\" takes place in one of these, its effects may propagate so that it leads to the utterance of one of the sentences that make up the story in which the central character is one's \"self\". Dennett's view of consciousness is that it is the apparently serial account for the brain's underlying parallelism. One of the book's more controversial claims is that qualia do not (and cannot) exist. Dennett's main argument is that the various properties attributed to qualia by philosophers\u2014qualia are supposed to be incorrigible, ineffable, private, directly accessible and so on—are incompatible, so the notion of qualia is incoherent. The non-existence of qualia would mean that there is no hard problem of consciousness, and \"philosophical zombies\", which are supposed to act like a human in every way while somehow lacking qualia, cannot exist. So, as Dennett wryly notes, he is committed to the belief that we are all zombies\u2014adding that his remark is very much open to misinterpretation. Dennett claims that our brains hold only a few salient details about the world, and that this is the only reason we are able to function at all. Thus, we don't store elaborate pictures in short-term memory, as this is not necessary and would consume valuable computing power. Rather, we log what has changed and assume the rest has stayed the same, with the result that we miss some details, as demonstrated in various experiments and illusions, some of which Dennett outlines. Research subsequent to Dennett's book indicates that some"
      },
      {
        "text": " only a few salient details about the world, and that this is the only reason we are able to function at all. Thus, we don't store elaborate pictures in short-term memory, as this is not necessary and would consume valuable computing power. Rather, we log what has changed and assume the rest has stayed the same, with the result that we miss some details, as demonstrated in various experiments and illusions, some of which Dennett outlines. Research subsequent to Dennett's book indicates that some of his postulations were more conservative than expected. A year after Consciousness Explained was published, Dennett noted \"I wish in retrospect that I'd been more daring, since the effects are stronger than I claimed\". And since then examples continue to accumulate of the illusory nature of our visual world. A key philosophical method is heterophenomenology, in which the verbal or written reports of subjects are treated as akin to a theorist's fiction\u2014the subject's report is not questioned, but it is not assumed to be an incorrigible report about that subject's inner state. This approach allows the reports of the subject to be a datum in psychological research, thus circumventing the limits of classical behaviorism. Also Dennett says that only a theory that explained conscious events in terms of unconscious events could explain consciousness at all: \u00abTo explain is to explain away\u00bb.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Clouds",
    "author": "Aristophanes",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " ;Short summary Faced with legal action for non-payment of debts, Strepsiades, an elderly Athenian, enrolls his son in the \"thinkeria\" (the \"Phrontisterion\") so that he might learn the rhetorical skills necessary to defeat their creditors in court. The son thereby learns cynical disrespect for social mores and contempt for authority and he subsequently beats his father up during a domestic argument, in return for which Strepsiades sets The Thinkery on fire. ;Detailed summary The play begins with Strepsiades suddenly sitting up in bed while his son, Pheidippides, remains blissfully asleep in the bed next to him. Strepsiades complains to the audience that he is too worried about household debts to get any sleep \u2013 his wife (the pampered product of an aristocratic clan) has encouraged their son's expensive interest in horses. Strepsiades, having thought up a plan to get out of debt, wakes the youth gently and pleads with him to do something for him. Pheidippides at first agrees to do as he's asked then changes his mind when he learns that his father wants to enroll him in The Thinkery, a school for nerds and intellectual bums that no self-respecting, athletic young man dares to be seen with. Strepsiades explains that students of The Thinkery learn how to turn inferior arguments into winning arguments and this is the only way he can beat their aggrieved creditors in court. Pheidippides however will not be persuaded and Strepsiades decides to enroll himself in The Thinkery in spite of his advanced age. There he meets a student who tells him about some of the recent discoveries made by Socrates, the head of The Thinkery, including a new unit of measurement for ascertaining the distance jumped by a flea (a flea's foot, created from a minuscule imprint in wax), the exact cause of the buzzing noise made by a gnat (its arse resembles a trumpet) and a new use for a large pair of compasses (as a kind of fishing-hook for stealing cloaks from pegs over the gymnasium wall). Impressed, Strepsiades begs to be introduced to the man behind these discoveries. The wish is soon granted: Socrates appears overhead, wafted in a basket at the end of a rope, the better to observe the Sun and other meteorological phenomena. The philosopher descends and quickly begins the induction ceremony for the new elderly student, the highlight of which is a parade of the Clouds, the patron goddesses of thinkers and other layabouts. The Clouds arrive singing majestically of the regions whence they arose and of the land they have now come to visit, loveliest in all Greece. Introduced to them as a new devotee, Strepsiades begs them to make him the best orator in Greece by a hundred miles. They reply with the promise of a brilliant future. Socrates leads him into the dingy Thinkery for his first lesson and The Clouds step forward to address the audience. Putting aside their cloud-like costumes, The Chorus declares that this is the author's cleverest play and that it cost him the greatest effort. It reproaches the audience for the play's failure at the festival, where it was beaten by the works of inferior authors, and it praises the author for originality and for his courage in lampooning influential politicians such as Cleon. The Chorus then resumes its appearance as clouds, promising divine favours if the audience punishes Cleon for corruption and rebuking Athenians for messing about with the calendar, since this has put Athens out of step with the moon. Socrates returns to the stage in a huff, protesting against the ineptitude of his new elderly student. He summons Strepsiades outside and attempts further lessons, including a form of meditative incubation in which the old man lies under a blanket while thoughts are supposed to arise in his mind naturally. The incubation results in Strepsiades masturbating under the blanket and finally Socrates refuses to have anything more to do with him. The Clouds advise him to find someone younger to do the learning for him. His son, Pheidippides, subsequently yields to threats by Strepsiades and reluctantly returns with him to the Thinkery, where they encounter the personified arguments Superior and Inferior, associates of Socrates. Superior Argument and Inferior Argument debate with each other over which of them can offer the best education. Superior Argument sides with Justice and the gods, offering to prepare Pheidippides for an earnest life of discipline, typical of men who respect the old ways; Inferior Argument, denying the existence of Justice, offers to prepare him for a life of ease and pleasure, typical of men who know how to talk their way out of trouble. At the end of the debate, a quick survey of the audience reveals that buggers - people schooled by Inferior Arguments - have got into the most powerful positions in Athens. Superior Argument accepts his inevitable defeat, Inferior Argument leads Pheidippides into the Thinkery for a life-changing education and Strepsiades goes home happy. The Clouds step forward to address the audience a second time, demanding to be awarded first place in the festival competition, in return for which they promise good rains - otherwise they'll destroy crops, smash roofs and spoil weddings. The story resumes with Strepsiades returning to The Thinkery to fetch his son. A new Pheidippides emerges, startlingly transformed into the pale nerd and intellectual bum that he had once feared to become. Rejoicing in the prospect of talking their way out of financial trouble, Strepsiades leads the youth home for celebrations, just moments before the first of their aggrieved creditors arrives with a witness to summon him to court. Strepsiades comes back on stage, confronts the creditor and dismisses him contemptuously. A second creditor arrives and receives the same treatment before Strepsiades returns indoors to continue the celebrations. The Clouds sing ominously of a looming debacle and Strepsiades again comes back on stage, now in distress, complaining of a beating that his new son has just given him in a dispute over the celebrations. Pheidippides emerges coolly and insolently debates with his father a father's right to beat his son and a son's right to beat his father. He ends by threatening to beat his mother also, whereupon Strepsiades flies into a rage against The Thinkery, blaming Socrates for his latest troubles. He leads his slaves, armed with torches and mattocks, in a frenzied attack on the disreputable school. The alarmed students are pursued offstage and the Chorus, with nothing to celebrate, quietly departs.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " ;Short summary Faced with legal action for non-payment of debts, Strepsiades, an elderly Athenian, enrolls his son in the \"thinkeria\" (the \"Phrontisterion\") so that he might learn the rhetorical skills necessary to defeat their creditors in court. The son thereby learns cynical disrespect for social mores and contempt for authority and he subsequently beats his father up during a domestic argument, in return for which Strepsiades sets The Thinkery on fire. ;Detailed summary The play begins with Strepsiades suddenly sitting up in bed while his son, Pheidippides, remains blissfully asleep in the bed next to him. Strepsiades complains to the audience that he is too worried about household debts to get any sleep \u2013 his wife (the pampered product of an aristocratic clan) has encouraged their son's expensive interest in horses. Strepsiades, having thought up a plan to get out of debt, wakes the youth gently and pleads with him to do something for him. Pheidippides at first agrees to do as he's asked then changes his mind when he learns that his father wants to enroll him in The Thinkery, a school for nerds and intellectual bums that no self-respecting, athletic young man dares to be seen with. Strepsiades explains that students of The Thinkery learn how to turn inferior arguments into winning arguments and this is the only way he can beat their aggrieved creditors in court. Pheidippides however will not be persuaded and Strepsiades decides to enroll himself in The Thinkery in spite of his advanced age. There he meets a student who tells him about some of the recent discoveries made by Socrates, the head of The Thinkery, including a new unit of measurement for ascertaining the distance jumped by a flea (a flea's foot, created from a minuscule imprint in wax), the exact cause of the buzzing noise made"
      },
      {
        "text": "rieved creditors in court. Pheidippides however will not be persuaded and Strepsiades decides to enroll himself in The Thinkery in spite of his advanced age. There he meets a student who tells him about some of the recent discoveries made by Socrates, the head of The Thinkery, including a new unit of measurement for ascertaining the distance jumped by a flea (a flea's foot, created from a minuscule imprint in wax), the exact cause of the buzzing noise made by a gnat (its arse resembles a trumpet) and a new use for a large pair of compasses (as a kind of fishing-hook for stealing cloaks from pegs over the gymnasium wall). Impressed, Strepsiades begs to be introduced to the man behind these discoveries. The wish is soon granted: Socrates appears overhead, wafted in a basket at the end of a rope, the better to observe the Sun and other meteorological phenomena. The philosopher descends and quickly begins the induction ceremony for the new elderly student, the highlight of which is a parade of the Clouds, the patron goddesses of thinkers and other layabouts. The Clouds arrive singing majestically of the regions whence they arose and of the land they have now come to visit, loveliest in all Greece. Introduced to them as a new devotee, Strepsiades begs them to make him the best orator in Greece by a hundred miles. They reply with the promise of a brilliant future. Socrates leads him into the dingy Thinkery for his first lesson and The Clouds step forward to address the audience. Putting aside their cloud-like costumes, The Chorus declares that this is the author's cleverest play and that it cost him the greatest effort. It reproaches the audience for the play's failure at the festival, where it was beaten by the works of inferior authors, and it praises the author for originality and for his courage in lampoon"
      },
      {
        "text": " promise of a brilliant future. Socrates leads him into the dingy Thinkery for his first lesson and The Clouds step forward to address the audience. Putting aside their cloud-like costumes, The Chorus declares that this is the author's cleverest play and that it cost him the greatest effort. It reproaches the audience for the play's failure at the festival, where it was beaten by the works of inferior authors, and it praises the author for originality and for his courage in lampooning influential politicians such as Cleon. The Chorus then resumes its appearance as clouds, promising divine favours if the audience punishes Cleon for corruption and rebuking Athenians for messing about with the calendar, since this has put Athens out of step with the moon. Socrates returns to the stage in a huff, protesting against the ineptitude of his new elderly student. He summons Strepsiades outside and attempts further lessons, including a form of meditative incubation in which the old man lies under a blanket while thoughts are supposed to arise in his mind naturally. The incubation results in Strepsiades masturbating under the blanket and finally Socrates refuses to have anything more to do with him. The Clouds advise him to find someone younger to do the learning for him. His son, Pheidippides, subsequently yields to threats by Strepsiades and reluctantly returns with him to the Thinkery, where they encounter the personified arguments Superior and Inferior, associates of Socrates. Superior Argument and Inferior Argument debate with each other over which of them can offer the best education. Superior Argument sides with Justice and the gods, offering to prepare Pheidippides for an earnest life of discipline, typical of men who respect the old ways; Inferior Argument, denying the existence of Justice, offers to prepare him for a life of ease and pleasure, typical of men who know how to talk their way out of trouble. At the end of the debate,"
      },
      {
        "text": " of Socrates. Superior Argument and Inferior Argument debate with each other over which of them can offer the best education. Superior Argument sides with Justice and the gods, offering to prepare Pheidippides for an earnest life of discipline, typical of men who respect the old ways; Inferior Argument, denying the existence of Justice, offers to prepare him for a life of ease and pleasure, typical of men who know how to talk their way out of trouble. At the end of the debate, a quick survey of the audience reveals that buggers - people schooled by Inferior Arguments - have got into the most powerful positions in Athens. Superior Argument accepts his inevitable defeat, Inferior Argument leads Pheidippides into the Thinkery for a life-changing education and Strepsiades goes home happy. The Clouds step forward to address the audience a second time, demanding to be awarded first place in the festival competition, in return for which they promise good rains - otherwise they'll destroy crops, smash roofs and spoil weddings. The story resumes with Strepsiades returning to The Thinkery to fetch his son. A new Pheidippides emerges, startlingly transformed into the pale nerd and intellectual bum that he had once feared to become. Rejoicing in the prospect of talking their way out of financial trouble, Strepsiades leads the youth home for celebrations, just moments before the first of their aggrieved creditors arrives with a witness to summon him to court. Strepsiades comes back on stage, confronts the creditor and dismisses him contemptuously. A second creditor arrives and receives the same treatment before Strepsiades returns indoors to continue the celebrations. The Clouds sing ominously of a looming debacle and Strepsiades again comes back on stage, now in distress, complaining of a beating that his new son has just given him in a dispute over the celebrations. Pheidippides emerges coolly and insolently debates with his father a father"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Strepsiades comes back on stage, confronts the creditor and dismisses him contemptuously. A second creditor arrives and receives the same treatment before Strepsiades returns indoors to continue the celebrations. The Clouds sing ominously of a looming debacle and Strepsiades again comes back on stage, now in distress, complaining of a beating that his new son has just given him in a dispute over the celebrations. Pheidippides emerges coolly and insolently debates with his father a father's right to beat his son and a son's right to beat his father. He ends by threatening to beat his mother also, whereupon Strepsiades flies into a rage against The Thinkery, blaming Socrates for his latest troubles. He leads his slaves, armed with torches and mattocks, in a frenzied attack on the disreputable school. The alarmed students are pursued offstage and the Chorus, with nothing to celebrate, quietly departs.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Knights",
    "author": "Aristophanes",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Knights is a satire on political and social life in 5th-century Athens, the characters are drawn from real life and Cleon is clearly intended to be the villain. However it is also an allegory, the characters are figures of fantasy and the villain in this context is Paphlagonian, a comic monstrosity responsible for almost everything that's wrong with the world. The identity Cleon=Paphlagonian is awkward and the ambiguities aren't easily resolved. This summary features the real-world names Cleon, Nicias and Demosthenes (though these names are never mentioned in the play). See Discussion for an overview of the ambiguous use of characterization in The Knights. Short summary: A sausage seller, Agoracritus, vies with Cleon for the confidence and approval of Demos ('The People' in Greek), an elderly man who symbolizes the Athenian citizenry. Agoracritus emerges triumphant from a series of contests and he restores Demos to his former glory. Detailed summary: Nicias and Demosthenes run from a house in Athens, complaining of a beating that they have just received from their master, Demos, and cursing their fellow slave, Cleon, as the cause of their troubles. They inform the audience that Cleon has wheedled his way into Demos's confidence and they accuse him of misusing his privileged position for the purpose of extortion and corruption. They advise us that even the mask-makers are afraid of Cleon and not one of them could be persuaded to make a caricature of him for this play. They assure us however that we are clever enough to recognize him even without a mask. Having no idea how to solve their problems, they pilfer some wine from the house, the taste of which inspires them to an even bolder theft - a set of oracles that Cleon has always refused to let anyone else see. On reading these stolen oracles, they learn that Cleon is one of several peddlers destined to rule the polis and that it is his fate to be replaced by a sausage seller. As chance would have it, a sausage seller passes by at that very moment, carrying a portable kitchen. Demosthenes informs him of his destiny. The sausage seller is not convinced at first but Demosthenes points out the myriads of people in the theatre and he assures him that his skills with sausages are all that is needed to govern them. Cleon's suspicions meanwhile have been aroused and he rushes from the house in search of trouble. He immediately finds an empty wine bowl and he loudly accuses the others of treason. Demosthenes calls upon the knights of Athens for assistance and a Chorus of them charges into the theatre. They converge on Cleon in military formation under instructions from their leader: ::Hit him, hit him, hit the villain hateful to the cavalry, ::Tax-collecting, all-devouring monster of a lurking thief! ::Villain, villain! I repeat it, I repeat it constantly, ::With good reason since this thief reiterates his villainy! Cleon is given rough handling and the Chorus leader accuses him of manipulating the political and legal system for personal gain. Cleon bellows to the audience for help and the Chorus urges the sausage-seller to outshout him. There follows a shouting match between Cleon and the sausage seller with vulgar boasts and vainglorious threats on both sides as each man strives to demonstrate that he is a more shameless and unscrupulous orator than the other. The knights proclaim the sausage-seller the winner of the argument and Cleon then rushes off to the Boule to denounce them all on a trumped-up charge of treason. The sausage seller sets off in pursuit and the action pauses for a parabasis, during which the Chorus steps forward to address the audience on behalf of the author. The Chorus informs us that Aristophanes has been very methodical and cautious in the way he has approached his career as a comic poet and we are invited to applaud him. The knights then deliver a speech in praise of the older generation, the men who made Athens great, and this is followed by a speech in praise of horses that performed heroically in a recent amphibious assault on Corinth, whither they are imagined to have rowed in gallant style. Returning to the stage, the sausage seller reports to the knights on his battle with Cleon for control of the Council - he has outbid Cleon for the support of the councillors with offers of meals at the state's expense. Indignant at his defeat, Cleon rushes onto the stage and challenges the sausage-seller to submit their differences to Demos. The sausage seller accepts the challenge. They call Demos outdoors and compete with each other in flattering him like rivals for the affections of an eromenos. He agrees to hear them debating their differences and he takes up his position on the Pnyx (here represented possibly as a bench). The sausage-seller makes some serious accusations in the first half of the debate: Cleon is indifferent to the war-time sufferings of ordinary people, he has used the war as an opportunity for corruption and he prolongs the war out of fear that he will be prosecuted when peace returns. Demos is won over by these arguments and he spurns Cleon's wheedling appeals for sympathy. Thereafter the sausage seller's accusations become increasingly absurd: Cleon is accused of waging a campaign against buggery in order to stifle opposition (because all the best orators are buggers) and he is said to have brought down the price of silphium so that jurors who bought it would suffocate each other with their flatulence. Cleon loses the debate but he doesn't lose hope and there are two further contests in which he competes with the sausage seller for Demos's favour - a) the reading of oracles flattering to Demos; b) a race to see which of them can best serve pampered Demos's every need. The sausage seller wins each contest by outdoing Cleon in shamelessness. Cleon makes one last effort to retain his privileged position in the household - he possesses an oracle that describes his successor and he questions the sausage seller to see if he matches the description in all its vulgar details. The sausage seller does match the description. In tragic dismay, Cleon at last accepts his fate and he surrenders his authority to the sausage-seller. Demos asks the sausage seller for his name and we learn that it is Agoracritus, confirming his lowly origin. The actors depart and the Chorus treats us to another parabasis. The knights step forward and they advise us that it is honourable to mock dishonourable people. They proceed to mock Ariphrades, an Athenian with a perverse appetite for female secretions. Next they recount an imaginary conversation between some respectable ships that have refused to carry the war to Carthage because the voyage was proposed by Hyperbolus, a man they despise. Then Agoracritus returns to the stage, calling for respectful silence and announcing a new development - he has rejuvenated Demos with a good boiling (just as if he were a piece of meat). The doors of Demos's house open to reveal impressive changes in Demos's appearance - he is now the very image of glorious 'violet-crowned' Athens, as once commemorated in a song by Pindar. Agoracritus presents his transformed master with the Peacetreaties - beautiful girls that Cleon had been keeping locked up in order to prolong the war. Demos invites Agoracritus to a banquet at the town hall and the entire cast exits in good cheer - all except Cleon, who is required to sell sausages at the city gate as punishment for his crimes.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Knights is a satire on political and social life in 5th-century Athens, the characters are drawn from real life and Cleon is clearly intended to be the villain. However it is also an allegory, the characters are figures of fantasy and the villain in this context is Paphlagonian, a comic monstrosity responsible for almost everything that's wrong with the world. The identity Cleon=Paphlagonian is awkward and the ambiguities aren't easily resolved. This summary features the real-world names Cleon, Nicias and Demosthenes (though these names are never mentioned in the play). See Discussion for an overview of the ambiguous use of characterization in The Knights. Short summary: A sausage seller, Agoracritus, vies with Cleon for the confidence and approval of Demos ('The People' in Greek), an elderly man who symbolizes the Athenian citizenry. Agoracritus emerges triumphant from a series of contests and he restores Demos to his former glory. Detailed summary: Nicias and Demosthenes run from a house in Athens, complaining of a beating that they have just received from their master, Demos, and cursing their fellow slave, Cleon, as the cause of their troubles. They inform the audience that Cleon has wheedled his way into Demos's confidence and they accuse him of misusing his privileged position for the purpose of extortion and corruption. They advise us that even the mask-makers are afraid of Cleon and not one of them could be persuaded to make a caricature of him for this play. They assure us however that we are clever enough to recognize him even without a mask. Having no idea how to solve their problems, they pilfer some wine from the house, the taste of which inspires them to an even bolder theft - a set of oracles that Cleon has always refused to let anyone else see. On reading these stolen oracles"
      },
      {
        "text": " that even the mask-makers are afraid of Cleon and not one of them could be persuaded to make a caricature of him for this play. They assure us however that we are clever enough to recognize him even without a mask. Having no idea how to solve their problems, they pilfer some wine from the house, the taste of which inspires them to an even bolder theft - a set of oracles that Cleon has always refused to let anyone else see. On reading these stolen oracles, they learn that Cleon is one of several peddlers destined to rule the polis and that it is his fate to be replaced by a sausage seller. As chance would have it, a sausage seller passes by at that very moment, carrying a portable kitchen. Demosthenes informs him of his destiny. The sausage seller is not convinced at first but Demosthenes points out the myriads of people in the theatre and he assures him that his skills with sausages are all that is needed to govern them. Cleon's suspicions meanwhile have been aroused and he rushes from the house in search of trouble. He immediately finds an empty wine bowl and he loudly accuses the others of treason. Demosthenes calls upon the knights of Athens for assistance and a Chorus of them charges into the theatre. They converge on Cleon in military formation under instructions from their leader: ::Hit him, hit him, hit the villain hateful to the cavalry, ::Tax-collecting, all-devouring monster of a lurking thief! ::Villain, villain! I repeat it, I repeat it constantly, ::With good reason since this thief reiterates his villainy! Cleon is given rough handling and the Chorus leader accuses him of manipulating the political and legal system for personal gain. Cleon bellows to the audience for help and the Chorus urges the sausage-seller to outshout him. There follows a shouting match between Cleon and the sausage seller with vulgar"
      },
      {
        "text": " all-devouring monster of a lurking thief! ::Villain, villain! I repeat it, I repeat it constantly, ::With good reason since this thief reiterates his villainy! Cleon is given rough handling and the Chorus leader accuses him of manipulating the political and legal system for personal gain. Cleon bellows to the audience for help and the Chorus urges the sausage-seller to outshout him. There follows a shouting match between Cleon and the sausage seller with vulgar boasts and vainglorious threats on both sides as each man strives to demonstrate that he is a more shameless and unscrupulous orator than the other. The knights proclaim the sausage-seller the winner of the argument and Cleon then rushes off to the Boule to denounce them all on a trumped-up charge of treason. The sausage seller sets off in pursuit and the action pauses for a parabasis, during which the Chorus steps forward to address the audience on behalf of the author. The Chorus informs us that Aristophanes has been very methodical and cautious in the way he has approached his career as a comic poet and we are invited to applaud him. The knights then deliver a speech in praise of the older generation, the men who made Athens great, and this is followed by a speech in praise of horses that performed heroically in a recent amphibious assault on Corinth, whither they are imagined to have rowed in gallant style. Returning to the stage, the sausage seller reports to the knights on his battle with Cleon for control of the Council - he has outbid Cleon for the support of the councillors with offers of meals at the state's expense. Indignant at his defeat, Cleon rushes onto the stage and challenges the sausage-seller to submit their differences to Demos. The sausage seller accepts the challenge. They call Demos outdoors and compete with each other in flattering him like rivals for the affections of an eromenos. He"
      },
      {
        "text": " the sausage seller reports to the knights on his battle with Cleon for control of the Council - he has outbid Cleon for the support of the councillors with offers of meals at the state's expense. Indignant at his defeat, Cleon rushes onto the stage and challenges the sausage-seller to submit their differences to Demos. The sausage seller accepts the challenge. They call Demos outdoors and compete with each other in flattering him like rivals for the affections of an eromenos. He agrees to hear them debating their differences and he takes up his position on the Pnyx (here represented possibly as a bench). The sausage-seller makes some serious accusations in the first half of the debate: Cleon is indifferent to the war-time sufferings of ordinary people, he has used the war as an opportunity for corruption and he prolongs the war out of fear that he will be prosecuted when peace returns. Demos is won over by these arguments and he spurns Cleon's wheedling appeals for sympathy. Thereafter the sausage seller's accusations become increasingly absurd: Cleon is accused of waging a campaign against buggery in order to stifle opposition (because all the best orators are buggers) and he is said to have brought down the price of silphium so that jurors who bought it would suffocate each other with their flatulence. Cleon loses the debate but he doesn't lose hope and there are two further contests in which he competes with the sausage seller for Demos's favour - a) the reading of oracles flattering to Demos; b) a race to see which of them can best serve pampered Demos's every need. The sausage seller wins each contest by outdoing Cleon in shamelessness. Cleon makes one last effort to retain his privileged position in the household - he possesses an oracle that describes his successor and he questions the sausage seller to see if he matches the description in all its vulgar"
      },
      {
        "text": "es with the sausage seller for Demos's favour - a) the reading of oracles flattering to Demos; b) a race to see which of them can best serve pampered Demos's every need. The sausage seller wins each contest by outdoing Cleon in shamelessness. Cleon makes one last effort to retain his privileged position in the household - he possesses an oracle that describes his successor and he questions the sausage seller to see if he matches the description in all its vulgar details. The sausage seller does match the description. In tragic dismay, Cleon at last accepts his fate and he surrenders his authority to the sausage-seller. Demos asks the sausage seller for his name and we learn that it is Agoracritus, confirming his lowly origin. The actors depart and the Chorus treats us to another parabasis. The knights step forward and they advise us that it is honourable to mock dishonourable people. They proceed to mock Ariphrades, an Athenian with a perverse appetite for female secretions. Next they recount an imaginary conversation between some respectable ships that have refused to carry the war to Carthage because the voyage was proposed by Hyperbolus, a man they despise. Then Agoracritus returns to the stage, calling for respectful silence and announcing a new development - he has rejuvenated Demos with a good boiling (just as if he were a piece of meat). The doors of Demos's house open to reveal impressive changes in Demos's appearance - he is now the very image of glorious 'violet-crowned' Athens, as once commemorated in a song by Pindar. Agoracritus presents his transformed master with the Peacetreaties - beautiful girls that Cleon had been keeping locked up in order to prolong the war. Demos invites Agoracritus to a banquet at the town hall and the entire cast exits in good cheer - all except"
      },
      {
        "text": " open to reveal impressive changes in Demos's appearance - he is now the very image of glorious 'violet-crowned' Athens, as once commemorated in a song by Pindar. Agoracritus presents his transformed master with the Peacetreaties - beautiful girls that Cleon had been keeping locked up in order to prolong the war. Demos invites Agoracritus to a banquet at the town hall and the entire cast exits in good cheer - all except Cleon, who is required to sell sausages at the city gate as punishment for his crimes.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Romance of the Three Kingdoms",
    "author": "Luo Guanzhong",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " One of the greatest achievements of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the extreme complexity of its stories and characters. The novel contains numerous secondary stories. The following consists of a summary of the central plot, and well-known highlights in the story. In the final years of the Han Dynasty, incompetent eunuchs deceive the emperor and persecute good officials, and the government becomes extremely corrupt on all levels, leading to widespread deterioration of the empire. During the reign of the penultimate Han sovereign, Emperor Ling, the Yellow Turban Rebellion breaks out under the leadership of Zhang Jue (a.k.a. Zhang Jiao). The rebellion is barely suppressed by troops under the command of He Jin, General-in-Chief of the imperial armies. Fearing his growing power, the eunuchs led by Zhang Rang lure He Jin into the palace and murder him. He Jin's stunned guards, led by Yuan Shao, respond by charging into the palace to kill all eunuchs for revenge, which turns into indiscriminate slaughter. In the ensuing chaos, the child Emperor Shao and the Prince of Chenliu disappear from the palace. The missing emperor and prince are found later by soldiers of the warlord Dong Zhuo, who proceeds to seize control of the imperial capital Luoyang under the pretext of protecting the emperor. Dong later deposes Emperor Shao and replaces him with the Prince of Chenliu, who becomes known as Emperor Xian. Dong usurps state power and starts a reign of terror in which innocents are persecuted and the common people suffer. Wu Fu and Cao Cao attempt to assassinate Dong Zhuo but both fail. Cao Cao manages to escape and issues an imperial edict in the emperor's name to all regional warlords and governors, calling them to rise up against Dong Zhuo. Under Yuan Shao's leadership, eighteen warlords form a coalition force in a campaign against Dong Zhuo, but undermined by poor leadership and conflict of interest, they only manage to drive Dong from Luoyang to Chang'an. Dong Zhuo is eventually betrayed and killed by his foster son L\u00fc Bu in a dispute over the beautiful maiden Diaochan. In the meantime, the empire is already disintegrating into civil war. Sun Jian finds the Imperial Seal and keeps it secretly for himself, further weakening royal authority. Without a strong central government, warlords begin to rise and fight each other for land, plunging China into a state of anarchy. In the north, Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan are at war, and in the south, Sun Jian and Liu Biao. Many others, even those without title or land, such as Cao Cao and Liu Bei, are also starting to build up power. Cao Cao rescues Emperor Xian from Dong Zhuo's followers and establishes the new imperial court in Xuchang. Cao Cao proceeds to defeat his rivals such as L\u00fc Bu, Yuan Shu and Zhang Xiu before scoring a tactical victory over Yuan Shao in the Battle of Guandu despite being vastly outnumbered. Through his conquests, Cao unites the Central Plains and northern China under his rule, and the lands he controlled would serve as the foundation for the state of Cao Wei in the future. Meanwhile, an ambush had violently concluded Sun Jian's life in a war with Liu Biao, fulfilling Sun's own rash oath to heaven. His eldest son Sun Ce delivers the Imperial Seal as a tribute to the rising royal pretender, Yuan Shu of Huainan, in exchange for reinforcements. Sun secures himself a state in the rich riverlands of Jiangdong, on which the state of Eastern Wu will eventually be founded. Tragically, Sun Ce also dies at the pinnacle of his career from illness under stress of his terrifying encounter with the ghost of Yu Ji, a venerable magician whom he had falsely accused and executed in jealousy. However, his younger brother Sun Quan, who succeeds him, proves to be a capable and charismatic ruler. Sun, assisted by skilled advisors Zhou Yu and Zhang Zhao, inspires hidden talents such as Lu Su to join his service, and builds up a strong military force. Liu Bei, along with his sworn brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, swear allegiance to the Han Dynasty in the famous Oath of the Peach Garden and pledge to do their best for the country. However, their goals and ambitions are not realized until the later part of the novel. Liu is not recognized for his efforts in quelling the Yellow Turban Rebellion and is merely appointed as a junior magistrate. They join Gongsun Zan and participate in the campaign against Dong Zhuo. Liu Bei becomes the governor of Xu Province after Tao Qian passes on the post to him. Liu loses the province when L\u00fc Bu seizes control of it with the help of a defector and he joins Cao Cao in defeating L\u00fc at the Battle of Xiapi. While Cao Cao subtly reveals his intention to usurp state power, Liu Bei is officially recognised by Emperor Xian as the Imperial Uncle and seen as a saviour to help the emperor deal with Cao Cao. Liu Bei leaves Cao Cao eventually and seizes Xu Province from Cao Cao's newly appointed governor Che Zhou. In retaliation, Cao Cao attacks Xu Province and defeats Liu, forcing Liu to seek refuge under Yuan Shao for a brief period of time. Liu finds a new base in Runan after leaving Yuan but is defeated by Cao Cao's forces once again. He retreats to Jing Province to join Liu Biao and is placed in charge of Xinye. At Xinye, Liu recruits the genius strategist Zhuge Liang personally and builds up his forces. Cao Cao declares himself chancellor and leads his troops to attack southern China after uniting the north. He is defeated twice at Xinye by Liu Bei's forces but Liu loses the city as well. Liu leads his men and the civilians of Xinye on an exodus southwards and they arrive at Jiangxia (present-day Yunmeng County, Hubei) where Liu establishes a foothold against Cao Cao. To resist Cao Cao, Liu Bei sends Zhuge Liang to persuade Sun Quan to form an alliance. Zhuge succeeds in his diplomatic mission and remains in Jiangdong as a temporary advisor to Sun Quan. Sun places Zhou Yu in command of the armies of Jiangdong (Eastern Wu) in preparation for an upcoming war with Cao Cao. Zhou feels that Zhuge will become a future threat to Eastern Wu and he tries to kill Zhuge on a few occasions but he fails and decides to co-operate with Zhuge for the time being. Cao Cao is defeated at the Battle of Red Cliffs by the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei and he is forced to retreat north. Sun Quan and Liu Bei begin vying for control of Jing Province after their victory and Liu seizes the province from Cao Cao after following Zhuge Liang's strategy. Sun Quan is unhappy and sends emissaries to ask Liu Bei for Jing Province, but Liu dismisses the envoys each time with different excuses. Sun uses some strategies proposed by Zhou Yu to take the land, of which the most famous is the \"Beauty Scheme.\" Sun intends to lure Liu Bei to Jiangdong to marry his sister Lady Sun and hold Liu hostage to exchange his freedom for Jing Province, but the plot fails and the newlywed couple return home safely. Zhou Yu tries to take Jing Province repeatedly but his plans are foiled three times by Zhuge Liang. After Zhou Yu's death, relations between Liu Bei and Sun Quan gradually deteriorate but not to the point of open conflict. In accordance with Zhuge Liang's Longzhong Plan, Liu Bei leads his troops into Yi Province in the west and takes over the land from the incompetent noble Liu Zhang. By then, Liu Bei rules a vast area of land from Jing Province to Yi Province in the west, which will serve as the foundation for the future state of Shu Han. He proclaims himself \"King of Hanzhong\" after his victory over Cao Cao in the Hanzhong Campaign. At the same time, Cao has also been granted the title of \"King of Wei\" by the emperor and Sun Quan became known as the \"Duke of Wu\". In the east, Sun Quan and Cao Cao's forces clash at the Battle of Ruxukou and Battle of Xiaoyao Ford with victories and defeats for both sides. The situation among the three major powers reaches a stalemate after this until Cao Cao's death. Meanwhile, Sun Quan plots to take Jing Province after tiring of Liu Bei's repeated refusals to hand the land over. He makes peace with Cao Cao and becomes a vassal of Cao with the title of \"King of Wu\". Guan Yu, who is in charge of Jing Province, leads his troops to attack Cao Ren in the Battle of Fancheng. Sun Quan sends L\u00fc Meng to lead his troops to seize Jing Province while Guan is away, as part of his secret agreement with Cao Cao. Guan is caught off guard and loses Jing Province before he realizes it. He retreats to Maicheng, where he is heavily surrounded by Sun Quan's forces, while his army gradually shrinks in size as many of his troops desert or surrender to the enemy. In desperation, Guan attempts to break out of the siege but fails and is captured in an ambush. He is executed on Sun Quan's orders after refusing to renounce his loyalty to Liu Bei. Shortly after Guan Yu's death, Cao Cao dies of a brain tumor and his son Cao Pi usurps the throne, effectively ending the Han Dynasty and Cao renames his new dynasty \"Cao Wei\". In response, Liu Bei proclaims himself emperor, to carry on the bloodline of the Han Dynasty. While Liu Bei is planning to avenge Guan Yu, his other sworn brother Zhang Fei is assassinated in his sleep by his subordinates, who have defected to Sun Quan. As Liu Bei leads a large army to attack Sun Quan to avenge Guan Yu, Sun attempts to appease Liu by offering him the return of Jing Province. Liu's advisers, including Zhuge Liang, urge him to accept Sun's tokens of peace, but Liu persists in vengeance. After initial victories, a series of strategic mistakes due to the impetuosity of Liu leads to the cataclysmic defeat of Shu Han in the Battle of Xiaoting. Lu Xun, the commander of Sun Quan's forces, refrains from pursuing the retreating Shu Han troops after encountering Zhuge Liang's Stone Sentinel Maze. Liu Bei dies in Baidicheng from illness shortly after his defeat. In a moving final conversation between Liu on his deathbed and Zhuge Liang, Liu grants Zhuge the authority to take the throne if his successor Liu Shan proves to be an inept ruler. Zhuge refuses and swears that he will remain faithful to the trust Liu Bei had placed in him. After Liu Bei's death, as advised by Sima Yi, Cao Pi induces several forces, including Sun Quan, turncoat Shu general Meng Da, Meng Huo of the Nanman and the Qiang tribes, to attack Shu Han, in coordination with a Cao Wei army. Zhuge Liang manages to send the five armies retreating without any bloodshed. An envoy from Shu Han named Deng Zhi subsequently persuades Sun Quan to renew the former alliance with Shu Han. Zhuge Liang personally leads a southern campaign against the Nanman barbarian king Meng Huo. Meng is defeated and captured seven times, but Zhuge releases him each time and allows him to come back for another battle, in order to win Meng over. The seventh time, Meng refuses to leave and decides to swear allegiance to Shu Han forever. After pacifying the south, Zhuge Liang leads the Shu Han army on five military expeditions to attack Cao Wei in order to restore the Han Dynasty. However, Zhuge's days are numbered as he had been suffering from chronic tuberculosis all along, and his condition worsens under stress from the campaigns. His last significant victory over Cao Wei is probably the defection of Jiang Wei, a promising young general who is well-versed in military strategy. Zhuge Liang dies of illness at the Battle of Wuzhang Plains while leading a stalemate battle against his nemesis, the Cao Wei commander Sima Yi. Before his death, Zhuge orders his trusted generals to build a statue of himself and use it to scare away the enemy in order to buy time for the Shu Han army to retreat safely. The long years of battle between Shu Han and Cao Wei sees many changes in the ruling Cao family in Cao Wei. The influence of the Caos weakens after the death of Cao Rui and the state power of Cao Wei eventually falls into the hands of the Sima clan, headed by Sima Yi's sons Sima Shi and Sima Zhao. In Shu Han, Jiang Wei inherits Zhuge Liang's legacy and continues to lead another nine campaigns against Cao Wei for a bitter three decades, but he fails to achieve any significant success. Moreover, the ruler of Shu Han, Liu Shan, is incompetent and places faith in treacherous officials, further leading to the decline of the kingdom. Shu Han is eventually conquered by Cao Wei. Jiang Wei attempts to restore Shu Han with the help of Zhong Hui but their plans are exposed and both of them are killed by Sima Zhao's troops. After the fall of Shu Han in 263, Sima Zhao's son Sima Yan forces the last Wei ruler, Cao Huan, to abdicate his throne in 265, officially ending the Cao Wei dynasty. Sima Yan, having already been proclaimed the Prince of Jin in the previous year, then formally establishes the Jin Dynasty. In Eastern Wu, there has been internal conflict among the nobles ever since the death of Sun Quan, with Zhuge Ke and Sun Lin making attempts to usurp state power. Although stability is restored temporarily, the last Wu ruler Sun Hao appears to be a tyrant who does not make any efforts to strengthen his kingdom. Eastern Wu, the last of the Three Kingdoms, is finally conquered by Jin after a long period of struggle in the year 280, thus marking the end of the near century-long era of civil strife known as the Three Kingdoms period.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " One of the greatest achievements of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the extreme complexity of its stories and characters. The novel contains numerous secondary stories. The following consists of a summary of the central plot, and well-known highlights in the story. In the final years of the Han Dynasty, incompetent eunuchs deceive the emperor and persecute good officials, and the government becomes extremely corrupt on all levels, leading to widespread deterioration of the empire. During the reign of the penultimate Han sovereign, Emperor Ling, the Yellow Turban Rebellion breaks out under the leadership of Zhang Jue (a.k.a. Zhang Jiao). The rebellion is barely suppressed by troops under the command of He Jin, General-in-Chief of the imperial armies. Fearing his growing power, the eunuchs led by Zhang Rang lure He Jin into the palace and murder him. He Jin's stunned guards, led by Yuan Shao, respond by charging into the palace to kill all eunuchs for revenge, which turns into indiscriminate slaughter. In the ensuing chaos, the child Emperor Shao and the Prince of Chenliu disappear from the palace. The missing emperor and prince are found later by soldiers of the warlord Dong Zhuo, who proceeds to seize control of the imperial capital Luoyang under the pretext of protecting the emperor. Dong later deposes Emperor Shao and replaces him with the Prince of Chenliu, who becomes known as Emperor Xian. Dong usurps state power and starts a reign of terror in which innocents are persecuted and the common people suffer. Wu Fu and Cao Cao attempt to assassinate Dong Zhuo but both fail. Cao Cao manages to escape and issues an imperial edict in the emperor's name to all regional warlords and governors, calling them to rise up against Dong Zhuo. Under Yuan Shao's leadership, eighteen warlords form a coalition force in a campaign against Dong Zhuo, but undermined by poor leadership and conflict of interest,"
      },
      {
        "text": " power and starts a reign of terror in which innocents are persecuted and the common people suffer. Wu Fu and Cao Cao attempt to assassinate Dong Zhuo but both fail. Cao Cao manages to escape and issues an imperial edict in the emperor's name to all regional warlords and governors, calling them to rise up against Dong Zhuo. Under Yuan Shao's leadership, eighteen warlords form a coalition force in a campaign against Dong Zhuo, but undermined by poor leadership and conflict of interest, they only manage to drive Dong from Luoyang to Chang'an. Dong Zhuo is eventually betrayed and killed by his foster son L\u00fc Bu in a dispute over the beautiful maiden Diaochan. In the meantime, the empire is already disintegrating into civil war. Sun Jian finds the Imperial Seal and keeps it secretly for himself, further weakening royal authority. Without a strong central government, warlords begin to rise and fight each other for land, plunging China into a state of anarchy. In the north, Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan are at war, and in the south, Sun Jian and Liu Biao. Many others, even those without title or land, such as Cao Cao and Liu Bei, are also starting to build up power. Cao Cao rescues Emperor Xian from Dong Zhuo's followers and establishes the new imperial court in Xuchang. Cao Cao proceeds to defeat his rivals such as L\u00fc Bu, Yuan Shu and Zhang Xiu before scoring a tactical victory over Yuan Shao in the Battle of Guandu despite being vastly outnumbered. Through his conquests, Cao unites the Central Plains and northern China under his rule, and the lands he controlled would serve as the foundation for the state of Cao Wei in the future. Meanwhile, an ambush had violently concluded Sun Jian's life in a war with Liu Biao, fulfilling Sun's own rash oath to heaven. His eldest son Sun Ce delivers the Imperial Seal as a tribute to the rising royal pret"
      },
      {
        "text": " victory over Yuan Shao in the Battle of Guandu despite being vastly outnumbered. Through his conquests, Cao unites the Central Plains and northern China under his rule, and the lands he controlled would serve as the foundation for the state of Cao Wei in the future. Meanwhile, an ambush had violently concluded Sun Jian's life in a war with Liu Biao, fulfilling Sun's own rash oath to heaven. His eldest son Sun Ce delivers the Imperial Seal as a tribute to the rising royal pretender, Yuan Shu of Huainan, in exchange for reinforcements. Sun secures himself a state in the rich riverlands of Jiangdong, on which the state of Eastern Wu will eventually be founded. Tragically, Sun Ce also dies at the pinnacle of his career from illness under stress of his terrifying encounter with the ghost of Yu Ji, a venerable magician whom he had falsely accused and executed in jealousy. However, his younger brother Sun Quan, who succeeds him, proves to be a capable and charismatic ruler. Sun, assisted by skilled advisors Zhou Yu and Zhang Zhao, inspires hidden talents such as Lu Su to join his service, and builds up a strong military force. Liu Bei, along with his sworn brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, swear allegiance to the Han Dynasty in the famous Oath of the Peach Garden and pledge to do their best for the country. However, their goals and ambitions are not realized until the later part of the novel. Liu is not recognized for his efforts in quelling the Yellow Turban Rebellion and is merely appointed as a junior magistrate. They join Gongsun Zan and participate in the campaign against Dong Zhuo. Liu Bei becomes the governor of Xu Province after Tao Qian passes on the post to him. Liu loses the province when L\u00fc Bu seizes control of it with the help of a defector and he joins Cao Cao in defeating L\u00fc at the Battle of Xiapi. While Cao Cao subtly reveals his intention to usurp state power, Liu Bei is"
      },
      {
        "text": "elling the Yellow Turban Rebellion and is merely appointed as a junior magistrate. They join Gongsun Zan and participate in the campaign against Dong Zhuo. Liu Bei becomes the governor of Xu Province after Tao Qian passes on the post to him. Liu loses the province when L\u00fc Bu seizes control of it with the help of a defector and he joins Cao Cao in defeating L\u00fc at the Battle of Xiapi. While Cao Cao subtly reveals his intention to usurp state power, Liu Bei is officially recognised by Emperor Xian as the Imperial Uncle and seen as a saviour to help the emperor deal with Cao Cao. Liu Bei leaves Cao Cao eventually and seizes Xu Province from Cao Cao's newly appointed governor Che Zhou. In retaliation, Cao Cao attacks Xu Province and defeats Liu, forcing Liu to seek refuge under Yuan Shao for a brief period of time. Liu finds a new base in Runan after leaving Yuan but is defeated by Cao Cao's forces once again. He retreats to Jing Province to join Liu Biao and is placed in charge of Xinye. At Xinye, Liu recruits the genius strategist Zhuge Liang personally and builds up his forces. Cao Cao declares himself chancellor and leads his troops to attack southern China after uniting the north. He is defeated twice at Xinye by Liu Bei's forces but Liu loses the city as well. Liu leads his men and the civilians of Xinye on an exodus southwards and they arrive at Jiangxia (present-day Yunmeng County, Hubei) where Liu establishes a foothold against Cao Cao. To resist Cao Cao, Liu Bei sends Zhuge Liang to persuade Sun Quan to form an alliance. Zhuge succeeds in his diplomatic mission and remains in Jiangdong as a temporary advisor to Sun Quan. Sun places Zhou Yu in command of the armies of Jiangdong (Eastern Wu) in preparation for an upcoming war with Cao Cao. Zhou feels that Zhuge will become a future threat to"
      },
      {
        "text": "present-day Yunmeng County, Hubei) where Liu establishes a foothold against Cao Cao. To resist Cao Cao, Liu Bei sends Zhuge Liang to persuade Sun Quan to form an alliance. Zhuge succeeds in his diplomatic mission and remains in Jiangdong as a temporary advisor to Sun Quan. Sun places Zhou Yu in command of the armies of Jiangdong (Eastern Wu) in preparation for an upcoming war with Cao Cao. Zhou feels that Zhuge will become a future threat to Eastern Wu and he tries to kill Zhuge on a few occasions but he fails and decides to co-operate with Zhuge for the time being. Cao Cao is defeated at the Battle of Red Cliffs by the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei and he is forced to retreat north. Sun Quan and Liu Bei begin vying for control of Jing Province after their victory and Liu seizes the province from Cao Cao after following Zhuge Liang's strategy. Sun Quan is unhappy and sends emissaries to ask Liu Bei for Jing Province, but Liu dismisses the envoys each time with different excuses. Sun uses some strategies proposed by Zhou Yu to take the land, of which the most famous is the \"Beauty Scheme.\" Sun intends to lure Liu Bei to Jiangdong to marry his sister Lady Sun and hold Liu hostage to exchange his freedom for Jing Province, but the plot fails and the newlywed couple return home safely. Zhou Yu tries to take Jing Province repeatedly but his plans are foiled three times by Zhuge Liang. After Zhou Yu's death, relations between Liu Bei and Sun Quan gradually deteriorate but not to the point of open conflict. In accordance with Zhuge Liang's Longzhong Plan, Liu Bei leads his troops into Yi Province in the west and takes over the land from the incompetent noble Liu Zhang. By then, Liu Bei rules a vast area of land from Jing Province to Yi Province in the west, which will serve as the foundation for the future state"
      },
      {
        "text": " foiled three times by Zhuge Liang. After Zhou Yu's death, relations between Liu Bei and Sun Quan gradually deteriorate but not to the point of open conflict. In accordance with Zhuge Liang's Longzhong Plan, Liu Bei leads his troops into Yi Province in the west and takes over the land from the incompetent noble Liu Zhang. By then, Liu Bei rules a vast area of land from Jing Province to Yi Province in the west, which will serve as the foundation for the future state of Shu Han. He proclaims himself \"King of Hanzhong\" after his victory over Cao Cao in the Hanzhong Campaign. At the same time, Cao has also been granted the title of \"King of Wei\" by the emperor and Sun Quan became known as the \"Duke of Wu\". In the east, Sun Quan and Cao Cao's forces clash at the Battle of Ruxukou and Battle of Xiaoyao Ford with victories and defeats for both sides. The situation among the three major powers reaches a stalemate after this until Cao Cao's death. Meanwhile, Sun Quan plots to take Jing Province after tiring of Liu Bei's repeated refusals to hand the land over. He makes peace with Cao Cao and becomes a vassal of Cao with the title of \"King of Wu\". Guan Yu, who is in charge of Jing Province, leads his troops to attack Cao Ren in the Battle of Fancheng. Sun Quan sends L\u00fc Meng to lead his troops to seize Jing Province while Guan is away, as part of his secret agreement with Cao Cao. Guan is caught off guard and loses Jing Province before he realizes it. He retreats to Maicheng, where he is heavily surrounded by Sun Quan's forces, while his army gradually shrinks in size as many of his troops desert or surrender to the enemy. In desperation, Guan attempts to break out of the siege but fails and is captured in an ambush. He is executed on Sun Quan's"
      },
      {
        "text": " troops to seize Jing Province while Guan is away, as part of his secret agreement with Cao Cao. Guan is caught off guard and loses Jing Province before he realizes it. He retreats to Maicheng, where he is heavily surrounded by Sun Quan's forces, while his army gradually shrinks in size as many of his troops desert or surrender to the enemy. In desperation, Guan attempts to break out of the siege but fails and is captured in an ambush. He is executed on Sun Quan's orders after refusing to renounce his loyalty to Liu Bei. Shortly after Guan Yu's death, Cao Cao dies of a brain tumor and his son Cao Pi usurps the throne, effectively ending the Han Dynasty and Cao renames his new dynasty \"Cao Wei\". In response, Liu Bei proclaims himself emperor, to carry on the bloodline of the Han Dynasty. While Liu Bei is planning to avenge Guan Yu, his other sworn brother Zhang Fei is assassinated in his sleep by his subordinates, who have defected to Sun Quan. As Liu Bei leads a large army to attack Sun Quan to avenge Guan Yu, Sun attempts to appease Liu by offering him the return of Jing Province. Liu's advisers, including Zhuge Liang, urge him to accept Sun's tokens of peace, but Liu persists in vengeance. After initial victories, a series of strategic mistakes due to the impetuosity of Liu leads to the cataclysmic defeat of Shu Han in the Battle of Xiaoting. Lu Xun, the commander of Sun Quan's forces, refrains from pursuing the retreating Shu Han troops after encountering Zhuge Liang's Stone Sentinel Maze. Liu Bei dies in Baidicheng from illness shortly after his defeat. In a moving final conversation between Liu on his deathbed and Zhuge Liang, Liu grants Zhuge the authority to take the throne if his successor Liu Shan proves to be an inept ruler. Zhuge refuses and swears that he will remain faithful to the trust Liu Bei"
      },
      {
        "text": " Xun, the commander of Sun Quan's forces, refrains from pursuing the retreating Shu Han troops after encountering Zhuge Liang's Stone Sentinel Maze. Liu Bei dies in Baidicheng from illness shortly after his defeat. In a moving final conversation between Liu on his deathbed and Zhuge Liang, Liu grants Zhuge the authority to take the throne if his successor Liu Shan proves to be an inept ruler. Zhuge refuses and swears that he will remain faithful to the trust Liu Bei had placed in him. After Liu Bei's death, as advised by Sima Yi, Cao Pi induces several forces, including Sun Quan, turncoat Shu general Meng Da, Meng Huo of the Nanman and the Qiang tribes, to attack Shu Han, in coordination with a Cao Wei army. Zhuge Liang manages to send the five armies retreating without any bloodshed. An envoy from Shu Han named Deng Zhi subsequently persuades Sun Quan to renew the former alliance with Shu Han. Zhuge Liang personally leads a southern campaign against the Nanman barbarian king Meng Huo. Meng is defeated and captured seven times, but Zhuge releases him each time and allows him to come back for another battle, in order to win Meng over. The seventh time, Meng refuses to leave and decides to swear allegiance to Shu Han forever. After pacifying the south, Zhuge Liang leads the Shu Han army on five military expeditions to attack Cao Wei in order to restore the Han Dynasty. However, Zhuge's days are numbered as he had been suffering from chronic tuberculosis all along, and his condition worsens under stress from the campaigns. His last significant victory over Cao Wei is probably the defection of Jiang Wei, a promising young general who is well-versed in military strategy. Zhuge Liang dies of illness at the Battle of Wuzhang Plains while leading a stalemate battle against his nemesis, the Cao Wei commander Sima Yi. Before his death, Zhuge orders his trusted"
      },
      {
        "text": " Zhuge's days are numbered as he had been suffering from chronic tuberculosis all along, and his condition worsens under stress from the campaigns. His last significant victory over Cao Wei is probably the defection of Jiang Wei, a promising young general who is well-versed in military strategy. Zhuge Liang dies of illness at the Battle of Wuzhang Plains while leading a stalemate battle against his nemesis, the Cao Wei commander Sima Yi. Before his death, Zhuge orders his trusted generals to build a statue of himself and use it to scare away the enemy in order to buy time for the Shu Han army to retreat safely. The long years of battle between Shu Han and Cao Wei sees many changes in the ruling Cao family in Cao Wei. The influence of the Caos weakens after the death of Cao Rui and the state power of Cao Wei eventually falls into the hands of the Sima clan, headed by Sima Yi's sons Sima Shi and Sima Zhao. In Shu Han, Jiang Wei inherits Zhuge Liang's legacy and continues to lead another nine campaigns against Cao Wei for a bitter three decades, but he fails to achieve any significant success. Moreover, the ruler of Shu Han, Liu Shan, is incompetent and places faith in treacherous officials, further leading to the decline of the kingdom. Shu Han is eventually conquered by Cao Wei. Jiang Wei attempts to restore Shu Han with the help of Zhong Hui but their plans are exposed and both of them are killed by Sima Zhao's troops. After the fall of Shu Han in 263, Sima Zhao's son Sima Yan forces the last Wei ruler, Cao Huan, to abdicate his throne in 265, officially ending the Cao Wei dynasty. Sima Yan, having already been proclaimed the Prince of Jin in the previous year, then formally establishes the Jin Dynasty. In Eastern Wu, there has been internal conflict among the nobles ever since the death of Sun Quan, with Zhuge Ke"
      },
      {
        "text": " are killed by Sima Zhao's troops. After the fall of Shu Han in 263, Sima Zhao's son Sima Yan forces the last Wei ruler, Cao Huan, to abdicate his throne in 265, officially ending the Cao Wei dynasty. Sima Yan, having already been proclaimed the Prince of Jin in the previous year, then formally establishes the Jin Dynasty. In Eastern Wu, there has been internal conflict among the nobles ever since the death of Sun Quan, with Zhuge Ke and Sun Lin making attempts to usurp state power. Although stability is restored temporarily, the last Wu ruler Sun Hao appears to be a tyrant who does not make any efforts to strengthen his kingdom. Eastern Wu, the last of the Three Kingdoms, is finally conquered by Jin after a long period of struggle in the year 280, thus marking the end of the near century-long era of civil strife known as the Three Kingdoms period.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Dragon in the Sea",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1956",
    "synopsis": " Set in a near-future earth, the West and the East have been at war for more than a decade, and resources are running thin. The West is stealing oil from the East with specialized nuclear submarines (\"subtugs\") that sneak into the underwater oil fields of the East to secretly pump out the oil and bring it back. Each manned by a crew of four, these submarines undertake the most hazardous, stressful mission conceivable, and of late, the missions have been failing, with the last twenty submarines simply disappearing. The East has been very successful in planting sleepers in the West's military and command structures, and the suspicion is that sleepers are sabotaging the subs or revealing their positions once at sea. John Ramsey, a young psychologist from the Bureau of Psychology (BuPsych), is trained as an electronics operator and sent on the next mission, replacing the previous officer who went insane. His secret mission is to find the sleeper, or figure out why the crews are going insane.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set in a near-future earth, the West and the East have been at war for more than a decade, and resources are running thin. The West is stealing oil from the East with specialized nuclear submarines (\"subtugs\") that sneak into the underwater oil fields of the East to secretly pump out the oil and bring it back. Each manned by a crew of four, these submarines undertake the most hazardous, stressful mission conceivable, and of late, the missions have been failing, with the last twenty submarines simply disappearing. The East has been very successful in planting sleepers in the West's military and command structures, and the suspicion is that sleepers are sabotaging the subs or revealing their positions once at sea. John Ramsey, a young psychologist from the Bureau of Psychology (BuPsych), is trained as an electronics operator and sent on the next mission, replacing the previous officer who went insane. His secret mission is to find the sleeper, or figure out why the crews are going insane.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Destination: Void",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1966",
    "synopsis": " In the future, humankind has tried to develop artificial intelligence, succeeding only once, and then disastrously. A transmission from the project site on an island in the Puget Sound, \"rogue consciousness!\", was followed by slaughter and destruction, culminating in the island vanishing from the face of the earth. The current project is being run on the moon, and the book tells the story of the seventh attempt in a series of experiments to create an artificial consciousness. For each attempt the scientists raise a group of clones. These clones are kept isolated and raised to believe that they will be the crew of a spaceship that will colonize a planet in the Tau Ceti solar system (Tau Ceti has no habitable planet, its choice - should they manage to reach it - is part of the planned frustration of the crew). The spaceship will take hundreds of years to reach the system and the crew will spend most of their time in hibernation. Along with the crew of six, the ship carries thousands of other clones in hibernation, intended to populate the new colony and, if necessary, provide replacements for any crew members who die along the way. The crew are just caretakers: the ship is controlled by a disembodied human brain, called \"Organic Mental Core\" or \"OMC\", that runs the complex operations of the vessel and keeps it moving in space. But the first two OMC's (Myrtle and Little Joe) become catatonic, while the third OMC goes insane and kills two of the umbilicus crew members. The crew are left with only one choice: to build an artificial consciousness that will enable the ship to continue. The crew knows that if they attempt to turn back they will be ordered to abort (self destruct). The clones have been bred and carefully selected for psychological purposes to reinforce each other, as well as to provide various specialized skills that will give them the best chance of success. The crew includes a chaplain-psychiatrist, Raja Flattery, who knows their real purpose, and that the breakdown of the \"OMC\"s was planned. He's aware that six other ships have gone out before theirs, each one failing. He understands the nature of the test: create a high pressure environment in which brilliance may break through out of necessity, and create in the safety of the void what humans couldn't safely create on Earth. Space Ship Earthling number Seven ultimately succeeds, and the consequences of their success form the basis of the plot for the novels which follow. fr:Destination vide he:Destination: Void\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the future, humankind has tried to develop artificial intelligence, succeeding only once, and then disastrously. A transmission from the project site on an island in the Puget Sound, \"rogue consciousness!\", was followed by slaughter and destruction, culminating in the island vanishing from the face of the earth. The current project is being run on the moon, and the book tells the story of the seventh attempt in a series of experiments to create an artificial consciousness. For each attempt the scientists raise a group of clones. These clones are kept isolated and raised to believe that they will be the crew of a spaceship that will colonize a planet in the Tau Ceti solar system (Tau Ceti has no habitable planet, its choice - should they manage to reach it - is part of the planned frustration of the crew). The spaceship will take hundreds of years to reach the system and the crew will spend most of their time in hibernation. Along with the crew of six, the ship carries thousands of other clones in hibernation, intended to populate the new colony and, if necessary, provide replacements for any crew members who die along the way. The crew are just caretakers: the ship is controlled by a disembodied human brain, called \"Organic Mental Core\" or \"OMC\", that runs the complex operations of the vessel and keeps it moving in space. But the first two OMC's (Myrtle and Little Joe) become catatonic, while the third OMC goes insane and kills two of the umbilicus crew members. The crew are left with only one choice: to build an artificial consciousness that will enable the ship to continue. The crew knows that if they attempt to turn back they will be ordered to abort (self destruct). The clones have been bred and carefully selected for psychological purposes to reinforce each other, as well as to provide various specialized skills that will give them the best chance of success. The crew includes a chaplain-psychiatrist"
      },
      {
        "text": "MC goes insane and kills two of the umbilicus crew members. The crew are left with only one choice: to build an artificial consciousness that will enable the ship to continue. The crew knows that if they attempt to turn back they will be ordered to abort (self destruct). The clones have been bred and carefully selected for psychological purposes to reinforce each other, as well as to provide various specialized skills that will give them the best chance of success. The crew includes a chaplain-psychiatrist, Raja Flattery, who knows their real purpose, and that the breakdown of the \"OMC\"s was planned. He's aware that six other ships have gone out before theirs, each one failing. He understands the nature of the test: create a high pressure environment in which brilliance may break through out of necessity, and create in the safety of the void what humans couldn't safely create on Earth. Space Ship Earthling number Seven ultimately succeeds, and the consequences of their success form the basis of the plot for the novels which follow. fr:Destination vide he:Destination: Void\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Whipping Star",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1970",
    "synopsis": " In the far future, humankind has made contact with numerous other species: Gowachin, Laclac, Wreaves, Pan Spechi, Taprisiots, and Caleban (among others) and has helped to form the ConSentiency to govern among the species. After suffering under a tyrannous pure democracy which had the power to create laws so fast that no thought could be given to the effects, the sentients of the galaxy found the need for a Bureau of Sabotage (BuSab) to slow the wheels of government, thereby preventing it from legislating recklessly. In Whipping Star, Jorj X. McKie is a saboteur extraordinary, a born troublemaker who has naturally become one of BuSab's best agents. As the novel opens, it is revealed that Calebans, who are beings visible to other sentient species as stars, have been disappearing one by one. Each disappearance is accompanied by millions of sentient deaths and instances of incurable insanity. Ninety years prior to the setting of Whipping Star, the Calebans appeared and offered jumpdoors to the collective species, allowing sentients to travel instantly to any point in the universe. Gratefully accepting, the sentiency didn't question the consequences. Now Mliss Abnethe, a psychotic human female with immense power and wealth, has bound a Caleban (called Fannie Mae) in a contract that allows the Caleban to be whipped to death; when the Caleban dies, everyone who has ever used a jumpdoor (which is almost every adult in the sentient world and many of the young) will die as well. The Calebans begin to disappear one at a time, leaving our plane of existence (or exiting \"our wave\") to save themselves. As all Calebans are connected, if all were to remain in our existence, when Fannie Mae died, all Calebans would die. As each Caleban exits, millions of the ConSentiency are killed or rendered insane. McKie has to find Mliss and stop her before Fannie Mae reaches, in her words, \"ultimate discontinuity\", but he is constrained by the law protecting private individuals by restricting the ministrations of BuSab to public entities. McKie succeeds in saving Fannie Mae by opening a jumpdoor into space which shunts a large interstellar cloud of (presumably) hydrogen into her stellar body, rejuvenating her from her torture at the hands of the Palenki henchmen hired by Mliss Abnethe.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the far future, humankind has made contact with numerous other species: Gowachin, Laclac, Wreaves, Pan Spechi, Taprisiots, and Caleban (among others) and has helped to form the ConSentiency to govern among the species. After suffering under a tyrannous pure democracy which had the power to create laws so fast that no thought could be given to the effects, the sentients of the galaxy found the need for a Bureau of Sabotage (BuSab) to slow the wheels of government, thereby preventing it from legislating recklessly. In Whipping Star, Jorj X. McKie is a saboteur extraordinary, a born troublemaker who has naturally become one of BuSab's best agents. As the novel opens, it is revealed that Calebans, who are beings visible to other sentient species as stars, have been disappearing one by one. Each disappearance is accompanied by millions of sentient deaths and instances of incurable insanity. Ninety years prior to the setting of Whipping Star, the Calebans appeared and offered jumpdoors to the collective species, allowing sentients to travel instantly to any point in the universe. Gratefully accepting, the sentiency didn't question the consequences. Now Mliss Abnethe, a psychotic human female with immense power and wealth, has bound a Caleban (called Fannie Mae) in a contract that allows the Caleban to be whipped to death; when the Caleban dies, everyone who has ever used a jumpdoor (which is almost every adult in the sentient world and many of the young) will die as well. The Calebans begin to disappear one at a time, leaving our plane of existence (or exiting \"our wave\") to save themselves. As all Calebans are connected, if all were to remain in our existence, when Fannie Mae died, all Calebans would die. As each Caleban exits, millions of the Con"
      },
      {
        "text": " Caleban dies, everyone who has ever used a jumpdoor (which is almost every adult in the sentient world and many of the young) will die as well. The Calebans begin to disappear one at a time, leaving our plane of existence (or exiting \"our wave\") to save themselves. As all Calebans are connected, if all were to remain in our existence, when Fannie Mae died, all Calebans would die. As each Caleban exits, millions of the ConSentiency are killed or rendered insane. McKie has to find Mliss and stop her before Fannie Mae reaches, in her words, \"ultimate discontinuity\", but he is constrained by the law protecting private individuals by restricting the ministrations of BuSab to public entities. McKie succeeds in saving Fannie Mae by opening a jumpdoor into space which shunts a large interstellar cloud of (presumably) hydrogen into her stellar body, rejuvenating her from her torture at the hands of the Palenki henchmen hired by Mliss Abnethe.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Dosadi Experiment",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1977",
    "synopsis": " The novel is set in a distant future when humans are part of an interstellar civilization called the ConSentiency composed of many species. One, the Taprisiots, provide instant mind-to-mind communication between two sentient minds anywhere in the universe, and the Caleban provide jump-doors which allow instantaneous travel between any two points in the universe. This is the glue that holds the far-flung ConSentiency together. Unfortunately, one consequence of jump-door technology is the possibility that large numbers of unsuspecting sentients can be diverted to destinations unknown for nefarious purposes. A government saboteur attempts to expose one such plot. Jorj X. McKie is a Saboteur Extraordinary, one of the principals of the Bureau of Sabotage, and the only human admitted to practice law before the Gowachin bar as a legum (lawyer). While meditating in a park in BuSab headquarters McKie is mentally contacted by the Caleban Fannie Mae, a female member of a species of unparalleled power from another dimension whose visible manifestation in this universe is the star Thyone in the Pleiades cluster Generations ago, a secret, unauthorized experiment by the Gowachins was carried out with the help of a contract with the Calebans. They isolated the planet Dosadi behind an impenetrable barrier called \"The God Wall\". On the planet were placed humans and Gowachin, with an odd mix of modern and old technology. The planet itself is massively poisonous except for a narrow valley, containing the city \"Chu\", into which nearly 89 million humans and Gowachin are crowded under terrible conditions. It is ruled by a dictator, many other forms of government having been tried previously, but without the ability to remove such things as the DemoPol, a computer system used to manipulate populaces without their consent or knowledge. The culture of ordinary day to day power in Dosadi is very violent. Among other tools, addictive psychotropes are used for handling power among hierarchies in organisations. Senior Liator Keila Jedrik starts a war that will change Dosadi forever. Jorj travels to Dosadi and escapes with Keila after engaging in ego sharing. This gives them the ability to swap bodies and thus by using a hole in the contract sealing Dosadi they can escape via jump gate. Once free, by legal manoeuvring the Dosadi population is unleashed upon the ConSentiency for good or ill, whilst the people who set the project in motion try to deal with the consequences, having sent McKie there hoping a solution more in their interest could be found.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is set in a distant future when humans are part of an interstellar civilization called the ConSentiency composed of many species. One, the Taprisiots, provide instant mind-to-mind communication between two sentient minds anywhere in the universe, and the Caleban provide jump-doors which allow instantaneous travel between any two points in the universe. This is the glue that holds the far-flung ConSentiency together. Unfortunately, one consequence of jump-door technology is the possibility that large numbers of unsuspecting sentients can be diverted to destinations unknown for nefarious purposes. A government saboteur attempts to expose one such plot. Jorj X. McKie is a Saboteur Extraordinary, one of the principals of the Bureau of Sabotage, and the only human admitted to practice law before the Gowachin bar as a legum (lawyer). While meditating in a park in BuSab headquarters McKie is mentally contacted by the Caleban Fannie Mae, a female member of a species of unparalleled power from another dimension whose visible manifestation in this universe is the star Thyone in the Pleiades cluster Generations ago, a secret, unauthorized experiment by the Gowachins was carried out with the help of a contract with the Calebans. They isolated the planet Dosadi behind an impenetrable barrier called \"The God Wall\". On the planet were placed humans and Gowachin, with an odd mix of modern and old technology. The planet itself is massively poisonous except for a narrow valley, containing the city \"Chu\", into which nearly 89 million humans and Gowachin are crowded under terrible conditions. It is ruled by a dictator, many other forms of government having been tried previously, but without the ability to remove such things as the DemoPol, a computer system used to manipulate populaces without their consent or knowledge. The culture of ordinary day to day power in Dosadi is very violent. Among other tools, addictive psychotropes are"
      },
      {
        "text": " is massively poisonous except for a narrow valley, containing the city \"Chu\", into which nearly 89 million humans and Gowachin are crowded under terrible conditions. It is ruled by a dictator, many other forms of government having been tried previously, but without the ability to remove such things as the DemoPol, a computer system used to manipulate populaces without their consent or knowledge. The culture of ordinary day to day power in Dosadi is very violent. Among other tools, addictive psychotropes are used for handling power among hierarchies in organisations. Senior Liator Keila Jedrik starts a war that will change Dosadi forever. Jorj travels to Dosadi and escapes with Keila after engaging in ego sharing. This gives them the ability to swap bodies and thus by using a hole in the contract sealing Dosadi they can escape via jump gate. Once free, by legal manoeuvring the Dosadi population is unleashed upon the ConSentiency for good or ill, whilst the people who set the project in motion try to deal with the consequences, having sent McKie there hoping a solution more in their interest could be found.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Transparent Society",
    "author": "David Brin",
    "published_date": "1998-05-17",
    "synopsis": " Brin argues that a core level of privacy - protecting our most intimate interactions - may be preserved, despite the rapid proliferation of cameras that become ever-smaller, cheaper and more numerous faster than Moore's law. He feels that this core privacy can be saved simply because that is what humans deeply need and want. Hence, Brin explains that \"...the key question is whether citizens will be potent, sovereign and knowing enough to enforce this deeply human want. This means they must not only have rights, but also the power to use them and the ability to detect when they are being abused. Ironically, that will only happen in a world that is mostly open, in which most citizens know most of what is going on, most of the time. It is the only condition under which citizens may have some chance of catching the violators of their freedom and privacy. Privacy is only possible if freedom (including the freedom to know) is protected first. Brin thus maintains that privacy is a \"contingent right,\" one that grows out of the more primary rights, e.g. to know and to speak. He admits that such a mostly-open world will seem more irksome and demanding; people will be expected to keep negotiating the tradeoffs between knowing and privacy. It will be tempting to pass laws that restrict the power of surveillance to authorities, entrusting them to protect our privacy -- or a comforting illusion of privacy. By contrast, a transparent society destroys that illusion by offering everyone access to the vast majority of information out there. Brin argues that it will be good for society if the powers of surveillance are shared with the citizenry, allowing \"sousveillance\" or \"viewing from below,\" enabling the public to watch the watchers. According to Brin, this only continues the same trend promoted by Adam Smith, John Locke, the US Constitutionalists and the western enlightenment, who held that any elite (whether commercial, governmental, or aristocratic) should experience constraints upon its power. And there is no power-equalizer greater than knowledge.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Brin argues that a core level of privacy - protecting our most intimate interactions - may be preserved, despite the rapid proliferation of cameras that become ever-smaller, cheaper and more numerous faster than Moore's law. He feels that this core privacy can be saved simply because that is what humans deeply need and want. Hence, Brin explains that \"...the key question is whether citizens will be potent, sovereign and knowing enough to enforce this deeply human want. This means they must not only have rights, but also the power to use them and the ability to detect when they are being abused. Ironically, that will only happen in a world that is mostly open, in which most citizens know most of what is going on, most of the time. It is the only condition under which citizens may have some chance of catching the violators of their freedom and privacy. Privacy is only possible if freedom (including the freedom to know) is protected first. Brin thus maintains that privacy is a \"contingent right,\" one that grows out of the more primary rights, e.g. to know and to speak. He admits that such a mostly-open world will seem more irksome and demanding; people will be expected to keep negotiating the tradeoffs between knowing and privacy. It will be tempting to pass laws that restrict the power of surveillance to authorities, entrusting them to protect our privacy -- or a comforting illusion of privacy. By contrast, a transparent society destroys that illusion by offering everyone access to the vast majority of information out there. Brin argues that it will be good for society if the powers of surveillance are shared with the citizenry, allowing \"sousveillance\" or \"viewing from below,\" enabling the public to watch the watchers. According to Brin, this only continues the same trend promoted by Adam Smith, John Locke, the US Constitutionalists and the western enlightenment, who held that any elite (whether commercial, governmental, or aristocratic) should experience"
      },
      {
        "text": " access to the vast majority of information out there. Brin argues that it will be good for society if the powers of surveillance are shared with the citizenry, allowing \"sousveillance\" or \"viewing from below,\" enabling the public to watch the watchers. According to Brin, this only continues the same trend promoted by Adam Smith, John Locke, the US Constitutionalists and the western enlightenment, who held that any elite (whether commercial, governmental, or aristocratic) should experience constraints upon its power. And there is no power-equalizer greater than knowledge.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Poisoned Chocolates Case",
    "author": "Anthony Berkeley Cox",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " After arriving at his London club at 10:30 am precisely,which he has been doing every morning for many years, Sir Eustace Pennefather, a known womanizer whose divorce from his current wife is pending, receives a complimentary box of chocolates through the post. Disapproving of such modern marketing techniques, Sir Eustace is about to throw away the chocolates in disgust but changes his mind when he learns that Graham Bendix, another member of the club whom he hardly knows, has lost a bet with his wife Joan and now owes her a box of chocolates. Bendix takes the box home and, after lunch, tries out the new confectionery together with his wife. A few hours later Joan Bendix is dead, whereas her husband, who has eaten far less of the chocolate, is taken seriously ill and hospitalized (but later recovers). The police can establish a few facts beyond any doubt: that the parcel was posted the previous evening near The Strand; that the poison that was injected into each of the chocolates is nitrobenzene; and that the accompanying letter was typewritten on a piece of stationery from the manufacturers of the chocolates but not composed or sent by them. Quite soon in the police investigations it becomes evident that the intended victim was Sir Eustace himself rather than the innocent Joan Bendix: No criminal could have predicted Sir Eustace giving away the box of chocolates to a man he hardly knew who just happened to be present when it was delivered. However, at a loss as to the further details of the crime, Scotland Yard conclude that the sender must have been some maniac or a fanatic trying to rid society of one of its most immoral members. Worthy pillars of society including a barrister, a writer of detective novels, and a female author, the members of Roger Sheringham's Crimes Circle go about individually solving the case. After a week has passed, they present their findings on consecutive nights to their colleagues. Not surprisingly, they come up with various suspects: Sir Eustace's estranged wife; the father of a young lady whom Sir Eustace intended to marry after his divorce got through; one of Sir Eustace's discarded mistresses; and some more. While these discussions are going on, the murderer seems to feel safe with no need to cover up their tracks any further. At the very end of the novel, however, there is no doubt as to the identity of the perpetrator.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After arriving at his London club at 10:30 am precisely,which he has been doing every morning for many years, Sir Eustace Pennefather, a known womanizer whose divorce from his current wife is pending, receives a complimentary box of chocolates through the post. Disapproving of such modern marketing techniques, Sir Eustace is about to throw away the chocolates in disgust but changes his mind when he learns that Graham Bendix, another member of the club whom he hardly knows, has lost a bet with his wife Joan and now owes her a box of chocolates. Bendix takes the box home and, after lunch, tries out the new confectionery together with his wife. A few hours later Joan Bendix is dead, whereas her husband, who has eaten far less of the chocolate, is taken seriously ill and hospitalized (but later recovers). The police can establish a few facts beyond any doubt: that the parcel was posted the previous evening near The Strand; that the poison that was injected into each of the chocolates is nitrobenzene; and that the accompanying letter was typewritten on a piece of stationery from the manufacturers of the chocolates but not composed or sent by them. Quite soon in the police investigations it becomes evident that the intended victim was Sir Eustace himself rather than the innocent Joan Bendix: No criminal could have predicted Sir Eustace giving away the box of chocolates to a man he hardly knew who just happened to be present when it was delivered. However, at a loss as to the further details of the crime, Scotland Yard conclude that the sender must have been some maniac or a fanatic trying to rid society of one of its most immoral members. Worthy pillars of society including a barrister, a writer of detective novels, and a female author, the members of Roger Sheringham's Crimes Circle go about individually solving the case. After a week has passed, they present their"
      },
      {
        "text": " he hardly knew who just happened to be present when it was delivered. However, at a loss as to the further details of the crime, Scotland Yard conclude that the sender must have been some maniac or a fanatic trying to rid society of one of its most immoral members. Worthy pillars of society including a barrister, a writer of detective novels, and a female author, the members of Roger Sheringham's Crimes Circle go about individually solving the case. After a week has passed, they present their findings on consecutive nights to their colleagues. Not surprisingly, they come up with various suspects: Sir Eustace's estranged wife; the father of a young lady whom Sir Eustace intended to marry after his divorce got through; one of Sir Eustace's discarded mistresses; and some more. While these discussions are going on, the murderer seems to feel safe with no need to cover up their tracks any further. At the very end of the novel, however, there is no doubt as to the identity of the perpetrator.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Oedipus at Colonus",
    "author": "Sophocles",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Led by Antigone, Oedipus enters the village of Colonus and sits down on a stone. They are approached by a villager, who demands that they leave, because that ground is sacred to the Furies, or Erinyes. Oedipus recognizes this as a sign, for when he received the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, Apollo also revealed to him that at the end of his life he would die at a place sacred to the Furies, and be a blessing for the land in which he is buried. The chorus of old men from the village enters, and persuades Oedipus to leave the holy ground. They then question him about his identity, and are horrified to learn that he is the son of Laius. Although they promised not to harm Oedipus, they wish to expel him from their city, fearing that he will curse it. Oedipus answers by explaining that he is not morally responsible for his crimes, since he killed his father in self-defence. Furthermore, he asks to see their king, Theseus, saying, \"I come as someone sacred, someone filled with piety and power, bearing a great gift for all your people.\" The chorus is amazed, and decides to reserve their judgment of Oedipus until Theseus, king of Athens, arrives. Ismene arrives on horse, rejoicing to see her father and sister. She brings the news that Eteocles has seized the throne of Thebes from his elder brother, Polyneices, while Polyneices is gathering support from the Argives to attack the city. Both sons have heard from an oracle that the outcome of the conflict will depend on where their father is buried. Ismene tells her father that it is Creon's plan to come for him and bury him at the border of Thebes, without proper burial rites, so that the power which the oracle says his grave will have will not be granted to any other land. Hearing this, Oedipus curses both of his sons for not treating him well, contrasting them with his devoted daughters. He pledges allegiance with neither of his feuding sons, but with the people of Colonus, who thus far have treated him well, and further asks them for protection from Creon. Because Oedipus trespassed on the holy ground of the Euminides, the villagers tell him that he must perform certain rites to appease them. Ismene volunteers to go perform them for him and departs, while Antigone remains with Oedipus. Meanwhile, the chorus questions Oedipus once more, desiring to know the details of his incest and patricide. After he relates his sorrowful story to them, Theseus enters, and in contrast to the prying chorus states, \"I know all about you, son of Laius.\" He sympathizes with Oedipus, and offers him unconditional aid, causing Oedipus to praise Theseus and offer him the gift of his burial site, which will ensure victory in a future conflict with Thebes. Theseus protests, saying that the two cities are friendly, and Oedipus responds with what is perhaps the most famous speech in the play. \"Oh Theseus, dear friend, only the gods can never age, the gods can never die. All else in the world almighty Time obliterates, crushes all to nothing...\" Theseus makes Oedipus a citizen of Athens, and leaves the chorus to guard him as he departs. The chorus sings about the glory and beauty of Athens. Creon, who is the representative of Thebes, comes to Oedipus and feigns pity for him and his children, telling him that he should return to Thebes. Oedipus is horrified, and recounts all of the harms Creon has inflicted on him. Creon becomes angry and reveals that he has already captured Ismene; he then instructs his guards to forcibly seize Antigone. His men begin to carry them off toward Thebes, perhaps planning to use them as blackmail to get Oedipus to follow, out of a desire to return Thebans to Thebes, or simply out of anger. The chorus attempts to stop him, but Creon threatens to use force to bring Oedipus back to Thebes. The chorus then calls for Theseus, who comes from sacrificing to Poseidon to condemn Creon, telling him, \"You have come to a city that practices justice, that sanctions nothing without law.\" Creon replies by condemning Oedipus, saying \"I knew [your city] would never harbor a father-killer...worse, a creature so corrupt, exposed as the mate, the unholy husband of his own mother.\" Oedipus, infuriated, declares once more that he is not morally responsible for what he did. Theseus leads Creon away to retake the two girls. The Athenians overpower the Thebans and return both girls to Oedipus. Oedipus moves to kiss Theseus in gratitude, then draws back, acknowledging that he is still polluted. Theseus then informs Oedipus that a suppliant has come to the temple of Poseidon and wishes to speak with him; it is Oedipus' son Polynices, who has been banished from Thebes by his brother Eteocles. Oedipus does not want to talk to him, saying that he loathes the sound of his voice, but Antigone persuades him to listen, saying, \"Many other men have rebellious children, quick tempers too...but they listen to reason, they relent.\" Oedipus gives in to her, and Polynices enters, lamenting Oedipus' miserable condition and begging his father to speak to him. He tells Oedipus that he has been driven out of the Thebes unjustly by his brother, and that he is preparing to attack the city. He knows that this is the result of Oedipus' curse on his sons, and begs his father to relent, even going so far as to say \"We share the same fate\" to his father. Oedipus tells him that he deserves his fate, for he cast his father out. He foretells that his two sons will kill each other in the coming battle. \"Die! Die by your own blood brother's hand\u2014die!\u2014killing the very man who drove you out! So I curse your life out!\" Antigone tries to restrain her brother, telling him that he should not attack Thebes and avoid dying at his brother's hand. Polyneices refuses to be dissuaded, and exits. Following their conversation there is a fierce thunderstorm, which Oedipus interprets as a sign from Zeus of his impending death. Calling for Theseus, he tells him that it is time for him to give the gift he promised to Athens. Filled with strength, the blind Oedipus stands and walks, calling for his children and Theseus to follow him. A messenger enters and tells the chorus that Oedipus is dead. He led his children and Theseus away, then bathed himself and poured libations, while his daughters grieved. He told them that their burden of caring for him was gone, and asked Theseus to swear not to forsake his daughters. Then he sent his children away, for only Theseus could know the place of his death, and pass it on to his heir. When the messenger turned back to look at the spot where Oedipus last stood, he says that \"We couldn't see the man- he was gone- nowhere! And the king, alone, shielding his eyes, both hands spread out against his face as if- some terrible wonder flashed before his eyes and he, he could not bear to look.\" Theseus enters with Antigone and Ismene, who are weeping and mourning their father. Antigone longs to see her father's tomb, even to be buried there with him rather than live without him. The girls beg Theseus to take them, but he reminds them that the place is a secret, and that no one may go there. \"And he said that if I kept my pledge, I'd keep my country free of harm forever.\" Antigone agrees, and asks for passage back to Thebes, where she hopes to stop the Seven Against Thebes from marching. Everyone exits toward Athens.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Led by Antigone, Oedipus enters the village of Colonus and sits down on a stone. They are approached by a villager, who demands that they leave, because that ground is sacred to the Furies, or Erinyes. Oedipus recognizes this as a sign, for when he received the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, Apollo also revealed to him that at the end of his life he would die at a place sacred to the Furies, and be a blessing for the land in which he is buried. The chorus of old men from the village enters, and persuades Oedipus to leave the holy ground. They then question him about his identity, and are horrified to learn that he is the son of Laius. Although they promised not to harm Oedipus, they wish to expel him from their city, fearing that he will curse it. Oedipus answers by explaining that he is not morally responsible for his crimes, since he killed his father in self-defence. Furthermore, he asks to see their king, Theseus, saying, \"I come as someone sacred, someone filled with piety and power, bearing a great gift for all your people.\" The chorus is amazed, and decides to reserve their judgment of Oedipus until Theseus, king of Athens, arrives. Ismene arrives on horse, rejoicing to see her father and sister. She brings the news that Eteocles has seized the throne of Thebes from his elder brother, Polyneices, while Polyneices is gathering support from the Argives to attack the city. Both sons have heard from an oracle that the outcome of the conflict will depend on where their father is buried. Ismene tells her father that it is Creon's plan to come for him and bury him at the border of Thebes, without proper burial rites, so that the power which the oracle"
      },
      {
        "text": " that Eteocles has seized the throne of Thebes from his elder brother, Polyneices, while Polyneices is gathering support from the Argives to attack the city. Both sons have heard from an oracle that the outcome of the conflict will depend on where their father is buried. Ismene tells her father that it is Creon's plan to come for him and bury him at the border of Thebes, without proper burial rites, so that the power which the oracle says his grave will have will not be granted to any other land. Hearing this, Oedipus curses both of his sons for not treating him well, contrasting them with his devoted daughters. He pledges allegiance with neither of his feuding sons, but with the people of Colonus, who thus far have treated him well, and further asks them for protection from Creon. Because Oedipus trespassed on the holy ground of the Euminides, the villagers tell him that he must perform certain rites to appease them. Ismene volunteers to go perform them for him and departs, while Antigone remains with Oedipus. Meanwhile, the chorus questions Oedipus once more, desiring to know the details of his incest and patricide. After he relates his sorrowful story to them, Theseus enters, and in contrast to the prying chorus states, \"I know all about you, son of Laius.\" He sympathizes with Oedipus, and offers him unconditional aid, causing Oedipus to praise Theseus and offer him the gift of his burial site, which will ensure victory in a future conflict with Thebes. Theseus protests, saying that the two cities are friendly, and Oedipus responds with what is perhaps the most famous speech in the play. \"Oh Theseus, dear friend, only the gods can never age, the gods can never die. All else in the world almighty"
      },
      {
        "text": "edipus, and offers him unconditional aid, causing Oedipus to praise Theseus and offer him the gift of his burial site, which will ensure victory in a future conflict with Thebes. Theseus protests, saying that the two cities are friendly, and Oedipus responds with what is perhaps the most famous speech in the play. \"Oh Theseus, dear friend, only the gods can never age, the gods can never die. All else in the world almighty Time obliterates, crushes all to nothing...\" Theseus makes Oedipus a citizen of Athens, and leaves the chorus to guard him as he departs. The chorus sings about the glory and beauty of Athens. Creon, who is the representative of Thebes, comes to Oedipus and feigns pity for him and his children, telling him that he should return to Thebes. Oedipus is horrified, and recounts all of the harms Creon has inflicted on him. Creon becomes angry and reveals that he has already captured Ismene; he then instructs his guards to forcibly seize Antigone. His men begin to carry them off toward Thebes, perhaps planning to use them as blackmail to get Oedipus to follow, out of a desire to return Thebans to Thebes, or simply out of anger. The chorus attempts to stop him, but Creon threatens to use force to bring Oedipus back to Thebes. The chorus then calls for Theseus, who comes from sacrificing to Poseidon to condemn Creon, telling him, \"You have come to a city that practices justice, that sanctions nothing without law.\" Creon replies by condemning Oedipus, saying \"I knew [your city] would never harbor a father-killer...worse, a creature so corrupt, exposed as the mate, the unholy husband of his own mother.\" Oedipus, infuriated, declares once"
      },
      {
        "text": "bes. The chorus then calls for Theseus, who comes from sacrificing to Poseidon to condemn Creon, telling him, \"You have come to a city that practices justice, that sanctions nothing without law.\" Creon replies by condemning Oedipus, saying \"I knew [your city] would never harbor a father-killer...worse, a creature so corrupt, exposed as the mate, the unholy husband of his own mother.\" Oedipus, infuriated, declares once more that he is not morally responsible for what he did. Theseus leads Creon away to retake the two girls. The Athenians overpower the Thebans and return both girls to Oedipus. Oedipus moves to kiss Theseus in gratitude, then draws back, acknowledging that he is still polluted. Theseus then informs Oedipus that a suppliant has come to the temple of Poseidon and wishes to speak with him; it is Oedipus' son Polynices, who has been banished from Thebes by his brother Eteocles. Oedipus does not want to talk to him, saying that he loathes the sound of his voice, but Antigone persuades him to listen, saying, \"Many other men have rebellious children, quick tempers too...but they listen to reason, they relent.\" Oedipus gives in to her, and Polynices enters, lamenting Oedipus' miserable condition and begging his father to speak to him. He tells Oedipus that he has been driven out of the Thebes unjustly by his brother, and that he is preparing to attack the city. He knows that this is the result of Oedipus' curse on his sons, and begs his father to relent, even going so far as to say \"We share the same fate\" to his father. Oedipus tells him that he deserves his fate, for he cast"
      },
      {
        "text": " condition and begging his father to speak to him. He tells Oedipus that he has been driven out of the Thebes unjustly by his brother, and that he is preparing to attack the city. He knows that this is the result of Oedipus' curse on his sons, and begs his father to relent, even going so far as to say \"We share the same fate\" to his father. Oedipus tells him that he deserves his fate, for he cast his father out. He foretells that his two sons will kill each other in the coming battle. \"Die! Die by your own blood brother's hand\u2014die!\u2014killing the very man who drove you out! So I curse your life out!\" Antigone tries to restrain her brother, telling him that he should not attack Thebes and avoid dying at his brother's hand. Polyneices refuses to be dissuaded, and exits. Following their conversation there is a fierce thunderstorm, which Oedipus interprets as a sign from Zeus of his impending death. Calling for Theseus, he tells him that it is time for him to give the gift he promised to Athens. Filled with strength, the blind Oedipus stands and walks, calling for his children and Theseus to follow him. A messenger enters and tells the chorus that Oedipus is dead. He led his children and Theseus away, then bathed himself and poured libations, while his daughters grieved. He told them that their burden of caring for him was gone, and asked Theseus to swear not to forsake his daughters. Then he sent his children away, for only Theseus could know the place of his death, and pass it on to his heir. When the messenger turned back to look at the spot where Oedipus last stood, he says that \"We couldn't see the man- he was gone- nowhere! And the king, alone,"
      },
      {
        "text": " while his daughters grieved. He told them that their burden of caring for him was gone, and asked Theseus to swear not to forsake his daughters. Then he sent his children away, for only Theseus could know the place of his death, and pass it on to his heir. When the messenger turned back to look at the spot where Oedipus last stood, he says that \"We couldn't see the man- he was gone- nowhere! And the king, alone, shielding his eyes, both hands spread out against his face as if- some terrible wonder flashed before his eyes and he, he could not bear to look.\" Theseus enters with Antigone and Ismene, who are weeping and mourning their father. Antigone longs to see her father's tomb, even to be buried there with him rather than live without him. The girls beg Theseus to take them, but he reminds them that the place is a secret, and that no one may go there. \"And he said that if I kept my pledge, I'd keep my country free of harm forever.\" Antigone agrees, and asks for passage back to Thebes, where she hopes to stop the Seven Against Thebes from marching. Everyone exits toward Athens.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Vurt",
    "author": "Jeff Noon",
    "published_date": "1993",
    "synopsis": " Vurt tells the story of Scribble and his \"gang\", the Stash Riders, as they search for his missing sister/lover Desdemona. The novel is set in an alternate version of Manchester, England, in which society has been shaped by Vurt, a hallucinogenic drug/shared alternate reality, accessed by sucking on colour-coded feathers. Through some (never explained) mechanism, the dreams, mythology, and imaginings of humanity have achieved objective reality in the Vurt and become \"real\". Before the novel begins, Scribble and his sister-lover take a shared trip into a vurt called English Voodoo, but upon awakening Scribble finds his sister has been replaced by an amorphous blob that Mandy, a fellow Stash Rider, nicknames \"The Thing from Outer Space\". From that point on, Scribble is on a mission to find another copy of the rare and contraband Curious Yellow feather (found within English Voodoo), so that he can exchange The Thing for Desdemona.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Vurt tells the story of Scribble and his \"gang\", the Stash Riders, as they search for his missing sister/lover Desdemona. The novel is set in an alternate version of Manchester, England, in which society has been shaped by Vurt, a hallucinogenic drug/shared alternate reality, accessed by sucking on colour-coded feathers. Through some (never explained) mechanism, the dreams, mythology, and imaginings of humanity have achieved objective reality in the Vurt and become \"real\". Before the novel begins, Scribble and his sister-lover take a shared trip into a vurt called English Voodoo, but upon awakening Scribble finds his sister has been replaced by an amorphous blob that Mandy, a fellow Stash Rider, nicknames \"The Thing from Outer Space\". From that point on, Scribble is on a mission to find another copy of the rare and contraband Curious Yellow feather (found within English Voodoo), so that he can exchange The Thing for Desdemona.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal",
    "author": "Eric Schlosser",
    "published_date": "2001-01-17",
    "synopsis": " Schlosser opens the book with the ironic delivery of a pizza to the top secret military base, Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. He describes various high-tech capabilities of the base and its extensive defensive system, speculating that if the worst were to happen and the entire base were entombed in the mountain, anthropologists of the future would discover random fast food wrappers scattered amongst military hardware. Both, suggests Schlosser, would provide important clues about the nature of American society. The book continues with an account of the evolution of fast food and how it has coincided with the advent of the automobile. Schlosser explains the transformation from countless independent restaurants to a few uniform franchises. This shift led to a production-line kitchen prototype, standardization, self-service, and a fundamental change in marketing demographics: from teenager to family-oriented. Regarding the topic of child-targeted marketing, Schlosser explains how the McDonald's Corporation modeled its marketing tactics on The Walt Disney Company, which inspired the creation of advertising icons such as Ronald McDonald and his sidekicks. Marketing executives intended that this marketing shift would result not only in attracting children, but their parents and grandparents as well. More importantly, the tactic would instill brand loyalty that would persist through adulthood through nostalgic associations to McDonald's. Schlosser also discusses the tactic's ills: the exploitation of children's na\u00efvet\u00e9 and trusting nature. He sees that reductions in corporate taxation have come at the expense of school funding, thereby presenting many corporations with the opportunity for sponsorship with those same schools. According to his sources, 80% of sponsored textbooks contain material that is biased in favor of the sponsors, and 30% of high schools offer fast foods in their cafeterias. In his examination of the meat packing industry, Schlosser finds that it is now dominated by casual, easily exploited immigrant labor and that levels of injury are among the highest of any occupation in the United States. Schlosser discusses his findings on meat packing companies IBP, Inc. and on Kenny Dobbins. Schlosser also recounts the steps involved in meat processing and reveals several hazardous practices unknown to many consumers, such as the practice of rendering dead pigs and horses and chicken manure into cattle feed. Schlosser notes that practices like these were responsible for the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, aka Mad Cow Disease, p. 202-3), as well as for introducing harmful bacteria into the food supply, such as E. coli O157:H7 (ch. 9, \"What's In The Meat\"). A later section of the book discusses the fast food industry's role in globalization, linking increased obesity in China and Japan with the arrival of fast food. The book also includes a summary of the McLibel Case. In later editions, Schlosser provided an additional section that included reviews of his book, counters to critics who emerged since its first edition, and discussion of the effect that the threat of BSE had on US Federal Government policy towards cattle farming. He concluded that, given the swift, decisive and effective action that took place as a result of this interest and intervention, many of the problems documented in the book are solvable, given enough political will.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Schlosser opens the book with the ironic delivery of a pizza to the top secret military base, Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. He describes various high-tech capabilities of the base and its extensive defensive system, speculating that if the worst were to happen and the entire base were entombed in the mountain, anthropologists of the future would discover random fast food wrappers scattered amongst military hardware. Both, suggests Schlosser, would provide important clues about the nature of American society. The book continues with an account of the evolution of fast food and how it has coincided with the advent of the automobile. Schlosser explains the transformation from countless independent restaurants to a few uniform franchises. This shift led to a production-line kitchen prototype, standardization, self-service, and a fundamental change in marketing demographics: from teenager to family-oriented. Regarding the topic of child-targeted marketing, Schlosser explains how the McDonald's Corporation modeled its marketing tactics on The Walt Disney Company, which inspired the creation of advertising icons such as Ronald McDonald and his sidekicks. Marketing executives intended that this marketing shift would result not only in attracting children, but their parents and grandparents as well. More importantly, the tactic would instill brand loyalty that would persist through adulthood through nostalgic associations to McDonald's. Schlosser also discusses the tactic's ills: the exploitation of children's na\u00efvet\u00e9 and trusting nature. He sees that reductions in corporate taxation have come at the expense of school funding, thereby presenting many corporations with the opportunity for sponsorship with those same schools. According to his sources, 80% of sponsored textbooks contain material that is biased in favor of the sponsors, and 30% of high schools offer fast foods in their cafeterias. In his examination of the meat packing industry, Schlosser finds that it is now dominated by casual, easily exploited immigrant labor and that levels of injury are among the highest of any occupation in the United States. Schlosser discusses his"
      },
      {
        "text": " school funding, thereby presenting many corporations with the opportunity for sponsorship with those same schools. According to his sources, 80% of sponsored textbooks contain material that is biased in favor of the sponsors, and 30% of high schools offer fast foods in their cafeterias. In his examination of the meat packing industry, Schlosser finds that it is now dominated by casual, easily exploited immigrant labor and that levels of injury are among the highest of any occupation in the United States. Schlosser discusses his findings on meat packing companies IBP, Inc. and on Kenny Dobbins. Schlosser also recounts the steps involved in meat processing and reveals several hazardous practices unknown to many consumers, such as the practice of rendering dead pigs and horses and chicken manure into cattle feed. Schlosser notes that practices like these were responsible for the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, aka Mad Cow Disease, p. 202-3), as well as for introducing harmful bacteria into the food supply, such as E. coli O157:H7 (ch. 9, \"What's In The Meat\"). A later section of the book discusses the fast food industry's role in globalization, linking increased obesity in China and Japan with the arrival of fast food. The book also includes a summary of the McLibel Case. In later editions, Schlosser provided an additional section that included reviews of his book, counters to critics who emerged since its first edition, and discussion of the effect that the threat of BSE had on US Federal Government policy towards cattle farming. He concluded that, given the swift, decisive and effective action that took place as a result of this interest and intervention, many of the problems documented in the book are solvable, given enough political will.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the effect that the threat of BSE had on US Federal Government policy towards cattle farming. He concluded that, given the swift, decisive and effective action that took place as a result of this interest and intervention, many of the problems documented in the book are solvable, given enough political will.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Dice Man",
    "author": "George Cockcroft",
    "published_date": "1971",
    "synopsis": " The book tells the story of a psychiatrist named Luke Rhinehart who, feeling bored and unfulfilled in life, starts making decisions about what to do based on a roll of a dice. Along the way, there is sex, rape, murder, \"dice parties\", breakouts by psychiatric patients, and various corporate and governmental machines being put into a spin. There is also a description of the cult that starts to develop around the man, and the psychological research he initiates, such as the \"Fuck without Fear for Fun and Profit\" program.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book tells the story of a psychiatrist named Luke Rhinehart who, feeling bored and unfulfilled in life, starts making decisions about what to do based on a roll of a dice. Along the way, there is sex, rape, murder, \"dice parties\", breakouts by psychiatric patients, and various corporate and governmental machines being put into a spin. There is also a description of the cult that starts to develop around the man, and the psychological research he initiates, such as the \"Fuck without Fear for Fun and Profit\" program.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Search for the Dice Man",
    "author": "George Cockcroft",
    "published_date": "1993-06-07",
    "synopsis": " The book is set 20 years after the end of The Dice Man, and Luke's dicechild, Larry Rhinehart, has grown up to become a hotshot investor on the stock market. He has totally rejected his father's reverence for chance: he sees it as an adversary to be overcome, and has managed to create a stable, normal life for himself, in spite of his early abandonment. Indeed, he is due to wed the daughter of his boss, and live wealthily ever after. This state of affairs would make a dull story and soon his father's ghostly presence intervenes. He gets approached by the FBI, who are trying to trace his father's location, and find out whether he's alive or dead. Though Larry naturally refuses to have anything to do with the FBI, he soon starts to pursue his own investigations. He is financed in this by his fianc\u00e9e's father, who wants to put the whole dice business to rest, and is accompanied by his fianc\u00e9e's cousin, an unreformed hippy. It takes a long time - a whole book in fact, but Larry eventually does complete his quest. Along the way, what he sees and hears change his views somewhat; by the end of the book it is he who is trying to convince Luke, his father, to accept more chance into his life, rather than the other way round.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is set 20 years after the end of The Dice Man, and Luke's dicechild, Larry Rhinehart, has grown up to become a hotshot investor on the stock market. He has totally rejected his father's reverence for chance: he sees it as an adversary to be overcome, and has managed to create a stable, normal life for himself, in spite of his early abandonment. Indeed, he is due to wed the daughter of his boss, and live wealthily ever after. This state of affairs would make a dull story and soon his father's ghostly presence intervenes. He gets approached by the FBI, who are trying to trace his father's location, and find out whether he's alive or dead. Though Larry naturally refuses to have anything to do with the FBI, he soon starts to pursue his own investigations. He is financed in this by his fianc\u00e9e's father, who wants to put the whole dice business to rest, and is accompanied by his fianc\u00e9e's cousin, an unreformed hippy. It takes a long time - a whole book in fact, but Larry eventually does complete his quest. Along the way, what he sees and hears change his views somewhat; by the end of the book it is he who is trying to convince Luke, his father, to accept more chance into his life, rather than the other way round.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Anna Karenina",
    "author": "Leo Tolstoy",
    "published_date": "1877",
    "synopsis": " The novel is divided into eight parts. Its epigraph is Vengeance is mine, I will repay, from Romans 12:19, which in turn is quoting from Deuteronomy 32:35. The novel begins with one of its most quoted lines: The novel opens with a scene introducing Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky (\"Stiva\"), a Moscow aristocrat and civil servant who has been unfaithful to his wife Darya Alexandrovna, (\"Dolly\"). Dolly has discovered his affair\u2014with the family's governess\u2014and the house and family are in turmoil. Stiva's affair and his reaction to his wife's distress show an amorous personality that he cannot seem to suppress. In the midst of the turmoil, Stiva reminds the household that his married sister, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina, is coming to visit from Saint Petersburg. Meanwhile, Stiva's childhood friend, Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin (\"Kostya\"), arrives in Moscow with the aim of proposing to Dolly's youngest sister, Princess Katerina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya (\"Kitty\"). Levin is a passionate, restless, but shy aristocratic landowner who, unlike his Moscow friends, chooses to live in the country on his large estate. He discovers that Kitty is also being pursued by Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, an army officer. Whilst at the railway station to meet Anna, Stiva bumps into Vronsky; he is there to meet his mother, the Countess Vronskaya. Anna and Vronskaya have traveled and talked together in the same carriage. As the family members are reunited, and Vronsky sees Anna for the first time, a railway worker accidentally falls in front of a train and is killed. Anna interprets this as an \"evil omen.\" Vronsky, however, is infatuated with her. Anna is uneasy about leaving her young son, Seryozha, alone for the first time. She also talks openly and emotionally to Dolly about Stiva's affair, convincing her that Stiva stills loves her despite the infidelity. Dolly is moved by Anna's speeches and decides to forgive Stiva. Kitty comes to visit Dolly and Anna. Kitty, just eighteen, is in her first season as a debutante and is expected to make an excellent match with a man of her social standing. Vronsky has been paying her considerable attention, and she expects to dance with him at a ball that evening. Kitty is very struck by Anna's beauty and personality, and becomes infatuated with her just as Vronsky is. When Levin proposes to Kitty at her home, she clumsily turns him down, believing she is in love with Vronsky and that he will propose to her. At the ball, Vronsky dances with Anna, choosing her as a partner over a shocked and heartbroken Kitty. Kitty realises that Vronsky has fallen in love with Anna, and has no intention of marrying her despite his overt flirtations; Vronsky has regarded his interactions with Kitty merely as a source of amusement, and assumes that Kitty has acted for the same reasons. Anna, shaken by her emotional and physical response to Vronsky, returns at once to Saint Petersburg. Vronsky travels on the same train. During the overnight journey, the two meet and Vronsky confesses his love. Anna refuses him, although she is deeply affected by his attentions to her. Levin, crushed by Kitty's refusal, returns to his estate farm, abandoning any hope of marriage. Anna returns to her husband Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, a senior government official, and their son Sergei (\"Seryozha\") in Saint Petersburg. On seeing her husband for the first time since her encounter with Vronsky, Anna realises that she finds him repulsive. The Shcherbatskys consult doctors over Kitty's health, which has been failing since Vronsky's rejection. A specialist advises that Kitty should go abroad to a health spa to recover. Dolly speaks to Kitty and understands she is suffering because of Vronsky and Levin, whom she cares for and had hurt in vain. Kitty, humiliated by Vronsky and tormented by her rejection of Levin, upsets her sister by referring to Stiva's infidelity, saying she could never love a man who betrayed her. Meanwhile, Stiva visits Levin on his country estate while selling a nearby plot of land. In Saint Petersburg, Anna begins to spend more time in the inner circle of Princess Betsy, a fashionable socialite and Vronsky's cousin. Vronsky continues to pursue Anna. Although she initially tries to reject him, she eventually succumbs to his attentions. Karenin reminds his wife of the impropriety of paying too much attention to Vronsky in public, which is becoming the subject of gossip. He is concerned about the couple's public image, although he believes that Anna is above suspicion. Vronsky \u2013 a keen horseman \u2013 takes part in a steeplechase event, during which he rides his mare Frou-Frou too hard and she falls and breaks her back. Anna is unable to hide her distress during the accident. Later, Anna tells Vronsky that she is pregnant with his child. Karenin is also present at the races, and remarks to Anna that her behaviour is improper. Anna, in a state of extreme distress and emotion, confesses her affair to her husband. Karenin asks her to break it off to avoid further gossip, believing that their marriage will be preserved. Kitty and her mother travel to a German spa to recover from her ill health. There, they meet the Pietist Madame Stahl and the saintly Varenka, her adopted daughter. Influenced by Varenka, Kitty becomes extremely pious, but becomes disillusioned by her father's criticism. She then returns to Moscow. Levin continues working on his estate, a setting closely tied to his spiritual thoughts and struggles. He wrestles with the idea of falseness, wondering how he should go about ridding himself of it, and criticising what he feels is falseness in others. He develops ideas relating to agriculture, and the unique relationship between the agricultural labourer and his native land and culture. He comes to believe that the agricultural reforms of Europe will not work in Russia because of the unique culture and personality of the Russian peasant. When Levin visits Dolly, she attempts to understand what happened between him and Kitty and to explain Kitty's behaviour. Levin is very agitated by Dolly's talk about Kitty, and he begins to feel distant from Dolly as he perceives her loving behaviour towards her children as false. Levin resolves to forget Kitty, and contemplates the possibility of marriage to a peasant woman. However, a chance sighting of Kitty in her carriage makes Levin realise he still loves her. Meanwhile, in Saint Petersburg, Karenin refuses to separate from Anna, insisting that their relationship will continue. He threatens to take away Seryozha if she persists in her affair with Vronsky. When Anna and Vronsky continue seeing each other, Karenin consults with a lawyer about obtaining a divorce. During the time period, a divorce in Russia could only be requested by the innocent party in an affair, and required either that the guilty party confessed — which would ruin Anna's position in society and bar her from re-marrying — or that the guilty party be discovered in the act of adultery. Karenin forces Anna to hand over some of Vronsky's love letters, which the lawyer deems insufficient as proof of the affair. Stiva and Dolly argue against Karenin's drive for a divorce. Karenin changes his plans after hearing that Anna is dying after the difficult birth of her daughter, Annie. At her bedside, Karenin forgives Vronsky. However, Vronsky, embarrassed by Karenin's magnanimity, unsuccessfully attempts suicide by shooting himself. As Anna recovers, she finds that she cannot bear living with Karenin despite his forgiveness and his attachment to Annie. When she hears that Vronsky is about to leave for a military posting in Tashkent, she becomes desperate. Anna and Vronsky reunite and elope to Europe, leaving Seryozha and leaving Karenin's offer of divorce unaccepted. Meanwhile, Stiva acts as a matchmaker with Levin: he arranges a meeting between him and Kitty, which results in their reconciliation and betrothal. Levin and Kitty marry and start their new life on his country estate. Although the couple are happy, they undergo a bitter and stressful first three months of marriage. Levin feels dissatisfied at the amount of time Kitty wants to spend with him, and dwells on his ability to be productive as he was as a bachelor. When the marriage starts to improve, Levin learns that his brother, Nikolai, is dying of consumption. Kitty offers to accompany Levin on his journey to see Nikolai, and proves herself a great help in nursing Nikolai. Seeing his wife take charge of the situation in an infinitely more capable manner than if he were without her, Levin's love for Kitty grows. Kitty eventually learns that she is pregnant. In Europe, Vronsky and Anna struggle to find friends who will accept them. Whilst Anna is happy to be finally alone with Vronsky, he feels suffocated. They cannot socialize with Russians of their own class, and find it difficult to amuse themselves. Vronsky, who believed that being with Anna was the key to his happiness, finds himself increasingly bored and unsatisfied. He takes up painting and makes an attempt to patronize an \u00e9migr\u00e9 Russian artist of genius. However, Vronsky cannot see that his own art lacks talent and passion, and that his conversation about art is really pretentious. Increasingly restless, Anna and Vronsky decide to return to Russia. In Saint Petersburg, Anna and Vronsky stay in one of the best hotels, but take separate suites. It becomes clear that whilst Vronsky is still able to move freely in Russian society, Anna is barred from it. Even her old friend, Princess Betsy — who has had affairs herself — evades her company. Anna starts to become anxious that Vronsky no longer loves her. Meanwhile, Karenin is comforted by Countess Lidia Ivanovna, an enthusiast of religious and mystic ideas fashionable with the upper classes. She advises him to keep Seryozha away from Anna and to tell him his mother is dead. However, Seryozha refuses to believe that this is true. Anna visits Seryozha uninvited on his ninth birthday, but is discovered by Karenin. Anna, desperate to regain at least some of her former position in society, attends a show at the theatre at which all of Saint Petersburg's high society are present. Vronsky begs her not to go, but is unable to bring himself to explain to her why she cannot attend. At the theatre, Anna is openly snubbed by her former friends, one of whom makes a deliberate scene and leaves the theatre. Anna is devastated. Unable to find a place for themselves in Saint Petersburg, Anna and Vronsky leave for Vronsky's own country estate. Dolly, her mother the Princess Scherbatskaya, and Dolly's children spend the summer with Levin and Kitty. The Levins' life is simple and unaffected, although Levin is uneasy at the \"invasion\" of so many Scherbatskys. He becomes extremely jealous when one of the visitors, Veslovsky, flirts openly with the pregnant Kitty. Levin tries to overcome his feelings, but eventually succumbs to them and makes Veslovsky leave his house in an embarrassing scene. Veslovsky immediately goes to stay with Anna and Vronsky at their nearby estate. When Dolly visits Anna, she is struck by the difference between the Levins' aristocratic-yet-simple home life and Vronsky's overtly luxurious and lavish country estate. She is also unable to keep pace with Anna's fashionable dresses or Vronsky's extravagant spending on a hospital he is building. In addition, all is not quite well with Anna and Vronsky. Dolly notices Anna's anxious behaviour and her uncomfortable flirtations with Veslovsky. Vronsky makes an emotional request to Dolly, asking her to convince Anna to divorce Karenin so that the two might marry and live normally. Anna has become intensely jealous of Vronsky, and cannot bear it when he leaves her even for short excursions. When Vronsky leaves for several days of provincial elections, Anna becomes convinced that she must marry him in order to prevent him from leaving her. After Anna writes to Karenin, she and Vronsky leave the countryside for Moscow. While visiting Moscow for Kitty's confinement, Levin quickly gets used to the city's fast-paced, expensive and frivolous society life. He accompanies Stiva to a gentleman's club, where the two meet Vronsky. Levin and Stiva pay a visit to Anna, who is occupying her empty days by being a patroness to an orphaned English girl. Levin is initially uneasy about the visit, but Anna easily puts him under her spell. When he admits to Kitty that he has visited Anna, she accuses him of falling in love with her. The couple are later reconciled, realising that Moscow society life has had a negative, corrupting effect on Levin. Anna cannot understand why she can attract a man like Levin, who has a young and beautiful new wife, but cannot attract Vronsky as she did once. Her relationship with Vronsky is under increasing strain, as he can move freely in Russian society while she remains excluded. Her increasing bitterness, boredom, and jealousy cause the couple to argue. Anna uses morphine to help her sleep, a habit she had begun while living with Vronsky at his country estate. She has become dependent on it. Meanwhile, after a long and difficult labour, Kitty gives birth to a son, Dmitri, nicknamed \"Mitya\". Levin is both horrified and profoundly moved by the sight of the tiny, helpless baby. Stiva visits Karenin to seek his commendation for a new post. During the visit he asks him to grant Anna a divorce (which would require him to confess to a non-existent affair), but Karenin's decisions are now governed by a French \"clairvoyant\" recommended by Lidia Ivanovna. The clairvoyant apparently had a vision in his sleep during Stiva's visit and gives Karenin a cryptic message which is interpreted that Karenin must decline the request for divorce. Anna becomes increasingly jealous and irrational towards Vronsky, whom she suspects of having love affairs with other women. She is also convinced that he will give in to his mother's plans to marry him off to a rich society woman. They have a bitter row and Anna believes the relationship is over. She starts to think of suicide as an escape from her torments. In her mental and emotional confusion, she sends a telegram to Vronsky asking him to come home to her, and then pays a visit to Dolly and Kitty. Anna's confusion and vengeful anger overcome her, and in a parallel to the railway worker's accidental death in part 1, she commits suicide by throwing herself in the path of an oncoming train. Levin's brother's latest book is ignored by readers and critics and he joins the new pan-Slavic movement. Stiva gets the post he desired so much, and Karenin takes custody of Vronsky's and Anna's baby Annie. A group of Russian volunteers, including the suicidal Vronsky, depart from Russia to fight in the Orthodox Serbian revolt that has broken out against the Turks. Meanwhile, a lightning storm occurs at Levin's estate while his wife and newborn son are outside, and in his fear for their safety Levin realizes that he does indeed love his son as much he loves Kitty. Kitty's family is concerned that a man as altruistic as her husband does not consider himself to be a Christian, but after speaking at length to a peasant, Levin decides that devotion to living righteously is the only justifiable reason for living. Unable to tell anyone about this revelation, Levin is initially displeased that this change of thought does not bring with it a complete transformation to righteousness. However, at the end of the story Levin comes to the conclusion that his new beliefs are acceptable and that other non-Christian religions contain similar views on goodness that are also entirely credible. His life can now be meaningfully and truthfully oriented toward goodness.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is divided into eight parts. Its epigraph is Vengeance is mine, I will repay, from Romans 12:19, which in turn is quoting from Deuteronomy 32:35. The novel begins with one of its most quoted lines: The novel opens with a scene introducing Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky (\"Stiva\"), a Moscow aristocrat and civil servant who has been unfaithful to his wife Darya Alexandrovna, (\"Dolly\"). Dolly has discovered his affair\u2014with the family's governess\u2014and the house and family are in turmoil. Stiva's affair and his reaction to his wife's distress show an amorous personality that he cannot seem to suppress. In the midst of the turmoil, Stiva reminds the household that his married sister, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina, is coming to visit from Saint Petersburg. Meanwhile, Stiva's childhood friend, Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin (\"Kostya\"), arrives in Moscow with the aim of proposing to Dolly's youngest sister, Princess Katerina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya (\"Kitty\"). Levin is a passionate, restless, but shy aristocratic landowner who, unlike his Moscow friends, chooses to live in the country on his large estate. He discovers that Kitty is also being pursued by Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, an army officer. Whilst at the railway station to meet Anna, Stiva bumps into Vronsky; he is there to meet his mother, the Countess Vronskaya. Anna and Vronskaya have traveled and talked together in the same carriage. As the family members are reunited, and Vronsky sees Anna for the first time, a railway worker accidentally falls in front of a train and is killed. Anna interprets this as an \"evil omen.\" Vronsky, however, is infatuated with her. Anna is uneasy about leaving her young son, Seryozha,"
      },
      {
        "text": " he is there to meet his mother, the Countess Vronskaya. Anna and Vronskaya have traveled and talked together in the same carriage. As the family members are reunited, and Vronsky sees Anna for the first time, a railway worker accidentally falls in front of a train and is killed. Anna interprets this as an \"evil omen.\" Vronsky, however, is infatuated with her. Anna is uneasy about leaving her young son, Seryozha, alone for the first time. She also talks openly and emotionally to Dolly about Stiva's affair, convincing her that Stiva stills loves her despite the infidelity. Dolly is moved by Anna's speeches and decides to forgive Stiva. Kitty comes to visit Dolly and Anna. Kitty, just eighteen, is in her first season as a debutante and is expected to make an excellent match with a man of her social standing. Vronsky has been paying her considerable attention, and she expects to dance with him at a ball that evening. Kitty is very struck by Anna's beauty and personality, and becomes infatuated with her just as Vronsky is. When Levin proposes to Kitty at her home, she clumsily turns him down, believing she is in love with Vronsky and that he will propose to her. At the ball, Vronsky dances with Anna, choosing her as a partner over a shocked and heartbroken Kitty. Kitty realises that Vronsky has fallen in love with Anna, and has no intention of marrying her despite his overt flirtations; Vronsky has regarded his interactions with Kitty merely as a source of amusement, and assumes that Kitty has acted for the same reasons. Anna, shaken by her emotional and physical response to Vronsky, returns at once to Saint Petersburg. Vronsky travels on the same train. During the overnight journey, the two meet and Vronsky confesses his love. Anna refuses him,"
      },
      {
        "text": "ronsky has fallen in love with Anna, and has no intention of marrying her despite his overt flirtations; Vronsky has regarded his interactions with Kitty merely as a source of amusement, and assumes that Kitty has acted for the same reasons. Anna, shaken by her emotional and physical response to Vronsky, returns at once to Saint Petersburg. Vronsky travels on the same train. During the overnight journey, the two meet and Vronsky confesses his love. Anna refuses him, although she is deeply affected by his attentions to her. Levin, crushed by Kitty's refusal, returns to his estate farm, abandoning any hope of marriage. Anna returns to her husband Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, a senior government official, and their son Sergei (\"Seryozha\") in Saint Petersburg. On seeing her husband for the first time since her encounter with Vronsky, Anna realises that she finds him repulsive. The Shcherbatskys consult doctors over Kitty's health, which has been failing since Vronsky's rejection. A specialist advises that Kitty should go abroad to a health spa to recover. Dolly speaks to Kitty and understands she is suffering because of Vronsky and Levin, whom she cares for and had hurt in vain. Kitty, humiliated by Vronsky and tormented by her rejection of Levin, upsets her sister by referring to Stiva's infidelity, saying she could never love a man who betrayed her. Meanwhile, Stiva visits Levin on his country estate while selling a nearby plot of land. In Saint Petersburg, Anna begins to spend more time in the inner circle of Princess Betsy, a fashionable socialite and Vronsky's cousin. Vronsky continues to pursue Anna. Although she initially tries to reject him, she eventually succumbs to his attentions. Karenin reminds his wife of the impropriety of paying too much attention to Vronsky in public, which is becoming the subject of gossip. He"
      },
      {
        "text": "iva visits Levin on his country estate while selling a nearby plot of land. In Saint Petersburg, Anna begins to spend more time in the inner circle of Princess Betsy, a fashionable socialite and Vronsky's cousin. Vronsky continues to pursue Anna. Although she initially tries to reject him, she eventually succumbs to his attentions. Karenin reminds his wife of the impropriety of paying too much attention to Vronsky in public, which is becoming the subject of gossip. He is concerned about the couple's public image, although he believes that Anna is above suspicion. Vronsky \u2013 a keen horseman \u2013 takes part in a steeplechase event, during which he rides his mare Frou-Frou too hard and she falls and breaks her back. Anna is unable to hide her distress during the accident. Later, Anna tells Vronsky that she is pregnant with his child. Karenin is also present at the races, and remarks to Anna that her behaviour is improper. Anna, in a state of extreme distress and emotion, confesses her affair to her husband. Karenin asks her to break it off to avoid further gossip, believing that their marriage will be preserved. Kitty and her mother travel to a German spa to recover from her ill health. There, they meet the Pietist Madame Stahl and the saintly Varenka, her adopted daughter. Influenced by Varenka, Kitty becomes extremely pious, but becomes disillusioned by her father's criticism. She then returns to Moscow. Levin continues working on his estate, a setting closely tied to his spiritual thoughts and struggles. He wrestles with the idea of falseness, wondering how he should go about ridding himself of it, and criticising what he feels is falseness in others. He develops ideas relating to agriculture, and the unique relationship between the agricultural labourer and his native land and culture. He comes to believe that the agricultural reforms of Europe will not work in Russia"
      },
      {
        "text": " father's criticism. She then returns to Moscow. Levin continues working on his estate, a setting closely tied to his spiritual thoughts and struggles. He wrestles with the idea of falseness, wondering how he should go about ridding himself of it, and criticising what he feels is falseness in others. He develops ideas relating to agriculture, and the unique relationship between the agricultural labourer and his native land and culture. He comes to believe that the agricultural reforms of Europe will not work in Russia because of the unique culture and personality of the Russian peasant. When Levin visits Dolly, she attempts to understand what happened between him and Kitty and to explain Kitty's behaviour. Levin is very agitated by Dolly's talk about Kitty, and he begins to feel distant from Dolly as he perceives her loving behaviour towards her children as false. Levin resolves to forget Kitty, and contemplates the possibility of marriage to a peasant woman. However, a chance sighting of Kitty in her carriage makes Levin realise he still loves her. Meanwhile, in Saint Petersburg, Karenin refuses to separate from Anna, insisting that their relationship will continue. He threatens to take away Seryozha if she persists in her affair with Vronsky. When Anna and Vronsky continue seeing each other, Karenin consults with a lawyer about obtaining a divorce. During the time period, a divorce in Russia could only be requested by the innocent party in an affair, and required either that the guilty party confessed — which would ruin Anna's position in society and bar her from re-marrying — or that the guilty party be discovered in the act of adultery. Karenin forces Anna to hand over some of Vronsky's love letters, which the lawyer deems insufficient as proof of the affair. Stiva and Dolly argue against Karenin's drive for a divorce. Karenin changes his plans after hearing that Anna is dying after the difficult birth of her daughter, Annie. At her"
      },
      {
        "text": "ash; which would ruin Anna's position in society and bar her from re-marrying — or that the guilty party be discovered in the act of adultery. Karenin forces Anna to hand over some of Vronsky's love letters, which the lawyer deems insufficient as proof of the affair. Stiva and Dolly argue against Karenin's drive for a divorce. Karenin changes his plans after hearing that Anna is dying after the difficult birth of her daughter, Annie. At her bedside, Karenin forgives Vronsky. However, Vronsky, embarrassed by Karenin's magnanimity, unsuccessfully attempts suicide by shooting himself. As Anna recovers, she finds that she cannot bear living with Karenin despite his forgiveness and his attachment to Annie. When she hears that Vronsky is about to leave for a military posting in Tashkent, she becomes desperate. Anna and Vronsky reunite and elope to Europe, leaving Seryozha and leaving Karenin's offer of divorce unaccepted. Meanwhile, Stiva acts as a matchmaker with Levin: he arranges a meeting between him and Kitty, which results in their reconciliation and betrothal. Levin and Kitty marry and start their new life on his country estate. Although the couple are happy, they undergo a bitter and stressful first three months of marriage. Levin feels dissatisfied at the amount of time Kitty wants to spend with him, and dwells on his ability to be productive as he was as a bachelor. When the marriage starts to improve, Levin learns that his brother, Nikolai, is dying of consumption. Kitty offers to accompany Levin on his journey to see Nikolai, and proves herself a great help in nursing Nikolai. Seeing his wife take charge of the situation in an infinitely more capable manner than if he were without her, Levin's love for Kitty grows. Kitty eventually learns that she is pregnant. In Europe, Vronsky and Anna struggle to find friends who"
      },
      {
        "text": " he was as a bachelor. When the marriage starts to improve, Levin learns that his brother, Nikolai, is dying of consumption. Kitty offers to accompany Levin on his journey to see Nikolai, and proves herself a great help in nursing Nikolai. Seeing his wife take charge of the situation in an infinitely more capable manner than if he were without her, Levin's love for Kitty grows. Kitty eventually learns that she is pregnant. In Europe, Vronsky and Anna struggle to find friends who will accept them. Whilst Anna is happy to be finally alone with Vronsky, he feels suffocated. They cannot socialize with Russians of their own class, and find it difficult to amuse themselves. Vronsky, who believed that being with Anna was the key to his happiness, finds himself increasingly bored and unsatisfied. He takes up painting and makes an attempt to patronize an \u00e9migr\u00e9 Russian artist of genius. However, Vronsky cannot see that his own art lacks talent and passion, and that his conversation about art is really pretentious. Increasingly restless, Anna and Vronsky decide to return to Russia. In Saint Petersburg, Anna and Vronsky stay in one of the best hotels, but take separate suites. It becomes clear that whilst Vronsky is still able to move freely in Russian society, Anna is barred from it. Even her old friend, Princess Betsy — who has had affairs herself — evades her company. Anna starts to become anxious that Vronsky no longer loves her. Meanwhile, Karenin is comforted by Countess Lidia Ivanovna, an enthusiast of religious and mystic ideas fashionable with the upper classes. She advises him to keep Seryozha away from Anna and to tell him his mother is dead. However, Seryozha refuses to believe that this is true. Anna visits Seryozha uninvited on his ninth birthday, but is discovered by Karenin. Anna"
      },
      {
        "text": " Anna starts to become anxious that Vronsky no longer loves her. Meanwhile, Karenin is comforted by Countess Lidia Ivanovna, an enthusiast of religious and mystic ideas fashionable with the upper classes. She advises him to keep Seryozha away from Anna and to tell him his mother is dead. However, Seryozha refuses to believe that this is true. Anna visits Seryozha uninvited on his ninth birthday, but is discovered by Karenin. Anna, desperate to regain at least some of her former position in society, attends a show at the theatre at which all of Saint Petersburg's high society are present. Vronsky begs her not to go, but is unable to bring himself to explain to her why she cannot attend. At the theatre, Anna is openly snubbed by her former friends, one of whom makes a deliberate scene and leaves the theatre. Anna is devastated. Unable to find a place for themselves in Saint Petersburg, Anna and Vronsky leave for Vronsky's own country estate. Dolly, her mother the Princess Scherbatskaya, and Dolly's children spend the summer with Levin and Kitty. The Levins' life is simple and unaffected, although Levin is uneasy at the \"invasion\" of so many Scherbatskys. He becomes extremely jealous when one of the visitors, Veslovsky, flirts openly with the pregnant Kitty. Levin tries to overcome his feelings, but eventually succumbs to them and makes Veslovsky leave his house in an embarrassing scene. Veslovsky immediately goes to stay with Anna and Vronsky at their nearby estate. When Dolly visits Anna, she is struck by the difference between the Levins' aristocratic-yet-simple home life and Vronsky's overtly luxurious and lavish country estate. She is also unable to keep pace with Anna's fashionable dresses or Vronsky's extravagant spending on a hospital he is building. In addition, all is not"
      },
      {
        "text": " and makes Veslovsky leave his house in an embarrassing scene. Veslovsky immediately goes to stay with Anna and Vronsky at their nearby estate. When Dolly visits Anna, she is struck by the difference between the Levins' aristocratic-yet-simple home life and Vronsky's overtly luxurious and lavish country estate. She is also unable to keep pace with Anna's fashionable dresses or Vronsky's extravagant spending on a hospital he is building. In addition, all is not quite well with Anna and Vronsky. Dolly notices Anna's anxious behaviour and her uncomfortable flirtations with Veslovsky. Vronsky makes an emotional request to Dolly, asking her to convince Anna to divorce Karenin so that the two might marry and live normally. Anna has become intensely jealous of Vronsky, and cannot bear it when he leaves her even for short excursions. When Vronsky leaves for several days of provincial elections, Anna becomes convinced that she must marry him in order to prevent him from leaving her. After Anna writes to Karenin, she and Vronsky leave the countryside for Moscow. While visiting Moscow for Kitty's confinement, Levin quickly gets used to the city's fast-paced, expensive and frivolous society life. He accompanies Stiva to a gentleman's club, where the two meet Vronsky. Levin and Stiva pay a visit to Anna, who is occupying her empty days by being a patroness to an orphaned English girl. Levin is initially uneasy about the visit, but Anna easily puts him under her spell. When he admits to Kitty that he has visited Anna, she accuses him of falling in love with her. The couple are later reconciled, realising that Moscow society life has had a negative, corrupting effect on Levin. Anna cannot understand why she can attract a man like Levin, who has a young and beautiful new wife, but cannot attract Vronsky as she did once. Her relationship with Vronsky is"
      },
      {
        "text": " is initially uneasy about the visit, but Anna easily puts him under her spell. When he admits to Kitty that he has visited Anna, she accuses him of falling in love with her. The couple are later reconciled, realising that Moscow society life has had a negative, corrupting effect on Levin. Anna cannot understand why she can attract a man like Levin, who has a young and beautiful new wife, but cannot attract Vronsky as she did once. Her relationship with Vronsky is under increasing strain, as he can move freely in Russian society while she remains excluded. Her increasing bitterness, boredom, and jealousy cause the couple to argue. Anna uses morphine to help her sleep, a habit she had begun while living with Vronsky at his country estate. She has become dependent on it. Meanwhile, after a long and difficult labour, Kitty gives birth to a son, Dmitri, nicknamed \"Mitya\". Levin is both horrified and profoundly moved by the sight of the tiny, helpless baby. Stiva visits Karenin to seek his commendation for a new post. During the visit he asks him to grant Anna a divorce (which would require him to confess to a non-existent affair), but Karenin's decisions are now governed by a French \"clairvoyant\" recommended by Lidia Ivanovna. The clairvoyant apparently had a vision in his sleep during Stiva's visit and gives Karenin a cryptic message which is interpreted that Karenin must decline the request for divorce. Anna becomes increasingly jealous and irrational towards Vronsky, whom she suspects of having love affairs with other women. She is also convinced that he will give in to his mother's plans to marry him off to a rich society woman. They have a bitter row and Anna believes the relationship is over. She starts to think of suicide as an escape from her torments. In her mental and emotional confusion, she sends a telegram to Vronsky asking him to come home to"
      },
      {
        "text": " the request for divorce. Anna becomes increasingly jealous and irrational towards Vronsky, whom she suspects of having love affairs with other women. She is also convinced that he will give in to his mother's plans to marry him off to a rich society woman. They have a bitter row and Anna believes the relationship is over. She starts to think of suicide as an escape from her torments. In her mental and emotional confusion, she sends a telegram to Vronsky asking him to come home to her, and then pays a visit to Dolly and Kitty. Anna's confusion and vengeful anger overcome her, and in a parallel to the railway worker's accidental death in part 1, she commits suicide by throwing herself in the path of an oncoming train. Levin's brother's latest book is ignored by readers and critics and he joins the new pan-Slavic movement. Stiva gets the post he desired so much, and Karenin takes custody of Vronsky's and Anna's baby Annie. A group of Russian volunteers, including the suicidal Vronsky, depart from Russia to fight in the Orthodox Serbian revolt that has broken out against the Turks. Meanwhile, a lightning storm occurs at Levin's estate while his wife and newborn son are outside, and in his fear for their safety Levin realizes that he does indeed love his son as much he loves Kitty. Kitty's family is concerned that a man as altruistic as her husband does not consider himself to be a Christian, but after speaking at length to a peasant, Levin decides that devotion to living righteously is the only justifiable reason for living. Unable to tell anyone about this revelation, Levin is initially displeased that this change of thought does not bring with it a complete transformation to righteousness. However, at the end of the story Levin comes to the conclusion that his new beliefs are acceptable and that other non-Christian religions contain similar views on goodness that are also entirely credible. His life can now be meaningfully and"
      },
      {
        "text": " after speaking at length to a peasant, Levin decides that devotion to living righteously is the only justifiable reason for living. Unable to tell anyone about this revelation, Levin is initially displeased that this change of thought does not bring with it a complete transformation to righteousness. However, at the end of the story Levin comes to the conclusion that his new beliefs are acceptable and that other non-Christian religions contain similar views on goodness that are also entirely credible. His life can now be meaningfully and truthfully oriented toward goodness.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Adventures of Wim",
    "author": "George Cockcroft",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The book takes Luke's style to its logical conclusion, as the entire book is made up of sections taken from other, fictional books. The preface to the book claims that it was written in Deya, Majorca, in 2326. According to the book, an entire industry has grown up publishing books about a Montauk named Wim - including The Gospel According to Luke (Luke Forth, not Luke Rhinehart) and the screenplay of a movie. The screenplay is possibly in there as a result of Luke Rhinehart's continuing frustration in trying to get The Dice Man turned into a good movie. Adventures of Wim, then, is an effort to create a new interpretation of the story of Wim, drawing on the many previous efforts, and so providing a multi-faceted and whimsical account of 'one of the greatest figures in the 20th and 21st Century'. A boy is born of a virgin mother and is named \"Wim\" (in Adventures of Wim) or \"Whim\" (in The Book of the Die and Whim): Montauk for \"Wave Rider\". He is pronounced to be the saviour of the Montauk nation by his tribe's navigator, and educated in their ways. Sadly, the humans steal him away and attempt to educate him in more useful skills, such as American Football. Wim, also known as \"He of Many Chances\", proves to be an inefficient saviour, as God sends him on a quest for Ultimate Truth. This does not seem to be something that will benefit his tribe terribly, but the navigator isn't one to stare down the barrel of a lightning gun, and sends him on his way. After a long and arduous search, Wim finds ultimate truth (in a tomato), and with it the cure for the sickness of the human condition.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book takes Luke's style to its logical conclusion, as the entire book is made up of sections taken from other, fictional books. The preface to the book claims that it was written in Deya, Majorca, in 2326. According to the book, an entire industry has grown up publishing books about a Montauk named Wim - including The Gospel According to Luke (Luke Forth, not Luke Rhinehart) and the screenplay of a movie. The screenplay is possibly in there as a result of Luke Rhinehart's continuing frustration in trying to get The Dice Man turned into a good movie. Adventures of Wim, then, is an effort to create a new interpretation of the story of Wim, drawing on the many previous efforts, and so providing a multi-faceted and whimsical account of 'one of the greatest figures in the 20th and 21st Century'. A boy is born of a virgin mother and is named \"Wim\" (in Adventures of Wim) or \"Whim\" (in The Book of the Die and Whim): Montauk for \"Wave Rider\". He is pronounced to be the saviour of the Montauk nation by his tribe's navigator, and educated in their ways. Sadly, the humans steal him away and attempt to educate him in more useful skills, such as American Football. Wim, also known as \"He of Many Chances\", proves to be an inefficient saviour, as God sends him on a quest for Ultimate Truth. This does not seem to be something that will benefit his tribe terribly, but the navigator isn't one to stare down the barrel of a lightning gun, and sends him on his way. After a long and arduous search, Wim finds ultimate truth (in a tomato), and with it the cure for the sickness of the human condition.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " for Ultimate Truth. This does not seem to be something that will benefit his tribe terribly, but the navigator isn't one to stare down the barrel of a lightning gun, and sends him on his way. After a long and arduous search, Wim finds ultimate truth (in a tomato), and with it the cure for the sickness of the human condition.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "High Fidelity",
    "author": "Nick Hornby",
    "published_date": "1995",
    "synopsis": " Rob Fleming is a London record store owner in his mid-thirties whose girlfriend, Laura, has just left him. At the record shop \u2014 named Championship Vinyl \u2014 Rob and his employees Dick and Barry spend their free moments discussing mix-tape aesthetics and constructing \"top-five\" lists of anything that demonstrates their knowledge of music. Rob, recalling his five most memorable breakups, sets about getting in touch with the former girlfriends. Eventually, Rob's re-examination of his failed relationships and the death of Laura's father bring the two back together. Their relationship is cemented by the launch of a new purposefulness to Rob's life in the revival of his disc jockey career. Also, realizing that his fear of commitment (a result of his fear of death of those around him) and his tendency to act on emotion are responsible for his continuing desires to pursue new women, Rob makes a symbolic commitment to Laura.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Rob Fleming is a London record store owner in his mid-thirties whose girlfriend, Laura, has just left him. At the record shop \u2014 named Championship Vinyl \u2014 Rob and his employees Dick and Barry spend their free moments discussing mix-tape aesthetics and constructing \"top-five\" lists of anything that demonstrates their knowledge of music. Rob, recalling his five most memorable breakups, sets about getting in touch with the former girlfriends. Eventually, Rob's re-examination of his failed relationships and the death of Laura's father bring the two back together. Their relationship is cemented by the launch of a new purposefulness to Rob's life in the revival of his disc jockey career. Also, realizing that his fear of commitment (a result of his fear of death of those around him) and his tendency to act on emotion are responsible for his continuing desires to pursue new women, Rob makes a symbolic commitment to Laura.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Red House Mystery",
    "author": "A. A. Milne",
    "published_date": "1922-04-06",
    "synopsis": " The setting is an English country house, where Mark Ablett has been entertaining a house party consisting of a widow and her marriageable daughter, a retired major, a wilful actress, and Bill Beverley, a young man about town. Mark's long-lost brother Robert, the black sheep of the family, arrives from Australia and shortly thereafter is found dead, shot through the head. Mark Ablett has disappeared, so Tony Gillingham, a stranger who has just arrived to call on his friend Bill, decides to investigate. Gillingham plays Sherlock Holmes to his younger counterpart's Doctor Watson; they progress almost playfully through the novel while the clues mount up and the theories abound.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The setting is an English country house, where Mark Ablett has been entertaining a house party consisting of a widow and her marriageable daughter, a retired major, a wilful actress, and Bill Beverley, a young man about town. Mark's long-lost brother Robert, the black sheep of the family, arrives from Australia and shortly thereafter is found dead, shot through the head. Mark Ablett has disappeared, so Tony Gillingham, a stranger who has just arrived to call on his friend Bill, decides to investigate. Gillingham plays Sherlock Holmes to his younger counterpart's Doctor Watson; they progress almost playfully through the novel while the clues mount up and the theories abound.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates",
    "author": "Mary Mapes Dodge",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In Holland, poor-but-industrious and honorable 15-year-old Hans Brinker and his younger sister Gretel, yearn to participate in December's great ice-skating race on the canal. They have little chance of doing well on their handmade wooden skates, but the prospect of the race and the prize of the Silver Skates excite them and fire their dreams. Hans' father, Raff Brinker, is sick and amnesiac, with violent episodes, because of a head injury caused by a fall from a dike, and he cannot work. Mrs. Brinker, Hans, and Gretel must all work to support the family and are looked down upon in the community because of their low income and poor status. Hans has a chance meeting with the famous surgeon Dr. Boekman and begs him to treat their father, but the doctor is expensive and gruff in nature following the loss of his wife and disappearance of his son. Eventually, Dr. Boekman is persuaded to examine the Brinkers' father. He diagnoses pressure on the brain, which can be cured by a risky and expensive operation involving trephining. Hans offers his own money, saved in the hope of buying steel skates, to the doctor to pay for his father's operation. Touched by this gesture, Dr. Boekman provides the surgery for free, and Hans is able to buy good skates for both himself and Gretel to skate in the race. Gretel wins the girls' race, but Hans lets a friend \u2014 who needs it more \u2014 win the precious prize, the Silver Skates, in the boys' race. Mr. Brinker's operation is successful, and he is restored to health and memory. Dr. Boekman is also changed, losing his gruff ways, thanks in part to being able to be reunited with his lost son through the unlikely aid of Mr. Brinker. The Brinkers' fortunes are changed further by the almost miraculous recovery of Mr. Brinker's savings, thought lost or stolen ten years ago. The Brinker parents live a long and happy life. Dr. Boekman helps Hans go to medical school, and Hans becomes a successful doctor. Gretel also grows up to enjoy a happy adult life.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In Holland, poor-but-industrious and honorable 15-year-old Hans Brinker and his younger sister Gretel, yearn to participate in December's great ice-skating race on the canal. They have little chance of doing well on their handmade wooden skates, but the prospect of the race and the prize of the Silver Skates excite them and fire their dreams. Hans' father, Raff Brinker, is sick and amnesiac, with violent episodes, because of a head injury caused by a fall from a dike, and he cannot work. Mrs. Brinker, Hans, and Gretel must all work to support the family and are looked down upon in the community because of their low income and poor status. Hans has a chance meeting with the famous surgeon Dr. Boekman and begs him to treat their father, but the doctor is expensive and gruff in nature following the loss of his wife and disappearance of his son. Eventually, Dr. Boekman is persuaded to examine the Brinkers' father. He diagnoses pressure on the brain, which can be cured by a risky and expensive operation involving trephining. Hans offers his own money, saved in the hope of buying steel skates, to the doctor to pay for his father's operation. Touched by this gesture, Dr. Boekman provides the surgery for free, and Hans is able to buy good skates for both himself and Gretel to skate in the race. Gretel wins the girls' race, but Hans lets a friend \u2014 who needs it more \u2014 win the precious prize, the Silver Skates, in the boys' race. Mr. Brinker's operation is successful, and he is restored to health and memory. Dr. Boekman is also changed, losing his gruff ways, thanks in part to being able to be reunited with his lost son through the unlikely aid of Mr. Brinker. The Brinkers' fortunes are changed"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Gretel wins the girls' race, but Hans lets a friend \u2014 who needs it more \u2014 win the precious prize, the Silver Skates, in the boys' race. Mr. Brinker's operation is successful, and he is restored to health and memory. Dr. Boekman is also changed, losing his gruff ways, thanks in part to being able to be reunited with his lost son through the unlikely aid of Mr. Brinker. The Brinkers' fortunes are changed further by the almost miraculous recovery of Mr. Brinker's savings, thought lost or stolen ten years ago. The Brinker parents live a long and happy life. Dr. Boekman helps Hans go to medical school, and Hans becomes a successful doctor. Gretel also grows up to enjoy a happy adult life.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dreamcatcher",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "2001-03-20",
    "synopsis": " Dreamcatcher is set near the fictional town of Derry, Maine. It is the story of four lifelong friends: Gary Ambrose \"Jonesy\" Jones, Pete Moore, Joe \"Beaver\" Clarendon and Henry Devlin, who save Douglas \"Duddits\" Cavell, a young teen with Down syndrome, from a group of sadistic bullies. The four friends grow up and away from Duddits, but maintain close bonds with each other, sharing memories of Duddits and their good times together. Each has his own troubles: Beaver is terrible in relationships, Pete is an alcoholic, Henry is suicidal (unknown to his friends), and Jonesy almost died from a severe car accident from when he walked into open traffic, having seen a vision of Duddits calling to him. The four go on a hunting trip together each year, and plan to visit Duddits on their return from this year's trip to the Hole-in-the-Wall (a cabin in the woods). While on the trip, Jonesy finds a disoriented and delirious stranger wandering in the woods during a blizzard, and talking about lights in the sky. The man exhibits dyspepsia and extremely foul flatulence but claims that these are the result of eating berries and lichen while he was lost; he has a reddish discoloration on his face, which he dismisses as an allergic rash. Beaver and Jonesy notice large numbers of animals, all with a similar reddish discoloration, migrating. Henry and Pete, driving back to the cabin, lose control of the car and crash when avoiding a woman sitting in the road. Pete's knee is badly injured while Henry only suffers minor injuries. They approach the woman, who mumbles about lights, mentions the man found by Jonesy, and displays the same foul flatulence and burps. Henry and Pete drag her to a safe clearing; Henry goes to find help and tells Pete to stay with the woman and not to go back to the car for the beer. Beaver attracts the attention of rescuers in helicopters, and is told that the entire area has been put under quarantine. The army quarantine is headed by Colonel Abraham Kurtz. On returning to the cabin, Beaver and Jonesey find the man dead on the toilet, and the floor covered with his blood. They hear the toilet water splashing; Beaver sits on the toilet lid, trapping something inside it. Jonesy rushes to the garage to find duct tape to seal off the toilet while Beaver holds the lid down with his body weight; the creature trapped inside keeps trying to escape. Beaver has a nervous habit of chewing on toothpicks; as he tries to take one from his pocket, the creature hits the seat, and Beaver spills all the toothpicks on the blood-covered floor. One toothpick lands on a clean tile, and Beaver bends down to retrieve it. The trapped creature hits the lid from inside the toilet; Beaver loses his balance and falls to the floor, freeing the creature, which then attacks him. The lost man, his hunting companion the woman, and the stampeding animals all have similar symptoms caused by infection with an extraterrestrial macro virus. Army scientists named this The Ripley, after the protagonist of the Alien series, partly because of its extreme resilience to destruction. The friends discover that eating or inhaling the red mold causes large worm-like aliens, called byrum (derived from the name of the alien mold, byrus) to infest the host. Byrum are red, lamprey-like creatures with multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth; a second form of byrus grows on open wounds and mucous membranes. When an infestation is sufficiently established, the host develops a form of telepathy with other infested individuals. The friends name the byrum \"shit weasel\" because it exits the body through the anus, killing the host. Byrum are highly aggressive and, although small are more than capable of killing a human. The byrum matures into a form called a Gray; in their normal environment they would maintain a symbiotic relationship with their host, but the cold environment causes them to react badly and kill their earthly hosts. Once outside the host they die quickly in the cold, as does the byrus fungus. Colonel Kurtz states that the Grays have tried several times over the past century to attack and gain control of earth, but have failed. This time the Grays are outside a crashed spacecraft, sending radio messages stating that they come in peace and are helpless, to try to fool the Army. Several helicopters are sent to wipe out the Grays; they mainly succeed, but many of the soldiers are exposed to the byrus in the attack. Meanwhile, all people in the area who have been affected by the byrus fungus are rounded up by the Army, with the intention that they will later be executed. Jonesy returns to the bathroom, to discover Beaver being killed by the byrum. Beaver uses the last of his strength to hold onto the byrum to prevent it attacking Jonesy, who closes and bolts the door. The byrum begins to break through the door, and one of the escaped Grays appears behind Jonesy, takes over his body and controls itwith difficulty as the human body is so different to its own. Back in Derry, their childhood friend, Duddits, cries and screams to his mother, \"Beaver's Dead! Beaver's dead!\" Pete, who had returned to the car for the beer, makes his way back to the woman but finds her dead; the shit weasel has made its escape from her body and attacks Pete, who defeats it by throwing it into a fire they had built for warmth. His battle with the byrum exposes him to the byrus fungus, which begins to cover his body. Henry, meanwhile, gets to Hole-in-the-Wall, and discovers Jonesy taken over by the alien, Mr. Gray. Mr. Gray uses Jonesy's body to leave on a snowmobile. Inside the house, Henry finds Beaver's dead body and the shit weasel that killed him in the bedroom. The byrum is weak from the cold; Henry shoots it and burns a clutch of eggs which it had laid. Henry leaves to seek help, but is captured by the army and placed in quarantine. Flashbacks to their childhood reveal that each man gained a certain degree of telepathy from being in contact with Duddits, who has special powers. Through their friendship and Duddits' powers they find a missing girl, trapped from falling down a hole. Jonesy battles Mr. Gray in his mind, stealing and locking away his memories of Derry and Duddits from Mr. Gray. While Mr. Gray is in control, Jonesy can see everything happening, but can do nothing. Pete finds Jonesy/Mr. Gray who forces him to direct and accompany him to Derry, after which Mr. Gray makes Byrus fungus constrict and kill Pete. Henry convinces Army officer Owen Underhill to help him, revealing deep memories of the man through the telepathy gained from Duddits. Henry tells Underhill about Jonesy, that he thinks the alien is planning to infect the town's water supply with byrus, and that cold is fatal to the byrus, therefore infected people do not need to be executed. They form a plan. Henry communicates telepathically with the byrus-infected captives, showing them that the Army intends to execute them. They panic and riot; many are killed attempting to escape, but most flee into the woods. Kurtz discovers the plan formulated by Henry and Underhill; he gathers a few of his men, and an officer infected with a byrum, and pursues Henry and the \"rogue\" officer Underhill. Mr. Gray loses his way in the town, following old memories in place of the new ones stolen by Jonesy. Mr. Gray eventually becomes weak from hunger, not recognising what it is; Jonesy guides him to a diner to buy time. Henry and Underhill make their way to Duddits, as Henry believes he is the only hope to defeat Mr. Gray; they find Duddits already packed up and ready to go as he knew they were coming. Duddits is very sick with leukemia; his mother is reluctant to let him go, but she accepts that Duddits needs to help his friends, and that he would be much happier dying in their company than dying alone in his room. Mr. Gray eventually gets to the water supply for several cities in the area; Henry and Duddits confront him. Duddits uses his powers to force Henry and Jonesy into a place in which Mr. Gray, inside of Jonesy, will be vulnerable; he and Henry kill Mr. Gray. As Henry and Jonesy make their way back to their original bodies they find that Duddits has died from the combination of overusing his powers and leukemia. Outside, Kurtz finds Underhill and they are both killed. The byrum from the infected officer escapes but dies in the fire. The last of the alien byrus on earth dies.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Dreamcatcher is set near the fictional town of Derry, Maine. It is the story of four lifelong friends: Gary Ambrose \"Jonesy\" Jones, Pete Moore, Joe \"Beaver\" Clarendon and Henry Devlin, who save Douglas \"Duddits\" Cavell, a young teen with Down syndrome, from a group of sadistic bullies. The four friends grow up and away from Duddits, but maintain close bonds with each other, sharing memories of Duddits and their good times together. Each has his own troubles: Beaver is terrible in relationships, Pete is an alcoholic, Henry is suicidal (unknown to his friends), and Jonesy almost died from a severe car accident from when he walked into open traffic, having seen a vision of Duddits calling to him. The four go on a hunting trip together each year, and plan to visit Duddits on their return from this year's trip to the Hole-in-the-Wall (a cabin in the woods). While on the trip, Jonesy finds a disoriented and delirious stranger wandering in the woods during a blizzard, and talking about lights in the sky. The man exhibits dyspepsia and extremely foul flatulence but claims that these are the result of eating berries and lichen while he was lost; he has a reddish discoloration on his face, which he dismisses as an allergic rash. Beaver and Jonesy notice large numbers of animals, all with a similar reddish discoloration, migrating. Henry and Pete, driving back to the cabin, lose control of the car and crash when avoiding a woman sitting in the road. Pete's knee is badly injured while Henry only suffers minor injuries. They approach the woman, who mumbles about lights, mentions the man found by Jonesy, and displays the same foul flatulence and burps. Henry and Pete drag her to a safe clearing; Henry goes to find help and tells Pete to stay with"
      },
      {
        "text": " a similar reddish discoloration, migrating. Henry and Pete, driving back to the cabin, lose control of the car and crash when avoiding a woman sitting in the road. Pete's knee is badly injured while Henry only suffers minor injuries. They approach the woman, who mumbles about lights, mentions the man found by Jonesy, and displays the same foul flatulence and burps. Henry and Pete drag her to a safe clearing; Henry goes to find help and tells Pete to stay with the woman and not to go back to the car for the beer. Beaver attracts the attention of rescuers in helicopters, and is told that the entire area has been put under quarantine. The army quarantine is headed by Colonel Abraham Kurtz. On returning to the cabin, Beaver and Jonesey find the man dead on the toilet, and the floor covered with his blood. They hear the toilet water splashing; Beaver sits on the toilet lid, trapping something inside it. Jonesy rushes to the garage to find duct tape to seal off the toilet while Beaver holds the lid down with his body weight; the creature trapped inside keeps trying to escape. Beaver has a nervous habit of chewing on toothpicks; as he tries to take one from his pocket, the creature hits the seat, and Beaver spills all the toothpicks on the blood-covered floor. One toothpick lands on a clean tile, and Beaver bends down to retrieve it. The trapped creature hits the lid from inside the toilet; Beaver loses his balance and falls to the floor, freeing the creature, which then attacks him. The lost man, his hunting companion the woman, and the stampeding animals all have similar symptoms caused by infection with an extraterrestrial macro virus. Army scientists named this The Ripley, after the protagonist of the Alien series, partly because of its extreme resilience to destruction. The friends discover that eating or inhaling the red mold causes large worm-like aliens, called byrum (derived from the name of"
      },
      {
        "text": " Beaver loses his balance and falls to the floor, freeing the creature, which then attacks him. The lost man, his hunting companion the woman, and the stampeding animals all have similar symptoms caused by infection with an extraterrestrial macro virus. Army scientists named this The Ripley, after the protagonist of the Alien series, partly because of its extreme resilience to destruction. The friends discover that eating or inhaling the red mold causes large worm-like aliens, called byrum (derived from the name of the alien mold, byrus) to infest the host. Byrum are red, lamprey-like creatures with multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth; a second form of byrus grows on open wounds and mucous membranes. When an infestation is sufficiently established, the host develops a form of telepathy with other infested individuals. The friends name the byrum \"shit weasel\" because it exits the body through the anus, killing the host. Byrum are highly aggressive and, although small are more than capable of killing a human. The byrum matures into a form called a Gray; in their normal environment they would maintain a symbiotic relationship with their host, but the cold environment causes them to react badly and kill their earthly hosts. Once outside the host they die quickly in the cold, as does the byrus fungus. Colonel Kurtz states that the Grays have tried several times over the past century to attack and gain control of earth, but have failed. This time the Grays are outside a crashed spacecraft, sending radio messages stating that they come in peace and are helpless, to try to fool the Army. Several helicopters are sent to wipe out the Grays; they mainly succeed, but many of the soldiers are exposed to the byrus in the attack. Meanwhile, all people in the area who have been affected by the byrus fungus are rounded up by the Army, with the intention that they will later be executed. Jonesy returns to the bathroom,"
      },
      {
        "text": " time the Grays are outside a crashed spacecraft, sending radio messages stating that they come in peace and are helpless, to try to fool the Army. Several helicopters are sent to wipe out the Grays; they mainly succeed, but many of the soldiers are exposed to the byrus in the attack. Meanwhile, all people in the area who have been affected by the byrus fungus are rounded up by the Army, with the intention that they will later be executed. Jonesy returns to the bathroom, to discover Beaver being killed by the byrum. Beaver uses the last of his strength to hold onto the byrum to prevent it attacking Jonesy, who closes and bolts the door. The byrum begins to break through the door, and one of the escaped Grays appears behind Jonesy, takes over his body and controls itwith difficulty as the human body is so different to its own. Back in Derry, their childhood friend, Duddits, cries and screams to his mother, \"Beaver's Dead! Beaver's dead!\" Pete, who had returned to the car for the beer, makes his way back to the woman but finds her dead; the shit weasel has made its escape from her body and attacks Pete, who defeats it by throwing it into a fire they had built for warmth. His battle with the byrum exposes him to the byrus fungus, which begins to cover his body. Henry, meanwhile, gets to Hole-in-the-Wall, and discovers Jonesy taken over by the alien, Mr. Gray. Mr. Gray uses Jonesy's body to leave on a snowmobile. Inside the house, Henry finds Beaver's dead body and the shit weasel that killed him in the bedroom. The byrum is weak from the cold; Henry shoots it and burns a clutch of eggs which it had laid. Henry leaves to seek help, but is captured by the army and placed in quarantine. Flashbacks to their childhood reveal that each man gained a"
      },
      {
        "text": " Jonesy taken over by the alien, Mr. Gray. Mr. Gray uses Jonesy's body to leave on a snowmobile. Inside the house, Henry finds Beaver's dead body and the shit weasel that killed him in the bedroom. The byrum is weak from the cold; Henry shoots it and burns a clutch of eggs which it had laid. Henry leaves to seek help, but is captured by the army and placed in quarantine. Flashbacks to their childhood reveal that each man gained a certain degree of telepathy from being in contact with Duddits, who has special powers. Through their friendship and Duddits' powers they find a missing girl, trapped from falling down a hole. Jonesy battles Mr. Gray in his mind, stealing and locking away his memories of Derry and Duddits from Mr. Gray. While Mr. Gray is in control, Jonesy can see everything happening, but can do nothing. Pete finds Jonesy/Mr. Gray who forces him to direct and accompany him to Derry, after which Mr. Gray makes Byrus fungus constrict and kill Pete. Henry convinces Army officer Owen Underhill to help him, revealing deep memories of the man through the telepathy gained from Duddits. Henry tells Underhill about Jonesy, that he thinks the alien is planning to infect the town's water supply with byrus, and that cold is fatal to the byrus, therefore infected people do not need to be executed. They form a plan. Henry communicates telepathically with the byrus-infected captives, showing them that the Army intends to execute them. They panic and riot; many are killed attempting to escape, but most flee into the woods. Kurtz discovers the plan formulated by Henry and Underhill; he gathers a few of his men, and an officer infected with a byrum, and pursues Henry and the \"rogue\" officer Underhill. Mr. Gray loses his way in the town, following"
      },
      {
        "text": " a plan. Henry communicates telepathically with the byrus-infected captives, showing them that the Army intends to execute them. They panic and riot; many are killed attempting to escape, but most flee into the woods. Kurtz discovers the plan formulated by Henry and Underhill; he gathers a few of his men, and an officer infected with a byrum, and pursues Henry and the \"rogue\" officer Underhill. Mr. Gray loses his way in the town, following old memories in place of the new ones stolen by Jonesy. Mr. Gray eventually becomes weak from hunger, not recognising what it is; Jonesy guides him to a diner to buy time. Henry and Underhill make their way to Duddits, as Henry believes he is the only hope to defeat Mr. Gray; they find Duddits already packed up and ready to go as he knew they were coming. Duddits is very sick with leukemia; his mother is reluctant to let him go, but she accepts that Duddits needs to help his friends, and that he would be much happier dying in their company than dying alone in his room. Mr. Gray eventually gets to the water supply for several cities in the area; Henry and Duddits confront him. Duddits uses his powers to force Henry and Jonesy into a place in which Mr. Gray, inside of Jonesy, will be vulnerable; he and Henry kill Mr. Gray. As Henry and Jonesy make their way back to their original bodies they find that Duddits has died from the combination of overusing his powers and leukemia. Outside, Kurtz finds Underhill and they are both killed. The byrum from the infected officer escapes but dies in the fire. The last of the alien byrus on earth dies.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "y make their way back to their original bodies they find that Duddits has died from the combination of overusing his powers and leukemia. Outside, Kurtz finds Underhill and they are both killed. The byrum from the infected officer escapes but dies in the fire. The last of the alien byrus on earth dies.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Long Voyage Back",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " : \"In a nuclear war, the USSR will win. This is because the average Russian doesn't have a gun, so they can't all shoot each other and the army for food\" The story concerns a hypothetical World War III between the USSR and the United States, and graphically depicts the ensuing carnage. One family and some friends try to run away in a sailboat, and the story describes their battles with nuclear winter and fallout, and with the ensuing collapse of civilization.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " : \"In a nuclear war, the USSR will win. This is because the average Russian doesn't have a gun, so they can't all shoot each other and the army for food\" The story concerns a hypothetical World War III between the USSR and the United States, and graphically depicts the ensuing carnage. One family and some friends try to run away in a sailboat, and the story describes their battles with nuclear winter and fallout, and with the ensuing collapse of civilization.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Foucault's Pendulum",
    "author": "Umberto Eco",
    "published_date": "1988",
    "synopsis": " The plot of Foucault's Pendulum revolves around three friends, as relevant to the rule of three, named Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon, who work for a vanity publisher in Milan. After reading one too many manuscripts about occult conspiracy theories, they decide they can do better, and set out to invent their own conspiracy for fun. They call this satirical intellectual game \"The Plan\". As Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon become increasingly obsessed with The Plan, they sometimes forget that it's just a game. Worse still, when adherents of other conspiracy theories learn about The Plan, they take it seriously. Belbo finds himself the target of a very real secret society that believes he possesses the key to the lost treasure of the Knights Templar. A number of sub-plots are woven into the grand theme of The Plan. Belbo's obsession with the plan is justified by his experiences as a child in Italy during World War II, his unrequited love for the mercurial Lorenza Pellegrini, and his desire to absolve himself from a constant sense of failure. Against the backdrop of the Templar Plan for world domination, the novel brings out the credulity inherent in all people. The book opens with the narrator, Casaubon (his name refers to classical scholar Isaac Casaubon, and also evokes a scholar character in George Eliot's Middlemarch) hiding in fear after closing time in the Parisian technical museum Mus\u00e9e des Arts et M\u00e9tiers. He believes that members of a secret society have kidnapped Belbo and are now after him. Most of the novel is then told in flashback as Casaubon waits in the museum. Casaubon had been a student in 1970s Milan, working on a thesis on the history of the Knights Templar while taking in the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary activities of the students around him. During this period he meets Belbo, who works as an editor in a publishing house. Belbo invites Casaubon to review the manuscript of a supposedly non-fiction book about the Templars. Casaubon also meets Belbo's colleague Diotallevi, a cabalist. The book, by a Colonel Ardenti, claims a hidden coded manuscript has revealed a secret plan of the medieval Templars to take over the world. This supposed conspiracy is meant as revenge for the deaths of the Templar leaders when their order was disbanded by the King of France. Ardenti postulates that the Templars were the guardians of a secret treasure, perhaps the Holy Grail of legend, which he suspects was a radioactive energy source. According to Ardenti's theory, after the French monarchy and the Catholic Church disbanded the Templars on the grounds of heresy, some knights escaped and established cells throughout the world. These cells have been meeting at regular intervals in distinct places to pass on information about the Grail. Ultimately, these cells will reunite to rediscover the Grail's location and achieve world domination. According to Ardenti's calculations, the Templars should have taken over the world in 1944; evidently the plan has been interrupted. Ardenti mysteriously vanishes after meeting with Belbo and Casaubon to discuss his book. A police inspector, De Angelis, interviews both men. He hints that his job as a political department investigator leads him to investigate not only revolutionaries but also people who claim to be linked to the Occult. Casaubon has a romance with a Brazilian woman named Amparo. He leaves Italy to follow her and spends a few years in Brazil. While living there, he learns about South American and Caribbean spiritualism, and meets Agli\u00e8, an elderly man who implies that he is the mystical Comte de Saint-Germain. Agli\u00e8 has a seemingly infinite supply of knowledge about things concerning the Occult. While in Brazil, Casaubon receives a letter from Belbo about attending a meeting of occultists. At the meeting Belbo was reminded of the Colonel's conspiracy theory by the words of a young woman who was apparently in a trance. Casaubon and Amparo also attend an occult event in Brazil, an Umbanda rite. During the ritual Amparo falls into a trance herself, an experience she finds deeply disturbing and embarrassing, as she is Marxist by ideology and as such disbelieves and shuns spiritual and religious experiences. Her relationship with Casaubon falls apart, and he returns to Italy. On his return to Milan, Casaubon begins working as a freelance researcher. At the library he meets a woman named Lia; the two fall in love and eventually have a child together. Meanwhile, Casaubon is hired by Belbo's boss, Mr. Garamond (his name refers to French publisher Claude Garamond), to research illustrations for a history of metals the company is preparing. Casaubon learns that as well as the respectable Garamond publishing house, Mr. Garamond also owns Manuzio, a vanity publisher that charges incompetent authors large sums of money to print their work (rendered \"Manutius\" in the English translation, a reference to the 15th century printer Aldus Manutius). Mr. Garamond soon has the idea to begin two lines of occult books: one intended for serious publication by Garamond; the other, Isis Unveiled (a reference to the theosophical text by Blavatsky), to be published by Manutius in order to attract more vanity authors. Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon quickly become submerged in occult manuscripts that draw all sorts of flimsy connections between historical events. They nickname the authors the \"Diabolicals\", and engage Agli\u00e8 as a specialist reader. The three editors start to develop their own conspiracy theory, \"The Plan\", as part satire and part intellectual game. Starting from Ardenti's \"secret manuscript\", they develop an intricate web of mystical connections. They also make use of Belbo's small personal computer, which he has nicknamed Abulafia. Belbo mainly uses Abulafia for his personal writings (the novel contains many excerpts of these, discovered by Casaubon as he goes through Abulafia's files), but it came equipped with a small program that can rearrange text in random. (Compare with the game of Dissociated Press and Ramon Llull's Ars Magna.) They use this program to create the \"connections\" which inspire their Plan. They enter randomly selected words from the Diabolicals' manuscripts, logical operators (\"What follows is not true\", \"If\", \"Then\", etc.), truisms (such as \"The Templars have something to do with everything\") and \"neutral data\" (such as \"Minnie Mouse is Mickey Mouse's fianc\u00e9e\") and use Abulafia to create new text. Their first attempt ends up recreating (after a liberal interpretation of the results) the Mary Magdalene conspiracy theory central to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Casaubon jokingly suggests that to create something truly new Belbo must look for occult connections in non-obvious contexts, such as by linking the Kabbalah to a car's spark plugs. (Belbo actually does this, and after some research concludes that the powertrain is a metaphor for the Tree of life.) Pleased with the results of the random text program, the three continue resorting to Abulafia whenever they reach a dead-end with their game. \"The Plan\" evolves slowly, but the final version involves the Knights Templar's coming into possession of an ancient secret knowledge of energy flows called telluric currents during the Crusades. The original Knights Templar organization is destroyed after the execution of Jacques de Molay, but the members split into independent cells located in several corners of Europe and the Middle East. As in Ardenti's original theory, each cell is given part of the Templar \"Plan\" and information about the secret discovery. They are to meet periodically at different locations to share sections of the Plan, gradually reconstructing the original. Then they will reunite and take over the world using the power of the telluric currents. The crucial instruments involved in their plan are a special map and the Foucault pendulum. While the Plan is far-fetched, the editors become increasingly involved in their game. They even begin to think that there might really be a secret conspiracy after all. Ardenti's disappearance, and his original \"coded manuscript\", seem to have no other explanation. However, when Casaubon's girlfriend Lia asks to see the coded manuscript, she comes up with a mundane interpretation. She suggests that the document is simply a delivery list, and encourages Casaubon to abandon the game as she fears it is having a negative effect on him. When Diotallevi is diagnosed with cancer, he attributes this to his participation in The Plan. He feels that the disease is a divine punishment for involving himself in mysteries he should have left alone and creating a game that mocked something larger than them all. Belbo meanwhile retreats even farther into the Plan to avoid confronting problems in his personal life. The three had sent Agli\u00e8 their chronology of secret societies in the Plan, pretending it was not their own work but rather a manuscript they had been presented with. Their list includes historic organizations such as the Templars, Rosicrucians, Paulicians and Synarchists, but they also invent a fictional secret society called the Tres (Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici, Latin for the nonsensical \"Synarchic Knights of Templar Rebirth\"). The Tres is introduced to trick Agli\u00e8. Upon reading the list, he claims not to have heard of the Tres before. (The word was first mentioned to Casaubon by the policeman De Angelis. De Angelis had asked Casaubon if he has ever heard of the Tres.) Belbo goes to Agli\u00e8 privately and describes The Plan to him as though it were the result of serious research. He also claims to be in possession of the secret Templar map. Agli\u00e8 becomes frustrated with Belbo's refusal to let him see this (non-existent) map. He frames Belbo as a terrorist suspect in order to force him to come to Paris. Agli\u00e8 has cast himself as the head of a secret spiritual brotherhood, which includes Mr. Garamond, Colonel Ardenti and many of the Diabolical authors. Belbo tries to get help from De Angelis, but he has just transferred to Sardinia after an attempted car bombing, and refuses to get involved. Casaubon receives a call for help; he goes to Belbo's apartment, and reads all the documents that Belbo stored in his computer, then decides to follow Belbo to Paris himself. He decides that Agli\u00e8 and his associates must intend to meet at the museum where Foucault's Pendulum is housed, as Belbo had claimed that the Templar map had to be used in conjunction with the pendulum. Casaubon hides in the museum, where he was when the novel opened. At the appointed hour, a group of people gather around the pendulum for an arcane ritual. Casaubon sees several ectoplasmic forms appear, one of which claims to be the real Comte de Saint-Germain and discredits Agli\u00e8 in front of his followers. Belbo is then brought out to be questioned. Agli\u00e8's group are, or have deluded themselves to be, the Tres society in the Plan. Angry that Belbo knows more about The Plan than they do, they try to force him to reveal the secrets he knows, even going so far as to try to coerce him using Lorenza. Refusing to satisfy them or reveal that the Plan was a nonsensical concoction, his refusal incites a riot during which Lorenza is stabbed and Belbo is hanged by wire connected to Foucault's Pendulum. (The act of his hanging actually changes the act of the pendulum, causing it to oscillate from his neck instead of the fixed point above him, ruining any chance of displaying any correct location the Tres meant to find.) Casaubon escapes the museum through the Paris sewers, eventually fleeing to the countryside villa where Belbo had grown up. It is unclear by this point how reliable a narrator Casaubon has been, and to what extent he has been inventing, or deceived by, conspiracy theories. Casaubon soon learns that Diotallevi succumbed to his cancer at midnight on St. John\u2019s Eve, coincidentally the same time Belbo died. The novel ends with Casaubon meditating on the events of the book, apparently resigned to the (possibly delusional) idea that the Tres will capture him soon. And when they do, he will follow Belbo's lead, refusing to give them any clues, refusing to create a lie. While waiting, holed up in a farmhouse where Belbo lived years before, he finds an old manuscript by Belbo, a sort of diary. He discovers that Belbo had a mystical experience at the age of twelve, in which he perceived ultimate meaning beyond signs and semiotics. He realizes that much of Belbo's behavior and possibly his creation of the Plan and even his death was inspired by Belbo's desire to recapture that lost meaning.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The plot of Foucault's Pendulum revolves around three friends, as relevant to the rule of three, named Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon, who work for a vanity publisher in Milan. After reading one too many manuscripts about occult conspiracy theories, they decide they can do better, and set out to invent their own conspiracy for fun. They call this satirical intellectual game \"The Plan\". As Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon become increasingly obsessed with The Plan, they sometimes forget that it's just a game. Worse still, when adherents of other conspiracy theories learn about The Plan, they take it seriously. Belbo finds himself the target of a very real secret society that believes he possesses the key to the lost treasure of the Knights Templar. A number of sub-plots are woven into the grand theme of The Plan. Belbo's obsession with the plan is justified by his experiences as a child in Italy during World War II, his unrequited love for the mercurial Lorenza Pellegrini, and his desire to absolve himself from a constant sense of failure. Against the backdrop of the Templar Plan for world domination, the novel brings out the credulity inherent in all people. The book opens with the narrator, Casaubon (his name refers to classical scholar Isaac Casaubon, and also evokes a scholar character in George Eliot's Middlemarch) hiding in fear after closing time in the Parisian technical museum Mus\u00e9e des Arts et M\u00e9tiers. He believes that members of a secret society have kidnapped Belbo and are now after him. Most of the novel is then told in flashback as Casaubon waits in the museum. Casaubon had been a student in 1970s Milan, working on a thesis on the history of the Knights Templar while taking in the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary activities of the students around him. During this period he meets Belbo,"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Parisian technical museum Mus\u00e9e des Arts et M\u00e9tiers. He believes that members of a secret society have kidnapped Belbo and are now after him. Most of the novel is then told in flashback as Casaubon waits in the museum. Casaubon had been a student in 1970s Milan, working on a thesis on the history of the Knights Templar while taking in the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary activities of the students around him. During this period he meets Belbo, who works as an editor in a publishing house. Belbo invites Casaubon to review the manuscript of a supposedly non-fiction book about the Templars. Casaubon also meets Belbo's colleague Diotallevi, a cabalist. The book, by a Colonel Ardenti, claims a hidden coded manuscript has revealed a secret plan of the medieval Templars to take over the world. This supposed conspiracy is meant as revenge for the deaths of the Templar leaders when their order was disbanded by the King of France. Ardenti postulates that the Templars were the guardians of a secret treasure, perhaps the Holy Grail of legend, which he suspects was a radioactive energy source. According to Ardenti's theory, after the French monarchy and the Catholic Church disbanded the Templars on the grounds of heresy, some knights escaped and established cells throughout the world. These cells have been meeting at regular intervals in distinct places to pass on information about the Grail. Ultimately, these cells will reunite to rediscover the Grail's location and achieve world domination. According to Ardenti's calculations, the Templars should have taken over the world in 1944; evidently the plan has been interrupted. Ardenti mysteriously vanishes after meeting with Belbo and Casaubon to discuss his book. A police inspector, De Angelis, interviews both men. He hints that his job as a political department investigator leads him to investigate not only revolutionaries but also people who claim to be linked"
      },
      {
        "text": " will reunite to rediscover the Grail's location and achieve world domination. According to Ardenti's calculations, the Templars should have taken over the world in 1944; evidently the plan has been interrupted. Ardenti mysteriously vanishes after meeting with Belbo and Casaubon to discuss his book. A police inspector, De Angelis, interviews both men. He hints that his job as a political department investigator leads him to investigate not only revolutionaries but also people who claim to be linked to the Occult. Casaubon has a romance with a Brazilian woman named Amparo. He leaves Italy to follow her and spends a few years in Brazil. While living there, he learns about South American and Caribbean spiritualism, and meets Agli\u00e8, an elderly man who implies that he is the mystical Comte de Saint-Germain. Agli\u00e8 has a seemingly infinite supply of knowledge about things concerning the Occult. While in Brazil, Casaubon receives a letter from Belbo about attending a meeting of occultists. At the meeting Belbo was reminded of the Colonel's conspiracy theory by the words of a young woman who was apparently in a trance. Casaubon and Amparo also attend an occult event in Brazil, an Umbanda rite. During the ritual Amparo falls into a trance herself, an experience she finds deeply disturbing and embarrassing, as she is Marxist by ideology and as such disbelieves and shuns spiritual and religious experiences. Her relationship with Casaubon falls apart, and he returns to Italy. On his return to Milan, Casaubon begins working as a freelance researcher. At the library he meets a woman named Lia; the two fall in love and eventually have a child together. Meanwhile, Casaubon is hired by Belbo's boss, Mr. Garamond (his name refers to French publisher Claude Garamond), to research illustrations for a history of metals the company is preparing."
      },
      {
        "text": ". Her relationship with Casaubon falls apart, and he returns to Italy. On his return to Milan, Casaubon begins working as a freelance researcher. At the library he meets a woman named Lia; the two fall in love and eventually have a child together. Meanwhile, Casaubon is hired by Belbo's boss, Mr. Garamond (his name refers to French publisher Claude Garamond), to research illustrations for a history of metals the company is preparing. Casaubon learns that as well as the respectable Garamond publishing house, Mr. Garamond also owns Manuzio, a vanity publisher that charges incompetent authors large sums of money to print their work (rendered \"Manutius\" in the English translation, a reference to the 15th century printer Aldus Manutius). Mr. Garamond soon has the idea to begin two lines of occult books: one intended for serious publication by Garamond; the other, Isis Unveiled (a reference to the theosophical text by Blavatsky), to be published by Manutius in order to attract more vanity authors. Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon quickly become submerged in occult manuscripts that draw all sorts of flimsy connections between historical events. They nickname the authors the \"Diabolicals\", and engage Agli\u00e8 as a specialist reader. The three editors start to develop their own conspiracy theory, \"The Plan\", as part satire and part intellectual game. Starting from Ardenti's \"secret manuscript\", they develop an intricate web of mystical connections. They also make use of Belbo's small personal computer, which he has nicknamed Abulafia. Belbo mainly uses Abulafia for his personal writings (the novel contains many excerpts of these, discovered by Casaubon as he goes through Abulafia's files), but it came equipped with a small program that can rearrange text in random. (Compare with"
      },
      {
        "text": " satire and part intellectual game. Starting from Ardenti's \"secret manuscript\", they develop an intricate web of mystical connections. They also make use of Belbo's small personal computer, which he has nicknamed Abulafia. Belbo mainly uses Abulafia for his personal writings (the novel contains many excerpts of these, discovered by Casaubon as he goes through Abulafia's files), but it came equipped with a small program that can rearrange text in random. (Compare with the game of Dissociated Press and Ramon Llull's Ars Magna.) They use this program to create the \"connections\" which inspire their Plan. They enter randomly selected words from the Diabolicals' manuscripts, logical operators (\"What follows is not true\", \"If\", \"Then\", etc.), truisms (such as \"The Templars have something to do with everything\") and \"neutral data\" (such as \"Minnie Mouse is Mickey Mouse's fianc\u00e9e\") and use Abulafia to create new text. Their first attempt ends up recreating (after a liberal interpretation of the results) the Mary Magdalene conspiracy theory central to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Casaubon jokingly suggests that to create something truly new Belbo must look for occult connections in non-obvious contexts, such as by linking the Kabbalah to a car's spark plugs. (Belbo actually does this, and after some research concludes that the powertrain is a metaphor for the Tree of life.) Pleased with the results of the random text program, the three continue resorting to Abulafia whenever they reach a dead-end with their game. \"The Plan\" evolves slowly, but the final version involves the Knights Templar's coming into possession of an ancient secret knowledge of energy flows called telluric currents during the Crusades. The original Knights Templar organization is destroyed after the execution of Jacques de Molay, but the members split into independent cells"
      },
      {
        "text": " is a metaphor for the Tree of life.) Pleased with the results of the random text program, the three continue resorting to Abulafia whenever they reach a dead-end with their game. \"The Plan\" evolves slowly, but the final version involves the Knights Templar's coming into possession of an ancient secret knowledge of energy flows called telluric currents during the Crusades. The original Knights Templar organization is destroyed after the execution of Jacques de Molay, but the members split into independent cells located in several corners of Europe and the Middle East. As in Ardenti's original theory, each cell is given part of the Templar \"Plan\" and information about the secret discovery. They are to meet periodically at different locations to share sections of the Plan, gradually reconstructing the original. Then they will reunite and take over the world using the power of the telluric currents. The crucial instruments involved in their plan are a special map and the Foucault pendulum. While the Plan is far-fetched, the editors become increasingly involved in their game. They even begin to think that there might really be a secret conspiracy after all. Ardenti's disappearance, and his original \"coded manuscript\", seem to have no other explanation. However, when Casaubon's girlfriend Lia asks to see the coded manuscript, she comes up with a mundane interpretation. She suggests that the document is simply a delivery list, and encourages Casaubon to abandon the game as she fears it is having a negative effect on him. When Diotallevi is diagnosed with cancer, he attributes this to his participation in The Plan. He feels that the disease is a divine punishment for involving himself in mysteries he should have left alone and creating a game that mocked something larger than them all. Belbo meanwhile retreats even farther into the Plan to avoid confronting problems in his personal life. The three had sent Agli\u00e8 their chronology of secret societies in the Plan, pretending it was not"
      },
      {
        "text": " it is having a negative effect on him. When Diotallevi is diagnosed with cancer, he attributes this to his participation in The Plan. He feels that the disease is a divine punishment for involving himself in mysteries he should have left alone and creating a game that mocked something larger than them all. Belbo meanwhile retreats even farther into the Plan to avoid confronting problems in his personal life. The three had sent Agli\u00e8 their chronology of secret societies in the Plan, pretending it was not their own work but rather a manuscript they had been presented with. Their list includes historic organizations such as the Templars, Rosicrucians, Paulicians and Synarchists, but they also invent a fictional secret society called the Tres (Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici, Latin for the nonsensical \"Synarchic Knights of Templar Rebirth\"). The Tres is introduced to trick Agli\u00e8. Upon reading the list, he claims not to have heard of the Tres before. (The word was first mentioned to Casaubon by the policeman De Angelis. De Angelis had asked Casaubon if he has ever heard of the Tres.) Belbo goes to Agli\u00e8 privately and describes The Plan to him as though it were the result of serious research. He also claims to be in possession of the secret Templar map. Agli\u00e8 becomes frustrated with Belbo's refusal to let him see this (non-existent) map. He frames Belbo as a terrorist suspect in order to force him to come to Paris. Agli\u00e8 has cast himself as the head of a secret spiritual brotherhood, which includes Mr. Garamond, Colonel Ardenti and many of the Diabolical authors. Belbo tries to get help from De Angelis, but he has just transferred to Sardinia after an attempted car bombing, and refuses to get involved. Casaubon receives a call for help; he goes to Bel"
      },
      {
        "text": " He frames Belbo as a terrorist suspect in order to force him to come to Paris. Agli\u00e8 has cast himself as the head of a secret spiritual brotherhood, which includes Mr. Garamond, Colonel Ardenti and many of the Diabolical authors. Belbo tries to get help from De Angelis, but he has just transferred to Sardinia after an attempted car bombing, and refuses to get involved. Casaubon receives a call for help; he goes to Belbo's apartment, and reads all the documents that Belbo stored in his computer, then decides to follow Belbo to Paris himself. He decides that Agli\u00e8 and his associates must intend to meet at the museum where Foucault's Pendulum is housed, as Belbo had claimed that the Templar map had to be used in conjunction with the pendulum. Casaubon hides in the museum, where he was when the novel opened. At the appointed hour, a group of people gather around the pendulum for an arcane ritual. Casaubon sees several ectoplasmic forms appear, one of which claims to be the real Comte de Saint-Germain and discredits Agli\u00e8 in front of his followers. Belbo is then brought out to be questioned. Agli\u00e8's group are, or have deluded themselves to be, the Tres society in the Plan. Angry that Belbo knows more about The Plan than they do, they try to force him to reveal the secrets he knows, even going so far as to try to coerce him using Lorenza. Refusing to satisfy them or reveal that the Plan was a nonsensical concoction, his refusal incites a riot during which Lorenza is stabbed and Belbo is hanged by wire connected to Foucault's Pendulum. (The act of his hanging actually changes the act of the pendulum, causing it to oscillate from his neck instead of the fixed point above him, ruining any"
      },
      {
        "text": " him to reveal the secrets he knows, even going so far as to try to coerce him using Lorenza. Refusing to satisfy them or reveal that the Plan was a nonsensical concoction, his refusal incites a riot during which Lorenza is stabbed and Belbo is hanged by wire connected to Foucault's Pendulum. (The act of his hanging actually changes the act of the pendulum, causing it to oscillate from his neck instead of the fixed point above him, ruining any chance of displaying any correct location the Tres meant to find.) Casaubon escapes the museum through the Paris sewers, eventually fleeing to the countryside villa where Belbo had grown up. It is unclear by this point how reliable a narrator Casaubon has been, and to what extent he has been inventing, or deceived by, conspiracy theories. Casaubon soon learns that Diotallevi succumbed to his cancer at midnight on St. John\u2019s Eve, coincidentally the same time Belbo died. The novel ends with Casaubon meditating on the events of the book, apparently resigned to the (possibly delusional) idea that the Tres will capture him soon. And when they do, he will follow Belbo's lead, refusing to give them any clues, refusing to create a lie. While waiting, holed up in a farmhouse where Belbo lived years before, he finds an old manuscript by Belbo, a sort of diary. He discovers that Belbo had a mystical experience at the age of twelve, in which he perceived ultimate meaning beyond signs and semiotics. He realizes that much of Belbo's behavior and possibly his creation of the Plan and even his death was inspired by Belbo's desire to recapture that lost meaning.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". He discovers that Belbo had a mystical experience at the age of twelve, in which he perceived ultimate meaning beyond signs and semiotics. He realizes that much of Belbo's behavior and possibly his creation of the Plan and even his death was inspired by Belbo's desire to recapture that lost meaning.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang",
    "author": "Ian Fleming",
    "published_date": "1964-10-22",
    "synopsis": " Commander Caractacus Pott is an inventor who buys and renovates an old car after gaining money from inventing and selling whistle-like sweets to Lord Skrumshus, the wealthy owner of a local confectionery factory. The car, a \"Paragon Panther,\" was the sole production of the Paragon motor-car company before it went bankrupt. It is a four-seat touring car with an enormous bonnet. After the restoration is complete, the car is named for the noises made by its starter motor and the characteristic two loud backfires it makes when it starts. At first Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang is just a big and powerful car, but as the book progresses the car surprises the family by beginning to exhibit independent actions. This first happens while the family is caught in a traffic jam on their way to the beach for a picnic. The car suddenly instructs Commander Pott to pull a switch which causes Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang to sprout wings and take flight over the stopped cars on the road. Commander Pott flies them to Goodwin Sands in the English Channel where the family picnics, swims, and sleeps. While the family naps, the tide comes in threatening to drown them. Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang wakes them just in time with a hiss of steam. At the car's direction, Commander Pott pulls another switch which causes it to transform into a hovercraft-like vehicle. They make for the French coast and land on a beach near Calais. They explore along the beach and find a cave boobytrapped with some devices intended to scare off intruders. At the back of the cave is a store of armaments and explosives. The family detonate the cache of explosives and flee the cave. The gangsters/gun-runners who own the ammunition dump arrive and block the road in front of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. The gangsters threaten the family, but Commander Pott throws the switch which transforms the car into an aeroplane and they take off, leaving the gangsters in helpless fury. The Potts stay overnight in a hotel in Calais. While the family sleeps, the gangsters break into the children's room and kidnap them and drive off towards Paris. Chitty tracks the gangsters' route, wakes Commander and Mrs. Pott, and they drive off in pursuit. The gangsters are planning to rob a famous chocolate shop in Paris using the children as decoys. The Pott children overhear this and manage to warn the shop owner, Monsieur Bon-Bon. Chitty arrives in time to prevent the gangsters from fleeing. The police arrive and the gangsters are taken away. As a reward Monsieur Bon-Bon's wife shares the secret recipe of her world famous fudge with the Potts and the two families become good friends. Chitty flies the family away to parts unknown, and the book implies that the car has yet more secrets.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Commander Caractacus Pott is an inventor who buys and renovates an old car after gaining money from inventing and selling whistle-like sweets to Lord Skrumshus, the wealthy owner of a local confectionery factory. The car, a \"Paragon Panther,\" was the sole production of the Paragon motor-car company before it went bankrupt. It is a four-seat touring car with an enormous bonnet. After the restoration is complete, the car is named for the noises made by its starter motor and the characteristic two loud backfires it makes when it starts. At first Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang is just a big and powerful car, but as the book progresses the car surprises the family by beginning to exhibit independent actions. This first happens while the family is caught in a traffic jam on their way to the beach for a picnic. The car suddenly instructs Commander Pott to pull a switch which causes Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang to sprout wings and take flight over the stopped cars on the road. Commander Pott flies them to Goodwin Sands in the English Channel where the family picnics, swims, and sleeps. While the family naps, the tide comes in threatening to drown them. Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang wakes them just in time with a hiss of steam. At the car's direction, Commander Pott pulls another switch which causes it to transform into a hovercraft-like vehicle. They make for the French coast and land on a beach near Calais. They explore along the beach and find a cave boobytrapped with some devices intended to scare off intruders. At the back of the cave is a store of armaments and explosives. The family detonate the cache of explosives and flee the cave. The gangsters/gun-runners who own the ammunition dump arrive and block the road in front of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. The gangsters threaten the"
      },
      {
        "text": " They make for the French coast and land on a beach near Calais. They explore along the beach and find a cave boobytrapped with some devices intended to scare off intruders. At the back of the cave is a store of armaments and explosives. The family detonate the cache of explosives and flee the cave. The gangsters/gun-runners who own the ammunition dump arrive and block the road in front of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. The gangsters threaten the family, but Commander Pott throws the switch which transforms the car into an aeroplane and they take off, leaving the gangsters in helpless fury. The Potts stay overnight in a hotel in Calais. While the family sleeps, the gangsters break into the children's room and kidnap them and drive off towards Paris. Chitty tracks the gangsters' route, wakes Commander and Mrs. Pott, and they drive off in pursuit. The gangsters are planning to rob a famous chocolate shop in Paris using the children as decoys. The Pott children overhear this and manage to warn the shop owner, Monsieur Bon-Bon. Chitty arrives in time to prevent the gangsters from fleeing. The police arrive and the gangsters are taken away. As a reward Monsieur Bon-Bon's wife shares the secret recipe of her world famous fudge with the Potts and the two families become good friends. Chitty flies the family away to parts unknown, and the book implies that the car has yet more secrets.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " book implies that the car has yet more secrets.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Oliver Twist",
    "author": "Charles Dickens",
    "published_date": "1839",
    "synopsis": " Oliver Twist is born into a life of poverty and misfortune in a workhouse in an unnamed town (although when originally published in Bentley's Miscellany in 1837 the town was called Mudfog and said to be within 70 miles north of London - in reality this is the location of the town of Northampton). Orphaned almost from his first breath by his mother\u2019s death in childbirth and his father\u2019s unexplained absence, Oliver is meagerly provided for under the terms of the Poor Law, and spends the first nine years of his life at a baby farm in the 'care' of a woman named Mrs. Mann. Oliver is brought up with little food and few comforts. Around the time of Oliver's ninth birthday, Mr. Bumble, a parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking oakum at the main workhouse. Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. The task falls to Oliver, who at the next meal tremblingly comes forward, bowl in hand, and makes his famous request: \"Please, sir, I want some more.\" A great uproar ensues. The board of well-fed gentlemen who administer the workhouse hypocritically offer five pounds to any person wishing to take on the boy as an apprentice. A brutal chimney sweep almost claims Oliver, however, when he begs despairingly not to be sent away with \"that dreadful man\", a kindly old magistrate refuses to sign the indentures. Later, Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker employed by the parish, took Oliver into his service. He treats Oliver better, and because of the boy's sorrowful countenance, uses him as a mourner at children\u2019s funerals. However, Mr. Sowerberry is in an unhappy marriage, and his wife takes an immediate dislike to Oliver \u2014 primarily because her husband seems to like him \u2014 and loses few opportunities to underfeed and mistreat him. He also suffers torment at the hands of Noah Claypole, an oafish but bullying fellow apprentice and \"charity boy\" who is jealous of Oliver\u2019s promotion to mute, and Charlotte, the Sowerberrys' maidservant, who is in love with Noah. One day, in an attempt to bait Oliver, Noah insults Oliver's biological mother, calling her \"a regular right-down bad \u2018un\". Oliver flies into a rage, attacking and even beating the much bigger boy. Mrs. Sowerberry takes Noah\u2019s side, helps him to subdue, punching, and beating Oliver, and later compels her husband and Mr. Bumble, who has been sent for in the aftermath of the fight, into beating Oliver again. Once Oliver is sent to his room for the night, he does something that he hadn't done since babyhood \u2014 he breaks down and weeps. Alone that night, Oliver finally decides to run away, and, \"He remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up the hill. He took the same route,\" until a well-placed milestone sets his wandering feet towards London. During his journey to London, Oliver encounters Jack Dawkins, a pickpocket more commonly known by the nickname the \"Artful Dodger\", although Oliver's innocent nature prevents him from recognising this hint that the boy may be dishonest. Dodger provides Oliver with a free meal and tells him of a gentleman in London who will \"give him lodgings for nothing, and never ask for change\". Grateful for the unexpected assistance, Oliver follows Dodger to the \"old gentleman\"'s residence. In this way, Oliver unwittingly falls in with an infamous Jewish criminal known as Fagin, the so-called gentleman of whom the Artful Dodger spoke. Ensnared, Oliver lives with Fagin and his gang of juvenile pickpockets in their lair at Saffron Hill for some time, unaware of their criminal occupations. He believes they make wallets and handkerchiefs. Later, Oliver na\u00efvely goes out to \"make handkerchiefs\" because of no income coming in, with two of Fagin\u2019s underlings: The Artful Dodger and a boy of a humorous nature named Charley Bates. Oliver realises too late that their real mission is to pick pockets. Dodger and Charley steal the handkerchief of an old gentleman named Mr. Brownlow, and promptly flee. When he finds his handkerchief missing, Mr. Brownlow turns round, sees Oliver, and pursues him. Others join the chase and Oliver is caught and taken before the magistrate. Curiously, Mr. Brownlow has second thoughts about the boy\u2014he seems reluctant to believe he is a pickpocket. To the judge's evident disappointment, a bookstall holder who saw Dodger commit the crime clears Oliver, who, by now actually ill, faints in the courtroom. Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver home and, along with his housekeeper Mrs. Bedwin, cares for him. Oliver stays with Mr. Brownlow, recovers rapidly, and blossoms from the unaccustomed kindness. His bliss, however, is interrupted when Fagin, fearing Oliver might \"peach\" on his criminal gang, decides that Oliver must be brought back to his hideout. When Mr. Brownlow sends Oliver out to pay for some books, one of the gang, a young girl named Nancy, whom Oliver had previously met at Fagin's, accosts him with help from her abusive lover, a brutal robber named Bill Sikes, and Oliver is quickly bundled back to Fagin's lair. The thieves take the five-pound note Mr. Brownlow had entrusted to him, and strip him of his fine new clothes. Oliver, dismayed, flees and attempts to call for police assistance, but is ruthlessly dragged back by the Dodger, Charley and Fagin. Nancy, however, is sympathetic towards Oliver and saves him from beatings by Fagin and Sikes. In a renewed attempt to draw Oliver into a life of crime, Fagin forces him to participate in a burglary. Nancy reluctantly assists in recruiting him, all the while assuring the boy that she will help him if she can. Sikes, after threatening to kill him if he does not cooperate, sends Oliver through a small window and orders him to unlock the front door. The robbery goes wrong, however, and Oliver is shot and wounded in his left arm. After being abandoned by Sikes, the wounded Oliver ends up under the care of the people he was supposed to rob: Miss Rose and her guardian Mrs. Maylie Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Monks has found Fagin and is plotting with him to destroy Oliver's reputation. Monks denounces Fagin's failure to turn Oliver into a criminal and the two of them agree on a plan to make sure he does not find out about his past. Monks is apparently related to Oliver in some manner, although it's not mentioned until later. Back in Oliver's hometown, Mr. Bumble married Ms. Corney, the wealthy matron of the workhouse, only to find himself in an unhappy marriage constantly arguing with his domineering wife. After one such argument, Mr. Bumble walks over to a pub, where he meets Monks, who questions him about Oliver. Bumble informs Monks that he knows someone who can give Monks more information for a price, and later Monks meets secretly with the Bumbles. After Mrs. Bumble has told Monks all she knows, the three arrange to take a locket and ring which had once belonged to Oliver's mother and toss them into a nearby river. Monks relates this to Fagin as part of the plot to destroy Oliver, unaware that Nancy has eavesdropped on their conversation and gone ahead to inform Oliver's benefactors. Nancy, by this time ashamed of her role in Oliver's kidnapping, and fearful for the boy's safety, goes to Rose Maylie and Mr. Brownlow to warn them. She knows that Monks and Fagin are plotting to get their hands on the boy again and holds some secret meetings on the subject with Oliver's benefactors. One night Nancy tries to leave for one of the meetings, but Sikes refuses permission when she doesn't state exactly where she's going. Fagin realizes that Nancy is up to something and resolves to find out what her secret is. Meanwhile, Noah has fallen out with the undertaker Mr. Sowerberry, stolen money from him and fled to London. Charlotte has accompanied him \u2014 they are now in a relationship. Using the name \"Morris Bolter\", he joins Fagin's gang for protection and becomes a practicer of \"the kinchen lay\" (robbing children) while it is implied that Charlotte becomes a prostitute. During Noah's stay with Fagin, the Artful Dodger is caught with a stolen silver snuff box, convicted (in a very humorous courtroom scene) and transported to Australia. Later, Noah is sent by Fagin to \"dodge\" (spy on) Nancy, and discovers her secret: she has been meeting secretly with Rose and Mr. Brownlow to discuss how to save Oliver from Fagin and Monks. Fagin angrily passes the information on to Sikes, twisting the story just enough to make it sound as if Nancy had informed on him. Believing Nancy to be a traitor, Sikes beats her to death in a fit of rage and later flees to the countryside to escape from the police. There, Sikes is haunted by visions of Nancy's ghost and increasingly alarmed by news of her murder spreading across the countryside. He flees back to London to find a hiding place, only to be killed when he accidentally hangs himself while attempting to flee across a rooftop from an angry mob. Monks is forced by Mr. Brownlow to divulge his secrets: his real name is Edward Leeford, and he is Oliver's paternal half-brother and, although he is legitimate, he was born of a loveless marriage. Oliver's mother, Agnes, was their father's true love. Mr. Brownlow has a picture of her, and began making inquiries when he noticed a marked resemblance between her face and the face of Oliver. Monks has spent many years searching for his father's child\u2014not to befriend him, but to destroy him (see Henry Fielding's Tom Jones for similar circumstances). Brownlow asks Oliver to give half his inheritance (which proves to be meagre) to Monks because he wants to give him a second chance; and Oliver, being prone to giving second chances, is more than happy to comply. Monks then moves to America, where he squanders his money, reverts to crime, and ultimately dies in prison. Fagin is arrested and condemned to the gallows. On the eve of his hanging, in an emotional scene, Oliver, accompanied by Mr. Brownlow, goes to visit the old reprobate in Newgate Gaol, where Fagin's terror at being hanged has caused him to come down with fever. As Mr. Brownlow and Oliver leave the prison, Fagin screams in terror and despair as a crowd gathers to see his hanging. On a happier note, Rose Maylie turns out to be the long-lost sister of Agnes; she is therefore Oliver's aunt. She marries her long-time sweetheart Harry, and Oliver lives happily with his saviour, Mr. Brownlow. Noah becomes a paid, semi-professional informer to the police. The Bumbles lose their jobs and are reduced to great poverty, eventually ending up in the same workhouse where they originally had lorded it over Oliver and the other boys; and Charley Bates, horrified by Sikes's murder of Nancy, becomes an honest citizen, moves to the country, and works his way up to prosperity.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Oliver Twist is born into a life of poverty and misfortune in a workhouse in an unnamed town (although when originally published in Bentley's Miscellany in 1837 the town was called Mudfog and said to be within 70 miles north of London - in reality this is the location of the town of Northampton). Orphaned almost from his first breath by his mother\u2019s death in childbirth and his father\u2019s unexplained absence, Oliver is meagerly provided for under the terms of the Poor Law, and spends the first nine years of his life at a baby farm in the 'care' of a woman named Mrs. Mann. Oliver is brought up with little food and few comforts. Around the time of Oliver's ninth birthday, Mr. Bumble, a parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking oakum at the main workhouse. Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. The task falls to Oliver, who at the next meal tremblingly comes forward, bowl in hand, and makes his famous request: \"Please, sir, I want some more.\" A great uproar ensues. The board of well-fed gentlemen who administer the workhouse hypocritically offer five pounds to any person wishing to take on the boy as an apprentice. A brutal chimney sweep almost claims Oliver, however, when he begs despairingly not to be sent away with \"that dreadful man\", a kindly old magistrate refuses to sign the indentures. Later, Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker employed by the parish, took Oliver into his service. He treats Oliver better, and because of the boy's sorrowful countenance, uses him as a mourner at children\u2019s funerals. However, Mr. Sowerberry is in an unhappy marriage,"
      },
      {
        "text": " sweep almost claims Oliver, however, when he begs despairingly not to be sent away with \"that dreadful man\", a kindly old magistrate refuses to sign the indentures. Later, Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker employed by the parish, took Oliver into his service. He treats Oliver better, and because of the boy's sorrowful countenance, uses him as a mourner at children\u2019s funerals. However, Mr. Sowerberry is in an unhappy marriage, and his wife takes an immediate dislike to Oliver \u2014 primarily because her husband seems to like him \u2014 and loses few opportunities to underfeed and mistreat him. He also suffers torment at the hands of Noah Claypole, an oafish but bullying fellow apprentice and \"charity boy\" who is jealous of Oliver\u2019s promotion to mute, and Charlotte, the Sowerberrys' maidservant, who is in love with Noah. One day, in an attempt to bait Oliver, Noah insults Oliver's biological mother, calling her \"a regular right-down bad \u2018un\". Oliver flies into a rage, attacking and even beating the much bigger boy. Mrs. Sowerberry takes Noah\u2019s side, helps him to subdue, punching, and beating Oliver, and later compels her husband and Mr. Bumble, who has been sent for in the aftermath of the fight, into beating Oliver again. Once Oliver is sent to his room for the night, he does something that he hadn't done since babyhood \u2014 he breaks down and weeps. Alone that night, Oliver finally decides to run away, and, \"He remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up the hill. He took the same route,\" until a well-placed milestone sets his wandering feet towards London. During his journey to London, Oliver encounters Jack Dawkins, a pickpocket more commonly known by the nickname the \"Artful Dodger\", although Oliver"
      },
      {
        "text": " something that he hadn't done since babyhood \u2014 he breaks down and weeps. Alone that night, Oliver finally decides to run away, and, \"He remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up the hill. He took the same route,\" until a well-placed milestone sets his wandering feet towards London. During his journey to London, Oliver encounters Jack Dawkins, a pickpocket more commonly known by the nickname the \"Artful Dodger\", although Oliver's innocent nature prevents him from recognising this hint that the boy may be dishonest. Dodger provides Oliver with a free meal and tells him of a gentleman in London who will \"give him lodgings for nothing, and never ask for change\". Grateful for the unexpected assistance, Oliver follows Dodger to the \"old gentleman\"'s residence. In this way, Oliver unwittingly falls in with an infamous Jewish criminal known as Fagin, the so-called gentleman of whom the Artful Dodger spoke. Ensnared, Oliver lives with Fagin and his gang of juvenile pickpockets in their lair at Saffron Hill for some time, unaware of their criminal occupations. He believes they make wallets and handkerchiefs. Later, Oliver na\u00efvely goes out to \"make handkerchiefs\" because of no income coming in, with two of Fagin\u2019s underlings: The Artful Dodger and a boy of a humorous nature named Charley Bates. Oliver realises too late that their real mission is to pick pockets. Dodger and Charley steal the handkerchief of an old gentleman named Mr. Brownlow, and promptly flee. When he finds his handkerchief missing, Mr. Brownlow turns round, sees Oliver, and pursues him. Others join the chase and Oliver is caught and taken before the magistrate. Curiously, Mr. Brownlow has second thoughts about the boy\u2014he seems reluctant to believe he is a pickpocket. To the"
      },
      {
        "text": " too late that their real mission is to pick pockets. Dodger and Charley steal the handkerchief of an old gentleman named Mr. Brownlow, and promptly flee. When he finds his handkerchief missing, Mr. Brownlow turns round, sees Oliver, and pursues him. Others join the chase and Oliver is caught and taken before the magistrate. Curiously, Mr. Brownlow has second thoughts about the boy\u2014he seems reluctant to believe he is a pickpocket. To the judge's evident disappointment, a bookstall holder who saw Dodger commit the crime clears Oliver, who, by now actually ill, faints in the courtroom. Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver home and, along with his housekeeper Mrs. Bedwin, cares for him. Oliver stays with Mr. Brownlow, recovers rapidly, and blossoms from the unaccustomed kindness. His bliss, however, is interrupted when Fagin, fearing Oliver might \"peach\" on his criminal gang, decides that Oliver must be brought back to his hideout. When Mr. Brownlow sends Oliver out to pay for some books, one of the gang, a young girl named Nancy, whom Oliver had previously met at Fagin's, accosts him with help from her abusive lover, a brutal robber named Bill Sikes, and Oliver is quickly bundled back to Fagin's lair. The thieves take the five-pound note Mr. Brownlow had entrusted to him, and strip him of his fine new clothes. Oliver, dismayed, flees and attempts to call for police assistance, but is ruthlessly dragged back by the Dodger, Charley and Fagin. Nancy, however, is sympathetic towards Oliver and saves him from beatings by Fagin and Sikes. In a renewed attempt to draw Oliver into a life of crime, Fagin forces him to participate in a burglary. Nancy reluctantly assists in recruiting him, all the while assuring the boy that she will help him if she"
      },
      {
        "text": " new clothes. Oliver, dismayed, flees and attempts to call for police assistance, but is ruthlessly dragged back by the Dodger, Charley and Fagin. Nancy, however, is sympathetic towards Oliver and saves him from beatings by Fagin and Sikes. In a renewed attempt to draw Oliver into a life of crime, Fagin forces him to participate in a burglary. Nancy reluctantly assists in recruiting him, all the while assuring the boy that she will help him if she can. Sikes, after threatening to kill him if he does not cooperate, sends Oliver through a small window and orders him to unlock the front door. The robbery goes wrong, however, and Oliver is shot and wounded in his left arm. After being abandoned by Sikes, the wounded Oliver ends up under the care of the people he was supposed to rob: Miss Rose and her guardian Mrs. Maylie Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Monks has found Fagin and is plotting with him to destroy Oliver's reputation. Monks denounces Fagin's failure to turn Oliver into a criminal and the two of them agree on a plan to make sure he does not find out about his past. Monks is apparently related to Oliver in some manner, although it's not mentioned until later. Back in Oliver's hometown, Mr. Bumble married Ms. Corney, the wealthy matron of the workhouse, only to find himself in an unhappy marriage constantly arguing with his domineering wife. After one such argument, Mr. Bumble walks over to a pub, where he meets Monks, who questions him about Oliver. Bumble informs Monks that he knows someone who can give Monks more information for a price, and later Monks meets secretly with the Bumbles. After Mrs. Bumble has told Monks all she knows, the three arrange to take a locket and ring which had once belonged to Oliver's mother and toss them into a nearby river. Monks"
      },
      {
        "text": ". After one such argument, Mr. Bumble walks over to a pub, where he meets Monks, who questions him about Oliver. Bumble informs Monks that he knows someone who can give Monks more information for a price, and later Monks meets secretly with the Bumbles. After Mrs. Bumble has told Monks all she knows, the three arrange to take a locket and ring which had once belonged to Oliver's mother and toss them into a nearby river. Monks relates this to Fagin as part of the plot to destroy Oliver, unaware that Nancy has eavesdropped on their conversation and gone ahead to inform Oliver's benefactors. Nancy, by this time ashamed of her role in Oliver's kidnapping, and fearful for the boy's safety, goes to Rose Maylie and Mr. Brownlow to warn them. She knows that Monks and Fagin are plotting to get their hands on the boy again and holds some secret meetings on the subject with Oliver's benefactors. One night Nancy tries to leave for one of the meetings, but Sikes refuses permission when she doesn't state exactly where she's going. Fagin realizes that Nancy is up to something and resolves to find out what her secret is. Meanwhile, Noah has fallen out with the undertaker Mr. Sowerberry, stolen money from him and fled to London. Charlotte has accompanied him \u2014 they are now in a relationship. Using the name \"Morris Bolter\", he joins Fagin's gang for protection and becomes a practicer of \"the kinchen lay\" (robbing children) while it is implied that Charlotte becomes a prostitute. During Noah's stay with Fagin, the Artful Dodger is caught with a stolen silver snuff box, convicted (in a very humorous courtroom scene) and transported to Australia. Later, Noah is sent by Fagin to \"dodge\" (spy on) Nancy, and discovers her secret: she has been meeting secretly"
      },
      {
        "text": "agin's gang for protection and becomes a practicer of \"the kinchen lay\" (robbing children) while it is implied that Charlotte becomes a prostitute. During Noah's stay with Fagin, the Artful Dodger is caught with a stolen silver snuff box, convicted (in a very humorous courtroom scene) and transported to Australia. Later, Noah is sent by Fagin to \"dodge\" (spy on) Nancy, and discovers her secret: she has been meeting secretly with Rose and Mr. Brownlow to discuss how to save Oliver from Fagin and Monks. Fagin angrily passes the information on to Sikes, twisting the story just enough to make it sound as if Nancy had informed on him. Believing Nancy to be a traitor, Sikes beats her to death in a fit of rage and later flees to the countryside to escape from the police. There, Sikes is haunted by visions of Nancy's ghost and increasingly alarmed by news of her murder spreading across the countryside. He flees back to London to find a hiding place, only to be killed when he accidentally hangs himself while attempting to flee across a rooftop from an angry mob. Monks is forced by Mr. Brownlow to divulge his secrets: his real name is Edward Leeford, and he is Oliver's paternal half-brother and, although he is legitimate, he was born of a loveless marriage. Oliver's mother, Agnes, was their father's true love. Mr. Brownlow has a picture of her, and began making inquiries when he noticed a marked resemblance between her face and the face of Oliver. Monks has spent many years searching for his father's child\u2014not to befriend him, but to destroy him (see Henry Fielding's Tom Jones for similar circumstances). Brownlow asks Oliver to give half his inheritance (which proves to be meagre) to Monks because he wants to give him a second chance; and Oliver, being"
      },
      {
        "text": " love. Mr. Brownlow has a picture of her, and began making inquiries when he noticed a marked resemblance between her face and the face of Oliver. Monks has spent many years searching for his father's child\u2014not to befriend him, but to destroy him (see Henry Fielding's Tom Jones for similar circumstances). Brownlow asks Oliver to give half his inheritance (which proves to be meagre) to Monks because he wants to give him a second chance; and Oliver, being prone to giving second chances, is more than happy to comply. Monks then moves to America, where he squanders his money, reverts to crime, and ultimately dies in prison. Fagin is arrested and condemned to the gallows. On the eve of his hanging, in an emotional scene, Oliver, accompanied by Mr. Brownlow, goes to visit the old reprobate in Newgate Gaol, where Fagin's terror at being hanged has caused him to come down with fever. As Mr. Brownlow and Oliver leave the prison, Fagin screams in terror and despair as a crowd gathers to see his hanging. On a happier note, Rose Maylie turns out to be the long-lost sister of Agnes; she is therefore Oliver's aunt. She marries her long-time sweetheart Harry, and Oliver lives happily with his saviour, Mr. Brownlow. Noah becomes a paid, semi-professional informer to the police. The Bumbles lose their jobs and are reduced to great poverty, eventually ending up in the same workhouse where they originally had lorded it over Oliver and the other boys; and Charley Bates, horrified by Sikes's murder of Nancy, becomes an honest citizen, moves to the country, and works his way up to prosperity.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " jobs and are reduced to great poverty, eventually ending up in the same workhouse where they originally had lorded it over Oliver and the other boys; and Charley Bates, horrified by Sikes's murder of Nancy, becomes an honest citizen, moves to the country, and works his way up to prosperity.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "East of Eden",
    "author": "John Steinbeck",
    "published_date": "1952-09",
    "synopsis": " The story is primarily set in the Salinas Valley, California, between the beginning of the 20th century and the end of World War I, though some chapters are in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and the story goes as far back as the American Civil War. In the beginning of East of Eden, before introducing his characters, John Steinbeck carefully establishes the setting with a description of the Salinas Valley in Central California. Then he outlines the story of the warmhearted inventor and farmer Samuel Hamilton and his wife Liza, immigrants from Ireland. He describes how they raise their nine children on a rough, infertile piece of land. As the Hamilton children begin to grow up and leave the nest, a wealthy stranger, Adam Trask, purchases the best ranch in the Valley. Adam Trask's life is seen in a long, intricate flashback. We see his tumultuous childhood on a farm in Connecticut and the brutal treatment he endured from his younger but stronger half-brother, Charles. As a young man, Adam spent his time first in the military and then wandering the country. He was caught for vagrancy, escaped from a chain gang and burgled a store for clothing to use as a disguise. Later he wired Charles for 100 dollars to pay for the clothes he stole. After Adam finally made his way home to their farm, Charles revealed that their father had died and left them an inheritance of $50,000 each. Charles is torn with fear that his father did not come by the money honestly. A parallel story introduces a girl named Cathy Ames, who grows up in a town not far from the brothers' family farm. Cathy is described as having a \"malformed soul\"; she is cold, cruel, and utterly incapable of feeling for anyone but herself. She leaves home one evening after setting fire to her family's home, killing both of her parents. Finally, she is viciously beaten by a pimp and is left close to death on the brothers' doorstep. Although Charles is repulsed by her, Adam, unaware of her past, falls in love with and marries her. Adam Trask – newly wed and newly rich – now arrives in California and settles with the pregnant Cathy in the Salinas Valley, near the Hamilton family ranch. Cathy does not want to be a mother or to stay in California, but Adam is so ecstatically happy with his new life that he does not realize there is any problem. Shortly after Cathy gives birth to twin boys, she shoots Adam in the shoulder and flees. Adam recovers, but remains in a deep and terrible depression. He is roused out of it enough to name and raise his sons with the help of his Cantonese cook, Lee, and his neighbor Samuel Hamilton. Lee becomes a good friend and adopted family member. Lee, Adam, and Samuel Hamilton have long philosophical talks, particularly about the story of Cain and Abel, which Lee maintains has been incorrectly translated in English-language Bibles. Lee tells about how his relatives in San Francisco, a group of Chinese scholars, spent two years studying Hebrew so they might discover what the moral of the Cain and Abel story actually was. Their discovery that the Hebrew word \"Timshel\" means \"thou mayest\" becomes an important symbol in the novel, meaning that mankind is neither compelled to pursue sainthood nor doomed to sin, but rather has the power to choose. Meanwhile, Cathy has become a prostitute at the most respectable brothel in the city of Salinas. She renames herself \"Kate\" and embarks on a devious – and successful – plan to ingratiate herself with the owner, murder her and inherit the business. She makes her new brothel infamous as a den of sexual sadism. She is not concerned that Adam Trask might ever look for her, and she has no feelings whatsoever about the children she abandoned. Adam's sons, Caleb and Aron – echoing Cain and Abel – grow up oblivious of their mother's situation. At a very early age, Aron meets a girl named Abra from a well-to-do family, and the two fall in love. Although there are rumors around town that Caleb and Aron's mother is not dead but is actually still in Salinas, the boys do not yet know that she is Kate. The popular and beloved Samuel Hamilton finally passes away and is mourned. Adam becomes inspired by the memory of Samuel Hamilton's inventiveness and loses almost all of the family fortune in an ill-fated business venture. The boys, particularly Aron, are horrified that their father is now a town laughingstock. As the boys reach the end of their school days, Caleb decides to pursue a career in farming and Aron goes to college to become an Episcopalian priest. Caleb, restless and tortured by guilt about his very human failings, shuns everyone around him and takes to wandering around town late at night. During one of these ramblings, he discovers that his mother is alive and the head of a brothel. Caleb decides to \"buy his father's love\" by going into business with one of Samuel Hamilton's children, Will Hamilton, who is now a successful automobile dealer. Caleb's plan is to make his father's money back, capitalizing on World War I by selling beans grown in the Salinas Valley to nations in Europe for a considerable premium. He succeeds beyond his wildest expectations and wraps up a gift of $15,000 in cash which he plans to give Adam Trask at Thanksgiving. Aron returns from Stanford for the holiday. There is tension in the air, because Aron has not yet told their father that he intends to drop out of college. Rather than let Aron steal the moment, Caleb gives Adam the money at dinner, expecting his father to be proud of him. But Adam refuses to accept it. Instead, he tells Caleb to give it back to the poor farmers he exploited. Adam explains by saying, In a fit of jealousy, Caleb takes his brother Aron to see their mother, knowing it will be a shock to him. Sure enough, Aron immediately sees Kate for who she is, and recoils from her in disgust. Wracked with self-hatred, Kate signs her estate over to Aron and commits suicide. Aron, his idealistic worldview shattered, enlists in the army to fight in World War I. He is killed in battle in the last year of the war, and Adam suffers a stroke upon hearing the news from Lee. Caleb, who begins to develop a relationship with Abra after Aron leaves for war, tells her why Aron left and tries to convince her to run away with him. She instead persuades him to return home. The novel ends with Lee pleading with a bedridden Adam to forgive his only remaining son. Adam responds by giving Caleb his blessing in the form of the word Timshel.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is primarily set in the Salinas Valley, California, between the beginning of the 20th century and the end of World War I, though some chapters are in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and the story goes as far back as the American Civil War. In the beginning of East of Eden, before introducing his characters, John Steinbeck carefully establishes the setting with a description of the Salinas Valley in Central California. Then he outlines the story of the warmhearted inventor and farmer Samuel Hamilton and his wife Liza, immigrants from Ireland. He describes how they raise their nine children on a rough, infertile piece of land. As the Hamilton children begin to grow up and leave the nest, a wealthy stranger, Adam Trask, purchases the best ranch in the Valley. Adam Trask's life is seen in a long, intricate flashback. We see his tumultuous childhood on a farm in Connecticut and the brutal treatment he endured from his younger but stronger half-brother, Charles. As a young man, Adam spent his time first in the military and then wandering the country. He was caught for vagrancy, escaped from a chain gang and burgled a store for clothing to use as a disguise. Later he wired Charles for 100 dollars to pay for the clothes he stole. After Adam finally made his way home to their farm, Charles revealed that their father had died and left them an inheritance of $50,000 each. Charles is torn with fear that his father did not come by the money honestly. A parallel story introduces a girl named Cathy Ames, who grows up in a town not far from the brothers' family farm. Cathy is described as having a \"malformed soul\"; she is cold, cruel, and utterly incapable of feeling for anyone but herself. She leaves home one evening after setting fire to her family's home, killing both of her parents. Finally, she is viciously beaten by a pimp and is left close to death on the brothers' doorstep. Although Charles is"
      },
      {
        "text": " honestly. A parallel story introduces a girl named Cathy Ames, who grows up in a town not far from the brothers' family farm. Cathy is described as having a \"malformed soul\"; she is cold, cruel, and utterly incapable of feeling for anyone but herself. She leaves home one evening after setting fire to her family's home, killing both of her parents. Finally, she is viciously beaten by a pimp and is left close to death on the brothers' doorstep. Although Charles is repulsed by her, Adam, unaware of her past, falls in love with and marries her. Adam Trask – newly wed and newly rich – now arrives in California and settles with the pregnant Cathy in the Salinas Valley, near the Hamilton family ranch. Cathy does not want to be a mother or to stay in California, but Adam is so ecstatically happy with his new life that he does not realize there is any problem. Shortly after Cathy gives birth to twin boys, she shoots Adam in the shoulder and flees. Adam recovers, but remains in a deep and terrible depression. He is roused out of it enough to name and raise his sons with the help of his Cantonese cook, Lee, and his neighbor Samuel Hamilton. Lee becomes a good friend and adopted family member. Lee, Adam, and Samuel Hamilton have long philosophical talks, particularly about the story of Cain and Abel, which Lee maintains has been incorrectly translated in English-language Bibles. Lee tells about how his relatives in San Francisco, a group of Chinese scholars, spent two years studying Hebrew so they might discover what the moral of the Cain and Abel story actually was. Their discovery that the Hebrew word \"Timshel\" means \"thou mayest\" becomes an important symbol in the novel, meaning that mankind is neither compelled to pursue sainthood nor doomed to sin, but rather has the power to choose. Meanwhile, Cathy has become a prostitute at the"
      },
      {
        "text": "language Bibles. Lee tells about how his relatives in San Francisco, a group of Chinese scholars, spent two years studying Hebrew so they might discover what the moral of the Cain and Abel story actually was. Their discovery that the Hebrew word \"Timshel\" means \"thou mayest\" becomes an important symbol in the novel, meaning that mankind is neither compelled to pursue sainthood nor doomed to sin, but rather has the power to choose. Meanwhile, Cathy has become a prostitute at the most respectable brothel in the city of Salinas. She renames herself \"Kate\" and embarks on a devious – and successful – plan to ingratiate herself with the owner, murder her and inherit the business. She makes her new brothel infamous as a den of sexual sadism. She is not concerned that Adam Trask might ever look for her, and she has no feelings whatsoever about the children she abandoned. Adam's sons, Caleb and Aron – echoing Cain and Abel – grow up oblivious of their mother's situation. At a very early age, Aron meets a girl named Abra from a well-to-do family, and the two fall in love. Although there are rumors around town that Caleb and Aron's mother is not dead but is actually still in Salinas, the boys do not yet know that she is Kate. The popular and beloved Samuel Hamilton finally passes away and is mourned. Adam becomes inspired by the memory of Samuel Hamilton's inventiveness and loses almost all of the family fortune in an ill-fated business venture. The boys, particularly Aron, are horrified that their father is now a town laughingstock. As the boys reach the end of their school days, Caleb decides to pursue a career in farming and Aron goes to college to become an Episcopalian priest. Caleb, restless and tortured by guilt about his very human failings, shuns everyone"
      },
      {
        "text": "ed. Adam becomes inspired by the memory of Samuel Hamilton's inventiveness and loses almost all of the family fortune in an ill-fated business venture. The boys, particularly Aron, are horrified that their father is now a town laughingstock. As the boys reach the end of their school days, Caleb decides to pursue a career in farming and Aron goes to college to become an Episcopalian priest. Caleb, restless and tortured by guilt about his very human failings, shuns everyone around him and takes to wandering around town late at night. During one of these ramblings, he discovers that his mother is alive and the head of a brothel. Caleb decides to \"buy his father's love\" by going into business with one of Samuel Hamilton's children, Will Hamilton, who is now a successful automobile dealer. Caleb's plan is to make his father's money back, capitalizing on World War I by selling beans grown in the Salinas Valley to nations in Europe for a considerable premium. He succeeds beyond his wildest expectations and wraps up a gift of $15,000 in cash which he plans to give Adam Trask at Thanksgiving. Aron returns from Stanford for the holiday. There is tension in the air, because Aron has not yet told their father that he intends to drop out of college. Rather than let Aron steal the moment, Caleb gives Adam the money at dinner, expecting his father to be proud of him. But Adam refuses to accept it. Instead, he tells Caleb to give it back to the poor farmers he exploited. Adam explains by saying, In a fit of jealousy, Caleb takes his brother Aron to see their mother, knowing it will be a shock to him. Sure enough, Aron immediately sees Kate for who she is, and recoils from her in disgust. Wracked with self-hatred, Kate signs her estate over to Aron and commits suicide. Aron, his idealistic worldview shattered, en"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Instead, he tells Caleb to give it back to the poor farmers he exploited. Adam explains by saying, In a fit of jealousy, Caleb takes his brother Aron to see their mother, knowing it will be a shock to him. Sure enough, Aron immediately sees Kate for who she is, and recoils from her in disgust. Wracked with self-hatred, Kate signs her estate over to Aron and commits suicide. Aron, his idealistic worldview shattered, enlists in the army to fight in World War I. He is killed in battle in the last year of the war, and Adam suffers a stroke upon hearing the news from Lee. Caleb, who begins to develop a relationship with Abra after Aron leaves for war, tells her why Aron left and tries to convince her to run away with him. She instead persuades him to return home. The novel ends with Lee pleading with a bedridden Adam to forgive his only remaining son. Adam responds by giving Caleb his blessing in the form of the word Timshel.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Old Man and the Sea",
    "author": "Ernest Hemingway",
    "published_date": "1952",
    "synopsis": " The Old Man and the Sea is the story of a battle between an old, experienced Cuban fisherman and a large marlin. The novel opens with the explanation that the fisherman, who is named Santiago, has gone 84 days without catching a fish. Santiago is considered \"salao\", the worst form of unlucky. In fact, he is so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack each night, hauling back his fishing gear, getting him food and discussing American baseball and his favorite player Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will venture far out into the Gulf to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end. Thus on the eighty-fifth day, Santiago sets out alone, taking his skiff far onto the Gulf. He sets his lines and, by noon of the first day, a big fish that he is sure is a marlin takes his bait. Unable to pull in the great marlin, Santiago instead finds the fish pulling his skiff. Two days and two nights pass in this manner, during which the old man bears the tension of the line with his body. Though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother. He also determines that because of the fish's great dignity, no one will be worthy of eating the marlin. On the third day of the ordeal, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the old man. Santiago, now completely worn out and almost in delirium, uses all the strength he has left in him to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon, ending the long battle between the old man and the tenacious fish. Santiago straps the marlin to the side of his skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed. While Santiago continues his journey back to the shore, sharks are attracted to the trail of blood left by the marlin in the water. The first, a great mako shark, Santiago kills with his harpoon, losing that weapon in the process. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife to the end of an oar to help ward off the next line of sharks; in total, five sharks are slain and many others are driven away. But the sharks keep coming, and by nightfall the sharks have almost devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving a skeleton consisting mostly of its backbone, its tail and its head. Finally reaching the shore before dawn on the next day, Santiago struggles on the way to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder. Once home, he slumps onto his bed and falls into a deep sleep. A group of fishermen gather the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. One of the fishermen measures it to be from nose to tail. Tourists at the nearby caf\u00e9 mistakenly take it for a shark. Manolin, worried during the old man's endeavor, cries upon finding him safe asleep. The boy brings him newspapers and coffee. When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep, Santiago dreams of his youth\u2014of lions on an African beach.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Old Man and the Sea is the story of a battle between an old, experienced Cuban fisherman and a large marlin. The novel opens with the explanation that the fisherman, who is named Santiago, has gone 84 days without catching a fish. Santiago is considered \"salao\", the worst form of unlucky. In fact, he is so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack each night, hauling back his fishing gear, getting him food and discussing American baseball and his favorite player Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will venture far out into the Gulf to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end. Thus on the eighty-fifth day, Santiago sets out alone, taking his skiff far onto the Gulf. He sets his lines and, by noon of the first day, a big fish that he is sure is a marlin takes his bait. Unable to pull in the great marlin, Santiago instead finds the fish pulling his skiff. Two days and two nights pass in this manner, during which the old man bears the tension of the line with his body. Though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother. He also determines that because of the fish's great dignity, no one will be worthy of eating the marlin. On the third day of the ordeal, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the old man. Santiago, now completely worn out and almost in delirium, uses all the strength he has left in him to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon, ending the long battle between the old man and the tenacious fish. Santiago straps the mar"
      },
      {
        "text": " the fish's great dignity, no one will be worthy of eating the marlin. On the third day of the ordeal, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the old man. Santiago, now completely worn out and almost in delirium, uses all the strength he has left in him to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon, ending the long battle between the old man and the tenacious fish. Santiago straps the marlin to the side of his skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed. While Santiago continues his journey back to the shore, sharks are attracted to the trail of blood left by the marlin in the water. The first, a great mako shark, Santiago kills with his harpoon, losing that weapon in the process. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife to the end of an oar to help ward off the next line of sharks; in total, five sharks are slain and many others are driven away. But the sharks keep coming, and by nightfall the sharks have almost devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving a skeleton consisting mostly of its backbone, its tail and its head. Finally reaching the shore before dawn on the next day, Santiago struggles on the way to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder. Once home, he slumps onto his bed and falls into a deep sleep. A group of fishermen gather the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. One of the fishermen measures it to be from nose to tail. Tourists at the nearby caf\u00e9 mistakenly take it for a shark. Manolin, worried during the old man's endeavor, cries upon finding him safe asleep. The boy brings him newspapers and coffee. When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep,"
      },
      {
        "text": " bed and falls into a deep sleep. A group of fishermen gather the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. One of the fishermen measures it to be from nose to tail. Tourists at the nearby caf\u00e9 mistakenly take it for a shark. Manolin, worried during the old man's endeavor, cries upon finding him safe asleep. The boy brings him newspapers and coffee. When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep, Santiago dreams of his youth\u2014of lions on an African beach.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Children of Men",
    "author": "P. D. James",
    "published_date": "1992",
    "synopsis": " The narrative voice for the novel alternates between the third person and the first person, the latter in the form of a diary kept by Dr. Theodore \"Theo\" Faron, an Oxford don. The novel opens with the first entry in Theo's diary. It is the year 2021, but the novel's events have their origin in 1995, which is referred to as \"Year Omega\". In 1994, the sperm counts of human males plummeted to zero and mankind now faces imminent extinction. The last people to be born are now called \"Omegas\". \"A race apart,\" they enjoy various prerogatives. Theo writes that the last human being to be born on Earth has been killed in a pub brawl. In 2006, a man called Xan Lyppiatt, Theo's rich and charismatic cousin, appointed himself Warden of England in the last general election. As people have lost all interest in politics, Lyppiatt abolishes democracy. He is called a despot and a tyrant by his opponents, but officially the new society is referred to as egalitarian. Theo is approached by a woman called Julian, a member of a group of dissidents calling themselves the Five Fishes. He meets with them at an isolated church. Rolf, their leader and Julian's husband, is hostile, but the others \u2014 Miriam (a former midwife), Gascoigne (a man from a military family), Luke (a former priest), and Julian \u2014 are more personable. The group wants Theo to approach Xan on their behalf and ask for various reforms, including a return to a more democratic system. During their discussions, and as Theo prepares to meet with Xan, the reader learns how the UK is in 2021: * The youngest generation, the \"Omegas\", are described as spoiled, over-entitled and egotistical due to their youth and the luxurious lifestyle they are treated to. They are violent, remote and unstable, and regard non-Omegas (elders) with undisguised contempt, yet are spared punishment due to their age. According to rumour, outside of Britain some countries sacrifice Omegas in fertility rituals. *Due to the global infertility of mankind, newborn animals (such as kittens and puppies) are doted upon and treated as infants, being pushed in prams and dressed in children's clothing. The latest trend in London is to have elaborate christening ceremonies for newborn pets. * The country is governed by decree of the Council of England, which consists of five people. Parliament has been reduced to an advisory role. The aims of the Council are (1) protection and security, (2) comfort, and (3) pleasure\u2014corresponding to the Warden's promises of (1) freedom from fear, (2) freedom from want, and (3) freedom from boredom. * The Grenadiers \u2014 formerly an elite regiment in the British armed forces \u2014 are the Warden's private army. The State Secret Police (SSP) ensures the Council's decrees are executed. * The courts still exist, but juries have been abolished. Under the \"new arrangements\", defendants are tried by a judge and two magistrates. All convicted criminals are dumped at a penal colony on the Isle of Man. There is no remission, escape is almost impossible, visitors are forbidden and prisoners may not write or receive letters. * Every citizen is required to learn skills, such as husbandry, which they might need to help them survive if they happen to be among the last human beings in Britain. * Foreign workers are lured into the country and then exploited. Young people, preferably Omegas, from poorer countries come to England to work there. These \"foreign Omegas\" or, generally, \"Sojourners\" are imported to do undesirable work. At 60, which is the age limit, they are sent back (\"forcibly repatriated\"). British Omegas are not allowed to emigrate so as to prevent further loss of labor. * Elderly/infirm citizens have become a burden; nursing homes are for the privileged few. The rest are expected and sometimes forced to commit suicide by taking part in a \"Quietus\" (Council-sanctioned mass drownings) at the age of 60. * The state has opened \"pornography centres\". Twice a year, healthy women under 45 must submit to a gynecological examination, and most men must have their sperm tested, to keep hope alive. Theo's meeting with Xan, which turns out to be a meeting with the full Council of England, does not go well. Some of the members resent him because he resigned as Xan's advisor rather than share the responsibility of governing the UK. Xan guesses that Theo's suggestions came from others and makes clear to Theo that he will take action against dissidents. The Five Fishes distribute a leaflet detailing their demands. Theo is visited by the SSP and, shortly afterwards, sees Julian in the market. He tells her of the SSP visit, then tells her that if ever she needs him she only has to send for him. That night, however, Theo decides to leave England for the summer and visit the continent before nature overruns it. Soon after Theo's return, Miriam tells him that Gascoigne was arrested as he was trying to rig a Quietus landing stage to explode. The other Fishes are about to go on the run, and Julian wants him. Miriam reveals why Julian did not come herself\u2014she is pregnant. Theo believes that Julian is deceiving herself, but when the two meet, Julian invites Theo to listen to her baby's heartbeat. During the group's flight, Luke is killed while trying to protect Julian during a confrontation with a wild gang of Omegas. Julian confesses that the father of her child is not Rolf, but the deceased Luke. Rolf, who believes he should rule the UK in Xan's place, is angered at the discovery; he abandons the group to notify the Warden. The group heads to a shack Theo knows of. Miriam delivers Julian's baby \u2014 a boy, not a girl as Julian had thought. Miriam goes to find more supplies; after she is gone too long Theo investigates. He finds Miriam dead, garrotted in a nearby house. Theo returns to Julian, but soon after Julian hears a noise outside \u2014 Xan. Theo and Xan confront each other and both fire one shot. The sudden wailing of the baby startles Xan, causing him to miss as Rolf had thought the baby would not be born for another month. Theo does not miss. He removes the Coronation Ring, which Xan had taken to wearing as a symbol of authority, from Xan's finger and seems poised to become the new leader of the UK \u2014 at least temporarily. The other members of the Council are introduced to the baby, and Theo baptises him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The narrative voice for the novel alternates between the third person and the first person, the latter in the form of a diary kept by Dr. Theodore \"Theo\" Faron, an Oxford don. The novel opens with the first entry in Theo's diary. It is the year 2021, but the novel's events have their origin in 1995, which is referred to as \"Year Omega\". In 1994, the sperm counts of human males plummeted to zero and mankind now faces imminent extinction. The last people to be born are now called \"Omegas\". \"A race apart,\" they enjoy various prerogatives. Theo writes that the last human being to be born on Earth has been killed in a pub brawl. In 2006, a man called Xan Lyppiatt, Theo's rich and charismatic cousin, appointed himself Warden of England in the last general election. As people have lost all interest in politics, Lyppiatt abolishes democracy. He is called a despot and a tyrant by his opponents, but officially the new society is referred to as egalitarian. Theo is approached by a woman called Julian, a member of a group of dissidents calling themselves the Five Fishes. He meets with them at an isolated church. Rolf, their leader and Julian's husband, is hostile, but the others \u2014 Miriam (a former midwife), Gascoigne (a man from a military family), Luke (a former priest), and Julian \u2014 are more personable. The group wants Theo to approach Xan on their behalf and ask for various reforms, including a return to a more democratic system. During their discussions, and as Theo prepares to meet with Xan, the reader learns how the UK is in 2021: * The youngest generation, the \"Omegas\", are described as spoiled, over-entitled and egotistical due to their youth and the luxurious lifestyle they are treated to. They are violent, remote and unstable, and regard non-Omegas (eld"
      },
      {
        "text": " Theo to approach Xan on their behalf and ask for various reforms, including a return to a more democratic system. During their discussions, and as Theo prepares to meet with Xan, the reader learns how the UK is in 2021: * The youngest generation, the \"Omegas\", are described as spoiled, over-entitled and egotistical due to their youth and the luxurious lifestyle they are treated to. They are violent, remote and unstable, and regard non-Omegas (elders) with undisguised contempt, yet are spared punishment due to their age. According to rumour, outside of Britain some countries sacrifice Omegas in fertility rituals. *Due to the global infertility of mankind, newborn animals (such as kittens and puppies) are doted upon and treated as infants, being pushed in prams and dressed in children's clothing. The latest trend in London is to have elaborate christening ceremonies for newborn pets. * The country is governed by decree of the Council of England, which consists of five people. Parliament has been reduced to an advisory role. The aims of the Council are (1) protection and security, (2) comfort, and (3) pleasure\u2014corresponding to the Warden's promises of (1) freedom from fear, (2) freedom from want, and (3) freedom from boredom. * The Grenadiers \u2014 formerly an elite regiment in the British armed forces \u2014 are the Warden's private army. The State Secret Police (SSP) ensures the Council's decrees are executed. * The courts still exist, but juries have been abolished. Under the \"new arrangements\", defendants are tried by a judge and two magistrates. All convicted criminals are dumped at a penal colony on the Isle of Man. There is no remission, escape is almost impossible, visitors are forbidden and prisoners may not write or receive letters. * Every citizen is required to learn skills, such as husbandry, which they might need to help"
      },
      {
        "text": " (SSP) ensures the Council's decrees are executed. * The courts still exist, but juries have been abolished. Under the \"new arrangements\", defendants are tried by a judge and two magistrates. All convicted criminals are dumped at a penal colony on the Isle of Man. There is no remission, escape is almost impossible, visitors are forbidden and prisoners may not write or receive letters. * Every citizen is required to learn skills, such as husbandry, which they might need to help them survive if they happen to be among the last human beings in Britain. * Foreign workers are lured into the country and then exploited. Young people, preferably Omegas, from poorer countries come to England to work there. These \"foreign Omegas\" or, generally, \"Sojourners\" are imported to do undesirable work. At 60, which is the age limit, they are sent back (\"forcibly repatriated\"). British Omegas are not allowed to emigrate so as to prevent further loss of labor. * Elderly/infirm citizens have become a burden; nursing homes are for the privileged few. The rest are expected and sometimes forced to commit suicide by taking part in a \"Quietus\" (Council-sanctioned mass drownings) at the age of 60. * The state has opened \"pornography centres\". Twice a year, healthy women under 45 must submit to a gynecological examination, and most men must have their sperm tested, to keep hope alive. Theo's meeting with Xan, which turns out to be a meeting with the full Council of England, does not go well. Some of the members resent him because he resigned as Xan's advisor rather than share the responsibility of governing the UK. Xan guesses that Theo's suggestions came from others and makes clear to Theo that he will take action against dissidents. The Five Fishes distribute a leaflet detailing their demands. Theo is visited by the SSP and, shortly afterwards,"
      },
      {
        "text": ", to keep hope alive. Theo's meeting with Xan, which turns out to be a meeting with the full Council of England, does not go well. Some of the members resent him because he resigned as Xan's advisor rather than share the responsibility of governing the UK. Xan guesses that Theo's suggestions came from others and makes clear to Theo that he will take action against dissidents. The Five Fishes distribute a leaflet detailing their demands. Theo is visited by the SSP and, shortly afterwards, sees Julian in the market. He tells her of the SSP visit, then tells her that if ever she needs him she only has to send for him. That night, however, Theo decides to leave England for the summer and visit the continent before nature overruns it. Soon after Theo's return, Miriam tells him that Gascoigne was arrested as he was trying to rig a Quietus landing stage to explode. The other Fishes are about to go on the run, and Julian wants him. Miriam reveals why Julian did not come herself\u2014she is pregnant. Theo believes that Julian is deceiving herself, but when the two meet, Julian invites Theo to listen to her baby's heartbeat. During the group's flight, Luke is killed while trying to protect Julian during a confrontation with a wild gang of Omegas. Julian confesses that the father of her child is not Rolf, but the deceased Luke. Rolf, who believes he should rule the UK in Xan's place, is angered at the discovery; he abandons the group to notify the Warden. The group heads to a shack Theo knows of. Miriam delivers Julian's baby \u2014 a boy, not a girl as Julian had thought. Miriam goes to find more supplies; after she is gone too long Theo investigates. He finds Miriam dead, garrotted in a nearby house. Theo returns to Julian, but soon after Julian hears a noise outside \u2014 Xan. Theo and Xan confront each other"
      },
      {
        "text": " place, is angered at the discovery; he abandons the group to notify the Warden. The group heads to a shack Theo knows of. Miriam delivers Julian's baby \u2014 a boy, not a girl as Julian had thought. Miriam goes to find more supplies; after she is gone too long Theo investigates. He finds Miriam dead, garrotted in a nearby house. Theo returns to Julian, but soon after Julian hears a noise outside \u2014 Xan. Theo and Xan confront each other and both fire one shot. The sudden wailing of the baby startles Xan, causing him to miss as Rolf had thought the baby would not be born for another month. Theo does not miss. He removes the Coronation Ring, which Xan had taken to wearing as a symbol of authority, from Xan's finger and seems poised to become the new leader of the UK \u2014 at least temporarily. The other members of the Council are introduced to the baby, and Theo baptises him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold",
    "author": "John le Carr\u00e9",
    "published_date": "1963-09",
    "synopsis": " The West Berlin office of the British Secret Intelligence Service under the command of Station Head Alec Leamas, has been performing poorly. At the commencement of the novel, Karl Riemeck \u2013 his last and best double agent, a high-ranking East German political officer \u2013 is shot dead at the last moment whilst defecting to West Berlin. Without any agents left, the disgraced Leamas is recalled to the Circus in London by Control, chief of the Circus. There, Control asks Leamas to stay \"in the cold\" for one last mission: to turn (defect) and provide false information to the East German Communists that would implicate Mundt as a British double agent \u2014 what his second-in-command, Fiedler, already suspects \u2014 to result in Mundt being executed by his own people. Control tells Leamas that Fiedler, due to his paranoia about Mundt, would be the best man to depose Mundt. George Smiley and his former assistant Peter Guillam brief Leamas for his crucial mission. Control tells Leamas that Smiley had not returned to the Circus after the events of Call for the Dead because of moral qualms about unethical Circus operations. To make the East Germans believe him ripe for defection, the Circus sacks Leamas, with a pittance of a pension, and he gets a miserable job in a run-down library, and loses it. At the library, he meets co-worker Liz Gold, an unworldly young Jewish woman, who is the secretary of her local cell of the Communist Party of Britain. Despite her politics, they become lovers. Before taking the \"final plunge\" into Control's scheme, Leamas makes Liz promise not to look for him, no matter what she hears, and says good-bye to her. Leamas also tells Control to leave Liz alone and Control agrees. Then, as planned, Leamas lands in jail after he assaults a local grocer. After jail, an East German recruiter in England approaches Leamas. He is taken abroad, first to the Netherlands, then to East Germany, en route meeting higher echelons of the Abteilung, the East German Intelligence Service. During his debriefing, he drops casual hints that point to British payments to a double agent in the Abteilung, whilst pretending not to see the implications. Meanwhile, in England, George Smiley and Peter Guillam appear at Liz Gold's apartment claiming to be friends of Alec, question her about him, and offer her financial help. In East Germany, Leamas meets Fiedler. They have many conversations in a hut in a forest clearing, where Fiedler seeks conclusive proof against Mundt and engages in ideological and philosophic discussions with the pragmatic Leamas. As observed by Leamas, Fiedler seems content to live in Mundt's shadow, but is relatively young and brilliant. To Leamas, Fiedler is sympathetic: a Jew who spent the Second World War in Canada, and a Communist idealist who considers the morality of his actions. In contrast, Leamas sees Mundt as a brutal, opportunist mercenary, who was a Nazi before 1945 and then joined the Communists simply because they were the new bosses, and remained an anti-Semite. Leamas believes helping Fiedler destroy Mundt is a worthy act. Meanwhile, Liz Gold is invited to East Germany for a Communist Party information exchange. The power struggle in the Abteilung comes into the open when Mundt orders Fiedler and Leamas arrested and tortured. However, the leaders of the East German r\u00e9gime intervene because Fiedler had earlier applied for an arrest warrant for Mundt on the same day that Mundt arrested Fiedler and Leamas. They are released, and Fiedler and Mundt are summoned to present their cases to a tribunal convened in camera, in the town of G\u00f6rlitz. At the trial, Alec Leamas documents a series of secret bank account payments that Fiedler matches to the movements of Mundt. Fiedler also shows that Karl Riemeck passed to Leamas information to which he had no formal access but to which Mundt did. Fiedler also presents to the Tribunal other proofs implicating Mundt as a British double agent and explains that Mundt was captured in England and allowed to escape only after agreeing to work as a double agent for the British. Mundt\u2019s attorney calls the unsuspecting Liz Gold as a surprise witness for the defence. Although not wanting to testify against Alec Leamas, she admits that George Smiley paid for her apartment lease after visiting her and that she had promised Leamas to not look for him when he disappeared. She also admits that he had said good-bye to her the night before he assaulted the grocer. Realising that the operation is now blown, Leamas offers to tell all in return for Liz's freedom. He admits that Control gave him the mission to frame Mundt as a double agent, but adds that Fiedler was not a participant. In cross-examination, Fiedler asks Mundt how he knew that someone had paid off Liz's lease, because, Fiedler insists, Liz never would have spoken about it. Mundt hesitates before answering (\"a second too long, Leamas thought\"), then the Tribunal halts the trial and arrests Fiedler. Then, and only then, does Leamas understand the true nature of Control and Smiley's operation. Liz is sent to a cell but Mundt places her in a car with Leamas at the wheel. During their drive to Berlin, where an exit route from East Berlin awaits, he explains the operation to her, including the parts of which he was unaware until the end of the trial. The fake bank account payments were real, and Hans-Dieter Mundt is a double agent reporting to George Smiley and Peter Guillam. The operation was against Fiedler, not Mundt, as Leamas was deceived to believe, because Fiedler was close to exposing Mundt as a British double agent. Fiedler was too powerful for Mundt to eliminate alone. Therefore, Control and Smiley did it for him. They placed him and her as co-workers to provide Mundt with the means of discrediting Leamas and consequently discrediting Fiedler. By falling in love, Leamas and Liz made it easy for them. Liz is horrified that British Intelligence planned the death of Fiedler, an intelligent, considerate and thoughtful man, in order to protect the despicable Mundt. Fiedler's fate is unrevealed, but Leamas, in answer to Liz's question, says that he would most likely be shot. Despite her moral disgust, Liz accompanies Leamas to the break in the wire fronting the Berlin Wall, where they are to climb the wall and escape to West Berlin. In the concluding chapter, after Leamas climbs to the top of the Berlin Wall and reaches down to pull Liz up, East German spotlights suddenly turn on them, and she is shot. Her fingers slip from his grasp and she falls. From the Western side of the Wall, Leamas hears a Western agent calling to him, \"Jump, Alec! Jump, man!\" and among other voices, George Smiley's. Seeing Liz dead, Alec Leamas climbs back down the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall. The border guards then shoot him dead.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The West Berlin office of the British Secret Intelligence Service under the command of Station Head Alec Leamas, has been performing poorly. At the commencement of the novel, Karl Riemeck \u2013 his last and best double agent, a high-ranking East German political officer \u2013 is shot dead at the last moment whilst defecting to West Berlin. Without any agents left, the disgraced Leamas is recalled to the Circus in London by Control, chief of the Circus. There, Control asks Leamas to stay \"in the cold\" for one last mission: to turn (defect) and provide false information to the East German Communists that would implicate Mundt as a British double agent \u2014 what his second-in-command, Fiedler, already suspects \u2014 to result in Mundt being executed by his own people. Control tells Leamas that Fiedler, due to his paranoia about Mundt, would be the best man to depose Mundt. George Smiley and his former assistant Peter Guillam brief Leamas for his crucial mission. Control tells Leamas that Smiley had not returned to the Circus after the events of Call for the Dead because of moral qualms about unethical Circus operations. To make the East Germans believe him ripe for defection, the Circus sacks Leamas, with a pittance of a pension, and he gets a miserable job in a run-down library, and loses it. At the library, he meets co-worker Liz Gold, an unworldly young Jewish woman, who is the secretary of her local cell of the Communist Party of Britain. Despite her politics, they become lovers. Before taking the \"final plunge\" into Control's scheme, Leamas makes Liz promise not to look for him, no matter what she hears, and says good-bye to her. Leamas also tells Control to leave Liz alone and Control agrees. Then, as planned, Leamas lands in jail after he assaults a local grocer. After jail, an East"
      },
      {
        "text": "worldly young Jewish woman, who is the secretary of her local cell of the Communist Party of Britain. Despite her politics, they become lovers. Before taking the \"final plunge\" into Control's scheme, Leamas makes Liz promise not to look for him, no matter what she hears, and says good-bye to her. Leamas also tells Control to leave Liz alone and Control agrees. Then, as planned, Leamas lands in jail after he assaults a local grocer. After jail, an East German recruiter in England approaches Leamas. He is taken abroad, first to the Netherlands, then to East Germany, en route meeting higher echelons of the Abteilung, the East German Intelligence Service. During his debriefing, he drops casual hints that point to British payments to a double agent in the Abteilung, whilst pretending not to see the implications. Meanwhile, in England, George Smiley and Peter Guillam appear at Liz Gold's apartment claiming to be friends of Alec, question her about him, and offer her financial help. In East Germany, Leamas meets Fiedler. They have many conversations in a hut in a forest clearing, where Fiedler seeks conclusive proof against Mundt and engages in ideological and philosophic discussions with the pragmatic Leamas. As observed by Leamas, Fiedler seems content to live in Mundt's shadow, but is relatively young and brilliant. To Leamas, Fiedler is sympathetic: a Jew who spent the Second World War in Canada, and a Communist idealist who considers the morality of his actions. In contrast, Leamas sees Mundt as a brutal, opportunist mercenary, who was a Nazi before 1945 and then joined the Communists simply because they were the new bosses, and remained an anti-Semite. Leamas believes helping Fiedler destroy Mundt is a worthy act. Meanwhile, Liz Gold is invited to East Germany for a Communist Party information exchange. The power struggle in"
      },
      {
        "text": " who spent the Second World War in Canada, and a Communist idealist who considers the morality of his actions. In contrast, Leamas sees Mundt as a brutal, opportunist mercenary, who was a Nazi before 1945 and then joined the Communists simply because they were the new bosses, and remained an anti-Semite. Leamas believes helping Fiedler destroy Mundt is a worthy act. Meanwhile, Liz Gold is invited to East Germany for a Communist Party information exchange. The power struggle in the Abteilung comes into the open when Mundt orders Fiedler and Leamas arrested and tortured. However, the leaders of the East German r\u00e9gime intervene because Fiedler had earlier applied for an arrest warrant for Mundt on the same day that Mundt arrested Fiedler and Leamas. They are released, and Fiedler and Mundt are summoned to present their cases to a tribunal convened in camera, in the town of G\u00f6rlitz. At the trial, Alec Leamas documents a series of secret bank account payments that Fiedler matches to the movements of Mundt. Fiedler also shows that Karl Riemeck passed to Leamas information to which he had no formal access but to which Mundt did. Fiedler also presents to the Tribunal other proofs implicating Mundt as a British double agent and explains that Mundt was captured in England and allowed to escape only after agreeing to work as a double agent for the British. Mundt\u2019s attorney calls the unsuspecting Liz Gold as a surprise witness for the defence. Although not wanting to testify against Alec Leamas, she admits that George Smiley paid for her apartment lease after visiting her and that she had promised Leamas to not look for him when he disappeared. She also admits that he had said good-bye to her the night before he assaulted the grocer. Realising that the operation is now blown, Leamas offers to tell all in return for Liz's freedom."
      },
      {
        "text": "t\u2019s attorney calls the unsuspecting Liz Gold as a surprise witness for the defence. Although not wanting to testify against Alec Leamas, she admits that George Smiley paid for her apartment lease after visiting her and that she had promised Leamas to not look for him when he disappeared. She also admits that he had said good-bye to her the night before he assaulted the grocer. Realising that the operation is now blown, Leamas offers to tell all in return for Liz's freedom. He admits that Control gave him the mission to frame Mundt as a double agent, but adds that Fiedler was not a participant. In cross-examination, Fiedler asks Mundt how he knew that someone had paid off Liz's lease, because, Fiedler insists, Liz never would have spoken about it. Mundt hesitates before answering (\"a second too long, Leamas thought\"), then the Tribunal halts the trial and arrests Fiedler. Then, and only then, does Leamas understand the true nature of Control and Smiley's operation. Liz is sent to a cell but Mundt places her in a car with Leamas at the wheel. During their drive to Berlin, where an exit route from East Berlin awaits, he explains the operation to her, including the parts of which he was unaware until the end of the trial. The fake bank account payments were real, and Hans-Dieter Mundt is a double agent reporting to George Smiley and Peter Guillam. The operation was against Fiedler, not Mundt, as Leamas was deceived to believe, because Fiedler was close to exposing Mundt as a British double agent. Fiedler was too powerful for Mundt to eliminate alone. Therefore, Control and Smiley did it for him. They placed him and her as co-workers to provide Mundt with the means of discrediting Leamas and consequently discrediting Fiedler. By falling in love"
      },
      {
        "text": " Peter Guillam. The operation was against Fiedler, not Mundt, as Leamas was deceived to believe, because Fiedler was close to exposing Mundt as a British double agent. Fiedler was too powerful for Mundt to eliminate alone. Therefore, Control and Smiley did it for him. They placed him and her as co-workers to provide Mundt with the means of discrediting Leamas and consequently discrediting Fiedler. By falling in love, Leamas and Liz made it easy for them. Liz is horrified that British Intelligence planned the death of Fiedler, an intelligent, considerate and thoughtful man, in order to protect the despicable Mundt. Fiedler's fate is unrevealed, but Leamas, in answer to Liz's question, says that he would most likely be shot. Despite her moral disgust, Liz accompanies Leamas to the break in the wire fronting the Berlin Wall, where they are to climb the wall and escape to West Berlin. In the concluding chapter, after Leamas climbs to the top of the Berlin Wall and reaches down to pull Liz up, East German spotlights suddenly turn on them, and she is shot. Her fingers slip from his grasp and she falls. From the Western side of the Wall, Leamas hears a Western agent calling to him, \"Jump, Alec! Jump, man!\" and among other voices, George Smiley's. Seeing Liz dead, Alec Leamas climbs back down the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall. The border guards then shoot him dead.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " back down the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall. The border guards then shoot him dead.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter",
    "author": "Carson McCullers",
    "published_date": "1940",
    "synopsis": " The struggles of four of John Singer's acquaintances make up the majority of the narrative. They are: Mick Kelly, a tomboyish young girl who loves music and dreams of buying a piano; Jake Blount, an alcoholic labor agitator; Biff Brannon, the observant owner of a diner; and Dr. Benedict Copeland, an idealistic African American doctor.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The struggles of four of John Singer's acquaintances make up the majority of the narrative. They are: Mick Kelly, a tomboyish young girl who loves music and dreams of buying a piano; Jake Blount, an alcoholic labor agitator; Biff Brannon, the observant owner of a diner; and Dr. Benedict Copeland, an idealistic African American doctor.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Great White Hope",
    "author": "Howard Sackler",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Great White Hope tells a fictional idealized life story of boxing champion Jack Johnson, here called Jack Jefferson. Acting as a lens focused on a racist society, The Great White Hope explores how segregation and prejudice created the demand for a \"great white hope\" who would defeat Johnson and how this, in turn, affected the boxer's life and career. While the play is often described as being thematically about racism, this is not, it seems, entirely how Sackler viewed his work. Though certainly not denying the racist issues confronted in the play, Sackler once said in an interview, \"What interested me was not the topicality but the combination of circumstances, the destiny of a man pitted against society. It's a metaphor of struggle between man and the outside world. Some people spoke of the play as if it were a clich\u00e9 of white liberalism, but I kept to the line straight through, of showing that it wasn't a case of blacks being good and whites being bad. I was appalled at the first reaction.\" In a comment, reflecting on both the racist theme dealt with in the play and Sackler's notion that the play is about a man fighting society, Muhammad Ali, greatly impressed with James Earl Jones' performance in the play, apparently commented to the actor, \"That's my story. You take out the issue of white women and replace it with the issue of religion. That's my story!\" Ali was fighting being drafted into the army at the time on grounds of being a conscientious objector.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Great White Hope tells a fictional idealized life story of boxing champion Jack Johnson, here called Jack Jefferson. Acting as a lens focused on a racist society, The Great White Hope explores how segregation and prejudice created the demand for a \"great white hope\" who would defeat Johnson and how this, in turn, affected the boxer's life and career. While the play is often described as being thematically about racism, this is not, it seems, entirely how Sackler viewed his work. Though certainly not denying the racist issues confronted in the play, Sackler once said in an interview, \"What interested me was not the topicality but the combination of circumstances, the destiny of a man pitted against society. It's a metaphor of struggle between man and the outside world. Some people spoke of the play as if it were a clich\u00e9 of white liberalism, but I kept to the line straight through, of showing that it wasn't a case of blacks being good and whites being bad. I was appalled at the first reaction.\" In a comment, reflecting on both the racist theme dealt with in the play and Sackler's notion that the play is about a man fighting society, Muhammad Ali, greatly impressed with James Earl Jones' performance in the play, apparently commented to the actor, \"That's my story. You take out the issue of white women and replace it with the issue of religion. That's my story!\" Ali was fighting being drafted into the army at the time on grounds of being a conscientious objector.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " conscientious objector.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Postman",
    "author": "David Brin",
    "published_date": "1985",
    "synopsis": " Despite the post-apocalyptic scenario, and several action sequences, the book is largely about civilization and symbols. Each of the three sections deals with a different symbol. The first is the Postman himself, Gordon Krantz, who takes the uniform solely for warmth after he loses everything but his sleeping clothes. He wanders without establishing himself anywhere, and acts in scenes of William Shakespeare for supplies. Originally from Minnesota, he has traveled as far West as Oregon. Taking shelter in a long-abandoned postal van, he finds a sack of mail and takes it to a nearby community to barter for food and shelter. His reputation as a real postman builds not because of a deliberate fraud (at least initially) but because people are desperate to believe. Later, in the second section, he encounters a community (Corvallis, Oregon) led by Cyclops, apparently a sentient artificial intelligence created at Oregon State University which miraculously survived the cataclysm. In reality, however, the machine had ceased functioning during a battle; a group of scientists merely maintain the pretense of it working to try and keep hope, order, and knowledge alive. Eventually, in the third section, as the Postman joins forces with the Cyclops scientists in a war against an influx of \"hypersurvivalists\", he begins to find that the hypersurvivalists are being pressed from the Rogue River area to the south as well. The hypersurvivalists are more commonly referred to as Holnists, after the founder of their ideal, Nathan Holn. Many times through the book, curses are uttered which damn Holn for his actions. Nathan Holn was an author who championed an extreme, violent, misogynistic and hypersurvivalist society. Holn is said to have himself been hanged in the novel, but in the time following what should have been a brief period of civil disorder, followers of Holn prevented the United States from recovering from the limited war, and the plagues that followed. As the story ends, and he comes close to the hypersurvivalist's southern enemy, he begins to find traces of them, primarily in the symbol that they rally behind: the Bear Flag of California. The final scenes give the impression that the three symbols may rally together in an effort to revive civilization. Another message of the plot deals with the backstory of the post-apocalyptic world: specifically, that it was not the electronics-destroying electromagnetic pulses, nor the destruction of major cities, nor the release of various bio-engineered plagues that actually destroyed society: rather, it was the hypersurvivalists themselves, those who maintained stockpiles of weapons and ammunition and who preyed on humanitarian workers and other forces of order.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Despite the post-apocalyptic scenario, and several action sequences, the book is largely about civilization and symbols. Each of the three sections deals with a different symbol. The first is the Postman himself, Gordon Krantz, who takes the uniform solely for warmth after he loses everything but his sleeping clothes. He wanders without establishing himself anywhere, and acts in scenes of William Shakespeare for supplies. Originally from Minnesota, he has traveled as far West as Oregon. Taking shelter in a long-abandoned postal van, he finds a sack of mail and takes it to a nearby community to barter for food and shelter. His reputation as a real postman builds not because of a deliberate fraud (at least initially) but because people are desperate to believe. Later, in the second section, he encounters a community (Corvallis, Oregon) led by Cyclops, apparently a sentient artificial intelligence created at Oregon State University which miraculously survived the cataclysm. In reality, however, the machine had ceased functioning during a battle; a group of scientists merely maintain the pretense of it working to try and keep hope, order, and knowledge alive. Eventually, in the third section, as the Postman joins forces with the Cyclops scientists in a war against an influx of \"hypersurvivalists\", he begins to find that the hypersurvivalists are being pressed from the Rogue River area to the south as well. The hypersurvivalists are more commonly referred to as Holnists, after the founder of their ideal, Nathan Holn. Many times through the book, curses are uttered which damn Holn for his actions. Nathan Holn was an author who championed an extreme, violent, misogynistic and hypersurvivalist society. Holn is said to have himself been hanged in the novel, but in the time following what should have been a brief period of civil disorder, followers of Holn prevented the United States from recovering from the limited"
      },
      {
        "text": " referred to as Holnists, after the founder of their ideal, Nathan Holn. Many times through the book, curses are uttered which damn Holn for his actions. Nathan Holn was an author who championed an extreme, violent, misogynistic and hypersurvivalist society. Holn is said to have himself been hanged in the novel, but in the time following what should have been a brief period of civil disorder, followers of Holn prevented the United States from recovering from the limited war, and the plagues that followed. As the story ends, and he comes close to the hypersurvivalist's southern enemy, he begins to find traces of them, primarily in the symbol that they rally behind: the Bear Flag of California. The final scenes give the impression that the three symbols may rally together in an effort to revive civilization. Another message of the plot deals with the backstory of the post-apocalyptic world: specifically, that it was not the electronics-destroying electromagnetic pulses, nor the destruction of major cities, nor the release of various bio-engineered plagues that actually destroyed society: rather, it was the hypersurvivalists themselves, those who maintained stockpiles of weapons and ammunition and who preyed on humanitarian workers and other forces of order.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Phantom of the Opera",
    "author": "Gaston Leroux",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel opens with a prologue in which Gaston Leroux claims that Erik, the \"Phantom of the Opera\", was a real person. We are then introduced to Christine Daa\u00e9 who with her father, a famous fiddler, travelled all over Europe playing folk and religious music. Her father was known to be the best wedding-fiddler in the land. When Christine is six, her mother dies and her father is brought to rural France by a patron, Professor Valerius. During Christine's childhood (which is described retrospectively in the early chapters of the book), her father tells her many stories featuring an \"Angel of Music\", who, like a muse, is the personification of musical inspiration. Christine meets and befriends the young Raoul, Viscount of Chagny, who also enjoys her father's many stories. One of Christine and Raoul's favourite stories is one of Little Lotte, a girl with golden hair and blue eyes who is visited by the Angel of Music and possesses a heavenly voice. On his deathbed, Christine's father tells her that he will send the Angel of Music to her from Heaven. Christine now lives with Mamma Valerius, the elderly widow of her father's benefactor. Christine is eventually given a position in the chorus at the Paris Opera House (Palais Garnier). Not long after she arrives there, she begins hearing a beautiful, unearthly voice which sings to her and speaks to her. She believes this must be the Angel of Music and asks him if he is. The Voice agrees and offers to teach her \"a little bit of heaven's music\". The Voice, however, belongs to Erik, a physically-deformed and mentally-disturbed charismatic genius who was one of the architects who took part in the construction of the opera and who secretly built a home for himself in the cellars. He has been extorting money from the Opera's management for many years. Unknown to Christine, at least at first, he falls in love with her. With the help of the Voice, Christine triumphs at the gala on the night of the old managers' retirement. Her old childhood friend Raoul hears her and remembers his love for her. A time after the gala, the Paris Opera performs Faust, with the prima donna Carlotta playing the lead. In response to a refused surrender of Box Five to the Opera Ghost, Carlotta loses her voice and the Opera's grand chandelier plummets into the audience. After the chandelier accident, Erik kidnaps Christine to his home in the cellars and reveals his true identity. He plans to keep her there only a few days, hoping she will come to love him, and Christine begins to find herself attracted to her abductor. But she causes Erik to change his plans when she unmasks him and, to the horror of both, beholds his face, which according to the book, resembles the face of a rotting corpse. Erik goes into a frenzy, stating she probably thinks his face is another mask, and whilst digging her fingers in to show it was really his face he shouts, \"I am Don Juan Triumphant!\" before crawling away, crying. Fearing that she will leave him, he decides to keep her with him forever, but when Christine requests release after two weeks, he agrees on condition that she wear his ring and be faithful to him. Up on the roof of the Opera, Christine tells Raoul of Erik taking her to the cellars. Raoul promises to take Christine away where Erik can never find her and to take her even if she resists. Raoul tells Christine he shall act on his promise the following day, to which Christine agrees, but she pities Erik and will not go until she has sung for him one last time. Christine then realizes the ring has slipped off her finger and fallen into the streets somewhere, and begins to panic. The two leave. But neither is aware that Erik has been listening to their conversation or that it has driven him to jealous frenzy. During the week and that night, Erik has been terrorising anyone who stood in his way or in that of Christine's career, including the managers. The following night, Erik kidnaps Christine during a production of Faust (by drugging the gas men and switching the lights off, he spirits Christine off the stage before anyone turned the lights on). Back in the cellars, Erik tries to force Christine into marriage. If she refuses he threatens to destroy the entire Opera using explosives he has planted in the cellars, killing them and everyone in the floors above. Christine continues to refuse, until she realizes that Raoul and an old acquaintance of Erik's known only as \"The Persian\", in an attempt to rescue her, have been trapped in Erik's hot torture chamber. To save them and the people above, Christine agrees to marry Erik. At first, Erik tries to drown Raoul and the Persian in the water used to douse the explosives, stating that Christine doesn't need another. But Christine begs and offers to be his \"living bride\", promising him not to kill herself after becoming his bride, as she had both contemplated and attempted earlier in the novel. Erik rescues the Persian and the young Raoul from his torture chamber thereafter. When Erik is alone with Christine, he lifts his mask a little to kiss her on the forehead, and Christine allows him to do this. Erik, who admits that he has never before in his life received or been allowed to give a kiss \u2013 not even from his own mother \u2013 is overcome with emotion. Christine gives him a kiss back. He lets Christine go and tells her \"Go and marry the boy whenever you wish,\" explaining, \"I know you love him\". She leaves on the condition that when he dies she will come back and bury him. Being an old acquaintance, The Persian is told of all these secrets by Erik himself, and upon his express request, the Persian advertises Erik's death in the newspaper about three weeks later. The cause of death is revealed to be a broken heart, and as promised, Christine returns to bury Erik and give his ring back to him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel opens with a prologue in which Gaston Leroux claims that Erik, the \"Phantom of the Opera\", was a real person. We are then introduced to Christine Daa\u00e9 who with her father, a famous fiddler, travelled all over Europe playing folk and religious music. Her father was known to be the best wedding-fiddler in the land. When Christine is six, her mother dies and her father is brought to rural France by a patron, Professor Valerius. During Christine's childhood (which is described retrospectively in the early chapters of the book), her father tells her many stories featuring an \"Angel of Music\", who, like a muse, is the personification of musical inspiration. Christine meets and befriends the young Raoul, Viscount of Chagny, who also enjoys her father's many stories. One of Christine and Raoul's favourite stories is one of Little Lotte, a girl with golden hair and blue eyes who is visited by the Angel of Music and possesses a heavenly voice. On his deathbed, Christine's father tells her that he will send the Angel of Music to her from Heaven. Christine now lives with Mamma Valerius, the elderly widow of her father's benefactor. Christine is eventually given a position in the chorus at the Paris Opera House (Palais Garnier). Not long after she arrives there, she begins hearing a beautiful, unearthly voice which sings to her and speaks to her. She believes this must be the Angel of Music and asks him if he is. The Voice agrees and offers to teach her \"a little bit of heaven's music\". The Voice, however, belongs to Erik, a physically-deformed and mentally-disturbed charismatic genius who was one of the architects who took part in the construction of the opera and who secretly built a home for himself in the cellars. He has been extorting money from the Opera's management for many years. Unknown to Christine"
      },
      {
        "text": " She believes this must be the Angel of Music and asks him if he is. The Voice agrees and offers to teach her \"a little bit of heaven's music\". The Voice, however, belongs to Erik, a physically-deformed and mentally-disturbed charismatic genius who was one of the architects who took part in the construction of the opera and who secretly built a home for himself in the cellars. He has been extorting money from the Opera's management for many years. Unknown to Christine, at least at first, he falls in love with her. With the help of the Voice, Christine triumphs at the gala on the night of the old managers' retirement. Her old childhood friend Raoul hears her and remembers his love for her. A time after the gala, the Paris Opera performs Faust, with the prima donna Carlotta playing the lead. In response to a refused surrender of Box Five to the Opera Ghost, Carlotta loses her voice and the Opera's grand chandelier plummets into the audience. After the chandelier accident, Erik kidnaps Christine to his home in the cellars and reveals his true identity. He plans to keep her there only a few days, hoping she will come to love him, and Christine begins to find herself attracted to her abductor. But she causes Erik to change his plans when she unmasks him and, to the horror of both, beholds his face, which according to the book, resembles the face of a rotting corpse. Erik goes into a frenzy, stating she probably thinks his face is another mask, and whilst digging her fingers in to show it was really his face he shouts, \"I am Don Juan Triumphant!\" before crawling away, crying. Fearing that she will leave him, he decides to keep her with him forever, but when Christine requests release after two weeks, he agrees on condition that she wear his ring and be faithful to him. Up on the roof of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " the face of a rotting corpse. Erik goes into a frenzy, stating she probably thinks his face is another mask, and whilst digging her fingers in to show it was really his face he shouts, \"I am Don Juan Triumphant!\" before crawling away, crying. Fearing that she will leave him, he decides to keep her with him forever, but when Christine requests release after two weeks, he agrees on condition that she wear his ring and be faithful to him. Up on the roof of the Opera, Christine tells Raoul of Erik taking her to the cellars. Raoul promises to take Christine away where Erik can never find her and to take her even if she resists. Raoul tells Christine he shall act on his promise the following day, to which Christine agrees, but she pities Erik and will not go until she has sung for him one last time. Christine then realizes the ring has slipped off her finger and fallen into the streets somewhere, and begins to panic. The two leave. But neither is aware that Erik has been listening to their conversation or that it has driven him to jealous frenzy. During the week and that night, Erik has been terrorising anyone who stood in his way or in that of Christine's career, including the managers. The following night, Erik kidnaps Christine during a production of Faust (by drugging the gas men and switching the lights off, he spirits Christine off the stage before anyone turned the lights on). Back in the cellars, Erik tries to force Christine into marriage. If she refuses he threatens to destroy the entire Opera using explosives he has planted in the cellars, killing them and everyone in the floors above. Christine continues to refuse, until she realizes that Raoul and an old acquaintance of Erik's known only as \"The Persian\", in an attempt to rescue her, have been trapped in Erik's hot torture chamber. To save them and the people above, Christine agrees to marry Erik. At first, Erik tries to drown Raoul"
      },
      {
        "text": " to force Christine into marriage. If she refuses he threatens to destroy the entire Opera using explosives he has planted in the cellars, killing them and everyone in the floors above. Christine continues to refuse, until she realizes that Raoul and an old acquaintance of Erik's known only as \"The Persian\", in an attempt to rescue her, have been trapped in Erik's hot torture chamber. To save them and the people above, Christine agrees to marry Erik. At first, Erik tries to drown Raoul and the Persian in the water used to douse the explosives, stating that Christine doesn't need another. But Christine begs and offers to be his \"living bride\", promising him not to kill herself after becoming his bride, as she had both contemplated and attempted earlier in the novel. Erik rescues the Persian and the young Raoul from his torture chamber thereafter. When Erik is alone with Christine, he lifts his mask a little to kiss her on the forehead, and Christine allows him to do this. Erik, who admits that he has never before in his life received or been allowed to give a kiss \u2013 not even from his own mother \u2013 is overcome with emotion. Christine gives him a kiss back. He lets Christine go and tells her \"Go and marry the boy whenever you wish,\" explaining, \"I know you love him\". She leaves on the condition that when he dies she will come back and bury him. Being an old acquaintance, The Persian is told of all these secrets by Erik himself, and upon his express request, the Persian advertises Erik's death in the newspaper about three weeks later. The cause of death is revealed to be a broken heart, and as promised, Christine returns to bury Erik and give his ring back to him.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " and upon his express request, the Persian advertises Erik's death in the newspaper about three weeks later. The cause of death is revealed to be a broken heart, and as promised, Christine returns to bury Erik and give his ring back to him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Murder on the Orient Express",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Hercule Poirot boards the Orient Express in Constantinople. The train is unusually crowded for the time of year. Poirot secures a berth only with the help of his friend M. Bouc, a director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. When a Mr. Harris fails to show up, Poirot takes his place. On the second night, Poirot gets a compartment to himself. That night, in Vinkovci, at about twenty-three minutes before 1:00 am, Poirot wakes to the sound of a loud noise. It seems to come from the compartment next to his, which is occupied by Mr. Ratchett. When Poirot peeks out his door, he sees the conductor knock on Mr. Ratchett's door and ask if he is all right. A man replies in French \"Ce n'est rien. Je me suis tromp\u00e9\", which means \"It's nothing. I was mistaken\", and the conductor moves on to answer a bell down the passage. Poirot decides to go back to bed, but he is disturbed by the fact that the train is unusually still and his mouth is dry. As he lies awake, he hears a Mrs. Hubbard ringing the bell urgently. When Poirot then rings the conductor for a bottle of mineral water, he learns that Mrs. Hubbard claimed that someone had been in her compartment. He also learns that the train has stopped due to a snowstorm. Poirot dismisses the conductor and tries to go back to sleep, only to be awakened again by a thump on his door. This time when Poirot gets up and looks out of his compartment, the passage is completely silent, and he sees nothing except the back of a woman in a scarlet kimono retreating down the passage in the distance. The next day he awakens to find that Ratchett is dead, having been stabbed twelve times in his sleep. M. Bouc suggests that Poirot take the case, being that it is so obviously his kind of case; nothing more is required than for him to sit, think, and take in the available evidence. However, the clues and circumstances of Ratchett's death are very mysterious. Some of the stab wounds are very deep, only three are lethal, and some are glancing blows. Furthermore, some of them appear to have been inflicted by a right-handed person and some by a left-handed person. Poirot finds several more clues in the victim's cabin and on board the train, including a linen handkerchief embroidered with the initial \"H\", a pipe cleaner, and a button from a conductor's uniform. All of these clues suggest that the murderer or murderers were somewhat sloppy. However, each clue seemingly points to different suspects, which suggests that some of the clues were planted. By reconstructing parts of a burned letter, Poirot discovers that Mr. Ratchett was a notorious fugitive from the U.S. named Cassetti. Five years earlier, Cassetti kidnapped three-year-old American heiress Daisy Armstrong. Though the Armstrong family paid a large ransom, Cassetti murdered the little girl and fled the country with the money. Daisy's mother, Sonia, was pregnant when she heard of Daisy's death. The shock sent her into premature labour, and both she and the baby died. Her husband, Colonel Armstrong, shot himself out of grief. Daisy's nursemaid, Susanne, was suspected of complicity in the crime by the police, despite her protests. She threw herself out of a window and died, after which she was proved innocent. Although Cassetti was caught, his resources allowed him to get himself acquitted on an unspecified technicality, although he still fled the country to escape further prosecution for the crime. As the evidence mounts, it continues to point in wildly different directions and it appears that Poirot is being challenged by a mastermind. A critical piece of missing evidence–the scarlet kimono worn the night of the murder by an unknown woman–turns up in Poirot's own luggage. After meditating on the evidence, Poirot assembles the thirteen suspects, M. Bouc and Dr. Constantine in the restaurant car. He lays out two possible explanations of Ratchett's murder. The first explanation is that a stranger–some gangster enemy of Ratchett–boarded the train at Vinkovci, the last stop, murdered Ratchett for reasons unknown, and escaped unnoticed. The crime occurred an hour earlier than everyone thought, because the victim and several others failed to note that the train had just crossed into a different time zone. The other noises heard by Poirot on the coach that evening were unrelated to the murder. However, Dr. Constantine says that Poirot must surely be aware that this does not fully explain the circumstances of the case. Poirot's second explanation is rather more sensational: all of the suspects are guilty. Poirot's suspicions were first aroused by the fact that all the passengers on the train were of so many different nationalities and social classes, and that only in the \"melting pot\" of the United States would a group of such different people form some connection with each other. Poirot reveals that the twelve other passengers on the train and the train conductor were all connected to the Armstrong family in some way: *Hector MacQueen, Ratchett/Cassetti's secretary, devoted to Sonia Armstrong; MacQueen's father was the district attorney for the kidnapping case. He knew from his father the details of Cassetti's escape from justice. *Masterman, Ratchett/Cassetti's valet, was Colonel Armstrong's batman during the war and later his valet; *Colonel Arbuthnot was Colonel Armstrong's comrade and best friend; *Mrs. Hubbard in actuality is Linda Arden (n\u00e9e Goldenberg), the most famous tragic actress of the New York stage, and was Sonia Armstrong's mother and Daisy's grandmother; *Countess Andrenyi (n\u00e9e Helena Goldenberg) was Sonia Armstrong's sister; *Count Andryeni was the husband of Helena Andrenyi; *Princess Natalia Dragomiroff was Sonia Armstrong's godmother as she was a friend of her mother; *Miss Mary Debenham was Sonia Armstrong's secretary and Daisy Armstrong's governess; *Fr\u00e4ulein Hildegarde Schmidt, Princess Dragomiroff's maid, was the Armstrong family's cook; *Antonio Foscarelli, a car salesman based in Chicago, was the Armstrong family's chauffeur; *Miss Greta Ohlsson, a Swedish missionary, was Daisy Armstrong's nurse; *Pierre Michel, the train conductor, was the father of Susanne, the Armstrong's nursemaid who committed suicide; *Cyrus Hardman, a private detective ostensibly retained as a bodyguard by Ratchett/Cassetti, was a policeman in love with Susanne. All these friends and relations had been gravely affected by Daisy's murder and outraged by Cassetti's subsequent escape. They took it into their own hands to serve as Cassetti's executioners, to avenge a crime the law was unable to punish. Each of the suspects stabbed Ratchett once, so that no one could know who delivered the fatal blow. Twelve of the conspirators participated to allow for a \"twelve-person jury\", with Count Andrenyi acting for his wife, as she–Daisy's aunt–would have been the most likely suspect. One extra berth was booked under a fictitious name–Harris–so that no one but the conspirators and the victim would be on board the coach, and this fictitious person would subsequently disappear and become the primary suspect in Ratchett's murder. (The only person not involved in the plot would be M. Bouc, for whom the cabin next to Ratchett was already reserved.) The main inconvenience for the murderers was the occurrence of a snowstorm and the presence of a detective, which caused complications to the conspirators that resulted in several crucial clues being left behind. Poirot summarizes that there was no other way the murder could have taken place, given the evidence. Several of the suspects have broken down in tears as he has revealed their connection to the Armstrong family, and Mrs. Hubbard/Linda Arden confesses that the second theory is correct and that Colonel Arbuthnot and Mary Debenham are in love. She then appeals to Poirot, M. Bouc, and Dr. Constantine, not to turn them in to the police. Fully in sympathy with the Armstrong family, and feeling nothing but disgust for the victim, Bouc pronounces the first explanation as correct, and Poirot and Dr. Constantine agree, Dr. Constantine suggesting that he will edit his original report of Cassetti's body to comply with Poirot's first deduction as he now 'recognizes' some mistakes he has made. His task completed, Poirot states he has \"the honour to retire from the case.\" Arrangement of the Calais Coach: {| width=\"1450\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"margin:0 0; background-color: #FFFFFF\" style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 80%\" |-bgcolor=\"#F5F5DC\" |style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0\"|   || style=\"background:#98FB98\" width=\"50\"|   || colspan=\"12\" width=\"1200\" style=\"text-align: center;\"| Corridor ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0\"|   |-style=\"height:60px\" |style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0\"| Athens-Paris Coach ||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black;background:#98FB98\" width=\"50\"| Michel ||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 16. Hardman||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 15. Arbuthnot || style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 14. Dragomiroff ||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 13. R. Andrenyi || style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 12. H. Andrenyi ||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black;background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 3. Hubbard || style=\"border-right: 1px solid black;background:#FF7F50\" width=\"100\"| 2. Ratchett || style=\"background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 1. Poirot ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE\" width=\"100\"| 10. Ohlsson11. Debenham ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE\" width=\"100\"| 8. Schmidt9. ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black; background:#7B68EE\" width=\"100\"| 6. MacQueen7. ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE\" width=\"100\"| 4. Masterman5. Foscarelli ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0\"| Dining Car |}\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Hercule Poirot boards the Orient Express in Constantinople. The train is unusually crowded for the time of year. Poirot secures a berth only with the help of his friend M. Bouc, a director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. When a Mr. Harris fails to show up, Poirot takes his place. On the second night, Poirot gets a compartment to himself. That night, in Vinkovci, at about twenty-three minutes before 1:00 am, Poirot wakes to the sound of a loud noise. It seems to come from the compartment next to his, which is occupied by Mr. Ratchett. When Poirot peeks out his door, he sees the conductor knock on Mr. Ratchett's door and ask if he is all right. A man replies in French \"Ce n'est rien. Je me suis tromp\u00e9\", which means \"It's nothing. I was mistaken\", and the conductor moves on to answer a bell down the passage. Poirot decides to go back to bed, but he is disturbed by the fact that the train is unusually still and his mouth is dry. As he lies awake, he hears a Mrs. Hubbard ringing the bell urgently. When Poirot then rings the conductor for a bottle of mineral water, he learns that Mrs. Hubbard claimed that someone had been in her compartment. He also learns that the train has stopped due to a snowstorm. Poirot dismisses the conductor and tries to go back to sleep, only to be awakened again by a thump on his door. This time when Poirot gets up and looks out of his compartment, the passage is completely silent, and he sees nothing except the back of a woman in a scarlet kimono retreating down the passage in the distance. The next day he awakens to find that Ratchett is dead, having"
      },
      {
        "text": " the train has stopped due to a snowstorm. Poirot dismisses the conductor and tries to go back to sleep, only to be awakened again by a thump on his door. This time when Poirot gets up and looks out of his compartment, the passage is completely silent, and he sees nothing except the back of a woman in a scarlet kimono retreating down the passage in the distance. The next day he awakens to find that Ratchett is dead, having been stabbed twelve times in his sleep. M. Bouc suggests that Poirot take the case, being that it is so obviously his kind of case; nothing more is required than for him to sit, think, and take in the available evidence. However, the clues and circumstances of Ratchett's death are very mysterious. Some of the stab wounds are very deep, only three are lethal, and some are glancing blows. Furthermore, some of them appear to have been inflicted by a right-handed person and some by a left-handed person. Poirot finds several more clues in the victim's cabin and on board the train, including a linen handkerchief embroidered with the initial \"H\", a pipe cleaner, and a button from a conductor's uniform. All of these clues suggest that the murderer or murderers were somewhat sloppy. However, each clue seemingly points to different suspects, which suggests that some of the clues were planted. By reconstructing parts of a burned letter, Poirot discovers that Mr. Ratchett was a notorious fugitive from the U.S. named Cassetti. Five years earlier, Cassetti kidnapped three-year-old American heiress Daisy Armstrong. Though the Armstrong family paid a large ransom, Cassetti murdered the little girl and fled the country with the money. Daisy's mother, Sonia, was pregnant when she heard of Daisy's death. The shock sent her into premature labour, and both she and the baby died. Her"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Poirot discovers that Mr. Ratchett was a notorious fugitive from the U.S. named Cassetti. Five years earlier, Cassetti kidnapped three-year-old American heiress Daisy Armstrong. Though the Armstrong family paid a large ransom, Cassetti murdered the little girl and fled the country with the money. Daisy's mother, Sonia, was pregnant when she heard of Daisy's death. The shock sent her into premature labour, and both she and the baby died. Her husband, Colonel Armstrong, shot himself out of grief. Daisy's nursemaid, Susanne, was suspected of complicity in the crime by the police, despite her protests. She threw herself out of a window and died, after which she was proved innocent. Although Cassetti was caught, his resources allowed him to get himself acquitted on an unspecified technicality, although he still fled the country to escape further prosecution for the crime. As the evidence mounts, it continues to point in wildly different directions and it appears that Poirot is being challenged by a mastermind. A critical piece of missing evidence–the scarlet kimono worn the night of the murder by an unknown woman–turns up in Poirot's own luggage. After meditating on the evidence, Poirot assembles the thirteen suspects, M. Bouc and Dr. Constantine in the restaurant car. He lays out two possible explanations of Ratchett's murder. The first explanation is that a stranger–some gangster enemy of Ratchett–boarded the train at Vinkovci, the last stop, murdered Ratchett for reasons unknown, and escaped unnoticed. The crime occurred an hour earlier than everyone thought, because the victim and several others failed to note that the train had just crossed into a different time zone. The other noises heard by Poirot on the coach that evening were unrelated to the murder. However, Dr. Constantine says"
      },
      {
        "text": " a stranger–some gangster enemy of Ratchett–boarded the train at Vinkovci, the last stop, murdered Ratchett for reasons unknown, and escaped unnoticed. The crime occurred an hour earlier than everyone thought, because the victim and several others failed to note that the train had just crossed into a different time zone. The other noises heard by Poirot on the coach that evening were unrelated to the murder. However, Dr. Constantine says that Poirot must surely be aware that this does not fully explain the circumstances of the case. Poirot's second explanation is rather more sensational: all of the suspects are guilty. Poirot's suspicions were first aroused by the fact that all the passengers on the train were of so many different nationalities and social classes, and that only in the \"melting pot\" of the United States would a group of such different people form some connection with each other. Poirot reveals that the twelve other passengers on the train and the train conductor were all connected to the Armstrong family in some way: *Hector MacQueen, Ratchett/Cassetti's secretary, devoted to Sonia Armstrong; MacQueen's father was the district attorney for the kidnapping case. He knew from his father the details of Cassetti's escape from justice. *Masterman, Ratchett/Cassetti's valet, was Colonel Armstrong's batman during the war and later his valet; *Colonel Arbuthnot was Colonel Armstrong's comrade and best friend; *Mrs. Hubbard in actuality is Linda Arden (n\u00e9e Goldenberg), the most famous tragic actress of the New York stage, and was Sonia Armstrong's mother and Daisy's grandmother; *Countess Andrenyi (n\u00e9e Helena Goldenberg) was Sonia Armstrong's sister; *Count Andryeni was the husband of Helena Andrenyi; *Princess Natalia Dragomiroff was Sonia Armstrong's"
      },
      {
        "text": "Colonel Arbuthnot was Colonel Armstrong's comrade and best friend; *Mrs. Hubbard in actuality is Linda Arden (n\u00e9e Goldenberg), the most famous tragic actress of the New York stage, and was Sonia Armstrong's mother and Daisy's grandmother; *Countess Andrenyi (n\u00e9e Helena Goldenberg) was Sonia Armstrong's sister; *Count Andryeni was the husband of Helena Andrenyi; *Princess Natalia Dragomiroff was Sonia Armstrong's godmother as she was a friend of her mother; *Miss Mary Debenham was Sonia Armstrong's secretary and Daisy Armstrong's governess; *Fr\u00e4ulein Hildegarde Schmidt, Princess Dragomiroff's maid, was the Armstrong family's cook; *Antonio Foscarelli, a car salesman based in Chicago, was the Armstrong family's chauffeur; *Miss Greta Ohlsson, a Swedish missionary, was Daisy Armstrong's nurse; *Pierre Michel, the train conductor, was the father of Susanne, the Armstrong's nursemaid who committed suicide; *Cyrus Hardman, a private detective ostensibly retained as a bodyguard by Ratchett/Cassetti, was a policeman in love with Susanne. All these friends and relations had been gravely affected by Daisy's murder and outraged by Cassetti's subsequent escape. They took it into their own hands to serve as Cassetti's executioners, to avenge a crime the law was unable to punish. Each of the suspects stabbed Ratchett once, so that no one could know who delivered the fatal blow. Twelve of the conspirators participated to allow for a \"twelve-person jury\", with Count Andrenyi acting for his wife, as she–Daisy's aunt–would have been the most likely suspect. One extra berth was booked under a fictitious name–Harris–so that no one but the"
      },
      {
        "text": " was unable to punish. Each of the suspects stabbed Ratchett once, so that no one could know who delivered the fatal blow. Twelve of the conspirators participated to allow for a \"twelve-person jury\", with Count Andrenyi acting for his wife, as she–Daisy's aunt–would have been the most likely suspect. One extra berth was booked under a fictitious name–Harris–so that no one but the conspirators and the victim would be on board the coach, and this fictitious person would subsequently disappear and become the primary suspect in Ratchett's murder. (The only person not involved in the plot would be M. Bouc, for whom the cabin next to Ratchett was already reserved.) The main inconvenience for the murderers was the occurrence of a snowstorm and the presence of a detective, which caused complications to the conspirators that resulted in several crucial clues being left behind. Poirot summarizes that there was no other way the murder could have taken place, given the evidence. Several of the suspects have broken down in tears as he has revealed their connection to the Armstrong family, and Mrs. Hubbard/Linda Arden confesses that the second theory is correct and that Colonel Arbuthnot and Mary Debenham are in love. She then appeals to Poirot, M. Bouc, and Dr. Constantine, not to turn them in to the police. Fully in sympathy with the Armstrong family, and feeling nothing but disgust for the victim, Bouc pronounces the first explanation as correct, and Poirot and Dr. Constantine agree, Dr. Constantine suggesting that he will edit his original report of Cassetti's body to comply with Poirot's first deduction as he now 'recognizes' some mistakes he has made. His task completed, Poirot states he has \"the honour to retire from the case.\" Arrangement of the Calais Coach:"
      },
      {
        "text": " sympathy with the Armstrong family, and feeling nothing but disgust for the victim, Bouc pronounces the first explanation as correct, and Poirot and Dr. Constantine agree, Dr. Constantine suggesting that he will edit his original report of Cassetti's body to comply with Poirot's first deduction as he now 'recognizes' some mistakes he has made. His task completed, Poirot states he has \"the honour to retire from the case.\" Arrangement of the Calais Coach: {| width=\"1450\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"margin:0 0; background-color: #FFFFFF\" style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 80%\" |-bgcolor=\"#F5F5DC\" |style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0\"|   || style=\"background:#98FB98\" width=\"50\"|   || colspan=\"12\" width=\"1200\" style=\"text-align: center;\"| Corridor ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0\"|   |-style=\"height:60px\" |style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0\"| Athens-Paris Coach ||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black;background:#98FB98\" width=\"50\"| Michel ||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 16. Hardman||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 15. Arbuthnot || style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 14. Dragomiroff ||style=\"border-"
      },
      {
        "text": "\" width=\"50\"| Michel ||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 16. Hardman||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 15. Arbuthnot || style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 14. Dragomiroff ||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 13. R. Andrenyi || style=\"border-right: 1px solid black; background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 12. H. Andrenyi ||style=\"border-right: 1px solid black;background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 3. Hubbard || style=\"border-right: 1px solid black;background:#FF7F50\" width=\"100\"| 2. Ratchett || style=\"background:#DA70D6\" width=\"100\"| 1. Poirot ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE\" width=\"100\"| 10. Ohlsson11. Debenham ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE\" width=\"100\"| 8. Schmidt9. ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black; background:#7B68EE\" width=\"100\"| 6. MacQueen7. ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE\" width=\"100\"| 4. Masterman5. Foscarelli ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0\"| Dining Car |}\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "-left: 1px solid black; background:#7B68EE\" width=\"100\"| 6. MacQueen7. ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black;background:#7B68EE\" width=\"100\"| 4. Masterman5. Foscarelli ||style=\"border-left: 1px solid black; background:#C0C0C0\"| Dining Car |}\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets",
    "author": "J. K. Rowling",
    "published_date": "1998-07-02",
    "synopsis": " Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets begins as Harry spends a miserable summer with his only remaining family, the Dursleys. During a dinner party hosted by his uncle and aunt, Harry is visited by Dobby, a house-elf. Dobby warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts, the magical school for wizards that Harry attended the previous year, explaining that terrible things will happen there. Harry politely disregards the warning, and Dobby wreaks havoc in the kitchen, infuriating the Dursleys. The Dursleys angrily imprison Harry in his room for a while after they find from a letter that Harry is not allowed to use magic away from Hogwarts. Harry is rescued by his friend Ron Weasley and his brothers Fred and George in a flying car, and spends the rest of the summer at the Weasley home. When Harry uses Floo Powder to get to Diagon Alley he accidentally ends up in a dark-arts dealing end of town, Knockturn Alley. Fortunately, he meets Hagrid who gets him back to Diagon Alley. While shopping for school supplies there with the Weasleys, Harry encounters Gilderoy Lockhart, a wizard famous for all manner of deeds, who announces he is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and demands to be in a photo shoot with Harry. Harry then encounters Lucius Malfoy, a Hogwarts governor and the father of the school bully, Draco, who gets into an argument with Ron's father when he insults the Weasley family. As Harry prepares to return to Hogwarts, he finds that he and Ron are unable to go through the secret entrance to Platform 9 \u00be, so they fly the Weasley's car to Hogwarts. They land messily, and both boys are detained for obvious reasons. Next day Molly Weasley sends a Howler to Ron, a letter that berates him with her much louder voice, and threatens to send him home if he gets into trouble again. Lockhart quickly proves to be an incompetent teacher, more concerned with students learning about his personal accomplishments. On Halloween, something petrifies the school caretaker's cat and writes a message declaring that \"The Chamber of Secrets\" has been opened. Before the cat is attacked, Harry twice hears an eerie voice. He hears it first during his detention and second during a party, moments before the cat is attacked, and third before a Quidditch match. Everybody in the school is alarmed. Harry, Ron and their other friend, Hermione Granger, learn that during the founding of Hogwarts one of the founders, Salazar Slytherin, left the school, disagreeing with the decision to teach magic to Muggle-born students. According to legend, Slytherin secretly built the Chamber of Secrets, which supposedly houses a monster only Slytherin's heir can control. Suspecting that Draco is the heir of Slytherin, the trio start making Polyjuice Potion, a brew which allows them to take on another's form. During the school's first game of Quidditch, Harry is pursued continually by a Bludger, an enchanted ball that knocks players off their brooms, despite their purpose being to unseat as many players as possible. As a result, Harry's arm is broken, and Lockhart then proceeds to unintentionally remove the broken bones. That night, as he recovers from the injury, Harry is visited by Dobby, who admits to having orchestrated the platform incident and the rogue Bludger, both of which were attempts to keep Harry away from Hogwarts. Soon after, a first year student, Colin Creevy, is attacked and petrified. Lockhart begins a dueling club; and during the first meeting Harry unknowingly speaks Parseltongue to persuade a snake from attacking a student. Harry's ability frightens the others because Salazar Slytherin was also able to speak Parseltongue, and his heir would also have this ability. Harry comes under further suspicion when he stumbles upon the petrified bodies of Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick. At Christmas, Harry and Ron use the finished Polyjuice Potion to disguise themselves as Draco's friends Crabbe for Ron and Goyle for Harry. Hermione was going to be Millicent Bulstrode, another Slytherin student, but was instead given some features of a cat, so does not joins them. Harry and Ron find out that Draco is not the heir of Slytherin, but he does reveal that the Chamber was opened before. No more attacks occur for a while, and right before Valentine's Day, Harry finds a diary in a flooded bathroom and takes it. He writes in the diary, which responds by writing back. Through this dialogue, Harry meets Tom Riddle, a boy who many years before had accused Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, of first opening the Chamber of Secrets. Some time later, Harry's room is ransacked and the diary is taken. Later on, Hermione and a Ravenclaw girl, Penolope Clearwater, are petrified. Harry and Ron venture out of the castle to question Hagrid. Before they can question him, however, the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, takes Hagrid to Azkaban as the supposed previous culprit; while at the same time Lucius Malfoy orchestrates the removal of Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore for his failure to stop the attacks. As Hagrid is led away, he instructs the boys to \"follow the spiders\", as they will be able to provide more information. Harry and Ron then sneak into the Forbidden Forest to follow the spiders. They encounter Aragog who reveals the monster who killed the girl fifty years before was not a spider, that the girl's body was found in a bathroom, and that Hagrid is innocent. The boys are almost eaten by the colony of giant spiders. After they escape, Harry and Ron realize that Moaning Myrtle, the ghost who haunts the bathroom where they made the Polyjuice Potion, must have been the girl killed by the monster. A few days later, Ron and Harry discover a piece of paper with a description of a Basilisk, a giant serpent that kills all who look it directly in the eye, in Hermione's petrified hand. They deduce that the Chamber's monster is indeed a Basilisk, since as a snake Harry can understand what it was saying when it travelled through the schools pipes. As for the petrifications, these were due to the victims looking at the Basilisk's eyes indirectly. Before the boys can act on their knowledge, the teachers announce that Ron's sister Ginny Weasley has been taken into the Chamber. Lockhart arrives, and is pressured by the other teachers into venturing into the Chamber and dealing with the monster unknown to them and to him. Harry and Ron go to give him their information, only to discover that he is a fraud. Regardless, they force him to accompany them to the Chamber. The trio discovers that the entrance to the Chamber is in Myrtle's bathroom, and Harry's Parseltongue is able to open it. Inside the Chamber, Lockhart steals Ron's wand, and attempts to wipe the memories of the other two, in order to keep his secrets safe. However, Ron's wand, which has been broken since the car crash at the start of the year, deflects the spell back at Lockhart, wiping his memory. A cave-in then separates him and Ron from Harry, who is forced to proceed alone. Harry finds Ginny's unconscious body, as well as the almost-physical form of Riddle. Riddle explains that Ginny has been talking with him via his diary. Through this, Riddle was able to possess Ginny, and use her to control the Basilisk. Ginny eventually became suspicious of the diary and tried to dispose of it in a toilet, where it was picked up by Harry, but stole it back for fear Harry would find out her role in the attacks. Riddle forced her to enter the Chamber, and possessing her soul was able to obtain a physical form. Riddle reveals that Tom Marvolo Riddle is an anagram although it is his real name for I am Lord Voldemort, who is the wizard who murdered Harry's parents eleven years ago, and sets the Basilisk on Harry. Just when it seems Harry will be killed by the Basilisk, Fawkes, Dumbledore's pet phoenix, appears and blinds the Basilisk, depriving it of its deadly stare. Fawkes also drops the school Sorting Hat, from which Harry draws a sword and uses it to kill the Basilisk. As he does so, one of the Basilisk's fangs pierce Harry's arm and Harry is saved by Fawkes, as phoenix tears have immense healing powers. Harry then stabs the diary with a Basilisk fang, defeating Riddle and saving Ginny. The five of them later leave the Chamber. Back at Hogwarts, they discover that Dumbledore has been reinstated as Headmaster. After Harry finishes explaining things to Dumbledore, Lucius Malfoy suddenly bursts in to Dumbledore's office. It is implied that he had planted Riddle's diary on Ginny in the first place, in the hopes of discrediting Dumbledore and the Weasleys. Discovering that Mr. Malfoy is Dobby's master, Harry then tricks him into freeing Dobby by concealing a sock in the diary (clothing being the only object able to free a house elf). All the petrified people are revived by a Mandrake Draught potion, Lockhart is sent to the wizarding hospital where he tries to regain his memories, and Hagrid returns to the school.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets begins as Harry spends a miserable summer with his only remaining family, the Dursleys. During a dinner party hosted by his uncle and aunt, Harry is visited by Dobby, a house-elf. Dobby warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts, the magical school for wizards that Harry attended the previous year, explaining that terrible things will happen there. Harry politely disregards the warning, and Dobby wreaks havoc in the kitchen, infuriating the Dursleys. The Dursleys angrily imprison Harry in his room for a while after they find from a letter that Harry is not allowed to use magic away from Hogwarts. Harry is rescued by his friend Ron Weasley and his brothers Fred and George in a flying car, and spends the rest of the summer at the Weasley home. When Harry uses Floo Powder to get to Diagon Alley he accidentally ends up in a dark-arts dealing end of town, Knockturn Alley. Fortunately, he meets Hagrid who gets him back to Diagon Alley. While shopping for school supplies there with the Weasleys, Harry encounters Gilderoy Lockhart, a wizard famous for all manner of deeds, who announces he is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and demands to be in a photo shoot with Harry. Harry then encounters Lucius Malfoy, a Hogwarts governor and the father of the school bully, Draco, who gets into an argument with Ron's father when he insults the Weasley family. As Harry prepares to return to Hogwarts, he finds that he and Ron are unable to go through the secret entrance to Platform 9 \u00be, so they fly the Weasley's car to Hogwarts. They land messily, and both boys are detained for obvious reasons. Next day Molly Weasley sends a Howler to Ron, a letter that berates him with her much louder voice, and threatens to send him home if he gets into trouble again. Lockhart quickly proves to be an incompetent teacher, more concerned with students"
      },
      {
        "text": " prepares to return to Hogwarts, he finds that he and Ron are unable to go through the secret entrance to Platform 9 \u00be, so they fly the Weasley's car to Hogwarts. They land messily, and both boys are detained for obvious reasons. Next day Molly Weasley sends a Howler to Ron, a letter that berates him with her much louder voice, and threatens to send him home if he gets into trouble again. Lockhart quickly proves to be an incompetent teacher, more concerned with students learning about his personal accomplishments. On Halloween, something petrifies the school caretaker's cat and writes a message declaring that \"The Chamber of Secrets\" has been opened. Before the cat is attacked, Harry twice hears an eerie voice. He hears it first during his detention and second during a party, moments before the cat is attacked, and third before a Quidditch match. Everybody in the school is alarmed. Harry, Ron and their other friend, Hermione Granger, learn that during the founding of Hogwarts one of the founders, Salazar Slytherin, left the school, disagreeing with the decision to teach magic to Muggle-born students. According to legend, Slytherin secretly built the Chamber of Secrets, which supposedly houses a monster only Slytherin's heir can control. Suspecting that Draco is the heir of Slytherin, the trio start making Polyjuice Potion, a brew which allows them to take on another's form. During the school's first game of Quidditch, Harry is pursued continually by a Bludger, an enchanted ball that knocks players off their brooms, despite their purpose being to unseat as many players as possible. As a result, Harry's arm is broken, and Lockhart then proceeds to unintentionally remove the broken bones. That night, as he recovers from the injury, Harry is visited by Dobby, who admits to having orchestrated the platform incident and the rogue Bludger, both of which were attempts to keep Harry"
      },
      {
        "text": " Quidditch, Harry is pursued continually by a Bludger, an enchanted ball that knocks players off their brooms, despite their purpose being to unseat as many players as possible. As a result, Harry's arm is broken, and Lockhart then proceeds to unintentionally remove the broken bones. That night, as he recovers from the injury, Harry is visited by Dobby, who admits to having orchestrated the platform incident and the rogue Bludger, both of which were attempts to keep Harry away from Hogwarts. Soon after, a first year student, Colin Creevy, is attacked and petrified. Lockhart begins a dueling club; and during the first meeting Harry unknowingly speaks Parseltongue to persuade a snake from attacking a student. Harry's ability frightens the others because Salazar Slytherin was also able to speak Parseltongue, and his heir would also have this ability. Harry comes under further suspicion when he stumbles upon the petrified bodies of Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick. At Christmas, Harry and Ron use the finished Polyjuice Potion to disguise themselves as Draco's friends Crabbe for Ron and Goyle for Harry. Hermione was going to be Millicent Bulstrode, another Slytherin student, but was instead given some features of a cat, so does not joins them. Harry and Ron find out that Draco is not the heir of Slytherin, but he does reveal that the Chamber was opened before. No more attacks occur for a while, and right before Valentine's Day, Harry finds a diary in a flooded bathroom and takes it. He writes in the diary, which responds by writing back. Through this dialogue, Harry meets Tom Riddle, a boy who many years before had accused Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, of first opening the Chamber of Secrets. Some time later, Harry's room is ransacked and the diary is taken. Later on, Hermione and a"
      },
      {
        "text": " was opened before. No more attacks occur for a while, and right before Valentine's Day, Harry finds a diary in a flooded bathroom and takes it. He writes in the diary, which responds by writing back. Through this dialogue, Harry meets Tom Riddle, a boy who many years before had accused Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, of first opening the Chamber of Secrets. Some time later, Harry's room is ransacked and the diary is taken. Later on, Hermione and a Ravenclaw girl, Penolope Clearwater, are petrified. Harry and Ron venture out of the castle to question Hagrid. Before they can question him, however, the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, takes Hagrid to Azkaban as the supposed previous culprit; while at the same time Lucius Malfoy orchestrates the removal of Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore for his failure to stop the attacks. As Hagrid is led away, he instructs the boys to \"follow the spiders\", as they will be able to provide more information. Harry and Ron then sneak into the Forbidden Forest to follow the spiders. They encounter Aragog who reveals the monster who killed the girl fifty years before was not a spider, that the girl's body was found in a bathroom, and that Hagrid is innocent. The boys are almost eaten by the colony of giant spiders. After they escape, Harry and Ron realize that Moaning Myrtle, the ghost who haunts the bathroom where they made the Polyjuice Potion, must have been the girl killed by the monster. A few days later, Ron and Harry discover a piece of paper with a description of a Basilisk, a giant serpent that kills all who look it directly in the eye, in Hermione's petrified hand. They deduce that the Chamber's monster is indeed a Basilisk, since as a snake Harry can understand what it was saying when it travelled through the schools pipes. As for the petrifications, these were"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Polyjuice Potion, must have been the girl killed by the monster. A few days later, Ron and Harry discover a piece of paper with a description of a Basilisk, a giant serpent that kills all who look it directly in the eye, in Hermione's petrified hand. They deduce that the Chamber's monster is indeed a Basilisk, since as a snake Harry can understand what it was saying when it travelled through the schools pipes. As for the petrifications, these were due to the victims looking at the Basilisk's eyes indirectly. Before the boys can act on their knowledge, the teachers announce that Ron's sister Ginny Weasley has been taken into the Chamber. Lockhart arrives, and is pressured by the other teachers into venturing into the Chamber and dealing with the monster unknown to them and to him. Harry and Ron go to give him their information, only to discover that he is a fraud. Regardless, they force him to accompany them to the Chamber. The trio discovers that the entrance to the Chamber is in Myrtle's bathroom, and Harry's Parseltongue is able to open it. Inside the Chamber, Lockhart steals Ron's wand, and attempts to wipe the memories of the other two, in order to keep his secrets safe. However, Ron's wand, which has been broken since the car crash at the start of the year, deflects the spell back at Lockhart, wiping his memory. A cave-in then separates him and Ron from Harry, who is forced to proceed alone. Harry finds Ginny's unconscious body, as well as the almost-physical form of Riddle. Riddle explains that Ginny has been talking with him via his diary. Through this, Riddle was able to possess Ginny, and use her to control the Basilisk. Ginny eventually became suspicious of the diary and tried to dispose of it in a toilet, where it was picked up by Harry, but stole it back for fear Harry would find out her"
      },
      {
        "text": " Ron from Harry, who is forced to proceed alone. Harry finds Ginny's unconscious body, as well as the almost-physical form of Riddle. Riddle explains that Ginny has been talking with him via his diary. Through this, Riddle was able to possess Ginny, and use her to control the Basilisk. Ginny eventually became suspicious of the diary and tried to dispose of it in a toilet, where it was picked up by Harry, but stole it back for fear Harry would find out her role in the attacks. Riddle forced her to enter the Chamber, and possessing her soul was able to obtain a physical form. Riddle reveals that Tom Marvolo Riddle is an anagram although it is his real name for I am Lord Voldemort, who is the wizard who murdered Harry's parents eleven years ago, and sets the Basilisk on Harry. Just when it seems Harry will be killed by the Basilisk, Fawkes, Dumbledore's pet phoenix, appears and blinds the Basilisk, depriving it of its deadly stare. Fawkes also drops the school Sorting Hat, from which Harry draws a sword and uses it to kill the Basilisk. As he does so, one of the Basilisk's fangs pierce Harry's arm and Harry is saved by Fawkes, as phoenix tears have immense healing powers. Harry then stabs the diary with a Basilisk fang, defeating Riddle and saving Ginny. The five of them later leave the Chamber. Back at Hogwarts, they discover that Dumbledore has been reinstated as Headmaster. After Harry finishes explaining things to Dumbledore, Lucius Malfoy suddenly bursts in to Dumbledore's office. It is implied that he had planted Riddle's diary on Ginny in the first place, in the hopes of discrediting Dumbledore and the Weasleys. Discovering that Mr. Malfoy is Dobby's master, Harry then tricks him into freeing Dobby by concealing a sock in the diary (clothing being the only object"
      },
      {
        "text": " Back at Hogwarts, they discover that Dumbledore has been reinstated as Headmaster. After Harry finishes explaining things to Dumbledore, Lucius Malfoy suddenly bursts in to Dumbledore's office. It is implied that he had planted Riddle's diary on Ginny in the first place, in the hopes of discrediting Dumbledore and the Weasleys. Discovering that Mr. Malfoy is Dobby's master, Harry then tricks him into freeing Dobby by concealing a sock in the diary (clothing being the only object able to free a house elf). All the petrified people are revived by a Mandrake Draught potion, Lockhart is sent to the wizarding hospital where he tries to regain his memories, and Hagrid returns to the school.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Equus",
    "author": "Peter Shaffer",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Martin Dysart is a psychiatrist in a psychiatric hospital. He begins with a monologue in which he outlines Alan Strang's case. He also divulges his feeling that his occupation is not all that he wishes it to be and his feelings of dissatisfaction and disappointment about his barren life. Dysart finds that there is a never-ending supply of troubled young people for him to \"adjust\" back into \"normal\" living; but he doubts the value of treating these youths, since they will simply return to a dull, normal life that lacks any commitment and \"worship\" (a recurring theme). He comments that Alan Strang's crime was extreme but adds that just such extremity is needed to break free from the chains of existence. A court magistrate, Hesther Salomon, visits Dysart, believing that he has the skills to help Alan come to terms with his violent acts. Dysart has a great deal of difficulty making any kind of headway with Alan, who at first responds to questioning by singing advertising jingles. Slowly, however, Dysart makes contact with Alan by playing a game where each of them asks a question, which must be answered honestly. He learns that, from an early age, Alan has been receiving conflicting viewpoints on religion from his parents. Alan's mother, Dora Strang, is a devout Christian who has read to him daily from the Bible. This practice has antagonized Alan's atheist father, Frank Strang, who, concerned that Alan has taken far too much interest in the more violent aspects of the Bible, destroyed a violent picture of the Crucifixion that Alan had hung at the foot of his bed. Alan replaced the picture with one of a horse, with large, staring eyes. Moreover, during his youth, Alan had established his attraction to horses by way of his mother's biblical tales, a horse story that she had read to him, western movies, and his grandfather's interest in horses and riding. Dysart reveals a dream he has had, in a Grecian/Homeric setting, in which he is a public official presiding over a mass ritual sacrifice. Dysart slices open the viscera of hundreds of children, and pulls out their entrails. He becomes disgusted with what he is doing, but desiring to \"look professional\" to the other officials, does not stop. Alan's sexual training began with his mother, who told him that the sexual act was dirty, but that he could find true love and contentment by way of religious devotion and marriage. During this time he also begins to show a sexual attraction to horses, desiring to pet their thick coats, feel their muscular bodies and smell their sweat. Alan reveals to Dysart that he had first encountered a horse at age six, on the beach. A rider approached him, and took him up on the horse. Alan was visibly excited, but his parents found him and his father pulled him violently off the horse. The horse rider scoffed at the father and rode off. In another key scene, Dysart hypnotizes Alan, and during the hypnosis, Dysart reveals elements of his terrifying dream of the ritual murder of children. This is only one of numerous \"confessions\" that take place in the play. Dysart begins to jog Alan's memory by filling in blanks of the dialogue, and asking questions. Alan reveals that he wants to help the horses by removing the bit, which enslaves them. Enslaved and tortured \"like Jesus?\" asks Dysart, and Alan replies \"Yes.\" Alan has a job working in a shop selling electrical goods, where he meets Jill Mason. She visits the shop wanting blades for horse-clippers. Alan is instantly interested when he discovers that Jill has such close contact with horses. Jill suggests that Alan work for the owner of the stables, Harry Dalton, and Alan agrees. Alan is held by Dalton to be a model worker, since he keeps the stables immaculately clean and grooms the horses, including one named \"Nugget\". Through Dysart's questioning, it becomes clear that Alan is fixated on Nugget (or Equus) and secretly takes him for midnight rides, bareback and naked. Alan also envisions himself as a king, on the godhead Equus, both destroying their enemies. Dysart gives Alan a placebo \"truth pill\" and revealing a tryst with Jill, begins to enact the event. Jill, who had taken an interest in Alan, had asked him to take her to an adult movie theater. While there, they ran into Frank. Alan was traumatized, particularly when he realized that his father was lying when he tried to justify his presence in the theater. However, this occurrence allows Alan to realize that sex is a natural thing for all men\u2014even his father. Alan walks Jill home after they leave. She convinces Alan to come to the stables with her. Once there, she seduces Alan and the two start having sex. However, Alan breaks this off when he hears the horses making noises in the stables beneath. Jill tries to ask Alan what the problem is, but he shouts at her to leave. He begs the horses for forgiveness, as he sees the horses as God-like figures. \"Mine!...You're mine!...I am yours and you are mine!\" cries Equus through Dysart, but then he becomes threatening. \"The Lord thy God is a Jealous God\", Equus/Dysart seethes, \"He sees you, He sees you forever and ever, Alan. He sees you!...He sees you!\" Alan screams, \"God seest!\" Then he says, \"No more. No more, Equus.\" With that he blinds the horses, whose eyes have \"seen\" his very soul, with a hoof pick. The play concludes with Dysart questioning the fundamentals of his practice and whether or not what he does will actually help Alan, as the effect of his treatment will remove Alan's intense sexual and religious commitment, and his worship of the horses. Earlier, Dysart had asked Hesther Salomon what it would be like to be robbed of the ability to worship. He also reflects again on his own life, his envy of Alan's passion, and what he imagines is a bit in his mouth.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Martin Dysart is a psychiatrist in a psychiatric hospital. He begins with a monologue in which he outlines Alan Strang's case. He also divulges his feeling that his occupation is not all that he wishes it to be and his feelings of dissatisfaction and disappointment about his barren life. Dysart finds that there is a never-ending supply of troubled young people for him to \"adjust\" back into \"normal\" living; but he doubts the value of treating these youths, since they will simply return to a dull, normal life that lacks any commitment and \"worship\" (a recurring theme). He comments that Alan Strang's crime was extreme but adds that just such extremity is needed to break free from the chains of existence. A court magistrate, Hesther Salomon, visits Dysart, believing that he has the skills to help Alan come to terms with his violent acts. Dysart has a great deal of difficulty making any kind of headway with Alan, who at first responds to questioning by singing advertising jingles. Slowly, however, Dysart makes contact with Alan by playing a game where each of them asks a question, which must be answered honestly. He learns that, from an early age, Alan has been receiving conflicting viewpoints on religion from his parents. Alan's mother, Dora Strang, is a devout Christian who has read to him daily from the Bible. This practice has antagonized Alan's atheist father, Frank Strang, who, concerned that Alan has taken far too much interest in the more violent aspects of the Bible, destroyed a violent picture of the Crucifixion that Alan had hung at the foot of his bed. Alan replaced the picture with one of a horse, with large, staring eyes. Moreover, during his youth, Alan had established his attraction to horses by way of his mother's biblical tales, a horse story that she had read to him, western movies, and his grandfather's interest in horses and riding. Dysart reveals"
      },
      {
        "text": " has taken far too much interest in the more violent aspects of the Bible, destroyed a violent picture of the Crucifixion that Alan had hung at the foot of his bed. Alan replaced the picture with one of a horse, with large, staring eyes. Moreover, during his youth, Alan had established his attraction to horses by way of his mother's biblical tales, a horse story that she had read to him, western movies, and his grandfather's interest in horses and riding. Dysart reveals a dream he has had, in a Grecian/Homeric setting, in which he is a public official presiding over a mass ritual sacrifice. Dysart slices open the viscera of hundreds of children, and pulls out their entrails. He becomes disgusted with what he is doing, but desiring to \"look professional\" to the other officials, does not stop. Alan's sexual training began with his mother, who told him that the sexual act was dirty, but that he could find true love and contentment by way of religious devotion and marriage. During this time he also begins to show a sexual attraction to horses, desiring to pet their thick coats, feel their muscular bodies and smell their sweat. Alan reveals to Dysart that he had first encountered a horse at age six, on the beach. A rider approached him, and took him up on the horse. Alan was visibly excited, but his parents found him and his father pulled him violently off the horse. The horse rider scoffed at the father and rode off. In another key scene, Dysart hypnotizes Alan, and during the hypnosis, Dysart reveals elements of his terrifying dream of the ritual murder of children. This is only one of numerous \"confessions\" that take place in the play. Dysart begins to jog Alan's memory by filling in blanks of the dialogue, and asking questions. Alan reveals that he wants to help the horses by removing the bit, which enslaves them."
      },
      {
        "text": " horse rider scoffed at the father and rode off. In another key scene, Dysart hypnotizes Alan, and during the hypnosis, Dysart reveals elements of his terrifying dream of the ritual murder of children. This is only one of numerous \"confessions\" that take place in the play. Dysart begins to jog Alan's memory by filling in blanks of the dialogue, and asking questions. Alan reveals that he wants to help the horses by removing the bit, which enslaves them. Enslaved and tortured \"like Jesus?\" asks Dysart, and Alan replies \"Yes.\" Alan has a job working in a shop selling electrical goods, where he meets Jill Mason. She visits the shop wanting blades for horse-clippers. Alan is instantly interested when he discovers that Jill has such close contact with horses. Jill suggests that Alan work for the owner of the stables, Harry Dalton, and Alan agrees. Alan is held by Dalton to be a model worker, since he keeps the stables immaculately clean and grooms the horses, including one named \"Nugget\". Through Dysart's questioning, it becomes clear that Alan is fixated on Nugget (or Equus) and secretly takes him for midnight rides, bareback and naked. Alan also envisions himself as a king, on the godhead Equus, both destroying their enemies. Dysart gives Alan a placebo \"truth pill\" and revealing a tryst with Jill, begins to enact the event. Jill, who had taken an interest in Alan, had asked him to take her to an adult movie theater. While there, they ran into Frank. Alan was traumatized, particularly when he realized that his father was lying when he tried to justify his presence in the theater. However, this occurrence allows Alan to realize that sex is a natural thing for all men\u2014even his father. Alan walks Jill home after they leave. She convinces Alan to come to the stables with her. Once"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Jill, who had taken an interest in Alan, had asked him to take her to an adult movie theater. While there, they ran into Frank. Alan was traumatized, particularly when he realized that his father was lying when he tried to justify his presence in the theater. However, this occurrence allows Alan to realize that sex is a natural thing for all men\u2014even his father. Alan walks Jill home after they leave. She convinces Alan to come to the stables with her. Once there, she seduces Alan and the two start having sex. However, Alan breaks this off when he hears the horses making noises in the stables beneath. Jill tries to ask Alan what the problem is, but he shouts at her to leave. He begs the horses for forgiveness, as he sees the horses as God-like figures. \"Mine!...You're mine!...I am yours and you are mine!\" cries Equus through Dysart, but then he becomes threatening. \"The Lord thy God is a Jealous God\", Equus/Dysart seethes, \"He sees you, He sees you forever and ever, Alan. He sees you!...He sees you!\" Alan screams, \"God seest!\" Then he says, \"No more. No more, Equus.\" With that he blinds the horses, whose eyes have \"seen\" his very soul, with a hoof pick. The play concludes with Dysart questioning the fundamentals of his practice and whether or not what he does will actually help Alan, as the effect of his treatment will remove Alan's intense sexual and religious commitment, and his worship of the horses. Earlier, Dysart had asked Hesther Salomon what it would be like to be robbed of the ability to worship. He also reflects again on his own life, his envy of Alan's passion, and what he imagines is a bit in his mouth.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " and whether or not what he does will actually help Alan, as the effect of his treatment will remove Alan's intense sexual and religious commitment, and his worship of the horses. Earlier, Dysart had asked Hesther Salomon what it would be like to be robbed of the ability to worship. He also reflects again on his own life, his envy of Alan's passion, and what he imagines is a bit in his mouth.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "American Psycho",
    "author": "Bret Easton Ellis",
    "published_date": "1991",
    "synopsis": " Set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s, American Psycho is about the daily life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman. Bateman, in his late 20s when the story begins, narrates his everyday activities, from his recreational life among the Wall Street elite of New York to his forays into murder by nightfall. Through present tense stream-of-consciousness narrative, Bateman describes his daily life, ranging from a series of Friday nights spent at nightclubs with his colleagues \u2014 where they snort cocaine, critique fellow club-goers' clothing, trade fashion advice, and question one another on proper etiquette \u2014 to his loveless engagement to fellow yuppie Evelyn and his contentious relationship with his brother and senile mother. Bateman's stream of consciousness is occasionally broken up by chapters in which he directly addresses the reader in order to critique the work of 1980s Pop music artists. The novel maintains a high level of ambiguity through mistaken identity and contradictions that introduce the possibility that Bateman is an unreliable narrator. Characters are consistently introduced as people other than themselves, and people argue over the identities of others they can see in restaurants or at parties. Whether any of the crimes depicted in the novel actually happened or whether they were simply the fantasies of a delusional psychotic is deliberately left open. After killing Paul Owen, one of his colleagues, Bateman appropriates his apartment as a place to kill and store more victims. Bateman's control over his violent urges deteriorates. His murders become increasingly sadistic and complex, progressing from simple stabbings to drawn out sequences of torture, rape, mutilation, cannibalism, and necrophilia, and the separation between his two lives begins to blur. He introduces stories about serial killers into casual conversations and on several occasions openly confesses his murderous activities to his coworkers, who never take him seriously, do not hear what he says, or misunderstand him completely\u2014for example, hearing the words \"murders and executions\" as \"mergers and acquisitions.\" Bateman begins to experience bizarre hallucinations such as seeing a Cheerio interviewed on a talk show, being stalked by an anthropomorphic park bench, and finding a bone in his Dove Bar. These incidents culminate in a shooting spree during which he kills several random people in the street, resulting in a SWAT team being dispatched in a helicopter. Bateman flees on foot and hides in his office, where he phones his attorney, Harold Carnes, and confesses all his crimes to the answering machine. Later, Bateman confronts Carnes about the message only to find Carnes is amused at what he considers to be a good joke. Carnes tells Bateman that he is too much of a coward to have committed such acts and claims that he had dinner in London with Paul Owen a few days before. Bateman revisits Paul Owen's apartment, where he had killed and mutilated two prostitutes. Bateman enters the perfectly clean, refurbished apartment, which shows no trace of decomposing bodies but is filled with strong-smelling flowers, as though meant to hide a bad odor. He runs into a real estate agent showing the apartment to prospective buyers; the real-estate agent appears suspicious of Bateman. The book ends as it began, with Bateman and his colleagues in a club on a Friday night, engaging in banal conversation.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s, American Psycho is about the daily life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman. Bateman, in his late 20s when the story begins, narrates his everyday activities, from his recreational life among the Wall Street elite of New York to his forays into murder by nightfall. Through present tense stream-of-consciousness narrative, Bateman describes his daily life, ranging from a series of Friday nights spent at nightclubs with his colleagues \u2014 where they snort cocaine, critique fellow club-goers' clothing, trade fashion advice, and question one another on proper etiquette \u2014 to his loveless engagement to fellow yuppie Evelyn and his contentious relationship with his brother and senile mother. Bateman's stream of consciousness is occasionally broken up by chapters in which he directly addresses the reader in order to critique the work of 1980s Pop music artists. The novel maintains a high level of ambiguity through mistaken identity and contradictions that introduce the possibility that Bateman is an unreliable narrator. Characters are consistently introduced as people other than themselves, and people argue over the identities of others they can see in restaurants or at parties. Whether any of the crimes depicted in the novel actually happened or whether they were simply the fantasies of a delusional psychotic is deliberately left open. After killing Paul Owen, one of his colleagues, Bateman appropriates his apartment as a place to kill and store more victims. Bateman's control over his violent urges deteriorates. His murders become increasingly sadistic and complex, progressing from simple stabbings to drawn out sequences of torture, rape, mutilation, cannibalism, and necrophilia, and the separation between his two lives begins to blur. He introduces stories about serial killers into casual conversations and on several occasions openly confesses his murderous activities to his coworkers, who never take him seriously, do not hear what he says, or misunderstand him completely\u2014for example, hearing the words \"murders"
      },
      {
        "text": " deteriorates. His murders become increasingly sadistic and complex, progressing from simple stabbings to drawn out sequences of torture, rape, mutilation, cannibalism, and necrophilia, and the separation between his two lives begins to blur. He introduces stories about serial killers into casual conversations and on several occasions openly confesses his murderous activities to his coworkers, who never take him seriously, do not hear what he says, or misunderstand him completely\u2014for example, hearing the words \"murders and executions\" as \"mergers and acquisitions.\" Bateman begins to experience bizarre hallucinations such as seeing a Cheerio interviewed on a talk show, being stalked by an anthropomorphic park bench, and finding a bone in his Dove Bar. These incidents culminate in a shooting spree during which he kills several random people in the street, resulting in a SWAT team being dispatched in a helicopter. Bateman flees on foot and hides in his office, where he phones his attorney, Harold Carnes, and confesses all his crimes to the answering machine. Later, Bateman confronts Carnes about the message only to find Carnes is amused at what he considers to be a good joke. Carnes tells Bateman that he is too much of a coward to have committed such acts and claims that he had dinner in London with Paul Owen a few days before. Bateman revisits Paul Owen's apartment, where he had killed and mutilated two prostitutes. Bateman enters the perfectly clean, refurbished apartment, which shows no trace of decomposing bodies but is filled with strong-smelling flowers, as though meant to hide a bad odor. He runs into a real estate agent showing the apartment to prospective buyers; the real-estate agent appears suspicious of Bateman. The book ends as it began, with Bateman and his colleagues in a club on a Friday night, engaging in banal conversation.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ished apartment, which shows no trace of decomposing bodies but is filled with strong-smelling flowers, as though meant to hide a bad odor. He runs into a real estate agent showing the apartment to prospective buyers; the real-estate agent appears suspicious of Bateman. The book ends as it began, with Bateman and his colleagues in a club on a Friday night, engaging in banal conversation.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Kalimantaan",
    "author": "C. S. Godshalk",
    "published_date": "1998-04",
    "synopsis": " In 1839, an English adventurer arrived on the northwest coast of Borneo, commissioned to deliver a letter of gratitude to the Sultan of Brunei for having safely returned the crew of a British merchantman, lost on his coast. It was a region full of headhunters, pirate tribes, and slave traders. Most Europeans with the temerity to enter the region had never been heard from again. This particular adventurer, however, seems to know how to play one power against another and manages to keep his balance in the midst of chaos. After performing a service for the Sultan (resolving a local tribal conflict through the use of his schooner's guns and leading an organized assault on a small native river fort), he is named governor of Sarawak, subject to the Sultan of Brunei. Within a few years, he has become the Rajah of Sarawak, an independent state, and established a dynasty that will last one hundred years. Godshalk has changed names and details while evoking a sense of the time, place, and atmosphere of the real events. The real adventurer was James Brooke; Ms. Godshalk's is named Gideon Barr. James Brooke's schooner was named the Royalist; Gideon Barr's is the Carolina (named after his mother). James Brooke was succeeded by his nephew, Charles Johnson, who took the last name Brooke. Gideon Barr is succeeded by his nephew Richard Hogg (Ms. Godshalk does not deal with the change of last name since her story focuses on Gideon's life and ends with his death). Although many of the events described actually took place, one cannot simply change the names and read the novel as history. James Brooke's mother died in 1844, two years after he became Rajah. Gideon's mother dies in Borneo much earlier while he is in grade school in England, providing him an emotional link to Borneo James Brooke did not have. James Brooke never married a European, although there is evidence that he was married to a Malay woman. Gideon Barr marries an Englishwoman to provide himself an \"air of permanence\" as Rajah and we see much of the later portion of the story through Amelia Barr's eyes. Amelia Barr is fictional, but largely based on Margaret Brooke, wife of the second Rajah, and her book \"My Life in Sarawak\". Gideon also maintains a Malayan mistress who provides a note of tragedy in the way her presence poisons Gideon and Amelia's relationship. On the other hand, the 30,000 pounds that Brooke/Barr inherited at his father's death which enabled him to acquire his schooner, the massacre of the sons of the Sultan of Brunei, the Chinese insurrection of 1857, and the commission of inquiry in Singapore all took place as described. The inquiry in Singapore was concerned with the battle of Labuan in which Brooke/Barr led British warships in a pre-emptive strike against a pirate fleet, breaking the power of the Bugis for the next twenty years. Brooke/Barr's enemies attempted to use this against him by claiming he had used British naval power to slaughter innocent natives. Godshalk uses Malay words extensively in the book. While she provides a brief Malay glossary as an appendix, it does not cover all the words she uses. Enjoyment of Kalimantaan will be enhanced if one knows the following Malay words which are not in the glossary provided by the author: {| class=\"wikitable\" ! Malay ! English |- | abang | elder brother |- | adat | tradition, custom |- | ajar | to teach |- | berani, brani | brave, bold |- | besar | big, great |- | bulan | moon, month |- | bujang | bachelor |- | buaya | crocodile |- | bulbul | nightingale |- | datin | wife of a datu |- | datu | minister in traditional Malay government |- | dayang | woman of high rank |- | hantu, antu | ghost, spirit |- | hati | liver (as the seat of emotion, typically translated \"heart\") |- | ikan | fish |- | ikat | tie, knot |- | jaga | guard |- | jalan | street, road |- | kain | cloth (in the story, it describes a cloth belt) |- | kaya | wealthy, rich |- | kongsi | association, partnership |- | kris | stabbing dagger with flaming, or wavy, blade |- | kuli | unskilled laborer |- | lalang | a variety of long-bladed grass |- | lida | tongue |- | kecelakaan | misfortune, accident |- | merah | red |- | mudah | young, junior |- | orang | person |- | padang | field |- | padi | ricefield |- | pagi | morning |- | parang | cutlass, machete |- | payung (payong) | umbrella, parasol |- | pikul (picul) | 1) a unit of weight of 133 lb (60 kg); 2) to carry on one's shoulder |- | puasa | fast, to abstain from eating |- | rajput | princeling, diminutive of rajah |- | sakit | sick |- | selamat hari | literally, \"good day\". Typically, the expression selamat siang (good mid-day) is used |- | selamat pagi | good morning |- | seluar | trousers, pants |- | si | generic honorific, e.g. Si Tundo |- | stengah | half |- | sudah | already, denotes past tense |- | tahun | year |- | tanah | earth, soil |- | tiba | to arrive |- | tuah | old, elder, senior |- | tuak | toddy, palm-wine |- | tuan | lord, used as an honorific, as in Tuan Barr |- | tunku | overlord, governor |} Kampilan, actually a Filipino word, designates a long native sword.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In 1839, an English adventurer arrived on the northwest coast of Borneo, commissioned to deliver a letter of gratitude to the Sultan of Brunei for having safely returned the crew of a British merchantman, lost on his coast. It was a region full of headhunters, pirate tribes, and slave traders. Most Europeans with the temerity to enter the region had never been heard from again. This particular adventurer, however, seems to know how to play one power against another and manages to keep his balance in the midst of chaos. After performing a service for the Sultan (resolving a local tribal conflict through the use of his schooner's guns and leading an organized assault on a small native river fort), he is named governor of Sarawak, subject to the Sultan of Brunei. Within a few years, he has become the Rajah of Sarawak, an independent state, and established a dynasty that will last one hundred years. Godshalk has changed names and details while evoking a sense of the time, place, and atmosphere of the real events. The real adventurer was James Brooke; Ms. Godshalk's is named Gideon Barr. James Brooke's schooner was named the Royalist; Gideon Barr's is the Carolina (named after his mother). James Brooke was succeeded by his nephew, Charles Johnson, who took the last name Brooke. Gideon Barr is succeeded by his nephew Richard Hogg (Ms. Godshalk does not deal with the change of last name since her story focuses on Gideon's life and ends with his death). Although many of the events described actually took place, one cannot simply change the names and read the novel as history. James Brooke's mother died in 1844, two years after he became Rajah. Gideon's mother dies in Borneo much earlier while he is in grade school in England, providing him an emotional link to Borneo James Brooke did not have. James Brooke never married a European, although"
      },
      {
        "text": " change of last name since her story focuses on Gideon's life and ends with his death). Although many of the events described actually took place, one cannot simply change the names and read the novel as history. James Brooke's mother died in 1844, two years after he became Rajah. Gideon's mother dies in Borneo much earlier while he is in grade school in England, providing him an emotional link to Borneo James Brooke did not have. James Brooke never married a European, although there is evidence that he was married to a Malay woman. Gideon Barr marries an Englishwoman to provide himself an \"air of permanence\" as Rajah and we see much of the later portion of the story through Amelia Barr's eyes. Amelia Barr is fictional, but largely based on Margaret Brooke, wife of the second Rajah, and her book \"My Life in Sarawak\". Gideon also maintains a Malayan mistress who provides a note of tragedy in the way her presence poisons Gideon and Amelia's relationship. On the other hand, the 30,000 pounds that Brooke/Barr inherited at his father's death which enabled him to acquire his schooner, the massacre of the sons of the Sultan of Brunei, the Chinese insurrection of 1857, and the commission of inquiry in Singapore all took place as described. The inquiry in Singapore was concerned with the battle of Labuan in which Brooke/Barr led British warships in a pre-emptive strike against a pirate fleet, breaking the power of the Bugis for the next twenty years. Brooke/Barr's enemies attempted to use this against him by claiming he had used British naval power to slaughter innocent natives. Godshalk uses Malay words extensively in the book. While she provides a brief Malay glossary as an appendix, it does not cover all the words she uses. Enjoyment of Kalimantaan will be enhanced if one knows the following Malay words which are not in the glossary provided"
      },
      {
        "text": ", breaking the power of the Bugis for the next twenty years. Brooke/Barr's enemies attempted to use this against him by claiming he had used British naval power to slaughter innocent natives. Godshalk uses Malay words extensively in the book. While she provides a brief Malay glossary as an appendix, it does not cover all the words she uses. Enjoyment of Kalimantaan will be enhanced if one knows the following Malay words which are not in the glossary provided by the author: {| class=\"wikitable\" ! Malay ! English |- | abang | elder brother |- | adat | tradition, custom |- | ajar | to teach |- | berani, brani | brave, bold |- | besar | big, great |- | bulan | moon, month |- | bujang | bachelor |- | buaya | crocodile |- | bulbul | nightingale |- | datin | wife of a datu |- | datu | minister in traditional Malay government |- | dayang | woman of high rank |- | hantu, antu | ghost, spirit |- | hati | liver (as the seat of emotion, typically translated \"heart\") |- | ikan | fish |- | ikat | tie, knot |- | jaga | guard |- | jalan | street, road |- | kain | cloth (in the story, it describes a cloth belt) |- | kaya | wealthy, rich |- | kongsi | association, partnership |- | kris | stabbing dagger with flaming, or wavy, blade |- | kuli | unskilled laborer |- | lalang | a variety of long-bladed grass |- | lida | tongue |- | kecelakaan | misfortune, accident |- | merah | red |- |"
      },
      {
        "text": " cloth (in the story, it describes a cloth belt) |- | kaya | wealthy, rich |- | kongsi | association, partnership |- | kris | stabbing dagger with flaming, or wavy, blade |- | kuli | unskilled laborer |- | lalang | a variety of long-bladed grass |- | lida | tongue |- | kecelakaan | misfortune, accident |- | merah | red |- | mudah | young, junior |- | orang | person |- | padang | field |- | padi | ricefield |- | pagi | morning |- | parang | cutlass, machete |- | payung (payong) | umbrella, parasol |- | pikul (picul) | 1) a unit of weight of 133 lb (60 kg); 2) to carry on one's shoulder |- | puasa | fast, to abstain from eating |- | rajput | princeling, diminutive of rajah |- | sakit | sick |- | selamat hari | literally, \"good day\". Typically, the expression selamat siang (good mid-day) is used |- | selamat pagi | good morning |- | seluar | trousers, pants |- | si | generic honorific, e.g. Si Tundo |- | stengah | half |- | sudah | already, denotes past tense |- | tahun | year |- | tanah | earth, soil |- | tiba | to arrive |- | tuah | old, elder, senior |- | tuak | toddy, palm-wine |- | tuan | lord, used as an honorific, as in Tuan Barr |- | tunku"
      },
      {
        "text": " e.g. Si Tundo |- | stengah | half |- | sudah | already, denotes past tense |- | tahun | year |- | tanah | earth, soil |- | tiba | to arrive |- | tuah | old, elder, senior |- | tuak | toddy, palm-wine |- | tuan | lord, used as an honorific, as in Tuan Barr |- | tunku | overlord, governor |} Kampilan, actually a Filipino word, designates a long native sword.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Creatures of Light and Darkness",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1969",
    "synopsis": " The Universe was once ruled by the god Thoth, who administered the different forces in the Universe to keep things in balance. In time, he delegated this administration to his \"Angels\" (other god-like beings), who were each in charge of different \"stations\", or forces in the Universe. Such stations included the House of the Dead, the House of Life, the House of Fire, and so on. At some point, Thoth had awakened a dormant, malevolent force on a distant planet. This dark force, called the Thing That Cries In The Night, is so powerful and malevolent that it nearly obliterated Thoth's wife and threatens to consume the galaxy. Thoth works to contain and destroy the creature, and in so doing, neglects his duties in maintaining the Universe. The Angels become rebellious and use the power vacuum to fight amongst themselves for dominance Thoth's son Set, who through an anomaly in Time is also his father, fights the creature across a devastated planet. Just as Set is about to destroy the creature, he is attacked by the Angel Osiris, who unleashes the Hammer That Smashes Suns, a powerful weapon that nearly kills Set and the creature. Thoth's brother, Typhon, who was helping Set in the battle, vanishes without a trace and is presumed dead. (Typhon appears as a black horse-shadow, without a horse to cast it. He contains within himself something called Skagganauk Abyss, which resembles a black hole, not a term in common use at the time.) The Thing That Cries In The Night survived the blast, and so Thoth, who has meanwhile been utterly overthrown by his Angels, has no choice but to contain the dark force until he can find a way to destroy it. He also revives the personality of his wife and keeps her safe on a special world known only to him, where the seas are above the atmosphere, not below them. He also scatters Set's weapons and armor across the Universe for safe-keeping in the event that Set can ever be found. Having been overthrown, he is now dubbed The Prince Who Was A Thousand by all in the Universe. Some of the surviving Angels either hide among the peoples of the Universe as mysterious \"immortals\", but others\u2014Osiris and Anubis\u2014take over the House of Life and the House of Death, respectively. Other stations are abandoned, and Osiris and Anubis are the only two powers in the Universe now. Osiris cultivates life where he can, while Anubis works to destroy it. Plenty and famine, proliferation and plague, overpopulation and annihilation, alternate in the Worlds of Life between the two Stations, much to the detriment of those who inhabit them. The geography of this universe contains several curious places: * The House of Life, ruled by Osiris, contains a room in which Osiris has reduced various people in his past into furnishings. These furnishings can speak (or scream) via wall-mounted speakers. ** A skull (with brain) for a paperweight. ** An enemy whose nervous system is woven into a rug. Osiris enjoys jumping on the rug. *In the House of the Dead, numerous dead people of the Six Intelligent Races lie on invisible catafalques until Anubis requires them to go through the motions of pleasure\u2014eating, drinking, dancing, making love\u2014without any real enjoyment. Anubis likes to watch. He also stages fights between champions from the Six Races: sometimes the victor gets a job\u2014and a name. * The planet Blis is filled to bursting with people who are inexhaustibly fertile and do not know death: the whole planet is covered with 14 interlocking cities. Indeed, one man agrees to commit suicide in front of an audience, for money to be given to his family, because most people on Bliss have never seen a death. He does so by self-immolation, after receiving the Possibly Proper Death Litany (also called the Agnostic's Prayer). * On fog-shrouded D'donori, warlords raid each others solely to capture prisoners, who will be vivisected by the town scrier, or augur. By examining their entrails, he predicts the future and answers questions. * On an unnamed planet, the sea is above the atmosphere. Here, the Prince Who Was a Thousand keeps Nephthys, his wife, who was disembodied and cannot survive on a normal planet. * In a cave, a dog worries a glove that has seen better centuries. The three-headed canine is apparently Cerberus. * On another planet, drug-maddened spearmen protect and castrated priests worship a pair of old shoes.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Universe was once ruled by the god Thoth, who administered the different forces in the Universe to keep things in balance. In time, he delegated this administration to his \"Angels\" (other god-like beings), who were each in charge of different \"stations\", or forces in the Universe. Such stations included the House of the Dead, the House of Life, the House of Fire, and so on. At some point, Thoth had awakened a dormant, malevolent force on a distant planet. This dark force, called the Thing That Cries In The Night, is so powerful and malevolent that it nearly obliterated Thoth's wife and threatens to consume the galaxy. Thoth works to contain and destroy the creature, and in so doing, neglects his duties in maintaining the Universe. The Angels become rebellious and use the power vacuum to fight amongst themselves for dominance Thoth's son Set, who through an anomaly in Time is also his father, fights the creature across a devastated planet. Just as Set is about to destroy the creature, he is attacked by the Angel Osiris, who unleashes the Hammer That Smashes Suns, a powerful weapon that nearly kills Set and the creature. Thoth's brother, Typhon, who was helping Set in the battle, vanishes without a trace and is presumed dead. (Typhon appears as a black horse-shadow, without a horse to cast it. He contains within himself something called Skagganauk Abyss, which resembles a black hole, not a term in common use at the time.) The Thing That Cries In The Night survived the blast, and so Thoth, who has meanwhile been utterly overthrown by his Angels, has no choice but to contain the dark force until he can find a way to destroy it. He also revives the personality of his wife and keeps her safe on a special world known only to him, where the seas are above the atmosphere, not below them. He also"
      },
      {
        "text": ", which resembles a black hole, not a term in common use at the time.) The Thing That Cries In The Night survived the blast, and so Thoth, who has meanwhile been utterly overthrown by his Angels, has no choice but to contain the dark force until he can find a way to destroy it. He also revives the personality of his wife and keeps her safe on a special world known only to him, where the seas are above the atmosphere, not below them. He also scatters Set's weapons and armor across the Universe for safe-keeping in the event that Set can ever be found. Having been overthrown, he is now dubbed The Prince Who Was A Thousand by all in the Universe. Some of the surviving Angels either hide among the peoples of the Universe as mysterious \"immortals\", but others\u2014Osiris and Anubis\u2014take over the House of Life and the House of Death, respectively. Other stations are abandoned, and Osiris and Anubis are the only two powers in the Universe now. Osiris cultivates life where he can, while Anubis works to destroy it. Plenty and famine, proliferation and plague, overpopulation and annihilation, alternate in the Worlds of Life between the two Stations, much to the detriment of those who inhabit them. The geography of this universe contains several curious places: * The House of Life, ruled by Osiris, contains a room in which Osiris has reduced various people in his past into furnishings. These furnishings can speak (or scream) via wall-mounted speakers. ** A skull (with brain) for a paperweight. ** An enemy whose nervous system is woven into a rug. Osiris enjoys jumping on the rug. *In the House of the Dead, numerous dead people of the Six Intelligent Races lie on invisible catafalques until Anubis requires them to go through the motions of pleasure\u2014eating, drinking, dancing, making love\u2014without any real enjoyment. Anubis likes to watch. He also"
      },
      {
        "text": " speak (or scream) via wall-mounted speakers. ** A skull (with brain) for a paperweight. ** An enemy whose nervous system is woven into a rug. Osiris enjoys jumping on the rug. *In the House of the Dead, numerous dead people of the Six Intelligent Races lie on invisible catafalques until Anubis requires them to go through the motions of pleasure\u2014eating, drinking, dancing, making love\u2014without any real enjoyment. Anubis likes to watch. He also stages fights between champions from the Six Races: sometimes the victor gets a job\u2014and a name. * The planet Blis is filled to bursting with people who are inexhaustibly fertile and do not know death: the whole planet is covered with 14 interlocking cities. Indeed, one man agrees to commit suicide in front of an audience, for money to be given to his family, because most people on Bliss have never seen a death. He does so by self-immolation, after receiving the Possibly Proper Death Litany (also called the Agnostic's Prayer). * On fog-shrouded D'donori, warlords raid each others solely to capture prisoners, who will be vivisected by the town scrier, or augur. By examining their entrails, he predicts the future and answers questions. * On an unnamed planet, the sea is above the atmosphere. Here, the Prince Who Was a Thousand keeps Nephthys, his wife, who was disembodied and cannot survive on a normal planet. * In a cave, a dog worries a glove that has seen better centuries. The three-headed canine is apparently Cerberus. * On another planet, drug-maddened spearmen protect and castrated priests worship a pair of old shoes.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " disembodied and cannot survive on a normal planet. * In a cave, a dog worries a glove that has seen better centuries. The three-headed canine is apparently Cerberus. * On another planet, drug-maddened spearmen protect and castrated priests worship a pair of old shoes.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Handmaid's Tale",
    "author": "Margaret Atwood",
    "published_date": "1985",
    "synopsis": " The Handmaid's Tale is set in the near future in the Republic of Gilead, a country formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America. It was founded by a racist, homophobic, christian, nativist, theocratic-organized military coup as an ideologically driven response to the pervasive ecological, physical and social degradation of the country. Beginning with a staged terrorist attack (blamed on Islamic extremist terrorists) that kills the President and most of Congress, a movement calling itself the \"Sons of Jacob\" launches a revolution and suspends the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order. Taking advantage of electronic banking, they were quickly able to freeze the assets of all women and other \"undesirables\" in the country, stripping them of their rights. The new theocratic military dictatorship, styled \"The Republic of Gilead\", moved quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society along a new militarized, hierarchical, compulsorily Christian regime of Old Testament-inspired social and religious orthodoxy among its newly created social classes. In this society, almost all women are forbidden to read. The story is presented from the point of view of a woman called Offred (literally Of-Fred, however not a patronymic as some critics claim). The character is one of a class of individuals kept as concubines (\"handmaids\") for reproductive purposes by the ruling class in an era of declining births. The book is told in the first person by Offred, who describes her life during her third assignment as a handmaid, in this case to Fred (referred to as \"The Commander\"). If Offred fails to become pregnant on this, her third attempt, she will be declared an \"unwoman\" and discarded. Interspersed in flashbacks are portions of her life from before and during the beginning of the revolution, when she finds she has lost all autonomy to her husband, through her failed attempt to escape with her husband and daughter to Canada, to her indoctrination into life as a handmaid. Through her eyes, the structure of Gilead's society is described, including the several different categories of women and their circumscribed lives in the new theocracy. The Commander is a high-ranking official in Gilead. Although he is only supposed to have sexual intercourse with Offred during the period called \"the Ceremony,\" a ritual at which his wife is present, he begins an illegal and ambiguous relationship with her, exposing Offred to many hidden or contraband aspects of the new society, such as fashion magazines and cosmetics. He takes her to a secret brothel run by the government, and he furtively meets with her in his study, where he allows her the contraband activity of reading. The Commander's wife also had secret interactions with Offred\u2014she arranges for Offred to secretly have sex with her driver Nick in an effort to get her pregnant. The Commander's wife believes the Commander to be sterile, a subversive belief as official Gilead policy is that only women can be sterile. In exchange for Offred's cooperation, the Commander's wife gives her news of her daughter, whom Offred has not seen since she and her family were captured trying to escape Gilead. After Offred's initial meeting with Nick, they begin to rendezvous more frequently. Offred finds herself enjoying sex with Nick despite her indoctrination and her memories of her husband, and even goes as far as to divulge potentially dangerous information about her past. Through another handmaid, Ofglen, Offred learns of the Mayday resistance, an underground network with the intent of overthrowing Gilead. Shortly after Ofglen's disappearance (later discovered to be a suicide), the Commander's wife finds evidence of the relationship between Offred and the Commander, and Offred contemplates suicide. As the novel concludes, she is being taken away by men from the secret police, known as the Eyes, in a large black van under orders from Nick. Before she is taken away, Nick tells her that the men are part of the Mayday resistance and that Offred must trust him. Offred does not know if Nick is truly a member of the Mayday resistance or if he is a government agent posing as one, and she does not know if going with the men will result in her escape or her capture. She enters the van with a final thought on her uncertain future. The novel concludes with a metafictional epilogue that explains that the events of the novel occurred shortly after the beginning of what is called \"the Gilead Period.\" The epilogue itself is a \"transcription of a Symposium on Gileadean Studies written some time in the distant future (2195)\", and according to the symposium's \"keynote speaker\" Professor Pieixoto, he and \"a colleague\", Professor Knotly Wade, discovered Offred's narrative recorded onto thirty cassette tapes. They created a \"probable order\" for these tapes and transcribed them, calling them collectively \"the handmaid's tale\". The epilogue implies that, following the collapse of the theocratic Republic of Gilead, a more equal society re-emerged with a return of the legal rights of women and also Native Americans. It is further suggested that freedom of religion was also re-established.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Handmaid's Tale is set in the near future in the Republic of Gilead, a country formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America. It was founded by a racist, homophobic, christian, nativist, theocratic-organized military coup as an ideologically driven response to the pervasive ecological, physical and social degradation of the country. Beginning with a staged terrorist attack (blamed on Islamic extremist terrorists) that kills the President and most of Congress, a movement calling itself the \"Sons of Jacob\" launches a revolution and suspends the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order. Taking advantage of electronic banking, they were quickly able to freeze the assets of all women and other \"undesirables\" in the country, stripping them of their rights. The new theocratic military dictatorship, styled \"The Republic of Gilead\", moved quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society along a new militarized, hierarchical, compulsorily Christian regime of Old Testament-inspired social and religious orthodoxy among its newly created social classes. In this society, almost all women are forbidden to read. The story is presented from the point of view of a woman called Offred (literally Of-Fred, however not a patronymic as some critics claim). The character is one of a class of individuals kept as concubines (\"handmaids\") for reproductive purposes by the ruling class in an era of declining births. The book is told in the first person by Offred, who describes her life during her third assignment as a handmaid, in this case to Fred (referred to as \"The Commander\"). If Offred fails to become pregnant on this, her third attempt, she will be declared an \"unwoman\" and discarded. Interspersed in flashbacks are portions of her life from before and during the beginning of the revolution, when she finds she has lost all autonomy to her husband, through her failed attempt to escape with her husband and"
      },
      {
        "text": " by Offred, who describes her life during her third assignment as a handmaid, in this case to Fred (referred to as \"The Commander\"). If Offred fails to become pregnant on this, her third attempt, she will be declared an \"unwoman\" and discarded. Interspersed in flashbacks are portions of her life from before and during the beginning of the revolution, when she finds she has lost all autonomy to her husband, through her failed attempt to escape with her husband and daughter to Canada, to her indoctrination into life as a handmaid. Through her eyes, the structure of Gilead's society is described, including the several different categories of women and their circumscribed lives in the new theocracy. The Commander is a high-ranking official in Gilead. Although he is only supposed to have sexual intercourse with Offred during the period called \"the Ceremony,\" a ritual at which his wife is present, he begins an illegal and ambiguous relationship with her, exposing Offred to many hidden or contraband aspects of the new society, such as fashion magazines and cosmetics. He takes her to a secret brothel run by the government, and he furtively meets with her in his study, where he allows her the contraband activity of reading. The Commander's wife also had secret interactions with Offred\u2014she arranges for Offred to secretly have sex with her driver Nick in an effort to get her pregnant. The Commander's wife believes the Commander to be sterile, a subversive belief as official Gilead policy is that only women can be sterile. In exchange for Offred's cooperation, the Commander's wife gives her news of her daughter, whom Offred has not seen since she and her family were captured trying to escape Gilead. After Offred's initial meeting with Nick, they begin to rendezvous more frequently. Offred finds herself enjoying sex with Nick despite her indoctrination and her memories of her husband, and even goes as"
      },
      {
        "text": " to be sterile, a subversive belief as official Gilead policy is that only women can be sterile. In exchange for Offred's cooperation, the Commander's wife gives her news of her daughter, whom Offred has not seen since she and her family were captured trying to escape Gilead. After Offred's initial meeting with Nick, they begin to rendezvous more frequently. Offred finds herself enjoying sex with Nick despite her indoctrination and her memories of her husband, and even goes as far as to divulge potentially dangerous information about her past. Through another handmaid, Ofglen, Offred learns of the Mayday resistance, an underground network with the intent of overthrowing Gilead. Shortly after Ofglen's disappearance (later discovered to be a suicide), the Commander's wife finds evidence of the relationship between Offred and the Commander, and Offred contemplates suicide. As the novel concludes, she is being taken away by men from the secret police, known as the Eyes, in a large black van under orders from Nick. Before she is taken away, Nick tells her that the men are part of the Mayday resistance and that Offred must trust him. Offred does not know if Nick is truly a member of the Mayday resistance or if he is a government agent posing as one, and she does not know if going with the men will result in her escape or her capture. She enters the van with a final thought on her uncertain future. The novel concludes with a metafictional epilogue that explains that the events of the novel occurred shortly after the beginning of what is called \"the Gilead Period.\" The epilogue itself is a \"transcription of a Symposium on Gileadean Studies written some time in the distant future (2195)\", and according to the symposium's \"keynote speaker\" Professor Pieixoto, he and \"a colleague\", Professor Knotly Wade, discovered Offred's narrative recorded"
      },
      {
        "text": " novel concludes with a metafictional epilogue that explains that the events of the novel occurred shortly after the beginning of what is called \"the Gilead Period.\" The epilogue itself is a \"transcription of a Symposium on Gileadean Studies written some time in the distant future (2195)\", and according to the symposium's \"keynote speaker\" Professor Pieixoto, he and \"a colleague\", Professor Knotly Wade, discovered Offred's narrative recorded onto thirty cassette tapes. They created a \"probable order\" for these tapes and transcribed them, calling them collectively \"the handmaid's tale\". The epilogue implies that, following the collapse of the theocratic Republic of Gilead, a more equal society re-emerged with a return of the legal rights of women and also Native Americans. It is further suggested that freedom of religion was also re-established.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "My Left Foot",
    "author": "Christy Brown",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Brown begins his book by telling the reader about his early childhood. When he was four months old, Brown's mother was the first to notice that there was something wrong with his health. He could not hold his head upright or control his body movements. After seeking medical advice, the family's worst fears were confirmed: Christy was physically handicapped and suffered from an incurable affliction called cerebral palsy. His family, besides his mother, think he's an idiot. They tell his mother to give up. Although the doctors did not believe in Brown's mental intelligence, his mother did not lose faith in her son and supported him as a full member of the family. A transforming moment occurs in the young boy's life that proves him to be intelligent. He discovers that he can control his left foot and toes. At the age of five, he snatches a piece of yellow chalk from his sister with his left foot. He marks the letter \"A\" on the floor with his foot and the help of his mother. He had wanted to make, what he described as, \"a wild sort of scribble with it on the slate\". It is from this incident that the book received its title. In this moment, Brown had found a way to express himself since he could not speak like a healthy child. Throughout his childhood, Brown played with local children and with his siblings, assisted by a small cart that he called \"Henry\". As time went on, he became more introverted, as he began to realize that his handicap made him different from his family and friends and impeded his enjoyment of life. Through this struggle, he discovered his creative and artistic talents, becoming devoted to literature, writing and painting. He used his left foot to carry out these tasks. At the age of 18, Brown went to Lourdes in France. Here, he met individuals whose handicaps were even worse than his. For the first time in his life, he begins to experience energy and hope. He begins to accept himself as the person he is and do the best with what he has. He starts a new treatment for cerebral palsy, which led to the improvement of his speech and physical condition. In his teenage years, he met the Irish doctor Robert Collis. Collis had established a clinic for cerebral palsy patients and Brown was his very first patient at this clinic. Collis was also a noted author so he provided supervision of Brown's writing. This included two first drafts of this book and its final version. The autobiography makes reference to its own creation. The final pages tell of Collis reading the first chapter of the book to the audience at a fundraising event. The chapter was warmly received by those in attendance.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Brown begins his book by telling the reader about his early childhood. When he was four months old, Brown's mother was the first to notice that there was something wrong with his health. He could not hold his head upright or control his body movements. After seeking medical advice, the family's worst fears were confirmed: Christy was physically handicapped and suffered from an incurable affliction called cerebral palsy. His family, besides his mother, think he's an idiot. They tell his mother to give up. Although the doctors did not believe in Brown's mental intelligence, his mother did not lose faith in her son and supported him as a full member of the family. A transforming moment occurs in the young boy's life that proves him to be intelligent. He discovers that he can control his left foot and toes. At the age of five, he snatches a piece of yellow chalk from his sister with his left foot. He marks the letter \"A\" on the floor with his foot and the help of his mother. He had wanted to make, what he described as, \"a wild sort of scribble with it on the slate\". It is from this incident that the book received its title. In this moment, Brown had found a way to express himself since he could not speak like a healthy child. Throughout his childhood, Brown played with local children and with his siblings, assisted by a small cart that he called \"Henry\". As time went on, he became more introverted, as he began to realize that his handicap made him different from his family and friends and impeded his enjoyment of life. Through this struggle, he discovered his creative and artistic talents, becoming devoted to literature, writing and painting. He used his left foot to carry out these tasks. At the age of 18, Brown went to Lourdes in France. Here, he met individuals whose handicaps were even worse than his. For the first time in his life, he begins to experience energy and hope"
      },
      {
        "text": " he began to realize that his handicap made him different from his family and friends and impeded his enjoyment of life. Through this struggle, he discovered his creative and artistic talents, becoming devoted to literature, writing and painting. He used his left foot to carry out these tasks. At the age of 18, Brown went to Lourdes in France. Here, he met individuals whose handicaps were even worse than his. For the first time in his life, he begins to experience energy and hope. He begins to accept himself as the person he is and do the best with what he has. He starts a new treatment for cerebral palsy, which led to the improvement of his speech and physical condition. In his teenage years, he met the Irish doctor Robert Collis. Collis had established a clinic for cerebral palsy patients and Brown was his very first patient at this clinic. Collis was also a noted author so he provided supervision of Brown's writing. This included two first drafts of this book and its final version. The autobiography makes reference to its own creation. The final pages tell of Collis reading the first chapter of the book to the audience at a fundraising event. The chapter was warmly received by those in attendance.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lady Windermere's Fan",
    "author": "Oscar Wilde",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play opens in the morning room of the Windermeres' residence in London. It is tea time and Lady Windermere\u2014who is preparing for her coming of age birthday ball that evening\u2014has a visit from a friend, Lord Darlington. She shows off her new fan: a present from her husband. She explains to Lord Darlington that she is upset over the compliments he continues to pay to her, revealing that she is a Puritan and has very particular views about what is acceptable in society. The Duchess of Berwick calls and Lord Darlington leaves shortly thereafter. The Duchess informs Lady Windermere that her husband may be betraying her marriage by making repeated visits to another woman, a Mrs Erlynne, and possibly giving her large sums of money. These rumours have been gossip among London society for quite a while, though seemingly this is the first Lady Windermere has heard about. Following the departure of the Duchess, Lady Windermere decides to check her husband's bank book. She finds the book in a desk and sees that nothing appears amiss, though on returning she discovers a second bank book: one with a lock. After prying the lock open, she finds it lists large sums of money given to Mrs Erlynne. At this point, Lord Windermere enters and she confronts him. Though he cannot deny that he has had dealings with Mrs Erlynne, he states that he is not betraying Lady Windermere. He requests that she send Mrs Erlynne an invitation to her birthday ball that evening in order to help her back into society. When Lady Windermere refuses, he writes out an invitation himself. Lady Windermere makes clear her intention to cause a scene if Mrs Erlynne appears, to which Lord Windermere responds that it would be in her best interest not to do so. Lady Windermere leaves in disgust to prepare for the party, and Lord Windermere reveals in soliloquy that he is protecting Mrs Erlynne's true identity to save his wife extreme humiliation. Act II opens in the Windermeres' drawing room during the birthday ball that evening. Various guests enter, and make small-talk. Lord Windermere enters and asks Lady Windermere to speak with him, but she brushes him off. A friend of Lord Windermere's, Lord Augustus Lorton (\"Tuppy\"), pulls him aside to inquire about Mrs Erlynne, with whom he is enamoured. Lord Windermere reveals that there is nothing untoward in his relationship with Mrs Erlynne, and that she will be attending the ball, which comes as a great relief to Lord Augustus as he was worried about her social standing. After an unsuccessful attempt to make peace with his wife, Lord Windermere summons the courage to tell the truth to her, but at that moment Mrs Erlynne arrives at the party, where she is greeted coldly by Lady Windermere, spoiling his plan. Alone, Lady Windermere and Lord Darlington discuss Mrs Erlynne's attendance. Lady Windermere is enraged and confused and asks Lord Darlington to be her friend. Instead of friendship, Lord Darlington takes advantage of Lady Windermere's tragic state and professes his love to her, offering her his life, and inviting her to risk short-term social humiliation for a new life with him. Lord Darlington sets her an ultimatum to try to convince her to take action immediately, while still in a state of shock. Lady Windermere is shocked by the revelation, and finds she does not have the courage to take the offer. Heartbroken, Lord Darlington announces that he will be leaving the country the next day and that they will never meet again, and leaves. The guests begin to leave, and say their goodnights to Lady Windermere\u2014some remarking positively about Mrs Erlynne. On the other side of the room Mrs Erlynne is discussing her plans with Lord Windermere; she intends to marry Lord Augustus and will require some money from Lord Windermere. Later, Lady Windermere, in spite of her earlier reluctance, decides to leave the house at once for Lord Darlington, and leaves a note to that effect for Lord Windermere. Mrs Erlynne discovers the note and that Lady Windermere has gone, and is curiously worried by this. While reading the note, a brief monologue reveals that she is in fact Lady Windermere's mother and made a similar mistake herself twenty years previously. She takes the letter and exits to locate Lady Windermere. Lady Windermere is alone in Lord Darlington's rooms unsure if she has made the right decision. Eventually, she resolves to return to her husband, but then Mrs Erlynne appears. Despite Mrs Erlynne's honest attempts to persuade her to return home to her husband, Lady Windermere is convinced her appearance is part of some plot conceived by her and Lord Windermere. Mrs Erlynne finally breaks Lady Windermere's resistance by imploring her to return for the sake of her young child, but as they begin to exit they hear Lord Darlington entering with friends. The two women hide. The men \u2014 who include Lord Windermere and Lord Augustus \u2014 have been evicted from their gentlemen's club at closing time and talk about women: mainly Mrs Erlynne. One of them takes notice of a fan lying on a table (Lady Windermere's) and presumes that Lord Darlington presently has a woman visiting. As Lord Windermere rises to leave, the fan is pointed out to him, which he instantly recognises as his wife's. He demands to know if Lord Darlington has her hidden somewhere. Lord Darlington refuses to co-operate, believing that Lady Windermere has come to him. Just as Lord Windermere is about to discover Lady Windermere's hiding place, Mrs Erlynne reveals herself instead, shocking all the men and allowing Lady Windermere to slip away unnoticed. The following quote is quite a popular tattoo among rebellious college freshmen with origins stemming from the Chicago region of the United States. The specific purpose of the tattoo is not known, but it is commonly placed on the spinal region in a vertical fashion. The next day, Lady Windermere is lying on the couch of the morning room anxious about whether to tell her husband what actually happened, or whether Mrs Erlynne will have already betrayed her secret. Her husband enters. He is sympathetic towards her and they discuss the possibility of taking a holiday to forget the recent incident. Lady Windermere apologises for her previous suspicion of her husband and behaviour at the party, and Lord Windermere makes clear his new contempt for Mrs Erlynne \u2014 warning his wife to stay away from her. Mrs Erlynne's arrival is announced along with the return of the fan, and despite her husband's protestations, Lady Windermere insists on seeing her. Mrs Erlynne enters and states that she shall be going abroad, but asks that Lady Windermere give her a photograph of herself and her son. Whilst Lady Windermere leaves the room to find one, the story is revealed: Mrs Erlynne left her husband for a lover shortly after Lady Windermere's birth. When her new lover abandoned her, Mrs Erlynne was left alone and in disrepute. More recently, using the assumed name of Mrs Erlynne, she has begun blackmailing Lord Windermere in order to regain her lifestyle and status, by threatening to reveal her true identity as Lady Windermere's shameful mother \u2014 not dead, as Lady Windermere believes. Lord Windermere laments not having told his wife the whole story at once and resolves to tell her the truth now. Mrs Erlynne forbids him to do so, threatening to spread shame far and wide if he does. Lady Windermere returns with the photograph which she presents to Mrs Erlynne, and requests that Lord Windermere check for the return of Mrs Erlynne's coach. Now that they are alone, and being owed a favour, Mrs Erlynne demands that she does not reveal the truth revealed the night before to her husband, and Lady Windermere promises to keep the secret. After Lord Windermere's return, Lord Augustus enters. He is shocked to see Mrs Erlynne after the events of the night before, but she requests his company as she heads to her carriage, and he soon returns to the Windermeres with news that she has satisfactorily explained the events of the evening, and that they are to marry and live out of England. Their marriage is restored, but both Lord and Lady Windermere keep their secrets.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play opens in the morning room of the Windermeres' residence in London. It is tea time and Lady Windermere\u2014who is preparing for her coming of age birthday ball that evening\u2014has a visit from a friend, Lord Darlington. She shows off her new fan: a present from her husband. She explains to Lord Darlington that she is upset over the compliments he continues to pay to her, revealing that she is a Puritan and has very particular views about what is acceptable in society. The Duchess of Berwick calls and Lord Darlington leaves shortly thereafter. The Duchess informs Lady Windermere that her husband may be betraying her marriage by making repeated visits to another woman, a Mrs Erlynne, and possibly giving her large sums of money. These rumours have been gossip among London society for quite a while, though seemingly this is the first Lady Windermere has heard about. Following the departure of the Duchess, Lady Windermere decides to check her husband's bank book. She finds the book in a desk and sees that nothing appears amiss, though on returning she discovers a second bank book: one with a lock. After prying the lock open, she finds it lists large sums of money given to Mrs Erlynne. At this point, Lord Windermere enters and she confronts him. Though he cannot deny that he has had dealings with Mrs Erlynne, he states that he is not betraying Lady Windermere. He requests that she send Mrs Erlynne an invitation to her birthday ball that evening in order to help her back into society. When Lady Windermere refuses, he writes out an invitation himself. Lady Windermere makes clear her intention to cause a scene if Mrs Erlynne appears, to which Lord Windermere responds that it would be in her best interest not to do so. Lady Windermere leaves in disgust to prepare for the party, and Lord Windermere reveals in soliloqu"
      },
      {
        "text": " that she send Mrs Erlynne an invitation to her birthday ball that evening in order to help her back into society. When Lady Windermere refuses, he writes out an invitation himself. Lady Windermere makes clear her intention to cause a scene if Mrs Erlynne appears, to which Lord Windermere responds that it would be in her best interest not to do so. Lady Windermere leaves in disgust to prepare for the party, and Lord Windermere reveals in soliloquy that he is protecting Mrs Erlynne's true identity to save his wife extreme humiliation. Act II opens in the Windermeres' drawing room during the birthday ball that evening. Various guests enter, and make small-talk. Lord Windermere enters and asks Lady Windermere to speak with him, but she brushes him off. A friend of Lord Windermere's, Lord Augustus Lorton (\"Tuppy\"), pulls him aside to inquire about Mrs Erlynne, with whom he is enamoured. Lord Windermere reveals that there is nothing untoward in his relationship with Mrs Erlynne, and that she will be attending the ball, which comes as a great relief to Lord Augustus as he was worried about her social standing. After an unsuccessful attempt to make peace with his wife, Lord Windermere summons the courage to tell the truth to her, but at that moment Mrs Erlynne arrives at the party, where she is greeted coldly by Lady Windermere, spoiling his plan. Alone, Lady Windermere and Lord Darlington discuss Mrs Erlynne's attendance. Lady Windermere is enraged and confused and asks Lord Darlington to be her friend. Instead of friendship, Lord Darlington takes advantage of Lady Windermere's tragic state and professes his love to her, offering her his life, and inviting her to risk short-term social humiliation for a new life with him. Lord Darlington sets her an ult"
      },
      {
        "text": " Lady Windermere, spoiling his plan. Alone, Lady Windermere and Lord Darlington discuss Mrs Erlynne's attendance. Lady Windermere is enraged and confused and asks Lord Darlington to be her friend. Instead of friendship, Lord Darlington takes advantage of Lady Windermere's tragic state and professes his love to her, offering her his life, and inviting her to risk short-term social humiliation for a new life with him. Lord Darlington sets her an ultimatum to try to convince her to take action immediately, while still in a state of shock. Lady Windermere is shocked by the revelation, and finds she does not have the courage to take the offer. Heartbroken, Lord Darlington announces that he will be leaving the country the next day and that they will never meet again, and leaves. The guests begin to leave, and say their goodnights to Lady Windermere\u2014some remarking positively about Mrs Erlynne. On the other side of the room Mrs Erlynne is discussing her plans with Lord Windermere; she intends to marry Lord Augustus and will require some money from Lord Windermere. Later, Lady Windermere, in spite of her earlier reluctance, decides to leave the house at once for Lord Darlington, and leaves a note to that effect for Lord Windermere. Mrs Erlynne discovers the note and that Lady Windermere has gone, and is curiously worried by this. While reading the note, a brief monologue reveals that she is in fact Lady Windermere's mother and made a similar mistake herself twenty years previously. She takes the letter and exits to locate Lady Windermere. Lady Windermere is alone in Lord Darlington's rooms unsure if she has made the right decision. Eventually, she resolves to return to her husband, but then Mrs Erlynne appears. Despite Mrs Erlynne's honest attempts to persuade her to return home to her husband,"
      },
      {
        "text": " reading the note, a brief monologue reveals that she is in fact Lady Windermere's mother and made a similar mistake herself twenty years previously. She takes the letter and exits to locate Lady Windermere. Lady Windermere is alone in Lord Darlington's rooms unsure if she has made the right decision. Eventually, she resolves to return to her husband, but then Mrs Erlynne appears. Despite Mrs Erlynne's honest attempts to persuade her to return home to her husband, Lady Windermere is convinced her appearance is part of some plot conceived by her and Lord Windermere. Mrs Erlynne finally breaks Lady Windermere's resistance by imploring her to return for the sake of her young child, but as they begin to exit they hear Lord Darlington entering with friends. The two women hide. The men \u2014 who include Lord Windermere and Lord Augustus \u2014 have been evicted from their gentlemen's club at closing time and talk about women: mainly Mrs Erlynne. One of them takes notice of a fan lying on a table (Lady Windermere's) and presumes that Lord Darlington presently has a woman visiting. As Lord Windermere rises to leave, the fan is pointed out to him, which he instantly recognises as his wife's. He demands to know if Lord Darlington has her hidden somewhere. Lord Darlington refuses to co-operate, believing that Lady Windermere has come to him. Just as Lord Windermere is about to discover Lady Windermere's hiding place, Mrs Erlynne reveals herself instead, shocking all the men and allowing Lady Windermere to slip away unnoticed. The following quote is quite a popular tattoo among rebellious college freshmen with origins stemming from the Chicago region of the United States. The specific purpose of the tattoo is not known, but it is commonly placed on the spinal region in a vertical fashion. The next day, Lady Windermere is lying on the couch of"
      },
      {
        "text": " Windermere is about to discover Lady Windermere's hiding place, Mrs Erlynne reveals herself instead, shocking all the men and allowing Lady Windermere to slip away unnoticed. The following quote is quite a popular tattoo among rebellious college freshmen with origins stemming from the Chicago region of the United States. The specific purpose of the tattoo is not known, but it is commonly placed on the spinal region in a vertical fashion. The next day, Lady Windermere is lying on the couch of the morning room anxious about whether to tell her husband what actually happened, or whether Mrs Erlynne will have already betrayed her secret. Her husband enters. He is sympathetic towards her and they discuss the possibility of taking a holiday to forget the recent incident. Lady Windermere apologises for her previous suspicion of her husband and behaviour at the party, and Lord Windermere makes clear his new contempt for Mrs Erlynne \u2014 warning his wife to stay away from her. Mrs Erlynne's arrival is announced along with the return of the fan, and despite her husband's protestations, Lady Windermere insists on seeing her. Mrs Erlynne enters and states that she shall be going abroad, but asks that Lady Windermere give her a photograph of herself and her son. Whilst Lady Windermere leaves the room to find one, the story is revealed: Mrs Erlynne left her husband for a lover shortly after Lady Windermere's birth. When her new lover abandoned her, Mrs Erlynne was left alone and in disrepute. More recently, using the assumed name of Mrs Erlynne, she has begun blackmailing Lord Windermere in order to regain her lifestyle and status, by threatening to reveal her true identity as Lady Windermere's shameful mother \u2014 not dead, as Lady Windermere believes. Lord Windermere laments not having told his wife the whole story at once and resolves to tell her the truth now. Mrs Erlyn"
      },
      {
        "text": " her, Mrs Erlynne was left alone and in disrepute. More recently, using the assumed name of Mrs Erlynne, she has begun blackmailing Lord Windermere in order to regain her lifestyle and status, by threatening to reveal her true identity as Lady Windermere's shameful mother \u2014 not dead, as Lady Windermere believes. Lord Windermere laments not having told his wife the whole story at once and resolves to tell her the truth now. Mrs Erlynne forbids him to do so, threatening to spread shame far and wide if he does. Lady Windermere returns with the photograph which she presents to Mrs Erlynne, and requests that Lord Windermere check for the return of Mrs Erlynne's coach. Now that they are alone, and being owed a favour, Mrs Erlynne demands that she does not reveal the truth revealed the night before to her husband, and Lady Windermere promises to keep the secret. After Lord Windermere's return, Lord Augustus enters. He is shocked to see Mrs Erlynne after the events of the night before, but she requests his company as she heads to her carriage, and he soon returns to the Windermeres with news that she has satisfactorily explained the events of the evening, and that they are to marry and live out of England. Their marriage is restored, but both Lord and Lady Windermere keep their secrets.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Pearl",
    "author": "Gregory McElwain",
    "published_date": "1947",
    "synopsis": " Kino, a young, strong, poor pearl diver, lives in a small town, La Paz, with his wife Juana, and his baby son, Coyotito. When the baby, Coyotito, is stung by a scorpion, Kino must find a way to pay the town doctor so he will cure him. Shortly thereafter, Kino discovers an enormous pearl while out diving with Juana and he is ready to sell it for money to pay the doctor. Sadly, other forces work against Kino. Nearly as soon as he returns from sea, the whole town knows of the pearl. Everyone calls it \"the pearl of the world,\" and many people begin to crave it. That very night Kino is attacked in his own home. Determined to get rid of the pearl, the following morning he takes it to the pearl buyers in town. Nevertheless, the pearl buyers all collude and refuse to pay him what he wants, so he decides to go to the capital city over the mountains to find a better price. However, Juana, seeing that the pearl brings darkness and greed, sneaks out of the house late at night to throw it back into the ocean. When Kino catches her, furious, he attacks her and leaves her on the beach. Returning to the house with the pearl, Kino is attacked by an unknown man whom he stabs and kills. The pearl is dropped and hidden from view. He thinks the men have taken the pearl, but Juana shows him that she has found it. When they go back to the town, they find their home has been set on fire. Kino and Juana spend the day hiding in the house of Kino's brother Juan Tom\u00e1s and his wife and gathering provisions for their trip to the capital city. Only there can they hope to sell the pearl for a decent price and finally help Coyotito with the scorpion sting. Kino, Juana, and Coyotito leave in the dark of the night. After a brief rest in the morning, Kino spots trackers who are following them. Well aware that they will be unable to hide from the trackers, they begin hiking into the mountains. They find a cave near a natural water hole, where the exhausted family hides and waits for the trackers to catch up to them. The trackers find the water hole and decided to rest there for the night. Kino realizes that he must get rid of the trackers if they are to survive the trip to the capital. He's getting ready to attack when the men hear a cry like a baby's though they decide it's more like a coyote with a litter. One of the men fires his rifle in the direction of the crying, where Juana and Coyotito lie. Kino tackles the man down, takes the gun and kills all of the trackers. Kino then realizes that something is wrong, he climbs back up to the cave to discover that the man's shot had killed Coyotito. Kino and Juana then return to La Paz, mourning, no longer wanting the pearl, with Coyotito's dead body. Kino throws the pearl back into the ocean and it then sinks to the bottom of the sea.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Kino, a young, strong, poor pearl diver, lives in a small town, La Paz, with his wife Juana, and his baby son, Coyotito. When the baby, Coyotito, is stung by a scorpion, Kino must find a way to pay the town doctor so he will cure him. Shortly thereafter, Kino discovers an enormous pearl while out diving with Juana and he is ready to sell it for money to pay the doctor. Sadly, other forces work against Kino. Nearly as soon as he returns from sea, the whole town knows of the pearl. Everyone calls it \"the pearl of the world,\" and many people begin to crave it. That very night Kino is attacked in his own home. Determined to get rid of the pearl, the following morning he takes it to the pearl buyers in town. Nevertheless, the pearl buyers all collude and refuse to pay him what he wants, so he decides to go to the capital city over the mountains to find a better price. However, Juana, seeing that the pearl brings darkness and greed, sneaks out of the house late at night to throw it back into the ocean. When Kino catches her, furious, he attacks her and leaves her on the beach. Returning to the house with the pearl, Kino is attacked by an unknown man whom he stabs and kills. The pearl is dropped and hidden from view. He thinks the men have taken the pearl, but Juana shows him that she has found it. When they go back to the town, they find their home has been set on fire. Kino and Juana spend the day hiding in the house of Kino's brother Juan Tom\u00e1s and his wife and gathering provisions for their trip to the capital city. Only there can they hope to sell the pearl for a decent price and finally help Coyotito with the scorpion sting. Kino, Juana, and Coyotito"
      },
      {
        "text": " pearl, but Juana shows him that she has found it. When they go back to the town, they find their home has been set on fire. Kino and Juana spend the day hiding in the house of Kino's brother Juan Tom\u00e1s and his wife and gathering provisions for their trip to the capital city. Only there can they hope to sell the pearl for a decent price and finally help Coyotito with the scorpion sting. Kino, Juana, and Coyotito leave in the dark of the night. After a brief rest in the morning, Kino spots trackers who are following them. Well aware that they will be unable to hide from the trackers, they begin hiking into the mountains. They find a cave near a natural water hole, where the exhausted family hides and waits for the trackers to catch up to them. The trackers find the water hole and decided to rest there for the night. Kino realizes that he must get rid of the trackers if they are to survive the trip to the capital. He's getting ready to attack when the men hear a cry like a baby's though they decide it's more like a coyote with a litter. One of the men fires his rifle in the direction of the crying, where Juana and Coyotito lie. Kino tackles the man down, takes the gun and kills all of the trackers. Kino then realizes that something is wrong, he climbs back up to the cave to discover that the man's shot had killed Coyotito. Kino and Juana then return to La Paz, mourning, no longer wanting the pearl, with Coyotito's dead body. Kino throws the pearl back into the ocean and it then sinks to the bottom of the sea.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " to discover that the man's shot had killed Coyotito. Kino and Juana then return to La Paz, mourning, no longer wanting the pearl, with Coyotito's dead body. Kino throws the pearl back into the ocean and it then sinks to the bottom of the sea.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Barchester Towers",
    "author": "Anthony Trollope",
    "published_date": "1857",
    "synopsis": " Barchester Towers concerns the leading clergy of the imaginary cathedral city of Barchester. The much loved bishop having died, all expectations are that his son, Archdeacon Grantly, will succeed him. Instead, owing to the passage of the power of patronage to a new Prime Minister, a newcomer, the far more Evangelical Bishop Proudie, gains the see. His wife, Mrs Proudie, exercises an undue influence over the new bishop, making herself as well as the bishop unpopular with most of the clergy of the diocese. Her interference to veto the reappointment of the universally popular Mr Septimus Harding (protagonist of Trollope's earlier novel, The Warden) as warden of Hiram's Hospital is not well received, even though she gives the position to a needy clergyman, Mr Quiverful, with 14 children to support. Even less popular than Mrs Proudie is the bishop's newly appointed chaplain, the hypocritical and sycophantic Mr Obadiah Slope, who decides it would be expedient to marry Harding's wealthy widowed daughter, Eleanor Bold, and hopes to win her favour by interfering in the controversy over the wardenship. The Bishop, or rather Mr Slope under the orders of Mrs Proudie, also orders the return of the prebendary Dr Vesey Stanhope from Italy. Dr Stanhope has been there, recovering from a sore throat, for 12 years and has spent his time catching butterflies. With him to the Cathedral Close come his wife and his three adult children. The younger of Dr Stanhope's two daughters causes consternation in the Palace and threatens the plans of Mr Slope: Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni is a crippled serial flirt with a young daughter and a mysterious Italian husband whom she has left. Mrs Proudie is appalled by her and considers her an unsafe influence on her daughters, her servants and Mr Slope. Mr Slope is drawn like a moth to a flame and cannot keep away. Dr Stanhope's son Bertie is skilled at spending money but not at making it: his two sisters think marriage to rich Eleanor Bold will provide financial security for him. Summoned by Archdeacon Grantly to assist in the war against the Proudies and Mr Slope is the brilliant Reverend Francis Arabin. Mr Arabin is a considerable scholar, Fellow of Lazarus College at Oxford, who nearly followed his mentor John Henry Newman into the Roman Catholic Church. A massive misunderstanding occurs between Eleanor and her father, brother-in-law, sister and Mr Arabin: they all believe she intends to marry the oily chaplain Mr Slope. Mr Arabin is attracted to Eleanor but the efforts of Grantly and his wife to stop her marrying Slope also interfere with any relationship that might develop. At the Ullathorne garden party of the Thornes, matters come to a head. Mr Slope proposes to Mrs Bold and is slapped for his presumption; Bertie goes through the motions of a proposal to Eleanor and is refused with good grace, and the Signora has a chat with Mr Arabin. Mr Slope's double-dealings are now revealed and he is dismissed by Mrs Proudie and the Signora. The Signora drops a delicate word in several ears and with the removal of their misunderstanding Mr Arabin and Eleanor become engaged. The old Dean of the Cathedral having died, Mr Slope campaigns to become Dean, but Mr Harding is offered the preferment, with a beautiful house in the Close and of garden. However Mr Harding considers himself unsuitable and, with the help of the archdeacon, arranges that Mr Arabin be made Dean. With the Stanhopes' return to Italy, life in the Cathedral Close returns to its previous quiet and settled ways and Mr Harding continues his life of gentleness and music.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Barchester Towers concerns the leading clergy of the imaginary cathedral city of Barchester. The much loved bishop having died, all expectations are that his son, Archdeacon Grantly, will succeed him. Instead, owing to the passage of the power of patronage to a new Prime Minister, a newcomer, the far more Evangelical Bishop Proudie, gains the see. His wife, Mrs Proudie, exercises an undue influence over the new bishop, making herself as well as the bishop unpopular with most of the clergy of the diocese. Her interference to veto the reappointment of the universally popular Mr Septimus Harding (protagonist of Trollope's earlier novel, The Warden) as warden of Hiram's Hospital is not well received, even though she gives the position to a needy clergyman, Mr Quiverful, with 14 children to support. Even less popular than Mrs Proudie is the bishop's newly appointed chaplain, the hypocritical and sycophantic Mr Obadiah Slope, who decides it would be expedient to marry Harding's wealthy widowed daughter, Eleanor Bold, and hopes to win her favour by interfering in the controversy over the wardenship. The Bishop, or rather Mr Slope under the orders of Mrs Proudie, also orders the return of the prebendary Dr Vesey Stanhope from Italy. Dr Stanhope has been there, recovering from a sore throat, for 12 years and has spent his time catching butterflies. With him to the Cathedral Close come his wife and his three adult children. The younger of Dr Stanhope's two daughters causes consternation in the Palace and threatens the plans of Mr Slope: Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni is a crippled serial flirt with a young daughter and a mysterious Italian husband whom she has left. Mrs Proudie is appalled by her and considers her an unsafe influence on her daughters, her servants and Mr Slope. Mr Slope is drawn like a moth to"
      },
      {
        "text": " to the Cathedral Close come his wife and his three adult children. The younger of Dr Stanhope's two daughters causes consternation in the Palace and threatens the plans of Mr Slope: Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni is a crippled serial flirt with a young daughter and a mysterious Italian husband whom she has left. Mrs Proudie is appalled by her and considers her an unsafe influence on her daughters, her servants and Mr Slope. Mr Slope is drawn like a moth to a flame and cannot keep away. Dr Stanhope's son Bertie is skilled at spending money but not at making it: his two sisters think marriage to rich Eleanor Bold will provide financial security for him. Summoned by Archdeacon Grantly to assist in the war against the Proudies and Mr Slope is the brilliant Reverend Francis Arabin. Mr Arabin is a considerable scholar, Fellow of Lazarus College at Oxford, who nearly followed his mentor John Henry Newman into the Roman Catholic Church. A massive misunderstanding occurs between Eleanor and her father, brother-in-law, sister and Mr Arabin: they all believe she intends to marry the oily chaplain Mr Slope. Mr Arabin is attracted to Eleanor but the efforts of Grantly and his wife to stop her marrying Slope also interfere with any relationship that might develop. At the Ullathorne garden party of the Thornes, matters come to a head. Mr Slope proposes to Mrs Bold and is slapped for his presumption; Bertie goes through the motions of a proposal to Eleanor and is refused with good grace, and the Signora has a chat with Mr Arabin. Mr Slope's double-dealings are now revealed and he is dismissed by Mrs Proudie and the Signora. The Signora drops a delicate word in several ears and with the removal of their misunderstanding Mr Arabin and Eleanor become engaged. The old Dean of the Cathedral having died, Mr Slope campaigns to become Dean, but Mr Harding"
      },
      {
        "text": "; Bertie goes through the motions of a proposal to Eleanor and is refused with good grace, and the Signora has a chat with Mr Arabin. Mr Slope's double-dealings are now revealed and he is dismissed by Mrs Proudie and the Signora. The Signora drops a delicate word in several ears and with the removal of their misunderstanding Mr Arabin and Eleanor become engaged. The old Dean of the Cathedral having died, Mr Slope campaigns to become Dean, but Mr Harding is offered the preferment, with a beautiful house in the Close and of garden. However Mr Harding considers himself unsuitable and, with the help of the archdeacon, arranges that Mr Arabin be made Dean. With the Stanhopes' return to Italy, life in the Cathedral Close returns to its previous quiet and settled ways and Mr Harding continues his life of gentleness and music.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Our Man in Havana",
    "author": "Graham Greene",
    "published_date": "1958-12",
    "synopsis": " The novel, a black comedy, is set in Havana during the Fulgencio Batista regime. James Wormold, a vacuum cleaner retailer, is approached by Hawthorne, who offers him work for the British secret service. Wormold's wife had divorced him and now he lives with his sixteen year-old beautiful and devoutly Catholic daughter Milly. Since Wormold does not make enough money to pay Milly's extravagances, he accepts the offer. Because he has no information to send to London, Wormold fakes his reports using information found in newspapers and invents a fictitious network of agents. Some of the names in his network are those of real people (most of whom he has never met) and some are made up. Wormold only tells his friend and World War I veteran Dr. Hasselbacher about his spy work, hiding the truth from Milly. At one point, he decides to make his reports \"exciting\" and sends to London sketches of vacuum cleaner parts, telling them that those are sketches of a secret military installation in the mountains. In London nobody except Hawthorne, who alone knows Wormold sells vacuum cleaners, doubts this report. But Hawthorne does not report his doubts for fear of losing his job. In the light of the new developments, London sends Wormold a secretary, Beatrice Severn, and a radio assistant codenamed \"C\" with much spy paraphernalia. On arriving, Beatrice tells Wormold she has orders to take over his contacts. Her first request is to contact the pilot Ra\u00fal. Under pressure, Wormold develops an elaborate plan for his fictitious agent \"Ra\u00fal\" and then coincidentally, a real person with the same name is killed in a car accident. From this point, Wormold's manufactured universe overlaps with reality, with threats made to his \"contacts\". Together, Beatrice (who doesn't realise the contacts are imaginary) and Wormold try to save the real people who share names with his fictional agents. Meanwhile, London passes on the information that an unspecified enemy intends to poison Wormold at a trade association luncheon where Wormold is the speaker. It would seem that his information has worried local operatives who now seek to remove him - London is pleased by this, as it validates his work. Wormold goes to the function and sees Dr. Hasselbacher who loudly warns him of the threat. Wormold continues to dinner where he refuses the meal offered, and eats a second one. Across the table sits a fellow vacuum cleaner salesman, a man he'd met earlier called Carter, who offers him whiskey - suspicious, Wormold knocks over the glass, which is then drunk by a stray dog, which soon dies. In retaliation for the failure, Carter kills Dr. Hasselbacher at the club bar. Captain Segura, a military strongman who is in love with Milly and intends to marry her, has a list of all of the spies in Havana - a list that Wormold would like to send to London to partially redeem his employment. He tells Segura that he's going to his house to discuss Segura's plans about Milly. Once there, Wormold proposes they play a game of draughts using miniature bottles of Scotch and Bourbon as the game pieces, where each piece taken has to be drunk at once. Eventually, Segura (who is the much better player) ends up drunk and falls asleep. Wormold takes his gun and photographs the list using a microdot camera. To avenge the murder of Dr. Hasselbacher, Wormold follows Carter to a local brothel and kills him with Segura's pistol. Wormold sends the agent list as a microdot photograph on a postage stamp to London but it proves blank when processed. Wormold confesses everything to Beatrice, who reports him to London. They are summoned back to headquarters where Beatrice is posted to Jakarta and Wormold's situation is considered - despite the deception, some of his information is valuable and he needs to be silenced from speaking to the press so they offer Wormold a teaching post at headquarters and recommend him for an OBE. Afterwards, Beatrice comes to Wormold's hotel and they decide to marry. Milly is surprisingly accepting of their decision, and is to go to a Swiss finishing school paid for by Wormold's scam earnings.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel, a black comedy, is set in Havana during the Fulgencio Batista regime. James Wormold, a vacuum cleaner retailer, is approached by Hawthorne, who offers him work for the British secret service. Wormold's wife had divorced him and now he lives with his sixteen year-old beautiful and devoutly Catholic daughter Milly. Since Wormold does not make enough money to pay Milly's extravagances, he accepts the offer. Because he has no information to send to London, Wormold fakes his reports using information found in newspapers and invents a fictitious network of agents. Some of the names in his network are those of real people (most of whom he has never met) and some are made up. Wormold only tells his friend and World War I veteran Dr. Hasselbacher about his spy work, hiding the truth from Milly. At one point, he decides to make his reports \"exciting\" and sends to London sketches of vacuum cleaner parts, telling them that those are sketches of a secret military installation in the mountains. In London nobody except Hawthorne, who alone knows Wormold sells vacuum cleaners, doubts this report. But Hawthorne does not report his doubts for fear of losing his job. In the light of the new developments, London sends Wormold a secretary, Beatrice Severn, and a radio assistant codenamed \"C\" with much spy paraphernalia. On arriving, Beatrice tells Wormold she has orders to take over his contacts. Her first request is to contact the pilot Ra\u00fal. Under pressure, Wormold develops an elaborate plan for his fictitious agent \"Ra\u00fal\" and then coincidentally, a real person with the same name is killed in a car accident. From this point, Wormold's manufactured universe overlaps with reality, with threats made to his \"contacts\". Together, Beatrice (who doesn't realise the contacts are imaginary) and Wormold try to save the"
      },
      {
        "text": " orders to take over his contacts. Her first request is to contact the pilot Ra\u00fal. Under pressure, Wormold develops an elaborate plan for his fictitious agent \"Ra\u00fal\" and then coincidentally, a real person with the same name is killed in a car accident. From this point, Wormold's manufactured universe overlaps with reality, with threats made to his \"contacts\". Together, Beatrice (who doesn't realise the contacts are imaginary) and Wormold try to save the real people who share names with his fictional agents. Meanwhile, London passes on the information that an unspecified enemy intends to poison Wormold at a trade association luncheon where Wormold is the speaker. It would seem that his information has worried local operatives who now seek to remove him - London is pleased by this, as it validates his work. Wormold goes to the function and sees Dr. Hasselbacher who loudly warns him of the threat. Wormold continues to dinner where he refuses the meal offered, and eats a second one. Across the table sits a fellow vacuum cleaner salesman, a man he'd met earlier called Carter, who offers him whiskey - suspicious, Wormold knocks over the glass, which is then drunk by a stray dog, which soon dies. In retaliation for the failure, Carter kills Dr. Hasselbacher at the club bar. Captain Segura, a military strongman who is in love with Milly and intends to marry her, has a list of all of the spies in Havana - a list that Wormold would like to send to London to partially redeem his employment. He tells Segura that he's going to his house to discuss Segura's plans about Milly. Once there, Wormold proposes they play a game of draughts using miniature bottles of Scotch and Bourbon as the game pieces, where each piece taken has to be drunk at once. Eventually, Segura (who is the much better player) ends up drunk and falls asleep."
      },
      {
        "text": " of the spies in Havana - a list that Wormold would like to send to London to partially redeem his employment. He tells Segura that he's going to his house to discuss Segura's plans about Milly. Once there, Wormold proposes they play a game of draughts using miniature bottles of Scotch and Bourbon as the game pieces, where each piece taken has to be drunk at once. Eventually, Segura (who is the much better player) ends up drunk and falls asleep. Wormold takes his gun and photographs the list using a microdot camera. To avenge the murder of Dr. Hasselbacher, Wormold follows Carter to a local brothel and kills him with Segura's pistol. Wormold sends the agent list as a microdot photograph on a postage stamp to London but it proves blank when processed. Wormold confesses everything to Beatrice, who reports him to London. They are summoned back to headquarters where Beatrice is posted to Jakarta and Wormold's situation is considered - despite the deception, some of his information is valuable and he needs to be silenced from speaking to the press so they offer Wormold a teaching post at headquarters and recommend him for an OBE. Afterwards, Beatrice comes to Wormold's hotel and they decide to marry. Milly is surprisingly accepting of their decision, and is to go to a Swiss finishing school paid for by Wormold's scam earnings.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "East Wind: West Wind",
    "author": "Pearl S. Buck",
    "published_date": "1930",
    "synopsis": " Kwei-lan is put into an arranged marriage, but her husband is not what she expects. They do not live in her parents' courts (which was expected in China then). He is a medical doctor and does not seem to take interest in her until after she asks him to unbind her feet. After they bond, they have a son together. Kwei-lan has an older brother who has been living in [[United States for a few years. He has a friend write back to his family that he has married an American woman (his parents have already selected a Chinese woman for him to marry when he returns to China). Kwei-lan's brother and his wife Mary go to China to see if they can convince his family to accept her. The family will not accept her, and tell him to give her money and send her back to America. Kwei-lan's brother has not fulfilled his duty in his parents' eyes, and soon his wife Mary is pregnant with their first child. The climax is when Kwei-lan's mother dies, and the family tells him that if he does not send Mary back to America and marry his betrothed, then he will be disinherited. He refuses, leaves his family's courts for good, and live in an apartment near to Kwei-lan's house. The baby is born, and ties together his parents' hearts (and two cultures). pt:East Wind: West Wind\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Kwei-lan is put into an arranged marriage, but her husband is not what she expects. They do not live in her parents' courts (which was expected in China then). He is a medical doctor and does not seem to take interest in her until after she asks him to unbind her feet. After they bond, they have a son together. Kwei-lan has an older brother who has been living in [[United States for a few years. He has a friend write back to his family that he has married an American woman (his parents have already selected a Chinese woman for him to marry when he returns to China). Kwei-lan's brother and his wife Mary go to China to see if they can convince his family to accept her. The family will not accept her, and tell him to give her money and send her back to America. Kwei-lan's brother has not fulfilled his duty in his parents' eyes, and soon his wife Mary is pregnant with their first child. The climax is when Kwei-lan's mother dies, and the family tells him that if he does not send Mary back to America and marry his betrothed, then he will be disinherited. He refuses, leaves his family's courts for good, and live in an apartment near to Kwei-lan's house. The baby is born, and ties together his parents' hearts (and two cultures). pt:East Wind: West Wind\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "On Numbers and Games",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " A game in the sense of Conway is a position in a contest between two players, Left and Right. Each player has a set of games called options to choose from in turn. Games are written {L|R} where L is the set of Left's options and R is the set of Right's options. At the start there are no games at all, so the empty set (i.e., the set with no members) is the only set of options we can provide to the players. This defines the game {|}, which is called 0. We consider a player who must play a turn but has no options to have lost the game. Given this game 0 there are now two possible sets of options, the empty set and the set whose only element is zero. The game {0|} is called 1, and the game {|0} is called -1. The game {0|0} is called , and is the first game we find that is not a number. All numbers are positive, negative, or zero, and we say that a game is positive if Left will win, negative if Right will win, or zero if the second player will win. Games that are not numbers have a fourth possibility: they may be fuzzy, meaning that the first player will win. * is a fuzzy game. A more extensive introduction to On Numbers and Games is available online.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A game in the sense of Conway is a position in a contest between two players, Left and Right. Each player has a set of games called options to choose from in turn. Games are written {L|R} where L is the set of Left's options and R is the set of Right's options. At the start there are no games at all, so the empty set (i.e., the set with no members) is the only set of options we can provide to the players. This defines the game {|}, which is called 0. We consider a player who must play a turn but has no options to have lost the game. Given this game 0 there are now two possible sets of options, the empty set and the set whose only element is zero. The game {0|} is called 1, and the game {|0} is called -1. The game {0|0} is called , and is the first game we find that is not a number. All numbers are positive, negative, or zero, and we say that a game is positive if Left will win, negative if Right will win, or zero if the second player will win. Games that are not numbers have a fourth possibility: they may be fuzzy, meaning that the first player will win. * is a fuzzy game. A more extensive introduction to On Numbers and Games is available online.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead",
    "author": "James Kirkwood, Jr.",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Abandoned by his girlfriend on New Year's Eve, and still unaware that his beloved cat Tennessee (named after the playwright Tennessee Williams) has died in an animal clinic, hopeless New York actor Jimmy Zoole is feeling depressed and unstable when he happens across a cat burglar, Vito, in his apartment. Furious, he beats the stranger unconscious and ties him to his kitchen sink. Jimmy begins to torment his terrified captive; however, the unlikely pair soon establish a certain bond. Vito once had a wife who left him after she discovered he was gay, and took their child with her. Jimmy questions his own orientation as his relationship to Vito takes on a homosexual dimension, and decides to use his prisoner to exact revenge on his former lover. In the end, Jimmy and Vito, now working as a team, are able to sell a stash of stolen drugs and run away together.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Abandoned by his girlfriend on New Year's Eve, and still unaware that his beloved cat Tennessee (named after the playwright Tennessee Williams) has died in an animal clinic, hopeless New York actor Jimmy Zoole is feeling depressed and unstable when he happens across a cat burglar, Vito, in his apartment. Furious, he beats the stranger unconscious and ties him to his kitchen sink. Jimmy begins to torment his terrified captive; however, the unlikely pair soon establish a certain bond. Vito once had a wife who left him after she discovered he was gay, and took their child with her. Jimmy questions his own orientation as his relationship to Vito takes on a homosexual dimension, and decides to use his prisoner to exact revenge on his former lover. In the end, Jimmy and Vito, now working as a team, are able to sell a stash of stolen drugs and run away together.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Treasure Island",
    "author": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel is divided into 6 parts and 34 chapters: Jim Hawkins is the narrator of all except for chapters 16-18, which are narrated by Doctor Livesey. The novel opens in the seaside village of Black Hill Cove in south-west England (to Stevenson, in his letters and in the related fictional play Admiral Guinea, near Barnstaple, Devon) in the mid-18th century. The narrator, James \"Jim\" Hawkins, is the young son of the owners of the Admiral Benbow Inn. An old drunken seaman named Billy Bones becomes a long-term lodger at the inn, only paying for about the first week of his stay. Jim quickly realizes that Bones is in hiding, and that he particularly dreads meeting an unidentified seafaring man with one leg. Some months later, Bones is visited by a mysterious sailor named Black Dog. Their meeting turns violent, Black Dog flees and Bones suffers a stroke. While Jim cares for him, Bones confesses that he was once the mate of the late notorious pirate, Captain Flint, and that his old crewmates want Bones' sea chest. Some time later, another of Bones' crew mates, a blind man named Pew, appears at the inn and forces Jim to lead him to Bones. Pew gives Bones a paper. After Pew leaves, Bones opens the paper to discover it is marked with the Black Spot, a pirate summons, with the warning that he has until ten o'clock to meet their demands. Bones drops dead of apoplexy (in this context, a stroke) on the spot. Jim and his mother open Bones' sea chest to collect the amount due to them for Bones' room and board, but before they can count out the money that they are owed, they hear pirates approaching the inn and are forced to flee and hide, Jim taking with him a mysterious oilskin packet from the chest. The pirates, led by Pew, find the sea chest and the money, but are frustrated that there is no sign of \"Flint's fist\". Customs men approach and the pirates escape to their vessel (all except for Pew, who is accidentally run down and killed by the agents' horses).p. 27-8: \"...{Pew} made another dash, now utterly bewildered, right under the nearest of the coming horses. The rider tried to save him, but in vain. Down went Pew with a cry that rang high into the night; and the four hoofs trampled and spurned him and passed by. He fell on his side, then gently collapsed upon his face, and moved no more.\" \u2014Stevenson, R.L. Jim takes the mysterious oilskin packet to Dr. Livesey, as he is a "gentleman and a magistrate", and he, Squire Trelawney and Jim Hawkins examine it together, finding it contains a logbook detailing the treasure looted during Captain Flint's career, and a detailed map of an island with the location of Flint's treasure marked on it. Squire Trelawney immediately plans to commission a sailing vessel to hunt for the treasure, with the help of Dr. Livesey and Jim. Livesey warns Trelawney to be silent about their objective. Going to Bristol docks, Trelawney buys a schooner named the Hispaniola, hires a captain, Alexander Smollett to command her, and retains Long John Silver, a former sea cook and now the owner of the dock-side "Spy-Glass" tavern, to run the galley. Silver helps Trelawney to hire the rest of his crew. When Jim arrives in Bristol and visits Silver at the Spy-Glass, his suspicions are aroused: Silver is missing a leg, like the man Bones warned Jim about, and Black Dog is sitting in the tavern. Black Dog runs away at the sight of Jim, and Silver denies all knowledge of the fugitive so convincingly that he wins Jim's trust. Despite Captain Smollett's misgivings about the mission and Silver's hand-picked crew, the Hispaniola sets sail for the Caribbean. As they near their destination, Jim crawls into the ship's near-empty apple barrel to get an apple. While inside, he overhears Silver talking secretly with some of the crewmen. Silver admits that he was Captain Flint's quartermaster, that several others of the crew were also once Flint's men, and that he is recruiting more men from the crew to his own side. After Flint's treasure is recovered, Silver intends to murder the Hispaniolas officers, and keep the loot for himself and his men. When the pirates have returned to their berths, Jim warns Smollett, Trelawney and Livesey of the impending mutiny. On reaching Treasure Island, the majority of Silver's men go ashore immediately. Although Jim is not yet aware of this, Silver's men have demanded they seize the treasure immediately, discarding Silver's own more careful plan to postpone any open mutiny or violence until after the treasure is safely aboard. Jim lands with Silver's men, but runs away from them almost as soon as he is ashore. Hiding in the woods, Jim sees Silver murder Tom, a crewman loyal to Smollett. Running for his life, he encounters Ben Gunn, another ex-crewman of Flint's who has been marooned for three years on the island, but who treats Jim kindly. Meanwhile, Trelawney, Livesey and their loyal crewmen surprise and overpower the few pirates left aboard the Hispaniola. They row ashore and move into an abandoned, fortified stockade where they are joined by Jim Hawkins, who has left Ben Gunn behind. Silver approaches under a flag of truce and tries to negotiate Smollett's surrender; Smollett rebuffs him utterly, and Silver flies into a rage, promising to attack the stockade. \"Them that die'll be the lucky ones,\" he famously threatens as he storms off. The pirates assault the stockade, but in a furious battle with losses on both sides, they are driven off. During the night Jim sneaks out, takes Ben Gunn's coracle and approaches the Hispaniola under cover of darkness. He cuts the ship's anchor cable, setting her adrift and out of reach of the pirates on shore. After daybreak, he manages to approach the schooner and board her. Of the two pirates left aboard, only one is still alive: the coxswain, Israel Hands, who has murdered his comrade in a drunken brawl and been badly wounded in the process. Hands agrees to help Jim helm the ship to a safe beach in exchange for medical treatment and brandy, but once the ship is approaching the beach Hands tries to murder Jim. Jim escapes by climbing the rigging, and when Hands tries to skewer him with a thrown dagger, Jim reflexively shoots Hands dead. Having beached the Hispaniola securely, Jim returns to the stockade under cover of night and sneaks back inside. Because of the darkness, he does not realize until too late that the stockade is now occupied by the pirates, and he is captured. Silver, whose always-shaky command has become more tenuous than ever, seizes on Jim as a hostage, refusing his men's demands to kill him or torture him for information. Silver's rivals in the pirate crew, led by George Merry, give Silver the Black Spot and move to depose him as captain. Silver answers his opponents eloquently, rebuking them for defacing a page from the Bible to create the Black Spot and revealing that he has obtained the treasure map from Dr. Livesey, thus restoring the crew's confidence. The following day, the pirates search for the treasure. They are shadowed by Ben Gunn, who makes ghostly sounds to dissuade them from continuing, but Silver forges ahead and locates where Flint's treasure is buried. The pirates discover that the cache has been rifled and the treasure is gone. The enraged pirates turn on Silver and Jim, but Ben Gunn, Dr. Livesey and Abraham Gray attack the pirates, killing two and dispersing the rest. Silver surrenders to Dr. Livesey, promising to return to his duty. They go to Ben Gunn's cave where Gunn has had the treasure hidden for some months. The treasure is divided amongst Trelawney and his loyal men, including Jim and Ben Gunn, and they return to England, leaving the surviving pirates marooned on the island. Silver, through the help of the fearful Ben Gunn, escapes with a small part of the treasure, three or four hundred guineas. Remembering Silver, Jim reflects that \"I dare say he met his old Negress [wife], and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint [his parrot]. It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another world are very small.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is divided into 6 parts and 34 chapters: Jim Hawkins is the narrator of all except for chapters 16-18, which are narrated by Doctor Livesey. The novel opens in the seaside village of Black Hill Cove in south-west England (to Stevenson, in his letters and in the related fictional play Admiral Guinea, near Barnstaple, Devon) in the mid-18th century. The narrator, James \"Jim\" Hawkins, is the young son of the owners of the Admiral Benbow Inn. An old drunken seaman named Billy Bones becomes a long-term lodger at the inn, only paying for about the first week of his stay. Jim quickly realizes that Bones is in hiding, and that he particularly dreads meeting an unidentified seafaring man with one leg. Some months later, Bones is visited by a mysterious sailor named Black Dog. Their meeting turns violent, Black Dog flees and Bones suffers a stroke. While Jim cares for him, Bones confesses that he was once the mate of the late notorious pirate, Captain Flint, and that his old crewmates want Bones' sea chest. Some time later, another of Bones' crew mates, a blind man named Pew, appears at the inn and forces Jim to lead him to Bones. Pew gives Bones a paper. After Pew leaves, Bones opens the paper to discover it is marked with the Black Spot, a pirate summons, with the warning that he has until ten o'clock to meet their demands. Bones drops dead of apoplexy (in this context, a stroke) on the spot. Jim and his mother open Bones' sea chest to collect the amount due to them for Bones' room and board, but before they can count out the money that they are owed, they hear pirates approaching the inn and are forced to flee and hide, Jim taking with him a mysterious oilskin packet from the chest. The pirates, led by Pew, find the sea chest and the money, but are frustrated that"
      },
      {
        "text": " drops dead of apoplexy (in this context, a stroke) on the spot. Jim and his mother open Bones' sea chest to collect the amount due to them for Bones' room and board, but before they can count out the money that they are owed, they hear pirates approaching the inn and are forced to flee and hide, Jim taking with him a mysterious oilskin packet from the chest. The pirates, led by Pew, find the sea chest and the money, but are frustrated that there is no sign of \"Flint's fist\". Customs men approach and the pirates escape to their vessel (all except for Pew, who is accidentally run down and killed by the agents' horses).p. 27-8: \"...{Pew} made another dash, now utterly bewildered, right under the nearest of the coming horses. The rider tried to save him, but in vain. Down went Pew with a cry that rang high into the night; and the four hoofs trampled and spurned him and passed by. He fell on his side, then gently collapsed upon his face, and moved no more.\" \u2014Stevenson, R.L. Jim takes the mysterious oilskin packet to Dr. Livesey, as he is a "gentleman and a magistrate", and he, Squire Trelawney and Jim Hawkins examine it together, finding it contains a logbook detailing the treasure looted during Captain Flint's career, and a detailed map of an island with the location of Flint's treasure marked on it. Squire Trelawney immediately plans to commission a sailing vessel to hunt for the treasure, with the help of Dr. Livesey and Jim. Livesey warns Trelawney to be silent about their objective. Going to Bristol docks, Trelawney buys a schooner named the Hispaniola, hires a captain, Alexander Smollett to command her,"
      },
      {
        "text": "s career, and a detailed map of an island with the location of Flint's treasure marked on it. Squire Trelawney immediately plans to commission a sailing vessel to hunt for the treasure, with the help of Dr. Livesey and Jim. Livesey warns Trelawney to be silent about their objective. Going to Bristol docks, Trelawney buys a schooner named the Hispaniola, hires a captain, Alexander Smollett to command her, and retains Long John Silver, a former sea cook and now the owner of the dock-side "Spy-Glass" tavern, to run the galley. Silver helps Trelawney to hire the rest of his crew. When Jim arrives in Bristol and visits Silver at the Spy-Glass, his suspicions are aroused: Silver is missing a leg, like the man Bones warned Jim about, and Black Dog is sitting in the tavern. Black Dog runs away at the sight of Jim, and Silver denies all knowledge of the fugitive so convincingly that he wins Jim's trust. Despite Captain Smollett's misgivings about the mission and Silver's hand-picked crew, the Hispaniola sets sail for the Caribbean. As they near their destination, Jim crawls into the ship's near-empty apple barrel to get an apple. While inside, he overhears Silver talking secretly with some of the crewmen. Silver admits that he was Captain Flint's quartermaster, that several others of the crew were also once Flint's men, and that he is recruiting more men from the crew to his own side. After Flint's treasure is recovered, Silver intends to murder the Hispaniolas officers, and keep the loot for himself and his men. When the pirates have returned to their berths, Jim warns Smol"
      },
      {
        "text": " secretly with some of the crewmen. Silver admits that he was Captain Flint's quartermaster, that several others of the crew were also once Flint's men, and that he is recruiting more men from the crew to his own side. After Flint's treasure is recovered, Silver intends to murder the Hispaniolas officers, and keep the loot for himself and his men. When the pirates have returned to their berths, Jim warns Smollett, Trelawney and Livesey of the impending mutiny. On reaching Treasure Island, the majority of Silver's men go ashore immediately. Although Jim is not yet aware of this, Silver's men have demanded they seize the treasure immediately, discarding Silver's own more careful plan to postpone any open mutiny or violence until after the treasure is safely aboard. Jim lands with Silver's men, but runs away from them almost as soon as he is ashore. Hiding in the woods, Jim sees Silver murder Tom, a crewman loyal to Smollett. Running for his life, he encounters Ben Gunn, another ex-crewman of Flint's who has been marooned for three years on the island, but who treats Jim kindly. Meanwhile, Trelawney, Livesey and their loyal crewmen surprise and overpower the few pirates left aboard the Hispaniola. They row ashore and move into an abandoned, fortified stockade where they are joined by Jim Hawkins, who has left Ben Gunn behind. Silver approaches under a flag of truce and tries to negotiate Smollett's surrender; Smollett rebuffs him utterly, and Silver flies into a rage, promising to attack the stockade. \"Them that die'll be the lucky ones,\" he famously threatens as he storms off. The pirates assault the stockade, but in a furious battle with losses on both sides, they are driven off. During the night Jim sneaks out, takes Ben Gunn's coracle"
      },
      {
        "text": " left Ben Gunn behind. Silver approaches under a flag of truce and tries to negotiate Smollett's surrender; Smollett rebuffs him utterly, and Silver flies into a rage, promising to attack the stockade. \"Them that die'll be the lucky ones,\" he famously threatens as he storms off. The pirates assault the stockade, but in a furious battle with losses on both sides, they are driven off. During the night Jim sneaks out, takes Ben Gunn's coracle and approaches the Hispaniola under cover of darkness. He cuts the ship's anchor cable, setting her adrift and out of reach of the pirates on shore. After daybreak, he manages to approach the schooner and board her. Of the two pirates left aboard, only one is still alive: the coxswain, Israel Hands, who has murdered his comrade in a drunken brawl and been badly wounded in the process. Hands agrees to help Jim helm the ship to a safe beach in exchange for medical treatment and brandy, but once the ship is approaching the beach Hands tries to murder Jim. Jim escapes by climbing the rigging, and when Hands tries to skewer him with a thrown dagger, Jim reflexively shoots Hands dead. Having beached the Hispaniola securely, Jim returns to the stockade under cover of night and sneaks back inside. Because of the darkness, he does not realize until too late that the stockade is now occupied by the pirates, and he is captured. Silver, whose always-shaky command has become more tenuous than ever, seizes on Jim as a hostage, refusing his men's demands to kill him or torture him for information. Silver's rivals in the pirate crew, led by George Merry, give Silver the Black Spot and move to depose him as captain. Silver answers his opponents eloquently, rebuking them for defacing a page from the Bible to create the Black Spot and revealing that he has obtained the treasure map from"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Silver, whose always-shaky command has become more tenuous than ever, seizes on Jim as a hostage, refusing his men's demands to kill him or torture him for information. Silver's rivals in the pirate crew, led by George Merry, give Silver the Black Spot and move to depose him as captain. Silver answers his opponents eloquently, rebuking them for defacing a page from the Bible to create the Black Spot and revealing that he has obtained the treasure map from Dr. Livesey, thus restoring the crew's confidence. The following day, the pirates search for the treasure. They are shadowed by Ben Gunn, who makes ghostly sounds to dissuade them from continuing, but Silver forges ahead and locates where Flint's treasure is buried. The pirates discover that the cache has been rifled and the treasure is gone. The enraged pirates turn on Silver and Jim, but Ben Gunn, Dr. Livesey and Abraham Gray attack the pirates, killing two and dispersing the rest. Silver surrenders to Dr. Livesey, promising to return to his duty. They go to Ben Gunn's cave where Gunn has had the treasure hidden for some months. The treasure is divided amongst Trelawney and his loyal men, including Jim and Ben Gunn, and they return to England, leaving the surviving pirates marooned on the island. Silver, through the help of the fearful Ben Gunn, escapes with a small part of the treasure, three or four hundred guineas. Remembering Silver, Jim reflects that \"I dare say he met his old Negress [wife], and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint [his parrot]. It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another world are very small.\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " four hundred guineas. Remembering Silver, Jim reflects that \"I dare say he met his old Negress [wife], and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint [his parrot]. It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another world are very small.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Seven Brothers",
    "author": "Aleksis Kivi",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " At first, the brothers are not a particularly peaceful lot and end up quarreling with the local constable, jury, vicar, churchwarden, and teachers\u2014not to mention their neighbours in Toukola village. No wonder young girls' mothers do not regard them as good suitors. When they are required to learn to read before they can accept church confirmation and therefore official adulthood\u2014and marry\u2014they escape. Eventually they end up moving to distant Impivaara in the middle of relative wilderness, but their first efforts are shoddy\u2014one Christmas Eve they end up burning down their new house. Next spring they try again and manage to kill a hostile herd of bulls. Ten years of clearing forest for fields, hard work and hard drinking\u2014and Simeoni\u2019s delirium tremens\u2014eventually make them change their ways. They learn to read on their own and eventually return to Jukola. In the end most of them become pillars of the community and family men. Still, the tone of the tale is not particularly moralistic.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At first, the brothers are not a particularly peaceful lot and end up quarreling with the local constable, jury, vicar, churchwarden, and teachers\u2014not to mention their neighbours in Toukola village. No wonder young girls' mothers do not regard them as good suitors. When they are required to learn to read before they can accept church confirmation and therefore official adulthood\u2014and marry\u2014they escape. Eventually they end up moving to distant Impivaara in the middle of relative wilderness, but their first efforts are shoddy\u2014one Christmas Eve they end up burning down their new house. Next spring they try again and manage to kill a hostile herd of bulls. Ten years of clearing forest for fields, hard work and hard drinking\u2014and Simeoni\u2019s delirium tremens\u2014eventually make them change their ways. They learn to read on their own and eventually return to Jukola. In the end most of them become pillars of the community and family men. Still, the tone of the tale is not particularly moralistic.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Steppenwolf",
    "author": "Hermann Hesse",
    "published_date": "1927",
    "synopsis": " The book is presented as a manuscript by its protagonist, a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, the nephew of his landlady. The acquaintance adds a short preface of his own and then has the manuscript published. The title of this \"real\" book-in-the-book is Harry Haller's Records (For Madmen Only). As it begins, the hero is beset by reflections on his being ill-suited for the world of everyday, regular people, specifically for frivolous bourgeois society. In his aimless wanderings about the city he encounters a person carrying an advertisement for a magic theatre who gives him a small book, Treatise on the Steppenwolf. This treatise, cited in full in the novel's text as Harry reads it, addresses Harry by name and strikes him as describing himself uncannily. It is a discourse of a man who believes himself to be of two natures: one high, the spiritual nature of man; while the other is low, animalistic, a \"wolf of the steppes\". This man is entangled in an irresolvable struggle, never content with either nature because he cannot see beyond this self-made concept. The pamphlet gives an explanation of the multifaceted and indefinable nature of every man's soul, which Harry is either unable or unwilling to recognize. It also discusses his suicidal intentions, describing him as one of the \"suicides\"; people who, deep down, knew they would take their own life one day. But to counter that, it hails his potential to be great, to be one of the \"Immortals\". The next day Harry meets a former academic friend with whom he had often discussed Oriental mythology, and who invites Harry to his home. While there, Harry is disgusted by the nationalistic mentality of his friend, who inadvertently criticizes a column Harry wrote. In turn, Harry offends the man and his wife by criticizing the wife's picture of Goethe, which Harry feels is too thickly sentimental and insulting to Goethe's true brilliance. This episode confirms to Harry that he is, and will always be, a stranger to his society. Trying to postpone returning home (where he has planned suicide), Harry walks aimlessly around the town for most of the night, finally stopping to rest at a dance hall where he happens on a young woman, Hermine, who quickly recognizes his desperation. They talk at length; Hermine alternately mocks Harry's self-pity and indulges him in his explanations regarding his view of life, to his astonished relief. Hermine promises a second meeting, and provides Harry with a reason to live (or at least a substantial excuse to continue living) that he eagerly embraces. During the next few weeks, Hermine introduces Harry to the indulgences of what he calls the \"bourgeois\". She teaches Harry to dance, introduces him to casual drug use, finds him a lover (Maria), and, more importantly, forces him to accept these as legitimate and worthy aspects of a full life. Hermine also introduces Harry to a mysterious saxophonist named Pablo, who appears to be the very opposite of what Harry considers a serious, thoughtful man. After attending a lavish masquerade ball, Pablo brings Harry to his metaphorical \"magic theatre,\" where concerns and notions that plagued his soul disintegrate while he interacts with the ethereal and phantasmal. The Magic Theatre is a place where he experiences the fantasies that exist in his mind. They are described as a long horseshoe-shaped corridor that is a mirror on one side and a great many doors on the other. Then, Harry enters five of these labeled doors, each of which symbolizes a fraction of his life.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is presented as a manuscript by its protagonist, a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, the nephew of his landlady. The acquaintance adds a short preface of his own and then has the manuscript published. The title of this \"real\" book-in-the-book is Harry Haller's Records (For Madmen Only). As it begins, the hero is beset by reflections on his being ill-suited for the world of everyday, regular people, specifically for frivolous bourgeois society. In his aimless wanderings about the city he encounters a person carrying an advertisement for a magic theatre who gives him a small book, Treatise on the Steppenwolf. This treatise, cited in full in the novel's text as Harry reads it, addresses Harry by name and strikes him as describing himself uncannily. It is a discourse of a man who believes himself to be of two natures: one high, the spiritual nature of man; while the other is low, animalistic, a \"wolf of the steppes\". This man is entangled in an irresolvable struggle, never content with either nature because he cannot see beyond this self-made concept. The pamphlet gives an explanation of the multifaceted and indefinable nature of every man's soul, which Harry is either unable or unwilling to recognize. It also discusses his suicidal intentions, describing him as one of the \"suicides\"; people who, deep down, knew they would take their own life one day. But to counter that, it hails his potential to be great, to be one of the \"Immortals\". The next day Harry meets a former academic friend with whom he had often discussed Oriental mythology, and who invites Harry to his home. While there, Harry is disgusted by the nationalistic mentality of his friend, who inadvertently criticizes a column Harry wrote. In turn, Harry offends the man and his"
      },
      {
        "text": " people who, deep down, knew they would take their own life one day. But to counter that, it hails his potential to be great, to be one of the \"Immortals\". The next day Harry meets a former academic friend with whom he had often discussed Oriental mythology, and who invites Harry to his home. While there, Harry is disgusted by the nationalistic mentality of his friend, who inadvertently criticizes a column Harry wrote. In turn, Harry offends the man and his wife by criticizing the wife's picture of Goethe, which Harry feels is too thickly sentimental and insulting to Goethe's true brilliance. This episode confirms to Harry that he is, and will always be, a stranger to his society. Trying to postpone returning home (where he has planned suicide), Harry walks aimlessly around the town for most of the night, finally stopping to rest at a dance hall where he happens on a young woman, Hermine, who quickly recognizes his desperation. They talk at length; Hermine alternately mocks Harry's self-pity and indulges him in his explanations regarding his view of life, to his astonished relief. Hermine promises a second meeting, and provides Harry with a reason to live (or at least a substantial excuse to continue living) that he eagerly embraces. During the next few weeks, Hermine introduces Harry to the indulgences of what he calls the \"bourgeois\". She teaches Harry to dance, introduces him to casual drug use, finds him a lover (Maria), and, more importantly, forces him to accept these as legitimate and worthy aspects of a full life. Hermine also introduces Harry to a mysterious saxophonist named Pablo, who appears to be the very opposite of what Harry considers a serious, thoughtful man. After attending a lavish masquerade ball, Pablo brings Harry to his metaphorical \"magic theatre,\" where concerns and notions that plagued his soul disintegrate while he interacts with the ethereal and phantas"
      },
      {
        "text": " use, finds him a lover (Maria), and, more importantly, forces him to accept these as legitimate and worthy aspects of a full life. Hermine also introduces Harry to a mysterious saxophonist named Pablo, who appears to be the very opposite of what Harry considers a serious, thoughtful man. After attending a lavish masquerade ball, Pablo brings Harry to his metaphorical \"magic theatre,\" where concerns and notions that plagued his soul disintegrate while he interacts with the ethereal and phantasmal. The Magic Theatre is a place where he experiences the fantasies that exist in his mind. They are described as a long horseshoe-shaped corridor that is a mirror on one side and a great many doors on the other. Then, Harry enters five of these labeled doors, each of which symbolizes a fraction of his life.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Goldfinger",
    "author": "Ian Fleming",
    "published_date": "1959-03-23",
    "synopsis": " Fleming structured the novel in three sections\u2014\"Happenstance\", \"Coincidence\" and\" Enemy action\"\u2014which was how Goldfinger described Bond's three seemingly coincidental meetings with him. ;Happenstance Whilst changing planes in Miami after closing down a Mexican heroin smuggling operation, British Secret Service operative James Bond is asked by Junius Du Pont, a rich American businessman (whom he briefly met and gambled with in Casino Royale), to watch Auric Goldfinger, with whom Du Pont is playing Canasta in order to discover if he is cheating. Bond quickly realises that Goldfinger is indeed cheating with the aid of his female assistant, Jill Masterton, who is spying on DuPont's cards. Bond blackmails Goldfinger into admitting it and paying back DuPont's lost money; he also has a brief affair with Masterton. Back in London, Bond's superior, M, tasks him with determining how Goldfinger is smuggling gold out of the country: M also suspects Goldfinger of being connected to SMERSH and financing their western networks with his gold. Bond visits the Bank of England for a briefing with Colonel Smithers on the methods of gold smuggling. ;Coincidence Bond contrives to meet and have a round of golf with Goldfinger; Goldfinger attempts to win the golf match by cheating, but Bond turns the tables on him, beating him in the process. He is subsequently invited back to Goldfinger's mansion near Reculver where he narrowly escapes being caught on camera looking over the house. Goldfinger introduces Bond to his factotum, a Korean named Oddjob. Issued by MI6 with an Aston Martin DB Mark III, Bond trails Goldfinger as he takes his vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost (adapted with armour plating and armour-plated glass) via air ferry to Switzerland, driven by Oddjob. Bond manages to trace Goldfinger to a warehouse in Geneva where he finds that the armour of Goldfinger's car is actually white-gold, cast into panels at his Kent refinery. When the car reaches Goldfinger's factory in Switzerland (Enterprises Auric AG), he recasts the gold from the armour panels into aircraft seats and fits them to the Mecca Charter Airline, in which he holds a large stake. The gold is finally sold in India at a vast profit. Bond foils an assassination attempt on Goldfinger by Jill Masterton's sister, Tilly, to avenge Jill's death at Goldfinger's hands: he had painted her body with gold paint, which killed her. Bond and Tilly attempt to escape when the alarm is raised, but are captured. ;Enemy action Bond is tortured by Oddjob when he refuses to confess his role in trailing Goldfinger. In a desperate attempt to survive being cut in two by a circular saw, Bond offers to work for Goldfinger, a ruse that Goldfinger initially refuses, but then accepts. Bond and Tilly are subsequently taken to Goldfinger's operational headquarters in a warehouse in New York City. They are put to work as secretaries for a meeting between Goldfinger and several gangsters (including the Spangled Mob and the Mafia), who have been recruited to assist in \"Operation Grand Slam\" \u2013 the stealing of the United States gold reserves from Fort Knox. One of the gang leaders, Helmut Springer, refuses to join the operation and is killed by Oddjob. Learning that the operation includes the killing of the inhabitants of Fort Knox by introducing poison into the water supply, Bond manages to conceal a capsule containing a message to Felix Leiter into the toilet of Goldfinger's private plane, where he hopes it will be found and sent to Pinkertons, where his friend and ex-counterpart Felix Leiter now works. Operation Grand Slam commences, and it turns out that Leiter has indeed found and acted on Bond's message. A battle commences, but Goldfinger escapes. Tilly, a lesbian, hopes that one of the gang leaders, Pussy Galore (leader of a gang of lesbian burglars), will protect her, but she is killed by Oddjob. Goldfinger, Oddjob and the mafia bosses all escape in the melee. Bond is drugged before his flight back to England and wakes to find he has been captured by Goldfinger, who has managed to hijack a BOAC jetliner. Bond manages to break a window, causing a depressurisation that sucks Oddjob out of the plane; he then fights and strangles Goldfinger. At gunpoint, he forces the crew to ditch in the sea near the Canadian coast, where they are rescued by a nearby weathership.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Fleming structured the novel in three sections\u2014\"Happenstance\", \"Coincidence\" and\" Enemy action\"\u2014which was how Goldfinger described Bond's three seemingly coincidental meetings with him. ;Happenstance Whilst changing planes in Miami after closing down a Mexican heroin smuggling operation, British Secret Service operative James Bond is asked by Junius Du Pont, a rich American businessman (whom he briefly met and gambled with in Casino Royale), to watch Auric Goldfinger, with whom Du Pont is playing Canasta in order to discover if he is cheating. Bond quickly realises that Goldfinger is indeed cheating with the aid of his female assistant, Jill Masterton, who is spying on DuPont's cards. Bond blackmails Goldfinger into admitting it and paying back DuPont's lost money; he also has a brief affair with Masterton. Back in London, Bond's superior, M, tasks him with determining how Goldfinger is smuggling gold out of the country: M also suspects Goldfinger of being connected to SMERSH and financing their western networks with his gold. Bond visits the Bank of England for a briefing with Colonel Smithers on the methods of gold smuggling. ;Coincidence Bond contrives to meet and have a round of golf with Goldfinger; Goldfinger attempts to win the golf match by cheating, but Bond turns the tables on him, beating him in the process. He is subsequently invited back to Goldfinger's mansion near Reculver where he narrowly escapes being caught on camera looking over the house. Goldfinger introduces Bond to his factotum, a Korean named Oddjob. Issued by MI6 with an Aston Martin DB Mark III, Bond trails Goldfinger as he takes his vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost (adapted with armour plating and armour-plated glass) via air ferry to Switzerland, driven by Oddjob. Bond manages to trace Goldfinger to a warehouse in Geneva where he finds that the armour of"
      },
      {
        "text": " where he narrowly escapes being caught on camera looking over the house. Goldfinger introduces Bond to his factotum, a Korean named Oddjob. Issued by MI6 with an Aston Martin DB Mark III, Bond trails Goldfinger as he takes his vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost (adapted with armour plating and armour-plated glass) via air ferry to Switzerland, driven by Oddjob. Bond manages to trace Goldfinger to a warehouse in Geneva where he finds that the armour of Goldfinger's car is actually white-gold, cast into panels at his Kent refinery. When the car reaches Goldfinger's factory in Switzerland (Enterprises Auric AG), he recasts the gold from the armour panels into aircraft seats and fits them to the Mecca Charter Airline, in which he holds a large stake. The gold is finally sold in India at a vast profit. Bond foils an assassination attempt on Goldfinger by Jill Masterton's sister, Tilly, to avenge Jill's death at Goldfinger's hands: he had painted her body with gold paint, which killed her. Bond and Tilly attempt to escape when the alarm is raised, but are captured. ;Enemy action Bond is tortured by Oddjob when he refuses to confess his role in trailing Goldfinger. In a desperate attempt to survive being cut in two by a circular saw, Bond offers to work for Goldfinger, a ruse that Goldfinger initially refuses, but then accepts. Bond and Tilly are subsequently taken to Goldfinger's operational headquarters in a warehouse in New York City. They are put to work as secretaries for a meeting between Goldfinger and several gangsters (including the Spangled Mob and the Mafia), who have been recruited to assist in \"Operation Grand Slam\" \u2013 the stealing of the United States gold reserves from Fort Knox. One of the gang leaders, Helmut Springer, refuses to join the operation and is killed by Oddjob. Learning that the operation includes the killing of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " are subsequently taken to Goldfinger's operational headquarters in a warehouse in New York City. They are put to work as secretaries for a meeting between Goldfinger and several gangsters (including the Spangled Mob and the Mafia), who have been recruited to assist in \"Operation Grand Slam\" \u2013 the stealing of the United States gold reserves from Fort Knox. One of the gang leaders, Helmut Springer, refuses to join the operation and is killed by Oddjob. Learning that the operation includes the killing of the inhabitants of Fort Knox by introducing poison into the water supply, Bond manages to conceal a capsule containing a message to Felix Leiter into the toilet of Goldfinger's private plane, where he hopes it will be found and sent to Pinkertons, where his friend and ex-counterpart Felix Leiter now works. Operation Grand Slam commences, and it turns out that Leiter has indeed found and acted on Bond's message. A battle commences, but Goldfinger escapes. Tilly, a lesbian, hopes that one of the gang leaders, Pussy Galore (leader of a gang of lesbian burglars), will protect her, but she is killed by Oddjob. Goldfinger, Oddjob and the mafia bosses all escape in the melee. Bond is drugged before his flight back to England and wakes to find he has been captured by Goldfinger, who has managed to hijack a BOAC jetliner. Bond manages to break a window, causing a depressurisation that sucks Oddjob out of the plane; he then fights and strangles Goldfinger. At gunpoint, he forces the crew to ditch in the sea near the Canadian coast, where they are rescued by a nearby weathership.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "job out of the plane; he then fights and strangles Goldfinger. At gunpoint, he forces the crew to ditch in the sea near the Canadian coast, where they are rescued by a nearby weathership.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ironweed",
    "author": "William Kennedy",
    "published_date": "1983",
    "synopsis": " Ironweed is set during the Great Depression and tells the story of Francis Phelan, an alcoholic vagrant originally from Albany, New York, who left his family after accidentally killing his infant son while he may have been drunk. The novel focuses on Francis's return to Albany, and the narrative is complicated by Phelan's hallucinations of the three people, other than his son, whom he killed in the past. The novel features characters that return in some of Kennedy's other books.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ironweed is set during the Great Depression and tells the story of Francis Phelan, an alcoholic vagrant originally from Albany, New York, who left his family after accidentally killing his infant son while he may have been drunk. The novel focuses on Francis's return to Albany, and the narrative is complicated by Phelan's hallucinations of the three people, other than his son, whom he killed in the past. The novel features characters that return in some of Kennedy's other books.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Girl, Interrupted",
    "author": "Susanna Kaysen",
    "published_date": "1993",
    "synopsis": " In April 1967, 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen is admitted to McLean Hospital, in Belmont, Massachusetts, after attempting suicide. She denies that it was a suicide attempt to a psychiatrist, who suggests she take time to regroup in McLean, a private mental hospital. Susanna is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and her stay extends to 18 months. Fellow patients Polly, Cynthia, Lisa, Lisa Cody, Georgina and Daisy contribute to Susanna\u2019s experiences at McLean as she describes their personal issues and how they come to cope with the time they must spend in the hospital. Susanna also introduces the reader to particular staff members, including Valerie, Dr. Wick and Mrs. McWeeney. Susanna reflects on the nature of her illness, including difficulty making sense of visual patterns, and suggests that sanity is a falsehood constructed to help the \"healthy\" feel \"normal.\" She also questions how doctors treat mental illness, and whether they are treating the brain or the mind. During her stay, Susanna undergoes a period of depersonalization, where she bites open the flesh on her hand after she becomes terrified that she has \"lost her bones.\" Also, during a trip to the dentist, Susanna becomes frantic after she wakes from the general anesthesia, when no one will tell her how long she was unconscious, and she fears that she has lost time. After leaving McLean, Susanna mentions that she kept in touch with Georgina and saw Lisa, who was about to board the subway with her son.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In April 1967, 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen is admitted to McLean Hospital, in Belmont, Massachusetts, after attempting suicide. She denies that it was a suicide attempt to a psychiatrist, who suggests she take time to regroup in McLean, a private mental hospital. Susanna is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and her stay extends to 18 months. Fellow patients Polly, Cynthia, Lisa, Lisa Cody, Georgina and Daisy contribute to Susanna\u2019s experiences at McLean as she describes their personal issues and how they come to cope with the time they must spend in the hospital. Susanna also introduces the reader to particular staff members, including Valerie, Dr. Wick and Mrs. McWeeney. Susanna reflects on the nature of her illness, including difficulty making sense of visual patterns, and suggests that sanity is a falsehood constructed to help the \"healthy\" feel \"normal.\" She also questions how doctors treat mental illness, and whether they are treating the brain or the mind. During her stay, Susanna undergoes a period of depersonalization, where she bites open the flesh on her hand after she becomes terrified that she has \"lost her bones.\" Also, during a trip to the dentist, Susanna becomes frantic after she wakes from the general anesthesia, when no one will tell her how long she was unconscious, and she fears that she has lost time. After leaving McLean, Susanna mentions that she kept in touch with Georgina and saw Lisa, who was about to board the subway with her son.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ina and saw Lisa, who was about to board the subway with her son.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Small Gods",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "1992",
    "synopsis": " The Great God Om tries to manifest himself once more in the world, as the time of his eighth prophet is nigh. He is surprised, however, when he finds himself in the body of a tortoise, stripped of his divine powers. In the gardens of Omnia's capital he addresses the novice Brutha, the only one able to hear his voice. Om has a hard time convincing the boy of his godliness, as Brutha is convinced that Om can do anything he wants, and would not want to appear as a tortoise. Brutha is gifted with an eidetic memory and is therefore chosen by Vorbis, the head of the Quisition, to come along on a diplomatic mission to Ephebe. However, Brutha is also considered unintelligent, since he never learned to read, and rarely thinks for himself. With the help of Ephebe's Great Library, and the philosophers Didactylos, his nephew, Urn, and Abraxas, Om learns that Brutha is the only one left who believes in him. All others either just fear the Quisition's wrath or go along with the church out of habit. While in Ephebe, Brutha's memory aids an Omnian raid through the Labyrinth guarding the Tyrant's palace. While in the library of Ephebe, Brutha also memorizes many scrolls in order to protect Ephebeian knowledge as Omnian soldiers set fire to the building. Fleeing the ensuing struggle by boat, Brutha, Om and a severely injured Vorbis end up lost in the desert. Trekking home to Omnia, they encounter ruined temples as well as the small gods who are faint ghost-like beings yearning to be believed in to become powerful. Realizing his 'mortality' and how important his believers are to him, Om begins to care about them for the first time. While Brutha, Vorbis, and Om are in the desert, the Tyrant of Ephebe manages to regain control of the city and contacts other nations who have been troubled by Omnia's imperialistic interactions with the other countries around it. On the desert's edge, a recovered Vorbis attempts to finish off Om's tortoise form, abducts Brutha, and proceeds to become ordained as the Eighth Prophet. Brutha is to be publicly burned for heresy while strapped on a heatable bronze turtle when Om comes to the rescue, dropping from an eagle's claws onto Vorbis' head. As a great crowd witnesses this miracle they come to believe in Om and he becomes powerful again. Om manifests himself within the citadel and attempts to grant Brutha the honour of establishing the Church's new doctrines. However, Brutha does not agree with Om's new rule and explains that the Church should care for people while having a tolerance for other religious practices. Meanwhile, Ephebe has gained the support of several other nations and has sent an army against Omnia, establishing a beachhead near the citadel. Brutha attempts to establish diplomatic contact with the generals of the opposing army. Despite trusting Brutha, the leaders state they do not trust Omnia and that bloodshed is necessary. At the same time, Simony leads the Omnian military to the beachhead and uses Urn's machine of war in order to fight the Ephebians. While the fighting occurs on the beachhead, Om attempts to physically intervene, but Brutha demands he does not interfere with the actions of humans. Om becomes infuriated but obeys Brutha, but he travels to an area of the Discworld where gods gamble on the lives of humans in order to gain or lose belief. While there, Om manages to unleash his fury, even striking the other gods. This causes the soldiers to cease fighting on the battlefield, thinking it a sign from the heavens. In the book's conclusion Brutha becomes the Eighth Prophet, ending the Quisition and reforming the church to be more open-minded and humanist. Om also agrees to forsake the smiting of Omnian citizens for at least a hundred years. The last moments of the book see Brutha's death a hundred years to the day after Om's return to power and his journey across the ethereal desert towards judgement, accompanied by the spirit of Vorbis, whom Brutha found still in the desert and took pity on. It is also revealed that this century of peace was originally meant to be a century of war and bloodshed which the History Monk Lu-Tze changed to something he liked better.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Great God Om tries to manifest himself once more in the world, as the time of his eighth prophet is nigh. He is surprised, however, when he finds himself in the body of a tortoise, stripped of his divine powers. In the gardens of Omnia's capital he addresses the novice Brutha, the only one able to hear his voice. Om has a hard time convincing the boy of his godliness, as Brutha is convinced that Om can do anything he wants, and would not want to appear as a tortoise. Brutha is gifted with an eidetic memory and is therefore chosen by Vorbis, the head of the Quisition, to come along on a diplomatic mission to Ephebe. However, Brutha is also considered unintelligent, since he never learned to read, and rarely thinks for himself. With the help of Ephebe's Great Library, and the philosophers Didactylos, his nephew, Urn, and Abraxas, Om learns that Brutha is the only one left who believes in him. All others either just fear the Quisition's wrath or go along with the church out of habit. While in Ephebe, Brutha's memory aids an Omnian raid through the Labyrinth guarding the Tyrant's palace. While in the library of Ephebe, Brutha also memorizes many scrolls in order to protect Ephebeian knowledge as Omnian soldiers set fire to the building. Fleeing the ensuing struggle by boat, Brutha, Om and a severely injured Vorbis end up lost in the desert. Trekking home to Omnia, they encounter ruined temples as well as the small gods who are faint ghost-like beings yearning to be believed in to become powerful. Realizing his 'mortality' and how important his believers are to him, Om begins to care about them for the first time. While Brutha, Vorbis"
      },
      {
        "text": " the building. Fleeing the ensuing struggle by boat, Brutha, Om and a severely injured Vorbis end up lost in the desert. Trekking home to Omnia, they encounter ruined temples as well as the small gods who are faint ghost-like beings yearning to be believed in to become powerful. Realizing his 'mortality' and how important his believers are to him, Om begins to care about them for the first time. While Brutha, Vorbis, and Om are in the desert, the Tyrant of Ephebe manages to regain control of the city and contacts other nations who have been troubled by Omnia's imperialistic interactions with the other countries around it. On the desert's edge, a recovered Vorbis attempts to finish off Om's tortoise form, abducts Brutha, and proceeds to become ordained as the Eighth Prophet. Brutha is to be publicly burned for heresy while strapped on a heatable bronze turtle when Om comes to the rescue, dropping from an eagle's claws onto Vorbis' head. As a great crowd witnesses this miracle they come to believe in Om and he becomes powerful again. Om manifests himself within the citadel and attempts to grant Brutha the honour of establishing the Church's new doctrines. However, Brutha does not agree with Om's new rule and explains that the Church should care for people while having a tolerance for other religious practices. Meanwhile, Ephebe has gained the support of several other nations and has sent an army against Omnia, establishing a beachhead near the citadel. Brutha attempts to establish diplomatic contact with the generals of the opposing army. Despite trusting Brutha, the leaders state they do not trust Omnia and that bloodshed is necessary. At the same time, Simony leads the Omnian military to the beachhead and uses Urn's machine of war in order to fight the Ephebians. While the fighting occurs on the"
      },
      {
        "text": " the support of several other nations and has sent an army against Omnia, establishing a beachhead near the citadel. Brutha attempts to establish diplomatic contact with the generals of the opposing army. Despite trusting Brutha, the leaders state they do not trust Omnia and that bloodshed is necessary. At the same time, Simony leads the Omnian military to the beachhead and uses Urn's machine of war in order to fight the Ephebians. While the fighting occurs on the beachhead, Om attempts to physically intervene, but Brutha demands he does not interfere with the actions of humans. Om becomes infuriated but obeys Brutha, but he travels to an area of the Discworld where gods gamble on the lives of humans in order to gain or lose belief. While there, Om manages to unleash his fury, even striking the other gods. This causes the soldiers to cease fighting on the battlefield, thinking it a sign from the heavens. In the book's conclusion Brutha becomes the Eighth Prophet, ending the Quisition and reforming the church to be more open-minded and humanist. Om also agrees to forsake the smiting of Omnian citizens for at least a hundred years. The last moments of the book see Brutha's death a hundred years to the day after Om's return to power and his journey across the ethereal desert towards judgement, accompanied by the spirit of Vorbis, whom Brutha found still in the desert and took pity on. It is also revealed that this century of peace was originally meant to be a century of war and bloodshed which the History Monk Lu-Tze changed to something he liked better.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " and took pity on. It is also revealed that this century of peace was originally meant to be a century of war and bloodshed which the History Monk Lu-Tze changed to something he liked better.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sum of Us",
    "author": "David Stevens",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The plot revolves around the comfortable relationship between widower Harry and his gay son Jeff and their individual searches for the right mate. Harry unconditionally loves his Rugby-playing son, and even takes an active part in Jeff's search for Mr. Right. Harry reveals that his mother (Jeff's grandmother) was a lesbian, perhaps accounting for his accepting attitude toward Jeff. Jeff's new boyfriend, Greg, who is closeted from his own homophobic father, finds it difficult to relate to Harry's well-meaning matchmaking ways. Greg is ejected from his own home by his father when he discovers his son's sexuality. Harry, via a video dating service, finds a woman that he likes, a divorcee named Joyce, who may not be so understanding after spying a gay magazine in Harry and Jeff's house. Unfortunately, Harry suffers a massive stroke and is disabled, leaving him unable to speak or walk. Jeff cares for him as best as he can, taking him to the park for an outing one day. Jeff and Greg meet up in the park and agree to try and rekindle their romance, while Jeff's Dad, although unable to speak, gives his overwhelming approval.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The plot revolves around the comfortable relationship between widower Harry and his gay son Jeff and their individual searches for the right mate. Harry unconditionally loves his Rugby-playing son, and even takes an active part in Jeff's search for Mr. Right. Harry reveals that his mother (Jeff's grandmother) was a lesbian, perhaps accounting for his accepting attitude toward Jeff. Jeff's new boyfriend, Greg, who is closeted from his own homophobic father, finds it difficult to relate to Harry's well-meaning matchmaking ways. Greg is ejected from his own home by his father when he discovers his son's sexuality. Harry, via a video dating service, finds a woman that he likes, a divorcee named Joyce, who may not be so understanding after spying a gay magazine in Harry and Jeff's house. Unfortunately, Harry suffers a massive stroke and is disabled, leaving him unable to speak or walk. Jeff cares for him as best as he can, taking him to the park for an outing one day. Jeff and Greg meet up in the park and agree to try and rekindle their romance, while Jeff's Dad, although unable to speak, gives his overwhelming approval.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Jingo",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " With the opening of the novel, the island of Leshp, which had been submerged under the Circle Sea for centuries, rises to the surface. Its position, exactly halfway between Ankh-Morpork and Al Khali (the capital of Klatch), makes the island a powerful strategical point for whoever lays claim to it, which both cities do. In Ankh-Morpork, a Klatchian Prince named Khufurah is parading through Ankh-Morpork, where he will be presented with a Degree in Sweet Fanny Adams (Doctorum Adamus cum Flabello Dulci), but an assassination attempt occurs, and the Prince is wounded. Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, begins investigating the crime, originally suspecting both a Klatchian named 71-Hour Ahmed and a senior Morporkian peer, Lord Rust, of being involved. The attempted assassination breaks off relations between Ankh-Morpork and Klatch as Prince Khufurah's brother effectively declares war on the city of Ankh-Morpork. At this point, Havelock Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, resigns\u2014apparently of his own free will\u2014and Lord Rust takes command of the city. Vetinari has refused to become involved in the war with Klatch, due to the fact Ankh-Morpork does not have an army to stand against any opposing forces (the reason given being that killing enemy soldiers makes it difficult to sell them things afterwards), but Rust declares Martial law and orders the city's noble families to revive their old private regiments. Vimes, refusing to follow Rust (whom he considers to be a pillock) stands down as Commander of the Watch. Captain Carrot resigns as well, as do Sergeant Colon, Sergeant Detritus and Corporal Angua. The idea of putting the watch under the command of Corporal Nobbs is rejected by the ruling Council of Guild leaders and the Watch is disbanded. Vimes then recruits the Watch into his own private army regiment, reasoning that, as an official noble, he is entitled to do so by law and by Lord Rust's command, with the group remaining independent as knights legally fall under command of the king or his duly-appointed representatives, neither of which exist in Ankh-Morpork. Angua, following 71-Hour Ahmed, is captured by the Klatchians and taken to Klatch. Carrot, rather than rush off to save her, reports back to Vimes, who gets his private army to head for Klatch. Meanwhile, Nobby and Sergeant Colon have been recruited by Vetinari and his pet inventor, Leonard of Quirm, on a secret mission of their own, unknown to Vimes. Vetinari, Leonard of Quirm, Colon, and Nobby end up in Leonard's \"Going-Under-the-Water-Safely Device\" and discover that Leshp is actually floating on top of a huge bubble of gas (suggested to be methane or some other poisonous gas), and that the gas is escaping from said bubble, meaning that Leshp will, ultimately, sink back under the sea again. Vimes catches up with 71-hour Ahmed and has, by this time, figured out that Ahmed is a fellow policeman. Ahmed and his band of Klatchian D'regs and Vimes army head towards Gebra, in Klatch, where the war is due to start. To help blend in, Vetinari, Nobby and Fred Colon get hold of some Klatchian clothing, though Nobby ends up wearing the costume of a dancing girl and gets in touch with his feminine side. The three also head to Gebra. Arriving at Gebra they discover that Carrot has convinced the two armies to get together and play a game of football (he has an inflatable football in his backpack for just such an emergency), Vimes is preparing to arrest the Klatchian Prince and Lord Rust for various breaches of the peace (such as being prepared for war) and 71-hour Ahmed is supporting him. Vetinari prevents an international incident by ostensibly declaring the surrender of Ankh-Morpork and offering war reparations. Vetinari is returned to Ankh-Morpork, under arrest and in disgrace, but as Leshp has vanished back under the sea again, the treaty was to be signed in a non-existent territory and thus the charge of treason is invalid. Sam Vimes is informed that Vetinari has been \"reminded\" that the old rank of Commander was the same as the old rank of Duke. He objects, claiming that only a King can make a Duke, but then realises that Carrot was speaking to Vetinari. Since Carrot is, of course, very much not the King of Ankh-Morpork his reminding of Vetinari is all that is required for Vimes to get his new position and rank. Vimes \"accidentally\" loses his \"dis-organiser\" (given to him by his wife) which kept giving him incorrect information. It is explained that, had Vimes reacted slightly differently in the beginning- staying in Ankh-Morpork rather than attempting to follow Ahmed and rescue Angua-, the whole history of the Ankh-Morpork VS Klatch war would have gone very differently. The dis-organiser meets Death at the end, but Death rejects it. Instead, he drops it into the sea, and it is swallowed by a shark where it may not have the most interesting calendar of events to deal with, but at least it finds things easy to organise.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " With the opening of the novel, the island of Leshp, which had been submerged under the Circle Sea for centuries, rises to the surface. Its position, exactly halfway between Ankh-Morpork and Al Khali (the capital of Klatch), makes the island a powerful strategical point for whoever lays claim to it, which both cities do. In Ankh-Morpork, a Klatchian Prince named Khufurah is parading through Ankh-Morpork, where he will be presented with a Degree in Sweet Fanny Adams (Doctorum Adamus cum Flabello Dulci), but an assassination attempt occurs, and the Prince is wounded. Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, begins investigating the crime, originally suspecting both a Klatchian named 71-Hour Ahmed and a senior Morporkian peer, Lord Rust, of being involved. The attempted assassination breaks off relations between Ankh-Morpork and Klatch as Prince Khufurah's brother effectively declares war on the city of Ankh-Morpork. At this point, Havelock Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, resigns\u2014apparently of his own free will\u2014and Lord Rust takes command of the city. Vetinari has refused to become involved in the war with Klatch, due to the fact Ankh-Morpork does not have an army to stand against any opposing forces (the reason given being that killing enemy soldiers makes it difficult to sell them things afterwards), but Rust declares Martial law and orders the city's noble families to revive their old private regiments. Vimes, refusing to follow Rust (whom he considers to be a pillock) stands down as Commander of the Watch. Captain Carrot resigns as well, as do Sergeant Colon, Sergeant Detritus and Corporal Angua. The idea of putting the watch under"
      },
      {
        "text": " to stand against any opposing forces (the reason given being that killing enemy soldiers makes it difficult to sell them things afterwards), but Rust declares Martial law and orders the city's noble families to revive their old private regiments. Vimes, refusing to follow Rust (whom he considers to be a pillock) stands down as Commander of the Watch. Captain Carrot resigns as well, as do Sergeant Colon, Sergeant Detritus and Corporal Angua. The idea of putting the watch under the command of Corporal Nobbs is rejected by the ruling Council of Guild leaders and the Watch is disbanded. Vimes then recruits the Watch into his own private army regiment, reasoning that, as an official noble, he is entitled to do so by law and by Lord Rust's command, with the group remaining independent as knights legally fall under command of the king or his duly-appointed representatives, neither of which exist in Ankh-Morpork. Angua, following 71-Hour Ahmed, is captured by the Klatchians and taken to Klatch. Carrot, rather than rush off to save her, reports back to Vimes, who gets his private army to head for Klatch. Meanwhile, Nobby and Sergeant Colon have been recruited by Vetinari and his pet inventor, Leonard of Quirm, on a secret mission of their own, unknown to Vimes. Vetinari, Leonard of Quirm, Colon, and Nobby end up in Leonard's \"Going-Under-the-Water-Safely Device\" and discover that Leshp is actually floating on top of a huge bubble of gas (suggested to be methane or some other poisonous gas), and that the gas is escaping from said bubble, meaning that Leshp will, ultimately, sink back under the sea again. Vimes catches up with 71-hour Ahmed and has, by this time, figured out that Ahmed is a fellow policeman. Ahmed and his band of Klatchian D're"
      },
      {
        "text": "Under-the-Water-Safely Device\" and discover that Leshp is actually floating on top of a huge bubble of gas (suggested to be methane or some other poisonous gas), and that the gas is escaping from said bubble, meaning that Leshp will, ultimately, sink back under the sea again. Vimes catches up with 71-hour Ahmed and has, by this time, figured out that Ahmed is a fellow policeman. Ahmed and his band of Klatchian D'regs and Vimes army head towards Gebra, in Klatch, where the war is due to start. To help blend in, Vetinari, Nobby and Fred Colon get hold of some Klatchian clothing, though Nobby ends up wearing the costume of a dancing girl and gets in touch with his feminine side. The three also head to Gebra. Arriving at Gebra they discover that Carrot has convinced the two armies to get together and play a game of football (he has an inflatable football in his backpack for just such an emergency), Vimes is preparing to arrest the Klatchian Prince and Lord Rust for various breaches of the peace (such as being prepared for war) and 71-hour Ahmed is supporting him. Vetinari prevents an international incident by ostensibly declaring the surrender of Ankh-Morpork and offering war reparations. Vetinari is returned to Ankh-Morpork, under arrest and in disgrace, but as Leshp has vanished back under the sea again, the treaty was to be signed in a non-existent territory and thus the charge of treason is invalid. Sam Vimes is informed that Vetinari has been \"reminded\" that the old rank of Commander was the same as the old rank of Duke. He objects, claiming that only a King can make a Duke, but then realises that Carrot was speaking to Vetinari. Since Carrot is, of course, very much not the"
      },
      {
        "text": " has vanished back under the sea again, the treaty was to be signed in a non-existent territory and thus the charge of treason is invalid. Sam Vimes is informed that Vetinari has been \"reminded\" that the old rank of Commander was the same as the old rank of Duke. He objects, claiming that only a King can make a Duke, but then realises that Carrot was speaking to Vetinari. Since Carrot is, of course, very much not the King of Ankh-Morpork his reminding of Vetinari is all that is required for Vimes to get his new position and rank. Vimes \"accidentally\" loses his \"dis-organiser\" (given to him by his wife) which kept giving him incorrect information. It is explained that, had Vimes reacted slightly differently in the beginning- staying in Ankh-Morpork rather than attempting to follow Ahmed and rescue Angua-, the whole history of the Ankh-Morpork VS Klatch war would have gone very differently. The dis-organiser meets Death at the end, but Death rejects it. Instead, he drops it into the sea, and it is swallowed by a shark where it may not have the most interesting calendar of events to deal with, but at least it finds things easy to organise.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Pursuit of Love",
    "author": "Nancy Mitford",
    "published_date": "1945",
    "synopsis": " The narrator is Fanny, whose mother (called \"The Bolter\" for her habit of serial monogamy) and father have left her to be brought up by her Aunt Emily and the valetudinarian Davey, whom Emily marries early in the novel. Fanny also spends holidays with her Uncle Matthew Radlett, Aunt Sadie, and numerous cousins at Alconleigh. Linda, the second Radlett daughter, is Fanny's best friend and the main character of the novel. The early chapters recount the Radlett children's bizarre upbringing, including their contrasting obsessions with hunting and preventing cruelty to animals, and the activities of their secret society, \"the Hons.\" The Radlett daughters receive little in the way of formal education, and as Linda grows older she is increasingly consumed by a desire for romantic love and marriage. Louisa, the eldest Radlett child, makes her d\u00e9but and quickly becomes engaged to John Fort William, a Scottish peer more than twenty years her senior. Linda finds Lord Fort William an unromantic choice of husband, but is deeply jealous that Louisa is getting married. Linda becomes bored and depressed, awaiting her own coming-out party. During this time she makes friends with Lord Merlin, a neighbouring landlord who is a wealthy, charming aesthete with many fashionable friends. Merlin brings Tony Kroesig, heir to a wealthy banking family, as a last-minute guest to Linda's coming-out ball. Linda falls in love with Tony, but their relationship is rocky from the start. Uncle Matthew disapproves of Tony's German ancestry (he believes that all foreigners are fiends), and is furious when Linda and Fanny sneak away to Oxford to have luncheon with Tony. Linda and Tony eventually marry despite the strong disapproval of their families. Linda very quickly realizes that she has made a serious mistake, but she keeps up a pretence of having a happy marriage. Linda and Tony have one child, Moira, to whom Linda takes an instant dislike. Linda almost dies during Moira's birth, and her doctors strongly advise her to have no more children. Moira is soon abandoned to the care of her paternal grandparents. During this time, Fanny marries a young man called Alfred and begins a family of her own; she therefore sees Linda less frequently. After nine years of marriage, Linda leaves Tony for Christian Talbot, an ardent Communist. Christian is kind but vague, and ultimately uninterested in individuals, preferring to focus on the plight of the working class. Linda's divorce and remarriage cause a rift between her and her parents, but after some months they reconcile. Linda and Christian go to France to work with Spanish refugees in Perpignan during the Spanish Civil War, where they meet Linda's old friend Lavender Davis, an efficient young woman also volunteering to help the refugees. Linda realizes that Christian and Lavender are falling in love with one another and that they would be a better pairing. Linda decides to leave Christian and leave France. On the way back to England, Linda runs out of money in Paris and meets Fabrice de Sauveterre, a wealthy French duke. Linda becomes his mistress and lives with him in Paris for eleven months. During this time she cultivates a great interest in clothes, which Fabrice encourages and finances, but most of her happiness is the result of the fact that she has finally found the love of her life. When World War II breaks out, Fabrice persuades Linda to return to England alone, for he has work to do in the French Resistance. During the war, he is able to visit Linda in England once. She becomes pregnant. Meanwhile, for safety during the London Blitz, Fanny, Louisa, and their children are living at Alconleigh, along with Matthew, Sadie, Emily, Davey, \"the Bolter,\" and her new lover Juan (whom Uncle Matthew calls \"Gewan\"). When Linda's house is bombed, she also goes to stay at Alconleigh. The Bolter sees Linda as a younger version of herself, which Linda resents, because she is certain that she has found the love of her life in Fabrice and will not run off from any more husbands. Fanny is also expecting a baby, and she and Linda give birth to their sons on the same day. Linda dies in childbirth, as the doctors had warned; around this same time, Fabrice is killed in the war. Fanny and her husband adopt Linda's child and name him Fabrice. Mitford wrote sequels to the novel, Love in a Cold Climate (1949) and Don't Tell Alfred (1960).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The narrator is Fanny, whose mother (called \"The Bolter\" for her habit of serial monogamy) and father have left her to be brought up by her Aunt Emily and the valetudinarian Davey, whom Emily marries early in the novel. Fanny also spends holidays with her Uncle Matthew Radlett, Aunt Sadie, and numerous cousins at Alconleigh. Linda, the second Radlett daughter, is Fanny's best friend and the main character of the novel. The early chapters recount the Radlett children's bizarre upbringing, including their contrasting obsessions with hunting and preventing cruelty to animals, and the activities of their secret society, \"the Hons.\" The Radlett daughters receive little in the way of formal education, and as Linda grows older she is increasingly consumed by a desire for romantic love and marriage. Louisa, the eldest Radlett child, makes her d\u00e9but and quickly becomes engaged to John Fort William, a Scottish peer more than twenty years her senior. Linda finds Lord Fort William an unromantic choice of husband, but is deeply jealous that Louisa is getting married. Linda becomes bored and depressed, awaiting her own coming-out party. During this time she makes friends with Lord Merlin, a neighbouring landlord who is a wealthy, charming aesthete with many fashionable friends. Merlin brings Tony Kroesig, heir to a wealthy banking family, as a last-minute guest to Linda's coming-out ball. Linda falls in love with Tony, but their relationship is rocky from the start. Uncle Matthew disapproves of Tony's German ancestry (he believes that all foreigners are fiends), and is furious when Linda and Fanny sneak away to Oxford to have luncheon with Tony. Linda and Tony eventually marry despite the strong disapproval of their families. Linda very quickly realizes that she has made a serious mistake, but she keeps up a pretence of having a happy marriage. Linda and Tony have one child, Moira, to whom Linda"
      },
      {
        "text": " Tony, but their relationship is rocky from the start. Uncle Matthew disapproves of Tony's German ancestry (he believes that all foreigners are fiends), and is furious when Linda and Fanny sneak away to Oxford to have luncheon with Tony. Linda and Tony eventually marry despite the strong disapproval of their families. Linda very quickly realizes that she has made a serious mistake, but she keeps up a pretence of having a happy marriage. Linda and Tony have one child, Moira, to whom Linda takes an instant dislike. Linda almost dies during Moira's birth, and her doctors strongly advise her to have no more children. Moira is soon abandoned to the care of her paternal grandparents. During this time, Fanny marries a young man called Alfred and begins a family of her own; she therefore sees Linda less frequently. After nine years of marriage, Linda leaves Tony for Christian Talbot, an ardent Communist. Christian is kind but vague, and ultimately uninterested in individuals, preferring to focus on the plight of the working class. Linda's divorce and remarriage cause a rift between her and her parents, but after some months they reconcile. Linda and Christian go to France to work with Spanish refugees in Perpignan during the Spanish Civil War, where they meet Linda's old friend Lavender Davis, an efficient young woman also volunteering to help the refugees. Linda realizes that Christian and Lavender are falling in love with one another and that they would be a better pairing. Linda decides to leave Christian and leave France. On the way back to England, Linda runs out of money in Paris and meets Fabrice de Sauveterre, a wealthy French duke. Linda becomes his mistress and lives with him in Paris for eleven months. During this time she cultivates a great interest in clothes, which Fabrice encourages and finances, but most of her happiness is the result of the fact that she has finally found the love of her life. When World War II breaks out,"
      },
      {
        "text": " decides to leave Christian and leave France. On the way back to England, Linda runs out of money in Paris and meets Fabrice de Sauveterre, a wealthy French duke. Linda becomes his mistress and lives with him in Paris for eleven months. During this time she cultivates a great interest in clothes, which Fabrice encourages and finances, but most of her happiness is the result of the fact that she has finally found the love of her life. When World War II breaks out, Fabrice persuades Linda to return to England alone, for he has work to do in the French Resistance. During the war, he is able to visit Linda in England once. She becomes pregnant. Meanwhile, for safety during the London Blitz, Fanny, Louisa, and their children are living at Alconleigh, along with Matthew, Sadie, Emily, Davey, \"the Bolter,\" and her new lover Juan (whom Uncle Matthew calls \"Gewan\"). When Linda's house is bombed, she also goes to stay at Alconleigh. The Bolter sees Linda as a younger version of herself, which Linda resents, because she is certain that she has found the love of her life in Fabrice and will not run off from any more husbands. Fanny is also expecting a baby, and she and Linda give birth to their sons on the same day. Linda dies in childbirth, as the doctors had warned; around this same time, Fabrice is killed in the war. Fanny and her husband adopt Linda's child and name him Fabrice. Mitford wrote sequels to the novel, Love in a Cold Climate (1949) and Don't Tell Alfred (1960).\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the war. Fanny and her husband adopt Linda's child and name him Fabrice. Mitford wrote sequels to the novel, Love in a Cold Climate (1949) and Don't Tell Alfred (1960).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Moonraker",
    "author": "Ian Fleming",
    "published_date": "1955-04-05",
    "synopsis": " British Secret Service agent James Bond is asked by his superior, M, to join him for the evening at M's club, Blades, where one of the members, the multi-millionaire businessman Sir Hugo Drax, is winning a lot of money playing bridge, seemingly against the odds. M suspects Drax of cheating, but although claiming indifference, he is concerned why a multi-millionaire and national hero, such as Sir Hugo, would cheat at a card game. Bond confirms Drax's deception and manages to \"cheat the cheater\"\u2014aided by a cocktail of powdered Benzedrine mixed with non-vintage champagne and a deck of stacked cards\u2014winning \u00a315,000 and infuriating the out-smarted Drax. Drax is the product of a mysterious background, unknown even to himself (allegedly). As a supposed British soldier in World War II, he was badly injured and stricken with amnesia in the explosion of a bomb planted by a German saboteur at a British field headquarters. After extensive rehabilitation in an army hospital, however, he eventually returned home to become a major aerospace industrialist. After building his fortune and establishing himself in business and society, Drax started building the \"Moonraker\", Britain's first nuclear missile project, intended to defend the United Kingdom against its Cold War enemies (c.f. the real Blue Streak missile). The Moonraker rocket was to be an upgraded V-2 rocket using liquid hydrogen and fluorine as propellants; to withstand the ultra-high combustion temperatures of its engine, it used columbite, in which Drax had a monopoly. Because the rocket's engine could withstand higher heat, the Moonraker was able to use more powerful fuels, greatly expanding its effective range. After a Ministry of Supply security officer working at the project is shot dead, M assigns Bond to replace him and also to investigate what has been going on at the missile-building base, located between Dover and Deal on the south coast of England. All of the rocket scientists working on the project were German. At his post on the complex, Bond meets Gala Brand, a beautiful Special Branch agent working undercover as Personal Assistant to Drax. He also uncovers clues concerning his predecessor's death, concluding that the former Security Chief may have been killed for witnessing a submarine off the coast. Drax's henchman Krebs is caught by Bond snooping through his room. Later, an attempted assassination nearly kills Bond and Gala under a landslide, as they swim beneath the Dover cliffs. Drax takes Gala to London where she discovers the truth about the Moonraker (by comparing her own launch trajectory figures with those in a notebook picked from Drax's pocket), but she is caught. She soon finds herself captive at a secret radio station (intended to serve as a beacon for the missile's guidance system) in the heart of London. While attempting to rescue her in a car chase, Bond is also captured. Drax tells Bond that he was never a British soldier and has never suffered from amnesia. In fact, he was a German commander of a Skorzeny commando unit and the saboteur (in British uniform) Graf Hugo von der Drache, whose unit had placed the car bomb at the army field headquarters, only to be injured himself in the detonation. The amnesia story was simply a cover he used while recovering in hospital, in order to avoid allied retribution, although it would lead to a whole new British identity. Drax, however, remained a dedicated Nazi, bent on revenge against England for the wartime defeat of his Fatherland and his prior history of social slights suffered as a youth growing up in an English boarding school before the war. He now means to destroy London with the very missile he has constructed for Britain, by means of a Soviet-supplied nuclear warhead that has been secretly fitted to the Moonraker. He also plans to play the stock market the day before to make a huge profit from the imminent disaster. Brand and Bond are imprisoned under the Moonraker's booster engines so as to leave no trace of them once the Moonraker is launched. Before this first (supposedly un-armed) test firing, Bond and Gala escape. Gala gives Bond the proper coordinates to redirect the gyros and send the Moonraker into the sea. Having been in collaboration with Soviet Intelligence all along, Drax and his henchman attempt to escape by Russian submarine\u2014only to be killed as the vessel flees through the very waters onto which the Moonraker has been re-targeted. After their de-briefing at headquarters, Bond meets up with Gala, expecting her company\u2014but they part ways after Gala reveals that she is engaged to be married to a fellow Special Branch officer.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " British Secret Service agent James Bond is asked by his superior, M, to join him for the evening at M's club, Blades, where one of the members, the multi-millionaire businessman Sir Hugo Drax, is winning a lot of money playing bridge, seemingly against the odds. M suspects Drax of cheating, but although claiming indifference, he is concerned why a multi-millionaire and national hero, such as Sir Hugo, would cheat at a card game. Bond confirms Drax's deception and manages to \"cheat the cheater\"\u2014aided by a cocktail of powdered Benzedrine mixed with non-vintage champagne and a deck of stacked cards\u2014winning \u00a315,000 and infuriating the out-smarted Drax. Drax is the product of a mysterious background, unknown even to himself (allegedly). As a supposed British soldier in World War II, he was badly injured and stricken with amnesia in the explosion of a bomb planted by a German saboteur at a British field headquarters. After extensive rehabilitation in an army hospital, however, he eventually returned home to become a major aerospace industrialist. After building his fortune and establishing himself in business and society, Drax started building the \"Moonraker\", Britain's first nuclear missile project, intended to defend the United Kingdom against its Cold War enemies (c.f. the real Blue Streak missile). The Moonraker rocket was to be an upgraded V-2 rocket using liquid hydrogen and fluorine as propellants; to withstand the ultra-high combustion temperatures of its engine, it used columbite, in which Drax had a monopoly. Because the rocket's engine could withstand higher heat, the Moonraker was able to use more powerful fuels, greatly expanding its effective range. After a Ministry of Supply security officer working at the project is shot dead, M assigns Bond to replace him and also to investigate what has been going on at the missile-building base, located between Dover and"
      },
      {
        "text": "ine as propellants; to withstand the ultra-high combustion temperatures of its engine, it used columbite, in which Drax had a monopoly. Because the rocket's engine could withstand higher heat, the Moonraker was able to use more powerful fuels, greatly expanding its effective range. After a Ministry of Supply security officer working at the project is shot dead, M assigns Bond to replace him and also to investigate what has been going on at the missile-building base, located between Dover and Deal on the south coast of England. All of the rocket scientists working on the project were German. At his post on the complex, Bond meets Gala Brand, a beautiful Special Branch agent working undercover as Personal Assistant to Drax. He also uncovers clues concerning his predecessor's death, concluding that the former Security Chief may have been killed for witnessing a submarine off the coast. Drax's henchman Krebs is caught by Bond snooping through his room. Later, an attempted assassination nearly kills Bond and Gala under a landslide, as they swim beneath the Dover cliffs. Drax takes Gala to London where she discovers the truth about the Moonraker (by comparing her own launch trajectory figures with those in a notebook picked from Drax's pocket), but she is caught. She soon finds herself captive at a secret radio station (intended to serve as a beacon for the missile's guidance system) in the heart of London. While attempting to rescue her in a car chase, Bond is also captured. Drax tells Bond that he was never a British soldier and has never suffered from amnesia. In fact, he was a German commander of a Skorzeny commando unit and the saboteur (in British uniform) Graf Hugo von der Drache, whose unit had placed the car bomb at the army field headquarters, only to be injured himself in the detonation. The amnesia story was simply a cover he used while recovering in hospital, in"
      },
      {
        "text": " chase, Bond is also captured. Drax tells Bond that he was never a British soldier and has never suffered from amnesia. In fact, he was a German commander of a Skorzeny commando unit and the saboteur (in British uniform) Graf Hugo von der Drache, whose unit had placed the car bomb at the army field headquarters, only to be injured himself in the detonation. The amnesia story was simply a cover he used while recovering in hospital, in order to avoid allied retribution, although it would lead to a whole new British identity. Drax, however, remained a dedicated Nazi, bent on revenge against England for the wartime defeat of his Fatherland and his prior history of social slights suffered as a youth growing up in an English boarding school before the war. He now means to destroy London with the very missile he has constructed for Britain, by means of a Soviet-supplied nuclear warhead that has been secretly fitted to the Moonraker. He also plans to play the stock market the day before to make a huge profit from the imminent disaster. Brand and Bond are imprisoned under the Moonraker's booster engines so as to leave no trace of them once the Moonraker is launched. Before this first (supposedly un-armed) test firing, Bond and Gala escape. Gala gives Bond the proper coordinates to redirect the gyros and send the Moonraker into the sea. Having been in collaboration with Soviet Intelligence all along, Drax and his henchman attempt to escape by Russian submarine\u2014only to be killed as the vessel flees through the very waters onto which the Moonraker has been re-targeted. After their de-briefing at headquarters, Bond meets up with Gala, expecting her company\u2014but they part ways after Gala reveals that she is engaged to be married to a fellow Special Branch officer.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " all along, Drax and his henchman attempt to escape by Russian submarine\u2014only to be killed as the vessel flees through the very waters onto which the Moonraker has been re-targeted. After their de-briefing at headquarters, Bond meets up with Gala, expecting her company\u2014but they part ways after Gala reveals that she is engaged to be married to a fellow Special Branch officer.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sophie's Choice",
    "author": "William Styron",
    "published_date": "1979",
    "synopsis": " Sophie's Choice is narrated by Stingo, a novelist who is recalling the summer when he began his first novel. As the story begins, in the early summer of 1947, Stingo (like Styron, a writer and Duke graduate) has been fired from his low-level reader's job at the publisher McGraw-Hill and has moved into a cheap boarding house in Brooklyn, where he hopes to devote some months to his writing. While he is working on his novel, he is drawn into the lives of the lovers Nathan Landau and Sophie Zawistowska, fellow boarders at the house, who are involved in an intense and difficult relationship. Sophie is a beautiful, Polish-Catholic survivor of the concentration camps of World War II, and Nathan is a Jewish-American \u2013 and, purportedly, a genius. Although Nathan claims to be a Harvard graduate and a cellular biologist with a pharmaceutical company, it is later revealed that this is a fabrication. Almost no one \u2013 including Sophie and Stingo \u2013 knows that Nathan is a paranoid schizophrenic. However, Sophie is aware that Nathan is self-medicating with drugs, including cocaine and benzadrine, that he supposedly obtains at Pfizer, his employer. This means that although he sometimes behaves quite normally and generously, there are times that he becomes frighteningly jealous, violent, abusive and delusional. As the story progresses, Sophie tells Stingo of her past, of which she has never before spoken. She describes her violently anti-Semitic father, a law professor in Krakow; her unwillingness to help him spread his ideas; her arrest by the Nazis for smuggling food to her mother, who was on her deathbed; and particularly, her brief stint as a stenographer-typist in the home of Rudolf H\u00f6ss, the commander of Auschwitz, where she was interned. She specifically relates her attempts to seduce H\u00f6ss in an effort to persuade him that her blond, blue-eyed, German-speaking son should be allowed to leave the camp and enter the Lebensborn program, in which he would be raised as a German child. She failed in this attempt and, ultimately, never learned of her son's fate. Only at the end of the book does the reader also learn what became of Sophie's daughter, named Eva. As Nathan's \"outbreaks\" become more violent and abusive, Stingo receives a summons from Nathan's brother, Larry. He learns that Nathan is schizophrenic and is not a cellular biologist, although, as Larry says, \"he could have been fantastically brilliant at anything he might have tried out \u2026 But he never got his mind in order.\" Nathan's delusions have led him to believe that Stingo is having an affair with Sophie, and he threatens to kill them both. Sophie and Stingo attempt to flee to a peanut farm in Virginia which Stingo's father has inherited. On the way there, Sophie reveals her deepest, darkest secret: on the night that she arrived at Auschwitz, a sadistic doctor made her choose which of her two children would die immediately by gassing and which would continue to live, albeit in the camp. Of her two children, Sophie chose to sacrifice her seven-year-old daughter, Eva, in a heart-rending decision that has left her in mourning and filled with a guilt that she cannot overcome. By now alcoholic and deeply depressed, she is clearly willing to self-destruct with Nathan, who has already tried to persuade her to commit suicide with him. Despite the fact that Stingo proposes marriage to her, and despite a shared night that relieves Stingo of his virginity and fulfills many of his sexual fantasies, Sophie disappears, leaving only a note in which she says that she must return to Nathan. Upon arriving back in Brooklyn, Stingo discovers that Sophie and Nathan have committed suicide by ingesting sodium cyanide. Stingo is devastated.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Sophie's Choice is narrated by Stingo, a novelist who is recalling the summer when he began his first novel. As the story begins, in the early summer of 1947, Stingo (like Styron, a writer and Duke graduate) has been fired from his low-level reader's job at the publisher McGraw-Hill and has moved into a cheap boarding house in Brooklyn, where he hopes to devote some months to his writing. While he is working on his novel, he is drawn into the lives of the lovers Nathan Landau and Sophie Zawistowska, fellow boarders at the house, who are involved in an intense and difficult relationship. Sophie is a beautiful, Polish-Catholic survivor of the concentration camps of World War II, and Nathan is a Jewish-American \u2013 and, purportedly, a genius. Although Nathan claims to be a Harvard graduate and a cellular biologist with a pharmaceutical company, it is later revealed that this is a fabrication. Almost no one \u2013 including Sophie and Stingo \u2013 knows that Nathan is a paranoid schizophrenic. However, Sophie is aware that Nathan is self-medicating with drugs, including cocaine and benzadrine, that he supposedly obtains at Pfizer, his employer. This means that although he sometimes behaves quite normally and generously, there are times that he becomes frighteningly jealous, violent, abusive and delusional. As the story progresses, Sophie tells Stingo of her past, of which she has never before spoken. She describes her violently anti-Semitic father, a law professor in Krakow; her unwillingness to help him spread his ideas; her arrest by the Nazis for smuggling food to her mother, who was on her deathbed; and particularly, her brief stint as a stenographer-typist in the home of Rudolf H\u00f6ss, the commander of Auschwitz, where she was interned. She specifically relates her attempts to seduce H\u00f6ss in an effort to persuade him that her blond, blue-eyed, German"
      },
      {
        "text": "-Semitic father, a law professor in Krakow; her unwillingness to help him spread his ideas; her arrest by the Nazis for smuggling food to her mother, who was on her deathbed; and particularly, her brief stint as a stenographer-typist in the home of Rudolf H\u00f6ss, the commander of Auschwitz, where she was interned. She specifically relates her attempts to seduce H\u00f6ss in an effort to persuade him that her blond, blue-eyed, German-speaking son should be allowed to leave the camp and enter the Lebensborn program, in which he would be raised as a German child. She failed in this attempt and, ultimately, never learned of her son's fate. Only at the end of the book does the reader also learn what became of Sophie's daughter, named Eva. As Nathan's \"outbreaks\" become more violent and abusive, Stingo receives a summons from Nathan's brother, Larry. He learns that Nathan is schizophrenic and is not a cellular biologist, although, as Larry says, \"he could have been fantastically brilliant at anything he might have tried out \u2026 But he never got his mind in order.\" Nathan's delusions have led him to believe that Stingo is having an affair with Sophie, and he threatens to kill them both. Sophie and Stingo attempt to flee to a peanut farm in Virginia which Stingo's father has inherited. On the way there, Sophie reveals her deepest, darkest secret: on the night that she arrived at Auschwitz, a sadistic doctor made her choose which of her two children would die immediately by gassing and which would continue to live, albeit in the camp. Of her two children, Sophie chose to sacrifice her seven-year-old daughter, Eva, in a heart-rending decision that has left her in mourning and filled with a guilt that she cannot overcome. By now alcoholic and deeply depressed, she is clearly willing to self-destruct with Nathan, who has"
      },
      {
        "text": " the night that she arrived at Auschwitz, a sadistic doctor made her choose which of her two children would die immediately by gassing and which would continue to live, albeit in the camp. Of her two children, Sophie chose to sacrifice her seven-year-old daughter, Eva, in a heart-rending decision that has left her in mourning and filled with a guilt that she cannot overcome. By now alcoholic and deeply depressed, she is clearly willing to self-destruct with Nathan, who has already tried to persuade her to commit suicide with him. Despite the fact that Stingo proposes marriage to her, and despite a shared night that relieves Stingo of his virginity and fulfills many of his sexual fantasies, Sophie disappears, leaving only a note in which she says that she must return to Nathan. Upon arriving back in Brooklyn, Stingo discovers that Sophie and Nathan have committed suicide by ingesting sodium cyanide. Stingo is devastated.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Season of the Jew",
    "author": "Maurice Shadbolt",
    "published_date": "1987-02-01",
    "synopsis": " In this story of New Zealand and Te Kooti's War during the year beginning November 10, 1868, the narrative coalesces around the development of its protagonist, George Fairweather, who in Shadbolt\u2019s historical epilogue is described as \u201cA composite character ... yet still far from fictional.\u201d Fairweather is a competent but cynical former British officer in his early forties, who leaves the service under a cloud, turns landscape painter and cultivates an air of worldly detachment. Yet he finds himself drawn by love and humanity back into the world of colonial New Zealand and the maelstrom of the M\u0101ori Wars, not altogether disagreeably, as he finds to his surprise. Pursuing Te Kooti as an officer and commander in the colonial militia, while perfecting his ability to destroy Te Kooti\u2019s rebellious \u201cJews\u201d Fairweather paradoxically finds his feelings of humanity expanding to include Englishmen, colonials and M\u0101oris, coupled with a growing resentment of racism and injustice. In the end he almost throws his future away by struggling to save a M\u0101ori boy, Hamiora (reminiscent of Melville\u2019s Billy Budd), unjustly charged with treason. With the hanging of Hamiora, November 10, 1869, and the conclusion of Fairweather\u2019s desperate attempts first to prevent and then to mitigate it, the book ends. The problem of Te Kooti is not resolved, except in the brief epilogue, further revealing the depths of Fairweather\u2019s (and Shadbolt\u2019s) ambivalence about the historical figure of Te Kooti, Fairweather\u2019s hated and admired nemesis and one-time friend.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In this story of New Zealand and Te Kooti's War during the year beginning November 10, 1868, the narrative coalesces around the development of its protagonist, George Fairweather, who in Shadbolt\u2019s historical epilogue is described as \u201cA composite character ... yet still far from fictional.\u201d Fairweather is a competent but cynical former British officer in his early forties, who leaves the service under a cloud, turns landscape painter and cultivates an air of worldly detachment. Yet he finds himself drawn by love and humanity back into the world of colonial New Zealand and the maelstrom of the M\u0101ori Wars, not altogether disagreeably, as he finds to his surprise. Pursuing Te Kooti as an officer and commander in the colonial militia, while perfecting his ability to destroy Te Kooti\u2019s rebellious \u201cJews\u201d Fairweather paradoxically finds his feelings of humanity expanding to include Englishmen, colonials and M\u0101oris, coupled with a growing resentment of racism and injustice. In the end he almost throws his future away by struggling to save a M\u0101ori boy, Hamiora (reminiscent of Melville\u2019s Billy Budd), unjustly charged with treason. With the hanging of Hamiora, November 10, 1869, and the conclusion of Fairweather\u2019s desperate attempts first to prevent and then to mitigate it, the book ends. The problem of Te Kooti is not resolved, except in the brief epilogue, further revealing the depths of Fairweather\u2019s (and Shadbolt\u2019s) ambivalence about the historical figure of Te Kooti, Fairweather\u2019s hated and admired nemesis and one-time friend.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " resolved, except in the brief epilogue, further revealing the depths of Fairweather\u2019s (and Shadbolt\u2019s) ambivalence about the historical figure of Te Kooti, Fairweather\u2019s hated and admired nemesis and one-time friend.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The White Plague",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1982",
    "synopsis": " When an IRA bomb goes off, the wife and children of molecular biologist John Roe O'Neill are killed on May 20, 1996. Driven halfway insane by loss, his mind fragments into several personalities that carry out his plan for him. He plans a genocidal revenge and creates a plague that kills women. O'Neill then releases it in Ireland (for supporting the terrorists), England (for oppressing the Irish and giving them a cause), and Libya (for training said terrorists); he demands that the governments of the world send all citizens of those countries back to their countries, and that they quarantine those countries and let the plague run its course, so they will lose what he has lost; if they do not, he has more plagues to release. After releasing the plague, he goes to Ireland to hide, planning to offer his services as a molecular biologist in the hopes of sabotaging whatever work is done there on finding a cure. When he arrives in Ireland, he is suspected of being O'Neill (whom the investigatory agencies of the world have deduced is responsible). To travel to the lab at Killaloe, he is forced to walk with a priest, a boy who has taken a vow of silence due to the death of his mother, and Joseph Herity, the IRA bomber who detonated the explosive that killed O'Neill's wife and children; their purpose is to confirm his identity, either through Herity's indirect questioning, or the possibility that he will confess to the priest when confronted with the pain his revenge has caused for the boy. Meanwhile, law and order have broken down in England and Ireland, and the old Irish ways are coming back. Local IRA thugs appoint themselves \"kings of old\", and others recreate ancient Celtic pagan religions centered on the rowan tree. The IRA has effective control of Ireland, but as the governments of the world grow certain that O'Neill is there and essentially in custody, they consider wiping out the three targeted countries to end the lingering threat.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " When an IRA bomb goes off, the wife and children of molecular biologist John Roe O'Neill are killed on May 20, 1996. Driven halfway insane by loss, his mind fragments into several personalities that carry out his plan for him. He plans a genocidal revenge and creates a plague that kills women. O'Neill then releases it in Ireland (for supporting the terrorists), England (for oppressing the Irish and giving them a cause), and Libya (for training said terrorists); he demands that the governments of the world send all citizens of those countries back to their countries, and that they quarantine those countries and let the plague run its course, so they will lose what he has lost; if they do not, he has more plagues to release. After releasing the plague, he goes to Ireland to hide, planning to offer his services as a molecular biologist in the hopes of sabotaging whatever work is done there on finding a cure. When he arrives in Ireland, he is suspected of being O'Neill (whom the investigatory agencies of the world have deduced is responsible). To travel to the lab at Killaloe, he is forced to walk with a priest, a boy who has taken a vow of silence due to the death of his mother, and Joseph Herity, the IRA bomber who detonated the explosive that killed O'Neill's wife and children; their purpose is to confirm his identity, either through Herity's indirect questioning, or the possibility that he will confess to the priest when confronted with the pain his revenge has caused for the boy. Meanwhile, law and order have broken down in England and Ireland, and the old Irish ways are coming back. Local IRA thugs appoint themselves \"kings of old\", and others recreate ancient Celtic pagan religions centered on the rowan tree. The IRA has effective control of Ireland, but as the governments of the world grow certain that O'Neill is there and essentially in custody, they consider wiping out the three targeted countries"
      },
      {
        "text": " confess to the priest when confronted with the pain his revenge has caused for the boy. Meanwhile, law and order have broken down in England and Ireland, and the old Irish ways are coming back. Local IRA thugs appoint themselves \"kings of old\", and others recreate ancient Celtic pagan religions centered on the rowan tree. The IRA has effective control of Ireland, but as the governments of the world grow certain that O'Neill is there and essentially in custody, they consider wiping out the three targeted countries to end the lingering threat.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Pilgrim's Progress",
    "author": "John Bunyan",
    "published_date": "1678-02",
    "synopsis": " Christian, an everyman character, is the protagonist of the allegory, which centres itself in his journey from his hometown, the \"City of Destruction\" (\"this world\"), to the \"Celestial City\" (\"that which is to come\": Heaven) atop Mt. Zion. Christian is weighed down by a great burden, the knowledge of his sin, which he believed came from his reading \"the book in his hand,\" (the Bible). This burden, which would cause him to sink into Tophet (hell), is so unbearable that Christian must seek deliverance. He meets Evangelist as he is walking out in the fields, who directs him to the \"Wicket Gate\" for deliverance. Since Christian cannot see the \"Wicket Gate\" in the distance, Evangelist directs him to go to a \"shining light,\" which Christian thinks he sees. Christian leaves his home, his wife, and children to save himself: he cannot persuade them to accompany him. Obstinate and Pliable go after Christian to bring him back, but Christian refuses. Obstinate returns disgusted, but Pliable is persuaded to go with Christian, hoping to take advantage of the paradise that Christian claims lies at the end of his journey. Pliable's journey with Christian is cut short when the two of them fall into the Slough of Despond. It is there that Pliable abandons Christian after getting himself out. After struggling to the other side of the bog, Christian is pulled out by Help, who has heard his cries. On his way to the Wicket Gate, Christian is diverted by Mr. Worldly Wiseman into seeking deliverance from his burden through the Law, supposedly with the help of a Mr. Legality and his son Civility in the village of Morality, rather than through Christ, allegorically by way of the Wicket Gate. Evangelist meets the wayward Christian as he stops before Mount Sinai on the way to Legality's home. It hangs over the road and threatens to crush any who would pass it. Evangelist shows Christian that he had sinned by turning out of his way, but he assures him that he will be welcomed at the Wicket Gate if he should turn around and go there, which Christian does. At the Wicket Gate begins the \"straight and narrow\" King's Highway, and Christian is directed onto it by the gatekeeper Good Will. In the Second Part, Good-will is shown to be Jesus himself. To Christian's query about relief from his burden, Good Will directs him forward to \"the place of deliverance.\" Christian makes his way from there to the House of the Interpreter, where he is shown pictures and tableaux that portray or dramatize aspects of the Christian faith and life. Roger Sharrock denotes them \"emblems.\" From the House of the Interpreter, Christian finally reaches the \"place of deliverance\" (allegorically, the cross of Calvary and the open sepulcher of Christ), where the \"straps\" that bound Christian's burden to him break, and it rolls away into the open sepulchre. This event happens relatively early in the narrative: the immediate need of Christian at the beginning of the story being quickly remedied. After Christian is relieved of his burden, he is greeted by three shining ones, who give him the greeting of peace, new garments, and a scroll as a passport into the Celestial City \u2014 these are allegorical figures indicative of Christian Baptism. Atop the Hill of Difficulty, Christian makes his first stop for the night at the House Beautiful, which is an allegory of the local Christian congregation. Christian spends three days here, and leaves clothed with armour (Eph. 6:11-18), which stands him in good stead in his battle against Apollyon in the Valley of Humiliation. This battle lasts \"over half a day\" until Christian manages to wound Apollyon with his two-edged sword (a reference to the Bible, Heb. 4:12). \"And with that Apollyon spread his dragon wings and sped away.\" As night falls Christian enters the Valley of the Shadow of Death. When he is in the middle of the valley amidst the gloom and terror he hears the words of the Twenty-third Psalm, spoken possibly by his friend Faithful: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4.) As he leaves this valley the sun rises on a new day. Just outside the Valley of the Shadow of Death he meets Faithful, also a former resident of the City of Destruction, who accompanies him to Vanity Fair, where both are arrested and detained because of their disdain for the wares and business of the fair. Faithful is put on trial, and executed as a martyr. Hopeful, a resident of Vanity, takes Faithful's place to be Christian's companion for the rest of the way. Along a rough stretch of road, Christian and Hopeful leave the highway to travel on the easier By-Path Meadow, where a rainstorm forces them to spend the night. In the morning they are captured by Giant Despair, who takes them to his Doubting Castle, where they are imprisoned, beaten and starved. The giant wants them to commit suicide, but they endure the ordeal until Christian realizes that a key he has, called Promise, will open all the doors and gates of Doubting Castle. Using the key, they escape. The Delectable Mountains form the next stage of Christian and Hopeful's journey, where the shepherds show them some of the wonders of the place also known as "Immanuel's Land". As at the House of the Interpreter pilgrims are shown sights that strengthen their faith and warn them against sinning. On Mount Clear they are able to see the Celestial City through the shepherd's "perspective glass," which serves as a telescope. This device is given to Mercy in the second part at her request. On the way, Christian and Hopeful meet a lad named Ignorance, who believes that he will be allowed into the Celestial City through his own good deeds rather than as a gift of God's grace. Christian and Hopeful meet up with him twice and try to persuade him to journey to the Celestial City in the right way. Ignorance persists in his own way that leads to his being cast into hell. After getting over the River of Death on the ferry boat of Vain Hope without overcoming the hazards of wading across it, Ignorance appears before the gates of Celestial City without a passport, which he would have acquired had he gone into the King's Highway through the Wicket Gate. The Lord of the Celestial City orders shining ones to take Ignorance to one of the byways to hell and throw him in. Christian and Hopeful make it through the dangerous Enchanted Ground into the Land of Beulah, where they ready themselves to cross the River of Death on foot to Mount Zion and the Celestial City. Christian has a rough time of it, but Hopeful helps him over; and they are welcomed into the Celestial City. The Second Part of The Pilgrim's Progress presents the pilgrimage of Christian's wife, Christiana; their sons; and the maiden, Mercy. They visit the same stopping places that Christian visited, with the addition of Gaius' Inn between the Valley of the Shadow of Death and Vanity Fair; but they take a longer time in order to accommodate marriage and childbirth for the four sons and their wives. The hero of the story is Greatheart, the servant of the Interpreter, who is a pilgrim's guide to the Celestial City. He kills four giants and participates in the slaying of a monster that terrorizes the city of Vanity. The passage of years in this second pilgrimage better allegorizes the journey of the Christian life. By using heroines, Bunyan, in the Second Part, illustrates the idea that women as well as men can be brave pilgrims. Alexander M. Witherspoon, professor of English at Yale University, writes in a prefatory essay: Part II, which appeared in 1684, is much more than a mere sequel to or repetition of the earlier volume. It clarifies and reinforces and justifies the story of Part I. The beam of Bunyan's spotlight is broadened to include Christian's family and other men, women, and children; the incidents and accidents of everyday life are more numerous, the joys of the pilgrimage tend to outweigh the hardships; and to the faith and hope of Part I is added in abundant measure that greatest of virtues, charity. The two parts of The Pilgrim's Progress in reality constitute a whole, and the whole is, without doubt, the most influential religious book ever written in the English language. This is exemplified by the frailness of the pilgrims of the Second Part in contrast to those of the First: women, children, and physically and mentally challenged individuals. When Christiana's party leaves Gaius's Inn and Mr. Feeble-mind lingers in order to be left behind, he is encouraged to accompany the party by Greatheart: But brother ... I have it in commission, to comfort the feeble-minded, and to support the weak. You must needs go along with us; we will wait for you, we will lend you our help, we will deny ourselves of some things, both opinionative and practical, for your sake; we will not enter into doubtful disputations before you, we will be made all things to you, rather than you shall be left behind. When the pilgrims end up in the Land of Beulah, they cross over the River of Death by appointment. As a matter of importance to Christians of Bunyan's persuasion reflected in the narrative of The Pilgrim's Progress, the last words of the pilgrims as they cross over the river are recorded. The four sons of Christian and their families do not cross, but remain for the support of the church in that place.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Christian, an everyman character, is the protagonist of the allegory, which centres itself in his journey from his hometown, the \"City of Destruction\" (\"this world\"), to the \"Celestial City\" (\"that which is to come\": Heaven) atop Mt. Zion. Christian is weighed down by a great burden, the knowledge of his sin, which he believed came from his reading \"the book in his hand,\" (the Bible). This burden, which would cause him to sink into Tophet (hell), is so unbearable that Christian must seek deliverance. He meets Evangelist as he is walking out in the fields, who directs him to the \"Wicket Gate\" for deliverance. Since Christian cannot see the \"Wicket Gate\" in the distance, Evangelist directs him to go to a \"shining light,\" which Christian thinks he sees. Christian leaves his home, his wife, and children to save himself: he cannot persuade them to accompany him. Obstinate and Pliable go after Christian to bring him back, but Christian refuses. Obstinate returns disgusted, but Pliable is persuaded to go with Christian, hoping to take advantage of the paradise that Christian claims lies at the end of his journey. Pliable's journey with Christian is cut short when the two of them fall into the Slough of Despond. It is there that Pliable abandons Christian after getting himself out. After struggling to the other side of the bog, Christian is pulled out by Help, who has heard his cries. On his way to the Wicket Gate, Christian is diverted by Mr. Worldly Wiseman into seeking deliverance from his burden through the Law, supposedly with the help of a Mr. Legality and his son Civility in the village of Morality, rather than through Christ, allegorically by way of the Wicket Gate. Evangelist meets the wayward Christian as he stops before Mount Sinai on the way to Legality's home. It hangs"
      },
      {
        "text": " by Help, who has heard his cries. On his way to the Wicket Gate, Christian is diverted by Mr. Worldly Wiseman into seeking deliverance from his burden through the Law, supposedly with the help of a Mr. Legality and his son Civility in the village of Morality, rather than through Christ, allegorically by way of the Wicket Gate. Evangelist meets the wayward Christian as he stops before Mount Sinai on the way to Legality's home. It hangs over the road and threatens to crush any who would pass it. Evangelist shows Christian that he had sinned by turning out of his way, but he assures him that he will be welcomed at the Wicket Gate if he should turn around and go there, which Christian does. At the Wicket Gate begins the \"straight and narrow\" King's Highway, and Christian is directed onto it by the gatekeeper Good Will. In the Second Part, Good-will is shown to be Jesus himself. To Christian's query about relief from his burden, Good Will directs him forward to \"the place of deliverance.\" Christian makes his way from there to the House of the Interpreter, where he is shown pictures and tableaux that portray or dramatize aspects of the Christian faith and life. Roger Sharrock denotes them \"emblems.\" From the House of the Interpreter, Christian finally reaches the \"place of deliverance\" (allegorically, the cross of Calvary and the open sepulcher of Christ), where the \"straps\" that bound Christian's burden to him break, and it rolls away into the open sepulchre. This event happens relatively early in the narrative: the immediate need of Christian at the beginning of the story being quickly remedied. After Christian is relieved of his burden, he is greeted by three shining ones, who give him the greeting of peace, new garments, and a scroll as a passport into the Celestial City \u2014 these are"
      },
      {
        "text": " the open sepulcher of Christ), where the \"straps\" that bound Christian's burden to him break, and it rolls away into the open sepulchre. This event happens relatively early in the narrative: the immediate need of Christian at the beginning of the story being quickly remedied. After Christian is relieved of his burden, he is greeted by three shining ones, who give him the greeting of peace, new garments, and a scroll as a passport into the Celestial City \u2014 these are allegorical figures indicative of Christian Baptism. Atop the Hill of Difficulty, Christian makes his first stop for the night at the House Beautiful, which is an allegory of the local Christian congregation. Christian spends three days here, and leaves clothed with armour (Eph. 6:11-18), which stands him in good stead in his battle against Apollyon in the Valley of Humiliation. This battle lasts \"over half a day\" until Christian manages to wound Apollyon with his two-edged sword (a reference to the Bible, Heb. 4:12). \"And with that Apollyon spread his dragon wings and sped away.\" As night falls Christian enters the Valley of the Shadow of Death. When he is in the middle of the valley amidst the gloom and terror he hears the words of the Twenty-third Psalm, spoken possibly by his friend Faithful: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4.) As he leaves this valley the sun rises on a new day. Just outside the Valley of the Shadow of Death he meets Faithful, also a former resident of the City of Destruction, who accompanies him to Vanity Fair, where both are arrested and detained because of their disdain for the wares and business of the fair. Faithful is put on trial, and executed as a martyr. Hop"
      },
      {
        "text": " for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4.) As he leaves this valley the sun rises on a new day. Just outside the Valley of the Shadow of Death he meets Faithful, also a former resident of the City of Destruction, who accompanies him to Vanity Fair, where both are arrested and detained because of their disdain for the wares and business of the fair. Faithful is put on trial, and executed as a martyr. Hopeful, a resident of Vanity, takes Faithful's place to be Christian's companion for the rest of the way. Along a rough stretch of road, Christian and Hopeful leave the highway to travel on the easier By-Path Meadow, where a rainstorm forces them to spend the night. In the morning they are captured by Giant Despair, who takes them to his Doubting Castle, where they are imprisoned, beaten and starved. The giant wants them to commit suicide, but they endure the ordeal until Christian realizes that a key he has, called Promise, will open all the doors and gates of Doubting Castle. Using the key, they escape. The Delectable Mountains form the next stage of Christian and Hopeful's journey, where the shepherds show them some of the wonders of the place also known as "Immanuel's Land". As at the House of the Interpreter pilgrims are shown sights that strengthen their faith and warn them against sinning. On Mount Clear they are able to see the Celestial City through the shepherd's "perspective glass," which serves as a telescope. This device is given to Mercy in the second part at her request. On the way, Christian and Hopeful meet a lad named Ignorance, who believes that he will be allowed into the Celestial City through"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the Interpreter pilgrims are shown sights that strengthen their faith and warn them against sinning. On Mount Clear they are able to see the Celestial City through the shepherd's "perspective glass," which serves as a telescope. This device is given to Mercy in the second part at her request. On the way, Christian and Hopeful meet a lad named Ignorance, who believes that he will be allowed into the Celestial City through his own good deeds rather than as a gift of God's grace. Christian and Hopeful meet up with him twice and try to persuade him to journey to the Celestial City in the right way. Ignorance persists in his own way that leads to his being cast into hell. After getting over the River of Death on the ferry boat of Vain Hope without overcoming the hazards of wading across it, Ignorance appears before the gates of Celestial City without a passport, which he would have acquired had he gone into the King's Highway through the Wicket Gate. The Lord of the Celestial City orders shining ones to take Ignorance to one of the byways to hell and throw him in. Christian and Hopeful make it through the dangerous Enchanted Ground into the Land of Beulah, where they ready themselves to cross the River of Death on foot to Mount Zion and the Celestial City. Christian has a rough time of it, but Hopeful helps him over; and they are welcomed into the Celestial City. The Second Part of The Pilgrim's Progress presents the pilgrimage of Christian's wife, Christiana; their sons; and the maiden, Mercy. They visit the same stopping places that Christian visited, with the addition of Gaius' Inn between the Valley of the Shadow of Death and Vanity Fair; but they take a longer time in order to accommodate marriage and childbirth for the four sons and their wives."
      },
      {
        "text": " helps him over; and they are welcomed into the Celestial City. The Second Part of The Pilgrim's Progress presents the pilgrimage of Christian's wife, Christiana; their sons; and the maiden, Mercy. They visit the same stopping places that Christian visited, with the addition of Gaius' Inn between the Valley of the Shadow of Death and Vanity Fair; but they take a longer time in order to accommodate marriage and childbirth for the four sons and their wives. The hero of the story is Greatheart, the servant of the Interpreter, who is a pilgrim's guide to the Celestial City. He kills four giants and participates in the slaying of a monster that terrorizes the city of Vanity. The passage of years in this second pilgrimage better allegorizes the journey of the Christian life. By using heroines, Bunyan, in the Second Part, illustrates the idea that women as well as men can be brave pilgrims. Alexander M. Witherspoon, professor of English at Yale University, writes in a prefatory essay: Part II, which appeared in 1684, is much more than a mere sequel to or repetition of the earlier volume. It clarifies and reinforces and justifies the story of Part I. The beam of Bunyan's spotlight is broadened to include Christian's family and other men, women, and children; the incidents and accidents of everyday life are more numerous, the joys of the pilgrimage tend to outweigh the hardships; and to the faith and hope of Part I is added in abundant measure that greatest of virtues, charity. The two parts of The Pilgrim's Progress in reality constitute a whole, and the whole is, without doubt, the most influential religious book ever written in the English language. This is exemplified by the frailness of the pilgrims of the Second Part in contrast to those of the First: women, children, and physically and mentally challenged individuals. When Christiana&#39"
      },
      {
        "text": " to outweigh the hardships; and to the faith and hope of Part I is added in abundant measure that greatest of virtues, charity. The two parts of The Pilgrim's Progress in reality constitute a whole, and the whole is, without doubt, the most influential religious book ever written in the English language. This is exemplified by the frailness of the pilgrims of the Second Part in contrast to those of the First: women, children, and physically and mentally challenged individuals. When Christiana's party leaves Gaius's Inn and Mr. Feeble-mind lingers in order to be left behind, he is encouraged to accompany the party by Greatheart: But brother ... I have it in commission, to comfort the feeble-minded, and to support the weak. You must needs go along with us; we will wait for you, we will lend you our help, we will deny ourselves of some things, both opinionative and practical, for your sake; we will not enter into doubtful disputations before you, we will be made all things to you, rather than you shall be left behind. When the pilgrims end up in the Land of Beulah, they cross over the River of Death by appointment. As a matter of importance to Christians of Bunyan's persuasion reflected in the narrative of The Pilgrim's Progress, the last words of the pilgrims as they cross over the river are recorded. The four sons of Christian and their families do not cross, but remain for the support of the church in that place.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " their families do not cross, but remain for the support of the church in that place.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Santaroga Barrier",
    "author": "Frank Herbert",
    "published_date": "1968",
    "synopsis": " A psychologist, Gilbert Dasein, is hired by corporate interests to investigate a town in a valley where marketing seems totally ineffective: Outside businesses are allowed in, but wither quickly for lack of business. Santarogans aren't hostile, they just won't shop there; neither are they xenophobic, instead appearing maddeningly self-satisfied with their quaint, local lifestyle. Adding an element of danger, the last few psychologists sent in have all died in accidents that are (seemingly) perfectly plausible. Complicating matters further still, the psychologist's college girlfriend, Jenny, has returned to Santaroga. With this in mind, Dasein cautiously enters the town and quickly discovers 'Jaspers', an additive to the food and drink commonly ingested in Santaroga that seems to imbue the consumer with greater health and an expanded mind. Those who consume it don't become psychic; instead, they're simply far more lucid than the average citizen of the U.S, although there are numerous hints at a group mind operating at a subconscious level. Their newspapers are vaguely subversive with their folksy, enlightened commentary on world affairs; their dinner conversations knowledgeably reference great theories of psychology, politics, and cognitive science. Soon, Dasein is having narrow misses with perfectly plausible accidents: A boy playing with a bow and arrow releases it; the lift under his car in a garage collapses; a waitress in a diner accidentally uses insecticide rather than sugar for his coffee. Knowing that Jaspers creates exceptionally perceptive, penetrating individual minds, Dasein realizes that he has offended a communal id that feels threatened by him. As Jenny tries to convince him to settle down with her there, he wonders whether he'll live long enough to decide.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A psychologist, Gilbert Dasein, is hired by corporate interests to investigate a town in a valley where marketing seems totally ineffective: Outside businesses are allowed in, but wither quickly for lack of business. Santarogans aren't hostile, they just won't shop there; neither are they xenophobic, instead appearing maddeningly self-satisfied with their quaint, local lifestyle. Adding an element of danger, the last few psychologists sent in have all died in accidents that are (seemingly) perfectly plausible. Complicating matters further still, the psychologist's college girlfriend, Jenny, has returned to Santaroga. With this in mind, Dasein cautiously enters the town and quickly discovers 'Jaspers', an additive to the food and drink commonly ingested in Santaroga that seems to imbue the consumer with greater health and an expanded mind. Those who consume it don't become psychic; instead, they're simply far more lucid than the average citizen of the U.S, although there are numerous hints at a group mind operating at a subconscious level. Their newspapers are vaguely subversive with their folksy, enlightened commentary on world affairs; their dinner conversations knowledgeably reference great theories of psychology, politics, and cognitive science. Soon, Dasein is having narrow misses with perfectly plausible accidents: A boy playing with a bow and arrow releases it; the lift under his car in a garage collapses; a waitress in a diner accidentally uses insecticide rather than sugar for his coffee. Knowing that Jaspers creates exceptionally perceptive, penetrating individual minds, Dasein realizes that he has offended a communal id that feels threatened by him. As Jenny tries to convince him to settle down with her there, he wonders whether he'll live long enough to decide.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Knowing that Jaspers creates exceptionally perceptive, penetrating individual minds, Dasein realizes that he has offended a communal id that feels threatened by him. As Jenny tries to convince him to settle down with her there, he wonders whether he'll live long enough to decide.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Orlando Furioso",
    "author": "Ludovico Ariosto",
    "published_date": "1516",
    "synopsis": " The action of Orlando Furioso takes place against the background of the war between the Christian emperor Charlemagne and the Saracen King of Africa, Agramante, who has invaded Europe to avenge the death of his father Traiano. Agramante and his allies \u2013 who include Marsilio, the King of Spain, and the boastful warrior Rodomonte \u2013 besiege Charlemagne in Paris. Meanwhile Orlando, Charlemagne's most famous paladin, has been tempted to forget his duty to protect the emperor through his love for the pagan princess Angelica. At the beginning of the poem, Angelica escapes from the castle of the Bavarian Duke Namo, and Orlando sets off in pursuit. The two meet with various adventures until Angelica saves a wounded Saracen knight, Medoro, falls in love, and elopes with him to Cathay. When Orlando learns the truth, he goes mad with despair and rampages through Europe and Africa destroying everything in his path. The English knight Astolfo journeys to Ethiopia on the hippogriff to find a cure for Orlando's madness. He flies up to the moon (in Elijah's flaming chariot no less) where everything lost on earth is to be found, including Orlando's wits. He brings them back in a bottle and makes Orlando sniff them, thus restoring him to sanity. (At the same time Orlando falls out of love with Angelica, as the author explains that love is itself a form of insanity.) Orlando joins with Brandimart and Oliver to fight Agramante, Sobrino and Gradasso on the island of Lampedusa. There Orlando kills King Agramante. Another important plotline involves the love between the female Christian warrior Bradamante and the Saracen Ruggiero. They too have to endure many vicissitudes. Ruggiero is taken captive by the sorceress Alcina and has to be freed from her magic island. He also has to avoid the enchantments of his foster father, the wizard Atlante, who does not want him to fight. Finally, Ruggiero converts to Christianity and marries Bradamante. Rodomonte appears at the wedding feast and accuses him of being a traitor to the Saracen cause, and the poem ends with Ruggiero slaying Rodomonte in single combat. Ruggiero and Bradamante are the ancestors of the House of Este, Ariosto's patrons, whose genealogy he gives at length in canto 3 of the poem. The epic contains many other characters, including Orlando's cousin, the paladin Rinaldo, who is also in love with Angelica; the thief Brunello; and the tragic heroine Isabella.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The action of Orlando Furioso takes place against the background of the war between the Christian emperor Charlemagne and the Saracen King of Africa, Agramante, who has invaded Europe to avenge the death of his father Traiano. Agramante and his allies \u2013 who include Marsilio, the King of Spain, and the boastful warrior Rodomonte \u2013 besiege Charlemagne in Paris. Meanwhile Orlando, Charlemagne's most famous paladin, has been tempted to forget his duty to protect the emperor through his love for the pagan princess Angelica. At the beginning of the poem, Angelica escapes from the castle of the Bavarian Duke Namo, and Orlando sets off in pursuit. The two meet with various adventures until Angelica saves a wounded Saracen knight, Medoro, falls in love, and elopes with him to Cathay. When Orlando learns the truth, he goes mad with despair and rampages through Europe and Africa destroying everything in his path. The English knight Astolfo journeys to Ethiopia on the hippogriff to find a cure for Orlando's madness. He flies up to the moon (in Elijah's flaming chariot no less) where everything lost on earth is to be found, including Orlando's wits. He brings them back in a bottle and makes Orlando sniff them, thus restoring him to sanity. (At the same time Orlando falls out of love with Angelica, as the author explains that love is itself a form of insanity.) Orlando joins with Brandimart and Oliver to fight Agramante, Sobrino and Gradasso on the island of Lampedusa. There Orlando kills King Agramante. Another important plotline involves the love between the female Christian warrior Bradamante and the Saracen Ruggiero. They too have to endure many vicissitudes. Ruggiero is taken captive by the sorceress Alcina and has to be freed from her magic island. He"
      },
      {
        "text": " a form of insanity.) Orlando joins with Brandimart and Oliver to fight Agramante, Sobrino and Gradasso on the island of Lampedusa. There Orlando kills King Agramante. Another important plotline involves the love between the female Christian warrior Bradamante and the Saracen Ruggiero. They too have to endure many vicissitudes. Ruggiero is taken captive by the sorceress Alcina and has to be freed from her magic island. He also has to avoid the enchantments of his foster father, the wizard Atlante, who does not want him to fight. Finally, Ruggiero converts to Christianity and marries Bradamante. Rodomonte appears at the wedding feast and accuses him of being a traitor to the Saracen cause, and the poem ends with Ruggiero slaying Rodomonte in single combat. Ruggiero and Bradamante are the ancestors of the House of Este, Ariosto's patrons, whose genealogy he gives at length in canto 3 of the poem. The epic contains many other characters, including Orlando's cousin, the paladin Rinaldo, who is also in love with Angelica; the thief Brunello; and the tragic heroine Isabella.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Anatomy of Melancholy",
    "author": "Robert Burton",
    "published_date": "1621",
    "synopsis": " Burton defined his subject as follows: In attacking his stated subject, Burton drew from nearly every science of his day, including psychology and physiology, but also astronomy, meteorology, and theology, and even astrology and demonology. Much of the book consists of quotations from various ancient and medi\u00e6val medical authorities, beginning with Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen. Hence the Anatomy is filled with more or less pertinent references to the works of others. A competent Latinist, Burton also included a great deal of Latin poetry in the Anatomy, and many of his inclusions from ancient sources are left untranslated in the text. The Anatomy of Melancholy is an especially lengthy book, the first edition being a single quarto volume nearly 900 pages long; subsequent editions were even longer. The text is divided into three major sections plus an introduction, the whole written in Burton's sprawling style. Characteristically, the introduction includes not only an author's note (titled \"Democritus Junior to the Reader\"), but also a Latin poem (\"Democritus Junior to His Book\"), a warning to \"The Reader Who Employs His Leisure Ill\", an abstract of the following text, and another poem explaining the frontispiece. The following three sections proceed in a similarly exhaustive fashion: the first section focuses on the causes and symptoms of \"common\" melancholies, while the second section deals with cures for melancholy, and the third section explores more complex and esoteric melancholies, including the melancholy of lovers and all varieties of religious melancholies. The Anatomy concludes with an extensive index (which, many years later, The New York Times Book Review called \"a readerly pleasure in itself\"). Most modern editions include many explanatory notes, and translate most of the Latin.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Burton defined his subject as follows: In attacking his stated subject, Burton drew from nearly every science of his day, including psychology and physiology, but also astronomy, meteorology, and theology, and even astrology and demonology. Much of the book consists of quotations from various ancient and medi\u00e6val medical authorities, beginning with Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen. Hence the Anatomy is filled with more or less pertinent references to the works of others. A competent Latinist, Burton also included a great deal of Latin poetry in the Anatomy, and many of his inclusions from ancient sources are left untranslated in the text. The Anatomy of Melancholy is an especially lengthy book, the first edition being a single quarto volume nearly 900 pages long; subsequent editions were even longer. The text is divided into three major sections plus an introduction, the whole written in Burton's sprawling style. Characteristically, the introduction includes not only an author's note (titled \"Democritus Junior to the Reader\"), but also a Latin poem (\"Democritus Junior to His Book\"), a warning to \"The Reader Who Employs His Leisure Ill\", an abstract of the following text, and another poem explaining the frontispiece. The following three sections proceed in a similarly exhaustive fashion: the first section focuses on the causes and symptoms of \"common\" melancholies, while the second section deals with cures for melancholy, and the third section explores more complex and esoteric melancholies, including the melancholy of lovers and all varieties of religious melancholies. The Anatomy concludes with an extensive index (which, many years later, The New York Times Book Review called \"a readerly pleasure in itself\"). Most modern editions include many explanatory notes, and translate most of the Latin.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " melancholies, including the melancholy of lovers and all varieties of religious melancholies. The Anatomy concludes with an extensive index (which, many years later, The New York Times Book Review called \"a readerly pleasure in itself\"). Most modern editions include many explanatory notes, and translate most of the Latin.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Piers Plowman",
    "author": "William Langland",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The poem\u2014part theological allegory, part social satire\u2014concerns the narrator's intense quest for the true Christian life, from the perspective of medi\u00e6val Catholicism. This quest entails a series of dream-visions and an examination into the lives of three allegorical characters, Dowel (\"Do-Well\"), Dobet (\"Do-Better\"), and Dobest (\"Do-Best\"). The poem begins in the Malvern Hills in Malvern, Worcestershire. A man named Will falls asleep and has a vision of a tower set upon a hill and a fortress (donjon) in a deep valley; between these symbols of heaven and hell is a \"fair field full of folk\", representing the world of mankind. In the early part of the poem Piers, the humble plowman of the title, appears and offers himself as the narrator's guide to Truth. The latter part of the work, however, is concerned with the narrator's search for Dowel, Dobet and Dobest.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The poem\u2014part theological allegory, part social satire\u2014concerns the narrator's intense quest for the true Christian life, from the perspective of medi\u00e6val Catholicism. This quest entails a series of dream-visions and an examination into the lives of three allegorical characters, Dowel (\"Do-Well\"), Dobet (\"Do-Better\"), and Dobest (\"Do-Best\"). The poem begins in the Malvern Hills in Malvern, Worcestershire. A man named Will falls asleep and has a vision of a tower set upon a hill and a fortress (donjon) in a deep valley; between these symbols of heaven and hell is a \"fair field full of folk\", representing the world of mankind. In the early part of the poem Piers, the humble plowman of the title, appears and offers himself as the narrator's guide to Truth. The latter part of the work, however, is concerned with the narrator's search for Dowel, Dobet and Dobest.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Red Storm Rising",
    "author": "Tom Clancy",
    "published_date": "1986-08",
    "synopsis": " Islamic terrorists from Azerbaijan destroy a Soviet oil-production facility at Nizhnevartovsk, Russia, crippling the USSR's oil production and threatening to wreck the nation's economy. Contemplating concessions to the West to survive the crisis, the Politburo instead decides to seize the oil fields in the Persian Gulf by military force. According to the Carter Doctrine, any attack on the Gulf is an attack on strategic interests to the United States, necessitating a military response. To prevent a combined reaction by NATO, the Soviets launch a KGB operation to carry out a false flag operation framing West Germany for an unprovoked attack on the USSR; afterwards, the Soviets plan to invade Europe in response to that \u201cattack\u201d. With West Germany occupied, and NATO defeated, the Soviets hope that the U.S. will not rescue the Arab oil states when it attacks them, as it can meet its oil needs with Western sources. The Politburo arranges a bomb blast in the Kremlin that kills some visiting schoolchildren, blaming a West German exile for the attack. The KGB operation has limited success: the planned attack on West Germany is detected when a Spetsnaz major is captured in Aachen. The officer's capture gives NATO time to mobilize its forces and preserve the alliance. Nonetheless, the operation scores some success, as several governments, notably those of Greece and Japan, publicly claim that this \u201cGerman-Russian disagreement\u201d does not warrant involvement. Thus, the Soviets face no opposition in either the Pacific theater or the Mediterranean region. NATO aircraft manage to sharply reduce Soviet ground superiority on the first night of the war by using first-generation stealth planes and tactical fighter-bombers to eliminate Soviet Mainstay AWACS aircraft and tactical fighters. The NATO forces achieve air superiority and destroy many key bridges over which much of the Soviet Army had yet to cross. The Soviets advance at great cost, having dramatically underestimated NATO defensive firepower. Germany becomes the epicentre of the conflict; here, NATO forces are slowly driven west while inflicting significant damage to the encroaching Soviet Army. Simultaneously, the Soviets seize Iceland in a covert surprise attack, capturing the NATO air station at Keflav\u00edk and disrupting the GIUK-SOSUS line to allow the Soviet Navy to operate in the Atlantic Ocean undetected. In addition, the Soviet Navy takes steps to protect its ballistic missile submarine fleet in costal waters behind minefields and ASW assets, allowing the full use of its attack submarines to engage and destroy NATO shipping rather than escorting strategic assets. In essence, the Soviet Navy is able to act as an offensive weapon contrary to pre-war NATO expectations, becoming a major strategic threat against resupply convoys coming from North America with both aircraft and submarines. This advantage is put to immediate use as a NATO carrier battle group, led by USS Nimitz, USS Saratoga and the French carrier Foch, is successfully attacked by Soviet Badger and Backfire bombers, the latter firing Kingfish missiles. The Soviets use Kelt missiles as decoys set to transmit as if they were Backfires on the predicted attack vector, far out from the main air fleet. The American carriers' F-14 interceptors are committed against the decoys, leaving an insufficient number of Crusaders from the Foch and the ships' surface-to-air missiles to defend against the bombers approaching from another direction. Foch is sunk, the amphibious assault carrier Saipan explodes, taking 2,500 Marines with her, and the two American carriers are forced to spend several weeks in drydock at Southampton, England. In West Germany, the battle becomes a war of attrition that the Soviets expect to win through slow and sustained advances. With the death of the Soviet political favorite CinC-West in a NATO air attack on the Soviet rear lines, the more competent CinC-Southwest and his second-in-command, General-Colonel Pavel Leonidovich Alekseyev take over on the German front. Alekseyev commands a successful Soviet attack on the town of Alfeld, finally giving the Soviet Army the breakthrough it needs. As the OMG (Operational Manoeuvre Group) forces start to deploy, NATO looks likely to lose all of Germany east of the Weser River. When a brilliantly timed naval attack on Soviet bomber bases with submarine-launched cruise missiles cripples the Soviet bomber force, the Soviets lose their most effective convoy and fleet killing weapon. The U.S. Marines take this opportunity to stage an amphibious assault on Iceland backed by NATO navies, retaking the island and closing the Atlantic to Soviet forces. A failed bomber raid on the NATO naval forces attacking Iceland (in which the remaining Soviet naval cruise missile bomber fleets are nearly wiped out) essentially means Victory in the Atlantic, opening the USSR to direct attacks from carrier strike groups against its Northern strategic areas and the free flow of convoys across the Atlantic. Simultaneously with the sudden reversal in the Atlantic, SACEUR, a renowned poker player, makes an audacious gamble in the face of a final Soviet offensive that pushes NATO ground forces to the breaking point, launching an unexpected flanking manoeuvre that places heavy NATO forces in the rear of the Soviet spearhead, cutting their last frontline units off behind two different rivers and interdicting their supplies. Intelligence gained from a prisoner on Iceland finally reveals the dire fuel situation in the USSR to NATO, who promptly switch bombing tactics and wipe out significant forward fuel depots, essentially immobilising the last of the elite Soviet formations. With the Soviet advance decisively halted, NATO catches its breath and prepares to move into a general offensive against the increasingly ineffective Soviet C category reserves being moved forward. With the conventional situation in Europe turning against them and their strategic situation increasingly bleak due to the drawdown on national oil reserves resulting in a crippled economy, the Politburo are moved to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons at the front to regain the initiative. Alekseyev, realizing that a tactical nuclear exchange would almost certainly lead to a strategic nuclear exchange, seeks and obtains control of his theatre's nuclear weapons as part of their planning; ostensibly for practical matters of tactical targeting but in reality to ensure they are never used. In the face of this nightmare scenario, General Alekseyev joins forces with the Chairman of the KGB and the Energy Minister, Mikhail Eduardovich Sergetov, in staging a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat, replacing the Politburo with a troika consisting of Sergetov, Agriculture Minister F. M. Krylov, and longtime Politburo member Pyotr Bromkovskiy (an elderly and respected World War II veteran) whilst the Chairman of the KGB is allowed to be executed by a Major, revealed to be a parent of one of the children who was killed in the Kremlin bombing. With the Government back under control, Alekseyev flies back to Germany and personally negotiates with SACEUR to bring an end to the war, forestalling the launching of NATO's counter-offensive with an agreement of a cease fire and withdrawal to pre-war lines, apparently ending the war. The story of the aftermath of the conflict is left untold.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Islamic terrorists from Azerbaijan destroy a Soviet oil-production facility at Nizhnevartovsk, Russia, crippling the USSR's oil production and threatening to wreck the nation's economy. Contemplating concessions to the West to survive the crisis, the Politburo instead decides to seize the oil fields in the Persian Gulf by military force. According to the Carter Doctrine, any attack on the Gulf is an attack on strategic interests to the United States, necessitating a military response. To prevent a combined reaction by NATO, the Soviets launch a KGB operation to carry out a false flag operation framing West Germany for an unprovoked attack on the USSR; afterwards, the Soviets plan to invade Europe in response to that \u201cattack\u201d. With West Germany occupied, and NATO defeated, the Soviets hope that the U.S. will not rescue the Arab oil states when it attacks them, as it can meet its oil needs with Western sources. The Politburo arranges a bomb blast in the Kremlin that kills some visiting schoolchildren, blaming a West German exile for the attack. The KGB operation has limited success: the planned attack on West Germany is detected when a Spetsnaz major is captured in Aachen. The officer's capture gives NATO time to mobilize its forces and preserve the alliance. Nonetheless, the operation scores some success, as several governments, notably those of Greece and Japan, publicly claim that this \u201cGerman-Russian disagreement\u201d does not warrant involvement. Thus, the Soviets face no opposition in either the Pacific theater or the Mediterranean region. NATO aircraft manage to sharply reduce Soviet ground superiority on the first night of the war by using first-generation stealth planes and tactical fighter-bombers to eliminate Soviet Mainstay AWACS aircraft and tactical fighters. The NATO forces achieve air superiority and destroy many key bridges over which much of the Soviet Army had yet to cross. The Soviets advance at great cost, having dramatically underestimated NATO defensive firepower. Germany becomes the epic"
      },
      {
        "text": ", the Soviets face no opposition in either the Pacific theater or the Mediterranean region. NATO aircraft manage to sharply reduce Soviet ground superiority on the first night of the war by using first-generation stealth planes and tactical fighter-bombers to eliminate Soviet Mainstay AWACS aircraft and tactical fighters. The NATO forces achieve air superiority and destroy many key bridges over which much of the Soviet Army had yet to cross. The Soviets advance at great cost, having dramatically underestimated NATO defensive firepower. Germany becomes the epicentre of the conflict; here, NATO forces are slowly driven west while inflicting significant damage to the encroaching Soviet Army. Simultaneously, the Soviets seize Iceland in a covert surprise attack, capturing the NATO air station at Keflav\u00edk and disrupting the GIUK-SOSUS line to allow the Soviet Navy to operate in the Atlantic Ocean undetected. In addition, the Soviet Navy takes steps to protect its ballistic missile submarine fleet in costal waters behind minefields and ASW assets, allowing the full use of its attack submarines to engage and destroy NATO shipping rather than escorting strategic assets. In essence, the Soviet Navy is able to act as an offensive weapon contrary to pre-war NATO expectations, becoming a major strategic threat against resupply convoys coming from North America with both aircraft and submarines. This advantage is put to immediate use as a NATO carrier battle group, led by USS Nimitz, USS Saratoga and the French carrier Foch, is successfully attacked by Soviet Badger and Backfire bombers, the latter firing Kingfish missiles. The Soviets use Kelt missiles as decoys set to transmit as if they were Backfires on the predicted attack vector, far out from the main air fleet. The American carriers' F-14 interceptors are committed against the decoys, leaving an insufficient number of Crusaders from the Foch and the ships' surface-to-air missiles to defend against the bombers approaching from another direction. Foch is sunk, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Soviet Badger and Backfire bombers, the latter firing Kingfish missiles. The Soviets use Kelt missiles as decoys set to transmit as if they were Backfires on the predicted attack vector, far out from the main air fleet. The American carriers' F-14 interceptors are committed against the decoys, leaving an insufficient number of Crusaders from the Foch and the ships' surface-to-air missiles to defend against the bombers approaching from another direction. Foch is sunk, the amphibious assault carrier Saipan explodes, taking 2,500 Marines with her, and the two American carriers are forced to spend several weeks in drydock at Southampton, England. In West Germany, the battle becomes a war of attrition that the Soviets expect to win through slow and sustained advances. With the death of the Soviet political favorite CinC-West in a NATO air attack on the Soviet rear lines, the more competent CinC-Southwest and his second-in-command, General-Colonel Pavel Leonidovich Alekseyev take over on the German front. Alekseyev commands a successful Soviet attack on the town of Alfeld, finally giving the Soviet Army the breakthrough it needs. As the OMG (Operational Manoeuvre Group) forces start to deploy, NATO looks likely to lose all of Germany east of the Weser River. When a brilliantly timed naval attack on Soviet bomber bases with submarine-launched cruise missiles cripples the Soviet bomber force, the Soviets lose their most effective convoy and fleet killing weapon. The U.S. Marines take this opportunity to stage an amphibious assault on Iceland backed by NATO navies, retaking the island and closing the Atlantic to Soviet forces. A failed bomber raid on the NATO naval forces attacking Iceland (in which the remaining Soviet naval cruise missile bomber fleets are nearly wiped out) essentially means Victory in the Atlantic, opening the USSR to direct attacks from carrier strike groups against its Northern strategic areas and the free"
      },
      {
        "text": ", the Soviets lose their most effective convoy and fleet killing weapon. The U.S. Marines take this opportunity to stage an amphibious assault on Iceland backed by NATO navies, retaking the island and closing the Atlantic to Soviet forces. A failed bomber raid on the NATO naval forces attacking Iceland (in which the remaining Soviet naval cruise missile bomber fleets are nearly wiped out) essentially means Victory in the Atlantic, opening the USSR to direct attacks from carrier strike groups against its Northern strategic areas and the free flow of convoys across the Atlantic. Simultaneously with the sudden reversal in the Atlantic, SACEUR, a renowned poker player, makes an audacious gamble in the face of a final Soviet offensive that pushes NATO ground forces to the breaking point, launching an unexpected flanking manoeuvre that places heavy NATO forces in the rear of the Soviet spearhead, cutting their last frontline units off behind two different rivers and interdicting their supplies. Intelligence gained from a prisoner on Iceland finally reveals the dire fuel situation in the USSR to NATO, who promptly switch bombing tactics and wipe out significant forward fuel depots, essentially immobilising the last of the elite Soviet formations. With the Soviet advance decisively halted, NATO catches its breath and prepares to move into a general offensive against the increasingly ineffective Soviet C category reserves being moved forward. With the conventional situation in Europe turning against them and their strategic situation increasingly bleak due to the drawdown on national oil reserves resulting in a crippled economy, the Politburo are moved to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons at the front to regain the initiative. Alekseyev, realizing that a tactical nuclear exchange would almost certainly lead to a strategic nuclear exchange, seeks and obtains control of his theatre's nuclear weapons as part of their planning; ostensibly for practical matters of tactical targeting but in reality to ensure they are never used. In the face of this nightmare scenario, General Alekseyev joins forces with the Chairman of the KGB and the Energy Minister, Mikhail Eduard"
      },
      {
        "text": " to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons at the front to regain the initiative. Alekseyev, realizing that a tactical nuclear exchange would almost certainly lead to a strategic nuclear exchange, seeks and obtains control of his theatre's nuclear weapons as part of their planning; ostensibly for practical matters of tactical targeting but in reality to ensure they are never used. In the face of this nightmare scenario, General Alekseyev joins forces with the Chairman of the KGB and the Energy Minister, Mikhail Eduardovich Sergetov, in staging a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat, replacing the Politburo with a troika consisting of Sergetov, Agriculture Minister F. M. Krylov, and longtime Politburo member Pyotr Bromkovskiy (an elderly and respected World War II veteran) whilst the Chairman of the KGB is allowed to be executed by a Major, revealed to be a parent of one of the children who was killed in the Kremlin bombing. With the Government back under control, Alekseyev flies back to Germany and personally negotiates with SACEUR to bring an end to the war, forestalling the launching of NATO's counter-offensive with an agreement of a cease fire and withdrawal to pre-war lines, apparently ending the war. The story of the aftermath of the conflict is left untold.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Joy of Work",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The first part of the book explains 'how to find happiness at the expense of your co-workers', including how to deal with superiors, meetings and co-workers and how to avoid work whilst having fun, an entire chapter is devoted to office pranks. The second part is an analysis of humour and how to write funny material. Scott also writes \"The third part of the book is made entirely out of invisible pages. If the book seems heavier than it looks, that's why.\" The book includes a response to Norman Solomon, who attempted to depict Scott Adams as a proponent of downsizing in his 1997 book, The Trouble with Dilbert. People who were offended by certain Dilbert strips are also addressed, Adams concluding that it is the 'proximity' of sensitive subjects to negative concepts that causes \"people who are angry for no good reason (nuts)\" to take offence. The 'Final Postscript' in the book is a page dedicated to his cat 'Freddie', who died as the book was in its final stages. The last words in the book are \"That [pet ownership], my friend, is joy\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first part of the book explains 'how to find happiness at the expense of your co-workers', including how to deal with superiors, meetings and co-workers and how to avoid work whilst having fun, an entire chapter is devoted to office pranks. The second part is an analysis of humour and how to write funny material. Scott also writes \"The third part of the book is made entirely out of invisible pages. If the book seems heavier than it looks, that's why.\" The book includes a response to Norman Solomon, who attempted to depict Scott Adams as a proponent of downsizing in his 1997 book, The Trouble with Dilbert. People who were offended by certain Dilbert strips are also addressed, Adams concluding that it is the 'proximity' of sensitive subjects to negative concepts that causes \"people who are angry for no good reason (nuts)\" to take offence. The 'Final Postscript' in the book is a page dedicated to his cat 'Freddie', who died as the book was in its final stages. The last words in the book are \"That [pet ownership], my friend, is joy\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lady Chatterley's Lover",
    "author": "D. H. Lawrence",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story concerns a young married woman, Constance (Lady Chatterley), whose upper-class husband, Clifford Chatterley, has been paralyzed due to a war injury. In addition to Clifford's physical limitations, his emotional neglect of Constance forces distance between the couple. Her sexual frustration leads her into an affair with the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. The class difference between the couple highlights a major motif of the novel which is the unfair dominance of intellectuals over the working class. The novel is about Constance's realisation that she cannot live with the mind alone; she must also be alive physically. This realisation stems from a heightened sexual experience Constance has only felt with Mellors, suggesting that love can only happen with the element of the body, not the mind.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story concerns a young married woman, Constance (Lady Chatterley), whose upper-class husband, Clifford Chatterley, has been paralyzed due to a war injury. In addition to Clifford's physical limitations, his emotional neglect of Constance forces distance between the couple. Her sexual frustration leads her into an affair with the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. The class difference between the couple highlights a major motif of the novel which is the unfair dominance of intellectuals over the working class. The novel is about Constance's realisation that she cannot live with the mind alone; she must also be alive physically. This realisation stems from a heightened sexual experience Constance has only felt with Mellors, suggesting that love can only happen with the element of the body, not the mind.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Staircase in Surrey",
    "author": "J. I. M. Stewart",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The narrator and central character is playwright Duncan Patullo. In The Gaudy he returns to his old college, after a long absence, and encounters a number of old friends, including Albert Talbert, his former tutor, Lord Marchpayne, a once-close friend with whom he has lost touch, and fellow Scot Ranald McKechnie, now a lecturer at the college. McKechnie's wife, Janet, is Duncan's first love. The second novel, Young Patullo, tells the story of their former relationships and Patullo's undergraduate career. Fantasy writer and Oxford don J. R. R. Tolkien appears as the elderly \"Professor Timberlake\" in this novel. In The Madonna of the Astrolabe Patullo copes with his ex-wife, the undergraduates' production of Tamburlaine, and the problems of raising enough money for the urgently-needed restoration of the crumbling Great Tower. The discovery of a lost masterpiece by Piero della Francesca proves crucial to the college's future fortunes, and Patullo is able to help when it is stolen. The character of the provost of the college is said to have been based on that of Henry Chadwick, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford during Stewart's own time there.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The narrator and central character is playwright Duncan Patullo. In The Gaudy he returns to his old college, after a long absence, and encounters a number of old friends, including Albert Talbert, his former tutor, Lord Marchpayne, a once-close friend with whom he has lost touch, and fellow Scot Ranald McKechnie, now a lecturer at the college. McKechnie's wife, Janet, is Duncan's first love. The second novel, Young Patullo, tells the story of their former relationships and Patullo's undergraduate career. Fantasy writer and Oxford don J. R. R. Tolkien appears as the elderly \"Professor Timberlake\" in this novel. In The Madonna of the Astrolabe Patullo copes with his ex-wife, the undergraduates' production of Tamburlaine, and the problems of raising enough money for the urgently-needed restoration of the crumbling Great Tower. The discovery of a lost masterpiece by Piero della Francesca proves crucial to the college's future fortunes, and Patullo is able to help when it is stolen. The character of the provost of the college is said to have been based on that of Henry Chadwick, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford during Stewart's own time there.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sorrows of Young Werther",
    "author": "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The majority of 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' is presented as a collection of letters written by Werther, a young artist of highly sensitive and passionate temperament, and sent to his friend Wilhelm. In these letters, Werther gives a very intimate account of his stay in the fictional village of Wahlheim (based on the town of Garbenheim, near Wetzlar). He is enchanted by the simple ways of the peasants there. He meets Charlotte, a beautiful young girl who is taking care of her siblings following the death of their mother. Despite knowing beforehand that Charlotte is already engaged to a man named Albert, who is in fact 11 years her senior, Werther falls in love with her. Although this causes Werther great pain, he spends the next few months cultivating a close friendship with both of them. His pain eventually becomes so great that he is forced to leave and go to Weimar. While he is away, he makes the acquaintance of Fr\u00e4ulein von B. He suffers a great embarrassment when he forgetfully visits a friend on the day when the entire aristocratic set normally meets there. He returns to Wahlheim after this, where he suffers more than he did before, partially because Lotte and Albert are now married. Every day serves as a torturous reminder that Lotte will never be able to requite his love. Out of pity for her friend and respect for her husband, Lotte comes to the decision that Werther must not visit her so frequently. He visits her one final time, and they are both overcome with emotion after Werther's recitation of a portion of \"Ossian\". Werther had realized even before this incident that one of them \u2014 Lotte, Albert or Werther himself \u2014 had to die. Unable to hurt anyone else or seriously consider committing murder, Werther sees no other choice but to take his own life. After composing a farewell letter (to be found after he commits suicide), he writes to Albert asking for his two pistols, under a pretence that he is going \"on a journey\". Lotte receives the request with great emotion and sends the pistols. Werther then shoots himself in the head, but does not expire until 12 hours after he has shot himself. He is buried under a linden tree, a tree he talks about frequently in his letters, and the funeral is not attended by clergymen, Albert or his beloved Lotte.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The majority of 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' is presented as a collection of letters written by Werther, a young artist of highly sensitive and passionate temperament, and sent to his friend Wilhelm. In these letters, Werther gives a very intimate account of his stay in the fictional village of Wahlheim (based on the town of Garbenheim, near Wetzlar). He is enchanted by the simple ways of the peasants there. He meets Charlotte, a beautiful young girl who is taking care of her siblings following the death of their mother. Despite knowing beforehand that Charlotte is already engaged to a man named Albert, who is in fact 11 years her senior, Werther falls in love with her. Although this causes Werther great pain, he spends the next few months cultivating a close friendship with both of them. His pain eventually becomes so great that he is forced to leave and go to Weimar. While he is away, he makes the acquaintance of Fr\u00e4ulein von B. He suffers a great embarrassment when he forgetfully visits a friend on the day when the entire aristocratic set normally meets there. He returns to Wahlheim after this, where he suffers more than he did before, partially because Lotte and Albert are now married. Every day serves as a torturous reminder that Lotte will never be able to requite his love. Out of pity for her friend and respect for her husband, Lotte comes to the decision that Werther must not visit her so frequently. He visits her one final time, and they are both overcome with emotion after Werther's recitation of a portion of \"Ossian\". Werther had realized even before this incident that one of them \u2014 Lotte, Albert or Werther himself \u2014 had to die. Unable to hurt anyone else or seriously consider committing murder, Werther sees no other choice but to take his own life. After composing a farewell letter (to be found after he commits suicide), he writes to"
      },
      {
        "text": " her so frequently. He visits her one final time, and they are both overcome with emotion after Werther's recitation of a portion of \"Ossian\". Werther had realized even before this incident that one of them \u2014 Lotte, Albert or Werther himself \u2014 had to die. Unable to hurt anyone else or seriously consider committing murder, Werther sees no other choice but to take his own life. After composing a farewell letter (to be found after he commits suicide), he writes to Albert asking for his two pistols, under a pretence that he is going \"on a journey\". Lotte receives the request with great emotion and sends the pistols. Werther then shoots himself in the head, but does not expire until 12 hours after he has shot himself. He is buried under a linden tree, a tree he talks about frequently in his letters, and the funeral is not attended by clergymen, Albert or his beloved Lotte.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling",
    "author": "Henry Fielding",
    "published_date": "1749-02-28",
    "synopsis": " The novel's events occupy eighteen books. Squire Allworthy and his sister Bridget are introduced in their wealthy estate in Somerset. Allworthy returns from London after an extended business trip and finds a baby sleeping in his bed. He summons his housekeeper, Mrs Deborah Wilkins, to take care of the child. After searching the nearby village, Mrs Wilkins is told about a young woman called Jenny Jones, servant of a schoolmaster and his wife, as the most likely person to have committed the deed (she is also considered above herself for studying Latin with the schoolmaster). Jenny is brought before them and admits being the baby's mother but refuses to reveal the father's identity. Mr Allworthy mercifully gives her a lecture of morals and removes Jenny to a place where her reputation will be unknown. Furthermore, he promises his sister to raise the boy, whom he names Thomas, in his household. Two brothers, Dr Blifil and Captain Blifil, regularly visit the Allworthy estate. The doctor introduces the captain to Bridget in hopes of marrying into Allworthy's wealth. The couple fall in love and marry. After the marriage, Captain Blifil begins to show a coldness to his brother, who eventually feels obliged to leave the house for London where he soon dies 'of a broken heart'. Eight months after celebrating their wedding, Mrs Blifil has a baby boy and Mr Allworthy states that he and Tom will be raised together. The plot then turns to Mrs Partridge, wife of the schoolteacher, who has discovered that Jenny gave birth to a bastard and had mistakenly thought that she had left their service of her own free will. Mrs Partridge immediately suspects her husband and physically assaults him. Captain Blifil informs Mr Allworthy, and Mrs Wilkins is dispatched once more to Little Baddington to ascertain the truth of the matter. Partridge is put on trial before Mr Allworthy and denies paternity. Mr Allworthy, wanting to prove his innocence, sends for Jenny but she cannot be found, having left her place of residence in company with a recruiting officer. Partridge is found guilty and deprived of his annuity by Mr Allworthy. Now that they are poor, Mrs Partridge regrets her accusations, and begs Mrs Blifil to intercede with her brother to restore Mr Partridge's annuity, but he refuses. Mrs Partridge dies soon after and her husband, being deprived of his annuity, his school and his wife, leaves the area. Captain Blifil and his wife start to grow cool towards one another, and the former is found dead from Apoplexy one evening after taking his customary evening stroll prior to dinner. Two doctors arrive to debate the cause of his death and Mrs Blifil, struck with grief, remains bed-ridden for a month. Meanwhile, Mr Allworthy commissions a generous epitaph for the Captain's grave. Tom, who goes from fourteen-years-old to nineteen-years-old by the end of Book III, gets into trouble for killing a partridge on a neighbour's land. In fact he did it at the instigation of Black George, Allworthy's gamekeeper, but he refuses to tell Mr Allworthy who his partner-in-crime was. He is beaten by his master, Mr Thwackum, who resides at the house with another schoolmaster, a philosopher called Mr Square. Later, Blifil reveals that Black George was Tom's partner and Mr Allworthy is pacified by Tom's sense of honour. To make amends, Mr Allworthy gives Tom a young horse but dismisses Black George from his position. Tom sells the horse a year and a half later at a fair. Mr Thwackum finds out and asks Tom what he has done with the money but the latter refuses to tell him. He is about to be beaten when Mr Allworthy enters. Tom confesses that he sold the horse and gave the money to Black George and his family, now in financial straits after being dismissed. Mr Allworthy feels ready to re-employ Black George, but he blots his copybook by poaching a hare on Squire Western's land and this is confirmed by Master Blifil. Tom resolves to have George employed by Mr Western by speaking to the seventeen-year-old Sophia and getting her to persuade her father on the matter. An incident occurs in which Master Blifil lets go the small bird of Sophia's, given to her by Tom as a young boy. Tom tries to retrieve it but, in doing so, falls into a canal. This incident turns Sophia against Blifil but puts Tom in her favour. Tom speaks to Sophia about George, and she persuades her father to drop any charges and to employ him. Sophia is falling for Tom but his heart is given over to Molly, the second of Black George's daughters and a local beauty. She throws herself at Tom, and he gets her pregnant and then feels obliged to offer her his protection. Molly wears a dress to church \u2014 given to her mother by Sophia Western \u2014 to show off her beauty. The Somersetshire parishioners are infuriated by her vanity and assault her in the churchyard afterwards. Tom comes to her defence and she is taken home by Square, Blifil and Tom. In the meantime, Sophia has taken pity on Molly and requests her father to ask her to be her maid, but the family council decides to put everything on hold until Tom's intentions become clearer. Squire Western, the local parson, Tom and Sophia are having dinner when the parson informs Western of Molly's condition, at which Tom leaves the dining table. Squire Western immediately jumps to the conclusion that Tom is the father of the bastard, much to Sophia's consternation. Tom returns to his home to find Molly in the arms of a constable and being taken to prison. He bids him free her, and they go to speak to Mr Allworthy where Tom reveals he is the father, saying the guilt is his. However, Mr Allworthy is ultimately forgiving of Tom's sowing his wild oats: 'While he was angry, therefore, with the incontinence of Jones, he was no less pleased with the honour and honesty of his self-accusation. He began now to form in his mind the same opinion of this young fellow, which, we hope, our reader may have conceived. And in balancing his faults and his perfections, the latter seemed rather to preponderate.' An incident now occurs in which Tom comes to the aid of Sophia. She goes out hunting with her father and, on her way home, is thrown by her horse. Tom, who is riding close behind, is able to catch her but breaks his left arm in the process. The accident brings them closer and there is the first stirring of love. Tom is seen by a surgeon and ordered into bed and Sophia is bled at her father's orders. Book IV concludes with a conversation between Sophia and Mrs Honour, her maid, who is extolling Tom's virtues to the former and Sophia becomes annoyed by her presumptuousness. Tom thinks about his love for Sophia but knows that her father would not agree to any union; so his thoughts turn back to Molly who he believes is 'in all the circumstances of wretchedness.' Tom, once he is recovered, makes his way to Molly's home only to discover her in bed with his teacher, Square. Tom still feels some affection for her until he is told by Betty, Molly's older sister, that her innocence had been taken before Tom by Will Barnes, a country gallant. In the meantime, Mr Allworthy has become ill and is told by his doctor that it may be fatal. He summons all his relatives and household servants to his bedside and informs them of his will \u2014 Blifil will inherit the estate and Tom will be given a \u00a31,000 lump sum and \u00a3500 per annum (Thwackum and Square will get a \u00a31,000 each and the household servants some token payments which displeases Mrs Wilkins, the housekeeper). However, Allworthy recovers; and Tom is so pleased that he gets drunk in his pleasure which displeases Blifil who is in mourning after receiving news that his mother has died. A scuffle ensues, but the two are parted and made to make peace with each other. After this fight, Tom, still drunk, is wandering the gardens thinking about Sophia when Molly makes an appearance. After a quarter of an hour's conversation, the two disappear into the bushes. Blifil and Thwackum likewise take an evening stroll, and Blifil spots Tom with a woman. He informs Thwackum who becomes furious and is determined to punish Tom. Tom guards the entrance to the shrubbery to prevent them seeing who the girl is, and, while Molly escapes, a fight ensues which Tom starts to lose until Squire Western intervenes to make it two against two. Sophia faints at the sight of all the blood, and Tom carries her to a nearby brook, giving her a caress which she does not spurn. Sophia recovers much to her father's delight. Tom returns to Western's house and Blifil and Thwackum to theirs. Miss Western is the cultured sister of Squire Western and Sophia's aunt. Although unmarried herself, she recognises the signs of love and notices that Sophia is showing these. She informs her brother that his daughter is in love with Blifil \u2014 Miss Western had noted Sophia's behaviour in his presence \u2014 and Squire Western informs Allworthy when he visits for dinner. Allworthy says he will give his approval if the young couple agree and consults Blifil who, thinking of Sophia's fortune, agrees to his uncle's request. (No one knows of Sophia's love for Tom.) Miss Western then speaks to Sophia to reveal her amour, and is enraged when she finds out it is not Blifil but Tom. With her aunt agreeing to keep the whole thing a secret, Mr Western tells Sophia about his intentions and she is obliged to meet Blifil that afternoon. Sophia is determined to go through with the meeting, even though she hates and despises Blifil. After a difficult meeting, in which Blifil thinks he has won her heart, he is accosted by Squire Western before he leaves and Blifil announces that he is satisfied with Sophia, much to the father's delight. However, once he is gone, Sophia reveals her true feelings for Blifil, but he ignores her pleadings and grows enraged. Tom is in the house and is asked by Western to go to Sophia to encourage her to marry Blifil. The two young lovers are in agony and reveal they can never part from each other as they take each other's hands. However, whilst they have been conversing, Miss Western has revealed all to the Squire, who threatens to assault Jones but is only prevented from doing so by the parson. Mr Western then visits his neighbour Allworthy and informs him of the situation in heated tones. After his departure, Mr Allworthy asks Blifil if he still wants to proceed with the marriage, and the latter replies in the affirmative, mainly to spite Tom. Blifil also takes the opportunity to inform his uncle about the bust up in the shrubbery, saying that Tom assaulted his tutor, Thwackum. Allworthy summons Tom before him to plead his case, but Tom is sunk too low from hearing the news about Sophia to make a robust defence. As such, he is commanded by his foster father to leave the house immediately after being given a sum of \u00a3500. Tom walks about a mile and, thinking beside a little brook, is resolved to quit Sophia rather than bring her to ruin. He pens a letter from a neighbouring house but discovers, in searching his pockets for his wax, that he has lost his wallet and returns to the brook to look for it. Here he meets George and together they look for it although George has already picked it up on coming to the same spot earlier. Tom asks him to deliver his letter for Sophia to Mrs Honour and, on doing so, George receives one back for Tom. In it, Sophia professes her affection for him but also warns him to steer clear of her father, 'As you know his temper, I beg you will, for my sake, avoid him.' Sophia is locked up in her room by her father but Honour manages to give her Tom's letter. She also tells her that the squire 'stripped him half naked and turned him out of doors!'. Sophia gives her all the money she has \u2014 amounting to a purse of sixteen guineas \u2014 telling her to give it to Tom. Honour gives the money to Black George, who is tempted to steal it like the \u00a3500 earlier \u2014 but the danger of the theft being discovered outweighs his greed, and he delivers the money to Jones. The Book ends with the return of Miss Western to the house and her being informed of Sophia's captivity. She rebukes her brother and sets Sophia free. Tom receives a note from Blifil along with his effects, informing him that his uncle requires him to immediately quit the neighbourhood. Sophia speaks to her aunt who tries to persuade her of the advantages of marrying Blifil. However, Mr Western overhears their conversation and storms into the room. He and his sister get into a furious argument over his behaviour, and she threatens to quit the house. However, on the sound advice of Sophia, she is recalled by Mr Western who makes efforts to pacify her. Having become reconciled, both are determined to have Sophia married as quickly as possible, and Blifil makes a second visit. Mr Allworthy is satisfied by what his nephew and Western tell him concerning Sophia and the marriage treaty is set two days hence. Sophia is now fixed on avoiding the marriage and in a conversation with Honour says she will quit the house and stay with a lady of quality in London who is her close acquaintance. Honour agrees to accompany her and agrees to get herself discharged so that their clothes can be packed for the journey without any undue suspicion. Honour deliberately provokes the chambermaid of Miss Western by abusing her mistress, and the lady herself is told of their conversation and vows to have Honour discharged for her impudence. There follows a dispute between Mr Western and his sister over the legality of dismissing Honour, but in the end the latter has the satisfaction of seeing Honour turned away. Sophia is conscience-stricken about her infidelity to her relations, but her love for Tom prevails. Tom is on the road to Bristol, being determined to take to sea. However, his guide gets lost, and they take shelter at a public house on the advice of a Quaker. The Quaker gets into a conversation with Tom, even though the latter wants to be alone, telling him about his own misfortune of having his daughter run off with a penniless man of low birth \u2014 vowing he will never see them again, and Tom pushes him out of the room. A company of soldiers enter the ale-house as Tom is sleeping on a chair, and, getting into a dispute over who will pay for the beer, Tom agrees to cover the bill. He strikes up a conversation with the sergeant who tells him they are marching against the Roman Catholic rebels who had invaded England, expecting to be commanded by the glorious Duke of Cumberland. Tom, being \"a hearty well-wisher to the glorious cause of liberty and of the Protestant religion\", agrees to join them as a volunteer. The soldiers march off, and that evening Tom is introduced to the lieutenant, a man who is sixty years of age. Looking like a gentleman, he is invited to dinner with the small company of officers. Tom gets into an argument with Ensign Northerton, who then proceeds to abuse the good name of Sophia after Tom has proposed a toast to her. Tom rebukes him, saying 'you are one of the most impudent scoundrels on earth,' and Northerton responds by throwing a bottle at Tom's head which poleaxes him. The lieutenant proceeds to put Northerton under close arrest, and a surgeon is called to stem the bleeding. Tom is put to bed and the lieutenant visits him, promising he will get his satisfaction against his adversary. Later that night, Tom, who is feeling much better, wakes the sergeant and purchases a sword from him before making his way to Northerton's room. He is shot at by the guard, who thinks he is a ghost (his coat is bloodied as is the bandage around his head) and then faints. However, the bird has flown (with the connivance of the landlady), and Tom returns to his room whilst the lieutenant has the sentinel put under arrest. Tom tells the lieutenant that he is to blame for the disturbance, and the latter agrees to drop the charge against the soldier. The landlady visits Tom after the soldiers have left and is courteous to him until he shows her his purse which has very little in it. He then dismisses the doctor, who insists on bleeding him so he can get a decent fee,and finally is able to get up and dressed. He calls for a barber to shave him after a dinner of 'buttock [beef] and carrot' and Little Benjamin turns out to be Mr Partridge, the schoolmaster. Tom reveals his whole story to him, and Partridge agrees to accompany him on his journey, secretly hoping that he can convince Tom to return to Allworthy (whom he is convinced is Tom's real father) so that he can get back into Allworthy's favour once more. They make their way on foot to Gloucester and stay at the Bell. However, there is a pettifogger (a lawyer of low status, who engages in mean practices) present who besmirches Tom's name to the landlady, Mrs Whitefield, after Tom has left their company. With Tom's name now mud, the landlady's welcome grows cold, and he is resolved to quit the house the same evening. They make their way on foot on a freezing night toward some hills that they have been informed lie not far from Worcester. Tom begs his companion to leave him, telling him he is resolved to die 'a glorious death in the service of my king and country,' but the latter refuses to leave him. Partridge eventually sees the glimmer of a light, and they make their way to an isolated house. Whilst warming themselves by the fire and conversing with the housekeeper, the owner returns and is set upon by two robbers. Tom rushes outside with a broadsword and drives them off and helps the old gentleman into the house. This gentleman, called the Man of the Hill, then recounts his life story to Tom and Partridge. A prudent and industrious student, he fell into bad company at Oxford and had to flee to London with his mistress to escape being expelled. Here, both destitute, the woman betrays him to one of her former lovers at Oxford and he is thrown into gaol, where he reflects on his sinful life. He is eventually released but, still poor, falls in with an old Oxford acquaintance, Watson, who introduces him to his gambling crowd. He lives precariously for the next two years pursuing this profession. However, he is re-united with his father, who has come to London to look for him and has been assaulted by thieves. They are re-united by chance as the son, who is walking down the same street, comes to his father's aid after the affray. He returns with his father to Somersetshire, and spends the next four years in contemplation of the works of Aristotle and Plato, and of God. His father dies, and he, being the younger son, finds it difficult to live with his brother who lives entirely for sport. He is sent to Bath by his physician to take the waters and manages to save a man from committing suicide by drowning \u2014 the very same Watson, his friend from London. Both are then caught up in Bonnie Prince Charlie's rebellion, and, when captured, the stranger tells Tom and Partridge that he was denounced by Watson. However, he manages to escape his captors and ends up living at the present house on an annuity, an exile from the world of humanity. The Book ends with the old man and Tom taking a walk together to enjoy the sight of some fine prospects in the early hours of the day. Whilst observing the view, they hear a woman screaming, and Tom rushes down the hill to help. He comes upon a woman, half-naked, being throttled by a man whom Tom knocks down. It is Ensign Northerton. Tom restrains his hands with a garter and goes back to the Man of the Hill for advice. Tom is told to take her to Upton, the nearest town. When Tom returns to the woman, Northerton has made his escape on foot, and Tom and the lady make their way to the town. On the way, Tom is sneaking peeps at her uncovered breasts at which he has gazed earlier. They eventually find an inn, and Tom instructs the lady to wait whilst he fetches her some clothes. The landlady and landlord think that something immoral is taking place and assault Tom \u2014 who is only saved from a beating by the arrival of Partridge. Susan, the hefty chambermaid joins in, and it is only the arrival of a young lady and maid that ends the battle. A sergeant arrives with his men and recognises the woman to be Mrs Waters, his Captain's wife, and the inn's hosts make their apologies and peace is restored around a bowl of liquor. Mrs Waters then retires with Tom upstairs and proceeds to make a pass at him, finding her savior extremely attractive. They end up in bed together. In the meantime, an argument takes place downstairs when the landlord abuses officers of rank in the army. The sergeant takes offense and offers to fight 'the best man of you all for twenty pound' and the coachman of the young lady takes him on, saying he is as good as any man in the army, and offers to box for a guinea. He is well mauled by the sergeant and so unable to convey the young lady on her journey. An account is then given of how Mrs Waters ended up in 'the distressful situation' from which Jones rescued her. Her husband, having accompanied her as far as Worcester, had proceeded onwards, and Northerton had joined her for an assignation. He tells her of the incident with Jones, and they decide to make for Hereford, then a Welsh seaport so that he can make his escape abroad. Mrs Waters has \u00a390 and her jewelry to finance their journey. However, it was in the wood at the foot of Mazard Hill that Northerton tried to kill her but she, being 'not of the weakest order of females,' was able to fend him off until Tom came to her rescue. An Irishman arrives at the Upton inn, a Mr Fitzpatrick, who is desperately looking for his wife. He speaks to Susan, the chambermaid, who shows him up to Mrs Water's room. He sees Tom and then a lot of women's clothes strewed around the room, and he and Tom proceed to blows until Mrs Waters cries out 'murder! robbery! and more frequently rape'. An Irishman staying in the room next door now enters the bedroom, a Mr Maclachlan, who lets his friend know that he has the wrong woman. Fitzpatrick apologises to Mrs Waters but says he will have his blood in the morning. Mrs Waters screams rape again to divert attention away from her and Tom being in the same room together, and all the men depart. Two young women in riding habits now arrive at the inn and one of them is immediately recognised as being a lady of quality. The lady retires to bed, and the maid, Mrs Honour, returns downstairs and demands food. She falls into conversation with Mr Partridge and learns that Tom is staying in the same inn. She tells Sophia that Tom is in the house and, returning downstairs, finds out from Partridge that Tom is with a woman and cannot be woken. Honour goes back upstairs and Sophia decides to leave her muff (with her name written on it for Tom to let him know she was there) and departs. Tom finds the muff and determines to give chase to Sophia. Western now arrives with some of his followers at the inn. The narrator mentions here that if he had come two hours earlier he would not only have found Sophia but also his niece \u2014 for such was the wife of Mr Fitzpatrick, who had run away with her five years before, out of the custody of Mrs Western. In fact, Mrs Fitzpatrick had heard the voice of her husband and paid the landlady for horses to make her escape at the same time as Sophia's departure. Western see Jones with Sophia's muff in his hands and tries to assault him but is restrained. Fitzpatrick, whom it turns out is married to the niece of Mrs Western, decides to help his uncle by showing him what he believes is Sophia's room, which turns out to be Mrs Waters'. A magistrate in the inn hears the case but refuses to convict Tom; and Western, in a fury, departs in pursuit of his daughter. The plot now reverts back to when Sophia left her father's house. Sophia decides to take a zigzag route before hitting the London road to avoid her father. It turns out that their guide is the same as who conducted Tom, and Sophia bribes him to take them on the same route along the Bristol road. They spend a night with Mrs Whitefield in Gloucester before ending up at the Upton inn. Sophia, making her way past the Severn, is joined by another young lady, her maid (Abigail Honour, Mrs Honour's sister) and a guide. As it is night-time, they do not speak much and can hardly see each other. However, in daylight they recognise one another \u2014 the other lady is Harriet, Sophia's cousin and another niece of Mrs Western. They determine to wait until they arrive at an inn before they tell each other their stories. Once at the inn, Sophia and Harriet share a bed as do the two maids, everyone being exhausted from their journey, and the landlord and his wife come to the conclusion that they are supporters of the rebel Charles Stuart, fleeing the Duke of Cumberland, and that Sophia is Jenny Cameron herself (the daughter of a highland supporter of Charles). Once they have rested, Mrs Fitzpatrick recounts her story to Sophia. She met Fitzpatrick whilst staying with her aunt, Mrs Western, in Bath. He paid court to her aunt, but was also very kind to herself, until he eventually professed his love for her. The aunt left Bath, and she married Fitzpatrick. However, he says they will have to return to his estate in Ireland which she is very reluctant to do, and by accident finds a debtor's letter from his tailor in which he recalls Fitzpatrick saying he would soon marry either the aunt or the niece which would settle his debts, preferring the niece as he would have quicker access to the money. Harriet reveals all to her husband but he fobs her off, and they travel to Ireland. His house is very dismal and he proves the opposite of the gallant in Bath; he is aggressive and boorish in his behaviour to her. Eventually, he imprisons her in her bedroom, but, whilst on a three month trip to England, she is able to make her escape with the help of a neighbouring aristocrat. She intended to make for Bath to plead with her aunt, and this is how she ran into Sophia. There is also an interlude when Mrs Honour assaults the landlord when she finds out that he thinks Sophia is Jenny Cameron. It happens that the same Irish peer that helped Harriet is staying at the inn, on his way to London. He pays them a call and offers them a ride in his coach-and-six to London. Whilst preparing herself, Sophia discovers that she has lost a \u00a3100 note which her father had given her, believing it fell out of her pocket. The party arrive in London but Sophia is desirous of looking up her acquaintance, having suspicions that Harriet intends to make for Bath in order to have an alliance with the Irish nobleman. She makes her farewell, repeating their aunt's maxim to Harriet that 'whenever the matrimonial alliance is broke, and war declared between husband and wife, she can hardly make a disadvantageous peace for herself on any conditions' but Mrs Fitzpatrick contemptuously dismisses this advice. Sophia then repairs to the house of Lady Bellaston who promises she will do everything in her power to protect her. Squire Western is in pursuit of his daughter but gets waylaid by a hunt and ends up returning home. Tom and Partridge come across a lame fellow in rags to whom Tom gives a shilling. The beggar offers Tom something he has found, and it turns out to be Sophia's pocket book with the \u00a3100 note tucked inside. Tom gives the man a guinea, promising more later, and they leave him very discontented. They eventually come to an ale-house, and Partridge is keen to see the puppet-show which is playing the Provoked Husband. The landlady berates her chambermaid for having a sexual dalliance with Merry Andrew, the youth who beats the drum to announce the shows. Tom retires to bed but is awoken by the sound of the master of the puppet-show beating his Merry Andrew. Tom intervenes, and the Merry Andrew mentions the puppet master trying to rob a lady in a fine riding habit the day before. Tom realizes this was Sophia and instructs the youth to show him the spot where this would have happened. He and Partridge then procure horses from the inn and also recognise the same boy who guided Sophia to the last inn. Accepting some money, he is persuaded to guide them to the same place; and they try to get post-horses at the same inn, but there are none to be had. At the same time, Tom is saluted by Mr Dowling, the lawyer with whom Tom had dined at Gloucester, and he and Partridge prevail on Tom to spend the night at the inn. Jones and Dowling share a bottle of wine, and Tom informs him of how Blifil has tried to ruin him, 'I saw the selfishness in him long ago which I despised; but it is lately, very lately, that I have found him capable of the basest and blackest designs.' Tom also assures the attorney of his deepest respect for Mr Allworthy, and not his money. Tom then takes leave of Dowling and sets forth for Coventry. He and Partridge make their way but are caught in a storm and forced to take shelter in a barn, in which a gypsy wedding feast is taking place. They are made welcome by the King of the Gypsies. Jones and Partridge then travel post in pursuit of Sophia, ending up at St Albans where they just miss Sophia. As they make their way into London, they meet a fellow traveler on horseback who, on hearing that Tom has \u00a3100, attempts to hold them up but is overcome by Tom. The highwayman confesses that it was his first robbery, and he only did it out of great need. Tom takes pity on him and gives him two guineas, and the man is overcome by his generosity. Jones and Partridge arrive in London; but, being unfamiliar with its streets, retire to the Bull and Gate in Holborn. Tom then finds out where the lord's residence is. After bribing a footman, Tom is admitted into the presence of Mrs Fitzpatrick. She, thinking that he is the suitor Sophia is trying to avoid, dissembles, and Tom leaves the house but stands watch nearby. Mrs Fitzpatrick communicates her suspicions to her maid, Abigail, and is informed that the man was Jones himself. Tom is admitted once more to see Mrs Fitzpatrick, and Lady Bellaston joins them \u2014 as does the noble lord, who ignores Tom. Mrs Fitzpatrick designs to get rid of Tom. He then thinks about the gentlewoman at whose house Mr Allworthy is accustomed to lodge when in town and dispatches Partridge to the house where he is able to secure two rooms. The landlady is Mrs Miller, and she has two daughters: Nancy is seventeen and Betty ten. There is a young gentleman lodger, a Mr Nightingale, who gets into a fight with his footman. Tom intervenes to save him from being throttled, and the two become friends over a shared bottle of wine. Tom then receives a bundle inside which is a domino, a mask and a masquerade ticket and a card signed the 'queen of the fairies'. He is determined to go to the masque, thinking that he might find Sophia there, and Nightingale lends him some of his clothes and offers to accompany him. Tom talks to a variety of women who look or sound like Sophia, until he meets a lady in a domino who talks to him about Sophia. Afterwards, she quits the masquerade to return home, forbidding Tom to follow her. He, however, ignores her warning and follows her chair to a street near Hanover Square and walks in after her, suspecting her to be Mrs Fitzpatrick. The woman turns out to be Lady Bellaston, and they sleep together. Lady Bellaston promises Tom she will try to find out Sophia's whereabouts. Returning to his lodgings, Mrs Miller tells the household about a cousin of hers whose family is living in extreme poverty. Tom, after hearing her narrative, gives her his purse containing \u00a350, asking her to use it for the poor people, and she joyfully takes ten guineas. Tom tries to find out from Lady Bellaston where Sophia is but cannot (the latter now seeing Sophia as a rival in love). He is also in a very difficult position as she is now supporting him financially. He receives a note from her asking for a meeting at her house, having arranged for Sophia, Mrs Honour and her own maid, Mrs Etoff, to see a play together. Tom meets Mrs Miller's cousin who turns out to be the highwayman who tried to rob him, and the man is effusive in his thanks for Tom's kindness to his family who are now all restored to health. Tom goes to Lady Bellaston's house, but she is not there. He is waiting in the drawing-room when Sophia enters, having left the play early in distaste under the protection of a young gentleman. Both are as surprised as each other. After reprimanding him for bandying her name around in inns, with Tom protesting it was Partridge, not he, she starts crying; and Tom kisses away her tears. Lady Bellaston enters, and Sophia makes the pretence that Tom has only come to return her pocket-book and the banknote. Tom takes the opportunity to leave, asking Lady Bellaston for permission to pay another visit to which she politely consents. The Book concludes with Sophia attempting to ward off her cousin's questions about the young gentleman. Lady Bellaston pays a surprise visit to Tom's apartments. However, they are interrupted by the arrival of Mrs Honour bearing a letter for Tom from Sophia, and Lady Bellaston is forced to hide behind a curtain. Honour assures Tom of her mistress' regard, and, after she has left, Lady Bellaston emerges from her place of concealment as, 'streams of fire darted from her eyes, and well indeed they might, for her heart was all in a flame.' However, Tom makes his peace with her and they agree that future visits to her house will appear as though they are for Sophia's sake, Bellaston being \"convinced that Sophia possessed the first place in Jones's affections\" and \"...she submitted at last to bear the second place.\" Mrs Miller talks to Tom about the house getting a reputation of one of ill-fame. Tom assures her that he will change his place of lodgings. Nightingale tells him that he too has resolved to quit the house, although Tom reminds him that Nancy, the eldest daughter, is in love with him; but Nightingale is not unduly concerned, liking to boast about his skill at gaining women, much to Tom's dismay. Nightingale, however, quits the house, and Mrs Miller is distraught, revealing to Tom that Nancy is with child by him. All he has left her is a note stating that he cannot marry her as his father has insisted on his paying his addresses to a young lady of fortune whom he has chosen for him as a wife. Jones promises to go and talk to Nightingale and attempts to persuade him to change his mind. During the conversation, he resolves to speak to Nightingale's father and inform him that Nightingale is already married to Ms Miller, a proposal to which the son readily assents. A farcical conversation takes place in a coffee house with Tom speaking about Nancy Miller whereas the father presumes he is talking about Miss Harris, and Tom saying he is already married. Old Mr Nightingale's brother then makes an appearance and also helps to persuade his brother against a union with Miss Harris, for, as he is her neighbour, he knows her to be \"very tall, very thin, very ugly, very affected, very silly, and very ill-natured.\" Jones finally agrees to conduct the uncle to his nephew in Mrs Miller's house. Mrs Miller informs Jones that all matters are settled between Nightingale and Nancy and that they are to be married the next day. The uncle, however, takes his nephew upstairs and, on finding out that he is not married, tells him to call off the wedding as it is both foolish and preposterous. They return downstairs and the others feel that something is amiss, especially Tom as the uncle departs with Nightingale. However, Tom receives a visit from Mrs Honour who informs him she has dreadful news regarding her mistress. Lady Bellaston is now determined to get Sophia out of the way. The young nobleman who escorted Sophia from the play, Lord Fellamar, approaches Lady Bellaston and declares his love for Sophia, and she says she will promote his cause with her father, although pointing out that he has a rival for her affection \u2014 'a beggar, a bastard, a foundling, a fellow in meaner circumstances than one of your lordship's own footmen.' She persuades an acquaintance, Tom Edwards, to announce in front of Sophia that Jones has been killed in a duel, and Sophia retires to her room in dismay. Bellaston and Fellamar then hatch a plan for the latter to ravish Sophia the next evening whilst the servants are out of the house and whilst Lady Bellaston is in an apartment distant from the scene. Despite having scruples, Fellamar falls in with her scheme and throws himself at Sophia; but the rape is interrupted by the arrival of Squire Western and his parson. The lord believes the father will accept him as his future son-in-law but is brushed aside by Western who removes Sophia to his own lodgings. Lady Bellaston is not too perturbed by the failure of her scheme with Fellamar, since at least Sophia is now out of the way. The plot now reverts back to how the Squire discovered his daughter's whereabouts. Mrs Fitzpatrick, hoping to reconcile her aunt and uncle, sent a letter to Mrs Western informing them of Sophia's present location. The lady passes the letter to her brother, and he is resolved to go to London with his sister following a day later. Honour, as mentioned earlier, comes to see Tom with the bad news. Whilst she is speaking to him, Lady Bellaston's arrival is announced, and Mrs Honour this time is forced to hide. Lady Bellaston comments on Jones' attractiveness, but he cannot reply in kind as Honour is present in the room. However, his embarrassment is ended when Mr Nightingale stumbles drunk into the room and Lady Bellaston is forced to share the hiding place with Honour. The Lady, after assuring the maid of her friendship in order to stop her repeating what she has heard, takes her leave in a fury. Mrs Honour also berates Tom for his infidelity to her mistress, but he eventually manages to calm her down. Nancy and Nightingale are married at Doctors' Commons and Tom then receives three letters from Lady Bellaston requesting his presence at her home. Nightingale confronts Tom and tells him about her reputation around town. Tom also reveals his deep love for Sophia whom he now idolizes. Jones and Nightingale ('his privy council') proceed to hatch their own plan so that he can be rid of Bellaston. Nightingale knows that she turned away a former young man when he proposed marriage to her, and he suggests that Tom does the same. The latter is reluctant in case she agrees to his proposal, but Nightingale believes the young man in question \u2014 angered by the ill offices she had done him since \u2014 would show Tom her letters, the knowledge of which he could use to break off the affair. Tom writes a letter, and Lady Bellaston writes back banishing him from her home. Mrs Miller receives notice from Mr Allworthy that he is coming to London, and Tom, Mr and Mrs Nightingale remove to new apartments. Tom, having dispatched Mrs Honour to give him more news about Sophia's state, receives a letter from her saying she now has a position with Lady Bellaston and can tell him nothing. A few days later Mr Partridge bumps into Black George and, over a few pots of beer, learns that he is working for Squire Western and can convey letters to Sophia in order to help Tom. Tom sits down to write his epistle. The scene shifts to Squire Western's lodgings in Piccadilly, recommended by the landlord at the Hercules Pillars at Hyde Park Corner, where Sophia is locked in her room. An officer asks to be presented and informs the Squire and parson he has come on behalf of Lord Fellamar who wants to visit his daughter on the footing of a lover, but Western throws him out. Sophia, hearing the noise below her, starts screaming and her father enters her room, asking her to fulfill his demands but she once more refuses and her father storms out, once more ignoring her pleas and tears. However, Black George is able to slip Sophia Tom's letter, hidden inside a pullet, and she muses over it. Mrs Western now arrives and is highly indignant over Sophia's imprisonment. She demands that she be given complete control over the niece and, with the support of the parson, the Squire finally agrees and Mrs Western conducts her to her own more salubrious lodgings. Tom now receives a letter from Sophia, written from her aunt's lodgings and begging him to give her up in order that he may be reconciled to Mr Allworthy, and enclosing the \u00a3100 banknote as she knows Tom requires money. The plot now switches back to the past when Blifil was informed by Western about his daughter's flight to London. Blifil's case that Sophia loves him is now more uncertain. Allworthy agrees to Blifil's insistent demands that he accompany him to London but warns his nephew, I will never give my consent to any absolute force being put on her inclinations, nor shall you ever have her unless she can be brought freely of compliance. Once in London, Squire Western and Blifil barge into his sister's house, and she is furious at the incivility of their entrance. Sophia, who turns pale at the sight of Blifil, is allowed to retire to her room whilst her aunt castigates Squire Western for his rude country manners \u2014 and at the same time suggests to Blifil that perhaps he can visit Sophia again in the afternoon. Blifil now quite rightly, as the narrator points out, suspects that Mrs Western may have turned against his cause. Lady Bellaston sees Lord Fellamar and advises him to have Jones somehow pressed and sent on board a ship. She then meets Mrs Western (they are cousins), and the former tells the latter about Lord Fellamar's attachment to Sophia. It is agreed they will pursue his case. Mrs Western refers to Blifil as 'a hideous kind of fellow' with nothing but fortune to recommend him. Jones pays a visit to Mrs Fitzpatrick, who encourages him to make a sham address to Mrs Western (just as Fitzpatrick did) in order to win Sophia; but he outrightly declines the undertaking, just as he does the advances now Mrs Fitzpatrick now makes towards him. Fitzpatrick has now come up to London from Bath and sees Jones coming out of his wife's house. Having suspicions about Jones and Mrs Fitzpatrick, he draws his sword, but Jones manages to stab him with his. He '...sheathed one half of his sword in the body of the said gentleman' \u2014 but is arrested by the gang employed by Lord Fellamar and taken before a magistrate who commits him to Gatehouse. Here, he receives a letter from Sophia stating she has seen his letter with his proposal of marriage to Bellaston. Mr Allworthy is informed by Mrs Miller of how kind-hearted Tom has been towards her and her family. However, Blifil informs his uncle that Tom has killed a man, but the conversation is interrupted by the entrance of Mr Western who complains to his neighbour about Lord Fellamar. Mr Allworthy, commenting on Sophia's good character, tells Western he will not have Sophia forced into a marriage. After finding out the true inclinations of Sophia towards Blifil, Mr Allworthy informs Western that the marriage will not proceed. Mrs Western now tries to persuade Sophia to marry Lord Fellamar, but she tells her aunt how he tried to force himself on her in Lady Bellaston's house. Thus a truce is called, and her aunt is in a better temper. Mrs Miller visits Sophia and tells her how well Tom has behaved towards her penniless cousin, Mr Anderson. She manages to make Sophia read his letter, but it does not change her attitude towards him. Fellamar pays a visit to Sophia, but she rejects his love and is berated by her aunt after the lord has left for receiving letters from Tom (she has learnt this from Mrs Miller). The action now switches to Tom in prison. Nightingale visits him and informs him that the only witnesses to the fight were from a man-of-war crew lying at Deptford; and they said that Tom had struck the first blow. Mrs Waters then visits Tom telling him to cheer up and giving him the good news that Fitzpatrick is not dead and is likely to recover. Having lived with Fitzpatrick as his wife in Bath, she is also doing so in London so she knows exactly what is happening. Partridge now visits Tom and, seeing Mrs Waters's face for the first time, informs Tom that he has been a-bed with his own mother, that Mrs. Waters and Jenny Jones are one and the same. Whilst he is dispatched by Tom to find her, Tom receives a letter from her that she has a matter of high importance to communicate to him. Mrs Miller and Jack Nightingale speak to Mr Allworthy about Tom's merits, and the latter says he might start to think better of the young gentleman. Mr Allworthy then receives a letter from Mr Square stating that he is dying and saying that Tom was innocent and that this young man hath the noblest generosity of heart, the most perfect capacity for friendship, the highest integrity, and indeed every virtue which can ennoble a man. Mr Partridge is now summoned before Mr Allworthy's presence, and he tells him his history since the time he lost his school. He also tells him about Tom's sleeping with his mother, at which Allworthy expresses shock, but Mrs Waters enters the room desiring to speak with him. She states that Partridge was not the father of the child but a young man named Summer, the son of a clergyman who was a great friend of Allworthy's. Summer came to reside at Allworthy's house after completing his studies and died shortly afterwards. Allworthy's sister became pregnant by him and bore the child found between the sheets in his bed. It turns out that Miss Bridget went to the house of Mrs Waters' mother, and it was arranged that mother and daughter would attend her (with Mrs Wilkins being sent to Dorsetshire to be out of the way). Having given birth, Mrs Waters was instructed to take the child to Allworthy's bed. Once her story is complete, Mr Allworthy recollects that his sister had a liking for Summer but that she had expressed the highest disdain for his unkind suspicion \u2014 so he had let the matter drop. Mrs Waters then mentions to Mr Allworthy that she had been visited by a gentleman who, taking her for Fitzpatrick's wife, informed her she would be financially assisted by a worthy gentleman if she wanted to prosecute Jones. She found out from Mr Partridge that the man's name was Dowling. Mr Western now appears, berating that fact that a lord now wants to marry Sophia; and Allworthy says he will try to speak with her once more. Mrs Waters then says she was ruined 'by a very deep scheme of villainy' which drove her into the arms of Captain Waters, whom she lived with as a wife for many years even though they remained unmarried. Dowling then appears, and Mr Allworthy confronts him in the presence of Mrs Waters. He learns the truth that it was Blifil who sent him to talk to her. Dowling also reveals that he was given a letter by Blifil's mother on her deathbed, and he also was instructed by her to tell Allworthy that Jones was his nephew. However, as Allworthy had been ill at the time, he delivered the letter into Blifil's hands who said he would convey it to Allworthy. Allworthy leaves to have his interview with Sophia at Western's house. After assuring her that she will not have to marry Blifil owing to his villainy, he proposes to have another young man visit her. Sophia is bemused but, on being informed that it is Jones, refuses outright to meet him, saying it would be as disagreeable as a meeting with Blifil. Squire Western bursts into the room and, on being informed by Allworthy that Tom is his nephew, now becomes as eager for Sophia to marry Jones as he was about Blifil. Allworthy returns to his lodgings and his reunion with Tom now takes place. To compound his joy, Tom is also informed by Mrs Miller that, after speaking with her son, she has told Sophia all about the Bellaston letter and that Tom had also refused a proposal of marriage from a pretty widow called Hunt (which occurs earlier in the novel). Tom informs Mr Allworthy that his liberty had been procured by two noble lords, One of these was Lord Fellamar who, on finding out from Fitzpatrick that he took all the blame and that Tom was the nephew to a gentleman of great fortune, went with the Irish peer to obtain Tom's release. Mrs Miller asks Allworthy about Blifil, and the latter replies that I cannot be easy while such a villain is in my house. Tom pleads with him to be lenient, but Allworthy sends him to Blifil's room. Tom tells him he has to leave but that he will also do everything in his powers to help his younger brother, \"and would leave nothing unattempted to effectuate a reconciliation with his uncle.\" Jones, now fully kitted-out as a young gentleman of wealth, then accompanies his uncle to Mr Western's house. Sophia is also decked out in all her finery, and the two are left alone by the uncle and father and are eventually reconciled when Tom kisses her on her dear lips. Western once more bursts into the room, and Sophia says she will be obedient to her father by agreeing to marry Tom. The pair are privately married the next day in the chapel at Doctors' Commons but a joint wedding feast is held afterwards at Mrs Miller's house with Nightingale and his bride, Nancy (who have been reconciled with old Mr Nightingale through the mediation of Mr Allworthy). So, the story reaches its conclusion. The narrator informs his reader of the fate of his characters. Allworthy refused to see Blifil; but he settled an annual income of \u00a3200 on his nephew. The latter moved to one of the northern counties, hoping to purchase a seat in the next parliament and turning Methodist in the hope of ensnaring a rich wife. Mrs Fitzpatrick divorces her husband and maintains a close friendship with the Irish peer who aided her escape from Ireland. Mr Nightingale and his wife purchase an estate in the neighbourhood of Jones. Mrs Waters receives a \u00a360 annual pension from Allworthy and marries Western's Parson Supple. Partridge sets up a school and a marriage to Molly Seagrim is on the cards. Mr Western moved out of his country seat into a smaller house, liking to play with his granddaughter and grandson, while Tom and Sophia love Mr Allworthy as a father. And, as for Tom: \"Whatever in the nature of Jones had a tendency to vice, has been corrected by continual conversation with this good man, and by his union with the lovely and virtuous Sophia. He hath also, by reflection on his past follies, acquired a discretion and prudence very uncommon in one of his lively parts.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel's events occupy eighteen books. Squire Allworthy and his sister Bridget are introduced in their wealthy estate in Somerset. Allworthy returns from London after an extended business trip and finds a baby sleeping in his bed. He summons his housekeeper, Mrs Deborah Wilkins, to take care of the child. After searching the nearby village, Mrs Wilkins is told about a young woman called Jenny Jones, servant of a schoolmaster and his wife, as the most likely person to have committed the deed (she is also considered above herself for studying Latin with the schoolmaster). Jenny is brought before them and admits being the baby's mother but refuses to reveal the father's identity. Mr Allworthy mercifully gives her a lecture of morals and removes Jenny to a place where her reputation will be unknown. Furthermore, he promises his sister to raise the boy, whom he names Thomas, in his household. Two brothers, Dr Blifil and Captain Blifil, regularly visit the Allworthy estate. The doctor introduces the captain to Bridget in hopes of marrying into Allworthy's wealth. The couple fall in love and marry. After the marriage, Captain Blifil begins to show a coldness to his brother, who eventually feels obliged to leave the house for London where he soon dies 'of a broken heart'. Eight months after celebrating their wedding, Mrs Blifil has a baby boy and Mr Allworthy states that he and Tom will be raised together. The plot then turns to Mrs Partridge, wife of the schoolteacher, who has discovered that Jenny gave birth to a bastard and had mistakenly thought that she had left their service of her own free will. Mrs Partridge immediately suspects her husband and physically assaults him. Captain Blifil informs Mr Allworthy, and Mrs Wilkins is dispatched once more to Little Baddington to ascertain the truth of the matter. Partridge is put on trial before Mr Allworthy and denies paternity. Mr Allworthy, wanting to prove his"
      },
      {
        "text": " Partridge, wife of the schoolteacher, who has discovered that Jenny gave birth to a bastard and had mistakenly thought that she had left their service of her own free will. Mrs Partridge immediately suspects her husband and physically assaults him. Captain Blifil informs Mr Allworthy, and Mrs Wilkins is dispatched once more to Little Baddington to ascertain the truth of the matter. Partridge is put on trial before Mr Allworthy and denies paternity. Mr Allworthy, wanting to prove his innocence, sends for Jenny but she cannot be found, having left her place of residence in company with a recruiting officer. Partridge is found guilty and deprived of his annuity by Mr Allworthy. Now that they are poor, Mrs Partridge regrets her accusations, and begs Mrs Blifil to intercede with her brother to restore Mr Partridge's annuity, but he refuses. Mrs Partridge dies soon after and her husband, being deprived of his annuity, his school and his wife, leaves the area. Captain Blifil and his wife start to grow cool towards one another, and the former is found dead from Apoplexy one evening after taking his customary evening stroll prior to dinner. Two doctors arrive to debate the cause of his death and Mrs Blifil, struck with grief, remains bed-ridden for a month. Meanwhile, Mr Allworthy commissions a generous epitaph for the Captain's grave. Tom, who goes from fourteen-years-old to nineteen-years-old by the end of Book III, gets into trouble for killing a partridge on a neighbour's land. In fact he did it at the instigation of Black George, Allworthy's gamekeeper, but he refuses to tell Mr Allworthy who his partner-in-crime was. He is beaten by his master, Mr Thwackum, who resides at the house with another schoolmaster, a philosopher called Mr Square. Later, Blifil reveals that Black George was Tom"
      },
      {
        "text": "years-old by the end of Book III, gets into trouble for killing a partridge on a neighbour's land. In fact he did it at the instigation of Black George, Allworthy's gamekeeper, but he refuses to tell Mr Allworthy who his partner-in-crime was. He is beaten by his master, Mr Thwackum, who resides at the house with another schoolmaster, a philosopher called Mr Square. Later, Blifil reveals that Black George was Tom's partner and Mr Allworthy is pacified by Tom's sense of honour. To make amends, Mr Allworthy gives Tom a young horse but dismisses Black George from his position. Tom sells the horse a year and a half later at a fair. Mr Thwackum finds out and asks Tom what he has done with the money but the latter refuses to tell him. He is about to be beaten when Mr Allworthy enters. Tom confesses that he sold the horse and gave the money to Black George and his family, now in financial straits after being dismissed. Mr Allworthy feels ready to re-employ Black George, but he blots his copybook by poaching a hare on Squire Western's land and this is confirmed by Master Blifil. Tom resolves to have George employed by Mr Western by speaking to the seventeen-year-old Sophia and getting her to persuade her father on the matter. An incident occurs in which Master Blifil lets go the small bird of Sophia's, given to her by Tom as a young boy. Tom tries to retrieve it but, in doing so, falls into a canal. This incident turns Sophia against Blifil but puts Tom in her favour. Tom speaks to Sophia about George, and she persuades her father to drop any charges and to employ him. Sophia is falling for Tom but his heart is given over to Molly, the second of Black George's daughters and a local beauty. She throws herself at Tom,"
      },
      {
        "text": " bird of Sophia's, given to her by Tom as a young boy. Tom tries to retrieve it but, in doing so, falls into a canal. This incident turns Sophia against Blifil but puts Tom in her favour. Tom speaks to Sophia about George, and she persuades her father to drop any charges and to employ him. Sophia is falling for Tom but his heart is given over to Molly, the second of Black George's daughters and a local beauty. She throws herself at Tom, and he gets her pregnant and then feels obliged to offer her his protection. Molly wears a dress to church \u2014 given to her mother by Sophia Western \u2014 to show off her beauty. The Somersetshire parishioners are infuriated by her vanity and assault her in the churchyard afterwards. Tom comes to her defence and she is taken home by Square, Blifil and Tom. In the meantime, Sophia has taken pity on Molly and requests her father to ask her to be her maid, but the family council decides to put everything on hold until Tom's intentions become clearer. Squire Western, the local parson, Tom and Sophia are having dinner when the parson informs Western of Molly's condition, at which Tom leaves the dining table. Squire Western immediately jumps to the conclusion that Tom is the father of the bastard, much to Sophia's consternation. Tom returns to his home to find Molly in the arms of a constable and being taken to prison. He bids him free her, and they go to speak to Mr Allworthy where Tom reveals he is the father, saying the guilt is his. However, Mr Allworthy is ultimately forgiving of Tom's sowing his wild oats: 'While he was angry, therefore, with the incontinence of Jones, he was no less pleased with the honour and honesty of his self-accusation. He began now to form in his mind the same opinion of this young fellow, which, we hope, our reader may"
      },
      {
        "text": " her, and they go to speak to Mr Allworthy where Tom reveals he is the father, saying the guilt is his. However, Mr Allworthy is ultimately forgiving of Tom's sowing his wild oats: 'While he was angry, therefore, with the incontinence of Jones, he was no less pleased with the honour and honesty of his self-accusation. He began now to form in his mind the same opinion of this young fellow, which, we hope, our reader may have conceived. And in balancing his faults and his perfections, the latter seemed rather to preponderate.' An incident now occurs in which Tom comes to the aid of Sophia. She goes out hunting with her father and, on her way home, is thrown by her horse. Tom, who is riding close behind, is able to catch her but breaks his left arm in the process. The accident brings them closer and there is the first stirring of love. Tom is seen by a surgeon and ordered into bed and Sophia is bled at her father's orders. Book IV concludes with a conversation between Sophia and Mrs Honour, her maid, who is extolling Tom's virtues to the former and Sophia becomes annoyed by her presumptuousness. Tom thinks about his love for Sophia but knows that her father would not agree to any union; so his thoughts turn back to Molly who he believes is 'in all the circumstances of wretchedness.' Tom, once he is recovered, makes his way to Molly's home only to discover her in bed with his teacher, Square. Tom still feels some affection for her until he is told by Betty, Molly's older sister, that her innocence had been taken before Tom by Will Barnes, a country gallant. In the meantime, Mr Allworthy has become ill and is told by his doctor that it may be fatal. He summons all his relatives and household servants to his bedside and informs them of his will \u2014 Blifil will inherit the estate and"
      },
      {
        "text": " Molly's home only to discover her in bed with his teacher, Square. Tom still feels some affection for her until he is told by Betty, Molly's older sister, that her innocence had been taken before Tom by Will Barnes, a country gallant. In the meantime, Mr Allworthy has become ill and is told by his doctor that it may be fatal. He summons all his relatives and household servants to his bedside and informs them of his will \u2014 Blifil will inherit the estate and Tom will be given a \u00a31,000 lump sum and \u00a3500 per annum (Thwackum and Square will get a \u00a31,000 each and the household servants some token payments which displeases Mrs Wilkins, the housekeeper). However, Allworthy recovers; and Tom is so pleased that he gets drunk in his pleasure which displeases Blifil who is in mourning after receiving news that his mother has died. A scuffle ensues, but the two are parted and made to make peace with each other. After this fight, Tom, still drunk, is wandering the gardens thinking about Sophia when Molly makes an appearance. After a quarter of an hour's conversation, the two disappear into the bushes. Blifil and Thwackum likewise take an evening stroll, and Blifil spots Tom with a woman. He informs Thwackum who becomes furious and is determined to punish Tom. Tom guards the entrance to the shrubbery to prevent them seeing who the girl is, and, while Molly escapes, a fight ensues which Tom starts to lose until Squire Western intervenes to make it two against two. Sophia faints at the sight of all the blood, and Tom carries her to a nearby brook, giving her a caress which she does not spurn. Sophia recovers much to her father's delight. Tom returns to Western's house and Blifil and Thwackum to theirs. Miss Western is the cultured sister of Squire"
      },
      {
        "text": " girl is, and, while Molly escapes, a fight ensues which Tom starts to lose until Squire Western intervenes to make it two against two. Sophia faints at the sight of all the blood, and Tom carries her to a nearby brook, giving her a caress which she does not spurn. Sophia recovers much to her father's delight. Tom returns to Western's house and Blifil and Thwackum to theirs. Miss Western is the cultured sister of Squire Western and Sophia's aunt. Although unmarried herself, she recognises the signs of love and notices that Sophia is showing these. She informs her brother that his daughter is in love with Blifil \u2014 Miss Western had noted Sophia's behaviour in his presence \u2014 and Squire Western informs Allworthy when he visits for dinner. Allworthy says he will give his approval if the young couple agree and consults Blifil who, thinking of Sophia's fortune, agrees to his uncle's request. (No one knows of Sophia's love for Tom.) Miss Western then speaks to Sophia to reveal her amour, and is enraged when she finds out it is not Blifil but Tom. With her aunt agreeing to keep the whole thing a secret, Mr Western tells Sophia about his intentions and she is obliged to meet Blifil that afternoon. Sophia is determined to go through with the meeting, even though she hates and despises Blifil. After a difficult meeting, in which Blifil thinks he has won her heart, he is accosted by Squire Western before he leaves and Blifil announces that he is satisfied with Sophia, much to the father's delight. However, once he is gone, Sophia reveals her true feelings for Blifil, but he ignores her pleadings and grows enraged. Tom is in the house and is asked by Western to go to Sophia to encourage her to marry Blifil. The two young lovers are in agony and reveal they can never part"
      },
      {
        "text": " he has won her heart, he is accosted by Squire Western before he leaves and Blifil announces that he is satisfied with Sophia, much to the father's delight. However, once he is gone, Sophia reveals her true feelings for Blifil, but he ignores her pleadings and grows enraged. Tom is in the house and is asked by Western to go to Sophia to encourage her to marry Blifil. The two young lovers are in agony and reveal they can never part from each other as they take each other's hands. However, whilst they have been conversing, Miss Western has revealed all to the Squire, who threatens to assault Jones but is only prevented from doing so by the parson. Mr Western then visits his neighbour Allworthy and informs him of the situation in heated tones. After his departure, Mr Allworthy asks Blifil if he still wants to proceed with the marriage, and the latter replies in the affirmative, mainly to spite Tom. Blifil also takes the opportunity to inform his uncle about the bust up in the shrubbery, saying that Tom assaulted his tutor, Thwackum. Allworthy summons Tom before him to plead his case, but Tom is sunk too low from hearing the news about Sophia to make a robust defence. As such, he is commanded by his foster father to leave the house immediately after being given a sum of \u00a3500. Tom walks about a mile and, thinking beside a little brook, is resolved to quit Sophia rather than bring her to ruin. He pens a letter from a neighbouring house but discovers, in searching his pockets for his wax, that he has lost his wallet and returns to the brook to look for it. Here he meets George and together they look for it although George has already picked it up on coming to the same spot earlier. Tom asks him to deliver his letter for Sophia to Mrs Honour and, on doing so, George receives one back for Tom. In it,"
      },
      {
        "text": " resolved to quit Sophia rather than bring her to ruin. He pens a letter from a neighbouring house but discovers, in searching his pockets for his wax, that he has lost his wallet and returns to the brook to look for it. Here he meets George and together they look for it although George has already picked it up on coming to the same spot earlier. Tom asks him to deliver his letter for Sophia to Mrs Honour and, on doing so, George receives one back for Tom. In it, Sophia professes her affection for him but also warns him to steer clear of her father, 'As you know his temper, I beg you will, for my sake, avoid him.' Sophia is locked up in her room by her father but Honour manages to give her Tom's letter. She also tells her that the squire 'stripped him half naked and turned him out of doors!'. Sophia gives her all the money she has \u2014 amounting to a purse of sixteen guineas \u2014 telling her to give it to Tom. Honour gives the money to Black George, who is tempted to steal it like the \u00a3500 earlier \u2014 but the danger of the theft being discovered outweighs his greed, and he delivers the money to Jones. The Book ends with the return of Miss Western to the house and her being informed of Sophia's captivity. She rebukes her brother and sets Sophia free. Tom receives a note from Blifil along with his effects, informing him that his uncle requires him to immediately quit the neighbourhood. Sophia speaks to her aunt who tries to persuade her of the advantages of marrying Blifil. However, Mr Western overhears their conversation and storms into the room. He and his sister get into a furious argument over his behaviour, and she threatens to quit the house. However, on the sound advice of Sophia, she is recalled by Mr Western who makes efforts to pacify her. Having become reconciled, both are determined to have Sophia married as quickly as possible, and"
      },
      {
        "text": " immediately quit the neighbourhood. Sophia speaks to her aunt who tries to persuade her of the advantages of marrying Blifil. However, Mr Western overhears their conversation and storms into the room. He and his sister get into a furious argument over his behaviour, and she threatens to quit the house. However, on the sound advice of Sophia, she is recalled by Mr Western who makes efforts to pacify her. Having become reconciled, both are determined to have Sophia married as quickly as possible, and Blifil makes a second visit. Mr Allworthy is satisfied by what his nephew and Western tell him concerning Sophia and the marriage treaty is set two days hence. Sophia is now fixed on avoiding the marriage and in a conversation with Honour says she will quit the house and stay with a lady of quality in London who is her close acquaintance. Honour agrees to accompany her and agrees to get herself discharged so that their clothes can be packed for the journey without any undue suspicion. Honour deliberately provokes the chambermaid of Miss Western by abusing her mistress, and the lady herself is told of their conversation and vows to have Honour discharged for her impudence. There follows a dispute between Mr Western and his sister over the legality of dismissing Honour, but in the end the latter has the satisfaction of seeing Honour turned away. Sophia is conscience-stricken about her infidelity to her relations, but her love for Tom prevails. Tom is on the road to Bristol, being determined to take to sea. However, his guide gets lost, and they take shelter at a public house on the advice of a Quaker. The Quaker gets into a conversation with Tom, even though the latter wants to be alone, telling him about his own misfortune of having his daughter run off with a penniless man of low birth \u2014 vowing he will never see them again, and Tom pushes him out of the room. A company of soldiers enter the ale-house as Tom is sleeping on a chair, and, getting into"
      },
      {
        "text": " his guide gets lost, and they take shelter at a public house on the advice of a Quaker. The Quaker gets into a conversation with Tom, even though the latter wants to be alone, telling him about his own misfortune of having his daughter run off with a penniless man of low birth \u2014 vowing he will never see them again, and Tom pushes him out of the room. A company of soldiers enter the ale-house as Tom is sleeping on a chair, and, getting into a dispute over who will pay for the beer, Tom agrees to cover the bill. He strikes up a conversation with the sergeant who tells him they are marching against the Roman Catholic rebels who had invaded England, expecting to be commanded by the glorious Duke of Cumberland. Tom, being \"a hearty well-wisher to the glorious cause of liberty and of the Protestant religion\", agrees to join them as a volunteer. The soldiers march off, and that evening Tom is introduced to the lieutenant, a man who is sixty years of age. Looking like a gentleman, he is invited to dinner with the small company of officers. Tom gets into an argument with Ensign Northerton, who then proceeds to abuse the good name of Sophia after Tom has proposed a toast to her. Tom rebukes him, saying 'you are one of the most impudent scoundrels on earth,' and Northerton responds by throwing a bottle at Tom's head which poleaxes him. The lieutenant proceeds to put Northerton under close arrest, and a surgeon is called to stem the bleeding. Tom is put to bed and the lieutenant visits him, promising he will get his satisfaction against his adversary. Later that night, Tom, who is feeling much better, wakes the sergeant and purchases a sword from him before making his way to Northerton's room. He is shot at by the guard, who thinks he is a ghost (his coat is bloodied as is the bandage around his head"
      },
      {
        "text": " to put Northerton under close arrest, and a surgeon is called to stem the bleeding. Tom is put to bed and the lieutenant visits him, promising he will get his satisfaction against his adversary. Later that night, Tom, who is feeling much better, wakes the sergeant and purchases a sword from him before making his way to Northerton's room. He is shot at by the guard, who thinks he is a ghost (his coat is bloodied as is the bandage around his head) and then faints. However, the bird has flown (with the connivance of the landlady), and Tom returns to his room whilst the lieutenant has the sentinel put under arrest. Tom tells the lieutenant that he is to blame for the disturbance, and the latter agrees to drop the charge against the soldier. The landlady visits Tom after the soldiers have left and is courteous to him until he shows her his purse which has very little in it. He then dismisses the doctor, who insists on bleeding him so he can get a decent fee,and finally is able to get up and dressed. He calls for a barber to shave him after a dinner of 'buttock [beef] and carrot' and Little Benjamin turns out to be Mr Partridge, the schoolmaster. Tom reveals his whole story to him, and Partridge agrees to accompany him on his journey, secretly hoping that he can convince Tom to return to Allworthy (whom he is convinced is Tom's real father) so that he can get back into Allworthy's favour once more. They make their way on foot to Gloucester and stay at the Bell. However, there is a pettifogger (a lawyer of low status, who engages in mean practices) present who besmirches Tom's name to the landlady, Mrs Whitefield, after Tom has left their company. With Tom's name now mud, the landlady's welcome grows"
      },
      {
        "text": " is convinced is Tom's real father) so that he can get back into Allworthy's favour once more. They make their way on foot to Gloucester and stay at the Bell. However, there is a pettifogger (a lawyer of low status, who engages in mean practices) present who besmirches Tom's name to the landlady, Mrs Whitefield, after Tom has left their company. With Tom's name now mud, the landlady's welcome grows cold, and he is resolved to quit the house the same evening. They make their way on foot on a freezing night toward some hills that they have been informed lie not far from Worcester. Tom begs his companion to leave him, telling him he is resolved to die 'a glorious death in the service of my king and country,' but the latter refuses to leave him. Partridge eventually sees the glimmer of a light, and they make their way to an isolated house. Whilst warming themselves by the fire and conversing with the housekeeper, the owner returns and is set upon by two robbers. Tom rushes outside with a broadsword and drives them off and helps the old gentleman into the house. This gentleman, called the Man of the Hill, then recounts his life story to Tom and Partridge. A prudent and industrious student, he fell into bad company at Oxford and had to flee to London with his mistress to escape being expelled. Here, both destitute, the woman betrays him to one of her former lovers at Oxford and he is thrown into gaol, where he reflects on his sinful life. He is eventually released but, still poor, falls in with an old Oxford acquaintance, Watson, who introduces him to his gambling crowd. He lives precariously for the next two years pursuing this profession. However, he is re-united with his father, who has come to London to look for him and has been assaulted by thieves. They are re-united by chance as"
      },
      {
        "text": " to one of her former lovers at Oxford and he is thrown into gaol, where he reflects on his sinful life. He is eventually released but, still poor, falls in with an old Oxford acquaintance, Watson, who introduces him to his gambling crowd. He lives precariously for the next two years pursuing this profession. However, he is re-united with his father, who has come to London to look for him and has been assaulted by thieves. They are re-united by chance as the son, who is walking down the same street, comes to his father's aid after the affray. He returns with his father to Somersetshire, and spends the next four years in contemplation of the works of Aristotle and Plato, and of God. His father dies, and he, being the younger son, finds it difficult to live with his brother who lives entirely for sport. He is sent to Bath by his physician to take the waters and manages to save a man from committing suicide by drowning \u2014 the very same Watson, his friend from London. Both are then caught up in Bonnie Prince Charlie's rebellion, and, when captured, the stranger tells Tom and Partridge that he was denounced by Watson. However, he manages to escape his captors and ends up living at the present house on an annuity, an exile from the world of humanity. The Book ends with the old man and Tom taking a walk together to enjoy the sight of some fine prospects in the early hours of the day. Whilst observing the view, they hear a woman screaming, and Tom rushes down the hill to help. He comes upon a woman, half-naked, being throttled by a man whom Tom knocks down. It is Ensign Northerton. Tom restrains his hands with a garter and goes back to the Man of the Hill for advice. Tom is told to take her to Upton, the nearest town. When Tom returns to the woman, Northerton has made his"
      },
      {
        "text": " day. Whilst observing the view, they hear a woman screaming, and Tom rushes down the hill to help. He comes upon a woman, half-naked, being throttled by a man whom Tom knocks down. It is Ensign Northerton. Tom restrains his hands with a garter and goes back to the Man of the Hill for advice. Tom is told to take her to Upton, the nearest town. When Tom returns to the woman, Northerton has made his escape on foot, and Tom and the lady make their way to the town. On the way, Tom is sneaking peeps at her uncovered breasts at which he has gazed earlier. They eventually find an inn, and Tom instructs the lady to wait whilst he fetches her some clothes. The landlady and landlord think that something immoral is taking place and assault Tom \u2014 who is only saved from a beating by the arrival of Partridge. Susan, the hefty chambermaid joins in, and it is only the arrival of a young lady and maid that ends the battle. A sergeant arrives with his men and recognises the woman to be Mrs Waters, his Captain's wife, and the inn's hosts make their apologies and peace is restored around a bowl of liquor. Mrs Waters then retires with Tom upstairs and proceeds to make a pass at him, finding her savior extremely attractive. They end up in bed together. In the meantime, an argument takes place downstairs when the landlord abuses officers of rank in the army. The sergeant takes offense and offers to fight 'the best man of you all for twenty pound' and the coachman of the young lady takes him on, saying he is as good as any man in the army, and offers to box for a guinea. He is well mauled by the sergeant and so unable to convey the young lady on her journey. An account is then given of how Mrs Waters ended up in 'the distressful situation' from which Jones rescued her"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the army. The sergeant takes offense and offers to fight 'the best man of you all for twenty pound' and the coachman of the young lady takes him on, saying he is as good as any man in the army, and offers to box for a guinea. He is well mauled by the sergeant and so unable to convey the young lady on her journey. An account is then given of how Mrs Waters ended up in 'the distressful situation' from which Jones rescued her. Her husband, having accompanied her as far as Worcester, had proceeded onwards, and Northerton had joined her for an assignation. He tells her of the incident with Jones, and they decide to make for Hereford, then a Welsh seaport so that he can make his escape abroad. Mrs Waters has \u00a390 and her jewelry to finance their journey. However, it was in the wood at the foot of Mazard Hill that Northerton tried to kill her but she, being 'not of the weakest order of females,' was able to fend him off until Tom came to her rescue. An Irishman arrives at the Upton inn, a Mr Fitzpatrick, who is desperately looking for his wife. He speaks to Susan, the chambermaid, who shows him up to Mrs Water's room. He sees Tom and then a lot of women's clothes strewed around the room, and he and Tom proceed to blows until Mrs Waters cries out 'murder! robbery! and more frequently rape'. An Irishman staying in the room next door now enters the bedroom, a Mr Maclachlan, who lets his friend know that he has the wrong woman. Fitzpatrick apologises to Mrs Waters but says he will have his blood in the morning. Mrs Waters screams rape again to divert attention away from her and Tom being in the same room together, and all the men depart. Two young women in riding habits now arrive at the inn and one of them is immediately recognised as being a"
      },
      {
        "text": " frequently rape'. An Irishman staying in the room next door now enters the bedroom, a Mr Maclachlan, who lets his friend know that he has the wrong woman. Fitzpatrick apologises to Mrs Waters but says he will have his blood in the morning. Mrs Waters screams rape again to divert attention away from her and Tom being in the same room together, and all the men depart. Two young women in riding habits now arrive at the inn and one of them is immediately recognised as being a lady of quality. The lady retires to bed, and the maid, Mrs Honour, returns downstairs and demands food. She falls into conversation with Mr Partridge and learns that Tom is staying in the same inn. She tells Sophia that Tom is in the house and, returning downstairs, finds out from Partridge that Tom is with a woman and cannot be woken. Honour goes back upstairs and Sophia decides to leave her muff (with her name written on it for Tom to let him know she was there) and departs. Tom finds the muff and determines to give chase to Sophia. Western now arrives with some of his followers at the inn. The narrator mentions here that if he had come two hours earlier he would not only have found Sophia but also his niece \u2014 for such was the wife of Mr Fitzpatrick, who had run away with her five years before, out of the custody of Mrs Western. In fact, Mrs Fitzpatrick had heard the voice of her husband and paid the landlady for horses to make her escape at the same time as Sophia's departure. Western see Jones with Sophia's muff in his hands and tries to assault him but is restrained. Fitzpatrick, whom it turns out is married to the niece of Mrs Western, decides to help his uncle by showing him what he believes is Sophia's room, which turns out to be Mrs Waters'. A magistrate in the inn hears the case but refuses to convict Tom; and Western, in a fury, departs in pursuit of his daughter"
      },
      {
        "text": " horses to make her escape at the same time as Sophia's departure. Western see Jones with Sophia's muff in his hands and tries to assault him but is restrained. Fitzpatrick, whom it turns out is married to the niece of Mrs Western, decides to help his uncle by showing him what he believes is Sophia's room, which turns out to be Mrs Waters'. A magistrate in the inn hears the case but refuses to convict Tom; and Western, in a fury, departs in pursuit of his daughter. The plot now reverts back to when Sophia left her father's house. Sophia decides to take a zigzag route before hitting the London road to avoid her father. It turns out that their guide is the same as who conducted Tom, and Sophia bribes him to take them on the same route along the Bristol road. They spend a night with Mrs Whitefield in Gloucester before ending up at the Upton inn. Sophia, making her way past the Severn, is joined by another young lady, her maid (Abigail Honour, Mrs Honour's sister) and a guide. As it is night-time, they do not speak much and can hardly see each other. However, in daylight they recognise one another \u2014 the other lady is Harriet, Sophia's cousin and another niece of Mrs Western. They determine to wait until they arrive at an inn before they tell each other their stories. Once at the inn, Sophia and Harriet share a bed as do the two maids, everyone being exhausted from their journey, and the landlord and his wife come to the conclusion that they are supporters of the rebel Charles Stuart, fleeing the Duke of Cumberland, and that Sophia is Jenny Cameron herself (the daughter of a highland supporter of Charles). Once they have rested, Mrs Fitzpatrick recounts her story to Sophia. She met Fitzpatrick whilst staying with her aunt, Mrs Western, in Bath. He paid court to her aunt, but was also very kind to herself, until he eventually professed his love"
      },
      {
        "text": " exhausted from their journey, and the landlord and his wife come to the conclusion that they are supporters of the rebel Charles Stuart, fleeing the Duke of Cumberland, and that Sophia is Jenny Cameron herself (the daughter of a highland supporter of Charles). Once they have rested, Mrs Fitzpatrick recounts her story to Sophia. She met Fitzpatrick whilst staying with her aunt, Mrs Western, in Bath. He paid court to her aunt, but was also very kind to herself, until he eventually professed his love for her. The aunt left Bath, and she married Fitzpatrick. However, he says they will have to return to his estate in Ireland which she is very reluctant to do, and by accident finds a debtor's letter from his tailor in which he recalls Fitzpatrick saying he would soon marry either the aunt or the niece which would settle his debts, preferring the niece as he would have quicker access to the money. Harriet reveals all to her husband but he fobs her off, and they travel to Ireland. His house is very dismal and he proves the opposite of the gallant in Bath; he is aggressive and boorish in his behaviour to her. Eventually, he imprisons her in her bedroom, but, whilst on a three month trip to England, she is able to make her escape with the help of a neighbouring aristocrat. She intended to make for Bath to plead with her aunt, and this is how she ran into Sophia. There is also an interlude when Mrs Honour assaults the landlord when she finds out that he thinks Sophia is Jenny Cameron. It happens that the same Irish peer that helped Harriet is staying at the inn, on his way to London. He pays them a call and offers them a ride in his coach-and-six to London. Whilst preparing herself, Sophia discovers that she has lost a \u00a3100 note which her father had given her, believing it fell out of her pocket. The party arrive in London but Sophia is desirous of looking up her acquaintance"
      },
      {
        "text": " landlord when she finds out that he thinks Sophia is Jenny Cameron. It happens that the same Irish peer that helped Harriet is staying at the inn, on his way to London. He pays them a call and offers them a ride in his coach-and-six to London. Whilst preparing herself, Sophia discovers that she has lost a \u00a3100 note which her father had given her, believing it fell out of her pocket. The party arrive in London but Sophia is desirous of looking up her acquaintance, having suspicions that Harriet intends to make for Bath in order to have an alliance with the Irish nobleman. She makes her farewell, repeating their aunt's maxim to Harriet that 'whenever the matrimonial alliance is broke, and war declared between husband and wife, she can hardly make a disadvantageous peace for herself on any conditions' but Mrs Fitzpatrick contemptuously dismisses this advice. Sophia then repairs to the house of Lady Bellaston who promises she will do everything in her power to protect her. Squire Western is in pursuit of his daughter but gets waylaid by a hunt and ends up returning home. Tom and Partridge come across a lame fellow in rags to whom Tom gives a shilling. The beggar offers Tom something he has found, and it turns out to be Sophia's pocket book with the \u00a3100 note tucked inside. Tom gives the man a guinea, promising more later, and they leave him very discontented. They eventually come to an ale-house, and Partridge is keen to see the puppet-show which is playing the Provoked Husband. The landlady berates her chambermaid for having a sexual dalliance with Merry Andrew, the youth who beats the drum to announce the shows. Tom retires to bed but is awoken by the sound of the master of the puppet-show beating his Merry Andrew. Tom intervenes, and the Merry Andrew mentions the puppet master trying to rob a lady in a fine riding habit the day"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and Partridge is keen to see the puppet-show which is playing the Provoked Husband. The landlady berates her chambermaid for having a sexual dalliance with Merry Andrew, the youth who beats the drum to announce the shows. Tom retires to bed but is awoken by the sound of the master of the puppet-show beating his Merry Andrew. Tom intervenes, and the Merry Andrew mentions the puppet master trying to rob a lady in a fine riding habit the day before. Tom realizes this was Sophia and instructs the youth to show him the spot where this would have happened. He and Partridge then procure horses from the inn and also recognise the same boy who guided Sophia to the last inn. Accepting some money, he is persuaded to guide them to the same place; and they try to get post-horses at the same inn, but there are none to be had. At the same time, Tom is saluted by Mr Dowling, the lawyer with whom Tom had dined at Gloucester, and he and Partridge prevail on Tom to spend the night at the inn. Jones and Dowling share a bottle of wine, and Tom informs him of how Blifil has tried to ruin him, 'I saw the selfishness in him long ago which I despised; but it is lately, very lately, that I have found him capable of the basest and blackest designs.' Tom also assures the attorney of his deepest respect for Mr Allworthy, and not his money. Tom then takes leave of Dowling and sets forth for Coventry. He and Partridge make their way but are caught in a storm and forced to take shelter in a barn, in which a gypsy wedding feast is taking place. They are made welcome by the King of the Gypsies. Jones and Partridge then travel post in pursuit of Sophia, ending up at St Albans where they just miss Sophia. As they make their way into London,"
      },
      {
        "text": " Allworthy, and not his money. Tom then takes leave of Dowling and sets forth for Coventry. He and Partridge make their way but are caught in a storm and forced to take shelter in a barn, in which a gypsy wedding feast is taking place. They are made welcome by the King of the Gypsies. Jones and Partridge then travel post in pursuit of Sophia, ending up at St Albans where they just miss Sophia. As they make their way into London, they meet a fellow traveler on horseback who, on hearing that Tom has \u00a3100, attempts to hold them up but is overcome by Tom. The highwayman confesses that it was his first robbery, and he only did it out of great need. Tom takes pity on him and gives him two guineas, and the man is overcome by his generosity. Jones and Partridge arrive in London; but, being unfamiliar with its streets, retire to the Bull and Gate in Holborn. Tom then finds out where the lord's residence is. After bribing a footman, Tom is admitted into the presence of Mrs Fitzpatrick. She, thinking that he is the suitor Sophia is trying to avoid, dissembles, and Tom leaves the house but stands watch nearby. Mrs Fitzpatrick communicates her suspicions to her maid, Abigail, and is informed that the man was Jones himself. Tom is admitted once more to see Mrs Fitzpatrick, and Lady Bellaston joins them \u2014 as does the noble lord, who ignores Tom. Mrs Fitzpatrick designs to get rid of Tom. He then thinks about the gentlewoman at whose house Mr Allworthy is accustomed to lodge when in town and dispatches Partridge to the house where he is able to secure two rooms. The landlady is Mrs Miller, and she has two daughters: Nancy is seventeen and Betty ten. There is a young gentleman lodger, a Mr Nightingale, who gets into a fight with his footman. Tom intervenes"
      },
      {
        "text": " lord, who ignores Tom. Mrs Fitzpatrick designs to get rid of Tom. He then thinks about the gentlewoman at whose house Mr Allworthy is accustomed to lodge when in town and dispatches Partridge to the house where he is able to secure two rooms. The landlady is Mrs Miller, and she has two daughters: Nancy is seventeen and Betty ten. There is a young gentleman lodger, a Mr Nightingale, who gets into a fight with his footman. Tom intervenes to save him from being throttled, and the two become friends over a shared bottle of wine. Tom then receives a bundle inside which is a domino, a mask and a masquerade ticket and a card signed the 'queen of the fairies'. He is determined to go to the masque, thinking that he might find Sophia there, and Nightingale lends him some of his clothes and offers to accompany him. Tom talks to a variety of women who look or sound like Sophia, until he meets a lady in a domino who talks to him about Sophia. Afterwards, she quits the masquerade to return home, forbidding Tom to follow her. He, however, ignores her warning and follows her chair to a street near Hanover Square and walks in after her, suspecting her to be Mrs Fitzpatrick. The woman turns out to be Lady Bellaston, and they sleep together. Lady Bellaston promises Tom she will try to find out Sophia's whereabouts. Returning to his lodgings, Mrs Miller tells the household about a cousin of hers whose family is living in extreme poverty. Tom, after hearing her narrative, gives her his purse containing \u00a350, asking her to use it for the poor people, and she joyfully takes ten guineas. Tom tries to find out from Lady Bellaston where Sophia is but cannot (the latter now seeing Sophia as a rival in love). He is also in a very difficult position as she is now supporting him financially. He"
      },
      {
        "text": " lodgings, Mrs Miller tells the household about a cousin of hers whose family is living in extreme poverty. Tom, after hearing her narrative, gives her his purse containing \u00a350, asking her to use it for the poor people, and she joyfully takes ten guineas. Tom tries to find out from Lady Bellaston where Sophia is but cannot (the latter now seeing Sophia as a rival in love). He is also in a very difficult position as she is now supporting him financially. He receives a note from her asking for a meeting at her house, having arranged for Sophia, Mrs Honour and her own maid, Mrs Etoff, to see a play together. Tom meets Mrs Miller's cousin who turns out to be the highwayman who tried to rob him, and the man is effusive in his thanks for Tom's kindness to his family who are now all restored to health. Tom goes to Lady Bellaston's house, but she is not there. He is waiting in the drawing-room when Sophia enters, having left the play early in distaste under the protection of a young gentleman. Both are as surprised as each other. After reprimanding him for bandying her name around in inns, with Tom protesting it was Partridge, not he, she starts crying; and Tom kisses away her tears. Lady Bellaston enters, and Sophia makes the pretence that Tom has only come to return her pocket-book and the banknote. Tom takes the opportunity to leave, asking Lady Bellaston for permission to pay another visit to which she politely consents. The Book concludes with Sophia attempting to ward off her cousin's questions about the young gentleman. Lady Bellaston pays a surprise visit to Tom's apartments. However, they are interrupted by the arrival of Mrs Honour bearing a letter for Tom from Sophia, and Lady Bellaston is forced to hide behind a curtain. Honour assures Tom of her mistress' regard, and, after she has left, Lady Bellaston emerges from"
      },
      {
        "text": ", asking Lady Bellaston for permission to pay another visit to which she politely consents. The Book concludes with Sophia attempting to ward off her cousin's questions about the young gentleman. Lady Bellaston pays a surprise visit to Tom's apartments. However, they are interrupted by the arrival of Mrs Honour bearing a letter for Tom from Sophia, and Lady Bellaston is forced to hide behind a curtain. Honour assures Tom of her mistress' regard, and, after she has left, Lady Bellaston emerges from her place of concealment as, 'streams of fire darted from her eyes, and well indeed they might, for her heart was all in a flame.' However, Tom makes his peace with her and they agree that future visits to her house will appear as though they are for Sophia's sake, Bellaston being \"convinced that Sophia possessed the first place in Jones's affections\" and \"...she submitted at last to bear the second place.\" Mrs Miller talks to Tom about the house getting a reputation of one of ill-fame. Tom assures her that he will change his place of lodgings. Nightingale tells him that he too has resolved to quit the house, although Tom reminds him that Nancy, the eldest daughter, is in love with him; but Nightingale is not unduly concerned, liking to boast about his skill at gaining women, much to Tom's dismay. Nightingale, however, quits the house, and Mrs Miller is distraught, revealing to Tom that Nancy is with child by him. All he has left her is a note stating that he cannot marry her as his father has insisted on his paying his addresses to a young lady of fortune whom he has chosen for him as a wife. Jones promises to go and talk to Nightingale and attempts to persuade him to change his mind. During the conversation, he resolves to speak to Nightingale's father and inform him that Nightingale is already married to Ms Miller, a"
      },
      {
        "text": " revealing to Tom that Nancy is with child by him. All he has left her is a note stating that he cannot marry her as his father has insisted on his paying his addresses to a young lady of fortune whom he has chosen for him as a wife. Jones promises to go and talk to Nightingale and attempts to persuade him to change his mind. During the conversation, he resolves to speak to Nightingale's father and inform him that Nightingale is already married to Ms Miller, a proposal to which the son readily assents. A farcical conversation takes place in a coffee house with Tom speaking about Nancy Miller whereas the father presumes he is talking about Miss Harris, and Tom saying he is already married. Old Mr Nightingale's brother then makes an appearance and also helps to persuade his brother against a union with Miss Harris, for, as he is her neighbour, he knows her to be \"very tall, very thin, very ugly, very affected, very silly, and very ill-natured.\" Jones finally agrees to conduct the uncle to his nephew in Mrs Miller's house. Mrs Miller informs Jones that all matters are settled between Nightingale and Nancy and that they are to be married the next day. The uncle, however, takes his nephew upstairs and, on finding out that he is not married, tells him to call off the wedding as it is both foolish and preposterous. They return downstairs and the others feel that something is amiss, especially Tom as the uncle departs with Nightingale. However, Tom receives a visit from Mrs Honour who informs him she has dreadful news regarding her mistress. Lady Bellaston is now determined to get Sophia out of the way. The young nobleman who escorted Sophia from the play, Lord Fellamar, approaches Lady Bellaston and declares his love for Sophia, and she says she will promote his cause with her father, although pointing out that he has a rival for her affection \u2014 'a beggar,"
      },
      {
        "text": " Tom as the uncle departs with Nightingale. However, Tom receives a visit from Mrs Honour who informs him she has dreadful news regarding her mistress. Lady Bellaston is now determined to get Sophia out of the way. The young nobleman who escorted Sophia from the play, Lord Fellamar, approaches Lady Bellaston and declares his love for Sophia, and she says she will promote his cause with her father, although pointing out that he has a rival for her affection \u2014 'a beggar, a bastard, a foundling, a fellow in meaner circumstances than one of your lordship's own footmen.' She persuades an acquaintance, Tom Edwards, to announce in front of Sophia that Jones has been killed in a duel, and Sophia retires to her room in dismay. Bellaston and Fellamar then hatch a plan for the latter to ravish Sophia the next evening whilst the servants are out of the house and whilst Lady Bellaston is in an apartment distant from the scene. Despite having scruples, Fellamar falls in with her scheme and throws himself at Sophia; but the rape is interrupted by the arrival of Squire Western and his parson. The lord believes the father will accept him as his future son-in-law but is brushed aside by Western who removes Sophia to his own lodgings. Lady Bellaston is not too perturbed by the failure of her scheme with Fellamar, since at least Sophia is now out of the way. The plot now reverts back to how the Squire discovered his daughter's whereabouts. Mrs Fitzpatrick, hoping to reconcile her aunt and uncle, sent a letter to Mrs Western informing them of Sophia's present location. The lady passes the letter to her brother, and he is resolved to go to London with his sister following a day later. Honour, as mentioned earlier, comes to see Tom with the bad news. Whilst she is speaking to him, Lady Bellaston's arrival is announced, and Mrs Honour this time is forced"
      },
      {
        "text": "verts back to how the Squire discovered his daughter's whereabouts. Mrs Fitzpatrick, hoping to reconcile her aunt and uncle, sent a letter to Mrs Western informing them of Sophia's present location. The lady passes the letter to her brother, and he is resolved to go to London with his sister following a day later. Honour, as mentioned earlier, comes to see Tom with the bad news. Whilst she is speaking to him, Lady Bellaston's arrival is announced, and Mrs Honour this time is forced to hide. Lady Bellaston comments on Jones' attractiveness, but he cannot reply in kind as Honour is present in the room. However, his embarrassment is ended when Mr Nightingale stumbles drunk into the room and Lady Bellaston is forced to share the hiding place with Honour. The Lady, after assuring the maid of her friendship in order to stop her repeating what she has heard, takes her leave in a fury. Mrs Honour also berates Tom for his infidelity to her mistress, but he eventually manages to calm her down. Nancy and Nightingale are married at Doctors' Commons and Tom then receives three letters from Lady Bellaston requesting his presence at her home. Nightingale confronts Tom and tells him about her reputation around town. Tom also reveals his deep love for Sophia whom he now idolizes. Jones and Nightingale ('his privy council') proceed to hatch their own plan so that he can be rid of Bellaston. Nightingale knows that she turned away a former young man when he proposed marriage to her, and he suggests that Tom does the same. The latter is reluctant in case she agrees to his proposal, but Nightingale believes the young man in question \u2014 angered by the ill offices she had done him since \u2014 would show Tom her letters, the knowledge of which he could use to break off the affair. Tom writes a letter, and Lady Bellaston writes back banishing him from her home. Mrs Miller receives notice from Mr Allworthy that"
      },
      {
        "text": " a former young man when he proposed marriage to her, and he suggests that Tom does the same. The latter is reluctant in case she agrees to his proposal, but Nightingale believes the young man in question \u2014 angered by the ill offices she had done him since \u2014 would show Tom her letters, the knowledge of which he could use to break off the affair. Tom writes a letter, and Lady Bellaston writes back banishing him from her home. Mrs Miller receives notice from Mr Allworthy that he is coming to London, and Tom, Mr and Mrs Nightingale remove to new apartments. Tom, having dispatched Mrs Honour to give him more news about Sophia's state, receives a letter from her saying she now has a position with Lady Bellaston and can tell him nothing. A few days later Mr Partridge bumps into Black George and, over a few pots of beer, learns that he is working for Squire Western and can convey letters to Sophia in order to help Tom. Tom sits down to write his epistle. The scene shifts to Squire Western's lodgings in Piccadilly, recommended by the landlord at the Hercules Pillars at Hyde Park Corner, where Sophia is locked in her room. An officer asks to be presented and informs the Squire and parson he has come on behalf of Lord Fellamar who wants to visit his daughter on the footing of a lover, but Western throws him out. Sophia, hearing the noise below her, starts screaming and her father enters her room, asking her to fulfill his demands but she once more refuses and her father storms out, once more ignoring her pleas and tears. However, Black George is able to slip Sophia Tom's letter, hidden inside a pullet, and she muses over it. Mrs Western now arrives and is highly indignant over Sophia's imprisonment. She demands that she be given complete control over the niece and, with the support of the parson, the Squire finally agrees and Mrs Western conducts"
      },
      {
        "text": " father enters her room, asking her to fulfill his demands but she once more refuses and her father storms out, once more ignoring her pleas and tears. However, Black George is able to slip Sophia Tom's letter, hidden inside a pullet, and she muses over it. Mrs Western now arrives and is highly indignant over Sophia's imprisonment. She demands that she be given complete control over the niece and, with the support of the parson, the Squire finally agrees and Mrs Western conducts her to her own more salubrious lodgings. Tom now receives a letter from Sophia, written from her aunt's lodgings and begging him to give her up in order that he may be reconciled to Mr Allworthy, and enclosing the \u00a3100 banknote as she knows Tom requires money. The plot now switches back to the past when Blifil was informed by Western about his daughter's flight to London. Blifil's case that Sophia loves him is now more uncertain. Allworthy agrees to Blifil's insistent demands that he accompany him to London but warns his nephew, I will never give my consent to any absolute force being put on her inclinations, nor shall you ever have her unless she can be brought freely of compliance. Once in London, Squire Western and Blifil barge into his sister's house, and she is furious at the incivility of their entrance. Sophia, who turns pale at the sight of Blifil, is allowed to retire to her room whilst her aunt castigates Squire Western for his rude country manners \u2014 and at the same time suggests to Blifil that perhaps he can visit Sophia again in the afternoon. Blifil now quite rightly, as the narrator points out, suspects that Mrs Western may have turned against his cause. Lady Bellaston sees Lord Fellamar and advises him to have Jones somehow pressed and sent on board a ship. She then meets Mrs Western (they are cousins), and"
      },
      {
        "text": " is allowed to retire to her room whilst her aunt castigates Squire Western for his rude country manners \u2014 and at the same time suggests to Blifil that perhaps he can visit Sophia again in the afternoon. Blifil now quite rightly, as the narrator points out, suspects that Mrs Western may have turned against his cause. Lady Bellaston sees Lord Fellamar and advises him to have Jones somehow pressed and sent on board a ship. She then meets Mrs Western (they are cousins), and the former tells the latter about Lord Fellamar's attachment to Sophia. It is agreed they will pursue his case. Mrs Western refers to Blifil as 'a hideous kind of fellow' with nothing but fortune to recommend him. Jones pays a visit to Mrs Fitzpatrick, who encourages him to make a sham address to Mrs Western (just as Fitzpatrick did) in order to win Sophia; but he outrightly declines the undertaking, just as he does the advances now Mrs Fitzpatrick now makes towards him. Fitzpatrick has now come up to London from Bath and sees Jones coming out of his wife's house. Having suspicions about Jones and Mrs Fitzpatrick, he draws his sword, but Jones manages to stab him with his. He '...sheathed one half of his sword in the body of the said gentleman' \u2014 but is arrested by the gang employed by Lord Fellamar and taken before a magistrate who commits him to Gatehouse. Here, he receives a letter from Sophia stating she has seen his letter with his proposal of marriage to Bellaston. Mr Allworthy is informed by Mrs Miller of how kind-hearted Tom has been towards her and her family. However, Blifil informs his uncle that Tom has killed a man, but the conversation is interrupted by the entrance of Mr Western who complains to his neighbour about Lord Fellamar. Mr Allworthy, commenting on Sophia's good character, tells Western he will not have Sophia forced into a marriage. After finding out the true inclinations of Sophia towards Blifil"
      },
      {
        "text": " of marriage to Bellaston. Mr Allworthy is informed by Mrs Miller of how kind-hearted Tom has been towards her and her family. However, Blifil informs his uncle that Tom has killed a man, but the conversation is interrupted by the entrance of Mr Western who complains to his neighbour about Lord Fellamar. Mr Allworthy, commenting on Sophia's good character, tells Western he will not have Sophia forced into a marriage. After finding out the true inclinations of Sophia towards Blifil, Mr Allworthy informs Western that the marriage will not proceed. Mrs Western now tries to persuade Sophia to marry Lord Fellamar, but she tells her aunt how he tried to force himself on her in Lady Bellaston's house. Thus a truce is called, and her aunt is in a better temper. Mrs Miller visits Sophia and tells her how well Tom has behaved towards her penniless cousin, Mr Anderson. She manages to make Sophia read his letter, but it does not change her attitude towards him. Fellamar pays a visit to Sophia, but she rejects his love and is berated by her aunt after the lord has left for receiving letters from Tom (she has learnt this from Mrs Miller). The action now switches to Tom in prison. Nightingale visits him and informs him that the only witnesses to the fight were from a man-of-war crew lying at Deptford; and they said that Tom had struck the first blow. Mrs Waters then visits Tom telling him to cheer up and giving him the good news that Fitzpatrick is not dead and is likely to recover. Having lived with Fitzpatrick as his wife in Bath, she is also doing so in London so she knows exactly what is happening. Partridge now visits Tom and, seeing Mrs Waters's face for the first time, informs Tom that he has been a-bed with his own mother, that Mrs. Waters and Jenny Jones are one and the same. Whilst he is dispatched by Tom to find her, Tom receives a letter from"
      },
      {
        "text": " giving him the good news that Fitzpatrick is not dead and is likely to recover. Having lived with Fitzpatrick as his wife in Bath, she is also doing so in London so she knows exactly what is happening. Partridge now visits Tom and, seeing Mrs Waters's face for the first time, informs Tom that he has been a-bed with his own mother, that Mrs. Waters and Jenny Jones are one and the same. Whilst he is dispatched by Tom to find her, Tom receives a letter from her that she has a matter of high importance to communicate to him. Mrs Miller and Jack Nightingale speak to Mr Allworthy about Tom's merits, and the latter says he might start to think better of the young gentleman. Mr Allworthy then receives a letter from Mr Square stating that he is dying and saying that Tom was innocent and that this young man hath the noblest generosity of heart, the most perfect capacity for friendship, the highest integrity, and indeed every virtue which can ennoble a man. Mr Partridge is now summoned before Mr Allworthy's presence, and he tells him his history since the time he lost his school. He also tells him about Tom's sleeping with his mother, at which Allworthy expresses shock, but Mrs Waters enters the room desiring to speak with him. She states that Partridge was not the father of the child but a young man named Summer, the son of a clergyman who was a great friend of Allworthy's. Summer came to reside at Allworthy's house after completing his studies and died shortly afterwards. Allworthy's sister became pregnant by him and bore the child found between the sheets in his bed. It turns out that Miss Bridget went to the house of Mrs Waters' mother, and it was arranged that mother and daughter would attend her (with Mrs Wilkins being sent to Dorsetshire to be out of the way). Having given birth, Mrs Waters was instructed to take the child to Allworthy's bed"
      },
      {
        "text": " to reside at Allworthy's house after completing his studies and died shortly afterwards. Allworthy's sister became pregnant by him and bore the child found between the sheets in his bed. It turns out that Miss Bridget went to the house of Mrs Waters' mother, and it was arranged that mother and daughter would attend her (with Mrs Wilkins being sent to Dorsetshire to be out of the way). Having given birth, Mrs Waters was instructed to take the child to Allworthy's bed. Once her story is complete, Mr Allworthy recollects that his sister had a liking for Summer but that she had expressed the highest disdain for his unkind suspicion \u2014 so he had let the matter drop. Mrs Waters then mentions to Mr Allworthy that she had been visited by a gentleman who, taking her for Fitzpatrick's wife, informed her she would be financially assisted by a worthy gentleman if she wanted to prosecute Jones. She found out from Mr Partridge that the man's name was Dowling. Mr Western now appears, berating that fact that a lord now wants to marry Sophia; and Allworthy says he will try to speak with her once more. Mrs Waters then says she was ruined 'by a very deep scheme of villainy' which drove her into the arms of Captain Waters, whom she lived with as a wife for many years even though they remained unmarried. Dowling then appears, and Mr Allworthy confronts him in the presence of Mrs Waters. He learns the truth that it was Blifil who sent him to talk to her. Dowling also reveals that he was given a letter by Blifil's mother on her deathbed, and he also was instructed by her to tell Allworthy that Jones was his nephew. However, as Allworthy had been ill at the time, he delivered the letter into Blifil's hands who said he would convey it to Allworthy. Allworthy leaves to have his interview with Sophia at Western's house. After assuring"
      },
      {
        "text": " it was Blifil who sent him to talk to her. Dowling also reveals that he was given a letter by Blifil's mother on her deathbed, and he also was instructed by her to tell Allworthy that Jones was his nephew. However, as Allworthy had been ill at the time, he delivered the letter into Blifil's hands who said he would convey it to Allworthy. Allworthy leaves to have his interview with Sophia at Western's house. After assuring her that she will not have to marry Blifil owing to his villainy, he proposes to have another young man visit her. Sophia is bemused but, on being informed that it is Jones, refuses outright to meet him, saying it would be as disagreeable as a meeting with Blifil. Squire Western bursts into the room and, on being informed by Allworthy that Tom is his nephew, now becomes as eager for Sophia to marry Jones as he was about Blifil. Allworthy returns to his lodgings and his reunion with Tom now takes place. To compound his joy, Tom is also informed by Mrs Miller that, after speaking with her son, she has told Sophia all about the Bellaston letter and that Tom had also refused a proposal of marriage from a pretty widow called Hunt (which occurs earlier in the novel). Tom informs Mr Allworthy that his liberty had been procured by two noble lords, One of these was Lord Fellamar who, on finding out from Fitzpatrick that he took all the blame and that Tom was the nephew to a gentleman of great fortune, went with the Irish peer to obtain Tom's release. Mrs Miller asks Allworthy about Blifil, and the latter replies that I cannot be easy while such a villain is in my house. Tom pleads with him to be lenient, but Allworthy sends him to Blifil's room. Tom tells him he has to leave but that he will also do everything in his powers"
      },
      {
        "text": " out from Fitzpatrick that he took all the blame and that Tom was the nephew to a gentleman of great fortune, went with the Irish peer to obtain Tom's release. Mrs Miller asks Allworthy about Blifil, and the latter replies that I cannot be easy while such a villain is in my house. Tom pleads with him to be lenient, but Allworthy sends him to Blifil's room. Tom tells him he has to leave but that he will also do everything in his powers to help his younger brother, \"and would leave nothing unattempted to effectuate a reconciliation with his uncle.\" Jones, now fully kitted-out as a young gentleman of wealth, then accompanies his uncle to Mr Western's house. Sophia is also decked out in all her finery, and the two are left alone by the uncle and father and are eventually reconciled when Tom kisses her on her dear lips. Western once more bursts into the room, and Sophia says she will be obedient to her father by agreeing to marry Tom. The pair are privately married the next day in the chapel at Doctors' Commons but a joint wedding feast is held afterwards at Mrs Miller's house with Nightingale and his bride, Nancy (who have been reconciled with old Mr Nightingale through the mediation of Mr Allworthy). So, the story reaches its conclusion. The narrator informs his reader of the fate of his characters. Allworthy refused to see Blifil; but he settled an annual income of \u00a3200 on his nephew. The latter moved to one of the northern counties, hoping to purchase a seat in the next parliament and turning Methodist in the hope of ensnaring a rich wife. Mrs Fitzpatrick divorces her husband and maintains a close friendship with the Irish peer who aided her escape from Ireland. Mr Nightingale and his wife purchase an estate in the neighbourhood of Jones. Mrs Waters receives a \u00a360 annual pension from Allworthy and marries Western's Parson Supple."
      },
      {
        "text": " income of \u00a3200 on his nephew. The latter moved to one of the northern counties, hoping to purchase a seat in the next parliament and turning Methodist in the hope of ensnaring a rich wife. Mrs Fitzpatrick divorces her husband and maintains a close friendship with the Irish peer who aided her escape from Ireland. Mr Nightingale and his wife purchase an estate in the neighbourhood of Jones. Mrs Waters receives a \u00a360 annual pension from Allworthy and marries Western's Parson Supple. Partridge sets up a school and a marriage to Molly Seagrim is on the cards. Mr Western moved out of his country seat into a smaller house, liking to play with his granddaughter and grandson, while Tom and Sophia love Mr Allworthy as a father. And, as for Tom: \"Whatever in the nature of Jones had a tendency to vice, has been corrected by continual conversation with this good man, and by his union with the lovely and virtuous Sophia. He hath also, by reflection on his past follies, acquired a discretion and prudence very uncommon in one of his lively parts.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Richard III",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play begins with Richard describing the accession to the throne of his brother, King Edward IV of England, eldest son of the late Richard, Duke of York. : Now is the winter of our discontent : Made glorious summer by this sun of York; : And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house : In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. (\"sun of York\" is a punning reference to the badge of the \"blazing sun,\" which Edward IV adopted, and \"son of York\", i.e., the son of the Duke of York.) The speech reveals Richard's jealousy and ambition, as his brother rules the country successfully. Richard is an ugly hunchback who is \"rudely stamp'd\", \"deformed, unfinish'd\", and cannot \"strut before a wanton ambling nymph.\" He responds to the anguish of his condition with an outcast's credo: \"I am determined to prove a villain / And hate the idle pleasures of these days.\" Richard plots to have his brother Clarence, who stands before him in the line of succession, conducted to the Tower of London over a prophecy he fed to the King; that \"G of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be\", which the king interprets as referring to George of Clarence. Richard next ingratiates himself with \"the Lady Anne\" \u2013 Anne Neville, widow of the Lancastrian Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. Richard confides to the audience: \"I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter. What, though I kill'd her husband and his father?\" Despite initially hating him, Anne is won over by his pleas of love and repentance and agrees to marry him. When she leaves, Richard exults in having won her over despite all he has done to her, and tells the audience that he will discard her once she has served her purpose. The atmosphere at court is poisonous: The established nobles are at odds with the upwardly mobile relatives of Queen Elizabeth, a hostility fuelled by Richard's machinations. Queen Margaret, Henry VI's widow, returns in defiance of her banishment and warns the squabbling nobles about Richard. Queen Margaret curses Richard and the rest who were present. The nobles, all Yorkists, reflexively unite against this last Lancastrian, and the warning falls on deaf ears. Richard orders two murderers to kill Clarence in the tower. Clarence, meanwhile, relates a dream to his keeper. The dream includes extremely visual language describing Clarence falling from an imaginary ship as a result of Gloucester, who had fallen from the hatches, striking him. Under the water Clarence sees the skeletons of thousands of men "that fishes gnawed upon." He also sees "wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, inestimable stones, unvalued jewels." All of these are "scatterd in the bottom of the sea." Clarence adds that some of the jewels were in the skulls of the dead. Clarence then imagines dying and being tormented by the ghosts of his father-in-law (Warwick, Anne's father) and brother-in-law (Edward, Anne's former husband). After Clarence falls asleep, Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, enters and observes that between the titles of princes and the low names of commoners there is nothing different but the "outward fame", meaning that they both have "inward toil" whether rich or poor. When the murderers arrive, he reads their warrant (issued in the name of the King), and exits with the Keeper, who disobeys Clarence's request to stand by him, and leaves the two murderers the keys. Clarence wakes and pleads with the murderers, saying that men have no right to obey other men's requests for murder, because all men are under the rule of God not to commit murder. The murderers imply Clarence is a hypocrite because, as one says, "thou\u00a0... unripped'st the bowels of thy sovereign's son [Edward] whom thou wast sworn to cherish and defend." Tactically trying to win them over, he tells them to go to his brother Gloucester, who will reward them better for his life than Edward will for his death. One murderer insists Gloucester himself sent them to perform the bloody act, but Clarence does not believe him. He recalls the unity of Richard Duke of York blessing his three sons with his victorious arm, bidding his brother Gloucester to "think on this and he will weep." Sardonically, a murderer says Gloucester weeps millstones \u2013 echoing Richard's earlier comment about the murderers' own eyes weeping millstones rather than "foolish tears" (Act\u00a0I, Sc. 3). Next, one of the murderers explains that his brother Gloucester hates him, and sent them to the Tower to kill him. Eventually, one murderer gives in to his conscience and does not participate, but the other killer stabs Clarence and drowns him in "the Malmsey butt within". The first act closes with the perpetrator needing to find a hole to bury Clarence. Edward IV soon dies, leaving as Protector his brother Richard, who sets about removing the final obstacles to his accession. He meets his nephew, the young Edward V, who is en route to London for his coronation accompanied by relatives of Edward's widow (Lord Rivers, Lord Grey, and Sir Thomas Vaughan). These Richard arrests, and eventually beheads, and then has a conversation with the Prince and his younger brother, the duke of York. The two princes outsmart Richard and match his wordplay and use of language easily. Richard is nervous about them, and the potential threat they are. The young prince and his brother are coaxed (by Richard) into an extended stay at the Tower of London. The prince and his brother the duke of York prove themselves to be extremely intelligent and charismatic characters, boldly defying and outsmarting Richard and openly mocking him. Assisted by his cousin Buckingham, Richard mounts a campaign to present himself as the true heir to the throne, pretending to be a modest, devout man with no pretensions to greatness. Lord Hastings, who objects to Richard's accession, is arrested and executed on a trumped-up charge of treason. Together, Richard and Buckingham spread the rumour that Edward's two sons are illegitimate, and therefore have no rightful claim to the throne; they are assisted by Catesby, Ratcliffe, and Lovell. The other lords are cajoled into accepting Richard as king, in spite of the continued survival of his nephews (the Princes in the Tower). Richard asks Buckingham to secure the death of the princes, but Buckingham hesitates. Richard then recruits James Tyrrell, who kills both children. When Richard denies Buckingham a promised land grant, Buckingham turns against Richard and defects to the side of Henry, Earl of Richmond, who is currently in exile. Richard has his eye on his niece, Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's next remaining heir, and poisons Lady Anne so he can be free to woo the princess. The Duchess of York and Queen Elizabeth mourn the princes' deaths, when Queen Margaret arrives. Queen Elizabeth, as predicted, asks Queen Margaret's help in cursing. Later, the Duchess applies this lesson and curses her only surviving son before leaving. Richard asks Queen Elizabeth to help him win her daughter's hand in marriage, but she is not taken in by his eloquence, and eventually manages to trick and stall him by saying she will let him know her daughter's answer in due course. In due course, the increasingly paranoid Richard loses what popularity he had. He soon faces rebellions led first by Buckingham and subsequently by the invading Richmond. Buckingham is captured and executed. Both sides arrive for a final battle at Bosworth Field. Prior to the battle, Richard is visited by the ghosts of his victims, all of whom tell him to "Despair and die!" after which they wish victory upon Richmond. He awakes screaming for "Jesu" to help him, slowly realising that he is all alone in the world, and cannot even pity himself. At the battle of Bosworth Field, Lord Stanley (who is also Richmond's stepfather) and his followers desert Richard's side, whereupon Richard calls for the execution of George Stanley, Lord Stanley's son. This does not happen, as the battle is in full swing, and Richard is left at a disadvantage. Richard is soon unhorsed on the field at the climax of the battle, and cries out, "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" Richmond kills Richard in the final duel. Subsequently, Richmond succeeds to the throne as Henry VII, and marries Princess Elizabeth from the House of York.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play begins with Richard describing the accession to the throne of his brother, King Edward IV of England, eldest son of the late Richard, Duke of York. : Now is the winter of our discontent : Made glorious summer by this sun of York; : And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house : In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. (\"sun of York\" is a punning reference to the badge of the \"blazing sun,\" which Edward IV adopted, and \"son of York\", i.e., the son of the Duke of York.) The speech reveals Richard's jealousy and ambition, as his brother rules the country successfully. Richard is an ugly hunchback who is \"rudely stamp'd\", \"deformed, unfinish'd\", and cannot \"strut before a wanton ambling nymph.\" He responds to the anguish of his condition with an outcast's credo: \"I am determined to prove a villain / And hate the idle pleasures of these days.\" Richard plots to have his brother Clarence, who stands before him in the line of succession, conducted to the Tower of London over a prophecy he fed to the King; that \"G of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be\", which the king interprets as referring to George of Clarence. Richard next ingratiates himself with \"the Lady Anne\" \u2013 Anne Neville, widow of the Lancastrian Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. Richard confides to the audience: \"I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter. What, though I kill'd her husband and his father?\" Despite initially hating him, Anne is won over by his pleas of love and repentance and agrees to marry him. When she leaves, Richard exults in having won her over despite all he has done to her, and tells the audience that he will discard her once she has served her purpose. The atmosphere at court is poisonous: The established nobles are"
      },
      {
        "text": " of Wales. Richard confides to the audience: \"I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter. What, though I kill'd her husband and his father?\" Despite initially hating him, Anne is won over by his pleas of love and repentance and agrees to marry him. When she leaves, Richard exults in having won her over despite all he has done to her, and tells the audience that he will discard her once she has served her purpose. The atmosphere at court is poisonous: The established nobles are at odds with the upwardly mobile relatives of Queen Elizabeth, a hostility fuelled by Richard's machinations. Queen Margaret, Henry VI's widow, returns in defiance of her banishment and warns the squabbling nobles about Richard. Queen Margaret curses Richard and the rest who were present. The nobles, all Yorkists, reflexively unite against this last Lancastrian, and the warning falls on deaf ears. Richard orders two murderers to kill Clarence in the tower. Clarence, meanwhile, relates a dream to his keeper. The dream includes extremely visual language describing Clarence falling from an imaginary ship as a result of Gloucester, who had fallen from the hatches, striking him. Under the water Clarence sees the skeletons of thousands of men "that fishes gnawed upon." He also sees "wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, inestimable stones, unvalued jewels." All of these are "scatterd in the bottom of the sea." Clarence adds that some of the jewels were in the skulls of the dead. Clarence then imagines dying and being tormented by the ghosts of his father-in-law (Warwick, Anne's father) and brother-in-law (Edward, Anne's former husband). After Clarence falls asleep, Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower"
      },
      {
        "text": "; All of these are "scatterd in the bottom of the sea." Clarence adds that some of the jewels were in the skulls of the dead. Clarence then imagines dying and being tormented by the ghosts of his father-in-law (Warwick, Anne's father) and brother-in-law (Edward, Anne's former husband). After Clarence falls asleep, Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, enters and observes that between the titles of princes and the low names of commoners there is nothing different but the "outward fame", meaning that they both have "inward toil" whether rich or poor. When the murderers arrive, he reads their warrant (issued in the name of the King), and exits with the Keeper, who disobeys Clarence's request to stand by him, and leaves the two murderers the keys. Clarence wakes and pleads with the murderers, saying that men have no right to obey other men's requests for murder, because all men are under the rule of God not to commit murder. The murderers imply Clarence is a hypocrite because, as one says, "thou\u00a0... unripped'st the bowels of thy sovereign's son [Edward] whom thou wast sworn to cherish and defend." Tactically trying to win them over, he tells them to go to his brother Gloucester, who will reward them better for his life than Edward will for his death. One murderer insists Gloucester himself sent them to perform the bloody act, but Clarence does not believe him. He recalls the unity of Richard Duke of York blessing his three sons with his victorious arm, bidding his brother Gloucester to "think on this and he will weep.&#"
      },
      {
        "text": " and defend." Tactically trying to win them over, he tells them to go to his brother Gloucester, who will reward them better for his life than Edward will for his death. One murderer insists Gloucester himself sent them to perform the bloody act, but Clarence does not believe him. He recalls the unity of Richard Duke of York blessing his three sons with his victorious arm, bidding his brother Gloucester to "think on this and he will weep." Sardonically, a murderer says Gloucester weeps millstones \u2013 echoing Richard's earlier comment about the murderers' own eyes weeping millstones rather than "foolish tears" (Act\u00a0I, Sc. 3). Next, one of the murderers explains that his brother Gloucester hates him, and sent them to the Tower to kill him. Eventually, one murderer gives in to his conscience and does not participate, but the other killer stabs Clarence and drowns him in "the Malmsey butt within". The first act closes with the perpetrator needing to find a hole to bury Clarence. Edward IV soon dies, leaving as Protector his brother Richard, who sets about removing the final obstacles to his accession. He meets his nephew, the young Edward V, who is en route to London for his coronation accompanied by relatives of Edward's widow (Lord Rivers, Lord Grey, and Sir Thomas Vaughan). These Richard arrests, and eventually beheads, and then has a conversation with the Prince and his younger brother, the duke of York. The two princes outsmart Richard and match his wordplay and use of language easily. Richard is nervous about them, and the potential threat they are. The young prince and his brother are coaxed (by Richard) into an extended stay at the Tower of London. The prince and his brother the"
      },
      {
        "text": " widow (Lord Rivers, Lord Grey, and Sir Thomas Vaughan). These Richard arrests, and eventually beheads, and then has a conversation with the Prince and his younger brother, the duke of York. The two princes outsmart Richard and match his wordplay and use of language easily. Richard is nervous about them, and the potential threat they are. The young prince and his brother are coaxed (by Richard) into an extended stay at the Tower of London. The prince and his brother the duke of York prove themselves to be extremely intelligent and charismatic characters, boldly defying and outsmarting Richard and openly mocking him. Assisted by his cousin Buckingham, Richard mounts a campaign to present himself as the true heir to the throne, pretending to be a modest, devout man with no pretensions to greatness. Lord Hastings, who objects to Richard's accession, is arrested and executed on a trumped-up charge of treason. Together, Richard and Buckingham spread the rumour that Edward's two sons are illegitimate, and therefore have no rightful claim to the throne; they are assisted by Catesby, Ratcliffe, and Lovell. The other lords are cajoled into accepting Richard as king, in spite of the continued survival of his nephews (the Princes in the Tower). Richard asks Buckingham to secure the death of the princes, but Buckingham hesitates. Richard then recruits James Tyrrell, who kills both children. When Richard denies Buckingham a promised land grant, Buckingham turns against Richard and defects to the side of Henry, Earl of Richmond, who is currently in exile. Richard has his eye on his niece, Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's next remaining heir, and poisons Lady Anne so he can be free to woo the princess. The Duchess of York and Queen Elizabeth mourn the princes' deaths, when Queen Margaret arrives. Queen Elizabeth, as predicted, asks Queen Margaret'"
      },
      {
        "text": " denies Buckingham a promised land grant, Buckingham turns against Richard and defects to the side of Henry, Earl of Richmond, who is currently in exile. Richard has his eye on his niece, Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's next remaining heir, and poisons Lady Anne so he can be free to woo the princess. The Duchess of York and Queen Elizabeth mourn the princes' deaths, when Queen Margaret arrives. Queen Elizabeth, as predicted, asks Queen Margaret's help in cursing. Later, the Duchess applies this lesson and curses her only surviving son before leaving. Richard asks Queen Elizabeth to help him win her daughter's hand in marriage, but she is not taken in by his eloquence, and eventually manages to trick and stall him by saying she will let him know her daughter's answer in due course. In due course, the increasingly paranoid Richard loses what popularity he had. He soon faces rebellions led first by Buckingham and subsequently by the invading Richmond. Buckingham is captured and executed. Both sides arrive for a final battle at Bosworth Field. Prior to the battle, Richard is visited by the ghosts of his victims, all of whom tell him to "Despair and die!" after which they wish victory upon Richmond. He awakes screaming for "Jesu" to help him, slowly realising that he is all alone in the world, and cannot even pity himself. At the battle of Bosworth Field, Lord Stanley (who is also Richmond's stepfather) and his followers desert Richard's side, whereupon Richard calls for the execution of George Stanley, Lord Stanley's son. This does not happen, as the battle is in full swing, and Richard is left at a disadvantage. Richard is soon unhorsed on the field at the climax of the battle, and cries out"
      },
      {
        "text": " cannot even pity himself. At the battle of Bosworth Field, Lord Stanley (who is also Richmond's stepfather) and his followers desert Richard's side, whereupon Richard calls for the execution of George Stanley, Lord Stanley's son. This does not happen, as the battle is in full swing, and Richard is left at a disadvantage. Richard is soon unhorsed on the field at the climax of the battle, and cries out, "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" Richmond kills Richard in the final duel. Subsequently, Richmond succeeds to the throne as Henry VII, and marries Princess Elizabeth from the House of York.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Fall",
    "author": "Albert Camus",
    "published_date": "1956",
    "synopsis": " The novel opens with Clamence sitting in the bar, Mexico City, casually talking to a stranger \u2014 the reader, some would say \u2014 about the proper way to order a drink; for here, despite the cosmopolitan nature of Amsterdam, the bartender refuses to respond to anything other than Dutch. Thus, Clamence serves as interpreter and he and the stranger, having discovered that they are fellow compatriots who, moreover, both hail from Paris, begin discussing more substantive matters. Clamence tells us that he used to lead an essentially perfect life in Paris as a highly successful and well-respected defence lawyer. The vast majority of his work centred around \"widow and orphan\" cases, that is, the poor and disenfranchised who otherwise would be unable to provide themselves with a proper defence before the law. He also relates anecdotes about how he always enjoyed giving friendly directions to strangers on the streets, yielding to others his seat on the bus, giving alms to the poor, and, above all, helping the blind to cross the street. In short, Clamence conceived of himself as living purely for the sake of others and \"achieving more than the vulgar ambitious man and rising to that supreme summit where virtue is its own reward\" (Camus 288). However, late one night when crossing the Pont Royal on his way home from his \"mistress,\" Clamence comes across a woman dressed in black leaning over the edge of the bridge. He hesitates for a moment, thinking the sight strange at such an hour and given the barrenness of the streets, but continues on his way nevertheless. He had only walked a short distance when he heard the distinct sound of a body hitting the water. Clamence stops walking, knowing exactly what has happened, but does nothing \u2014 in fact, he doesn't even turn around. The sound of screaming was Despite Clamence's view of himself as a selfless advocate for the weak and unfortunate, he simply ignores the incident and continues on his way. He later elaborates that his failure to do anything was most probably because doing so would have required him to put his own personal safety in jeopardy. Several years after the apparent suicide of the woman off the Pont Royal \u2014 and an evidently successful effort to purge the entire event from his memory \u2014 Clamence is on his way home one autumn evening after a particularly pleasing day of work. He pauses on the empty Pont des Arts and reflects: Clamence turns around to discover that the laughter, of course, was not directed at him, but probably originated from a far-off conversation between friends \u2014 such is the rational course of his thought. Nevertheless, he tells us that \"I could still hear it distinctly behind me, coming from nowhere unless from the water.\" The laughter is thus alarming because it immediately reminds him of his obvious failure to do anything whatsoever about the woman who had presumably drowned years before. The unlucky coincidence for Clamence here is that he is reminded of this precisely at the moment when he is congratulating himself for being such a selfless individual. Furthermore, the laughter is described as a \"good, hearty, almost friendly laugh,\" whereas, mere moments later, he describes himself as possessing a \"good, hearty badger\" (Camus 297). This implies that the laughter originated within himself, adding another dimension to the inner meaning of the scene. That evening on the Pont des Arts represents, for Clamence, the collision of his true self with his inflated self-image, and the final realization of his own hypocrisy becomes painfully obvious. A third and final incident initiates Clamence's downward spiral. One day while waiting at a stoplight, Clamence finds that he is trapped behind a motorcycle which has stalled ahead of him and is unable to proceed once the light changes to green as a result. Other cars behind him start honking their horns, and Clamence politely asks the man several times if he would please move his motorcycle off the road so that others can drive around him; however, with each repetition of the request, the motorcyclist becomes increasingly agitated and threatens Clamence with physical violence. Angry, Clamence exits his vehicle in order to confront the man when someone else intervenes and \"informed me that I was the scum of the earth and that he would not allow me to strike a man who had a motor-cycle between his legs and hence was at a disadvantage\" (Camus 303-4). Clamence turns to respond to his interlocutor when suddenly the motorcyclist punches him in the side of the head and then speeds off. Without retaliating against his interlocutor, Clamence, utterly humiliated, merely returns to his car and drives away. Later, he runs through his mind \"a hundred times\" what he thinks he should have done \u2014 namely strike his interlocutor, then chase after the motorcyclist and run him off the road. The feeling of resentment gnaws away at him, and Clamence explains that Clamence thus arrives at the conclusion that his whole life has in fact been lived in search of honour, recognition, and power over others. Having realized this, he can no longer live the way he once did. However, Clamence initially attempts to resist the sense that he has lived hypocritically and selfishly. He argues with himself over his prior acts of kindness, but quickly discovers that this is an argument he cannot win. He reflects, for example, that whenever he had helped a blind man across the street \u2014 something he especially enjoyed doing \u2014 he would doff his hat to the man. Since the blind man obviously cannot see this acknowledgement, Clamence asks, \"To whom was it addressed? To the public. After playing my part, I would take my bow\" (Camus 301). As a result, he comes to see himself as duplicitous and hypocritical. The realization that his whole life has been lived in hypocrisy and denial precipitates an emotional and intellectual crisis for Clamence which, moreover, he is unable to avoid having now discovered it; the sound of laughter that first struck him on the Pont des Arts slowly begins to permeate his entire existence. In fact, Clamence even begins laughing at himself as he defends matters of justice and fairness in court. Unable to ignore it, Clamence attempts to silence the laughter by throwing off his hypocrisy and ruining the reputation he acquired therefrom. Clamence thus proceeds to \"destroy that flattering reputation\" (Camus 326) primarily by making public comments that he knows will be received as objectionable: telling beggars that they are \"embarrassing people,\" declaring his regret at not being able to hold serfs and beat them at his whim, and announcing the publication of a \"manifesto exposing the oppression that the oppressed inflict on decent people.\" In fact, Clamence even goes so far as to consider However, to Clamence's frustration and dismay, his efforts in this regard are ineffective, generally because many of the people around him refuse to take him seriously; they find it inconceivable that a man of his reputation could ever say such things and not be joking. Clamence eventually realizes that his attempts at self-derision can only fail, and the laughter continues to gnaw at him. This is because his actions are just as dishonest: \"In order to forestall the laughter, I dreamed of hurling myself into the general derision. In fact, it was still a question of dodging judgment. I wanted to put the laughers on my side, or at least to put myself on their side\" (Camus 325). Ultimately, Clamence responds to his emotional-intellectual crisis by withdrawing from the world on precisely those terms. He closes his law practice, avoids his former colleagues in particular and people in general, and throws himself completely into uncompromising debauchery; while humankind may be grossly hypocritical in the areas from which he has withdrawn, \"no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures\" (Camus 311 - a quotation from Samuel Johnson). The last of Clamence's monologues takes place in his apartment in the (former) Jewish Quarter, and recounts more specifically the events which shaped his current outlook; in this regard his experiences during the Second World War are crucial. With the outbreak of war and the fall of France, Clamence considers joining the French Resistance, but decides that doing so would ultimately be futile. He explains, Instead, Clamence decides to flee Paris for London, and takes an indirect route there, moving through North Africa; however, he meets a friend while in Africa and decides to stay and find work, eventually settling in Tunis. But after the Allies land in Africa, Clamence is arrested by the Germans and thrown into a concentration camp \u2014 \"chiefly [as] a security measure,\" he assures himself (Camus 343). While interned, Clamence meets a comrade, introduced to the reader only as \"Du Guesclin\", who had fought in the Spanish Civil War, was captured by \"the Catholic general\", and now found himself in the hands of the Germans in Africa. These experiences subsequently caused the man to lose his faith in the Catholic Church (and perhaps in God as well); as a form of protest Duguesclin announces the need for a new Pope \u2014 one who will \"agree to keep alive, in himself and in others, the community of our sufferings\" \u2014 to be chosen from among the prisoners in the camp. As the man with \"the most failings,\" Clamence jokingly volunteers himself, but finds that the other prisoners agree with his appointment. As a result of being selected to lead a group of prisoners as \"Pope,\" Clamence is afforded certain powers over them, such as how to distribute food and water and deciding who will do what kind of work. \"Let's just say that I closed the circle,\" he confesses, \"the day I drank the water of a dying comrade. No, no, it wasn't Duguesclin; he was already dead, I believe, for he stinted himself too much\" (Camus 343-4). Clamence then relates the story of how a famous fifteenth-century painting, a panel from the Ghent Altarpiece known as The Just Judges, came into his possession. One evening a regular patron of Mexico City entered the bar with the priceless painting and sold it for a bottle of jenever to the bartender who, for a time, displayed the piece prominently on the wall of his bar. (Both the man who sold the painting and the now-vacant place on the wall where it hung are cryptically pointed out at the beginning of the novel.) However, Clamence eventually informs the bartender that the painting is in fact stolen, that police from several countries are searching for it, and offers to keep it for him; the bartender immediately agrees to the proposal. Clamence attempts to justify his possession of the stolen painting in a number of ways, primarily \"because those judges are on their way to meet the Lamb, because there is no lamb or innocence any longer, and because the clever rascal who stole the panel was an instrument of the unknown justice that one ought not to thwart\" (Camus 346). The full story of the Ghent Altarpiece and the \"Just Judges\" panel, along with its role in Camus' novel, is told in Noah Charney's 2010 book, Stealing the Mystic Lamb: the True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece. Finally, Clamence employs the imagery of the Ghent Altarpiece and The Just Judges to explain his self-identification as a \"judge-penitent\". This essentially espouses a doctrine of relinquished freedom as a method of enduring the suffering imposed on us by virtue of living in a world without objective truth and one that is therefore ultimately meaningless. With the death of God, one must also accept by extension the idea of universal guilt and the impossibility of innocence. Clamence's argument posits, somewhat paradoxically, that freedom from suffering is attained only through submission to something greater than oneself. Clamence, through his confession, sits in permanent judgment of himself and others, spending his time persuading those around him of their own unconditional guilt. The novel ends on a sinister note: \"Pronounce to yourself the words that years later haven't ceased to resound through my nights, and which I will speak at last through your mouth: \"O young girl, throw yourself again into the water so that I might have a second time the chance to save the two of us!\" A second time, eh, what imprudence! Suppose, dear sir, someone actually took our word for it? It would have to be fulfilled. Brr...! the water is so cold! But let's reassure ourselves. It's too late now, it will always be too late. Fortunately!\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel opens with Clamence sitting in the bar, Mexico City, casually talking to a stranger \u2014 the reader, some would say \u2014 about the proper way to order a drink; for here, despite the cosmopolitan nature of Amsterdam, the bartender refuses to respond to anything other than Dutch. Thus, Clamence serves as interpreter and he and the stranger, having discovered that they are fellow compatriots who, moreover, both hail from Paris, begin discussing more substantive matters. Clamence tells us that he used to lead an essentially perfect life in Paris as a highly successful and well-respected defence lawyer. The vast majority of his work centred around \"widow and orphan\" cases, that is, the poor and disenfranchised who otherwise would be unable to provide themselves with a proper defence before the law. He also relates anecdotes about how he always enjoyed giving friendly directions to strangers on the streets, yielding to others his seat on the bus, giving alms to the poor, and, above all, helping the blind to cross the street. In short, Clamence conceived of himself as living purely for the sake of others and \"achieving more than the vulgar ambitious man and rising to that supreme summit where virtue is its own reward\" (Camus 288). However, late one night when crossing the Pont Royal on his way home from his \"mistress,\" Clamence comes across a woman dressed in black leaning over the edge of the bridge. He hesitates for a moment, thinking the sight strange at such an hour and given the barrenness of the streets, but continues on his way nevertheless. He had only walked a short distance when he heard the distinct sound of a body hitting the water. Clamence stops walking, knowing exactly what has happened, but does nothing \u2014 in fact, he doesn't even turn around. The sound of screaming was Despite Clamence's view of himself as a selfless advocate for the weak and unfortunate, he simply ignores the incident"
      },
      {
        "text": ", thinking the sight strange at such an hour and given the barrenness of the streets, but continues on his way nevertheless. He had only walked a short distance when he heard the distinct sound of a body hitting the water. Clamence stops walking, knowing exactly what has happened, but does nothing \u2014 in fact, he doesn't even turn around. The sound of screaming was Despite Clamence's view of himself as a selfless advocate for the weak and unfortunate, he simply ignores the incident and continues on his way. He later elaborates that his failure to do anything was most probably because doing so would have required him to put his own personal safety in jeopardy. Several years after the apparent suicide of the woman off the Pont Royal \u2014 and an evidently successful effort to purge the entire event from his memory \u2014 Clamence is on his way home one autumn evening after a particularly pleasing day of work. He pauses on the empty Pont des Arts and reflects: Clamence turns around to discover that the laughter, of course, was not directed at him, but probably originated from a far-off conversation between friends \u2014 such is the rational course of his thought. Nevertheless, he tells us that \"I could still hear it distinctly behind me, coming from nowhere unless from the water.\" The laughter is thus alarming because it immediately reminds him of his obvious failure to do anything whatsoever about the woman who had presumably drowned years before. The unlucky coincidence for Clamence here is that he is reminded of this precisely at the moment when he is congratulating himself for being such a selfless individual. Furthermore, the laughter is described as a \"good, hearty, almost friendly laugh,\" whereas, mere moments later, he describes himself as possessing a \"good, hearty badger\" (Camus 297). This implies that the laughter originated within himself, adding another dimension to the inner meaning of the scene. That evening on the Pont des Arts represents, for Clamence, the collision of his true self"
      },
      {
        "text": " this precisely at the moment when he is congratulating himself for being such a selfless individual. Furthermore, the laughter is described as a \"good, hearty, almost friendly laugh,\" whereas, mere moments later, he describes himself as possessing a \"good, hearty badger\" (Camus 297). This implies that the laughter originated within himself, adding another dimension to the inner meaning of the scene. That evening on the Pont des Arts represents, for Clamence, the collision of his true self with his inflated self-image, and the final realization of his own hypocrisy becomes painfully obvious. A third and final incident initiates Clamence's downward spiral. One day while waiting at a stoplight, Clamence finds that he is trapped behind a motorcycle which has stalled ahead of him and is unable to proceed once the light changes to green as a result. Other cars behind him start honking their horns, and Clamence politely asks the man several times if he would please move his motorcycle off the road so that others can drive around him; however, with each repetition of the request, the motorcyclist becomes increasingly agitated and threatens Clamence with physical violence. Angry, Clamence exits his vehicle in order to confront the man when someone else intervenes and \"informed me that I was the scum of the earth and that he would not allow me to strike a man who had a motor-cycle between his legs and hence was at a disadvantage\" (Camus 303-4). Clamence turns to respond to his interlocutor when suddenly the motorcyclist punches him in the side of the head and then speeds off. Without retaliating against his interlocutor, Clamence, utterly humiliated, merely returns to his car and drives away. Later, he runs through his mind \"a hundred times\" what he thinks he should have done \u2014 namely strike his interlocutor, then chase after the motorcyclist and run him off the road. The"
      },
      {
        "text": "-4). Clamence turns to respond to his interlocutor when suddenly the motorcyclist punches him in the side of the head and then speeds off. Without retaliating against his interlocutor, Clamence, utterly humiliated, merely returns to his car and drives away. Later, he runs through his mind \"a hundred times\" what he thinks he should have done \u2014 namely strike his interlocutor, then chase after the motorcyclist and run him off the road. The feeling of resentment gnaws away at him, and Clamence explains that Clamence thus arrives at the conclusion that his whole life has in fact been lived in search of honour, recognition, and power over others. Having realized this, he can no longer live the way he once did. However, Clamence initially attempts to resist the sense that he has lived hypocritically and selfishly. He argues with himself over his prior acts of kindness, but quickly discovers that this is an argument he cannot win. He reflects, for example, that whenever he had helped a blind man across the street \u2014 something he especially enjoyed doing \u2014 he would doff his hat to the man. Since the blind man obviously cannot see this acknowledgement, Clamence asks, \"To whom was it addressed? To the public. After playing my part, I would take my bow\" (Camus 301). As a result, he comes to see himself as duplicitous and hypocritical. The realization that his whole life has been lived in hypocrisy and denial precipitates an emotional and intellectual crisis for Clamence which, moreover, he is unable to avoid having now discovered it; the sound of laughter that first struck him on the Pont des Arts slowly begins to permeate his entire existence. In fact, Clamence even begins laughing at himself as he defends matters of justice and fairness in court. Unable to ignore it, Clamence attempts to silence the laughter by throwing off his hypocrisy and ruining the reputation"
      },
      {
        "text": " whole life has been lived in hypocrisy and denial precipitates an emotional and intellectual crisis for Clamence which, moreover, he is unable to avoid having now discovered it; the sound of laughter that first struck him on the Pont des Arts slowly begins to permeate his entire existence. In fact, Clamence even begins laughing at himself as he defends matters of justice and fairness in court. Unable to ignore it, Clamence attempts to silence the laughter by throwing off his hypocrisy and ruining the reputation he acquired therefrom. Clamence thus proceeds to \"destroy that flattering reputation\" (Camus 326) primarily by making public comments that he knows will be received as objectionable: telling beggars that they are \"embarrassing people,\" declaring his regret at not being able to hold serfs and beat them at his whim, and announcing the publication of a \"manifesto exposing the oppression that the oppressed inflict on decent people.\" In fact, Clamence even goes so far as to consider However, to Clamence's frustration and dismay, his efforts in this regard are ineffective, generally because many of the people around him refuse to take him seriously; they find it inconceivable that a man of his reputation could ever say such things and not be joking. Clamence eventually realizes that his attempts at self-derision can only fail, and the laughter continues to gnaw at him. This is because his actions are just as dishonest: \"In order to forestall the laughter, I dreamed of hurling myself into the general derision. In fact, it was still a question of dodging judgment. I wanted to put the laughers on my side, or at least to put myself on their side\" (Camus 325). Ultimately, Clamence responds to his emotional-intellectual crisis by withdrawing from the world on precisely those terms. He closes his law practice, avoids his former colleagues in particular and people in general, and throws himself completely into uncompromising debau"
      },
      {
        "text": " I dreamed of hurling myself into the general derision. In fact, it was still a question of dodging judgment. I wanted to put the laughers on my side, or at least to put myself on their side\" (Camus 325). Ultimately, Clamence responds to his emotional-intellectual crisis by withdrawing from the world on precisely those terms. He closes his law practice, avoids his former colleagues in particular and people in general, and throws himself completely into uncompromising debauchery; while humankind may be grossly hypocritical in the areas from which he has withdrawn, \"no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures\" (Camus 311 - a quotation from Samuel Johnson). The last of Clamence's monologues takes place in his apartment in the (former) Jewish Quarter, and recounts more specifically the events which shaped his current outlook; in this regard his experiences during the Second World War are crucial. With the outbreak of war and the fall of France, Clamence considers joining the French Resistance, but decides that doing so would ultimately be futile. He explains, Instead, Clamence decides to flee Paris for London, and takes an indirect route there, moving through North Africa; however, he meets a friend while in Africa and decides to stay and find work, eventually settling in Tunis. But after the Allies land in Africa, Clamence is arrested by the Germans and thrown into a concentration camp \u2014 \"chiefly [as] a security measure,\" he assures himself (Camus 343). While interned, Clamence meets a comrade, introduced to the reader only as \"Du Guesclin\", who had fought in the Spanish Civil War, was captured by \"the Catholic general\", and now found himself in the hands of the Germans in Africa. These experiences subsequently caused the man to lose his faith in the Catholic Church (and perhaps in God as well); as a form of protest Duguesclin announces the need for a new Pope \u2014"
      },
      {
        "text": " assures himself (Camus 343). While interned, Clamence meets a comrade, introduced to the reader only as \"Du Guesclin\", who had fought in the Spanish Civil War, was captured by \"the Catholic general\", and now found himself in the hands of the Germans in Africa. These experiences subsequently caused the man to lose his faith in the Catholic Church (and perhaps in God as well); as a form of protest Duguesclin announces the need for a new Pope \u2014 one who will \"agree to keep alive, in himself and in others, the community of our sufferings\" \u2014 to be chosen from among the prisoners in the camp. As the man with \"the most failings,\" Clamence jokingly volunteers himself, but finds that the other prisoners agree with his appointment. As a result of being selected to lead a group of prisoners as \"Pope,\" Clamence is afforded certain powers over them, such as how to distribute food and water and deciding who will do what kind of work. \"Let's just say that I closed the circle,\" he confesses, \"the day I drank the water of a dying comrade. No, no, it wasn't Duguesclin; he was already dead, I believe, for he stinted himself too much\" (Camus 343-4). Clamence then relates the story of how a famous fifteenth-century painting, a panel from the Ghent Altarpiece known as The Just Judges, came into his possession. One evening a regular patron of Mexico City entered the bar with the priceless painting and sold it for a bottle of jenever to the bartender who, for a time, displayed the piece prominently on the wall of his bar. (Both the man who sold the painting and the now-vacant place on the wall where it hung are cryptically pointed out at the beginning of the novel.) However, Clamence eventually informs the bartender that the painting is in fact stolen"
      },
      {
        "text": " came into his possession. One evening a regular patron of Mexico City entered the bar with the priceless painting and sold it for a bottle of jenever to the bartender who, for a time, displayed the piece prominently on the wall of his bar. (Both the man who sold the painting and the now-vacant place on the wall where it hung are cryptically pointed out at the beginning of the novel.) However, Clamence eventually informs the bartender that the painting is in fact stolen, that police from several countries are searching for it, and offers to keep it for him; the bartender immediately agrees to the proposal. Clamence attempts to justify his possession of the stolen painting in a number of ways, primarily \"because those judges are on their way to meet the Lamb, because there is no lamb or innocence any longer, and because the clever rascal who stole the panel was an instrument of the unknown justice that one ought not to thwart\" (Camus 346). The full story of the Ghent Altarpiece and the \"Just Judges\" panel, along with its role in Camus' novel, is told in Noah Charney's 2010 book, Stealing the Mystic Lamb: the True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece. Finally, Clamence employs the imagery of the Ghent Altarpiece and The Just Judges to explain his self-identification as a \"judge-penitent\". This essentially espouses a doctrine of relinquished freedom as a method of enduring the suffering imposed on us by virtue of living in a world without objective truth and one that is therefore ultimately meaningless. With the death of God, one must also accept by extension the idea of universal guilt and the impossibility of innocence. Clamence's argument posits, somewhat paradoxically, that freedom from suffering is attained only through submission to something greater than oneself. Clamence, through his confession, sits in permanent judgment of himself and others, spending his time persuading"
      },
      {
        "text": " as a method of enduring the suffering imposed on us by virtue of living in a world without objective truth and one that is therefore ultimately meaningless. With the death of God, one must also accept by extension the idea of universal guilt and the impossibility of innocence. Clamence's argument posits, somewhat paradoxically, that freedom from suffering is attained only through submission to something greater than oneself. Clamence, through his confession, sits in permanent judgment of himself and others, spending his time persuading those around him of their own unconditional guilt. The novel ends on a sinister note: \"Pronounce to yourself the words that years later haven't ceased to resound through my nights, and which I will speak at last through your mouth: \"O young girl, throw yourself again into the water so that I might have a second time the chance to save the two of us!\" A second time, eh, what imprudence! Suppose, dear sir, someone actually took our word for it? It would have to be fulfilled. Brr...! the water is so cold! But let's reassure ourselves. It's too late now, it will always be too late. Fortunately!\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Golden Hour",
    "author": "Maiya Williams",
    "published_date": "2004",
    "synopsis": " The Golden Hour tells the story of Rowan and Nina's adventures the summer after their mother's death. Thirteen-year-old Rowan's life is at an all-time low: his father has turned to drinking, the family business is becoming a financial disaster, they have had to move from their house to a small apartment, and his musically talented ten-year-old sister Nina has become withdrawn. When his two great aunts invite Rowan and Nina to spend the summer with them in Owatannauk, Maine, a small (fictional) town on the tip of the state, Rowan anticipates a very boring summer with the two elderly women. But when he arrives he finds strange things starting to happen: the aunts run a curio shop stocking some items so curious they even compel Nina to start speaking again. Rowan and Nina meet two twins, Xanthe and Xavier Alexander, who tell them about an old abandoned resort that appears to be haunted. Instead, the resort turns out to be an elaborate time machine. Nina seems interested in using the machine to escape her troubled life, especially when Rowan tells her about the Enlightenment, a period of European history when superstition and church dogma began giving way to logic and reason, art and science made tremendous strides, and truth and beauty were celebrated. When Nina disappears the next morning, the older kids rush to the resort: as they suspect, she has used the time machine. But Rowan discovers that he has told his sister the wrong dates for the Enlightenment, and instead of directing her to Enlightenment France he has sent her into the middle of the violent French Revolution. Rowan, Xanthe and Xavier time-travel to the French Revolution to save Nina, meeting various historical characters along the way, and Nina ends up in New York at their bakery visiting their mom.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Golden Hour tells the story of Rowan and Nina's adventures the summer after their mother's death. Thirteen-year-old Rowan's life is at an all-time low: his father has turned to drinking, the family business is becoming a financial disaster, they have had to move from their house to a small apartment, and his musically talented ten-year-old sister Nina has become withdrawn. When his two great aunts invite Rowan and Nina to spend the summer with them in Owatannauk, Maine, a small (fictional) town on the tip of the state, Rowan anticipates a very boring summer with the two elderly women. But when he arrives he finds strange things starting to happen: the aunts run a curio shop stocking some items so curious they even compel Nina to start speaking again. Rowan and Nina meet two twins, Xanthe and Xavier Alexander, who tell them about an old abandoned resort that appears to be haunted. Instead, the resort turns out to be an elaborate time machine. Nina seems interested in using the machine to escape her troubled life, especially when Rowan tells her about the Enlightenment, a period of European history when superstition and church dogma began giving way to logic and reason, art and science made tremendous strides, and truth and beauty were celebrated. When Nina disappears the next morning, the older kids rush to the resort: as they suspect, she has used the time machine. But Rowan discovers that he has told his sister the wrong dates for the Enlightenment, and instead of directing her to Enlightenment France he has sent her into the middle of the violent French Revolution. Rowan, Xanthe and Xavier time-travel to the French Revolution to save Nina, meeting various historical characters along the way, and Nina ends up in New York at their bakery visiting their mom.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " that he has told his sister the wrong dates for the Enlightenment, and instead of directing her to Enlightenment France he has sent her into the middle of the violent French Revolution. Rowan, Xanthe and Xavier time-travel to the French Revolution to save Nina, meeting various historical characters along the way, and Nina ends up in New York at their bakery visiting their mom.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Man Who Fell to Earth",
    "author": "Walter Tevis",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Thomas Jerome Newton is a humanoid alien who comes to Earth seeking to construct a spaceship to ferry others from his home planet, Anthea, to Earth. Anthea is experiencing a terrible drought after many nuclear wars, and the population has dwindled to less than 300. They have hundreds of superior starships, but for not being used for over 500 years, they are unusable because of little to no fuel. They have no water, loads of food that is slowly dwindling, and feeble solar power. Like all Antheans, he is super-intelligent, but he has been selected to complete this mission for his strength, due to the harsh climate and gravity of Earth compared to the cold, small Anthea. Getting to Earth via a lifeboat, Newton first lands in the state of Kentucky but quickly becomes familiarized with the environment and aspires to become an entrepreneur. Newton uses advanced technology from his home planet to patent many inventions on Earth, and rises as the head of a technology-based conglomerate to incredible wealth. This wealth is needed to construct his own space vehicle program in order to ferry the rest of the Anthean population. Along the way he meets Betty Jo, a simple Kentucky woman. She falls in love with him. He does not share these feelings, but takes her, and his curious fuel-technician Nathan Bryce, as his few friends while he runs his company in the shadows. Betty Jo introduces Newton to many customs of Earth culture, amongst them church-going, fashion, and alcohol. However, his appetite for alcohol soon invokes much emotional instability, as he is forced to deal with intense human emotions with which Antheans are unfamiliar. His secret identity as an alien is discovered by Nathan Bryce, but Newton, aware that he has been discovered, is relieved to reveal his identity to someone for the first time. The Antheans he will ferry to Earth will flourish and hopefully make use of their superintelligence to influence Earth to peace, prosperity, and safety from the apocalypse. However, the CIA arrests Newton, having followed him since his appearance on Earth and having recorded this private conversation with Bryce. They submit him to rigorous tests and analysis, but ultimately find that, despite much conclusive evidence of his alien identity, it would be pointless to release the results because the public would not believe the truth. Such claims would also reflect poorly on the Democratic Party, responsible for the capture. The CIA releases Newton, but no sooner than he tries to exit his building, the FBI, uninformed by the CIA that Newton is exempt from further tests, commences their own brief examinations. Their final examination is ultimately an X-ray of Newton's skull, through his eyes. Newton, whose eyes are sensitive to X-rays, tries to stop them to no avail and is blinded. The story of Newton's blinding reaches the press in a frenzy and then is used by the Republican Party to depict the Democrats as being corrupt, and leads to their seizure of power, which is to inevitably lead to apocalypse. Newton, in a final confrontation with Bryce, is bitterly unable to continue his spaceship project due to planetary alignments having changed during captivity and the troubles of his blindness. He creates a recording of alien messages which he hopes to be broadcast via radio to his home.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Thomas Jerome Newton is a humanoid alien who comes to Earth seeking to construct a spaceship to ferry others from his home planet, Anthea, to Earth. Anthea is experiencing a terrible drought after many nuclear wars, and the population has dwindled to less than 300. They have hundreds of superior starships, but for not being used for over 500 years, they are unusable because of little to no fuel. They have no water, loads of food that is slowly dwindling, and feeble solar power. Like all Antheans, he is super-intelligent, but he has been selected to complete this mission for his strength, due to the harsh climate and gravity of Earth compared to the cold, small Anthea. Getting to Earth via a lifeboat, Newton first lands in the state of Kentucky but quickly becomes familiarized with the environment and aspires to become an entrepreneur. Newton uses advanced technology from his home planet to patent many inventions on Earth, and rises as the head of a technology-based conglomerate to incredible wealth. This wealth is needed to construct his own space vehicle program in order to ferry the rest of the Anthean population. Along the way he meets Betty Jo, a simple Kentucky woman. She falls in love with him. He does not share these feelings, but takes her, and his curious fuel-technician Nathan Bryce, as his few friends while he runs his company in the shadows. Betty Jo introduces Newton to many customs of Earth culture, amongst them church-going, fashion, and alcohol. However, his appetite for alcohol soon invokes much emotional instability, as he is forced to deal with intense human emotions with which Antheans are unfamiliar. His secret identity as an alien is discovered by Nathan Bryce, but Newton, aware that he has been discovered, is relieved to reveal his identity to someone for the first time. The Antheans he will ferry to Earth will flourish and hopefully make use of their superintelligence to influence Earth to peace, prosperity, and"
      },
      {
        "text": ", fashion, and alcohol. However, his appetite for alcohol soon invokes much emotional instability, as he is forced to deal with intense human emotions with which Antheans are unfamiliar. His secret identity as an alien is discovered by Nathan Bryce, but Newton, aware that he has been discovered, is relieved to reveal his identity to someone for the first time. The Antheans he will ferry to Earth will flourish and hopefully make use of their superintelligence to influence Earth to peace, prosperity, and safety from the apocalypse. However, the CIA arrests Newton, having followed him since his appearance on Earth and having recorded this private conversation with Bryce. They submit him to rigorous tests and analysis, but ultimately find that, despite much conclusive evidence of his alien identity, it would be pointless to release the results because the public would not believe the truth. Such claims would also reflect poorly on the Democratic Party, responsible for the capture. The CIA releases Newton, but no sooner than he tries to exit his building, the FBI, uninformed by the CIA that Newton is exempt from further tests, commences their own brief examinations. Their final examination is ultimately an X-ray of Newton's skull, through his eyes. Newton, whose eyes are sensitive to X-rays, tries to stop them to no avail and is blinded. The story of Newton's blinding reaches the press in a frenzy and then is used by the Republican Party to depict the Democrats as being corrupt, and leads to their seizure of power, which is to inevitably lead to apocalypse. Newton, in a final confrontation with Bryce, is bitterly unable to continue his spaceship project due to planetary alignments having changed during captivity and the troubles of his blindness. He creates a recording of alien messages which he hopes to be broadcast via radio to his home.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " which is to inevitably lead to apocalypse. Newton, in a final confrontation with Bryce, is bitterly unable to continue his spaceship project due to planetary alignments having changed during captivity and the troubles of his blindness. He creates a recording of alien messages which he hopes to be broadcast via radio to his home.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Quiet Earth",
    "author": "Craig Harrison",
    "published_date": "1981",
    "synopsis": " John Hobson, a geneticist involved in a project concerned with manipulating DNA, awakes in his hotel room in Thames, New Zealand after a nightmare of falling from a great height. His wristwatch has stopped at 6:12. Upon getting up he finds the electricity off. It is quiet outside, with nobody in sight. Hobson checks the time in his car, finding the vehicle's clock is also frozen at 6:12. The town's shops are locked and unattended, with no sign of people. Investigating a car sitting at an intersection, Hobson sees that the driver's seatbelt is still fastened. Telephones are dead and there is only static on the radio. All humans and animals have disappeared. No watch or clock shows anything other than 6.12. Hobson concludes that some force has altered the clocks to show the same time and then stopped them, suggesting an intelligence behind the event, which Hobson dubs 'the Effect'. A garden yields the first sign of life Hobson has found \u2013 a worm dug up from the soil. The garden is otherwise devoid of fauna. Hobson wonders if he has gone mad, but dismisses the idea. During the night, Hobson hears sounds from outside approaching. Hobson wills the entity to leave, and the sounds retreat. Uncertainty as to whether the presence was there, or whether it may have been a stray animal spared from the Effect competes in his mind with speculations that the intruder could be a manifestation of the Effect. Hobson reassures himself that he can keep the entity at bay with mental effort. The next morning Hobson procures weapons and supplies, and leaves for Auckland, finding the city deserted. Hobson seems to be the only human being remaining. He wonders what rendered him immune to the Effect. Hobson hurries to an apparent smoke signal coming from the North Shore, only to find suburban homes destroyed by the impact of a jetliner. The plane was empty when it crashed. Hobson travels to the research unit, where he worked to reactivate dormant genes in humans and animals using high-frequency sound waves and radiation. The unit's head, Perrin, believed that awakening the dormant genes would lead to a quantum leap in evolution. Hobson finds Perrin in a radiation chamber, dead at the controls of the sound wave machine. The machine appears to have short-circuited, but there is no evidence indicating how Perrin died. Hobson decides he perished before the Effect \u2013 as dead animal tissue did not vanish. Hobson retrieves Perrin's papers, then begins journeying to Wellington, hoping to find survivors or clues as to what happened. En route to Rotorua, Hobson sees a creature in his headlights. The monster is some kind of hybrid of dog and calf. Hobson drives off terror-stricken, unsure as to whether the apparition was really there. At Rotorua, Hobson almost commits suicide, realising everyone else is dead. Hobson comes across live fish in a stream, leading him to conclude that the Effect did not penetrate water. He is startled when an electronic howling noise booms out across Lake Taupo from the far side. Hobson reaches an area of bushland near Turangi, his path blocked by a truck. Back-tracking, he finds the alternate route also cut off. Trying to work around the stalled vehicle, he is confronted by another survivor with a rifle. The gunman is Apirana Maketu, a M\u0101ori and a lance-corporal in the New Zealand Army. \"Api\" woke up at his barracks in Waiouru to find the base deserted. He remained at his post for two days before setting out to find survivors. A search of Gisborne and the East Coast yielded nothing, and a visit to the power station at Tokaanu led him to believe the electrical grid was knocked out by a massive surge. Api heard the same sound that Hobson heard \u2013 albeit earlier in the day and coming from the side of the lake that Hobson was standing on. Believing it to be a car, Api laid the roadblock to catch anyone coming south. Api reveals his belief that something hostile is abroad in the land. It is present only in certain places, and is stronger at night. The soldier is both relieved and worried to find that Hobson has experienced the same dread. The two men seem to already know one other, sharing a flash of recognition upon first meeting. Neither can account for this, as they have never encountered each other before. They arrive at the nation's capital to find it devoid of life. Api and Hobson set up dwellings in a hotel and hunt for survivors. Hobson plans to run tests to see if he can determine the nature of the Effect and the reason why he and Api survived. Api assists Hobson with procuring equipment for the scientist's studies. A radio transceiver is set up, and the duo transmit words and Morse code across the world. They receive no response. Hobson's investigations reveal no reason for their exemption from the Effect. The men face the prospect that they are alone. Api goes skin-diving for shellfish \u2013 he pretends to drown as a joke, and Hobson reacts unconsciously by holding the other man's head underwater. There is a moment of hostility when Api breaks free, resolved when Hobson explains that his son, who was autistic, drowned in a bathtub, and Hobson felt Api was making fun of this. The death of the child led to the end of Hobson's marriage. Both men realize that Hobson is not in complete control of his actions. Visiting the Beehive, Api speculates that they could be lab rats on some kind of duplicate Earth; it is they who disappeared. Hobson puts no stock in this theory. Three weeks after the Effect, Hobson is left alone while Api goes to get a new car. Hobson goes into Api's bedroom and finds photographs of Api as a private during the Vietnam War, posing with the mutilated corpses of Viet Cong. Hobson believes that Api is a psychopath. Hobson feels helpless to prevent his relationship with Api from deteriorating further and plans to kill Api with sleeping pills. After searching for a boat to take them to the South Island, during which both men experience an attack of dread from the 'force' hounding them, Api takes Hobson for a joyride in his Lotus Elite. A woman runs into the car's path. She is taken to the hotel and made comfortable, but neither Api nor Hobson are medically trained. Unless she is less badly hurt than she seems, she will die. The men bicker pointlessly. The woman's condition worsens, and there is nothing her fellow survivors can do for her. Hobson senses the unseen force again, emanating from the empty city. He speculates that the force may have always been a part of the land, and is claiming the Earth. Api studies the Bible, and later wakes Hobson to tell him that he has solved the clock enigma. 6.12 relates to the Number of the Beast, 666 (6-12 = 6 and 6 plus 6) and to Revelation 6:12, with the Biblical chapter's talk of men hiding from the face of God. Hobson does not believe this, and holds a hidden gun on the deranged soldier. The woman dies, sending Api into hysterics. After another argument, a full-scale battle with guns and grenades ensues. Hobson kills Api, with the soldier seeming to give up. The scientist is now alone. Breaking open Perrin's box, Hobson realizes his colleagues considered him unbalanced and kept him under surveillance. Perrin believed that Hobson's DNA was altered due to radiation, which caused his child's autism. Hobson believes the Effect was his doing. The project he worked on caused the unraveling of animal DNA; only those with the dormant gene pair were spared. Flashbacks detail Hobson's last days at the research unit. Perrin seizes upon an accident with the sound wave/radiation machine in which Hobson set the sound modulator too high and was blasted out of his chair by an invisible energy wave. Perrin charges Hobson with negligence, as the sample slides for insects and animals in the machine are blank, while the ones for plants are normal. This event cements for Hobson his long-growing misgivings about the experiments, and what he believes are Perrin's motives for pursuing them. In a later flashback, Hobson relates how he sabotaged the sound wave machine before going on leave to output a much higher level of infrasound than the controls would register. The idea was to put the machine out of action temporarily, ruining Perrin's chance to use Hobson's theories. Hobson took what he believed to be a fatal dose of sleeping pills on the night before the Effect. As he reads Perrin's notes, Hobson realises that this sabotage almost certainly caused the Effect. His act always had a different purpose- to kill Perrin. Believing his boss insane and consumed with a desire to play God, Hobson subconsciously altered his own memory to hide this fact from himself. This ability to edit his own recollections, and to take refuge in a kind of mental 'super-reality', is purely automatic. Hobson finally accepts the guilt for letting his son drown. Allowing his child to die was his way of destroying himself, a kind of external suicide. The child's autism mirrored his father's own emptiness. Perhaps Hobson caused the Effect, or is dreaming all this in a barbiturate coma, or is in Hell or Purgatory. Perhaps the rest of humanity evolved, or is unchanged and wondering where Hobson and a handful of others have gone to. With the death of the entire race on his hands, Hobson jumps from the hotel. He gathers speed, then wakes up in his motel room in Thames. Recovering from the nightmare of falling, all he can remember of the dream he was ripped from, he notices that his wrist watch has stopped at 6:12.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " John Hobson, a geneticist involved in a project concerned with manipulating DNA, awakes in his hotel room in Thames, New Zealand after a nightmare of falling from a great height. His wristwatch has stopped at 6:12. Upon getting up he finds the electricity off. It is quiet outside, with nobody in sight. Hobson checks the time in his car, finding the vehicle's clock is also frozen at 6:12. The town's shops are locked and unattended, with no sign of people. Investigating a car sitting at an intersection, Hobson sees that the driver's seatbelt is still fastened. Telephones are dead and there is only static on the radio. All humans and animals have disappeared. No watch or clock shows anything other than 6.12. Hobson concludes that some force has altered the clocks to show the same time and then stopped them, suggesting an intelligence behind the event, which Hobson dubs 'the Effect'. A garden yields the first sign of life Hobson has found \u2013 a worm dug up from the soil. The garden is otherwise devoid of fauna. Hobson wonders if he has gone mad, but dismisses the idea. During the night, Hobson hears sounds from outside approaching. Hobson wills the entity to leave, and the sounds retreat. Uncertainty as to whether the presence was there, or whether it may have been a stray animal spared from the Effect competes in his mind with speculations that the intruder could be a manifestation of the Effect. Hobson reassures himself that he can keep the entity at bay with mental effort. The next morning Hobson procures weapons and supplies, and leaves for Auckland, finding the city deserted. Hobson seems to be the only human being remaining. He wonders what rendered him immune to the Effect. Hobson hurries to an apparent smoke signal coming from the North Shore, only to find suburban homes destroyed by the impact of a jetliner. The plane was empty"
      },
      {
        "text": " could be a manifestation of the Effect. Hobson reassures himself that he can keep the entity at bay with mental effort. The next morning Hobson procures weapons and supplies, and leaves for Auckland, finding the city deserted. Hobson seems to be the only human being remaining. He wonders what rendered him immune to the Effect. Hobson hurries to an apparent smoke signal coming from the North Shore, only to find suburban homes destroyed by the impact of a jetliner. The plane was empty when it crashed. Hobson travels to the research unit, where he worked to reactivate dormant genes in humans and animals using high-frequency sound waves and radiation. The unit's head, Perrin, believed that awakening the dormant genes would lead to a quantum leap in evolution. Hobson finds Perrin in a radiation chamber, dead at the controls of the sound wave machine. The machine appears to have short-circuited, but there is no evidence indicating how Perrin died. Hobson decides he perished before the Effect \u2013 as dead animal tissue did not vanish. Hobson retrieves Perrin's papers, then begins journeying to Wellington, hoping to find survivors or clues as to what happened. En route to Rotorua, Hobson sees a creature in his headlights. The monster is some kind of hybrid of dog and calf. Hobson drives off terror-stricken, unsure as to whether the apparition was really there. At Rotorua, Hobson almost commits suicide, realising everyone else is dead. Hobson comes across live fish in a stream, leading him to conclude that the Effect did not penetrate water. He is startled when an electronic howling noise booms out across Lake Taupo from the far side. Hobson reaches an area of bushland near Turangi, his path blocked by a truck. Back-tracking, he finds the alternate route also cut off. Trying to work around the stalled vehicle, he is confronted by another survivor"
      },
      {
        "text": " commits suicide, realising everyone else is dead. Hobson comes across live fish in a stream, leading him to conclude that the Effect did not penetrate water. He is startled when an electronic howling noise booms out across Lake Taupo from the far side. Hobson reaches an area of bushland near Turangi, his path blocked by a truck. Back-tracking, he finds the alternate route also cut off. Trying to work around the stalled vehicle, he is confronted by another survivor with a rifle. The gunman is Apirana Maketu, a M\u0101ori and a lance-corporal in the New Zealand Army. \"Api\" woke up at his barracks in Waiouru to find the base deserted. He remained at his post for two days before setting out to find survivors. A search of Gisborne and the East Coast yielded nothing, and a visit to the power station at Tokaanu led him to believe the electrical grid was knocked out by a massive surge. Api heard the same sound that Hobson heard \u2013 albeit earlier in the day and coming from the side of the lake that Hobson was standing on. Believing it to be a car, Api laid the roadblock to catch anyone coming south. Api reveals his belief that something hostile is abroad in the land. It is present only in certain places, and is stronger at night. The soldier is both relieved and worried to find that Hobson has experienced the same dread. The two men seem to already know one other, sharing a flash of recognition upon first meeting. Neither can account for this, as they have never encountered each other before. They arrive at the nation's capital to find it devoid of life. Api and Hobson set up dwellings in a hotel and hunt for survivors. Hobson plans to run tests to see if he can determine the nature of the Effect and the reason why he and Api survived. Api assists Hobson with proc"
      },
      {
        "text": " dread. The two men seem to already know one other, sharing a flash of recognition upon first meeting. Neither can account for this, as they have never encountered each other before. They arrive at the nation's capital to find it devoid of life. Api and Hobson set up dwellings in a hotel and hunt for survivors. Hobson plans to run tests to see if he can determine the nature of the Effect and the reason why he and Api survived. Api assists Hobson with procuring equipment for the scientist's studies. A radio transceiver is set up, and the duo transmit words and Morse code across the world. They receive no response. Hobson's investigations reveal no reason for their exemption from the Effect. The men face the prospect that they are alone. Api goes skin-diving for shellfish \u2013 he pretends to drown as a joke, and Hobson reacts unconsciously by holding the other man's head underwater. There is a moment of hostility when Api breaks free, resolved when Hobson explains that his son, who was autistic, drowned in a bathtub, and Hobson felt Api was making fun of this. The death of the child led to the end of Hobson's marriage. Both men realize that Hobson is not in complete control of his actions. Visiting the Beehive, Api speculates that they could be lab rats on some kind of duplicate Earth; it is they who disappeared. Hobson puts no stock in this theory. Three weeks after the Effect, Hobson is left alone while Api goes to get a new car. Hobson goes into Api's bedroom and finds photographs of Api as a private during the Vietnam War, posing with the mutilated corpses of Viet Cong. Hobson believes that Api is a psychopath. Hobson feels helpless to prevent his relationship with Api from deteriorating further and plans to kill Api with sleeping pills. After searching for a boat to take them to the"
      },
      {
        "text": " this theory. Three weeks after the Effect, Hobson is left alone while Api goes to get a new car. Hobson goes into Api's bedroom and finds photographs of Api as a private during the Vietnam War, posing with the mutilated corpses of Viet Cong. Hobson believes that Api is a psychopath. Hobson feels helpless to prevent his relationship with Api from deteriorating further and plans to kill Api with sleeping pills. After searching for a boat to take them to the South Island, during which both men experience an attack of dread from the 'force' hounding them, Api takes Hobson for a joyride in his Lotus Elite. A woman runs into the car's path. She is taken to the hotel and made comfortable, but neither Api nor Hobson are medically trained. Unless she is less badly hurt than she seems, she will die. The men bicker pointlessly. The woman's condition worsens, and there is nothing her fellow survivors can do for her. Hobson senses the unseen force again, emanating from the empty city. He speculates that the force may have always been a part of the land, and is claiming the Earth. Api studies the Bible, and later wakes Hobson to tell him that he has solved the clock enigma. 6.12 relates to the Number of the Beast, 666 (6-12 = 6 and 6 plus 6) and to Revelation 6:12, with the Biblical chapter's talk of men hiding from the face of God. Hobson does not believe this, and holds a hidden gun on the deranged soldier. The woman dies, sending Api into hysterics. After another argument, a full-scale battle with guns and grenades ensues. Hobson kills Api, with the soldier seeming to give up. The scientist is now alone. Breaking open Perrin's box, Hobson realizes his colleagues considered him unbalanced and kept him under surveillance. Perrin believed that"
      },
      {
        "text": " of men hiding from the face of God. Hobson does not believe this, and holds a hidden gun on the deranged soldier. The woman dies, sending Api into hysterics. After another argument, a full-scale battle with guns and grenades ensues. Hobson kills Api, with the soldier seeming to give up. The scientist is now alone. Breaking open Perrin's box, Hobson realizes his colleagues considered him unbalanced and kept him under surveillance. Perrin believed that Hobson's DNA was altered due to radiation, which caused his child's autism. Hobson believes the Effect was his doing. The project he worked on caused the unraveling of animal DNA; only those with the dormant gene pair were spared. Flashbacks detail Hobson's last days at the research unit. Perrin seizes upon an accident with the sound wave/radiation machine in which Hobson set the sound modulator too high and was blasted out of his chair by an invisible energy wave. Perrin charges Hobson with negligence, as the sample slides for insects and animals in the machine are blank, while the ones for plants are normal. This event cements for Hobson his long-growing misgivings about the experiments, and what he believes are Perrin's motives for pursuing them. In a later flashback, Hobson relates how he sabotaged the sound wave machine before going on leave to output a much higher level of infrasound than the controls would register. The idea was to put the machine out of action temporarily, ruining Perrin's chance to use Hobson's theories. Hobson took what he believed to be a fatal dose of sleeping pills on the night before the Effect. As he reads Perrin's notes, Hobson realises that this sabotage almost certainly caused the Effect. His act always had a different purpose- to kill Perrin. Believing his boss insane and consumed with a desire to play God, Hobson subconsciously altered his own memory"
      },
      {
        "text": " idea was to put the machine out of action temporarily, ruining Perrin's chance to use Hobson's theories. Hobson took what he believed to be a fatal dose of sleeping pills on the night before the Effect. As he reads Perrin's notes, Hobson realises that this sabotage almost certainly caused the Effect. His act always had a different purpose- to kill Perrin. Believing his boss insane and consumed with a desire to play God, Hobson subconsciously altered his own memory to hide this fact from himself. This ability to edit his own recollections, and to take refuge in a kind of mental 'super-reality', is purely automatic. Hobson finally accepts the guilt for letting his son drown. Allowing his child to die was his way of destroying himself, a kind of external suicide. The child's autism mirrored his father's own emptiness. Perhaps Hobson caused the Effect, or is dreaming all this in a barbiturate coma, or is in Hell or Purgatory. Perhaps the rest of humanity evolved, or is unchanged and wondering where Hobson and a handful of others have gone to. With the death of the entire race on his hands, Hobson jumps from the hotel. He gathers speed, then wakes up in his motel room in Thames. Recovering from the nightmare of falling, all he can remember of the dream he was ripped from, he notices that his wrist watch has stopped at 6:12.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Phantom Tollbooth",
    "author": "Norton Juster",
    "published_date": "1961",
    "synopsis": " Milo is a boy bored by the world around him; every activity seems a waste of time. He arrives home from school one day to find in his bedroom a mysterious package that contains a miniature tollbooth and a map of \"the Lands Beyond\". Attached is a note, \"FOR MILO, WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME\". He assembles the tollbooth, takes the map, drives through the tollbooth in his toy car, and instantly finds himself on a road to Expectations. He pays no attention to his route and soon becomes lost in the Doldrums, a colorless place where thinking and laughing are not allowed. However, he is found there and rescued by Tock, a \"watchdog\" with an alarm clock attached to him, who joins him on his journey. Their first stop is Dictionopolis, one of two capital cities of the Kingdom of Wisdom. They visit the word marketplace, where all the world's words and letters are bought and sold. After an altercation between the Spelling Bee and the blustering Humbug, Milo, and Tock are arrested by the very short Officer Shrift. In prison, Milo learns the history of Wisdom. Its two rulers, King Azaz the Unabridged and the Mathemagician, had two adopted younger sisters, Rhyme and Reason, who had settled all disputes in the kingdom. Everyone lived in harmony until the rulers disagreed with the princesses' decision that letters and numbers were equally important. They banished the princesses to the Castle in the Air, and since then, the kingdom has been plagued with discord and disharmony. Milo and Tock leave the dungeon and attend a banquet given by King Azaz, where the guests literally eat their words. King Azaz allows Milo and the Humbug to talk themselves into a quest to rescue the princesses. Azaz appoints the Humbug as a guide, and he, Milo, and Tock set off for the Mathemagician's capital of Digitopolis to obtain his approval for their quest. Along the way they meet such characters as Alec Bings, a little boy who sees through things and grows until he reaches the ground, and have adventures like watching Chroma the Great conduct his orchestra in playing the colors of the sunset. In Digitopolis, their first stop is the mine where numbers are dug out and precious stones are thrown away. They eat subtraction stew, which makes the diner hungrier. The Mathemagician erases the mine with his magic pencil eraser, he and Milo discuss Infinity, and Milo proves to the Mathemagician that he must allow them to rescue the princesses. In the Mountains of Ignorance, the three intrepid journeyers contend with lurking, obstructionist demons like the Terrible Trivium and the Senses Taker. After overcoming various obstacles and their own fears, the questers reach the Castle in the Air. The two princesses welcome Milo and agree to return to Wisdom. When the group leaves, Tock carries them through the sky because, after all, time flies. The demons chase them, but the armies of Wisdom repel them. The armies of Wisdom welcome the princesses home, King Azaz and the Mathemagician are reconciled, and all enjoy a three-day carnival celebration of the return of Rhyme and Reason, the princesses of the land. Milo says goodbye and drives off, feeling he has been away several weeks. Ahead in the road he spots the tollbooth and drives through. Suddenly he is back in his own room, and discovers he has been gone only an hour. He awakens the next day full of plans to return to Wisdom, but when he returns from school the tollbooth has vanished. A new note has arrived, which reads, \"FOR MILO, WHO NOW KNOWS THE WAY.\" Milo is somewhat disappointed but looks around and finds that the world he lives in is beautiful and interesting.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Milo is a boy bored by the world around him; every activity seems a waste of time. He arrives home from school one day to find in his bedroom a mysterious package that contains a miniature tollbooth and a map of \"the Lands Beyond\". Attached is a note, \"FOR MILO, WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME\". He assembles the tollbooth, takes the map, drives through the tollbooth in his toy car, and instantly finds himself on a road to Expectations. He pays no attention to his route and soon becomes lost in the Doldrums, a colorless place where thinking and laughing are not allowed. However, he is found there and rescued by Tock, a \"watchdog\" with an alarm clock attached to him, who joins him on his journey. Their first stop is Dictionopolis, one of two capital cities of the Kingdom of Wisdom. They visit the word marketplace, where all the world's words and letters are bought and sold. After an altercation between the Spelling Bee and the blustering Humbug, Milo, and Tock are arrested by the very short Officer Shrift. In prison, Milo learns the history of Wisdom. Its two rulers, King Azaz the Unabridged and the Mathemagician, had two adopted younger sisters, Rhyme and Reason, who had settled all disputes in the kingdom. Everyone lived in harmony until the rulers disagreed with the princesses' decision that letters and numbers were equally important. They banished the princesses to the Castle in the Air, and since then, the kingdom has been plagued with discord and disharmony. Milo and Tock leave the dungeon and attend a banquet given by King Azaz, where the guests literally eat their words. King Azaz allows Milo and the Humbug to talk themselves into a quest to rescue the princesses. Azaz appoints the Humbug as a guide, and he, Milo, and T"
      },
      {
        "text": " and numbers were equally important. They banished the princesses to the Castle in the Air, and since then, the kingdom has been plagued with discord and disharmony. Milo and Tock leave the dungeon and attend a banquet given by King Azaz, where the guests literally eat their words. King Azaz allows Milo and the Humbug to talk themselves into a quest to rescue the princesses. Azaz appoints the Humbug as a guide, and he, Milo, and Tock set off for the Mathemagician's capital of Digitopolis to obtain his approval for their quest. Along the way they meet such characters as Alec Bings, a little boy who sees through things and grows until he reaches the ground, and have adventures like watching Chroma the Great conduct his orchestra in playing the colors of the sunset. In Digitopolis, their first stop is the mine where numbers are dug out and precious stones are thrown away. They eat subtraction stew, which makes the diner hungrier. The Mathemagician erases the mine with his magic pencil eraser, he and Milo discuss Infinity, and Milo proves to the Mathemagician that he must allow them to rescue the princesses. In the Mountains of Ignorance, the three intrepid journeyers contend with lurking, obstructionist demons like the Terrible Trivium and the Senses Taker. After overcoming various obstacles and their own fears, the questers reach the Castle in the Air. The two princesses welcome Milo and agree to return to Wisdom. When the group leaves, Tock carries them through the sky because, after all, time flies. The demons chase them, but the armies of Wisdom repel them. The armies of Wisdom welcome the princesses home, King Azaz and the Mathemagician are reconciled, and all enjoy a three-day carnival celebration of the return of Rhyme and Reason, the princesses of the land."
      },
      {
        "text": " the Air. The two princesses welcome Milo and agree to return to Wisdom. When the group leaves, Tock carries them through the sky because, after all, time flies. The demons chase them, but the armies of Wisdom repel them. The armies of Wisdom welcome the princesses home, King Azaz and the Mathemagician are reconciled, and all enjoy a three-day carnival celebration of the return of Rhyme and Reason, the princesses of the land. Milo says goodbye and drives off, feeling he has been away several weeks. Ahead in the road he spots the tollbooth and drives through. Suddenly he is back in his own room, and discovers he has been gone only an hour. He awakens the next day full of plans to return to Wisdom, but when he returns from school the tollbooth has vanished. A new note has arrived, which reads, \"FOR MILO, WHO NOW KNOWS THE WAY.\" Milo is somewhat disappointed but looks around and finds that the world he lives in is beautiful and interesting.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Hundred and One Dalmatians",
    "author": "Dodie Smith",
    "published_date": "1956",
    "synopsis": " Pongo and Missis Pongo (or simply Missis) are a pair of Dalmatians who live with the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Dearly and their two nannies, Nanny Cook and Nanny Butler. Mr. Dearly is a \"financial wizard\" who has been granted lifelong tax exemption and lent a house on the Outer Circle in Regent's Park in return for wiping out the government debt. The dogs consider the humans their pets, but allow the humans to think that they are the owners. Missis gives birth to a litter of 15 puppies. Concerned that Missis will not be able to feed them all, the humans join in to help. Mrs. Dearly looks for a canine wet nurse, and finds an abandoned Dalmatian in the middle of the road in the pouring rain. She has the dog treated by a vet and names her Perdita (\"lost\"). Perdita later tells Pongo about her lost love and the circumstances that led to her abandonment. Mr. and Mrs. Dearly attend a dinner party hosted by Cruella de Vil, an intimidating and very wealthy woman fixated on fur clothing. The Dearlys are disconcerted by her belief that all animals are worthless and should be drowned. Shortly after the dinner party, the puppies disappear. The humans fail to trace them but through the \"Twilight Barking\", a forum of communication in which dogs can relay messages to each other across the country, the dogs manage to track them down to \"Hell Hall\", the ancestral home of the de Vil family in Suffolk. Pongo and Missis try to relate the puppies' location to the Dearlys but fail. The dogs decide to run away and find them themselves, leaving Perdita to look after the Dearlys. After a journey across the countryside, they meet the Colonel, an Old English Sheepdog who shows them Hell Hall and tells them its history. They learn that there are 97 puppies in Hell Hall, including Pongo and Missis' own 15. Cruella de Vil appears and tells the crooks in charge of Hell Hall to slaughter and skin the dogs as soon as possible because of the publicity surrounding the theft of the Dearlys' puppies. Pongo and Missis devise a plan to rescue all of the puppies and escape the day before Christmas Eve. One puppy, Cadpig, is too weak to walk the long distance from Suffolk to London so Tommy, the Colonel's two year old pet, lends her a toy carriage. When the carriage loses a wheel, they rest on the hassocks of a country church. Cruella almost finds them, but the dogs manage to escape in a removal van. Having rolled in soot to disguise themselves, they hide in the darkness of the van with the help of a Staffordshire terrier whose pets are the drivers of the van. Upon arriving in London, the dogs destroy Cruella's collection of animal skins and fur coats with the aid of Cruella's abused cat. The Dalmatians then return home. Once the dogs roll around to remove the soot from their coats, the Dearlys recognise them and send out for steaks to feed them. Cruella's cat visits to say Cruella has fled from Hell Hall. It has been put up for sale and Mr Dearly buys it with money he has been given by the government for sorting out another tax problem. He proposes to use it to start a \"dynasty of Dalmatians\" (and a \"dynasty of Dearlys\" to take care of them). Finally, Perdita's lost love, Prince, returns. His pets see his love for Perdita and allow him to stay with the Dearlys and become their 101st Dalmatian.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Pongo and Missis Pongo (or simply Missis) are a pair of Dalmatians who live with the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Dearly and their two nannies, Nanny Cook and Nanny Butler. Mr. Dearly is a \"financial wizard\" who has been granted lifelong tax exemption and lent a house on the Outer Circle in Regent's Park in return for wiping out the government debt. The dogs consider the humans their pets, but allow the humans to think that they are the owners. Missis gives birth to a litter of 15 puppies. Concerned that Missis will not be able to feed them all, the humans join in to help. Mrs. Dearly looks for a canine wet nurse, and finds an abandoned Dalmatian in the middle of the road in the pouring rain. She has the dog treated by a vet and names her Perdita (\"lost\"). Perdita later tells Pongo about her lost love and the circumstances that led to her abandonment. Mr. and Mrs. Dearly attend a dinner party hosted by Cruella de Vil, an intimidating and very wealthy woman fixated on fur clothing. The Dearlys are disconcerted by her belief that all animals are worthless and should be drowned. Shortly after the dinner party, the puppies disappear. The humans fail to trace them but through the \"Twilight Barking\", a forum of communication in which dogs can relay messages to each other across the country, the dogs manage to track them down to \"Hell Hall\", the ancestral home of the de Vil family in Suffolk. Pongo and Missis try to relate the puppies' location to the Dearlys but fail. The dogs decide to run away and find them themselves, leaving Perdita to look after the Dearlys. After a journey across the countryside, they meet the Colonel, an Old English Sheepdog who shows them Hell Hall and tells them its history. They learn that there are 97 puppies"
      },
      {
        "text": " dogs manage to track them down to \"Hell Hall\", the ancestral home of the de Vil family in Suffolk. Pongo and Missis try to relate the puppies' location to the Dearlys but fail. The dogs decide to run away and find them themselves, leaving Perdita to look after the Dearlys. After a journey across the countryside, they meet the Colonel, an Old English Sheepdog who shows them Hell Hall and tells them its history. They learn that there are 97 puppies in Hell Hall, including Pongo and Missis' own 15. Cruella de Vil appears and tells the crooks in charge of Hell Hall to slaughter and skin the dogs as soon as possible because of the publicity surrounding the theft of the Dearlys' puppies. Pongo and Missis devise a plan to rescue all of the puppies and escape the day before Christmas Eve. One puppy, Cadpig, is too weak to walk the long distance from Suffolk to London so Tommy, the Colonel's two year old pet, lends her a toy carriage. When the carriage loses a wheel, they rest on the hassocks of a country church. Cruella almost finds them, but the dogs manage to escape in a removal van. Having rolled in soot to disguise themselves, they hide in the darkness of the van with the help of a Staffordshire terrier whose pets are the drivers of the van. Upon arriving in London, the dogs destroy Cruella's collection of animal skins and fur coats with the aid of Cruella's abused cat. The Dalmatians then return home. Once the dogs roll around to remove the soot from their coats, the Dearlys recognise them and send out for steaks to feed them. Cruella's cat visits to say Cruella has fled from Hell Hall. It has been put up for sale and Mr Dearly buys it with money he has been given by the government for sorting out another tax problem. He"
      },
      {
        "text": " skins and fur coats with the aid of Cruella's abused cat. The Dalmatians then return home. Once the dogs roll around to remove the soot from their coats, the Dearlys recognise them and send out for steaks to feed them. Cruella's cat visits to say Cruella has fled from Hell Hall. It has been put up for sale and Mr Dearly buys it with money he has been given by the government for sorting out another tax problem. He proposes to use it to start a \"dynasty of Dalmatians\" (and a \"dynasty of Dearlys\" to take care of them). Finally, Perdita's lost love, Prince, returns. His pets see his love for Perdita and allow him to stay with the Dearlys and become their 101st Dalmatian.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Philosophical Investigation",
    "author": "Philip Kerr",
    "published_date": "1992",
    "synopsis": " In a near-future, a British neuroscientist named Professor Burgess Phelan has discovered a portion of the brain, the VMN, that is typically twice the size in men as it is in women. In certain men, however (approximately 1 in 100,000), it is the same size as a woman's, and that abnormality is an exceptionally accurate indicator of violent sociopathy. Professor Phelan developed an imaging device called L.O.M.B.R.O.S.O. (Localisation of Modullar Brain Resonations Obliging Social Orthopraxy) used to help diagnose men with the VMN deficiency. In the interests of public safety, the Lombroso institute is set up to test all the men in Britain. Males are enticed with ad campaigns to submit for testing; those who are VMN-negative are given confidential treatment, including counselling and drugs, and assigned a code name out of the Penguin book of Great Thinkers (e.g., Shakespeare, Plato, etc.). The police aren't given the names of the VMN-negative, but they are allowed to confirm whether or not a particular person is in the Lombroso Institutes system as VMN-negative. \"Wittgenstein\" is the code name of a VMN-negative who, until he was made aware of his status, was living a well-adjusted, if solitary, life, venting his sociopathic tendencies harmlessly through virtual reality entertainment systems. Upon discovering his pathology, though, he undertakes a public service of his own: after hacking into the Lombroso Institute's systems and obtaining a list of all VMN-negative men in Britain, he undertakes to kill them all. The narrative unfolds from a dual perspective: Wittgenstein's, and the female police lieutenant, Isadora \"Jake\" Jakowicz, assigned to catch him. Wittgenstein's portion is told from the first person as a diary of his assassinations and subsequent downfall; the detective's portion is told in a more traditional third-person perspective. In the novel's setting, the national government was elected partly on a platform of \"retributive justice\", rather than rehabilitative, and punitive coma has replaced the death penalty (and, to a lesser extent, incarceration) as punishment for extreme crimes. In its favour, punitive coma is safely reversed, should someone later prove innocent; as well, prison costs have plunged since the inmates are sentenced to years of sleep rather than restraint, and require much less guarding and care. Opponents of punitive coma (of whom Jake is one) argue that the state is now stealing years from people's lives, and giving the guilty no opportunity to rehabilitate themselves; thus, punitive coma is inhumane. This position is defeated, however, by proponents who observe that any long-term space travel will necessarily involve long-term medically-induced comas of the same kind, so the process itself is not inhumane; furthermore, criminals are not subject to the dangerous criminal environment of prison, so punitive coma may be considered a more, rather than less, humane punishment. An interesting portion of the narrative involves the use of a Cambridge philosophy professor to engage Wittgenstein in a debate on the morality of his actions. Since the killer comes to see his whole act through the lens of the real Wittgenstein's philosophy (including his mid-career reversal following Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus), it's hoped that he will be amenable to philosophical persuasion. However, as Wittgenstein's killings continue, the government presses the Cambridge don to talk Wittgenstein into committing suicide, a position with which the philosopher agrees, much to Jake's dismay. gl:A Philosophical Investigation\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In a near-future, a British neuroscientist named Professor Burgess Phelan has discovered a portion of the brain, the VMN, that is typically twice the size in men as it is in women. In certain men, however (approximately 1 in 100,000), it is the same size as a woman's, and that abnormality is an exceptionally accurate indicator of violent sociopathy. Professor Phelan developed an imaging device called L.O.M.B.R.O.S.O. (Localisation of Modullar Brain Resonations Obliging Social Orthopraxy) used to help diagnose men with the VMN deficiency. In the interests of public safety, the Lombroso institute is set up to test all the men in Britain. Males are enticed with ad campaigns to submit for testing; those who are VMN-negative are given confidential treatment, including counselling and drugs, and assigned a code name out of the Penguin book of Great Thinkers (e.g., Shakespeare, Plato, etc.). The police aren't given the names of the VMN-negative, but they are allowed to confirm whether or not a particular person is in the Lombroso Institutes system as VMN-negative. \"Wittgenstein\" is the code name of a VMN-negative who, until he was made aware of his status, was living a well-adjusted, if solitary, life, venting his sociopathic tendencies harmlessly through virtual reality entertainment systems. Upon discovering his pathology, though, he undertakes a public service of his own: after hacking into the Lombroso Institute's systems and obtaining a list of all VMN-negative men in Britain, he undertakes to kill them all. The narrative unfolds from a dual perspective: Wittgenstein's, and the female police lieutenant, Isadora \"Jake\" Jakowicz, assigned to catch him. Wittgenstein's portion is told from the first person as"
      },
      {
        "text": " through virtual reality entertainment systems. Upon discovering his pathology, though, he undertakes a public service of his own: after hacking into the Lombroso Institute's systems and obtaining a list of all VMN-negative men in Britain, he undertakes to kill them all. The narrative unfolds from a dual perspective: Wittgenstein's, and the female police lieutenant, Isadora \"Jake\" Jakowicz, assigned to catch him. Wittgenstein's portion is told from the first person as a diary of his assassinations and subsequent downfall; the detective's portion is told in a more traditional third-person perspective. In the novel's setting, the national government was elected partly on a platform of \"retributive justice\", rather than rehabilitative, and punitive coma has replaced the death penalty (and, to a lesser extent, incarceration) as punishment for extreme crimes. In its favour, punitive coma is safely reversed, should someone later prove innocent; as well, prison costs have plunged since the inmates are sentenced to years of sleep rather than restraint, and require much less guarding and care. Opponents of punitive coma (of whom Jake is one) argue that the state is now stealing years from people's lives, and giving the guilty no opportunity to rehabilitate themselves; thus, punitive coma is inhumane. This position is defeated, however, by proponents who observe that any long-term space travel will necessarily involve long-term medically-induced comas of the same kind, so the process itself is not inhumane; furthermore, criminals are not subject to the dangerous criminal environment of prison, so punitive coma may be considered a more, rather than less, humane punishment. An interesting portion of the narrative involves the use of a Cambridge philosophy professor to engage Wittgenstein in a debate on the morality of his actions. Since the killer comes to see his whole act through the lens of the real Wittgenstein's philosophy (including his mid-career reversal following Tractatus Logico"
      },
      {
        "text": " process itself is not inhumane; furthermore, criminals are not subject to the dangerous criminal environment of prison, so punitive coma may be considered a more, rather than less, humane punishment. An interesting portion of the narrative involves the use of a Cambridge philosophy professor to engage Wittgenstein in a debate on the morality of his actions. Since the killer comes to see his whole act through the lens of the real Wittgenstein's philosophy (including his mid-career reversal following Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus), it's hoped that he will be amenable to philosophical persuasion. However, as Wittgenstein's killings continue, the government presses the Cambridge don to talk Wittgenstein into committing suicide, a position with which the philosopher agrees, much to Jake's dismay. gl:A Philosophical Investigation\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Tortilla Curtain",
    "author": "T. Coraghessan Boyle",
    "published_date": "1995",
    "synopsis": " C\u00e1ndido Rinc\u00f3n (33) and Am\u00e9rica (his pregnant common law wife, 17) are two Mexicans who enter the United States illegally, dreaming of the good life in their own little house somewhere in California. Meanwhile, they are homeless and camping at the bottom of the Topanga Canyon area of Los Angeles, in the hills above Malibu. Another couple, Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher, have recently moved into a gated community on top of Topanga, in order to be closer to nature yet be close enough to the city to enjoy those amenities. Kyra is a successful real estate agent while Delaney keeps house, looks after Kyra's son by her first marriage and writes a regular column for an environmentalist magazine. The two couples' paths cross unexpectedly when C\u00e1ndido is hit and injured by Delaney, who is driving his car along the suburban roads near his home. For different reasons, each man prefers not to call the police or an ambulance. C\u00e1ndido is afraid of being deported and Delaney is afraid of ruining his perfect driving record. Delaney soothes his conscience by giving C\u00e1ndido \"$20 blood money,\" explaining to Kyra that \"He's a Mexican.\" From that moment on, the lives of the two couples are constantly influenced by the others. After the accident, C\u00e1ndido's problems deepen. At first he can't work after being injured by the car crash and when he does not find a temporary job at a local work exchange anymore, he unavailingly tries to find one in the city, hoping to save money for an apartment in the North despite the low wages offered. With Am\u00e9rica, his wife, pregnant, his shame at not being able to get a job and procure a home and food for his family increases, especially when Am\u00e9rica decides to find some illegal\u2014and possibly dangerous\u2014work herself. At one point in the novel, after C\u00e1ndido is robbed by some Mexicans in the city, they are forced to go through the trash cans behind a fast-food restaurant so as not to starve. The Mossbachers, Delaney's family, are also having problems of their own, though of an altogether different nature. Comfortably settled in their new home, in a gated community, they are faced with the cruelty of nature when one of their two pet dogs is killed by a coyote. In addition, the majority of inhabitants of their exclusive estate feel increasingly disturbed and threatened by the presence of\u2014as they see it\u2014potentially criminal, illegal aliens and vote for a wall to be built around the whole estate. C\u00e1ndido has a stroke of luck when he is given a free turkey at a grocery store by another customer, who has just received it through the store's Thanksgiving promotion. When C\u00e1ndido starts roasting the bird back in their shelter, he inadvertently causes a fire which spreads so quickly that even the gated community the Mossbachers live in has to be evacuated. In the midst of the escalating disasters, Am\u00e9rica gives birth to Socorro, a daughter, whom she suspects might be blind. But the couple has no money to see the doctor. Delaney stalks Candido back to their shack. He carries a gun, but doesn't intend to kill Candido with it. Meanwhile, America tells Candido about the night when she was raped, as she suspects that the baby's blindness was caused by venereal disease transmitted by the rapist. Just as she is telling him this, Delaney finds their shack and is about to confront Candido about the forest fire, when the shack is knocked over in a landslide. Candido and America manage to save themselves, but Socorro is drowned in a river. The book ends with Candido helping Delaney out of the river. Time and again in the novel, however, it is hinted at that the real perpetrators can be found inside rather than outside the projected wall: well-to-do people insensitive to the plight of the have-nots.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " C\u00e1ndido Rinc\u00f3n (33) and Am\u00e9rica (his pregnant common law wife, 17) are two Mexicans who enter the United States illegally, dreaming of the good life in their own little house somewhere in California. Meanwhile, they are homeless and camping at the bottom of the Topanga Canyon area of Los Angeles, in the hills above Malibu. Another couple, Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher, have recently moved into a gated community on top of Topanga, in order to be closer to nature yet be close enough to the city to enjoy those amenities. Kyra is a successful real estate agent while Delaney keeps house, looks after Kyra's son by her first marriage and writes a regular column for an environmentalist magazine. The two couples' paths cross unexpectedly when C\u00e1ndido is hit and injured by Delaney, who is driving his car along the suburban roads near his home. For different reasons, each man prefers not to call the police or an ambulance. C\u00e1ndido is afraid of being deported and Delaney is afraid of ruining his perfect driving record. Delaney soothes his conscience by giving C\u00e1ndido \"$20 blood money,\" explaining to Kyra that \"He's a Mexican.\" From that moment on, the lives of the two couples are constantly influenced by the others. After the accident, C\u00e1ndido's problems deepen. At first he can't work after being injured by the car crash and when he does not find a temporary job at a local work exchange anymore, he unavailingly tries to find one in the city, hoping to save money for an apartment in the North despite the low wages offered. With Am\u00e9rica, his wife, pregnant, his shame at not being able to get a job and procure a home and food for his family increases, especially when Am\u00e9rica decides to find some illegal\u2014and possibly dangerous\u2014work herself. At one point in the novel, after C\u00e1nd"
      },
      {
        "text": " find a temporary job at a local work exchange anymore, he unavailingly tries to find one in the city, hoping to save money for an apartment in the North despite the low wages offered. With Am\u00e9rica, his wife, pregnant, his shame at not being able to get a job and procure a home and food for his family increases, especially when Am\u00e9rica decides to find some illegal\u2014and possibly dangerous\u2014work herself. At one point in the novel, after C\u00e1ndido is robbed by some Mexicans in the city, they are forced to go through the trash cans behind a fast-food restaurant so as not to starve. The Mossbachers, Delaney's family, are also having problems of their own, though of an altogether different nature. Comfortably settled in their new home, in a gated community, they are faced with the cruelty of nature when one of their two pet dogs is killed by a coyote. In addition, the majority of inhabitants of their exclusive estate feel increasingly disturbed and threatened by the presence of\u2014as they see it\u2014potentially criminal, illegal aliens and vote for a wall to be built around the whole estate. C\u00e1ndido has a stroke of luck when he is given a free turkey at a grocery store by another customer, who has just received it through the store's Thanksgiving promotion. When C\u00e1ndido starts roasting the bird back in their shelter, he inadvertently causes a fire which spreads so quickly that even the gated community the Mossbachers live in has to be evacuated. In the midst of the escalating disasters, Am\u00e9rica gives birth to Socorro, a daughter, whom she suspects might be blind. But the couple has no money to see the doctor. Delaney stalks Candido back to their shack. He carries a gun, but doesn't intend to kill Candido with it. Meanwhile, America tells Candido about the night when she was raped, as she suspects that the baby"
      },
      {
        "text": " gated community the Mossbachers live in has to be evacuated. In the midst of the escalating disasters, Am\u00e9rica gives birth to Socorro, a daughter, whom she suspects might be blind. But the couple has no money to see the doctor. Delaney stalks Candido back to their shack. He carries a gun, but doesn't intend to kill Candido with it. Meanwhile, America tells Candido about the night when she was raped, as she suspects that the baby's blindness was caused by venereal disease transmitted by the rapist. Just as she is telling him this, Delaney finds their shack and is about to confront Candido about the forest fire, when the shack is knocked over in a landslide. Candido and America manage to save themselves, but Socorro is drowned in a river. The book ends with Candido helping Delaney out of the river. Time and again in the novel, however, it is hinted at that the real perpetrators can be found inside rather than outside the projected wall: well-to-do people insensitive to the plight of the have-nots.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Love in a Cold Climate",
    "author": "Nancy Mitford",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Love in a Cold Climate is a companion volume to The Pursuit of Love. The time frame of Love in a Cold Climate is the same as The Pursuit of Love, but the focus is on a different set of characters. Fanny remains the fictional narrator. In The Pursuit of Love, Fanny narrates the story of her cousin Linda Radlett. In Love in a Cold Climate, Fanny narrates the story of Polly, to whom Fanny is distantly related through her father's family. Lady Leopoldina [Polly] Hampton, is the only child of the supremely aristocratic and very rich Earl of Montdore [fictional title] and his wife, Sonia. Lady Montdore is a product of the minor ranks of the aristocracy and her marriage to an earl is regarded as a social coup on her part. She is depicted by Fanny, as an avaricious, greedy snob, but not without charm. Her thrusting personality, allied to her husband's impeccable social standing, riches and political influence makes her a formidable woman. Lady Montdore, unbeknown to Lord Montdore, takes advantage of her husband's reputation to forward her own career as a hostess and manipulator of her social circle. After 20 years of marriage and no children, \"Sonia felt less than well.\" The result is Polly. So beautiful and so perfect, the narrator, Fanny, adores Polly, as do her parents. Fanny loses contact with Polly, when Lord Montdore is sent as Viceroy of India. Fanny receives an invitation to visit the Montdores at Hampton, their country house upon the family's return from India. Fanny is torn between her affection for Polly and her anxiety about the complex social issues involved in such a visit. Her reunion with Polly is successful in that the two young women rekindle their childhood affection and establish a mature friendship. Fanny, the readers' informant, has great affection for Polly, but is aware of Polly's reticence in revealing her personal feelings. Unlike Fanny's Radlett cousins who \"told everything\", Polly reveals little of herself. Slightly older than Fanny, Polly has \"come out\" in India and as such a beautiful and socially important debutante, is expected to have a very successful season in London. The standing of the Montdore family is such that the beautiful Polly is expected to have her pick of all the eligible bachelors in the country. However, Polly consistently demonstrates a total lack of interest in the London season and all of the men she meets. She tells Fanny that when she \"came out \" in India, she found the whole thing very boring. Love affairs, so common in India, do not interest Polly, but she is hoping that \"in a cold climate\", society will be less interested in love affairs. Lady Montdore, hoping that Polly will make an important marriage, is exasperated by her daughter's apparent indifference to love and marriage. \"Important\" potential suitors acknowledge that Polly is very beautiful, but find her cold and aloof. The self contained Polly reveals to no one that she has been in love with her uncle, \"Boy\" Dougdale [the husband of her paternal aunt, Lady Patricia] since she was 14. Boy is snobbish, spending his time writing books about the aristocracy, and sexually rapacious; his many affairs are common knowledge to both his wife and society at large. Fanny and her Radlett cousins have long suspected that the sexually ambiguous Boy, whom they have named the \"Lecherous Lecturer,\" has pedophile tendencies and he is a joke amongst Fanny's cousins for his inappropriate touches and furtive, \"lecherous\" behaviour towards young girls. Polly marries her widowed uncle, shortly after her aunt's death, causing a scandal in her social circle and distressing her parents deeply. It is also known in these circles that Boy has been Lady Montdore's lover for many years, unbeknown to Polly. Polly is excluded from her father's will upon her marriage and she and Boy ostracised from society. They move to Sicily and away from Fanny for several years. Polly's place in the family is filled by the heir to Lord Montdore's entailed fortune and title, Cedric Hampton. Born in Nova Scotia to a minor member of the Montdore family, Cedric has cast off his colonial origins and has used his exceptional good looks and personal charm to establish a place within the homosexual milieu of the European aristocracy. Cedric has lived a life of luxury as the lover of rich and aristocratic men. Currently out of favour in that quarter, Cedric accepts an invitation to visit the Montdores. His natural love of beauty, innate good taste and his careful use of flattery, enable Cedric to win the affections of Lord and Lady Montdore and many others. Cedric focuses his attentions upon Lady Montdore in particular and encourages her to update her wardrobe and general appearance and revive her interest in social matters, which has diminished since the \"loss\" of her lover and her daughter. Lady Montdore uses Cedric's popularity and charm to reestablish herself as a leading society hostess, to Cedric's advantage. Fanny, as a regular visitor to the Montdores, shares with her readers all of the activities of the Montdore household and Cedric soon becomes one of her close friends. Polly, heavily pregnant, returns from Sicily with Boy. The marriage has turned sour and Fanny notes that neither Polly nor Boy is in love any more. Polly is regularly visited by the elderly Duke of Paddington [a fictional title] while pregnant, who lavishes her with luxurious flowers and attention. Polly reconciles with her mother after bearing a child who dies shortly after its birth. Cedric and Boy meet and fall in love. \"Cedric arranged the whole thing perfectly\", according to Fanny. While Polly recovers from the difficult birth, Cedric whisks Boy and Lady Montdore to France, leaving Polly free to be carried off by the elderly Duke. While this outcome shocks the conservative social circles in which they mix, Fanny takes a broader minded view, pleased to see people she loves each finding happiness in their own way. Don't Tell Alfred (1960) is a sequel to the novel giving further insight into the married life of Fanny and Alfred.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Love in a Cold Climate is a companion volume to The Pursuit of Love. The time frame of Love in a Cold Climate is the same as The Pursuit of Love, but the focus is on a different set of characters. Fanny remains the fictional narrator. In The Pursuit of Love, Fanny narrates the story of her cousin Linda Radlett. In Love in a Cold Climate, Fanny narrates the story of Polly, to whom Fanny is distantly related through her father's family. Lady Leopoldina [Polly] Hampton, is the only child of the supremely aristocratic and very rich Earl of Montdore [fictional title] and his wife, Sonia. Lady Montdore is a product of the minor ranks of the aristocracy and her marriage to an earl is regarded as a social coup on her part. She is depicted by Fanny, as an avaricious, greedy snob, but not without charm. Her thrusting personality, allied to her husband's impeccable social standing, riches and political influence makes her a formidable woman. Lady Montdore, unbeknown to Lord Montdore, takes advantage of her husband's reputation to forward her own career as a hostess and manipulator of her social circle. After 20 years of marriage and no children, \"Sonia felt less than well.\" The result is Polly. So beautiful and so perfect, the narrator, Fanny, adores Polly, as do her parents. Fanny loses contact with Polly, when Lord Montdore is sent as Viceroy of India. Fanny receives an invitation to visit the Montdores at Hampton, their country house upon the family's return from India. Fanny is torn between her affection for Polly and her anxiety about the complex social issues involved in such a visit. Her reunion with Polly is successful in that the two young women rekindle their childhood affection and establish a mature friendship. Fanny, the readers"
      },
      {
        "text": " parents. Fanny loses contact with Polly, when Lord Montdore is sent as Viceroy of India. Fanny receives an invitation to visit the Montdores at Hampton, their country house upon the family's return from India. Fanny is torn between her affection for Polly and her anxiety about the complex social issues involved in such a visit. Her reunion with Polly is successful in that the two young women rekindle their childhood affection and establish a mature friendship. Fanny, the readers' informant, has great affection for Polly, but is aware of Polly's reticence in revealing her personal feelings. Unlike Fanny's Radlett cousins who \"told everything\", Polly reveals little of herself. Slightly older than Fanny, Polly has \"come out\" in India and as such a beautiful and socially important debutante, is expected to have a very successful season in London. The standing of the Montdore family is such that the beautiful Polly is expected to have her pick of all the eligible bachelors in the country. However, Polly consistently demonstrates a total lack of interest in the London season and all of the men she meets. She tells Fanny that when she \"came out \" in India, she found the whole thing very boring. Love affairs, so common in India, do not interest Polly, but she is hoping that \"in a cold climate\", society will be less interested in love affairs. Lady Montdore, hoping that Polly will make an important marriage, is exasperated by her daughter's apparent indifference to love and marriage. \"Important\" potential suitors acknowledge that Polly is very beautiful, but find her cold and aloof. The self contained Polly reveals to no one that she has been in love with her uncle, \"Boy\" Dougdale [the husband of her paternal aunt, Lady Patricia] since she was 14. Boy is snobbish, spending his time writing books about the aristocracy, and sexually rapacious; his many affairs are common"
      },
      {
        "text": ", is exasperated by her daughter's apparent indifference to love and marriage. \"Important\" potential suitors acknowledge that Polly is very beautiful, but find her cold and aloof. The self contained Polly reveals to no one that she has been in love with her uncle, \"Boy\" Dougdale [the husband of her paternal aunt, Lady Patricia] since she was 14. Boy is snobbish, spending his time writing books about the aristocracy, and sexually rapacious; his many affairs are common knowledge to both his wife and society at large. Fanny and her Radlett cousins have long suspected that the sexually ambiguous Boy, whom they have named the \"Lecherous Lecturer,\" has pedophile tendencies and he is a joke amongst Fanny's cousins for his inappropriate touches and furtive, \"lecherous\" behaviour towards young girls. Polly marries her widowed uncle, shortly after her aunt's death, causing a scandal in her social circle and distressing her parents deeply. It is also known in these circles that Boy has been Lady Montdore's lover for many years, unbeknown to Polly. Polly is excluded from her father's will upon her marriage and she and Boy ostracised from society. They move to Sicily and away from Fanny for several years. Polly's place in the family is filled by the heir to Lord Montdore's entailed fortune and title, Cedric Hampton. Born in Nova Scotia to a minor member of the Montdore family, Cedric has cast off his colonial origins and has used his exceptional good looks and personal charm to establish a place within the homosexual milieu of the European aristocracy. Cedric has lived a life of luxury as the lover of rich and aristocratic men. Currently out of favour in that quarter, Cedric accepts an invitation to visit the Montdores. His natural love of beauty, innate good taste and his careful use of flattery, enable Cedric to win the affections of"
      },
      {
        "text": "dore family, Cedric has cast off his colonial origins and has used his exceptional good looks and personal charm to establish a place within the homosexual milieu of the European aristocracy. Cedric has lived a life of luxury as the lover of rich and aristocratic men. Currently out of favour in that quarter, Cedric accepts an invitation to visit the Montdores. His natural love of beauty, innate good taste and his careful use of flattery, enable Cedric to win the affections of Lord and Lady Montdore and many others. Cedric focuses his attentions upon Lady Montdore in particular and encourages her to update her wardrobe and general appearance and revive her interest in social matters, which has diminished since the \"loss\" of her lover and her daughter. Lady Montdore uses Cedric's popularity and charm to reestablish herself as a leading society hostess, to Cedric's advantage. Fanny, as a regular visitor to the Montdores, shares with her readers all of the activities of the Montdore household and Cedric soon becomes one of her close friends. Polly, heavily pregnant, returns from Sicily with Boy. The marriage has turned sour and Fanny notes that neither Polly nor Boy is in love any more. Polly is regularly visited by the elderly Duke of Paddington [a fictional title] while pregnant, who lavishes her with luxurious flowers and attention. Polly reconciles with her mother after bearing a child who dies shortly after its birth. Cedric and Boy meet and fall in love. \"Cedric arranged the whole thing perfectly\", according to Fanny. While Polly recovers from the difficult birth, Cedric whisks Boy and Lady Montdore to France, leaving Polly free to be carried off by the elderly Duke. While this outcome shocks the conservative social circles in which they mix, Fanny takes a broader minded view, pleased to see people she loves each finding happiness in their own way. Don't Tell Alfred (1960)"
      },
      {
        "text": " Cedric and Boy meet and fall in love. \"Cedric arranged the whole thing perfectly\", according to Fanny. While Polly recovers from the difficult birth, Cedric whisks Boy and Lady Montdore to France, leaving Polly free to be carried off by the elderly Duke. While this outcome shocks the conservative social circles in which they mix, Fanny takes a broader minded view, pleased to see people she loves each finding happiness in their own way. Don't Tell Alfred (1960) is a sequel to the novel giving further insight into the married life of Fanny and Alfred.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Fountainhead",
    "author": "Ayn Rand",
    "published_date": "1943-12",
    "synopsis": " In the spring of 1922, architecture student Howard Roark is expelled from the fictional Stanton Institute of Technology for refusing to adhere to the school's conventionalism in architecture. Despite an effort by some professors to defend Roark and a subsequent offer to continue at Stanton from the dean, Roark chooses to leave the school. He believes buildings should be sculpted only to fit their location, material and purpose elegantly and efficiently, while his critics insist that adherence to and reverence for historical convention is essential. He goes to New York City to work for Henry Cameron, a disgraced architect whom Roark admires. Cameron, who once was architecture's modernist hero, has fallen from fame due to the fickle demands of society and his own caustic personality. His work serves as an inspiration for Roark. Peter Keating, a popular but vacuous fellow student, has graduated with high honors; he too moves to New York, where he takes a job at the prestigious architectural firm of Francon & Heyer and quickly ingratiates himself with senior partner Guy Francon. Roark and Cameron create inspired work, but their projects rarely receive recognition, whereas Keating's ability to flatter and please brings him quick success (despite his lack of originality) and earns him a partnership in the firm. After Cameron retires from practice, Keating hires Roark to work at his firm, but he is quickly fired for insubordination by Guy Francon. Roark looks for work at other firms before finding one that will let him design as he pleases, but the firm will just take the best aspects of his design and merge his ideas with the ideas and plans of the other draftsmen in the office. After one of Roark's original plans impresses a client, he briefly opens his own office. However, he has trouble finding clients and eventually closes it down rather than compromise his ideals to win business from clients who want more conventional buildings. He takes a job at a Connecticut granite quarry owned by Francon. Meanwhile, Keating has developed an interest in Francon's beautiful, temperamental and idealistic daughter Dominique, who works as a columnist for The New York Banner, a yellow press-style newspaper. While Roark is working in the quarry, he encounters Dominique, who has retreated to her family's estate in the same town as the quarry. There is an immediate attraction between them. Rather than indulge in traditional flirtation, the two engage in a battle of wills that culminates in a rough sexual encounter that Dominique later describes as a rape. Shortly after their encounter, Roark is notified that a client is ready for him to start on a new building, and he returns to New York before Dominique can learn his name. Ellsworth M. Toohey, author of a popular architecture column in the Banner, is an outspoken socialist who is covertly rising to power by shaping public opinion through his column and his circle of influential associates. Toohey sets out to destroy Roark through a smear campaign he spearheads. As the first step, Toohey convinces a weak-minded businessman named Hopton Stoddard to hire Roark as the designer for a temple dedicated to the human spirit. Given full freedom to design it as he sees fit, Roark incorporates into it a statue of Dominique, nude, which creates a public outcry. Toohey manipulates Stoddard into suing Roark for general incompetence and fraud. At the trial, prominent architects (including Keating) testify that Roark's style is unorthodox and illegitimate. Dominique defends Roark, but Stoddard wins the case and Roark loses his business again. Dominique decides that since she cannot have the world she wants (in which men like Roark are recognized for their greatness), she will live completely and entirely in the world she has, which shuns Roark and praises Keating. She offers Keating her hand in marriage. Keating accepts, breaking his previously long-held engagement with Toohey's niece Catherine, and they are married that evening. Dominique turns her entire spirit over to Keating, hosting the dinners he wants, agreeing with him, and saying whatever he wants her to say. She fights Roark and persuades his potential clients to hire Keating instead. Despite this, Roark continues to attract a small but steady stream of clients who see the value in his work. To win Keating a prestigious architecture commission offered by Gail Wynand, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Banner, Dominique agrees to sleep with Wynand. Wynand then buys Keating's silence and his divorce from Dominique, after which Wynand and Dominique are married. Wynand subsequently discovers that every building he likes was designed by Roark, so he enlists Roark to build a home for himself and Dominique. The home is built, and Roark and Wynand become close friends, although Wynand does not know about Roark's past relationship with Dominique. Now washed up and out of the public eye, Keating realizes he is a failure. Rather than accept retirement, he pleads with Toohey for his influence to get the commission for the much-sought-after Cortlandt housing project. Keating knows that his most successful projects were aided by Roark, so he asks for Roark's help in designing Cortlandt. Roark agrees to design it in exchange for complete anonymity and Keating's promise that it will be built exactly as designed. When Roark returns from a long yacht trip with Wynand, he finds that the Cortlandt design has been changed despite his agreement with Keating. Roark asks Dominique to distract the night watchman and dynamites the building to prevent the subversion of his vision. The entire country condemns Roark, but Wynand finally finds the courage to follow his convictions and orders his newspapers to defend him. The Banners circulation drops and the workers go on strike, but Wynand keeps printing with Dominique's help. Wynand is eventually faced with the choice of closing the paper or reversing his stance and agreeing to the union demands. He gives in; the newspaper publishes a denunciation of Roark over Wynand's signature. At the trial, Roark seems doomed, but he rouses the courtroom with a speech about the value of ego and the need to remain true to oneself. The jury finds him not guilty and Roark wins Dominique. Wynand, who has finally grasped the nature of the \"power\" he thought he held, shuts down the Banner and asks Roark to design one last building for him, a skyscraper \u2013 the tallest building in the world \u2013 that will testify to the supremacy of man: \"Build it as a monument to that spirit which is yours...and could have been mine.\" Eighteen months later, in the spring of 1940, the Wynand Building is well on its way to completion and Dominique, now Roark's wife, enters the site to meet him atop its steel framework.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the spring of 1922, architecture student Howard Roark is expelled from the fictional Stanton Institute of Technology for refusing to adhere to the school's conventionalism in architecture. Despite an effort by some professors to defend Roark and a subsequent offer to continue at Stanton from the dean, Roark chooses to leave the school. He believes buildings should be sculpted only to fit their location, material and purpose elegantly and efficiently, while his critics insist that adherence to and reverence for historical convention is essential. He goes to New York City to work for Henry Cameron, a disgraced architect whom Roark admires. Cameron, who once was architecture's modernist hero, has fallen from fame due to the fickle demands of society and his own caustic personality. His work serves as an inspiration for Roark. Peter Keating, a popular but vacuous fellow student, has graduated with high honors; he too moves to New York, where he takes a job at the prestigious architectural firm of Francon & Heyer and quickly ingratiates himself with senior partner Guy Francon. Roark and Cameron create inspired work, but their projects rarely receive recognition, whereas Keating's ability to flatter and please brings him quick success (despite his lack of originality) and earns him a partnership in the firm. After Cameron retires from practice, Keating hires Roark to work at his firm, but he is quickly fired for insubordination by Guy Francon. Roark looks for work at other firms before finding one that will let him design as he pleases, but the firm will just take the best aspects of his design and merge his ideas with the ideas and plans of the other draftsmen in the office. After one of Roark's original plans impresses a client, he briefly opens his own office. However, he has trouble finding clients and eventually closes it down rather than compromise his ideals to win business from clients who want more conventional buildings. He takes a job at"
      },
      {
        "text": " work at other firms before finding one that will let him design as he pleases, but the firm will just take the best aspects of his design and merge his ideas with the ideas and plans of the other draftsmen in the office. After one of Roark's original plans impresses a client, he briefly opens his own office. However, he has trouble finding clients and eventually closes it down rather than compromise his ideals to win business from clients who want more conventional buildings. He takes a job at a Connecticut granite quarry owned by Francon. Meanwhile, Keating has developed an interest in Francon's beautiful, temperamental and idealistic daughter Dominique, who works as a columnist for The New York Banner, a yellow press-style newspaper. While Roark is working in the quarry, he encounters Dominique, who has retreated to her family's estate in the same town as the quarry. There is an immediate attraction between them. Rather than indulge in traditional flirtation, the two engage in a battle of wills that culminates in a rough sexual encounter that Dominique later describes as a rape. Shortly after their encounter, Roark is notified that a client is ready for him to start on a new building, and he returns to New York before Dominique can learn his name. Ellsworth M. Toohey, author of a popular architecture column in the Banner, is an outspoken socialist who is covertly rising to power by shaping public opinion through his column and his circle of influential associates. Toohey sets out to destroy Roark through a smear campaign he spearheads. As the first step, Toohey convinces a weak-minded businessman named Hopton Stoddard to hire Roark as the designer for a temple dedicated to the human spirit. Given full freedom to design it as he sees fit, Roark incorporates into it a statue of Dominique, nude, which creates a public outcry. Toohey manipulates Stoddard into suing Roark for general incompetence and fraud. At"
      },
      {
        "text": " Toohey sets out to destroy Roark through a smear campaign he spearheads. As the first step, Toohey convinces a weak-minded businessman named Hopton Stoddard to hire Roark as the designer for a temple dedicated to the human spirit. Given full freedom to design it as he sees fit, Roark incorporates into it a statue of Dominique, nude, which creates a public outcry. Toohey manipulates Stoddard into suing Roark for general incompetence and fraud. At the trial, prominent architects (including Keating) testify that Roark's style is unorthodox and illegitimate. Dominique defends Roark, but Stoddard wins the case and Roark loses his business again. Dominique decides that since she cannot have the world she wants (in which men like Roark are recognized for their greatness), she will live completely and entirely in the world she has, which shuns Roark and praises Keating. She offers Keating her hand in marriage. Keating accepts, breaking his previously long-held engagement with Toohey's niece Catherine, and they are married that evening. Dominique turns her entire spirit over to Keating, hosting the dinners he wants, agreeing with him, and saying whatever he wants her to say. She fights Roark and persuades his potential clients to hire Keating instead. Despite this, Roark continues to attract a small but steady stream of clients who see the value in his work. To win Keating a prestigious architecture commission offered by Gail Wynand, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Banner, Dominique agrees to sleep with Wynand. Wynand then buys Keating's silence and his divorce from Dominique, after which Wynand and Dominique are married. Wynand subsequently discovers that every building he likes was designed by Roark, so he enlists Roark to build a home for himself and Dominique. The home is built, and Roark and Wynand become close friends, although"
      },
      {
        "text": " offered by Gail Wynand, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Banner, Dominique agrees to sleep with Wynand. Wynand then buys Keating's silence and his divorce from Dominique, after which Wynand and Dominique are married. Wynand subsequently discovers that every building he likes was designed by Roark, so he enlists Roark to build a home for himself and Dominique. The home is built, and Roark and Wynand become close friends, although Wynand does not know about Roark's past relationship with Dominique. Now washed up and out of the public eye, Keating realizes he is a failure. Rather than accept retirement, he pleads with Toohey for his influence to get the commission for the much-sought-after Cortlandt housing project. Keating knows that his most successful projects were aided by Roark, so he asks for Roark's help in designing Cortlandt. Roark agrees to design it in exchange for complete anonymity and Keating's promise that it will be built exactly as designed. When Roark returns from a long yacht trip with Wynand, he finds that the Cortlandt design has been changed despite his agreement with Keating. Roark asks Dominique to distract the night watchman and dynamites the building to prevent the subversion of his vision. The entire country condemns Roark, but Wynand finally finds the courage to follow his convictions and orders his newspapers to defend him. The Banners circulation drops and the workers go on strike, but Wynand keeps printing with Dominique's help. Wynand is eventually faced with the choice of closing the paper or reversing his stance and agreeing to the union demands. He gives in; the newspaper publishes a denunciation of Roark over Wynand's signature. At the trial, Roark seems doomed, but he rouses the courtroom with a speech about the value of ego and the need to remain true to oneself. The jury finds"
      },
      {
        "text": " The Banners circulation drops and the workers go on strike, but Wynand keeps printing with Dominique's help. Wynand is eventually faced with the choice of closing the paper or reversing his stance and agreeing to the union demands. He gives in; the newspaper publishes a denunciation of Roark over Wynand's signature. At the trial, Roark seems doomed, but he rouses the courtroom with a speech about the value of ego and the need to remain true to oneself. The jury finds him not guilty and Roark wins Dominique. Wynand, who has finally grasped the nature of the \"power\" he thought he held, shuts down the Banner and asks Roark to design one last building for him, a skyscraper \u2013 the tallest building in the world \u2013 that will testify to the supremacy of man: \"Build it as a monument to that spirit which is yours...and could have been mine.\" Eighteen months later, in the spring of 1940, the Wynand Building is well on its way to completion and Dominique, now Roark's wife, enters the site to meet him atop its steel framework.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Last Continent",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "1998",
    "synopsis": " The story opens weeks after the events of Interesting Times, in which Rincewind is magically transported to the continent of Xxxx due to a miscalculation made by the Unseen University wizards. He meets the magical kangaroo Scrappy, who was sent by the creator of Fourecks. Scrappy explains to Rincewind that he is fated to bring back \"The Wet,\" meaning the rain, and that he is the reason for the eons-long drought. Scrappy says that the continent is unfinished, and time and space will be an eternal anomaly there until it is finished, i.e. the rain is brought back. Rincewind is shown cave paintings of Wizards. Meanwhile, the senior wizards (made up of Archancellor Mustrum Ridcully, the Dean, the Bursar, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, the Lecturer in Recent Runes, the Senior Wrangler, and Ponder Stibbons) of Unseen University are trying to find a cure for the Librarian's magical malady, which causes him to transform into a native object, such as a book when near a library, whenever he sneezes. The wizards soon find out that the books in the Library become hostile and attack when not in the librarian's care. The wizards cannot cure the Librarian without knowing his name. The Librarian, being also the archivist, destroyed any evidence of his true name since he believed the wizards would attempt to turn him human again, as he rather enjoyed his orangutan body (brought on by a magical accident years before). The Lecturer in Recent Runes suggest they interrogate Rincewind, as he once worked closely with the Librarian and seemed to know more about him than anyone else. To find Rincewind, they have to find the continent of Xxxx. They seek out the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, and find his office but no sign of the professor himself. They then find a magical window in space leading from the professor's bathroom to a tropical island thousands of years in the past. Back in the present, Rincewind attempts to run away from his destiny, but in fact runs towards it. With the secret assistance of Scrappy, he eventually ends up wrongfully arrested for sheep theft and taken to Bugarup, where he is hoping to find a ship to escape on. Along the way he subsequently ends up inventing several things that are considered Australian Icons in the real world, for example beer soup(vegemite), putting corks on a string round his hat to keep flies off (a common Australian outback hat stereotype), as well as becoming the subject of a ballad that is hinted at being a parody of the song \"Waltzing Matilda\" when he is caught apparently stealing a sheep by a billabong.A gigantic circular storm surrounding Fourecks prevents any ships from leaving, however. The people of Bugarup are enthusiastic for Rincewind, since they regard sheep thieves as folk heroes and encourage him to escape, while not actually allowing him to. He finds a hidden message on the ceiling of his holding cell, left by a previous escapee named Tinhead Ned, a reference to the famous Australian bushranger telling him to check the hinges on the door. He discovers that he is able to lift the door off its hinges and escape. The wizards become trapped when Mrs. Whitlow, the head maid, brings them their breakfast and inadvertently closes the window that leads back into the Professor's study. The wizards soon encounter plants that rapidly evolve to suit their needs but (apart from Ponder) do not question the turn of events until a large dinosaur evolves into a chicken in front of their eyes. After finding a plant-based boat, the wizards start to question their surroundings even more and the god of Evolution, who has been causing the events, then turns up and helps explain things a bit. He created the boat plant so that the wizards would leave him in peace, as the plants are going haywire attempting to evolve to suit the wizards' every needs. The god doesn't understand the purpose of the seeds and is, it turns out, unaware of the concept of sexual reproduction. After Mrs. Whitlow explains it to him, the much excited god decides to almost completely redesign the creatures on the island in order to incorporate the idea. Ponder decides to stay to help the god while the wizards load up on provisions and leave. Ponder soon catches up with them, as he discovered that the God was fixated with beetles and built the cockroach as his primary project rather than humans. The wizards then reach Fourecks and meet the Creator of Fourecks (not of the Disc) in the process of creating it by way of impressionistic cave paintings. The wizards bicker over the Creator's technique and inadvertently create the duck-billed platypus. The Librarian meanwhile steals the Creator's bullroarer and spins it, causing the drought Rincewind is in the process of stopping. The wizards are then frozen in time for thousands of years by the stray magic left over from creating the continent. Rincewind, having escaped from gaol, invents the Peach Nellie, and then meets up with a group of female impersonators, Darleen and Letitia, and a female, Neilette. The \"ladies\" have found his Luggage, which rescues him from the Watch. In the escape, Rincewind and Neilette break into the old brewery (which was never used because all the beer kept going flat). An earthquake (induced by the voice of the creator) causes the brewery to collapse, trapping them inside the Luggage. When they emerge, Rincewind can see the ethereal outlines of the wizards (who were trapped, frozen in time, for thirty thousand years in the brewery). Eventually he arrives at the University of Fourecks (which has a tower that is taller on the inside than it is on the outside). Rincewind figures out how to free the wizards, by drawing a picture of them, as the Creator did to create animals and plants in the past. The wizards attempt to find a way to bring back the rain, but are unsuccessful. As they are sitting around, Rincewind idly twirls the Bullroarer, which soon begins to fly faster and farther than it should. Rincewind lets go and the bullroarer flies off; immediately, it begins to rain. Having saved Fourecks, Rincewind and the Wizards return to Ankh-Morpork by ship, and the story ends with the old man with the sack (the Creator of the last continent) catching the bullroarer in front of a young boy.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story opens weeks after the events of Interesting Times, in which Rincewind is magically transported to the continent of Xxxx due to a miscalculation made by the Unseen University wizards. He meets the magical kangaroo Scrappy, who was sent by the creator of Fourecks. Scrappy explains to Rincewind that he is fated to bring back \"The Wet,\" meaning the rain, and that he is the reason for the eons-long drought. Scrappy says that the continent is unfinished, and time and space will be an eternal anomaly there until it is finished, i.e. the rain is brought back. Rincewind is shown cave paintings of Wizards. Meanwhile, the senior wizards (made up of Archancellor Mustrum Ridcully, the Dean, the Bursar, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, the Lecturer in Recent Runes, the Senior Wrangler, and Ponder Stibbons) of Unseen University are trying to find a cure for the Librarian's magical malady, which causes him to transform into a native object, such as a book when near a library, whenever he sneezes. The wizards soon find out that the books in the Library become hostile and attack when not in the librarian's care. The wizards cannot cure the Librarian without knowing his name. The Librarian, being also the archivist, destroyed any evidence of his true name since he believed the wizards would attempt to turn him human again, as he rather enjoyed his orangutan body (brought on by a magical accident years before). The Lecturer in Recent Runes suggest they interrogate Rincewind, as he once worked closely with the Librarian and seemed to know more about him than anyone else. To find Rincewind, they have to find the continent of Xxxx. They seek out the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, and find his office but no sign"
      },
      {
        "text": " attempt to turn him human again, as he rather enjoyed his orangutan body (brought on by a magical accident years before). The Lecturer in Recent Runes suggest they interrogate Rincewind, as he once worked closely with the Librarian and seemed to know more about him than anyone else. To find Rincewind, they have to find the continent of Xxxx. They seek out the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, and find his office but no sign of the professor himself. They then find a magical window in space leading from the professor's bathroom to a tropical island thousands of years in the past. Back in the present, Rincewind attempts to run away from his destiny, but in fact runs towards it. With the secret assistance of Scrappy, he eventually ends up wrongfully arrested for sheep theft and taken to Bugarup, where he is hoping to find a ship to escape on. Along the way he subsequently ends up inventing several things that are considered Australian Icons in the real world, for example beer soup(vegemite), putting corks on a string round his hat to keep flies off (a common Australian outback hat stereotype), as well as becoming the subject of a ballad that is hinted at being a parody of the song \"Waltzing Matilda\" when he is caught apparently stealing a sheep by a billabong.A gigantic circular storm surrounding Fourecks prevents any ships from leaving, however. The people of Bugarup are enthusiastic for Rincewind, since they regard sheep thieves as folk heroes and encourage him to escape, while not actually allowing him to. He finds a hidden message on the ceiling of his holding cell, left by a previous escapee named Tinhead Ned, a reference to the famous Australian bushranger telling him to check the hinges on the door. He discovers that he is able to lift the door off its hinges and escape. The wizards become trapped when Mrs"
      },
      {
        "text": ". The people of Bugarup are enthusiastic for Rincewind, since they regard sheep thieves as folk heroes and encourage him to escape, while not actually allowing him to. He finds a hidden message on the ceiling of his holding cell, left by a previous escapee named Tinhead Ned, a reference to the famous Australian bushranger telling him to check the hinges on the door. He discovers that he is able to lift the door off its hinges and escape. The wizards become trapped when Mrs. Whitlow, the head maid, brings them their breakfast and inadvertently closes the window that leads back into the Professor's study. The wizards soon encounter plants that rapidly evolve to suit their needs but (apart from Ponder) do not question the turn of events until a large dinosaur evolves into a chicken in front of their eyes. After finding a plant-based boat, the wizards start to question their surroundings even more and the god of Evolution, who has been causing the events, then turns up and helps explain things a bit. He created the boat plant so that the wizards would leave him in peace, as the plants are going haywire attempting to evolve to suit the wizards' every needs. The god doesn't understand the purpose of the seeds and is, it turns out, unaware of the concept of sexual reproduction. After Mrs. Whitlow explains it to him, the much excited god decides to almost completely redesign the creatures on the island in order to incorporate the idea. Ponder decides to stay to help the god while the wizards load up on provisions and leave. Ponder soon catches up with them, as he discovered that the God was fixated with beetles and built the cockroach as his primary project rather than humans. The wizards then reach Fourecks and meet the Creator of Fourecks (not of the Disc) in the process of creating it by way of impressionistic cave paintings. The wizards bicker over the Creator's technique and inadvertently create the duck-billed plat"
      },
      {
        "text": " stay to help the god while the wizards load up on provisions and leave. Ponder soon catches up with them, as he discovered that the God was fixated with beetles and built the cockroach as his primary project rather than humans. The wizards then reach Fourecks and meet the Creator of Fourecks (not of the Disc) in the process of creating it by way of impressionistic cave paintings. The wizards bicker over the Creator's technique and inadvertently create the duck-billed platypus. The Librarian meanwhile steals the Creator's bullroarer and spins it, causing the drought Rincewind is in the process of stopping. The wizards are then frozen in time for thousands of years by the stray magic left over from creating the continent. Rincewind, having escaped from gaol, invents the Peach Nellie, and then meets up with a group of female impersonators, Darleen and Letitia, and a female, Neilette. The \"ladies\" have found his Luggage, which rescues him from the Watch. In the escape, Rincewind and Neilette break into the old brewery (which was never used because all the beer kept going flat). An earthquake (induced by the voice of the creator) causes the brewery to collapse, trapping them inside the Luggage. When they emerge, Rincewind can see the ethereal outlines of the wizards (who were trapped, frozen in time, for thirty thousand years in the brewery). Eventually he arrives at the University of Fourecks (which has a tower that is taller on the inside than it is on the outside). Rincewind figures out how to free the wizards, by drawing a picture of them, as the Creator did to create animals and plants in the past. The wizards attempt to find a way to bring back the rain, but are unsuccessful. As they are sitting around, Rincewind idly twirls the Bullroarer, which soon begins"
      },
      {
        "text": " brewery). Eventually he arrives at the University of Fourecks (which has a tower that is taller on the inside than it is on the outside). Rincewind figures out how to free the wizards, by drawing a picture of them, as the Creator did to create animals and plants in the past. The wizards attempt to find a way to bring back the rain, but are unsuccessful. As they are sitting around, Rincewind idly twirls the Bullroarer, which soon begins to fly faster and farther than it should. Rincewind lets go and the bullroarer flies off; immediately, it begins to rain. Having saved Fourecks, Rincewind and the Wizards return to Ankh-Morpork by ship, and the story ends with the old man with the sack (the Creator of the last continent) catching the bullroarer in front of a young boy.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Laura Blundy",
    "author": "Julie Myerson",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " After her mother has died in childbirth, Laura Blundy is brought up by her loving and caring father, a merchant and shopowner who also pays for her schooling. One day, on her way to her ailing aunt, she is given a lift by a young man in a carriage who rapes her and then throws her out of the carriage again. She becomes pregnant, and when both her father and her aunt die she is left penniless. Unable to care for her baby son, she manages to have him raised in an institution. She occasionally goes there to inquire after him, but one day she is told that he has died and that he has been buried in an unmarked grave. The feeling of loss she experiences never leaves her again. Laura Blundy spends the following 18 years of her life in the streets of London. When another woman's baby dies in her care she is charged with murder and has to go to prison. Years later she is set free again but almost immediately after her release she is run over by a carriage (whose driver does not stop). She is brought to hospital, where her leg is amputated. However, she falls in love with her surgeon. They get married, but Laura is attracted more by his cleanliness and moderate wealth than by his character or potency. When, in mid-winter, Laura decides to commit suicide by drowning in the river Thames, she is rescued by Billy, a young worker employed in the building of the Victoria Embankment and London's sewage system. Although Billy has a wife and children, they start a love affair. Some time later Laura beats her husband to death in his own home, making Billy an accomplice after the fact. Laura cuts up her husband's body, and then she and Billy carry the body in several bags to the river. As the surgeon's head keeps bobbing up and being washed ashore they eventually have to burn it. At this point in her life Laura, already in her late thirties, may be pregnant once again. The lovers have plans of escaping to France.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After her mother has died in childbirth, Laura Blundy is brought up by her loving and caring father, a merchant and shopowner who also pays for her schooling. One day, on her way to her ailing aunt, she is given a lift by a young man in a carriage who rapes her and then throws her out of the carriage again. She becomes pregnant, and when both her father and her aunt die she is left penniless. Unable to care for her baby son, she manages to have him raised in an institution. She occasionally goes there to inquire after him, but one day she is told that he has died and that he has been buried in an unmarked grave. The feeling of loss she experiences never leaves her again. Laura Blundy spends the following 18 years of her life in the streets of London. When another woman's baby dies in her care she is charged with murder and has to go to prison. Years later she is set free again but almost immediately after her release she is run over by a carriage (whose driver does not stop). She is brought to hospital, where her leg is amputated. However, she falls in love with her surgeon. They get married, but Laura is attracted more by his cleanliness and moderate wealth than by his character or potency. When, in mid-winter, Laura decides to commit suicide by drowning in the river Thames, she is rescued by Billy, a young worker employed in the building of the Victoria Embankment and London's sewage system. Although Billy has a wife and children, they start a love affair. Some time later Laura beats her husband to death in his own home, making Billy an accomplice after the fact. Laura cuts up her husband's body, and then she and Billy carry the body in several bags to the river. As the surgeon's head keeps bobbing up and being washed ashore they eventually have to burn it. At this point in her life Laura, already in her late thirties, may"
      },
      {
        "text": " sewage system. Although Billy has a wife and children, they start a love affair. Some time later Laura beats her husband to death in his own home, making Billy an accomplice after the fact. Laura cuts up her husband's body, and then she and Billy carry the body in several bags to the river. As the surgeon's head keeps bobbing up and being washed ashore they eventually have to burn it. At this point in her life Laura, already in her late thirties, may be pregnant once again. The lovers have plans of escaping to France.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Contact",
    "author": "Carl Sagan",
    "published_date": "1985-09",
    "synopsis": " Eleanor \"Ellie\" Arroway is the director of \"Project Argus,\" in which scores of radio telescopes in New Mexico have been dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The project discovers the first confirmed communication from extraterrestrial beings. The communication is a repeating series of the first 261 prime numbers (a sequence of prime numbers is a commonly predicted first message from alien intelligence, since mathematics is considered a \"universal language,\" and it is conjectured that algorithms that produce successive prime numbers are sufficiently complicated so as to require intelligence to implement them). Further analysis reveals that a second message is contained in polarization modulation of the signal. The second message is a retransmission of Earth's first television signal broadcast powerful enough to escape the ionosphere and be received in interstellar space; in this case, Adolf Hitler's opening speech at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. A third message is discovered containing over 30,000 pages describing plans for a machine that appears to be a kind of highly advanced vehicle, with seats for five human beings. But they cannot understand the third message until they find the fourth message, a primer hidden in phase modulation. The primer allows them to translate the alien language to human language. Ultimately, a machine is successfully built and activated, transporting five passengers \u2013 including Ellie \u2013 through a series of wormholes to a place near the center of the Milky Way galaxy, where they meet the senders in the guise of persons significant in the lives of the travelers, whether living or dead. Some of the travelers' questions are answered by the senders, with the senders suggesting a message is contained within one of the transcendental numbers. Upon returning to Earth, the passengers discover that what seemed like many hours to them passed by in only 20 minutes on Earth, and that all their video footage has been erased, presumably by the time changing magnetic fields they were exposed to inside of the wormholes. They are left with no proof of their stories and are accused of fabrication. Therefore, though Ellie has traveled across the galaxy and actually encountered extraterrestrial beings, she cannot prove it. The government officials deduce an international conspiracy, blaming the world's richest man in an attempt to perpetuate himself, embarrass the government, and get lucrative deals from the machine consortium's multi-trillion-dollar project. The message is claimed to be a fabrication from a secret artificial man-made satellite(s) that cannot be traced, because the message stopped once the machine was activated, a feat that is impossible unless one considers time travel feasible, and Ellie and other scientists are implicated. Ellie, a lifelong religious skeptic, finds herself asking the world to take a leap of faith and believe what she and the others say happened to them. She finds only one person willing to take that leap: Palmer Joss, a minister introduced early in the book. Ellie, acting upon a suggestion by the senders of the message, works on a program which computes the digits of pi to record lengths in different bases. Very far from the decimal point (1020) and in base 11, it finds that a special pattern does exist when the numbers stop varying randomly and start producing 1s and 0s in a very long string. The string's length is the product of 11 prime numbers. The 1s and 0s when organized as a square of specific dimensions form a rasterized circle. The extraterrestrials suggest that this is a signature incorporated into the Universe itself. Yet the extraterrestrials are just as ignorant to its meaning as Ellie, as it could be still some sort of a statistical anomaly. They also make reference to older artifacts built from space time itself (namely the wormhole transit system) abandoned by a prior civilization. A line in the book suggests that the image is a foretaste of deeper marvels hidden even further within pi. This new pursuit becomes analogous to SETI; it is another search for meaningful signals in apparent noise.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Eleanor \"Ellie\" Arroway is the director of \"Project Argus,\" in which scores of radio telescopes in New Mexico have been dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The project discovers the first confirmed communication from extraterrestrial beings. The communication is a repeating series of the first 261 prime numbers (a sequence of prime numbers is a commonly predicted first message from alien intelligence, since mathematics is considered a \"universal language,\" and it is conjectured that algorithms that produce successive prime numbers are sufficiently complicated so as to require intelligence to implement them). Further analysis reveals that a second message is contained in polarization modulation of the signal. The second message is a retransmission of Earth's first television signal broadcast powerful enough to escape the ionosphere and be received in interstellar space; in this case, Adolf Hitler's opening speech at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. A third message is discovered containing over 30,000 pages describing plans for a machine that appears to be a kind of highly advanced vehicle, with seats for five human beings. But they cannot understand the third message until they find the fourth message, a primer hidden in phase modulation. The primer allows them to translate the alien language to human language. Ultimately, a machine is successfully built and activated, transporting five passengers \u2013 including Ellie \u2013 through a series of wormholes to a place near the center of the Milky Way galaxy, where they meet the senders in the guise of persons significant in the lives of the travelers, whether living or dead. Some of the travelers' questions are answered by the senders, with the senders suggesting a message is contained within one of the transcendental numbers. Upon returning to Earth, the passengers discover that what seemed like many hours to them passed by in only 20 minutes on Earth, and that all their video footage has been erased, presumably by the time changing magnetic fields they were exposed to inside of the wormholes. They are left with no proof of their stories and are accused of fabrication. Therefore,"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Some of the travelers' questions are answered by the senders, with the senders suggesting a message is contained within one of the transcendental numbers. Upon returning to Earth, the passengers discover that what seemed like many hours to them passed by in only 20 minutes on Earth, and that all their video footage has been erased, presumably by the time changing magnetic fields they were exposed to inside of the wormholes. They are left with no proof of their stories and are accused of fabrication. Therefore, though Ellie has traveled across the galaxy and actually encountered extraterrestrial beings, she cannot prove it. The government officials deduce an international conspiracy, blaming the world's richest man in an attempt to perpetuate himself, embarrass the government, and get lucrative deals from the machine consortium's multi-trillion-dollar project. The message is claimed to be a fabrication from a secret artificial man-made satellite(s) that cannot be traced, because the message stopped once the machine was activated, a feat that is impossible unless one considers time travel feasible, and Ellie and other scientists are implicated. Ellie, a lifelong religious skeptic, finds herself asking the world to take a leap of faith and believe what she and the others say happened to them. She finds only one person willing to take that leap: Palmer Joss, a minister introduced early in the book. Ellie, acting upon a suggestion by the senders of the message, works on a program which computes the digits of pi to record lengths in different bases. Very far from the decimal point (1020) and in base 11, it finds that a special pattern does exist when the numbers stop varying randomly and start producing 1s and 0s in a very long string. The string's length is the product of 11 prime numbers. The 1s and 0s when organized as a square of specific dimensions form a rasterized circle. The extraterrestrials suggest that this is a signature incorporated into the Universe itself. Yet the extraterrestri"
      },
      {
        "text": " bases. Very far from the decimal point (1020) and in base 11, it finds that a special pattern does exist when the numbers stop varying randomly and start producing 1s and 0s in a very long string. The string's length is the product of 11 prime numbers. The 1s and 0s when organized as a square of specific dimensions form a rasterized circle. The extraterrestrials suggest that this is a signature incorporated into the Universe itself. Yet the extraterrestrials are just as ignorant to its meaning as Ellie, as it could be still some sort of a statistical anomaly. They also make reference to older artifacts built from space time itself (namely the wormhole transit system) abandoned by a prior civilization. A line in the book suggests that the image is a foretaste of deeper marvels hidden even further within pi. This new pursuit becomes analogous to SETI; it is another search for meaningful signals in apparent noise.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "American Gods",
    "author": "Neil Gaiman",
    "published_date": "2001",
    "synopsis": " The central premise of the novel is that gods and mythological creatures exist because people believe in them. Immigrants to the United States brought with them dwarves, elves, leprechauns, and other spirits and gods. However, the power of these mythological beings has diminished as people's beliefs wane. New gods have arisen, reflecting America's obsessions with media, celebrity, technology, and drugs, among others. The book follows the adventures of ex-convict Shadow, who is released from prison a few days earlier than planned due to the death of his wife, Laura, in a car accident. He discovers at the funeral that the car crashed because Laura was performing oral sex on Shadow's late friend Robbie, who was driving. Even before learning of the death of Robbie, who was to give Shadow a job, Shadow has been repeatedly offered work as a bodyguard by a conman called Mr. Wednesday. Shadow accepts Mr. Wednesday's offer and they both travel across America visiting Wednesday's unusual colleagues and acquaintances. Gradually, it is revealed that Wednesday is an incarnation of Odin the All-Father (the name Wednesday is derived from \"Odin's--W\u014dden's--day\"), who in his current guise is recruiting American manifestations of the Old Gods of ancient mythology, whose powers have waned as their believers have decreased in number, to participate in an epic battle against the New American Gods, manifestations of modern life and technology (for example, the Internet, media, and modern means of transport), who are controlling a Black hat Secret Services organization (according to the goddess Eostre, these Men in Black exist because \"everyone knows they must exist\"). Shadow's wife Laura comes back in the form of a sapient animated corpse due to a special golden coin Shadow had acquired and placed on her coffin at her burial, not knowing the effect it would have. Mythological characters prominently featured in the book include Mr Wednesday (Odin), Low-Key Lyesmith (Loki Lie-Smith), Mad Sweeney (Suibhne), Czernobog, the Zorya, the Norns, Mr Nancy (Anansi), Easter (Eostre), Mama Ji (Kali), Whiskey Jack (Wisakedjak) Mr Ibis (Thoth), Mr Jacquel (Anubis), Horus, and Bast. In addition to the numerous figures from real-world myths, a few characters from The Sandman and its spinoffs make brief cameos in the book. Other mythological characters featured in the novel are not divine, but are legendary or folk heroes, such as Johnny Appleseed and djinns. Shadow himself is implied to be the Norse god Baldr, which is confirmed in the follow-up novella, \"Monarch of the Glen\". In the Author's preferred text edition, Loki tells Shadow's wife Laura that when it was all over, he was going to sharpen a stick of mistletoe, go down to the ash tree and ram it between his eyes \u2013 implying that Shadow was indeed Baldr, as mistletoe was the only thing that could harm Baldr. During a live interview and spoken word session held at UCLA on Thursday, February 4, 2010, Gaiman revealed Shadow's identity as \"Baldur Moon\", in response to a fan question. The story features, in its most erotic chapter, a succubus-like re-invention of the Queen of Sheba, who while posing as a prostitute literally swallows a man through her sexual organs. \"Bilquis\", as she is called here, is later killed by one of the New Gods. Sexuality as a rule plays a part in the plot and subplots; Mr. Wednesday uses his magical powers to bed several young virgins on the journey across America (\"And I need her, not as an end in herself, but to wake me up a little. Even King David knew that there is one easy prescription to get warm blood flowing through an old frame: take one virgin, call me in the morning.\") while Shadow is seduced in his dreams by a humanoid version of Bast, Egyptian goddess of fertility. When the New Gods murder Wednesday \u2013 thus galvanizing the Old Gods into action \u2013 Shadow obeys Wednesday's order by holding his vigil. This is accomplished by re-enacting the act performed by Odin of hanging from a \"World Tree\" while pierced by a spear. Shadow eventually dies and visits the land of the dead, where he is guided by Thoth and judged by Anubis. Eostre later brings him back to life, obeying orders that she does not fully understand. During the period between life and death, Shadow learns that he is Wednesday's son, conceived as part of the deity's plans. He realises that Odin and Loki have been working a \"two-man con.\" They orchestrated Shadow's birth, his meeting of Loki in disguise as his prison cellmate \"Low Key Lyesmith\" (Loki Liesmith) and Laura's death. Loki, secretly \"Mr. World\", the leader of the New Gods, orders Odin's murder so that the battle caused between the New and Old Gods will serve as a sacrifice to Odin, restoring his power, while Loki would feed on the chaos of the battle. Shadow arrives at Rock City, site of the climactic battle, just after the battle had started but in time to stop it, explaining that both sides had nothing to gain and everything to lose, with Odin and Loki the only winners. America is a \"bad place for Gods\", Shadow tells them, and recommends they go home and make the best of what they can get. The Gods depart, Odin's ghost fades, and Loki is impaled on a branch of the World Tree by Laura, who finally dies after Shadow takes the magical coin from her. In an extensive subplot, Shadow follows a clue given to him by the Hindu god Ganesha to discover that a man called Hinzelmann, who had been Shadow's neighbor for a time, is a kobold who annually sacrifices children to empower himself and prevent the small town of Lakeside from succumbing to the economic decay that has claimed many similar towns. Shadow confronts Hinzelmann, who is then shot by a local policeman whose father Hinzelmann had previously killed to keep his secret. After this, Shadow attempts to reconnect with Sam Black Crow, a girl of Native-American descent whom he had met several times in the past. Unnoticed by her and her girlfriend, he slips a bouquet into Sam's hand and leaves. It is not clear why the two lovers don't see him, though it is possible that Shadow is inadvertently \"backstage\", a state of existence only Gods can enter. Following the final confrontation between the gods, Shadow visits Iceland, where he meets another incarnation of Odin who was created by the belief of the original settlers of Iceland, and is therefore much closer to the Odin of mythology than Wednesday is. Shadow accuses Odin of Wednesday's actions, whereupon Odin replies that \"He was me, yes. But I am not him.\" After a short talk, Shadow gives Odin Wednesday's glass eye, which Odin places in a leather bag as a keepsake. Shadow performs a simple sleight-of-hand coin trick, which delights Odin enough that he asks for a repeat performance. Shadow then flips the golden coin towards the sun and, without waiting to see if it ever lands, walks down the hill and away.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The central premise of the novel is that gods and mythological creatures exist because people believe in them. Immigrants to the United States brought with them dwarves, elves, leprechauns, and other spirits and gods. However, the power of these mythological beings has diminished as people's beliefs wane. New gods have arisen, reflecting America's obsessions with media, celebrity, technology, and drugs, among others. The book follows the adventures of ex-convict Shadow, who is released from prison a few days earlier than planned due to the death of his wife, Laura, in a car accident. He discovers at the funeral that the car crashed because Laura was performing oral sex on Shadow's late friend Robbie, who was driving. Even before learning of the death of Robbie, who was to give Shadow a job, Shadow has been repeatedly offered work as a bodyguard by a conman called Mr. Wednesday. Shadow accepts Mr. Wednesday's offer and they both travel across America visiting Wednesday's unusual colleagues and acquaintances. Gradually, it is revealed that Wednesday is an incarnation of Odin the All-Father (the name Wednesday is derived from \"Odin's--W\u014dden's--day\"), who in his current guise is recruiting American manifestations of the Old Gods of ancient mythology, whose powers have waned as their believers have decreased in number, to participate in an epic battle against the New American Gods, manifestations of modern life and technology (for example, the Internet, media, and modern means of transport), who are controlling a Black hat Secret Services organization (according to the goddess Eostre, these Men in Black exist because \"everyone knows they must exist\"). Shadow's wife Laura comes back in the form of a sapient animated corpse due to a special golden coin Shadow had acquired and placed on her coffin at her burial, not knowing the effect it would have. Mythological characters prominently featured in the book include Mr Wednesday (Odin), Low-Key Lyesmith ("
      },
      {
        "text": " and modern means of transport), who are controlling a Black hat Secret Services organization (according to the goddess Eostre, these Men in Black exist because \"everyone knows they must exist\"). Shadow's wife Laura comes back in the form of a sapient animated corpse due to a special golden coin Shadow had acquired and placed on her coffin at her burial, not knowing the effect it would have. Mythological characters prominently featured in the book include Mr Wednesday (Odin), Low-Key Lyesmith (Loki Lie-Smith), Mad Sweeney (Suibhne), Czernobog, the Zorya, the Norns, Mr Nancy (Anansi), Easter (Eostre), Mama Ji (Kali), Whiskey Jack (Wisakedjak) Mr Ibis (Thoth), Mr Jacquel (Anubis), Horus, and Bast. In addition to the numerous figures from real-world myths, a few characters from The Sandman and its spinoffs make brief cameos in the book. Other mythological characters featured in the novel are not divine, but are legendary or folk heroes, such as Johnny Appleseed and djinns. Shadow himself is implied to be the Norse god Baldr, which is confirmed in the follow-up novella, \"Monarch of the Glen\". In the Author's preferred text edition, Loki tells Shadow's wife Laura that when it was all over, he was going to sharpen a stick of mistletoe, go down to the ash tree and ram it between his eyes \u2013 implying that Shadow was indeed Baldr, as mistletoe was the only thing that could harm Baldr. During a live interview and spoken word session held at UCLA on Thursday, February 4, 2010, Gaiman revealed Shadow's identity as \"Baldur Moon\", in response to a fan question. The story features, in its most erotic chapter, a succubus-like re-invention of the Queen"
      },
      {
        "text": "letoe, go down to the ash tree and ram it between his eyes \u2013 implying that Shadow was indeed Baldr, as mistletoe was the only thing that could harm Baldr. During a live interview and spoken word session held at UCLA on Thursday, February 4, 2010, Gaiman revealed Shadow's identity as \"Baldur Moon\", in response to a fan question. The story features, in its most erotic chapter, a succubus-like re-invention of the Queen of Sheba, who while posing as a prostitute literally swallows a man through her sexual organs. \"Bilquis\", as she is called here, is later killed by one of the New Gods. Sexuality as a rule plays a part in the plot and subplots; Mr. Wednesday uses his magical powers to bed several young virgins on the journey across America (\"And I need her, not as an end in herself, but to wake me up a little. Even King David knew that there is one easy prescription to get warm blood flowing through an old frame: take one virgin, call me in the morning.\") while Shadow is seduced in his dreams by a humanoid version of Bast, Egyptian goddess of fertility. When the New Gods murder Wednesday \u2013 thus galvanizing the Old Gods into action \u2013 Shadow obeys Wednesday's order by holding his vigil. This is accomplished by re-enacting the act performed by Odin of hanging from a \"World Tree\" while pierced by a spear. Shadow eventually dies and visits the land of the dead, where he is guided by Thoth and judged by Anubis. Eostre later brings him back to life, obeying orders that she does not fully understand. During the period between life and death, Shadow learns that he is Wednesday's son, conceived as part of the deity's plans. He realises that Odin and Loki have been working a \"two-man con.\" They orchestrated Shadow's birth, his meeting of Loki in disguise"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Shadow eventually dies and visits the land of the dead, where he is guided by Thoth and judged by Anubis. Eostre later brings him back to life, obeying orders that she does not fully understand. During the period between life and death, Shadow learns that he is Wednesday's son, conceived as part of the deity's plans. He realises that Odin and Loki have been working a \"two-man con.\" They orchestrated Shadow's birth, his meeting of Loki in disguise as his prison cellmate \"Low Key Lyesmith\" (Loki Liesmith) and Laura's death. Loki, secretly \"Mr. World\", the leader of the New Gods, orders Odin's murder so that the battle caused between the New and Old Gods will serve as a sacrifice to Odin, restoring his power, while Loki would feed on the chaos of the battle. Shadow arrives at Rock City, site of the climactic battle, just after the battle had started but in time to stop it, explaining that both sides had nothing to gain and everything to lose, with Odin and Loki the only winners. America is a \"bad place for Gods\", Shadow tells them, and recommends they go home and make the best of what they can get. The Gods depart, Odin's ghost fades, and Loki is impaled on a branch of the World Tree by Laura, who finally dies after Shadow takes the magical coin from her. In an extensive subplot, Shadow follows a clue given to him by the Hindu god Ganesha to discover that a man called Hinzelmann, who had been Shadow's neighbor for a time, is a kobold who annually sacrifices children to empower himself and prevent the small town of Lakeside from succumbing to the economic decay that has claimed many similar towns. Shadow confronts Hinzelmann, who is then shot by a local policeman whose father Hinzelmann had previously killed to keep his secret. After this, Shadow attempts to reconnect with Sam Black Crow,"
      },
      {
        "text": " by the Hindu god Ganesha to discover that a man called Hinzelmann, who had been Shadow's neighbor for a time, is a kobold who annually sacrifices children to empower himself and prevent the small town of Lakeside from succumbing to the economic decay that has claimed many similar towns. Shadow confronts Hinzelmann, who is then shot by a local policeman whose father Hinzelmann had previously killed to keep his secret. After this, Shadow attempts to reconnect with Sam Black Crow, a girl of Native-American descent whom he had met several times in the past. Unnoticed by her and her girlfriend, he slips a bouquet into Sam's hand and leaves. It is not clear why the two lovers don't see him, though it is possible that Shadow is inadvertently \"backstage\", a state of existence only Gods can enter. Following the final confrontation between the gods, Shadow visits Iceland, where he meets another incarnation of Odin who was created by the belief of the original settlers of Iceland, and is therefore much closer to the Odin of mythology than Wednesday is. Shadow accuses Odin of Wednesday's actions, whereupon Odin replies that \"He was me, yes. But I am not him.\" After a short talk, Shadow gives Odin Wednesday's glass eye, which Odin places in a leather bag as a keepsake. Shadow performs a simple sleight-of-hand coin trick, which delights Odin enough that he asks for a repeat performance. Shadow then flips the golden coin towards the sun and, without waiting to see if it ever lands, walks down the hill and away.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " towards the sun and, without waiting to see if it ever lands, walks down the hill and away.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Stardust",
    "author": "Neil Gaiman",
    "published_date": "1999-02-01",
    "synopsis": " The Faerie Market is held every nine years on the other side of the wall dividing Faerie from our world and for which the nearby town of Wall is named. As the book begins, the market has just begun and the town filled with visitors and vendors. Dunstan Thorn rents out his cottage to a stranger in exchange for his \"Heart's Desire\" in addition to a monetary payment. The next day in the market, he meets Una, a princess imprisoned by the witch called Semele. He purchases a glass snowdrop from her with a kiss, and gives the flower to his fianc\u00e9e Daisy. That night, Dunstan meets Una in the woods and makes love to her. A month later, Dunstan marries Daisy. In February, he receives a baby in a basket\u2014his and Una's son, Tristran Thorn. Eighteen years later, Tristran seeks the love of Victoria Forester, the town beauty. One night, while Tristran is walking her home from the shop where he works, she sees a shooting star land in Faerie, and he vows to bring it to her in exchange for a kiss, and perhaps her hand in marriage. Thinking that he will never actually do it, Victoria promises to do whatever he asks if he brings her the star. Dunstan gives Tristran the snowdrop and helps him pass the guards at the wall by alluding to his faerie heritage. Tristran enters Faerie. At Stormhold, the King of Stormhold gathers his sons to determine who will be his heir; he hurls the Power of Stormhold, a topaz that marks its bearer as the ruler of the land, into the sky, knocking that selfsame star from the sky. He then dies, and his sons leave together. Septimus departs on his own after poisoning Tertius at a nearby inn. In a small, grey house in the woods, three ancient and mighty witches known as the Lillim learn of the fallen star by reading the entrails of a dead stoat, and the eldest of the Lilim consumes their last reserves of \"years,\" later revealed to be the heart of another fallen star, to become young again. She meets a farm boy, Brevis, at a crossroads, takes his goat, and transforms him into a second goat, using the two animals to pull her small chariot. Tristran meets a small hairy man who helps him through the woods. After Tristran helps them escape deadly trees called serewood, he learns he has the ability to find any location in Faerie. Tristran is taunted by tiny faeries, who say that he is \"soon to face his true love's scorn\". The hairy man gives Tristran a new outfit, a silver chain like the one used to imprison Una, and a candle-stub which allows one to travel great distances quickly while it burns, which he explains by referencing the nursery rhyme \"How Many Miles to Babylon?\". Tristran uses the candle to quickly reach the fallen star, but is surprised to find that the star is actually a young woman named Yvaine, whose leg was broken in the fall. Yvaine hurls mud at him and continuously insults him. He resolves to bring her to Victoria anyway, tying her to him with the chain. However, the candle goes out before he can return, so the two sleep for the night. The next morning, Tristran tells Yvaine about his promise to Victoria and his intention to bring Yvaine to her. Tristran makes Yvaine a simple crutch to help her walk as her broken leg hinders her movement. They arrive at a clearing where they witness a fight between a lion and a unicorn over a golden crown. Yvaine asks Tristran to help the Unicorn when the Lion was about to kill it. Tristran, remembering the old nursery rhyme, The Lion and the Unicorn, picks up the crown and gives it to the Lion. With the crown upon its head, the Lion slips away into the forest. Tristran and Yvaine spend the night at the clearing beside the wounded Unicorn. Yvaine escapes when Tristran leaves in search of food. The witch-queen, on her search for the Star, encounters Madam Semele. They share a meal and Madam Semele gives witch-queen meat cooked with Limbus grass, which causes anyone who tastes it to speak nothing but the truth, forcing the witch-queen to reveal the true purpose of her journey. The enraged witch-queen puts a curse on her, which prevents her from seeing, touching or perceiving the star in any way and causing Semele to forget their meeting the moment the witch-queen leaves. On discovering that Yvaine is gone, a despondent and regretful Tristran spends the night under a tree. Tristran talks to a tree who says that Pan, the spirit of the forest, told her to help him. The tree tells Tristran that there are people looking for Yvaine and that there is a path in the forest with a carriage coming down it that Tristran can't miss. Then it gives Tristran a leaf and says to listen to it when he needs help the most. Tristran run to catch the carriage and nearly misses it but for a tree that has fallen in the carriage's path. Tristran meets Primus, the driver of the carriage, and persuades him to allow Tristran to ride in the carriage. In the mountains the witch-queen makes an inn to catch Yvaine who is coming her way. She turns the goat into a man, and the goat who used to be Brevis into a girl. Yvaine falls for the trap, and the witch-queen is preparing to carve out her heart when Tristran and Primus, who have also been attracted by the inn, arrive. The witch-queen decides to delay killing Yvaine until she had dealt with the two unwanted guests. She attempts to poison Tristran while he is tending to the horses, but the unicorn, which is also lodged in the stable, warns him just in time. He rushes back to the inn, but is too late to warn Primus. However he is able to rescue Yvaine by forming a makeshift candle from the remnants of the magical candle he had obtained earlier, burning his left hand in the process. Shortly afterwards, Septimus arrives and finds Primus' body. He sets off in search of the witch-queen, in order to fulfill an obligation to avenge his slain brother, and the topaz, in order to claim his birthright as the last surviving son of Stormhold. Tristran and Yvaine escape the witch-queen, but find themselves in an almost equally perilous situation. They walk past many scenes in the light of the candle, but eventually end up stranded on a cloud, miles above Faerie. Fortunately, they are rescued by the crew of a passing airborn ship. The captain of the ship agrees to help them on their way back to Wall, hinting that he is part of a mysterious 'fellowship' that wants to help Tristran for some unspecified reason. Tristran expresses regret for chaining Yvaine up. The star reveals that while Tristran no longer intends to force her to accompany her to Wall, the custom of her people dictates that, because he saved her life, she is nonetheless obliged to follow him. Upon parting company with the ship and its crew, Tristran and Yvaine encounter Madam Semele. Due to the curse the witch-queen put on her, Madam Semele is unable to see Yvaine, but agrees to transport Tristran the rest of the way to Wall, as she is going there to attend the market herself. Tristran obtains a promise from Madam Semele that he will not be harmed, will receive board and lodging, and will arrive at Wall in the same manner and condition as he was on departure. However this promise does not prevent Madam Semele from transforming him into a dormouse for the duration of the journey. The star also rides on Madam Semele's wagon, unbeknownst to the old woman. Septimus seeks revenge on the witch-queen for killing Primus, but is himself killed by the witch-queen, without ever reclaiming the topaz. Tristran (now returned to his human form), Yvaine, Madam Semele and the witch-queen all arrive at the Wall market. Tristran leaves Yvaine and crosses back into Wall, to tell Victoria that he has returned with the star. Meanwhile, Yvaine realises that she has fallen in love with Tristran and, if he fulfills his promise to bring her to Victoria, she will not only lose him to another woman, but upon leaving Faerie, will be transformed into a piece of rock. Upon meeting Tristran, a dismayed Victoria reveals that she is already engaged to Monday, Tristran's old employer, and that she never believed that Tristran would fulfill his promise. She regretfully tells Tristran that she will keep her promise and marry him. However Tristran, not wishing to force Victoria to marry him points out that her promise wasn't to marry him, it was to give him anything he desired, and that he desires that she marry her love, Monday. Tristran returns to Yvaine at the fair. Yvaine is delighted to learn that Victoria is to be married to Monday, not Tristran, and Tristran reveals that he reciprocates Yvaine's love for him. Una informs Madam Semele that she (Una) will soon be free, as her enslavement is due to end when the moon loses her child (Yvaine), if it happens in a week when two Mondays come together (the marriage of Victoria and Monday). The silver chain that binds Una finally fades away, and she demands payment for her services, which Madam Semele must give on pain of losing her powers. Una seeks out Tristran and Yvaine and reveals that she is Lady Una, the only daughter of the Eighty-First Lord of Stormhold, and that Tristran is her son, making him the last male heir of Stormhold. She instructs Tristran to ask Yvaine for the topaz she carries. Upon receiving the topaz, the power of Stormhold passes to Tristran. However he declines to immediately return to Stormhold, leaving Lady Una to reign in his stead while he and Yvaine travel around Faerie. But before Yvainne and Tristran set off on their journey, an impossibly aged old hag turns up wishing to speak to Yvaine. She reveals herself as the witch-queen, now more ancient and withered than she has ever been. Yvaine no longer fears her and tells her the good news that she has given her heart to Tristran. The witch-queen claims she'd have done better to give it to the Lilim, as Tristran will only break it like all men do. She then leaves for good, fearful of the cruelty her sisters will inflict upon her for failing. Many years later, Tristran and Yvaine finally return to Stormhold, and Tristran assumes his duties as the Lord of Stormhold. When he eventually grows old and dies, Yvaine continues to reign as the immortal ruler of Stormhold.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Faerie Market is held every nine years on the other side of the wall dividing Faerie from our world and for which the nearby town of Wall is named. As the book begins, the market has just begun and the town filled with visitors and vendors. Dunstan Thorn rents out his cottage to a stranger in exchange for his \"Heart's Desire\" in addition to a monetary payment. The next day in the market, he meets Una, a princess imprisoned by the witch called Semele. He purchases a glass snowdrop from her with a kiss, and gives the flower to his fianc\u00e9e Daisy. That night, Dunstan meets Una in the woods and makes love to her. A month later, Dunstan marries Daisy. In February, he receives a baby in a basket\u2014his and Una's son, Tristran Thorn. Eighteen years later, Tristran seeks the love of Victoria Forester, the town beauty. One night, while Tristran is walking her home from the shop where he works, she sees a shooting star land in Faerie, and he vows to bring it to her in exchange for a kiss, and perhaps her hand in marriage. Thinking that he will never actually do it, Victoria promises to do whatever he asks if he brings her the star. Dunstan gives Tristran the snowdrop and helps him pass the guards at the wall by alluding to his faerie heritage. Tristran enters Faerie. At Stormhold, the King of Stormhold gathers his sons to determine who will be his heir; he hurls the Power of Stormhold, a topaz that marks its bearer as the ruler of the land, into the sky, knocking that selfsame star from the sky. He then dies, and his sons leave together. Septimus departs on his own after poisoning Tertius at a nearby inn. In a small, grey house in the woods, three ancient and mighty witches known as"
      },
      {
        "text": " Stormhold, the King of Stormhold gathers his sons to determine who will be his heir; he hurls the Power of Stormhold, a topaz that marks its bearer as the ruler of the land, into the sky, knocking that selfsame star from the sky. He then dies, and his sons leave together. Septimus departs on his own after poisoning Tertius at a nearby inn. In a small, grey house in the woods, three ancient and mighty witches known as the Lillim learn of the fallen star by reading the entrails of a dead stoat, and the eldest of the Lilim consumes their last reserves of \"years,\" later revealed to be the heart of another fallen star, to become young again. She meets a farm boy, Brevis, at a crossroads, takes his goat, and transforms him into a second goat, using the two animals to pull her small chariot. Tristran meets a small hairy man who helps him through the woods. After Tristran helps them escape deadly trees called serewood, he learns he has the ability to find any location in Faerie. Tristran is taunted by tiny faeries, who say that he is \"soon to face his true love's scorn\". The hairy man gives Tristran a new outfit, a silver chain like the one used to imprison Una, and a candle-stub which allows one to travel great distances quickly while it burns, which he explains by referencing the nursery rhyme \"How Many Miles to Babylon?\". Tristran uses the candle to quickly reach the fallen star, but is surprised to find that the star is actually a young woman named Yvaine, whose leg was broken in the fall. Yvaine hurls mud at him and continuously insults him. He resolves to bring her to Victoria anyway, tying her to him with the chain. However, the candle goes out before he can return, so the two sleep"
      },
      {
        "text": " he explains by referencing the nursery rhyme \"How Many Miles to Babylon?\". Tristran uses the candle to quickly reach the fallen star, but is surprised to find that the star is actually a young woman named Yvaine, whose leg was broken in the fall. Yvaine hurls mud at him and continuously insults him. He resolves to bring her to Victoria anyway, tying her to him with the chain. However, the candle goes out before he can return, so the two sleep for the night. The next morning, Tristran tells Yvaine about his promise to Victoria and his intention to bring Yvaine to her. Tristran makes Yvaine a simple crutch to help her walk as her broken leg hinders her movement. They arrive at a clearing where they witness a fight between a lion and a unicorn over a golden crown. Yvaine asks Tristran to help the Unicorn when the Lion was about to kill it. Tristran, remembering the old nursery rhyme, The Lion and the Unicorn, picks up the crown and gives it to the Lion. With the crown upon its head, the Lion slips away into the forest. Tristran and Yvaine spend the night at the clearing beside the wounded Unicorn. Yvaine escapes when Tristran leaves in search of food. The witch-queen, on her search for the Star, encounters Madam Semele. They share a meal and Madam Semele gives witch-queen meat cooked with Limbus grass, which causes anyone who tastes it to speak nothing but the truth, forcing the witch-queen to reveal the true purpose of her journey. The enraged witch-queen puts a curse on her, which prevents her from seeing, touching or perceiving the star in any way and causing Semele to forget their meeting the moment the witch-queen leaves. On discovering that Yvaine is gone, a despondent and regretful Tr"
      },
      {
        "text": " witch-queen meat cooked with Limbus grass, which causes anyone who tastes it to speak nothing but the truth, forcing the witch-queen to reveal the true purpose of her journey. The enraged witch-queen puts a curse on her, which prevents her from seeing, touching or perceiving the star in any way and causing Semele to forget their meeting the moment the witch-queen leaves. On discovering that Yvaine is gone, a despondent and regretful Tristran spends the night under a tree. Tristran talks to a tree who says that Pan, the spirit of the forest, told her to help him. The tree tells Tristran that there are people looking for Yvaine and that there is a path in the forest with a carriage coming down it that Tristran can't miss. Then it gives Tristran a leaf and says to listen to it when he needs help the most. Tristran run to catch the carriage and nearly misses it but for a tree that has fallen in the carriage's path. Tristran meets Primus, the driver of the carriage, and persuades him to allow Tristran to ride in the carriage. In the mountains the witch-queen makes an inn to catch Yvaine who is coming her way. She turns the goat into a man, and the goat who used to be Brevis into a girl. Yvaine falls for the trap, and the witch-queen is preparing to carve out her heart when Tristran and Primus, who have also been attracted by the inn, arrive. The witch-queen decides to delay killing Yvaine until she had dealt with the two unwanted guests. She attempts to poison Tristran while he is tending to the horses, but the unicorn, which is also lodged in the stable, warns him just in time. He rushes back to the inn, but is too late to warn Primus. However"
      },
      {
        "text": "queen is preparing to carve out her heart when Tristran and Primus, who have also been attracted by the inn, arrive. The witch-queen decides to delay killing Yvaine until she had dealt with the two unwanted guests. She attempts to poison Tristran while he is tending to the horses, but the unicorn, which is also lodged in the stable, warns him just in time. He rushes back to the inn, but is too late to warn Primus. However he is able to rescue Yvaine by forming a makeshift candle from the remnants of the magical candle he had obtained earlier, burning his left hand in the process. Shortly afterwards, Septimus arrives and finds Primus' body. He sets off in search of the witch-queen, in order to fulfill an obligation to avenge his slain brother, and the topaz, in order to claim his birthright as the last surviving son of Stormhold. Tristran and Yvaine escape the witch-queen, but find themselves in an almost equally perilous situation. They walk past many scenes in the light of the candle, but eventually end up stranded on a cloud, miles above Faerie. Fortunately, they are rescued by the crew of a passing airborn ship. The captain of the ship agrees to help them on their way back to Wall, hinting that he is part of a mysterious 'fellowship' that wants to help Tristran for some unspecified reason. Tristran expresses regret for chaining Yvaine up. The star reveals that while Tristran no longer intends to force her to accompany her to Wall, the custom of her people dictates that, because he saved her life, she is nonetheless obliged to follow him. Upon parting company with the ship and its crew, Tristran and Yvaine encounter Madam Semele. Due to the curse the witch-queen put on her, Madam Semele is unable to see Yvaine"
      },
      {
        "text": "ran expresses regret for chaining Yvaine up. The star reveals that while Tristran no longer intends to force her to accompany her to Wall, the custom of her people dictates that, because he saved her life, she is nonetheless obliged to follow him. Upon parting company with the ship and its crew, Tristran and Yvaine encounter Madam Semele. Due to the curse the witch-queen put on her, Madam Semele is unable to see Yvaine, but agrees to transport Tristran the rest of the way to Wall, as she is going there to attend the market herself. Tristran obtains a promise from Madam Semele that he will not be harmed, will receive board and lodging, and will arrive at Wall in the same manner and condition as he was on departure. However this promise does not prevent Madam Semele from transforming him into a dormouse for the duration of the journey. The star also rides on Madam Semele's wagon, unbeknownst to the old woman. Septimus seeks revenge on the witch-queen for killing Primus, but is himself killed by the witch-queen, without ever reclaiming the topaz. Tristran (now returned to his human form), Yvaine, Madam Semele and the witch-queen all arrive at the Wall market. Tristran leaves Yvaine and crosses back into Wall, to tell Victoria that he has returned with the star. Meanwhile, Yvaine realises that she has fallen in love with Tristran and, if he fulfills his promise to bring her to Victoria, she will not only lose him to another woman, but upon leaving Faerie, will be transformed into a piece of rock. Upon meeting Tristran, a dismayed Victoria reveals that she is already engaged to Monday, Tristran's old employer, and that she never believed that Tristran would fulfill his promise."
      },
      {
        "text": " with the star. Meanwhile, Yvaine realises that she has fallen in love with Tristran and, if he fulfills his promise to bring her to Victoria, she will not only lose him to another woman, but upon leaving Faerie, will be transformed into a piece of rock. Upon meeting Tristran, a dismayed Victoria reveals that she is already engaged to Monday, Tristran's old employer, and that she never believed that Tristran would fulfill his promise. She regretfully tells Tristran that she will keep her promise and marry him. However Tristran, not wishing to force Victoria to marry him points out that her promise wasn't to marry him, it was to give him anything he desired, and that he desires that she marry her love, Monday. Tristran returns to Yvaine at the fair. Yvaine is delighted to learn that Victoria is to be married to Monday, not Tristran, and Tristran reveals that he reciprocates Yvaine's love for him. Una informs Madam Semele that she (Una) will soon be free, as her enslavement is due to end when the moon loses her child (Yvaine), if it happens in a week when two Mondays come together (the marriage of Victoria and Monday). The silver chain that binds Una finally fades away, and she demands payment for her services, which Madam Semele must give on pain of losing her powers. Una seeks out Tristran and Yvaine and reveals that she is Lady Una, the only daughter of the Eighty-First Lord of Stormhold, and that Tristran is her son, making him the last male heir of Stormhold. She instructs Tristran to ask Yvaine for the topaz she carries. Upon receiving the topaz, the power of Stormhold passes to Tristran. However he declines to immediately return to Stormhold, leaving"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Una seeks out Tristran and Yvaine and reveals that she is Lady Una, the only daughter of the Eighty-First Lord of Stormhold, and that Tristran is her son, making him the last male heir of Stormhold. She instructs Tristran to ask Yvaine for the topaz she carries. Upon receiving the topaz, the power of Stormhold passes to Tristran. However he declines to immediately return to Stormhold, leaving Lady Una to reign in his stead while he and Yvaine travel around Faerie. But before Yvainne and Tristran set off on their journey, an impossibly aged old hag turns up wishing to speak to Yvaine. She reveals herself as the witch-queen, now more ancient and withered than she has ever been. Yvaine no longer fears her and tells her the good news that she has given her heart to Tristran. The witch-queen claims she'd have done better to give it to the Lilim, as Tristran will only break it like all men do. She then leaves for good, fearful of the cruelty her sisters will inflict upon her for failing. Many years later, Tristran and Yvaine finally return to Stormhold, and Tristran assumes his duties as the Lord of Stormhold. When he eventually grows old and dies, Yvaine continues to reign as the immortal ruler of Stormhold.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "hold.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability",
    "author": "Amy Chua",
    "published_date": "2002-12",
    "synopsis": " In the Philippines, Chua explains, the Chinese Filipino is 1% of the population but controls 60% of the economy, with the result being envy and bitterness on the part of the majority against the Chinese minority\u2014in other words, an ethnic conflict. Similarly, in Indonesia the Chinese Indonesians are 3% of the population but control 70% of the economy. There is a similar pattern in other Southeast Asia nations. According to Chua, examples of what she calls ethnic market-dominant minorities include overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia; whites in Latin America; Jews in Russia; Croats in the former Yugoslavia; and Ibos, Kikuyus, Tutsis, Indians and Lebanese, among others, in Africa. In her book, Chua discusses different reasons for the market dominance of different groups. Some groups achieve market dominance because of colonial oppression or apartheid. In other cases, it may be due to the culture and family networks of these groups. For many groups there is no clear single explanation. Americans can also be seen as a global market-dominant minority, in particularly when combined with using military might and flaunting political domination, cause resentment. She believes that democratization can increase ethnic conflicts when an ethnic minority is disproportionately wealthy. \"When free market democracy is pursued in the presence of a market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result is backlash. This backlash typically takes one of three forms. The first is a backlash against markets, targeting the market-dominant minority's wealth. The second is a backlash against democracy by forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is violence, sometimes genocidal, directed against the market-dominant minority itself.\". Also, \"overnight democracy will empower the poor, indigenous majority. What happens is that under those circumstances, democracy doesn't do what we expect it to do \u2013 that is, reinforce markets. [Instead,] democracy leads to the emergence of manipulative politicians and demagogues who find that the best way to get votes is by scapegoating the minorities.\" She writes, \"Ballot boxes brought Hitler to power in Germany, Mugabe to power in Zimbabwe, Milosevic to power in Serbia -- and could well bring the likes of Osama bin Laden to power in Saudi Arabia.\" Chua states that she is a \"big fan of trying to promote markets and democracy globally,\" but that it should be accompanied by attempts to \"redistribute the wealth, whether it's property title and giving poor people property, land reform .... Redistributive mechanisms are tough to have if you have so much corruption.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the Philippines, Chua explains, the Chinese Filipino is 1% of the population but controls 60% of the economy, with the result being envy and bitterness on the part of the majority against the Chinese minority\u2014in other words, an ethnic conflict. Similarly, in Indonesia the Chinese Indonesians are 3% of the population but control 70% of the economy. There is a similar pattern in other Southeast Asia nations. According to Chua, examples of what she calls ethnic market-dominant minorities include overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia; whites in Latin America; Jews in Russia; Croats in the former Yugoslavia; and Ibos, Kikuyus, Tutsis, Indians and Lebanese, among others, in Africa. In her book, Chua discusses different reasons for the market dominance of different groups. Some groups achieve market dominance because of colonial oppression or apartheid. In other cases, it may be due to the culture and family networks of these groups. For many groups there is no clear single explanation. Americans can also be seen as a global market-dominant minority, in particularly when combined with using military might and flaunting political domination, cause resentment. She believes that democratization can increase ethnic conflicts when an ethnic minority is disproportionately wealthy. \"When free market democracy is pursued in the presence of a market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result is backlash. This backlash typically takes one of three forms. The first is a backlash against markets, targeting the market-dominant minority's wealth. The second is a backlash against democracy by forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is violence, sometimes genocidal, directed against the market-dominant minority itself.\". Also, \"overnight democracy will empower the poor, indigenous majority. What happens is that under those circumstances, democracy doesn't do what we expect it to do \u2013 that is, reinforce markets. [Instead,] democracy leads to the emergence of manipulative politicians and demagogues who find that"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s wealth. The second is a backlash against democracy by forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is violence, sometimes genocidal, directed against the market-dominant minority itself.\". Also, \"overnight democracy will empower the poor, indigenous majority. What happens is that under those circumstances, democracy doesn't do what we expect it to do \u2013 that is, reinforce markets. [Instead,] democracy leads to the emergence of manipulative politicians and demagogues who find that the best way to get votes is by scapegoating the minorities.\" She writes, \"Ballot boxes brought Hitler to power in Germany, Mugabe to power in Zimbabwe, Milosevic to power in Serbia -- and could well bring the likes of Osama bin Laden to power in Saudi Arabia.\" Chua states that she is a \"big fan of trying to promote markets and democracy globally,\" but that it should be accompanied by attempts to \"redistribute the wealth, whether it's property title and giving poor people property, land reform .... Redistributive mechanisms are tough to have if you have so much corruption.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sword in the Stone",
    "author": "T. H. White",
    "published_date": "1939-01-01",
    "synopsis": " The premise is that Arthur's youth, not dealt with in Malory, was a time when he was tutored by Merlyn to prepare him for the use of power and royal life. Merlyn magically turns Wart into various animals at times. He also has more human adventures, at one point meeting the outlaw Robin Hood, (who is referred to in the novel as Robin Wood). The setting is loosely based on medieval England, and in places it incorporates White's considerable knowledge of medieval culture (as in relation to hunting, falconry and jousting). However it makes no attempt at consistent historical accuracy, and incorporates some obvious anachronisms (aided by the concept that Merlyn lives backwards in time rather than forwards, unlike everyone else).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The premise is that Arthur's youth, not dealt with in Malory, was a time when he was tutored by Merlyn to prepare him for the use of power and royal life. Merlyn magically turns Wart into various animals at times. He also has more human adventures, at one point meeting the outlaw Robin Hood, (who is referred to in the novel as Robin Wood). The setting is loosely based on medieval England, and in places it incorporates White's considerable knowledge of medieval culture (as in relation to hunting, falconry and jousting). However it makes no attempt at consistent historical accuracy, and incorporates some obvious anachronisms (aided by the concept that Merlyn lives backwards in time rather than forwards, unlike everyone else).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Children of the Mind",
    "author": "Orson Scott Card",
    "published_date": "1996",
    "synopsis": " At the start of Children of the Mind, Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, is using her newly discovered abilities to take the races of buggers, humans and pequeninos outside the universe and back in instantaneously. She uses these powers to move them to distant habitable planets for colonization. She is losing her memories and concentration as the vast computer network connected to the ansible is being shut down. If she is to survive, she must find a way to transfer her ai\u00faa (or soul) to a human body. Peter Wiggin and Si Wang-Mu travel to the worlds of Divine Wind and Pacifica to convince the Japanese-led swing group of the Starways Congress to revoke their order to destroy Lusitania. By tracing the decision making trail backwards, they are able to show a philosopher his influence on the Starways Congress. After some complications, the philosopher convinces the Starways Congress to stop the Lusitania fleet. The admiral at the head of the Lusitania fleet disobeys their order and does what he believes Ender Wiggin, the first Xenocide, would have done, and fires the Molecular Disruption Device (MDD). Jane is granted possession of Young Val's body, and thus is not destroyed when the ansible shuts down. She is then able to continue transporting starships instantaneously by borrowing the vast mental capacity of the simple-minded Pequenino mother-trees. She gets Peter and Wang-Mu close enough to the MDD to find her way back and transport the MDD itself to the Lusitania fleet, where it is then disarmed and disabled. Ender Wiggin's ai\u00faa had left his body (which then deteriorated) to live in Peter. Jane falls in love with Miro, and Peter with Wang-mu. Both couples get married under one of the mother-trees of the pequeninos on the same day as Ender's funeral. Peter's efforts finally come to fruition, and the destruction of Lusitania is averted. The story ends with the two new couples being taken Outside by Jane herself and back In to an unknown destination.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At the start of Children of the Mind, Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, is using her newly discovered abilities to take the races of buggers, humans and pequeninos outside the universe and back in instantaneously. She uses these powers to move them to distant habitable planets for colonization. She is losing her memories and concentration as the vast computer network connected to the ansible is being shut down. If she is to survive, she must find a way to transfer her ai\u00faa (or soul) to a human body. Peter Wiggin and Si Wang-Mu travel to the worlds of Divine Wind and Pacifica to convince the Japanese-led swing group of the Starways Congress to revoke their order to destroy Lusitania. By tracing the decision making trail backwards, they are able to show a philosopher his influence on the Starways Congress. After some complications, the philosopher convinces the Starways Congress to stop the Lusitania fleet. The admiral at the head of the Lusitania fleet disobeys their order and does what he believes Ender Wiggin, the first Xenocide, would have done, and fires the Molecular Disruption Device (MDD). Jane is granted possession of Young Val's body, and thus is not destroyed when the ansible shuts down. She is then able to continue transporting starships instantaneously by borrowing the vast mental capacity of the simple-minded Pequenino mother-trees. She gets Peter and Wang-Mu close enough to the MDD to find her way back and transport the MDD itself to the Lusitania fleet, where it is then disarmed and disabled. Ender Wiggin's ai\u00faa had left his body (which then deteriorated) to live in Peter. Jane falls in love with Miro, and Peter with Wang-mu. Both couples get married under one of the mother-trees of the pequeninos on the same day as Ender"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Wang-Mu close enough to the MDD to find her way back and transport the MDD itself to the Lusitania fleet, where it is then disarmed and disabled. Ender Wiggin's ai\u00faa had left his body (which then deteriorated) to live in Peter. Jane falls in love with Miro, and Peter with Wang-mu. Both couples get married under one of the mother-trees of the pequeninos on the same day as Ender's funeral. Peter's efforts finally come to fruition, and the destruction of Lusitania is averted. The story ends with the two new couples being taken Outside by Jane herself and back In to an unknown destination.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Wonders of the Invisible World",
    "author": "Cotton Mather",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Cotton Mather, narrator and preacher of the Second Church of Boston, begins with an explanation of the people of God and how they are living in the devil's territories. He discusses the devil's plan to overturn the plantation and churches with the help of his recruits, which Mather believes are witches. \"...An army of devils is horribly broke in upon the place which is the center, and after a sort, the first-born of our English settlements... After explaining how the witch trials came about, Mather briefly prefaces the trials with a disclaimer. He adds that he will recount the truth as a historian and serve to retell the trials as they happened. The trials included names of the accused with testimonies of their strange behavior and actions from many people. One of the trials included is one of Martha Carrier, who was \"the person of whom the confessions of the witches, and of her own children among the rest, agreed that the devil had promised her she should be Queen of the Hebrews.\". Mather gives testimonies against Martha Carrier, all of which presume her to be guilty.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Cotton Mather, narrator and preacher of the Second Church of Boston, begins with an explanation of the people of God and how they are living in the devil's territories. He discusses the devil's plan to overturn the plantation and churches with the help of his recruits, which Mather believes are witches. \"...An army of devils is horribly broke in upon the place which is the center, and after a sort, the first-born of our English settlements... After explaining how the witch trials came about, Mather briefly prefaces the trials with a disclaimer. He adds that he will recount the truth as a historian and serve to retell the trials as they happened. The trials included names of the accused with testimonies of their strange behavior and actions from many people. One of the trials included is one of Martha Carrier, who was \"the person of whom the confessions of the witches, and of her own children among the rest, agreed that the devil had promised her she should be Queen of the Hebrews.\". Mather gives testimonies against Martha Carrier, all of which presume her to be guilty.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Henry VI, part 1",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play begins with the funeral of Henry V, who has died unexpectedly in his prime. As his brothers, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, and his uncle, the Duke of Exeter, lament his passing and express doubt as to whether his son (the as yet uncrowned heir apparent Henry VI) is capable of running the country in such tumultuous times, word arrives of military setbacks in France. A rebellion, led by the Dauphin Charles, is gaining momentum, and several major towns have already been lost. Additionally, Lord Talbot, Constable of France, has been captured. Realising a critical time is at hand, Bedford immediately prepares himself to head to France and take command of the army, Gloucester remains in charge in England, and Exeter sets out to prepare young Henry for his forthcoming coronation. Meanwhile, in Orl\u00e9ans, the English army are laying siege to Charles' forces. Inside the city, the Bastard of Orl\u00e9ans approaches Charles and tells him of a young woman who claims to have seen visions and knows how to defeat the English. Charles summons the woman, Joan la Pucelle, (i.e. Joan of Arc). To test her resolve, he challenges her to single combat. Upon her victory, he immediately places her in command of the army. Outside the city, the newly arrived Bedford negotiates the release of Talbot, but immediately, Joan launches an attack. The French forces win, forcing the English back, but Talbot and Bedford engineer a sneak attack on the city, and gain a foothold within the walls, causing the French leaders to flee. Back in England, a petty quarrel between Richard Plantagenet and the Duke of Somerset has expanded to involve the whole court. Richard and Somerset ask their fellow nobles to pledge allegiance to one of them, and as such the lords select either red or white roses to indicate which side they are on. Richard then goes to see his uncle, Edmund Mortimer, imprisoned in the Tower of London. Mortimer tells Richard the history of their family's conflict with the king's family\u2014how they helped Henry Bolingbroke seize power from Richard II, but were then shoved into the background; and how Henry V had Richard's father (Richard of Conisburgh) executed and his family stripped of all its lands and monies. Mortimer also tells Richard that he himself is the rightful heir to the throne, and that when he dies, Richard will be the true heir, not Henry. Amazed at these revelations, Richard determines to attain his birthright, and vows to have his family's dukedom restored. After Mortimer dies, Richard presents his petition to the recently crowned Henry, who agrees to reinstate the Plantagenet's title, making Richard 3rd Duke of York. Henry then leaves for France, accompanied by Gloucester, Exeter, Winchester, Richard and Somerset. In France, within a matter of hours, the French retake and then lose the city of Rouen. After the battle, Bedford dies, and Talbot assumes direct command of the army. The Dauphin is horrified at the loss of Rouen, but Joan tells him not to worry. She then persuades the powerful Duke of Burgundy, who had been fighting for the English, to switch sides, and join the French. Meanwhile, Henry arrives in Paris and upon learning of Burgundy's betrayal, he sends Talbot to speak with him. Henry then pleads for Richard and Somerset to put aside their conflict, and, unaware of the implications of his actions, he chooses a red rose, symbolically aligning himself with Somerset and alienating Richard. Prior to returning to England, in an effort to secure peace between Somerset and Richard, Henry places Richard in command of the infantry and Somerset in command of the cavalry. Meanwhile, Talbot approaches Bordeaux, but the French army swing around and trap him. Talbot sends word for reinforcements, but the conflict between Richard and Somerset leads them to second guess one another, and neither of them send any, both blaming the other for the mix-up. The English army are subsequently destroyed, and both Talbot and his son are killed. After the battle, Joan's visions desert her, and she is captured by Richard, and burned at the stake. At the same time, urged on by Pope Eugenius IV and the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund, Henry sues for peace. The French listen to the English terms, under which Charles is to be a viceroy to Henry, reluctantly agreeing, but only with the intention of breaking their oath at a later date and expelling the English from France. Meanwhile, the Earl of Suffolk has captured a young French princess, Margaret of Anjou, who he intends to marry to Henry and dominate the king through her. Travelling back to England, he attempts to persuade Henry to marry Margaret. Gloucester advises Henry against the marriage, as Margaret's family are not rich, and the marriage is not advantageous to his position as king, but Henry is taken in by Suffolk's description of Margaret's beauty, and he agrees to the proposal. Suffolk then heads back to France to bring Margaret to England as Gloucester worryingly ponders what the future may hold.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play begins with the funeral of Henry V, who has died unexpectedly in his prime. As his brothers, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, and his uncle, the Duke of Exeter, lament his passing and express doubt as to whether his son (the as yet uncrowned heir apparent Henry VI) is capable of running the country in such tumultuous times, word arrives of military setbacks in France. A rebellion, led by the Dauphin Charles, is gaining momentum, and several major towns have already been lost. Additionally, Lord Talbot, Constable of France, has been captured. Realising a critical time is at hand, Bedford immediately prepares himself to head to France and take command of the army, Gloucester remains in charge in England, and Exeter sets out to prepare young Henry for his forthcoming coronation. Meanwhile, in Orl\u00e9ans, the English army are laying siege to Charles' forces. Inside the city, the Bastard of Orl\u00e9ans approaches Charles and tells him of a young woman who claims to have seen visions and knows how to defeat the English. Charles summons the woman, Joan la Pucelle, (i.e. Joan of Arc). To test her resolve, he challenges her to single combat. Upon her victory, he immediately places her in command of the army. Outside the city, the newly arrived Bedford negotiates the release of Talbot, but immediately, Joan launches an attack. The French forces win, forcing the English back, but Talbot and Bedford engineer a sneak attack on the city, and gain a foothold within the walls, causing the French leaders to flee. Back in England, a petty quarrel between Richard Plantagenet and the Duke of Somerset has expanded to involve the whole court. Richard and Somerset ask their fellow nobles to pledge allegiance to one of them, and as such the lords select either red or white roses to indicate which side they are on. Richard then goes to see his uncle, Edmund Mortimer, imprisoned"
      },
      {
        "text": " but Talbot and Bedford engineer a sneak attack on the city, and gain a foothold within the walls, causing the French leaders to flee. Back in England, a petty quarrel between Richard Plantagenet and the Duke of Somerset has expanded to involve the whole court. Richard and Somerset ask their fellow nobles to pledge allegiance to one of them, and as such the lords select either red or white roses to indicate which side they are on. Richard then goes to see his uncle, Edmund Mortimer, imprisoned in the Tower of London. Mortimer tells Richard the history of their family's conflict with the king's family\u2014how they helped Henry Bolingbroke seize power from Richard II, but were then shoved into the background; and how Henry V had Richard's father (Richard of Conisburgh) executed and his family stripped of all its lands and monies. Mortimer also tells Richard that he himself is the rightful heir to the throne, and that when he dies, Richard will be the true heir, not Henry. Amazed at these revelations, Richard determines to attain his birthright, and vows to have his family's dukedom restored. After Mortimer dies, Richard presents his petition to the recently crowned Henry, who agrees to reinstate the Plantagenet's title, making Richard 3rd Duke of York. Henry then leaves for France, accompanied by Gloucester, Exeter, Winchester, Richard and Somerset. In France, within a matter of hours, the French retake and then lose the city of Rouen. After the battle, Bedford dies, and Talbot assumes direct command of the army. The Dauphin is horrified at the loss of Rouen, but Joan tells him not to worry. She then persuades the powerful Duke of Burgundy, who had been fighting for the English, to switch sides, and join the French. Meanwhile, Henry arrives in Paris and upon learning of Burgundy's betrayal, he sends Talbot to speak with him. Henry then"
      },
      {
        "text": " lose the city of Rouen. After the battle, Bedford dies, and Talbot assumes direct command of the army. The Dauphin is horrified at the loss of Rouen, but Joan tells him not to worry. She then persuades the powerful Duke of Burgundy, who had been fighting for the English, to switch sides, and join the French. Meanwhile, Henry arrives in Paris and upon learning of Burgundy's betrayal, he sends Talbot to speak with him. Henry then pleads for Richard and Somerset to put aside their conflict, and, unaware of the implications of his actions, he chooses a red rose, symbolically aligning himself with Somerset and alienating Richard. Prior to returning to England, in an effort to secure peace between Somerset and Richard, Henry places Richard in command of the infantry and Somerset in command of the cavalry. Meanwhile, Talbot approaches Bordeaux, but the French army swing around and trap him. Talbot sends word for reinforcements, but the conflict between Richard and Somerset leads them to second guess one another, and neither of them send any, both blaming the other for the mix-up. The English army are subsequently destroyed, and both Talbot and his son are killed. After the battle, Joan's visions desert her, and she is captured by Richard, and burned at the stake. At the same time, urged on by Pope Eugenius IV and the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund, Henry sues for peace. The French listen to the English terms, under which Charles is to be a viceroy to Henry, reluctantly agreeing, but only with the intention of breaking their oath at a later date and expelling the English from France. Meanwhile, the Earl of Suffolk has captured a young French princess, Margaret of Anjou, who he intends to marry to Henry and dominate the king through her. Travelling back to England, he attempts to persuade Henry to marry Margaret. Gloucester advises Henry against the marriage"
      },
      {
        "text": " The French listen to the English terms, under which Charles is to be a viceroy to Henry, reluctantly agreeing, but only with the intention of breaking their oath at a later date and expelling the English from France. Meanwhile, the Earl of Suffolk has captured a young French princess, Margaret of Anjou, who he intends to marry to Henry and dominate the king through her. Travelling back to England, he attempts to persuade Henry to marry Margaret. Gloucester advises Henry against the marriage, as Margaret's family are not rich, and the marriage is not advantageous to his position as king, but Henry is taken in by Suffolk's description of Margaret's beauty, and he agrees to the proposal. Suffolk then heads back to France to bring Margaret to England as Gloucester worryingly ponders what the future may hold.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Henry VI, part 3",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play begins immediately where 2 Henry VI left off; with the victorious Yorkists (York, Edward, Richard, Warwick, Montague [i.e. Salisbury] and Norfolk) pursuing Henry and Margaret from the battlefield in the wake of the First Battle of St Albans. Upon reaching the parliamentary chambers in London, York seats himself in the throne, and a confrontation ensues between his supporters and those of Henry. Threatened with violence by Warwick, who has brought part of his army with him, Henry brokers a deal with York whereby Henry will remain king until his death, at which time the throne will permanently pass to the House of York and its descendants thereafter. Disgusted at this decision, as it disinherits Henry's son, Prince Edward, Henry's supporters, led by his wife, Margaret, abandon him, and Margaret declares war on the Yorkists, supported by Clifford, who is determined to exact revenge for the death of his father at the hands of York during the battle at St Albans. Margaret attacks York's castle at Wakefield and the Yorkists lose the ensuing battle. During the conflict, Clifford murders York's twelve-year old son, Rutland. Margaret and Clifford then capture and taunt York himself; forcing him to stand on a molehill, they give him a handkerchief covered with Rutland's blood to wipe his brow and place a paper crown on his head, before stabbing him to death. After the battle, as Edward and Richard lament York's death, Warwick brings news that his own army has been defeated by Margaret's at the Second Battle of St Albans, and Henry has returned to London, where, under pressure from Margaret, he has revoked his deal with York. However, George Plantagenet, Richard and Edward's brother, has vowed to join their cause, having been encouraged to do so by his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy. Additionally, Warwick has been joined in the conflict by his own younger brother, Montague. The Yorkists regroup, and at the Battle of Towton, Clifford is killed and the Yorkists romp to victory. Following the battle, Edward is proclaimed king, George is proclaimed Duke of Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, although he complains to Edward that this is an ominous dukedom. Edward and George then leave the court, and Richard reveals to the audience his own machinations to rise to power and take the throne from his brother, although, as of yet, he is unsure how exactly he might go about it. After Towton, Warwick heads to France to secure for Edward the hand of Louis XI's sister-in-law, Lady Bona, thus ensuring peace between the two nations by uniting in marriage their two monarchies. In France, Warwick arrives at court to find that Margaret, Prince Edward and the Earl of Oxford have come to Louis to seek his aid in the conflict in England. Just as Louis is about to acquiesce and supply Margaret with troops, Warwick intervenes, and convinces Louis that it would be in his own best interests to support Edward and approve the marriage. Back in England, however, the recently widowed Lady Grey (Elizabeth Woodville) has come to King Edward requesting her late husband's lands be returned to her. Rather than granting her suit however, Edward marries her, against the advice of both George and Richard, driven by lust, and taken by her stunning beauty. Upon hearing of this, and feeling he has been made to look a fool despite all his service to the House of York, Warwick denounces Edward, and switches allegiances to the Lancastrians, promising his daughter's hand in marriage to Prince Edward as a sign of his loyalty to their cause. Shortly thereafter, George and Montague also defect from Edward's side, joining Warwick and the Lancastrians. Warwick then leads an invasion of French troops into England, and Edward is taken prisoner. Henry is restored to the throne and appoints Warwick and George as his Lord Protectors. Soon thereafter, however, Edward is rescued by Richard, Hastings and Stanley. News of the escape reaches Henry's court, and the young Earl of Richmond is shipped into exile in France for safety. Richmond is a descendant of John of Gaunt, uncle of Richard II and son of Edward III, and therefore a potential Lancastrian heir, should anything happen to Henry and the Prince, hence the need to protect him. Meanwhile, Edward reorganises his forces and confronts Warwick's army. At the Battle of Barnet, George betrays Warwick, and rejoins the Yorkists. This throws Warwick's forces into disarray, and the Yorkists win the battle, during which both Warwick and Montague are killed. Oxford and the Duke of Somerset now assume command of the Lancastrian forces, and they join with a second battalion newly arrived from France, led by Margaret and Prince Edward. Meanwhile, Henry sits on the molehill York was on and laments his problems. He is met by a father that has killed his son, and a son that has killed his father, representing the horrors of the civil war. Henry is captured by two gamekeepers loyal to Edward, and imprisoned in the Tower of London, whilst Edward heads to meet the Lancastrian/French force. In the subsequent Battle of Tewkesbury, the Yorkists rout the Lancastrians, capturing Margaret, Prince Edward, Somerset and Oxford. Somerset is sentenced to death, Oxford to life imprisonment, Margaret is banished, and Prince Edward is stabbed to death by the three Plantagenet brothers, who fly into a fit of rage after he refuses to recognise the House of York as the legitimate royal family. At this point, Richard heads to London to kill Henry. Upon arriving in the Tower, the two engage in an argument, and in a rage, Richard stabs him. With his dying breath, Henry prophesies Richard's future career of villainy and the chaos that will engulf the country because of it. Back in court, Edward orders celebrations to begin, as he believes the wars are finally over and lasting peace is now at hand. He is unaware, however, of Richard's scheming and his desire for power at any cost.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play begins immediately where 2 Henry VI left off; with the victorious Yorkists (York, Edward, Richard, Warwick, Montague [i.e. Salisbury] and Norfolk) pursuing Henry and Margaret from the battlefield in the wake of the First Battle of St Albans. Upon reaching the parliamentary chambers in London, York seats himself in the throne, and a confrontation ensues between his supporters and those of Henry. Threatened with violence by Warwick, who has brought part of his army with him, Henry brokers a deal with York whereby Henry will remain king until his death, at which time the throne will permanently pass to the House of York and its descendants thereafter. Disgusted at this decision, as it disinherits Henry's son, Prince Edward, Henry's supporters, led by his wife, Margaret, abandon him, and Margaret declares war on the Yorkists, supported by Clifford, who is determined to exact revenge for the death of his father at the hands of York during the battle at St Albans. Margaret attacks York's castle at Wakefield and the Yorkists lose the ensuing battle. During the conflict, Clifford murders York's twelve-year old son, Rutland. Margaret and Clifford then capture and taunt York himself; forcing him to stand on a molehill, they give him a handkerchief covered with Rutland's blood to wipe his brow and place a paper crown on his head, before stabbing him to death. After the battle, as Edward and Richard lament York's death, Warwick brings news that his own army has been defeated by Margaret's at the Second Battle of St Albans, and Henry has returned to London, where, under pressure from Margaret, he has revoked his deal with York. However, George Plantagenet, Richard and Edward's brother, has vowed to join their cause, having been encouraged to do so by his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy. Additionally, Warwick has been joined in the conflict by his own younger brother,"
      },
      {
        "text": " lament York's death, Warwick brings news that his own army has been defeated by Margaret's at the Second Battle of St Albans, and Henry has returned to London, where, under pressure from Margaret, he has revoked his deal with York. However, George Plantagenet, Richard and Edward's brother, has vowed to join their cause, having been encouraged to do so by his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy. Additionally, Warwick has been joined in the conflict by his own younger brother, Montague. The Yorkists regroup, and at the Battle of Towton, Clifford is killed and the Yorkists romp to victory. Following the battle, Edward is proclaimed king, George is proclaimed Duke of Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, although he complains to Edward that this is an ominous dukedom. Edward and George then leave the court, and Richard reveals to the audience his own machinations to rise to power and take the throne from his brother, although, as of yet, he is unsure how exactly he might go about it. After Towton, Warwick heads to France to secure for Edward the hand of Louis XI's sister-in-law, Lady Bona, thus ensuring peace between the two nations by uniting in marriage their two monarchies. In France, Warwick arrives at court to find that Margaret, Prince Edward and the Earl of Oxford have come to Louis to seek his aid in the conflict in England. Just as Louis is about to acquiesce and supply Margaret with troops, Warwick intervenes, and convinces Louis that it would be in his own best interests to support Edward and approve the marriage. Back in England, however, the recently widowed Lady Grey (Elizabeth Woodville) has come to King Edward requesting her late husband's lands be returned to her. Rather than granting her suit however, Edward marries her, against the advice of both George and Richard, driven by lust, and taken by her stunning beauty. Upon hearing of this,"
      },
      {
        "text": " supply Margaret with troops, Warwick intervenes, and convinces Louis that it would be in his own best interests to support Edward and approve the marriage. Back in England, however, the recently widowed Lady Grey (Elizabeth Woodville) has come to King Edward requesting her late husband's lands be returned to her. Rather than granting her suit however, Edward marries her, against the advice of both George and Richard, driven by lust, and taken by her stunning beauty. Upon hearing of this, and feeling he has been made to look a fool despite all his service to the House of York, Warwick denounces Edward, and switches allegiances to the Lancastrians, promising his daughter's hand in marriage to Prince Edward as a sign of his loyalty to their cause. Shortly thereafter, George and Montague also defect from Edward's side, joining Warwick and the Lancastrians. Warwick then leads an invasion of French troops into England, and Edward is taken prisoner. Henry is restored to the throne and appoints Warwick and George as his Lord Protectors. Soon thereafter, however, Edward is rescued by Richard, Hastings and Stanley. News of the escape reaches Henry's court, and the young Earl of Richmond is shipped into exile in France for safety. Richmond is a descendant of John of Gaunt, uncle of Richard II and son of Edward III, and therefore a potential Lancastrian heir, should anything happen to Henry and the Prince, hence the need to protect him. Meanwhile, Edward reorganises his forces and confronts Warwick's army. At the Battle of Barnet, George betrays Warwick, and rejoins the Yorkists. This throws Warwick's forces into disarray, and the Yorkists win the battle, during which both Warwick and Montague are killed. Oxford and the Duke of Somerset now assume command of the Lancastrian forces, and they join with a second battalion newly arrived from France, led by Margaret and Prince Edward. Meanwhile, Henry sits on the molehill York was"
      },
      {
        "text": "ises his forces and confronts Warwick's army. At the Battle of Barnet, George betrays Warwick, and rejoins the Yorkists. This throws Warwick's forces into disarray, and the Yorkists win the battle, during which both Warwick and Montague are killed. Oxford and the Duke of Somerset now assume command of the Lancastrian forces, and they join with a second battalion newly arrived from France, led by Margaret and Prince Edward. Meanwhile, Henry sits on the molehill York was on and laments his problems. He is met by a father that has killed his son, and a son that has killed his father, representing the horrors of the civil war. Henry is captured by two gamekeepers loyal to Edward, and imprisoned in the Tower of London, whilst Edward heads to meet the Lancastrian/French force. In the subsequent Battle of Tewkesbury, the Yorkists rout the Lancastrians, capturing Margaret, Prince Edward, Somerset and Oxford. Somerset is sentenced to death, Oxford to life imprisonment, Margaret is banished, and Prince Edward is stabbed to death by the three Plantagenet brothers, who fly into a fit of rage after he refuses to recognise the House of York as the legitimate royal family. At this point, Richard heads to London to kill Henry. Upon arriving in the Tower, the two engage in an argument, and in a rage, Richard stabs him. With his dying breath, Henry prophesies Richard's future career of villainy and the chaos that will engulf the country because of it. Back in court, Edward orders celebrations to begin, as he believes the wars are finally over and lasting peace is now at hand. He is unaware, however, of Richard's scheming and his desire for power at any cost.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the chaos that will engulf the country because of it. Back in court, Edward orders celebrations to begin, as he believes the wars are finally over and lasting peace is now at hand. He is unaware, however, of Richard's scheming and his desire for power at any cost.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Silver Chalice",
    "author": "Thomas B. Costain",
    "published_date": "1952",
    "synopsis": " The Silver Chalice takes place in Israel and other parts of the Roman Empire shortly after the death of Jesus. A young man, Basil, is adopted by a rich man, but loses his fortune when his father dies and his uncle defrauds him claiming he was purchased as a slave and sells him. As a slave he survives by working as an artist and silversmith. He gains his freedom, becomes a Christian and is commissioned to create an outer covering for the cup Jesus drank from at The Last Supper. The plot of The Silver Chalice centers on the Grail\u2014the cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper. Tired of \u201call the Arthurian tripe about the Holy Grail,\u201d Costain imagined his own version of the story. Joseph of Arimathea hires Basil of Antioch, a lowborn artisan, to fashion a beautiful silver casing to hold the plain original cup that Jesus used. The casing is to be decorated with the faces of Jesus and the twelve apostles. To fulfill the commission, Basil travels throughout the ancient Mediterranean world to meet these men and those who knew them intimately.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Silver Chalice takes place in Israel and other parts of the Roman Empire shortly after the death of Jesus. A young man, Basil, is adopted by a rich man, but loses his fortune when his father dies and his uncle defrauds him claiming he was purchased as a slave and sells him. As a slave he survives by working as an artist and silversmith. He gains his freedom, becomes a Christian and is commissioned to create an outer covering for the cup Jesus drank from at The Last Supper. The plot of The Silver Chalice centers on the Grail\u2014the cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper. Tired of \u201call the Arthurian tripe about the Holy Grail,\u201d Costain imagined his own version of the story. Joseph of Arimathea hires Basil of Antioch, a lowborn artisan, to fashion a beautiful silver casing to hold the plain original cup that Jesus used. The casing is to be decorated with the faces of Jesus and the twelve apostles. To fulfill the commission, Basil travels throughout the ancient Mediterranean world to meet these men and those who knew them intimately.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Thus Spoke Zarathustra",
    "author": "Friedrich Nietzsche",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The book chronicles the fictitious travels and pedagogy of Zarathustra. The name of this character is taken from the ancient prophet usually known in English as Zoroaster (), the Persian founder of Zoroastrianism. Nietzsche is clearly portraying a \"new\" or \"different\" Zarathustra, one who turns traditional morality on its head. He goes on to characterize \"what the name of Zarathustra means in my mouth, the mouth of the first immoralist:\" Zarathustra has a simple characterisation and plot, narrated sporadically throughout the text. It possesses a unique experimental style, one that is, for instance, evident in newly invented \"dithyrambs\" narrated or sung by Zarathustra. Likewise, the separate Dithyrambs of Dionysus was written in autumn 1888, and printed with the full volume in 1892, as the corollaries of Zarathustra's \"abundance\". Some speculate that Nietzsche intended to write about final acts of creation and destruction brought about by Zarathustra. However, the book lacks a finale to match that description; its actual ending focuses more on Zarathustra recognizing that his legacy is beginning to perpetuate, and consequently choosing to leave the higher men to their own devices in carrying his legacy forth. Zarathustra also contains the famous dictum \"God is dead\", which had appeared earlier in The Gay Science. In his autobiographical work Ecce Homo, Nietzsche states that the book's underlying concept is discussed within \"the penultimate section of the fourth book\" of 'The Gay Science' (Ecce Homo, Kaufmann). It is the eternal recurrence of the same events. This concept first occurred to Nietzsche while he was walking in Switzerland through the woods along the lake of Silvaplana (close to Surlej); he was inspired by the sight of a gigantic, towering, pyramidal rock. Before Zarathustra, Nietzsche had mentioned the concept in the fourth book of The Gay Science (e.g., sect. 341); this was the first public proclamation of the notion by him. Apart from its salient presence in Zarathustra, it is also echoed throughout Nietzsche's work. At any rate, it is by Zarathustra's transfiguration that he embraces eternity, that he at last ascertains \"the supreme will to power\". This inspiration finds its expression with Zarathustra's roundelay, featured twice in the book, once near the story's close: Another singular feature of Zarathustra, first presented in the prologue, is the designation of human beings as a transition between apes and the \"\u00dcbermensch\" (in English, either the \"overman\" or \"superman\"; or, superhuman or overhuman. English translators Thomas Common and R. J. Hollingdale use superman, while Kaufmann uses overman, and Parkes uses overhuman. Martin has opted to leave the nearly universally understood term as \u00dcbermensch in his new translation). The \u00dcbermensch is one of the many interconnecting, interdependent themes of the story, and is represented through several different metaphors. Examples include: the lightning that is portended by the silence and raindrops of a travelling storm cloud; or the sun's rise and culmination at its midday zenith; or a man traversing a rope stationed above an abyss, moving away from his uncultivated animality and towards the \u00dcbermensch. The symbol of the \u00dcbermensch also alludes to Nietzsche's notions of \"self-mastery\", \"self-cultivation\", \"self-direction\", and \"self-overcoming\". Expounding these concepts, Zarathustra declares: The book embodies a number of innovative poetical and rhetorical methods of expression. It serves as a parallel and supplement to the various philosophical ideas present in Nietzsche's body of work. He has, however, said that \"among my writings my Zarathustra stands to my mind by itself\" (Ecce Homo, Preface, sec. 4, Kaufmann). Emphasizing its centrality and its status as his magnum opus, Nietzsche stated that: Since many of the book's ideas are also present in his other works, Zarathustra is seen to have served as a precursor to his later philosophical thought. With the book, Nietzsche embraced a distinct aesthetic assiduity. He later reformulated many of his ideas, in Beyond Good and Evil and various other writings that he composed thereafter. He continued to emphasize his philosophical concerns; generally, his intention was to show an alternative to repressive moral codes and to avert \"nihilism\" in all of its varied forms. Other aspects of Thus Spoke Zarathustra relate to Nietzsche's proposed \"Transvaluation of All Values\". This incomplete project began with The Antichrist.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book chronicles the fictitious travels and pedagogy of Zarathustra. The name of this character is taken from the ancient prophet usually known in English as Zoroaster (), the Persian founder of Zoroastrianism. Nietzsche is clearly portraying a \"new\" or \"different\" Zarathustra, one who turns traditional morality on its head. He goes on to characterize \"what the name of Zarathustra means in my mouth, the mouth of the first immoralist:\" Zarathustra has a simple characterisation and plot, narrated sporadically throughout the text. It possesses a unique experimental style, one that is, for instance, evident in newly invented \"dithyrambs\" narrated or sung by Zarathustra. Likewise, the separate Dithyrambs of Dionysus was written in autumn 1888, and printed with the full volume in 1892, as the corollaries of Zarathustra's \"abundance\". Some speculate that Nietzsche intended to write about final acts of creation and destruction brought about by Zarathustra. However, the book lacks a finale to match that description; its actual ending focuses more on Zarathustra recognizing that his legacy is beginning to perpetuate, and consequently choosing to leave the higher men to their own devices in carrying his legacy forth. Zarathustra also contains the famous dictum \"God is dead\", which had appeared earlier in The Gay Science. In his autobiographical work Ecce Homo, Nietzsche states that the book's underlying concept is discussed within \"the penultimate section of the fourth book\" of 'The Gay Science' (Ecce Homo, Kaufmann). It is the eternal recurrence of the same events. This concept first occurred to Nietzsche while he was walking in Switzerland through the woods along the lake of Silvaplana (close to Surlej); he was inspired by the sight of a gigantic, towering, pyramidal rock. Before Zarathustra,"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Nietzsche states that the book's underlying concept is discussed within \"the penultimate section of the fourth book\" of 'The Gay Science' (Ecce Homo, Kaufmann). It is the eternal recurrence of the same events. This concept first occurred to Nietzsche while he was walking in Switzerland through the woods along the lake of Silvaplana (close to Surlej); he was inspired by the sight of a gigantic, towering, pyramidal rock. Before Zarathustra, Nietzsche had mentioned the concept in the fourth book of The Gay Science (e.g., sect. 341); this was the first public proclamation of the notion by him. Apart from its salient presence in Zarathustra, it is also echoed throughout Nietzsche's work. At any rate, it is by Zarathustra's transfiguration that he embraces eternity, that he at last ascertains \"the supreme will to power\". This inspiration finds its expression with Zarathustra's roundelay, featured twice in the book, once near the story's close: Another singular feature of Zarathustra, first presented in the prologue, is the designation of human beings as a transition between apes and the \"\u00dcbermensch\" (in English, either the \"overman\" or \"superman\"; or, superhuman or overhuman. English translators Thomas Common and R. J. Hollingdale use superman, while Kaufmann uses overman, and Parkes uses overhuman. Martin has opted to leave the nearly universally understood term as \u00dcbermensch in his new translation). The \u00dcbermensch is one of the many interconnecting, interdependent themes of the story, and is represented through several different metaphors. Examples include: the lightning that is portended by the silence and raindrops of a travelling storm cloud; or the sun's rise and culmination at its midday zenith; or a man traversing a rope stationed above an abyss"
      },
      {
        "text": "es uses overhuman. Martin has opted to leave the nearly universally understood term as \u00dcbermensch in his new translation). The \u00dcbermensch is one of the many interconnecting, interdependent themes of the story, and is represented through several different metaphors. Examples include: the lightning that is portended by the silence and raindrops of a travelling storm cloud; or the sun's rise and culmination at its midday zenith; or a man traversing a rope stationed above an abyss, moving away from his uncultivated animality and towards the \u00dcbermensch. The symbol of the \u00dcbermensch also alludes to Nietzsche's notions of \"self-mastery\", \"self-cultivation\", \"self-direction\", and \"self-overcoming\". Expounding these concepts, Zarathustra declares: The book embodies a number of innovative poetical and rhetorical methods of expression. It serves as a parallel and supplement to the various philosophical ideas present in Nietzsche's body of work. He has, however, said that \"among my writings my Zarathustra stands to my mind by itself\" (Ecce Homo, Preface, sec. 4, Kaufmann). Emphasizing its centrality and its status as his magnum opus, Nietzsche stated that: Since many of the book's ideas are also present in his other works, Zarathustra is seen to have served as a precursor to his later philosophical thought. With the book, Nietzsche embraced a distinct aesthetic assiduity. He later reformulated many of his ideas, in Beyond Good and Evil and various other writings that he composed thereafter. He continued to emphasize his philosophical concerns; generally, his intention was to show an alternative to repressive moral codes and to avert \"nihilism\" in all of its varied forms. Other aspects of Thus Spoke Zarathustra relate to Nietzsche's proposed \"Transvaluation of All Values\". This incomplete project began with The Antichrist"
      },
      {
        "text": " Nietzsche embraced a distinct aesthetic assiduity. He later reformulated many of his ideas, in Beyond Good and Evil and various other writings that he composed thereafter. He continued to emphasize his philosophical concerns; generally, his intention was to show an alternative to repressive moral codes and to avert \"nihilism\" in all of its varied forms. Other aspects of Thus Spoke Zarathustra relate to Nietzsche's proposed \"Transvaluation of All Values\". This incomplete project began with The Antichrist.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Slaughterhouse-Five",
    "author": "Kurt Vonnegut",
    "published_date": "1969",
    "synopsis": " Chaplain's Assistant Billy Pilgrim is a disoriented, fatalistic, and ill-trained American soldier. He does not like wars and is captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans put Billy and his fellow prisoners in a disused slaughterhouse (although there are animal carcasses hanging in the underground shelter) in Dresden. Their building is known as \"Slaughterhouse number 5.\" During the bombing, the POWs and German guards alike hide in a deep cellar. Because of their safe hiding place, they are some of the few survivors of the city-destroying firestorm. Billy has become \"unstuck in time\" and experiences past and future events out of sequence and repetitively, following a nonlinear narrative. He is kidnapped by extraterrestrial aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. They exhibit him in a zoo with B-movie starlet Montana Wildhack as his mate. The Tralfamadorians, who can see in four dimensions, have already seen every instant of their lives. They say they cannot choose to change anything about their fates, but can choose to concentrate upon any moment in their lives, and Billy becomes convinced of the veracity of their theories. As Billy travels, or believes he travels, forward and backward in time, he relives occasions of his life, both real and fantasy. He spends time on Tralfamadore, in Dresden during the war, walking in deep snow before his German capture, in his mundane post-war married life in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s, and in the moment of his murder by a petty thief named Paul Lazzaro. Billy's death is the consequence of a string of events. Before the Germans capture Billy, he meets Roland Weary, a jingoist character and bully, just out of childhood like Billy, who constantly chastises him for his lack of enthusiasm for war. When captured, the Germans confiscate everything Weary has, including his boots, giving him hinged, wooden clogs to wear; Weary eventually dies of gangrene caused by the clogs. While dying in a railcar full of POWs, Weary manages to convince another soldier, Paul Lazzaro, that Billy is to blame. Lazzaro vows to avenge Weary's death by killing Billy, because revenge is \"the sweetest thing in life.\" Lazzaro later shoots and kills Billy with a laser gun after his speech on flying saucers and the true nature of time before a large audience in Chicago, in a balkanized United States on February 13, 1976 (the future at the time of the book's writing).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Chaplain's Assistant Billy Pilgrim is a disoriented, fatalistic, and ill-trained American soldier. He does not like wars and is captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans put Billy and his fellow prisoners in a disused slaughterhouse (although there are animal carcasses hanging in the underground shelter) in Dresden. Their building is known as \"Slaughterhouse number 5.\" During the bombing, the POWs and German guards alike hide in a deep cellar. Because of their safe hiding place, they are some of the few survivors of the city-destroying firestorm. Billy has become \"unstuck in time\" and experiences past and future events out of sequence and repetitively, following a nonlinear narrative. He is kidnapped by extraterrestrial aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. They exhibit him in a zoo with B-movie starlet Montana Wildhack as his mate. The Tralfamadorians, who can see in four dimensions, have already seen every instant of their lives. They say they cannot choose to change anything about their fates, but can choose to concentrate upon any moment in their lives, and Billy becomes convinced of the veracity of their theories. As Billy travels, or believes he travels, forward and backward in time, he relives occasions of his life, both real and fantasy. He spends time on Tralfamadore, in Dresden during the war, walking in deep snow before his German capture, in his mundane post-war married life in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s, and in the moment of his murder by a petty thief named Paul Lazzaro. Billy's death is the consequence of a string of events. Before the Germans capture Billy, he meets Roland Weary, a jingoist character and bully, just out of childhood like Billy, who constantly chastises him for his lack of enthusiasm for war. When captured, the Germans confiscate everything Weary has"
      },
      {
        "text": " his mundane post-war married life in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s, and in the moment of his murder by a petty thief named Paul Lazzaro. Billy's death is the consequence of a string of events. Before the Germans capture Billy, he meets Roland Weary, a jingoist character and bully, just out of childhood like Billy, who constantly chastises him for his lack of enthusiasm for war. When captured, the Germans confiscate everything Weary has, including his boots, giving him hinged, wooden clogs to wear; Weary eventually dies of gangrene caused by the clogs. While dying in a railcar full of POWs, Weary manages to convince another soldier, Paul Lazzaro, that Billy is to blame. Lazzaro vows to avenge Weary's death by killing Billy, because revenge is \"the sweetest thing in life.\" Lazzaro later shoots and kills Billy with a laser gun after his speech on flying saucers and the true nature of time before a large audience in Chicago, in a balkanized United States on February 13, 1976 (the future at the time of the book's writing).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Catcher in the Rye",
    "author": "J. D. Salinger",
    "published_date": "1951-07-16",
    "synopsis": " The majority of the novel takes place over two days in December 1949. Seventeen-year-old Holden Caulfield, the book's narrator and protagonist, addresses the reader directly from a hospital in Southern California, recounting the events leading up to his breakdown the previous December. Holden begins his story at Pencey Prep, an exclusive private school in Agerstown, Pennsylvania, on the Saturday afternoon of the traditional football game with school rival, Saxon Hall. Holden misses the game. As manager of the fencing team, he managed to lose the team's equipment on the subway in New York that morning, resulting in the cancellation of a match. He is on his way to the home of his history teacher, Mr. Spencer, to say good-bye. Holden has been expelled and is not to return after Christmas break, which starts the following Wednesday. Spencer is a well-meaning but long-winded old man. Much to Holden's annoyance, he reads aloud his history examination paper, in which Holden wrote a note to Mr Spencer so that his teacher would not feel badly about failing him in the subject. Holden returns to his dorm, which is quiet because most of the students are still at the football game. Wearing his new red hunting cap, he begins a book, but his reverie is temporary. First, his dorm neighbor Ackley disturbs him, then later, he argues with his roommate, Stradlater, who fails to appreciate a theme that Holden wrote for him about Holden's late brother Allie's baseball glove. A womanizer, Stradlater has just returned from a date with Holden's old friend Jane Gallagher. Holden is distressed because he is scared that Stradlater might have taken advantage of Jane. Stradlater does not appreciate Jane in the manner in which Holden does; he even misstates Jane's name as 'Jean.' The two roommates fight, and Stradlater wins easily. Holden decides at this point that he has had enough of Pencey Prep, and catches a train to New York City, where he plans to stay in a hotel until Wednesday, when his parents expect him to return home for Christmas vacation. He checks into the dilapidated Edmont Hotel. After observing the behavior of the \"perverts\" in the hotel room facing his, he struggles with his own sexuality. He states that although he has had opportunities to lose his virginity, the timing never felt right and he was always respectful when a girl said, 'no.' He spends an evening dancing with three tourist women in their thirties from Seattle in the hotel lounge, and enjoys dancing with one, but ends up with only the check. He finds it slightly frustrating because the women seem unable to carry a conversation. Following a disappointing visit to Ernie's Nightclub in Greenwich Village, Holden agrees to have a prostitute, Sunny, visit his room. His attitude toward the girl changes the minute she enters the room, because she seems to be about the same age as Holden and he starts to view her as a person. Holden becomes uncomfortable with the situation, and when he tells her that all he wants to do is talk, she becomes annoyed and leaves. Even though he still pays her for her time, she returns with her pimp, Maurice, and demands more money. Despite the fact that Sunny takes five dollars from Holden's wallet, Maurice punches Holden in the stomach. After a short sleep, Holden telephones Sally Hayes, a familiar date, and agrees to meet her that afternoon to go to a play. Meanwhile, Holden leaves the hotel, checks his luggage at Grand Central Station, and has a late breakfast. He meets two nuns, one an English teacher, with whom he discusses Romeo and Juliet. Holden shops for a special record, \"Little Shirley Beans,\" for his 10-year-old sister, Phoebe. He spots a small boy singing \"If a body catches a body coming through the rye,\" which somehow makes Holden feel less depressed. After seeing the play with Sally featuring Broadway stars Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the two go skating at Radio City, and while drinking Coke, Holden impulsively invites Sally to run away with him to the wilderness. She declines. Her response deflates Holden's mood and prompts his remark: \"You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth.\" He regrets it immediately, and Sally storms off as Holden follows, pleading with her to accept his apology. Finally, Holden gives up and leaves her there, sees the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall, endures a movie, and gets very drunk. Throughout the novel, Holden has been worried about the ducks in the lagoon at Central Park. He tries to find them but only manages to break Phoebe's record in the process. Exhausted physically and mentally, he heads home to see his sister. Holden's time in the city is characterized largely by drunkenness and loneliness. He thinks about the Museum of Natural History, which he often visited as a child. He contrasts his evolving life with the statues of Eskimos in a diorama: while the statues have remained unchanged through the years, he and the world have not. These concerns may have stemmed largely from the death of his brother, Allie. Eventually, he sneaks into his parents' apartment while they are out, to visit his younger sister\u2014and close friend\u2014Phoebe, the only person with whom he seems to be able to communicate. Holden shares a fantasy he has been thinking about (based on a mishearing of Robert Burns' Comin' Through the Rye): he pictures himself as the sole guardian of a group of children running and playing in a huge rye field on the edge of a cliff. His job is to catch the children if, in their abandon, they come close to falling off the brink, to be a \"catcher in the rye.\" Because of this misinterpretation, Holden believes that to be a \"catcher in the rye\" means to save children from losing their innocence. When his parents come home, Holden slips out and seeks out his former and much-admired English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who offers advice on life and a place to sleep. Mr. Antolini tells Holden that it is the mark of the mature man to live humbly for a cause, rather than die nobly for it. This is at odds with Holden's ideas of becoming a \"catcher in the rye,\" symbolically saving children from the evils of adulthood. During the speech on life, Mr. Antolini has a number of cocktails served in highball glasses. Holden is upset when he wakes up in the night to find Mr. Antolini patting his head in a way that he regards as \"flitty.\" Confused and uncertain, he leaves and spends his last afternoon wandering the city. He later wonders if his interpretation of Mr. Antolini's actions was actually correct, and seems to wonder how much it matters anyway. Holden makes the decision that he will head out west and live as a deaf-mute. When he mentions these plans to his little sister Monday morning, she wants to go with him. Holden declines her offer, which upsets Phoebe, so Holden decides not to leave after all. He tries to cheer her up by taking her to the Central Park Zoo, and as he watches her ride the zoo's carousel, he is filled with happiness and joy at the sight of Phoebe riding in the rain. At the conclusion of the novel, Holden decides not to mention much about the present day, finding it inconsequential. He alludes to \"getting sick\" and living in a mental hospital, and mentions that he'll be attending another school in September; he relates how he has been asked whether he will apply himself properly to his studies this time around and wonders whether such a question has any meaning before the fact. Holden says that he doesn't want to tell us anything more, because surprisingly he found himself missing two of his former classmates, Stradlater and Ackley, and even Maurice, the pimp who punched him. He warns the reader that telling others about their own experiences will lead them to miss the people who shared them.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The majority of the novel takes place over two days in December 1949. Seventeen-year-old Holden Caulfield, the book's narrator and protagonist, addresses the reader directly from a hospital in Southern California, recounting the events leading up to his breakdown the previous December. Holden begins his story at Pencey Prep, an exclusive private school in Agerstown, Pennsylvania, on the Saturday afternoon of the traditional football game with school rival, Saxon Hall. Holden misses the game. As manager of the fencing team, he managed to lose the team's equipment on the subway in New York that morning, resulting in the cancellation of a match. He is on his way to the home of his history teacher, Mr. Spencer, to say good-bye. Holden has been expelled and is not to return after Christmas break, which starts the following Wednesday. Spencer is a well-meaning but long-winded old man. Much to Holden's annoyance, he reads aloud his history examination paper, in which Holden wrote a note to Mr Spencer so that his teacher would not feel badly about failing him in the subject. Holden returns to his dorm, which is quiet because most of the students are still at the football game. Wearing his new red hunting cap, he begins a book, but his reverie is temporary. First, his dorm neighbor Ackley disturbs him, then later, he argues with his roommate, Stradlater, who fails to appreciate a theme that Holden wrote for him about Holden's late brother Allie's baseball glove. A womanizer, Stradlater has just returned from a date with Holden's old friend Jane Gallagher. Holden is distressed because he is scared that Stradlater might have taken advantage of Jane. Stradlater does not appreciate Jane in the manner in which Holden does; he even misstates Jane's name as 'Jean.' The two roommates fight, and Stradlater wins easily. Holden decides at this point that he has had enough of"
      },
      {
        "text": " about Holden's late brother Allie's baseball glove. A womanizer, Stradlater has just returned from a date with Holden's old friend Jane Gallagher. Holden is distressed because he is scared that Stradlater might have taken advantage of Jane. Stradlater does not appreciate Jane in the manner in which Holden does; he even misstates Jane's name as 'Jean.' The two roommates fight, and Stradlater wins easily. Holden decides at this point that he has had enough of Pencey Prep, and catches a train to New York City, where he plans to stay in a hotel until Wednesday, when his parents expect him to return home for Christmas vacation. He checks into the dilapidated Edmont Hotel. After observing the behavior of the \"perverts\" in the hotel room facing his, he struggles with his own sexuality. He states that although he has had opportunities to lose his virginity, the timing never felt right and he was always respectful when a girl said, 'no.' He spends an evening dancing with three tourist women in their thirties from Seattle in the hotel lounge, and enjoys dancing with one, but ends up with only the check. He finds it slightly frustrating because the women seem unable to carry a conversation. Following a disappointing visit to Ernie's Nightclub in Greenwich Village, Holden agrees to have a prostitute, Sunny, visit his room. His attitude toward the girl changes the minute she enters the room, because she seems to be about the same age as Holden and he starts to view her as a person. Holden becomes uncomfortable with the situation, and when he tells her that all he wants to do is talk, she becomes annoyed and leaves. Even though he still pays her for her time, she returns with her pimp, Maurice, and demands more money. Despite the fact that Sunny takes five dollars from Holden's wallet, Maurice punches Holden in the stomach. After a short sleep, Holden telephones Sally Hayes, a familiar date, and"
      },
      {
        "text": " age as Holden and he starts to view her as a person. Holden becomes uncomfortable with the situation, and when he tells her that all he wants to do is talk, she becomes annoyed and leaves. Even though he still pays her for her time, she returns with her pimp, Maurice, and demands more money. Despite the fact that Sunny takes five dollars from Holden's wallet, Maurice punches Holden in the stomach. After a short sleep, Holden telephones Sally Hayes, a familiar date, and agrees to meet her that afternoon to go to a play. Meanwhile, Holden leaves the hotel, checks his luggage at Grand Central Station, and has a late breakfast. He meets two nuns, one an English teacher, with whom he discusses Romeo and Juliet. Holden shops for a special record, \"Little Shirley Beans,\" for his 10-year-old sister, Phoebe. He spots a small boy singing \"If a body catches a body coming through the rye,\" which somehow makes Holden feel less depressed. After seeing the play with Sally featuring Broadway stars Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the two go skating at Radio City, and while drinking Coke, Holden impulsively invites Sally to run away with him to the wilderness. She declines. Her response deflates Holden's mood and prompts his remark: \"You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth.\" He regrets it immediately, and Sally storms off as Holden follows, pleading with her to accept his apology. Finally, Holden gives up and leaves her there, sees the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall, endures a movie, and gets very drunk. Throughout the novel, Holden has been worried about the ducks in the lagoon at Central Park. He tries to find them but only manages to break Phoebe's record in the process. Exhausted physically and mentally, he heads home to see his sister. Holden's time in the city is characterized largely by drunkenness and loneliness."
      },
      {
        "text": " apology. Finally, Holden gives up and leaves her there, sees the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall, endures a movie, and gets very drunk. Throughout the novel, Holden has been worried about the ducks in the lagoon at Central Park. He tries to find them but only manages to break Phoebe's record in the process. Exhausted physically and mentally, he heads home to see his sister. Holden's time in the city is characterized largely by drunkenness and loneliness. He thinks about the Museum of Natural History, which he often visited as a child. He contrasts his evolving life with the statues of Eskimos in a diorama: while the statues have remained unchanged through the years, he and the world have not. These concerns may have stemmed largely from the death of his brother, Allie. Eventually, he sneaks into his parents' apartment while they are out, to visit his younger sister\u2014and close friend\u2014Phoebe, the only person with whom he seems to be able to communicate. Holden shares a fantasy he has been thinking about (based on a mishearing of Robert Burns' Comin' Through the Rye): he pictures himself as the sole guardian of a group of children running and playing in a huge rye field on the edge of a cliff. His job is to catch the children if, in their abandon, they come close to falling off the brink, to be a \"catcher in the rye.\" Because of this misinterpretation, Holden believes that to be a \"catcher in the rye\" means to save children from losing their innocence. When his parents come home, Holden slips out and seeks out his former and much-admired English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who offers advice on life and a place to sleep. Mr. Antolini tells Holden that it is the mark of the mature man to live humbly for a cause, rather than die nobly for it. This is at odds with Holden"
      },
      {
        "text": "ation, Holden believes that to be a \"catcher in the rye\" means to save children from losing their innocence. When his parents come home, Holden slips out and seeks out his former and much-admired English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who offers advice on life and a place to sleep. Mr. Antolini tells Holden that it is the mark of the mature man to live humbly for a cause, rather than die nobly for it. This is at odds with Holden's ideas of becoming a \"catcher in the rye,\" symbolically saving children from the evils of adulthood. During the speech on life, Mr. Antolini has a number of cocktails served in highball glasses. Holden is upset when he wakes up in the night to find Mr. Antolini patting his head in a way that he regards as \"flitty.\" Confused and uncertain, he leaves and spends his last afternoon wandering the city. He later wonders if his interpretation of Mr. Antolini's actions was actually correct, and seems to wonder how much it matters anyway. Holden makes the decision that he will head out west and live as a deaf-mute. When he mentions these plans to his little sister Monday morning, she wants to go with him. Holden declines her offer, which upsets Phoebe, so Holden decides not to leave after all. He tries to cheer her up by taking her to the Central Park Zoo, and as he watches her ride the zoo's carousel, he is filled with happiness and joy at the sight of Phoebe riding in the rain. At the conclusion of the novel, Holden decides not to mention much about the present day, finding it inconsequential. He alludes to \"getting sick\" and living in a mental hospital, and mentions that he'll be attending another school in September; he relates how he has been asked whether he will apply himself properly to his studies this time around and wonders whether such a question has any"
      },
      {
        "text": " carousel, he is filled with happiness and joy at the sight of Phoebe riding in the rain. At the conclusion of the novel, Holden decides not to mention much about the present day, finding it inconsequential. He alludes to \"getting sick\" and living in a mental hospital, and mentions that he'll be attending another school in September; he relates how he has been asked whether he will apply himself properly to his studies this time around and wonders whether such a question has any meaning before the fact. Holden says that he doesn't want to tell us anything more, because surprisingly he found himself missing two of his former classmates, Stradlater and Ackley, and even Maurice, the pimp who punched him. He warns the reader that telling others about their own experiences will lead them to miss the people who shared them.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Our American Cousin",
    "author": "Tom Taylor",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In the drawing room at Trenchard Manor, the servants remark on their employer's poor financial circumstances. Florence Trenchard, an aristocratic young beauty, loves Lieutenant Harry Vernon of the Royal Navy, but she is unable to marry him until he progresses to a higher rank. She receives a letter from her brother Ned, who is currently in the United States. Ned has met some rustic cousins from a branch of the family that had emigrated to Vermont in America two centuries earlier. They related to Ned that great uncle Mark Trenchard had, after angrily disinheriting his children and leaving England years ago, found these Vermont cousins. He had moved in with them and eventually made Asa, one of the sons, heir to his property in England. Asa is now sailing to England to claim the estate. Asa is noisy coarse and vulgar, but honestly forthright and colourful. The English Trenchards are alternately amused and appalled by this Vermont cousin. Richard Coyle, agent of the estate, meets with Sir Edward Trenchard (Florence's father) and tells the baronet that the family faces bankruptcy unless they can repay a debt to Coyle. Coyle is concealing the evidence that the loan had been repaid long ago by Sir Edward's late father. Coyle suggests that the loan would be satisfied if he may marry Florence, who detests him. Meanwhile, Asa and the butler, Binny, try to understand each others' unfamiliar ways, as Asa tries to understand what the purpose of a shower might be, dousing himself while fully clothed. Mrs. Mountchessington is staying at Trenchard Manor. She advises Augusta, her daughter, to be attentive to the presumably wealthy Vermont \"savage\". Meanwhile, her other daughter, Georgina, is courting an imbecilic nobleman named Dundreary, by pretending to be ill. Florence's old tutor, the unhappy alcoholic Abel Murcott, warns her that Coyle intends to marry her. Asa overhears this and offers Florence his help. Murcott is Coyle's clerk and has found proof that Florence's late grandfather paid off the loan to Coyle. Florence and Asa visit her cousin, Mary Meredith. Mary is the granddaughter of old Mark Trenchard, who left his estate to Asa. Mary is very poor and has been raised as a humble dairy maid. Asa doesn't care about her social status and is attracted to her. Florence has not been able to bring herself to tell Mary that her grandfather's fortune had been left to Asa. Florence tells Asa that she loves Harry, who needs a good assignment to a ship. Asa uses his country wile to persuade Dundreary to help Harry get a ship. Meanwhile, Coyle has been up to no good, and the bailiffs arrive at Trenchard Manor. At her dairy, Asa tells Mary about her grandfather in America, but he fibs about the end of the tale: He says that old Mark Trenchard changed his mind about disinheriting his English children and burned his Will. Asa promptly burns the Will himself. Florence discovers this and points it out to Mary, saying: \"It means that he is a true hero, and he loves you, you little rogue.\" Meanwhile, Mrs. Mountchessington still hopes that Asa will propose to Augusta. When Asa tells them that Mark Trenchard had left Mary his fortune, Augusta and Mrs. Mountchessington are quite rude, but Asa stands up for himself. Asa proposes to Mary and is happily accepted. He then sneaks into Coyle's office with Murcott and retrieves the paper that shows that the debt was paid. Asa confronts Coyle and insists that Coyle must pay off Sir Edward's other debts, with his doubtless ill-gotten gains, and also apologize to Florence for trying to force her into marriage. Moreover, he demands Coyle's resignation as the steward of Trenchard Manor, making Murcott steward instead. Murcott is so pleased that he vows to stop drinking. Coyle has no choice but to do all this. Florence marries Harry, Dundreary marries Georgina, and Augusta marries an old beau. Even the servants marry.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the drawing room at Trenchard Manor, the servants remark on their employer's poor financial circumstances. Florence Trenchard, an aristocratic young beauty, loves Lieutenant Harry Vernon of the Royal Navy, but she is unable to marry him until he progresses to a higher rank. She receives a letter from her brother Ned, who is currently in the United States. Ned has met some rustic cousins from a branch of the family that had emigrated to Vermont in America two centuries earlier. They related to Ned that great uncle Mark Trenchard had, after angrily disinheriting his children and leaving England years ago, found these Vermont cousins. He had moved in with them and eventually made Asa, one of the sons, heir to his property in England. Asa is now sailing to England to claim the estate. Asa is noisy coarse and vulgar, but honestly forthright and colourful. The English Trenchards are alternately amused and appalled by this Vermont cousin. Richard Coyle, agent of the estate, meets with Sir Edward Trenchard (Florence's father) and tells the baronet that the family faces bankruptcy unless they can repay a debt to Coyle. Coyle is concealing the evidence that the loan had been repaid long ago by Sir Edward's late father. Coyle suggests that the loan would be satisfied if he may marry Florence, who detests him. Meanwhile, Asa and the butler, Binny, try to understand each others' unfamiliar ways, as Asa tries to understand what the purpose of a shower might be, dousing himself while fully clothed. Mrs. Mountchessington is staying at Trenchard Manor. She advises Augusta, her daughter, to be attentive to the presumably wealthy Vermont \"savage\". Meanwhile, her other daughter, Georgina, is courting an imbecilic nobleman named Dundreary, by pretending to be ill. Florence's old tutor, the unhappy alcoholic Abel Murcott, warns"
      },
      {
        "text": " unfamiliar ways, as Asa tries to understand what the purpose of a shower might be, dousing himself while fully clothed. Mrs. Mountchessington is staying at Trenchard Manor. She advises Augusta, her daughter, to be attentive to the presumably wealthy Vermont \"savage\". Meanwhile, her other daughter, Georgina, is courting an imbecilic nobleman named Dundreary, by pretending to be ill. Florence's old tutor, the unhappy alcoholic Abel Murcott, warns her that Coyle intends to marry her. Asa overhears this and offers Florence his help. Murcott is Coyle's clerk and has found proof that Florence's late grandfather paid off the loan to Coyle. Florence and Asa visit her cousin, Mary Meredith. Mary is the granddaughter of old Mark Trenchard, who left his estate to Asa. Mary is very poor and has been raised as a humble dairy maid. Asa doesn't care about her social status and is attracted to her. Florence has not been able to bring herself to tell Mary that her grandfather's fortune had been left to Asa. Florence tells Asa that she loves Harry, who needs a good assignment to a ship. Asa uses his country wile to persuade Dundreary to help Harry get a ship. Meanwhile, Coyle has been up to no good, and the bailiffs arrive at Trenchard Manor. At her dairy, Asa tells Mary about her grandfather in America, but he fibs about the end of the tale: He says that old Mark Trenchard changed his mind about disinheriting his English children and burned his Will. Asa promptly burns the Will himself. Florence discovers this and points it out to Mary, saying: \"It means that he is a true hero, and he loves you, you little rogue.\" Meanwhile, Mrs. Mountchessington still hopes that Asa will propose to Augusta. When Asa tells them that Mark Trench"
      },
      {
        "text": " he fibs about the end of the tale: He says that old Mark Trenchard changed his mind about disinheriting his English children and burned his Will. Asa promptly burns the Will himself. Florence discovers this and points it out to Mary, saying: \"It means that he is a true hero, and he loves you, you little rogue.\" Meanwhile, Mrs. Mountchessington still hopes that Asa will propose to Augusta. When Asa tells them that Mark Trenchard had left Mary his fortune, Augusta and Mrs. Mountchessington are quite rude, but Asa stands up for himself. Asa proposes to Mary and is happily accepted. He then sneaks into Coyle's office with Murcott and retrieves the paper that shows that the debt was paid. Asa confronts Coyle and insists that Coyle must pay off Sir Edward's other debts, with his doubtless ill-gotten gains, and also apologize to Florence for trying to force her into marriage. Moreover, he demands Coyle's resignation as the steward of Trenchard Manor, making Murcott steward instead. Murcott is so pleased that he vows to stop drinking. Coyle has no choice but to do all this. Florence marries Harry, Dundreary marries Georgina, and Augusta marries an old beau. Even the servants marry.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Name of the Rose",
    "author": "Umberto Eco",
    "published_date": "1980",
    "synopsis": " Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and his novice Adso of Melk travel to a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological disputation. As they arrive, the monastery is disturbed by a suicide. As the story unfolds, several other monks die under mysterious circumstances. William is tasked by the Abbot of the monastery to investigate the deaths as fresh clues with each murder victim lead William to dead ends and new clues. The protagonists explore a labyrinthine medieval library, discuss the subversive power of laughter, and come face to face with the Inquisition. William's innate curiosity and highly-developed powers of logic and deduction provide the keys to unravelling the mysteries of the abbey.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and his novice Adso of Melk travel to a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological disputation. As they arrive, the monastery is disturbed by a suicide. As the story unfolds, several other monks die under mysterious circumstances. William is tasked by the Abbot of the monastery to investigate the deaths as fresh clues with each murder victim lead William to dead ends and new clues. The protagonists explore a labyrinthine medieval library, discuss the subversive power of laughter, and come face to face with the Inquisition. William's innate curiosity and highly-developed powers of logic and deduction provide the keys to unravelling the mysteries of the abbey.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Member of the Wedding",
    "author": "Carson McCullers",
    "published_date": "1946",
    "synopsis": " The novel takes place over a few days in late August. It tells the story of 12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams, who feels disconnected from the world; in her words, an \"unjoined person.\" Frankie's mother died when she was born, and her father is a distant, uncomprehending figure. Her closest companions are the family's African American maid, Berenice Sadie Brown, and her six-year-old cousin, John Henry West. She has no friends in her small Southern town, and dreams of going away with her brother and his bride-to-be on their honeymoon in the Alaskan wilderness. The novel explores the psychology of the three main characters, and is more concerned with evocative settings than with incident. Frankie does, however, have a brief and troubling encounter with a soldier. Her hopes of going away disappointed \u2014 her fantasy destroyed \u2014 a short coda reveals how her personality has changed. It also recounts the fate of John Henry West, and Berenice Sadie Brown's future plans.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel takes place over a few days in late August. It tells the story of 12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams, who feels disconnected from the world; in her words, an \"unjoined person.\" Frankie's mother died when she was born, and her father is a distant, uncomprehending figure. Her closest companions are the family's African American maid, Berenice Sadie Brown, and her six-year-old cousin, John Henry West. She has no friends in her small Southern town, and dreams of going away with her brother and his bride-to-be on their honeymoon in the Alaskan wilderness. The novel explores the psychology of the three main characters, and is more concerned with evocative settings than with incident. Frankie does, however, have a brief and troubling encounter with a soldier. Her hopes of going away disappointed \u2014 her fantasy destroyed \u2014 a short coda reveals how her personality has changed. It also recounts the fate of John Henry West, and Berenice Sadie Brown's future plans.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Rashomon",
    "author": "Ryunosuke Akutagawa",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story recounts the encounter between a servant and an old woman in the dilapidated Rash\u014dmon, the southern gate of the then ruined city of Kyoto, where unclaimed corpses were sometimes dumped. The man, a lowly servant recently fired, is contemplating whether to starve to death or to become a thief to survive in the barren times. When he goes upstairs, after noticing some firelight there, he encounters the woman, who is stealing hair from the dead bodies on the second floor. He is disgusted, and decides then that he would rather take the path of righteousness even if it meant starvation. He is furious with the woman. But the old woman tells him that she steals hair to make wigs, so she can survive. In addition, the woman whose body she is currently robbing cheated people in her life by selling snake meat and claiming it was fish. The old woman says that this was not wrong because it allowed the woman to survive \u2014 and so in turn this entitles her to steal from the dead person, because if she doesn't, she too will starve. The man responds: \"You won't blame me, then, for taking your clothes. That's what I have to do to keep from starving to death\". He then brutally robs the woman of her robe and disappears into the night. The book itself also plays a part in the 1999 movie Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai directed by Jim Jarmusch.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story recounts the encounter between a servant and an old woman in the dilapidated Rash\u014dmon, the southern gate of the then ruined city of Kyoto, where unclaimed corpses were sometimes dumped. The man, a lowly servant recently fired, is contemplating whether to starve to death or to become a thief to survive in the barren times. When he goes upstairs, after noticing some firelight there, he encounters the woman, who is stealing hair from the dead bodies on the second floor. He is disgusted, and decides then that he would rather take the path of righteousness even if it meant starvation. He is furious with the woman. But the old woman tells him that she steals hair to make wigs, so she can survive. In addition, the woman whose body she is currently robbing cheated people in her life by selling snake meat and claiming it was fish. The old woman says that this was not wrong because it allowed the woman to survive \u2014 and so in turn this entitles her to steal from the dead person, because if she doesn't, she too will starve. The man responds: \"You won't blame me, then, for taking your clothes. That's what I have to do to keep from starving to death\". He then brutally robs the woman of her robe and disappears into the night. The book itself also plays a part in the 1999 movie Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai directed by Jim Jarmusch.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Magnificent Obsession",
    "author": "Lloyd C. Douglas",
    "published_date": "1929",
    "synopsis": " Robert Merrick is resuscitated by a rescue crew after a boating accident. The crew is unable to save the life of Dr. Phillips, a doctor renowned for his ability to help people, who was having a heart attack at the same time on the other side of the lake. Merrick then decides to devote his life to making up for the doctor's, and becomes a physician himself. The book's plot portrays Mrs. Hudson, the widow, moving to Europe after her daughter, Joyce, is married. Merrick progresses in his career, and in the story's climax, gets involved in a railway accident in which Mrs. Hudson suffers serious injury. Merrick is instrumental in her recovery. The movie differs from the book in that before deciding to become a surgeon, Merrick not only alienates the doctor's widow, with whom he has fallen in love, but also causes another tragedy. This makes him totally re-evaluate his life, and at that point, he decides to become a doctor.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Robert Merrick is resuscitated by a rescue crew after a boating accident. The crew is unable to save the life of Dr. Phillips, a doctor renowned for his ability to help people, who was having a heart attack at the same time on the other side of the lake. Merrick then decides to devote his life to making up for the doctor's, and becomes a physician himself. The book's plot portrays Mrs. Hudson, the widow, moving to Europe after her daughter, Joyce, is married. Merrick progresses in his career, and in the story's climax, gets involved in a railway accident in which Mrs. Hudson suffers serious injury. Merrick is instrumental in her recovery. The movie differs from the book in that before deciding to become a surgeon, Merrick not only alienates the doctor's widow, with whom he has fallen in love, but also causes another tragedy. This makes him totally re-evaluate his life, and at that point, he decides to become a doctor.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "V.",
    "author": "Thomas Pynchon",
    "published_date": "1963",
    "synopsis": " The novel alternates between episodes featuring Benny, Stencil and other members of the Whole Sick Crew (including Profane's sidekick Pig Bodine) in 1956 (with a few minor flashbacks), and a generation-spanning plot which comprises Stencil's attempts to unravel the clues he believes will lead him to \"V.\" (or to the various incarnations thereof). Each of these \"Stencilised\" chapters is set at a different moment of historical crisis; the framing narrative involving Stencil, \"V.\", and the journals of Stencil's British spy/diplomat father threads the sequences together. The novel's two storylines increasingly converge in the last chapters (the intersecting lines forming a V-shape, as it were), as Stencil hires Benny to travel with him to Malta. The Stencil chapters are: This chapter, set among the British community in Egypt toward the end of the 19th century, consists of an introduction and a series of eight relatively short sections, each of them from the point of view of a different person. The eight sections come together to tell a story of murder and intrigue, intersecting the life of a young woman, Victoria Wren, the first incarnation of V. The title is a hint as to how this chapter is to be understood: Stencil imagines each of the eight viewpoints as he reconstructs—we do not know on how much knowledge and how much conjecture—this episode. This chapter is a reworking of Pynchon's short story \"Under the Rose\", which was first published in 1961 and is collected in Slow Learner (1984). In the Slow Learner introduction, Pynchon admits he took the details of the setting (\"right down the names of the diplomatic corps\") from Karl Baedeker's 1899 travel guide for Egypt. Stencil's reconstruction follows the same basic conflict as \"Under the Rose\", but it gives the non-European characters much more personality. Only marginally part of the Stencil/V. material, this chapter follows Benny and others, as Benny has a job hunting alligators in the sewers under Manhattan. It figures in the Stencil/V. story in that there is a rat named \"Veronica\" who figures in a subplot about a mad priest \u2014 Father Linus Fairing, S.J. \u2014 some decades back, living in the sewers and preaching to the rats; we hear from him in the form of his diary. Stencil himself makes a brief appearance toward the end of the chapter. In Florence in 1899, Victoria appears again, briefly, but so does the place name \"Vheissu\", which may or may not stand for Vesuvius, Venezuela, a crude interpretation of wie hei\u00dft du, translating into who are you in the German language, or even (one character jokes) Venus. Kurt Mondaugen, who will appear again in Gravity's Rainbow, is the central character in a story set in South-West Africa (now Namibia) partly during a siege in 1922 at which one Vera Meroving is present, but most notably in 1904, during the Herero Wars, when South-West Africa was a German colony. Fausto Maijstral, Maltese civilian suffering under the German bombardment and working to clear the rubble during World War II writes a long letter to his daughter Paola, who figures in the Benny Profane story; the letter comes into Stencil's hands. The letter includes copious quotations from Fausto's diary. Besides the place name Valletta, V. figures in the story as an old \u2014 or possibly not-so-old \u2014 woman crushed by a beam of a fallen building. In this chapter V. is entranced by a young ballerina, M\u00e9lanie l'Heuremaudit. The story centers on a riotous ballet performance, almost certainly modeled in part on the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. The performance centers on a virgin sacrifice by impalement. The young ballerina fails to wear her protective equipment and actually dies by impalement in the course of the performance; everyone assumes her death throes simply to be an uncharacteristically emotional performance. As the Royal Navy mass on Malta in the early stages of the Suez Crisis, Stencil arrives with Benny in tow, searching for Fausto Maijstral. (As always, Kilroy was here first, and Pynchon proposes a novel origin for the face: that Kilroy was originally part of a schematic for a band-pass filter.) The last chapter is a flashback to Valletta when Stencil, Sr. was still alive. After World War I he is sent to Malta to observe the various crises going on involving the natives and their desire for independence. He is implored by Maijstral's wife (who is pregnant with Fausto) to relieve him of his duties as a double agent because she fears for his life. Stencil, Sr. meets Vera Manganese or V and implicitly has sex with her (she is now largely made up of artificial limbs). It is revealed they had trysted in Florence after the riots. He finds out that Fausto is having an affair with her as well. Linus Fairing is also working as a double agent for Stencil, and when he leaves for America, having tired of the life of a spy, Stencil's purpose for being in Malta is null. V releases Stencil from her auspices and Majistral as well. Stencil sails off into the Mediterranean and a waterspout blows the ship up into the air, then down into the depths, not too dissimilar from the conclusion of another American masterpiece, Moby-Dick, also a sailor's story.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel alternates between episodes featuring Benny, Stencil and other members of the Whole Sick Crew (including Profane's sidekick Pig Bodine) in 1956 (with a few minor flashbacks), and a generation-spanning plot which comprises Stencil's attempts to unravel the clues he believes will lead him to \"V.\" (or to the various incarnations thereof). Each of these \"Stencilised\" chapters is set at a different moment of historical crisis; the framing narrative involving Stencil, \"V.\", and the journals of Stencil's British spy/diplomat father threads the sequences together. The novel's two storylines increasingly converge in the last chapters (the intersecting lines forming a V-shape, as it were), as Stencil hires Benny to travel with him to Malta. The Stencil chapters are: This chapter, set among the British community in Egypt toward the end of the 19th century, consists of an introduction and a series of eight relatively short sections, each of them from the point of view of a different person. The eight sections come together to tell a story of murder and intrigue, intersecting the life of a young woman, Victoria Wren, the first incarnation of V. The title is a hint as to how this chapter is to be understood: Stencil imagines each of the eight viewpoints as he reconstructs—we do not know on how much knowledge and how much conjecture—this episode. This chapter is a reworking of Pynchon's short story \"Under the Rose\", which was first published in 1961 and is collected in Slow Learner (1984). In the Slow Learner introduction, Pynchon admits he took the details of the setting (\"right down the names of the diplomatic corps\") from Karl Baedeker's 1899 travel guide for Egypt. Stencil's reconstruction follows the same basic conflict as \"Under the Rose\", but it gives the non"
      },
      {
        "text": "this episode. This chapter is a reworking of Pynchon's short story \"Under the Rose\", which was first published in 1961 and is collected in Slow Learner (1984). In the Slow Learner introduction, Pynchon admits he took the details of the setting (\"right down the names of the diplomatic corps\") from Karl Baedeker's 1899 travel guide for Egypt. Stencil's reconstruction follows the same basic conflict as \"Under the Rose\", but it gives the non-European characters much more personality. Only marginally part of the Stencil/V. material, this chapter follows Benny and others, as Benny has a job hunting alligators in the sewers under Manhattan. It figures in the Stencil/V. story in that there is a rat named \"Veronica\" who figures in a subplot about a mad priest \u2014 Father Linus Fairing, S.J. \u2014 some decades back, living in the sewers and preaching to the rats; we hear from him in the form of his diary. Stencil himself makes a brief appearance toward the end of the chapter. In Florence in 1899, Victoria appears again, briefly, but so does the place name \"Vheissu\", which may or may not stand for Vesuvius, Venezuela, a crude interpretation of wie hei\u00dft du, translating into who are you in the German language, or even (one character jokes) Venus. Kurt Mondaugen, who will appear again in Gravity's Rainbow, is the central character in a story set in South-West Africa (now Namibia) partly during a siege in 1922 at which one Vera Meroving is present, but most notably in 1904, during the Herero Wars, when South-West Africa was a German colony. Fausto Maijstral, Maltese civilian suffering under the German bombardment and working to clear the rubble during World War II writes a long letter to his daughter Paola, who figures"
      },
      {
        "text": " will appear again in Gravity's Rainbow, is the central character in a story set in South-West Africa (now Namibia) partly during a siege in 1922 at which one Vera Meroving is present, but most notably in 1904, during the Herero Wars, when South-West Africa was a German colony. Fausto Maijstral, Maltese civilian suffering under the German bombardment and working to clear the rubble during World War II writes a long letter to his daughter Paola, who figures in the Benny Profane story; the letter comes into Stencil's hands. The letter includes copious quotations from Fausto's diary. Besides the place name Valletta, V. figures in the story as an old \u2014 or possibly not-so-old \u2014 woman crushed by a beam of a fallen building. In this chapter V. is entranced by a young ballerina, M\u00e9lanie l'Heuremaudit. The story centers on a riotous ballet performance, almost certainly modeled in part on the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. The performance centers on a virgin sacrifice by impalement. The young ballerina fails to wear her protective equipment and actually dies by impalement in the course of the performance; everyone assumes her death throes simply to be an uncharacteristically emotional performance. As the Royal Navy mass on Malta in the early stages of the Suez Crisis, Stencil arrives with Benny in tow, searching for Fausto Maijstral. (As always, Kilroy was here first, and Pynchon proposes a novel origin for the face: that Kilroy was originally part of a schematic for a band-pass filter.) The last chapter is a flashback to Valletta when Stencil, Sr. was still alive. After World War I he is sent to Malta to observe the various crises going on involving the natives and their desire for independence. He is implored by Mai"
      },
      {
        "text": " searching for Fausto Maijstral. (As always, Kilroy was here first, and Pynchon proposes a novel origin for the face: that Kilroy was originally part of a schematic for a band-pass filter.) The last chapter is a flashback to Valletta when Stencil, Sr. was still alive. After World War I he is sent to Malta to observe the various crises going on involving the natives and their desire for independence. He is implored by Maijstral's wife (who is pregnant with Fausto) to relieve him of his duties as a double agent because she fears for his life. Stencil, Sr. meets Vera Manganese or V and implicitly has sex with her (she is now largely made up of artificial limbs). It is revealed they had trysted in Florence after the riots. He finds out that Fausto is having an affair with her as well. Linus Fairing is also working as a double agent for Stencil, and when he leaves for America, having tired of the life of a spy, Stencil's purpose for being in Malta is null. V releases Stencil from her auspices and Majistral as well. Stencil sails off into the Mediterranean and a waterspout blows the ship up into the air, then down into the depths, not too dissimilar from the conclusion of another American masterpiece, Moby-Dick, also a sailor's story.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Shogun: A Novel of Japan",
    "author": "James Clavell",
    "published_date": "1975",
    "synopsis": " Japan in 1600 is a feudal country in a precarious peace. The heir to the Taiko is underage, too young to rule, and power rests in a council of five regents formed of the most powerful overlords of the land. Japanese society is insular and xenophobic. Portugal, with its vast sea power, and the Catholic Church, principally through the Spanish Order of the Jesuits, have gained a foothold in Japan and seek to extend their power. Guns and Europe's modern military capabilities are still a novelty and despised as a threat to Japan\u2019s traditional samurai warrior culture. John Blackthorne, an English pilot serving on the Dutch warship Erasmus, is the first English pilot to reach Japan. England and Holland, Protestant enemies of Catholic Spain and Portugal, seek to disrupt Spanish-Portuguese relations with Japan and establish ties of their own through trade and military alliance. Erasmus is shipwrecked on the Japanese coast. Blackthorne and the few survivors of his crew are taken captive by a local samurai, Kasigi Omi until the arrival of his daimyo (feudal lord) and uncle, Kasigi Yabu. Upon arrival, Yabu puts Blackthorne and his crew on trial using a Jesuit priest to interpret for Blackthorne. Losing at the trial, Blackthorne lunges desperately at the Jesuit, rips off the priest\u2019s crucifix and stamps it into the dust to show the daimyo that the priest is his enemy. The Japanese, who at this point know only the Catholic version of Christianity, are shocked at Blackthorne\u2019s gesture. Yabu sentences Blackthorne and his crew to death. However, Omi, who is quickly proving himself one of his uncle\u2019s cleverest advisers, convinces Yabu to keep them alive to learn more of European ways. Omi throws them into a pit to \"tame\" them and tells the crew Lord Yabu has ordered that they pick one amongst their own, other than Blackthorne, to die so that the others may live. Blackthorne leads his crew in a futile attempt to resist, but they are easily cowed by Omi, and one of his crew is taken out and boiled alive. To save his crew Blackthorne agrees to submit to Japanese authority. He is placed in a household, with his crew held in the pit as hostages to ensure his submission and cooperation. On Omi's advice, Yabu plans to not only exploit Blackthorne's knowledge to his own ends but also confiscate the wealth of guns and money recovered from the Erasmus, but word reaches his overlord, Lord Toranaga, the powerful president of the council of regents. Toranaga sends his commander in chief, \"Iron Fist\" General Hiro-Matsu, to take the Erasmus and the surviving crew from Yabu to tip the balance of power against Toranaga's principal rival on the council, Ishido. Blackthorne is given the title Anjin, the Japanese term for navigator or pilot, by the Japanese because they can't pronounce his name. Blackthorne insists on being addressed respectfully, as Omi is, and is therefore known as Anjin-san (\"Honorable Pilot\"). Hiro-Matsu confiscates the Erasmus and takes Blackthorne and Yabu back to the meeting of the council of regents taking place at Osaka Castle, the stronghold of the regent Ishido. They travel by one of Toranaga\u2019s galleys piloted by the Portuguese pilot Rodrigues. Blackthorne and Rodrigues find themselves in a grudging friendship, despite being required to stay at arm's length due to their national and religious enmity. Rodrigues attempts to murder Blackthorne during a storm, by sending him forward just as a wave breaks over the deck, but is himself swept overboard by the next wave. Blackthorne not only saves Rodrigues but safely navigates the ship to Osaka with crew and all aboard. At Osaka, Blackthorne is interviewed by Toranaga through the translation of Jesuit Priest Father Martin Alvito, who is not only bilingual but more sophisticated and higher up in the Jesuit hierarchy in Japan and therefore more dangerous to Blackthorne. After Blackthorne demands that Alvito tell Toranaga that the priest is his enemy, Toranaga has the Lady Mariko monitor the priest\u2019s translations. As an English Protestant, Blackthorne attempts to turn Toranaga against the Jesuits. He reveals to a surprised Toranaga that the Christian faith is divided and that other European countries intend to sail the Asian waters now that the Spanish Armada has been defeated. The stunned Alvito is honorbound to translate as, Blackthorne, the sworn enemy of his country and religion, tells Toranaga of the Spanish and Portuguese exploitation of the New World under the blessing of the Catholic Church and in the name of spreading Catholicism. The interview ends abruptly when Toranaga's rival, Ishido, enters, curious about the 'barbarian' Blackthorne. Toranaga has Blackthorne thrown in prison for piracy, as a ruse to keep him from Ishido. In prison, Blackthorne is befriended by a Franciscan monk, who reveals further details about Jesuit conquests and the Portuguese \"Black Ship\" which each year takes the vast profits from the silk trade back to Europe. He is taught basic Japanese and a little of their culture. Blackthorne is taken from prison by Ishido's men, but Toranaga intervenes, \"capturing\" Blackthorne from his rival. In their next interview, Toranaga has the Lady Mariko translate. She is a convert to Christianity, torn between her new faith and her loyalty as a samurai to Toranaga. During a subsequent interview with Blackthorne, Toranaga is incredulous when Blackthorne reveals that Portugal has been granted the right to \"claim\" Japan as territory by the Pope. During his stay at Toranaga's castle, Blackthorne is attacked unsuccessfully by an assassin who is revealed to be a member of the secretive Amida Tong, a group of operatives who train all their lives to be the perfect weapon for one kill. After the assassin is dispatched, Toranaga summons Yabu the next day for questioning, since Hiro-Matsu says Yabu would be the only one who would know how to hire them. Yabu is truthful but evasive in his answers, adding more fuel to Toranaga's distrust of him. It is also hinted that the Jesuits may have hired the assassin to kill Blackthorne to silence what he knows. The Council of Regents' negotiations go badly and Toranaga is threatened with forced seppuku by the council of regents. To escape the order, he resigns from the council and departs the castle in the guise of his wife in a litter, leaving with a train of travelers. Blackthorne inadvertently spots the exchange and, when Ishido shows up at the gate of the castle and nearly discovers Toranaga, Blackthorne saves Toranaga by creating a diversion. In this way, he gradually gains the trust of and enters the service of Toranaga. Toranaga's resignation from the Council of Regents was designed not just to avoid a seppuku order, but also to paralyze the Council of Regents since five regents are required to make any decisions and politically a new appointment seemed unlikely. Toranaga's party reach the coast but their ship is blockaded by Ishido's boats. At Blackthorne's suggestion the Portuguese ship is asked to lend cannon to blast the boats clear, but in return the Jesuits, seeing the presence of a Protestant pilot in Toranaga's confidence as a grave threat, will only offer aid to Toranaga in exchange for physical custody of Blackthorne. Toranaga agrees and the ship clears the coast. The Portuguese pilot Rodrigues \u2014 whose life was saved by Blackthorne earlier in a storm \u2014 repays his debt to Blackthorne by having him thrown overboard to swim back to Toranaga's ship instead. Blackthorne slowly builds his Japanese-language skills and gains an understanding of the Japanese people and their culture, eventually learning to respect it deeply. The Japanese, in turn, are torn over Blackthorne's presence; he is an outsider, a leader of a disgracefully filthy and uncouth rabble, but also a formidable sailor and navigator. As such, he is both beneath their contempt and incalculably valuable. A turning point in this perception is Blackthorne's attempt at seppuku upon finding out that Yabu has threatened the peasants with death if Blackthorne does not learn Japanese within six months. In so doing, he demonstrates his willingness to give his life in payment for theirs, despite the Christian injunction against suicide. The Japanese prevent this attempt, as Blackthorne is worth more alive, but come to respect this \"barbarian.\" When he rescues Toranaga in an earthquake, he is granted the status of samurai and hatamoto (a vassal similar to a retainer, with the right of direct audience). As they spend more time together, Blackthorne comes to deeply admire Mariko, and they secretly become lovers. In parallel with this plot, the novel also details the intense power struggle between Toranaga and Ishido, and the political maneuvering of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly the Jesuits. There is also conflict between Christian daimyos (who are motivated in part by a desire to preserve and expand their Church's power) and the daimyos who oppose the Christians as followers of foreign beliefs and representatives of the \"Barbarian\" cultural and fiscal influence on their society. Blackthorne is torn between his growing affection for Mariko (who is married to a powerful, abusive and dangerous samurai, Buntaro), his increasing loyalty to Toranaga, and his desire to return to the open seas aboard Erasmus to capture the Black Ship. Eventually, he visits the survivors of his original crew in Yedo, and is so astonished at how far he has ventured from the standard European way of life (which he now sees to be filthy, vulgar, and ignorant ) and is disgusted by them. Blackthorne's plans to attack the Black Ship are complicated by his respect and friendship for Rodrigues, now piloting the vessel. He returns to Osaka by sea with his crew and many samurai. Ishido holds numerous family members of other daimyos as hostages in Osaka, referring to them as guests. As long as he has these hostages, the other daimyos, including Toranaga, do not dare to attack him. Unforeseen by Toranaga, a replacement regent has been chosen. Ishido hopes to lure or force Toranaga into the Castle and, when all the regents are present, obtain from them an order for Toranaga to commit seppuku. To extricate Toranaga from this situation, Mariko goes to what will be her likely death at Osaka Castle to face down Ishido and obtain the hostages' release. At the castle, Mariko (in response to Toranaga's orders) defies Ishido and forces him to either dishonor himself by admitting to holding the samurai families hostage, or to back down and let them leave. When Mariko tries to fulfill Toranaga's orders and leave the castle, a battle ensues between Ishido's samurai and her escort until she is forced to return. However, she states that since she cannot disobey an order from her liege lord, Toranaga, she is disgraced and will commit suicide. As she is about to do so, Ishido gives her the papers to leave the castle the next day. But that night, a group of ninja Ishido has hired slips into Toranaga's section of the castle to kidnap Mariko with the help of Toranaga's vassal, Yabu. However, she and Blackthorne (who accompanied her but was not aware of Mariko's plot) and the other ladies of Toranaga escape into a locked room. As the ninja prepare to blow the door open with explosives, Mariko stands against the door and declares that this is her act of honorable suicide, and implicates Ishido \"in this shameful act.\" Mariko is killed and Blackthorne injured and temporarily blinded, but Ishido is forced to let Blackthorne and all the other hostages to leave the castle, seriously reducing his influence. Blackthorne discovers that his ship has been burned, ruining his chances of attacking the Black Ship, gaining riches, and sailing home to England. However, Mariko leaves him money and Toranaga provides him with men to start building a new ship. Toranaga orders Yabu \u2014 who he learns helped the attack with the aim of being on the winning side \u2014 to commit suicide for his treachery. Yabu gracefully complies, giving his own prized katana to Blackthorne, saying that no one else deserved the blade. A recurring motif in the book is Toranaga engaging in falconry. He compares his various birds to his vassals and mulls over his handling of them, flinging them at targets, giving them morsels to bring them back to his fist, and re-hooding them. The last chapter involves Toranaga letting his prize peregrine fly free as he reveals his inner monologue: he himself had ordered Blackthorne's ship burned as a way to placate the Christian daimyos, save Blackthorne's life from them, and bring them to his side against Ishido; he then encourages Blackthorne to build another one, and will have that one burned too. It is Blackthorne's karma (destiny) to never leave Japan, Mariko's karma to die gloriously for her lord, and his own karma and purpose to become Shogun. In a brief epilogue after the final Battle of Sekigahara, Ishido is disgracefully captured alive. In deference to an old prophecy that Ishido would \"die an old man with his feet firmly planted in the earth, the most famous man in the land\", Toranaga has him buried up to his neck by the eta villagers with passers-by offered the opportunity to saw at the most famous neck in the realm with a bamboo saw. The novel states that \"Ishido lingered three days and died very old.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Japan in 1600 is a feudal country in a precarious peace. The heir to the Taiko is underage, too young to rule, and power rests in a council of five regents formed of the most powerful overlords of the land. Japanese society is insular and xenophobic. Portugal, with its vast sea power, and the Catholic Church, principally through the Spanish Order of the Jesuits, have gained a foothold in Japan and seek to extend their power. Guns and Europe's modern military capabilities are still a novelty and despised as a threat to Japan\u2019s traditional samurai warrior culture. John Blackthorne, an English pilot serving on the Dutch warship Erasmus, is the first English pilot to reach Japan. England and Holland, Protestant enemies of Catholic Spain and Portugal, seek to disrupt Spanish-Portuguese relations with Japan and establish ties of their own through trade and military alliance. Erasmus is shipwrecked on the Japanese coast. Blackthorne and the few survivors of his crew are taken captive by a local samurai, Kasigi Omi until the arrival of his daimyo (feudal lord) and uncle, Kasigi Yabu. Upon arrival, Yabu puts Blackthorne and his crew on trial using a Jesuit priest to interpret for Blackthorne. Losing at the trial, Blackthorne lunges desperately at the Jesuit, rips off the priest\u2019s crucifix and stamps it into the dust to show the daimyo that the priest is his enemy. The Japanese, who at this point know only the Catholic version of Christianity, are shocked at Blackthorne\u2019s gesture. Yabu sentences Blackthorne and his crew to death. However, Omi, who is quickly proving himself one of his uncle\u2019s cleverest advisers, convinces Yabu to keep them alive to learn more of European ways. Omi throws them into a pit to \"tame\" them and tells the"
      },
      {
        "text": " that the priest is his enemy. The Japanese, who at this point know only the Catholic version of Christianity, are shocked at Blackthorne\u2019s gesture. Yabu sentences Blackthorne and his crew to death. However, Omi, who is quickly proving himself one of his uncle\u2019s cleverest advisers, convinces Yabu to keep them alive to learn more of European ways. Omi throws them into a pit to \"tame\" them and tells the crew Lord Yabu has ordered that they pick one amongst their own, other than Blackthorne, to die so that the others may live. Blackthorne leads his crew in a futile attempt to resist, but they are easily cowed by Omi, and one of his crew is taken out and boiled alive. To save his crew Blackthorne agrees to submit to Japanese authority. He is placed in a household, with his crew held in the pit as hostages to ensure his submission and cooperation. On Omi's advice, Yabu plans to not only exploit Blackthorne's knowledge to his own ends but also confiscate the wealth of guns and money recovered from the Erasmus, but word reaches his overlord, Lord Toranaga, the powerful president of the council of regents. Toranaga sends his commander in chief, \"Iron Fist\" General Hiro-Matsu, to take the Erasmus and the surviving crew from Yabu to tip the balance of power against Toranaga's principal rival on the council, Ishido. Blackthorne is given the title Anjin, the Japanese term for navigator or pilot, by the Japanese because they can't pronounce his name. Blackthorne insists on being addressed respectfully, as Omi is, and is therefore known as Anjin-san (\"Honorable Pilot\"). Hiro-Matsu confiscates the Erasmus and takes Blackthorne and Yabu back to the meeting of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " balance of power against Toranaga's principal rival on the council, Ishido. Blackthorne is given the title Anjin, the Japanese term for navigator or pilot, by the Japanese because they can't pronounce his name. Blackthorne insists on being addressed respectfully, as Omi is, and is therefore known as Anjin-san (\"Honorable Pilot\"). Hiro-Matsu confiscates the Erasmus and takes Blackthorne and Yabu back to the meeting of the council of regents taking place at Osaka Castle, the stronghold of the regent Ishido. They travel by one of Toranaga\u2019s galleys piloted by the Portuguese pilot Rodrigues. Blackthorne and Rodrigues find themselves in a grudging friendship, despite being required to stay at arm's length due to their national and religious enmity. Rodrigues attempts to murder Blackthorne during a storm, by sending him forward just as a wave breaks over the deck, but is himself swept overboard by the next wave. Blackthorne not only saves Rodrigues but safely navigates the ship to Osaka with crew and all aboard. At Osaka, Blackthorne is interviewed by Toranaga through the translation of Jesuit Priest Father Martin Alvito, who is not only bilingual but more sophisticated and higher up in the Jesuit hierarchy in Japan and therefore more dangerous to Blackthorne. After Blackthorne demands that Alvito tell Toranaga that the priest is his enemy, Toranaga has the Lady Mariko monitor the priest\u2019s translations. As an English Protestant, Blackthorne attempts to turn Toranaga against the Jesuits. He reveals to a surprised Toranaga that the Christian faith is divided and that other European countries intend to sail the Asian waters now that the Spanish Armada has been defeated. The stunned Alvito is honorbound to translate as, Blackthorne, the sworn enemy of his country and religion, tells Toranaga of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Toranaga has the Lady Mariko monitor the priest\u2019s translations. As an English Protestant, Blackthorne attempts to turn Toranaga against the Jesuits. He reveals to a surprised Toranaga that the Christian faith is divided and that other European countries intend to sail the Asian waters now that the Spanish Armada has been defeated. The stunned Alvito is honorbound to translate as, Blackthorne, the sworn enemy of his country and religion, tells Toranaga of the Spanish and Portuguese exploitation of the New World under the blessing of the Catholic Church and in the name of spreading Catholicism. The interview ends abruptly when Toranaga's rival, Ishido, enters, curious about the 'barbarian' Blackthorne. Toranaga has Blackthorne thrown in prison for piracy, as a ruse to keep him from Ishido. In prison, Blackthorne is befriended by a Franciscan monk, who reveals further details about Jesuit conquests and the Portuguese \"Black Ship\" which each year takes the vast profits from the silk trade back to Europe. He is taught basic Japanese and a little of their culture. Blackthorne is taken from prison by Ishido's men, but Toranaga intervenes, \"capturing\" Blackthorne from his rival. In their next interview, Toranaga has the Lady Mariko translate. She is a convert to Christianity, torn between her new faith and her loyalty as a samurai to Toranaga. During a subsequent interview with Blackthorne, Toranaga is incredulous when Blackthorne reveals that Portugal has been granted the right to \"claim\" Japan as territory by the Pope. During his stay at Toranaga's castle, Blackthorne is attacked unsuccessfully by an assassin who is revealed to be a member of the secretive Amida Tong, a group of operatives who train all their lives to be the perfect weapon for one kill. After the assassin is dispatched, Toranaga"
      },
      {
        "text": "aga. During a subsequent interview with Blackthorne, Toranaga is incredulous when Blackthorne reveals that Portugal has been granted the right to \"claim\" Japan as territory by the Pope. During his stay at Toranaga's castle, Blackthorne is attacked unsuccessfully by an assassin who is revealed to be a member of the secretive Amida Tong, a group of operatives who train all their lives to be the perfect weapon for one kill. After the assassin is dispatched, Toranaga summons Yabu the next day for questioning, since Hiro-Matsu says Yabu would be the only one who would know how to hire them. Yabu is truthful but evasive in his answers, adding more fuel to Toranaga's distrust of him. It is also hinted that the Jesuits may have hired the assassin to kill Blackthorne to silence what he knows. The Council of Regents' negotiations go badly and Toranaga is threatened with forced seppuku by the council of regents. To escape the order, he resigns from the council and departs the castle in the guise of his wife in a litter, leaving with a train of travelers. Blackthorne inadvertently spots the exchange and, when Ishido shows up at the gate of the castle and nearly discovers Toranaga, Blackthorne saves Toranaga by creating a diversion. In this way, he gradually gains the trust of and enters the service of Toranaga. Toranaga's resignation from the Council of Regents was designed not just to avoid a seppuku order, but also to paralyze the Council of Regents since five regents are required to make any decisions and politically a new appointment seemed unlikely. Toranaga's party reach the coast but their ship is blockaded by Ishido's boats. At Blackthorne's suggestion the Portuguese ship is asked to lend cannon to blast the boats clear, but in return the Jesuits, seeing the presence of"
      },
      {
        "text": "aga's resignation from the Council of Regents was designed not just to avoid a seppuku order, but also to paralyze the Council of Regents since five regents are required to make any decisions and politically a new appointment seemed unlikely. Toranaga's party reach the coast but their ship is blockaded by Ishido's boats. At Blackthorne's suggestion the Portuguese ship is asked to lend cannon to blast the boats clear, but in return the Jesuits, seeing the presence of a Protestant pilot in Toranaga's confidence as a grave threat, will only offer aid to Toranaga in exchange for physical custody of Blackthorne. Toranaga agrees and the ship clears the coast. The Portuguese pilot Rodrigues \u2014 whose life was saved by Blackthorne earlier in a storm \u2014 repays his debt to Blackthorne by having him thrown overboard to swim back to Toranaga's ship instead. Blackthorne slowly builds his Japanese-language skills and gains an understanding of the Japanese people and their culture, eventually learning to respect it deeply. The Japanese, in turn, are torn over Blackthorne's presence; he is an outsider, a leader of a disgracefully filthy and uncouth rabble, but also a formidable sailor and navigator. As such, he is both beneath their contempt and incalculably valuable. A turning point in this perception is Blackthorne's attempt at seppuku upon finding out that Yabu has threatened the peasants with death if Blackthorne does not learn Japanese within six months. In so doing, he demonstrates his willingness to give his life in payment for theirs, despite the Christian injunction against suicide. The Japanese prevent this attempt, as Blackthorne is worth more alive, but come to respect this \"barbarian.\" When he rescues Toranaga in an earthquake, he is granted the status of samurai and hatamoto (a vassal similar to a retainer, with the right of direct"
      },
      {
        "text": " with death if Blackthorne does not learn Japanese within six months. In so doing, he demonstrates his willingness to give his life in payment for theirs, despite the Christian injunction against suicide. The Japanese prevent this attempt, as Blackthorne is worth more alive, but come to respect this \"barbarian.\" When he rescues Toranaga in an earthquake, he is granted the status of samurai and hatamoto (a vassal similar to a retainer, with the right of direct audience). As they spend more time together, Blackthorne comes to deeply admire Mariko, and they secretly become lovers. In parallel with this plot, the novel also details the intense power struggle between Toranaga and Ishido, and the political maneuvering of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly the Jesuits. There is also conflict between Christian daimyos (who are motivated in part by a desire to preserve and expand their Church's power) and the daimyos who oppose the Christians as followers of foreign beliefs and representatives of the \"Barbarian\" cultural and fiscal influence on their society. Blackthorne is torn between his growing affection for Mariko (who is married to a powerful, abusive and dangerous samurai, Buntaro), his increasing loyalty to Toranaga, and his desire to return to the open seas aboard Erasmus to capture the Black Ship. Eventually, he visits the survivors of his original crew in Yedo, and is so astonished at how far he has ventured from the standard European way of life (which he now sees to be filthy, vulgar, and ignorant ) and is disgusted by them. Blackthorne's plans to attack the Black Ship are complicated by his respect and friendship for Rodrigues, now piloting the vessel. He returns to Osaka by sea with his crew and many samurai. Ishido holds numerous family members of other daimyos as hostages in Osaka, referring to them as guests. As long as he has these hostages"
      },
      {
        "text": " he has ventured from the standard European way of life (which he now sees to be filthy, vulgar, and ignorant ) and is disgusted by them. Blackthorne's plans to attack the Black Ship are complicated by his respect and friendship for Rodrigues, now piloting the vessel. He returns to Osaka by sea with his crew and many samurai. Ishido holds numerous family members of other daimyos as hostages in Osaka, referring to them as guests. As long as he has these hostages, the other daimyos, including Toranaga, do not dare to attack him. Unforeseen by Toranaga, a replacement regent has been chosen. Ishido hopes to lure or force Toranaga into the Castle and, when all the regents are present, obtain from them an order for Toranaga to commit seppuku. To extricate Toranaga from this situation, Mariko goes to what will be her likely death at Osaka Castle to face down Ishido and obtain the hostages' release. At the castle, Mariko (in response to Toranaga's orders) defies Ishido and forces him to either dishonor himself by admitting to holding the samurai families hostage, or to back down and let them leave. When Mariko tries to fulfill Toranaga's orders and leave the castle, a battle ensues between Ishido's samurai and her escort until she is forced to return. However, she states that since she cannot disobey an order from her liege lord, Toranaga, she is disgraced and will commit suicide. As she is about to do so, Ishido gives her the papers to leave the castle the next day. But that night, a group of ninja Ishido has hired slips into Toranaga's section of the castle to kidnap Mariko with the help of Toranaga's vassal, Yabu. However, she and Blackthorne (who accompanied her but was not aware"
      },
      {
        "text": " an order from her liege lord, Toranaga, she is disgraced and will commit suicide. As she is about to do so, Ishido gives her the papers to leave the castle the next day. But that night, a group of ninja Ishido has hired slips into Toranaga's section of the castle to kidnap Mariko with the help of Toranaga's vassal, Yabu. However, she and Blackthorne (who accompanied her but was not aware of Mariko's plot) and the other ladies of Toranaga escape into a locked room. As the ninja prepare to blow the door open with explosives, Mariko stands against the door and declares that this is her act of honorable suicide, and implicates Ishido \"in this shameful act.\" Mariko is killed and Blackthorne injured and temporarily blinded, but Ishido is forced to let Blackthorne and all the other hostages to leave the castle, seriously reducing his influence. Blackthorne discovers that his ship has been burned, ruining his chances of attacking the Black Ship, gaining riches, and sailing home to England. However, Mariko leaves him money and Toranaga provides him with men to start building a new ship. Toranaga orders Yabu \u2014 who he learns helped the attack with the aim of being on the winning side \u2014 to commit suicide for his treachery. Yabu gracefully complies, giving his own prized katana to Blackthorne, saying that no one else deserved the blade. A recurring motif in the book is Toranaga engaging in falconry. He compares his various birds to his vassals and mulls over his handling of them, flinging them at targets, giving them morsels to bring them back to his fist, and re-hooding them. The last chapter involves Toranaga letting his prize peregrine fly free as he reveals his inner monologue: he himself had ordered Blackthorne"
      },
      {
        "text": " saying that no one else deserved the blade. A recurring motif in the book is Toranaga engaging in falconry. He compares his various birds to his vassals and mulls over his handling of them, flinging them at targets, giving them morsels to bring them back to his fist, and re-hooding them. The last chapter involves Toranaga letting his prize peregrine fly free as he reveals his inner monologue: he himself had ordered Blackthorne's ship burned as a way to placate the Christian daimyos, save Blackthorne's life from them, and bring them to his side against Ishido; he then encourages Blackthorne to build another one, and will have that one burned too. It is Blackthorne's karma (destiny) to never leave Japan, Mariko's karma to die gloriously for her lord, and his own karma and purpose to become Shogun. In a brief epilogue after the final Battle of Sekigahara, Ishido is disgracefully captured alive. In deference to an old prophecy that Ishido would \"die an old man with his feet firmly planted in the earth, the most famous man in the land\", Toranaga has him buried up to his neck by the eta villagers with passers-by offered the opportunity to saw at the most famous neck in the realm with a bamboo saw. The novel states that \"Ishido lingered three days and died very old.\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " very old.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Goodnight Moon",
    "author": "Margaret Wise Brown",
    "published_date": "1947",
    "synopsis": " Goodnight Moon is classic children's literature in North America. The text is a rhyming poem, describing a bunny's bedtime ritual of saying \"goodnight\" to various objects in the bunny's bedroom: the red balloon, the bunny's dollhouse, the kittens, etc. One aspect of this book is the wealth of detail in the illustrations. Although the entire story takes place in a single room, the careful reader or child will notice numerous details from page to page, including: * the hands on the two clocks progress from 7 PM to 8:10 PM. * the young mouse and kittens wander around the room. The mouse is present in all pages showing the room. The cats ignore the little mouse even when it is very close to them. * on each page that features the bunny, he is looking directly at one of the objects mentioned on that page, except for the last page, in which his eyes are closed and only 'noises' are mentioned. * the old lady is the only element in the room that is introduced in a black and white illustration. * the old lady and her knitting play out a sequence of their own from page to page, starting with the knitting lying on the rocking chair, the old lady sitting in the chair with the ball of yarn on the floor at her feet, the ball farther away and starting to be unraveled by the kittens, the ball unraveled further, the ball entirely rerolled and back on the old lady's lap with the kittens regarding her expectantly, and finally with the lady and the knitting both gone and the kittens sleeping on the rocking chair. * the red balloon hanging over the bed disappears in several of the color plates, then reappears at the end. * the string of the red balloon is not straight as it should be, given the fact that the balloon is not moving - as though the string is a thin, curling ribbon. * the room lighting grows progressively darker. * the moon rises in the left-hand window. * the socks disappear from the drying rack when only the mittens are being addressed, and then reappear. * the open book in the bookshelf is The Runaway Bunny. * the book on the nightstand is Goodnight Moon. * in the painting of the cow jumping over the moon, the mailbox in the right-hand side of the painting occasionally disappears. * in the painting of the three bears, the painting hanging in the bears' room is a painting of a cow jumping over the moon. * the painting of the fly-fishing bunny, which appears only in two color plates, appears to be black and white (or otherwise devoid of color). It is very similar to a picture in the book \"The Runaway Bunny\". * the number of books on the bookshelf changes. * the pendulum of the bedside clock becomes harder to see as the room dims until it disappears in the final room scene. * the curtains have green and yellow stripes throughout the book, but green and red stripes on the cover. * the stripes on the bunny's shirt change. * in the last page the word 'bunny' is gone off the brush in the dim light. * not all items listed at the beginning of the story are told \"goodnight\" in the book, nor are all things told \"goodnight\" announced at the beginning. * on the last page the mouse has eaten the mush. * on the last page the lights in the toy house appear to be mysteriously on (and perhaps on throughout the story, being revealed only by the darkening of the room)\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Goodnight Moon is classic children's literature in North America. The text is a rhyming poem, describing a bunny's bedtime ritual of saying \"goodnight\" to various objects in the bunny's bedroom: the red balloon, the bunny's dollhouse, the kittens, etc. One aspect of this book is the wealth of detail in the illustrations. Although the entire story takes place in a single room, the careful reader or child will notice numerous details from page to page, including: * the hands on the two clocks progress from 7 PM to 8:10 PM. * the young mouse and kittens wander around the room. The mouse is present in all pages showing the room. The cats ignore the little mouse even when it is very close to them. * on each page that features the bunny, he is looking directly at one of the objects mentioned on that page, except for the last page, in which his eyes are closed and only 'noises' are mentioned. * the old lady is the only element in the room that is introduced in a black and white illustration. * the old lady and her knitting play out a sequence of their own from page to page, starting with the knitting lying on the rocking chair, the old lady sitting in the chair with the ball of yarn on the floor at her feet, the ball farther away and starting to be unraveled by the kittens, the ball unraveled further, the ball entirely rerolled and back on the old lady's lap with the kittens regarding her expectantly, and finally with the lady and the knitting both gone and the kittens sleeping on the rocking chair. * the red balloon hanging over the bed disappears in several of the color plates, then reappears at the end. * the string of the red balloon is not straight as it should be, given the fact that the balloon is not moving - as though the string is a thin, curling ribbon. * the room lighting grows progressively darker. * the moon rises in the left"
      },
      {
        "text": " kittens regarding her expectantly, and finally with the lady and the knitting both gone and the kittens sleeping on the rocking chair. * the red balloon hanging over the bed disappears in several of the color plates, then reappears at the end. * the string of the red balloon is not straight as it should be, given the fact that the balloon is not moving - as though the string is a thin, curling ribbon. * the room lighting grows progressively darker. * the moon rises in the left-hand window. * the socks disappear from the drying rack when only the mittens are being addressed, and then reappear. * the open book in the bookshelf is The Runaway Bunny. * the book on the nightstand is Goodnight Moon. * in the painting of the cow jumping over the moon, the mailbox in the right-hand side of the painting occasionally disappears. * in the painting of the three bears, the painting hanging in the bears' room is a painting of a cow jumping over the moon. * the painting of the fly-fishing bunny, which appears only in two color plates, appears to be black and white (or otherwise devoid of color). It is very similar to a picture in the book \"The Runaway Bunny\". * the number of books on the bookshelf changes. * the pendulum of the bedside clock becomes harder to see as the room dims until it disappears in the final room scene. * the curtains have green and yellow stripes throughout the book, but green and red stripes on the cover. * the stripes on the bunny's shirt change. * in the last page the word 'bunny' is gone off the brush in the dim light. * not all items listed at the beginning of the story are told \"goodnight\" in the book, nor are all things told \"goodnight\" announced at the beginning. * on the last page the mouse has eaten the mush. * on the last page the lights"
      },
      {
        "text": " yellow stripes throughout the book, but green and red stripes on the cover. * the stripes on the bunny's shirt change. * in the last page the word 'bunny' is gone off the brush in the dim light. * not all items listed at the beginning of the story are told \"goodnight\" in the book, nor are all things told \"goodnight\" announced at the beginning. * on the last page the mouse has eaten the mush. * on the last page the lights in the toy house appear to be mysteriously on (and perhaps on throughout the story, being revealed only by the darkening of the room)\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Eugene Onegin",
    "author": "Aleksandr Pushkin",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In the 1820s, Eugene Onegin is a bored St. Petersburg dandy, whose life consists of balls, concerts, parties and nothing more. One day he inherits a landed estate from his uncle. When he moves to the country, he strikes up a friendship with his neighbor, a starry-eyed young poet named Vladimir Lensky. One day, Lensky takes Onegin to dine with the family of his fianc\u00e9e, the sociable but rather thoughtless Olga Larina. At this meeting he also catches a glimpse of Olga's sister Tatyana. A quiet, precocious romantic and the exact opposite of Olga, Tatyana becomes intensely drawn to Onegin. Soon after, she bares her soul to Onegin in a letter professing her love. Contrary to her expectations, Onegin does not write back. When they meet in person, he rejects her advances politely but dismissively and condescendingly. This famous speech is often referred to as Onegin's Sermon. Later, Lensky mischievously invites Onegin to Tatyana's name day celebration promising a small gathering with just Tatyana, her sister, and her parents. When Onegin arrives, he finds instead a boisterous country ball, a rural parody of and contrast to the society balls of St. Petersburg he has grown tired of. Onegin is irritated with the guests who gossip about him and Tatyana, and with Lensky for persuading him to come. He decides to avenge himself by dancing and flirting with Olga. Olga is insensitive to her fianc\u00e9 and apparently attracted to Onegin. Earnest and inexperienced, Lensky is wounded to the core and challenges Onegin to fight a duel; Onegin reluctantly accepts, feeling compelled by social convention. During the duel, Onegin unwillingly kills Lensky. Afterwards, he quits his country estate, traveling abroad to deaden his feelings of remorse. Tatyana visits Onegin's mansion, where she looks through his books and his notes in the margins, and begins to question whether Onegin's character is merely a collage of different literary heroes, and if there is, in fact, no \"real Onegin\". Several years pass, and the scene shifts to Moscow. Onegin has come to attend the most prominent balls and interact with the leaders of old Russian society. He sees a most beautiful woman, who captures the attention of all and is central to society's whirl, and he realizes that it is the same Tatyana whose love he had once turned away. Now she is married to an aged prince. Upon seeing Tatyana again, he becomes obsessed with winning her affection, despite the fact that she is married. However, his attempts are rebuffed. He writes her several letters, but receives no reply. Eventually Onegin manages to see Tatyana and presents to her the opportunity to renew their past love. Tatyana admits that she still loves him, but declares her determination to remain faithful to her husband.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the 1820s, Eugene Onegin is a bored St. Petersburg dandy, whose life consists of balls, concerts, parties and nothing more. One day he inherits a landed estate from his uncle. When he moves to the country, he strikes up a friendship with his neighbor, a starry-eyed young poet named Vladimir Lensky. One day, Lensky takes Onegin to dine with the family of his fianc\u00e9e, the sociable but rather thoughtless Olga Larina. At this meeting he also catches a glimpse of Olga's sister Tatyana. A quiet, precocious romantic and the exact opposite of Olga, Tatyana becomes intensely drawn to Onegin. Soon after, she bares her soul to Onegin in a letter professing her love. Contrary to her expectations, Onegin does not write back. When they meet in person, he rejects her advances politely but dismissively and condescendingly. This famous speech is often referred to as Onegin's Sermon. Later, Lensky mischievously invites Onegin to Tatyana's name day celebration promising a small gathering with just Tatyana, her sister, and her parents. When Onegin arrives, he finds instead a boisterous country ball, a rural parody of and contrast to the society balls of St. Petersburg he has grown tired of. Onegin is irritated with the guests who gossip about him and Tatyana, and with Lensky for persuading him to come. He decides to avenge himself by dancing and flirting with Olga. Olga is insensitive to her fianc\u00e9 and apparently attracted to Onegin. Earnest and inexperienced, Lensky is wounded to the core and challenges Onegin to fight a duel; Onegin reluctantly accepts, feeling compelled by social convention. During the duel, Onegin unwillingly kills Lensky. Afterwards, he quits his country estate, traveling abroad to deaden his feelings of remorse."
      },
      {
        "text": " persuading him to come. He decides to avenge himself by dancing and flirting with Olga. Olga is insensitive to her fianc\u00e9 and apparently attracted to Onegin. Earnest and inexperienced, Lensky is wounded to the core and challenges Onegin to fight a duel; Onegin reluctantly accepts, feeling compelled by social convention. During the duel, Onegin unwillingly kills Lensky. Afterwards, he quits his country estate, traveling abroad to deaden his feelings of remorse. Tatyana visits Onegin's mansion, where she looks through his books and his notes in the margins, and begins to question whether Onegin's character is merely a collage of different literary heroes, and if there is, in fact, no \"real Onegin\". Several years pass, and the scene shifts to Moscow. Onegin has come to attend the most prominent balls and interact with the leaders of old Russian society. He sees a most beautiful woman, who captures the attention of all and is central to society's whirl, and he realizes that it is the same Tatyana whose love he had once turned away. Now she is married to an aged prince. Upon seeing Tatyana again, he becomes obsessed with winning her affection, despite the fact that she is married. However, his attempts are rebuffed. He writes her several letters, but receives no reply. Eventually Onegin manages to see Tatyana and presents to her the opportunity to renew their past love. Tatyana admits that she still loves him, but declares her determination to remain faithful to her husband.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "yana admits that she still loves him, but declares her determination to remain faithful to her husband.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Elbow Room",
    "author": "Daniel Dennett",
    "published_date": "1984",
    "synopsis": " A major task taken on by Dennett in Elbow Room is to clearly describe just what people are as biological entities and why they find the issue of free will to be of significance. In discussing what people are and why free will matters to us, Dennett makes use of an evolutionary perspective. Dennett describes the mechanical behavior of the digger wasp Sphex. This insect follows a series of genetically programmed steps in preparing for egg laying. If an experimenter interrupts one of these steps the wasp will repeat that step again. For an animal like a wasp, this process of repeating the same behavior can go on indefinitely, the wasp never seeming to notice what is going on. This is the type of mindless, pre-determined behavior that humans can avoid. Given the chance to repeat some futile behavior endlessly, people can notice the futility of it, and by an act of free will do something else. We can take this as an operational definition of what people mean by free will. Dennett points out the fact that as long as people see themselves as able to avoid futility, most people have seen enough of the free will issue. Dennett then invites all who are satisfied with this level of analysis to get on with living while he proceeds into the deeper hair-splitting aspects of the free will issue. From a biological perspective, what is the difference between the wasp and a person? The person can, through interaction with his/her environment, construct an internal mental model of the situation and figure out a successful behavioral strategy. The wasp, with a much smaller brain and different genetic program, does not learn from its environment and instead is trapped in an endless and futile behavioral loop that is strictly determined by its genetic program. It is in this sense of people as animals with complex brains that can model reality and appear to choose among several possible behaviors that Dennett says we have free will. The deeper philosophical issue of free will can be framed as a paradox. On one hand, we all feel like we have free will, a multitude of behavioral choices to select among. On the other hand, modern biology generally investigates humans as though the processes at work in them follow the same biological principles as those in wasps. How do we reconcile our feeling of free will with the idea that we might be mechanical components of a mechanical universe? What about determinism? When we say that a person chooses among several possible behaviors is there really a choice or does it just seem like there is a choice? Do people just (through the action of their more complex brains) simply have better behaviors than wasps, while still being totally mechanical in executing those behaviors? Dennett gives his definition of determinism on page one: All physical events are caused or determined by the sum total of all previous events. This definition dodges a question that many people feel should not be dodged: if we repeatedly replayed the universe from the same point in time would it always reach the same future? Since we have no way of performing this experiment, this question is a long-term classic in philosophy and physicists have tried to interpret the results of other experiments in various ways in order to figure out the answer to this question. Modern day physics-oriented philosophers have sometimes tried to answer the question of free will using the many-worlds interpretation, according to which every time there is quantum indeterminacy each possibility occurs and new universes branch off. Since the 1920s, physicists have been trying to convince themselves that quantum indeterminacy can in some way explain free will. Dennett suggests that this idea is silly. How, he asks, can random resolutions of quantum-level events provide people with any control over their behavior? Since Dennett wrote Elbow Room (1984) there has been an on-going attempt by some scientists to answer this question by suggesting that the brain is a device for controlling quantum indeterminacy so as to construct behavioral choice. Dennett argues that such efforts to salvage free will by finding a way out of the prison of determinism are wasted. Dennett discusses many types of free will (1984). Many philosophers have claimed that determinism and free will are incompatible. What the physicists seem to be trying to construct is a type of free will that involves a way for brains to make use of quantum indeterminacy so as to make choices that alter the universe in our favor, or if there are multiple universes, to choose among the possible universes. Dennett suggests that we can have another kind of free will, a type of free will which we can be perfectly happy with even if it does not give us the power to act in more than one way at any given time. Dennett is able to accept determinism and free will at the same time. How so? The type of free will that Dennett thinks we have is finally stated clearly in the last chapter of the book: the power to be active agents, biological devices that respond to our environment with rational, desirable courses of action. Dennett has slowly, through the course of the book, stripped the idea of behavioral choice from his idea of free will. How can we have free will if we do not have indeterministic choice? Dennett emphasizes control over libertarian choice. If our hypothetically mechanical brains are in control of our behavior and our brains produce good behaviors for us, then do we really need such choice? Is an illusion of behavioral choices just as good as actual choices? Is our sensation of having the freedom to execute more than one behavior at a given time really just an illusion? Dennett argues that choice exists in a general sense: that because we base our decisions on context, we limit our options as the situation becomes more specific. In the most specific circumstance (actual events), he suggests there is only one option left to us. :\"It is this contrast between the stable and the chaotic that grounds our division of the world into the enduring and salient features of the world, and those features that we must treat statistically or probabilistically. And this division of the world is not just our division; it is, for instance, mother nature's division as well. Since for all mother nature knows (or could know) it is possible that these insects will cross paths (sometime, somewhere) with insectivorous birds, they had better be designed with some avoidance machinery. This endows them with a certain power that will serve well (in general).\" If people are determined to act as they do, then what about personal responsibility? How can we hold people responsible and punish them for their behaviors if they have no choice in how they behave? Dennett gives a two part answer to this question. First, we hold people responsible for their actions because we know from historical experience that this is an effective means to make people behave in a socially acceptable way. Second, holding people responsible only works when combined with the fact that people can be informed of the fact that they are being held responsible and respond to this state of affairs by controlling their behavior so as to avoid punishment. People who break the rules set by society and get punished may be behaving in the only way they can, but if we did not hold them accountable for their actions, people would behave even worse than they do with the threat of punishment. This is a totally utilitarian approach to the issue of responsibility: there is no need for moral indignation when people break the rules of proper behavior. Is it, then, moral to punish people who are unable to do other than break a rule? Yes, people have the right to come together and improve their condition by creating rules and enforcing them. We would be worse off if we did not do so. Again, an argument for utility. One final issue: if people do not have real behavioral choices, why not collapse into fatalism? Again, Dennett's argument is that we may not have behavioral choice, but we do have control of our behavior. Dennett asks us to look around at the universe and ask, can I even conceive of beings whose will is freer than our own? For Dennett, the answer to this question is, no, not really. In Elbow Room, he tries to explain why all the attempts that people have tried to make to prove that people have libertarian choice have failed and are, in the final analysis, not really important anyhow. As humans, we are as much in control of our behavior as anything in the universe. As humans, we have the best chance to produce good behavior. We should be satisfied with what we have and not fret over our lack of libertarian free will. Some complaints about Elbow Room relate to our intuitions about free will. Some say that Dennett's theory does not satisfactorily deal with the issue of why we feel so strongly that we do have behavioral choice. One answer to this question is that our sensation of having behavioral choice has been carefully selected by evolution. The well developed human sensation of having free will and being able to select among possible behaviors has strong survival value. People who lose the feeling that they can plan alternative behaviors and execute their choice of possible behaviors tend to become fatalistic and stop struggling for survival. According to Dennett, belief in free will is a necessary condition for having free will. When we are planning for the future and thinking about possible actions to take in the future, we are utilizing considerable amounts of biologically expensive resources (brain power). Evolution has designed us to feel strongly that all of our effort of planning pays off, that we control what we do. If this connection between our brains' efforts to model reality and predict the future and so make possible good outcomes is disconnected from our sense of self and our will, then fatalism and self-destructive behaviors are close at hand.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A major task taken on by Dennett in Elbow Room is to clearly describe just what people are as biological entities and why they find the issue of free will to be of significance. In discussing what people are and why free will matters to us, Dennett makes use of an evolutionary perspective. Dennett describes the mechanical behavior of the digger wasp Sphex. This insect follows a series of genetically programmed steps in preparing for egg laying. If an experimenter interrupts one of these steps the wasp will repeat that step again. For an animal like a wasp, this process of repeating the same behavior can go on indefinitely, the wasp never seeming to notice what is going on. This is the type of mindless, pre-determined behavior that humans can avoid. Given the chance to repeat some futile behavior endlessly, people can notice the futility of it, and by an act of free will do something else. We can take this as an operational definition of what people mean by free will. Dennett points out the fact that as long as people see themselves as able to avoid futility, most people have seen enough of the free will issue. Dennett then invites all who are satisfied with this level of analysis to get on with living while he proceeds into the deeper hair-splitting aspects of the free will issue. From a biological perspective, what is the difference between the wasp and a person? The person can, through interaction with his/her environment, construct an internal mental model of the situation and figure out a successful behavioral strategy. The wasp, with a much smaller brain and different genetic program, does not learn from its environment and instead is trapped in an endless and futile behavioral loop that is strictly determined by its genetic program. It is in this sense of people as animals with complex brains that can model reality and appear to choose among several possible behaviors that Dennett says we have free will. The deeper philosophical issue of free will can be framed as a paradox."
      },
      {
        "text": " mental model of the situation and figure out a successful behavioral strategy. The wasp, with a much smaller brain and different genetic program, does not learn from its environment and instead is trapped in an endless and futile behavioral loop that is strictly determined by its genetic program. It is in this sense of people as animals with complex brains that can model reality and appear to choose among several possible behaviors that Dennett says we have free will. The deeper philosophical issue of free will can be framed as a paradox. On one hand, we all feel like we have free will, a multitude of behavioral choices to select among. On the other hand, modern biology generally investigates humans as though the processes at work in them follow the same biological principles as those in wasps. How do we reconcile our feeling of free will with the idea that we might be mechanical components of a mechanical universe? What about determinism? When we say that a person chooses among several possible behaviors is there really a choice or does it just seem like there is a choice? Do people just (through the action of their more complex brains) simply have better behaviors than wasps, while still being totally mechanical in executing those behaviors? Dennett gives his definition of determinism on page one: All physical events are caused or determined by the sum total of all previous events. This definition dodges a question that many people feel should not be dodged: if we repeatedly replayed the universe from the same point in time would it always reach the same future? Since we have no way of performing this experiment, this question is a long-term classic in philosophy and physicists have tried to interpret the results of other experiments in various ways in order to figure out the answer to this question. Modern day physics-oriented philosophers have sometimes tried to answer the question of free will using the many-worlds interpretation, according to which every time there is quantum indeterminacy each possibility occurs and new universes branch off. Since the 1920s, physicists have been trying to"
      },
      {
        "text": "? Since we have no way of performing this experiment, this question is a long-term classic in philosophy and physicists have tried to interpret the results of other experiments in various ways in order to figure out the answer to this question. Modern day physics-oriented philosophers have sometimes tried to answer the question of free will using the many-worlds interpretation, according to which every time there is quantum indeterminacy each possibility occurs and new universes branch off. Since the 1920s, physicists have been trying to convince themselves that quantum indeterminacy can in some way explain free will. Dennett suggests that this idea is silly. How, he asks, can random resolutions of quantum-level events provide people with any control over their behavior? Since Dennett wrote Elbow Room (1984) there has been an on-going attempt by some scientists to answer this question by suggesting that the brain is a device for controlling quantum indeterminacy so as to construct behavioral choice. Dennett argues that such efforts to salvage free will by finding a way out of the prison of determinism are wasted. Dennett discusses many types of free will (1984). Many philosophers have claimed that determinism and free will are incompatible. What the physicists seem to be trying to construct is a type of free will that involves a way for brains to make use of quantum indeterminacy so as to make choices that alter the universe in our favor, or if there are multiple universes, to choose among the possible universes. Dennett suggests that we can have another kind of free will, a type of free will which we can be perfectly happy with even if it does not give us the power to act in more than one way at any given time. Dennett is able to accept determinism and free will at the same time. How so? The type of free will that Dennett thinks we have is finally stated clearly in the last chapter of the book: the power to be active agents, biological devices that respond to our environment with rational"
      },
      {
        "text": " we can have another kind of free will, a type of free will which we can be perfectly happy with even if it does not give us the power to act in more than one way at any given time. Dennett is able to accept determinism and free will at the same time. How so? The type of free will that Dennett thinks we have is finally stated clearly in the last chapter of the book: the power to be active agents, biological devices that respond to our environment with rational, desirable courses of action. Dennett has slowly, through the course of the book, stripped the idea of behavioral choice from his idea of free will. How can we have free will if we do not have indeterministic choice? Dennett emphasizes control over libertarian choice. If our hypothetically mechanical brains are in control of our behavior and our brains produce good behaviors for us, then do we really need such choice? Is an illusion of behavioral choices just as good as actual choices? Is our sensation of having the freedom to execute more than one behavior at a given time really just an illusion? Dennett argues that choice exists in a general sense: that because we base our decisions on context, we limit our options as the situation becomes more specific. In the most specific circumstance (actual events), he suggests there is only one option left to us. :\"It is this contrast between the stable and the chaotic that grounds our division of the world into the enduring and salient features of the world, and those features that we must treat statistically or probabilistically. And this division of the world is not just our division; it is, for instance, mother nature's division as well. Since for all mother nature knows (or could know) it is possible that these insects will cross paths (sometime, somewhere) with insectivorous birds, they had better be designed with some avoidance machinery. This endows them with a certain power that will serve well (in general).\" If people are determined to"
      },
      {
        "text": " those features that we must treat statistically or probabilistically. And this division of the world is not just our division; it is, for instance, mother nature's division as well. Since for all mother nature knows (or could know) it is possible that these insects will cross paths (sometime, somewhere) with insectivorous birds, they had better be designed with some avoidance machinery. This endows them with a certain power that will serve well (in general).\" If people are determined to act as they do, then what about personal responsibility? How can we hold people responsible and punish them for their behaviors if they have no choice in how they behave? Dennett gives a two part answer to this question. First, we hold people responsible for their actions because we know from historical experience that this is an effective means to make people behave in a socially acceptable way. Second, holding people responsible only works when combined with the fact that people can be informed of the fact that they are being held responsible and respond to this state of affairs by controlling their behavior so as to avoid punishment. People who break the rules set by society and get punished may be behaving in the only way they can, but if we did not hold them accountable for their actions, people would behave even worse than they do with the threat of punishment. This is a totally utilitarian approach to the issue of responsibility: there is no need for moral indignation when people break the rules of proper behavior. Is it, then, moral to punish people who are unable to do other than break a rule? Yes, people have the right to come together and improve their condition by creating rules and enforcing them. We would be worse off if we did not do so. Again, an argument for utility. One final issue: if people do not have real behavioral choices, why not collapse into fatalism? Again, Dennett's argument is that we may not have behavioral choice, but we do have control of our behavior. Dennett asks us"
      },
      {
        "text": " punish people who are unable to do other than break a rule? Yes, people have the right to come together and improve their condition by creating rules and enforcing them. We would be worse off if we did not do so. Again, an argument for utility. One final issue: if people do not have real behavioral choices, why not collapse into fatalism? Again, Dennett's argument is that we may not have behavioral choice, but we do have control of our behavior. Dennett asks us to look around at the universe and ask, can I even conceive of beings whose will is freer than our own? For Dennett, the answer to this question is, no, not really. In Elbow Room, he tries to explain why all the attempts that people have tried to make to prove that people have libertarian choice have failed and are, in the final analysis, not really important anyhow. As humans, we are as much in control of our behavior as anything in the universe. As humans, we have the best chance to produce good behavior. We should be satisfied with what we have and not fret over our lack of libertarian free will. Some complaints about Elbow Room relate to our intuitions about free will. Some say that Dennett's theory does not satisfactorily deal with the issue of why we feel so strongly that we do have behavioral choice. One answer to this question is that our sensation of having behavioral choice has been carefully selected by evolution. The well developed human sensation of having free will and being able to select among possible behaviors has strong survival value. People who lose the feeling that they can plan alternative behaviors and execute their choice of possible behaviors tend to become fatalistic and stop struggling for survival. According to Dennett, belief in free will is a necessary condition for having free will. When we are planning for the future and thinking about possible actions to take in the future, we are utilizing considerable amounts of biologically expensive resources (brain power). Evolution has designed us"
      },
      {
        "text": " sensation of having free will and being able to select among possible behaviors has strong survival value. People who lose the feeling that they can plan alternative behaviors and execute their choice of possible behaviors tend to become fatalistic and stop struggling for survival. According to Dennett, belief in free will is a necessary condition for having free will. When we are planning for the future and thinking about possible actions to take in the future, we are utilizing considerable amounts of biologically expensive resources (brain power). Evolution has designed us to feel strongly that all of our effort of planning pays off, that we control what we do. If this connection between our brains' efforts to model reality and predict the future and so make possible good outcomes is disconnected from our sense of self and our will, then fatalism and self-destructive behaviors are close at hand.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Adventures of Captain Underpants",
    "author": "Dav Pilkey",
    "published_date": "1997",
    "synopsis": " The story begins with the school troublemakers, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, making a comic featuring a superhero they made-up, The Amazing Captain Underpants. A little later in the book, George and Harold played a series of practical jokes on a football game automatically without being exposed (sprinkling pepper in the cheerleaders pom-poms causing them to sneeze, pouring bubble bath liquid in the marching band's instruments causing the liquid to turn into foam, filling up the game's ball with helium causing it go up in the sky, replacing the players ointment with itching cream causing the players to scratch and roll around, etc.) that the game was cancel. Their Principal, Mr. Krupp, had successfully recorded a video of George and Harold preparing there pranks (by hiding a series of cameras) and going to show the football team the video. , due to there curiosity about who was responsible the fiasco from the game)., that made George and Harold guilty and horrified. They begged for mercy and Mr.Krupp gave them set of rules and threatens to show the video to the football team, if they do corporate to these rules. To avoid Mr. Krupp's tasks, George buys a 3-D Hypno-Ring (which they receive after 4\u20136 weeks of back-breaking labor) from the Li'l Wiseguy Company in Walla-Walla, Washington, so they can get Mr. Krupp to hand over the incriminating video. Harold replaces it with one of his little sister Heidi's \"Boomer the Purple Dragon Singalong Videos\". They then begin fooling around, telling Mr. Krupp he is a monkey or chicken. George hypnotizes Mr. Krupp to act as if he were Captain Underpants, who is the hero of their homemade comic books. To their distress, Mr. Krupp, as Captain Underpants, takes the role seriously and departs to fight crime. Captain Underpants confronts two bank robbers, and orders them to \"Surrender! Or I will have to resort to 'Wedgie Power'!\" The bank robbers fall down in hysterics laugh very hard and are apprehended by the police. The police begin to arrest Captain Underpants too, but George and Harold whisk him to safety on their skateboards. Then the three witness two robots stealing a large crystal. Captain Underpants tries to stop them, but his cape gets caught on their van. Captain Underpants, with George and Harold clinging to him by the heels, is dragged to an old, abandoned warehouse. There they meet the evil Dr. Diaper (or Dr. Nappy in the British version), who plans to use the crystal as the transformer for his Laser-Matic 2000 to blow up the Moon, destroying every major city on Earth, so that he can take over the planet (although this wouldn't work. As the Moon is less than half the size of the Earth). George and Harold escape and hide, but Captain Underpants is captured and tied up. George uses a slingshot to toss fake doggy doo-doo between Dr. Diaper's feet. Dr. Diaper is terribly embarrassed, thinking that he has had an \"accident\". When he departs to change his diaper, George and Harold incapacitate the robots and untie Captain Underpants. Harold pulls the self-destruct lever on the Laser-Matic 2000. Dr. Diaper, enraged at the destruction of the Laser-Matic 2000, his robots, and the foiling of his plan to take over the world, aims his Diaper-Matic 2000 ray gun (which resembles a pacifier) at George, Harold, and Captain Underpants. Captain Underpants shoots a pair of underwear (his own underwear) at Dr. Diaper. The underwear covers Dr. Diaper's face, which renders him incapable of defending himself. After the warehouse explodes, Dr. Diaper is tied (with the same rope used to tie Captain Underpants up earlier) to a lamppost outside the police station with a note reading \"Arrest Me!\" taped to him. George, Harold, and Captain Underpants return to Mr. Krupp's office and dress him back up as Mr. Krupp. The boys try to figure out how to return Mr. Krupp to his normal self, but they've lost the instruction manual for the 3-D Hypno-Ring. In desperation, George tries dumping water on Mr. Krupp's head. It works, and Mr. Krupp returns to his angry self, resolving to give the video to the football team after all. After this, George finds the 3D Hypno Ring's manual, and throws it away, no longer believing they need it (unknown to them, the manual warns that pouring water over a person will cause them to switch between reality and trance whenever they hear someone snap their fingers or get water on their head). As it turns out, the football team enjoys the Sing-A-Long video so much that they change their name from the Knuckleheads to the Purple Dragon Sing-A-Long Friends. From this point on, whenever anyone snaps their fingers, Mr. Krupp transforms into Captain Underpants. The comic in the book starts with bad guys taking over the world, while the superheroes (including Superman, Captain America and Batman) are too old to fight them. Captain Underpants suddenly appears, and the introduction comes in. Meanwhile, at a nearby school, the cafeteria gives the children the \"Stinky Taco Surprise\", so the children throw it away. The wasted food comes to life as the Inedible Hunk (a parody of The Incredible Hulk), which causes chaos in the school. Captain Underpants decides to rapidly shoot underwear at the monster, but it doesn't work, as the Hunk eats them. So the Captain heads to the toilets, where the monster is fooled by him when it drinks out of the toilet. Captain Underpants flushes the Inedible Hunk down to the sewers, and the comic ends. On the back of the comic, there is a notice reading, \"Don't miss our next exciting adventure: Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets, Coming soon to a playground near you\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins with the school troublemakers, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, making a comic featuring a superhero they made-up, The Amazing Captain Underpants. A little later in the book, George and Harold played a series of practical jokes on a football game automatically without being exposed (sprinkling pepper in the cheerleaders pom-poms causing them to sneeze, pouring bubble bath liquid in the marching band's instruments causing the liquid to turn into foam, filling up the game's ball with helium causing it go up in the sky, replacing the players ointment with itching cream causing the players to scratch and roll around, etc.) that the game was cancel. Their Principal, Mr. Krupp, had successfully recorded a video of George and Harold preparing there pranks (by hiding a series of cameras) and going to show the football team the video. , due to there curiosity about who was responsible the fiasco from the game)., that made George and Harold guilty and horrified. They begged for mercy and Mr.Krupp gave them set of rules and threatens to show the video to the football team, if they do corporate to these rules. To avoid Mr. Krupp's tasks, George buys a 3-D Hypno-Ring (which they receive after 4\u20136 weeks of back-breaking labor) from the Li'l Wiseguy Company in Walla-Walla, Washington, so they can get Mr. Krupp to hand over the incriminating video. Harold replaces it with one of his little sister Heidi's \"Boomer the Purple Dragon Singalong Videos\". They then begin fooling around, telling Mr. Krupp he is a monkey or chicken. George hypnotizes Mr. Krupp to act as if he were Captain Underpants, who is the hero of their homemade comic books. To their distress, Mr. Krupp, as Captain Underpants, takes the role seriously and departs to fight crime. Captain Underpants confronts"
      },
      {
        "text": "inating video. Harold replaces it with one of his little sister Heidi's \"Boomer the Purple Dragon Singalong Videos\". They then begin fooling around, telling Mr. Krupp he is a monkey or chicken. George hypnotizes Mr. Krupp to act as if he were Captain Underpants, who is the hero of their homemade comic books. To their distress, Mr. Krupp, as Captain Underpants, takes the role seriously and departs to fight crime. Captain Underpants confronts two bank robbers, and orders them to \"Surrender! Or I will have to resort to 'Wedgie Power'!\" The bank robbers fall down in hysterics laugh very hard and are apprehended by the police. The police begin to arrest Captain Underpants too, but George and Harold whisk him to safety on their skateboards. Then the three witness two robots stealing a large crystal. Captain Underpants tries to stop them, but his cape gets caught on their van. Captain Underpants, with George and Harold clinging to him by the heels, is dragged to an old, abandoned warehouse. There they meet the evil Dr. Diaper (or Dr. Nappy in the British version), who plans to use the crystal as the transformer for his Laser-Matic 2000 to blow up the Moon, destroying every major city on Earth, so that he can take over the planet (although this wouldn't work. As the Moon is less than half the size of the Earth). George and Harold escape and hide, but Captain Underpants is captured and tied up. George uses a slingshot to toss fake doggy doo-doo between Dr. Diaper's feet. Dr. Diaper is terribly embarrassed, thinking that he has had an \"accident\". When he departs to change his diaper, George and Harold incapacitate the robots and untie Captain Underpants. Harold pulls the self-destruct lever on the Laser-Matic 2000. Dr. Diaper, enraged at the"
      },
      {
        "text": " hide, but Captain Underpants is captured and tied up. George uses a slingshot to toss fake doggy doo-doo between Dr. Diaper's feet. Dr. Diaper is terribly embarrassed, thinking that he has had an \"accident\". When he departs to change his diaper, George and Harold incapacitate the robots and untie Captain Underpants. Harold pulls the self-destruct lever on the Laser-Matic 2000. Dr. Diaper, enraged at the destruction of the Laser-Matic 2000, his robots, and the foiling of his plan to take over the world, aims his Diaper-Matic 2000 ray gun (which resembles a pacifier) at George, Harold, and Captain Underpants. Captain Underpants shoots a pair of underwear (his own underwear) at Dr. Diaper. The underwear covers Dr. Diaper's face, which renders him incapable of defending himself. After the warehouse explodes, Dr. Diaper is tied (with the same rope used to tie Captain Underpants up earlier) to a lamppost outside the police station with a note reading \"Arrest Me!\" taped to him. George, Harold, and Captain Underpants return to Mr. Krupp's office and dress him back up as Mr. Krupp. The boys try to figure out how to return Mr. Krupp to his normal self, but they've lost the instruction manual for the 3-D Hypno-Ring. In desperation, George tries dumping water on Mr. Krupp's head. It works, and Mr. Krupp returns to his angry self, resolving to give the video to the football team after all. After this, George finds the 3D Hypno Ring's manual, and throws it away, no longer believing they need it (unknown to them, the manual warns that pouring water over a person will cause them to switch between reality and trance whenever they hear someone snap their fingers or get water on their head"
      },
      {
        "text": ", George tries dumping water on Mr. Krupp's head. It works, and Mr. Krupp returns to his angry self, resolving to give the video to the football team after all. After this, George finds the 3D Hypno Ring's manual, and throws it away, no longer believing they need it (unknown to them, the manual warns that pouring water over a person will cause them to switch between reality and trance whenever they hear someone snap their fingers or get water on their head). As it turns out, the football team enjoys the Sing-A-Long video so much that they change their name from the Knuckleheads to the Purple Dragon Sing-A-Long Friends. From this point on, whenever anyone snaps their fingers, Mr. Krupp transforms into Captain Underpants. The comic in the book starts with bad guys taking over the world, while the superheroes (including Superman, Captain America and Batman) are too old to fight them. Captain Underpants suddenly appears, and the introduction comes in. Meanwhile, at a nearby school, the cafeteria gives the children the \"Stinky Taco Surprise\", so the children throw it away. The wasted food comes to life as the Inedible Hunk (a parody of The Incredible Hulk), which causes chaos in the school. Captain Underpants decides to rapidly shoot underwear at the monster, but it doesn't work, as the Hunk eats them. So the Captain heads to the toilets, where the monster is fooled by him when it drinks out of the toilet. Captain Underpants flushes the Inedible Hunk down to the sewers, and the comic ends. On the back of the comic, there is a notice reading, \"Don't miss our next exciting adventure: Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets, Coming soon to a playground near you\".\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " when it drinks out of the toilet. Captain Underpants flushes the Inedible Hunk down to the sewers, and the comic ends. On the back of the comic, there is a notice reading, \"Don't miss our next exciting adventure: Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets, Coming soon to a playground near you\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Rowan",
    "author": "Anne McCaffrey",
    "published_date": "1990",
    "synopsis": " The Rowan tells the life story of a young orphan, of Prime Talent, from the moment the child's community is wiped out in a mudslide to the time when she becomes a Prime and after a life of loneliness falls in love with a previously undiscovered Prime in a far away star system being attacked by aliens. The central section of the book is based on McCaffrey's earlier short story \"Lady in the Tower\" *Talent Level: T-1 telekinetic/telepath; Callisto Prime *Physical Description: Silver-white hair, grey eyes (though stated to be brown on page 17 of the Ace/Putnam 1990 hardcover edition), and a petite figure. **The Rowan was the only survivor of a freak landslide that destroyed the Rowan Mining Camp on Altair. The toddler Rowan had been trapped in a hopper (a kind of vehicle) and buried under the sludge for days. She mentally screamed for help and due to the strength of her young mind every receptive telepath on the planet could hear her. As she had no memory of her life before the landslide, she took her name from the mining camp. She grew up a ward of the planet under the care of Lusena, a child therapist. She was given of the Altarian Prime at the age of nine. After a bad experience with a class of T-4 and 5's she became distant and elusive. *Talent Level: T-1 telekinetic/telepath; Altair Prime *Physical Description: \"Siglen was a slab of a female, soft from a sedentary life and a disinclination to exercise of any kind.\"- The Rowan pg. 14 **Siglen proved to be more harm than good when it came to dealing with the Rowan. She wasn't empathic towards the child and instilled a neurosis (a form of agoraphobia that prevents interstellar teleports) in the three Primes that she trained. She has no empathy and is very trying for her staff and personnel to deal with. Described as a \"mistress of the putdown\" and a generally unlikeable person. *Talent level: T-8 telepath; junior therapist **Lusena took the young Rowan in as her own. She already had two older children, Bardy and Finnan. Lusena died in a crash when the Rowan was eighteen. *Talent Level: T-5 empath **Goswina first met the Rowan when she, along with seven other young Talents, traveled to Altair for a course on Tower management and maintenance. She soon realized that she and the Rowan could not work efficiently together and so recommended her brother Afra, who at the time was six. The Rowan then promised to make sure Afra came to Altair for the course when he was old enough. *Talent Level: T-4 (later T-3 then T-2) telekinetic/telepath *Physical Description: blonde hair, slightly green skin, yellow eyes, tall/slender figure. **The Lyon family is from Capella, a \"Methody\" planet known for its adherence to rules and manners (and its colonists' unusual pigmentation). Afra, however, was slightly different; life on Capella didn't appeal to him. So, at eighteen, Afra spent all his money to send a resume to the Rowan, the new Callisto Prime. The Prime sent for him the very next day. Afra was to the Rowan's liking and became second in command of the Tower. *Talent Level: T-1 telekinetic/telepath *Physical Description: black hair and piercing blue eyes. **Jeff Raven was born on Deneb where a large population of \"Wild Talents\" resides. He first contacted the Rowan telepathically when he \"heard\" her getting ready to start her transportation work on Callisto. Jeff informed her that Deneb was under attack by hostile alien forces. The Rowan informed Earth Prime who refused to believe the words of an \"unknown Talent\"; Jeff quickly verified the attack was legitimate by telekinetically hurtling a missile towards Earth (which was quite an extraordinary feat considering how remote Deneb was and that the generator he tapped into for power was on the verge of collapse) *Talent Level: never tested, but she has a \"long ear\" and \"loud voice\" **Isthia is the mother of Jeff Raven. She gathered a team of other untrained Talents to help her contact the Rowan telepathically when Jeff was badly injured in an accident after the attacks. Talent Level: T-1 telekinetic/telepath; Earth Prime Physical Description: Black hair, close trimmed red beard and moustache. He is the descendant of the same Peter Reidinger who is featured in Pegasus in Flight and Pegasus in Space. *The Reidinger family is full of extremely high Talents, and Peter Reidinger IV is surely one of the most powerful. He runs FT&T. Talent Level: T-1 Medic/Ob. Deft, compassionate, sensible and reassuring, Elizara is Prime Reidinger's great-granddaughter. She became a close friend and confidant of the Gwyn-Raven families, and later the Lyons, when she was assigned by Reidinger to assist the Rowan during her first pregnancy. Elizara is extremely skilled in metamorphic healing as well as physical. She is later re-introduced into the series as the very talented teacher of her gifted namesake, Zara Raven-Lyon, one of Damia's many children. Talent Level: T-9; Callisto Stationmaster Primes of FT&T are T-1 telekinetic/telepaths. They are the rarest manifestation of Talent. *Earth Prime: Peter Reidinger IV *Altair Prime: Siglen *Capella Prime: Capella *Betelguese Prime: David *Callisto Prime: The Rowan *Procyon Prime: Guzman\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Rowan tells the life story of a young orphan, of Prime Talent, from the moment the child's community is wiped out in a mudslide to the time when she becomes a Prime and after a life of loneliness falls in love with a previously undiscovered Prime in a far away star system being attacked by aliens. The central section of the book is based on McCaffrey's earlier short story \"Lady in the Tower\" *Talent Level: T-1 telekinetic/telepath; Callisto Prime *Physical Description: Silver-white hair, grey eyes (though stated to be brown on page 17 of the Ace/Putnam 1990 hardcover edition), and a petite figure. **The Rowan was the only survivor of a freak landslide that destroyed the Rowan Mining Camp on Altair. The toddler Rowan had been trapped in a hopper (a kind of vehicle) and buried under the sludge for days. She mentally screamed for help and due to the strength of her young mind every receptive telepath on the planet could hear her. As she had no memory of her life before the landslide, she took her name from the mining camp. She grew up a ward of the planet under the care of Lusena, a child therapist. She was given of the Altarian Prime at the age of nine. After a bad experience with a class of T-4 and 5's she became distant and elusive. *Talent Level: T-1 telekinetic/telepath; Altair Prime *Physical Description: \"Siglen was a slab of a female, soft from a sedentary life and a disinclination to exercise of any kind.\"- The Rowan pg. 14 **Siglen proved to be more harm than good when it came to dealing with the Rowan. She wasn't empathic towards the child and instilled a neurosis (a form of agoraphobia that prevents interstellar teleports) in"
      },
      {
        "text": " telekinetic/telepath; Altair Prime *Physical Description: \"Siglen was a slab of a female, soft from a sedentary life and a disinclination to exercise of any kind.\"- The Rowan pg. 14 **Siglen proved to be more harm than good when it came to dealing with the Rowan. She wasn't empathic towards the child and instilled a neurosis (a form of agoraphobia that prevents interstellar teleports) in the three Primes that she trained. She has no empathy and is very trying for her staff and personnel to deal with. Described as a \"mistress of the putdown\" and a generally unlikeable person. *Talent level: T-8 telepath; junior therapist **Lusena took the young Rowan in as her own. She already had two older children, Bardy and Finnan. Lusena died in a crash when the Rowan was eighteen. *Talent Level: T-5 empath **Goswina first met the Rowan when she, along with seven other young Talents, traveled to Altair for a course on Tower management and maintenance. She soon realized that she and the Rowan could not work efficiently together and so recommended her brother Afra, who at the time was six. The Rowan then promised to make sure Afra came to Altair for the course when he was old enough. *Talent Level: T-4 (later T-3 then T-2) telekinetic/telepath *Physical Description: blonde hair, slightly green skin, yellow eyes, tall/slender figure. **The Lyon family is from Capella, a \"Methody\" planet known for its adherence to rules and manners (and its colonists' unusual pigmentation). Afra, however, was slightly different; life on Capella didn't appeal to him. So, at eighteen, Afra spent all his money"
      },
      {
        "text": "4 (later T-3 then T-2) telekinetic/telepath *Physical Description: blonde hair, slightly green skin, yellow eyes, tall/slender figure. **The Lyon family is from Capella, a \"Methody\" planet known for its adherence to rules and manners (and its colonists' unusual pigmentation). Afra, however, was slightly different; life on Capella didn't appeal to him. So, at eighteen, Afra spent all his money to send a resume to the Rowan, the new Callisto Prime. The Prime sent for him the very next day. Afra was to the Rowan's liking and became second in command of the Tower. *Talent Level: T-1 telekinetic/telepath *Physical Description: black hair and piercing blue eyes. **Jeff Raven was born on Deneb where a large population of \"Wild Talents\" resides. He first contacted the Rowan telepathically when he \"heard\" her getting ready to start her transportation work on Callisto. Jeff informed her that Deneb was under attack by hostile alien forces. The Rowan informed Earth Prime who refused to believe the words of an \"unknown Talent\"; Jeff quickly verified the attack was legitimate by telekinetically hurtling a missile towards Earth (which was quite an extraordinary feat considering how remote Deneb was and that the generator he tapped into for power was on the verge of collapse) *Talent Level: never tested, but she has a \"long ear\" and \"loud voice\" **Isthia is the mother of Jeff Raven. She gathered a team of other untrained Talents to help her contact the Rowan telepathically when Jeff was badly injured in an accident after the attacks. Talent Level: T-1 telekinetic/telepath; Earth Prime Physical Description: Black hair, close trimmed red beard and moustache. He is the descendant of the same Peter"
      },
      {
        "text": " Level: never tested, but she has a \"long ear\" and \"loud voice\" **Isthia is the mother of Jeff Raven. She gathered a team of other untrained Talents to help her contact the Rowan telepathically when Jeff was badly injured in an accident after the attacks. Talent Level: T-1 telekinetic/telepath; Earth Prime Physical Description: Black hair, close trimmed red beard and moustache. He is the descendant of the same Peter Reidinger who is featured in Pegasus in Flight and Pegasus in Space. *The Reidinger family is full of extremely high Talents, and Peter Reidinger IV is surely one of the most powerful. He runs FT&T. Talent Level: T-1 Medic/Ob. Deft, compassionate, sensible and reassuring, Elizara is Prime Reidinger's great-granddaughter. She became a close friend and confidant of the Gwyn-Raven families, and later the Lyons, when she was assigned by Reidinger to assist the Rowan during her first pregnancy. Elizara is extremely skilled in metamorphic healing as well as physical. She is later re-introduced into the series as the very talented teacher of her gifted namesake, Zara Raven-Lyon, one of Damia's many children. Talent Level: T-9; Callisto Stationmaster Primes of FT&T are T-1 telekinetic/telepaths. They are the rarest manifestation of Talent. *Earth Prime: Peter Reidinger IV *Altair Prime: Siglen *Capella Prime: Capella *Betelguese Prime: David *Callisto Prime: The Rowan *Procyon Prime: Guzman\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "s. They are the rarest manifestation of Talent. *Earth Prime: Peter Reidinger IV *Altair Prime: Siglen *Capella Prime: Capella *Betelguese Prime: David *Callisto Prime: The Rowan *Procyon Prime: Guzman\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lysistrata",
    "author": "Aristophanes",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " LYSISTRATA: There are a lot of things about us women That sadden me, considering how men See us as rascals. CALONICE: As indeed we are! These lines, spoken by Lysistrata and her friend Calonice at the beginning of the play, set the scene for the action that follows. Women, as represented by Calonice, are sly hedonists in need of firm guidance and direction. Lysistrata however is an extraordinary woman with a large sense of individual responsibility. She has convened a meeting of women from various city states in Greece (there is no mention of how she managed this feat) and, very soon after confiding in her friend about her concerns for the female sex, the women begin arriving. With support from Lampito, the Spartan, Lysistrata persuades the other women to withhold sexual privileges from their menfolk as a means of forcing them to end the interminable Peloponnesian War. The women are very reluctant but the deal is sealed with a solemn oath around a wine bowl, Lysistrata choosing the words and Calonice repeating them on behalf of the other women. It is a long and detailed oath, in which the women abjure all their sexual pleasures, including The Lioness on The Cheese Grater (a sexual position). Soon after the oath is finished, a cry of triumph is heard from the nearby Acropolis\u00a0\u2013 the old women of Athens have seized control of it at Lysistrata's instigation, since it holds the state treasury, without which the men cannot long continue to fund their war. Lampito goes off to spread the word of revolt and the other women retreat behind the barred gates of the Acropolis to await the men's response. A Chorus of Old Men arrives, intent on burning down the gate of the Acropolis if the women don't open up. Encumbered with heavy timbers, inconvenienced with smoke and burdened with old age, they are still making preparations to assault the gate when a Chorus of Old Women arrives, bearing pitchers of water. The Old Women complain about the difficulty they had getting the water but they are ready for a fight in defense of their younger comrades. Threats are exchanged, water beats fire and the Old Men are discomfited with a soaking. The magistrate then arrives with some Scythian archers (the Athenian version of police constables). He reflects on the hysterical nature of women, their devotion to wine, promiscuous sex and exotic cults (such as to Sabazius and Adonis) but above all he blames men for poor supervision of their womenfolk. He has come for silver from the state treasury to buy oars for the fleet and he instructs his Scythians to begin levering open the gate. However,they are quickly overwhelmed by groups of unruly women with such unruly names as (seed-market-porridge-vegetable-sellers) and (garlic-innkeeping-bread-sellers). Lysistrata restores order and she allows the magistrate to question her. She explains to him the frustrations women feel at a time of war when the men make stupid decisions that affect everyone, and their wives' opinions are not listened to. She drapes her headdress over him, gives him a basket of wool and tells him that war will be a woman's business from now on. She then explains the pity she feels for young, childless women, ageing at home while the men are away on endless campaigns. When the magistrate points out that men also age, she reminds him that men can marry at any age whereas a woman has only a short time before she is considered too old. She then dresses the magistrate like a corpse for laying out, with a wreath and a fillet, and advises him that he's dead. Outraged at these indignities, he storms off to report the incident to his colleagues, while Lysistrata returns to the Acropolis. The debate or agon is continued between the Chorus of Old Men and the Chorus of Old Women until Lysistrata returns to the stage with some news\u00a0\u2014 her comrades are desperate for sex and they are beginning to desert on the silliest pretexts (for example, one woman says she has to go home to air her fabrics by spreading them on the bed). After rallying her comrades and restoring their discipline, Lysistrata again returns to the Acropolis to continue waiting for the men's surrender. A man soon appears, desperate for sex. It is Kinesias, the husband of Myrrhine. Lysistrata instructs her to torture him and Myrrhine then informs Kinesias that she can't have sex with him until he stops the war. He promptly agrees to these terms and the young couple prepares for sex on the spot. Myrrhine fetches a bed, then a mattress, then a pillow, then a blanket, then a flask of oil, exasperating her husband with delays until finally disappointing him completely by locking herself in the Acropolis again. The Chorus of Old Men commiserates with the young man in a plaintive song. A Spartan herald then appears with a large burden (an erection) scarcely hidden inside his tunic and he requests to see the ruling council to arrange peace talks. The magistrate, now also sporting a prodigious burden, laughs at the herald's embarrassing situation but agrees that peace talks should begin. They go off to fetch the delegates; and, while they are gone, the Old Women make overtures to the Old Men. The Old Men are content to be comforted and fussed over by the Old Women; and thereupon the two Choruses merge, singing and dancing in unison. Peace talks commence and Lysistrata introduces the Spartan and Athenian delegates to a gorgeous young woman called Reconciliation. The delegates cannot take their eyes off the young woman; and meanwhile, Lysistrata scolds both sides for past errors of judgment. The delegates briefly squabble over the peace terms; but, with Reconciliation before them and the burden of sexual deprivation still heavy upon them, they quickly overcome their differences and retire to the Acropolis for celebrations. Another choral song follows; and, after a bit of humorous dialogue between drunken dinner guests, the celebrants all return to the stage for a final round of songs, the men and women dancing together.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " LYSISTRATA: There are a lot of things about us women That sadden me, considering how men See us as rascals. CALONICE: As indeed we are! These lines, spoken by Lysistrata and her friend Calonice at the beginning of the play, set the scene for the action that follows. Women, as represented by Calonice, are sly hedonists in need of firm guidance and direction. Lysistrata however is an extraordinary woman with a large sense of individual responsibility. She has convened a meeting of women from various city states in Greece (there is no mention of how she managed this feat) and, very soon after confiding in her friend about her concerns for the female sex, the women begin arriving. With support from Lampito, the Spartan, Lysistrata persuades the other women to withhold sexual privileges from their menfolk as a means of forcing them to end the interminable Peloponnesian War. The women are very reluctant but the deal is sealed with a solemn oath around a wine bowl, Lysistrata choosing the words and Calonice repeating them on behalf of the other women. It is a long and detailed oath, in which the women abjure all their sexual pleasures, including The Lioness on The Cheese Grater (a sexual position). Soon after the oath is finished, a cry of triumph is heard from the nearby Acropolis\u00a0\u2013 the old women of Athens have seized control of it at Lysistrata's instigation, since it holds the state treasury, without which the men cannot long continue to fund their war. Lampito goes off to spread the word of revolt and the other women retreat behind the barred gates of the Acropolis to await the men's response. A Chorus of Old Men arrives, intent on burning down the gate of the Acropolis if the women don't open up"
      },
      {
        "text": " have seized control of it at Lysistrata's instigation, since it holds the state treasury, without which the men cannot long continue to fund their war. Lampito goes off to spread the word of revolt and the other women retreat behind the barred gates of the Acropolis to await the men's response. A Chorus of Old Men arrives, intent on burning down the gate of the Acropolis if the women don't open up. Encumbered with heavy timbers, inconvenienced with smoke and burdened with old age, they are still making preparations to assault the gate when a Chorus of Old Women arrives, bearing pitchers of water. The Old Women complain about the difficulty they had getting the water but they are ready for a fight in defense of their younger comrades. Threats are exchanged, water beats fire and the Old Men are discomfited with a soaking. The magistrate then arrives with some Scythian archers (the Athenian version of police constables). He reflects on the hysterical nature of women, their devotion to wine, promiscuous sex and exotic cults (such as to Sabazius and Adonis) but above all he blames men for poor supervision of their womenfolk. He has come for silver from the state treasury to buy oars for the fleet and he instructs his Scythians to begin levering open the gate. However,they are quickly overwhelmed by groups of unruly women with such unruly names as (seed-market-porridge-vegetable-sellers) and (garlic-innkeeping-bread-sellers). Lysistrata restores order and she allows the magistrate to question her. She explains to him the frustrations women feel at a time of war when the men make stupid decisions that affect everyone, and their wives' opinions are not listened to. She drapes her headdress over him, gives him a basket"
      },
      {
        "text": " women with such unruly names as (seed-market-porridge-vegetable-sellers) and (garlic-innkeeping-bread-sellers). Lysistrata restores order and she allows the magistrate to question her. She explains to him the frustrations women feel at a time of war when the men make stupid decisions that affect everyone, and their wives' opinions are not listened to. She drapes her headdress over him, gives him a basket of wool and tells him that war will be a woman's business from now on. She then explains the pity she feels for young, childless women, ageing at home while the men are away on endless campaigns. When the magistrate points out that men also age, she reminds him that men can marry at any age whereas a woman has only a short time before she is considered too old. She then dresses the magistrate like a corpse for laying out, with a wreath and a fillet, and advises him that he's dead. Outraged at these indignities, he storms off to report the incident to his colleagues, while Lysistrata returns to the Acropolis. The debate or agon is continued between the Chorus of Old Men and the Chorus of Old Women until Lysistrata returns to the stage with some news\u00a0\u2014 her comrades are desperate for sex and they are beginning to desert on the silliest pretexts (for example, one woman says she has to go home to air her fabrics by spreading them on the bed). After rallying her comrades and restoring their discipline, Lysistrata again returns to the Acropolis to continue waiting for the men's surrender. A man soon appears, desperate for sex. It is Kinesias, the husband of Myrrhine. Lysistrata instructs her to torture him and Myrrhine then informs Kinesias that she can't"
      },
      {
        "text": " one woman says she has to go home to air her fabrics by spreading them on the bed). After rallying her comrades and restoring their discipline, Lysistrata again returns to the Acropolis to continue waiting for the men's surrender. A man soon appears, desperate for sex. It is Kinesias, the husband of Myrrhine. Lysistrata instructs her to torture him and Myrrhine then informs Kinesias that she can't have sex with him until he stops the war. He promptly agrees to these terms and the young couple prepares for sex on the spot. Myrrhine fetches a bed, then a mattress, then a pillow, then a blanket, then a flask of oil, exasperating her husband with delays until finally disappointing him completely by locking herself in the Acropolis again. The Chorus of Old Men commiserates with the young man in a plaintive song. A Spartan herald then appears with a large burden (an erection) scarcely hidden inside his tunic and he requests to see the ruling council to arrange peace talks. The magistrate, now also sporting a prodigious burden, laughs at the herald's embarrassing situation but agrees that peace talks should begin. They go off to fetch the delegates; and, while they are gone, the Old Women make overtures to the Old Men. The Old Men are content to be comforted and fussed over by the Old Women; and thereupon the two Choruses merge, singing and dancing in unison. Peace talks commence and Lysistrata introduces the Spartan and Athenian delegates to a gorgeous young woman called Reconciliation. The delegates cannot take their eyes off the young woman; and meanwhile, Lysistrata scolds both sides for past errors of judgment. The delegates briefly squabble over the peace terms; but, with Reconciliation before them and the burden of sexual deprivation still heavy upon them, they quickly overcome"
      },
      {
        "text": "upon the two Choruses merge, singing and dancing in unison. Peace talks commence and Lysistrata introduces the Spartan and Athenian delegates to a gorgeous young woman called Reconciliation. The delegates cannot take their eyes off the young woman; and meanwhile, Lysistrata scolds both sides for past errors of judgment. The delegates briefly squabble over the peace terms; but, with Reconciliation before them and the burden of sexual deprivation still heavy upon them, they quickly overcome their differences and retire to the Acropolis for celebrations. Another choral song follows; and, after a bit of humorous dialogue between drunken dinner guests, the celebrants all return to the stage for a final round of songs, the men and women dancing together.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Niourk",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " It presents an Earth where the oceans have gone dry and humans are hunter-gatherer bands. Haiti is the mountain range \"Hait\", and New York City becomes the ruins of \"Niourk\". The \"black child\" goes to Niourk where he wanders through the ruins and the still functioning automatic devices. He finds a pair of shipwrecked humans from a space-bound branch of mankind. Their technological civilization has suppressed sexual reproduction and sexual organs. The child eats the radioactive brains of giant vertebrated mutant earth octopuses and becomes more intelligent. He teaches himself reading and the rest of the ruined technology and evolves into a superior species of Homo.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It presents an Earth where the oceans have gone dry and humans are hunter-gatherer bands. Haiti is the mountain range \"Hait\", and New York City becomes the ruins of \"Niourk\". The \"black child\" goes to Niourk where he wanders through the ruins and the still functioning automatic devices. He finds a pair of shipwrecked humans from a space-bound branch of mankind. Their technological civilization has suppressed sexual reproduction and sexual organs. The child eats the radioactive brains of giant vertebrated mutant earth octopuses and becomes more intelligent. He teaches himself reading and the rest of the ruined technology and evolves into a superior species of Homo.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Andromeda",
    "author": "Ivan Yefremov",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " This is a classic communist utopia set in a distant future. Throughout the novel, the author's attention is focused on the social and cultural aspects of the society; there are several principal heroes (a historian, an archeologist, a starship captain) involved in several plot lines. Though the world shown in the novel is intended as ideal, there's an attempt to show a conflict and its resolution with a voluntary self-punishment of a scientist whose reckless experiment caused damage. There's also a fair amount of action in the episodes where the crew of a starship fight alien predators. Several civilizations of our Galaxy, including Earth, are united in the Great Circle whose members exchange and relay scientific and cultural information. Notably, there's was no faster-than-light travel or communication in this world before events, described in novel. Moreover, interstellar missions sent by Earth are few because of very costly fuel used by interstellar (but not planetary) spaceships, and the Great Circle civilizations almost never meet in person. The Great Circle radio transmissions are pictured as taking the energy of the whole Earth and therefore infrequent; one such transmission is a lecture on the history of the Earth civilization which gives the author an opportunity to put his world into a historic context.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " This is a classic communist utopia set in a distant future. Throughout the novel, the author's attention is focused on the social and cultural aspects of the society; there are several principal heroes (a historian, an archeologist, a starship captain) involved in several plot lines. Though the world shown in the novel is intended as ideal, there's an attempt to show a conflict and its resolution with a voluntary self-punishment of a scientist whose reckless experiment caused damage. There's also a fair amount of action in the episodes where the crew of a starship fight alien predators. Several civilizations of our Galaxy, including Earth, are united in the Great Circle whose members exchange and relay scientific and cultural information. Notably, there's was no faster-than-light travel or communication in this world before events, described in novel. Moreover, interstellar missions sent by Earth are few because of very costly fuel used by interstellar (but not planetary) spaceships, and the Great Circle civilizations almost never meet in person. The Great Circle radio transmissions are pictured as taking the energy of the whole Earth and therefore infrequent; one such transmission is a lecture on the history of the Earth civilization which gives the author an opportunity to put his world into a historic context.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ecotopia",
    "author": "Ernest Callenbach",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The book is set in 1999 (25 years in the future, as seen from 1974) and consists of the diary entries and reports of William Weston, a mainstream media reporter who is the first proper American to investigate Ecotopia, a newly formed country that broke from the USA in 1980. Prior to Weston's investigative reporting, most Americans had not been allowed to enter the new country, which is depicted as being on continual guard against revanchism. The new nation of Ecotopia consists of Northern California, Oregon and Washington; it is hinted that Southern California is a lost cause. The book is presented as a combination of narrative from Weston's diary and dispatches that he transmits to his publication, the mythical Times-Post. Together with Weston (who at the beginning is curious about, but not particularly sympathetic to the Ecotopians), the reader learns about the Ecotopian transportation system and the preferred lifestyle that includes celebrating gender roles, official encouragement of maintaining racial separation, discouraging monogamy, promoting sexual freedom. A disdain for television and mass-spectacle sports is manifested in a preference for local arts, participatory sports, and general fitness. The Ecotopians also have a peculiar ritual of (voluntary) mock warfare, fought with actual weapons and often resulting in injuries. Liberal cannabis use, as well as about decentralized and renewable energy production, green building construction, a defense strategy focused both on developing a highly advanced arms industry while also allegedly maintaining hidden WMD within major US population centers to discourage reconquest. Thorough-going education reform is described, along with a highly localized system of universal medical care. (The narrator discovers that Ecotopian healing practices may include sexual stimulation.) The narrative is told through both Weston's official cables back to the United States and through his diary which he keeps and later sends to his editor at the end of his assignment. In the diary we learn of observations he does not include in his columns, including his personally transformative love affair with an Ecotopian woman. These parallel narrative structures allow the reader to see how his internal reflections, as recorded in his diary, are diffracted in his external pronouncements to his readers. Despite Weston's initial reservations, throughout the novel, Ecotopian citizens are characterized as clever, technologically resourceful, emotionally expressive and even occasionally violent, but also socially responsible, patriotic. They tend to live in ethnically separated localities, and they live in extended families. Their economic enterprises are entirely employee-owned and -controlled. The government is dominated by a woman-led but not exclusively female party, and government structures are highly decentralized. The novel concludes with Weston's finding himself enchanted by Ecotopian life and deciding to stay in Ecotopia as its interpreter to the wider world.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is set in 1999 (25 years in the future, as seen from 1974) and consists of the diary entries and reports of William Weston, a mainstream media reporter who is the first proper American to investigate Ecotopia, a newly formed country that broke from the USA in 1980. Prior to Weston's investigative reporting, most Americans had not been allowed to enter the new country, which is depicted as being on continual guard against revanchism. The new nation of Ecotopia consists of Northern California, Oregon and Washington; it is hinted that Southern California is a lost cause. The book is presented as a combination of narrative from Weston's diary and dispatches that he transmits to his publication, the mythical Times-Post. Together with Weston (who at the beginning is curious about, but not particularly sympathetic to the Ecotopians), the reader learns about the Ecotopian transportation system and the preferred lifestyle that includes celebrating gender roles, official encouragement of maintaining racial separation, discouraging monogamy, promoting sexual freedom. A disdain for television and mass-spectacle sports is manifested in a preference for local arts, participatory sports, and general fitness. The Ecotopians also have a peculiar ritual of (voluntary) mock warfare, fought with actual weapons and often resulting in injuries. Liberal cannabis use, as well as about decentralized and renewable energy production, green building construction, a defense strategy focused both on developing a highly advanced arms industry while also allegedly maintaining hidden WMD within major US population centers to discourage reconquest. Thorough-going education reform is described, along with a highly localized system of universal medical care. (The narrator discovers that Ecotopian healing practices may include sexual stimulation.) The narrative is told through both Weston's official cables back to the United States and through his diary which he keeps and later sends to his editor at the end of his assignment. In the diary we learn of observations he does not include in his columns, including his personally transformative love affair with an"
      },
      {
        "text": " population centers to discourage reconquest. Thorough-going education reform is described, along with a highly localized system of universal medical care. (The narrator discovers that Ecotopian healing practices may include sexual stimulation.) The narrative is told through both Weston's official cables back to the United States and through his diary which he keeps and later sends to his editor at the end of his assignment. In the diary we learn of observations he does not include in his columns, including his personally transformative love affair with an Ecotopian woman. These parallel narrative structures allow the reader to see how his internal reflections, as recorded in his diary, are diffracted in his external pronouncements to his readers. Despite Weston's initial reservations, throughout the novel, Ecotopian citizens are characterized as clever, technologically resourceful, emotionally expressive and even occasionally violent, but also socially responsible, patriotic. They tend to live in ethnically separated localities, and they live in extended families. Their economic enterprises are entirely employee-owned and -controlled. The government is dominated by a woman-led but not exclusively female party, and government structures are highly decentralized. The novel concludes with Weston's finding himself enchanted by Ecotopian life and deciding to stay in Ecotopia as its interpreter to the wider world.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Bad Seed",
    "author": "William March",
    "published_date": "1954-04-08",
    "synopsis": " Eight-year-old Rhoda is the only child of Kenneth and Christine Penmark. Kenneth Penmark goes away on business, leaving Christine and Rhoda at home. Christine begins to notice that Rhoda is acting strangely after one of her classmates mysteriously drowns, and eventually makes a horrible discovery: Rhoda killed the boy, and will almost certainly kill again.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Eight-year-old Rhoda is the only child of Kenneth and Christine Penmark. Kenneth Penmark goes away on business, leaving Christine and Rhoda at home. Christine begins to notice that Rhoda is acting strangely after one of her classmates mysteriously drowns, and eventually makes a horrible discovery: Rhoda killed the boy, and will almost certainly kill again.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Turner Diaries",
    "author": "William Luther Pierce",
    "published_date": "1978",
    "synopsis": " The narrative starts with a foreword set in 2099, one hundred years after the events depicted in the book. The bulk of the book then quotes a recently discovered diary of a man named Earl Turner, an active member of the white Aryan revolutionary movement that caused these events. The book details a violent overthrow of the United States federal government by Turner and his militant comrades and a brutal contemporaneous race war that takes place first in North America, and then the rest of the world. The story starts soon after the federal government has confiscated all civilian firearms in the country under the fictional Cohen Act, and the Organization to which Turner and his cohorts belong goes underground and engages in guerrilla war against the System, which is depicted as the totality of the government, media, and economy that is under left-wing Jewish control. The Organization starts with acts such as the bombing of FBI headquarters and continues to prosecute an ongoing, low level campaign of terrorism, assassination and economic sabotage throughout the United States. Turner's exploits lead to his initiation into the Order, a quasi-religious inner cadre that directs the Organization and whose existence remains secret to both the System and ordinary Organization members. Eventually, the Organization seizes physical control of Southern California, including the nuclear weapons at Vandenberg Air Force Base; ethnically cleanses the area of all blacks and summarily executes all Jews and other \"race traitors\". The Organization has little use for most white \"mainstream\" Americans. Those on the Left are seen as dupes or willing agents of the Jews, while conservatives and libertarians are regarded as misguided fools, for, after all, the Jews \"took over according to the Constitution, fair and square.\" Turner and his comrades save their special contempt for the ordinary people, who care about nothing beyond being kept comfortable and entertained. The Organization then uses both the Southern California base of operations and their nuclear weapons to open a wider war in which they launch nuclear strikes against New York City and Israel, initiate a nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union, and plant nuclear weapons and new terrorist cells throughout North America. Many major U.S. cities are destroyed, including Baltimore and Detroit. The diary section ends with the protagonist flying an airplane equipped with an atomic bomb on a suicide mission to destroy The Pentagon, in order to eliminate the leadership of the remaining military government before it orders an assault to retake California. The novel ends with an epilogue summarizing how the Organization continued on to conquer the rest of the world and how people of other races were eliminated (China and the entire eastern half of Asia were destroyed by prolonged bombardment with various weapons of mass destruction and made into an enormous desert; Blacks were exterminated in Africa as well as America; Puerto Ricans, described as \"a repulsive mongrel race\", were exterminated and the island re-settled by whites).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The narrative starts with a foreword set in 2099, one hundred years after the events depicted in the book. The bulk of the book then quotes a recently discovered diary of a man named Earl Turner, an active member of the white Aryan revolutionary movement that caused these events. The book details a violent overthrow of the United States federal government by Turner and his militant comrades and a brutal contemporaneous race war that takes place first in North America, and then the rest of the world. The story starts soon after the federal government has confiscated all civilian firearms in the country under the fictional Cohen Act, and the Organization to which Turner and his cohorts belong goes underground and engages in guerrilla war against the System, which is depicted as the totality of the government, media, and economy that is under left-wing Jewish control. The Organization starts with acts such as the bombing of FBI headquarters and continues to prosecute an ongoing, low level campaign of terrorism, assassination and economic sabotage throughout the United States. Turner's exploits lead to his initiation into the Order, a quasi-religious inner cadre that directs the Organization and whose existence remains secret to both the System and ordinary Organization members. Eventually, the Organization seizes physical control of Southern California, including the nuclear weapons at Vandenberg Air Force Base; ethnically cleanses the area of all blacks and summarily executes all Jews and other \"race traitors\". The Organization has little use for most white \"mainstream\" Americans. Those on the Left are seen as dupes or willing agents of the Jews, while conservatives and libertarians are regarded as misguided fools, for, after all, the Jews \"took over according to the Constitution, fair and square.\" Turner and his comrades save their special contempt for the ordinary people, who care about nothing beyond being kept comfortable and entertained. The Organization then uses both the Southern California base of operations and their nuclear weapons to open a wider war in which they launch nuclear strikes against New York City and Israel, initiate a nuclear exchange between"
      },
      {
        "text": "es or willing agents of the Jews, while conservatives and libertarians are regarded as misguided fools, for, after all, the Jews \"took over according to the Constitution, fair and square.\" Turner and his comrades save their special contempt for the ordinary people, who care about nothing beyond being kept comfortable and entertained. The Organization then uses both the Southern California base of operations and their nuclear weapons to open a wider war in which they launch nuclear strikes against New York City and Israel, initiate a nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union, and plant nuclear weapons and new terrorist cells throughout North America. Many major U.S. cities are destroyed, including Baltimore and Detroit. The diary section ends with the protagonist flying an airplane equipped with an atomic bomb on a suicide mission to destroy The Pentagon, in order to eliminate the leadership of the remaining military government before it orders an assault to retake California. The novel ends with an epilogue summarizing how the Organization continued on to conquer the rest of the world and how people of other races were eliminated (China and the entire eastern half of Asia were destroyed by prolonged bombardment with various weapons of mass destruction and made into an enormous desert; Blacks were exterminated in Africa as well as America; Puerto Ricans, described as \"a repulsive mongrel race\", were exterminated and the island re-settled by whites).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Life, the Universe and Everything",
    "author": "Douglas Adams",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " After being stranded on pre-historic Earth after the events in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur Dent is met by his old friend Ford Prefect, who drags him into a space-time eddy, represented by an anachronistic sofa. The two end up at Lord's Cricket Ground two days before the Earth's destruction by the Vogons. Shortly after they arrive, a squad of robots land in a spaceship in the middle of the field and attack the assembled crowd, stealing The Ashes before departing. Another spaceship, the Starship Bistromath, arrives, helmed by Slartibartfast, who discovers he is too late and requests Arthur and Ford's help. As they travel to their next destination, Slartibartfast explains that he is trying to stop the robots from collecting all the components of the Wikkit Gate. Long ago, the peaceful population of the planet of Krikkit, unaware of the rest of the Universe due to a dust cloud that surrounded its solar system, were surprised to find the wreckage of a spacecraft on their planet. Reverse engineering their own vessel, they explored past the dust cloud and saw the rest of the Universe, immediately taking a disliking to it and determining it must go. They built a fleet of ships and robots to attack the rest of the Universe in a brutal onslaught known as the Krikkit Wars, but were eventually defeated. Realising that the Krikkit population would not be satisfied alongside the existence of the rest of the Universe, it was decided to envelop the system in a Slo-Time envelope, allowing Krikkit to survive long after the rest of the universe has ended; the Wikkit Gate was the key to the envelope. However, just before it was activated, one ship, that had been presumably lost, carrying a troop of robots appeared and began to retrieve the pieces of the Gate after they were dispersed about space and time. The three transport to an airborne party that has lasted numerous generations where another Gate component, the Silver Bail, is to be found, but Arthur finds himself separated from the others and ends up at a Cathedral of Hate created by a being called Agrajag. Agrajag reveals that Arthur has killed him countless times before, each time reincarnating into a new form that is soon killed by Arthur, and now plans to kill Arthur in revenge. However, when he realises that Arthur has yet to cause his death at a place called Stavromula Beta, Agrajag discovered he took Arthur out of his relative timeline too soon, and that killing him now would cause a paradox but attempts to kill Arthur anyway. In his insanity, Agrajag brings the Cathedral down around them. Arthur manages to escape unharmed, partially due to learning how to fly after falling and missing the ground while catching sight of a piece of luggage he had lost at a Greek airport years before. After collecting the suitcase, Arthur inadvertently comes across the flying party and rejoins his friends. Inside, they find Trillian, but they are too late to stop the robots from stealing the Bail. Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and Slartibartfast return to the Bistromath and try to head off the robots activating the Wikkit Gate. Meanwhile, the Krikkit robots steal the last piece, the Infinite Improbability Drive core from the spaceship Heart of Gold, capturing Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android at the same time. The Bistromath arrives too late at the gate to stop the robots, and transport to the planet to attempt to negotiate with the Krikkit people. To their surprise, they find that the people seem to lack any desire to continue the war, and are directed to the robot and spaceship facilities in orbit about the planet. With Zaphod and Marvin's help, the group is able to infiltrate the facilities and discover that the true force behind the war has been the supercomputer Hactar (Due to the obvious flaw in the idea that the people of Krikkit are simultaneously smart enough to develop their ultimate weapon- a bomb that could destroy every star in the universe- while also being stupid enough not to realise that this weapon would destroy them too). Previously built to serve a war-faring species, he was tasked to build a supernova-bomb that would link the cores of every sun in the Universe together at the press of a button and cause the end of the Universe. Hactar purposely created a dud version of the weapon instead, causing his creators to pulverise him into dust, which thus became the dust cloud around Krikkit, still able to function but at a much weaker level. Trillian and Arthur speak to Hactar in a virtual space that he creates for them to explain himself. Hactar reveals that he spent eons creating the spaceship that crashed on Krikkit in order to inspire their xenophobia and incite them to go to war, also influencing their thoughts. However, when the Slo-Time envelope was activated, his control on the population waned. As he struggles to remain functional, Hactar apologises to Trillian and Arthur for his actions before they leave for their ship. With the war over, the group collects the core of the Heart of Gold and the Ashes, the only two components of the Wikkit Gate not destroyed by the robots, and returns Zaphod and Marvin to the Heart of Gold. Returning only moments after the robots' attack at the Lord's Cricket Grounds, Arthur attempts to return the Ashes, but is suddenly inspired to bowl one shot at a wicket that is being defended using a cricket ball in his bag. However, in mid-throw, Arthur suddenly realises that the ball he had was created and placed in his bag by Hactar and is actually the working version of the cosmic-supernova-bomb, and that the defender of the wicket is one of the Krikkit robots, ready to detonate the bomb once thrown, all this causing him to trip, miss the ground, and allow him to fly. Arthur is able to throw the ball aside and disable the robot in mid-throw. In the epilogue the characters are taking Arthur to a 'quiet and idyllic planet' when the come across a half-mad journalist. He tells them that he was at a court case and a witness there was given too much of a truth drug and started to tell all truth, which was driving everybody there mad. They go to the courtroom in the hope of learning the question of Life, the Universe and everything is from him. They discover he is finished and he has forgotten it all. In the end Arthur goes to live on the planet Krikkit where he becomes a more skillful flier and learns bird language.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After being stranded on pre-historic Earth after the events in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur Dent is met by his old friend Ford Prefect, who drags him into a space-time eddy, represented by an anachronistic sofa. The two end up at Lord's Cricket Ground two days before the Earth's destruction by the Vogons. Shortly after they arrive, a squad of robots land in a spaceship in the middle of the field and attack the assembled crowd, stealing The Ashes before departing. Another spaceship, the Starship Bistromath, arrives, helmed by Slartibartfast, who discovers he is too late and requests Arthur and Ford's help. As they travel to their next destination, Slartibartfast explains that he is trying to stop the robots from collecting all the components of the Wikkit Gate. Long ago, the peaceful population of the planet of Krikkit, unaware of the rest of the Universe due to a dust cloud that surrounded its solar system, were surprised to find the wreckage of a spacecraft on their planet. Reverse engineering their own vessel, they explored past the dust cloud and saw the rest of the Universe, immediately taking a disliking to it and determining it must go. They built a fleet of ships and robots to attack the rest of the Universe in a brutal onslaught known as the Krikkit Wars, but were eventually defeated. Realising that the Krikkit population would not be satisfied alongside the existence of the rest of the Universe, it was decided to envelop the system in a Slo-Time envelope, allowing Krikkit to survive long after the rest of the universe has ended; the Wikkit Gate was the key to the envelope. However, just before it was activated, one ship, that had been presumably lost, carrying a troop of robots appeared and began to retrieve the pieces of the Gate after they were dispersed about space and time. The three transport to an airborne party that has lasted numerous"
      },
      {
        "text": " the rest of the Universe, it was decided to envelop the system in a Slo-Time envelope, allowing Krikkit to survive long after the rest of the universe has ended; the Wikkit Gate was the key to the envelope. However, just before it was activated, one ship, that had been presumably lost, carrying a troop of robots appeared and began to retrieve the pieces of the Gate after they were dispersed about space and time. The three transport to an airborne party that has lasted numerous generations where another Gate component, the Silver Bail, is to be found, but Arthur finds himself separated from the others and ends up at a Cathedral of Hate created by a being called Agrajag. Agrajag reveals that Arthur has killed him countless times before, each time reincarnating into a new form that is soon killed by Arthur, and now plans to kill Arthur in revenge. However, when he realises that Arthur has yet to cause his death at a place called Stavromula Beta, Agrajag discovered he took Arthur out of his relative timeline too soon, and that killing him now would cause a paradox but attempts to kill Arthur anyway. In his insanity, Agrajag brings the Cathedral down around them. Arthur manages to escape unharmed, partially due to learning how to fly after falling and missing the ground while catching sight of a piece of luggage he had lost at a Greek airport years before. After collecting the suitcase, Arthur inadvertently comes across the flying party and rejoins his friends. Inside, they find Trillian, but they are too late to stop the robots from stealing the Bail. Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and Slartibartfast return to the Bistromath and try to head off the robots activating the Wikkit Gate. Meanwhile, the Krikkit robots steal the last piece, the Infinite Improbability Drive core from the spaceship Heart of Gold, capturing Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin the Paran"
      },
      {
        "text": " flying party and rejoins his friends. Inside, they find Trillian, but they are too late to stop the robots from stealing the Bail. Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and Slartibartfast return to the Bistromath and try to head off the robots activating the Wikkit Gate. Meanwhile, the Krikkit robots steal the last piece, the Infinite Improbability Drive core from the spaceship Heart of Gold, capturing Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android at the same time. The Bistromath arrives too late at the gate to stop the robots, and transport to the planet to attempt to negotiate with the Krikkit people. To their surprise, they find that the people seem to lack any desire to continue the war, and are directed to the robot and spaceship facilities in orbit about the planet. With Zaphod and Marvin's help, the group is able to infiltrate the facilities and discover that the true force behind the war has been the supercomputer Hactar (Due to the obvious flaw in the idea that the people of Krikkit are simultaneously smart enough to develop their ultimate weapon- a bomb that could destroy every star in the universe- while also being stupid enough not to realise that this weapon would destroy them too). Previously built to serve a war-faring species, he was tasked to build a supernova-bomb that would link the cores of every sun in the Universe together at the press of a button and cause the end of the Universe. Hactar purposely created a dud version of the weapon instead, causing his creators to pulverise him into dust, which thus became the dust cloud around Krikkit, still able to function but at a much weaker level. Trillian and Arthur speak to Hactar in a virtual space that he creates for them to explain himself. Hactar reveals that he spent eons creating the spaceship that crashed on Krikkit in order to inspire their xenophobia"
      },
      {
        "text": " the end of the Universe. Hactar purposely created a dud version of the weapon instead, causing his creators to pulverise him into dust, which thus became the dust cloud around Krikkit, still able to function but at a much weaker level. Trillian and Arthur speak to Hactar in a virtual space that he creates for them to explain himself. Hactar reveals that he spent eons creating the spaceship that crashed on Krikkit in order to inspire their xenophobia and incite them to go to war, also influencing their thoughts. However, when the Slo-Time envelope was activated, his control on the population waned. As he struggles to remain functional, Hactar apologises to Trillian and Arthur for his actions before they leave for their ship. With the war over, the group collects the core of the Heart of Gold and the Ashes, the only two components of the Wikkit Gate not destroyed by the robots, and returns Zaphod and Marvin to the Heart of Gold. Returning only moments after the robots' attack at the Lord's Cricket Grounds, Arthur attempts to return the Ashes, but is suddenly inspired to bowl one shot at a wicket that is being defended using a cricket ball in his bag. However, in mid-throw, Arthur suddenly realises that the ball he had was created and placed in his bag by Hactar and is actually the working version of the cosmic-supernova-bomb, and that the defender of the wicket is one of the Krikkit robots, ready to detonate the bomb once thrown, all this causing him to trip, miss the ground, and allow him to fly. Arthur is able to throw the ball aside and disable the robot in mid-throw. In the epilogue the characters are taking Arthur to a 'quiet and idyllic planet' when the come across a half-mad journalist. He tells them that he was at a court case and a witness there was given"
      },
      {
        "text": " wicket is one of the Krikkit robots, ready to detonate the bomb once thrown, all this causing him to trip, miss the ground, and allow him to fly. Arthur is able to throw the ball aside and disable the robot in mid-throw. In the epilogue the characters are taking Arthur to a 'quiet and idyllic planet' when the come across a half-mad journalist. He tells them that he was at a court case and a witness there was given too much of a truth drug and started to tell all truth, which was driving everybody there mad. They go to the courtroom in the hope of learning the question of Life, the Universe and everything is from him. They discover he is finished and he has forgotten it all. In the end Arthur goes to live on the planet Krikkit where he becomes a more skillful flier and learns bird language.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson",
    "author": "G. I. Gurdjieff",
    "published_date": "1950",
    "synopsis": " Gurdjieff said that he had answered every question that could possibly arise in a person's mind In his introduction to the book Gurdjieff states the following: ::Friendly Advice ::[Written impromptu by the author on delivering this book, already prepared for publication, to the printer.] ::ACCORDING TO the numerous deductions and conclusions made by me during experimental elucidations concerning the productivity of the perception by contemporary people of new impressions from what is heard and read, and also according to the thought of one of the sayings of popular wisdom I have just remembered, handed down to our days from very ancient times, which declares: \u201cAny prayer may be heard by the Higher Powers and a corresponding answer obtained only if it is uttered thrice: ::Firstly\u2014for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one\u2019s parents. ::Secondly\u2014for the welfare of one\u2019s neighbor. ::And only thirdly\u2014for oneself personally.\u201d ::I find it necessary on the first page of this book, quite ready for publication, to give the following advice: ::\u201cRead each of my written expositions thrice: ::* Firstly: at least as you have already become mechanized to read all your contemporary books and newspapers. ::* Secondly: as if you were reading aloud to another person. ::* And only thirdly: try and fathom the gist of my writings. ::Only then will you be able to count upon forming your own impartial judgment, proper to yourself alone, on my writings. And only then can my hope be actualized that according to your understanding you will obtain the specific benefit for yourself which I anticipate, and which I wish for you with all my being.\u201d Ever since it was written, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson has been intended not to be intensely studied alone, but to have various pieces of understanding conveyed to the reader through oral tradition to enable a much greater degree of understanding as to what is being written about. Beelzebub is the protagonist of the book, who ruminates his past experiences in a solar system called \"Ors\" (our solar system) where he had been banished for rebelling against His Endlessness. He spent his exile in observation of the solar system, and of Earth and humans in particular. He visited Earth six times and observed it from just after its creation until 1922. Because of his help in the eradication of animal sacrifice on Earth, Beelzebub was pardoned from his sentence. Beelzebub tells the tales to his grandson Hassein while they are traveling together on the spaceship Karnak for his conference on another planet, shortly after his return from the exile. He took Hassein with him so he could use his free time during this journey for the purpose of giving a proper education to his grandson. Hassein listens to his grandfather's stories patiently, and with admiration. Ahoon is a devoted old servant of Beelzebub who accompanies him and Hassein throughout the space journey. The name Beelzebub is a derogatory Hebrew renaming of the pre-Judaic Canaanite god Baal, meaning literally \"Lord House-fly\" (Baal-zevuv) (monotheistic Jewish reference to Baal was almost certainly pejorative, and grew to be used among other terms for Satan. The name later appears as the name of a demon or devil, often interchanged with Beelzebul), while the name Hassein has the same linguistic root with Husayn ()). Sigmund Freud theorized Judaism and Christianity as expressing a relationship between father (Judaism) and son (Christianity). In this light, Gurdjieff's choice of grandfather and grandson suggests a pre-Judaic and post-Christian relationship. The spaceship Karnak derives its name from a famous temple in Egypt, located on the banks of the River Nile. When humans are liberated enough to ascend through the ancient knowledge, they could travel through the universe, hence the temple's name for the spaceship. Another possible allegory about the three main characters in this book is that they might represent Gurdjieff's representation of the three human brains, or centers. 1) Beelzebub - Intellectual center 2) Hassein - Emotional center 3) Ahoon - Moving Center. Also, \"Karnak\" could be translated from Armenian to English as \"dead body\", and thus, this analogy shows how the mind educates the emotions. Mullah Nassreddin is an impartial teacher who had a wise saying for every life situation. Lentrohamsanin is a being who destroyed all of the traces of the Holy labors and teachings of Ashiata Shiemash. Gornahoor Harharkh is a scientist on the planet Saturn who specializes in elucidating the particularities of Okidanokh, as well as he was Beelzebub's essence friend. Archangel Looisos is the Arch-Chemist-Physician of the Universe who invented the special organ Kundabuffer, which was implanted at the base of the human spine in order that they should not perceive reality. The original word Kundabuffer was at some period in history transformed into the word Kundalini. Looisos approached Beelzebub for the problem of the widespread practice of animal sacrifice on Earth, the quantity of which was endangering the formation of an atmosphere on the moon. Belcultassi is the founder of the society Akhaldan which was, and still is, unmatched in terms of knowledge on Earth. King Konuzion is the one who invented \"Hell\" and \"Paradise\" as a means of making people stop chewing opium. Choon-Kil-Tez and Choon-Tro-Pel are Chinese twin brothers who rediscovered the law of sevenfoldness, and invented an apparatus called \"Alla-Attapan\". Hadji-Astvatz-Troov is a Bokharian Dervish who is well familiarized with all of the laws of vibrations and their effects. Ashiata Shiemash, Saint Budda, Saint Lama, Saint Jesus Christ, Saint Moses, Saint Mohammed, Saint Kirminasha, Saint Krishnatkharna Leonardo da Vinci, Pythagoras, Alexander of Macedonia, Menitkel, Darwin, Ignatius, Mesmer, Mendelejeff, Various Angels, Various Archangels, and many others. Throughout the book, Gurdjieff gave certain meaning to many of his original words such as Triamazikamno - law of three, Heptaparaparshinokh - law of sevenfoldness, Solioonensius - certain cosmic law, and so on. Whether Gurdjieff invented these words, or applied certain concepts to them is unclear. Many of these words have roots in modern languages, while others have roots in ancient languages. Another possibility is noted in Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am', where Gurdjieff wrote that he accidentally learned of the word Solioonensius from a Dervish. Gurdjieff applied these words to minor concepts, as well as some major ones. One of the major concepts is where Gurdjieff applies the word Hasnamuss to certain types of people. According to Beelzebub's Tales, Hasnamuss is a being who acquires \"something\" which creates certain harmful factors for himself, as well as for those around him. According to Gurdjieff this applies to \"average people\" as well as to those who are on \"higher levels\". This \"something\" is formed in beings as a result of the following manifestations: 1) Every kind of depravity, conscious as well as unconscious 2) The feeling of self-satisfaction from leading others astray 3) The irresistible inclination to destroy the existence of other breathing creatures 4) The urge to become free from the necessity of actualizing the being-efforts demanded by nature 5) The attempt by every kind to artificially conceal from others what in their opinion are one's physical defects 6) The calm self-contentment in the use of what is not personally deserved 7) The striving to be not what one is\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Gurdjieff said that he had answered every question that could possibly arise in a person's mind In his introduction to the book Gurdjieff states the following: ::Friendly Advice ::[Written impromptu by the author on delivering this book, already prepared for publication, to the printer.] ::ACCORDING TO the numerous deductions and conclusions made by me during experimental elucidations concerning the productivity of the perception by contemporary people of new impressions from what is heard and read, and also according to the thought of one of the sayings of popular wisdom I have just remembered, handed down to our days from very ancient times, which declares: \u201cAny prayer may be heard by the Higher Powers and a corresponding answer obtained only if it is uttered thrice: ::Firstly\u2014for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one\u2019s parents. ::Secondly\u2014for the welfare of one\u2019s neighbor. ::And only thirdly\u2014for oneself personally.\u201d ::I find it necessary on the first page of this book, quite ready for publication, to give the following advice: ::\u201cRead each of my written expositions thrice: ::* Firstly: at least as you have already become mechanized to read all your contemporary books and newspapers. ::* Secondly: as if you were reading aloud to another person. ::* And only thirdly: try and fathom the gist of my writings. ::Only then will you be able to count upon forming your own impartial judgment, proper to yourself alone, on my writings. And only then can my hope be actualized that according to your understanding you will obtain the specific benefit for yourself which I anticipate, and which I wish for you with all my being.\u201d Ever since it was written, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson has been intended not to be intensely studied alone, but to have various pieces of understanding conveyed to the reader through oral tradition to enable a much greater"
      },
      {
        "text": " upon forming your own impartial judgment, proper to yourself alone, on my writings. And only then can my hope be actualized that according to your understanding you will obtain the specific benefit for yourself which I anticipate, and which I wish for you with all my being.\u201d Ever since it was written, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson has been intended not to be intensely studied alone, but to have various pieces of understanding conveyed to the reader through oral tradition to enable a much greater degree of understanding as to what is being written about. Beelzebub is the protagonist of the book, who ruminates his past experiences in a solar system called \"Ors\" (our solar system) where he had been banished for rebelling against His Endlessness. He spent his exile in observation of the solar system, and of Earth and humans in particular. He visited Earth six times and observed it from just after its creation until 1922. Because of his help in the eradication of animal sacrifice on Earth, Beelzebub was pardoned from his sentence. Beelzebub tells the tales to his grandson Hassein while they are traveling together on the spaceship Karnak for his conference on another planet, shortly after his return from the exile. He took Hassein with him so he could use his free time during this journey for the purpose of giving a proper education to his grandson. Hassein listens to his grandfather's stories patiently, and with admiration. Ahoon is a devoted old servant of Beelzebub who accompanies him and Hassein throughout the space journey. The name Beelzebub is a derogatory Hebrew renaming of the pre-Judaic Canaanite god Baal, meaning literally \"Lord House-fly\" (Baal-zevuv) (monotheistic Jewish reference to Baal was almost certainly pejorative, and grew to be used among other terms for Satan. The name later appears as the name of a demon or devil, often interchanged"
      },
      {
        "text": " old servant of Beelzebub who accompanies him and Hassein throughout the space journey. The name Beelzebub is a derogatory Hebrew renaming of the pre-Judaic Canaanite god Baal, meaning literally \"Lord House-fly\" (Baal-zevuv) (monotheistic Jewish reference to Baal was almost certainly pejorative, and grew to be used among other terms for Satan. The name later appears as the name of a demon or devil, often interchanged with Beelzebul), while the name Hassein has the same linguistic root with Husayn ()). Sigmund Freud theorized Judaism and Christianity as expressing a relationship between father (Judaism) and son (Christianity). In this light, Gurdjieff's choice of grandfather and grandson suggests a pre-Judaic and post-Christian relationship. The spaceship Karnak derives its name from a famous temple in Egypt, located on the banks of the River Nile. When humans are liberated enough to ascend through the ancient knowledge, they could travel through the universe, hence the temple's name for the spaceship. Another possible allegory about the three main characters in this book is that they might represent Gurdjieff's representation of the three human brains, or centers. 1) Beelzebub - Intellectual center 2) Hassein - Emotional center 3) Ahoon - Moving Center. Also, \"Karnak\" could be translated from Armenian to English as \"dead body\", and thus, this analogy shows how the mind educates the emotions. Mullah Nassreddin is an impartial teacher who had a wise saying for every life situation. Lentrohamsanin is a being who destroyed all of the traces of the Holy labors and teachings of Ashiata Shiemash. Gornahoor Harharkh is a scientist on the planet Saturn who specializes in elucidating the particularities of Okidanokh, as well as he was"
      },
      {
        "text": "dead body\", and thus, this analogy shows how the mind educates the emotions. Mullah Nassreddin is an impartial teacher who had a wise saying for every life situation. Lentrohamsanin is a being who destroyed all of the traces of the Holy labors and teachings of Ashiata Shiemash. Gornahoor Harharkh is a scientist on the planet Saturn who specializes in elucidating the particularities of Okidanokh, as well as he was Beelzebub's essence friend. Archangel Looisos is the Arch-Chemist-Physician of the Universe who invented the special organ Kundabuffer, which was implanted at the base of the human spine in order that they should not perceive reality. The original word Kundabuffer was at some period in history transformed into the word Kundalini. Looisos approached Beelzebub for the problem of the widespread practice of animal sacrifice on Earth, the quantity of which was endangering the formation of an atmosphere on the moon. Belcultassi is the founder of the society Akhaldan which was, and still is, unmatched in terms of knowledge on Earth. King Konuzion is the one who invented \"Hell\" and \"Paradise\" as a means of making people stop chewing opium. Choon-Kil-Tez and Choon-Tro-Pel are Chinese twin brothers who rediscovered the law of sevenfoldness, and invented an apparatus called \"Alla-Attapan\". Hadji-Astvatz-Troov is a Bokharian Dervish who is well familiarized with all of the laws of vibrations and their effects. Ashiata Shiemash, Saint Budda, Saint Lama, Saint Jesus Christ, Saint Moses, Saint Mohammed, Saint Kirminasha, Saint Krishnatkharna Leonardo da Vinci, Pythagoras, Alexander of Macedonia, Menitkel, Darwin, Ignatius, Mes"
      },
      {
        "text": " apparatus called \"Alla-Attapan\". Hadji-Astvatz-Troov is a Bokharian Dervish who is well familiarized with all of the laws of vibrations and their effects. Ashiata Shiemash, Saint Budda, Saint Lama, Saint Jesus Christ, Saint Moses, Saint Mohammed, Saint Kirminasha, Saint Krishnatkharna Leonardo da Vinci, Pythagoras, Alexander of Macedonia, Menitkel, Darwin, Ignatius, Mesmer, Mendelejeff, Various Angels, Various Archangels, and many others. Throughout the book, Gurdjieff gave certain meaning to many of his original words such as Triamazikamno - law of three, Heptaparaparshinokh - law of sevenfoldness, Solioonensius - certain cosmic law, and so on. Whether Gurdjieff invented these words, or applied certain concepts to them is unclear. Many of these words have roots in modern languages, while others have roots in ancient languages. Another possibility is noted in Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am', where Gurdjieff wrote that he accidentally learned of the word Solioonensius from a Dervish. Gurdjieff applied these words to minor concepts, as well as some major ones. One of the major concepts is where Gurdjieff applies the word Hasnamuss to certain types of people. According to Beelzebub's Tales, Hasnamuss is a being who acquires \"something\" which creates certain harmful factors for himself, as well as for those around him. According to Gurdjieff this applies to \"average people\" as well as to those who are on \"higher levels\". This \"something\" is formed in beings as a result of the following manifestations: 1) Every kind of depravity, conscious as well as unconscious 2) The feeling of self-s"
      },
      {
        "text": " According to Beelzebub's Tales, Hasnamuss is a being who acquires \"something\" which creates certain harmful factors for himself, as well as for those around him. According to Gurdjieff this applies to \"average people\" as well as to those who are on \"higher levels\". This \"something\" is formed in beings as a result of the following manifestations: 1) Every kind of depravity, conscious as well as unconscious 2) The feeling of self-satisfaction from leading others astray 3) The irresistible inclination to destroy the existence of other breathing creatures 4) The urge to become free from the necessity of actualizing the being-efforts demanded by nature 5) The attempt by every kind to artificially conceal from others what in their opinion are one's physical defects 6) The calm self-contentment in the use of what is not personally deserved 7) The striving to be not what one is\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer",
    "author": "Mark Twain",
    "published_date": "1876",
    "synopsis": " In the 1840s an imaginative and mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid, in the Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg, Missouri. After playing hooky from school on Friday and dirtying his clothes in a fight, Tom is made to whitewash the fence as punishment all of the next day. At first, Tom is disheartened by having to forfeit his day off. However, he soon cleverly persuades his friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing his work. He trades the treasures he got by tricking his friends into whitewashing the fence for tickets given out in Sunday school for memorizing Bible verses, which can be used to claim a Bible as a prize. He received enough tickets to be given the Bible. However, he loses much of his glory when, in response to a question to show off his knowledge, he incorrectly answers that the first disciples were David and Goliath. Tom falls in love with Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get \"engaged\" by kissing him. Becky kisses Tom, but their romance collapses when she learns that Tom has been \"engaged\" previously;\u2014 to a girl named Amy Lawrence. Shortly after being shunned by Becky, Tom accompanies Huckleberry Finn, the son of the town drunk, to the graveyard at night to try out a \"cure\" for warts with a dead cat. At the graveyard, they witness the murder of young Dr. Robinson by the Native-American \"half-breed\" Injun Joe. Scared, Tom and Huck run away and swear a blood oath not to tell anyone what they have seen. Injun Joe frames his companion, Muff Potter, a helpless drunk, for the crime. Potter is wrongfully arrested, and Tom's anxiety and guilt begin to grow. Tom, Huck and Tom's friend Joe Harper run away to an island to become pirates. While frolicking around and enjoying their new found freedom, the boys become aware that the community is sounding the river for their bodies. Tom sneaks back home one night to observe the commotion. After a brief moment of remorse at the suffering of his loved ones, Tom is struck by the idea of appearing at his funeral and surprising everyone. He persuades Joe and Huck to do the same. Their return is met with great rejoicing, and they become the envy and admiration of all their friends. Back in school, Tom gets himself back in Becky's favor after he nobly accepts the blame for a book that she has ripped. Soon, Muff Potter's trial begins, and Tom, overcome by guilt, testifies against Injun Joe. Potter is acquitted, but Injun Joe flees the courtroom through a window. Summer arrives, and Tom and Huck go hunting for buried treasure in a haunted house. After venturing upstairs they hear a noise below. Peering through holes in the floor, they see Injun Joe enter the house disguised as a deaf and mute Spaniard. He and his companion, an unkempt man, plan to bury some stolen treasure of their own. From their hiding spot, Tom and Huck wriggle with delight at the prospect of digging it up. By an amazing coincidence, Injun Joe and his partner find a buried box of gold themselves. When they see Tom and Huck's tool, they become suspicious that someone is sharing their hiding place and carry the gold off instead of reburying it. Huck begins to shadow Injun Joe every night, watching for an opportunity to nab the gold. Meanwhile, Tom goes on a picnic to McDougal's Cave with Becky and their classmates. That same night, Huck sees Injun Joe and his partner making off with a box. He follows and overhears their plans to attack the Widow Douglas, a kind resident of St. Petersburg. By running to fetch help, Huck forestalls the violence and becomes an anonymous hero. Tom and Becky get lost in the cave, and their absence is not discovered until the following morning. The men of the town begin to search for them, but to no avail. Tom and Becky run out of food and candles and begin to weaken. The horror of the situation increases when Tom, looking for a way out of the cave, happens upon Injun Joe, who is using the cave as a hideout. Eventually, just as the searchers are giving up, Tom finds a way out. The town celebrates, and Becky's father, Judge Thatcher, locks up the cave. Injun Joe, trapped inside, starves to death. A week later, Tom takes Huck to the cave and they find the box of gold, the proceeds of which are invested for them. The Widow Douglas adopts Huck, and, when Huck attempts to escape civilized life, Tom promises him that if he returns to the widow, he can join Tom's robber band. Reluctantly, Huck agrees. The book leaves off where The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the 1840s an imaginative and mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid, in the Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg, Missouri. After playing hooky from school on Friday and dirtying his clothes in a fight, Tom is made to whitewash the fence as punishment all of the next day. At first, Tom is disheartened by having to forfeit his day off. However, he soon cleverly persuades his friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing his work. He trades the treasures he got by tricking his friends into whitewashing the fence for tickets given out in Sunday school for memorizing Bible verses, which can be used to claim a Bible as a prize. He received enough tickets to be given the Bible. However, he loses much of his glory when, in response to a question to show off his knowledge, he incorrectly answers that the first disciples were David and Goliath. Tom falls in love with Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get \"engaged\" by kissing him. Becky kisses Tom, but their romance collapses when she learns that Tom has been \"engaged\" previously;\u2014 to a girl named Amy Lawrence. Shortly after being shunned by Becky, Tom accompanies Huckleberry Finn, the son of the town drunk, to the graveyard at night to try out a \"cure\" for warts with a dead cat. At the graveyard, they witness the murder of young Dr. Robinson by the Native-American \"half-breed\" Injun Joe. Scared, Tom and Huck run away and swear a blood oath not to tell anyone what they have seen. Injun Joe frames his companion, Muff Potter, a helpless drunk, for the crime. Potter is wrongfully arrested, and Tom's anxiety and guilt begin to grow. Tom, Huck and Tom's friend Joe Harper run away to an island to become pirates"
      },
      {
        "text": " graveyard, they witness the murder of young Dr. Robinson by the Native-American \"half-breed\" Injun Joe. Scared, Tom and Huck run away and swear a blood oath not to tell anyone what they have seen. Injun Joe frames his companion, Muff Potter, a helpless drunk, for the crime. Potter is wrongfully arrested, and Tom's anxiety and guilt begin to grow. Tom, Huck and Tom's friend Joe Harper run away to an island to become pirates. While frolicking around and enjoying their new found freedom, the boys become aware that the community is sounding the river for their bodies. Tom sneaks back home one night to observe the commotion. After a brief moment of remorse at the suffering of his loved ones, Tom is struck by the idea of appearing at his funeral and surprising everyone. He persuades Joe and Huck to do the same. Their return is met with great rejoicing, and they become the envy and admiration of all their friends. Back in school, Tom gets himself back in Becky's favor after he nobly accepts the blame for a book that she has ripped. Soon, Muff Potter's trial begins, and Tom, overcome by guilt, testifies against Injun Joe. Potter is acquitted, but Injun Joe flees the courtroom through a window. Summer arrives, and Tom and Huck go hunting for buried treasure in a haunted house. After venturing upstairs they hear a noise below. Peering through holes in the floor, they see Injun Joe enter the house disguised as a deaf and mute Spaniard. He and his companion, an unkempt man, plan to bury some stolen treasure of their own. From their hiding spot, Tom and Huck wriggle with delight at the prospect of digging it up. By an amazing coincidence, Injun Joe and his partner find a buried box of gold themselves. When they see Tom and Huck's tool, they become suspicious that someone is sharing their hiding place"
      },
      {
        "text": " the floor, they see Injun Joe enter the house disguised as a deaf and mute Spaniard. He and his companion, an unkempt man, plan to bury some stolen treasure of their own. From their hiding spot, Tom and Huck wriggle with delight at the prospect of digging it up. By an amazing coincidence, Injun Joe and his partner find a buried box of gold themselves. When they see Tom and Huck's tool, they become suspicious that someone is sharing their hiding place and carry the gold off instead of reburying it. Huck begins to shadow Injun Joe every night, watching for an opportunity to nab the gold. Meanwhile, Tom goes on a picnic to McDougal's Cave with Becky and their classmates. That same night, Huck sees Injun Joe and his partner making off with a box. He follows and overhears their plans to attack the Widow Douglas, a kind resident of St. Petersburg. By running to fetch help, Huck forestalls the violence and becomes an anonymous hero. Tom and Becky get lost in the cave, and their absence is not discovered until the following morning. The men of the town begin to search for them, but to no avail. Tom and Becky run out of food and candles and begin to weaken. The horror of the situation increases when Tom, looking for a way out of the cave, happens upon Injun Joe, who is using the cave as a hideout. Eventually, just as the searchers are giving up, Tom finds a way out. The town celebrates, and Becky's father, Judge Thatcher, locks up the cave. Injun Joe, trapped inside, starves to death. A week later, Tom takes Huck to the cave and they find the box of gold, the proceeds of which are invested for them. The Widow Douglas adopts Huck, and, when Huck attempts to escape civilized life, Tom promises him that if he returns to the widow, he can join Tom's robber band. Rel"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Tom finds a way out. The town celebrates, and Becky's father, Judge Thatcher, locks up the cave. Injun Joe, trapped inside, starves to death. A week later, Tom takes Huck to the cave and they find the box of gold, the proceeds of which are invested for them. The Widow Douglas adopts Huck, and, when Huck attempts to escape civilized life, Tom promises him that if he returns to the widow, he can join Tom's robber band. Reluctantly, Huck agrees. The book leaves off where The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Emperor's New Clothes",
    "author": "Hans Christian Andersen",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " A vain Emperor who cares for nothing hires two swindlers who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or \"hopelessly stupid\". The Emperor cannot see the clothing himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor marches in procession before his subjects, who play along with the pretense, until a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but continues the procession.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A vain Emperor who cares for nothing hires two swindlers who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or \"hopelessly stupid\". The Emperor cannot see the clothing himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor marches in procession before his subjects, who play along with the pretense, until a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but continues the procession.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Library of Babel",
    "author": "Jorge Luis Borges",
    "published_date": "1941",
    "synopsis": " Borges's narrator describes how his universe consists of an enormous expanse of interlocking hexagonal rooms, each of which contains the bare necessities for human survival—and four walls of bookshelves. Though the order and content of the books is random and apparently completely meaningless, the inhabitants believe that the books contain every possible ordering of just a few basic characters (23 letters, spaces and punctuation marks). Though the majority of the books in this universe are pure gibberish, the library also must contain, somewhere, every coherent book ever written, or that might ever be written, and every possible permutation or slightly erroneous version of every one of those books. The narrator notes that the library must contain all useful information, including predictions of the future, biographies of any person, and translations of every book in all languages. Conversely, for many of the texts some language could be devised that would make it readable with any of a vast number of different contents. Despite — indeed, because of — this glut of information, all books are totally useless to the reader, leaving the librarians in a state of suicidal despair. This leads some librarians to superstitions and cult-like behaviour, such as the \"Purifiers\", who arbitrarily destroy books they deem nonsense as they scour through the library seeking the \"Crimson Hexagon\" and its illustrated, magical books. Another is the belief that since all books exist in the library, somewhere one of the books must be a perfect index of the library's contents; some even believe that a messianic figure known as the \"Man of the Book\" has read it, and they travel through the library seeking him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Borges's narrator describes how his universe consists of an enormous expanse of interlocking hexagonal rooms, each of which contains the bare necessities for human survival—and four walls of bookshelves. Though the order and content of the books is random and apparently completely meaningless, the inhabitants believe that the books contain every possible ordering of just a few basic characters (23 letters, spaces and punctuation marks). Though the majority of the books in this universe are pure gibberish, the library also must contain, somewhere, every coherent book ever written, or that might ever be written, and every possible permutation or slightly erroneous version of every one of those books. The narrator notes that the library must contain all useful information, including predictions of the future, biographies of any person, and translations of every book in all languages. Conversely, for many of the texts some language could be devised that would make it readable with any of a vast number of different contents. Despite — indeed, because of — this glut of information, all books are totally useless to the reader, leaving the librarians in a state of suicidal despair. This leads some librarians to superstitions and cult-like behaviour, such as the \"Purifiers\", who arbitrarily destroy books they deem nonsense as they scour through the library seeking the \"Crimson Hexagon\" and its illustrated, magical books. Another is the belief that since all books exist in the library, somewhere one of the books must be a perfect index of the library's contents; some even believe that a messianic figure known as the \"Man of the Book\" has read it, and they travel through the library seeking him.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " somewhere one of the books must be a perfect index of the library's contents; some even believe that a messianic figure known as the \"Man of the Book\" has read it, and they travel through the library seeking him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Pebble in the Sky",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1950",
    "synopsis": " While walking down the street in Chicago, Joseph Schwartz, a retired tailor, is the unwitting victim of a nearby nuclear laboratory accident, by means of which he is instantaneously transported tens of thousands of years into the future (50,000 years, by one character's estimate, a figure later retconned by future Asimov works as a \"mistake\"). He finds himself in a place he does not recognize, and due to apparent changes in the spoken language that far into the future, he is unable to communicate with anyone. He wanders into a farm, and is taken in by the couple that lives there. They mistake him for a mentally deficient person, and they secretly offer him as a subject for an experimental procedure to increase his mental abilities. The procedure, which has killed several subjects, works in his case, and he finds that he can quickly learn to speak the current lingua franca. He also slowly realizes that the procedure has given him strong telepathic abilities, including the ability to project his thoughts to the point of killing or injuring a person. The Earth, at this time, is seen by the rest of the Galactic Empire as a rebellious planet — it has, in fact, rebelled three times in the past — and the inhabitants are widely frowned upon and discriminated against. Earth also has several large radioactive areas, although the cause is never really described. With large uninhabitable areas, it is a very poor planet, and anyone who is unable to work is legally required to be euthanized. The people of the Earth must also be executed when they reach the age of sixty, a procedure known as \"The Sixty,\" with very few exceptions; mainly for people who have made significant contributions to society. That is a problem for Schwartz, who is now sixty-two years old. The Earth is part of the Trantorian Galactic Empire, with a resident Procurator, who lives in a domed town in the high Himalayas and a Galactic military garrison, but in practice it is ruled by a group of Earth-centered \"religious fanatics\" who believe in the ultimate superiority of Earthlings. They have created a new, deadly supervirus that they plan to use to kill or subjugate the rest of the Empire, and to avenge themselves for the way their planet has been treated by the galaxy at large. Among other things, this virus has the ability to kill by radiation poisoning. Joseph Schwartz, along with Affret Shekt, the scientist who developed the new device that boosted Schwartz's mental powers, his daughter Pola Shekt, and a visiting archaeologist Bel Arvardan, are captured by the rebels, but they escape with the help of Schwartz's new mental abilities, and they are narrowly able to stop the plan to release the virus. Schwartz uses his mental abilities to provoke a pilot from the Imperial garrison into bombing the site where the arsenal of the super-virus exists. The book ends on a hopeful note — perhaps the Empire can be persuaded to restore the Earth, and to bring in huge amounts of uncontaminated soil.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " While walking down the street in Chicago, Joseph Schwartz, a retired tailor, is the unwitting victim of a nearby nuclear laboratory accident, by means of which he is instantaneously transported tens of thousands of years into the future (50,000 years, by one character's estimate, a figure later retconned by future Asimov works as a \"mistake\"). He finds himself in a place he does not recognize, and due to apparent changes in the spoken language that far into the future, he is unable to communicate with anyone. He wanders into a farm, and is taken in by the couple that lives there. They mistake him for a mentally deficient person, and they secretly offer him as a subject for an experimental procedure to increase his mental abilities. The procedure, which has killed several subjects, works in his case, and he finds that he can quickly learn to speak the current lingua franca. He also slowly realizes that the procedure has given him strong telepathic abilities, including the ability to project his thoughts to the point of killing or injuring a person. The Earth, at this time, is seen by the rest of the Galactic Empire as a rebellious planet — it has, in fact, rebelled three times in the past — and the inhabitants are widely frowned upon and discriminated against. Earth also has several large radioactive areas, although the cause is never really described. With large uninhabitable areas, it is a very poor planet, and anyone who is unable to work is legally required to be euthanized. The people of the Earth must also be executed when they reach the age of sixty, a procedure known as \"The Sixty,\" with very few exceptions; mainly for people who have made significant contributions to society. That is a problem for Schwartz, who is now sixty-two years old. The Earth is part of the Trantorian Galactic Empire, with a resident Procurator, who lives in a domed town in the high Himal"
      },
      {
        "text": " unable to work is legally required to be euthanized. The people of the Earth must also be executed when they reach the age of sixty, a procedure known as \"The Sixty,\" with very few exceptions; mainly for people who have made significant contributions to society. That is a problem for Schwartz, who is now sixty-two years old. The Earth is part of the Trantorian Galactic Empire, with a resident Procurator, who lives in a domed town in the high Himalayas and a Galactic military garrison, but in practice it is ruled by a group of Earth-centered \"religious fanatics\" who believe in the ultimate superiority of Earthlings. They have created a new, deadly supervirus that they plan to use to kill or subjugate the rest of the Empire, and to avenge themselves for the way their planet has been treated by the galaxy at large. Among other things, this virus has the ability to kill by radiation poisoning. Joseph Schwartz, along with Affret Shekt, the scientist who developed the new device that boosted Schwartz's mental powers, his daughter Pola Shekt, and a visiting archaeologist Bel Arvardan, are captured by the rebels, but they escape with the help of Schwartz's new mental abilities, and they are narrowly able to stop the plan to release the virus. Schwartz uses his mental abilities to provoke a pilot from the Imperial garrison into bombing the site where the arsenal of the super-virus exists. The book ends on a hopeful note — perhaps the Empire can be persuaded to restore the Earth, and to bring in huge amounts of uncontaminated soil.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " on a hopeful note — perhaps the Empire can be persuaded to restore the Earth, and to bring in huge amounts of uncontaminated soil.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp",
    "author": "Harriet Beecher Stowe",
    "published_date": "1856",
    "synopsis": " Dred is the story of Nina Gordon, an impetuous young heiress to a large southern plantation, whose land is rapidly becoming worthless. It is run competently by one of Nina's slaves, Harry, who endures a murderous rivalry with Nina's brother Tom Gordon, a drunken, cruel slaveowner. Nina is a flighty young girl, and maintains several suitors, before finally settling down with a man named Clayton. Clayton is socially and religiously liberal, and very idealistic, and has a down-to-earth perpetual-virgin sister, Anne. In addition to Harry (who, as well as being the administrator of Nina's estate, is secretly also her and Tom's half-brother), the slave characters include the devoutly Christian Milly (actually the property of Nina's Aunt Nesbit), and Tomtit, a joker-type character. There is also a family of poor whites, who have but a single, devoted slave, Old Tiff. Dred, the titular character, is one of the Great Dismal Swamp maroons, escaped slaves living in the Great Dismal Swamp, preaching angry and violent retribution for the evils of slavery and rescuing escapees from the dog of the slavecatchers.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Dred is the story of Nina Gordon, an impetuous young heiress to a large southern plantation, whose land is rapidly becoming worthless. It is run competently by one of Nina's slaves, Harry, who endures a murderous rivalry with Nina's brother Tom Gordon, a drunken, cruel slaveowner. Nina is a flighty young girl, and maintains several suitors, before finally settling down with a man named Clayton. Clayton is socially and religiously liberal, and very idealistic, and has a down-to-earth perpetual-virgin sister, Anne. In addition to Harry (who, as well as being the administrator of Nina's estate, is secretly also her and Tom's half-brother), the slave characters include the devoutly Christian Milly (actually the property of Nina's Aunt Nesbit), and Tomtit, a joker-type character. There is also a family of poor whites, who have but a single, devoted slave, Old Tiff. Dred, the titular character, is one of the Great Dismal Swamp maroons, escaped slaves living in the Great Dismal Swamp, preaching angry and violent retribution for the evils of slavery and rescuing escapees from the dog of the slavecatchers.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Raintree County",
    "author": "Ross Lockridge, Jr.",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel, set in fictional Raintree County, Indiana, is essentially in two parts; before the Civil War and after. It spans the 19th century history of the United States, from the pre-Civil War westward expansion, to the debate over slavery, to the Civil War, to the Industrial Revolution and the Labor Movement which followed. The book is often surreal, with dream sequences, flashbacks and departures from the linear narrative. It has been described as an effort to mythologize the history of America, which to a great degree it succeeds in doing through the eyes and the commentary of John Shawnessy. For example, a number of turning points in John's life seem to coincide with Fourth of July celebrations. John, or 'Johnny', as he was called before The War, is a lover of literature, and is influenced by three separate cultural icons: the concept of becoming a Hero, in the sense of the legendary figures of ancient Greece; Hawthorne's The Great Stone Face, in which legend predicts that a great man will appear, whose face is identical to the natural stone face which, in the Hawthorne story, is a local landmark; and finally, the quest to find the legendary Raintree, which was supposedly planted somewhere in Raintree County by John Chapman, or Johnny Appleseed. Johnny Shawnessy tends to view the events of his life through the prism of one or more of these contexts, and to draw parallels to these legends, frequently with considerable justification. It is a long novel, around 400,000 words. Most editions run to about 1000 pages. The fictional town of Waycross was based on Straughn, Indiana and the fictional Raintree County was based on Henry County, Indiana.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel, set in fictional Raintree County, Indiana, is essentially in two parts; before the Civil War and after. It spans the 19th century history of the United States, from the pre-Civil War westward expansion, to the debate over slavery, to the Civil War, to the Industrial Revolution and the Labor Movement which followed. The book is often surreal, with dream sequences, flashbacks and departures from the linear narrative. It has been described as an effort to mythologize the history of America, which to a great degree it succeeds in doing through the eyes and the commentary of John Shawnessy. For example, a number of turning points in John's life seem to coincide with Fourth of July celebrations. John, or 'Johnny', as he was called before The War, is a lover of literature, and is influenced by three separate cultural icons: the concept of becoming a Hero, in the sense of the legendary figures of ancient Greece; Hawthorne's The Great Stone Face, in which legend predicts that a great man will appear, whose face is identical to the natural stone face which, in the Hawthorne story, is a local landmark; and finally, the quest to find the legendary Raintree, which was supposedly planted somewhere in Raintree County by John Chapman, or Johnny Appleseed. Johnny Shawnessy tends to view the events of his life through the prism of one or more of these contexts, and to draw parallels to these legends, frequently with considerable justification. It is a long novel, around 400,000 words. Most editions run to about 1000 pages. The fictional town of Waycross was based on Straughn, Indiana and the fictional Raintree County was based on Henry County, Indiana.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " considerable justification. It is a long novel, around 400,000 words. Most editions run to about 1000 pages. The fictional town of Waycross was based on Straughn, Indiana and the fictional Raintree County was based on Henry County, Indiana.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Suddenly, Last Summer",
    "author": "Tennessee Williams",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Catharine Holly, a poor relation of a prominent New Orleans family, seems to be insane after her cousin Sebastian dies under mysterious circumstances on a trip to Europe. Sebastian's mother, Violet Venable, trying to cloud the truth about her son's homosexuality and death, threatens to lobotomize Catharine for her incoherent utterances relating to Sebastian's demise. Under the influence of a truth serum, Catharine tells the gruesome story of Sebastian's death by cannibalism at the hands of locals whose sexual favors he sought, using Catharine as a device to attract the young men (as he had earlier used his mother).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Catharine Holly, a poor relation of a prominent New Orleans family, seems to be insane after her cousin Sebastian dies under mysterious circumstances on a trip to Europe. Sebastian's mother, Violet Venable, trying to cloud the truth about her son's homosexuality and death, threatens to lobotomize Catharine for her incoherent utterances relating to Sebastian's demise. Under the influence of a truth serum, Catharine tells the gruesome story of Sebastian's death by cannibalism at the hands of locals whose sexual favors he sought, using Catharine as a device to attract the young men (as he had earlier used his mother).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall",
    "author": "Anne Bront\u00eb",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel is divided into three volumes. Part One (Chapters 1 to 15): Gilbert Markham narrates how a mysterious widow, Mrs. Helen Graham arrives at Wildfell Hall, a nearby old mansion. A source of curiosity for the small community, the reticent Mrs Graham and her young son Arthur are slowly drawn into the social circles of the village. Initially, Gilbert Markham casually courts Eliza Millward, despite his mother's belief that he can do better. His interest in Eliza wanes as he comes to know Mrs. Graham. In retribution, Eliza spreads (and perhaps creates) scandalous rumours about Helen. With gossip flying, Gilbert is led to believe that his friend, Mr. Lawrence is courting Mrs. Graham. At a chance meeting in a road, a jealous Gilbert strikes (with a whip) the mounted Lawrence, who falls from his horse. Unaware of this, Helen refuses to marry Gilbert, but gives him her diaries when he accuses her of loving Lawrence. Part two (Chapters 16 to 44) is taken from Helen's diaries and describes her marriage to Arthur Huntingdon. The handsome, witty Huntingdon is also spoilt, selfish, and self-indulgent. Before marrying Helen, Arthur Huntingdon flirts with Annabella and uses this to manipulate Helen and convince her to marry him. Helen marries him blinded by love and resolves to reform Arthur with gentle persuasion and good example. Upon the birth of their child, Huntingdon becomes increasingly jealous of their son (also called Arthur) and his claims on Helen's attentions and affections. Huntingdon's pack of dissolute friends frequently engage in drunken revels at the family's home, Grassdale, oppressing those of finer character. Both men and women are portrayed as degraded, with Lady Annabella Lowborough shown to be an unfaithful spouse to her melancholy but devoted husband. Walter Hargrave, the brother of Helen's friend Milicent Hargrave, vies for Helen's affections. While not as wild as his peers, Walter is an unwelcome admirer: Helen senses his predatory nature, something revealed when they play chess. Walter tells Helen of Arthur's affair with Lady Lowborough. When his friends depart, Arthur pines openly for his paramour and derides his wife. Arthur's corruption of their son — encouraging him to drink and swear at his tender age — is the last straw for Helen. She plans to flee to save her son, but her husband learns of her plans from her journal, and burns her artist's tools (by which she had hoped to support herself). Eventually, with help from her brother, Mr. Lawrence, Helen finds a secret refuge at Wildfell Hall. Part Three (Chapters 45 to 53) begins after the reading of the diaries when Helen bids Gilbert to leave her because she is not free to marry. He complies and soon learns that she has returned to Grassdale upon learning that Arthur is gravely ill. Helen's ministrations are in vain. Huntingdon's death is painful, fraught with terror at what awaits him. Helen cannot comfort him, for he rejects responsibility for his actions and wishes instead for her to 'come with him', to plead for his salvation. A year passes. Gilbert pursues a rumour of Helen's impending wedding, only to find that Mr. Lawrence (with whom he has reconciled) is marrying Helen's friend, Esther Hargrave. He goes to Grassdale, and discovers that Helen is now wealthy and lives at her estate in Staningley. He travels there, but is plagued by worries that she is now far above his station. He hesitates at the entry-gate. By chance, he encounters Helen, her aunt, and young Arthur. The two lovers reconcile and marry.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is divided into three volumes. Part One (Chapters 1 to 15): Gilbert Markham narrates how a mysterious widow, Mrs. Helen Graham arrives at Wildfell Hall, a nearby old mansion. A source of curiosity for the small community, the reticent Mrs Graham and her young son Arthur are slowly drawn into the social circles of the village. Initially, Gilbert Markham casually courts Eliza Millward, despite his mother's belief that he can do better. His interest in Eliza wanes as he comes to know Mrs. Graham. In retribution, Eliza spreads (and perhaps creates) scandalous rumours about Helen. With gossip flying, Gilbert is led to believe that his friend, Mr. Lawrence is courting Mrs. Graham. At a chance meeting in a road, a jealous Gilbert strikes (with a whip) the mounted Lawrence, who falls from his horse. Unaware of this, Helen refuses to marry Gilbert, but gives him her diaries when he accuses her of loving Lawrence. Part two (Chapters 16 to 44) is taken from Helen's diaries and describes her marriage to Arthur Huntingdon. The handsome, witty Huntingdon is also spoilt, selfish, and self-indulgent. Before marrying Helen, Arthur Huntingdon flirts with Annabella and uses this to manipulate Helen and convince her to marry him. Helen marries him blinded by love and resolves to reform Arthur with gentle persuasion and good example. Upon the birth of their child, Huntingdon becomes increasingly jealous of their son (also called Arthur) and his claims on Helen's attentions and affections. Huntingdon's pack of dissolute friends frequently engage in drunken revels at the family's home, Grassdale, oppressing those of finer character. Both men and women are portrayed as degraded, with Lady Annabella Lowborough shown to be an unfaithful spouse to her melancholy but devoted husband. Walter Hargrave, the brother of Helen's friend Milicent Hargrave"
      },
      {
        "text": "don becomes increasingly jealous of their son (also called Arthur) and his claims on Helen's attentions and affections. Huntingdon's pack of dissolute friends frequently engage in drunken revels at the family's home, Grassdale, oppressing those of finer character. Both men and women are portrayed as degraded, with Lady Annabella Lowborough shown to be an unfaithful spouse to her melancholy but devoted husband. Walter Hargrave, the brother of Helen's friend Milicent Hargrave, vies for Helen's affections. While not as wild as his peers, Walter is an unwelcome admirer: Helen senses his predatory nature, something revealed when they play chess. Walter tells Helen of Arthur's affair with Lady Lowborough. When his friends depart, Arthur pines openly for his paramour and derides his wife. Arthur's corruption of their son — encouraging him to drink and swear at his tender age — is the last straw for Helen. She plans to flee to save her son, but her husband learns of her plans from her journal, and burns her artist's tools (by which she had hoped to support herself). Eventually, with help from her brother, Mr. Lawrence, Helen finds a secret refuge at Wildfell Hall. Part Three (Chapters 45 to 53) begins after the reading of the diaries when Helen bids Gilbert to leave her because she is not free to marry. He complies and soon learns that she has returned to Grassdale upon learning that Arthur is gravely ill. Helen's ministrations are in vain. Huntingdon's death is painful, fraught with terror at what awaits him. Helen cannot comfort him, for he rejects responsibility for his actions and wishes instead for her to 'come with him', to plead for his salvation. A year passes. Gilbert pursues a rumour of Helen's impending wedding, only to find that Mr. Lawrence (with whom he has reconciled) is marrying Helen's friend"
      },
      {
        "text": " Grassdale upon learning that Arthur is gravely ill. Helen's ministrations are in vain. Huntingdon's death is painful, fraught with terror at what awaits him. Helen cannot comfort him, for he rejects responsibility for his actions and wishes instead for her to 'come with him', to plead for his salvation. A year passes. Gilbert pursues a rumour of Helen's impending wedding, only to find that Mr. Lawrence (with whom he has reconciled) is marrying Helen's friend, Esther Hargrave. He goes to Grassdale, and discovers that Helen is now wealthy and lives at her estate in Staningley. He travels there, but is plagued by worries that she is now far above his station. He hesitates at the entry-gate. By chance, he encounters Helen, her aunt, and young Arthur. The two lovers reconcile and marry.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Canticle for Leibowitz",
    "author": "Walter M. Miller, Jr.",
    "published_date": "1960",
    "synopsis": " A Canticle for Leibowitz opens 600 years after 20th century civilization has been destroyed by a global nuclear war, known as the \"Flame Deluge\". The text reveals that as a result of the war there was a violent backlash against the culture of advanced knowledge and technology that had led to the development of nuclear weapons. During this backlash, called the \"Simplification,\" anyone of learning, and eventually anyone who could even read, was likely to be killed by rampaging mobs, who proudly took on the name of \"Simpletons\". Illiteracy became almost universal, and books were destroyed en masse. Isaac Edward Leibowitz had been a Jewish electrical engineer working for the United States military. Surviving the war, he converted to Roman Catholicism and founded a monastic order, the \"Albertian Order of Leibowitz\", dedicated to preserving knowledge by hiding books, smuggling them to safety (booklegging), memorizing, and copying them. The Order's abbey is located in the American southwestern desert, near the military base where Leibowitz had worked before the war, on an old road that may have been \"a portion of the shortest route from the Great Salt Lake to Old El Paso.\" Leibowitz was eventually betrayed and martyred. Later beatified by the Roman Catholic Church, he became a candidate for sainthood. Centuries after his death, the abbey is still preserving the \"Memorabilia\", the collected writings that have survived the Flame Deluge and the Simplification, in the hope that they will help future generations reclaim forgotten science. The story is structured in three parts titled: \"Fiat Homo\", \"Fiat Lux\", and \"Fiat Voluntas Tua\". The parts are separated by periods of six centuries each. In the 26th century, a 17-year-old novice named Brother Francis Gerard is on a vigil in the desert. While searching for a rock to complete a shelter Brother Francis encounters a Wanderer, apparently looking for the abbey, who inscribes Hebrew on a rock that appears the perfect fit for the shelter. When Brother Francis removes the rock he discovers the entrance to an ancient fallout shelter containing \"relics\", such as handwritten notes on crumbling memo pads bearing cryptic texts resembling a 20th-century shopping list. He soon realizes that these notes appear to have been written by Leibowitz, his order's founder. The discovery of the ancient documents causes an uproar at the monastery, as the other monks speculate that the relics once belonged to Leibowitz. Brother Francis' account of the wanderer, who ultimately never turned up at the abbey, is also greatly embellished by the other monks amid rumours that he was an apparition of Leibowitz himself; Francis strenuously denies the embellishments, but equally persistently refuses to deny that the encounter occurred, despite the lack of other witnesses. Abbot Arkos, the head of the monastery, worries that the discovery of so many potentially holy relics in such a short period may cause delays in Leibowitz's canonization process. Francis is banished back to the desert to complete his vigil and defuse the sensationalism. Many years later the abbey is visited by Monsignors Aguerra (God's Advocate) and Flaught (the Devil's Advocate), the Church's investigators in the case for Leibowitz's sainthood. Leibowitz is eventually canonized as Saint Leibowitz – based partly on the evidence Francis discovered in the shelter – and Brother Francis is sent to New Rome to represent the Order at the canonization Mass. He takes the documents found in the shelter and an illumination of one of the documents on which he has spent years working, a gift to the Pope. On route, he is robbed and his illumination taken. Francis completes the journey to New Rome and is granted an audience with the pope. Francis presents the pope with the remaining documents and the pope comforts Francis by giving him gold with which to ransom back the illumination; however, Francis is murdered during his return trip by \"misborn\" people (the \"Pope's children\"), receiving an arrow in the face. The Wanderer discovers and buries Francis's body. (The book then focuses on the vultures who were denied their meal; they fly over the Great Plains and find much food near the Red River until a city-state, based in Texarkana, rises). In 3174, the Albertian Order of St. Leibowitz is still preserving the half-understood knowledge from before the Flame Deluge and the subsequent Age of Simplification. The new Dark Age is ending, however, and a new Renaissance is beginning. Thon Taddeo Pfardentrott, a highly regarded secular scholar, is sent by his cousin Hannegan, Mayor of Texarkana, to the abbey. Thon Taddeo, frequently compared to Albert Einstein, is interested in the Order's preserved collection of Memorabilia. At the abbey, Brother Kornhoer, a talented engineer, has just finished work on a \"generator of electrical essences\", a treadmill-powered electrical generator that powers an arc lamp. He gives credit for the generator to work done by Thon Taddeo. After arriving at the monastery, Thon Taddeo, by studying the Memorabilia, makes several major \"discoveries\", and asks the abbot to allow the Memorabilia to be removed to Texarkana. The Abbot Dom Paulo refuses, stating he can continue his research at the abbey. Before departing, the Thon comments that it could take decades to finish analyzing the Memorabilia. Meanwhile, Hannegan makes an alliance with the kingdom of Laredo and the neighboring, relatively civilized city-states against the threat of attack from the nomadic warriors. Hannegan, however, is manipulating the regional politics to effectively neutralize all of his enemies, leaving him in control of the entire region. Monsignor Apollo, the papal nuncio to Hannegan's court, sends word to New Rome that Hannegan intends to attack the empire of Denver next, and that he intends to use the abbey as a base of operations from which to conduct the campaign. For his actions, Apollo is executed, and Hannegan initiates a church schism, declaring loyalty to the Pope to be punishable by death. The Church excommunicates Hannegan. It is the year 3781, and mankind has nuclear energy and weapons again, as well as starships and extra-solar colonies. Two world superpowers, the Asian Coalition and the Atlantic Confederacy, have been embroiled in a cold war for 50 years. The Leibowitzan Order's mission of preserving the Memorabilia has expanded to the preservation of all knowledge. Rumors that both sides are assembling nuclear weapons in space and that a nuclear weapon has been detonated increase public and international tensions. At the abbey, the current abbot, Dom Jethras Zerchi, recommends to New Rome that the Church reactivate the Quo Peregrinatur Grex Pastor Secum (\"Whither Wanders the Flock, the Shepherd is with Them\") contingency plans involving \"certain vehicles\" the Church has had since 3756. A \"nuclear incident\" occurs in the Asian Coalition city of Itu Wan: an underground nuclear explosion has destroyed the city, and the Atlantic Confederacy counters by firing a \"warning shot\" over the South Pacific. New Rome tells Zerchi to proceed with Quo Peregrinatur and plan for departure within three days. He appoints Brother Joshua as mission leader, telling him that this is an emergency plan for perpetuating the Church on the colony planets in the event of a nuclear war on Earth. The Order's Memorabilia will also accompany the mission. That night the Atlantic Confederacy launches an assault against Asian Coalition space platforms. The Asian Coalition responds by using a nuclear weapon against the Confederacy capital city of Texarkana. A ten-day cease-fire is issued by the World Court. Brother Joshua and the space-trained monks and priests depart on a secret, chartered flight for New Rome, hoping to leave Earth on the starship before the cease-fire ends. During the cease-fire, the abbey offers shelter to refugees fleeing the regions affected by fallout, which results in a battle of wills over euthanasia between the abbot and a doctor from a government emergency response camp. The war resumes and a nuclear explosion occurs near the abbey. Abbot Zerchi tries to flee to safety, bringing with him the abbey's ciborium containing consecrated hosts, but it is too late. He is trapped by the falling walls of the abbey and finds himself lying under tons of rock and bones as the abbey's ancient crypts disgorge their contents. Among them is a skull with an arrow's shaft protruding from its forehead (presumably that of Brother Francis Gerard from the first section of the book). As he lies dying under the abbey's rubble, Zerchi is startled to encounter Mrs Grales/Rachel, a bicephalous tomato peddler and mutant. However, Mrs. Grales has been rendered unconscious by the explosion, and may be dying herself. As Zerchi tries to conditionally baptize Rachel, she refuses, and instead takes the ciborium and administers the Eucharist to him. It is implied that she is, like the Virgin Mary, exempt from original sin. Zerchi soon dies, having witnessed an apparent miracle. After the Abbot's death, the scene flashes to Joshua and the Quo Peregrinatur crew launching as the nuclear explosions begin. Joshua, the last crew member to board the starship, knocks the dirt from his sandals, murmuring \"Sic transit mundus\" (\"Thus passes the world\"). As a coda, there is a final vignette depicting the ecological aspects of the war: seabirds and fish succumb to the poisonous fallout, and a shark evades death only through moving to particularly deep water, where, it is noted, the shark was \"very hungry that season.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A Canticle for Leibowitz opens 600 years after 20th century civilization has been destroyed by a global nuclear war, known as the \"Flame Deluge\". The text reveals that as a result of the war there was a violent backlash against the culture of advanced knowledge and technology that had led to the development of nuclear weapons. During this backlash, called the \"Simplification,\" anyone of learning, and eventually anyone who could even read, was likely to be killed by rampaging mobs, who proudly took on the name of \"Simpletons\". Illiteracy became almost universal, and books were destroyed en masse. Isaac Edward Leibowitz had been a Jewish electrical engineer working for the United States military. Surviving the war, he converted to Roman Catholicism and founded a monastic order, the \"Albertian Order of Leibowitz\", dedicated to preserving knowledge by hiding books, smuggling them to safety (booklegging), memorizing, and copying them. The Order's abbey is located in the American southwestern desert, near the military base where Leibowitz had worked before the war, on an old road that may have been \"a portion of the shortest route from the Great Salt Lake to Old El Paso.\" Leibowitz was eventually betrayed and martyred. Later beatified by the Roman Catholic Church, he became a candidate for sainthood. Centuries after his death, the abbey is still preserving the \"Memorabilia\", the collected writings that have survived the Flame Deluge and the Simplification, in the hope that they will help future generations reclaim forgotten science. The story is structured in three parts titled: \"Fiat Homo\", \"Fiat Lux\", and \"Fiat Voluntas Tua\". The parts are separated by periods of six centuries each. In the 26th century, a 17-year-old novice named Brother Francis Gerard is on a vigil in the desert. While searching for a rock to complete"
      },
      {
        "text": " have survived the Flame Deluge and the Simplification, in the hope that they will help future generations reclaim forgotten science. The story is structured in three parts titled: \"Fiat Homo\", \"Fiat Lux\", and \"Fiat Voluntas Tua\". The parts are separated by periods of six centuries each. In the 26th century, a 17-year-old novice named Brother Francis Gerard is on a vigil in the desert. While searching for a rock to complete a shelter Brother Francis encounters a Wanderer, apparently looking for the abbey, who inscribes Hebrew on a rock that appears the perfect fit for the shelter. When Brother Francis removes the rock he discovers the entrance to an ancient fallout shelter containing \"relics\", such as handwritten notes on crumbling memo pads bearing cryptic texts resembling a 20th-century shopping list. He soon realizes that these notes appear to have been written by Leibowitz, his order's founder. The discovery of the ancient documents causes an uproar at the monastery, as the other monks speculate that the relics once belonged to Leibowitz. Brother Francis' account of the wanderer, who ultimately never turned up at the abbey, is also greatly embellished by the other monks amid rumours that he was an apparition of Leibowitz himself; Francis strenuously denies the embellishments, but equally persistently refuses to deny that the encounter occurred, despite the lack of other witnesses. Abbot Arkos, the head of the monastery, worries that the discovery of so many potentially holy relics in such a short period may cause delays in Leibowitz's canonization process. Francis is banished back to the desert to complete his vigil and defuse the sensationalism. Many years later the abbey is visited by Monsignors Aguerra (God's Advocate) and Flaught (the Devil's Advocate), the Church's investigators in the case for Leibowitz's sainthood. Leibowitz is eventually canon"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the monastery, worries that the discovery of so many potentially holy relics in such a short period may cause delays in Leibowitz's canonization process. Francis is banished back to the desert to complete his vigil and defuse the sensationalism. Many years later the abbey is visited by Monsignors Aguerra (God's Advocate) and Flaught (the Devil's Advocate), the Church's investigators in the case for Leibowitz's sainthood. Leibowitz is eventually canonized as Saint Leibowitz – based partly on the evidence Francis discovered in the shelter – and Brother Francis is sent to New Rome to represent the Order at the canonization Mass. He takes the documents found in the shelter and an illumination of one of the documents on which he has spent years working, a gift to the Pope. On route, he is robbed and his illumination taken. Francis completes the journey to New Rome and is granted an audience with the pope. Francis presents the pope with the remaining documents and the pope comforts Francis by giving him gold with which to ransom back the illumination; however, Francis is murdered during his return trip by \"misborn\" people (the \"Pope's children\"), receiving an arrow in the face. The Wanderer discovers and buries Francis's body. (The book then focuses on the vultures who were denied their meal; they fly over the Great Plains and find much food near the Red River until a city-state, based in Texarkana, rises). In 3174, the Albertian Order of St. Leibowitz is still preserving the half-understood knowledge from before the Flame Deluge and the subsequent Age of Simplification. The new Dark Age is ending, however, and a new Renaissance is beginning. Thon Taddeo Pfardentrott, a highly regarded secular scholar, is sent by his cousin Hannegan, Mayor of Texarkana, to the abbey."
      },
      {
        "text": ", based in Texarkana, rises). In 3174, the Albertian Order of St. Leibowitz is still preserving the half-understood knowledge from before the Flame Deluge and the subsequent Age of Simplification. The new Dark Age is ending, however, and a new Renaissance is beginning. Thon Taddeo Pfardentrott, a highly regarded secular scholar, is sent by his cousin Hannegan, Mayor of Texarkana, to the abbey. Thon Taddeo, frequently compared to Albert Einstein, is interested in the Order's preserved collection of Memorabilia. At the abbey, Brother Kornhoer, a talented engineer, has just finished work on a \"generator of electrical essences\", a treadmill-powered electrical generator that powers an arc lamp. He gives credit for the generator to work done by Thon Taddeo. After arriving at the monastery, Thon Taddeo, by studying the Memorabilia, makes several major \"discoveries\", and asks the abbot to allow the Memorabilia to be removed to Texarkana. The Abbot Dom Paulo refuses, stating he can continue his research at the abbey. Before departing, the Thon comments that it could take decades to finish analyzing the Memorabilia. Meanwhile, Hannegan makes an alliance with the kingdom of Laredo and the neighboring, relatively civilized city-states against the threat of attack from the nomadic warriors. Hannegan, however, is manipulating the regional politics to effectively neutralize all of his enemies, leaving him in control of the entire region. Monsignor Apollo, the papal nuncio to Hannegan's court, sends word to New Rome that Hannegan intends to attack the empire of Denver next, and that he intends to use the abbey as a base of operations from which to conduct the campaign. For his actions, Apollo is executed, and Hannegan initiates"
      },
      {
        "text": " Hannegan, however, is manipulating the regional politics to effectively neutralize all of his enemies, leaving him in control of the entire region. Monsignor Apollo, the papal nuncio to Hannegan's court, sends word to New Rome that Hannegan intends to attack the empire of Denver next, and that he intends to use the abbey as a base of operations from which to conduct the campaign. For his actions, Apollo is executed, and Hannegan initiates a church schism, declaring loyalty to the Pope to be punishable by death. The Church excommunicates Hannegan. It is the year 3781, and mankind has nuclear energy and weapons again, as well as starships and extra-solar colonies. Two world superpowers, the Asian Coalition and the Atlantic Confederacy, have been embroiled in a cold war for 50 years. The Leibowitzan Order's mission of preserving the Memorabilia has expanded to the preservation of all knowledge. Rumors that both sides are assembling nuclear weapons in space and that a nuclear weapon has been detonated increase public and international tensions. At the abbey, the current abbot, Dom Jethras Zerchi, recommends to New Rome that the Church reactivate the Quo Peregrinatur Grex Pastor Secum (\"Whither Wanders the Flock, the Shepherd is with Them\") contingency plans involving \"certain vehicles\" the Church has had since 3756. A \"nuclear incident\" occurs in the Asian Coalition city of Itu Wan: an underground nuclear explosion has destroyed the city, and the Atlantic Confederacy counters by firing a \"warning shot\" over the South Pacific. New Rome tells Zerchi to proceed with Quo Peregrinatur and plan for departure within three days. He appoints Brother Joshua as mission leader, telling him that this is an emergency plan for perpetuating the Church on the colony planets in the event of a nuclear war on Earth. The Order's Memorabilia will also"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Asian Coalition city of Itu Wan: an underground nuclear explosion has destroyed the city, and the Atlantic Confederacy counters by firing a \"warning shot\" over the South Pacific. New Rome tells Zerchi to proceed with Quo Peregrinatur and plan for departure within three days. He appoints Brother Joshua as mission leader, telling him that this is an emergency plan for perpetuating the Church on the colony planets in the event of a nuclear war on Earth. The Order's Memorabilia will also accompany the mission. That night the Atlantic Confederacy launches an assault against Asian Coalition space platforms. The Asian Coalition responds by using a nuclear weapon against the Confederacy capital city of Texarkana. A ten-day cease-fire is issued by the World Court. Brother Joshua and the space-trained monks and priests depart on a secret, chartered flight for New Rome, hoping to leave Earth on the starship before the cease-fire ends. During the cease-fire, the abbey offers shelter to refugees fleeing the regions affected by fallout, which results in a battle of wills over euthanasia between the abbot and a doctor from a government emergency response camp. The war resumes and a nuclear explosion occurs near the abbey. Abbot Zerchi tries to flee to safety, bringing with him the abbey's ciborium containing consecrated hosts, but it is too late. He is trapped by the falling walls of the abbey and finds himself lying under tons of rock and bones as the abbey's ancient crypts disgorge their contents. Among them is a skull with an arrow's shaft protruding from its forehead (presumably that of Brother Francis Gerard from the first section of the book). As he lies dying under the abbey's rubble, Zerchi is startled to encounter Mrs Grales/Rachel, a bicephalous tomato peddler and mutant. However, Mrs. Grales has been rendered unconscious by the explosion, and may be dying herself. As Zerchi"
      },
      {
        "text": "bey's ancient crypts disgorge their contents. Among them is a skull with an arrow's shaft protruding from its forehead (presumably that of Brother Francis Gerard from the first section of the book). As he lies dying under the abbey's rubble, Zerchi is startled to encounter Mrs Grales/Rachel, a bicephalous tomato peddler and mutant. However, Mrs. Grales has been rendered unconscious by the explosion, and may be dying herself. As Zerchi tries to conditionally baptize Rachel, she refuses, and instead takes the ciborium and administers the Eucharist to him. It is implied that she is, like the Virgin Mary, exempt from original sin. Zerchi soon dies, having witnessed an apparent miracle. After the Abbot's death, the scene flashes to Joshua and the Quo Peregrinatur crew launching as the nuclear explosions begin. Joshua, the last crew member to board the starship, knocks the dirt from his sandals, murmuring \"Sic transit mundus\" (\"Thus passes the world\"). As a coda, there is a final vignette depicting the ecological aspects of the war: seabirds and fish succumb to the poisonous fallout, and a shark evades death only through moving to particularly deep water, where, it is noted, the shark was \"very hungry that season.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Browning Version",
    "author": "Terence Rattigan",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play is about the last few days in the career of Andrew Crocker-Harris, an aging classics teacher at a British public school. The man's academic life is fading away following illness and he feels that he has become obsolete. It starts when Taplow, a pupil who needs Crocker-Harris to pass him so he can go up to the next year, comes to him for help with his Greek, but Crocker-Harris is not in his rooms. Instead, Taplow meets Hunter, another Master at the school. We find out (after Taplow leaves) that Hunter, and Crocker-Harris' wife, Millie, are carrying on an affair. When Crocker-Harris returns, he first has the lesson with Taplow, where he begins to show his true feelings through his love for literature. Afterwards, the headmaster arrives to inform him that the school will not give him his pension because of his early retirement, though he was depending on it, and wishes him to relinquish his place in the end-of-term speech-giving to a popular sports master. Mr. Gilbert, Crocker-Harris's successor at his teaching post, arrives to view the Crocker-Harrises' home. He seeks advice on the lower fifth, the year Crocker-Harris teaches, and how to control them. Crocker-Harris begins to relate to Gilbert his own sad experiences after Gilbert tells Crocker-Harris that the headmaster had referred to Crocker-Harris as the 'Himmler of the lower fifth'. Crocker-Harris, who did not realize he was feared by the boys, is very disturbed by this title. Taplow returns, and moves Crocker-Harris by giving him an inscribed version of Robert Browning's translation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, at which point he breaks down crying. Millie, his wife, shows her callousness at Crocker-Harris's emotional state by ruining this fond moment by implying Taplow only gave the gift to get the grades. Hunter breaks off the affair with her, instead turning his sympathies to Crocker-Harris. Crocker-Harris informs him that he knew of Millie's affair with Hunter, as well as her previous ones, but despite this he does not wish to divorce her. As the play ends, Hunter makes plans with a reluctant Crocker-Harris to meet him at his new place of work, and an uplifted Crocker-Harris telephones the headmaster saying that he will make his speech after the sports master, as is his right. The 'Browning Version' of the title references the translation of the Greek tragedy given by Taplow, Agamemnon, in which Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, aided by her lover. Although the name of the school is not given in the play, it is clearly Harrow School (which Terence Rattigan attended), something evident from the idiosyncrasies of the timetable that Crocker-Harris is in charge of writing.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play is about the last few days in the career of Andrew Crocker-Harris, an aging classics teacher at a British public school. The man's academic life is fading away following illness and he feels that he has become obsolete. It starts when Taplow, a pupil who needs Crocker-Harris to pass him so he can go up to the next year, comes to him for help with his Greek, but Crocker-Harris is not in his rooms. Instead, Taplow meets Hunter, another Master at the school. We find out (after Taplow leaves) that Hunter, and Crocker-Harris' wife, Millie, are carrying on an affair. When Crocker-Harris returns, he first has the lesson with Taplow, where he begins to show his true feelings through his love for literature. Afterwards, the headmaster arrives to inform him that the school will not give him his pension because of his early retirement, though he was depending on it, and wishes him to relinquish his place in the end-of-term speech-giving to a popular sports master. Mr. Gilbert, Crocker-Harris's successor at his teaching post, arrives to view the Crocker-Harrises' home. He seeks advice on the lower fifth, the year Crocker-Harris teaches, and how to control them. Crocker-Harris begins to relate to Gilbert his own sad experiences after Gilbert tells Crocker-Harris that the headmaster had referred to Crocker-Harris as the 'Himmler of the lower fifth'. Crocker-Harris, who did not realize he was feared by the boys, is very disturbed by this title. Taplow returns, and moves Crocker-Harris by giving him an inscribed version of Robert Browning's translation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, at which point he breaks down crying. Millie, his wife, shows her callousness at Crocker-Harris's emotional"
      },
      {
        "text": " to Crocker-Harris as the 'Himmler of the lower fifth'. Crocker-Harris, who did not realize he was feared by the boys, is very disturbed by this title. Taplow returns, and moves Crocker-Harris by giving him an inscribed version of Robert Browning's translation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, at which point he breaks down crying. Millie, his wife, shows her callousness at Crocker-Harris's emotional state by ruining this fond moment by implying Taplow only gave the gift to get the grades. Hunter breaks off the affair with her, instead turning his sympathies to Crocker-Harris. Crocker-Harris informs him that he knew of Millie's affair with Hunter, as well as her previous ones, but despite this he does not wish to divorce her. As the play ends, Hunter makes plans with a reluctant Crocker-Harris to meet him at his new place of work, and an uplifted Crocker-Harris telephones the headmaster saying that he will make his speech after the sports master, as is his right. The 'Browning Version' of the title references the translation of the Greek tragedy given by Taplow, Agamemnon, in which Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, aided by her lover. Although the name of the school is not given in the play, it is clearly Harrow School (which Terence Rattigan attended), something evident from the idiosyncrasies of the timetable that Crocker-Harris is in charge of writing.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " something evident from the idiosyncrasies of the timetable that Crocker-Harris is in charge of writing.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ender's Shadow",
    "author": "Orson Scott Card",
    "published_date": "1999",
    "synopsis": " Bean, the main character, is a homeless child living in the hellish streets of Rotterdam in roughly 2170 after escaping as an infant from an illegal genetic engineering laboratory. Being hyper-intelligent and extremely young, Bean's experiences revolve primarily around his need for food. He joins a huge gang of children led by a girl named Poke and sets up a system in which they can all receive nourishment at a local soup kitchen. The draw-back on this is their increasing dependence on the bully Achilles, who is ruthless, mad, and methodical. Luckily for Bean, his incredible mind, creativity, and determination bring him to the attention of Sister Carlotta, a nun who is recruiting children to fight a war against the Buggers. At the training facility, Battle School, Bean's true genius becomes apparent. Not only is he smarter than average, he is smarter than any other child at Battle School, including Ender Wiggin. Despite Bean's intelligence, it is Ender who has been chosen to save humanity from the Buggers. Bean, being an extraordinary genius, begins to uncover secrets and truths about the school. Bean struggles to understand what quality Ender has that he does not, until he is assigned to draw up a \"hypothetical\" roster for Ender's army, and adds himself to the list. At first, Ender does not appear to recognize Bean's brilliance, but time shows that he was grooming Bean as his tactical support, putting him at the head of an unorthodox platoon challenged to outthink the teachers who designed the game, and defeat their attempts to tip the balance of advantages towards Ender's rivals. Throughout the book, the main theme rests on Bean's personal struggle against the IF administration, which seems bent on breaking Ender, even if it means murder. Throughout all of this, Bean has to contend with the reappearance of Achilles and his own struggle to understand what makes Ender human. He also makes friends with an older boy named Nikolai Delphiki who is drawn to Bean because of their similar looks. It is soon discovered, through Sister Carlotta's research, that the two boys are actually genetic twins, except for Bean's genetic enhancements. Back in the lab, the scientist Volescu had turned Anton's Key, which meant that Bean's body would never stop growing - including his brain - until a premature death between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. Sister Carlotta manages to ensure that Bean will get to live with Nikolai and his parents after the war. This story takes the reader through Bean's experiences in Battle School and shows how he, a secondary character in Ender's Game, is much more important to the fate of Earth than it originally seemed. In addition, the book depicts the first of Bean's encounters with Achilles. At the very end of the story, Ender leaves on a colonization ship and never returns to Earth as part of a treaty so no countries or groups on Earth can use him. Ender's Shadow is the first of a series that includes Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant, and Shadows in Flight.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Bean, the main character, is a homeless child living in the hellish streets of Rotterdam in roughly 2170 after escaping as an infant from an illegal genetic engineering laboratory. Being hyper-intelligent and extremely young, Bean's experiences revolve primarily around his need for food. He joins a huge gang of children led by a girl named Poke and sets up a system in which they can all receive nourishment at a local soup kitchen. The draw-back on this is their increasing dependence on the bully Achilles, who is ruthless, mad, and methodical. Luckily for Bean, his incredible mind, creativity, and determination bring him to the attention of Sister Carlotta, a nun who is recruiting children to fight a war against the Buggers. At the training facility, Battle School, Bean's true genius becomes apparent. Not only is he smarter than average, he is smarter than any other child at Battle School, including Ender Wiggin. Despite Bean's intelligence, it is Ender who has been chosen to save humanity from the Buggers. Bean, being an extraordinary genius, begins to uncover secrets and truths about the school. Bean struggles to understand what quality Ender has that he does not, until he is assigned to draw up a \"hypothetical\" roster for Ender's army, and adds himself to the list. At first, Ender does not appear to recognize Bean's brilliance, but time shows that he was grooming Bean as his tactical support, putting him at the head of an unorthodox platoon challenged to outthink the teachers who designed the game, and defeat their attempts to tip the balance of advantages towards Ender's rivals. Throughout the book, the main theme rests on Bean's personal struggle against the IF administration, which seems bent on breaking Ender, even if it means murder. Throughout all of this, Bean has to contend with the reappearance of Achilles and his own struggle to understand what makes Ender human. He also makes friends with an older boy named Nikolai Delphiki who"
      },
      {
        "text": " unorthodox platoon challenged to outthink the teachers who designed the game, and defeat their attempts to tip the balance of advantages towards Ender's rivals. Throughout the book, the main theme rests on Bean's personal struggle against the IF administration, which seems bent on breaking Ender, even if it means murder. Throughout all of this, Bean has to contend with the reappearance of Achilles and his own struggle to understand what makes Ender human. He also makes friends with an older boy named Nikolai Delphiki who is drawn to Bean because of their similar looks. It is soon discovered, through Sister Carlotta's research, that the two boys are actually genetic twins, except for Bean's genetic enhancements. Back in the lab, the scientist Volescu had turned Anton's Key, which meant that Bean's body would never stop growing - including his brain - until a premature death between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. Sister Carlotta manages to ensure that Bean will get to live with Nikolai and his parents after the war. This story takes the reader through Bean's experiences in Battle School and shows how he, a secondary character in Ender's Game, is much more important to the fate of Earth than it originally seemed. In addition, the book depicts the first of Bean's encounters with Achilles. At the very end of the story, Ender leaves on a colonization ship and never returns to Earth as part of a treaty so no countries or groups on Earth can use him. Ender's Shadow is the first of a series that includes Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant, and Shadows in Flight.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " of a series that includes Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant, and Shadows in Flight.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Cards on the Table",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " At an exhibition of snuff boxes, Hercule Poirot meets Mr. Shaitana, a mysterious foreign man who is consistently described as devil-like in appearance and manner. Shaitana jokes about Poirot's visit to the snuff box exhibition, and claims that he has a better \"collection\" that Poirot would enjoy: individuals who have got away with murder. He arranges a dinner party to show off this collection; Poirot is apprehensive. Upon arrival at Shaitana's house on the appointed day, Poirot is joined by three other guests: mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver, Scotland Yard's Superintendent Battle, and Colonel Race of His Majesty's Secret Service. Soon, the other four guests join them: Dr. Roberts, a hearty, florid man; Mrs. Lorrimer, a perfectly poised gentlewoman of late middle age; Major John Despard, a dashing Army man and world traveller, recently returned from Africa; and Anne Meredith, a shy, quiet, very pretty young woman. Having brought them all to dinner, Shaitana skilfully manipulates the topic of conversation to possible motives for murder. He makes allusions to crimes being committed, yet their culprits getting away scot-free. During this conversation, several of the guests exhibit nervous reactions. Shaitana invites his eight guests to play bridge in the adjoining rooms; he, as the odd man out, does not play. Roberts, Meredith, Lorrimer, and Despard play in the first room, while Poirot, Oliver, Race, and Battle play in the next; Shaitana settles himself in a chair in the first room and thinks of how wonderfully his party is going. Hours later, Poirot and the others prepare to leave, and go to thank Shaitana. Shaitana has been murdered, stabbed in the chest with a jeweled stiletto. Once the preliminary police work has been done, Poirot reveals Shaitana's strange mention of a \"collection\" to the other three with whom he played bridge. They quickly realize that they are four \"sleuths\" meant to be pitted against the four in the next room whom Shaitana suspected of murder. The four agree to work together to solve the crime, and interview the four suspects. Poirot takes interest in the way each member plays bridge, which he discerns through asking each suspect to grade the play of the others. As there seems to be no conventional way to prove which of them has committed Shaitana's murder, Poirot suggests that the group of sleuths delve into the past and uncover the murders that the dead man thought he knew about. Battle is put on the trail of the death of a Mrs. Craddock, whom Dr. Roberts once attended. Her husband died of anthrax poisoning from an infected shaving brush (and readers at the time of the novel's publication in the 1930s might well have remembered anthrax deaths from infected shaving brushes during and in the years after World War I); Mrs. Craddock herself had died not long afterward, of a tropical infection, in Egypt. Race seeks out information on Despard, and discovers a case in which a botanist named Luxmore and his wife travelled with him to South America; Luxmore officially died of a fever, but it is rumoured that he was shot. Mrs. Oliver visits Anne Meredith and her housemate, Rhoda Dawes. Rhoda later visits Oliver and explains Anne's bad manners: Anne, after her father's death and before old friend Rhoda came to her rescue, worked as a live-in companion; one employer, a Mrs. Benson, had taken hat paint\u2014poison\u2014from a medicine bottle and died. Fellow suspect Despard takes an interest in Anne's welfare, recommending that she retain an attorney. In the meantime, the four sleuths gather and compare notes. Meanwhile, Poirot sets a trap for Anne Meredith. When she pays him a call at his request, he shows her to a table on which many packets of the finest silk stockings are piled up, apparently carelessly. After Anne makes her gift suggestions and leaves, Poirot discovers that two pairs of the stockings are missing, confirming his suspicion that Anne is a thief, and seemingly giving weight to his suspicion that she stole from Mrs. Benson and killed her when she feared she had been discovered. At this point, Mrs. Lorrimer contacts Poirot with surprising news. She confesses to Shaitana's murder, and explains that she took the stiletto impulsively after he mentioned poison as a woman's weapon. Shaitana was right about her, she says; twenty years earlier, she had, she confesses, killed her husband. Poirot objects that Lorrimer's explanation of Shaitana's killing does not match her unflappable personality. Lorrimer thus believes that Meredith is Shaitana's killer, and decided to lie to save the younger woman. She begs Poirot to let her take the blame for the crime: she will die soon anyway, and Anne will be free to live her young life. Poirot is confused by this confession, and fears that there may be more trouble to come. His guess proves correct when Mrs. Lorrimer is found dead the next morning, having apparently committed suicide after writing three copies of a letter confessing to the murder of Shaitana and sending them to the other suspects. Roberts arrives after receiving the letter, but is unsuccessful in his attempt to save Mrs. Lorrimer. Poirot and Battle race to Anne Meredith's cottage, fearing that she might strike again. Despard, who has been visiting Anne and Rhoda, both of whom fancy him, is a few steps ahead of Poirot and Battle. At Anne's suggestion, Anne and Rhoda are on a boat in a nearby river. Poirot and Battle see Anne suddenly push her friend into the water. Alas for Anne, when she knocks Rhoda into the water, she also falls in herself. Despard rescues Rhoda; Anne drowns. Poirot gathers Oliver, Battle, Despard, Rhoda, and Roberts at his home, where he makes a surprising announcement: the true murderer of both Shaitana and Mrs. Lorrimer is not Anne, but Dr. Roberts. Poirot brings in a window cleaner who happened to be working outside Mrs. Lorrimer's flat earlier that morning. He testifies that he saw Roberts inject Lorrimer with a syringe; a syringe, Poirot reveals, full of a lethal anaesthetic. Battle chimes in that they can bolster any prosecution with the true story of the deaths of the Craddocks, who died of infections, true, but infections deliberately inflicted on each of them by Roberts. Roberts confesses. Poirot points out that in the third rubber of bridge on the night of Shaitana's murder, a grand slam occurred. This intense play would keep the others focused on the game\u2014Roberts was dummy at that point\u2014while Roberts used the opportunity to stab Shaitana. It is also revealed that the \"window cleaner\" was actually an actor in Poirot's employ, though Poirot brags that he did \"witness\" Roberts kill Mrs. Lorrimer in his mind's eye. Despard suggests that one of the gathered party murder Poirot, and then watch his ghost come back to solve the crime.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At an exhibition of snuff boxes, Hercule Poirot meets Mr. Shaitana, a mysterious foreign man who is consistently described as devil-like in appearance and manner. Shaitana jokes about Poirot's visit to the snuff box exhibition, and claims that he has a better \"collection\" that Poirot would enjoy: individuals who have got away with murder. He arranges a dinner party to show off this collection; Poirot is apprehensive. Upon arrival at Shaitana's house on the appointed day, Poirot is joined by three other guests: mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver, Scotland Yard's Superintendent Battle, and Colonel Race of His Majesty's Secret Service. Soon, the other four guests join them: Dr. Roberts, a hearty, florid man; Mrs. Lorrimer, a perfectly poised gentlewoman of late middle age; Major John Despard, a dashing Army man and world traveller, recently returned from Africa; and Anne Meredith, a shy, quiet, very pretty young woman. Having brought them all to dinner, Shaitana skilfully manipulates the topic of conversation to possible motives for murder. He makes allusions to crimes being committed, yet their culprits getting away scot-free. During this conversation, several of the guests exhibit nervous reactions. Shaitana invites his eight guests to play bridge in the adjoining rooms; he, as the odd man out, does not play. Roberts, Meredith, Lorrimer, and Despard play in the first room, while Poirot, Oliver, Race, and Battle play in the next; Shaitana settles himself in a chair in the first room and thinks of how wonderfully his party is going. Hours later, Poirot and the others prepare to leave, and go to thank Shaitana. Shaitana has been murdered, stabbed in the chest with a jeweled stiletto. Once the preliminary police work has been"
      },
      {
        "text": " Meredith, Lorrimer, and Despard play in the first room, while Poirot, Oliver, Race, and Battle play in the next; Shaitana settles himself in a chair in the first room and thinks of how wonderfully his party is going. Hours later, Poirot and the others prepare to leave, and go to thank Shaitana. Shaitana has been murdered, stabbed in the chest with a jeweled stiletto. Once the preliminary police work has been done, Poirot reveals Shaitana's strange mention of a \"collection\" to the other three with whom he played bridge. They quickly realize that they are four \"sleuths\" meant to be pitted against the four in the next room whom Shaitana suspected of murder. The four agree to work together to solve the crime, and interview the four suspects. Poirot takes interest in the way each member plays bridge, which he discerns through asking each suspect to grade the play of the others. As there seems to be no conventional way to prove which of them has committed Shaitana's murder, Poirot suggests that the group of sleuths delve into the past and uncover the murders that the dead man thought he knew about. Battle is put on the trail of the death of a Mrs. Craddock, whom Dr. Roberts once attended. Her husband died of anthrax poisoning from an infected shaving brush (and readers at the time of the novel's publication in the 1930s might well have remembered anthrax deaths from infected shaving brushes during and in the years after World War I); Mrs. Craddock herself had died not long afterward, of a tropical infection, in Egypt. Race seeks out information on Despard, and discovers a case in which a botanist named Luxmore and his wife travelled with him to South America; Luxmore officially died of a fever, but it is rumoured that he was shot. Mrs. Oliver visits Anne Meredith and her"
      },
      {
        "text": " the 1930s might well have remembered anthrax deaths from infected shaving brushes during and in the years after World War I); Mrs. Craddock herself had died not long afterward, of a tropical infection, in Egypt. Race seeks out information on Despard, and discovers a case in which a botanist named Luxmore and his wife travelled with him to South America; Luxmore officially died of a fever, but it is rumoured that he was shot. Mrs. Oliver visits Anne Meredith and her housemate, Rhoda Dawes. Rhoda later visits Oliver and explains Anne's bad manners: Anne, after her father's death and before old friend Rhoda came to her rescue, worked as a live-in companion; one employer, a Mrs. Benson, had taken hat paint\u2014poison\u2014from a medicine bottle and died. Fellow suspect Despard takes an interest in Anne's welfare, recommending that she retain an attorney. In the meantime, the four sleuths gather and compare notes. Meanwhile, Poirot sets a trap for Anne Meredith. When she pays him a call at his request, he shows her to a table on which many packets of the finest silk stockings are piled up, apparently carelessly. After Anne makes her gift suggestions and leaves, Poirot discovers that two pairs of the stockings are missing, confirming his suspicion that Anne is a thief, and seemingly giving weight to his suspicion that she stole from Mrs. Benson and killed her when she feared she had been discovered. At this point, Mrs. Lorrimer contacts Poirot with surprising news. She confesses to Shaitana's murder, and explains that she took the stiletto impulsively after he mentioned poison as a woman's weapon. Shaitana was right about her, she says; twenty years earlier, she had, she confesses, killed her husband. Poirot objects that Lorrimer's explanation of Shaitana's killing does not match her unfl"
      },
      {
        "text": " she had been discovered. At this point, Mrs. Lorrimer contacts Poirot with surprising news. She confesses to Shaitana's murder, and explains that she took the stiletto impulsively after he mentioned poison as a woman's weapon. Shaitana was right about her, she says; twenty years earlier, she had, she confesses, killed her husband. Poirot objects that Lorrimer's explanation of Shaitana's killing does not match her unflappable personality. Lorrimer thus believes that Meredith is Shaitana's killer, and decided to lie to save the younger woman. She begs Poirot to let her take the blame for the crime: she will die soon anyway, and Anne will be free to live her young life. Poirot is confused by this confession, and fears that there may be more trouble to come. His guess proves correct when Mrs. Lorrimer is found dead the next morning, having apparently committed suicide after writing three copies of a letter confessing to the murder of Shaitana and sending them to the other suspects. Roberts arrives after receiving the letter, but is unsuccessful in his attempt to save Mrs. Lorrimer. Poirot and Battle race to Anne Meredith's cottage, fearing that she might strike again. Despard, who has been visiting Anne and Rhoda, both of whom fancy him, is a few steps ahead of Poirot and Battle. At Anne's suggestion, Anne and Rhoda are on a boat in a nearby river. Poirot and Battle see Anne suddenly push her friend into the water. Alas for Anne, when she knocks Rhoda into the water, she also falls in herself. Despard rescues Rhoda; Anne drowns. Poirot gathers Oliver, Battle, Despard, Rhoda, and Roberts at his home, where he makes a surprising announcement: the true murderer of both Shaitana and Mrs. Lorrimer is"
      },
      {
        "text": " Anne and Rhoda are on a boat in a nearby river. Poirot and Battle see Anne suddenly push her friend into the water. Alas for Anne, when she knocks Rhoda into the water, she also falls in herself. Despard rescues Rhoda; Anne drowns. Poirot gathers Oliver, Battle, Despard, Rhoda, and Roberts at his home, where he makes a surprising announcement: the true murderer of both Shaitana and Mrs. Lorrimer is not Anne, but Dr. Roberts. Poirot brings in a window cleaner who happened to be working outside Mrs. Lorrimer's flat earlier that morning. He testifies that he saw Roberts inject Lorrimer with a syringe; a syringe, Poirot reveals, full of a lethal anaesthetic. Battle chimes in that they can bolster any prosecution with the true story of the deaths of the Craddocks, who died of infections, true, but infections deliberately inflicted on each of them by Roberts. Roberts confesses. Poirot points out that in the third rubber of bridge on the night of Shaitana's murder, a grand slam occurred. This intense play would keep the others focused on the game\u2014Roberts was dummy at that point\u2014while Roberts used the opportunity to stab Shaitana. It is also revealed that the \"window cleaner\" was actually an actor in Poirot's employ, though Poirot brags that he did \"witness\" Roberts kill Mrs. Lorrimer in his mind's eye. Despard suggests that one of the gathered party murder Poirot, and then watch his ghost come back to solve the crime.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "\" Roberts kill Mrs. Lorrimer in his mind's eye. Despard suggests that one of the gathered party murder Poirot, and then watch his ghost come back to solve the crime.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Gambler",
    "author": "Fyodor Dostoyevsky",
    "published_date": "1867",
    "synopsis": " The first-person narrative is told from the point of view of Alexei Ivanovich, a tutor working for a Russian family living in a suite at a German hotel. The patriarch of the family, The General, is indebted to the Frenchman De Grieux and has mortgaged his property in Russia to pay only a small amount of his debt. Upon learning of the illness of his wealthy aunt, \"Grandmother\", he sends streams of telegrams to Moscow and awaits the news of her demise. His expected inheritance will pay his debts and gain Madamoiselle De Cominges's hand in marriage. Alexei is hopelessly in love with Polina and swears an oath of servitude to her. He told her while on a walk on the Schlangenberg (a mountain in the German town) that all she had to do was give the word and he would gladly walk off the edge and plummet to his death. This leads to her asking him to go to the town's casino and place a bet for her. He refuses at first but, when goaded and reminded of his oath of undying love and servility, he succumbs and ends up winning at the roulette table (this was his first experience with the narcotic bliss of gambling). He returns to her the winnings but she will not tell him the reason she needs money. She only laughs in his face (as she does when he professes his love) and treats him with cold indifference, if not downright malice. He only learns the details of The General's and Polina's financial state later in the story through his long-time acquaintance, Mr. Astley. Astley is a shy Englishman who seems to share Alexei's fondness of Polina. He comes from English nobility and has a good deal of money. One day while Polina and Alexei are on a walk they see a Baron and Baroness. Polina dares him to insult the Aristocratic couple and he does so with little hesitation. This sets off a chain of events that details Madame de Cominges's interest in the General and gets Alexei fired as tutor of the General's children. Shortly after this Grandmother shows up and surprises the whole party of debtors and indebted. She tells them all that she knows all about the General's debt and why the French man and woman are waiting around the suite day after day. She leaves the party of death-profiteers by saying that none of them are getting any of her money. She then asks Alexei to be her guide around the town famous for its healing waters and infamous for its casino where the tables are stacked with piles of gold; she wants to gamble. After being ushered to the roulette table, she plays and wins a significant amount of money. After a short return to the Hotel she comes back to roulette tables and she starts to get the bug; before she leaves the town she's lost almost a hundred thousand roubles. When Alexei gets back to his room after sending Grandmother off at the railway station he's greeted by Polina. She tells him that De Grieux had left town but not before he absolved the General from a certain moiety of the mortgages on his property. She then explains that because she was indebted to him she couldn't return Alexei's love. Upon hearing this Alexei runs out of the room and to the casino where he wins over two hundred thousand roubles and becomes a rich man. When he gets back to his room and the waiting Polina he empties his pockets full of gold and bank notes onto the bed. They fall asleep on the couch and the next day she tells Alexei that she hates him and wants to be with Mr. Astley (they had been secretly meeting and exchanging notes and she was supposed to meet him but had fallen asleep in his room). She runs out of the hotel and he doesn't see her again. After learning that the general wouldn't be getting his inheritance Madame de Cominges leaves the hotel with her mother for Paris. Alexei goes with them having won a significant amount and they stay together for a month, he allowing them to spend his entire fortune on horses and frivolous balls. Alexei starts to gamble to survive. One day he passes Mr. Astley on a park bench in Bad Homburg and has a talk with him. He finds out from Astley that Polina is in Switzerland and actually does love him. Astley gives him some money but shows little hope that he will not use it for gambling. Alexei goes home dreaming of going to Switzerland the next day and recollects what made him win at the roulette tables in the past.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first-person narrative is told from the point of view of Alexei Ivanovich, a tutor working for a Russian family living in a suite at a German hotel. The patriarch of the family, The General, is indebted to the Frenchman De Grieux and has mortgaged his property in Russia to pay only a small amount of his debt. Upon learning of the illness of his wealthy aunt, \"Grandmother\", he sends streams of telegrams to Moscow and awaits the news of her demise. His expected inheritance will pay his debts and gain Madamoiselle De Cominges's hand in marriage. Alexei is hopelessly in love with Polina and swears an oath of servitude to her. He told her while on a walk on the Schlangenberg (a mountain in the German town) that all she had to do was give the word and he would gladly walk off the edge and plummet to his death. This leads to her asking him to go to the town's casino and place a bet for her. He refuses at first but, when goaded and reminded of his oath of undying love and servility, he succumbs and ends up winning at the roulette table (this was his first experience with the narcotic bliss of gambling). He returns to her the winnings but she will not tell him the reason she needs money. She only laughs in his face (as she does when he professes his love) and treats him with cold indifference, if not downright malice. He only learns the details of The General's and Polina's financial state later in the story through his long-time acquaintance, Mr. Astley. Astley is a shy Englishman who seems to share Alexei's fondness of Polina. He comes from English nobility and has a good deal of money. One day while Polina and Alexei are on a walk they see a Baron and Baroness. Polina dares him to insult the Aristocratic couple and he"
      },
      {
        "text": " downright malice. He only learns the details of The General's and Polina's financial state later in the story through his long-time acquaintance, Mr. Astley. Astley is a shy Englishman who seems to share Alexei's fondness of Polina. He comes from English nobility and has a good deal of money. One day while Polina and Alexei are on a walk they see a Baron and Baroness. Polina dares him to insult the Aristocratic couple and he does so with little hesitation. This sets off a chain of events that details Madame de Cominges's interest in the General and gets Alexei fired as tutor of the General's children. Shortly after this Grandmother shows up and surprises the whole party of debtors and indebted. She tells them all that she knows all about the General's debt and why the French man and woman are waiting around the suite day after day. She leaves the party of death-profiteers by saying that none of them are getting any of her money. She then asks Alexei to be her guide around the town famous for its healing waters and infamous for its casino where the tables are stacked with piles of gold; she wants to gamble. After being ushered to the roulette table, she plays and wins a significant amount of money. After a short return to the Hotel she comes back to roulette tables and she starts to get the bug; before she leaves the town she's lost almost a hundred thousand roubles. When Alexei gets back to his room after sending Grandmother off at the railway station he's greeted by Polina. She tells him that De Grieux had left town but not before he absolved the General from a certain moiety of the mortgages on his property. She then explains that because she was indebted to him she couldn't return Alexei's love. Upon hearing this Alexei runs out of the room and to the casino where he wins over two hundred thousand roubles and becomes a"
      },
      {
        "text": " When Alexei gets back to his room after sending Grandmother off at the railway station he's greeted by Polina. She tells him that De Grieux had left town but not before he absolved the General from a certain moiety of the mortgages on his property. She then explains that because she was indebted to him she couldn't return Alexei's love. Upon hearing this Alexei runs out of the room and to the casino where he wins over two hundred thousand roubles and becomes a rich man. When he gets back to his room and the waiting Polina he empties his pockets full of gold and bank notes onto the bed. They fall asleep on the couch and the next day she tells Alexei that she hates him and wants to be with Mr. Astley (they had been secretly meeting and exchanging notes and she was supposed to meet him but had fallen asleep in his room). She runs out of the hotel and he doesn't see her again. After learning that the general wouldn't be getting his inheritance Madame de Cominges leaves the hotel with her mother for Paris. Alexei goes with them having won a significant amount and they stay together for a month, he allowing them to spend his entire fortune on horses and frivolous balls. Alexei starts to gamble to survive. One day he passes Mr. Astley on a park bench in Bad Homburg and has a talk with him. He finds out from Astley that Polina is in Switzerland and actually does love him. Astley gives him some money but shows little hope that he will not use it for gambling. Alexei goes home dreaming of going to Switzerland the next day and recollects what made him win at the roulette tables in the past.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Astley gives him some money but shows little hope that he will not use it for gambling. Alexei goes home dreaming of going to Switzerland the next day and recollects what made him win at the roulette tables in the past.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Crucible",
    "author": "Arthur Miller",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Rev. Parris is praying over his daughter, Betty Parris, who lies as if unconscious in her bed. Conversations between Rev. Parris, his niece Abigail Williams and several other girls reveal that the girls, including Abigail and Betty, were engaged in heretical activities in a nearby forest, apparently led by Tituba, Parris's slave from Barbados. Parris had discovered them, whereupon Betty fainted and has not yet recovered. The townspeople do not know exactly what the girls were up to, but there are rumors of witchcraft. John Proctor enters the room in which Betty lies in bed, and Abigail, otherwise alone, tries to seduce him. It does not work, but it is revealed that Abigail and Proctor engaged in a previous affair and that Abigail still has feelings for him. Reverend John Hale is summoned from Beverly to look upon Betty and research the incident. He is a self-proclaimed expert in occult phenomena and is eager to use his acquired learning. He questions Abigail, who accuses Tituba of being a witch. Tituba, afraid of being hanged and threatened with beating, professes faith in God and accuses fishy Goodwives Sarah Good and Osburn of witchcraft. Betty, now awake, claims to have been bewitched and also professes her faith in God. Betty and Abigail sing out a list of people whom they claim to have seen with the Devil. Elizabeth questions Proctor to find out if he is late for dinner because of a visit to Salem. She tells him that their housemaid, Mary Warren, has been there all day. Having forbidden Mary from going to Salem, Proctor becomes angry, but Elizabeth explains that Mary has been named an official of the court. Elizabeth tells Proctor that he must reveal that Abigail is not who everyone thinks she is. He declares that he cannot prove what she told him because they were alone when they talked. Elizabeth becomes upset because he has not previously mentioned this time alone with Abigail. Proctor believes that she is accusing him of resuming his affair with Abigail. An argument then ensues between the two. Mary returns, and Proctor is furious that she has been in Salem all day. However, she advises that she will be gone every day because of her duties as an official of the court. Mary gives Elizabeth a poppet that she made while in court, tells the couple that thirty-nine people are now in jail, and that Goody Osborne will hang for her failure to confess to witchcraft. Proctor is angry because he believes the court is condemning people without solid evidence. Mary states that Elizabeth has also been accused, but, as she herself defended her, the court dismissed the accusation. Elizabeth tells Proctor that she believes Abigail will accuse her of witchcraft and have her executed because she wants to become Proctor's wife. Elizabeth asks Proctor to speak to Abigail and tell her that no chance exists of him marrying her if anything happens to his wife. Reverend Hale visits the Proctor house and tells Elizabeth and Proctor that the former has been named in court. Hale questions Proctor about his poor church attendance and asks him to recite the Ten Commandments. When Proctor gets stuck on the tenth, Elizabeth reminds him of the commandment forbidding adultery. Proctor tells Hale that Abigail has admitted to him that witchcraft was not responsible for the children's ailments. Hale asks Proctor to testify in court and then questions Elizabeth to find out if she believes in witches. Giles Corey and Francis Nurse arrive and tell Proctor, Hale and Elizabeth that the court has arrested both of their wives for witchcraft. Ezekiel Cheever and Willard/Herrick arrive with a warrant for Elizabeth's arrest. Cheever discovers the poppet that Mary made for Elizabeth, with a needle inside it. Cheever tells Proctor and Hale that, after apparently being stabbed with a needle while eating at Parris' house, Abigail accused Elizabeth's spirit of stabbing her. Mary tells Hale that she made the doll in court that day and stored the needle inside it. She also states that Abigail saw this because she sat next to her. The men still take Elizabeth into custody, and Hale, Corey and Nurse leave. Proctor tells Mary that she must testify in court against Abigail. Mary replies that she fears doing this because Abigail and the others will turn against her. In the original production of the play, there was an additional scene in the second act. It has been removed from most subsequent productions, but is added as an appendix in many written book forms of the play: In the woods, Proctor meets with Abigail. She attempts to win Proctor back, but fails when he remains loyal to his wife. Judge Hathorne (offstage) is in the midst of questioning Martha Corey on accusations of witchcraft, during which her husband, Giles, interrupts the court proceedings and declares that Thomas Putnam is \"reaching out for land!\" Giles is removed from the courtroom and taken to the vestry room by Willard/Herrick. Judge Hathorne enters and angrily asks: \"How dare you come roarin' into this court, are you gone daft, Corey?\". Giles Corey replies that since Hathorne isn't a Boston Judge yet, he has no right to ask him that question. Deputy Governor Danforth, Cheever, Reverend Parris and Francis Nurse enter the vestry room. Corey explains that he owns of land and a large quantity of timber, both of which Putnam had been eyeing. Corey also states that the court is holding his wife Martha by mistake saying he had only said Martha was reading books, but he never accused her of witchcraft. Danforth soon thereafter takes utter control of the situation, and denies others in the court even a modicum of power. John Proctor enters with Mary Warren, promising to clear up any doubts regarding the girls if his wife is freed from custody. Danforth orders the girls into the vestry. Reverend Parris is skeptical, pointing out that the girls fainted, screamed, and turned cold before the accused, which they see as proof of the spirits. Mary tells them that she believed at first to have seen the spirits, however she knows now that there aren't any. In an attempt to discredit Mary, Abigail and the other girls begin to scream and cry out that they are freezing. When Abigail calls to God, Proctor accuses her of being a whore and tells the court of their affair. Abigail denies it and the court has Elizabeth brought in to verify if Proctor is telling the truth. Not knowing that he had already confessed, Elizabeth lies and denies any knowledge of the affair. When Proctor continues to insist that the affair took place, the girls begin to pretend to see a yellow bird sent by Mary to attack them. To save herself from being accused of witchcraft, Mary tells the court that Proctor was in league with the devil and forced her to testify. Proctor is arrested for witchcraft, and Reverend Hale storms out of the court, shouting \"I denounce these proceedings!\" Proctor is chained to a jail wall, totally isolated from the outside. Reverend Parris begins to panic because John was liked by many in the village (as were Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse, who are also to be hanged), and he explains his fears to Hathorne, Danforth and Cheever. He also reveals that Abigail and Mercy Lewis (one of the \"afflicted\" girls) stole 31 pounds (about half his yearly salary) and boarded a ship in the night. Hale enters, now a broken man who spends all his time with the prisoners, praying with them and advising prisoners to confess to witchcraft so that they can live. The authorities send Elizabeth to John, telling her to try to convince Proctor to confess to being a witch. When Proctor and Elizabeth are alone, she forgives him and reaffirms their love. Elizabeth tells of Giles Corey being pressed to death. John chooses to confess in exchange for his life and calls out to Hathorne, who is almost overjoyed to hear such news. Proctor signs the confession, then tears it up when realizing that Danforth is going to nail the signed confession to the church (which Proctor fears will ruin his name and the names of other Salemites). Proctor, Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey are led to the gallows to hang.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Rev. Parris is praying over his daughter, Betty Parris, who lies as if unconscious in her bed. Conversations between Rev. Parris, his niece Abigail Williams and several other girls reveal that the girls, including Abigail and Betty, were engaged in heretical activities in a nearby forest, apparently led by Tituba, Parris's slave from Barbados. Parris had discovered them, whereupon Betty fainted and has not yet recovered. The townspeople do not know exactly what the girls were up to, but there are rumors of witchcraft. John Proctor enters the room in which Betty lies in bed, and Abigail, otherwise alone, tries to seduce him. It does not work, but it is revealed that Abigail and Proctor engaged in a previous affair and that Abigail still has feelings for him. Reverend John Hale is summoned from Beverly to look upon Betty and research the incident. He is a self-proclaimed expert in occult phenomena and is eager to use his acquired learning. He questions Abigail, who accuses Tituba of being a witch. Tituba, afraid of being hanged and threatened with beating, professes faith in God and accuses fishy Goodwives Sarah Good and Osburn of witchcraft. Betty, now awake, claims to have been bewitched and also professes her faith in God. Betty and Abigail sing out a list of people whom they claim to have seen with the Devil. Elizabeth questions Proctor to find out if he is late for dinner because of a visit to Salem. She tells him that their housemaid, Mary Warren, has been there all day. Having forbidden Mary from going to Salem, Proctor becomes angry, but Elizabeth explains that Mary has been named an official of the court. Elizabeth tells Proctor that he must reveal that Abigail is not who everyone thinks she is. He declares that he cannot prove what she told him because they were alone when they talked"
      },
      {
        "text": " questions Proctor to find out if he is late for dinner because of a visit to Salem. She tells him that their housemaid, Mary Warren, has been there all day. Having forbidden Mary from going to Salem, Proctor becomes angry, but Elizabeth explains that Mary has been named an official of the court. Elizabeth tells Proctor that he must reveal that Abigail is not who everyone thinks she is. He declares that he cannot prove what she told him because they were alone when they talked. Elizabeth becomes upset because he has not previously mentioned this time alone with Abigail. Proctor believes that she is accusing him of resuming his affair with Abigail. An argument then ensues between the two. Mary returns, and Proctor is furious that she has been in Salem all day. However, she advises that she will be gone every day because of her duties as an official of the court. Mary gives Elizabeth a poppet that she made while in court, tells the couple that thirty-nine people are now in jail, and that Goody Osborne will hang for her failure to confess to witchcraft. Proctor is angry because he believes the court is condemning people without solid evidence. Mary states that Elizabeth has also been accused, but, as she herself defended her, the court dismissed the accusation. Elizabeth tells Proctor that she believes Abigail will accuse her of witchcraft and have her executed because she wants to become Proctor's wife. Elizabeth asks Proctor to speak to Abigail and tell her that no chance exists of him marrying her if anything happens to his wife. Reverend Hale visits the Proctor house and tells Elizabeth and Proctor that the former has been named in court. Hale questions Proctor about his poor church attendance and asks him to recite the Ten Commandments. When Proctor gets stuck on the tenth, Elizabeth reminds him of the commandment forbidding adultery. Proctor tells Hale that Abigail has admitted to him that witchcraft was not responsible"
      },
      {
        "text": " to Abigail and tell her that no chance exists of him marrying her if anything happens to his wife. Reverend Hale visits the Proctor house and tells Elizabeth and Proctor that the former has been named in court. Hale questions Proctor about his poor church attendance and asks him to recite the Ten Commandments. When Proctor gets stuck on the tenth, Elizabeth reminds him of the commandment forbidding adultery. Proctor tells Hale that Abigail has admitted to him that witchcraft was not responsible for the children's ailments. Hale asks Proctor to testify in court and then questions Elizabeth to find out if she believes in witches. Giles Corey and Francis Nurse arrive and tell Proctor, Hale and Elizabeth that the court has arrested both of their wives for witchcraft. Ezekiel Cheever and Willard/Herrick arrive with a warrant for Elizabeth's arrest. Cheever discovers the poppet that Mary made for Elizabeth, with a needle inside it. Cheever tells Proctor and Hale that, after apparently being stabbed with a needle while eating at Parris' house, Abigail accused Elizabeth's spirit of stabbing her. Mary tells Hale that she made the doll in court that day and stored the needle inside it. She also states that Abigail saw this because she sat next to her. The men still take Elizabeth into custody, and Hale, Corey and Nurse leave. Proctor tells Mary that she must testify in court against Abigail. Mary replies that she fears doing this because Abigail and the others will turn against her. In the original production of the play, there was an additional scene in the second act. It has been removed from most subsequent productions, but is added as an appendix in many written book forms of the play: In the woods, Proctor meets with Abigail. She attempts to win Proctor back, but fails when he remains loyal to his wife. Judge Hathorne (offstage) is in the midst of questioning Martha Corey on accusations of"
      },
      {
        "text": "igail and the others will turn against her. In the original production of the play, there was an additional scene in the second act. It has been removed from most subsequent productions, but is added as an appendix in many written book forms of the play: In the woods, Proctor meets with Abigail. She attempts to win Proctor back, but fails when he remains loyal to his wife. Judge Hathorne (offstage) is in the midst of questioning Martha Corey on accusations of witchcraft, during which her husband, Giles, interrupts the court proceedings and declares that Thomas Putnam is \"reaching out for land!\" Giles is removed from the courtroom and taken to the vestry room by Willard/Herrick. Judge Hathorne enters and angrily asks: \"How dare you come roarin' into this court, are you gone daft, Corey?\". Giles Corey replies that since Hathorne isn't a Boston Judge yet, he has no right to ask him that question. Deputy Governor Danforth, Cheever, Reverend Parris and Francis Nurse enter the vestry room. Corey explains that he owns of land and a large quantity of timber, both of which Putnam had been eyeing. Corey also states that the court is holding his wife Martha by mistake saying he had only said Martha was reading books, but he never accused her of witchcraft. Danforth soon thereafter takes utter control of the situation, and denies others in the court even a modicum of power. John Proctor enters with Mary Warren, promising to clear up any doubts regarding the girls if his wife is freed from custody. Danforth orders the girls into the vestry. Reverend Parris is skeptical, pointing out that the girls fainted, screamed, and turned cold before the accused, which they see as proof of the spirits. Mary tells them that she believed at first to have seen the spirits, however she knows now that there aren't any. In an attempt to discredit Mary, Abigail and the other"
      },
      {
        "text": " with Mary Warren, promising to clear up any doubts regarding the girls if his wife is freed from custody. Danforth orders the girls into the vestry. Reverend Parris is skeptical, pointing out that the girls fainted, screamed, and turned cold before the accused, which they see as proof of the spirits. Mary tells them that she believed at first to have seen the spirits, however she knows now that there aren't any. In an attempt to discredit Mary, Abigail and the other girls begin to scream and cry out that they are freezing. When Abigail calls to God, Proctor accuses her of being a whore and tells the court of their affair. Abigail denies it and the court has Elizabeth brought in to verify if Proctor is telling the truth. Not knowing that he had already confessed, Elizabeth lies and denies any knowledge of the affair. When Proctor continues to insist that the affair took place, the girls begin to pretend to see a yellow bird sent by Mary to attack them. To save herself from being accused of witchcraft, Mary tells the court that Proctor was in league with the devil and forced her to testify. Proctor is arrested for witchcraft, and Reverend Hale storms out of the court, shouting \"I denounce these proceedings!\" Proctor is chained to a jail wall, totally isolated from the outside. Reverend Parris begins to panic because John was liked by many in the village (as were Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse, who are also to be hanged), and he explains his fears to Hathorne, Danforth and Cheever. He also reveals that Abigail and Mercy Lewis (one of the \"afflicted\" girls) stole 31 pounds (about half his yearly salary) and boarded a ship in the night. Hale enters, now a broken man who spends all his time with the prisoners, praying with them and advising prisoners to confess to witchcraft so that they can live. The authorities send Elizabeth to John, telling her to try to convince"
      },
      {
        "text": " hanged), and he explains his fears to Hathorne, Danforth and Cheever. He also reveals that Abigail and Mercy Lewis (one of the \"afflicted\" girls) stole 31 pounds (about half his yearly salary) and boarded a ship in the night. Hale enters, now a broken man who spends all his time with the prisoners, praying with them and advising prisoners to confess to witchcraft so that they can live. The authorities send Elizabeth to John, telling her to try to convince Proctor to confess to being a witch. When Proctor and Elizabeth are alone, she forgives him and reaffirms their love. Elizabeth tells of Giles Corey being pressed to death. John chooses to confess in exchange for his life and calls out to Hathorne, who is almost overjoyed to hear such news. Proctor signs the confession, then tears it up when realizing that Danforth is going to nail the signed confession to the church (which Proctor fears will ruin his name and the names of other Salemites). Proctor, Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey are led to the gallows to hang.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Bell Jar",
    "author": "Sylvia Plath",
    "published_date": "1963",
    "synopsis": " Esther Greenwood, a young woman from the suburbs of Boston, gains a summer internship at a prominent magazine in New York City under editor Jay Cee. At the time of the Rosenbergs' execution, Esther is neither stimulated nor excited by the big city and glamorous culture and lifestyle that girls her age are expected to idolize and emulate. Instead her experiences frighten and disorient her. She appreciates the witty sarcasm and adventurousness of her friend Doreen, but also identifies with the piety of Betsy (dubbed \"Pollyanna Cowgirl\") and a \"goody-goody\" sorority girl who always does the right thing. She has a benefactress in Philomena Guinea, a formerly successful fiction writer (based on Olive Higgins Prouty), who will, later during Esther's hospitalization, pay for some of her treatments. Esther describes in detail several seriocomic incidents that occur during her internship, kicked off by an unfortunate but amusing experience at a banquet for the girls given by the staff of Ladies' Day magazine. She reminisces about her friend Buddy, whom she has dated more or less seriously and who considers himself her de facto fianc\u00e9. She also muses about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who are scheduled for execution. She returns to her Massachusetts home in low spirits. During her stay in New York City, she had hoped to return to another scholarly opportunity, a writing course taught by a world-famous author. Upon her return home, her mother immediately tells her she was not accepted for the course. She decides to spend the summer potentially writing a novel, although she feels she doesn't have enough life experience to write convincingly. All of her identity has been centered upon doing well academically; she is unsure of what to make of her life once she leaves school, and the choices presented to her (motherhood, as exemplified by the prolific child-bearer and vacuous Dodo Conway, or stereotypical female careers such as stenography) do not appeal to her. Esther becomes increasingly depressed, and finds herself unable to sleep. Her mother encourages, or perhaps forces, her to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Gordon, whom Esther mistrusts because he is attractive and seems to be showing off a picture of his charming family rather than listening to her. He prescribes electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). It is improperly administered, and she feels she's being electrocuted like the Rosenbergs. Afterward, she tells her mother she won't go back: My mother smiled. \"I know my baby wasn't like that.\" I looked at her. \"Like what?\" \"Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital.\" She paused. \"I knew you'd decide to be all right again.\" Esther's mental state worsens. She describes her depression as a feeling of being trapped under a bell jar, struggling for breath. She makes several half-hearted attempts at suicide, including swimming far out to sea, before making a serious attempt. She leaves a note that says she is taking a long walk, then crawls into the cellar and swallows almost 50 sleeping pills that have been prescribed for her insomnia. She is discovered under her house after a rather dramatic episode in the newspapers has presumed her kidnapping and death, all taking place over an indeterminate amount of time. She survives and is sent to a different mental hospital, where she meets Dr. Nolan, a female therapist. Along with regular sessions of psychotherapy Esther is given huge amounts of insulin to produce a "reaction", and again receives shock treatments, with Dr. Nolan ensuring that they are properly administered. Esther describes the ECT as beneficial in that it has a sort of antidepressant effect, lifting the metaphorical bell jar in which she has felt trapped and stifled. Her stay at the private institution is funded by her benefactress, Philomena Guinea. Esther tells Dr. Nolan how she envies the freedom that men have, but as a woman, worries about getting pregnant. Dr. Nolan refers her to a doctor who fits her for a diaphragm. Esther now feels free from her fears about the consequences of sex. She feels free from previous pressures to get married, potentially to the wrong man. Under Dr. Nolan, Esther improves and various life-changing events help her regain her sanity. The novel ends with her entering the room for her interview which will decide whether she can leave the hospital.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Esther Greenwood, a young woman from the suburbs of Boston, gains a summer internship at a prominent magazine in New York City under editor Jay Cee. At the time of the Rosenbergs' execution, Esther is neither stimulated nor excited by the big city and glamorous culture and lifestyle that girls her age are expected to idolize and emulate. Instead her experiences frighten and disorient her. She appreciates the witty sarcasm and adventurousness of her friend Doreen, but also identifies with the piety of Betsy (dubbed \"Pollyanna Cowgirl\") and a \"goody-goody\" sorority girl who always does the right thing. She has a benefactress in Philomena Guinea, a formerly successful fiction writer (based on Olive Higgins Prouty), who will, later during Esther's hospitalization, pay for some of her treatments. Esther describes in detail several seriocomic incidents that occur during her internship, kicked off by an unfortunate but amusing experience at a banquet for the girls given by the staff of Ladies' Day magazine. She reminisces about her friend Buddy, whom she has dated more or less seriously and who considers himself her de facto fianc\u00e9. She also muses about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who are scheduled for execution. She returns to her Massachusetts home in low spirits. During her stay in New York City, she had hoped to return to another scholarly opportunity, a writing course taught by a world-famous author. Upon her return home, her mother immediately tells her she was not accepted for the course. She decides to spend the summer potentially writing a novel, although she feels she doesn't have enough life experience to write convincingly. All of her identity has been centered upon doing well academically; she is unsure of what to make of her life once she leaves school, and the choices presented to her (motherhood, as exemplified by the prolific child-bearer and vacuous Dodo Conway, or stereotypical female careers"
      },
      {
        "text": " home, her mother immediately tells her she was not accepted for the course. She decides to spend the summer potentially writing a novel, although she feels she doesn't have enough life experience to write convincingly. All of her identity has been centered upon doing well academically; she is unsure of what to make of her life once she leaves school, and the choices presented to her (motherhood, as exemplified by the prolific child-bearer and vacuous Dodo Conway, or stereotypical female careers such as stenography) do not appeal to her. Esther becomes increasingly depressed, and finds herself unable to sleep. Her mother encourages, or perhaps forces, her to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Gordon, whom Esther mistrusts because he is attractive and seems to be showing off a picture of his charming family rather than listening to her. He prescribes electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). It is improperly administered, and she feels she's being electrocuted like the Rosenbergs. Afterward, she tells her mother she won't go back: My mother smiled. \"I know my baby wasn't like that.\" I looked at her. \"Like what?\" \"Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital.\" She paused. \"I knew you'd decide to be all right again.\" Esther's mental state worsens. She describes her depression as a feeling of being trapped under a bell jar, struggling for breath. She makes several half-hearted attempts at suicide, including swimming far out to sea, before making a serious attempt. She leaves a note that says she is taking a long walk, then crawls into the cellar and swallows almost 50 sleeping pills that have been prescribed for her insomnia. She is discovered under her house after a rather dramatic episode in the newspapers has presumed her kidnapping and death, all taking place over an indeterminate amount of time. She survives and is sent to a different mental hospital, where she meets Dr. Nolan, a"
      },
      {
        "text": ", including swimming far out to sea, before making a serious attempt. She leaves a note that says she is taking a long walk, then crawls into the cellar and swallows almost 50 sleeping pills that have been prescribed for her insomnia. She is discovered under her house after a rather dramatic episode in the newspapers has presumed her kidnapping and death, all taking place over an indeterminate amount of time. She survives and is sent to a different mental hospital, where she meets Dr. Nolan, a female therapist. Along with regular sessions of psychotherapy Esther is given huge amounts of insulin to produce a "reaction", and again receives shock treatments, with Dr. Nolan ensuring that they are properly administered. Esther describes the ECT as beneficial in that it has a sort of antidepressant effect, lifting the metaphorical bell jar in which she has felt trapped and stifled. Her stay at the private institution is funded by her benefactress, Philomena Guinea. Esther tells Dr. Nolan how she envies the freedom that men have, but as a woman, worries about getting pregnant. Dr. Nolan refers her to a doctor who fits her for a diaphragm. Esther now feels free from her fears about the consequences of sex. She feels free from previous pressures to get married, potentially to the wrong man. Under Dr. Nolan, Esther improves and various life-changing events help her regain her sanity. The novel ends with her entering the room for her interview which will decide whether she can leave the hospital.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " her interview which will decide whether she can leave the hospital.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Jude the Obscure",
    "author": "Thomas Hardy",
    "published_date": "1895",
    "synopsis": " The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, a village stonemason in the southern English region of Wessex who yearns to be a scholar at \"Christminster\", a city modeled on Oxford. In his spare time, while working in his aunt's bakery, he teaches himself Greek and Latin. Before he can try to enter the university, the na\u00efve Jude is manipulated, through a process he later calls erotolepsy, into marrying a rather coarse and superficial local girl, Arabella Donn, who deserts him within two years. By this time, he has abandoned the classics altogether. After Arabella leaves him, Jude moves to Christminster and supports himself as a mason while studying alone, hoping to be able to enter the university later. There, he meets and falls in love with his free-spirited cousin, Sue Bridehead. Jude shortly introduces Sue to his former schoolteacher, Mr. Phillotson, whom she later marries. Sue is satisfied by the normality of her married life, but quickly finds the relationship an unhappy one; in addition to being in love with Jude, not her husband, she is physically disgusted by her spouse, and, apparently, by sex in general. Sue eventually leaves Phillotson for Jude. Sue and Jude spend some time living together without any sexual relationship; they are both afraid to get married because their family has a history of tragic unions, and think that being legally bound to one another might destroy their love. Jude eventually convinces Sue to sleep with him and, over the years, they have two children together. They are also bestowed with a child \"of an intelligent age\" from Jude's first marriage to Arabella, whom Jude did not know about earlier. He is named Jude and nicknamed \"Little Father Time\" because of his intense seriousness and moroseness. Jude and Sue are socially ostracized for living together unmarried, especially after the children are born. Jude's employers always dismiss him when they find out, and landlords evict them. Their socially-disturbed boy, \"Little Father Time,\" comes to believe that he and his half-siblings are the source of the family's woes. He murders Sue's two children and commits suicide by hanging. He leaves behind a note that simply reads, \"Done because we are too menny.\" Shortly thereafter, Sue has a miscarriage. Beside herself with grief and blaming herself for \"Little Father Time's\" actions, which were, in part, instigated by a conversation the two had had the previous night, Sue turns to the church that has ostracized her and comes to believe that the children's deaths were divine retribution for her relationship with Jude. Although horrified at the thought of resuming her marriage with Phillotson, she becomes convinced that, for religious reasons, she should never have left him. Arabella discovers Sue's feelings and informs Phillotson, who soon proposes they remarry. This results in Sue leaving Jude for Phillotson. Jude is devastated and remarries Arabella after she plies him with alcohol to once again trick him into marriage. After one final, desperate visit to Sue in freezing weather, Jude becomes seriously ill and dies within the year. It is revealed that Sue has grown \"staid and worn\" with Phillotson. Arabella fails to mourn Jude's passing, instead setting the stage to ensnare her next suitor.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, a village stonemason in the southern English region of Wessex who yearns to be a scholar at \"Christminster\", a city modeled on Oxford. In his spare time, while working in his aunt's bakery, he teaches himself Greek and Latin. Before he can try to enter the university, the na\u00efve Jude is manipulated, through a process he later calls erotolepsy, into marrying a rather coarse and superficial local girl, Arabella Donn, who deserts him within two years. By this time, he has abandoned the classics altogether. After Arabella leaves him, Jude moves to Christminster and supports himself as a mason while studying alone, hoping to be able to enter the university later. There, he meets and falls in love with his free-spirited cousin, Sue Bridehead. Jude shortly introduces Sue to his former schoolteacher, Mr. Phillotson, whom she later marries. Sue is satisfied by the normality of her married life, but quickly finds the relationship an unhappy one; in addition to being in love with Jude, not her husband, she is physically disgusted by her spouse, and, apparently, by sex in general. Sue eventually leaves Phillotson for Jude. Sue and Jude spend some time living together without any sexual relationship; they are both afraid to get married because their family has a history of tragic unions, and think that being legally bound to one another might destroy their love. Jude eventually convinces Sue to sleep with him and, over the years, they have two children together. They are also bestowed with a child \"of an intelligent age\" from Jude's first marriage to Arabella, whom Jude did not know about earlier. He is named Jude and nicknamed \"Little Father Time\" because of his intense seriousness and moroseness. Jude and Sue are socially ostracized for living together unmarried, especially after the children are born. Jude's employers always dismiss him when they find"
      },
      {
        "text": " eventually convinces Sue to sleep with him and, over the years, they have two children together. They are also bestowed with a child \"of an intelligent age\" from Jude's first marriage to Arabella, whom Jude did not know about earlier. He is named Jude and nicknamed \"Little Father Time\" because of his intense seriousness and moroseness. Jude and Sue are socially ostracized for living together unmarried, especially after the children are born. Jude's employers always dismiss him when they find out, and landlords evict them. Their socially-disturbed boy, \"Little Father Time,\" comes to believe that he and his half-siblings are the source of the family's woes. He murders Sue's two children and commits suicide by hanging. He leaves behind a note that simply reads, \"Done because we are too menny.\" Shortly thereafter, Sue has a miscarriage. Beside herself with grief and blaming herself for \"Little Father Time's\" actions, which were, in part, instigated by a conversation the two had had the previous night, Sue turns to the church that has ostracized her and comes to believe that the children's deaths were divine retribution for her relationship with Jude. Although horrified at the thought of resuming her marriage with Phillotson, she becomes convinced that, for religious reasons, she should never have left him. Arabella discovers Sue's feelings and informs Phillotson, who soon proposes they remarry. This results in Sue leaving Jude for Phillotson. Jude is devastated and remarries Arabella after she plies him with alcohol to once again trick him into marriage. After one final, desperate visit to Sue in freezing weather, Jude becomes seriously ill and dies within the year. It is revealed that Sue has grown \"staid and worn\" with Phillotson. Arabella fails to mourn Jude's passing, instead setting the stage to ensnare her next suitor.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "otson. Jude is devastated and remarries Arabella after she plies him with alcohol to once again trick him into marriage. After one final, desperate visit to Sue in freezing weather, Jude becomes seriously ill and dies within the year. It is revealed that Sue has grown \"staid and worn\" with Phillotson. Arabella fails to mourn Jude's passing, instead setting the stage to ensnare her next suitor.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Democracy in America",
    "author": "Alexis de Tocqueville",
    "published_date": "1935",
    "synopsis": " The primary focus of Democracy in America is an analysis of why republican representative democracy has succeeded in the United States while failing in so many other places. Tocqueville seeks to apply the functional aspects of democracy in America to what he sees as the failings of democracy in his native France. Tocqueville speculates on the future of democracy in the United States, discussing possible threats to democracy and possible dangers of democracy. These include his belief that democracy has a tendency to degenerate into \"soft despotism\" as well as the risk of developing a tyranny of the majority. He observes that the strong role religion played in the United States was due to its separation from the government, a separation all parties found agreeable. He contrasts this to France where there was what he perceived to be an unhealthy antagonism between democrats and the religious, which he relates to the connection between church and state. Insightful analysis of political society was supplemented in the second volume by description of civil society as a sphere of private and civilian affairs. Tocqueville's views on America took a darker turn after 1840, however, as made evident in Aurelian Craiutu's Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and Other Writings.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The primary focus of Democracy in America is an analysis of why republican representative democracy has succeeded in the United States while failing in so many other places. Tocqueville seeks to apply the functional aspects of democracy in America to what he sees as the failings of democracy in his native France. Tocqueville speculates on the future of democracy in the United States, discussing possible threats to democracy and possible dangers of democracy. These include his belief that democracy has a tendency to degenerate into \"soft despotism\" as well as the risk of developing a tyranny of the majority. He observes that the strong role religion played in the United States was due to its separation from the government, a separation all parties found agreeable. He contrasts this to France where there was what he perceived to be an unhealthy antagonism between democrats and the religious, which he relates to the connection between church and state. Insightful analysis of political society was supplemented in the second volume by description of civil society as a sphere of private and civilian affairs. Tocqueville's views on America took a darker turn after 1840, however, as made evident in Aurelian Craiutu's Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and Other Writings.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Giver",
    "author": "Lois Lowry",
    "published_date": "1993",
    "synopsis": " The book focuses on a twelve-year-old boy named Jonas residing in an immaculately-organized, tightly-run, but strict utopian society known as the community of Sameness , where eccentricities in behavior, appearance, or personality are strongly outlawed and opposed. Nearing an age where he will be selected for the position that he will hold in the Community throughout adulthood, Jonas is selected for the role as the Receiver of Memory, the keeper of all ancient memories in the Community before the start of the strict system through which the world is now run. Under the guidance of the older Receiver-of-Memory, the Giver, Jonas is transferred memories that had taken place years prior to the events of the story, involving color, emotion, freedom, and pain, which have since been drained entirely from the Community. Through the Giver, Jonas receives stunning wisdom of the true secret runnings of the Community, including secrets remaining heavily-guarded from its inhabitants, and the boy starts to yearn for the happier world which had been available during the past. He is exposed to shocking footage of his father, a Nurturer, injecting a baby twin with poison (as a means of living up to the Community's mandatory standards of population control) and is shocked by the true intentions and behaviors of the residents in the Community, how their utter inability to accept pain forced their hunger for a Receiver of Memory. The Giver informs Jonas that it is up to him to help restore freedom to the world, and therefore he must flee the town late at night with the other closest option for a Receiver; a baby boy named Gabriel, who Jonas's family had been sheltering for the past few months, so the Giver may convince everyone that they have died so they may once again accept the burden of the pains of their own memories and everything can be restored to how it had formerly been. Jonas must escape to Elsewhere, an unknown land located beyond the boundaries of the Community, and the pair must endure through the freezing cold together, just as Jonas \"thinks he hears singing\" (a reference to a past memory he'd received).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book focuses on a twelve-year-old boy named Jonas residing in an immaculately-organized, tightly-run, but strict utopian society known as the community of Sameness , where eccentricities in behavior, appearance, or personality are strongly outlawed and opposed. Nearing an age where he will be selected for the position that he will hold in the Community throughout adulthood, Jonas is selected for the role as the Receiver of Memory, the keeper of all ancient memories in the Community before the start of the strict system through which the world is now run. Under the guidance of the older Receiver-of-Memory, the Giver, Jonas is transferred memories that had taken place years prior to the events of the story, involving color, emotion, freedom, and pain, which have since been drained entirely from the Community. Through the Giver, Jonas receives stunning wisdom of the true secret runnings of the Community, including secrets remaining heavily-guarded from its inhabitants, and the boy starts to yearn for the happier world which had been available during the past. He is exposed to shocking footage of his father, a Nurturer, injecting a baby twin with poison (as a means of living up to the Community's mandatory standards of population control) and is shocked by the true intentions and behaviors of the residents in the Community, how their utter inability to accept pain forced their hunger for a Receiver of Memory. The Giver informs Jonas that it is up to him to help restore freedom to the world, and therefore he must flee the town late at night with the other closest option for a Receiver; a baby boy named Gabriel, who Jonas's family had been sheltering for the past few months, so the Giver may convince everyone that they have died so they may once again accept the burden of the pains of their own memories and everything can be restored to how it had formerly been. Jonas must escape to Elsewhere, an unknown land located beyond the boundaries of the Community, and"
      },
      {
        "text": " to the world, and therefore he must flee the town late at night with the other closest option for a Receiver; a baby boy named Gabriel, who Jonas's family had been sheltering for the past few months, so the Giver may convince everyone that they have died so they may once again accept the burden of the pains of their own memories and everything can be restored to how it had formerly been. Jonas must escape to Elsewhere, an unknown land located beyond the boundaries of the Community, and the pair must endure through the freezing cold together, just as Jonas \"thinks he hears singing\" (a reference to a past memory he'd received).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Solitary Grief",
    "author": "Bernice Rubens",
    "published_date": "1991-05-06",
    "synopsis": " The novel opens with psychiatrist Dr Alistair Crown's wife Virginia giving birth to the couple's first child. Crown, who is not present during birth, is informed immediately afterwards that their daughter Doris has Down's syndrome, a fact he is unable to accept. For the next five years, he avoids Doris's face: He never looks at her and he refuses to be shown photos of her. His idea of being close to his daughter consists in his nocturnal visits to her bedroom when she is fast asleep: Then he gropes around under the sheets — in a harmless way, imagining what it would be like to have a normal child and envisaging the day when he will actually come face to face with her. However, he keeps postponing that day, telling himself and his wife that he is not ready for it yet. He leaves for work early in the morning and comes home at night when his daughter is already asleep. He does not tell his parents, who live abroad, that their granddaughter is handicapped and, for years, can persuade them not to visit. Although Virginia is a devoted mother and an understanding wife, the ensuing marital crisis is unavoidable. When Doris is of preschool age, Crown actually has to lock himself in his room so as to make sure that he does not accidentally see his daughter's face. After a brief fling with a former girlfriend he moves out of the house. His life takes a decisive turn when he meets a man who calls himself Esau. Esau, who has a very hairy body, is still suffering under his dominant father although the latter has been dead for some time. He has become a compulsive stripper, making appointments with doctors, dentists and masseurs only to perform his stripping routine in front of them and wait for their reaction. The two men strike up an asexual friendship, and Crown moves into Esau's large house. Although he realizes that Esau is in urgent need of psychiatric treatment, Crown just sees a friend in him and refuses to have any therapeutic influence on Esau. He is devastated when Esau commits suicide by hanging himself in the attic. Now Crown's life totally gets out of control. Early one morning a few days before Doris's fifth birthday he kidnaps her from the playground of her nursery school — still without looking at her —, drives with her to Hyde Park, strangles her from behind and buries her face down under a tree in a shallow grave dug out with his bare hands. Back at his office, he is informed by his wife that Doris has gone missing. For a couple of days, the police search for the girl but then give up all hope of ever finding her alive and well. When soon afterwards her body is found, Crown has to accompany the police to the morgue to identify his daughter. This is when he comes face to face with her for the first — and last — time. The police never solve the crime. Some time later Crown hangs himself in the garage.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel opens with psychiatrist Dr Alistair Crown's wife Virginia giving birth to the couple's first child. Crown, who is not present during birth, is informed immediately afterwards that their daughter Doris has Down's syndrome, a fact he is unable to accept. For the next five years, he avoids Doris's face: He never looks at her and he refuses to be shown photos of her. His idea of being close to his daughter consists in his nocturnal visits to her bedroom when she is fast asleep: Then he gropes around under the sheets — in a harmless way, imagining what it would be like to have a normal child and envisaging the day when he will actually come face to face with her. However, he keeps postponing that day, telling himself and his wife that he is not ready for it yet. He leaves for work early in the morning and comes home at night when his daughter is already asleep. He does not tell his parents, who live abroad, that their granddaughter is handicapped and, for years, can persuade them not to visit. Although Virginia is a devoted mother and an understanding wife, the ensuing marital crisis is unavoidable. When Doris is of preschool age, Crown actually has to lock himself in his room so as to make sure that he does not accidentally see his daughter's face. After a brief fling with a former girlfriend he moves out of the house. His life takes a decisive turn when he meets a man who calls himself Esau. Esau, who has a very hairy body, is still suffering under his dominant father although the latter has been dead for some time. He has become a compulsive stripper, making appointments with doctors, dentists and masseurs only to perform his stripping routine in front of them and wait for their reaction. The two men strike up an asexual friendship, and Crown moves into Esau's large house. Although he realizes that Esau is in urgent need of psychiatric treatment"
      },
      {
        "text": " calls himself Esau. Esau, who has a very hairy body, is still suffering under his dominant father although the latter has been dead for some time. He has become a compulsive stripper, making appointments with doctors, dentists and masseurs only to perform his stripping routine in front of them and wait for their reaction. The two men strike up an asexual friendship, and Crown moves into Esau's large house. Although he realizes that Esau is in urgent need of psychiatric treatment, Crown just sees a friend in him and refuses to have any therapeutic influence on Esau. He is devastated when Esau commits suicide by hanging himself in the attic. Now Crown's life totally gets out of control. Early one morning a few days before Doris's fifth birthday he kidnaps her from the playground of her nursery school — still without looking at her —, drives with her to Hyde Park, strangles her from behind and buries her face down under a tree in a shallow grave dug out with his bare hands. Back at his office, he is informed by his wife that Doris has gone missing. For a couple of days, the police search for the girl but then give up all hope of ever finding her alive and well. When soon afterwards her body is found, Crown has to accompany the police to the morgue to identify his daughter. This is when he comes face to face with her for the first — and last — time. The police never solve the crime. Some time later Crown hangs himself in the garage.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "mdash; time. The police never solve the crime. Some time later Crown hangs himself in the garage.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Xenocide",
    "author": "Orson Scott Card",
    "published_date": "1991",
    "synopsis": " The plot alternates between characters on two planets: Path and Lusitania. Lusitania is an alien planet home to a curious species known as the piggies. Following the events of Speaker for the Dead, we find a story of another set of characters living as a member of a Brazilian Catholic human colony on Lusitania, a unique planet inhabited by the only other two known species of sentient alien life: the Pequeninos \"little ones\" and the Hive Queen. The pequeninos are native to the planet, while the Hive Queen was transplanted to this world by Ender, partly in penance for his near-total destruction of her Formic species in Ender's Game. Unfortunately, the Lusitanian ecosystem is pervaded by a complex virus, dubbed 'Descolada' (Portuguese for \"no longer glued\") by humans. The Descolada breaks apart and rearranges the basic genetic structure of living cells. It's incredibly adaptable to any species or form of known life, and easily transmissible. The native pequeninos and other life that survived on Lusitania after the Descolada's introduction to the planet thousands (or millions) of years ago are adapted to it. As a result of the deadly virus, the Lusitanian ecosystem is severely limited. Staying alive on Lusitania takes immense effort and research on the part of the Hive Queen and the humans, as they are not adapted to the descolada. Near the end of the story, it is revealed the Descolada is possibly an artificially engineered virus designed to terraform planets, but the original creators of the virus are unknown, and there remains a slim chance it evolved naturally. After the rebellion of the small human colony on Lusitania in Speaker for the Dead to protect the future of the intelligent alien species, Starways Congress sends a fleet to Lusitania to regain control, which will take several decades to reach its destination. Valentine Wiggin, under her pseudonym Demosthenes, publishes a series of articles revealing the presence of the \"Little Doctor\" planet-annihilating weapon on the Fleet. Demosthenes calls it the \"Second Xenocide,\" as using the weapon will result in the obliteration of the only known intelligent alien life. She also claims it to be a brutal crackdown of any colony world striving for autonomy from Starways Congress. Public anger spreads through humanity, and rebellions nearly ensue on several colonies. After quelling much public discontent, Starways Congress finishes their analysis of the situation while the fleet is en route. Fearing the Descolada virus, further rebellions by colony worlds, and other possible unknown political motives, Starways Congress attempts to relay an order to the fleet to annihilate Lusitania upon arrival. After conferring with friends on whether a cause is worth dying for, Jane (a compassionate AI living in the interstellar Ansible communication network) shuts off transmissions to the fleet to block the order. As a consequence of this action, she risks her eventual discovery and death, should the government shut down and wipe the interplanetary network. No known smaller computer system can house her consciousness. On Lusitania itself, Ender attempts to find solutions to the looming catastrophes of the Congressional fleet, Descolada virus, and conflicts among the humans and intelligent alien species. Much on Lusitania centers around the Ribeira family, including Ender's wife Novinha, and her children. Novinha and Elanora, the mother-daughter team responsible for most of the biological advances countering the complex Descolada virus, are unsure if they can manufacture a harmless replacement virus. Conflicts arise on whether they should even do so, since the Descolada is intrinsically tied in with the life cycles of all Lustitanian organisms, and may even be sentient itself. In addition, to try to devise methods to escape the planet, Lusitania's leading, troublemaking physicist Grego is persuaded by Ender to research faster-than-light travel, despite Grego scoffing at the idea. The third biologista of the family, Quara, is convinced that the Descolada is an intelligent, self-aware species, and deserves attempts from the humans for communication and preservation. An additional sibling and Catholic priest, Quim (Father Estev\u00e3o), is determined to use faith and theology to head off another form of xenocide: a group of warmongering Pequenino wish to wipe out all Earthborn life via starship, carrying the deadly Descolada within them. Starways Congress wants its fleet back. After all else fails, it sends the dilemma of the fleet's impossible disappearance to several citizens of the world of Path, a cultural planetary enclave modeled on early China. Path's culture centers on the godspoken-- those who hear the voices of the gods in the form of irresistible compulsions, and are capable of significantly superior intelligence. It later becomes clear that the godspoken of Path are victims of a cruel government project: granted great intelligence by genetic modification, they were also shackled with a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder to control their loyalty. The experiment is set in a culture bound by five dictates - obey the gods, honor the ancestors, love the people, serve the rulers, then serve your self. This is a further safeguard against rebellion. The superintelligent godspoken are considered the most devout and holy of all citizens, and any disloyal thoughts in a godspoken's mind are immediately suppressed by overwhelming obsessive-compulsive behavior, believed to be a sign from the gods the thoughts are wrong. The most respected godspoken on Path is Han Fei-Tzu, for devising a treaty to prevent the rebellion of several colony worlds after the articles published by Demosthenes. Great things are expected of his daughter and potential successor Han Qing-jao, \"Gloriously Bright.\" While doubting the existence of the gods himself, Han Fei-Tzu promised his dying wife he would raise Qing-jao with an unwavering belief in the godspoken. The two of them are tasked by Starways Congress with deciphering the disappearance of the Lusitania Fleet. Han Qing-jao's secret maid, Si Wang-mu, aids her in this task, her intelligence (partially) unfettered by the rigid caste system. The young and naive Qing-jao eventually traces the identity of Demosthenes. Discovering that Demosthenes is Valentine Wiggin, Ender's sister \u2013 but that Valentine has been on a starship en route to Lusitania for the last thirty years \u2013 Qing-Jao concludes that the only possible explanation is advanced computer software closely tied to the communication network. This software must be hiding Demosthenes and publishing her work, while also causing the disappearance of the Fleet. All but discovered, Jane reveals herself to Han Fei-tzu, Han Qing-jao and Si Wang-mu, telling them about their genetic slavery and begging forbearance on their report to Starways Congress. Already harboring suspicions about the godspoken's condition, Han Fei-tzu accepts the news of Congress's atrocity, as does Si Wang-mu, but his daughter Han Qing-jao clings to her belief that Demosthenes and Jane are enemies of the gods. Feeling betrayed by her father, who is violently incapacitated by OCD from the disloyal thoughts, Qing-jao argues with Jane. Jane threatens shutting off all communications from Path, but Si Wang-mu realizes this would eventually lead to the planet's destruction by Starways Congress. Understanding Jane to be truly alive and compassionate, through tears Si Wang-mu states Jane will not block the report. However, Qing-jao compares Jane to the servants in Path's caste system, merely a computer program designed to serve humans, containing neither autonomy nor awareness. Knowing she has exhausted her last possibilities of stopping Qing-jao, Jane sacrifices her future and life, unwilling to bring harm to Qing-jao or the people of Path. A triumphant Qing-jao reports the knowledge of Demosthenes, Jane, and the fate of the Fleet to Starways Congress. Qing-jao recommends a coordinated date set several months from the present, to prepare the massive undertaking of setting up clean computers across the interplanetary network, after which the transition to a new system will kill Jane and allow Congress full control again. Allowing the message to be sent, Jane restores communication with the Fleet, and Congress re-issues the order for the Fleet to obliterate Lusitania. Han Fei-tzu recovers from the incapacitation of his OCD, despairing over his daughter's actions, and his unwitting aid in deeply brainwashing her to serve Congress. He and Si Wang-mu assist Jane and those on Lusitania in finding solutions to their impending catastrophes. Planter, a Pequenino on Lusitania, offers his life for an experiment to determine whether the Descolada gives Pequeninos sentience, or if they have the ability innately. Eventually, Elanora Ribeira is able to come up with a possible model for a \"recolada:\" a refit of the Descolada that allows the native life to survive and retain self-awareness, but doesn't seek to kill all other life forms. With the available equipment, however, the recolada is impossible to make, and they are running out of time against the soon-to-arrive Fleet. While this research takes place, tragedies occur on Lusitania. Father Estev\u00e3o Ribeira, the priest attempting to sway a distant warmongering sect of the Pequeninos from their goal of attacking humanity, is killed. Grego Ribeira spurs a riot of humans to burn down the warmonger's forest, but the violent mob gets out of his control, and rampages through the neighboring Pequenino forest instead, massacring many of its inhabitants \u2013 the original friends and allies of humanity. Under the terms of the treaty with Pequeninos, the Hive Queen is brought in to hold the peace, setting a perimeter guard of hive drones around the human colony and preventing further escalation of violence between the two groups. Grego is locked in jail, despite eventually stepping between the surviving Pequeninos and his own riot. The town realizes their horrific rage, and constructs a chapel surrounding the fallen priest's grave, trying to find penance for their actions. Finally - a breakthrough is made. Knowing the Ansible communication network allows instantaneous transfer of information, and through knowledge of how the Hive Queen gives sentience to child queens, Jane, Grego, and Olhado discover the \"Outside.\" The Outside is a spacetime plane where ai\u00faas initially exist. (Ai\u00faa is the term given to the pattern defining any specific structure of the universe, whether a particular atom, a star, or a sentient consciousness.) Formic hive queens are called from Outside after birth, giving awareness to the new body. Jane is able to contain within her vast computing power the pattern defining the billions of atoms and overall structure comprising a simple \"starship\" (little more than a room), with passengers included, and take them Outside. By bringing them Outside, where relative location is nonexistent, then back \"Inside\" at a different spot in the physical universe, instantaneous travel has been achieved, finally matching the instantaneous communication of the Ansibles and Formics. They quickly arrange to take Ender, Ela, and Miro to Outside. While Ela is Outside, she is able to create the recolada virus, which is a safe replacement of the descolada, and a cure to the godspoken genetic defect. Miro envisions his body as it was before he was crippled by paralysis, and upon arrival in the Outside, his consciousness is contained within a new, restored body. Ender discovers, however, the surreal unwitting creation of a new \"Valentine\" and new \"Peter Wiggin\" from his subconscious, who embody idealized forms of his altruistic and power-hungry sides. The recolada begins its spread across Lusitania, converting the formerly lethal virus into a harmless aid to native life. The cure to the people of Path's genetic-controlling defect is distributed, yet Han Fei-tzu is tragically unable to convince his daughter Qing-jao this was the true course of action. Confronted with the possibility of being lied to all her life and dooming many sentient species to destruction, or an alternative of believing all she ever loved and trusted has betrayed her \u2013 Demosthenes, her father, her friend, her world \u2013 she falls to the ground. The young Qing-jao, Gloriously Bright, is lost to insanity, tracing lines in wood until her death, whispering to a long-gone father and mother if she has finally found forgiveness. Her former maid and friend Si Wang-mu sets off with Peter to take control over Starways Congress and stop the Fleet closing in on Lusitania, while the new Valentine-persona journeys to find a planet for the population of Lusitania to evacuate. The stage is set for the final book of the four-part series, Children of the Mind.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The plot alternates between characters on two planets: Path and Lusitania. Lusitania is an alien planet home to a curious species known as the piggies. Following the events of Speaker for the Dead, we find a story of another set of characters living as a member of a Brazilian Catholic human colony on Lusitania, a unique planet inhabited by the only other two known species of sentient alien life: the Pequeninos \"little ones\" and the Hive Queen. The pequeninos are native to the planet, while the Hive Queen was transplanted to this world by Ender, partly in penance for his near-total destruction of her Formic species in Ender's Game. Unfortunately, the Lusitanian ecosystem is pervaded by a complex virus, dubbed 'Descolada' (Portuguese for \"no longer glued\") by humans. The Descolada breaks apart and rearranges the basic genetic structure of living cells. It's incredibly adaptable to any species or form of known life, and easily transmissible. The native pequeninos and other life that survived on Lusitania after the Descolada's introduction to the planet thousands (or millions) of years ago are adapted to it. As a result of the deadly virus, the Lusitanian ecosystem is severely limited. Staying alive on Lusitania takes immense effort and research on the part of the Hive Queen and the humans, as they are not adapted to the descolada. Near the end of the story, it is revealed the Descolada is possibly an artificially engineered virus designed to terraform planets, but the original creators of the virus are unknown, and there remains a slim chance it evolved naturally. After the rebellion of the small human colony on Lusitania in Speaker for the Dead to protect the future of the intelligent alien species, Starways Congress sends a fleet to Lusitania to regain control, which will"
      },
      {
        "text": " not adapted to the descolada. Near the end of the story, it is revealed the Descolada is possibly an artificially engineered virus designed to terraform planets, but the original creators of the virus are unknown, and there remains a slim chance it evolved naturally. After the rebellion of the small human colony on Lusitania in Speaker for the Dead to protect the future of the intelligent alien species, Starways Congress sends a fleet to Lusitania to regain control, which will take several decades to reach its destination. Valentine Wiggin, under her pseudonym Demosthenes, publishes a series of articles revealing the presence of the \"Little Doctor\" planet-annihilating weapon on the Fleet. Demosthenes calls it the \"Second Xenocide,\" as using the weapon will result in the obliteration of the only known intelligent alien life. She also claims it to be a brutal crackdown of any colony world striving for autonomy from Starways Congress. Public anger spreads through humanity, and rebellions nearly ensue on several colonies. After quelling much public discontent, Starways Congress finishes their analysis of the situation while the fleet is en route. Fearing the Descolada virus, further rebellions by colony worlds, and other possible unknown political motives, Starways Congress attempts to relay an order to the fleet to annihilate Lusitania upon arrival. After conferring with friends on whether a cause is worth dying for, Jane (a compassionate AI living in the interstellar Ansible communication network) shuts off transmissions to the fleet to block the order. As a consequence of this action, she risks her eventual discovery and death, should the government shut down and wipe the interplanetary network. No known smaller computer system can house her consciousness. On Lusitania itself, Ender attempts to find solutions to the looming catastrophes of the Congressional fleet, Descolada virus, and conflicts among the humans and intelligent alien species. Much on Lusitania centers"
      },
      {
        "text": " interstellar Ansible communication network) shuts off transmissions to the fleet to block the order. As a consequence of this action, she risks her eventual discovery and death, should the government shut down and wipe the interplanetary network. No known smaller computer system can house her consciousness. On Lusitania itself, Ender attempts to find solutions to the looming catastrophes of the Congressional fleet, Descolada virus, and conflicts among the humans and intelligent alien species. Much on Lusitania centers around the Ribeira family, including Ender's wife Novinha, and her children. Novinha and Elanora, the mother-daughter team responsible for most of the biological advances countering the complex Descolada virus, are unsure if they can manufacture a harmless replacement virus. Conflicts arise on whether they should even do so, since the Descolada is intrinsically tied in with the life cycles of all Lustitanian organisms, and may even be sentient itself. In addition, to try to devise methods to escape the planet, Lusitania's leading, troublemaking physicist Grego is persuaded by Ender to research faster-than-light travel, despite Grego scoffing at the idea. The third biologista of the family, Quara, is convinced that the Descolada is an intelligent, self-aware species, and deserves attempts from the humans for communication and preservation. An additional sibling and Catholic priest, Quim (Father Estev\u00e3o), is determined to use faith and theology to head off another form of xenocide: a group of warmongering Pequenino wish to wipe out all Earthborn life via starship, carrying the deadly Descolada within them. Starways Congress wants its fleet back. After all else fails, it sends the dilemma of the fleet's impossible disappearance to several citizens of the world of Path, a cultural planetary enclave modeled on early China. Path's culture centers on the godspoken-- those who hear the voices of the gods"
      },
      {
        "text": " faith and theology to head off another form of xenocide: a group of warmongering Pequenino wish to wipe out all Earthborn life via starship, carrying the deadly Descolada within them. Starways Congress wants its fleet back. After all else fails, it sends the dilemma of the fleet's impossible disappearance to several citizens of the world of Path, a cultural planetary enclave modeled on early China. Path's culture centers on the godspoken-- those who hear the voices of the gods in the form of irresistible compulsions, and are capable of significantly superior intelligence. It later becomes clear that the godspoken of Path are victims of a cruel government project: granted great intelligence by genetic modification, they were also shackled with a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder to control their loyalty. The experiment is set in a culture bound by five dictates - obey the gods, honor the ancestors, love the people, serve the rulers, then serve your self. This is a further safeguard against rebellion. The superintelligent godspoken are considered the most devout and holy of all citizens, and any disloyal thoughts in a godspoken's mind are immediately suppressed by overwhelming obsessive-compulsive behavior, believed to be a sign from the gods the thoughts are wrong. The most respected godspoken on Path is Han Fei-Tzu, for devising a treaty to prevent the rebellion of several colony worlds after the articles published by Demosthenes. Great things are expected of his daughter and potential successor Han Qing-jao, \"Gloriously Bright.\" While doubting the existence of the gods himself, Han Fei-Tzu promised his dying wife he would raise Qing-jao with an unwavering belief in the godspoken. The two of them are tasked by Starways Congress with deciphering the disappearance of the Lusitania Fleet. Han Qing-jao's secret maid, Si Wang-mu, aids her in this task, her intelligence (partially) unfettered"
      },
      {
        "text": " Han Qing-jao, \"Gloriously Bright.\" While doubting the existence of the gods himself, Han Fei-Tzu promised his dying wife he would raise Qing-jao with an unwavering belief in the godspoken. The two of them are tasked by Starways Congress with deciphering the disappearance of the Lusitania Fleet. Han Qing-jao's secret maid, Si Wang-mu, aids her in this task, her intelligence (partially) unfettered by the rigid caste system. The young and naive Qing-jao eventually traces the identity of Demosthenes. Discovering that Demosthenes is Valentine Wiggin, Ender's sister \u2013 but that Valentine has been on a starship en route to Lusitania for the last thirty years \u2013 Qing-Jao concludes that the only possible explanation is advanced computer software closely tied to the communication network. This software must be hiding Demosthenes and publishing her work, while also causing the disappearance of the Fleet. All but discovered, Jane reveals herself to Han Fei-tzu, Han Qing-jao and Si Wang-mu, telling them about their genetic slavery and begging forbearance on their report to Starways Congress. Already harboring suspicions about the godspoken's condition, Han Fei-tzu accepts the news of Congress's atrocity, as does Si Wang-mu, but his daughter Han Qing-jao clings to her belief that Demosthenes and Jane are enemies of the gods. Feeling betrayed by her father, who is violently incapacitated by OCD from the disloyal thoughts, Qing-jao argues with Jane. Jane threatens shutting off all communications from Path, but Si Wang-mu realizes this would eventually lead to the planet's destruction by Starways Congress. Understanding Jane to be truly alive and compassionate, through tears Si Wang-mu states Jane will not block the report. However, Qing-jao compares Jane to the servants in Path's"
      },
      {
        "text": " Jane are enemies of the gods. Feeling betrayed by her father, who is violently incapacitated by OCD from the disloyal thoughts, Qing-jao argues with Jane. Jane threatens shutting off all communications from Path, but Si Wang-mu realizes this would eventually lead to the planet's destruction by Starways Congress. Understanding Jane to be truly alive and compassionate, through tears Si Wang-mu states Jane will not block the report. However, Qing-jao compares Jane to the servants in Path's caste system, merely a computer program designed to serve humans, containing neither autonomy nor awareness. Knowing she has exhausted her last possibilities of stopping Qing-jao, Jane sacrifices her future and life, unwilling to bring harm to Qing-jao or the people of Path. A triumphant Qing-jao reports the knowledge of Demosthenes, Jane, and the fate of the Fleet to Starways Congress. Qing-jao recommends a coordinated date set several months from the present, to prepare the massive undertaking of setting up clean computers across the interplanetary network, after which the transition to a new system will kill Jane and allow Congress full control again. Allowing the message to be sent, Jane restores communication with the Fleet, and Congress re-issues the order for the Fleet to obliterate Lusitania. Han Fei-tzu recovers from the incapacitation of his OCD, despairing over his daughter's actions, and his unwitting aid in deeply brainwashing her to serve Congress. He and Si Wang-mu assist Jane and those on Lusitania in finding solutions to their impending catastrophes. Planter, a Pequenino on Lusitania, offers his life for an experiment to determine whether the Descolada gives Pequeninos sentience, or if they have the ability innately. Eventually, Elanora Ribeira is able to come up with a possible model for a \"recolada:\" a refit of the Descol"
      },
      {
        "text": " He and Si Wang-mu assist Jane and those on Lusitania in finding solutions to their impending catastrophes. Planter, a Pequenino on Lusitania, offers his life for an experiment to determine whether the Descolada gives Pequeninos sentience, or if they have the ability innately. Eventually, Elanora Ribeira is able to come up with a possible model for a \"recolada:\" a refit of the Descolada that allows the native life to survive and retain self-awareness, but doesn't seek to kill all other life forms. With the available equipment, however, the recolada is impossible to make, and they are running out of time against the soon-to-arrive Fleet. While this research takes place, tragedies occur on Lusitania. Father Estev\u00e3o Ribeira, the priest attempting to sway a distant warmongering sect of the Pequeninos from their goal of attacking humanity, is killed. Grego Ribeira spurs a riot of humans to burn down the warmonger's forest, but the violent mob gets out of his control, and rampages through the neighboring Pequenino forest instead, massacring many of its inhabitants \u2013 the original friends and allies of humanity. Under the terms of the treaty with Pequeninos, the Hive Queen is brought in to hold the peace, setting a perimeter guard of hive drones around the human colony and preventing further escalation of violence between the two groups. Grego is locked in jail, despite eventually stepping between the surviving Pequeninos and his own riot. The town realizes their horrific rage, and constructs a chapel surrounding the fallen priest's grave, trying to find penance for their actions. Finally - a breakthrough is made. Knowing the Ansible communication network allows instantaneous transfer of information, and through knowledge of how the Hive Queen gives sentience to child queens, Jane, Grego, and Ol"
      },
      {
        "text": " preventing further escalation of violence between the two groups. Grego is locked in jail, despite eventually stepping between the surviving Pequeninos and his own riot. The town realizes their horrific rage, and constructs a chapel surrounding the fallen priest's grave, trying to find penance for their actions. Finally - a breakthrough is made. Knowing the Ansible communication network allows instantaneous transfer of information, and through knowledge of how the Hive Queen gives sentience to child queens, Jane, Grego, and Olhado discover the \"Outside.\" The Outside is a spacetime plane where ai\u00faas initially exist. (Ai\u00faa is the term given to the pattern defining any specific structure of the universe, whether a particular atom, a star, or a sentient consciousness.) Formic hive queens are called from Outside after birth, giving awareness to the new body. Jane is able to contain within her vast computing power the pattern defining the billions of atoms and overall structure comprising a simple \"starship\" (little more than a room), with passengers included, and take them Outside. By bringing them Outside, where relative location is nonexistent, then back \"Inside\" at a different spot in the physical universe, instantaneous travel has been achieved, finally matching the instantaneous communication of the Ansibles and Formics. They quickly arrange to take Ender, Ela, and Miro to Outside. While Ela is Outside, she is able to create the recolada virus, which is a safe replacement of the descolada, and a cure to the godspoken genetic defect. Miro envisions his body as it was before he was crippled by paralysis, and upon arrival in the Outside, his consciousness is contained within a new, restored body. Ender discovers, however, the surreal unwitting creation of a new \"Valentine\" and new \"Peter Wiggin\" from his subconscious, who embody idealized forms of his altruistic and power-hungry sides. The recolada begins its spread across L"
      },
      {
        "text": "olada, and a cure to the godspoken genetic defect. Miro envisions his body as it was before he was crippled by paralysis, and upon arrival in the Outside, his consciousness is contained within a new, restored body. Ender discovers, however, the surreal unwitting creation of a new \"Valentine\" and new \"Peter Wiggin\" from his subconscious, who embody idealized forms of his altruistic and power-hungry sides. The recolada begins its spread across Lusitania, converting the formerly lethal virus into a harmless aid to native life. The cure to the people of Path's genetic-controlling defect is distributed, yet Han Fei-tzu is tragically unable to convince his daughter Qing-jao this was the true course of action. Confronted with the possibility of being lied to all her life and dooming many sentient species to destruction, or an alternative of believing all she ever loved and trusted has betrayed her \u2013 Demosthenes, her father, her friend, her world \u2013 she falls to the ground. The young Qing-jao, Gloriously Bright, is lost to insanity, tracing lines in wood until her death, whispering to a long-gone father and mother if she has finally found forgiveness. Her former maid and friend Si Wang-mu sets off with Peter to take control over Starways Congress and stop the Fleet closing in on Lusitania, while the new Valentine-persona journeys to find a planet for the population of Lusitania to evacuate. The stage is set for the final book of the four-part series, Children of the Mind.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " for the population of Lusitania to evacuate. The stage is set for the final book of the four-part series, Children of the Mind.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sourcery",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Ipslore the Red is a wizard who is about to die. Death comes to usher Ipslore's soul into the next world as the story begins. Ipslore tells Death about his banishment from the Unseen University because he fell in love. Throughout the scene he is holding his infant son, whom Ipslore names Coin. Coin is Ipslore's eighth son, a Wizard squared – a source of magic: a \"sourcerer\". Ipslore plans to determine Coin's destiny and force him to take revenge upon the wizards, but Death forces him to leave a chance for Coin to not follow this fate. As Death is about to take Ipslore to wherever lies beyond, Ipslore transfers his essential being into his staff, which Coin has accepted. In this way, Ipslore plans to teach his son and ultimately make him Archchancellor of Unseen University. Some years later, Virrid Wayzygoose is about to be elected as Archchancellor of the Unseen University. Unfortunately, he is caused to disappear before he can be proclaimed by an unseen attacker. Shortly afterwards, Coin gains entry to the Great Hall in UU and, after besting one of the top wizards in the University is welcomed by the majority of the wizards. Rincewind, The Luggage and the Librarian have missed the arrival of the Sourcerer and are in the pub. While there, Conina, a professional thief, arrives holding a box containing the Archchancellor's hat, which she has procured from the room of Virrid Wayzygoose. The hat, having been worn on the heads of hundreds of Archchancellors has gained a kind of sentience and is able to enlist both Conina and Rincewind to take it to Al Khali, far away from Ankh Morpork and the University. The Librarian is not enlisted as he is buying a round at the bar, although the Luggage comes along for reasons of its own. Several misadventures later, Rincewind, Conina and the Luggage are captured by Abrim, the Grand Vizier to Creosote, the Seriph of Al Khali. Rincewind is thrown into the snake pit, where he meets Nijel \"the Destroyer\" a barbarian hero who has been on the job for three days and wears wooly underwear because he promised his mother he would. Conina is taken to the harem, where she is called by Creosote and asked to tell him a story. (Rincewind, upon finding this out, suggests that telling stories in a harem will \"never catch on\"). The Luggage, having been scorned by Conina, has run away and kills and eats several creatures in the deserts. Coin has shown the wizards the ways of Sourcery and declared UU obsolete. The Library is burned down. Wizardry no longer requires such things. However, Coin is concerned when he is told that Wizards now rule under the Discworld Gods. Coin traps the Gods in an alternate reality, which shrinks to become a large pearl. The Gods being trapped causes the release of the Ice Giants from their prison and they begin strolling across the Discworld, freezing everything in their path. War, Famine, Pestilence and Death are about to release the Apocalypse. The Discworld is about to end. Meanwhile, Creosote has joined Rincewind, Conina and Nijel in their attempts to find a way to Ankh Morpork to face the Sourcerer. They make their way into the treasury, where they find a magical flying carpet, and escape the trembling palace, from which half the bricks were leaving, due to the arrival of Sourcery. Rincewind gets separated from the rest when he takes the flying carpet and makes his way to the University, where he finds, thunderstruck, that the Library has been burned down. After having cried over the wreckage for a while, he senses, to his relief, a magical movement up in the Tower of Art. He realises the Librarian has saved the books by hiding them in the ancient Tower of Art. After some discussion with the Librarian, Rincewind goes off to face the Sourcerer with a sock containing a half-brick. Rincewind eventually convinces Coin to throw the staff away but the power of Coin's father contained within is channelled against that of his son. The other wizards leave the tower as Rincewind rushes forward into the fire, grabbing the child and sending both of them to the Dungeon Dimensions. Then Death strikes the staff and takes Ipslore's soul. Rincewind orders Coin to return to the University and, using his other sock filled with sand, attacks the Creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions. The Apocalypse is foiled when Creosote, Nijel and Conina steal three horses from outside a pub. The horses belong to War, Famine and Pestilence. Binky is not stolen, and Death rides off, leaving the other three behind. Short of anything else to do, War, Famine and Pestilence go back into the pub. Coin returns the University to its former glory (his offer to make everything as good as new is rejected by the Librarian, who asks him to restore everything so that it is as good as old). Then Coin steps into a dimension of his own making, closes the dimension and is not seen on the Discworld again. The Librarian takes Rincewind's battered hat, which got left behind when he went into the Dungeon Dimensions, and places it on a pedestal inside the Library.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ipslore the Red is a wizard who is about to die. Death comes to usher Ipslore's soul into the next world as the story begins. Ipslore tells Death about his banishment from the Unseen University because he fell in love. Throughout the scene he is holding his infant son, whom Ipslore names Coin. Coin is Ipslore's eighth son, a Wizard squared – a source of magic: a \"sourcerer\". Ipslore plans to determine Coin's destiny and force him to take revenge upon the wizards, but Death forces him to leave a chance for Coin to not follow this fate. As Death is about to take Ipslore to wherever lies beyond, Ipslore transfers his essential being into his staff, which Coin has accepted. In this way, Ipslore plans to teach his son and ultimately make him Archchancellor of Unseen University. Some years later, Virrid Wayzygoose is about to be elected as Archchancellor of the Unseen University. Unfortunately, he is caused to disappear before he can be proclaimed by an unseen attacker. Shortly afterwards, Coin gains entry to the Great Hall in UU and, after besting one of the top wizards in the University is welcomed by the majority of the wizards. Rincewind, The Luggage and the Librarian have missed the arrival of the Sourcerer and are in the pub. While there, Conina, a professional thief, arrives holding a box containing the Archchancellor's hat, which she has procured from the room of Virrid Wayzygoose. The hat, having been worn on the heads of hundreds of Archchancellors has gained a kind of sentience and is able to enlist both Conina and Rincewind to take it to Al Khali, far away from Ankh Morpork and the University. The Librarian is not enlisted as he is buying a round at the bar, although the Luggage comes along for reasons of its"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s hat, which she has procured from the room of Virrid Wayzygoose. The hat, having been worn on the heads of hundreds of Archchancellors has gained a kind of sentience and is able to enlist both Conina and Rincewind to take it to Al Khali, far away from Ankh Morpork and the University. The Librarian is not enlisted as he is buying a round at the bar, although the Luggage comes along for reasons of its own. Several misadventures later, Rincewind, Conina and the Luggage are captured by Abrim, the Grand Vizier to Creosote, the Seriph of Al Khali. Rincewind is thrown into the snake pit, where he meets Nijel \"the Destroyer\" a barbarian hero who has been on the job for three days and wears wooly underwear because he promised his mother he would. Conina is taken to the harem, where she is called by Creosote and asked to tell him a story. (Rincewind, upon finding this out, suggests that telling stories in a harem will \"never catch on\"). The Luggage, having been scorned by Conina, has run away and kills and eats several creatures in the deserts. Coin has shown the wizards the ways of Sourcery and declared UU obsolete. The Library is burned down. Wizardry no longer requires such things. However, Coin is concerned when he is told that Wizards now rule under the Discworld Gods. Coin traps the Gods in an alternate reality, which shrinks to become a large pearl. The Gods being trapped causes the release of the Ice Giants from their prison and they begin strolling across the Discworld, freezing everything in their path. War, Famine, Pestilence and Death are about to release the Apocalypse. The Discworld is about to end. Meanwhile, Creosote has joined Rincewind, Conina and N"
      },
      {
        "text": " told that Wizards now rule under the Discworld Gods. Coin traps the Gods in an alternate reality, which shrinks to become a large pearl. The Gods being trapped causes the release of the Ice Giants from their prison and they begin strolling across the Discworld, freezing everything in their path. War, Famine, Pestilence and Death are about to release the Apocalypse. The Discworld is about to end. Meanwhile, Creosote has joined Rincewind, Conina and Nijel in their attempts to find a way to Ankh Morpork to face the Sourcerer. They make their way into the treasury, where they find a magical flying carpet, and escape the trembling palace, from which half the bricks were leaving, due to the arrival of Sourcery. Rincewind gets separated from the rest when he takes the flying carpet and makes his way to the University, where he finds, thunderstruck, that the Library has been burned down. After having cried over the wreckage for a while, he senses, to his relief, a magical movement up in the Tower of Art. He realises the Librarian has saved the books by hiding them in the ancient Tower of Art. After some discussion with the Librarian, Rincewind goes off to face the Sourcerer with a sock containing a half-brick. Rincewind eventually convinces Coin to throw the staff away but the power of Coin's father contained within is channelled against that of his son. The other wizards leave the tower as Rincewind rushes forward into the fire, grabbing the child and sending both of them to the Dungeon Dimensions. Then Death strikes the staff and takes Ipslore's soul. Rincewind orders Coin to return to the University and, using his other sock filled with sand, attacks the Creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions. The Apocalypse is foiled when Creosote, Nijel and Conina steal three horses from outside a pub. The horses belong to"
      },
      {
        "text": " his son. The other wizards leave the tower as Rincewind rushes forward into the fire, grabbing the child and sending both of them to the Dungeon Dimensions. Then Death strikes the staff and takes Ipslore's soul. Rincewind orders Coin to return to the University and, using his other sock filled with sand, attacks the Creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions. The Apocalypse is foiled when Creosote, Nijel and Conina steal three horses from outside a pub. The horses belong to War, Famine and Pestilence. Binky is not stolen, and Death rides off, leaving the other three behind. Short of anything else to do, War, Famine and Pestilence go back into the pub. Coin returns the University to its former glory (his offer to make everything as good as new is rejected by the Librarian, who asks him to restore everything so that it is as good as old). Then Coin steps into a dimension of his own making, closes the dimension and is not seen on the Discworld again. The Librarian takes Rincewind's battered hat, which got left behind when he went into the Dungeon Dimensions, and places it on a pedestal inside the Library.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "It Can't Happen Here",
    "author": "Sinclair Lewis",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Senator Berzelius \"Buzz\" Windrip, a charismatic and power-hungry politician, is elected President of the United States on a populist platform, promising to restore the country to prosperity and greatness, and promising each citizen $5,000 a year (approximately $, adjusted for inflation). Portraying himself as a champion of traditional American values, Windrip easily defeats his opponents, Senator Walt Trowbridge and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Though having previously stated that some authoritarian measures would need to be put in effect in order to reorganize the United States government, Windrip goes so far as to outlaw dissent, incarcerate political enemies in concentration camps, create a paramilitary force, called the Minute Men, who terrorize citizens and enforce the policies of Windrip and his \"corporatist\" regime. One of his first acts as President is to eliminate the influence of the United States Congress, which draws the ire of many citizens as well as the legislators themselves. The Minute Men respond to protests against Windrip's decisions harshly, attacking demonstrators with bayonets. In addition to these actions, Windrip's administration, known as the \"Corpo\" government, curtails women's and minority rights, and eliminates individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors. The government of these sectors is managed by \"Corpo\" authorities, usually prominent businessmen or Minute Men officers. Those accused of crimes against the government are tried in kangaroo courts presided over by \"military judges\". Despite these dictatorial measures, a majority of Americans approve of them, believing them to be necessary though painful steps to restore American power. Others, those less enthusiastic about the prospect of corporatism, reassure themselves that fascism cannot \"happen here\"; hence the novel's title. Open opponents of Windrip, led by Senator Trowbridge, form an organization called the New Underground, helping dissidents escape to Canada in manners reminiscent of the Underground Railroad and distributing anti-Windrip propaganda. Among the members of the New Underground is Doremus Jessup, the novel's protagonist, a traditional liberal and an opponent of both Corpoism and communist theories, which are suppressed by Windrip's administration. Jessup's participation in the organization results in the publication of a periodical called The Vermont Vigilance, in which he writes editorials decrying Windrip's abuses of power. Shad Ledue, the local district commissioner and Jessup's former hired man, resents his old employer and eventually discovers his actions, having him sent to a concentration camp. Ledue subsequently terrorizes Jessup's family and particularly his daughter Sissy, whom he unsuccessfully attempts to seduce. Sissy does, however, discover evidence of corrupt dealings on the part of Ledue, which she exposes to Francis Tasbrough, a onetime friend of Jessup and Ledue's superior. Tasbrough has Ledue imprisoned in the same camp as Jessup, where he is murdered by inmates he had sent there. Jessup escapes after a relatively brief incarceration, when his friends bribe one of the camp guards. He flees to Canada, where he rejoins the New Underground. He later serves the organization as a spy in the northeastern United States, passing along information and urging locals to resist Windrip. In time, Windrip's hold on power weakens, as the economic prosperity he promised does not materialize and increased numbers of disillusioned Americans, including Vice President Perley Beecroft, flee to Canada. He also angers his Secretary of State, Lee Sarason, who had served earlier as his chief political operative and adviser. Sarason and Windrip's other lieutenants, including General Dewey Haik, seize power and exile the President to France. Sarason succeeds Windrip, but his extravagant and relatively weak rule creates a power vacuum in which Haik and others vie for power. In a bloody putsch, Haik leads a party of military supporters into the White House, kills Sarason and his associates, and proclaims himself President. The two coups cause a slow erosion of Corpo power, and Haik's government desperately tries to arouse patriotism by launching an unjustified invasion of Mexico. After slandering Mexico in state-run newspapers, Haik orders a mass conscription of young American men for the invasion of that country, infuriating many who had until then been staunch Corpo loyalists. Riots and rebellions break out across the country, with many realizing that they have been misled by the Corpos. General Emmanuel Coon, among Haik's senior officers, defects to the opposition with a large portion of his army, giving strength to the resistance movement. Though Haik remains in control of much of the country, civil war soon breaks out as the resistance tries to consolidate its grasp on the Midwest. The novel ends after the beginning of the conflict, with Jessup working as an agent for the New Underground in Corpo-occupied portions of southern Minnesota.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Senator Berzelius \"Buzz\" Windrip, a charismatic and power-hungry politician, is elected President of the United States on a populist platform, promising to restore the country to prosperity and greatness, and promising each citizen $5,000 a year (approximately $, adjusted for inflation). Portraying himself as a champion of traditional American values, Windrip easily defeats his opponents, Senator Walt Trowbridge and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Though having previously stated that some authoritarian measures would need to be put in effect in order to reorganize the United States government, Windrip goes so far as to outlaw dissent, incarcerate political enemies in concentration camps, create a paramilitary force, called the Minute Men, who terrorize citizens and enforce the policies of Windrip and his \"corporatist\" regime. One of his first acts as President is to eliminate the influence of the United States Congress, which draws the ire of many citizens as well as the legislators themselves. The Minute Men respond to protests against Windrip's decisions harshly, attacking demonstrators with bayonets. In addition to these actions, Windrip's administration, known as the \"Corpo\" government, curtails women's and minority rights, and eliminates individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors. The government of these sectors is managed by \"Corpo\" authorities, usually prominent businessmen or Minute Men officers. Those accused of crimes against the government are tried in kangaroo courts presided over by \"military judges\". Despite these dictatorial measures, a majority of Americans approve of them, believing them to be necessary though painful steps to restore American power. Others, those less enthusiastic about the prospect of corporatism, reassure themselves that fascism cannot \"happen here\"; hence the novel's title. Open opponents of Windrip, led by Senator Trowbridge, form an organization called the New Underground, helping dissidents escape to Canada in manners reminiscent of the Underground Railroad and distributing anti-Windrip propaganda. Among"
      },
      {
        "text": " judges\". Despite these dictatorial measures, a majority of Americans approve of them, believing them to be necessary though painful steps to restore American power. Others, those less enthusiastic about the prospect of corporatism, reassure themselves that fascism cannot \"happen here\"; hence the novel's title. Open opponents of Windrip, led by Senator Trowbridge, form an organization called the New Underground, helping dissidents escape to Canada in manners reminiscent of the Underground Railroad and distributing anti-Windrip propaganda. Among the members of the New Underground is Doremus Jessup, the novel's protagonist, a traditional liberal and an opponent of both Corpoism and communist theories, which are suppressed by Windrip's administration. Jessup's participation in the organization results in the publication of a periodical called The Vermont Vigilance, in which he writes editorials decrying Windrip's abuses of power. Shad Ledue, the local district commissioner and Jessup's former hired man, resents his old employer and eventually discovers his actions, having him sent to a concentration camp. Ledue subsequently terrorizes Jessup's family and particularly his daughter Sissy, whom he unsuccessfully attempts to seduce. Sissy does, however, discover evidence of corrupt dealings on the part of Ledue, which she exposes to Francis Tasbrough, a onetime friend of Jessup and Ledue's superior. Tasbrough has Ledue imprisoned in the same camp as Jessup, where he is murdered by inmates he had sent there. Jessup escapes after a relatively brief incarceration, when his friends bribe one of the camp guards. He flees to Canada, where he rejoins the New Underground. He later serves the organization as a spy in the northeastern United States, passing along information and urging locals to resist Windrip. In time, Windrip's hold on power weakens, as the economic prosperity he promised does not materialize and increased numbers of disillusioned Americans, including Vice President Perley Beecroft"
      },
      {
        "text": " sent there. Jessup escapes after a relatively brief incarceration, when his friends bribe one of the camp guards. He flees to Canada, where he rejoins the New Underground. He later serves the organization as a spy in the northeastern United States, passing along information and urging locals to resist Windrip. In time, Windrip's hold on power weakens, as the economic prosperity he promised does not materialize and increased numbers of disillusioned Americans, including Vice President Perley Beecroft, flee to Canada. He also angers his Secretary of State, Lee Sarason, who had served earlier as his chief political operative and adviser. Sarason and Windrip's other lieutenants, including General Dewey Haik, seize power and exile the President to France. Sarason succeeds Windrip, but his extravagant and relatively weak rule creates a power vacuum in which Haik and others vie for power. In a bloody putsch, Haik leads a party of military supporters into the White House, kills Sarason and his associates, and proclaims himself President. The two coups cause a slow erosion of Corpo power, and Haik's government desperately tries to arouse patriotism by launching an unjustified invasion of Mexico. After slandering Mexico in state-run newspapers, Haik orders a mass conscription of young American men for the invasion of that country, infuriating many who had until then been staunch Corpo loyalists. Riots and rebellions break out across the country, with many realizing that they have been misled by the Corpos. General Emmanuel Coon, among Haik's senior officers, defects to the opposition with a large portion of his army, giving strength to the resistance movement. Though Haik remains in control of much of the country, civil war soon breaks out as the resistance tries to consolidate its grasp on the Midwest. The novel ends after the beginning of the conflict, with Jessup working as an agent for the New Underground in Corpo"
      },
      {
        "text": " the country, with many realizing that they have been misled by the Corpos. General Emmanuel Coon, among Haik's senior officers, defects to the opposition with a large portion of his army, giving strength to the resistance movement. Though Haik remains in control of much of the country, civil war soon breaks out as the resistance tries to consolidate its grasp on the Midwest. The novel ends after the beginning of the conflict, with Jessup working as an agent for the New Underground in Corpo-occupied portions of southern Minnesota.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "My Brilliant Career",
    "author": "Miles Franklin",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The heroine, Sybylla Melvyn, is an imaginative, headstrong girl growing up in rural Australia in the 1890s. Drought and a series of poor business decisions reduce her family to subsistence level, her father begins to drink excessively, and Sybylla struggles to deal with the monotony of her life. To her relief, she is sent to live on her grandmother's property, where life is more comfortable. There she meets wealthy young Harry Beecham, who loves her and proposes marriage; convinced of her ugliness and aware of her tomboyish ways, Sybylla is unable to believe that he could really love her. By this time, her father's drinking has got the family into debt, and she is sent to work as governess/housekeeper for the family of an almost illiterate neighbour to whom her father owes money. She finds life there unbearable and eventually suffers a physical breakdown which leads to her return to the family home. When Harry Beecham returns to ask Sybylla to marry him, she concludes that she would only make him unhappy and sends him away, determined never to marry. The novel ends with no suggestion that she will ever have the \"brilliant career\" as a writer that she desires.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The heroine, Sybylla Melvyn, is an imaginative, headstrong girl growing up in rural Australia in the 1890s. Drought and a series of poor business decisions reduce her family to subsistence level, her father begins to drink excessively, and Sybylla struggles to deal with the monotony of her life. To her relief, she is sent to live on her grandmother's property, where life is more comfortable. There she meets wealthy young Harry Beecham, who loves her and proposes marriage; convinced of her ugliness and aware of her tomboyish ways, Sybylla is unable to believe that he could really love her. By this time, her father's drinking has got the family into debt, and she is sent to work as governess/housekeeper for the family of an almost illiterate neighbour to whom her father owes money. She finds life there unbearable and eventually suffers a physical breakdown which leads to her return to the family home. When Harry Beecham returns to ask Sybylla to marry him, she concludes that she would only make him unhappy and sends him away, determined never to marry. The novel ends with no suggestion that she will ever have the \"brilliant career\" as a writer that she desires.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Merry Wives of Windsor",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play is nominally set circa 1400, during the same period as the Henry IV plays featuring Falstaff, but there is only one brief reference to this period, a line in which the character Fenton is said to have been one of Prince Hal's rowdy friends (he \"kept company with the wild prince and Poins\"). In all other respects the play implies a contemporary setting of the Elizabethan era, circa 1600. Falstaff arrives in Windsor very short on money. He decides, to obtain financial advantage, that he will court two wealthy married women, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Falstaff decides to send the women identical love letters, and asks his servants \u2013 Pistol and Nym \u2013 to deliver them to the wives. When they refuse Falstaff sacks them and in revenge the men tell Ford and Page (the husbands) of Falstaff's intentions. Page is not concerned but the jealous Ford persuades the Host of the Garter to introduce him to Falstaff as a 'Master Brook' so that he can find out Falstaff's plans. Meanwhile, three different men are trying to win the hand of Page's daughter, Mistress Anne Page. Mistress Page would like her daughter to marry Doctor Caius, a French physician, whereas the girl's father would like her to marry Master Slender. Anne herself is in love with Master Fenton, but Page had previously rejected Fenton as a suitor due to his having squandered his considerable fortune on high-class living. Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson, tries to enlist the help of Mistress Quickly (servant to Doctor Caius) in wooing Anne for Slender, but the doctor discovers this and challenges Evans to a duel. The Host of the Garter prevents this duel by telling both men a different meeting place, causing much amusement for himself, Justice Shallow, Page and others. Evans and Caius decide to work together to be revenged on the Host. When the women receive the letters, each goes to tell the other and they quickly find that the letters are almost identical. The \"merry wives\" are not interested in the ageing, overweight Falstaff as a suitor; however, for the sake of their own amusement and to gain revenge for his indecent assumptions towards them both, they pretend to respond to his advances. This all results in great embarrassment for Falstaff. 'Brook' says he is in love with Mistress Ford but cannot woo her as she is too virtuous. He offers to pay Falstaff to court her, saying that once she has lost her honour he will be able to tempt her himself. Falstaff cannot believe his luck, and tells 'Brook' he has already arranged to meet Mistress Ford while her husband is out. Falstaff leaves to keep his appointment and Ford soliloquises that he is right to suspect his wife and that the trusting Page is a fool. When Falstaff arrives to meet Mistress Ford, the merry wives trick him into hiding in a laundry basket (\"buck basket\") full of filthy, smelly clothes awaiting laundering. When the jealous Ford returns to try and catch his wife with the knight, the wives have the basket taken away and the contents (including Falstaff) dumped into the river. Although this affects Falstaff's pride, his ego is surprisingly resilient. He is convinced that the wives are just \"playing hard to get\" with him, so he continues his pursuit of sexual advancement, with its attendant capital and opportunities for blackmail. Again Falstaff goes to meet the women but Mistress Page comes back and warns Mistress Ford of her husband's approach again. They try to think of ways to hide him other than the laundry basket which he refuses to get into again. They trick him again, this time into disguising himself as Mistress Ford's maid's obese aunt, known as \"the fat woman of Brentford\". Ford tries once again to catch his wife with the knight but ends up beating the \"old woman\", whom he despises, and throwing her out of his house. Black and blue, Falstaff laments his bad luck. Eventually the wives tell their husbands about the series of jokes they have played on Falstaff, and together they devise one last trick which ends up with the Knight being humiliated in front of the whole town. They tell Falstaff to dress as \"Herne, the Hunter\" and meet them by an old oak tree in Windsor Forest (now part of Windsor Great Park). They then dress several of the local children, including Anne and William Page, as fairies and get them to pinch and burn Falstaff to punish him. Page plots to dress Anne in white and tells Slender to steal her away and marry her during the revels. Mistress Page and Doctor Caius arrange to do the same, but they arrange Anne shall be dressed in green. Anne tells Fenton this, and he and the Host arrange for Anne and Fenton to be married instead. The wives meet Falstaff, and almost immediately the \"fairies\" attack. Slender, Caius, and Fenton steal away their brides-to-be during the chaos, and the rest of the characters reveal their true identities to Falstaff. Although he is embarrassed, Falstaff takes the joke surprisingly well, as he sees it was what he deserved. Ford says he must pay back the 20 pounds 'Brook' gave him and takes the Knight's horses as recompense. Slender suddenly appears and says he has been deceived \u2013 the 'girl' he took away to marry was not Anne but a young boy. Caius arrives with similar news \u2013 however, he has actually married his boy! Fenton and Anne arrive and admit that they love each other and have been married. Fenton chides the parents for trying to force Anne to marry men she did not love and the parents accept the marriage and congratulate the young pair. Eventually they all leave together and Mistress Page even invites Falstaff to come with them: \"let us every one go home, and laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play is nominally set circa 1400, during the same period as the Henry IV plays featuring Falstaff, but there is only one brief reference to this period, a line in which the character Fenton is said to have been one of Prince Hal's rowdy friends (he \"kept company with the wild prince and Poins\"). In all other respects the play implies a contemporary setting of the Elizabethan era, circa 1600. Falstaff arrives in Windsor very short on money. He decides, to obtain financial advantage, that he will court two wealthy married women, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Falstaff decides to send the women identical love letters, and asks his servants \u2013 Pistol and Nym \u2013 to deliver them to the wives. When they refuse Falstaff sacks them and in revenge the men tell Ford and Page (the husbands) of Falstaff's intentions. Page is not concerned but the jealous Ford persuades the Host of the Garter to introduce him to Falstaff as a 'Master Brook' so that he can find out Falstaff's plans. Meanwhile, three different men are trying to win the hand of Page's daughter, Mistress Anne Page. Mistress Page would like her daughter to marry Doctor Caius, a French physician, whereas the girl's father would like her to marry Master Slender. Anne herself is in love with Master Fenton, but Page had previously rejected Fenton as a suitor due to his having squandered his considerable fortune on high-class living. Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson, tries to enlist the help of Mistress Quickly (servant to Doctor Caius) in wooing Anne for Slender, but the doctor discovers this and challenges Evans to a duel. The Host of the Garter prevents this duel by telling both men a different meeting place, causing much amusement for himself, Justice Shallow, Page and others. Evans and Caius decide to work together to be revenged on the Host. When the women receive the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson, tries to enlist the help of Mistress Quickly (servant to Doctor Caius) in wooing Anne for Slender, but the doctor discovers this and challenges Evans to a duel. The Host of the Garter prevents this duel by telling both men a different meeting place, causing much amusement for himself, Justice Shallow, Page and others. Evans and Caius decide to work together to be revenged on the Host. When the women receive the letters, each goes to tell the other and they quickly find that the letters are almost identical. The \"merry wives\" are not interested in the ageing, overweight Falstaff as a suitor; however, for the sake of their own amusement and to gain revenge for his indecent assumptions towards them both, they pretend to respond to his advances. This all results in great embarrassment for Falstaff. 'Brook' says he is in love with Mistress Ford but cannot woo her as she is too virtuous. He offers to pay Falstaff to court her, saying that once she has lost her honour he will be able to tempt her himself. Falstaff cannot believe his luck, and tells 'Brook' he has already arranged to meet Mistress Ford while her husband is out. Falstaff leaves to keep his appointment and Ford soliloquises that he is right to suspect his wife and that the trusting Page is a fool. When Falstaff arrives to meet Mistress Ford, the merry wives trick him into hiding in a laundry basket (\"buck basket\") full of filthy, smelly clothes awaiting laundering. When the jealous Ford returns to try and catch his wife with the knight, the wives have the basket taken away and the contents (including Falstaff) dumped into the river. Although this affects Falstaff's pride, his ego is surprisingly resilient. He is convinced that the wives are just \"playing hard to get\" with him, so he continues his pursuit of sexual advancement, with its attendant capital and opportunities for blackmail"
      },
      {
        "text": " a laundry basket (\"buck basket\") full of filthy, smelly clothes awaiting laundering. When the jealous Ford returns to try and catch his wife with the knight, the wives have the basket taken away and the contents (including Falstaff) dumped into the river. Although this affects Falstaff's pride, his ego is surprisingly resilient. He is convinced that the wives are just \"playing hard to get\" with him, so he continues his pursuit of sexual advancement, with its attendant capital and opportunities for blackmail. Again Falstaff goes to meet the women but Mistress Page comes back and warns Mistress Ford of her husband's approach again. They try to think of ways to hide him other than the laundry basket which he refuses to get into again. They trick him again, this time into disguising himself as Mistress Ford's maid's obese aunt, known as \"the fat woman of Brentford\". Ford tries once again to catch his wife with the knight but ends up beating the \"old woman\", whom he despises, and throwing her out of his house. Black and blue, Falstaff laments his bad luck. Eventually the wives tell their husbands about the series of jokes they have played on Falstaff, and together they devise one last trick which ends up with the Knight being humiliated in front of the whole town. They tell Falstaff to dress as \"Herne, the Hunter\" and meet them by an old oak tree in Windsor Forest (now part of Windsor Great Park). They then dress several of the local children, including Anne and William Page, as fairies and get them to pinch and burn Falstaff to punish him. Page plots to dress Anne in white and tells Slender to steal her away and marry her during the revels. Mistress Page and Doctor Caius arrange to do the same, but they arrange Anne shall be dressed in green. Anne tells Fenton this, and he and the Host arrange for Anne and Fenton to be married instead. The wives meet Falstaff,"
      },
      {
        "text": " the local children, including Anne and William Page, as fairies and get them to pinch and burn Falstaff to punish him. Page plots to dress Anne in white and tells Slender to steal her away and marry her during the revels. Mistress Page and Doctor Caius arrange to do the same, but they arrange Anne shall be dressed in green. Anne tells Fenton this, and he and the Host arrange for Anne and Fenton to be married instead. The wives meet Falstaff, and almost immediately the \"fairies\" attack. Slender, Caius, and Fenton steal away their brides-to-be during the chaos, and the rest of the characters reveal their true identities to Falstaff. Although he is embarrassed, Falstaff takes the joke surprisingly well, as he sees it was what he deserved. Ford says he must pay back the 20 pounds 'Brook' gave him and takes the Knight's horses as recompense. Slender suddenly appears and says he has been deceived \u2013 the 'girl' he took away to marry was not Anne but a young boy. Caius arrives with similar news \u2013 however, he has actually married his boy! Fenton and Anne arrive and admit that they love each other and have been married. Fenton chides the parents for trying to force Anne to marry men she did not love and the parents accept the marriage and congratulate the young pair. Eventually they all leave together and Mistress Page even invites Falstaff to come with them: \"let us every one go home, and laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all\".\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " them: \"let us every one go home, and laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Fanny Hill",
    "author": "John Cleland",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The book is written as a series of letters from Frances \"Fanny\" Hill to an unknown woman, with Fanny justifying her life-choices to this individual. At the beginning of her tale, Fanny Hill is a young girl with a rudimentary education living in a small village near Liverpool. Shortly after she turns 15, both her parents die. Esther Davis, a girl from Fanny's village who has since moved to London, convinces Fanny to move to the city as well, but Esther abandons Fanny once they arrive. Fanny hopes to find work as a maid, and is hired by Mrs. Brown, a woman she believes to be a wealthy lady. Mrs. Brown is in fact a madam and intends the innocent Fanny to work for her as a prostitute. Mrs. Brown's associate, Phoebe Ayers, shares a bed with Fanny and introduces her to sexual pleasure while establishing that her hymen is intact. Mrs. Brown plans to sell Fanny's virginity to an ugly old man, but Fanny is repulsed by the man and struggles with him. She is saved from rape by Mrs. Brown's maid. After this ordeal, Fanny falls into a fever for several days. Mrs. Brown, realizing that Fanny's virginity is still intact, decides to sell Fanny's sexual favors to the exceedingly rich Lord B., who is due to arrive in a few weeks. Fanny spies on Mrs. Brown having sex with a large, muscular man. Fanny masturbates while watching them, but is also frightened by the size of the man's penis. She talks to Phoebe, who assures her that it is possible for a young girl to have sex with a well-endowed man. She takes Fanny to spy on another prostitute, Polly Phillips, having sex with a handsome and well-endowed young Genoese merchant. Afterward, Phoebe and Fanny engage in mutual masturbation and Fanny looks forward to her first time having sex with a man. Soon afterward, Fanny meets Charles, a 19-year-old wealthy nobleman, and they fall in love instantly. Charles helps Fanny escape the brothel the next day. They go to an inn outside London, where Fanny has sex with Charles for several days. Charles takes Fanny to his flat at St. James's, London, and introduces her to his landlady, Mrs. Jones. For many months, Charles visits Fanny almost daily to have sex. Fanny works hard to become more educated and urbane. After eight months, Fanny becomes pregnant. Three months later, Charles mysteriously disappears. Mrs. Jones learns that Charles' father has kidnapped Charles and sent him to the South Seas to win a fortune. Upset by the news that Charles will be gone for at least three years, Fanny miscarries and falls ill. She is nursed back to health by Mrs. Jones, but sinks into a deep depression. Mrs. Jones tells Fanny that the now-16-year-old girl must work as a prostitute for her. Mrs. Jones introduces Fanny to Mr. H, a tall, rich, muscular, hairy-chested man. Fanny unwittingly drinks an aphrodisiac, and has sex with Mr. H. She concludes that sex can be had for pleasure, not just love. Mr. H puts Fanny up in a new apartment and begins plying her with jewels, clothes, and art. After seven months, Fanny discovers that Mr. H has been having sex with her maid, so she resolves to seduce Will, Mr. H's 19-year-old servant. Will has an extremely large penis: \"...not the plaything of a boy, nor the weapon of a man, but a Maypole, of so enormous a standard, that, had proportions been observed, it must have belonged to a young giant. ... In short, it stood an object of terror and delight.\" A month later, Mr. H catches Fanny having sex with Will, and stops supporting her. Fanny is taken in by Mrs. Cole, the mistress of one of Mr. H's friends, who also happens to run a brothel in the Covent Garden neighborhood of London. Fanny meets three other prostitutes, who are also living in the house: :*Emily, a blonde girl in her early 20s who ran away at the age of 14 from her country home to London. She met a 15-year-old boy who, being sexually experienced, engaged in sexual intercourse with virgin Emily. Although the two lived together a short time, Emily became a street prostitute for several years before being taken in by Mrs. Cole. :*Harriet, a brunette and an orphan raised by her aunt, had her first sexual experience with the son of Lord N., a nobleman whose estate adjoined her relative's. :*Louisa, the bastard daughter of a cabinetmaker and a maid who entered puberty at a very young age and began engaging in extensive masturbation. While visiting her mother in London, Louisa began masturbating in her mother's bedroom. The landlady's 19-year-old son caught her and made love to the 13-year-old girl. Louisa spent the next few years having sex with as many men as she could and turned to prostitution as a means of satisfying her lust. A short time later, Fanny participates in an orgy with the three girls and four rich noblemen. Fanny and her young nobleman begin a relationship, but it ends after a few months because the young man moves to Ireland. Mrs. Cole next introduces Fanny to Mr. Norbert, an impotent alcoholic and drug addict who engages in rape fantasies with prostitutes. Unhappy with Mr. Norbert's impotence, Fanny engages in anonymous sex with a sailor in the Royal Navy. However, Mr. Norbert soon dies. Mrs. Cole then introduces Fanny to Mr. Barville, a rich, young masochist who requires whipping to enjoy sex. After a short affair, Fanny begins a sexual relationship with an elderly customer who becomes sexually aroused by caressing her hair and biting the fingertips off of her gloves. After this ends, Fanny enters a period of celibacy. Emily and Louisa go to a drag ball, where Emily meets a bisexual young man who believes Emily is a male. When he finds out that she is actually a female, he has sex with Emily in his carriage. Fanny is confused by her first encounter with male homosexuality. Shortly after this incident, Fanny takes a ride in the country and ends up paying for a room at a public tavern after her carriage breaks down. She spies on two young men engaging in anal sex in the next room. Startled, she falls off a stool and knocks herself unconscious. Although the two men have left, she still rouses the villagers to try to hunt the two men down and punish them. Some weeks later, Fanny watches as Louisa seduces the teenage son of a local woman. Fanny believes that the boy's erect penis is even larger than Will's. The boy, clearly a virgin, engages in somewhat violent, brutal sex several times with Louisa. Louisa leaves Mrs. Cole's brothel a short time later after falling in love with another young man. Emily and Fanny are then invited by two gentleman to a country estate. They swim in a stream, and the two men have sex with the girls for several hours. Emily's parents soon find their daughter, and (unaware of her career as a prostitute) ask her to come home again. She accepts. Mrs. Cole retires, and Fanny starts living off of her savings. One day she encounters a man of 60 who looks 45 due to his lifestyle: \"He was, as I afterwards learn'd in the course of the intimacy which this little accident gave birth to, an old bachelor, turn'd of sixty, but of a fresh vigorous complexion, insomuch that he scarce marked five and forty, having never rack'd his constitution by permitting his desires to overtax his ability.\" The man falls in love with Fanny but treats her like his daughter. He dies and leaves his small fortune to her. Now 18 years old, Fanny uses her new wealth to try to locate Charles. She learns that he disappeared two and a half years ago after reaching the South Seas. Several months later, a despondent Fanny takes a trip to see Mrs. Cole (who had retired to Liverpool), but a storm forces her to stop at an inn along the way, where she runs into Charles: He had come back to England but was shipwrecked on the Irish coast. Fanny and Charles get a room together and make love several times. Fanny tells Charles everything about her life of vice, but he forgives her and asks Fanny to marry him, which she does.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is written as a series of letters from Frances \"Fanny\" Hill to an unknown woman, with Fanny justifying her life-choices to this individual. At the beginning of her tale, Fanny Hill is a young girl with a rudimentary education living in a small village near Liverpool. Shortly after she turns 15, both her parents die. Esther Davis, a girl from Fanny's village who has since moved to London, convinces Fanny to move to the city as well, but Esther abandons Fanny once they arrive. Fanny hopes to find work as a maid, and is hired by Mrs. Brown, a woman she believes to be a wealthy lady. Mrs. Brown is in fact a madam and intends the innocent Fanny to work for her as a prostitute. Mrs. Brown's associate, Phoebe Ayers, shares a bed with Fanny and introduces her to sexual pleasure while establishing that her hymen is intact. Mrs. Brown plans to sell Fanny's virginity to an ugly old man, but Fanny is repulsed by the man and struggles with him. She is saved from rape by Mrs. Brown's maid. After this ordeal, Fanny falls into a fever for several days. Mrs. Brown, realizing that Fanny's virginity is still intact, decides to sell Fanny's sexual favors to the exceedingly rich Lord B., who is due to arrive in a few weeks. Fanny spies on Mrs. Brown having sex with a large, muscular man. Fanny masturbates while watching them, but is also frightened by the size of the man's penis. She talks to Phoebe, who assures her that it is possible for a young girl to have sex with a well-endowed man. She takes Fanny to spy on another prostitute, Polly Phillips, having sex with a handsome and well-endowed young Genoese merchant. Afterward, Phoebe and Fanny engage in mutual masturbation and"
      },
      {
        "text": " with a large, muscular man. Fanny masturbates while watching them, but is also frightened by the size of the man's penis. She talks to Phoebe, who assures her that it is possible for a young girl to have sex with a well-endowed man. She takes Fanny to spy on another prostitute, Polly Phillips, having sex with a handsome and well-endowed young Genoese merchant. Afterward, Phoebe and Fanny engage in mutual masturbation and Fanny looks forward to her first time having sex with a man. Soon afterward, Fanny meets Charles, a 19-year-old wealthy nobleman, and they fall in love instantly. Charles helps Fanny escape the brothel the next day. They go to an inn outside London, where Fanny has sex with Charles for several days. Charles takes Fanny to his flat at St. James's, London, and introduces her to his landlady, Mrs. Jones. For many months, Charles visits Fanny almost daily to have sex. Fanny works hard to become more educated and urbane. After eight months, Fanny becomes pregnant. Three months later, Charles mysteriously disappears. Mrs. Jones learns that Charles' father has kidnapped Charles and sent him to the South Seas to win a fortune. Upset by the news that Charles will be gone for at least three years, Fanny miscarries and falls ill. She is nursed back to health by Mrs. Jones, but sinks into a deep depression. Mrs. Jones tells Fanny that the now-16-year-old girl must work as a prostitute for her. Mrs. Jones introduces Fanny to Mr. H, a tall, rich, muscular, hairy-chested man. Fanny unwittingly drinks an aphrodisiac, and has sex with Mr. H. She concludes that sex can be had for pleasure, not just love. Mr. H puts Fanny up in a new apartment and begins"
      },
      {
        "text": " but sinks into a deep depression. Mrs. Jones tells Fanny that the now-16-year-old girl must work as a prostitute for her. Mrs. Jones introduces Fanny to Mr. H, a tall, rich, muscular, hairy-chested man. Fanny unwittingly drinks an aphrodisiac, and has sex with Mr. H. She concludes that sex can be had for pleasure, not just love. Mr. H puts Fanny up in a new apartment and begins plying her with jewels, clothes, and art. After seven months, Fanny discovers that Mr. H has been having sex with her maid, so she resolves to seduce Will, Mr. H's 19-year-old servant. Will has an extremely large penis: \"...not the plaything of a boy, nor the weapon of a man, but a Maypole, of so enormous a standard, that, had proportions been observed, it must have belonged to a young giant. ... In short, it stood an object of terror and delight.\" A month later, Mr. H catches Fanny having sex with Will, and stops supporting her. Fanny is taken in by Mrs. Cole, the mistress of one of Mr. H's friends, who also happens to run a brothel in the Covent Garden neighborhood of London. Fanny meets three other prostitutes, who are also living in the house: :*Emily, a blonde girl in her early 20s who ran away at the age of 14 from her country home to London. She met a 15-year-old boy who, being sexually experienced, engaged in sexual intercourse with virgin Emily. Although the two lived together a short time, Emily became a street prostitute for several years before being taken in by Mrs. Cole. :*Harriet, a brunette and an orphan raised by her aunt, had her first sexual experience with the son of Lord N., a nobleman whose estate adjoined her relative's."
      },
      {
        "text": " at the age of 14 from her country home to London. She met a 15-year-old boy who, being sexually experienced, engaged in sexual intercourse with virgin Emily. Although the two lived together a short time, Emily became a street prostitute for several years before being taken in by Mrs. Cole. :*Harriet, a brunette and an orphan raised by her aunt, had her first sexual experience with the son of Lord N., a nobleman whose estate adjoined her relative's. :*Louisa, the bastard daughter of a cabinetmaker and a maid who entered puberty at a very young age and began engaging in extensive masturbation. While visiting her mother in London, Louisa began masturbating in her mother's bedroom. The landlady's 19-year-old son caught her and made love to the 13-year-old girl. Louisa spent the next few years having sex with as many men as she could and turned to prostitution as a means of satisfying her lust. A short time later, Fanny participates in an orgy with the three girls and four rich noblemen. Fanny and her young nobleman begin a relationship, but it ends after a few months because the young man moves to Ireland. Mrs. Cole next introduces Fanny to Mr. Norbert, an impotent alcoholic and drug addict who engages in rape fantasies with prostitutes. Unhappy with Mr. Norbert's impotence, Fanny engages in anonymous sex with a sailor in the Royal Navy. However, Mr. Norbert soon dies. Mrs. Cole then introduces Fanny to Mr. Barville, a rich, young masochist who requires whipping to enjoy sex. After a short affair, Fanny begins a sexual relationship with an elderly customer who becomes sexually aroused by caressing her hair and biting the fingertips off of her gloves. After this ends, Fanny enters a period of celibacy. Emily and Louisa go to a drag ball, where Emily meets a"
      },
      {
        "text": " Royal Navy. However, Mr. Norbert soon dies. Mrs. Cole then introduces Fanny to Mr. Barville, a rich, young masochist who requires whipping to enjoy sex. After a short affair, Fanny begins a sexual relationship with an elderly customer who becomes sexually aroused by caressing her hair and biting the fingertips off of her gloves. After this ends, Fanny enters a period of celibacy. Emily and Louisa go to a drag ball, where Emily meets a bisexual young man who believes Emily is a male. When he finds out that she is actually a female, he has sex with Emily in his carriage. Fanny is confused by her first encounter with male homosexuality. Shortly after this incident, Fanny takes a ride in the country and ends up paying for a room at a public tavern after her carriage breaks down. She spies on two young men engaging in anal sex in the next room. Startled, she falls off a stool and knocks herself unconscious. Although the two men have left, she still rouses the villagers to try to hunt the two men down and punish them. Some weeks later, Fanny watches as Louisa seduces the teenage son of a local woman. Fanny believes that the boy's erect penis is even larger than Will's. The boy, clearly a virgin, engages in somewhat violent, brutal sex several times with Louisa. Louisa leaves Mrs. Cole's brothel a short time later after falling in love with another young man. Emily and Fanny are then invited by two gentleman to a country estate. They swim in a stream, and the two men have sex with the girls for several hours. Emily's parents soon find their daughter, and (unaware of her career as a prostitute) ask her to come home again. She accepts. Mrs. Cole retires, and Fanny starts living off of her savings. One day she encounters a man of 60 who looks 45 due to his lifestyle: \"He"
      },
      {
        "text": " young man. Emily and Fanny are then invited by two gentleman to a country estate. They swim in a stream, and the two men have sex with the girls for several hours. Emily's parents soon find their daughter, and (unaware of her career as a prostitute) ask her to come home again. She accepts. Mrs. Cole retires, and Fanny starts living off of her savings. One day she encounters a man of 60 who looks 45 due to his lifestyle: \"He was, as I afterwards learn'd in the course of the intimacy which this little accident gave birth to, an old bachelor, turn'd of sixty, but of a fresh vigorous complexion, insomuch that he scarce marked five and forty, having never rack'd his constitution by permitting his desires to overtax his ability.\" The man falls in love with Fanny but treats her like his daughter. He dies and leaves his small fortune to her. Now 18 years old, Fanny uses her new wealth to try to locate Charles. She learns that he disappeared two and a half years ago after reaching the South Seas. Several months later, a despondent Fanny takes a trip to see Mrs. Cole (who had retired to Liverpool), but a storm forces her to stop at an inn along the way, where she runs into Charles: He had come back to England but was shipwrecked on the Irish coast. Fanny and Charles get a room together and make love several times. Fanny tells Charles everything about her life of vice, but he forgives her and asks Fanny to marry him, which she does.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " tells Charles everything about her life of vice, but he forgives her and asks Fanny to marry him, which she does.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe",
    "author": "Douglas Adams",
    "published_date": "1980-01-01",
    "synopsis": " The Restaurant at the End of the Universe begins just as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ended. Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, and Zaphod Beeblebrox have just left the planet Magrathea when they are attacked by a Vogon ship. They find they are unable to use the Improbability Drive to escape, as Arthur has accidentally jammed the computer with a simple request for a cup of tea which proved a rather difficult problem. Luckily, an ancestor of Zaphod's, Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth saves them. Zaphod and Marvin vanish, and reappear at the offices of the Guide on Ursa Minor Beta. They are looking for Zarniwoop, who has gone on an intergalactic cruise in his office via his virtual universe. Arthur, Trillian and Ford are unaware of any of this, knowing only that the computer has been shut down, and only having received a message from a stalling Nutrimatic that says \"Wait.\" When Zaphod and Marvin reach the fifteenth floor of the Guides office, half of the building is lifted off the ground by Frogstar Fighters. A mysterious man named Roosta brings Zaphod to Zarniwoop's office, where they wait until the building lands on Frogstar World B. Roosta gives Zaphod final instructions before he leaves: Go through the window on his way out, not the door. Zaphod then meets Gargravarr who informs Zaphod that he is to be sent through the Total Perspective Vortex, a torture device which annihilates you by showing you just how infinitesimally small you are compared to the Universe. However when Zaphod enters it, the Vortex shows him that he is the most important thing in the Universe. Zaphod escapes, and finds Zarniwoop in the first class cabin of a spaceliner in an abandoned spaceport. Zarniwoop explains that the Total Perspective Vortex has not malfunctioned — this is a virtual universe created by Zarniwoop for the sole benefit of Zaphod, who is the most important creature in this universe. It turns out that Zaphod had the shrunk Heart of Gold in his jacket pocket the whole time. It is reconstituted, and Zaphod is reunited with Trillian, Arthur and Ford. They escape from Zarniwoop by asking to be transported to the nearest restaurant. Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, is the nearest restaurant in space but not time. They are transported there \"five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years\" into the future. Marvin is left stranded here for this incredibly vast amount of time parking diners' spaceships while waiting for the humans to return. After the meal, Zaphod and Ford steal a spaceship, which turns out to be a stuntship belonging to the rock band Disaster Area, programmed to dive into a star to provide backing effects for a rock concert. There is a teleporter on the ship for which the guidance system was never built, as it was never intended to be used, and it also requires somebody to stay on the ship in order to operate it. Marvin is chosen to stay behind and teleport the others, who have no choice but to go wherever it takes them. Zaphod and Trillian are returned to the Heart of Gold, which is commandeered by Zarniwoop to complete his mission, to discover who really rules the Universe. As it turns out, the Ruler of the Universe is entirely skeptical that he holds this position, as he is entirely skeptical of everything, including whether his cat, The Lord, really exists, or whether there is even a universe at all outside of his small isolated home. While Zarniwoop attempts to impress upon the Ruler of the Universe the reality and the weight of his position, Trillian and Zaphod sneak out and fly the Heart of Gold away. The teleporter has meanwhile sent Arthur and Ford to the Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B, a ship of fools which crash-lands on prehistoric Earth. They realize that the bumbling travellers are the real ancestors of modern humans, not the Neanderthals originally inhabiting the planet. Arthur attempts to determine the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe and Everything by reaching into a Scrabble bag made from Ford's towel and pulling out letters randomly, hoping Deep Thought's computational matrix in Earth would have rubbed off on his subconscious. The letters spell \"What do you get when you multiply six by nine\" See this website for possible explanations of this seeming error. before running out, although the Neanderthals manage to spell \"forty-two\" with the tiles, implying that it is they, rather than the Golgafrinchans, who were intended to be part of Earth's computer matrix. After some brief contemplation, Ford and Arthur realize that this is, in fact, a detrimental \"cock-up,\" and that the Earth will never produce the proper Question, thus destroying all hope of ever finding out what it is. As Ford convinces Arthur that there is nothing that can be done to improve the inevitable history of the Earth, Arthur decides that he should make the best of his situation and settles for a life on prehistoric Earth.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Restaurant at the End of the Universe begins just as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ended. Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, and Zaphod Beeblebrox have just left the planet Magrathea when they are attacked by a Vogon ship. They find they are unable to use the Improbability Drive to escape, as Arthur has accidentally jammed the computer with a simple request for a cup of tea which proved a rather difficult problem. Luckily, an ancestor of Zaphod's, Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth saves them. Zaphod and Marvin vanish, and reappear at the offices of the Guide on Ursa Minor Beta. They are looking for Zarniwoop, who has gone on an intergalactic cruise in his office via his virtual universe. Arthur, Trillian and Ford are unaware of any of this, knowing only that the computer has been shut down, and only having received a message from a stalling Nutrimatic that says \"Wait.\" When Zaphod and Marvin reach the fifteenth floor of the Guides office, half of the building is lifted off the ground by Frogstar Fighters. A mysterious man named Roosta brings Zaphod to Zarniwoop's office, where they wait until the building lands on Frogstar World B. Roosta gives Zaphod final instructions before he leaves: Go through the window on his way out, not the door. Zaphod then meets Gargravarr who informs Zaphod that he is to be sent through the Total Perspective Vortex, a torture device which annihilates you by showing you just how infinitesimally small you are compared to the Universe. However when Zaphod enters it, the Vortex shows him that he is the most important thing in the Universe. Zaphod escapes, and finds Zarniwoop in the first class cabin of a spaceliner in an abandoned spaceport. Zarniwoop explains that the Total Perspective Vortex has not malfunctioned "
      },
      {
        "text": " to be sent through the Total Perspective Vortex, a torture device which annihilates you by showing you just how infinitesimally small you are compared to the Universe. However when Zaphod enters it, the Vortex shows him that he is the most important thing in the Universe. Zaphod escapes, and finds Zarniwoop in the first class cabin of a spaceliner in an abandoned spaceport. Zarniwoop explains that the Total Perspective Vortex has not malfunctioned — this is a virtual universe created by Zarniwoop for the sole benefit of Zaphod, who is the most important creature in this universe. It turns out that Zaphod had the shrunk Heart of Gold in his jacket pocket the whole time. It is reconstituted, and Zaphod is reunited with Trillian, Arthur and Ford. They escape from Zarniwoop by asking to be transported to the nearest restaurant. Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, is the nearest restaurant in space but not time. They are transported there \"five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years\" into the future. Marvin is left stranded here for this incredibly vast amount of time parking diners' spaceships while waiting for the humans to return. After the meal, Zaphod and Ford steal a spaceship, which turns out to be a stuntship belonging to the rock band Disaster Area, programmed to dive into a star to provide backing effects for a rock concert. There is a teleporter on the ship for which the guidance system was never built, as it was never intended to be used, and it also requires somebody to stay on the ship in order to operate it. Marvin is chosen to stay behind and teleport the others, who have no choice but to go wherever it takes them. Zaphod and Trillian are returned to the Heart of Gold, which is commandeered by Zarniwoop to complete his mission, to discover who really rules the"
      },
      {
        "text": ". There is a teleporter on the ship for which the guidance system was never built, as it was never intended to be used, and it also requires somebody to stay on the ship in order to operate it. Marvin is chosen to stay behind and teleport the others, who have no choice but to go wherever it takes them. Zaphod and Trillian are returned to the Heart of Gold, which is commandeered by Zarniwoop to complete his mission, to discover who really rules the Universe. As it turns out, the Ruler of the Universe is entirely skeptical that he holds this position, as he is entirely skeptical of everything, including whether his cat, The Lord, really exists, or whether there is even a universe at all outside of his small isolated home. While Zarniwoop attempts to impress upon the Ruler of the Universe the reality and the weight of his position, Trillian and Zaphod sneak out and fly the Heart of Gold away. The teleporter has meanwhile sent Arthur and Ford to the Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B, a ship of fools which crash-lands on prehistoric Earth. They realize that the bumbling travellers are the real ancestors of modern humans, not the Neanderthals originally inhabiting the planet. Arthur attempts to determine the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe and Everything by reaching into a Scrabble bag made from Ford's towel and pulling out letters randomly, hoping Deep Thought's computational matrix in Earth would have rubbed off on his subconscious. The letters spell \"What do you get when you multiply six by nine\" See this website for possible explanations of this seeming error. before running out, although the Neanderthals manage to spell \"forty-two\" with the tiles, implying that it is they, rather than the Golgafrinchans, who were intended to be part of Earth's computer matrix. After some brief contemplation, Ford and Arthur realize that this is, in fact, a detrimental \""
      },
      {
        "text": " off on his subconscious. The letters spell \"What do you get when you multiply six by nine\" See this website for possible explanations of this seeming error. before running out, although the Neanderthals manage to spell \"forty-two\" with the tiles, implying that it is they, rather than the Golgafrinchans, who were intended to be part of Earth's computer matrix. After some brief contemplation, Ford and Arthur realize that this is, in fact, a detrimental \"cock-up,\" and that the Earth will never produce the proper Question, thus destroying all hope of ever finding out what it is. As Ford convinces Arthur that there is nothing that can be done to improve the inevitable history of the Earth, Arthur decides that he should make the best of his situation and settles for a life on prehistoric Earth.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "In the Penal Colony",
    "author": "Franz Kafka",
    "published_date": "1919-10",
    "synopsis": " The story focuses on the Explorer, who is encountering the brutal machine for the first time. Everything about the machine and its purpose is told to him by the Officer, while the Soldier and the Condemned (who is unaware that he has been sentenced to die) placidly watch nearby. The Officer tells of the religious epiphany the executed experience in their last six hours in the machine. Eventually it becomes clear that the use of the machine, and its associated process of justice where the accused is always instantly found guilty and the law he has broken is inscribed on his body before ultimately killing him, has fallen out of favor with the current Commandant. The Officer is nostalgic regarding the torture machine and the values that were initially associated with it. As the last proponent of the machine, he strongly believes in its form of justice and the infallibility of the previous Commandant, who designed and built the device. In fact, the Officer carries its blueprints with him and is the only person who can properly decipher them; no one else is allowed to handle these documents. The Officer begs the Explorer to speak to the current Commandant on behalf of the machine's continued use. He refuses to do so. He says he will not speak against it publicly, but he will give his opinion to the Commandant privately, and will leave before he can be called to give an official account. With this, the Officer frees the Condemned and sets up the machine for himself, with the words \"Be Just\" to be written on him. However, the machine malfunctions due to its advanced state of disrepair; instead of its usual elegant operation, it quickly stabs the Officer to death, denying him the mystical experience of the prisoners he executed. Accompanied by the Soldier and the Condemned, the Explorer makes his way to a tea house in which he is shown the grave of the old Commandant. Its stone is set so low that a table can easily be placed over it; the inscription states his followers' belief that he will rise from the dead someday and take control of the colony once more. As the Explorer prepares to leave by boat, the Soldier and the Condemned try to board but are repelled by the Explorer himself.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story focuses on the Explorer, who is encountering the brutal machine for the first time. Everything about the machine and its purpose is told to him by the Officer, while the Soldier and the Condemned (who is unaware that he has been sentenced to die) placidly watch nearby. The Officer tells of the religious epiphany the executed experience in their last six hours in the machine. Eventually it becomes clear that the use of the machine, and its associated process of justice where the accused is always instantly found guilty and the law he has broken is inscribed on his body before ultimately killing him, has fallen out of favor with the current Commandant. The Officer is nostalgic regarding the torture machine and the values that were initially associated with it. As the last proponent of the machine, he strongly believes in its form of justice and the infallibility of the previous Commandant, who designed and built the device. In fact, the Officer carries its blueprints with him and is the only person who can properly decipher them; no one else is allowed to handle these documents. The Officer begs the Explorer to speak to the current Commandant on behalf of the machine's continued use. He refuses to do so. He says he will not speak against it publicly, but he will give his opinion to the Commandant privately, and will leave before he can be called to give an official account. With this, the Officer frees the Condemned and sets up the machine for himself, with the words \"Be Just\" to be written on him. However, the machine malfunctions due to its advanced state of disrepair; instead of its usual elegant operation, it quickly stabs the Officer to death, denying him the mystical experience of the prisoners he executed. Accompanied by the Soldier and the Condemned, the Explorer makes his way to a tea house in which he is shown the grave of the old Commandant. Its stone is set so low that a table can easily be placed over"
      },
      {
        "text": "Be Just\" to be written on him. However, the machine malfunctions due to its advanced state of disrepair; instead of its usual elegant operation, it quickly stabs the Officer to death, denying him the mystical experience of the prisoners he executed. Accompanied by the Soldier and the Condemned, the Explorer makes his way to a tea house in which he is shown the grave of the old Commandant. Its stone is set so low that a table can easily be placed over it; the inscription states his followers' belief that he will rise from the dead someday and take control of the colony once more. As the Explorer prepares to leave by boat, the Soldier and the Condemned try to board but are repelled by the Explorer himself.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Rebel Angels",
    "author": "Robertson Davies",
    "published_date": "1981",
    "synopsis": " The Rebel Angels follows several faculty and staff of the fictional College of St. John and Holy Ghost. It did not quite attain the popularity of the Deptford Trilogy, but it is generally considered to be among his best books. The story, like many of Davies', is notable for very strongly drawn and memorable characters — in this case the defrocked monk Parlabane, a brilliant and sinister sodomite with a thundering voice, voracious appetite; Anglican priest and professor of New Testament Greek Simon Darcourt; Maria Theotoky, a graduate student researching Rabelais; Clement Hollier, a frazzled and absentminded professor; and Urquhart McVarish, a greedy and manipulative counterpoint to Hollier. The novel's narration alternates between Theotoky's and Darcourt's points of view. Darcourt is attempting to write a history of the university based on Aubrey's Brief Lives. Much of the story is set in motion by the death of eccentric art patron and collector Francis Cornish. Hollier, McVarish, and Darcourt are the executors of Cornish's complicated will, which includes material that Hollier wants for his studies. The deceased's nephew Arthur Cornish, who stands to inherit the fortune, is also a character. Many of the characters (including Parlabane and McVarish) were based on college acquaintances of Davies; their stories are recounted in Judith Skelton Grant's biography Robertson Davies: Man of Myth (1994) and Brian Busby's Character Parts: Who's Really Who in CanLit (2003). As well, many believe that Davies based the College of St. John and the Holy Ghost (or \"Spook\" as it is affectionately called in the novel) on Toronto's Trinity College. Evidence for this connection includes numerous similarities between the fictional and the real life college (including architectural style, layout of rooms, age, and religious affiliation); the fact that Davies taught at Trinity College for 20 years and lived across the street from Trinity while master of Massey College; and perhaps most convincingly that a picture of Trinity's central tower is prominently featured on the cover of the novel's first edition. Equally plausible is the belief that Ploughwright College in the book is patterned after Davies's own Massey College. This connection is supported by the fact that much of the fortune donated by the Massey family to the University of Toronto for the founding of Massey College was originally made in the manufacture of farm equipment. Like the real-life Massey College, Ploughwright is a graduate college where scholars are invited to partake in interdisciplinary discussions and High Table dinners.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Rebel Angels follows several faculty and staff of the fictional College of St. John and Holy Ghost. It did not quite attain the popularity of the Deptford Trilogy, but it is generally considered to be among his best books. The story, like many of Davies', is notable for very strongly drawn and memorable characters — in this case the defrocked monk Parlabane, a brilliant and sinister sodomite with a thundering voice, voracious appetite; Anglican priest and professor of New Testament Greek Simon Darcourt; Maria Theotoky, a graduate student researching Rabelais; Clement Hollier, a frazzled and absentminded professor; and Urquhart McVarish, a greedy and manipulative counterpoint to Hollier. The novel's narration alternates between Theotoky's and Darcourt's points of view. Darcourt is attempting to write a history of the university based on Aubrey's Brief Lives. Much of the story is set in motion by the death of eccentric art patron and collector Francis Cornish. Hollier, McVarish, and Darcourt are the executors of Cornish's complicated will, which includes material that Hollier wants for his studies. The deceased's nephew Arthur Cornish, who stands to inherit the fortune, is also a character. Many of the characters (including Parlabane and McVarish) were based on college acquaintances of Davies; their stories are recounted in Judith Skelton Grant's biography Robertson Davies: Man of Myth (1994) and Brian Busby's Character Parts: Who's Really Who in CanLit (2003). As well, many believe that Davies based the College of St. John and the Holy Ghost (or \"Spook\" as it is affectionately called in the novel) on Toronto's Trinity College. Evidence for this connection includes numerous similarities between the fictional and the real life college (including architectural style, layout of rooms, age, and religious affiliation);"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s biography Robertson Davies: Man of Myth (1994) and Brian Busby's Character Parts: Who's Really Who in CanLit (2003). As well, many believe that Davies based the College of St. John and the Holy Ghost (or \"Spook\" as it is affectionately called in the novel) on Toronto's Trinity College. Evidence for this connection includes numerous similarities between the fictional and the real life college (including architectural style, layout of rooms, age, and religious affiliation); the fact that Davies taught at Trinity College for 20 years and lived across the street from Trinity while master of Massey College; and perhaps most convincingly that a picture of Trinity's central tower is prominently featured on the cover of the novel's first edition. Equally plausible is the belief that Ploughwright College in the book is patterned after Davies's own Massey College. This connection is supported by the fact that much of the fortune donated by the Massey family to the University of Toronto for the founding of Massey College was originally made in the manufacture of farm equipment. Like the real-life Massey College, Ploughwright is a graduate college where scholars are invited to partake in interdisciplinary discussions and High Table dinners.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Macrolife",
    "author": "George Zebrowski",
    "published_date": "1979-05",
    "synopsis": " The novel is split into three main sections. (I) Sunspace: 2021 ... The Bulero family/corporation, inventors and marketers of Bulerite which is used to build the huge cities which house the Earth's (and colonies) teeming millions, are at the pinnacle of their influence and wealth. Unfortunately, it is discovered - too late - that the substance is inherently flawed, in that after a time it destabilizes and self-destructs with spectacular results. Gradually, all the Bulerite on Earth, and that on and in the space colonies throughout the solar system becomes unstable, causing destruction and megadeath. The devastation precipitates a war with Earth's colonies on the outer planets, with whom a struggle for control of the solar system existed. Many nuclear-tipped missiles explode on Earth which adds to the Bulerite destabilization. The combination of the Bulerite and the nuclear explosions cause a mysterious shroud of radiation to envelop the Earth. All humans on the planet are assumed dead. Before this final devastation, many refugees manage to escape to the Moon, Mars, and Asterome, an orbiting colony situated inside a hollowed-out asteroid at the Moon's L5 point. Included amongst the refugees are most of Bulero family who end up on Asterome. The leadership of Asterome are now faced with several severe challenges: Handling the influx of refugees, removing any Bulerite used in the construction of Asterome, consolidating their resources now that the Earth can no longer supply them with finished goods, and preventing increasingly aggressive attempts by the outer colonies and remnants of Earth's government to take control and plunder Asterome. When a means of providing Asterome with propulsion is discovered, the leadership of Asterome decide that leaving the solar system is the best option available to ensure Asterome's short-term survival as well as proving a way for Mankind to survive should the solar system be destroyed by the after-effects of Bulerite and war. After overcoming attempts to stop them, Asterome finally manages to leave the solar system, heading for Alpha Centauri, the nearest star. (II) Macrolife: 3000 ... A thousand years later, Asterome has grown by adding concentric layers of shells around itself, and is now host to millions of humans and Humanity II cybernetic organisms. The invention of engines that can surpass the speed of light has made it possible for the colony to explore far and wide; the second part finds them studying a planet orbiting the star Praesepe over 500 light years away. John Bulero, a young clone of one of the original Bulero's, decides to see what life is like on a planet, and lives for a while amongst the natives, descendants of a human colony that has reverted back to savagery. His experiences, while tragic, enable him to grow as an individual. Eventually, Asterome travels back to the solar system to see how events there have unfolded. Their arrival coincides with the first time humans meet an intelligent alien species which is itself experimenting with Macrolife, and, together, the species begin a process of intermingling and further expansion into the universe. (III) The Dream of Time ... A hundred billion years have passed, and Macrolife is now the dominant culture throughout the universe, which is, at this stage, beginning to contract into its final death throes. Most life is in the form of a Hyperpersonal Aggregate; an amalgam of individuals of all kinds. The aggregate re-individualizes John Bulero again, to help them solve the problem of how Macrolife can survive beyond the death of the Universe. Eventually, they discover many Macrolife survivors from many previous cycles of the universe, who help them to conquer time itself.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is split into three main sections. (I) Sunspace: 2021 ... The Bulero family/corporation, inventors and marketers of Bulerite which is used to build the huge cities which house the Earth's (and colonies) teeming millions, are at the pinnacle of their influence and wealth. Unfortunately, it is discovered - too late - that the substance is inherently flawed, in that after a time it destabilizes and self-destructs with spectacular results. Gradually, all the Bulerite on Earth, and that on and in the space colonies throughout the solar system becomes unstable, causing destruction and megadeath. The devastation precipitates a war with Earth's colonies on the outer planets, with whom a struggle for control of the solar system existed. Many nuclear-tipped missiles explode on Earth which adds to the Bulerite destabilization. The combination of the Bulerite and the nuclear explosions cause a mysterious shroud of radiation to envelop the Earth. All humans on the planet are assumed dead. Before this final devastation, many refugees manage to escape to the Moon, Mars, and Asterome, an orbiting colony situated inside a hollowed-out asteroid at the Moon's L5 point. Included amongst the refugees are most of Bulero family who end up on Asterome. The leadership of Asterome are now faced with several severe challenges: Handling the influx of refugees, removing any Bulerite used in the construction of Asterome, consolidating their resources now that the Earth can no longer supply them with finished goods, and preventing increasingly aggressive attempts by the outer colonies and remnants of Earth's government to take control and plunder Asterome. When a means of providing Asterome with propulsion is discovered, the leadership of Asterome decide that leaving the solar system is the best option available to ensure Asterome's short-term survival as well as proving a way for Mankind to survive should the solar system be destroyed by the after-effects of Bulerite and war"
      },
      {
        "text": " now that the Earth can no longer supply them with finished goods, and preventing increasingly aggressive attempts by the outer colonies and remnants of Earth's government to take control and plunder Asterome. When a means of providing Asterome with propulsion is discovered, the leadership of Asterome decide that leaving the solar system is the best option available to ensure Asterome's short-term survival as well as proving a way for Mankind to survive should the solar system be destroyed by the after-effects of Bulerite and war. After overcoming attempts to stop them, Asterome finally manages to leave the solar system, heading for Alpha Centauri, the nearest star. (II) Macrolife: 3000 ... A thousand years later, Asterome has grown by adding concentric layers of shells around itself, and is now host to millions of humans and Humanity II cybernetic organisms. The invention of engines that can surpass the speed of light has made it possible for the colony to explore far and wide; the second part finds them studying a planet orbiting the star Praesepe over 500 light years away. John Bulero, a young clone of one of the original Bulero's, decides to see what life is like on a planet, and lives for a while amongst the natives, descendants of a human colony that has reverted back to savagery. His experiences, while tragic, enable him to grow as an individual. Eventually, Asterome travels back to the solar system to see how events there have unfolded. Their arrival coincides with the first time humans meet an intelligent alien species which is itself experimenting with Macrolife, and, together, the species begin a process of intermingling and further expansion into the universe. (III) The Dream of Time ... A hundred billion years have passed, and Macrolife is now the dominant culture throughout the universe, which is, at this stage, beginning to contract into its final death throes. Most life is in the form of a Hyperpersonal Aggregate; an amalgam of"
      },
      {
        "text": " the first time humans meet an intelligent alien species which is itself experimenting with Macrolife, and, together, the species begin a process of intermingling and further expansion into the universe. (III) The Dream of Time ... A hundred billion years have passed, and Macrolife is now the dominant culture throughout the universe, which is, at this stage, beginning to contract into its final death throes. Most life is in the form of a Hyperpersonal Aggregate; an amalgam of individuals of all kinds. The aggregate re-individualizes John Bulero again, to help them solve the problem of how Macrolife can survive beyond the death of the Universe. Eventually, they discover many Macrolife survivors from many previous cycles of the universe, who help them to conquer time itself.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Till We Have Faces",
    "author": "C. S. Lewis",
    "published_date": "1956",
    "synopsis": " Part One: The story tells the Ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, from the perspective of Orual, Psyche's older sister. It begins as the complaint of an old woman who is bitter at the injustice of the gods. Although disfigured herself, and covering her facial deformity with a mask throughout the book, Orual loves her beautiful half-sister Psyche; and when Psyche is sent as a human sacrifice, at the command of Ungit (Aphrodite), to her son, the unseen \"God of the Mountain\" (Cupid), Orual feels wounded and betrayed. Orual tries to rescue Psyche, who says she doesn't need to be rescued, and that she lives in a beautiful castle, which Orual can't see. She almost sees something, but then it vanishes, like a mist. Orual urges Psyche to do the one thing the God has commanded her not to: to sneak a peek when he comes to their marriage bed. Orual argues that the God must be a monster, or he would not hide his face. She brings Psyche the means to see him, and threatens, cajoles, and coerces her, until Psyche agrees reluctantly, out of pity and love for her sister. When Psyche obeys Orual, the God has no choice but to banish Psyche. Orual suffers with the knowledge that she destroyed her sister's happiness and marriage, through misapplied love and jealousy. The Four Loves have all gone horribly wrong. Eventually, Orual becomes Queen, warrior, diplomat, architect, reformer, politician, legislator, and judge, but remains all alone. She drives herself, through work, to forget her grief and the love she has lost. Psyche is gone; her other sister has married and moved away; her father and her beloved tutor, \"the Fox\", have died; even her old infatuations are castrated, bloated, ridiculous; and the gods remain, as ever, silent and unseen. When she is invited to witness a new cult ritual as Queen, Orual hears a version of Psyche's myth, which shows her as deliberately ruining her sister's life out of envy. In response, she writes out her own story which becomes this book, to set the record straight in hopes that it will be brought to Greece, where she has heard that men are willing to question even the gods. Part Two: Orual begins the second part of the book stating that her previous argument was wrong, but she doesn't have time to revise it before she dies. After finishing her book, she thought the gods would end her lonely, exhausted life. Instead, she writes, that through dreams and visions, she sees herself in the midst of the tasks given to her sister Psyche, in the myths, as a penitence. Orual dreams of even presenting her complaint to the gods herself. Among them, her sister Psyche comes to meet her. Orual weeps, \"Long did I hate you. Long did I fear you. I might\u2014\". Finally, Psyche helps her sister to see, what was hidden from her; though she caught glimpses of it along the way, on the long, hard road to meet her again.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Part One: The story tells the Ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, from the perspective of Orual, Psyche's older sister. It begins as the complaint of an old woman who is bitter at the injustice of the gods. Although disfigured herself, and covering her facial deformity with a mask throughout the book, Orual loves her beautiful half-sister Psyche; and when Psyche is sent as a human sacrifice, at the command of Ungit (Aphrodite), to her son, the unseen \"God of the Mountain\" (Cupid), Orual feels wounded and betrayed. Orual tries to rescue Psyche, who says she doesn't need to be rescued, and that she lives in a beautiful castle, which Orual can't see. She almost sees something, but then it vanishes, like a mist. Orual urges Psyche to do the one thing the God has commanded her not to: to sneak a peek when he comes to their marriage bed. Orual argues that the God must be a monster, or he would not hide his face. She brings Psyche the means to see him, and threatens, cajoles, and coerces her, until Psyche agrees reluctantly, out of pity and love for her sister. When Psyche obeys Orual, the God has no choice but to banish Psyche. Orual suffers with the knowledge that she destroyed her sister's happiness and marriage, through misapplied love and jealousy. The Four Loves have all gone horribly wrong. Eventually, Orual becomes Queen, warrior, diplomat, architect, reformer, politician, legislator, and judge, but remains all alone. She drives herself, through work, to forget her grief and the love she has lost. Psyche is gone; her other sister has married and moved away; her father and her beloved tutor, \"the Fox\", have died; even her"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s happiness and marriage, through misapplied love and jealousy. The Four Loves have all gone horribly wrong. Eventually, Orual becomes Queen, warrior, diplomat, architect, reformer, politician, legislator, and judge, but remains all alone. She drives herself, through work, to forget her grief and the love she has lost. Psyche is gone; her other sister has married and moved away; her father and her beloved tutor, \"the Fox\", have died; even her old infatuations are castrated, bloated, ridiculous; and the gods remain, as ever, silent and unseen. When she is invited to witness a new cult ritual as Queen, Orual hears a version of Psyche's myth, which shows her as deliberately ruining her sister's life out of envy. In response, she writes out her own story which becomes this book, to set the record straight in hopes that it will be brought to Greece, where she has heard that men are willing to question even the gods. Part Two: Orual begins the second part of the book stating that her previous argument was wrong, but she doesn't have time to revise it before she dies. After finishing her book, she thought the gods would end her lonely, exhausted life. Instead, she writes, that through dreams and visions, she sees herself in the midst of the tasks given to her sister Psyche, in the myths, as a penitence. Orual dreams of even presenting her complaint to the gods herself. Among them, her sister Psyche comes to meet her. Orual weeps, \"Long did I hate you. Long did I fear you. I might\u2014\". Finally, Psyche helps her sister to see, what was hidden from her; though she caught glimpses of it along the way, on the long, hard road to meet her again.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " presenting her complaint to the gods herself. Among them, her sister Psyche comes to meet her. Orual weeps, \"Long did I hate you. Long did I fear you. I might\u2014\". Finally, Psyche helps her sister to see, what was hidden from her; though she caught glimpses of it along the way, on the long, hard road to meet her again.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Heidi",
    "author": "Johanna Spyri",
    "published_date": "1880",
    "synopsis": " Adelheid (familiarly known as Heidi) is a girl who has been raised by her aunt Dete in Maienfeld, Switzerland after the early deaths of her parents, Tobias and Adelheid. Dete brings 5-year-old Heidi to her grandfather, who has been at odds with the villagers for years and lives in seclusion on the alm. This has earned him the nickname Alp-\u00d6hi (\"Alm Uncle\" in the Graub\u00fcnden dialect). He at first resents Heidi's arrival, but the girl manages to penetrate his harsh exterior and Heidi subsequently has a delightful stay with him and her best friend, young Peter the goat-herd. Dete returns three years later to bring Heidi to Frankfurt as a companion of a 12-year-old girl named Clara Sesemann, who is regarded as an invalid. Heidi spends a year with Clara, conflicting with the Sesemanns' strict housekeeper Fraulein Rottenmeier and becoming more and more homesick. Her one diversion is learning to read and write, motivated by her desire to go home and read to Peter's blind grandmother. Heidi's increasingly failing health, and several instances of sleepwalking cause hysteria in the household that there is a haunting, prompt Clara's doctor to send Heidi home to her grandfather. Her return prompts the grandfather to descend to the village for the first time in years, marking an end to his seclusion. Heidi and Clara continue to contact each other. A visit by the doctor to Heidi and her grandfather convinces him to recommend Clara to visit Heidi. Meanwhile, Heidi teaches Peter to read and write. Clara makes the journey the next season and spends a wonderful summer with Heidi. Clara becomes stronger on goat's milk and fresh mountain air, but Peter, feeling deprived of Heidi's attention, pushes Clara's wheelchair down the mountain to its destruction. Without her wheelchair, Clara attempts to walk and is gradually successful. Clara's grandmother and father are amazed and overcome with joy to see Clara walking. Clara's wealthy family promises to provide a shelter for Heidi, in case her grandfather will no longer be able to do so.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Adelheid (familiarly known as Heidi) is a girl who has been raised by her aunt Dete in Maienfeld, Switzerland after the early deaths of her parents, Tobias and Adelheid. Dete brings 5-year-old Heidi to her grandfather, who has been at odds with the villagers for years and lives in seclusion on the alm. This has earned him the nickname Alp-\u00d6hi (\"Alm Uncle\" in the Graub\u00fcnden dialect). He at first resents Heidi's arrival, but the girl manages to penetrate his harsh exterior and Heidi subsequently has a delightful stay with him and her best friend, young Peter the goat-herd. Dete returns three years later to bring Heidi to Frankfurt as a companion of a 12-year-old girl named Clara Sesemann, who is regarded as an invalid. Heidi spends a year with Clara, conflicting with the Sesemanns' strict housekeeper Fraulein Rottenmeier and becoming more and more homesick. Her one diversion is learning to read and write, motivated by her desire to go home and read to Peter's blind grandmother. Heidi's increasingly failing health, and several instances of sleepwalking cause hysteria in the household that there is a haunting, prompt Clara's doctor to send Heidi home to her grandfather. Her return prompts the grandfather to descend to the village for the first time in years, marking an end to his seclusion. Heidi and Clara continue to contact each other. A visit by the doctor to Heidi and her grandfather convinces him to recommend Clara to visit Heidi. Meanwhile, Heidi teaches Peter to read and write. Clara makes the journey the next season and spends a wonderful summer with Heidi. Clara becomes stronger on goat's milk and fresh mountain air, but Peter, feeling deprived of Heidi's attention, pushes Clara's wheelchair down the mountain to its destruction. Without her wheelchair, Clara attempts to walk and is gradually successful. Clara's grandmother and"
      },
      {
        "text": " to contact each other. A visit by the doctor to Heidi and her grandfather convinces him to recommend Clara to visit Heidi. Meanwhile, Heidi teaches Peter to read and write. Clara makes the journey the next season and spends a wonderful summer with Heidi. Clara becomes stronger on goat's milk and fresh mountain air, but Peter, feeling deprived of Heidi's attention, pushes Clara's wheelchair down the mountain to its destruction. Without her wheelchair, Clara attempts to walk and is gradually successful. Clara's grandmother and father are amazed and overcome with joy to see Clara walking. Clara's wealthy family promises to provide a shelter for Heidi, in case her grandfather will no longer be able to do so.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "That Hideous Strength",
    "author": "C. S. Lewis",
    "published_date": "1945",
    "synopsis": " Young academic Mark Studdock has just risen to the position of Senior Fellow in sociology at Bracton College in the University of Edgestow, just when it is engaged in selling off a portion of its land, Bragdon Wood, to a new scientific Institute the NICE (National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments) whose personnel already includes staff of the college. The sale is agreed to but the college Warden wants to back out of the deal. The sub-warden, Curry, Mark Studdock and some NICE insiders have a dinner together to decide how to keep the deal alive. Curry is proud of having brought the NICE to Edgestow believing it to mark the beginning of the \"really scientific era\". There is discussion of Mark being employed as a sociologist at the NICE, initiated by Lord Feverstone. Meanwhile Mark's wife, Jane, who is also a scholar, has been having peculiar nightmares that trouble her, one in particular involving a severed head. She meets the wife of an old tutor from her recent graduate student days, Mrs. Dimble, who is being evicted from her property due to sale of land to the NICE. When Jane talks about her dreams, Dimble leads her to seek counsel with a Miss Ironwood who lives in a mansion in the nearby town of St. Anne's. Mark spends an evening getting acquainted with the top brass at the NICE at their current headquarters in Belbury. He has great difficulty trying to figure out the exact nature of the job they want him to do. The lines of authority seem poorly defined, while at the same time the NICE is convinced the future of the human race depends on their success. Mark meets a scientist named Bill Hingest who is both with Bracton College and the NICE but is resigning the latter and warns Mark to get out as soon as possible. At the same time, Jane finally works up the courage to visit Miss Ironwood at St. Anne's. She is greeted by Camilla Denniston, the spouse of the man who almost got Mark's appointment instead of him. She says they have been expecting Jane at St. Anne's. She leads her through the large house to meet Miss Ironwood. She is dressed just as Jane had dreamed of her. She is convinced that Jane's dreams are visions of genuine events. When Jane returns, she discovers that her maid, Ivy Maggs, has also been evicted from her dwelling by the NICE, and has gone to live at the Manor at St. Anne's with the Dimbles. Mark is given the task of writing propaganda to support NICE's plan for the demolition of a scenic village called Cure Hardy so that a river can be diverted through its original location. This will be rationalized by presenting natural settings as unsanitary and by a philosophy of \"liquidation of anachronisms\" such as the \"backward labourer\" or the \"wastefully supported pauper\". Mark journeys to Cure Hardy to write the report that will justify the demolition. During this time, he discovers that the man who resigned from the NICE, Hingest, has been mysteriously murdered shortly after departing the headquarters. The next morning he returns to NICE determined to find out the exact nature of his work and to whom he is supposed to be reporting. His official boss, Steele, seems to have no idea what is going on. Mark demands to see the Deputy Director but is put off. He runs into the head of the NICE's private police force, a mannish woman named Fairy Hardcastle, who insists he must not worry about this sort of thing, and that the NICE is not run along conventional bureaucratic lines. In a later interview with the Deputy Director, John Wither, he is told that \"elasticity\" is the cornerstone of the Institute, and that they have no watertight compartments. Fog comes in on the towns of Edgestow and Belbury while there is an increase in violent incidents in the town, many apparently engineered by the NICE. Jane develops further personal ties to the group in the mansion at St. Anne's. She is introduced to Dr. Elwin Ransom who is the protagonist of the first two books in Lewis' space trilogy. He has previously traveled to Mars and Venus, both of which are unaffected by the Biblical Fall of Man. He is now the legitimate king or Pendragon of the nation of Logres, the legitimate heir of King Arthur. Also living at St. Anne's is a Mr. MacPhee who is politely skeptical of Ransom's claims. At Belbury Mark has a conversation with the Italian physiologist Dr. Filostrato. He admires the \"purity\" of the moon given that it has no organic life. He declares that underground is a race that has almost broken free of the organic, free of Nature. Mark is then introduced to the \"Head\" of the NICE. They have preserved the head of a recently executed scientist and restored the head to life with artificial scientific devices, where blood and air are pumped through it. It becomes clear that the NICE is engineering the creation of a new species relatively free of the organic. Meanwhile the NICE police have completely taken over the entire town of Edgestow, and have attempted to arrest Jane. Jane tells the group at St. Anne's that she has had dreams of a place in which the NICE have been digging up the grave of a long-buried man. Believing they know the actual place, the company of St. Anne's travel there. They believe the NICE is looking for the body of the magician Merlin, who was buried but not actually dead. It is revealed that the NICE are mainly interested in Jane, for her psychic abilities, and are afraid of her getting into the wrong hands. Mark, now trying to leave the NICE, is arrested in Edgestow on trumped-up charges of the murder of Bill Hingest, and is brought back to NICE headquarters at Belbury, though he does not originally realize that is where he is. When he does, it becomes clear to him the NICE killed Hingest as well. On a stormy night, both the company of St. Anne's and Belbury personnel are on the trail of Merlin who has apparently revived. He has taken the clothes of a tramp through his powers of hypnosis, and gotten hold of a wild horse. He meets the company of St. Anne's, but rides away. Members of the NICE locate the tramp and mistakenly believe him to be Merlin. Merlin arrives at St. Anne's on his own. Ransom reveals that there are Satanic forces behind the NICE. He further reveals that Merlin is to be possessed by the angelic powers called eldils that guide each of the planets of the solar system. Until now Earth had been under a quarantine with a rule that the dark demonic forces that govern Earth could not travel beyond the orbit of the moon, and the angelic powers ruling the rest of the solar system could not come to Earth. However, since the forces of darkness broke the lunar barrier in the events of the earlier books, it is now possible for the good angelic forces to come to Earth. At St. Anne's, Jane Studdock has two very powerful mystical experiences, the first with the earth-bound counterpart of the ruling angel of Venus, and the second with God. This occurs at the same time that Mark at NICE is being initiated by Professor Frost into a dark ritual meant to cultivate absolute objectivity by killing human emotion relegated to the status of a mere \"chemical phenomenon\". The angelic spirits that possess Merlin are guardians of each of the planets of the solar system and correspond to some gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. Merlin then disguises himself as a Basque priest and answers an advertisement put out by the NICE as an interpreter of ancient languages. Later, he is brought to interview the tramp who the NICE still believe may be the real Merlin. Both Merlin and the tramp are brought to attend a celebratory dinner put on by the NICE in honor of the public head of NICE, a science popularizer named Horace Jules. At that dinner, Merlin pronounces upon them the same curse that was placed on the Tower of Babel, causing all present to speak unintelligible gibberish. There are also massive earthquakes which ruin the building as well as much of the town of Edgestow, and cause the deaths of most of the NICE personnel and the liberation of many caged animals upon whom they were conducting experiments. Many of the animals make their way back to St. Anne's. The angel of Venus now lingers as Ransom is now meant to be transported back to that planet, known to the rest of the solar system as Perelandra. The presence of Venus puts many of the animals who are there into an amorous mood. Mark, who escaped the massacre at NICE, arrives on his own at St. Anne's and sees a vision of Venus, who leads him into a new bridal chamber that Jane has been preparing for him. The couple are re-united.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Young academic Mark Studdock has just risen to the position of Senior Fellow in sociology at Bracton College in the University of Edgestow, just when it is engaged in selling off a portion of its land, Bragdon Wood, to a new scientific Institute the NICE (National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments) whose personnel already includes staff of the college. The sale is agreed to but the college Warden wants to back out of the deal. The sub-warden, Curry, Mark Studdock and some NICE insiders have a dinner together to decide how to keep the deal alive. Curry is proud of having brought the NICE to Edgestow believing it to mark the beginning of the \"really scientific era\". There is discussion of Mark being employed as a sociologist at the NICE, initiated by Lord Feverstone. Meanwhile Mark's wife, Jane, who is also a scholar, has been having peculiar nightmares that trouble her, one in particular involving a severed head. She meets the wife of an old tutor from her recent graduate student days, Mrs. Dimble, who is being evicted from her property due to sale of land to the NICE. When Jane talks about her dreams, Dimble leads her to seek counsel with a Miss Ironwood who lives in a mansion in the nearby town of St. Anne's. Mark spends an evening getting acquainted with the top brass at the NICE at their current headquarters in Belbury. He has great difficulty trying to figure out the exact nature of the job they want him to do. The lines of authority seem poorly defined, while at the same time the NICE is convinced the future of the human race depends on their success. Mark meets a scientist named Bill Hingest who is both with Bracton College and the NICE but is resigning the latter and warns Mark to get out as soon as possible. At the same time, Jane finally works up the courage to visit Miss Ironwood at"
      },
      {
        "text": " trying to figure out the exact nature of the job they want him to do. The lines of authority seem poorly defined, while at the same time the NICE is convinced the future of the human race depends on their success. Mark meets a scientist named Bill Hingest who is both with Bracton College and the NICE but is resigning the latter and warns Mark to get out as soon as possible. At the same time, Jane finally works up the courage to visit Miss Ironwood at St. Anne's. She is greeted by Camilla Denniston, the spouse of the man who almost got Mark's appointment instead of him. She says they have been expecting Jane at St. Anne's. She leads her through the large house to meet Miss Ironwood. She is dressed just as Jane had dreamed of her. She is convinced that Jane's dreams are visions of genuine events. When Jane returns, she discovers that her maid, Ivy Maggs, has also been evicted from her dwelling by the NICE, and has gone to live at the Manor at St. Anne's with the Dimbles. Mark is given the task of writing propaganda to support NICE's plan for the demolition of a scenic village called Cure Hardy so that a river can be diverted through its original location. This will be rationalized by presenting natural settings as unsanitary and by a philosophy of \"liquidation of anachronisms\" such as the \"backward labourer\" or the \"wastefully supported pauper\". Mark journeys to Cure Hardy to write the report that will justify the demolition. During this time, he discovers that the man who resigned from the NICE, Hingest, has been mysteriously murdered shortly after departing the headquarters. The next morning he returns to NICE determined to find out the exact nature of his work and to whom he is supposed to be reporting. His official boss, Steele, seems to have no idea what is going on. Mark demands to"
      },
      {
        "text": "wastefully supported pauper\". Mark journeys to Cure Hardy to write the report that will justify the demolition. During this time, he discovers that the man who resigned from the NICE, Hingest, has been mysteriously murdered shortly after departing the headquarters. The next morning he returns to NICE determined to find out the exact nature of his work and to whom he is supposed to be reporting. His official boss, Steele, seems to have no idea what is going on. Mark demands to see the Deputy Director but is put off. He runs into the head of the NICE's private police force, a mannish woman named Fairy Hardcastle, who insists he must not worry about this sort of thing, and that the NICE is not run along conventional bureaucratic lines. In a later interview with the Deputy Director, John Wither, he is told that \"elasticity\" is the cornerstone of the Institute, and that they have no watertight compartments. Fog comes in on the towns of Edgestow and Belbury while there is an increase in violent incidents in the town, many apparently engineered by the NICE. Jane develops further personal ties to the group in the mansion at St. Anne's. She is introduced to Dr. Elwin Ransom who is the protagonist of the first two books in Lewis' space trilogy. He has previously traveled to Mars and Venus, both of which are unaffected by the Biblical Fall of Man. He is now the legitimate king or Pendragon of the nation of Logres, the legitimate heir of King Arthur. Also living at St. Anne's is a Mr. MacPhee who is politely skeptical of Ransom's claims. At Belbury Mark has a conversation with the Italian physiologist Dr. Filostrato. He admires the \"purity\" of the moon given that it has no organic life. He declares that underground is a race that has almost broken free of the organic, free of Nature. Mark is"
      },
      {
        "text": " Pendragon of the nation of Logres, the legitimate heir of King Arthur. Also living at St. Anne's is a Mr. MacPhee who is politely skeptical of Ransom's claims. At Belbury Mark has a conversation with the Italian physiologist Dr. Filostrato. He admires the \"purity\" of the moon given that it has no organic life. He declares that underground is a race that has almost broken free of the organic, free of Nature. Mark is then introduced to the \"Head\" of the NICE. They have preserved the head of a recently executed scientist and restored the head to life with artificial scientific devices, where blood and air are pumped through it. It becomes clear that the NICE is engineering the creation of a new species relatively free of the organic. Meanwhile the NICE police have completely taken over the entire town of Edgestow, and have attempted to arrest Jane. Jane tells the group at St. Anne's that she has had dreams of a place in which the NICE have been digging up the grave of a long-buried man. Believing they know the actual place, the company of St. Anne's travel there. They believe the NICE is looking for the body of the magician Merlin, who was buried but not actually dead. It is revealed that the NICE are mainly interested in Jane, for her psychic abilities, and are afraid of her getting into the wrong hands. Mark, now trying to leave the NICE, is arrested in Edgestow on trumped-up charges of the murder of Bill Hingest, and is brought back to NICE headquarters at Belbury, though he does not originally realize that is where he is. When he does, it becomes clear to him the NICE killed Hingest as well. On a stormy night, both the company of St. Anne's and Belbury personnel are on the trail of Merlin who has apparently revived. He has taken the"
      },
      {
        "text": " NICE, is arrested in Edgestow on trumped-up charges of the murder of Bill Hingest, and is brought back to NICE headquarters at Belbury, though he does not originally realize that is where he is. When he does, it becomes clear to him the NICE killed Hingest as well. On a stormy night, both the company of St. Anne's and Belbury personnel are on the trail of Merlin who has apparently revived. He has taken the clothes of a tramp through his powers of hypnosis, and gotten hold of a wild horse. He meets the company of St. Anne's, but rides away. Members of the NICE locate the tramp and mistakenly believe him to be Merlin. Merlin arrives at St. Anne's on his own. Ransom reveals that there are Satanic forces behind the NICE. He further reveals that Merlin is to be possessed by the angelic powers called eldils that guide each of the planets of the solar system. Until now Earth had been under a quarantine with a rule that the dark demonic forces that govern Earth could not travel beyond the orbit of the moon, and the angelic powers ruling the rest of the solar system could not come to Earth. However, since the forces of darkness broke the lunar barrier in the events of the earlier books, it is now possible for the good angelic forces to come to Earth. At St. Anne's, Jane Studdock has two very powerful mystical experiences, the first with the earth-bound counterpart of the ruling angel of Venus, and the second with God. This occurs at the same time that Mark at NICE is being initiated by Professor Frost into a dark ritual meant to cultivate absolute objectivity by killing human emotion relegated to the status of a mere \"chemical phenomenon\". The angelic spirits that possess Merlin are guardians of each of the planets of the solar system and correspond to some gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. Merlin then disguises himself as"
      },
      {
        "text": ", the first with the earth-bound counterpart of the ruling angel of Venus, and the second with God. This occurs at the same time that Mark at NICE is being initiated by Professor Frost into a dark ritual meant to cultivate absolute objectivity by killing human emotion relegated to the status of a mere \"chemical phenomenon\". The angelic spirits that possess Merlin are guardians of each of the planets of the solar system and correspond to some gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. Merlin then disguises himself as a Basque priest and answers an advertisement put out by the NICE as an interpreter of ancient languages. Later, he is brought to interview the tramp who the NICE still believe may be the real Merlin. Both Merlin and the tramp are brought to attend a celebratory dinner put on by the NICE in honor of the public head of NICE, a science popularizer named Horace Jules. At that dinner, Merlin pronounces upon them the same curse that was placed on the Tower of Babel, causing all present to speak unintelligible gibberish. There are also massive earthquakes which ruin the building as well as much of the town of Edgestow, and cause the deaths of most of the NICE personnel and the liberation of many caged animals upon whom they were conducting experiments. Many of the animals make their way back to St. Anne's. The angel of Venus now lingers as Ransom is now meant to be transported back to that planet, known to the rest of the solar system as Perelandra. The presence of Venus puts many of the animals who are there into an amorous mood. Mark, who escaped the massacre at NICE, arrives on his own at St. Anne's and sees a vision of Venus, who leads him into a new bridal chamber that Jane has been preparing for him. The couple are re-united.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the rest of the solar system as Perelandra. The presence of Venus puts many of the animals who are there into an amorous mood. Mark, who escaped the massacre at NICE, arrives on his own at St. Anne's and sees a vision of Venus, who leads him into a new bridal chamber that Jane has been preparing for him. The couple are re-united.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Heart of the Matter",
    "author": "Graham Greene",
    "published_date": "1948",
    "synopsis": " Major Henry Scobie, a long-serving policeman in a British colony on the West Coast of Africa during World War II, is responsible for local and wartime security. His wife Louise, an unhappy, solitary woman who loves literature and poetry, cannot make friends. Scobie feels responsible for her misery, but does not love her. Their only child, Catherine, died in England several years before. Louise is a devout Catholic. Scobie is a convert and devout. Scobie is passed over for promotion to Commissioner, which upsets Louise both for her personal ambition and her hope that the local British community will begin to accept her. Louise asks Scobie if she can go and live in South Africa to escape the life she hates. At the same time, a new inspector, named Wilson, arrives in the town. He is priggish and socially inept, and hides his passion for poetry for fear of ostracism from his colleagues. He and Louise strike up a friendship, which Wilson mistakes for love. Wilson rooms with another colleague named Harris, who has created a sport for himself of killing the cockroaches that appear in the apartment each night. He invites Wilson to join him, but in the first match, they end up quarreling over the rules of engagement. One of Scobie's duties is to lead the inspections of local passenger ships, particularly looking for smuggled diamonds, a needle-in-a-haystack problem that never yields results. A Portuguese ship, the Esperan\u00e7a (the Portuguese word for \"hope\"), comes into port, and a disgruntled steward reveals the location of a letter hidden in the captain\u2019s quarters. Scobie finds it, and because it is addressed to someone in Germany, he must confiscate it in case it should contain secret codes or other clandestine information. The captain says it\u2019s a letter to his daughter and begs Scobie to forget the incident, offering him a bribe of one hundred pounds when he learns that they share a faith. Scobie declines the bribe and takes the letter, but having opened and read it through (thus breaking the rules) and finding it innocuous, he decides not to submit it to the authorities, and burns it. Scobie is called to a small inland town to deal with the suicide of the local inspector, a man named Pemberton, who was in his early twenties and left a note implying that his suicide was due to a loan he couldn\u2019t repay. Scobie suspects the involvement of the local agent of a Syrian man named Yusef, a local black marketeer. Yusef denies it, but warns Scobie that the British have sent a new inspector specifically to look for diamonds; Scobie claims this is a hoax and that he doesn't know of any such man. Scobie later dreams that he is in Pemberton's situation, even writing a similar note, but when he awakens, he tells himself that he could never commit suicide, as no cause is worth the eternal damnation that suicide would bring. Scobie tries to secure a loan from the bank to pay the two hundred pound fee for Louise\u2019s passage, but is turned down. Yusef offers to lend Scobie the money at four percent per annum. Scobie initially declines, but after an incident where he mistakenly thinks Louise is contemplating suicide, he accepts the loan and sends Louise to South Africa. Wilson meets them at the pier and tries to interfere with their parting. Shortly afterwards, the survivors of a shipwreck begin to arrive after forty days at sea in lifeboats. One young girl dies as Scobie tries to comfort her by pretending to be her father, who was killed in the wreck. A nineteen-year-old woman named Helen Rolt also arrives in bad shape, clutching an album of postage stamps. She was married before the ship left its original port and is now a widow, and her wedding ring is too big for her finger. Scobie feels drawn to her, as much to the cherished album of stamps as to her physical presence, even though she is not beautiful. She reminds him of his daughter. He soon starts a passionate affair with her, all the time being aware that he is committing a grave sin of adultery. A letter he writes to Helen ends up in Yusef's hands, and the Syrian uses it to blackmail Scobie into sending a package of diamonds for him via the returning Esperan\u00e7a, thus avoiding the authorities. When Louise unexpectedly returns, Scobie struggles to keep her ignorant of his love affair. But he is unable to renounce Helen, even in the confessional, so the priest tells him to think it over again and postpones absolution. Still, in order to please his wife, Scobie goes to Mass with her and thus receives communion in state of mortal sin\u2014one of the gravest sins for a Catholic to commit. Shortly after he witnesses Yusef's boy delivering a 'gift' to Scobie, Scobie's servant Ali is killed by teenage thieves known as \"wharf rats.\" Scobie had begun to doubt Ali's loyalty, and he hinted this distrust to Yusef. We are led to believe that Yusef arranged the death of Ali, although Scobie blames himself for the matter. In the body of his dead servant, Scobie sees the image of God. Now desperate, he decides to free everyone from himself\u2014even God\u2014so he commits suicide, being aware that this will result in damnation according to the teaching of the Church. For the sake of his life insurance he feigns symptoms of angina thus receiving a terminal prognosis from his doctor in an attempt to have his death appear natural. Instead, his efforts prove useless in the end. Louise had been not as naive as he had believed, the affair with Helen and the suicide are found out, and his wife is left behind wondering about the mercy and forgiveness of God and Helen almost immediately moves on to an affair with another man.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Major Henry Scobie, a long-serving policeman in a British colony on the West Coast of Africa during World War II, is responsible for local and wartime security. His wife Louise, an unhappy, solitary woman who loves literature and poetry, cannot make friends. Scobie feels responsible for her misery, but does not love her. Their only child, Catherine, died in England several years before. Louise is a devout Catholic. Scobie is a convert and devout. Scobie is passed over for promotion to Commissioner, which upsets Louise both for her personal ambition and her hope that the local British community will begin to accept her. Louise asks Scobie if she can go and live in South Africa to escape the life she hates. At the same time, a new inspector, named Wilson, arrives in the town. He is priggish and socially inept, and hides his passion for poetry for fear of ostracism from his colleagues. He and Louise strike up a friendship, which Wilson mistakes for love. Wilson rooms with another colleague named Harris, who has created a sport for himself of killing the cockroaches that appear in the apartment each night. He invites Wilson to join him, but in the first match, they end up quarreling over the rules of engagement. One of Scobie's duties is to lead the inspections of local passenger ships, particularly looking for smuggled diamonds, a needle-in-a-haystack problem that never yields results. A Portuguese ship, the Esperan\u00e7a (the Portuguese word for \"hope\"), comes into port, and a disgruntled steward reveals the location of a letter hidden in the captain\u2019s quarters. Scobie finds it, and because it is addressed to someone in Germany, he must confiscate it in case it should contain secret codes or other clandestine information. The captain says it\u2019s a letter to his daughter and begs Scobie to forget the incident, offering him a bribe"
      },
      {
        "text": " A Portuguese ship, the Esperan\u00e7a (the Portuguese word for \"hope\"), comes into port, and a disgruntled steward reveals the location of a letter hidden in the captain\u2019s quarters. Scobie finds it, and because it is addressed to someone in Germany, he must confiscate it in case it should contain secret codes or other clandestine information. The captain says it\u2019s a letter to his daughter and begs Scobie to forget the incident, offering him a bribe of one hundred pounds when he learns that they share a faith. Scobie declines the bribe and takes the letter, but having opened and read it through (thus breaking the rules) and finding it innocuous, he decides not to submit it to the authorities, and burns it. Scobie is called to a small inland town to deal with the suicide of the local inspector, a man named Pemberton, who was in his early twenties and left a note implying that his suicide was due to a loan he couldn\u2019t repay. Scobie suspects the involvement of the local agent of a Syrian man named Yusef, a local black marketeer. Yusef denies it, but warns Scobie that the British have sent a new inspector specifically to look for diamonds; Scobie claims this is a hoax and that he doesn't know of any such man. Scobie later dreams that he is in Pemberton's situation, even writing a similar note, but when he awakens, he tells himself that he could never commit suicide, as no cause is worth the eternal damnation that suicide would bring. Scobie tries to secure a loan from the bank to pay the two hundred pound fee for Louise\u2019s passage, but is turned down. Yusef offers to lend Scobie the money at four percent per annum. Scobie initially declines, but after an incident where he mistakenly thinks Louise is contemplating suicide, he accepts the loan"
      },
      {
        "text": " when he awakens, he tells himself that he could never commit suicide, as no cause is worth the eternal damnation that suicide would bring. Scobie tries to secure a loan from the bank to pay the two hundred pound fee for Louise\u2019s passage, but is turned down. Yusef offers to lend Scobie the money at four percent per annum. Scobie initially declines, but after an incident where he mistakenly thinks Louise is contemplating suicide, he accepts the loan and sends Louise to South Africa. Wilson meets them at the pier and tries to interfere with their parting. Shortly afterwards, the survivors of a shipwreck begin to arrive after forty days at sea in lifeboats. One young girl dies as Scobie tries to comfort her by pretending to be her father, who was killed in the wreck. A nineteen-year-old woman named Helen Rolt also arrives in bad shape, clutching an album of postage stamps. She was married before the ship left its original port and is now a widow, and her wedding ring is too big for her finger. Scobie feels drawn to her, as much to the cherished album of stamps as to her physical presence, even though she is not beautiful. She reminds him of his daughter. He soon starts a passionate affair with her, all the time being aware that he is committing a grave sin of adultery. A letter he writes to Helen ends up in Yusef's hands, and the Syrian uses it to blackmail Scobie into sending a package of diamonds for him via the returning Esperan\u00e7a, thus avoiding the authorities. When Louise unexpectedly returns, Scobie struggles to keep her ignorant of his love affair. But he is unable to renounce Helen, even in the confessional, so the priest tells him to think it over again and postpones absolution. Still, in order to please his wife, Scobie goes to Mass with her and thus receives communion in state of mortal sin\u2014"
      },
      {
        "text": " blackmail Scobie into sending a package of diamonds for him via the returning Esperan\u00e7a, thus avoiding the authorities. When Louise unexpectedly returns, Scobie struggles to keep her ignorant of his love affair. But he is unable to renounce Helen, even in the confessional, so the priest tells him to think it over again and postpones absolution. Still, in order to please his wife, Scobie goes to Mass with her and thus receives communion in state of mortal sin\u2014one of the gravest sins for a Catholic to commit. Shortly after he witnesses Yusef's boy delivering a 'gift' to Scobie, Scobie's servant Ali is killed by teenage thieves known as \"wharf rats.\" Scobie had begun to doubt Ali's loyalty, and he hinted this distrust to Yusef. We are led to believe that Yusef arranged the death of Ali, although Scobie blames himself for the matter. In the body of his dead servant, Scobie sees the image of God. Now desperate, he decides to free everyone from himself\u2014even God\u2014so he commits suicide, being aware that this will result in damnation according to the teaching of the Church. For the sake of his life insurance he feigns symptoms of angina thus receiving a terminal prognosis from his doctor in an attempt to have his death appear natural. Instead, his efforts prove useless in the end. Louise had been not as naive as he had believed, the affair with Helen and the suicide are found out, and his wife is left behind wondering about the mercy and forgiveness of God and Helen almost immediately moves on to an affair with another man.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " he had believed, the affair with Helen and the suicide are found out, and his wife is left behind wondering about the mercy and forgiveness of God and Helen almost immediately moves on to an affair with another man.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Legacy of Heorot",
    "author": "Steven Barnes",
    "published_date": "1987",
    "synopsis": " Two hundred colonists arrive on Avalon to found a new community, having made the 100-year journey from Earth in suspended animation on the starship Geographic (the expedition is funded by the National Geographic Society). The colonists, all selected for their outstanding physical and mental attributes, make a terrible discovery: though the suspended animation technology permitted them to survive the journey worked well enough, it had unforeseeable side effects due to the unprecedented duration of its use. Their intelligence and reasoning skill are damaged. Some are only mildly afflicted, while others have mental retardation; eight cannot be reanimated at all. The book opens with the colonists learning how to live without the sharp and nimble minds they all once had. The colonists build a town on the island of Camelot and begin growing crops and stocking the nearby waters with terrestrial species of fish to complement the samlon, a local aquatic species. The island seems like a paradise, and the colonists quickly become overconfident in their security, much to the frustration of the expedition security officer (and only former soldier), Cadmann Weyland. But then unsettling events begin to happen: missing animals, fences torn down, etc. The colonists' impaired minds prevent them from properly analysing what is going on, and in a panic Cadmann is blamed, accused of deliberate sabotage to further his agenda. When a baby and its mother are killed while Cadmann and his only supporter are away on a hunt for the creature he believes is the cause, the colonists become increasingly irrational. When he returns alone (His companion having been killed during the hunt), badly wounded, and with a chunk of burnt tissue he claims is from the monster, he is drugged and restrained. Then the creature (named by the colonists as a \"grendel\" after the character in the poem Beowulf) attacks the camp in revenge. Despite the colonists' advanced weapons and larger numbers, ten people are killed just to drive the grendel away. This proves to all the colonists that there is a deadly and efficient predator native to the island. Cadmann, however, is now completely unwilling to assist the community. He leaves the colony to set up a homestead on a bluff further up the mountain that forms the basis of the island, living apart from the community in despair. A woman joins him in the hopes of persuading him to return, but she stays with him and eventually conceives his child. As a result, has an epiphany: the colonists may have brutalized and betrayed him, but their children are innocent, and deserve to be protected; he returns to assist the colony. The colonists are confounded by the ecology of the island, as there does not seem to be a sufficient food source for the grendels to inhabit it. The colonists, using new weapons and Cadmann's tactics, are able to kill their first grendel. The autopsy reveals that grendels are crocodilian in appearance and behavior, with jaws that can crush steel. Their bones are significantly stronger than those of humans, as they are not based on calcium. They have a sense of smell better than a dogs. Studying its brain shows it is not fully sapient, but that it is not far off, and is at least as smart as a gorilla. Its claws are not just weapons, but exert enough traction for the creature to sprint up rocky cliffs. Though it is not a true amphibian - it cannot breathe water - it does possess an integral snorkel enabling it to move undetected beneath several feet of water. Its cardiovascular system and musculature give it strength and stamina far beyond that of humans, and that is without its primary evolutionary advantage: A super-oxygenated blood supplement. A grendel can, on demand, release a chemical supercharger into its blood that does to it what nitrous oxide does to internal combustion engines - enable short bursts of speed in excess of a hundred miles per hour. This trait makes the grendels dangerous, but also the key to their destruction. The supercharger, when used, generates large amounts of waste-heat that warm up grendel bodies so rapidly they will die after using it if they do not immediately return to water to cool off. With this knowledge and their technology and tactics, the colonists are able to wipe out the grendel population within several months, making Cadmann a hero to the people who previously turned on him. However, the colonists make a disturbing discovery: the grendels and the aquatic samlon are actually the same species. Their life cycle is similar to that of terrestrial frogs - the herbivorous samlon are in fact the juvenile form of the carnivorous grendels. Like certain species of frogs, they change gender over the course of their lifetimes. The juvenile samlon are male. The adult grendels are female. Interaction is unnecessary as the grendels continually lay their unfertilized eggs in the water for the samlon to fertilize. And like many species of grendels, they are cannibalistic - if no other prey is present, they will eat their own young. At some point in the recent past, most of the prey animals on the island were destroyed by an unknown cataclysmic event. (It is left to the reader to draw conclusions as to what actually happened. Over-predation by the grendels is subtly suggested). Among the few surviving species on the island were the samlon, and thus the grendels. Cannibalism became the rule instead of the exception. Only the fastest juvenile samlon survived predation by grendel females to become adult grendels themselves, and this drove the species to evolve at an immensely accelerated rate. This resulted in the incredible predatory abilities of the grendels. When the colonists introduced terrestrial fish into the ecosystem, they provided the grendels with an additional food source, leading to a spike in adult grendel population/ This is why the attacks began in the first place. The colonists have just exterminated the adult grendels. There is now no check at all on the samlon population. Within a very short period of time, they all become grendels. Instead of a few dozen grendels, there are now thousands. Cadmann again asserts control. The grendels cannot hunt away from water, so the colony's pregnant women, children and essential specialists are evacuated to the Geographic. Combat is joined. At first, the colonists' technology and tactics serve them well. The laser-based welding tools and plasma-based drilling equipment are used as weapons. Whatever liquid hydrogen can be spared from the shuttles is used to fight the grendels as well. Cadmann observes mass grendel behavior and discovers that packs of grendels can be sent into a shark-like feeding frenzy by spraying them with blood taken from dead grendels, especially if it is laced with traces of the \"supercharger\" chemical extracted from the organ that secretes it, as this chemical triggers an immediate \"fight\" instinct. Tracer bullets are also used to ignite the supercharger gland in their bodies. The colonists ultimately discover and utilize a new tactic - they harvest supercharger from dead grendels and spray it over the grendel horde with crop dusting equipment, driving hundreds of them into a frenzy and killing many of those remaining. But as the grendels' numbers fall, their individual strength rises - every dead grendel is food for the rest. Eventually, all that remain are full-grown grendels, and the colonists make a planned retreat to Cadmann's Bluff, Cadmann's carefully designed mountain hideaway which has been well-stocked and reinforced with defenses. As the horde approaches, they are sprayed with more supercharger, sending them into a frenzy once more. When they begin climbing the Bluff, Cadmann sets off an avalanche using deadfall, killing even more. The grendels, though not as smart as humans, are smart enough to learn, given time and lots of experience. Their behavior changes as they realize the remaining colonists are not worth dying to reach when there are other grendels to kill. The colony is saved. A year later, the grendels are being driven to extinction. Now that the grendel life cycle is known, the colonists continue the hunts, but this time the samlon are targeted as well. New tactics - supercharger spraying and recorded grendel challenges - make them almost a chore. The terrestrial fish are gone, and will not be reintroduced, forcing the grendels to drive their own species into extinction. Soon the grendel threat will be eradicated. Now rebuilding can begin, and this time, the colonists will not be caught unaware. The mainland is being carefully explored, and the colonists have high hopes. Communications with Earth were cut off by the Grendel Wars. Now that it is over, the colonists hope the story of their battle will inspire Earth's population to restart the colonization program.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Two hundred colonists arrive on Avalon to found a new community, having made the 100-year journey from Earth in suspended animation on the starship Geographic (the expedition is funded by the National Geographic Society). The colonists, all selected for their outstanding physical and mental attributes, make a terrible discovery: though the suspended animation technology permitted them to survive the journey worked well enough, it had unforeseeable side effects due to the unprecedented duration of its use. Their intelligence and reasoning skill are damaged. Some are only mildly afflicted, while others have mental retardation; eight cannot be reanimated at all. The book opens with the colonists learning how to live without the sharp and nimble minds they all once had. The colonists build a town on the island of Camelot and begin growing crops and stocking the nearby waters with terrestrial species of fish to complement the samlon, a local aquatic species. The island seems like a paradise, and the colonists quickly become overconfident in their security, much to the frustration of the expedition security officer (and only former soldier), Cadmann Weyland. But then unsettling events begin to happen: missing animals, fences torn down, etc. The colonists' impaired minds prevent them from properly analysing what is going on, and in a panic Cadmann is blamed, accused of deliberate sabotage to further his agenda. When a baby and its mother are killed while Cadmann and his only supporter are away on a hunt for the creature he believes is the cause, the colonists become increasingly irrational. When he returns alone (His companion having been killed during the hunt), badly wounded, and with a chunk of burnt tissue he claims is from the monster, he is drugged and restrained. Then the creature (named by the colonists as a \"grendel\" after the character in the poem Beowulf) attacks the camp in revenge. Despite the colonists' advanced weapons and larger numbers, ten people are killed just to drive the grendel away. This proves to all the"
      },
      {
        "text": " increasingly irrational. When he returns alone (His companion having been killed during the hunt), badly wounded, and with a chunk of burnt tissue he claims is from the monster, he is drugged and restrained. Then the creature (named by the colonists as a \"grendel\" after the character in the poem Beowulf) attacks the camp in revenge. Despite the colonists' advanced weapons and larger numbers, ten people are killed just to drive the grendel away. This proves to all the colonists that there is a deadly and efficient predator native to the island. Cadmann, however, is now completely unwilling to assist the community. He leaves the colony to set up a homestead on a bluff further up the mountain that forms the basis of the island, living apart from the community in despair. A woman joins him in the hopes of persuading him to return, but she stays with him and eventually conceives his child. As a result, has an epiphany: the colonists may have brutalized and betrayed him, but their children are innocent, and deserve to be protected; he returns to assist the colony. The colonists are confounded by the ecology of the island, as there does not seem to be a sufficient food source for the grendels to inhabit it. The colonists, using new weapons and Cadmann's tactics, are able to kill their first grendel. The autopsy reveals that grendels are crocodilian in appearance and behavior, with jaws that can crush steel. Their bones are significantly stronger than those of humans, as they are not based on calcium. They have a sense of smell better than a dogs. Studying its brain shows it is not fully sapient, but that it is not far off, and is at least as smart as a gorilla. Its claws are not just weapons, but exert enough traction for the creature to sprint up rocky cliffs. Though it is not a true amphibian - it cannot breathe water - it does possess an integral sn"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Their bones are significantly stronger than those of humans, as they are not based on calcium. They have a sense of smell better than a dogs. Studying its brain shows it is not fully sapient, but that it is not far off, and is at least as smart as a gorilla. Its claws are not just weapons, but exert enough traction for the creature to sprint up rocky cliffs. Though it is not a true amphibian - it cannot breathe water - it does possess an integral snorkel enabling it to move undetected beneath several feet of water. Its cardiovascular system and musculature give it strength and stamina far beyond that of humans, and that is without its primary evolutionary advantage: A super-oxygenated blood supplement. A grendel can, on demand, release a chemical supercharger into its blood that does to it what nitrous oxide does to internal combustion engines - enable short bursts of speed in excess of a hundred miles per hour. This trait makes the grendels dangerous, but also the key to their destruction. The supercharger, when used, generates large amounts of waste-heat that warm up grendel bodies so rapidly they will die after using it if they do not immediately return to water to cool off. With this knowledge and their technology and tactics, the colonists are able to wipe out the grendel population within several months, making Cadmann a hero to the people who previously turned on him. However, the colonists make a disturbing discovery: the grendels and the aquatic samlon are actually the same species. Their life cycle is similar to that of terrestrial frogs - the herbivorous samlon are in fact the juvenile form of the carnivorous grendels. Like certain species of frogs, they change gender over the course of their lifetimes. The juvenile samlon are male. The adult grendels are female. Interaction is unnecessary as the grendels continually lay their unfertilized eggs in the"
      },
      {
        "text": " disturbing discovery: the grendels and the aquatic samlon are actually the same species. Their life cycle is similar to that of terrestrial frogs - the herbivorous samlon are in fact the juvenile form of the carnivorous grendels. Like certain species of frogs, they change gender over the course of their lifetimes. The juvenile samlon are male. The adult grendels are female. Interaction is unnecessary as the grendels continually lay their unfertilized eggs in the water for the samlon to fertilize. And like many species of grendels, they are cannibalistic - if no other prey is present, they will eat their own young. At some point in the recent past, most of the prey animals on the island were destroyed by an unknown cataclysmic event. (It is left to the reader to draw conclusions as to what actually happened. Over-predation by the grendels is subtly suggested). Among the few surviving species on the island were the samlon, and thus the grendels. Cannibalism became the rule instead of the exception. Only the fastest juvenile samlon survived predation by grendel females to become adult grendels themselves, and this drove the species to evolve at an immensely accelerated rate. This resulted in the incredible predatory abilities of the grendels. When the colonists introduced terrestrial fish into the ecosystem, they provided the grendels with an additional food source, leading to a spike in adult grendel population/ This is why the attacks began in the first place. The colonists have just exterminated the adult grendels. There is now no check at all on the samlon population. Within a very short period of time, they all become grendels. Instead of a few dozen grendels, there are now thousands. Cadmann again asserts control. The grendels cannot hunt away from water, so the colony's pregnant women, children and essential specialists are evacuated to the"
      },
      {
        "text": "ndel population/ This is why the attacks began in the first place. The colonists have just exterminated the adult grendels. There is now no check at all on the samlon population. Within a very short period of time, they all become grendels. Instead of a few dozen grendels, there are now thousands. Cadmann again asserts control. The grendels cannot hunt away from water, so the colony's pregnant women, children and essential specialists are evacuated to the Geographic. Combat is joined. At first, the colonists' technology and tactics serve them well. The laser-based welding tools and plasma-based drilling equipment are used as weapons. Whatever liquid hydrogen can be spared from the shuttles is used to fight the grendels as well. Cadmann observes mass grendel behavior and discovers that packs of grendels can be sent into a shark-like feeding frenzy by spraying them with blood taken from dead grendels, especially if it is laced with traces of the \"supercharger\" chemical extracted from the organ that secretes it, as this chemical triggers an immediate \"fight\" instinct. Tracer bullets are also used to ignite the supercharger gland in their bodies. The colonists ultimately discover and utilize a new tactic - they harvest supercharger from dead grendels and spray it over the grendel horde with crop dusting equipment, driving hundreds of them into a frenzy and killing many of those remaining. But as the grendels' numbers fall, their individual strength rises - every dead grendel is food for the rest. Eventually, all that remain are full-grown grendels, and the colonists make a planned retreat to Cadmann's Bluff, Cadmann's carefully designed mountain hideaway which has been well-stocked and reinforced with defenses. As the horde approaches, they are sprayed with more supercharger, sending them into a frenzy once more. When they begin climbing the Bluff,"
      },
      {
        "text": " grendels' numbers fall, their individual strength rises - every dead grendel is food for the rest. Eventually, all that remain are full-grown grendels, and the colonists make a planned retreat to Cadmann's Bluff, Cadmann's carefully designed mountain hideaway which has been well-stocked and reinforced with defenses. As the horde approaches, they are sprayed with more supercharger, sending them into a frenzy once more. When they begin climbing the Bluff, Cadmann sets off an avalanche using deadfall, killing even more. The grendels, though not as smart as humans, are smart enough to learn, given time and lots of experience. Their behavior changes as they realize the remaining colonists are not worth dying to reach when there are other grendels to kill. The colony is saved. A year later, the grendels are being driven to extinction. Now that the grendel life cycle is known, the colonists continue the hunts, but this time the samlon are targeted as well. New tactics - supercharger spraying and recorded grendel challenges - make them almost a chore. The terrestrial fish are gone, and will not be reintroduced, forcing the grendels to drive their own species into extinction. Soon the grendel threat will be eradicated. Now rebuilding can begin, and this time, the colonists will not be caught unaware. The mainland is being carefully explored, and the colonists have high hopes. Communications with Earth were cut off by the Grendel Wars. Now that it is over, the colonists hope the story of their battle will inspire Earth's population to restart the colonization program.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " with Earth were cut off by the Grendel Wars. Now that it is over, the colonists hope the story of their battle will inspire Earth's population to restart the colonization program.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "VALIS",
    "author": "Philip K. Dick",
    "published_date": "1981",
    "synopsis": " Horselover Fat believes his visions expose hidden facts about the reality of life on Earth, and a group of others join him in researching these matters. One of their theories is that there is some kind of alien space probe in orbit around Earth, and that it is aiding them in their quest. It also aided the United States in disclosing the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. There is a filmed account of an alternate universe Nixon, \"Ferris Freemont\" and his fall, engineered by a fictionalised Valis, which leads them to an estate owned by the Lamptons, popular musicians. Valis (the fictional film) contains obvious references to identical revelations to those that Horselover Fat has experienced. They decide the goal that they have been led toward is Sophia, who is two years old and the Messiah or incarnation of Holy Wisdom anticipated by some variants of Gnostic Christianity. She tells them that their conclusions are correct, but dies after a laser accident. Undeterred, Fat goes on a global search for the next incarnation of Sophia. Dick also offers a rationalist explanation of his apparent \"theophany\", acknowledging that it might have been visual and auditory hallucinations from either schizophrenia or drug addiction sequelae.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Horselover Fat believes his visions expose hidden facts about the reality of life on Earth, and a group of others join him in researching these matters. One of their theories is that there is some kind of alien space probe in orbit around Earth, and that it is aiding them in their quest. It also aided the United States in disclosing the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. There is a filmed account of an alternate universe Nixon, \"Ferris Freemont\" and his fall, engineered by a fictionalised Valis, which leads them to an estate owned by the Lamptons, popular musicians. Valis (the fictional film) contains obvious references to identical revelations to those that Horselover Fat has experienced. They decide the goal that they have been led toward is Sophia, who is two years old and the Messiah or incarnation of Holy Wisdom anticipated by some variants of Gnostic Christianity. She tells them that their conclusions are correct, but dies after a laser accident. Undeterred, Fat goes on a global search for the next incarnation of Sophia. Dick also offers a rationalist explanation of his apparent \"theophany\", acknowledging that it might have been visual and auditory hallucinations from either schizophrenia or drug addiction sequelae.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Man Who Awoke",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " * 5000 AD. Humanity staggers to save itself amid the world's littered, stagnant wreckage after what has become known as the great Age of Waste. * 10,000 AD. The world is dominated by the Brain - the immovable in purpose super computer that knows all, sees all, and feels nothing. Thanks to its cradle-to-grave supervision, human life is easy and comfortable, but what will happen when The Brain realizes people are superfluous? * 15,000 AD. People can now program their choice of dreams and sleep their lives away. Winters awakes to find the sleeping outnumber the living. He cannot stop the implosion of civilization by himself. * 20,000 AD. After an abused Age of Freedom came an Age of License. Genetic experiment heralded the terrifying Age of Anarchy. Each Individual had his own mobile \"City\" that provided for all his needs, resulting in a society where people had no need for each other and were incapable of cooperating, resulting in nearly all interpersonal encounters being small wars. * 25,000 AD. Scientists discover the secret sought through the centuries \u2013 immortality. But is Mankind ready for it? Immortality is frightfully boring without a purpose. Humanity scatters to the far corners of the cosmos seeking knowledge and experience, leading to a quest toward \"the meaning of it all.\" The novel might be easily dismissed as standard pulp fare if it had not presaged concepts popularized decades later: the sexual revolution, green consumerism, strong AI, full-immersion virtual reality as a surgical procedure (like The Matrix), desktop molecular manufacturing, global warming, and stem cell therapies. Many of these have only appeared in most peoples' worldview in the 21st century. This book was recently re-released.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " * 5000 AD. Humanity staggers to save itself amid the world's littered, stagnant wreckage after what has become known as the great Age of Waste. * 10,000 AD. The world is dominated by the Brain - the immovable in purpose super computer that knows all, sees all, and feels nothing. Thanks to its cradle-to-grave supervision, human life is easy and comfortable, but what will happen when The Brain realizes people are superfluous? * 15,000 AD. People can now program their choice of dreams and sleep their lives away. Winters awakes to find the sleeping outnumber the living. He cannot stop the implosion of civilization by himself. * 20,000 AD. After an abused Age of Freedom came an Age of License. Genetic experiment heralded the terrifying Age of Anarchy. Each Individual had his own mobile \"City\" that provided for all his needs, resulting in a society where people had no need for each other and were incapable of cooperating, resulting in nearly all interpersonal encounters being small wars. * 25,000 AD. Scientists discover the secret sought through the centuries \u2013 immortality. But is Mankind ready for it? Immortality is frightfully boring without a purpose. Humanity scatters to the far corners of the cosmos seeking knowledge and experience, leading to a quest toward \"the meaning of it all.\" The novel might be easily dismissed as standard pulp fare if it had not presaged concepts popularized decades later: the sexual revolution, green consumerism, strong AI, full-immersion virtual reality as a surgical procedure (like The Matrix), desktop molecular manufacturing, global warming, and stem cell therapies. Many of these have only appeared in most peoples' worldview in the 21st century. This book was recently re-released.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " AI, full-immersion virtual reality as a surgical procedure (like The Matrix), desktop molecular manufacturing, global warming, and stem cell therapies. Many of these have only appeared in most peoples' worldview in the 21st century. This book was recently re-released.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Genesis Quest",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Genesis Quest gets around the problems involved with intergalactic travel, namely the distance, by avoiding the traditional staple of science fiction, faster than light travel. Instead Moffitt opts for a different tactic, that of having an alien race (The Nar) assemble humans from a stream of genetic information transmitted by radio from the Milky Way Galaxy. The resulting colony of humans spend some time integrated into the Nar society before growing randy, discovering the secret of human longevity, and embarking on the seemingly impossible millennia-long mission of a physical journey back to earth. This epic journey is made in a gigantic space-grown semi-sentient Dyson tree known as Yggdrasil.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Genesis Quest gets around the problems involved with intergalactic travel, namely the distance, by avoiding the traditional staple of science fiction, faster than light travel. Instead Moffitt opts for a different tactic, that of having an alien race (The Nar) assemble humans from a stream of genetic information transmitted by radio from the Milky Way Galaxy. The resulting colony of humans spend some time integrated into the Nar society before growing randy, discovering the secret of human longevity, and embarking on the seemingly impossible millennia-long mission of a physical journey back to earth. This epic journey is made in a gigantic space-grown semi-sentient Dyson tree known as Yggdrasil.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Summer and Smoke",
    "author": "Tennessee Williams",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Summer and Smoke is set in Glorious Hill, Mississippi, from the \"turn of the century through 1916,\" and centers on a high-strung, unmarried minister's daughter, Alma Winemiller, and the spiritual/sexual romance that nearly blossoms between her and the wild, undisciplined young doctor who grew up next door, John Buchanan, Jr. She, ineffably refined, identifies with the gothic cathedral, \"reaching up to something beyond attainment\"; her name, as Williams makes clear during the play, means \"soul\" in Spanish; whereas Buchanan, doctor and sensualist, defies her with the soulless anatomy chart. By play's end, however, Buchanan and Alma have traded places philosophically. She has been transformed beyond modesty. She throws herself at him, saying, \"..now I have changed my mind, or the girl who said 'no,'\u2014she doesn't exist any more, she died last summer\u2014suffocated in smoke from something on fire inside her.\". But he has changed, he's engaged to settle down with a respectable, younger girl; and, as he tries to convince Alma that what they had between them was indeed a \"spiritual bond,\" she realizes, in any event, it is too late. In the final scene, Alma accosts a young traveling salesman at dusk in the town park; and, as the curtain falls, she follows him off to enjoy the \"after-dark entertainment\" at Moon Lake Casino, where she'd resisted Buchanan's attempt to seduce her the summer before.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Summer and Smoke is set in Glorious Hill, Mississippi, from the \"turn of the century through 1916,\" and centers on a high-strung, unmarried minister's daughter, Alma Winemiller, and the spiritual/sexual romance that nearly blossoms between her and the wild, undisciplined young doctor who grew up next door, John Buchanan, Jr. She, ineffably refined, identifies with the gothic cathedral, \"reaching up to something beyond attainment\"; her name, as Williams makes clear during the play, means \"soul\" in Spanish; whereas Buchanan, doctor and sensualist, defies her with the soulless anatomy chart. By play's end, however, Buchanan and Alma have traded places philosophically. She has been transformed beyond modesty. She throws herself at him, saying, \"..now I have changed my mind, or the girl who said 'no,'\u2014she doesn't exist any more, she died last summer\u2014suffocated in smoke from something on fire inside her.\". But he has changed, he's engaged to settle down with a respectable, younger girl; and, as he tries to convince Alma that what they had between them was indeed a \"spiritual bond,\" she realizes, in any event, it is too late. In the final scene, Alma accosts a young traveling salesman at dusk in the town park; and, as the curtain falls, she follows him off to enjoy the \"after-dark entertainment\" at Moon Lake Casino, where she'd resisted Buchanan's attempt to seduce her the summer before.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " at Moon Lake Casino, where she'd resisted Buchanan's attempt to seduce her the summer before.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Critique of Dialectical Reason",
    "author": "Jean-Paul Sartre",
    "published_date": "1960",
    "synopsis": " Critique of Dialectical Reason is the product of a later stage in Sartre's thinking, during which he no longer identified Marxism with the Soviet Union or French Communism but came closer to identifying as a Marxist. It puts forward a revision of Existentialism, and an interpretation of Marxism as a contemporary philosophy par excellence, one that can be criticized only from a reactionary pre-Marxist standpoint. Sartre argues that while the free fusion of many human projects may possibly constitute a Communist society, there is no guarantee of this. Conscious human acts are not projections of freedom that produce human 'temporality', but movements toward 'totalization', their sense being co-determined by existing social conditions. People are thus neither absolutely free to determine the meaning of their acts nor slaves to the circumstances in which they find themselve. Social life does not consist only of individual acts rooted in freedom, since it is also a sedimentation of history by which we are limited and a fight with nature, which imposes further obstacles and causes social relationships to be dominated by scarcity. Every satisfaction of a need can cause antagonism and make it more difficult for people to accept each other as human beings. Scarcity deprives people of the ability to make particular choices and diminishes their humanity. Communism will restore the freedom of the individual and his ability to recognize the freedom of others.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Critique of Dialectical Reason is the product of a later stage in Sartre's thinking, during which he no longer identified Marxism with the Soviet Union or French Communism but came closer to identifying as a Marxist. It puts forward a revision of Existentialism, and an interpretation of Marxism as a contemporary philosophy par excellence, one that can be criticized only from a reactionary pre-Marxist standpoint. Sartre argues that while the free fusion of many human projects may possibly constitute a Communist society, there is no guarantee of this. Conscious human acts are not projections of freedom that produce human 'temporality', but movements toward 'totalization', their sense being co-determined by existing social conditions. People are thus neither absolutely free to determine the meaning of their acts nor slaves to the circumstances in which they find themselve. Social life does not consist only of individual acts rooted in freedom, since it is also a sedimentation of history by which we are limited and a fight with nature, which imposes further obstacles and causes social relationships to be dominated by scarcity. Every satisfaction of a need can cause antagonism and make it more difficult for people to accept each other as human beings. Scarcity deprives people of the ability to make particular choices and diminishes their humanity. Communism will restore the freedom of the individual and his ability to recognize the freedom of others.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Necessity of Atheism",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The tract starts with the following rationale of the author's goals: Shelley made a number of claims in Necessity, including that one's beliefs are involuntary, and, therefore, that atheists do not choose to be so and should not be persecuted. Towards the end of the pamphlet he writes: \"the mind cannot believe in the existence of a God.\" Shelley signed the pamphlet, Thro' deficiency of proof, AN ATHEIST, but Shelley himself encouraged readers to offer proofs if they only possess them. Opinion is divided upon the characterization of Shelley's beliefs, as presented in Necessity. Shelley scholar Carlos Baker states that \"the title of his college pamphlet should have been The Necessity of Agnosticism rather than The Necessity of Atheism,\" while historian David Berman argues that Shelley was an atheist, both because he characterized himself as such, and because \"he denies the existence of God in both published works and private letters\" during the same period. A revised and expanded version was printed in 1813.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The tract starts with the following rationale of the author's goals: Shelley made a number of claims in Necessity, including that one's beliefs are involuntary, and, therefore, that atheists do not choose to be so and should not be persecuted. Towards the end of the pamphlet he writes: \"the mind cannot believe in the existence of a God.\" Shelley signed the pamphlet, Thro' deficiency of proof, AN ATHEIST, but Shelley himself encouraged readers to offer proofs if they only possess them. Opinion is divided upon the characterization of Shelley's beliefs, as presented in Necessity. Shelley scholar Carlos Baker states that \"the title of his college pamphlet should have been The Necessity of Agnosticism rather than The Necessity of Atheism,\" while historian David Berman argues that Shelley was an atheist, both because he characterized himself as such, and because \"he denies the existence of God in both published works and private letters\" during the same period. A revised and expanded version was printed in 1813.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Velveteen Rabbit",
    "author": "Margery Williams",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " A boy receives a Velveteen Rabbit for Christmas. The Velveteen Rabbit is snubbed by other more expensive or mechanical toys, the latter of which fancy themselves real. One day while talking with the Skin Horse, the Rabbit learns that a toy becomes real if its owner really and truly loves it. The Skin Horse makes the Velveteen Rabbit aware that \"...once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.\" When the boy's china dog is misplaced, the Velveteen Rabbit is given to the boy as a quick replacement by the Nana. The Velveteen Rabbit soon takes his place as the boy's constant companion. The Rabbit becomes shabbier, but the boy loves him no matter what. In the woods near the boy's home, the Velveteen Rabbit meets actual rabbits, and learns about the differences between himself and the real rabbits when the real rabbits prove he is not real by his inability to hop and jump. The Velveteen Rabbit's companionship with the boy lasts until the boy falls ill with scarlet fever. The boy becomes too ill to play for a very long time; upon his recovery, he is sent to the seaside on doctor's orders. The doctor orders all the toys the boy has played with, including the Rabbit, be burned in order to disinfect the nursery. The boy is given a new plush rabbit and is so excited about the trip to the seaside that he forgets his old Velveteen Rabbit. While awaiting the bonfire, in which the Velveteen Rabbit will be burned, the Rabbit cries a real tear. This tear brings forth the Nursery Magic Fairy. She tells the Rabbit that he was only real to the boy, and then brings him to the woods and kisses him, making him real to everybody. He soon discovers that he is a real rabbit at last and runs to join the other rabbits in the wild. The following spring, the boy sees the Rabbit hopping in the wild and thinks he looks like his old Velveteen Rabbit, but he never knows that it actually was.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A boy receives a Velveteen Rabbit for Christmas. The Velveteen Rabbit is snubbed by other more expensive or mechanical toys, the latter of which fancy themselves real. One day while talking with the Skin Horse, the Rabbit learns that a toy becomes real if its owner really and truly loves it. The Skin Horse makes the Velveteen Rabbit aware that \"...once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.\" When the boy's china dog is misplaced, the Velveteen Rabbit is given to the boy as a quick replacement by the Nana. The Velveteen Rabbit soon takes his place as the boy's constant companion. The Rabbit becomes shabbier, but the boy loves him no matter what. In the woods near the boy's home, the Velveteen Rabbit meets actual rabbits, and learns about the differences between himself and the real rabbits when the real rabbits prove he is not real by his inability to hop and jump. The Velveteen Rabbit's companionship with the boy lasts until the boy falls ill with scarlet fever. The boy becomes too ill to play for a very long time; upon his recovery, he is sent to the seaside on doctor's orders. The doctor orders all the toys the boy has played with, including the Rabbit, be burned in order to disinfect the nursery. The boy is given a new plush rabbit and is so excited about the trip to the seaside that he forgets his old Velveteen Rabbit. While awaiting the bonfire, in which the Velveteen Rabbit will be burned, the Rabbit cries a real tear. This tear brings forth the Nursery Magic Fairy. She tells the Rabbit that he was only real to the boy, and then brings him to the woods and kisses him, making him real to everybody. He soon discovers that he is a real rabbit at last and runs to join the other rabbits in the wild. The following spring, the boy sees the Rabbit hopping in"
      },
      {
        "text": "teen Rabbit. While awaiting the bonfire, in which the Velveteen Rabbit will be burned, the Rabbit cries a real tear. This tear brings forth the Nursery Magic Fairy. She tells the Rabbit that he was only real to the boy, and then brings him to the woods and kisses him, making him real to everybody. He soon discovers that he is a real rabbit at last and runs to join the other rabbits in the wild. The following spring, the boy sees the Rabbit hopping in the wild and thinks he looks like his old Velveteen Rabbit, but he never knows that it actually was.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Executive Orders",
    "author": "Tom Clancy",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Following the conclusion of Debt of Honor, Jack Ryan is sworn in as president of the United States minutes after becoming Vice President. With virtually nearly every executive, legislative, and judicial figure deceased, Ryan is left to represent the United States by himself. Ryan deals with various hardships and crises, from reconstituting the House and the Senate; to a challenge on his legitimacy by former vice president Ed Kealty; to a brewing war in the Middle East. When the president of Iraq is assassinated by an Iranian agent, the Ayatollah Mahmoud Haji Daryaei takes advantage of the power vacuum by launching an unopposed invasion of Iraq. The ayatollah unites the two countries into the United Islamic Republic (UIR). With Indian and Chinese assistance, the UIR makes a bid for superpower status by attacking Saudi Arabia. Following a series of Iranian-backed terrorist attacks—including the release of a genetically-enhanced Ebola strain—the UIR declares war on both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Meanwhile, China \"accidentally\" shoots down a Taiwanese airliner. As a result of the Ebola attack, Ryan declares martial law and enforces travel restrictions in an effort to contain the virus. However, the attack becomes only a limited success for the UIR, since the virus is so deadly that it cannot spread effectively. The tide soon turns against the UIR, with its forces being defeated against the combined firepower of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. President Ryan sends Ding Chavez and John Clark into the UIR to assassinate Daryaei. After showing the destruction of Daryaei's residence during a televised press conference, Ryan threatens to launch a tactical nuclear strike on Tehran unless those responsible for the attacks are extradited to the U.S. to face charges. Kealty's challenge to President Ryan's legitimacy fails in court. In the aftermath of the crisis, appreciation of the unelected president grows. Then in answering a question from a reporter in the White House press room, Ryan says he will seek election to the office of President of the United States.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Following the conclusion of Debt of Honor, Jack Ryan is sworn in as president of the United States minutes after becoming Vice President. With virtually nearly every executive, legislative, and judicial figure deceased, Ryan is left to represent the United States by himself. Ryan deals with various hardships and crises, from reconstituting the House and the Senate; to a challenge on his legitimacy by former vice president Ed Kealty; to a brewing war in the Middle East. When the president of Iraq is assassinated by an Iranian agent, the Ayatollah Mahmoud Haji Daryaei takes advantage of the power vacuum by launching an unopposed invasion of Iraq. The ayatollah unites the two countries into the United Islamic Republic (UIR). With Indian and Chinese assistance, the UIR makes a bid for superpower status by attacking Saudi Arabia. Following a series of Iranian-backed terrorist attacks—including the release of a genetically-enhanced Ebola strain—the UIR declares war on both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Meanwhile, China \"accidentally\" shoots down a Taiwanese airliner. As a result of the Ebola attack, Ryan declares martial law and enforces travel restrictions in an effort to contain the virus. However, the attack becomes only a limited success for the UIR, since the virus is so deadly that it cannot spread effectively. The tide soon turns against the UIR, with its forces being defeated against the combined firepower of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. President Ryan sends Ding Chavez and John Clark into the UIR to assassinate Daryaei. After showing the destruction of Daryaei's residence during a televised press conference, Ryan threatens to launch a tactical nuclear strike on Tehran unless those responsible for the attacks are extradited to the U.S. to face charges. Kealty's challenge to President Ryan's legitimacy fails in court. In the aftermath of the crisis, appreciation of the unelected president grows. Then in answering"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Kuwait. President Ryan sends Ding Chavez and John Clark into the UIR to assassinate Daryaei. After showing the destruction of Daryaei's residence during a televised press conference, Ryan threatens to launch a tactical nuclear strike on Tehran unless those responsible for the attacks are extradited to the U.S. to face charges. Kealty's challenge to President Ryan's legitimacy fails in court. In the aftermath of the crisis, appreciation of the unelected president grows. Then in answering a question from a reporter in the White House press room, Ryan says he will seek election to the office of President of the United States.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "My Night with Reg",
    "author": "Kevin Elyot",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " All three scenes are set in the sitting room of Guy's London apartment: during Guy's flatwarming party (Scene 1); after Reg's funeral, some years later (Scene 2); and after Guy's funeral (Scene 3). The group, most of them in their thirties, meet at irregular intervals, often at Guy's place. Guy himself is a lonely man. Ever since their university days, he has had a crush on John, but he has never dared to tell him about it. Rather, he lives a solitary life, which he only spices up with phone sex and an occasional visit to a gay pub -- that is where he meets 18 year-old Eric, who then helps him decorate his new flat. On holiday on the island of Lanzarote, he meets a gay man who eventually forces himself on Guy and has unprotected sex with him\u2014the last thing Guy has been looking for. At his flatwarming party, he has just come back from his holiday and is still quite shocked about what happened. It is hard for him not to start crying when, as a present, John gives him a cookery book specialising in dishes for one. The most popular of the gay circle is Reg, who is conspicuously absent from the party. Reg has had a long-term relationship with Daniel, but Daniel himself suspects Reg of occasionally being unfaithful to him. In fact Reg seems to be sleeping with every man he can get hold of (as it seems, even with the vicar). In the course of the play, John, Benny and even his seemingly faithful companion Bernie have secret sex with Reg. Ironically, they all confide in Guy. It hurts Guy most to hear that John — whom he himself fancies — is having an affair with Reg, thus betraying their mutual friend Daniel. After his fling with Reg, Benny panics because he thinks he might have contracted HIV, but he does not confess it to his partner, Bernie. When Reg is dying from AIDS, he is looked after by his partner, Daniel. Ironically again, the next one to die is Guy, the only one who has not had sex with Reg and who seems to have been infected with HIV when he was raped during his holiday in Lanzarote. Guy bequeaths his new flat to the love of his life, John who does not need it at all because he comes from a rich background. It is John who, somewhere in the flat, finds all kinds of memorabilia dating back to their student days.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " All three scenes are set in the sitting room of Guy's London apartment: during Guy's flatwarming party (Scene 1); after Reg's funeral, some years later (Scene 2); and after Guy's funeral (Scene 3). The group, most of them in their thirties, meet at irregular intervals, often at Guy's place. Guy himself is a lonely man. Ever since their university days, he has had a crush on John, but he has never dared to tell him about it. Rather, he lives a solitary life, which he only spices up with phone sex and an occasional visit to a gay pub -- that is where he meets 18 year-old Eric, who then helps him decorate his new flat. On holiday on the island of Lanzarote, he meets a gay man who eventually forces himself on Guy and has unprotected sex with him\u2014the last thing Guy has been looking for. At his flatwarming party, he has just come back from his holiday and is still quite shocked about what happened. It is hard for him not to start crying when, as a present, John gives him a cookery book specialising in dishes for one. The most popular of the gay circle is Reg, who is conspicuously absent from the party. Reg has had a long-term relationship with Daniel, but Daniel himself suspects Reg of occasionally being unfaithful to him. In fact Reg seems to be sleeping with every man he can get hold of (as it seems, even with the vicar). In the course of the play, John, Benny and even his seemingly faithful companion Bernie have secret sex with Reg. Ironically, they all confide in Guy. It hurts Guy most to hear that John — whom he himself fancies — is having an affair with Reg, thus betraying their mutual friend Daniel. After his fling with Reg, Benny panics because he thinks he might have contracted HIV, but he does not confess it to"
      },
      {
        "text": " even with the vicar). In the course of the play, John, Benny and even his seemingly faithful companion Bernie have secret sex with Reg. Ironically, they all confide in Guy. It hurts Guy most to hear that John — whom he himself fancies — is having an affair with Reg, thus betraying their mutual friend Daniel. After his fling with Reg, Benny panics because he thinks he might have contracted HIV, but he does not confess it to his partner, Bernie. When Reg is dying from AIDS, he is looked after by his partner, Daniel. Ironically again, the next one to die is Guy, the only one who has not had sex with Reg and who seems to have been infected with HIV when he was raped during his holiday in Lanzarote. Guy bequeaths his new flat to the love of his life, John who does not need it at all because he comes from a rich background. It is John who, somewhere in the flat, finds all kinds of memorabilia dating back to their student days.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Tell England",
    "author": "Ernest Raymond",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel opens with a prologue by Padre Monty, a character from the second half of the novel. Padre Monty speaks affectionately and retrospectively of the three boys Rupert Ray, Edgar Doe and Archibald Pennybet as they were in childhood. The inference is made that Padre Monty acquired this information from the boys' mothers after-the-fact, given that he first meets them in the Great War. The novel predates the Just William books and Molesworth stories, but begins in a similar fashion to these books, describing the school lives of Rupert Ray and his friends at their public school, Kensingstowe. The author describes the pranks they play on the masters (teachers) from Ray's perspective. Raymond spends much of the novel setting up the characters and their relationships in this way. Rupert himself is a shy boy lacking in courage and in need of moral guidance in the absence of a father figure. Edgar, nicknamed the \"Grey Doe\" is equally shy, but is more sensitive and inclined to fall in love with older men such as their strict master Radley. Both boys are heavily influenced by the older Archibald, \"Penny\", who enjoys wielding youthful power over others by stirring up acts of mischief. The first half of the book relates Rupert's most dramatic incidents as Kensingtowe, including an ongoing \"war\" with his Housemaster, the so-called \"Carpet Slippers\", receiving beatings and punishments, learning to do what is right, and his greatest hour - winning the school relay swimming race, only to be disqualified, then made a prefect on account of his maturity in dealing with the disappointment. Radley is a heavy influence in all this, because he offers Rupert advice and encouragement to make the right choices. In one memorable episode, the entire class has been cheating in Carpet Slippers' history lessons, only for Rupert to admit his guilt by recording a mark of zero after Radley's prompting. The book repeatedly makes dark suggestions as to the boys' future after school. For example, at the end of a triumphant cricket match the masters at Kensingstowe consider what England will do with the young men they are moulding. Radley himself is a weary, beaten figure when he learns that his favourite pupils, Ray and Doe, are off to war. When the war breaks out it is treated with much excitement and the boys leave school to join the army as officers. Where others have blamed the attitude of sending England's finest (their boys) to war for the mass slaughter that resulted, Raymond's portrayal justifies the thinking of the time. The attitude is embodied by their new commanding officer, the Colonel; :\"Eighteen by Jove! You've timed you lives wonderfully, my boys. To be eighteen in 1914 is to be the best thing in England. England's wealth used to consist in other things. Nowadays you boys are the richest thing she's got. She's solvent with you, and bankrupt without you. Eighteen confound it! It's a virtue to be your age, just as it's a crime to be mine.\" The boys go forward to Gallipoli and despite Ray's pain at leaving his mother, and his clear worry that he will never see her again, they are still optimistic and eager to head off to war. The news that Penny died on the Western Front and that their house captain, their school's most promising cricketer (a sure bet for a future England side) and Rupert's relay-team captain all died in April in Gallipoli depresses Edgar and Rupert somewhat. There is a bitter irony in this passage, for all three were such promising lives that were snuffed out the moment they landed on the beaches of Gallipoli by Turkish guns. A major theme of the novel is religious redemption, and in the second half of the book Padre Monty becomes to Ray and Doe what Radley was at Kensingtowe. He teaches them about the communion and about confession, and achieves the unlikely feat of drawing confessions from both boys. Padre Monty views the pair as his greatest triumph, and is happy to be sending them out to battle \"white\" and pure. Still, both boys have their doubts about the approaching war as their ship draws nearer to Gallipoli. Doe is the enthusiast, with high aspirations but a sensitive heart. Ray is slightly heavier of spirits, but Padre Monty encourages him to seek beauty in everything. At Gallipoli, the boys spend months waiting in a camp for any action, but are finally sent to the Helles, where they are up against \"Asiatic Annie\", a 7-mile ranging Turk gun, and a well-placed Turkish gun that kills many of their friends. Doe accepts the promotion to Bombing Officer with characteristic enthusiasm. Ray is promoted to Captain. They are both junior subalterns, the rank that suffered the greatest losses in the Great War, owing to their courage and visibility as leaders of the front line. As the Germans break through Servia and British and French troops at Gallipoli begin to withdraw, it is Doe and Ray's unit that is required to attack as a diversion. Doe breaks over the top of the line and is shot in the shoulder. He falls, but manages to get up and blow up the offending Turkish gun. He is then shot four more times in the waist. Padre Monty rushes out to bring him out of No Man's Land. Doe subsequently dies, but not before Ray has a tearful final farewell with his best friend. The entire duration of the novel up to that point is a romantic ode to their friendship - painting Rupert's love for Edgar in classical hues as Orestes who loved Pylades. There is an underlying homosexual flavour to the novel, with vivid descriptions of boys as magnificent creatures, God's highest form of creation and Britain's greatest accomplishment. The reader never feels that Rupert's feelings for Edgar are sexual, but there are intimations in Edgar's unwillingness to confess to Padre Monty and his admission that he has done \"everything\", that Doe himself was homosexual. At the end of the novel when leaving Gallipoli Ray is charged by Padre Monty to tell England about what has happened, \"You must write a book and tell 'em, Rupert, about the dead schoolboys of your generation\". Originally published by Cassell and Company, Tell England was most recently reprinted in 2005, when it was republished by IndyPublish.com (ISBN 1-4219-4612-2). The book's name might be inspired by the famous epitaph to King Leonidas and his men, erected at Thermopylae :Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by/ That here, obedient to their laws, we lie. The name comes from a poem that is inscribed on the grave of one of Edgar and Ray's friends, and is presumably also inscribed on Edgar Doe's, given that he asked Ray to do so. The quote reads: \"Tell England, ye who pass this monument, We died for her, and here we rest content.\" One of the final messages in the book is given by Padre Monty to Rupert Ray as a means of consoling him to Edgar's death. He says that Rupert and Edgar's friendship is more perfect because of Edgar's death. Had they simply been school friends who went their separate ways, they would eventually have lost trace of one another. Instead, Edgar will forever be inscribed upon Ray's memory as the war held them in deepening intimacy until the end. The end of the novel is written from a trench on the Western Front in 1918, just as England is about to defeat Germany and end the Great War. Rupert intimates that he has finished his story in time, but does not say whether he survives the final passage of war. We are asked to believe that he is happy because he has lived, experienced beauty, known the purest of friendships and had twenty wonderful years. The book ends on that note.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel opens with a prologue by Padre Monty, a character from the second half of the novel. Padre Monty speaks affectionately and retrospectively of the three boys Rupert Ray, Edgar Doe and Archibald Pennybet as they were in childhood. The inference is made that Padre Monty acquired this information from the boys' mothers after-the-fact, given that he first meets them in the Great War. The novel predates the Just William books and Molesworth stories, but begins in a similar fashion to these books, describing the school lives of Rupert Ray and his friends at their public school, Kensingstowe. The author describes the pranks they play on the masters (teachers) from Ray's perspective. Raymond spends much of the novel setting up the characters and their relationships in this way. Rupert himself is a shy boy lacking in courage and in need of moral guidance in the absence of a father figure. Edgar, nicknamed the \"Grey Doe\" is equally shy, but is more sensitive and inclined to fall in love with older men such as their strict master Radley. Both boys are heavily influenced by the older Archibald, \"Penny\", who enjoys wielding youthful power over others by stirring up acts of mischief. The first half of the book relates Rupert's most dramatic incidents as Kensingtowe, including an ongoing \"war\" with his Housemaster, the so-called \"Carpet Slippers\", receiving beatings and punishments, learning to do what is right, and his greatest hour - winning the school relay swimming race, only to be disqualified, then made a prefect on account of his maturity in dealing with the disappointment. Radley is a heavy influence in all this, because he offers Rupert advice and encouragement to make the right choices. In one memorable episode, the entire class has been cheating in Carpet Slippers' history lessons, only for Rupert to admit his guilt by recording a mark of zero after Radley"
      },
      {
        "text": ", learning to do what is right, and his greatest hour - winning the school relay swimming race, only to be disqualified, then made a prefect on account of his maturity in dealing with the disappointment. Radley is a heavy influence in all this, because he offers Rupert advice and encouragement to make the right choices. In one memorable episode, the entire class has been cheating in Carpet Slippers' history lessons, only for Rupert to admit his guilt by recording a mark of zero after Radley's prompting. The book repeatedly makes dark suggestions as to the boys' future after school. For example, at the end of a triumphant cricket match the masters at Kensingstowe consider what England will do with the young men they are moulding. Radley himself is a weary, beaten figure when he learns that his favourite pupils, Ray and Doe, are off to war. When the war breaks out it is treated with much excitement and the boys leave school to join the army as officers. Where others have blamed the attitude of sending England's finest (their boys) to war for the mass slaughter that resulted, Raymond's portrayal justifies the thinking of the time. The attitude is embodied by their new commanding officer, the Colonel; :\"Eighteen by Jove! You've timed you lives wonderfully, my boys. To be eighteen in 1914 is to be the best thing in England. England's wealth used to consist in other things. Nowadays you boys are the richest thing she's got. She's solvent with you, and bankrupt without you. Eighteen confound it! It's a virtue to be your age, just as it's a crime to be mine.\" The boys go forward to Gallipoli and despite Ray's pain at leaving his mother, and his clear worry that he will never see her again, they are still optimistic and eager to head off to war. The news that Penny died on the Western Front and that their house captain, their school's most promising crick"
      },
      {
        "text": " She's solvent with you, and bankrupt without you. Eighteen confound it! It's a virtue to be your age, just as it's a crime to be mine.\" The boys go forward to Gallipoli and despite Ray's pain at leaving his mother, and his clear worry that he will never see her again, they are still optimistic and eager to head off to war. The news that Penny died on the Western Front and that their house captain, their school's most promising cricketer (a sure bet for a future England side) and Rupert's relay-team captain all died in April in Gallipoli depresses Edgar and Rupert somewhat. There is a bitter irony in this passage, for all three were such promising lives that were snuffed out the moment they landed on the beaches of Gallipoli by Turkish guns. A major theme of the novel is religious redemption, and in the second half of the book Padre Monty becomes to Ray and Doe what Radley was at Kensingtowe. He teaches them about the communion and about confession, and achieves the unlikely feat of drawing confessions from both boys. Padre Monty views the pair as his greatest triumph, and is happy to be sending them out to battle \"white\" and pure. Still, both boys have their doubts about the approaching war as their ship draws nearer to Gallipoli. Doe is the enthusiast, with high aspirations but a sensitive heart. Ray is slightly heavier of spirits, but Padre Monty encourages him to seek beauty in everything. At Gallipoli, the boys spend months waiting in a camp for any action, but are finally sent to the Helles, where they are up against \"Asiatic Annie\", a 7-mile ranging Turk gun, and a well-placed Turkish gun that kills many of their friends. Doe accepts the promotion to Bombing Officer with characteristic enthusiasm. Ray is promoted to Captain. They are both junior subalterns, the rank that suffered the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Monty encourages him to seek beauty in everything. At Gallipoli, the boys spend months waiting in a camp for any action, but are finally sent to the Helles, where they are up against \"Asiatic Annie\", a 7-mile ranging Turk gun, and a well-placed Turkish gun that kills many of their friends. Doe accepts the promotion to Bombing Officer with characteristic enthusiasm. Ray is promoted to Captain. They are both junior subalterns, the rank that suffered the greatest losses in the Great War, owing to their courage and visibility as leaders of the front line. As the Germans break through Servia and British and French troops at Gallipoli begin to withdraw, it is Doe and Ray's unit that is required to attack as a diversion. Doe breaks over the top of the line and is shot in the shoulder. He falls, but manages to get up and blow up the offending Turkish gun. He is then shot four more times in the waist. Padre Monty rushes out to bring him out of No Man's Land. Doe subsequently dies, but not before Ray has a tearful final farewell with his best friend. The entire duration of the novel up to that point is a romantic ode to their friendship - painting Rupert's love for Edgar in classical hues as Orestes who loved Pylades. There is an underlying homosexual flavour to the novel, with vivid descriptions of boys as magnificent creatures, God's highest form of creation and Britain's greatest accomplishment. The reader never feels that Rupert's feelings for Edgar are sexual, but there are intimations in Edgar's unwillingness to confess to Padre Monty and his admission that he has done \"everything\", that Doe himself was homosexual. At the end of the novel when leaving Gallipoli Ray is charged by Padre Monty to tell England about what has happened, \"You must write a book and tell 'em, Rupert, about the dead schoolboys of your generation\". Originally published by"
      },
      {
        "text": " greatest accomplishment. The reader never feels that Rupert's feelings for Edgar are sexual, but there are intimations in Edgar's unwillingness to confess to Padre Monty and his admission that he has done \"everything\", that Doe himself was homosexual. At the end of the novel when leaving Gallipoli Ray is charged by Padre Monty to tell England about what has happened, \"You must write a book and tell 'em, Rupert, about the dead schoolboys of your generation\". Originally published by Cassell and Company, Tell England was most recently reprinted in 2005, when it was republished by IndyPublish.com (ISBN 1-4219-4612-2). The book's name might be inspired by the famous epitaph to King Leonidas and his men, erected at Thermopylae :Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by/ That here, obedient to their laws, we lie. The name comes from a poem that is inscribed on the grave of one of Edgar and Ray's friends, and is presumably also inscribed on Edgar Doe's, given that he asked Ray to do so. The quote reads: \"Tell England, ye who pass this monument, We died for her, and here we rest content.\" One of the final messages in the book is given by Padre Monty to Rupert Ray as a means of consoling him to Edgar's death. He says that Rupert and Edgar's friendship is more perfect because of Edgar's death. Had they simply been school friends who went their separate ways, they would eventually have lost trace of one another. Instead, Edgar will forever be inscribed upon Ray's memory as the war held them in deepening intimacy until the end. The end of the novel is written from a trench on the Western Front in 1918, just as England is about to defeat Germany and end the Great War. Rupert intimates that he has finished his story in time, but does not say whether he survives the final passage of war. We"
      },
      {
        "text": " simply been school friends who went their separate ways, they would eventually have lost trace of one another. Instead, Edgar will forever be inscribed upon Ray's memory as the war held them in deepening intimacy until the end. The end of the novel is written from a trench on the Western Front in 1918, just as England is about to defeat Germany and end the Great War. Rupert intimates that he has finished his story in time, but does not say whether he survives the final passage of war. We are asked to believe that he is happy because he has lived, experienced beauty, known the purest of friendships and had twenty wonderful years. The book ends on that note.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Woman Who Did",
    "author": "Grant Allen",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Herminia Barton, the Cambridge-educated daughter of a clergyman, frees herself from her parents' influence, moves to London and starts living alone. As she is not a woman of independent means, she starts working as a teacher. When she meets and falls in love with Alan Merrick, a lawyer, she suggests they live together without getting married. Reluctantly, he agrees, and the couple move to Italy. There, in Florence, Merrick dies of typhoid before their daughter Dolores is born. Legal technicalities and the fact that the couple were not married prevent Herminia from inheriting any of Merrick's money. Dreaming of being a role model for Dolores and her friends, Herminia returns to England and raises her daughter as a single mother. She wants to show the younger generation that even as a woman there is something one can do about the unfair position of women in society\u2014a small step maybe, but with more and larger steps to follow soon. However, Dolores turns out to be ashamed of her mother's unmarried state and gradually turns against her. Eventually, Herminia chooses to make a huge sacrifice for her daughter's benefit and commits suicide.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Herminia Barton, the Cambridge-educated daughter of a clergyman, frees herself from her parents' influence, moves to London and starts living alone. As she is not a woman of independent means, she starts working as a teacher. When she meets and falls in love with Alan Merrick, a lawyer, she suggests they live together without getting married. Reluctantly, he agrees, and the couple move to Italy. There, in Florence, Merrick dies of typhoid before their daughter Dolores is born. Legal technicalities and the fact that the couple were not married prevent Herminia from inheriting any of Merrick's money. Dreaming of being a role model for Dolores and her friends, Herminia returns to England and raises her daughter as a single mother. She wants to show the younger generation that even as a woman there is something one can do about the unfair position of women in society\u2014a small step maybe, but with more and larger steps to follow soon. However, Dolores turns out to be ashamed of her mother's unmarried state and gradually turns against her. Eventually, Herminia chooses to make a huge sacrifice for her daughter's benefit and commits suicide.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Chicago",
    "author": "Fred Ebb",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " ; Act 1 In the mid 1920s in Chicago, Illinois, Velma Kelly is a vaudevillian who murdered both her husband and her sister when she found them in bed together. She welcomes the audience to tonight's show (\"All That Jazz\"). Meanwhile, we hear of chorus girl Roxie Hart's murder of her lover, nightclub regular Fred Casely. Roxie convinces her husband Amos that the victim was a burglar, and Amos cheerfully takes the blame. Roxie expresses her appreciation of her husband's thick skull (\"Funny Honey\"). However, when the police mention the deceased's name Amos belatedly puts two and two together. The truth comes out, and Roxie is arrested. She is sent to the women's block in Cook County Jail, inhabited by Velma and other murderesses (\"Cell Block Tango\"). The block is presided over by the corrupt Matron \"Mama\" Morton, whose system of mutual aid (\"When You're Good to Mama\") perfectly suits her clientele. She has helped Velma become the media's top murder-of-the-week and is acting as a booking agent for Velma's big return to vaudeville. Velma is not happy to see Roxie, who is stealing not only her limelight but also her lawyer, Billy Flynn. Roxie tries to convince Amos to pay for Billy Flynn to be her lawyer (\"A Tap Dance\"). Eagerly awaited by his all-girl clientele, Billy sings his anthem, complete with a chorus of fan dancers (\"All I Care About is Love\"). Billy takes Roxie's case and re-arranges her story for consumption by sympathetic tabloid columnist Mary Sunshine (\"A Little Bit of Good\"). Roxie's press conference turns into a ventriloquist act with Billy dictating a new version of the truth (\"We Both Reached for the Gun\") to the press while Roxie mouths the words. Roxie becomes the new toast of Chicago and she proclaims so boastfully while planning for her future career in vaudeville (\"Roxie\"). As Roxie's fame grows, Velma's notoriety is left in the dust and in an \"act of pure desperation\", she tries to talk Roxie into recreating the sister act (\"I Can't Do It Alone\"), but Roxie turns her down, only to find her own headlines replaced by the latest sordid crime of passion. Separately, Roxie and Velma realize there's no one they can count on but themselves (\"My Own Best Friend\"), and the ever-resourceful Roxie decides that being pregnant in prison would put her back on the front page. ; Act 2 Velma again welcomes the audience with the line \"Hello, Suckers,\" another reference to Texas Guinan, who commonly greeted her patrons with the same phrase. She informs the audience of Roxie's continual run of luck (\"I Know a Girl\") despite Roxie's obvious falsehoods (\"Me and My Baby\"). A little shy on the arithmetic, Amos proudly claims paternity, and still nobody notices him (\"Mr. Cellophane\"). Velma tries to show Billy all the tricks she's got planned for her trial (\"When Velma Takes The Stand\"). With her ego growing, Roxie has a heated argument with Billy, and fires him. She is brought back down to earth when she learns that a fellow inmate has been executed. The trial date arrives, and Billy calms her, telling her if she makes a show of it, she'll be fine (\"Razzle Dazzle\"), but when he passes all Velma's ideas on to Roxie, she uses each one, down to the rhinestone shoe buckles, to the dismay of Mama and Velma (\"Class\"). As promised, Billy gets Roxie her acquittal but, just as the verdict is given, some even more sensational crime pulls the pack of press bloodhounds away, and Roxie's fleeting celebrity life is over. Billy leaves, done with the case. Amos stays with her, glad for his wife, but she then confesses that there isn't really a baby, making Amos finally leave her. Left in the dust, Roxie pulls herself up and extols the joys of life (\"Nowadays\"). She teams up with Velma in a new act, in which they dance and perform (\"Hot Honey Rag\") until they are joined by the entire company (\"Finale\").\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " ; Act 1 In the mid 1920s in Chicago, Illinois, Velma Kelly is a vaudevillian who murdered both her husband and her sister when she found them in bed together. She welcomes the audience to tonight's show (\"All That Jazz\"). Meanwhile, we hear of chorus girl Roxie Hart's murder of her lover, nightclub regular Fred Casely. Roxie convinces her husband Amos that the victim was a burglar, and Amos cheerfully takes the blame. Roxie expresses her appreciation of her husband's thick skull (\"Funny Honey\"). However, when the police mention the deceased's name Amos belatedly puts two and two together. The truth comes out, and Roxie is arrested. She is sent to the women's block in Cook County Jail, inhabited by Velma and other murderesses (\"Cell Block Tango\"). The block is presided over by the corrupt Matron \"Mama\" Morton, whose system of mutual aid (\"When You're Good to Mama\") perfectly suits her clientele. She has helped Velma become the media's top murder-of-the-week and is acting as a booking agent for Velma's big return to vaudeville. Velma is not happy to see Roxie, who is stealing not only her limelight but also her lawyer, Billy Flynn. Roxie tries to convince Amos to pay for Billy Flynn to be her lawyer (\"A Tap Dance\"). Eagerly awaited by his all-girl clientele, Billy sings his anthem, complete with a chorus of fan dancers (\"All I Care About is Love\"). Billy takes Roxie's case and re-arranges her story for consumption by sympathetic tabloid columnist Mary Sunshine (\"A Little Bit of Good\"). Roxie's press conference turns into a ventriloquist act with Billy dictating a new version of the truth (\"We Both Reached for the Gun\") to the press while Roxie mouths the words. Roxie becomes the new toast of Chicago and she proclaim"
      },
      {
        "text": " Billy sings his anthem, complete with a chorus of fan dancers (\"All I Care About is Love\"). Billy takes Roxie's case and re-arranges her story for consumption by sympathetic tabloid columnist Mary Sunshine (\"A Little Bit of Good\"). Roxie's press conference turns into a ventriloquist act with Billy dictating a new version of the truth (\"We Both Reached for the Gun\") to the press while Roxie mouths the words. Roxie becomes the new toast of Chicago and she proclaims so boastfully while planning for her future career in vaudeville (\"Roxie\"). As Roxie's fame grows, Velma's notoriety is left in the dust and in an \"act of pure desperation\", she tries to talk Roxie into recreating the sister act (\"I Can't Do It Alone\"), but Roxie turns her down, only to find her own headlines replaced by the latest sordid crime of passion. Separately, Roxie and Velma realize there's no one they can count on but themselves (\"My Own Best Friend\"), and the ever-resourceful Roxie decides that being pregnant in prison would put her back on the front page. ; Act 2 Velma again welcomes the audience with the line \"Hello, Suckers,\" another reference to Texas Guinan, who commonly greeted her patrons with the same phrase. She informs the audience of Roxie's continual run of luck (\"I Know a Girl\") despite Roxie's obvious falsehoods (\"Me and My Baby\"). A little shy on the arithmetic, Amos proudly claims paternity, and still nobody notices him (\"Mr. Cellophane\"). Velma tries to show Billy all the tricks she's got planned for her trial (\"When Velma Takes The Stand\"). With her ego growing, Roxie has a heated argument with Billy, and fires him. She is brought back down to earth when she learns that a fellow inmate has been executed. The trial date arrives, and Billy calms her"
      },
      {
        "text": " (\"Me and My Baby\"). A little shy on the arithmetic, Amos proudly claims paternity, and still nobody notices him (\"Mr. Cellophane\"). Velma tries to show Billy all the tricks she's got planned for her trial (\"When Velma Takes The Stand\"). With her ego growing, Roxie has a heated argument with Billy, and fires him. She is brought back down to earth when she learns that a fellow inmate has been executed. The trial date arrives, and Billy calms her, telling her if she makes a show of it, she'll be fine (\"Razzle Dazzle\"), but when he passes all Velma's ideas on to Roxie, she uses each one, down to the rhinestone shoe buckles, to the dismay of Mama and Velma (\"Class\"). As promised, Billy gets Roxie her acquittal but, just as the verdict is given, some even more sensational crime pulls the pack of press bloodhounds away, and Roxie's fleeting celebrity life is over. Billy leaves, done with the case. Amos stays with her, glad for his wife, but she then confesses that there isn't really a baby, making Amos finally leave her. Left in the dust, Roxie pulls herself up and extols the joys of life (\"Nowadays\"). She teams up with Velma in a new act, in which they dance and perform (\"Hot Honey Rag\") until they are joined by the entire company (\"Finale\").\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Au Bonheur des Dames",
    "author": "\u00c9mile Zola",
    "published_date": "1883",
    "synopsis": " The events of Au Bonheur des Dames cover approximately 1864-1869. The novel tells the story of Denise Baudu, a 20-year-old woman from Valognes who comes to Paris with her brothers and begins working at the department store Au Bonheur des Dames as a saleswoman. Zola describes the inner workings of the store from the employees' perspective, including the 13-hour workdays, the substandard food and the bare lodgings (for the female staff). Many of the conflicts in the novel spring from the struggles for advancement and the malicious infighting and gossip among the staff. Denise's story is played against the career of Octave Mouret, the owner of Au Bonheur des Dames, whose retail innovations and store expansions threaten the existence of all the neighborhood shops. Under one roof, Octave has gathered textiles (silks, woolens) as well as all manner of ready-made garments (dresses, coats, lingerie, gloves), accessories necessary for making clothes and ancillary items like carpeting and furniture. His aim is to overwhelm the senses of his female customers, forcing them to spend by bombarding them with an array of buying choices and by juxtaposing goods in enticing and intoxicating ways. Massive advertising, huge sales, home delivery, a system of refunds and novelties such as a reading room and a snack bar, further induce his female clientele to patronize his store in growing numbers. In the process, he drives smaller, speciality shops out of business. In Pot-Bouille, Octave is depicted as a (sometimes inept) ladies' man who seduces or attempts to seduce women who can give him some type of material (social or financial) advantage. This characteristic is carried over in Au Bonheur des Dames. Here, he uses a young widow to influence a political figure (modeled after Baron Haussmann) in order to have frontage access to a huge thoroughfare (the present day rue de Quatre-Septembre) for the store. Despite his contempt for women, Octave finds himself slowly falling in love with Denise, whose inability to be seduced by his charms further inflames him. The book ends with Denise admitting her love for Octave. Her marriage with Octave is seen as a victory of women over a man who refuses to be conquered and whose aim is to subjugate and exploit women using their own senses.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The events of Au Bonheur des Dames cover approximately 1864-1869. The novel tells the story of Denise Baudu, a 20-year-old woman from Valognes who comes to Paris with her brothers and begins working at the department store Au Bonheur des Dames as a saleswoman. Zola describes the inner workings of the store from the employees' perspective, including the 13-hour workdays, the substandard food and the bare lodgings (for the female staff). Many of the conflicts in the novel spring from the struggles for advancement and the malicious infighting and gossip among the staff. Denise's story is played against the career of Octave Mouret, the owner of Au Bonheur des Dames, whose retail innovations and store expansions threaten the existence of all the neighborhood shops. Under one roof, Octave has gathered textiles (silks, woolens) as well as all manner of ready-made garments (dresses, coats, lingerie, gloves), accessories necessary for making clothes and ancillary items like carpeting and furniture. His aim is to overwhelm the senses of his female customers, forcing them to spend by bombarding them with an array of buying choices and by juxtaposing goods in enticing and intoxicating ways. Massive advertising, huge sales, home delivery, a system of refunds and novelties such as a reading room and a snack bar, further induce his female clientele to patronize his store in growing numbers. In the process, he drives smaller, speciality shops out of business. In Pot-Bouille, Octave is depicted as a (sometimes inept) ladies' man who seduces or attempts to seduce women who can give him some type of material (social or financial) advantage. This characteristic is carried over in Au Bonheur des Dames. Here, he uses a young widow to influence a political figure (modeled after Baron Haussmann) in order to have"
      },
      {
        "text": " numbers. In the process, he drives smaller, speciality shops out of business. In Pot-Bouille, Octave is depicted as a (sometimes inept) ladies' man who seduces or attempts to seduce women who can give him some type of material (social or financial) advantage. This characteristic is carried over in Au Bonheur des Dames. Here, he uses a young widow to influence a political figure (modeled after Baron Haussmann) in order to have frontage access to a huge thoroughfare (the present day rue de Quatre-Septembre) for the store. Despite his contempt for women, Octave finds himself slowly falling in love with Denise, whose inability to be seduced by his charms further inflames him. The book ends with Denise admitting her love for Octave. Her marriage with Octave is seen as a victory of women over a man who refuses to be conquered and whose aim is to subjugate and exploit women using their own senses.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Absalom, Absalom!",
    "author": "William Faulkner",
    "published_date": "1936",
    "synopsis": " Absalom, Absalom! details the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen, a white man born into poverty in western Virginia who comes to Mississippi with the complementary aims of becoming rich and a powerful family patriarch. The story is told entirely in flashbacks narrated mostly by Quentin Compson to his roommate at Harvard University, Shreve, who frequently contributes his own suggestions and surmises. The narration of Rosa Coldfield, and Quentin's father and grandfather, are also included and re-interpreted by Shreve and Quentin, with the total events of the story unfolding in non-chronological order and often with differing details, resulting in a peeling-back-the-onion way of revealing the true story of the Sutpens to the reader. Rosa initially narrates the story, with long digressions and a biased memory, to Quentin Compson, whose grandfather was a friend of Sutpen\u2019s. Quentin's father then fills in some of the details to Quentin, as well. Finally, Quentin relates the story to his roommate Shreve, and in each retelling, the reader receives more details as the parties flesh out the story by adding layers. The final effect leaves the reader more certain about the attitudes and biases of the characters than about the facts of Sutpen's story. Thomas Sutpen arrives in Jefferson, Mississippi, with some slaves and a French architect who has been somehow forced into working for him. Sutpen obtains one hundred square miles of land from a local Native American tribe and immediately begins building a large plantation called Sutpen\u2019s Hundred, including an ostentatious mansion. All he needs to complete his plan is a wife to bear him a few children (particularly a son to be his heir), so he ingratiates himself with a local merchant and marries the man\u2019s daughter, Ellen Coldfield. Ellen bears Sutpen two children, a son named Henry and a daughter named Judith, both of whom are destined for tragedy. Henry goes to the University of Mississippi and meets a fellow student named Charles Bon, who is ten years his senior. Henry brings Bon home for Christmas, where he and Judith begin a quiet romance that leads to a presumed engagement. However, Thomas Sutpen realizes that Charles Bon is his son from an earlier marriage and moves to stop the proposed union. Sutpen had worked on a plantation in the French West Indies as the overseer and, after subduing a slave uprising, was offered the hand of the plantation owner's daughter, Eulalia Bon, who bore him a son, Charles. Sutpen had not known that Eulalia was of mixed race until after the marriage and birth of Charles, but when he found out he had been deceived, he renounced the marriage as void and left his wife and child (though leaving them his fortune as part of his own moral recompense). The reader also later learns of Sutpen's childhood, where young Thomas learned that society could base human worth on material worth. It is this episode that sets into motion Thomas' plan to start a dynasty. Henry, possibly because of his own potentially (and mutually) incestuous feelings for his sister, as well as quasi-romantic feelings for Charles himself, is keen to see the two wed (allowing him to imagine himself as surrogate for both). When Sutpen tells Henry that Charles is his half-brother and that Judith must not be allowed to marry him, Henry refuses to believe, repudiates his birthright, and accompanies Charles to his home in New Orleans. They then return to Mississippi to enlist in their University company where they join the Confederate Army and fight in the Civil War. During the war, Henry wrestles with his conscience until he presumably resolves to allow the marriage of half-brother and sister; this resolution changes, however, when Sutpen reveals to Henry that Charles is part black. At the conclusion of the war, Henry enacts his father's interdiction of marriage between Charles and Judith, killing Charles at the gates to the mansion and then fleeing into self-exile. Thomas Sutpen returns from the war and begins to repair his home, whose hundred square miles have been reduced by carpetbaggers and punitive northern action to one, and dynasty. He proposes to Rosa Coldfield, his dead wife's younger sister, and she accepts. However, Sutpen insults Rosa by demanding that she bear him a son before the wedding takes place prompting her to leave Sutpen's Hundred. Sutpen then begins an affair with Milly, the fifteen-year-old granddaughter of Wash Jones, a squatter who lives on the Sutpen property. The affair continues until Milly becomes pregnant and gives birth to a daughter. Sutpen is terribly disappointed, because the last hope of repairing his Sutpen dynasty rested on whether Milly gave birth to a son. Sutpen casts Milly and the child aside, telling them that they are not worthy of sleeping in the stables with his horse, who had just sired a male. An enraged Wash Jones kills Sutpen, his own granddaughter and Sutpen's newborn daughter, and is in turn killed by the posse that arrives to arrest him. The story of Thomas Sutpen's legacy ends with Quentin taking Rosa back to the seemingly abandoned Sutpen\u2019s Hundred plantation, where they find Henry Sutpen and Clytie, herself the daughter of Thomas Sutpen by a slave woman. Henry has returned to the estate to die. Three months later, when Rosa returns with medical help for Henry, Clytie starts a fire that consumes the plantation and kills Henry and herself. The only remaining Sutpen is Jim Bond, Charles Bon's black grandson, a young man with severe mental handicaps, who remains on Sutpen's Hundred.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Absalom, Absalom! details the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen, a white man born into poverty in western Virginia who comes to Mississippi with the complementary aims of becoming rich and a powerful family patriarch. The story is told entirely in flashbacks narrated mostly by Quentin Compson to his roommate at Harvard University, Shreve, who frequently contributes his own suggestions and surmises. The narration of Rosa Coldfield, and Quentin's father and grandfather, are also included and re-interpreted by Shreve and Quentin, with the total events of the story unfolding in non-chronological order and often with differing details, resulting in a peeling-back-the-onion way of revealing the true story of the Sutpens to the reader. Rosa initially narrates the story, with long digressions and a biased memory, to Quentin Compson, whose grandfather was a friend of Sutpen\u2019s. Quentin's father then fills in some of the details to Quentin, as well. Finally, Quentin relates the story to his roommate Shreve, and in each retelling, the reader receives more details as the parties flesh out the story by adding layers. The final effect leaves the reader more certain about the attitudes and biases of the characters than about the facts of Sutpen's story. Thomas Sutpen arrives in Jefferson, Mississippi, with some slaves and a French architect who has been somehow forced into working for him. Sutpen obtains one hundred square miles of land from a local Native American tribe and immediately begins building a large plantation called Sutpen\u2019s Hundred, including an ostentatious mansion. All he needs to complete his plan is a wife to bear him a few children (particularly a son to be his heir), so he ingratiates himself with a local merchant and marries the man\u2019s daughter, Ellen Coldfield. Ellen bears Sutpen two children, a son named Henry and a daughter named Judith, both of whom are destined"
      },
      {
        "text": " a local Native American tribe and immediately begins building a large plantation called Sutpen\u2019s Hundred, including an ostentatious mansion. All he needs to complete his plan is a wife to bear him a few children (particularly a son to be his heir), so he ingratiates himself with a local merchant and marries the man\u2019s daughter, Ellen Coldfield. Ellen bears Sutpen two children, a son named Henry and a daughter named Judith, both of whom are destined for tragedy. Henry goes to the University of Mississippi and meets a fellow student named Charles Bon, who is ten years his senior. Henry brings Bon home for Christmas, where he and Judith begin a quiet romance that leads to a presumed engagement. However, Thomas Sutpen realizes that Charles Bon is his son from an earlier marriage and moves to stop the proposed union. Sutpen had worked on a plantation in the French West Indies as the overseer and, after subduing a slave uprising, was offered the hand of the plantation owner's daughter, Eulalia Bon, who bore him a son, Charles. Sutpen had not known that Eulalia was of mixed race until after the marriage and birth of Charles, but when he found out he had been deceived, he renounced the marriage as void and left his wife and child (though leaving them his fortune as part of his own moral recompense). The reader also later learns of Sutpen's childhood, where young Thomas learned that society could base human worth on material worth. It is this episode that sets into motion Thomas' plan to start a dynasty. Henry, possibly because of his own potentially (and mutually) incestuous feelings for his sister, as well as quasi-romantic feelings for Charles himself, is keen to see the two wed (allowing him to imagine himself as surrogate for both). When Sutpen tells Henry that Charles is his half-brother and that Judith must not be allowed to marry him, Henry refuses to believe,"
      },
      {
        "text": " human worth on material worth. It is this episode that sets into motion Thomas' plan to start a dynasty. Henry, possibly because of his own potentially (and mutually) incestuous feelings for his sister, as well as quasi-romantic feelings for Charles himself, is keen to see the two wed (allowing him to imagine himself as surrogate for both). When Sutpen tells Henry that Charles is his half-brother and that Judith must not be allowed to marry him, Henry refuses to believe, repudiates his birthright, and accompanies Charles to his home in New Orleans. They then return to Mississippi to enlist in their University company where they join the Confederate Army and fight in the Civil War. During the war, Henry wrestles with his conscience until he presumably resolves to allow the marriage of half-brother and sister; this resolution changes, however, when Sutpen reveals to Henry that Charles is part black. At the conclusion of the war, Henry enacts his father's interdiction of marriage between Charles and Judith, killing Charles at the gates to the mansion and then fleeing into self-exile. Thomas Sutpen returns from the war and begins to repair his home, whose hundred square miles have been reduced by carpetbaggers and punitive northern action to one, and dynasty. He proposes to Rosa Coldfield, his dead wife's younger sister, and she accepts. However, Sutpen insults Rosa by demanding that she bear him a son before the wedding takes place prompting her to leave Sutpen's Hundred. Sutpen then begins an affair with Milly, the fifteen-year-old granddaughter of Wash Jones, a squatter who lives on the Sutpen property. The affair continues until Milly becomes pregnant and gives birth to a daughter. Sutpen is terribly disappointed, because the last hope of repairing his Sutpen dynasty rested on whether Milly gave birth to a son. Sutpen casts Milly and the child aside, telling them that they are not worthy of sleeping in the st"
      },
      {
        "text": "pen's Hundred. Sutpen then begins an affair with Milly, the fifteen-year-old granddaughter of Wash Jones, a squatter who lives on the Sutpen property. The affair continues until Milly becomes pregnant and gives birth to a daughter. Sutpen is terribly disappointed, because the last hope of repairing his Sutpen dynasty rested on whether Milly gave birth to a son. Sutpen casts Milly and the child aside, telling them that they are not worthy of sleeping in the stables with his horse, who had just sired a male. An enraged Wash Jones kills Sutpen, his own granddaughter and Sutpen's newborn daughter, and is in turn killed by the posse that arrives to arrest him. The story of Thomas Sutpen's legacy ends with Quentin taking Rosa back to the seemingly abandoned Sutpen\u2019s Hundred plantation, where they find Henry Sutpen and Clytie, herself the daughter of Thomas Sutpen by a slave woman. Henry has returned to the estate to die. Three months later, when Rosa returns with medical help for Henry, Clytie starts a fire that consumes the plantation and kills Henry and herself. The only remaining Sutpen is Jim Bond, Charles Bon's black grandson, a young man with severe mental handicaps, who remains on Sutpen's Hundred.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Brideshead Revisited",
    "author": "Evelyn Waugh",
    "published_date": "1945",
    "synopsis": " 1923: Protagonist and narrator Charles Ryder, a student at Hertford College, Oxford, is befriended by Lord Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of the aristocratic Lord Marchmain and an undergraduate at Christ Church. Sebastian introduces Charles to his eccentric and aesthetic friends, including the haughty and homosexual Anthony Blanche. Sebastian also takes Charles to his family's palatial home, Brideshead, in Wiltshire where Charles later meets the rest of Sebastian's family, including his sister Julia. During the long vacation, Charles returns home to London, where he lives with his widowed father. The conversations there between Charles and his father Edward Ryder provide some of the best-known comic scenes in the novel. Charles is called back to Brideshead after Sebastian incurs a minor injury, and Sebastian and Charles spend the remainder of the vacation together. Sebastian's family are Roman Catholics, which influences the Marchmains' lives as well as the content of their conversations, all of which surprises Charles, who had always assumed Christianity to be \"without substance or merit\". Lord Marchmain had converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in order to marry his wife, but he later abandoned both his marriage and his new religion and moved to Venice in Italy. Left alone, Lady Marchmain focuses even more on her faith, which is also enthusiastically espoused by her eldest son, Lord Brideshead (\"Bridey\"), and by her youngest daughter, Cordelia. Sebastian, a troubled young man, descends into alcoholism, drifting away from the family over a two-year period. He flees to Morocco, where his drinking ruins his health. He eventually finds some solace as an under-porter and object of charity at a Tunisian monastery. Sebastian's drifting leads to Charles's own estrangement from the Marchmains. Charles marries and fathers two children, but he becomes cold towards his wife and she is unfaithful to him, and he eventually forms a relationship with Sebastian's younger sister Julia. Julia has married but separated from the rich but unsophisticated Canadian business man, Rex Mottram. This marriage caused great sorrow to her mother, because Rex, though initially planning to convert to Roman Catholicism, turns out to have divorced a previous wife in Canada, so he and Julia ended up marrying in the Church of England. Charles and Julia plan to divorce their respective spouses so that they can marry each other. On the eve of the Second World War, the aging Lord Marchmain, terminally ill, returns to Brideshead to die in his ancestral home. Appalled by the marriage of his eldest son, Brideshead, he names Julia heir to the estate, which prospectively offers Charles marital ownership of the house. However, Lord Marchmain's return to the faith on his deathbed changes the situation: Julia decides that she cannot enter a sinful marriage with Charles, who has also been moved by Lord Marchmain's reception of the sacraments. The plot concludes in the early spring of 1943 (or possibly 1944 \u2013 the date is disputed). Charles is \"homeless, childless, middle-aged and loveless\". He has become an army officer after establishing a career as an architectural artist, and finds himself unexpectedly billeted at Brideshead, which has been taken into military use. He finds the house damaged by the army, but the private chapel, closed after Lady Marchmain's death in 1926, has been reopened for the soldiers' worship. It occurs to him that the efforts of the builders - and, by extension, God's efforts - were not in vain, although their purposes may have appeared, for a time, to have been frustrated.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " 1923: Protagonist and narrator Charles Ryder, a student at Hertford College, Oxford, is befriended by Lord Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of the aristocratic Lord Marchmain and an undergraduate at Christ Church. Sebastian introduces Charles to his eccentric and aesthetic friends, including the haughty and homosexual Anthony Blanche. Sebastian also takes Charles to his family's palatial home, Brideshead, in Wiltshire where Charles later meets the rest of Sebastian's family, including his sister Julia. During the long vacation, Charles returns home to London, where he lives with his widowed father. The conversations there between Charles and his father Edward Ryder provide some of the best-known comic scenes in the novel. Charles is called back to Brideshead after Sebastian incurs a minor injury, and Sebastian and Charles spend the remainder of the vacation together. Sebastian's family are Roman Catholics, which influences the Marchmains' lives as well as the content of their conversations, all of which surprises Charles, who had always assumed Christianity to be \"without substance or merit\". Lord Marchmain had converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in order to marry his wife, but he later abandoned both his marriage and his new religion and moved to Venice in Italy. Left alone, Lady Marchmain focuses even more on her faith, which is also enthusiastically espoused by her eldest son, Lord Brideshead (\"Bridey\"), and by her youngest daughter, Cordelia. Sebastian, a troubled young man, descends into alcoholism, drifting away from the family over a two-year period. He flees to Morocco, where his drinking ruins his health. He eventually finds some solace as an under-porter and object of charity at a Tunisian monastery. Sebastian's drifting leads to Charles's own estrangement from the Marchmains. Charles marries and fathers two children, but he becomes cold towards his wife and she is unfaithful to him, and he eventually forms a relationship with Sebastian's"
      },
      {
        "text": "ends into alcoholism, drifting away from the family over a two-year period. He flees to Morocco, where his drinking ruins his health. He eventually finds some solace as an under-porter and object of charity at a Tunisian monastery. Sebastian's drifting leads to Charles's own estrangement from the Marchmains. Charles marries and fathers two children, but he becomes cold towards his wife and she is unfaithful to him, and he eventually forms a relationship with Sebastian's younger sister Julia. Julia has married but separated from the rich but unsophisticated Canadian business man, Rex Mottram. This marriage caused great sorrow to her mother, because Rex, though initially planning to convert to Roman Catholicism, turns out to have divorced a previous wife in Canada, so he and Julia ended up marrying in the Church of England. Charles and Julia plan to divorce their respective spouses so that they can marry each other. On the eve of the Second World War, the aging Lord Marchmain, terminally ill, returns to Brideshead to die in his ancestral home. Appalled by the marriage of his eldest son, Brideshead, he names Julia heir to the estate, which prospectively offers Charles marital ownership of the house. However, Lord Marchmain's return to the faith on his deathbed changes the situation: Julia decides that she cannot enter a sinful marriage with Charles, who has also been moved by Lord Marchmain's reception of the sacraments. The plot concludes in the early spring of 1943 (or possibly 1944 \u2013 the date is disputed). Charles is \"homeless, childless, middle-aged and loveless\". He has become an army officer after establishing a career as an architectural artist, and finds himself unexpectedly billeted at Brideshead, which has been taken into military use. He finds the house damaged by the army, but the private chapel, closed after Lady Marchmain's death in 1926, has been reopened for the soldiers"
      },
      {
        "text": " plot concludes in the early spring of 1943 (or possibly 1944 \u2013 the date is disputed). Charles is \"homeless, childless, middle-aged and loveless\". He has become an army officer after establishing a career as an architectural artist, and finds himself unexpectedly billeted at Brideshead, which has been taken into military use. He finds the house damaged by the army, but the private chapel, closed after Lady Marchmain's death in 1926, has been reopened for the soldiers' worship. It occurs to him that the efforts of the builders - and, by extension, God's efforts - were not in vain, although their purposes may have appeared, for a time, to have been frustrated.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Collector",
    "author": "John Fowles",
    "published_date": "1963",
    "synopsis": " The novel is about a lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall, and collects butterflies in his spare time. The first part of the novel tells the story from his point of view. Clegg is obsessed with Miranda Grey, a middle-class art student at the Slade School of Fine Art. He admires her from a distance, but is unable to make any contact with her because of his nonexistent social skills. One day, he wins a large prize in the football pools. This makes it possible for him to stop working and buy an isolated house in the countryside. He feels lonely, however, and wants to be with Miranda. Unable to make any normal contact, Clegg decides to add her to his \"collection\" of pretty, petrified objects, in the hope that if he keeps her captive long enough, she will grow to love him. After careful preparations, he kidnaps Miranda by drugging her with chloroform and locks her up in the cellar of his house. He is convinced that Miranda will start to love him after some time. However, when she wakes up, she confronts him with his actions. Clegg is embarrassed, and promises to let her go after a month. He promises to show her \"every respect\", pledging not to sexually molest her and to shower her with gifts and the comforts of home, on one condition: she can't leave the cellar. Clegg rationalizes every step of his plan in cold, emotionless language; he seems truly incapable of relating to other human beings and sharing real intimacy with them. He takes great pains to appear normal, however, and is greatly offended at the suggestion that his motives are anything but reasonable and genuine. The second part of the novel is narrated by Miranda in the form of fragments from a diary that she keeps during her captivity. Clegg scares her, and she does not understand him in the beginning. Miranda reminisces over her previous life throughout this section of the novel, and many of her diary entries are written either to her sister, or to a man named G.P., whom she respected and admired as an artist. Miranda reveals that G.P. ultimately fell in love with her, and subsequently severed all contact with her. Through Miranda's confined reflections, Fowles discusses a number of philosophical issues, such as the nature of art, humanity and God. At first, Miranda thinks that Clegg has sexual motives for abducting her, but as his true character begins to be revealed, she realises that this is not true. She starts to have some pity for her captor, comparing him to Caliban in Shakespeare's play The Tempest because of his hopeless obsession with her. Clegg tells Miranda that his first name is Ferdinand (eventual winner of Miranda's affections in The Tempest). Miranda tries to escape several times, but Clegg is always able to stop her. She also tries to seduce him in order to convince him to let her go. The only result is that he becomes confused and angry. When Clegg keeps refusing to let her go, she starts to fantasize about killing him. After a failed attempt at doing so, Miranda passes through a phase of self-loathing, and decides that to kill Clegg would lower her to his level. As such, she then refrains from any further attempts to do so. Before she can try to escape again, she becomes seriously ill and dies. The third part of the novel is again narrated by Clegg. At first, he wants to commit suicide after he learns of Miranda's death, but after he reads in her diary that she never loved him, he decides that he is not responsible and is better off without her. The books ends with his announcement he plans to kidnap another girl.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is about a lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall, and collects butterflies in his spare time. The first part of the novel tells the story from his point of view. Clegg is obsessed with Miranda Grey, a middle-class art student at the Slade School of Fine Art. He admires her from a distance, but is unable to make any contact with her because of his nonexistent social skills. One day, he wins a large prize in the football pools. This makes it possible for him to stop working and buy an isolated house in the countryside. He feels lonely, however, and wants to be with Miranda. Unable to make any normal contact, Clegg decides to add her to his \"collection\" of pretty, petrified objects, in the hope that if he keeps her captive long enough, she will grow to love him. After careful preparations, he kidnaps Miranda by drugging her with chloroform and locks her up in the cellar of his house. He is convinced that Miranda will start to love him after some time. However, when she wakes up, she confronts him with his actions. Clegg is embarrassed, and promises to let her go after a month. He promises to show her \"every respect\", pledging not to sexually molest her and to shower her with gifts and the comforts of home, on one condition: she can't leave the cellar. Clegg rationalizes every step of his plan in cold, emotionless language; he seems truly incapable of relating to other human beings and sharing real intimacy with them. He takes great pains to appear normal, however, and is greatly offended at the suggestion that his motives are anything but reasonable and genuine. The second part of the novel is narrated by Miranda in the form of fragments from a diary that she keeps during her captivity. Clegg scares her, and she does not understand him in the beginning. Miranda reminisces over her previous life throughout this"
      },
      {
        "text": " in cold, emotionless language; he seems truly incapable of relating to other human beings and sharing real intimacy with them. He takes great pains to appear normal, however, and is greatly offended at the suggestion that his motives are anything but reasonable and genuine. The second part of the novel is narrated by Miranda in the form of fragments from a diary that she keeps during her captivity. Clegg scares her, and she does not understand him in the beginning. Miranda reminisces over her previous life throughout this section of the novel, and many of her diary entries are written either to her sister, or to a man named G.P., whom she respected and admired as an artist. Miranda reveals that G.P. ultimately fell in love with her, and subsequently severed all contact with her. Through Miranda's confined reflections, Fowles discusses a number of philosophical issues, such as the nature of art, humanity and God. At first, Miranda thinks that Clegg has sexual motives for abducting her, but as his true character begins to be revealed, she realises that this is not true. She starts to have some pity for her captor, comparing him to Caliban in Shakespeare's play The Tempest because of his hopeless obsession with her. Clegg tells Miranda that his first name is Ferdinand (eventual winner of Miranda's affections in The Tempest). Miranda tries to escape several times, but Clegg is always able to stop her. She also tries to seduce him in order to convince him to let her go. The only result is that he becomes confused and angry. When Clegg keeps refusing to let her go, she starts to fantasize about killing him. After a failed attempt at doing so, Miranda passes through a phase of self-loathing, and decides that to kill Clegg would lower her to his level. As such, she then refrains from any further attempts to do so. Before she can try to escape again, she becomes seriously ill and dies"
      },
      {
        "text": " convince him to let her go. The only result is that he becomes confused and angry. When Clegg keeps refusing to let her go, she starts to fantasize about killing him. After a failed attempt at doing so, Miranda passes through a phase of self-loathing, and decides that to kill Clegg would lower her to his level. As such, she then refrains from any further attempts to do so. Before she can try to escape again, she becomes seriously ill and dies. The third part of the novel is again narrated by Clegg. At first, he wants to commit suicide after he learns of Miranda's death, but after he reads in her diary that she never loved him, he decides that he is not responsible and is better off without her. The books ends with his announcement he plans to kidnap another girl.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "King Solomon's Carpet",
    "author": "Ruth Rendell",
    "published_date": "1991-08-01",
    "synopsis": " Jarvis Stringer is a student of the London Tube and its history and of underground trains worldwide. In order to finance his hobby and be able to travel to distant lands to inspect the underground systems in other parts of the world, he lets rooms in an old disused school building he has inherited which is close to the tube tracks in West Hampstead (see Jubilee Line). There, a group of misfits and weirdos, including a squatter, gather whose dreams of the good life have time and again been shattered as they are constantly victimized by society. There is 24 year-old Alice, an aspiring musician who leaves her husband and new-born baby only to end up busking in various stations in central London. There is Tom, who, after an accident, drops out of music school and is reduced to busking as well but who dreams of one day starting his own business. There is unemployed Tina, whose promiscuity landed her with two children whom she does not take care of in the way her mother thinks she ought to. There is Jed, who volunteers as a vigilante and who, disappointed by humans, lavishes all his love on the hawk he has acquired and which he keeps in the house. And there is Axel, an enigmatic man who regularly travels on the tube in the company of a man disguised as a bear and who is planning something illegal. Cecilia and Daphne, two old ladies living in the neighbourhood, serve as a foil to this ill-assorted group. It is Cecilia in particular who does not understand how young people such as her daughter Tina can be utterly devoid of morals. She is shocked to learn that her 10 year-old grandson enjoys riding on the roof of cars as they go through deep-level tunnels. While travelling on the tube herself, her handbag containing her credit cards is stolen, and she suffers a stroke in one of the packed cars. The novel is interspersed with extracts from Jarvis Stringer's (fictional) book on the London Underground.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Jarvis Stringer is a student of the London Tube and its history and of underground trains worldwide. In order to finance his hobby and be able to travel to distant lands to inspect the underground systems in other parts of the world, he lets rooms in an old disused school building he has inherited which is close to the tube tracks in West Hampstead (see Jubilee Line). There, a group of misfits and weirdos, including a squatter, gather whose dreams of the good life have time and again been shattered as they are constantly victimized by society. There is 24 year-old Alice, an aspiring musician who leaves her husband and new-born baby only to end up busking in various stations in central London. There is Tom, who, after an accident, drops out of music school and is reduced to busking as well but who dreams of one day starting his own business. There is unemployed Tina, whose promiscuity landed her with two children whom she does not take care of in the way her mother thinks she ought to. There is Jed, who volunteers as a vigilante and who, disappointed by humans, lavishes all his love on the hawk he has acquired and which he keeps in the house. And there is Axel, an enigmatic man who regularly travels on the tube in the company of a man disguised as a bear and who is planning something illegal. Cecilia and Daphne, two old ladies living in the neighbourhood, serve as a foil to this ill-assorted group. It is Cecilia in particular who does not understand how young people such as her daughter Tina can be utterly devoid of morals. She is shocked to learn that her 10 year-old grandson enjoys riding on the roof of cars as they go through deep-level tunnels. While travelling on the tube herself, her handbag containing her credit cards is stolen, and she suffers a stroke in one of the packed cars. The novel is interspersed with extracts from Jarvis Stringer's (f"
      },
      {
        "text": "orted group. It is Cecilia in particular who does not understand how young people such as her daughter Tina can be utterly devoid of morals. She is shocked to learn that her 10 year-old grandson enjoys riding on the roof of cars as they go through deep-level tunnels. While travelling on the tube herself, her handbag containing her credit cards is stolen, and she suffers a stroke in one of the packed cars. The novel is interspersed with extracts from Jarvis Stringer's (fictional) book on the London Underground.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Uncle and his Detective",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story begins with the arrival not of a detective, but of disaster: Badfort is for sale, but when Uncle decides to buy it, demolish it, and build a pleasantly appointed park on the site, he is forestalled. Beaver Hateman has sold it cheaply to someone on the condition that he, Hateman, is allowed to stay on as a paying guest. Forgetting that the man who has bought Badfort is certain to regret the \"bargain\", Uncle tries to console himself by continuing his never-ending exploration of Homeward. He comes across the Art Gallery, reached along Quack Walk between two ponds crowded with noisy and aggressive ducks. En route he discovers the mysterious Crack House, which is the lair of a vicious and horribly squawking creature, half-bat, half-bird, called Batty. After visiting the Art Gallery and discovering that Batty is persecuting the curator and his family, Uncle has Batty expelled from Crack House and pursues a report of buried treasure there. Constant trips to Crack House have accustomed the ducks to passers-by, and Uncle's miserly friend Alonzo S. Whitebeard foolishly tries to take advantage of their docility: :This time the ducks were much quieter. They seemed so docile and friendly that Whitebeard captured one and tried to hide it under his beard, having visions of hot duck for supper. The duck nearly bit a piece out of his chest and Whitebeard flung it from him with a roar of pain. By now the Detective of the title has appeared: an elegant and astute fox called A. B. Fox, who proves worthy of his hire (five shillings or twenty-five pence a day) as the Badfort Crowd, sniffing treasure from afar, are constantly on the prowl. After many adventures, Uncle eventually tracks down the treasure, an unimaginably vast block of softly glowing gold (or dlog, as they code-name it), beats off a final attack from the Badfort Crowd, and enjoys the acclaim of the grateful inhabitants of Homeward when he decides to distribute the gold for the common good. But the celebrations are interrupted briefly with a reminder that the Badfort Crowd, though defeated, are far from down and out. A group of young badgers are singing a song in praise of Uncle when: :[A]n atrocious raucous voice away on the edge of the crowd interrupted them. 'See that pompous humbug Unc/On the platform raise his trunk.' It's a promise of more trouble in the future from the Badfort Crowd, who are once again in sole possession of their ramshackle and crumbling headquarters.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins with the arrival not of a detective, but of disaster: Badfort is for sale, but when Uncle decides to buy it, demolish it, and build a pleasantly appointed park on the site, he is forestalled. Beaver Hateman has sold it cheaply to someone on the condition that he, Hateman, is allowed to stay on as a paying guest. Forgetting that the man who has bought Badfort is certain to regret the \"bargain\", Uncle tries to console himself by continuing his never-ending exploration of Homeward. He comes across the Art Gallery, reached along Quack Walk between two ponds crowded with noisy and aggressive ducks. En route he discovers the mysterious Crack House, which is the lair of a vicious and horribly squawking creature, half-bat, half-bird, called Batty. After visiting the Art Gallery and discovering that Batty is persecuting the curator and his family, Uncle has Batty expelled from Crack House and pursues a report of buried treasure there. Constant trips to Crack House have accustomed the ducks to passers-by, and Uncle's miserly friend Alonzo S. Whitebeard foolishly tries to take advantage of their docility: :This time the ducks were much quieter. They seemed so docile and friendly that Whitebeard captured one and tried to hide it under his beard, having visions of hot duck for supper. The duck nearly bit a piece out of his chest and Whitebeard flung it from him with a roar of pain. By now the Detective of the title has appeared: an elegant and astute fox called A. B. Fox, who proves worthy of his hire (five shillings or twenty-five pence a day) as the Badfort Crowd, sniffing treasure from afar, are constantly on the prowl. After many adventures, Uncle eventually tracks down the treasure, an unimaginably vast block of softly glowing gold (or dlog, as they code-name it),"
      },
      {
        "text": " with a roar of pain. By now the Detective of the title has appeared: an elegant and astute fox called A. B. Fox, who proves worthy of his hire (five shillings or twenty-five pence a day) as the Badfort Crowd, sniffing treasure from afar, are constantly on the prowl. After many adventures, Uncle eventually tracks down the treasure, an unimaginably vast block of softly glowing gold (or dlog, as they code-name it), beats off a final attack from the Badfort Crowd, and enjoys the acclaim of the grateful inhabitants of Homeward when he decides to distribute the gold for the common good. But the celebrations are interrupted briefly with a reminder that the Badfort Crowd, though defeated, are far from down and out. A group of young badgers are singing a song in praise of Uncle when: :[A]n atrocious raucous voice away on the edge of the crowd interrupted them. 'See that pompous humbug Unc/On the platform raise his trunk.' It's a promise of more trouble in the future from the Badfort Crowd, who are once again in sole possession of their ramshackle and crumbling headquarters.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Uncle Cleans Up",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In this story, Goodman the Cat joins Uncle's supporters. He is rescued from down-trodden and hungry service at Wizard Blenkinsop's and throws himself wholeheartedly into battle against Uncle's enemies, though never quite ridding himself of a propensity to steal fish and postage stamps. His fish-stealing gets him into trouble at Professor Gandleweaver's Fish-Frying Academy, and Uncle is forced to make a dignified exit as the crowd gathered to watch Gandleweaver's frying exhibition turns ugly: :The crowd began to hiss, and, as Uncle didn't want a row, he decided to withdraw and take action later. The moment he and his party got out of the crowd, they were forgotten. The Professor had started frying a conger eel in an enormous pan, and this is one of star turns; and nobody thinks about anything else when he does it. The incident is seized on by the Badfort Crowd and written up in the usual lying and distorted way in The Badfort News, one of the many provocations offered by the newspaper that eventually lead Uncle to take action against it. Visiting its offices, he finds a young badger literally chained to the printing-press, whom he rescues before visiting well-deserved punishment on Beaver Hateman by kicking him far and high into Gaby's Marsh, where \"the crabs are\" and \"the barking conger eels\". As before, Uncle Cleans Up ends in Uncle's capture by the Badfort Crowd before he escapes, this time with the help of his loyal friend the Old Monkey, and a great battle is fought in which the Badfort Crowd are completely defeated -- until next time. The last that is seen of Beaver Hateman is this: :Even for Uncle it was a great kick-up. Beaver Hateman was holding a huge lighted cigar in his hand, and the wind made it glow so that everyone could see in the sky what looked like a slowly soaring red light. He comes down in Gaby's Marsh again, and vows in an insolent letter delivered to Uncle as the book closes that he will take a revenge \"so fearful that anyone who speaks of it will develop lockjaw\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In this story, Goodman the Cat joins Uncle's supporters. He is rescued from down-trodden and hungry service at Wizard Blenkinsop's and throws himself wholeheartedly into battle against Uncle's enemies, though never quite ridding himself of a propensity to steal fish and postage stamps. His fish-stealing gets him into trouble at Professor Gandleweaver's Fish-Frying Academy, and Uncle is forced to make a dignified exit as the crowd gathered to watch Gandleweaver's frying exhibition turns ugly: :The crowd began to hiss, and, as Uncle didn't want a row, he decided to withdraw and take action later. The moment he and his party got out of the crowd, they were forgotten. The Professor had started frying a conger eel in an enormous pan, and this is one of star turns; and nobody thinks about anything else when he does it. The incident is seized on by the Badfort Crowd and written up in the usual lying and distorted way in The Badfort News, one of the many provocations offered by the newspaper that eventually lead Uncle to take action against it. Visiting its offices, he finds a young badger literally chained to the printing-press, whom he rescues before visiting well-deserved punishment on Beaver Hateman by kicking him far and high into Gaby's Marsh, where \"the crabs are\" and \"the barking conger eels\". As before, Uncle Cleans Up ends in Uncle's capture by the Badfort Crowd before he escapes, this time with the help of his loyal friend the Old Monkey, and a great battle is fought in which the Badfort Crowd are completely defeated -- until next time. The last that is seen of Beaver Hateman is this: :Even for Uncle it was a great kick-up. Beaver Hateman was holding a huge lighted cigar in his hand, and the wind made it glow so that everyone could see in the sky what looked like a"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s capture by the Badfort Crowd before he escapes, this time with the help of his loyal friend the Old Monkey, and a great battle is fought in which the Badfort Crowd are completely defeated -- until next time. The last that is seen of Beaver Hateman is this: :Even for Uncle it was a great kick-up. Beaver Hateman was holding a huge lighted cigar in his hand, and the wind made it glow so that everyone could see in the sky what looked like a slowly soaring red light. He comes down in Gaby's Marsh again, and vows in an insolent letter delivered to Uncle as the book closes that he will take a revenge \"so fearful that anyone who speaks of it will develop lockjaw\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Planet of the Apes",
    "author": "Pierre Boulle",
    "published_date": "1963",
    "synopsis": " The main events of the book are placed in a frame story, in which Jinn and Phyllis, a couple out on a pleasure cruise in a spaceship, find a message in a bottle floating in space. The message inside the bottle is the testimony of a man, Ulysse M\u00e9rou. Ulysse explains that he was a friend of Professor Antelle, a genius scientist on Earth, who invented a spaceship that could travel at nearly the speed of light. In 2500, Ulysse, the professor, and a physicist named Arthur Levain flew off in this ship to explore outer space. They traveled to the nearest star system that the professor theorized might be capable of life, the red sun Betelgeuse, which would take them about 350 years to reach. Because of time dilation, however, the trip seems to the travelers only to last two years. They arrive at the distant planetary system and find that it contains an Earth-like planet, which they name Soror (Latin for sister). They land and discover that they can breathe the air, drink the water, and eat the local vegetation. They get out and go swim in a lake, until they see a young woman on a cliff. The young woman is frightened by their traveling companion, a young chimpanzee named Hector, and so she kills him. They encounter other human beings on the planet as well, although these others act as primitively as chimpanzees and destroy the clothing of the three astronauts. They are captured by the primitive humans and stay with them for a few hours. At the end of this time, they are startled to see a hunting party in the forest, consisting of gorillas and chimpanzees using guns and machines. The apes wear human clothing identical to that of 20th-century Earth, except that they wear gloves instead of shoes on their prehensile feet. The hunting party shoots several of the humans for sport, including Levain, and capture others, including Ulysse. Ulysse is taken to the apes' city, which looks exactly the same as a human city from 20th-century Earth, except that some smaller furniture exists for the use of the chimpanzees. While most of the humans captured by the hunting party are sold for manual labor, Ulysse is sent to a research facility. There, the apes perform experiments on the humans similar to Pavlov's conditioning experiments on dogs, and Ulysse proves his intelligence by failing to be conditioned, and by speaking and drawing geometrical figures. Ulysse is adopted by one of the researchers, Zira, a female chimpanzee, who teaches him the apes' language. He learns from her all about the ape planet. Eventually, he is freed from his cage, and meets Zira's fianc\u00e9, Corn\u00e9lius, a respected young scientist. With Corn\u00e9lius' help, he makes a speech in front of the ape President and numerous representatives, who grant him his liberty and is given specially tailored clothing. It is around this time that he discovers his companion Professor Antelle survived the hunt and was captured, being sent to the zoo and kept in captivity in a large cage with the primitive humans. However when the protagonist attempts to make contact and speak with the professor, it is revealed he has completely lost his mind and his faculties, degenerated and behaving just as the primitive humans do. Ulysse tours the city and learns about the apes' civilization and history. The apes have a very ancient society, but their origins are lost in time. Their technology and culture have progressed slowly through the centuries because each generation, for the most part, imitates those of the past. The society is divided between the violent gorillas, the pedantic and conservative orangutans, and the intellectual chimpanzees. Although Ulysse's patrons Zira and Corn\u00e9lius are convinced of his intelligence, the society's leading orangutan scientists believe he is faking his understanding of language, because their philosophy will not allow the possibility of intelligent human beings. Ulysse falls in love with a primitive human female, Nova, whom he had met in the forest at the beginning of his visit to the planet. He impregnates her and thus proves that he is the same species as the primitive humans, which lowers his standing in the eyes of many of the apes. Their derision turns to fear with a discovery in a distant archaeological dig and an analysis of memory in some human brains. Evidence is uncovered that fills in the missing history of the apes. In the distant past, the planet was ruled by human beings who built a technological society and enslaved apes to perform their manual labor. Over time the humans became more and more dependent upon the apes, until eventually they became so lazy and degenerate that they were overthrown by their ape servants and fell into the primitive state in which our protagonist found them. While some of the apes reject this evidence, others (in particular, an old orangutan scientist, Dr. Zaius) take it as a sign that the humans are a threat and must be exterminated. Ulysse learns of this, and escapes from the planet with his wife and newborn son (Sirius), returning to Earth in the professor's spaceship. Ulysse lands on Earth more than 700 years after he had originally left it, just outside the city of Paris. Once outside the ship, he discovers that Earth is now ruled by intelligent apes just like the planet from which he has fled. He immediately leaves Earth in his ship, writes his story, places it in a bottle, and launches it into space for someone to find. It is at this point in the story that Jinn and Phyllis, the couple who found the bottle, are revealed to be chimpanzees. Jinn and Phyllis dismiss Ulysse's narrative, saying that a human would not have the intelligence to write such a story.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The main events of the book are placed in a frame story, in which Jinn and Phyllis, a couple out on a pleasure cruise in a spaceship, find a message in a bottle floating in space. The message inside the bottle is the testimony of a man, Ulysse M\u00e9rou. Ulysse explains that he was a friend of Professor Antelle, a genius scientist on Earth, who invented a spaceship that could travel at nearly the speed of light. In 2500, Ulysse, the professor, and a physicist named Arthur Levain flew off in this ship to explore outer space. They traveled to the nearest star system that the professor theorized might be capable of life, the red sun Betelgeuse, which would take them about 350 years to reach. Because of time dilation, however, the trip seems to the travelers only to last two years. They arrive at the distant planetary system and find that it contains an Earth-like planet, which they name Soror (Latin for sister). They land and discover that they can breathe the air, drink the water, and eat the local vegetation. They get out and go swim in a lake, until they see a young woman on a cliff. The young woman is frightened by their traveling companion, a young chimpanzee named Hector, and so she kills him. They encounter other human beings on the planet as well, although these others act as primitively as chimpanzees and destroy the clothing of the three astronauts. They are captured by the primitive humans and stay with them for a few hours. At the end of this time, they are startled to see a hunting party in the forest, consisting of gorillas and chimpanzees using guns and machines. The apes wear human clothing identical to that of 20th-century Earth, except that they wear gloves instead of shoes on their prehensile feet. The hunting party shoots several of the humans for sport, including Levain, and capture others, including Ulysse. Ulys"
      },
      {
        "text": " captured by the primitive humans and stay with them for a few hours. At the end of this time, they are startled to see a hunting party in the forest, consisting of gorillas and chimpanzees using guns and machines. The apes wear human clothing identical to that of 20th-century Earth, except that they wear gloves instead of shoes on their prehensile feet. The hunting party shoots several of the humans for sport, including Levain, and capture others, including Ulysse. Ulysse is taken to the apes' city, which looks exactly the same as a human city from 20th-century Earth, except that some smaller furniture exists for the use of the chimpanzees. While most of the humans captured by the hunting party are sold for manual labor, Ulysse is sent to a research facility. There, the apes perform experiments on the humans similar to Pavlov's conditioning experiments on dogs, and Ulysse proves his intelligence by failing to be conditioned, and by speaking and drawing geometrical figures. Ulysse is adopted by one of the researchers, Zira, a female chimpanzee, who teaches him the apes' language. He learns from her all about the ape planet. Eventually, he is freed from his cage, and meets Zira's fianc\u00e9, Corn\u00e9lius, a respected young scientist. With Corn\u00e9lius' help, he makes a speech in front of the ape President and numerous representatives, who grant him his liberty and is given specially tailored clothing. It is around this time that he discovers his companion Professor Antelle survived the hunt and was captured, being sent to the zoo and kept in captivity in a large cage with the primitive humans. However when the protagonist attempts to make contact and speak with the professor, it is revealed he has completely lost his mind and his faculties, degenerated and behaving just as the primitive humans do. Ulysse tours the city and learns about the apes' civilization and history. The apes have a"
      },
      {
        "text": " specially tailored clothing. It is around this time that he discovers his companion Professor Antelle survived the hunt and was captured, being sent to the zoo and kept in captivity in a large cage with the primitive humans. However when the protagonist attempts to make contact and speak with the professor, it is revealed he has completely lost his mind and his faculties, degenerated and behaving just as the primitive humans do. Ulysse tours the city and learns about the apes' civilization and history. The apes have a very ancient society, but their origins are lost in time. Their technology and culture have progressed slowly through the centuries because each generation, for the most part, imitates those of the past. The society is divided between the violent gorillas, the pedantic and conservative orangutans, and the intellectual chimpanzees. Although Ulysse's patrons Zira and Corn\u00e9lius are convinced of his intelligence, the society's leading orangutan scientists believe he is faking his understanding of language, because their philosophy will not allow the possibility of intelligent human beings. Ulysse falls in love with a primitive human female, Nova, whom he had met in the forest at the beginning of his visit to the planet. He impregnates her and thus proves that he is the same species as the primitive humans, which lowers his standing in the eyes of many of the apes. Their derision turns to fear with a discovery in a distant archaeological dig and an analysis of memory in some human brains. Evidence is uncovered that fills in the missing history of the apes. In the distant past, the planet was ruled by human beings who built a technological society and enslaved apes to perform their manual labor. Over time the humans became more and more dependent upon the apes, until eventually they became so lazy and degenerate that they were overthrown by their ape servants and fell into the primitive state in which our protagonist found them. While some of the apes reject this evidence, others (in particular, an old or"
      },
      {
        "text": " Evidence is uncovered that fills in the missing history of the apes. In the distant past, the planet was ruled by human beings who built a technological society and enslaved apes to perform their manual labor. Over time the humans became more and more dependent upon the apes, until eventually they became so lazy and degenerate that they were overthrown by their ape servants and fell into the primitive state in which our protagonist found them. While some of the apes reject this evidence, others (in particular, an old orangutan scientist, Dr. Zaius) take it as a sign that the humans are a threat and must be exterminated. Ulysse learns of this, and escapes from the planet with his wife and newborn son (Sirius), returning to Earth in the professor's spaceship. Ulysse lands on Earth more than 700 years after he had originally left it, just outside the city of Paris. Once outside the ship, he discovers that Earth is now ruled by intelligent apes just like the planet from which he has fled. He immediately leaves Earth in his ship, writes his story, places it in a bottle, and launches it into space for someone to find. It is at this point in the story that Jinn and Phyllis, the couple who found the bottle, are revealed to be chimpanzees. Jinn and Phyllis dismiss Ulysse's narrative, saying that a human would not have the intelligence to write such a story.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Small House at Allington",
    "author": "Anthony Trollope",
    "published_date": "1864",
    "synopsis": " The Small House at Allington concerns the Dale family, who live in the \"Small House\", a dower house intended for the widowed mother (Dowager) of the owner of the estate. The landowner, in this instance, is the bachelor Squire of Allington, Christopher Dale. Dale's mother having died, he has allocated the Small House, rent free, to his widowed sister-in-law and her daughters Isabella (\"Bell\") and Lilian (\"Lily\"). Lily has for a long time been secretly loved by John Eames, a junior clerk at the Income Tax Office, while Bell is in love with the local doctor, James Crofts. The handsome and personable, somewhat mercenary Adolphus Crosbie is introduced into the circle by the squire's nephew, Bernard Dale. Adolphus rashly proposes marriage to portionless Lily, who accepts him, to the dismay of John Eames. Crosbie soon jilts her in favour of Lady Alexandrina de Courcy, whose family is in a position to further his career. Lily meets her misfortune with patience, and remains single, continuing to reject Eames, though retaining his faithful friendship. Bell marries Dr Crofts, after refusing an offer of marriage from her cousin Bernard. As with all of Trollope's novels, this one contains many sub-plots and numerous minor characters. Plantagenet Palliser (of the \"Pallisers\" series) makes his first appearance, as he contemplates a dalliance with Griselda Grantly, the now-married Lady Dumbello, daughter of the Archdeacon introduced earlier in the Chronicles of Barsetshire.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Small House at Allington concerns the Dale family, who live in the \"Small House\", a dower house intended for the widowed mother (Dowager) of the owner of the estate. The landowner, in this instance, is the bachelor Squire of Allington, Christopher Dale. Dale's mother having died, he has allocated the Small House, rent free, to his widowed sister-in-law and her daughters Isabella (\"Bell\") and Lilian (\"Lily\"). Lily has for a long time been secretly loved by John Eames, a junior clerk at the Income Tax Office, while Bell is in love with the local doctor, James Crofts. The handsome and personable, somewhat mercenary Adolphus Crosbie is introduced into the circle by the squire's nephew, Bernard Dale. Adolphus rashly proposes marriage to portionless Lily, who accepts him, to the dismay of John Eames. Crosbie soon jilts her in favour of Lady Alexandrina de Courcy, whose family is in a position to further his career. Lily meets her misfortune with patience, and remains single, continuing to reject Eames, though retaining his faithful friendship. Bell marries Dr Crofts, after refusing an offer of marriage from her cousin Bernard. As with all of Trollope's novels, this one contains many sub-plots and numerous minor characters. Plantagenet Palliser (of the \"Pallisers\" series) makes his first appearance, as he contemplates a dalliance with Griselda Grantly, the now-married Lady Dumbello, daughter of the Archdeacon introduced earlier in the Chronicles of Barsetshire.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " as he contemplates a dalliance with Griselda Grantly, the now-married Lady Dumbello, daughter of the Archdeacon introduced earlier in the Chronicles of Barsetshire.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Framley Parsonage",
    "author": "Anthony Trollope",
    "published_date": "1861",
    "synopsis": " The hero of Framley Parsonage, Mark Robarts, is a young vicar, newly arrived in the village of Framley in Barsetshire. The living has come into his hands through Lady Lufton, the mother of his childhood friend Ludovic, Lord Lufton. Mark has ambitions to further his career and begins to seek connections in the county's high society. He is soon preyed upon by local Member of Parliament Mr Sowerby to guarantee a substantial loan, which Mark in a moment of weakness agrees to, even though he does not have the means and knows Sowerby to be a notorious debtor. The consequences of this blunder play a major role in the plot, with Mark eventually being publicly humiliated when bailiffs begin to confiscate the Robarts' furniture. At the last moment, Lord Lufton forces a loan on the reluctant Mark. Another plot line deals with the romance between Mark's sister Lucy and Lord Lufton. The couple are deeply in love and the young man proposes, but Lady Lufton is against the marriage. She would prefer that her son instead choose the coldly beautiful Griselda Grantly, daughter of Archdeacon Grantly, and fears that Lucy is too \"insignificant\" for such a high honour. Lucy herself recognizes the great gulf between their social positions and declines. When Lord Lufton persists, she agrees only on condition that Lady Lufton ask her to accept her son. Lucy's conduct and charity (especially towards the family of poor curate Josiah Crawley) weaken her ladyship's resolve. In addition, Griselda becomes engaged to Lord Dumbello. But it is the determination of Lord Lufton that in the end vanquishes the doting mother. The book ends with Lucy and Ludovic's marriage as well as three other marriages of minor characters. Two of these involve the daughters of Bishop Proudie and Archdeacon Grantly. The rivalry between Mrs Proudie and Mrs Grantly over their matrimonial ambitions forms a significant comic subplot, with the latter triumphant. The other marriage is that of the outspoken heiress, Martha Dunstable, to Doctor Thorne, the eponymous hero of the preceding novel in the series.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The hero of Framley Parsonage, Mark Robarts, is a young vicar, newly arrived in the village of Framley in Barsetshire. The living has come into his hands through Lady Lufton, the mother of his childhood friend Ludovic, Lord Lufton. Mark has ambitions to further his career and begins to seek connections in the county's high society. He is soon preyed upon by local Member of Parliament Mr Sowerby to guarantee a substantial loan, which Mark in a moment of weakness agrees to, even though he does not have the means and knows Sowerby to be a notorious debtor. The consequences of this blunder play a major role in the plot, with Mark eventually being publicly humiliated when bailiffs begin to confiscate the Robarts' furniture. At the last moment, Lord Lufton forces a loan on the reluctant Mark. Another plot line deals with the romance between Mark's sister Lucy and Lord Lufton. The couple are deeply in love and the young man proposes, but Lady Lufton is against the marriage. She would prefer that her son instead choose the coldly beautiful Griselda Grantly, daughter of Archdeacon Grantly, and fears that Lucy is too \"insignificant\" for such a high honour. Lucy herself recognizes the great gulf between their social positions and declines. When Lord Lufton persists, she agrees only on condition that Lady Lufton ask her to accept her son. Lucy's conduct and charity (especially towards the family of poor curate Josiah Crawley) weaken her ladyship's resolve. In addition, Griselda becomes engaged to Lord Dumbello. But it is the determination of Lord Lufton that in the end vanquishes the doting mother. The book ends with Lucy and Ludovic's marriage as well as three other marriages of minor characters. Two of these involve the daughters of Bishop Proudie and Archdeacon Grantly. The rivalry between"
      },
      {
        "text": " conduct and charity (especially towards the family of poor curate Josiah Crawley) weaken her ladyship's resolve. In addition, Griselda becomes engaged to Lord Dumbello. But it is the determination of Lord Lufton that in the end vanquishes the doting mother. The book ends with Lucy and Ludovic's marriage as well as three other marriages of minor characters. Two of these involve the daughters of Bishop Proudie and Archdeacon Grantly. The rivalry between Mrs Proudie and Mrs Grantly over their matrimonial ambitions forms a significant comic subplot, with the latter triumphant. The other marriage is that of the outspoken heiress, Martha Dunstable, to Doctor Thorne, the eponymous hero of the preceding novel in the series.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Go Ask Alice",
    "author": "Beatrice Sparks",
    "published_date": "1971-03-05",
    "synopsis": " An unnamed 15-year-old begins keeping a diary. With a sensitive, observant style, she records her thoughts and concerns about issues such as crushes, weight loss, sexuality, social acceptance, and difficulty relating to her parents. Her father, a college professor, accepts a teaching position at a new college. The diarist is not optimistic about the move. After the move the diarist feels like an outcast at the new school, with no friends. She then meets Beth and they become best friends. When Beth leaves for summer camp the diarist returns to her hometown to stay with her grandparents. She reunites with an old school acquaintance, Jill. Jill is impressed by the diarist's move to a larger town, and invites her to a party. At the party, glasses of soda\u2014some of which are laced with LSD\u2014are served. The diarist unwittingly ingests LSD and has an intense and pleasurable drug trip. Over the following days the diarist continues friendships with the people from the party and willingly uses more drugs. She loses her virginity while on LSD. She becomes worried she may be pregnant, and her grandfather has a small heart attack. These events and the tremendous amount of guilt she feels begin to overwhelm her. She begins to take sleeping pills stolen from her grandparents. On returning home she receives sleeping pills from her doctor. When those are not enough she demands powerful tranquilizers from her doctor. The friendship with Beth ends as both girls have moved in new directions. The diarist meets a hip girl, Chris, when she shops at a local boutique. The diarist and Chris become fast friends, using drugs frequently. They date college boys Richie and Ted who deal drugs. They begin selling drugs for the boyfriends, passing back all the money made. One day they find the boys stoned and engaging in a sexual act. Realizing Richie and Ted were using them to make money, the girls turn them in to the police and flee to San Francisco. They vow to stay away from drugs. Chris secures a job in a boutique with a glamorous older woman, Shelia. The diarist gets a job with a custom jeweler whom she sees as a father figure. Shelia invites the girls to lavish parties where they resume taking drugs. One night Shelia and her new boyfriend introduce the girls to heroin and rape them while they are stoned. The diarist and Chris, traumatized, move to Berkeley where they open a jewelry shop. It is a small success, but the diarist misses her family. Tired of the shop, the girls return home for a happy Christmas. Since being back home the diarist finds extreme social pressures and hostility from her former friends from the drug scene. She and her family are threatened and shunned at times. Chris and the diarist try to stay away from drugs but their resolve lapses. The diarist gets high one night and runs away. She drifts through homelessness, prostitution, hitchhiking, and homeless shelters, before a priest reunites her with her family. She returns home but she is drugged against her will, has a bad trip, and is sent to an insane asylum where she bonds with a younger girl named Babbie. Chris escapes the problems when her family moves to a new town. The diarist finally is free of drugs. She becomes romantically involved with a student from her father's college, Joel. Relationships with her family are improving, as are friendships with some new kids in town. She is worried about starting school again, but feels stronger with the support of her new friends and Joel. In an optimistic mood the diarist decides she no longer needs a diary; now she can communicate with her family and friends. The epilogue states that the subject of the book died three weeks after the final entry. The diarist was found dead in her home by her parents, either by an accidental or premeditated overdose.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " An unnamed 15-year-old begins keeping a diary. With a sensitive, observant style, she records her thoughts and concerns about issues such as crushes, weight loss, sexuality, social acceptance, and difficulty relating to her parents. Her father, a college professor, accepts a teaching position at a new college. The diarist is not optimistic about the move. After the move the diarist feels like an outcast at the new school, with no friends. She then meets Beth and they become best friends. When Beth leaves for summer camp the diarist returns to her hometown to stay with her grandparents. She reunites with an old school acquaintance, Jill. Jill is impressed by the diarist's move to a larger town, and invites her to a party. At the party, glasses of soda\u2014some of which are laced with LSD\u2014are served. The diarist unwittingly ingests LSD and has an intense and pleasurable drug trip. Over the following days the diarist continues friendships with the people from the party and willingly uses more drugs. She loses her virginity while on LSD. She becomes worried she may be pregnant, and her grandfather has a small heart attack. These events and the tremendous amount of guilt she feels begin to overwhelm her. She begins to take sleeping pills stolen from her grandparents. On returning home she receives sleeping pills from her doctor. When those are not enough she demands powerful tranquilizers from her doctor. The friendship with Beth ends as both girls have moved in new directions. The diarist meets a hip girl, Chris, when she shops at a local boutique. The diarist and Chris become fast friends, using drugs frequently. They date college boys Richie and Ted who deal drugs. They begin selling drugs for the boyfriends, passing back all the money made. One day they find the boys stoned and engaging in a sexual act. Realizing Richie and Ted were using them to make money, the girls turn them in to the police and flee to San Francisco"
      },
      {
        "text": " directions. The diarist meets a hip girl, Chris, when she shops at a local boutique. The diarist and Chris become fast friends, using drugs frequently. They date college boys Richie and Ted who deal drugs. They begin selling drugs for the boyfriends, passing back all the money made. One day they find the boys stoned and engaging in a sexual act. Realizing Richie and Ted were using them to make money, the girls turn them in to the police and flee to San Francisco. They vow to stay away from drugs. Chris secures a job in a boutique with a glamorous older woman, Shelia. The diarist gets a job with a custom jeweler whom she sees as a father figure. Shelia invites the girls to lavish parties where they resume taking drugs. One night Shelia and her new boyfriend introduce the girls to heroin and rape them while they are stoned. The diarist and Chris, traumatized, move to Berkeley where they open a jewelry shop. It is a small success, but the diarist misses her family. Tired of the shop, the girls return home for a happy Christmas. Since being back home the diarist finds extreme social pressures and hostility from her former friends from the drug scene. She and her family are threatened and shunned at times. Chris and the diarist try to stay away from drugs but their resolve lapses. The diarist gets high one night and runs away. She drifts through homelessness, prostitution, hitchhiking, and homeless shelters, before a priest reunites her with her family. She returns home but she is drugged against her will, has a bad trip, and is sent to an insane asylum where she bonds with a younger girl named Babbie. Chris escapes the problems when her family moves to a new town. The diarist finally is free of drugs. She becomes romantically involved with a student from her father's college, Joel. Relationships with her family are improving, as"
      },
      {
        "text": "hiking, and homeless shelters, before a priest reunites her with her family. She returns home but she is drugged against her will, has a bad trip, and is sent to an insane asylum where she bonds with a younger girl named Babbie. Chris escapes the problems when her family moves to a new town. The diarist finally is free of drugs. She becomes romantically involved with a student from her father's college, Joel. Relationships with her family are improving, as are friendships with some new kids in town. She is worried about starting school again, but feels stronger with the support of her new friends and Joel. In an optimistic mood the diarist decides she no longer needs a diary; now she can communicate with her family and friends. The epilogue states that the subject of the book died three weeks after the final entry. The diarist was found dead in her home by her parents, either by an accidental or premeditated overdose.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Three Musketeers",
    "author": "Alexandre Dumas",
    "published_date": "1844",
    "synopsis": " The poor d'Artagnan travels to Paris to join the Musketeers. On the way, he encounters and alienates de Roquefort, one of the Cardinal Richelieu's spies. He also encounters Milady de Winter for the first time, who becomes relevant later. After entering Paris and speaking with Monsieur de Treville, he suffers misadventure and is challenged to a duel by each of three musketeers (Athos, Aramis and Porthos). Attacked by the Cardinal's guards, the four unite and escape. D'Artagnan and Constance Bonacieux (the wife of D'Artagnan's landlord and an aide to one of the Queen's closest advisors) help the French queen give a particular piece of jewelry to her paramour, the Duke of Buckingham. The Cardinal learns of this and coaxes the French king to hold a ball where the queen must wear the jewelry; its absence will reveal her infidelity. The four companions retrieve the jewelry from England. The Cardinal kidnaps Constance who is later rescued by the queen. D'Artagnan meets Milady de Winter and discovers she is a felon, the ex-wife of Athos and the widow of Count de Winter. The Cardinal recruits Milady to kill Buckingham, also granting her a hand-written pardon for the future killing of d'Artagnan. Athos learns of this, takes the pardon but is unable to warn Buckingham. He sends word to Lord de Winter that Milady is arriving; Lord de Winter arrests her on suspicion of killing Count de Winter, his brother. She seduces her guard, who then assassinates Lord Buckingham, and escapes to the monastery in France where the queen secreted Constance. Milady kills Constance. The four companions arrive and Athos identifies her as a multiple murderess. She is tried and beheaded. On the road, d'Artagnan is arrested. Taken before the Cardinal, d'Artagnan relates recent events and reveals the Cardinal's pardon. Impressed, the Cardinal offers him a blank musketeer officer's commission. D'Artagnan's friends refuse the commission, each retiring to a new life, telling him to take it himself, and so he takes it and later on he becomes a well known lieutenant. In 1625 d'Artagnan, a poor young nobleman, leaves his family in Gascony and travels to Paris, with the intention of joining the Musketeer of the Guard. However, en-route, at an inn in Meung-sur-Loire, d'Artagnan overhears an older man making jokes about his horse and, feeling insulted, demands to fight a duel with him. The older man's companions beat d'Artagnan unconscious with sticks and break his sword; his Letter of introduction to Monsieur de Tr\u00e9ville, the commander of the Musketeers, is stolen. D'Artagnan resolves to avenge himself upon the man, who is later revealed to be the Comte de Rochefort, an agent of Cardinal Richelieu, who is in Meung to pass orders from the Cardinal to Milady de Winter, another of his agents. In Paris, d'Artagnan visits de Tr\u00e9ville at the headquarters of the Musketeers, but the meeting is overshadowed by the loss of his letter and de Tr\u00e9ville refuses his application to join. From de Tr\u00e9ville's window, d'Artagnan sees Rochefort passing in the street below and rushes out of the building to confront him, but in doing so he separately causes offense to three of the Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, who each demand satisfaction; D'Artagnan must duel each of them in turn that afternoon. When d'Artagnan prepares himself for the first of the three duels, he realises that his counterparts are friends. But just as he and Athos begin to fight, a number of Cardinal Richelieu's guards appear; they try to arrest the three musketeers and d'Artagnan for illegal dueling. Although outnumbered, the four men win the ensuing battle. In the course of events, d'Artagnan duels and seriously wounds Jussac, one of the Cardinal's officers and a renowned fighter. After hearing about this event, King Louis XIII appoints d'Artagnan to des Essarts' company of guards and gives him 40 pistoles (currency). D'Artagnan hires a servant, Planchet, finds lodgings, and, by decree of the King, joins Monsieur des Essart's company of Guards, a less prestigious regiment in which he must serve for two years before being considered for the Musketeers. Shortly after his landlord comes to see him to talk about his wife's kidnapping (she is released presently), he falls in love at first sight with his landlord's pretty young wife, Constance Bonacieux. She works for the Queen Consort of France, Anne of Austria, who is secretly conducting an affair with the Duke of Buckingham. The Queen has just received a gift from her husband Louis XIII and trying to console her lover she gives him the diamonds as a keepsake. Cardinal Richelieu, who tries to start a war between France and England, wants to reveal that. Quickly he organises an event and talks the King into demanding that his wife wear the diamonds at this opportunity. Constance doesn't succeed in sending her cowardly husband, who has been manipulated by Richelieu, to London, but d'Artagnan and his friends decide to help. On their mission they are frequently attacked by the cardinal's henchmen and therefore only d'Artagnan and Planchet arrive in London (although Planchet does not accompany d'Artagnan to see Buckingham). In the process of getting to England, d'Artagnan is compelled to assault and nearly kill the Comte de Wardes, a friend of the Cardinal's, cousin to de Rochefort, and Milady's lover. Although two of the diamonds have been stolen by Milady, the Duke of Buckingham is able to provide replacements while delaying the thief's return to Paris. D'Artagnan is thus able to return a complete set of jewels to Queen Anne just in time to save her fa\u00e7ade of honour and receives from her a beautiful ring as an expression of her gratitude. Shortly afterwards, d'Artagnan attends a tryst with Madame Bonacieux, but she does not open her door. He notices signs of a struggle, and, asking about, discovers that de Rochefort and Monsieur Bonacieux, acting under the orders of the Cardinal, have assaulted and imprisoned her. D'Artagnan looks after his friends, who have just recovered from their injuries. He brings them back to Paris and meets Milady de Winter officially. He recognises her from Meung as one of the Cardinal's agents, but this does not deter him. D'Artagnan quickly develops a crush on the beautiful lady but learns from her handmaiden that she is in fact quite indifferent toward him. Later, though, after attending a tryst with her while pretending to be the Comte de Wardes (the lights are out),he also discovers a fleur-de-lis branded on Milady's shoulder, marking her as a felon. D'Artagnan eludes her attempt on his life and is ordered to the siege of La Rochelle. Milady fails continuously in killing d'Artagnan and he is informed that the Queen has managed to save Constance from the prison. In an inn the musketeers also overhear the Cardinal asking Milady to murder the Duke of Buckingham (who supports the Protestant rebels at La Rochelle). He even gives her a categorical pardon in written form, but Athos takes it from her. The next morning, Athos, in search of a quiet place to talk, makes a bet that he, d'Artagnan, Porthos and Aramis, and their servants, Grimaud, Planchet, Mosqueton, and Bazin, can hold the St. Gervais bastion (captured by des Essarts' company shortly beforehand) for an hour. They get away after an hour and a half, killing 22 Rochellese in total, and finding a way to warn Lord de Winter and the Duke of Buckingham. Milady is imprisoned on arrival in England but soon seduces her guard, Felton (a fictionalization of the real John Felton), and persuades him both to allow her escape and to kill Buckingham, which he does. On her return to France Milady hides in a convent, where she discovers Constance Bonacieux is also staying. The naive Constance clings to Milady, who sees a chance to get back at d'Artagnan who has crossed her plans with his friends more than once, and fatally poisons Constance before d'Artagnan can retrieve her. The Musketeers manage to find Milady before she can be rewarded and sheltered by Cardinal Richelieu. They come with an official executioner, put her to trial and sentence her to death. After her execution the four friends return to the siege of La Rochelle. They encounter the dodgy gentleman who has bothered d'Artagnan all the way. The Count of Rochefort arrests d'Artagnan and takes him straight to the Cardinal. When asked about Milady's fate, d'Artagnan can save himself by delivering the Cardinal's endorsement, which had been written for Milady and certifies that the deeds of the carrier are by all means approved by the Cardinal. This does not in and of itself protect him, as it only makes the Cardinal laugh. However, impressed with d'Artagnan's cheek and boldness, and secretly glad to be rid of the treacherous Milady, the Cardinal tears it up and writes a new order, giving the bearer a promotion to a lieutenant in de Treville's company of guards. The Cardinal states that anyone can take the order, but to keep in mind it was intended for d'Artagnan. He takes it to Athos, Porthos and Aramis in turn, but each refuses it, proclaiming d'Artagnan the more worthy man. The siege of La Rochelle ends in 1628, which also marks the end of the book. Aramis retires to a monastery, Porthos marries his wealthy mistress, and Athos serves in the Musketeers under D'Artagnan until 1631, when Athos retires to his mansion in the countryside. The now four Musketeers will meet again in Twenty Years After.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The poor d'Artagnan travels to Paris to join the Musketeers. On the way, he encounters and alienates de Roquefort, one of the Cardinal Richelieu's spies. He also encounters Milady de Winter for the first time, who becomes relevant later. After entering Paris and speaking with Monsieur de Treville, he suffers misadventure and is challenged to a duel by each of three musketeers (Athos, Aramis and Porthos). Attacked by the Cardinal's guards, the four unite and escape. D'Artagnan and Constance Bonacieux (the wife of D'Artagnan's landlord and an aide to one of the Queen's closest advisors) help the French queen give a particular piece of jewelry to her paramour, the Duke of Buckingham. The Cardinal learns of this and coaxes the French king to hold a ball where the queen must wear the jewelry; its absence will reveal her infidelity. The four companions retrieve the jewelry from England. The Cardinal kidnaps Constance who is later rescued by the queen. D'Artagnan meets Milady de Winter and discovers she is a felon, the ex-wife of Athos and the widow of Count de Winter. The Cardinal recruits Milady to kill Buckingham, also granting her a hand-written pardon for the future killing of d'Artagnan. Athos learns of this, takes the pardon but is unable to warn Buckingham. He sends word to Lord de Winter that Milady is arriving; Lord de Winter arrests her on suspicion of killing Count de Winter, his brother. She seduces her guard, who then assassinates Lord Buckingham, and escapes to the monastery in France where the queen secreted Constance. Milady kills Constance. The four companions arrive and Athos identifies her as a multiple murderess. She is tried and beheaded. On the road, d'Artagnan is arrested. Taken"
      },
      {
        "text": ". He sends word to Lord de Winter that Milady is arriving; Lord de Winter arrests her on suspicion of killing Count de Winter, his brother. She seduces her guard, who then assassinates Lord Buckingham, and escapes to the monastery in France where the queen secreted Constance. Milady kills Constance. The four companions arrive and Athos identifies her as a multiple murderess. She is tried and beheaded. On the road, d'Artagnan is arrested. Taken before the Cardinal, d'Artagnan relates recent events and reveals the Cardinal's pardon. Impressed, the Cardinal offers him a blank musketeer officer's commission. D'Artagnan's friends refuse the commission, each retiring to a new life, telling him to take it himself, and so he takes it and later on he becomes a well known lieutenant. In 1625 d'Artagnan, a poor young nobleman, leaves his family in Gascony and travels to Paris, with the intention of joining the Musketeer of the Guard. However, en-route, at an inn in Meung-sur-Loire, d'Artagnan overhears an older man making jokes about his horse and, feeling insulted, demands to fight a duel with him. The older man's companions beat d'Artagnan unconscious with sticks and break his sword; his Letter of introduction to Monsieur de Tr\u00e9ville, the commander of the Musketeers, is stolen. D'Artagnan resolves to avenge himself upon the man, who is later revealed to be the Comte de Rochefort, an agent of Cardinal Richelieu, who is in Meung to pass orders from the Cardinal to Milady de Winter, another of his agents. In Paris, d'Artagnan visits de Tr\u00e9ville at the headquarters of the Musketeers, but the meeting is overshadowed by the loss of his letter and de Tr\u00e9ville refuses"
      },
      {
        "text": ", is stolen. D'Artagnan resolves to avenge himself upon the man, who is later revealed to be the Comte de Rochefort, an agent of Cardinal Richelieu, who is in Meung to pass orders from the Cardinal to Milady de Winter, another of his agents. In Paris, d'Artagnan visits de Tr\u00e9ville at the headquarters of the Musketeers, but the meeting is overshadowed by the loss of his letter and de Tr\u00e9ville refuses his application to join. From de Tr\u00e9ville's window, d'Artagnan sees Rochefort passing in the street below and rushes out of the building to confront him, but in doing so he separately causes offense to three of the Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, who each demand satisfaction; D'Artagnan must duel each of them in turn that afternoon. When d'Artagnan prepares himself for the first of the three duels, he realises that his counterparts are friends. But just as he and Athos begin to fight, a number of Cardinal Richelieu's guards appear; they try to arrest the three musketeers and d'Artagnan for illegal dueling. Although outnumbered, the four men win the ensuing battle. In the course of events, d'Artagnan duels and seriously wounds Jussac, one of the Cardinal's officers and a renowned fighter. After hearing about this event, King Louis XIII appoints d'Artagnan to des Essarts' company of guards and gives him 40 pistoles (currency). D'Artagnan hires a servant, Planchet, finds lodgings, and, by decree of the King, joins Monsieur des Essart's company of Guards, a less prestigious regiment in which he must serve for two years before being considered for the Musketeers. Shortly after his landlord comes to see him to talk about his wife's kidnapping"
      },
      {
        "text": " Louis XIII appoints d'Artagnan to des Essarts' company of guards and gives him 40 pistoles (currency). D'Artagnan hires a servant, Planchet, finds lodgings, and, by decree of the King, joins Monsieur des Essart's company of Guards, a less prestigious regiment in which he must serve for two years before being considered for the Musketeers. Shortly after his landlord comes to see him to talk about his wife's kidnapping (she is released presently), he falls in love at first sight with his landlord's pretty young wife, Constance Bonacieux. She works for the Queen Consort of France, Anne of Austria, who is secretly conducting an affair with the Duke of Buckingham. The Queen has just received a gift from her husband Louis XIII and trying to console her lover she gives him the diamonds as a keepsake. Cardinal Richelieu, who tries to start a war between France and England, wants to reveal that. Quickly he organises an event and talks the King into demanding that his wife wear the diamonds at this opportunity. Constance doesn't succeed in sending her cowardly husband, who has been manipulated by Richelieu, to London, but d'Artagnan and his friends decide to help. On their mission they are frequently attacked by the cardinal's henchmen and therefore only d'Artagnan and Planchet arrive in London (although Planchet does not accompany d'Artagnan to see Buckingham). In the process of getting to England, d'Artagnan is compelled to assault and nearly kill the Comte de Wardes, a friend of the Cardinal's, cousin to de Rochefort, and Milady's lover. Although two of the diamonds have been stolen by Milady, the Duke of Buckingham is able to provide replacements while delaying the thief's return to Paris. D'Artagnan is thus able to return a complete set of jewels to"
      },
      {
        "text": "'Artagnan to see Buckingham). In the process of getting to England, d'Artagnan is compelled to assault and nearly kill the Comte de Wardes, a friend of the Cardinal's, cousin to de Rochefort, and Milady's lover. Although two of the diamonds have been stolen by Milady, the Duke of Buckingham is able to provide replacements while delaying the thief's return to Paris. D'Artagnan is thus able to return a complete set of jewels to Queen Anne just in time to save her fa\u00e7ade of honour and receives from her a beautiful ring as an expression of her gratitude. Shortly afterwards, d'Artagnan attends a tryst with Madame Bonacieux, but she does not open her door. He notices signs of a struggle, and, asking about, discovers that de Rochefort and Monsieur Bonacieux, acting under the orders of the Cardinal, have assaulted and imprisoned her. D'Artagnan looks after his friends, who have just recovered from their injuries. He brings them back to Paris and meets Milady de Winter officially. He recognises her from Meung as one of the Cardinal's agents, but this does not deter him. D'Artagnan quickly develops a crush on the beautiful lady but learns from her handmaiden that she is in fact quite indifferent toward him. Later, though, after attending a tryst with her while pretending to be the Comte de Wardes (the lights are out),he also discovers a fleur-de-lis branded on Milady's shoulder, marking her as a felon. D'Artagnan eludes her attempt on his life and is ordered to the siege of La Rochelle. Milady fails continuously in killing d'Artagnan and he is informed that the Queen has managed to save Constance from the prison. In an inn the musketeers also overhear the Cardinal asking Milady to murder the Duke of Buckingham"
      },
      {
        "text": "the lights are out),he also discovers a fleur-de-lis branded on Milady's shoulder, marking her as a felon. D'Artagnan eludes her attempt on his life and is ordered to the siege of La Rochelle. Milady fails continuously in killing d'Artagnan and he is informed that the Queen has managed to save Constance from the prison. In an inn the musketeers also overhear the Cardinal asking Milady to murder the Duke of Buckingham (who supports the Protestant rebels at La Rochelle). He even gives her a categorical pardon in written form, but Athos takes it from her. The next morning, Athos, in search of a quiet place to talk, makes a bet that he, d'Artagnan, Porthos and Aramis, and their servants, Grimaud, Planchet, Mosqueton, and Bazin, can hold the St. Gervais bastion (captured by des Essarts' company shortly beforehand) for an hour. They get away after an hour and a half, killing 22 Rochellese in total, and finding a way to warn Lord de Winter and the Duke of Buckingham. Milady is imprisoned on arrival in England but soon seduces her guard, Felton (a fictionalization of the real John Felton), and persuades him both to allow her escape and to kill Buckingham, which he does. On her return to France Milady hides in a convent, where she discovers Constance Bonacieux is also staying. The naive Constance clings to Milady, who sees a chance to get back at d'Artagnan who has crossed her plans with his friends more than once, and fatally poisons Constance before d'Artagnan can retrieve her. The Musketeers manage to find Milady before she can be rewarded and sheltered by Cardinal Richelieu. They come with an official executioner, put her to trial and"
      },
      {
        "text": " convent, where she discovers Constance Bonacieux is also staying. The naive Constance clings to Milady, who sees a chance to get back at d'Artagnan who has crossed her plans with his friends more than once, and fatally poisons Constance before d'Artagnan can retrieve her. The Musketeers manage to find Milady before she can be rewarded and sheltered by Cardinal Richelieu. They come with an official executioner, put her to trial and sentence her to death. After her execution the four friends return to the siege of La Rochelle. They encounter the dodgy gentleman who has bothered d'Artagnan all the way. The Count of Rochefort arrests d'Artagnan and takes him straight to the Cardinal. When asked about Milady's fate, d'Artagnan can save himself by delivering the Cardinal's endorsement, which had been written for Milady and certifies that the deeds of the carrier are by all means approved by the Cardinal. This does not in and of itself protect him, as it only makes the Cardinal laugh. However, impressed with d'Artagnan's cheek and boldness, and secretly glad to be rid of the treacherous Milady, the Cardinal tears it up and writes a new order, giving the bearer a promotion to a lieutenant in de Treville's company of guards. The Cardinal states that anyone can take the order, but to keep in mind it was intended for d'Artagnan. He takes it to Athos, Porthos and Aramis in turn, but each refuses it, proclaiming d'Artagnan the more worthy man. The siege of La Rochelle ends in 1628, which also marks the end of the book. Aramis retires to a monastery, Porthos marries his wealthy mistress, and Athos serves in the Musketeers under D'Artagnan until 1631, when Athos retires to his mansion in"
      },
      {
        "text": "agnan. He takes it to Athos, Porthos and Aramis in turn, but each refuses it, proclaiming d'Artagnan the more worthy man. The siege of La Rochelle ends in 1628, which also marks the end of the book. Aramis retires to a monastery, Porthos marries his wealthy mistress, and Athos serves in the Musketeers under D'Artagnan until 1631, when Athos retires to his mansion in the countryside. The now four Musketeers will meet again in Twenty Years After.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde",
    "author": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
    "published_date": "1886-01-05",
    "synopsis": " In London, Gabriel John Utterson, a prosecutor, is on his weekly walk with his relative Richard Enfield, who proceeds to tell him of an encounter he had seen some months ago while coming home late at night from Cavendish Place. The tale describes a sinister figure named Mr. Hyde who tramples a young girl, disappears into a door on the street, and re-emerges to pay off her relatives with 10 pounds in gold and a cheque signed by respectable gentleman Dr. Henry Jekyll (a client and friend of Utterson's) for 90 pounds. Jekyll having recently and suddenly changed his will to make Hyde beneficiary, Utterson is disturbed and concerned about this development, and makes an effort to seek out Hyde. This is instilled by Utterson's fear that Hyde is blackmailing Dr. Henry Jekyll for his money. Upon finally managing to encounter Hyde, Utterson is amazed by how ugly the man seems, as if deformed; though Utterson cannot say why exactly how this is so or why it is, Hyde seems to provoke an instinctive feeling of revulsion in him. Much to Utterson's surprise, Hyde willingly offers Utterson his address. After one of Jekyll's dinner parties, Utterson stays behind to discuss the matter of Hyde with Jekyll. Utterson notices Jekyll turning pale, yet he assures Utterson that everything involving Hyde is in order and to be left alone. A year passes uneventfully. One night, a servant girl witnesses Hyde beat a man to death with a heavy cane. The man is MP Sir Danvers Carew who was also a client of Utterson. The police contact Utterson, who suspects Hyde of the murder. He leads the officers to Hyde's apartment, feeling a sense of foreboding amid the eerie weather (the morning is dark and wreathed in fog). When they arrive at the apartment, the murderer has vanished, but they find half of the cane (described as being made of a strong wood but broken due to the beating) left behind a door. It is revealed to have been given to Jekyll by Utterson. Shortly thereafter, Utterson again visits Jekyll, who now claims to have ended all relations with Hyde. Jekyll shows Utterson a note, allegedly written to Jekyll by Hyde, apologizing for the trouble he has caused him and saying goodbye. That night, however, Utterson's clerk points out that Hyde's handwriting bears a remarkable similarity to Jekyll's own. For a few months, Jekyll reverts to his former friendly and sociable manner, as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Later, Jekyll suddenly begins to refuse visitors, and Dr Hastie Lanyon, a mutual acquaintance of Jekyll and Utterson, dies suddenly of shock after receiving information relating to Jekyll. Before his death, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter, with instructions that he not open it until after Jekyll's death or disappearance. Utterson goes out walking with Enfield, and they see Jekyll at a window of his laboratory; the three men begin to converse, but a look of horror suddenly comes over Jekyll's face, and he slams the window and disappears. Soon afterward, Jekyll's butler Mr. Poole visits Utterson in a state of desperation and explains that Jekyll has secluded himself in his laboratory for several weeks. Utterson and Poole travel to Jekyll's house through empty, windswept, sinister streets; once there, they find the servants huddled together in fear. They go to see the laboratory where they hear that the voice coming from inside is not the voice of Jekyll and the footsteps are light not the heavy footsteps of the Doctor. After arguing for a time, the two of them resolve to break into Jekyll's laboratory. Inside, they find the body of Hyde wearing Jekyll's clothes and apparently dead from suicide. They find also a letter from Jekyll to Utterson promising to explain the entire mystery. Utterson takes the document home, where first he reads Lanyon\u2019s letter and then Jekyll's. The first reveals that Lanyon\u2019s deterioration and eventual death were caused by the shock of seeing Mr. Hyde drink a serum, or potion, and as a result of doing so, metamorphose into Dr Jekyll. The second letter explains that Jekyll, seeking to separate his good side from his darker impulses, discovered a way to transform himself periodically into a creature free of conscience, this being Mr Hyde. The transformation was incomplete, however, in that it created a second, evil identity, but did not make the first identity purely good. At first, Jekyll reports, he delighted in becoming Hyde and rejoiced in the moral freedom that the creature possessed. Eventually, however, he found that he was turning into Hyde involuntarily in his sleep, even without taking the potion. At this point, Jekyll resolved to cease becoming Hyde. One night, however, the urge gripped him too strongly, and after the transformation he immediately rushed out and violently killed Sir Danvers Carew. Horrified, Jekyll tried more adamantly to stop the transformations, and for a time he proved successful by engaging in philanthropic work. At a park, he considers how good a person he has become as a result of his deeds (in comparison to others), believing himself redeemed. However, before he completes his line of thought, he looks down at his hands and realizes that he has suddenly once again become Mr Hyde. This was the first time that an involuntary metamorphosis had happened in waking hours. Far from his laboratory and hunted by the police as a murderer, Hyde needed Lanyon's help to get his potions and become Jekyll again; when he undertook the transformation in Lanyon's presence, the shock of the sight instigated Lanyon's deterioration and death. Meanwhile, Jekyll returned to his home, only to find himself ever more helpless and trapped as the transformations increased in frequency and necessitated even larger doses of potion in order to reverse themselves. It was the onset of one of these spontaneous metamorphoses that caused Jekyll to slam his laboratory window shut in the middle of his conversation with Enfield and Utterson. Eventually, the stock of ingredients from which Jekyll has been preparing the potion ran low, and subsequent batches prepared by Jekyll from renewed stocks of the ingredients failed to produce the transformation effected by the original potion. Jekyll speculates that the one essential ingredient that made the original potion work must have been a trace contaminant that was absent from the ingredients he had subsequently purchased. He assumes that subsequent supplies all lacked the essential ingredient that made the potion successful for his experiments. His ability to change back from Hyde into Jekyll has slowly vanished in consequence. Jekyll writes that even as he composes his letter he knows that he will soon become Hyde permanently, and he wonders if Hyde will face execution for his crimes or choose to kill himself. Jekyll notes that, in either case, the end of his letter marks the end of the life of Dr Jekyll. He ends the letter saying \"I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end\". With these words, both the document and the novel come to a close.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In London, Gabriel John Utterson, a prosecutor, is on his weekly walk with his relative Richard Enfield, who proceeds to tell him of an encounter he had seen some months ago while coming home late at night from Cavendish Place. The tale describes a sinister figure named Mr. Hyde who tramples a young girl, disappears into a door on the street, and re-emerges to pay off her relatives with 10 pounds in gold and a cheque signed by respectable gentleman Dr. Henry Jekyll (a client and friend of Utterson's) for 90 pounds. Jekyll having recently and suddenly changed his will to make Hyde beneficiary, Utterson is disturbed and concerned about this development, and makes an effort to seek out Hyde. This is instilled by Utterson's fear that Hyde is blackmailing Dr. Henry Jekyll for his money. Upon finally managing to encounter Hyde, Utterson is amazed by how ugly the man seems, as if deformed; though Utterson cannot say why exactly how this is so or why it is, Hyde seems to provoke an instinctive feeling of revulsion in him. Much to Utterson's surprise, Hyde willingly offers Utterson his address. After one of Jekyll's dinner parties, Utterson stays behind to discuss the matter of Hyde with Jekyll. Utterson notices Jekyll turning pale, yet he assures Utterson that everything involving Hyde is in order and to be left alone. A year passes uneventfully. One night, a servant girl witnesses Hyde beat a man to death with a heavy cane. The man is MP Sir Danvers Carew who was also a client of Utterson. The police contact Utterson, who suspects Hyde of the murder. He leads the officers to Hyde's apartment, feeling a sense of foreboding amid the eerie weather (the morning is dark and wreathed in fog). When they arrive at the apartment, the murderer has vanished, but they find half of the"
      },
      {
        "text": ". One night, a servant girl witnesses Hyde beat a man to death with a heavy cane. The man is MP Sir Danvers Carew who was also a client of Utterson. The police contact Utterson, who suspects Hyde of the murder. He leads the officers to Hyde's apartment, feeling a sense of foreboding amid the eerie weather (the morning is dark and wreathed in fog). When they arrive at the apartment, the murderer has vanished, but they find half of the cane (described as being made of a strong wood but broken due to the beating) left behind a door. It is revealed to have been given to Jekyll by Utterson. Shortly thereafter, Utterson again visits Jekyll, who now claims to have ended all relations with Hyde. Jekyll shows Utterson a note, allegedly written to Jekyll by Hyde, apologizing for the trouble he has caused him and saying goodbye. That night, however, Utterson's clerk points out that Hyde's handwriting bears a remarkable similarity to Jekyll's own. For a few months, Jekyll reverts to his former friendly and sociable manner, as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Later, Jekyll suddenly begins to refuse visitors, and Dr Hastie Lanyon, a mutual acquaintance of Jekyll and Utterson, dies suddenly of shock after receiving information relating to Jekyll. Before his death, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter, with instructions that he not open it until after Jekyll's death or disappearance. Utterson goes out walking with Enfield, and they see Jekyll at a window of his laboratory; the three men begin to converse, but a look of horror suddenly comes over Jekyll's face, and he slams the window and disappears. Soon afterward, Jekyll's butler Mr. Poole visits Utterson in a state of desperation and explains that Jekyll has secluded himself in"
      },
      {
        "text": " instructions that he not open it until after Jekyll's death or disappearance. Utterson goes out walking with Enfield, and they see Jekyll at a window of his laboratory; the three men begin to converse, but a look of horror suddenly comes over Jekyll's face, and he slams the window and disappears. Soon afterward, Jekyll's butler Mr. Poole visits Utterson in a state of desperation and explains that Jekyll has secluded himself in his laboratory for several weeks. Utterson and Poole travel to Jekyll's house through empty, windswept, sinister streets; once there, they find the servants huddled together in fear. They go to see the laboratory where they hear that the voice coming from inside is not the voice of Jekyll and the footsteps are light not the heavy footsteps of the Doctor. After arguing for a time, the two of them resolve to break into Jekyll's laboratory. Inside, they find the body of Hyde wearing Jekyll's clothes and apparently dead from suicide. They find also a letter from Jekyll to Utterson promising to explain the entire mystery. Utterson takes the document home, where first he reads Lanyon\u2019s letter and then Jekyll's. The first reveals that Lanyon\u2019s deterioration and eventual death were caused by the shock of seeing Mr. Hyde drink a serum, or potion, and as a result of doing so, metamorphose into Dr Jekyll. The second letter explains that Jekyll, seeking to separate his good side from his darker impulses, discovered a way to transform himself periodically into a creature free of conscience, this being Mr Hyde. The transformation was incomplete, however, in that it created a second, evil identity, but did not make the first identity purely good. At first, Jekyll reports, he delighted in becoming Hyde and rejoiced in the moral freedom that the creature possessed. Eventually,"
      },
      {
        "text": "ose into Dr Jekyll. The second letter explains that Jekyll, seeking to separate his good side from his darker impulses, discovered a way to transform himself periodically into a creature free of conscience, this being Mr Hyde. The transformation was incomplete, however, in that it created a second, evil identity, but did not make the first identity purely good. At first, Jekyll reports, he delighted in becoming Hyde and rejoiced in the moral freedom that the creature possessed. Eventually, however, he found that he was turning into Hyde involuntarily in his sleep, even without taking the potion. At this point, Jekyll resolved to cease becoming Hyde. One night, however, the urge gripped him too strongly, and after the transformation he immediately rushed out and violently killed Sir Danvers Carew. Horrified, Jekyll tried more adamantly to stop the transformations, and for a time he proved successful by engaging in philanthropic work. At a park, he considers how good a person he has become as a result of his deeds (in comparison to others), believing himself redeemed. However, before he completes his line of thought, he looks down at his hands and realizes that he has suddenly once again become Mr Hyde. This was the first time that an involuntary metamorphosis had happened in waking hours. Far from his laboratory and hunted by the police as a murderer, Hyde needed Lanyon's help to get his potions and become Jekyll again; when he undertook the transformation in Lanyon's presence, the shock of the sight instigated Lanyon's deterioration and death. Meanwhile, Jekyll returned to his home, only to find himself ever more helpless and trapped as the transformations increased in frequency and necessitated even larger doses of potion in order to reverse themselves. It was the onset of one of these spontaneous metamorphoses that caused Jekyll to slam his laboratory window shut in the middle of his conversation with Enfield and Utterson. Eventually, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " the transformation in Lanyon's presence, the shock of the sight instigated Lanyon's deterioration and death. Meanwhile, Jekyll returned to his home, only to find himself ever more helpless and trapped as the transformations increased in frequency and necessitated even larger doses of potion in order to reverse themselves. It was the onset of one of these spontaneous metamorphoses that caused Jekyll to slam his laboratory window shut in the middle of his conversation with Enfield and Utterson. Eventually, the stock of ingredients from which Jekyll has been preparing the potion ran low, and subsequent batches prepared by Jekyll from renewed stocks of the ingredients failed to produce the transformation effected by the original potion. Jekyll speculates that the one essential ingredient that made the original potion work must have been a trace contaminant that was absent from the ingredients he had subsequently purchased. He assumes that subsequent supplies all lacked the essential ingredient that made the potion successful for his experiments. His ability to change back from Hyde into Jekyll has slowly vanished in consequence. Jekyll writes that even as he composes his letter he knows that he will soon become Hyde permanently, and he wonders if Hyde will face execution for his crimes or choose to kill himself. Jekyll notes that, in either case, the end of his letter marks the end of the life of Dr Jekyll. He ends the letter saying \"I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end\". With these words, both the document and the novel come to a close.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " words, both the document and the novel come to a close.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Shooting an Elephant",
    "author": "George Orwell",
    "published_date": "1936",
    "synopsis": " In Moulmein, the narrator\u2014Orwell, writing in the first person\u2014is a police officer during a period of intense anti-European sentiment. Although his intellectual sympathies lie with the Burmese, his official role makes him a symbol of the oppressive imperial power. As such, he is subjected to constant baiting and jeering by the local people. After receiving a call regarding a normally tame elephant's rampage, the narrator, armed with a .44 caliber Winchester rifle and riding on a pony, goes to the town where the elephant has been seen. Entering one of the poorest quarters, he receives conflicting reports and contemplates leaving, thinking the incident is a hoax. The narrator then sees a village woman chasing away children who are looking at the corpse of an Indian whom the elephant has trampled and killed. He sends an orderly to bring an elephant rifle and, followed by a group of roughly a few thousand people, heads toward the paddy field where the elephant has rested in its tracks. Although he does not want to kill the elephant, the narrator feels pressured by the demand of the crowd for the act to be carried out. After inquiring as to the elephant's behaviour and delaying for some time, he shoots the elephant multiple times, but is unable to kill it. The narrator then leaves the beast, unable to be in its presence as it continues to suffer. He later learns that it was stripped, nearly to the bone, within hours. His elderly colleagues agree that killing the elephant was the best thing to do, but the younger ones believe that it was worth more than the Indian it killed. The narrator then wonders if they'll ever understand that he did it to avoid looking a fool.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In Moulmein, the narrator\u2014Orwell, writing in the first person\u2014is a police officer during a period of intense anti-European sentiment. Although his intellectual sympathies lie with the Burmese, his official role makes him a symbol of the oppressive imperial power. As such, he is subjected to constant baiting and jeering by the local people. After receiving a call regarding a normally tame elephant's rampage, the narrator, armed with a .44 caliber Winchester rifle and riding on a pony, goes to the town where the elephant has been seen. Entering one of the poorest quarters, he receives conflicting reports and contemplates leaving, thinking the incident is a hoax. The narrator then sees a village woman chasing away children who are looking at the corpse of an Indian whom the elephant has trampled and killed. He sends an orderly to bring an elephant rifle and, followed by a group of roughly a few thousand people, heads toward the paddy field where the elephant has rested in its tracks. Although he does not want to kill the elephant, the narrator feels pressured by the demand of the crowd for the act to be carried out. After inquiring as to the elephant's behaviour and delaying for some time, he shoots the elephant multiple times, but is unable to kill it. The narrator then leaves the beast, unable to be in its presence as it continues to suffer. He later learns that it was stripped, nearly to the bone, within hours. His elderly colleagues agree that killing the elephant was the best thing to do, but the younger ones believe that it was worth more than the Indian it killed. The narrator then wonders if they'll ever understand that he did it to avoid looking a fool.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " that killing the elephant was the best thing to do, but the younger ones believe that it was worth more than the Indian it killed. The narrator then wonders if they'll ever understand that he did it to avoid looking a fool.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Eminent Victorians",
    "author": "Lytton Strachey",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Each of the lives is very different from the others, although there are common threads - for example the recurrent appearance of William Ewart Gladstone and Arthur Hugh Clough. Each story is set against a specific background. In Cardinal Manning's story, the background is the creation of the Oxford Movement and the defection of an influential group of Church of England clergy to the Catholic Church. This aspect is covered in depth to explain the movement and its main protagonists, particularly Manning's hostile relationship with John Henry Newman. Strachey is critical of Manning's underhand manipulations in attempting to prevent Newman being made a Cardinal. The background features of Florence Nightingale's story are the machinations of the War Office, and the obtuseness of the military and politicians. Strachey depicts Florence Nightingale as an intense, driven woman who is both personally intolerable and admirable in her achievements. Dr Arnold is hailed as an exemplar who established the Public School system. Strachey describes this as an education based on chapel and the classics, with a prefectorial system to maintain order. He points out that it was not Arnold who was responsible for the obsession with sport, but does make it clear that Arnold was at fault in ignoring the sciences. Although Arnold was revered at the time, in retrospect Strachey sees his approach as very damaging. Strachey also mocks Arnold's efforts at moral improvement of the general public, for example his unsuccessful weekly newspaper. Gordon\u2019s is the story of a maverick soldier and adventurer, whose original military achievements in China would have been forgotten. He was a mercenary who got into and out of conflicts on behalf of various dubious governments, but much of his experience was in the Sudan. The final disaster was when the Egyptian occupation of Sudan was almost completely overthrown by fundamentalist rebels, and someone was needed to retrieve the situation in Khartoum. The job fell to Gordon, whose instincts were to do anything but withdraw, and he became embroiled in a siege. The British government was put in an almost impossible dilemma, and when eventually they did send a relief expedition it arrived just two days too late. Strachey based Gordon\u2019s story on his diaries and letters to give an account of a strong individual almost at odds with the world.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Each of the lives is very different from the others, although there are common threads - for example the recurrent appearance of William Ewart Gladstone and Arthur Hugh Clough. Each story is set against a specific background. In Cardinal Manning's story, the background is the creation of the Oxford Movement and the defection of an influential group of Church of England clergy to the Catholic Church. This aspect is covered in depth to explain the movement and its main protagonists, particularly Manning's hostile relationship with John Henry Newman. Strachey is critical of Manning's underhand manipulations in attempting to prevent Newman being made a Cardinal. The background features of Florence Nightingale's story are the machinations of the War Office, and the obtuseness of the military and politicians. Strachey depicts Florence Nightingale as an intense, driven woman who is both personally intolerable and admirable in her achievements. Dr Arnold is hailed as an exemplar who established the Public School system. Strachey describes this as an education based on chapel and the classics, with a prefectorial system to maintain order. He points out that it was not Arnold who was responsible for the obsession with sport, but does make it clear that Arnold was at fault in ignoring the sciences. Although Arnold was revered at the time, in retrospect Strachey sees his approach as very damaging. Strachey also mocks Arnold's efforts at moral improvement of the general public, for example his unsuccessful weekly newspaper. Gordon\u2019s is the story of a maverick soldier and adventurer, whose original military achievements in China would have been forgotten. He was a mercenary who got into and out of conflicts on behalf of various dubious governments, but much of his experience was in the Sudan. The final disaster was when the Egyptian occupation of Sudan was almost completely overthrown by fundamentalist rebels, and someone was needed to retrieve the situation in Khartoum. The job fell to Gordon, whose instincts were to do anything but withdraw, and he"
      },
      {
        "text": " the story of a maverick soldier and adventurer, whose original military achievements in China would have been forgotten. He was a mercenary who got into and out of conflicts on behalf of various dubious governments, but much of his experience was in the Sudan. The final disaster was when the Egyptian occupation of Sudan was almost completely overthrown by fundamentalist rebels, and someone was needed to retrieve the situation in Khartoum. The job fell to Gordon, whose instincts were to do anything but withdraw, and he became embroiled in a siege. The British government was put in an almost impossible dilemma, and when eventually they did send a relief expedition it arrived just two days too late. Strachey based Gordon\u2019s story on his diaries and letters to give an account of a strong individual almost at odds with the world.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie",
    "author": "Muriel Spark",
    "published_date": "1961",
    "synopsis": " In 1930s Edinburgh, six ten-year-old girls, Sandy, Rose, Mary, Jenny, Monica, and Eunice are assigned Miss Jean Brodie, who describes herself as being 'in her prime', as their teacher. Miss Brodie, determined that they shall receive an education in the original sense of the Latin verb educere, \"to lead out\", gives her students lessons about her personal love life and travels, promoting art history, classical studies, and fascism. Under her mentorship, these six girls whom Brodie singles out as the elite group among her students—known as the \"Brodie set\"—begin to stand out from the rest of the school. However in one of the novel's typical flash-forwards we learn that one of them will later betray Brodie, causing her to lose her teaching job, but that she will never learn which. In the Junior School, they meet the singing teacher, the short Mr Gordon Lowther; and the art master, the handsome, one-armed war veteran Mr Teddy Lloyd, a married Roman Catholic with six children. These two teachers form a love triangle with Miss Brodie, each loving her, while she loves only Mr Lloyd. However Miss Brodie never overtly acts on her love for Mr Lloyd, except once to exchange a kiss with him, witnessed by Monica. During a two week absence from school, Miss Brodie embarks on an affair with Mr Lowther on the grounds that a bachelor makes a more respectable paramour: she has renounced Mr Lloyd as he is married. At one point during these two years in the Junior School, Jenny is \"accosted by a man joyfully exposing himself beside the Water of Leith\". The police investigation of the exposure leads Sandy to imagine herself as part of a fictional police force seeking incriminating evidence in respect of Brodie and Mr Lowther. Once the girls are promoted to the Senior School (around age twelve) though now dispersed, they hold on to their identity as the Brodie set. Miss Brodie keeps in touch with them after school hours by inviting them over as she did when they were her pupils. All the while, the headmistress Miss Mackay tries to break them up and compile information gleaned from them into sufficient cause to fire Brodie. Miss Mackay has more than once suggested to Miss Brodie that she should seek employment at a 'progressive' school; Miss Brodie declines to move to what she describes as a 'crank' school. When two other teachers at the school, the Kerr sisters, take part-time employment as Mr Lowther's housekeepers, Miss Brodie tries to take over their duties. She sets about fattening him up with extravagant cooking. The girls, now thirteen, visit Miss Brodie in pairs at Mr Lowther's house, where all Brodie does is ask about Mr Lloyd in Mr Lowther's presence. At this point Mr Lloyd asks Rose and occasionally the other girls to pose for him as portrait subjects. Each face he paints ultimately resembles Miss Brodie, as her girls report to her in detail, and she thrills at the telling. One day when Sandy is visiting Mr Lloyd, he kisses her. Before the Brodie set turns sixteen, Miss Brodie tests her girls to discover which of them she can really trust, ultimately settling on Sandy as her confidante. Miss Brodie is obsessed with the notion that Rose, as the most beautiful of the Brodie set, should have an affair with Mr Lloyd in her place. She begins to neglect Mr Lowther, who ends up marrying Miss Lockhart, the science teacher. Another student, Joyce Emily, steps briefly into the picture, trying unsuccessfully to join the Brodie set. Miss Brodie takes her under her wing separately, encouraging her to run away to fight in the Spanish Civil War on the Nationalist side, which she does, only to be killed in an accident when the train she is travelling in is attacked. The original Brodie set, now seventeen and in their final year of school, begin to go their separate ways. Mary and Jenny leave before taking their exams, Mary to become a typist and Jenny to pursue a career in acting. Eunice becomes a nurse and Monica a scientist. Rose lands a handsome husband. Sandy, with a keen interest in psychology, is fascinated by Mr Lloyd's stubborn love, his painter's mind, and his religion. Sandy and Rose model for Mr Lloyd's paintings, Sandy knowing that Miss Brodie expects Rose to become sexually involved with Lloyd. Rose, however, is oblivious to the plan crafted for her and so Sandy, now eighteen and alone with Mr Lloyd in his house while his wife and children are on holiday, has an affair with him herself for five weeks during the summer. Over time, Sandy's interest in the man wanes while her interest in the mind that loves Jean Brodie grows. In the end, Sandy leaves him, adopts his Roman Catholic religion, and becomes a nun. Beforehand, however, she meets with the Miss Mackay and blatantly confesses to wanting to put a stop to Miss Brodie. She suggests that the headmistress could accuse Brodie of encouraging fascism, and this tactic succeeds. Not until her dying moment a year after the end of World War II is Miss Brodie able to imagine that it was her confidante, Sandy, who betrayed her. After her death however, Sandy, now called Sister Helena of the Transfiguration and author of The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, maintains that \"it's only possible to betray where loyalty is due\". One day when an enquiring young man visits Sandy at the convent because of her strange book on psychology, to ask about the main influences of her school years, \"Were they literary or political or personal? Was it Calvinism?\" Sandy says: \"There was a Miss Jean Brodie in her prime.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In 1930s Edinburgh, six ten-year-old girls, Sandy, Rose, Mary, Jenny, Monica, and Eunice are assigned Miss Jean Brodie, who describes herself as being 'in her prime', as their teacher. Miss Brodie, determined that they shall receive an education in the original sense of the Latin verb educere, \"to lead out\", gives her students lessons about her personal love life and travels, promoting art history, classical studies, and fascism. Under her mentorship, these six girls whom Brodie singles out as the elite group among her students—known as the \"Brodie set\"—begin to stand out from the rest of the school. However in one of the novel's typical flash-forwards we learn that one of them will later betray Brodie, causing her to lose her teaching job, but that she will never learn which. In the Junior School, they meet the singing teacher, the short Mr Gordon Lowther; and the art master, the handsome, one-armed war veteran Mr Teddy Lloyd, a married Roman Catholic with six children. These two teachers form a love triangle with Miss Brodie, each loving her, while she loves only Mr Lloyd. However Miss Brodie never overtly acts on her love for Mr Lloyd, except once to exchange a kiss with him, witnessed by Monica. During a two week absence from school, Miss Brodie embarks on an affair with Mr Lowther on the grounds that a bachelor makes a more respectable paramour: she has renounced Mr Lloyd as he is married. At one point during these two years in the Junior School, Jenny is \"accosted by a man joyfully exposing himself beside the Water of Leith\". The police investigation of the exposure leads Sandy to imagine herself as part of a fictional police force seeking incriminating evidence in respect of Brodie and Mr Lowther. Once the girls are promoted to the Senior School (around age twelve)"
      },
      {
        "text": " grounds that a bachelor makes a more respectable paramour: she has renounced Mr Lloyd as he is married. At one point during these two years in the Junior School, Jenny is \"accosted by a man joyfully exposing himself beside the Water of Leith\". The police investigation of the exposure leads Sandy to imagine herself as part of a fictional police force seeking incriminating evidence in respect of Brodie and Mr Lowther. Once the girls are promoted to the Senior School (around age twelve) though now dispersed, they hold on to their identity as the Brodie set. Miss Brodie keeps in touch with them after school hours by inviting them over as she did when they were her pupils. All the while, the headmistress Miss Mackay tries to break them up and compile information gleaned from them into sufficient cause to fire Brodie. Miss Mackay has more than once suggested to Miss Brodie that she should seek employment at a 'progressive' school; Miss Brodie declines to move to what she describes as a 'crank' school. When two other teachers at the school, the Kerr sisters, take part-time employment as Mr Lowther's housekeepers, Miss Brodie tries to take over their duties. She sets about fattening him up with extravagant cooking. The girls, now thirteen, visit Miss Brodie in pairs at Mr Lowther's house, where all Brodie does is ask about Mr Lloyd in Mr Lowther's presence. At this point Mr Lloyd asks Rose and occasionally the other girls to pose for him as portrait subjects. Each face he paints ultimately resembles Miss Brodie, as her girls report to her in detail, and she thrills at the telling. One day when Sandy is visiting Mr Lloyd, he kisses her. Before the Brodie set turns sixteen, Miss Brodie tests her girls to discover which of them she can really trust, ultimately settling on Sandy as her confidante. Miss Brodie is obsessed with the notion that Rose"
      },
      {
        "text": " Mr Lloyd asks Rose and occasionally the other girls to pose for him as portrait subjects. Each face he paints ultimately resembles Miss Brodie, as her girls report to her in detail, and she thrills at the telling. One day when Sandy is visiting Mr Lloyd, he kisses her. Before the Brodie set turns sixteen, Miss Brodie tests her girls to discover which of them she can really trust, ultimately settling on Sandy as her confidante. Miss Brodie is obsessed with the notion that Rose, as the most beautiful of the Brodie set, should have an affair with Mr Lloyd in her place. She begins to neglect Mr Lowther, who ends up marrying Miss Lockhart, the science teacher. Another student, Joyce Emily, steps briefly into the picture, trying unsuccessfully to join the Brodie set. Miss Brodie takes her under her wing separately, encouraging her to run away to fight in the Spanish Civil War on the Nationalist side, which she does, only to be killed in an accident when the train she is travelling in is attacked. The original Brodie set, now seventeen and in their final year of school, begin to go their separate ways. Mary and Jenny leave before taking their exams, Mary to become a typist and Jenny to pursue a career in acting. Eunice becomes a nurse and Monica a scientist. Rose lands a handsome husband. Sandy, with a keen interest in psychology, is fascinated by Mr Lloyd's stubborn love, his painter's mind, and his religion. Sandy and Rose model for Mr Lloyd's paintings, Sandy knowing that Miss Brodie expects Rose to become sexually involved with Lloyd. Rose, however, is oblivious to the plan crafted for her and so Sandy, now eighteen and alone with Mr Lloyd in his house while his wife and children are on holiday, has an affair with him herself for five weeks during the summer. Over time, Sandy's interest in the man wanes while her interest in the mind that loves Jean Brodie grows."
      },
      {
        "text": " his religion. Sandy and Rose model for Mr Lloyd's paintings, Sandy knowing that Miss Brodie expects Rose to become sexually involved with Lloyd. Rose, however, is oblivious to the plan crafted for her and so Sandy, now eighteen and alone with Mr Lloyd in his house while his wife and children are on holiday, has an affair with him herself for five weeks during the summer. Over time, Sandy's interest in the man wanes while her interest in the mind that loves Jean Brodie grows. In the end, Sandy leaves him, adopts his Roman Catholic religion, and becomes a nun. Beforehand, however, she meets with the Miss Mackay and blatantly confesses to wanting to put a stop to Miss Brodie. She suggests that the headmistress could accuse Brodie of encouraging fascism, and this tactic succeeds. Not until her dying moment a year after the end of World War II is Miss Brodie able to imagine that it was her confidante, Sandy, who betrayed her. After her death however, Sandy, now called Sister Helena of the Transfiguration and author of The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, maintains that \"it's only possible to betray where loyalty is due\". One day when an enquiring young man visits Sandy at the convent because of her strange book on psychology, to ask about the main influences of her school years, \"Were they literary or political or personal? Was it Calvinism?\" Sandy says: \"There was a Miss Jean Brodie in her prime.\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " in her prime.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Death in the Clouds",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Frustrated with the evident artificiality of the blowpipe, an item that could hardly have been used without being seen by another passenger, Poirot suggests that the means of delivering the dart may have been something else. Is it the flute of one passenger, or perhaps one of the ancient tubes carried by one of the two French archaeologists on board? Or maybe Lady Horbury's long cigarette holder? Poirot's focus is upon a wasp that has been seen in the compartment and which provided evidence for the original theory of the cause of death. Without explaining himself, he asks for a detailed list of the items in the possession of the passengers, and finds an incriminating clue: Norman Gale, a dentist who has seemingly never been in the area of the plane where the victim was killed, and has no apparent motive for committing the murder, had an empty matchbox and a lighter. He appears to be the killer, but how can he have committed the murder, when he was apparently in conversation with Jane Grey (the novel's effective heroine) throughout the flight? And why would he have committed the crime? And why were there two coffee spoons in the victim's saucer? Madame Giselle is suspected of using blackmail to ensure that her clients pay up, so any one of the passengers could either have owed her money or feared exposure. Equally, Madame Giselle had an estranged daughter who inherits her considerable estate: could one of the female passengers be this heiress? Much of the novel focuses on the pursuit of this line of enquiry, with the passengers coming under suspicion in turn. Special attention is given to Mr. Clancy, a detective novelist who enables Christie to include the same sort of parodies of her craft achieved in other novels through the character of Ariadne Oliver. The only other suspect who proves of material significance is, however, the Countess of Horbury, whose maid has been called into the compartment during the flight where she would have had the perfect opportunity to commit the crime. When this maid is revealed to be none other than the victim's heir, Anne Morisot, it seems that she must be the murderess. But the maid was only on the flight by accident, having been asked to be there at the last moment. Moreover, the death of Anne Morisot from poison on the boat-train to Boulogne leaves no clear suspect. Poirot reveals in the d\u00e9nouement that Horbury is none other than Anne's new husband, and that his plans - almost certainly including the eventual murder of Anne herself - had been laid well in advance. He brought his dentist's jacket on board and - in the apparently innocuous moments that he had gone to the toilet - changed into this jacket in order to pose as a steward. Under the pretense of delivering a coffee spoon to Miss Giselle he had walked up the aisle and stabbed her with the poisoned thorn. As Poirot puts it: \"No one notices a steward particularly.\" Gale's intention had been to frame the Countess, and the blowpipe that was found behind Poirot's seat would have been found behind hers had they not switched seats at the last moment. Not content with solving the mystery, Poirot also invites Mr. Clancy to the d\u00e9nouement where he gleefully allows the novelist to see how a real-life Detective solves a case, to both men's great enjoyment. Finally, in a single stroke Poirot makes a romantic match by pairing off Jane Grey with the younger of the archaeologists.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Frustrated with the evident artificiality of the blowpipe, an item that could hardly have been used without being seen by another passenger, Poirot suggests that the means of delivering the dart may have been something else. Is it the flute of one passenger, or perhaps one of the ancient tubes carried by one of the two French archaeologists on board? Or maybe Lady Horbury's long cigarette holder? Poirot's focus is upon a wasp that has been seen in the compartment and which provided evidence for the original theory of the cause of death. Without explaining himself, he asks for a detailed list of the items in the possession of the passengers, and finds an incriminating clue: Norman Gale, a dentist who has seemingly never been in the area of the plane where the victim was killed, and has no apparent motive for committing the murder, had an empty matchbox and a lighter. He appears to be the killer, but how can he have committed the murder, when he was apparently in conversation with Jane Grey (the novel's effective heroine) throughout the flight? And why would he have committed the crime? And why were there two coffee spoons in the victim's saucer? Madame Giselle is suspected of using blackmail to ensure that her clients pay up, so any one of the passengers could either have owed her money or feared exposure. Equally, Madame Giselle had an estranged daughter who inherits her considerable estate: could one of the female passengers be this heiress? Much of the novel focuses on the pursuit of this line of enquiry, with the passengers coming under suspicion in turn. Special attention is given to Mr. Clancy, a detective novelist who enables Christie to include the same sort of parodies of her craft achieved in other novels through the character of Ariadne Oliver. The only other suspect who proves of material significance is, however, the Countess of Horbury, whose maid has been called into the compartment during the flight where she"
      },
      {
        "text": " heiress? Much of the novel focuses on the pursuit of this line of enquiry, with the passengers coming under suspicion in turn. Special attention is given to Mr. Clancy, a detective novelist who enables Christie to include the same sort of parodies of her craft achieved in other novels through the character of Ariadne Oliver. The only other suspect who proves of material significance is, however, the Countess of Horbury, whose maid has been called into the compartment during the flight where she would have had the perfect opportunity to commit the crime. When this maid is revealed to be none other than the victim's heir, Anne Morisot, it seems that she must be the murderess. But the maid was only on the flight by accident, having been asked to be there at the last moment. Moreover, the death of Anne Morisot from poison on the boat-train to Boulogne leaves no clear suspect. Poirot reveals in the d\u00e9nouement that Horbury is none other than Anne's new husband, and that his plans - almost certainly including the eventual murder of Anne herself - had been laid well in advance. He brought his dentist's jacket on board and - in the apparently innocuous moments that he had gone to the toilet - changed into this jacket in order to pose as a steward. Under the pretense of delivering a coffee spoon to Miss Giselle he had walked up the aisle and stabbed her with the poisoned thorn. As Poirot puts it: \"No one notices a steward particularly.\" Gale's intention had been to frame the Countess, and the blowpipe that was found behind Poirot's seat would have been found behind hers had they not switched seats at the last moment. Not content with solving the mystery, Poirot also invites Mr. Clancy to the d\u00e9nouement where he gleefully allows the novelist to see how a real-life Detective solves a case, to both men's great enjoyment"
      },
      {
        "text": "irot puts it: \"No one notices a steward particularly.\" Gale's intention had been to frame the Countess, and the blowpipe that was found behind Poirot's seat would have been found behind hers had they not switched seats at the last moment. Not content with solving the mystery, Poirot also invites Mr. Clancy to the d\u00e9nouement where he gleefully allows the novelist to see how a real-life Detective solves a case, to both men's great enjoyment. Finally, in a single stroke Poirot makes a romantic match by pairing off Jane Grey with the younger of the archaeologists.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Mysterious Affair at Styles",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel is set in England during World War I at Styles Court, an Essex country manor (also the setting of Curtain, Poirot's last case). Upon her husband's death, the wealthy widow, Emily Cavendish, inherited a life estate in Styles as well as the outright inheritance of the larger part of the late Mr. Cavendish's income. Mrs. Cavendish became Mrs. Inglethorp upon her recent remarriage to a much younger man, Alfred Inglethorp. Emily's two stepsons, John and Lawrence Cavendish, as well as John's wife Mary and several other people, also live at Styles. John Cavendish is the vested remainderman of Styles; that is, the property will pass to him automatically upon his stepmother's decease, as per his late father's will. The income left to Mrs Inglethorp by her late husband would be distributed as per Mrs. Inglethorp's own will. Late one night, the residents of Styles wake to find Emily Inglethorp dying of what proves to be strychnine poisoning. Lieutenant Hastings, a houseguest, enlists the help of his friend Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the nearby village, Styles St. Mary. Poirot pieces together events surrounding the murder. On the day she was killed, Emily Inglethorp was overheard arguing with someone, most likely her husband, Alfred, or her stepson, John. Afterwards, she seemed quite distressed and, apparently, made a new will \u2014 which no one can find. She ate little at dinner and retired early to her room with her document case. The case was later forced open by someone and a document removed. Alfred Inglethorp left Styles earlier in the evening and stayed overnight in the nearby village, so was not present when the poisoning occurred. Nobody can explain how or when the strychnine was administered to Mrs. Inglethorp. At first, Alfred is the prime suspect. He has the most to gain financially from his wife's death, and, since he is so much younger than Emily was, the Cavendishes already suspect him as a fortune hunter. Evelyn Howard, Emily's companion, seems to hate him most of all. His behaviour, too, is suspicious; he openly purchased strychnine in the village before Emily was poisoned, and although he denies it, he refuses to provide an alibi. The police are keen to arrest him, but Poirot intervenes by proving he could not have purchased the poison. Scotland Yard police later arrest Emily Inglethorp\u2019s oldest stepson, John Cavendish. He inherits under the terms of her will, and there is evidence to suggest he also had obtained poison. Poirot clears Cavendish by proving it was, after all, Alfred Inglethorp who committed the crime, assisted by Evelyn Howard, who turns out to be his kissing cousin, not his enemy. The guilty pair poisoned Emily by adding a precipitating agent, bromide (obtained from Mrs Inglethorp's sleeping powder), to her regular evening medicine, causing its normally innocuous strychnine constituents to sink to the bottom of the bottle where they were finally consumed in a single, lethal dose. Their plan had been for Alfred Inglethorp to incriminate himself with false evidence, which could then be refuted at his trial. Once acquitted, due to double jeopardy, he could not be tried for the crime a second time should any genuine evidence against him be subsequently discovered, hence prompting Poirot to keep him out of prison when he realized that Alfred wanted to be arrested.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is set in England during World War I at Styles Court, an Essex country manor (also the setting of Curtain, Poirot's last case). Upon her husband's death, the wealthy widow, Emily Cavendish, inherited a life estate in Styles as well as the outright inheritance of the larger part of the late Mr. Cavendish's income. Mrs. Cavendish became Mrs. Inglethorp upon her recent remarriage to a much younger man, Alfred Inglethorp. Emily's two stepsons, John and Lawrence Cavendish, as well as John's wife Mary and several other people, also live at Styles. John Cavendish is the vested remainderman of Styles; that is, the property will pass to him automatically upon his stepmother's decease, as per his late father's will. The income left to Mrs Inglethorp by her late husband would be distributed as per Mrs. Inglethorp's own will. Late one night, the residents of Styles wake to find Emily Inglethorp dying of what proves to be strychnine poisoning. Lieutenant Hastings, a houseguest, enlists the help of his friend Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the nearby village, Styles St. Mary. Poirot pieces together events surrounding the murder. On the day she was killed, Emily Inglethorp was overheard arguing with someone, most likely her husband, Alfred, or her stepson, John. Afterwards, she seemed quite distressed and, apparently, made a new will \u2014 which no one can find. She ate little at dinner and retired early to her room with her document case. The case was later forced open by someone and a document removed. Alfred Inglethorp left Styles earlier in the evening and stayed overnight in the nearby village, so was not present when the poisoning occurred. Nobody can explain how or when the strychnine was administered to Mrs. Inglethorp."
      },
      {
        "text": ". Afterwards, she seemed quite distressed and, apparently, made a new will \u2014 which no one can find. She ate little at dinner and retired early to her room with her document case. The case was later forced open by someone and a document removed. Alfred Inglethorp left Styles earlier in the evening and stayed overnight in the nearby village, so was not present when the poisoning occurred. Nobody can explain how or when the strychnine was administered to Mrs. Inglethorp. At first, Alfred is the prime suspect. He has the most to gain financially from his wife's death, and, since he is so much younger than Emily was, the Cavendishes already suspect him as a fortune hunter. Evelyn Howard, Emily's companion, seems to hate him most of all. His behaviour, too, is suspicious; he openly purchased strychnine in the village before Emily was poisoned, and although he denies it, he refuses to provide an alibi. The police are keen to arrest him, but Poirot intervenes by proving he could not have purchased the poison. Scotland Yard police later arrest Emily Inglethorp\u2019s oldest stepson, John Cavendish. He inherits under the terms of her will, and there is evidence to suggest he also had obtained poison. Poirot clears Cavendish by proving it was, after all, Alfred Inglethorp who committed the crime, assisted by Evelyn Howard, who turns out to be his kissing cousin, not his enemy. The guilty pair poisoned Emily by adding a precipitating agent, bromide (obtained from Mrs Inglethorp's sleeping powder), to her regular evening medicine, causing its normally innocuous strychnine constituents to sink to the bottom of the bottle where they were finally consumed in a single, lethal dose. Their plan had been for Alfred Inglethorp to incriminate himself with false evidence, which could then be refuted at his trial. Once"
      },
      {
        "text": " be his kissing cousin, not his enemy. The guilty pair poisoned Emily by adding a precipitating agent, bromide (obtained from Mrs Inglethorp's sleeping powder), to her regular evening medicine, causing its normally innocuous strychnine constituents to sink to the bottom of the bottle where they were finally consumed in a single, lethal dose. Their plan had been for Alfred Inglethorp to incriminate himself with false evidence, which could then be refuted at his trial. Once acquitted, due to double jeopardy, he could not be tried for the crime a second time should any genuine evidence against him be subsequently discovered, hence prompting Poirot to keep him out of prison when he realized that Alfred wanted to be arrested.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sweep",
    "author": "Cate Tiernan",
    "published_date": "2001-01-29",
    "synopsis": " Morgan Rowlands is a high school student living in the picturesque town of Widow's Vale. Overall, Morgan is an ordinary girl who lives an ordinary lifestyle. However, her life becomes unsettled upon meeting Cal Blaire. With his angelic face, gold-colored eyes, perfect body, and olive skin, Cal quickly becomes the center of every girl\u2019s admiration, this including Morgan and her best friend, Bree Warren. After gaining enough popularity with his air of charisma and good looks, Cal manages to gather over several dozens of students from his new school to a \u201chomecoming party\u201d. During the party, Cal reveals his Wiccan origins by inviting his peers to join him in a circle to celebrate Mabon, one of the Wiccan Sabbaths. When feelings of discomfort and surprise cause many of the guests to leave, both Bree and Morgan decide to stay for the circle. From that moment forward, Morgan begins showing a knack for Witchcraft, which sparks Cal's interest. However, as the chemistry between Cal and Morgan becomes more and more apparent, a rift between Bree and Morgan\u2019s friendship emerges. Later, as the Samhain gathering comes to a close, Cal and his friends form a coven called Cirrus. During this circle, Morgan discovers that she is a blood witch; a person who is naturally born with magical powers. Upon learning that she is a blood witch, Morgan concludes that her parents are blood witches and confronts them. However, after her parents deny being witches, this leads Morgan to find out that she was adopted. She runs out of the house in a fierce rage finding comfort with Cal. From then on, Cal and Morgan's relationship develops. Cal tells Morgan they were meant to be together. He says he loves her, the rift between Morgan and Bree grows, and Morgan goes on a quest to find her origins. Due to Cal and Morgan's relationship, Bree and Raven, a member of Cirrus, announce their leaving of the coven to a different coven which is headed by Sky Eventide. Morgan, in the end, meets Sky along with Hunter Niall. At Cal's house. Morgan immediately feels extremely wary around Hunter and Sky upon meeting them. While trying to get away from them, Morgan accidentally stumbles upon Selene's hidden library, where she finds her mother's Book of Shadows. Flustered from seeing Sky and Hunter in Cal's home, Morgan, wanting to get away from them, leaves the room and discovers a door hidden in the hallway. When entering the room, Morgan realizes that it is Selene's study. While glimpsing the thousands of books that mark the walls, Morgan becomes taken over by a sensation. Unconsciously, she pulls out a book with no title. Flipping through the pages she realizes that what she held was her mother's Book of Shadows. Amidst her overwhelming emotions, Cal and his mother, Selene Belltower, enter, perplexed about how she was able to enter the secret room. At first feeling guilty, but seeing the Book of Shadows is rightfully hers, Morgan confidently opposes Selene, and without any conflict Selene gives the book to Morgan. Morgan returns home. From this point on Cal's respect and feelings begin to grow for Morgan. Tensions rise and things start to become unclear as little bits and pieces of information arise. Morgan discovers that she is Woodbane, Hunter is Cal's brother and he is Seeker for the International Council of Witches investigating Selene and Cal. Morgan finds her birth mother's tools beneath their old house in Meshomah Falls, by scrying in the fire she sees her birth mother Maeve Riordan pointing under the house, so she drives there with her best friend Robbie to retrieve it. Further tensions erupt on Morgan's birthday during her time with Cal when Hunter arrives. Cal and Hunter break into an argument which ends up becoming a chase. Hunter announces his reason for being there which is to fulfill his duty as Seeker. Cal runs into the woods with Hunter following behind and Morgan following. Hunter and Cal then fight, resulting to the event of Hunter placing a braigh - a spelled chain meant to hurt witches - on Cal so that he is helpless. Cal begs Morgan to save him, so Morgan throws the athame that Cal gave her for her birthday at Hunter, sending him over the edge of the cliff and into the river. Morgan is unsure of what to do and who to trust in Dark Magick. The secret of Hunter may bring Cal and herself together, but it is making it harder to trust anyone. But when Morgan finds out Hunter's alive, strange things start happening. At the end of the book Morgan chooses not to join Cal's mother's coven and is then dragged down to his house and is locked in his dark magical room and is stuck there. Cal's mother is after Morgan's tools, but since Morgan bound the tools to herself, Morgan is the only witch who can use them. Cal then by \"solving\" the problem sets the place Morgan is inside on fire. Morgan is trapped and willed to face the same death of her mother. Or until Morgan's friends Robbie and Bree crash through the door saving Morgan. In Dark Magick Morgan was betrayed by the first boy she ever loved (Cal). Now Morgan must attempt to get on with her life. Morgan begins to study with Hunter, and slowly begins to realize her feelings for him. But dark magick seems to be surrounding them and someone close is to blame. Hunter and Morgan slowly start to get closer throughout the book. Hunter suspects that the dark magick is being used by David Redstone, owner of Practical Magick, and Morgan's friend. Morgan does everything she can to try and prove it was not him, but in the end, Hunter is right. The day before David gets stripped of his powers, Morgan and Hunter share a passionate kiss, and after Hunter strips David of his powers, he gives Morgan the stone Morganite, and it shows that Morgan is the thing/person that Hunter desires most in his heart. Kithic and Cirrus merge and Morgan becomes aware of her feelings for Hunter. Throughout the book Morgan and Hunter's relationship develop with an occasional mishap. The two later find out that the severed brake lines and the sawed posts were the workings of Cal when he admits it upon their meeting at the old Methodist cemetery. Hunter and Cal at the cemetery prepare to fight when Morgan binds them with a spell. Keeping the binding spell on the two of them, she forces Hunter into her car and drives to Hunter's house where she releases him. If things couldn't get worse, Mary K., Morgan's sister is kidnapped by Selene. Morgan and Hunter go to Selene's and Cal's old house to battle it out with her. Just as Selene's magic was about to hit Morgan, Cal appears and steps in front of the dark magick, sacrificing himself for Morgan and ultimately proving to her that he had indeed renounced his mother's beliefs and that he really did love her. Selene falls to the ground, grieving over her son's dead body. While her guard is down, Hunter attempts to put the braigh around her wrists, but she is automatically enveloped by the darkness within her, causing the braigh to corrode. Just when all seems lost, the darkness exits her body, and the physical strain kills Selene. They leave the house, along with Mary K., who doesn't seem to recall any of the events that just occurred. Sky and another person, seemingly a member of the International Council of Witches, then arrive at the house and take Cal and Selene's body away. Morgan is undecided as to her feelings for Hunter. Morgan has a dream about a ritual sacrifice. The Witches Council thinks that it is a vision of the future. They suspect that it is a vision of an illegal sacrifice by a Woodbane coven, Amyranth, to obtain power. It is suspected that the sacrifice may in fact be a child of one of Amyranth's members. The council sends Hunter to New York, the place where the coven is suspected to operate, to investigate. Morgan goes with Hunter; however, she also wishes to discover more about her birth parents, something which can only be done in New York. At the invitation of Bree, they stay at the apartment of Bree's father. Robbie, Sky and Raven come along for the ride. At a New York disco they meet Killian who turns out to be Ciaran's son. It is then believed that Killian is the target of the Amyranth sacrifice. Ciaran meets Morgan in a shop about witchcraft, and he decides to sacrifice her. He sets a trap for her to steal her powers, but when he finds out Morgan is his daughter he helps Hunter to stop the ritual before it is too late. During the time that the ritual is taking place, Morgan realizes that Hunter is her \"m\u00f9irn beatha d\u00e0n\"(soul mate). In the end of the book, Morgan breaks up with Hunter because she finds out that she is Ciaran's daughter, one of the most evil witches of the age, and also her mother's \"m\u00f9irn beatha d\u00e0n\", but he killed her, so Morgan believes that she's like poison, and being around Hunter is going to get him killed because both parents are Woodbane, the evil clan of the Seven Great Clans. Although her mother has renounced evil, her father is \"the Wiccan version of Hitler.\" Morgan has broken up with Hunter and has found out that Ciaran is her true birth father, making Killian her half-brother. The council of witches sends Eoife, an elderly witch, to Morgan to ask her for her assistance for the rescue of the Starlocket coven, which the International Council of Witches thinks the mysterious dark wave will strike next. Morgan has to get close to Killian to get closer to Ciaran so she called Killian to Widow's Vale and asked him to contact Ciaran. She feels apprehensive and hesitant about facing Ciaran, but at the same time, has a strange urge to hug him since she has finally found her true father. She refuses to hug the same man that killed her mother Maeve Riordan and Angus, her lover, however. Near the end of the book, she shape shifts into a wolf, with Ciaran, and learns his true name, which can control him. Morgan is faced with a choice between the people she loves and the powerful and seemingly dark magick her father can teach her. Morgan gets back together with Hunter, and during a family dinner with Hunter, Mary K finally finds out the truth about what Selene had done to her, and how Selene and Cal died. To make things worse, strange occurrences begin to happen in Morgan's presence. Books begin flying and light bulbs explode, and no one seems to know the cause - thus attributing the blame to Morgan. Morgan's school grades begin to slip and she finds herself having difficulty finding a balance between her school work and a life of Wicca. She is grounded because of it, meaning she cannot go to a circle. At the end, Hunter leaves. The tenth book in the Sweep series is not from Morgan's point of view. Instead the book is in Hunter's point of view. Hunter was in a search for his parents who have been missing since Hunter was a child. Hunter receives information about the whereabouts of his parents, which inevitably lead him to Canada. There he finds his father, Daniel Naill, and discovers that his mother died just before Yule, when he was training Morgan. Hunter soon discovers that his father is talking to his mother (who is dead) using a Bith Dearc which is the use of what is considered to be a form of dark magick, against the wishes of Hunter's mother. Hunter must attempt to stop his father from doing this, while investigating a witch by the name of Justine Courceau, a witch collecting the true names of other witches, on the order of the International Council of Witches. He ends up kissing her, and then is faced with the fact that he has to tell Morgan about it. Hunter brings his father back to Widows Vale Hunter and Morgan read the memoir of Rose MacEwan's which Hunter acquired while in Canada. Rose MacEwan is a Woodbane ancestor of Morgan and is the first person to have created a Dark Wave (a powerful piece of dark magick which can destroy entire covens). The story is written from Rose's point of view and follows her story as she falls in love, has her heart broken, and turns to dark magic as a means of revenge eventually creating the first Dark Wave, not actually realizing what she was doing at the time! This book switches perspectives between Morgan and Alisa Soto, who discovers that she is a half-witch with significant power. Morgan, Hunter, Daniel Niall and Alisa join forces to combat a Dark Wave which is heading for them and will destroy themselves and their friends and families. Daniel discovers a way to counteract the dark wave, however any full witch would die in the process. Alisa soon discovers that her half-witch abilities may be the key to defeating the Dark Wave and saving everyone who she knows. This book is entirely from Alisa Soto's perspective with the difficulties of finding out she is a blood witch and her weird powers and the added stress from her father and his pregnant girlfriend, Alisa's powers flood Hunter's house. After another heated confrontation with her father, Alisa runs away to Gloucester to meet her Uncle Sam. There she meets her mother's family and re-discovers with her roots with the help of family friend Charlie. She finds out the family have been plagued by mysterious mishaps that had been attributed to a curse her great-great-great-great grandmother placed on the family (having lost her mind.) This book is written from both Hunter and Morgan's points of view and begins tying up loose ends of the past 13 novels. Morgan begins sleep-walking in life-threatening situations and begins having visions of Cal, who is dead, trying to kill her. Meanwhile Hunter is faced with a decision of whether or not he wants to work for International Witches Council anymore. The two soon find themselves battling an enemy they thought was dead. The story ends with Morgan boarding a plane to Scotland to join a Wiccan school. Hunter gives her a silver Claddagh ring, as a symbol of his love and devotion to her. Unlike the previous installments of Sweep, this book is not written in first person. Morgan is now thirty-seven years old. Morgan's husband, Colm Byrne, whom she married in April of the same year that Hunter Niall died in a storm at sea, was killed in a car crash whilst on a business trip to London. Morgan has otherwise lived in peace working as a healer for the New Charter, and preparing to become the High Priestess of the reformed coven of Belwicket. Upon the actions of another coven, Ealltuinn, Morgan begins to realize that there are dark forces once again being built against her. As Morgan discovers that Hunter is still alive, she sets out to find him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Morgan Rowlands is a high school student living in the picturesque town of Widow's Vale. Overall, Morgan is an ordinary girl who lives an ordinary lifestyle. However, her life becomes unsettled upon meeting Cal Blaire. With his angelic face, gold-colored eyes, perfect body, and olive skin, Cal quickly becomes the center of every girl\u2019s admiration, this including Morgan and her best friend, Bree Warren. After gaining enough popularity with his air of charisma and good looks, Cal manages to gather over several dozens of students from his new school to a \u201chomecoming party\u201d. During the party, Cal reveals his Wiccan origins by inviting his peers to join him in a circle to celebrate Mabon, one of the Wiccan Sabbaths. When feelings of discomfort and surprise cause many of the guests to leave, both Bree and Morgan decide to stay for the circle. From that moment forward, Morgan begins showing a knack for Witchcraft, which sparks Cal's interest. However, as the chemistry between Cal and Morgan becomes more and more apparent, a rift between Bree and Morgan\u2019s friendship emerges. Later, as the Samhain gathering comes to a close, Cal and his friends form a coven called Cirrus. During this circle, Morgan discovers that she is a blood witch; a person who is naturally born with magical powers. Upon learning that she is a blood witch, Morgan concludes that her parents are blood witches and confronts them. However, after her parents deny being witches, this leads Morgan to find out that she was adopted. She runs out of the house in a fierce rage finding comfort with Cal. From then on, Cal and Morgan's relationship develops. Cal tells Morgan they were meant to be together. He says he loves her, the rift between Morgan and Bree grows, and Morgan goes on a quest to find her origins. Due to Cal and Morgan's relationship, Bree and Raven, a member of Cirrus, announce"
      },
      {
        "text": " However, after her parents deny being witches, this leads Morgan to find out that she was adopted. She runs out of the house in a fierce rage finding comfort with Cal. From then on, Cal and Morgan's relationship develops. Cal tells Morgan they were meant to be together. He says he loves her, the rift between Morgan and Bree grows, and Morgan goes on a quest to find her origins. Due to Cal and Morgan's relationship, Bree and Raven, a member of Cirrus, announce their leaving of the coven to a different coven which is headed by Sky Eventide. Morgan, in the end, meets Sky along with Hunter Niall. At Cal's house. Morgan immediately feels extremely wary around Hunter and Sky upon meeting them. While trying to get away from them, Morgan accidentally stumbles upon Selene's hidden library, where she finds her mother's Book of Shadows. Flustered from seeing Sky and Hunter in Cal's home, Morgan, wanting to get away from them, leaves the room and discovers a door hidden in the hallway. When entering the room, Morgan realizes that it is Selene's study. While glimpsing the thousands of books that mark the walls, Morgan becomes taken over by a sensation. Unconsciously, she pulls out a book with no title. Flipping through the pages she realizes that what she held was her mother's Book of Shadows. Amidst her overwhelming emotions, Cal and his mother, Selene Belltower, enter, perplexed about how she was able to enter the secret room. At first feeling guilty, but seeing the Book of Shadows is rightfully hers, Morgan confidently opposes Selene, and without any conflict Selene gives the book to Morgan. Morgan returns home. From this point on Cal's respect and feelings begin to grow for Morgan. Tensions rise and things start to become unclear as little bits and pieces of information arise. Morgan discovers that she is Woodbane, Hunter is Cal's brother and he is Seeker"
      },
      {
        "text": "ed about how she was able to enter the secret room. At first feeling guilty, but seeing the Book of Shadows is rightfully hers, Morgan confidently opposes Selene, and without any conflict Selene gives the book to Morgan. Morgan returns home. From this point on Cal's respect and feelings begin to grow for Morgan. Tensions rise and things start to become unclear as little bits and pieces of information arise. Morgan discovers that she is Woodbane, Hunter is Cal's brother and he is Seeker for the International Council of Witches investigating Selene and Cal. Morgan finds her birth mother's tools beneath their old house in Meshomah Falls, by scrying in the fire she sees her birth mother Maeve Riordan pointing under the house, so she drives there with her best friend Robbie to retrieve it. Further tensions erupt on Morgan's birthday during her time with Cal when Hunter arrives. Cal and Hunter break into an argument which ends up becoming a chase. Hunter announces his reason for being there which is to fulfill his duty as Seeker. Cal runs into the woods with Hunter following behind and Morgan following. Hunter and Cal then fight, resulting to the event of Hunter placing a braigh - a spelled chain meant to hurt witches - on Cal so that he is helpless. Cal begs Morgan to save him, so Morgan throws the athame that Cal gave her for her birthday at Hunter, sending him over the edge of the cliff and into the river. Morgan is unsure of what to do and who to trust in Dark Magick. The secret of Hunter may bring Cal and herself together, but it is making it harder to trust anyone. But when Morgan finds out Hunter's alive, strange things start happening. At the end of the book Morgan chooses not to join Cal's mother's coven and is then dragged down to his house and is locked in his dark magical room and is stuck there. Cal's mother is after Morgan's tools, but since Morgan bound the tools to herself, Morgan is"
      },
      {
        "text": " to trust in Dark Magick. The secret of Hunter may bring Cal and herself together, but it is making it harder to trust anyone. But when Morgan finds out Hunter's alive, strange things start happening. At the end of the book Morgan chooses not to join Cal's mother's coven and is then dragged down to his house and is locked in his dark magical room and is stuck there. Cal's mother is after Morgan's tools, but since Morgan bound the tools to herself, Morgan is the only witch who can use them. Cal then by \"solving\" the problem sets the place Morgan is inside on fire. Morgan is trapped and willed to face the same death of her mother. Or until Morgan's friends Robbie and Bree crash through the door saving Morgan. In Dark Magick Morgan was betrayed by the first boy she ever loved (Cal). Now Morgan must attempt to get on with her life. Morgan begins to study with Hunter, and slowly begins to realize her feelings for him. But dark magick seems to be surrounding them and someone close is to blame. Hunter and Morgan slowly start to get closer throughout the book. Hunter suspects that the dark magick is being used by David Redstone, owner of Practical Magick, and Morgan's friend. Morgan does everything she can to try and prove it was not him, but in the end, Hunter is right. The day before David gets stripped of his powers, Morgan and Hunter share a passionate kiss, and after Hunter strips David of his powers, he gives Morgan the stone Morganite, and it shows that Morgan is the thing/person that Hunter desires most in his heart. Kithic and Cirrus merge and Morgan becomes aware of her feelings for Hunter. Throughout the book Morgan and Hunter's relationship develop with an occasional mishap. The two later find out that the severed brake lines and the sawed posts were the workings of Cal when he admits it upon their meeting at the old Methodist cemetery. Hunter and Cal"
      },
      {
        "text": " strips David of his powers, he gives Morgan the stone Morganite, and it shows that Morgan is the thing/person that Hunter desires most in his heart. Kithic and Cirrus merge and Morgan becomes aware of her feelings for Hunter. Throughout the book Morgan and Hunter's relationship develop with an occasional mishap. The two later find out that the severed brake lines and the sawed posts were the workings of Cal when he admits it upon their meeting at the old Methodist cemetery. Hunter and Cal at the cemetery prepare to fight when Morgan binds them with a spell. Keeping the binding spell on the two of them, she forces Hunter into her car and drives to Hunter's house where she releases him. If things couldn't get worse, Mary K., Morgan's sister is kidnapped by Selene. Morgan and Hunter go to Selene's and Cal's old house to battle it out with her. Just as Selene's magic was about to hit Morgan, Cal appears and steps in front of the dark magick, sacrificing himself for Morgan and ultimately proving to her that he had indeed renounced his mother's beliefs and that he really did love her. Selene falls to the ground, grieving over her son's dead body. While her guard is down, Hunter attempts to put the braigh around her wrists, but she is automatically enveloped by the darkness within her, causing the braigh to corrode. Just when all seems lost, the darkness exits her body, and the physical strain kills Selene. They leave the house, along with Mary K., who doesn't seem to recall any of the events that just occurred. Sky and another person, seemingly a member of the International Council of Witches, then arrive at the house and take Cal and Selene's body away. Morgan is undecided as to her feelings for Hunter. Morgan has a dream about a ritual sacrifice. The Witches Council thinks that it is a vision of the future. They suspect that it is a vision of an illegal sacrifice"
      },
      {
        "text": " Selene. They leave the house, along with Mary K., who doesn't seem to recall any of the events that just occurred. Sky and another person, seemingly a member of the International Council of Witches, then arrive at the house and take Cal and Selene's body away. Morgan is undecided as to her feelings for Hunter. Morgan has a dream about a ritual sacrifice. The Witches Council thinks that it is a vision of the future. They suspect that it is a vision of an illegal sacrifice by a Woodbane coven, Amyranth, to obtain power. It is suspected that the sacrifice may in fact be a child of one of Amyranth's members. The council sends Hunter to New York, the place where the coven is suspected to operate, to investigate. Morgan goes with Hunter; however, she also wishes to discover more about her birth parents, something which can only be done in New York. At the invitation of Bree, they stay at the apartment of Bree's father. Robbie, Sky and Raven come along for the ride. At a New York disco they meet Killian who turns out to be Ciaran's son. It is then believed that Killian is the target of the Amyranth sacrifice. Ciaran meets Morgan in a shop about witchcraft, and he decides to sacrifice her. He sets a trap for her to steal her powers, but when he finds out Morgan is his daughter he helps Hunter to stop the ritual before it is too late. During the time that the ritual is taking place, Morgan realizes that Hunter is her \"m\u00f9irn beatha d\u00e0n\"(soul mate). In the end of the book, Morgan breaks up with Hunter because she finds out that she is Ciaran's daughter, one of the most evil witches of the age, and also her mother's \"m\u00f9irn beatha d\u00e0n\", but he killed her, so Morgan believes that she's like poison, and"
      },
      {
        "text": ". During the time that the ritual is taking place, Morgan realizes that Hunter is her \"m\u00f9irn beatha d\u00e0n\"(soul mate). In the end of the book, Morgan breaks up with Hunter because she finds out that she is Ciaran's daughter, one of the most evil witches of the age, and also her mother's \"m\u00f9irn beatha d\u00e0n\", but he killed her, so Morgan believes that she's like poison, and being around Hunter is going to get him killed because both parents are Woodbane, the evil clan of the Seven Great Clans. Although her mother has renounced evil, her father is \"the Wiccan version of Hitler.\" Morgan has broken up with Hunter and has found out that Ciaran is her true birth father, making Killian her half-brother. The council of witches sends Eoife, an elderly witch, to Morgan to ask her for her assistance for the rescue of the Starlocket coven, which the International Council of Witches thinks the mysterious dark wave will strike next. Morgan has to get close to Killian to get closer to Ciaran so she called Killian to Widow's Vale and asked him to contact Ciaran. She feels apprehensive and hesitant about facing Ciaran, but at the same time, has a strange urge to hug him since she has finally found her true father. She refuses to hug the same man that killed her mother Maeve Riordan and Angus, her lover, however. Near the end of the book, she shape shifts into a wolf, with Ciaran, and learns his true name, which can control him. Morgan is faced with a choice between the people she loves and the powerful and seemingly dark magick her father can teach her. Morgan gets back together with Hunter, and during a family dinner with Hunter, Mary K finally finds out the truth about what Selene had done to her, and how Sel"
      },
      {
        "text": "ve Riordan and Angus, her lover, however. Near the end of the book, she shape shifts into a wolf, with Ciaran, and learns his true name, which can control him. Morgan is faced with a choice between the people she loves and the powerful and seemingly dark magick her father can teach her. Morgan gets back together with Hunter, and during a family dinner with Hunter, Mary K finally finds out the truth about what Selene had done to her, and how Selene and Cal died. To make things worse, strange occurrences begin to happen in Morgan's presence. Books begin flying and light bulbs explode, and no one seems to know the cause - thus attributing the blame to Morgan. Morgan's school grades begin to slip and she finds herself having difficulty finding a balance between her school work and a life of Wicca. She is grounded because of it, meaning she cannot go to a circle. At the end, Hunter leaves. The tenth book in the Sweep series is not from Morgan's point of view. Instead the book is in Hunter's point of view. Hunter was in a search for his parents who have been missing since Hunter was a child. Hunter receives information about the whereabouts of his parents, which inevitably lead him to Canada. There he finds his father, Daniel Naill, and discovers that his mother died just before Yule, when he was training Morgan. Hunter soon discovers that his father is talking to his mother (who is dead) using a Bith Dearc which is the use of what is considered to be a form of dark magick, against the wishes of Hunter's mother. Hunter must attempt to stop his father from doing this, while investigating a witch by the name of Justine Courceau, a witch collecting the true names of other witches, on the order of the International Council of Witches. He ends up kissing her, and then is faced with the fact that he has to tell Morgan about it. Hunter brings"
      },
      {
        "text": " using a Bith Dearc which is the use of what is considered to be a form of dark magick, against the wishes of Hunter's mother. Hunter must attempt to stop his father from doing this, while investigating a witch by the name of Justine Courceau, a witch collecting the true names of other witches, on the order of the International Council of Witches. He ends up kissing her, and then is faced with the fact that he has to tell Morgan about it. Hunter brings his father back to Widows Vale Hunter and Morgan read the memoir of Rose MacEwan's which Hunter acquired while in Canada. Rose MacEwan is a Woodbane ancestor of Morgan and is the first person to have created a Dark Wave (a powerful piece of dark magick which can destroy entire covens). The story is written from Rose's point of view and follows her story as she falls in love, has her heart broken, and turns to dark magic as a means of revenge eventually creating the first Dark Wave, not actually realizing what she was doing at the time! This book switches perspectives between Morgan and Alisa Soto, who discovers that she is a half-witch with significant power. Morgan, Hunter, Daniel Niall and Alisa join forces to combat a Dark Wave which is heading for them and will destroy themselves and their friends and families. Daniel discovers a way to counteract the dark wave, however any full witch would die in the process. Alisa soon discovers that her half-witch abilities may be the key to defeating the Dark Wave and saving everyone who she knows. This book is entirely from Alisa Soto's perspective with the difficulties of finding out she is a blood witch and her weird powers and the added stress from her father and his pregnant girlfriend, Alisa's powers flood Hunter's house. After another heated confrontation with her father, Alisa runs away to Gloucester to meet her Uncle Sam. There she meets her mother's family and re-disco"
      },
      {
        "text": " half-witch abilities may be the key to defeating the Dark Wave and saving everyone who she knows. This book is entirely from Alisa Soto's perspective with the difficulties of finding out she is a blood witch and her weird powers and the added stress from her father and his pregnant girlfriend, Alisa's powers flood Hunter's house. After another heated confrontation with her father, Alisa runs away to Gloucester to meet her Uncle Sam. There she meets her mother's family and re-discovers with her roots with the help of family friend Charlie. She finds out the family have been plagued by mysterious mishaps that had been attributed to a curse her great-great-great-great grandmother placed on the family (having lost her mind.) This book is written from both Hunter and Morgan's points of view and begins tying up loose ends of the past 13 novels. Morgan begins sleep-walking in life-threatening situations and begins having visions of Cal, who is dead, trying to kill her. Meanwhile Hunter is faced with a decision of whether or not he wants to work for International Witches Council anymore. The two soon find themselves battling an enemy they thought was dead. The story ends with Morgan boarding a plane to Scotland to join a Wiccan school. Hunter gives her a silver Claddagh ring, as a symbol of his love and devotion to her. Unlike the previous installments of Sweep, this book is not written in first person. Morgan is now thirty-seven years old. Morgan's husband, Colm Byrne, whom she married in April of the same year that Hunter Niall died in a storm at sea, was killed in a car crash whilst on a business trip to London. Morgan has otherwise lived in peace working as a healer for the New Charter, and preparing to become the High Priestess of the reformed coven of Belwicket. Upon the actions of another coven, Ealltuinn, Morgan begins to realize that there are dark forces once again being built"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s husband, Colm Byrne, whom she married in April of the same year that Hunter Niall died in a storm at sea, was killed in a car crash whilst on a business trip to London. Morgan has otherwise lived in peace working as a healer for the New Charter, and preparing to become the High Priestess of the reformed coven of Belwicket. Upon the actions of another coven, Ealltuinn, Morgan begins to realize that there are dark forces once again being built against her. As Morgan discovers that Hunter is still alive, she sets out to find him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili",
    "author": "Francesco Colonna",
    "published_date": "1499",
    "synopsis": " The book begins with Poliphilo, who has spent a restless night because his beloved, Polia (literally \"Many Things\"), shunned him. Poliphilo is transported into a wild forest, where he gets lost, encounters dragons, wolves and maidens and a large variety of architecture, escapes, and falls asleep once more. He then awakens in a second dream, dreamed within the first. In the dream, he is taken by some nymphs to meet their queen, and there he is asked to declare his love for Polia, which he does. He is then directed by two nymphs to three gates. He chooses the third, and there he discovers his beloved. They are taken by some more nymphs to a temple to be engaged. Along the way they come across five triumphal processions celebrating the union of the lovers. Then they are taken to the island of Cythera by barge, with Cupid as the boatswain; there they see another triumphal procession celebrating their union. The narrative is interrupted, and a second voice takes over, as Polia describes his erotomachia from her own point of view. Poliphilo resumes his narrative after one-fifth of the book. Polia rejects Poliphilo, but Cupid appears to her in a vision and compels her to return and kiss Poliphilo, who has fallen into a deathlike swoon at her feet, back to life. Venus blesses their love, and the lovers are united at last. As Poliphilo is about to take Polia into his arms, Polia vanishes into thin air and Poliphilo wakes up. * Poliphilus * Polia\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book begins with Poliphilo, who has spent a restless night because his beloved, Polia (literally \"Many Things\"), shunned him. Poliphilo is transported into a wild forest, where he gets lost, encounters dragons, wolves and maidens and a large variety of architecture, escapes, and falls asleep once more. He then awakens in a second dream, dreamed within the first. In the dream, he is taken by some nymphs to meet their queen, and there he is asked to declare his love for Polia, which he does. He is then directed by two nymphs to three gates. He chooses the third, and there he discovers his beloved. They are taken by some more nymphs to a temple to be engaged. Along the way they come across five triumphal processions celebrating the union of the lovers. Then they are taken to the island of Cythera by barge, with Cupid as the boatswain; there they see another triumphal procession celebrating their union. The narrative is interrupted, and a second voice takes over, as Polia describes his erotomachia from her own point of view. Poliphilo resumes his narrative after one-fifth of the book. Polia rejects Poliphilo, but Cupid appears to her in a vision and compels her to return and kiss Poliphilo, who has fallen into a deathlike swoon at her feet, back to life. Venus blesses their love, and the lovers are united at last. As Poliphilo is about to take Polia into his arms, Polia vanishes into thin air and Poliphilo wakes up. * Poliphilus * Polia\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " love, and the lovers are united at last. As Poliphilo is about to take Polia into his arms, Polia vanishes into thin air and Poliphilo wakes up. * Poliphilus * Polia\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Invincible",
    "author": "Stanis\u0142aw Lem",
    "published_date": "1964",
    "synopsis": " A very powerful and armed interstellar space ship called Invincible lands on the planet Regis III which seems uninhabited and bleak, to investigate the loss of its sister ship, Condor. During the investigation, the crew finds evidence of a form of quasi-life, born through evolution of autonomous, self-replicating machines, apparently left behind by an alien civilization that visited the planet a very long time ago. The evolution was controlled by \"robot wars\", and the only form that survived were swarms of minuscule, insect-like micromachines. Individually, or in small groups, they are quite harmless to humans and capable of only very simple behavior. However, when bothered, they can assemble into huge swarms displaying complex behavior arising from self-organization, and are able to defeat an intruder by a powerful surge of EMI. The members of the Condor's crew suffered a complete memory erasure as a consequence. Big clouds of \"insects\" are also able to travel at a high speed and even to climb to the top of troposphere. The angered crew attempts to fight the perceived enemy, but eventually recognizes the futility of their efforts in the most direct sense of the word. The robotic \"fauna\" has become part of the planet's ecology, and would require a disruption on planetary scale (such as a nuclear winter) to be destroyed. The novel turns into an analysis of the relationship between different life domains, and their place in the universe. In particular, it is an imaginary experiment to demonstrate that evolution may not necessarily lead to dominance by intellectually superior life forms. The plot also involves a philosophical dilemma, juxtaposing the values of humanity and the efficiency of mechanical insects. In the face of defeat and imminent withdrawal of the Invincible, Rohan, the spaceship's navigator, undertakes a trip into the 'enemy area' in search of 4 crew members who went missing in action \u2014 an attempt which he and captain Horpach see as certainly futile, but necessary for moral reasons. Rohan betakes himself into canyons covered by metallic \"shrubs\" and \"insects\" and finds the crewmen dead. He gathers some evidence and returns to the ship unharmed thanks to a simple anti-detection device and his calm and peaceful behaviour.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A very powerful and armed interstellar space ship called Invincible lands on the planet Regis III which seems uninhabited and bleak, to investigate the loss of its sister ship, Condor. During the investigation, the crew finds evidence of a form of quasi-life, born through evolution of autonomous, self-replicating machines, apparently left behind by an alien civilization that visited the planet a very long time ago. The evolution was controlled by \"robot wars\", and the only form that survived were swarms of minuscule, insect-like micromachines. Individually, or in small groups, they are quite harmless to humans and capable of only very simple behavior. However, when bothered, they can assemble into huge swarms displaying complex behavior arising from self-organization, and are able to defeat an intruder by a powerful surge of EMI. The members of the Condor's crew suffered a complete memory erasure as a consequence. Big clouds of \"insects\" are also able to travel at a high speed and even to climb to the top of troposphere. The angered crew attempts to fight the perceived enemy, but eventually recognizes the futility of their efforts in the most direct sense of the word. The robotic \"fauna\" has become part of the planet's ecology, and would require a disruption on planetary scale (such as a nuclear winter) to be destroyed. The novel turns into an analysis of the relationship between different life domains, and their place in the universe. In particular, it is an imaginary experiment to demonstrate that evolution may not necessarily lead to dominance by intellectually superior life forms. The plot also involves a philosophical dilemma, juxtaposing the values of humanity and the efficiency of mechanical insects. In the face of defeat and imminent withdrawal of the Invincible, Rohan, the spaceship's navigator, undertakes a trip into the 'enemy area' in search of 4 crew members who went missing in action \u2014 an attempt which he and captain Horp"
      },
      {
        "text": " the universe. In particular, it is an imaginary experiment to demonstrate that evolution may not necessarily lead to dominance by intellectually superior life forms. The plot also involves a philosophical dilemma, juxtaposing the values of humanity and the efficiency of mechanical insects. In the face of defeat and imminent withdrawal of the Invincible, Rohan, the spaceship's navigator, undertakes a trip into the 'enemy area' in search of 4 crew members who went missing in action \u2014 an attempt which he and captain Horpach see as certainly futile, but necessary for moral reasons. Rohan betakes himself into canyons covered by metallic \"shrubs\" and \"insects\" and finds the crewmen dead. He gathers some evidence and returns to the ship unharmed thanks to a simple anti-detection device and his calm and peaceful behaviour.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Mrs Dalloway",
    "author": "Virginia Woolf",
    "published_date": "1925-05-14",
    "synopsis": " Clarissa Dalloway goes around London in the morning, getting ready to host a party that evening. The nice day reminds her of her youth spent in the countryside in Bourton and makes her wonder about her choice of husband; she married the reliable Richard Dalloway instead of the enigmatic and demanding Peter Walsh and she \"had not the option\" to be with Sally Seton. Peter reintroduces these conflicts by paying a visit that morning. Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of World War I suffering from deferred traumatic stress, spends his day in the park with his Italian-born wife Lucrezia, where they are observed by Peter Walsh. Septimus is visited by frequent and indecipherable hallucinations, mostly concerning his dear friend Evans who died in the war. Later that day, after he is prescribed involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital, he commits suicide by jumping out of a window. Clarissa's party in the evening is a slow success. It is attended by most of the characters she has met in the book, including people from her past. She hears about Septimus' suicide at the party and gradually comes to admire the act of this stranger, which she considers an effort to preserve the purity of his happiness.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Clarissa Dalloway goes around London in the morning, getting ready to host a party that evening. The nice day reminds her of her youth spent in the countryside in Bourton and makes her wonder about her choice of husband; she married the reliable Richard Dalloway instead of the enigmatic and demanding Peter Walsh and she \"had not the option\" to be with Sally Seton. Peter reintroduces these conflicts by paying a visit that morning. Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of World War I suffering from deferred traumatic stress, spends his day in the park with his Italian-born wife Lucrezia, where they are observed by Peter Walsh. Septimus is visited by frequent and indecipherable hallucinations, mostly concerning his dear friend Evans who died in the war. Later that day, after he is prescribed involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital, he commits suicide by jumping out of a window. Clarissa's party in the evening is a slow success. It is attended by most of the characters she has met in the book, including people from her past. She hears about Septimus' suicide at the party and gradually comes to admire the act of this stranger, which she considers an effort to preserve the purity of his happiness.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Principles of Economics",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "1871",
    "synopsis": " Menger advanced his theory that the marginal utility of goods, rather than the labor inputs that went into making them, is the source of their value. This marginalist theory solved the diamond-water paradox that had been puzzling classical economists: the fact that mankind finds diamonds to be far more valuable than water although water is far more important. Menger stressed uncertainty in the making of economic decisions, rather than relying on \"homo economicus\" or the rational man who was fully informed of all circumstances impinging on his decisions. This was a deviation from classical and neoclassical economic thought. Menger asserted that such perfect knowledge never exists, and that therefore all economic activity implies risk. The entrepreneurs' role was to collect and evaluate information and to act on those risks. Menger saw that time was the root of uncertainty within economics. As production takes time then producers have no certainty on the supply or demand for their product. Thus the price of the finished product bears no resemblance to the costs of production, since the two represent market conditions at very different points in time. The labour theory of value was the explanation that had been reached by Adam Smith among others, and the Marxist school of economics still relies on this theory. The Labour theory of value was that the value of an object was reliant on the labour that had gone into producing it, including any training or investment that supplemented the labour. According to Neo-Classical economists the Labour theory of value could not explain fluctuating values for different kinds of labour, nor did it explain how found goods could be more valuable than extracted goods. As the price of a commodity is the average cost of production, it includes the fact that a tiny proportion of commodities may be found, although finding goods is hardly typical of modern manufacturing processes. Marginal utility as the source of value meant that the perceived need for an object was seen to be dictating the value, on an individual rather than a general level. The implication was that the individual mind is the source of economic value. Although Menger accepted the marginal utility theory, he made deviations from the work of other neoclassical pioneers. Most importantly he fundamentally rejected the use of mathematical methods insisting that the function of economics was to investigate the essences rather than the specific quantities of economic phenomena.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Menger advanced his theory that the marginal utility of goods, rather than the labor inputs that went into making them, is the source of their value. This marginalist theory solved the diamond-water paradox that had been puzzling classical economists: the fact that mankind finds diamonds to be far more valuable than water although water is far more important. Menger stressed uncertainty in the making of economic decisions, rather than relying on \"homo economicus\" or the rational man who was fully informed of all circumstances impinging on his decisions. This was a deviation from classical and neoclassical economic thought. Menger asserted that such perfect knowledge never exists, and that therefore all economic activity implies risk. The entrepreneurs' role was to collect and evaluate information and to act on those risks. Menger saw that time was the root of uncertainty within economics. As production takes time then producers have no certainty on the supply or demand for their product. Thus the price of the finished product bears no resemblance to the costs of production, since the two represent market conditions at very different points in time. The labour theory of value was the explanation that had been reached by Adam Smith among others, and the Marxist school of economics still relies on this theory. The Labour theory of value was that the value of an object was reliant on the labour that had gone into producing it, including any training or investment that supplemented the labour. According to Neo-Classical economists the Labour theory of value could not explain fluctuating values for different kinds of labour, nor did it explain how found goods could be more valuable than extracted goods. As the price of a commodity is the average cost of production, it includes the fact that a tiny proportion of commodities may be found, although finding goods is hardly typical of modern manufacturing processes. Marginal utility as the source of value meant that the perceived need for an object was seen to be dictating the value, on an individual rather than a general level. The implication was that the individual mind is the source of"
      },
      {
        "text": " labour, nor did it explain how found goods could be more valuable than extracted goods. As the price of a commodity is the average cost of production, it includes the fact that a tiny proportion of commodities may be found, although finding goods is hardly typical of modern manufacturing processes. Marginal utility as the source of value meant that the perceived need for an object was seen to be dictating the value, on an individual rather than a general level. The implication was that the individual mind is the source of economic value. Although Menger accepted the marginal utility theory, he made deviations from the work of other neoclassical pioneers. Most importantly he fundamentally rejected the use of mathematical methods insisting that the function of economics was to investigate the essences rather than the specific quantities of economic phenomena.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945",
    "author": "W\u0142adys\u0142aw Szpilman",
    "published_date": "1999",
    "synopsis": " W\u0142adys\u0142aw Szpilman studied the piano in the early 1930s in Warsaw and Berlin. In Berlin, he was instructed by Leonid Kreutzer and, at the Berlin Academy of Arts, by Artur Schnabel. During his time at the academy he also studied composition with Franz Schreker. In 1933 he returned to Warsaw after Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party rose to power in Germany. Upon his return to Warsaw, Szpilman worked as a pianist for Polish Radio until the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He was forced to stop work at the station when the power station that kept Polish Radio running was destroyed by German bombs. He played Polish Radio\u2019s last ever pre-war live recording (a Chopin recital) the day that the station went off the air. Only days after Warsaw\u2019s surrender, German leaflets appeared, hung up on the wall of buildings. These leaflets, issued by the German commandant, promised Poles the protection and care of the German State. There was even a special section devoted to Jews, guaranteeing them that their rights, their property and their lives would be absolutely secure. At first, these proclamations seemed trustworthy, and opinion was rife that Germany\u2019s invasion may have even been a good thing for Poland; it would restore order to Poland\u2019s present state of chaos. But, soon after the taking of the city, popular feeling began to change. The first clumsily organised race raids, in which Jews were taken from the streets into private cars and tormented and abused, began almost immediately after peace had returned to the city. But the occurrence that first outraged the majority of Poles was the murder of a hundred innocent Polish citizens in December 1939. After this, Polish opinion turned strongly against the occupying army, especially the organisation responsible for the majority of civilian murders, the SS. Soon, decrees applying only to Jews began to be posted around the city. Jews had to hand real estate and valuables over to German officials and Jewish families were only permitted to own two thousand z\u0142oty each. The rest had to be deposited in a bank in a blocked account. Unsurprisingly, very few people handed their property over to the Germans willingly as a result of this decree. Szpilman\u2019s family (he was living with his parents, his brother Henryk and his sisters Regina and Halina) were amongst those who did not. They hid their money in the window frame, an expensive gold watch under their cupboard and the watch\u2019s chain beneath the fingerboard of Szpilman\u2019s father\u2019s violin. By 1940, many of the roads leading into the area set aside for the ghetto were being blocked off with walls. No reason was given for the construction work. Also in January and February 1940, the first decrees appeared ordering Jewish men and women each to do two years of labour in concentration camps. These years would serve to cure Jews of being \u201cparasites on the healthy organism of the Aryan peoples.\u201d But the threats of labour camps didn\u2019t come into effect until May, when Germany took Paris. Now, having expanded the bounds of the Reich by a significant distance, the Nazis had time to spare to persecute the Jews. Deportation, robberies, murders and forced labour were stepped up significantly. To avoid the concentration camps, rich, intellectual Jews like Szpilman\u2019s family and many of his acquaintances could pay to have poorer Jews deported in their place. These payments would be made to the Judenrat, the Jewish organisation that the Germans had put in charge of arranging the deportation. Most of the money went to supporting the high-cost livelihoods of those at the head of the council. But, for the Jews, the worst was yet to come. In The Pianist, Szpilman describes a newspaper article that appeared in October 1940:A little while later the only Warsaw newspaper published in Polish by the Germans provided an official comment on this subject: not only were the Jews social parasites, they also spread infection. They were not, said the report, to be shut up in a ghetto; even the word \u201cghetto\u201d was not to be used. The Germans were too cultured and magnanimous a race, said the newspaper, to confine even parasites like the Jews to ghettos, a medieval remnant unworthy of the new order in Europe. Instead, there was to be a separate Jewish quarter of the city where only Jews lived, where they would enjoy total freedom, and where they could continue to practise their racial customs and culture. Purely for hygienic reasons, this quarter was to be surrounded by a wall so that typhus and other Jewish diseases could not spread to other parts of the city. And so the Warsaw Ghetto was formed. Szpilman\u2019s family was lucky to already be living in the ghetto area when the plans were announced. Other families, living outside the boundaries, had to find new homes within the ghetto\u2019s confines. They had been given just over a month\u2019s warning by the notices and many families were forced to pay exorbitant amounts of money for tiny slums in the bad areas of the ghetto. On 15 November 1940, the gates of the ghetto were closed. However, this didn\u2019t stop the smuggling trade into the \u201cJewish Quarter.\u201d Expensive luxury goods as well as food and drink came into the ghetto, heaped in wagons and carts. Although these convoys were not strictly legal, the two men in charge of the business, Kon and Heller (who were in the service of the Gestapo and through them could run many such ventures), paid the guards at the ghetto gate to turn a blind eye at a prearranged time and allow the carts through. There were other, less organised types of smuggling that occurred regularly in the ghetto. Every afternoon (afternoon was the best time for smuggling as by then the police guarding the wall were tired and uninterested) carts would pass by the ghetto wall, a whistle would be heard and bags of staple food would be thrown into the ghetto. The poor inhabitants of the houses by the wall would scamper out of cover, grab the food and return to their lodgings. Szpilman played piano at an expensive caf\u00e9 which pandered to the ghetto\u2019s upper class, made up largely of smugglers and other war profiteers, and their wives or mistresses. On his way to or from work, Szpilman would sometimes pass by the wall during smuggling hours. In addition to the methods of smuggling mentioned previously, Szpilman observed many child smugglers at work. These smugglers were children who, of their own volition or on the instructions of family members or employers, sneaked out of the ghetto through gutters that ran from the Aryan side of the wall to the Jewish side. Children did the work as they were the only ones small enough to squeeze through without becoming stuck. Once they had gotten to the other side and received their bags of goods they would return to the ghetto through the gutters. In his memoir, Szpilman describes one of these forays:One day when I was walking along beside the wall I saw a childish smuggling operation that seemed to have reached a successful conclusion. The Jewish child still on the far side of the wall only needed to follow his goods back through the opening. His skinny little figure was already partly in view when he suddenly began screaming, and at the same time I heard the hoarse bellowing of a German on the other side of the wall. I ran to the child to help him squeeze through as quickly as possible, but in defiance of our efforts his hips stuck in the drain. I pulled at his little arms with all my might, while his screams becae increasingly desperate, and I could hear the heavy blows struck by the policeman on the other side of the wall. When I finally managed to pull the child through, he died. His spine had been shattered. As time went by, the area of the ghetto was slowly decreased until there was a small ghetto, made up mostly of intelligentsia and middle\u00a0\u2013 upper class, and a large ghetto that held the rest of the Warsaw Jews. Szpilman and his family were fortunate to live in the small ghetto, which was less crowded and dangerous than the other. The large ghetto was reached from the small ghetto by crossing Ch\u0142odna Stree in the Aryan part of the city. Again, the experience of those in the bigger ghetto is best described by Szpilman:Dozens of beggars lay in wait for this brief moment of encounter with a prosperous citizen, mobbing him by pulling at his clothes, barring his way, begging, weeping, shouting, threatening. But it was foolish for anyone to feel sympathy and give a beggar something, for then the shouting would rise to a howl. That signal would bring more and more wretched figures streaming up from all sides, and the good Samaritan would find himself besieged, hemmed in by ragged apparitions spraying him with tubercular saliva, by children covered with oozing sores who were pushed into his path, by gesticulating stumps of arms, blinded eyes, toothless, stinking open mouths, all begging for mercy at this, the last moment of their lives, as if their end could be delayed only by instant support. Whenever he went into the large ghetto, Szpilman would visit a friend, Jehuda Zyskind, who worked as a smuggler, trader, driver or carrier when the need arose. He was also an enthusiastic Socialist. This interest was what eventually led to his and his family\u2019s death: shot on the spot by Military Police officers after being caught sorting out a pile of socialist documents, illegally smuggled into the ghetto. But before his death, in the winter of 1942, Zyskind supplied Szpilman with the latest news from outside the ghetto, received via radio. After hearing this news and completing whatever other business he had in the large ghetto, Szpilman would head back to his house in the small ghetto. On his way, Szpilman would meet up with his brother, Henryk, who made a living by trading books in the street. He would help Henryk to carry the books back to the family house, where they would have lunch. Henryk, like W\u0142adys\u0142aw, was cultured and well educated. Many of his friends advised him, at one time or another, to do as most young men of the intelligentsia and join the Jewish Ghetto Police, an organisation of Jews who worked under the SS, upholding their laws in the ghetto. Henryk, however, refused to work with \u201cbandits\u201d. Soon enough, Henryk\u2019s decision was proved to have been a wise one. In May 1942, the Jewish Police began to carry out the task of \u201chuman-hunting\u201d for the Germans, mistreating Jews almost as viciously as their German employers. Szpilman describes the Jewish Police:You could have said, perhaps, that they caught the Gestapo spirit. As soon as they put on their uniforms and police caps and picked up their rubber truncheons, their natures changed. Now their ultimate ambition was to be in close touch with the Gestapo, to be useful to Gestapo officers, parade down the street with them, show off their knowledge of the German language and vie with their masters in the harshness of their dealings with the Jewish population. During the \u201chuman-hunt\u201d conducted by the Jewish Police, Henryk was picked up and arrested. As soon as he heard the news of his brother\u2019s arrest, Szpilman went to the labour bureau building, determined to secure Henryk\u2019s release. His only hope was that his popularity as a pianist would be enough to secure Henryk\u2019s release and stop himself from being arrested as well, for none of his papers were in order. Still, Szpilman made his way to the building and, amongst a crowd of prisoners being herded into captivity, managed to find the deputy director of the labour bureau. After much effort, Szpilman managed to extract from him a promise that Henryk would be home by that night, which he was. The rest of the men who had been arrested during the sweep were taken to Treblinka, a German extermination camp, to test the new gas chambers and crematorium furnaces. On 22 July 1942, the resettlement plan was first put into action. Buildings, randomly selected from all areas of the Ghetto, were surrounded by German officers leading troops of Jewish Police. The inhabitants were called out, the building was searched and every single person removed from the building, including babies and old men and women, was loaded into wagons and taken to the Umschlagplatz, the assembly area. From there, Jews were loaded into trains and taken away. Notices posted around the city said that all Jews fit to work were going to the East to work in German factories. They would each be allowed 20 kilograms of luggage, jewelry, and provisions for two days. Only Jewish officials from the Judenr\u00e4te or other social institutions were exempt from resettlement. In the hope of being allowed to stay in Warsaw if they were useful to the German community, Jews tried to find work at German firms that were recruiting within the ghetto. If they managed to find work, often by paying their employer to hire them, Jews would be issued with certificates of employment. They would pin notices bearing the name of the place where they were working onto their clothing. After six days searching and deal making, Szpilman managed to procure six work certificates, enough for his entire family. At this time, Henryk, W\u0142adys\u0142aw and their father were given work sorting the stolen possessions of Jewish families at the collection centre near the Umschlagplatz. They and the rest of the family were allowed to move into the barracks for Jewish workers at the centre. But, on 16 August 1942, Szpilman\u2019s luck ran out. On that day there was a selection carried out at the collection centre and only Henryk and Halina were passed as fit to work and allowed to stay. The rest of the family was taken to the Umschlagplatz. Soon after they arrived, Szpilman\u2019s family was reunited. Henryk and Halina, working in the collection centre, had heard about the plight of the rest of the family and volunteered of their own will to go to the Umschlagplatz. Szpilman was horrified and angered by his siblings\u2019 headstrong decision, and only accepted their presence after his appeal to the guards had failed to secure their release. The family sat together in the large open space that was the Umschlagplatz. Szpilman describes their last moments together before the train arrived:At one point a boy made his way through the crowd in our direction with a box of sweets on a string round his neck. He was selling them at ridiculous prices, although heaven knows what he thought he was going to do with the money. Scraping together the last of our small change, we bought a single cream caramel. Father divided it into six parts with his penknife. That was our last meal together. That night, at around six o\u2019clock, the transports were filled, in preparation for leaving the Umschlagplatz. Szpilman describes his last moments with his family:By the time we had made our way to the train the first trucks were already full. People were standing in them pressed close to each other. SS men were still pushing with their rifle butts, although there were loud cries from inside and complaints about the lack of air. And indeed the smell of chlorine made breathing difficult, even some distance from the trucks. What went on in there if the floors had to be so heavily chlorinated? We had gone about halfway down the train when I suddenly heard someone shout, \u2018Here! Here, Szpilman!\u2019 A hand grabbed me by the collar, and I was flung back and out of the police cordon. Who dared do such a thing? I didn\u2019t want to be parted from my family. I wanted to stay with them! My view was now of the closed ranks of the policemen\u2019s backs. I threw myself against them, but they did not give way. Peering past the policemen\u2019s heads I could see Mother and Regina, helped by Halina and Henryk, clambering into the trucks, while Father was looking around for me. \u201cPapa!\u201d I shouted. He saw me and took a couple of steps my way, but then hesitated and stopped. He was pale, and his legs trembled nervously. He tried to smile, helplessly, painfully, raised his hand and waved goodbye, as if I were setting out into life and he was already greeting me from beyond the grave. Then he turned and went towards the trucks. I flung myself at the policemen\u2019s shoulders again with all my might. \u201cPapa! Henryk! Halina!\u201d I shouted like someone possessed, terrified to think that now, at the last vital moment, I might not get to them and we would be parted for ever. One of the policemen turned and looked angrily at me. \u201cWhat the hell do you think you\u2019re doing? Go on, save yourself!\u201d Save myself? From what? In a flash I realized what awaited the people in the cattle trucks. My hair stood on end. I glanced behind me. I saw the open compound, the railway lines and platforms, and beyond them the streets. Driven by compulsive animal fear, I ran for the streets, slipped in among a column of Council workers just leaving the place, and got through the gate that way. Szpilman never saw any members of his family again. The train they were on took them to Treblinka. None of them survived the war. Szpilman got work to keep himself safe. His first job was as part of a column of workers the Germans were using to demolish the walls of the large ghetto, for now that most of the Jews there had been deported, it was being reclaimed by the rest of the city. Whilst doing this new work, Szpilman was permitted to go out into the Gentile side of Warsaw. If they could slip away from the wall, Szpilman and the other workers visited Polish food stalls and purchased such staples as potatoes and bread. These precious purchases could either be eaten by the buyer or taken into the ghetto, where their value skyrocketed. By eating some of their food and selling or trading the rest in the ghetto, the men working on the wall could feed themselves adequately and still raise enough money to repeat the exercise the next day. After his work on the wall Szpilman survived another selection in the ghetto and was sent to work on many different tasks, such as cleaning out the yard of the Jewish council building. Eventually, Szpilman was posted to a steady job as \u201cstoreroom manager.\u201d In this position, Szpilman organised the stores at the SS accommodation, which his group was preparing. At around this time, the Germans in charge of Szpilman\u2019s group decided to allow each man five kilograms of potatoes and a loaf of bread every day, to make them feel more secure under the Germans; fears of deportation had been running at especially high levels since the last selection. To get this food, the men were allowed to choose a representative to go into the city with a cart everyday and buy it for all of them. To do this they chose a young man known to Szpilman as \u201cMajorek\u201d (Little Major). Majorek acted not only to collect food, but as a link between the Jewish resistance in the ghetto and similar organisations outside. Hidden inside his bags of food every day, Majorek would bring weapons and ammunition into the ghetto to be passed on to the resistance by Szpilman and the other workers. But also, Majorek was a link to Szpilman\u2019s Polish friends and acquaintances on the outside. Through Majorek, Szpilman managed to arrange his escape from the ghetto. On February 13, 1943, Szpilman slipped through the ghetto gate and met up with his friend Andrzej Bogucki on the other side. As soon as he saw Szpilman coming, Bogucki turned away and began to walk towards the hiding place they had arranged for him. Szpilman followed, careful not to reveal himself as Jewish (Szpilman had prominent Jewish features) by straying into the light of a street lamp while a German was passing. Szpilman only stayed in his first hiding place for a few days before he moved on. While he was hiding in the city, Szpilman had to move many times from flat to flat. Each time he would be provided with food by friends involved in the Polish resistance who, with one or two exceptions, came irregularly but as often as they were able. These months were long and boring for Szpilman. He passed his time by learning to cook elaborate meals silently and out of virtually nothing, by reading and by teaching himself English. During this entire period Szpilman lived in fear of capture by the Germans. If he were ever discovered and unable to escape, Szpilman planned to commit suicide so that he would be unable to compromise any of his helpers under questioning. During the months that Szpilman spent in hiding, he came extremely close to suicide on several occasions, but never had to carry out his plans. Szpilman continued to live in his various hiding places until August 1944. In August the Warsaw Uprising, the Polish underground's large-scale effort to fight the German occupiers, began, only weeks after the first Soviet shells had fallen on the city. As a result of this Soviet attack the German authorities had begun tentatively to evacuate the civilian population of the city, but there was still a strong military presence within Warsaw and this was what the Warsaw rebellion was aimed at. From the window of the flat in which he was hiding, Szpilman had a good vantage point from which to watch the beginnings of the rebellion. Hiding in a predominantly German area, however, Szpilman was not in a good position to go out and join the fighting: first he would need to get past several units of German soldiers who were holding the area against the main power of the rebellion, which was based in the city centre. So Szpilman stayed in his building. However, on August 12, 1944, the German search for the culprits behind the rebellion reached Szpilman\u2019s building. It was surrounded by Ukrainian fascists and the inhabitants were ordered to evacuate before the building was destroyed. A tank fired a couple of shots into the building and then it was set alight. Szpilman, hiding in his flat on the fourth floor, could only hope that the flats on the first floor were the only ones that were burning and that he would be able to escape the flames by staying high. Within hours, however, his room began to fill with smoke and he began to experience the beginning effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. Now, Szpilman was resigned to dying. To quicken his passing, Szpilman decided to commit suicide. To do this, he planned on swallowing first sleeping pills and then a bottle of opium to finish himself off. But he didn\u2019t manage to see his plans through to completion. As soon as he took the sleeping pills, which acted almost instantly on his empty stomach, Szpilman fell asleep. When he woke up, the fire was no longer burning as powerfully. All of the floors below Szpilman\u2019s were burnt out to varying degrees, and Szpilman left the building to escape the poisonous smoke that filled all the rooms. He stopped and sat down just outside the building, leaning against a wall to conceal himself from the Germans on the road on the other side. He remained hidden behind the wall, recovering from the poison, until dark. Then he struck out across the road to an unfinished hospital building that had been evacuated already. He crossed the road on hands and knees, lying flat and pretending to be a corpse (of which there were many on the road) whenever a German unit came into sight on their way to or from fighting in the city centre. When he eventually reached the hospital, Szpilman collapsed onto the floor in the first available area and fell asleep. The next day, Szpilman explored the hospital thoroughly. To his dismay he found that it was full of items that the Germans would be intending to take away with them, meaning he would have to be careful travelling around the building in case a group should come in to loot. To avoid the patrols that occasionally swept the building, Szpilman hid in a lumber room, tucked in a remote corner of the hospital. Food and drink were scarce in the hospital, and for the first four or five days of his stay in the building, Szpilman couldn\u2019t find anything. When, again, he went searching for food and drink, Szpilman managed to find some crusts of bread to eat and a fire bucket full of water. Even though the stinking water was covered in an iridescent film, Szpilman drank deeply, although he stopped after inadvertently swallowing a considerable amount of dead insects. On 30 August, Szpilman moved back into his old building, which by this time had entirely burnt out. Here, in larders and bathtubs (which, due to the ravages of the fire, were now open to the air) Szpilman found bread and rainwater, which kept him alive. During his time in this building the Warsaw Uprising was defeated and the evacuation of the civilian population was completed. By October 14 Szpilman and the German army were all but the only humans still living in Warsaw, which had been completely destroyed by the Germans. As November set in, so did winter. Living in the attic of the block of flats, with very little protection from the cold and the snow, Szpilman began to get extremely cold. As a result of the cold and the squalor, he eventually developed an insatiable craving for hot porridge. So, at great risk, Szpilman came down from the attic to find a working oven in one of the flats. He was still trying to get the stove lit when he was discovered by a German soldier. Szpilman describes the encounter: He was as alarmed as I was by this lonely encounter in the ruins, but he tried to seem threatening. He asked, in broken Polish, what I was doing here. I said I was living outside Warsaw now and had come back to fetch some of my things. In view of my appearance, this was a ridiculous explanation. The German pointed his gun at me and told me to follow him. I said I would, but my death would be on his conscience, and if he let me stay here I would give him half a litre of spirits. He expressed himself agreeable to this form of ransom, but made it very clear that he would be back, and then I would have to give him more strong liquor. As soon as I was alone I climbed quickly to the attic, pulled up the ladder and closed the trapdoor. Sure enough, he was back after quarter of an hour, but accompanied by several other soldiers and a non-commissioned officer. At the sound of their footsteps and voices I clambered up from the attic floor to the top of the intact piece of roof, which had a steep slope. I lay flat on my stomach with my feet braced against the gutter. If it had buckled or given way, I would have slipped to the roofing sheet and then fallen five floors to the street below. But the gutter held, and this new and indeed desperate idea for a hiding place meant that my life was saved once again. The Germans searched the whole building, piling up tables and chairs, and finally came up to my attic, but it did not occur to them to look on the roof. It must have seemed impossible for anyone to be lying there. They left empty-handed, cursing and calling me a number of names. From then on, Szpilman decided to stay hidden on the roof every day, only coming down at dusk to search for food. He planned to go to this extra measure only until the troop of Germans who knew of his hiding place had left the area. However, he was soon forced to change his plans drastically. Lying on the roof one day Szpilman suddenly heard a burst of firing near him. Turning, he saw that it was he that the bullets were aimed at. Two Germans, standing on the roof of the hospital, had discovered his latest hiding spot and had begun to shoot at him. Szpilman slithered, as fast as he could, off the roof and down through the trapdoor into the stairway. Then, as his last hiding place in the building had now been discovered, he hurried out of the building and into the expanse of burnt out buildings. Szpilman headed quickly away from his old building and soon found another, similar building that he could live in. It was the only multi-story building in the area and, as was now his custom, Szpilman made his way up to the attic. Some days later, Szpilman searched the building for food. This time his aim was to collect as much food as possible and take it all up to his attic so he wouldn\u2019t have to come down so often and expose himself to danger. He found a kitchen and was raiding it intently when suddenly he was surprised by the voice of a German officer behind him. The officer asked him what he was doing. Szpilman said nothing, but sat down in despair by the larder door. The officer asked him his occupation and Szpilman answered that he was a pianist. On hearing this, the officer led him to a piano in the next room and instructed him to play. Szpilman describes the scene:I played Chopin\u2019s Nocturne in C sharp minor. The glassy, tinkling sound of the untuned strings rang through the empty flat and the stairway, floated through the ruins of the villa on the other side of the street and returned as a muted, melancholy echo. When I had finished, the silence seemed even gloomier and even more eerie than before. A cat mewed in a street somewhere. I heard a shot down below outside the building\u2014a harsh, loud German noise. The officer looked at me in silence. After a while he sighed, and muttered, \u201cAll the same, you shouldn\u2019t stay here. I\u2019ll take you out of the city, to a village. You\u2019ll be safer there.\u201d I shook my head. \u201cI can\u2019t leave this place,\u201d I said firmly. Only now did he seem to understand my real reason for hiding among the ruins. He started nervously. \u201cYou\u2019re Jewish?\u201d he asked \u201cYes.\u201d He had been standing with his arms crossed over his chest; he now unfolded them and sat down in the armchair by the piano, as if this discovery called for lengthy reflection. \u201cYes, well,\u201d he murmured, \u201cin that case I see you really can\u2019t leave.\u201d The officer went with Szpilman to take a look at his hiding place. Inspecting the attic thoroughly, he found a loft above the attic that Szpilman hadn\u2019t noticed as it was in a gloomy area of the roof. He helped Szpilman find a ladder amongst the apartments and helped him climb up into the loft. From then until his unit retreated from Warsaw, the German officer supplied Szpilman with food, water and encouraging news of the Soviet advance. The officer\u2019s unit left during the first half of December, 1944. The officer left Szpilman with food and drink and with a German Army great coat, so he would be warm while he foraged for food until the Soviets arrived. Szpilman had little to offer the officer by way of thanks, but told him that if he should ever need help, that he should ask for the pianist Szpilman of the Polish radio. The Soviets finally arrived on 15 January 1945. When the city was liberated, troops began to come in with civilians following after them, alone or in small groups. Szpilman, wishing to be friendly, came out of his hiding place and greeted one of these civilians, a woman carrying a bundle on her back. But, before he had finished speaking, the woman dropped her bundle, turned and fled, shouting that Szpilman was \u201cA German!\u201d Szpilman ran back inside his building. Looking out the window minutes later, Szpilman saw that his building had been surrounded by troops and that they were already making their way in via the cellars. So Szpilman came slowly down the stairs, shouting \u201cDon\u2019t shoot! I\u2019m Polish!\u201d A young Polish officer came up the stairs towards him, pointing his pistol and telling him to put his hands up. Again Szpilman said that he was Polish. The officer came and inspected him closer. He eventually agreed that Szpilman was Polish and lowered the pistol. After the war was over, Szpilman was visited by a violinist friend named Zygmunt Lednicki. Lednicki told Szpilman of a German officer he had met at a Soviet Prisoner of War camp on his way back from his wanderings after the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising. The officer, learning that he was a musician, had asked him if he knew W\u0142adys\u0142aw Szpilman. Lednicki had said that he did, but before the German could tell him his name, the guards at the camp had asked Lednicki to move on and sat the German back down again with his fellows. When Szpilman and Lendicki returned to the place where the POW camp had been, it was no longer there. Although after this disappointment Szpilman did everything in his power to find the officer, it took him five years even to discover his name, Wilm Hosenfeld. From there Szpilman went to the government in an attempt to locate Hosenfeld and secure his release. But Hosenfeld and his unit, which was suspected of spying, had been moved to a POW camp at a secret location somewhere in Soviet Russia, and there was nothing that the Polish government could do. Hosenfeld died in captivity in 1952.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " W\u0142adys\u0142aw Szpilman studied the piano in the early 1930s in Warsaw and Berlin. In Berlin, he was instructed by Leonid Kreutzer and, at the Berlin Academy of Arts, by Artur Schnabel. During his time at the academy he also studied composition with Franz Schreker. In 1933 he returned to Warsaw after Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party rose to power in Germany. Upon his return to Warsaw, Szpilman worked as a pianist for Polish Radio until the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He was forced to stop work at the station when the power station that kept Polish Radio running was destroyed by German bombs. He played Polish Radio\u2019s last ever pre-war live recording (a Chopin recital) the day that the station went off the air. Only days after Warsaw\u2019s surrender, German leaflets appeared, hung up on the wall of buildings. These leaflets, issued by the German commandant, promised Poles the protection and care of the German State. There was even a special section devoted to Jews, guaranteeing them that their rights, their property and their lives would be absolutely secure. At first, these proclamations seemed trustworthy, and opinion was rife that Germany\u2019s invasion may have even been a good thing for Poland; it would restore order to Poland\u2019s present state of chaos. But, soon after the taking of the city, popular feeling began to change. The first clumsily organised race raids, in which Jews were taken from the streets into private cars and tormented and abused, began almost immediately after peace had returned to the city. But the occurrence that first outraged the majority of Poles was the murder of a hundred innocent Polish citizens in December 1939. After this, Polish opinion turned strongly against the occupying army, especially the organisation responsible for the majority of civilian murders, the SS. Soon, decrees applying only to Jews began to be posted around the city. Jews had"
      },
      {
        "text": "ily organised race raids, in which Jews were taken from the streets into private cars and tormented and abused, began almost immediately after peace had returned to the city. But the occurrence that first outraged the majority of Poles was the murder of a hundred innocent Polish citizens in December 1939. After this, Polish opinion turned strongly against the occupying army, especially the organisation responsible for the majority of civilian murders, the SS. Soon, decrees applying only to Jews began to be posted around the city. Jews had to hand real estate and valuables over to German officials and Jewish families were only permitted to own two thousand z\u0142oty each. The rest had to be deposited in a bank in a blocked account. Unsurprisingly, very few people handed their property over to the Germans willingly as a result of this decree. Szpilman\u2019s family (he was living with his parents, his brother Henryk and his sisters Regina and Halina) were amongst those who did not. They hid their money in the window frame, an expensive gold watch under their cupboard and the watch\u2019s chain beneath the fingerboard of Szpilman\u2019s father\u2019s violin. By 1940, many of the roads leading into the area set aside for the ghetto were being blocked off with walls. No reason was given for the construction work. Also in January and February 1940, the first decrees appeared ordering Jewish men and women each to do two years of labour in concentration camps. These years would serve to cure Jews of being \u201cparasites on the healthy organism of the Aryan peoples.\u201d But the threats of labour camps didn\u2019t come into effect until May, when Germany took Paris. Now, having expanded the bounds of the Reich by a significant distance, the Nazis had time to spare to persecute the Jews. Deportation, robberies, murders and forced labour were stepped up significantly. To avoid the concentration camps, rich, intellectual Jews like"
      },
      {
        "text": " These years would serve to cure Jews of being \u201cparasites on the healthy organism of the Aryan peoples.\u201d But the threats of labour camps didn\u2019t come into effect until May, when Germany took Paris. Now, having expanded the bounds of the Reich by a significant distance, the Nazis had time to spare to persecute the Jews. Deportation, robberies, murders and forced labour were stepped up significantly. To avoid the concentration camps, rich, intellectual Jews like Szpilman\u2019s family and many of his acquaintances could pay to have poorer Jews deported in their place. These payments would be made to the Judenrat, the Jewish organisation that the Germans had put in charge of arranging the deportation. Most of the money went to supporting the high-cost livelihoods of those at the head of the council. But, for the Jews, the worst was yet to come. In The Pianist, Szpilman describes a newspaper article that appeared in October 1940:A little while later the only Warsaw newspaper published in Polish by the Germans provided an official comment on this subject: not only were the Jews social parasites, they also spread infection. They were not, said the report, to be shut up in a ghetto; even the word \u201cghetto\u201d was not to be used. The Germans were too cultured and magnanimous a race, said the newspaper, to confine even parasites like the Jews to ghettos, a medieval remnant unworthy of the new order in Europe. Instead, there was to be a separate Jewish quarter of the city where only Jews lived, where they would enjoy total freedom, and where they could continue to practise their racial customs and culture. Purely for hygienic reasons, this quarter was to be surrounded by a wall so that typhus and other Jewish diseases could not spread to other parts of the city. And so the Warsaw Ghetto was formed. Szpilman\u2019s"
      },
      {
        "text": " medieval remnant unworthy of the new order in Europe. Instead, there was to be a separate Jewish quarter of the city where only Jews lived, where they would enjoy total freedom, and where they could continue to practise their racial customs and culture. Purely for hygienic reasons, this quarter was to be surrounded by a wall so that typhus and other Jewish diseases could not spread to other parts of the city. And so the Warsaw Ghetto was formed. Szpilman\u2019s family was lucky to already be living in the ghetto area when the plans were announced. Other families, living outside the boundaries, had to find new homes within the ghetto\u2019s confines. They had been given just over a month\u2019s warning by the notices and many families were forced to pay exorbitant amounts of money for tiny slums in the bad areas of the ghetto. On 15 November 1940, the gates of the ghetto were closed. However, this didn\u2019t stop the smuggling trade into the \u201cJewish Quarter.\u201d Expensive luxury goods as well as food and drink came into the ghetto, heaped in wagons and carts. Although these convoys were not strictly legal, the two men in charge of the business, Kon and Heller (who were in the service of the Gestapo and through them could run many such ventures), paid the guards at the ghetto gate to turn a blind eye at a prearranged time and allow the carts through. There were other, less organised types of smuggling that occurred regularly in the ghetto. Every afternoon (afternoon was the best time for smuggling as by then the police guarding the wall were tired and uninterested) carts would pass by the ghetto wall, a whistle would be heard and bags of staple food would be thrown into the ghetto. The poor inhabitants of the houses by the wall would scamper out of cover, grab the food and return to their lodgings. Szpilman played piano at an expensive"
      },
      {
        "text": " other, less organised types of smuggling that occurred regularly in the ghetto. Every afternoon (afternoon was the best time for smuggling as by then the police guarding the wall were tired and uninterested) carts would pass by the ghetto wall, a whistle would be heard and bags of staple food would be thrown into the ghetto. The poor inhabitants of the houses by the wall would scamper out of cover, grab the food and return to their lodgings. Szpilman played piano at an expensive caf\u00e9 which pandered to the ghetto\u2019s upper class, made up largely of smugglers and other war profiteers, and their wives or mistresses. On his way to or from work, Szpilman would sometimes pass by the wall during smuggling hours. In addition to the methods of smuggling mentioned previously, Szpilman observed many child smugglers at work. These smugglers were children who, of their own volition or on the instructions of family members or employers, sneaked out of the ghetto through gutters that ran from the Aryan side of the wall to the Jewish side. Children did the work as they were the only ones small enough to squeeze through without becoming stuck. Once they had gotten to the other side and received their bags of goods they would return to the ghetto through the gutters. In his memoir, Szpilman describes one of these forays:One day when I was walking along beside the wall I saw a childish smuggling operation that seemed to have reached a successful conclusion. The Jewish child still on the far side of the wall only needed to follow his goods back through the opening. His skinny little figure was already partly in view when he suddenly began screaming, and at the same time I heard the hoarse bellowing of a German on the other side of the wall. I ran to the child to help him squeeze through as quickly as possible, but in defiance of our efforts his hips stuck in the drain. I pulled at his little arms with all"
      },
      {
        "text": " a successful conclusion. The Jewish child still on the far side of the wall only needed to follow his goods back through the opening. His skinny little figure was already partly in view when he suddenly began screaming, and at the same time I heard the hoarse bellowing of a German on the other side of the wall. I ran to the child to help him squeeze through as quickly as possible, but in defiance of our efforts his hips stuck in the drain. I pulled at his little arms with all my might, while his screams becae increasingly desperate, and I could hear the heavy blows struck by the policeman on the other side of the wall. When I finally managed to pull the child through, he died. His spine had been shattered. As time went by, the area of the ghetto was slowly decreased until there was a small ghetto, made up mostly of intelligentsia and middle\u00a0\u2013 upper class, and a large ghetto that held the rest of the Warsaw Jews. Szpilman and his family were fortunate to live in the small ghetto, which was less crowded and dangerous than the other. The large ghetto was reached from the small ghetto by crossing Ch\u0142odna Stree in the Aryan part of the city. Again, the experience of those in the bigger ghetto is best described by Szpilman:Dozens of beggars lay in wait for this brief moment of encounter with a prosperous citizen, mobbing him by pulling at his clothes, barring his way, begging, weeping, shouting, threatening. But it was foolish for anyone to feel sympathy and give a beggar something, for then the shouting would rise to a howl. That signal would bring more and more wretched figures streaming up from all sides, and the good Samaritan would find himself besieged, hemmed in by ragged apparitions spraying him with tubercular saliva, by children covered with oozing sores who were pushed into his path, by gesticulating stumps of arms, blinded eyes"
      },
      {
        "text": ", weeping, shouting, threatening. But it was foolish for anyone to feel sympathy and give a beggar something, for then the shouting would rise to a howl. That signal would bring more and more wretched figures streaming up from all sides, and the good Samaritan would find himself besieged, hemmed in by ragged apparitions spraying him with tubercular saliva, by children covered with oozing sores who were pushed into his path, by gesticulating stumps of arms, blinded eyes, toothless, stinking open mouths, all begging for mercy at this, the last moment of their lives, as if their end could be delayed only by instant support. Whenever he went into the large ghetto, Szpilman would visit a friend, Jehuda Zyskind, who worked as a smuggler, trader, driver or carrier when the need arose. He was also an enthusiastic Socialist. This interest was what eventually led to his and his family\u2019s death: shot on the spot by Military Police officers after being caught sorting out a pile of socialist documents, illegally smuggled into the ghetto. But before his death, in the winter of 1942, Zyskind supplied Szpilman with the latest news from outside the ghetto, received via radio. After hearing this news and completing whatever other business he had in the large ghetto, Szpilman would head back to his house in the small ghetto. On his way, Szpilman would meet up with his brother, Henryk, who made a living by trading books in the street. He would help Henryk to carry the books back to the family house, where they would have lunch. Henryk, like W\u0142adys\u0142aw, was cultured and well educated. Many of his friends advised him, at one time or another, to do as most young men of the intelligentsia and join the Jewish Ghetto Police, an organisation of Jews who worked under the SS, upholding their laws in"
      },
      {
        "text": " brother, Henryk, who made a living by trading books in the street. He would help Henryk to carry the books back to the family house, where they would have lunch. Henryk, like W\u0142adys\u0142aw, was cultured and well educated. Many of his friends advised him, at one time or another, to do as most young men of the intelligentsia and join the Jewish Ghetto Police, an organisation of Jews who worked under the SS, upholding their laws in the ghetto. Henryk, however, refused to work with \u201cbandits\u201d. Soon enough, Henryk\u2019s decision was proved to have been a wise one. In May 1942, the Jewish Police began to carry out the task of \u201chuman-hunting\u201d for the Germans, mistreating Jews almost as viciously as their German employers. Szpilman describes the Jewish Police:You could have said, perhaps, that they caught the Gestapo spirit. As soon as they put on their uniforms and police caps and picked up their rubber truncheons, their natures changed. Now their ultimate ambition was to be in close touch with the Gestapo, to be useful to Gestapo officers, parade down the street with them, show off their knowledge of the German language and vie with their masters in the harshness of their dealings with the Jewish population. During the \u201chuman-hunt\u201d conducted by the Jewish Police, Henryk was picked up and arrested. As soon as he heard the news of his brother\u2019s arrest, Szpilman went to the labour bureau building, determined to secure Henryk\u2019s release. His only hope was that his popularity as a pianist would be enough to secure Henryk\u2019s release and stop himself from being arrested as well, for none of his papers were in order. Still, Szpilman made his way to the building and, amongst a crowd of prisoners being"
      },
      {
        "text": " up and arrested. As soon as he heard the news of his brother\u2019s arrest, Szpilman went to the labour bureau building, determined to secure Henryk\u2019s release. His only hope was that his popularity as a pianist would be enough to secure Henryk\u2019s release and stop himself from being arrested as well, for none of his papers were in order. Still, Szpilman made his way to the building and, amongst a crowd of prisoners being herded into captivity, managed to find the deputy director of the labour bureau. After much effort, Szpilman managed to extract from him a promise that Henryk would be home by that night, which he was. The rest of the men who had been arrested during the sweep were taken to Treblinka, a German extermination camp, to test the new gas chambers and crematorium furnaces. On 22 July 1942, the resettlement plan was first put into action. Buildings, randomly selected from all areas of the Ghetto, were surrounded by German officers leading troops of Jewish Police. The inhabitants were called out, the building was searched and every single person removed from the building, including babies and old men and women, was loaded into wagons and taken to the Umschlagplatz, the assembly area. From there, Jews were loaded into trains and taken away. Notices posted around the city said that all Jews fit to work were going to the East to work in German factories. They would each be allowed 20 kilograms of luggage, jewelry, and provisions for two days. Only Jewish officials from the Judenr\u00e4te or other social institutions were exempt from resettlement. In the hope of being allowed to stay in Warsaw if they were useful to the German community, Jews tried to find work at German firms that were recruiting within the ghetto. If they managed to find work, often by paying their employer to hire them, Jews would be issued with certificates of employment. They would pin"
      },
      {
        "text": ". They would each be allowed 20 kilograms of luggage, jewelry, and provisions for two days. Only Jewish officials from the Judenr\u00e4te or other social institutions were exempt from resettlement. In the hope of being allowed to stay in Warsaw if they were useful to the German community, Jews tried to find work at German firms that were recruiting within the ghetto. If they managed to find work, often by paying their employer to hire them, Jews would be issued with certificates of employment. They would pin notices bearing the name of the place where they were working onto their clothing. After six days searching and deal making, Szpilman managed to procure six work certificates, enough for his entire family. At this time, Henryk, W\u0142adys\u0142aw and their father were given work sorting the stolen possessions of Jewish families at the collection centre near the Umschlagplatz. They and the rest of the family were allowed to move into the barracks for Jewish workers at the centre. But, on 16 August 1942, Szpilman\u2019s luck ran out. On that day there was a selection carried out at the collection centre and only Henryk and Halina were passed as fit to work and allowed to stay. The rest of the family was taken to the Umschlagplatz. Soon after they arrived, Szpilman\u2019s family was reunited. Henryk and Halina, working in the collection centre, had heard about the plight of the rest of the family and volunteered of their own will to go to the Umschlagplatz. Szpilman was horrified and angered by his siblings\u2019 headstrong decision, and only accepted their presence after his appeal to the guards had failed to secure their release. The family sat together in the large open space that was the Umschlagplatz. Szpilman describes their last moments together before the train arrived:At one point a boy made his way through the crowd"
      },
      {
        "text": " rest of the family and volunteered of their own will to go to the Umschlagplatz. Szpilman was horrified and angered by his siblings\u2019 headstrong decision, and only accepted their presence after his appeal to the guards had failed to secure their release. The family sat together in the large open space that was the Umschlagplatz. Szpilman describes their last moments together before the train arrived:At one point a boy made his way through the crowd in our direction with a box of sweets on a string round his neck. He was selling them at ridiculous prices, although heaven knows what he thought he was going to do with the money. Scraping together the last of our small change, we bought a single cream caramel. Father divided it into six parts with his penknife. That was our last meal together. That night, at around six o\u2019clock, the transports were filled, in preparation for leaving the Umschlagplatz. Szpilman describes his last moments with his family:By the time we had made our way to the train the first trucks were already full. People were standing in them pressed close to each other. SS men were still pushing with their rifle butts, although there were loud cries from inside and complaints about the lack of air. And indeed the smell of chlorine made breathing difficult, even some distance from the trucks. What went on in there if the floors had to be so heavily chlorinated? We had gone about halfway down the train when I suddenly heard someone shout, \u2018Here! Here, Szpilman!\u2019 A hand grabbed me by the collar, and I was flung back and out of the police cordon. Who dared do such a thing? I didn\u2019t want to be parted from my family. I wanted to stay with them! My view was now of the closed ranks of the policemen\u2019s backs. I threw myself against them,"
      },
      {
        "text": "inated? We had gone about halfway down the train when I suddenly heard someone shout, \u2018Here! Here, Szpilman!\u2019 A hand grabbed me by the collar, and I was flung back and out of the police cordon. Who dared do such a thing? I didn\u2019t want to be parted from my family. I wanted to stay with them! My view was now of the closed ranks of the policemen\u2019s backs. I threw myself against them, but they did not give way. Peering past the policemen\u2019s heads I could see Mother and Regina, helped by Halina and Henryk, clambering into the trucks, while Father was looking around for me. \u201cPapa!\u201d I shouted. He saw me and took a couple of steps my way, but then hesitated and stopped. He was pale, and his legs trembled nervously. He tried to smile, helplessly, painfully, raised his hand and waved goodbye, as if I were setting out into life and he was already greeting me from beyond the grave. Then he turned and went towards the trucks. I flung myself at the policemen\u2019s shoulders again with all my might. \u201cPapa! Henryk! Halina!\u201d I shouted like someone possessed, terrified to think that now, at the last vital moment, I might not get to them and we would be parted for ever. One of the policemen turned and looked angrily at me. \u201cWhat the hell do you think you\u2019re doing? Go on, save yourself!\u201d Save myself? From what? In a flash I realized what awaited the people in the cattle trucks. My hair stood on end. I glanced behind me. I saw the open compound, the railway lines and platforms, and beyond them the streets. Driven by compulsive animal fear, I ran for the streets, slipped in among a column of Council workers just leaving the place,"
      },
      {
        "text": " me. \u201cWhat the hell do you think you\u2019re doing? Go on, save yourself!\u201d Save myself? From what? In a flash I realized what awaited the people in the cattle trucks. My hair stood on end. I glanced behind me. I saw the open compound, the railway lines and platforms, and beyond them the streets. Driven by compulsive animal fear, I ran for the streets, slipped in among a column of Council workers just leaving the place, and got through the gate that way. Szpilman never saw any members of his family again. The train they were on took them to Treblinka. None of them survived the war. Szpilman got work to keep himself safe. His first job was as part of a column of workers the Germans were using to demolish the walls of the large ghetto, for now that most of the Jews there had been deported, it was being reclaimed by the rest of the city. Whilst doing this new work, Szpilman was permitted to go out into the Gentile side of Warsaw. If they could slip away from the wall, Szpilman and the other workers visited Polish food stalls and purchased such staples as potatoes and bread. These precious purchases could either be eaten by the buyer or taken into the ghetto, where their value skyrocketed. By eating some of their food and selling or trading the rest in the ghetto, the men working on the wall could feed themselves adequately and still raise enough money to repeat the exercise the next day. After his work on the wall Szpilman survived another selection in the ghetto and was sent to work on many different tasks, such as cleaning out the yard of the Jewish council building. Eventually, Szpilman was posted to a steady job as \u201cstoreroom manager.\u201d In this position, Szpilman organised the stores at the SS accommodation, which his group was preparing. At around this time, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " and still raise enough money to repeat the exercise the next day. After his work on the wall Szpilman survived another selection in the ghetto and was sent to work on many different tasks, such as cleaning out the yard of the Jewish council building. Eventually, Szpilman was posted to a steady job as \u201cstoreroom manager.\u201d In this position, Szpilman organised the stores at the SS accommodation, which his group was preparing. At around this time, the Germans in charge of Szpilman\u2019s group decided to allow each man five kilograms of potatoes and a loaf of bread every day, to make them feel more secure under the Germans; fears of deportation had been running at especially high levels since the last selection. To get this food, the men were allowed to choose a representative to go into the city with a cart everyday and buy it for all of them. To do this they chose a young man known to Szpilman as \u201cMajorek\u201d (Little Major). Majorek acted not only to collect food, but as a link between the Jewish resistance in the ghetto and similar organisations outside. Hidden inside his bags of food every day, Majorek would bring weapons and ammunition into the ghetto to be passed on to the resistance by Szpilman and the other workers. But also, Majorek was a link to Szpilman\u2019s Polish friends and acquaintances on the outside. Through Majorek, Szpilman managed to arrange his escape from the ghetto. On February 13, 1943, Szpilman slipped through the ghetto gate and met up with his friend Andrzej Bogucki on the other side. As soon as he saw Szpilman coming, Bogucki turned away and began to walk towards the hiding place they had arranged for him. Szpilman followed, careful not to reveal himself as Jewish (Szpilman had"
      },
      {
        "text": " Majorek, Szpilman managed to arrange his escape from the ghetto. On February 13, 1943, Szpilman slipped through the ghetto gate and met up with his friend Andrzej Bogucki on the other side. As soon as he saw Szpilman coming, Bogucki turned away and began to walk towards the hiding place they had arranged for him. Szpilman followed, careful not to reveal himself as Jewish (Szpilman had prominent Jewish features) by straying into the light of a street lamp while a German was passing. Szpilman only stayed in his first hiding place for a few days before he moved on. While he was hiding in the city, Szpilman had to move many times from flat to flat. Each time he would be provided with food by friends involved in the Polish resistance who, with one or two exceptions, came irregularly but as often as they were able. These months were long and boring for Szpilman. He passed his time by learning to cook elaborate meals silently and out of virtually nothing, by reading and by teaching himself English. During this entire period Szpilman lived in fear of capture by the Germans. If he were ever discovered and unable to escape, Szpilman planned to commit suicide so that he would be unable to compromise any of his helpers under questioning. During the months that Szpilman spent in hiding, he came extremely close to suicide on several occasions, but never had to carry out his plans. Szpilman continued to live in his various hiding places until August 1944. In August the Warsaw Uprising, the Polish underground's large-scale effort to fight the German occupiers, began, only weeks after the first Soviet shells had fallen on the city. As a result of this Soviet attack the German authorities had begun tentatively to evacuate the civilian population of the city, but there was still a strong"
      },
      {
        "text": " suicide on several occasions, but never had to carry out his plans. Szpilman continued to live in his various hiding places until August 1944. In August the Warsaw Uprising, the Polish underground's large-scale effort to fight the German occupiers, began, only weeks after the first Soviet shells had fallen on the city. As a result of this Soviet attack the German authorities had begun tentatively to evacuate the civilian population of the city, but there was still a strong military presence within Warsaw and this was what the Warsaw rebellion was aimed at. From the window of the flat in which he was hiding, Szpilman had a good vantage point from which to watch the beginnings of the rebellion. Hiding in a predominantly German area, however, Szpilman was not in a good position to go out and join the fighting: first he would need to get past several units of German soldiers who were holding the area against the main power of the rebellion, which was based in the city centre. So Szpilman stayed in his building. However, on August 12, 1944, the German search for the culprits behind the rebellion reached Szpilman\u2019s building. It was surrounded by Ukrainian fascists and the inhabitants were ordered to evacuate before the building was destroyed. A tank fired a couple of shots into the building and then it was set alight. Szpilman, hiding in his flat on the fourth floor, could only hope that the flats on the first floor were the only ones that were burning and that he would be able to escape the flames by staying high. Within hours, however, his room began to fill with smoke and he began to experience the beginning effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. Now, Szpilman was resigned to dying. To quicken his passing, Szpilman decided to commit suicide. To do this, he planned on swallowing first sleeping pills and then a bottle of opium to finish himself off"
      },
      {
        "text": " the flats on the first floor were the only ones that were burning and that he would be able to escape the flames by staying high. Within hours, however, his room began to fill with smoke and he began to experience the beginning effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. Now, Szpilman was resigned to dying. To quicken his passing, Szpilman decided to commit suicide. To do this, he planned on swallowing first sleeping pills and then a bottle of opium to finish himself off. But he didn\u2019t manage to see his plans through to completion. As soon as he took the sleeping pills, which acted almost instantly on his empty stomach, Szpilman fell asleep. When he woke up, the fire was no longer burning as powerfully. All of the floors below Szpilman\u2019s were burnt out to varying degrees, and Szpilman left the building to escape the poisonous smoke that filled all the rooms. He stopped and sat down just outside the building, leaning against a wall to conceal himself from the Germans on the road on the other side. He remained hidden behind the wall, recovering from the poison, until dark. Then he struck out across the road to an unfinished hospital building that had been evacuated already. He crossed the road on hands and knees, lying flat and pretending to be a corpse (of which there were many on the road) whenever a German unit came into sight on their way to or from fighting in the city centre. When he eventually reached the hospital, Szpilman collapsed onto the floor in the first available area and fell asleep. The next day, Szpilman explored the hospital thoroughly. To his dismay he found that it was full of items that the Germans would be intending to take away with them, meaning he would have to be careful travelling around the building in case a group should come in to loot. To avoid the patrols that occasionally swept the building, Szpilman hid in a lumber room"
      },
      {
        "text": " When he eventually reached the hospital, Szpilman collapsed onto the floor in the first available area and fell asleep. The next day, Szpilman explored the hospital thoroughly. To his dismay he found that it was full of items that the Germans would be intending to take away with them, meaning he would have to be careful travelling around the building in case a group should come in to loot. To avoid the patrols that occasionally swept the building, Szpilman hid in a lumber room, tucked in a remote corner of the hospital. Food and drink were scarce in the hospital, and for the first four or five days of his stay in the building, Szpilman couldn\u2019t find anything. When, again, he went searching for food and drink, Szpilman managed to find some crusts of bread to eat and a fire bucket full of water. Even though the stinking water was covered in an iridescent film, Szpilman drank deeply, although he stopped after inadvertently swallowing a considerable amount of dead insects. On 30 August, Szpilman moved back into his old building, which by this time had entirely burnt out. Here, in larders and bathtubs (which, due to the ravages of the fire, were now open to the air) Szpilman found bread and rainwater, which kept him alive. During his time in this building the Warsaw Uprising was defeated and the evacuation of the civilian population was completed. By October 14 Szpilman and the German army were all but the only humans still living in Warsaw, which had been completely destroyed by the Germans. As November set in, so did winter. Living in the attic of the block of flats, with very little protection from the cold and the snow, Szpilman began to get extremely cold. As a result of the cold and the squalor, he eventually developed an insatiable craving for hot porridge."
      },
      {
        "text": " population was completed. By October 14 Szpilman and the German army were all but the only humans still living in Warsaw, which had been completely destroyed by the Germans. As November set in, so did winter. Living in the attic of the block of flats, with very little protection from the cold and the snow, Szpilman began to get extremely cold. As a result of the cold and the squalor, he eventually developed an insatiable craving for hot porridge. So, at great risk, Szpilman came down from the attic to find a working oven in one of the flats. He was still trying to get the stove lit when he was discovered by a German soldier. Szpilman describes the encounter: He was as alarmed as I was by this lonely encounter in the ruins, but he tried to seem threatening. He asked, in broken Polish, what I was doing here. I said I was living outside Warsaw now and had come back to fetch some of my things. In view of my appearance, this was a ridiculous explanation. The German pointed his gun at me and told me to follow him. I said I would, but my death would be on his conscience, and if he let me stay here I would give him half a litre of spirits. He expressed himself agreeable to this form of ransom, but made it very clear that he would be back, and then I would have to give him more strong liquor. As soon as I was alone I climbed quickly to the attic, pulled up the ladder and closed the trapdoor. Sure enough, he was back after quarter of an hour, but accompanied by several other soldiers and a non-commissioned officer. At the sound of their footsteps and voices I clambered up from the attic floor to the top of the intact piece of roof, which had a steep slope. I lay flat on my stomach with my feet braced against the gutter. If it had buck"
      },
      {
        "text": " I was alone I climbed quickly to the attic, pulled up the ladder and closed the trapdoor. Sure enough, he was back after quarter of an hour, but accompanied by several other soldiers and a non-commissioned officer. At the sound of their footsteps and voices I clambered up from the attic floor to the top of the intact piece of roof, which had a steep slope. I lay flat on my stomach with my feet braced against the gutter. If it had buckled or given way, I would have slipped to the roofing sheet and then fallen five floors to the street below. But the gutter held, and this new and indeed desperate idea for a hiding place meant that my life was saved once again. The Germans searched the whole building, piling up tables and chairs, and finally came up to my attic, but it did not occur to them to look on the roof. It must have seemed impossible for anyone to be lying there. They left empty-handed, cursing and calling me a number of names. From then on, Szpilman decided to stay hidden on the roof every day, only coming down at dusk to search for food. He planned to go to this extra measure only until the troop of Germans who knew of his hiding place had left the area. However, he was soon forced to change his plans drastically. Lying on the roof one day Szpilman suddenly heard a burst of firing near him. Turning, he saw that it was he that the bullets were aimed at. Two Germans, standing on the roof of the hospital, had discovered his latest hiding spot and had begun to shoot at him. Szpilman slithered, as fast as he could, off the roof and down through the trapdoor into the stairway. Then, as his last hiding place in the building had now been discovered, he hurried out of the building and into the expanse of burnt out buildings. Szpilman headed quickly"
      },
      {
        "text": " that it was he that the bullets were aimed at. Two Germans, standing on the roof of the hospital, had discovered his latest hiding spot and had begun to shoot at him. Szpilman slithered, as fast as he could, off the roof and down through the trapdoor into the stairway. Then, as his last hiding place in the building had now been discovered, he hurried out of the building and into the expanse of burnt out buildings. Szpilman headed quickly away from his old building and soon found another, similar building that he could live in. It was the only multi-story building in the area and, as was now his custom, Szpilman made his way up to the attic. Some days later, Szpilman searched the building for food. This time his aim was to collect as much food as possible and take it all up to his attic so he wouldn\u2019t have to come down so often and expose himself to danger. He found a kitchen and was raiding it intently when suddenly he was surprised by the voice of a German officer behind him. The officer asked him what he was doing. Szpilman said nothing, but sat down in despair by the larder door. The officer asked him his occupation and Szpilman answered that he was a pianist. On hearing this, the officer led him to a piano in the next room and instructed him to play. Szpilman describes the scene:I played Chopin\u2019s Nocturne in C sharp minor. The glassy, tinkling sound of the untuned strings rang through the empty flat and the stairway, floated through the ruins of the villa on the other side of the street and returned as a muted, melancholy echo. When I had finished, the silence seemed even gloomier and even more eerie than before. A cat mewed in a street somewhere. I heard a shot down below outside the building"
      },
      {
        "text": " scene:I played Chopin\u2019s Nocturne in C sharp minor. The glassy, tinkling sound of the untuned strings rang through the empty flat and the stairway, floated through the ruins of the villa on the other side of the street and returned as a muted, melancholy echo. When I had finished, the silence seemed even gloomier and even more eerie than before. A cat mewed in a street somewhere. I heard a shot down below outside the building\u2014a harsh, loud German noise. The officer looked at me in silence. After a while he sighed, and muttered, \u201cAll the same, you shouldn\u2019t stay here. I\u2019ll take you out of the city, to a village. You\u2019ll be safer there.\u201d I shook my head. \u201cI can\u2019t leave this place,\u201d I said firmly. Only now did he seem to understand my real reason for hiding among the ruins. He started nervously. \u201cYou\u2019re Jewish?\u201d he asked \u201cYes.\u201d He had been standing with his arms crossed over his chest; he now unfolded them and sat down in the armchair by the piano, as if this discovery called for lengthy reflection. \u201cYes, well,\u201d he murmured, \u201cin that case I see you really can\u2019t leave.\u201d The officer went with Szpilman to take a look at his hiding place. Inspecting the attic thoroughly, he found a loft above the attic that Szpilman hadn\u2019t noticed as it was in a gloomy area of the roof. He helped Szpilman find a ladder amongst the apartments and helped him climb up into the loft. From then until his unit retreated from Warsaw, the German officer supplied Szpilman with food, water and encouraging news of the Soviet advance. The officer\u2019s unit left during the first"
      },
      {
        "text": " look at his hiding place. Inspecting the attic thoroughly, he found a loft above the attic that Szpilman hadn\u2019t noticed as it was in a gloomy area of the roof. He helped Szpilman find a ladder amongst the apartments and helped him climb up into the loft. From then until his unit retreated from Warsaw, the German officer supplied Szpilman with food, water and encouraging news of the Soviet advance. The officer\u2019s unit left during the first half of December, 1944. The officer left Szpilman with food and drink and with a German Army great coat, so he would be warm while he foraged for food until the Soviets arrived. Szpilman had little to offer the officer by way of thanks, but told him that if he should ever need help, that he should ask for the pianist Szpilman of the Polish radio. The Soviets finally arrived on 15 January 1945. When the city was liberated, troops began to come in with civilians following after them, alone or in small groups. Szpilman, wishing to be friendly, came out of his hiding place and greeted one of these civilians, a woman carrying a bundle on her back. But, before he had finished speaking, the woman dropped her bundle, turned and fled, shouting that Szpilman was \u201cA German!\u201d Szpilman ran back inside his building. Looking out the window minutes later, Szpilman saw that his building had been surrounded by troops and that they were already making their way in via the cellars. So Szpilman came slowly down the stairs, shouting \u201cDon\u2019t shoot! I\u2019m Polish!\u201d A young Polish officer came up the stairs towards him, pointing his pistol and telling him to put his hands up. Again Szpilman said that he was Polish. The officer came and inspected him closer. He eventually agreed that Szp"
      },
      {
        "text": "man saw that his building had been surrounded by troops and that they were already making their way in via the cellars. So Szpilman came slowly down the stairs, shouting \u201cDon\u2019t shoot! I\u2019m Polish!\u201d A young Polish officer came up the stairs towards him, pointing his pistol and telling him to put his hands up. Again Szpilman said that he was Polish. The officer came and inspected him closer. He eventually agreed that Szpilman was Polish and lowered the pistol. After the war was over, Szpilman was visited by a violinist friend named Zygmunt Lednicki. Lednicki told Szpilman of a German officer he had met at a Soviet Prisoner of War camp on his way back from his wanderings after the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising. The officer, learning that he was a musician, had asked him if he knew W\u0142adys\u0142aw Szpilman. Lednicki had said that he did, but before the German could tell him his name, the guards at the camp had asked Lednicki to move on and sat the German back down again with his fellows. When Szpilman and Lendicki returned to the place where the POW camp had been, it was no longer there. Although after this disappointment Szpilman did everything in his power to find the officer, it took him five years even to discover his name, Wilm Hosenfeld. From there Szpilman went to the government in an attempt to locate Hosenfeld and secure his release. But Hosenfeld and his unit, which was suspected of spying, had been moved to a POW camp at a secret location somewhere in Soviet Russia, and there was nothing that the Polish government could do. Hosenfeld died in captivity in 1952.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Wilm Hosenfeld. From there Szpilman went to the government in an attempt to locate Hosenfeld and secure his release. But Hosenfeld and his unit, which was suspected of spying, had been moved to a POW camp at a secret location somewhere in Soviet Russia, and there was nothing that the Polish government could do. Hosenfeld died in captivity in 1952.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sleeping Murder",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " \"Let sleeping murder lie\": this is the proverb (a variation on \"Let sleeping dogs lie\") which is not obeyed by twenty-one year old New Zealander Gwenda Reed (n\u00e9e Halliday), who has recently married and now comes to England to settle down there. She believes that her father took her directly from India to New Zealand when she was a two year-old girl and that she has never been in England before. While her husband Giles is still abroad on business, she drives around the countryside looking for a suitable house. She finds an old house in the small seaside resort of Dillmouth, in Devon, which instantly appeals to her, and she buys it. After moving in, Gwenda begins to believe that she must be psychic, as she seems to know things about the house which she could not possibly know: the location of a connecting door that had been walled over, the pattern of a previous wallpaper, a set of steps in the garden that are not where they should be, and so on. Becoming increasingly uneasy, she accepts an invitation to stay for a few days in London with Miss Marple's somewhat pretentious nephew Raymond West and his wife Joan (who appear also in other stories with Miss Marple). Miss Marple's interest is piqued when, at a performance of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, Gwenda screams and flees the theatre — for no reason that even she understands — when she hears the actor speaking the famous line, \"Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young.\" Gwenda tells Miss Marple later that as she heard those words, she felt she was looking down through the banisters at the dead, blue face of someone named Helen, strangled by a man uttering the same line. She insists that she does not know anyone named Helen, and she believes she is going mad. Miss Marple suggests that she may be remembering something she witnessed as a small child (looking through rather than over the banisters), and that it may have happened in the house she has just bought, despite her belief that she has never been in England before. The Reeds and Miss Marple do a bit of research, and they discover that Gwenda is not psychic at all, but in fact she did spend a year during early childhood in the house she was later to buy. Her young stepmother, Helen, disappeared, having presumably run off with a man. Her father, devastated by his wife's disappearance and convinced he murdered her, sent Gwenda to New Zealand to be raised by an aunt and died soon afterward in an asylum. The young couple realize that there may be an unsolved crime to investigate. Miss Marple, who first advises the young couple to \"let sleeping murder lie\", later suggests to her own doctor that he prescribe her some sea air, and she travels to Dillmouth. The investigation that now sets in is completely in the hands of amateurs: Giles and Gwenda Reed and Miss Marple. The police are absent, as it has not even been established that a crime has been committed; officially, Helen Halliday ran off with one of her lovers and either died sometime later or made a clean break with her brother and never contacted anyone at home. The amateur sleuths find two old gardeners who remember the Halliday family and some of the former household staff. The young couple talk to many witnesses, including Dr Kennedy, Helen's much older half-brother, who seems still heartbroken over the disappearance of his wild younger sister. He presents two letters posted abroad which he says he got from his half-sister after her disappearance, and which seem to prove that she did not die that night. But the amateur detectives still believe that Gwenda's memory is fundamentally reliable, and that Helen was murdered. It is later revealed that Dr Kennedy forged the two letters. The three other men in Helen's life at the time of her disappearance were Walter Fane, a local lawyer; JJ Afflick, a local tour guide; and Richard Erskine, who resides in the far north of England. It seems very likely to Giles and Gwenda that one of them must be the murderer: they were all \"on the spot\" when Helen disappeared eighteen years earlier. When Lily Kimble, who used to be in Halliday's employ, reads an advertisement, placed by Gwenda, seeking information about Helen, she senses there could be money in it; and after a second advertisement appears looking for her personally, she writes to Dr Kennedy asking for his advice. Kennedy interprets her letter to him as a blackmail attempt. He writes back to her, inviting her to see him at his house and including a train timetable and exact instructions on how to get to his house. He misdirects her to a deserted stretch of woodland, where he meets and strangles her. He then replaces his original letter with a fake one and is back at his house in time to \"wait\", together with Giles and Gwenda Reed, for her arrival. When Lily Kimble's body is found, the police start investigating. (When the police inspector sees Miss Marple he comments on a case of poison pen near Lymstock; thus Sleeping Murder is set after the happenings in The Moving Finger, which was published in 1942.) Now it dawns upon the Reeds that with a murderer still at large, their lives are in danger. This proves true: after Dr Kennedy unsuccessfully tries to poison them (it is Mrs Cocker, the cook, who takes a sip of the poisoned brandy instead and who consequently has to be hospitalised), Dr Kennedy tries to strangle Gwenda when she is alone in the house. But Miss Marple has foreseen this: she remained hidden in the garden, and when Gwenda screams she runs upstairs and disables Dr Kennedy by spraying soapy liquid into his eyes. Miss Marple explains that she believes that Helen was an ordinary, decent young woman, trying to escape from Kennedy, who was unhealthily and pathologically obsessed with her, and that the only evidence of her being \"man-mad\" came from him. He strangled her to prevent her moving to Norfolk in the east of England to live an ordinary, happy life away from him with her husband.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " \"Let sleeping murder lie\": this is the proverb (a variation on \"Let sleeping dogs lie\") which is not obeyed by twenty-one year old New Zealander Gwenda Reed (n\u00e9e Halliday), who has recently married and now comes to England to settle down there. She believes that her father took her directly from India to New Zealand when she was a two year-old girl and that she has never been in England before. While her husband Giles is still abroad on business, she drives around the countryside looking for a suitable house. She finds an old house in the small seaside resort of Dillmouth, in Devon, which instantly appeals to her, and she buys it. After moving in, Gwenda begins to believe that she must be psychic, as she seems to know things about the house which she could not possibly know: the location of a connecting door that had been walled over, the pattern of a previous wallpaper, a set of steps in the garden that are not where they should be, and so on. Becoming increasingly uneasy, she accepts an invitation to stay for a few days in London with Miss Marple's somewhat pretentious nephew Raymond West and his wife Joan (who appear also in other stories with Miss Marple). Miss Marple's interest is piqued when, at a performance of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, Gwenda screams and flees the theatre — for no reason that even she understands — when she hears the actor speaking the famous line, \"Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young.\" Gwenda tells Miss Marple later that as she heard those words, she felt she was looking down through the banisters at the dead, blue face of someone named Helen, strangled by a man uttering the same line. She insists that she does not know anyone named Helen, and she believes she is going mad. Miss Marple suggests that she may be remembering something she"
      },
      {
        "text": " when she hears the actor speaking the famous line, \"Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young.\" Gwenda tells Miss Marple later that as she heard those words, she felt she was looking down through the banisters at the dead, blue face of someone named Helen, strangled by a man uttering the same line. She insists that she does not know anyone named Helen, and she believes she is going mad. Miss Marple suggests that she may be remembering something she witnessed as a small child (looking through rather than over the banisters), and that it may have happened in the house she has just bought, despite her belief that she has never been in England before. The Reeds and Miss Marple do a bit of research, and they discover that Gwenda is not psychic at all, but in fact she did spend a year during early childhood in the house she was later to buy. Her young stepmother, Helen, disappeared, having presumably run off with a man. Her father, devastated by his wife's disappearance and convinced he murdered her, sent Gwenda to New Zealand to be raised by an aunt and died soon afterward in an asylum. The young couple realize that there may be an unsolved crime to investigate. Miss Marple, who first advises the young couple to \"let sleeping murder lie\", later suggests to her own doctor that he prescribe her some sea air, and she travels to Dillmouth. The investigation that now sets in is completely in the hands of amateurs: Giles and Gwenda Reed and Miss Marple. The police are absent, as it has not even been established that a crime has been committed; officially, Helen Halliday ran off with one of her lovers and either died sometime later or made a clean break with her brother and never contacted anyone at home. The amateur sleuths find two old gardeners who remember the Halliday family and some of the former household staff. The young couple talk to many witnesses, including Dr"
      },
      {
        "text": " hands of amateurs: Giles and Gwenda Reed and Miss Marple. The police are absent, as it has not even been established that a crime has been committed; officially, Helen Halliday ran off with one of her lovers and either died sometime later or made a clean break with her brother and never contacted anyone at home. The amateur sleuths find two old gardeners who remember the Halliday family and some of the former household staff. The young couple talk to many witnesses, including Dr Kennedy, Helen's much older half-brother, who seems still heartbroken over the disappearance of his wild younger sister. He presents two letters posted abroad which he says he got from his half-sister after her disappearance, and which seem to prove that she did not die that night. But the amateur detectives still believe that Gwenda's memory is fundamentally reliable, and that Helen was murdered. It is later revealed that Dr Kennedy forged the two letters. The three other men in Helen's life at the time of her disappearance were Walter Fane, a local lawyer; JJ Afflick, a local tour guide; and Richard Erskine, who resides in the far north of England. It seems very likely to Giles and Gwenda that one of them must be the murderer: they were all \"on the spot\" when Helen disappeared eighteen years earlier. When Lily Kimble, who used to be in Halliday's employ, reads an advertisement, placed by Gwenda, seeking information about Helen, she senses there could be money in it; and after a second advertisement appears looking for her personally, she writes to Dr Kennedy asking for his advice. Kennedy interprets her letter to him as a blackmail attempt. He writes back to her, inviting her to see him at his house and including a train timetable and exact instructions on how to get to his house. He misdirects her to a deserted stretch of woodland, where he meets and strangles her. He then replaces his original letter"
      },
      {
        "text": " Helen, she senses there could be money in it; and after a second advertisement appears looking for her personally, she writes to Dr Kennedy asking for his advice. Kennedy interprets her letter to him as a blackmail attempt. He writes back to her, inviting her to see him at his house and including a train timetable and exact instructions on how to get to his house. He misdirects her to a deserted stretch of woodland, where he meets and strangles her. He then replaces his original letter with a fake one and is back at his house in time to \"wait\", together with Giles and Gwenda Reed, for her arrival. When Lily Kimble's body is found, the police start investigating. (When the police inspector sees Miss Marple he comments on a case of poison pen near Lymstock; thus Sleeping Murder is set after the happenings in The Moving Finger, which was published in 1942.) Now it dawns upon the Reeds that with a murderer still at large, their lives are in danger. This proves true: after Dr Kennedy unsuccessfully tries to poison them (it is Mrs Cocker, the cook, who takes a sip of the poisoned brandy instead and who consequently has to be hospitalised), Dr Kennedy tries to strangle Gwenda when she is alone in the house. But Miss Marple has foreseen this: she remained hidden in the garden, and when Gwenda screams she runs upstairs and disables Dr Kennedy by spraying soapy liquid into his eyes. Miss Marple explains that she believes that Helen was an ordinary, decent young woman, trying to escape from Kennedy, who was unhealthily and pathologically obsessed with her, and that the only evidence of her being \"man-mad\" came from him. He strangled her to prevent her moving to Norfolk in the east of England to live an ordinary, happy life away from him with her husband.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Miss Marple explains that she believes that Helen was an ordinary, decent young woman, trying to escape from Kennedy, who was unhealthily and pathologically obsessed with her, and that the only evidence of her being \"man-mad\" came from him. He strangled her to prevent her moving to Norfolk in the east of England to live an ordinary, happy life away from him with her husband.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Battle Royale",
    "author": "Koushun Takami",
    "published_date": "1999-04",
    "synopsis": " Battle Royale takes place in 1997 in an alternate timeline\u2014Japan is a member region of a totalitarian state known as the . Under the guise of a \"study trip\", a group of students from in the fictional town of Shiroiwa, in Kagawa Prefecture, are gassed on a bus. They awaken in the Okishima Island School on Okishima, an isolated, evacuated island southwest of Shodoshima (modeled after the island of Ogijima). They learn that they have been placed in an event called the Program. Officially a military research project, it is a means of terrorizing the population, of creating such paranoia as to make organized insurgency impossible. The first Program was held in 1947. Fifty third-year junior high school classes are selected (prior to 1950, forty-seven classes were selected) annually to participate in the Program for research purposes. The students from a single class are isolated and are required to fight the other members of their class to the death. The Program ends when only one student remains, with that student being declared the winner and receiving a government funded pension. Their movements are tracked by metal collars, which contain tracking and listening devices; if any student should attempt to escape the Program, or enter declared forbidden zones (which are randomly selected at the hours of 12 and 6, both a.m. and p.m.), a bomb will be detonated in the collar, killing the wearer. If no one dies within any 24-hour period, all collars will be detonated simultaneously and there will be no winner. After being briefed about the Program, the students are issued survival packs that include a map, compass, food and water, and a random weapon or other item, which may be anything from a gun to a paper fan. During the briefing, two students (Fumiyo Fujiyoshi and Yoshitoki Kuninobu) anger the supervisor, Kinpatsu Sakamochi, who kills both. As the students are released onto the island, they each react differently to their predicament; beautiful delinquent Mitsuko Souma murders those who stand in her way using deception, Hiroki Sugimura attempts to find his best friend and his secret love, Kazuo Kiriyama attempts to win the game by any means necessary (stemming from his lack of ability to feel human emotion due to a partial lobotomy caused by a car crash while in utero) and Shinji Mimura makes an attempt to escape with his best friend, class clown Yutaka Seto. In the end, four students remain: protagonist Shuya Nanahara, Noriko Nakagawa (the crush of Shuya's best friend), Shogo Kawada\u2014a survivor of a previous instance of the Program\u2014and antagonist Kazuo Kiriyama. Following a car chase and shoot-out between Kazuo and the main characters, Noriko kills Kazuo by shooting him, but to absolve the quiet and naturally good-natured Noriko of any guilt, Shogo then shoots Kazuo, claims he is in fact responsible for Kazuo's death, and then takes his two partners to a hill. After telling Shuya and Noriko that he will kill them, Shogo shoots in the air twice, faking their deaths for the microphones planted on the collars. He then dismantles the collars using information he had previously hacked into the government servers to obtain. Shogo boards the winner's ship, as do Shuya and Noriko, covertly, a short while later. On the ship, Shogo kills Sakamochi and a soldier, while Shuya kills the other soldiers on board. Shogo tells Shuya how to escape, succumbs to his wound from the battle with Kiriyama and dies. The two remaining students return to the mainland and attempt to travel to find a clinic belonging to a friend of Shogo's father. From there, they make plans to escape to the U.S., facing an uncertain future as they run from the authorities who have spotted them as they try to board a train.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Battle Royale takes place in 1997 in an alternate timeline\u2014Japan is a member region of a totalitarian state known as the . Under the guise of a \"study trip\", a group of students from in the fictional town of Shiroiwa, in Kagawa Prefecture, are gassed on a bus. They awaken in the Okishima Island School on Okishima, an isolated, evacuated island southwest of Shodoshima (modeled after the island of Ogijima). They learn that they have been placed in an event called the Program. Officially a military research project, it is a means of terrorizing the population, of creating such paranoia as to make organized insurgency impossible. The first Program was held in 1947. Fifty third-year junior high school classes are selected (prior to 1950, forty-seven classes were selected) annually to participate in the Program for research purposes. The students from a single class are isolated and are required to fight the other members of their class to the death. The Program ends when only one student remains, with that student being declared the winner and receiving a government funded pension. Their movements are tracked by metal collars, which contain tracking and listening devices; if any student should attempt to escape the Program, or enter declared forbidden zones (which are randomly selected at the hours of 12 and 6, both a.m. and p.m.), a bomb will be detonated in the collar, killing the wearer. If no one dies within any 24-hour period, all collars will be detonated simultaneously and there will be no winner. After being briefed about the Program, the students are issued survival packs that include a map, compass, food and water, and a random weapon or other item, which may be anything from a gun to a paper fan. During the briefing, two students (Fumiyo Fujiyoshi and Yoshitoki Kuninobu) anger the supervisor, Kinpatsu Sakamochi, who kills both"
      },
      {
        "text": "-hour period, all collars will be detonated simultaneously and there will be no winner. After being briefed about the Program, the students are issued survival packs that include a map, compass, food and water, and a random weapon or other item, which may be anything from a gun to a paper fan. During the briefing, two students (Fumiyo Fujiyoshi and Yoshitoki Kuninobu) anger the supervisor, Kinpatsu Sakamochi, who kills both. As the students are released onto the island, they each react differently to their predicament; beautiful delinquent Mitsuko Souma murders those who stand in her way using deception, Hiroki Sugimura attempts to find his best friend and his secret love, Kazuo Kiriyama attempts to win the game by any means necessary (stemming from his lack of ability to feel human emotion due to a partial lobotomy caused by a car crash while in utero) and Shinji Mimura makes an attempt to escape with his best friend, class clown Yutaka Seto. In the end, four students remain: protagonist Shuya Nanahara, Noriko Nakagawa (the crush of Shuya's best friend), Shogo Kawada\u2014a survivor of a previous instance of the Program\u2014and antagonist Kazuo Kiriyama. Following a car chase and shoot-out between Kazuo and the main characters, Noriko kills Kazuo by shooting him, but to absolve the quiet and naturally good-natured Noriko of any guilt, Shogo then shoots Kazuo, claims he is in fact responsible for Kazuo's death, and then takes his two partners to a hill. After telling Shuya and Noriko that he will kill them, Shogo shoots in the air twice, faking their deaths for the microphones planted on the collars. He then dismantles the collars using information he had previously hacked into the government servers to obtain. Shogo boards the winner's ship,"
      },
      {
        "text": "-natured Noriko of any guilt, Shogo then shoots Kazuo, claims he is in fact responsible for Kazuo's death, and then takes his two partners to a hill. After telling Shuya and Noriko that he will kill them, Shogo shoots in the air twice, faking their deaths for the microphones planted on the collars. He then dismantles the collars using information he had previously hacked into the government servers to obtain. Shogo boards the winner's ship, as do Shuya and Noriko, covertly, a short while later. On the ship, Shogo kills Sakamochi and a soldier, while Shuya kills the other soldiers on board. Shogo tells Shuya how to escape, succumbs to his wound from the battle with Kiriyama and dies. The two remaining students return to the mainland and attempt to travel to find a clinic belonging to a friend of Shogo's father. From there, they make plans to escape to the U.S., facing an uncertain future as they run from the authorities who have spotted them as they try to board a train.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Crooked House",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Three generations of the Leonides family live together under wealthy patriarch Aristide. His first wife died; her sister Edith has cared for the household since then. Second wife indolent Brenda, decades his junior, exchanges love letters with grandchildren's tutor. After Aristide is poisoned by his own eye medicine (eserine), his granddaughter Sophia tells narrator and fianc\u00e9 Charles Hayward that they cannot marry until the killer is apprehended. Charles' father \"The Old Man\" is the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, so Charles investigates from the inside along with assigned detective, Chief Inspector Taverner. When sly Josephine suffers attack and Nanny is poisoned by hot chocolate after Brenda and the tutor are arrested, the danger escalates to a surprise finish.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Three generations of the Leonides family live together under wealthy patriarch Aristide. His first wife died; her sister Edith has cared for the household since then. Second wife indolent Brenda, decades his junior, exchanges love letters with grandchildren's tutor. After Aristide is poisoned by his own eye medicine (eserine), his granddaughter Sophia tells narrator and fianc\u00e9 Charles Hayward that they cannot marry until the killer is apprehended. Charles' father \"The Old Man\" is the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, so Charles investigates from the inside along with assigned detective, Chief Inspector Taverner. When sly Josephine suffers attack and Nanny is poisoned by hot chocolate after Brenda and the tutor are arrested, the danger escalates to a surprise finish.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Joseph Andrews",
    "author": "Henry Fielding",
    "published_date": "1742",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins with the affable, intrusive narrator outlining the nature of our hero. Joseph Andrews is the brother of Richardson\u2019s Pamela and is of the same rustic parentage and patchy ancestry. At the age of ten years he found himself tending to animals as an apprentice to Sir Thomas Booby. It was in proving his worth as a horseman that he first caught the eye of Sir Thomas\u2019s wife, Lady Booby, who employed him (now seventeen) as her footman. After the death of Sir Thomas, Joseph finds that his Lady\u2019s affections have redoubled as she offers herself to him in her chamber while on a trip to London. In a scene analogous to many of Pamela\u2019s refusals of Mr B in Richardson\u2019s novel, however, Lady Booby finds that Joseph\u2019s Christian commitment to chastity before marriage is unwavering. After suffering the Lady\u2019s fury, Joseph dispatches a letter to his sister very much typical of Pamela\u2019s anguished missives in her own novel. The Lady calls him once again to her chamber and makes one last withering attempt at seduction before dismissing him from both his job and his lodgings. With Joseph setting out from London by moonlight, the narrator introduces the reader to the heroine of the novel, Fanny Goodwill. A poor illiterate girl of \u2018extraordinary beauty\u2019 (I, xi) now living with a farmer close to Lady Booby\u2019s parish, she and Joseph had grown ever closer since their childhood, before their local parson and mentor, Abraham Adams, recommended that they postpone marriage until they have the means to live comfortably. On his way to see Fanny, Joseph is mugged and laid up in a nearby inn where, by dint of circumstance, he is reconciled with Adams, who is on his way to London to sell three volumes of his sermons. The thief, too, is found and brought to the inn (only to escape later that night), and Joseph is reunited with his possessions. Adams and Joseph catch up with each other, and the parson, in spite of his own poverty, offers his last 9s 3\u00bdd to Joseph\u2019s disposal. Joseph and Adams\u2019 stay in the inn is capped by one of the many burlesque, slapstick digressions in the novel. Betty, the inn\u2019s 21-year-old chambermaid, had taken a liking to Joseph since he arrived; a liking doomed to inevitable disappointment by Joseph\u2019s constancy to Fanny. The landlord, Mr Tow-wouse, had always admired Betty and saw this disappointment as an opportunity to take advantage. Locked in an embrace, they are discovered by the choleric Mrs Tow-wouse, who chases the maid through the house before Adams is forced to restrain her. With the landlord promising not to transgress again, his lady allows him to make his peace at the cost of \u2018quietly and contentedly bearing to be reminded of his transgressions, as a kind of penance, once or twice a day, during the residue of his life\u2019 (I, xviii). During his stay in the inn, Adams\u2019 hopes for his sermons were mocked in a discussion with a travelling bookseller and another parson. Nevertheless, Adams remains resolved to continue his journey to London until it is revealed that his wife, deciding that he would be more in need of shirts than sermons on his journey, has neglected to pack them. The pair thus decide to return to the parson\u2019s parish: Joseph in search of Fanny, and Adams in search of his sermons. With Joseph following on horseback, Adams finds himself sharing a stagecoach with an anonymous lady and Madam Slipslop, an admirer of Joseph\u2019s and a servant of Lady Booby. When they pass the house of a teenage girl named Leonora, the anonymous lady is reminded of a story and begins one of the novel\u2019s three interpolated tales, \u2018The History of Leonora, or the Unfortunate Jilt\u2019. The story of Leonora continues for a number of chapters, punctuated by the questions and interruptions of the other passengers. After stopping at an inn, Adams relinquishes his seat to Joseph and, forgetting his horse, embarks ahead on foot. Finding himself some time ahead of his friend, Adams rests by the side of the road where he becomes so engaged in conversation with a fellow traveller that he misses the stagecoach as it passes. As the night falls and Adams and the stranger discourse on courage and duty, a shriek is heard. The stranger, having seconds earlier lauded the virtues of bravery and chivalry, makes his excuses and flees the scene without turning back. Adams, however, rushes to the girl\u2019s aid and after a mock-epic struggle knocks her attacker unconscious. In spite of Adams\u2019 good intentions, he and the girl, who reveals herself to be none other than Fanny Goodwill (in search of Joseph after hearing of his mugging), find themselves accused of assault and robbery. After some comic litigious wrangling before the local magistrate, the pair are eventually released and depart shortly after midnight in search of Joseph. They do not have to walk far before a storm forces them into the same inn that Joseph and Slipslop have chosen for the night. Slipslop, her jealousy ignited by seeing the two lovers reunited, departs angrily. When Adams, Joseph and Fanny come to leave the following morning, they find their departure delayed by an inability to settle the bill, and, with Adams\u2019 solicitations of a loan from the local parson and his wealthy parishioners failing, it falls on a local peddler to rescue the trio by loaning them his last 6s 6d. The solicitations of charity that Adams is forced to make, and the complications which surround their stay in the parish, bring him into contact with many local squires, gentlemen and parsons, and much of the latter portion of Book II is occupied with the discussions of literature, religion, philosophy and trade which result. The three depart the inn by night, and it is not long before Fanny needs to rest. With the party silent, they overhear approaching voices agree on \u2018the murder of any one they meet\u2019 (III, ii) and flee to a local house. Inviting them in, the owner, Mr Wilson, informs them that the gang of supposed murderers were in fact sheep-stealers, intent more on the killing of livestock than of Adams and his friends. The party being settled, Wilson begins the novel\u2019s most lengthy interpolated tale by recounting his life story; a story which bears a notable resemblance to Fielding\u2019s own young adulthood. At the age of 16, Wilson\u2019s father died and left him a modest fortune. Finding himself the master of his own destiny, he left school and travelled to London where he soon acquainted himself with the dress, manners and reputation for womanising necessary to consider himself a \u2018beau\u2019. Wilson\u2019s life in the town is a fa\u00e7ade: he writes love-letters to himself, obtains his fine clothes on credit and is concerned more with being seen at the theatre than with watching the play. After two bad experiences with women, he is financially crippled and, much like Fielding himself, falls into the company of a group of Deists, freethinkers and gamblers. Finding himself in debt, he turns to the writing of plays and hack journalism to alleviate his financial burden (again, much like the author himself). He spends his last few pence on a lottery ticket but, with no reliable income, is soon forced to exchange it for food. While in jail for his debts, news reaches him that the ticket he gave away has won a \u00a33,000 prize. His disappointment is short-lived, however, as the daughter of the winner hears of his plight, pays off his debts, and, after a brief courtship, agrees to become his wife. Wilson had found himself at the mercy of many of the social ills that Fielding had written about in his journalism: the over-saturated and abused literary market, the exploitative state lottery, and regressive laws which sanctioned imprisonment for small debts. Having seen the corrupting influence of wealth and the town, he retires with his new wife to the rural solitude in which Adams, Fanny and Joseph now find them. The only break in his contentment, and one which will turn out to be significant to the plot, was the kidnapping of his eldest son, whom he has not seen since. Wilson promises to visit Adams when he passes through his parish, and after another mock-epic battle on the road, this time with a party of hunting dogs, the trio proceed to the house of a local squire, where Fielding illustrates another contemporary social ill by having Adams subjected to a humiliating roasting. Enraged, the three depart to the nearest inn to find that, while at the squire\u2019s house, they had been robbed of their last half-guinea. To compound their misery, the squire has Adams and Joseph accused of kidnapping Fanny, in order to have them detained while he orders the abduction of the girl himself. She is rescued in transit, however, by Lady Booby\u2019s steward, Peter Pounce, and all four of them complete the remainder of the journey to Booby Hall together. On seeing Joseph arrive back in the parish, a jealous Lady Booby meanders through emotions as diverse as rage, pity, hatred, pride and love. The next morning Joseph and Fanny\u2019s banns are published and the Lady turns her anger onto Parson Adams, who is accommodating Fanny at his house. Finding herself powerless either to stop the marriage or to expel them from the parish, she enlists the help of Lawyer Scout, who brings a spurious charge of larceny against Joseph and Fanny in order to prevent, or at least postpone, the wedding. Three days later, the Lady\u2019s plans are foiled by the visit of her nephew, Mr Booby, and a surprise guest: Booby has married Pamela, granting Joseph a powerful new ally and brother-in-law. What is more, Booby is an acquaintance of the justice presiding over Joseph and Fanny\u2019s trial, and instead of Bridewell, has them committed to his own custody. Knowing of his sister\u2019s antipathy to the two lovers, Booby offers to reunite Joseph with his sister and take him and Fanny into his own parish and his own family. In a discourse with Joseph on stoicism and fatalism, Adams instructs his friend to submit to the will of God and control his passions, even in the face of overwhelming tragedy. In the kind of cruel juxtaposition usually reserved for Fielding\u2019s less savoury characters, Adams is informed that his youngest son, Jacky, has drowned. After indulging his grief in a manner contrary to his lecture a few minutes previously, Adams is informed that the report was premature, and that his son had in fact been rescued by the same pedlar that loaned him his last few shillings in Book II. Lady Booby, in a last-ditch attempt to sabotage the marriage, brings a young beau named Didapper to Adams\u2019 house to seduce Fanny. Fanny is unattracted to his bold attempts of courtship. Didapper is a little too bold in his approach and provokes Joseph into a fight. The Lady and the beau depart in disgust, but the pedlar, having seen the Lady, is compelled to relate a tale. The pedlar had met his wife while in the army, and she died young. While on her death bed, she confessed that she once stole an exquisitely beautiful baby girl from a family named Andrews, and sold her on to Sir Thomas Booby, thus raising the possibility that Fanny may in fact be Joseph\u2019s sister. The company is shocked, but there is general relief that the crime of incest may have been narrowly averted. The following morning, Joseph and Pamela\u2019s parents arrive, and, together with the pedlar and Adams, they piece together the question of Fanny\u2019s parentage. The Andrews identify her as their lost daughter, but have a twist to add to the tale: when Fanny was an infant, she was indeed stolen from her parents, but the thieves left behind a sickly infant Joseph in return, who was raised as their own. It is immediately apparent that Joseph is the abovementioned kidnapped son of Wilson, and when Wilson arrives on his promised visit, he identifies Joseph by a birthmark on his chest. Joseph is now the son of a respected gentleman, Fanny an in-law of the Booby family, and the couple no longer suspected of being siblings. Two days later they are married by Adams in a humble ceremony, and the narrator, after bringing the story to a close, and in a disparaging allusion to Richardson, assures the reader that there will be no sequel.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins with the affable, intrusive narrator outlining the nature of our hero. Joseph Andrews is the brother of Richardson\u2019s Pamela and is of the same rustic parentage and patchy ancestry. At the age of ten years he found himself tending to animals as an apprentice to Sir Thomas Booby. It was in proving his worth as a horseman that he first caught the eye of Sir Thomas\u2019s wife, Lady Booby, who employed him (now seventeen) as her footman. After the death of Sir Thomas, Joseph finds that his Lady\u2019s affections have redoubled as she offers herself to him in her chamber while on a trip to London. In a scene analogous to many of Pamela\u2019s refusals of Mr B in Richardson\u2019s novel, however, Lady Booby finds that Joseph\u2019s Christian commitment to chastity before marriage is unwavering. After suffering the Lady\u2019s fury, Joseph dispatches a letter to his sister very much typical of Pamela\u2019s anguished missives in her own novel. The Lady calls him once again to her chamber and makes one last withering attempt at seduction before dismissing him from both his job and his lodgings. With Joseph setting out from London by moonlight, the narrator introduces the reader to the heroine of the novel, Fanny Goodwill. A poor illiterate girl of \u2018extraordinary beauty\u2019 (I, xi) now living with a farmer close to Lady Booby\u2019s parish, she and Joseph had grown ever closer since their childhood, before their local parson and mentor, Abraham Adams, recommended that they postpone marriage until they have the means to live comfortably. On his way to see Fanny, Joseph is mugged and laid up in a nearby inn where, by dint of circumstance, he is reconciled with Adams, who is on his way to London to sell three volumes of his sermons."
      },
      {
        "text": " living with a farmer close to Lady Booby\u2019s parish, she and Joseph had grown ever closer since their childhood, before their local parson and mentor, Abraham Adams, recommended that they postpone marriage until they have the means to live comfortably. On his way to see Fanny, Joseph is mugged and laid up in a nearby inn where, by dint of circumstance, he is reconciled with Adams, who is on his way to London to sell three volumes of his sermons. The thief, too, is found and brought to the inn (only to escape later that night), and Joseph is reunited with his possessions. Adams and Joseph catch up with each other, and the parson, in spite of his own poverty, offers his last 9s 3\u00bdd to Joseph\u2019s disposal. Joseph and Adams\u2019 stay in the inn is capped by one of the many burlesque, slapstick digressions in the novel. Betty, the inn\u2019s 21-year-old chambermaid, had taken a liking to Joseph since he arrived; a liking doomed to inevitable disappointment by Joseph\u2019s constancy to Fanny. The landlord, Mr Tow-wouse, had always admired Betty and saw this disappointment as an opportunity to take advantage. Locked in an embrace, they are discovered by the choleric Mrs Tow-wouse, who chases the maid through the house before Adams is forced to restrain her. With the landlord promising not to transgress again, his lady allows him to make his peace at the cost of \u2018quietly and contentedly bearing to be reminded of his transgressions, as a kind of penance, once or twice a day, during the residue of his life\u2019 (I, xviii). During his stay in the inn, Adams\u2019 hopes for his sermons were mocked in a discussion with a travelling bookseller and another parson. Nevertheless, Adams remains resolved to continue his journey to London"
      },
      {
        "text": " transgress again, his lady allows him to make his peace at the cost of \u2018quietly and contentedly bearing to be reminded of his transgressions, as a kind of penance, once or twice a day, during the residue of his life\u2019 (I, xviii). During his stay in the inn, Adams\u2019 hopes for his sermons were mocked in a discussion with a travelling bookseller and another parson. Nevertheless, Adams remains resolved to continue his journey to London until it is revealed that his wife, deciding that he would be more in need of shirts than sermons on his journey, has neglected to pack them. The pair thus decide to return to the parson\u2019s parish: Joseph in search of Fanny, and Adams in search of his sermons. With Joseph following on horseback, Adams finds himself sharing a stagecoach with an anonymous lady and Madam Slipslop, an admirer of Joseph\u2019s and a servant of Lady Booby. When they pass the house of a teenage girl named Leonora, the anonymous lady is reminded of a story and begins one of the novel\u2019s three interpolated tales, \u2018The History of Leonora, or the Unfortunate Jilt\u2019. The story of Leonora continues for a number of chapters, punctuated by the questions and interruptions of the other passengers. After stopping at an inn, Adams relinquishes his seat to Joseph and, forgetting his horse, embarks ahead on foot. Finding himself some time ahead of his friend, Adams rests by the side of the road where he becomes so engaged in conversation with a fellow traveller that he misses the stagecoach as it passes. As the night falls and Adams and the stranger discourse on courage and duty, a shriek is heard. The stranger, having seconds earlier lauded the virtues of bravery and chivalry, makes his excuses and flees the scene without turning back. Adams, however, rushes"
      },
      {
        "text": " horse, embarks ahead on foot. Finding himself some time ahead of his friend, Adams rests by the side of the road where he becomes so engaged in conversation with a fellow traveller that he misses the stagecoach as it passes. As the night falls and Adams and the stranger discourse on courage and duty, a shriek is heard. The stranger, having seconds earlier lauded the virtues of bravery and chivalry, makes his excuses and flees the scene without turning back. Adams, however, rushes to the girl\u2019s aid and after a mock-epic struggle knocks her attacker unconscious. In spite of Adams\u2019 good intentions, he and the girl, who reveals herself to be none other than Fanny Goodwill (in search of Joseph after hearing of his mugging), find themselves accused of assault and robbery. After some comic litigious wrangling before the local magistrate, the pair are eventually released and depart shortly after midnight in search of Joseph. They do not have to walk far before a storm forces them into the same inn that Joseph and Slipslop have chosen for the night. Slipslop, her jealousy ignited by seeing the two lovers reunited, departs angrily. When Adams, Joseph and Fanny come to leave the following morning, they find their departure delayed by an inability to settle the bill, and, with Adams\u2019 solicitations of a loan from the local parson and his wealthy parishioners failing, it falls on a local peddler to rescue the trio by loaning them his last 6s 6d. The solicitations of charity that Adams is forced to make, and the complications which surround their stay in the parish, bring him into contact with many local squires, gentlemen and parsons, and much of the latter portion of Book II is occupied with the discussions of literature, religion, philosophy and trade which result. The three depart the inn by night, and it is not long before Fanny needs to rest. With the party"
      },
      {
        "text": " rescue the trio by loaning them his last 6s 6d. The solicitations of charity that Adams is forced to make, and the complications which surround their stay in the parish, bring him into contact with many local squires, gentlemen and parsons, and much of the latter portion of Book II is occupied with the discussions of literature, religion, philosophy and trade which result. The three depart the inn by night, and it is not long before Fanny needs to rest. With the party silent, they overhear approaching voices agree on \u2018the murder of any one they meet\u2019 (III, ii) and flee to a local house. Inviting them in, the owner, Mr Wilson, informs them that the gang of supposed murderers were in fact sheep-stealers, intent more on the killing of livestock than of Adams and his friends. The party being settled, Wilson begins the novel\u2019s most lengthy interpolated tale by recounting his life story; a story which bears a notable resemblance to Fielding\u2019s own young adulthood. At the age of 16, Wilson\u2019s father died and left him a modest fortune. Finding himself the master of his own destiny, he left school and travelled to London where he soon acquainted himself with the dress, manners and reputation for womanising necessary to consider himself a \u2018beau\u2019. Wilson\u2019s life in the town is a fa\u00e7ade: he writes love-letters to himself, obtains his fine clothes on credit and is concerned more with being seen at the theatre than with watching the play. After two bad experiences with women, he is financially crippled and, much like Fielding himself, falls into the company of a group of Deists, freethinkers and gamblers. Finding himself in debt, he turns to the writing of plays and hack journalism to alleviate his financial burden (again, much like the author himself). He spends his last few pence on a lottery ticket"
      },
      {
        "text": "tains his fine clothes on credit and is concerned more with being seen at the theatre than with watching the play. After two bad experiences with women, he is financially crippled and, much like Fielding himself, falls into the company of a group of Deists, freethinkers and gamblers. Finding himself in debt, he turns to the writing of plays and hack journalism to alleviate his financial burden (again, much like the author himself). He spends his last few pence on a lottery ticket but, with no reliable income, is soon forced to exchange it for food. While in jail for his debts, news reaches him that the ticket he gave away has won a \u00a33,000 prize. His disappointment is short-lived, however, as the daughter of the winner hears of his plight, pays off his debts, and, after a brief courtship, agrees to become his wife. Wilson had found himself at the mercy of many of the social ills that Fielding had written about in his journalism: the over-saturated and abused literary market, the exploitative state lottery, and regressive laws which sanctioned imprisonment for small debts. Having seen the corrupting influence of wealth and the town, he retires with his new wife to the rural solitude in which Adams, Fanny and Joseph now find them. The only break in his contentment, and one which will turn out to be significant to the plot, was the kidnapping of his eldest son, whom he has not seen since. Wilson promises to visit Adams when he passes through his parish, and after another mock-epic battle on the road, this time with a party of hunting dogs, the trio proceed to the house of a local squire, where Fielding illustrates another contemporary social ill by having Adams subjected to a humiliating roasting. Enraged, the three depart to the nearest inn to find that, while at the squire\u2019s house, they had been robbed of their last half-guinea"
      },
      {
        "text": " since. Wilson promises to visit Adams when he passes through his parish, and after another mock-epic battle on the road, this time with a party of hunting dogs, the trio proceed to the house of a local squire, where Fielding illustrates another contemporary social ill by having Adams subjected to a humiliating roasting. Enraged, the three depart to the nearest inn to find that, while at the squire\u2019s house, they had been robbed of their last half-guinea. To compound their misery, the squire has Adams and Joseph accused of kidnapping Fanny, in order to have them detained while he orders the abduction of the girl himself. She is rescued in transit, however, by Lady Booby\u2019s steward, Peter Pounce, and all four of them complete the remainder of the journey to Booby Hall together. On seeing Joseph arrive back in the parish, a jealous Lady Booby meanders through emotions as diverse as rage, pity, hatred, pride and love. The next morning Joseph and Fanny\u2019s banns are published and the Lady turns her anger onto Parson Adams, who is accommodating Fanny at his house. Finding herself powerless either to stop the marriage or to expel them from the parish, she enlists the help of Lawyer Scout, who brings a spurious charge of larceny against Joseph and Fanny in order to prevent, or at least postpone, the wedding. Three days later, the Lady\u2019s plans are foiled by the visit of her nephew, Mr Booby, and a surprise guest: Booby has married Pamela, granting Joseph a powerful new ally and brother-in-law. What is more, Booby is an acquaintance of the justice presiding over Joseph and Fanny\u2019s trial, and instead of Bridewell, has them committed to his own custody. Knowing of his sister\u2019s antipathy to the two lovers, Booby offers to reunite Joseph"
      },
      {
        "text": "\ufffds plans are foiled by the visit of her nephew, Mr Booby, and a surprise guest: Booby has married Pamela, granting Joseph a powerful new ally and brother-in-law. What is more, Booby is an acquaintance of the justice presiding over Joseph and Fanny\u2019s trial, and instead of Bridewell, has them committed to his own custody. Knowing of his sister\u2019s antipathy to the two lovers, Booby offers to reunite Joseph with his sister and take him and Fanny into his own parish and his own family. In a discourse with Joseph on stoicism and fatalism, Adams instructs his friend to submit to the will of God and control his passions, even in the face of overwhelming tragedy. In the kind of cruel juxtaposition usually reserved for Fielding\u2019s less savoury characters, Adams is informed that his youngest son, Jacky, has drowned. After indulging his grief in a manner contrary to his lecture a few minutes previously, Adams is informed that the report was premature, and that his son had in fact been rescued by the same pedlar that loaned him his last few shillings in Book II. Lady Booby, in a last-ditch attempt to sabotage the marriage, brings a young beau named Didapper to Adams\u2019 house to seduce Fanny. Fanny is unattracted to his bold attempts of courtship. Didapper is a little too bold in his approach and provokes Joseph into a fight. The Lady and the beau depart in disgust, but the pedlar, having seen the Lady, is compelled to relate a tale. The pedlar had met his wife while in the army, and she died young. While on her death bed, she confessed that she once stole an exquisitely beautiful baby girl from a family named Andrews, and sold her on to Sir Thomas Booby, thus raising the possibility that Fanny may in fact be"
      },
      {
        "text": " his approach and provokes Joseph into a fight. The Lady and the beau depart in disgust, but the pedlar, having seen the Lady, is compelled to relate a tale. The pedlar had met his wife while in the army, and she died young. While on her death bed, she confessed that she once stole an exquisitely beautiful baby girl from a family named Andrews, and sold her on to Sir Thomas Booby, thus raising the possibility that Fanny may in fact be Joseph\u2019s sister. The company is shocked, but there is general relief that the crime of incest may have been narrowly averted. The following morning, Joseph and Pamela\u2019s parents arrive, and, together with the pedlar and Adams, they piece together the question of Fanny\u2019s parentage. The Andrews identify her as their lost daughter, but have a twist to add to the tale: when Fanny was an infant, she was indeed stolen from her parents, but the thieves left behind a sickly infant Joseph in return, who was raised as their own. It is immediately apparent that Joseph is the abovementioned kidnapped son of Wilson, and when Wilson arrives on his promised visit, he identifies Joseph by a birthmark on his chest. Joseph is now the son of a respected gentleman, Fanny an in-law of the Booby family, and the couple no longer suspected of being siblings. Two days later they are married by Adams in a humble ceremony, and the narrator, after bringing the story to a close, and in a disparaging allusion to Richardson, assures the reader that there will be no sequel.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the narrator, after bringing the story to a close, and in a disparaging allusion to Richardson, assures the reader that there will be no sequel.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Cunt",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Kelso, who has already published a number of books (for example novels entitled Desiring Machines in the Australian Bush and Fuck Your Mother Up the Arse, but also non-fiction), is in his thirties, several times divorced, a heavy drinker and, according to his own description, a \"sex beast\". As a writer, he says he has no intention whatsoever of using his imagination; rather, he wants to chronicle his present life, which in turn is fuelled by his most ambitious literary project so far, the completion of a trilogy entitled Countdown to Chaos. In order to be able to write the final part of his trilogy, Kelso wants to track down and have sex again with all the girls he \"shagged\" when he was in his teens\u2014in reverse order. He always carries his laptop with him to be able to record each of his sexual encounters immediately after it has taken place. Although he says he wants to record all events exactly as they happened, he does embellish his story again and again. On his way through Europe -- England, Scotland, Austria, Finland and Estonia -- he has sex with all willing women and girls that cross his path, \"asserting my inalienable right to freedom\". Kelso is a \"sex machine\". He always has an erection, and never fails to please the woman or women he is with, even if he is drunk. They invariably enjoy multiple orgasms. Some of them want to have sex with Kelso because, they say, that way they are transformed into art and thus immortalized. Kelso is also into kinky sex. Although Kelso never commits any violent crimes in connection with his sexual exploits, violent death does play a role in Cunt. A maniac called Gary McMara, who likes to wear women's underwear and who accuses Kelso of conspiring with some radical political group (the \"secret state\"), follows Kelso to Finland, where McMara dies after he is thrown into an ice-cold lake by Kelso and subsequently warmed too quickly in a sauna. Amber, a transsexual and his publisher's new secretary, accompanies McMara to Finland and, standing under Kelso's window, accidentally shoots herself when she slips on a piece of ice. After Kelso has left Finland incognito (using his false passport) he meets his ex-wife Cherry, who is a cocaine and heroin addict (Kelso himself never takes drugs) and who dies of an overdose while Kelso is present. At the beginning of the novel Kelso has a chance meeting with Sandra Stone, the girl with whom he lost his virginity back when they were at school. At the end he goes back to Aldeburgh to embark on the final chapter of his trilogy. He wants to stab Sandra so that he has a spectacular ending to his book. For that reason he is carrying a knife in his trouser pocket. However, he suddenly realizes that he has always been in love with Sandra. The words \"The first shall be last\" suddenly occur to him, and he reinterprets them his way: Sandra is the last woman he will ever make love to. He turns to, and embraces, Jesus, marries Sandra, hopes that she will also become a believer one day, gives away his royalties to the church, takes a blue collar job and leads a simple and honest life. He wants to find a Christian publisher who is willing to bring out this journal as the account of a reformed sinner.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Kelso, who has already published a number of books (for example novels entitled Desiring Machines in the Australian Bush and Fuck Your Mother Up the Arse, but also non-fiction), is in his thirties, several times divorced, a heavy drinker and, according to his own description, a \"sex beast\". As a writer, he says he has no intention whatsoever of using his imagination; rather, he wants to chronicle his present life, which in turn is fuelled by his most ambitious literary project so far, the completion of a trilogy entitled Countdown to Chaos. In order to be able to write the final part of his trilogy, Kelso wants to track down and have sex again with all the girls he \"shagged\" when he was in his teens\u2014in reverse order. He always carries his laptop with him to be able to record each of his sexual encounters immediately after it has taken place. Although he says he wants to record all events exactly as they happened, he does embellish his story again and again. On his way through Europe -- England, Scotland, Austria, Finland and Estonia -- he has sex with all willing women and girls that cross his path, \"asserting my inalienable right to freedom\". Kelso is a \"sex machine\". He always has an erection, and never fails to please the woman or women he is with, even if he is drunk. They invariably enjoy multiple orgasms. Some of them want to have sex with Kelso because, they say, that way they are transformed into art and thus immortalized. Kelso is also into kinky sex. Although Kelso never commits any violent crimes in connection with his sexual exploits, violent death does play a role in Cunt. A maniac called Gary McMara, who likes to wear women's underwear and who accuses Kelso of conspiring with some radical political group (the \"secret state\"), follows Kelso to Finland, where McMara dies after he is thrown into an ice"
      },
      {
        "text": " because, they say, that way they are transformed into art and thus immortalized. Kelso is also into kinky sex. Although Kelso never commits any violent crimes in connection with his sexual exploits, violent death does play a role in Cunt. A maniac called Gary McMara, who likes to wear women's underwear and who accuses Kelso of conspiring with some radical political group (the \"secret state\"), follows Kelso to Finland, where McMara dies after he is thrown into an ice-cold lake by Kelso and subsequently warmed too quickly in a sauna. Amber, a transsexual and his publisher's new secretary, accompanies McMara to Finland and, standing under Kelso's window, accidentally shoots herself when she slips on a piece of ice. After Kelso has left Finland incognito (using his false passport) he meets his ex-wife Cherry, who is a cocaine and heroin addict (Kelso himself never takes drugs) and who dies of an overdose while Kelso is present. At the beginning of the novel Kelso has a chance meeting with Sandra Stone, the girl with whom he lost his virginity back when they were at school. At the end he goes back to Aldeburgh to embark on the final chapter of his trilogy. He wants to stab Sandra so that he has a spectacular ending to his book. For that reason he is carrying a knife in his trouser pocket. However, he suddenly realizes that he has always been in love with Sandra. The words \"The first shall be last\" suddenly occur to him, and he reinterprets them his way: Sandra is the last woman he will ever make love to. He turns to, and embraces, Jesus, marries Sandra, hopes that she will also become a believer one day, gives away his royalties to the church, takes a blue collar job and leads a simple and honest life. He wants to find a Christian publisher who is willing to bring out this journal as the account"
      },
      {
        "text": ". The words \"The first shall be last\" suddenly occur to him, and he reinterprets them his way: Sandra is the last woman he will ever make love to. He turns to, and embraces, Jesus, marries Sandra, hopes that she will also become a believer one day, gives away his royalties to the church, takes a blue collar job and leads a simple and honest life. He wants to find a Christian publisher who is willing to bring out this journal as the account of a reformed sinner.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Study in Scarlet",
    "author": "Arthur Conan Doyle",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story begins in 1881, where Dr. John Watson runs into an old friend, Stamford. Due to a shoulder injury sustained in the Anglo-Afghan War, Watson was forced to retire and is now looking for a place to live. Stamford mentions that an acquaintance of his, one Sherlock Holmes, is looking for someone to split the rent at a flat at 221B, Baker Street, but cautions about Holmes' eccentricities. Stamford takes Watson to the local hospital's lab where they find Holmes experimenting with a reagent for haemoglobin detection. Holmes explains its probable, inestimable usefulness in convicting criminals based on bloodstains. Then, upon shaking Watson's hand, deduces that the Dr. has seen military action but waves off the question of how he knows. Watson brooches the subject of their mutual flat-mate search. At Holmes' prompting, the two review their various shortcomings to make sure that they can accept living together. After seeing the rooms at 221B, they move in and grow accustomed to their new situation. Watson is amazed by Holmes, who has profound knowledge of chemistry and sensational literature, very precise but narrow knowledge of geology and botany; yet knows little about literature, astronomy, philosophy, and politics. Holmes also has multiple guests visiting him at different intervals during the day. After much speculation by Watson, Holmes reveals that he is a \"consulting detective\" and that the guests are clients. Facing Watson's doubts about some of his claims, Holmes casually deduces to Watson that one visitor, a messenger from Scotland Yard is also a retired Marine sergeant. When the man confirms this, Watson is astounded by Holmes' ability to notice details and assemble them. Holmes reads the telegram requesting consultation in a fresh murder case. He's reluctant to help because credit would go entirely to the officials. Watson urges him to reconsider so Holmes invites him to accompany him as he investigates the crime scene, an abandoned rural manor. Holmes observes the sidewalk and garden leading up to the house before he and Watson meet Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade. The four observe the crime scene, Holmes using a magnifying lens and tape measure. The male corpse, he's told, has been identified as Enoch Drebber. Blood has been found in the room but there is no mark on the body. They also learn from documents found on his person that he was in London with a friend, Joseph Stangerson. On one wall, written in blood, is \"RACHE\". Correcting an erroneous theory of Gregson's, Holmes remarks that it is the German word for \"revenge.\" He goes on to deduce that the victim died from poison and supplies a description of the murderer: six feet tall, disproportionately small feet, florid complexion, square toed boots, and smoking a Trichinopoly cigar. His right-hand fingernails are long and he came in a cab whose horse had three old shoes and one new one. Holmes says \"RACHE\" was a ploy to fool police. Holmes listens to a constable's story about a drunken man loitering by the scene of the crime and informs him that the \u201cdrunk\u201d was really the murderer revisiting the scene to collect a wedding ring clutched by the victim. Soon, Holmes and Watson visit the home of the constable who had first discovered the corpse, paying him a bit for disturbing his nocturnal sleep cycle. They get little information Holmes didn't already know, other than that a seemingly drunk loiterer had attempted to approach the crime scene. Holmes chastises the officer for not realizing that this was the murderer himself in disguise. They leave and Holmes explains that the murderer returned on realizing that he'd forgotten the wedding ring. Holmes dispatches some telegrams including an order for a newspaper notice about the ring. He also buys a facsimile of it. He guesses that the murderer, having already returned to the scene of the crime for it, would come to retrieve it. The advertisement is answered by an old woman who claims that the ring belongs to her daughter. Holmes gives her the duplicate, follows her, and returns to Watson with the story: she took a cab, he hopped onto the back of it, he found that she had vanished when it stopped. This leads Holmes to believe that it was the murderer's accomplice in disguise. A later day, Gregson visits Holmes and Watson, telling them that he has arrested a suspect. He had gone to Madame Charpentier's Boarding House where Drebber and Stangerson had stayed before the murder. He learned from her that Drebber, a drunk, had attempted to kiss Madame's daughter, Alice. She, in turn, evicted the two. Drebber, however, came back later that night and attempted to grab Alice, prompting her older brother to attack him. He attempted chased Drebber with a crop but claimed to have lost sight of him. Gregson has him in custody on this circumstantial evidence. Lestrade then arrives revealing that Stangerson has more recently been murdered. He had gone to interview Stangerson after learning where he had been rooming. His body was found dead near the hotel window, stabbed through the heart. Above his body was again written \u201cRACHE\u201d. The only things Stangerson had with him were a novel, a pipe, and a small box containing two pills. The pillpobx Lestrade still has with him. Holmes tests the pills on an old and sickly Scottish terrier in residence at Baker Street. The first pill produces no evident effect, the second kills the terrier. Holmes deduces that one was harmless and the other poison. Just at that moment, a very young street urchin named Wiggins arrives. He's the leader of the \u201cBaker Street Irregulars\u201d, a group of similar homeless children Holmes employs to help him occasionally. Wiggins states that he's summoned the cab Holmes wanted. Holmes sends him down to fetch the cabby, claiming to need help with his luggage. When the cab-man comes upstairs and bends for the trunk, Holmes handcuffs and restrains him. He then announces the captive cabby as Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Drebber and Stangerson. The story flashes back to the Utah Territory in 1847, where John Ferrier and a little girl named Lucy, the only survivors of a large party of pioneers, lie down near a boulder to die from dehydration and hunger. They are discovered, however, by a large party of Mormons led by Brigham Young. The Mormons rescue Ferrier and Lucy on the condition that they adopt and live under their faith. Ferrier, who has proven himself an able hunter, is given a generous land grant with which to build his farm after the party constructs Salt Lake City. Years later, a now-grown Lucy befriends and falls in love with a man named Jefferson Hope. Lucy and Hope become engaged to be married, scheduled after Hope's return from a three-month long journey for his job. However, Ferrier is visited by Young, who reveals that it is against the religion for Lucy to marry Hope, a non-Mormon. He states that Lucy should marry Joseph Stangerson or Enoch Drebber\u2014both members of the Mormon Church's Council of Four\u2014though Lucy may choose which one. Ferrier and Lucy are given a month to decide. Ferrier, who has sworn to never marry his daughter to a Mormon, immediately sends out word to Hope for help. When he is visited by Stangerson and Drebber, Ferrier is angered by their arguments over Lucy and throws them out. Every day, however, the number of days Ferrier has left to marry off Lucy is painted somewhere on his farm in the middle of the night. Hope finally arrives on the eve of the last day, and sneaks his love and her adoptive father out of their farm and away from Salt Lake City. However, while he is hunting for food, Hope returns to a horrific sight; a makeshift grave for the elder Ferrier. Lucy is nowhere to be seen. Determined to devote his life to revenge, Hope sneaks back into Salt Lake City, learning that Lucy was forcibly married to Drebber and that Stangerson murdered Ferrier. Lucy dies a month later from a broken heart; Drebber, who inherited Ferrier's farm, is indifferent to her death. Hope then breaks into Drebber's house the night before Lucy's funeral to kiss her body and remove her wedding ring. Swearing vengeance, Hope stalks the town, coming close to killing Drebber and Stangerson on numerous occasions. Hope begins to suffer from an aortic aneurysm, causing him to leave the mountains to earn money and recuperate. When he returns about a year later, he learns that Drebber and Stangerson have fled Salt Lake City out of fear for their lives. Hope searches the United States, eventually tracking them to Cleveland; the pair then flees to Europe, eventually landing in London. Returning to the main narrative, Hope willingly goes to a police station, where he finishes his story to Holmes, Watson, and the inspectors. In London, Hope became a cabby, and eventually found Drebber and Stangerson at the train station in Euston, about to depart to Liverpool. Having missed the first train, Drebber instructs Stangerson to wait for him at the hotel, and then returns to Madame Charpentier's house. He is attacked by her son, and after escaping, he gets drunk at a liquor store. He is picked up by Hope, and is led to the house on Brixton Road, which Drebber drunkenly enters with Hope. He then forces Drebber to remember who he is and to take a pill out of a small box, allowing God to choose which one dies, for one was harmless and the other poison. Drebber takes the poisoned pill, and as he dies, Hope shows him Lucy's wedding ring. The excitement coupled with his aneurysm had caused his nose to bleed; he used it to write \u201cRACHE\u201d on the wall above Drebber. He realised, upon returning to his cab, that he had forgotten Lucy\u2019s ring; but upon returning to the house, he found Constable Rance and other police officers, whom he evaded by acting drunk. He then had a friend pose as an old lady to pick up the supposed ring from Holmes's advertisement. He then began stalking Stangerson's room at the hotel; but Stangerson, on learning of Drebber's murder, refused to come out. He climbed into the room through the window, and gave Stangerson the same choice of pills but he was attacked by Stangerson and forced to stab him in the heart. After being told of this, Holmes and Watson return to Baker Street; Hope dies from his aneurysm the night before his trial, a smile on his face. One morning, Holmes reveals to Watson how he had deduced the identity of the murderer and how he had used the Irregulars, whom he calls \"street Arabs,\" to search for a cabby by that name. He then shows Watson the newspaper; Lestrade and Gregson are given full credit. Outraged, Watson states that Holmes should record the adventure and publish it. Upon Holmes's refusal, Watson decides to do it himself.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins in 1881, where Dr. John Watson runs into an old friend, Stamford. Due to a shoulder injury sustained in the Anglo-Afghan War, Watson was forced to retire and is now looking for a place to live. Stamford mentions that an acquaintance of his, one Sherlock Holmes, is looking for someone to split the rent at a flat at 221B, Baker Street, but cautions about Holmes' eccentricities. Stamford takes Watson to the local hospital's lab where they find Holmes experimenting with a reagent for haemoglobin detection. Holmes explains its probable, inestimable usefulness in convicting criminals based on bloodstains. Then, upon shaking Watson's hand, deduces that the Dr. has seen military action but waves off the question of how he knows. Watson brooches the subject of their mutual flat-mate search. At Holmes' prompting, the two review their various shortcomings to make sure that they can accept living together. After seeing the rooms at 221B, they move in and grow accustomed to their new situation. Watson is amazed by Holmes, who has profound knowledge of chemistry and sensational literature, very precise but narrow knowledge of geology and botany; yet knows little about literature, astronomy, philosophy, and politics. Holmes also has multiple guests visiting him at different intervals during the day. After much speculation by Watson, Holmes reveals that he is a \"consulting detective\" and that the guests are clients. Facing Watson's doubts about some of his claims, Holmes casually deduces to Watson that one visitor, a messenger from Scotland Yard is also a retired Marine sergeant. When the man confirms this, Watson is astounded by Holmes' ability to notice details and assemble them. Holmes reads the telegram requesting consultation in a fresh murder case. He's reluctant to help because credit would go entirely to the officials. Watson urges him to reconsider so Holmes invites him to accompany him as he investigates the crime scene, an abandoned rural manor."
      },
      {
        "text": " some of his claims, Holmes casually deduces to Watson that one visitor, a messenger from Scotland Yard is also a retired Marine sergeant. When the man confirms this, Watson is astounded by Holmes' ability to notice details and assemble them. Holmes reads the telegram requesting consultation in a fresh murder case. He's reluctant to help because credit would go entirely to the officials. Watson urges him to reconsider so Holmes invites him to accompany him as he investigates the crime scene, an abandoned rural manor. Holmes observes the sidewalk and garden leading up to the house before he and Watson meet Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade. The four observe the crime scene, Holmes using a magnifying lens and tape measure. The male corpse, he's told, has been identified as Enoch Drebber. Blood has been found in the room but there is no mark on the body. They also learn from documents found on his person that he was in London with a friend, Joseph Stangerson. On one wall, written in blood, is \"RACHE\". Correcting an erroneous theory of Gregson's, Holmes remarks that it is the German word for \"revenge.\" He goes on to deduce that the victim died from poison and supplies a description of the murderer: six feet tall, disproportionately small feet, florid complexion, square toed boots, and smoking a Trichinopoly cigar. His right-hand fingernails are long and he came in a cab whose horse had three old shoes and one new one. Holmes says \"RACHE\" was a ploy to fool police. Holmes listens to a constable's story about a drunken man loitering by the scene of the crime and informs him that the \u201cdrunk\u201d was really the murderer revisiting the scene to collect a wedding ring clutched by the victim. Soon, Holmes and Watson visit the home of the constable who had first discovered the corpse, paying him a bit for disturbing his"
      },
      {
        "text": " had three old shoes and one new one. Holmes says \"RACHE\" was a ploy to fool police. Holmes listens to a constable's story about a drunken man loitering by the scene of the crime and informs him that the \u201cdrunk\u201d was really the murderer revisiting the scene to collect a wedding ring clutched by the victim. Soon, Holmes and Watson visit the home of the constable who had first discovered the corpse, paying him a bit for disturbing his nocturnal sleep cycle. They get little information Holmes didn't already know, other than that a seemingly drunk loiterer had attempted to approach the crime scene. Holmes chastises the officer for not realizing that this was the murderer himself in disguise. They leave and Holmes explains that the murderer returned on realizing that he'd forgotten the wedding ring. Holmes dispatches some telegrams including an order for a newspaper notice about the ring. He also buys a facsimile of it. He guesses that the murderer, having already returned to the scene of the crime for it, would come to retrieve it. The advertisement is answered by an old woman who claims that the ring belongs to her daughter. Holmes gives her the duplicate, follows her, and returns to Watson with the story: she took a cab, he hopped onto the back of it, he found that she had vanished when it stopped. This leads Holmes to believe that it was the murderer's accomplice in disguise. A later day, Gregson visits Holmes and Watson, telling them that he has arrested a suspect. He had gone to Madame Charpentier's Boarding House where Drebber and Stangerson had stayed before the murder. He learned from her that Drebber, a drunk, had attempted to kiss Madame's daughter, Alice. She, in turn, evicted the two. Drebber, however, came back later that night and attempted to grab Alice, prompting her older brother to attack him. He attempted"
      },
      {
        "text": "son visits Holmes and Watson, telling them that he has arrested a suspect. He had gone to Madame Charpentier's Boarding House where Drebber and Stangerson had stayed before the murder. He learned from her that Drebber, a drunk, had attempted to kiss Madame's daughter, Alice. She, in turn, evicted the two. Drebber, however, came back later that night and attempted to grab Alice, prompting her older brother to attack him. He attempted chased Drebber with a crop but claimed to have lost sight of him. Gregson has him in custody on this circumstantial evidence. Lestrade then arrives revealing that Stangerson has more recently been murdered. He had gone to interview Stangerson after learning where he had been rooming. His body was found dead near the hotel window, stabbed through the heart. Above his body was again written \u201cRACHE\u201d. The only things Stangerson had with him were a novel, a pipe, and a small box containing two pills. The pillpobx Lestrade still has with him. Holmes tests the pills on an old and sickly Scottish terrier in residence at Baker Street. The first pill produces no evident effect, the second kills the terrier. Holmes deduces that one was harmless and the other poison. Just at that moment, a very young street urchin named Wiggins arrives. He's the leader of the \u201cBaker Street Irregulars\u201d, a group of similar homeless children Holmes employs to help him occasionally. Wiggins states that he's summoned the cab Holmes wanted. Holmes sends him down to fetch the cabby, claiming to need help with his luggage. When the cab-man comes upstairs and bends for the trunk, Holmes handcuffs and restrains him. He then announces the captive cabby as Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Drebber and Stangerson. The story flashes back to the Utah Territory"
      },
      {
        "text": " Street Irregulars\u201d, a group of similar homeless children Holmes employs to help him occasionally. Wiggins states that he's summoned the cab Holmes wanted. Holmes sends him down to fetch the cabby, claiming to need help with his luggage. When the cab-man comes upstairs and bends for the trunk, Holmes handcuffs and restrains him. He then announces the captive cabby as Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Drebber and Stangerson. The story flashes back to the Utah Territory in 1847, where John Ferrier and a little girl named Lucy, the only survivors of a large party of pioneers, lie down near a boulder to die from dehydration and hunger. They are discovered, however, by a large party of Mormons led by Brigham Young. The Mormons rescue Ferrier and Lucy on the condition that they adopt and live under their faith. Ferrier, who has proven himself an able hunter, is given a generous land grant with which to build his farm after the party constructs Salt Lake City. Years later, a now-grown Lucy befriends and falls in love with a man named Jefferson Hope. Lucy and Hope become engaged to be married, scheduled after Hope's return from a three-month long journey for his job. However, Ferrier is visited by Young, who reveals that it is against the religion for Lucy to marry Hope, a non-Mormon. He states that Lucy should marry Joseph Stangerson or Enoch Drebber\u2014both members of the Mormon Church's Council of Four\u2014though Lucy may choose which one. Ferrier and Lucy are given a month to decide. Ferrier, who has sworn to never marry his daughter to a Mormon, immediately sends out word to Hope for help. When he is visited by Stangerson and Drebber, Ferrier is angered by their arguments over Lucy and throws them out. Every day, however, the number of days Ferrier has left to marry off Lucy is painted somewhere on his farm in"
      },
      {
        "text": " Mormon Church's Council of Four\u2014though Lucy may choose which one. Ferrier and Lucy are given a month to decide. Ferrier, who has sworn to never marry his daughter to a Mormon, immediately sends out word to Hope for help. When he is visited by Stangerson and Drebber, Ferrier is angered by their arguments over Lucy and throws them out. Every day, however, the number of days Ferrier has left to marry off Lucy is painted somewhere on his farm in the middle of the night. Hope finally arrives on the eve of the last day, and sneaks his love and her adoptive father out of their farm and away from Salt Lake City. However, while he is hunting for food, Hope returns to a horrific sight; a makeshift grave for the elder Ferrier. Lucy is nowhere to be seen. Determined to devote his life to revenge, Hope sneaks back into Salt Lake City, learning that Lucy was forcibly married to Drebber and that Stangerson murdered Ferrier. Lucy dies a month later from a broken heart; Drebber, who inherited Ferrier's farm, is indifferent to her death. Hope then breaks into Drebber's house the night before Lucy's funeral to kiss her body and remove her wedding ring. Swearing vengeance, Hope stalks the town, coming close to killing Drebber and Stangerson on numerous occasions. Hope begins to suffer from an aortic aneurysm, causing him to leave the mountains to earn money and recuperate. When he returns about a year later, he learns that Drebber and Stangerson have fled Salt Lake City out of fear for their lives. Hope searches the United States, eventually tracking them to Cleveland; the pair then flees to Europe, eventually landing in London. Returning to the main narrative, Hope willingly goes to a police station, where he finishes his story to Holmes, Watson, and the inspectors. In London, Hope became a"
      },
      {
        "text": " leave the mountains to earn money and recuperate. When he returns about a year later, he learns that Drebber and Stangerson have fled Salt Lake City out of fear for their lives. Hope searches the United States, eventually tracking them to Cleveland; the pair then flees to Europe, eventually landing in London. Returning to the main narrative, Hope willingly goes to a police station, where he finishes his story to Holmes, Watson, and the inspectors. In London, Hope became a cabby, and eventually found Drebber and Stangerson at the train station in Euston, about to depart to Liverpool. Having missed the first train, Drebber instructs Stangerson to wait for him at the hotel, and then returns to Madame Charpentier's house. He is attacked by her son, and after escaping, he gets drunk at a liquor store. He is picked up by Hope, and is led to the house on Brixton Road, which Drebber drunkenly enters with Hope. He then forces Drebber to remember who he is and to take a pill out of a small box, allowing God to choose which one dies, for one was harmless and the other poison. Drebber takes the poisoned pill, and as he dies, Hope shows him Lucy's wedding ring. The excitement coupled with his aneurysm had caused his nose to bleed; he used it to write \u201cRACHE\u201d on the wall above Drebber. He realised, upon returning to his cab, that he had forgotten Lucy\u2019s ring; but upon returning to the house, he found Constable Rance and other police officers, whom he evaded by acting drunk. He then had a friend pose as an old lady to pick up the supposed ring from Holmes's advertisement. He then began stalking Stangerson's room at the hotel; but Stangerson, on learning of Drebber's murder, refused to come out"
      },
      {
        "text": " Drebber. He realised, upon returning to his cab, that he had forgotten Lucy\u2019s ring; but upon returning to the house, he found Constable Rance and other police officers, whom he evaded by acting drunk. He then had a friend pose as an old lady to pick up the supposed ring from Holmes's advertisement. He then began stalking Stangerson's room at the hotel; but Stangerson, on learning of Drebber's murder, refused to come out. He climbed into the room through the window, and gave Stangerson the same choice of pills but he was attacked by Stangerson and forced to stab him in the heart. After being told of this, Holmes and Watson return to Baker Street; Hope dies from his aneurysm the night before his trial, a smile on his face. One morning, Holmes reveals to Watson how he had deduced the identity of the murderer and how he had used the Irregulars, whom he calls \"street Arabs,\" to search for a cabby by that name. He then shows Watson the newspaper; Lestrade and Gregson are given full credit. Outraged, Watson states that Holmes should record the adventure and publish it. Upon Holmes's refusal, Watson decides to do it himself.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Phineas Finn",
    "author": "Anthony Trollope",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Finn is the only son of a successful Irish doctor, Dr Malachi Finn of Killaloe, County Clare, who sends him to London to become a lawyer. He proves to be a lackadaisical student, but being pleasant company and strikingly handsome to boot, he makes many influential friends. One of them, a fellow Irishman and a politician, Barrington Erle, suggests that he stand for Parliament in the coming election. At first, the idea seems absurd. Finn is supported solely by a modest allowance from his father, but a stroke of luck clears his path. One of his father's patients is Lord Tulla, a nobleman who controls a little borough that can be contested cheaply. Lord Tulla has had a falling out with his brother, the long-time officeholder. As a result, while the staunchly Tory lord will not support the Whig Finn, neither will he hamper him. Convincing his sceptical father to provide the funds needed, Finn wins his seat by a small margin. The closest of his London friends is his mentor, Lady Laura Standish, the daughter of the prominent Whig politician Lord Brentford. As their relationship develops, Finn considers asking for her hand in marriage, despite the great social and financial gulf between them. Lady Laura senses this, but despite her partiality for the man, monetary considerations and her own political ambitions convince her to marry the dour, extremely wealthy Robert Kennedy instead. At first devastated, Finn soon recovers and becomes enamoured of a lovely heiress, Violet Effingham. This proves to be awkward, as both Lady Laura and Lord Brentford vehemently want her to marry (and hopefully tame) Lord Brentford's estranged son, the savage Lord Chiltern. In addition, Lady Laura encourages Finn to become acquainted with her brother. Finn and Chiltern become fast friends, which makes the situation even more uncomfortable. When Chiltern finds out that Finn is also courting Violet, he becomes infuriated and unreasonably demands that Finn withdraw. When he refuses, Chiltern insists on a duel. This is held in secret at Blankenberg, resulting in Finn being slightly wounded. Eventually, Violet has to choose between her two main suitors; she somewhat fearfully decides in favour of her childhood sweetheart, Chiltern. Meanwhile, Finn's parliamentary career gets off to a rocky start. Overawed by his august surroundings, he delivers a somewhat incoherent maiden speech. Eventually, however, he becomes accustomed to his situation and grows adept at parliamentary proceedings. All is not smooth sailing however. When new elections are called, Finn is in a dilemma. Lord Tulla has become reconciled with his brother and Finn has no chance of re-election. At this point, fortune favours him once again. Late one night, Finn and Mr. Kennedy, now the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, depart Parliament at the same time. When they go their separate ways, Finn notices two men who follow his colleague. Suspicious, he takes a shortcut and arrives in time to foil an attempt to garrotte and rob Kennedy. In gratitude for saving the life of his son-in-law, Lord Brentford offers him the seat for the pocket borough of Loughton. With the nobleman's support, the election is a forgone conclusion. Finn's heroic feat exacerbates the growing rift between Lady Laura and her husband. Their temperaments clash; Mr. Kennedy disapproves of his wife's interest in politics. Moreover, to her intense dismay, Lady Laura finds she has great difficulty suppressing her true feelings for Finn, and Kennedy becomes suspicious. Eventually, she becomes so desperately unhappy, she flees to her father's house. (At the end of the novel, Mr. Kennedy's legal actions push her to move to the Continent, where the law cannot force her to return to her husband's household.) In the meantime, Finn makes the acquaintance of a charming, clever foreigner, Madame Max Goesler, the young and beautiful widow of a rich Jewish banker. More materially, he is appointed to a well-paid government position, in which he excels. It seems as if he is finally secure. However, Lord Brentford learns of the duel with his son and withdraws his support for the next election. Finn visits Ireland with Mr Joshua Monk, a leading Radical politician and a supporter of increased rights for Irish tenant farmers. Under Mr Monk\u00b4s influence, Finn becomes radicalised. At a political meeting in Dublin, Finn argues that a new tenant-right bill should be presented to the Westminster Parliament during the next session. When this happens, the government, of which Finn is a member, does not support it. Finn must therefore choose between his loyalty to the government and his political convictions. He chooses the latter, resigns his government position and retires from politics. With his political career in shambles, Finn seeks consolation from Madame Max. In an unexpected development, she offers him her hand and her wealth in marriage. Finn is greatly tempted, but finally returns to Ireland to marry his faithful, long-time sweetheart, Mary Flood Jones. As a parting reward for his hard work, his party obtains for him a comfortable sinecure as a poor-law inspector in Cork at a salary of a thousand pounds a year.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Finn is the only son of a successful Irish doctor, Dr Malachi Finn of Killaloe, County Clare, who sends him to London to become a lawyer. He proves to be a lackadaisical student, but being pleasant company and strikingly handsome to boot, he makes many influential friends. One of them, a fellow Irishman and a politician, Barrington Erle, suggests that he stand for Parliament in the coming election. At first, the idea seems absurd. Finn is supported solely by a modest allowance from his father, but a stroke of luck clears his path. One of his father's patients is Lord Tulla, a nobleman who controls a little borough that can be contested cheaply. Lord Tulla has had a falling out with his brother, the long-time officeholder. As a result, while the staunchly Tory lord will not support the Whig Finn, neither will he hamper him. Convincing his sceptical father to provide the funds needed, Finn wins his seat by a small margin. The closest of his London friends is his mentor, Lady Laura Standish, the daughter of the prominent Whig politician Lord Brentford. As their relationship develops, Finn considers asking for her hand in marriage, despite the great social and financial gulf between them. Lady Laura senses this, but despite her partiality for the man, monetary considerations and her own political ambitions convince her to marry the dour, extremely wealthy Robert Kennedy instead. At first devastated, Finn soon recovers and becomes enamoured of a lovely heiress, Violet Effingham. This proves to be awkward, as both Lady Laura and Lord Brentford vehemently want her to marry (and hopefully tame) Lord Brentford's estranged son, the savage Lord Chiltern. In addition, Lady Laura encourages Finn to become acquainted with her brother. Finn and Chiltern become fast friends, which makes the situation even more uncomfortable. When Chiltern finds out that Finn is also courting Violet,"
      },
      {
        "text": " recovers and becomes enamoured of a lovely heiress, Violet Effingham. This proves to be awkward, as both Lady Laura and Lord Brentford vehemently want her to marry (and hopefully tame) Lord Brentford's estranged son, the savage Lord Chiltern. In addition, Lady Laura encourages Finn to become acquainted with her brother. Finn and Chiltern become fast friends, which makes the situation even more uncomfortable. When Chiltern finds out that Finn is also courting Violet, he becomes infuriated and unreasonably demands that Finn withdraw. When he refuses, Chiltern insists on a duel. This is held in secret at Blankenberg, resulting in Finn being slightly wounded. Eventually, Violet has to choose between her two main suitors; she somewhat fearfully decides in favour of her childhood sweetheart, Chiltern. Meanwhile, Finn's parliamentary career gets off to a rocky start. Overawed by his august surroundings, he delivers a somewhat incoherent maiden speech. Eventually, however, he becomes accustomed to his situation and grows adept at parliamentary proceedings. All is not smooth sailing however. When new elections are called, Finn is in a dilemma. Lord Tulla has become reconciled with his brother and Finn has no chance of re-election. At this point, fortune favours him once again. Late one night, Finn and Mr. Kennedy, now the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, depart Parliament at the same time. When they go their separate ways, Finn notices two men who follow his colleague. Suspicious, he takes a shortcut and arrives in time to foil an attempt to garrotte and rob Kennedy. In gratitude for saving the life of his son-in-law, Lord Brentford offers him the seat for the pocket borough of Loughton. With the nobleman's support, the election is a forgone conclusion. Finn's heroic feat exacerbates the growing rift between Lady Laura and her husband. Their temperaments clash"
      },
      {
        "text": " separate ways, Finn notices two men who follow his colleague. Suspicious, he takes a shortcut and arrives in time to foil an attempt to garrotte and rob Kennedy. In gratitude for saving the life of his son-in-law, Lord Brentford offers him the seat for the pocket borough of Loughton. With the nobleman's support, the election is a forgone conclusion. Finn's heroic feat exacerbates the growing rift between Lady Laura and her husband. Their temperaments clash; Mr. Kennedy disapproves of his wife's interest in politics. Moreover, to her intense dismay, Lady Laura finds she has great difficulty suppressing her true feelings for Finn, and Kennedy becomes suspicious. Eventually, she becomes so desperately unhappy, she flees to her father's house. (At the end of the novel, Mr. Kennedy's legal actions push her to move to the Continent, where the law cannot force her to return to her husband's household.) In the meantime, Finn makes the acquaintance of a charming, clever foreigner, Madame Max Goesler, the young and beautiful widow of a rich Jewish banker. More materially, he is appointed to a well-paid government position, in which he excels. It seems as if he is finally secure. However, Lord Brentford learns of the duel with his son and withdraws his support for the next election. Finn visits Ireland with Mr Joshua Monk, a leading Radical politician and a supporter of increased rights for Irish tenant farmers. Under Mr Monk\u00b4s influence, Finn becomes radicalised. At a political meeting in Dublin, Finn argues that a new tenant-right bill should be presented to the Westminster Parliament during the next session. When this happens, the government, of which Finn is a member, does not support it. Finn must therefore choose between his loyalty to the government and his political convictions. He chooses the latter, resigns his government position and retires from politics. With his political career in shambles, Finn seeks consolation"
      },
      {
        "text": " Monk\u00b4s influence, Finn becomes radicalised. At a political meeting in Dublin, Finn argues that a new tenant-right bill should be presented to the Westminster Parliament during the next session. When this happens, the government, of which Finn is a member, does not support it. Finn must therefore choose between his loyalty to the government and his political convictions. He chooses the latter, resigns his government position and retires from politics. With his political career in shambles, Finn seeks consolation from Madame Max. In an unexpected development, she offers him her hand and her wealth in marriage. Finn is greatly tempted, but finally returns to Ireland to marry his faithful, long-time sweetheart, Mary Flood Jones. As a parting reward for his hard work, his party obtains for him a comfortable sinecure as a poor-law inspector in Cork at a salary of a thousand pounds a year.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Cranford",
    "author": "Elizabeth Gaskell",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The fictional town of Cranford is closely modelled on Knutsford in Cheshire, which Mrs Gaskell knew well. The book has little in the way of plot and is more a series of episodes in the lives of Mary Smith and her friends, Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, two spinster sisters. The \"major\" event in the story is the return to Cranford of their long-lost brother, Peter, which in itself is only a minor portion of the work, leaving the rest of the novel at a low-key tone.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The fictional town of Cranford is closely modelled on Knutsford in Cheshire, which Mrs Gaskell knew well. The book has little in the way of plot and is more a series of episodes in the lives of Mary Smith and her friends, Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, two spinster sisters. The \"major\" event in the story is the return to Cranford of their long-lost brother, Peter, which in itself is only a minor portion of the work, leaving the rest of the novel at a low-key tone.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Wives and Daughters",
    "author": "Pam Morris",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel opens with young Molly Gibson, who has been raised by her widowed father, Mr. Gibson (Bill Paterson). While visiting the local 'great house', Molly feels tired so she is sent to rest in the former governess's room. The woman, Clare (Francesca Annis), makes noise about her kindness to Molly, but is actually careless and thoughtless of Molly's concerns. The afternoon passes and Clare forgets about the child and Molly misses her ride home after the picnic. The little girl is distressed at the idea of staying the night away from home and is relieved when her father comes to collect her. Seven years later, Molly (Justine Waddell) is now an attractive and rather unworldly young woman, which arouses the interest of one of her father's apprentices, Mr. Coxe (Richard Coyle). Mr Gibson discovers the young man's secret affection and sends Molly to stay with the Hamleys of Hamley Hall, a gentry family that purportedly dates from the Heptarchy but whose circumstances are now reduced. There she finds a mother substitute in Mrs. Hamley (Penelope Wilton), who embraces her almost as a daughter. Molly also becomes friends with the younger son, Roger (Anthony Howell). Molly is aware that, as the daughter of a professional man, she would not be considered a suitable match for the sons of Squire Hamley (Michael Gambon). The elder son in particular, Osborne (Tom Hollander), is expected to make a brilliant marriage after an excellent career at Cambridge: he is handsome, clever and more fashionable than his brother. However, he has performed poorly at university, breaking the hearts of his parents. Molly also discovers his great secret: Osborne has married for love, to a French Roman Catholic ex-nursery maid, Aimee (Tonia Chauvet), whom he has established in a secret cottage. Meanwhile, after a startlingly brief love affair (of which Molly knows nothing), Mr Gibson abruptly decides to remarry, less from his own inclination than from a perceived duty to provide Molly with a mother to guide her. He is seduced by Mrs Hyacinth Kirkpatrick (formerly Miss Clare), a former governess at nearby Cumnor Towers whom Molly remembers with no affection. Dutiful Molly does her best, for her father's sake, to get on with her socially ambitious and selfish stepmother, but the home is not always happy. However, Molly immediately gets on well with her new stepsister, Cynthia (Keeley Hawes), who is about the same age as Molly. The two girls are a study in contrasts: Cynthia is far more worldly and rebellious than Molly, who is naive and slightly awkward. Cynthia has been educated in France, and it gradually becomes apparent that she and her mother have secrets in their past, involving the land agent from the great house, Mr. Preston (Iain Glen), who is rumoured to be a gambler and a scoundrel. Osborne Hamley's failures make his invalid mother's illness worse and widens the divide between him and his father, which is amplified by the considerable debts Osborne has run up in maintaining his secret wife. Mrs Hamley dies, and the breach between the squire and his eldest son seems irreparable. Younger son Roger continues to work hard at university and ultimately gains the honours and rewards that were expected for his brother. Mrs. Gibson tries unsuccessfully to arrange a marriage between Cynthia and Osborne, as her aspirations include having a daughter married to landed gentry. Molly, however, has always preferred Roger's good sense and honourable character and soon falls in love with him. Unfortunately, Roger falls in love with Cynthia and when Mrs. Gibson overhears that Osborne may be fatally ill, she begins promoting the match. Just before Roger leaves on a two-year scientific expedition to Africa, he asks for Cynthia's hand and she accepts, although she insists that their engagement should remain secret until Roger returns. Molly is heartbroken at this and struggles with her sorrow and the lack of affection that Cynthia feels for Roger. Scandals begin to show themselves when it is revealed that several years before, when she was just fifteen, Cynthia promised herself to Mr Preston for a loan of 20 pounds. Mr Preston is violently in love with Cynthia but she hates him. Molly intervenes on Cynthia's behalf and breaks off the engagement, giving rise to rumours of her involvement with Preston and endangering her own reputation. Cynthia breaks off her engagement to Roger, sustaining both family and public rebukes and insults for her inconstancy, then quickly accepts and marries Mr Henderson (Tim Wallers), a professional gentleman she met in London. Osborne, ill and convinced that he will die soon, begs Molly to remember his wife and child when he is gone. Osborne dies shortly thereafter, and Molly reveals the secret to the grieving Squire Hamley. Osborne's widow, Aimee, arrives at Hamley Hall after receiving word that her husband is ill, bringing with her their little son, the heir to Hamley Hall. Roger has rushed home to be with his father, and his affection and good sense bring the squire to see the possible joy to be had in this new family, especially the grandson. As he resettles into the local scientific community, Roger begins to realise that his brotherly affection for Molly is really more. Aided by the kind interference of Lady Harriet (Rosamund Pike), who has always recognized Molly's worth and charms, he finds himself pained at the thought of Molly with anyone else. Still, he hesitates at giving in to his feelings, feeling unworthy of her love after throwing away his affection on the fickle Cynthia. Before he returns to Africa, he confides his feelings to Mr Gibson, who heartily gives his blessing to the union. Tragically, Roger is thwarted, this time by a scarlet fever scare, and is unable to speak to Molly before he leaves. At this point, Gaskell's novel stops, unfinished at her death. She related to a friend that she had intended Roger to return and present Molly with a dried flower (a gift to him before his departure), as proof of his enduring love. This scene was never realised and the novel remains unfinished. In the BBC adaptation, an alternative ending was written, in which Roger is unable to leave Molly without speaking of his love, and they marry and return to Africa together.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel opens with young Molly Gibson, who has been raised by her widowed father, Mr. Gibson (Bill Paterson). While visiting the local 'great house', Molly feels tired so she is sent to rest in the former governess's room. The woman, Clare (Francesca Annis), makes noise about her kindness to Molly, but is actually careless and thoughtless of Molly's concerns. The afternoon passes and Clare forgets about the child and Molly misses her ride home after the picnic. The little girl is distressed at the idea of staying the night away from home and is relieved when her father comes to collect her. Seven years later, Molly (Justine Waddell) is now an attractive and rather unworldly young woman, which arouses the interest of one of her father's apprentices, Mr. Coxe (Richard Coyle). Mr Gibson discovers the young man's secret affection and sends Molly to stay with the Hamleys of Hamley Hall, a gentry family that purportedly dates from the Heptarchy but whose circumstances are now reduced. There she finds a mother substitute in Mrs. Hamley (Penelope Wilton), who embraces her almost as a daughter. Molly also becomes friends with the younger son, Roger (Anthony Howell). Molly is aware that, as the daughter of a professional man, she would not be considered a suitable match for the sons of Squire Hamley (Michael Gambon). The elder son in particular, Osborne (Tom Hollander), is expected to make a brilliant marriage after an excellent career at Cambridge: he is handsome, clever and more fashionable than his brother. However, he has performed poorly at university, breaking the hearts of his parents. Molly also discovers his great secret: Osborne has married for love, to a French Roman Catholic ex-nursery maid, Aimee (Tonia Chauvet), whom he has established in a secret cottage. Meanwhile, after a startlingly brief love affair (of which Molly knows nothing"
      },
      {
        "text": " is expected to make a brilliant marriage after an excellent career at Cambridge: he is handsome, clever and more fashionable than his brother. However, he has performed poorly at university, breaking the hearts of his parents. Molly also discovers his great secret: Osborne has married for love, to a French Roman Catholic ex-nursery maid, Aimee (Tonia Chauvet), whom he has established in a secret cottage. Meanwhile, after a startlingly brief love affair (of which Molly knows nothing), Mr Gibson abruptly decides to remarry, less from his own inclination than from a perceived duty to provide Molly with a mother to guide her. He is seduced by Mrs Hyacinth Kirkpatrick (formerly Miss Clare), a former governess at nearby Cumnor Towers whom Molly remembers with no affection. Dutiful Molly does her best, for her father's sake, to get on with her socially ambitious and selfish stepmother, but the home is not always happy. However, Molly immediately gets on well with her new stepsister, Cynthia (Keeley Hawes), who is about the same age as Molly. The two girls are a study in contrasts: Cynthia is far more worldly and rebellious than Molly, who is naive and slightly awkward. Cynthia has been educated in France, and it gradually becomes apparent that she and her mother have secrets in their past, involving the land agent from the great house, Mr. Preston (Iain Glen), who is rumoured to be a gambler and a scoundrel. Osborne Hamley's failures make his invalid mother's illness worse and widens the divide between him and his father, which is amplified by the considerable debts Osborne has run up in maintaining his secret wife. Mrs Hamley dies, and the breach between the squire and his eldest son seems irreparable. Younger son Roger continues to work hard at university and ultimately gains the honours and rewards that were expected for his brother. Mrs. Gibson tries unsuccessfully to arrange a marriage"
      },
      {
        "text": "ler and a scoundrel. Osborne Hamley's failures make his invalid mother's illness worse and widens the divide between him and his father, which is amplified by the considerable debts Osborne has run up in maintaining his secret wife. Mrs Hamley dies, and the breach between the squire and his eldest son seems irreparable. Younger son Roger continues to work hard at university and ultimately gains the honours and rewards that were expected for his brother. Mrs. Gibson tries unsuccessfully to arrange a marriage between Cynthia and Osborne, as her aspirations include having a daughter married to landed gentry. Molly, however, has always preferred Roger's good sense and honourable character and soon falls in love with him. Unfortunately, Roger falls in love with Cynthia and when Mrs. Gibson overhears that Osborne may be fatally ill, she begins promoting the match. Just before Roger leaves on a two-year scientific expedition to Africa, he asks for Cynthia's hand and she accepts, although she insists that their engagement should remain secret until Roger returns. Molly is heartbroken at this and struggles with her sorrow and the lack of affection that Cynthia feels for Roger. Scandals begin to show themselves when it is revealed that several years before, when she was just fifteen, Cynthia promised herself to Mr Preston for a loan of 20 pounds. Mr Preston is violently in love with Cynthia but she hates him. Molly intervenes on Cynthia's behalf and breaks off the engagement, giving rise to rumours of her involvement with Preston and endangering her own reputation. Cynthia breaks off her engagement to Roger, sustaining both family and public rebukes and insults for her inconstancy, then quickly accepts and marries Mr Henderson (Tim Wallers), a professional gentleman she met in London. Osborne, ill and convinced that he will die soon, begs Molly to remember his wife and child when he is gone. Osborne dies shortly thereafter, and Molly reveals the secret to the grieving Squire Hamley. Osborne's widow, Aimee, arrives at"
      },
      {
        "text": " her own reputation. Cynthia breaks off her engagement to Roger, sustaining both family and public rebukes and insults for her inconstancy, then quickly accepts and marries Mr Henderson (Tim Wallers), a professional gentleman she met in London. Osborne, ill and convinced that he will die soon, begs Molly to remember his wife and child when he is gone. Osborne dies shortly thereafter, and Molly reveals the secret to the grieving Squire Hamley. Osborne's widow, Aimee, arrives at Hamley Hall after receiving word that her husband is ill, bringing with her their little son, the heir to Hamley Hall. Roger has rushed home to be with his father, and his affection and good sense bring the squire to see the possible joy to be had in this new family, especially the grandson. As he resettles into the local scientific community, Roger begins to realise that his brotherly affection for Molly is really more. Aided by the kind interference of Lady Harriet (Rosamund Pike), who has always recognized Molly's worth and charms, he finds himself pained at the thought of Molly with anyone else. Still, he hesitates at giving in to his feelings, feeling unworthy of her love after throwing away his affection on the fickle Cynthia. Before he returns to Africa, he confides his feelings to Mr Gibson, who heartily gives his blessing to the union. Tragically, Roger is thwarted, this time by a scarlet fever scare, and is unable to speak to Molly before he leaves. At this point, Gaskell's novel stops, unfinished at her death. She related to a friend that she had intended Roger to return and present Molly with a dried flower (a gift to him before his departure), as proof of his enduring love. This scene was never realised and the novel remains unfinished. In the BBC adaptation, an alternative ending was written, in which Roger is unable to leave Molly without speaking of his love, and they marry and return to"
      },
      {
        "text": " to speak to Molly before he leaves. At this point, Gaskell's novel stops, unfinished at her death. She related to a friend that she had intended Roger to return and present Molly with a dried flower (a gift to him before his departure), as proof of his enduring love. This scene was never realised and the novel remains unfinished. In the BBC adaptation, an alternative ending was written, in which Roger is unable to leave Molly without speaking of his love, and they marry and return to Africa together.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Travels with My Aunt",
    "author": "Graham Greene",
    "published_date": "1969",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins when Henry Pulling, a conventional and uncharming bank manager who has taken early retirement, meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in over fifty years at his mother's funeral. Despite having little in common, they form a bond. Henry finds himself drawn into Aunt Augusta's world of travel, adventure, romance and absence of bigotry. He travels first with her to Brighton, where he meets one of his aunt's old acquaintances, and gains an insight into one of her many past lives. Here a psychic foreshadows that he will have many travels in the near future. This prediction inevitably becomes true as Henry is pulled further and further into his aunt's lifestyle, and delves deeper into her past. Their voyages take them from Paris to Istanbul on the Orient Express, and as the journey unfolds, so do the stories of Aunt Augusta, painting the picture of a woman for whom love has been the defining feature of her life. Henry returns to his quiet retirement, but tending his garden no longer holds the same allure. When he receives a letter from his aunt, he finally gives up his old life to join her and the love of her life in South America, and to marry a girl decades younger than himself. As his travels progress it becomes clear to Henry that the woman he had been raised to believe was his mother was in fact his aunt. His real mother is Augusta, and her reconnection with him at her sister's funeral marked the beginning of her reclamation of her child.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins when Henry Pulling, a conventional and uncharming bank manager who has taken early retirement, meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in over fifty years at his mother's funeral. Despite having little in common, they form a bond. Henry finds himself drawn into Aunt Augusta's world of travel, adventure, romance and absence of bigotry. He travels first with her to Brighton, where he meets one of his aunt's old acquaintances, and gains an insight into one of her many past lives. Here a psychic foreshadows that he will have many travels in the near future. This prediction inevitably becomes true as Henry is pulled further and further into his aunt's lifestyle, and delves deeper into her past. Their voyages take them from Paris to Istanbul on the Orient Express, and as the journey unfolds, so do the stories of Aunt Augusta, painting the picture of a woman for whom love has been the defining feature of her life. Henry returns to his quiet retirement, but tending his garden no longer holds the same allure. When he receives a letter from his aunt, he finally gives up his old life to join her and the love of her life in South America, and to marry a girl decades younger than himself. As his travels progress it becomes clear to Henry that the woman he had been raised to believe was his mother was in fact his aunt. His real mother is Augusta, and her reconnection with him at her sister's funeral marked the beginning of her reclamation of her child.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " of her reclamation of her child.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ann Veronica",
    "author": "H. G. Wells",
    "published_date": "1909",
    "synopsis": " Mr. Stanley forbids his adult daughter, a biology student at Tredgold Women's College and the youngest of his five children, to attend a fancy dress ball in London, causing a crisis. Ann Veronica is planning to attend the dance with friends of a down-at-the-heels artistic family living nearby and has been chafing at other restrictions imposed for no apparent reason on her. After her father resorts to force to stop her from attending the ball, she leaves her home in the fictional south London suburb of Morningside Park in order to live independently in an apartment \"in a street near the Hampstead Road\" in North London. Unable to find appropriate employment, she borrows forty pounds from Mr. Ramage, an older man, without realizing she is compromising herself. With this money, Ann Veronica is able to devote herself to study in the biological laboratory of the Central Imperial College (a constituent college of London University) where she meets and falls in love with Capes, the laboratory's \"demonstrator.\" But Mr. Ramage loses little time in trying to take advantage of the situation, precipitating a crisis. Distraught after Ramage tries to force himself on her, Ann Veronica temporarily abandons her studies and devotes herself to the cause of women's suffrage; she is arrested storming Parliament and spends a month in prison. Sobered by the experience, Ann Veronica convinces herself of the necessity of compromise. She returns to her father's home and engages herself to marry an admirer she does not love, Hubert Manning. But she soon changes her mind, renounces the engagement, and boldly tells Capes she loves him. Though he returns Ann Veronica's love, at first the thirty-year-old Capes insists on the impossibility of the situation: he is a married (albeit separated) man with a sullied reputation because of an affair that became public. They can only be friends, he declares. But Ann Veronica is undeterred by his confession and his prudence, and finally Capes's resistance buckles: \"She stood up and held her arms toward him. 'I want you to kiss me,' she said. . . . 'I want you. I want you to be my lover. I want to give myself to you. I want to be whatever I can to you.' She paused for a moment. 'Is that plain?' she asked.\" Capes decides to throw over his employment at the college in order to live with Ann Veronica, and they enjoy a glorious \"honeymoon\" in the Alps. A final chapter shows the happy couple four years and four months later living in London. Capes has become a successful playwright, and Ann Veronica is pregnant and has reconciled with her family.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Mr. Stanley forbids his adult daughter, a biology student at Tredgold Women's College and the youngest of his five children, to attend a fancy dress ball in London, causing a crisis. Ann Veronica is planning to attend the dance with friends of a down-at-the-heels artistic family living nearby and has been chafing at other restrictions imposed for no apparent reason on her. After her father resorts to force to stop her from attending the ball, she leaves her home in the fictional south London suburb of Morningside Park in order to live independently in an apartment \"in a street near the Hampstead Road\" in North London. Unable to find appropriate employment, she borrows forty pounds from Mr. Ramage, an older man, without realizing she is compromising herself. With this money, Ann Veronica is able to devote herself to study in the biological laboratory of the Central Imperial College (a constituent college of London University) where she meets and falls in love with Capes, the laboratory's \"demonstrator.\" But Mr. Ramage loses little time in trying to take advantage of the situation, precipitating a crisis. Distraught after Ramage tries to force himself on her, Ann Veronica temporarily abandons her studies and devotes herself to the cause of women's suffrage; she is arrested storming Parliament and spends a month in prison. Sobered by the experience, Ann Veronica convinces herself of the necessity of compromise. She returns to her father's home and engages herself to marry an admirer she does not love, Hubert Manning. But she soon changes her mind, renounces the engagement, and boldly tells Capes she loves him. Though he returns Ann Veronica's love, at first the thirty-year-old Capes insists on the impossibility of the situation: he is a married (albeit separated) man with a sullied reputation because of an affair that became public. They can only be friends, he declares. But Ann Veronica is"
      },
      {
        "text": " and engages herself to marry an admirer she does not love, Hubert Manning. But she soon changes her mind, renounces the engagement, and boldly tells Capes she loves him. Though he returns Ann Veronica's love, at first the thirty-year-old Capes insists on the impossibility of the situation: he is a married (albeit separated) man with a sullied reputation because of an affair that became public. They can only be friends, he declares. But Ann Veronica is undeterred by his confession and his prudence, and finally Capes's resistance buckles: \"She stood up and held her arms toward him. 'I want you to kiss me,' she said. . . . 'I want you. I want you to be my lover. I want to give myself to you. I want to be whatever I can to you.' She paused for a moment. 'Is that plain?' she asked.\" Capes decides to throw over his employment at the college in order to live with Ann Veronica, and they enjoy a glorious \"honeymoon\" in the Alps. A final chapter shows the happy couple four years and four months later living in London. Capes has become a successful playwright, and Ann Veronica is pregnant and has reconciled with her family.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Little Lord Fauntleroy",
    "author": "Frances Hodgson Burnett",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In a \"shabby\" \"New York side street\" in the mid-1880s, young American Cedric Errol lives with his mother (never named, known only as Mrs. Errol or \"Dearest\") in genteel poverty after his father, Captain Errol (whose first name was also Cedric), dies. They receive a visit from Havisham, an English lawyer with a message from young Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt. With the deaths of his father's elder brothers, Cedric is now Lord Fauntleroy and heir to the Earldom and a vast estate. The Earl wants Cedric to live with him and learn to be an English aristocrat. The Earl despises America and was deeply disappointed with Captain Errol, his favorite son, for marrying an American. So he offers Mrs. Errol a house and income, yet refuses to meet or have anything to do with her, even after she declines the offer of the money. However, the crusty Earl is impressed by the appearance and intelligence of his young American grandson, and charmed by his innocent nature. Cedric, a trusting child, believes his noble grandfather to be a great benefactor, and the Earl cannot bear to disappoint his loving grandson. Thus, the Earl acts as a benefactor to his tenants (as the local populace notices to their delight). A pretender to Cedric's inheritance appears, his mother claiming that he is the son of the Earl's eldest son, but the claim is investigated and disproved with the assistance of Cedric's loyal friends in New York, one of whom — a bootblack called Dick — recognizes the mother as the missing wife of his brother Ben, and her son (the alleged heir) as his own nephew. The Earl is reconciled to his son's American widow after meeting with the other boy's mother, recognizing that, despite his preconceptions and prejudices, \"Dearest\" is a far superior woman to the alternative. The Earl had intended to teach his grandson how to be an aristocrat; however, Cedric inadvertently teaches his grandfather that an aristocrat should practice compassion towards persons who are dependent on him. The Earl becomes the kind and good man Cedric always innocently believed him to be. Cedric's mother is invited by the Earl to live in the ancestral castle, and Cedric's old friend Mr. Hobbs, the New York City grocer, who came to England to help investigate the false claim, decides to stay to help look after Cedric\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In a \"shabby\" \"New York side street\" in the mid-1880s, young American Cedric Errol lives with his mother (never named, known only as Mrs. Errol or \"Dearest\") in genteel poverty after his father, Captain Errol (whose first name was also Cedric), dies. They receive a visit from Havisham, an English lawyer with a message from young Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt. With the deaths of his father's elder brothers, Cedric is now Lord Fauntleroy and heir to the Earldom and a vast estate. The Earl wants Cedric to live with him and learn to be an English aristocrat. The Earl despises America and was deeply disappointed with Captain Errol, his favorite son, for marrying an American. So he offers Mrs. Errol a house and income, yet refuses to meet or have anything to do with her, even after she declines the offer of the money. However, the crusty Earl is impressed by the appearance and intelligence of his young American grandson, and charmed by his innocent nature. Cedric, a trusting child, believes his noble grandfather to be a great benefactor, and the Earl cannot bear to disappoint his loving grandson. Thus, the Earl acts as a benefactor to his tenants (as the local populace notices to their delight). A pretender to Cedric's inheritance appears, his mother claiming that he is the son of the Earl's eldest son, but the claim is investigated and disproved with the assistance of Cedric's loyal friends in New York, one of whom — a bootblack called Dick — recognizes the mother as the missing wife of his brother Ben, and her son (the alleged heir) as his own nephew. The Earl is reconciled to his son's American widow after meeting with the other boy's mother, recognizing that, despite his preconceptions and prejudices, \"De"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Earl's eldest son, but the claim is investigated and disproved with the assistance of Cedric's loyal friends in New York, one of whom — a bootblack called Dick — recognizes the mother as the missing wife of his brother Ben, and her son (the alleged heir) as his own nephew. The Earl is reconciled to his son's American widow after meeting with the other boy's mother, recognizing that, despite his preconceptions and prejudices, \"Dearest\" is a far superior woman to the alternative. The Earl had intended to teach his grandson how to be an aristocrat; however, Cedric inadvertently teaches his grandfather that an aristocrat should practice compassion towards persons who are dependent on him. The Earl becomes the kind and good man Cedric always innocently believed him to be. Cedric's mother is invited by the Earl to live in the ancestral castle, and Cedric's old friend Mr. Hobbs, the New York City grocer, who came to England to help investigate the false claim, decides to stay to help look after Cedric\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Song of Roland",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Charlemagne's army is fighting the Muslims in Spain. The last city standing is Saragossa, held by the Muslim king Marsilla. Terrified of the might of Charlemagne's army of Franks, Marsilla sends out messengers to Charlemagne, promising treasure and Marsilla's conversion to Christianity if the Franks will go back to France. Charlemagne and his men are tired of fighting and decide to accept this peace offer. They need now to select a messenger to go back to Marsilla's court. The bold warrior Roland nominates his stepfather Ganelon. Ganelon is enraged; he fears that he'll die in the hands of the bloodthirsty pagans and suspects that this is just Roland's intent. He has long hated and envied his stepson, and, riding back to Saragossa with the Saracen messengers, he finds an opportunity for revenge. He tells the Saracens how they could ambush the rear guard of Charlemagne's army, which will surely be led by Roland as the Franks pick their way back to Spain through the mountain passes, and helps the Saracens plan their attack. Just as the traitor Ganelon predicted, Roland gallantly volunteers to lead the rear guard. The wise and moderate Oliver and the fierce Archbishop Turpin are among the men Roland picks to join him. Pagans ambush them at Roncesvalles, according to plan; the Christians are overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. Seeing how badly outnumbered they are, Olivier asks Roland to blow on his olifant, his horn made out of an elephant tusk, to call for help from the main body of the Frankish army. Roland proudly refuses to do so, claiming that they need no help, that the rear guard can easily take on the pagan hordes. While the Franks fight magnificently, there's no way they can continue to hold off against the Saracens, and the battle begins to turn clearly against them. Almost all his men are dead and Roland knows that it's now too late for Charlemagne and his troops to save them, but he blows his oliphant anyway, so that the emperor can see what happened to his men and avenge them. Roland blows so hard that his temples burst. He dies a glorious martyr's death, and saints take his soul straight to Paradise. When Charlemagne and his men reach the battlefield, they find only dead bodies. The pagans have fled, but the Franks pursue them, chasing them into the river Ebro, where they all drown. Meanwhile, the powerful emir of Babylon, Baligant, has arrived in Spain to help his vassal Marsilla fend off the Frankish threat. Baligant and his enormous Muslim army ride after Charlemagne and his Christian army, meeting them on the battlefield at Roncesvalles, where the Christians are burying and mourning their dead. Both sides fight valiantly. But when Charlemagne kills Baligant, all the pagan army scatter and flee. Now Saragossa has no defenders left; the Franks take the city. With Marsilla's wife Bramimonde, Charlemagne and his men ride back to Aix, their capital in France. The Franks discovered Ganelon's betrayal some time ago and keep him in chains until it is time for his trial. Ganelon argues that his action was legitimate revenge, openly proclaimed, not treason. While the council of barons which Charlemagne has assembled to decide the traitor's fate is initially swayed by this claim, one man, Thierry, argues that, because Roland was serving Charlemagne when Ganelon delivered his revenge on him, Ganelon's action constitutes a betrayal of the emperor. Ganelon's friend Pinabel challenges Thierry to trial by combat; the two will fight a duel to see who's right. By divine intervention, Thierry, the weaker man, wins, killing Pinabel. The Franks are convinced by this of Ganelon's villainy and sentence him to a most painful death. The traitor is torn limb from limb by galloping horses and thirty of his relatives are hung for good measure.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Charlemagne's army is fighting the Muslims in Spain. The last city standing is Saragossa, held by the Muslim king Marsilla. Terrified of the might of Charlemagne's army of Franks, Marsilla sends out messengers to Charlemagne, promising treasure and Marsilla's conversion to Christianity if the Franks will go back to France. Charlemagne and his men are tired of fighting and decide to accept this peace offer. They need now to select a messenger to go back to Marsilla's court. The bold warrior Roland nominates his stepfather Ganelon. Ganelon is enraged; he fears that he'll die in the hands of the bloodthirsty pagans and suspects that this is just Roland's intent. He has long hated and envied his stepson, and, riding back to Saragossa with the Saracen messengers, he finds an opportunity for revenge. He tells the Saracens how they could ambush the rear guard of Charlemagne's army, which will surely be led by Roland as the Franks pick their way back to Spain through the mountain passes, and helps the Saracens plan their attack. Just as the traitor Ganelon predicted, Roland gallantly volunteers to lead the rear guard. The wise and moderate Oliver and the fierce Archbishop Turpin are among the men Roland picks to join him. Pagans ambush them at Roncesvalles, according to plan; the Christians are overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. Seeing how badly outnumbered they are, Olivier asks Roland to blow on his olifant, his horn made out of an elephant tusk, to call for help from the main body of the Frankish army. Roland proudly refuses to do so, claiming that they need no help, that the rear guard can easily take on the pagan hordes. While the Franks fight magnificently, there's no way they can continue to hold off against the Saracens, and the battle begins to turn"
      },
      {
        "text": " numbers. Seeing how badly outnumbered they are, Olivier asks Roland to blow on his olifant, his horn made out of an elephant tusk, to call for help from the main body of the Frankish army. Roland proudly refuses to do so, claiming that they need no help, that the rear guard can easily take on the pagan hordes. While the Franks fight magnificently, there's no way they can continue to hold off against the Saracens, and the battle begins to turn clearly against them. Almost all his men are dead and Roland knows that it's now too late for Charlemagne and his troops to save them, but he blows his oliphant anyway, so that the emperor can see what happened to his men and avenge them. Roland blows so hard that his temples burst. He dies a glorious martyr's death, and saints take his soul straight to Paradise. When Charlemagne and his men reach the battlefield, they find only dead bodies. The pagans have fled, but the Franks pursue them, chasing them into the river Ebro, where they all drown. Meanwhile, the powerful emir of Babylon, Baligant, has arrived in Spain to help his vassal Marsilla fend off the Frankish threat. Baligant and his enormous Muslim army ride after Charlemagne and his Christian army, meeting them on the battlefield at Roncesvalles, where the Christians are burying and mourning their dead. Both sides fight valiantly. But when Charlemagne kills Baligant, all the pagan army scatter and flee. Now Saragossa has no defenders left; the Franks take the city. With Marsilla's wife Bramimonde, Charlemagne and his men ride back to Aix, their capital in France. The Franks discovered Ganelon's betrayal some time ago and keep him in chains until it is time for his trial. Ganelon argues that his action was legitimate revenge, openly proclaimed, not"
      },
      {
        "text": ". But when Charlemagne kills Baligant, all the pagan army scatter and flee. Now Saragossa has no defenders left; the Franks take the city. With Marsilla's wife Bramimonde, Charlemagne and his men ride back to Aix, their capital in France. The Franks discovered Ganelon's betrayal some time ago and keep him in chains until it is time for his trial. Ganelon argues that his action was legitimate revenge, openly proclaimed, not treason. While the council of barons which Charlemagne has assembled to decide the traitor's fate is initially swayed by this claim, one man, Thierry, argues that, because Roland was serving Charlemagne when Ganelon delivered his revenge on him, Ganelon's action constitutes a betrayal of the emperor. Ganelon's friend Pinabel challenges Thierry to trial by combat; the two will fight a duel to see who's right. By divine intervention, Thierry, the weaker man, wins, killing Pinabel. The Franks are convinced by this of Ganelon's villainy and sentence him to a most painful death. The traitor is torn limb from limb by galloping horses and thirty of his relatives are hung for good measure.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Humphry Clinker",
    "author": "Tobias Smollett",
    "published_date": "1771-06-17",
    "synopsis": " The titular character, Humphry Clinker, is an ostler, a stableman at an inn, who does not make his first appearance until about a quarter of the way through the story. He is taken on by Matthew Bramble and his family while they are travelling through England. Various adventures befall them, especially after their meeting with Lieutenant Lismahago, a Scotsman, who joins their party. After various romantic interludes, Humphry suffers false imprisonment but is rescued and returned to his sweetheart, the maid Winifred Jenkins. It is then discovered that Humphry is Mr. Bramble's illegitimate son from a relationship with a barmaid during his wilder university days.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The titular character, Humphry Clinker, is an ostler, a stableman at an inn, who does not make his first appearance until about a quarter of the way through the story. He is taken on by Matthew Bramble and his family while they are travelling through England. Various adventures befall them, especially after their meeting with Lieutenant Lismahago, a Scotsman, who joins their party. After various romantic interludes, Humphry suffers false imprisonment but is rescued and returned to his sweetheart, the maid Winifred Jenkins. It is then discovered that Humphry is Mr. Bramble's illegitimate son from a relationship with a barmaid during his wilder university days.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Lover",
    "author": "Marguerite Duras",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Set against the backdrop of French colonial Vietnam, The Lover reveals the intimacies and intricacies of a clandestine romance between a pubescent girl from a financially strapped French family and an older, wealthy Chinese man. In 1929, a 15 year old nameless girl is traveling by ferry across the Mekong Delta, returning from a holiday at her family home in the town of Sa \u0110\u00e9c, to her boarding school in Saigon. She attracts the attention of a 37 year old son of a Chinese business magnate, a young man of wealth and heir to a fortune. He strikes up a conversation with the girl; she accepts a ride back to town in his chauffeured limousine. Compelled by the circumstances of her upbringing, this girl, the daughter of a bankrupt, manic depressive widow, is newly awakened to the impending and all-too-real task of making her way alone in the world. Thus, she becomes his lover, until he bows to the disapproval of his father and breaks off the affair. For her lover, there is no question of the depth and sincerity of his love, but it isn't until much later that the girl acknowledges to herself her true feelings.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set against the backdrop of French colonial Vietnam, The Lover reveals the intimacies and intricacies of a clandestine romance between a pubescent girl from a financially strapped French family and an older, wealthy Chinese man. In 1929, a 15 year old nameless girl is traveling by ferry across the Mekong Delta, returning from a holiday at her family home in the town of Sa \u0110\u00e9c, to her boarding school in Saigon. She attracts the attention of a 37 year old son of a Chinese business magnate, a young man of wealth and heir to a fortune. He strikes up a conversation with the girl; she accepts a ride back to town in his chauffeured limousine. Compelled by the circumstances of her upbringing, this girl, the daughter of a bankrupt, manic depressive widow, is newly awakened to the impending and all-too-real task of making her way alone in the world. Thus, she becomes his lover, until he bows to the disapproval of his father and breaks off the affair. For her lover, there is no question of the depth and sincerity of his love, but it isn't until much later that the girl acknowledges to herself her true feelings.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lorna Doone",
    "author": "R. D. Blackmore",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The book is set in the 17th century in the Badgworthy Water region of Exmoor in Devon and Somerset, England. John (in West Country dialect, pronounced \"Jan\") Ridd is the son of a respectable farmer who was murdered in cold blood by one of the notorious Doone clan, a once noble family, now outlaws, in the isolated Doone Valley. Battling his desire for revenge, John also grows into a respectable farmer and takes good care of his mother and two sisters. He falls hopelessly in love with Lorna, a girl he meets by accident, who turns out to be not only (apparently) the granddaughter of Sir Ensor Doone (lord of the Doones), but destined to marry (against her will) the impetuous, menacing, and now jealous heir of the Doone Valley, Carver Doone. Carver will let nothing get in the way of his marriage to Lorna, which he plans to force upon her once Sir Ensor dies and he comes into his inheritance. Sir Ensor dies, and Carver becomes lord of the Doones. John Ridd helps Lorna escape to his family's farm, Plover's Barrows. Since Lorna is a member of the hated Doone clan, feelings are mixed toward her in the Ridd household, but she is nonetheless defended against the enraged Carver's retaliatory attack on the farm. A member of the Ridd household notices Lorna's necklace, a jewel that she was told by Sir Ensor belonged to her mother. During a visit from the Counsellor, Carver's father and the wisest of the Doone family, the necklace is stolen from Plover's Barrows. Shortly after its disappearance, a family friend discovers Lorna's origins, learning that the necklace belonged to a Lady Dugal, who was robbed and murdered by a band of outlaws. Only her daughter survived the attack. It becomes apparent that Lorna, being evidently the long-lost girl in question, is in fact heiress to one of the largest fortunes in the country, and not a Doone after all (although the Doones are remotely related, being descended from a collateral branch of the Dugal family). She is required by law, but against her will, to return to London to become a ward in Chancery. Despite John and Lorna's love for one another, their marriage is out of the question. King Charles II dies, and the Duke of Monmouth (the late king's illegitimate son) challenges Charles's brother James for the throne. The Doones, abandoning their plan to marry Lorna to Carver and claim her wealth, side with Monmouth in the hope of reclaiming their ancestral lands. However, Monmouth is defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor, and his associates are sought for treason. John Ridd is captured during the revolution. Innocent of all charges, he is taken to London by an old friend to clear his name. There, he is reunited with Lorna (now Lorna Dugal), whose love for him has not diminished. When he thwarts an attack on Lorna's great-uncle and legal guardian Earl Brandir, John is granted a pardon, a title, and a coat of arms by the king and returns a free man to Exmoor. In the meantime, the surrounding communities have grown tired of the Doones and their depredations. Knowing the Doones better than any other man, John leads the attack on their land. All the Doone men are killed, except the Counsellor (from whom John retrieves the stolen necklace) and his son Carver, who escapes, vowing revenge. When Earl Brandir dies and Judge Jeffreys is awarded guardianship of Lorna, she is granted her freedom to return to Exmoor and marry John. During their wedding, Carver bursts into the church at Oare. He shoots Lorna and flees. Distraught and filled with blinding rage, John pursues and confronts him. A struggle ensues in which Carver is left sinking in a mire. Exhausted and bloodied from the fight, John can only pant as he watches Carver slip away. He returns to discover that Lorna is not dead, and after a period of anxious uncertainty, she survives to live happily ever after.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is set in the 17th century in the Badgworthy Water region of Exmoor in Devon and Somerset, England. John (in West Country dialect, pronounced \"Jan\") Ridd is the son of a respectable farmer who was murdered in cold blood by one of the notorious Doone clan, a once noble family, now outlaws, in the isolated Doone Valley. Battling his desire for revenge, John also grows into a respectable farmer and takes good care of his mother and two sisters. He falls hopelessly in love with Lorna, a girl he meets by accident, who turns out to be not only (apparently) the granddaughter of Sir Ensor Doone (lord of the Doones), but destined to marry (against her will) the impetuous, menacing, and now jealous heir of the Doone Valley, Carver Doone. Carver will let nothing get in the way of his marriage to Lorna, which he plans to force upon her once Sir Ensor dies and he comes into his inheritance. Sir Ensor dies, and Carver becomes lord of the Doones. John Ridd helps Lorna escape to his family's farm, Plover's Barrows. Since Lorna is a member of the hated Doone clan, feelings are mixed toward her in the Ridd household, but she is nonetheless defended against the enraged Carver's retaliatory attack on the farm. A member of the Ridd household notices Lorna's necklace, a jewel that she was told by Sir Ensor belonged to her mother. During a visit from the Counsellor, Carver's father and the wisest of the Doone family, the necklace is stolen from Plover's Barrows. Shortly after its disappearance, a family friend discovers Lorna's origins, learning that the necklace belonged to a Lady Dugal, who was robbed and murdered by a band of outlaws. Only her daughter survived the attack"
      },
      {
        "text": " Lorna's necklace, a jewel that she was told by Sir Ensor belonged to her mother. During a visit from the Counsellor, Carver's father and the wisest of the Doone family, the necklace is stolen from Plover's Barrows. Shortly after its disappearance, a family friend discovers Lorna's origins, learning that the necklace belonged to a Lady Dugal, who was robbed and murdered by a band of outlaws. Only her daughter survived the attack. It becomes apparent that Lorna, being evidently the long-lost girl in question, is in fact heiress to one of the largest fortunes in the country, and not a Doone after all (although the Doones are remotely related, being descended from a collateral branch of the Dugal family). She is required by law, but against her will, to return to London to become a ward in Chancery. Despite John and Lorna's love for one another, their marriage is out of the question. King Charles II dies, and the Duke of Monmouth (the late king's illegitimate son) challenges Charles's brother James for the throne. The Doones, abandoning their plan to marry Lorna to Carver and claim her wealth, side with Monmouth in the hope of reclaiming their ancestral lands. However, Monmouth is defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor, and his associates are sought for treason. John Ridd is captured during the revolution. Innocent of all charges, he is taken to London by an old friend to clear his name. There, he is reunited with Lorna (now Lorna Dugal), whose love for him has not diminished. When he thwarts an attack on Lorna's great-uncle and legal guardian Earl Brandir, John is granted a pardon, a title, and a coat of arms by the king and returns a free man to Exmoor. In the meantime, the surrounding communities have"
      },
      {
        "text": " Innocent of all charges, he is taken to London by an old friend to clear his name. There, he is reunited with Lorna (now Lorna Dugal), whose love for him has not diminished. When he thwarts an attack on Lorna's great-uncle and legal guardian Earl Brandir, John is granted a pardon, a title, and a coat of arms by the king and returns a free man to Exmoor. In the meantime, the surrounding communities have grown tired of the Doones and their depredations. Knowing the Doones better than any other man, John leads the attack on their land. All the Doone men are killed, except the Counsellor (from whom John retrieves the stolen necklace) and his son Carver, who escapes, vowing revenge. When Earl Brandir dies and Judge Jeffreys is awarded guardianship of Lorna, she is granted her freedom to return to Exmoor and marry John. During their wedding, Carver bursts into the church at Oare. He shoots Lorna and flees. Distraught and filled with blinding rage, John pursues and confronts him. A struggle ensues in which Carver is left sinking in a mire. Exhausted and bloodied from the fight, John can only pant as he watches Carver slip away. He returns to discover that Lorna is not dead, and after a period of anxious uncertainty, she survives to live happily ever after.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " ever after.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sound and the Fury",
    "author": "William Faulkner",
    "published_date": "1929",
    "synopsis": " The four parts of the novel relate many of the same episodes, each from a different point of view and therefore with emphasis on different themes and events. This interweaving and nonlinear structure makes any true synopsis of the novel difficult, especially since the narrators are all unreliable in their own way, making their accounts not necessarily trustworthy at all times. Also in this novel, Faulkner uses italics to indicate points in each section where the narrative is moving into a significant moment in the past. The use of these italics can be confusing, however, as time shifts are not always marked by the use of italics, and periods of different time in each section do not necessarily stay in italics for the duration of the flashback. Thus, these time shifts can often be jarring and confusing, and require particularly close reading. The general outline of the story is the decline of the Compson family, a once noble Southern family descended from U.S. Civil War hero General Compson. The family falls victim to those vices which Faulkner believed were responsible for the problems in the reconstructed South: racism, avarice, selfishness, and the psychological inability of individuals to become determinants. Over the course of the thirty years or so related in the novel, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically. The reader may also wish to look in The Portable Faulkner for a four-page history of the Compson family. Faulkner said afterwards that he wished he had written the history at the same time he wrote The Sound and the Fury. The first section of the novel is narrated by Benjamin \"Benjy\" Compson, a source of shame to the family due to his autism; the only characters who evidence a genuine care for him are Caddy, his older sister; and Dilsey, a matriarchal servant. His narrative voice is characterized predominantly by its nonlinearity: spanning the period 1898\u20131928, Benjy's narrative is a series of non-chronological events presented in a seamless stream of consciousness. The presence of italics in Benjy's section is meant to indicate significant shifts in the narrative. Originally Faulkner meant to use different colored inks to signify chronological breaks. This nonlinearity makes the style of this section particularly challenging, but Benjy's style develops a cadence that, while not chronologically coherent, provides unbiased insight into many characters' true motivations. Moreover, Benjy's caretaker changes to indicate the time period: Luster in the present, T.P. in Benjy's teenage years, and Versh during Benjy's infancy and childhood. In this section we see Benjy's three passions: fire, the golf course on land that used to belong to the Compson family, and his sister Caddy. But by 1928 Caddy has been banished from the Compson home after her husband divorced her because her child was not his, and the family has sold his favorite pasture to a local golf club in order to finance Quentin's Harvard education. In the opening scene, Benjy, accompanied by Luster, a servant boy, watches golfers on the nearby golf course as he waits to hear them call \"caddie\"\u2014the name of his favorite sibling. When one of them calls for his golf caddie, Benjy's mind embarks on a whirlwind course of memories of his sister, Caddy, focusing on one critical scene. In 1898 when their grandmother died, the four Compson children were forced to play outside during the funeral. In order to see what was going on inside, Caddy climbed a tree in the yard, and while looking inside, her brothers\u2014Quentin, Jason and Benjy\u2014looked up and noticed that her underwear was muddy. Other crucial memories in this section are Benjy's change of name (from Maury, after his uncle) in 1900 upon the discovery of his disability; the marriage and divorce of Caddy (1910), and Benjy's castration, resulting from an attack on a girl that is alluded to briefly within this chapter when a gate is left unlatched and Benjy is out unsupervised. Readers often report trouble understanding this portion of the novel due to its impressionistic language, necessitated by Benjamin's autism, and its frequent shifts in time and setting. Quentin, the most intelligent and tormented of the Compson children, gives the novel's best example of Faulkner's narrative technique. We see him as a freshman at Harvard, wandering the streets of Cambridge, contemplating death, and remembering his family's estrangement from his sister Caddy. Like the first section, its narrative is not strictly linear, though the two interweaving threads, of Quentin at Harvard on the one hand, and of his memories on the other, are clearly discernible. Quentin's main obsession is Caddy's virginity and purity. He is obsessed with Southern ideals of chivalry and is strongly protective of women, especially his sister. When Caddy engages in sexual promiscuity, Quentin is horrified. He turns to his father for help and counsel, but the pragmatic Mr. Compson tells him that virginity is invented by men and should not be taken seriously. He also tells Quentin that time will heal all. Quentin spends much of his time trying to prove his father wrong, but is unable to. Shortly before Quentin leaves for Harvard in the fall of 1909, Caddy becomes pregnant with the child of Dalton Ames, whom Quentin confronts. The two fight, with Quentin losing disgracefully and Caddy vowing, for Quentin's sake, never to speak to Dalton again. Quentin tells his father that they have committed incest, but his father knows that he is lying: \"and he did you try to make her do it and i i was afraid to i was afraid she might and then it wouldn't do any good\" (112). Quentin's idea of incest is shaped by the idea that, if they \"could just have done something so dreadful that they would have fled hell except us\" (51), he could protect his sister by joining her in whatever punishment she might have to endure. In his mind, he feels a need to take responsibility for Caddy's sin. Pregnant and alone, Caddy then marries Herbert Head, whom Quentin finds repulsive, but Caddy is resolute: she must marry before the birth of her child. Herbert finds out that the child is not his and sends mother and daughter away in shame. Quentin's wanderings through Harvard, as he cuts classes, follow the pattern of his heartbreak over losing Caddy. For instance, he meets a small Italian immigrant girl who speaks no English. Significantly, he calls her \"sister\" and spends much of the day trying to communicate with her, and to care for her by finding her home, to no avail. He thinks sadly of the downfall and squalor of the South after the American Civil War. Because he can't deal with the amorality of the world around him, he commits suicide. While many first-time readers report Benjy's section as being difficult to understand, these same readers often find Quentin's section to be near impossible. Not only do chronological events mesh together regularly, but often (especially at the end) Faulkner completely disregards any semblance of grammar, spelling, or punctuation, instead writing in a rambling series of words, phrases, and sentences that have no separation to indicate where one thought ends and another begins. This confusion is due to Quentin's severe depression and deteriorating state of mind, and Quentin is therefore arguably an even more unreliable narrator than his brother Benjy was. Because of the staggering complexity of this section, it is often the one most extensively studied by scholars of the novel. The third section is narrated by Jason, the third child and Caroline's favorite. It takes place the day before Benjy's section, on Good Friday. Of the three brothers' sections, Jason's is the most straightforward, reflecting his single-minded desire for material wealth. By 1928, Jason is the economic foundation of the family after his father's death. He supports his mother, Benjy, and Miss Quentin (Caddy's daughter), as well as the family's servants. His role makes him bitter and cynical, with little of the passionate sensitivity that mark his older brother and sister. He goes so far as to blackmail Caddy into making him Miss Quentin's sole guardian, then uses that role to steal the support payments that Caddy sends for her daughter. This is the first section that is narrated in a linear fashion. It follows the course of Good Friday, a day in which Jason decides to leave work to search for Miss Quentin (Caddy's daughter), who has run away again, seemingly in pursuit of mischief. Here we see most immediately the conflict between the two predominant traits of the Compson family, which Jason's mother Caroline attributes to the difference between her blood and her husband's: on the one hand, Miss Quentin's recklessness and passion, inherited from her grandfather and, ultimately, the Compson side; on the other, Jason's ruthless cynicism, drawn from his mother's side. This section also gives us the clearest image of domestic life in the Compson household, which for Jason and the servants means the care of the hypochondriac Caroline and of Benjy. April 8, 1928, is Easter Sunday. This section, the only one without a single first-person narrator, focuses on Dilsey, the powerful matriarch of the black family servants. She, in contrast to the declining Compsons, draws a great deal of strength from her faith, standing as a proud figure amid a dying family. It can be said that Dilsey gains her strength by looking outward (i.e. outside of one's self for support) while the Compsons grow weak by looking inward. On this Easter Sunday, Dilsey takes her family and Benjy to the 'colored' church. Through her we sense the consequences of the decadence and depravity in which the Compsons have lived for decades. Dilsey is mistreated and abused, but nevertheless remains loyal. She, with the help of her grandson Luster, cares for Benjy, as she takes him to church and tries to bring him to salvation. The preacher's sermon inspires her to weep for the Compson family, reminding her that she's seen the family through its destruction, which she is now witnessing. Meanwhile, the tension between Jason and Miss Quentin reaches its inevitable conclusion. The family discovers that Miss Quentin has run away in the middle of the night with a carnival worker, having found the hidden collection of cash in Jason's closet and taken both her money (the support from Caddy, which Jason had stolen) and her money-obsessed uncle's life savings. Jason calls the police and tells them that his money has been stolen, but since it would mean admitting embezzling Quentin's money he doesn't press the issue. He therefore sets off once again to find her on his own, but loses her trail in nearby Mottson, and gives her up as gone for good. After church, Dilsey allows her grandson Luster to drive Benjy in the family's decrepit horse and carriage to the graveyard. Luster, disregarding Benjy's set routine, drives the wrong way around a monument. Benjy's hysterical sobbing and violent outburst can only be quieted by Jason, who understands how best to placate his brother. Jason slaps Luster, turns the carriage around, and Benjy suddenly becomes silent. Luster turns around to look at Benjy and sees Benjy drop his flower. Benjy's eyes are \"...empty and blue and serene again.\" In 1945, Faulkner wrote an appendix to the novel to be published in the then-forthcoming anthology The Portable Faulkner. At Faulkner's behest, however, subsequent printings of The Sound and the Fury frequently contain the appendix at the end of the book; it is sometimes referred to as the fifth part. Having been written sixteen years after The Sound and the Fury, the appendix presents some textual differences from the novel, but serves to clarify the novel's opaque story. The appendix is presented as a complete history of the Compson family lineage, beginning with the arrival of their ancestor Quentin Maclachlan in America in 1779 and continuing through 1945, including events that transpired after the novel (which took place in 1928). In particular, the appendix reveals that Caroline Compson died in 1933, upon which Jason had Benjy committed to the state asylum; fired the black servants; sold the last of the Compson land; and moved into an apartment above his farming supply store. It is also revealed that Jason had himself declared Benjy's legal guardian many years ago, without their mother's knowledge, and used this status to have Benjy castrated. The appendix also reveals the fate of Caddy, last seen in the novel when her daughter Quentin is still a baby. After marrying and divorcing a second time, Caddy moved to Paris, where she lived at the time of the German occupation. In 1943 the librarian of Yoknapatawpha County discovered a magazine photograph of Caddy in the company of a German staff general and attempted separately to recruit both Jason and Dilsey to save her; Jason, at first acknowledging that the photo was of his sister, denied that it was she after realizing the librarian wanted his help, while Dilsey pretended to be unable to see the picture at all. The librarian later realizes that while Jason remains cold and unsympathetic towards Caddy, Dilsey simply understands that Caddy neither wants nor needs salvation from the Germans, because nothing else remains for her. The appendix concludes with an accounting for the black family who worked as servants to the Compsons. Unlike the entries for the Compsons themselves, which are lengthy, detailed, and told with an omniscient narrative perspective, the servants' entries are simple and succinct. Dilsey's entry, the final in the appendix, consists of two words: \"They endured.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The four parts of the novel relate many of the same episodes, each from a different point of view and therefore with emphasis on different themes and events. This interweaving and nonlinear structure makes any true synopsis of the novel difficult, especially since the narrators are all unreliable in their own way, making their accounts not necessarily trustworthy at all times. Also in this novel, Faulkner uses italics to indicate points in each section where the narrative is moving into a significant moment in the past. The use of these italics can be confusing, however, as time shifts are not always marked by the use of italics, and periods of different time in each section do not necessarily stay in italics for the duration of the flashback. Thus, these time shifts can often be jarring and confusing, and require particularly close reading. The general outline of the story is the decline of the Compson family, a once noble Southern family descended from U.S. Civil War hero General Compson. The family falls victim to those vices which Faulkner believed were responsible for the problems in the reconstructed South: racism, avarice, selfishness, and the psychological inability of individuals to become determinants. Over the course of the thirty years or so related in the novel, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically. The reader may also wish to look in The Portable Faulkner for a four-page history of the Compson family. Faulkner said afterwards that he wished he had written the history at the same time he wrote The Sound and the Fury. The first section of the novel is narrated by Benjamin \"Benjy\" Compson, a source of shame to the family due to his autism; the only characters who evidence a genuine care for him are Caddy, his older sister; and Dilsey, a matriarchal servant. His narrative voice is characterized predominantly by its"
      },
      {
        "text": "page history of the Compson family. Faulkner said afterwards that he wished he had written the history at the same time he wrote The Sound and the Fury. The first section of the novel is narrated by Benjamin \"Benjy\" Compson, a source of shame to the family due to his autism; the only characters who evidence a genuine care for him are Caddy, his older sister; and Dilsey, a matriarchal servant. His narrative voice is characterized predominantly by its nonlinearity: spanning the period 1898\u20131928, Benjy's narrative is a series of non-chronological events presented in a seamless stream of consciousness. The presence of italics in Benjy's section is meant to indicate significant shifts in the narrative. Originally Faulkner meant to use different colored inks to signify chronological breaks. This nonlinearity makes the style of this section particularly challenging, but Benjy's style develops a cadence that, while not chronologically coherent, provides unbiased insight into many characters' true motivations. Moreover, Benjy's caretaker changes to indicate the time period: Luster in the present, T.P. in Benjy's teenage years, and Versh during Benjy's infancy and childhood. In this section we see Benjy's three passions: fire, the golf course on land that used to belong to the Compson family, and his sister Caddy. But by 1928 Caddy has been banished from the Compson home after her husband divorced her because her child was not his, and the family has sold his favorite pasture to a local golf club in order to finance Quentin's Harvard education. In the opening scene, Benjy, accompanied by Luster, a servant boy, watches golfers on the nearby golf course as he waits to hear them call \"caddie\"\u2014the name of his favorite sibling. When one of them calls for his golf caddie, Benjy's"
      },
      {
        "text": " from the Compson home after her husband divorced her because her child was not his, and the family has sold his favorite pasture to a local golf club in order to finance Quentin's Harvard education. In the opening scene, Benjy, accompanied by Luster, a servant boy, watches golfers on the nearby golf course as he waits to hear them call \"caddie\"\u2014the name of his favorite sibling. When one of them calls for his golf caddie, Benjy's mind embarks on a whirlwind course of memories of his sister, Caddy, focusing on one critical scene. In 1898 when their grandmother died, the four Compson children were forced to play outside during the funeral. In order to see what was going on inside, Caddy climbed a tree in the yard, and while looking inside, her brothers\u2014Quentin, Jason and Benjy\u2014looked up and noticed that her underwear was muddy. Other crucial memories in this section are Benjy's change of name (from Maury, after his uncle) in 1900 upon the discovery of his disability; the marriage and divorce of Caddy (1910), and Benjy's castration, resulting from an attack on a girl that is alluded to briefly within this chapter when a gate is left unlatched and Benjy is out unsupervised. Readers often report trouble understanding this portion of the novel due to its impressionistic language, necessitated by Benjamin's autism, and its frequent shifts in time and setting. Quentin, the most intelligent and tormented of the Compson children, gives the novel's best example of Faulkner's narrative technique. We see him as a freshman at Harvard, wandering the streets of Cambridge, contemplating death, and remembering his family's estrangement from his sister Caddy. Like the first section, its narrative is not strictly linear, though the two interweaving threads, of Quentin at Harvard on the one hand, and of his memories on"
      },
      {
        "text": " shifts in time and setting. Quentin, the most intelligent and tormented of the Compson children, gives the novel's best example of Faulkner's narrative technique. We see him as a freshman at Harvard, wandering the streets of Cambridge, contemplating death, and remembering his family's estrangement from his sister Caddy. Like the first section, its narrative is not strictly linear, though the two interweaving threads, of Quentin at Harvard on the one hand, and of his memories on the other, are clearly discernible. Quentin's main obsession is Caddy's virginity and purity. He is obsessed with Southern ideals of chivalry and is strongly protective of women, especially his sister. When Caddy engages in sexual promiscuity, Quentin is horrified. He turns to his father for help and counsel, but the pragmatic Mr. Compson tells him that virginity is invented by men and should not be taken seriously. He also tells Quentin that time will heal all. Quentin spends much of his time trying to prove his father wrong, but is unable to. Shortly before Quentin leaves for Harvard in the fall of 1909, Caddy becomes pregnant with the child of Dalton Ames, whom Quentin confronts. The two fight, with Quentin losing disgracefully and Caddy vowing, for Quentin's sake, never to speak to Dalton again. Quentin tells his father that they have committed incest, but his father knows that he is lying: \"and he did you try to make her do it and i i was afraid to i was afraid she might and then it wouldn't do any good\" (112). Quentin's idea of incest is shaped by the idea that, if they \"could just have done something so dreadful that they would have fled hell except us\" (51), he could protect his sister by joining her in whatever punishment she might have to endure. In his mind, he feels a need to take responsibility for Caddy's sin. Pregnant and alone, Caddy then marries"
      },
      {
        "text": " i was afraid to i was afraid she might and then it wouldn't do any good\" (112). Quentin's idea of incest is shaped by the idea that, if they \"could just have done something so dreadful that they would have fled hell except us\" (51), he could protect his sister by joining her in whatever punishment she might have to endure. In his mind, he feels a need to take responsibility for Caddy's sin. Pregnant and alone, Caddy then marries Herbert Head, whom Quentin finds repulsive, but Caddy is resolute: she must marry before the birth of her child. Herbert finds out that the child is not his and sends mother and daughter away in shame. Quentin's wanderings through Harvard, as he cuts classes, follow the pattern of his heartbreak over losing Caddy. For instance, he meets a small Italian immigrant girl who speaks no English. Significantly, he calls her \"sister\" and spends much of the day trying to communicate with her, and to care for her by finding her home, to no avail. He thinks sadly of the downfall and squalor of the South after the American Civil War. Because he can't deal with the amorality of the world around him, he commits suicide. While many first-time readers report Benjy's section as being difficult to understand, these same readers often find Quentin's section to be near impossible. Not only do chronological events mesh together regularly, but often (especially at the end) Faulkner completely disregards any semblance of grammar, spelling, or punctuation, instead writing in a rambling series of words, phrases, and sentences that have no separation to indicate where one thought ends and another begins. This confusion is due to Quentin's severe depression and deteriorating state of mind, and Quentin is therefore arguably an even more unreliable narrator than his brother Benjy was. Because of the staggering complexity of this section, it is often the one most extensively"
      },
      {
        "text": " (especially at the end) Faulkner completely disregards any semblance of grammar, spelling, or punctuation, instead writing in a rambling series of words, phrases, and sentences that have no separation to indicate where one thought ends and another begins. This confusion is due to Quentin's severe depression and deteriorating state of mind, and Quentin is therefore arguably an even more unreliable narrator than his brother Benjy was. Because of the staggering complexity of this section, it is often the one most extensively studied by scholars of the novel. The third section is narrated by Jason, the third child and Caroline's favorite. It takes place the day before Benjy's section, on Good Friday. Of the three brothers' sections, Jason's is the most straightforward, reflecting his single-minded desire for material wealth. By 1928, Jason is the economic foundation of the family after his father's death. He supports his mother, Benjy, and Miss Quentin (Caddy's daughter), as well as the family's servants. His role makes him bitter and cynical, with little of the passionate sensitivity that mark his older brother and sister. He goes so far as to blackmail Caddy into making him Miss Quentin's sole guardian, then uses that role to steal the support payments that Caddy sends for her daughter. This is the first section that is narrated in a linear fashion. It follows the course of Good Friday, a day in which Jason decides to leave work to search for Miss Quentin (Caddy's daughter), who has run away again, seemingly in pursuit of mischief. Here we see most immediately the conflict between the two predominant traits of the Compson family, which Jason's mother Caroline attributes to the difference between her blood and her husband's: on the one hand, Miss Quentin's recklessness and passion, inherited from her grandfather and, ultimately, the Compson side; on the other, Jason's ruthless cynicism, drawn from his mother's side. This section also gives us the cle"
      },
      {
        "text": "addy's daughter), who has run away again, seemingly in pursuit of mischief. Here we see most immediately the conflict between the two predominant traits of the Compson family, which Jason's mother Caroline attributes to the difference between her blood and her husband's: on the one hand, Miss Quentin's recklessness and passion, inherited from her grandfather and, ultimately, the Compson side; on the other, Jason's ruthless cynicism, drawn from his mother's side. This section also gives us the clearest image of domestic life in the Compson household, which for Jason and the servants means the care of the hypochondriac Caroline and of Benjy. April 8, 1928, is Easter Sunday. This section, the only one without a single first-person narrator, focuses on Dilsey, the powerful matriarch of the black family servants. She, in contrast to the declining Compsons, draws a great deal of strength from her faith, standing as a proud figure amid a dying family. It can be said that Dilsey gains her strength by looking outward (i.e. outside of one's self for support) while the Compsons grow weak by looking inward. On this Easter Sunday, Dilsey takes her family and Benjy to the 'colored' church. Through her we sense the consequences of the decadence and depravity in which the Compsons have lived for decades. Dilsey is mistreated and abused, but nevertheless remains loyal. She, with the help of her grandson Luster, cares for Benjy, as she takes him to church and tries to bring him to salvation. The preacher's sermon inspires her to weep for the Compson family, reminding her that she's seen the family through its destruction, which she is now witnessing. Meanwhile, the tension between Jason and Miss Quentin reaches its inevitable conclusion. The family discovers that Miss Quentin has run away in the middle of the night with a carnival worker, having found the hidden collection of cash"
      },
      {
        "text": " of her grandson Luster, cares for Benjy, as she takes him to church and tries to bring him to salvation. The preacher's sermon inspires her to weep for the Compson family, reminding her that she's seen the family through its destruction, which she is now witnessing. Meanwhile, the tension between Jason and Miss Quentin reaches its inevitable conclusion. The family discovers that Miss Quentin has run away in the middle of the night with a carnival worker, having found the hidden collection of cash in Jason's closet and taken both her money (the support from Caddy, which Jason had stolen) and her money-obsessed uncle's life savings. Jason calls the police and tells them that his money has been stolen, but since it would mean admitting embezzling Quentin's money he doesn't press the issue. He therefore sets off once again to find her on his own, but loses her trail in nearby Mottson, and gives her up as gone for good. After church, Dilsey allows her grandson Luster to drive Benjy in the family's decrepit horse and carriage to the graveyard. Luster, disregarding Benjy's set routine, drives the wrong way around a monument. Benjy's hysterical sobbing and violent outburst can only be quieted by Jason, who understands how best to placate his brother. Jason slaps Luster, turns the carriage around, and Benjy suddenly becomes silent. Luster turns around to look at Benjy and sees Benjy drop his flower. Benjy's eyes are \"...empty and blue and serene again.\" In 1945, Faulkner wrote an appendix to the novel to be published in the then-forthcoming anthology The Portable Faulkner. At Faulkner's behest, however, subsequent printings of The Sound and the Fury frequently contain the appendix at the end of the book; it is sometimes referred to as the fifth part. Having been written sixteen years after"
      },
      {
        "text": " Benjy and sees Benjy drop his flower. Benjy's eyes are \"...empty and blue and serene again.\" In 1945, Faulkner wrote an appendix to the novel to be published in the then-forthcoming anthology The Portable Faulkner. At Faulkner's behest, however, subsequent printings of The Sound and the Fury frequently contain the appendix at the end of the book; it is sometimes referred to as the fifth part. Having been written sixteen years after The Sound and the Fury, the appendix presents some textual differences from the novel, but serves to clarify the novel's opaque story. The appendix is presented as a complete history of the Compson family lineage, beginning with the arrival of their ancestor Quentin Maclachlan in America in 1779 and continuing through 1945, including events that transpired after the novel (which took place in 1928). In particular, the appendix reveals that Caroline Compson died in 1933, upon which Jason had Benjy committed to the state asylum; fired the black servants; sold the last of the Compson land; and moved into an apartment above his farming supply store. It is also revealed that Jason had himself declared Benjy's legal guardian many years ago, without their mother's knowledge, and used this status to have Benjy castrated. The appendix also reveals the fate of Caddy, last seen in the novel when her daughter Quentin is still a baby. After marrying and divorcing a second time, Caddy moved to Paris, where she lived at the time of the German occupation. In 1943 the librarian of Yoknapatawpha County discovered a magazine photograph of Caddy in the company of a German staff general and attempted separately to recruit both Jason and Dilsey to save her; Jason, at first acknowledging that the photo was of his sister, denied that it was she after realizing the librarian wanted his help, while Dilsey pretended to be unable to see the picture at all. The"
      },
      {
        "text": "addy moved to Paris, where she lived at the time of the German occupation. In 1943 the librarian of Yoknapatawpha County discovered a magazine photograph of Caddy in the company of a German staff general and attempted separately to recruit both Jason and Dilsey to save her; Jason, at first acknowledging that the photo was of his sister, denied that it was she after realizing the librarian wanted his help, while Dilsey pretended to be unable to see the picture at all. The librarian later realizes that while Jason remains cold and unsympathetic towards Caddy, Dilsey simply understands that Caddy neither wants nor needs salvation from the Germans, because nothing else remains for her. The appendix concludes with an accounting for the black family who worked as servants to the Compsons. Unlike the entries for the Compsons themselves, which are lengthy, detailed, and told with an omniscient narrative perspective, the servants' entries are simple and succinct. Dilsey's entry, the final in the appendix, consists of two words: \"They endured.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Phineas Redux",
    "author": "Anthony Trollope",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " His beloved wife having died in childbirth, Phineas Finn finds Irish society and his job as a Poorhouse Inspector dull and unsatisfying after the excitement of his former career as a Member of Parliament. Back in England, the Whigs are determined to overturn the Tory majority in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. As Finn had been considered the most promising of the younger set, he is encouraged to stand for office again. Returning to London, he renews his acquaintance with the wealthy widow, Madame Max Goesler. In the past, she had offered to marry him and had been gently turned down; after an awkward first encounter, they renew their friendship. In the political arena, Finn loses the election by a narrow margin, but his luck does not desert him. On appeal, it is found that his opponent had bribed some of the voters, enough to give Finn the victory. He does however make one enemy within his own party. Mr. Bonteen makes disparaging remarks about his political trustworthiness (referring to an incident described in Phineas Finn). The conflict spirals out of control when neither man will back down, and they become bitter foes. When Bonteen is murdered, suspicion falls on two men. One is the Reverend Mr Emilius, husband of Lady Eustace (the main character of The Eustace Diamonds). At her urging, Bonteen had discovered that Emilius had been married when he wed Lady Eustace, thus annulling the marriage and safeguarding her wealth. The other suspect is Phineas Finn. He and Bonteen had been seen to quarrel violently the night of the murder and all the circumstantial evidence points to him, while Emilius did not even have a key to exit his lodgings that night. Finn therefore is brought to trial. Not unexpectedly, the murder of one Member of Parliament allegedly by another quickly becomes the sensation of all England. While the trial goes on, Madame Max travels to the Continent looking for evidence, and she succeeds. She finds a locksmith who had made a duplicate key for Emilius. This, along with other developments, convinces everyone that Finn is innocent and Emilius guilty. Unfortunately, it is not enough to convict the latter. Afterwards, Finn, worn out by the ordeal and disillusioned with politics, retires and marries Madame Max.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " His beloved wife having died in childbirth, Phineas Finn finds Irish society and his job as a Poorhouse Inspector dull and unsatisfying after the excitement of his former career as a Member of Parliament. Back in England, the Whigs are determined to overturn the Tory majority in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. As Finn had been considered the most promising of the younger set, he is encouraged to stand for office again. Returning to London, he renews his acquaintance with the wealthy widow, Madame Max Goesler. In the past, she had offered to marry him and had been gently turned down; after an awkward first encounter, they renew their friendship. In the political arena, Finn loses the election by a narrow margin, but his luck does not desert him. On appeal, it is found that his opponent had bribed some of the voters, enough to give Finn the victory. He does however make one enemy within his own party. Mr. Bonteen makes disparaging remarks about his political trustworthiness (referring to an incident described in Phineas Finn). The conflict spirals out of control when neither man will back down, and they become bitter foes. When Bonteen is murdered, suspicion falls on two men. One is the Reverend Mr Emilius, husband of Lady Eustace (the main character of The Eustace Diamonds). At her urging, Bonteen had discovered that Emilius had been married when he wed Lady Eustace, thus annulling the marriage and safeguarding her wealth. The other suspect is Phineas Finn. He and Bonteen had been seen to quarrel violently the night of the murder and all the circumstantial evidence points to him, while Emilius did not even have a key to exit his lodgings that night. Finn therefore is brought to trial. Not unexpectedly, the murder of one Member of Parliament allegedly by another quickly becomes the sensation of all England. While the trial goes on, Madame Max travels"
      },
      {
        "text": "ing the marriage and safeguarding her wealth. The other suspect is Phineas Finn. He and Bonteen had been seen to quarrel violently the night of the murder and all the circumstantial evidence points to him, while Emilius did not even have a key to exit his lodgings that night. Finn therefore is brought to trial. Not unexpectedly, the murder of one Member of Parliament allegedly by another quickly becomes the sensation of all England. While the trial goes on, Madame Max travels to the Continent looking for evidence, and she succeeds. She finds a locksmith who had made a duplicate key for Emilius. This, along with other developments, convinces everyone that Finn is innocent and Emilius guilty. Unfortunately, it is not enough to convict the latter. Afterwards, Finn, worn out by the ordeal and disillusioned with politics, retires and marries Madame Max.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Duke's Children",
    "author": "Anthony Trollope",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The plot concerns the children of the Duke of Omnium, Plantagenet Palliser, and his late wife, Lady Glencora. When Lady Glencora dies unexpectedly, the Duke is left to deal with his grownup children, with whom he has a somewhat distant relationship. As the government in which he is Prime Minister has also fallen, the Duke is left bereft of both his beloved wife and his political position. Before her death, Lady Glencora had imprudently given her secret blessing to her daughter Mary's courtship by a poor gentleman, Frank Tregear, a friend of Lord Silverbridge, the Duke's older son and heir. Mrs. Finn, Lady Glencora's dearest confidante, somewhat uneasily remains after the funeral as a companion and unofficial chaperone for Mary at the Duke's request. Once she becomes aware of the seriousness of the relationship between Mary and Frank, Mrs. Finn insists that the Duke be informed. The Duke's two sons also prove burdensome. Lord Silverbridge follows the wishes of his father by entering Parliament. He had proposed to Lady Mabel Grex, whom he has known all his life. She had turned him down, although with an indication of a more welcoming answer another time. However, Lord Silverbridge becomes enamoured with American heiress Isabel Boncassen. She agrees to marry him, but only if the Duke is willing to welcome her into the family. At first, the Duke disapproves; and he disapproves even more of his daughter's suitor. To add to his troubles, Gerald, the younger son, gets himself expelled from Cambridge after attending The Derby without permission. However, by the end of the book, the Duke grows closer to all three of his children; he allows the engagements of both son and daughter, and as the book ends, he is invited once more to take a part in the government.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The plot concerns the children of the Duke of Omnium, Plantagenet Palliser, and his late wife, Lady Glencora. When Lady Glencora dies unexpectedly, the Duke is left to deal with his grownup children, with whom he has a somewhat distant relationship. As the government in which he is Prime Minister has also fallen, the Duke is left bereft of both his beloved wife and his political position. Before her death, Lady Glencora had imprudently given her secret blessing to her daughter Mary's courtship by a poor gentleman, Frank Tregear, a friend of Lord Silverbridge, the Duke's older son and heir. Mrs. Finn, Lady Glencora's dearest confidante, somewhat uneasily remains after the funeral as a companion and unofficial chaperone for Mary at the Duke's request. Once she becomes aware of the seriousness of the relationship between Mary and Frank, Mrs. Finn insists that the Duke be informed. The Duke's two sons also prove burdensome. Lord Silverbridge follows the wishes of his father by entering Parliament. He had proposed to Lady Mabel Grex, whom he has known all his life. She had turned him down, although with an indication of a more welcoming answer another time. However, Lord Silverbridge becomes enamoured with American heiress Isabel Boncassen. She agrees to marry him, but only if the Duke is willing to welcome her into the family. At first, the Duke disapproves; and he disapproves even more of his daughter's suitor. To add to his troubles, Gerald, the younger son, gets himself expelled from Cambridge after attending The Derby without permission. However, by the end of the book, the Duke grows closer to all three of his children; he allows the engagements of both son and daughter, and as the book ends, he is invited once more to take a part in the government.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Duke disapproves; and he disapproves even more of his daughter's suitor. To add to his troubles, Gerald, the younger son, gets himself expelled from Cambridge after attending The Derby without permission. However, by the end of the book, the Duke grows closer to all three of his children; he allows the engagements of both son and daughter, and as the book ends, he is invited once more to take a part in the government.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Daniel Deronda",
    "author": "George Eliot",
    "published_date": "1876",
    "synopsis": " Daniel Deronda contains two main strains of plot, united by the title character. The novel begins in mid-story in late August 1865 with the meeting of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth in the fictional town of Leubronn, Germany. Daniel finds himself attracted to, but wary of, the beautiful, stubborn, and selfish Gwendolen, whom he sees lose all her winnings in a game of roulette. The next day, Gwendolen receives a letter from her mother telling her that the family is financially ruined and asking her to come home. In despair at losing all her money, Gwendolen pawns a necklace and debates gambling again in order to make her fortune. In a fateful moment, however, her necklace is returned to her by a porter, and she realises that Daniel saw her pawn the necklace and redeemed it for her. From this point, the plot breaks off into two separate flashbacks, one which gives us the history of Gwendolen Harleth and one of Daniel Deronda. In October 1864, soon after the death of Gwendolen's stepfather, Gwendolen and her family move to a new neighbourhood. It is here that she meets Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt, a taciturn and calculating man, who proposes marriage shortly after their first meeting. At first open to his advances, she eventually flees (to the German town in which she meets Deronda) upon discovering that he has several children with his mistress, Lydia Glasher. This portion of the novel sets Gwendolen up as a haughty, selfish, yet affectionate daughter, admired for her beauty but suspected by many in society because of her satirical observations and somewhat manipulative behaviour. She is also prone to fits of terror that shake her otherwise calm and controlling exterior. Deronda has been raised by a wealthy gentleman, Sir Hugo Mallinger. Deronda's relationship to Sir Hugo is ambiguous and it is widely believed, even by Deronda, that he is Sir Hugo's illegitimate son, though no one is certain. Deronda is an intelligent, light-hearted and compassionate young man who cannot quite decide what to do with his life, and this is a sore point between him and Sir Hugo, who wants him to go into politics. One day in late July 1864, as he is boating on the Thames, Deronda rescues a young Jewish woman, Mirah Lapidoth, from attempting to drown herself. He takes her to the home of friends of his, and it is discovered that Mirah is a singer. She has come to London to search for her mother and brother after running away from her father, who kidnapped her when she was a child and forced her into an acting troupe. She ran away from him finally because she feared he was planning to sell her into an immoral relationship with a friend of his. Moved by her tale, Deronda undertakes to help her look for her mother (who turns out to have died years earlier) and brother and through this, he is introduced to London's Jewish community. Mirah and Daniel grow closer and Daniel, anxious about his growing affection for her, leaves for a short time to join Sir Hugo in Leubronn, where he and Gwendolen first meet. From here, the story picks up in \"real time,\" and Gwendolen returns from Germany in early September 1865 because her family has lost its fortune in an economic downturn. Gwendolen, having an antipathy to marriage, the only respectable way in which a woman could achieve financial security, attempts to avoid working as a governess by pursuing a career in singing or on the stage, but a prominent musician tells her she does not have the talent. In order to save herself and her family from relative poverty, she marries the wealthy Grandcourt, whom she believes she can manipulate to maintain her freedom to do what she likes, despite having promised Mrs. Glasher she would not marry him and fearing that it is a mistake. Deronda, searching for Mirah's family, meets a consumptive visionary named Mordecai. Mordecai passionately proclaims his wish that the Jewish people retain their national identity and one day be restored to their Promised Land. Because he is dying, he wants Daniel to become his intellectual heir and continue to pursue his dream and be an advocate for the Jewish people. In spite of being strongly drawn to Mordecai, Deronda hesitates to commit himself to a cause that seems to have no connection to his own identity. Deronda's desire to embrace Mordecai's vision becomes stronger when they discover Mordecai is the brother Mirah has known by the name Ezra and has been seeking. Still, Deronda is not a Jew and cannot reconcile this fact with his affection and respect for Mordecai/Ezra, which would be necessary for him to pursue a life of Jewish advocacy. Gwendolen, meanwhile, has been emotionally crushed by her cold, self-centered, and manipulative husband. She is consumed with guilt for disinheriting Lydia Glasher's children by marrying their father. On Gwendolen's wedding day, Mrs. Glasher cursed her and told her she would suffer for her treachery, which only exacerbates Gwendolen's feelings of dread and terror. During this time, Gwendolen and Deronda meet regularly, and Gwendolen pours out her troubles to him whenever they meet. During a trip to Italy, Grandcourt is knocked from his boat into the water and drowns. Gwendolen, who was present, is consumed with guilt because she had long wished he would die, although after some hesitation she jumped into the Mediterranean in a futile attempt to save him. Deronda, also in Italy to meet his Jewish mother (whose identity Sir Hugo has finally revealed), comforts Gwendolen and advises her. In love with Deronda, Gwendolen hopes for a future with him, but he urges her onto a path of righteousness in which she will help others in order to alleviate her suffering. Deronda meets his mother and learns that she was a famous opera singer with whom Sir Hugo was once in love. She tells him that her father, a physician and strictly pious Jew, forced her to marry her cousin whom she did not love, despite her resentment of the rigid piety of her childhood. Daniel was the only child of that union, and on her husband's death, she asked the devoted Sir Hugo to raise her son as an English gentleman, never to know that he was Jewish. Upon learning of his true origins, Deronda finally feels comfortable with his love for Mirah, and on his return to England in October 1866, he tells Mirah of his love for her. Daniel commits himself to be Ezra/Mordecai's disciple, and shortly after Deronda's marriage, Ezra/Mordecai dies with Daniel and Mirah at his side. Before Daniel marries Mirah, he goes to Gwendolen to tell her about his origins, his decision to go to \"the East\" (per Ezra/Mordecai's wish), and his betrothal to Mirah. Gwendolen is devastated by the news, but it becomes a turning point in her life, inspiring her to finally say, \"I shall live.\" She sends him a letter on his wedding day, telling him not to think of her with sadness but to know that she will be a better person for having known him. The newly-weds then set off for \"the East\" to investigate what they can do to restore the Jewish nation.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Daniel Deronda contains two main strains of plot, united by the title character. The novel begins in mid-story in late August 1865 with the meeting of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth in the fictional town of Leubronn, Germany. Daniel finds himself attracted to, but wary of, the beautiful, stubborn, and selfish Gwendolen, whom he sees lose all her winnings in a game of roulette. The next day, Gwendolen receives a letter from her mother telling her that the family is financially ruined and asking her to come home. In despair at losing all her money, Gwendolen pawns a necklace and debates gambling again in order to make her fortune. In a fateful moment, however, her necklace is returned to her by a porter, and she realises that Daniel saw her pawn the necklace and redeemed it for her. From this point, the plot breaks off into two separate flashbacks, one which gives us the history of Gwendolen Harleth and one of Daniel Deronda. In October 1864, soon after the death of Gwendolen's stepfather, Gwendolen and her family move to a new neighbourhood. It is here that she meets Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt, a taciturn and calculating man, who proposes marriage shortly after their first meeting. At first open to his advances, she eventually flees (to the German town in which she meets Deronda) upon discovering that he has several children with his mistress, Lydia Glasher. This portion of the novel sets Gwendolen up as a haughty, selfish, yet affectionate daughter, admired for her beauty but suspected by many in society because of her satirical observations and somewhat manipulative behaviour. She is also prone to fits of terror that shake her otherwise calm and controlling exterior. Deronda has been raised by a wealthy gentleman, Sir Hugo Mallinger. Deronda's relationship to Sir Hugo is ambiguous and it is widely believed, even by Der"
      },
      {
        "text": " his mistress, Lydia Glasher. This portion of the novel sets Gwendolen up as a haughty, selfish, yet affectionate daughter, admired for her beauty but suspected by many in society because of her satirical observations and somewhat manipulative behaviour. She is also prone to fits of terror that shake her otherwise calm and controlling exterior. Deronda has been raised by a wealthy gentleman, Sir Hugo Mallinger. Deronda's relationship to Sir Hugo is ambiguous and it is widely believed, even by Deronda, that he is Sir Hugo's illegitimate son, though no one is certain. Deronda is an intelligent, light-hearted and compassionate young man who cannot quite decide what to do with his life, and this is a sore point between him and Sir Hugo, who wants him to go into politics. One day in late July 1864, as he is boating on the Thames, Deronda rescues a young Jewish woman, Mirah Lapidoth, from attempting to drown herself. He takes her to the home of friends of his, and it is discovered that Mirah is a singer. She has come to London to search for her mother and brother after running away from her father, who kidnapped her when she was a child and forced her into an acting troupe. She ran away from him finally because she feared he was planning to sell her into an immoral relationship with a friend of his. Moved by her tale, Deronda undertakes to help her look for her mother (who turns out to have died years earlier) and brother and through this, he is introduced to London's Jewish community. Mirah and Daniel grow closer and Daniel, anxious about his growing affection for her, leaves for a short time to join Sir Hugo in Leubronn, where he and Gwendolen first meet. From here, the story picks up in \"real time,\" and Gwendolen returns from Germany in early September 1865 because her family has lost its fortune in an economic downturn."
      },
      {
        "text": "who turns out to have died years earlier) and brother and through this, he is introduced to London's Jewish community. Mirah and Daniel grow closer and Daniel, anxious about his growing affection for her, leaves for a short time to join Sir Hugo in Leubronn, where he and Gwendolen first meet. From here, the story picks up in \"real time,\" and Gwendolen returns from Germany in early September 1865 because her family has lost its fortune in an economic downturn. Gwendolen, having an antipathy to marriage, the only respectable way in which a woman could achieve financial security, attempts to avoid working as a governess by pursuing a career in singing or on the stage, but a prominent musician tells her she does not have the talent. In order to save herself and her family from relative poverty, she marries the wealthy Grandcourt, whom she believes she can manipulate to maintain her freedom to do what she likes, despite having promised Mrs. Glasher she would not marry him and fearing that it is a mistake. Deronda, searching for Mirah's family, meets a consumptive visionary named Mordecai. Mordecai passionately proclaims his wish that the Jewish people retain their national identity and one day be restored to their Promised Land. Because he is dying, he wants Daniel to become his intellectual heir and continue to pursue his dream and be an advocate for the Jewish people. In spite of being strongly drawn to Mordecai, Deronda hesitates to commit himself to a cause that seems to have no connection to his own identity. Deronda's desire to embrace Mordecai's vision becomes stronger when they discover Mordecai is the brother Mirah has known by the name Ezra and has been seeking. Still, Deronda is not a Jew and cannot reconcile this fact with his affection and respect for Mordecai/Ezra, which would be necessary for him to pursue a life of Jewish advocacy. Gwendolen, meanwhile"
      },
      {
        "text": " hesitates to commit himself to a cause that seems to have no connection to his own identity. Deronda's desire to embrace Mordecai's vision becomes stronger when they discover Mordecai is the brother Mirah has known by the name Ezra and has been seeking. Still, Deronda is not a Jew and cannot reconcile this fact with his affection and respect for Mordecai/Ezra, which would be necessary for him to pursue a life of Jewish advocacy. Gwendolen, meanwhile, has been emotionally crushed by her cold, self-centered, and manipulative husband. She is consumed with guilt for disinheriting Lydia Glasher's children by marrying their father. On Gwendolen's wedding day, Mrs. Glasher cursed her and told her she would suffer for her treachery, which only exacerbates Gwendolen's feelings of dread and terror. During this time, Gwendolen and Deronda meet regularly, and Gwendolen pours out her troubles to him whenever they meet. During a trip to Italy, Grandcourt is knocked from his boat into the water and drowns. Gwendolen, who was present, is consumed with guilt because she had long wished he would die, although after some hesitation she jumped into the Mediterranean in a futile attempt to save him. Deronda, also in Italy to meet his Jewish mother (whose identity Sir Hugo has finally revealed), comforts Gwendolen and advises her. In love with Deronda, Gwendolen hopes for a future with him, but he urges her onto a path of righteousness in which she will help others in order to alleviate her suffering. Deronda meets his mother and learns that she was a famous opera singer with whom Sir Hugo was once in love. She tells him that her father, a physician and strictly pious Jew, forced her to marry her cousin whom she did not love, despite her resentment of the rigid piety of her childhood. Daniel was the only child of that union, and on"
      },
      {
        "text": " hopes for a future with him, but he urges her onto a path of righteousness in which she will help others in order to alleviate her suffering. Deronda meets his mother and learns that she was a famous opera singer with whom Sir Hugo was once in love. She tells him that her father, a physician and strictly pious Jew, forced her to marry her cousin whom she did not love, despite her resentment of the rigid piety of her childhood. Daniel was the only child of that union, and on her husband's death, she asked the devoted Sir Hugo to raise her son as an English gentleman, never to know that he was Jewish. Upon learning of his true origins, Deronda finally feels comfortable with his love for Mirah, and on his return to England in October 1866, he tells Mirah of his love for her. Daniel commits himself to be Ezra/Mordecai's disciple, and shortly after Deronda's marriage, Ezra/Mordecai dies with Daniel and Mirah at his side. Before Daniel marries Mirah, he goes to Gwendolen to tell her about his origins, his decision to go to \"the East\" (per Ezra/Mordecai's wish), and his betrothal to Mirah. Gwendolen is devastated by the news, but it becomes a turning point in her life, inspiring her to finally say, \"I shall live.\" She sends him a letter on his wedding day, telling him not to think of her with sadness but to know that she will be a better person for having known him. The newly-weds then set off for \"the East\" to investigate what they can do to restore the Jewish nation.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " of her with sadness but to know that she will be a better person for having known him. The newly-weds then set off for \"the East\" to investigate what they can do to restore the Jewish nation.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Nine Princes in Amber",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1970-06",
    "synopsis": " Carl Corey awakes in a medical clinic, with little to no knowledge of who he is or how he got there. He suspects he is being over-medicated, so he overpowers the nurse and security guard and escapes his room. He finds the manager of the clinic, and learns that he was recovering from a car accident in a private clinic, paid for by his sister, Evelyn Flaumel. He flees and heads to her house. She addresses him as Corwin and calls herself Flora. Hiding his lack of knowledge about what she is saying, he convinces her to let him stay. In Flora's library he locates a set of customised Tarot cards\u2014 the Trumps\u2014whose Major Arcana are replaced with images which he recognises as his family. As he looks over the cards he remembers all his brothers and sisters: sneaky Random, Julian the hunter, well-built G\u00e9rard, the arrogant Eric, himself, Benedict the master tactician and swordsman, sinister Caine, scheming Bleys, and the mysterious Brand. He also views his four sisters: Flora who offered him sanctuary, Deirdre who was dear to him, reserved Llewella, and Fiona, whom Corwin hated. His brother Random contacts him via telephone and Corwin promises to give him protection. Random arrives, pursued by mysterious spined, bloodshot-eyed humanoid creatures, and the combined efforts of Corwin, Random, and Flora's dogs ultimately defeat them. Random then asks Corwin whether he wishes to walk the road to Amber, from which Corwin agrees, despite the fact he does not know what he is doing. The world changes around them, and Corwin realises that Random is somehow causing the changes in order for them to proceed to Amber. They ultimately end up in the Forest of Arden, the territory of their brother Julian. Julian's beasts confront Random and Corwin and eventually Julian himself appears on his steed Morgenstern to take them himself. Corwin dismounts Julian and takes him prisoner. After taking information from Julian he lets him live, saving himself from the remainder of Julian's men who were awaiting Corwin in the forest. While traveling they encounter Corwin's sister Deirdre who reveals she fled from Eric's court. Fully confused at this point, Corwin reveals that he has no memory of what they have been doing or of who he is so Deirdre convinces him to walk the Pattern, which she believes will restore his memory. The three then travel to Rebma, a reflection of Amber underwater, and there they meet their sister Llewella and Moire, the queen of Rebma. Moire originally believes that the three of them came to Rebma to seek support to defeat Eric but Deirdre explains their true intentions. Because Rebma is a reflection of Amber, there is also a reflection of the Pattern in Rebma, which Corwin is to walk to restore his memory. Although Random is impounded for past crimes in Rebma and sentenced to wed a blind girl named Vialle, Corwin convinces the queen Moire to allow him to walk the Pattern. After receiving advice from Random and Deirdre, he walks the Pattern, reliving all of his past life, which stretches back to his time in Amber and when Eric deposited him in Elizabethan England on our Earth. He remembers the powers which his heritage and the Pattern grant him - the power to walk through shadow, and to pronounce a powerful curse before dying. After he completes the Pattern he uses its power to project himself into the Castle of Amber, from which he finds a safe spot and rests. Afterwards he searches the castle and in the library finds a pack of the Trumps and also an old servant friend. However, Eric finds them and the two begin to duel. Although intimidated at first by Eric's immense skill, Corwin gets the upper hand in the fight and injures Eric on the arm. Corwin would have won the battle and slain his brother had not the soldiers of the castle realized what was happening and moved to protect Eric. Corwin retreated and using a Trump, contacted his brother Bleys who agreed to harbor him and teleported Corwin to his location. Corwin then agreed to aid Bleys in his attempts to assault Amber and defeat Eric and gathered a large group of warriors from Shadow and assembled a navy, while Bleys created an army on land. From here Corwin attempted to contact his brothers, looking for allies. Caine, although supporting Eric, gave Corwin a promise of safe passage by sea, as did his brother G\u00e9rard. He is unable to contact Benedict but when he attempts to reach Brand, he views him in a prison and Brand desperately asks Corwin to free him before his image disappears. Using a Trump, Corwin then attempts to contact his father Oberon, who has been missing for centuries and makes contact with him. Oberon encourages him to seize the throne but the contact is eventually lost. When he contacts Random, Random reveals that Eric has contacted him and revealed the full extent of his defenses, which are vast and powerful. Furthermore, Random tells Corwin that Eric has gained control over the mysterious Jewel of Judgment, which allows him to control the weather among other things. Despite Random's misgivings, Corwin remains resolute in his desire to attack Amber with Bleys. As the invasion begins, Corwin travels with the navy by sea but finds Caine waiting for him with a superior force, apparently in violation of their agreement. Eric then contacts Corwin by Trump, who reveals that he knew about his plans from Caine and the two engage in a mental duel which Corwin is unable to break from. After exchanging taunts, Corwin launches a full mental assault on Eric, which defeats him and leaves him with the knowledge that Corwin is his superior. Corwin then joins in the battle although it is hopeless: Caine's forces are already destroying Corwin's navy and he escapes by using a Trump to move him to Bleys and his army. Bleys had been constantly assaulted by creatures of Shadow and the poor weather conditions that have been created by Eric's usage of the Jewel of Judgment. Although they eventually reach Amber, their forces have dwindled and they barely fight their way up Kolvir, the mountain on which the Castle of Amber is situated. Bleys is ultimately pushed off a cliff, although Corwin throws him his pack of Trumps to allow him to escape the fall. Corwin then uses his few remaining forces and pushes through, eventually breaching to the castle itself, although, before he reaches the throne, his forces are surrounded, and he ultimately is captured. Corwin is brought forth in chains to endure Eric's coronation. Julian, who is at Eric's side, instructs Corwin to hand the crown of Amber to Eric, who will crown himself King of the one true world. Corwin instead crowns himself King of Amber, but he is quickly beaten by the guards and eventually throws the crown at Eric. Eric then crowns himself, and sentences Corwin to be imprisoned, and his eyes burned out. In his prison beneath the city, Corwin is driven to near insanity, although the visits and smuggled gifts of his friend Lord Rein help him to maintain his spirit and his hope. After a year has passed in blindness and solitude, he is let out to eat at Eric's table on the anniversary of the coronation before being thrown into the dungeons again. After years have passed, Corwin's eyesight begins to regenerate, and he begins an escape attempt by whittling the door with a spoon he stole from Eric's table. Before he can escape in this manner, Dworkin Barimen, the keeper of the Pattern, appears out of nowhere, having seemingly walked through the dungeon wall from a neighboring cell. He explains that he entered Corwin's cell by drawing a picture on the dungeon wall and walking through it, and wishes to return in the same way. Corwin gives him the spoon in order to draw a Trump image on the wall, and persuades him to draw the Lighthouse of Cabra on the opposite wall. With this, Corwin projects himself out of his prison. At the Lighthouse of Cabra he meets Jopin, the keeper of the lighthouse but he does not reveal his true identity to him. Jopin cares for Corwin and Corwin aids Jopin in his activities around the lighthouse. Once he is fully recovered, Jopin recognises Corwin, and shows him that the Vale of Garnath, previously a pleasant valley adjacent to Amber, has become a warped and twisted evil place. Corwin takes Jopin's craft Butterfly and sails away, while sending a message to Eric via a black bird, stating that he will return to claim the throne.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Carl Corey awakes in a medical clinic, with little to no knowledge of who he is or how he got there. He suspects he is being over-medicated, so he overpowers the nurse and security guard and escapes his room. He finds the manager of the clinic, and learns that he was recovering from a car accident in a private clinic, paid for by his sister, Evelyn Flaumel. He flees and heads to her house. She addresses him as Corwin and calls herself Flora. Hiding his lack of knowledge about what she is saying, he convinces her to let him stay. In Flora's library he locates a set of customised Tarot cards\u2014 the Trumps\u2014whose Major Arcana are replaced with images which he recognises as his family. As he looks over the cards he remembers all his brothers and sisters: sneaky Random, Julian the hunter, well-built G\u00e9rard, the arrogant Eric, himself, Benedict the master tactician and swordsman, sinister Caine, scheming Bleys, and the mysterious Brand. He also views his four sisters: Flora who offered him sanctuary, Deirdre who was dear to him, reserved Llewella, and Fiona, whom Corwin hated. His brother Random contacts him via telephone and Corwin promises to give him protection. Random arrives, pursued by mysterious spined, bloodshot-eyed humanoid creatures, and the combined efforts of Corwin, Random, and Flora's dogs ultimately defeat them. Random then asks Corwin whether he wishes to walk the road to Amber, from which Corwin agrees, despite the fact he does not know what he is doing. The world changes around them, and Corwin realises that Random is somehow causing the changes in order for them to proceed to Amber. They ultimately end up in the Forest of Arden, the territory of their brother Julian. Julian's beasts confront Random and Corwin and eventually Julian himself appears on his"
      },
      {
        "text": "a's dogs ultimately defeat them. Random then asks Corwin whether he wishes to walk the road to Amber, from which Corwin agrees, despite the fact he does not know what he is doing. The world changes around them, and Corwin realises that Random is somehow causing the changes in order for them to proceed to Amber. They ultimately end up in the Forest of Arden, the territory of their brother Julian. Julian's beasts confront Random and Corwin and eventually Julian himself appears on his steed Morgenstern to take them himself. Corwin dismounts Julian and takes him prisoner. After taking information from Julian he lets him live, saving himself from the remainder of Julian's men who were awaiting Corwin in the forest. While traveling they encounter Corwin's sister Deirdre who reveals she fled from Eric's court. Fully confused at this point, Corwin reveals that he has no memory of what they have been doing or of who he is so Deirdre convinces him to walk the Pattern, which she believes will restore his memory. The three then travel to Rebma, a reflection of Amber underwater, and there they meet their sister Llewella and Moire, the queen of Rebma. Moire originally believes that the three of them came to Rebma to seek support to defeat Eric but Deirdre explains their true intentions. Because Rebma is a reflection of Amber, there is also a reflection of the Pattern in Rebma, which Corwin is to walk to restore his memory. Although Random is impounded for past crimes in Rebma and sentenced to wed a blind girl named Vialle, Corwin convinces the queen Moire to allow him to walk the Pattern. After receiving advice from Random and Deirdre, he walks the Pattern, reliving all of his past life, which stretches back to his time in Amber and when Eric deposited him in Elizabethan England on our Earth. He remembers the powers which his heritage and"
      },
      {
        "text": "win is to walk to restore his memory. Although Random is impounded for past crimes in Rebma and sentenced to wed a blind girl named Vialle, Corwin convinces the queen Moire to allow him to walk the Pattern. After receiving advice from Random and Deirdre, he walks the Pattern, reliving all of his past life, which stretches back to his time in Amber and when Eric deposited him in Elizabethan England on our Earth. He remembers the powers which his heritage and the Pattern grant him - the power to walk through shadow, and to pronounce a powerful curse before dying. After he completes the Pattern he uses its power to project himself into the Castle of Amber, from which he finds a safe spot and rests. Afterwards he searches the castle and in the library finds a pack of the Trumps and also an old servant friend. However, Eric finds them and the two begin to duel. Although intimidated at first by Eric's immense skill, Corwin gets the upper hand in the fight and injures Eric on the arm. Corwin would have won the battle and slain his brother had not the soldiers of the castle realized what was happening and moved to protect Eric. Corwin retreated and using a Trump, contacted his brother Bleys who agreed to harbor him and teleported Corwin to his location. Corwin then agreed to aid Bleys in his attempts to assault Amber and defeat Eric and gathered a large group of warriors from Shadow and assembled a navy, while Bleys created an army on land. From here Corwin attempted to contact his brothers, looking for allies. Caine, although supporting Eric, gave Corwin a promise of safe passage by sea, as did his brother G\u00e9rard. He is unable to contact Benedict but when he attempts to reach Brand, he views him in a prison and Brand desperately asks Corwin to free him before his image disappears. Using a Trump, Corwin then attempts to contact his father Oberon, who has been missing for"
      },
      {
        "text": " created an army on land. From here Corwin attempted to contact his brothers, looking for allies. Caine, although supporting Eric, gave Corwin a promise of safe passage by sea, as did his brother G\u00e9rard. He is unable to contact Benedict but when he attempts to reach Brand, he views him in a prison and Brand desperately asks Corwin to free him before his image disappears. Using a Trump, Corwin then attempts to contact his father Oberon, who has been missing for centuries and makes contact with him. Oberon encourages him to seize the throne but the contact is eventually lost. When he contacts Random, Random reveals that Eric has contacted him and revealed the full extent of his defenses, which are vast and powerful. Furthermore, Random tells Corwin that Eric has gained control over the mysterious Jewel of Judgment, which allows him to control the weather among other things. Despite Random's misgivings, Corwin remains resolute in his desire to attack Amber with Bleys. As the invasion begins, Corwin travels with the navy by sea but finds Caine waiting for him with a superior force, apparently in violation of their agreement. Eric then contacts Corwin by Trump, who reveals that he knew about his plans from Caine and the two engage in a mental duel which Corwin is unable to break from. After exchanging taunts, Corwin launches a full mental assault on Eric, which defeats him and leaves him with the knowledge that Corwin is his superior. Corwin then joins in the battle although it is hopeless: Caine's forces are already destroying Corwin's navy and he escapes by using a Trump to move him to Bleys and his army. Bleys had been constantly assaulted by creatures of Shadow and the poor weather conditions that have been created by Eric's usage of the Jewel of Judgment. Although they eventually reach Amber, their forces have dwindled and they barely fight their way up Kolvir, the mountain on which the Castle of Amber is situated"
      },
      {
        "text": " Corwin then joins in the battle although it is hopeless: Caine's forces are already destroying Corwin's navy and he escapes by using a Trump to move him to Bleys and his army. Bleys had been constantly assaulted by creatures of Shadow and the poor weather conditions that have been created by Eric's usage of the Jewel of Judgment. Although they eventually reach Amber, their forces have dwindled and they barely fight their way up Kolvir, the mountain on which the Castle of Amber is situated. Bleys is ultimately pushed off a cliff, although Corwin throws him his pack of Trumps to allow him to escape the fall. Corwin then uses his few remaining forces and pushes through, eventually breaching to the castle itself, although, before he reaches the throne, his forces are surrounded, and he ultimately is captured. Corwin is brought forth in chains to endure Eric's coronation. Julian, who is at Eric's side, instructs Corwin to hand the crown of Amber to Eric, who will crown himself King of the one true world. Corwin instead crowns himself King of Amber, but he is quickly beaten by the guards and eventually throws the crown at Eric. Eric then crowns himself, and sentences Corwin to be imprisoned, and his eyes burned out. In his prison beneath the city, Corwin is driven to near insanity, although the visits and smuggled gifts of his friend Lord Rein help him to maintain his spirit and his hope. After a year has passed in blindness and solitude, he is let out to eat at Eric's table on the anniversary of the coronation before being thrown into the dungeons again. After years have passed, Corwin's eyesight begins to regenerate, and he begins an escape attempt by whittling the door with a spoon he stole from Eric's table. Before he can escape in this manner, Dworkin Barimen, the keeper of the Pattern, appears out of nowhere, having seemingly walked through the dungeon wall from a"
      },
      {
        "text": " in blindness and solitude, he is let out to eat at Eric's table on the anniversary of the coronation before being thrown into the dungeons again. After years have passed, Corwin's eyesight begins to regenerate, and he begins an escape attempt by whittling the door with a spoon he stole from Eric's table. Before he can escape in this manner, Dworkin Barimen, the keeper of the Pattern, appears out of nowhere, having seemingly walked through the dungeon wall from a neighboring cell. He explains that he entered Corwin's cell by drawing a picture on the dungeon wall and walking through it, and wishes to return in the same way. Corwin gives him the spoon in order to draw a Trump image on the wall, and persuades him to draw the Lighthouse of Cabra on the opposite wall. With this, Corwin projects himself out of his prison. At the Lighthouse of Cabra he meets Jopin, the keeper of the lighthouse but he does not reveal his true identity to him. Jopin cares for Corwin and Corwin aids Jopin in his activities around the lighthouse. Once he is fully recovered, Jopin recognises Corwin, and shows him that the Vale of Garnath, previously a pleasant valley adjacent to Amber, has become a warped and twisted evil place. Corwin takes Jopin's craft Butterfly and sails away, while sending a message to Eric via a black bird, stating that he will return to claim the throne.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " to claim the throne.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Guns of Avalon",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1972",
    "synopsis": " Corwin sets out through the endless worlds of shadow in search of Avalon, his one-time home. As Corwin nears Avalon, he passes through a land called Lorraine. As it is near to Avalon in Shadow, some aspects of it are similar — it is a medieval kingdom, ruled once by a shadow version of Corwin, more recently by a king named Uther. The shadow Corwin that once ruled Lorraine, is remembered as a demonic tyrant and Corwin assumes an incognito identity as Sir Corey of Cabra. Corwin comes across a wounded man, whom he recognizes as a shadow of Lance, a knight of Avalon. Corwin carries Lance back to a nearby fortress, the Keep of Ganelon. Along the way, Corwin slays two giant hellcats — feline demons who call him the \"opener\", confirming his fears that he is responsible for the corruption of the vale of Garnath. Corwin meets with Ganelon, whom he also knows, though Ganelon does not recognize him. Ganelon had once been Corwin's right-hand man in Avalon, until Ganelon betrayed him (alluding to Ganelon the Traitor, of medieval literature), for which crime Corwin banished him into an unfamiliar shadow — this one, apparently — and left him to die. But Ganelon lived and, as he tells Corwin, rose from leading an outlaw band to become leader of all the forces of Lorraine fighting against a strange evil: a constantly-expanding dark circle of toadstools from which demonic creatures and soulless men emerge. Suspecting that this relates to the blood curse he pronounced against Amber (at the end of the previous volume), Corwin agrees to help. While recuperating from his imprisonment and training with the soldiers of Lorraine, Corwin meets a local camp follower, also named Lorraine. Corwin senses that someone is trying to speak to him by means of the Trumps (magical tarot cards), and blocks the attempt; Lorraine describes seeing a vision of a man whom Corwin recognizes as his father. She also reveals that her daughter — whom she had conceived by witchcraft — was the first person to die in the dark circle. A winged demon, Strygalldwir, arrives at the window to challenge Corwin; Corwin, after demonstrating a little-seen spellcasting capability, kills Strygalldwir with his Pattern-sword Grayswandir. Corwin, Ganelon, and Lance lead an army against the dark circle. On the top floor of a tower, Corwin slays the enemy leader, a goat-headed creature. The enemy is revealed to come from the Courts of Chaos, a place far across Shadow from Amber, past where the shadows cease to follow ordinary rules of reality. Lorraine runs off with an office called Melkin. Corwin pursues them; finding that Melkin has murdered and robbed Lorraine, he kills Melkin. Corwin and Ganelon journey on toward Avalon. A young deserter tells them that the forces of Avalon, led by a man known as the Protector, have recently been battling a horde of demonic, cave-dwelling hellmaids — a force of evil somehow similar to the dark circle in Lorraine. Corwin and Ganelon journey on and meet the Protector, who turns out to be Corwin's long-lost brother Benedict, the most formidable swordsman and military strategist in existence. Benedict's forces have defeated the hellmaids, but he has lost his arm in the battle. Benedict greets Corwin cordially, but refuses to support his claim to the throne. Benedict also reveals that their father, King Oberon, did not abdicate, as Corwin had believed, but simply vanished. Benedict sends Corwin and Ganelon on to his country house. There, Corwin meets a young woman named Dara, who tells him that she is Benedict's great-granddaughter. Because of her bloodline, she is anxious to learn more about the Pattern of Amber. Walking the Pattern gives the royalty of Amber the ability to walk in Shadow. Trading information with her, Corwin learns that Benedict has been visited there by brothers Julian, G\u00e9rard, and Brand. In Avalon, Corwin arranges to purchase large amounts of jeweler's rouge, obtaining capital by journeying through Shadow to a parallel Earth where he harvests diamonds from an African coast that has never seen human habitation. Returning to Benedict's house, he encounters Ganelon, who jokingly tells him that several fresh human bodies are buried in the garden. Corwin is reluctant to get involved in the local intrigue. Later, Dara finds him, and they become lovers. Corwin sets off into Shadow with his jeweler's rouge. He and Ganelon notice a strange phenomenon: a black road, similar to the dark circle in Lorraine, cuts through Shadow, apparently stretching from Amber to all the Shadows. The grass along the black road encircles the ankles of Ganelon, and Corwin has to free him. Corwin is able to destroy a section of the black road by focusing his mind on the Pattern, then Corwin receives a Trump contact, which he assumes to be from Benedict. Corwin believes Benedict to be angry at having discovered either that Corwin has been using Avalon to arm himself for an attempt on the throne (compromising Benedict's neutrality) or that Corwin has slept with Dara. Corwin tries to escape further into Shadow, but Benedict pursues and eventually catches him. Benedict accuses Corwin of being a murderer, to Corwin's surprise, and a duel ensues. Completely outmatched, Corwin tricks Benedict into moving into a patch of the strange black grass, allowing Corwin to knock him unconscious. Corwin summons G\u00e9rard via Trump to care for Benedict. Corwin journeys to our Earth, and has an assembly line set up to produce the ammunition he needs to assault Amber. While that is happening, he visits his old house in New York, where he finds a message from Eric, pleading for peace. Corwin rejects this. He recruits his army from a similar Shadow to the one home to the army he recruited for his assault with Bleys, and trains them in the use of firearms. Then he leads them through shadow to attack Amber. However, upon reaching Amber, Corwin finds a desperate battle against wyvern riders from the Courts of Chaos. He also finds Dara wandering about the battlefield, and orders some men to guard her. After assisting in the battle and dispatching the threat, he confronts Eric, who has been wounded during the battle. Before he dies, Eric passes the Jewel of Judgement to Corwin and pronounces his death curse on the enemies of Amber. Dara, having disposed of her guards, rides past Corwin on horseback, toward Amber. Corwin, suddenly apprehensive, contacts his brother Random via trump, and has Random teleport him into Amber. They reach the chamber of the Pattern to find that Dara is already walking it, shifting into all manner of strange and grotesque shapes as she does. Completing her Pattern walk, she announces to Corwin in a low, inhuman voice that \"Amber will be destroyed\", then vanishes.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Corwin sets out through the endless worlds of shadow in search of Avalon, his one-time home. As Corwin nears Avalon, he passes through a land called Lorraine. As it is near to Avalon in Shadow, some aspects of it are similar — it is a medieval kingdom, ruled once by a shadow version of Corwin, more recently by a king named Uther. The shadow Corwin that once ruled Lorraine, is remembered as a demonic tyrant and Corwin assumes an incognito identity as Sir Corey of Cabra. Corwin comes across a wounded man, whom he recognizes as a shadow of Lance, a knight of Avalon. Corwin carries Lance back to a nearby fortress, the Keep of Ganelon. Along the way, Corwin slays two giant hellcats — feline demons who call him the \"opener\", confirming his fears that he is responsible for the corruption of the vale of Garnath. Corwin meets with Ganelon, whom he also knows, though Ganelon does not recognize him. Ganelon had once been Corwin's right-hand man in Avalon, until Ganelon betrayed him (alluding to Ganelon the Traitor, of medieval literature), for which crime Corwin banished him into an unfamiliar shadow — this one, apparently — and left him to die. But Ganelon lived and, as he tells Corwin, rose from leading an outlaw band to become leader of all the forces of Lorraine fighting against a strange evil: a constantly-expanding dark circle of toadstools from which demonic creatures and soulless men emerge. Suspecting that this relates to the blood curse he pronounced against Amber (at the end of the previous volume), Corwin agrees to help. While recuperating from his imprisonment and training with the soldiers of Lorraine, Corwin meets a local camp follower, also named Lorraine."
      },
      {
        "text": " leading an outlaw band to become leader of all the forces of Lorraine fighting against a strange evil: a constantly-expanding dark circle of toadstools from which demonic creatures and soulless men emerge. Suspecting that this relates to the blood curse he pronounced against Amber (at the end of the previous volume), Corwin agrees to help. While recuperating from his imprisonment and training with the soldiers of Lorraine, Corwin meets a local camp follower, also named Lorraine. Corwin senses that someone is trying to speak to him by means of the Trumps (magical tarot cards), and blocks the attempt; Lorraine describes seeing a vision of a man whom Corwin recognizes as his father. She also reveals that her daughter — whom she had conceived by witchcraft — was the first person to die in the dark circle. A winged demon, Strygalldwir, arrives at the window to challenge Corwin; Corwin, after demonstrating a little-seen spellcasting capability, kills Strygalldwir with his Pattern-sword Grayswandir. Corwin, Ganelon, and Lance lead an army against the dark circle. On the top floor of a tower, Corwin slays the enemy leader, a goat-headed creature. The enemy is revealed to come from the Courts of Chaos, a place far across Shadow from Amber, past where the shadows cease to follow ordinary rules of reality. Lorraine runs off with an office called Melkin. Corwin pursues them; finding that Melkin has murdered and robbed Lorraine, he kills Melkin. Corwin and Ganelon journey on toward Avalon. A young deserter tells them that the forces of Avalon, led by a man known as the Protector, have recently been battling a horde of demonic, cave-dwelling hellmaids — a force of evil somehow similar to the dark circle in Lorraine"
      },
      {
        "text": " Lorraine runs off with an office called Melkin. Corwin pursues them; finding that Melkin has murdered and robbed Lorraine, he kills Melkin. Corwin and Ganelon journey on toward Avalon. A young deserter tells them that the forces of Avalon, led by a man known as the Protector, have recently been battling a horde of demonic, cave-dwelling hellmaids — a force of evil somehow similar to the dark circle in Lorraine. Corwin and Ganelon journey on and meet the Protector, who turns out to be Corwin's long-lost brother Benedict, the most formidable swordsman and military strategist in existence. Benedict's forces have defeated the hellmaids, but he has lost his arm in the battle. Benedict greets Corwin cordially, but refuses to support his claim to the throne. Benedict also reveals that their father, King Oberon, did not abdicate, as Corwin had believed, but simply vanished. Benedict sends Corwin and Ganelon on to his country house. There, Corwin meets a young woman named Dara, who tells him that she is Benedict's great-granddaughter. Because of her bloodline, she is anxious to learn more about the Pattern of Amber. Walking the Pattern gives the royalty of Amber the ability to walk in Shadow. Trading information with her, Corwin learns that Benedict has been visited there by brothers Julian, G\u00e9rard, and Brand. In Avalon, Corwin arranges to purchase large amounts of jeweler's rouge, obtaining capital by journeying through Shadow to a parallel Earth where he harvests diamonds from an African coast that has never seen human habitation. Returning to Benedict's house, he encounters Ganelon, who jokingly tells him that several fresh human bodies are buried in the garden. Corwin is reluctant to get involved in the local intrigue. Later, Dara finds him, and they become lovers."
      },
      {
        "text": " In Avalon, Corwin arranges to purchase large amounts of jeweler's rouge, obtaining capital by journeying through Shadow to a parallel Earth where he harvests diamonds from an African coast that has never seen human habitation. Returning to Benedict's house, he encounters Ganelon, who jokingly tells him that several fresh human bodies are buried in the garden. Corwin is reluctant to get involved in the local intrigue. Later, Dara finds him, and they become lovers. Corwin sets off into Shadow with his jeweler's rouge. He and Ganelon notice a strange phenomenon: a black road, similar to the dark circle in Lorraine, cuts through Shadow, apparently stretching from Amber to all the Shadows. The grass along the black road encircles the ankles of Ganelon, and Corwin has to free him. Corwin is able to destroy a section of the black road by focusing his mind on the Pattern, then Corwin receives a Trump contact, which he assumes to be from Benedict. Corwin believes Benedict to be angry at having discovered either that Corwin has been using Avalon to arm himself for an attempt on the throne (compromising Benedict's neutrality) or that Corwin has slept with Dara. Corwin tries to escape further into Shadow, but Benedict pursues and eventually catches him. Benedict accuses Corwin of being a murderer, to Corwin's surprise, and a duel ensues. Completely outmatched, Corwin tricks Benedict into moving into a patch of the strange black grass, allowing Corwin to knock him unconscious. Corwin summons G\u00e9rard via Trump to care for Benedict. Corwin journeys to our Earth, and has an assembly line set up to produce the ammunition he needs to assault Amber. While that is happening, he visits his old house in New York, where he finds a message from Eric, pleading for peace. Corwin rejects this. He recruits his army from a similar Shadow to the one"
      },
      {
        "text": " tricks Benedict into moving into a patch of the strange black grass, allowing Corwin to knock him unconscious. Corwin summons G\u00e9rard via Trump to care for Benedict. Corwin journeys to our Earth, and has an assembly line set up to produce the ammunition he needs to assault Amber. While that is happening, he visits his old house in New York, where he finds a message from Eric, pleading for peace. Corwin rejects this. He recruits his army from a similar Shadow to the one home to the army he recruited for his assault with Bleys, and trains them in the use of firearms. Then he leads them through shadow to attack Amber. However, upon reaching Amber, Corwin finds a desperate battle against wyvern riders from the Courts of Chaos. He also finds Dara wandering about the battlefield, and orders some men to guard her. After assisting in the battle and dispatching the threat, he confronts Eric, who has been wounded during the battle. Before he dies, Eric passes the Jewel of Judgement to Corwin and pronounces his death curse on the enemies of Amber. Dara, having disposed of her guards, rides past Corwin on horseback, toward Amber. Corwin, suddenly apprehensive, contacts his brother Random via trump, and has Random teleport him into Amber. They reach the chamber of the Pattern to find that Dara is already walking it, shifting into all manner of strange and grotesque shapes as she does. Completing her Pattern walk, she announces to Corwin in a low, inhuman voice that \"Amber will be destroyed\", then vanishes.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " she announces to Corwin in a low, inhuman voice that \"Amber will be destroyed\", then vanishes.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sign of the Unicorn",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1975-02",
    "synopsis": " Corwin returns to Castle Amber bearing the body of one of the spined, bloodshot-eyed humanoid creatures that had pursued Random to Flora's house on Earth\u2014one that had moments earlier killed his brother, Caine. Fearing that he has been framed for Caine's murder, Corwin summons Random, who tells him the story how he came to be chased across shadow to end up in New York: Random had been enjoying life out in a shadow, Texorami, that he had selected/created to be an ideal place to gamble, hang-glide and especially play the drums. One day he received an unusual Trump call in the form of the Jack of Diamonds, that spoke to him as his brother, Brand, asking for help to escape from an unfamiliar shadow. Random set out to rescue Brand from the shadow, a land lit without a sun, where boulders orbit each other in complicated patterns. He found the tower where Brand was imprisoned, but could not overcome its guardian, a transparent, glass, prismatic, dragon-like creature. Spined humanoids pursued random through shadow. Seeking an ally, he headed for Earth, hoping to exploit Flora, but finds Corwin instead. Since Corwin had been missing for so long. Random assumes the creatures belonged to him, and though confused when Corwin fights the creatures, is sufficiently frightened to aid Corwin in getting to Amber. After hearing Random's story, Corwin descends to the chamber of the Pattern, to attune himself to the Jewel of Judgement, a powerful artifact given to Corwin by Eric as he lay dying, which gives its wearer among other powers control of weather in Amber. He walks the pattern, and then commands it to project him into the Jewel. He is metaphysically carried through a higher-dimensional Pattern within the Jewel, emerging with what he describes as a \"higher octave\" of awareness. Corwin then teleports himself to a high tower of the castle. After testing his new attunement to the Jewel, he summons Flora. He learns that most of his brothers had sought him in shadow during his absence \u2014 some to try to find him; some to implicate Eric in their father, Oberon's death. G\u00e9rard accompanies Corwin to the Grove of the Unicorn, where Caine was killed. G\u00e9rard fights Corwin, and later threatens him physically while all of the siblings are watching through trumps and is told that if he turns out to be responsible for Caine's death, G\u00e9rard will kill him, and that if G\u00e9rard is killed, the siblings will know Corwin did it. Corwin points out that if someone wants to kill Corwin and free themselves from suspicion, they now only have to kill G\u00e9rard. G\u00e9rard, angered, accuses him of trying to complicate matters. The two brothers return to Caine's body, and see a glimpse of the Unicorn. Corwin then arranges a family meeting, allowing Random to re-tell his tale. While not entirely convinced of Corwin's innocence, they agree to attempt to recover the one remaining person who has seen these creatures \u2014 Brand. With their combined efforts, they are able to contact Brand through the trump, and pull him through to Amber. Although Brand was relatively intact in his cell, they find he has been stabbed as he is brought to them. G\u00e9rard pushes the others aside and gives first aid to Brand, while the others realize the implications of the stabbing \u2014 one of them must have tried to kill their brother. The siblings guardedly discuss who the would-be murderer might be. Fiona points out that only she and Julian are sensible suspects \u2014 and she is \"innocent of all but malice\". She also warns Corwin that the Jewel is more than just a weather-control device; in truth, it is an artifact of great power which draws upon its bearer's life force \u2014 and may well have been what killed Eric. She says that when people around the bearer seem to be statue-like, the bearer is near death. Corwin heads for his rooms, discussing matters with Random, who has a hard time keeping up with Corwin. Corwin enters his room, but notices too late a figure poised to stab him. However the stab itself appears to be so slow that it only grazes him. Corwin blacks out. He awakens in his former home on Earth, bleeding and nearing death. He drops a pillow, but it hangs in the air. He realizes that the Jewel is killing him, so he hides it in the house's compost heap and heads for the road, hoping to hitch-hike to a hospital where he can recover. He is eventually picked up by Bill Roth, a lawyer who recognizes him as Carl Corey, the name Corwin had used in the past to pass for a human. In hospital, he learns that his car accident happened during his escape from a mental asylum, where he had been committed by a Dr. Hillary B. Rand by his brother Brandon Corey. He is contacted via Trump by Random, who returns him to Amber, saying that Brand has woken up and wishes to speak to him. Brand gradually tells Corwin about how he, Bleys and Fiona had removed Oberon and tried to claim the throne, but were opposed by the triumvirate of Eric, Julian and Caine. He says that after he objected to Bleys and Fiona's plan to ally with the forces of Chaos, he was pursued and came to Earth seeking Corwin as an ally\u2014trying to restore his memories with shock therapy\u2014but was captured and imprisoned in the tower where Random found him. During the conversation, Brand displays pyrokinetic abilities. Corwin then heads to Tir-na Nog'th, the mysterious, moonlit Amber-in-the-sky where he hopes to gain insight into the situation. His sword Grayswandir has special properties in the moonlit city, having been forged upon the stairway to Tir-na Nog'th. With Random and Ganelon watching him from mount Kolvir, he ascends to Tir-na Nog'th, and in the throne room sees Dara as queen, flanked by Benedict wearing a metallic arm. This dream-version of Dara tells him her origins and the ghostly Benedict is able to reach Corwin with the arm. A fight ensues. Corwin cuts off the arm, and is trumped back to Kolvir by Random, with the arm still clutching his shoulder. The three set off for Amber, but are drawn through shadow \u2014 which should be impossible this close to Amber \u2014 and come to an enlarged version of the Grove of the Unicorn, where they see the eponymous beast. They are led back to where Amber should stand, but instead there is a plateau on which there is a copy of the Pattern. With a shock, Corwin and Ganelon realize that this is the true, Primal Pattern, of which the one in Amber is but the first shadow.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Corwin returns to Castle Amber bearing the body of one of the spined, bloodshot-eyed humanoid creatures that had pursued Random to Flora's house on Earth\u2014one that had moments earlier killed his brother, Caine. Fearing that he has been framed for Caine's murder, Corwin summons Random, who tells him the story how he came to be chased across shadow to end up in New York: Random had been enjoying life out in a shadow, Texorami, that he had selected/created to be an ideal place to gamble, hang-glide and especially play the drums. One day he received an unusual Trump call in the form of the Jack of Diamonds, that spoke to him as his brother, Brand, asking for help to escape from an unfamiliar shadow. Random set out to rescue Brand from the shadow, a land lit without a sun, where boulders orbit each other in complicated patterns. He found the tower where Brand was imprisoned, but could not overcome its guardian, a transparent, glass, prismatic, dragon-like creature. Spined humanoids pursued random through shadow. Seeking an ally, he headed for Earth, hoping to exploit Flora, but finds Corwin instead. Since Corwin had been missing for so long. Random assumes the creatures belonged to him, and though confused when Corwin fights the creatures, is sufficiently frightened to aid Corwin in getting to Amber. After hearing Random's story, Corwin descends to the chamber of the Pattern, to attune himself to the Jewel of Judgement, a powerful artifact given to Corwin by Eric as he lay dying, which gives its wearer among other powers control of weather in Amber. He walks the pattern, and then commands it to project him into the Jewel. He is metaphysically carried through a higher-dimensional Pattern within the Jewel, emerging with what he describes as a \"higher octave\" of awareness. Corwin then teleports himself to a high tower of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Pattern, to attune himself to the Jewel of Judgement, a powerful artifact given to Corwin by Eric as he lay dying, which gives its wearer among other powers control of weather in Amber. He walks the pattern, and then commands it to project him into the Jewel. He is metaphysically carried through a higher-dimensional Pattern within the Jewel, emerging with what he describes as a \"higher octave\" of awareness. Corwin then teleports himself to a high tower of the castle. After testing his new attunement to the Jewel, he summons Flora. He learns that most of his brothers had sought him in shadow during his absence \u2014 some to try to find him; some to implicate Eric in their father, Oberon's death. G\u00e9rard accompanies Corwin to the Grove of the Unicorn, where Caine was killed. G\u00e9rard fights Corwin, and later threatens him physically while all of the siblings are watching through trumps and is told that if he turns out to be responsible for Caine's death, G\u00e9rard will kill him, and that if G\u00e9rard is killed, the siblings will know Corwin did it. Corwin points out that if someone wants to kill Corwin and free themselves from suspicion, they now only have to kill G\u00e9rard. G\u00e9rard, angered, accuses him of trying to complicate matters. The two brothers return to Caine's body, and see a glimpse of the Unicorn. Corwin then arranges a family meeting, allowing Random to re-tell his tale. While not entirely convinced of Corwin's innocence, they agree to attempt to recover the one remaining person who has seen these creatures \u2014 Brand. With their combined efforts, they are able to contact Brand through the trump, and pull him through to Amber. Although Brand was relatively intact in his cell, they find he has been stabbed as he is brought to them. G\u00e9rard pushes the others aside and gives first aid to"
      },
      {
        "text": " then arranges a family meeting, allowing Random to re-tell his tale. While not entirely convinced of Corwin's innocence, they agree to attempt to recover the one remaining person who has seen these creatures \u2014 Brand. With their combined efforts, they are able to contact Brand through the trump, and pull him through to Amber. Although Brand was relatively intact in his cell, they find he has been stabbed as he is brought to them. G\u00e9rard pushes the others aside and gives first aid to Brand, while the others realize the implications of the stabbing \u2014 one of them must have tried to kill their brother. The siblings guardedly discuss who the would-be murderer might be. Fiona points out that only she and Julian are sensible suspects \u2014 and she is \"innocent of all but malice\". She also warns Corwin that the Jewel is more than just a weather-control device; in truth, it is an artifact of great power which draws upon its bearer's life force \u2014 and may well have been what killed Eric. She says that when people around the bearer seem to be statue-like, the bearer is near death. Corwin heads for his rooms, discussing matters with Random, who has a hard time keeping up with Corwin. Corwin enters his room, but notices too late a figure poised to stab him. However the stab itself appears to be so slow that it only grazes him. Corwin blacks out. He awakens in his former home on Earth, bleeding and nearing death. He drops a pillow, but it hangs in the air. He realizes that the Jewel is killing him, so he hides it in the house's compost heap and heads for the road, hoping to hitch-hike to a hospital where he can recover. He is eventually picked up by Bill Roth, a lawyer who recognizes him as Carl Corey, the name Corwin had used in the past to pass for a human. In hospital, he learns that his car accident happened during his escape"
      },
      {
        "text": " nearing death. He drops a pillow, but it hangs in the air. He realizes that the Jewel is killing him, so he hides it in the house's compost heap and heads for the road, hoping to hitch-hike to a hospital where he can recover. He is eventually picked up by Bill Roth, a lawyer who recognizes him as Carl Corey, the name Corwin had used in the past to pass for a human. In hospital, he learns that his car accident happened during his escape from a mental asylum, where he had been committed by a Dr. Hillary B. Rand by his brother Brandon Corey. He is contacted via Trump by Random, who returns him to Amber, saying that Brand has woken up and wishes to speak to him. Brand gradually tells Corwin about how he, Bleys and Fiona had removed Oberon and tried to claim the throne, but were opposed by the triumvirate of Eric, Julian and Caine. He says that after he objected to Bleys and Fiona's plan to ally with the forces of Chaos, he was pursued and came to Earth seeking Corwin as an ally\u2014trying to restore his memories with shock therapy\u2014but was captured and imprisoned in the tower where Random found him. During the conversation, Brand displays pyrokinetic abilities. Corwin then heads to Tir-na Nog'th, the mysterious, moonlit Amber-in-the-sky where he hopes to gain insight into the situation. His sword Grayswandir has special properties in the moonlit city, having been forged upon the stairway to Tir-na Nog'th. With Random and Ganelon watching him from mount Kolvir, he ascends to Tir-na Nog'th, and in the throne room sees Dara as queen, flanked by Benedict wearing a metallic arm. This dream-version of Dara tells him her origins and the ghostly Benedict is able to reach Corwin with the arm."
      },
      {
        "text": " Grayswandir has special properties in the moonlit city, having been forged upon the stairway to Tir-na Nog'th. With Random and Ganelon watching him from mount Kolvir, he ascends to Tir-na Nog'th, and in the throne room sees Dara as queen, flanked by Benedict wearing a metallic arm. This dream-version of Dara tells him her origins and the ghostly Benedict is able to reach Corwin with the arm. A fight ensues. Corwin cuts off the arm, and is trumped back to Kolvir by Random, with the arm still clutching his shoulder. The three set off for Amber, but are drawn through shadow \u2014 which should be impossible this close to Amber \u2014 and come to an enlarged version of the Grove of the Unicorn, where they see the eponymous beast. They are led back to where Amber should stand, but instead there is a plateau on which there is a copy of the Pattern. With a shock, Corwin and Ganelon realize that this is the true, Primal Pattern, of which the one in Amber is but the first shadow.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Hand of Oberon",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1976",
    "synopsis": " Corwin, Random and Ganelon go down to the Primal Pattern and see that it is damaged, with a dark stain obscuring the pattern from the center to one edge, in the shape of the corrupted Vale of Garnath. They also see a pair of objects at the pattern's centre. While Corwin and Random discuss whether it would be safe to walk a damaged pattern, Ganelon runs through the stain to the center and retrieves the objects - a dagger, and a pierced Trump card. A purple griffin-like beast emerges from a cave, and Random's horse runs onto the pattern. The horse is consumed/ripped apart by a rainbow-coloured tornado. Ganelon discusses what it was like to run on the stain, and asks Random to drop a small amount of blood on the pattern. The blood drop stains the pattern in the same way, and they realize that the trump must have been used to spill blood onto the pattern by someone at its centre. Random recognizes the trump as that of his Rebman son, Martin. Corwin recognises the style of the trump as that of Brand. Ganelon proposes that Corwin use the Trumps to contact Benedict, who transports them to the slopes of mount Kolvir. Random and Benedict, who had known and was fond of Martin, set off through shadow to find him, or if necessary avenge his death. Corwin returns to Amber to inform Random's wife, Vialle, that Random will be gone for a while. Discussing matters with her, he realizes that now Eric is dead he no longer wants the throne - but he still loves Amber and wishes to repair the damage, even though he is no longer sure it is his fault. Corwin then descends into the depths of the castle to find his former cell in the dungeons. On the way to his cell, Corwin meets Roger Zelazny, who makes an appearance in his own book. The author describes himself as a \"...lean, cadaverous figure... smoking his pipe, grinning around it.\" In his dialogue with Corwin, Roger states that he is presently \"...writing a philosophical romance shot through with elements of horror and morbidity.\" This may or may not be a not-so-subtle description of the entire Chronicles of Amber series. Once in his former cell, Corwin uses the trump that Dworkin drew on the wall to project himself to the mad sorcerer's chambers. Dworkin incorrectly assumes that Corwin is Oberon, and reveals to him in a vaguely metaphoric manner that he, Dworkin, is Oberon's father (and that the mother was the Unicorn!), and that he drew the Pattern using the Jewel of Judgement, which was given to him by the Unicorn after he fled from Chaos. Dworkin then describes how the damage to the Pattern could be fixed if he destroyed himself, erasing the pattern and allowing Oberon to draw another. Dworkin takes Corwin to the Primal Pattern, past the purple griffin, Wixer. Dworkin then realizes that it is Corwin, and explains that there is a way to mend the Pattern using the Jewel of Judgement, though that would be more difficult, and probably fatal to the person who attempted it. Dworkin then loses control of his madness, transforming into a monstrous beast and pursuing Corwin back into his chambers. Corwin escapes via a Trump which he finds there. He finds himself in the Courts of Chaos, a great castle which looks out over the Abyss, a swirling black/white hole, under a half-colored-stripy, half-black-swirly sky. Corwin remembers being brought here as a child by Oberon, to see that this is in fact the true source of all creation, not Amber. A strange, pale rider attacks Corwin, but is defeated. A familiar-seeming man approaches with a crossbow, but spares Corwin after recognizing him by his blade. Corwin contacts G\u00e9rard via Trump, and learns that because of the time differential between Amber and Chaos he has been missing for eight days. Corwin takes the pierced trump of Martin to Brand, who admits stabbing Martin through the trump in order to damage the pattern, as part of his cabal's scheme to capture Oberon. He tries to persuade Corwin to use the Trump to kill Bleys and Fiona, as he was stabbed. He asks for the Jewel to help him to restrain them, but Corwin is unconvinced. Ganelon, who is with Benedict, contacts Corwin via Trump. Benedict is now wearing the metallic arm from Tir-na Nog'th. Corwin gives Benedict the trump of the Courts. G\u00e9rard arrives via Trump. Brand has gone missing, and his room is covered in blood. G\u00e9rard becomes convinced that Corwin has finished Brand off, and starts to fight Corwin. Ganelon stops G\u00e9rard's punch and knocks him unconscious with several blows, giving Corwin time to escape. Corwin flees into the forest of Arden, hoping to retrieve the Jewel from Earth. A manticora follows him, but Julian arrives and kills it. Julian explains that the Eric-Julian-Caine triumvirate arose only to oppose Brand's cabal, taking the throne to prevent Bleys from claiming it. When Corwin arrived with Bleys, they assumed he had joined the cabal, but when (after his capture) they realized he only wanted the throne, Julian suggested blinding him as an alternative to killing him. Julian tells Corwin how Brand has acquired strange powers, including becoming a \"living Trump\", capable of teleporting himself or other objects through shadow. Corwin proceeds to Earth, musing on his new-found respect for Julian. He arrives to find that the compost heap where he hid the Jewel of Judgment is gone. With the help of Bill Roth, he tracks down the heap, but the Jewel has been claimed by a red-headed artist. Corwin contacts Amber and has guards posted on the Patterns in Amber and Rebma, hoping to prevent Brand from using them to attune himself to the Jewel. Fiona contacts him via Trump, and projects herself to Earth. She then leads Corwin to the Primal Pattern, taking a short-cut through a starry tunnel. She explains that she and Bleys had imprisoned Brand because he had decided to destroy the Pattern and re-create, reshaping the multiverse according to his own liking. They kept him alive because they believed he might be helpful in repairing the damage. She also explains that Brand tried to kill Corwin on Earth because he saw a vision in Tir-na Nog'th that Corwin would defeat him. Fiona confirms that Bleys survived the fall from the cliff in the first book. They arrive to find Brand already on the Primal Pattern. Corwin follows, hoping to slay Brand while he is distracted, but he realises that slaying Brand would further damage the Pattern. He instead gets close enough to ask the Jewel to summon a tornado, which seems to destroy Brand as it did Random's horse. However, Fiona assures Corwin that Brand survived. Leaving Fiona to guard the Primal Pattern, Corwin goes to his tomb to meet Random and Martin, who have just arrived. Martin tells Corwin how he was attacked by Brand, and how he met Dara in shadow. Ganelon contacts Corwin to tell him that Tir-na Nog'th will appear tonight, along with its version of the Pattern. Reasoning that Brand will attempt to attune himself there, Ganelon asks Benedict to walk the Pattern in Amber, ready to teleport himself there when it appears and tells Corwin to keep permanent contact with Benedict through the Trump to teleport him out in case the city becomes immaterial. Corwin rides to the top of Kolvir and contacts Benedict via the Trump. Tir-na Nog'th appears, and Benedict teleports himself there. Brand appears shortly afterwards, and tries to persuade Benedict to allow him to re-create the Pattern. Benedict refuses and Brand, partly attuned to the Jewel, uses it to freeze Benedict in place. Neither Corwin nor Benedict can now prevent Brand from walking Tir-na Nog'th's Pattern and fully attuning himself to the Jewel, but the mechanical arm moves of its own accord, snatching the Jewel and choking Brand with the chain. Brand teleports away, leaving the chain. Corwin and Benedict decide that the arm being the right weapon in the right place at the right time is too unlikely a coincidence to be true, and so it must have been arranged by some guiding force \u2014 Oberon. Together, they try Oberon's Trump, and find that contact comes easily. They are answered by a grinning Ganelon.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Corwin, Random and Ganelon go down to the Primal Pattern and see that it is damaged, with a dark stain obscuring the pattern from the center to one edge, in the shape of the corrupted Vale of Garnath. They also see a pair of objects at the pattern's centre. While Corwin and Random discuss whether it would be safe to walk a damaged pattern, Ganelon runs through the stain to the center and retrieves the objects - a dagger, and a pierced Trump card. A purple griffin-like beast emerges from a cave, and Random's horse runs onto the pattern. The horse is consumed/ripped apart by a rainbow-coloured tornado. Ganelon discusses what it was like to run on the stain, and asks Random to drop a small amount of blood on the pattern. The blood drop stains the pattern in the same way, and they realize that the trump must have been used to spill blood onto the pattern by someone at its centre. Random recognizes the trump as that of his Rebman son, Martin. Corwin recognises the style of the trump as that of Brand. Ganelon proposes that Corwin use the Trumps to contact Benedict, who transports them to the slopes of mount Kolvir. Random and Benedict, who had known and was fond of Martin, set off through shadow to find him, or if necessary avenge his death. Corwin returns to Amber to inform Random's wife, Vialle, that Random will be gone for a while. Discussing matters with her, he realizes that now Eric is dead he no longer wants the throne - but he still loves Amber and wishes to repair the damage, even though he is no longer sure it is his fault. Corwin then descends into the depths of the castle to find his former cell in the dungeons. On the way to his cell, Corwin meets Roger Zelazny, who makes an appearance in his own book. The author describes himself as"
      },
      {
        "text": " will be gone for a while. Discussing matters with her, he realizes that now Eric is dead he no longer wants the throne - but he still loves Amber and wishes to repair the damage, even though he is no longer sure it is his fault. Corwin then descends into the depths of the castle to find his former cell in the dungeons. On the way to his cell, Corwin meets Roger Zelazny, who makes an appearance in his own book. The author describes himself as a \"...lean, cadaverous figure... smoking his pipe, grinning around it.\" In his dialogue with Corwin, Roger states that he is presently \"...writing a philosophical romance shot through with elements of horror and morbidity.\" This may or may not be a not-so-subtle description of the entire Chronicles of Amber series. Once in his former cell, Corwin uses the trump that Dworkin drew on the wall to project himself to the mad sorcerer's chambers. Dworkin incorrectly assumes that Corwin is Oberon, and reveals to him in a vaguely metaphoric manner that he, Dworkin, is Oberon's father (and that the mother was the Unicorn!), and that he drew the Pattern using the Jewel of Judgement, which was given to him by the Unicorn after he fled from Chaos. Dworkin then describes how the damage to the Pattern could be fixed if he destroyed himself, erasing the pattern and allowing Oberon to draw another. Dworkin takes Corwin to the Primal Pattern, past the purple griffin, Wixer. Dworkin then realizes that it is Corwin, and explains that there is a way to mend the Pattern using the Jewel of Judgement, though that would be more difficult, and probably fatal to the person who attempted it. Dworkin then loses control of his madness, transforming into a monstrous beast and pursuing Corwin back into his chambers. Corwin escapes via a Trump which he finds there."
      },
      {
        "text": "in takes Corwin to the Primal Pattern, past the purple griffin, Wixer. Dworkin then realizes that it is Corwin, and explains that there is a way to mend the Pattern using the Jewel of Judgement, though that would be more difficult, and probably fatal to the person who attempted it. Dworkin then loses control of his madness, transforming into a monstrous beast and pursuing Corwin back into his chambers. Corwin escapes via a Trump which he finds there. He finds himself in the Courts of Chaos, a great castle which looks out over the Abyss, a swirling black/white hole, under a half-colored-stripy, half-black-swirly sky. Corwin remembers being brought here as a child by Oberon, to see that this is in fact the true source of all creation, not Amber. A strange, pale rider attacks Corwin, but is defeated. A familiar-seeming man approaches with a crossbow, but spares Corwin after recognizing him by his blade. Corwin contacts G\u00e9rard via Trump, and learns that because of the time differential between Amber and Chaos he has been missing for eight days. Corwin takes the pierced trump of Martin to Brand, who admits stabbing Martin through the trump in order to damage the pattern, as part of his cabal's scheme to capture Oberon. He tries to persuade Corwin to use the Trump to kill Bleys and Fiona, as he was stabbed. He asks for the Jewel to help him to restrain them, but Corwin is unconvinced. Ganelon, who is with Benedict, contacts Corwin via Trump. Benedict is now wearing the metallic arm from Tir-na Nog'th. Corwin gives Benedict the trump of the Courts. G\u00e9rard arrives via Trump. Brand has gone missing, and his room is covered in blood. G\u00e9rard becomes convinced that Corwin has finished Brand off, and starts to fight Corwin."
      },
      {
        "text": " asks for the Jewel to help him to restrain them, but Corwin is unconvinced. Ganelon, who is with Benedict, contacts Corwin via Trump. Benedict is now wearing the metallic arm from Tir-na Nog'th. Corwin gives Benedict the trump of the Courts. G\u00e9rard arrives via Trump. Brand has gone missing, and his room is covered in blood. G\u00e9rard becomes convinced that Corwin has finished Brand off, and starts to fight Corwin. Ganelon stops G\u00e9rard's punch and knocks him unconscious with several blows, giving Corwin time to escape. Corwin flees into the forest of Arden, hoping to retrieve the Jewel from Earth. A manticora follows him, but Julian arrives and kills it. Julian explains that the Eric-Julian-Caine triumvirate arose only to oppose Brand's cabal, taking the throne to prevent Bleys from claiming it. When Corwin arrived with Bleys, they assumed he had joined the cabal, but when (after his capture) they realized he only wanted the throne, Julian suggested blinding him as an alternative to killing him. Julian tells Corwin how Brand has acquired strange powers, including becoming a \"living Trump\", capable of teleporting himself or other objects through shadow. Corwin proceeds to Earth, musing on his new-found respect for Julian. He arrives to find that the compost heap where he hid the Jewel of Judgment is gone. With the help of Bill Roth, he tracks down the heap, but the Jewel has been claimed by a red-headed artist. Corwin contacts Amber and has guards posted on the Patterns in Amber and Rebma, hoping to prevent Brand from using them to attune himself to the Jewel. Fiona contacts him via Trump, and projects herself to Earth. She then leads Corwin to the Primal Pattern, taking a short-cut through a starry tunnel. She explains that she and Bleys had imprisoned Brand because he"
      },
      {
        "text": " of Bill Roth, he tracks down the heap, but the Jewel has been claimed by a red-headed artist. Corwin contacts Amber and has guards posted on the Patterns in Amber and Rebma, hoping to prevent Brand from using them to attune himself to the Jewel. Fiona contacts him via Trump, and projects herself to Earth. She then leads Corwin to the Primal Pattern, taking a short-cut through a starry tunnel. She explains that she and Bleys had imprisoned Brand because he had decided to destroy the Pattern and re-create, reshaping the multiverse according to his own liking. They kept him alive because they believed he might be helpful in repairing the damage. She also explains that Brand tried to kill Corwin on Earth because he saw a vision in Tir-na Nog'th that Corwin would defeat him. Fiona confirms that Bleys survived the fall from the cliff in the first book. They arrive to find Brand already on the Primal Pattern. Corwin follows, hoping to slay Brand while he is distracted, but he realises that slaying Brand would further damage the Pattern. He instead gets close enough to ask the Jewel to summon a tornado, which seems to destroy Brand as it did Random's horse. However, Fiona assures Corwin that Brand survived. Leaving Fiona to guard the Primal Pattern, Corwin goes to his tomb to meet Random and Martin, who have just arrived. Martin tells Corwin how he was attacked by Brand, and how he met Dara in shadow. Ganelon contacts Corwin to tell him that Tir-na Nog'th will appear tonight, along with its version of the Pattern. Reasoning that Brand will attempt to attune himself there, Ganelon asks Benedict to walk the Pattern in Amber, ready to teleport himself there when it appears and tells Corwin to keep permanent contact with Benedict through the Trump to teleport him out in case the city becomes immaterial. Corwin rides to the top of Kolvir and"
      },
      {
        "text": "ara in shadow. Ganelon contacts Corwin to tell him that Tir-na Nog'th will appear tonight, along with its version of the Pattern. Reasoning that Brand will attempt to attune himself there, Ganelon asks Benedict to walk the Pattern in Amber, ready to teleport himself there when it appears and tells Corwin to keep permanent contact with Benedict through the Trump to teleport him out in case the city becomes immaterial. Corwin rides to the top of Kolvir and contacts Benedict via the Trump. Tir-na Nog'th appears, and Benedict teleports himself there. Brand appears shortly afterwards, and tries to persuade Benedict to allow him to re-create the Pattern. Benedict refuses and Brand, partly attuned to the Jewel, uses it to freeze Benedict in place. Neither Corwin nor Benedict can now prevent Brand from walking Tir-na Nog'th's Pattern and fully attuning himself to the Jewel, but the mechanical arm moves of its own accord, snatching the Jewel and choking Brand with the chain. Brand teleports away, leaving the chain. Corwin and Benedict decide that the arm being the right weapon in the right place at the right time is too unlikely a coincidence to be true, and so it must have been arranged by some guiding force \u2014 Oberon. Together, they try Oberon's Trump, and find that contact comes easily. They are answered by a grinning Ganelon.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Courts of Chaos",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1978",
    "synopsis": " Corwin sulks in Castle Amber's library while Oberon gives the family orders for a massive battle with the forces of Chaos. Random persuades Corwin to leave, but they are held back by an invisible force. They watch as Corwin's sword appears and chops off Benedict's new arm, just as Corwin did in Tir-na Nog'th. The sword and the arm disappear, and Corwin and Random are released. Dara and Martin are with Benedict. Corwin learns from Martin's trumps that the crossbowman who spared him is Merlin. Dara tells how Brand bargained with the Courts of Chaos. They wished to replace him with Merlin. However, Dara feared that neither would keep their word. She relays Oberon's orders to attack the courts immediately to Benedict. Still unconvinced, Corwin contacts Fiona. She confirms Dara's authority, and says that Oberon is about to repair the Pattern. Hoping to save Oberon, Corwin projects himself through, grabs the Jewel, and runs for the Pattern, but he is paralyzed by Oberon's magics before he can reach it. Oberon has a final talk with his son, explaining that while he had set Corwin up to meet him in Lorraine, he had enjoyed being Corwin's friend, and he wants Corwin to succeed him as King of Amber, with Dara as his queen. Corwin explains that he no longer wants to rule. Oberon, disappointed, dismisses Corwin using a trump-like effect. Once Corwin confirms Dara's authority, Benedict uses the trump of the Courts of Chaos to begin his attack. Dara talks to Corwin, and they decide that although they were used as pawns to create Merlin, they still like each other. Dara then leaves to give the rest of the family their orders. G\u00e9rard is ordered to stay and guard Amber, while Julian and Random are to stay in Arden. Oberon arrives, and asks Corwin for some of his blood. He breathes life into the blood, and it becomes a red raven. Oberon tells Corwin that the raven will follow him through shadow. Corwin's orders are to hellride towards Chaos as fast as possible. He must bear the Jewel through shadow. Corwin says goodbye to his father, and sets off. Now that he knows that Amber is just the first Shadow, he finds he can shift shadow there more easily. As he rides towards Chaos, he follows the Black Road. After a time, he notices the black road begin to come apart; shortly after, the raven arrives and gives him the Jewel. Corwin is unsure whether this means that Oberon has succeeded or failed. Brand arrives, telling him that he watched Oberon fail, and that Corwin must give him the Jewel so he can create a new Pattern. Corwin refuses, and forces Brand to leave. He notices an unusually large storm following him, and takes refuge in a cave. The cave's other occupant, a nameless stranger who has also sought shelter from the storm, casually mentions some local legends about the Archangel Corwin, who, according to scripture will ride before a storm at the end of the world. The real Corwin dismisses this story as nonsense and commands the Jewel to quell the storm. Eventually he falls asleep. When he wakes, his horse has been kidnapped. He says goodbye to the stranger and tracks his horse to a cave, blocked off by a large boulder, which he shatters. Inside, leprechauns are celebrating a feast. Observing his great strength, they return his horse and invite him to join them. Succumbing to their odd charm, he starts to fall asleep, but rouses himself in time to see them preparing to slaughter him. He awakes and rushes outside. As he leaves, the leader of the wee folk recognizes him as the Archangel Corwin from local legends, mentioned before by the nameless stranger. He starts to move into shadow, but as he moves further from the cave where he slept the universe starts to come apart around him. He realizes that the storm was a wave of Chaos, moving away from Amber as the multiverse is destroyed. He begins to doubt whether Oberon was successful. Using the jewel, he is able to overtake the storm and return to the diminishing multiverse. A strange lady dines with him and attempts to seduce him, but remembering his encounter with the pale lady on the black road (who may or may have not been a copy of Dara), and that he's working to a deadline, he declines. Brand ambushes him with a crossbow, mortally wounding his horse, but the blood raven reappears and plucks out one of Brand's eyes. Corwin puts down his horse and continues striding through shadow. Corwin cuts a branch off a tree as a walking aid. The tree complains, but when it learns that he is Oberon's son it gives him its blessing. It says that it is Ygg, and that Oberon planted it in Amber's distant past to mark the boundary between Order and Chaos. It tells him to plant the staff somewhere it will have the chance to grow. A talking raven named Hugi (of the usual color) arrives, and tries to distract Corwin with fatalistic philosophy. It shows Corwin the head of a mostly-drowned Giant, who will not even allow the possibility of rescue. A mythological jackal offers to lead Corwin on a short-cut to the Courts, but instead leads him to its lair, where Corwin kills it in self-defense. He finally finds a shadow with the Courts' sky, but is aghast to discover that the Courts still lie across a huge wasteland. The raven Hugi returns and pointedly tells him it knew all along, so he kills it for his dinner. As the metaphysical storm approaches Chaos, Corwin decides that Oberon must have failed, so he plants his staff and begins to use the Jewel to inscribe a new Pattern. The process evokes memories of his former life in Paris, France, and we are given the impression that these somehow shape the new Pattern. He finishes, but is exhausted, and he collapses at the new Pattern's center. Brand projects himself to Corwin and steals the Jewel. Corwin loses consciousness. Corwin awakes to find the area surrounding his Pattern transformed. The sky is now white, and the staff has grown into a tree. Corwin realises that he is at the center of a Pattern, and commands it to teleport him to the Courts. He arrives in the courts, only to be challenged to single combat by someone who introduces himself as Borel, Master at Arms of the Courts of Chaos. He removes his armour to make the fight fair, but Corwin, having no time for a fair fight, slays him then and there, although he does feel slightly guilty about it afterward. Corwin finds Brand with Fiona, Random and Deirdre, at the edge of the Abyss. Fiona is keeping him psychically bound, but Brand has Deirdre as a hostage. Suddenly an image of Oberon fills the sky, telling them that Corwin must use the Jewel to save them from the oncoming Chaos storm, and gives them a blessing. Corwin makes use of the distraction and his attunement to the jewel to super-heat Brand, but Brand realizes what's happening and starts to cut Deirdre. She pulls herself free, and Brand is shot in the chest and throat with a bow. He staggers, and grabs Deirdre's hair. They both fall into the Abyss. Corwin tries to follow her, and Random has to knock him out. Corwin wakes up to see Caine there, alive and well. He explains how he faked his own death and spied on the others using the Trumps. It was him who shot Brand, using silver-tipped arrows, just in case. They watch Amber's armies crush the forces of Chaos while the storm continues to advance. A funeral procession, led by Dworkin, emerges from the storm front, accompanied by all sorts of various fantastic beasts. Fiona appears with Dara and Corwin's son, Merlin. Corwin discusses with Fiona the possibility that two Patterns now exist; she can't decide whether that is good or bad. Dara arrives, angry with Corwin for killing Borel, and then leaves. Merlin arrives with her, but stays, eager to learn more about his father. The Unicorn appears from the Abyss, wearing the Jewel of Judgement. It examines each of the Amberites in turn, then kneels in front of Random. The rest of the family kneel in front of him too, and pledge their allegiance to him as the new King. Random takes the Jewel, and Corwin is able to guide him through the attunement process. Corwin is exhausted, and stays with Random while the others go to the Courts, where they think they should be safe. Merlin stays, and asks to hear about his father's adventures. Corwin begins narrating the Chronicles to his son. Random is successful, and the Trumps become active. They contact G\u00e9rard, who tells them that the multiverse is fine, although seven years have passed. Corwin reflects on his changed attitudes towards his family, and on the changes in himself.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Corwin sulks in Castle Amber's library while Oberon gives the family orders for a massive battle with the forces of Chaos. Random persuades Corwin to leave, but they are held back by an invisible force. They watch as Corwin's sword appears and chops off Benedict's new arm, just as Corwin did in Tir-na Nog'th. The sword and the arm disappear, and Corwin and Random are released. Dara and Martin are with Benedict. Corwin learns from Martin's trumps that the crossbowman who spared him is Merlin. Dara tells how Brand bargained with the Courts of Chaos. They wished to replace him with Merlin. However, Dara feared that neither would keep their word. She relays Oberon's orders to attack the courts immediately to Benedict. Still unconvinced, Corwin contacts Fiona. She confirms Dara's authority, and says that Oberon is about to repair the Pattern. Hoping to save Oberon, Corwin projects himself through, grabs the Jewel, and runs for the Pattern, but he is paralyzed by Oberon's magics before he can reach it. Oberon has a final talk with his son, explaining that while he had set Corwin up to meet him in Lorraine, he had enjoyed being Corwin's friend, and he wants Corwin to succeed him as King of Amber, with Dara as his queen. Corwin explains that he no longer wants to rule. Oberon, disappointed, dismisses Corwin using a trump-like effect. Once Corwin confirms Dara's authority, Benedict uses the trump of the Courts of Chaos to begin his attack. Dara talks to Corwin, and they decide that although they were used as pawns to create Merlin, they still like each other. Dara then leaves to give the rest of the family their orders. G\u00e9rard is ordered to stay and guard Amber, while Julian and Random are to stay in Arden"
      },
      {
        "text": ", disappointed, dismisses Corwin using a trump-like effect. Once Corwin confirms Dara's authority, Benedict uses the trump of the Courts of Chaos to begin his attack. Dara talks to Corwin, and they decide that although they were used as pawns to create Merlin, they still like each other. Dara then leaves to give the rest of the family their orders. G\u00e9rard is ordered to stay and guard Amber, while Julian and Random are to stay in Arden. Oberon arrives, and asks Corwin for some of his blood. He breathes life into the blood, and it becomes a red raven. Oberon tells Corwin that the raven will follow him through shadow. Corwin's orders are to hellride towards Chaos as fast as possible. He must bear the Jewel through shadow. Corwin says goodbye to his father, and sets off. Now that he knows that Amber is just the first Shadow, he finds he can shift shadow there more easily. As he rides towards Chaos, he follows the Black Road. After a time, he notices the black road begin to come apart; shortly after, the raven arrives and gives him the Jewel. Corwin is unsure whether this means that Oberon has succeeded or failed. Brand arrives, telling him that he watched Oberon fail, and that Corwin must give him the Jewel so he can create a new Pattern. Corwin refuses, and forces Brand to leave. He notices an unusually large storm following him, and takes refuge in a cave. The cave's other occupant, a nameless stranger who has also sought shelter from the storm, casually mentions some local legends about the Archangel Corwin, who, according to scripture will ride before a storm at the end of the world. The real Corwin dismisses this story as nonsense and commands the Jewel to quell the storm. Eventually he falls asleep. When he wakes, his horse has been kidnapped. He says goodbye to the stranger and tracks his"
      },
      {
        "text": " him, and takes refuge in a cave. The cave's other occupant, a nameless stranger who has also sought shelter from the storm, casually mentions some local legends about the Archangel Corwin, who, according to scripture will ride before a storm at the end of the world. The real Corwin dismisses this story as nonsense and commands the Jewel to quell the storm. Eventually he falls asleep. When he wakes, his horse has been kidnapped. He says goodbye to the stranger and tracks his horse to a cave, blocked off by a large boulder, which he shatters. Inside, leprechauns are celebrating a feast. Observing his great strength, they return his horse and invite him to join them. Succumbing to their odd charm, he starts to fall asleep, but rouses himself in time to see them preparing to slaughter him. He awakes and rushes outside. As he leaves, the leader of the wee folk recognizes him as the Archangel Corwin from local legends, mentioned before by the nameless stranger. He starts to move into shadow, but as he moves further from the cave where he slept the universe starts to come apart around him. He realizes that the storm was a wave of Chaos, moving away from Amber as the multiverse is destroyed. He begins to doubt whether Oberon was successful. Using the jewel, he is able to overtake the storm and return to the diminishing multiverse. A strange lady dines with him and attempts to seduce him, but remembering his encounter with the pale lady on the black road (who may or may have not been a copy of Dara), and that he's working to a deadline, he declines. Brand ambushes him with a crossbow, mortally wounding his horse, but the blood raven reappears and plucks out one of Brand's eyes. Corwin puts down his horse and continues striding through shadow. Corwin cuts a branch off a tree as a walking aid. The tree complains"
      },
      {
        "text": " him, but remembering his encounter with the pale lady on the black road (who may or may have not been a copy of Dara), and that he's working to a deadline, he declines. Brand ambushes him with a crossbow, mortally wounding his horse, but the blood raven reappears and plucks out one of Brand's eyes. Corwin puts down his horse and continues striding through shadow. Corwin cuts a branch off a tree as a walking aid. The tree complains, but when it learns that he is Oberon's son it gives him its blessing. It says that it is Ygg, and that Oberon planted it in Amber's distant past to mark the boundary between Order and Chaos. It tells him to plant the staff somewhere it will have the chance to grow. A talking raven named Hugi (of the usual color) arrives, and tries to distract Corwin with fatalistic philosophy. It shows Corwin the head of a mostly-drowned Giant, who will not even allow the possibility of rescue. A mythological jackal offers to lead Corwin on a short-cut to the Courts, but instead leads him to its lair, where Corwin kills it in self-defense. He finally finds a shadow with the Courts' sky, but is aghast to discover that the Courts still lie across a huge wasteland. The raven Hugi returns and pointedly tells him it knew all along, so he kills it for his dinner. As the metaphysical storm approaches Chaos, Corwin decides that Oberon must have failed, so he plants his staff and begins to use the Jewel to inscribe a new Pattern. The process evokes memories of his former life in Paris, France, and we are given the impression that these somehow shape the new Pattern. He finishes, but is exhausted, and he collapses at the new Pattern's center. Brand projects himself to Corwin and steals the Jewel. Corwin loses consciousness. Corwin aw"
      },
      {
        "text": " As the metaphysical storm approaches Chaos, Corwin decides that Oberon must have failed, so he plants his staff and begins to use the Jewel to inscribe a new Pattern. The process evokes memories of his former life in Paris, France, and we are given the impression that these somehow shape the new Pattern. He finishes, but is exhausted, and he collapses at the new Pattern's center. Brand projects himself to Corwin and steals the Jewel. Corwin loses consciousness. Corwin awakes to find the area surrounding his Pattern transformed. The sky is now white, and the staff has grown into a tree. Corwin realises that he is at the center of a Pattern, and commands it to teleport him to the Courts. He arrives in the courts, only to be challenged to single combat by someone who introduces himself as Borel, Master at Arms of the Courts of Chaos. He removes his armour to make the fight fair, but Corwin, having no time for a fair fight, slays him then and there, although he does feel slightly guilty about it afterward. Corwin finds Brand with Fiona, Random and Deirdre, at the edge of the Abyss. Fiona is keeping him psychically bound, but Brand has Deirdre as a hostage. Suddenly an image of Oberon fills the sky, telling them that Corwin must use the Jewel to save them from the oncoming Chaos storm, and gives them a blessing. Corwin makes use of the distraction and his attunement to the jewel to super-heat Brand, but Brand realizes what's happening and starts to cut Deirdre. She pulls herself free, and Brand is shot in the chest and throat with a bow. He staggers, and grabs Deirdre's hair. They both fall into the Abyss. Corwin tries to follow her, and Random has to knock him out. Corwin wakes up to see Caine there, alive and well. He explains how he faked his own"
      },
      {
        "text": " his attunement to the jewel to super-heat Brand, but Brand realizes what's happening and starts to cut Deirdre. She pulls herself free, and Brand is shot in the chest and throat with a bow. He staggers, and grabs Deirdre's hair. They both fall into the Abyss. Corwin tries to follow her, and Random has to knock him out. Corwin wakes up to see Caine there, alive and well. He explains how he faked his own death and spied on the others using the Trumps. It was him who shot Brand, using silver-tipped arrows, just in case. They watch Amber's armies crush the forces of Chaos while the storm continues to advance. A funeral procession, led by Dworkin, emerges from the storm front, accompanied by all sorts of various fantastic beasts. Fiona appears with Dara and Corwin's son, Merlin. Corwin discusses with Fiona the possibility that two Patterns now exist; she can't decide whether that is good or bad. Dara arrives, angry with Corwin for killing Borel, and then leaves. Merlin arrives with her, but stays, eager to learn more about his father. The Unicorn appears from the Abyss, wearing the Jewel of Judgement. It examines each of the Amberites in turn, then kneels in front of Random. The rest of the family kneel in front of him too, and pledge their allegiance to him as the new King. Random takes the Jewel, and Corwin is able to guide him through the attunement process. Corwin is exhausted, and stays with Random while the others go to the Courts, where they think they should be safe. Merlin stays, and asks to hear about his father's adventures. Corwin begins narrating the Chronicles to his son. Random is successful, and the Trumps become active. They contact G\u00e9rard, who tells them that the multiverse is fine, although seven years have passed."
      },
      {
        "text": " the Jewel, and Corwin is able to guide him through the attunement process. Corwin is exhausted, and stays with Random while the others go to the Courts, where they think they should be safe. Merlin stays, and asks to hear about his father's adventures. Corwin begins narrating the Chronicles to his son. Random is successful, and the Trumps become active. They contact G\u00e9rard, who tells them that the multiverse is fine, although seven years have passed. Corwin reflects on his changed attitudes towards his family, and on the changes in himself.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Garden of Cyrus",
    "author": "Thomas Browne",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " With its near vertiginous procession of visual imagery and objects, its constant reinforcement of how God geometrizes (via the symbols of the number five and Quincunx pattern), developed from hastily jotted notes in a fractured, breathless, style, The Garden of Cyrus is one of the most idiosyncratic of all literary works. A critical examination of draught manuscripts reveals that the rapid procession of visual images from art and nature in Browne's 1658 Discourse were written with uncharacteristic haste, as if the physician-philosopher's imagination were conjuring evidence of the Quincunx pattern faster than his pen could possibly write. Cyrus may therefore be considered an early example of stream of consciousness and even of altered consciousness writing. Not unlike Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, or the science fiction of H. G. Wells,'The Garden of Cyrus' invites the reader to share with its author in a fantastic perspective upon life and reality. There are however two major reasons why The Garden of Cyrus is not as well known as its diptych companion, Urn-Burial. Firstly, due to an editorial and publishing trend, totally against Browne's artistic intentions, it has been omitted from many nineteenth and twentieth century editions. Because it has been little understood, it has thus been frequently omitted in many publications. Even modern editions from highly reputable publishers, such as Penguin New Directions in 2006 and New York Review Books in May 2012 continue to perpetuate this error. The second reason for The Garden of Cyrus being little-known is the sheer difficulty of the text itself, which has baffled all but the most determined readers. Stylistically, the Discourse veers abruptly from passages of sublime purple prose to crabbed note-book jottings. It also alludes to what is now considered to be obscure learning, namely hermeticism and the esoteric in general. Though difficult to read, The Garden of Cyrus however remains an important work of English literature, primarily because it is incontrovertible evidence that as late as the mid-seventeenth century, isolated individuals throughout Europe continued to subscribe to the tenets of hermetic philosophy.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " With its near vertiginous procession of visual imagery and objects, its constant reinforcement of how God geometrizes (via the symbols of the number five and Quincunx pattern), developed from hastily jotted notes in a fractured, breathless, style, The Garden of Cyrus is one of the most idiosyncratic of all literary works. A critical examination of draught manuscripts reveals that the rapid procession of visual images from art and nature in Browne's 1658 Discourse were written with uncharacteristic haste, as if the physician-philosopher's imagination were conjuring evidence of the Quincunx pattern faster than his pen could possibly write. Cyrus may therefore be considered an early example of stream of consciousness and even of altered consciousness writing. Not unlike Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, or the science fiction of H. G. Wells,'The Garden of Cyrus' invites the reader to share with its author in a fantastic perspective upon life and reality. There are however two major reasons why The Garden of Cyrus is not as well known as its diptych companion, Urn-Burial. Firstly, due to an editorial and publishing trend, totally against Browne's artistic intentions, it has been omitted from many nineteenth and twentieth century editions. Because it has been little understood, it has thus been frequently omitted in many publications. Even modern editions from highly reputable publishers, such as Penguin New Directions in 2006 and New York Review Books in May 2012 continue to perpetuate this error. The second reason for The Garden of Cyrus being little-known is the sheer difficulty of the text itself, which has baffled all but the most determined readers. Stylistically, the Discourse veers abruptly from passages of sublime purple prose to crabbed note-book jottings. It also alludes to what is now considered to be obscure learning, namely hermeticism and the esoteric in general. Though difficult to read, The Garden of Cyrus however remains an important work of English literature, primarily because it is"
      },
      {
        "text": " for The Garden of Cyrus being little-known is the sheer difficulty of the text itself, which has baffled all but the most determined readers. Stylistically, the Discourse veers abruptly from passages of sublime purple prose to crabbed note-book jottings. It also alludes to what is now considered to be obscure learning, namely hermeticism and the esoteric in general. Though difficult to read, The Garden of Cyrus however remains an important work of English literature, primarily because it is incontrovertible evidence that as late as the mid-seventeenth century, isolated individuals throughout Europe continued to subscribe to the tenets of hermetic philosophy.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Roadmarks",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1979",
    "synopsis": " The central theme of the novel is time travel using a highway that links all times and all possible histories. Exits from the highway lead to different times and places. Changing events in the past cause some exits further up the road, in the future, to become overgrown and inaccessible and new exits to appear, leading to different alternative futures. The narrator and protagonist, Red Dorakeen, has vague memories of a place or time that is no longer accessible from the Road. He runs guns to the Greeks at Marathon, trying to recreate history as he remembers it in an attempt to open a new exit from the Road to his half-remembered place. The phrase \"Last Exit to Babylon\" was the manuscript title of the book and appears on the cover art; it was later used as a title for Volume Four in the Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny collection. All \"One\" chapters feature Red Dorakeen, and all \"Two\" chapters feature secondary characters. These are Red's natural son Randy, newly introduced to the Road and tired of his old life in Ohio; a bevy of would-be assassins attempting to kill Red, some of whom are comic references to pulp characters, or real people (it is implied that Ambrose Bierce is writing a novel somewhere on the metaphysical highway) and Leila, a woman whose fate is bound to Red's in mysterious and unexplained ways. The \"One\" storyline is fairly linear, but the \"Two\" storyline jumps around in time and sequence, first bringing in Randy and Leila without introduction, then later showing Randy's introduction to the Road and meeting with Leila, who will/has just abandoned Red following an incident in the \"One\" timeline. Everything comes clear in the final chapter, however. There are a number of interesting humorous touches and allusions in the story. These include an ancient dragon who falls in love with a tyrannosaurus, a futuristic warrior robot left behind by aliens because it is malfunctioning and has now taken up pottery, a lost crusader who now works in a gas station located somewhere on the timeless road, occasionally asking his customers about the \"current\" status of the Holy Land, an ancient Sumerian who buries artifacts later to be found by himself as archaeologist, along with the brief appearances of pulp heroes such as Doc Savage and John Sunlight as well as real historical figures, including Jack the Ripper, Marquis de Sade and an angry Adolf Hitler (who is furiously searching for the place \"where he won\").\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The central theme of the novel is time travel using a highway that links all times and all possible histories. Exits from the highway lead to different times and places. Changing events in the past cause some exits further up the road, in the future, to become overgrown and inaccessible and new exits to appear, leading to different alternative futures. The narrator and protagonist, Red Dorakeen, has vague memories of a place or time that is no longer accessible from the Road. He runs guns to the Greeks at Marathon, trying to recreate history as he remembers it in an attempt to open a new exit from the Road to his half-remembered place. The phrase \"Last Exit to Babylon\" was the manuscript title of the book and appears on the cover art; it was later used as a title for Volume Four in the Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny collection. All \"One\" chapters feature Red Dorakeen, and all \"Two\" chapters feature secondary characters. These are Red's natural son Randy, newly introduced to the Road and tired of his old life in Ohio; a bevy of would-be assassins attempting to kill Red, some of whom are comic references to pulp characters, or real people (it is implied that Ambrose Bierce is writing a novel somewhere on the metaphysical highway) and Leila, a woman whose fate is bound to Red's in mysterious and unexplained ways. The \"One\" storyline is fairly linear, but the \"Two\" storyline jumps around in time and sequence, first bringing in Randy and Leila without introduction, then later showing Randy's introduction to the Road and meeting with Leila, who will/has just abandoned Red following an incident in the \"One\" timeline. Everything comes clear in the final chapter, however. There are a number of interesting humorous touches and allusions in the story. These include an ancient dragon who falls in love with a tyrannosaurus, a futuristic warrior robot left behind by aliens because it is malfunctioning and has"
      },
      {
        "text": " time and sequence, first bringing in Randy and Leila without introduction, then later showing Randy's introduction to the Road and meeting with Leila, who will/has just abandoned Red following an incident in the \"One\" timeline. Everything comes clear in the final chapter, however. There are a number of interesting humorous touches and allusions in the story. These include an ancient dragon who falls in love with a tyrannosaurus, a futuristic warrior robot left behind by aliens because it is malfunctioning and has now taken up pottery, a lost crusader who now works in a gas station located somewhere on the timeless road, occasionally asking his customers about the \"current\" status of the Holy Land, an ancient Sumerian who buries artifacts later to be found by himself as archaeologist, along with the brief appearances of pulp heroes such as Doc Savage and John Sunlight as well as real historical figures, including Jack the Ripper, Marquis de Sade and an angry Adolf Hitler (who is furiously searching for the place \"where he won\").\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lord of Light",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1967",
    "synopsis": " Lord of Light is set on a planet colonized by some of the remnants of \"vanished Urath,\" or Earth. The crew and colonists from the spaceship Star of India found themselves on a strange planet surrounded by hostile indigenous races and had to carve a place for themselves or perish. To increase their chances of survival, the crew has used chemical treatments, biofeedback and electronics to mutate their minds and create enhanced self-images, or \"Aspects,\" that \"strengthened their bodies and intensified their wills and extended the power of their desires into Attributes, which fell with a force like magic upon those against whom they were turned.\" The crew has also developed a technology to transfer a person's atman, or soul, electronically to a new body. This reincarnation by mind transfer has created a race of potential immortals and allowed the former crew members to institute the Hindu caste system, with themselves at the top. The novel covers great spans of time. Eventually, the crew used their now-great powers to subjugate or destroy the native non-human races (whom they characterize as demons) while setting themselves up as gods in the eyes of the many generations of colonist progeny. Taking on the powers and names of Hindu deities, these \"gods\" maintain respect and control of the masses by maintaining a stranglehold on the access to reincarnation and by suppressing any technological advancements beyond a medieval level. The gods fear that any enlightenment or advancement might lead to a technological renaissance that would eventually weaken their power. The protagonist, Sam, who has developed the ability to manipulate electromagnetic forces, is a renegade crewman who has rejected godhood. Sam is the last \"Accelerationist\": He believes that technology should be available to the masses, and that reincarnation should not be controlled by the elite. Sam introduces Buddhism as a culture jamming tool and strives to cripple the power of the gods with this \"new\" religion. His carefully planned revolt against the gods takes place in stages: \"An army, great in space, may offer opposition in a brief span of time. One man, brief in space, must spread his opposition across a period of many years if he is to have a chance of succeeding.\" In many ways, the story of Lord of Light mirrors that of the novel Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. (for characters, see descriptions below) # In a monastery, the deathgod Yama \u2013 assisted by Tak, the ape (formerly Tak the Archivist for the gods) and Ratri, Goddess of Night \u2013 assembles a clandestine radio transceiver to extract Sam's atman, or soul, from the \"Bridge of the Gods,\" the planet's thick ionosphere, and restore it to a body. Sam's bodiless essence was projected by the gods into the ionosphere after his capture in the battle of Keenset. This mode of execution was used because the last time the gods killed his body, Sam returned and stole a new one from one of the lesser gods. When Sam awakes, he claims to be horrified to be back in the flesh, having been aware of his ethereal condition the whole time, and having experienced it as a blissful Nirvana. He wants to return, to \"hear the song the stars sing on the shores of the great sea.\" Eventually, after meditation on and immersion in earthly senses, he returns fully to the world. Shortly after, an encounter with the god Mara, who had come to investigate the disturbances caused by Yama's machinery, causes the conspirators to flee. As they proceed, Sam muses on his past .... # Prince Siddhartha, entering old age, comes down to the city of Mahartha to obtain a new body. He finds that there have been changes while he has lived on his estates. Before getting the body, he must submit to a mind-probe, operated by the Masters of Karma, which will be used to determine his fitness for reincarnation. Those judged unfit are given diseased bodies or even reincarnated as animals such as dogs. The dogs then act as spies for the Masters. Siddhartha contacts Jan Olvegg, former captain of the Star of India, reveals himself as Sam, and realizes from what he is told that he cannot remain passive, and must proceed against the Gods. He raids the House of Karma, steals bodies for himself, Olvegg, and others, and causes the former Chief Master of Karma to be reincarnated as a dog. He then disappears to execute the next stage of his plan. # The Buddha appears, preaching a philosophy of non-violence that undermines the doctrine of obedience to the gods and the struggle for a better rebirth. Instead, he emphasizes the pursuit of Nirvana and release from the illusion of the world. The goddess Kali, realizing that this is Sam's work, sends her personal executioner, Rild, to kill Sam, but Rild falls ill and is found and tended to by the Buddhist acolytes, as well as by Sam himself. Because he owes Sam his life, Rild renounces his mission after he recovers. He becomes one of Sam's disciples, eventually exceeding his teacher's wisdom. He takes the name Sugata, preaching in earnest what Sam had done only calculatingly as a way to overthrow the gods. Yama descends to kill Sam. Sugata/Rild faces Yama on a treetrunk bridge over a river, knowing he cannot defeat the God of Death, but fighting him anyway. Yama kills Rild and proceeds to find Sam. However, Sam tricks Yama and escapes, promising to return with \"new weapons.\" Sam also warns Yama against the machinations of Yama's beloved Kali, and in so doing makes a personal enemy of Yama. # Sam enters Hellwell, a huge pit where he had bound the demons centuries earlier. He negotiates with their leader, Taraka, for allies in his struggle. He frees Taraka to see the world above, but Taraka betrays him by taking possession of Sam's body, promising to resume the bargain \"later.\" While in control of Sam's body, Taraka deposes a local maharajah and takes over his palace and harem. As Sam recovers control of his body, he finds himself becoming more like Taraka, enjoying the pleasures of the flesh. In turn, Taraka takes on some aspects of Sam, and ceases to revel in his life of pleasure. Sam tells him he has suffered the Curse of the Buddha, which is revealed to be a conscience and guilt. Soon after, Agni, God of Fire, arrives to kill Sam, finding instead two spirits in one body. Agni destroys the palace, while Sam/Taraka flees to Hellwell. They decide to free as many demons as possible before the gods arrive. However, even the full might of all the demons of Hellwell cannot stand against the gods. A mere four of the gods, Yama, Kali, Shiva, and Agni, are able to hold off the demons and pursue Sam. Despite his own powers, Sam is captured and Taraka leaves him. Sam is told that he is to be taken to Heaven and made an example of, lest the other gods try to emulate his rebellion. # In the place called Heaven, Yama and Kali are to be married. Tak of the Bright Spear is the Archivist of Heaven, but is suspect because he was fathered in lifetimes past by Sam. However, Tak's main concern is seducing comely demi-goddesses such as Maya, the Mistress of Illusion. Sam is more or less free to wander Heaven, even trysting with Kali, who would like to have him back as her lover. He preaches to any who will listen, and the gods allow this, hoping to flush out sympathizers. However, Sam knows of some of his old gadgetry locked away in one of the museums in Heaven, and with the help of Helba, the Goddess of Thieves, he attempts an escape using a belt that amplifies his powers. This fails, and Kali, disgusted with herself and with him, persuades Brahma to order a human sacrifice, namely Helba and Sam himself, to celebrate her wedding. Sam is set free once more to flee for his life, hunted by the White Tigers of Kaniburrha, some of whom may be reincarnated gods, perhaps even Kali herself. Tak attempts to protect Sam by killing the tigers, but is struck down by Ganesha. For this, Tak is sent out of Heaven in the body of an ape. The wedding proceeds, with Sam apparently dead. # Brahma is dead. He has been murdered by persons or gods unknown. Vishnu, Shiva, and Ganesha gather to quickly arrange a replacement. They decide that the only viable candidate is Kali. However, for her to be reincarnated as Brahma (a man), her short marriage to Yama must end. Yama is appalled at how coldly she accepts this. Next, Shiva is found murdered. Yama throws himself into investigating the deaths. His friend, Kubera, approaches the demigod Murugan and accuses him of the murders, finally addressing him as Sam. It appears that Sam has become part-demon, and can survive without a body. He displaced Murugan's spirit as Murugan was about to occupy a new body for the wedding feast. Kubera uncovered the deception by examining the brainwave records from the transfer. Instead of turning Sam in, Kubera offers to help him escape. Sam refuses, determined to kill as many gods as he can. Since Kubera's friend, Yama, is the obvious next target, Kubera tricks Sam, who has forgotten what a great warrior the fat old man was, and in a bout of Irish Stand-Down (in which two men take turns hitting each other until one cannot continue), knocks him out and prepares to flee on the giant bird Garuda. They recruit Ratri to stop Yama from interfering, and take her along. They flee to the city of Keenset, which is undergoing a technological revival, and is marked for destruction by the gods. Eventually, Yama, feeling betrayed by Kali and the other gods, joins them. With Yama's weaponry, and various allies, including the zombie army of Nirriti the Black, they fight a titanic battle of gods, men, and monsters, killing thousands of men, demigods, and eventually some gods as well. They go down in defeat, but not before dealing a crushing blow to the hierarchy of heaven. Yama apparently commits suicide, but some suspect that he has invented a remote reincarnation device. Ratri is exiled from heaven and condemned to wander the world in a series of homely bodies. Kubera had hidden himself in a vault, held in suspended animation. Sam, having proved himself unkillable, is instead projected into the ring of ions around the planet, known as the Bridge of the Gods. However, the gods win only a pyrrhic victory. The most powerful deities, such as Yama, Brahma, Shiva, and Agni, are now dead or sworn enemies of Heaven. Others have gone into exile rather than fight against Sam. While Brahma/Kali is exultant, Ganesha realizes that the days of Heaven are numbered, and he must look out for himself. # In the final story, Sam has been returned from Nirvana. Sam, together with Yama, Ratri, and Kubera, plan their next move in their campaign against heaven. They are joined by the drunken god Krishna, who is a great fighter when sober, and who has wandered the world since he went into exile rather than fight at Keenset. Meanwhile, Nirriti, a Christian and the former chaplain of the original ship, has amassed great power in the southern continent. He is laying waste to cities in his attempts to stamp out the Hindu religion that he hates. He has acquired enough technology to challenge anything the gods can muster, even if they resort to \"the tall man of smoke who wears a wide hat,\" apparently a reference to a nuclear device. He is also allied with the freed demons. At first he seems to be a natural ally for Sam and Yama, but they entrust the demon Taraka with conveying a message to him, and Taraka is determined to fight Yama, to prove that Taraka is the mightiest being on the planet. Thus Taraka falsely tells them that Nirriti has refused, and instead they ally with Brahma to defeat Nirriti, if Brahma will consent to their demands. This alliance defeats Nirriti in a final battle, despite Ganesha's attempt at betrayal, but at a huge cost. Brahma (the former Kali), fatally wounded, is conveyed from the battlefield by Yama. Later, Kubera finds Yama with his \"daughter\", whom he calls \"Murga\". She is retarded, and Yama admits that this was due to a botched mind-transfer. Kubera, always ready to help his friend, uses his powers to stimulate Murga's mind. Sam sees Tak restored to a young body, as is Ratri. Sam then leaves, no one is sure where to. Myths build up around his life and his departure.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Lord of Light is set on a planet colonized by some of the remnants of \"vanished Urath,\" or Earth. The crew and colonists from the spaceship Star of India found themselves on a strange planet surrounded by hostile indigenous races and had to carve a place for themselves or perish. To increase their chances of survival, the crew has used chemical treatments, biofeedback and electronics to mutate their minds and create enhanced self-images, or \"Aspects,\" that \"strengthened their bodies and intensified their wills and extended the power of their desires into Attributes, which fell with a force like magic upon those against whom they were turned.\" The crew has also developed a technology to transfer a person's atman, or soul, electronically to a new body. This reincarnation by mind transfer has created a race of potential immortals and allowed the former crew members to institute the Hindu caste system, with themselves at the top. The novel covers great spans of time. Eventually, the crew used their now-great powers to subjugate or destroy the native non-human races (whom they characterize as demons) while setting themselves up as gods in the eyes of the many generations of colonist progeny. Taking on the powers and names of Hindu deities, these \"gods\" maintain respect and control of the masses by maintaining a stranglehold on the access to reincarnation and by suppressing any technological advancements beyond a medieval level. The gods fear that any enlightenment or advancement might lead to a technological renaissance that would eventually weaken their power. The protagonist, Sam, who has developed the ability to manipulate electromagnetic forces, is a renegade crewman who has rejected godhood. Sam is the last \"Accelerationist\": He believes that technology should be available to the masses, and that reincarnation should not be controlled by the elite. Sam introduces Buddhism as a culture jamming tool and strives to cripple the power of the gods with this \"new\" religion. His carefully planned revolt"
      },
      {
        "text": " a technological renaissance that would eventually weaken their power. The protagonist, Sam, who has developed the ability to manipulate electromagnetic forces, is a renegade crewman who has rejected godhood. Sam is the last \"Accelerationist\": He believes that technology should be available to the masses, and that reincarnation should not be controlled by the elite. Sam introduces Buddhism as a culture jamming tool and strives to cripple the power of the gods with this \"new\" religion. His carefully planned revolt against the gods takes place in stages: \"An army, great in space, may offer opposition in a brief span of time. One man, brief in space, must spread his opposition across a period of many years if he is to have a chance of succeeding.\" In many ways, the story of Lord of Light mirrors that of the novel Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. (for characters, see descriptions below) # In a monastery, the deathgod Yama \u2013 assisted by Tak, the ape (formerly Tak the Archivist for the gods) and Ratri, Goddess of Night \u2013 assembles a clandestine radio transceiver to extract Sam's atman, or soul, from the \"Bridge of the Gods,\" the planet's thick ionosphere, and restore it to a body. Sam's bodiless essence was projected by the gods into the ionosphere after his capture in the battle of Keenset. This mode of execution was used because the last time the gods killed his body, Sam returned and stole a new one from one of the lesser gods. When Sam awakes, he claims to be horrified to be back in the flesh, having been aware of his ethereal condition the whole time, and having experienced it as a blissful Nirvana. He wants to return, to \"hear the song the stars sing on the shores of the great sea.\" Eventually, after meditation on and immersion in earthly senses, he returns fully to the world. Shortly after, an encounter with the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Sam returned and stole a new one from one of the lesser gods. When Sam awakes, he claims to be horrified to be back in the flesh, having been aware of his ethereal condition the whole time, and having experienced it as a blissful Nirvana. He wants to return, to \"hear the song the stars sing on the shores of the great sea.\" Eventually, after meditation on and immersion in earthly senses, he returns fully to the world. Shortly after, an encounter with the god Mara, who had come to investigate the disturbances caused by Yama's machinery, causes the conspirators to flee. As they proceed, Sam muses on his past .... # Prince Siddhartha, entering old age, comes down to the city of Mahartha to obtain a new body. He finds that there have been changes while he has lived on his estates. Before getting the body, he must submit to a mind-probe, operated by the Masters of Karma, which will be used to determine his fitness for reincarnation. Those judged unfit are given diseased bodies or even reincarnated as animals such as dogs. The dogs then act as spies for the Masters. Siddhartha contacts Jan Olvegg, former captain of the Star of India, reveals himself as Sam, and realizes from what he is told that he cannot remain passive, and must proceed against the Gods. He raids the House of Karma, steals bodies for himself, Olvegg, and others, and causes the former Chief Master of Karma to be reincarnated as a dog. He then disappears to execute the next stage of his plan. # The Buddha appears, preaching a philosophy of non-violence that undermines the doctrine of obedience to the gods and the struggle for a better rebirth. Instead, he emphasizes the pursuit of Nirvana and release from the illusion of the world. The goddess Kali, realizing that this is Sam's work, sends her personal executioner, Rild, to kill Sam, but Rild"
      },
      {
        "text": " the former Chief Master of Karma to be reincarnated as a dog. He then disappears to execute the next stage of his plan. # The Buddha appears, preaching a philosophy of non-violence that undermines the doctrine of obedience to the gods and the struggle for a better rebirth. Instead, he emphasizes the pursuit of Nirvana and release from the illusion of the world. The goddess Kali, realizing that this is Sam's work, sends her personal executioner, Rild, to kill Sam, but Rild falls ill and is found and tended to by the Buddhist acolytes, as well as by Sam himself. Because he owes Sam his life, Rild renounces his mission after he recovers. He becomes one of Sam's disciples, eventually exceeding his teacher's wisdom. He takes the name Sugata, preaching in earnest what Sam had done only calculatingly as a way to overthrow the gods. Yama descends to kill Sam. Sugata/Rild faces Yama on a treetrunk bridge over a river, knowing he cannot defeat the God of Death, but fighting him anyway. Yama kills Rild and proceeds to find Sam. However, Sam tricks Yama and escapes, promising to return with \"new weapons.\" Sam also warns Yama against the machinations of Yama's beloved Kali, and in so doing makes a personal enemy of Yama. # Sam enters Hellwell, a huge pit where he had bound the demons centuries earlier. He negotiates with their leader, Taraka, for allies in his struggle. He frees Taraka to see the world above, but Taraka betrays him by taking possession of Sam's body, promising to resume the bargain \"later.\" While in control of Sam's body, Taraka deposes a local maharajah and takes over his palace and harem. As Sam recovers control of his body, he finds himself becoming more like Taraka, enjoying the pleasures of the flesh. In turn, Taraka takes on"
      },
      {
        "text": " Taraka, for allies in his struggle. He frees Taraka to see the world above, but Taraka betrays him by taking possession of Sam's body, promising to resume the bargain \"later.\" While in control of Sam's body, Taraka deposes a local maharajah and takes over his palace and harem. As Sam recovers control of his body, he finds himself becoming more like Taraka, enjoying the pleasures of the flesh. In turn, Taraka takes on some aspects of Sam, and ceases to revel in his life of pleasure. Sam tells him he has suffered the Curse of the Buddha, which is revealed to be a conscience and guilt. Soon after, Agni, God of Fire, arrives to kill Sam, finding instead two spirits in one body. Agni destroys the palace, while Sam/Taraka flees to Hellwell. They decide to free as many demons as possible before the gods arrive. However, even the full might of all the demons of Hellwell cannot stand against the gods. A mere four of the gods, Yama, Kali, Shiva, and Agni, are able to hold off the demons and pursue Sam. Despite his own powers, Sam is captured and Taraka leaves him. Sam is told that he is to be taken to Heaven and made an example of, lest the other gods try to emulate his rebellion. # In the place called Heaven, Yama and Kali are to be married. Tak of the Bright Spear is the Archivist of Heaven, but is suspect because he was fathered in lifetimes past by Sam. However, Tak's main concern is seducing comely demi-goddesses such as Maya, the Mistress of Illusion. Sam is more or less free to wander Heaven, even trysting with Kali, who would like to have him back as her lover. He preaches to any who will listen, and the gods allow this, hoping to flush out sympathizers. However"
      },
      {
        "text": " Spear is the Archivist of Heaven, but is suspect because he was fathered in lifetimes past by Sam. However, Tak's main concern is seducing comely demi-goddesses such as Maya, the Mistress of Illusion. Sam is more or less free to wander Heaven, even trysting with Kali, who would like to have him back as her lover. He preaches to any who will listen, and the gods allow this, hoping to flush out sympathizers. However, Sam knows of some of his old gadgetry locked away in one of the museums in Heaven, and with the help of Helba, the Goddess of Thieves, he attempts an escape using a belt that amplifies his powers. This fails, and Kali, disgusted with herself and with him, persuades Brahma to order a human sacrifice, namely Helba and Sam himself, to celebrate her wedding. Sam is set free once more to flee for his life, hunted by the White Tigers of Kaniburrha, some of whom may be reincarnated gods, perhaps even Kali herself. Tak attempts to protect Sam by killing the tigers, but is struck down by Ganesha. For this, Tak is sent out of Heaven in the body of an ape. The wedding proceeds, with Sam apparently dead. # Brahma is dead. He has been murdered by persons or gods unknown. Vishnu, Shiva, and Ganesha gather to quickly arrange a replacement. They decide that the only viable candidate is Kali. However, for her to be reincarnated as Brahma (a man), her short marriage to Yama must end. Yama is appalled at how coldly she accepts this. Next, Shiva is found murdered. Yama throws himself into investigating the deaths. His friend, Kubera, approaches the demigod Murugan and accuses him of the murders, finally addressing him as Sam. It appears that Sam has become part-demon, and can survive without a body."
      },
      {
        "text": " is Kali. However, for her to be reincarnated as Brahma (a man), her short marriage to Yama must end. Yama is appalled at how coldly she accepts this. Next, Shiva is found murdered. Yama throws himself into investigating the deaths. His friend, Kubera, approaches the demigod Murugan and accuses him of the murders, finally addressing him as Sam. It appears that Sam has become part-demon, and can survive without a body. He displaced Murugan's spirit as Murugan was about to occupy a new body for the wedding feast. Kubera uncovered the deception by examining the brainwave records from the transfer. Instead of turning Sam in, Kubera offers to help him escape. Sam refuses, determined to kill as many gods as he can. Since Kubera's friend, Yama, is the obvious next target, Kubera tricks Sam, who has forgotten what a great warrior the fat old man was, and in a bout of Irish Stand-Down (in which two men take turns hitting each other until one cannot continue), knocks him out and prepares to flee on the giant bird Garuda. They recruit Ratri to stop Yama from interfering, and take her along. They flee to the city of Keenset, which is undergoing a technological revival, and is marked for destruction by the gods. Eventually, Yama, feeling betrayed by Kali and the other gods, joins them. With Yama's weaponry, and various allies, including the zombie army of Nirriti the Black, they fight a titanic battle of gods, men, and monsters, killing thousands of men, demigods, and eventually some gods as well. They go down in defeat, but not before dealing a crushing blow to the hierarchy of heaven. Yama apparently commits suicide, but some suspect that he has invented a remote reincarnation device. Ratri is exiled from heaven and condemned to wander the world"
      },
      {
        "text": " Yama's weaponry, and various allies, including the zombie army of Nirriti the Black, they fight a titanic battle of gods, men, and monsters, killing thousands of men, demigods, and eventually some gods as well. They go down in defeat, but not before dealing a crushing blow to the hierarchy of heaven. Yama apparently commits suicide, but some suspect that he has invented a remote reincarnation device. Ratri is exiled from heaven and condemned to wander the world in a series of homely bodies. Kubera had hidden himself in a vault, held in suspended animation. Sam, having proved himself unkillable, is instead projected into the ring of ions around the planet, known as the Bridge of the Gods. However, the gods win only a pyrrhic victory. The most powerful deities, such as Yama, Brahma, Shiva, and Agni, are now dead or sworn enemies of Heaven. Others have gone into exile rather than fight against Sam. While Brahma/Kali is exultant, Ganesha realizes that the days of Heaven are numbered, and he must look out for himself. # In the final story, Sam has been returned from Nirvana. Sam, together with Yama, Ratri, and Kubera, plan their next move in their campaign against heaven. They are joined by the drunken god Krishna, who is a great fighter when sober, and who has wandered the world since he went into exile rather than fight at Keenset. Meanwhile, Nirriti, a Christian and the former chaplain of the original ship, has amassed great power in the southern continent. He is laying waste to cities in his attempts to stamp out the Hindu religion that he hates. He has acquired enough technology to challenge anything the gods can muster, even if they resort to \"the tall man of smoke who wears a wide hat,\" apparently a reference to a nuclear device. He is also allied with the freed"
      },
      {
        "text": " exile rather than fight at Keenset. Meanwhile, Nirriti, a Christian and the former chaplain of the original ship, has amassed great power in the southern continent. He is laying waste to cities in his attempts to stamp out the Hindu religion that he hates. He has acquired enough technology to challenge anything the gods can muster, even if they resort to \"the tall man of smoke who wears a wide hat,\" apparently a reference to a nuclear device. He is also allied with the freed demons. At first he seems to be a natural ally for Sam and Yama, but they entrust the demon Taraka with conveying a message to him, and Taraka is determined to fight Yama, to prove that Taraka is the mightiest being on the planet. Thus Taraka falsely tells them that Nirriti has refused, and instead they ally with Brahma to defeat Nirriti, if Brahma will consent to their demands. This alliance defeats Nirriti in a final battle, despite Ganesha's attempt at betrayal, but at a huge cost. Brahma (the former Kali), fatally wounded, is conveyed from the battlefield by Yama. Later, Kubera finds Yama with his \"daughter\", whom he calls \"Murga\". She is retarded, and Yama admits that this was due to a botched mind-transfer. Kubera, always ready to help his friend, uses his powers to stimulate Murga's mind. Sam sees Tak restored to a young body, as is Ratri. Sam then leaves, no one is sure where to. Myths build up around his life and his departure.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " restored to a young body, as is Ratri. Sam then leaves, no one is sure where to. Myths build up around his life and his departure.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The BFG",
    "author": "Roald Dahl",
    "published_date": "1982",
    "synopsis": " The story is about a little girl named Sophie, after the author's granddaughter Sophie Dahl. One night, when Sophie cannot fall asleep during the \"witching hour\", she sees a giant blowing something into the bedroom windows down the street. The giant notices her, reaches through the window, and carries her to his home in Giant Country. Once there, he reveals that he is the world's only benevolent giant, the Big Friendly Giant or BFG, who operating in the strictest secrecy, collects good dreams that he later distributes to children. By means of immense ears he can hear dreams and their contents (which manifest themselves in a misty Dream Country as floating, blob-like objects) and blow them via a trumpet-like blowpipe into the bedrooms of children. When he catches a nightmare, he destroys it, or uses it to start fights among the other giants, who periodically enter the human world to steal and eat \"human beans\", especially children. The BFG, because he refuses to do likewise, subsists on a foul-tasting vegetable known as a snozzcumber (inspired by English cucumbers), and on a drink called frobscottle, which is unusual in that the bubbles in the drink travel downwards and therefore cause the drinker to break wind instead of burp; this causes noisy flatulence known as Whizzpoppers. Sophie and the BFG become friends early on; later, she persuades him to approach the Queen of England with the aim of capturing the other giants to prevent them from eating any more people. To this end, the BFG creates a nightmare introducing knowledge of the man-eating giants to the Queen and leaves Sophie in the Queen's bedroom to confirm it true. Because the dream included the knowledge of Sophie's presence, the Queen believes her and speaks with the BFG. After considerable effort by the palace staff to create a table, chair, and cutlery of appropriate size for him to use, the BFG is given a lavish breakfast, and the Queen forms a plan to capture the other giants. She calls the King of Sweden and the Sultan of Baghdad to confirm the BFG's story - the giants having visited those locations on the previous two nights – then summons the Head of the Army and the Marshal of the Air Force. The said officers, though initially belligerent and skeptical, eventually agree to co-operate. Eventually, a huge fleet of helicopters follows the BFG to the giants' homeland. While the child-eating giants are asleep, the Army ties them up, hangs them under the helicopters, and (after a brief struggle with the largest and fiercest of the giants, known as the Fleshlumpeater), flies them to London, where a special pit has been constructed from which they will not be able to escape. With thousands watching closely, the BFG unties the giants, then feeds them snozzcumbers which they will eat for the rest of their lives as a punishment for eating human beings. Afterwards, a huge castle is built to serve as the BFG's new house, with a little cottage next door for Sophie. While they are living happily in England, the BFG writes a book of their adventures, which is stated to be the same book in which the afore-mentioned story is narrated (a literary device also apparent in James and the Giant Peach and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is about a little girl named Sophie, after the author's granddaughter Sophie Dahl. One night, when Sophie cannot fall asleep during the \"witching hour\", she sees a giant blowing something into the bedroom windows down the street. The giant notices her, reaches through the window, and carries her to his home in Giant Country. Once there, he reveals that he is the world's only benevolent giant, the Big Friendly Giant or BFG, who operating in the strictest secrecy, collects good dreams that he later distributes to children. By means of immense ears he can hear dreams and their contents (which manifest themselves in a misty Dream Country as floating, blob-like objects) and blow them via a trumpet-like blowpipe into the bedrooms of children. When he catches a nightmare, he destroys it, or uses it to start fights among the other giants, who periodically enter the human world to steal and eat \"human beans\", especially children. The BFG, because he refuses to do likewise, subsists on a foul-tasting vegetable known as a snozzcumber (inspired by English cucumbers), and on a drink called frobscottle, which is unusual in that the bubbles in the drink travel downwards and therefore cause the drinker to break wind instead of burp; this causes noisy flatulence known as Whizzpoppers. Sophie and the BFG become friends early on; later, she persuades him to approach the Queen of England with the aim of capturing the other giants to prevent them from eating any more people. To this end, the BFG creates a nightmare introducing knowledge of the man-eating giants to the Queen and leaves Sophie in the Queen's bedroom to confirm it true. Because the dream included the knowledge of Sophie's presence, the Queen believes her and speaks with the BFG. After considerable effort by the palace staff to create a table, chair, and cutlery of appropriate size for him to use, the B"
      },
      {
        "text": " the aim of capturing the other giants to prevent them from eating any more people. To this end, the BFG creates a nightmare introducing knowledge of the man-eating giants to the Queen and leaves Sophie in the Queen's bedroom to confirm it true. Because the dream included the knowledge of Sophie's presence, the Queen believes her and speaks with the BFG. After considerable effort by the palace staff to create a table, chair, and cutlery of appropriate size for him to use, the BFG is given a lavish breakfast, and the Queen forms a plan to capture the other giants. She calls the King of Sweden and the Sultan of Baghdad to confirm the BFG's story - the giants having visited those locations on the previous two nights – then summons the Head of the Army and the Marshal of the Air Force. The said officers, though initially belligerent and skeptical, eventually agree to co-operate. Eventually, a huge fleet of helicopters follows the BFG to the giants' homeland. While the child-eating giants are asleep, the Army ties them up, hangs them under the helicopters, and (after a brief struggle with the largest and fiercest of the giants, known as the Fleshlumpeater), flies them to London, where a special pit has been constructed from which they will not be able to escape. With thousands watching closely, the BFG unties the giants, then feeds them snozzcumbers which they will eat for the rest of their lives as a punishment for eating human beings. Afterwards, a huge castle is built to serve as the BFG's new house, with a little cottage next door for Sophie. While they are living happily in England, the BFG writes a book of their adventures, which is stated to be the same book in which the afore-mentioned story is narrated (a literary device also apparent in James and the Giant Peach and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar).\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the rest of their lives as a punishment for eating human beings. Afterwards, a huge castle is built to serve as the BFG's new house, with a little cottage next door for Sophie. While they are living happily in England, the BFG writes a book of their adventures, which is stated to be the same book in which the afore-mentioned story is narrated (a literary device also apparent in James and the Giant Peach and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Tommyknockers",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1987-11-10",
    "synopsis": " While walking in the woods near the small town of Haven, Maine; Roberta (Bobbi) Anderson, a writer of Wild West-themed fiction, stumbles upon a metal object which turns out to be a protrusion of a long-buried alien spacecraft. Once exposed, the spacecraft begins releasing an invisible, odorless gas into the atmosphere which gradually transforms people into beings similar to the aliens who populated the spacecraft. The transformation, or \"becoming,\" provides them with a limited form of genius which makes them very inventive, but does not provide any philosophical or ethical insight. Instead, it provokes psychotic violence (on the part of people like Becka Paulson, who kills her adulterous husband by fatally rewiring their TV, killing herself in the process) and the disappearance of a young boy, David Brown, whose older brother Hilly teleports him to another planet, referred to as Altair 4 by the Havenites. The book's central protagonist is a poet and friend of Bobbi Anderson, named James Eric Gardner, who goes by the nickname \"Gard\". He is a fundamentally decent person with left-leaning, liberal sensibilities who is apparently immune to the ship's effects because of a steel plate in his head, a souvenir of a teenage skiing accident. Unfortunately, Gard is also an alcoholic, prone to binges which result in violent outbursts followed by lengthy blackouts. His relationship with Bobbi deteriorates as the novel progresses. She is almost totally overcome by the euphoria of \"becoming\" one with the spacecraft, but Gard increasingly sees her health worsen and her sanity disappear. The novel is filled with metaphors for the stranglehold of substance abuse, which King himself was experiencing at the time, as well as for the dangers of nuclear power and radioactive fallout (as evidenced by the physical transformations of the townspeople, which resemble the effects of radiation exposure), of unchecked technological advancement, and of the corrupting influence of power. Government agencies are uniformly portrayed as corrupt and totalitarian throughout the book, and Bobbi and Gard themselves are led into thinking that they can use the ship's \"power\" as a weapon to thwart the authorities' nefarious designs. Seeing the transformation of the townspeople worsen, the torture and manipulation of Bobbi's dog Peter, and people being killed or worse when they pry too deeply into the strange events, Gardner eventually manipulates Bobbi into allowing him into the ship. After he sees that Bobbi is not entirely his old friend and lover, he gives her one more chance before deciding to kill her with the same gun that state trooper \"Monster\" Dugan had almost killed her with in her back field previously. However, Bobbi was able to read Gardner's mind after loading him up with Valium, and sent out a telepathic APB when she sensed he had a gun. As a result, her death sends all the townspeople swarming to her place intent on killing Gardner. Meanwhile, Gard accidentally (by dropping the gun) shoots himself in the ankle. Ev Hillman, David and Hilly's grandfather, helps Gardner escape into the woods (which soon catches fire from one of the Tommyknockers' \"toys\") in exchange for using the \"new and improved\" computers and what little \"becoming\" he underwent to save David Brown. Gardner enters the ship, activates it, and with the last of his life telepathically launches it into space, resulting in the eventual deaths of nearly all of the changed townspeople but preventing the possibly disastrous consequences of the ship's influence spreading to the outside world. Very shortly after (in the epilogue) members from the FBI, CIA, and \"The Shop\" invade Haven and take as many of the Havenites as possible (they kill nearly a quarter of the survivors) and a few of the devices created by the altered people of Haven. In the last pages, David Brown is discovered in Hilly Brown's hospital room, safe and sound. The book takes its title from an old children's rhyme: King himself wrote the second verse; and claims to have heard the first verse when he was a child.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " While walking in the woods near the small town of Haven, Maine; Roberta (Bobbi) Anderson, a writer of Wild West-themed fiction, stumbles upon a metal object which turns out to be a protrusion of a long-buried alien spacecraft. Once exposed, the spacecraft begins releasing an invisible, odorless gas into the atmosphere which gradually transforms people into beings similar to the aliens who populated the spacecraft. The transformation, or \"becoming,\" provides them with a limited form of genius which makes them very inventive, but does not provide any philosophical or ethical insight. Instead, it provokes psychotic violence (on the part of people like Becka Paulson, who kills her adulterous husband by fatally rewiring their TV, killing herself in the process) and the disappearance of a young boy, David Brown, whose older brother Hilly teleports him to another planet, referred to as Altair 4 by the Havenites. The book's central protagonist is a poet and friend of Bobbi Anderson, named James Eric Gardner, who goes by the nickname \"Gard\". He is a fundamentally decent person with left-leaning, liberal sensibilities who is apparently immune to the ship's effects because of a steel plate in his head, a souvenir of a teenage skiing accident. Unfortunately, Gard is also an alcoholic, prone to binges which result in violent outbursts followed by lengthy blackouts. His relationship with Bobbi deteriorates as the novel progresses. She is almost totally overcome by the euphoria of \"becoming\" one with the spacecraft, but Gard increasingly sees her health worsen and her sanity disappear. The novel is filled with metaphors for the stranglehold of substance abuse, which King himself was experiencing at the time, as well as for the dangers of nuclear power and radioactive fallout (as evidenced by the physical transformations of the townspeople, which resemble the effects of radiation exposure), of unchecked technological advancement, and of the corrupting influence of power. Government"
      },
      {
        "text": " totally overcome by the euphoria of \"becoming\" one with the spacecraft, but Gard increasingly sees her health worsen and her sanity disappear. The novel is filled with metaphors for the stranglehold of substance abuse, which King himself was experiencing at the time, as well as for the dangers of nuclear power and radioactive fallout (as evidenced by the physical transformations of the townspeople, which resemble the effects of radiation exposure), of unchecked technological advancement, and of the corrupting influence of power. Government agencies are uniformly portrayed as corrupt and totalitarian throughout the book, and Bobbi and Gard themselves are led into thinking that they can use the ship's \"power\" as a weapon to thwart the authorities' nefarious designs. Seeing the transformation of the townspeople worsen, the torture and manipulation of Bobbi's dog Peter, and people being killed or worse when they pry too deeply into the strange events, Gardner eventually manipulates Bobbi into allowing him into the ship. After he sees that Bobbi is not entirely his old friend and lover, he gives her one more chance before deciding to kill her with the same gun that state trooper \"Monster\" Dugan had almost killed her with in her back field previously. However, Bobbi was able to read Gardner's mind after loading him up with Valium, and sent out a telepathic APB when she sensed he had a gun. As a result, her death sends all the townspeople swarming to her place intent on killing Gardner. Meanwhile, Gard accidentally (by dropping the gun) shoots himself in the ankle. Ev Hillman, David and Hilly's grandfather, helps Gardner escape into the woods (which soon catches fire from one of the Tommyknockers' \"toys\") in exchange for using the \"new and improved\" computers and what little \"becoming\" he underwent to save David Brown. Gardner enters the ship, activates it, and with the last of his life telepathically launches it into space, resulting"
      },
      {
        "text": " Meanwhile, Gard accidentally (by dropping the gun) shoots himself in the ankle. Ev Hillman, David and Hilly's grandfather, helps Gardner escape into the woods (which soon catches fire from one of the Tommyknockers' \"toys\") in exchange for using the \"new and improved\" computers and what little \"becoming\" he underwent to save David Brown. Gardner enters the ship, activates it, and with the last of his life telepathically launches it into space, resulting in the eventual deaths of nearly all of the changed townspeople but preventing the possibly disastrous consequences of the ship's influence spreading to the outside world. Very shortly after (in the epilogue) members from the FBI, CIA, and \"The Shop\" invade Haven and take as many of the Havenites as possible (they kill nearly a quarter of the survivors) and a few of the devices created by the altered people of Haven. In the last pages, David Brown is discovered in Hilly Brown's hospital room, safe and sound. The book takes its title from an old children's rhyme: King himself wrote the second verse; and claims to have heard the first verse when he was a child.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Journey to the West",
    "author": "Wu Cheng'en",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel has 100 chapters. These can be divided into four very unequal parts. The first, which includes chapters 1\u20137, is really a self-contained introduction to the main story. It deals entirely with the earlier exploits of Sun Wukong, a monkey born from a stone nourished by the Five Elements, who learns the art of the Tao, 72 polymorphic transformations, combat, and secrets of immortality, and through guile and force makes a name for himself, Qitian Dasheng (), or \"Great Sage Equal to Heaven\". His powers grow to match the forces of all of the Eastern (Taoist) deities, and the prologue culminates in Sun's rebellion against Heaven, during a time when he garnered a post in the celestial bureaucracy. Hubris proves his downfall when the Buddha manages to trap him under a mountain, sealing the mountain with a talisman for five hundred years. Only following this introductory story is the nominal main character, Xuanzang (Tang Sanzang), introduced. Chapters 8\u201312 provide his early biography and the background to his great journey. Dismayed that \"the land of the South knows only greed, hedonism, promiscuity, and sins\", the Buddha instructs the bodhisattva Avalokite\u015bvara (Guanyin) to search Tang China for someone to take the Buddhist sutras of \"transcendence and persuasion for good will\" back to the East. Part of the story here also relates to how Xuanzang becomes a monk (as well as revealing his past life as a disciple of the Buddha named \"Golden Cicada\" (\u91d1\u87ec\u5b50) and comes about being sent on this pilgrimage by Emperor Taizong, who previously escaped death with the help of an official in the Underworld). The third and longest section of the work is chapters 13\u201399, an episodic adventure story in which Xuanzang sets out to bring back Buddhist scriptures from Leiyin Temple on Vulture Peak in India, but encounters various evils along the way. The section is set in the sparsely populated lands along the Silk Road between China and India, including Xinjiang, Turkestan, and Afghanistan. The geography described in the book is, however, almost entirely fantastic; once Xuanzang departs Chang'an, the Tang capital, and crosses the frontier (somewhere in Gansu province), he finds himself in a wilderness of deep gorges and tall mountains, inhabited by demons and animal spirits, who regard him as a potential meal (since his flesh was believed to give immortality to whoever ate it), with the occasional hidden monastery or royal city-state amidst the harsh setting. Episodes consist of 1\u20134 chapters and usually involve Xuanzang being captured and having his life threatened while his disciples try to find an ingenious (and often violent) way of liberating him. Although some of Xuanzang's predicaments are political and involve ordinary human beings, they more frequently consist of run-ins with various demons, many of whom turn out to be earthly manifestations of heavenly beings (whose sins will be negated by eating the flesh of Xuanzang) or animal-spirits with enough Taoist spiritual merit to assume semi-human forms. Chapters 13\u201322 do not follow this structure precisely, as they introduce Xuanzang's disciples, who, inspired or goaded by Guanyin, meet and agree to serve him along the way in order to atone for their sins in their past lives. * The first is Sun Wukong, or Monkey, whose given name loosely means \"awakened to emptiness\" (see the character's main page for a more complete description), trapped by the Buddha for defying Heaven. He appears right away in chapter 13. The most intelligent and violent of the disciples, he is constantly reproved for his violence by Xuanzang. Ultimately, he can only be controlled by a magic gold ring that Guanyin has placed around his head, which causes him unbearable headaches when Xuanzang chants the Ring Tightening Mantra. * The second, appearing in chapter 19, is Zhu Bajie, literally \"Eight Precepts Pig\", sometimes translated as Pigsy or just Pig. He was previously the Marshal of the Heavenly Canopy, a commander of Heaven's naval forces, and was banished to the mortal realm for flirting with the moon goddess Chang'e. A reliable fighter, he is characterised by his insatiable appetites for food and sex, and is constantly looking for a way out of his duties, which causes significant conflict with Sun Wukong. * The third, appearing in chapter 22, is the river ogre Sha Wujing, also translated as Friar Sand or Sandy. He was previously the celestial Curtain Lifting General, and was banished to the mortal realm for dropping (and shattering) a crystal goblet of the Queen Mother of the West. He is a quiet but generally dependable character, who serves as the straight foil to the comic relief of Sun and Zhu. * The fourth is the third son of the Dragon King of the West Sea, who was sentenced to death for setting fire to his father's great pearl. He was saved by Guanyin from execution to stay and wait for his call of duty. He appears first in chapter 15, but has almost no speaking role, as throughout the story he mainly appears as a horse that Xuanzang rides on. Chapter 22, where Sha Wujing is introduced, also provides a geographical boundary, as the river that the travelers cross brings them into a new \"continent\". Chapters 23\u201386 take place in the wilderness, and consist of 24 episodes of varying length, each characterised by a different magical monster or evil magician. There are impassably wide rivers, flaming mountains, a kingdom with an all-female population, a lair of seductive spider spirits, and many other fantastic scenarios. Throughout the journey, the four brave disciples have to fend off attacks on their master and teacher Xuanzang from various monsters and calamities. It is strongly suggested that most of these calamities are engineered by fate and/or the Buddha, as, while the monsters who attack are vast in power and many in number, no real harm ever comes to the four travellers. Some of the monsters turn out to be escaped celestial beasts belonging to bodhisattvas or Taoist sages and deities. Towards the end of the book there is a scene where the Buddha literally commands the fulfillment of the last disaster, because Xuanzang is one short of the 81 tribulations he needs to face before attaining Buddhahood. In chapter 87, Xuanzang finally reaches the borderlands of India, and chapters 87\u201399 present magical adventures in a somewhat more mundane (though still exotic) setting. At length, after a pilgrimage said to have taken fourteen years (the text actually only provides evidence for nine of those years, but presumably there was room to add additional episodes) they arrive at the half-real, half-legendary destination of Vulture Peak, where, in a scene simultaneously mystical and comic, Xuanzang receives the scriptures from the living Buddha. Chapter 100, the last of all, quickly describes the return journey to the Tang Empire, and the aftermath in which each traveller receives a reward in the form of posts in the bureaucracy of the heavens. Sun Wukong and Xuanzang achieve Buddhahood, Sha Wujing becomes an arhat, the dragon horse is made a n\u0101ga, and Zhu Bajie, whose good deeds have always been tempered by his greed, is promoted to an altar cleanser (i.e. eater of excess offerings at altars).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel has 100 chapters. These can be divided into four very unequal parts. The first, which includes chapters 1\u20137, is really a self-contained introduction to the main story. It deals entirely with the earlier exploits of Sun Wukong, a monkey born from a stone nourished by the Five Elements, who learns the art of the Tao, 72 polymorphic transformations, combat, and secrets of immortality, and through guile and force makes a name for himself, Qitian Dasheng (), or \"Great Sage Equal to Heaven\". His powers grow to match the forces of all of the Eastern (Taoist) deities, and the prologue culminates in Sun's rebellion against Heaven, during a time when he garnered a post in the celestial bureaucracy. Hubris proves his downfall when the Buddha manages to trap him under a mountain, sealing the mountain with a talisman for five hundred years. Only following this introductory story is the nominal main character, Xuanzang (Tang Sanzang), introduced. Chapters 8\u201312 provide his early biography and the background to his great journey. Dismayed that \"the land of the South knows only greed, hedonism, promiscuity, and sins\", the Buddha instructs the bodhisattva Avalokite\u015bvara (Guanyin) to search Tang China for someone to take the Buddhist sutras of \"transcendence and persuasion for good will\" back to the East. Part of the story here also relates to how Xuanzang becomes a monk (as well as revealing his past life as a disciple of the Buddha named \"Golden Cicada\" (\u91d1\u87ec\u5b50) and comes about being sent on this pilgrimage by Emperor Taizong, who previously escaped death with the help of an official in the Underworld). The third and longest section of the work is chapters 13\u201399, an episodic adventure story in which Xuanzang sets out to bring back Buddhist scriptures from Leiyin"
      },
      {
        "text": " relates to how Xuanzang becomes a monk (as well as revealing his past life as a disciple of the Buddha named \"Golden Cicada\" (\u91d1\u87ec\u5b50) and comes about being sent on this pilgrimage by Emperor Taizong, who previously escaped death with the help of an official in the Underworld). The third and longest section of the work is chapters 13\u201399, an episodic adventure story in which Xuanzang sets out to bring back Buddhist scriptures from Leiyin Temple on Vulture Peak in India, but encounters various evils along the way. The section is set in the sparsely populated lands along the Silk Road between China and India, including Xinjiang, Turkestan, and Afghanistan. The geography described in the book is, however, almost entirely fantastic; once Xuanzang departs Chang'an, the Tang capital, and crosses the frontier (somewhere in Gansu province), he finds himself in a wilderness of deep gorges and tall mountains, inhabited by demons and animal spirits, who regard him as a potential meal (since his flesh was believed to give immortality to whoever ate it), with the occasional hidden monastery or royal city-state amidst the harsh setting. Episodes consist of 1\u20134 chapters and usually involve Xuanzang being captured and having his life threatened while his disciples try to find an ingenious (and often violent) way of liberating him. Although some of Xuanzang's predicaments are political and involve ordinary human beings, they more frequently consist of run-ins with various demons, many of whom turn out to be earthly manifestations of heavenly beings (whose sins will be negated by eating the flesh of Xuanzang) or animal-spirits with enough Taoist spiritual merit to assume semi-human forms. Chapters 13\u201322 do not follow this structure precisely, as they introduce Xuanzang's disciples, who, inspired or goaded by Guanyin, meet and agree to serve him along the way"
      },
      {
        "text": " beings, they more frequently consist of run-ins with various demons, many of whom turn out to be earthly manifestations of heavenly beings (whose sins will be negated by eating the flesh of Xuanzang) or animal-spirits with enough Taoist spiritual merit to assume semi-human forms. Chapters 13\u201322 do not follow this structure precisely, as they introduce Xuanzang's disciples, who, inspired or goaded by Guanyin, meet and agree to serve him along the way in order to atone for their sins in their past lives. * The first is Sun Wukong, or Monkey, whose given name loosely means \"awakened to emptiness\" (see the character's main page for a more complete description), trapped by the Buddha for defying Heaven. He appears right away in chapter 13. The most intelligent and violent of the disciples, he is constantly reproved for his violence by Xuanzang. Ultimately, he can only be controlled by a magic gold ring that Guanyin has placed around his head, which causes him unbearable headaches when Xuanzang chants the Ring Tightening Mantra. * The second, appearing in chapter 19, is Zhu Bajie, literally \"Eight Precepts Pig\", sometimes translated as Pigsy or just Pig. He was previously the Marshal of the Heavenly Canopy, a commander of Heaven's naval forces, and was banished to the mortal realm for flirting with the moon goddess Chang'e. A reliable fighter, he is characterised by his insatiable appetites for food and sex, and is constantly looking for a way out of his duties, which causes significant conflict with Sun Wukong. * The third, appearing in chapter 22, is the river ogre Sha Wujing, also translated as Friar Sand or Sandy. He was previously the celestial Curtain Lifting General, and was banished to the mortal realm for dropping (and shattering) a crystal goblet of the Queen Mother of the West."
      },
      {
        "text": " he is characterised by his insatiable appetites for food and sex, and is constantly looking for a way out of his duties, which causes significant conflict with Sun Wukong. * The third, appearing in chapter 22, is the river ogre Sha Wujing, also translated as Friar Sand or Sandy. He was previously the celestial Curtain Lifting General, and was banished to the mortal realm for dropping (and shattering) a crystal goblet of the Queen Mother of the West. He is a quiet but generally dependable character, who serves as the straight foil to the comic relief of Sun and Zhu. * The fourth is the third son of the Dragon King of the West Sea, who was sentenced to death for setting fire to his father's great pearl. He was saved by Guanyin from execution to stay and wait for his call of duty. He appears first in chapter 15, but has almost no speaking role, as throughout the story he mainly appears as a horse that Xuanzang rides on. Chapter 22, where Sha Wujing is introduced, also provides a geographical boundary, as the river that the travelers cross brings them into a new \"continent\". Chapters 23\u201386 take place in the wilderness, and consist of 24 episodes of varying length, each characterised by a different magical monster or evil magician. There are impassably wide rivers, flaming mountains, a kingdom with an all-female population, a lair of seductive spider spirits, and many other fantastic scenarios. Throughout the journey, the four brave disciples have to fend off attacks on their master and teacher Xuanzang from various monsters and calamities. It is strongly suggested that most of these calamities are engineered by fate and/or the Buddha, as, while the monsters who attack are vast in power and many in number, no real harm ever comes to the four travellers. Some of the monsters turn out to be escaped celestial beasts belonging to bodhisattvas or Taoist sages and"
      },
      {
        "text": " fantastic scenarios. Throughout the journey, the four brave disciples have to fend off attacks on their master and teacher Xuanzang from various monsters and calamities. It is strongly suggested that most of these calamities are engineered by fate and/or the Buddha, as, while the monsters who attack are vast in power and many in number, no real harm ever comes to the four travellers. Some of the monsters turn out to be escaped celestial beasts belonging to bodhisattvas or Taoist sages and deities. Towards the end of the book there is a scene where the Buddha literally commands the fulfillment of the last disaster, because Xuanzang is one short of the 81 tribulations he needs to face before attaining Buddhahood. In chapter 87, Xuanzang finally reaches the borderlands of India, and chapters 87\u201399 present magical adventures in a somewhat more mundane (though still exotic) setting. At length, after a pilgrimage said to have taken fourteen years (the text actually only provides evidence for nine of those years, but presumably there was room to add additional episodes) they arrive at the half-real, half-legendary destination of Vulture Peak, where, in a scene simultaneously mystical and comic, Xuanzang receives the scriptures from the living Buddha. Chapter 100, the last of all, quickly describes the return journey to the Tang Empire, and the aftermath in which each traveller receives a reward in the form of posts in the bureaucracy of the heavens. Sun Wukong and Xuanzang achieve Buddhahood, Sha Wujing becomes an arhat, the dragon horse is made a n\u0101ga, and Zhu Bajie, whose good deeds have always been tempered by his greed, is promoted to an altar cleanser (i.e. eater of excess offerings at altars).\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Xuanzang achieve Buddhahood, Sha Wujing becomes an arhat, the dragon horse is made a n\u0101ga, and Zhu Bajie, whose good deeds have always been tempered by his greed, is promoted to an altar cleanser (i.e. eater of excess offerings at altars).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "253",
    "author": "Geoff Ryman",
    "published_date": "1998",
    "synopsis": " It is about the 253 people on a London Underground train travelling between Embankment station and Elephant & Castle on January 11, 1995. The basic structure of the novel is explained in this quote from the foreword: There are seven carriages on a Bakerloo Line train, each with 36 seats. A train in which every passenger has a seat will carry 252 people. With the driver, that makes 253. Each character is introduced in a separate section containing 253 words. The sections give general details and describe the thoughts going through the characters' heads. In the online version, hypertext links lead to other characters who are nearby or who have some connection to the current character; in the print version, the links are partly replaced by a traditional index. The reader can proceed from one character to another using these devices or can read the novel in positional order, e.g. from one train car to the next, but there is no overall chronological order except in the final section.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It is about the 253 people on a London Underground train travelling between Embankment station and Elephant & Castle on January 11, 1995. The basic structure of the novel is explained in this quote from the foreword: There are seven carriages on a Bakerloo Line train, each with 36 seats. A train in which every passenger has a seat will carry 252 people. With the driver, that makes 253. Each character is introduced in a separate section containing 253 words. The sections give general details and describe the thoughts going through the characters' heads. In the online version, hypertext links lead to other characters who are nearby or who have some connection to the current character; in the print version, the links are partly replaced by a traditional index. The reader can proceed from one character to another using these devices or can read the novel in positional order, e.g. from one train car to the next, but there is no overall chronological order except in the final section.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Trainspotting",
    "author": "Irvine Welsh",
    "published_date": "1993",
    "synopsis": " The Skag Boys, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mother Superior - Narrated by Renton. Mark and Simon (aka Sick Boy) are watching a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie when they decide to go buy heroin from Johnny Swan (aka Mother Superior) since they are both feeling symptoms of withdrawal. They cook up with Raymie (who kisses Sick Boy on the mouth) and Alison (who states about heroin \"That beats any meat injection...that beats any fuckin' cock in the world...\"). After being informed that he should go see Kelly, who has just had an abortion, Renton instead eagerly returns home to watch the rest of his movie. Junk Dilemmas No. 63 - Narrated by Renton. A short (less than a page) piece comparing his high to an internal sea, while noting: \"more short-term sea, more long-term poison\". The First Day of the Edinburgh Festival - Narrated by Renton. Mark initially makes an attempt to come off heroin by acquiring a bare room and all the things he will require when coming down. When withdrawal begins to set in however, he resolves to get another hit to ease the decline. Unable to find any heroin, he acquires opium suppositories which, after a heavy bout of diarrhea, he must recover from a public toilet (a notable scene recreated for the film--\"The Worst public Toilet in Scotland\") showing just how far a junkie will go for a hit (punctuated by the fact that he had to put up with Mikey Forrester to get them, a dealer he loathes). In Overdrive - Narrated by Sick Boy. Simon attempts to pick up girls while being annoyed by Mark, who wants to watch videos. Sick Boy loses Renton and launches into an internal self-glorifying, nihilistic diatribe. Growing Up in Public - Third person narration following Nina, Mark's cousin. Nina is with her family after her Uncle Andy's recent death. She initially feigns indifference but then breaks down without even realising it. It is also revealed that Mark had a catatonic younger brother who died several years before. Victory on New Year's Day - Third person narration following Stevie. At a party consisting of almost all the key characters in the novel, Stevie cannot stop thinking about his girlfriend who he has asked to marry, but has been left waiting for an answer. They optimistically reunite at the train station following a couple of phone calls. It Goes without Saying - Narrated by Renton. Lesley's baby, Dawn, has died. Though it appears to be a cot death, it could also have been from neglect. The Skag Boys are uncomfortable and unsure of how to respond to the tragedy as Lesley cries hysterically. However, Simon/Sick Boy becomes notably more emotional and distressed than the others and eventually breaks down and cries as well, stating he is kicking heroin for good and clearly implying Dawn was his daughter. Mark wants to comfort his friend, but is unable to form the words and simply cooks a shot for himself in order to deal with the situation. A sobbing Lesley asks him to also cook her up a hit, which Mark does but makes sure he injects himself before her, stating the action \"goes without saying\" and proving the harsh truth that no matter what, junk comes first for them all. Junk Dilemmas No. 64 - Narrated by Renton. Mark's mother is knocking on his door while crying. He ignores her pleas and cooks up a shot. He feels guilty about letting her down, but continues to use drugs anyway. Her Man - Narrated by Rab \"Second Prize\" McLaughlin. Second Prize and Tommy are in the pub and Tommy confronts a man who is openly punching his own girlfriend. They are shocked to find the woman supports her abusive boyfriend instead of her would-be liberators by digging her nails into Tommy's face, inciting a brawl. Speedy Recruitment - Varied narration (third person while together in the pub, first person for each interview.) Spud and Renton both have a job interview for the same job, but neither of them wants the job as they would prefer to be unemployed and to continue to receive social security. Both Renton and Spud take Amphetamine prior to their interview, where Renton pretends to be an upper-class heroin addict, while Spud rambles incoherently. Scotland Takes Drugs in Psychic Defence - Narrated by Tommy. He goes to an Iggy Pop gig on the same day as his girlfriend's birthday. He spends the entire chapter using speed and alcohol. The chapter's title refers to an Iggy Pop lyric, which Tommy vehemently affirms. The Glass - Narrated by Renton. Focuses on his \"friendship\" with Begbie. Renton, Begbie and their girlfriends meet up for a drink before going to a party, but it ends when Begbie throws a glass off a balcony, hitting someone and splitting open their head. After this, Begbie smiles at Renton and proceeds to announce to the party he will find whoever threw that glass before attacking random innocent people in the pub and setting off a huge pub brawl. Renton concludes his thoughts on Begbie saying \"He really is a cunt ay the first order. Nae doubt about that. The problem is, he's a mate n aw. What kin ye dae?\" A Disappointment - Narrated by Begbie. Continues the theme of the last chapter. Begbie recalls an ordinary story of being in the pub and staring at a man whom he wanted to fight. Cock Problems - Narrated by Renton. Tommy comes round to Renton's flat (shortly after Renton injected a shot into his penis, hence the title) after being dumped by his girlfriend. Tommy asks Renton to give him some heroin, which he reluctantly does. This sets off Tommy's gradual decline into addiction. Traditional Sunday Breakfast - Narrated by Davie. Davie has woken up at the house of his girlfriend's mother in a puddle of urine, vomit and faeces, after a night of drinking. Embarrassed, he attempts to make off with the sheets and wash them himself. However, Gail's mother starts tugging at the sheets, he resists, and the contents fly all over the family, their kitchen, and their breakfast. (In the film, this unfortunate event is attributed to Spud.) Junk Dilemmas No. 65 - Narrated by Renton. Mark has been lying in a heroin induced daze with someone (whom he ascertains to be Spud), wondering how long they've been there and noting that it could be days since anybody said anything. Renton stresses how cold he is to Spud. Spud is completely unresponsive and Mark thinks he may be dead, seeming unsurprised if he is. Grieving and Mourning in Port Sunshine - third person narration. Renton's brother Billy and his friends Lenny, Naz Peasbo, and Jackie are waiting for their friend Granty to arrive for a game of cards, as he is holding the money pot. They later find out that Granty is dead and his girlfriend has disappeared with the money, prompting them to beat Jackie, whom they knew to have been sleeping with her. Inter Shitty - Narrated by Begbie. Begbie and Renton have pulled an unknown crime and have decided to lie low in London. The chapter covers their train journey. Na Na and Other Nazis - Narrated by Spud, who has managed to kick heroin. He visits his grandmother, where his mixed-race uncle Dode is staying. He recounts the trouble that Dode has had with racism growing up, particularly an event when he and Spud went to a pub and were soon assaulted by white power skinheads saying slogans such as \"ain't no black in the Union Jack\". This abuse led to a fight, which left Dode hospitalised, where Spud visits him. \"I've had worse in the past and I'll have worse in the future\" Dode tells Spud, who begs him not to say such things. \"He looks at us like I'll never understand and I know he's probably right.\" The First Shag in Ages - Third person narration. Renton has kicked heroin and is restless. He ends up picking up a girl at a nightclub, Dianne, and sleeping with her, unaware that she is only fourteen. He is later forced to repeatedly lie to her parents at breakfast the following morning. Despite his guilt and discomfort, he presumably sleeps with Dianne again when she shows up at his apartment. Strolling Through the Meadows - Narrated by Spud. Spud, Renton and Sick Boy take some Ecstasy and stroll to the Meadows where an excited Sick Boy and Renton try to kill a squirrel but stop after Spud becomes upset by their actions towards the animal. He states to the reader that you can't love yourself if you hurt animals as it's wrong and compares their innocence to that of Simon's dead baby Dawn. He also notably states that squirrels are \"lovely\" and \"free\" and that \"that's maybe what Rents can't stand\" indicating Mark envies those he feels are completely unbound and free. Mark, in reaction to Spud's distress and disappointment in his actions, is clearly ashamed and Spud forgives him quickly and the pair embrace, before Simon humorously breaks them up by stating they should either \"go fuck each other in the trees\" or help him find Begbie and Matty. Courting Disaster - Narrated by Renton. Renton and Spud are in court for stealing books. Renton gets a suspended sentence due to his attempts at rehabilitation, while Spud is given a short prison sentence. Renton becomes increasingly despairing at the \"celebrations\" and the people around him. Junk Dilemmas No. 66 - An extremely short passage, presumably narrated by Renton. Renton reflects that his heroin hit has removed his ability to move. Deid Dugs - Narrated by Sick Boy. Using an air rifle, Sick Boy shoots a Bull Terrier, which then attacks its skinhead owner, giving Sick Boy the excuse he needs to kill the dog, which he proceeds to do, using its own collar. He delights when a police officer arrives and informs Sick Boy that he will be recommended for a commendation. Searching for the Inner Man - Narrated by Renton. An important chapter in which Renton reflects on why he used heroin after seeing several psychiatrists, all of whom have different unrelenting approaches to clinical psychology taken from various 20th century psychologists. Renton's cynicism has stopped him from forming meaningful relationships with anyone, and he is unable to get any enjoyment out of anything. Mark confesses he had a hard childhood because of his catatonic younger brother. House Arrest - Narrated by Renton. Renton relapses and has to suffer heroin withdrawal at his parents' house, where his hallucinations of dead baby Dawn, the television programme he is watching, and the lecture provided by his father. He is later visited by Sick Boy and goes out to a pub with his parents, whose unnverving enthusiasm acts as a veneer for their authoritative treatment. Mark is confronted with the tedium and triviality of \"normal\" life, and it is hinted that he will begin using again. Bang to Rites - Narrated by Renton. Renton's brother Billy dies in Northern Ireland with the British Army. Renton attends the funeral; there, he almost starts a fight with some of his father's unionist relatives, and ends up having sex with Billy's pregnant girlfriend in the toilets. Demonstrating some topicality, Renton discusses the hypocrisy of Unionism, and the British in Northern Ireland (commencing with an internal rant against his father's family, who are largely bigoted Orangemen). Junk Dilemmas No. 67 - Another extremely short passage, also presumably narrated by Renton. Renton reflects on the depravity of the world, concluding that deprivation is \"relative\", as well as considers the problems the pills he is about to use will cause to his veins when injected. He concludes that that there are never any dilemmas with junk, and that the ones there are only show up when the junk \"runs oot\". London Crawling - Narrated by Renton. Renton finds himself stranded in London with no place to sleep. He tries to fall asleep in an all-night porno theatre, but there he meets an Italian man named Gi, who makes a pass at him. Renton says he's not gay and after Gi apologetically offers him a place to sleep, Renton takes him up on the offer. However, in the middle of the night, Renton wakes to find Gi masturbating over him and his semen on his cheeks and face. Renton reacts violently, but then takes pity on the sobbing old man. He then decides to take Gi to a late night party. On the way, Gi tells him the tragedy of his life \u2014 how he had a wife and children who he cared about deeply, yet he could not help falling in love with another man named Antonio and after their affair was revealed the two suffered extremely violent homophobic abuse, leading his lover Antonio to kill himself. At the party, Renton notes sadly how frightened and confused Gi looks and decides to take him to a party at his friends house. Bad Blood - Narrated by Davie. Davie, now HIV-positive, takes a particularly horrible revenge upon the man he suspects raped his girlfriend and gave her HIV, leading to his own contraction of the disease. Davie befriends the man, and when the man is on his deathbed Davie tells him that he just savagely raped and violently murdered the man's six-year-old son after dating the man's ex, going so far as to provide photos of the murdered child. After the man's death, Davie reveals to the reader that he never actually hurt the boy; the whole story was made up and that he had actually chloroformed the child in order to create the fake photos. There is a Light That Never Goes Out - Third person narration. After a marathon drinking and partying session, Renton, Spud, Begbie, Gav, Alison and others venture out for another drink and then something to eat. Spud and others reflect upon their sex lives. The chapter is named after a song by The Smiths, in whose lyrics Spud finds solace after his failed attempt at making a pass at a woman. Feeling Free - Narrated by Kelly. Kelly and Alison create a scene in front of a construction site by getting into an argument with some construction workers. They meet some backpacking women and the foursome end up returning to Kelly's where they get high and their new found friends reveal they are in fact lesbians from New Zealand. The girls have a general laugh about, then Renton arrives on a surprise visit for Kelly. The girls pick on him, making particular fun of his masculinity; he takes it in good humour and leaves, noting that Kelly is already busy. Immediately afterwards the women feel guilty for ganging up on him, though Kelly feels that men are only alright \"when in the minority\". The Elusive Mr Hunt - Third person narration. Sick Boy prank calls Kelly's pub where she works from across the street. He asks her to look for a \"Mark Hunt\" and only after she has called the name out (\"This boy is wantin Mark Hunt\") around the pub a few times does she realise how much the men in the pub are laughing at her and how the name sounds like \"my cunt (when said in a Scottish accent)\" causing her a great deal of embarrassment. Renton is present in the pub at the time and laughing along with the other men at Kelly, until he realises she has tears in her eyes. At first he thinks she is being silly and shouldn't take the laughter to heart, but then he recognises the laughter from the men in the pub isn't friendly. \"It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. How was ah tae know, he thinks. How the fuck was ah tae know?\" Easy Money for the Professionals - Narrated by Spud. Spud, Begbie, and a teenager have engaged in a criminal robbery. Spud recounts the crime and comments on Begbie's paranoia and how the teenager is likely to get ripped off by the pair. A Present - Narrated by Renton. Gav tells Renton the story of how Matty died of toxoplasmosis after attempting to rekindle his relationship with his ex using a kitten (a scene re-created for Tommy's funeral in the film version). Memories of Matty - Third person narration. The group attends Matty's funeral, where they reflect on his downfall. Straight Dilemmas No. 1 - Narrated by Renton. Renton finds himself at a small gathering in a London flat surrounded by casual drug users. While the others at the party indulge in joints containing opium and try to berate Renton as a 'suit and tie' light-weight, Renton muses on the idea that they have no clue what true drug addiction entails. Eating Out - Narrated by Kelly. Kelly is working as a waitress in an Edinburgh restaurant and gets revenge on some unpleasant customers. Trainspotting at Leith Central Station - Narrated by Renton. Renton returns to Leith for Christmas. He meets Begbie, who beats up an innocent man after having seen his alcoholic father in the disused Leith Central railway station. A Leg-Over Situation - Narrated by Renton. Renton goes to see a previous drug dealer, Johnny Swann, who has had his leg amputated due to heroin use. Winter in West Granton - Narrated by Renton. Renton goes to visit Tommy, who is dying of AIDS. A Scottish Soldier - Third person narration. Johnny Swann is reduced to begging, pretending to be a soldier who lost his leg in the Falklands War. Swann is quite optimistic and exclaims that he is making more money begging rather than dealing heroin. Station to Station - Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Second Prize go to London to engage in a low-key heroin deal and see a Pogues gig. The book ends with Renton stealing the cash and going to Amsterdam. As the movie and sequel, Porno, both imply, Spud is compensated, in the novel, Renton thinks to himself that he will send Spud his cut, as he is the only 'innocent' party.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Skag Boys, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mother Superior - Narrated by Renton. Mark and Simon (aka Sick Boy) are watching a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie when they decide to go buy heroin from Johnny Swan (aka Mother Superior) since they are both feeling symptoms of withdrawal. They cook up with Raymie (who kisses Sick Boy on the mouth) and Alison (who states about heroin \"That beats any meat injection...that beats any fuckin' cock in the world...\"). After being informed that he should go see Kelly, who has just had an abortion, Renton instead eagerly returns home to watch the rest of his movie. Junk Dilemmas No. 63 - Narrated by Renton. A short (less than a page) piece comparing his high to an internal sea, while noting: \"more short-term sea, more long-term poison\". The First Day of the Edinburgh Festival - Narrated by Renton. Mark initially makes an attempt to come off heroin by acquiring a bare room and all the things he will require when coming down. When withdrawal begins to set in however, he resolves to get another hit to ease the decline. Unable to find any heroin, he acquires opium suppositories which, after a heavy bout of diarrhea, he must recover from a public toilet (a notable scene recreated for the film--\"The Worst public Toilet in Scotland\") showing just how far a junkie will go for a hit (punctuated by the fact that he had to put up with Mikey Forrester to get them, a dealer he loathes). In Overdrive - Narrated by Sick Boy. Simon attempts to pick up girls while being annoyed by Mark, who wants to watch videos. Sick Boy loses Renton and launches into an internal self-glorifying, nihilistic diatribe. Growing Up in Public - Third person narration following Nina, Mark's cousin. Nina is with her"
      },
      {
        "text": " hit (punctuated by the fact that he had to put up with Mikey Forrester to get them, a dealer he loathes). In Overdrive - Narrated by Sick Boy. Simon attempts to pick up girls while being annoyed by Mark, who wants to watch videos. Sick Boy loses Renton and launches into an internal self-glorifying, nihilistic diatribe. Growing Up in Public - Third person narration following Nina, Mark's cousin. Nina is with her family after her Uncle Andy's recent death. She initially feigns indifference but then breaks down without even realising it. It is also revealed that Mark had a catatonic younger brother who died several years before. Victory on New Year's Day - Third person narration following Stevie. At a party consisting of almost all the key characters in the novel, Stevie cannot stop thinking about his girlfriend who he has asked to marry, but has been left waiting for an answer. They optimistically reunite at the train station following a couple of phone calls. It Goes without Saying - Narrated by Renton. Lesley's baby, Dawn, has died. Though it appears to be a cot death, it could also have been from neglect. The Skag Boys are uncomfortable and unsure of how to respond to the tragedy as Lesley cries hysterically. However, Simon/Sick Boy becomes notably more emotional and distressed than the others and eventually breaks down and cries as well, stating he is kicking heroin for good and clearly implying Dawn was his daughter. Mark wants to comfort his friend, but is unable to form the words and simply cooks a shot for himself in order to deal with the situation. A sobbing Lesley asks him to also cook her up a hit, which Mark does but makes sure he injects himself before her, stating the action \"goes without saying\" and proving the harsh truth that no matter what, junk comes first for them all. Junk Dilemm"
      },
      {
        "text": " is kicking heroin for good and clearly implying Dawn was his daughter. Mark wants to comfort his friend, but is unable to form the words and simply cooks a shot for himself in order to deal with the situation. A sobbing Lesley asks him to also cook her up a hit, which Mark does but makes sure he injects himself before her, stating the action \"goes without saying\" and proving the harsh truth that no matter what, junk comes first for them all. Junk Dilemmas No. 64 - Narrated by Renton. Mark's mother is knocking on his door while crying. He ignores her pleas and cooks up a shot. He feels guilty about letting her down, but continues to use drugs anyway. Her Man - Narrated by Rab \"Second Prize\" McLaughlin. Second Prize and Tommy are in the pub and Tommy confronts a man who is openly punching his own girlfriend. They are shocked to find the woman supports her abusive boyfriend instead of her would-be liberators by digging her nails into Tommy's face, inciting a brawl. Speedy Recruitment - Varied narration (third person while together in the pub, first person for each interview.) Spud and Renton both have a job interview for the same job, but neither of them wants the job as they would prefer to be unemployed and to continue to receive social security. Both Renton and Spud take Amphetamine prior to their interview, where Renton pretends to be an upper-class heroin addict, while Spud rambles incoherently. Scotland Takes Drugs in Psychic Defence - Narrated by Tommy. He goes to an Iggy Pop gig on the same day as his girlfriend's birthday. He spends the entire chapter using speed and alcohol. The chapter's title refers to an Iggy Pop lyric, which Tommy vehemently affirms. The Glass - Narrated by Renton. Focuses on his \"friendship\" with Begbie. Renton, Begbie and their"
      },
      {
        "text": " heroin addict, while Spud rambles incoherently. Scotland Takes Drugs in Psychic Defence - Narrated by Tommy. He goes to an Iggy Pop gig on the same day as his girlfriend's birthday. He spends the entire chapter using speed and alcohol. The chapter's title refers to an Iggy Pop lyric, which Tommy vehemently affirms. The Glass - Narrated by Renton. Focuses on his \"friendship\" with Begbie. Renton, Begbie and their girlfriends meet up for a drink before going to a party, but it ends when Begbie throws a glass off a balcony, hitting someone and splitting open their head. After this, Begbie smiles at Renton and proceeds to announce to the party he will find whoever threw that glass before attacking random innocent people in the pub and setting off a huge pub brawl. Renton concludes his thoughts on Begbie saying \"He really is a cunt ay the first order. Nae doubt about that. The problem is, he's a mate n aw. What kin ye dae?\" A Disappointment - Narrated by Begbie. Continues the theme of the last chapter. Begbie recalls an ordinary story of being in the pub and staring at a man whom he wanted to fight. Cock Problems - Narrated by Renton. Tommy comes round to Renton's flat (shortly after Renton injected a shot into his penis, hence the title) after being dumped by his girlfriend. Tommy asks Renton to give him some heroin, which he reluctantly does. This sets off Tommy's gradual decline into addiction. Traditional Sunday Breakfast - Narrated by Davie. Davie has woken up at the house of his girlfriend's mother in a puddle of urine, vomit and faeces, after a night of drinking. Embarrassed, he attempts to make off with the sheets and wash them himself. However, Gail's mother starts tugging at the sheets, he resists, and the"
      },
      {
        "text": "enton to give him some heroin, which he reluctantly does. This sets off Tommy's gradual decline into addiction. Traditional Sunday Breakfast - Narrated by Davie. Davie has woken up at the house of his girlfriend's mother in a puddle of urine, vomit and faeces, after a night of drinking. Embarrassed, he attempts to make off with the sheets and wash them himself. However, Gail's mother starts tugging at the sheets, he resists, and the contents fly all over the family, their kitchen, and their breakfast. (In the film, this unfortunate event is attributed to Spud.) Junk Dilemmas No. 65 - Narrated by Renton. Mark has been lying in a heroin induced daze with someone (whom he ascertains to be Spud), wondering how long they've been there and noting that it could be days since anybody said anything. Renton stresses how cold he is to Spud. Spud is completely unresponsive and Mark thinks he may be dead, seeming unsurprised if he is. Grieving and Mourning in Port Sunshine - third person narration. Renton's brother Billy and his friends Lenny, Naz Peasbo, and Jackie are waiting for their friend Granty to arrive for a game of cards, as he is holding the money pot. They later find out that Granty is dead and his girlfriend has disappeared with the money, prompting them to beat Jackie, whom they knew to have been sleeping with her. Inter Shitty - Narrated by Begbie. Begbie and Renton have pulled an unknown crime and have decided to lie low in London. The chapter covers their train journey. Na Na and Other Nazis - Narrated by Spud, who has managed to kick heroin. He visits his grandmother, where his mixed-race uncle Dode is staying. He recounts the trouble that Dode has had with racism growing up, particularly an event when he and Spud went"
      },
      {
        "text": " have been sleeping with her. Inter Shitty - Narrated by Begbie. Begbie and Renton have pulled an unknown crime and have decided to lie low in London. The chapter covers their train journey. Na Na and Other Nazis - Narrated by Spud, who has managed to kick heroin. He visits his grandmother, where his mixed-race uncle Dode is staying. He recounts the trouble that Dode has had with racism growing up, particularly an event when he and Spud went to a pub and were soon assaulted by white power skinheads saying slogans such as \"ain't no black in the Union Jack\". This abuse led to a fight, which left Dode hospitalised, where Spud visits him. \"I've had worse in the past and I'll have worse in the future\" Dode tells Spud, who begs him not to say such things. \"He looks at us like I'll never understand and I know he's probably right.\" The First Shag in Ages - Third person narration. Renton has kicked heroin and is restless. He ends up picking up a girl at a nightclub, Dianne, and sleeping with her, unaware that she is only fourteen. He is later forced to repeatedly lie to her parents at breakfast the following morning. Despite his guilt and discomfort, he presumably sleeps with Dianne again when she shows up at his apartment. Strolling Through the Meadows - Narrated by Spud. Spud, Renton and Sick Boy take some Ecstasy and stroll to the Meadows where an excited Sick Boy and Renton try to kill a squirrel but stop after Spud becomes upset by their actions towards the animal. He states to the reader that you can't love yourself if you hurt animals as it's wrong and compares their innocence to that of Simon's dead baby Dawn. He also notably states that squirrels are \"lovely\" and \"free\" and that \"that's maybe what Rents can't stand\" indicating Mark envies those he"
      },
      {
        "text": "stasy and stroll to the Meadows where an excited Sick Boy and Renton try to kill a squirrel but stop after Spud becomes upset by their actions towards the animal. He states to the reader that you can't love yourself if you hurt animals as it's wrong and compares their innocence to that of Simon's dead baby Dawn. He also notably states that squirrels are \"lovely\" and \"free\" and that \"that's maybe what Rents can't stand\" indicating Mark envies those he feels are completely unbound and free. Mark, in reaction to Spud's distress and disappointment in his actions, is clearly ashamed and Spud forgives him quickly and the pair embrace, before Simon humorously breaks them up by stating they should either \"go fuck each other in the trees\" or help him find Begbie and Matty. Courting Disaster - Narrated by Renton. Renton and Spud are in court for stealing books. Renton gets a suspended sentence due to his attempts at rehabilitation, while Spud is given a short prison sentence. Renton becomes increasingly despairing at the \"celebrations\" and the people around him. Junk Dilemmas No. 66 - An extremely short passage, presumably narrated by Renton. Renton reflects that his heroin hit has removed his ability to move. Deid Dugs - Narrated by Sick Boy. Using an air rifle, Sick Boy shoots a Bull Terrier, which then attacks its skinhead owner, giving Sick Boy the excuse he needs to kill the dog, which he proceeds to do, using its own collar. He delights when a police officer arrives and informs Sick Boy that he will be recommended for a commendation. Searching for the Inner Man - Narrated by Renton. An important chapter in which Renton reflects on why he used heroin after seeing several psychiatrists, all of whom have different unrelenting approaches to clinical psychology taken from various 20th century psychologists. Renton's cynicism has stopped"
      },
      {
        "text": " Sick Boy the excuse he needs to kill the dog, which he proceeds to do, using its own collar. He delights when a police officer arrives and informs Sick Boy that he will be recommended for a commendation. Searching for the Inner Man - Narrated by Renton. An important chapter in which Renton reflects on why he used heroin after seeing several psychiatrists, all of whom have different unrelenting approaches to clinical psychology taken from various 20th century psychologists. Renton's cynicism has stopped him from forming meaningful relationships with anyone, and he is unable to get any enjoyment out of anything. Mark confesses he had a hard childhood because of his catatonic younger brother. House Arrest - Narrated by Renton. Renton relapses and has to suffer heroin withdrawal at his parents' house, where his hallucinations of dead baby Dawn, the television programme he is watching, and the lecture provided by his father. He is later visited by Sick Boy and goes out to a pub with his parents, whose unnverving enthusiasm acts as a veneer for their authoritative treatment. Mark is confronted with the tedium and triviality of \"normal\" life, and it is hinted that he will begin using again. Bang to Rites - Narrated by Renton. Renton's brother Billy dies in Northern Ireland with the British Army. Renton attends the funeral; there, he almost starts a fight with some of his father's unionist relatives, and ends up having sex with Billy's pregnant girlfriend in the toilets. Demonstrating some topicality, Renton discusses the hypocrisy of Unionism, and the British in Northern Ireland (commencing with an internal rant against his father's family, who are largely bigoted Orangemen). Junk Dilemmas No. 67 - Another extremely short passage, also presumably narrated by Renton. Renton reflects on the depravity of the world, concluding that deprivation is \"relative\", as well as considers the problems the pills he"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s pregnant girlfriend in the toilets. Demonstrating some topicality, Renton discusses the hypocrisy of Unionism, and the British in Northern Ireland (commencing with an internal rant against his father's family, who are largely bigoted Orangemen). Junk Dilemmas No. 67 - Another extremely short passage, also presumably narrated by Renton. Renton reflects on the depravity of the world, concluding that deprivation is \"relative\", as well as considers the problems the pills he is about to use will cause to his veins when injected. He concludes that that there are never any dilemmas with junk, and that the ones there are only show up when the junk \"runs oot\". London Crawling - Narrated by Renton. Renton finds himself stranded in London with no place to sleep. He tries to fall asleep in an all-night porno theatre, but there he meets an Italian man named Gi, who makes a pass at him. Renton says he's not gay and after Gi apologetically offers him a place to sleep, Renton takes him up on the offer. However, in the middle of the night, Renton wakes to find Gi masturbating over him and his semen on his cheeks and face. Renton reacts violently, but then takes pity on the sobbing old man. He then decides to take Gi to a late night party. On the way, Gi tells him the tragedy of his life \u2014 how he had a wife and children who he cared about deeply, yet he could not help falling in love with another man named Antonio and after their affair was revealed the two suffered extremely violent homophobic abuse, leading his lover Antonio to kill himself. At the party, Renton notes sadly how frightened and confused Gi looks and decides to take him to a party at his friends house. Bad Blood - Narrated by Davie. Davie, now HIV-positive, takes a particularly horrible revenge upon the man he suspects raped his girlfriend and"
      },
      {
        "text": " children who he cared about deeply, yet he could not help falling in love with another man named Antonio and after their affair was revealed the two suffered extremely violent homophobic abuse, leading his lover Antonio to kill himself. At the party, Renton notes sadly how frightened and confused Gi looks and decides to take him to a party at his friends house. Bad Blood - Narrated by Davie. Davie, now HIV-positive, takes a particularly horrible revenge upon the man he suspects raped his girlfriend and gave her HIV, leading to his own contraction of the disease. Davie befriends the man, and when the man is on his deathbed Davie tells him that he just savagely raped and violently murdered the man's six-year-old son after dating the man's ex, going so far as to provide photos of the murdered child. After the man's death, Davie reveals to the reader that he never actually hurt the boy; the whole story was made up and that he had actually chloroformed the child in order to create the fake photos. There is a Light That Never Goes Out - Third person narration. After a marathon drinking and partying session, Renton, Spud, Begbie, Gav, Alison and others venture out for another drink and then something to eat. Spud and others reflect upon their sex lives. The chapter is named after a song by The Smiths, in whose lyrics Spud finds solace after his failed attempt at making a pass at a woman. Feeling Free - Narrated by Kelly. Kelly and Alison create a scene in front of a construction site by getting into an argument with some construction workers. They meet some backpacking women and the foursome end up returning to Kelly's where they get high and their new found friends reveal they are in fact lesbians from New Zealand. The girls have a general laugh about, then Renton arrives on a surprise visit for Kelly. The girls pick on him, making particular fun of his masculinity;"
      },
      {
        "text": " a woman. Feeling Free - Narrated by Kelly. Kelly and Alison create a scene in front of a construction site by getting into an argument with some construction workers. They meet some backpacking women and the foursome end up returning to Kelly's where they get high and their new found friends reveal they are in fact lesbians from New Zealand. The girls have a general laugh about, then Renton arrives on a surprise visit for Kelly. The girls pick on him, making particular fun of his masculinity; he takes it in good humour and leaves, noting that Kelly is already busy. Immediately afterwards the women feel guilty for ganging up on him, though Kelly feels that men are only alright \"when in the minority\". The Elusive Mr Hunt - Third person narration. Sick Boy prank calls Kelly's pub where she works from across the street. He asks her to look for a \"Mark Hunt\" and only after she has called the name out (\"This boy is wantin Mark Hunt\") around the pub a few times does she realise how much the men in the pub are laughing at her and how the name sounds like \"my cunt (when said in a Scottish accent)\" causing her a great deal of embarrassment. Renton is present in the pub at the time and laughing along with the other men at Kelly, until he realises she has tears in her eyes. At first he thinks she is being silly and shouldn't take the laughter to heart, but then he recognises the laughter from the men in the pub isn't friendly. \"It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. How was ah tae know, he thinks. How the fuck was ah tae know?\" Easy Money for the Professionals - Narrated by Spud. Spud, Begbie, and a teenager have engaged in a criminal robbery. Spud recounts the crime and comments on Begbie's paranoia and how the teenager is likely to get ripped off by the pair. A Present - Narrated"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the pub isn't friendly. \"It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. How was ah tae know, he thinks. How the fuck was ah tae know?\" Easy Money for the Professionals - Narrated by Spud. Spud, Begbie, and a teenager have engaged in a criminal robbery. Spud recounts the crime and comments on Begbie's paranoia and how the teenager is likely to get ripped off by the pair. A Present - Narrated by Renton. Gav tells Renton the story of how Matty died of toxoplasmosis after attempting to rekindle his relationship with his ex using a kitten (a scene re-created for Tommy's funeral in the film version). Memories of Matty - Third person narration. The group attends Matty's funeral, where they reflect on his downfall. Straight Dilemmas No. 1 - Narrated by Renton. Renton finds himself at a small gathering in a London flat surrounded by casual drug users. While the others at the party indulge in joints containing opium and try to berate Renton as a 'suit and tie' light-weight, Renton muses on the idea that they have no clue what true drug addiction entails. Eating Out - Narrated by Kelly. Kelly is working as a waitress in an Edinburgh restaurant and gets revenge on some unpleasant customers. Trainspotting at Leith Central Station - Narrated by Renton. Renton returns to Leith for Christmas. He meets Begbie, who beats up an innocent man after having seen his alcoholic father in the disused Leith Central railway station. A Leg-Over Situation - Narrated by Renton. Renton goes to see a previous drug dealer, Johnny Swann, who has had his leg amputated due to heroin use. Winter in West Granton - Narrated by Renton. Renton goes to visit Tommy, who is dying of AIDS. A Scottish Soldier - Third"
      },
      {
        "text": " Leith for Christmas. He meets Begbie, who beats up an innocent man after having seen his alcoholic father in the disused Leith Central railway station. A Leg-Over Situation - Narrated by Renton. Renton goes to see a previous drug dealer, Johnny Swann, who has had his leg amputated due to heroin use. Winter in West Granton - Narrated by Renton. Renton goes to visit Tommy, who is dying of AIDS. A Scottish Soldier - Third person narration. Johnny Swann is reduced to begging, pretending to be a soldier who lost his leg in the Falklands War. Swann is quite optimistic and exclaims that he is making more money begging rather than dealing heroin. Station to Station - Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Second Prize go to London to engage in a low-key heroin deal and see a Pogues gig. The book ends with Renton stealing the cash and going to Amsterdam. As the movie and sequel, Porno, both imply, Spud is compensated, in the novel, Renton thinks to himself that he will send Spud his cut, as he is the only 'innocent' party.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Eustace Diamonds",
    "author": "Anthony Trollope",
    "published_date": "1871",
    "synopsis": " In this novel, the characters of Plantagenet Palliser, his wife Lady Glencora and their uncle the ailing Duke of Omnium are in the background. The plot centres on Lizzie Greystock, a fortune-hunter who ensnares the sickly, dissipated Sir Florian Eustace and is soon left a very wealthy widow and mother. While clever and beautiful, Lizzie has several character flaws; the greatest of these is an almost pathological delight in lying, even when it cannot benefit her. (Trollope comments that Lizzie sees lies as \"more beautiful than the truth.\") Before he dies, the disillusioned Sir Florian discovers all this, but does not think to change the generous terms of his will. The diamonds of the book's title are a necklace, a family heirloom that Sir Florian gave to Lizzie to wear. Though they belong to her husband's estate (and thus eventually will be the property of her son), Lizzie refuses to relinquish them. She lies about the terms under which they were given to her, leaving their ownership unclear. The indignant Eustace family lawyer, Mr Camperdown, strives to retrieve the necklace, putting the Eustaces in an awkward position. On the one hand, the diamonds are valuable and Lizzie may not have a legal claim to them, but on the other, they do not want to antagonize the mother of the heir to the family estate (Lizzie having only a life interest). Meanwhile, after a respectable period of mourning, Lizzie searches for another husband, a dashing \"Corsair\" more in keeping with her extravagantly romantic fantasies. She becomes engaged to a dull, but honourable politician, Lord Fawn, but they have a falling out when her character becomes better known, especially her determination to keep the diamonds. She then considers her cousin, Frank Greystock, even though he is already engaged to Lucy Morris, a poor but much beloved governess of the Fawn daughters. Greystock is a successful lawyer and Member of Parliament, but his income is inadequate to his position and spendthrift lifestyle. Lizzie believes he can shield her from the legal proceedings being initiated by Mr Camperdown. Another more Corsair-like possibility is one of the guests at her Scottish home, the older Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, a man who supports himself in a somewhat mysterious manner. Among the other guests is a young woman named Lucinda Roanoke, whose financially straitened aunt, Mrs Carbuncle, is desperate to marry her off. Despite Lucinda's deep detestation of the brutish Sir Griffin Tewett, the aunt has her way and the mismatched couple become engaged. Things take a dramatic turn on a trip to London. Lizzie, out of fear of Mr Camperdown, keeps her diamonds with her in a conspicuous strongbox. One night, at an inn, the strongbox is stolen and everybody assumes the jewellery is lost. As it turns out, Lizzie had taken the gems out and put them under her pillow, but acting on her first instincts, she perjures herself when she has to report the theft to the magistrate, thinking that she can sell the diamonds and let the robbers take the blame. Suspicion falls on both Lizzie and Lord George, acting either together or separately. In any case, the thieves, aided by Lizzie's disloyal maid, Patience Crabstick, try again and succeed in their second attempt. Lizzie feigns illness and takes to her bed. Lady Glencora Palliser pays Lizzie a visit to offer her sympathy. The police begin to unravel the mystery, putting Lizzie in a very uncomfortable position. In the end, the diamonds are lost, the police discover the truth, and Lizzie is forced to confess her lies, though she escapes legal retribution since her testimony is needed to convict the criminals. Both Frank Greystock and Lord George become disgusted by her conduct and desert her. Lucinda Roanoke grows to loathe Sir Griffin more and more intensely until, on what would have been the day of their wedding, she loses her sanity. Frank Greystock returns to Fawn Court to marry Lucy Morris. Mr Emilius, a foreign crypto-Jewish clergyman, woos Lizzie while she is in a vulnerable state and succeeds in marrying her (though it is hinted earlier in the book and is later confirmed in Phineas Redux that he is already married).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In this novel, the characters of Plantagenet Palliser, his wife Lady Glencora and their uncle the ailing Duke of Omnium are in the background. The plot centres on Lizzie Greystock, a fortune-hunter who ensnares the sickly, dissipated Sir Florian Eustace and is soon left a very wealthy widow and mother. While clever and beautiful, Lizzie has several character flaws; the greatest of these is an almost pathological delight in lying, even when it cannot benefit her. (Trollope comments that Lizzie sees lies as \"more beautiful than the truth.\") Before he dies, the disillusioned Sir Florian discovers all this, but does not think to change the generous terms of his will. The diamonds of the book's title are a necklace, a family heirloom that Sir Florian gave to Lizzie to wear. Though they belong to her husband's estate (and thus eventually will be the property of her son), Lizzie refuses to relinquish them. She lies about the terms under which they were given to her, leaving their ownership unclear. The indignant Eustace family lawyer, Mr Camperdown, strives to retrieve the necklace, putting the Eustaces in an awkward position. On the one hand, the diamonds are valuable and Lizzie may not have a legal claim to them, but on the other, they do not want to antagonize the mother of the heir to the family estate (Lizzie having only a life interest). Meanwhile, after a respectable period of mourning, Lizzie searches for another husband, a dashing \"Corsair\" more in keeping with her extravagantly romantic fantasies. She becomes engaged to a dull, but honourable politician, Lord Fawn, but they have a falling out when her character becomes better known, especially her determination to keep the diamonds. She then considers her cousin, Frank Greystock, even though he is already engaged to"
      },
      {
        "text": " estate (Lizzie having only a life interest). Meanwhile, after a respectable period of mourning, Lizzie searches for another husband, a dashing \"Corsair\" more in keeping with her extravagantly romantic fantasies. She becomes engaged to a dull, but honourable politician, Lord Fawn, but they have a falling out when her character becomes better known, especially her determination to keep the diamonds. She then considers her cousin, Frank Greystock, even though he is already engaged to Lucy Morris, a poor but much beloved governess of the Fawn daughters. Greystock is a successful lawyer and Member of Parliament, but his income is inadequate to his position and spendthrift lifestyle. Lizzie believes he can shield her from the legal proceedings being initiated by Mr Camperdown. Another more Corsair-like possibility is one of the guests at her Scottish home, the older Lord George de Bruce Carruthers, a man who supports himself in a somewhat mysterious manner. Among the other guests is a young woman named Lucinda Roanoke, whose financially straitened aunt, Mrs Carbuncle, is desperate to marry her off. Despite Lucinda's deep detestation of the brutish Sir Griffin Tewett, the aunt has her way and the mismatched couple become engaged. Things take a dramatic turn on a trip to London. Lizzie, out of fear of Mr Camperdown, keeps her diamonds with her in a conspicuous strongbox. One night, at an inn, the strongbox is stolen and everybody assumes the jewellery is lost. As it turns out, Lizzie had taken the gems out and put them under her pillow, but acting on her first instincts, she perjures herself when she has to report the theft to the magistrate, thinking that she can sell the diamonds and let the robbers take the blame. Suspicion falls on both Lizzie and Lord George, acting either together or separately. In any case, the thieves,"
      },
      {
        "text": " inn, the strongbox is stolen and everybody assumes the jewellery is lost. As it turns out, Lizzie had taken the gems out and put them under her pillow, but acting on her first instincts, she perjures herself when she has to report the theft to the magistrate, thinking that she can sell the diamonds and let the robbers take the blame. Suspicion falls on both Lizzie and Lord George, acting either together or separately. In any case, the thieves, aided by Lizzie's disloyal maid, Patience Crabstick, try again and succeed in their second attempt. Lizzie feigns illness and takes to her bed. Lady Glencora Palliser pays Lizzie a visit to offer her sympathy. The police begin to unravel the mystery, putting Lizzie in a very uncomfortable position. In the end, the diamonds are lost, the police discover the truth, and Lizzie is forced to confess her lies, though she escapes legal retribution since her testimony is needed to convict the criminals. Both Frank Greystock and Lord George become disgusted by her conduct and desert her. Lucinda Roanoke grows to loathe Sir Griffin more and more intensely until, on what would have been the day of their wedding, she loses her sanity. Frank Greystock returns to Fawn Court to marry Lucy Morris. Mr Emilius, a foreign crypto-Jewish clergyman, woos Lizzie while she is in a vulnerable state and succeeds in marrying her (though it is hinted earlier in the book and is later confirmed in Phineas Redux that he is already married).\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " and succeeds in marrying her (though it is hinted earlier in the book and is later confirmed in Phineas Redux that he is already married).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Anna of the Five Towns",
    "author": "Arnold Bennett",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The plot centres on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father, living in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England. Her activities are strictly controlled by the Methodist church. The novel tells of Anna's struggle for freedom and independence against her father's restraints, and her inward battle between wanting to please her father and wanting to help Willie Price whose father, Titus Price, commits suicide after falling into bankruptcy and debt. During the novel, Anna is courted by the town's most eligible bachelor Henry Mynors, and agrees to be his wife, much to her young sister Agnes' pleasure. She discovers and the end, however, that she loves Willie Price, but does not follow her heart, as he is leaving for Australia, and she is already promised to Mynors. Willie then also commits suicide.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The plot centres on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father, living in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England. Her activities are strictly controlled by the Methodist church. The novel tells of Anna's struggle for freedom and independence against her father's restraints, and her inward battle between wanting to please her father and wanting to help Willie Price whose father, Titus Price, commits suicide after falling into bankruptcy and debt. During the novel, Anna is courted by the town's most eligible bachelor Henry Mynors, and agrees to be his wife, much to her young sister Agnes' pleasure. She discovers and the end, however, that she loves Willie Price, but does not follow her heart, as he is leaving for Australia, and she is already promised to Mynors. Willie then also commits suicide.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Laughing Gas",
    "author": "P. G. Wodehouse",
    "published_date": "1936-09-25",
    "synopsis": " Drone Reginald Swithin, the third Earl of Havershot (\"Reggie\") is 28, unmarried, and has a face like a gorilla. As the new head of his family, he is assigned a delicate task by his Aunt Clara and by Plimsoll, the family lawyer: He is to go to Hollywood and look for Aunt Clara's son, his cousin Eggy, who seems to have gotten himself into trouble, and bring him back home. In particular, Reggie is to prevent Eggy from getting engaged, let alone married, to some American gold-digger who would undoubtedly be far beneath the titled family. On the train from Chicago to Los Angeles, Reggie meets the famous film actress April June, and immediately falls head over heels in love with her. Once in Hollywood, he completely forgets to look for Eggy until, one night, he bumps into him at a party that April June is giving. What is more, Eggy is accompanied by Ann Bannister, Reggie's ex-fianc\u00e9e, who is now engaged to Eggy. According to Eggy, Ann wants to reform him: make him drink less, and get a job as well. As the host of the party, the seemingly wonderful, tender, and caring April June (\"Money and fame mean nothing to me, Lord Havershot\") is difficult to get hold of. When he finally succeeds in doing so and is just about to propose to her, Reggie's tooth\u2014in the nick of time, as it turns out later\u2014starts hurting so badly that he has to postpone all his plans, hurry home, and make an appointment with a dentist. On the following afternoon, he is in I.J. Zizzbaum's waiting-room when he gets to know Joey Cooley, the 12 year-old movie star and darling of all American mothers. Joey is also going to have a tooth out, but Joey is going to be operated on by B.K. Burwash, Zizzbaum's rival\u2014they have a common waiting-room\u2014exactly at the same time as Reggie. Presently reporters storm the dentist's practice in order to take photos of Joey and interview him. Both Reggie and Joey get laughing gas as anaesthetic. When Reggie regains consciousness he finds himself spoken to by B.K. Burwash, and also in the latter's chair. He concludes that there has been a switch in the fourth dimension: Joey's and his souls have changed bodies. Before he can clear up the situation, he is shoved into a car and brought \"home\". Joey's home in Hollywood\u2014originally he is from Chillicothe, Ohio, where his mother lives\u2014is the Brinkmeyer estate, a kind of golden cage for little Joey. He has been informally adopted by T.P. Brinkmeyer, Hollywood film mogul, and his middle-aged sister, Miss Brinkmeyer, who turns out to be particularly nasty. Gradually, Reggie, in Joey's body, gets to know the latter's daily practice, which he finds horrifying: He has been put on a strict diet consisting mainly of dried prunes\u2014but now he has the appetite of a 12 year-old! He must not leave the grounds except on official occasions, and he is not given any pocket money. He finds out very quickly that he can beat Miss Brinkmeyer's strict regime by climbing out of his bedroom window onto the roof of an outbuilding. He finds some confederates among the Brinkmeyers' staff (all of whom are aspiring actors who want to attract Brinkmeyer's attention by playing their servant roles in real life): The gardener readily supplies him with Mexican horned toads and some frogs (to hide in Miss Brinkmeyer's room and clothes); and Chaffinch, the butler, even suggests to him that he may be able to sell Joey's tooth to the press (who in turn might be willing to give it to a souvenir hunter) at the considerable price of $5,000. Desperate for some cash, Reggie agrees but is cheated out of the money by Chaffinch, who takes the money and runs off to New York. Moreover, Reggie is very disturbed when he learns that Ann Bannister has been hired to serve as girl Friday for Joey. For example, her duties include bathing the boy, which Reggie categorically refuses. In the meantime, Joey, in Reggie's body, embarks on a tour of vengeance: He has sworn to (literally) \"poke\" all the unpleasant people around him \"in the snoot\", starting with his press agent and the director of a recent film of his. He also enters the Brinkmeyer estate and pushes Miss Brinkmeyer into the swimming pool. Wherever he goes, eye-witnesses describe him as looking like a gorilla. (Fair-haired Reggie Havershot admits earlier on in the novel that he is not particularly handsome.) On the other hand, wherever Eggy (whose complexion, especially in the morning, is described as \"greenish\") meets Reggie in Joey's body, he thinks his drinking habits have got the better of him. He starts to panic and joins the temperance movement -- the Temple of the New Dawn, to be precise --, eventually becoming engaged to one of its promoters, Mabel Prescott. (All this happens in the course of only two days.) One of the meetings between Reggie/Joey and Eggy is when Eggy is hired as the kid's elocution teacher. Reggie/Joey is also harassed by two other child film stars who live in the neighbourhood, but at least he discovers that he can outrun them. Also, he is kidnapped, but the whole abduction turns out to be a publicity stunt he has not been warned of. While Reggie's soul is still inside Joey's body Reggie also realizes that his beloved April June is a \"pill\" and a scheming and selfish little beast jealous of everybody else's success. When they are alone at her place, she even kicks him with her foot because by his turning up he has disturbed an interview for some magazine or newspaper. On the next morning his career abruptly comes to an end when it is in all the papers that he drank liquor and smoked. At more or less the same time, a coincidence ends Reggie's ordeal: Just as he is walking along a street near where he has been held prisoner, Joey/Reggie comes along driving a police motorcycle and hitting the kid. After a brief period of being unconscious, they both come to again, to discover that they have switched bodies again. They both have to flee the city immediately: Joey because he wants to escape the Brinkmeyers' wrath; and Reggie because he does not want to be caught by the police for what Joey did while walking around in his body (poking several people in the nose, stealing a police motorcycle and similar misdemeanours). Ann Bannister has organized a car that will bring Joey back to his mother in Ohio, and Reggie readily agrees to accompany him. He also makes up with Ann, and they are going to be married.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Drone Reginald Swithin, the third Earl of Havershot (\"Reggie\") is 28, unmarried, and has a face like a gorilla. As the new head of his family, he is assigned a delicate task by his Aunt Clara and by Plimsoll, the family lawyer: He is to go to Hollywood and look for Aunt Clara's son, his cousin Eggy, who seems to have gotten himself into trouble, and bring him back home. In particular, Reggie is to prevent Eggy from getting engaged, let alone married, to some American gold-digger who would undoubtedly be far beneath the titled family. On the train from Chicago to Los Angeles, Reggie meets the famous film actress April June, and immediately falls head over heels in love with her. Once in Hollywood, he completely forgets to look for Eggy until, one night, he bumps into him at a party that April June is giving. What is more, Eggy is accompanied by Ann Bannister, Reggie's ex-fianc\u00e9e, who is now engaged to Eggy. According to Eggy, Ann wants to reform him: make him drink less, and get a job as well. As the host of the party, the seemingly wonderful, tender, and caring April June (\"Money and fame mean nothing to me, Lord Havershot\") is difficult to get hold of. When he finally succeeds in doing so and is just about to propose to her, Reggie's tooth\u2014in the nick of time, as it turns out later\u2014starts hurting so badly that he has to postpone all his plans, hurry home, and make an appointment with a dentist. On the following afternoon, he is in I.J. Zizzbaum's waiting-room when he gets to know Joey Cooley, the 12 year-old movie star and darling of all American mothers. Joey is also going to have a tooth out, but Joey is going to be operated on by B"
      },
      {
        "text": "\u2014in the nick of time, as it turns out later\u2014starts hurting so badly that he has to postpone all his plans, hurry home, and make an appointment with a dentist. On the following afternoon, he is in I.J. Zizzbaum's waiting-room when he gets to know Joey Cooley, the 12 year-old movie star and darling of all American mothers. Joey is also going to have a tooth out, but Joey is going to be operated on by B.K. Burwash, Zizzbaum's rival\u2014they have a common waiting-room\u2014exactly at the same time as Reggie. Presently reporters storm the dentist's practice in order to take photos of Joey and interview him. Both Reggie and Joey get laughing gas as anaesthetic. When Reggie regains consciousness he finds himself spoken to by B.K. Burwash, and also in the latter's chair. He concludes that there has been a switch in the fourth dimension: Joey's and his souls have changed bodies. Before he can clear up the situation, he is shoved into a car and brought \"home\". Joey's home in Hollywood\u2014originally he is from Chillicothe, Ohio, where his mother lives\u2014is the Brinkmeyer estate, a kind of golden cage for little Joey. He has been informally adopted by T.P. Brinkmeyer, Hollywood film mogul, and his middle-aged sister, Miss Brinkmeyer, who turns out to be particularly nasty. Gradually, Reggie, in Joey's body, gets to know the latter's daily practice, which he finds horrifying: He has been put on a strict diet consisting mainly of dried prunes\u2014but now he has the appetite of a 12 year-old! He must not leave the grounds except on official occasions, and he is not given any pocket money. He finds out very quickly that he can beat Miss Brinkmeyer's strict regime by climbing out of his bedroom window onto the"
      },
      {
        "text": " particularly nasty. Gradually, Reggie, in Joey's body, gets to know the latter's daily practice, which he finds horrifying: He has been put on a strict diet consisting mainly of dried prunes\u2014but now he has the appetite of a 12 year-old! He must not leave the grounds except on official occasions, and he is not given any pocket money. He finds out very quickly that he can beat Miss Brinkmeyer's strict regime by climbing out of his bedroom window onto the roof of an outbuilding. He finds some confederates among the Brinkmeyers' staff (all of whom are aspiring actors who want to attract Brinkmeyer's attention by playing their servant roles in real life): The gardener readily supplies him with Mexican horned toads and some frogs (to hide in Miss Brinkmeyer's room and clothes); and Chaffinch, the butler, even suggests to him that he may be able to sell Joey's tooth to the press (who in turn might be willing to give it to a souvenir hunter) at the considerable price of $5,000. Desperate for some cash, Reggie agrees but is cheated out of the money by Chaffinch, who takes the money and runs off to New York. Moreover, Reggie is very disturbed when he learns that Ann Bannister has been hired to serve as girl Friday for Joey. For example, her duties include bathing the boy, which Reggie categorically refuses. In the meantime, Joey, in Reggie's body, embarks on a tour of vengeance: He has sworn to (literally) \"poke\" all the unpleasant people around him \"in the snoot\", starting with his press agent and the director of a recent film of his. He also enters the Brinkmeyer estate and pushes Miss Brinkmeyer into the swimming pool. Wherever he goes, eye-witnesses describe him as looking like a gorilla. (Fair-haired Reggie Havershot admits earlier on in"
      },
      {
        "text": ", in Reggie's body, embarks on a tour of vengeance: He has sworn to (literally) \"poke\" all the unpleasant people around him \"in the snoot\", starting with his press agent and the director of a recent film of his. He also enters the Brinkmeyer estate and pushes Miss Brinkmeyer into the swimming pool. Wherever he goes, eye-witnesses describe him as looking like a gorilla. (Fair-haired Reggie Havershot admits earlier on in the novel that he is not particularly handsome.) On the other hand, wherever Eggy (whose complexion, especially in the morning, is described as \"greenish\") meets Reggie in Joey's body, he thinks his drinking habits have got the better of him. He starts to panic and joins the temperance movement -- the Temple of the New Dawn, to be precise --, eventually becoming engaged to one of its promoters, Mabel Prescott. (All this happens in the course of only two days.) One of the meetings between Reggie/Joey and Eggy is when Eggy is hired as the kid's elocution teacher. Reggie/Joey is also harassed by two other child film stars who live in the neighbourhood, but at least he discovers that he can outrun them. Also, he is kidnapped, but the whole abduction turns out to be a publicity stunt he has not been warned of. While Reggie's soul is still inside Joey's body Reggie also realizes that his beloved April June is a \"pill\" and a scheming and selfish little beast jealous of everybody else's success. When they are alone at her place, she even kicks him with her foot because by his turning up he has disturbed an interview for some magazine or newspaper. On the next morning his career abruptly comes to an end when it is in all the papers that he drank liquor and smoked. At more or less the same time, a coincidence ends Reggie's ordeal: Just as he is walking along a street near"
      },
      {
        "text": " is a \"pill\" and a scheming and selfish little beast jealous of everybody else's success. When they are alone at her place, she even kicks him with her foot because by his turning up he has disturbed an interview for some magazine or newspaper. On the next morning his career abruptly comes to an end when it is in all the papers that he drank liquor and smoked. At more or less the same time, a coincidence ends Reggie's ordeal: Just as he is walking along a street near where he has been held prisoner, Joey/Reggie comes along driving a police motorcycle and hitting the kid. After a brief period of being unconscious, they both come to again, to discover that they have switched bodies again. They both have to flee the city immediately: Joey because he wants to escape the Brinkmeyers' wrath; and Reggie because he does not want to be caught by the police for what Joey did while walking around in his body (poking several people in the nose, stealing a police motorcycle and similar misdemeanours). Ann Bannister has organized a car that will bring Joey back to his mother in Ohio, and Reggie readily agrees to accompany him. He also makes up with Ann, and they are going to be married.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Anthem",
    "author": "Ayn Rand",
    "published_date": "1938",
    "synopsis": " Equality 7-2521, writing in a tunnel under the earth, later revealed to be an ancient subway tunnel, explains his background, the society around him, and his emigration. His exclusive use of plural pronouns (\"we\", \"our\", \"they\") to refer to himself and others tells a tale of complete socialization and governmental control. The idea of the World Council was to eliminate all individualist ideas. It was so stressed, that people were burned at the stake for saying an Unspeakable Word (\"I\", \"Me\", \"Myself\", and \"Ego\"). He recounts his early life. He was raised, like all children in the world of Anthem, away from his parents in the Home of the Infants, then transferred to the Home of the Students, where he began his schooling. Later, he realized that he was born with a \"curse\": He is eager to think and question, and unwilling to give up himself for others, which violates the principles upon which Anthems society is founded. He excelled in math and science, and dreamed of becoming a Scholar. However, a Council of Vocations assigned all people to their jobs, and he was assigned to the Home of the Street Sweepers. Equality accepts his profession willingly in order to repent for his transgression (his desire to learn). He works with International 4-8818 and Union 5-3992. International is exceptionally tall, a great artist (which is his transgression, as only people chosen to be artists may draw), and Equality's only friend (having a friend also being a crime because, in Anthems society, one is not supposed to prefer one of one's brothers over the rest). Union, \"they of the half-brain,\" suffers from some sort of neurological seizures. However, Equality remains curious. One day, he finds the entrance to a subway tunnel in his assigned work area and explores it, despite International 4-8818's protests that an action unauthorized by a Council is forbidden. Equality realizes that the tunnel is left over from the Unmentionable Times, before the creation of Anthems society, and is curious about it. During the daily three hour-long play, he leaves the rest of the community at the theater and enters the tunnel and undertakes scientific experiments. Working outside the City one day, by a field, Equality meets and falls in love with a woman, Liberty 5-3000, whom he names \"The Golden One.\" Liberty 5-3000 names Equality \"The Unconquered\". Continuing his scientific work, Equality rediscovers electricity (which he, until the book nears its conclusion, calls the \"power of the sky\") and the light bulb. He makes a decision to take his inventions to the World Council of Scholars when they arrive in his town in a few days' time, so that they will recognize his talent and allow him to work with them, as well as to make what he sees as a valuable contribution to his fellow men. However, one night he loses track of time in the underground tunnel and his absence from the Home of the Street Sweepers is noticed. When he refuses to say where he has been, he is arrested and sent to the Palace of Corrective Detention, from which he easily escapes after being tortured. The day after his escape, he walks in on the World Council of Scholars and presents his work to them. Horrified, they reject it because it was not authorized by a Council and threatens to upset the equilibrium of their world. When they try to destroy his invention, he takes it and flees into the Uncharted Forest which lies outside the City. Upon entering the Uncharted Forest, Equality begins to realize that he is free, that he no longer must wake up every morning with his brothers to sweep the streets. Since it was illegal for men of the City to enter or even think of the Forest, he was not pursued once he crossed its threshold. He can \"rise, or run, or leap, or fall down again.\" Now that he sees this, he is not stricken with the sense that he will die at the fangs of the beasts of the forest as a result of his transgressions. He develops a new understanding of the world and his place in it. On his second day of living in the forest, Equality stumbles upon the Golden One, Liberty 5-3000, who has followed him from the City. They embrace, struggling to express their feelings for each other as they do not know how to verbally express themselves as individuals. They find and enter a house from the Unmentionable Times in the mountains, perfectly preserved for hundreds of years by thick overgrowth, and decide to live in it. While reading books from the house's library, Equality and Liberty discover that the Unspeakable Word, the one that carries the penalty of death, is \"I\", given through the power of \"ego\". Recognizing its sacred value and the individuality it expresses, they give themselves new names from the books: Equality becomes \"Prometheus\" and Liberty becomes \"Gaea\". As the book closes, Prometheus talks about the past, wonders how men could give up their individuality, and charts a future in which they will regain it. The last word of the book, \"EGO\", is inscribed by Prometheus on a rock and hung over his front door.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Equality 7-2521, writing in a tunnel under the earth, later revealed to be an ancient subway tunnel, explains his background, the society around him, and his emigration. His exclusive use of plural pronouns (\"we\", \"our\", \"they\") to refer to himself and others tells a tale of complete socialization and governmental control. The idea of the World Council was to eliminate all individualist ideas. It was so stressed, that people were burned at the stake for saying an Unspeakable Word (\"I\", \"Me\", \"Myself\", and \"Ego\"). He recounts his early life. He was raised, like all children in the world of Anthem, away from his parents in the Home of the Infants, then transferred to the Home of the Students, where he began his schooling. Later, he realized that he was born with a \"curse\": He is eager to think and question, and unwilling to give up himself for others, which violates the principles upon which Anthems society is founded. He excelled in math and science, and dreamed of becoming a Scholar. However, a Council of Vocations assigned all people to their jobs, and he was assigned to the Home of the Street Sweepers. Equality accepts his profession willingly in order to repent for his transgression (his desire to learn). He works with International 4-8818 and Union 5-3992. International is exceptionally tall, a great artist (which is his transgression, as only people chosen to be artists may draw), and Equality's only friend (having a friend also being a crime because, in Anthems society, one is not supposed to prefer one of one's brothers over the rest). Union, \"they of the half-brain,\" suffers from some sort of neurological seizures. However, Equality remains curious. One day, he finds the entrance to a subway tunnel in his assigned work area and explores it, despite International 4-8818's protests that an action unauthorized"
      },
      {
        "text": " people chosen to be artists may draw), and Equality's only friend (having a friend also being a crime because, in Anthems society, one is not supposed to prefer one of one's brothers over the rest). Union, \"they of the half-brain,\" suffers from some sort of neurological seizures. However, Equality remains curious. One day, he finds the entrance to a subway tunnel in his assigned work area and explores it, despite International 4-8818's protests that an action unauthorized by a Council is forbidden. Equality realizes that the tunnel is left over from the Unmentionable Times, before the creation of Anthems society, and is curious about it. During the daily three hour-long play, he leaves the rest of the community at the theater and enters the tunnel and undertakes scientific experiments. Working outside the City one day, by a field, Equality meets and falls in love with a woman, Liberty 5-3000, whom he names \"The Golden One.\" Liberty 5-3000 names Equality \"The Unconquered\". Continuing his scientific work, Equality rediscovers electricity (which he, until the book nears its conclusion, calls the \"power of the sky\") and the light bulb. He makes a decision to take his inventions to the World Council of Scholars when they arrive in his town in a few days' time, so that they will recognize his talent and allow him to work with them, as well as to make what he sees as a valuable contribution to his fellow men. However, one night he loses track of time in the underground tunnel and his absence from the Home of the Street Sweepers is noticed. When he refuses to say where he has been, he is arrested and sent to the Palace of Corrective Detention, from which he easily escapes after being tortured. The day after his escape, he walks in on the World Council of Scholars and presents his work to them. Horrified, they reject it because it was not authorized by"
      },
      {
        "text": " valuable contribution to his fellow men. However, one night he loses track of time in the underground tunnel and his absence from the Home of the Street Sweepers is noticed. When he refuses to say where he has been, he is arrested and sent to the Palace of Corrective Detention, from which he easily escapes after being tortured. The day after his escape, he walks in on the World Council of Scholars and presents his work to them. Horrified, they reject it because it was not authorized by a Council and threatens to upset the equilibrium of their world. When they try to destroy his invention, he takes it and flees into the Uncharted Forest which lies outside the City. Upon entering the Uncharted Forest, Equality begins to realize that he is free, that he no longer must wake up every morning with his brothers to sweep the streets. Since it was illegal for men of the City to enter or even think of the Forest, he was not pursued once he crossed its threshold. He can \"rise, or run, or leap, or fall down again.\" Now that he sees this, he is not stricken with the sense that he will die at the fangs of the beasts of the forest as a result of his transgressions. He develops a new understanding of the world and his place in it. On his second day of living in the forest, Equality stumbles upon the Golden One, Liberty 5-3000, who has followed him from the City. They embrace, struggling to express their feelings for each other as they do not know how to verbally express themselves as individuals. They find and enter a house from the Unmentionable Times in the mountains, perfectly preserved for hundreds of years by thick overgrowth, and decide to live in it. While reading books from the house's library, Equality and Liberty discover that the Unspeakable Word, the one that carries the penalty of death, is \"I\", given through the power of \"ego\". Recognizing its sacred value and the"
      },
      {
        "text": " for each other as they do not know how to verbally express themselves as individuals. They find and enter a house from the Unmentionable Times in the mountains, perfectly preserved for hundreds of years by thick overgrowth, and decide to live in it. While reading books from the house's library, Equality and Liberty discover that the Unspeakable Word, the one that carries the penalty of death, is \"I\", given through the power of \"ego\". Recognizing its sacred value and the individuality it expresses, they give themselves new names from the books: Equality becomes \"Prometheus\" and Liberty becomes \"Gaea\". As the book closes, Prometheus talks about the past, wonders how men could give up their individuality, and charts a future in which they will regain it. The last word of the book, \"EGO\", is inscribed by Prometheus on a rock and hung over his front door.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "We",
    "author": "Yevgeny Zamyatin",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " One thousand years after the One State's conquest of the entire world, the spaceship Integral is being built in order to invade and conquer extraterrestrial planets. Meanwhile, the project's chief engineer, D-503, begins a journal which he intends to be carried upon the completed Integral. Like all other citizens of the One State, D-503 lives in a glass apartment building and is carefully watched by the secret police, or Bureau of Guardians. D-503's lover, who has been assigned by the One State to visit him on certain nights, is O-90. O-90, who is considered too short to bear children, is deeply grieved by her state in life. O-90's other lover and D-503's best friend, is R-13, a State poet who reads his verse at public executions. While on an assigned walk with O-90, D-503 meets a woman named I-330. I-330 smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol, and shamelessly flirts with D-503 instead of applying for an impersonal sex visit. All of these are highly illegal according to the laws of the One State. Both repelled and fascinated, D-503 struggles to overcome his attraction to I-330. I-330 invites him to visit the Ancient House, notable for being the only opaque building in the One State, except for windows. Objects of aesthetic and historical importance, dug up from around the city, are stored there. There, I-330 offers him the services of a corrupt doctor in order to explain his absence from work. Leaving in horror, D-503 vows to denounce her to the Bureau of Guardians, but finds that he cannot. He begins to have dreams at night, which disturbs him, as dreams are thought to be a symptom of mental illness. Slowly, I-330 reveals to D-503 that she is involved with the MEPHI, an organization plotting to bring down the One State. She takes him through secret tunnels inside the Ancient House to the world outside the Green Wall which surrounds the city-state. There, D-503 meets the inhabitants of the outside world: humans whose bodies are covered with animal fur. The aims of the MEPHI are to destroy the Green Wall and reunite the citizens of the One State with the outside world. Despite the recent rift between them, O-90 pleads with D-503 to impregnate her illegally. After O-90 insists that she will obey the law by turning over their child to be raised by the One State, D-503 obliges. However, as her pregnancy progresses, O-90 realizes that she cannot bear to be parted from her baby under any circumstances. At D-503's request, I-330 arranges for O-90 to be smuggled outside of the Green Wall. In his last journal entry, D-503 indifferently relates that he has been forcibly tied to a table and subjected to the \"Great Operation\" (similar to a lobotomy), which has recently been mandated for all citizens of the One State. This operation removes the imagination and emotions by targeting parts of the brain with x-rays. After this operation, D-503 willingly informed the Benefactor about the inner workings of the MEPHI. However, D-503 expresses surprise that even torture could not induce I-330 to denounce her comrades. Despite her refusal, I-330 and those arrested with her are sentenced to death, \"under the Benefactor's Machine.\" Meanwhile, the MEPHI uprising gathers strength; parts of the Green Wall have been destroyed, birds are repopulating the city, and people start committing acts of social rebellion. Although D-503 expresses hope that the Benefactor shall restore \"reason,\" the novel ends with the One State's authority in doubt. A repeated mantra in the novel is that there is no final revolution.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " One thousand years after the One State's conquest of the entire world, the spaceship Integral is being built in order to invade and conquer extraterrestrial planets. Meanwhile, the project's chief engineer, D-503, begins a journal which he intends to be carried upon the completed Integral. Like all other citizens of the One State, D-503 lives in a glass apartment building and is carefully watched by the secret police, or Bureau of Guardians. D-503's lover, who has been assigned by the One State to visit him on certain nights, is O-90. O-90, who is considered too short to bear children, is deeply grieved by her state in life. O-90's other lover and D-503's best friend, is R-13, a State poet who reads his verse at public executions. While on an assigned walk with O-90, D-503 meets a woman named I-330. I-330 smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol, and shamelessly flirts with D-503 instead of applying for an impersonal sex visit. All of these are highly illegal according to the laws of the One State. Both repelled and fascinated, D-503 struggles to overcome his attraction to I-330. I-330 invites him to visit the Ancient House, notable for being the only opaque building in the One State, except for windows. Objects of aesthetic and historical importance, dug up from around the city, are stored there. There, I-330 offers him the services of a corrupt doctor in order to explain his absence from work. Leaving in horror, D-503 vows to denounce her to the Bureau of Guardians, but finds that he cannot. He begins to have dreams at night, which disturbs him, as dreams are thought to be a symptom of mental illness. Slowly, I-330 reveals to D-503 that she is involved with the MEPHI, an organization plotting to bring down the One State. She takes him through"
      },
      {
        "text": "-330 offers him the services of a corrupt doctor in order to explain his absence from work. Leaving in horror, D-503 vows to denounce her to the Bureau of Guardians, but finds that he cannot. He begins to have dreams at night, which disturbs him, as dreams are thought to be a symptom of mental illness. Slowly, I-330 reveals to D-503 that she is involved with the MEPHI, an organization plotting to bring down the One State. She takes him through secret tunnels inside the Ancient House to the world outside the Green Wall which surrounds the city-state. There, D-503 meets the inhabitants of the outside world: humans whose bodies are covered with animal fur. The aims of the MEPHI are to destroy the Green Wall and reunite the citizens of the One State with the outside world. Despite the recent rift between them, O-90 pleads with D-503 to impregnate her illegally. After O-90 insists that she will obey the law by turning over their child to be raised by the One State, D-503 obliges. However, as her pregnancy progresses, O-90 realizes that she cannot bear to be parted from her baby under any circumstances. At D-503's request, I-330 arranges for O-90 to be smuggled outside of the Green Wall. In his last journal entry, D-503 indifferently relates that he has been forcibly tied to a table and subjected to the \"Great Operation\" (similar to a lobotomy), which has recently been mandated for all citizens of the One State. This operation removes the imagination and emotions by targeting parts of the brain with x-rays. After this operation, D-503 willingly informed the Benefactor about the inner workings of the MEPHI. However, D-503 expresses surprise that even torture could not induce I-330 to denounce her comrades. Despite her refusal, I-330 and those arrested with her are sentenced to death, \"under the"
      },
      {
        "text": " (similar to a lobotomy), which has recently been mandated for all citizens of the One State. This operation removes the imagination and emotions by targeting parts of the brain with x-rays. After this operation, D-503 willingly informed the Benefactor about the inner workings of the MEPHI. However, D-503 expresses surprise that even torture could not induce I-330 to denounce her comrades. Despite her refusal, I-330 and those arrested with her are sentenced to death, \"under the Benefactor's Machine.\" Meanwhile, the MEPHI uprising gathers strength; parts of the Green Wall have been destroyed, birds are repopulating the city, and people start committing acts of social rebellion. Although D-503 expresses hope that the Benefactor shall restore \"reason,\" the novel ends with the One State's authority in doubt. A repeated mantra in the novel is that there is no final revolution.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Migraine",
    "author": "Oliver Sacks",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " As with Sacks' other writings, the book is a comprehensive review of the subject aimed at the lay population and uses numerous case histories. Sacks describes the nature of and treatments for migraine in general and several various subtypes, particularly examining the visual aura feature that is common to many sufferers, along with the premonitorys. The particular focus of the book, however, is on the neuropsychological aspects of migraine.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As with Sacks' other writings, the book is a comprehensive review of the subject aimed at the lay population and uses numerous case histories. Sacks describes the nature of and treatments for migraine in general and several various subtypes, particularly examining the visual aura feature that is common to many sufferers, along with the premonitorys. The particular focus of the book, however, is on the neuropsychological aspects of migraine.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Without Remorse",
    "author": "Tom Clancy",
    "published_date": "1993",
    "synopsis": " The book starts off with John Kelly and two other UDT men performing a maritime demolition of an oil-rig irreparably damaged by Hurricane Camille. While driving to pick him up after the job, Kelly's pregnant wife Patricia (Tish) is killed in a car accident caused by damaged brakes in a large truck. Next to be introduced is Colonel Robin Zacharias, a United States Air Force F-105 pilot, shot down along with his back-seater John Tait during a Wild Weasel strike over North Vietnam (Zacharias is also the father of a B-2 bomber pilot who makes a brief appearance in Debt of Honor). Tait is killed but Robin is captured and reported killed in action, then transferred to a secret POW camp established by the Vietnamese communists to elicit aid from the Soviet Union. Among the prisoners are some who possess highly-classified knowledge, beyond the scope of the Vietnam War. Zacharias, for example, had helped develop SAC War Plans, choosing targets, routes, and methods. He is interrogated by Colonel Nikolai Yevgenievich Grishanov, who asks the prisoners to call him by his nickname Kolya. Grishanov manages to get more information out of the prisoners with kindness and a little vodka than the Vietnamese camp commander Major Vinh had gotten with privation and abuse. Eventually, someone up the chain of command of the NVA decides that the prisoners are not worth keeping and that they can be quietly killed, with plausible deniability. Grishanov then starts to make urgent requests to his superiors that the POWs be brought to the Soviet Union to live out the rest of their lives. While Zacharias is being moved to his cell, a U.S. Buffalo Hunter pilotless drone photographs him, and Admiral Dutch Maxwell recognizes his face. Maxwell, along with two other admirals, develops a special-operation plan entitled Operation BOXWOOD GREEN that will send Marines into North Vietnam to rescue the prisoners. Six months after his wife's death, Kelly meets a girl named Pamela Madden, who has escaped from prostitution and serving as a \"mule\" in a drug-smuggling ring run by Henry Tucker. Kelly picks Pam up off the highway and becomes romantically involved with her. The day after he meets Pam, Kelly befriends two doctors, Sam and Sarah Rosen, who are both professors at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Sam of neurosurgery and Sarah of pharmacology, when they have trouble with their new motorboat. (He had neglected to replace the zinc anodes that normally protect exposed metal from corrosion, and his crumbly propellers have been scraped off by a sandbar, which is not on his outdated charts. Kelly orders new \"screws\" and charts, and Sam owes him.) Kelly discovers, by accident, that Pam is addicted to barbiturates. With the help of Sam and Sarah, Kelly helps Pam recover from her addiction. While bringing her into the city for treatment and to speak with the police, Kelly becomes curious about Pam's old life and attempts to reconnoiter her previous chapters. Unfortunately, Pam is recognized by Billy Grayson, her old pimp, and they are attacked. A car chase ensues, in which Kelly's Scout is at a disadvantage to Billy's Plymouth Roadrunner. At one point, Kelly lures Billy into a vacant lot and gets him stuck in deep mud. However, Kelly makes the mistake of slowing down and stopping; he is shot twice with a shotgun and Pam is kidnapped. A press photographer later finds Pam's dead body displayed in a fountain. Kelly recovers in a hospital with the help of Sam Rosen. At this point, Nurse Sandy O'Toole is asked to take a special interest in Kelly. When Kelly is shown a picture of Pam's body and is informed of her abuse during and after death (she was raped by several men, then strangled) he decides to take revenge and vows to take down the people responsible. Kelly starts a rigorous exercise regime to help heal his body so that he can prepare for his private war with Henry Tucker's drug ring. When Kelly returns to his home he is approached by Admiral Maxwell, who recruits him to spearhead a covert operation to free the dozens of secretly held POWs. Kelly is recruited because he is the only person they know of that has ever spent time in the area of the camp. (Kelly had gone behind enemy lines in the vicinity of the camp [before it was built], to rescue Maxwell's son. Political considerations prevented him from receiving the Medal of Honor for saving an admiral's son, but he received a Navy Cross and a promotion as well as excellent references.) Kelly next sets up a safe house in Baltimore, and goes incognito as a wino to perform recon on the drug pushers. He first kills Pam's first pimp in New Orleans, then several minor drug dealers and eventually learns the location of Billy, a subaltern in the drug ring and one of those who had killed Pam. He captures Billy and rescues Doris Brown, who is a \"mule\" as Pam was. Tucker had ordered all the girls who were his couriers to be killed since they were security risks. Kelly takes Billy to his island and interrogates him in his recompression chamber to get further information about the drug ring. Kelly leaves Doris with Sandy because he must leave to lead the mission to rescue the POWs. The plan fails, as the Soviets catch wind of it courtesy of a loose-mouthed anti-American White House intern who told his prep-school friend, a senate aide who is a mole for the KGB. Kelly does manage to kill the escaping Major Vinh and captures Grishanov, who the U.S. use to negotiate the transfer of the prisoners to the Hanoi Hilton, where they will be confirmed as alive and eventually returned. The presence of mind Kelly shows in capturing, rather than killing, Grishanov impresses the CIA officers involved in the operation, particularly since it ultimately leads to the survival of Zacharias and the other POWs. He then visits Sandy and discovers that Doris has been murdered thanks to a corrupt policeman on Tucker's payroll. Kelly determines the location of the drug ring's first lab, used for \"cutting\" heroin, in a derelict ship near his own island home. It is abandoned after Kelly raids it, executing the men who murdered Doris and releasing Xantha Matthews, another of the \"mules\" whom Tucker had ordered to be killed. Kelly deduces from the formaldehyde smell of the bags containing the heroin, and from the country of origin, that it is being smuggled into the US hidden inside corpses of American soldiers. Kelly is then brought into a meeting with Admiral James Greer and high-ranking CIA official Robert Ritter, who want Kelly to join the agency. Kelly states that there is one major problem, and points to the newspaper that has a front-page story of the raid on the derelict ship. The CIA then begins to plan Kelly's fake death by first switching his prints with the captured Kolya's, while allowing him to finish what he started. The first job given to Kelly by the CIA is to remove the mole. Kelly gives the mole a choice, either commit suicide with the heroin he's collected or Kelly will kill him with his knife. Kelly next tracks the new drug lab to a warehouse in a sleepy industrial district, which the smugglers plan to use as long as their source (and the war) holds out. He sets up a sniper post in a nearby building and lays siege to the warehouse, killing two Mafia hoods. Charon shows up at the scene and, upon learning of the situation outside, attempts to murder Piaggi and Tucker, only to be fatally shot by Piaggi. Moments later, Kelly enters the room where the two drug dealers are holed up and kills them both. Emmet Ryan figures out who the undercover wino was and tracks Kelly to his boat. However, he allows Kelly a one hour head start before he alerts the Coast Guard. Kelly then gets into a boat chase and then purposely capsizes his boat in order to fake his own death and kill off his John Kelly identity. He then uses the diving gear he prepared on his boat to swim under the Coast Guard vessel and onto Admiral Maxwell's sailboat, where the Admiral picks him up. (The Coast Guard officer who'd tried to pursue and arrest him, and who believed him to be dead in the \"accident,\" would unexpectedly meet up with Clark many years later\u2014in the chronology of the \"Ryanverse\"\u2014within the pages of Debt of Honor). Now known as John Clark, he has married Sandy (who is pregnant), and the book ends with the release of the POWs after the end of the war.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book starts off with John Kelly and two other UDT men performing a maritime demolition of an oil-rig irreparably damaged by Hurricane Camille. While driving to pick him up after the job, Kelly's pregnant wife Patricia (Tish) is killed in a car accident caused by damaged brakes in a large truck. Next to be introduced is Colonel Robin Zacharias, a United States Air Force F-105 pilot, shot down along with his back-seater John Tait during a Wild Weasel strike over North Vietnam (Zacharias is also the father of a B-2 bomber pilot who makes a brief appearance in Debt of Honor). Tait is killed but Robin is captured and reported killed in action, then transferred to a secret POW camp established by the Vietnamese communists to elicit aid from the Soviet Union. Among the prisoners are some who possess highly-classified knowledge, beyond the scope of the Vietnam War. Zacharias, for example, had helped develop SAC War Plans, choosing targets, routes, and methods. He is interrogated by Colonel Nikolai Yevgenievich Grishanov, who asks the prisoners to call him by his nickname Kolya. Grishanov manages to get more information out of the prisoners with kindness and a little vodka than the Vietnamese camp commander Major Vinh had gotten with privation and abuse. Eventually, someone up the chain of command of the NVA decides that the prisoners are not worth keeping and that they can be quietly killed, with plausible deniability. Grishanov then starts to make urgent requests to his superiors that the POWs be brought to the Soviet Union to live out the rest of their lives. While Zacharias is being moved to his cell, a U.S. Buffalo Hunter pilotless drone photographs him, and Admiral Dutch Maxwell recognizes his face. Maxwell, along with two other admirals, develops a special-operation plan entitled Operation BOXWOOD GREEN that will send Marines into North"
      },
      {
        "text": " be quietly killed, with plausible deniability. Grishanov then starts to make urgent requests to his superiors that the POWs be brought to the Soviet Union to live out the rest of their lives. While Zacharias is being moved to his cell, a U.S. Buffalo Hunter pilotless drone photographs him, and Admiral Dutch Maxwell recognizes his face. Maxwell, along with two other admirals, develops a special-operation plan entitled Operation BOXWOOD GREEN that will send Marines into North Vietnam to rescue the prisoners. Six months after his wife's death, Kelly meets a girl named Pamela Madden, who has escaped from prostitution and serving as a \"mule\" in a drug-smuggling ring run by Henry Tucker. Kelly picks Pam up off the highway and becomes romantically involved with her. The day after he meets Pam, Kelly befriends two doctors, Sam and Sarah Rosen, who are both professors at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Sam of neurosurgery and Sarah of pharmacology, when they have trouble with their new motorboat. (He had neglected to replace the zinc anodes that normally protect exposed metal from corrosion, and his crumbly propellers have been scraped off by a sandbar, which is not on his outdated charts. Kelly orders new \"screws\" and charts, and Sam owes him.) Kelly discovers, by accident, that Pam is addicted to barbiturates. With the help of Sam and Sarah, Kelly helps Pam recover from her addiction. While bringing her into the city for treatment and to speak with the police, Kelly becomes curious about Pam's old life and attempts to reconnoiter her previous chapters. Unfortunately, Pam is recognized by Billy Grayson, her old pimp, and they are attacked. A car chase ensues, in which Kelly's Scout is at a disadvantage to Billy's Plymouth Roadrunner. At one point, Kelly lures Billy into a vacant lot and gets him stuck in deep mud."
      },
      {
        "text": " Pam recover from her addiction. While bringing her into the city for treatment and to speak with the police, Kelly becomes curious about Pam's old life and attempts to reconnoiter her previous chapters. Unfortunately, Pam is recognized by Billy Grayson, her old pimp, and they are attacked. A car chase ensues, in which Kelly's Scout is at a disadvantage to Billy's Plymouth Roadrunner. At one point, Kelly lures Billy into a vacant lot and gets him stuck in deep mud. However, Kelly makes the mistake of slowing down and stopping; he is shot twice with a shotgun and Pam is kidnapped. A press photographer later finds Pam's dead body displayed in a fountain. Kelly recovers in a hospital with the help of Sam Rosen. At this point, Nurse Sandy O'Toole is asked to take a special interest in Kelly. When Kelly is shown a picture of Pam's body and is informed of her abuse during and after death (she was raped by several men, then strangled) he decides to take revenge and vows to take down the people responsible. Kelly starts a rigorous exercise regime to help heal his body so that he can prepare for his private war with Henry Tucker's drug ring. When Kelly returns to his home he is approached by Admiral Maxwell, who recruits him to spearhead a covert operation to free the dozens of secretly held POWs. Kelly is recruited because he is the only person they know of that has ever spent time in the area of the camp. (Kelly had gone behind enemy lines in the vicinity of the camp [before it was built], to rescue Maxwell's son. Political considerations prevented him from receiving the Medal of Honor for saving an admiral's son, but he received a Navy Cross and a promotion as well as excellent references.) Kelly next sets up a safe house in Baltimore, and goes incognito as a wino to perform recon on the drug pushers. He first kills Pam's first pimp in New Orleans, then several minor"
      },
      {
        "text": "Kelly had gone behind enemy lines in the vicinity of the camp [before it was built], to rescue Maxwell's son. Political considerations prevented him from receiving the Medal of Honor for saving an admiral's son, but he received a Navy Cross and a promotion as well as excellent references.) Kelly next sets up a safe house in Baltimore, and goes incognito as a wino to perform recon on the drug pushers. He first kills Pam's first pimp in New Orleans, then several minor drug dealers and eventually learns the location of Billy, a subaltern in the drug ring and one of those who had killed Pam. He captures Billy and rescues Doris Brown, who is a \"mule\" as Pam was. Tucker had ordered all the girls who were his couriers to be killed since they were security risks. Kelly takes Billy to his island and interrogates him in his recompression chamber to get further information about the drug ring. Kelly leaves Doris with Sandy because he must leave to lead the mission to rescue the POWs. The plan fails, as the Soviets catch wind of it courtesy of a loose-mouthed anti-American White House intern who told his prep-school friend, a senate aide who is a mole for the KGB. Kelly does manage to kill the escaping Major Vinh and captures Grishanov, who the U.S. use to negotiate the transfer of the prisoners to the Hanoi Hilton, where they will be confirmed as alive and eventually returned. The presence of mind Kelly shows in capturing, rather than killing, Grishanov impresses the CIA officers involved in the operation, particularly since it ultimately leads to the survival of Zacharias and the other POWs. He then visits Sandy and discovers that Doris has been murdered thanks to a corrupt policeman on Tucker's payroll. Kelly determines the location of the drug ring's first lab, used for \"cutting\" heroin, in a derelict ship near his own island home"
      },
      {
        "text": " and eventually returned. The presence of mind Kelly shows in capturing, rather than killing, Grishanov impresses the CIA officers involved in the operation, particularly since it ultimately leads to the survival of Zacharias and the other POWs. He then visits Sandy and discovers that Doris has been murdered thanks to a corrupt policeman on Tucker's payroll. Kelly determines the location of the drug ring's first lab, used for \"cutting\" heroin, in a derelict ship near his own island home. It is abandoned after Kelly raids it, executing the men who murdered Doris and releasing Xantha Matthews, another of the \"mules\" whom Tucker had ordered to be killed. Kelly deduces from the formaldehyde smell of the bags containing the heroin, and from the country of origin, that it is being smuggled into the US hidden inside corpses of American soldiers. Kelly is then brought into a meeting with Admiral James Greer and high-ranking CIA official Robert Ritter, who want Kelly to join the agency. Kelly states that there is one major problem, and points to the newspaper that has a front-page story of the raid on the derelict ship. The CIA then begins to plan Kelly's fake death by first switching his prints with the captured Kolya's, while allowing him to finish what he started. The first job given to Kelly by the CIA is to remove the mole. Kelly gives the mole a choice, either commit suicide with the heroin he's collected or Kelly will kill him with his knife. Kelly next tracks the new drug lab to a warehouse in a sleepy industrial district, which the smugglers plan to use as long as their source (and the war) holds out. He sets up a sniper post in a nearby building and lays siege to the warehouse, killing two Mafia hoods. Charon shows up at the scene and, upon learning of the situation outside, attempts to murder Piaggi and Tucker, only to be fatally shot by Piaggi. Moments"
      },
      {
        "text": " kill him with his knife. Kelly next tracks the new drug lab to a warehouse in a sleepy industrial district, which the smugglers plan to use as long as their source (and the war) holds out. He sets up a sniper post in a nearby building and lays siege to the warehouse, killing two Mafia hoods. Charon shows up at the scene and, upon learning of the situation outside, attempts to murder Piaggi and Tucker, only to be fatally shot by Piaggi. Moments later, Kelly enters the room where the two drug dealers are holed up and kills them both. Emmet Ryan figures out who the undercover wino was and tracks Kelly to his boat. However, he allows Kelly a one hour head start before he alerts the Coast Guard. Kelly then gets into a boat chase and then purposely capsizes his boat in order to fake his own death and kill off his John Kelly identity. He then uses the diving gear he prepared on his boat to swim under the Coast Guard vessel and onto Admiral Maxwell's sailboat, where the Admiral picks him up. (The Coast Guard officer who'd tried to pursue and arrest him, and who believed him to be dead in the \"accident,\" would unexpectedly meet up with Clark many years later\u2014in the chronology of the \"Ryanverse\"\u2014within the pages of Debt of Honor). Now known as John Clark, he has married Sandy (who is pregnant), and the book ends with the release of the POWs after the end of the war.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " end of the war.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Black Tulip",
    "author": "Alexandre Dumas",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story begins with a historical event \u2014 the 1672 lynching of the Dutch Grand Pensionary (roughly equivalent to a modern Prime Minister) Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis, by a wild mob of their own countrymen \u2014 considered by many as one of the most painful episodes in Dutch history, described by Dumas with a dramatic intensity. The main plot line, involving fictional characters, takes place in the following eighteen months; only gradually does the reader understand its connection with the killing of the de Witt brothers. The city of Haarlem, Netherlands has set a prize of 100,000 guilders to the person who can grow a black tulip, sparking competition between the country's best gardeners to win the money, honour and fame. The young and bourgeois Cornelius van Baerle has almost succeeded, but is suddenly thrown into the Loevestein prison. There he meets the prison guard's beautiful daughter Rosa, who will be his comfort and help, and at last his rescuer. The novel was originally published in three volumes in 1850 as La Tulipe Noire by Baudry (Paris).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins with a historical event \u2014 the 1672 lynching of the Dutch Grand Pensionary (roughly equivalent to a modern Prime Minister) Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis, by a wild mob of their own countrymen \u2014 considered by many as one of the most painful episodes in Dutch history, described by Dumas with a dramatic intensity. The main plot line, involving fictional characters, takes place in the following eighteen months; only gradually does the reader understand its connection with the killing of the de Witt brothers. The city of Haarlem, Netherlands has set a prize of 100,000 guilders to the person who can grow a black tulip, sparking competition between the country's best gardeners to win the money, honour and fame. The young and bourgeois Cornelius van Baerle has almost succeeded, but is suddenly thrown into the Loevestein prison. There he meets the prison guard's beautiful daughter Rosa, who will be his comfort and help, and at last his rescuer. The novel was originally published in three volumes in 1850 as La Tulipe Noire by Baudry (Paris).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Cujo",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1981-09-08",
    "synopsis": " We first meet the middle-class Trentons, who are recent arrivals in town: Vic, an advertisement designer, his wife, Donna, and their four-year-old son Tad. Vic has discovered that his wife had been involved in an affair. In the midst of this household tension, Vic's fledgling advertising agency is failing, and he is forced to leave on a business trip to Boston and New York. We are then introduced to the blue-collar Cambers, longtime town residents: Joe, a shade-tree mechanic, Charity, his wife, and their ten-year-old son Brett. Charity is frustrated with her domineering and occasionally abusive husband, and is worried about Joe's negative influence on Brett. Charity wins the state lottery, and uses the proceeds to inveigle Joe into allowing her to take Brett on a trip to visit Charity's sister, Holly, in Connecticut. Joe secretly plans to use the time to take a pleasure trip to Boston with his neighbor, Gary Pervier. Cujo, a St. Bernard, belongs to Joe Camber and his family. Although Joe is fond of Cujo, he never bothers to get the dog vaccinated against rabies. While chasing a rabbit in the fields around the Cambers' house, Cujo gets his head temporarily stuck in the entrance to a small limestone cave and is bitten on the nose by a bat and infected with rabies. Soon after Charity and Brett leave, Cujo attacks and kills Gary Pervier. Joe goes to the Pervier home to check on Gary, only to find him dead. Before Joe is able to call authorities for help, Cujo attacks and kills him as well. Donna, home alone with Tad, takes their failing Ford Pinto to the Cambers' for repairs. The car breaks down in Camber's dooryard and as Donna attempts to find Joe, Cujo appears and is ready to pounce. She climbs back in the car and Cujo starts to attack. Donna and Tad become trapped in their vehicle, whose interior is becoming increasingly hot in the glaring sunlight. During one escape attempt, Donna is bitten in the stomach and leg, but manages to survive and escape back into the car. She considers running for the Cambers' home but is afraid the door will be locked and she will be subsequently killed by Cujo, leaving her son all alone, and abandons the idea. Vic returns to Castle Rock after several failed attempts to contact her. He also learns from the police that Steve Kemp, the man with whom Donna was having an affair, is suspected of ransacking his home and possibly kidnapping Donna and Tad. However, in an effort to explore all leads, the state police send local Castle Rock Sheriff George Bannerman out to the Cambers' house. When George gets there, Cujo attacks and kills him. Following this, Donna realizes that Tad is dying and she must act. She faces Cujo down with a bat, breaking it over his head and fatally stabbing him in the eye with the broken end. Vic arrives immediately afterwards only to discover Tad died of dehydration. The book ends with both the Trentons and the Cambers trying to go on with their lives \u2014 Donna is cured for Rabies and Cujo is cremated. The book ends by saying that Charity gave Brett a new, vaccinated puppy named Willie.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " We first meet the middle-class Trentons, who are recent arrivals in town: Vic, an advertisement designer, his wife, Donna, and their four-year-old son Tad. Vic has discovered that his wife had been involved in an affair. In the midst of this household tension, Vic's fledgling advertising agency is failing, and he is forced to leave on a business trip to Boston and New York. We are then introduced to the blue-collar Cambers, longtime town residents: Joe, a shade-tree mechanic, Charity, his wife, and their ten-year-old son Brett. Charity is frustrated with her domineering and occasionally abusive husband, and is worried about Joe's negative influence on Brett. Charity wins the state lottery, and uses the proceeds to inveigle Joe into allowing her to take Brett on a trip to visit Charity's sister, Holly, in Connecticut. Joe secretly plans to use the time to take a pleasure trip to Boston with his neighbor, Gary Pervier. Cujo, a St. Bernard, belongs to Joe Camber and his family. Although Joe is fond of Cujo, he never bothers to get the dog vaccinated against rabies. While chasing a rabbit in the fields around the Cambers' house, Cujo gets his head temporarily stuck in the entrance to a small limestone cave and is bitten on the nose by a bat and infected with rabies. Soon after Charity and Brett leave, Cujo attacks and kills Gary Pervier. Joe goes to the Pervier home to check on Gary, only to find him dead. Before Joe is able to call authorities for help, Cujo attacks and kills him as well. Donna, home alone with Tad, takes their failing Ford Pinto to the Cambers' for repairs. The car breaks down in Camber's dooryard and as Donna attempts to find Joe, Cujo appears and is ready to pounce. She climbs back in the car and Cujo"
      },
      {
        "text": "ervier. Joe goes to the Pervier home to check on Gary, only to find him dead. Before Joe is able to call authorities for help, Cujo attacks and kills him as well. Donna, home alone with Tad, takes their failing Ford Pinto to the Cambers' for repairs. The car breaks down in Camber's dooryard and as Donna attempts to find Joe, Cujo appears and is ready to pounce. She climbs back in the car and Cujo starts to attack. Donna and Tad become trapped in their vehicle, whose interior is becoming increasingly hot in the glaring sunlight. During one escape attempt, Donna is bitten in the stomach and leg, but manages to survive and escape back into the car. She considers running for the Cambers' home but is afraid the door will be locked and she will be subsequently killed by Cujo, leaving her son all alone, and abandons the idea. Vic returns to Castle Rock after several failed attempts to contact her. He also learns from the police that Steve Kemp, the man with whom Donna was having an affair, is suspected of ransacking his home and possibly kidnapping Donna and Tad. However, in an effort to explore all leads, the state police send local Castle Rock Sheriff George Bannerman out to the Cambers' house. When George gets there, Cujo attacks and kills him. Following this, Donna realizes that Tad is dying and she must act. She faces Cujo down with a bat, breaking it over his head and fatally stabbing him in the eye with the broken end. Vic arrives immediately afterwards only to discover Tad died of dehydration. The book ends with both the Trentons and the Cambers trying to go on with their lives \u2014 Donna is cured for Rabies and Cujo is cremated. The book ends by saying that Charity gave Brett a new, vaccinated puppy named Willie.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", breaking it over his head and fatally stabbing him in the eye with the broken end. Vic arrives immediately afterwards only to discover Tad died of dehydration. The book ends with both the Trentons and the Cambers trying to go on with their lives \u2014 Donna is cured for Rabies and Cujo is cremated. The book ends by saying that Charity gave Brett a new, vaccinated puppy named Willie.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Human Action",
    "author": "Ludwig von Mises",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Mises sees economic calculation as the most fundamental problem in economics. The economic problem to Mises is that of action. Man acts to dispel feelings of uneasiness, but can only succeed in acting if he comprehends causal connections between the ends that he wants to satisfy, and available means. The fact that man resides in a world of causality means that he faces definite choices as to how he satisfies his ends. Human action is an application of human reason to select the best means of satisfying ends. The reasoning mind evaluates and grades different options. This is economic calculation. Economic calculation is common to all people. Mises insisted that the logical structure of human minds is the same for everybody. Of course, this is not to say that all minds are the same. Man makes different value judgments and possess different data, but logic is the same for all. Human reason and economic calculation have limitations, but Mises sees no alternative to economic calculation as a means of using scarce resources to improve our well being. Human action concerns dynamics. The opposite to action is not inaction. Rather, the opposite to action is contentment. In a fully contented state there would be no action, no efforts to change the existing order of things (which might be changed by merely ceasing to do some things). Man acts because he is never fully satisfied, and will never stop because he can never be fully satisfied. This might seem like a simple point, but modern economics is built upon ideas of contentment-equilibrium analysis and indifference conditions. It is true that some economists construct models of dynamic equilibrium, but the idea of a dynamic equilibrium is oxymoronic to Mises. An actual equilibrium may involve a recurring cycle, but not true dynamics. True dynamics involve non-repeating evolutionary change. Mises explains dynamic change in terms of \"the plain state of rest\". A final state of rest involves perfect plans to fully satisfy human desires. A plain state of rest is a temporary and imperfect equilibrium deriving from past human plans. Though any set of plans is imperfect, to act means attempting to improve each successive set of plans. Movement from one plain state of rest to another represents the process of change, either evolutionary or devolutionary. Mises links progress and profits. Profits earned from voluntary trades are the indicator of economic success. It is monetary calculation of profits that indicates whether an enterprise has generated a net increase in consumer well being over true economic costs. The close association that Mises draws between economic calculation and monetary calculation leads him to conclude that market prices (upon which monetary profits are calculated) are indispensable to progress in bettering the human condition. Without markets there are no prices, and without prices there is no economic calculation. One point that Mises made, but did not get enough attention, is that monetary calculation takes place primarily in financial markets. Monetary calculation is vitally important. Mises stresses the importance of entrepreneurship because it is entrepreneurs who actually do monetary calculation. This fact puts entrepreneurs at the center of all progress (and failure). Entrepreneurs who estimate costs more correctly than their rivals earn high profits while also serving consumers. Such men rise to top positions in industry. Entrepreneurs who err seriously in their calculations experience financial losses and cease to direct production. Mises described this market test of entrepreneurial skills as the only process of trial and error that really matters. The concepts of monetary calculation, financial speculation, and entrepreneurship form the basis for the von Mises critique of socialism.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Mises sees economic calculation as the most fundamental problem in economics. The economic problem to Mises is that of action. Man acts to dispel feelings of uneasiness, but can only succeed in acting if he comprehends causal connections between the ends that he wants to satisfy, and available means. The fact that man resides in a world of causality means that he faces definite choices as to how he satisfies his ends. Human action is an application of human reason to select the best means of satisfying ends. The reasoning mind evaluates and grades different options. This is economic calculation. Economic calculation is common to all people. Mises insisted that the logical structure of human minds is the same for everybody. Of course, this is not to say that all minds are the same. Man makes different value judgments and possess different data, but logic is the same for all. Human reason and economic calculation have limitations, but Mises sees no alternative to economic calculation as a means of using scarce resources to improve our well being. Human action concerns dynamics. The opposite to action is not inaction. Rather, the opposite to action is contentment. In a fully contented state there would be no action, no efforts to change the existing order of things (which might be changed by merely ceasing to do some things). Man acts because he is never fully satisfied, and will never stop because he can never be fully satisfied. This might seem like a simple point, but modern economics is built upon ideas of contentment-equilibrium analysis and indifference conditions. It is true that some economists construct models of dynamic equilibrium, but the idea of a dynamic equilibrium is oxymoronic to Mises. An actual equilibrium may involve a recurring cycle, but not true dynamics. True dynamics involve non-repeating evolutionary change. Mises explains dynamic change in terms of \"the plain state of rest\". A final state of rest involves perfect plans to fully satisfy human desires. A plain state of rest is a temporary and imperfect equilibrium deriving"
      },
      {
        "text": "equilibrium analysis and indifference conditions. It is true that some economists construct models of dynamic equilibrium, but the idea of a dynamic equilibrium is oxymoronic to Mises. An actual equilibrium may involve a recurring cycle, but not true dynamics. True dynamics involve non-repeating evolutionary change. Mises explains dynamic change in terms of \"the plain state of rest\". A final state of rest involves perfect plans to fully satisfy human desires. A plain state of rest is a temporary and imperfect equilibrium deriving from past human plans. Though any set of plans is imperfect, to act means attempting to improve each successive set of plans. Movement from one plain state of rest to another represents the process of change, either evolutionary or devolutionary. Mises links progress and profits. Profits earned from voluntary trades are the indicator of economic success. It is monetary calculation of profits that indicates whether an enterprise has generated a net increase in consumer well being over true economic costs. The close association that Mises draws between economic calculation and monetary calculation leads him to conclude that market prices (upon which monetary profits are calculated) are indispensable to progress in bettering the human condition. Without markets there are no prices, and without prices there is no economic calculation. One point that Mises made, but did not get enough attention, is that monetary calculation takes place primarily in financial markets. Monetary calculation is vitally important. Mises stresses the importance of entrepreneurship because it is entrepreneurs who actually do monetary calculation. This fact puts entrepreneurs at the center of all progress (and failure). Entrepreneurs who estimate costs more correctly than their rivals earn high profits while also serving consumers. Such men rise to top positions in industry. Entrepreneurs who err seriously in their calculations experience financial losses and cease to direct production. Mises described this market test of entrepreneurial skills as the only process of trial and error that really matters. The concepts of monetary calculation, financial speculation, and entrepreneurship form the basis for the von Mises critique of socialism.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " at the center of all progress (and failure). Entrepreneurs who estimate costs more correctly than their rivals earn high profits while also serving consumers. Such men rise to top positions in industry. Entrepreneurs who err seriously in their calculations experience financial losses and cease to direct production. Mises described this market test of entrepreneurial skills as the only process of trial and error that really matters. The concepts of monetary calculation, financial speculation, and entrepreneurship form the basis for the von Mises critique of socialism.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "More Joy in Heaven",
    "author": "Morley Callaghan",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story of Kip Caley, an ex-criminal, intent on becoming a useful and honourable human being. His struggle with himself and with a society which will not let him regain his human dignity.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story of Kip Caley, an ex-criminal, intent on becoming a useful and honourable human being. His struggle with himself and with a society which will not let him regain his human dignity.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lonesome Dove",
    "author": "Larry McMurtry",
    "published_date": "1985",
    "synopsis": " It is 1876. Captain Augustus \"Gus\" McCrae and Captain Woodrow F. Call, two famous ex\u2013Texas Rangers, run a livery called the Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium in the small dusty Texas border town of Lonesome Dove. Smooth, charming and easy going, Gus loves women and women return the sentiments, but he's twice a widower and he never marries the love of his life, Clara. Although he had proposed many a time, she had rejected him every time because, in her words, Gus is \"a rambler,\" and she despises Call because she feels jealous of the years Gus spent with him instead of her. She needed to settle down and have a family and a good life; he was brave and a dead aim, but was lazy and prone to wandering away for another adventure. While McCrae is warm, good natured, and understanding of people, Captain Call, Gus's best friend and partner, is the opposite: a workaholic taskmaster who hides in his work, emotionally cut off. He is afraid \"to admit he's human,\" according to McCrae. He loved only one woman, a prostitute named Maggie, who gave birth to his only son, Newt. Though he knows he is his bastard son's father, he refuses to admit it and give Newt his name. He is hypercompetent at his work to compensate for his complete failure at human relationships. He is cold and driven by pride and honor, not love. Even when he drags the body of the only human who ever understood him and loved him anyway over 2000 miles across the Great Plains, suffering ridicule and hardship, he claims he is doing it for duty, not friendship. He is the Western version of Captain Ahab whose reckless stubbornness ends in tragedy. Working with them are Joshua Deets, a black man who is an excellent tracker and scout from their Ranger days, Pea Eye Parker, another former Ranger who works hard but isn't all too bright, and Bolivar, a retired Mexican bandit who is their cook. Also living with them is the boy Newt Dobbs, a seventeen-year-old whose mother was a prostitute named Maggie and whose father may be Call. The story begins in the small town of Lonesome Dove, as Jake Spoon, a former comrade of Call's and McCrae's, shows up after an absence of more than ten years. He is a man on the run, having accidentally shot the dentist of Fort Smith in Arkansas. The dentist's brother happens to be the sheriff, July Johnson. Reunited with Gus and Call, Jake's breath-taking description of Montana inspires Call to gather a herd of cattle and drive them there, to begin the first cattle ranch in the frontier territory. Call is attracted to the romantic notion of settling pristine country. Gus is less enthusiastic, pointing out that they are getting old and that they are Rangers and traders, not cowboys. But he changes his mind when Jake reminds him that Gus' old sweetheart, Clara, lives on the Platte, 20 miles from Ogallala, Nebraska, which is on their route to Montana. Captain Call prevails. They make preparations for their adventure north, including stealing horses in Mexico and recruiting almost all the male citizens of Lonesome Dove. Ironically, Jake Spoon decides not to go after all, being selfish and undependable and because he promises the town's only prostitute, Lorena Wood, known as Lorie, he'll take her to San Francisco. Ogallala also happens to be the destination of Elmira, the wife of Sheriff Johnson, as she runs away to meet up with her true love, Dee Boot. So the three groups head north. They encounter horse thieves, murderers, hostile Indians, inclement weather, and a few inner demons.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It is 1876. Captain Augustus \"Gus\" McCrae and Captain Woodrow F. Call, two famous ex\u2013Texas Rangers, run a livery called the Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium in the small dusty Texas border town of Lonesome Dove. Smooth, charming and easy going, Gus loves women and women return the sentiments, but he's twice a widower and he never marries the love of his life, Clara. Although he had proposed many a time, she had rejected him every time because, in her words, Gus is \"a rambler,\" and she despises Call because she feels jealous of the years Gus spent with him instead of her. She needed to settle down and have a family and a good life; he was brave and a dead aim, but was lazy and prone to wandering away for another adventure. While McCrae is warm, good natured, and understanding of people, Captain Call, Gus's best friend and partner, is the opposite: a workaholic taskmaster who hides in his work, emotionally cut off. He is afraid \"to admit he's human,\" according to McCrae. He loved only one woman, a prostitute named Maggie, who gave birth to his only son, Newt. Though he knows he is his bastard son's father, he refuses to admit it and give Newt his name. He is hypercompetent at his work to compensate for his complete failure at human relationships. He is cold and driven by pride and honor, not love. Even when he drags the body of the only human who ever understood him and loved him anyway over 2000 miles across the Great Plains, suffering ridicule and hardship, he claims he is doing it for duty, not friendship. He is the Western version of Captain Ahab whose reckless stubbornness ends in tragedy. Working with them are Joshua Deets, a black man who is an excellent tracker and scout from their Ranger days, Pea"
      },
      {
        "text": ". He is cold and driven by pride and honor, not love. Even when he drags the body of the only human who ever understood him and loved him anyway over 2000 miles across the Great Plains, suffering ridicule and hardship, he claims he is doing it for duty, not friendship. He is the Western version of Captain Ahab whose reckless stubbornness ends in tragedy. Working with them are Joshua Deets, a black man who is an excellent tracker and scout from their Ranger days, Pea Eye Parker, another former Ranger who works hard but isn't all too bright, and Bolivar, a retired Mexican bandit who is their cook. Also living with them is the boy Newt Dobbs, a seventeen-year-old whose mother was a prostitute named Maggie and whose father may be Call. The story begins in the small town of Lonesome Dove, as Jake Spoon, a former comrade of Call's and McCrae's, shows up after an absence of more than ten years. He is a man on the run, having accidentally shot the dentist of Fort Smith in Arkansas. The dentist's brother happens to be the sheriff, July Johnson. Reunited with Gus and Call, Jake's breath-taking description of Montana inspires Call to gather a herd of cattle and drive them there, to begin the first cattle ranch in the frontier territory. Call is attracted to the romantic notion of settling pristine country. Gus is less enthusiastic, pointing out that they are getting old and that they are Rangers and traders, not cowboys. But he changes his mind when Jake reminds him that Gus' old sweetheart, Clara, lives on the Platte, 20 miles from Ogallala, Nebraska, which is on their route to Montana. Captain Call prevails. They make preparations for their adventure north, including stealing horses in Mexico and recruiting almost all the male citizens of Lonesome Dove. Ironically, Jake Spoon decides not to go after all, being selfish and undependable and because"
      },
      {
        "text": " are Rangers and traders, not cowboys. But he changes his mind when Jake reminds him that Gus' old sweetheart, Clara, lives on the Platte, 20 miles from Ogallala, Nebraska, which is on their route to Montana. Captain Call prevails. They make preparations for their adventure north, including stealing horses in Mexico and recruiting almost all the male citizens of Lonesome Dove. Ironically, Jake Spoon decides not to go after all, being selfish and undependable and because he promises the town's only prostitute, Lorena Wood, known as Lorie, he'll take her to San Francisco. Ogallala also happens to be the destination of Elmira, the wife of Sheriff Johnson, as she runs away to meet up with her true love, Dee Boot. So the three groups head north. They encounter horse thieves, murderers, hostile Indians, inclement weather, and a few inner demons.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Warring States",
    "author": "Mags L Halliday",
    "published_date": "2005",
    "synopsis": " Cousin Octavia of Faction Paradox has come to Peking during the Boxer Rebellion in search of an artifact she believes can bestow immortality. For Liu Hui Ying, the artifact is a symbol that will rally the Han. But in this dangerous time, more than each other stands in the way of either obtaining the jade casket.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Cousin Octavia of Faction Paradox has come to Peking during the Boxer Rebellion in search of an artifact she believes can bestow immortality. For Liu Hui Ying, the artifact is a symbol that will rally the Han. But in this dangerous time, more than each other stands in the way of either obtaining the jade casket.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Practice Effect",
    "author": "David Brin",
    "published_date": "1984",
    "synopsis": " A scientist by the name of Dennis Nuel is working at, and attending, an institute of scientific research and pioneering work into the fictional scientific field of \"Zievatronics\", the manipulation of Time and Space. After the death of his mentor, however, he is taken off the project and another professor takes over. After a time, the device that has been created to move through space and time, known as the \"Zievatron\" encounters operational problems and is fixed to the co-ordinates of a world that appears to be very similar to our Earth in most respects, and Dennis is re-recruited to help fix it. He volunteers to be sent to the other world in order to fix the other part of the Zievatron. On arriving to this planet, he finds the Zievatron dismantled and critical parts of it missing. Of the three surveillance robots sent through to this planet, he finds two have also been broken apart. After a while, he finds the last robot, intact and still functioning, and uses it to view any recorded images that might help him identify what it was that happened to the Zievatron. In this world, instead of objects wearing out as you use them, they improve. This is referred to as the Practice effect. For example, swords get sharper with use, baskets get stronger the more things they carry, mirrors, furniture and decorations look more attractive the more they are looked at. The downside to this being that an object's condition deteriorates over time if not put to use. Under this system, members of society's higher strata employ servants to Practice their own possessions to perfection. It is eventually discovered that the Practice Effect is the result of an elusive, biologically-engineered creature known as a Krenegee Beast that causes a change in a law of thermodynamics. This creature emits a field under which the Practice Effect works. The closer one is to the Krenegee Beasts, the more efficient the Practice that is done. The Practice Effect can take many months before an object reaches its maximum point of \"practice\", however if one is under a Felthesh Trance the process is sped up if a Krenegee Beast is present the process is sped up more so than if one were under a Felthesh Trance.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A scientist by the name of Dennis Nuel is working at, and attending, an institute of scientific research and pioneering work into the fictional scientific field of \"Zievatronics\", the manipulation of Time and Space. After the death of his mentor, however, he is taken off the project and another professor takes over. After a time, the device that has been created to move through space and time, known as the \"Zievatron\" encounters operational problems and is fixed to the co-ordinates of a world that appears to be very similar to our Earth in most respects, and Dennis is re-recruited to help fix it. He volunteers to be sent to the other world in order to fix the other part of the Zievatron. On arriving to this planet, he finds the Zievatron dismantled and critical parts of it missing. Of the three surveillance robots sent through to this planet, he finds two have also been broken apart. After a while, he finds the last robot, intact and still functioning, and uses it to view any recorded images that might help him identify what it was that happened to the Zievatron. In this world, instead of objects wearing out as you use them, they improve. This is referred to as the Practice effect. For example, swords get sharper with use, baskets get stronger the more things they carry, mirrors, furniture and decorations look more attractive the more they are looked at. The downside to this being that an object's condition deteriorates over time if not put to use. Under this system, members of society's higher strata employ servants to Practice their own possessions to perfection. It is eventually discovered that the Practice Effect is the result of an elusive, biologically-engineered creature known as a Krenegee Beast that causes a change in a law of thermodynamics. This creature emits a field under which the Practice Effect works. The closer one is to the Krenegee Beasts, the more efficient the Practice that is done"
      },
      {
        "text": " deteriorates over time if not put to use. Under this system, members of society's higher strata employ servants to Practice their own possessions to perfection. It is eventually discovered that the Practice Effect is the result of an elusive, biologically-engineered creature known as a Krenegee Beast that causes a change in a law of thermodynamics. This creature emits a field under which the Practice Effect works. The closer one is to the Krenegee Beasts, the more efficient the Practice that is done. The Practice Effect can take many months before an object reaches its maximum point of \"practice\", however if one is under a Felthesh Trance the process is sped up if a Krenegee Beast is present the process is sped up more so than if one were under a Felthesh Trance.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The British Museum Is Falling Down",
    "author": "David Lodge",
    "published_date": "1965",
    "synopsis": " Set in Swinging London, the novel describes one day in the life of Adam Appleby, who lives in constant fear that his wife might be pregnant again with a fourth child. As Catholics, they are denied any form of contraception and have to play \"Vatican roulette\" instead. Adam and Barbara have three children: Clare, Dominic, and Edward; their friends ask if they intend working through the whole alphabet. In the course of only one busy day, several chances to make some money present themselves to Adam. For example, he is offered the opportunity to edit a deceased scholar's unpublished manuscripts; however, when he eventually has a look at them, he feels uncomfortable realizing that the man's writings are worthless drivel. Also, at the house in Bayswater where he is supposed to get the papers, Adam has to cope with an assortment of weird characters ranging from butchers to a young virgin intent on seducing him. Lodge's novel makes extensive use of pastiche, incorporating passages where both the motifs and the styles of writing used by various authors are imitated. For instance, there is a Kafkaesque scene where Adam has to renew his reading-room ticket. The final chapter of the novel is a monologue by Adam's wife in the style of Molly Bloom's soliloquy in Ulysses. This use of different styles mirrors James Joyce's Ulysses, a work also about a single day. When Lodge's novel first came out, quite a number of reviewers and critics, not appreciating the literary allusions, found fault with Lodge for his inhomogeneous writing.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set in Swinging London, the novel describes one day in the life of Adam Appleby, who lives in constant fear that his wife might be pregnant again with a fourth child. As Catholics, they are denied any form of contraception and have to play \"Vatican roulette\" instead. Adam and Barbara have three children: Clare, Dominic, and Edward; their friends ask if they intend working through the whole alphabet. In the course of only one busy day, several chances to make some money present themselves to Adam. For example, he is offered the opportunity to edit a deceased scholar's unpublished manuscripts; however, when he eventually has a look at them, he feels uncomfortable realizing that the man's writings are worthless drivel. Also, at the house in Bayswater where he is supposed to get the papers, Adam has to cope with an assortment of weird characters ranging from butchers to a young virgin intent on seducing him. Lodge's novel makes extensive use of pastiche, incorporating passages where both the motifs and the styles of writing used by various authors are imitated. For instance, there is a Kafkaesque scene where Adam has to renew his reading-room ticket. The final chapter of the novel is a monologue by Adam's wife in the style of Molly Bloom's soliloquy in Ulysses. This use of different styles mirrors James Joyce's Ulysses, a work also about a single day. When Lodge's novel first came out, quite a number of reviewers and critics, not appreciating the literary allusions, found fault with Lodge for his inhomogeneous writing.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " of reviewers and critics, not appreciating the literary allusions, found fault with Lodge for his inhomogeneous writing.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The History Man",
    "author": "Malcolm Bradbury",
    "published_date": "1975",
    "synopsis": " What we learn about the Kirks' past does not set them apart from most young working-class intellectuals who grew up in the 1950s when there was growing hope of improved economic and educational opportunity. When Howard and Barbara meet in their third year at the University of Leeds, Howard is still a virgin. They are both religious and working class and during their student years cannot afford more than the bare necessities of life. A few years after their graduation, in the summer of 1963, the \"old Kirks\", already a married couple living in a small bedsit, metamorphose into the \"new Kirks\" when one day, while Howard is at the university where he has a job as a lecturer, Barbara has spontaneous casual sex with an Egyptian student. This fling triggers a series of events: When he has got over the shock, Howard begins to associate with all kinds of radical people. The Kirks make lots of new friends. they smoke pot at parties, Barbara develops a new interest in health food and astrology, Howard grows a beard and they both start having \"small affairs\". When Barbara gets pregnant, rather than cancelling his class, Howard takes his students to the clinic to watch his wife giving birth. Finally, in 1967, he is appointed lecturer at Watermouth and right from the start he is intent on radicalising that bourgeois town, especially the newly-founded university, an institution that he describes as 'a place I can work against'. The novel chronicles a term in the lives of Howard and Barbara Kirk. Howard's zero tolerance concerning non-Marxist, especially conservative, thinking makes him persecute one of the male participants of his seminar who, apart from wearing a university blazer and a tie which make him look like a student out of the 1950s, insists on being allowed to present his paper in the traditional, formal way, without being interrupted and without having to answer questions before he has finished his train of thought. In front of the others Howard calls him a \"heavy, anal type\" and what he has prepared for class \"an anal, repressed paper\", without considering his own apparent hypocrisy any further. In the end he succeeds in having the student, a \"historical irrelevance\", expelled from the university. Whereas Howard selects his many sexual partners from among the people who work at the university (students as well as faculty members) on Saturday mornings, Barbara Kirk regularly goes on \"shopping trips\" to London, which usually turn into \"wicked weekends\". What is more, the Kirks consider the parties they throw in their house a success if at least some of their guests have sex in the many rooms they provide for that. At one point in the novel Howard's promiscuity gets him into trouble when he is told that he might be sacked for \"gross moral turpitude\" (which he defines to a female student of his as \"raping large numbers of nuns\"), but he shrugs off this accusation as being based on \"a very vague concept, especially these days\". A number of supporting characters round off the vivid picture of the permissive society of the early 1970s. For example, there is Henry Beamish, one of Howard's colleagues whose childless middle-class marriage to Myra has been largely unhappy. There is Dr. Macintosh, a sociologist from Howard's department who, despite his pregnant wife, can be convinced by Howard that having sex with one of his students during the end-of-term party is the right thing to do. Also, there is Flora Beniform, a social psychologist with rather unconventional research methods; she sleeps with men in whom she is professionally interested, to elicit information from them. At the end of the novel Howard and Barbara are still together, and all their friends admire their stable yet \"advanced\" marriage. Howard has even further metamorphosed into \"the radical hero\" who is \"generating the onward march of mind, the onward process of history\". According to his philosophy, things, especially those he likes, are bound to happen: this is called \"historical inevitability\". The trajectory of the Kirks' life together ends when Barbara attempts suicide during a party.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " What we learn about the Kirks' past does not set them apart from most young working-class intellectuals who grew up in the 1950s when there was growing hope of improved economic and educational opportunity. When Howard and Barbara meet in their third year at the University of Leeds, Howard is still a virgin. They are both religious and working class and during their student years cannot afford more than the bare necessities of life. A few years after their graduation, in the summer of 1963, the \"old Kirks\", already a married couple living in a small bedsit, metamorphose into the \"new Kirks\" when one day, while Howard is at the university where he has a job as a lecturer, Barbara has spontaneous casual sex with an Egyptian student. This fling triggers a series of events: When he has got over the shock, Howard begins to associate with all kinds of radical people. The Kirks make lots of new friends. they smoke pot at parties, Barbara develops a new interest in health food and astrology, Howard grows a beard and they both start having \"small affairs\". When Barbara gets pregnant, rather than cancelling his class, Howard takes his students to the clinic to watch his wife giving birth. Finally, in 1967, he is appointed lecturer at Watermouth and right from the start he is intent on radicalising that bourgeois town, especially the newly-founded university, an institution that he describes as 'a place I can work against'. The novel chronicles a term in the lives of Howard and Barbara Kirk. Howard's zero tolerance concerning non-Marxist, especially conservative, thinking makes him persecute one of the male participants of his seminar who, apart from wearing a university blazer and a tie which make him look like a student out of the 1950s, insists on being allowed to present his paper in the traditional, formal way, without being interrupted and without having to answer questions before he has finished his train of thought. In front of the others Howard"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the lives of Howard and Barbara Kirk. Howard's zero tolerance concerning non-Marxist, especially conservative, thinking makes him persecute one of the male participants of his seminar who, apart from wearing a university blazer and a tie which make him look like a student out of the 1950s, insists on being allowed to present his paper in the traditional, formal way, without being interrupted and without having to answer questions before he has finished his train of thought. In front of the others Howard calls him a \"heavy, anal type\" and what he has prepared for class \"an anal, repressed paper\", without considering his own apparent hypocrisy any further. In the end he succeeds in having the student, a \"historical irrelevance\", expelled from the university. Whereas Howard selects his many sexual partners from among the people who work at the university (students as well as faculty members) on Saturday mornings, Barbara Kirk regularly goes on \"shopping trips\" to London, which usually turn into \"wicked weekends\". What is more, the Kirks consider the parties they throw in their house a success if at least some of their guests have sex in the many rooms they provide for that. At one point in the novel Howard's promiscuity gets him into trouble when he is told that he might be sacked for \"gross moral turpitude\" (which he defines to a female student of his as \"raping large numbers of nuns\"), but he shrugs off this accusation as being based on \"a very vague concept, especially these days\". A number of supporting characters round off the vivid picture of the permissive society of the early 1970s. For example, there is Henry Beamish, one of Howard's colleagues whose childless middle-class marriage to Myra has been largely unhappy. There is Dr. Macintosh, a sociologist from Howard's department who, despite his pregnant wife, can be convinced by Howard that having sex with one of his students during the end"
      },
      {
        "text": " as being based on \"a very vague concept, especially these days\". A number of supporting characters round off the vivid picture of the permissive society of the early 1970s. For example, there is Henry Beamish, one of Howard's colleagues whose childless middle-class marriage to Myra has been largely unhappy. There is Dr. Macintosh, a sociologist from Howard's department who, despite his pregnant wife, can be convinced by Howard that having sex with one of his students during the end-of-term party is the right thing to do. Also, there is Flora Beniform, a social psychologist with rather unconventional research methods; she sleeps with men in whom she is professionally interested, to elicit information from them. At the end of the novel Howard and Barbara are still together, and all their friends admire their stable yet \"advanced\" marriage. Howard has even further metamorphosed into \"the radical hero\" who is \"generating the onward march of mind, the onward process of history\". According to his philosophy, things, especially those he likes, are bound to happen: this is called \"historical inevitability\". The trajectory of the Kirks' life together ends when Barbara attempts suicide during a party.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Turn of the Screw",
    "author": "Henry James",
    "published_date": "1898",
    "synopsis": " An unnamed narrator listens to a male friend reading a manuscript written by a former governess whom the friend claims to have known and who is now dead. The manuscript tells the story of how the young governess is hired by a man who has become responsible for his young nephew and niece after the death of their parents. He lives mainly in London and is not interested in raising the children himself. The boy, Miles, is attending a boarding school, while his younger sister, Flora, is living at a country estate in Essex. She is currently being cared for by the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. The governess's new employer, the uncle of Miles and Flora, gives her full charge of the children and explicitly states that she is not to bother him with communications of any sort. The governess travels to her new employer's country house and begins her duties. Miles soon returns from school for the summer just after a letter arrives from the headmaster stating that he has been expelled. Miles never speaks of the matter, and the governess is hesitant to raise the issue. She fears that there is some horrid secret behind the expulsion, but is too charmed by the adorable young boy to want to press the issue. Soon thereafter, the governess begins to see around the grounds of the estate the figures of a man and woman whom she does not recognize. These figures come and go at will without ever being seen or challenged by other members of the household, and they seem to the governess to be supernatural. She learns from Mrs. Grose that her predecessor, Miss Jessel, and another employee, Peter Quint, had a sexual relationship with each other and have both died. It is also implied that Quint sexually molested Miles and the other members of the household. Prior to their deaths, they spent much of their time with Flora and Miles, and this fact has grim significance for the governess when she becomes convinced that the two children are secretly aware of the presence of the ghosts. Later, Flora leaves the house while Miles plays music for the governess. They notice Flora's absence and go to look for her. The governess and Mrs. Grose find her in a clearing in the wood, and the governess is convinced that she has been talking to Miss Jessel. When she finally confronts Flora, Flora denies seeing Miss Jessel, and demands never to see the governess again. Mrs. Grose takes Flora away to her uncle, leaving the governess with Miles. That night, they are finally talking of Miles' expulsion when the ghost of Quint appears to the governess at the window. The governess shields Miles, who attempts to see the ghost. The governess tells him that he is no longer controlled by the ghost, and then finds that Miles has died in her arms.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " An unnamed narrator listens to a male friend reading a manuscript written by a former governess whom the friend claims to have known and who is now dead. The manuscript tells the story of how the young governess is hired by a man who has become responsible for his young nephew and niece after the death of their parents. He lives mainly in London and is not interested in raising the children himself. The boy, Miles, is attending a boarding school, while his younger sister, Flora, is living at a country estate in Essex. She is currently being cared for by the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. The governess's new employer, the uncle of Miles and Flora, gives her full charge of the children and explicitly states that she is not to bother him with communications of any sort. The governess travels to her new employer's country house and begins her duties. Miles soon returns from school for the summer just after a letter arrives from the headmaster stating that he has been expelled. Miles never speaks of the matter, and the governess is hesitant to raise the issue. She fears that there is some horrid secret behind the expulsion, but is too charmed by the adorable young boy to want to press the issue. Soon thereafter, the governess begins to see around the grounds of the estate the figures of a man and woman whom she does not recognize. These figures come and go at will without ever being seen or challenged by other members of the household, and they seem to the governess to be supernatural. She learns from Mrs. Grose that her predecessor, Miss Jessel, and another employee, Peter Quint, had a sexual relationship with each other and have both died. It is also implied that Quint sexually molested Miles and the other members of the household. Prior to their deaths, they spent much of their time with Flora and Miles, and this fact has grim significance for the governess when she becomes convinced that the two children are secretly aware of the presence"
      },
      {
        "text": " the governess to be supernatural. She learns from Mrs. Grose that her predecessor, Miss Jessel, and another employee, Peter Quint, had a sexual relationship with each other and have both died. It is also implied that Quint sexually molested Miles and the other members of the household. Prior to their deaths, they spent much of their time with Flora and Miles, and this fact has grim significance for the governess when she becomes convinced that the two children are secretly aware of the presence of the ghosts. Later, Flora leaves the house while Miles plays music for the governess. They notice Flora's absence and go to look for her. The governess and Mrs. Grose find her in a clearing in the wood, and the governess is convinced that she has been talking to Miss Jessel. When she finally confronts Flora, Flora denies seeing Miss Jessel, and demands never to see the governess again. Mrs. Grose takes Flora away to her uncle, leaving the governess with Miles. That night, they are finally talking of Miles' expulsion when the ghost of Quint appears to the governess at the window. The governess shields Miles, who attempts to see the ghost. The governess tells him that he is no longer controlled by the ghost, and then finds that Miles has died in her arms.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The French Lieutenant's Woman",
    "author": "John Fowles",
    "published_date": "1969",
    "synopsis": " The novel's protagonist is Sarah Woodruff, the Woman of the title, also known unkindly as \u201cTragedy\u201d and by the unfortunate nickname \u201cThe French Lieutenant\u2019s Whore\u201d. She lives in the coastal town of Lyme Regis, as a disgraced woman, supposedly abandoned by a French naval officer named Varguennes \u2014 married, unknown to her, to another woman \u2014 with whom she had supposedly had an affair and who had returned to France. She spends her limited time off at the Cobb, a pier jutting out to sea, staring at the sea itself. One day, she is seen there by the gentleman Charles Smithson and his fianc\u00e9e, Ernestina Freeman, the shallow-minded daughter of a wealthy tradesman whose origins are Scottish. Ernestina tells Charles something of Sarah\u2019s story, and he develops a strong curiosity about her. Eventually, he and she begin to meet clandestinely, during which times Sarah tells Charles her history, and asks for his support, mostly emotional. Despite trying to remain objective, Charles eventually sends Sarah to Exeter, where he, during a journey, cannot resist stopping in to visit and see her. At the time she has suffered an ankle injury; he visits her alone and after they have made love he realises that she had been, contrary to the rumours, a virgin. Simultaneously, he learns that his prospective inheritance from an elder uncle is in jeopardy; the uncle has become engaged to a woman young enough to bear him an heir. From there, the novelist offers three different endings for The French Lieutenant\u2019s Woman. * First ending: Charles marries Ernestina, and their marriage is unhappy; Sarah\u2019s fate is unknown. Charles tells Ernestina about an encounter which he implies is with the \u201cFrench Lieutenant\u2019s Whore\u201d, but elides the sordid details, and the matter is ended. This ending, however, might be dismissed as a daydream, before the alternative events of the subsequent meeting with Ernestina are described. Before the second and third endings, the narrator \u2014 who the novelist wants the reader to believe is John Fowles himself \u2014 appears as a minor character sharing a railway compartment with Charles. He tosses a coin to determine the order in which he will portray the two, other possible endings, emphasising their equal plausibility. * Second ending: Charles and Sarah become intimate; he ends his engagement to Ernestina, with unpleasant consequences. He is disgraced, and his uncle marries, then produces an heir. Sarah flees to London without telling the enamoured Charles, who searches for her for years, before finding her living with several artists (seemingly the Rossettis), enjoying an artistic, creative life. He then learns he has fathered a child with her; as a family, their future is open, with possible reunion implied. * Third ending: the narrator re-appears, standing outside the house where the second ending occurred; at the aftermath. He turns back his pocket watch by fifteen minutes, before leaving in his carriage. Events are the same as in the second-ending version but, when Charles finds Sarah again, in London, their reunion is sour. It is possible that their union was childless; Sarah does not tell Charles about a child, and expresses no interest in continuing the relationship. He leaves the house, deciding to return to America, and sees the carriage, in which the narrator was thought gone. Raising the question: is Sarah a manipulating, lying woman of few morals, exploiting Charles\u2019s obvious love to get what she wants? En route, Fowles the novelist discourses upon the difficulties of controlling the characters, and offers analyses of differences in 19th-century customs and class, the theories of Charles Darwin, the poetry of Matthew Arnold, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and the literature of Thomas Hardy. He questions the role of the author \u2014 when speaking of how the Charles character \u201cdisobeys\u201d his orders; the characters have discrete lives of their own in the novel. Philosophically, Existentialism is mentioned several times during the story, and in particular detail at the end, after the portrayals of the two, apparent, equally possible endings.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel's protagonist is Sarah Woodruff, the Woman of the title, also known unkindly as \u201cTragedy\u201d and by the unfortunate nickname \u201cThe French Lieutenant\u2019s Whore\u201d. She lives in the coastal town of Lyme Regis, as a disgraced woman, supposedly abandoned by a French naval officer named Varguennes \u2014 married, unknown to her, to another woman \u2014 with whom she had supposedly had an affair and who had returned to France. She spends her limited time off at the Cobb, a pier jutting out to sea, staring at the sea itself. One day, she is seen there by the gentleman Charles Smithson and his fianc\u00e9e, Ernestina Freeman, the shallow-minded daughter of a wealthy tradesman whose origins are Scottish. Ernestina tells Charles something of Sarah\u2019s story, and he develops a strong curiosity about her. Eventually, he and she begin to meet clandestinely, during which times Sarah tells Charles her history, and asks for his support, mostly emotional. Despite trying to remain objective, Charles eventually sends Sarah to Exeter, where he, during a journey, cannot resist stopping in to visit and see her. At the time she has suffered an ankle injury; he visits her alone and after they have made love he realises that she had been, contrary to the rumours, a virgin. Simultaneously, he learns that his prospective inheritance from an elder uncle is in jeopardy; the uncle has become engaged to a woman young enough to bear him an heir. From there, the novelist offers three different endings for The French Lieutenant\u2019s Woman. * First ending: Charles marries Ernestina, and their marriage is unhappy; Sarah\u2019s fate is unknown. Charles tells Ernestina about an encounter which he implies is with the \u201cFrench Lieutenant\u2019s Whore\u201d, but elides the sordid details, and the matter is ended. This ending, however"
      },
      {
        "text": " has become engaged to a woman young enough to bear him an heir. From there, the novelist offers three different endings for The French Lieutenant\u2019s Woman. * First ending: Charles marries Ernestina, and their marriage is unhappy; Sarah\u2019s fate is unknown. Charles tells Ernestina about an encounter which he implies is with the \u201cFrench Lieutenant\u2019s Whore\u201d, but elides the sordid details, and the matter is ended. This ending, however, might be dismissed as a daydream, before the alternative events of the subsequent meeting with Ernestina are described. Before the second and third endings, the narrator \u2014 who the novelist wants the reader to believe is John Fowles himself \u2014 appears as a minor character sharing a railway compartment with Charles. He tosses a coin to determine the order in which he will portray the two, other possible endings, emphasising their equal plausibility. * Second ending: Charles and Sarah become intimate; he ends his engagement to Ernestina, with unpleasant consequences. He is disgraced, and his uncle marries, then produces an heir. Sarah flees to London without telling the enamoured Charles, who searches for her for years, before finding her living with several artists (seemingly the Rossettis), enjoying an artistic, creative life. He then learns he has fathered a child with her; as a family, their future is open, with possible reunion implied. * Third ending: the narrator re-appears, standing outside the house where the second ending occurred; at the aftermath. He turns back his pocket watch by fifteen minutes, before leaving in his carriage. Events are the same as in the second-ending version but, when Charles finds Sarah again, in London, their reunion is sour. It is possible that their union was childless; Sarah does not tell Charles about a child, and expresses no interest in continuing the relationship. He leaves the house, deciding to return to"
      },
      {
        "text": " narrator re-appears, standing outside the house where the second ending occurred; at the aftermath. He turns back his pocket watch by fifteen minutes, before leaving in his carriage. Events are the same as in the second-ending version but, when Charles finds Sarah again, in London, their reunion is sour. It is possible that their union was childless; Sarah does not tell Charles about a child, and expresses no interest in continuing the relationship. He leaves the house, deciding to return to America, and sees the carriage, in which the narrator was thought gone. Raising the question: is Sarah a manipulating, lying woman of few morals, exploiting Charles\u2019s obvious love to get what she wants? En route, Fowles the novelist discourses upon the difficulties of controlling the characters, and offers analyses of differences in 19th-century customs and class, the theories of Charles Darwin, the poetry of Matthew Arnold, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and the literature of Thomas Hardy. He questions the role of the author \u2014 when speaking of how the Charles character \u201cdisobeys\u201d his orders; the characters have discrete lives of their own in the novel. Philosophically, Existentialism is mentioned several times during the story, and in particular detail at the end, after the portrayals of the two, apparent, equally possible endings.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Shadow of the Hegemon",
    "author": "Orson Scott Card",
    "published_date": "2001",
    "synopsis": " In Shadow of the Hegemon, all of the Battle School graduates, except Ender, return to Earth in approximately 2170 A.D. Ender's brother Peter, using his online pseudonym Locke, arranges for Ender to be returned to earth so he can control Ender, however Valentine under the pseudonym Demosthenes uses Peter's violent deranged past against him to keep Ender exiled on another planet so that the world's leaders won't be tempted to fight over his military genius. Shortly after their return, the members of the unit Ender commanded (called his Jeesh, an Arabic word meaning 'army'; because they fought under Ender, those 10 children are considered the greatest generals on the planet), with the exception of Bean, are kidnapped to be used as strategists in an upcoming struggle for world dominance that ensues after the Formics are defeated. The mastermind behind the kidnappings is Achilles, (ah-SHEEL) a brilliant, ambitious, and psychotic Belgian orphan. He subjects them to solitary confinement so they will help him in his plans for world domination. Bean had imprisoned Achilles in the previous novel, so in retaliation Achilles attempts (unsuccessfully) to kill Bean, along with Bean's family. The Delphikis go into hiding, while Bean joins forces with Sister Carlotta. After he discovers an encoded message in an e-mail sent by Petra confirming that the Russians are Achilles' backers, he works to free her and the others, while helping Ender's brother Peter come to power under his own name so he can eventually be appointed Hegemon and work against Achilles. When Peter publishes a column under the Locke pseudonym revealing Achilles for the psychopathic murderer he is, the Battle Schoolers are released\u2014except for Petra, whom Achilles brings captive with him to India, where he has secured a position of power. From there, he requests plans for an invasion of Burma and then Thailand. Indian Battle School graduates serving their country, including Sayagi and Virlomi, develop plans for brute-force attacks involving long supply lines. Petra, for her part, arranges a different plan, involving stripping India's garrisons along her borders with Pakistan—something she expects will never happen, until Achilles takes her to a meeting with Pakistan's prime minister, in which he encourages the two great Indian nations to declare peace on each other and war with their other neighbors. Nonetheless, her plan is not used, but for a different reason: Achilles is secretly working for China, and has convinced India to move the bulk of its forces to the border of Thailand, giving China the opportunity to annihilate the Indian army. At that point, Achilles plans to leave India for China, and continue his efforts towards world domination. Petra finds an ally in Virlomi, who manages to get word to Bean that Petra is being held an unwilling prisoner, and eventually escapes the military compound to bring rescue. Bean, for his part, has allied himself with Peter Wiggin. Courtesy of Bean's and Sister Carlotta's assets, \"Locke\" is nominated publicly for the position of Hegemon, allowing Peter to unmask himself in a way that does not compromise (and, in fact, increases) his prestige. Meanwhile, Bean, courtesy of Peter's assets, moves to Thailand to get in Achilles's way. He enters the Thai military under the patronage of Suriyawong (or Suri), a fellow Battle School graduate and (nominal) head of Thailand's planning division. Bean trains his own force of 200 Thai soldiers for special operations against India. When the Thai Commander-in-Chief betrays Suriyawong and Bean by attempting to kill them, it becomes clear that Achilles' reach has grown; thankfully, Bean's hunches save him and Suri, and he hides them in the barracks of his troops, e-mailing his few real-life contacts to arrange rescue. Thailand is declared in a State of Emergency and prepares for war. However, Achilles gets the last laugh: Sister Carlotta, flying to Thailand, is killed by a Chinese SAM fired from inside Thailand. As her last act, Bean receives a time-delay message from her, revealing the nature of Anton's Key that had been turned inside him and that he has given up many years of his life for his genius. Bean and Suriyawong use the troops Bean has trained to help halt Indian supply lines. While striking a bridge, they meet Virlomi. Virlomi defects, bringing news of Petra; the three band together and, with the aid of Bean's soldiers and Locke's distinguished connections, move on Hyderabad, arriving just as the Chinese do. Bean foils Achilles again and rescues Petra, though the Chinese manage to extract Achilles successfully. Furthermore, \"Locke\" publishes an essay detailing the Chinese betrayal just as it is happening, and on the basis of this prescience (and other miracles over the years) Peter Wiggin is elected Hegemon over the world. Finally, Petra approaches Bean and makes clear the attraction she feels for him, setting the stage for the remainder of the series.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In Shadow of the Hegemon, all of the Battle School graduates, except Ender, return to Earth in approximately 2170 A.D. Ender's brother Peter, using his online pseudonym Locke, arranges for Ender to be returned to earth so he can control Ender, however Valentine under the pseudonym Demosthenes uses Peter's violent deranged past against him to keep Ender exiled on another planet so that the world's leaders won't be tempted to fight over his military genius. Shortly after their return, the members of the unit Ender commanded (called his Jeesh, an Arabic word meaning 'army'; because they fought under Ender, those 10 children are considered the greatest generals on the planet), with the exception of Bean, are kidnapped to be used as strategists in an upcoming struggle for world dominance that ensues after the Formics are defeated. The mastermind behind the kidnappings is Achilles, (ah-SHEEL) a brilliant, ambitious, and psychotic Belgian orphan. He subjects them to solitary confinement so they will help him in his plans for world domination. Bean had imprisoned Achilles in the previous novel, so in retaliation Achilles attempts (unsuccessfully) to kill Bean, along with Bean's family. The Delphikis go into hiding, while Bean joins forces with Sister Carlotta. After he discovers an encoded message in an e-mail sent by Petra confirming that the Russians are Achilles' backers, he works to free her and the others, while helping Ender's brother Peter come to power under his own name so he can eventually be appointed Hegemon and work against Achilles. When Peter publishes a column under the Locke pseudonym revealing Achilles for the psychopathic murderer he is, the Battle Schoolers are released\u2014except for Petra, whom Achilles brings captive with him to India, where he has secured a position of power. From there, he requests plans for an invasion of Burma and then Thailand. Indian Battle School graduates serving their country, including Sayagi and Virlomi"
      },
      {
        "text": " Peter come to power under his own name so he can eventually be appointed Hegemon and work against Achilles. When Peter publishes a column under the Locke pseudonym revealing Achilles for the psychopathic murderer he is, the Battle Schoolers are released\u2014except for Petra, whom Achilles brings captive with him to India, where he has secured a position of power. From there, he requests plans for an invasion of Burma and then Thailand. Indian Battle School graduates serving their country, including Sayagi and Virlomi, develop plans for brute-force attacks involving long supply lines. Petra, for her part, arranges a different plan, involving stripping India's garrisons along her borders with Pakistan—something she expects will never happen, until Achilles takes her to a meeting with Pakistan's prime minister, in which he encourages the two great Indian nations to declare peace on each other and war with their other neighbors. Nonetheless, her plan is not used, but for a different reason: Achilles is secretly working for China, and has convinced India to move the bulk of its forces to the border of Thailand, giving China the opportunity to annihilate the Indian army. At that point, Achilles plans to leave India for China, and continue his efforts towards world domination. Petra finds an ally in Virlomi, who manages to get word to Bean that Petra is being held an unwilling prisoner, and eventually escapes the military compound to bring rescue. Bean, for his part, has allied himself with Peter Wiggin. Courtesy of Bean's and Sister Carlotta's assets, \"Locke\" is nominated publicly for the position of Hegemon, allowing Peter to unmask himself in a way that does not compromise (and, in fact, increases) his prestige. Meanwhile, Bean, courtesy of Peter's assets, moves to Thailand to get in Achilles's way. He enters the Thai military under the patronage of Suriyawong (or Suri), a fellow Battle School graduate and (nominal)"
      },
      {
        "text": "gin. Courtesy of Bean's and Sister Carlotta's assets, \"Locke\" is nominated publicly for the position of Hegemon, allowing Peter to unmask himself in a way that does not compromise (and, in fact, increases) his prestige. Meanwhile, Bean, courtesy of Peter's assets, moves to Thailand to get in Achilles's way. He enters the Thai military under the patronage of Suriyawong (or Suri), a fellow Battle School graduate and (nominal) head of Thailand's planning division. Bean trains his own force of 200 Thai soldiers for special operations against India. When the Thai Commander-in-Chief betrays Suriyawong and Bean by attempting to kill them, it becomes clear that Achilles' reach has grown; thankfully, Bean's hunches save him and Suri, and he hides them in the barracks of his troops, e-mailing his few real-life contacts to arrange rescue. Thailand is declared in a State of Emergency and prepares for war. However, Achilles gets the last laugh: Sister Carlotta, flying to Thailand, is killed by a Chinese SAM fired from inside Thailand. As her last act, Bean receives a time-delay message from her, revealing the nature of Anton's Key that had been turned inside him and that he has given up many years of his life for his genius. Bean and Suriyawong use the troops Bean has trained to help halt Indian supply lines. While striking a bridge, they meet Virlomi. Virlomi defects, bringing news of Petra; the three band together and, with the aid of Bean's soldiers and Locke's distinguished connections, move on Hyderabad, arriving just as the Chinese do. Bean foils Achilles again and rescues Petra, though the Chinese manage to extract Achilles successfully. Furthermore, \"Locke\" publishes an essay detailing the Chinese betrayal just as it is happening, and on the basis of this prescience (and other miracles over the years) Peter"
      },
      {
        "text": " Virlomi. Virlomi defects, bringing news of Petra; the three band together and, with the aid of Bean's soldiers and Locke's distinguished connections, move on Hyderabad, arriving just as the Chinese do. Bean foils Achilles again and rescues Petra, though the Chinese manage to extract Achilles successfully. Furthermore, \"Locke\" publishes an essay detailing the Chinese betrayal just as it is happening, and on the basis of this prescience (and other miracles over the years) Peter Wiggin is elected Hegemon over the world. Finally, Petra approaches Bean and makes clear the attraction she feels for him, setting the stage for the remainder of the series.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them",
    "author": "J. K. Rowling",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Fantastic Beasts purports to be a reproduction of a textbook owned by Harry Potter and written by magizoologist Newt Scamander, a fictional character in the Harry Potter series. In the series, Magizoology is the study of magical creatures. Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, provides the Foreword and explains the purpose of the special edition of this book (the Comic Relief charity). At the end, he tells the reader, \"...The amusing creatures described hereafter are fictional and cannot hurt you.\" He repeats the Hogwarts motto: \"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus\", Latin for \"Never tickle a sleeping dragon\". Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them contains the history of Magizoology and describes 75 magical species found around the world. Scamander says that he collected most of the information found in the book through observations made over years of travel and across five continents. He notes that the first edition was commissioned in 1918 by Mr Augustus Worme of Obscurus Books. However, it was not published until 1927. It is now in its 52nd edition. In the Harry Potter universe, the book is a required textbook for first-year Hogwarts students, having been an approved textbook since its first publication. It is not clear why students need it in their first year, as students do not take Care of Magical Creatures until their third year. However, it may be used as an encyclopaedia of Dark creatures studied in Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. In his foreword to the book, Albus Dumbledore notes that it serves as an excellent reference for Wizarding households in addition to its use at Hogwarts. The book features fictional doodles and comments in it by Harry, Ron and Hermione. The comments would appear to have been written around the time of the fourth book. These doodles add some extra information for fans of the series; for example the \"Acromantula\" entry has a comment confirming that Hogwarts is located in Scotland. Integrated in the design, the cover of the book appears to have been clawed by some sort of animal. About the Author Foreword by Albus Dumbledore Introduction by Newt Scamander About This Book What Is a Beast? A Brief History of Muggle Awareness of Fantastic Beasts Magical Beasts in Hiding Why Magizoology Matters Ministry of Magic Classifications An A-Z of Fantastic Beasts Newton \"Newt\" Artemis Fido Scamander is the fictional author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, born in 1897. According to the \"About the Author\" section of the book, Scamander became a magizoologist because of his own interest in fabulous beasts and the encouragement of his mother, an enthusiastic Hippogriff breeder. In Hogwarts, he was sorted to Hufflepuff. After graduating from Hogwarts, Scamander joined the Ministry of Magic in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. His career included a brief stint in the Office of House-Elf Relocation, a transfer to the Beast Division, the creation of the Werewolf Register in 1947, the 1965 passage of the Ban on Experimental Breeding, and many research trips for the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau. His contributions to Magizoology earned him an Order of Merlin, Second Class in 1979. Now retired, he lives in Dorset with his wife Porpentina and their pet Kneazles: Hoppy, Milly and Mauler. He has a grandson named Rolf, who married Luna Lovegood some time after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Although Rowling has never hidden the fact that she is the author of Fantastic Beasts, \"Newt Scamander\" can nevertheless be considered a pseudonym of hers, as he is technically the author listed on the book's cover. In the film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Newt Scamander's name appeared on the Marauder's Map. Why he was at Hogwarts was not addressed, but it is likely to be linked to Buckbeak, the Hippogriff Hagrid has at the school.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Fantastic Beasts purports to be a reproduction of a textbook owned by Harry Potter and written by magizoologist Newt Scamander, a fictional character in the Harry Potter series. In the series, Magizoology is the study of magical creatures. Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, provides the Foreword and explains the purpose of the special edition of this book (the Comic Relief charity). At the end, he tells the reader, \"...The amusing creatures described hereafter are fictional and cannot hurt you.\" He repeats the Hogwarts motto: \"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus\", Latin for \"Never tickle a sleeping dragon\". Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them contains the history of Magizoology and describes 75 magical species found around the world. Scamander says that he collected most of the information found in the book through observations made over years of travel and across five continents. He notes that the first edition was commissioned in 1918 by Mr Augustus Worme of Obscurus Books. However, it was not published until 1927. It is now in its 52nd edition. In the Harry Potter universe, the book is a required textbook for first-year Hogwarts students, having been an approved textbook since its first publication. It is not clear why students need it in their first year, as students do not take Care of Magical Creatures until their third year. However, it may be used as an encyclopaedia of Dark creatures studied in Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. In his foreword to the book, Albus Dumbledore notes that it serves as an excellent reference for Wizarding households in addition to its use at Hogwarts. The book features fictional doodles and comments in it by Harry, Ron and Hermione. The comments would appear to have been written around the time of the fourth book. These doodles add some extra information for fans of the series; for example the \"Acromantula\" entry has a comment confirming that Hogwarts is located in Scotland."
      },
      {
        "text": " In his foreword to the book, Albus Dumbledore notes that it serves as an excellent reference for Wizarding households in addition to its use at Hogwarts. The book features fictional doodles and comments in it by Harry, Ron and Hermione. The comments would appear to have been written around the time of the fourth book. These doodles add some extra information for fans of the series; for example the \"Acromantula\" entry has a comment confirming that Hogwarts is located in Scotland. Integrated in the design, the cover of the book appears to have been clawed by some sort of animal. About the Author Foreword by Albus Dumbledore Introduction by Newt Scamander About This Book What Is a Beast? A Brief History of Muggle Awareness of Fantastic Beasts Magical Beasts in Hiding Why Magizoology Matters Ministry of Magic Classifications An A-Z of Fantastic Beasts Newton \"Newt\" Artemis Fido Scamander is the fictional author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, born in 1897. According to the \"About the Author\" section of the book, Scamander became a magizoologist because of his own interest in fabulous beasts and the encouragement of his mother, an enthusiastic Hippogriff breeder. In Hogwarts, he was sorted to Hufflepuff. After graduating from Hogwarts, Scamander joined the Ministry of Magic in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. His career included a brief stint in the Office of House-Elf Relocation, a transfer to the Beast Division, the creation of the Werewolf Register in 1947, the 1965 passage of the Ban on Experimental Breeding, and many research trips for the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau. His contributions to Magizoology earned him an Order of Merlin, Second Class in 1979. Now retired, he lives in Dorset with his wife Porpentina and their pet Kneazles: Hoppy, Milly and Mauler. He has a grandson named Rolf,"
      },
      {
        "text": "ocation, a transfer to the Beast Division, the creation of the Werewolf Register in 1947, the 1965 passage of the Ban on Experimental Breeding, and many research trips for the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau. His contributions to Magizoology earned him an Order of Merlin, Second Class in 1979. Now retired, he lives in Dorset with his wife Porpentina and their pet Kneazles: Hoppy, Milly and Mauler. He has a grandson named Rolf, who married Luna Lovegood some time after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Although Rowling has never hidden the fact that she is the author of Fantastic Beasts, \"Newt Scamander\" can nevertheless be considered a pseudonym of hers, as he is technically the author listed on the book's cover. In the film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Newt Scamander's name appeared on the Marauder's Map. Why he was at Hogwarts was not addressed, but it is likely to be linked to Buckbeak, the Hippogriff Hagrid has at the school.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "My Family and Other Animals",
    "author": "Gerald Durrell",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The book is an autobiographical account of five years in the childhood of naturalist Gerald Durrell, age 10 at the start of the saga, of his family, pets and life during a sojourn on the island of Corfu. The book is divided into three sections, marking the three villas where the family lived on the island. Apart from Gerald (the youngest) and Larry, the family comprised their widowed mother, the gun-mad Leslie, and diet-obsessed sister Margo together with Roger the dog. They are fiercely protected by their taxi-driver friend Spiro (Spiros \"Americano\" Halikiopoulos) and mentored by the polymath Dr. Theodore Stephanides who provides Gerald with his education in natural history. Other human characters, chiefly eccentric, include Gerald's private tutors, the artistic and literary visitors Larry invites to stay, and the local peasants who befriend the family. The human comedy is interspersed by descriptions of the animal life which Gerald observes on his expeditions around the family homes, island, and seashore and which he frequently brings back and keeps as pets; these include Achilles the tortoise, Quasimodo the pigeon, Ulysses the Scops owl, numerous spiders, Alecko the gull, puppies named Widdle and Puke, and the birds known as the Magenpies.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is an autobiographical account of five years in the childhood of naturalist Gerald Durrell, age 10 at the start of the saga, of his family, pets and life during a sojourn on the island of Corfu. The book is divided into three sections, marking the three villas where the family lived on the island. Apart from Gerald (the youngest) and Larry, the family comprised their widowed mother, the gun-mad Leslie, and diet-obsessed sister Margo together with Roger the dog. They are fiercely protected by their taxi-driver friend Spiro (Spiros \"Americano\" Halikiopoulos) and mentored by the polymath Dr. Theodore Stephanides who provides Gerald with his education in natural history. Other human characters, chiefly eccentric, include Gerald's private tutors, the artistic and literary visitors Larry invites to stay, and the local peasants who befriend the family. The human comedy is interspersed by descriptions of the animal life which Gerald observes on his expeditions around the family homes, island, and seashore and which he frequently brings back and keeps as pets; these include Achilles the tortoise, Quasimodo the pigeon, Ulysses the Scops owl, numerous spiders, Alecko the gull, puppies named Widdle and Puke, and the birds known as the Magenpies.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Prince Caspian",
    "author": "C. S. Lewis",
    "published_date": "1951",
    "synopsis": " While standing on a British railway station, awaiting their train to school after the summer holidays, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie are magically whisked away to a beach near an old and ruined castle. They come to realize the ruin is Cair Paravel, where they once ruled as the Kings and Queens of Narnia, and discover the treasure vault where Peter's sword and shield, Susan's bow and arrows, and Lucy's bottle of magical cordial and dagger are stored. Susan's horn for summoning help is missing, however, as she left it in the woods the day they returned to England after their first visit to Narnia. Although only a year has passed in England, many centuries have passed in Narnia. That same day, they intervene to rescue Trumpkin the dwarf from soldiers who have brought him to the ruins to drown him. Trumpkin tells the children that since their disappearance, a race of men called Telmarines have invaded Narnia, driving the Talking Beasts into the wilderness and pushing even their memory underground. Narnia is now ruled by King Miraz and his wife Queen Prunaprismia, but the rightful king is Miraz's young nephew, Prince Caspian, who has gained the support of the Old Narnians. Miraz had usurped the throne by killing his own brother, Caspian's father King Caspian IX. Miraz tolerated Caspian as heir until his own son was born. Prince Caspian, until that point ignorant of his uncle's evil deeds, escaped from Miraz's Castle with the aid of his tutor Doctor Cornelius, who had schooled him in the lore of Old Narnia, and who gives him in parting Queen Susan's horn. Caspian flees into the forest but is knocked unconscious when his horse bolts. He awakes in the den of a talking badger, Trufflehunter, and two dwarfs, Nikabrik and Trumpkin, who accept Caspian as their king. The badger and dwarves take Caspian to meet many creatures of Old Narnia. They gather for a council at midnight on Dancing Lawn. Doctor Cornelius arrives to warn them of the approach of King Miraz and his army; he urges them to flee to Aslan's How in the great woods near Cair Paravel. But the Telmarines follow the Narnians to the How, and after several skirmishes the Narnians appear close to defeat. At a second war council, they discuss whether to use Queen Susan's horn, and whether it will bring Aslan or the Kings and Queens of the golden age. Not knowing where help will arrive, they dispatch Pattertwig the Squirrel to Lantern Waste and Trumpkin to Cair Paravel, and it is then that Trumpkin is captured by the Telmarines and rescued by the Pevensies. Trumpkin and the Pevensies make their way to Caspian. They try to save time by travelling up Glasswater Creek, but lose their way. Lucy sees Aslan and wants to follow where he leads, but the others do not believe her and follow their original course, which becomes increasingly difficult. In the night, Aslan calls Lucy and tells her that she must awaken the others and insist that they follow her on Aslan's path. In the cold early hours of morning the others eventually obey. They begin to see Aslan's shadow, then Aslan himself. Aslan sends Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin ahead to Aslan's How to deal with the treachery brewing there, and follows with Susan and Lucy, who see the wood come alive. Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin enter Aslan's How; they overhear Nikabrik and his confederates, a Hag and a Wer-Wolf, trying to convince Caspian, Cornelius, and Trufflehunter to help them resurrect the White Witch in hopes of using her power to defeat Miraz. A fight ensues, and Nikabrik and his two friends are slain. Peter challenges Miraz to single combat; the army of the victor in this duel will be considered the victor in the war. Even though he has a stronger army and thus has more to lose by a duel, Miraz accepts the challenge, goaded by his two lords, Glozelle and Sopespian. After a stiff fight, Miraz falls. Glozelle and Sopespian cry that the Narnians have cheated and stabbed the King in the back while he was down. They command the Telmarine army to attack, and in the commotion that follows, Glozelle stabs Miraz in the back. The Living Wood is wakened by Aslan's arrival, and the Telmarines flee. Discovering themselves trapped at the Great River, where their bridge has been destroyed by forces of Narnia, the Telmarines surrender. Aslan gives the Telmarines a choice of staying in Narnia under Caspian or returning to Earth, their original home. After one volunteer disappears through the magic door created by Aslan, the Pevensies go through to reassure the other Telmarines, though Peter and Susan reveal to Edmund and Lucy that they are too old to return furthermore to Narnia. The Pevensies find themselves back at the railway station where the adventure began, just as the train to Susan and Lucy's boarding school pulls up into the station.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " While standing on a British railway station, awaiting their train to school after the summer holidays, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie are magically whisked away to a beach near an old and ruined castle. They come to realize the ruin is Cair Paravel, where they once ruled as the Kings and Queens of Narnia, and discover the treasure vault where Peter's sword and shield, Susan's bow and arrows, and Lucy's bottle of magical cordial and dagger are stored. Susan's horn for summoning help is missing, however, as she left it in the woods the day they returned to England after their first visit to Narnia. Although only a year has passed in England, many centuries have passed in Narnia. That same day, they intervene to rescue Trumpkin the dwarf from soldiers who have brought him to the ruins to drown him. Trumpkin tells the children that since their disappearance, a race of men called Telmarines have invaded Narnia, driving the Talking Beasts into the wilderness and pushing even their memory underground. Narnia is now ruled by King Miraz and his wife Queen Prunaprismia, but the rightful king is Miraz's young nephew, Prince Caspian, who has gained the support of the Old Narnians. Miraz had usurped the throne by killing his own brother, Caspian's father King Caspian IX. Miraz tolerated Caspian as heir until his own son was born. Prince Caspian, until that point ignorant of his uncle's evil deeds, escaped from Miraz's Castle with the aid of his tutor Doctor Cornelius, who had schooled him in the lore of Old Narnia, and who gives him in parting Queen Susan's horn. Caspian flees into the forest but is knocked unconscious when his horse bolts. He awakes in the den of a talking badger, Trufflehunter, and two dwarfs,"
      },
      {
        "text": " son was born. Prince Caspian, until that point ignorant of his uncle's evil deeds, escaped from Miraz's Castle with the aid of his tutor Doctor Cornelius, who had schooled him in the lore of Old Narnia, and who gives him in parting Queen Susan's horn. Caspian flees into the forest but is knocked unconscious when his horse bolts. He awakes in the den of a talking badger, Trufflehunter, and two dwarfs, Nikabrik and Trumpkin, who accept Caspian as their king. The badger and dwarves take Caspian to meet many creatures of Old Narnia. They gather for a council at midnight on Dancing Lawn. Doctor Cornelius arrives to warn them of the approach of King Miraz and his army; he urges them to flee to Aslan's How in the great woods near Cair Paravel. But the Telmarines follow the Narnians to the How, and after several skirmishes the Narnians appear close to defeat. At a second war council, they discuss whether to use Queen Susan's horn, and whether it will bring Aslan or the Kings and Queens of the golden age. Not knowing where help will arrive, they dispatch Pattertwig the Squirrel to Lantern Waste and Trumpkin to Cair Paravel, and it is then that Trumpkin is captured by the Telmarines and rescued by the Pevensies. Trumpkin and the Pevensies make their way to Caspian. They try to save time by travelling up Glasswater Creek, but lose their way. Lucy sees Aslan and wants to follow where he leads, but the others do not believe her and follow their original course, which becomes increasingly difficult. In the night, Aslan calls Lucy and tells her that she must awaken the others and insist that they follow her on Aslan's path. In the cold early hours of morning the others eventually obey"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Pevensies make their way to Caspian. They try to save time by travelling up Glasswater Creek, but lose their way. Lucy sees Aslan and wants to follow where he leads, but the others do not believe her and follow their original course, which becomes increasingly difficult. In the night, Aslan calls Lucy and tells her that she must awaken the others and insist that they follow her on Aslan's path. In the cold early hours of morning the others eventually obey. They begin to see Aslan's shadow, then Aslan himself. Aslan sends Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin ahead to Aslan's How to deal with the treachery brewing there, and follows with Susan and Lucy, who see the wood come alive. Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin enter Aslan's How; they overhear Nikabrik and his confederates, a Hag and a Wer-Wolf, trying to convince Caspian, Cornelius, and Trufflehunter to help them resurrect the White Witch in hopes of using her power to defeat Miraz. A fight ensues, and Nikabrik and his two friends are slain. Peter challenges Miraz to single combat; the army of the victor in this duel will be considered the victor in the war. Even though he has a stronger army and thus has more to lose by a duel, Miraz accepts the challenge, goaded by his two lords, Glozelle and Sopespian. After a stiff fight, Miraz falls. Glozelle and Sopespian cry that the Narnians have cheated and stabbed the King in the back while he was down. They command the Telmarine army to attack, and in the commotion that follows, Glozelle stabs Miraz in the back. The Living Wood is wakened by Aslan's arrival, and the Telmarines flee. Discovering themselves trapped at the Great River, where their bridge has been destroyed"
      },
      {
        "text": ". After a stiff fight, Miraz falls. Glozelle and Sopespian cry that the Narnians have cheated and stabbed the King in the back while he was down. They command the Telmarine army to attack, and in the commotion that follows, Glozelle stabs Miraz in the back. The Living Wood is wakened by Aslan's arrival, and the Telmarines flee. Discovering themselves trapped at the Great River, where their bridge has been destroyed by forces of Narnia, the Telmarines surrender. Aslan gives the Telmarines a choice of staying in Narnia under Caspian or returning to Earth, their original home. After one volunteer disappears through the magic door created by Aslan, the Pevensies go through to reassure the other Telmarines, though Peter and Susan reveal to Edmund and Lucy that they are too old to return furthermore to Narnia. The Pevensies find themselves back at the railway station where the adventure began, just as the train to Susan and Lucy's boarding school pulls up into the station.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe",
    "author": "C. S. Lewis",
    "published_date": "1950",
    "synopsis": " The story begins in 1940 during World War II, when four siblings\u2014Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie\u2014are evacuated from London to escape the Blitz. They are sent to live with Professor Digory Kirke, who lives in a country house in the English countryside. While the four children are exploring the house, Lucy looks into a wardrobe and discovers a doorway to a magical world named Narnia. There she meets a faun named Mr Tumnus. He invites her to have tea in his home. There he confesses he planned to report her to the usurper queen of Narnia, otherwise known as the White Witch, but has thought better of it. Upon returning to our world, Lucy's siblings do not believe her story about Narnia. Her older brother Edmund enters the wardrobe and meets the White Witch, who introduces herself as the Queen of Narnia and befriends him and offers him magical Turkish delight, which enchants him. She encourages him to bring his siblings to her in Narnia, with the promise that he shall rule over them. Lucy discovers Edmund in Narnia at the lamppost, and they return to the Professor's house. In conversation with Lucy, Edmund realises that the woman who befriended him is in fact the White Witch; however, he does not tell anyone that he has met her, and lies to Peter and Susan, denying Lucy's claim that he too had entered Narnia through the wardrobe. Eventually, all four of the children enter Narnia together while hiding in the wardrobe. They meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, who invite them to dinner. The beavers recount a prophecy that the witch's power will fall when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve fill the four thrones at Cair Paravel. The beavers tell of the true king of Narnia, a great lion named Aslan, who has been absent for many years but is now \"on the move again.\" Edmund sneaks away to the White Witch. Her castle is filled with stone statues \u2013 enemies she has turned to stone. The beavers realize where Edmund has gone and abandon their home, leading the children to Aslan. As they travel, they notice that the snow is melting, indicating that the White Witch's spell is breaking. A visit by Father Christmas confirms this. Father Christmas gives the three children and the beavers presents. Peter receives a sword and shield, Susan a horn and a bow, Lucy a vial of magical healing liquid and a knife or dagger, Mrs. Beaver a sewing machine, and Mr. Beaver's dam is finally finished. The children and the Beavers meet with Aslan and his army. Peter engages in his first battle, killing a wolf that threatens Susan. The Witch approaches to speak with Aslan, insisting that, according to \"deep magic from the dawn of time\", she has the right to execute Edmund as a traitor. Aslan speaks with her privately and persuades her to renounce her claim on Edmund's life. That evening, Aslan secretly leaves the camp, but is followed by Lucy and Susan. Aslan has bargained to exchange his own life for Edmund's. The Witch ties Aslan to the Stone Table and then kills him with a knife. The following morning the Stone Table is broken and Aslan is restored to life, explaining to Lucy and Susan that it is due to \"deeper magic from before the dawn of time\" (which the Witch did not know about), ruling that if an innocent was killed in the place of a traitor, the Stone Table would break and the innocent would be brought back to life. Aslan allows Lucy and Susan to ride on his back as he hurries to the Witch's castle. There he breathes upon the statues, restoring them to life. Peter and Edmund lead the Narnian army in a battle against the White Witch's army, but are losing. Aslan arrives with the former statues as reinforcements. The Narnians rout the evil army, and Aslan kills the Witch. The Pevensie children are named kings and queens of Narnia: King Peter the Magnificent, Queen Susan the Gentle, King Edmund the Just and Queen Lucy the Valiant. Several years later, now adults and mounted on horseback, the siblings go hunting for a white stag. They see the lamppost and go towards it. Just beyond the lamppost, branches become coats. The siblings are back in the wardrobe and are children again. They re-enter the Professor's house.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins in 1940 during World War II, when four siblings\u2014Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie\u2014are evacuated from London to escape the Blitz. They are sent to live with Professor Digory Kirke, who lives in a country house in the English countryside. While the four children are exploring the house, Lucy looks into a wardrobe and discovers a doorway to a magical world named Narnia. There she meets a faun named Mr Tumnus. He invites her to have tea in his home. There he confesses he planned to report her to the usurper queen of Narnia, otherwise known as the White Witch, but has thought better of it. Upon returning to our world, Lucy's siblings do not believe her story about Narnia. Her older brother Edmund enters the wardrobe and meets the White Witch, who introduces herself as the Queen of Narnia and befriends him and offers him magical Turkish delight, which enchants him. She encourages him to bring his siblings to her in Narnia, with the promise that he shall rule over them. Lucy discovers Edmund in Narnia at the lamppost, and they return to the Professor's house. In conversation with Lucy, Edmund realises that the woman who befriended him is in fact the White Witch; however, he does not tell anyone that he has met her, and lies to Peter and Susan, denying Lucy's claim that he too had entered Narnia through the wardrobe. Eventually, all four of the children enter Narnia together while hiding in the wardrobe. They meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, who invite them to dinner. The beavers recount a prophecy that the witch's power will fall when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve fill the four thrones at Cair Paravel. The beavers tell of the true king of Narnia, a great lion named Aslan, who has been absent for many years but"
      },
      {
        "text": " the wardrobe. Eventually, all four of the children enter Narnia together while hiding in the wardrobe. They meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, who invite them to dinner. The beavers recount a prophecy that the witch's power will fall when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve fill the four thrones at Cair Paravel. The beavers tell of the true king of Narnia, a great lion named Aslan, who has been absent for many years but is now \"on the move again.\" Edmund sneaks away to the White Witch. Her castle is filled with stone statues \u2013 enemies she has turned to stone. The beavers realize where Edmund has gone and abandon their home, leading the children to Aslan. As they travel, they notice that the snow is melting, indicating that the White Witch's spell is breaking. A visit by Father Christmas confirms this. Father Christmas gives the three children and the beavers presents. Peter receives a sword and shield, Susan a horn and a bow, Lucy a vial of magical healing liquid and a knife or dagger, Mrs. Beaver a sewing machine, and Mr. Beaver's dam is finally finished. The children and the Beavers meet with Aslan and his army. Peter engages in his first battle, killing a wolf that threatens Susan. The Witch approaches to speak with Aslan, insisting that, according to \"deep magic from the dawn of time\", she has the right to execute Edmund as a traitor. Aslan speaks with her privately and persuades her to renounce her claim on Edmund's life. That evening, Aslan secretly leaves the camp, but is followed by Lucy and Susan. Aslan has bargained to exchange his own life for Edmund's. The Witch ties Aslan to the Stone Table and then kills him with a knife. The following morning the Stone Table is broken and Aslan is restored to life, explaining to Lucy and Susan that it is due to \"deeper magic"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Aslan speaks with her privately and persuades her to renounce her claim on Edmund's life. That evening, Aslan secretly leaves the camp, but is followed by Lucy and Susan. Aslan has bargained to exchange his own life for Edmund's. The Witch ties Aslan to the Stone Table and then kills him with a knife. The following morning the Stone Table is broken and Aslan is restored to life, explaining to Lucy and Susan that it is due to \"deeper magic from before the dawn of time\" (which the Witch did not know about), ruling that if an innocent was killed in the place of a traitor, the Stone Table would break and the innocent would be brought back to life. Aslan allows Lucy and Susan to ride on his back as he hurries to the Witch's castle. There he breathes upon the statues, restoring them to life. Peter and Edmund lead the Narnian army in a battle against the White Witch's army, but are losing. Aslan arrives with the former statues as reinforcements. The Narnians rout the evil army, and Aslan kills the Witch. The Pevensie children are named kings and queens of Narnia: King Peter the Magnificent, Queen Susan the Gentle, King Edmund the Just and Queen Lucy the Valiant. Several years later, now adults and mounted on horseback, the siblings go hunting for a white stag. They see the lamppost and go towards it. Just beyond the lamppost, branches become coats. The siblings are back in the wardrobe and are children again. They re-enter the Professor's house.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ppost, branches become coats. The siblings are back in the wardrobe and are children again. They re-enter the Professor's house.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Primary Colors",
    "author": "Joe Klein",
    "published_date": "1996-01-16",
    "synopsis": " The book begins as an idealistic former congressional worker, Henry Burton, joins the presidential campaign of Southern governor Jack Stanton, a thinly disguised stand-in for Bill Clinton. The plot then follows the primary election calendar beginning in New Hampshire where Stanton's affair with Cashmere, his wife's hairdresser, and his participation in a Vietnam War era protest come to light and threaten to derail his presidential prospects. In Florida, Stanton revives his campaign by disingenuously portraying his Democratic opponent as insufficiently pro-Israel and as a weak supporter of Social Security. Burton becomes increasingly disillusioned with Stanton, who is a policy wonk who talks too long, eats too much and is overly flirtatious toward women. Stanton is also revealed to be insincere in his beliefs, saying whatever will help him to win. Matters finally come to a head, and Burton is forced to choose between idealism and realism.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book begins as an idealistic former congressional worker, Henry Burton, joins the presidential campaign of Southern governor Jack Stanton, a thinly disguised stand-in for Bill Clinton. The plot then follows the primary election calendar beginning in New Hampshire where Stanton's affair with Cashmere, his wife's hairdresser, and his participation in a Vietnam War era protest come to light and threaten to derail his presidential prospects. In Florida, Stanton revives his campaign by disingenuously portraying his Democratic opponent as insufficiently pro-Israel and as a weak supporter of Social Security. Burton becomes increasingly disillusioned with Stanton, who is a policy wonk who talks too long, eats too much and is overly flirtatious toward women. Stanton is also revealed to be insincere in his beliefs, saying whatever will help him to win. Matters finally come to a head, and Burton is forced to choose between idealism and realism.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The book is set in the fictional village of King's Abbott in England. It is narrated by Dr. James Sheppard, who becomes Poirot's assistant (a role filled by Captain Hastings in several other Poirot novels). The story begins with the death of Mrs. Ferrars, a wealthy widow who is rumoured to have murdered her husband. Her death is initially believed to be an accident until Roger Ackroyd, a widower who had been expected to marry Mrs. Ferrars, reveals that she admitted to killing her husband and then committed suicide. Shortly after this he is found murdered. The suspects include Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd, Roger's neurotic hypochondriac sister-in-law who has accumulated personal debts through extravagant spending; her daughter Flora; Major Blunt, a big-game hunter; Geoffrey Raymond, Ackroyd's personal secretary; Ralph Paton, Ackroyd's stepson and another person with heavy debts; Parker, a snooping butler; and Ursula Bourne, a parlourmaid with an uncertain history who resigned her post the afternoon of the murder. Dr Sheppard's spinster sister Caroline is a favourite character among many and some say she could have been in another book. The initial suspect is Ralph, who is engaged to Flora and stands to inherit his stepfather's fortune. Several critical pieces of evidence seem to point to Ralph. Poirot, who has just moved to the town, begins to investigate at Flora's behest. The book ends with a then-unprecedented plot twist. Poirot exonerates all of the original suspects. He then lays out a completely reasoned case that the murderer is in fact Dr. Sheppard, who has not only been Poirot's assistant, but the story's narrator. Dr. Sheppard was Mrs. Ferrars' blackmailer, and he murdered Ackroyd to stop him learning the truth from Mrs. Ferrars. Poirot gives the doctor two choices: either he surrenders to the police or, for the sake of his clean reputation and his proud sister, he commits suicide. In the final chapter of Sheppard's narrative (a sort of epilogue), Sheppard admits his guilt, noting certain literary techniques he used to write the narrative truthfully without revealing his role in the crime or doing anything to suggest that he knew the truth, and reveals that he had hoped to be the one to write the account of Poirot's great failure: not solving the murder of Roger Ackroyd. Thus, the last chapter acts as both Sheppard's confession and suicide note. The final revelation uses meta-fictional tropes. The ending also opens up the question whether narrators can be trusted or not. Christie uses unreliable narrator again in 1967 novel Endless Night. Reader response to the ending varies from admiration of the unexpected end to a feeling of being cheated. In the novel, Christie has laid side by side two modes of gathering of information and building of hypothesis. One is Poirot's use of ratiocination, the other is the channel of gossiping, practised by almost all inhabitants of King's Abbott, in particular, Caroline. While even Caroline is able to interpret certain situations correctly, Christie privileges scientific mode of investigation by unveiling the murderer through Poirot.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is set in the fictional village of King's Abbott in England. It is narrated by Dr. James Sheppard, who becomes Poirot's assistant (a role filled by Captain Hastings in several other Poirot novels). The story begins with the death of Mrs. Ferrars, a wealthy widow who is rumoured to have murdered her husband. Her death is initially believed to be an accident until Roger Ackroyd, a widower who had been expected to marry Mrs. Ferrars, reveals that she admitted to killing her husband and then committed suicide. Shortly after this he is found murdered. The suspects include Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd, Roger's neurotic hypochondriac sister-in-law who has accumulated personal debts through extravagant spending; her daughter Flora; Major Blunt, a big-game hunter; Geoffrey Raymond, Ackroyd's personal secretary; Ralph Paton, Ackroyd's stepson and another person with heavy debts; Parker, a snooping butler; and Ursula Bourne, a parlourmaid with an uncertain history who resigned her post the afternoon of the murder. Dr Sheppard's spinster sister Caroline is a favourite character among many and some say she could have been in another book. The initial suspect is Ralph, who is engaged to Flora and stands to inherit his stepfather's fortune. Several critical pieces of evidence seem to point to Ralph. Poirot, who has just moved to the town, begins to investigate at Flora's behest. The book ends with a then-unprecedented plot twist. Poirot exonerates all of the original suspects. He then lays out a completely reasoned case that the murderer is in fact Dr. Sheppard, who has not only been Poirot's assistant, but the story's narrator. Dr. Sheppard was Mrs. Ferrars' blackmailer, and he murdered Ackroyd to stop him learning the truth from Mrs. Ferrars."
      },
      {
        "text": " begins to investigate at Flora's behest. The book ends with a then-unprecedented plot twist. Poirot exonerates all of the original suspects. He then lays out a completely reasoned case that the murderer is in fact Dr. Sheppard, who has not only been Poirot's assistant, but the story's narrator. Dr. Sheppard was Mrs. Ferrars' blackmailer, and he murdered Ackroyd to stop him learning the truth from Mrs. Ferrars. Poirot gives the doctor two choices: either he surrenders to the police or, for the sake of his clean reputation and his proud sister, he commits suicide. In the final chapter of Sheppard's narrative (a sort of epilogue), Sheppard admits his guilt, noting certain literary techniques he used to write the narrative truthfully without revealing his role in the crime or doing anything to suggest that he knew the truth, and reveals that he had hoped to be the one to write the account of Poirot's great failure: not solving the murder of Roger Ackroyd. Thus, the last chapter acts as both Sheppard's confession and suicide note. The final revelation uses meta-fictional tropes. The ending also opens up the question whether narrators can be trusted or not. Christie uses unreliable narrator again in 1967 novel Endless Night. Reader response to the ending varies from admiration of the unexpected end to a feeling of being cheated. In the novel, Christie has laid side by side two modes of gathering of information and building of hypothesis. One is Poirot's use of ratiocination, the other is the channel of gossiping, practised by almost all inhabitants of King's Abbott, in particular, Caroline. While even Caroline is able to interpret certain situations correctly, Christie privileges scientific mode of investigation by unveiling the murderer through Poirot.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " by side two modes of gathering of information and building of hypothesis. One is Poirot's use of ratiocination, the other is the channel of gossiping, practised by almost all inhabitants of King's Abbott, in particular, Caroline. While even Caroline is able to interpret certain situations correctly, Christie privileges scientific mode of investigation by unveiling the murderer through Poirot.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The A.B.C. Murders",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " When a serial killer nicknamed ABC taunts Poirot in veiled letters and kills people in alphabetical order, Poirot employs an unconventional method to track down ABC. In a seemingly unconnected story, a travelling salesman named Alexander Bonaparte Cust has travelled to all of the murder locations on the day the crimes occurred. Cust had suffered a blow on the head during military service. As a result, he is prone to blackouts, headaches and epileptic attacks. Could this seemingly innocent stranger be the eponymous killer?\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " When a serial killer nicknamed ABC taunts Poirot in veiled letters and kills people in alphabetical order, Poirot employs an unconventional method to track down ABC. In a seemingly unconnected story, a travelling salesman named Alexander Bonaparte Cust has travelled to all of the murder locations on the day the crimes occurred. Cust had suffered a blow on the head during military service. As a result, he is prone to blackouts, headaches and epileptic attacks. Could this seemingly innocent stranger be the eponymous killer?\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Crossing the Chasm",
    "author": "Geoffrey Moore",
    "published_date": "1991",
    "synopsis": " In Crossing the Chasm, Moore begins with the diffusion of innovations theory from Everett Rogers, and argues there is a chasm between the early adopters of the product (the technology enthusiasts and visionaries) and the early majority (the pragmatists). Moore believes visionaries and pragmatists have very different expectations, and he attempts to explore those differences and suggest techniques to successfully cross the \"chasm,\" including choosing a target market, understanding the whole product concept, positioning the product, building a marketing strategy, choosing the most appropriate distribution channel and pricing. Crossing the Chasm is closely related to the technology adoption lifecycle where five main segments are recognized; innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. According to Moore, the marketer should focus on one group of customers at a time, using each group as a base for marketing to the next group. The most difficult step is making the transition between visionaries (early adopters) and pragmatists (early majority). This is the chasm that he refers to. If a successful firm can create a bandwagon effect in which enough momentum builds, then the product becomes a de facto standard. However, Moore's theories are only applicable for disruptive or discontinuous innovations. Adoption of continuous innovations (that do not force a significant change of behavior by the customer) are still best described by the original technology adoption lifecycle. Confusion between continuous and discontinuous innovation is a leading cause of failure for high tech products.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In Crossing the Chasm, Moore begins with the diffusion of innovations theory from Everett Rogers, and argues there is a chasm between the early adopters of the product (the technology enthusiasts and visionaries) and the early majority (the pragmatists). Moore believes visionaries and pragmatists have very different expectations, and he attempts to explore those differences and suggest techniques to successfully cross the \"chasm,\" including choosing a target market, understanding the whole product concept, positioning the product, building a marketing strategy, choosing the most appropriate distribution channel and pricing. Crossing the Chasm is closely related to the technology adoption lifecycle where five main segments are recognized; innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. According to Moore, the marketer should focus on one group of customers at a time, using each group as a base for marketing to the next group. The most difficult step is making the transition between visionaries (early adopters) and pragmatists (early majority). This is the chasm that he refers to. If a successful firm can create a bandwagon effect in which enough momentum builds, then the product becomes a de facto standard. However, Moore's theories are only applicable for disruptive or discontinuous innovations. Adoption of continuous innovations (that do not force a significant change of behavior by the customer) are still best described by the original technology adoption lifecycle. Confusion between continuous and discontinuous innovation is a leading cause of failure for high tech products.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " tech products.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Futurological Congress",
    "author": "Stanis\u0142aw Lem",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Ijon Tichy is sent to the Eighth World Futurological Congress in Costa Rica by professor Tarantoga. The conference is set to focus on the world's overpopulation crisis and ways of dealing with it. It is held at the Costa Rica Hilton in Nounas, which is 164 stories tall. Lem is fiercely satirical from the start, and absurdities abound at the Hilton with its guaranteed 'BOMB-FREE' rooms and the extravagances of Tichy's suite, which include a palm grove and an 'all-girl orchestra [that] played Bach while performing a cleverly choreographed striptease'. The conference itself is no less absurd. Papers and presenters are too numerous to allow for full presentations. Instead, papers are distributed in hard copy and speakers call out paragraph numbers to call attention to their most salient points. In the middle of his first night at the conference, Tichy drinks some tap water in his hotel room, and his wild hallucinogenic trip begins, though it never becomes any more or less absurd than the brief glimpse of reality Lem presents in the beginning of the book (if indeed the congress is meant to be reality). He realizes the next day that the government has drugged the public water supply with \"benignimizers\", a drug that makes the victim helplessly benevolent. Events spiral out of control at the Hilton, which was already so chaotic that charred corpses from bombing attacks would be covered with tarps where they lay while guests went about their business. The government ends up bombing the hotel, and Tichy escapes into the sewer where rats walk around on their hind legs. Tichy is evacuated from the scene by the military, but during his rescue the helicopter crashes and he awakes in the hospital, where he finds that his brain has been transplanted into the body of an attractive young black woman. Protesters attack the hospital, and Tichy is nearly killed again. This time when he wakes up, he finds he has been transplanted into the body of an overweight, red-haired man. Tichy's mental state grows increasingly fragile as he cannot distinguish reality from hallucination, and the medical staff make the decision to freeze him until a time when medicine can help his condition. He awakes in the year 2039, and at this point, the novel adopts the format of a journal that Tichy keeps to chronicle his experience in this new world. His future shock is so great that he finds he is being introduced to the world in small stages by the medical staff. In most regards, this future society is Utopian. Money is no object. One can simply go to the bank and request any sum and borrow it interest-free. There is no effort made to collect the debt, either, as most people take a drug that instills a sense of pride and work-ethic, which would disallow defaulting on the debt. Tichy learns that there is an inherent bias against defrostees, and that there are a great deal of words that he does not understand. Like cityspeak, and many other sci-fi futuristic languages, it is a mishmash of words with clear enough English roots, though Tichy is mystified by it. Also, mood is highly regulated via drugs. Tichy gets involved with a woman, and during an argument, she deliberately takes a drug called recriminol to make her more combative, which prolongs the tiff. Following their break-up, Tichy becomes deeply disillusioned with the 'psychem' mentality wherein drugs regulate every waking moment of the day. He resolves to stop taking any drugs and confides to his friend, Professor Trottelreiner, that he can't stand this new world. Trottelreiner explains that the everyday drugs that Tichy is tired of are only the tip of the iceberg. Narcotics and hallucinogens are trifles compared to 'mascons', which are so powerful that they mask whole swaths of reality. Trottelreiner explains, \"mascon\" derives from mask, masquerade, mascara. By introducing properly prepared mascons to the brain, one can mask any object in the outside world behind a fictitious image\u2014superimposed\u2014and with such dexterity, that the psychemasconated subject cannot tell which of his perceptions have been altered, and which have not. If but for a single instant you could see this world of ours the way it really is\u2014undoctored, unadulterated, uncensored\u2014you would drop in your tracks!\" The Professor then gives Tichy a flask of \"up'n'at'm, one of the vigilanimides, a powerful countersomniac and antipsychem agent. A derivative of dimethylethylhexabutylpeptopeyotine\". With his first sip of up'n'at'm, Tichy watches as the gilded surroundings of the five-star restaurant they are in evaporates into a dingy concrete bunker and his stuffed pheasant turns into 'the most unappetizing gray-brown gruel, which stuck in globs to my tin \u2014 no longer silver \u2014 fork'. But this first dose is just the beginning of Tichy's journey. He sees that people do not drive cars or ride in elevators, but they run in the streets and climb the walls of empty elevator shafts, which explains why everyone in this new world is so out of breath. Robots whip people in the street and protect order. Through successive doses of up'n'at'm, Tichy sees increasingly horrible visions of the world, climaxing in a frozen horrorscape where people sleep blissfully in the snow and the police robots are revealed to be people who are convinced they are robots. The frozen state of the world explains why he has always found the new world to be so cold. In a state of panic, Tichy realizes that he is \"no longer safely inside the illusion, but shipwrecked in reality\", and he desperately seeks the seat of power. He ascends in a skyscraper to encounter his acquaintance George P. Symington Esquire, who sits in a modest office and explains to Tichy that he and a few others employ mascons as a way of maintaining order: \"The year is 2098 ... with 69 billion inhabitants legally registered and approximately another 26 billion in hiding. The average annual temperature has fallen four degrees. In fifteen or twenty years there will be glaciers here. We have no way of averting or halting their advance \u2014 we can only keep them secret.\" \"I always thought there would be ice in hell,\" I said. Tichy realizes his only course of action and tackles Symington, pushing them both out of the window. They plummet to the earth, but instead of colliding with the frozen ground, Tichy splashes into the black, stinking waters of the sewer beneath the Costa Rica Hilton, where he realizes that it is now the second day of the Eighth World Futurological Congress.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ijon Tichy is sent to the Eighth World Futurological Congress in Costa Rica by professor Tarantoga. The conference is set to focus on the world's overpopulation crisis and ways of dealing with it. It is held at the Costa Rica Hilton in Nounas, which is 164 stories tall. Lem is fiercely satirical from the start, and absurdities abound at the Hilton with its guaranteed 'BOMB-FREE' rooms and the extravagances of Tichy's suite, which include a palm grove and an 'all-girl orchestra [that] played Bach while performing a cleverly choreographed striptease'. The conference itself is no less absurd. Papers and presenters are too numerous to allow for full presentations. Instead, papers are distributed in hard copy and speakers call out paragraph numbers to call attention to their most salient points. In the middle of his first night at the conference, Tichy drinks some tap water in his hotel room, and his wild hallucinogenic trip begins, though it never becomes any more or less absurd than the brief glimpse of reality Lem presents in the beginning of the book (if indeed the congress is meant to be reality). He realizes the next day that the government has drugged the public water supply with \"benignimizers\", a drug that makes the victim helplessly benevolent. Events spiral out of control at the Hilton, which was already so chaotic that charred corpses from bombing attacks would be covered with tarps where they lay while guests went about their business. The government ends up bombing the hotel, and Tichy escapes into the sewer where rats walk around on their hind legs. Tichy is evacuated from the scene by the military, but during his rescue the helicopter crashes and he awakes in the hospital, where he finds that his brain has been transplanted into the body of an attractive young black woman. Protesters attack the hospital, and Tichy is nearly killed again. This time when he wakes up"
      },
      {
        "text": " lay while guests went about their business. The government ends up bombing the hotel, and Tichy escapes into the sewer where rats walk around on their hind legs. Tichy is evacuated from the scene by the military, but during his rescue the helicopter crashes and he awakes in the hospital, where he finds that his brain has been transplanted into the body of an attractive young black woman. Protesters attack the hospital, and Tichy is nearly killed again. This time when he wakes up, he finds he has been transplanted into the body of an overweight, red-haired man. Tichy's mental state grows increasingly fragile as he cannot distinguish reality from hallucination, and the medical staff make the decision to freeze him until a time when medicine can help his condition. He awakes in the year 2039, and at this point, the novel adopts the format of a journal that Tichy keeps to chronicle his experience in this new world. His future shock is so great that he finds he is being introduced to the world in small stages by the medical staff. In most regards, this future society is Utopian. Money is no object. One can simply go to the bank and request any sum and borrow it interest-free. There is no effort made to collect the debt, either, as most people take a drug that instills a sense of pride and work-ethic, which would disallow defaulting on the debt. Tichy learns that there is an inherent bias against defrostees, and that there are a great deal of words that he does not understand. Like cityspeak, and many other sci-fi futuristic languages, it is a mishmash of words with clear enough English roots, though Tichy is mystified by it. Also, mood is highly regulated via drugs. Tichy gets involved with a woman, and during an argument, she deliberately takes a drug called recriminol to make her more"
      },
      {
        "text": " that there is an inherent bias against defrostees, and that there are a great deal of words that he does not understand. Like cityspeak, and many other sci-fi futuristic languages, it is a mishmash of words with clear enough English roots, though Tichy is mystified by it. Also, mood is highly regulated via drugs. Tichy gets involved with a woman, and during an argument, she deliberately takes a drug called recriminol to make her more combative, which prolongs the tiff. Following their break-up, Tichy becomes deeply disillusioned with the 'psychem' mentality wherein drugs regulate every waking moment of the day. He resolves to stop taking any drugs and confides to his friend, Professor Trottelreiner, that he can't stand this new world. Trottelreiner explains that the everyday drugs that Tichy is tired of are only the tip of the iceberg. Narcotics and hallucinogens are trifles compared to 'mascons', which are so powerful that they mask whole swaths of reality. Trottelreiner explains, \"mascon\" derives from mask, masquerade, mascara. By introducing properly prepared mascons to the brain, one can mask any object in the outside world behind a fictitious image\u2014superimposed\u2014and with such dexterity, that the psychemasconated subject cannot tell which of his perceptions have been altered, and which have not. If but for a single instant you could see this world of ours the way it really is\u2014undoctored, unadulterated, uncensored\u2014you would drop in your tracks!\" The Professor then gives Tichy a flask of \"up'n'at'm, one of the vigilanimides, a powerful countersomniac and antipsychem agent. A derivative of dimethylethylhexabutylpeptopeyotine\". With his first sip of up'"
      },
      {
        "text": " for a single instant you could see this world of ours the way it really is\u2014undoctored, unadulterated, uncensored\u2014you would drop in your tracks!\" The Professor then gives Tichy a flask of \"up'n'at'm, one of the vigilanimides, a powerful countersomniac and antipsychem agent. A derivative of dimethylethylhexabutylpeptopeyotine\". With his first sip of up'n'at'm, Tichy watches as the gilded surroundings of the five-star restaurant they are in evaporates into a dingy concrete bunker and his stuffed pheasant turns into 'the most unappetizing gray-brown gruel, which stuck in globs to my tin \u2014 no longer silver \u2014 fork'. But this first dose is just the beginning of Tichy's journey. He sees that people do not drive cars or ride in elevators, but they run in the streets and climb the walls of empty elevator shafts, which explains why everyone in this new world is so out of breath. Robots whip people in the street and protect order. Through successive doses of up'n'at'm, Tichy sees increasingly horrible visions of the world, climaxing in a frozen horrorscape where people sleep blissfully in the snow and the police robots are revealed to be people who are convinced they are robots. The frozen state of the world explains why he has always found the new world to be so cold. In a state of panic, Tichy realizes that he is \"no longer safely inside the illusion, but shipwrecked in reality\", and he desperately seeks the seat of power. He ascends in a skyscraper to encounter his acquaintance George P. Symington Esquire, who sits in a modest office and explains to Tichy that he and a few others employ mascons as a way of maintaining order: \"The year is 2098 ..."
      },
      {
        "text": " found the new world to be so cold. In a state of panic, Tichy realizes that he is \"no longer safely inside the illusion, but shipwrecked in reality\", and he desperately seeks the seat of power. He ascends in a skyscraper to encounter his acquaintance George P. Symington Esquire, who sits in a modest office and explains to Tichy that he and a few others employ mascons as a way of maintaining order: \"The year is 2098 ... with 69 billion inhabitants legally registered and approximately another 26 billion in hiding. The average annual temperature has fallen four degrees. In fifteen or twenty years there will be glaciers here. We have no way of averting or halting their advance \u2014 we can only keep them secret.\" \"I always thought there would be ice in hell,\" I said. Tichy realizes his only course of action and tackles Symington, pushing them both out of the window. They plummet to the earth, but instead of colliding with the frozen ground, Tichy splashes into the black, stinking waters of the sewer beneath the Costa Rica Hilton, where he realizes that it is now the second day of the Eighth World Futurological Congress.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Angela's Ashes",
    "author": "Frank McCourt",
    "published_date": "1996-09-05",
    "synopsis": " Born in Brooklyn, New York, on 19 August 1930, Frank (Francis) McCourt was the eldest son of Malachy and Angela McCourt. Frank McCourt lived in New York with his parents and four younger siblings: Malachy, born in 1931; twins Oliver and Eugene, born in 1932; and a younger sister, Margaret, who died eight weeks after birth, in 1935. Following this first tragedy, his family moved back to Ireland where the twin brothers, Oliver and Eugene, died within a year of the family's arrival and where Frank's youngest brothers, Michael (b. 1936) and Alphie (b. 1940), were born. Before they get married, Angela emigrates to America and meets Malachy after he is done serving his three month sentence for hijacking a truck. Angela becomes pregnant with Malachy's child, and with the help of Angela's cousins the MacNamara sisters; Malachy marries Angela. Malachy does not like or does not think this marriage will last, so he attempts to run away to California, but he is unable to do so because he spends all of his money for the ride there at the pub. Angela gives birth to Francis (Frank), Malachy, the twins Oliver and Eugene and Margaret, who dies in infancy. Margaret's death is what eventually prompts the McCourt family to move back to Ireland, to start life anew. Life in Ireland, specifically in Limerick City, during the 1930s and 1940s is described in all its grittiness. The family lived in a dilapidated, unpaved lane of houses that flooded regularly. The McCourts' house was in the farthest part of the lane, unfortunately near to the only toilet for the entire lane. Frank McCourt's father taught the children Irish stories and songs, but he was an alcoholic and seldom found work. When he did, he spent his pay in the pubs. His family was forced to live on the dole since he could not hold down a paying job for very long due to his alcoholism. The father would often pick up and spend the welfare payment before Angela could get her hands on it to feed the starving children. For years the family subsisted on little more than bread and tea. They were always wondering when their next real meal would be and whether the kids would be able to have shoes for school. Despite all the hardships, many passages of the story are told with wry humor and charm. Frank's father eventually found a job at a defense plant in Coventry, England, yet he sent money back to his struggling family in Ireland only once. As there were few jobs for women, their mother was forced to ask for help from the Church and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Sometimes, Frank and his brothers scavenged for lumps of coal or peat turf for fuel or stole bread to survive; they also occasionally stole leftover food from restaurants at the end of the day. Angela's mother (a widow) and sister refused to help her because they disapproved of her husband, as he was not from Limerick, and felt he had the \"odd manner\" about him. Frank's father's issues led to Frank having to support his family as the \"man of the house\". Therefore, Frank started working when he was fourteen years old. He would give some of his earnings to his mother to feed the rest of the children. Frank spent most of his life without a father to teach him about the world and the things a boy needs to know to succeed in life. As a child, Frank went to elementary school along with the other boys his age; however, most schooling for the boys who lived in the lanes of Limerick ended there, at age thirteen. Though both his teacher, Mr. O\u2019Halloran, and a librarian told Frank to continue his schooling, it was not possible for him. He was turned away from the local Catholic school. In the damp, cold climate of Ireland, each child had only one set of ragged clothes, patched shoes, and no coat. Frank developed typhoid fever and was hospitalized. Later, he got a job helping a neighbor who had leg problems; he delivered coal for the neighbor and, as a result, developed chronic conjunctivitis. The family was finally evicted after they took a hatchet to the walls of their rented home to burn the wood for heat. They were forced to move in with a distant relative who treated them very badly and eventually forced a sexual relationship on Frank's mother, Angela. When he and his mother went to the Christian Brothers to inquire as to any opportunity for a bright boy in Frank\u2019s situation, they simply slam the door in his face. After his failure to be able to pursue any intellectual path, Frank starts his first job as a telegram boy at a post office. The wry wit of Frank's narration clearly shows that he has the capacity to rise above this job, but circumstances stop him progressing. As a teenager, Frank works at the post office as a telegram delivery boy and later delivers newspapers and magazines for Eason's. He also works for the local moneylender, writing threatening collection letters as a means of earning enough to finally realize his dream of returning to the United States. The moneylender died, after he returned to get sherry for her. He took money from her purse and threw her ledger of debtors into the river. Through a combination of scrimping, saving, and stealing, Frank eventually does get enough money to travel to America. The story ends with Frank arriving in Poughkeepsie, New York, ready to begin a new life at the age of nineteen.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Born in Brooklyn, New York, on 19 August 1930, Frank (Francis) McCourt was the eldest son of Malachy and Angela McCourt. Frank McCourt lived in New York with his parents and four younger siblings: Malachy, born in 1931; twins Oliver and Eugene, born in 1932; and a younger sister, Margaret, who died eight weeks after birth, in 1935. Following this first tragedy, his family moved back to Ireland where the twin brothers, Oliver and Eugene, died within a year of the family's arrival and where Frank's youngest brothers, Michael (b. 1936) and Alphie (b. 1940), were born. Before they get married, Angela emigrates to America and meets Malachy after he is done serving his three month sentence for hijacking a truck. Angela becomes pregnant with Malachy's child, and with the help of Angela's cousins the MacNamara sisters; Malachy marries Angela. Malachy does not like or does not think this marriage will last, so he attempts to run away to California, but he is unable to do so because he spends all of his money for the ride there at the pub. Angela gives birth to Francis (Frank), Malachy, the twins Oliver and Eugene and Margaret, who dies in infancy. Margaret's death is what eventually prompts the McCourt family to move back to Ireland, to start life anew. Life in Ireland, specifically in Limerick City, during the 1930s and 1940s is described in all its grittiness. The family lived in a dilapidated, unpaved lane of houses that flooded regularly. The McCourts' house was in the farthest part of the lane, unfortunately near to the only toilet for the entire lane. Frank McCourt's father taught the children Irish stories and songs, but he was an alcoholic and seldom found work. When he did, he spent his pay in the pubs. His family"
      },
      {
        "text": " City, during the 1930s and 1940s is described in all its grittiness. The family lived in a dilapidated, unpaved lane of houses that flooded regularly. The McCourts' house was in the farthest part of the lane, unfortunately near to the only toilet for the entire lane. Frank McCourt's father taught the children Irish stories and songs, but he was an alcoholic and seldom found work. When he did, he spent his pay in the pubs. His family was forced to live on the dole since he could not hold down a paying job for very long due to his alcoholism. The father would often pick up and spend the welfare payment before Angela could get her hands on it to feed the starving children. For years the family subsisted on little more than bread and tea. They were always wondering when their next real meal would be and whether the kids would be able to have shoes for school. Despite all the hardships, many passages of the story are told with wry humor and charm. Frank's father eventually found a job at a defense plant in Coventry, England, yet he sent money back to his struggling family in Ireland only once. As there were few jobs for women, their mother was forced to ask for help from the Church and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Sometimes, Frank and his brothers scavenged for lumps of coal or peat turf for fuel or stole bread to survive; they also occasionally stole leftover food from restaurants at the end of the day. Angela's mother (a widow) and sister refused to help her because they disapproved of her husband, as he was not from Limerick, and felt he had the \"odd manner\" about him. Frank's father's issues led to Frank having to support his family as the \"man of the house\". Therefore, Frank started working when he was fourteen years old. He would give some of his earnings to his mother to feed the rest of the children. Frank spent"
      },
      {
        "text": " the end of the day. Angela's mother (a widow) and sister refused to help her because they disapproved of her husband, as he was not from Limerick, and felt he had the \"odd manner\" about him. Frank's father's issues led to Frank having to support his family as the \"man of the house\". Therefore, Frank started working when he was fourteen years old. He would give some of his earnings to his mother to feed the rest of the children. Frank spent most of his life without a father to teach him about the world and the things a boy needs to know to succeed in life. As a child, Frank went to elementary school along with the other boys his age; however, most schooling for the boys who lived in the lanes of Limerick ended there, at age thirteen. Though both his teacher, Mr. O\u2019Halloran, and a librarian told Frank to continue his schooling, it was not possible for him. He was turned away from the local Catholic school. In the damp, cold climate of Ireland, each child had only one set of ragged clothes, patched shoes, and no coat. Frank developed typhoid fever and was hospitalized. Later, he got a job helping a neighbor who had leg problems; he delivered coal for the neighbor and, as a result, developed chronic conjunctivitis. The family was finally evicted after they took a hatchet to the walls of their rented home to burn the wood for heat. They were forced to move in with a distant relative who treated them very badly and eventually forced a sexual relationship on Frank's mother, Angela. When he and his mother went to the Christian Brothers to inquire as to any opportunity for a bright boy in Frank\u2019s situation, they simply slam the door in his face. After his failure to be able to pursue any intellectual path, Frank starts his first job as a telegram boy at a post office. The wry wit of Frank's narration"
      },
      {
        "text": ". They were forced to move in with a distant relative who treated them very badly and eventually forced a sexual relationship on Frank's mother, Angela. When he and his mother went to the Christian Brothers to inquire as to any opportunity for a bright boy in Frank\u2019s situation, they simply slam the door in his face. After his failure to be able to pursue any intellectual path, Frank starts his first job as a telegram boy at a post office. The wry wit of Frank's narration clearly shows that he has the capacity to rise above this job, but circumstances stop him progressing. As a teenager, Frank works at the post office as a telegram delivery boy and later delivers newspapers and magazines for Eason's. He also works for the local moneylender, writing threatening collection letters as a means of earning enough to finally realize his dream of returning to the United States. The moneylender died, after he returned to get sherry for her. He took money from her purse and threw her ledger of debtors into the river. Through a combination of scrimping, saving, and stealing, Frank eventually does get enough money to travel to America. The story ends with Frank arriving in Poughkeepsie, New York, ready to begin a new life at the age of nineteen.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Oscar and Lucinda",
    "author": "Peter Carey",
    "published_date": "1988",
    "synopsis": " It tells the story of Oscar Hopkins, the Cornish son of a Plymouth Brethren minister who becomes an Anglican priest, and Lucinda Leplastrier, a young Australian heiress who buys a glass factory. They meet on the boat over to Australia, and discover that they are both gamblers, one obsessive the other compulsive. Lucinda bets Oscar that he cannot transport a glass church from Sydney to a remote settlement at Bellingen, some 400 km up the New South Wales coast. This bet changes both their lives forever.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It tells the story of Oscar Hopkins, the Cornish son of a Plymouth Brethren minister who becomes an Anglican priest, and Lucinda Leplastrier, a young Australian heiress who buys a glass factory. They meet on the boat over to Australia, and discover that they are both gamblers, one obsessive the other compulsive. Lucinda bets Oscar that he cannot transport a glass church from Sydney to a remote settlement at Bellingen, some 400 km up the New South Wales coast. This bet changes both their lives forever.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "From the Earth to the Moon",
    "author": "Jules Verne",
    "published_date": "1865",
    "synopsis": " It's been some time since the end of the American Civil War. The Gun Club, a society based in Baltimore and dedicated to the design of weapons of all kinds (especially cannons), meets when Impey Barbicane, its president, calls them to support his idea: according to his calculations, a cannon can shoot a projectile so that it reaches the moon. After receiving the whole support of his companions, a few of them meet to decide the place from where the projectile will be shot, the dimensions and makings of both the cannon and the projectile, and which kind of powder are they to use. An old enemy of Barbicane, a Captain Nicholl of Philadelphia, designer of plate armor, declares that the enterprise is absurd and makes a series of bets with Barbicane, each of them of increasing amount over the impossibility of such feat. The first obstacle, the money, and over which Nicholl has bet 1000 dollars, is raised from most countries in America and Europe, in which the mission reaches variable success (while the USA gives 4 million dollars, England doesn't give a farthing, being envious of the United States in matters of science), but in the end nearly five and a half million dollars are raised, which ensures the financial feasibility of the project. After deciding the place for the launch (Stone's Hill in \"Tampa Town\", Florida; predating Kennedy Space Center's placement in Florida by almost 100 years; Verne gives the exact position as 27\u00b07' northern latitude and 5\u00b07' western longitude, of course relative to the meridian of Washington that is ), the Gun Club travels there and starts the construction of the Columbiad cannon, which requires the excavation of a and circular hole, which is made in the nick of time, but a surprise awaits Barbicane: Michel Ardan, a French adventurer, plans to travel aboard the projectile. During a meeting between Ardan, the Gun Club, and the inhabitants of Florida, Nicholl appears and challenges Barbicane to a duel. The duel is stopped when Ardan\u2014having been warned by J. T. Maston, secretary of the Gun Club\u2014meets the rivals in the forest where they have agreed to duel. Meanwhile, Barbicane finds the solution to the problem of surviving the incredible acceleration that the explosion would cause. Ardan suggests that Barbicane and Nicholl travel with him in the projectile, and the offer is accepted. In the end, the projectile is successfully launched, but the destinies of the three astronauts are left inconclusive. The sequel, Around the Moon, deals with what happens to the three men in their travel from the Earth to the Moon.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It's been some time since the end of the American Civil War. The Gun Club, a society based in Baltimore and dedicated to the design of weapons of all kinds (especially cannons), meets when Impey Barbicane, its president, calls them to support his idea: according to his calculations, a cannon can shoot a projectile so that it reaches the moon. After receiving the whole support of his companions, a few of them meet to decide the place from where the projectile will be shot, the dimensions and makings of both the cannon and the projectile, and which kind of powder are they to use. An old enemy of Barbicane, a Captain Nicholl of Philadelphia, designer of plate armor, declares that the enterprise is absurd and makes a series of bets with Barbicane, each of them of increasing amount over the impossibility of such feat. The first obstacle, the money, and over which Nicholl has bet 1000 dollars, is raised from most countries in America and Europe, in which the mission reaches variable success (while the USA gives 4 million dollars, England doesn't give a farthing, being envious of the United States in matters of science), but in the end nearly five and a half million dollars are raised, which ensures the financial feasibility of the project. After deciding the place for the launch (Stone's Hill in \"Tampa Town\", Florida; predating Kennedy Space Center's placement in Florida by almost 100 years; Verne gives the exact position as 27\u00b07' northern latitude and 5\u00b07' western longitude, of course relative to the meridian of Washington that is ), the Gun Club travels there and starts the construction of the Columbiad cannon, which requires the excavation of a and circular hole, which is made in the nick of time, but a surprise awaits Barbicane: Michel Ardan, a French adventurer, plans to travel aboard the projectile. During a meeting between Ardan, the Gun Club, and the inhabitants of Florida"
      },
      {
        "text": "\u00b07' northern latitude and 5\u00b07' western longitude, of course relative to the meridian of Washington that is ), the Gun Club travels there and starts the construction of the Columbiad cannon, which requires the excavation of a and circular hole, which is made in the nick of time, but a surprise awaits Barbicane: Michel Ardan, a French adventurer, plans to travel aboard the projectile. During a meeting between Ardan, the Gun Club, and the inhabitants of Florida, Nicholl appears and challenges Barbicane to a duel. The duel is stopped when Ardan\u2014having been warned by J. T. Maston, secretary of the Gun Club\u2014meets the rivals in the forest where they have agreed to duel. Meanwhile, Barbicane finds the solution to the problem of surviving the incredible acceleration that the explosion would cause. Ardan suggests that Barbicane and Nicholl travel with him in the projectile, and the offer is accepted. In the end, the projectile is successfully launched, but the destinies of the three astronauts are left inconclusive. The sequel, Around the Moon, deals with what happens to the three men in their travel from the Earth to the Moon.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Underworld",
    "author": "Don DeLillo",
    "published_date": "1997-10-03",
    "synopsis": " The novel opens on October 3, 1951, when a boy named Cotter Martin sneaks in to watch the New York Giants play the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Giants' home field Polo Grounds. (The prologue, Pafko at the Wall, was written on its own before the novel.) In the ninth inning, Ralph Branca pitches to Bobby Thomson, who hits the ball into the stands for a three-run homer, beating the Dodgers 5-4 and capturing the National League pennant. Known to baseball fans as \"The Shot Heard 'Round the World\", the fate of that ball is unknown, but in DeLillo's novel, Cotter Martin wrests this valuable ball away from another fan who has just befriended him and runs home. Cotter's father, Manx, steals the ball and later sells it for thirty-two dollars and forty-five cents. Branca and Thomson are never given much screen time, and Jackie Gleason and Frank Sinatra only put in cameos, but other historical figures become important parts of the story. J. Edgar Hoover muses on death, loyalty and leather masks while comedian Lenny Bruce faces the Cuban Missile Crisis by impersonating a hysterical housewife shrieking, \"We're all gonna die!\" Early in the novel it is revealed that Nick Shay was in a juvenile detention center for murdering a man, but it is not until near the end of the book that we learn the details of his crime. After being released from the detention center, he is sent to a Jesuit reform school in northern Minnesota. In the epilogue, we learn that Nick and Marian remain married despite infidelity on both sides. In fact, Nick indicates their relationship is much improved as he has opened up to her about his past \u2013 a subject that had always much interested her \u2212 and that he had been unwilling to discuss.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel opens on October 3, 1951, when a boy named Cotter Martin sneaks in to watch the New York Giants play the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Giants' home field Polo Grounds. (The prologue, Pafko at the Wall, was written on its own before the novel.) In the ninth inning, Ralph Branca pitches to Bobby Thomson, who hits the ball into the stands for a three-run homer, beating the Dodgers 5-4 and capturing the National League pennant. Known to baseball fans as \"The Shot Heard 'Round the World\", the fate of that ball is unknown, but in DeLillo's novel, Cotter Martin wrests this valuable ball away from another fan who has just befriended him and runs home. Cotter's father, Manx, steals the ball and later sells it for thirty-two dollars and forty-five cents. Branca and Thomson are never given much screen time, and Jackie Gleason and Frank Sinatra only put in cameos, but other historical figures become important parts of the story. J. Edgar Hoover muses on death, loyalty and leather masks while comedian Lenny Bruce faces the Cuban Missile Crisis by impersonating a hysterical housewife shrieking, \"We're all gonna die!\" Early in the novel it is revealed that Nick Shay was in a juvenile detention center for murdering a man, but it is not until near the end of the book that we learn the details of his crime. After being released from the detention center, he is sent to a Jesuit reform school in northern Minnesota. In the epilogue, we learn that Nick and Marian remain married despite infidelity on both sides. In fact, Nick indicates their relationship is much improved as he has opened up to her about his past \u2013 a subject that had always much interested her \u2212 and that he had been unwilling to discuss.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " center, he is sent to a Jesuit reform school in northern Minnesota. In the epilogue, we learn that Nick and Marian remain married despite infidelity on both sides. In fact, Nick indicates their relationship is much improved as he has opened up to her about his past \u2013 a subject that had always much interested her \u2212 and that he had been unwilling to discuss.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Difference Engine",
    "author": "Bruce Sterling",
    "published_date": "1990-09",
    "synopsis": " The action of the story follows Sybil Gerard, a political courtesan and daughter of an executed Luddite leader (she is borrowed from Disraeli's novel Sybil); Edward \"Leviathan\" Mallory, a paleontologist and explorer; and Laurence Oliphant, a historical figure with a real career, as portrayed in the book, as a travel writer whose work was a cover for espionage activities \"undertaken in the service of Her Majesty\". Linking all their stories is the trail of a mysterious set of reportedly very powerful computer punch cards and the individuals fighting to obtain them; as is the case with special objects in several novels by Gibson, the punch cards are to some extent a MacGuffin. During the story, many characters come to believe that the punch cards are a gambling \"modus\", a programme that would allow the user to place consistently winning bets. This is in line with Ada Lovelace's historically documented penchant for gambling. Only in the last chapter is it revealed that the punched cards represent a program which proves two theorems which in reality would not be discovered until 1931 by Kurt G\u00f6del. Lovelace delivers a lecture on the subject in France. Defending the cards, Mallory gathers his brothers and Ebenezer Fraser \u2013 a secret police officer \u2013 to fight the revolutionary Captain Swing who leads a London riot during \"the Stink\", a major episode of pollution in which London swelters under an inversion layer (comparable to the London Smog of December 1952). After the abortive uprising, Oliphant and Sybil Gerard meet at a cafe in Paris. Oliphant informs her that he is aware of her true identity, but will not pursue it, although he does want information that would compromise her seducer, Charles Egremont MP, now regarded as an obstacle to the strategies and political ambitions of Lords Brunel and Babbage. Sybil has longed for an opportunity for vengeance against Egremont, and the resultant political scandal destroys his parliamentary career and aspirations for a merit lordship. Oliphant also encounters a Manhattan-based group of feminist pantomime artists. After several vignettes that elaborate on the alternate historical origins of the world of The Difference Engine, Ada Lovelace delivers her lecture on G\u00f6del's Theorem, as its counterpart is known in our world. She is chaperoned by Fraser, and castigated by Sybil Gerard, who is still unable to forgive Ada's father, the late Lord Byron, for his role in her own father's death. At the very end of the novel, there is a dystopian depiction of an alternate 1991 from the vantage point of Ada Lovelace. Throughout the novel's latter sections, there are references to an \"Eye\". At the end of the novel, human beings appear to have become digitized, ephemeral ciphers at the mercy of an all-powerful artificial intelligence.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The action of the story follows Sybil Gerard, a political courtesan and daughter of an executed Luddite leader (she is borrowed from Disraeli's novel Sybil); Edward \"Leviathan\" Mallory, a paleontologist and explorer; and Laurence Oliphant, a historical figure with a real career, as portrayed in the book, as a travel writer whose work was a cover for espionage activities \"undertaken in the service of Her Majesty\". Linking all their stories is the trail of a mysterious set of reportedly very powerful computer punch cards and the individuals fighting to obtain them; as is the case with special objects in several novels by Gibson, the punch cards are to some extent a MacGuffin. During the story, many characters come to believe that the punch cards are a gambling \"modus\", a programme that would allow the user to place consistently winning bets. This is in line with Ada Lovelace's historically documented penchant for gambling. Only in the last chapter is it revealed that the punched cards represent a program which proves two theorems which in reality would not be discovered until 1931 by Kurt G\u00f6del. Lovelace delivers a lecture on the subject in France. Defending the cards, Mallory gathers his brothers and Ebenezer Fraser \u2013 a secret police officer \u2013 to fight the revolutionary Captain Swing who leads a London riot during \"the Stink\", a major episode of pollution in which London swelters under an inversion layer (comparable to the London Smog of December 1952). After the abortive uprising, Oliphant and Sybil Gerard meet at a cafe in Paris. Oliphant informs her that he is aware of her true identity, but will not pursue it, although he does want information that would compromise her seducer, Charles Egremont MP, now regarded as an obstacle to the strategies and political ambitions of Lords Brunel and Babbage. Sybil has longed for an opportunity for vengeance against Eg"
      },
      {
        "text": "comparable to the London Smog of December 1952). After the abortive uprising, Oliphant and Sybil Gerard meet at a cafe in Paris. Oliphant informs her that he is aware of her true identity, but will not pursue it, although he does want information that would compromise her seducer, Charles Egremont MP, now regarded as an obstacle to the strategies and political ambitions of Lords Brunel and Babbage. Sybil has longed for an opportunity for vengeance against Egremont, and the resultant political scandal destroys his parliamentary career and aspirations for a merit lordship. Oliphant also encounters a Manhattan-based group of feminist pantomime artists. After several vignettes that elaborate on the alternate historical origins of the world of The Difference Engine, Ada Lovelace delivers her lecture on G\u00f6del's Theorem, as its counterpart is known in our world. She is chaperoned by Fraser, and castigated by Sybil Gerard, who is still unable to forgive Ada's father, the late Lord Byron, for his role in her own father's death. At the very end of the novel, there is a dystopian depiction of an alternate 1991 from the vantage point of Ada Lovelace. Throughout the novel's latter sections, there are references to an \"Eye\". At the end of the novel, human beings appear to have become digitized, ephemeral ciphers at the mercy of an all-powerful artificial intelligence.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Forever Amber",
    "author": "Kathleen Winsor",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Forever Amber tells the story of orphaned Amber St. Clare, who makes her way up through the ranks of 17th century English society by sleeping with and/or marrying successively richer and more important men, while keeping her love for the one man she could never have. The novel includes portrayals of Restoration fashion, politics, and public disasters, including the plague and the Great Fire of London.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Forever Amber tells the story of orphaned Amber St. Clare, who makes her way up through the ranks of 17th century English society by sleeping with and/or marrying successively richer and more important men, while keeping her love for the one man she could never have. The novel includes portrayals of Restoration fashion, politics, and public disasters, including the plague and the Great Fire of London.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ethan of Athos",
    "author": "Lois McMaster Bujold",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " It tells the story of Dr. Ethan Urquhart, Chief of Biology at the Severin District Reproduction Centre on the planet of Athos, and his quest to Kline Station to find out what happened to a shipment of vital ovarian tissue cultures. Athos was founded and maintained as an exclusively male-populated planetary colony, and a planetary religion and ideology supports this single-sex structure. Their continuing reproduction relies on uterine replicator technology and ovarian tissue cultures. However, after 200 years of service, the ovarian cultures introduced by the original colonists are deteriorating into senescence. The Population Council orders new ovarian cultures from another planet, Jackson's Whole, but upon delivery discover they have received an unusable mixture of dead and animal tissues. The Council appoints Ethan their planetary ambassador and sends him offworld in search of a fresh batch of tissue cultures, and (if possible) a refund from the original supplier, House Bharaputra. This is considered to be a very daring assignment as it means contact with women, who Athosians are taught are demonic and terrifying. This impression is only reinforced by the men who periodically move to their planet from the wider galaxy and report upon the horrors of womankind. Ethan's first encounter with a woman occurs when he asks directions from Commander Elli Quinn, a rather unorthodox intelligence officer with the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, who is on home leave for the first time in ten years. Many men stare at Quinn, though the reasons why are a mystery to Ethan (it turns out that Quinn's face was surgically reconstructed to be extremely beautiful). Ethan learns that women in general are not the monsters he was taught they were; they are as varied as men and range from honorable to devious to helpful to selfish. Ethan quickly gets embroiled in some trouble: he is attacked by military agents from Cetaganda who are seeking the fugitive Terrence Cee as well as the lost tissue cultures, but Elli rescues him. Terrence, who approaches Ethan with a request for asylum, turns out to be the last surviving creation (originally labelled as L-X-10-Terran-C) of a Cetagandan genetic project to create telepaths. Although his telepathy is reliable, it has a small range and can only be triggered for a short amount of time by ingesting large doses of the amino acid tyramine. Terrance\u2019s female counterpart, Janine (J-9-X-Ceta-G), was killed in their escape, but he managed to preserve her body and convey it to Jackson's Whole, where he bribed House Bharaputra to splice her genes into the ovarian cultures that were purchased by Athos. Terrence had intended to escort the cultures to their destination on Athos but was delayed on his way to Kline Station, and is now horrified to learn that the cultures were stolen and replaced by the useless material that ultimately arrived on Athos. After Terrence's departure from Jackson's Whole, the Cetagandans attacked House Bharaputra, killed the researchers who had worked with him, and destroyed their records. These Cetagandans then followed him to Kline Station, and are the same agents who attacked Ethan. In turn, the Bharaputrans hired Elli to track down the Cetagandan agents, although she is also gathering information for the Dendarii. It turns out that for petty personal reasons, a minor official on Kline Station \"threw out\" the Bharaputran tissue cultures that contained Janine's genes. Elli defeats the Cetagandans and attempts to recruit Terrence to the Dendarii, but he is far more attracted to the isolated, uncomplicated life on Athos. He does give Elli a small genetic sample to take back to the Dendarii, but not before Ethan asks her for (and receives) one of her ovaries to create a new tissue culture. After her departure, the original Bharaputran shipment unexpectedly turns up intact and usable, not destroyed. Ethan buys a new set of ovarian cultures anyway as a cover, uses their packaging to relabel the cultures with Janine's genes, and returns with them and Terrence to Athos. Elli's donated ovary culture is an additional, 451st culture. [Note: The events of the novel are obliquely referred to in the novels Cetaganda and Borders of Infinity.]\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It tells the story of Dr. Ethan Urquhart, Chief of Biology at the Severin District Reproduction Centre on the planet of Athos, and his quest to Kline Station to find out what happened to a shipment of vital ovarian tissue cultures. Athos was founded and maintained as an exclusively male-populated planetary colony, and a planetary religion and ideology supports this single-sex structure. Their continuing reproduction relies on uterine replicator technology and ovarian tissue cultures. However, after 200 years of service, the ovarian cultures introduced by the original colonists are deteriorating into senescence. The Population Council orders new ovarian cultures from another planet, Jackson's Whole, but upon delivery discover they have received an unusable mixture of dead and animal tissues. The Council appoints Ethan their planetary ambassador and sends him offworld in search of a fresh batch of tissue cultures, and (if possible) a refund from the original supplier, House Bharaputra. This is considered to be a very daring assignment as it means contact with women, who Athosians are taught are demonic and terrifying. This impression is only reinforced by the men who periodically move to their planet from the wider galaxy and report upon the horrors of womankind. Ethan's first encounter with a woman occurs when he asks directions from Commander Elli Quinn, a rather unorthodox intelligence officer with the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, who is on home leave for the first time in ten years. Many men stare at Quinn, though the reasons why are a mystery to Ethan (it turns out that Quinn's face was surgically reconstructed to be extremely beautiful). Ethan learns that women in general are not the monsters he was taught they were; they are as varied as men and range from honorable to devious to helpful to selfish. Ethan quickly gets embroiled in some trouble: he is attacked by military agents from Cetaganda who are seeking the fugitive Terrence Cee as well as the lost tissue cultures, but Elli rescues him. Terrence"
      },
      {
        "text": " are a mystery to Ethan (it turns out that Quinn's face was surgically reconstructed to be extremely beautiful). Ethan learns that women in general are not the monsters he was taught they were; they are as varied as men and range from honorable to devious to helpful to selfish. Ethan quickly gets embroiled in some trouble: he is attacked by military agents from Cetaganda who are seeking the fugitive Terrence Cee as well as the lost tissue cultures, but Elli rescues him. Terrence, who approaches Ethan with a request for asylum, turns out to be the last surviving creation (originally labelled as L-X-10-Terran-C) of a Cetagandan genetic project to create telepaths. Although his telepathy is reliable, it has a small range and can only be triggered for a short amount of time by ingesting large doses of the amino acid tyramine. Terrance\u2019s female counterpart, Janine (J-9-X-Ceta-G), was killed in their escape, but he managed to preserve her body and convey it to Jackson's Whole, where he bribed House Bharaputra to splice her genes into the ovarian cultures that were purchased by Athos. Terrence had intended to escort the cultures to their destination on Athos but was delayed on his way to Kline Station, and is now horrified to learn that the cultures were stolen and replaced by the useless material that ultimately arrived on Athos. After Terrence's departure from Jackson's Whole, the Cetagandans attacked House Bharaputra, killed the researchers who had worked with him, and destroyed their records. These Cetagandans then followed him to Kline Station, and are the same agents who attacked Ethan. In turn, the Bharaputrans hired Elli to track down the Cetagandan agents, although she is also gathering information for the Dendarii. It turns out that for petty personal"
      },
      {
        "text": " After Terrence's departure from Jackson's Whole, the Cetagandans attacked House Bharaputra, killed the researchers who had worked with him, and destroyed their records. These Cetagandans then followed him to Kline Station, and are the same agents who attacked Ethan. In turn, the Bharaputrans hired Elli to track down the Cetagandan agents, although she is also gathering information for the Dendarii. It turns out that for petty personal reasons, a minor official on Kline Station \"threw out\" the Bharaputran tissue cultures that contained Janine's genes. Elli defeats the Cetagandans and attempts to recruit Terrence to the Dendarii, but he is far more attracted to the isolated, uncomplicated life on Athos. He does give Elli a small genetic sample to take back to the Dendarii, but not before Ethan asks her for (and receives) one of her ovaries to create a new tissue culture. After her departure, the original Bharaputran shipment unexpectedly turns up intact and usable, not destroyed. Ethan buys a new set of ovarian cultures anyway as a cover, uses their packaging to relabel the cultures with Janine's genes, and returns with them and Terrence to Athos. Elli's donated ovary culture is an additional, 451st culture. [Note: The events of the novel are obliquely referred to in the novels Cetaganda and Borders of Infinity.]\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " novels Cetaganda and Borders of Infinity.]\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Blind Assassin",
    "author": "Margaret Atwood",
    "published_date": "2000-09-02",
    "synopsis": " The novel centres on the protagonist, Iris Chase, and her sister Laura, who grow up well-off but motherless in a small town in Southern Ontario. As an old woman, Iris recalls the events and relationships of her childhood, youth and middle age, including her unhappy marriage to Toronto businessman Richard Griffen. The book includes a novel-within-a-novel, a roman \u00e0 clef attributed to Laura but published by Iris. It's about Alex Thomas, a politically radical author of pulp science fiction who has an ambiguous relationship with the sisters. That embedded story itself contains a third tale, the eponymous Blind Assassin, a science fiction story told by Alex's fictional counterpart to the second novel's protagonist, believed to be Laura's fictional counterpart. The novel takes the form of a gradual revelation illuminating both Iris' youth and her old age before coming to the pivotal events of her and Laura's lives around the time of the Second World War. As the novel unfolds, and the novel-within-a-novel becomes ever more obviously inspired by real events, we learn that it is Iris, not Laura, who is the novel-within-a-novel's true author and protagonist. Though the novel-within-a-novel had long been believed to be inspired by Laura's romance with Alex, it is revealed that The Blind Assassin was written by Iris based on her extramarital affair with Alex. Iris later published the work in Laura's name after Laura committed suicide upon learning of their affair. The novel ends as Iris dies, leaving the truth to be discovered in her unpublished autobiography that she leaves to her sole surviving granddaughter. The book is set in the fictional Ontario town of Port Ticonderoga and in the Toronto of the 1930s and 1940s. It is a work of historical fiction with the major events of Canadian history forming an important backdrop. Greater verisimilitude is given by a series of newspaper articles commenting on events and on the novel's characters from a distance.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel centres on the protagonist, Iris Chase, and her sister Laura, who grow up well-off but motherless in a small town in Southern Ontario. As an old woman, Iris recalls the events and relationships of her childhood, youth and middle age, including her unhappy marriage to Toronto businessman Richard Griffen. The book includes a novel-within-a-novel, a roman \u00e0 clef attributed to Laura but published by Iris. It's about Alex Thomas, a politically radical author of pulp science fiction who has an ambiguous relationship with the sisters. That embedded story itself contains a third tale, the eponymous Blind Assassin, a science fiction story told by Alex's fictional counterpart to the second novel's protagonist, believed to be Laura's fictional counterpart. The novel takes the form of a gradual revelation illuminating both Iris' youth and her old age before coming to the pivotal events of her and Laura's lives around the time of the Second World War. As the novel unfolds, and the novel-within-a-novel becomes ever more obviously inspired by real events, we learn that it is Iris, not Laura, who is the novel-within-a-novel's true author and protagonist. Though the novel-within-a-novel had long been believed to be inspired by Laura's romance with Alex, it is revealed that The Blind Assassin was written by Iris based on her extramarital affair with Alex. Iris later published the work in Laura's name after Laura committed suicide upon learning of their affair. The novel ends as Iris dies, leaving the truth to be discovered in her unpublished autobiography that she leaves to her sole surviving granddaughter. The book is set in the fictional Ontario town of Port Ticonderoga and in the Toronto of the 1930s and 1940s. It is a work of historical fiction with the major events of Canadian history forming an important backdrop. Greater verisimilitude is given by a series of newspaper articles commenting on events and on the novel"
      },
      {
        "text": " committed suicide upon learning of their affair. The novel ends as Iris dies, leaving the truth to be discovered in her unpublished autobiography that she leaves to her sole surviving granddaughter. The book is set in the fictional Ontario town of Port Ticonderoga and in the Toronto of the 1930s and 1940s. It is a work of historical fiction with the major events of Canadian history forming an important backdrop. Greater verisimilitude is given by a series of newspaper articles commenting on events and on the novel's characters from a distance.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Red Harvest",
    "author": "Dashiell Hammett",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Continental Op is called to Personville (known as \"Poisonville\" to the locals) by Donald Willsson, who is murdered before the Op has a chance to meet with him. The Op begins work on the murder and meets with Willsson's father, Elihu, a local industrialist who has found his control of the city threatened by several competing gangs he himself had originally invited into his city to \"resolve\" a labor dispute. The Op extracts a promise and a signed letter from Elihu that pays the Continental Detective Agency, the Op's employer, $10,000 in exchange for cleaning up the city. When the Op solves Donald's murder, Elihu tries to renege on the deal, but the Op won't allow him to do so. In the meantime, the Op finds himself spending time with Dinah Brand, a possible love interest of Donald Willsson's as well as a moll for the local gangster Max \"Whisper\" Thaler. Between Brand and the crooked chief of police, Noonan, the Op manages to extract and spread most of the information he needs to set off a gang war among the four major local factions. He wakes up the next morning to find Brand stabbed to death with the icepick the Op had used the previous evening, with no visible signs of forced entry. The Op ends up a suspect sought by the police for this murder, and one of his fellow operatives ends up leaving Personville because he is uncertain of the Op's innocence. The story ends as the Op finds Reno Starkey, the only one of the four main gangsters still alive, bleeding from a gunshot wound. Reno reveals that it was he who stabbed Brand, and that when she fell she collided with the semi-conscious Op, coincidentally landing in a position which made the Op look like the culprit. Reno has also just killed Whisper, and after he dies himself, Elihu can restore his control over the town.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Continental Op is called to Personville (known as \"Poisonville\" to the locals) by Donald Willsson, who is murdered before the Op has a chance to meet with him. The Op begins work on the murder and meets with Willsson's father, Elihu, a local industrialist who has found his control of the city threatened by several competing gangs he himself had originally invited into his city to \"resolve\" a labor dispute. The Op extracts a promise and a signed letter from Elihu that pays the Continental Detective Agency, the Op's employer, $10,000 in exchange for cleaning up the city. When the Op solves Donald's murder, Elihu tries to renege on the deal, but the Op won't allow him to do so. In the meantime, the Op finds himself spending time with Dinah Brand, a possible love interest of Donald Willsson's as well as a moll for the local gangster Max \"Whisper\" Thaler. Between Brand and the crooked chief of police, Noonan, the Op manages to extract and spread most of the information he needs to set off a gang war among the four major local factions. He wakes up the next morning to find Brand stabbed to death with the icepick the Op had used the previous evening, with no visible signs of forced entry. The Op ends up a suspect sought by the police for this murder, and one of his fellow operatives ends up leaving Personville because he is uncertain of the Op's innocence. The story ends as the Op finds Reno Starkey, the only one of the four main gangsters still alive, bleeding from a gunshot wound. Reno reveals that it was he who stabbed Brand, and that when she fell she collided with the semi-conscious Op, coincidentally landing in a position which made the Op look like the culprit. Reno has also just killed Whisper, and after he dies himself, Elihu can restore his control over the town.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the Op's innocence. The story ends as the Op finds Reno Starkey, the only one of the four main gangsters still alive, bleeding from a gunshot wound. Reno reveals that it was he who stabbed Brand, and that when she fell she collided with the semi-conscious Op, coincidentally landing in a position which made the Op look like the culprit. Reno has also just killed Whisper, and after he dies himself, Elihu can restore his control over the town.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Jealous God",
    "author": "John Braine",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Vincent Dungarvan is a history teacher at a Catholic school for boys. Whereas his two brothers Matthew and Paul have been married with children for many years, Vincent is still single and living at home with his widowed mother, who is also a teacher. At 30 he is still a virgin. He has gone out with one or two nice Catholic girls but has rejected them when he found them too superficial and boring. One day, in the local library, he encounters Laura, a new librarian. Fascinated by her good looks and driven by, as he sees it, sinful desire, he is for once able to overcome his shyness and asks her out. Laura accepts, they immediately fall in love with each other and start dating on a regular basis. However, he prefers not to tell his possessive mother about her let alone invite her home. In the course of the following weeks Vincent's life is shattered by a number of revelations concerning Laura. He is disappointed when she tells him that she is a and that, on top of that, she has stopped going to church altogether. What is more, through a deliberate indiscretion by Laura's flatmate Ruth, he learns that Laura is divorced. For him as a Catholic, this means that he is seeing a married woman, and both his guilt and his helplessness about the situation increase enormously. Accordingly, they break up their relationship. Surprisingly, soon afterwards Vincent loses his virginity with Maureen, his sister-in-law, while his brother Matthew has gone out and the children are asleep. On the following morning, back at his mother's, he recollects what happened the previous evening: [\u2026] He had deliberately denied himself the one pleasure that had the power to transform his very notion of pleasure; he had committed all the other sins because of indolence or indifference, never stopping to calculate the price. He smiled; it was the same for the sin you enjoyed as the sin that you didn't. To spend the day talking to schoolboys about James I was, he reflected over his scrambled eggs, an anticlimax [\u2026]. He smiled to himself: if he had been a savage he'd have been entitled to wear some special insignia [\u2026]. \"I'm glad you're so cheerful,\" his mother said. \"It was something in the Guardian,\" he said. That very day, Vincent has an appointment with a senior clergyman about his vocation and once and for all makes up his mind not to become a priest. He also decides to see Laura again. In the meantime she has settled down in a flat of her own, and this is where they have sex for the first time, without Vincent confessing to Laura that he has recently made love to his own sister-in-law. When, some weeks later, Maureen announces that she is pregnant again, he is of course afraid that he might be the father of her baby. Out of jealousy, Maureen writes Laura's ex-husband Robert an anonymous letter, urging him to make up with his wife again. Vincent and Laura split up again as Laura is not certain about her husband's intentions. In the end two instances of deus ex machina resolve the complicated situation. First, Maureen has a miscarriage, freeing Vincent of any doubt that he might have fathered an illegitimate child. Then Robert commits suicide, paving the way for a Catholic wedding between Vincent and Laura, who are planning to leave the past behind and start a new life somewhere else. *"Muyah! There's no friendship between grown men and grown women, and no one can tell me different." (See also When Harry Met Sally....)\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Vincent Dungarvan is a history teacher at a Catholic school for boys. Whereas his two brothers Matthew and Paul have been married with children for many years, Vincent is still single and living at home with his widowed mother, who is also a teacher. At 30 he is still a virgin. He has gone out with one or two nice Catholic girls but has rejected them when he found them too superficial and boring. One day, in the local library, he encounters Laura, a new librarian. Fascinated by her good looks and driven by, as he sees it, sinful desire, he is for once able to overcome his shyness and asks her out. Laura accepts, they immediately fall in love with each other and start dating on a regular basis. However, he prefers not to tell his possessive mother about her let alone invite her home. In the course of the following weeks Vincent's life is shattered by a number of revelations concerning Laura. He is disappointed when she tells him that she is a and that, on top of that, she has stopped going to church altogether. What is more, through a deliberate indiscretion by Laura's flatmate Ruth, he learns that Laura is divorced. For him as a Catholic, this means that he is seeing a married woman, and both his guilt and his helplessness about the situation increase enormously. Accordingly, they break up their relationship. Surprisingly, soon afterwards Vincent loses his virginity with Maureen, his sister-in-law, while his brother Matthew has gone out and the children are asleep. On the following morning, back at his mother's, he recollects what happened the previous evening: [\u2026] He had deliberately denied himself the one pleasure that had the power to transform his very notion of pleasure; he had committed all the other sins because of indolence or indifference, never stopping to calculate the price. He smiled; it was the same for the sin you enjoyed as the sin that you didn't. To spend the day"
      },
      {
        "text": " his brother Matthew has gone out and the children are asleep. On the following morning, back at his mother's, he recollects what happened the previous evening: [\u2026] He had deliberately denied himself the one pleasure that had the power to transform his very notion of pleasure; he had committed all the other sins because of indolence or indifference, never stopping to calculate the price. He smiled; it was the same for the sin you enjoyed as the sin that you didn't. To spend the day talking to schoolboys about James I was, he reflected over his scrambled eggs, an anticlimax [\u2026]. He smiled to himself: if he had been a savage he'd have been entitled to wear some special insignia [\u2026]. \"I'm glad you're so cheerful,\" his mother said. \"It was something in the Guardian,\" he said. That very day, Vincent has an appointment with a senior clergyman about his vocation and once and for all makes up his mind not to become a priest. He also decides to see Laura again. In the meantime she has settled down in a flat of her own, and this is where they have sex for the first time, without Vincent confessing to Laura that he has recently made love to his own sister-in-law. When, some weeks later, Maureen announces that she is pregnant again, he is of course afraid that he might be the father of her baby. Out of jealousy, Maureen writes Laura's ex-husband Robert an anonymous letter, urging him to make up with his wife again. Vincent and Laura split up again as Laura is not certain about her husband's intentions. In the end two instances of deus ex machina resolve the complicated situation. First, Maureen has a miscarriage, freeing Vincent of any doubt that he might have fathered an illegitimate child. Then Robert commits suicide, paving the way for a Catholic wedding between Vincent and Laura, who are planning"
      },
      {
        "text": ";s ex-husband Robert an anonymous letter, urging him to make up with his wife again. Vincent and Laura split up again as Laura is not certain about her husband's intentions. In the end two instances of deus ex machina resolve the complicated situation. First, Maureen has a miscarriage, freeing Vincent of any doubt that he might have fathered an illegitimate child. Then Robert commits suicide, paving the way for a Catholic wedding between Vincent and Laura, who are planning to leave the past behind and start a new life somewhere else. *"Muyah! There's no friendship between grown men and grown women, and no one can tell me different." (See also When Harry Met Sally....)\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life",
    "author": "Spencer Johnson",
    "published_date": "1998",
    "synopsis": " Allegorically, Who Moved My Cheese? features four characters: two mice, \"Sniff\" and \"Scurry,\" and two littlepeople, miniature humans in essence, \"Hem\" and \"Haw.\" They live in a maze, a representation of one's environment, and look for cheese, representative of happiness and success. Initially without cheese, each group, the mice and humans, paired off and traveled the lengthy corridors searching for cheese. One day both groups happen upon a cheese-filled corridor at \"Cheese Station C\". Content with their find, the humans establish routines around their daily intake of cheese, slowly becoming arrogant in the process. One day Sniff and Scurry arrive at Cheese Station C to find no cheese left, but they are not surprised. Noticing the cheese supply dwindling, they have mentally prepared beforehand for the arduous but inevitable task of finding more cheese. Leaving Cheese Station C behind, they begin their hunt for new cheese together. Later that day, Hem and Haw arrive at Cheese Station C only to find the same thing, no cheese. Angered and annoyed, Hem demands, \"Who moved my cheese?\" The humans have counted on the cheese supply to be constant, and so are unprepared for this eventuality. After deciding that the cheese is indeed gone they get angry at the unfairness of the situation and both go home starved. Returning the next day, Hem and Haw find the same cheeseless place. Starting to realize the situation at hand, Haw thinks of a search for new cheese. But Hem is dead set in his victimized mindset and dismisses the proposal. Meanwhile, Sniff and Scurry have found \"Cheese Station N\", new cheese. Back at Cheese Station C, Hem and Haw are affected by their lack of cheese and blame each other for their problem. Hoping to change, Haw again proposes a search for new cheese. However, Hem is comforted by his old routine and is frightened about the unknown. He knocks the idea again. After a while of being in denial, the humans remain without cheese. One day, having discovered his debilitating fears, Haw begins to chuckle at the situation and stops taking himself so seriously. Realizing he should simply move on, Haw enters the maze, but not before chiseling \"If You Do Not Change, You Can Become Extinct\" on the wall of Cheese Station C for his friend to ponder. Still fearful of his trek, Haw jots \"What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?\" on the wall and, after thinking about that, he begins his venture. Still plagued with worry (perhaps he has waited too long to begin his search...), Haw finds some bits of cheese that nourishes him and he is able to continue his search. Haw realizes that the cheese has not suddenly vanished, but has dwindled from continual eating. After a stop at an empty cheese station, Haw begins worrying about the unknown again. Brushing aside his fears, Haw's new mindset allows him to again enjoy life. He has even begun to smile again! He is realizing that \"When you move beyond your fear, you feel free.\" After another empty cheese station, Haw decides to go back for Hem with the few bits of new cheese he has managed to find. Uncompromising, Hem refuses the new cheese, to his friend's disappointment. With knowledge learned along the way, Haw heads back into the maze. Getting deeper into the maze, inspired by bits of new cheese here and there, Haw leaves a trail of writings on the wall (\"The Handwriting On the Wall\"). These clarify his own thinking and give him hope that his friend will find aid in them during his search for new cheese. Still traveling, Haw one day comes across Cheese Station N, abundant with cheese, including some varieties that are strange to him, and he realizes he has found what he is looking for. After eating, Haw reflects on his experience. He ponders a return to see his old friend. But Haw decides to let Hem find his own way. Finding the largest wall in Cheese Station N, he writes: :Change Happens :They Keep Moving The Cheese :Anticipate Change :Get Ready For The Cheese To Move :Monitor Change :Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old :Adapt To Change Quickly :The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese :Change :Move With The Cheese :Enjoy Change! :Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese! :Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again :They Keep Moving The Cheese. Cautious from past experience, Haw now inspects Cheese Station N daily and explores different parts of the maze regularly to prevent any complacency from setting in. After hearing movement in the maze one day, Haw realizes someone is approaching the station. Unsure, Haw hopes that it is his friend Hem who has found the way.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Allegorically, Who Moved My Cheese? features four characters: two mice, \"Sniff\" and \"Scurry,\" and two littlepeople, miniature humans in essence, \"Hem\" and \"Haw.\" They live in a maze, a representation of one's environment, and look for cheese, representative of happiness and success. Initially without cheese, each group, the mice and humans, paired off and traveled the lengthy corridors searching for cheese. One day both groups happen upon a cheese-filled corridor at \"Cheese Station C\". Content with their find, the humans establish routines around their daily intake of cheese, slowly becoming arrogant in the process. One day Sniff and Scurry arrive at Cheese Station C to find no cheese left, but they are not surprised. Noticing the cheese supply dwindling, they have mentally prepared beforehand for the arduous but inevitable task of finding more cheese. Leaving Cheese Station C behind, they begin their hunt for new cheese together. Later that day, Hem and Haw arrive at Cheese Station C only to find the same thing, no cheese. Angered and annoyed, Hem demands, \"Who moved my cheese?\" The humans have counted on the cheese supply to be constant, and so are unprepared for this eventuality. After deciding that the cheese is indeed gone they get angry at the unfairness of the situation and both go home starved. Returning the next day, Hem and Haw find the same cheeseless place. Starting to realize the situation at hand, Haw thinks of a search for new cheese. But Hem is dead set in his victimized mindset and dismisses the proposal. Meanwhile, Sniff and Scurry have found \"Cheese Station N\", new cheese. Back at Cheese Station C, Hem and Haw are affected by their lack of cheese and blame each other for their problem. Hoping to change, Haw again proposes a search for new cheese. However, Hem is comforted by his old routine and is frightened about the unknown. He knocks the idea again"
      },
      {
        "text": " of a search for new cheese. But Hem is dead set in his victimized mindset and dismisses the proposal. Meanwhile, Sniff and Scurry have found \"Cheese Station N\", new cheese. Back at Cheese Station C, Hem and Haw are affected by their lack of cheese and blame each other for their problem. Hoping to change, Haw again proposes a search for new cheese. However, Hem is comforted by his old routine and is frightened about the unknown. He knocks the idea again. After a while of being in denial, the humans remain without cheese. One day, having discovered his debilitating fears, Haw begins to chuckle at the situation and stops taking himself so seriously. Realizing he should simply move on, Haw enters the maze, but not before chiseling \"If You Do Not Change, You Can Become Extinct\" on the wall of Cheese Station C for his friend to ponder. Still fearful of his trek, Haw jots \"What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?\" on the wall and, after thinking about that, he begins his venture. Still plagued with worry (perhaps he has waited too long to begin his search...), Haw finds some bits of cheese that nourishes him and he is able to continue his search. Haw realizes that the cheese has not suddenly vanished, but has dwindled from continual eating. After a stop at an empty cheese station, Haw begins worrying about the unknown again. Brushing aside his fears, Haw's new mindset allows him to again enjoy life. He has even begun to smile again! He is realizing that \"When you move beyond your fear, you feel free.\" After another empty cheese station, Haw decides to go back for Hem with the few bits of new cheese he has managed to find. Uncompromising, Hem refuses the new cheese, to his friend's disappointment. With knowledge learned along the way, Haw heads back into the maze. Getting deeper into the maze, inspired by bits of new cheese"
      },
      {
        "text": " mindset allows him to again enjoy life. He has even begun to smile again! He is realizing that \"When you move beyond your fear, you feel free.\" After another empty cheese station, Haw decides to go back for Hem with the few bits of new cheese he has managed to find. Uncompromising, Hem refuses the new cheese, to his friend's disappointment. With knowledge learned along the way, Haw heads back into the maze. Getting deeper into the maze, inspired by bits of new cheese here and there, Haw leaves a trail of writings on the wall (\"The Handwriting On the Wall\"). These clarify his own thinking and give him hope that his friend will find aid in them during his search for new cheese. Still traveling, Haw one day comes across Cheese Station N, abundant with cheese, including some varieties that are strange to him, and he realizes he has found what he is looking for. After eating, Haw reflects on his experience. He ponders a return to see his old friend. But Haw decides to let Hem find his own way. Finding the largest wall in Cheese Station N, he writes: :Change Happens :They Keep Moving The Cheese :Anticipate Change :Get Ready For The Cheese To Move :Monitor Change :Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old :Adapt To Change Quickly :The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese :Change :Move With The Cheese :Enjoy Change! :Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese! :Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again :They Keep Moving The Cheese. Cautious from past experience, Haw now inspects Cheese Station N daily and explores different parts of the maze regularly to prevent any complacency from setting in. After hearing movement in the maze one day, Haw realizes someone is approaching the station. Unsure, Haw hopes that it is his friend Hem who has found the way.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "! :Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese! :Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again :They Keep Moving The Cheese. Cautious from past experience, Haw now inspects Cheese Station N daily and explores different parts of the maze regularly to prevent any complacency from setting in. After hearing movement in the maze one day, Haw realizes someone is approaching the station. Unsure, Haw hopes that it is his friend Hem who has found the way.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Odysseus (Ulysses) returns to Ithaca and decides to undertake new adventures after he quickly becomes unsatisfied with his quiet family life. First he travels to Sparta to save Helen, the wife of the king of Sparta Menelaus, whose abduction by Paris had led to the Trojan War. He goes to Crete where a conspiracy dethrones the king. There he abandons Helen and continues to Egypt where again a workers' uprising takes place. He leaves again on a journey up the Nile eventually stopping at the lake-source. Upon arrival his companions set up camp and he climbs the mountain in order to concentrate on his god. Upon his return to the lake he sets up his city based on the commandments of his religion. The city is soon destroyed by an earthquake. Odysseus laments his failure to understand the true meaning of god with the sacrifice of his companions. His life transforms into that of an ascetic. Odysseus meets Motherth (an incarnation of the Buddha), Kapetan Enas (English: Captain Sole), alias Don Quixote, and an African village fisherman, alias Jesus. He travels further south in Africa while constantly spreading his religion and fighting the advances of death. Eventually he travels to Antarctica and lives with villagers for a year until an iceberg kills him. His death is glorious as it marks his rebirth and unification with the world.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Odysseus (Ulysses) returns to Ithaca and decides to undertake new adventures after he quickly becomes unsatisfied with his quiet family life. First he travels to Sparta to save Helen, the wife of the king of Sparta Menelaus, whose abduction by Paris had led to the Trojan War. He goes to Crete where a conspiracy dethrones the king. There he abandons Helen and continues to Egypt where again a workers' uprising takes place. He leaves again on a journey up the Nile eventually stopping at the lake-source. Upon arrival his companions set up camp and he climbs the mountain in order to concentrate on his god. Upon his return to the lake he sets up his city based on the commandments of his religion. The city is soon destroyed by an earthquake. Odysseus laments his failure to understand the true meaning of god with the sacrifice of his companions. His life transforms into that of an ascetic. Odysseus meets Motherth (an incarnation of the Buddha), Kapetan Enas (English: Captain Sole), alias Don Quixote, and an African village fisherman, alias Jesus. He travels further south in Africa while constantly spreading his religion and fighting the advances of death. Eventually he travels to Antarctica and lives with villagers for a year until an iceberg kills him. His death is glorious as it marks his rebirth and unification with the world.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lord Edgware Dies",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Jane Wilkinson, an actress, is suspected of murdering her husband, the fourth Baron Edgware, so that she can marry the Duke of Merton. The plot begins with Jane asking Poirot to convince her husband to agree to a divorce. When Poirot reluctantly does so, Edgware says that he has already agreed to a divorce and written a letter to Jane informing her of the fact. When Poirot reports this to Jane, she denies ever having received such a letter. Lord Edgware is portrayed as a rather unsympathetic character. On the night of the murder, Wilkinson supposedly goes to the Edgware house, announces herself to the butler, and goes into her husband's study. The next day, Lord Edgware is found murdered and Chief Inspector Japp tells Poirot all about it. Numerous friends and acquaintances of Jane have described her as amoral, someone who only thinks of herself and would certainly commit a crime if it would help her get what she wants, without a care for others. But in that morning's newspaper, they discover an article about a dinner party that was held the previous evening where Wilkinson was a guest. At the party, there were thirteen guests at the dinner table. One guest mentioned that thirteen people at table means bad luck for the first guest to rise from the table (hence the alternative title of the book, Thirteen At Dinner) and Jane Wilkinson was the first to rise. Among the guests is an actor named Donald Ross, who spent a lot of the evening speaking with Jane. So the police are, at first, baffled with the case, as is Poirot. On the same morning Lord Edgware's murder is discovered, comedienne/actress Carlotta Adams, known for her uncanny impersonations, is found dead due to an overdose of Veronal. A mysterious gold case with the sleeping powder in it is found among her possessions. The case bears an inscription reading: \"From D, Paris, November, 10th Sweet Dreams\". Poirot tries to decode this and arranges the evidence together. A few days later, Jane makes an appearance at another dinner party where the guests talk about Paris of Troy. However, the Jane Wilkinson at this dinner party thinks that the guests, again including actor Donald Ross, are referring to the French capital. Ross can't understand this because, at the party on the night of the murder, Jane was speaking knowledgeably about the mythological Paris. Ross goes to ring up Poirot about his discovery, but before he can say what he discovered, he is stabbed to death at his home, but Poirot is on the verge of solving the case, anyway. Poirot gathers the suspects and details the trajectory of the crimes (the three murders): With Carlotta Adams impersonating Wilkinson, Jane simply takes a taxi to the Edgware house, where she murders her husband. She is overseen by her husband's secretary but the secretary's vision and impartiality were called into question at trial. Later, Jane (in the person of \"Mrs Van Dusen\", an elderly American widow) and Carlotta meet up in a hotel where they toast Carlotta's successful \"performance\" and ostensibly so Jane can pay Carlotta. However, Jane slips Veronal into Carlotta's drink, and Adams dies. Jane discovers a letter Carlotta has written to her sister and is panicked by how Carlotta talks openly in the letter about their arrangement. Rather than destroy the letter, Jane sees a way she can use the letter to her advantage. At the top left hand corner of the second page is the word \"she\" (referring to Jane); she tears off the \"s\", leaving the word \"he\", making it seem a man had hired Carlotta. Jane then puts the remaining Veronal inside the gold case to make it seem Carlotta was a Veronal addict. Jane ordered the gold case the week prior (as \"Mrs Van Dusen\"), which Poirot discovers when he questions the engravers. Poirot also realises that \"November\" was engraved on the case specifically to throw him off. Unbeknownst to Jane, Carlotta had been knowledgeable about Greek mythology, so she talked a lot about the subject with Donald Ross. At the second dinner party, Jane realizes she's made a potentially very serious mistake about Paris, leaves the party and heads to Ross's home to kill him before he can tell Poirot. Her motive for killing Lord Edgware was because the Duke of Merton was a staunch Anglo-Catholic and would not marry a divorced woman; a widow, however, is a different matter. In the last chapter, she writes a letter to Poirot, remarkably devoid of any animosity, which ends with her wondering why hangings are not done in public anymore.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Jane Wilkinson, an actress, is suspected of murdering her husband, the fourth Baron Edgware, so that she can marry the Duke of Merton. The plot begins with Jane asking Poirot to convince her husband to agree to a divorce. When Poirot reluctantly does so, Edgware says that he has already agreed to a divorce and written a letter to Jane informing her of the fact. When Poirot reports this to Jane, she denies ever having received such a letter. Lord Edgware is portrayed as a rather unsympathetic character. On the night of the murder, Wilkinson supposedly goes to the Edgware house, announces herself to the butler, and goes into her husband's study. The next day, Lord Edgware is found murdered and Chief Inspector Japp tells Poirot all about it. Numerous friends and acquaintances of Jane have described her as amoral, someone who only thinks of herself and would certainly commit a crime if it would help her get what she wants, without a care for others. But in that morning's newspaper, they discover an article about a dinner party that was held the previous evening where Wilkinson was a guest. At the party, there were thirteen guests at the dinner table. One guest mentioned that thirteen people at table means bad luck for the first guest to rise from the table (hence the alternative title of the book, Thirteen At Dinner) and Jane Wilkinson was the first to rise. Among the guests is an actor named Donald Ross, who spent a lot of the evening speaking with Jane. So the police are, at first, baffled with the case, as is Poirot. On the same morning Lord Edgware's murder is discovered, comedienne/actress Carlotta Adams, known for her uncanny impersonations, is found dead due to an overdose of Veronal. A mysterious gold case with the sleeping powder in it is found among her possessions. The case bears an inscription reading: \""
      },
      {
        "text": " an actor named Donald Ross, who spent a lot of the evening speaking with Jane. So the police are, at first, baffled with the case, as is Poirot. On the same morning Lord Edgware's murder is discovered, comedienne/actress Carlotta Adams, known for her uncanny impersonations, is found dead due to an overdose of Veronal. A mysterious gold case with the sleeping powder in it is found among her possessions. The case bears an inscription reading: \"From D, Paris, November, 10th Sweet Dreams\". Poirot tries to decode this and arranges the evidence together. A few days later, Jane makes an appearance at another dinner party where the guests talk about Paris of Troy. However, the Jane Wilkinson at this dinner party thinks that the guests, again including actor Donald Ross, are referring to the French capital. Ross can't understand this because, at the party on the night of the murder, Jane was speaking knowledgeably about the mythological Paris. Ross goes to ring up Poirot about his discovery, but before he can say what he discovered, he is stabbed to death at his home, but Poirot is on the verge of solving the case, anyway. Poirot gathers the suspects and details the trajectory of the crimes (the three murders): With Carlotta Adams impersonating Wilkinson, Jane simply takes a taxi to the Edgware house, where she murders her husband. She is overseen by her husband's secretary but the secretary's vision and impartiality were called into question at trial. Later, Jane (in the person of \"Mrs Van Dusen\", an elderly American widow) and Carlotta meet up in a hotel where they toast Carlotta's successful \"performance\" and ostensibly so Jane can pay Carlotta. However, Jane slips Veronal into Carlotta's drink, and Adams dies. Jane discovers a letter Carlotta has written to her sister and is panicked by how Carlotta talks openly in the"
      },
      {
        "text": " but the secretary's vision and impartiality were called into question at trial. Later, Jane (in the person of \"Mrs Van Dusen\", an elderly American widow) and Carlotta meet up in a hotel where they toast Carlotta's successful \"performance\" and ostensibly so Jane can pay Carlotta. However, Jane slips Veronal into Carlotta's drink, and Adams dies. Jane discovers a letter Carlotta has written to her sister and is panicked by how Carlotta talks openly in the letter about their arrangement. Rather than destroy the letter, Jane sees a way she can use the letter to her advantage. At the top left hand corner of the second page is the word \"she\" (referring to Jane); she tears off the \"s\", leaving the word \"he\", making it seem a man had hired Carlotta. Jane then puts the remaining Veronal inside the gold case to make it seem Carlotta was a Veronal addict. Jane ordered the gold case the week prior (as \"Mrs Van Dusen\"), which Poirot discovers when he questions the engravers. Poirot also realises that \"November\" was engraved on the case specifically to throw him off. Unbeknownst to Jane, Carlotta had been knowledgeable about Greek mythology, so she talked a lot about the subject with Donald Ross. At the second dinner party, Jane realizes she's made a potentially very serious mistake about Paris, leaves the party and heads to Ross's home to kill him before he can tell Poirot. Her motive for killing Lord Edgware was because the Duke of Merton was a staunch Anglo-Catholic and would not marry a divorced woman; a widow, however, is a different matter. In the last chapter, she writes a letter to Poirot, remarkably devoid of any animosity, which ends with her wondering why hangings are not done in public anymore.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " to kill him before he can tell Poirot. Her motive for killing Lord Edgware was because the Duke of Merton was a staunch Anglo-Catholic and would not marry a divorced woman; a widow, however, is a different matter. In the last chapter, she writes a letter to Poirot, remarkably devoid of any animosity, which ends with her wondering why hangings are not done in public anymore.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Marina Gregg is a famous, temperamental, much loved movie star who has come to settle down in the village of St. Mary Mead after the death of Colonel Bantry, who used to live at Gossington Hall where Marina has taken up residence with her husband Jason Rudd. Heather Badcock, an ordinary albeit annoying woman, dies after drinking a cocktail at a party hosted by Marina. Shortly before her death, Heather was in conversation with Marina, giving her a long boring account of how she had met Marina many years ago - getting out of bed despite her illness and putting on lots of makeup, in order to seek Marina's autograph. Marina is seem with a 'frozen'look on her face for a moment while Heather talks to her; a look likened to the Lady of Shalott, as though 'doom has come upon her'. It then comes to light that Marina had handed her own drink to Heather after Heather's drink was spilled. Therefore it is surmised that Marina must be the intended victim. As a famous star who has married five times, she is a far more likely murder target. Suspicion is cast on many people including Marina's seemingly devoted husband, a big-shot American TV producer who is a former admirer, and an American actress who was previously Marina's rival in love. (Both Americans turn up unexpectedly at the party). It also comes to light that an arty photographer at the party is actually one of three children that Marina had adopted in the past for a while and then 'got tired of' (Marina does not recognize her as such at the party). It is known that 11-12 years before the events in the book, Marina desperately wanted children of her own but had difficulties conceiving. After adopting three children, she became pregnant but her baby was born mentally handicapped and abandoned to a lifetime of institutions, leaving Marina emotionally scarred. This misfortune was due to Marina contracting German measles in the early stages of her pregnancy. While police search for clues, two other murders take place - one of Marina's social secretary and the other of Marina's butler (both of whom were serving drinks at the party). Finally, Miss Marple deduces what Marina had instantly realised at the party, that Heather is the woman who was responsible for infecting Marina with German measles all those years previously when she put on make up to cover the rash and went to meet Marina for her autograph. Overcome by rage and grief at seeing her unwitting tormentor looking so happy and proud of her act, Marina impulsively poisons her own glass and hands it to Heather after making Heather spill her own drink. At the end of the book, Marina is found dead from a drug overdose.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Marina Gregg is a famous, temperamental, much loved movie star who has come to settle down in the village of St. Mary Mead after the death of Colonel Bantry, who used to live at Gossington Hall where Marina has taken up residence with her husband Jason Rudd. Heather Badcock, an ordinary albeit annoying woman, dies after drinking a cocktail at a party hosted by Marina. Shortly before her death, Heather was in conversation with Marina, giving her a long boring account of how she had met Marina many years ago - getting out of bed despite her illness and putting on lots of makeup, in order to seek Marina's autograph. Marina is seem with a 'frozen'look on her face for a moment while Heather talks to her; a look likened to the Lady of Shalott, as though 'doom has come upon her'. It then comes to light that Marina had handed her own drink to Heather after Heather's drink was spilled. Therefore it is surmised that Marina must be the intended victim. As a famous star who has married five times, she is a far more likely murder target. Suspicion is cast on many people including Marina's seemingly devoted husband, a big-shot American TV producer who is a former admirer, and an American actress who was previously Marina's rival in love. (Both Americans turn up unexpectedly at the party). It also comes to light that an arty photographer at the party is actually one of three children that Marina had adopted in the past for a while and then 'got tired of' (Marina does not recognize her as such at the party). It is known that 11-12 years before the events in the book, Marina desperately wanted children of her own but had difficulties conceiving. After adopting three children, she became pregnant but her baby was born mentally handicapped and abandoned to a lifetime of institutions, leaving Marina emotionally scarred. This misfortune was due to Marina contracting German measles in the early stages of her pregnancy"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the past for a while and then 'got tired of' (Marina does not recognize her as such at the party). It is known that 11-12 years before the events in the book, Marina desperately wanted children of her own but had difficulties conceiving. After adopting three children, she became pregnant but her baby was born mentally handicapped and abandoned to a lifetime of institutions, leaving Marina emotionally scarred. This misfortune was due to Marina contracting German measles in the early stages of her pregnancy. While police search for clues, two other murders take place - one of Marina's social secretary and the other of Marina's butler (both of whom were serving drinks at the party). Finally, Miss Marple deduces what Marina had instantly realised at the party, that Heather is the woman who was responsible for infecting Marina with German measles all those years previously when she put on make up to cover the rash and went to meet Marina for her autograph. Overcome by rage and grief at seeing her unwitting tormentor looking so happy and proud of her act, Marina impulsively poisons her own glass and hands it to Heather after making Heather spill her own drink. At the end of the book, Marina is found dead from a drug overdose.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Captain Corelli's Mandolin",
    "author": "Louis de Berni\u00e8res",
    "published_date": "1993",
    "synopsis": " *Dr. Iannis - The island's unofficial, unlicensed doctor, who spends much of his time writing about the history of Cephallonia. He is respected by the community, although regarded as a bit odd, and is thanked for his medical services by means of food and drink. *Pelagia - Dr. Iannis's daughter who is not like the other women on the island (she is well educated and has a lot of respect from her father), who at first falls in love with Mandras, then later with Corelli. *Antonio Corelli - An Italian captain with a love for music and life. He detests the war, and gradually falls in love with Pelagia; but the war inevitably tears them apart again. *Mandras - A young, handsome fisherman who falls in love with Pelagia, only to destroy their relationship by going to fight in the war, and ultimately humiliating himself. *Carlo Piero Guercio - A good-natured homosexual Italian soldier who falls in love with Francesco only to lose him to the war. He later falls in love with Corelli and sacrifices his life to save the Captain's. Captain Corelli's Mandolin explores many varieties of love. We see the initial lust-based love between Pelagia and Mandras, which burns out as a result of the war, and the change it prompts in both of them. Corelli and Pelagia's slow-developing love is the central focus of the novel. Love is described by Dr. Iannis as \"what is left when the passion has gone\", and it certainly appears that this criterion is fulfilled by the love of Corelli and Pelagia. The paternal love of Iannis for Pelagia is also strong and is heavily compared and contrasted to that of Corelli. The theme of music is predominant, offering a direct contrast to the horror and destruction that the war brings, showing how something beautiful can arise from something horrible. The war is described in graphic detail, particularly the death of Francesco. It is responsible for the fall of Mandras and Weber, the deaths of Carlo and Francesco, and the separation of Pelagia and Corelli. Throughout the novel, de Berni\u00e8res takes a harsh view of all forms of totalitarianism, condemning Fascism, Nazism, and Communism alike. De Berni\u00e8res described this as a novel about \"what happens to the little people when megalomaniacs get busy.\" Another theme of the novel is the study of history. Dr. Iannis spends much of his spare time attempting to write a history of Cephallonia, but often finds his personal feelings and biases running through whatever he writes. There is also a strong feeling against 'professional' history which is suggested by Carlo Guercio's statement that \"I know that if we [the axis] win then there will be stories about mass graves in London and vice versa\". This is reinforced by De Berni\u00e8res' quotation that: \"history ought to be made up of the stories of ordinary people only.\" From this viewpoint it can be seen that de Berni\u00e8res as very much a revisionist historian, considering social history superior to that of political. De Berni\u00e8res takes an ambiguous attitude toward heroism and villainy in the novel: many of the characters, despite committing atrocities, are viewed as human victims of bad circumstances. For example, the character G\u00fcnter Weber carries a great degree of sympathy from the writer, even though he fully engages with the Nazi ideology and is guilty of taking part in the killing of an entire Italian division. Despite having become friends with many of the men, he must follow orders. Similarly, Mandras is guilty of murder, torture and rape, yet the author portrays him sympathetically: \"just another life tarnished... by war.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " *Dr. Iannis - The island's unofficial, unlicensed doctor, who spends much of his time writing about the history of Cephallonia. He is respected by the community, although regarded as a bit odd, and is thanked for his medical services by means of food and drink. *Pelagia - Dr. Iannis's daughter who is not like the other women on the island (she is well educated and has a lot of respect from her father), who at first falls in love with Mandras, then later with Corelli. *Antonio Corelli - An Italian captain with a love for music and life. He detests the war, and gradually falls in love with Pelagia; but the war inevitably tears them apart again. *Mandras - A young, handsome fisherman who falls in love with Pelagia, only to destroy their relationship by going to fight in the war, and ultimately humiliating himself. *Carlo Piero Guercio - A good-natured homosexual Italian soldier who falls in love with Francesco only to lose him to the war. He later falls in love with Corelli and sacrifices his life to save the Captain's. Captain Corelli's Mandolin explores many varieties of love. We see the initial lust-based love between Pelagia and Mandras, which burns out as a result of the war, and the change it prompts in both of them. Corelli and Pelagia's slow-developing love is the central focus of the novel. Love is described by Dr. Iannis as \"what is left when the passion has gone\", and it certainly appears that this criterion is fulfilled by the love of Corelli and Pelagia. The paternal love of Iannis for Pelagia is also strong and is heavily compared and contrasted to that of Corelli. The theme of music is predominant, offering a direct contrast to the horror and destruction that the war brings, showing how something beautiful can arise"
      },
      {
        "text": " love is the central focus of the novel. Love is described by Dr. Iannis as \"what is left when the passion has gone\", and it certainly appears that this criterion is fulfilled by the love of Corelli and Pelagia. The paternal love of Iannis for Pelagia is also strong and is heavily compared and contrasted to that of Corelli. The theme of music is predominant, offering a direct contrast to the horror and destruction that the war brings, showing how something beautiful can arise from something horrible. The war is described in graphic detail, particularly the death of Francesco. It is responsible for the fall of Mandras and Weber, the deaths of Carlo and Francesco, and the separation of Pelagia and Corelli. Throughout the novel, de Berni\u00e8res takes a harsh view of all forms of totalitarianism, condemning Fascism, Nazism, and Communism alike. De Berni\u00e8res described this as a novel about \"what happens to the little people when megalomaniacs get busy.\" Another theme of the novel is the study of history. Dr. Iannis spends much of his spare time attempting to write a history of Cephallonia, but often finds his personal feelings and biases running through whatever he writes. There is also a strong feeling against 'professional' history which is suggested by Carlo Guercio's statement that \"I know that if we [the axis] win then there will be stories about mass graves in London and vice versa\". This is reinforced by De Berni\u00e8res' quotation that: \"history ought to be made up of the stories of ordinary people only.\" From this viewpoint it can be seen that de Berni\u00e8res as very much a revisionist historian, considering social history superior to that of political. De Berni\u00e8res takes an ambiguous attitude toward heroism and villainy in the novel: many of the characters, despite committing atrocities, are viewed as human victims of bad circumstances. For example, the character"
      },
      {
        "text": "\". This is reinforced by De Berni\u00e8res' quotation that: \"history ought to be made up of the stories of ordinary people only.\" From this viewpoint it can be seen that de Berni\u00e8res as very much a revisionist historian, considering social history superior to that of political. De Berni\u00e8res takes an ambiguous attitude toward heroism and villainy in the novel: many of the characters, despite committing atrocities, are viewed as human victims of bad circumstances. For example, the character G\u00fcnter Weber carries a great degree of sympathy from the writer, even though he fully engages with the Nazi ideology and is guilty of taking part in the killing of an entire Italian division. Despite having become friends with many of the men, he must follow orders. Similarly, Mandras is guilty of murder, torture and rape, yet the author portrays him sympathetically: \"just another life tarnished... by war.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Hotel New Hampshire",
    "author": "John Irving",
    "published_date": "1981",
    "synopsis": " This novel is the story of the Berrys, a quirky New Hampshire family composed of a married couple, Win and Mary, and their five children. The parents, both from the small town of Dairy, New Hampshire, fall in love while working at a summer resort hotel in Maine as teenagers. There they meet a Viennese Jew named Freud who works at the resort as a handyman and entertainer, performing with his pet bear, State o' Maine; Freud comes to symbolize the magic of that summer for them. By summer's end the teens are engaged, and Win buys Freud's bear and motorcycle and travels the country performing to raise money to go to Harvard, which he subsequently attends while Mary starts their family. He then returns to Dairy and teaches at the local second-rate boys' prep school he attended, the Dairy School. But he is unsatisfied and dreaming of something better. The children are: Franny, self-confident and brash; John, the narrator, sweet, if naive, and enamored of Franny; Frank, physically awkward, reserved, and homosexual; Lilly, a small romantic girl who has \"stopped growing\"; and Egg, an immature little boy with a penchant for dressing up in costumes. John and Franny are companions, seeing themselves as the most normal of the children, aware that their family is rather strange. But, as John remarks, to themselves the family's oddness seems \"right as rain.\" Win conceives the idea of turning an abandoned girls' school into a hotel. He names it the Hotel New Hampshire and the family moves in. This becomes the first part of Irving's Dickensian-style tale. Its chief plot elements are: Franny's rape at the hands of several members of the school football team, including the quarterback, a boy named Chipper Dove with whom she is in love, and her rescue, though somewhat late, by Junior Jones, a black member of the team; the death of the family dog, Sorrow, and its repeated resurrection via taxidermy, the first instance of which scares the grandfather literally to death; John's sexual initiation with the hotel housekeeper Ronda Ray; and a letter from Freud inviting the family to move to Vienna to help him (and his new \"smart\" bear) run his hotel there. Traveling separately from the rest of the family, the mother and Egg are killed in an airplane crash. The others take up life in Vienna at what is renamed the (second) Hotel New Hampshire, one floor of which is occupied by prostitutes and another floor by a group of radical communists. The family discover that Freud is now blind and the \"smart bear\" is actually a girl named Susie in a bear suit. Plot developments in this segment are: the father's decline following the death of his wife; the family's relationships with the prostitutes and the radicals; John and Franny falling in love with each other; John's relationship with a communist who commits suicide; Franny's sexual relationships with Susie and with the \"quarterback\" of the radicals, Ernst; Lilly developing as a writer and penning the story of the family; and the radicals' plot to blow up the opera house, using Freud and the family as hostages, which Freud and Win foil. The family becomes famous and, with Frank as Lilly's agent, her book is published for a large amount of money. The family (with Susie the bear) returns to the States, taking up residence in The Stanhope hotel in New York. The chief elements of the final part of the novel are: Franny and John's resolution of their love; Franny's revenge on her rapist; Franny's success as a movie actress and her marriage to Junior Jones; Lilly's suicide from her despair as a writer; John and Frank's purchase of the shut-down resort in Maine where their parents met; its function as a rape crisis center run by Susie; Susie and John finding happiness with each other; and a pregnant Franny asking them to raise her and Junior's impending baby. The novel is evocative of the New Hampshire of Irving's childhood.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " This novel is the story of the Berrys, a quirky New Hampshire family composed of a married couple, Win and Mary, and their five children. The parents, both from the small town of Dairy, New Hampshire, fall in love while working at a summer resort hotel in Maine as teenagers. There they meet a Viennese Jew named Freud who works at the resort as a handyman and entertainer, performing with his pet bear, State o' Maine; Freud comes to symbolize the magic of that summer for them. By summer's end the teens are engaged, and Win buys Freud's bear and motorcycle and travels the country performing to raise money to go to Harvard, which he subsequently attends while Mary starts their family. He then returns to Dairy and teaches at the local second-rate boys' prep school he attended, the Dairy School. But he is unsatisfied and dreaming of something better. The children are: Franny, self-confident and brash; John, the narrator, sweet, if naive, and enamored of Franny; Frank, physically awkward, reserved, and homosexual; Lilly, a small romantic girl who has \"stopped growing\"; and Egg, an immature little boy with a penchant for dressing up in costumes. John and Franny are companions, seeing themselves as the most normal of the children, aware that their family is rather strange. But, as John remarks, to themselves the family's oddness seems \"right as rain.\" Win conceives the idea of turning an abandoned girls' school into a hotel. He names it the Hotel New Hampshire and the family moves in. This becomes the first part of Irving's Dickensian-style tale. Its chief plot elements are: Franny's rape at the hands of several members of the school football team, including the quarterback, a boy named Chipper Dove with whom she is in love, and her rescue, though somewhat late, by Junior Jones, a black member of the team; the death"
      },
      {
        "text": " the idea of turning an abandoned girls' school into a hotel. He names it the Hotel New Hampshire and the family moves in. This becomes the first part of Irving's Dickensian-style tale. Its chief plot elements are: Franny's rape at the hands of several members of the school football team, including the quarterback, a boy named Chipper Dove with whom she is in love, and her rescue, though somewhat late, by Junior Jones, a black member of the team; the death of the family dog, Sorrow, and its repeated resurrection via taxidermy, the first instance of which scares the grandfather literally to death; John's sexual initiation with the hotel housekeeper Ronda Ray; and a letter from Freud inviting the family to move to Vienna to help him (and his new \"smart\" bear) run his hotel there. Traveling separately from the rest of the family, the mother and Egg are killed in an airplane crash. The others take up life in Vienna at what is renamed the (second) Hotel New Hampshire, one floor of which is occupied by prostitutes and another floor by a group of radical communists. The family discover that Freud is now blind and the \"smart bear\" is actually a girl named Susie in a bear suit. Plot developments in this segment are: the father's decline following the death of his wife; the family's relationships with the prostitutes and the radicals; John and Franny falling in love with each other; John's relationship with a communist who commits suicide; Franny's sexual relationships with Susie and with the \"quarterback\" of the radicals, Ernst; Lilly developing as a writer and penning the story of the family; and the radicals' plot to blow up the opera house, using Freud and the family as hostages, which Freud and Win foil. The family becomes famous and, with Frank as Lilly's agent, her book is published for a large amount of money. The family (with Susie the bear) returns"
      },
      {
        "text": " communist who commits suicide; Franny's sexual relationships with Susie and with the \"quarterback\" of the radicals, Ernst; Lilly developing as a writer and penning the story of the family; and the radicals' plot to blow up the opera house, using Freud and the family as hostages, which Freud and Win foil. The family becomes famous and, with Frank as Lilly's agent, her book is published for a large amount of money. The family (with Susie the bear) returns to the States, taking up residence in The Stanhope hotel in New York. The chief elements of the final part of the novel are: Franny and John's resolution of their love; Franny's revenge on her rapist; Franny's success as a movie actress and her marriage to Junior Jones; Lilly's suicide from her despair as a writer; John and Frank's purchase of the shut-down resort in Maine where their parents met; its function as a rape crisis center run by Susie; Susie and John finding happiness with each other; and a pregnant Franny asking them to raise her and Junior's impending baby. The novel is evocative of the New Hampshire of Irving's childhood.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Bridge",
    "author": "Iain Banks",
    "published_date": "1986",
    "synopsis": " \"The road cleared the cutting through the hills. He could see South Queensferry, the marina at Port Edgar, the VAT 69 sign of the distillery there, the lights of Hewlett Packard\u2019s factory; and the rail bridge, dark in the evening\u2019s last sky-reflected light. Behind it, more lights; the Hound Point oil terminal they\u2019d had a sub-contract on, and, further away, the lights of Leith. The old rail bridge\u2019s hollow metal bones looked the colour of dried blood. You fucking beauty, he thought . . . What a gorgeous great device you are. So delicate from this distance, so massive and strong close-up. Elegance and grace; perfect form. A quality bridge; granite piers, the best ship-plate steel, and a never-ending paint job. . . The three main characters represent different elements of the protagonist. Alex (full name hinted to be Alexander Lennox, but never explicitly named), John Orr and The Barbarian are one. Alex is a real person, born in Glasgow, who studied geology and engineering at the University of Edinburgh, fell in love with Andrea Cramond while there, and has continued their (open) relationship ever since. He is embittered by his betrayal of his working class roots (he has become a manager and partner in his engineering firm), the Cold War, successive Thatcher governments, and the failure of his relationship under the pressure of Andrea's French lover's terminal illness. While returning from a sentimental reunion with an old friend in Fife, during which alcohol and cannabis are consumed, he becomes distracted by the power and beauty of the Forth Railway Bridge while driving on the neighbouring Forth Road Bridge and crashes his car. While in a coma in hospital, he relives his life up to the crash. \"He glanced back at the roadway of the bridge as it rose slowly to its gentle, suspended summit. The surface was a little damp, but nothing to worry about. No problems. He wasn\u2019t going all that fast anyway, staying in the nearside lane, looking over at the rail bridge downstream. A light winked at the far end of the island under the rail bridge\u2019s middle-section. One day, though, even you\u2019ll be gone. Nothing lasts. Maybe that\u2019s what I want to tell her. Maybe I want to say, No, of course I don\u2019t mind; you must go. I can\u2019t grudge the man that; you\u2019d have done the same for me and I would for you. Just a pity, that\u2019s all. Go; we\u2019ll all survive. Maybe some good- He was aware of the truck in front pulling out suddenly. He looked round to see a car in front of him. It was stopped, abandoned in the nearside lane. He sucked his breath in, stamped on the brakes, tried to swerve; but it was too late.\" John Orr is an amnesiac living on the Bridge, a massive simulacrum of the rail bridge, but hundreds of miles long and packed with people. The crash which precipitated his arrival on the bridge was semi-deliberate; as such, he is reluctant to return to the real world. That part of himself who wishes to wake is represented by Dr Joyce, Orr's psychoanalyst. Given Orr/Alex's desire to remain within the world of the Bridge, a world where he is well treated and lives a fairly pampered life, his attempts to stonewall and block the doctor's attempts to cure him are understandable. Eventually, he stows away on a train and leaves the Bridge. He finds that, in stark contrast to the very orderly, indeed totalitarian, life on The Bridge, the countryside beyond exists in militaristic chaos and warfare. The Barbarian is an id-ish warrior with a superego-esque familiar in tow (phallic symbolism is referenced by the familiar within a few pages of their first appearance) whose hack-and slash antics through various parodies of Greek legends and fairy tales are phonetically rendered in Scots dialect (seven years before Irvine Welsh used the technique in Trainspotting). The Barbarian (along with his loquacious familiar) are a deep expression of Alex's character; when Orr's dreams are not themed around threat and opposition he dreams he is the Barbarian. The Barbarian appears to be an expression of Alex's deepest feelings. A woman is his enemy in their first appearance (Metaphormosis, Four), showing how Andrea Cramond has made her influence felt in Alex's very core, and how his love for her has been eroded and has transmuted into anger and contempt through the rift that has opened in their relationship. In their second appearance (Metamorpheus, Four), a female character is mentioned in passing, with a certain level of affection. The third appearance of the Barbarian and familiar (Metamorphosis, Pliocene) sees them old, decrepit, bed-bound and heading inevitably towards death. In each successive chapter the Barbarian's Scottish accent becomes less and less pronounced, another indication of how far Alex has gone from his Glaswegian roots. The Barbarian talks of his grief over his dead wife and his memories of their life together. While comparisons have been drawn between Sigmund Freud's structural theory of personality, this is the only point where the Barbarian, Familiar and another individual get together in a three-way arrangement. If the Barbarian's wife represents Andrea Cramond, it is another example of how deeply she has penetrated his being. In a move mirroring Alex's suicide drive and anticipating the end of the book, he is placed in a situation likely to kill him, but triumphs and emerges (literally) rejuvenated and reinvigorated. His Glasgow accent also returns. The Bridge is an unconventional love story; the characters eschew fidelity and barely see each other for years at a time, but they keep returning to each other. There is no marriage, no ring, no happy ever after, just the knowledge that their lives are so deeply entwined it would be difficult or impossible for them to break away from each other. \u201cYou don't belong to her and she doesn't belong to you, but you're both part of each other; if she got up and left now and walked away and you never saw each other again for the rest of your lives, and you lived an ordinary waking life for another fifty years, even so on your deathbed you would know she was part of you.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " \"The road cleared the cutting through the hills. He could see South Queensferry, the marina at Port Edgar, the VAT 69 sign of the distillery there, the lights of Hewlett Packard\u2019s factory; and the rail bridge, dark in the evening\u2019s last sky-reflected light. Behind it, more lights; the Hound Point oil terminal they\u2019d had a sub-contract on, and, further away, the lights of Leith. The old rail bridge\u2019s hollow metal bones looked the colour of dried blood. You fucking beauty, he thought . . . What a gorgeous great device you are. So delicate from this distance, so massive and strong close-up. Elegance and grace; perfect form. A quality bridge; granite piers, the best ship-plate steel, and a never-ending paint job. . . The three main characters represent different elements of the protagonist. Alex (full name hinted to be Alexander Lennox, but never explicitly named), John Orr and The Barbarian are one. Alex is a real person, born in Glasgow, who studied geology and engineering at the University of Edinburgh, fell in love with Andrea Cramond while there, and has continued their (open) relationship ever since. He is embittered by his betrayal of his working class roots (he has become a manager and partner in his engineering firm), the Cold War, successive Thatcher governments, and the failure of his relationship under the pressure of Andrea's French lover's terminal illness. While returning from a sentimental reunion with an old friend in Fife, during which alcohol and cannabis are consumed, he becomes distracted by the power and beauty of the Forth Railway Bridge while driving on the neighbouring Forth Road Bridge and crashes his car. While in a coma in hospital, he relives his life up to the crash. \"He glanced back at the roadway of the bridge as it rose slowly"
      },
      {
        "text": " relationship under the pressure of Andrea's French lover's terminal illness. While returning from a sentimental reunion with an old friend in Fife, during which alcohol and cannabis are consumed, he becomes distracted by the power and beauty of the Forth Railway Bridge while driving on the neighbouring Forth Road Bridge and crashes his car. While in a coma in hospital, he relives his life up to the crash. \"He glanced back at the roadway of the bridge as it rose slowly to its gentle, suspended summit. The surface was a little damp, but nothing to worry about. No problems. He wasn\u2019t going all that fast anyway, staying in the nearside lane, looking over at the rail bridge downstream. A light winked at the far end of the island under the rail bridge\u2019s middle-section. One day, though, even you\u2019ll be gone. Nothing lasts. Maybe that\u2019s what I want to tell her. Maybe I want to say, No, of course I don\u2019t mind; you must go. I can\u2019t grudge the man that; you\u2019d have done the same for me and I would for you. Just a pity, that\u2019s all. Go; we\u2019ll all survive. Maybe some good- He was aware of the truck in front pulling out suddenly. He looked round to see a car in front of him. It was stopped, abandoned in the nearside lane. He sucked his breath in, stamped on the brakes, tried to swerve; but it was too late.\" John Orr is an amnesiac living on the Bridge, a massive simulacrum of the rail bridge, but hundreds of miles long and packed with people. The crash which precipitated his arrival on the bridge was semi-deliberate; as such, he is reluctant to return to the real world. That part of himself who wishes to wake is represented by"
      },
      {
        "text": " the nearside lane. He sucked his breath in, stamped on the brakes, tried to swerve; but it was too late.\" John Orr is an amnesiac living on the Bridge, a massive simulacrum of the rail bridge, but hundreds of miles long and packed with people. The crash which precipitated his arrival on the bridge was semi-deliberate; as such, he is reluctant to return to the real world. That part of himself who wishes to wake is represented by Dr Joyce, Orr's psychoanalyst. Given Orr/Alex's desire to remain within the world of the Bridge, a world where he is well treated and lives a fairly pampered life, his attempts to stonewall and block the doctor's attempts to cure him are understandable. Eventually, he stows away on a train and leaves the Bridge. He finds that, in stark contrast to the very orderly, indeed totalitarian, life on The Bridge, the countryside beyond exists in militaristic chaos and warfare. The Barbarian is an id-ish warrior with a superego-esque familiar in tow (phallic symbolism is referenced by the familiar within a few pages of their first appearance) whose hack-and slash antics through various parodies of Greek legends and fairy tales are phonetically rendered in Scots dialect (seven years before Irvine Welsh used the technique in Trainspotting). The Barbarian (along with his loquacious familiar) are a deep expression of Alex's character; when Orr's dreams are not themed around threat and opposition he dreams he is the Barbarian. The Barbarian appears to be an expression of Alex's deepest feelings. A woman is his enemy in their first appearance (Metaphormosis, Four), showing how Andrea Cramond has made her influence felt in Alex's very core, and how his love for her"
      },
      {
        "text": "acious familiar) are a deep expression of Alex's character; when Orr's dreams are not themed around threat and opposition he dreams he is the Barbarian. The Barbarian appears to be an expression of Alex's deepest feelings. A woman is his enemy in their first appearance (Metaphormosis, Four), showing how Andrea Cramond has made her influence felt in Alex's very core, and how his love for her has been eroded and has transmuted into anger and contempt through the rift that has opened in their relationship. In their second appearance (Metamorpheus, Four), a female character is mentioned in passing, with a certain level of affection. The third appearance of the Barbarian and familiar (Metamorphosis, Pliocene) sees them old, decrepit, bed-bound and heading inevitably towards death. In each successive chapter the Barbarian's Scottish accent becomes less and less pronounced, another indication of how far Alex has gone from his Glaswegian roots. The Barbarian talks of his grief over his dead wife and his memories of their life together. While comparisons have been drawn between Sigmund Freud's structural theory of personality, this is the only point where the Barbarian, Familiar and another individual get together in a three-way arrangement. If the Barbarian's wife represents Andrea Cramond, it is another example of how deeply she has penetrated his being. In a move mirroring Alex's suicide drive and anticipating the end of the book, he is placed in a situation likely to kill him, but triumphs and emerges (literally) rejuvenated and reinvigorated. His Glasgow accent also returns. The Bridge is an unconventional love story; the characters eschew fidelity and barely see each other for years at a time, but they keep returning to each other. There is no marriage, no ring, no happy"
      },
      {
        "text": " penetrated his being. In a move mirroring Alex's suicide drive and anticipating the end of the book, he is placed in a situation likely to kill him, but triumphs and emerges (literally) rejuvenated and reinvigorated. His Glasgow accent also returns. The Bridge is an unconventional love story; the characters eschew fidelity and barely see each other for years at a time, but they keep returning to each other. There is no marriage, no ring, no happy ever after, just the knowledge that their lives are so deeply entwined it would be difficult or impossible for them to break away from each other. \u201cYou don't belong to her and she doesn't belong to you, but you're both part of each other; if she got up and left now and walked away and you never saw each other again for the rest of your lives, and you lived an ordinary waking life for another fifty years, even so on your deathbed you would know she was part of you.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dhalgren",
    "author": "Samuel R. Delany",
    "published_date": "1975-01",
    "synopsis": " Beginning in a forest somewhere outside the city, the novel recounts the protagonist's meeting with a woman. After they make love, he tells her that he has \"lost something\"\u2014he cannot remember his name. The woman leads him to a cave and tells him to enter. Inside, he finds long loops of chain fitted with miniature prisms, mirrors, and lenses. He dons the chain and leaves the cave to search for the woman who led him there, only to find her in the middle of a field, turning into a tree. Panicked, he flees. From time to time, he sees other characters in the novel wearing the same sort of \u201coptic chain\u201d (as it is called in the novel), suggesting they have been through a similar initiation, though its specific meaning is never fully explained and may have no real significance at all beyond the personal. Eventually, on a nearby road, a passing truck stops to pick him up. The trucker drops him off at the mouth of a suspension bridge, across the river from Bellona. As he crosses the bridge in the early morning darkness, the young man meets a group of women leaving the city. They ask him questions about the outside world and give him a weapon: a bladed \u201corchid,\u201d worn around the wrist with its blades sweeping up in front of the hand. Once inside Bellona, an engineer, Tak Loufer, who was living a few miles outside of the city when the initial destruction happened, meets and befriends him. Tak has moved to Bellona and stayed there ever since. Upon learning that he cannot remember his name, Tak gives him a nickname\u2014the Kid. Throughout the novel he is also referred to as \"Kid\", \"Kidd\", and often just \"kid.\" Next Tak takes Kid on a short tour of the city. One stop is at a commune in the city park, where Kid sees two women reading a spiral notebook. When Kid looks at it, we see what he reads: The first page contains, word-for-word, the first sentences of Dhalgren. As he reads further, however, the text diverges from the novel's opening. In Chapter II, \"The Ruins of Morning\", Kid returns to the commune the next day and receives the notebook from Lanya Colson, one of the two women from the evening before. Shortly they become lovers. Their relationship lasts throughout the book. We meet or learn about several other characters, including George Harrison, a local cult hero and rumoured rapist; Ernest Newboy, a famous poet visiting Bellona by invitation of Roger Calkins, publisher and editor of the local newspaper, The Bellona Times; Madame Brown, a psychotherapist; and, later in the novel, Captain Michael Kamp, an astronaut who, some years before, was in the crew of a successful moon landing. The notebook Kid receives already has writing throughout, but only on the right hand pages. The left hand pages are blank. Glimpses of the text in the notebook, however, are extremely close to passages in Dhalgren itself, as if the notebook were an alternate draft of the novel. Other passages are verbatim from the final chapter of Dhalgren. It is here in Chapter II that Kid begins using the blank pages of the notebook to compose poems. The novel describes the process of creating the poems\u2014the emotions and the mechanics of the writing itself\u2014at length and several times. We never see the actual poems, however, in their final form. Kid soon corrects any line that appears to a form we do not read\u2014or removes it entirely from the text. The third and longest chapter, \"House of the Ax\", involves Kid's interactions with the Richards family: Mr. Arthur Richards, his wife Mary Richards, their daughter June (who had been questionably raped publicly by George Harrison, whom she is now fixated on), and son Bobby. Through Madame Brown they hire Kid to help them move from one apartment to another in the all-but-abandoned building of co-ops, The Labry Apartments, in which they live. All-but-dysfunctional, they are nevertheless \"keeping up appearances.\" Mr. Richards leaves every day to go to work\u2014though no office or facility in the city seems to be in operation\u2014while Mrs. Richards acts as though there's nothing truly disastrous happening in Bellona. By some force of will, she causes almost everyone who comes into contact with her to play along. Kid's interactions with the Richardses culminates in the death of one of the family members. The third chapter is also where Ernest Newboy, a well-known poet visiting Bellona, befriends Kid. Newboy takes an interest in Kid's poems and mentions them to Roger Calkins. By the end of the chapter, Calkins is about to publish Kid's poems. As the novel progresses, Kid falls in with the scorpions, a loose-knit gang, three of whom have severely beaten him earlier in the book. Almost accidentally, Kid becomes their leader. Denny, a 15 year old scorpion, becomes Kid's and Lanya's lover, so that the relationship with Lanya turns into a lasting three-way sexual linkage. Kid also begins writing things other than poems in the notebook, keeping a journal of events and his thoughts. In Chapter VI, \"Palimpsest\", the novel's penultimate chapter, Calkins throws a party for Kid and his book, Brass Orchids, at Calkins's sprawling estate. At Calkins's suggestion, Kid brings along twenty or thirty friends: the scorpion \"nest.\" While Calkins himself is absent from the gathering, the descriptions of the various interactions between Bellona's high society (or, rather, what is left of it) and what can only be described as a street gang (the scorpions) is a section of the novel that often garners particular attention from reviewers and critics. This is also the part of the novel where Kid is interviewed by William (later passages of the book suggest William's last name is \"Dhalgren,\" but it is never confirmed). In Chapter VII, \"The Anathemeta: a plague journal\", the novel's concluding chapter, bits of the whole now and again appear to be laid out. Shifting from the omniscient viewpoint of the first six chapters, this chapter comprises numerous journal entries from the notebook, all of which appear to be by Kid. Several passages from this chapter have, however, already appeared verbatim earlier in the novel when Kid reads what was already in the notebook\u2014written when he received it. In this chapter rubrics run along beside many sections of the main text, mimicking the writing as it appears in the notebook. (In the middle of this chapter, a rubric running contains the following sentence: I have come to to wound the autumnal city.) Recalling Kid's entry into the city, the final section contains a near paragraph-for-paragraph echo of his initial confrontation with the women on the bridge. This time, however, the group leaving is almost all male, and the person entering is a young woman who says almost exactly what Kid did himself at the beginning of his stay in Bellona. The story ends: But I still hear them walking in the trees: not speaking. Waiting here, away from the terrifying weaponry, out of the halls of vapor and light, beyond holland into the hills, I have come to As with Finnegans Wake, the unclosed closing sentence can be read as leading into the unopened opening sentence, turning the novel into an enigmatic circle.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Beginning in a forest somewhere outside the city, the novel recounts the protagonist's meeting with a woman. After they make love, he tells her that he has \"lost something\"\u2014he cannot remember his name. The woman leads him to a cave and tells him to enter. Inside, he finds long loops of chain fitted with miniature prisms, mirrors, and lenses. He dons the chain and leaves the cave to search for the woman who led him there, only to find her in the middle of a field, turning into a tree. Panicked, he flees. From time to time, he sees other characters in the novel wearing the same sort of \u201coptic chain\u201d (as it is called in the novel), suggesting they have been through a similar initiation, though its specific meaning is never fully explained and may have no real significance at all beyond the personal. Eventually, on a nearby road, a passing truck stops to pick him up. The trucker drops him off at the mouth of a suspension bridge, across the river from Bellona. As he crosses the bridge in the early morning darkness, the young man meets a group of women leaving the city. They ask him questions about the outside world and give him a weapon: a bladed \u201corchid,\u201d worn around the wrist with its blades sweeping up in front of the hand. Once inside Bellona, an engineer, Tak Loufer, who was living a few miles outside of the city when the initial destruction happened, meets and befriends him. Tak has moved to Bellona and stayed there ever since. Upon learning that he cannot remember his name, Tak gives him a nickname\u2014the Kid. Throughout the novel he is also referred to as \"Kid\", \"Kidd\", and often just \"kid.\" Next Tak takes Kid on a short tour of the city. One stop is at a commune in the city park, where Kid sees two women reading a spiral notebook. When Kid looks at"
      },
      {
        "text": " initial destruction happened, meets and befriends him. Tak has moved to Bellona and stayed there ever since. Upon learning that he cannot remember his name, Tak gives him a nickname\u2014the Kid. Throughout the novel he is also referred to as \"Kid\", \"Kidd\", and often just \"kid.\" Next Tak takes Kid on a short tour of the city. One stop is at a commune in the city park, where Kid sees two women reading a spiral notebook. When Kid looks at it, we see what he reads: The first page contains, word-for-word, the first sentences of Dhalgren. As he reads further, however, the text diverges from the novel's opening. In Chapter II, \"The Ruins of Morning\", Kid returns to the commune the next day and receives the notebook from Lanya Colson, one of the two women from the evening before. Shortly they become lovers. Their relationship lasts throughout the book. We meet or learn about several other characters, including George Harrison, a local cult hero and rumoured rapist; Ernest Newboy, a famous poet visiting Bellona by invitation of Roger Calkins, publisher and editor of the local newspaper, The Bellona Times; Madame Brown, a psychotherapist; and, later in the novel, Captain Michael Kamp, an astronaut who, some years before, was in the crew of a successful moon landing. The notebook Kid receives already has writing throughout, but only on the right hand pages. The left hand pages are blank. Glimpses of the text in the notebook, however, are extremely close to passages in Dhalgren itself, as if the notebook were an alternate draft of the novel. Other passages are verbatim from the final chapter of Dhalgren. It is here in Chapter II that Kid begins using the blank pages of the notebook to compose poems. The novel describes the process of creating the poems\u2014the emotions and the mechanics of the writing itself\u2014"
      },
      {
        "text": " pages. The left hand pages are blank. Glimpses of the text in the notebook, however, are extremely close to passages in Dhalgren itself, as if the notebook were an alternate draft of the novel. Other passages are verbatim from the final chapter of Dhalgren. It is here in Chapter II that Kid begins using the blank pages of the notebook to compose poems. The novel describes the process of creating the poems\u2014the emotions and the mechanics of the writing itself\u2014at length and several times. We never see the actual poems, however, in their final form. Kid soon corrects any line that appears to a form we do not read\u2014or removes it entirely from the text. The third and longest chapter, \"House of the Ax\", involves Kid's interactions with the Richards family: Mr. Arthur Richards, his wife Mary Richards, their daughter June (who had been questionably raped publicly by George Harrison, whom she is now fixated on), and son Bobby. Through Madame Brown they hire Kid to help them move from one apartment to another in the all-but-abandoned building of co-ops, The Labry Apartments, in which they live. All-but-dysfunctional, they are nevertheless \"keeping up appearances.\" Mr. Richards leaves every day to go to work\u2014though no office or facility in the city seems to be in operation\u2014while Mrs. Richards acts as though there's nothing truly disastrous happening in Bellona. By some force of will, she causes almost everyone who comes into contact with her to play along. Kid's interactions with the Richardses culminates in the death of one of the family members. The third chapter is also where Ernest Newboy, a well-known poet visiting Bellona, befriends Kid. Newboy takes an interest in Kid's poems and mentions them to Roger Calkins. By the end of the chapter, Calkins is about to publish Kid's poems. As"
      },
      {
        "text": ". By some force of will, she causes almost everyone who comes into contact with her to play along. Kid's interactions with the Richardses culminates in the death of one of the family members. The third chapter is also where Ernest Newboy, a well-known poet visiting Bellona, befriends Kid. Newboy takes an interest in Kid's poems and mentions them to Roger Calkins. By the end of the chapter, Calkins is about to publish Kid's poems. As the novel progresses, Kid falls in with the scorpions, a loose-knit gang, three of whom have severely beaten him earlier in the book. Almost accidentally, Kid becomes their leader. Denny, a 15 year old scorpion, becomes Kid's and Lanya's lover, so that the relationship with Lanya turns into a lasting three-way sexual linkage. Kid also begins writing things other than poems in the notebook, keeping a journal of events and his thoughts. In Chapter VI, \"Palimpsest\", the novel's penultimate chapter, Calkins throws a party for Kid and his book, Brass Orchids, at Calkins's sprawling estate. At Calkins's suggestion, Kid brings along twenty or thirty friends: the scorpion \"nest.\" While Calkins himself is absent from the gathering, the descriptions of the various interactions between Bellona's high society (or, rather, what is left of it) and what can only be described as a street gang (the scorpions) is a section of the novel that often garners particular attention from reviewers and critics. This is also the part of the novel where Kid is interviewed by William (later passages of the book suggest William's last name is \"Dhalgren,\" but it is never confirmed). In Chapter VII, \"The Anathemeta: a plague journal\", the novel's concluding chapter, bits of the whole now and again appear to be laid out. Shifting from the"
      },
      {
        "text": " a street gang (the scorpions) is a section of the novel that often garners particular attention from reviewers and critics. This is also the part of the novel where Kid is interviewed by William (later passages of the book suggest William's last name is \"Dhalgren,\" but it is never confirmed). In Chapter VII, \"The Anathemeta: a plague journal\", the novel's concluding chapter, bits of the whole now and again appear to be laid out. Shifting from the omniscient viewpoint of the first six chapters, this chapter comprises numerous journal entries from the notebook, all of which appear to be by Kid. Several passages from this chapter have, however, already appeared verbatim earlier in the novel when Kid reads what was already in the notebook\u2014written when he received it. In this chapter rubrics run along beside many sections of the main text, mimicking the writing as it appears in the notebook. (In the middle of this chapter, a rubric running contains the following sentence: I have come to to wound the autumnal city.) Recalling Kid's entry into the city, the final section contains a near paragraph-for-paragraph echo of his initial confrontation with the women on the bridge. This time, however, the group leaving is almost all male, and the person entering is a young woman who says almost exactly what Kid did himself at the beginning of his stay in Bellona. The story ends: But I still hear them walking in the trees: not speaking. Waiting here, away from the terrifying weaponry, out of the halls of vapor and light, beyond holland into the hills, I have come to As with Finnegans Wake, the unclosed closing sentence can be read as leading into the unopened opening sentence, turning the novel into an enigmatic circle.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " trees: not speaking. Waiting here, away from the terrifying weaponry, out of the halls of vapor and light, beyond holland into the hills, I have come to As with Finnegans Wake, the unclosed closing sentence can be read as leading into the unopened opening sentence, turning the novel into an enigmatic circle.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Scar",
    "author": "China Mi\u00e9ville",
    "published_date": "2002-06",
    "synopsis": " The Scar opens with the journey of a small ship which has set out from the city New Crobuzon (the setting of Perdido Street Station). It is heading to the city's new colony, Nova Esperium, which lies across the Swollen Ocean of Bas-Lag. On board the ship are: *Bellis Coldwine, a cold, reserved linguist who is fleeing for her life for her alleged connection to the events in Perdido Street Station. *Johannes Tearfly, a scientist whose interests lie in megafauna and underwater sealife. *Tanner Sack, a Remade criminal (that is, he has had his body surgically and magically altered as punishment for his crime) who is bound for slavery. *Shekel, a young cabin boy who befriends Tanner. Before the ship reaches Nova Esperium, it is captured by pirates, and the passengers, crew and prisoners are all press-ganged into being citizens of Armada, a floating city made of thousands of ships. Tanner uses his newfound freedom to embrace his remaking. He has his body further remade and the earlier, rough work perfected, becoming an amphibious sea-creature. Treated now as an equal citizen rather than a prisoner or slave, Tanner's loyalties fiercely lie in Armada. Bellis meanwhile despises her new life as a librarian for the city's vast collection of stolen books, and yearns for home (somewhat ironically, as she was originally fleeing it). She gains the attention of the powerful Uther Doul, bodyguard to the Lovers, the mysterious, scarred leaders of Armada. Doul, for his own reasons, involves Bellis much more closely in the city's matters. She soon becomes privy to a plan formulated by the Lovers to raise a mythical sea creature known as the avanc. Simultaneously, she becomes involved with a New Crobuzonian spy named Silas Fennec, who reveals that the grindylow of the Cold Claw Sea are planning war on New Crobuzon. Silas was on his way home to warn his leaders of this war (thus saving the millions of innocents who might be slaughtered by the grindylow) when he was captured by Armada. Bellis and Silas find physical release in each other, and commiserate that they are powerless to save their home city. Soon enough Shekel, who is learning to read with Bellis's help, finds a strange book in the Armada's library. He brings it to Bellis, and she quickly realizes that it is the book the Lovers need to raise the avanc. Knowing that she must get a message home, Bellis destroys that information. This forces the Lovers to seek Kr\u00fcach Aum, now the only person who knows how to summon the mythical creature. Armada mounts an expedition to his unnamed island home, which is the island of the dreaded Anophelii (a horrific and deadly race of mosquito-people). The Lovers find Aum and the information they need, while Bellis uses their time on the island, away from Armada, to get a message home, to warn of the impending grindylow invasion. Armada then successfully raises the avanc and captures it \u2013 no mean feat, as the avanc is an immense creature, several miles long. The Lovers' true plan is finally revealed: to use the great speed and pulling power of the avanc to find the fabled Scar, a place in the world where reality breaks down and anything is possible. The Lovers see this as a source of ultimate power. On the journey far into unmapped waters, numerous matters threaten the city. Silas Fennec's actions, which have been far from honest all along, single-handedly bring down the fury of the New Crobuzon navy and the inhuman wrath of the grindylows. Following this a civil war breaks out within the city. Then, terribly wounded, Armada finally nears the Scar, and faces the unsettling horrors that accompany the breakdown of possibility. They pick up a shipwrecked friend from a different train of possibilities, chances and choices, who warns them of The Scar and that he saw the city fall into the wound of the world and everybody was killed. Mutiny follows and the people of Armada finally force the city to turn around and head back to the Swollen Ocean, the life of quiet and piracy, that they all want. The last chapter of the book is another excerpt of Bellis's letter home, in which she realises how much she was being used by Doul. The reader is left with the question, how much Uther Doul actually was in control of the events in the book, what was chance and what was 'planned' possibility.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Scar opens with the journey of a small ship which has set out from the city New Crobuzon (the setting of Perdido Street Station). It is heading to the city's new colony, Nova Esperium, which lies across the Swollen Ocean of Bas-Lag. On board the ship are: *Bellis Coldwine, a cold, reserved linguist who is fleeing for her life for her alleged connection to the events in Perdido Street Station. *Johannes Tearfly, a scientist whose interests lie in megafauna and underwater sealife. *Tanner Sack, a Remade criminal (that is, he has had his body surgically and magically altered as punishment for his crime) who is bound for slavery. *Shekel, a young cabin boy who befriends Tanner. Before the ship reaches Nova Esperium, it is captured by pirates, and the passengers, crew and prisoners are all press-ganged into being citizens of Armada, a floating city made of thousands of ships. Tanner uses his newfound freedom to embrace his remaking. He has his body further remade and the earlier, rough work perfected, becoming an amphibious sea-creature. Treated now as an equal citizen rather than a prisoner or slave, Tanner's loyalties fiercely lie in Armada. Bellis meanwhile despises her new life as a librarian for the city's vast collection of stolen books, and yearns for home (somewhat ironically, as she was originally fleeing it). She gains the attention of the powerful Uther Doul, bodyguard to the Lovers, the mysterious, scarred leaders of Armada. Doul, for his own reasons, involves Bellis much more closely in the city's matters. She soon becomes privy to a plan formulated by the Lovers to raise a mythical sea creature known as the avanc. Simultaneously, she becomes involved with a New Crobuzonian spy"
      },
      {
        "text": "omewhat ironically, as she was originally fleeing it). She gains the attention of the powerful Uther Doul, bodyguard to the Lovers, the mysterious, scarred leaders of Armada. Doul, for his own reasons, involves Bellis much more closely in the city's matters. She soon becomes privy to a plan formulated by the Lovers to raise a mythical sea creature known as the avanc. Simultaneously, she becomes involved with a New Crobuzonian spy named Silas Fennec, who reveals that the grindylow of the Cold Claw Sea are planning war on New Crobuzon. Silas was on his way home to warn his leaders of this war (thus saving the millions of innocents who might be slaughtered by the grindylow) when he was captured by Armada. Bellis and Silas find physical release in each other, and commiserate that they are powerless to save their home city. Soon enough Shekel, who is learning to read with Bellis's help, finds a strange book in the Armada's library. He brings it to Bellis, and she quickly realizes that it is the book the Lovers need to raise the avanc. Knowing that she must get a message home, Bellis destroys that information. This forces the Lovers to seek Kr\u00fcach Aum, now the only person who knows how to summon the mythical creature. Armada mounts an expedition to his unnamed island home, which is the island of the dreaded Anophelii (a horrific and deadly race of mosquito-people). The Lovers find Aum and the information they need, while Bellis uses their time on the island, away from Armada, to get a message home, to warn of the impending grindylow invasion. Armada then successfully raises the avanc and captures it \u2013 no mean feat, as the avanc is an immense creature, several miles long. The Lovers' true plan is"
      },
      {
        "text": " is the island of the dreaded Anophelii (a horrific and deadly race of mosquito-people). The Lovers find Aum and the information they need, while Bellis uses their time on the island, away from Armada, to get a message home, to warn of the impending grindylow invasion. Armada then successfully raises the avanc and captures it \u2013 no mean feat, as the avanc is an immense creature, several miles long. The Lovers' true plan is finally revealed: to use the great speed and pulling power of the avanc to find the fabled Scar, a place in the world where reality breaks down and anything is possible. The Lovers see this as a source of ultimate power. On the journey far into unmapped waters, numerous matters threaten the city. Silas Fennec's actions, which have been far from honest all along, single-handedly bring down the fury of the New Crobuzon navy and the inhuman wrath of the grindylows. Following this a civil war breaks out within the city. Then, terribly wounded, Armada finally nears the Scar, and faces the unsettling horrors that accompany the breakdown of possibility. They pick up a shipwrecked friend from a different train of possibilities, chances and choices, who warns them of The Scar and that he saw the city fall into the wound of the world and everybody was killed. Mutiny follows and the people of Armada finally force the city to turn around and head back to the Swollen Ocean, the life of quiet and piracy, that they all want. The last chapter of the book is another excerpt of Bellis's letter home, in which she realises how much she was being used by Doul. The reader is left with the question, how much Uther Doul actually was in control of the events in the book, what was chance and what was 'planned' possibility.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " head back to the Swollen Ocean, the life of quiet and piracy, that they all want. The last chapter of the book is another excerpt of Bellis's letter home, in which she realises how much she was being used by Doul. The reader is left with the question, how much Uther Doul actually was in control of the events in the book, what was chance and what was 'planned' possibility.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Rhinoceros",
    "author": "Eug\u00e8ne Ionesco",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The play starts in the town square of a small, unnamed French village. Two friends; the eloquent, intellectual but incredibly prideful Jean and the simplistic, shy, kind-hearted drunkard Berenger; meet up in a coffee house to talk about an unspecified urgent matter. Instead of talking about what they were supposed to, Jean becomes furious at Berenger's tardiness and drunken state and berates him until a rhinoceros rampages across the square, considerably startling the people there. The people there begin to discuss what has happened when another rhinoceros appears and crushes a woman's cat. This generates incredible outrage and people begin to band together to argue that the presence of these rhinos should not be allowed. The beginning of a mass movement is seen onstage. Berenger arrives late for work at the local newspaper office, but the newspaper's receptionist Daisy (with whom Berenger is in love), covers for him. At the office, an argument has broken out between the sensitive and logical Dudard and the violent, temperamental Botard; since Botard does not believe a rhinoceros could actually appear in France despite all the claims by eyewitnesses that one did. Suddenly, Mrs. B\u0153uf (the wife of a fellow employee) appears to say that her husband has turned into a rhinoceros and that streets are plagued with people who have turned into them. Botard argues against the existence of the so called rhinoceritis movement that Mrs. B\u0153uf claims is occurring, saying that the local people are too intelligent to be tricked by the empty rhetorics of a mass movement. Despite this, Mr. B\u0153uf (turned into a rhinoceros) arrives and destroys the staircase that leads out of the office, trapping all the workers and their boss, Mr. Papillion, inside. Mrs. B\u0153uf joins her husband by jumping down the stairwell while the office-workers escape through a window. Berenger goes to visit Jean in order to apologize for the previous day's argument they had, but finds him in bed, heavy with a sickness he has never had. The two friends begin to argue again, initially about the possibility of people actually turning into rhinos and then about the morality of the transformations. Jean is initially staunchly against the rhinos, but gradually grows lenient. As the scene progresses, Jean's skin turns greener and greener, the bumps in his head grow into a horn, his voice grows hoarse and he begins to pace around his apartment like a caged beast. Finally, he proclaims that rhinoceros have just as much of a right to life as humans and that \"Humanism is dead, those who follow it are just old sentimentalists\" before he turns into a rhino himself and chases Berenger out of his apartment. Everyone in town has succumbed to rhinoceritis save for Berenger, Dudard and Daisy. Berenger is locked up in his apartment, yelling at the rhinos that rush by for having destroyed civilization until Dudard arrives to check on him. Dudard trivializes the transformations by saying that people have the right to choose what they do, even transform; but Berenger insists that the transformations couldn't be voluntary since his friend Jean had initially hated the rhinos and that he was probably brainwashed. Dudard counterargues that people can change their minds and gradually grows more accepting until he concludes that he must \"follow [his] peers and [his] leaders\" before departing and turning into a rhino. Just before he departs, Daisy arrives. She and Berenger realize that they are left completely alone - the only humans left in a world of monsters. Berenger professes his love for Daisy and she seems to reciprocate. They attempt, albeit briefly, to have a normal life amongst the rhinoceroses. After Berenger suggests that they attempt to re-populate the human race, Daisy begins to move away from him, suggesting that Berenger doesn't understand love. She comes to believe the rhinoceroses are in the right - they who are truly passionate. Berenger slaps Daisy without thinking, immediately recanting his action. They consider their state with Berenger exclaiming that, \"in just a few minutes we have gone through twenty-five years of married life!\" They attempt to reconcile, but fail. As Berenger examines himself in a mirror for any evidence of transformation, Daisy quietly leaves to join the rhinoceroses. Discovering he is completely alone, Berenger laments his behavior with Daisy. In his solitude he begins to doubt his existence - his language, his appearance, and his mind. Alone, he finds himself in the wrong and attempts to change into a rhinoceros. He struggles and fails. He returns to the mirror, face-to-face with his fate and breaks down as he struggles to accept the place he has given himself. Suddenly, he snaps out of it and renews his vow to take on the rhinos. Berenger valiantly shouts \"I'm not capitulating!\" to the audience before returning to the window to hurl abuse at the passing rhinoceros.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The play starts in the town square of a small, unnamed French village. Two friends; the eloquent, intellectual but incredibly prideful Jean and the simplistic, shy, kind-hearted drunkard Berenger; meet up in a coffee house to talk about an unspecified urgent matter. Instead of talking about what they were supposed to, Jean becomes furious at Berenger's tardiness and drunken state and berates him until a rhinoceros rampages across the square, considerably startling the people there. The people there begin to discuss what has happened when another rhinoceros appears and crushes a woman's cat. This generates incredible outrage and people begin to band together to argue that the presence of these rhinos should not be allowed. The beginning of a mass movement is seen onstage. Berenger arrives late for work at the local newspaper office, but the newspaper's receptionist Daisy (with whom Berenger is in love), covers for him. At the office, an argument has broken out between the sensitive and logical Dudard and the violent, temperamental Botard; since Botard does not believe a rhinoceros could actually appear in France despite all the claims by eyewitnesses that one did. Suddenly, Mrs. B\u0153uf (the wife of a fellow employee) appears to say that her husband has turned into a rhinoceros and that streets are plagued with people who have turned into them. Botard argues against the existence of the so called rhinoceritis movement that Mrs. B\u0153uf claims is occurring, saying that the local people are too intelligent to be tricked by the empty rhetorics of a mass movement. Despite this, Mr. B\u0153uf (turned into a rhinoceros) arrives and destroys the staircase that leads out of the office, trapping all the workers and their boss, Mr. Papillion, inside. Mrs. B\u0153uf joins her husband by jumping down the stairwell while"
      },
      {
        "text": " rhinoceritis movement that Mrs. B\u0153uf claims is occurring, saying that the local people are too intelligent to be tricked by the empty rhetorics of a mass movement. Despite this, Mr. B\u0153uf (turned into a rhinoceros) arrives and destroys the staircase that leads out of the office, trapping all the workers and their boss, Mr. Papillion, inside. Mrs. B\u0153uf joins her husband by jumping down the stairwell while the office-workers escape through a window. Berenger goes to visit Jean in order to apologize for the previous day's argument they had, but finds him in bed, heavy with a sickness he has never had. The two friends begin to argue again, initially about the possibility of people actually turning into rhinos and then about the morality of the transformations. Jean is initially staunchly against the rhinos, but gradually grows lenient. As the scene progresses, Jean's skin turns greener and greener, the bumps in his head grow into a horn, his voice grows hoarse and he begins to pace around his apartment like a caged beast. Finally, he proclaims that rhinoceros have just as much of a right to life as humans and that \"Humanism is dead, those who follow it are just old sentimentalists\" before he turns into a rhino himself and chases Berenger out of his apartment. Everyone in town has succumbed to rhinoceritis save for Berenger, Dudard and Daisy. Berenger is locked up in his apartment, yelling at the rhinos that rush by for having destroyed civilization until Dudard arrives to check on him. Dudard trivializes the transformations by saying that people have the right to choose what they do, even transform; but Berenger insists that the transformations couldn't be voluntary since his friend Jean had initially hated the rhinos and that he was probably brainwashed. Dudard counterargues"
      },
      {
        "text": "itis save for Berenger, Dudard and Daisy. Berenger is locked up in his apartment, yelling at the rhinos that rush by for having destroyed civilization until Dudard arrives to check on him. Dudard trivializes the transformations by saying that people have the right to choose what they do, even transform; but Berenger insists that the transformations couldn't be voluntary since his friend Jean had initially hated the rhinos and that he was probably brainwashed. Dudard counterargues that people can change their minds and gradually grows more accepting until he concludes that he must \"follow [his] peers and [his] leaders\" before departing and turning into a rhino. Just before he departs, Daisy arrives. She and Berenger realize that they are left completely alone - the only humans left in a world of monsters. Berenger professes his love for Daisy and she seems to reciprocate. They attempt, albeit briefly, to have a normal life amongst the rhinoceroses. After Berenger suggests that they attempt to re-populate the human race, Daisy begins to move away from him, suggesting that Berenger doesn't understand love. She comes to believe the rhinoceroses are in the right - they who are truly passionate. Berenger slaps Daisy without thinking, immediately recanting his action. They consider their state with Berenger exclaiming that, \"in just a few minutes we have gone through twenty-five years of married life!\" They attempt to reconcile, but fail. As Berenger examines himself in a mirror for any evidence of transformation, Daisy quietly leaves to join the rhinoceroses. Discovering he is completely alone, Berenger laments his behavior with Daisy. In his solitude he begins to doubt his existence - his language, his appearance, and his mind. Alone, he finds himself in the wrong and attempts to change into a rhinoceros. He struggles and"
      },
      {
        "text": "five years of married life!\" They attempt to reconcile, but fail. As Berenger examines himself in a mirror for any evidence of transformation, Daisy quietly leaves to join the rhinoceroses. Discovering he is completely alone, Berenger laments his behavior with Daisy. In his solitude he begins to doubt his existence - his language, his appearance, and his mind. Alone, he finds himself in the wrong and attempts to change into a rhinoceros. He struggles and fails. He returns to the mirror, face-to-face with his fate and breaks down as he struggles to accept the place he has given himself. Suddenly, he snaps out of it and renews his vow to take on the rhinos. Berenger valiantly shouts \"I'm not capitulating!\" to the audience before returning to the window to hurl abuse at the passing rhinoceros.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban",
    "author": "J. K. Rowling",
    "published_date": "1999-07-08",
    "synopsis": " The book opens on the night before Harry's thirteenth birthday, when he receives gifts by owl post from his friends at school. The next morning at breakfast, Harry sees on television that a man named Black is on the loose from prison. At this time, Aunt Marge comes to stay with the Dursleys, and she insults Harry's parents numerous times. Harry accidentally causes her to inflate, and leaves the Dursley's house and is picked up by the Knight Bus, but only after an alarming sighting of a large, black dog. The Knight Bus drops Harry off at Diagon Alley, where he is greeted by Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic. Harry rents a room and awaits the start of school. In Diagon Alley, Harry finishes his schoolwork, admires a Firebolt broomstick in the window of a shop, and after some time, finds his friends Ron and Hermione. At a pet shop, Hermione buys a cat named Crookshanks, who chases Scabbers, Ron's aging pet rat. Ron is most displeased. The night before they all head off to Hogwarts, Harry overhears Ron's parents discussing the fact that Sirius Black is after Harry. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the other students board the Hogwarts Express train and are stopped once by an entity called a Dementor. Harry faints and is revived by Professor Lupin, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Soon afterward, the students arrive at Hogwarts and classes begin. In Divination class, Professor Trelawney foresees Harry's death by reading tealeaves and finding the representation of a Grim, a large black dog symbolising death. In the Care of Magical Creatures class, Hagrid introduces the students to Hippogriffs, large, deeply dignified crosses between a horse and an eagle. Malfoy insults one of these beasts, Buckbeak, and is attacked. Malfoy drags out the injury in an attempt to have Hagrid fired and Buckbeak put to death. In Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Lupin leads the class in a defeat of a Boggart, which changes shape to appear as the viewer's greatest fear. For Ron, a spider, for Neville, professor Snape. For Harry it turns into a dementor During a Hogwarts visit to Hogsmeade, a wizard village which Harry is unable to visit because he has no permission slip, Harry has tea with Professor Lupin. Harry discovers that professor lupin had worried about whether the boggart would take the shape of Voldemort. Snape brings Lupin a steaming potion, which Lupin drinks, much to Harry's alarm. Later that night, Sirius Black breaks into Hogwarts and destroys the Fat Lady portrait that guards Gryffindor Tower. The students spend the night sleeping in the Great Hall while the teachers search the castle. Soon afterwards, Quidditch moves into full swing, and Gryffindor House plays against Hufflepuff. During the game, Harry spies the large black dog, and seconds later he sees a hoard of Dementors. He loses consciousness and falls off his broomstick. Harry wakes to find that his trusty broomstick had flown into the Whomping Willow and been smashed in his fall, and the game itself had lost. Later, Harry learns from Lupin that the Dementors affect Harry so much because Harry's past is so horrible. During the next Hogsmeade visit, from which Harry is forbidden because he didn't get his permission slip signed, Fred and George Weasley give Harry the Marauder's Map, written by the mysterious quartet of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. This map leads Harry through a secret passageway into Hogsmeade, where he rejoins Ron and Hermione. Inside the Hogsmeade tavern, Harry overhears professor MC Gonagol ,and some other hogwart's teacher's discussing Sirius Black's responsibility for Harry's parents' deaths, as well as for the death of another Hogwarts student, Peter Pettigrew, who was blown to bits, leaving only a finger. Back at Hogwarts, Harry learns that Hagrid received a notice saying that Buckbeak, the hippogriff who attacked Malfoy, is going to be put on trial, and Hagrid is inconsolable. The winter holidays roll around. For Christmas, Harry receives a Firebolt, the most impressive racing broomstick in the world. Much to his and Ron's dismay, Hermione reports the broomstick to Professor McGonagall, who takes it away, fearing that it may have been sent (and cursed) by Sirius Black. After the holidays, Harry begins working with Professor Lupin to fight Dementors with the Patronus Charm; he is moderately successful, but still not entirely confident in his ability to ward them off. Soon before the game against Ravenclaw, Harry's broomstick is returned to him, and as Ron takes it up to the dormitory, he discovers evidence that Scabbers has been eaten by Crookshanks. Ron is furious at Hermione. Soon afterwards, Gryffindor plays Ravenclaw at Quidditch. Harry, on his Firebolt, triumphs, winning the game. Once all the students have gone to bed, Sirius Black breaks into Harry's dormitory and slashes the curtain around Ron's bed. Several days later, Hagrid invites Harry and Ron over for tea and scolds them for shunning Hermione on account of Scabbers and the Firebolt. They feel slightly guilty, but not terrible. Soon Harry, under his invisibility cloak, meets Ron during a Hogsmeade trip; when he returns, Snape catches him and confiscates his Marauder's Map. Lupin saves Harry from Snape's rage, but afterwards he reprimands him severely for risking his safety for \"a bag of magic tricks.\" As Harry leaves Lupin's office, he runs into Hermione, who informs him that Buckbeak's execution date has been set. Ron, Hermione, and Harry are reconciled in their efforts to help Hagrid. Around this time, Hermione is exceptionally stressed by all of her work, and in a day she slaps Malfoy for picking on Hagrid and she quits Divination, concluding that Professor Trelawney is a great fraud. Days later, Gryffindor beats Slytherin in a dirty game of Quidditch, winning the Quidditch Cup. Exams roll around, and during Harry's pointless Divination exam, Professor Trelawney predicts the return of Voldemort's servant before midnight. Ron, Hermione, and Harry shield themselves in Harry's invisibility cloak and head off to comfort Hagrid before the execution. While at his cabin, Hermione discovers Scabbers in Hagrid's milk jug. They leave, and Buckbeak is executed. As Ron, Harry, and Hermione are leaving Hagrid's house and reeling from the sound of the axe, the large black dog approaches them, pounces on Ron, and drags him under the Whomping Willow. Harry and Hermione and Crookshanks dash down after them; oddly, Crookshanks knows the secret knob to press to still the flailing tree. They move through an underground tunnel and arrive at the Shrieking Shack. They find that the black dog has turned into Sirius Black and is in a room with Ron. Harry, Ron, and Hermione manage to disarm Black, and before Harry can kill Black, avenging his parents' deaths, Professor Lupin enters the room and disarms him. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are aghast as Lupin and Black exchange a series of nods and embrace. Once the three students calm down enough to listen, Lupin and Black explain everything. Lupin is a werewolf who remains tame through a special steaming potion made for him by Snape. While Lupin was a student at Hogwarts, his best friends, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew, became Animagi (humans able to take on animal forms) so that they could romp in the grounds with Lupin at the full moon. They explain how Snape once followed Lupin toward his transformation site in a practical joke set up by Sirius, and was rescued narrowly by James Potter. At this moment, Snape reveals himself from underneath Harry's dropped invisibility cloak, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione disarm him, rendering him unconscious. Lupin and Black then explain that the real murderer of Harry's parents is not Black, but Peter Pettigrew, who has been presumed dead but really hidden all these years disguised as Scabbers. Lupin transforms Scabbers into Pettigrew, who squeals and hedges but ultimately confesses, revealing himself to be Voldemort's servant, and Black to be innocent. They all travel back to Hogwarts, but at the sight of the full moon, Lupin, who has forgotten to take his controlling potion (the steaming liquid), turns into a werewolf. Sirius Black responds by turning into the large black dog in order to protect Harry, Ron, and Hermione from Lupin. As Black returns from driving the werewolf into the woods, a swarm of Dementors approaches, and Black is paralyzed with fear. One of the Dementors prepares to suck the soul out of Harry, whose patronus charm is simply not strong enough. Out of somewhere comes a patronus that drives the Dementors away. Harry faints. Harry awakens in the hospital wing to hear Snape and Cornelius Fudge discussing the fact that Sirius Black is about to be given the fatal Dementor's Kiss. Harry and Hermione protest, claiming Black's innocence, but to no avail; then Dumbledore enters the room, shoos out the others, and mysteriously suggests that Harry and Hermione travel back through Hermione's time-turning device, which she has been using from the starting of the school for her studies, and save both Black and Buckbeak. Hermione turns her hour-glass necklace back three turns, and Harry and Hermione are thrust into the past, where they rescue Buckbeak shortly before his execution. From a hiding place in the forest, Harry watches the Dementor sequence and discovers that he had been the one who conjured the patronus, and he is touched and confused to note that his patronus had taken the shape of a stag that he recognises instantly as Prongs, his father's animagi form. After saving his past self from the Dementors, Harry and Hermione fly to the tower where Black is imprisoned, and they rescue Black, sending him away to freedom on Buckbeak's back. The next day, Harry is saddened to learn that Professor Lupin is leaving Hogwarts because of the previous night's scare. Dumbledore meets with Harry and gives him wise fatherly advice on the events that have happened. On the train ride home, Harry receives an owl-post letter from Sirius that contains a Hogsmeade permission letter, words of confirmation that he is safe in hiding with Buckbeak and that he was, in fact, the sender of the Firebolt, and a small pet owl for Ron. Harry feels slightly uplifted as he returns to spend his summer with the Dursleys.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book opens on the night before Harry's thirteenth birthday, when he receives gifts by owl post from his friends at school. The next morning at breakfast, Harry sees on television that a man named Black is on the loose from prison. At this time, Aunt Marge comes to stay with the Dursleys, and she insults Harry's parents numerous times. Harry accidentally causes her to inflate, and leaves the Dursley's house and is picked up by the Knight Bus, but only after an alarming sighting of a large, black dog. The Knight Bus drops Harry off at Diagon Alley, where he is greeted by Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic. Harry rents a room and awaits the start of school. In Diagon Alley, Harry finishes his schoolwork, admires a Firebolt broomstick in the window of a shop, and after some time, finds his friends Ron and Hermione. At a pet shop, Hermione buys a cat named Crookshanks, who chases Scabbers, Ron's aging pet rat. Ron is most displeased. The night before they all head off to Hogwarts, Harry overhears Ron's parents discussing the fact that Sirius Black is after Harry. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the other students board the Hogwarts Express train and are stopped once by an entity called a Dementor. Harry faints and is revived by Professor Lupin, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Soon afterward, the students arrive at Hogwarts and classes begin. In Divination class, Professor Trelawney foresees Harry's death by reading tealeaves and finding the representation of a Grim, a large black dog symbolising death. In the Care of Magical Creatures class, Hagrid introduces the students to Hippogriffs, large, deeply dignified crosses between a horse and an eagle. Malfoy insults one of these beasts, Buckbeak, and is attacked. Malfoy drags out the injury in an attempt to"
      },
      {
        "text": " at Hogwarts and classes begin. In Divination class, Professor Trelawney foresees Harry's death by reading tealeaves and finding the representation of a Grim, a large black dog symbolising death. In the Care of Magical Creatures class, Hagrid introduces the students to Hippogriffs, large, deeply dignified crosses between a horse and an eagle. Malfoy insults one of these beasts, Buckbeak, and is attacked. Malfoy drags out the injury in an attempt to have Hagrid fired and Buckbeak put to death. In Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Lupin leads the class in a defeat of a Boggart, which changes shape to appear as the viewer's greatest fear. For Ron, a spider, for Neville, professor Snape. For Harry it turns into a dementor During a Hogwarts visit to Hogsmeade, a wizard village which Harry is unable to visit because he has no permission slip, Harry has tea with Professor Lupin. Harry discovers that professor lupin had worried about whether the boggart would take the shape of Voldemort. Snape brings Lupin a steaming potion, which Lupin drinks, much to Harry's alarm. Later that night, Sirius Black breaks into Hogwarts and destroys the Fat Lady portrait that guards Gryffindor Tower. The students spend the night sleeping in the Great Hall while the teachers search the castle. Soon afterwards, Quidditch moves into full swing, and Gryffindor House plays against Hufflepuff. During the game, Harry spies the large black dog, and seconds later he sees a hoard of Dementors. He loses consciousness and falls off his broomstick. Harry wakes to find that his trusty broomstick had flown into the Whomping Willow and been smashed in his fall, and the game itself had lost. Later, Harry learns from Lupin that the Dementors affect Harry so much because Harry's past is so horrible. During the next Hogsme"
      },
      {
        "text": " against Hufflepuff. During the game, Harry spies the large black dog, and seconds later he sees a hoard of Dementors. He loses consciousness and falls off his broomstick. Harry wakes to find that his trusty broomstick had flown into the Whomping Willow and been smashed in his fall, and the game itself had lost. Later, Harry learns from Lupin that the Dementors affect Harry so much because Harry's past is so horrible. During the next Hogsmeade visit, from which Harry is forbidden because he didn't get his permission slip signed, Fred and George Weasley give Harry the Marauder's Map, written by the mysterious quartet of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. This map leads Harry through a secret passageway into Hogsmeade, where he rejoins Ron and Hermione. Inside the Hogsmeade tavern, Harry overhears professor MC Gonagol ,and some other hogwart's teacher's discussing Sirius Black's responsibility for Harry's parents' deaths, as well as for the death of another Hogwarts student, Peter Pettigrew, who was blown to bits, leaving only a finger. Back at Hogwarts, Harry learns that Hagrid received a notice saying that Buckbeak, the hippogriff who attacked Malfoy, is going to be put on trial, and Hagrid is inconsolable. The winter holidays roll around. For Christmas, Harry receives a Firebolt, the most impressive racing broomstick in the world. Much to his and Ron's dismay, Hermione reports the broomstick to Professor McGonagall, who takes it away, fearing that it may have been sent (and cursed) by Sirius Black. After the holidays, Harry begins working with Professor Lupin to fight Dementors with the Patronus Charm; he is moderately successful, but still not entirely confident in his ability to ward them off. Soon before the game against Ravenclaw, Harry's broomstick is returned to"
      },
      {
        "text": " broomstick in the world. Much to his and Ron's dismay, Hermione reports the broomstick to Professor McGonagall, who takes it away, fearing that it may have been sent (and cursed) by Sirius Black. After the holidays, Harry begins working with Professor Lupin to fight Dementors with the Patronus Charm; he is moderately successful, but still not entirely confident in his ability to ward them off. Soon before the game against Ravenclaw, Harry's broomstick is returned to him, and as Ron takes it up to the dormitory, he discovers evidence that Scabbers has been eaten by Crookshanks. Ron is furious at Hermione. Soon afterwards, Gryffindor plays Ravenclaw at Quidditch. Harry, on his Firebolt, triumphs, winning the game. Once all the students have gone to bed, Sirius Black breaks into Harry's dormitory and slashes the curtain around Ron's bed. Several days later, Hagrid invites Harry and Ron over for tea and scolds them for shunning Hermione on account of Scabbers and the Firebolt. They feel slightly guilty, but not terrible. Soon Harry, under his invisibility cloak, meets Ron during a Hogsmeade trip; when he returns, Snape catches him and confiscates his Marauder's Map. Lupin saves Harry from Snape's rage, but afterwards he reprimands him severely for risking his safety for \"a bag of magic tricks.\" As Harry leaves Lupin's office, he runs into Hermione, who informs him that Buckbeak's execution date has been set. Ron, Hermione, and Harry are reconciled in their efforts to help Hagrid. Around this time, Hermione is exceptionally stressed by all of her work, and in a day she slaps Malfoy for picking on Hagrid and she quits Divination, concluding that Professor Trelawney is a great fraud. Days later, Gryffindor beats Slytherin in a dirty game"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s office, he runs into Hermione, who informs him that Buckbeak's execution date has been set. Ron, Hermione, and Harry are reconciled in their efforts to help Hagrid. Around this time, Hermione is exceptionally stressed by all of her work, and in a day she slaps Malfoy for picking on Hagrid and she quits Divination, concluding that Professor Trelawney is a great fraud. Days later, Gryffindor beats Slytherin in a dirty game of Quidditch, winning the Quidditch Cup. Exams roll around, and during Harry's pointless Divination exam, Professor Trelawney predicts the return of Voldemort's servant before midnight. Ron, Hermione, and Harry shield themselves in Harry's invisibility cloak and head off to comfort Hagrid before the execution. While at his cabin, Hermione discovers Scabbers in Hagrid's milk jug. They leave, and Buckbeak is executed. As Ron, Harry, and Hermione are leaving Hagrid's house and reeling from the sound of the axe, the large black dog approaches them, pounces on Ron, and drags him under the Whomping Willow. Harry and Hermione and Crookshanks dash down after them; oddly, Crookshanks knows the secret knob to press to still the flailing tree. They move through an underground tunnel and arrive at the Shrieking Shack. They find that the black dog has turned into Sirius Black and is in a room with Ron. Harry, Ron, and Hermione manage to disarm Black, and before Harry can kill Black, avenging his parents' deaths, Professor Lupin enters the room and disarms him. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are aghast as Lupin and Black exchange a series of nods and embrace. Once the three students calm down enough to listen, Lupin and Black explain everything. Lupin is a werewolf who remains tame through a special steaming potion made for him by Snape"
      },
      {
        "text": " room with Ron. Harry, Ron, and Hermione manage to disarm Black, and before Harry can kill Black, avenging his parents' deaths, Professor Lupin enters the room and disarms him. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are aghast as Lupin and Black exchange a series of nods and embrace. Once the three students calm down enough to listen, Lupin and Black explain everything. Lupin is a werewolf who remains tame through a special steaming potion made for him by Snape. While Lupin was a student at Hogwarts, his best friends, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew, became Animagi (humans able to take on animal forms) so that they could romp in the grounds with Lupin at the full moon. They explain how Snape once followed Lupin toward his transformation site in a practical joke set up by Sirius, and was rescued narrowly by James Potter. At this moment, Snape reveals himself from underneath Harry's dropped invisibility cloak, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione disarm him, rendering him unconscious. Lupin and Black then explain that the real murderer of Harry's parents is not Black, but Peter Pettigrew, who has been presumed dead but really hidden all these years disguised as Scabbers. Lupin transforms Scabbers into Pettigrew, who squeals and hedges but ultimately confesses, revealing himself to be Voldemort's servant, and Black to be innocent. They all travel back to Hogwarts, but at the sight of the full moon, Lupin, who has forgotten to take his controlling potion (the steaming liquid), turns into a werewolf. Sirius Black responds by turning into the large black dog in order to protect Harry, Ron, and Hermione from Lupin. As Black returns from driving the werewolf into the woods, a swarm of Dementors approaches, and Black is paralyzed with fear. One of the Dementors prepares to suck the soul out of Harry, whose patronus charm"
      },
      {
        "text": " the sight of the full moon, Lupin, who has forgotten to take his controlling potion (the steaming liquid), turns into a werewolf. Sirius Black responds by turning into the large black dog in order to protect Harry, Ron, and Hermione from Lupin. As Black returns from driving the werewolf into the woods, a swarm of Dementors approaches, and Black is paralyzed with fear. One of the Dementors prepares to suck the soul out of Harry, whose patronus charm is simply not strong enough. Out of somewhere comes a patronus that drives the Dementors away. Harry faints. Harry awakens in the hospital wing to hear Snape and Cornelius Fudge discussing the fact that Sirius Black is about to be given the fatal Dementor's Kiss. Harry and Hermione protest, claiming Black's innocence, but to no avail; then Dumbledore enters the room, shoos out the others, and mysteriously suggests that Harry and Hermione travel back through Hermione's time-turning device, which she has been using from the starting of the school for her studies, and save both Black and Buckbeak. Hermione turns her hour-glass necklace back three turns, and Harry and Hermione are thrust into the past, where they rescue Buckbeak shortly before his execution. From a hiding place in the forest, Harry watches the Dementor sequence and discovers that he had been the one who conjured the patronus, and he is touched and confused to note that his patronus had taken the shape of a stag that he recognises instantly as Prongs, his father's animagi form. After saving his past self from the Dementors, Harry and Hermione fly to the tower where Black is imprisoned, and they rescue Black, sending him away to freedom on Buckbeak's back. The next day, Harry is saddened to learn that Professor Lupin is leaving Hogwarts because of the previous night's scare. Dumbledore meets with Harry and gives him wise fatherly advice"
      },
      {
        "text": " patronus had taken the shape of a stag that he recognises instantly as Prongs, his father's animagi form. After saving his past self from the Dementors, Harry and Hermione fly to the tower where Black is imprisoned, and they rescue Black, sending him away to freedom on Buckbeak's back. The next day, Harry is saddened to learn that Professor Lupin is leaving Hogwarts because of the previous night's scare. Dumbledore meets with Harry and gives him wise fatherly advice on the events that have happened. On the train ride home, Harry receives an owl-post letter from Sirius that contains a Hogsmeade permission letter, words of confirmation that he is safe in hiding with Buckbeak and that he was, in fact, the sender of the Firebolt, and a small pet owl for Ron. Harry feels slightly uplifted as he returns to spend his summer with the Dursleys.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Cold Comfort Farm",
    "author": "Stella Gibbons",
    "published_date": "1932",
    "synopsis": " Following the death of her parents, the book's heroine, Flora Poste, finds she is possessed \"of every art and grace save that of earning her own living.\" She decides to take advantage of the fact that \"no limits are set, either by society or one's own conscience, to the amount one may impose on one's relatives\", and settles on visiting her distant relatives at the isolated Cold Comfort Farm in the fictional village of Howling in Sussex. The inhabitants of the farm - Aunt Ada Doom, the Starkadders, and their extended family and workers - feel obligated to take her in to atone for an unspecified wrong once done to her father. As is typical in a certain genre of romantic 19th-century and early 20th-century literature, each of the farm's inhabitants has some long-festering emotional problem caused by ignorance, hatred, or fear, and the farm is badly run. Flora, being a level-headed, urban woman, determines that she must apply modern common sense to their problems and help them adapt to the 20th century.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Following the death of her parents, the book's heroine, Flora Poste, finds she is possessed \"of every art and grace save that of earning her own living.\" She decides to take advantage of the fact that \"no limits are set, either by society or one's own conscience, to the amount one may impose on one's relatives\", and settles on visiting her distant relatives at the isolated Cold Comfort Farm in the fictional village of Howling in Sussex. The inhabitants of the farm - Aunt Ada Doom, the Starkadders, and their extended family and workers - feel obligated to take her in to atone for an unspecified wrong once done to her father. As is typical in a certain genre of romantic 19th-century and early 20th-century literature, each of the farm's inhabitants has some long-festering emotional problem caused by ignorance, hatred, or fear, and the farm is badly run. Flora, being a level-headed, urban woman, determines that she must apply modern common sense to their problems and help them adapt to the 20th century.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Hatter's Castle",
    "author": "A. J. Cronin",
    "published_date": "1931",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins with some insight into the life of the Brodie household, where James Brodie seems to have everyone under his thumb. The main event that triggers the events in the novel is Mary Brodie's relationship with her first love, Dennis. Early in the story, Mary, who has occasionally met Dennis at the library, is invited by him to go to the fair in the town. She sneaks out without her family's knowledge and not only goes to the fair, but later on that night kisses and eventually makes love to Dennis, which we later learn, results in pregnancy. This event of her unwanted pregnancy is the main plot in the first third of the novel, titled \"Section One\". We realise that Mary is pregnant, and when she is six months pregnant she makes a plan with Dennis to run away and get married without her parents noticing. Even though Mary was only seventeen, there would have been no legal problem with her marriage since the English law which, until 1970, generally required people under twenty-one to have parental consent to marry, did not apply in Scotland. But three days before Dennis is due to whisk Mary away, there is a massive storm, and she begins to go into labour whilst carrying the child. Mrs. Brodie stumbles into Mary's room and begins to scream at the fact that her daughter is with child, and calls James himself to sort it out. After being kicked in the stomach repeatedly by her father and thrown out on her face into the pouring rain (whilst in labour), she tries to reach safety. Mary nearly drowns in a river before finding a barn where she gives birth to her premature child, which dies. Dennis, who was, travelling on a train to rescue Mary, is killed when the train derails and plunges into the River Tay below, a retelling of the actual Tay Bridge disaster of 1879. In the second part of the book, James Brodie's business as a hatter is destroyed. A rival company moves next door and attracts all his customers. Part of this is due to Brodie's pride, as the customers are driven away by his delusions of superiority. As his profits decrease, so does the weekly salary, so Mamma is left to deal with making the most of what little they have left for the family. Her illness, cancer of the womb, and the chronic stress of living with James Brodie hasten her death. After her death, Brodie's mistress, Nancy, moves in. Later she goes off abroad with Brodie's son Matt, and Brodie is left with only his younger daughter, Nessie, and his aged mother, Grandma Brodie. In the third part of the book, Brodie forces Nessie to study hard so as to win the \"Latta\", a valuable bursarship. He wants this not so much to provide a good future for his daughter, as to show that she is better than his rival's son, who is also entered for it. Under his threats and the dreadful fear of failure, she labours on with it, making herself mentally and physically ill. Nessie secretly writes to Mary asking her to come back, so she will have her company and comfort. Under pretext of coming to help with housework, Mary writes to her father, who initially refuses her return. After discovering that Nancy has deserted him, he writes again permitting Mary to come back, so she does. Nessie obtains notice of the Latta result before her father sees it. Finding that her rival has won it and fearing her father, she sends Mary out to the chemist on the pretext of getting some medicine, then dresses up and hangs herself. The story concludes with Dr. Renwick, who has been seeing Mary, taking her away with him to marry her.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins with some insight into the life of the Brodie household, where James Brodie seems to have everyone under his thumb. The main event that triggers the events in the novel is Mary Brodie's relationship with her first love, Dennis. Early in the story, Mary, who has occasionally met Dennis at the library, is invited by him to go to the fair in the town. She sneaks out without her family's knowledge and not only goes to the fair, but later on that night kisses and eventually makes love to Dennis, which we later learn, results in pregnancy. This event of her unwanted pregnancy is the main plot in the first third of the novel, titled \"Section One\". We realise that Mary is pregnant, and when she is six months pregnant she makes a plan with Dennis to run away and get married without her parents noticing. Even though Mary was only seventeen, there would have been no legal problem with her marriage since the English law which, until 1970, generally required people under twenty-one to have parental consent to marry, did not apply in Scotland. But three days before Dennis is due to whisk Mary away, there is a massive storm, and she begins to go into labour whilst carrying the child. Mrs. Brodie stumbles into Mary's room and begins to scream at the fact that her daughter is with child, and calls James himself to sort it out. After being kicked in the stomach repeatedly by her father and thrown out on her face into the pouring rain (whilst in labour), she tries to reach safety. Mary nearly drowns in a river before finding a barn where she gives birth to her premature child, which dies. Dennis, who was, travelling on a train to rescue Mary, is killed when the train derails and plunges into the River Tay below, a retelling of the actual Tay Bridge disaster of 1879. In the second part of the book, James Brodie's business as a hatter is destroyed. A rival"
      },
      {
        "text": " rain (whilst in labour), she tries to reach safety. Mary nearly drowns in a river before finding a barn where she gives birth to her premature child, which dies. Dennis, who was, travelling on a train to rescue Mary, is killed when the train derails and plunges into the River Tay below, a retelling of the actual Tay Bridge disaster of 1879. In the second part of the book, James Brodie's business as a hatter is destroyed. A rival company moves next door and attracts all his customers. Part of this is due to Brodie's pride, as the customers are driven away by his delusions of superiority. As his profits decrease, so does the weekly salary, so Mamma is left to deal with making the most of what little they have left for the family. Her illness, cancer of the womb, and the chronic stress of living with James Brodie hasten her death. After her death, Brodie's mistress, Nancy, moves in. Later she goes off abroad with Brodie's son Matt, and Brodie is left with only his younger daughter, Nessie, and his aged mother, Grandma Brodie. In the third part of the book, Brodie forces Nessie to study hard so as to win the \"Latta\", a valuable bursarship. He wants this not so much to provide a good future for his daughter, as to show that she is better than his rival's son, who is also entered for it. Under his threats and the dreadful fear of failure, she labours on with it, making herself mentally and physically ill. Nessie secretly writes to Mary asking her to come back, so she will have her company and comfort. Under pretext of coming to help with housework, Mary writes to her father, who initially refuses her return. After discovering that Nancy has deserted him, he writes again permitting Mary to come back, so she does. Nessie obtains notice of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " also entered for it. Under his threats and the dreadful fear of failure, she labours on with it, making herself mentally and physically ill. Nessie secretly writes to Mary asking her to come back, so she will have her company and comfort. Under pretext of coming to help with housework, Mary writes to her father, who initially refuses her return. After discovering that Nancy has deserted him, he writes again permitting Mary to come back, so she does. Nessie obtains notice of the Latta result before her father sees it. Finding that her rival has won it and fearing her father, she sends Mary out to the chemist on the pretext of getting some medicine, then dresses up and hangs herself. The story concludes with Dr. Renwick, who has been seeing Mary, taking her away with him to marry her.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Gravity's Rainbow",
    "author": "Thomas Pynchon",
    "published_date": "1973",
    "synopsis": " The plot of the novel is complex, containing over 400 characters and involving many different threads of narrative which intersect and weave around one another. The recurring themes throughout the plot are the V-2 rocket, interplay between free will and Calvinistic predestination, breaking the cycle of nature, behavioral psychology, sexuality, paranoia and conspiracy theories such as the Phoebus cartel and the Illuminati. Gravity's Rainbow also draws heavily on themes that Pynchon had probably encountered at his work as a technical writer for Boeing, where he edited a support newsletter for the Bomarc Missile Program support unit. The Boeing archives are known to house a vast library of historical V-2 rocket documents, which were probably accessible to Pynchon. The novel is narrated by many distinct voices, a technique further developed in Pynchon's much later novel Against the Day. The style and tone of the voices vary widely: Some narrate the plot in a highly informal tone, some are more self-referential, and some might even break the fourth wall. Some voices narrate in drastically different formats, ranging from movie-script format to stream of consciousness prose. The narrative contains numerous descriptions of illicit sexual encounters and drug use by the main characters and supporting cast, sandwiched between dense dialogues or reveries on historic, artistic, scientific, or philosophical subjects, interspersed with whimsical nonsense-poems and allusions to obscure facets of 1940s pop culture. Many of the recurring themes will be familiar to experienced Pynchon readers, including the singing of silly songs, recurring appearances of kazoos, and extensive discussion of paranoia. According to Richard Locke, megalomaniac paranoia is the \"operative emotion\" behind the novel, and an increasingly central motivator for the many main characters. In many cases, this paranoia proves to be vindicated, as the many plots of the novel become increasingly interconnected, revolving around the identity and purpose of the elusive 00000 Rocket and Schwarzger\u00e4t. The novel becomes increasingly preoccupied with themes of Tarot, Paranoia, and Sacrifice. All three themes culminate in the novel's ending, and the epilogue of the many characters. The novel also features the character Pig Bodine, of Pynchon's novel V.. Pig Bodine would later become a recurring avatar of Pynchon's complex and interconnected fictional universe, making an appearance in nearly all of Pynchon's novels thereafter. The novel also shares many themes with Pynchon's much later Against the Day; Against The Day becomes increasingly dark as the plot approaches World War I, and Gravity's Rainbow takes these sentiments to their extreme in its highly pessimistic culmination of World War II. The opening pages of the novel follow Pirate Prentice, first in his dreams, and later around his house in wartime London. Pirate then goes to work at ACHTUNG, a top-secret military branch, with Roger Mexico and Pointsman, who both worked there at the time. It is here the reader is introduced to the possibly promiscuous US Army lieutenant named Tyrone Slothrop (at certain points in the book, Pynchon leads the reader to doubt the very existence of the women Slothrop claims to sleep with), whose erratic story becomes the main plot throughout most of the novel. In \"Beyond The Zero\", some of the other characters and organizations in the book note that each of Slothrop's sexual encounters in London precedes a V-2 rocket hit in the same place by several days. Both Slothrop's encounters and the rocket sites match the Poisson Distributions calculated by Roger Mexico, leading into reflections on topics as broad as Determinism, the reverse flow of time, and the sexuality of the rocket itself. Slothrop meets a woman named Katje, and they fall in love, maintaining a relationship until Slothrop's sudden removal to Germany in part three. Many characters not significant until later are introduced in \"Beyond the Zero\", including Franz and Leni P\u00f6kler, Roger Mexico and Jessica, and Thomas Gwenhidwy, some of whom don't appear until the closing pages of the novel. Many characters are introduced into the plot and then don't appear again at all. Indeed, most of the four hundred named characters only make singular appearances, serving merely to demonstrate the sheer scope of Pynchon's universe. Slothrop is also submitted to various psychological tests, many involving the drug Sodium Amytal. Pavlovian conditioning is a recurring topic, mostly explored through the character of Pavlovian researcher Pointsman. One of the more bizarre Pavlovian episodes involves the conditioning of octopus Grigori to respond to the girl Katje. Early in part two, the octopus attacks Katje on the beach, and Slothrop is \"conveniently\" at hand to rescue her. Their romance begins here, extending into Part Three and the events that follow. In part two, \"Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering\", Slothrop is studied covertly and sent away by superiors in mysterious circumstances to the Hermann G\u00f6ring casino in recently liberated France, in which almost the entirety of Part Two takes place. There he learns of a rocket, with the irregular serial number 00000 (Slothrop comments that the numbering system doesn't allow for four zeroes in one serial, let alone five), and a component called the S-Ger\u00e4t (short for Schwarzger\u00e4t, which translates to black device) which is made out of the hitherto unknown plastic Imipolex G. Several companions suddenly disappear or re-appear after extended amounts of time, including the two guards watching Slothrop and Katje. It is hinted at that Slothrop's prescience of rocket hits is due to being conditioned as an infant by the creator of Imipolex G, Laszlo Jamf. Later, the reality of this story is called into question in a similar fashion as the existence of Slothrop's original sexual exploits were. After getting this information, Slothrop escapes from the casino into the coalescing post-war wasteland of Europe, \"The Zone\", searching for the 00000 and S-Ger\u00e4t. In the closing of Part Two, Katje is revealed to be safe in England, enjoying a day at the beach with Roger Mexico and Jessica, as well as Pointsman, who is in charge of Slothrop's furtive supervision. While unable to contact Slothrop (or prohibited from contacting him), Katje continues to follow his actions through Pointsman. Slothrop's quest continues for some time \"In The Zone\" as he is chased by other characters. Many of these characters are referred to as \"shadows,\" and are only partially glimpsed by the protagonist. Much of the plot takes place on \"The Anubis\", a ferry on which many different characters travel at various times. Slothrop meets and has an extended relationship with Margherita Erdman, a pornographic film actress and masochist. Originally meeting her in an abandoned studio in The Zone, it is she who leads him on to the Anubis. Here, Slothrop later also has extended encounters with her twelve-year-old daughter Bianca, though it is unclear whether or not he has stopped his casual relationship with Margherita by this time. Margherita is later shown to know a great deal more about the 00000, S-Ger\u00e4t, and Imipolex G than she lets on, even having spent many days in a mysterious and ambiguously described factory and being clothed in an outfit made from the \"erotic\" plastic. Towards the end of this section, several characters not seen since early in the novel make a return, including Pirate Prentice, in his first appearance since the novel's very start, as well as Roger Mexico. \"In The Zone\" also contains the longest episode of the book, a lengthy tale of Franz P\u00f6kler, a rocket engineer unwittingly set to assist on the S-Ger\u00e4t's production. The story details P\u00f6kler's annual meetings with his daughter Ilse, and his growing paranoia that Ilse is really a series of impostors sent each year to mollify him. Through this story, we find out sparse details about the S-Ger\u00e4t, including that it has an approximate weight of forty-five kilograms. The story ultimately reveals that the 00000 was fired in the spring of 1945, close to the end of the war. Slothrop spends much of the time as his invented alter-ego Rocketman, wearing an operatic Viking costume with the horns removed from the helmet, making it look like a rocket nose-cone. Rocketman completes various tasks for his own and others' purposes, including retrieving a large stash of hashish from the centre of the Potsdam Conference. This continues until he leaves the region for northern Germany, continuing his quest for the 00000, as well as answers to his past. It becomes steadily apparent that Slothrop is somehow connected to Dr. Laszlo Jamf, and a series of experiments performed on him as a child. Slothrop later returns to the Anubis to find Bianca dead, a possible trigger for his impending decline. He continues his pilgrimage through northern Germany, at various stages donning the identities of a Russian colonel and mythical Pig Hero in turn, in search of more information on his childhood and the 00000. Unfortunately, he is repeatedly sidetracked until his persona fragments totally in part four, despite the efforts of some to save him. Throughout \"The Counterforce\", there are several brief, hallucinatory stories, of superheroes, silly Kamikaze pilots, and immortal sentient lightbulbs. These are presumed to be the product of Slothrop's finally collapsed mind. The final identification of him of any certainty is his picture on the cover of an album by obscure English band \"The Fool\" (another allusion to Tarot, which becomes increasingly significant), where he is credited as playing the Harmonica and Kazoo. At the same time, other characters' narratives begin to collapse as well, with some characters taking a bizarre trip through Hell, and others flying into nothingness on Zeppelins. A variety of interpretations of this fact exist, including theories that all of the involved characters have a shared consciousness, or even that the other characters are part of Slothrop's mind, and thus disintegrate along with it. Slothrop's narrative ends a surprisingly long time before the novel's end, which focuses more on the 00000, and the people associated with its construction and launch (namely Blicero, Enzian, and Gottfried, amongst others). At this point, the novel also concludes many characters' stories, including those of Mexico, Pointsman, and Pirate, leaving only the 00000. As the novel closes, many topics are discussed by the various protagonists around the world, ranging from Tarot cards to Death itself. Towards the end of \"The Counterforce\", it transpires that the S-Ger\u00e4t is actually a capsule crafted by Blicero to contain a human. The story of the 00000's launch is largely told in flashbacks by the narrator, while in the present Enzian is constructing and preparing its successor, the 00001 (which isn't fired within the scope of the novel), though it is unknown who is intended to be sacrificed in this model. In the flashbacks, the maniacal Captain Blicero prepares to assemble and fire the 00000, and asks Gottfried to sacrifice himself inside the rocket. He launches the rocket in a pseudo sexual act of sacrifice with his bound adolescent sex slave Gottfried captive within its S-Ger\u00e4t. At the end of a final episode, told partially in second person, the rocket descends upon Britain. The text halts, in the middle of a song composed by Slothrop's ancestor, with a complete obliteration of narrative as the 00000 lands (or is about to land) on a cinema. Thus the novel opens and closes in wartime Britain, and opens and closes with the landing of a V-2 rocket. Many facts in the novel are based on technical documents relating to the V-2 rockets. Equations featured in the text are correct. References to the works of Pavlov, Ouspensky, and Jung are based on Pynchon's research. The firing command sequence in German that is recited at the end of the novel is also correct and is probably copied verbatim from the technical report produced by Operation Backfire. In reality, a V-2 rocket hit the Rex Cinema in Antwerp, where some 1200 people were watching the movie The Plainsman, on December 16, 1944, killing 567 people, the most killed by a single rocket during the entire war. The secret military organizations practicing occult warfare have an historical backdrop in the Ahnenerbe and other Nazi mysticism, whereas the allied counterparts were limited to certain individuals such as Louis de Wohls work for MI5. Additionally, the novel uses many actual events and locations as backdrops to establish chronological order and setting within the complex structure of the book. Examples include the appearance of a photograph of Wernher Von Braun in which his arm is in a cast. Historical documents indicate the time and place of an accident which broke Von Braun's arm, thereby providing crucial structural details around which the reader can reconstruct Slothrop's journey. Another example is the inclusion of a BBC Radio broadcast of a Benny Goodman performance, the contents of which, according to historical record, were broadcast only once during the period of the novel and by which the events immediately surrounding its mention are fixed. Further historical events, such as Allied bombing raids on Peenem\u00fcnde and the city of Nordhausen (close to the V-2 producing concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora) also appear in the novel and help to establish the relation of the work's events to each other.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The plot of the novel is complex, containing over 400 characters and involving many different threads of narrative which intersect and weave around one another. The recurring themes throughout the plot are the V-2 rocket, interplay between free will and Calvinistic predestination, breaking the cycle of nature, behavioral psychology, sexuality, paranoia and conspiracy theories such as the Phoebus cartel and the Illuminati. Gravity's Rainbow also draws heavily on themes that Pynchon had probably encountered at his work as a technical writer for Boeing, where he edited a support newsletter for the Bomarc Missile Program support unit. The Boeing archives are known to house a vast library of historical V-2 rocket documents, which were probably accessible to Pynchon. The novel is narrated by many distinct voices, a technique further developed in Pynchon's much later novel Against the Day. The style and tone of the voices vary widely: Some narrate the plot in a highly informal tone, some are more self-referential, and some might even break the fourth wall. Some voices narrate in drastically different formats, ranging from movie-script format to stream of consciousness prose. The narrative contains numerous descriptions of illicit sexual encounters and drug use by the main characters and supporting cast, sandwiched between dense dialogues or reveries on historic, artistic, scientific, or philosophical subjects, interspersed with whimsical nonsense-poems and allusions to obscure facets of 1940s pop culture. Many of the recurring themes will be familiar to experienced Pynchon readers, including the singing of silly songs, recurring appearances of kazoos, and extensive discussion of paranoia. According to Richard Locke, megalomaniac paranoia is the \"operative emotion\" behind the novel, and an increasingly central motivator for the many main characters. In many cases, this paranoia proves to be vindicated, as the many plots of the novel become increasingly interconnected, revolving around the identity and purpose of the elusive 00000 Rocket and Schwarz"
      },
      {
        "text": " be familiar to experienced Pynchon readers, including the singing of silly songs, recurring appearances of kazoos, and extensive discussion of paranoia. According to Richard Locke, megalomaniac paranoia is the \"operative emotion\" behind the novel, and an increasingly central motivator for the many main characters. In many cases, this paranoia proves to be vindicated, as the many plots of the novel become increasingly interconnected, revolving around the identity and purpose of the elusive 00000 Rocket and Schwarzger\u00e4t. The novel becomes increasingly preoccupied with themes of Tarot, Paranoia, and Sacrifice. All three themes culminate in the novel's ending, and the epilogue of the many characters. The novel also features the character Pig Bodine, of Pynchon's novel V.. Pig Bodine would later become a recurring avatar of Pynchon's complex and interconnected fictional universe, making an appearance in nearly all of Pynchon's novels thereafter. The novel also shares many themes with Pynchon's much later Against the Day; Against The Day becomes increasingly dark as the plot approaches World War I, and Gravity's Rainbow takes these sentiments to their extreme in its highly pessimistic culmination of World War II. The opening pages of the novel follow Pirate Prentice, first in his dreams, and later around his house in wartime London. Pirate then goes to work at ACHTUNG, a top-secret military branch, with Roger Mexico and Pointsman, who both worked there at the time. It is here the reader is introduced to the possibly promiscuous US Army lieutenant named Tyrone Slothrop (at certain points in the book, Pynchon leads the reader to doubt the very existence of the women Slothrop claims to sleep with), whose erratic story becomes the main plot throughout most of the novel. In \"Beyond The Zero\", some of the other characters and organizations in the book note that each of Slothrop's sexual"
      },
      {
        "text": ", who both worked there at the time. It is here the reader is introduced to the possibly promiscuous US Army lieutenant named Tyrone Slothrop (at certain points in the book, Pynchon leads the reader to doubt the very existence of the women Slothrop claims to sleep with), whose erratic story becomes the main plot throughout most of the novel. In \"Beyond The Zero\", some of the other characters and organizations in the book note that each of Slothrop's sexual encounters in London precedes a V-2 rocket hit in the same place by several days. Both Slothrop's encounters and the rocket sites match the Poisson Distributions calculated by Roger Mexico, leading into reflections on topics as broad as Determinism, the reverse flow of time, and the sexuality of the rocket itself. Slothrop meets a woman named Katje, and they fall in love, maintaining a relationship until Slothrop's sudden removal to Germany in part three. Many characters not significant until later are introduced in \"Beyond the Zero\", including Franz and Leni P\u00f6kler, Roger Mexico and Jessica, and Thomas Gwenhidwy, some of whom don't appear until the closing pages of the novel. Many characters are introduced into the plot and then don't appear again at all. Indeed, most of the four hundred named characters only make singular appearances, serving merely to demonstrate the sheer scope of Pynchon's universe. Slothrop is also submitted to various psychological tests, many involving the drug Sodium Amytal. Pavlovian conditioning is a recurring topic, mostly explored through the character of Pavlovian researcher Pointsman. One of the more bizarre Pavlovian episodes involves the conditioning of octopus Grigori to respond to the girl Katje. Early in part two, the octopus attacks Katje on the beach, and Slothrop is \"conveniently\" at hand to rescue her. Their romance begins here, extending into Part Three"
      },
      {
        "text": " various psychological tests, many involving the drug Sodium Amytal. Pavlovian conditioning is a recurring topic, mostly explored through the character of Pavlovian researcher Pointsman. One of the more bizarre Pavlovian episodes involves the conditioning of octopus Grigori to respond to the girl Katje. Early in part two, the octopus attacks Katje on the beach, and Slothrop is \"conveniently\" at hand to rescue her. Their romance begins here, extending into Part Three and the events that follow. In part two, \"Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering\", Slothrop is studied covertly and sent away by superiors in mysterious circumstances to the Hermann G\u00f6ring casino in recently liberated France, in which almost the entirety of Part Two takes place. There he learns of a rocket, with the irregular serial number 00000 (Slothrop comments that the numbering system doesn't allow for four zeroes in one serial, let alone five), and a component called the S-Ger\u00e4t (short for Schwarzger\u00e4t, which translates to black device) which is made out of the hitherto unknown plastic Imipolex G. Several companions suddenly disappear or re-appear after extended amounts of time, including the two guards watching Slothrop and Katje. It is hinted at that Slothrop's prescience of rocket hits is due to being conditioned as an infant by the creator of Imipolex G, Laszlo Jamf. Later, the reality of this story is called into question in a similar fashion as the existence of Slothrop's original sexual exploits were. After getting this information, Slothrop escapes from the casino into the coalescing post-war wasteland of Europe, \"The Zone\", searching for the 00000 and S-Ger\u00e4t. In the closing of Part Two, Katje is revealed to be safe in England, enjoying a day at the beach with Roger Mexico and Jessica, as"
      },
      {
        "text": " Jamf. Later, the reality of this story is called into question in a similar fashion as the existence of Slothrop's original sexual exploits were. After getting this information, Slothrop escapes from the casino into the coalescing post-war wasteland of Europe, \"The Zone\", searching for the 00000 and S-Ger\u00e4t. In the closing of Part Two, Katje is revealed to be safe in England, enjoying a day at the beach with Roger Mexico and Jessica, as well as Pointsman, who is in charge of Slothrop's furtive supervision. While unable to contact Slothrop (or prohibited from contacting him), Katje continues to follow his actions through Pointsman. Slothrop's quest continues for some time \"In The Zone\" as he is chased by other characters. Many of these characters are referred to as \"shadows,\" and are only partially glimpsed by the protagonist. Much of the plot takes place on \"The Anubis\", a ferry on which many different characters travel at various times. Slothrop meets and has an extended relationship with Margherita Erdman, a pornographic film actress and masochist. Originally meeting her in an abandoned studio in The Zone, it is she who leads him on to the Anubis. Here, Slothrop later also has extended encounters with her twelve-year-old daughter Bianca, though it is unclear whether or not he has stopped his casual relationship with Margherita by this time. Margherita is later shown to know a great deal more about the 00000, S-Ger\u00e4t, and Imipolex G than she lets on, even having spent many days in a mysterious and ambiguously described factory and being clothed in an outfit made from the \"erotic\" plastic. Towards the end of this section, several characters not seen since early in the novel make a return, including Pirate Prentice, in his first appearance since the novel's very start,"
      },
      {
        "text": " time. Margherita is later shown to know a great deal more about the 00000, S-Ger\u00e4t, and Imipolex G than she lets on, even having spent many days in a mysterious and ambiguously described factory and being clothed in an outfit made from the \"erotic\" plastic. Towards the end of this section, several characters not seen since early in the novel make a return, including Pirate Prentice, in his first appearance since the novel's very start, as well as Roger Mexico. \"In The Zone\" also contains the longest episode of the book, a lengthy tale of Franz P\u00f6kler, a rocket engineer unwittingly set to assist on the S-Ger\u00e4t's production. The story details P\u00f6kler's annual meetings with his daughter Ilse, and his growing paranoia that Ilse is really a series of impostors sent each year to mollify him. Through this story, we find out sparse details about the S-Ger\u00e4t, including that it has an approximate weight of forty-five kilograms. The story ultimately reveals that the 00000 was fired in the spring of 1945, close to the end of the war. Slothrop spends much of the time as his invented alter-ego Rocketman, wearing an operatic Viking costume with the horns removed from the helmet, making it look like a rocket nose-cone. Rocketman completes various tasks for his own and others' purposes, including retrieving a large stash of hashish from the centre of the Potsdam Conference. This continues until he leaves the region for northern Germany, continuing his quest for the 00000, as well as answers to his past. It becomes steadily apparent that Slothrop is somehow connected to Dr. Laszlo Jamf, and a series of experiments performed on him as a child. Slothrop later returns to the Anubis to find Bianca dead, a possible trigger for his impending decline. He continues his pilgrimage"
      },
      {
        "text": " stash of hashish from the centre of the Potsdam Conference. This continues until he leaves the region for northern Germany, continuing his quest for the 00000, as well as answers to his past. It becomes steadily apparent that Slothrop is somehow connected to Dr. Laszlo Jamf, and a series of experiments performed on him as a child. Slothrop later returns to the Anubis to find Bianca dead, a possible trigger for his impending decline. He continues his pilgrimage through northern Germany, at various stages donning the identities of a Russian colonel and mythical Pig Hero in turn, in search of more information on his childhood and the 00000. Unfortunately, he is repeatedly sidetracked until his persona fragments totally in part four, despite the efforts of some to save him. Throughout \"The Counterforce\", there are several brief, hallucinatory stories, of superheroes, silly Kamikaze pilots, and immortal sentient lightbulbs. These are presumed to be the product of Slothrop's finally collapsed mind. The final identification of him of any certainty is his picture on the cover of an album by obscure English band \"The Fool\" (another allusion to Tarot, which becomes increasingly significant), where he is credited as playing the Harmonica and Kazoo. At the same time, other characters' narratives begin to collapse as well, with some characters taking a bizarre trip through Hell, and others flying into nothingness on Zeppelins. A variety of interpretations of this fact exist, including theories that all of the involved characters have a shared consciousness, or even that the other characters are part of Slothrop's mind, and thus disintegrate along with it. Slothrop's narrative ends a surprisingly long time before the novel's end, which focuses more on the 00000, and the people associated with its construction and launch (namely Blicero, Enzian, and Gottfried, amongst others). At this point, the novel also concludes many"
      },
      {
        "text": " this fact exist, including theories that all of the involved characters have a shared consciousness, or even that the other characters are part of Slothrop's mind, and thus disintegrate along with it. Slothrop's narrative ends a surprisingly long time before the novel's end, which focuses more on the 00000, and the people associated with its construction and launch (namely Blicero, Enzian, and Gottfried, amongst others). At this point, the novel also concludes many characters' stories, including those of Mexico, Pointsman, and Pirate, leaving only the 00000. As the novel closes, many topics are discussed by the various protagonists around the world, ranging from Tarot cards to Death itself. Towards the end of \"The Counterforce\", it transpires that the S-Ger\u00e4t is actually a capsule crafted by Blicero to contain a human. The story of the 00000's launch is largely told in flashbacks by the narrator, while in the present Enzian is constructing and preparing its successor, the 00001 (which isn't fired within the scope of the novel), though it is unknown who is intended to be sacrificed in this model. In the flashbacks, the maniacal Captain Blicero prepares to assemble and fire the 00000, and asks Gottfried to sacrifice himself inside the rocket. He launches the rocket in a pseudo sexual act of sacrifice with his bound adolescent sex slave Gottfried captive within its S-Ger\u00e4t. At the end of a final episode, told partially in second person, the rocket descends upon Britain. The text halts, in the middle of a song composed by Slothrop's ancestor, with a complete obliteration of narrative as the 00000 lands (or is about to land) on a cinema. Thus the novel opens and closes in wartime Britain, and opens and closes with the landing of a V-2 rocket. Many facts in the novel are based on technical documents relating to the V"
      },
      {
        "text": " the end of a final episode, told partially in second person, the rocket descends upon Britain. The text halts, in the middle of a song composed by Slothrop's ancestor, with a complete obliteration of narrative as the 00000 lands (or is about to land) on a cinema. Thus the novel opens and closes in wartime Britain, and opens and closes with the landing of a V-2 rocket. Many facts in the novel are based on technical documents relating to the V-2 rockets. Equations featured in the text are correct. References to the works of Pavlov, Ouspensky, and Jung are based on Pynchon's research. The firing command sequence in German that is recited at the end of the novel is also correct and is probably copied verbatim from the technical report produced by Operation Backfire. In reality, a V-2 rocket hit the Rex Cinema in Antwerp, where some 1200 people were watching the movie The Plainsman, on December 16, 1944, killing 567 people, the most killed by a single rocket during the entire war. The secret military organizations practicing occult warfare have an historical backdrop in the Ahnenerbe and other Nazi mysticism, whereas the allied counterparts were limited to certain individuals such as Louis de Wohls work for MI5. Additionally, the novel uses many actual events and locations as backdrops to establish chronological order and setting within the complex structure of the book. Examples include the appearance of a photograph of Wernher Von Braun in which his arm is in a cast. Historical documents indicate the time and place of an accident which broke Von Braun's arm, thereby providing crucial structural details around which the reader can reconstruct Slothrop's journey. Another example is the inclusion of a BBC Radio broadcast of a Benny Goodman performance, the contents of which, according to historical record, were broadcast only once during the period of the novel and by which"
      },
      {
        "text": " structure of the book. Examples include the appearance of a photograph of Wernher Von Braun in which his arm is in a cast. Historical documents indicate the time and place of an accident which broke Von Braun's arm, thereby providing crucial structural details around which the reader can reconstruct Slothrop's journey. Another example is the inclusion of a BBC Radio broadcast of a Benny Goodman performance, the contents of which, according to historical record, were broadcast only once during the period of the novel and by which the events immediately surrounding its mention are fixed. Further historical events, such as Allied bombing raids on Peenem\u00fcnde and the city of Nordhausen (close to the V-2 producing concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora) also appear in the novel and help to establish the relation of the work's events to each other.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Death in Venice",
    "author": "Thomas Mann",
    "published_date": "1912",
    "synopsis": " The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous author in his early fifties who has recently been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement (and thus has acquired the aristocratic \"von\" to his name). He is a man dedicated to his art, disciplined and ascetic to the point of severity, who was widowed at a young age. As the story opens, while strolling outside a cemetery, he sees a coarse-looking red-haired foreigner who stares back at him belligerently. Aschenbach walks away, embarrassed but curiously stimulated. He has a vision of a primordial swamp-wilderness, fertile, exotic and full of lurking danger. Soon afterwards, he resolves to take a holiday. After a false start in traveling to Pula on the Yugoslav coast, Aschenbach realizes he \"was meant\" to go to Venice, and he takes a suite in the Grand H\u00f4tel des Bains on the Lido island. While shipbound and en route to the island he sees an elderly man, in company with a group of high-spirited youths, who has tried hard to create the illusion of youth with a wig, false teeth, makeup, and foppish attire. Aschenbach turns away in disgust. Soon afterwards he has a disturbing encounter with an unlicensed gondolier\u2014another red-haired, skull-faced foreigner\u2014who repeats \"I can row you well\" when Aschenbach orders him to return to the wharf. Aschenbach checks into his hotel, where at dinner he sees an aristocratic Polish family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy of about fourteen years in a sailor suit; Aschenbach, startled, realizes that the boy is supremely beautiful, like a Greek sculpture. His older sisters, by contrast, are so severely dressed that they look like nuns. Soon afterward, after spying the boy and his family at a beach, Aschenbach overhears the lad's name, Tadzio, and conceives what he first experiences as an uplifting, artistic interest. Soon the hot, humid weather begins to affect Aschenbach's health, and he decides to leave early and move to a more salubrious location. On the morning of his planned departure, he sees Tadzio again, and a powerful feeling of regret sweeps over him. When he reaches the railway station and discovers his trunk has been misdirected, he pretends to be angry, but is really overjoyed; he decides to remain in Venice and wait for his lost luggage. He happily returns to the hotel, and thinks no more of leaving. Over the next days and weeks, Aschenbach's interest in the beautiful boy develops into an obsession. He watches him constantly, and secretly follows him around Venice. One evening, the boy directs a charming smile at him, looking, Aschenbach thinks, like Narcissus smiling at his own reflection. Disconcerted, Aschenbach rushes outside, and in the empty garden whispers aloud, \"I love you!\" Aschenbach next takes a trip into the city of Venice, where he sees a few discreetly worded notices from the Health Department warning of an unspecified contagion and advising people to avoid eating shellfish. He smells an unfamiliar strong odour everywhere, and later realises it is disinfectant. However, the authorities adamantly deny that the contagion is serious and the tourists continue to wander round the city, oblivious. Aschenbach at first ignores the danger because it somehow pleases him to think that the city's disease is akin to his own hidden, corrupting passion for the boy. During this period, a third red-haired, disreputable-looking man crosses Aschenbach's path; this one belongs to a troupe of street singers who entertain at the hotel one night. Aschenbach listens entranced to songs that, in his former life, he would have despised – all the while stealing glances at Tadzio, who is leaning on a nearby parapet in a classically beautiful pose. The boy eventually returns Aschenbach's glances and though the moment is brief it instills in the writer a sense that the attraction may be mutual. Next, Aschenbach rallies his self-respect and decides to discover the reason for the health notices posted in the city. After being repeatedly assured that the sirocco is the only health risk, he finds a British travel agent who reluctantly admits that there is a serious cholera epidemic in Venice. Aschenbach considers warning Tadzio's mother of the danger; however, he decides not to, knowing that if he does, Tadzio will leave the hotel and be lost to him. One night, a dream filled with orgiastic Dionysian imagery reveals to him the sexual nature of his feelings for Tadzio. Afterwards, he begins staring at the boy so openly and following him so persistently that Aschenbach feels the boy's guardians finally notice, and take to warning Tadzio whenever he approaches too near the strange, solitary man. But Aschenbach's feelings, though passionately intense, remain unvoiced; he never touches Tadzio, or even speaks to him; and while there is some indication that Tadzio is aware of his admiration, the two exchange nothing more than the occasional surreptitious glance. Aschenbach begins to fret about his aging face and body. In an attempt to look more attractive, he visits the hotel's barber shop almost daily, where the barber eventually persuades him to have his hair dyed and his face painted to look more youthful. The result is a fairly close approximation to the old man on the ship who had so appalled Aschenbach. Freshly dyed and rouged, he again shadows Tadzio through Venice in the oppressive heat. He loses sight of the boy in the heart of the city; then, exhausted and thirsty, he buys and eats some over-ripe strawberries and rests in an abandoned square, contemplating the Platonic ideal of beauty amidst the ruins of his own once-formidable dignity. A few days later, Aschenbach goes to the lobby in his hotel, feeling ill and weak, and discovers that the Polish family plan to leave after lunch. He goes down to the beach to his usual deck chair. Tadzio is there, unsupervised for once, and accompanied by an older boy, Jasiu. A fight breaks out between the two boys, and Tadzio is quickly bested; afterward, he angrily leaves his companion and wades over to Aschenbach's part of the beach, where he stands for a moment looking out to sea; then turns halfway around to look at his admirer. To Aschenbach, it is as if the boy is beckoning to him: he tries to rise and follow, only to collapse sideways into his chair. His body is discovered a few minutes later.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous author in his early fifties who has recently been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement (and thus has acquired the aristocratic \"von\" to his name). He is a man dedicated to his art, disciplined and ascetic to the point of severity, who was widowed at a young age. As the story opens, while strolling outside a cemetery, he sees a coarse-looking red-haired foreigner who stares back at him belligerently. Aschenbach walks away, embarrassed but curiously stimulated. He has a vision of a primordial swamp-wilderness, fertile, exotic and full of lurking danger. Soon afterwards, he resolves to take a holiday. After a false start in traveling to Pula on the Yugoslav coast, Aschenbach realizes he \"was meant\" to go to Venice, and he takes a suite in the Grand H\u00f4tel des Bains on the Lido island. While shipbound and en route to the island he sees an elderly man, in company with a group of high-spirited youths, who has tried hard to create the illusion of youth with a wig, false teeth, makeup, and foppish attire. Aschenbach turns away in disgust. Soon afterwards he has a disturbing encounter with an unlicensed gondolier\u2014another red-haired, skull-faced foreigner\u2014who repeats \"I can row you well\" when Aschenbach orders him to return to the wharf. Aschenbach checks into his hotel, where at dinner he sees an aristocratic Polish family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy of about fourteen years in a sailor suit; Aschenbach, startled, realizes that the boy is supremely beautiful, like a Greek sculpture. His older sisters, by contrast, are so severely dressed that they look like nuns. Soon afterward, after spying the boy and his family at a beach, Aschenbach overhears the"
      },
      {
        "text": " to the wharf. Aschenbach checks into his hotel, where at dinner he sees an aristocratic Polish family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy of about fourteen years in a sailor suit; Aschenbach, startled, realizes that the boy is supremely beautiful, like a Greek sculpture. His older sisters, by contrast, are so severely dressed that they look like nuns. Soon afterward, after spying the boy and his family at a beach, Aschenbach overhears the lad's name, Tadzio, and conceives what he first experiences as an uplifting, artistic interest. Soon the hot, humid weather begins to affect Aschenbach's health, and he decides to leave early and move to a more salubrious location. On the morning of his planned departure, he sees Tadzio again, and a powerful feeling of regret sweeps over him. When he reaches the railway station and discovers his trunk has been misdirected, he pretends to be angry, but is really overjoyed; he decides to remain in Venice and wait for his lost luggage. He happily returns to the hotel, and thinks no more of leaving. Over the next days and weeks, Aschenbach's interest in the beautiful boy develops into an obsession. He watches him constantly, and secretly follows him around Venice. One evening, the boy directs a charming smile at him, looking, Aschenbach thinks, like Narcissus smiling at his own reflection. Disconcerted, Aschenbach rushes outside, and in the empty garden whispers aloud, \"I love you!\" Aschenbach next takes a trip into the city of Venice, where he sees a few discreetly worded notices from the Health Department warning of an unspecified contagion and advising people to avoid eating shellfish. He smells an unfamiliar strong odour everywhere, and later realises it is disinfectant. However, the authorities adamantly deny that the contagion is serious and the tourists continue to wander round"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Aschenbach rushes outside, and in the empty garden whispers aloud, \"I love you!\" Aschenbach next takes a trip into the city of Venice, where he sees a few discreetly worded notices from the Health Department warning of an unspecified contagion and advising people to avoid eating shellfish. He smells an unfamiliar strong odour everywhere, and later realises it is disinfectant. However, the authorities adamantly deny that the contagion is serious and the tourists continue to wander round the city, oblivious. Aschenbach at first ignores the danger because it somehow pleases him to think that the city's disease is akin to his own hidden, corrupting passion for the boy. During this period, a third red-haired, disreputable-looking man crosses Aschenbach's path; this one belongs to a troupe of street singers who entertain at the hotel one night. Aschenbach listens entranced to songs that, in his former life, he would have despised – all the while stealing glances at Tadzio, who is leaning on a nearby parapet in a classically beautiful pose. The boy eventually returns Aschenbach's glances and though the moment is brief it instills in the writer a sense that the attraction may be mutual. Next, Aschenbach rallies his self-respect and decides to discover the reason for the health notices posted in the city. After being repeatedly assured that the sirocco is the only health risk, he finds a British travel agent who reluctantly admits that there is a serious cholera epidemic in Venice. Aschenbach considers warning Tadzio's mother of the danger; however, he decides not to, knowing that if he does, Tadzio will leave the hotel and be lost to him. One night, a dream filled with orgiastic Dionysian imagery reveals to him the sexual nature of his feelings for Tadzio. Afterwards, he begins staring at the boy so openly"
      },
      {
        "text": ", he finds a British travel agent who reluctantly admits that there is a serious cholera epidemic in Venice. Aschenbach considers warning Tadzio's mother of the danger; however, he decides not to, knowing that if he does, Tadzio will leave the hotel and be lost to him. One night, a dream filled with orgiastic Dionysian imagery reveals to him the sexual nature of his feelings for Tadzio. Afterwards, he begins staring at the boy so openly and following him so persistently that Aschenbach feels the boy's guardians finally notice, and take to warning Tadzio whenever he approaches too near the strange, solitary man. But Aschenbach's feelings, though passionately intense, remain unvoiced; he never touches Tadzio, or even speaks to him; and while there is some indication that Tadzio is aware of his admiration, the two exchange nothing more than the occasional surreptitious glance. Aschenbach begins to fret about his aging face and body. In an attempt to look more attractive, he visits the hotel's barber shop almost daily, where the barber eventually persuades him to have his hair dyed and his face painted to look more youthful. The result is a fairly close approximation to the old man on the ship who had so appalled Aschenbach. Freshly dyed and rouged, he again shadows Tadzio through Venice in the oppressive heat. He loses sight of the boy in the heart of the city; then, exhausted and thirsty, he buys and eats some over-ripe strawberries and rests in an abandoned square, contemplating the Platonic ideal of beauty amidst the ruins of his own once-formidable dignity. A few days later, Aschenbach goes to the lobby in his hotel, feeling ill and weak, and discovers that the Polish family plan to leave after lunch. He goes down to the beach to his usual deck chair. Tadzio is there, unsupervised"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the city; then, exhausted and thirsty, he buys and eats some over-ripe strawberries and rests in an abandoned square, contemplating the Platonic ideal of beauty amidst the ruins of his own once-formidable dignity. A few days later, Aschenbach goes to the lobby in his hotel, feeling ill and weak, and discovers that the Polish family plan to leave after lunch. He goes down to the beach to his usual deck chair. Tadzio is there, unsupervised for once, and accompanied by an older boy, Jasiu. A fight breaks out between the two boys, and Tadzio is quickly bested; afterward, he angrily leaves his companion and wades over to Aschenbach's part of the beach, where he stands for a moment looking out to sea; then turns halfway around to look at his admirer. To Aschenbach, it is as if the boy is beckoning to him: he tries to rise and follow, only to collapse sideways into his chair. His body is discovered a few minutes later.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Effi Briest",
    "author": "Theodor Fontane",
    "published_date": "1894",
    "synopsis": " The young, immature and carefree Effi, still practically a child, but attracted by notions of social honour, consents to live in the small Baltic town of Kessin, where she ends up in the throes of an emotional crisis. Her husband is away for weeks at a time and leaves her to her own devices in their home. Alienated from the local aristocracy and therefore miserably unhappy, Effi finds but one companion in the whole town. She suspects that their house may be haunted. Innstetten reassures her, but, perhaps on purpose, does not completely lay her fears to rest. When she voices her disquiet about the possible presence of a ghost, her husband angrily responds that her fears are insignificant when compared with the importance of his political career. His reply shows his worry that people may learn about Effi\u2019s discomfort and subsequently censure them publicly. The mercurial and debonair Major Crampas finally announces his arrival in Kessin, and although he is married and notorious for his overt womanising, Effi cannot help but rejoice in the attention he shows to her. As the reader is only delicately told, a full extramarital relationship is consummated. Despite this, later in the novel Effi is relieved to move to Berlin, away from Crampas, and expresses shame at her adultery, although she also expresses shame at not feeling guilty enough. Innstetten, however, inwardly scorns Crampas and perceives him as a lecherous womanizer with a cavalier attitude to the laws, whereas Crampas is persuaded that Innstetten has a habit of educating and \"edifying\" his fellows in a slightly patronising way. Years later, Effi\u2019s young daughter Annie is growing up and the family has relocated to Berlin as Innstetten has ascended the political hierarchy. All things appear to have turned out well for Effi. However, Instetten discovers her old correspondence with Crampas, and learns that his wife had become enamored of Crampas while they were living in Kessin. Innstetten challenges Crampas to a duel. Crampas agrees to the plan and is killed by Innstetten. Innstetten resolves to divorce Effi immediately. He is given custody of their daughter, in whom he successfully develops a feeling of disdain for her mother. Indeed, when Effi and Annie arrange a brief encounter a couple of years later, the tense atmosphere which dominates the reunion shows that they have grown further apart. In the aftermath of this meeting, Effi ceases to make any more endeavors to strike up an untroubled relationship with her daughter. Forlorn and disowned by her fellows, Effi adjusts to a reclusive life and suffers from ostracism for years, during which she plumbs the depths of despair. Since public opprobrium has been heaped upon her, her parents refuse to take her back, believing that it is not right for them to accept her in the midst of their family. (According to the prevailing values of the late nineteenth century, one's reputation would be besmirched by the acquaintance of someone whose marriage was annulled because of their own adultery.) In the meantime, Innstetten has second thoughts about his action. He finally has to acknowledge that the brighter days of his marriage are long past: he does not even delight in his gradual ascent within the country\u2019s political hierarchy. Effi is eventually taken in by her parents, and temporarily seems to recover from the nervous disorder she has come down with. Her recovery is nonetheless temporary, as feelings of sorrow and repentance are deeply embedded in her soul. Shortly before she passes away, she summons her mother and pleads with her to inform Innstetten about her regrets about her actions, with which she has been bedevilled over the course of her declining years. The novel closes with Effi dying serenely at the parental estate of Hohen-Cremmen, in a very symmetrical ending that matches the beginning of the novel. In the novel\u2019s final scene, her parents vaguely realise their responsibility for her intractable hardships, but ultimately they do not dare question the social constructs which caused the tragedy.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The young, immature and carefree Effi, still practically a child, but attracted by notions of social honour, consents to live in the small Baltic town of Kessin, where she ends up in the throes of an emotional crisis. Her husband is away for weeks at a time and leaves her to her own devices in their home. Alienated from the local aristocracy and therefore miserably unhappy, Effi finds but one companion in the whole town. She suspects that their house may be haunted. Innstetten reassures her, but, perhaps on purpose, does not completely lay her fears to rest. When she voices her disquiet about the possible presence of a ghost, her husband angrily responds that her fears are insignificant when compared with the importance of his political career. His reply shows his worry that people may learn about Effi\u2019s discomfort and subsequently censure them publicly. The mercurial and debonair Major Crampas finally announces his arrival in Kessin, and although he is married and notorious for his overt womanising, Effi cannot help but rejoice in the attention he shows to her. As the reader is only delicately told, a full extramarital relationship is consummated. Despite this, later in the novel Effi is relieved to move to Berlin, away from Crampas, and expresses shame at her adultery, although she also expresses shame at not feeling guilty enough. Innstetten, however, inwardly scorns Crampas and perceives him as a lecherous womanizer with a cavalier attitude to the laws, whereas Crampas is persuaded that Innstetten has a habit of educating and \"edifying\" his fellows in a slightly patronising way. Years later, Effi\u2019s young daughter Annie is growing up and the family has relocated to Berlin as Innstetten has ascended the political hierarchy. All things appear to have turned out well for Effi. However,"
      },
      {
        "text": "orns Crampas and perceives him as a lecherous womanizer with a cavalier attitude to the laws, whereas Crampas is persuaded that Innstetten has a habit of educating and \"edifying\" his fellows in a slightly patronising way. Years later, Effi\u2019s young daughter Annie is growing up and the family has relocated to Berlin as Innstetten has ascended the political hierarchy. All things appear to have turned out well for Effi. However, Instetten discovers her old correspondence with Crampas, and learns that his wife had become enamored of Crampas while they were living in Kessin. Innstetten challenges Crampas to a duel. Crampas agrees to the plan and is killed by Innstetten. Innstetten resolves to divorce Effi immediately. He is given custody of their daughter, in whom he successfully develops a feeling of disdain for her mother. Indeed, when Effi and Annie arrange a brief encounter a couple of years later, the tense atmosphere which dominates the reunion shows that they have grown further apart. In the aftermath of this meeting, Effi ceases to make any more endeavors to strike up an untroubled relationship with her daughter. Forlorn and disowned by her fellows, Effi adjusts to a reclusive life and suffers from ostracism for years, during which she plumbs the depths of despair. Since public opprobrium has been heaped upon her, her parents refuse to take her back, believing that it is not right for them to accept her in the midst of their family. (According to the prevailing values of the late nineteenth century, one's reputation would be besmirched by the acquaintance of someone whose marriage was annulled because of their own adultery.) In the meantime, Innstetten has second thoughts about his action. He finally has to acknowledge that the brighter days of his marriage are long past: he does not"
      },
      {
        "text": " upon her, her parents refuse to take her back, believing that it is not right for them to accept her in the midst of their family. (According to the prevailing values of the late nineteenth century, one's reputation would be besmirched by the acquaintance of someone whose marriage was annulled because of their own adultery.) In the meantime, Innstetten has second thoughts about his action. He finally has to acknowledge that the brighter days of his marriage are long past: he does not even delight in his gradual ascent within the country\u2019s political hierarchy. Effi is eventually taken in by her parents, and temporarily seems to recover from the nervous disorder she has come down with. Her recovery is nonetheless temporary, as feelings of sorrow and repentance are deeply embedded in her soul. Shortly before she passes away, she summons her mother and pleads with her to inform Innstetten about her regrets about her actions, with which she has been bedevilled over the course of her declining years. The novel closes with Effi dying serenely at the parental estate of Hohen-Cremmen, in a very symmetrical ending that matches the beginning of the novel. In the novel\u2019s final scene, her parents vaguely realise their responsibility for her intractable hardships, but ultimately they do not dare question the social constructs which caused the tragedy.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Article 23",
    "author": "William R. Forstchen",
    "published_date": "1998-09",
    "synopsis": " Academy plebe Justin Bell is excited about his new career in space. Unfortunately several colonies are agitating for independence. On top of this very dangerous political situation, contact has just been made with non-human life.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Academy plebe Justin Bell is excited about his new career in space. Unfortunately several colonies are agitating for independence. On top of this very dangerous political situation, contact has just been made with non-human life.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Day of the Jackal",
    "author": "Frederick Forsyth",
    "published_date": "1971-06-07",
    "synopsis": " The book begins with the historical, failed attempt on de Gaulle's life planned by Col. Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart. After Bastien-Thiry's arrest, the French security forces wage a short but extremely vicious \"underground\" war with the terrorists of the OAS, a militant right-wing group who have labeled de Gaulle a traitor to France after his grant of independence to Algeria. The French secret service, a.k.a. Action Service, is remarkably effective in infiltrating the terrorist organization with their own informants, allowing them to kidnap and neutralize the terrorists' chief of operations, Antoine Argoud. The failure of the Petit-Clamart assassination, and a subsequent attempt at the Ecole Militaire, coupled with Bastien-Thiry's eventual execution by firing squad, likewise cripples the morale of the terrorists. Argoud's deputy, Lt. Col. Marc Rodin, carefully examines their few remaining options and determines that the only way to succeed in killing de Gaulle is to hire a professional assassin from outside the organization, someone completely unknown to either the French authorities or the OAS itself. After inquiries, he contacts an Englishman (whose name is never given), who meets with Rodin and his two principal deputies in Vienna, and agrees to assassinate de Gaulle for the sum of $500,000 (about $2.4 million in 2012). The four men agree on his code name, \"The Jackal.\" The remainder of Part One describes the Jackal's exhaustive preparations for the assassination. First, he acquires a legitimate British passport under a false name, under which he plans to operate for the majority of his mission. He also steals the passports of two foreign tourists visiting London who superficially resemble the Jackal, for use in an emergency. Using his primary false passport, the Jackal travels to Belgium, where he commissions a specialized sniper rifle of great slimness and an appropriate silencer from a master gunsmith, and a set of forged French identity papers from a master forger. When picking up his fake identity papers, the master forger attempts to blackmail the Jackal but the Jackal kills him and locks the body in a large trunk inside the forger's house, where he correctly deduces it won't be found for a long time. After exhaustively researching a series of books and articles by, and about, de Gaulle, the Jackal travels to Paris to reconnoiter the most favorable spot and the most likely day for the assassination. After orchestrating a series of armed robberies in France, the OAS is able to deposit the first half of the Jackal's fee in his bank in Switzerland. At the same time, the French secret service, curious about the actions of Rodin and his subordinates, fake a letter that lures one of Rodin's bodyguards to France, where he is captured and interrogated, before dying. Interpreting his incoherent ramblings, the secret service is able to piece together Rodin's plot, but without knowing the name or the exact description of the assassin. When told about the plot, de Gaulle (who was notoriously careless of his personal safety) refuses, absolutely, to cancel his public appearances, modify his normal routines, or even allow any kind of public inquiry into the assassin's whereabouts to be made. Any inquiry, he orders, must be done in absolute secrecy. Roger Frey, the French Minister of the Interior, convenes a meeting of the heads of the French security forces. Since Rodin and his men have taken refuge at a hotel in Rome under heavy guard, they cannot be captured and interrogated. The rest of the meeting is at a loss to suggest how to proceed, except a Commissioner of the Police Judiciare, who reasons that their first and most essential step is to establish the Jackal's identity, which is a job for a detective. When asked to name the best detective in France, he volunteers his own deputy commissioner, Claude Lebel. Granted special emergency powers to conduct his investigation, Lebel does everything he can to discover the Jackal's identity. He first calls upon his \"old boy network\" of foreign intelligence and police contacts to inquire if they have any records of a top-class political assassin. Most of the inquiries are fruitless, but in the United Kingdom, the inquiry is eventually passed on to the Special Branch of Scotland Yard, and another veteran detective, Superintendent Bryn Thomas. A search through Special Branch's records turns up nothing, however one of Thomas's subordinates suggests that if the assassin was an Englishman, but primarily operated abroad, he'd be more likely to come to the attention of the Secret Intelligence Service. Thomas makes an informal inquiry with a friend of his on the SIS's staff, who mentions hearing a rumor from an officer stationed in the Dominican Republic at the time of President Trujillo's assassination. The rumor states that a hired assassin stopped Trujillo's car with a rifle shot, allowing a gang of partisans to finish him off; and moreover, that the assassin was an Englishman, named Charles Calthrop. To his surprise, Thomas is summoned in person by the Prime Minister (unnamed, but likely intended to represent Harold Macmillan), who informs him that word of his inquiries has reached higher circles in the British government. Despite the enmity felt by much of the government against France in general and de Gaulle in particular, the Prime Minister informs Thomas that de Gaulle is his friend, and that the assassin must be identified and stopped at all costs. Thomas is handed a commission much similar to Lebel's, with temporary powers allowing him to override almost any other authority in the land. Checking out the name of Charles Calthrop, Thomas finds a match to a man living in London, said to be on holiday in Scotland. While Thomas confirms that this Calthrop was in the Dominican Republic at the time of Trujillo's death, he does not feel it is enough to inform Lebel. But then one of his junior detectives realizes that the first three letters of his Christian name and surname form the French (and Spanish) word for Jackal, Chacal. Thomas calls Lebel immediately. Unknown to any member of the council in France, the mistress of one of them (an arrogant Air Force colonel attached to de Gaulle's staff) is actually an OAS agent. Through pillow talk, the colonel unwittingly feeds the Jackal a constant stream of information as to Lebel's progress. The Jackal enters France by way of Italy, driving a rented Alfa Romeo sports car with his special gun hidden in the chassis. On receiving word from the OAS agent that the French are on the lookout for him, he decides his plan will succeed nevertheless, and forges ahead. In London, the Special Branch raids Calthrop's flat, finding his passport, and deduce that he must be travelling on a false one. When they work out the name of the Jackal's primary false identity, Lebel and the police come close to apprehending the Jackal in the south of France. But thanks to his OAS contact, the Jackal checks out of his hotel early and evades them by only an hour. With the police on the lookout for him, the Jackal takes refuge in the chateau of a woman whom he seduced while she was staying at the hotel the night before. When she goes through his things and finds the gun, he kills her and escapes again. The murder is not reported until much later that evening, allowing the Jackal to assume one of his two emergency identities and board the train for Paris. Lebel becomes suspicious of what the rest of the council label the Jackal's \"good luck,\" and has the telephones of all the members wiretapped, which leads him to discover the OAS agent. The Air Force colonel withdraws from the meeting in disgrace and later resigns from his post. When Thomas checks out and identifies reports of stolen or missing passports in London in the preceding months, he closes in on the Jackal's remaining false identities. On the evening of August 22, 1963, Lebel deduces that the Jackal has decided to target de Gaulle on Liberation Day, on 25 August, the day commemorating the liberation of Paris during World War II. It is, he realizes, the one day of the year when de Gaulle can be counted on to be in Paris, and to appear in public. Considering the inquiry all but over, the Minister orchestrates a massive, city-wide manhunt for the Jackal under his false name(s), and dismisses Lebel with hearty congratulations. However, the Jackal has eluded them yet again. By pretending to be homosexual in one of his false guises, he allows himself to be \"picked up\" by another man and taken to his apartment, where he kills the man and remains hidden for the remaining three days, thus avoiding identification through hotel registrations, which are examined by the police. On the day before the 25th, the Minister summons Lebel again and tells him that the Jackal still cannot be found. Lebel listens to the details of the President's schedule and security arrangements, and can suggest nothing more helpful than that everyone \"should keep their eyes open.\" On the day of the assassination, the Jackal, disguised as a one-legged French war veteran, passes through the police checkpoints, carrying his custom rifle concealed in the sections of a crutch. He makes his way to an apartment building overlooking the Place du 18 Juin 1940 (in front of the soon-to-be-demolished facade of the Gare Montparnasse), where de Gaulle is presenting medals to a small group of Resistance veterans. As the ceremony begins, Lebel is walking around the street on foot, questioning and re-questioning every police checkpoint. When he hears from one CRS officer about a one-legged veteran with a crutch, he realizes what the Jackal's plan is, and rushes into the apartment building, yelling for the CRS man to follow him. In his sniper's rest, the Jackal readies his rifle and takes aim at de Gaulle's head. Yet his first shot misses by a fraction of an inch, when de Gaulle unexpectedly leans forward to kiss the cheeks of the veteran he is honoring. The Jackal begins to reload. Outside the apartment, Lebel and the CRS officer arrive on the top floor in time to hear the sound of the first, silenced shot. The CRS man shoots off the lock of the door and bursts in. The Jackal turns and fires, killing the young policeman with a shot to the chest. At last, confronting each other, the assassin and the police detective \u2014 who had developed grudging, mutual respect for each other in the long chase \u2014 briefly look into each other's eyes, each recognizing the other for who he is. The Jackal scrambles to load his third and last rifle bullet, while Lebel, unarmed, snatches up the dead policeman's MAT-49 submachine-gun. Lebel is faster, and shoots the Jackal with half a magazine-load of bullets, instantly killing him. In London, the Special Branch are cleaning up Calthrop's apartment when the real Charles Calthrop storms in and demands to know what they are doing. Once it is established that Calthrop really has been on holiday in Scotland and has no connection whatsoever with the Jackal, the British are left to wonder \"If the Jackal wasn't Calthrop, then who the hell was he?\" The Jackal is buried in an unmarked grave in a Paris cemetery, officially recorded as \"an unknown foreign tourist, killed in a car accident.\" Aside from the priest, the only person attending the burial is Police Inspector Claude Lebel, who then leaves the cemetery to return home to his family.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book begins with the historical, failed attempt on de Gaulle's life planned by Col. Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart. After Bastien-Thiry's arrest, the French security forces wage a short but extremely vicious \"underground\" war with the terrorists of the OAS, a militant right-wing group who have labeled de Gaulle a traitor to France after his grant of independence to Algeria. The French secret service, a.k.a. Action Service, is remarkably effective in infiltrating the terrorist organization with their own informants, allowing them to kidnap and neutralize the terrorists' chief of operations, Antoine Argoud. The failure of the Petit-Clamart assassination, and a subsequent attempt at the Ecole Militaire, coupled with Bastien-Thiry's eventual execution by firing squad, likewise cripples the morale of the terrorists. Argoud's deputy, Lt. Col. Marc Rodin, carefully examines their few remaining options and determines that the only way to succeed in killing de Gaulle is to hire a professional assassin from outside the organization, someone completely unknown to either the French authorities or the OAS itself. After inquiries, he contacts an Englishman (whose name is never given), who meets with Rodin and his two principal deputies in Vienna, and agrees to assassinate de Gaulle for the sum of $500,000 (about $2.4 million in 2012). The four men agree on his code name, \"The Jackal.\" The remainder of Part One describes the Jackal's exhaustive preparations for the assassination. First, he acquires a legitimate British passport under a false name, under which he plans to operate for the majority of his mission. He also steals the passports of two foreign tourists visiting London who superficially resemble the Jackal, for use in an emergency. Using his primary false passport, the Jackal travels to Belgium, where he commissions a specialized sniper"
      },
      {
        "text": " men agree on his code name, \"The Jackal.\" The remainder of Part One describes the Jackal's exhaustive preparations for the assassination. First, he acquires a legitimate British passport under a false name, under which he plans to operate for the majority of his mission. He also steals the passports of two foreign tourists visiting London who superficially resemble the Jackal, for use in an emergency. Using his primary false passport, the Jackal travels to Belgium, where he commissions a specialized sniper rifle of great slimness and an appropriate silencer from a master gunsmith, and a set of forged French identity papers from a master forger. When picking up his fake identity papers, the master forger attempts to blackmail the Jackal but the Jackal kills him and locks the body in a large trunk inside the forger's house, where he correctly deduces it won't be found for a long time. After exhaustively researching a series of books and articles by, and about, de Gaulle, the Jackal travels to Paris to reconnoiter the most favorable spot and the most likely day for the assassination. After orchestrating a series of armed robberies in France, the OAS is able to deposit the first half of the Jackal's fee in his bank in Switzerland. At the same time, the French secret service, curious about the actions of Rodin and his subordinates, fake a letter that lures one of Rodin's bodyguards to France, where he is captured and interrogated, before dying. Interpreting his incoherent ramblings, the secret service is able to piece together Rodin's plot, but without knowing the name or the exact description of the assassin. When told about the plot, de Gaulle (who was notoriously careless of his personal safety) refuses, absolutely, to cancel his public appearances, modify his normal routines, or even allow any kind of public inquiry into the assassin's whereabouts to be made. Any inquiry, he orders, must"
      },
      {
        "text": " and interrogated, before dying. Interpreting his incoherent ramblings, the secret service is able to piece together Rodin's plot, but without knowing the name or the exact description of the assassin. When told about the plot, de Gaulle (who was notoriously careless of his personal safety) refuses, absolutely, to cancel his public appearances, modify his normal routines, or even allow any kind of public inquiry into the assassin's whereabouts to be made. Any inquiry, he orders, must be done in absolute secrecy. Roger Frey, the French Minister of the Interior, convenes a meeting of the heads of the French security forces. Since Rodin and his men have taken refuge at a hotel in Rome under heavy guard, they cannot be captured and interrogated. The rest of the meeting is at a loss to suggest how to proceed, except a Commissioner of the Police Judiciare, who reasons that their first and most essential step is to establish the Jackal's identity, which is a job for a detective. When asked to name the best detective in France, he volunteers his own deputy commissioner, Claude Lebel. Granted special emergency powers to conduct his investigation, Lebel does everything he can to discover the Jackal's identity. He first calls upon his \"old boy network\" of foreign intelligence and police contacts to inquire if they have any records of a top-class political assassin. Most of the inquiries are fruitless, but in the United Kingdom, the inquiry is eventually passed on to the Special Branch of Scotland Yard, and another veteran detective, Superintendent Bryn Thomas. A search through Special Branch's records turns up nothing, however one of Thomas's subordinates suggests that if the assassin was an Englishman, but primarily operated abroad, he'd be more likely to come to the attention of the Secret Intelligence Service. Thomas makes an informal inquiry with a friend of his on the SIS's staff, who mentions hearing a rumor from an officer stationed in the Dominican Republic at the time of"
      },
      {
        "text": " to the Special Branch of Scotland Yard, and another veteran detective, Superintendent Bryn Thomas. A search through Special Branch's records turns up nothing, however one of Thomas's subordinates suggests that if the assassin was an Englishman, but primarily operated abroad, he'd be more likely to come to the attention of the Secret Intelligence Service. Thomas makes an informal inquiry with a friend of his on the SIS's staff, who mentions hearing a rumor from an officer stationed in the Dominican Republic at the time of President Trujillo's assassination. The rumor states that a hired assassin stopped Trujillo's car with a rifle shot, allowing a gang of partisans to finish him off; and moreover, that the assassin was an Englishman, named Charles Calthrop. To his surprise, Thomas is summoned in person by the Prime Minister (unnamed, but likely intended to represent Harold Macmillan), who informs him that word of his inquiries has reached higher circles in the British government. Despite the enmity felt by much of the government against France in general and de Gaulle in particular, the Prime Minister informs Thomas that de Gaulle is his friend, and that the assassin must be identified and stopped at all costs. Thomas is handed a commission much similar to Lebel's, with temporary powers allowing him to override almost any other authority in the land. Checking out the name of Charles Calthrop, Thomas finds a match to a man living in London, said to be on holiday in Scotland. While Thomas confirms that this Calthrop was in the Dominican Republic at the time of Trujillo's death, he does not feel it is enough to inform Lebel. But then one of his junior detectives realizes that the first three letters of his Christian name and surname form the French (and Spanish) word for Jackal, Chacal. Thomas calls Lebel immediately. Unknown to any member of the council in France, the mistress of one of them (an arrogant Air Force colonel attached to"
      },
      {
        "text": " While Thomas confirms that this Calthrop was in the Dominican Republic at the time of Trujillo's death, he does not feel it is enough to inform Lebel. But then one of his junior detectives realizes that the first three letters of his Christian name and surname form the French (and Spanish) word for Jackal, Chacal. Thomas calls Lebel immediately. Unknown to any member of the council in France, the mistress of one of them (an arrogant Air Force colonel attached to de Gaulle's staff) is actually an OAS agent. Through pillow talk, the colonel unwittingly feeds the Jackal a constant stream of information as to Lebel's progress. The Jackal enters France by way of Italy, driving a rented Alfa Romeo sports car with his special gun hidden in the chassis. On receiving word from the OAS agent that the French are on the lookout for him, he decides his plan will succeed nevertheless, and forges ahead. In London, the Special Branch raids Calthrop's flat, finding his passport, and deduce that he must be travelling on a false one. When they work out the name of the Jackal's primary false identity, Lebel and the police come close to apprehending the Jackal in the south of France. But thanks to his OAS contact, the Jackal checks out of his hotel early and evades them by only an hour. With the police on the lookout for him, the Jackal takes refuge in the chateau of a woman whom he seduced while she was staying at the hotel the night before. When she goes through his things and finds the gun, he kills her and escapes again. The murder is not reported until much later that evening, allowing the Jackal to assume one of his two emergency identities and board the train for Paris. Lebel becomes suspicious of what the rest of the council label the Jackal's \"good luck,\" and has the telephones of all the members wiretapped"
      },
      {
        "text": " chateau of a woman whom he seduced while she was staying at the hotel the night before. When she goes through his things and finds the gun, he kills her and escapes again. The murder is not reported until much later that evening, allowing the Jackal to assume one of his two emergency identities and board the train for Paris. Lebel becomes suspicious of what the rest of the council label the Jackal's \"good luck,\" and has the telephones of all the members wiretapped, which leads him to discover the OAS agent. The Air Force colonel withdraws from the meeting in disgrace and later resigns from his post. When Thomas checks out and identifies reports of stolen or missing passports in London in the preceding months, he closes in on the Jackal's remaining false identities. On the evening of August 22, 1963, Lebel deduces that the Jackal has decided to target de Gaulle on Liberation Day, on 25 August, the day commemorating the liberation of Paris during World War II. It is, he realizes, the one day of the year when de Gaulle can be counted on to be in Paris, and to appear in public. Considering the inquiry all but over, the Minister orchestrates a massive, city-wide manhunt for the Jackal under his false name(s), and dismisses Lebel with hearty congratulations. However, the Jackal has eluded them yet again. By pretending to be homosexual in one of his false guises, he allows himself to be \"picked up\" by another man and taken to his apartment, where he kills the man and remains hidden for the remaining three days, thus avoiding identification through hotel registrations, which are examined by the police. On the day before the 25th, the Minister summons Lebel again and tells him that the Jackal still cannot be found. Lebel listens to the details of the President's schedule and security arrangements, and can suggest nothing more helpful than that everyone \"should keep"
      },
      {
        "text": ", he allows himself to be \"picked up\" by another man and taken to his apartment, where he kills the man and remains hidden for the remaining three days, thus avoiding identification through hotel registrations, which are examined by the police. On the day before the 25th, the Minister summons Lebel again and tells him that the Jackal still cannot be found. Lebel listens to the details of the President's schedule and security arrangements, and can suggest nothing more helpful than that everyone \"should keep their eyes open.\" On the day of the assassination, the Jackal, disguised as a one-legged French war veteran, passes through the police checkpoints, carrying his custom rifle concealed in the sections of a crutch. He makes his way to an apartment building overlooking the Place du 18 Juin 1940 (in front of the soon-to-be-demolished facade of the Gare Montparnasse), where de Gaulle is presenting medals to a small group of Resistance veterans. As the ceremony begins, Lebel is walking around the street on foot, questioning and re-questioning every police checkpoint. When he hears from one CRS officer about a one-legged veteran with a crutch, he realizes what the Jackal's plan is, and rushes into the apartment building, yelling for the CRS man to follow him. In his sniper's rest, the Jackal readies his rifle and takes aim at de Gaulle's head. Yet his first shot misses by a fraction of an inch, when de Gaulle unexpectedly leans forward to kiss the cheeks of the veteran he is honoring. The Jackal begins to reload. Outside the apartment, Lebel and the CRS officer arrive on the top floor in time to hear the sound of the first, silenced shot. The CRS man shoots off the lock of the door and bursts in. The Jackal turns and fires, killing the young policeman with a shot to the chest. At last, confronting each other, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " fraction of an inch, when de Gaulle unexpectedly leans forward to kiss the cheeks of the veteran he is honoring. The Jackal begins to reload. Outside the apartment, Lebel and the CRS officer arrive on the top floor in time to hear the sound of the first, silenced shot. The CRS man shoots off the lock of the door and bursts in. The Jackal turns and fires, killing the young policeman with a shot to the chest. At last, confronting each other, the assassin and the police detective \u2014 who had developed grudging, mutual respect for each other in the long chase \u2014 briefly look into each other's eyes, each recognizing the other for who he is. The Jackal scrambles to load his third and last rifle bullet, while Lebel, unarmed, snatches up the dead policeman's MAT-49 submachine-gun. Lebel is faster, and shoots the Jackal with half a magazine-load of bullets, instantly killing him. In London, the Special Branch are cleaning up Calthrop's apartment when the real Charles Calthrop storms in and demands to know what they are doing. Once it is established that Calthrop really has been on holiday in Scotland and has no connection whatsoever with the Jackal, the British are left to wonder \"If the Jackal wasn't Calthrop, then who the hell was he?\" The Jackal is buried in an unmarked grave in a Paris cemetery, officially recorded as \"an unknown foreign tourist, killed in a car accident.\" Aside from the priest, the only person attending the burial is Police Inspector Claude Lebel, who then leaves the cemetery to return home to his family.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", killed in a car accident.\" Aside from the priest, the only person attending the burial is Police Inspector Claude Lebel, who then leaves the cemetery to return home to his family.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire",
    "author": "J. K. Rowling",
    "published_date": "2000-07-08",
    "synopsis": " The story begins in the 1940s in a small town called Little Hangleton, describing how the Riddle family was mysteriously killed at supper, and how their groundsman, Frank Bryce, was suspected of the crime, then declared innocent due to lack of evidence. In 1994, Bryce investigates a disturbance at the house and overhears Lord Voldemort and Peter Pettigrew (also known as Wormtail) plotting to kill a boy named Harry Potter. Voldemort's snake, Nagini, notices Bryce and informs Voldemort; Voldemort invites Bryce inside and kills him on the spot. The scene then shifts to Harry Potter as he wakes in the night with a throbbing pain in his scar. The next morning, Harry's Uncle Vernon receives a letter from the Weasleys asking Harry to join them at the Quidditch World Cup. Harry is brought to The Burrow the next day. Early the next morning, the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione head off to the Quidditch World Cup. They travel by Portkey, an object which wizards use to travel quickly to another linked destination. While traveling, they meet Cedric Diggory, another Hogwarts student. At their seat, Harry, Ron, and Hermione meet Winky, a house-elf who says she is saving a seat for her master, Bartemius 'Barty' Crouch. That night, after the game, a crowd of Voldemort's followers destroy the campground and torture its Muggle owners. Harry, Hermione and Ron escape by fleeing into the woods, where Harry discovers that his wand is missing. Moments later, someone fires Voldemort's symbol, using Harry's wand. Winky is found holding Harry's wand at the scene of the crime, and Mr Crouch fires her. Later at the Burrow, Cedric's father brings news that a man named Mad-Eye Moody attacked an intruder at his house. Upon arriving at Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore announces that the Triwizard Tournament will take place at Hogwarts throughout the school year. The Tournament is a competition between three delegates, or \"champions\", one from each of the three great European schools of magic - Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. These champions compete in three tasks and they are given scores by the judges based on their performance; at the conclusion, one champion is chosen as the victor and given a thousand Galleons prize money. However, owing to the dangerous nature of the tournament, no one under seventeen years of age is allowed to enter. He also introduces Mad-Eye Moody as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Moody's unorthodox teaching methods cause controversy within the school, notably his use of Transfiguration as punishment and his lessons on the Unforgivable Curses. In late October, the delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang arrive; the Triwizard Tournament is officially opened, and students who wish to compete submit their names to the Goblet of Fire. On Halloween, the Goblet of Fire chooses the champions; and to everyone's great surprise, Harry is selected to compete alongside Cedric Diggory, Fleur Delacour, and Viktor Krum. Though he did not enter himself, Harry is magically bound to compete as the fourth champion. Ron feels let down, refusing to speak to Harry. Harry's situation only worsens with the publication of a sappy, exaggerated article about his past, written by ruthless reporter Rita Skeeter. A few nights before the first task, Hagrid invites Harry for a late night walk, ultimately informing him that the task will somehow contain dragons. Back in the Gryffindor common room, Harry converses with Sirius; who informs Harry that Igor Karkaroff, the Headmaster of Durmstrang, was once a Death Eater and is not to be trusted. The next day, realizing that Fleur and Krum know about the dragons as well, Harry warns Cedric about the first task; Moody overhears, and drops hints that Harry should use his flying skills to best the dragon. Harry and Hermione then spend hours practising Summoning charms, which would allow him to retrieve his broom. During the task, Harry successfully Summons his broomstick and flies past the dragon, capturing the golden egg - a necessary clue to the nature of the second task - and receiving high marks. Ron and Harry reconcile shortly afterward. Professor McGonagall announces that the Yule Ball is approaching and that the champions must find partners as they will open the ball. Harry gathers his courage to ask his crush Cho Chang, but finds out that she is already going with Cedric. Harry and Ron eventually ask Parvati and Padma Patil. At the ball, Ron becomes jealous of Viktor Krum, who has brought Hermione as his date. Harry and Ron leave the ball and overhear Karkaroff confiding fearfully to Potions master Snape that something on his arm has become more prominent. At the end of the ball, Cedric tells Harry to take a bath with the golden egg. During a trip to Hogsmeade, Ludo Bagman mentions to Harry that Mr Crouch has stopped coming to work. Harry takes the egg into the bathtub. The egg sings that he will have an hour to reclaim something valuable that has been taken into the lake. As he returns to his dormitory, he notices Mr Crouch searching Snape's office, but is unable to investigate. Harry falls asleep in the library, searching for answers from the clue, and is awakened in the morning by the house-elf Dobby, who now works at Hogwarts, who gives him a ball of gillyweed. The gillyweed gives Harry gills and he swims easily through the lake, finding Hermione, Ron, Cho, and Fleur's sister Gabrielle asleep and tied together in a merpeople village. Harry waits to make sure all of the champions rescue their hostages before returning to the surface. When Fleur does not come, he returns with Gabrielle and Ron and comes up last, but gains high marks for his moral fibre in his completion of the task. The following day in Hogsmeade, Harry, Ron, and Hermione meet Sirius Black, disguised as his animagus, a dog. He informs them that Crouch's son was convicted as a Death Eater (Voldemort's followers). Later, the champions are taken to see the grounds to see a maze, the third task. On the way back, when Krum pulls Harry away to talk, they find a dishevelled Mr Crouch, who is speaking to trees and demanding to see Dumbledore. Harry runs to get Dumbledore while Krum waits with Crouch; when Harry returns, Krum has been stunned and Mr Crouch gone. In Divination class, Harry falls asleep and dreams about Voldemort, waking up screaming. Harry leaves class to discuss this with Dumbledore; as he waits for Dumbledore to return to his office, he peers into a Pensieve and enters Dumbledore's memories of various Death Eater trials, including that of Ludo Bagman, Karkaroff, and Mr Crouch's son. Dumbledore returns, pulls Harry from the memories and listens to his story. On the evening of the task, the four champions enter the maze, and Harry finds his path relatively manageable. Soon both Fleur and Krum are out of the running, and Harry and Cedric arrive at the trophy at the same time, agreeing to touch it together. The trophy turns out to be a Portkey, taking both to the graveyard in Little Hangleton, where a man in a hood quickly kills Cedric. Harry realises the man is Wormtail, who ties Harry to a gravestone. Wormtail drops the bundle he is carrying (Voldemort's current form) into a cauldron, as well as a bone from Voldemort's father, Wormtail's own right hand, and blood from Harry's arm. Voldemort resumes his body and rises from the cauldron. Voldemort presses a tattoo of the Dark Mark on Wormtail's arm, and suddenly Death Eaters begin appearing in a circle around them. Voldemort creates a silver hand for Wormtail and then challenges Harry to a duel. Harry tries to use the disarming spell on Voldemort just as Voldemort uses the Killing Curse. The lights from the two wands meet in midair and remain connected. Voldemort's past victims emerge from his wand and protect Harry once the wand connection is broken, giving him time to grab Cedric's body and touch the trophy, thus returning to Hogwarts. Once Harry returns, Moody carries him into the castle, where he reveals that he is a Death Eater, and that he was responsible for placing Harry's name in the Goblet and for turning the trophy into a portkey. Moody also informs Harry that Karkaroff has fled the castle. Soon after, Dumbledore and other teachers burst into the room, stunning Moody and saving Harry. Under the influence of a truth potion, Moody confessed that he was young Barty Crouch Jr. He has made the switch by using Moody's hair and drinking Polyjuice potion every hour. His father smuggled him out of prison and allowed him to live under an invisibility cloak, guarded by Winky, and how Ministry of Magic worker Bertha Jorkins discovered him and ultimately was relieved of her information by Voldemort, who then returned to find Crouch Jr in his father's house. He also says that he killed his father in the Forest the day he stumbled upon Harry and Krum, and that he was hoping to bring Voldemort back to power by bringing Harry to him. Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, refuses to believe that Voldemort is back. He gives Harry the tournament prize money and leaves quickly. After the term ends, Harry, Ron and Hermione return home on the Hogwarts Express. Hermione shows Harry and Ron a beetle in a jar \u2014 Rita Skeeter's animagus form, which she has been using to spy on people and acquire news about them \u2014 that she caught and warned not to write untrue things. Harry gives the gold he won in the Triwizard Tournament to the Weasley twins to help start their practical joke company. Harry then returns to the Dursleys for the summer.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins in the 1940s in a small town called Little Hangleton, describing how the Riddle family was mysteriously killed at supper, and how their groundsman, Frank Bryce, was suspected of the crime, then declared innocent due to lack of evidence. In 1994, Bryce investigates a disturbance at the house and overhears Lord Voldemort and Peter Pettigrew (also known as Wormtail) plotting to kill a boy named Harry Potter. Voldemort's snake, Nagini, notices Bryce and informs Voldemort; Voldemort invites Bryce inside and kills him on the spot. The scene then shifts to Harry Potter as he wakes in the night with a throbbing pain in his scar. The next morning, Harry's Uncle Vernon receives a letter from the Weasleys asking Harry to join them at the Quidditch World Cup. Harry is brought to The Burrow the next day. Early the next morning, the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione head off to the Quidditch World Cup. They travel by Portkey, an object which wizards use to travel quickly to another linked destination. While traveling, they meet Cedric Diggory, another Hogwarts student. At their seat, Harry, Ron, and Hermione meet Winky, a house-elf who says she is saving a seat for her master, Bartemius 'Barty' Crouch. That night, after the game, a crowd of Voldemort's followers destroy the campground and torture its Muggle owners. Harry, Hermione and Ron escape by fleeing into the woods, where Harry discovers that his wand is missing. Moments later, someone fires Voldemort's symbol, using Harry's wand. Winky is found holding Harry's wand at the scene of the crime, and Mr Crouch fires her. Later at the Burrow, Cedric's father brings news that a man named Mad-Eye Moody attacked an intruder at his house. Upon arriving at Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore announces that the Triwizard Tournament will take place at Hogwarts throughout the"
      },
      {
        "text": " escape by fleeing into the woods, where Harry discovers that his wand is missing. Moments later, someone fires Voldemort's symbol, using Harry's wand. Winky is found holding Harry's wand at the scene of the crime, and Mr Crouch fires her. Later at the Burrow, Cedric's father brings news that a man named Mad-Eye Moody attacked an intruder at his house. Upon arriving at Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore announces that the Triwizard Tournament will take place at Hogwarts throughout the school year. The Tournament is a competition between three delegates, or \"champions\", one from each of the three great European schools of magic - Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. These champions compete in three tasks and they are given scores by the judges based on their performance; at the conclusion, one champion is chosen as the victor and given a thousand Galleons prize money. However, owing to the dangerous nature of the tournament, no one under seventeen years of age is allowed to enter. He also introduces Mad-Eye Moody as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Moody's unorthodox teaching methods cause controversy within the school, notably his use of Transfiguration as punishment and his lessons on the Unforgivable Curses. In late October, the delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang arrive; the Triwizard Tournament is officially opened, and students who wish to compete submit their names to the Goblet of Fire. On Halloween, the Goblet of Fire chooses the champions; and to everyone's great surprise, Harry is selected to compete alongside Cedric Diggory, Fleur Delacour, and Viktor Krum. Though he did not enter himself, Harry is magically bound to compete as the fourth champion. Ron feels let down, refusing to speak to Harry. Harry's situation only worsens with the publication of a sappy, exaggerated article about his past, written by ruthless reporter Rita Skeeter. A few"
      },
      {
        "text": " Halloween, the Goblet of Fire chooses the champions; and to everyone's great surprise, Harry is selected to compete alongside Cedric Diggory, Fleur Delacour, and Viktor Krum. Though he did not enter himself, Harry is magically bound to compete as the fourth champion. Ron feels let down, refusing to speak to Harry. Harry's situation only worsens with the publication of a sappy, exaggerated article about his past, written by ruthless reporter Rita Skeeter. A few nights before the first task, Hagrid invites Harry for a late night walk, ultimately informing him that the task will somehow contain dragons. Back in the Gryffindor common room, Harry converses with Sirius; who informs Harry that Igor Karkaroff, the Headmaster of Durmstrang, was once a Death Eater and is not to be trusted. The next day, realizing that Fleur and Krum know about the dragons as well, Harry warns Cedric about the first task; Moody overhears, and drops hints that Harry should use his flying skills to best the dragon. Harry and Hermione then spend hours practising Summoning charms, which would allow him to retrieve his broom. During the task, Harry successfully Summons his broomstick and flies past the dragon, capturing the golden egg - a necessary clue to the nature of the second task - and receiving high marks. Ron and Harry reconcile shortly afterward. Professor McGonagall announces that the Yule Ball is approaching and that the champions must find partners as they will open the ball. Harry gathers his courage to ask his crush Cho Chang, but finds out that she is already going with Cedric. Harry and Ron eventually ask Parvati and Padma Patil. At the ball, Ron becomes jealous of Viktor Krum, who has brought Hermione as his date. Harry and Ron leave the ball and overhear Karkaroff confiding fearfully to Potions master Snape that something on his arm has become more prominent."
      },
      {
        "text": " the champions must find partners as they will open the ball. Harry gathers his courage to ask his crush Cho Chang, but finds out that she is already going with Cedric. Harry and Ron eventually ask Parvati and Padma Patil. At the ball, Ron becomes jealous of Viktor Krum, who has brought Hermione as his date. Harry and Ron leave the ball and overhear Karkaroff confiding fearfully to Potions master Snape that something on his arm has become more prominent. At the end of the ball, Cedric tells Harry to take a bath with the golden egg. During a trip to Hogsmeade, Ludo Bagman mentions to Harry that Mr Crouch has stopped coming to work. Harry takes the egg into the bathtub. The egg sings that he will have an hour to reclaim something valuable that has been taken into the lake. As he returns to his dormitory, he notices Mr Crouch searching Snape's office, but is unable to investigate. Harry falls asleep in the library, searching for answers from the clue, and is awakened in the morning by the house-elf Dobby, who now works at Hogwarts, who gives him a ball of gillyweed. The gillyweed gives Harry gills and he swims easily through the lake, finding Hermione, Ron, Cho, and Fleur's sister Gabrielle asleep and tied together in a merpeople village. Harry waits to make sure all of the champions rescue their hostages before returning to the surface. When Fleur does not come, he returns with Gabrielle and Ron and comes up last, but gains high marks for his moral fibre in his completion of the task. The following day in Hogsmeade, Harry, Ron, and Hermione meet Sirius Black, disguised as his animagus, a dog. He informs them that Crouch's son was convicted as a Death Eater (Voldemort's followers). Later, the champions are taken to see the grounds to see a maze,"
      },
      {
        "text": " the surface. When Fleur does not come, he returns with Gabrielle and Ron and comes up last, but gains high marks for his moral fibre in his completion of the task. The following day in Hogsmeade, Harry, Ron, and Hermione meet Sirius Black, disguised as his animagus, a dog. He informs them that Crouch's son was convicted as a Death Eater (Voldemort's followers). Later, the champions are taken to see the grounds to see a maze, the third task. On the way back, when Krum pulls Harry away to talk, they find a dishevelled Mr Crouch, who is speaking to trees and demanding to see Dumbledore. Harry runs to get Dumbledore while Krum waits with Crouch; when Harry returns, Krum has been stunned and Mr Crouch gone. In Divination class, Harry falls asleep and dreams about Voldemort, waking up screaming. Harry leaves class to discuss this with Dumbledore; as he waits for Dumbledore to return to his office, he peers into a Pensieve and enters Dumbledore's memories of various Death Eater trials, including that of Ludo Bagman, Karkaroff, and Mr Crouch's son. Dumbledore returns, pulls Harry from the memories and listens to his story. On the evening of the task, the four champions enter the maze, and Harry finds his path relatively manageable. Soon both Fleur and Krum are out of the running, and Harry and Cedric arrive at the trophy at the same time, agreeing to touch it together. The trophy turns out to be a Portkey, taking both to the graveyard in Little Hangleton, where a man in a hood quickly kills Cedric. Harry realises the man is Wormtail, who ties Harry to a gravestone. Wormtail drops the bundle he is carrying (Voldemort's current form) into a cauldron, as well as a bone from Voldemort's father, Wormtail's own right hand, and blood from"
      },
      {
        "text": " at the same time, agreeing to touch it together. The trophy turns out to be a Portkey, taking both to the graveyard in Little Hangleton, where a man in a hood quickly kills Cedric. Harry realises the man is Wormtail, who ties Harry to a gravestone. Wormtail drops the bundle he is carrying (Voldemort's current form) into a cauldron, as well as a bone from Voldemort's father, Wormtail's own right hand, and blood from Harry's arm. Voldemort resumes his body and rises from the cauldron. Voldemort presses a tattoo of the Dark Mark on Wormtail's arm, and suddenly Death Eaters begin appearing in a circle around them. Voldemort creates a silver hand for Wormtail and then challenges Harry to a duel. Harry tries to use the disarming spell on Voldemort just as Voldemort uses the Killing Curse. The lights from the two wands meet in midair and remain connected. Voldemort's past victims emerge from his wand and protect Harry once the wand connection is broken, giving him time to grab Cedric's body and touch the trophy, thus returning to Hogwarts. Once Harry returns, Moody carries him into the castle, where he reveals that he is a Death Eater, and that he was responsible for placing Harry's name in the Goblet and for turning the trophy into a portkey. Moody also informs Harry that Karkaroff has fled the castle. Soon after, Dumbledore and other teachers burst into the room, stunning Moody and saving Harry. Under the influence of a truth potion, Moody confessed that he was young Barty Crouch Jr. He has made the switch by using Moody's hair and drinking Polyjuice potion every hour. His father smuggled him out of prison and allowed him to live under an invisibility cloak, guarded by Winky, and how Ministry of Magic worker Bertha Jorkins discovered him and ultimately was relieved of her information by Voldemort, who then returned to find Crouch Jr in his"
      },
      {
        "text": " Moody and saving Harry. Under the influence of a truth potion, Moody confessed that he was young Barty Crouch Jr. He has made the switch by using Moody's hair and drinking Polyjuice potion every hour. His father smuggled him out of prison and allowed him to live under an invisibility cloak, guarded by Winky, and how Ministry of Magic worker Bertha Jorkins discovered him and ultimately was relieved of her information by Voldemort, who then returned to find Crouch Jr in his father's house. He also says that he killed his father in the Forest the day he stumbled upon Harry and Krum, and that he was hoping to bring Voldemort back to power by bringing Harry to him. Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, refuses to believe that Voldemort is back. He gives Harry the tournament prize money and leaves quickly. After the term ends, Harry, Ron and Hermione return home on the Hogwarts Express. Hermione shows Harry and Ron a beetle in a jar \u2014 Rita Skeeter's animagus form, which she has been using to spy on people and acquire news about them \u2014 that she caught and warned not to write untrue things. Harry gives the gold he won in the Triwizard Tournament to the Weasley twins to help start their practical joke company. Harry then returns to the Dursleys for the summer.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Presumption of Death",
    "author": "Jill Paton Walsh",
    "published_date": "2002-11",
    "synopsis": " Harriet has evacuated her family to the Wimseys' country house, Talboys (in Hertfordshire), taking her two children, along with the three children of her sister-in-law, Lady Mary, and Peter's venerable old housekeeper, Mrs. Trapp. Peter and Bunter are away on an undercover assignment. During a practice air raid, a young woman is murdered in the village, and Superintendent Kirk recruits Harriet to help solve the murder, partly because the police are too busy organizing all the changes necessitated by the war and partly because as the wife of a detective, and as a crime novelist, she is the best qualified person to find the murderer. The murdered girl had come from the city as a \"Land Girl\", to do agricultural work and help the war effort. She was killed in the village street during an air raid drill, while most people were underground, and much of the investigation turns on the issue of who had been, or could have been, outside the shelter when the murder was committed. Many of the witnesses\u2014and some of the possible suspects\u2014are RAF pilots stationed at a nearby air base, who need to be questioned in between going out on missions. Gerald, Lord Peter's favourite nephew, who was first seen a decade earlier as a precocious boy playing a major role in solving \"The Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head\" and appeared as an Oxford undergraduate in Gaudy Night; is now an RAF combat pilot. At least one character introduces the possibility that the murder is directly linked to German espionage. While conducting the investigation and riding herd on the five children under her charge, Harriet worried about her husband, whose life is in danger. She regrets the lost years when she had put him off before finally agreeing to marry him. Wimsey, realizing that the Germans had broken the code which he had been using, devises a new one which is unbreakable because of being based on things only he and Harriet knew. His Secret Service colleague brings her Peter's message and she shows considerable skill in decoding it. Eventually, Bunter comes back from the continent\u2014uncharacteristically dirty, scruffy and so exhausted that he lets Lady Peter wait upon him and put him to bed\u2014and is followed some days later by Peter, who arrived by a different route. It is never revealed where exactly they had been. Lord Peter is retired from active service and, while still involved in intelligence issues, would not be sent again behind enemy lines. Being presented with Harriet's record of her investigations\u2014which, as he notes, already solved most of the mystery\u2014he is able to add the last missing pieces. Finding the solution for the mystery does not mean, however, just handing the perpetrator to the police; rather, solving the mystery arouses a complicated new problem involving legal, military, ethical and moral issues\u2014which Lord Peter manages to neatly tie up.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Harriet has evacuated her family to the Wimseys' country house, Talboys (in Hertfordshire), taking her two children, along with the three children of her sister-in-law, Lady Mary, and Peter's venerable old housekeeper, Mrs. Trapp. Peter and Bunter are away on an undercover assignment. During a practice air raid, a young woman is murdered in the village, and Superintendent Kirk recruits Harriet to help solve the murder, partly because the police are too busy organizing all the changes necessitated by the war and partly because as the wife of a detective, and as a crime novelist, she is the best qualified person to find the murderer. The murdered girl had come from the city as a \"Land Girl\", to do agricultural work and help the war effort. She was killed in the village street during an air raid drill, while most people were underground, and much of the investigation turns on the issue of who had been, or could have been, outside the shelter when the murder was committed. Many of the witnesses\u2014and some of the possible suspects\u2014are RAF pilots stationed at a nearby air base, who need to be questioned in between going out on missions. Gerald, Lord Peter's favourite nephew, who was first seen a decade earlier as a precocious boy playing a major role in solving \"The Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head\" and appeared as an Oxford undergraduate in Gaudy Night; is now an RAF combat pilot. At least one character introduces the possibility that the murder is directly linked to German espionage. While conducting the investigation and riding herd on the five children under her charge, Harriet worried about her husband, whose life is in danger. She regrets the lost years when she had put him off before finally agreeing to marry him. Wimsey, realizing that the Germans had broken the code which he had been using, devises a new one which is unbreakable because of being based on things only he and Harriet knew. His Secret Service colleague"
      },
      {
        "text": " the possibility that the murder is directly linked to German espionage. While conducting the investigation and riding herd on the five children under her charge, Harriet worried about her husband, whose life is in danger. She regrets the lost years when she had put him off before finally agreeing to marry him. Wimsey, realizing that the Germans had broken the code which he had been using, devises a new one which is unbreakable because of being based on things only he and Harriet knew. His Secret Service colleague brings her Peter's message and she shows considerable skill in decoding it. Eventually, Bunter comes back from the continent\u2014uncharacteristically dirty, scruffy and so exhausted that he lets Lady Peter wait upon him and put him to bed\u2014and is followed some days later by Peter, who arrived by a different route. It is never revealed where exactly they had been. Lord Peter is retired from active service and, while still involved in intelligence issues, would not be sent again behind enemy lines. Being presented with Harriet's record of her investigations\u2014which, as he notes, already solved most of the mystery\u2014he is able to add the last missing pieces. Finding the solution for the mystery does not mean, however, just handing the perpetrator to the police; rather, solving the mystery arouses a complicated new problem involving legal, military, ethical and moral issues\u2014which Lord Peter manages to neatly tie up.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Tenured Professor",
    "author": "John Kenneth Galbraith",
    "published_date": "1990-11-12",
    "synopsis": " The book chronicles the rise to fame of one Montgomery Marvin, a professor of economics who, as an academic teacher, keeps a low profile but who nevertheless is given tenure quite early in his career. While outwardly concerning himself with unspectacular research focusing on \"Mathematical Paradigms in an Approach to Refrigerator Pricing\" (which is also the title of his Ph.D. thesis), Marvin's extracurricular activities centre on becoming very rich in a very short time. For that purpose, Marvin has devised a new formula\u2014a stock forecasting model by means of which he and his wife can cash in on people's euphoria, greed and, as they call it, dementia. Eventually, while everyone loses money in the wake of the \"Black Monday\" stock market crash of October 19, 1987, the Marvins gain an awful lot. (See also Michael Milken and leveraged buyout.) They decide to spend their money wisely, according to their liberal agenda. Intent on strictly observing the code of business ethics, they start to make use of the \"positive power of wealth\" and embark on a life of philanthropy. They fund a number of chairs in peace studies to be established at, of all places, military academies. They also secure legislation by which companies are required to label their products according to the percentage of female executives employed by them. After they have launched several of their projects, their operations are increasingly considered un-American and officially put under surveillance. But whatever will happen - Marvin knows that he will be able to nourish his family, as he has been accorded tenure. A Tenured Professor was republished as paperback by Houghton Mifflin in 2001 (ISBN 0-618-15455-8).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book chronicles the rise to fame of one Montgomery Marvin, a professor of economics who, as an academic teacher, keeps a low profile but who nevertheless is given tenure quite early in his career. While outwardly concerning himself with unspectacular research focusing on \"Mathematical Paradigms in an Approach to Refrigerator Pricing\" (which is also the title of his Ph.D. thesis), Marvin's extracurricular activities centre on becoming very rich in a very short time. For that purpose, Marvin has devised a new formula\u2014a stock forecasting model by means of which he and his wife can cash in on people's euphoria, greed and, as they call it, dementia. Eventually, while everyone loses money in the wake of the \"Black Monday\" stock market crash of October 19, 1987, the Marvins gain an awful lot. (See also Michael Milken and leveraged buyout.) They decide to spend their money wisely, according to their liberal agenda. Intent on strictly observing the code of business ethics, they start to make use of the \"positive power of wealth\" and embark on a life of philanthropy. They fund a number of chairs in peace studies to be established at, of all places, military academies. They also secure legislation by which companies are required to label their products according to the percentage of female executives employed by them. After they have launched several of their projects, their operations are increasingly considered un-American and officially put under surveillance. But whatever will happen - Marvin knows that he will be able to nourish his family, as he has been accorded tenure. A Tenured Professor was republished as paperback by Houghton Mifflin in 2001 (ISBN 0-618-15455-8).\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " surveillance. But whatever will happen - Marvin knows that he will be able to nourish his family, as he has been accorded tenure. A Tenured Professor was republished as paperback by Houghton Mifflin in 2001 (ISBN 0-618-15455-8).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Trumps of Doom",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1985-05",
    "synopsis": " Merlin has spent the last several years on Earth learning computer science while building Ghostwheel, a trump- and pattern-based computer, elsewhere in Shadow. Having completed his project, he wishes to know who has been trying to kill him every April 30, and why some of the better attempts failed, before he leaves. He meets with his friend Lucas Reynard (Luke), a salesman, who tries to convince him to stay, and who tells him that Julia Barnes, Merlin's ex-girlfriend, may be in trouble. Merlin investigates and finds Julia slain by creatures from another shadow. Merlin investigates through shadow, and is given orders by king Random to shut down Ghostwheel. However, Ghostwheel has become sentient and capable of defending itself. Eventually, Luke - who, it turns out, is Brand's son - imprisons Merlin in a blue crystal cave so he can attempt to take control of Ghostwheel for himself.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Merlin has spent the last several years on Earth learning computer science while building Ghostwheel, a trump- and pattern-based computer, elsewhere in Shadow. Having completed his project, he wishes to know who has been trying to kill him every April 30, and why some of the better attempts failed, before he leaves. He meets with his friend Lucas Reynard (Luke), a salesman, who tries to convince him to stay, and who tells him that Julia Barnes, Merlin's ex-girlfriend, may be in trouble. Merlin investigates and finds Julia slain by creatures from another shadow. Merlin investigates through shadow, and is given orders by king Random to shut down Ghostwheel. However, Ghostwheel has become sentient and capable of defending itself. Eventually, Luke - who, it turns out, is Brand's son - imprisons Merlin in a blue crystal cave so he can attempt to take control of Ghostwheel for himself.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dream of the Red Chamber",
    "author": "Tsao Hsueh-Chin",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel provides a detailed, episodic record of the two branches of the wealthy and aristocratic Jia (\u8cc8) clan \u2014 the Rongguo House (\u69ae\u570b\u5e9c) and the Ningguo House (\u5be7\u570b\u5e9c) \u2014 who reside in two large, adjacent family compounds in the capital. Their ancestors were made Dukes and given imperial titles, and as the novel begins the two houses are among the most illustrious families in the city. One of the clan\u2019s offspring was made an Imperial Consort, and a lush landscaped garden was built to receive her visit. The novel describes the Jias\u2019 wealth and influence in great naturalistic detail, and charts the Jias\u2019 fall from the height of their prestige, following some thirty main characters and over four hundred minor ones. Eventually the Jia clan falls into disfavor with the Emperor, and their mansions are raided and confiscated. In the novel's frame story, a sentient Stone, abandoned by the goddess N\u00fcwa when she mended the heavens aeons ago, begs a Taoist priest and a Buddhist monk to bring it with them to see the world. The Stone, accompanied by a character named Divine Attendant-in-Waiting (\u795e\u745b\u4f8d\u8005) (while in Cheng-Gao versions they are merged into the same character), was given a chance to learn from the human existence, and enters the mortal realm. The main character of the novel is the carefree adolescent male heir of the family Jia Baoyu. He was born with a magical piece of \"jade\" in his mouth. In this life he has a special bond with his sickly cousin Lin Daiyu, who shares his love of music and poetry. Baoyu, however, is predestined to marry another cousin, Xue Baochai, whose grace and intelligence exemplifies an ideal woman, but with whom he lacks an emotional connection. The romantic rivalry and friendship among the three characters against the backdrop of the family's declining fortunes forms the main story in the novel.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel provides a detailed, episodic record of the two branches of the wealthy and aristocratic Jia (\u8cc8) clan \u2014 the Rongguo House (\u69ae\u570b\u5e9c) and the Ningguo House (\u5be7\u570b\u5e9c) \u2014 who reside in two large, adjacent family compounds in the capital. Their ancestors were made Dukes and given imperial titles, and as the novel begins the two houses are among the most illustrious families in the city. One of the clan\u2019s offspring was made an Imperial Consort, and a lush landscaped garden was built to receive her visit. The novel describes the Jias\u2019 wealth and influence in great naturalistic detail, and charts the Jias\u2019 fall from the height of their prestige, following some thirty main characters and over four hundred minor ones. Eventually the Jia clan falls into disfavor with the Emperor, and their mansions are raided and confiscated. In the novel's frame story, a sentient Stone, abandoned by the goddess N\u00fcwa when she mended the heavens aeons ago, begs a Taoist priest and a Buddhist monk to bring it with them to see the world. The Stone, accompanied by a character named Divine Attendant-in-Waiting (\u795e\u745b\u4f8d\u8005) (while in Cheng-Gao versions they are merged into the same character), was given a chance to learn from the human existence, and enters the mortal realm. The main character of the novel is the carefree adolescent male heir of the family Jia Baoyu. He was born with a magical piece of \"jade\" in his mouth. In this life he has a special bond with his sickly cousin Lin Daiyu, who shares his love of music and poetry. Baoyu, however, is predestined to marry another cousin, Xue Baochai, whose grace and intelligence exemplifies an ideal woman, but with whom he"
      },
      {
        "text": " realm. The main character of the novel is the carefree adolescent male heir of the family Jia Baoyu. He was born with a magical piece of \"jade\" in his mouth. In this life he has a special bond with his sickly cousin Lin Daiyu, who shares his love of music and poetry. Baoyu, however, is predestined to marry another cousin, Xue Baochai, whose grace and intelligence exemplifies an ideal woman, but with whom he lacks an emotional connection. The romantic rivalry and friendship among the three characters against the backdrop of the family's declining fortunes forms the main story in the novel.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda",
    "author": "Philip Gourevitch",
    "published_date": "1998",
    "synopsis": " The book describes Gourevitch's travels in Rwanda after the conflict, in which he interviews survivors and gathers information. Gourevitch retells survivors' stories, and reflects on the meaning of the genocide. The title comes from an April 15, 1994, letter written to Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's operations in western Rwanda, by several Adventist pastors who had taken refuge with other Tutsis in an Adventist hospital in the locality of Mugonero in Kibuye prefecture. Gourevitch accused Ntakirutimana of aiding the killings that happened in the complex the next day. Ntakirutimana was eventually convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The book not only explains the genocide's peak in 1994, but the history of Rwanda leading up to the major events\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book describes Gourevitch's travels in Rwanda after the conflict, in which he interviews survivors and gathers information. Gourevitch retells survivors' stories, and reflects on the meaning of the genocide. The title comes from an April 15, 1994, letter written to Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's operations in western Rwanda, by several Adventist pastors who had taken refuge with other Tutsis in an Adventist hospital in the locality of Mugonero in Kibuye prefecture. Gourevitch accused Ntakirutimana of aiding the killings that happened in the complex the next day. Ntakirutimana was eventually convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The book not only explains the genocide's peak in 1994, but the history of Rwanda leading up to the major events\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Nice Work",
    "author": "David Lodge",
    "published_date": "1988",
    "synopsis": " The book describes encounters between Robyn Penrose, a feminist university teacher specialising in the industrial novel and women's writing, and Vic Wilcox, the manager of an engineering firm. The relationship that develops between the unlikely pair reveals the weaknesses in each character. Robyn's academic position is precarious because of budget cuts. Vic has to deal with industrial politics at his firm. The plot is a pastiche of the industrial novel genre, particularly referencing North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. This gentle ribbing acts to undermine the postmodern and feminist position of Robyn, who accepts the hand of fate despite ridiculing its role as the sole restorative capable (in the minds of authors of industrial novels) of elevating the female to a serious social position. Robyn acquires insight into the pragmatic ethos whose encroachment on university culture she resents and Vic learns to appreciate the symbolic or semiotic dimension of his environment and discovers a romanticism within himself that he had previously despised in his everyday life. The story is set in the fictional city of Rummidge, a grey and dismal fictionalised Birmingham. It is part of the same series as the novels Changing Places, Small World, and Thinks .... In Nice Work, Philip Swallow is still head of the English Department from Small World and thus is Robyn Penrose's boss. Morris Zapp makes a cameo appearance in the last part of Nice Work, to add a plot twist where he tries to arrange for Robyn to have a job interview at his American university, Euphoric State (a fictionalized UC Berkeley), in order to stop his ex-wife from being a candidate for an open faculty position. Robyn Penrose makes a cameo appearance in Thinks ....\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book describes encounters between Robyn Penrose, a feminist university teacher specialising in the industrial novel and women's writing, and Vic Wilcox, the manager of an engineering firm. The relationship that develops between the unlikely pair reveals the weaknesses in each character. Robyn's academic position is precarious because of budget cuts. Vic has to deal with industrial politics at his firm. The plot is a pastiche of the industrial novel genre, particularly referencing North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. This gentle ribbing acts to undermine the postmodern and feminist position of Robyn, who accepts the hand of fate despite ridiculing its role as the sole restorative capable (in the minds of authors of industrial novels) of elevating the female to a serious social position. Robyn acquires insight into the pragmatic ethos whose encroachment on university culture she resents and Vic learns to appreciate the symbolic or semiotic dimension of his environment and discovers a romanticism within himself that he had previously despised in his everyday life. The story is set in the fictional city of Rummidge, a grey and dismal fictionalised Birmingham. It is part of the same series as the novels Changing Places, Small World, and Thinks .... In Nice Work, Philip Swallow is still head of the English Department from Small World and thus is Robyn Penrose's boss. Morris Zapp makes a cameo appearance in the last part of Nice Work, to add a plot twist where he tries to arrange for Robyn to have a job interview at his American university, Euphoric State (a fictionalized UC Berkeley), in order to stop his ex-wife from being a candidate for an open faculty position. Robyn Penrose makes a cameo appearance in Thinks ....\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " job interview at his American university, Euphoric State (a fictionalized UC Berkeley), in order to stop his ex-wife from being a candidate for an open faculty position. Robyn Penrose makes a cameo appearance in Thinks ....\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Haunted Mask",
    "author": "R. L. Stine",
    "published_date": "1993-09",
    "synopsis": " Carly Beth Caldwell is an 11-year-old girl who is a target for pranks and practical jokes, some of which are played by Chuck Greene and Steve Boswell, two of her friends at Walnut Avenue Middle School. Before Halloween, she is humiliated after the two boys trick her into eating a sandwich that contains a living worm. Disgusted, she flees home and discovers her mother has made a plaster of Paris model of Carly Beth's head. On Halloween day, after frowning at the duck costume her mother gave to her, she goes to a party store and discovers a room filled with hideous masks. The store owner unwillingly sells her one of the masks and Carly Beth goes home. Later that day, after she takes the mold of her head that her mother made, she puts on the mask and goes in search of Chuck and Steve, determined to avenge herself against them. She starts acting differently: she chokes her best friend, Sabrina Mason, throws apples at a house and steals a bag of candy from a boy. While at Sabrina's house, Carly Beth is shocked to find she is physically unable to remove the mask and that the mask has, in fact, become her face. She returns to the store and finds the owner waiting for her. The store owner tells her that the mask is a real face and it can only be removed by a \"symbol of love\", but if it attaches itself to her or another person again, it will be forever. Carly Beth screams in horror, and the other masks begin to pursue her. While running away from the masks, she realizes that the mold her mother made is a symbol of love. Carly Beth finds the mold and uses it to deter the masks and remove the mask from her face. She returns home to her mother, tossing the mask away. Noah, Carly Beth's kid brother, later bursts in and asks her, \"How do I look in your mask?\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Carly Beth Caldwell is an 11-year-old girl who is a target for pranks and practical jokes, some of which are played by Chuck Greene and Steve Boswell, two of her friends at Walnut Avenue Middle School. Before Halloween, she is humiliated after the two boys trick her into eating a sandwich that contains a living worm. Disgusted, she flees home and discovers her mother has made a plaster of Paris model of Carly Beth's head. On Halloween day, after frowning at the duck costume her mother gave to her, she goes to a party store and discovers a room filled with hideous masks. The store owner unwillingly sells her one of the masks and Carly Beth goes home. Later that day, after she takes the mold of her head that her mother made, she puts on the mask and goes in search of Chuck and Steve, determined to avenge herself against them. She starts acting differently: she chokes her best friend, Sabrina Mason, throws apples at a house and steals a bag of candy from a boy. While at Sabrina's house, Carly Beth is shocked to find she is physically unable to remove the mask and that the mask has, in fact, become her face. She returns to the store and finds the owner waiting for her. The store owner tells her that the mask is a real face and it can only be removed by a \"symbol of love\", but if it attaches itself to her or another person again, it will be forever. Carly Beth screams in horror, and the other masks begin to pursue her. While running away from the masks, she realizes that the mold her mother made is a symbol of love. Carly Beth finds the mold and uses it to deter the masks and remove the mask from her face. She returns home to her mother, tossing the mask away. Noah, Carly Beth's kid brother, later bursts in and asks her, \"How do I look in your mask?\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " be forever. Carly Beth screams in horror, and the other masks begin to pursue her. While running away from the masks, she realizes that the mold her mother made is a symbol of love. Carly Beth finds the mold and uses it to deter the masks and remove the mask from her face. She returns home to her mother, tossing the mask away. Noah, Carly Beth's kid brother, later bursts in and asks her, \"How do I look in your mask?\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Little Engine That Could",
    "author": "Watty Piper",
    "published_date": "1930",
    "synopsis": " In the tale, a long train must be pulled over a high mountain. Larger engines, treated anthropomorphically, are asked to pull the train; for various reasons they refuse. The request is sent to a small engine, who agrees to try. The engine succeeds in pulling the train over the mountain while repeating its motto: \"I-think-I-can\". The story of the little engine has been told and retold many times. The underlying theme is the same — a stranded train is unable to find an engine willing to take it on over difficult terrain to its destination. Only the little blue engine is willing to try and, while repeating the mantra \"I think I can, I think I can,\" overcomes a seemingly impossible task. An early version goes as follows: A little railroad engine was employed about a station yard for such work as it was built for, pulling a few cars on and off the switches. One morning it was waiting for the next call when a long train of freight-cars asked a large engine in the roundhouse to take it over the hill. \"I can't; that is too much a pull for me,\" said the great engine built for hard work. Then the train asked another engine, and another, only to hear excuses and be refused. In desperation, the train asked the little switch engine to draw it up the grade and down on the other side. \"I think I can,\" puffed the little locomotive, and put itself in front of the great heavy train. As it went on the little engine kept bravely puffing faster and faster, \"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.\" As it neared the top of the grade, which had so discouraged the larger engines, it went more slowly. However, it still kept saying, \"I\u2014think\u2014I\u2014can, I\u2014think\u2014I\u2014can.\" It reached the top by drawing on bravery and then went on down the grade, congratulating itself by saying, \"I thought I could, I thought I could.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the tale, a long train must be pulled over a high mountain. Larger engines, treated anthropomorphically, are asked to pull the train; for various reasons they refuse. The request is sent to a small engine, who agrees to try. The engine succeeds in pulling the train over the mountain while repeating its motto: \"I-think-I-can\". The story of the little engine has been told and retold many times. The underlying theme is the same — a stranded train is unable to find an engine willing to take it on over difficult terrain to its destination. Only the little blue engine is willing to try and, while repeating the mantra \"I think I can, I think I can,\" overcomes a seemingly impossible task. An early version goes as follows: A little railroad engine was employed about a station yard for such work as it was built for, pulling a few cars on and off the switches. One morning it was waiting for the next call when a long train of freight-cars asked a large engine in the roundhouse to take it over the hill. \"I can't; that is too much a pull for me,\" said the great engine built for hard work. Then the train asked another engine, and another, only to hear excuses and be refused. In desperation, the train asked the little switch engine to draw it up the grade and down on the other side. \"I think I can,\" puffed the little locomotive, and put itself in front of the great heavy train. As it went on the little engine kept bravely puffing faster and faster, \"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.\" As it neared the top of the grade, which had so discouraged the larger engines, it went more slowly. However, it still kept saying, \"I\u2014think\u2014I\u2014can, I\u2014think\u2014I\u2014can.\" It reached the top by drawing on bravery and then went"
      },
      {
        "text": " put itself in front of the great heavy train. As it went on the little engine kept bravely puffing faster and faster, \"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.\" As it neared the top of the grade, which had so discouraged the larger engines, it went more slowly. However, it still kept saying, \"I\u2014think\u2014I\u2014can, I\u2014think\u2014I\u2014can.\" It reached the top by drawing on bravery and then went on down the grade, congratulating itself by saying, \"I thought I could, I thought I could.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Naked Lunch",
    "author": "William S. Burroughs",
    "published_date": "1959",
    "synopsis": " Naked Lunch is a non-linear narrative that is difficult to describe in terms of plot. The following is a summary of some of the events in the book that could be considered the most relevant. The book begins with the adventures of William Lee (aka Lee the Agent), who is Burroughs' alter ego in the novel. His journey starts in the US where he is fleeing the police, in search of his next fix. There are short chapters here describing the different characters he travels with and meets along the way. Eventually he gets to Mexico where he is assigned to Dr. Benway; for what, he is not told. Benway appears and he tells about his previous doings in Annexia as a \"Total Demoralizator\". The story then moves to a state called Freeland – a form of limbo – where we learn of Islam Inc. Here, some new characters are introduced, such as Clem, Carl, and Joselito. A short section then jumps in space and time to a marketplace. The Black Meat is sold here and compared to \"junk\", i.e. heroin. The action then moves back to the hospital where Benway is fully revealed as a cruel, manipulative sadist. Time and space again shifts the narrative to a location known as Interzone. Hassan, one of the notable characters of the book and \"a notorious liquefactionist\", is throwing a violent orgy. AJ crashes the party and wreaks havoc, decapitating people and imitating a pirate. Hassan is enraged and tells AJ never to return, calling him a \"factualist bitch\" – a term which is enlarged much later when the apparently \"clashing\" political factions within Interzone are described. These include the Liquefactionists, the Senders, the Factualists, and the Divisionists (who occupy \"a midway position\"). A short descriptive section tells us of Interzone University, where a professor and his students are ridiculed; the book moves on to an orgy that AJ himself throws. The book then shifts back to the market place and a description of the totalitarian government of Annexia. Characters including the County Clerk, Benway, Dr Berger, Clem and Jody are sketched through heavy dialogue and their own sub-stories. After the description of the four parties of Interzone, we are then told more stories about AJ. After briefly describing Interzone, the novel breaks down into sub-stories and heavily cut-up influenced passages. In a sudden return to what seems to be Lee's reality, two police officers, Hauser and O'Brien, catch up with Lee, who kills both of them. Lee then goes out to a street phone booth and calls the Narcotics Squad, saying he wants to speak to O'Brien. A Lieutenant Gonzales on the other end of the line claims there's no one in their records called O'Brien. When Lee asks for Hauser instead, the reply is identical; Lee hangs up, and goes on the run once again. The book then becomes increasingly disjointed and impressionistic, and finally simply stops.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Naked Lunch is a non-linear narrative that is difficult to describe in terms of plot. The following is a summary of some of the events in the book that could be considered the most relevant. The book begins with the adventures of William Lee (aka Lee the Agent), who is Burroughs' alter ego in the novel. His journey starts in the US where he is fleeing the police, in search of his next fix. There are short chapters here describing the different characters he travels with and meets along the way. Eventually he gets to Mexico where he is assigned to Dr. Benway; for what, he is not told. Benway appears and he tells about his previous doings in Annexia as a \"Total Demoralizator\". The story then moves to a state called Freeland – a form of limbo – where we learn of Islam Inc. Here, some new characters are introduced, such as Clem, Carl, and Joselito. A short section then jumps in space and time to a marketplace. The Black Meat is sold here and compared to \"junk\", i.e. heroin. The action then moves back to the hospital where Benway is fully revealed as a cruel, manipulative sadist. Time and space again shifts the narrative to a location known as Interzone. Hassan, one of the notable characters of the book and \"a notorious liquefactionist\", is throwing a violent orgy. AJ crashes the party and wreaks havoc, decapitating people and imitating a pirate. Hassan is enraged and tells AJ never to return, calling him a \"factualist bitch\" – a term which is enlarged much later when the apparently \"clashing\" political factions within Interzone are described. These include the Liquefactionists, the Senders, the Factualists, and the Divisionists (who occupy \"a midway position\"). A short descriptive section tells us of Interzone University, where a professor"
      },
      {
        "text": "aks havoc, decapitating people and imitating a pirate. Hassan is enraged and tells AJ never to return, calling him a \"factualist bitch\" – a term which is enlarged much later when the apparently \"clashing\" political factions within Interzone are described. These include the Liquefactionists, the Senders, the Factualists, and the Divisionists (who occupy \"a midway position\"). A short descriptive section tells us of Interzone University, where a professor and his students are ridiculed; the book moves on to an orgy that AJ himself throws. The book then shifts back to the market place and a description of the totalitarian government of Annexia. Characters including the County Clerk, Benway, Dr Berger, Clem and Jody are sketched through heavy dialogue and their own sub-stories. After the description of the four parties of Interzone, we are then told more stories about AJ. After briefly describing Interzone, the novel breaks down into sub-stories and heavily cut-up influenced passages. In a sudden return to what seems to be Lee's reality, two police officers, Hauser and O'Brien, catch up with Lee, who kills both of them. Lee then goes out to a street phone booth and calls the Narcotics Squad, saying he wants to speak to O'Brien. A Lieutenant Gonzales on the other end of the line claims there's no one in their records called O'Brien. When Lee asks for Hauser instead, the reply is identical; Lee hangs up, and goes on the run once again. The book then becomes increasingly disjointed and impressionistic, and finally simply stops.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Hauser instead, the reply is identical; Lee hangs up, and goes on the run once again. The book then becomes increasingly disjointed and impressionistic, and finally simply stops.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Pattern Recognition",
    "author": "William Gibson",
    "published_date": "2003-02-03",
    "synopsis": " Advertising consultant Cayce Pollard, who reacts to logos and advertising as if to an allergen, arrives in London in August 2002. She is working on a contract with the marketing firm Blue Ant to judge the effectiveness of a proposed corporate logo for a shoe company. During the presentation, graphic designer Dorotea Benedetti becomes hostile towards Cayce as she rejects the first proposal. After dinner with some Blue Ant employees, the company founder Hubertus Bigend offers Cayce a new contract: to uncover who is responsible for distributing a series of anonymous, artistic film clips via the internet. Cayce had been following the film clips and participating in an online discussion forum theorizing on the clips\u2019 meaning, setting, and other aspects. Wary of corrupting the artistic process and mystery of the clips, she reluctantly accepts. A friend from the discussion group, who uses the handle Parkaboy, privately emails her saying a friend of a friend has discovered an encrypted watermark on one clip. They concoct a fake persona, a young woman named Keiko, to seduce the Japanese man who knows the watermark code. Cayce, along with an American computer security specialist, Boone Chu, hired to assist her, travels to Tokyo to meet the man and retrieve the watermark code. Two men attempt to steal the code but Cayce escapes and travels back to London. Boone travels to Columbus, Ohio to investigate the company that he believes created the watermark. Meanwhile, Blue Ant hires Dorotea who reveals that she was previously employed by a Russian lawyer whose clients have been investigating Cayce. The clients wanted Cayce to refuse the job of tracking the film clips and it was Dorotea's responsibility to ensure this. Through a completely random encounter Cayce meets Voytek Biroshak and Ngemi; the former an artist using old ZX81 microcomputers as a sculpture medium, the latter a collector of rare technology (he mentions purchasing Stephen King's word processor, for example). Another collector, and sometime 'friend' of Ngemi's, Hobbs Baranov, is a retired cryptographer and mathematician with connections in the American National Security Agency. Cayce strikes a deal with him: she buys a Curta calculator for him and he finds the email address to which the watermark code was sent. Using this email address Cayce makes contact with Stella Volkova whose sister Nora is the maker of the film clips. Cayce flies to Moscow to meet Stella in person and watch Nora work. Nora is brain damaged from an assassination attempt and can only express herself through film. At her hotel, Cayce is intercepted and drugged by Dorotea and wakes up in a mysterious prison facility. Cayce escapes; exhausted, disoriented and lost, she nearly collapses as Parkaboy, who upon Cayce's request was flown to Moscow, retrieves her and brings her to the prison where the film is processed. There Hubertus, Stella and Nora's uncle Andrei, and the latter's security employees are waiting for her. Over dinner with Cayce, the Russians reveal that they have been spying on her since she posted to a discussion forum speculating that the clips may be controlled by the Russian Mafia. They had let her track the clips to expose any security breaches in their distribution network. The Russians surrender all the information they had collected on her father\u2019s disappearance and the book ends with Cayce coming to terms with his absence while in Paris with Parkaboy, whose real name is Peter Gilbert.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Advertising consultant Cayce Pollard, who reacts to logos and advertising as if to an allergen, arrives in London in August 2002. She is working on a contract with the marketing firm Blue Ant to judge the effectiveness of a proposed corporate logo for a shoe company. During the presentation, graphic designer Dorotea Benedetti becomes hostile towards Cayce as she rejects the first proposal. After dinner with some Blue Ant employees, the company founder Hubertus Bigend offers Cayce a new contract: to uncover who is responsible for distributing a series of anonymous, artistic film clips via the internet. Cayce had been following the film clips and participating in an online discussion forum theorizing on the clips\u2019 meaning, setting, and other aspects. Wary of corrupting the artistic process and mystery of the clips, she reluctantly accepts. A friend from the discussion group, who uses the handle Parkaboy, privately emails her saying a friend of a friend has discovered an encrypted watermark on one clip. They concoct a fake persona, a young woman named Keiko, to seduce the Japanese man who knows the watermark code. Cayce, along with an American computer security specialist, Boone Chu, hired to assist her, travels to Tokyo to meet the man and retrieve the watermark code. Two men attempt to steal the code but Cayce escapes and travels back to London. Boone travels to Columbus, Ohio to investigate the company that he believes created the watermark. Meanwhile, Blue Ant hires Dorotea who reveals that she was previously employed by a Russian lawyer whose clients have been investigating Cayce. The clients wanted Cayce to refuse the job of tracking the film clips and it was Dorotea's responsibility to ensure this. Through a completely random encounter Cayce meets Voytek Biroshak and Ngemi; the former an artist using old ZX81 microcomputers as a sculpture medium, the latter a collector of rare technology (he mentions purchasing Stephen King's word processor"
      },
      {
        "text": " Dorotea who reveals that she was previously employed by a Russian lawyer whose clients have been investigating Cayce. The clients wanted Cayce to refuse the job of tracking the film clips and it was Dorotea's responsibility to ensure this. Through a completely random encounter Cayce meets Voytek Biroshak and Ngemi; the former an artist using old ZX81 microcomputers as a sculpture medium, the latter a collector of rare technology (he mentions purchasing Stephen King's word processor, for example). Another collector, and sometime 'friend' of Ngemi's, Hobbs Baranov, is a retired cryptographer and mathematician with connections in the American National Security Agency. Cayce strikes a deal with him: she buys a Curta calculator for him and he finds the email address to which the watermark code was sent. Using this email address Cayce makes contact with Stella Volkova whose sister Nora is the maker of the film clips. Cayce flies to Moscow to meet Stella in person and watch Nora work. Nora is brain damaged from an assassination attempt and can only express herself through film. At her hotel, Cayce is intercepted and drugged by Dorotea and wakes up in a mysterious prison facility. Cayce escapes; exhausted, disoriented and lost, she nearly collapses as Parkaboy, who upon Cayce's request was flown to Moscow, retrieves her and brings her to the prison where the film is processed. There Hubertus, Stella and Nora's uncle Andrei, and the latter's security employees are waiting for her. Over dinner with Cayce, the Russians reveal that they have been spying on her since she posted to a discussion forum speculating that the clips may be controlled by the Russian Mafia. They had let her track the clips to expose any security breaches in their distribution network. The Russians surrender all the information they had collected on her father\u2019s disappearance and the book ends with Cayce coming to terms with his"
      },
      {
        "text": " Stella and Nora's uncle Andrei, and the latter's security employees are waiting for her. Over dinner with Cayce, the Russians reveal that they have been spying on her since she posted to a discussion forum speculating that the clips may be controlled by the Russian Mafia. They had let her track the clips to expose any security breaches in their distribution network. The Russians surrender all the information they had collected on her father\u2019s disappearance and the book ends with Cayce coming to terms with his absence while in Paris with Parkaboy, whose real name is Peter Gilbert.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Desperation",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Desperation is a story about several people who, while traveling along the desolated Highway 50 in Nevada, get abducted by Collie Entragian, the deputy of the fictional mining town of Desperation. Entragian uses various pretexts for the abductions, from an arrest for drug possession to \"rescuing\" a family from a nonexistent gunman. It becomes clear to the captives that Entragian has been possessed by an evil being named Tak, who has control over the surrounding desert wildlife and must change hosts to keep itself alive. They begin to fight for their freedom, sanity and lives before realizing that if they are ever to escape Desperation, they must trap Tak in the place from where he came.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Desperation is a story about several people who, while traveling along the desolated Highway 50 in Nevada, get abducted by Collie Entragian, the deputy of the fictional mining town of Desperation. Entragian uses various pretexts for the abductions, from an arrest for drug possession to \"rescuing\" a family from a nonexistent gunman. It becomes clear to the captives that Entragian has been possessed by an evil being named Tak, who has control over the surrounding desert wildlife and must change hosts to keep itself alive. They begin to fight for their freedom, sanity and lives before realizing that if they are ever to escape Desperation, they must trap Tak in the place from where he came.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Gift Upon the Shore",
    "author": "M. K. Wren",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " \"Set in the near future, A Gift traces the first generations to survive nuclear war and its aftermath. Writer Mary Hope and painter Rachel Morrow scratch out a meager existence on a farm (called Amarna) on the Oregon coast. They are determined to collect and preserve for a new civilization all the great books of western culture. Farther down the coast lives the Arkites, a fundamentalist group that denies all knowledge not found in the Bible. After a plague strikes the Arkites Mary agrees to take in a few survivors on the condition that she be allowed to educate the children as she sees fit\". From the back cover of the backinprint,com paperback edition: A Gift Upon the Shore is a lyrical, haunting story of two women, an artist and a writer, who survive pandemic, the collapse of civilization, and a deadly nuclear winter. Driven by rich and fully drawn characters, this is a powerful, compelling story of a friendship that endures the devastation and finds a purpose for survival: to preserve the books, the shards of a lost golden age, as a gift to an unknowable posterity. Yet this gift is threatened by the only other survivors the women encounter, the people of the Ark, who believe that except for the Bible, all books are evil. A Gift Upon the Shore is a story about remaining human under the worst of conditions, and the humanizing influence of books and art and love.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " \"Set in the near future, A Gift traces the first generations to survive nuclear war and its aftermath. Writer Mary Hope and painter Rachel Morrow scratch out a meager existence on a farm (called Amarna) on the Oregon coast. They are determined to collect and preserve for a new civilization all the great books of western culture. Farther down the coast lives the Arkites, a fundamentalist group that denies all knowledge not found in the Bible. After a plague strikes the Arkites Mary agrees to take in a few survivors on the condition that she be allowed to educate the children as she sees fit\". From the back cover of the backinprint,com paperback edition: A Gift Upon the Shore is a lyrical, haunting story of two women, an artist and a writer, who survive pandemic, the collapse of civilization, and a deadly nuclear winter. Driven by rich and fully drawn characters, this is a powerful, compelling story of a friendship that endures the devastation and finds a purpose for survival: to preserve the books, the shards of a lost golden age, as a gift to an unknowable posterity. Yet this gift is threatened by the only other survivors the women encounter, the people of the Ark, who believe that except for the Bible, all books are evil. A Gift Upon the Shore is a story about remaining human under the worst of conditions, and the humanizing influence of books and art and love.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Chrysalids",
    "author": "John Wyndham",
    "published_date": "1955",
    "synopsis": " A few thousand years in the future, post-apocalypse rural Labrador has become a warmer and more hospitable place than it is at present. The inhabitants of Labrador have vague historical recollections of the \"Old People\", a technologically advanced civilization which existed long ago and which they believe was destroyed when God sent \"Tribulation\" to the world to punish their forebears' sins. The society that has survived in Labrador is loosely reminiscent of the American frontier during the 18th century. The inhabitants practise a form of fundamentalist Christianity with post-apocalyptic prohibitions. They believe that in order to follow God's word and prevent another Tribulation, they need to preserve absolute normality among the surviving humans, plants and animals. Genetic invariance has been elevated to the highest religious principle, and humans with even minor mutations are considered \"Blasphemies\" and the handiwork of the Devil. Individuals not conforming to a strict physical norm are either killed or sterilized and banished to the Fringes, a lawless and untamed area still rife with animal and plant mutations. Arguments occur over the keeping of a tailless cat or the possession of over sized horses. These are deemed by the government to be legitimate breeds either pre-existing or achieved through conventional breeding. The government's position is considered both cynical and heretical by many of the orthodox frontier community. The inland rural settlement of Waknuk is a frontier farming community, populated with hardy and pious individuals intent on reclaiming land from the Fringes. Ten-year-old David Strorm, the son of Waknuk's zealous religious patriarch, has inexplicably vivid dreams of brightly lit cities and horseless carts that are at odds with his pre-industrial experience. Despite David's rigorous religious training, he befriends Sophie, a girl carefully concealing the fact that she has six toes on each foot. With the nonchalance of childhood David keeps her secret. The subsequent discovery of Sophie's mutation and her family's attempted flight causes David to wonder at the brutal persecution of human \"Blasphemies\" and the ritual culling of animal and plant \"Deviations\". David and a few others of his generation harbour their own invisible mutation: they have strong telepathic abilities. David begins to question why all who are different must be banished or killed. As they mature, David and his fellow telepaths realize that their unusual mutation would be considered a \"blasphemy\" and they carefully conceal their abilities. That their mutation cannot be directly detected allows their unusual abilities to remain undiscovered for a time. Eventually some of the group are exposed and David, his half-cousin Rosalind and younger sister Petra flee to the Fringes. They are quickly pursued not only by a group of villagers bent on doing them harm but also by Michael, a fellow telepath who covertly assists their escape. Through the extremely strong telepathic abilities of Petra they make contact with a more advanced society in distant \"Sealand\". David, Rosalind and Petra elude their would-be captors and are rescued by a Sealand expedition sent to discover the source of Petra's telepathic transmissions. Due to limited space and fuel on the Sealand craft, Michael and his partner Rachel remain behind, their true nature undiscovered. Though the nature of \"Tribulation\" is not explicitly stated, it is implied that it was a nuclear holocaust, both by the mutations, and by the stories of sailors who report blackened, glassy wastes to the south-west where the remains of faintly glowing cities can be seen (presumably the east coast of the US). Sailors venturing too close to these ruins experience symptoms consistent with radiation sickness. A woman from Sealand, a character with evident knowledge of the Old People's technology, mentions \"the power of gods in the hands of children\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A few thousand years in the future, post-apocalypse rural Labrador has become a warmer and more hospitable place than it is at present. The inhabitants of Labrador have vague historical recollections of the \"Old People\", a technologically advanced civilization which existed long ago and which they believe was destroyed when God sent \"Tribulation\" to the world to punish their forebears' sins. The society that has survived in Labrador is loosely reminiscent of the American frontier during the 18th century. The inhabitants practise a form of fundamentalist Christianity with post-apocalyptic prohibitions. They believe that in order to follow God's word and prevent another Tribulation, they need to preserve absolute normality among the surviving humans, plants and animals. Genetic invariance has been elevated to the highest religious principle, and humans with even minor mutations are considered \"Blasphemies\" and the handiwork of the Devil. Individuals not conforming to a strict physical norm are either killed or sterilized and banished to the Fringes, a lawless and untamed area still rife with animal and plant mutations. Arguments occur over the keeping of a tailless cat or the possession of over sized horses. These are deemed by the government to be legitimate breeds either pre-existing or achieved through conventional breeding. The government's position is considered both cynical and heretical by many of the orthodox frontier community. The inland rural settlement of Waknuk is a frontier farming community, populated with hardy and pious individuals intent on reclaiming land from the Fringes. Ten-year-old David Strorm, the son of Waknuk's zealous religious patriarch, has inexplicably vivid dreams of brightly lit cities and horseless carts that are at odds with his pre-industrial experience. Despite David's rigorous religious training, he befriends Sophie, a girl carefully concealing the fact that she has six toes on each foot. With the nonchalance of childhood David keeps her secret. The subsequent discovery of Sophie's mutation and"
      },
      {
        "text": "ing land from the Fringes. Ten-year-old David Strorm, the son of Waknuk's zealous religious patriarch, has inexplicably vivid dreams of brightly lit cities and horseless carts that are at odds with his pre-industrial experience. Despite David's rigorous religious training, he befriends Sophie, a girl carefully concealing the fact that she has six toes on each foot. With the nonchalance of childhood David keeps her secret. The subsequent discovery of Sophie's mutation and her family's attempted flight causes David to wonder at the brutal persecution of human \"Blasphemies\" and the ritual culling of animal and plant \"Deviations\". David and a few others of his generation harbour their own invisible mutation: they have strong telepathic abilities. David begins to question why all who are different must be banished or killed. As they mature, David and his fellow telepaths realize that their unusual mutation would be considered a \"blasphemy\" and they carefully conceal their abilities. That their mutation cannot be directly detected allows their unusual abilities to remain undiscovered for a time. Eventually some of the group are exposed and David, his half-cousin Rosalind and younger sister Petra flee to the Fringes. They are quickly pursued not only by a group of villagers bent on doing them harm but also by Michael, a fellow telepath who covertly assists their escape. Through the extremely strong telepathic abilities of Petra they make contact with a more advanced society in distant \"Sealand\". David, Rosalind and Petra elude their would-be captors and are rescued by a Sealand expedition sent to discover the source of Petra's telepathic transmissions. Due to limited space and fuel on the Sealand craft, Michael and his partner Rachel remain behind, their true nature undiscovered. Though the nature of \"Tribulation\" is not explicitly stated, it is implied that it was a nuclear holocaust, both by the mutations, and by the"
      },
      {
        "text": " distant \"Sealand\". David, Rosalind and Petra elude their would-be captors and are rescued by a Sealand expedition sent to discover the source of Petra's telepathic transmissions. Due to limited space and fuel on the Sealand craft, Michael and his partner Rachel remain behind, their true nature undiscovered. Though the nature of \"Tribulation\" is not explicitly stated, it is implied that it was a nuclear holocaust, both by the mutations, and by the stories of sailors who report blackened, glassy wastes to the south-west where the remains of faintly glowing cities can be seen (presumably the east coast of the US). Sailors venturing too close to these ruins experience symptoms consistent with radiation sickness. A woman from Sealand, a character with evident knowledge of the Old People's technology, mentions \"the power of gods in the hands of children\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Who Goes There?",
    "author": "John W. Campbell",
    "published_date": "1938-08",
    "synopsis": " A group of scientific researchers, isolated in Antarctica by the nearly-ended winter, discover an alien spaceship buried in the ice, where it crashed twenty million years before. They try to thaw the inside of the spacecraft with a thermite charge, but end up accidentally destroying it when the ship's magnesium hull is ignited by the charge. However, they do recover the alien pilot from the ancient ice, which the researchers believe was searching for heat when it was frozen. Thawing revives the alien, a being which can assume the shape, memories, and personality of any living thing it devours, while maintaining its original body mass for further reproduction. Unknown to them, the alien immediately kills and then imitates the crew's physicist, a man named Connant; with some 90 pounds of its matter left over it tries to become a sled dog. The crew discovers the dog-Thing and kills it in the process of transformation. Pathologist Blair, who had lobbied for thawing the Thing, goes insane with paranoia and guilt, vowing to kill everyone at the base in order to save mankind; he is isolated within a locked cabin at their outpost. Connant is also isolated as a precaution and a \"rule-of-four\" is initiated in which all personnel must remain under the close scrutiny of three others. The crew realizes they must isolate themselves and therefore disable their airplanes and vehicles, while pretending things are normal over their radio transmissions to prevent any rescue attempt from civilization. The researchers try to figure out who may have been replaced by the alien (simply referred to as the Thing), in order to destroy the imitations before they can escape and take over the world. The task is almost impossibly difficult when they realize that the Thing is also telepathic, able to read minds and project thoughts. A sled dog is conditioned by human blood injections to provide a human-immunity serum test, as in rabbits. The initial test of Connant is inconclusive as they realize that the test animal received both human and alien blood, meaning that either Doctor Copper or expedition Commander Garry is actually an alien. Assistant commander McReady takes over and deduces that all the other animals at the station, save the test dog, have already become imitations; all are killed by electrocution and their corpses burned. Everyone suspects each other by now but must stay together for safety, deciding who will take turns sleeping and speculating when the patient monsters will finally have the upper hand. Tensions mount and some men begin to go mad thinking they are already the last human or wondering if they would even know if they weren't human any longer. Ultimately, one of the crew members is murdered and accidentally revealed to be a Thing. McReady realizes that even small pieces of the creature will behave as independent, selfish organisms. He then uses this weakness to test which men have been \"converted\" by taking blood samples from everyone and dipping a heated wire in the vial of blood. Each man's blood is tested, one at a time, and the donor is immediately killed if his blood recoils from the wire; fourteen in all, including Connant and Garry, are revealed as aliens. They go to test the isolated Blair and on the way see the first albatross of the Antarctic Spring flying overhead; they shoot the bird to prevent a Thing from taking it over and flying to civilization. When they reach Blair's cabin they discover he is a Thing. They realize that it has been left to its own devices for a week, coming and going as it pleased, able to transform itself by squeezing under doors. With the creatures inside the base destroyed, McReady and two others enter the cabin to kill the Thing that was once Blair. McReady systematically forces it out into the snow and methodically destroys it with a blowtorch. Afterwards the trio discover that the Thing was dangerously close to finishing construction of an atomic-powered anti-gravity device that would have allowed it to escape to the outside world. \"No, by the grace of God, who evidently does hear very well, even down here, and the margin of half an hour, we keep our world, and the planets of the system too. Anti-gravity, you know, and atomic power. Because They came from another sun, a star beyond the stars. They came from a world with a bluer sun.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A group of scientific researchers, isolated in Antarctica by the nearly-ended winter, discover an alien spaceship buried in the ice, where it crashed twenty million years before. They try to thaw the inside of the spacecraft with a thermite charge, but end up accidentally destroying it when the ship's magnesium hull is ignited by the charge. However, they do recover the alien pilot from the ancient ice, which the researchers believe was searching for heat when it was frozen. Thawing revives the alien, a being which can assume the shape, memories, and personality of any living thing it devours, while maintaining its original body mass for further reproduction. Unknown to them, the alien immediately kills and then imitates the crew's physicist, a man named Connant; with some 90 pounds of its matter left over it tries to become a sled dog. The crew discovers the dog-Thing and kills it in the process of transformation. Pathologist Blair, who had lobbied for thawing the Thing, goes insane with paranoia and guilt, vowing to kill everyone at the base in order to save mankind; he is isolated within a locked cabin at their outpost. Connant is also isolated as a precaution and a \"rule-of-four\" is initiated in which all personnel must remain under the close scrutiny of three others. The crew realizes they must isolate themselves and therefore disable their airplanes and vehicles, while pretending things are normal over their radio transmissions to prevent any rescue attempt from civilization. The researchers try to figure out who may have been replaced by the alien (simply referred to as the Thing), in order to destroy the imitations before they can escape and take over the world. The task is almost impossibly difficult when they realize that the Thing is also telepathic, able to read minds and project thoughts. A sled dog is conditioned by human blood injections to provide a human-immunity serum test, as in rabbits. The initial test of Connant is inconclusive as they"
      },
      {
        "text": " researchers try to figure out who may have been replaced by the alien (simply referred to as the Thing), in order to destroy the imitations before they can escape and take over the world. The task is almost impossibly difficult when they realize that the Thing is also telepathic, able to read minds and project thoughts. A sled dog is conditioned by human blood injections to provide a human-immunity serum test, as in rabbits. The initial test of Connant is inconclusive as they realize that the test animal received both human and alien blood, meaning that either Doctor Copper or expedition Commander Garry is actually an alien. Assistant commander McReady takes over and deduces that all the other animals at the station, save the test dog, have already become imitations; all are killed by electrocution and their corpses burned. Everyone suspects each other by now but must stay together for safety, deciding who will take turns sleeping and speculating when the patient monsters will finally have the upper hand. Tensions mount and some men begin to go mad thinking they are already the last human or wondering if they would even know if they weren't human any longer. Ultimately, one of the crew members is murdered and accidentally revealed to be a Thing. McReady realizes that even small pieces of the creature will behave as independent, selfish organisms. He then uses this weakness to test which men have been \"converted\" by taking blood samples from everyone and dipping a heated wire in the vial of blood. Each man's blood is tested, one at a time, and the donor is immediately killed if his blood recoils from the wire; fourteen in all, including Connant and Garry, are revealed as aliens. They go to test the isolated Blair and on the way see the first albatross of the Antarctic Spring flying overhead; they shoot the bird to prevent a Thing from taking it over and flying to civilization. When they reach Blair's cabin they discover he is a Thing. They realize that"
      },
      {
        "text": " Each man's blood is tested, one at a time, and the donor is immediately killed if his blood recoils from the wire; fourteen in all, including Connant and Garry, are revealed as aliens. They go to test the isolated Blair and on the way see the first albatross of the Antarctic Spring flying overhead; they shoot the bird to prevent a Thing from taking it over and flying to civilization. When they reach Blair's cabin they discover he is a Thing. They realize that it has been left to its own devices for a week, coming and going as it pleased, able to transform itself by squeezing under doors. With the creatures inside the base destroyed, McReady and two others enter the cabin to kill the Thing that was once Blair. McReady systematically forces it out into the snow and methodically destroys it with a blowtorch. Afterwards the trio discover that the Thing was dangerously close to finishing construction of an atomic-powered anti-gravity device that would have allowed it to escape to the outside world. \"No, by the grace of God, who evidently does hear very well, even down here, and the margin of half an hour, we keep our world, and the planets of the system too. Anti-gravity, you know, and atomic power. Because They came from another sun, a star beyond the stars. They came from a world with a bluer sun.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Blood of Amber",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1986",
    "synopsis": " Merlin escapes from the crystal cave, and decides to gain leverage over Luke by rescuing his mother from the Keep of the Four Worlds. He spars with the sorcerer who now controls the keep, and who seems to know him. He escapes with the petrified Jasra, and returns to Amber where an unusual Trump summoning imprisons him in the Mad Hatter's tea party.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Merlin escapes from the crystal cave, and decides to gain leverage over Luke by rescuing his mother from the Keep of the Four Worlds. He spars with the sorcerer who now controls the keep, and who seems to know him. He escapes with the petrified Jasra, and returns to Amber where an unusual Trump summoning imprisons him in the Mad Hatter's tea party.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sign of Chaos",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1987-10",
    "synopsis": " Merlin realises that Wonderland, where he and Luke are trapped, is an LSD-induced hallucination made real by Luke's powers over shadow. As a Fire Angel (a vicious creature from Chaos) pursues them, he administers medicine to Luke. The Fire Angel is weakened in a fight with the Jabberwock and Merlin is able to finish it off with the vorpal sword. He leaves Luke to sober up. He seeks his stepbrother Mandor, who thinks that their half-brother Jurt may be trying to kill Merlin in order to take the throne of Chaos. Fiona contacts them, and they investigate a shadow-storm. Merlin and Mandor return to Amber, and then along with Jasra they wrest the Keep of the Four worlds from Jurt and the sorcerer, Mask. They learn that Jurt has (at least partially) turned himself into a living Trump, as Brand did, and that the sorcerer Mask is in fact Merlin's ex-girlfriend Julia.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Merlin realises that Wonderland, where he and Luke are trapped, is an LSD-induced hallucination made real by Luke's powers over shadow. As a Fire Angel (a vicious creature from Chaos) pursues them, he administers medicine to Luke. The Fire Angel is weakened in a fight with the Jabberwock and Merlin is able to finish it off with the vorpal sword. He leaves Luke to sober up. He seeks his stepbrother Mandor, who thinks that their half-brother Jurt may be trying to kill Merlin in order to take the throne of Chaos. Fiona contacts them, and they investigate a shadow-storm. Merlin and Mandor return to Amber, and then along with Jasra they wrest the Keep of the Four worlds from Jurt and the sorcerer, Mask. They learn that Jurt has (at least partially) turned himself into a living Trump, as Brand did, and that the sorcerer Mask is in fact Merlin's ex-girlfriend Julia.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Porno",
    "author": "Irvine Welsh",
    "published_date": "2002-08",
    "synopsis": " The novel is divided into three sections, each of which comprises chapters with different narrators. Unlike Trainspotting which had more narrational diversity, Porno is reduced to just five narrators: Sick Boy, Renton, Spud, Begbie and Nikki. Another difference from the format of Trainspotting is that each character has a defined chapter heading. Sick Boy's chapters all begin with \"Scam...\" and then a number in front of a \"#\". Renton's all begin with \"Whores of Amsterdam Pt...\" depending on what chapter it is. Spud's chapters are just narrative, Begbie's are in capitals, and Nikki's are quotes from the chapter, for example \"...A SIMON DAVID WILLIAMSON PRODUCTION...\". Each narrator is associated with a distinctive prose style. Renton, Sick Boy, and Nikki's chapters are written almost entirely in \"standard\" English while Begbie and Spud's chapters are in Scots. For example, in Chapter 25, Spud narrates, \"So ah'm downcast git intae the library, thinkin tae masel\" (\"So I'm downcast when I get into the library thinking to myself\"). He also repeats certain words when talking such as \"catboy\" or \"cat\", \"likes\" or \"likesay\", and \"ken?\". Begbie often swears a lot during his chapters. Sick Boy's returning grandiose nature is featured in imagined interviews with John Gibson of the Evening News and Alex McLeish. Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson leaves the London crack scene and returns to Leith when he comes into ownership of his aunt's pub. Convinced that the area is destined to become a social and cultural hub, Simon decides to focus his energy into making the pub a classier establishment. Nikki Fuller-Smith is a university student who works part-time in a massage parlour. Rab, a university acquaintance, introduces her to his friend Terry Lawson and his underground, home-made pornography operation. The scene interests Nikki. Danny 'Spud' Murphy has been regularly attending group sessions in an attempt to kick his drug habit. His relationship with his partner Alison is strained and Spud feels like he has become a burden on her. He considers his life insurance policy and contemplates suicide. Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, Mark Renton is co-owner of a successful nightclub. One night, a DJ from his hometown (Carl Ewart from Welsh's previous novel Glue) plays at one of his clubs and recognises him. When Sick Boy learns of Terry's operation, he offers the use of the upstairs bar to shoot some scenes. During their first meeting, the group begins planning to film a full length adult film. The first section concludes with \"OOTSIDE\", a chapter noting the release into society of Francis Begbie. While in prison, Begbie received packages of gay porn, sent from Sick Boy. Upon his release, he is determined to find the culprit. While accompanying an old friend on a debt collection errand he meets Kate and begins a relationship with her. When Alison begins working at Sick Boy's pub and Sick Boy deliberately attempts to sabotage her relationship with Spud, the friendship between Spud and Sick Boy is strained. During one thinly veiled argument, Spud reveals that he received his share of the money from Renton. He also unveils his recent ambition, to write a history of Leith. Begbie visits Sick Boy's pub. As the two converse, Sick Boy considers the duplicitous trait of opportunity and threat accompanying Begbie's release. Soon after, Terry, Rab and several other friends arrive and begin discussing their upcoming trip to Amsterdam, a bachelor celebration for Rab. Sick Boy is initially reluctant to attend but changes his mind after Carl, a DJ, mentions that Renton worked at a club there. Sick Boy's \"Porno\" shoot becomes a slow demolition of his so-called mates. Spud ends the friendship when Sick Boy tells him he was using him for the purpose of a scam, Nikki becomes disillusioned with him after realising that he really has no caring side and really is the nasty deceitful person that she tried desperately to ignore. Begbie grows tired of Sick Boy being 'smarmy', although Begbie becomes angry with everyone in due course. Spud tries to provoke Begbie into killing him so his wife Alison will profit from his life insurance (which, naturally, does not cover suicide). As Begbie is violently hitting Spud, Alison and the couple's young son burst in, stopping them. Spud is hurt, but his last narration implies that he can see things getting better. The biggest departure Sick Boy has from his life is Renton. After promising to meet Sick Boy in Cannes, Renton instead goes to Zurich to empty their joint account to start a new life in San Francisco. This deception is the biggest blow to Sick Boy as he obviously treasured their unconventional relationship and cannot believe he was duped by Renton again. Begbie later discovers Renton while visiting Leith and is hit by a car while running across the road to attack him. While Renton would have expected to feel pleased by this he is sad and comforts Begbie while he is taken to hospital. It is indicated that as Begbie slips into a coma he may be forgiving Renton After learning that Begbie has fallen into a coma, Renton flees the country with Nikki and Diane, as well as Sick Boy's \u00a360,000 made from a financial fraud. The book ends with Begbie suddenly coming awake as Sick Boy confesses everything in hope that Begbie will resume his merciless hunt for Renton.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is divided into three sections, each of which comprises chapters with different narrators. Unlike Trainspotting which had more narrational diversity, Porno is reduced to just five narrators: Sick Boy, Renton, Spud, Begbie and Nikki. Another difference from the format of Trainspotting is that each character has a defined chapter heading. Sick Boy's chapters all begin with \"Scam...\" and then a number in front of a \"#\". Renton's all begin with \"Whores of Amsterdam Pt...\" depending on what chapter it is. Spud's chapters are just narrative, Begbie's are in capitals, and Nikki's are quotes from the chapter, for example \"...A SIMON DAVID WILLIAMSON PRODUCTION...\". Each narrator is associated with a distinctive prose style. Renton, Sick Boy, and Nikki's chapters are written almost entirely in \"standard\" English while Begbie and Spud's chapters are in Scots. For example, in Chapter 25, Spud narrates, \"So ah'm downcast git intae the library, thinkin tae masel\" (\"So I'm downcast when I get into the library thinking to myself\"). He also repeats certain words when talking such as \"catboy\" or \"cat\", \"likes\" or \"likesay\", and \"ken?\". Begbie often swears a lot during his chapters. Sick Boy's returning grandiose nature is featured in imagined interviews with John Gibson of the Evening News and Alex McLeish. Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson leaves the London crack scene and returns to Leith when he comes into ownership of his aunt's pub. Convinced that the area is destined to become a social and cultural hub, Simon decides to focus his energy into making the pub a classier establishment. Nikki Fuller-Smith is a university student who works part-time in a massage parlour. Rab, a university acquaintance, introduces her to his"
      },
      {
        "text": " Gibson of the Evening News and Alex McLeish. Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson leaves the London crack scene and returns to Leith when he comes into ownership of his aunt's pub. Convinced that the area is destined to become a social and cultural hub, Simon decides to focus his energy into making the pub a classier establishment. Nikki Fuller-Smith is a university student who works part-time in a massage parlour. Rab, a university acquaintance, introduces her to his friend Terry Lawson and his underground, home-made pornography operation. The scene interests Nikki. Danny 'Spud' Murphy has been regularly attending group sessions in an attempt to kick his drug habit. His relationship with his partner Alison is strained and Spud feels like he has become a burden on her. He considers his life insurance policy and contemplates suicide. Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, Mark Renton is co-owner of a successful nightclub. One night, a DJ from his hometown (Carl Ewart from Welsh's previous novel Glue) plays at one of his clubs and recognises him. When Sick Boy learns of Terry's operation, he offers the use of the upstairs bar to shoot some scenes. During their first meeting, the group begins planning to film a full length adult film. The first section concludes with \"OOTSIDE\", a chapter noting the release into society of Francis Begbie. While in prison, Begbie received packages of gay porn, sent from Sick Boy. Upon his release, he is determined to find the culprit. While accompanying an old friend on a debt collection errand he meets Kate and begins a relationship with her. When Alison begins working at Sick Boy's pub and Sick Boy deliberately attempts to sabotage her relationship with Spud, the friendship between Spud and Sick Boy is strained. During one thinly veiled argument, Spud reveals that he received his share of the money from Renton. He also unveils his recent ambition, to write a history of Leith."
      },
      {
        "text": ", he is determined to find the culprit. While accompanying an old friend on a debt collection errand he meets Kate and begins a relationship with her. When Alison begins working at Sick Boy's pub and Sick Boy deliberately attempts to sabotage her relationship with Spud, the friendship between Spud and Sick Boy is strained. During one thinly veiled argument, Spud reveals that he received his share of the money from Renton. He also unveils his recent ambition, to write a history of Leith. Begbie visits Sick Boy's pub. As the two converse, Sick Boy considers the duplicitous trait of opportunity and threat accompanying Begbie's release. Soon after, Terry, Rab and several other friends arrive and begin discussing their upcoming trip to Amsterdam, a bachelor celebration for Rab. Sick Boy is initially reluctant to attend but changes his mind after Carl, a DJ, mentions that Renton worked at a club there. Sick Boy's \"Porno\" shoot becomes a slow demolition of his so-called mates. Spud ends the friendship when Sick Boy tells him he was using him for the purpose of a scam, Nikki becomes disillusioned with him after realising that he really has no caring side and really is the nasty deceitful person that she tried desperately to ignore. Begbie grows tired of Sick Boy being 'smarmy', although Begbie becomes angry with everyone in due course. Spud tries to provoke Begbie into killing him so his wife Alison will profit from his life insurance (which, naturally, does not cover suicide). As Begbie is violently hitting Spud, Alison and the couple's young son burst in, stopping them. Spud is hurt, but his last narration implies that he can see things getting better. The biggest departure Sick Boy has from his life is Renton. After promising to meet Sick Boy in Cannes, Renton instead goes to Zurich to empty their joint account to start a new life in San Francisco. This deception is the biggest blow to Sick"
      },
      {
        "text": " (which, naturally, does not cover suicide). As Begbie is violently hitting Spud, Alison and the couple's young son burst in, stopping them. Spud is hurt, but his last narration implies that he can see things getting better. The biggest departure Sick Boy has from his life is Renton. After promising to meet Sick Boy in Cannes, Renton instead goes to Zurich to empty their joint account to start a new life in San Francisco. This deception is the biggest blow to Sick Boy as he obviously treasured their unconventional relationship and cannot believe he was duped by Renton again. Begbie later discovers Renton while visiting Leith and is hit by a car while running across the road to attack him. While Renton would have expected to feel pleased by this he is sad and comforts Begbie while he is taken to hospital. It is indicated that as Begbie slips into a coma he may be forgiving Renton After learning that Begbie has fallen into a coma, Renton flees the country with Nikki and Diane, as well as Sick Boy's \u00a360,000 made from a financial fraud. The book ends with Begbie suddenly coming awake as Sick Boy confesses everything in hope that Begbie will resume his merciless hunt for Renton.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Prince of Chaos",
    "author": "Roger Zelazny",
    "published_date": "1991-11",
    "synopsis": " Merlin returns to his birthplace in the Courts of Chaos in order to solve the existential riddle in which he is involved. He realizes he is but a pawn in the hands of the powerful and cynical superpowers that rule the universe. Merlin becomes the new king of Chaos and is reunited with his father, Corwin. In the Courts of Chaos, Merlin uses all his magical powers in the final fight for survival. fr:Prince du Chaos pl:Ksi\u0105\u017c\u0119 Chaosu ro:Prin\u021bul Haosului ru:\u041f\u0440\u0438\u043d\u0446 \u0425\u0430\u043e\u0441\u0430\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Merlin returns to his birthplace in the Courts of Chaos in order to solve the existential riddle in which he is involved. He realizes he is but a pawn in the hands of the powerful and cynical superpowers that rule the universe. Merlin becomes the new king of Chaos and is reunited with his father, Corwin. In the Courts of Chaos, Merlin uses all his magical powers in the final fight for survival. fr:Prince du Chaos pl:Ksi\u0105\u017c\u0119 Chaosu ro:Prin\u021bul Haosului ru:\u041f\u0440\u0438\u043d\u0446 \u0425\u0430\u043e\u0441\u0430\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Love of the Last Tycoon",
    "author": "F. Scott Fitzgerald",
    "published_date": "1941",
    "synopsis": " According to Publishers Weekly's 1993 review of the edition reconstructed by Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J. Bruccoli, The Love of the Last Tycoon is \"[g]enerally considered a roman a clef\", inspired by the life of film producer Irving Thalberg, on whom protagonist Monroe Stahr is based. The story follows Stahr's rise to power in Hollywood, and his conflicts with rival Pat Brady, a character based on studio head Louis B. Mayer.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " According to Publishers Weekly's 1993 review of the edition reconstructed by Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J. Bruccoli, The Love of the Last Tycoon is \"[g]enerally considered a roman a clef\", inspired by the life of film producer Irving Thalberg, on whom protagonist Monroe Stahr is based. The story follows Stahr's rise to power in Hollywood, and his conflicts with rival Pat Brady, a character based on studio head Louis B. Mayer.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Save Me the Waltz",
    "author": "Zelda Fitzgerald",
    "published_date": "1932",
    "synopsis": " Save Me the Waltz, according to its author, derives its title from a Victor record catalog, and it suggests the romantic glitter of the life which F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald lived and which Scott\u2019s novels have so indelibly written into American literary and cultural history. Divided into four chapters, each of which is further divided into three parts, the novel is a chronological narrative of four periods in the lives of Alabama and David Knight, names that are but thin disguises for their real-life counterparts. Save Me The Waltz is the story of Alabama Beggs, a Southern girl who marries a twenty-two-year-old artist, David Knight. As with Zelda and Scott, Alabama met David when he was in the South during World War I. Knight becomes a successful painter, and the family moves to the Riviera where Knight begins an affair with an actress. Determined to be successful in her own right, Alabama decides to become a ballet dancer and devotes herself relentlessly to the cause, eventually achieving success. Alabama dances her solo debut in the opera Faust. Though outwardly successful, Alabama and David are miserable. At the novel's end they return to the South when Alabama's father dies. Though she says otherwise, her friends from the South go on about how happy and lucky Alabama is. Alabama searches for meaning in her father's death, but finds none. While cleaning up after their final party before returning to their unhappy lives, Alabama remarks \u2014 an interesting contrast to the closing lines of The Great Gatsby \u2014 that emptying the ashtrays is \"very expressive of myself. I just lump everything in a great heap which I have labeled 'the past,' and having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself, I am ready to continue.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Save Me the Waltz, according to its author, derives its title from a Victor record catalog, and it suggests the romantic glitter of the life which F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald lived and which Scott\u2019s novels have so indelibly written into American literary and cultural history. Divided into four chapters, each of which is further divided into three parts, the novel is a chronological narrative of four periods in the lives of Alabama and David Knight, names that are but thin disguises for their real-life counterparts. Save Me The Waltz is the story of Alabama Beggs, a Southern girl who marries a twenty-two-year-old artist, David Knight. As with Zelda and Scott, Alabama met David when he was in the South during World War I. Knight becomes a successful painter, and the family moves to the Riviera where Knight begins an affair with an actress. Determined to be successful in her own right, Alabama decides to become a ballet dancer and devotes herself relentlessly to the cause, eventually achieving success. Alabama dances her solo debut in the opera Faust. Though outwardly successful, Alabama and David are miserable. At the novel's end they return to the South when Alabama's father dies. Though she says otherwise, her friends from the South go on about how happy and lucky Alabama is. Alabama searches for meaning in her father's death, but finds none. While cleaning up after their final party before returning to their unhappy lives, Alabama remarks \u2014 an interesting contrast to the closing lines of The Great Gatsby \u2014 that emptying the ashtrays is \"very expressive of myself. I just lump everything in a great heap which I have labeled 'the past,' and having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself, I am ready to continue.\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " remarks \u2014 an interesting contrast to the closing lines of The Great Gatsby \u2014 that emptying the ashtrays is \"very expressive of myself. I just lump everything in a great heap which I have labeled 'the past,' and having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself, I am ready to continue.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "It",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1986-09-15",
    "synopsis": " In October 1957, an evil shape-shifting being, known only as \"It\", awakens in the town of Derry, Maine. Taking the form of a clown named Pennywise, It lives in the sewers under the town and comes up through places connected to the sewer system. It preys on children and takes the form which they are most scared of once they have been tempted to him with balloons. Because most children think a monster would eat them, It takes away one of their body parts and hides it in the sewers. When six year old George Denbrough's paper boat is swept into a storm drain, It tempts the boy by conjuring up a circus in the drain and murders him. The following June, a new resident arrives in Derry. Ben Hanscom is overweight, has no friends and is bullied by Henry Bowers, Belch Huggins and Victor Criss. On the last day of school he hides from his tormentors in the Barrens, where he meets and befriends Eddie Kaspbrak, whose mother has convinced him he has asthma, and Bill Denbrough, George's elder brother who has a terrible stutter. The three boys later befriend Richie Tozier, a smart alec; Stan Uris, who is an outcast because he's Jewish; Beverly Marsh, who is beaten by her father; and Mike Hanlon, who is an outcast because he's black. The children establish their circle as the \"Losers Club\". Gradually, they realize they have all encountered It in various forms (Ben as a mummy, Eddie as a leper, Bill as George, Richie as a werewolf, Stan as Its victims, Beverly as voices from the sink and Mike as a flesh eating bird) and link it with a series of child murders which began with George. Ben has read a book about American Indians using smokeholes to have visions, so he makes a makeshift smokehole out of the Loser's clubhouse. By use of this, the Losers discover how It came to Derry. Bill then discovers an American Indian ritual - The Ritual Of Ch\u00fcd - which he hopes will kill It. A few days later, Eddie is hospitalized after being attacked by a gang of bullies led by Henry Bowers. Beverly stumbles across the Bowers gang in the landfill. While hiding, Beverly witnesses one of the bullies, Patrick Hockstetter, being attacked and kidnapped by It. When the Losers return to the landfill, they discover a message from It written in Patrick's blood, warning them to stop. After Eddie is released from the hospital, Ben makes two slugs out of silver, believing that It can be killed by silver bullets. The Losers return to the House on Neibolt street, where Eddie was attacked by the leper and Richie and Bill were chased away by Richie's werewolf, and It plays games with the interior to try to scare them. It attacks the Losers in werewolf form, primarily focusing on Bill. The Losers, however, are able to chase It away with Beverly's slingshot. It manipulates the mind of Henry Bowers, making him kill his father and providing him with a switchblade to kill the Losers with. Henry recruits the two other bullies, Victor Criss and Reginald \"Belch\" Huggins, and follow the Losers into the sewers. Under Derry, It attacks the Bowers gang in the form of Frankenstein's monster, killing Victor and Belch. Henry escapes and is arrested by the police, having been framed by It for the child murders. The Losers confront It. Bill enters the monster's mind through the Ritual of Ch\u00fcd and comes to a darkness beyond the universe, where It's true form resides: a mass of floating orange light (or \"deadlights\"). Bill defeats It, forcing the monster to retreat. The Losers decide that It has been destroyed. In order to keep their bond, before escaping from the sewers, Beverly has sexual intercourse with each of the boys. The seven make a blood oath to return to Derry if It ever resurfaces. In July 1984, three youths throw a gay man, Adrian Mellon, off a bridge. They are arrested for murder when Mellon's mutilated corpse is found, though they didn't mutilate him. One of the murderers claims that he saw a clown kill him underneath the bridge. When a string of violent child-killings hits Derry, Mike\u2014now the town\u2019s librarian and the only one of the Losers\u2019 Club to remain in Derry\u2014calls up his six friends and reminds them of their childhood promise to return. Bill is now a successful horror writer living in England with his wife, Audra. Beverly is a fashion designer in Chicago, who has married an abusive man named Tom and is regularly beaten. Eddie has moved to New York City, where he runs a limousine rental company. Richie lives in Los Angeles and is a professional disc jockey using his talent for voice imitation. Ben is now thin and a successful architect, living in Nebraska. Stan is a wealthy accountant residing in Atlanta, Georgia. An account of each person's reception to the phone call is given. Stan kills himself out of fear of It (although he could have been killed by It, as It later says he has killed one of the gang and because Stan died in the bath). Tom refuses to let Beverly go and tries to beat her, so she lashes out at him before fleeing to her friends. The other's receptions are fairly uneventful. Five of them return to Derry with only the dimmest awareness of why they are doing so, having almost completely blocked out virtually every aspect of their childhood. The remaining Losers meet for lunch, where Mike enlightens them to the apparent nature of It: It awakens once roughly every twenty-seven years for twelve-to-sixteen months at a time, feeding on children before going into slumber again. The group decides to kill It once and for all. Later, many of them witness manifestations of It. Three other people are also converging on the town: Audra, who wants to help Bill; Tom, who plans to kill Beverly; and Henry Bowers, who has escaped a mental institution with help from It. Mike and Henry have a violent confrontation, but Henry escapes. Henry, with the guidance of It, is transported to a hotel to attack Eddie. In the ensuing fight, Henry is killed. It appears to Tom and orders him to capture Audra. Tom brings Audra to It's lair. Upon seeing It's true form (the dead lights), Audra becomes catatonic and Tom drops dead in shock. Audra is left alive in It's lair. Bill, Ben, Beverly, Richie, and Eddie, find out that Mike is near death and realize that they are being forced into another confrontation with It. They descend into the sewers. While in the sewers, the remaining Losers use their strength as a group to \"send energy\" to a hospitalized Mike, who fights off a nurse that is under the control of It. It appears as George but Bill overcomes the illusion. They reach It's lair and Bill and Richie engage It in the Ritual of Ch\u00fcd again. Richie rescues Bill from the deadlights and manages to injure It. Eddie saves them, but is killed in the process. Beverly stays with Eddie and the traumatized Audra, who is found alive. Bill, Richie, and Ben follow It when It retreats due to injury. They discover that It has laid eggs, and they are about to hatch, which are all destroyed by Ben while Bill and Richie hunt down It. Bill crushes It's heart between his hands, finally killing It. At the same time, the worst storm in Maine's history sweeps through Derry and the downtown area collapses. Mike concludes that Derry is finally dying. The novel ends with the Losers returning home and forgetting about It, Derry and each other. As a sign that It really is dead, Mike\u2019s memory of the events of that summer also begin to fade, much to his relief. Ben and Beverly leave together. Bill is the last to leave Derry. Before he goes, he takes Audra, still catatonic, for a ride on his bicycle Silver, hoping that they can beat her catatonia. They succeed, and the story ends.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In October 1957, an evil shape-shifting being, known only as \"It\", awakens in the town of Derry, Maine. Taking the form of a clown named Pennywise, It lives in the sewers under the town and comes up through places connected to the sewer system. It preys on children and takes the form which they are most scared of once they have been tempted to him with balloons. Because most children think a monster would eat them, It takes away one of their body parts and hides it in the sewers. When six year old George Denbrough's paper boat is swept into a storm drain, It tempts the boy by conjuring up a circus in the drain and murders him. The following June, a new resident arrives in Derry. Ben Hanscom is overweight, has no friends and is bullied by Henry Bowers, Belch Huggins and Victor Criss. On the last day of school he hides from his tormentors in the Barrens, where he meets and befriends Eddie Kaspbrak, whose mother has convinced him he has asthma, and Bill Denbrough, George's elder brother who has a terrible stutter. The three boys later befriend Richie Tozier, a smart alec; Stan Uris, who is an outcast because he's Jewish; Beverly Marsh, who is beaten by her father; and Mike Hanlon, who is an outcast because he's black. The children establish their circle as the \"Losers Club\". Gradually, they realize they have all encountered It in various forms (Ben as a mummy, Eddie as a leper, Bill as George, Richie as a werewolf, Stan as Its victims, Beverly as voices from the sink and Mike as a flesh eating bird) and link it with a series of child murders which began with George. Ben has read a book about American Indians using smokeholes to have visions, so he makes a makeshift smokehole out of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " as the \"Losers Club\". Gradually, they realize they have all encountered It in various forms (Ben as a mummy, Eddie as a leper, Bill as George, Richie as a werewolf, Stan as Its victims, Beverly as voices from the sink and Mike as a flesh eating bird) and link it with a series of child murders which began with George. Ben has read a book about American Indians using smokeholes to have visions, so he makes a makeshift smokehole out of the Loser's clubhouse. By use of this, the Losers discover how It came to Derry. Bill then discovers an American Indian ritual - The Ritual Of Ch\u00fcd - which he hopes will kill It. A few days later, Eddie is hospitalized after being attacked by a gang of bullies led by Henry Bowers. Beverly stumbles across the Bowers gang in the landfill. While hiding, Beverly witnesses one of the bullies, Patrick Hockstetter, being attacked and kidnapped by It. When the Losers return to the landfill, they discover a message from It written in Patrick's blood, warning them to stop. After Eddie is released from the hospital, Ben makes two slugs out of silver, believing that It can be killed by silver bullets. The Losers return to the House on Neibolt street, where Eddie was attacked by the leper and Richie and Bill were chased away by Richie's werewolf, and It plays games with the interior to try to scare them. It attacks the Losers in werewolf form, primarily focusing on Bill. The Losers, however, are able to chase It away with Beverly's slingshot. It manipulates the mind of Henry Bowers, making him kill his father and providing him with a switchblade to kill the Losers with. Henry recruits the two other bullies, Victor Criss and Reginald \"Belch\" Huggins, and follow the Losers into the sewers. Under Derry, It"
      },
      {
        "text": " It attacks the Losers in werewolf form, primarily focusing on Bill. The Losers, however, are able to chase It away with Beverly's slingshot. It manipulates the mind of Henry Bowers, making him kill his father and providing him with a switchblade to kill the Losers with. Henry recruits the two other bullies, Victor Criss and Reginald \"Belch\" Huggins, and follow the Losers into the sewers. Under Derry, It attacks the Bowers gang in the form of Frankenstein's monster, killing Victor and Belch. Henry escapes and is arrested by the police, having been framed by It for the child murders. The Losers confront It. Bill enters the monster's mind through the Ritual of Ch\u00fcd and comes to a darkness beyond the universe, where It's true form resides: a mass of floating orange light (or \"deadlights\"). Bill defeats It, forcing the monster to retreat. The Losers decide that It has been destroyed. In order to keep their bond, before escaping from the sewers, Beverly has sexual intercourse with each of the boys. The seven make a blood oath to return to Derry if It ever resurfaces. In July 1984, three youths throw a gay man, Adrian Mellon, off a bridge. They are arrested for murder when Mellon's mutilated corpse is found, though they didn't mutilate him. One of the murderers claims that he saw a clown kill him underneath the bridge. When a string of violent child-killings hits Derry, Mike\u2014now the town\u2019s librarian and the only one of the Losers\u2019 Club to remain in Derry\u2014calls up his six friends and reminds them of their childhood promise to return. Bill is now a successful horror writer living in England with his wife, Audra. Beverly is a fashion designer in Chicago, who has married an abusive man named Tom and is regularly beaten. Eddie has moved"
      },
      {
        "text": " the bridge. When a string of violent child-killings hits Derry, Mike\u2014now the town\u2019s librarian and the only one of the Losers\u2019 Club to remain in Derry\u2014calls up his six friends and reminds them of their childhood promise to return. Bill is now a successful horror writer living in England with his wife, Audra. Beverly is a fashion designer in Chicago, who has married an abusive man named Tom and is regularly beaten. Eddie has moved to New York City, where he runs a limousine rental company. Richie lives in Los Angeles and is a professional disc jockey using his talent for voice imitation. Ben is now thin and a successful architect, living in Nebraska. Stan is a wealthy accountant residing in Atlanta, Georgia. An account of each person's reception to the phone call is given. Stan kills himself out of fear of It (although he could have been killed by It, as It later says he has killed one of the gang and because Stan died in the bath). Tom refuses to let Beverly go and tries to beat her, so she lashes out at him before fleeing to her friends. The other's receptions are fairly uneventful. Five of them return to Derry with only the dimmest awareness of why they are doing so, having almost completely blocked out virtually every aspect of their childhood. The remaining Losers meet for lunch, where Mike enlightens them to the apparent nature of It: It awakens once roughly every twenty-seven years for twelve-to-sixteen months at a time, feeding on children before going into slumber again. The group decides to kill It once and for all. Later, many of them witness manifestations of It. Three other people are also converging on the town: Audra, who wants to help Bill; Tom, who plans to kill Beverly; and Henry Bowers, who has escaped a mental institution with help from It. Mike and Henry have a violent confrontation"
      },
      {
        "text": " roughly every twenty-seven years for twelve-to-sixteen months at a time, feeding on children before going into slumber again. The group decides to kill It once and for all. Later, many of them witness manifestations of It. Three other people are also converging on the town: Audra, who wants to help Bill; Tom, who plans to kill Beverly; and Henry Bowers, who has escaped a mental institution with help from It. Mike and Henry have a violent confrontation, but Henry escapes. Henry, with the guidance of It, is transported to a hotel to attack Eddie. In the ensuing fight, Henry is killed. It appears to Tom and orders him to capture Audra. Tom brings Audra to It's lair. Upon seeing It's true form (the dead lights), Audra becomes catatonic and Tom drops dead in shock. Audra is left alive in It's lair. Bill, Ben, Beverly, Richie, and Eddie, find out that Mike is near death and realize that they are being forced into another confrontation with It. They descend into the sewers. While in the sewers, the remaining Losers use their strength as a group to \"send energy\" to a hospitalized Mike, who fights off a nurse that is under the control of It. It appears as George but Bill overcomes the illusion. They reach It's lair and Bill and Richie engage It in the Ritual of Ch\u00fcd again. Richie rescues Bill from the deadlights and manages to injure It. Eddie saves them, but is killed in the process. Beverly stays with Eddie and the traumatized Audra, who is found alive. Bill, Richie, and Ben follow It when It retreats due to injury. They discover that It has laid eggs, and they are about to hatch, which are all destroyed by Ben while Bill and Richie hunt down It. Bill crushes It's heart between his hands, finally killing It. At the same time, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " deadlights and manages to injure It. Eddie saves them, but is killed in the process. Beverly stays with Eddie and the traumatized Audra, who is found alive. Bill, Richie, and Ben follow It when It retreats due to injury. They discover that It has laid eggs, and they are about to hatch, which are all destroyed by Ben while Bill and Richie hunt down It. Bill crushes It's heart between his hands, finally killing It. At the same time, the worst storm in Maine's history sweeps through Derry and the downtown area collapses. Mike concludes that Derry is finally dying. The novel ends with the Losers returning home and forgetting about It, Derry and each other. As a sign that It really is dead, Mike\u2019s memory of the events of that summer also begin to fade, much to his relief. Ben and Beverly leave together. Bill is the last to leave Derry. Before he goes, he takes Audra, still catatonic, for a ride on his bicycle Silver, hoping that they can beat her catatonia. They succeed, and the story ends.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "2001",
    "synopsis": " The Amazing Maurice is a sentient cat who leads his 'Educated Rodents', a group of sentient rats, as they go from town to town posing as a plague so that their accomplice, a teenage human piper named Keith, can \"lure them all away\" from the town, after which they share the money the piper receives. The rats had gained intelligence from eating the waste from the rubbish tip behind Unseen University; Maurice gained it after eating one of the rats, before he was capable of realizing that they were no longer normal rats. The group is not completely happy; the leader of the rats, Hamnpork, despises Maurice, while Dangerous Beans (they chose names based on the labels they could read before they could comprehend), a near-blind albino rat who guides them like a guru, wants to start a rat civilization - both he and Peaches, the group's scribe, find their trickery unethical. The rats are seeking the ideal of humans and rats living together, following the example of their sacred book Mr Bunnsy Has an Adventure. They agree to do one last job, in the town of Bad Blintz, in \u00dcberwald. The rats set about planning their offensive, led by Darktan, the head of the Trap Disposal Squad, while Maurice and Keith look around. They are surprised to find that while the buildings are expensively built, the people have little food, and rats are hunted far more viciously than anywhere else. Maurice and Keith meet Malicia, the mayor's daughter, who is a story teller. She soon discovers that Maurice can talk, and meets Sardines, a tap-dancing rat who is the most daring of the group. While talking to her, Maurice reveals that the rat catchers have been passing off bootlaces as rat tails. As they set off to look in the rat-catchers' house, the rats discover many rat tunnels, which are empty, save for traps and poison. The two groups meet in the rat catchers' den, where they have been storing the food the rats are thought to have eaten, and find cages where the rats are being bred for coursing. The rat catchers return, lock Keith and Malicia away, and take Hamnpork to be coursed. Maurice hides and feels a voice trying to enter his mind. The rats feel it too, and it returns many of them to being simple rats - to the dismay of Dangerous Beans. Darktan leads a group to rescue Hamnpork, while Peaches and Dangerous Beans free Keith and Malicia. Malicia lets slip that Mr Bunnsy Has an Adventure is a fictional children's book and Dangerous Beans and Peaches leave in despair. Darktan's group is successful in rescuing a severely injured Hamnpork, though Darktan finds himself in a trap. After a near-death experience, he escapes. Hamnpork dies, Darktan assumes leadership and sets out after Dangerous Beans and Peaches. Maurice gives in to his conscience and is also seeking them, but the voice drowns out his thoughts. Malicia and Keith, after gaining freedom, trick the rat catchers into revealing their secret. The rat catchers have created a powerful rat king named Spider \u2013 eight rats, tied together at the tail, who make a single mind with power over others. Spider is interested in Dangerous Beans; other rats he can control, but Dangerous Beans has a mind similar to his: one that thinks for others. Dangerous Beans refuses Spider's offer of jointly ruling, as Spider wants to wage war on humans. Spider tries to destroy Dangerous Beans' mind; this is felt by his army of rats and Maurice. Dangerous Beans is able to resist, but Maurice reverts to being a cat, and the cat instinct tells him to pounce... Darktan's army, who have been fighting Spider's rats, find Peaches in Spider's lair, which is on fire. Maurice emerges from the fire carrying the body of Dangerous Beans. When he is safely out, he collapses and dies. In ghostly form, he sees the Death of Rats coming for Dangerous Beans. He attacks the Death of Rats to save Dangerous Beans, but is picked up by Death, with whom he strikes a deal, exchanging two of his remaining lives so that Death will let Dangerous Beans live. Though Spider is defeated, there is still a problem remaining: the rat piper is due to arrive the next day. The rats set about rounding up the 'keekees' (non-intelligent rats). When the piper arrives, Keith challenges him to a duel. His pipe was broken by the rat catchers, so Keith uses a borrowed trombone in the duel and makes Sardines dance. When the piper starts to play his magical pipe, the rats avoid being charmed by keeping their ears stuffed and the keekees can't respond, being locked in their cages. The piper calls Keith aside, and tells him the tricks of the trade: the pipe contains a hidden slide position for a trick note that drives rats away, the stories about him are made up so people will be scared into paying. Keith and the piper then lead the keekees out of town \u2013 Keith wants to maintain the story of the piper and the rats want a convenient way to set the keekees free. Once that has been done, the rats emerge, offering to tell the humans where to find the stolen food and money, in return for living peacefully with them. Keith stays on as the town's piper and the town becomes a tourist attraction where everybody remarks on how 'clean' the place is and marvels at the 'well trained rats'. Maurice moves on, being unwilling to settle in one place at a time, and looks to find another human to 'coach'.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Amazing Maurice is a sentient cat who leads his 'Educated Rodents', a group of sentient rats, as they go from town to town posing as a plague so that their accomplice, a teenage human piper named Keith, can \"lure them all away\" from the town, after which they share the money the piper receives. The rats had gained intelligence from eating the waste from the rubbish tip behind Unseen University; Maurice gained it after eating one of the rats, before he was capable of realizing that they were no longer normal rats. The group is not completely happy; the leader of the rats, Hamnpork, despises Maurice, while Dangerous Beans (they chose names based on the labels they could read before they could comprehend), a near-blind albino rat who guides them like a guru, wants to start a rat civilization - both he and Peaches, the group's scribe, find their trickery unethical. The rats are seeking the ideal of humans and rats living together, following the example of their sacred book Mr Bunnsy Has an Adventure. They agree to do one last job, in the town of Bad Blintz, in \u00dcberwald. The rats set about planning their offensive, led by Darktan, the head of the Trap Disposal Squad, while Maurice and Keith look around. They are surprised to find that while the buildings are expensively built, the people have little food, and rats are hunted far more viciously than anywhere else. Maurice and Keith meet Malicia, the mayor's daughter, who is a story teller. She soon discovers that Maurice can talk, and meets Sardines, a tap-dancing rat who is the most daring of the group. While talking to her, Maurice reveals that the rat catchers have been passing off bootlaces as rat tails. As they set off to look in the rat-catchers' house, the rats discover many rat tunnels, which are empty, save"
      },
      {
        "text": " anywhere else. Maurice and Keith meet Malicia, the mayor's daughter, who is a story teller. She soon discovers that Maurice can talk, and meets Sardines, a tap-dancing rat who is the most daring of the group. While talking to her, Maurice reveals that the rat catchers have been passing off bootlaces as rat tails. As they set off to look in the rat-catchers' house, the rats discover many rat tunnels, which are empty, save for traps and poison. The two groups meet in the rat catchers' den, where they have been storing the food the rats are thought to have eaten, and find cages where the rats are being bred for coursing. The rat catchers return, lock Keith and Malicia away, and take Hamnpork to be coursed. Maurice hides and feels a voice trying to enter his mind. The rats feel it too, and it returns many of them to being simple rats - to the dismay of Dangerous Beans. Darktan leads a group to rescue Hamnpork, while Peaches and Dangerous Beans free Keith and Malicia. Malicia lets slip that Mr Bunnsy Has an Adventure is a fictional children's book and Dangerous Beans and Peaches leave in despair. Darktan's group is successful in rescuing a severely injured Hamnpork, though Darktan finds himself in a trap. After a near-death experience, he escapes. Hamnpork dies, Darktan assumes leadership and sets out after Dangerous Beans and Peaches. Maurice gives in to his conscience and is also seeking them, but the voice drowns out his thoughts. Malicia and Keith, after gaining freedom, trick the rat catchers into revealing their secret. The rat catchers have created a powerful rat king named Spider \u2013 eight rats, tied together at the tail, who make a single mind with power over others. Spider is interested in Dangerous Beans; other rats he can control, but Dangerous Beans has a mind similar"
      },
      {
        "text": " out after Dangerous Beans and Peaches. Maurice gives in to his conscience and is also seeking them, but the voice drowns out his thoughts. Malicia and Keith, after gaining freedom, trick the rat catchers into revealing their secret. The rat catchers have created a powerful rat king named Spider \u2013 eight rats, tied together at the tail, who make a single mind with power over others. Spider is interested in Dangerous Beans; other rats he can control, but Dangerous Beans has a mind similar to his: one that thinks for others. Dangerous Beans refuses Spider's offer of jointly ruling, as Spider wants to wage war on humans. Spider tries to destroy Dangerous Beans' mind; this is felt by his army of rats and Maurice. Dangerous Beans is able to resist, but Maurice reverts to being a cat, and the cat instinct tells him to pounce... Darktan's army, who have been fighting Spider's rats, find Peaches in Spider's lair, which is on fire. Maurice emerges from the fire carrying the body of Dangerous Beans. When he is safely out, he collapses and dies. In ghostly form, he sees the Death of Rats coming for Dangerous Beans. He attacks the Death of Rats to save Dangerous Beans, but is picked up by Death, with whom he strikes a deal, exchanging two of his remaining lives so that Death will let Dangerous Beans live. Though Spider is defeated, there is still a problem remaining: the rat piper is due to arrive the next day. The rats set about rounding up the 'keekees' (non-intelligent rats). When the piper arrives, Keith challenges him to a duel. His pipe was broken by the rat catchers, so Keith uses a borrowed trombone in the duel and makes Sardines dance. When the piper starts to play his magical pipe, the rats avoid being charmed by keeping their ears stuffed and the keekees can't respond, being locked in their cages. The p"
      },
      {
        "text": " next day. The rats set about rounding up the 'keekees' (non-intelligent rats). When the piper arrives, Keith challenges him to a duel. His pipe was broken by the rat catchers, so Keith uses a borrowed trombone in the duel and makes Sardines dance. When the piper starts to play his magical pipe, the rats avoid being charmed by keeping their ears stuffed and the keekees can't respond, being locked in their cages. The piper calls Keith aside, and tells him the tricks of the trade: the pipe contains a hidden slide position for a trick note that drives rats away, the stories about him are made up so people will be scared into paying. Keith and the piper then lead the keekees out of town \u2013 Keith wants to maintain the story of the piper and the rats want a convenient way to set the keekees free. Once that has been done, the rats emerge, offering to tell the humans where to find the stolen food and money, in return for living peacefully with them. Keith stays on as the town's piper and the town becomes a tourist attraction where everybody remarks on how 'clean' the place is and marvels at the 'well trained rats'. Maurice moves on, being unwilling to settle in one place at a time, and looks to find another human to 'coach'.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Permutation City",
    "author": "Greg Egan",
    "published_date": "1994",
    "synopsis": " The plot of Permutation City follows the lives of several people in a near future reality where the Earth is ravaged by the effects of climate change, the economy and culture are largely globalised (the most commonly used denomination of currency is the ECU, the precursor to the euro in use at the time the book was written), and civilisation has accumulated vast amounts of cloud computing power and memory which is distributed internationally and is traded in a public market called the QIPS Exchange (QIPS from MIPS, where the Q is Quadrillions). Most importantly, from the perspective of the story, this great computing capacity is used to construct physiological models of patients for medical purposes, reducing the need for actual medical experimentation and enabling personalised medical treatments, but also enabling the creation of Copies, whole brain emulations of \"scanned\" humans which are detailed enough to allow for subjective conscious experience on the part of the emulation. Although not yet in widespread usage, scanning has become safe enough and common enough to allow for a few wealthy or dedicated humans to afford to create backups of themselves, generally with the intention of surviving the biological deaths of their bodies. A minority of Copies exist, though they are largely perceived (with some justification) as being a collection of the thanatophobic eccentric rich. Copies do not yet possess human rights under the laws of any nation or international body, although some of the wealthiest Copies, those still involved with their own estates or businesses, finance a powerful lobby and public relations effort to advance the Copy rights cause. To this effect, the legal status of Copies is viewed as somewhat farcical even by sceptics of the cause, and many expect full Copy rights to be granted in Europe within two decades. The plotline travels back and forth between the years of 2045 and 2050, and deals with events surrounding the life of a Sydney man named Paul Durham, who is obsessed, yet frustrated, with experimenting on Copies of himself (because he believes Copies of himself should be more willing to undergo experimentation). In the latter time frame, Durham is suspected to be a con artist of some type, who travels around the world visiting rich Copies and offering them prime real estate in some sort of advanced supercomputer which, according to his pitch, will never be shut down and will be powerful enough to support any number of Copies in VR environments of their own designing at no slowdown whatsoever, no matter how preposterously opulent those environments might be. He pitches this concept to the Copies, predicated upon the prediction that the Copy rights movement might run into resistance due to devastating climate change. As the world undergoes increasingly extreme and erratic weather, a variety of international bodies, especially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which has been particularly hard-hit by tropical storms, have proposed projects to use their vast computing resources to attempt to intervene, utilising chaotic effects to their advantage, in global weather patterns with such precision as to minimise weather-related destruction while also minimising the scale of the efforts necessary to do so. Durham predicts this will clash with the spread of Copy rights, as both Copies and weather simulations will demand increasing QIPS Exchange shares in the future. All that each Copy must do is to make the laughably small investment of two million ecus in order to bring Durham's fantasy computer into existence. As part of his plot, Durham hires Maria Deluca, an Autoverse enthusiast. She has recently become famous within the small community of Autoverse hobbyists for developing a variety of A. lamberti which evolved the capacity to metabolise an Autoverse toxin. Durham contacts her and offers to pay her thirty thousand dollars to design an Autoverse program which, given a large enough computer, could potentially evolve into a planet bearing Maria's own strain of evolvable Autoverse life. She desperately wants the money to have her dying mother scanned into a Copy. Since no such computer to fully evolve Autoverse life exists, Durham has to try to convince Maria that he is a wealthy Autoverse enthusiast interested in her evolvability results and looking for a proof of concept for a much larger system. He also clandestinely commissions a famous virtual reality architect, Malcolm Carter, to build a full scale, high resolution VR city, Permutation City, the largest VR environment ever conceived, complete with reactive crowds and a staggering variety of full scale, high resolution scenic views. As computer fraud investigators begin to close in on Durham's scheme, Maria is pressured by police into covertly gathering evidence in order to incriminate Durham, while continuing to work for him. She learns more about Durham himself, including his time spent in psychiatric care and his callous experimentation on his own Copies, as well as his assiduously reticent Copy backers. Meanwhile, two Slum-dwelling Solipsist Nation Copies, Peer and Kate, explore their post-human existences as well as their strained but loving relationship, until Kate's long-time friend Malcolm Carter offers to secretly hack them both, along with any moderately-sized software packages they wish, into Permutation City's machine code, guaranteeing them a place in the city were it ever to run, but permanently debarring them from manipulating the city's implementation for fear of being deleted as extraneous cruft by automated software. At the end of Part One, Durham reveals the full extent of his plan to Maria: after taking his earlier self-experiments to their logical conclusion, he became convinced of something he came to call the Dust Theory, which holds that there is no difference, even in principle, between physics and mathematics, and that all mathematically possible structures exist, among them our physics and therefore our spacetime. These structures are being computed, in the manner of a program on a universal Turing machine, using something Durham refers to as \"dust\" which is a generic, vague term describing anything which can be interpreted to represent information; and therefore, that the only thing that matters is that a mathematical structure be self-consistent and, as such, computable. As long as a mathematical structure is possibly computable, then it is being computed on some dust, though it does not matter what dust actually is, only that there be a possible interpretation where such a computation is taking place somehow. The dust theory implies, as such, that all possible universes exist and are equally real, emerging spontaneously from their own mathematical self-consistency. Due to the computability of consciousness and the function of consciousness as a matrix for interpretation, Copies hold the unique position of being the only conscious beings which themselves are not being computed by self-consistent mathematical rules (existing, of course, in virtual realities held together by heuristics merely for the sake of their experience). As such, in principle it should be the case that when a Copy is terminated and deleted, its own conscious experience will continue due to the fact that there is no precedent within the Copy's interpretive matrix by which the Copy should suddenly cease. Indeed, Durham himself claims to have been through such a process several times, each time finding himself back in \"the real world\" after deletion, with there existing some plausible explanation as to why he believed himself to have been a Copy who was deleted, though with each successive experience of Copying himself and being deleted, he gradually became increasingly confident that the experiences were actually the result of his consciousness finding a logical interpretation in which it had not actually ceased, rather than each successive experience being ultimately true and real. Because of this, Durham is staging a massive, momentary buyout of the world's processing power to simulate a minute or two of a \"Garden of Eden\" configuration of an infinitely-expanding, massively complex cellular automaton universe (similar to what is known as a \"Spacefiller\" configuration in Conway's Game of Life) based on a fictional, Turing-complete cellular automaton known as TVC (\"Turing/Von Neumann/Chiang\", named after its conceiver and designer), in which each iteration of the expansion serves to \"manufacture\" an extra layer of blocks of a computing configuration. Ultimately, if a Copy were to be run in such a self-consistent universe, and were to observe, via a series of pre-defined experiments, the cellular nature of its own processing implementation, then there would be precedent for that self-consistent \"TVC universe\" to persist in its own terms even after its termination and deletion in the universe it was designed and launched in. His and his investors' Copies would therefore persist indefinitely in the simulation, and since the \"space\" of the TVC universe would be made of self-reproducing cellular automaton computer processors, the simulation would not possess a finite number of states and the passengers would not, in principle, run out of interesting things to get up to. Implanting himself and his investors in this TVC universe, Durham believed he could prove or falsify his hypothesis that his experience of repeated termination and continuation was the result of his own interpreting himself into universes in which he might plausibly have believed he had had such an experience, as opposed to merely having inhabited such a universe all along. If he were to implant his Copy into the TVC universe, have the copy run a number of experiments to anchor itself in that universe, and then terminate it, only to find himself still in the TVC universe (indeed, the purpose of growing the TVC universe from a Garden of Eden configuration was to prove to his Copy that such a TVC universe as it found itself to inhabit must have been launched from a non-TVC universe, as opposed to merely having always existed and evolved towards this the current state in which he did not know whether it had) rather than back in \"the real world\" again, then he would be vindicated; if not, then his hypothesis would be falsified and he might consider himself crazy (his last several experiences of termination and subsequent continuation involved him finding himself in the position of having been recently cured of psychosis). The Autoverse planetary seed program designed by Maria was to be included in the TVC universe package for his investors to explore once life had evolved there after it had been run on a significantly large segment of the TVC universe. Though Maria believes Durham to be obviously rationalising his experiences while psychotic, she agrees to Durham's request to have herself scanned and inserted into the TVC launch as an on-hand Autoverse expert. The six-hundred thousand dollar fee will allow her mother to be scanned, and she is certain that her copy will never wake because she demands to be present at the launch to verify that her copy is not run during the launch period, and is subsequently deleted. After a successful launch, simulation, termination, and deletion of the TVC universe, Durham and Maria have uncomfortable sex in awkward celebration, and later that night, while Maria is asleep, Durham disembowels himself with a kitchen knife in his bathtub, believing his role as the springboard for his deleted TVC Copy to discover its true identity to be fulfilled. Maria wakes in Permutation City seven thousand years of subjective time after the launch, furious at Durham for being awoken and refusing to believe that the launch was successful. Durham eventually persuades her, however, by showing her the complexity of the Autoverse planet she had designed, Planet Lambert, which had then been running on a suitably large chunk of the TVC universe for several billion subjective years. Intelligent life in the form of complex swarms of insect-like eusocial beings had evolved on Lambert from Maria's original Autobacterium hydrophilus, and the citizens of Permutation City were on the verge of making contact with the creatures. However, a town hall vote restricted the Autoverse scholars from making contact until the creatures had independently hypothesized the existence of a creator. Meanwhile, Permutation City had flourished in the TVC universe, and the original inhabitants of a few hundred had exploded to a population of tens of thousands, with the descendants of the various founders sharing their founders' ever growing chunks of the TVC universe, with Permutation City acting as the central locus for interaction between populations located in different contiguous blocks of the universe. Durham, however, confides in Maria that he does not believe the insectoid creatures will ever seriously consider the concept of a creator and intends to use Maria's slice of the universe's processing power (as a founder of the world she was given de facto control of a continuously-growing zone of the processor network as well) to make forbidden first contact with the life of Planet Lambert. He believes this is necessary because he has seemingly lost the ability to pause the Autoverse simulation or slow it down past a constant multiple of the size of the processor network it occupies. Durham is worried that the rules of their simulated universe are breaking down. What they discover together is that the growing and intellectually voracious population of Planet Lambert has exceeded the combined intelligence of the inhabitants of the remainder of the TVC universe, and that Lambert in its Autoverse has ceased to be defined as the TVC universe's simulation. Rather, the Lambertians have been considering a new set of hypotheses, interpretations of the evidence present to them, which do not require their universe to have been created in Maria's original Garden of Eden configuration. As such, the TVC universe's processor networks, which had previously done the work of simulating the Autoverse for the inhabitants of Permutation City, were now progressively being redefined in ways which prevented them from interfering with the existence of the Autoverse in ways unprecedented under these newly self-consistent interpretations of its terms of existence \u2013 the TVC universe was being overwritten into a system existing solely as a byproduct of the self-perpetuation of the Autoverse, and its inhabitants on Planet Lambert had interpreted it to be so. Durham, Maria, and some other companions quickly launch an emergency expedition into the Autoverse to attempt to convince the Lambertians of the validity of the creator hypothesis and its methodological perferentiality over their own newly formulated theory. Unfortunately, the Lambertians reject their presentation of the creator theory of the Autoverse on the grounds that a system such as the TVC universe, capable of simulating their own universe, would have to be infinitely sized or infinitely expanding, which they consider to be unparsimonious. Shortly after failing to convince Planet Lambert of the creator theory, the Lambertians inform them of the discovery a set of field equations with a stable solution for each of their universe's elements; furthermore, initial studies on the equations show that they predict the spontaneous instantiation of matter at high temperatures, enabling their world to come into existence without requiring the Garden of Eden Maria had initially designed. To the alarm of its citizens, Permutation City and eventually the entire TVC processor-network begins to collapse into nothingness, interpreted out of existence by the Lambertians whose reality no longer requires a maker, there being a 'better' solution that has superseded its possibility. As Permutation City becomes corrupted and the TVC universe begins to suffer spontaneous systemic failures, Durham and Maria inform the inhabitants of the various founders' computing blocks of the situation while preparing a new TVC Garden of Eden based on the original to launch in their universe's final moments, though Durham initially declines to board it himself, saying he has become exhausted with the number of times he was awoken in new realities and would be unable to cope with experiencing it again. Ultimately, however, Maria convinces him to change his mind (literally reconfiguring it to desire escape) and together they leave, pledging to discover the underlying rules that governed the Autoverse's takeover of Permutation City.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The plot of Permutation City follows the lives of several people in a near future reality where the Earth is ravaged by the effects of climate change, the economy and culture are largely globalised (the most commonly used denomination of currency is the ECU, the precursor to the euro in use at the time the book was written), and civilisation has accumulated vast amounts of cloud computing power and memory which is distributed internationally and is traded in a public market called the QIPS Exchange (QIPS from MIPS, where the Q is Quadrillions). Most importantly, from the perspective of the story, this great computing capacity is used to construct physiological models of patients for medical purposes, reducing the need for actual medical experimentation and enabling personalised medical treatments, but also enabling the creation of Copies, whole brain emulations of \"scanned\" humans which are detailed enough to allow for subjective conscious experience on the part of the emulation. Although not yet in widespread usage, scanning has become safe enough and common enough to allow for a few wealthy or dedicated humans to afford to create backups of themselves, generally with the intention of surviving the biological deaths of their bodies. A minority of Copies exist, though they are largely perceived (with some justification) as being a collection of the thanatophobic eccentric rich. Copies do not yet possess human rights under the laws of any nation or international body, although some of the wealthiest Copies, those still involved with their own estates or businesses, finance a powerful lobby and public relations effort to advance the Copy rights cause. To this effect, the legal status of Copies is viewed as somewhat farcical even by sceptics of the cause, and many expect full Copy rights to be granted in Europe within two decades. The plotline travels back and forth between the years of 2045 and 2050, and deals with events surrounding the life of a Sydney man named Paul Durham, who is obsessed, yet frustrated, with experimenting on Copies of himself (because he believes Cop"
      },
      {
        "text": " public relations effort to advance the Copy rights cause. To this effect, the legal status of Copies is viewed as somewhat farcical even by sceptics of the cause, and many expect full Copy rights to be granted in Europe within two decades. The plotline travels back and forth between the years of 2045 and 2050, and deals with events surrounding the life of a Sydney man named Paul Durham, who is obsessed, yet frustrated, with experimenting on Copies of himself (because he believes Copies of himself should be more willing to undergo experimentation). In the latter time frame, Durham is suspected to be a con artist of some type, who travels around the world visiting rich Copies and offering them prime real estate in some sort of advanced supercomputer which, according to his pitch, will never be shut down and will be powerful enough to support any number of Copies in VR environments of their own designing at no slowdown whatsoever, no matter how preposterously opulent those environments might be. He pitches this concept to the Copies, predicated upon the prediction that the Copy rights movement might run into resistance due to devastating climate change. As the world undergoes increasingly extreme and erratic weather, a variety of international bodies, especially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which has been particularly hard-hit by tropical storms, have proposed projects to use their vast computing resources to attempt to intervene, utilising chaotic effects to their advantage, in global weather patterns with such precision as to minimise weather-related destruction while also minimising the scale of the efforts necessary to do so. Durham predicts this will clash with the spread of Copy rights, as both Copies and weather simulations will demand increasing QIPS Exchange shares in the future. All that each Copy must do is to make the laughably small investment of two million ecus in order to bring Durham's fantasy computer into existence. As part of his plot, Durham hires Maria Deluca, an Autoverse enthusiast. She has recently become famous within"
      },
      {
        "text": "related destruction while also minimising the scale of the efforts necessary to do so. Durham predicts this will clash with the spread of Copy rights, as both Copies and weather simulations will demand increasing QIPS Exchange shares in the future. All that each Copy must do is to make the laughably small investment of two million ecus in order to bring Durham's fantasy computer into existence. As part of his plot, Durham hires Maria Deluca, an Autoverse enthusiast. She has recently become famous within the small community of Autoverse hobbyists for developing a variety of A. lamberti which evolved the capacity to metabolise an Autoverse toxin. Durham contacts her and offers to pay her thirty thousand dollars to design an Autoverse program which, given a large enough computer, could potentially evolve into a planet bearing Maria's own strain of evolvable Autoverse life. She desperately wants the money to have her dying mother scanned into a Copy. Since no such computer to fully evolve Autoverse life exists, Durham has to try to convince Maria that he is a wealthy Autoverse enthusiast interested in her evolvability results and looking for a proof of concept for a much larger system. He also clandestinely commissions a famous virtual reality architect, Malcolm Carter, to build a full scale, high resolution VR city, Permutation City, the largest VR environment ever conceived, complete with reactive crowds and a staggering variety of full scale, high resolution scenic views. As computer fraud investigators begin to close in on Durham's scheme, Maria is pressured by police into covertly gathering evidence in order to incriminate Durham, while continuing to work for him. She learns more about Durham himself, including his time spent in psychiatric care and his callous experimentation on his own Copies, as well as his assiduously reticent Copy backers. Meanwhile, two Slum-dwelling Solipsist Nation Copies, Peer and Kate, explore their post-human existences as well"
      },
      {
        "text": " investigators begin to close in on Durham's scheme, Maria is pressured by police into covertly gathering evidence in order to incriminate Durham, while continuing to work for him. She learns more about Durham himself, including his time spent in psychiatric care and his callous experimentation on his own Copies, as well as his assiduously reticent Copy backers. Meanwhile, two Slum-dwelling Solipsist Nation Copies, Peer and Kate, explore their post-human existences as well as their strained but loving relationship, until Kate's long-time friend Malcolm Carter offers to secretly hack them both, along with any moderately-sized software packages they wish, into Permutation City's machine code, guaranteeing them a place in the city were it ever to run, but permanently debarring them from manipulating the city's implementation for fear of being deleted as extraneous cruft by automated software. At the end of Part One, Durham reveals the full extent of his plan to Maria: after taking his earlier self-experiments to their logical conclusion, he became convinced of something he came to call the Dust Theory, which holds that there is no difference, even in principle, between physics and mathematics, and that all mathematically possible structures exist, among them our physics and therefore our spacetime. These structures are being computed, in the manner of a program on a universal Turing machine, using something Durham refers to as \"dust\" which is a generic, vague term describing anything which can be interpreted to represent information; and therefore, that the only thing that matters is that a mathematical structure be self-consistent and, as such, computable. As long as a mathematical structure is possibly computable, then it is being computed on some dust, though it does not matter what dust actually is, only that there be a possible interpretation where such a computation is taking place somehow. The dust theory implies, as such, that all possible universes exist and are equally real, emerging spontaneously from"
      },
      {
        "text": " be interpreted to represent information; and therefore, that the only thing that matters is that a mathematical structure be self-consistent and, as such, computable. As long as a mathematical structure is possibly computable, then it is being computed on some dust, though it does not matter what dust actually is, only that there be a possible interpretation where such a computation is taking place somehow. The dust theory implies, as such, that all possible universes exist and are equally real, emerging spontaneously from their own mathematical self-consistency. Due to the computability of consciousness and the function of consciousness as a matrix for interpretation, Copies hold the unique position of being the only conscious beings which themselves are not being computed by self-consistent mathematical rules (existing, of course, in virtual realities held together by heuristics merely for the sake of their experience). As such, in principle it should be the case that when a Copy is terminated and deleted, its own conscious experience will continue due to the fact that there is no precedent within the Copy's interpretive matrix by which the Copy should suddenly cease. Indeed, Durham himself claims to have been through such a process several times, each time finding himself back in \"the real world\" after deletion, with there existing some plausible explanation as to why he believed himself to have been a Copy who was deleted, though with each successive experience of Copying himself and being deleted, he gradually became increasingly confident that the experiences were actually the result of his consciousness finding a logical interpretation in which it had not actually ceased, rather than each successive experience being ultimately true and real. Because of this, Durham is staging a massive, momentary buyout of the world's processing power to simulate a minute or two of a \"Garden of Eden\" configuration of an infinitely-expanding, massively complex cellular automaton universe (similar to what is known as a \"Spacefiller\" configuration in Conway's Game of Life) based on a fictional, Turing"
      },
      {
        "text": " his consciousness finding a logical interpretation in which it had not actually ceased, rather than each successive experience being ultimately true and real. Because of this, Durham is staging a massive, momentary buyout of the world's processing power to simulate a minute or two of a \"Garden of Eden\" configuration of an infinitely-expanding, massively complex cellular automaton universe (similar to what is known as a \"Spacefiller\" configuration in Conway's Game of Life) based on a fictional, Turing-complete cellular automaton known as TVC (\"Turing/Von Neumann/Chiang\", named after its conceiver and designer), in which each iteration of the expansion serves to \"manufacture\" an extra layer of blocks of a computing configuration. Ultimately, if a Copy were to be run in such a self-consistent universe, and were to observe, via a series of pre-defined experiments, the cellular nature of its own processing implementation, then there would be precedent for that self-consistent \"TVC universe\" to persist in its own terms even after its termination and deletion in the universe it was designed and launched in. His and his investors' Copies would therefore persist indefinitely in the simulation, and since the \"space\" of the TVC universe would be made of self-reproducing cellular automaton computer processors, the simulation would not possess a finite number of states and the passengers would not, in principle, run out of interesting things to get up to. Implanting himself and his investors in this TVC universe, Durham believed he could prove or falsify his hypothesis that his experience of repeated termination and continuation was the result of his own interpreting himself into universes in which he might plausibly have believed he had had such an experience, as opposed to merely having inhabited such a universe all along. If he were to implant his Copy into the TVC universe, have the copy run a number of experiments to anchor itself in that universe, and then terminate it"
      },
      {
        "text": " Implanting himself and his investors in this TVC universe, Durham believed he could prove or falsify his hypothesis that his experience of repeated termination and continuation was the result of his own interpreting himself into universes in which he might plausibly have believed he had had such an experience, as opposed to merely having inhabited such a universe all along. If he were to implant his Copy into the TVC universe, have the copy run a number of experiments to anchor itself in that universe, and then terminate it, only to find himself still in the TVC universe (indeed, the purpose of growing the TVC universe from a Garden of Eden configuration was to prove to his Copy that such a TVC universe as it found itself to inhabit must have been launched from a non-TVC universe, as opposed to merely having always existed and evolved towards this the current state in which he did not know whether it had) rather than back in \"the real world\" again, then he would be vindicated; if not, then his hypothesis would be falsified and he might consider himself crazy (his last several experiences of termination and subsequent continuation involved him finding himself in the position of having been recently cured of psychosis). The Autoverse planetary seed program designed by Maria was to be included in the TVC universe package for his investors to explore once life had evolved there after it had been run on a significantly large segment of the TVC universe. Though Maria believes Durham to be obviously rationalising his experiences while psychotic, she agrees to Durham's request to have herself scanned and inserted into the TVC launch as an on-hand Autoverse expert. The six-hundred thousand dollar fee will allow her mother to be scanned, and she is certain that her copy will never wake because she demands to be present at the launch to verify that her copy is not run during the launch period, and is subsequently deleted. After a successful launch, simulation, termination, and deletion of the TVC universe, Durham"
      },
      {
        "text": " psychotic, she agrees to Durham's request to have herself scanned and inserted into the TVC launch as an on-hand Autoverse expert. The six-hundred thousand dollar fee will allow her mother to be scanned, and she is certain that her copy will never wake because she demands to be present at the launch to verify that her copy is not run during the launch period, and is subsequently deleted. After a successful launch, simulation, termination, and deletion of the TVC universe, Durham and Maria have uncomfortable sex in awkward celebration, and later that night, while Maria is asleep, Durham disembowels himself with a kitchen knife in his bathtub, believing his role as the springboard for his deleted TVC Copy to discover its true identity to be fulfilled. Maria wakes in Permutation City seven thousand years of subjective time after the launch, furious at Durham for being awoken and refusing to believe that the launch was successful. Durham eventually persuades her, however, by showing her the complexity of the Autoverse planet she had designed, Planet Lambert, which had then been running on a suitably large chunk of the TVC universe for several billion subjective years. Intelligent life in the form of complex swarms of insect-like eusocial beings had evolved on Lambert from Maria's original Autobacterium hydrophilus, and the citizens of Permutation City were on the verge of making contact with the creatures. However, a town hall vote restricted the Autoverse scholars from making contact until the creatures had independently hypothesized the existence of a creator. Meanwhile, Permutation City had flourished in the TVC universe, and the original inhabitants of a few hundred had exploded to a population of tens of thousands, with the descendants of the various founders sharing their founders' ever growing chunks of the TVC universe, with Permutation City acting as the central locus for interaction between populations located in different contiguous blocks of the universe. Durham, however, confides in Maria that"
      },
      {
        "text": " from making contact until the creatures had independently hypothesized the existence of a creator. Meanwhile, Permutation City had flourished in the TVC universe, and the original inhabitants of a few hundred had exploded to a population of tens of thousands, with the descendants of the various founders sharing their founders' ever growing chunks of the TVC universe, with Permutation City acting as the central locus for interaction between populations located in different contiguous blocks of the universe. Durham, however, confides in Maria that he does not believe the insectoid creatures will ever seriously consider the concept of a creator and intends to use Maria's slice of the universe's processing power (as a founder of the world she was given de facto control of a continuously-growing zone of the processor network as well) to make forbidden first contact with the life of Planet Lambert. He believes this is necessary because he has seemingly lost the ability to pause the Autoverse simulation or slow it down past a constant multiple of the size of the processor network it occupies. Durham is worried that the rules of their simulated universe are breaking down. What they discover together is that the growing and intellectually voracious population of Planet Lambert has exceeded the combined intelligence of the inhabitants of the remainder of the TVC universe, and that Lambert in its Autoverse has ceased to be defined as the TVC universe's simulation. Rather, the Lambertians have been considering a new set of hypotheses, interpretations of the evidence present to them, which do not require their universe to have been created in Maria's original Garden of Eden configuration. As such, the TVC universe's processor networks, which had previously done the work of simulating the Autoverse for the inhabitants of Permutation City, were now progressively being redefined in ways which prevented them from interfering with the existence of the Autoverse in ways unprecedented under these newly self-consistent interpretations of its terms of existence \u2013 the TVC universe was being overwritten into a system existing solely as"
      },
      {
        "text": " their universe to have been created in Maria's original Garden of Eden configuration. As such, the TVC universe's processor networks, which had previously done the work of simulating the Autoverse for the inhabitants of Permutation City, were now progressively being redefined in ways which prevented them from interfering with the existence of the Autoverse in ways unprecedented under these newly self-consistent interpretations of its terms of existence \u2013 the TVC universe was being overwritten into a system existing solely as a byproduct of the self-perpetuation of the Autoverse, and its inhabitants on Planet Lambert had interpreted it to be so. Durham, Maria, and some other companions quickly launch an emergency expedition into the Autoverse to attempt to convince the Lambertians of the validity of the creator hypothesis and its methodological perferentiality over their own newly formulated theory. Unfortunately, the Lambertians reject their presentation of the creator theory of the Autoverse on the grounds that a system such as the TVC universe, capable of simulating their own universe, would have to be infinitely sized or infinitely expanding, which they consider to be unparsimonious. Shortly after failing to convince Planet Lambert of the creator theory, the Lambertians inform them of the discovery a set of field equations with a stable solution for each of their universe's elements; furthermore, initial studies on the equations show that they predict the spontaneous instantiation of matter at high temperatures, enabling their world to come into existence without requiring the Garden of Eden Maria had initially designed. To the alarm of its citizens, Permutation City and eventually the entire TVC processor-network begins to collapse into nothingness, interpreted out of existence by the Lambertians whose reality no longer requires a maker, there being a 'better' solution that has superseded its possibility. As Permutation City becomes corrupted and the TVC universe begins to suffer spontaneous systemic failures, Durham and Maria inform the inhabitants of the various founders' computing blocks of the situation"
      },
      {
        "text": " Garden of Eden Maria had initially designed. To the alarm of its citizens, Permutation City and eventually the entire TVC processor-network begins to collapse into nothingness, interpreted out of existence by the Lambertians whose reality no longer requires a maker, there being a 'better' solution that has superseded its possibility. As Permutation City becomes corrupted and the TVC universe begins to suffer spontaneous systemic failures, Durham and Maria inform the inhabitants of the various founders' computing blocks of the situation while preparing a new TVC Garden of Eden based on the original to launch in their universe's final moments, though Durham initially declines to board it himself, saying he has become exhausted with the number of times he was awoken in new realities and would be unable to cope with experiencing it again. Ultimately, however, Maria convinces him to change his mind (literally reconfiguring it to desire escape) and together they leave, pledging to discover the underlying rules that governed the Autoverse's takeover of Permutation City.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Quidditch Through the Ages",
    "author": "J. K. Rowling",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In 2001 Rowling penned two companion books to the Harry Potter series, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, for British charity and off-shoot of Live Aid, Comic Relief with all of her royalties going to the charity. As of July 2008, the books combined are estimated to have earned over $30 million for Comic Relief. The two books have since been made available in hardcover. Foreword Chapter 1: The Evolution of the Flying Broomstick Chapter 2: Ancient Broom Games Chapter 3: The Game From Queerditch Marsh Chapter 4: The Arrival of the Golden Snitch Chapter 5: Anti-Muggle Precautions Chapter 6: Changes in Quidditch Since the Fourteenth Century :::* Pitch :::* Balls :::* Players :::* Rules :::* Referees Chapter 7: Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland Chapter 8: The Spread of Quidditch Worldwide Chapter 9: The Development of the Racing Broom Chapter 10: Quidditch Today\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In 2001 Rowling penned two companion books to the Harry Potter series, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, for British charity and off-shoot of Live Aid, Comic Relief with all of her royalties going to the charity. As of July 2008, the books combined are estimated to have earned over $30 million for Comic Relief. The two books have since been made available in hardcover. Foreword Chapter 1: The Evolution of the Flying Broomstick Chapter 2: Ancient Broom Games Chapter 3: The Game From Queerditch Marsh Chapter 4: The Arrival of the Golden Snitch Chapter 5: Anti-Muggle Precautions Chapter 6: Changes in Quidditch Since the Fourteenth Century :::* Pitch :::* Balls :::* Players :::* Rules :::* Referees Chapter 7: Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland Chapter 8: The Spread of Quidditch Worldwide Chapter 9: The Development of the Racing Broom Chapter 10: Quidditch Today\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Key of Solomon",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Key of Solomon is divided into two books. It describes not the appearance or work of any spirit but only the necessary drawings to prepare each \"experiment\" or, in more modern language, magical operations. Unlike later grimoires such as the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (16th century) or the Lemegeton (17th century ), the Key of Solomon does not mention the signature of the seventy-two spirits constrained by King Solomon in a bronze vessel. As in most medieval grimoires, all magical operations are ostensibly performed through the power of God, to whom all the invocations are addressed. Before any of these operations (termed \"experiments\") are performed, the operator must confess his sins and purge himself of evil, invoking the protection of God. Elaborate preparations are necessary, and each of the numerous items used in the operator's \"experiments\" must be constructed of the appropriate materials obtained in the prescribed manner, at the appropriate astrological time, marked with a specific set of magical symbols, and blessed with its own specific words. All substances needed for the magic drawings and amulets are detailed, as well as the means to purify and prepare them. Many of the symbols incorporate the Transitus Fluvii occult alphabet.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Key of Solomon is divided into two books. It describes not the appearance or work of any spirit but only the necessary drawings to prepare each \"experiment\" or, in more modern language, magical operations. Unlike later grimoires such as the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (16th century) or the Lemegeton (17th century ), the Key of Solomon does not mention the signature of the seventy-two spirits constrained by King Solomon in a bronze vessel. As in most medieval grimoires, all magical operations are ostensibly performed through the power of God, to whom all the invocations are addressed. Before any of these operations (termed \"experiments\") are performed, the operator must confess his sins and purge himself of evil, invoking the protection of God. Elaborate preparations are necessary, and each of the numerous items used in the operator's \"experiments\" must be constructed of the appropriate materials obtained in the prescribed manner, at the appropriate astrological time, marked with a specific set of magical symbols, and blessed with its own specific words. All substances needed for the magic drawings and amulets are detailed, as well as the means to purify and prepare them. Many of the symbols incorporate the Transitus Fluvii occult alphabet.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Wee Free Men",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "2003",
    "synopsis": " An experienced witch named Miss Tick and her toad arrive on the chalk. She feels that something is not right, so she decides to find out what's going on. Her intuition is right. The Queen of the Elves has made another attempt at invading the Discworld, this time by stealing children and infesting dreams. With the help of the Wee Free Men, the Nac Mac Feegle, nine-year-old Tiffany Aching finds out that her grandmother used to be the witch of the Chalklands, and that she has inherited the trade. When her baby brother is stolen, Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle enter the elves' world to steal him back. The novel contains a scene inspired by the painting The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " An experienced witch named Miss Tick and her toad arrive on the chalk. She feels that something is not right, so she decides to find out what's going on. Her intuition is right. The Queen of the Elves has made another attempt at invading the Discworld, this time by stealing children and infesting dreams. With the help of the Wee Free Men, the Nac Mac Feegle, nine-year-old Tiffany Aching finds out that her grandmother used to be the witch of the Chalklands, and that she has inherited the trade. When her baby brother is stolen, Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle enter the elves' world to steal him back. The novel contains a scene inspired by the painting The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Strata",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "1981",
    "synopsis": " Kin Arad is a human planetary engineer working for the Company, a human organisation that \"builds\" habitable planets with techniques and equipment salvaged from the Spindle Kings, an extinct alien race, excelling in terraforming. The expressed aim of the Company's planet building is to create branches of humanity diverse enough to ensure the whole species' survival for eternity, since the Earth's population in the past has been decimated due to the lethal Mindquakes, epidemic mass deaths caused by too much homogeneity among the populace. All planets built by the Company are carefully crafted with artificial strata containing false fossils, indistinguishable from the real thing. On occasion, however, mischievous Company employees will attempt to place anomalous objects in the strata, like running shoes or other out-of-place-artefacts as practical jokes, hoping to cause confusion among future archaeologists when the planets' beginnings have been long forgotten. The Company does not allow this however, and secretly monitors the generated strata in order to detect this, fearing such actions may cause the collapse of entire civilizations when the artefacts are eventually unearthed. Kin and two aliens, the four-armed frog-like, paranoid and muscular Kung Marco and Silver, a bear-like Shand, historian and linguist by profession, are recruited by the mysterious Jago Jalo for an expedition. Jalo, a human who more than a thousand years ago embarked on a relativistic journey has made a stunning discovery - a flat Earth. However, when the team rendezvous on the Kung homeworld, the violent Jalo unexpectedly has an heart-attack and dies. Shocked by the large amounts of weapons on-board Jalo's spaceship, Kin has misgivings about the expedition, but Silver and Marco see the possibility of reaping great technological rewards and launch the vessel. When the expedition finally arrives at Jalo's pre-programmed coordinates, they find a flattened version of the mediaeval Eastern hemisphere of Earth, clearly artificial. It rotates around its hub inside a gigantic hollow sphere with tiny \"stars\" affixed to the interior, complete with a small sun, moon and fake planets revolving around it. After their ship is hit by one of the orbiting \"planets\", Kin, Marco and Silver are forced to abandon ship and land on the flat Earth with the help of their lift-belt equipped suits. A return from the flat Earth now seems impossible, unless they are able to find its mysterious builders, so they embark on a journey to a structure they have spotted at the hub of the Disc, the only thing which does not match geographically with the Earth they know. En route, they encounter the superstitious Medieval inhabitants of the Disc, who believe the end of the world is near, due to increasingly chaotic climate (caused by the Disc's machinery breaking down), the recent disappearance of one of their planets and the general devastation caused by the ship's crash. They also discover a number of other differences. What Kin Arad knows as Reme is called Rome on the Disc, and there is a strange Christos cult that is completely unfamiliar to Kin Arad. Also, Venus is conspicuously lacking its giant (lunar-sized) moon Adonis, which dominates the sunset sky on the Earth Kin knows, and led humanity to a heliocentric world view early on. Since only the Eastern hemisphere of Earth is represented, the continent of America is completely missing; the travellers rescue a party of Vikings in the process of searching for Vinland, when their ship is about to sail over the edge of the world. In addition, there are real \"magical\" creatures and objects on the Disc, demons and magic purses and flying carpets - all of them, the travellers realise, highly advanced and sophisticated technological constructs like the Disc itself. Indeed, the world itself is an extremely old and sophisticated automated system. At the very end of the story, Kin comes to suspect that the builders of the flat world in fact constructed the universe as a whole, with the evidence of previous races being hoaxes and the flat world being an inside joke, analogous to the false strata Kin and the Company themselves manufacture, and the occasional hoaxes put in these strata by rebellious employees. Kin and the others eventually reach the hub and Kin makes contact with the Disc's controlling systems. She is told that, despite advanced robotic maintenance, sheer entropy build-up threatens the Disc's further existence. The machines offer their advanced technology, in exchange for Kin's construction of a real replacement Earth for the flat planet's inhabitants. Kin agrees; the implication being that the world she will build is in fact our own Earth. Kin is excited about the massive task at hand; just like Ringworld's Louis Wu, whom she parallels, she is over two hundred years old, and thus constantly under the threat of growing tired of life.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Kin Arad is a human planetary engineer working for the Company, a human organisation that \"builds\" habitable planets with techniques and equipment salvaged from the Spindle Kings, an extinct alien race, excelling in terraforming. The expressed aim of the Company's planet building is to create branches of humanity diverse enough to ensure the whole species' survival for eternity, since the Earth's population in the past has been decimated due to the lethal Mindquakes, epidemic mass deaths caused by too much homogeneity among the populace. All planets built by the Company are carefully crafted with artificial strata containing false fossils, indistinguishable from the real thing. On occasion, however, mischievous Company employees will attempt to place anomalous objects in the strata, like running shoes or other out-of-place-artefacts as practical jokes, hoping to cause confusion among future archaeologists when the planets' beginnings have been long forgotten. The Company does not allow this however, and secretly monitors the generated strata in order to detect this, fearing such actions may cause the collapse of entire civilizations when the artefacts are eventually unearthed. Kin and two aliens, the four-armed frog-like, paranoid and muscular Kung Marco and Silver, a bear-like Shand, historian and linguist by profession, are recruited by the mysterious Jago Jalo for an expedition. Jalo, a human who more than a thousand years ago embarked on a relativistic journey has made a stunning discovery - a flat Earth. However, when the team rendezvous on the Kung homeworld, the violent Jalo unexpectedly has an heart-attack and dies. Shocked by the large amounts of weapons on-board Jalo's spaceship, Kin has misgivings about the expedition, but Silver and Marco see the possibility of reaping great technological rewards and launch the vessel. When the expedition finally arrives at Jalo's pre-programmed coordinates, they find a flattened version of the mediaeval Eastern hemisphere of"
      },
      {
        "text": " flat Earth. However, when the team rendezvous on the Kung homeworld, the violent Jalo unexpectedly has an heart-attack and dies. Shocked by the large amounts of weapons on-board Jalo's spaceship, Kin has misgivings about the expedition, but Silver and Marco see the possibility of reaping great technological rewards and launch the vessel. When the expedition finally arrives at Jalo's pre-programmed coordinates, they find a flattened version of the mediaeval Eastern hemisphere of Earth, clearly artificial. It rotates around its hub inside a gigantic hollow sphere with tiny \"stars\" affixed to the interior, complete with a small sun, moon and fake planets revolving around it. After their ship is hit by one of the orbiting \"planets\", Kin, Marco and Silver are forced to abandon ship and land on the flat Earth with the help of their lift-belt equipped suits. A return from the flat Earth now seems impossible, unless they are able to find its mysterious builders, so they embark on a journey to a structure they have spotted at the hub of the Disc, the only thing which does not match geographically with the Earth they know. En route, they encounter the superstitious Medieval inhabitants of the Disc, who believe the end of the world is near, due to increasingly chaotic climate (caused by the Disc's machinery breaking down), the recent disappearance of one of their planets and the general devastation caused by the ship's crash. They also discover a number of other differences. What Kin Arad knows as Reme is called Rome on the Disc, and there is a strange Christos cult that is completely unfamiliar to Kin Arad. Also, Venus is conspicuously lacking its giant (lunar-sized) moon Adonis, which dominates the sunset sky on the Earth Kin knows, and led humanity to a heliocentric world view early on. Since only the Eastern hemisphere of Earth is represented, the continent of America is completely missing; the travellers"
      },
      {
        "text": " other differences. What Kin Arad knows as Reme is called Rome on the Disc, and there is a strange Christos cult that is completely unfamiliar to Kin Arad. Also, Venus is conspicuously lacking its giant (lunar-sized) moon Adonis, which dominates the sunset sky on the Earth Kin knows, and led humanity to a heliocentric world view early on. Since only the Eastern hemisphere of Earth is represented, the continent of America is completely missing; the travellers rescue a party of Vikings in the process of searching for Vinland, when their ship is about to sail over the edge of the world. In addition, there are real \"magical\" creatures and objects on the Disc, demons and magic purses and flying carpets - all of them, the travellers realise, highly advanced and sophisticated technological constructs like the Disc itself. Indeed, the world itself is an extremely old and sophisticated automated system. At the very end of the story, Kin comes to suspect that the builders of the flat world in fact constructed the universe as a whole, with the evidence of previous races being hoaxes and the flat world being an inside joke, analogous to the false strata Kin and the Company themselves manufacture, and the occasional hoaxes put in these strata by rebellious employees. Kin and the others eventually reach the hub and Kin makes contact with the Disc's controlling systems. She is told that, despite advanced robotic maintenance, sheer entropy build-up threatens the Disc's further existence. The machines offer their advanced technology, in exchange for Kin's construction of a real replacement Earth for the flat planet's inhabitants. Kin agrees; the implication being that the world she will build is in fact our own Earth. Kin is excited about the massive task at hand; just like Ringworld's Louis Wu, whom she parallels, she is over two hundred years old, and thus constantly under the threat of growing tired of life.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " existence. The machines offer their advanced technology, in exchange for Kin's construction of a real replacement Earth for the flat planet's inhabitants. Kin agrees; the implication being that the world she will build is in fact our own Earth. Kin is excited about the massive task at hand; just like Ringworld's Louis Wu, whom she parallels, she is over two hundred years old, and thus constantly under the threat of growing tired of life.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Dark Side of the Sun",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "1976-01-26",
    "synopsis": " Dominickdaniel \"Dom\" Sabalos IV is the son of the inventor of probability math, a science able to predict anything apart from anything to do with the Jokers, and the first person to have had his life fully quantified using p-math. Before being mysteriously assassinated, his father predicted that Dom too would be killed, on the day of his investiture as Chairman of his wealthy home planet of Widdershins. However, not having been told of his father's prediction, and against incalculably distant odds, Dom survives the assassination attempt. When the recording of his father's prediction is played back, a time delay added specifically for this unlikely eventuality plays a little more of the recording, in which his father makes a further prediction - that Dom will discover the Jokers' homeworld. Dom sets out, with Hrsh-Hgn (his tutor, a swamp-dwelling phnobe), Isaac (his robot, equipped with Man-Friday subcircuitry) and Ig (his pet swamp ig) in tow, on a picaresque adventure to find the Jokers' world. He visits many corners of the \"life-bubble\", encountering Joker artefacts, his god-father, who is a sentient planet, and the sexless, octopoid Creapii, among many other weird and diverse aliens and planets. At the same time he finds himself surviving - at increasingly improbable odds - numerous assassination attempts by a mysterious conspiracy which has long worked to prevent anybody from locating the Jokers, assassinating anybody deemed by p-math having a chance of doing so.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Dominickdaniel \"Dom\" Sabalos IV is the son of the inventor of probability math, a science able to predict anything apart from anything to do with the Jokers, and the first person to have had his life fully quantified using p-math. Before being mysteriously assassinated, his father predicted that Dom too would be killed, on the day of his investiture as Chairman of his wealthy home planet of Widdershins. However, not having been told of his father's prediction, and against incalculably distant odds, Dom survives the assassination attempt. When the recording of his father's prediction is played back, a time delay added specifically for this unlikely eventuality plays a little more of the recording, in which his father makes a further prediction - that Dom will discover the Jokers' homeworld. Dom sets out, with Hrsh-Hgn (his tutor, a swamp-dwelling phnobe), Isaac (his robot, equipped with Man-Friday subcircuitry) and Ig (his pet swamp ig) in tow, on a picaresque adventure to find the Jokers' world. He visits many corners of the \"life-bubble\", encountering Joker artefacts, his god-father, who is a sentient planet, and the sexless, octopoid Creapii, among many other weird and diverse aliens and planets. At the same time he finds himself surviving - at increasingly improbable odds - numerous assassination attempts by a mysterious conspiracy which has long worked to prevent anybody from locating the Jokers, assassinating anybody deemed by p-math having a chance of doing so.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " mysterious conspiracy which has long worked to prevent anybody from locating the Jokers, assassinating anybody deemed by p-math having a chance of doing so.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Soul Music",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "1994",
    "synopsis": " The story follows the short-lived but glamorous musical career of \"The Band with Rocks In\", a group of musicians who become famous after their leader, Imp Y Celyn a.k.a. 'Buddy' (Buddy Holly: the name is Welsh for \"bud of the holly\"), becomes possessed by the essence of an addictive new music dubbed 'Music With Rocks In'. The band is \"discovered\" by Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, who becomes the Disc's first manager. He tries to cash in on the band by any means possible while keeping them ignorant. He also hires the troll Asphalt as a roadie to accompany the band on its tour. Meanwhile, Death, in one of his philosophical moods, takes a holiday in search of a way to forget his more troubling memories, especially the recent demise of his adopted daughter Ysabell and her husband Mort. In the meantime, his granddaughter Susan discovers the truth about her heritage when she is forced to stand in for her missing grandfather. Complications ensue when she falls in love with Buddy, and tries to save him from his \"live fast, die young\" destiny as the Discworld's first rock star. Buddy wants to do a free concert, and after Dibbler figures out how much money he can make by selling T-shirts, sausages-in-a-bun etc. to the audience, he agrees. A large number of bands, all of whom have formed in response to the original \"Band with Rocks In\", participate in the largest concert of all time. Afterwards the band flees from their crazed fans, pursued by the angry Musicians Guild, C.M.O.T. Dibbler, Susan and Death. The cart in which the band is riding falls into a gorge, killing all its passengers, but Death intervenes to save them, afterward destroying the guitar which was the source of the new music. Thus the band is freed from their self-destructive destiny, and the spirit of the Music With Rocks in is driven from the Disc.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story follows the short-lived but glamorous musical career of \"The Band with Rocks In\", a group of musicians who become famous after their leader, Imp Y Celyn a.k.a. 'Buddy' (Buddy Holly: the name is Welsh for \"bud of the holly\"), becomes possessed by the essence of an addictive new music dubbed 'Music With Rocks In'. The band is \"discovered\" by Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, who becomes the Disc's first manager. He tries to cash in on the band by any means possible while keeping them ignorant. He also hires the troll Asphalt as a roadie to accompany the band on its tour. Meanwhile, Death, in one of his philosophical moods, takes a holiday in search of a way to forget his more troubling memories, especially the recent demise of his adopted daughter Ysabell and her husband Mort. In the meantime, his granddaughter Susan discovers the truth about her heritage when she is forced to stand in for her missing grandfather. Complications ensue when she falls in love with Buddy, and tries to save him from his \"live fast, die young\" destiny as the Discworld's first rock star. Buddy wants to do a free concert, and after Dibbler figures out how much money he can make by selling T-shirts, sausages-in-a-bun etc. to the audience, he agrees. A large number of bands, all of whom have formed in response to the original \"Band with Rocks In\", participate in the largest concert of all time. Afterwards the band flees from their crazed fans, pursued by the angry Musicians Guild, C.M.O.T. Dibbler, Susan and Death. The cart in which the band is riding falls into a gorge, killing all its passengers, but Death intervenes to save them, afterward destroying the guitar which was the source of the new music. Thus"
      },
      {
        "text": " all of whom have formed in response to the original \"Band with Rocks In\", participate in the largest concert of all time. Afterwards the band flees from their crazed fans, pursued by the angry Musicians Guild, C.M.O.T. Dibbler, Susan and Death. The cart in which the band is riding falls into a gorge, killing all its passengers, but Death intervenes to save them, afterward destroying the guitar which was the source of the new music. Thus the band is freed from their self-destructive destiny, and the spirit of the Music With Rocks in is driven from the Disc.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Bluebeard",
    "author": "Kurt Vonnegut",
    "published_date": "1987",
    "synopsis": " At the opening of the book, the narrator, Rabo Karabekian, apologizes to the arriving guests: \"I promised you an autobiography, but something went wrong in the kitchen...\" He describes himself as a museum guard who answers questions from visitors coming to see his priceless collected art. He shares the lonely home with his live-in cook and her daughter, Celeste. One afternoon, Circe Berman wanders onto Karabekian's private beach. When he reaches out to greet her, she catches him by surprise with the forward statement \"Tell me how your parents died.\" He tells her the story and proceeds to invite her back to his home for a drink. After a drink and supper, Karabekian invites her to stay with him, as Paul Slazinger does. After a time, he begins to find her charm \"manipulative\", as she typically gets her way. Mrs. Berman does not respect his abstract art collection, including works by Jackson Pollock. She explores every inch of Karabekian's home, constantly asking him questions. The only place that is off-limits to her is the potato barn. The potato barn is the home of Karabekian's studio and holds his \"secret\". The barn has no windows, and Karabekian has gone through the trouble of nailing one end shut and immobilizing the other with six padlocks. The secret of the potato barn has enticed collectors to make outrageous offers and to raise suspicions of stolen masterpieces. It is to remain locked until after Karabekian passes away.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At the opening of the book, the narrator, Rabo Karabekian, apologizes to the arriving guests: \"I promised you an autobiography, but something went wrong in the kitchen...\" He describes himself as a museum guard who answers questions from visitors coming to see his priceless collected art. He shares the lonely home with his live-in cook and her daughter, Celeste. One afternoon, Circe Berman wanders onto Karabekian's private beach. When he reaches out to greet her, she catches him by surprise with the forward statement \"Tell me how your parents died.\" He tells her the story and proceeds to invite her back to his home for a drink. After a drink and supper, Karabekian invites her to stay with him, as Paul Slazinger does. After a time, he begins to find her charm \"manipulative\", as she typically gets her way. Mrs. Berman does not respect his abstract art collection, including works by Jackson Pollock. She explores every inch of Karabekian's home, constantly asking him questions. The only place that is off-limits to her is the potato barn. The potato barn is the home of Karabekian's studio and holds his \"secret\". The barn has no windows, and Karabekian has gone through the trouble of nailing one end shut and immobilizing the other with six padlocks. The secret of the potato barn has enticed collectors to make outrageous offers and to raise suspicions of stolen masterpieces. It is to remain locked until after Karabekian passes away.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " raise suspicions of stolen masterpieces. It is to remain locked until after Karabekian passes away.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Tirant lo Blanc",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Tirant lo Blanch tells the story of a medieval knight Tirant from Brittany who has a series of adventures across Europe in his quest. He joins in knightly competitions in England and France until the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire asks him to help in the war against the Ottoman Turks, an Islamic tribe of invaders threatening Constantinople, the capital and seat of the Empire. Tirant accepts and is made Megaduke of the Byzantine Empire and the captain of an army. He defeats the Turkish invaders and saves the Empire from destruction. Afterwards, he fights the Turks in many regions of the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa, but he dies just before he can marry the pretty heiress of the Byzantine Empire. The loss of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 was considered at the time to be a major blow to Christian Europe. In writing his novel, Martorell perhaps rewrote history to fit what he wanted it to be - which in a way makes it a precursor of the present-day genre of alternate history.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Tirant lo Blanch tells the story of a medieval knight Tirant from Brittany who has a series of adventures across Europe in his quest. He joins in knightly competitions in England and France until the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire asks him to help in the war against the Ottoman Turks, an Islamic tribe of invaders threatening Constantinople, the capital and seat of the Empire. Tirant accepts and is made Megaduke of the Byzantine Empire and the captain of an army. He defeats the Turkish invaders and saves the Empire from destruction. Afterwards, he fights the Turks in many regions of the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa, but he dies just before he can marry the pretty heiress of the Byzantine Empire. The loss of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 was considered at the time to be a major blow to Christian Europe. In writing his novel, Martorell perhaps rewrote history to fit what he wanted it to be - which in a way makes it a precursor of the present-day genre of alternate history.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Thunderball",
    "author": "Ian Fleming",
    "published_date": "1961-03-27",
    "synopsis": " Thunderball begins with a meeting between Bond and his superior, M, during which the agent is told that his latest physical assessment is poor because of excessive drinking and smoking (up to sixty cigarettes a day). M sends Bond on a two-week treatment at the Shrublands health clinic to improve his health. At the clinic Bond encounters Count Lippe, a member of the Red Lightning Tong criminal organisation from Macau. When Bond learns of the Tong connection, Lippe tries to kill him by tampering with a spinal traction machine. Bond, however, is saved by nurse Patricia Fearing and later retaliates against Lippe by trapping him in a steam bath, resulting in the Count's second-degree burns and a week's stay in hospital. The Prime Minister receives a communiqu\u00e9 from SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) explaining that the organisation has hijacked a Villiers Vindicator and seized its two nuclear bombs, which it will use to destroy two major cities unless a \u00a3100,000,000 ransom is paid. This is SPECTRE's Plan Omega. SPECTRE is headed by criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Count Lippe was dispatched to Shrublands to oversee Giuseppe Petacchi of the Italian Air Force, at the Boscombe Down Airfield, a bomber squadron base. Although Lippe was successful, Blofeld considered him unreliable, because of his childish clash with Bond and, as a consequence, Blofeld has Lippe killed. Acting as a NATO observer of Royal Air Force procedure, Petacchi is in SPECTRE's pay to hijack the bomber in mid-flight by killing its crew and flying it to the Bahamas. Once there, Petacchi is killed and the plane, with bombs, are taken by Emilio Largo (aka SPECTRE Number One) on board the cruiser yacht Disco Volante. The Americans and the British launch Operation Thunderball to foil SPECTRE and recover the two atomic bombs. On a hunch, M assigns Bond to the Bahamas to investigate. There, Bond meets Felix Leiter, seconded to the CIA from his usual role at Pinkertons because of the Thunderball crisis. While in Nassau, Bond meets Dominetta \"Domino\" Vitali, Largo's mistress and the sister of the dead pilot Giuseppe Petacchi. She is living on board the Disco Volante and believes Largo is on a treasure hunt, although Largo makes her stay ashore while he and his partners hunt hidden treasure. After seducing her, Bond informs her that Largo killed her brother; Bond then recruits her to spy on Largo. Domino re-boards the Disco Volante with a Geiger counter to ascertain if the yacht is where the two nuclear bombs are hidden. However, she is discovered and Largo tortures her for information. Bond and Leiter alert the Thunderball war room of their suspicions of Largo and join the crew of the American nuclear submarine Manta as the ransom deadline nears. The Manta chases the Disco Volante to capture it and recover the bombs en route to the first target. An undersea battle ensues between the crews, while Bond fights Largo. Bond, now very weak from his efforts to disable the bombs, tries to get away, but Largo corners him in an underwater cave and easily overpowers him. Before Largo can finish Bond off Domino shoots him with a spear gun. The bombs are recovered and Bond is sent to hospital with Domino.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Thunderball begins with a meeting between Bond and his superior, M, during which the agent is told that his latest physical assessment is poor because of excessive drinking and smoking (up to sixty cigarettes a day). M sends Bond on a two-week treatment at the Shrublands health clinic to improve his health. At the clinic Bond encounters Count Lippe, a member of the Red Lightning Tong criminal organisation from Macau. When Bond learns of the Tong connection, Lippe tries to kill him by tampering with a spinal traction machine. Bond, however, is saved by nurse Patricia Fearing and later retaliates against Lippe by trapping him in a steam bath, resulting in the Count's second-degree burns and a week's stay in hospital. The Prime Minister receives a communiqu\u00e9 from SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) explaining that the organisation has hijacked a Villiers Vindicator and seized its two nuclear bombs, which it will use to destroy two major cities unless a \u00a3100,000,000 ransom is paid. This is SPECTRE's Plan Omega. SPECTRE is headed by criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Count Lippe was dispatched to Shrublands to oversee Giuseppe Petacchi of the Italian Air Force, at the Boscombe Down Airfield, a bomber squadron base. Although Lippe was successful, Blofeld considered him unreliable, because of his childish clash with Bond and, as a consequence, Blofeld has Lippe killed. Acting as a NATO observer of Royal Air Force procedure, Petacchi is in SPECTRE's pay to hijack the bomber in mid-flight by killing its crew and flying it to the Bahamas. Once there, Petacchi is killed and the plane, with bombs, are taken by Emilio Largo (aka SPECTRE Number One) on board the cruiser yacht Disco Vol"
      },
      {
        "text": " of his childish clash with Bond and, as a consequence, Blofeld has Lippe killed. Acting as a NATO observer of Royal Air Force procedure, Petacchi is in SPECTRE's pay to hijack the bomber in mid-flight by killing its crew and flying it to the Bahamas. Once there, Petacchi is killed and the plane, with bombs, are taken by Emilio Largo (aka SPECTRE Number One) on board the cruiser yacht Disco Volante. The Americans and the British launch Operation Thunderball to foil SPECTRE and recover the two atomic bombs. On a hunch, M assigns Bond to the Bahamas to investigate. There, Bond meets Felix Leiter, seconded to the CIA from his usual role at Pinkertons because of the Thunderball crisis. While in Nassau, Bond meets Dominetta \"Domino\" Vitali, Largo's mistress and the sister of the dead pilot Giuseppe Petacchi. She is living on board the Disco Volante and believes Largo is on a treasure hunt, although Largo makes her stay ashore while he and his partners hunt hidden treasure. After seducing her, Bond informs her that Largo killed her brother; Bond then recruits her to spy on Largo. Domino re-boards the Disco Volante with a Geiger counter to ascertain if the yacht is where the two nuclear bombs are hidden. However, she is discovered and Largo tortures her for information. Bond and Leiter alert the Thunderball war room of their suspicions of Largo and join the crew of the American nuclear submarine Manta as the ransom deadline nears. The Manta chases the Disco Volante to capture it and recover the bombs en route to the first target. An undersea battle ensues between the crews, while Bond fights Largo. Bond, now very weak from his efforts to disable the bombs, tries to get away, but Largo corners him in an underwater"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Bond and Leiter alert the Thunderball war room of their suspicions of Largo and join the crew of the American nuclear submarine Manta as the ransom deadline nears. The Manta chases the Disco Volante to capture it and recover the bombs en route to the first target. An undersea battle ensues between the crews, while Bond fights Largo. Bond, now very weak from his efforts to disable the bombs, tries to get away, but Largo corners him in an underwater cave and easily overpowers him. Before Largo can finish Bond off Domino shoots him with a spear gun. The bombs are recovered and Bond is sent to hospital with Domino.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Devil's Disciple",
    "author": "George Bernard Shaw",
    "published_date": "1901",
    "synopsis": " The setting is in the Fall of 1777, during the Saratoga Campaign. Richard \"Dick\" Dudgeon is an outcast from his family in colonial Websterbridge, New Hampshire. He returns their hatred with scorn. After the death of his father, Dick returns to his childhood home to hear the reading of his father's will, much to his family's dismay. Anthony Anderson, the local minister, treats him with courtesy despite Dick's self-proclaimed apostasy, but Dick's \"wickedness\" appalls Anderson's wife Judith. To everyone's surprise, it is revealed that Dick's father secretly changed his will just before he died, leaving the bulk of his estate to Dick. Dick promptly evicts his mother from her home, but also invites his cousin Essie (the illegitimate daughter of Dick's never-do-well uncle Peter), orphaned by the hanging of her father as a rebel by the British, to stay as long as she wants. At the end of the Act, Dick proclaims himself also a rebel against the British and scorns his family as cowards when they flee his home. He warns Anderson that the approaching army hanged his uncle in error, believing him to be a man of highest respect, unaware of his ill repute, and that Anderson will be the example set in Websterbridge. While visiting Anderson's home at the Reverend's invitation, Dick is left alone with Judith while Anderson is called out to Mrs. Dudgeon's deathbed. Perceiving Judith's distaste for him, Dick attempts to leave, but Judith insists he stay until Anderson returns. While they are waiting, British soldiers enter Anderson's home and arrest Dick, mistaking him for Anderson. Dick allows them to take him away without revealing his actual identity. He swears Judith to secrecy lest her husband give the secret away and expose himself to arrest. Anderson returns and finds his wife in a state of great agitation. He demands to know if Dick has harmed her. Breaking her promise to Dick, Judith reveals that soldiers came to arrest Anderson but Dick went in his place. Anderson is stunned. He grabs all his money and a gun and quickly rides away, ignoring Judith's appeals. Judith believes her husband to be a coward, while Dick, whom she despised, is a hero. Judith visits Dick and asks him if he has acted from love for her. He scornfully refutes the romantic notion, telling her that he has acted according to \"the law of my own nature\", which forbade him to save himself by condemning another. During the military trial, Dick is convicted and sentenced to be hanged. This scene introduces General Burgoyne, a Shavian realist, who contributes a number of sharp remarks about the conduct of the American Revolution. Judith interrupts the proceedings to reveal Dick's true identity \u2013 but to no avail: he will be hanged in any case. News reaches Burgoyne that American rebels have taken a nearby town, so he and his troops are in danger, especially since orders from London that would have sent reinforcements were never dispatched. The rebels will send an \"officer of importance\" to negotiate with the British. The final scene of the play is the public square where Dick will be hanged. Like Sydney Carton in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Dick defies his executioners and prepares to meet his death. At the last minute, Burgoyne stops the hanging because the rebel officer has arrived. It is Anthony Anderson, who has become a man of action in his \"hour of trial\", just as Dick became a man of conscience in his. Anderson bargains for Dick's life, and Burgoyne agrees to free him. Anderson tells Dick that he (Anderson) is not suited to be a minister and says Dick should replace him. As the Americans rejoice, the British march to quarters, knowing that they face certain defeat.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The setting is in the Fall of 1777, during the Saratoga Campaign. Richard \"Dick\" Dudgeon is an outcast from his family in colonial Websterbridge, New Hampshire. He returns their hatred with scorn. After the death of his father, Dick returns to his childhood home to hear the reading of his father's will, much to his family's dismay. Anthony Anderson, the local minister, treats him with courtesy despite Dick's self-proclaimed apostasy, but Dick's \"wickedness\" appalls Anderson's wife Judith. To everyone's surprise, it is revealed that Dick's father secretly changed his will just before he died, leaving the bulk of his estate to Dick. Dick promptly evicts his mother from her home, but also invites his cousin Essie (the illegitimate daughter of Dick's never-do-well uncle Peter), orphaned by the hanging of her father as a rebel by the British, to stay as long as she wants. At the end of the Act, Dick proclaims himself also a rebel against the British and scorns his family as cowards when they flee his home. He warns Anderson that the approaching army hanged his uncle in error, believing him to be a man of highest respect, unaware of his ill repute, and that Anderson will be the example set in Websterbridge. While visiting Anderson's home at the Reverend's invitation, Dick is left alone with Judith while Anderson is called out to Mrs. Dudgeon's deathbed. Perceiving Judith's distaste for him, Dick attempts to leave, but Judith insists he stay until Anderson returns. While they are waiting, British soldiers enter Anderson's home and arrest Dick, mistaking him for Anderson. Dick allows them to take him away without revealing his actual identity. He swears Judith to secrecy lest her husband give the secret away and expose himself to arrest. Anderson returns and finds his wife in a state of great agitation. He demands to know if Dick has harmed her. Breaking"
      },
      {
        "text": "ceiving Judith's distaste for him, Dick attempts to leave, but Judith insists he stay until Anderson returns. While they are waiting, British soldiers enter Anderson's home and arrest Dick, mistaking him for Anderson. Dick allows them to take him away without revealing his actual identity. He swears Judith to secrecy lest her husband give the secret away and expose himself to arrest. Anderson returns and finds his wife in a state of great agitation. He demands to know if Dick has harmed her. Breaking her promise to Dick, Judith reveals that soldiers came to arrest Anderson but Dick went in his place. Anderson is stunned. He grabs all his money and a gun and quickly rides away, ignoring Judith's appeals. Judith believes her husband to be a coward, while Dick, whom she despised, is a hero. Judith visits Dick and asks him if he has acted from love for her. He scornfully refutes the romantic notion, telling her that he has acted according to \"the law of my own nature\", which forbade him to save himself by condemning another. During the military trial, Dick is convicted and sentenced to be hanged. This scene introduces General Burgoyne, a Shavian realist, who contributes a number of sharp remarks about the conduct of the American Revolution. Judith interrupts the proceedings to reveal Dick's true identity \u2013 but to no avail: he will be hanged in any case. News reaches Burgoyne that American rebels have taken a nearby town, so he and his troops are in danger, especially since orders from London that would have sent reinforcements were never dispatched. The rebels will send an \"officer of importance\" to negotiate with the British. The final scene of the play is the public square where Dick will be hanged. Like Sydney Carton in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Dick defies his executioners and prepares to meet his death. At the last minute, Burgoyne stops the hanging because the rebel officer has arrived. It is Anthony Anderson,"
      },
      {
        "text": " are in danger, especially since orders from London that would have sent reinforcements were never dispatched. The rebels will send an \"officer of importance\" to negotiate with the British. The final scene of the play is the public square where Dick will be hanged. Like Sydney Carton in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Dick defies his executioners and prepares to meet his death. At the last minute, Burgoyne stops the hanging because the rebel officer has arrived. It is Anthony Anderson, who has become a man of action in his \"hour of trial\", just as Dick became a man of conscience in his. Anderson bargains for Dick's life, and Burgoyne agrees to free him. Anderson tells Dick that he (Anderson) is not suited to be a minister and says Dick should replace him. As the Americans rejoice, the British march to quarters, knowing that they face certain defeat.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Scarlet Letter",
    "author": "Nathaniel Hawthorne",
    "published_date": "1850",
    "synopsis": " The story starts in seventeenth century Boston in a Puritan settlement. A young woman, named Hester Prynne, has been led from the town prison with her infant child in her arms, and on the breast of her gown \"a rag of scarlet cloth\" that \"assumed the shape of a letter.\" It is the uppercase letter \"A.\" The Scarlet Letter \"A\" represents the act of adultery that she has committed and it is to be a symbol of her sin\u2014a badge of shame\u2014for all to see. A man, who is elderly and a stranger to the town, enters the crowd and asks another onlooker what's happening. The second man responds by explaining that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hester's husband, who is much older than she, and whose real name is unknown, has sent her ahead to America whilst settling affairs in Europe. However, her husband does not arrive in Boston and the consensus is that he has been lost at sea. It is apparent that, while waiting for her husband, Hester has had an affair, leading to the birth of her daughter. She will not reveal her lover's identity, however, and the scarlet letter, along with her subsequent public shaming, is the punishment for her sin and secrecy. On this day, Hester is led to the town scaffold and harangued by the town fathers, but she again refuses to identify her child's father. The elderly onlooker is Hester's missing husband, who is now practicing medicine and calling himself Roger Chillingworth. He reveals his true identity to Hester and medicates her daughter. They have a frank discussion where Chillingworth states that it was foolish and wrong for a cold, old intellectual like him to marry a young lively woman like Hester. He expressly states that he thinks that they have wronged each other and that he is even with her \u2014 her lover is a completely different matter. Hester refuses to divulge the name of her lover and Chillingworth does not press her stating that he will find out anyway. He does elicit a promise from her to keep his true identity as Hester's husband secret, though. He settles in Boston to practice medicine there. Several years pass. Hester supports herself by working as a seamstress, and her daughter, Pearl, grows into a willful, impish child, and is said to be the scarlet letter come to life as both Hester's love and her punishment. Shunned by the community, they live in a small cottage on the outskirts of Boston. Community officials attempt to take Pearl away from Hester, but with the help of Arthur Dimmesdale, an eloquent minister, the mother and daughter manage to stay together. Dimmesdale, however, appears to be wasting away and suffers from mysterious heart trouble, seemingly caused by psychological distress. Chillingworth attaches himself to the ailing minister and eventually moves in with him so that he can provide his patient with round-the-clock care. Chillingworth also suspects that there may be a connection between the minister's torments and Hester's secret, and he begins to test Dimmesdale to see what he can learn. One afternoon, while the minister sleeps, Chillingworth discovers something undescribed to the reader, supposedly an \"A\" burned into Dimmesdale's chest, which convinces him that his suspicions are correct. Dimmesdale's psychological anguish deepens, and he invents new tortures for himself. In the meantime, Hester's charitable deeds and quiet humility have earned her a reprieve from the scorn of the community. One night, when she is about seven years old, Pearl and her mother are returning home from a visit to the deathbed of John Winthrop when they encounter Dimmesdale atop the town scaffold, trying to punish himself for his sins. Hester and Pearl join him, and the three link hands. Dimmesdale refuses Pearl's request that he acknowledge her publicly the next day, and a meteor marks a dull red \"A\" in the night sky as Dimmesdale sees Chillingworth in the distance. It is interpreted by the townsfolk to mean Angel, as a prominent figure in the community had died that night, but Dimmesdale sees it as meaning adultery. Hester can see that the minister's condition is worsening, and she resolves to intervene. She goes to Chillingworth and asks him to stop adding to Dimmesdale's self-torment. Chillingworth refuses. She suggests that she may reveal his true identity to Dimmesdale. As Hester walks through the forest, she is unable to feel the sunshine. Pearl, on the other hand, basks in it. They coincide with Dimmesdale, also on a stroll through the woods. Hester informs him of the true identity of Chillingworth. The former lovers decide to flee to Europe, where they can live with Pearl as a family. They will take a ship sailing from Boston in four days. Both feel a sense of relief, and Hester removes her scarlet letter and lets down her hair. The sun immediately breaks through the clouds and trees to illuminate her release and joy. Pearl, playing nearby, does not recognize her mother without the letter. She is unnerved and expels a shriek until her mother points out the letter on the ground. Hester beckons Pearl to come to her, but Pearl will not go to her mother until Hester buttons the letter back onto her dress. Pearl then goes to her mother. Dimmesdale gives Pearl a kiss on the forehead, which Pearl immediately tries to wash off in the brook, because he again refuses to make known publicly their relationship. However, he clearly feels a release from the pretense of his former life, and the laws and sins he has lived with. The day before the ship is to sail, the townspeople gather for a holiday in honor of an election and Dimmesdale preaches his most eloquent sermon ever. Meanwhile, Hester has learned that Chillingworth knows of their plan and has booked passage on the same ship. Dimmesdale, leaving the church after his sermon, sees Hester and Pearl standing before the town scaffold. He looks ill. Knowing his life is about to end, he mounts the scaffold with his lover and his daughter, and confesses publicly, exposing the mark supposedly seared into the flesh of his chest. He dies in Hester's arms after Pearl kisses him. Frustrated in his revenge, Chillingworth dies within the year. Hester and Pearl leave Boston, and no one knows what has happened to them. Many years later, Hester returns alone, still wearing the scarlet letter, to live in her old cottage and resumes her charitable work. She receives occasional letters from Pearl, who was rumored to have married a European aristocrat and established a family of her own. Pearl also inherits all of Chillingworth's money even though he knows she is not his daughter. There is a sense of liberation in her and the townspeople, especially the women, who had finally begun to forgive Hester of her tragic indiscretion. When Hester dies, she is buried in \"a new grave near an old and sunken one, in that burial ground beside which King's Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tombstone served for both.\" The tombstone was decorated with a letter \"A\", for Hester and Dimmesdale.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story starts in seventeenth century Boston in a Puritan settlement. A young woman, named Hester Prynne, has been led from the town prison with her infant child in her arms, and on the breast of her gown \"a rag of scarlet cloth\" that \"assumed the shape of a letter.\" It is the uppercase letter \"A.\" The Scarlet Letter \"A\" represents the act of adultery that she has committed and it is to be a symbol of her sin\u2014a badge of shame\u2014for all to see. A man, who is elderly and a stranger to the town, enters the crowd and asks another onlooker what's happening. The second man responds by explaining that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hester's husband, who is much older than she, and whose real name is unknown, has sent her ahead to America whilst settling affairs in Europe. However, her husband does not arrive in Boston and the consensus is that he has been lost at sea. It is apparent that, while waiting for her husband, Hester has had an affair, leading to the birth of her daughter. She will not reveal her lover's identity, however, and the scarlet letter, along with her subsequent public shaming, is the punishment for her sin and secrecy. On this day, Hester is led to the town scaffold and harangued by the town fathers, but she again refuses to identify her child's father. The elderly onlooker is Hester's missing husband, who is now practicing medicine and calling himself Roger Chillingworth. He reveals his true identity to Hester and medicates her daughter. They have a frank discussion where Chillingworth states that it was foolish and wrong for a cold, old intellectual like him to marry a young lively woman like Hester. He expressly states that he thinks that they have wronged each other and that he is even with her \u2014 her lover is a completely different matter. Hester refuses to"
      },
      {
        "text": " Hester's missing husband, who is now practicing medicine and calling himself Roger Chillingworth. He reveals his true identity to Hester and medicates her daughter. They have a frank discussion where Chillingworth states that it was foolish and wrong for a cold, old intellectual like him to marry a young lively woman like Hester. He expressly states that he thinks that they have wronged each other and that he is even with her \u2014 her lover is a completely different matter. Hester refuses to divulge the name of her lover and Chillingworth does not press her stating that he will find out anyway. He does elicit a promise from her to keep his true identity as Hester's husband secret, though. He settles in Boston to practice medicine there. Several years pass. Hester supports herself by working as a seamstress, and her daughter, Pearl, grows into a willful, impish child, and is said to be the scarlet letter come to life as both Hester's love and her punishment. Shunned by the community, they live in a small cottage on the outskirts of Boston. Community officials attempt to take Pearl away from Hester, but with the help of Arthur Dimmesdale, an eloquent minister, the mother and daughter manage to stay together. Dimmesdale, however, appears to be wasting away and suffers from mysterious heart trouble, seemingly caused by psychological distress. Chillingworth attaches himself to the ailing minister and eventually moves in with him so that he can provide his patient with round-the-clock care. Chillingworth also suspects that there may be a connection between the minister's torments and Hester's secret, and he begins to test Dimmesdale to see what he can learn. One afternoon, while the minister sleeps, Chillingworth discovers something undescribed to the reader, supposedly an \"A\" burned into Dimmesdale's chest, which convinces him that his suspicions are correct. Dimmesdale's psychological"
      },
      {
        "text": " that he can provide his patient with round-the-clock care. Chillingworth also suspects that there may be a connection between the minister's torments and Hester's secret, and he begins to test Dimmesdale to see what he can learn. One afternoon, while the minister sleeps, Chillingworth discovers something undescribed to the reader, supposedly an \"A\" burned into Dimmesdale's chest, which convinces him that his suspicions are correct. Dimmesdale's psychological anguish deepens, and he invents new tortures for himself. In the meantime, Hester's charitable deeds and quiet humility have earned her a reprieve from the scorn of the community. One night, when she is about seven years old, Pearl and her mother are returning home from a visit to the deathbed of John Winthrop when they encounter Dimmesdale atop the town scaffold, trying to punish himself for his sins. Hester and Pearl join him, and the three link hands. Dimmesdale refuses Pearl's request that he acknowledge her publicly the next day, and a meteor marks a dull red \"A\" in the night sky as Dimmesdale sees Chillingworth in the distance. It is interpreted by the townsfolk to mean Angel, as a prominent figure in the community had died that night, but Dimmesdale sees it as meaning adultery. Hester can see that the minister's condition is worsening, and she resolves to intervene. She goes to Chillingworth and asks him to stop adding to Dimmesdale's self-torment. Chillingworth refuses. She suggests that she may reveal his true identity to Dimmesdale. As Hester walks through the forest, she is unable to feel the sunshine. Pearl, on the other hand, basks in it. They coincide with Dimmesdale, also on a stroll through the woods. Hester informs him of the true identity of Chillingworth. The former lovers decide to flee to Europe,"
      },
      {
        "text": " and asks him to stop adding to Dimmesdale's self-torment. Chillingworth refuses. She suggests that she may reveal his true identity to Dimmesdale. As Hester walks through the forest, she is unable to feel the sunshine. Pearl, on the other hand, basks in it. They coincide with Dimmesdale, also on a stroll through the woods. Hester informs him of the true identity of Chillingworth. The former lovers decide to flee to Europe, where they can live with Pearl as a family. They will take a ship sailing from Boston in four days. Both feel a sense of relief, and Hester removes her scarlet letter and lets down her hair. The sun immediately breaks through the clouds and trees to illuminate her release and joy. Pearl, playing nearby, does not recognize her mother without the letter. She is unnerved and expels a shriek until her mother points out the letter on the ground. Hester beckons Pearl to come to her, but Pearl will not go to her mother until Hester buttons the letter back onto her dress. Pearl then goes to her mother. Dimmesdale gives Pearl a kiss on the forehead, which Pearl immediately tries to wash off in the brook, because he again refuses to make known publicly their relationship. However, he clearly feels a release from the pretense of his former life, and the laws and sins he has lived with. The day before the ship is to sail, the townspeople gather for a holiday in honor of an election and Dimmesdale preaches his most eloquent sermon ever. Meanwhile, Hester has learned that Chillingworth knows of their plan and has booked passage on the same ship. Dimmesdale, leaving the church after his sermon, sees Hester and Pearl standing before the town scaffold. He looks ill. Knowing his life is about to end, he mounts the scaffold with his lover and his daughter, and confesses publicly,"
      },
      {
        "text": " townspeople gather for a holiday in honor of an election and Dimmesdale preaches his most eloquent sermon ever. Meanwhile, Hester has learned that Chillingworth knows of their plan and has booked passage on the same ship. Dimmesdale, leaving the church after his sermon, sees Hester and Pearl standing before the town scaffold. He looks ill. Knowing his life is about to end, he mounts the scaffold with his lover and his daughter, and confesses publicly, exposing the mark supposedly seared into the flesh of his chest. He dies in Hester's arms after Pearl kisses him. Frustrated in his revenge, Chillingworth dies within the year. Hester and Pearl leave Boston, and no one knows what has happened to them. Many years later, Hester returns alone, still wearing the scarlet letter, to live in her old cottage and resumes her charitable work. She receives occasional letters from Pearl, who was rumored to have married a European aristocrat and established a family of her own. Pearl also inherits all of Chillingworth's money even though he knows she is not his daughter. There is a sense of liberation in her and the townspeople, especially the women, who had finally begun to forgive Hester of her tragic indiscretion. When Hester dies, she is buried in \"a new grave near an old and sunken one, in that burial ground beside which King's Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tombstone served for both.\" The tombstone was decorated with a letter \"A\", for Hester and Dimmesdale.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tombstone served for both.\" The tombstone was decorated with a letter \"A\", for Hester and Dimmesdale.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The G-String Murders",
    "author": "Craig Rice",
    "published_date": "1941",
    "synopsis": " Gypsy Rose Lee narrates her way through a tale of a double murder, backstage at the \"Old Opera\" burlesque theatre on Forty-Second Street, New York. In a world populated by strippers, comics and costume salesman. A world where crime is part of the norm and where women struggle to earn a living and have gangster boyfriends. The narrative is a \"wise-cracking\" and humorous tale of murder in a burlesque house, and with the unusual weapon of the title.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Gypsy Rose Lee narrates her way through a tale of a double murder, backstage at the \"Old Opera\" burlesque theatre on Forty-Second Street, New York. In a world populated by strippers, comics and costume salesman. A world where crime is part of the norm and where women struggle to earn a living and have gangster boyfriends. The narrative is a \"wise-cracking\" and humorous tale of murder in a burlesque house, and with the unusual weapon of the title.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Live from Death Row",
    "author": "Mumia Abu-Jamal",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Told as anecdotes, most of Live from Death Row details the prison system; in an additional end section titled \"Musings, memories, and prophecies\", Abu-Jamal discusses past events in his life and he remembers some prominent blacks in America. He delves into the purported purpose of prison, finding it hard to believe that \"corrections\" and deterrence are its true goals using the policy to block education of inmates and the psychological problems caused by isolation and non-contact visits as support for his argument of an ulterior motive, to \"erode one's humanity\". He describes the procedures of death row blocs where twenty-plus-hour solitary confinement is offset by a few hours of recreation and exercise \"outside\" on penned-in plots of land and minimal conversations with fellow inmates often regarding their attempts at appeal and their battles with the law. He details two suicides of fellow inmates, one by hanging and one death caused by self-inflicted burns, and the drugging of inmates to make them more sedate even at the expense of one epileptic's health. He reports the interactions between \"urban\" prisoners and \"rural\" guards in which prisoners are subject to brutal beatings, cavity searches, racial harassment, and human rights violations after insurgencies. In addition to prison conditions, he discusses social issues and their relevance to prison. He expresses dismay towards \"three strikes\" mandatory sentencing and politicians using \"tough on crime\" slogans as political gateways, offering the fact that the United States has the most incarcerated individuals in the world. He hints at racial discrimination, as proposed in the McCleskey v. Kemp case, by reciting statistics on America's death row population in comparison with America's population by race; the numbers are not proportional. He then looks at the elements of the judicial system, believing it is subject to racism; he mentions the choosing of \"peers\", often white jurors who are pro-death, as jury members and expert witnesses who suppress or distort evidence to suit the criminal justice system. He also explores the topic of uneven justice with examples of police officers being acquitted with compelling evidence against them and, more often than not, guards receiving minimal, if any, punishment for inappropriate actions against prisoners. * Political-rock band Rage Against the Machine is observed as a heavy supporter of Abu-Jamal. Singer Zack De La Rocha has spoken to Congress, condemning the U.S. government's treatment of him. Guitarist Tom Morello visited Abu-Jamal and has interviewed him. * Political hip hop artist Immortal Technique featured Abu-Jamal on his second album Revolutionary Vol. 2. * The punk band Anti-Flag has a speech from Mumia Abu Jamal in the intro to their song \"The Modern Rome Burning\" from their 2008 album The Bright Lights of America. The speech is actually on the end of their track \"Vices\", which precedes \"The Modern Rome Burning\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Told as anecdotes, most of Live from Death Row details the prison system; in an additional end section titled \"Musings, memories, and prophecies\", Abu-Jamal discusses past events in his life and he remembers some prominent blacks in America. He delves into the purported purpose of prison, finding it hard to believe that \"corrections\" and deterrence are its true goals using the policy to block education of inmates and the psychological problems caused by isolation and non-contact visits as support for his argument of an ulterior motive, to \"erode one's humanity\". He describes the procedures of death row blocs where twenty-plus-hour solitary confinement is offset by a few hours of recreation and exercise \"outside\" on penned-in plots of land and minimal conversations with fellow inmates often regarding their attempts at appeal and their battles with the law. He details two suicides of fellow inmates, one by hanging and one death caused by self-inflicted burns, and the drugging of inmates to make them more sedate even at the expense of one epileptic's health. He reports the interactions between \"urban\" prisoners and \"rural\" guards in which prisoners are subject to brutal beatings, cavity searches, racial harassment, and human rights violations after insurgencies. In addition to prison conditions, he discusses social issues and their relevance to prison. He expresses dismay towards \"three strikes\" mandatory sentencing and politicians using \"tough on crime\" slogans as political gateways, offering the fact that the United States has the most incarcerated individuals in the world. He hints at racial discrimination, as proposed in the McCleskey v. Kemp case, by reciting statistics on America's death row population in comparison with America's population by race; the numbers are not proportional. He then looks at the elements of the judicial system, believing it is subject to racism; he mentions the choosing of \"peers\", often white jurors who are pro-death, as jury members and expert witnesses who suppress"
      },
      {
        "text": " that the United States has the most incarcerated individuals in the world. He hints at racial discrimination, as proposed in the McCleskey v. Kemp case, by reciting statistics on America's death row population in comparison with America's population by race; the numbers are not proportional. He then looks at the elements of the judicial system, believing it is subject to racism; he mentions the choosing of \"peers\", often white jurors who are pro-death, as jury members and expert witnesses who suppress or distort evidence to suit the criminal justice system. He also explores the topic of uneven justice with examples of police officers being acquitted with compelling evidence against them and, more often than not, guards receiving minimal, if any, punishment for inappropriate actions against prisoners. * Political-rock band Rage Against the Machine is observed as a heavy supporter of Abu-Jamal. Singer Zack De La Rocha has spoken to Congress, condemning the U.S. government's treatment of him. Guitarist Tom Morello visited Abu-Jamal and has interviewed him. * Political hip hop artist Immortal Technique featured Abu-Jamal on his second album Revolutionary Vol. 2. * The punk band Anti-Flag has a speech from Mumia Abu Jamal in the intro to their song \"The Modern Rome Burning\" from their 2008 album The Bright Lights of America. The speech is actually on the end of their track \"Vices\", which precedes \"The Modern Rome Burning\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Blue Lotus",
    "author": "Herg\u00e9",
    "published_date": "1936",
    "synopsis": " In Cigars of the Pharaoh (Book 4), Tintin pursued an international group of drug distributors through the Middle East and India. He managed to capture most of the cartel members, but not the mysterious leader, who fell down a ravine in the mountains. Some time after these events, his body has still not been found. Tintin though is shown to be enjoying a vacation with the Maharaja of Gaipajama. Then one day a Chinese man comes to meet him but he is hit by a dart dipped in a poison which causes madness (Rajaijah). He just had the time to tell him that someone going by the name of Mitsuhirato wants to meet him in Shanghai. Tintin travels to Shanghai, China, where he is awaited by the assassins of the opium consortium. However, two attempts on Tintin's life are foiled by a young Chinese stranger who arranges to meet Tintin in a secluded area. Once Tintin arrives for their rendezvous, he discovers that the young man has been struck by Rajaijah juice, the poison of madness, used by the drug cartel against their enemies. Tintin also defends a young Chinese rickshaw driver from a Western businessman and racist bully, Gibbons, a friend of Dawson, the corrupt police chief of the Shanghai International Settlement. Incensed, Gibbons and Dawson set about making life difficult for Tintin. Meanwhile in Shanghai, Tintin meets Mitsuhirato, a Japanese businessman, who urges him to return to India and protect his friend the Maharajah of Gaipajama. Having been persuaded by Mitsuhirato, Tintin is on his way back to India by ship when he is knocked unconscious by means of two unknown men chloroforming him and taken ashore along with Snowy. He wakes up outside Shanghai, in the home of Wang Chen-Yee, the leader of a resistance movement called \"The Sons of the Dragon\" dedicated to the fight against opium; Wang apologizes for the 'violent kidnapping' and begs Tintin to stay in China. Wang's son is the young man who helped save him from the two assassinations, but is now insane from Rajaijah poisoning. He goes about threatening to cut people's heads off with a sword (thinking it will \"show them the way\") and only his father's stern authority can keep him in check. Wang also reveals that Mitsuhirato is their chief opponent: a Japanese secret agent and drug smuggler. Tintin manages to track down Mitsuhirato and witnesses him blowing up a railway line (this is based on the real-life Mukden Incident). No one is killed and damage is minor, but the event is successfully portrayed by the Japanese government as a major Chinese terrorist incident and used as an excuse for a Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Tintin is captured by Mitsuhirato and is to be injected with the Rajaijah poison, but has a near escape when he is aided by one of the members from \"The Sons of the Dragon\", who had infiltrated Mitsuhirato's house earlier and switched the poison for colored water. Having obtained a sample of the poison of madness with the help of the member, Tintin returns to Shanghai, which has now been occupied by the Japanese Army, and tries to make contact with Doctor Fang Hsi-Ying, an expert on insanity, who may be able to cure Wang's son. However, Doctor Fang has been kidnapped by the drug cartel, presumably to prevent him developing an antidote to the poison. A note left by the kidnappers demands ransom money which must be paid at an old temple in the city of Hukow. After a brief period of imprisonment in Shanghai by the Japanese Army, Tintin escapes and rides a train to Hukow to visit the temple where the ransom is to be paid, but a flood washes out the tracks, and all the passengers must disembark. He rescues a young boy, Chang Chong-Chen, from drowning in the Yangtze River. They become fast friends, and Chang rescues Tintin from the Thompsons who had reluctantly arrested him under orders from Dawson (who is collaborating with Mitsuhirato to capture Tintin). They later travel to the area where the ransom money is to be left, and are able to confirm that Doctor Fang has been kidnapped on Mitsuhirato's orders. Tintin and Chang return to Shanghai, but not before Wang and his family are kidnapped by Mitsuhirato. In order to find them, Tintin travels to the Shanghai docks and hides in one of the barrels being unloaded from an opium ship. But it turns out that he was seen, and when he emerges he is confronted by Mitsuhirato armed with a gun, and soon finds himself a prisoner alongside Wang and his family. Then the boss of the opium cartel is revealed to be the film producer Rastapopoulos (see Cigars of the Pharaoh for back story). Tintin is appalled that a man he had thought to be a friend could be the gang leader until Rastapopoulos reveals the tattoo of Kih-Oskh on his forearm. Fortunately, before the cartel could kill Tintin and Wang, the Sons of the Dragon, who had previously overpowered Mitsuhirato's thugs and had hidden in the other barrels (as planned by Tintin), reveal themselves, and force Mitsuhirato and Rastapopoulos to surrender. With Rastapopoulos arrested, the cartel is finally brought down, and Mitsuhirato commits suicide. Fang Hsi-Ying finds an antidote to the poison of madness and Wang's son is cured (it is not mentioned whether the other victims of the poison are also cured). The ensuing political fallout over Tintin's involvement with the cartel and Japanese espionage leads to Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations. The story ends with Chang being adopted by the Wang family and Tintin heading back to Europe.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In Cigars of the Pharaoh (Book 4), Tintin pursued an international group of drug distributors through the Middle East and India. He managed to capture most of the cartel members, but not the mysterious leader, who fell down a ravine in the mountains. Some time after these events, his body has still not been found. Tintin though is shown to be enjoying a vacation with the Maharaja of Gaipajama. Then one day a Chinese man comes to meet him but he is hit by a dart dipped in a poison which causes madness (Rajaijah). He just had the time to tell him that someone going by the name of Mitsuhirato wants to meet him in Shanghai. Tintin travels to Shanghai, China, where he is awaited by the assassins of the opium consortium. However, two attempts on Tintin's life are foiled by a young Chinese stranger who arranges to meet Tintin in a secluded area. Once Tintin arrives for their rendezvous, he discovers that the young man has been struck by Rajaijah juice, the poison of madness, used by the drug cartel against their enemies. Tintin also defends a young Chinese rickshaw driver from a Western businessman and racist bully, Gibbons, a friend of Dawson, the corrupt police chief of the Shanghai International Settlement. Incensed, Gibbons and Dawson set about making life difficult for Tintin. Meanwhile in Shanghai, Tintin meets Mitsuhirato, a Japanese businessman, who urges him to return to India and protect his friend the Maharajah of Gaipajama. Having been persuaded by Mitsuhirato, Tintin is on his way back to India by ship when he is knocked unconscious by means of two unknown men chloroforming him and taken ashore along with Snowy. He wakes up outside Shanghai, in the home of Wang Chen-Yee, the leader of a resistance movement called \"The Sons of"
      },
      {
        "text": "uhirato, a Japanese businessman, who urges him to return to India and protect his friend the Maharajah of Gaipajama. Having been persuaded by Mitsuhirato, Tintin is on his way back to India by ship when he is knocked unconscious by means of two unknown men chloroforming him and taken ashore along with Snowy. He wakes up outside Shanghai, in the home of Wang Chen-Yee, the leader of a resistance movement called \"The Sons of the Dragon\" dedicated to the fight against opium; Wang apologizes for the 'violent kidnapping' and begs Tintin to stay in China. Wang's son is the young man who helped save him from the two assassinations, but is now insane from Rajaijah poisoning. He goes about threatening to cut people's heads off with a sword (thinking it will \"show them the way\") and only his father's stern authority can keep him in check. Wang also reveals that Mitsuhirato is their chief opponent: a Japanese secret agent and drug smuggler. Tintin manages to track down Mitsuhirato and witnesses him blowing up a railway line (this is based on the real-life Mukden Incident). No one is killed and damage is minor, but the event is successfully portrayed by the Japanese government as a major Chinese terrorist incident and used as an excuse for a Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Tintin is captured by Mitsuhirato and is to be injected with the Rajaijah poison, but has a near escape when he is aided by one of the members from \"The Sons of the Dragon\", who had infiltrated Mitsuhirato's house earlier and switched the poison for colored water. Having obtained a sample of the poison of madness with the help of the member, Tintin returns to Shanghai, which has now been occupied by the Japanese Army, and tries to make contact with Doctor Fang Hsi-Ying, an expert on insanity, who"
      },
      {
        "text": " with the Rajaijah poison, but has a near escape when he is aided by one of the members from \"The Sons of the Dragon\", who had infiltrated Mitsuhirato's house earlier and switched the poison for colored water. Having obtained a sample of the poison of madness with the help of the member, Tintin returns to Shanghai, which has now been occupied by the Japanese Army, and tries to make contact with Doctor Fang Hsi-Ying, an expert on insanity, who may be able to cure Wang's son. However, Doctor Fang has been kidnapped by the drug cartel, presumably to prevent him developing an antidote to the poison. A note left by the kidnappers demands ransom money which must be paid at an old temple in the city of Hukow. After a brief period of imprisonment in Shanghai by the Japanese Army, Tintin escapes and rides a train to Hukow to visit the temple where the ransom is to be paid, but a flood washes out the tracks, and all the passengers must disembark. He rescues a young boy, Chang Chong-Chen, from drowning in the Yangtze River. They become fast friends, and Chang rescues Tintin from the Thompsons who had reluctantly arrested him under orders from Dawson (who is collaborating with Mitsuhirato to capture Tintin). They later travel to the area where the ransom money is to be left, and are able to confirm that Doctor Fang has been kidnapped on Mitsuhirato's orders. Tintin and Chang return to Shanghai, but not before Wang and his family are kidnapped by Mitsuhirato. In order to find them, Tintin travels to the Shanghai docks and hides in one of the barrels being unloaded from an opium ship. But it turns out that he was seen, and when he emerges he is confronted by Mitsuhirato armed with a gun, and soon finds himself a prisoner alongside Wang and his family. Then the boss"
      },
      {
        "text": " Mitsuhirato's orders. Tintin and Chang return to Shanghai, but not before Wang and his family are kidnapped by Mitsuhirato. In order to find them, Tintin travels to the Shanghai docks and hides in one of the barrels being unloaded from an opium ship. But it turns out that he was seen, and when he emerges he is confronted by Mitsuhirato armed with a gun, and soon finds himself a prisoner alongside Wang and his family. Then the boss of the opium cartel is revealed to be the film producer Rastapopoulos (see Cigars of the Pharaoh for back story). Tintin is appalled that a man he had thought to be a friend could be the gang leader until Rastapopoulos reveals the tattoo of Kih-Oskh on his forearm. Fortunately, before the cartel could kill Tintin and Wang, the Sons of the Dragon, who had previously overpowered Mitsuhirato's thugs and had hidden in the other barrels (as planned by Tintin), reveal themselves, and force Mitsuhirato and Rastapopoulos to surrender. With Rastapopoulos arrested, the cartel is finally brought down, and Mitsuhirato commits suicide. Fang Hsi-Ying finds an antidote to the poison of madness and Wang's son is cured (it is not mentioned whether the other victims of the poison are also cured). The ensuing political fallout over Tintin's involvement with the cartel and Japanese espionage leads to Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations. The story ends with Chang being adopted by the Wang family and Tintin heading back to Europe.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " leads to Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations. The story ends with Chang being adopted by the Wang family and Tintin heading back to Europe.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Mrs Craddock",
    "author": "W. Somerset Maugham",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " On her 21st birthday, when she comes into her deceased father's money, Bertha Ley announces, to the dismay of her former guardian, that she is going to marry 27 year-old Edward Craddock, her steward. Herself a member of the landed gentry, Bertha has been raised to cultivate an \"immoderate desire for knowledge\" and to understand, and enjoy, European culture of both past and present ages. In particular, during long stays on the Continent, she has learned to appreciate Italy's tremendous cultural heritage. A \"virtuous\" girl, her views on womanhood are thoroughly traditional. She has no doubts about her role in life, which will be to serve and obey her future husband. When Bertha encourages reluctant Edward Craddock, whom she has known since their childhood, to propose to her, she is certain that she will find absolute fulfillment and happiness in her marriage, even if it means abandoning city life and its pleasures for the Kentish coast \"to live as her ancestors had lived, ploughing the land, sowing and reaping; but her children, the sons of the future, would belong to a new stock, stronger and fairer than the old. The Leys had gone down into the darkness of death, and her children would bear another name. [\u2026] She felt in herself suddenly the weariness of a family that had lived too long; she knew she was right to choose new blood to mix with the old blood of the Leys. It needed the freshness and youth, the massive strength of her husband, to bring life to the decayed race.\" (Ch.8) The man selected by Bertha in an almost Darwinian fashion to accomplish all this is described by the narrator as little more than a noble savage, \"the unspoiled child of nature, his mind free from the million perversities of civilization\" (Ch.7). Edward Craddock may be tall, strong, handsome, and practically free from sin (\"He simply reeks of the Ten Commandments\"), but at the same time he is hardly educated, unimaginative, and unnecessarily headstrong. Subconsciously justifying her decision to marry him, Bertha boosts his ego by constantly telling him that he will rise above himself if he is given the chance to do so, and accordingly transfers all powers to manage her estate to her husband. As time goes by, Craddock turns into the archetypal country squire, accepted, respected, even adored and envied by the community, who have no idea that in the meantime his wife has drawn her own, less favourable, conclusions about their married life. After their honeymoon, which they spend in London, Bertha soon realizes that her husband is a bore and, what is more, rather insensitive to her needs. Time and again she pokes fun at his inferior taste in music, his inability and unwillingness to read books, and his chauvinism. She is disappointed at the routine that dominates their marriage and at the lack of attentions he pays her. It gradually dawns upon her that Edward lives in a world of his own, in which the death of a cow causes him more grief than that of a beloved person. When, a bit more than a year into their marriage, Bertha is eight months pregnant and has a premonition that there might be complications during birth, he assures her that \"it's nothing to make a fuss about\", his insight stemming from his own experience: \"He had bred animals for years, and was quite used to the process that supplied him with veal, mutton and beef for the local butchers. It was a ridiculous fuss that human beings made over a natural and ordinary phenomenon.\" (Ch.16) However, their son is stillborn, and Bertha is told that she will not be able to have children in future either. The ensuing crisis makes her doubt that God exists, while the vicar's sister, a friend of theirs, asserts that \"we should be thankful for the cross we have to bear. It is, as it were, a measure of the confidence that God places in us.\" (Ch.18) Finding no solace in religion\u2014at least that kind of religion\u2014but at the same time unable to get over the loss of her son and also increasingly disgusted by her husband's matter-of-fact behaviour, Bertha escapes her dreary surroundings and finds refuge in London, where she moves into her aunt's flat. Mary Ley, in her late forties and unmarried, senses right from the start that Bertha means to leave her husband for good but, for the sake of her niece's peace of mind, is not prepared to broach the subject. Edward, on the other hand, is happily unaware of his wife's intentions, considering himself nothing more than a grass widower and urging his wife in several letters to come home as soon as she has fully recovered. After a prolonged trip with her aunt to Paris, made under the pretext of intending to buy dresses, Bertha, for want of any other reasonable course of action, returns to Kent and her husband, thus erroneously confirming Edward in his belief that her going away was just a passing phase. While his wife settles down to a life of quiet despair and excruciating boredom, Edward Craddock, who has become a stranger to her, embarks on a career in politics. Elected County Councillor for the Conservative Party, he immediately starts dreaming of climbing the ladder of success even further and becoming an MP. Five years after her wedding, aged only 26, Bertha not only feels that she has aged prematurely; she is also aware of the fact that in the eyes of the local community she has become a mere appendage to her husband. Never having had anyone to confide in, she at long last picks Dr Ramsay, the local GP and her former guardian, to tell him the truth about the passionate hatred she feels for Edward and to ask for the doctor's help. \"I know him through and through\", Bertha says of her husband, \"and he's a fool. You can't conceive how stupid, how utterly brainless he is. He bores me to death. [\u2026] Oh, when I think that I'm shackled to him for the rest of my life I feel I could kill myself.\" (Ch.27) Again Bertha escapes to the Continent, again with her aunt, this time to Rome (while Edward Craddock has not once in his life been abroad). Claiming that her delicate health demands spending the winter in a warm climate, she is back in London in the following spring after having enjoyed six months of freedom but now must face reality again and no longer delay her return to her husband. This is when 19 year-old Gerald Vaudrey, a cousin of hers she has never met before, enters her life. Gerald, handsome and still looking like a schoolboy, is to stay in London for a couple of weeks to wait for his passage to the United States, where he has been assigned to go by his parents as a punishment for his misdemeanours. Visiting his\u2014and Bertha's -- aunt, he is introduced to his cousin at Mary Ley's flat, and from the moment they first set eyes on each other Bertha and Gerald are curiously attracted to each other. They go off almost every day exploring the sights of London, and 26 year-old Bertha, unable as well as unwilling to face the facts, feels flattered by the youth's many attentions. She just does not really want to believe that Gerald has been expelled from his parental home after seducing the maid; she refuses to see a womanizer in Gerald and, although she tries hard to resist her feelings, genuinely falls in love with the boy. At the very last moment, on the eve of Gerald's departure, it occurs to Bertha that she might \"give Gerald the inestimable gift of her body\", as \"there is one way in which a woman can bind a man to her for ever, there is one tie that is indissoluble; her very flesh cried out, and she trembled at the thought.\" (Ch.31) The young couple are already alone in their aunt's flat, but Mary Ley comes home early from a dinner to which she has been invited, suspecting that they could be meeting secretly, and prevents any sexual activity. Gerald Vaudrey leaves for the States on the following morning. When, two weeks later, Bertha receives a letter from America, she puts it on the mantelpiece, where she looks at it for a month. Only then does she burn it, without ever having opened it. To her, having achieved this means that she has got over her infatuation. Again Bertha Craddock returns to her husband and, after that \"mere spring day of happiness\" with Gerald, prepares for \"the long winter of life\". Four years later, when she is 30, Edward Craddock breaks his neck in a riding accident, and, seeing his body being carried into the house, Bertha, for the first time since her wedding, feels free. Similar to the old custom of damnatio memoriae in the Roman Empire, she destroys all of Edward's photographs and all of his letters to her.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On her 21st birthday, when she comes into her deceased father's money, Bertha Ley announces, to the dismay of her former guardian, that she is going to marry 27 year-old Edward Craddock, her steward. Herself a member of the landed gentry, Bertha has been raised to cultivate an \"immoderate desire for knowledge\" and to understand, and enjoy, European culture of both past and present ages. In particular, during long stays on the Continent, she has learned to appreciate Italy's tremendous cultural heritage. A \"virtuous\" girl, her views on womanhood are thoroughly traditional. She has no doubts about her role in life, which will be to serve and obey her future husband. When Bertha encourages reluctant Edward Craddock, whom she has known since their childhood, to propose to her, she is certain that she will find absolute fulfillment and happiness in her marriage, even if it means abandoning city life and its pleasures for the Kentish coast \"to live as her ancestors had lived, ploughing the land, sowing and reaping; but her children, the sons of the future, would belong to a new stock, stronger and fairer than the old. The Leys had gone down into the darkness of death, and her children would bear another name. [\u2026] She felt in herself suddenly the weariness of a family that had lived too long; she knew she was right to choose new blood to mix with the old blood of the Leys. It needed the freshness and youth, the massive strength of her husband, to bring life to the decayed race.\" (Ch.8) The man selected by Bertha in an almost Darwinian fashion to accomplish all this is described by the narrator as little more than a noble savage, \"the unspoiled child of nature, his mind free from the million perversities of civilization\" (Ch.7). Edward Craddock may be tall, strong, handsome, and practically"
      },
      {
        "text": "ys. It needed the freshness and youth, the massive strength of her husband, to bring life to the decayed race.\" (Ch.8) The man selected by Bertha in an almost Darwinian fashion to accomplish all this is described by the narrator as little more than a noble savage, \"the unspoiled child of nature, his mind free from the million perversities of civilization\" (Ch.7). Edward Craddock may be tall, strong, handsome, and practically free from sin (\"He simply reeks of the Ten Commandments\"), but at the same time he is hardly educated, unimaginative, and unnecessarily headstrong. Subconsciously justifying her decision to marry him, Bertha boosts his ego by constantly telling him that he will rise above himself if he is given the chance to do so, and accordingly transfers all powers to manage her estate to her husband. As time goes by, Craddock turns into the archetypal country squire, accepted, respected, even adored and envied by the community, who have no idea that in the meantime his wife has drawn her own, less favourable, conclusions about their married life. After their honeymoon, which they spend in London, Bertha soon realizes that her husband is a bore and, what is more, rather insensitive to her needs. Time and again she pokes fun at his inferior taste in music, his inability and unwillingness to read books, and his chauvinism. She is disappointed at the routine that dominates their marriage and at the lack of attentions he pays her. It gradually dawns upon her that Edward lives in a world of his own, in which the death of a cow causes him more grief than that of a beloved person. When, a bit more than a year into their marriage, Bertha is eight months pregnant and has a premonition that there might be complications during birth, he assures her that \"it's nothing to make a fuss about\", his insight stemming"
      },
      {
        "text": " the routine that dominates their marriage and at the lack of attentions he pays her. It gradually dawns upon her that Edward lives in a world of his own, in which the death of a cow causes him more grief than that of a beloved person. When, a bit more than a year into their marriage, Bertha is eight months pregnant and has a premonition that there might be complications during birth, he assures her that \"it's nothing to make a fuss about\", his insight stemming from his own experience: \"He had bred animals for years, and was quite used to the process that supplied him with veal, mutton and beef for the local butchers. It was a ridiculous fuss that human beings made over a natural and ordinary phenomenon.\" (Ch.16) However, their son is stillborn, and Bertha is told that she will not be able to have children in future either. The ensuing crisis makes her doubt that God exists, while the vicar's sister, a friend of theirs, asserts that \"we should be thankful for the cross we have to bear. It is, as it were, a measure of the confidence that God places in us.\" (Ch.18) Finding no solace in religion\u2014at least that kind of religion\u2014but at the same time unable to get over the loss of her son and also increasingly disgusted by her husband's matter-of-fact behaviour, Bertha escapes her dreary surroundings and finds refuge in London, where she moves into her aunt's flat. Mary Ley, in her late forties and unmarried, senses right from the start that Bertha means to leave her husband for good but, for the sake of her niece's peace of mind, is not prepared to broach the subject. Edward, on the other hand, is happily unaware of his wife's intentions, considering himself nothing more than a grass widower and urging his wife in several letters to come home as soon as she has fully recovered"
      },
      {
        "text": ", where she moves into her aunt's flat. Mary Ley, in her late forties and unmarried, senses right from the start that Bertha means to leave her husband for good but, for the sake of her niece's peace of mind, is not prepared to broach the subject. Edward, on the other hand, is happily unaware of his wife's intentions, considering himself nothing more than a grass widower and urging his wife in several letters to come home as soon as she has fully recovered. After a prolonged trip with her aunt to Paris, made under the pretext of intending to buy dresses, Bertha, for want of any other reasonable course of action, returns to Kent and her husband, thus erroneously confirming Edward in his belief that her going away was just a passing phase. While his wife settles down to a life of quiet despair and excruciating boredom, Edward Craddock, who has become a stranger to her, embarks on a career in politics. Elected County Councillor for the Conservative Party, he immediately starts dreaming of climbing the ladder of success even further and becoming an MP. Five years after her wedding, aged only 26, Bertha not only feels that she has aged prematurely; she is also aware of the fact that in the eyes of the local community she has become a mere appendage to her husband. Never having had anyone to confide in, she at long last picks Dr Ramsay, the local GP and her former guardian, to tell him the truth about the passionate hatred she feels for Edward and to ask for the doctor's help. \"I know him through and through\", Bertha says of her husband, \"and he's a fool. You can't conceive how stupid, how utterly brainless he is. He bores me to death. [\u2026] Oh, when I think that I'm shackled to him for the rest of my life I feel I could kill myself.\" (Ch.27) Again Bertha escapes to the Continent, again with"
      },
      {
        "text": " the passionate hatred she feels for Edward and to ask for the doctor's help. \"I know him through and through\", Bertha says of her husband, \"and he's a fool. You can't conceive how stupid, how utterly brainless he is. He bores me to death. [\u2026] Oh, when I think that I'm shackled to him for the rest of my life I feel I could kill myself.\" (Ch.27) Again Bertha escapes to the Continent, again with her aunt, this time to Rome (while Edward Craddock has not once in his life been abroad). Claiming that her delicate health demands spending the winter in a warm climate, she is back in London in the following spring after having enjoyed six months of freedom but now must face reality again and no longer delay her return to her husband. This is when 19 year-old Gerald Vaudrey, a cousin of hers she has never met before, enters her life. Gerald, handsome and still looking like a schoolboy, is to stay in London for a couple of weeks to wait for his passage to the United States, where he has been assigned to go by his parents as a punishment for his misdemeanours. Visiting his\u2014and Bertha's -- aunt, he is introduced to his cousin at Mary Ley's flat, and from the moment they first set eyes on each other Bertha and Gerald are curiously attracted to each other. They go off almost every day exploring the sights of London, and 26 year-old Bertha, unable as well as unwilling to face the facts, feels flattered by the youth's many attentions. She just does not really want to believe that Gerald has been expelled from his parental home after seducing the maid; she refuses to see a womanizer in Gerald and, although she tries hard to resist her feelings, genuinely falls in love with the boy. At the very last moment, on the eve of Gerald's departure, it occurs to Bertha"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and 26 year-old Bertha, unable as well as unwilling to face the facts, feels flattered by the youth's many attentions. She just does not really want to believe that Gerald has been expelled from his parental home after seducing the maid; she refuses to see a womanizer in Gerald and, although she tries hard to resist her feelings, genuinely falls in love with the boy. At the very last moment, on the eve of Gerald's departure, it occurs to Bertha that she might \"give Gerald the inestimable gift of her body\", as \"there is one way in which a woman can bind a man to her for ever, there is one tie that is indissoluble; her very flesh cried out, and she trembled at the thought.\" (Ch.31) The young couple are already alone in their aunt's flat, but Mary Ley comes home early from a dinner to which she has been invited, suspecting that they could be meeting secretly, and prevents any sexual activity. Gerald Vaudrey leaves for the States on the following morning. When, two weeks later, Bertha receives a letter from America, she puts it on the mantelpiece, where she looks at it for a month. Only then does she burn it, without ever having opened it. To her, having achieved this means that she has got over her infatuation. Again Bertha Craddock returns to her husband and, after that \"mere spring day of happiness\" with Gerald, prepares for \"the long winter of life\". Four years later, when she is 30, Edward Craddock breaks his neck in a riding accident, and, seeing his body being carried into the house, Bertha, for the first time since her wedding, feels free. Similar to the old custom of damnatio memoriae in the Roman Empire, she destroys all of Edward's photographs and all of his letters to her.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " of happiness\" with Gerald, prepares for \"the long winter of life\". Four years later, when she is 30, Edward Craddock breaks his neck in a riding accident, and, seeing his body being carried into the house, Bertha, for the first time since her wedding, feels free. Similar to the old custom of damnatio memoriae in the Roman Empire, she destroys all of Edward's photographs and all of his letters to her.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Hideous Kinky",
    "author": "Esther Freud",
    "published_date": "1992-01-30",
    "synopsis": " A young mother and her two daughters travel to Marrakech, Morocco, during the 1960s. The mother, Julia, is disenchanted by the dreary conventions of English life, hence the journey. They live in a low-rent Marrakesh hotel and make a living out of making hand-sewn dolls and with some money sent by the girls' father, a poet in London. Whilst the mother explores Sufism and quests for personal fulfilment, the daughters rebel. The elder, Bea, attempting to re-create her English life, wants to get an education and insists on going to school. The younger, Lucy, dreams of trivial things, like mashed potatoes, but also yearns for a father. Her hopes settle on a most unlikely candidate. The girls match their mother with Bilal, a Moroccan con man and acrobat; the relationship turns sexual and he moves in, becoming almost a surrogate father. However, Julia's friend encourages her to travel to Algiers and study with a Sufi master at a school that advocates the \"annihilation of the ego.\" As money vanishes, Julia's response is to claim that \"God will provide,\" albeit in the person of Bilal.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A young mother and her two daughters travel to Marrakech, Morocco, during the 1960s. The mother, Julia, is disenchanted by the dreary conventions of English life, hence the journey. They live in a low-rent Marrakesh hotel and make a living out of making hand-sewn dolls and with some money sent by the girls' father, a poet in London. Whilst the mother explores Sufism and quests for personal fulfilment, the daughters rebel. The elder, Bea, attempting to re-create her English life, wants to get an education and insists on going to school. The younger, Lucy, dreams of trivial things, like mashed potatoes, but also yearns for a father. Her hopes settle on a most unlikely candidate. The girls match their mother with Bilal, a Moroccan con man and acrobat; the relationship turns sexual and he moves in, becoming almost a surrogate father. However, Julia's friend encourages her to travel to Algiers and study with a Sufi master at a school that advocates the \"annihilation of the ego.\" As money vanishes, Julia's response is to claim that \"God will provide,\" albeit in the person of Bilal.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Myra Breckinridge",
    "author": "Gore Vidal",
    "published_date": "1968-02",
    "synopsis": " Myra Breckinridge is an attractive young woman with a mission. She is a film buff with a special interest in the Golden Age of Hollywood\u2014in particular the 1940s\u2014and the writings of real-life film critic Parker Tyler. She comes to the Academy for Aspiring Young Actors and Actresses, owned by her deceased husband Myron's uncle, Buck Loner. Myra gets a job teaching, not just her regular classes (Posture and Empathy), but also, as part of the hidden curriculum, female dominance. Myra selects as her first victim one of the \"studs\" at the Academy, a straight young man called Rusty Godowsky, and sets out to alienate him from his beautiful girlfriend Mary-Ann Pringle. She lures Rusty to the school infirmary, where she verbally abuses him, ties him to an exam table and anally rapes him with a strap-on dildo. Later, after she is injured in a car crash, it is learned that Myra is Myron, still in the process of sexual reassignment surgery; unable to obtain hormones, Myra reverts to Myron, and, as a result of the injuries she has sustained, is forced to have her breast implants removed. Now a male eunuch, Myron decides to settle down with Mary-Ann. The subplot of Myra Breckinridge revolves around the character of Letitia Van Allen, an aging, sexually voracious talent scout whom Myra meets and befriends at the academy, whose office boasts a four-poster bed and whose kinky sexual practices (\"Those small attentions a girl like me cherishes\u2026 a lighted cigarette stubbed out on my derri\u00e8re, a complete beating with his great thick heavy leather belt\u2026\") landed her in hospital, \"half paralyzed\", at the same time Myra finds herself there towards the end of the novel. The spirit of the times is also well reflected in another, earlier chapter (Ch. 14) where Myra attends an orgy arranged by one of the students. She goes, intending only to be an observer, but suffers a \"rude intrusion\" by a member of the band The Four Skins, from which she derives a perverse, masochistic enjoyment. At an earlier regular party, after \"mixing gin and marijuana\", she eventually gets \"stoned out of her head\" and has a fit, then passes out in a bathroom.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Myra Breckinridge is an attractive young woman with a mission. She is a film buff with a special interest in the Golden Age of Hollywood\u2014in particular the 1940s\u2014and the writings of real-life film critic Parker Tyler. She comes to the Academy for Aspiring Young Actors and Actresses, owned by her deceased husband Myron's uncle, Buck Loner. Myra gets a job teaching, not just her regular classes (Posture and Empathy), but also, as part of the hidden curriculum, female dominance. Myra selects as her first victim one of the \"studs\" at the Academy, a straight young man called Rusty Godowsky, and sets out to alienate him from his beautiful girlfriend Mary-Ann Pringle. She lures Rusty to the school infirmary, where she verbally abuses him, ties him to an exam table and anally rapes him with a strap-on dildo. Later, after she is injured in a car crash, it is learned that Myra is Myron, still in the process of sexual reassignment surgery; unable to obtain hormones, Myra reverts to Myron, and, as a result of the injuries she has sustained, is forced to have her breast implants removed. Now a male eunuch, Myron decides to settle down with Mary-Ann. The subplot of Myra Breckinridge revolves around the character of Letitia Van Allen, an aging, sexually voracious talent scout whom Myra meets and befriends at the academy, whose office boasts a four-poster bed and whose kinky sexual practices (\"Those small attentions a girl like me cherishes\u2026 a lighted cigarette stubbed out on my derri\u00e8re, a complete beating with his great thick heavy leather belt\u2026\") landed her in hospital, \"half paralyzed\", at the same time Myra finds herself there towards the end of the novel. The spirit of the times is also well reflected in"
      },
      {
        "text": " talent scout whom Myra meets and befriends at the academy, whose office boasts a four-poster bed and whose kinky sexual practices (\"Those small attentions a girl like me cherishes\u2026 a lighted cigarette stubbed out on my derri\u00e8re, a complete beating with his great thick heavy leather belt\u2026\") landed her in hospital, \"half paralyzed\", at the same time Myra finds herself there towards the end of the novel. The spirit of the times is also well reflected in another, earlier chapter (Ch. 14) where Myra attends an orgy arranged by one of the students. She goes, intending only to be an observer, but suffers a \"rude intrusion\" by a member of the band The Four Skins, from which she derives a perverse, masochistic enjoyment. At an earlier regular party, after \"mixing gin and marijuana\", she eventually gets \"stoned out of her head\" and has a fit, then passes out in a bathroom.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Operation Shylock: A Confession",
    "author": "Philip Roth",
    "published_date": "1993",
    "synopsis": " The novel follows narrator \"Philip Roth\" on a journey to Israel, where he attends the trial of accused war criminal John Demjanjuk and becomes involved in an intelligence mission\u2014the \"Operation Shylock\" of the title.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel follows narrator \"Philip Roth\" on a journey to Israel, where he attends the trial of accused war criminal John Demjanjuk and becomes involved in an intelligence mission\u2014the \"Operation Shylock\" of the title.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Virginia",
    "author": "Ellen Glasgow",
    "published_date": "1913",
    "synopsis": " Born in 1864 to a clergyman and his dutiful wife, Virginia grows up as a Southern belle in the town of Dinwiddie, Virginia. Her education is strictly limited to the bare minimum, with anything that might disturb her quiet and comfortable existence vigorously avoided. Thus prepared for life, Virginia falls for the first handsome young man who crosses her path\u2014Oliver Treadwell, the black sheep of a family of capitalist entrepreneurs who, during the time of Reconstruction, brought industry and the railroad to the South. Oliver, who has been abroad and has only recently arrived in Dinwiddie, is a dreamer and an intellectual. An aspiring playwright, his literary ambitions are more important to him than money, and he refuses his uncle's offer to work in his bank. However, when Virginia falls in love with him he realizes that he must be able to support a family, and eventually accepts his uncle's offer to work for the railroad. The young couple get married and have three children, a boy and two girls. Gradually perfecting her household skills, Virginia is able to get by on very little money. When, after many years, Oliver's first play is put on the stage in New York, his expectations are high. However, the show is a complete failure as the play is far too intellectual and radical for a Broadway audience who wants to be entertained rather than reformed. Reading about the flop in the local newspaper, Virginia for the first time in her life leaves her children, asking her mother to take care of them for a day or two, and takes the night train to New York to be with, and console, her husband\u2014only to be rejected by him, who is in a state of severe depression. When he has recovered from the shock, Oliver makes yet another concession to society and public taste and starts writing \"trash\". Throughout the years, Virginia leads a vicarious life: She is happy when her husband and children are happy; she makes sure their clothes are in perfect condition while neglecting her own outward appearance; and she is eager to provide for her children the education she herself has been denied. When, at one point, she realizes that the women her age whom she has known since childhood still look quite young while she has aged prematurely, she quickly persuades herself to believe that a life of altruistic subservience is more than worthwhile, that living and acting the way she does is her duty and God's will. Her father's sudden if honourable death\u2014he unsuccessfully tries to prevent the lynching of an innocent young African American and is stabbed in the process by an angry and drunken young man\u2014adds to the gloom that starts creeping into her life, especially when she sees that, as a widow, her mother suddenly loses all her will to live. When she dies only a few months after her husband, Virginia has a premonition that her own fate when losing Oliver could be a similar one. Meanwhile Oliver's first successful play\u2014a trashy one\u2014premi\u00e8res in New York, with some more to follow in quick succession, and, as the money keeps pouring in, the family move into a bigger house in Dinwiddie. They now employ a number of servants, including an African American butler. With the children gone\u2014their son and one daughter are at college, while the other daughter has married a much older widower with two grown-up children and has also flown the nest\u2014and Oliver frequently in New York to supervise the staging of his plays, Virginia's life becomes increasingly empty. Having \"outlived her usefulness\", the days seem endless to her, and with all the servants about the house there is absolutely no housework for her to do either. Now in her mid-forties, Virginia for the first time in her life spends Christmas alone at home. The biggest blow, however, is yet to come: When she accompanies Oliver to New York for a premi\u00e8re, she finds out to her dismay that he has been betraying her with a famous actress who stars in one of his plays. For the last time summoning up all her courage, she takes a taxi and pays her an unexpected call but immediately realizes when talking to her that she has no chance of winning her husband back. Without many words, Oliver asks her to let him divorce her, but clinging to the only thing she has left in her life\u2014her marriage\u2014she refuses. The novel ends on a somewhat optimistic note when Virginia, again alone in the empty house in Dinwiddie, receives a letter from her son telling her that he is going to leave Oxford before he has completed his two-year course at the university in order to come back and stay with his mother.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Born in 1864 to a clergyman and his dutiful wife, Virginia grows up as a Southern belle in the town of Dinwiddie, Virginia. Her education is strictly limited to the bare minimum, with anything that might disturb her quiet and comfortable existence vigorously avoided. Thus prepared for life, Virginia falls for the first handsome young man who crosses her path\u2014Oliver Treadwell, the black sheep of a family of capitalist entrepreneurs who, during the time of Reconstruction, brought industry and the railroad to the South. Oliver, who has been abroad and has only recently arrived in Dinwiddie, is a dreamer and an intellectual. An aspiring playwright, his literary ambitions are more important to him than money, and he refuses his uncle's offer to work in his bank. However, when Virginia falls in love with him he realizes that he must be able to support a family, and eventually accepts his uncle's offer to work for the railroad. The young couple get married and have three children, a boy and two girls. Gradually perfecting her household skills, Virginia is able to get by on very little money. When, after many years, Oliver's first play is put on the stage in New York, his expectations are high. However, the show is a complete failure as the play is far too intellectual and radical for a Broadway audience who wants to be entertained rather than reformed. Reading about the flop in the local newspaper, Virginia for the first time in her life leaves her children, asking her mother to take care of them for a day or two, and takes the night train to New York to be with, and console, her husband\u2014only to be rejected by him, who is in a state of severe depression. When he has recovered from the shock, Oliver makes yet another concession to society and public taste and starts writing \"trash\". Throughout the years, Virginia leads a vicarious life: She is happy when her husband and children are happy"
      },
      {
        "text": " her life leaves her children, asking her mother to take care of them for a day or two, and takes the night train to New York to be with, and console, her husband\u2014only to be rejected by him, who is in a state of severe depression. When he has recovered from the shock, Oliver makes yet another concession to society and public taste and starts writing \"trash\". Throughout the years, Virginia leads a vicarious life: She is happy when her husband and children are happy; she makes sure their clothes are in perfect condition while neglecting her own outward appearance; and she is eager to provide for her children the education she herself has been denied. When, at one point, she realizes that the women her age whom she has known since childhood still look quite young while she has aged prematurely, she quickly persuades herself to believe that a life of altruistic subservience is more than worthwhile, that living and acting the way she does is her duty and God's will. Her father's sudden if honourable death\u2014he unsuccessfully tries to prevent the lynching of an innocent young African American and is stabbed in the process by an angry and drunken young man\u2014adds to the gloom that starts creeping into her life, especially when she sees that, as a widow, her mother suddenly loses all her will to live. When she dies only a few months after her husband, Virginia has a premonition that her own fate when losing Oliver could be a similar one. Meanwhile Oliver's first successful play\u2014a trashy one\u2014premi\u00e8res in New York, with some more to follow in quick succession, and, as the money keeps pouring in, the family move into a bigger house in Dinwiddie. They now employ a number of servants, including an African American butler. With the children gone\u2014their son and one daughter are at college, while the other daughter has married a much older widower with two grown-up children and has also"
      },
      {
        "text": " Meanwhile Oliver's first successful play\u2014a trashy one\u2014premi\u00e8res in New York, with some more to follow in quick succession, and, as the money keeps pouring in, the family move into a bigger house in Dinwiddie. They now employ a number of servants, including an African American butler. With the children gone\u2014their son and one daughter are at college, while the other daughter has married a much older widower with two grown-up children and has also flown the nest\u2014and Oliver frequently in New York to supervise the staging of his plays, Virginia's life becomes increasingly empty. Having \"outlived her usefulness\", the days seem endless to her, and with all the servants about the house there is absolutely no housework for her to do either. Now in her mid-forties, Virginia for the first time in her life spends Christmas alone at home. The biggest blow, however, is yet to come: When she accompanies Oliver to New York for a premi\u00e8re, she finds out to her dismay that he has been betraying her with a famous actress who stars in one of his plays. For the last time summoning up all her courage, she takes a taxi and pays her an unexpected call but immediately realizes when talking to her that she has no chance of winning her husband back. Without many words, Oliver asks her to let him divorce her, but clinging to the only thing she has left in her life\u2014her marriage\u2014she refuses. The novel ends on a somewhat optimistic note when Virginia, again alone in the empty house in Dinwiddie, receives a letter from her son telling her that he is going to leave Oxford before he has completed his two-year course at the university in order to come back and stay with his mother.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". The novel ends on a somewhat optimistic note when Virginia, again alone in the empty house in Dinwiddie, receives a letter from her son telling her that he is going to leave Oxford before he has completed his two-year course at the university in order to come back and stay with his mother.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "You Only Live Twice",
    "author": "Ian Fleming",
    "published_date": "1964-03-16",
    "synopsis": " After the wedding-day murder of his wife, Tracy (see On Her Majesty's Secret Service), Bond begins to let his life slide, drinking and gambling heavily, making mistakes and turning up late for work. His superior in the Secret Service, M, had been planning to dismiss Bond, but decides to give him a last-chance opportunity to redeem himself by assigning him to the diplomatic branch of the organisation. Bond is subsequently re-numbered 7777 and handed an \"impossible\" mission: convincing the head of Japan's secret intelligence service, Tiger Tanaka, to provide Britain with information from radio transmissions captured from the Soviet Union, codenamed Magic 44. In exchange, the Secret Service will allow the Japanese access to one of their own information sources. Bond is introduced to Tanaka\u2014and to the Japanese lifestyle\u2014by an Australian intelligence officer, Dikko Henderson. When Bond raises the purpose of his mission with Tanaka, it transpires that the Japanese have already penetrated the British information source and Bond has nothing left to bargain with. Instead, Tanaka asks Bond to kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand, who operates a politically embarrassing \"Garden of Death\" in an ancient castle; people flock there to commit suicide. After examining photos of Shatterhand and his wife, Bond discovers that \"Shatterhand\" and his wife are Tracy's murderers, Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Irma Bunt. Bond gladly takes the mission, keeping his knowledge of Blofeld's identity a secret so that he can exact revenge for his wife's death. Made up and trained by Tanaka, and aided by former Japanese film star Kissy Suzuki, Bond attempts to live and think as a mute Japanese coal miner in order to penetrate Shatterhand's castle. Tanaka renames Bond \"Taro Todoroki\" for the mission. After infiltrating the Garden of Death and the castle where Blofeld spends his time dressed in the costume of a Samurai warrior, Bond is captured and Bunt identifies him as a British secret agent and not a Japanese coal miner. After surviving a near execution, Bond exacts revenge on Blofeld in a duel, Blofeld armed with a sword and Bond with a wooden staff. Bond eventually kills Blofeld by strangling him, then blows up the castle. Upon escaping, he suffers a head injury, leaving him an amnesiac living as a Japanese fisherman with Kissy, while the rest of the world believes him dead; his obituary appears in the newspapers. While Bond's health improves, Kissy conceals his true identity to keep him forever to herself. Kissy eventually sleeps with Bond and becomes pregnant, and hopes that Bond will propose marriage after she finds the right time to tell him about her pregnancy. Bond reads scraps of newspaper and fixates on a reference to Vladivostok, making him wonder if the far-off city is the key to his missing memory; he tells Kissy he must travel to Russia to find out.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After the wedding-day murder of his wife, Tracy (see On Her Majesty's Secret Service), Bond begins to let his life slide, drinking and gambling heavily, making mistakes and turning up late for work. His superior in the Secret Service, M, had been planning to dismiss Bond, but decides to give him a last-chance opportunity to redeem himself by assigning him to the diplomatic branch of the organisation. Bond is subsequently re-numbered 7777 and handed an \"impossible\" mission: convincing the head of Japan's secret intelligence service, Tiger Tanaka, to provide Britain with information from radio transmissions captured from the Soviet Union, codenamed Magic 44. In exchange, the Secret Service will allow the Japanese access to one of their own information sources. Bond is introduced to Tanaka\u2014and to the Japanese lifestyle\u2014by an Australian intelligence officer, Dikko Henderson. When Bond raises the purpose of his mission with Tanaka, it transpires that the Japanese have already penetrated the British information source and Bond has nothing left to bargain with. Instead, Tanaka asks Bond to kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand, who operates a politically embarrassing \"Garden of Death\" in an ancient castle; people flock there to commit suicide. After examining photos of Shatterhand and his wife, Bond discovers that \"Shatterhand\" and his wife are Tracy's murderers, Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Irma Bunt. Bond gladly takes the mission, keeping his knowledge of Blofeld's identity a secret so that he can exact revenge for his wife's death. Made up and trained by Tanaka, and aided by former Japanese film star Kissy Suzuki, Bond attempts to live and think as a mute Japanese coal miner in order to penetrate Shatterhand's castle. Tanaka renames Bond \"Taro Todoroki\" for the mission. After infiltrating the Garden of Death and the castle where Blofeld spends his time dressed in the costume of a Samurai warrior, Bond is"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s identity a secret so that he can exact revenge for his wife's death. Made up and trained by Tanaka, and aided by former Japanese film star Kissy Suzuki, Bond attempts to live and think as a mute Japanese coal miner in order to penetrate Shatterhand's castle. Tanaka renames Bond \"Taro Todoroki\" for the mission. After infiltrating the Garden of Death and the castle where Blofeld spends his time dressed in the costume of a Samurai warrior, Bond is captured and Bunt identifies him as a British secret agent and not a Japanese coal miner. After surviving a near execution, Bond exacts revenge on Blofeld in a duel, Blofeld armed with a sword and Bond with a wooden staff. Bond eventually kills Blofeld by strangling him, then blows up the castle. Upon escaping, he suffers a head injury, leaving him an amnesiac living as a Japanese fisherman with Kissy, while the rest of the world believes him dead; his obituary appears in the newspapers. While Bond's health improves, Kissy conceals his true identity to keep him forever to herself. Kissy eventually sleeps with Bond and becomes pregnant, and hopes that Bond will propose marriage after she finds the right time to tell him about her pregnancy. Bond reads scraps of newspaper and fixates on a reference to Vladivostok, making him wonder if the far-off city is the key to his missing memory; he tells Kissy he must travel to Russia to find out.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "y he must travel to Russia to find out.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Stand",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1978",
    "synopsis": " The novel is divided into three parts, or books. The first is titled \"Captain Trips\" and takes place over nineteen days, with the escape and spread of a human-made superflu (influenza) virus known formally as \"Project Blue\", but most commonly as \"Captain Trips\". The virus is developed at a U.S. Army base, where it is accidentally released. While the base tries to shut down before any infected person can escape, a security malfunction allows a guard and his family to sneak out. Unfortunately, they are already infected, and set off a pandemic that kills an estimated 99.4% of the world's human population, as well as that of domesticated animals, such as horses and dogs. Through the perspectives of the multiple principal characters, and also from an omniscient third-party perspective, the narrative outlines the total breakdown and destruction of society through widespread violence, the failure of martial law to contain the outbreak, and eventually the death of virtually the entire population. The emotional toll is also dealt with, as the few survivors must care for their families and friends, dealing with confusion and grief as their loved ones succumb to the flu. The expanded edition opens with a prologue titled \"The Circle Opens\" that offers greater detail into the circumstances surrounding the development of the virus and the security breach that allowed its escape from the secret laboratory compound where it was created. Intertwining cross-country odysseys are undertaken by a small number of survivors in three parties, which are drawn together by both circumstances and their shared dreams of a 108-year-old woman from Hemingford Home, Nebraska, whom they see as a refuge and a representation of good in the struggle of good versus evil. This woman, Abagail Freemantle, or \"Mother Abagail\", becomes the spiritual leader for the survivors. Mother Abagail directs them to Boulder, Colorado, where they struggle to re-establish a democratic society. Meanwhile, another group of survivors are drawn to Las Vegas, Nevada by Randall Flagg, an evil being with supernatural powers who represents the Enemy, or the Adversary. Flagg\u2019s governance is brutally tyrannical, using crucifixion, dismemberment and other forms of torture to quell dissent. Flagg's group is able to quickly reorganize its society, restore power to Las Vegas, and rebuild the city with the many technical professionals who have migrated there. Flagg's group launches a weapons program, searching the country for suitable arms. In Boulder, the democratic society of the \"Free Zone\" is beset with problems: Mother Abagail, feeling that she has become prideful due to her pleasure at being a public figure, disappears into the wilderness on a journey of spiritual reconciliation. The Free Zone leadership committee, consisting of seven men and women -- Frannie Goldsmith, Stu Redman, Nick Andros, Larry Underwood, Ralph Brenter, Glen Bateman, and Susan Stern -- decide to secretly send three people to Randall Flagg's territory to act as spies. Meanwhile, one of the survivors, Harold Lauder, builds a dynamite bomb in response to feelings of disconnection and revenge for his unrequited love for Fran Goldsmith, who had fallen for Stu Redman; another survivor, Nadine Cross, seduced despite herself by Flagg's dark attraction which first manifested itself to her years earlier via a ouija board, plants the bomb where it will effectively destroy the Free Zone's leadership. The explosion kills Nick and Susan and several other Free Zone inhabitants, but the other members of the leadership committee manage to avoid the explosion due to Mother Abagail's timely return. However, her body is ravaged with malnutrition, and she is dying. The stage is now set for the final confrontation as the two camps become aware of one another, and each recognizes the other as a threat to its survival, leading to the \"stand\" of good against evil. There is no pitched battle, however. Instead, at Mother Abagail's dying behest, four of the five surviving members of the Boulder governing committee -- Glen Bateman, Stu Redman, Ralph Brentner and Larry Underwood -- accompanied by the dog Kojak set off on foot towards Las Vegas on an expedition to confront Randall Flagg. Stu breaks his leg en route and convinces the others to go on without him as they promised, telling them that God will provide for him if that's what's meant to happen. The remaining three soon encounter Flagg's men, who take them prisoner. When Glen Bateman rejects an opportunity to be spared if he kneels and begs Flagg for his life, he is shot and killed on Flagg's orders by Lloyd Henreid, Flagg's right hand man. Flagg gathers his entire collective to witness the execution of the two prisoners, but just as it is about to take place the Trashcan Man, an insane follower of Flagg who is somehow able to search out weapons of death, arrives with a nuclear warhead. Flagg's magical attempt to silence a dissenter is transformed into a giant glowing hand \u2014 \"The Hand of God\" \u2014 which detonates the bomb, destroying Las Vegas and all of Flagg's followers, along with Larry and Ralph. The inhabitants of Boulder anxiously anticipate the birth of Frances Goldsmith's baby, aware of the implications to the human race if the baby lacks immunity to the superflu and dies. Soon after she gives birth to a live baby, Stu Redman returns to Boulder along with Kojak and Tom Cullen, one of the spies sent earlier by the Free Zone, who had rescued Stu while returning to the Free Zone. Although the baby, Peter, falls ill with the superflu, he is able to fight it off. The original edition of the novel ends with Fran and Stu questioning whether the human race can learn from its mistakes. The answer, given in the last line, is ambiguous: \"I don\u2019t know.\" The expanded edition follows this with a brief coda called \"The Circle Closes\", which leaves a darker impression and fits in with King\u2019s ongoing \"wheel of ka\" theme. Randall Flagg, using the alias \"Russell Faraday\", wakes up on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific, having escaped the atomic blast in Vegas by using his dark magic (although Flagg does not remember how he got to the beach or what his real name is, and it is suggested that he does not even remember the events in America). There he begins recruiting adherents among a preliterate, dark-skinned people, who worship him as some sort of god.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is divided into three parts, or books. The first is titled \"Captain Trips\" and takes place over nineteen days, with the escape and spread of a human-made superflu (influenza) virus known formally as \"Project Blue\", but most commonly as \"Captain Trips\". The virus is developed at a U.S. Army base, where it is accidentally released. While the base tries to shut down before any infected person can escape, a security malfunction allows a guard and his family to sneak out. Unfortunately, they are already infected, and set off a pandemic that kills an estimated 99.4% of the world's human population, as well as that of domesticated animals, such as horses and dogs. Through the perspectives of the multiple principal characters, and also from an omniscient third-party perspective, the narrative outlines the total breakdown and destruction of society through widespread violence, the failure of martial law to contain the outbreak, and eventually the death of virtually the entire population. The emotional toll is also dealt with, as the few survivors must care for their families and friends, dealing with confusion and grief as their loved ones succumb to the flu. The expanded edition opens with a prologue titled \"The Circle Opens\" that offers greater detail into the circumstances surrounding the development of the virus and the security breach that allowed its escape from the secret laboratory compound where it was created. Intertwining cross-country odysseys are undertaken by a small number of survivors in three parties, which are drawn together by both circumstances and their shared dreams of a 108-year-old woman from Hemingford Home, Nebraska, whom they see as a refuge and a representation of good in the struggle of good versus evil. This woman, Abagail Freemantle, or \"Mother Abagail\", becomes the spiritual leader for the survivors. Mother Abagail directs them to Boulder, Colorado, where they struggle to re-establish a democratic society. Meanwhile, another"
      },
      {
        "text": " survivors in three parties, which are drawn together by both circumstances and their shared dreams of a 108-year-old woman from Hemingford Home, Nebraska, whom they see as a refuge and a representation of good in the struggle of good versus evil. This woman, Abagail Freemantle, or \"Mother Abagail\", becomes the spiritual leader for the survivors. Mother Abagail directs them to Boulder, Colorado, where they struggle to re-establish a democratic society. Meanwhile, another group of survivors are drawn to Las Vegas, Nevada by Randall Flagg, an evil being with supernatural powers who represents the Enemy, or the Adversary. Flagg\u2019s governance is brutally tyrannical, using crucifixion, dismemberment and other forms of torture to quell dissent. Flagg's group is able to quickly reorganize its society, restore power to Las Vegas, and rebuild the city with the many technical professionals who have migrated there. Flagg's group launches a weapons program, searching the country for suitable arms. In Boulder, the democratic society of the \"Free Zone\" is beset with problems: Mother Abagail, feeling that she has become prideful due to her pleasure at being a public figure, disappears into the wilderness on a journey of spiritual reconciliation. The Free Zone leadership committee, consisting of seven men and women -- Frannie Goldsmith, Stu Redman, Nick Andros, Larry Underwood, Ralph Brenter, Glen Bateman, and Susan Stern -- decide to secretly send three people to Randall Flagg's territory to act as spies. Meanwhile, one of the survivors, Harold Lauder, builds a dynamite bomb in response to feelings of disconnection and revenge for his unrequited love for Fran Goldsmith, who had fallen for Stu Redman; another survivor, Nadine Cross, seduced despite herself by Flagg's dark attraction which first manifested itself to her years earlier via a ouija board, plants the bomb where"
      },
      {
        "text": " Susan Stern -- decide to secretly send three people to Randall Flagg's territory to act as spies. Meanwhile, one of the survivors, Harold Lauder, builds a dynamite bomb in response to feelings of disconnection and revenge for his unrequited love for Fran Goldsmith, who had fallen for Stu Redman; another survivor, Nadine Cross, seduced despite herself by Flagg's dark attraction which first manifested itself to her years earlier via a ouija board, plants the bomb where it will effectively destroy the Free Zone's leadership. The explosion kills Nick and Susan and several other Free Zone inhabitants, but the other members of the leadership committee manage to avoid the explosion due to Mother Abagail's timely return. However, her body is ravaged with malnutrition, and she is dying. The stage is now set for the final confrontation as the two camps become aware of one another, and each recognizes the other as a threat to its survival, leading to the \"stand\" of good against evil. There is no pitched battle, however. Instead, at Mother Abagail's dying behest, four of the five surviving members of the Boulder governing committee -- Glen Bateman, Stu Redman, Ralph Brentner and Larry Underwood -- accompanied by the dog Kojak set off on foot towards Las Vegas on an expedition to confront Randall Flagg. Stu breaks his leg en route and convinces the others to go on without him as they promised, telling them that God will provide for him if that's what's meant to happen. The remaining three soon encounter Flagg's men, who take them prisoner. When Glen Bateman rejects an opportunity to be spared if he kneels and begs Flagg for his life, he is shot and killed on Flagg's orders by Lloyd Henreid, Flagg's right hand man. Flagg gathers his entire collective to witness the execution of the two prisoners, but just as it is about to take place the Trashcan Man,"
      },
      {
        "text": " for him if that's what's meant to happen. The remaining three soon encounter Flagg's men, who take them prisoner. When Glen Bateman rejects an opportunity to be spared if he kneels and begs Flagg for his life, he is shot and killed on Flagg's orders by Lloyd Henreid, Flagg's right hand man. Flagg gathers his entire collective to witness the execution of the two prisoners, but just as it is about to take place the Trashcan Man, an insane follower of Flagg who is somehow able to search out weapons of death, arrives with a nuclear warhead. Flagg's magical attempt to silence a dissenter is transformed into a giant glowing hand \u2014 \"The Hand of God\" \u2014 which detonates the bomb, destroying Las Vegas and all of Flagg's followers, along with Larry and Ralph. The inhabitants of Boulder anxiously anticipate the birth of Frances Goldsmith's baby, aware of the implications to the human race if the baby lacks immunity to the superflu and dies. Soon after she gives birth to a live baby, Stu Redman returns to Boulder along with Kojak and Tom Cullen, one of the spies sent earlier by the Free Zone, who had rescued Stu while returning to the Free Zone. Although the baby, Peter, falls ill with the superflu, he is able to fight it off. The original edition of the novel ends with Fran and Stu questioning whether the human race can learn from its mistakes. The answer, given in the last line, is ambiguous: \"I don\u2019t know.\" The expanded edition follows this with a brief coda called \"The Circle Closes\", which leaves a darker impression and fits in with King\u2019s ongoing \"wheel of ka\" theme. Randall Flagg, using the alias \"Russell Faraday\", wakes up on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific, having escaped the atomic blast in Vegas by using his dark magic (although Flagg does not remember how"
      },
      {
        "text": " answer, given in the last line, is ambiguous: \"I don\u2019t know.\" The expanded edition follows this with a brief coda called \"The Circle Closes\", which leaves a darker impression and fits in with King\u2019s ongoing \"wheel of ka\" theme. Randall Flagg, using the alias \"Russell Faraday\", wakes up on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific, having escaped the atomic blast in Vegas by using his dark magic (although Flagg does not remember how he got to the beach or what his real name is, and it is suggested that he does not even remember the events in America). There he begins recruiting adherents among a preliterate, dark-skinned people, who worship him as some sort of god.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Henry IV, Part 1",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Henry Bolingbroke \u2013 now King Henry IV \u2013 is having an unquiet reign. His personal disquiet at the murder of his predecessor Richard II would be solved by a journey or crusade to the Holy Land to fight Muslims, but broils on his borders with Scotland and Wales prevent that. Moreover, his guilt causes him to mistreat the Earls Northumberland and Worcester, heads of the Percy family, and Edmund Mortimer, the Earl of March. The first two helped him to his throne, and the third claims to have been proclaimed by Richard, the former king, as his rightful heir. Adding to King Henry's troubles is the behaviour of his son and heir, the Prince of Wales. Hal (the future Henry V) has forsaken the Royal Court to waste his time in taverns with low companions. This makes him an object of scorn to the nobles and calls into question his royal worthiness. Hal's chief friend and foil in living the low life is Sir John Falstaff. Fat, old, drunk, and corrupt as he is, he has a charisma and a zest for life that captivates the Prince, born into a world of hypocritical pieties and mortal seriousness. The play has three groups of characters that interact slightly at first, and then come together in the Battle of Shrewsbury, where the success of the rebellion will be decided. First there is King Henry himself and his immediate council. He is the engine of the play, but usually in the background. Next there is the group of rebels, energetically embodied in Harry Percy \u2013 Hotspur \u2013 and including his father (Northumberland) and led by his uncle Thomas Percy (Worcester). The Scottish Earl of Douglas, Edmund Mortimer and the Welshman Owen Glendower also join. Finally, at the center of the play are the young Prince Hal and his companions Falstaff, Poins, Bardolph, and Peto. Streetwise and pound-foolish, these rogues manage to paint over this grim history in the colours of comedy. As the play opens, the king is angry with Hotspur for refusing him most of the prisoners taken in a recent action against the Scots at Holmedon (see the Battle of Humbleton Hill). Hotspur, for his part, would have the king ransom Edmund Mortimer (his wife's brother) from Owen Glendower, the Welshman who holds him. Henry refuses, berates Mortimer's loyalty, and treats the Percys with threats and rudeness. Stung and alarmed by Henry's dangerous and peremptory way with them, they proceed to make common cause with the Welsh and Scots, intending to depose \"this ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke.\" By Act II, rebellion is brewing. As Henry Bolingbroke is mishandling the affairs of state, his son Hal is joking, drinking, and whoring with Falstaff and his associates. He likes Falstaff but makes no pretense at being like him. He enjoys insulting his dissolute friend and makes sport of him by joining in Poins\u2019 plot to disguise themselves and rob and terrify Falstaff and three friends of loot they have stolen in a highway robbery, purely for the fun of watching Falstaff lie about it later, after which Hal returns the stolen money. Rather early in the play, in fact, Hal informs us that his riotous time will soon come to a close, and he will re-assume his rightful high place in affairs by showing himself worthy to his father and others through some (unspecified) noble exploits. Hal believes that this sudden change of manner will amount to a greater reward and acknowledgment of prince-ship, and in turn \"earn\" him respect from the members of the court. The revolt of Mortimer and the Percys very quickly gives him his chance to do just that. The high and the low come together when the Prince makes up with his father and is given a high command. He vows to fight and kill the rebel Hotspur, and orders Falstaff (who is, after all, a knight) to take charge of a group of \"foot\" - infantry and proceed to the battle site at Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury (see Battle of Shrewsbury) is crucial. If the rebels even achieve a standoff their cause gains greatly, as they have other powers awaiting under Northumberland, Glendower, Mortimer, and the Archbishop of York. Henry needs a decisive victory here. He outnumbers the rebels, but Hotspur, with the wild hope of despair, leads his troops into battle. The day wears on, the issue still in doubt, the king harried by the wild Scot Douglas, when Prince Hal and Hotspur, the two Harrys that cannot share one land, meet. Finally they will fight \u2013 for glory, for their lives, and for the kingdom. No longer a tavern brawler but a warrior, the future king prevails, ultimately killing Hotspur in single combat. On the way to this climax, we are treated to Falstaff, who has \"misused the King's press damnably\", not only by taking money from able-bodied men who wished to evade service but by keeping the wages of the poor souls he brought instead who were killed in battle (\"food for powder, food for powder\"). Now on his own Falstaff is attacked by the Douglas during Hal's battle with Hotspur, but plays possum and is presumed dead. After Hal leaves Hotspur's body on the field, Falstaff revives in a mock miracle. Seeing he is alone, he stabs Hotspur's corpse in the thigh and claims credit for the kill. Though incredulous at this report, Hal allows Sir John his disreputable tricks. Soon after being given grace by Hal, Falstaff states that he wants to amend his life and begin \"to live cleanly as a nobleman should do\". The play ends at Shrewsbury, after the battle. The death of Hotspur has taken the heart out of the rebels, and the king's forces prevail. Henry is pleased with the outcome, not least because it gives him a chance to execute Thomas Percy, the Earl of Worcester, one of his chief enemies (though previously one of his greatest friends). Meanwhile Hal shows off his kingly mercy in praise of valor; having taken the valiant Douglas prisoner, Hal orders his enemy released without ransom. But the war goes on; now the king's forces must deal with the Archbishop of York, who has joined with Northumberland, and with the forces of Mortimer and Glendower. This unsettled ending sets the stage for Henry IV, Part 2.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Henry Bolingbroke \u2013 now King Henry IV \u2013 is having an unquiet reign. His personal disquiet at the murder of his predecessor Richard II would be solved by a journey or crusade to the Holy Land to fight Muslims, but broils on his borders with Scotland and Wales prevent that. Moreover, his guilt causes him to mistreat the Earls Northumberland and Worcester, heads of the Percy family, and Edmund Mortimer, the Earl of March. The first two helped him to his throne, and the third claims to have been proclaimed by Richard, the former king, as his rightful heir. Adding to King Henry's troubles is the behaviour of his son and heir, the Prince of Wales. Hal (the future Henry V) has forsaken the Royal Court to waste his time in taverns with low companions. This makes him an object of scorn to the nobles and calls into question his royal worthiness. Hal's chief friend and foil in living the low life is Sir John Falstaff. Fat, old, drunk, and corrupt as he is, he has a charisma and a zest for life that captivates the Prince, born into a world of hypocritical pieties and mortal seriousness. The play has three groups of characters that interact slightly at first, and then come together in the Battle of Shrewsbury, where the success of the rebellion will be decided. First there is King Henry himself and his immediate council. He is the engine of the play, but usually in the background. Next there is the group of rebels, energetically embodied in Harry Percy \u2013 Hotspur \u2013 and including his father (Northumberland) and led by his uncle Thomas Percy (Worcester). The Scottish Earl of Douglas, Edmund Mortimer and the Welshman Owen Glendower also join. Finally, at the center of the play are the young Prince Hal and his companions Falstaff, Poins, Bardolph, and Peto. Streetwise and pound-fool"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the background. Next there is the group of rebels, energetically embodied in Harry Percy \u2013 Hotspur \u2013 and including his father (Northumberland) and led by his uncle Thomas Percy (Worcester). The Scottish Earl of Douglas, Edmund Mortimer and the Welshman Owen Glendower also join. Finally, at the center of the play are the young Prince Hal and his companions Falstaff, Poins, Bardolph, and Peto. Streetwise and pound-foolish, these rogues manage to paint over this grim history in the colours of comedy. As the play opens, the king is angry with Hotspur for refusing him most of the prisoners taken in a recent action against the Scots at Holmedon (see the Battle of Humbleton Hill). Hotspur, for his part, would have the king ransom Edmund Mortimer (his wife's brother) from Owen Glendower, the Welshman who holds him. Henry refuses, berates Mortimer's loyalty, and treats the Percys with threats and rudeness. Stung and alarmed by Henry's dangerous and peremptory way with them, they proceed to make common cause with the Welsh and Scots, intending to depose \"this ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke.\" By Act II, rebellion is brewing. As Henry Bolingbroke is mishandling the affairs of state, his son Hal is joking, drinking, and whoring with Falstaff and his associates. He likes Falstaff but makes no pretense at being like him. He enjoys insulting his dissolute friend and makes sport of him by joining in Poins\u2019 plot to disguise themselves and rob and terrify Falstaff and three friends of loot they have stolen in a highway robbery, purely for the fun of watching Falstaff lie about it later, after which Hal returns the stolen money. Rather early in the play, in fact, Hal informs us that his riotous time will soon come to"
      },
      {
        "text": ". He likes Falstaff but makes no pretense at being like him. He enjoys insulting his dissolute friend and makes sport of him by joining in Poins\u2019 plot to disguise themselves and rob and terrify Falstaff and three friends of loot they have stolen in a highway robbery, purely for the fun of watching Falstaff lie about it later, after which Hal returns the stolen money. Rather early in the play, in fact, Hal informs us that his riotous time will soon come to a close, and he will re-assume his rightful high place in affairs by showing himself worthy to his father and others through some (unspecified) noble exploits. Hal believes that this sudden change of manner will amount to a greater reward and acknowledgment of prince-ship, and in turn \"earn\" him respect from the members of the court. The revolt of Mortimer and the Percys very quickly gives him his chance to do just that. The high and the low come together when the Prince makes up with his father and is given a high command. He vows to fight and kill the rebel Hotspur, and orders Falstaff (who is, after all, a knight) to take charge of a group of \"foot\" - infantry and proceed to the battle site at Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury (see Battle of Shrewsbury) is crucial. If the rebels even achieve a standoff their cause gains greatly, as they have other powers awaiting under Northumberland, Glendower, Mortimer, and the Archbishop of York. Henry needs a decisive victory here. He outnumbers the rebels, but Hotspur, with the wild hope of despair, leads his troops into battle. The day wears on, the issue still in doubt, the king harried by the wild Scot Douglas, when Prince Hal and Hotspur, the two Harrys that cannot share one land, meet. Finally they will fight \u2013 for glory, for their lives, and for"
      },
      {
        "text": "land, Glendower, Mortimer, and the Archbishop of York. Henry needs a decisive victory here. He outnumbers the rebels, but Hotspur, with the wild hope of despair, leads his troops into battle. The day wears on, the issue still in doubt, the king harried by the wild Scot Douglas, when Prince Hal and Hotspur, the two Harrys that cannot share one land, meet. Finally they will fight \u2013 for glory, for their lives, and for the kingdom. No longer a tavern brawler but a warrior, the future king prevails, ultimately killing Hotspur in single combat. On the way to this climax, we are treated to Falstaff, who has \"misused the King's press damnably\", not only by taking money from able-bodied men who wished to evade service but by keeping the wages of the poor souls he brought instead who were killed in battle (\"food for powder, food for powder\"). Now on his own Falstaff is attacked by the Douglas during Hal's battle with Hotspur, but plays possum and is presumed dead. After Hal leaves Hotspur's body on the field, Falstaff revives in a mock miracle. Seeing he is alone, he stabs Hotspur's corpse in the thigh and claims credit for the kill. Though incredulous at this report, Hal allows Sir John his disreputable tricks. Soon after being given grace by Hal, Falstaff states that he wants to amend his life and begin \"to live cleanly as a nobleman should do\". The play ends at Shrewsbury, after the battle. The death of Hotspur has taken the heart out of the rebels, and the king's forces prevail. Henry is pleased with the outcome, not least because it gives him a chance to execute Thomas Percy, the Earl of Worcester, one of his chief enemies (though previously one of his greatest friends). Meanwhile Hal shows off his kingly mercy in praise of valor;"
      },
      {
        "text": " begin \"to live cleanly as a nobleman should do\". The play ends at Shrewsbury, after the battle. The death of Hotspur has taken the heart out of the rebels, and the king's forces prevail. Henry is pleased with the outcome, not least because it gives him a chance to execute Thomas Percy, the Earl of Worcester, one of his chief enemies (though previously one of his greatest friends). Meanwhile Hal shows off his kingly mercy in praise of valor; having taken the valiant Douglas prisoner, Hal orders his enemy released without ransom. But the war goes on; now the king's forces must deal with the Archbishop of York, who has joined with Northumberland, and with the forces of Mortimer and Glendower. This unsettled ending sets the stage for Henry IV, Part 2.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Man with the Golden Gun",
    "author": "Ian Fleming",
    "published_date": "1965-04-01",
    "synopsis": " A year after James Bond's final confrontation with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, while on a mission in Japan, a man claiming to be Bond appears in London and demands to meet the head of the Secret Service, M. Bond's identity is confirmed, but during his debriefing interview with M, Bond tries to kill him with a cyanide pistol; the attempt fails. The Service learns that after destroying Blofeld's castle in Japan, Bond suffered a head injury and developed amnesia. Having lived as a Japanese fisherman for several months, Bond travelled into the Soviet Union to learn his true identity. While there, he was brainwashed and assigned to kill M upon returning to England. Now de-programmed, Bond is given a chance to re-prove his worth as a member of the 00 section following the assassination attempt. M sends Bond to Jamaica and gives him the seemingly impossible mission of killing Francisco \"Pistols\" Scaramanga, a Cuban assassin who is believed to have killed several British secret agents. Scaramanga is known as \"The Man with the Golden Gun\" because his weapon of choice is a gold-plated Colt .45, which fires silver jacketed solid gold bullets. Bond locates Scaramanga in a Jamaican bordello and manages to become his temporary personal assistant under the name \"Mark Hazard\". He learns that Scaramanga is involved in a hotel development on the island with a group of investors that consists of a syndicate of American gangsters and the KGB. Scaramanga and the other investors are also engaged in a scheme to destabilise Western interests in the Caribbean's sugar industry and increase the value of the Cuban sugar crop, running drugs into America, smuggling prostitutes from Mexico into America and operating casinos in Jamaica that will cause friction between tourists and the local people. Bond discovers that he has an ally who is also working undercover at the half-built resort, Felix Leiter, who has been recalled to duty by the CIA and is working ostensibly as an electrical engineer while setting up bugs in Scaramanga's meeting room. However, they learn that Scaramanga plans to eliminate Bond when the weekend is over. Bond's true identity is confirmed by a KGB agent and Scaramanga makes new plans to entertain the gangsters and the KGB agent by killing Bond while they are riding a sight-seeing train to a marina. However, Bond manages to turn the tables on Scaramanga and, with the help of Leiter, kill most of the conspirators. Wounded, Scaramanga escapes into the swamps, where Bond pursues him. Scaramanga lulls Bond off-guard and shoots him with a golden derringer he had hidden behind his neck. Bond is hit but returns fire and shoots Scaramanga several times, killing him at last.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A year after James Bond's final confrontation with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, while on a mission in Japan, a man claiming to be Bond appears in London and demands to meet the head of the Secret Service, M. Bond's identity is confirmed, but during his debriefing interview with M, Bond tries to kill him with a cyanide pistol; the attempt fails. The Service learns that after destroying Blofeld's castle in Japan, Bond suffered a head injury and developed amnesia. Having lived as a Japanese fisherman for several months, Bond travelled into the Soviet Union to learn his true identity. While there, he was brainwashed and assigned to kill M upon returning to England. Now de-programmed, Bond is given a chance to re-prove his worth as a member of the 00 section following the assassination attempt. M sends Bond to Jamaica and gives him the seemingly impossible mission of killing Francisco \"Pistols\" Scaramanga, a Cuban assassin who is believed to have killed several British secret agents. Scaramanga is known as \"The Man with the Golden Gun\" because his weapon of choice is a gold-plated Colt .45, which fires silver jacketed solid gold bullets. Bond locates Scaramanga in a Jamaican bordello and manages to become his temporary personal assistant under the name \"Mark Hazard\". He learns that Scaramanga is involved in a hotel development on the island with a group of investors that consists of a syndicate of American gangsters and the KGB. Scaramanga and the other investors are also engaged in a scheme to destabilise Western interests in the Caribbean's sugar industry and increase the value of the Cuban sugar crop, running drugs into America, smuggling prostitutes from Mexico into America and operating casinos in Jamaica that will cause friction between tourists and the local people. Bond discovers that he has an ally who is also working undercover at the half-built resort, Felix Leiter, who has been recalled to duty"
      },
      {
        "text": " syndicate of American gangsters and the KGB. Scaramanga and the other investors are also engaged in a scheme to destabilise Western interests in the Caribbean's sugar industry and increase the value of the Cuban sugar crop, running drugs into America, smuggling prostitutes from Mexico into America and operating casinos in Jamaica that will cause friction between tourists and the local people. Bond discovers that he has an ally who is also working undercover at the half-built resort, Felix Leiter, who has been recalled to duty by the CIA and is working ostensibly as an electrical engineer while setting up bugs in Scaramanga's meeting room. However, they learn that Scaramanga plans to eliminate Bond when the weekend is over. Bond's true identity is confirmed by a KGB agent and Scaramanga makes new plans to entertain the gangsters and the KGB agent by killing Bond while they are riding a sight-seeing train to a marina. However, Bond manages to turn the tables on Scaramanga and, with the help of Leiter, kill most of the conspirators. Wounded, Scaramanga escapes into the swamps, where Bond pursues him. Scaramanga lulls Bond off-guard and shoots him with a golden derringer he had hidden behind his neck. Bond is hit but returns fire and shoots Scaramanga several times, killing him at last.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?",
    "author": "Gary Wolf",
    "published_date": "1981",
    "synopsis": " Eddie Valiant is a hard-boiled private eye, and Roger Rabbit is a second-banana cartoon character. The rabbit hires Valiant to find out why his employers, the DeGreasy Brothers, the sleazy owners of a cartoon syndicate, have reneged on a promise to give Roger his own strip. Soon after, Roger is mysteriously murdered in his home. His speech balloon, found on the crime scene, indicates his murder was a way of \u201ccensoring\u201d the star, who apparently had just heard someone explain the source of his success. Valiant\u2019s search for the killer takes him to a variety of suspects, including Roger\u2019s widow Jessica Rabbit and his former co-star Baby Herman.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Eddie Valiant is a hard-boiled private eye, and Roger Rabbit is a second-banana cartoon character. The rabbit hires Valiant to find out why his employers, the DeGreasy Brothers, the sleazy owners of a cartoon syndicate, have reneged on a promise to give Roger his own strip. Soon after, Roger is mysteriously murdered in his home. His speech balloon, found on the crime scene, indicates his murder was a way of \u201ccensoring\u201d the star, who apparently had just heard someone explain the source of his success. Valiant\u2019s search for the killer takes him to a variety of suspects, including Roger\u2019s widow Jessica Rabbit and his former co-star Baby Herman.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks",
    "author": "Joanna Cole",
    "published_date": "1986",
    "synopsis": " The book begins by introducing the character of Ms. Frizzle and describing her unusual teaching methods. Soon, she decides to take the class on a field trip to the waterworks, which the kids are sure will be boring, especially compared to the trips the kids in other classes go on. However, after driving through a tunnel, the bus becomes plastered with images of octopuses and everyone inside finds themselves wearing scuba diving outfits. Once this occurs, the bus rises up into a cloud along with evaporating water. Ms. Frizzle makes all the kids get out of the bus by threatening to give them extra homework if they don't. However, the kids begin shrinking once they're outside and, once they're each the size of a raindrop, they rain down into a river, which carries them into the town's water purification system. After going through the waterworks, the pipes take the class back to the school. They come out in the girl's bathroom, where, once out of the faucet, they are instantly restored to their regular size and normal clothing. Ms. Frizzle, however, appears to have no memory of the strange trip and the class later sees the bus outside. They wonder how it returned from the cloud and even consider that they may have imagined their whole adventure. The book ends with Ms. Frizzle informing them that they will be studying volcanoes next. The main story is then followed by two pages listing things that couldn't happen in real life.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book begins by introducing the character of Ms. Frizzle and describing her unusual teaching methods. Soon, she decides to take the class on a field trip to the waterworks, which the kids are sure will be boring, especially compared to the trips the kids in other classes go on. However, after driving through a tunnel, the bus becomes plastered with images of octopuses and everyone inside finds themselves wearing scuba diving outfits. Once this occurs, the bus rises up into a cloud along with evaporating water. Ms. Frizzle makes all the kids get out of the bus by threatening to give them extra homework if they don't. However, the kids begin shrinking once they're outside and, once they're each the size of a raindrop, they rain down into a river, which carries them into the town's water purification system. After going through the waterworks, the pipes take the class back to the school. They come out in the girl's bathroom, where, once out of the faucet, they are instantly restored to their regular size and normal clothing. Ms. Frizzle, however, appears to have no memory of the strange trip and the class later sees the bus outside. They wonder how it returned from the cloud and even consider that they may have imagined their whole adventure. The book ends with Ms. Frizzle informing them that they will be studying volcanoes next. The main story is then followed by two pages listing things that couldn't happen in real life.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " real life.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System",
    "author": "Joanna Cole",
    "published_date": "1990",
    "synopsis": " Ms. Frizzle's class is learning about the solar system and Arnold's unpleasant cousin Janet, who constantly raves about herself, has joined them. The Friz decides to take the kids on a field trip to the planetarium, but, once they get there, they find the planetarium is closed. However, on the way back to school, Arnold reminds Mrs. Frizzle of the planetarium known as \"the big one\". Ms. Frizzle pushes a button that makes the bus transform into a rocket and blast off into outer space. Once in outer space, the bus flies to the Moon, where the kids make the most of the lesser gravity. Ms. Frizzle then takes them to the Sun and then Mercury, Venus and Mars before flying into the asteroid belt. However, while in the belt, the bus is damaged by an asteroid and the Friz flies out to fix the damage with a tether line connecting her to the bus. However, the bus's autopilot malfunctions, causing the bus to fly off, breaking Ms. Frizzle's tether line and leaving her stranded in the asteroid belt. Janet looks through the Friz's things and finds Ms. Frizzle's lesson book, which documents the information she is supposed to tell the kids during the field trip (complete with \"Arnold, are you listening?\" written into it.) Janet reads through the book as they pass the outer planets and until they pass Pluto, leaving the solar system. Janet then flips through the book and finds the instructions for the autopilot, so they can fly back to the asteroid belt and rescue Ms. Frizzle. After they rescue the Friz, they return to Earth. The kids try to tell everyone about their strange trip, but no one believes them.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ms. Frizzle's class is learning about the solar system and Arnold's unpleasant cousin Janet, who constantly raves about herself, has joined them. The Friz decides to take the kids on a field trip to the planetarium, but, once they get there, they find the planetarium is closed. However, on the way back to school, Arnold reminds Mrs. Frizzle of the planetarium known as \"the big one\". Ms. Frizzle pushes a button that makes the bus transform into a rocket and blast off into outer space. Once in outer space, the bus flies to the Moon, where the kids make the most of the lesser gravity. Ms. Frizzle then takes them to the Sun and then Mercury, Venus and Mars before flying into the asteroid belt. However, while in the belt, the bus is damaged by an asteroid and the Friz flies out to fix the damage with a tether line connecting her to the bus. However, the bus's autopilot malfunctions, causing the bus to fly off, breaking Ms. Frizzle's tether line and leaving her stranded in the asteroid belt. Janet looks through the Friz's things and finds Ms. Frizzle's lesson book, which documents the information she is supposed to tell the kids during the field trip (complete with \"Arnold, are you listening?\" written into it.) Janet reads through the book as they pass the outer planets and until they pass Pluto, leaving the solar system. Janet then flips through the book and finds the instructions for the autopilot, so they can fly back to the asteroid belt and rescue Ms. Frizzle. After they rescue the Friz, they return to Earth. The kids try to tell everyone about their strange trip, but no one believes them.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the book and finds the instructions for the autopilot, so they can fly back to the asteroid belt and rescue Ms. Frizzle. After they rescue the Friz, they return to Earth. The kids try to tell everyone about their strange trip, but no one believes them.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Ugly Duckling",
    "author": "Hans Christian Andersen",
    "published_date": "1843-11-11",
    "synopsis": " When the tale begins, a mother duck's eggs hatch. One of the little birds is perceived by the duck\u2019s surroundings as a homely little creature and suffers much verbal and physical abuse from the other birds and animals on the farm. He wanders sadly from the barnyard and lives with wild ducks and geese until hunters slaughter the flocks. He then finds a home with an old woman but her cat and hen tease him mercilessly and again he sets off on his own. He sees a flock of migrating wild swans; he is delighted and excited but he cannot join them for he is too young and cannot fly. Winter arrives. A farmer finds and carries the freezing little bird home, but the foundling is frightened by the farmer\u2019s noisy children and flees the house. He spends a miserable winter alone in the outdoors mostly hiding in a cave on the lake that partly freezes over. When spring arrives a flock of swans descends on the now thawing lake. The ugly duckling, now having fully grown and matured cannot endure a life of solitude and hardship any more and decides to throw himself at the flock of swans deciding that it is better to be killed by such beautiful birds than to live a life of ugliness and misery. He is shocked when the swans welcome and accept him, only to realize by looking at his reflection in the water that he has grown into one of them. The flock takes to the air and the ugly duckling spreads his beautiful large wings and takes flight with the rest of his new family.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " When the tale begins, a mother duck's eggs hatch. One of the little birds is perceived by the duck\u2019s surroundings as a homely little creature and suffers much verbal and physical abuse from the other birds and animals on the farm. He wanders sadly from the barnyard and lives with wild ducks and geese until hunters slaughter the flocks. He then finds a home with an old woman but her cat and hen tease him mercilessly and again he sets off on his own. He sees a flock of migrating wild swans; he is delighted and excited but he cannot join them for he is too young and cannot fly. Winter arrives. A farmer finds and carries the freezing little bird home, but the foundling is frightened by the farmer\u2019s noisy children and flees the house. He spends a miserable winter alone in the outdoors mostly hiding in a cave on the lake that partly freezes over. When spring arrives a flock of swans descends on the now thawing lake. The ugly duckling, now having fully grown and matured cannot endure a life of solitude and hardship any more and decides to throw himself at the flock of swans deciding that it is better to be killed by such beautiful birds than to live a life of ugliness and misery. He is shocked when the swans welcome and accept him, only to realize by looking at his reflection in the water that he has grown into one of them. The flock takes to the air and the ugly duckling spreads his beautiful large wings and takes flight with the rest of his new family.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ling spreads his beautiful large wings and takes flight with the rest of his new family.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Walden",
    "author": "Henry David Thoreau",
    "published_date": "1854",
    "synopsis": " Economy: In this first and longest chapter, Thoreau outlines his project: a two-year, two-month, and two-day stay at a cozy, \"tightly shingled and plastered,\" English-style 10' \u00d7 15' cottage in the woods near Walden Pond. He does this, he says, to illustrate the spiritual benefits of a simplified lifestyle. He easily supplies the four necessities of life (food, shelter, clothing, and fuel) with the help of family and friends, particularly his mother, his best friend, and Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson. The latter provided Thoreau with a work exchange \u2013 he could build a small house and plant a garden if he cleared some land on the woodlot and did other chores while there. Thoreau meticulously records his expenditures and earnings, demonstrating his understanding of \"economy,\" as he builds his house and buys and grows food. For a home and freedom, he spent a mere $28.12\u00bd, in 1845 (about $863 in today's money). At the end of this chapter, Thoreau inserts a poem, \"The Pretensions of Poverty,\" by seventeenth-century English poet Thomas Carew. The poem criticizes those who think that their poverty gives them unearned moral and intellectual superiority. Where I Lived, and What I Lived For: After playing with the idea of buying a farm, Thoreau describes his house's location. Then he explains that he took up his abode at Walden Woods so as to \"live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.\" Although he criticizes the dedication of his neighbors to working, he himself is quite busy at Walden \u2013 building and maintaining his house, raising thousands of bean plants and other vegetables, making bread, clearing land, chopping wood, making repairs for the Emersons, going into town, and writing every day. His time at Walden was his most productive as a writer. Reading: Thoreau discusses the benefits of classical literature (preferably in the original Greek or Latin), and bemoans the lack of sophistication in Concord, evident in the popularity of unsophisticated literature. He also loved to read books by world travelers. He yearns for a utopian time when each New England village supports \"wise men\" to educate and thereby ennoble the population. Sounds: Thoreau opens this chapter by warning against relying too much on literature as a means of transcendence. Instead, one should experience life for oneself. Thus, after describing his house's beautiful natural surroundings and his casual housekeeping habits, Thoreau goes on to criticize the train whistle that interrupts his reverie. To him, the railroad symbolizes the destruction of the pastoral way of life. Following is a description of the sounds audible from his cabin: the church bells ringing, carriages rattling and rumbling, cows lowing, whip-poor-wills singing, owls hooting, frogs croaking, and cockerels crowing. Solitude: Thoreau rhapsodizes about the beneficial effects of living solitary and close to nature. He claims to love being alone, saying \"I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.\" Visitors: Thoreau writes about the visitors to his house. Among the 25 or 30 visitors is a young French-Canadian woodchopper, Alec Th\u00e9rien, whom Thoreau idealizes as approaching the ideal man, and a runaway slave, whom Thoreau helps on his journey to freedom in Canada. The Bean-Field: Thoreau relates his efforts to cultivate of beans. He plants in June and spends his summer mornings weeding the field with a hoe. He sells most of the crop, and his small profit of $8.71 covers his needs that were not provided by friends and family. The Village: Thoreau visits Concord every day or two to hear the news, which he finds \"as refreshing in its way as the rustle of the leaves.\" Nevertheless, he fondly but rather contemptuously compares Concord to a gopher colony. In late summer, he is arrested for refusing to pay federal taxes, but is released the next day. He explains that he refuses to pay taxes to a government that supports slavery. The Ponds: In autumn, Thoreau discusses the countryside and writes down his observations about the geography of Walden Pond and its neighbors: Flint's Pond (or Sandy Pond), White Pond, and Goose Pond. Although Flint's is the largest, Thoreau's favorites are Walden and White ponds, which he describes as lovelier than diamonds. Baker Farm: While on an afternoon ramble in the woods, Thoreau gets caught in a rainstorm and takes shelter in the dirty, dismal hut of John Farmer, a penniless but hard-working Irish farmhand, and his wife and children. Thoreau urges Farmer to live a simple but independent and fulfilling life in the woods, thereby freeing himself of employers and creditors. But the Irishman won't give up his aspirations of luxury and the quest for the American dream. Higher Laws: Thoreau discusses whether hunting wild animals and eating meat is necessary. He concludes that the primitive, carnal sensuality of humans drives them to kill and eat animals, and that a person who transcends this propensity is superior to those who cannot. (Thoreau eats fish and occasionally salt pork and woodchuck.) In addition to vegetarianism, he lauds chastity, work, and teetotalism. He also recognizes that Indians need to hunt and kill moose for survival in \"The Maine Woods,\" and ate moose on a trip to Maine while he was living at Walden. Here is a list of the laws that he mentions: * One must love that of the wild just as much as one loves that of the good. * What men already know instinctively is true humanity. * The hunter is the greatest friend of the animal which is hunted. * No human older than an adolescent would wantonly murder any creature which reveres its own life as much as the killer. * If the day and the night make one joyful, one is successful. * The highest form of self-restraint is when one can subsist not on other animals, but of plants and crops cultivated from the earth. Brute Neighbors: Thoreau briefly discusses the many wild animals that are his neighbors at Walden. A description of the nesting habits of partridges is followed by a fascinating account of a massive battle between red and black ants. Three of the combatants he takes into his cabin and examines under a microscope as the black ant kills the two smaller red ones. Later, Thoreau takes his boat and tries to follow a teasing loon about the pond. He also collects animal specimens and ships them to Harvard College for study. House-Warming: After picking November berries in the woods, Thoreau adds a chimney, and finally plasters the walls of his sturdy house to stave off the cold of the oncoming winter. He also lays in a good supply of firewood, and expresses affection for wood and fire. Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors: Thoreau relates the stories of people who formerly lived in the vicinity of Walden Pond. Then he talks about a few of the visitors he receives during the winter: a farmer, a woodchopper, and his best friend, the poet Ellery Channing. Winter Animals: Thoreau amuses himself by watching wildlife during the winter. He relates his observations of owls, hares, red squirrels, mice, and various birds as they hunt, sing, and eat the scraps and corn he put out for them. He also describes a fox hunt that passes by. The Pond in Winter: Thoreau describes Walden Pond as it appears during the winter. He claims to have sounded its depths and located an underground outlet. Then he recounts how 100 laborers came to cut great blocks of ice from the pond, the ice to be shipped to the Carolinas. Spring: As spring arrives, Walden and the other ponds melt with stentorian thundering and rumbling. Thoreau enjoys watching the thaw, and grows ecstatic as he witnesses the green rebirth of nature. He watches the geese winging their way north, and a hawk playing by itself in the sky. As nature is reborn, the narrator implies, so is he. He departs Walden on September 6, 1847. Conclusion: This final chapter is more passionate and urgent than its predecessors. In it, he criticizes conformity: \"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.\" By doing so, men may find happiness and self-fulfillment. \"I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Economy: In this first and longest chapter, Thoreau outlines his project: a two-year, two-month, and two-day stay at a cozy, \"tightly shingled and plastered,\" English-style 10' \u00d7 15' cottage in the woods near Walden Pond. He does this, he says, to illustrate the spiritual benefits of a simplified lifestyle. He easily supplies the four necessities of life (food, shelter, clothing, and fuel) with the help of family and friends, particularly his mother, his best friend, and Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson. The latter provided Thoreau with a work exchange \u2013 he could build a small house and plant a garden if he cleared some land on the woodlot and did other chores while there. Thoreau meticulously records his expenditures and earnings, demonstrating his understanding of \"economy,\" as he builds his house and buys and grows food. For a home and freedom, he spent a mere $28.12\u00bd, in 1845 (about $863 in today's money). At the end of this chapter, Thoreau inserts a poem, \"The Pretensions of Poverty,\" by seventeenth-century English poet Thomas Carew. The poem criticizes those who think that their poverty gives them unearned moral and intellectual superiority. Where I Lived, and What I Lived For: After playing with the idea of buying a farm, Thoreau describes his house's location. Then he explains that he took up his abode at Walden Woods so as to \"live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.\" Although he criticizes the dedication of his neighbors to working, he himself is quite busy at Walden \u2013 building and maintaining his house, raising thousands of bean plants and other vegetables, making bread, clearing land"
      },
      {
        "text": " Then he explains that he took up his abode at Walden Woods so as to \"live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.\" Although he criticizes the dedication of his neighbors to working, he himself is quite busy at Walden \u2013 building and maintaining his house, raising thousands of bean plants and other vegetables, making bread, clearing land, chopping wood, making repairs for the Emersons, going into town, and writing every day. His time at Walden was his most productive as a writer. Reading: Thoreau discusses the benefits of classical literature (preferably in the original Greek or Latin), and bemoans the lack of sophistication in Concord, evident in the popularity of unsophisticated literature. He also loved to read books by world travelers. He yearns for a utopian time when each New England village supports \"wise men\" to educate and thereby ennoble the population. Sounds: Thoreau opens this chapter by warning against relying too much on literature as a means of transcendence. Instead, one should experience life for oneself. Thus, after describing his house's beautiful natural surroundings and his casual housekeeping habits, Thoreau goes on to criticize the train whistle that interrupts his reverie. To him, the railroad symbolizes the destruction of the pastoral way of life. Following is a description of the sounds audible from his cabin: the church bells ringing, carriages rattling and rumbling, cows lowing, whip-poor-wills singing, owls hooting, frogs croaking, and cockerels crowing. Solitude: Thoreau rhapsodizes about the beneficial effects of living solitary and close to nature. He claims to love being alone, saying \"I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.\" Visitors: Thoreau writes"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the sounds audible from his cabin: the church bells ringing, carriages rattling and rumbling, cows lowing, whip-poor-wills singing, owls hooting, frogs croaking, and cockerels crowing. Solitude: Thoreau rhapsodizes about the beneficial effects of living solitary and close to nature. He claims to love being alone, saying \"I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.\" Visitors: Thoreau writes about the visitors to his house. Among the 25 or 30 visitors is a young French-Canadian woodchopper, Alec Th\u00e9rien, whom Thoreau idealizes as approaching the ideal man, and a runaway slave, whom Thoreau helps on his journey to freedom in Canada. The Bean-Field: Thoreau relates his efforts to cultivate of beans. He plants in June and spends his summer mornings weeding the field with a hoe. He sells most of the crop, and his small profit of $8.71 covers his needs that were not provided by friends and family. The Village: Thoreau visits Concord every day or two to hear the news, which he finds \"as refreshing in its way as the rustle of the leaves.\" Nevertheless, he fondly but rather contemptuously compares Concord to a gopher colony. In late summer, he is arrested for refusing to pay federal taxes, but is released the next day. He explains that he refuses to pay taxes to a government that supports slavery. The Ponds: In autumn, Thoreau discusses the countryside and writes down his observations about the geography of Walden Pond and its neighbors: Flint's Pond (or Sandy Pond), White Pond, and Goose Pond. Although Flint's is the largest, Thoreau's favorites are Walden and White ponds, which he describes as lovelier than diamonds. Baker Farm: While on an afternoon ramble in the woods, Thoreau gets caught in a"
      },
      {
        "text": " to a government that supports slavery. The Ponds: In autumn, Thoreau discusses the countryside and writes down his observations about the geography of Walden Pond and its neighbors: Flint's Pond (or Sandy Pond), White Pond, and Goose Pond. Although Flint's is the largest, Thoreau's favorites are Walden and White ponds, which he describes as lovelier than diamonds. Baker Farm: While on an afternoon ramble in the woods, Thoreau gets caught in a rainstorm and takes shelter in the dirty, dismal hut of John Farmer, a penniless but hard-working Irish farmhand, and his wife and children. Thoreau urges Farmer to live a simple but independent and fulfilling life in the woods, thereby freeing himself of employers and creditors. But the Irishman won't give up his aspirations of luxury and the quest for the American dream. Higher Laws: Thoreau discusses whether hunting wild animals and eating meat is necessary. He concludes that the primitive, carnal sensuality of humans drives them to kill and eat animals, and that a person who transcends this propensity is superior to those who cannot. (Thoreau eats fish and occasionally salt pork and woodchuck.) In addition to vegetarianism, he lauds chastity, work, and teetotalism. He also recognizes that Indians need to hunt and kill moose for survival in \"The Maine Woods,\" and ate moose on a trip to Maine while he was living at Walden. Here is a list of the laws that he mentions: * One must love that of the wild just as much as one loves that of the good. * What men already know instinctively is true humanity. * The hunter is the greatest friend of the animal which is hunted. * No human older than an adolescent would wantonly murder any creature which reveres its own life as much as the killer. * If the day and the night make one joyful, one is successful. * The highest"
      },
      {
        "text": " Walden. Here is a list of the laws that he mentions: * One must love that of the wild just as much as one loves that of the good. * What men already know instinctively is true humanity. * The hunter is the greatest friend of the animal which is hunted. * No human older than an adolescent would wantonly murder any creature which reveres its own life as much as the killer. * If the day and the night make one joyful, one is successful. * The highest form of self-restraint is when one can subsist not on other animals, but of plants and crops cultivated from the earth. Brute Neighbors: Thoreau briefly discusses the many wild animals that are his neighbors at Walden. A description of the nesting habits of partridges is followed by a fascinating account of a massive battle between red and black ants. Three of the combatants he takes into his cabin and examines under a microscope as the black ant kills the two smaller red ones. Later, Thoreau takes his boat and tries to follow a teasing loon about the pond. He also collects animal specimens and ships them to Harvard College for study. House-Warming: After picking November berries in the woods, Thoreau adds a chimney, and finally plasters the walls of his sturdy house to stave off the cold of the oncoming winter. He also lays in a good supply of firewood, and expresses affection for wood and fire. Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors: Thoreau relates the stories of people who formerly lived in the vicinity of Walden Pond. Then he talks about a few of the visitors he receives during the winter: a farmer, a woodchopper, and his best friend, the poet Ellery Channing. Winter Animals: Thoreau amuses himself by watching wildlife during the winter. He relates his observations of owls, hares, red squirrels, mice, and various birds as they hunt, sing"
      },
      {
        "text": "; and Winter Visitors: Thoreau relates the stories of people who formerly lived in the vicinity of Walden Pond. Then he talks about a few of the visitors he receives during the winter: a farmer, a woodchopper, and his best friend, the poet Ellery Channing. Winter Animals: Thoreau amuses himself by watching wildlife during the winter. He relates his observations of owls, hares, red squirrels, mice, and various birds as they hunt, sing, and eat the scraps and corn he put out for them. He also describes a fox hunt that passes by. The Pond in Winter: Thoreau describes Walden Pond as it appears during the winter. He claims to have sounded its depths and located an underground outlet. Then he recounts how 100 laborers came to cut great blocks of ice from the pond, the ice to be shipped to the Carolinas. Spring: As spring arrives, Walden and the other ponds melt with stentorian thundering and rumbling. Thoreau enjoys watching the thaw, and grows ecstatic as he witnesses the green rebirth of nature. He watches the geese winging their way north, and a hawk playing by itself in the sky. As nature is reborn, the narrator implies, so is he. He departs Walden on September 6, 1847. Conclusion: This final chapter is more passionate and urgent than its predecessors. In it, he criticizes conformity: \"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.\" By doing so, men may find happiness and self-fulfillment. \"I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which"
      },
      {
        "text": " keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.\" By doing so, men may find happiness and self-fulfillment. \"I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About",
    "author": "Mil Millington",
    "published_date": "2002-10-03",
    "synopsis": " Pel lives with his German girlfriend Ursula and their two children, and works in the IT department of a university library (or \"Learning Centre\"). The story begins with Pel receiving an odd call from his boss, TSR, who quizzes him about extradition treaties; within a week he has vanished without a trace, and Pel promoted to TSR's former position, \"Computer Team Administration, Software Acquisition and Training Manager\" (though, in addition to his own job). The story follows both Pel's home and work lives; at home, there are the arguments with Ursula over the search for a new home, after the latest burglary of their current home; defrosting the fridge during the moving preparations; Ursula terrifying the builders working on the repairs of the new house; a skiing accident, leaving Ursula with a torn ligament in her shoulder. At work, Pel finds that taking on TSR's job involves more than it seemed at first; he has to pay off student recruiters from the Pacific Ring, who happen to be members of The Triads; he has to take care of the details of the building of a new Learning Centre building, which involves hiding the fact that skeletons from an ancient burial ground have been illegally dumped from the site, and a dangerous neurotoxin to be buried under it. These details lead him to become closely involved with the permanently hung over Vice Chancellor of the university, which leads to his receiving another promotion, to Learning Centre Manager; the previous holder of that position having left to pursue his fetish website.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Pel lives with his German girlfriend Ursula and their two children, and works in the IT department of a university library (or \"Learning Centre\"). The story begins with Pel receiving an odd call from his boss, TSR, who quizzes him about extradition treaties; within a week he has vanished without a trace, and Pel promoted to TSR's former position, \"Computer Team Administration, Software Acquisition and Training Manager\" (though, in addition to his own job). The story follows both Pel's home and work lives; at home, there are the arguments with Ursula over the search for a new home, after the latest burglary of their current home; defrosting the fridge during the moving preparations; Ursula terrifying the builders working on the repairs of the new house; a skiing accident, leaving Ursula with a torn ligament in her shoulder. At work, Pel finds that taking on TSR's job involves more than it seemed at first; he has to pay off student recruiters from the Pacific Ring, who happen to be members of The Triads; he has to take care of the details of the building of a new Learning Centre building, which involves hiding the fact that skeletons from an ancient burial ground have been illegally dumped from the site, and a dangerous neurotoxin to be buried under it. These details lead him to become closely involved with the permanently hung over Vice Chancellor of the university, which leads to his receiving another promotion, to Learning Centre Manager; the previous holder of that position having left to pursue his fetish website.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " that position having left to pursue his fetish website.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ring for Jeeves",
    "author": "P. G. Wodehouse",
    "published_date": "1953-04-22",
    "synopsis": " Unlike most Jeeves and Wooster stories, which only occasional refer to events in the real world, Ring for Jeeves is explicitly set in post-World War II England, where social changes have forced some of those who were formerly members of the idle rich to dispense with their servants and seek employment. Although Bertie Wooster has not yet been reduced to such measures, he has enrolled, prior to the start of the story, in a school that teaches the upper classes how to fend for themselves. In his absence, Jeeves has offered his services to William Egerton Bamfylde Ossingham Belfry, the Earl of Rowcester, who is in poor fortune. The story (in the UK edition) opens with a chance encounter in a pub between the wealthy widow Rosalinda Spottsworth and the white hunter Captain Biggar. The two had met previously on a hunting expedition when Mr Spottsworth was killed. Mrs Spottsworth is on her way to meet the Earl of Rowcester at the invitation of his sister Lady Monica, with the intention of buying Rowcester Abbey. Captain Biggar is in pursuit of a dishonest bookie - he had placed a \u00a35 bet on two horses at high odds and won \u00a33,000, only to discover that the bookie had absconded. At Rowcester Abbey, Monica has arrived with her husband Sir Roderick to assist in the sale of the Abbey, and they are both surprised to find that the Earl is in better fortunes than they had last heard and now able even to afford servants. They are further surprised when they receive two phone calls; the first an anonymous inquiry regarding the Earl's car licence plate number, and the second from the police. When the Earl arrives (in his bookie disguise) he laments having ignored Jeeves' advice to lay off Captain Biggar's bet, and is shocked to find his sister and brother-in-law have come to visit. When told of the plan to sell, he is overjoyed, but thrown when it turns out that he had previously romanced Mrs Spottsworth (under her previous married name), and further thrown when Captain Biggar arrives and is invited to stay. After initial threats from Captain Biggar, he, the Earl and Jeeves hatch a plan to steal a pendant belonging to Mrs Spottsworth, intending to pawn it, and to place the proceeds on an outsider bet at the Derby; Captain Biggar requires the money to feel worthy of proposing to Mrs Spottsworth, bound by a code which frowns on gold digging. Though initial attempts to acquire the pendant serve only to alienate the Earl's fianc\u00e9e, Jill Wyvern, and the sale of the house, which would have yielded deposit enough to recompense the Captain, are thwarted by the tactlessness of Sir Roderick; Jeeves comes up with a successful plan, which exploits Mrs Spottsworth's fascination in the supernatural. On the day of the Derby the theft of the pendant is discovered and the police called. Jill's father, the Chief Constable, having heard of Jill's suspicions goes to the Abbey intending to horse whip the Earl. Although still angry, Jill warns Jeeves who in turn explains to her the goings-on she had misinterpreted as an affair. The Captain is suspected of the theft because of his absence, and hopes are dashed when the Captain's racing tip comes second in a photo finish. But everything turns out for the best after the Captain returns, having failed to pawn the pendant. He professes his love and explains his code, which Mrs Spottsworth laughs off with the news that one of his friends, to whom he felt bound under this code, had married a richer woman. Jeeves steps in while announcing the engagement, with the suggestion that Mrs Spottsworth ship the house, brick by brick, to America and in doing so secures the sale. The tale ends with Jeeves handing in his notice, as Bertie Wooster has been expelled from the school for cheating.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Unlike most Jeeves and Wooster stories, which only occasional refer to events in the real world, Ring for Jeeves is explicitly set in post-World War II England, where social changes have forced some of those who were formerly members of the idle rich to dispense with their servants and seek employment. Although Bertie Wooster has not yet been reduced to such measures, he has enrolled, prior to the start of the story, in a school that teaches the upper classes how to fend for themselves. In his absence, Jeeves has offered his services to William Egerton Bamfylde Ossingham Belfry, the Earl of Rowcester, who is in poor fortune. The story (in the UK edition) opens with a chance encounter in a pub between the wealthy widow Rosalinda Spottsworth and the white hunter Captain Biggar. The two had met previously on a hunting expedition when Mr Spottsworth was killed. Mrs Spottsworth is on her way to meet the Earl of Rowcester at the invitation of his sister Lady Monica, with the intention of buying Rowcester Abbey. Captain Biggar is in pursuit of a dishonest bookie - he had placed a \u00a35 bet on two horses at high odds and won \u00a33,000, only to discover that the bookie had absconded. At Rowcester Abbey, Monica has arrived with her husband Sir Roderick to assist in the sale of the Abbey, and they are both surprised to find that the Earl is in better fortunes than they had last heard and now able even to afford servants. They are further surprised when they receive two phone calls; the first an anonymous inquiry regarding the Earl's car licence plate number, and the second from the police. When the Earl arrives (in his bookie disguise) he laments having ignored Jeeves' advice to lay off Captain Biggar's bet, and is shocked to find his sister and brother-in-law have come to visit. When told"
      },
      {
        "text": " Earl is in better fortunes than they had last heard and now able even to afford servants. They are further surprised when they receive two phone calls; the first an anonymous inquiry regarding the Earl's car licence plate number, and the second from the police. When the Earl arrives (in his bookie disguise) he laments having ignored Jeeves' advice to lay off Captain Biggar's bet, and is shocked to find his sister and brother-in-law have come to visit. When told of the plan to sell, he is overjoyed, but thrown when it turns out that he had previously romanced Mrs Spottsworth (under her previous married name), and further thrown when Captain Biggar arrives and is invited to stay. After initial threats from Captain Biggar, he, the Earl and Jeeves hatch a plan to steal a pendant belonging to Mrs Spottsworth, intending to pawn it, and to place the proceeds on an outsider bet at the Derby; Captain Biggar requires the money to feel worthy of proposing to Mrs Spottsworth, bound by a code which frowns on gold digging. Though initial attempts to acquire the pendant serve only to alienate the Earl's fianc\u00e9e, Jill Wyvern, and the sale of the house, which would have yielded deposit enough to recompense the Captain, are thwarted by the tactlessness of Sir Roderick; Jeeves comes up with a successful plan, which exploits Mrs Spottsworth's fascination in the supernatural. On the day of the Derby the theft of the pendant is discovered and the police called. Jill's father, the Chief Constable, having heard of Jill's suspicions goes to the Abbey intending to horse whip the Earl. Although still angry, Jill warns Jeeves who in turn explains to her the goings-on she had misinterpreted as an affair. The Captain is suspected of the theft because of his absence, and hopes are dashed when the Captain's racing tip comes second in a"
      },
      {
        "text": " supernatural. On the day of the Derby the theft of the pendant is discovered and the police called. Jill's father, the Chief Constable, having heard of Jill's suspicions goes to the Abbey intending to horse whip the Earl. Although still angry, Jill warns Jeeves who in turn explains to her the goings-on she had misinterpreted as an affair. The Captain is suspected of the theft because of his absence, and hopes are dashed when the Captain's racing tip comes second in a photo finish. But everything turns out for the best after the Captain returns, having failed to pawn the pendant. He professes his love and explains his code, which Mrs Spottsworth laughs off with the news that one of his friends, to whom he felt bound under this code, had married a richer woman. Jeeves steps in while announcing the engagement, with the suggestion that Mrs Spottsworth ship the house, brick by brick, to America and in doing so secures the sale. The tale ends with Jeeves handing in his notice, as Bertie Wooster has been expelled from the school for cheating.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Water Margin",
    "author": "Shi Naian",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The opening episode in the novel is the release of the 108 spirits, imprisoned under an ancient stele-bearing tortoise., which includes the English translation of the relevant excerpt from the novel. The original text of the chapter can be seen e.g. at \u6c34\u6ef8\u50b3/\u7b2c001\u56de, starting from \"\u53ea\u4e2d\u592e\u4e00\u500b\u77f3\u7891\uff0c\u7d04\u9ad8\u4e94\u516d\u5c3a\uff0c\u4e0b\u9762\u77f3\u9f9c\u8dba\u5750 ...\" The next chapter describes the rise of Gao Qiu, one of the primary antagonists of the story. Gao Qiu abuses his status as a grand marshal by bullying Wang Jin, whose father taught Gao a painful lesson when the latter was still a street roaming ruffian. Wang Jin flees from the capital with his mother and by chance he meets Shi Jin, who becomes his student. The next few chapters tell the story of Shi Jin's friend Lu Zhishen, followed by the story of Lu's sworn brother Lin Chong. Lin Chong is framed by Gao Qiu for attempted assassination and almost dies in a fire at a supply depot set by Gao's lackeys. He slays his foes and abandons the depot, eventually making his way to Liangshan Marsh, where he becomes an outlaw. Meanwhile, the \"Original Seven\", led by Chao Gai, rob a convoy of birthday gifts intended for the minister Cai Jing, another primary antagonist of the story. They flee to Liangshan Marsh after defeating a group of soldiers sent by the authorities to arrest them, and settle down there as outlaws as well, with Chao Gai as chief of the outlaw band. As the story progresses, more people come to join the outlaw band, among whom include army generals and civil servants who grew tired of serving the corrupt government, as well as men with special skills and talents. Stories of the outlaws are told in separate sections in the following chapters. Connections between characters are vague, but the individual stories are eventually pieced together by chapter 40 after Song Jiang succeeds Chao Gai as the leader of the outlaw band, after the latter dies in battle against the Zeng Family Fortress. The plot further develops by illustrating the conflicts between the outlaws and the Song government after the Grand Assembly. Song Jiang strongly advocates making peace with the government and seeking redress for the outlaws. After defeating the imperial armies, the outlaws are eventually granted amnesty by the Emperor Huizong. The emperor recruits them to form a military contingent and allows them to embark on campaigns against invaders from the Liao Dynasty and suppress the rebel forces of Tian Hu, Wang Qing and Fang La within the Song Dynasty's domain. The following outline of chapters is based on a 100 chapters edition. Yang Dingjian's 120 chapters edition includes other campaigns of the outlaws on behalf of Song Dynasty, while Jin Shengtan's 70 chapters edition omits the chapters on the outlaws' acceptance of amnesty and subsequent campaigns. {|class=\"wikitable\" |- !Chapter !Main events |- |1 |Marshal Hong releases the 108 spirits |- |2 |The rise of Gao Qiu |- |2\u20133 |The story of Shi Jin |- |3\u20137 |The story of Lu Zhishen |- |7\u201312 |The story of Lin Chong |- |12\u201313 |The story of Yang Zhi |- |13\u201320 |The robbing of the birthday gifts by the \"Original Seven\" |- |20\u201322 |The story of Song Jiang |- |23\u201332 |The story of Wu Song |- |32\u201335 |The story of Hua Rong |- |36\u201343 |Song Jiang's encounters in Jiangzhou |- |44\u201347 |The story of Shi Xiu and Yang Xiong |- |47\u201350 |The three assaults on the Zhu Family Village |- |51\u201352 |The story of Lei Heng and Zhu Tong |- |53\u201355 |The outlaws attack Gaotangzhou; the search for Gongsun Sheng |- |55\u201357 |The first imperial assault on Liangshan Marsh (led by Huyan Zhuo) |- | 57\u201359 |The outlaws attack Qingzhou; Huyan Zhuo defects to Liangshan |- |59\u201360 |The outlaws led by Gongsun Sheng attack Mount Mangdang |- |60 |The first assault by the outlaws on the Zeng Family Village; the death of Chao Gai |- |60\u201367 |The story of Lu Junyi; the outlaws attack Daming Prefecture; the second imperial assault on Liangshan Marsh (led by Guan Sheng) |- |67 |Guan Sheng defects to Liangshan; The third imperial assault on Liangshan Marsh (led by Shan Tinggui and Wei Dingguo) |- |68 |The second assault by the outlaws on the Zeng Family Fortress; |- |69\u201370 |The outlaws attack Dongping and Dongchang prefectures |- |71\u201374 |The Grand Assembly; the funny and lethal antics of Li Kui |- |75\u201378 |The emperor offers amnesty for the first time; the fourth imperial assault on Liangshan Marsh (led by Tong Guan) |- |78\u201380 |The fifth imperial assault on Liangshan Marsh (led by Gao Qiu) |- |81\u201382 |The outlaws are granted amnesty |- |83\u201389 |The Liangshan heroes attack the Liao invaders |- |90\u201399 |The Liangshan heroes attack Fang La |- |100 |The tragic dissolution of the Liangshan heroes |} The extended version includes the Liangshan heroes' expeditions against other notable rebel leaders, Tian Hu in Hebei and Wang Qing in Sichuan, prior to the campaign against Fang La. Other stories tells such as the heroes fighting the Jurchen-ruled Jin Dynasty or moving to Siam.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The opening episode in the novel is the release of the 108 spirits, imprisoned under an ancient stele-bearing tortoise., which includes the English translation of the relevant excerpt from the novel. The original text of the chapter can be seen e.g. at \u6c34\u6ef8\u50b3/\u7b2c001\u56de, starting from \"\u53ea\u4e2d\u592e\u4e00\u500b\u77f3\u7891\uff0c\u7d04\u9ad8\u4e94\u516d\u5c3a\uff0c\u4e0b\u9762\u77f3\u9f9c\u8dba\u5750 ...\" The next chapter describes the rise of Gao Qiu, one of the primary antagonists of the story. Gao Qiu abuses his status as a grand marshal by bullying Wang Jin, whose father taught Gao a painful lesson when the latter was still a street roaming ruffian. Wang Jin flees from the capital with his mother and by chance he meets Shi Jin, who becomes his student. The next few chapters tell the story of Shi Jin's friend Lu Zhishen, followed by the story of Lu's sworn brother Lin Chong. Lin Chong is framed by Gao Qiu for attempted assassination and almost dies in a fire at a supply depot set by Gao's lackeys. He slays his foes and abandons the depot, eventually making his way to Liangshan Marsh, where he becomes an outlaw. Meanwhile, the \"Original Seven\", led by Chao Gai, rob a convoy of birthday gifts intended for the minister Cai Jing, another primary antagonist of the story. They flee to Liangshan Marsh after defeating a group of soldiers sent by the authorities to arrest them, and settle down there as outlaws as well, with Chao Gai as chief of the outlaw band. As the story progresses, more people come to join the outlaw band, among whom include army generals and civil servants who grew tired of serving the corrupt government, as well as men with special"
      },
      {
        "text": " rob a convoy of birthday gifts intended for the minister Cai Jing, another primary antagonist of the story. They flee to Liangshan Marsh after defeating a group of soldiers sent by the authorities to arrest them, and settle down there as outlaws as well, with Chao Gai as chief of the outlaw band. As the story progresses, more people come to join the outlaw band, among whom include army generals and civil servants who grew tired of serving the corrupt government, as well as men with special skills and talents. Stories of the outlaws are told in separate sections in the following chapters. Connections between characters are vague, but the individual stories are eventually pieced together by chapter 40 after Song Jiang succeeds Chao Gai as the leader of the outlaw band, after the latter dies in battle against the Zeng Family Fortress. The plot further develops by illustrating the conflicts between the outlaws and the Song government after the Grand Assembly. Song Jiang strongly advocates making peace with the government and seeking redress for the outlaws. After defeating the imperial armies, the outlaws are eventually granted amnesty by the Emperor Huizong. The emperor recruits them to form a military contingent and allows them to embark on campaigns against invaders from the Liao Dynasty and suppress the rebel forces of Tian Hu, Wang Qing and Fang La within the Song Dynasty's domain. The following outline of chapters is based on a 100 chapters edition. Yang Dingjian's 120 chapters edition includes other campaigns of the outlaws on behalf of Song Dynasty, while Jin Shengtan's 70 chapters edition omits the chapters on the outlaws' acceptance of amnesty and subsequent campaigns. {|class=\"wikitable\" |- !Chapter !Main events |- |1 |Marshal Hong releases the 108 spirits |- |2 |The rise of Gao Qiu |- |2\u20133 |The story of Shi Jin |- |3\u20137 |The story of Lu Zhishen |- |7\u201312 |The story"
      },
      {
        "text": " Dynasty, while Jin Shengtan's 70 chapters edition omits the chapters on the outlaws' acceptance of amnesty and subsequent campaigns. {|class=\"wikitable\" |- !Chapter !Main events |- |1 |Marshal Hong releases the 108 spirits |- |2 |The rise of Gao Qiu |- |2\u20133 |The story of Shi Jin |- |3\u20137 |The story of Lu Zhishen |- |7\u201312 |The story of Lin Chong |- |12\u201313 |The story of Yang Zhi |- |13\u201320 |The robbing of the birthday gifts by the \"Original Seven\" |- |20\u201322 |The story of Song Jiang |- |23\u201332 |The story of Wu Song |- |32\u201335 |The story of Hua Rong |- |36\u201343 |Song Jiang's encounters in Jiangzhou |- |44\u201347 |The story of Shi Xiu and Yang Xiong |- |47\u201350 |The three assaults on the Zhu Family Village |- |51\u201352 |The story of Lei Heng and Zhu Tong |- |53\u201355 |The outlaws attack Gaotangzhou; the search for Gongsun Sheng |- |55\u201357 |The first imperial assault on Liangshan Marsh (led by Huyan Zhuo) |- | 57\u201359 |The outlaws attack Qingzhou; Huyan Zhuo defects to Liangshan |- |59\u201360 |The outlaws led by Gongsun Sheng attack Mount Mangdang |- |60 |The first assault by the outlaws on the Zeng Family Village; the death of Chao Gai |- |60\u201367 |The story of Lu Junyi; the outlaws attack Daming Prefecture; the second imperial assault on Liangshan Marsh (led by Guan Sheng) |- |67 |Guan Sheng defects"
      },
      {
        "text": " defects to Liangshan |- |59\u201360 |The outlaws led by Gongsun Sheng attack Mount Mangdang |- |60 |The first assault by the outlaws on the Zeng Family Village; the death of Chao Gai |- |60\u201367 |The story of Lu Junyi; the outlaws attack Daming Prefecture; the second imperial assault on Liangshan Marsh (led by Guan Sheng) |- |67 |Guan Sheng defects to Liangshan; The third imperial assault on Liangshan Marsh (led by Shan Tinggui and Wei Dingguo) |- |68 |The second assault by the outlaws on the Zeng Family Fortress; |- |69\u201370 |The outlaws attack Dongping and Dongchang prefectures |- |71\u201374 |The Grand Assembly; the funny and lethal antics of Li Kui |- |75\u201378 |The emperor offers amnesty for the first time; the fourth imperial assault on Liangshan Marsh (led by Tong Guan) |- |78\u201380 |The fifth imperial assault on Liangshan Marsh (led by Gao Qiu) |- |81\u201382 |The outlaws are granted amnesty |- |83\u201389 |The Liangshan heroes attack the Liao invaders |- |90\u201399 |The Liangshan heroes attack Fang La |- |100 |The tragic dissolution of the Liangshan heroes |} The extended version includes the Liangshan heroes' expeditions against other notable rebel leaders, Tian Hu in Hebei and Wang Qing in Sichuan, prior to the campaign against Fang La. Other stories tells such as the heroes fighting the Jurchen-ruled Jin Dynasty or moving to Siam.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " |} The extended version includes the Liangshan heroes' expeditions against other notable rebel leaders, Tian Hu in Hebei and Wang Qing in Sichuan, prior to the campaign against Fang La. Other stories tells such as the heroes fighting the Jurchen-ruled Jin Dynasty or moving to Siam.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Lazarus Effect",
    "author": "Bill Ransom",
    "published_date": "1983",
    "synopsis": " The Lazarus Effect continues the story of the planet Pandora that began in The Jesus Incident. The sentient kelp is almost extinct, Ship is gone, there is no more dry land, the majority of humanity is heavily mutated from the genetic experiments performed by Jesus Lewis, and a power-hungry mad man is attempting to control the planet. But the kelp is returning and this time Avata does not remain passive while people refuse to Worship.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Lazarus Effect continues the story of the planet Pandora that began in The Jesus Incident. The sentient kelp is almost extinct, Ship is gone, there is no more dry land, the majority of humanity is heavily mutated from the genetic experiments performed by Jesus Lewis, and a power-hungry mad man is attempting to control the planet. But the kelp is returning and this time Avata does not remain passive while people refuse to Worship.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Oblomov",
    "author": "Ivan Goncharov",
    "published_date": "1859",
    "synopsis": " The novel evolved and expanded from an 1849 short story or sketch entitled \"Oblomov's Dream. An Episode from an Unfinished Novel\", later incorporated as \"Oblomov's Dream\" (\"Son Oblomova\") as Chapter 9 in the completed 1859 novel. The novel focuses on the midlife crisis of the main character, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, an upper middle class son of a member of Russia's nineteenth century landed gentry. Oblomov's distinguishing characteristic is his slothful attitude towards life. While a common negative characteristic, Oblomov raises this trait to an art form, conducting his little daily business apathetically from his bed. While clearly comedic, the novel also seriously examines many critical issues that faced Russian society in the nineteenth century. Some of these problems included the uselessness of landowners and gentry in a feudal society that did not encourage innovation or reform, the complex relations between members of different classes of society such as Oblomov's relationship with his servant Zakhar, and courtship and matrimony by the elite. An excerpt from Oblomov's morning (from the beginning of the novel): :Therefore he did as he had decided; and when the tea had been consumed he raised himself upon his elbow and arrived within an ace of getting out of bed. In fact, glancing at his slippers, he even began to extend a foot in their direction, but presently withdrew it. :Half-past ten struck, and Oblomov gave himself a shake. \"What is the matter?,\" he said vexedly. \"In all conscience 'tis time that I were doing something! Would I could make up my mind to\u2014to\u2014\" He broke off with a shout of \"Zakhar!\" whereupon there entered an elderly man in a grey suit and brass buttons\u2014a man who sported beneath a perfectly bald pate a pair of long, bushy, grizzled whiskers that would have sufficed to fit out three ordinary men with beards. His clothes, it is true, were cut according to a country pattern, but he cherished them as a faint reminder of his former livery, as the one surviving token of the dignity of the house of Oblomov. The house of Oblomov was one which had once been wealthy and distinguished, but which, of late years, had undergone impoverishment and diminution, until finally it had become lost among a crowd of noble houses of more recent creation. :For a few moments Oblomov remained too plunged in thought to notice Zakhar's presence; but at length the valet coughed. :\"What do you want?\" Oblomov inquired. :\"You called me just now, master?\" :\"I called you, you say? Well, I cannot remember why I did so. Return to your room until I have remembered.\" Oblomov spends the first part of the book in bed or lying on his sofa. He receives a letter from the manager of his country estate explaining that the financial situation is deteriorating and that he must visit the estate to make some major decisions, but Oblomov can barely leave his bedroom, much less journey a thousand miles into the country. A flashback reveals a good deal of why Oblomov is so slothful; the reader sees Oblomov's upbringing in the country village of Oblomovka. He is spoiled rotten and never required to work or perform household duties, and he is constantly pulled from school for vacations and trips or for trivial reasons. In contrast, his friend Andrey Stoltz, born to a German father and a Russian mother, is raised in a strict, disciplined environment, reflecting Goncharov's own view of the European mentality as dedicated and hard-working. As the story develops, Stoltz introduces Oblomov to a young woman, Olga, and the two fall in love. However, his apathy and fear of moving forward are too great, and she calls off their engagement when it is clear that he will keep delaying their wedding to avoid having to take basic steps like putting his affairs in order. :\"Shall I tell you what you would have done had we married?\" at length she said. \"Day by day you would have relapsed farther and farther into your slough. And I? You see what I am\u2014that I am not yet grown old, and that I shall never cease to live. But you would have taken to waiting for Christmas, and then for Shrovetide, and to attending evening parties, and to dancing, and to thinking of nothing at all. You would have retired to rest each night with a sigh of thankfulness that the day had passed so quickly; and each morning you would have awakened with a prayer that to-day might be exactly as yesterday. That would have been our future. Is it not so? Meanwhile I should have been fading away. Do you really think that in such a life you would have been happy?\" :He tried to rise and leave the room, but his feet refused their office. He tried to say something, but his throat seemed dry, and no sound would come. All he could do was to stretch out his hand. :\"Forgive me!\" he murmured. :She too tried to speak, but could not. She too tried to extend her hand, but it fell back. Finally, her face contracted painfully, and, sinking forward upon his shoulder, she burst into a storm of sobbing. It was as though all her weapons had slipped from her grasp, and once more she was just a woman\u2014a woman defenceless in her fight with sorrow. :\"Good-bye, good-bye!\" she said amid her spasms of weeping. He sat listening painfully to her sobs, but felt as though he could say nothing to check them. Sinking into a chair, and burying her face in her handkerchief, she wept bitter, burning tears, with her head bowed upon the table. :\"Olga,\" at length he said, \"why torture yourself in this way? You love me, and could never survive a parting. Take me, therefore, as I am, and love in me just so much as may be worthy of it.\" :Without raising her head, she made a gesture of refusal. During this period, Oblomov is swindled repeatedly by his \"friend\" Taranteyev and Ivan Matveyevich, his landlady's brother, and Stoltz has to undo the damage each time. The last time, Oblomov ends up living in penury because Taranteyev and Ivan Matveyevich are blackmailing him out of all of his income from the country estate, which lasts for over a year before Stoltz discovers the situation and reports Ivan Matveyevich to his supervisor. Olga leaves Russia and visits Paris, where she bumps into Stoltz on the street. The two strike up a romance and end up marrying. However, not even Oblomov could go through life without at least one moment of self-possession and purpose. When Taranteyev's behavior at last reaches insufferable lows, Oblomov confronts him, slaps him around a bit and finally kicks him out of the house, in a scene in which all the noble traits that his social class was supposed to symbolize shine through his then worn out being. Oblomov has a child with his widowed landlady, Agafia Pshenitsina, but they never marry. They name the child Andrey, after Stoltz, who adopts the boy upon Oblomov's death. Oblomov spends the rest of his life in a second Oblomovka, being taken care of by Agafia Pshenitsina like he used to be as a child. She can prepare many a succulent meal, and makes sure that Oblomov doesn't have a single worrisome thought. Sometime before his death he had been visited by Stoltz, who had promised to his wife a last attempt at bringing Oblomov back to the world, but without success. By then Oblomov had already accepted his fate, and during the conversation he mentions \"Oblomovitis\" as the real cause of his demise. Oblomov's end is quiet, much like the rest of his life.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel evolved and expanded from an 1849 short story or sketch entitled \"Oblomov's Dream. An Episode from an Unfinished Novel\", later incorporated as \"Oblomov's Dream\" (\"Son Oblomova\") as Chapter 9 in the completed 1859 novel. The novel focuses on the midlife crisis of the main character, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, an upper middle class son of a member of Russia's nineteenth century landed gentry. Oblomov's distinguishing characteristic is his slothful attitude towards life. While a common negative characteristic, Oblomov raises this trait to an art form, conducting his little daily business apathetically from his bed. While clearly comedic, the novel also seriously examines many critical issues that faced Russian society in the nineteenth century. Some of these problems included the uselessness of landowners and gentry in a feudal society that did not encourage innovation or reform, the complex relations between members of different classes of society such as Oblomov's relationship with his servant Zakhar, and courtship and matrimony by the elite. An excerpt from Oblomov's morning (from the beginning of the novel): :Therefore he did as he had decided; and when the tea had been consumed he raised himself upon his elbow and arrived within an ace of getting out of bed. In fact, glancing at his slippers, he even began to extend a foot in their direction, but presently withdrew it. :Half-past ten struck, and Oblomov gave himself a shake. \"What is the matter?,\" he said vexedly. \"In all conscience 'tis time that I were doing something! Would I could make up my mind to\u2014to\u2014\" He broke off with a shout of \"Zakhar!\" whereupon there entered an elderly man in a grey suit and brass buttons\u2014a man who sported beneath a perfectly bald pate a pair of long, bushy, grizz"
      },
      {
        "text": " :Half-past ten struck, and Oblomov gave himself a shake. \"What is the matter?,\" he said vexedly. \"In all conscience 'tis time that I were doing something! Would I could make up my mind to\u2014to\u2014\" He broke off with a shout of \"Zakhar!\" whereupon there entered an elderly man in a grey suit and brass buttons\u2014a man who sported beneath a perfectly bald pate a pair of long, bushy, grizzled whiskers that would have sufficed to fit out three ordinary men with beards. His clothes, it is true, were cut according to a country pattern, but he cherished them as a faint reminder of his former livery, as the one surviving token of the dignity of the house of Oblomov. The house of Oblomov was one which had once been wealthy and distinguished, but which, of late years, had undergone impoverishment and diminution, until finally it had become lost among a crowd of noble houses of more recent creation. :For a few moments Oblomov remained too plunged in thought to notice Zakhar's presence; but at length the valet coughed. :\"What do you want?\" Oblomov inquired. :\"You called me just now, master?\" :\"I called you, you say? Well, I cannot remember why I did so. Return to your room until I have remembered.\" Oblomov spends the first part of the book in bed or lying on his sofa. He receives a letter from the manager of his country estate explaining that the financial situation is deteriorating and that he must visit the estate to make some major decisions, but Oblomov can barely leave his bedroom, much less journey a thousand miles into the country. A flashback reveals a good deal of why Oblomov is so slothful; the reader sees Oblomov's upbringing in the country village of Ob"
      },
      {
        "text": " spends the first part of the book in bed or lying on his sofa. He receives a letter from the manager of his country estate explaining that the financial situation is deteriorating and that he must visit the estate to make some major decisions, but Oblomov can barely leave his bedroom, much less journey a thousand miles into the country. A flashback reveals a good deal of why Oblomov is so slothful; the reader sees Oblomov's upbringing in the country village of Oblomovka. He is spoiled rotten and never required to work or perform household duties, and he is constantly pulled from school for vacations and trips or for trivial reasons. In contrast, his friend Andrey Stoltz, born to a German father and a Russian mother, is raised in a strict, disciplined environment, reflecting Goncharov's own view of the European mentality as dedicated and hard-working. As the story develops, Stoltz introduces Oblomov to a young woman, Olga, and the two fall in love. However, his apathy and fear of moving forward are too great, and she calls off their engagement when it is clear that he will keep delaying their wedding to avoid having to take basic steps like putting his affairs in order. :\"Shall I tell you what you would have done had we married?\" at length she said. \"Day by day you would have relapsed farther and farther into your slough. And I? You see what I am\u2014that I am not yet grown old, and that I shall never cease to live. But you would have taken to waiting for Christmas, and then for Shrovetide, and to attending evening parties, and to dancing, and to thinking of nothing at all. You would have retired to rest each night with a sigh of thankfulness that the day had passed so quickly; and each morning you would have awakened with a prayer that to-day might be exactly as yesterday. That would"
      },
      {
        "text": " I am\u2014that I am not yet grown old, and that I shall never cease to live. But you would have taken to waiting for Christmas, and then for Shrovetide, and to attending evening parties, and to dancing, and to thinking of nothing at all. You would have retired to rest each night with a sigh of thankfulness that the day had passed so quickly; and each morning you would have awakened with a prayer that to-day might be exactly as yesterday. That would have been our future. Is it not so? Meanwhile I should have been fading away. Do you really think that in such a life you would have been happy?\" :He tried to rise and leave the room, but his feet refused their office. He tried to say something, but his throat seemed dry, and no sound would come. All he could do was to stretch out his hand. :\"Forgive me!\" he murmured. :She too tried to speak, but could not. She too tried to extend her hand, but it fell back. Finally, her face contracted painfully, and, sinking forward upon his shoulder, she burst into a storm of sobbing. It was as though all her weapons had slipped from her grasp, and once more she was just a woman\u2014a woman defenceless in her fight with sorrow. :\"Good-bye, good-bye!\" she said amid her spasms of weeping. He sat listening painfully to her sobs, but felt as though he could say nothing to check them. Sinking into a chair, and burying her face in her handkerchief, she wept bitter, burning tears, with her head bowed upon the table. :\"Olga,\" at length he said, \"why torture yourself in this way? You love me, and could never survive a parting. Take me, therefore, as I am, and love in me just so much as may be worthy of it.\" :Without raising her head, she"
      },
      {
        "text": " though he could say nothing to check them. Sinking into a chair, and burying her face in her handkerchief, she wept bitter, burning tears, with her head bowed upon the table. :\"Olga,\" at length he said, \"why torture yourself in this way? You love me, and could never survive a parting. Take me, therefore, as I am, and love in me just so much as may be worthy of it.\" :Without raising her head, she made a gesture of refusal. During this period, Oblomov is swindled repeatedly by his \"friend\" Taranteyev and Ivan Matveyevich, his landlady's brother, and Stoltz has to undo the damage each time. The last time, Oblomov ends up living in penury because Taranteyev and Ivan Matveyevich are blackmailing him out of all of his income from the country estate, which lasts for over a year before Stoltz discovers the situation and reports Ivan Matveyevich to his supervisor. Olga leaves Russia and visits Paris, where she bumps into Stoltz on the street. The two strike up a romance and end up marrying. However, not even Oblomov could go through life without at least one moment of self-possession and purpose. When Taranteyev's behavior at last reaches insufferable lows, Oblomov confronts him, slaps him around a bit and finally kicks him out of the house, in a scene in which all the noble traits that his social class was supposed to symbolize shine through his then worn out being. Oblomov has a child with his widowed landlady, Agafia Pshenitsina, but they never marry. They name the child Andrey, after Stoltz, who adopts the boy upon Oblomov's death. Oblomov spends the rest of his life in a second Obl"
      },
      {
        "text": " kicks him out of the house, in a scene in which all the noble traits that his social class was supposed to symbolize shine through his then worn out being. Oblomov has a child with his widowed landlady, Agafia Pshenitsina, but they never marry. They name the child Andrey, after Stoltz, who adopts the boy upon Oblomov's death. Oblomov spends the rest of his life in a second Oblomovka, being taken care of by Agafia Pshenitsina like he used to be as a child. She can prepare many a succulent meal, and makes sure that Oblomov doesn't have a single worrisome thought. Sometime before his death he had been visited by Stoltz, who had promised to his wife a last attempt at bringing Oblomov back to the world, but without success. By then Oblomov had already accepted his fate, and during the conversation he mentions \"Oblomovitis\" as the real cause of his demise. Oblomov's end is quiet, much like the rest of his life.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Diaspora",
    "author": "Greg Egan",
    "published_date": "1998-07",
    "synopsis": " Diaspora begins with a description of \"orphanogenesis\", the birthing of a citizen without any ancestors (most citizens descend from fleshers uploaded at some point), and the subsequent upbringing of the newborn Yatima within Konishi polis. Yatima matures within a few real-time days, because citizens' subjective time runs about 800 times as rapidly as flesher and gleisner time. Early on, Yatima and a friend, Inoshiro, use abandoned gleisner bodies to visit a Bridger colony near the ruins of Atlanta on Earth. Years later, the gleisner Karpal, using a gravitational-wave detector, determines that a binary neutron star system in the constellation of Lacerta has collapsed, releasing a huge burst of energy. Previous predictions portrayed the system's stable orbit as likely to last for another seven million years. By analysing irregularities in the orbit, Karpal discovers that the devastating burst of energy will reach Earth within the next four days. Yatima and Inoshiro return to Earth to urge the fleshers \u2014 gathered in a conference \u2014 either to migrate to the polises or at least to shelter themselves. Many fleshers reject this advice, or fail fully to appreciate its urgency quickly enough. Stirred up by a paranoid Static diplomat, many fleshers suspect that Yatima and Inoshiro have come to trick or coerce them into \"Introdus\", or mass-migration into the polises, involving masses of virus-sized nanomachines which dismantle a human body and record the brain's information states as it is chemically converted into a crystalline computer. The gamma ray burst reaches Earth shortly after the conference, destroying the atmosphere and causing a mass extinction. The gleisners and the Coalition of Polises survive the burst, thanks to cosmic radiation hardening. Over the next few years, Yatima and other citizens and gleisners attempt to rescue any surviving fleshers from slow suffocation, starvation, or poisoning by offering to upload them into the polises. The novel's title itself refers to a quest undertaken by most of the inhabitants of Carter-Zimmerman (\"C-Z\"), a polis devoted to physics and understanding the cosmos, along with volunteers from throughout the Coalition of Polises. The Diaspora consists of a collection of one thousand clones (digital copies) of C-Z polis, deployed toward stars in all directions in the hope of gathering as much data as possible in order to revise the long-held classical understanding of Kozuch Theory, which had failed to predict the Lacerta event. The bulk of the novel follows this expedition, rotating back and forth between different cloned instances of the same cast of main characters as different C-Z clones make discoveries along the way, relaying information to one another over hundreds of light years \u2013 and finally between universes.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Diaspora begins with a description of \"orphanogenesis\", the birthing of a citizen without any ancestors (most citizens descend from fleshers uploaded at some point), and the subsequent upbringing of the newborn Yatima within Konishi polis. Yatima matures within a few real-time days, because citizens' subjective time runs about 800 times as rapidly as flesher and gleisner time. Early on, Yatima and a friend, Inoshiro, use abandoned gleisner bodies to visit a Bridger colony near the ruins of Atlanta on Earth. Years later, the gleisner Karpal, using a gravitational-wave detector, determines that a binary neutron star system in the constellation of Lacerta has collapsed, releasing a huge burst of energy. Previous predictions portrayed the system's stable orbit as likely to last for another seven million years. By analysing irregularities in the orbit, Karpal discovers that the devastating burst of energy will reach Earth within the next four days. Yatima and Inoshiro return to Earth to urge the fleshers \u2014 gathered in a conference \u2014 either to migrate to the polises or at least to shelter themselves. Many fleshers reject this advice, or fail fully to appreciate its urgency quickly enough. Stirred up by a paranoid Static diplomat, many fleshers suspect that Yatima and Inoshiro have come to trick or coerce them into \"Introdus\", or mass-migration into the polises, involving masses of virus-sized nanomachines which dismantle a human body and record the brain's information states as it is chemically converted into a crystalline computer. The gamma ray burst reaches Earth shortly after the conference, destroying the atmosphere and causing a mass extinction. The gleisners and the Coalition of Polises survive the burst, thanks to cosmic radiation hardening. Over the next few years, Yatima and other citizens and gleisners attempt to rescue any surviving fleshers"
      },
      {
        "text": " polises, involving masses of virus-sized nanomachines which dismantle a human body and record the brain's information states as it is chemically converted into a crystalline computer. The gamma ray burst reaches Earth shortly after the conference, destroying the atmosphere and causing a mass extinction. The gleisners and the Coalition of Polises survive the burst, thanks to cosmic radiation hardening. Over the next few years, Yatima and other citizens and gleisners attempt to rescue any surviving fleshers from slow suffocation, starvation, or poisoning by offering to upload them into the polises. The novel's title itself refers to a quest undertaken by most of the inhabitants of Carter-Zimmerman (\"C-Z\"), a polis devoted to physics and understanding the cosmos, along with volunteers from throughout the Coalition of Polises. The Diaspora consists of a collection of one thousand clones (digital copies) of C-Z polis, deployed toward stars in all directions in the hope of gathering as much data as possible in order to revise the long-held classical understanding of Kozuch Theory, which had failed to predict the Lacerta event. The bulk of the novel follows this expedition, rotating back and forth between different cloned instances of the same cast of main characters as different C-Z clones make discoveries along the way, relaying information to one another over hundreds of light years \u2013 and finally between universes.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Schild's Ladder",
    "author": "Greg Egan",
    "published_date": "2002",
    "synopsis": " Twenty-thousand years in the future, Cass, a humanoid physicist from Earth, travels to Mimosa orbital station and begins a series of experiments to test the extremities of the fictitious Sarumpaet rules, a set of fundamental equations in \"Quantum Graph Theory,\" which holds that physical existence is a manifestation of complex constructions of mathematical graphs. However, the experiments unexpectedly create a bubble of something more stable than ordinary vacuum, dubbed novo-vacuum, that expands outward at half the speed of light as ordinary vacuum collapses to this new state at the border, hinting at more general laws beyond the Sarumpaet rules. The local population is forced to flee to ever more distant star systems to escape the steadily approaching border, but since the expansion never slows, it is just a matter of time before the novo-vacuum encompasses any given region within the Local Group. Two factions develop as the expanding bubble swallows star after star: the Preservationists, who wish to stop the expansion and preserve the Milky Way at any cost; and the Yielders, who consider the novo-vacuum to be too important a discovery to destroy without understanding. Six hundred years after the initial experiment, aboard the Rindler, a vessel that has matched velocities with the border and is powered by multispectral light emitted as the ordinary vacuum collapses into its lower energy-state, a variety of refugees are probing the novo-vacuum in order to understand the physics that makes it possible. The novo-vacuum turns out to be more complicated than anyone suspects, however, and Egan's usual topics of simulation and quantum ontology are taken to the extreme when we learn that a whole ordered universe exists within this zone of apparent chaos, existing as direct elaborations of the quantum graph's lattice structure, of which elementary particles, fundamental interactions, and our spacetime itself are only special cases.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Twenty-thousand years in the future, Cass, a humanoid physicist from Earth, travels to Mimosa orbital station and begins a series of experiments to test the extremities of the fictitious Sarumpaet rules, a set of fundamental equations in \"Quantum Graph Theory,\" which holds that physical existence is a manifestation of complex constructions of mathematical graphs. However, the experiments unexpectedly create a bubble of something more stable than ordinary vacuum, dubbed novo-vacuum, that expands outward at half the speed of light as ordinary vacuum collapses to this new state at the border, hinting at more general laws beyond the Sarumpaet rules. The local population is forced to flee to ever more distant star systems to escape the steadily approaching border, but since the expansion never slows, it is just a matter of time before the novo-vacuum encompasses any given region within the Local Group. Two factions develop as the expanding bubble swallows star after star: the Preservationists, who wish to stop the expansion and preserve the Milky Way at any cost; and the Yielders, who consider the novo-vacuum to be too important a discovery to destroy without understanding. Six hundred years after the initial experiment, aboard the Rindler, a vessel that has matched velocities with the border and is powered by multispectral light emitted as the ordinary vacuum collapses into its lower energy-state, a variety of refugees are probing the novo-vacuum in order to understand the physics that makes it possible. The novo-vacuum turns out to be more complicated than anyone suspects, however, and Egan's usual topics of simulation and quantum ontology are taken to the extreme when we learn that a whole ordered universe exists within this zone of apparent chaos, existing as direct elaborations of the quantum graph's lattice structure, of which elementary particles, fundamental interactions, and our spacetime itself are only special cases.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " order to understand the physics that makes it possible. The novo-vacuum turns out to be more complicated than anyone suspects, however, and Egan's usual topics of simulation and quantum ontology are taken to the extreme when we learn that a whole ordered universe exists within this zone of apparent chaos, existing as direct elaborations of the quantum graph's lattice structure, of which elementary particles, fundamental interactions, and our spacetime itself are only special cases.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Murder on the Links",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "1923",
    "synopsis": " Captain Hastings arrives in the flat that he now shares with Poirot in London, eager to tell the Belgian detective about a woman with whom he has fallen hopelessly in love on the train from Paris to Calais. But Poirot is busy sorting his mail, impatiently tossing aside bills and banal requests \"recovering lost lap dogs for fashionable ladies\". Then he finds an extraordinary letter from the south of France: \"For God's sake, come!\" writes Monsieur Paul Renauld. Poirot decides to investigate and he takes Hastings to France and the Villa Genevieve in Merlinville-sur-Mer on the northern French coast where Renauld wrote from. Asking for directions near the Villa Genevieve, they are watched by a young girl outside another smaller villa who has \"anxious eyes\". Arriving at Renauld's house, they find they are too late: Renauld is dead. He and his wife were attacked in their rooms at 2.00 in the night by two masked men. Madame Renauld was tied up and her husband taken away by the men wanting to know \"the secret\". They appear to have got in to the house through the open front door with no sign of forced entry. His body was found stabbed in a newly dug open grave on the edge of a nearby golf course which is under construction and next to the placing of a bunker which was due to be dug that day. The Renaulds' son, Jack, had just been sent away on business to South America and Renauld also gave the chauffeur an unexpected holiday leaving just three female servants in the house who heard nothing. The eldest of the three servants tells Poirot and the police that quite often, after Madame Renauld has retired to bed for the night, her husband has been visited by a neighbour, Madame Daubreuil, who is the mother of the girl with the \"anxious eyes\", Marthe Daubreuil. The dead man changed his will just two weeks before, leaving almost everything to his wife and nothing to his son. There is a smashed watch at the scene of the kidnap which is still running but has somehow gained two hours. The widow inspects the body to identify it. She loses her composure and collapses with grief at the sight of her dead husband. Poirot is puzzled by some of these findings\u2014why is the watch running fast? Why did the servants hear nothing? Why was the body found somewhere where it was bound to be quickly discovered? Why is there a piece of lead piping near the body? Poirot is hampered in his investigations by the attitude of Monsieur Giraud of the S\u00fbret\u00e9 who plainly believes the elderly Belgian is too set in his old-fashioned ways to solve the mystery. The local Examining Magistrate, Monsieur Hautet, is more helpful and tells Poirot that he has found out that the Renaulds' neighbour at the Villa Marguerite, Madame Daubreuil, has paid two hundred thousand francs into her bank account in recent weeks: was she Monsieur Renauld's mistress? They visit the lady who is furious when the suggestion is put to her and throws them out. Having now met Madame Daubreuil for the first time, Poirot tells Hastings that he recognises her from a murder case going back some twenty years. Soon after, Jack Renauld arrives back; his trip to Santiago was delayed enabling him to return when he heard of his father's murder. Jack admits to rowing with his father over who he wanted to marry, hence the change of will. Poirot suspects that Marthe Daubreuil is the girl in question and feels that the answer to the problem lies in Paris. He goes there to investigate. Whilst he is away another body is found in a shed on the golf course. No one recognises the man who by his hands could be a tramp but is dressed in finer clothes. The strangest thing is that the man has been dead for forty-eight hours and thus died before Monsieur Renauld's murder. No one recognises the new corpse. Poirot returns from Paris and, without being told details beforehand, staggers Hastings by correctly guessing the age of the man, place of death, and manner of death, despite having been clearly shocked when Hastings originally told him of this new development. He examines the new corpse with the doctor. Poirot sees foam on his lips and the doctor realises the man died of an epileptic fit and was then stabbed after death. When alone, Poirot tells Hastings that his investigations in Paris have borne fruit and that Madame Daubreuil is in fact a Madame Beroldy who was put on trial twenty years previously for the death of her elderly husband. He too was murdered by, supposedly, two masked men who broke into their house at night wanting to know \"the secret\". Madame Beroldy had a young lover, Georges Conneau, who absconded from justice but wrote a letter to the police admitting to the crime; there were no masked men and he stabbed Monsieur Beroldy himself. Madame Beroldy managed a tearfully-convincing performance in the witness box, convincing the jury of her innocence, but leaving most people suspicious. She then disappeared herself. Poirot deduces that Paul Renauld was in fact Georges Conneau. He fled to Canada and then South America where he made his fortune and gained a wife and a son. When they returned to France, by great misfortune, the immediate neighbour of the house he bought was Madame Beroldy, now Madame Daubreuil, who started to blackmail him. When a tramp died on his grounds of an epileptic fit, Renauld saw a chance to duplicate the ruse of twenty years earlier by faking his own death and escaping his blackmailer with his wife's cooperation. His plan was to send his son away on business, give his chauffeur a holiday, and stage a kidnapping by tying his wife up and disappearing. After leaving the house he would go to the golf course and dig a grave where he knew it would be discovered; he would then put the tramp into the grave after destroying his features with the lead pipe. The plan was for this to happen at midnight, giving Renauld the chance to get away from the local station on the last train and use the smashed watch to create an alibi. Unfortunately, the smashing of the watch did not stop it, so the deception failed on Poirot at least. What then went wrong was that Renauld was stabbed by someone else after he finished digging the grave but before he could fetch the body of the tramp, hence his wife's faint when she saw that the body actually was her husband's. Jack is proven innocent by another girl he was also in love with and as far as Poirot is concerned that leaves only one suspect who had anything to gain by Renauld dying: Marthe Daubreuil, who did not know of the change of will disinheriting Jack and thought that by killing his father she would gain his fortune when she married his son. She overheard the Renaulds discussing using the dead tramp as a ruse and stabbed Renauld on the golf course after he had dug the grave. Poirot arranges for Madame Renauld to openly disinherit Jack in an attempt to force Marthe out.The attempt succeeds and Marthe dies when she tries to kill Madame Renauld. Her mother disappears again. Jack and his mother go to South America and Hastings ends up with Dulcie Duveen, the sister of the girl who was able to prove Jack's innocence. She is also the woman he met on the train at the beginning of the novel.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Captain Hastings arrives in the flat that he now shares with Poirot in London, eager to tell the Belgian detective about a woman with whom he has fallen hopelessly in love on the train from Paris to Calais. But Poirot is busy sorting his mail, impatiently tossing aside bills and banal requests \"recovering lost lap dogs for fashionable ladies\". Then he finds an extraordinary letter from the south of France: \"For God's sake, come!\" writes Monsieur Paul Renauld. Poirot decides to investigate and he takes Hastings to France and the Villa Genevieve in Merlinville-sur-Mer on the northern French coast where Renauld wrote from. Asking for directions near the Villa Genevieve, they are watched by a young girl outside another smaller villa who has \"anxious eyes\". Arriving at Renauld's house, they find they are too late: Renauld is dead. He and his wife were attacked in their rooms at 2.00 in the night by two masked men. Madame Renauld was tied up and her husband taken away by the men wanting to know \"the secret\". They appear to have got in to the house through the open front door with no sign of forced entry. His body was found stabbed in a newly dug open grave on the edge of a nearby golf course which is under construction and next to the placing of a bunker which was due to be dug that day. The Renaulds' son, Jack, had just been sent away on business to South America and Renauld also gave the chauffeur an unexpected holiday leaving just three female servants in the house who heard nothing. The eldest of the three servants tells Poirot and the police that quite often, after Madame Renauld has retired to bed for the night, her husband has been visited by a neighbour, Madame Daubreuil, who is the mother of the girl with the \"anxious eyes\", Marthe Daubreuil."
      },
      {
        "text": " just been sent away on business to South America and Renauld also gave the chauffeur an unexpected holiday leaving just three female servants in the house who heard nothing. The eldest of the three servants tells Poirot and the police that quite often, after Madame Renauld has retired to bed for the night, her husband has been visited by a neighbour, Madame Daubreuil, who is the mother of the girl with the \"anxious eyes\", Marthe Daubreuil. The dead man changed his will just two weeks before, leaving almost everything to his wife and nothing to his son. There is a smashed watch at the scene of the kidnap which is still running but has somehow gained two hours. The widow inspects the body to identify it. She loses her composure and collapses with grief at the sight of her dead husband. Poirot is puzzled by some of these findings\u2014why is the watch running fast? Why did the servants hear nothing? Why was the body found somewhere where it was bound to be quickly discovered? Why is there a piece of lead piping near the body? Poirot is hampered in his investigations by the attitude of Monsieur Giraud of the S\u00fbret\u00e9 who plainly believes the elderly Belgian is too set in his old-fashioned ways to solve the mystery. The local Examining Magistrate, Monsieur Hautet, is more helpful and tells Poirot that he has found out that the Renaulds' neighbour at the Villa Marguerite, Madame Daubreuil, has paid two hundred thousand francs into her bank account in recent weeks: was she Monsieur Renauld's mistress? They visit the lady who is furious when the suggestion is put to her and throws them out. Having now met Madame Daubreuil for the first time, Poirot tells Hastings that he recognises her from a murder case going back some twenty years. Soon after, Jack Renauld arrives back"
      },
      {
        "text": " at the Villa Marguerite, Madame Daubreuil, has paid two hundred thousand francs into her bank account in recent weeks: was she Monsieur Renauld's mistress? They visit the lady who is furious when the suggestion is put to her and throws them out. Having now met Madame Daubreuil for the first time, Poirot tells Hastings that he recognises her from a murder case going back some twenty years. Soon after, Jack Renauld arrives back; his trip to Santiago was delayed enabling him to return when he heard of his father's murder. Jack admits to rowing with his father over who he wanted to marry, hence the change of will. Poirot suspects that Marthe Daubreuil is the girl in question and feels that the answer to the problem lies in Paris. He goes there to investigate. Whilst he is away another body is found in a shed on the golf course. No one recognises the man who by his hands could be a tramp but is dressed in finer clothes. The strangest thing is that the man has been dead for forty-eight hours and thus died before Monsieur Renauld's murder. No one recognises the new corpse. Poirot returns from Paris and, without being told details beforehand, staggers Hastings by correctly guessing the age of the man, place of death, and manner of death, despite having been clearly shocked when Hastings originally told him of this new development. He examines the new corpse with the doctor. Poirot sees foam on his lips and the doctor realises the man died of an epileptic fit and was then stabbed after death. When alone, Poirot tells Hastings that his investigations in Paris have borne fruit and that Madame Daubreuil is in fact a Madame Beroldy who was put on trial twenty years previously for the death of her elderly husband. He too was murdered by, supposedly, two masked men who broke into their"
      },
      {
        "text": " He examines the new corpse with the doctor. Poirot sees foam on his lips and the doctor realises the man died of an epileptic fit and was then stabbed after death. When alone, Poirot tells Hastings that his investigations in Paris have borne fruit and that Madame Daubreuil is in fact a Madame Beroldy who was put on trial twenty years previously for the death of her elderly husband. He too was murdered by, supposedly, two masked men who broke into their house at night wanting to know \"the secret\". Madame Beroldy had a young lover, Georges Conneau, who absconded from justice but wrote a letter to the police admitting to the crime; there were no masked men and he stabbed Monsieur Beroldy himself. Madame Beroldy managed a tearfully-convincing performance in the witness box, convincing the jury of her innocence, but leaving most people suspicious. She then disappeared herself. Poirot deduces that Paul Renauld was in fact Georges Conneau. He fled to Canada and then South America where he made his fortune and gained a wife and a son. When they returned to France, by great misfortune, the immediate neighbour of the house he bought was Madame Beroldy, now Madame Daubreuil, who started to blackmail him. When a tramp died on his grounds of an epileptic fit, Renauld saw a chance to duplicate the ruse of twenty years earlier by faking his own death and escaping his blackmailer with his wife's cooperation. His plan was to send his son away on business, give his chauffeur a holiday, and stage a kidnapping by tying his wife up and disappearing. After leaving the house he would go to the golf course and dig a grave where he knew it would be discovered; he would then put the tramp into the grave after destroying his features with the lead pipe. The plan was for this to happen at midnight, giving"
      },
      {
        "text": " faking his own death and escaping his blackmailer with his wife's cooperation. His plan was to send his son away on business, give his chauffeur a holiday, and stage a kidnapping by tying his wife up and disappearing. After leaving the house he would go to the golf course and dig a grave where he knew it would be discovered; he would then put the tramp into the grave after destroying his features with the lead pipe. The plan was for this to happen at midnight, giving Renauld the chance to get away from the local station on the last train and use the smashed watch to create an alibi. Unfortunately, the smashing of the watch did not stop it, so the deception failed on Poirot at least. What then went wrong was that Renauld was stabbed by someone else after he finished digging the grave but before he could fetch the body of the tramp, hence his wife's faint when she saw that the body actually was her husband's. Jack is proven innocent by another girl he was also in love with and as far as Poirot is concerned that leaves only one suspect who had anything to gain by Renauld dying: Marthe Daubreuil, who did not know of the change of will disinheriting Jack and thought that by killing his father she would gain his fortune when she married his son. She overheard the Renaulds discussing using the dead tramp as a ruse and stabbed Renauld on the golf course after he had dug the grave. Poirot arranges for Madame Renauld to openly disinherit Jack in an attempt to force Marthe out.The attempt succeeds and Marthe dies when she tries to kill Madame Renauld. Her mother disappears again. Jack and his mother go to South America and Hastings ends up with Dulcie Duveen, the sister of the girl who was able to prove Jack's innocence. She is also the woman he met on the train at the beginning of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " had dug the grave. Poirot arranges for Madame Renauld to openly disinherit Jack in an attempt to force Marthe out.The attempt succeeds and Marthe dies when she tries to kill Madame Renauld. Her mother disappears again. Jack and his mother go to South America and Hastings ends up with Dulcie Duveen, the sister of the girl who was able to prove Jack's innocence. She is also the woman he met on the train at the beginning of the novel.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Hero with a Thousand Faces",
    "author": "Joseph Campbell",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Campbell explores the theory that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years all share a fundamental structure, which Campbell called the monomyth. In a well-known quote from the introduction to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell summarized the monomyth: : In laying out the monomyth, Campbell describes a number of stages or steps along this journey. The hero starts in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unusual world of strange powers and events (a call to adventure). If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, the hero must face tasks and trials (a road of trials), and may have to face these trials alone, or may have assistance. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift (the goal or \"boon\"), which often results in the discovery of important self-knowledge. The hero must then decide whether to return with this boon (the return to the ordinary world), often facing challenges on the return journey. If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world (the application of the boon). Very few myths contain all of these stages\u2014some myths contain many of the stages, while others contain only a few; some myths may have as a focus only one of the stages, while other myths may deal with the stages in a somewhat different order. These stages may be organized in a number of ways, including division into three sections: Departure (sometimes called Separation), Initiation and Return. \"Departure\" deals with the hero venturing forth on the quest, \"Initiation\" deals with the hero's various adventures along the way, and \"Return\" deals with the hero's return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey. The classic examples of the monomyth relied upon by Campbell and other scholars include the stories of Osiris, Prometheus, the Buddha, Moses, and Christ, although Campbell cites many other classic myths from many cultures which rely upon this basic structure. While Campbell offers a discussion of the hero's journey by using the Freudian concepts popular in the 1940s and 1950s, the monomythic structure is not tied to these concepts. Similarly, Campbell uses a mixture of Jungian archetypes, unconscious forces, and Arnold van Gennep's structuring of rites of passage rituals to provide some illumination. However, this pattern of the hero's journey influences artists and intellectuals worldwide, suggesting a basic usefulness for Campbell's insights not tied to academic categories and mid-20th century forms of analysis.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Campbell explores the theory that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years all share a fundamental structure, which Campbell called the monomyth. In a well-known quote from the introduction to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell summarized the monomyth: : In laying out the monomyth, Campbell describes a number of stages or steps along this journey. The hero starts in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unusual world of strange powers and events (a call to adventure). If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, the hero must face tasks and trials (a road of trials), and may have to face these trials alone, or may have assistance. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift (the goal or \"boon\"), which often results in the discovery of important self-knowledge. The hero must then decide whether to return with this boon (the return to the ordinary world), often facing challenges on the return journey. If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world (the application of the boon). Very few myths contain all of these stages\u2014some myths contain many of the stages, while others contain only a few; some myths may have as a focus only one of the stages, while other myths may deal with the stages in a somewhat different order. These stages may be organized in a number of ways, including division into three sections: Departure (sometimes called Separation), Initiation and Return. \"Departure\" deals with the hero venturing forth on the quest, \"Initiation\" deals with the hero's various adventures along the way, and \"Return\" deals with the hero's return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey. The classic examples of the monomyth relied upon by Campbell and other scholars include the"
      },
      {
        "text": ". These stages may be organized in a number of ways, including division into three sections: Departure (sometimes called Separation), Initiation and Return. \"Departure\" deals with the hero venturing forth on the quest, \"Initiation\" deals with the hero's various adventures along the way, and \"Return\" deals with the hero's return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey. The classic examples of the monomyth relied upon by Campbell and other scholars include the stories of Osiris, Prometheus, the Buddha, Moses, and Christ, although Campbell cites many other classic myths from many cultures which rely upon this basic structure. While Campbell offers a discussion of the hero's journey by using the Freudian concepts popular in the 1940s and 1950s, the monomythic structure is not tied to these concepts. Similarly, Campbell uses a mixture of Jungian archetypes, unconscious forces, and Arnold van Gennep's structuring of rites of passage rituals to provide some illumination. However, this pattern of the hero's journey influences artists and intellectuals worldwide, suggesting a basic usefulness for Campbell's insights not tied to academic categories and mid-20th century forms of analysis.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Amethyst Ring",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Juli\u00e1n Estaban, who is impersonating the Mayan god Kukulc\u00e1n, fights and escapes from a powerful gold hungry conquistador, Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9s. Kukulc\u00e1n\u2019s followers captured Rodrigo Perdoza, a bishop carrying a message to Cort\u00e9s to detain Juli\u00e1n. Juli\u00e1n wants to be a priest and asks the bishop many times to make him one, but in the end he lets the Mayan priest sacrifice him, and Juli\u00e1n takes the bishop's amethyst ring. Cort\u00e9s attacks and captures Kukulc\u00e1n\u2019s city, the City of the Seven Serpents, but Juli\u00e1n escapes to a friendly large village and helps them harvest and trade pearls. He then goes to a smaller trading town and partners with Tzom Zambac and they have a successful feathered cloak business. Fearing betrayal from Tzom, he leaves and eventually finds Francisco Pizarro, a conquistador who is taking a band of Spaniards to get gold from the Inca. They capture the Incan king Atahualpa, who has a room filled with gold to pay his ransom. The Spaniards try and kill him anyway. Juli\u00e1n leaves the group because of his disagreements with the trial. He searches for Chima, a daughter of Atahualpa, whom he has fallen in love with. He finds her and she rejects him because he is a Spaniard. Juli\u00e1n then uses all of his gold to sail back to Seville. There he meets Cant\u00fa the Dwarf, who is now very wealthy from gold. Cant\u00fa gives Juli\u00e1n a lot of gold, but he joins the Brothers of the Poor and gives it all to them.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Juli\u00e1n Estaban, who is impersonating the Mayan god Kukulc\u00e1n, fights and escapes from a powerful gold hungry conquistador, Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9s. Kukulc\u00e1n\u2019s followers captured Rodrigo Perdoza, a bishop carrying a message to Cort\u00e9s to detain Juli\u00e1n. Juli\u00e1n wants to be a priest and asks the bishop many times to make him one, but in the end he lets the Mayan priest sacrifice him, and Juli\u00e1n takes the bishop's amethyst ring. Cort\u00e9s attacks and captures Kukulc\u00e1n\u2019s city, the City of the Seven Serpents, but Juli\u00e1n escapes to a friendly large village and helps them harvest and trade pearls. He then goes to a smaller trading town and partners with Tzom Zambac and they have a successful feathered cloak business. Fearing betrayal from Tzom, he leaves and eventually finds Francisco Pizarro, a conquistador who is taking a band of Spaniards to get gold from the Inca. They capture the Incan king Atahualpa, who has a room filled with gold to pay his ransom. The Spaniards try and kill him anyway. Juli\u00e1n leaves the group because of his disagreements with the trial. He searches for Chima, a daughter of Atahualpa, whom he has fallen in love with. He finds her and she rejects him because he is a Spaniard. Juli\u00e1n then uses all of his gold to sail back to Seville. There he meets Cant\u00fa the Dwarf, who is now very wealthy from gold. Cant\u00fa gives Juli\u00e1n a lot of gold, but he joins the Brothers of the Poor and gives it all to them.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Juli\u00e1n then uses all of his gold to sail back to Seville. There he meets Cant\u00fa the Dwarf, who is now very wealthy from gold. Cant\u00fa gives Juli\u00e1n a lot of gold, but he joins the Brothers of the Poor and gives it all to them.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Seven Days in May",
    "author": "Fletcher Knebel",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story is set several years into the continued cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, not long after a stalemated conflict in Iran similar to the Korean War (the novel gives the date of May 1974, while the film shows a California license plate with a 1970 registration decal, a Texas 1970 license plate, and an electronic map of active military bases displaying the date of May 9, 1970). With the ever-present possibility of nuclear war and mutually assured destruction, U.S. President Jordan Lyman signs a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, with both nations simultaneously destroying their nuclear weapons under mutual international inspection. The ratification produces a wave of public dissatisfaction, especially among the President's opposition and the military, who believe the Soviets cannot be trusted. As the debate rages, a Pentagon insider, United States Marine Corps Colonel Martin \"Jiggs\" Casey, becomes aware of a conspiracy among the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) led by his own superior officer, the charismatic Air Force General James Mattoon Scott. He uncovers a shocking secret: Scott and his JCS cohorts, along with allies in the United States Congress, led by Senator Frederick Prentice and influential media personality Harold McPherson, are plotting to stage a coup d'etat to remove President Lyman and his cabinet seven days hence. Under a procedure known as ECOMCON (Emergency COMmunications CONtrol), the nation's telephone, radio and television network infrastructure is to be seized by a secret United States Army combat unit secretly created by Scott and based near Fort Bliss, Texas. From their headquarters within a vast underground nuclear shelter called \"Mount Thunder\" (based on the actual continuity of government facility maintained by the U.S. at Mount Weather in Berryville, Virginia), the general will use the power of the media and the military to prevent the implementation of the treaty. Although personally opposed to President Lyman's position, Casey is appalled by the unconstitutional cabal. He alerts Lyman and his inner circle: Secret Service Director Art Corwin, Secretary of the Treasury Christopher Todd, presidential adviser Paul Girard, and United States Senator Raymond Clark of Georgia, a political and personal ally of the president. Lyman sends Casey to New York City to ferret out secrets that can be used against Scott, which forces Casey to cruelly deceive the general's former mistress, the vulnerable Ellie Holbrook. He leaves in possession of letters between her and General Scott which would compromise his moral credibility with the public. The president also sends the aging, alcoholic Clark to El Paso, Texas to see if he can locate the base (covertly known as \"Site Y\"). Girard leaves for the Mediterranean to obtain a confession from Vice Admiral Farley C. Barnswell, the 6th Fleet commander stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk, who knows of the plot but decides not to actively support or oppose it (responding through a code involving the Preakness Stakes horse race). Girard gains the admiral's written confession, and telephones the President before boarding a plane from Madrid back to Washington. Girard is killed when the passenger airliner he is on crashes into a mountain in Spain. Clark finds the secret base, but is taken captive by conspirator Colonel Broderick and held incommunicado. Clark is visited by the base's deputy commander, Colonel Mutt Henderson, a friend of Jiggs, and who knows nothing of the plot. The senator persuades Henderson to help him escape, but at the airport, while Clark makes a call to the president, Henderson is arrested by Scott's men. A showdown with Scott is scheduled in the Oval Office. The president confronts him and demands his resignation \"along with the other members of the Joint Chiefs involved with this treason.\" Scott initially denies any guilt, claiming that the president had verbally approved the secret base in Texas. When Scott fails to convince the president of his innocence, he begins to talk freely and launches into a debate with Lyman, arguing that approval of the treaty would weaken the U.S. and lead to an attack by the Soviets. Lyman tries to reason with Scott, explaining that a military coup would send a signal that could result in a preemptive strike by Moscow. Scott is unmoved, stating that he feels the American people are behind him and his position. Lyman considers using the blackmail letters, but decides against it. Scott is allowed to leave. Shortly thereafter, Scott briefs the other three members of the JCS, who are close to panicking. He demands everyone stay in line, pointing out that the president does not seem to have the evidence he would need to bring charges of treason successfully. Somewhat reassured, the others agree to stick to the plan to appear on all television and radio networks simultaneously on Sunday to denounce the president. However, Lyman first holds a press conference where he demands the resignation of Scott and all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The conference is interrupted when an attach\u00e9 from the U.S. Embassy in Spain arrives. He has brought the handwritten confession that Girard obtained from Vice Admiral Barnswell, which survived the crash in Girard's cigarette case. A copy is given to Scott and the other officers in on the plot, who have no choice but to resign and call off the coup. The ending has Lyman addressing the American people on the country's future.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is set several years into the continued cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, not long after a stalemated conflict in Iran similar to the Korean War (the novel gives the date of May 1974, while the film shows a California license plate with a 1970 registration decal, a Texas 1970 license plate, and an electronic map of active military bases displaying the date of May 9, 1970). With the ever-present possibility of nuclear war and mutually assured destruction, U.S. President Jordan Lyman signs a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, with both nations simultaneously destroying their nuclear weapons under mutual international inspection. The ratification produces a wave of public dissatisfaction, especially among the President's opposition and the military, who believe the Soviets cannot be trusted. As the debate rages, a Pentagon insider, United States Marine Corps Colonel Martin \"Jiggs\" Casey, becomes aware of a conspiracy among the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) led by his own superior officer, the charismatic Air Force General James Mattoon Scott. He uncovers a shocking secret: Scott and his JCS cohorts, along with allies in the United States Congress, led by Senator Frederick Prentice and influential media personality Harold McPherson, are plotting to stage a coup d'etat to remove President Lyman and his cabinet seven days hence. Under a procedure known as ECOMCON (Emergency COMmunications CONtrol), the nation's telephone, radio and television network infrastructure is to be seized by a secret United States Army combat unit secretly created by Scott and based near Fort Bliss, Texas. From their headquarters within a vast underground nuclear shelter called \"Mount Thunder\" (based on the actual continuity of government facility maintained by the U.S. at Mount Weather in Berryville, Virginia), the general will use the power of the media and the military to prevent the implementation of the treaty. Although personally opposed to President Lyman's position, Casey is appalled by the unconstitutional cabal."
      },
      {
        "text": " to be seized by a secret United States Army combat unit secretly created by Scott and based near Fort Bliss, Texas. From their headquarters within a vast underground nuclear shelter called \"Mount Thunder\" (based on the actual continuity of government facility maintained by the U.S. at Mount Weather in Berryville, Virginia), the general will use the power of the media and the military to prevent the implementation of the treaty. Although personally opposed to President Lyman's position, Casey is appalled by the unconstitutional cabal. He alerts Lyman and his inner circle: Secret Service Director Art Corwin, Secretary of the Treasury Christopher Todd, presidential adviser Paul Girard, and United States Senator Raymond Clark of Georgia, a political and personal ally of the president. Lyman sends Casey to New York City to ferret out secrets that can be used against Scott, which forces Casey to cruelly deceive the general's former mistress, the vulnerable Ellie Holbrook. He leaves in possession of letters between her and General Scott which would compromise his moral credibility with the public. The president also sends the aging, alcoholic Clark to El Paso, Texas to see if he can locate the base (covertly known as \"Site Y\"). Girard leaves for the Mediterranean to obtain a confession from Vice Admiral Farley C. Barnswell, the 6th Fleet commander stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk, who knows of the plot but decides not to actively support or oppose it (responding through a code involving the Preakness Stakes horse race). Girard gains the admiral's written confession, and telephones the President before boarding a plane from Madrid back to Washington. Girard is killed when the passenger airliner he is on crashes into a mountain in Spain. Clark finds the secret base, but is taken captive by conspirator Colonel Broderick and held incommunicado. Clark is visited by the base's deputy commander, Colonel Mutt Henderson, a friend of Jiggs, and who knows nothing of the plot. The"
      },
      {
        "text": " horse race). Girard gains the admiral's written confession, and telephones the President before boarding a plane from Madrid back to Washington. Girard is killed when the passenger airliner he is on crashes into a mountain in Spain. Clark finds the secret base, but is taken captive by conspirator Colonel Broderick and held incommunicado. Clark is visited by the base's deputy commander, Colonel Mutt Henderson, a friend of Jiggs, and who knows nothing of the plot. The senator persuades Henderson to help him escape, but at the airport, while Clark makes a call to the president, Henderson is arrested by Scott's men. A showdown with Scott is scheduled in the Oval Office. The president confronts him and demands his resignation \"along with the other members of the Joint Chiefs involved with this treason.\" Scott initially denies any guilt, claiming that the president had verbally approved the secret base in Texas. When Scott fails to convince the president of his innocence, he begins to talk freely and launches into a debate with Lyman, arguing that approval of the treaty would weaken the U.S. and lead to an attack by the Soviets. Lyman tries to reason with Scott, explaining that a military coup would send a signal that could result in a preemptive strike by Moscow. Scott is unmoved, stating that he feels the American people are behind him and his position. Lyman considers using the blackmail letters, but decides against it. Scott is allowed to leave. Shortly thereafter, Scott briefs the other three members of the JCS, who are close to panicking. He demands everyone stay in line, pointing out that the president does not seem to have the evidence he would need to bring charges of treason successfully. Somewhat reassured, the others agree to stick to the plan to appear on all television and radio networks simultaneously on Sunday to denounce the president. However, Lyman first holds a press conference where he demands the resignation of Scott and all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff"
      },
      {
        "text": " Scott briefs the other three members of the JCS, who are close to panicking. He demands everyone stay in line, pointing out that the president does not seem to have the evidence he would need to bring charges of treason successfully. Somewhat reassured, the others agree to stick to the plan to appear on all television and radio networks simultaneously on Sunday to denounce the president. However, Lyman first holds a press conference where he demands the resignation of Scott and all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The conference is interrupted when an attach\u00e9 from the U.S. Embassy in Spain arrives. He has brought the handwritten confession that Girard obtained from Vice Admiral Barnswell, which survived the crash in Girard's cigarette case. A copy is given to Scott and the other officers in on the plot, who have no choice but to resign and call off the coup. The ending has Lyman addressing the American people on the country's future.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Years of Rice and Salt",
    "author": "Kim Stanley Robinson",
    "published_date": "2002",
    "synopsis": " The novel is set in various locations around the world, starting in 783 AH by the Islamic calendar (1405 AD by the Gregorian calendar) with the Black Death plague killing nearly 99% of the population of Europe. The story follows a group (j\u0101ti) of protagonists who are continually reborn throughout the centuries into various cultural and geographical settings, as well as their meetings in bardo between their lives. The book features Muslim, Chinese (Buddhist, Daoist, Confucianist), American Indian, and Hindu culture, philosophy and everyday life. It mixes sophisticated knowledge about these cultures in the real world with their imagined global development in a world without Western Christendom. The main characters, marked by identical first letters throughout their reincarnations, but changing in gender, culture-nationality and so on, struggle for progress in each life. Each chapter has a narrative style which reflects its setting. Within the novel's re-imagined world, many places are given unfamiliar names, mostly of Chinese or Arabic origin. For example, Europe becomes Firanja, Great Britain and Ireland become the Keltic Sultanate, and Spain becomes al-Andalus; while the Pacific Ocean and Australia are called by Chinese names Dahai (\u5927\u6d77) and Aozhou (\u6fb3\u6d32), respectively, and North America becomes Yingzhou (\u911e\u5dde), a land from Chinese myth. The ten chapters are: * Book One - Awake to Emptiness - A plague in Christendom, Zheng He's explorations, feudal China. * Book Two - The Haj in the Heart - Mughal India and the colonization of Europe. * Book Three - Ocean Continents - The discovery of the New World by the Chinese military. * Book Four - The Alchemist - An Islamic renaissance in Samarqand. * Book Five - Warp and Weft - Native Americans align with Samurai. * Book Six - Widow Kang - The Qing dynasty meets Islam in western China. * Book Seven - The Age of Great Progress - Beginnings of industrialism in Southern India; Japanese diaspora to North America. * Book Eight - War of the Asuras - A worldwide \"Long War\", fought for over 60 years in trenches with pre-atomic weapons between the nations of Islam and an alliance of Chinese, Indian, and Native American nations. * Book Nine - Nsara - Science, urban life and feminism in Islamic Europe's surviving post-war metropolis. * Book Ten - The First Years - Globalization and sustainability, and recovery from the Long War. Several historical figures make appearances in this world, including Tamerlane, Chinese explorer Zheng He, Akbar the Great, and Kampaku Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The first chapter is written in a style reminiscent of the Chinese classic, the Journey to the West. In the last chapters the book becomes increasingly reflexive, citing fictional scientists and philosophers introduced in previous chapters as well as referring to Old Red Ink, who wrote a biography about a reincarnating jati group.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is set in various locations around the world, starting in 783 AH by the Islamic calendar (1405 AD by the Gregorian calendar) with the Black Death plague killing nearly 99% of the population of Europe. The story follows a group (j\u0101ti) of protagonists who are continually reborn throughout the centuries into various cultural and geographical settings, as well as their meetings in bardo between their lives. The book features Muslim, Chinese (Buddhist, Daoist, Confucianist), American Indian, and Hindu culture, philosophy and everyday life. It mixes sophisticated knowledge about these cultures in the real world with their imagined global development in a world without Western Christendom. The main characters, marked by identical first letters throughout their reincarnations, but changing in gender, culture-nationality and so on, struggle for progress in each life. Each chapter has a narrative style which reflects its setting. Within the novel's re-imagined world, many places are given unfamiliar names, mostly of Chinese or Arabic origin. For example, Europe becomes Firanja, Great Britain and Ireland become the Keltic Sultanate, and Spain becomes al-Andalus; while the Pacific Ocean and Australia are called by Chinese names Dahai (\u5927\u6d77) and Aozhou (\u6fb3\u6d32), respectively, and North America becomes Yingzhou (\u911e\u5dde), a land from Chinese myth. The ten chapters are: * Book One - Awake to Emptiness - A plague in Christendom, Zheng He's explorations, feudal China. * Book Two - The Haj in the Heart - Mughal India and the colonization of Europe. * Book Three - Ocean Continents - The discovery of the New World by the Chinese military. * Book Four - The Alchemist - An Islamic renaissance in Samarqand. * Book Five - Warp and Weft - Native Americans align with Samurai. * Book Six - Widow Kang - The Qing dynasty"
      },
      {
        "text": " to Emptiness - A plague in Christendom, Zheng He's explorations, feudal China. * Book Two - The Haj in the Heart - Mughal India and the colonization of Europe. * Book Three - Ocean Continents - The discovery of the New World by the Chinese military. * Book Four - The Alchemist - An Islamic renaissance in Samarqand. * Book Five - Warp and Weft - Native Americans align with Samurai. * Book Six - Widow Kang - The Qing dynasty meets Islam in western China. * Book Seven - The Age of Great Progress - Beginnings of industrialism in Southern India; Japanese diaspora to North America. * Book Eight - War of the Asuras - A worldwide \"Long War\", fought for over 60 years in trenches with pre-atomic weapons between the nations of Islam and an alliance of Chinese, Indian, and Native American nations. * Book Nine - Nsara - Science, urban life and feminism in Islamic Europe's surviving post-war metropolis. * Book Ten - The First Years - Globalization and sustainability, and recovery from the Long War. Several historical figures make appearances in this world, including Tamerlane, Chinese explorer Zheng He, Akbar the Great, and Kampaku Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The first chapter is written in a style reminiscent of the Chinese classic, the Journey to the West. In the last chapters the book becomes increasingly reflexive, citing fictional scientists and philosophers introduced in previous chapters as well as referring to Old Red Ink, who wrote a biography about a reincarnating jati group.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " as referring to Old Red Ink, who wrote a biography about a reincarnating jati group.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Fourth Protocol",
    "author": "Frederick Forsyth",
    "published_date": "1984-08",
    "synopsis": " On New Year's Eve 1986, professional thief Jim Rawlings breaks into the apartment of a senior civil servant, and unintentionally discovers stolen top secret documents. Although one of the most notorious crooks in London, he is enough of a patriot to send the documents, anonymously, to MI5 so that they might find the traitor. In Moscow, the British traitor Kim Philby drafts a memorandum for the General Secretary (Soviet president) stating that, if the Labour Party wins the next general election in the UK (scheduled for sometime in the subsequent eighteen months), the \"hard left\" of the party will oust the moderate, populist Neil Kinnock in favour of a radical new leader who will adopt a true Marxist-Leninist manifesto, including the expulsion of all American forces from England and the country's withdrawal from and repudiation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In conjunction with a GRU general, an academic named Krilov and a master strategist, Philby devises \"Plan Aurora\" to ensure a Labour victory by exploiting the party's support for unilateral disarmament\u2014although it is noted that Krilov has come up with most of the plan's strategy. MI5 officer John Preston, who was exploring hard left infiltration of the Labour party, investigates the stolen documents and finds that they were leaked by George Berenson, a passionate anti-communist and supporter of South Africa. Berenson passed on the documents to Jan Marais, a man he believes is a South African diplomat, but is in fact a Russian false flag agent. SIS chief Sir Nigel Irvine confronts Berenson with the truth and \"turns him\", using him to pass disinformation to the KGB. Preston is being pushed towards retirement by a his MI5 superior, but is worried about his retirement finances, wanting custody of his son. As part of Plan Aurora, Russian agent Valeri Petrofsky arrives under deep cover in England and sets up home in Ipswich. From there, he travels around the country collecting packages from various couriers who have smuggled them into the country as harmless-looking artefacts. One of the couriers, disguised as a sailor, is attacked by neds in Glasgow and taken to hospital, where he commits suicide rather than submit to questioning. Preston investigates and finds three out-of-place looking metal discs in a tobacco tin in his gunny sack. He shows the discs to a metallurgist who identifies the outer two as aluminum but the other as polonium, a key element in the initiator of an atomic bomb. Preston reports his findings to his MI5 superior, who ignores them and has Preston taken off the politically embarrassing case. Sir Nigel Irvine, however, suspects that a major intelligence operation is under way, and has Preston work unofficially for him to search for other Russian couriers. At the same time, he uses Berenson to pass a deliberate piece of disinformation to the KGB. In Moscow, the director of operations for the KGB, General Karpov, discovers Aurora's existence. He identifies that the General Secretary is responsible, and blackmails Krilov into revealing the plan; in contravention of the Fourth Protocol to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty a small atomic device is to be smuggled (via its component parts) into England, and be exploded near Bentwaters Air Force Base a week before the general election. Evidence will be left that the explosion was an accidental detonation of an American weapon, leading to a wave of anti-Americanism, support for unilateral disarmament and for the only major party committed to disarmament, the Labour Party. The day after they win the election, the hard left will take over and begin to dismantle the Western alliance in Europe. Meanwhile, Preston tries in vain to uncover other couriers connected to the operation. A month into the investigation, a bumbling Czech agent under the name Franz Winkler arrives at Heathrow with a forged passport and is followed to a house in Chesterfield. Preston's patience is rewarded when Petrofsky shows up to use the radio transmitter that is located there. He trails Petrofsky to his rented house, where the bomb has been assembled. An SAS team is called in to storm the house, and manage to wound Petrofsky before he can detonate the bomb. Against Preston's express wishes, the leader of the SAS team shoots the Russian agent in the head afterwards. Before dying Petrofsky manages to say one last word: \u201cPhilby\u201d. Preston confronts Sir Nigel Irvine with his theory that the operation was deliberately blown by Philby. Philby did not know Petrofksy's location but instead, sent Franz Winkler, with an obviously forged passport, to the location of the transmitter, and ultimately, to Petrofsky. Sir Nigel admits to sabotaging the KGB's British operation by leaking disinformation through Berenson to General Karpov, that they were closing in on their suspect. In turn, Karpov (and not Philby) sent Winkler, sabotaging Plan Aurora. By sending Winkler, Karpov is thwarting a British publicity victory as Sir Nigel understood the implication, that Petrofsky must not be taken alive or exposed in the media. At the novel's end, Preston's MI5 superior and adversary is denied a senior leadership role due to his misjudgment in the case and subsequently resigns from MI5 altogether. Preston also resigns, but through Sir Nigel Irvine, finds lucrative private-sector employment that enables him to obtain full custody of his son. Marais is taken into custody by South African intelligence and Berenson's work is left unusable to the KGB, as Sir Nigel, using his own spy network, intends to plant the suspicion that Berenson was in fact a double agent, and so his information will be considered suspect.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On New Year's Eve 1986, professional thief Jim Rawlings breaks into the apartment of a senior civil servant, and unintentionally discovers stolen top secret documents. Although one of the most notorious crooks in London, he is enough of a patriot to send the documents, anonymously, to MI5 so that they might find the traitor. In Moscow, the British traitor Kim Philby drafts a memorandum for the General Secretary (Soviet president) stating that, if the Labour Party wins the next general election in the UK (scheduled for sometime in the subsequent eighteen months), the \"hard left\" of the party will oust the moderate, populist Neil Kinnock in favour of a radical new leader who will adopt a true Marxist-Leninist manifesto, including the expulsion of all American forces from England and the country's withdrawal from and repudiation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In conjunction with a GRU general, an academic named Krilov and a master strategist, Philby devises \"Plan Aurora\" to ensure a Labour victory by exploiting the party's support for unilateral disarmament\u2014although it is noted that Krilov has come up with most of the plan's strategy. MI5 officer John Preston, who was exploring hard left infiltration of the Labour party, investigates the stolen documents and finds that they were leaked by George Berenson, a passionate anti-communist and supporter of South Africa. Berenson passed on the documents to Jan Marais, a man he believes is a South African diplomat, but is in fact a Russian false flag agent. SIS chief Sir Nigel Irvine confronts Berenson with the truth and \"turns him\", using him to pass disinformation to the KGB. Preston is being pushed towards retirement by a his MI5 superior, but is worried about his retirement finances, wanting custody of his son. As part of Plan Aurora, Russian agent Valeri Petrofsky arrives under deep cover in England and sets up home in Ipswich. From there, he"
      },
      {
        "text": " South African diplomat, but is in fact a Russian false flag agent. SIS chief Sir Nigel Irvine confronts Berenson with the truth and \"turns him\", using him to pass disinformation to the KGB. Preston is being pushed towards retirement by a his MI5 superior, but is worried about his retirement finances, wanting custody of his son. As part of Plan Aurora, Russian agent Valeri Petrofsky arrives under deep cover in England and sets up home in Ipswich. From there, he travels around the country collecting packages from various couriers who have smuggled them into the country as harmless-looking artefacts. One of the couriers, disguised as a sailor, is attacked by neds in Glasgow and taken to hospital, where he commits suicide rather than submit to questioning. Preston investigates and finds three out-of-place looking metal discs in a tobacco tin in his gunny sack. He shows the discs to a metallurgist who identifies the outer two as aluminum but the other as polonium, a key element in the initiator of an atomic bomb. Preston reports his findings to his MI5 superior, who ignores them and has Preston taken off the politically embarrassing case. Sir Nigel Irvine, however, suspects that a major intelligence operation is under way, and has Preston work unofficially for him to search for other Russian couriers. At the same time, he uses Berenson to pass a deliberate piece of disinformation to the KGB. In Moscow, the director of operations for the KGB, General Karpov, discovers Aurora's existence. He identifies that the General Secretary is responsible, and blackmails Krilov into revealing the plan; in contravention of the Fourth Protocol to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty a small atomic device is to be smuggled (via its component parts) into England, and be exploded near Bentwaters Air Force Base a week before the general election. Evidence will be left that the explosion was an accidental detonation of an American"
      },
      {
        "text": " operations for the KGB, General Karpov, discovers Aurora's existence. He identifies that the General Secretary is responsible, and blackmails Krilov into revealing the plan; in contravention of the Fourth Protocol to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty a small atomic device is to be smuggled (via its component parts) into England, and be exploded near Bentwaters Air Force Base a week before the general election. Evidence will be left that the explosion was an accidental detonation of an American weapon, leading to a wave of anti-Americanism, support for unilateral disarmament and for the only major party committed to disarmament, the Labour Party. The day after they win the election, the hard left will take over and begin to dismantle the Western alliance in Europe. Meanwhile, Preston tries in vain to uncover other couriers connected to the operation. A month into the investigation, a bumbling Czech agent under the name Franz Winkler arrives at Heathrow with a forged passport and is followed to a house in Chesterfield. Preston's patience is rewarded when Petrofsky shows up to use the radio transmitter that is located there. He trails Petrofsky to his rented house, where the bomb has been assembled. An SAS team is called in to storm the house, and manage to wound Petrofsky before he can detonate the bomb. Against Preston's express wishes, the leader of the SAS team shoots the Russian agent in the head afterwards. Before dying Petrofsky manages to say one last word: \u201cPhilby\u201d. Preston confronts Sir Nigel Irvine with his theory that the operation was deliberately blown by Philby. Philby did not know Petrofksy's location but instead, sent Franz Winkler, with an obviously forged passport, to the location of the transmitter, and ultimately, to Petrofsky. Sir Nigel admits to sabotaging the KGB's British operation by leaking disinformation through Berenson to General Karpov, that they were closing in on their"
      },
      {
        "text": " one last word: \u201cPhilby\u201d. Preston confronts Sir Nigel Irvine with his theory that the operation was deliberately blown by Philby. Philby did not know Petrofksy's location but instead, sent Franz Winkler, with an obviously forged passport, to the location of the transmitter, and ultimately, to Petrofsky. Sir Nigel admits to sabotaging the KGB's British operation by leaking disinformation through Berenson to General Karpov, that they were closing in on their suspect. In turn, Karpov (and not Philby) sent Winkler, sabotaging Plan Aurora. By sending Winkler, Karpov is thwarting a British publicity victory as Sir Nigel understood the implication, that Petrofsky must not be taken alive or exposed in the media. At the novel's end, Preston's MI5 superior and adversary is denied a senior leadership role due to his misjudgment in the case and subsequently resigns from MI5 altogether. Preston also resigns, but through Sir Nigel Irvine, finds lucrative private-sector employment that enables him to obtain full custody of his son. Marais is taken into custody by South African intelligence and Berenson's work is left unusable to the KGB, as Sir Nigel, using his own spy network, intends to plant the suspicion that Berenson was in fact a double agent, and so his information will be considered suspect.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code",
    "author": "Eoin Colfer",
    "published_date": "2003-04-27",
    "synopsis": " Artemis Fowl II, the 13-year-old criminal mastermind, has created a supercomputer which he calls the \"C Cube\", from stolen fairy technology. It far surpasses any human technology made so far. When Fowl meets Chicago businessman Jon Spiro to show him the Cube, Spiro ambushes Artemis and steals it. In the process, Butler, his bodyguard is killed by one of Spiro's staff. However, Artemis manages to revive him with the aid of cryogenics and fairy healing magic, courtesy of Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon squad. After Butler is revived, Artemis convinces the LEP to track down the Cube. They agree on one condition: that Artemis' mind is to be wiped later. They head to The Spiro Needle, where Jon Spiro has held the Cube. The Cube is recovered with the aid of Butler's sister and Mulch Diggums, who is later incarcerated. Nearing the end of the book, Mulch discovers that Artemis has cleared him of all charges and tasked him with restoring Artemis' memory, which is wiped at the end. In the epilogue, it is revealed that the LEP questioned him to reveal any plans he had to retain his memory, but he managed to fool them, and his plans remained secret from the LEP.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Artemis Fowl II, the 13-year-old criminal mastermind, has created a supercomputer which he calls the \"C Cube\", from stolen fairy technology. It far surpasses any human technology made so far. When Fowl meets Chicago businessman Jon Spiro to show him the Cube, Spiro ambushes Artemis and steals it. In the process, Butler, his bodyguard is killed by one of Spiro's staff. However, Artemis manages to revive him with the aid of cryogenics and fairy healing magic, courtesy of Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon squad. After Butler is revived, Artemis convinces the LEP to track down the Cube. They agree on one condition: that Artemis' mind is to be wiped later. They head to The Spiro Needle, where Jon Spiro has held the Cube. The Cube is recovered with the aid of Butler's sister and Mulch Diggums, who is later incarcerated. Nearing the end of the book, Mulch discovers that Artemis has cleared him of all charges and tasked him with restoring Artemis' memory, which is wiped at the end. In the epilogue, it is revealed that the LEP questioned him to reveal any plans he had to retain his memory, but he managed to fool them, and his plans remained secret from the LEP.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Little Mermaid",
    "author": "Hans Christian Andersen",
    "published_date": "1837-04-07",
    "synopsis": " The Little Mermaid lives in an underwater kingdom with her father, the sea king; her grandmother and her five elder sisters, each born one year apart. When a mermaid turns 15, she is allowed to swim to the surface to watch the world above, and as the sisters become old enough, one of them visits the surface every year. As each of them returns, the Little Mermaid listens longingly to their various descriptions of the surface and of human beings. When the Little Mermaid's turn comes, she ventures to the surface, sees a ship with a handsome prince, and falls in love with him from a distance. A great storm hits and the Little Mermaid saves the prince from nearly drowning. She delivers him unconscious to the shore near a temple. Here she waits until a young girl from the temple finds him. The prince never sees the Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid asks her grandmother whether humans can live forever if they do not drown. The grandmother explains that humans have a much shorter lifespan than merfolks' 300 years, but that when mermaids die they turn to sea foam and cease to exist, while humans have an eternal soul that lives on in Heaven. The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, eventually visits the Sea Witch, who sells her a potion that gives her legs in exchange for her tongue (as the Little Mermaid has the most intoxicating voice in the world). The Sea Witch warns, however, that once she becomes a human, she will never be able to return to the sea. Drinking the potion will make her feel as if a sword is being passed through her, yet when she recovers she will have two beautiful legs, and will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. However, it will constantly feel like she is walking on sharp swords hard enough to make her bleed. In addition, she will only get a soul if she finds true love's kiss and if the prince loves her and marries her, for then a part of his soul will flow into her. Otherwise, at dawn on the first day after he marries another woman, the Little Mermaid will die brokenhearted and disintegrate into sea foam. The Little Mermaid drinks the potion and meets the prince, who is mesmorised by her beauty and grace even though she is mute. Most of all he likes to see her dance and she dances for him despite her suffering excruciating pain. When the prince's father orders his son to marry the neighboring king's daughter, the prince tells the Little Mermaid he will not because he does not love the princess. He goes on to say he can only love the young woman from the temple, who he believes rescued him. It turns out that the princess is the temple girl, who had been sent to the temple to be educated. The prince loves her and the wedding is announced. The prince and princess marry, and the Little Mermaid's heart breaks. She thinks of all that she has given up and of all the pain she has suffered. She despairs, thinking of the death that awaits her, but before dawn, her sisters bring her a knife that the Sea Witch has given them in exchange for their long hair. If the Little Mermaid slays the prince with the knife and lets his blood drip on her feet, she will become a mermaid again, all her suffering will end and she will live out her full life. However the Little Mermaid cannot bring herself to kill the sleeping prince lying with his bride and as dawn breaks she throws herself into the sea. Her body dissolves into foam, but instead of ceasing to exist, she feels the warmth of the sun; she has turned into a spirit, a daughter of the air. The other daughters of the air tell her she has become like them because she strove with all her heart to gain an eternal soul. She will earn her own soul by doing good deeds for 300 years; for each good child she finds, one year would be taken from her sentence while for each bad child, she would cry and each tear would mean one day more and she will eventually rise up into the kingdom of God.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Little Mermaid lives in an underwater kingdom with her father, the sea king; her grandmother and her five elder sisters, each born one year apart. When a mermaid turns 15, she is allowed to swim to the surface to watch the world above, and as the sisters become old enough, one of them visits the surface every year. As each of them returns, the Little Mermaid listens longingly to their various descriptions of the surface and of human beings. When the Little Mermaid's turn comes, she ventures to the surface, sees a ship with a handsome prince, and falls in love with him from a distance. A great storm hits and the Little Mermaid saves the prince from nearly drowning. She delivers him unconscious to the shore near a temple. Here she waits until a young girl from the temple finds him. The prince never sees the Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid asks her grandmother whether humans can live forever if they do not drown. The grandmother explains that humans have a much shorter lifespan than merfolks' 300 years, but that when mermaids die they turn to sea foam and cease to exist, while humans have an eternal soul that lives on in Heaven. The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, eventually visits the Sea Witch, who sells her a potion that gives her legs in exchange for her tongue (as the Little Mermaid has the most intoxicating voice in the world). The Sea Witch warns, however, that once she becomes a human, she will never be able to return to the sea. Drinking the potion will make her feel as if a sword is being passed through her, yet when she recovers she will have two beautiful legs, and will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. However, it will constantly feel like she is walking on sharp swords hard enough to make her bleed. In addition, she will only get a soul if she finds true love's kiss and if the prince loves her and marries her, for then a"
      },
      {
        "text": " be able to return to the sea. Drinking the potion will make her feel as if a sword is being passed through her, yet when she recovers she will have two beautiful legs, and will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. However, it will constantly feel like she is walking on sharp swords hard enough to make her bleed. In addition, she will only get a soul if she finds true love's kiss and if the prince loves her and marries her, for then a part of his soul will flow into her. Otherwise, at dawn on the first day after he marries another woman, the Little Mermaid will die brokenhearted and disintegrate into sea foam. The Little Mermaid drinks the potion and meets the prince, who is mesmorised by her beauty and grace even though she is mute. Most of all he likes to see her dance and she dances for him despite her suffering excruciating pain. When the prince's father orders his son to marry the neighboring king's daughter, the prince tells the Little Mermaid he will not because he does not love the princess. He goes on to say he can only love the young woman from the temple, who he believes rescued him. It turns out that the princess is the temple girl, who had been sent to the temple to be educated. The prince loves her and the wedding is announced. The prince and princess marry, and the Little Mermaid's heart breaks. She thinks of all that she has given up and of all the pain she has suffered. She despairs, thinking of the death that awaits her, but before dawn, her sisters bring her a knife that the Sea Witch has given them in exchange for their long hair. If the Little Mermaid slays the prince with the knife and lets his blood drip on her feet, she will become a mermaid again, all her suffering will end and she will live out her full life. However the Little Mermaid cannot bring herself to kill the sleeping prince lying with his bride and as"
      },
      {
        "text": " she has suffered. She despairs, thinking of the death that awaits her, but before dawn, her sisters bring her a knife that the Sea Witch has given them in exchange for their long hair. If the Little Mermaid slays the prince with the knife and lets his blood drip on her feet, she will become a mermaid again, all her suffering will end and she will live out her full life. However the Little Mermaid cannot bring herself to kill the sleeping prince lying with his bride and as dawn breaks she throws herself into the sea. Her body dissolves into foam, but instead of ceasing to exist, she feels the warmth of the sun; she has turned into a spirit, a daughter of the air. The other daughters of the air tell her she has become like them because she strove with all her heart to gain an eternal soul. She will earn her own soul by doing good deeds for 300 years; for each good child she finds, one year would be taken from her sentence while for each bad child, she would cry and each tear would mean one day more and she will eventually rise up into the kingdom of God.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Gods Themselves",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1972",
    "synopsis": " The main plotline is a project by aliens who inhabit a parallel universe (the para-Universe) with different physical laws from this one. By exchanging matter with Earth, they seek to exploit these differences in physical laws. The exchange of matter provides an alternative source of energy in their dying Universe. However, the exchange of physical laws will have the ultimate result of turning the Earth's Sun into a supernova, and possibly even turning a large part of the Milky Way into a quasar which, in turn, provides more energy for the para-Universe. The first part takes place on Earth. Frederick Hallam, a scientist of limited ability but with a fiercely protective ego, discovers that an old container's contents seem to have been altered. He initially accuses a colleague of tampering with his sample, and gets a snide remark in return. Hallam responds with a furious effort and eventually finds that the sample, originally tungsten, has been transformed into something that turns out to be plutonium 186\u2014an isotope that cannot occur naturally in our universe. As this is investigated, Hallam makes the crucial suggestion that the matter has been swapped by beings in a parallel universe. This turns out to be correct and leads to the development of a cheap, clean, and apparently endless source of energy: the \"Electron Pump\", which trades matter between our universe (where plutonium 186 decays into tungsten 186) and a parallel one governed by slightly different physical laws (where tungsten 186 turns into plutonium 186), yielding a nuclear reaction in the process. The development process inextricably ties Hallam to the Pump in the minds of the people, vaulting him into an incredibly high position in public opinion and winning him power, position, and a Nobel Prize to boot. An idealistic young physicist, Lamont, while writing a history of the Pump, comes into conflict with Hallam and begins to question the official history of its discovery. Lamont is convinced that the development of the Pump was mainly due to the \"para-men\", who he believes are more intelligent; he notes the instructions they had sent early in the project (although only the diagrams, and not the linguistic parts, had been comprehensible). Hallam is infuriated by the suggestion that his role is secondary, and destroys Lamont's career. Lamont enlists the help of Bronowski, a linguist who had won renown for translating the Etruscan language and is looking for a new challenge. As Bronowski works on the para-men's old messages, Lamont discovers that the Pump is in fact creating a dangerous situation that could cause the Sun to become a nova (the pump increases the strong nuclear force inside the sun, causing the sun to fuse its hydrogen fuel more rapidly). This would, incidentally, also doom the para-world by accelerating the cooling of its own sun. Bronowski seems to be making some progress, receiving what appears to be an acknowledgment that the Pump may be dangerous. Lamont attempts to demonstrate this to a politician and several members of the scientific community, but they, seduced by the cheap, presumed clean energy source and unwilling to take Hallam on face-to-face for fear of suffering Lamont's own fate, are unwilling to listen to him. Lamont decides that the only option now is to tell the para-men that the Earth-side agrees to stop, arguing that even if he is killed for it, he will eventually be a hero who saved the world. But then Bronowski reveals his last message which shows that they have in fact been in contact not with the para-authorities but with para-dissidents like himself, who cannot persuade their para-Hallam, and are therefore - in a mirror-image way - begging him to stop the Pump. There seems to be no way out. The second part takes place in the parallel universe. The aliens consist of the \"hard ones\" and the amorphous \"soft ones\". The soft ones have three sexes with fixed roles for each sex: * Rationals - Called \"lefts\", rationals are the logical and scientific sex. Rationals are identified with masculine pronouns and produce a form of sperm. * Emotionals - Called \"mids\", emotionals are the intuitive sex. Emotionals are identified with the feminine pronouns and provide the energy needed for reproduction. * Parentals - Called \"rights\", parentals bear and raise the offspring. Parentals are identified with masculine pronouns. All three 'genders' are embedded in sexual and social norms of expected and acceptable behavior. The hard ones regulate much of soft one society, among other things creating families by allocating one of each of the sexes to a mating group, or \"triad\" in the novel's terminology, and acting as teachers and mentors to the Rationals. Little is shown of \"hard one\" society and Dua, the protagonist of this section of the book, suspects that the \"hard ones\" are a dying race since there are no \"hard one\" children. Her assumption is that the \"hard ones\" keep the \"soft ones\" as pets and toys, as a replacement for the children they do not have. This is dismissed by Odeen, the Rational of Dua's triad, who having the most contact with the \"hard ones\", has heard the \"hard ones\" speak of a new \"hard one\" called \"Estwald\". Dua is an oddball Emotional who exhibits traits normally associated with Rationals, leading her to be called a \"left-em\". Interestingly, the companions in her triad are also revealed to be unusual and they too behave differently than what is expected from their appropriate sex. She learns about her universe's end of the Pump. By engaging in teachings from Odeen, she also concludes on her own the supernova problem that Lamont uncovered in the first section; outraged that the Pump is allowed to continue to operate, despite the fact that it will eventually result in the destruction of another civilization, she attempts to put a stop to the project. She cannot persuade her own species to abandon the Pump, as they have no choice but to use it - their own sun as well as all the other stars in that universe are dying and can no longer provide the energy they need to continue to reproduce; their only other source of energy is the Pump. The majority decision is that, while their continued use of the Pump will destroy Earth and its solar system, abandoning it will result in their own extinction and thus cannot be done. While Lamont has assumed the destruction of Earth's sun would be fatal for the para-world, it turns out that in fact they would be able to draw energy off such a huge source directly without needing a Pump any more, and thus they would actually be safer once the Earth sun exploded. The differences in the laws of physics in the parallel universe mean that the aliens' bodies do not have the same material properties as living matter in this universe. Instead of consuming material that is then converted into energy, the aliens absorb it directly from sunlight. The different sexes can \"melt\" and merge physically, their analog of sex (the younger ones and some Emotionals can somehow overcome the repulsion between atoms and melt into walls, which is seen as a social taboo). Rationals and Parentals can do this to some extent independently, but in the presence of an Emotional, they can become essentially immaterial and the \"melt\" becomes total, the three bodies coming together into one (which causes orgasmic sensations, but also results in blackout and memory loss during the \"melt\"). Only during such a total \"melt\" can the Rational \"impregnate\" the Parental, with the Emotional providing the energy. Driven by an innate desire to procreate, Tritt, the \"Parental\" of the triad, at first asks Odeen to persuade Dua to facilitate the production of the third child. When this fails, Tritt steals an energy-battery from the Pump and rigs it to feed Dua. She accepts it, as it coincides with her finally being taught by Odeen about physics (which violates the gender norms of this society - Odeen consulted his hard-teacher about the problem of the third child, the teacher encouraged him to go with her abnormalities). Filled with this energy, the triad mates, and Tritt becomes pregnant with their last child. Dua discovers this betrayal and escapes from her family to the caves of the hard ones where she is able to melt through the walls (which is possible because she retained her thinness by eating little in general). Once there she begins a guerilla campaign to stop the Pump, transmitting the alternative messages that Lamont received in the first section. Eventually, her escape method of melting through walls and creating the metal messages cause her to lose too much of the energy needed to continue her existence. As she is about to expire, against all odds she is found by her triad. She is about to defy her triad by seeking to die anyway, but it is finally revealed that once a triad has produced at least one more triad of children to maintain a stable population, they are ready to fuse permanently into a single individual of the species's fully mature form - the hard ones. In fact, they temporarily form this same individual whenever they melt, but have no memory of it afterward. This fact is kept carefully concealed by the mature population from the semi-mature population, because the melt is also a mind-meld, and it is important that the Rational of a triad become mature enough to understand the conditions of their existence by themselves, before the final melt into a mature hard one. Afraid that they will lose the Hard one formed by Dua's triad, the hard ones have coached Odeen into realising the reality of the melt. All members of the triad are exceptional in their own way; Dua has learnt more about the other universe than any hard one, Odeen has shown greater intuition and empathy than a normal Rational, and Tritt has shown greater initiative and technical ability in stealing and setting up the lamp than any other Right. Odeen convinces Dua that the hard one that they will become will have influence with the hard ones to stop the Pump. As they are ready to \"pass on\", in between thoughts of the daughter she will not know, Dua realizes that in fact the fusion of her triad had produced Estwald himself, the original inventor of the Pump. The third part of the novel takes place on the Moon, centering around a cynical middle-aged physicist named Denison, briefly introduced in Part 1 as the colleague and rival of Hallam whose snide remark drove Hallam to invent the Pump. Denison, independently of Lamont, deduced the danger in the Electron Pump (although it was Lamont who discovered the final technical facts), and goes on to find a solution that harms no one and greatly benefits humanity: he taps into yet another parallel universe, that exists in a pre-big bang state (a cosmic egg or cosmeg), where physical laws are different and, in fact, opposite to the ones in Dua's universe. The exchange with the second parallel universe both produces more energy at little or no cost (which is a pleasant side effect for the Lunar residents, who had been unable to establish electron pumps), and balances out the changes from the use of the Electron Pump, resulting in a return to equilibrium. Denison is helped by a Lunarian tourist guide named Selene Lindstrom, who is secretly an Intuitionist (a genetically engineered human with superhuman intuition). In the end, Selene and Denison also foil a plot to use the new power source to move the moon out of earth orbit.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The main plotline is a project by aliens who inhabit a parallel universe (the para-Universe) with different physical laws from this one. By exchanging matter with Earth, they seek to exploit these differences in physical laws. The exchange of matter provides an alternative source of energy in their dying Universe. However, the exchange of physical laws will have the ultimate result of turning the Earth's Sun into a supernova, and possibly even turning a large part of the Milky Way into a quasar which, in turn, provides more energy for the para-Universe. The first part takes place on Earth. Frederick Hallam, a scientist of limited ability but with a fiercely protective ego, discovers that an old container's contents seem to have been altered. He initially accuses a colleague of tampering with his sample, and gets a snide remark in return. Hallam responds with a furious effort and eventually finds that the sample, originally tungsten, has been transformed into something that turns out to be plutonium 186\u2014an isotope that cannot occur naturally in our universe. As this is investigated, Hallam makes the crucial suggestion that the matter has been swapped by beings in a parallel universe. This turns out to be correct and leads to the development of a cheap, clean, and apparently endless source of energy: the \"Electron Pump\", which trades matter between our universe (where plutonium 186 decays into tungsten 186) and a parallel one governed by slightly different physical laws (where tungsten 186 turns into plutonium 186), yielding a nuclear reaction in the process. The development process inextricably ties Hallam to the Pump in the minds of the people, vaulting him into an incredibly high position in public opinion and winning him power, position, and a Nobel Prize to boot. An idealistic young physicist, Lamont, while writing a history of the Pump, comes into conflict with Hallam and begins to question the official history of its discovery. Lamont is convinced that the development"
      },
      {
        "text": " 186 turns into plutonium 186), yielding a nuclear reaction in the process. The development process inextricably ties Hallam to the Pump in the minds of the people, vaulting him into an incredibly high position in public opinion and winning him power, position, and a Nobel Prize to boot. An idealistic young physicist, Lamont, while writing a history of the Pump, comes into conflict with Hallam and begins to question the official history of its discovery. Lamont is convinced that the development of the Pump was mainly due to the \"para-men\", who he believes are more intelligent; he notes the instructions they had sent early in the project (although only the diagrams, and not the linguistic parts, had been comprehensible). Hallam is infuriated by the suggestion that his role is secondary, and destroys Lamont's career. Lamont enlists the help of Bronowski, a linguist who had won renown for translating the Etruscan language and is looking for a new challenge. As Bronowski works on the para-men's old messages, Lamont discovers that the Pump is in fact creating a dangerous situation that could cause the Sun to become a nova (the pump increases the strong nuclear force inside the sun, causing the sun to fuse its hydrogen fuel more rapidly). This would, incidentally, also doom the para-world by accelerating the cooling of its own sun. Bronowski seems to be making some progress, receiving what appears to be an acknowledgment that the Pump may be dangerous. Lamont attempts to demonstrate this to a politician and several members of the scientific community, but they, seduced by the cheap, presumed clean energy source and unwilling to take Hallam on face-to-face for fear of suffering Lamont's own fate, are unwilling to listen to him. Lamont decides that the only option now is to tell the para-men that the Earth-side agrees to stop, arguing that even if he is killed for it, he will"
      },
      {
        "text": " Pump may be dangerous. Lamont attempts to demonstrate this to a politician and several members of the scientific community, but they, seduced by the cheap, presumed clean energy source and unwilling to take Hallam on face-to-face for fear of suffering Lamont's own fate, are unwilling to listen to him. Lamont decides that the only option now is to tell the para-men that the Earth-side agrees to stop, arguing that even if he is killed for it, he will eventually be a hero who saved the world. But then Bronowski reveals his last message which shows that they have in fact been in contact not with the para-authorities but with para-dissidents like himself, who cannot persuade their para-Hallam, and are therefore - in a mirror-image way - begging him to stop the Pump. There seems to be no way out. The second part takes place in the parallel universe. The aliens consist of the \"hard ones\" and the amorphous \"soft ones\". The soft ones have three sexes with fixed roles for each sex: * Rationals - Called \"lefts\", rationals are the logical and scientific sex. Rationals are identified with masculine pronouns and produce a form of sperm. * Emotionals - Called \"mids\", emotionals are the intuitive sex. Emotionals are identified with the feminine pronouns and provide the energy needed for reproduction. * Parentals - Called \"rights\", parentals bear and raise the offspring. Parentals are identified with masculine pronouns. All three 'genders' are embedded in sexual and social norms of expected and acceptable behavior. The hard ones regulate much of soft one society, among other things creating families by allocating one of each of the sexes to a mating group, or \"triad\" in the novel's terminology, and acting as teachers and mentors to the Rationals. Little is shown of \"hard one\" society and Dua, the protagonist of this section of the"
      },
      {
        "text": " offspring. Parentals are identified with masculine pronouns. All three 'genders' are embedded in sexual and social norms of expected and acceptable behavior. The hard ones regulate much of soft one society, among other things creating families by allocating one of each of the sexes to a mating group, or \"triad\" in the novel's terminology, and acting as teachers and mentors to the Rationals. Little is shown of \"hard one\" society and Dua, the protagonist of this section of the book, suspects that the \"hard ones\" are a dying race since there are no \"hard one\" children. Her assumption is that the \"hard ones\" keep the \"soft ones\" as pets and toys, as a replacement for the children they do not have. This is dismissed by Odeen, the Rational of Dua's triad, who having the most contact with the \"hard ones\", has heard the \"hard ones\" speak of a new \"hard one\" called \"Estwald\". Dua is an oddball Emotional who exhibits traits normally associated with Rationals, leading her to be called a \"left-em\". Interestingly, the companions in her triad are also revealed to be unusual and they too behave differently than what is expected from their appropriate sex. She learns about her universe's end of the Pump. By engaging in teachings from Odeen, she also concludes on her own the supernova problem that Lamont uncovered in the first section; outraged that the Pump is allowed to continue to operate, despite the fact that it will eventually result in the destruction of another civilization, she attempts to put a stop to the project. She cannot persuade her own species to abandon the Pump, as they have no choice but to use it - their own sun as well as all the other stars in that universe are dying and can no longer provide the energy they need to continue to reproduce; their only other source of energy is the Pump. The majority decision is that, while their continued"
      },
      {
        "text": " allowed to continue to operate, despite the fact that it will eventually result in the destruction of another civilization, she attempts to put a stop to the project. She cannot persuade her own species to abandon the Pump, as they have no choice but to use it - their own sun as well as all the other stars in that universe are dying and can no longer provide the energy they need to continue to reproduce; their only other source of energy is the Pump. The majority decision is that, while their continued use of the Pump will destroy Earth and its solar system, abandoning it will result in their own extinction and thus cannot be done. While Lamont has assumed the destruction of Earth's sun would be fatal for the para-world, it turns out that in fact they would be able to draw energy off such a huge source directly without needing a Pump any more, and thus they would actually be safer once the Earth sun exploded. The differences in the laws of physics in the parallel universe mean that the aliens' bodies do not have the same material properties as living matter in this universe. Instead of consuming material that is then converted into energy, the aliens absorb it directly from sunlight. The different sexes can \"melt\" and merge physically, their analog of sex (the younger ones and some Emotionals can somehow overcome the repulsion between atoms and melt into walls, which is seen as a social taboo). Rationals and Parentals can do this to some extent independently, but in the presence of an Emotional, they can become essentially immaterial and the \"melt\" becomes total, the three bodies coming together into one (which causes orgasmic sensations, but also results in blackout and memory loss during the \"melt\"). Only during such a total \"melt\" can the Rational \"impregnate\" the Parental, with the Emotional providing the energy. Driven by an innate desire to procreate, Tritt, the \"Parental\" of the triad, at first"
      },
      {
        "text": " Emotional, they can become essentially immaterial and the \"melt\" becomes total, the three bodies coming together into one (which causes orgasmic sensations, but also results in blackout and memory loss during the \"melt\"). Only during such a total \"melt\" can the Rational \"impregnate\" the Parental, with the Emotional providing the energy. Driven by an innate desire to procreate, Tritt, the \"Parental\" of the triad, at first asks Odeen to persuade Dua to facilitate the production of the third child. When this fails, Tritt steals an energy-battery from the Pump and rigs it to feed Dua. She accepts it, as it coincides with her finally being taught by Odeen about physics (which violates the gender norms of this society - Odeen consulted his hard-teacher about the problem of the third child, the teacher encouraged him to go with her abnormalities). Filled with this energy, the triad mates, and Tritt becomes pregnant with their last child. Dua discovers this betrayal and escapes from her family to the caves of the hard ones where she is able to melt through the walls (which is possible because she retained her thinness by eating little in general). Once there she begins a guerilla campaign to stop the Pump, transmitting the alternative messages that Lamont received in the first section. Eventually, her escape method of melting through walls and creating the metal messages cause her to lose too much of the energy needed to continue her existence. As she is about to expire, against all odds she is found by her triad. She is about to defy her triad by seeking to die anyway, but it is finally revealed that once a triad has produced at least one more triad of children to maintain a stable population, they are ready to fuse permanently into a single individual of the species's fully mature form - the hard ones. In fact, they temporarily form this same individual"
      },
      {
        "text": " too much of the energy needed to continue her existence. As she is about to expire, against all odds she is found by her triad. She is about to defy her triad by seeking to die anyway, but it is finally revealed that once a triad has produced at least one more triad of children to maintain a stable population, they are ready to fuse permanently into a single individual of the species's fully mature form - the hard ones. In fact, they temporarily form this same individual whenever they melt, but have no memory of it afterward. This fact is kept carefully concealed by the mature population from the semi-mature population, because the melt is also a mind-meld, and it is important that the Rational of a triad become mature enough to understand the conditions of their existence by themselves, before the final melt into a mature hard one. Afraid that they will lose the Hard one formed by Dua's triad, the hard ones have coached Odeen into realising the reality of the melt. All members of the triad are exceptional in their own way; Dua has learnt more about the other universe than any hard one, Odeen has shown greater intuition and empathy than a normal Rational, and Tritt has shown greater initiative and technical ability in stealing and setting up the lamp than any other Right. Odeen convinces Dua that the hard one that they will become will have influence with the hard ones to stop the Pump. As they are ready to \"pass on\", in between thoughts of the daughter she will not know, Dua realizes that in fact the fusion of her triad had produced Estwald himself, the original inventor of the Pump. The third part of the novel takes place on the Moon, centering around a cynical middle-aged physicist named Denison, briefly introduced in Part 1 as the colleague and rival of Hallam whose snide remark drove Hallam to invent the Pump. Denison, independently of Lamont, ded"
      },
      {
        "text": " to \"pass on\", in between thoughts of the daughter she will not know, Dua realizes that in fact the fusion of her triad had produced Estwald himself, the original inventor of the Pump. The third part of the novel takes place on the Moon, centering around a cynical middle-aged physicist named Denison, briefly introduced in Part 1 as the colleague and rival of Hallam whose snide remark drove Hallam to invent the Pump. Denison, independently of Lamont, deduced the danger in the Electron Pump (although it was Lamont who discovered the final technical facts), and goes on to find a solution that harms no one and greatly benefits humanity: he taps into yet another parallel universe, that exists in a pre-big bang state (a cosmic egg or cosmeg), where physical laws are different and, in fact, opposite to the ones in Dua's universe. The exchange with the second parallel universe both produces more energy at little or no cost (which is a pleasant side effect for the Lunar residents, who had been unable to establish electron pumps), and balances out the changes from the use of the Electron Pump, resulting in a return to equilibrium. Denison is helped by a Lunarian tourist guide named Selene Lindstrom, who is secretly an Intuitionist (a genetically engineered human with superhuman intuition). In the end, Selene and Denison also foil a plot to use the new power source to move the moon out of earth orbit.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Charlotte's Web",
    "author": "E. B. White",
    "published_date": "1952",
    "synopsis": " The book begins when John Arable's sow gives birth to a litter of piglets, and Mr. Arable discovers one of them is a runt and decides to kill it. However, his eight-year-old daughter Fern begs him to let it live. Therefore her father gives it to Fern as a pet, and she names the piglet Wilbur. Wilbur is hyperactive and always exploring new things. He lives with Fern for a few weeks and then is sold to her uncle, Homer Zuckerman. Although Fern visits him at the Zuckermans' farm as often as she can, her visits decrease as she grows older, and Wilbur gets lonelier day after day. Eventually, a warm and soothing voice tells him that she is going to be his friend. The next day, he wakes up and meets his new friend: Charlotte, the grey spider. Wilbur soon becomes a member of the community of animals who live in the cellar of Zuckerman's barn. However, he learns from an old sheep that he is going to be killed and eaten at Christmas, and turns to Charlotte for help. Charlotte has the idea of writing words in her web extolling Wilbur's excellence (\"some pig,\" \"terrific,\" \"radiant,\" and eventually \"humble\"), reasoning that if she can make Wilbur sufficiently famous, he will not be killed. Thanks to Charlotte's efforts, and with the assistance of the gluttonous rat Templeton, Wilbur not only lives, but goes to the county fair with Charlotte and wins a prize. Having reached the end of her natural lifespan, Charlotte dies at the fair. Wilbur repays Charlotte by bringing home with him the sac of eggs (her \"magnum opus\") she had laid at the fair before dying. When Charlotte's eggs hatch at Zuckerman's farm, most of them leave to make their own lives elsewhere, except for three: Joy, Aranea, and Nellie, who remain there as friends to Wilbur.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book begins when John Arable's sow gives birth to a litter of piglets, and Mr. Arable discovers one of them is a runt and decides to kill it. However, his eight-year-old daughter Fern begs him to let it live. Therefore her father gives it to Fern as a pet, and she names the piglet Wilbur. Wilbur is hyperactive and always exploring new things. He lives with Fern for a few weeks and then is sold to her uncle, Homer Zuckerman. Although Fern visits him at the Zuckermans' farm as often as she can, her visits decrease as she grows older, and Wilbur gets lonelier day after day. Eventually, a warm and soothing voice tells him that she is going to be his friend. The next day, he wakes up and meets his new friend: Charlotte, the grey spider. Wilbur soon becomes a member of the community of animals who live in the cellar of Zuckerman's barn. However, he learns from an old sheep that he is going to be killed and eaten at Christmas, and turns to Charlotte for help. Charlotte has the idea of writing words in her web extolling Wilbur's excellence (\"some pig,\" \"terrific,\" \"radiant,\" and eventually \"humble\"), reasoning that if she can make Wilbur sufficiently famous, he will not be killed. Thanks to Charlotte's efforts, and with the assistance of the gluttonous rat Templeton, Wilbur not only lives, but goes to the county fair with Charlotte and wins a prize. Having reached the end of her natural lifespan, Charlotte dies at the fair. Wilbur repays Charlotte by bringing home with him the sac of eggs (her \"magnum opus\") she had laid at the fair before dying. When Charlotte's eggs hatch at Zuckerman's farm, most of them leave to make their own lives elsewhere, except for three: Joy, Aranea"
      },
      {
        "text": "ton, Wilbur not only lives, but goes to the county fair with Charlotte and wins a prize. Having reached the end of her natural lifespan, Charlotte dies at the fair. Wilbur repays Charlotte by bringing home with him the sac of eggs (her \"magnum opus\") she had laid at the fair before dying. When Charlotte's eggs hatch at Zuckerman's farm, most of them leave to make their own lives elsewhere, except for three: Joy, Aranea, and Nellie, who remain there as friends to Wilbur.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Howl's Moving Castle",
    "author": "Diana Wynne Jones",
    "published_date": "1986",
    "synopsis": " A young woman named Sophie Hatter is the eldest of three daughters living in the town of Market Chipping in the magical kingdom of Ingary, where many fairy-tale tropes are accepted ways of life. She is very deft with the needle and makes the most beautiful hats and dresses. She unknowingly talks life into objects. As the eldest, she is resigned to the \"fact\" that she will have no chance of finding her fortune, accepting that she will have a dull life running the family hat shop—until she is turned into an old crone by the Witch of the Waste, a powerful witch who was not satisfied by Sophie's hats. Sophie leaves the shop and finds work as a cleaning lady for the notorious Wizard Howl, famed in her town for eating the hearts of beautiful young women. Sophie strikes a bargain with Howl's resident fire demon, Calcifer: if Sophie can break the contract between Howl and Calcifer, then Calcifer will return Sophie to her original form. Part of the contract, however, stipulates that neither Howl nor Calcifer can disclose the main clause of the contract to any third party. Sophie tries to guess the specifics of the contract, while Calcifer supplies frequent hints which Sophie usually doesn't pick up. Sophie soon learns that Howl, a rather self-absorbed, dishonest and cavalier but ultimately good-natured person (and an extraordinary wizard), spreads these malicious rumours about himself to ensure his privacy and smear his own reputation to avoid work and responsibility. The door to his castle is actually a portal that opens onto four different places: the moving castle Sophie first encounters in the hills above Market Chipping, the seaside city of Porthaven, the royal capital of Kingsbury and Howl's boyhood home in Wales, where he was named Howell Jenkins. Howl realizes that Sophie is under a spell and secretly attempts to remove the curse; when met with failure, he comes to the conclusion that Sophie simply enjoys being in disguise. Howl's apprentice Michael Fisher runs most of the day-to-day affairs of Howl's business, while Howl chases his ever-changing paramours. Howl and Michael court Sophie's two younger sisters Lettie and Martha, respectively. Martha, the youngest, was sent to study magic, while the middle sister, Lettie, was apprenticed at a local bakery. Disguising herself as Lettie, Martha arranged for the two of them to switch places, as Fanny (Martha's mother and Sophie and Lettie's stepmother) did not take their wishes into account when arranging their apprenticeships. When Prince Justin (the King's younger brother) goes missing while searching for Wizard Suliman (Benjamin Sullivan, also from Wales), the King orders Howl to find Suliman and Justin and kill the Witch of the Waste. Howl, however, has his own reasons to avoid seeking a confrontation with the Witch of the Waste; the Witch, a jaded former lover, has laid a curse on him. Howl attempts to weasel out of it by having Sophie, pretending to be his mother, petition against the appointment\u2014 but to no avail. Instead of blackening Howl's name like he asked Sophie to do, she gets him appointed the new Royal Wizard, the post he has been trying to avoid for years. Howl continues to avoid the Witch of the Waste until she lures Sophie into a trap; believing that the Witch has taken Howl's current love interest, Lily Angorian, captive, Sophie goes to save her and is in turn captured by the Witch of the Waste. Howl comes to save Sophie and defeats the Witch of the Waste. He knew all along that Miss Angorian was actually the Witch's fire demon in disguise. The Witch's fire demon had, over the years, taken control of the Witch and, once the Witch is defeated, tries to take Howl's heart to stay alive. Howl is able to stop the demon but fails because Miss Angorian took hold of Calcifer and tried to squeeze Howl's heart out of him. Sophie uses her talent of talking things to life to break the contract between Howl and Calcifer without killing either of them. Sophie has been unconsciously retaining the spell on herself, but her concern for Howl weakens the spell, and with the death of the Witch of the Waste, who was a significant force behind the spell as well, Calcifer, as promised, breaks the spell the second she concludes the contract between him and Howl, and she returns to her proper age. When Howl awakens, he destroys the witch's fire demon. This breaks the curse on Wizard Suliman and Prince Justin, whom the Witch had fused together in an effort to create a 'perfect human' (Howl's head was meant to complete the being) to use as a puppet to rule Ingary. Calcifer returns under the condition that he can come and go as he wishes. Sophie and Howl admit they love each other (without actually saying it) and Howl suggests they live happily ever after.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A young woman named Sophie Hatter is the eldest of three daughters living in the town of Market Chipping in the magical kingdom of Ingary, where many fairy-tale tropes are accepted ways of life. She is very deft with the needle and makes the most beautiful hats and dresses. She unknowingly talks life into objects. As the eldest, she is resigned to the \"fact\" that she will have no chance of finding her fortune, accepting that she will have a dull life running the family hat shop—until she is turned into an old crone by the Witch of the Waste, a powerful witch who was not satisfied by Sophie's hats. Sophie leaves the shop and finds work as a cleaning lady for the notorious Wizard Howl, famed in her town for eating the hearts of beautiful young women. Sophie strikes a bargain with Howl's resident fire demon, Calcifer: if Sophie can break the contract between Howl and Calcifer, then Calcifer will return Sophie to her original form. Part of the contract, however, stipulates that neither Howl nor Calcifer can disclose the main clause of the contract to any third party. Sophie tries to guess the specifics of the contract, while Calcifer supplies frequent hints which Sophie usually doesn't pick up. Sophie soon learns that Howl, a rather self-absorbed, dishonest and cavalier but ultimately good-natured person (and an extraordinary wizard), spreads these malicious rumours about himself to ensure his privacy and smear his own reputation to avoid work and responsibility. The door to his castle is actually a portal that opens onto four different places: the moving castle Sophie first encounters in the hills above Market Chipping, the seaside city of Porthaven, the royal capital of Kingsbury and Howl's boyhood home in Wales, where he was named Howell Jenkins. Howl realizes that Sophie is under a spell and secretly attempts to remove the curse; when met with failure, he comes to"
      },
      {
        "text": " his privacy and smear his own reputation to avoid work and responsibility. The door to his castle is actually a portal that opens onto four different places: the moving castle Sophie first encounters in the hills above Market Chipping, the seaside city of Porthaven, the royal capital of Kingsbury and Howl's boyhood home in Wales, where he was named Howell Jenkins. Howl realizes that Sophie is under a spell and secretly attempts to remove the curse; when met with failure, he comes to the conclusion that Sophie simply enjoys being in disguise. Howl's apprentice Michael Fisher runs most of the day-to-day affairs of Howl's business, while Howl chases his ever-changing paramours. Howl and Michael court Sophie's two younger sisters Lettie and Martha, respectively. Martha, the youngest, was sent to study magic, while the middle sister, Lettie, was apprenticed at a local bakery. Disguising herself as Lettie, Martha arranged for the two of them to switch places, as Fanny (Martha's mother and Sophie and Lettie's stepmother) did not take their wishes into account when arranging their apprenticeships. When Prince Justin (the King's younger brother) goes missing while searching for Wizard Suliman (Benjamin Sullivan, also from Wales), the King orders Howl to find Suliman and Justin and kill the Witch of the Waste. Howl, however, has his own reasons to avoid seeking a confrontation with the Witch of the Waste; the Witch, a jaded former lover, has laid a curse on him. Howl attempts to weasel out of it by having Sophie, pretending to be his mother, petition against the appointment\u2014 but to no avail. Instead of blackening Howl's name like he asked Sophie to do, she gets him appointed the new Royal Wizard, the post he has been trying to avoid for years. Howl continues to avoid the Witch of the Waste until"
      },
      {
        "text": " a confrontation with the Witch of the Waste; the Witch, a jaded former lover, has laid a curse on him. Howl attempts to weasel out of it by having Sophie, pretending to be his mother, petition against the appointment\u2014 but to no avail. Instead of blackening Howl's name like he asked Sophie to do, she gets him appointed the new Royal Wizard, the post he has been trying to avoid for years. Howl continues to avoid the Witch of the Waste until she lures Sophie into a trap; believing that the Witch has taken Howl's current love interest, Lily Angorian, captive, Sophie goes to save her and is in turn captured by the Witch of the Waste. Howl comes to save Sophie and defeats the Witch of the Waste. He knew all along that Miss Angorian was actually the Witch's fire demon in disguise. The Witch's fire demon had, over the years, taken control of the Witch and, once the Witch is defeated, tries to take Howl's heart to stay alive. Howl is able to stop the demon but fails because Miss Angorian took hold of Calcifer and tried to squeeze Howl's heart out of him. Sophie uses her talent of talking things to life to break the contract between Howl and Calcifer without killing either of them. Sophie has been unconsciously retaining the spell on herself, but her concern for Howl weakens the spell, and with the death of the Witch of the Waste, who was a significant force behind the spell as well, Calcifer, as promised, breaks the spell the second she concludes the contract between him and Howl, and she returns to her proper age. When Howl awakens, he destroys the witch's fire demon. This breaks the curse on Wizard Suliman and Prince Justin, whom the Witch had fused together in an effort to create a 'perfect human' (Howl's head was meant to complete the being) to use as a"
      },
      {
        "text": ", who was a significant force behind the spell as well, Calcifer, as promised, breaks the spell the second she concludes the contract between him and Howl, and she returns to her proper age. When Howl awakens, he destroys the witch's fire demon. This breaks the curse on Wizard Suliman and Prince Justin, whom the Witch had fused together in an effort to create a 'perfect human' (Howl's head was meant to complete the being) to use as a puppet to rule Ingary. Calcifer returns under the condition that he can come and go as he wishes. Sophie and Howl admit they love each other (without actually saying it) and Howl suggests they live happily ever after.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Joy",
    "author": "Marsha A. Hunt",
    "published_date": "1990-04-12",
    "synopsis": " The first person narrator of the novel is Palatine Ross, a 70 year-old cleaning woman originally from New Orleans whose childhood is dominated by poverty and loss. One of six children whose father left the family never to be seen again, she experiences even more hardship when three of her brothers, who work as farm hands, die in a burning barn. When, shortly afterwards, her mother also dies, it falls upon Palatine to raise her two remaining siblings, Caesar and Helen. After the end of the Second World War, Palatine marries, and the newlyweds decide to leave the South for good. They move to Oakland, California, with Caesar and Helen in tow, both of whom have by now become alcoholics. Palatine, who has had no formal education, and her husband start working as \"apartment managers\", a job which mainly consists in collecting the rent and scrubbing the floors of the building where they live. Their marriage remains childless though, and the couple find solace by becoming active members of one of the local churches. When, in 1956, a young widowed mother of three moves into the apartment next to theirs, Palatine recognizes in one of the girls, eight year-old Joy Bang, her \"God-sent child\", the one she could never have herself, especially when she notices that Joy's mother prefers Joy's sisters over her. For the next twenty years or so, Palatine keeps \"sticking her two cents in\". A do-gooder, she turns the other family's life upside down by showering Joy with her affection and meddling with her mother's way of bringing up her three children. However, for reasons yet unknown to Palatine (and the reader), Joy's mother is grateful for Palatine's interference, and no open conflict arises. Shutting her eyes to all the evil in the world and firmly relying on God and the words of the Bible as guidance, Palatine tries to raise Joy and her sisters to be educated, honest and religious members of society. The fact that, growing up in a rough neighbourhood, the not yet teenaged girls are very early in their lives confronted with sex willingly escapes her notice. It troubles Palatine a lot when Dagwood, her neighbour's new boyfriend, starts spending the night with the girls' mother. One morning during the summer vacation, while his girlfriend is at work and Palatine is taking care of the children, Dagwood stays on in the apartment. While he is hung over and still half asleep, ten year-old Brenda, the oldest, performs oral sex on him, with Joy watching. Briefly at a loss, Palatine, on learning about this unbelievable incident, talks to Dagwood and demands of him that he leave town immediately without even waiting for his girlfriend to return from work. Also, she makes Brenda and Joy \"swear eternal secrecy\" and never tell their mother about it. Some years later she arranges a secret backstreet abortion for Anndora, the youngest of the three sisters who is still in high school, which, though \"successful\", results in the girl never being able to become pregnant again. Right from the start, Palatine tries to take the three girls along to church, seeing that their blaspheming mother will never do so. It is there that, during choir practice, the girls' -- especially Brenda's -- singing talent is discovered. Eventually, after winning first prize in a gospel contest some time in the mid-1970s, the three sisters are offered a chance to go to a recording studio and release a single, \"Chocolate Chip\", a song specially written for them. Calling themselves Bang Bang Bang (after their family name), they immediately become popular with both black and white audiences and, in 1977, after their song has hit the charts, start touring both the United States and parts of Europe. While their mother stays behind, Palatine is on the road with them wherever they go (\"Them times was the best I had in my life\") as their \"wardrobe mistress\", \"a cleaning woman who they'd drug along to make sure Brenda got up in the morning and Anndora came back at night\", as the latter \"went out with any Tom, Dick or Harry that invited her\" and \"couldn't go a whole day without sex\". The entrance into the world of show business leaves some indelible marks on the girls' lives. Whereas Brenda, a big and violent girl generally considered ugly, puts on a lot of weight (especially during their stay in Germany), her sisters are quickly initiated into the world of drug use and abuse. What worries Palatine much more though is Joy's tendency to ignore her being black\u2014without any chance ever of passing for white as she is far too dark-skinned. Time and again, in the course of more than twenty years, Palatine tries to convince Joy that finding herself a nice coloured boyfriend whom she could marry and have children with would be the right thing to do. (\"Don't go falling in love with no limousine, 'cause it won't never propose to you.\") However, Joy never listens to her. Rather, she tells Palatine to \"think big\" and \"think white\" and does not have a single African American lover. The attraction Joy feels towards WASP men culminates in her affair with an English lord who is married with four little children. One of the rare comic passages of the book is about the three sisters and 60 year-old Palatine going to a charity ball in Knightsbridge, London, where Joy meets her young lord while Palatine dances with an old Englishman (Ch.14): The fogyish man with the white hair that I'd shouted don't give yourself a cardiac to must of figured that I was making a pass at him, 'cause the next time that \"Chocolate Chip\" played he come over to me and pulled me out on the dance floor, and I thanked God that Joy Bang had taught me to do that dance 'cause with me supposed to be their manager that night, it wouldn't of looked right if I hadn't of known how to Chocolate Chip like them old white folks that was trying it. \"Go 'head with your bad ass self,\" I said to get him hotted up. I don't know if he knew that was just meant to be friendly and get him dancing better, but it was as much as I could do to give him some encouragement. When he lifted up his leg like a dog ready to pee and stuck out what behind he had and shook it all over, I smiled like he was dancing real good, but not once was he in time with the rhythm. When he got tired of doing the Chocolate Chip he twisted for a while. I laughed to myself and thought if colored folks danced that bad we wouldn't never be allowed on no dance floor. However, "Chocolate Chip" remains a one hit wonder after an interview given by Brenda to some gay magazine in which she announces her coming out as a lesbian. She leaves the group and goes to Boston, where she takes some menial job at the post office. Anndora goes to Milan, Italy, never to be heard of again, and Joy moves to New York City to be close to Rex Hightower, a country and western singer who seems to be her new boyfriend, "a rednecked toothpick from Oklahoma" who wears "his hair in a ponytail like a woman's" and who arranges for Joy to do occasional backup vocals. Their mother moves to Richmond, Virginia and eventually marries a retired policeman. Palatine and Joy never lose touch completely: From time to time Palatine gets a letter with news from her favourite Bang sister with a few banknotes added; sometimes Joy phones her; and once or twice a year she comes to see Palatine and her husband, who have moved to San Francisco. In the mid-1980s, however, Palatine starts worrying about Joy as on two occasions she borrows money from her. In March 1987, while Palatine is looking forward to spending a weekend with Joy in Reno gambling, Joy dies, aged only 39, in Taos, New Mexico, allegedly of a massive heart attack. On hearing the bad news, Palatine flies to New York for Joy's funeral. There, in Joy's posh split level apartment, she encounters the whole family. However, rather than being able to mourn Joy's death, she for the first time learns things about Joy which finally force her to abandon her blinkered view of her "God-sent child" and admit that she was a sinner rather than a saint.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first person narrator of the novel is Palatine Ross, a 70 year-old cleaning woman originally from New Orleans whose childhood is dominated by poverty and loss. One of six children whose father left the family never to be seen again, she experiences even more hardship when three of her brothers, who work as farm hands, die in a burning barn. When, shortly afterwards, her mother also dies, it falls upon Palatine to raise her two remaining siblings, Caesar and Helen. After the end of the Second World War, Palatine marries, and the newlyweds decide to leave the South for good. They move to Oakland, California, with Caesar and Helen in tow, both of whom have by now become alcoholics. Palatine, who has had no formal education, and her husband start working as \"apartment managers\", a job which mainly consists in collecting the rent and scrubbing the floors of the building where they live. Their marriage remains childless though, and the couple find solace by becoming active members of one of the local churches. When, in 1956, a young widowed mother of three moves into the apartment next to theirs, Palatine recognizes in one of the girls, eight year-old Joy Bang, her \"God-sent child\", the one she could never have herself, especially when she notices that Joy's mother prefers Joy's sisters over her. For the next twenty years or so, Palatine keeps \"sticking her two cents in\". A do-gooder, she turns the other family's life upside down by showering Joy with her affection and meddling with her mother's way of bringing up her three children. However, for reasons yet unknown to Palatine (and the reader), Joy's mother is grateful for Palatine's interference, and no open conflict arises. Shutting her eyes to all the evil in the world and firmly relying on God and the words of the Bible as guidance, Palat"
      },
      {
        "text": " two cents in\". A do-gooder, she turns the other family's life upside down by showering Joy with her affection and meddling with her mother's way of bringing up her three children. However, for reasons yet unknown to Palatine (and the reader), Joy's mother is grateful for Palatine's interference, and no open conflict arises. Shutting her eyes to all the evil in the world and firmly relying on God and the words of the Bible as guidance, Palatine tries to raise Joy and her sisters to be educated, honest and religious members of society. The fact that, growing up in a rough neighbourhood, the not yet teenaged girls are very early in their lives confronted with sex willingly escapes her notice. It troubles Palatine a lot when Dagwood, her neighbour's new boyfriend, starts spending the night with the girls' mother. One morning during the summer vacation, while his girlfriend is at work and Palatine is taking care of the children, Dagwood stays on in the apartment. While he is hung over and still half asleep, ten year-old Brenda, the oldest, performs oral sex on him, with Joy watching. Briefly at a loss, Palatine, on learning about this unbelievable incident, talks to Dagwood and demands of him that he leave town immediately without even waiting for his girlfriend to return from work. Also, she makes Brenda and Joy \"swear eternal secrecy\" and never tell their mother about it. Some years later she arranges a secret backstreet abortion for Anndora, the youngest of the three sisters who is still in high school, which, though \"successful\", results in the girl never being able to become pregnant again. Right from the start, Palatine tries to take the three girls along to church, seeing that their blaspheming mother will never do so. It is there that, during choir practice, the girls' -- especially Brenda's -- singing talent is discovered. Eventually"
      },
      {
        "text": " Some years later she arranges a secret backstreet abortion for Anndora, the youngest of the three sisters who is still in high school, which, though \"successful\", results in the girl never being able to become pregnant again. Right from the start, Palatine tries to take the three girls along to church, seeing that their blaspheming mother will never do so. It is there that, during choir practice, the girls' -- especially Brenda's -- singing talent is discovered. Eventually, after winning first prize in a gospel contest some time in the mid-1970s, the three sisters are offered a chance to go to a recording studio and release a single, \"Chocolate Chip\", a song specially written for them. Calling themselves Bang Bang Bang (after their family name), they immediately become popular with both black and white audiences and, in 1977, after their song has hit the charts, start touring both the United States and parts of Europe. While their mother stays behind, Palatine is on the road with them wherever they go (\"Them times was the best I had in my life\") as their \"wardrobe mistress\", \"a cleaning woman who they'd drug along to make sure Brenda got up in the morning and Anndora came back at night\", as the latter \"went out with any Tom, Dick or Harry that invited her\" and \"couldn't go a whole day without sex\". The entrance into the world of show business leaves some indelible marks on the girls' lives. Whereas Brenda, a big and violent girl generally considered ugly, puts on a lot of weight (especially during their stay in Germany), her sisters are quickly initiated into the world of drug use and abuse. What worries Palatine much more though is Joy's tendency to ignore her being black\u2014without any chance ever of passing for white as she is far too dark-skinned. Time and again, in the course of more than twenty years, Palatine tries to"
      },
      {
        "text": " marks on the girls' lives. Whereas Brenda, a big and violent girl generally considered ugly, puts on a lot of weight (especially during their stay in Germany), her sisters are quickly initiated into the world of drug use and abuse. What worries Palatine much more though is Joy's tendency to ignore her being black\u2014without any chance ever of passing for white as she is far too dark-skinned. Time and again, in the course of more than twenty years, Palatine tries to convince Joy that finding herself a nice coloured boyfriend whom she could marry and have children with would be the right thing to do. (\"Don't go falling in love with no limousine, 'cause it won't never propose to you.\") However, Joy never listens to her. Rather, she tells Palatine to \"think big\" and \"think white\" and does not have a single African American lover. The attraction Joy feels towards WASP men culminates in her affair with an English lord who is married with four little children. One of the rare comic passages of the book is about the three sisters and 60 year-old Palatine going to a charity ball in Knightsbridge, London, where Joy meets her young lord while Palatine dances with an old Englishman (Ch.14): The fogyish man with the white hair that I'd shouted don't give yourself a cardiac to must of figured that I was making a pass at him, 'cause the next time that \"Chocolate Chip\" played he come over to me and pulled me out on the dance floor, and I thanked God that Joy Bang had taught me to do that dance 'cause with me supposed to be their manager that night, it wouldn't of looked right if I hadn't of known how to Chocolate Chip like them old white folks that was trying it. \"Go 'head with your bad ass self,\" I said to get him hotted up. I don't know if he knew that was"
      },
      {
        "text": " \"Chocolate Chip\" played he come over to me and pulled me out on the dance floor, and I thanked God that Joy Bang had taught me to do that dance 'cause with me supposed to be their manager that night, it wouldn't of looked right if I hadn't of known how to Chocolate Chip like them old white folks that was trying it. \"Go 'head with your bad ass self,\" I said to get him hotted up. I don't know if he knew that was just meant to be friendly and get him dancing better, but it was as much as I could do to give him some encouragement. When he lifted up his leg like a dog ready to pee and stuck out what behind he had and shook it all over, I smiled like he was dancing real good, but not once was he in time with the rhythm. When he got tired of doing the Chocolate Chip he twisted for a while. I laughed to myself and thought if colored folks danced that bad we wouldn't never be allowed on no dance floor. However, "Chocolate Chip" remains a one hit wonder after an interview given by Brenda to some gay magazine in which she announces her coming out as a lesbian. She leaves the group and goes to Boston, where she takes some menial job at the post office. Anndora goes to Milan, Italy, never to be heard of again, and Joy moves to New York City to be close to Rex Hightower, a country and western singer who seems to be her new boyfriend, "a rednecked toothpick from Oklahoma" who wears "his hair in a ponytail like a woman's" and who arranges for Joy to do occasional backup vocals. Their mother moves to Richmond, Virginia and eventually marries a retired policeman. Palatine and Joy never lose touch completely: From time to time Palatine gets a"
      },
      {
        "text": ", a country and western singer who seems to be her new boyfriend, "a rednecked toothpick from Oklahoma" who wears "his hair in a ponytail like a woman's" and who arranges for Joy to do occasional backup vocals. Their mother moves to Richmond, Virginia and eventually marries a retired policeman. Palatine and Joy never lose touch completely: From time to time Palatine gets a letter with news from her favourite Bang sister with a few banknotes added; sometimes Joy phones her; and once or twice a year she comes to see Palatine and her husband, who have moved to San Francisco. In the mid-1980s, however, Palatine starts worrying about Joy as on two occasions she borrows money from her. In March 1987, while Palatine is looking forward to spending a weekend with Joy in Reno gambling, Joy dies, aged only 39, in Taos, New Mexico, allegedly of a massive heart attack. On hearing the bad news, Palatine flies to New York for Joy's funeral. There, in Joy's posh split level apartment, she encounters the whole family. However, rather than being able to mourn Joy's death, she for the first time learns things about Joy which finally force her to abandon her blinkered view of her "God-sent child" and admit that she was a sinner rather than a saint.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "sent child" and admit that she was a sinner rather than a saint.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Breakfast of Champions",
    "author": "Kurt Vonnegut",
    "published_date": "1973",
    "synopsis": " Kilgore Trout is a widely published, but otherwise unsung and virtually invisible writer who, by a fluke, is invited to deliver a keynote address at a local arts festival in distant Midland City. Dwayne Hoover is a wealthy businessman who owns much of Midland City, but is mentally unstable and is undergoing a gradual mental collapse. Kilgore arrives in Midland City and, by happenstance, piques the interest of Dwayne. A confused Dwayne demands a message from Kilgore, who hands over a copy of his novel. Dwayne reads the novel, which purports to be a message from the Creator of the Universe explaining that the reader - in this case Dwayne - is the only individual in the universe with free will. Everyone else is a robot. Dwayne believes the novel to be factual and immediately goes on a violent rampage, severely beating his son, his lover, and nine other people before being taken into custody. While Kilgore is walking the streets of Midland after Dwayne's rampage the narrator of the book approaches Kilgore. The narrator tells Kilgore of his existence, the narrator lets Kilgore be free and to be under his own will.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Kilgore Trout is a widely published, but otherwise unsung and virtually invisible writer who, by a fluke, is invited to deliver a keynote address at a local arts festival in distant Midland City. Dwayne Hoover is a wealthy businessman who owns much of Midland City, but is mentally unstable and is undergoing a gradual mental collapse. Kilgore arrives in Midland City and, by happenstance, piques the interest of Dwayne. A confused Dwayne demands a message from Kilgore, who hands over a copy of his novel. Dwayne reads the novel, which purports to be a message from the Creator of the Universe explaining that the reader - in this case Dwayne - is the only individual in the universe with free will. Everyone else is a robot. Dwayne believes the novel to be factual and immediately goes on a violent rampage, severely beating his son, his lover, and nine other people before being taken into custody. While Kilgore is walking the streets of Midland after Dwayne's rampage the narrator of the book approaches Kilgore. The narrator tells Kilgore of his existence, the narrator lets Kilgore be free and to be under his own will.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Mother Night",
    "author": "Kurt Vonnegut",
    "published_date": "1961",
    "synopsis": " During the Nazi build-up after Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933, Campbell decides to stay in Germany despite his parents' decision to leave. He continues to write plays, his only associations being with members of the ruling Nazi party as his social contacts. Being of sufficiently Aryan parentage, Campbell becomes a member of the Nazis in name only. He is politically apathetic, caring only for his art and his wife Helga, who is also the starring actress in all of his plays. The first part of the book ends after Campbell has an encounter on a park bench in the Berlin Zoo. While sitting on the bench he is approached by a man calling himself Frank Wirtanen, an agent of the U.S. War Department. Wirtanen wants Campbell to spy for the U.S. in the upcoming war. Campbell immediately rejects the offer, but Wirtanen quickly adds that he wants Campbell to think about it. He tells him that Campbell's answer will come in the form of how he acts and what positions he assumes once the U.S. and Germany declare war on each other. Once World War II starts, Campbell begins to make his way up through Joseph Goebbels' propaganda organization, eventually becoming the \"voice\" of broadcasts aimed at converting Americans to the Nazi cause. The spy part of the job comes in when he is transmitting his vitriolic messages; unbeknownst to the Nazis, all of the idiosyncrasies of his speech (deliberate pauses, coughing, etc.) are part of the coded information he is passing to the American Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency). Campbell never discovers, nor is he ever told (except in one notable instance), the information that he is sending. About halfway through the war his wife goes to the eastern front to entertain the German troops. Campbell is extremely distraught when he hears that the camp where she had been entertaining in Crimea had been overrun and she was presumed dead. (In a much later exchange, Wirtanen reveals the sad truth; Campbell's wife's probable death was included in one of his own coded messages about a week before Campbell was told). Right before the Soviet Army invades Berlin, Campbell visits his in-laws one last time. Helga's father had been chief of police in Berlin and tells Campbell that he never liked him, and had always thought that Campbell was a spy. He goes on to say though that even if he had been a spy, he had been so good at the propaganda business that he never could have served the other side better than he had served Nazi Germany. Campbell then has an exchange with Helga's younger sister, Resi, that will resonate with him years later. Eventually, he is captured by U.S. forces. Wirtanen works a deal in which Campbell is set free and then given passage to New York City, whence the rest of the action of the book takes place. In New York City, Campbell lives a lonely, anonymous life, sustained only by memories of his wife and an indifferent curiosity about his eventual fate. His only friend is George Kraft, a similarly lonely neighbor—who, through an extraordinary coincidence, also happens to be a Soviet intelligence agent. He tries to trick Campbell into fleeing to Moscow by publicizing the fact that Campbell has been living in New York since the end of the war. A white supremacist organization learns of his existence and makes him a cause celebre, inviting him to speak to new recruits as a \"true American patriot.\" The group's leader, a dentist named Lionel Jones, shows up at Campbell's apartment with a surprise: a woman claiming to be Helga, alive and well and professing her undying love. Campbell's will to live returns for the first time in years, and remains even after he finds out that she is not Helga, but rather her younger sister Resi. They plan to escape to Mexico City after attending one of Jones' fascist meetings. There, Wirtanen makes an appearance to warn Campbell of Kraft's plot, and of Resi's complicity in it. Heartbroken, Campbell decides to go along with the charade. He confronts Kraft and Resi, the latter swearing her feelings for him are genuine. The FBI then raids the meeting and takes Campbell into custody, while Resi commits suicide by taking a cyanide capsule. As before, Wirtanen uses his influence to get Campbell set free. Once Campbell returns to his apartment, however, he realizes that he has no real reason to continue living, and decides to turn himself in to the Israelis to stand trial. The book ends as it began, with Campbell sitting in his Israeli jail cell waiting for his trial. Coincidentally, he meets Adolf Eichmann and gives him advice on how to write an autobiography. He then is transferred to a different holding cell where he further awaits his trial. At the very end of the book Campbell inserts a letter that he has just received from Wirtanen. The corroborating evidence that he was indeed an American spy during World War II has finally arrived, and Wirtanen writes that he will testify to Campbell's true loyalties in court. Rather than being relieved, Campbell feels \"nauseated\" by the idea that he will be saved from death and granted freedom when he is no longer able to take pleasure in anything life has to offer. In the last lines Campbell tells us that he will hang himself not for crimes against humanity, but rather for \"crimes against himself.\" \"This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don't think it's a marvelous moral, I just happen to know what it is...\" Vonnegut's \"So-it-goes\" nonchalance announces on the first page of the Introduction. \"The moral of the story\" appears again and throughout Mother Night from this point on, and Vonnegut periodically elaborates upon it after saying, \"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.\" As a minor adjunct to this moral, Vonnegut later offers the observation that \"When you're dead, you're dead.\" The author then pauses and says, \"And yet another moral occurs to me now; Make love when you can. It's good for you.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " During the Nazi build-up after Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933, Campbell decides to stay in Germany despite his parents' decision to leave. He continues to write plays, his only associations being with members of the ruling Nazi party as his social contacts. Being of sufficiently Aryan parentage, Campbell becomes a member of the Nazis in name only. He is politically apathetic, caring only for his art and his wife Helga, who is also the starring actress in all of his plays. The first part of the book ends after Campbell has an encounter on a park bench in the Berlin Zoo. While sitting on the bench he is approached by a man calling himself Frank Wirtanen, an agent of the U.S. War Department. Wirtanen wants Campbell to spy for the U.S. in the upcoming war. Campbell immediately rejects the offer, but Wirtanen quickly adds that he wants Campbell to think about it. He tells him that Campbell's answer will come in the form of how he acts and what positions he assumes once the U.S. and Germany declare war on each other. Once World War II starts, Campbell begins to make his way up through Joseph Goebbels' propaganda organization, eventually becoming the \"voice\" of broadcasts aimed at converting Americans to the Nazi cause. The spy part of the job comes in when he is transmitting his vitriolic messages; unbeknownst to the Nazis, all of the idiosyncrasies of his speech (deliberate pauses, coughing, etc.) are part of the coded information he is passing to the American Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency). Campbell never discovers, nor is he ever told (except in one notable instance), the information that he is sending. About halfway through the war his wife goes to the eastern front to entertain the German troops. Campbell is extremely distraught when he hears that the camp where she had been entertaining in Crimea had been overrun and she was presumed dead"
      },
      {
        "text": "deliberate pauses, coughing, etc.) are part of the coded information he is passing to the American Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency). Campbell never discovers, nor is he ever told (except in one notable instance), the information that he is sending. About halfway through the war his wife goes to the eastern front to entertain the German troops. Campbell is extremely distraught when he hears that the camp where she had been entertaining in Crimea had been overrun and she was presumed dead. (In a much later exchange, Wirtanen reveals the sad truth; Campbell's wife's probable death was included in one of his own coded messages about a week before Campbell was told). Right before the Soviet Army invades Berlin, Campbell visits his in-laws one last time. Helga's father had been chief of police in Berlin and tells Campbell that he never liked him, and had always thought that Campbell was a spy. He goes on to say though that even if he had been a spy, he had been so good at the propaganda business that he never could have served the other side better than he had served Nazi Germany. Campbell then has an exchange with Helga's younger sister, Resi, that will resonate with him years later. Eventually, he is captured by U.S. forces. Wirtanen works a deal in which Campbell is set free and then given passage to New York City, whence the rest of the action of the book takes place. In New York City, Campbell lives a lonely, anonymous life, sustained only by memories of his wife and an indifferent curiosity about his eventual fate. His only friend is George Kraft, a similarly lonely neighbor—who, through an extraordinary coincidence, also happens to be a Soviet intelligence agent. He tries to trick Campbell into fleeing to Moscow by publicizing the fact that Campbell has been living in New York since the end of the war. A white supremacist organization learns of his existence and makes him a"
      },
      {
        "text": " New York City, Campbell lives a lonely, anonymous life, sustained only by memories of his wife and an indifferent curiosity about his eventual fate. His only friend is George Kraft, a similarly lonely neighbor—who, through an extraordinary coincidence, also happens to be a Soviet intelligence agent. He tries to trick Campbell into fleeing to Moscow by publicizing the fact that Campbell has been living in New York since the end of the war. A white supremacist organization learns of his existence and makes him a cause celebre, inviting him to speak to new recruits as a \"true American patriot.\" The group's leader, a dentist named Lionel Jones, shows up at Campbell's apartment with a surprise: a woman claiming to be Helga, alive and well and professing her undying love. Campbell's will to live returns for the first time in years, and remains even after he finds out that she is not Helga, but rather her younger sister Resi. They plan to escape to Mexico City after attending one of Jones' fascist meetings. There, Wirtanen makes an appearance to warn Campbell of Kraft's plot, and of Resi's complicity in it. Heartbroken, Campbell decides to go along with the charade. He confronts Kraft and Resi, the latter swearing her feelings for him are genuine. The FBI then raids the meeting and takes Campbell into custody, while Resi commits suicide by taking a cyanide capsule. As before, Wirtanen uses his influence to get Campbell set free. Once Campbell returns to his apartment, however, he realizes that he has no real reason to continue living, and decides to turn himself in to the Israelis to stand trial. The book ends as it began, with Campbell sitting in his Israeli jail cell waiting for his trial. Coincidentally, he meets Adolf Eichmann and gives him advice on how to write an autobiography. He then is transferred to a different holding cell where he further awaits his trial. At the very end"
      },
      {
        "text": " get Campbell set free. Once Campbell returns to his apartment, however, he realizes that he has no real reason to continue living, and decides to turn himself in to the Israelis to stand trial. The book ends as it began, with Campbell sitting in his Israeli jail cell waiting for his trial. Coincidentally, he meets Adolf Eichmann and gives him advice on how to write an autobiography. He then is transferred to a different holding cell where he further awaits his trial. At the very end of the book Campbell inserts a letter that he has just received from Wirtanen. The corroborating evidence that he was indeed an American spy during World War II has finally arrived, and Wirtanen writes that he will testify to Campbell's true loyalties in court. Rather than being relieved, Campbell feels \"nauseated\" by the idea that he will be saved from death and granted freedom when he is no longer able to take pleasure in anything life has to offer. In the last lines Campbell tells us that he will hang himself not for crimes against humanity, but rather for \"crimes against himself.\" \"This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don't think it's a marvelous moral, I just happen to know what it is...\" Vonnegut's \"So-it-goes\" nonchalance announces on the first page of the Introduction. \"The moral of the story\" appears again and throughout Mother Night from this point on, and Vonnegut periodically elaborates upon it after saying, \"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.\" As a minor adjunct to this moral, Vonnegut later offers the observation that \"When you're dead, you're dead.\" The author then pauses and says, \"And yet another moral occurs to me now; Make love when you can. It's good for you.\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Vonnegut periodically elaborates upon it after saying, \"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.\" As a minor adjunct to this moral, Vonnegut later offers the observation that \"When you're dead, you're dead.\" The author then pauses and says, \"And yet another moral occurs to me now; Make love when you can. It's good for you.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Freedom Evolves",
    "author": "Daniel Dennett",
    "published_date": "2003-02",
    "synopsis": " As in Consciousness Explained, Dennett advertises the controversial nature of his views extensively in advance. He expects hostility from those who fear that a skeptical analysis of freedom will undermine people's belief in the reality of moral considerations; he likens himself to an interfering crow who insists on telling Dumbo he doesn't really need the feather he believes is allowing him to fly. Dennett's stance on free will is compatibilism with an evolutionary twist – the view that, although in the strict physical sense our actions might be pre-determined, we can still be free in all the ways that matter, because of the abilities we evolved. Free will, seen this way, is about freedom to make decisions without duress (and so is a version of Kantian positive practical free will, i.e., Kantian autonomy), as opposed to an impossible and unnecessary freedom from causality itself. To clarify this distinction, he coins the term 'evitability' as the opposite of 'inevitability', defining it as the ability of an agent to anticipate likely consequences and act to avoid undesirable ones. Evitability is entirely compatible with, and actually requires, human action being deterministic. Dennett moves on to altruism, denying that it requires acting to the benefit of others without gaining any benefit yourself. He argues that it should be understood in terms of helping yourself by helping others, expanding the self to be more inclusive as opposed to being selfless. To show this blend, he calls such actions 'benselfish', and finds the roots of our capacity for this in the evolutionary pressures that produced kin selection. In his treatment of both free will and altruism, he starts by showing why we should not accept the traditional definitions of either term. This strategy comes down to dissolving problems, instead of solving them. Rather than try to answer certain flawed questions, he questions the assumptions of the questions themselves and undermines them. Dennett also suggests that adherence to high ethical standards might pay off for the individual, because if others know your behaviour is restricted in these ways, the scope for certain beneficial mutual arrangements is enhanced. This is related to game theoretical considerations: in the famous Prisoner's Dilemma, 'moral' agents who cooperate will be more successful than 'non-moral' agents who do not cooperate. Cooperation wouldn't seem to naturally arise since agents are tempted to 'defect' and restore a Nash equilibrium, which is often not the best possible solution for all involved. Dennett concludes by contemplating the possibility that people might be able to opt in or out of moral responsibility: surely, he suggests, given the benefits, they would choose to opt in, especially given that opting out includes such things as being imprisoned or institutionalized. Daniel Dennett also argues that no clear conclusion about volition can be derived from Benjamin Libet's experiments supposedly demonstrating the non-existence of conscious volition. According to Dennett, ambiguities in the timings of the different events involved. Libet tells when the readiness potential occurs objectively, using electrodes, but relies on the subject reporting the position of the hand of a clock to determine when the conscious decision was made. As Dennett points out, this is only a report of where it seems to the subject that various things come together, not of the objective time at which they actually occur. Suppose Libet knows that your readiness potential peaked at millisecond 6,810 of the experimental trial, and the clock dot was straight down (which is what you reported you saw) at millisecond 7,005. How many milliseconds should he have to add to this number to get the time you were conscious of it? The light gets from your clock face to your eyeball almost instantaneously, but the path of the signals from retina through lateral geniculate nucleus to striate cortex takes 5 to 10 milliseconds — a paltry fraction of the 300 milliseconds offset, but how much longer does it take them to get to you. (Or are you located in the striate cortex?) The visual signals have to be processed before they arrive at wherever they need to arrive for you to make a conscious decision of simultaneity. Libet's method presupposes, in short, that we can locate the intersection of two trajectories: * the rising-to-consciousness of signals representing the decision to flick * the rising to consciousness of signals representing successive clock-face orientations so that these events occur side-by-side as it were in place where their simultaneity can be noted. Dennett spends a chapter criticising Robert Kane's theory of libertarian free will. Kane believes freedom is based on certain rare and exceptional events, which he calls self-forming actions or SFA's. Dennett notes that there is no guarantee such an event will occur in an individual's life. If it does not, the individual does not in fact have free will at all, according to Kane. Yet they will seem the same as anyone else. Dennett finds an essentially indetectable notion of free will to be incredible.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As in Consciousness Explained, Dennett advertises the controversial nature of his views extensively in advance. He expects hostility from those who fear that a skeptical analysis of freedom will undermine people's belief in the reality of moral considerations; he likens himself to an interfering crow who insists on telling Dumbo he doesn't really need the feather he believes is allowing him to fly. Dennett's stance on free will is compatibilism with an evolutionary twist – the view that, although in the strict physical sense our actions might be pre-determined, we can still be free in all the ways that matter, because of the abilities we evolved. Free will, seen this way, is about freedom to make decisions without duress (and so is a version of Kantian positive practical free will, i.e., Kantian autonomy), as opposed to an impossible and unnecessary freedom from causality itself. To clarify this distinction, he coins the term 'evitability' as the opposite of 'inevitability', defining it as the ability of an agent to anticipate likely consequences and act to avoid undesirable ones. Evitability is entirely compatible with, and actually requires, human action being deterministic. Dennett moves on to altruism, denying that it requires acting to the benefit of others without gaining any benefit yourself. He argues that it should be understood in terms of helping yourself by helping others, expanding the self to be more inclusive as opposed to being selfless. To show this blend, he calls such actions 'benselfish', and finds the roots of our capacity for this in the evolutionary pressures that produced kin selection. In his treatment of both free will and altruism, he starts by showing why we should not accept the traditional definitions of either term. This strategy comes down to dissolving problems, instead of solving them. Rather than try to answer certain flawed questions, he questions the assumptions of the questions themselves and undermines them. Dennett also suggests that adherence to high ethical standards"
      },
      {
        "text": ", he calls such actions 'benselfish', and finds the roots of our capacity for this in the evolutionary pressures that produced kin selection. In his treatment of both free will and altruism, he starts by showing why we should not accept the traditional definitions of either term. This strategy comes down to dissolving problems, instead of solving them. Rather than try to answer certain flawed questions, he questions the assumptions of the questions themselves and undermines them. Dennett also suggests that adherence to high ethical standards might pay off for the individual, because if others know your behaviour is restricted in these ways, the scope for certain beneficial mutual arrangements is enhanced. This is related to game theoretical considerations: in the famous Prisoner's Dilemma, 'moral' agents who cooperate will be more successful than 'non-moral' agents who do not cooperate. Cooperation wouldn't seem to naturally arise since agents are tempted to 'defect' and restore a Nash equilibrium, which is often not the best possible solution for all involved. Dennett concludes by contemplating the possibility that people might be able to opt in or out of moral responsibility: surely, he suggests, given the benefits, they would choose to opt in, especially given that opting out includes such things as being imprisoned or institutionalized. Daniel Dennett also argues that no clear conclusion about volition can be derived from Benjamin Libet's experiments supposedly demonstrating the non-existence of conscious volition. According to Dennett, ambiguities in the timings of the different events involved. Libet tells when the readiness potential occurs objectively, using electrodes, but relies on the subject reporting the position of the hand of a clock to determine when the conscious decision was made. As Dennett points out, this is only a report of where it seems to the subject that various things come together, not of the objective time at which they actually occur. Suppose Libet knows that your readiness potential peaked at millisecond 6,810 of the experimental trial, and the clock dot"
      },
      {
        "text": " the different events involved. Libet tells when the readiness potential occurs objectively, using electrodes, but relies on the subject reporting the position of the hand of a clock to determine when the conscious decision was made. As Dennett points out, this is only a report of where it seems to the subject that various things come together, not of the objective time at which they actually occur. Suppose Libet knows that your readiness potential peaked at millisecond 6,810 of the experimental trial, and the clock dot was straight down (which is what you reported you saw) at millisecond 7,005. How many milliseconds should he have to add to this number to get the time you were conscious of it? The light gets from your clock face to your eyeball almost instantaneously, but the path of the signals from retina through lateral geniculate nucleus to striate cortex takes 5 to 10 milliseconds — a paltry fraction of the 300 milliseconds offset, but how much longer does it take them to get to you. (Or are you located in the striate cortex?) The visual signals have to be processed before they arrive at wherever they need to arrive for you to make a conscious decision of simultaneity. Libet's method presupposes, in short, that we can locate the intersection of two trajectories: * the rising-to-consciousness of signals representing the decision to flick * the rising to consciousness of signals representing successive clock-face orientations so that these events occur side-by-side as it were in place where their simultaneity can be noted. Dennett spends a chapter criticising Robert Kane's theory of libertarian free will. Kane believes freedom is based on certain rare and exceptional events, which he calls self-forming actions or SFA's. Dennett notes that there is no guarantee such an event will occur in an individual's life. If it does not, the individual does not in fact have"
      },
      {
        "text": "-by-side as it were in place where their simultaneity can be noted. Dennett spends a chapter criticising Robert Kane's theory of libertarian free will. Kane believes freedom is based on certain rare and exceptional events, which he calls self-forming actions or SFA's. Dennett notes that there is no guarantee such an event will occur in an individual's life. If it does not, the individual does not in fact have free will at all, according to Kane. Yet they will seem the same as anyone else. Dennett finds an essentially indetectable notion of free will to be incredible.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Rainbow Six",
    "author": "Tom Clancy",
    "published_date": "1998-08",
    "synopsis": " Central Intelligence Agency operatives John Clark and Domingo Chavez join Special Air Service (SAS) officer Alistair Stanley in forming an elite multinational counter-terrorist unit known as Rainbow, based in Hereford, England. The unit consists of a highly effective and cohesive pair of operational squads, supplemented by intelligence and technological experts from the SAS. Clark is the commanding officer, while Chavez leads one of the two squads. Not long after the establishment of Rainbow, a bank in Bern, Switzerland, becomes the site of a hostage situation, eventually determined to be led by wanted terrorist Ernst Model. In an early and desperate show of resolve, the terrorists kill one of the hostages, leading the Swiss government to seek help from Rainbow. Chavez's Team-2 is deployed to the scene and, disguised as policemen, is able to successfully breach the bank and kill the terrorists with no further loss of civilian lives. Several weeks later, Chavez is deployed to Austria, where a group of left-wing German terrorists have taken over the schloss of a wealthy Austrian businessman, Erwin Ostermann, in order to obtain imaginary \"special access codes\" to the international trading markets. Through careful planning and negotiating, the terrorists are persuaded to take their hostages out to a waiting helicopter, presumably to make their getaway. On their way to the helicopter, Rainbow's disguised shooters ambush and kill them. Soon afterward, even more terrorists take over a Spanish theme park, demanding the release of Carlos the Jackal in exchange for the thirty-five children they have taken hostage. Due to the size and scope of the operation, Rainbow deploys both of its squads. During the stand-off, Rainbow is unable to prevent the terrorists' execution of a terminally ill Dutch girl. The squads manage to eliminate the terrorists without further loss of innocent life. Clark and his colleagues become suspicious about this flurry of activity from older terrorists. Unbeknownst to them, radical eco-terrorists from a biotechnology firm called the Horizon Corporation have orchestrated the previous attacks, having hired ex-KGB officer Dimitriy Popov to foment the incidents. The increase in terror attacks helps their security firm land a contract during the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. From within the Olympic security apparatus, they plan to launch a sophisticated bioweapon attack intended to wipe out the majority of the human race. Upon learning about Rainbow, Popov directs members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army to take over a local hospital in Hereford near Rainbow's base, take Clark and Chavez's wives hostage, and ambush one of Rainbow's squads. Rainbow and the SAS retake the hospital, capturing some of the terrorists. Interrogation reveals Popov's involvement in instigating the attack. Now the focus of a manhunt, Popov is kept hidden at Horizon's secret base in Kansas. Upon learning about the planned Olympic attack, an appalled Popov escapes the compound and contacts Clark. Fortunately, Chavez is present at the Olympics as a security consultant and manages to thwart the attack. Their plans destroyed, the eco-terrorists retreat to their refuge deep in the Brazilian rain forest, hoping to negotiate a deal to return to the United States. Clark, knowing that they may never be put on trial, tracks down the Brazilian hideout and deploys Rainbow to the location. After Rainbow defeats the eco-terrorists' militia force and destroys their facility and supplies, Clark has the survivors stripped naked and left to die, taunting them to \"reconnect with nature.\" For his critical assistance, Popov is not charged for his role in the attacks. The Horizon Corporation continues as a legitimate pharmaceutical corporation, without their CEO and the other employees involved in the never-revealed plot.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Central Intelligence Agency operatives John Clark and Domingo Chavez join Special Air Service (SAS) officer Alistair Stanley in forming an elite multinational counter-terrorist unit known as Rainbow, based in Hereford, England. The unit consists of a highly effective and cohesive pair of operational squads, supplemented by intelligence and technological experts from the SAS. Clark is the commanding officer, while Chavez leads one of the two squads. Not long after the establishment of Rainbow, a bank in Bern, Switzerland, becomes the site of a hostage situation, eventually determined to be led by wanted terrorist Ernst Model. In an early and desperate show of resolve, the terrorists kill one of the hostages, leading the Swiss government to seek help from Rainbow. Chavez's Team-2 is deployed to the scene and, disguised as policemen, is able to successfully breach the bank and kill the terrorists with no further loss of civilian lives. Several weeks later, Chavez is deployed to Austria, where a group of left-wing German terrorists have taken over the schloss of a wealthy Austrian businessman, Erwin Ostermann, in order to obtain imaginary \"special access codes\" to the international trading markets. Through careful planning and negotiating, the terrorists are persuaded to take their hostages out to a waiting helicopter, presumably to make their getaway. On their way to the helicopter, Rainbow's disguised shooters ambush and kill them. Soon afterward, even more terrorists take over a Spanish theme park, demanding the release of Carlos the Jackal in exchange for the thirty-five children they have taken hostage. Due to the size and scope of the operation, Rainbow deploys both of its squads. During the stand-off, Rainbow is unable to prevent the terrorists' execution of a terminally ill Dutch girl. The squads manage to eliminate the terrorists without further loss of innocent life. Clark and his colleagues become suspicious about this flurry of activity from older terrorists. Unbeknownst to them, radical eco-terrorists from a biotechnology firm called the Horizon Corporation"
      },
      {
        "text": " thirty-five children they have taken hostage. Due to the size and scope of the operation, Rainbow deploys both of its squads. During the stand-off, Rainbow is unable to prevent the terrorists' execution of a terminally ill Dutch girl. The squads manage to eliminate the terrorists without further loss of innocent life. Clark and his colleagues become suspicious about this flurry of activity from older terrorists. Unbeknownst to them, radical eco-terrorists from a biotechnology firm called the Horizon Corporation have orchestrated the previous attacks, having hired ex-KGB officer Dimitriy Popov to foment the incidents. The increase in terror attacks helps their security firm land a contract during the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. From within the Olympic security apparatus, they plan to launch a sophisticated bioweapon attack intended to wipe out the majority of the human race. Upon learning about Rainbow, Popov directs members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army to take over a local hospital in Hereford near Rainbow's base, take Clark and Chavez's wives hostage, and ambush one of Rainbow's squads. Rainbow and the SAS retake the hospital, capturing some of the terrorists. Interrogation reveals Popov's involvement in instigating the attack. Now the focus of a manhunt, Popov is kept hidden at Horizon's secret base in Kansas. Upon learning about the planned Olympic attack, an appalled Popov escapes the compound and contacts Clark. Fortunately, Chavez is present at the Olympics as a security consultant and manages to thwart the attack. Their plans destroyed, the eco-terrorists retreat to their refuge deep in the Brazilian rain forest, hoping to negotiate a deal to return to the United States. Clark, knowing that they may never be put on trial, tracks down the Brazilian hideout and deploys Rainbow to the location. After Rainbow defeats the eco-terrorists' militia force and destroys their facility and supplies, Clark has the survivors stripped naked and left to die, taunting them to \"re"
      },
      {
        "text": " and manages to thwart the attack. Their plans destroyed, the eco-terrorists retreat to their refuge deep in the Brazilian rain forest, hoping to negotiate a deal to return to the United States. Clark, knowing that they may never be put on trial, tracks down the Brazilian hideout and deploys Rainbow to the location. After Rainbow defeats the eco-terrorists' militia force and destroys their facility and supplies, Clark has the survivors stripped naked and left to die, taunting them to \"reconnect with nature.\" For his critical assistance, Popov is not charged for his role in the attacks. The Horizon Corporation continues as a legitimate pharmaceutical corporation, without their CEO and the other employees involved in the never-revealed plot.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Jasmine",
    "author": "Bharati Mukherjee",
    "published_date": "1989",
    "synopsis": " The main backdrop of Jasmine, which was based on an earlier short story in The Middleman and Other Stories, is the mixing of the East and West through the story telling of a seventeen-year-old Hindu woman who leaves India for the U.S. after her husband's murder. Her husband dies due to a religious attack in India. In her path she faces many problems including rape and eventually returned to the position of a health professional through a series of jobs. Here in this context the unity between the First and Third World is shown to be in the treatment of women as subordinate in both countries. The story expanded as a story of a young widow suddenly widowed at seventeen. She uproots herself from her life in India and re-roots herself in search of a new life and the image of America as well. It is a story of dislocation and relocation as the protagonist continually sheds lives to move into other roles, moving further westward. The author in some parts of this novel shows some agony to the third world as she shows that Jasmine needs to travel to America to make something significant in her life. And in the third world she faced only despair and loss.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The main backdrop of Jasmine, which was based on an earlier short story in The Middleman and Other Stories, is the mixing of the East and West through the story telling of a seventeen-year-old Hindu woman who leaves India for the U.S. after her husband's murder. Her husband dies due to a religious attack in India. In her path she faces many problems including rape and eventually returned to the position of a health professional through a series of jobs. Here in this context the unity between the First and Third World is shown to be in the treatment of women as subordinate in both countries. The story expanded as a story of a young widow suddenly widowed at seventeen. She uproots herself from her life in India and re-roots herself in search of a new life and the image of America as well. It is a story of dislocation and relocation as the protagonist continually sheds lives to move into other roles, moving further westward. The author in some parts of this novel shows some agony to the third world as she shows that Jasmine needs to travel to America to make something significant in her life. And in the third world she faced only despair and loss.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Far from the Madding Crowd",
    "author": "Thomas Hardy",
    "published_date": "1874",
    "synopsis": " Gabriel Oak is a young shepherd. With the savings of a frugal life, and a loan, he has leased and stocked a sheep-farm. He falls in love with a newcomer eight years his junior, Bathsheba Everdene, a proud beauty who arrives to live with her aunt, Mrs. Hurst. She comes to like him well enough, and even saves his life once, but when he makes her an unadorned offer of marriage, she refuses; she values her independence too much and him too little. Gabriel's blunt protestations only serve to drive her to haughtiness. After a few months, she moves to Weatherbury, a village some miles off. When next they meet, their circumstances have changed drastically. An inexperienced new sheep dog drives Gabriel's flock over a cliff, ruining him. After selling off everything of value, he manages to settle all his debts, but emerges penniless. He seeks employment at a work fair in the town of Casterbridge (a fictionalised version of Dorchester). When he finds none, he heads to another fair in Shottsford, a town about ten miles from Weatherbury. On the way, he happens upon a dangerous fire on a farm and leads the bystanders in putting it out. When the veiled owner comes to thank him, he asks if she needs a shepherd. She uncovers her face and reveals herself to be none other than Bathsheba. She has recently inherited the estate of her uncle and is now a wealthy woman. Though somewhat uncomfortable, she hires him. Meanwhile, Bathsheba has a new admirer: the lonely and repressed William Boldwood. Boldwood is a prosperous farmer of about forty whose ardour Bathsheba unwittingly awakens when \u2013 her curiosity piqued because he has never bestowed on her the customary admiring glance \u2013 she playfully sends him a valentine sealed with red wax on which she has embossed the words \"Marry me\". Boldwood, not realising the valentine was a jest, becomes obsessed with Bathsheba, and soon proposes marriage. Although she does not love him, she toys with the idea of accepting his offer; he is, after all, the most eligible bachelor in the district. However, she postpones giving him a definite answer. When Gabriel rebukes her for her thoughtlessness, she fires him. When her sheep begin dying from bloat, she discovers to her chagrin that Gabriel is the only man who knows how to cure them. Her pride delays the inevitable, but finally she is forced to beg him for help. Afterwards, she offers him back his job and their friendship is restored. At this point, the dashing Sergeant Francis \"Frank\" Troy returns to his native Weatherbury and by chance encounters Bathsheba one night. Her initial dislike turns to infatuation after he excites her with a private display of swordsmanship. Gabriel observes Bathsheba's interest in the young soldier and tries to discourage it, telling her she would be better off marrying Boldwood. Boldwood becomes aggressive towards Troy and she goes to Bath to prevent Troy returning to Weatherbury, as she fears Troy may be harmed on meeting Boldwood. On their return, Boldwood offers his rival a large bribe to give up Bathsheba. Troy pretends to consider the offer, then scornfully announces they are already married. Boldwood withdraws humiliated and vows revenge. Bathsheba soon discovers that her new husband is an improvident gambler with little interest in farming. Worse, she begins to suspect that he does not love her. In fact, Troy's heart belongs to her former servant, Fanny Robin. Before meeting Bathsheba, Troy had promised to marry Fanny; on the wedding day, however, the luckless girl goes to the wrong church. She explains her mistake, but Troy, humiliated at being left waiting at the altar, angrily calls off the wedding. When they part, unbeknownst to Troy, Fanny is pregnant with his child. Some months afterward, Troy and Bathsheba encounter Fanny on the road, destitute, as she painfully makes her way toward the Casterbridge workhouse. Troy sends his wife onward with the horse and gig before she can recognise the girl, then gives her all the money in his pocket, telling her he will give her more in a few days. Fanny uses up the last of her strength to reach her destination. A few hours later, she dies in childbirth, along with the baby. Mother and child are then placed in a coffin and sent home to Weatherbury for interment. Gabriel, who has long known of Troy's relationship with Fanny, tries to conceal the child's existence \u2013 but Bathsheba, suspecting the truth and wild with jealousy, arranges for the coffin to be left in her house overnight. When all the servants are in bed, she unscrews the lid and sees the two bodies inside \u2013 her husband's former lover and their child. Troy then comes home from Casterbridge, where he had gone to keep his appointment with Fanny. Seeing the reason for her failure to meet him, he gently kisses the corpse and tells the anguished Bathsheba, \"This woman is more to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can be.\" The next day he spends all his money on a marble tombstone with the inscription \"Erected by Francis Troy in beloved memory of Fanny Robin...\". Then, loathing himself and unable to bear Bathsheba's company, he leaves. After a long walk he bathes in the sea, leaving his clothes on the beach. A strong current carries him away, though he is rescued by a rowing boat. A year later, with Troy presumed drowned, Boldwood renews his suit. Burdened with guilt over the pain she has caused him, Bathsheba reluctantly consents to marry him in six years, long enough to have Troy declared dead. Troy, however, is not dead. When he learns that Boldwood is again courting Bathsheba, he returns to Weatherbury on Christmas Eve to claim his wife. He goes to Boldwood's house, where a party is underway, and orders Bathsheba to come with him; when she shrinks back in surprise, he seizes her arm, and she screams. At this, Boldwood shoots Troy dead and tries unsuccessfully to turn the gun on himself. Although he is condemned to hang for murder, his friends petition the Home Secretary for mercy, citing insanity. This is granted and Boldwood's sentence is changed to \"confinement during Her Majesty's pleasure\". Bathsheba, profoundly chastened by guilt and grief, buries her husband in the same grave as Fanny and their child, and adds a suitable inscription. Throughout her tribulations, she comes to rely more and more on her oldest and (as she admits to herself) only real friend, Gabriel. When he gives notice that he is leaving her employ for California, she finally realises how important he has become to her well-being. That night, she goes alone to visit him in his cottage, to find out why he is (in her eyes) deserting her. Pressed, he reluctantly reveals that it is because people have been injuring her good name by gossiping that he wants to marry her. She exclaims that it is \"...too absurd \u2013 too soon \u2013 to think of, by far!\" He bitterly agrees that it is absurd, but when she corrects him, saying that it is only \"too soon\", he is emboldened to ask once again for her hand in marriage. She accepts, and the two are quietly wed.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Gabriel Oak is a young shepherd. With the savings of a frugal life, and a loan, he has leased and stocked a sheep-farm. He falls in love with a newcomer eight years his junior, Bathsheba Everdene, a proud beauty who arrives to live with her aunt, Mrs. Hurst. She comes to like him well enough, and even saves his life once, but when he makes her an unadorned offer of marriage, she refuses; she values her independence too much and him too little. Gabriel's blunt protestations only serve to drive her to haughtiness. After a few months, she moves to Weatherbury, a village some miles off. When next they meet, their circumstances have changed drastically. An inexperienced new sheep dog drives Gabriel's flock over a cliff, ruining him. After selling off everything of value, he manages to settle all his debts, but emerges penniless. He seeks employment at a work fair in the town of Casterbridge (a fictionalised version of Dorchester). When he finds none, he heads to another fair in Shottsford, a town about ten miles from Weatherbury. On the way, he happens upon a dangerous fire on a farm and leads the bystanders in putting it out. When the veiled owner comes to thank him, he asks if she needs a shepherd. She uncovers her face and reveals herself to be none other than Bathsheba. She has recently inherited the estate of her uncle and is now a wealthy woman. Though somewhat uncomfortable, she hires him. Meanwhile, Bathsheba has a new admirer: the lonely and repressed William Boldwood. Boldwood is a prosperous farmer of about forty whose ardour Bathsheba unwittingly awakens when \u2013 her curiosity piqued because he has never bestowed on her the customary admiring glance \u2013 she playfully sends him a valentine sealed with red wax on which she has embossed the words \"Marry me\"."
      },
      {
        "text": " and is now a wealthy woman. Though somewhat uncomfortable, she hires him. Meanwhile, Bathsheba has a new admirer: the lonely and repressed William Boldwood. Boldwood is a prosperous farmer of about forty whose ardour Bathsheba unwittingly awakens when \u2013 her curiosity piqued because he has never bestowed on her the customary admiring glance \u2013 she playfully sends him a valentine sealed with red wax on which she has embossed the words \"Marry me\". Boldwood, not realising the valentine was a jest, becomes obsessed with Bathsheba, and soon proposes marriage. Although she does not love him, she toys with the idea of accepting his offer; he is, after all, the most eligible bachelor in the district. However, she postpones giving him a definite answer. When Gabriel rebukes her for her thoughtlessness, she fires him. When her sheep begin dying from bloat, she discovers to her chagrin that Gabriel is the only man who knows how to cure them. Her pride delays the inevitable, but finally she is forced to beg him for help. Afterwards, she offers him back his job and their friendship is restored. At this point, the dashing Sergeant Francis \"Frank\" Troy returns to his native Weatherbury and by chance encounters Bathsheba one night. Her initial dislike turns to infatuation after he excites her with a private display of swordsmanship. Gabriel observes Bathsheba's interest in the young soldier and tries to discourage it, telling her she would be better off marrying Boldwood. Boldwood becomes aggressive towards Troy and she goes to Bath to prevent Troy returning to Weatherbury, as she fears Troy may be harmed on meeting Boldwood. On their return, Boldwood offers his rival a large bribe to give up Bathsheba. Troy pretends to consider the offer, then scornfully announces they are already married. Boldwood withdraws humiliated and vows revenge. Bathsheba"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the young soldier and tries to discourage it, telling her she would be better off marrying Boldwood. Boldwood becomes aggressive towards Troy and she goes to Bath to prevent Troy returning to Weatherbury, as she fears Troy may be harmed on meeting Boldwood. On their return, Boldwood offers his rival a large bribe to give up Bathsheba. Troy pretends to consider the offer, then scornfully announces they are already married. Boldwood withdraws humiliated and vows revenge. Bathsheba soon discovers that her new husband is an improvident gambler with little interest in farming. Worse, she begins to suspect that he does not love her. In fact, Troy's heart belongs to her former servant, Fanny Robin. Before meeting Bathsheba, Troy had promised to marry Fanny; on the wedding day, however, the luckless girl goes to the wrong church. She explains her mistake, but Troy, humiliated at being left waiting at the altar, angrily calls off the wedding. When they part, unbeknownst to Troy, Fanny is pregnant with his child. Some months afterward, Troy and Bathsheba encounter Fanny on the road, destitute, as she painfully makes her way toward the Casterbridge workhouse. Troy sends his wife onward with the horse and gig before she can recognise the girl, then gives her all the money in his pocket, telling her he will give her more in a few days. Fanny uses up the last of her strength to reach her destination. A few hours later, she dies in childbirth, along with the baby. Mother and child are then placed in a coffin and sent home to Weatherbury for interment. Gabriel, who has long known of Troy's relationship with Fanny, tries to conceal the child's existence \u2013 but Bathsheba, suspecting the truth and wild with jealousy, arranges for the coffin to be left in her house overnight. When all the servants are in bed, she unscrew"
      },
      {
        "text": " strength to reach her destination. A few hours later, she dies in childbirth, along with the baby. Mother and child are then placed in a coffin and sent home to Weatherbury for interment. Gabriel, who has long known of Troy's relationship with Fanny, tries to conceal the child's existence \u2013 but Bathsheba, suspecting the truth and wild with jealousy, arranges for the coffin to be left in her house overnight. When all the servants are in bed, she unscrews the lid and sees the two bodies inside \u2013 her husband's former lover and their child. Troy then comes home from Casterbridge, where he had gone to keep his appointment with Fanny. Seeing the reason for her failure to meet him, he gently kisses the corpse and tells the anguished Bathsheba, \"This woman is more to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can be.\" The next day he spends all his money on a marble tombstone with the inscription \"Erected by Francis Troy in beloved memory of Fanny Robin...\". Then, loathing himself and unable to bear Bathsheba's company, he leaves. After a long walk he bathes in the sea, leaving his clothes on the beach. A strong current carries him away, though he is rescued by a rowing boat. A year later, with Troy presumed drowned, Boldwood renews his suit. Burdened with guilt over the pain she has caused him, Bathsheba reluctantly consents to marry him in six years, long enough to have Troy declared dead. Troy, however, is not dead. When he learns that Boldwood is again courting Bathsheba, he returns to Weatherbury on Christmas Eve to claim his wife. He goes to Boldwood's house, where a party is underway, and orders Bathsheba to come with him; when she shrinks back in surprise, he seizes her arm, and she"
      },
      {
        "text": " has caused him, Bathsheba reluctantly consents to marry him in six years, long enough to have Troy declared dead. Troy, however, is not dead. When he learns that Boldwood is again courting Bathsheba, he returns to Weatherbury on Christmas Eve to claim his wife. He goes to Boldwood's house, where a party is underway, and orders Bathsheba to come with him; when she shrinks back in surprise, he seizes her arm, and she screams. At this, Boldwood shoots Troy dead and tries unsuccessfully to turn the gun on himself. Although he is condemned to hang for murder, his friends petition the Home Secretary for mercy, citing insanity. This is granted and Boldwood's sentence is changed to \"confinement during Her Majesty's pleasure\". Bathsheba, profoundly chastened by guilt and grief, buries her husband in the same grave as Fanny and their child, and adds a suitable inscription. Throughout her tribulations, she comes to rely more and more on her oldest and (as she admits to herself) only real friend, Gabriel. When he gives notice that he is leaving her employ for California, she finally realises how important he has become to her well-being. That night, she goes alone to visit him in his cottage, to find out why he is (in her eyes) deserting her. Pressed, he reluctantly reveals that it is because people have been injuring her good name by gossiping that he wants to marry her. She exclaims that it is \"...too absurd \u2013 too soon \u2013 to think of, by far!\" He bitterly agrees that it is absurd, but when she corrects him, saying that it is only \"too soon\", he is emboldened to ask once again for her hand in marriage. She accepts, and the two are quietly wed.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " he wants to marry her. She exclaims that it is \"...too absurd \u2013 too soon \u2013 to think of, by far!\" He bitterly agrees that it is absurd, but when she corrects him, saying that it is only \"too soon\", he is emboldened to ask once again for her hand in marriage. She accepts, and the two are quietly wed.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Vineland",
    "author": "Thomas Pynchon",
    "published_date": "1990",
    "synopsis": " The story is set in California, United States, in 1984, the year of Ronald Reagan's re-election. After a scene in which ex-hippie Zoyd Wheeler dives through a window, something he is required to do yearly in order to keep receiving mental disability checks, the action of the novel opens with the resurfacing of DEA agent Brock Vond, who (through a platoon of agents) forces Zoyd and his 14-year-old daughter Prairie out of their house. They hide from Brock, and from Hector Zu\u00f1iga (a drug-enforcement federale from Zoyd's past, who Zoyd suspects is in cahoots with Brock) with old friends of Zoyd's, who recount to the mystified Prairie the story of Brock's motivation for what he has done. This hinges heavily on Frenesi Gates, Prairie's mother, whom she has never met. In the '60s, during the height of the hippie era, the fictional College of the Surf seceded from the United States and became its own nation of hippies and dope smokers, called the People's Republic of Rock and Roll (PR\u00b3). Brock Vond, working for the DEA, intends to bring down PR\u00b3, and finds a willing accomplice in Frenesi. She is a member of 24fps, a militant film collective (other members of which are the people telling Prairie their story in the present day), that seeks to document the \"fascists' \" transgressions against freedom and the hippie ideals. Frenesi is uncontrollably attracted to Brock and the sex he provides, and ends up working as a double agent to bring about the killing of the de facto leader of PR\u00b3, Weed Atman (a math professor who accidentally became the subject of a cult of personality). Her betrayal caused Frenesi to need to flee, and she has been living in witness protection with Brock's help up until the present day. Now she has disappeared. The membership of 24fps, Brock Vond, and Hector Zu\u00f1iga are all searching her out, for their various motives. The book's theme of the ubiquity of television (or the Tube) comes to a head when Hector, a Tube addict who has actually not been working with Brock, finds funding to create his pet project of a movie telling the story of the depraved sixties, with Frenesi Gates as the star, and the pomp and circumstance surrounding this big-money deal create a net of safety that allows Frenesi to come out of hiding. 24fps finds her and achieves their goal of allowing Prairie to meet her, at an enormous reunion of Frenesi's family. Weed Atman is also present at the reunion as one of many Thanatoids in the book\u2014people who are in a state that is \"like death, but different.\" Brock, nearly omnipotent with DEA funds, finds Prairie with a surveillance helicopter, and tries to snatch her up in order to get to Frenesi, but while he is hovering above her on a ladder, the government abruptly cuts all his funding due to a loss of interest in funding the war on drugs because America has begun playing along willingly with the anti-drug ideal, and his helicopter pilot flies him away. Later he tries to come after Prairie and Frenesi again, but ends up stranded on a country road, where vengeful mechanics, acquaintances of 24fps, take him to cross the river of death and become a Thanatoid. The family reunion allows everyone to tie up all their loose ends together, and the book ends with Prairie looking into the beginning of a life no longer controlled by the fallout of the past.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is set in California, United States, in 1984, the year of Ronald Reagan's re-election. After a scene in which ex-hippie Zoyd Wheeler dives through a window, something he is required to do yearly in order to keep receiving mental disability checks, the action of the novel opens with the resurfacing of DEA agent Brock Vond, who (through a platoon of agents) forces Zoyd and his 14-year-old daughter Prairie out of their house. They hide from Brock, and from Hector Zu\u00f1iga (a drug-enforcement federale from Zoyd's past, who Zoyd suspects is in cahoots with Brock) with old friends of Zoyd's, who recount to the mystified Prairie the story of Brock's motivation for what he has done. This hinges heavily on Frenesi Gates, Prairie's mother, whom she has never met. In the '60s, during the height of the hippie era, the fictional College of the Surf seceded from the United States and became its own nation of hippies and dope smokers, called the People's Republic of Rock and Roll (PR\u00b3). Brock Vond, working for the DEA, intends to bring down PR\u00b3, and finds a willing accomplice in Frenesi. She is a member of 24fps, a militant film collective (other members of which are the people telling Prairie their story in the present day), that seeks to document the \"fascists' \" transgressions against freedom and the hippie ideals. Frenesi is uncontrollably attracted to Brock and the sex he provides, and ends up working as a double agent to bring about the killing of the de facto leader of PR\u00b3, Weed Atman (a math professor who accidentally became the subject of a cult of personality). Her betrayal caused Frenesi to need to flee, and she has been living in witness protection with Brock's help up until the present day. Now she has disappeared."
      },
      {
        "text": "' \" transgressions against freedom and the hippie ideals. Frenesi is uncontrollably attracted to Brock and the sex he provides, and ends up working as a double agent to bring about the killing of the de facto leader of PR\u00b3, Weed Atman (a math professor who accidentally became the subject of a cult of personality). Her betrayal caused Frenesi to need to flee, and she has been living in witness protection with Brock's help up until the present day. Now she has disappeared. The membership of 24fps, Brock Vond, and Hector Zu\u00f1iga are all searching her out, for their various motives. The book's theme of the ubiquity of television (or the Tube) comes to a head when Hector, a Tube addict who has actually not been working with Brock, finds funding to create his pet project of a movie telling the story of the depraved sixties, with Frenesi Gates as the star, and the pomp and circumstance surrounding this big-money deal create a net of safety that allows Frenesi to come out of hiding. 24fps finds her and achieves their goal of allowing Prairie to meet her, at an enormous reunion of Frenesi's family. Weed Atman is also present at the reunion as one of many Thanatoids in the book\u2014people who are in a state that is \"like death, but different.\" Brock, nearly omnipotent with DEA funds, finds Prairie with a surveillance helicopter, and tries to snatch her up in order to get to Frenesi, but while he is hovering above her on a ladder, the government abruptly cuts all his funding due to a loss of interest in funding the war on drugs because America has begun playing along willingly with the anti-drug ideal, and his helicopter pilot flies him away. Later he tries to come after Prairie and Frenesi again, but ends up stranded on a country road, where vengeful mechanics, acquaintances of 24fps, take him to cross the river of death and become a"
      },
      {
        "text": " get to Frenesi, but while he is hovering above her on a ladder, the government abruptly cuts all his funding due to a loss of interest in funding the war on drugs because America has begun playing along willingly with the anti-drug ideal, and his helicopter pilot flies him away. Later he tries to come after Prairie and Frenesi again, but ends up stranded on a country road, where vengeful mechanics, acquaintances of 24fps, take him to cross the river of death and become a Thanatoid. The family reunion allows everyone to tie up all their loose ends together, and the book ends with Prairie looking into the beginning of a life no longer controlled by the fallout of the past.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Hallowe'en Party",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story starts out inside Rowena Drake's house, which is called \"Apple Trees\". There, Ariadne Oliver and others are preparing a Hallowe'en party for children. Those in charge of the party are Judith Butler, Mrs. Oliver's friend; Leopold, Joyce and Anne Reynolds, Desmond Holland, Nicholas Ransom, Cathie Johnson, Elizabeth Whittaker, Beatrice Ardley, and others. While they are preparing, thirteen-year old Joyce Reynolds says that she once saw a murder. Everyone, including Mrs. Oliver, thinks she is lying. The party consists of many Hallowe'en-related activities. Mrs. Goodbody plays the role of a witch, and girls can look into a mirror to know what their future husbands will look like (a picture of the husband is said to be reflected in the mirror). The group has supper, the prizes are granted, and the party ends after a game of snapdragon, with the murder of course fitting into the whole situation. The next day, Mrs. Oliver goes to London seeking Hercule Poirot's help. She tells him that after snapdragon, Joyce went missing and was later found drowned in an apple-bobbing tub in the library. Mrs. Oliver repeats to Poirot Joyce's comment that she had once witnessed a murder; Mrs. Oliver now wonders if Joyce might have been telling the truth, which might provide someone with a motive for killing her. Poirot goes to Apple Trees to interview Rowena Drake. Rowena doesn't believe Joyce's murder story; rather, she thinks it was just Joyce's attempt to impress Mrs. Oliver. Next to be interviewed are the Reynoldses. Mrs. Reynolds can't say that Joyce ever told her that she saw a murder. Leopold, Joyce's younger brother, doesn't believe that Joyce saw a murder either, but he did hear Joyce telling everyone about it. Ann, Joyce's older sister, doesn't believe either that Joyce had seen a murder; she says Joyce was a liar and a fraud. Hercule Poirot asks his old friend, an ex-superintendent named Spence, to give him a list of murders which had taken place years before and that could possibly be the murder that Joyce claimed to have witnessed. Spence obliges: Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, the aunt of Rowena Drake's late husband, apparently died of a heart attack. Her death is suspicious because a codicil to her will was discovered afterwards. Authorities believe that the codicil was faked by an au pair girl, Olga Seminoff, who disappeared after the forgery was discovered. Other candidate murders involve Charlotte Benfield, a sixteen-year-old shop assistant found dead of multiple head injuries, with two young men under suspicion; Lesley Ferrier, a lawyer's clerk who was stabbed in the back; and Janet White, a schoolteacher who was strangled. Hercule Poirot thinks Janet White's murder is the most probable candidate for the murder Joyce witnessed, because strangulation might not appear at first sight to be murder. Hercule Poirot continues his investigation by interviewing Dr. Ferguson, who tells Poirot that Joyce was once his patient. When Poirot goes Elms School, he is greeted by the headmistress, Miss Emlyn. Meanwhile, a mathematics teacher named Elizabeth Whittaker, who was also present at the party, gives Hercule Poirot an important piece of evidence when she reveals that while the party-goers were playing Snapdragon, Elizabeth went out to hall and saw Rowena Drake coming out of the lavatory on the first floor landing. Rowena stood for a moment before coming downstairs, looking startled by something or someone she may have seen in the open door of the library, and then dropped the flower vase she was holding. Other suggestive pieces of evidence include the fact that Lesley Ferrier had previously been suspected of forgery. Were Lesley and Olga working together to secure Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's inheritance? Poirot visits a sunken garden built for Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe in an abandoned quarry, where he meets Michael Garfield, the handsome and talented young man who designed the garden. While there, he also meets Judith Butler's daughter, Miranda Butler, a striking young girl who is close to Michael and spends a great deal of time in the Quarry Garden. Mrs. Drake meets Poirot at his guest house to tell him that Leopold Reynolds, Joyce's younger brother, has been drowned. Poirot reveals that Leopold had been blackmailing Joyce's murderer and had got in over his head. Mrs. Drake, obviously very upset by Leopold's death, admits that she saw Leopold in the library, which caused her to think he might have killed his sister. Poirot persuades the police to dig up an abandoned well in the Quarry Garden. Within its depths are discovered the remains of Olga, who had been stabbed, like Ferrier. Poirot sends Mrs. Oliver to get Mrs. Butler and Miranda safely away from the village as soon as possible, but when they stop for lunch, Miranda is abducted by Michael Garfield, who takes her to a pagan sacrificial altar and tries to kill her. He is prevented from doing so by Nicholas Ransom and Desmond Holland, two teenagers who had been at the Hallowe'en party and whom Poirot had persuaded to trail Miranda. Michael Garfield commits suicide by swallowing the poison that he had intended Miranda to drink. Miranda Butler tells the authorities that she was the one who saw a murder, not her close friend Joyce, to whom she revealed some of the details of what she witnessed. Miranda admits that in the Quarry garden she saw Michael Garfield and Rowena Drake carrying Olga's dead body and heard Mrs. Drake wonder aloud if anyone was watching them. Joyce, an inveterate fantasist, had made the story her own, and since Miranda had not attended the party, she hadn't contradicted Joyce. Rowena Drake heard Joyce and thought that it was Joyce who had seen her and Michael with Olga's corpse. Drake had always sensed that someone was watching them that fateful day. Mrs. Drake intentionally dropped the vase of flowers in front of Miss Whittaker to invent a pretext for being wet after having drowned Joyce. Subsequently, Leopold had used what little he knew to blackmail Rowena, leading to his murder.Mrs. Rowena Drake and Michael Garfields were the 2 killers of the 2 murders that took place. Michael Garfield played the role of lover to Olga to help Rowena Drake secure Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's inheritance. The real will, leaving Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's fortune to Olga, had been replaced with a clumsy forgery, produced by Lesley Ferrier, which would be rendered invalid and Rowena Drake, the sexually-frustrated wife of an invalid, would ultimately control Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's estate as her closest relation. Lesley Ferrier and Olga Seminoff were murdered to conceal the deceit. Garfield's motivation was his obsessive, narcissistic desire to construct another perfect garden with Mrs. Drake's money on a Greek island that she has secretly purchased. Poirot hypothesises that Rowena Drake might have met a similar fate to the other women as Garfield would no longer have any use for her. Poirot's also intuits that the bond between Miranda and Garfield was a familial one: Judith Butler is not a widow, but rather the mother of Garfield's illegitimate daughter. Garfield's depraved willingness to murder his own daughter confirms the tremendous evil that Poirot has been able to uncover and defeat. What an evil night...\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story starts out inside Rowena Drake's house, which is called \"Apple Trees\". There, Ariadne Oliver and others are preparing a Hallowe'en party for children. Those in charge of the party are Judith Butler, Mrs. Oliver's friend; Leopold, Joyce and Anne Reynolds, Desmond Holland, Nicholas Ransom, Cathie Johnson, Elizabeth Whittaker, Beatrice Ardley, and others. While they are preparing, thirteen-year old Joyce Reynolds says that she once saw a murder. Everyone, including Mrs. Oliver, thinks she is lying. The party consists of many Hallowe'en-related activities. Mrs. Goodbody plays the role of a witch, and girls can look into a mirror to know what their future husbands will look like (a picture of the husband is said to be reflected in the mirror). The group has supper, the prizes are granted, and the party ends after a game of snapdragon, with the murder of course fitting into the whole situation. The next day, Mrs. Oliver goes to London seeking Hercule Poirot's help. She tells him that after snapdragon, Joyce went missing and was later found drowned in an apple-bobbing tub in the library. Mrs. Oliver repeats to Poirot Joyce's comment that she had once witnessed a murder; Mrs. Oliver now wonders if Joyce might have been telling the truth, which might provide someone with a motive for killing her. Poirot goes to Apple Trees to interview Rowena Drake. Rowena doesn't believe Joyce's murder story; rather, she thinks it was just Joyce's attempt to impress Mrs. Oliver. Next to be interviewed are the Reynoldses. Mrs. Reynolds can't say that Joyce ever told her that she saw a murder. Leopold, Joyce's younger brother, doesn't believe that Joyce saw a murder either, but he did hear Joyce telling everyone about it. Ann, Joyce's older sister, doesn't believe"
      },
      {
        "text": " Apple Trees to interview Rowena Drake. Rowena doesn't believe Joyce's murder story; rather, she thinks it was just Joyce's attempt to impress Mrs. Oliver. Next to be interviewed are the Reynoldses. Mrs. Reynolds can't say that Joyce ever told her that she saw a murder. Leopold, Joyce's younger brother, doesn't believe that Joyce saw a murder either, but he did hear Joyce telling everyone about it. Ann, Joyce's older sister, doesn't believe either that Joyce had seen a murder; she says Joyce was a liar and a fraud. Hercule Poirot asks his old friend, an ex-superintendent named Spence, to give him a list of murders which had taken place years before and that could possibly be the murder that Joyce claimed to have witnessed. Spence obliges: Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, the aunt of Rowena Drake's late husband, apparently died of a heart attack. Her death is suspicious because a codicil to her will was discovered afterwards. Authorities believe that the codicil was faked by an au pair girl, Olga Seminoff, who disappeared after the forgery was discovered. Other candidate murders involve Charlotte Benfield, a sixteen-year-old shop assistant found dead of multiple head injuries, with two young men under suspicion; Lesley Ferrier, a lawyer's clerk who was stabbed in the back; and Janet White, a schoolteacher who was strangled. Hercule Poirot thinks Janet White's murder is the most probable candidate for the murder Joyce witnessed, because strangulation might not appear at first sight to be murder. Hercule Poirot continues his investigation by interviewing Dr. Ferguson, who tells Poirot that Joyce was once his patient. When Poirot goes Elms School, he is greeted by the headmistress, Miss Emlyn. Meanwhile, a mathematics teacher named Elizabeth Whittaker, who was also present at the"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Hercule Poirot thinks Janet White's murder is the most probable candidate for the murder Joyce witnessed, because strangulation might not appear at first sight to be murder. Hercule Poirot continues his investigation by interviewing Dr. Ferguson, who tells Poirot that Joyce was once his patient. When Poirot goes Elms School, he is greeted by the headmistress, Miss Emlyn. Meanwhile, a mathematics teacher named Elizabeth Whittaker, who was also present at the party, gives Hercule Poirot an important piece of evidence when she reveals that while the party-goers were playing Snapdragon, Elizabeth went out to hall and saw Rowena Drake coming out of the lavatory on the first floor landing. Rowena stood for a moment before coming downstairs, looking startled by something or someone she may have seen in the open door of the library, and then dropped the flower vase she was holding. Other suggestive pieces of evidence include the fact that Lesley Ferrier had previously been suspected of forgery. Were Lesley and Olga working together to secure Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's inheritance? Poirot visits a sunken garden built for Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe in an abandoned quarry, where he meets Michael Garfield, the handsome and talented young man who designed the garden. While there, he also meets Judith Butler's daughter, Miranda Butler, a striking young girl who is close to Michael and spends a great deal of time in the Quarry Garden. Mrs. Drake meets Poirot at his guest house to tell him that Leopold Reynolds, Joyce's younger brother, has been drowned. Poirot reveals that Leopold had been blackmailing Joyce's murderer and had got in over his head. Mrs. Drake, obviously very upset by Leopold's death, admits that she saw Leopold in the library, which caused her to think he might have killed his sister. Poiro"
      },
      {
        "text": " deal of time in the Quarry Garden. Mrs. Drake meets Poirot at his guest house to tell him that Leopold Reynolds, Joyce's younger brother, has been drowned. Poirot reveals that Leopold had been blackmailing Joyce's murderer and had got in over his head. Mrs. Drake, obviously very upset by Leopold's death, admits that she saw Leopold in the library, which caused her to think he might have killed his sister. Poirot persuades the police to dig up an abandoned well in the Quarry Garden. Within its depths are discovered the remains of Olga, who had been stabbed, like Ferrier. Poirot sends Mrs. Oliver to get Mrs. Butler and Miranda safely away from the village as soon as possible, but when they stop for lunch, Miranda is abducted by Michael Garfield, who takes her to a pagan sacrificial altar and tries to kill her. He is prevented from doing so by Nicholas Ransom and Desmond Holland, two teenagers who had been at the Hallowe'en party and whom Poirot had persuaded to trail Miranda. Michael Garfield commits suicide by swallowing the poison that he had intended Miranda to drink. Miranda Butler tells the authorities that she was the one who saw a murder, not her close friend Joyce, to whom she revealed some of the details of what she witnessed. Miranda admits that in the Quarry garden she saw Michael Garfield and Rowena Drake carrying Olga's dead body and heard Mrs. Drake wonder aloud if anyone was watching them. Joyce, an inveterate fantasist, had made the story her own, and since Miranda had not attended the party, she hadn't contradicted Joyce. Rowena Drake heard Joyce and thought that it was Joyce who had seen her and Michael with Olga's corpse. Drake had always sensed that someone was watching them that fateful day. Mrs. Drake intentionally dropped the vase of flowers in front of Miss Whittaker to invent a"
      },
      {
        "text": " heard Mrs. Drake wonder aloud if anyone was watching them. Joyce, an inveterate fantasist, had made the story her own, and since Miranda had not attended the party, she hadn't contradicted Joyce. Rowena Drake heard Joyce and thought that it was Joyce who had seen her and Michael with Olga's corpse. Drake had always sensed that someone was watching them that fateful day. Mrs. Drake intentionally dropped the vase of flowers in front of Miss Whittaker to invent a pretext for being wet after having drowned Joyce. Subsequently, Leopold had used what little he knew to blackmail Rowena, leading to his murder.Mrs. Rowena Drake and Michael Garfields were the 2 killers of the 2 murders that took place. Michael Garfield played the role of lover to Olga to help Rowena Drake secure Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's inheritance. The real will, leaving Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's fortune to Olga, had been replaced with a clumsy forgery, produced by Lesley Ferrier, which would be rendered invalid and Rowena Drake, the sexually-frustrated wife of an invalid, would ultimately control Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's estate as her closest relation. Lesley Ferrier and Olga Seminoff were murdered to conceal the deceit. Garfield's motivation was his obsessive, narcissistic desire to construct another perfect garden with Mrs. Drake's money on a Greek island that she has secretly purchased. Poirot hypothesises that Rowena Drake might have met a similar fate to the other women as Garfield would no longer have any use for her. Poirot's also intuits that the bond between Miranda and Garfield was a familial one: Judith Butler is not a widow, but rather the mother of Garfield's illegitimate daughter. Garfield's depraved willingness to murder his own daughter confirms the tremendous evil that Poirot has been able to uncover and defeat. What an evil"
      },
      {
        "text": " she has secretly purchased. Poirot hypothesises that Rowena Drake might have met a similar fate to the other women as Garfield would no longer have any use for her. Poirot's also intuits that the bond between Miranda and Garfield was a familial one: Judith Butler is not a widow, but rather the mother of Garfield's illegitimate daughter. Garfield's depraved willingness to murder his own daughter confirms the tremendous evil that Poirot has been able to uncover and defeat. What an evil night...\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Empire of the Sun",
    "author": "J. G. Ballard",
    "published_date": "1984-09-13",
    "synopsis": " The novel recounts the story of a young British boy, Jaime Graham, who lives with his parents in Shanghai. After the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese occupy the Shanghai International Settlement, and in the following chaos Jim becomes separated from his parents. He spends some time in abandoned mansions, living on remnants of packaged food. Having exhausted the food supplies, he decides to try to surrender to the Japanese Army. After many attempts, he finally succeeds and is interned in the Lunghua Civilian Assembly Center. Although the Japanese are \"officially\" the enemies, Jim identifies partly with them, both because he adores the pilots with their splendid machines and because he feels that Lunghua is still a comparatively safer place for him. Towards the end of the war, with the Japanese army collapsing, the food supply runs short. Jim barely survives, with people around him starving to death. The camp prisoners are forced upon a march to Nantao, with many dying along the route. Jim then leaves the march and is saved from starvation by air drops from American Bombers. Jim returns to Lunghua camp and finds Dr. Ransome there, soon returning to his pre-war residence with his parents.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel recounts the story of a young British boy, Jaime Graham, who lives with his parents in Shanghai. After the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese occupy the Shanghai International Settlement, and in the following chaos Jim becomes separated from his parents. He spends some time in abandoned mansions, living on remnants of packaged food. Having exhausted the food supplies, he decides to try to surrender to the Japanese Army. After many attempts, he finally succeeds and is interned in the Lunghua Civilian Assembly Center. Although the Japanese are \"officially\" the enemies, Jim identifies partly with them, both because he adores the pilots with their splendid machines and because he feels that Lunghua is still a comparatively safer place for him. Towards the end of the war, with the Japanese army collapsing, the food supply runs short. Jim barely survives, with people around him starving to death. The camp prisoners are forced upon a march to Nantao, with many dying along the route. Jim then leaves the march and is saved from starvation by air drops from American Bombers. Jim returns to Lunghua camp and finds Dr. Ransome there, soon returning to his pre-war residence with his parents.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them",
    "author": "Al Franken",
    "published_date": "2003",
    "synopsis": " Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them largely targets prominent Republicans and conservatives, highlighting what Franken asserts are documentable lies in their claims. A significant portion of the book is devoted to comparisons between President George W. Bush and former president Bill Clinton regarding their economic, environmental, and military policies. Franken also criticizes several pundits, especially those he believes to be the most dishonest, including O'Reilly, Hannity, and Coulter.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them largely targets prominent Republicans and conservatives, highlighting what Franken asserts are documentable lies in their claims. A significant portion of the book is devoted to comparisons between President George W. Bush and former president Bill Clinton regarding their economic, environmental, and military policies. Franken also criticizes several pundits, especially those he believes to be the most dishonest, including O'Reilly, Hannity, and Coulter.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Maurice",
    "author": "E. M. Forster",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " We first encounter Maurice Hall (pronounced \"Morris\") aged fourteen having a discussion about sex and women with his prep-school teacher, Ben Ducie, which takes place just before he progresses to his public school. This sets the tone for the rest of the novel, as Maurice feels removed from the depiction of marriage with a woman as the goal of life. When Maurice enters university, he soon makes friends with fellow student Clive Durham, who introduces him to the ancient Greek writings about homosexual love. For two years they have a committed if chaste romance, which they keep hidden from everyone they know. Maurice hopes for more from their platonic attachment, but it becomes clear that Clive intends to marry, even though Forster's prose leaves no doubts that his marriage will probably entail a mostly joyless union. Maurice grows older, leaves the university without taking his degree, and gets a good job as a stockbroker. In his spare time, he helps to run a Christian mission's boxing gym for working class boys in the East End, although under Clive's influence he has long since abandoned his Christian beliefs. He makes an appointment with a hypnotist, Mr. Lasker Jones, in an attempt to \"cure\" himself. Lasker Jones refers to his condition as \"congenital homosexuality\" and claims a 50 per cent success rate in \"curing\" gay men. After the first appointment it is clear that the therapy has failed. Maurice's unfulfilled emotional longings come closer to being resolved when he is invited to stay at Penge with the Durhams'. There, at first unnoticed by him, lurks the young under-gamekeeper Alec Scudder (called just Scudder for large passages of the book, to emphasise the class difference), who has noticed Maurice. One night he uses a ladder to climb into Maurice's bedroom, answering Maurice's call unheard by anyone else. After their first night together, Maurice panics and, because of his treatment of Alec, the latter threatens to blackmail Maurice. Maurice goes to Lasker Jones one more time. Knowing that the therapy is failing, he tells Maurice to consider relocating to a country that has adopted the Code Napoleon, meaning one in which homosexual conduct is no longer criminal, such as France or Italy. Maurice wonders if homosexuality will ever be acceptable in England, to which Lasker Jones replies \"I doubt it. England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.\" Maurice and Alec meet at the British Museum in London to discuss the blackmail. It becomes clear that they are in love with each other, and Maurice calls him Alec for the first time. After another night lying arm-in-arm together, it becomes clear that Alec has a ticket for a trip to Argentina, and will not return. Maurice asks Alec to stay with him, and indicates that he knows he has to give up his social and financial position, even his class status. Alec does not accept the offer. After initial resentment Maurice decides to give Alec a sendoff. He is taken aback when Alec is not at the harbour. In a hurry, he makes for Penge, where the two lovers were supposed to have met before at a boathouse. He finds there Alec, who tells him that he had sent a telegram stating that he was to come to the boathouse. Alec had changed his mind, and intends to stay with Maurice, telling him that they \"shan't be parted no more\" and they live happily ever after. Maurice visits Clive and outlines what has happened with Alec. Clive is left speechless and unable to comprehend. Maurice disappears into the woods to rejoin Alec. In the original manuscripts, Forster wrote an epilogue concerning the post-novel fate of Maurice and Alec that he later discarded, because it was unpopular among those to whom he showed it. This epilogue can still be found in the Abinger edition of the novel. This edition also contains a summary of the differences between various versions of the novel. The Abinger reprint of the Epilogue retains Maurice's original surname of Hill throughout. The epilogue contains a meeting between Maurice and his sister Kitty some years later. Alec and Maurice have by now become woodcutters. It dawns upon Kitty why her brother disappeared. This portion of the novel underlines the extreme dislike that Kitty feels for her brother. The epilogue ends with Maurice and Alec in each other's arms at the end of the day discussing seeing Kitty and resolving that they must move on in order to avoid detection or a further meeting.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " We first encounter Maurice Hall (pronounced \"Morris\") aged fourteen having a discussion about sex and women with his prep-school teacher, Ben Ducie, which takes place just before he progresses to his public school. This sets the tone for the rest of the novel, as Maurice feels removed from the depiction of marriage with a woman as the goal of life. When Maurice enters university, he soon makes friends with fellow student Clive Durham, who introduces him to the ancient Greek writings about homosexual love. For two years they have a committed if chaste romance, which they keep hidden from everyone they know. Maurice hopes for more from their platonic attachment, but it becomes clear that Clive intends to marry, even though Forster's prose leaves no doubts that his marriage will probably entail a mostly joyless union. Maurice grows older, leaves the university without taking his degree, and gets a good job as a stockbroker. In his spare time, he helps to run a Christian mission's boxing gym for working class boys in the East End, although under Clive's influence he has long since abandoned his Christian beliefs. He makes an appointment with a hypnotist, Mr. Lasker Jones, in an attempt to \"cure\" himself. Lasker Jones refers to his condition as \"congenital homosexuality\" and claims a 50 per cent success rate in \"curing\" gay men. After the first appointment it is clear that the therapy has failed. Maurice's unfulfilled emotional longings come closer to being resolved when he is invited to stay at Penge with the Durhams'. There, at first unnoticed by him, lurks the young under-gamekeeper Alec Scudder (called just Scudder for large passages of the book, to emphasise the class difference), who has noticed Maurice. One night he uses a ladder to climb into Maurice's bedroom, answering Maurice's call unheard by anyone else. After their first night together, Maurice panics and, because of his treatment"
      },
      {
        "text": "ings come closer to being resolved when he is invited to stay at Penge with the Durhams'. There, at first unnoticed by him, lurks the young under-gamekeeper Alec Scudder (called just Scudder for large passages of the book, to emphasise the class difference), who has noticed Maurice. One night he uses a ladder to climb into Maurice's bedroom, answering Maurice's call unheard by anyone else. After their first night together, Maurice panics and, because of his treatment of Alec, the latter threatens to blackmail Maurice. Maurice goes to Lasker Jones one more time. Knowing that the therapy is failing, he tells Maurice to consider relocating to a country that has adopted the Code Napoleon, meaning one in which homosexual conduct is no longer criminal, such as France or Italy. Maurice wonders if homosexuality will ever be acceptable in England, to which Lasker Jones replies \"I doubt it. England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.\" Maurice and Alec meet at the British Museum in London to discuss the blackmail. It becomes clear that they are in love with each other, and Maurice calls him Alec for the first time. After another night lying arm-in-arm together, it becomes clear that Alec has a ticket for a trip to Argentina, and will not return. Maurice asks Alec to stay with him, and indicates that he knows he has to give up his social and financial position, even his class status. Alec does not accept the offer. After initial resentment Maurice decides to give Alec a sendoff. He is taken aback when Alec is not at the harbour. In a hurry, he makes for Penge, where the two lovers were supposed to have met before at a boathouse. He finds there Alec, who tells him that he had sent a telegram stating that he was to come to the boathouse. Alec had changed his mind, and intends to stay with Maurice, telling him that they \"shan't be"
      },
      {
        "text": ". After initial resentment Maurice decides to give Alec a sendoff. He is taken aback when Alec is not at the harbour. In a hurry, he makes for Penge, where the two lovers were supposed to have met before at a boathouse. He finds there Alec, who tells him that he had sent a telegram stating that he was to come to the boathouse. Alec had changed his mind, and intends to stay with Maurice, telling him that they \"shan't be parted no more\" and they live happily ever after. Maurice visits Clive and outlines what has happened with Alec. Clive is left speechless and unable to comprehend. Maurice disappears into the woods to rejoin Alec. In the original manuscripts, Forster wrote an epilogue concerning the post-novel fate of Maurice and Alec that he later discarded, because it was unpopular among those to whom he showed it. This epilogue can still be found in the Abinger edition of the novel. This edition also contains a summary of the differences between various versions of the novel. The Abinger reprint of the Epilogue retains Maurice's original surname of Hill throughout. The epilogue contains a meeting between Maurice and his sister Kitty some years later. Alec and Maurice have by now become woodcutters. It dawns upon Kitty why her brother disappeared. This portion of the novel underlines the extreme dislike that Kitty feels for her brother. The epilogue ends with Maurice and Alec in each other's arms at the end of the day discussing seeing Kitty and resolving that they must move on in order to avoid detection or a further meeting.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s arms at the end of the day discussing seeing Kitty and resolving that they must move on in order to avoid detection or a further meeting.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Ice Storm",
    "author": "Rick Moody",
    "published_date": "1994",
    "synopsis": " The novel takes place over Thanksgiving weekend 1973, during a dangerous ice storm and centers on two neighboring families, the Hoods and the Williamses, and the difficulties they have dealing with the tumultuous political and social climate of the day, in affluent suburban Connecticut, during the height of the sexual revolution. The novel is narrated from four different perspectives, each of them a member of the two families, who are promoting their own opinion and views of the several complications that arise throughout the novel, including their encounters and daily life. The Hood family is overridden with lies: Ben is currently in an affair with his married neighbor Janey, his wife Elena is alienated, her daughter ventures on her own sexual liaisons with both females and males of her age, including her neighbors Mikey and Sandy. The Hoods are Ben, Elena, Paul and Wendy and the Williamses are Jim, Janey, Mikey, and Sandy. The story focuses on the 24 hours when a major ice storm strikes the town of New Canaan, Connecticut, just as both families are melting down from the parents' alcoholism, escapism and adultery, and their children's drug use and sexual experimentation.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel takes place over Thanksgiving weekend 1973, during a dangerous ice storm and centers on two neighboring families, the Hoods and the Williamses, and the difficulties they have dealing with the tumultuous political and social climate of the day, in affluent suburban Connecticut, during the height of the sexual revolution. The novel is narrated from four different perspectives, each of them a member of the two families, who are promoting their own opinion and views of the several complications that arise throughout the novel, including their encounters and daily life. The Hood family is overridden with lies: Ben is currently in an affair with his married neighbor Janey, his wife Elena is alienated, her daughter ventures on her own sexual liaisons with both females and males of her age, including her neighbors Mikey and Sandy. The Hoods are Ben, Elena, Paul and Wendy and the Williamses are Jim, Janey, Mikey, and Sandy. The story focuses on the 24 hours when a major ice storm strikes the town of New Canaan, Connecticut, just as both families are melting down from the parents' alcoholism, escapism and adultery, and their children's drug use and sexual experimentation.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Three Comrades",
    "author": "Erich Maria Remarque",
    "published_date": "1937",
    "synopsis": " The city, which is never referred to by name (however, it is likely Berlin), is crowded by a growing number of jobless and marked by increasing violence between left and right. The novel starts out in the seedy milieu of bars where prostitutes mingle with the hopeless flotsam that the war left behind. While Robert and his friends manage to make a living dealing cars and driving an old taxi, economic survival in the city is getting harder by the day. It is in this setting that Robert meets Patrice Hollmann, a mysterious beautiful young woman with an upper middle class background. Their love affair intensifies as he introduces her to his life of bars and races and Robert's nihilistic attitude slowly begins to change as he realizes how much he needs Pat. The story takes an abrupt turn as Pat suffers a near-fatal lung hemorrhage during a summer holiday at the sea. Upon their return, Robert and Pat move in with each other but her days in the city are numbered, as she is scheduled to leave for a Swiss mountain sanatorium come winter. It is this temporal limitation of their happiness which makes their remaining time together so precious. After Pat has left for Switzerland, the political situation in the city heats up and Lenz, one of the comrades, gets killed by a militant, not mentioned in the book by the actual name but supposed to be a Nazi. On top of this, Otto and Robert face bankruptcy and have to sell their workshop. In the midst of this misfortune, a telegram arrives informing them of Pat's worsening state of health. The two remaining comrades don't hesitate and drive the thousand kilometers to the tuberculosis sanatorium in the Alps to see her. Reunited, Robert and an increasingly moribund Pat celebrate their remaining weeks before her inevitable death amidst the snow-covered summits of Switzerland. It is in the last part of the book that this beautiful love story finds closure and leaves the main character, a nihilist who has found love, forever changed.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The city, which is never referred to by name (however, it is likely Berlin), is crowded by a growing number of jobless and marked by increasing violence between left and right. The novel starts out in the seedy milieu of bars where prostitutes mingle with the hopeless flotsam that the war left behind. While Robert and his friends manage to make a living dealing cars and driving an old taxi, economic survival in the city is getting harder by the day. It is in this setting that Robert meets Patrice Hollmann, a mysterious beautiful young woman with an upper middle class background. Their love affair intensifies as he introduces her to his life of bars and races and Robert's nihilistic attitude slowly begins to change as he realizes how much he needs Pat. The story takes an abrupt turn as Pat suffers a near-fatal lung hemorrhage during a summer holiday at the sea. Upon their return, Robert and Pat move in with each other but her days in the city are numbered, as she is scheduled to leave for a Swiss mountain sanatorium come winter. It is this temporal limitation of their happiness which makes their remaining time together so precious. After Pat has left for Switzerland, the political situation in the city heats up and Lenz, one of the comrades, gets killed by a militant, not mentioned in the book by the actual name but supposed to be a Nazi. On top of this, Otto and Robert face bankruptcy and have to sell their workshop. In the midst of this misfortune, a telegram arrives informing them of Pat's worsening state of health. The two remaining comrades don't hesitate and drive the thousand kilometers to the tuberculosis sanatorium in the Alps to see her. Reunited, Robert and an increasingly moribund Pat celebrate their remaining weeks before her inevitable death amidst the snow-covered summits of Switzerland. It is in the last part of the book that this beautiful love story finds closure and leaves the main character, a nihilist who has found love"
      },
      {
        "text": " of this misfortune, a telegram arrives informing them of Pat's worsening state of health. The two remaining comrades don't hesitate and drive the thousand kilometers to the tuberculosis sanatorium in the Alps to see her. Reunited, Robert and an increasingly moribund Pat celebrate their remaining weeks before her inevitable death amidst the snow-covered summits of Switzerland. It is in the last part of the book that this beautiful love story finds closure and leaves the main character, a nihilist who has found love, forever changed.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Pericles, Prince of Tyre",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "1609",
    "synopsis": " John Gower introduces each act with a prologue. The play opens in the court of Antiochus, king of Antioch, who has offered the hand of his beautiful daughter to any man who answers his riddle; but those who fail shall die. <poem> I am no viper, yet I feed On mother's flesh which did me breed. I sought a husband, in which labour I found that kindness in a father: He's father, son, and husband mild; I mother, wife, and yet his child. How they may be, and yet in two, As you will live, resolve it you. </poem> Pericles, the young Prince (ruler) of Tyre in Phoenicia (Lebanon), hears the riddle, and instantly understands its meaning: Antiochus is engaged in an incestuous relationship with his daughter. If he reveals this truth, he will be killed, but if he answers incorrectly, he will also be killed. Pericles hints that he knows the answer, and asks for more time to think. Antiochus grants him forty days, and then sends an assassin after him. However, Pericles has fled the city in disgust. Pericles returns to Tyre, where his trusted friend and counsellor Helicanus advises him to leave the city, for Antiochus surely will hunt him down. Pericles leaves Helicanus as regent and sails to Tarsus, a city beset by famine. The generous Pericles gives the governor of the city, Cleon, and his wife Dionyza, grain from his ship to save their people. The famine ends, and after being thanked profusely by Cleon and Dionyza, Pericles continues on. A storm wrecks Pericles&#39; ship and washes him up on the shores of Pentapolis. He is rescued by a group of poor fishermen who inform him that Simonedes, King of Pentapolis, is holding a tournament the next day and that the winner will receive the hand of his daughter Thaisa in marriage. Fortunately, one of the fishermen drags Pericles&#39; suit of armour on shore that very moment, and the prince decides to enter the tournament. Although his equipment is rusty, Pericles wins the tournament and the hand of Thaisa (who is deeply attracted to him) in marriage. Simonedes initially expresses doubt about the union, but soon comes to like Pericles and allows them to wed. A letter sent by the noblemen reaches Pericles in Pentapolis, who decides to return to Tyre with the pregnant Thaisa. Again, a storm arises while at sea, and Thaisa appears to die giving birth to her child, Marina. The sailors insist that Thaisa&#39;s body be set overboard in order to calm the storm. Pericles grudgingly agrees, and decides to stop at Tarsus because he fears that Marina may not survive the storm. Luckily, Thaisa&#39;s casket washes ashore at Ephesus near the residence of Lord Cerimon, a physician who revives her. Thinking that Pericles died in the storm, Thaisa becomes a priestess in the temple of Diana. Pericles departs to rule Tyre, leaving Marina in the care of Cleon and Dionyza. Marina grows up more beautiful than Philoten the daughter of Cleon and Dionyza, so Dionyza plans Marina&#39;s murder. The plan is thwarted when pirates kidnap Marina and then sell her to a brothel in Mytilene. There, Marina manages to keep her virginity by convincing the men that they should seek virtue. Worried that she is ruining their market, the brothel rents her out as a tutor to respectable young ladies. She becomes famous for music and other decorous entertainments. Meanwhile, Pericles returns to Tarsus for his daughter. The governor and his wife claim she has died; in grief, he takes to the sea. Pericles&#39; wanderings bring him to Mytilene where the governor Lysimachus, seeking to cheer him up, brings in Marina. They compare their sad stories and joyfully realise they are father and daughter. Next, the goddess Diana appears in a dream to Pericles, and tells him to come to the temple where he finds Thaisa. The wicked Cleon and Dionyza are killed when their people revolt against their crime. Lysimachus will marry Marina.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " John Gower introduces each act with a prologue. The play opens in the court of Antiochus, king of Antioch, who has offered the hand of his beautiful daughter to any man who answers his riddle; but those who fail shall die. <poem> I am no viper, yet I feed On mother's flesh which did me breed. I sought a husband, in which labour I found that kindness in a father: He's father, son, and husband mild; I mother, wife, and yet his child. How they may be, and yet in two, As you will live, resolve it you. </poem> Pericles, the young Prince (ruler) of Tyre in Phoenicia (Lebanon), hears the riddle, and instantly understands its meaning: Antiochus is engaged in an incestuous relationship with his daughter. If he reveals this truth, he will be killed, but if he answers incorrectly, he will also be killed. Pericles hints that he knows the answer, and asks for more time to think. Antiochus grants him forty days, and then sends an assassin after him. However, Pericles has fled the city in disgust. Pericles returns to Tyre, where his trusted friend and counsellor Helicanus advises him to leave the city, for Antiochus surely will hunt him down. Pericles leaves Helicanus as regent and sails to Tarsus, a city beset by famine. The generous Pericles gives the governor of the city, Cleon, and his wife Dionyza, grain from his ship to save their people. The famine ends, and after being thanked profusely by Cleon and Dionyza, Pericles continues on. A storm wrecks Pericles&#39; ship and washes him up on the shores of Pentapolis. He is rescued by a group of poor fishermen who inform him that Simonedes, King of Pentapolis, is holding"
      },
      {
        "text": " The generous Pericles gives the governor of the city, Cleon, and his wife Dionyza, grain from his ship to save their people. The famine ends, and after being thanked profusely by Cleon and Dionyza, Pericles continues on. A storm wrecks Pericles&#39; ship and washes him up on the shores of Pentapolis. He is rescued by a group of poor fishermen who inform him that Simonedes, King of Pentapolis, is holding a tournament the next day and that the winner will receive the hand of his daughter Thaisa in marriage. Fortunately, one of the fishermen drags Pericles&#39; suit of armour on shore that very moment, and the prince decides to enter the tournament. Although his equipment is rusty, Pericles wins the tournament and the hand of Thaisa (who is deeply attracted to him) in marriage. Simonedes initially expresses doubt about the union, but soon comes to like Pericles and allows them to wed. A letter sent by the noblemen reaches Pericles in Pentapolis, who decides to return to Tyre with the pregnant Thaisa. Again, a storm arises while at sea, and Thaisa appears to die giving birth to her child, Marina. The sailors insist that Thaisa&#39;s body be set overboard in order to calm the storm. Pericles grudgingly agrees, and decides to stop at Tarsus because he fears that Marina may not survive the storm. Luckily, Thaisa&#39;s casket washes ashore at Ephesus near the residence of Lord Cerimon, a physician who revives her. Thinking that Pericles died in the storm, Thaisa becomes a priestess in the temple of Diana. Pericles departs to rule Tyre, leaving Marina in the care of Cleon and Dionyza. Marina grows up more beautiful than Philoten the daughter of Cleon and Dion"
      },
      {
        "text": " may not survive the storm. Luckily, Thaisa&#39;s casket washes ashore at Ephesus near the residence of Lord Cerimon, a physician who revives her. Thinking that Pericles died in the storm, Thaisa becomes a priestess in the temple of Diana. Pericles departs to rule Tyre, leaving Marina in the care of Cleon and Dionyza. Marina grows up more beautiful than Philoten the daughter of Cleon and Dionyza, so Dionyza plans Marina&#39;s murder. The plan is thwarted when pirates kidnap Marina and then sell her to a brothel in Mytilene. There, Marina manages to keep her virginity by convincing the men that they should seek virtue. Worried that she is ruining their market, the brothel rents her out as a tutor to respectable young ladies. She becomes famous for music and other decorous entertainments. Meanwhile, Pericles returns to Tarsus for his daughter. The governor and his wife claim she has died; in grief, he takes to the sea. Pericles&#39; wanderings bring him to Mytilene where the governor Lysimachus, seeking to cheer him up, brings in Marina. They compare their sad stories and joyfully realise they are father and daughter. Next, the goddess Diana appears in a dream to Pericles, and tells him to come to the temple where he finds Thaisa. The wicked Cleon and Dionyza are killed when their people revolt against their crime. Lysimachus will marry Marina.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Dionyza are killed when their people revolt against their crime. Lysimachus will marry Marina.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Forever War",
    "author": "Joe Haldeman",
    "published_date": "1974",
    "synopsis": " William Mandella is a physics student conscripted for an elite task force in the United Nations Exploratory Force being assembled for a war against the Taurans, an alien species discovered when they apparently suddenly attacked human colonists' ships. The UNEF ground troops are sent out for reconnaissance and revenge. The elite recruits have IQs of 150 and above, are highly educated, healthy and fit. Training is gruellingfirst on Earth, in Missouri, and later on Charon (not Pluto's moon, which had not yet been discovered at the time of the novel's writing, but a hypothetical planet beyond Pluto's orbit), which results in a number of casualtiesmainly due to accidents in hostile environments but also due to the use of live weapons in training. The new soldiers then depart for action, traveling via wormhole-like phenomena called 'collapsars' (called Black Holes today) that allow ships to cover thousands of light-years in a split second. However, traveling to and from the collapsars at near-lightspeed has massive relativistic effects. Their first encounter with (unarmed) Taurans on a planet orbiting Epsilon Aurigae turns into a massacre, with the unresisting enemy base wiped out. Mandella melancholically reflects on how typical the encounter was for humanity's previous record in interaction with other cultures. This first expedition, beginning in 1997, lasted only two years from the soldier's perspective, but due to time dilation, upon return to Earth decades have passed. On the long way home, the soldiers experience future shock first-hand, as the Taurans employ increasingly advanced weaponry against them while they do not have the chance to re-arm. Mandella, with soldier, lover and companion Marygay Potter, returns to civilian life, only to find humanity drastically changed. He and his fellow soldiers have difficulty fitting into a future society that has evolved almost beyond their comprehension. The veterans learn that to curb overpopulation, which led to worldwide class wars caused by inequitable rationing, homosexuality has become officially encouraged by many of the world's nations. The world has become a very dangerous place due to widespread unemployment and the easy availability of deadly weapons. The changes within society alienate Mandella and the other veterans to the point where many re-enlist to escape, even though they realize the military is a soulless construct. Mandella attempts to get an assignment as an instructor on Luna but is promptly reassigned by standing order to combat command. The inability of the military to treat its soldiers as more than highly complex valuable machines is a theme of the story. Almost entirely through luck, Mandella survives four subjectively experienced years of military service, which time dilation makes equivalent to several centuries. He soon becomes the objectively oldest surviving soldier in the war, attaining high rank through seniority, not ambition (he is essentially a pacifist and an eternally reluctant soldier, who acts mostly from talent and a melancholic sense of duty). Despite this he is separated from Marygay (who has remained his last contact with the Earth of his youth) by UNEF's plans, despite the fact that many of the people who he would command had not yet been born. As the commanding officer of a 'strike force', Mandella commands soldiers who speak a language largely unrecognizable to him, whose ethnicity is now nearly uniform and are exclusively homosexual. He is disliked by the soldiers because they have to learn 21st century English to communicate with him and other senior staff, and because he is heterosexual. Engaging in combat thousands of light years away from Earth, Mandella and his soldiers need to resort to medieval weapons in order to fight inside a \"stasis field\" which neutralizes all electromagnetic radiation in anything not covered with a protective coating. They battle to survive what is to be the last conflict of the war. During the time that has since passed on Earth, humankind has begun to employ human cloning, resulting in a new, collective species calling itself Man. Man has developed a means of communication unique and inherent to clones, which allows them to communicate with the Taurans, leading to peace. When Man finally gains the ability to communicate with the Taurans, it is discovered that the Taurans were not responsible for the millennium-old destruction of the colonial vessels in question. The futile, meaningless war that lasted for more than a thousand years ends. Man establishes several colonies of old-style, heterosexual humans, just in case the evolutionary change proves to be a mistake. Mandella travels to one of these colonies, named 'Middle Finger' in the definitive novel adaption. There he is reunited with Marygay, who had been discharged much earlier and had intentionally used time dilation to age at a much slower rate, hoping and waiting for Mandella's return. The epilogue is a news item from the year 3143 AD announcing the birth of a \"fine baby boy\" to Marygay Potter-Mandella.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " William Mandella is a physics student conscripted for an elite task force in the United Nations Exploratory Force being assembled for a war against the Taurans, an alien species discovered when they apparently suddenly attacked human colonists' ships. The UNEF ground troops are sent out for reconnaissance and revenge. The elite recruits have IQs of 150 and above, are highly educated, healthy and fit. Training is gruellingfirst on Earth, in Missouri, and later on Charon (not Pluto's moon, which had not yet been discovered at the time of the novel's writing, but a hypothetical planet beyond Pluto's orbit), which results in a number of casualtiesmainly due to accidents in hostile environments but also due to the use of live weapons in training. The new soldiers then depart for action, traveling via wormhole-like phenomena called 'collapsars' (called Black Holes today) that allow ships to cover thousands of light-years in a split second. However, traveling to and from the collapsars at near-lightspeed has massive relativistic effects. Their first encounter with (unarmed) Taurans on a planet orbiting Epsilon Aurigae turns into a massacre, with the unresisting enemy base wiped out. Mandella melancholically reflects on how typical the encounter was for humanity's previous record in interaction with other cultures. This first expedition, beginning in 1997, lasted only two years from the soldier's perspective, but due to time dilation, upon return to Earth decades have passed. On the long way home, the soldiers experience future shock first-hand, as the Taurans employ increasingly advanced weaponry against them while they do not have the chance to re-arm. Mandella, with soldier, lover and companion Marygay Potter, returns to civilian life, only to find humanity drastically changed. He and his fellow soldiers have difficulty fitting into a future society that has evolved almost beyond their comprehension. The veterans learn that to curb overpopulation,"
      },
      {
        "text": " upon return to Earth decades have passed. On the long way home, the soldiers experience future shock first-hand, as the Taurans employ increasingly advanced weaponry against them while they do not have the chance to re-arm. Mandella, with soldier, lover and companion Marygay Potter, returns to civilian life, only to find humanity drastically changed. He and his fellow soldiers have difficulty fitting into a future society that has evolved almost beyond their comprehension. The veterans learn that to curb overpopulation, which led to worldwide class wars caused by inequitable rationing, homosexuality has become officially encouraged by many of the world's nations. The world has become a very dangerous place due to widespread unemployment and the easy availability of deadly weapons. The changes within society alienate Mandella and the other veterans to the point where many re-enlist to escape, even though they realize the military is a soulless construct. Mandella attempts to get an assignment as an instructor on Luna but is promptly reassigned by standing order to combat command. The inability of the military to treat its soldiers as more than highly complex valuable machines is a theme of the story. Almost entirely through luck, Mandella survives four subjectively experienced years of military service, which time dilation makes equivalent to several centuries. He soon becomes the objectively oldest surviving soldier in the war, attaining high rank through seniority, not ambition (he is essentially a pacifist and an eternally reluctant soldier, who acts mostly from talent and a melancholic sense of duty). Despite this he is separated from Marygay (who has remained his last contact with the Earth of his youth) by UNEF's plans, despite the fact that many of the people who he would command had not yet been born. As the commanding officer of a 'strike force', Mandella commands soldiers who speak a language largely unrecognizable to him, whose ethnicity is now nearly uniform and are exclusively homosexual. He is disliked by the soldiers because they have to learn 21st"
      },
      {
        "text": " melancholic sense of duty). Despite this he is separated from Marygay (who has remained his last contact with the Earth of his youth) by UNEF's plans, despite the fact that many of the people who he would command had not yet been born. As the commanding officer of a 'strike force', Mandella commands soldiers who speak a language largely unrecognizable to him, whose ethnicity is now nearly uniform and are exclusively homosexual. He is disliked by the soldiers because they have to learn 21st century English to communicate with him and other senior staff, and because he is heterosexual. Engaging in combat thousands of light years away from Earth, Mandella and his soldiers need to resort to medieval weapons in order to fight inside a \"stasis field\" which neutralizes all electromagnetic radiation in anything not covered with a protective coating. They battle to survive what is to be the last conflict of the war. During the time that has since passed on Earth, humankind has begun to employ human cloning, resulting in a new, collective species calling itself Man. Man has developed a means of communication unique and inherent to clones, which allows them to communicate with the Taurans, leading to peace. When Man finally gains the ability to communicate with the Taurans, it is discovered that the Taurans were not responsible for the millennium-old destruction of the colonial vessels in question. The futile, meaningless war that lasted for more than a thousand years ends. Man establishes several colonies of old-style, heterosexual humans, just in case the evolutionary change proves to be a mistake. Mandella travels to one of these colonies, named 'Middle Finger' in the definitive novel adaption. There he is reunited with Marygay, who had been discharged much earlier and had intentionally used time dilation to age at a much slower rate, hoping and waiting for Mandella's return. The epilogue is a news item from the year 3143 AD announcing the birth of a \"fine baby boy\" to"
      },
      {
        "text": " heterosexual humans, just in case the evolutionary change proves to be a mistake. Mandella travels to one of these colonies, named 'Middle Finger' in the definitive novel adaption. There he is reunited with Marygay, who had been discharged much earlier and had intentionally used time dilation to age at a much slower rate, hoping and waiting for Mandella's return. The epilogue is a news item from the year 3143 AD announcing the birth of a \"fine baby boy\" to Marygay Potter-Mandella.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Bambi, A Life in the Woods",
    "author": "Felix Salten",
    "published_date": "1923",
    "synopsis": " Bambi is a roe deer fawn born in a thicket to a young doe in late spring one year. Over the course of the summer, his mother teaches him about the various inhabitants of the forest and the ways deer live. When she feels he is old enough, she takes him to the meadow which he learns is both a wonderful but also dangerous place as it leaves the deer exposed and in the open. After some initial fear over his mother's caution, Bambi enjoys the experience. On a subsequent trip, Bambi meets his Aunt Ena, and her twin fawns Faline and Gobo. They quickly become friends and share what they have learned about the forest. While they are playing, they encounter princes, male deer, for the first time. After the stags leave, the fawns learn that those were their fathers, but that the fathers rarely stay with or speak to the females and young. As Bambi grows older, his mother begins to leave him alone. While searching for her one day, Bambi has his first encounter with \"He\"\u2014the animal's term for humans\u2014which terrifies him. The man raises a firearm and aims at him; Bambi flees at top speed, joined by his mother. After he is scolded by a stag for crying for his mother, Bambi gets used to being alone at times. He later learns the stag is called the old Prince, the oldest and largest stag in the forest who is known for his cunning and aloof nature. During the winter, Bambi meets Marena, a young doe, Nettla, an old doe who no longer bears young, and two princes Ronno and Karus. Mid-winter, hunters enter the forest, killing many animals including Bambi's mother. Gobo also disappears and is presumed dead. After this, the novel skips ahead a year, noting that Bambi was cared for by Nettla, and that when he got his first set of antlers he was abused and harassed by the other males. It is summer and Bambi is now sporting his second set of antlers. He is reunited with Faline. After he battles and defeats first Karus then Ronno, Bambi and Faline express their love for one another. They spend a great deal of time together. During this time, the old Prince saves Bambi's life when he nearly runs towards a hunter imitating a doe's call. This teaches the young buck to be cautious about blindly rushing toward any deer's call. During the summer, Gobo returns to the forest having been raised by a man who found him collapsed in the snow during the hunt where Bambi's mother was killed. While his mother and Marena welcome him and celebrate him as a \"friend\" of man, the old Prince and Bambi pity him. Marena becomes his mate, but several weeks later Gobo is killed when he approaches a hunter in the meadow, falsely believing the halter he wore would keep him safe from all men. As Bambi continues to age, he begins spending most of his time alone, including avoiding Faline though he still loves her in a melancholy way. Several times he meets with the old Prince who teaches him about snares, shows him how to free another animal from one, and encourages him not to use trails to avoid the traps of men. When Bambi is later shot by a hunter, the Prince shows him how to walk in circles to confuse the man and his dogs until the bleeding stops, then takes him to a safe place to recover. They remain together until Bambi is strong enough to leave the safe haven again. When Bambi has grown gray and is \"old\", the old Prince shows him that man is not all powerful by showing him the dead body of a man who was shot and killed by another man. When Bambi confirms that he now understands that \"He\" is not all powerful, and that there is \"Another\" over all creatures, the stag tells him that he has always loved him and calls him \"my son\" before leaving to die. At the end of the novel, Bambi meets with twin fawns who are calling for their mother and he scolds them for not being able to stay alone. After leaving them, he thinks to himself that the girl fawn reminded him of Faline, and that the male was promising and that Bambi hoped to meet him again when he was grown.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Bambi is a roe deer fawn born in a thicket to a young doe in late spring one year. Over the course of the summer, his mother teaches him about the various inhabitants of the forest and the ways deer live. When she feels he is old enough, she takes him to the meadow which he learns is both a wonderful but also dangerous place as it leaves the deer exposed and in the open. After some initial fear over his mother's caution, Bambi enjoys the experience. On a subsequent trip, Bambi meets his Aunt Ena, and her twin fawns Faline and Gobo. They quickly become friends and share what they have learned about the forest. While they are playing, they encounter princes, male deer, for the first time. After the stags leave, the fawns learn that those were their fathers, but that the fathers rarely stay with or speak to the females and young. As Bambi grows older, his mother begins to leave him alone. While searching for her one day, Bambi has his first encounter with \"He\"\u2014the animal's term for humans\u2014which terrifies him. The man raises a firearm and aims at him; Bambi flees at top speed, joined by his mother. After he is scolded by a stag for crying for his mother, Bambi gets used to being alone at times. He later learns the stag is called the old Prince, the oldest and largest stag in the forest who is known for his cunning and aloof nature. During the winter, Bambi meets Marena, a young doe, Nettla, an old doe who no longer bears young, and two princes Ronno and Karus. Mid-winter, hunters enter the forest, killing many animals including Bambi's mother. Gobo also disappears and is presumed dead. After this, the novel skips ahead a year, noting that Bambi"
      },
      {
        "text": " and largest stag in the forest who is known for his cunning and aloof nature. During the winter, Bambi meets Marena, a young doe, Nettla, an old doe who no longer bears young, and two princes Ronno and Karus. Mid-winter, hunters enter the forest, killing many animals including Bambi's mother. Gobo also disappears and is presumed dead. After this, the novel skips ahead a year, noting that Bambi was cared for by Nettla, and that when he got his first set of antlers he was abused and harassed by the other males. It is summer and Bambi is now sporting his second set of antlers. He is reunited with Faline. After he battles and defeats first Karus then Ronno, Bambi and Faline express their love for one another. They spend a great deal of time together. During this time, the old Prince saves Bambi's life when he nearly runs towards a hunter imitating a doe's call. This teaches the young buck to be cautious about blindly rushing toward any deer's call. During the summer, Gobo returns to the forest having been raised by a man who found him collapsed in the snow during the hunt where Bambi's mother was killed. While his mother and Marena welcome him and celebrate him as a \"friend\" of man, the old Prince and Bambi pity him. Marena becomes his mate, but several weeks later Gobo is killed when he approaches a hunter in the meadow, falsely believing the halter he wore would keep him safe from all men. As Bambi continues to age, he begins spending most of his time alone, including avoiding Faline though he still loves her in a melancholy way. Several times he meets with the old Prince who teaches him about snares, shows him how to free another animal from one, and encourages him not to use trails to"
      },
      {
        "text": " mate, but several weeks later Gobo is killed when he approaches a hunter in the meadow, falsely believing the halter he wore would keep him safe from all men. As Bambi continues to age, he begins spending most of his time alone, including avoiding Faline though he still loves her in a melancholy way. Several times he meets with the old Prince who teaches him about snares, shows him how to free another animal from one, and encourages him not to use trails to avoid the traps of men. When Bambi is later shot by a hunter, the Prince shows him how to walk in circles to confuse the man and his dogs until the bleeding stops, then takes him to a safe place to recover. They remain together until Bambi is strong enough to leave the safe haven again. When Bambi has grown gray and is \"old\", the old Prince shows him that man is not all powerful by showing him the dead body of a man who was shot and killed by another man. When Bambi confirms that he now understands that \"He\" is not all powerful, and that there is \"Another\" over all creatures, the stag tells him that he has always loved him and calls him \"my son\" before leaving to die. At the end of the novel, Bambi meets with twin fawns who are calling for their mother and he scolds them for not being able to stay alone. After leaving them, he thinks to himself that the girl fawn reminded him of Faline, and that the male was promising and that Bambi hoped to meet him again when he was grown.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " that the girl fawn reminded him of Faline, and that the male was promising and that Bambi hoped to meet him again when he was grown.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Robots and Empire",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1985",
    "synopsis": " The Earthman Elijah Baley (the detective hero of the previous Robot books), has died nearly two centuries earlier. During these two centuries, the balance of forces in the galaxy has changed dramatically. Inspired partly by Baley's adventures in space (on the \"Spacer\" worlds of Solaria and Aurora), Earth-people have overcome their stagnation and agoraphobia, and embarked on a new wave of space colonization, using faster-than-light drive to reach distant planets throughout the Milky Way Galaxy, beyond the earlier \"Spacer\" worlds. These newly colonized worlds are clearly distinct from the earlier \"Spacer\" ones, and their inhabitants, calling themselves \"Settlers\" rather than \"Spacers\", revere Earth as their mother-world. Meanwhile, Baley's memory remains in the mind of his former lover, Gladia Delmarre, a \"Spacer\", who has a centuries-long lifespan, as opposed to the seven or eight decades that Earth people (such as Baley) live. It is discovered that Solaria, the homeworld of Gladia, and the 50th-established of the Spacer planets, has been abandoned and has become empty of all inhabitants (except for millions of robot servants, which have been left behind). Gladia then meets a seventh-generation descendant of Baley's, Daneel Giskard (or D.G.) Baley, a Settler-Trader. He asks for Gladia's help in visiting Solaria, in order to unravel the mysterious destruction of several \"Settler\" spaceships making landings there, and also with the mission of reclaiming the abandoned robots. Gladia agrees to go, and is accompanied by the positronic robots R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard Reventlov. [R. Giskard has secret telepathic powers about which only R. Daneel knows.] These robots are both the former property of their creator, Dr. Han Fastolfe, who bequeathed them to Gladia in his will. At the same time, Daneel and Giskard are engaged in a struggle of wits with Fastolfe's bitter archrivals, the roboticists Kelden Amadiro and Vasilia Aliena, Fastolfe's estranged daughter. Whereas Fastolfe supported the expansion of the \"Settler\" population from Earth, Amadiro detests all Settlers - as do most \"Spacers\", who consider all Earthlings to be little better than barbarians. Amadiro wants to see the Earthlings destroyed, so that the descendants of the Spacers alone can inherit the Milky Way (There are no other intelligent beings in Asimov's fictional galaxy). However, for many decades Amadiro has been continually thwarted in introducing an anti-Settler policy into the governments of the Spacers. These blockings of Amadiro's plans have been largely caused by the telepathic manipulation of key people by R. Giskard. Frustrated by his series of failures, Amadiro decides to accept an ambitious and unscrupulous apprentice, Levular Mandamus. Mandamus develops a cruel plan to destroy the population of the Earth, using a newly-developed weapon, the \"nuclear intensifier\". Amadiro and Mandamus intend to kill the population of the Earth and to make the Earth uninhabitable for human beings by using radioactivity. They intend to use the nuclear intensifier device to speed up all of the natural radioactive decay processes in the upper crust of the Earth, thereby making the surface of the Earth massively radioactive. [Note: At the time of Asimov's writing, there had been the recent discovery of the W particle, which is the force carrier of the weak nuclear force. This force is responsible for most forms of nuclear decay: alpha emission and beta emission. The hypothetical \"nuclear intensifier\" would work by emitting large numbers of W particles, hence expediting nuclear decay.] While Amadiro schemes, R. Daneel and R. Giskard slowly assemble the pieces of the roboticists' genocidal plan for mass murder. The robots, sharing Fastolfe's humane vision of a unified Settler/Spacer Galaxy - or, failing that, a Galaxy where Settlers can thrive in spite of Spacer domination - attempt to stop Amadiro. However, Daneel and Giskard are hampered by the Three Laws of Robotics, in particular, by the First Law of Robotics, which prevents them from making any direct attack on Amadiro. Daneel, meanwhile, has formulated an additional Zeroth Law of Robotics, which he thinks might help them to override the First Law, and to save the population of the Earth. The robots must work their way through the ramifications of the First Law and the Zeroth Law, in a race against time, before they face a confrontation with Amadiro and Mandamus. Fastolfe's brilliant daughter Vasilia has long coveted the valuable Giskard, and she finally determines to take him away from Gladia. Then, when Vasilia deduces that Giskard has telepathy, she confronts him with this fact. Giskard is compelled to manipulate her mind telepathically in order to make her forget about his telepathic powers. This leaves the two positronic robots free to deal with Amadiro. The two robots locate Amadiro and Mandamus on Earth, where they find the two Spacers debating the best way to use the nuclear intensifier for their ghoulish purposes. (They just happen to be at the site of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania). After Amadiro admits to the robots their plans to carry out mass murder on the Earth, Giskard decides that it is necessary to tamper with Amadiro's brain (using the newly-created Zeroth Law). Unfortunately, the way that Giskard does this causes irreversible damage to Amadiro's brain - and thus harm to him, as is forbidden by the First Law. Giskard is mentally \"skating on thin ice\" in this regard - and he is not far from suffering the consequences of such action. Now standing alone with the robots, Mandamus claims that his intentions regarding the nuclear intensifier were more benign than Amadiro's. Mandamus wants to draw out the radioactive catastrophe over many decades, rather than the mere years that Amadiro wanted, so that Amadiro could draw evil pleasure from the destruction of the Earth's population within his own lifetime. Giskard decides that it would be best for humanity to abandon the Earth, hence he allows Mandamus to adjust the settings of the nuclear intensifier. He extends the time scale of the radioactive catastrophe to 150 years, allowing humanity to evacuate the Earth (though a significant population still dwells there at the time of the novel Pebble in the Sky). Next, Giskard tampers with Mandamus's mind as well, ensuring that Mandamus will have no memory of what has happened. Giskard predicts, correctly, that by forcing humanity's hand into leaving the Earth, vigor will be reintroduced into mankind and the new Settlers will spread out across space at a rate never before seen. This will continue until all the governments of the interstellar colonies decide to unite into one \"Galactic Empire\". However, by allowing Mandamus to proceed with his original plan, Giskard becomes instrumental in creating a very radioactive planet Earth, and hence placing the inhabitants of Earth under grave threat of death. This contradicts the First Law of Robotics. The Zeroth Law does not prove to be enough, to Giskard at least, to justify harming humans for the sake of a hypothetical future benefit. Under the stress of changing the course of humanity, R. Giskard himself suffers a cascading and soon-fatal malfunction of his positronic brain. This is because he is not sure whether his actions will bring about an ultimate victory for the Spacers, leading to the final death of humanity. However before R. Giskard's brain freezes, he confers his telepathic ability upon R. Daneel, and Daneel takes on the heavy burden of guiding the entire burgeoning Galactic civilization.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Earthman Elijah Baley (the detective hero of the previous Robot books), has died nearly two centuries earlier. During these two centuries, the balance of forces in the galaxy has changed dramatically. Inspired partly by Baley's adventures in space (on the \"Spacer\" worlds of Solaria and Aurora), Earth-people have overcome their stagnation and agoraphobia, and embarked on a new wave of space colonization, using faster-than-light drive to reach distant planets throughout the Milky Way Galaxy, beyond the earlier \"Spacer\" worlds. These newly colonized worlds are clearly distinct from the earlier \"Spacer\" ones, and their inhabitants, calling themselves \"Settlers\" rather than \"Spacers\", revere Earth as their mother-world. Meanwhile, Baley's memory remains in the mind of his former lover, Gladia Delmarre, a \"Spacer\", who has a centuries-long lifespan, as opposed to the seven or eight decades that Earth people (such as Baley) live. It is discovered that Solaria, the homeworld of Gladia, and the 50th-established of the Spacer planets, has been abandoned and has become empty of all inhabitants (except for millions of robot servants, which have been left behind). Gladia then meets a seventh-generation descendant of Baley's, Daneel Giskard (or D.G.) Baley, a Settler-Trader. He asks for Gladia's help in visiting Solaria, in order to unravel the mysterious destruction of several \"Settler\" spaceships making landings there, and also with the mission of reclaiming the abandoned robots. Gladia agrees to go, and is accompanied by the positronic robots R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard Reventlov. [R. Giskard has secret telepathic powers about which only R. Daneel knows.] These robots are both the former property of their creator, Dr."
      },
      {
        "text": " visiting Solaria, in order to unravel the mysterious destruction of several \"Settler\" spaceships making landings there, and also with the mission of reclaiming the abandoned robots. Gladia agrees to go, and is accompanied by the positronic robots R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard Reventlov. [R. Giskard has secret telepathic powers about which only R. Daneel knows.] These robots are both the former property of their creator, Dr. Han Fastolfe, who bequeathed them to Gladia in his will. At the same time, Daneel and Giskard are engaged in a struggle of wits with Fastolfe's bitter archrivals, the roboticists Kelden Amadiro and Vasilia Aliena, Fastolfe's estranged daughter. Whereas Fastolfe supported the expansion of the \"Settler\" population from Earth, Amadiro detests all Settlers - as do most \"Spacers\", who consider all Earthlings to be little better than barbarians. Amadiro wants to see the Earthlings destroyed, so that the descendants of the Spacers alone can inherit the Milky Way (There are no other intelligent beings in Asimov's fictional galaxy). However, for many decades Amadiro has been continually thwarted in introducing an anti-Settler policy into the governments of the Spacers. These blockings of Amadiro's plans have been largely caused by the telepathic manipulation of key people by R. Giskard. Frustrated by his series of failures, Amadiro decides to accept an ambitious and unscrupulous apprentice, Levular Mandamus. Mandamus develops a cruel plan to destroy the population of the Earth, using a newly-developed weapon, the \"nuclear intensifier\". Amadiro and Mandamus intend to kill the population of the Earth and to make the Earth uninhabitable for human beings by using radioactivity. They intend to use"
      },
      {
        "text": "pathic manipulation of key people by R. Giskard. Frustrated by his series of failures, Amadiro decides to accept an ambitious and unscrupulous apprentice, Levular Mandamus. Mandamus develops a cruel plan to destroy the population of the Earth, using a newly-developed weapon, the \"nuclear intensifier\". Amadiro and Mandamus intend to kill the population of the Earth and to make the Earth uninhabitable for human beings by using radioactivity. They intend to use the nuclear intensifier device to speed up all of the natural radioactive decay processes in the upper crust of the Earth, thereby making the surface of the Earth massively radioactive. [Note: At the time of Asimov's writing, there had been the recent discovery of the W particle, which is the force carrier of the weak nuclear force. This force is responsible for most forms of nuclear decay: alpha emission and beta emission. The hypothetical \"nuclear intensifier\" would work by emitting large numbers of W particles, hence expediting nuclear decay.] While Amadiro schemes, R. Daneel and R. Giskard slowly assemble the pieces of the roboticists' genocidal plan for mass murder. The robots, sharing Fastolfe's humane vision of a unified Settler/Spacer Galaxy - or, failing that, a Galaxy where Settlers can thrive in spite of Spacer domination - attempt to stop Amadiro. However, Daneel and Giskard are hampered by the Three Laws of Robotics, in particular, by the First Law of Robotics, which prevents them from making any direct attack on Amadiro. Daneel, meanwhile, has formulated an additional Zeroth Law of Robotics, which he thinks might help them to override the First Law, and to save the population of the Earth. The robots must work their way through the ramifications of the First Law and the Zeroth Law, in a race against time, before they face a confrontation with Amadiro and Mandamus."
      },
      {
        "text": " of Robotics, in particular, by the First Law of Robotics, which prevents them from making any direct attack on Amadiro. Daneel, meanwhile, has formulated an additional Zeroth Law of Robotics, which he thinks might help them to override the First Law, and to save the population of the Earth. The robots must work their way through the ramifications of the First Law and the Zeroth Law, in a race against time, before they face a confrontation with Amadiro and Mandamus. Fastolfe's brilliant daughter Vasilia has long coveted the valuable Giskard, and she finally determines to take him away from Gladia. Then, when Vasilia deduces that Giskard has telepathy, she confronts him with this fact. Giskard is compelled to manipulate her mind telepathically in order to make her forget about his telepathic powers. This leaves the two positronic robots free to deal with Amadiro. The two robots locate Amadiro and Mandamus on Earth, where they find the two Spacers debating the best way to use the nuclear intensifier for their ghoulish purposes. (They just happen to be at the site of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania). After Amadiro admits to the robots their plans to carry out mass murder on the Earth, Giskard decides that it is necessary to tamper with Amadiro's brain (using the newly-created Zeroth Law). Unfortunately, the way that Giskard does this causes irreversible damage to Amadiro's brain - and thus harm to him, as is forbidden by the First Law. Giskard is mentally \"skating on thin ice\" in this regard - and he is not far from suffering the consequences of such action. Now standing alone with the robots, Mandamus claims that his intentions regarding the nuclear intensifier were more benign than Amadiro's. Mandamus wants to draw out the radioactive catastrophe over many decades, rather than the mere years that Amad"
      },
      {
        "text": " irreversible damage to Amadiro's brain - and thus harm to him, as is forbidden by the First Law. Giskard is mentally \"skating on thin ice\" in this regard - and he is not far from suffering the consequences of such action. Now standing alone with the robots, Mandamus claims that his intentions regarding the nuclear intensifier were more benign than Amadiro's. Mandamus wants to draw out the radioactive catastrophe over many decades, rather than the mere years that Amadiro wanted, so that Amadiro could draw evil pleasure from the destruction of the Earth's population within his own lifetime. Giskard decides that it would be best for humanity to abandon the Earth, hence he allows Mandamus to adjust the settings of the nuclear intensifier. He extends the time scale of the radioactive catastrophe to 150 years, allowing humanity to evacuate the Earth (though a significant population still dwells there at the time of the novel Pebble in the Sky). Next, Giskard tampers with Mandamus's mind as well, ensuring that Mandamus will have no memory of what has happened. Giskard predicts, correctly, that by forcing humanity's hand into leaving the Earth, vigor will be reintroduced into mankind and the new Settlers will spread out across space at a rate never before seen. This will continue until all the governments of the interstellar colonies decide to unite into one \"Galactic Empire\". However, by allowing Mandamus to proceed with his original plan, Giskard becomes instrumental in creating a very radioactive planet Earth, and hence placing the inhabitants of Earth under grave threat of death. This contradicts the First Law of Robotics. The Zeroth Law does not prove to be enough, to Giskard at least, to justify harming humans for the sake of a hypothetical future benefit. Under the stress of changing the course of humanity, R. Giskard himself suffers a cascading and soon-fatal malfunction of his positronic brain. This is because"
      },
      {
        "text": " Giskard becomes instrumental in creating a very radioactive planet Earth, and hence placing the inhabitants of Earth under grave threat of death. This contradicts the First Law of Robotics. The Zeroth Law does not prove to be enough, to Giskard at least, to justify harming humans for the sake of a hypothetical future benefit. Under the stress of changing the course of humanity, R. Giskard himself suffers a cascading and soon-fatal malfunction of his positronic brain. This is because he is not sure whether his actions will bring about an ultimate victory for the Spacers, leading to the final death of humanity. However before R. Giskard's brain freezes, he confers his telepathic ability upon R. Daneel, and Daneel takes on the heavy burden of guiding the entire burgeoning Galactic civilization.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Foundation",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1951",
    "synopsis": " Foundation tells the story of a group of scientists who seek to preserve knowledge as the civilizations around them begin to regress. (0 F.E.) (First published as the book edition in 1951) Set in the year 0 F.E., The Psychohistorians opens on Trantor, the capital of the 12,000-year-old Galactic Empire. Though the empire appears stable and powerful, it is slowly decaying in ways that parallel the decline of the Western Roman Empire. Hari Seldon, a mathematician and psychologist, has developed psychohistory, a new field of science and psychology that equates all possibilities in large societies to mathematics, allowing for the prediction of future events. Using psychohistory, Seldon has discovered the declining nature of the Empire, angering the aristocratic members of the Committee of Public Safety, the de facto rulers of the Empire. The Committee considers Seldon's views and statements treasonous, and he is arrested along with young mathematician Gaal Dornick, who has arrived on Trantor to meet Seldon. Seldon is tried by the Committee and defends his beliefs, explaining his theories and predictions, including his belief that the Empire will collapse in 500 years and enter a 30,000-year dark age, to the Committee's members. He informs the Committee that an alternative to this future is attainable, and explains to them that creating a compendium of all human knowledge, the Encyclopedia Galactica, would not avert the inevitable fall of the Empire but would reduce the dark age to one millennium. The skeptical Committee, not wanting to make Seldon a martyr, offers him exile to a remote world, Terminus, with others who could help him create the Encyclopedia. He accepts their offer, prepares for the departure of the \"Encyclopedists\" and receives an imperial decree officially acknowledging his actions. (50 F.E.) (published May 1942 as \"Foundation\") Set in 50 F.E., The Encyclopedists begins on Terminus, which has no mineral resources but one region suitable for the development of large city, named Terminus City. The colony of professionals, devoted to the creation of the Encyclopedia, is managed by the Board of Trustees of the Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation, composed solely of scientists. The affairs of Terminus City itself are handled by the city's mayor, Salvor Hardin, who is virtually powerless due to the influence of the Board of Trustees. However, Hardin does not accept the status quo, which he believes puts Terminus in danger of political exploitation by the neighboring prefects of the Empire, which have declared independence and severed contact with Trantor. Hardin, recognizing the imminent downfall of imperial power due to the loss of the Empire's outermost region, decides that the only way to ensure Terminus's continued survival is to pit the four neighboring \"kingdoms\" against one another. Hardin manages to avoid an attempt by the Kingdom of Anacreon to establish military bases on Terminus and to take advantage of nuclear power, which Terminus retains but which the Four Kingdoms do not. Hardin succeeds in diverting Anacreon from its initial goal and furthers his goal of the establishment of a stable political system on Terminus. Hardin's efforts, however, are still resisted by the Board of Trustees and its chairman, Dr. Louis Pirenne. To remove this obstacle, Hardin and his chief advisor, Yohan Lee, plan a coup d'etat designed to remove the Board of Trustees from its politically-powerful position on the same day that, in the city's Time Vault, a holographic recording of Hari Seldon is programmed to play. The recording will contain psychohistoric proof of Hardin's success or failure; Hardin realizes that his coup is a great gamble due to the possible case that his beliefs are incompatible with Seldon's original goals. At the playing of the Seldon recording, it is revealed that the Encyclopedia Galactica is a distraction intended to make the colony's creation possible. The true goal of the Foundation is to further science in a galaxy consumed by interplanetary strife, the Board realizes, and hands its political power to the Terminus City mayoralty. Meanwhile, Lee engineers the nonviolent takeover of Foundation institutions by the city government. (80 F.E.) (published June 1942 as \"Bridle and Saddle\") Set in 80 F.E., three decades after the events of The Encyclopedists, The Mayors is set in a time where the Encyclopedia Foundation's scientific understanding has given it significant leverage over the Four Kingdoms, though it is still isolated from the Galactic Empire. Exercising its control over the region through an artificial religion, Scientism, the Foundation shares its technology with the Four Kingdoms while referring to it as religious truth. Maintenance technicians comprise Scientism's priesthood, trained on Terminus. A majority of the priests themselves are unaware of the true importance of their \"religion\", referring to advanced technology as \"holy food\". The religion is not suppressed by the secular elite of the Four Kingdoms, reminscient of Western European rulers of the early medieval period, who use it to consolidate their power over the zealous populaces. Salvor Hardin, as Mayor of Terminus City, is the effective ruler of the Foundation, and has been reelected as mayor continuously since his political victory over the Encyclopedia Galactica Board of Trustees. However, his influence is suddenly checked by a new political movement led by city councillor Sef Sermak, which encourages direct action against the Four Kingdoms and a cessation of the scientific proselytizing encouraged by Hardin's administration. The movement, whose followers refer to themselves as Actionists, is wildly popular, and Hardin is unable to appease Sermak and the Actionist leadership. The kingdom that is most concerning to the Actionists is that of Anacreon, ruled by Prince Regent Wienis and his nephew, the teenaged King Lepold I. Wienis plans to overthrow the Foundation's power by launching a direct military assault against Terminus, making use of an abandoned Imperial space cruiser redesigned by Foundation experts to fit the needs of the elite Anacreonian navy. However, Hardin orders several secret technological devices to be incorporated into the ship's design prior to its completion. Wienis plans to launch his offensive on the night of his nephew's coronation as king and sole ruler of Anacreon. Hardin attends the coronation ceremony and is arrested, but has arranged with Anacreonian High Priest Poly Verisof, who is aware of the true nature of Scientism, to foster a popular uprising against Wienis. Convincing the Anacreonian populace that an assault against the Foundation and Terminus is blasphemous, Verisof leads an infuriated mob to the royal palace and surrounds it, demanding Hardin's release. Meanwhile, the crew of the space cruiser mutinies against its commander, Admiral Prince Lefkin, Wienis's son. Lefkin confronts the mutineers and, captured, is forced to broadcast a message to Anacreon demanding Wienis's arrest and threatening a bombardment of the royal palace if that and other demands are not met. Wienis, maddened by his failure, orders Hardin's execution, but his royal guardsmen refuse to obey him. Attempting and failing, due to a protective energy field, to kill Hardin personally, Wienis commits suicide. Hardin is proven correct again upon his return to Terminus City by another Seldon recording, set to play at this date. Though Actionists continue to hold a significant amount of power, an attempt to impeach the mayor fails and his popularity is renewed among the city's residents. It is also confirmed by Hari Seldon that the Foundation's immediate neighbors, the Four Kingdoms, will now be virtually powerless and incapable of resisting Scientism's advance. (About 135 F.E.) (published October 1944 as \"The Wedge\") The events of The Traders are set around 135 F.E., at a time during which the Foundation has expanded greatly and has sent out officially-sanctioned Traders to exchange technology with neighboring planets for what amounts to greater political and economic power. Master Trader Eskel Gorov, also an agent of the Foundation government, has traveled to the worlds of Askone, where he hopes to trade nucleics. Gorov, however, is met with resistance by Askone's governing Elders due to traditional taboos that effectively ban advanced technology. Gorov is imprisoned and sentenced to death; the Elders refuse Foundation requests for clemency. Trader Linmar Ponyets is ordered by the Foundation to try and negotiate with the Elders, and travels to the central Askonian planet. Ponyets meets with the Elders' Grand Master and deduces that, though he is determined to have Gorov executed, he may be willing to exchange the captive for a suitable bribe, which Ponyets realizes would be a sum of gold. Ponyets clumsily fashions a transmuter that will convert iron into gold. The Grand Master informs Ponyets that others who have attempted this have failed and have been punished with execution for both their attempt and for their failure; Ponyets succeeds and convinces the Grand Master that the gold is appropriate for Askonian religious decoration, which pleases the Elders. Councilor Pherl, the Grand Master's prot\u00e9g\u00e9, appears to be wary of Ponyets. Meeting with the Councilor, Ponyets discovers that Pherl is instead quite willing to work with him, if only due to the chances of eventually attaining the Grand Mastership himself. Pherl, from a different ethnic background than traditional Grand Masters and a young man, believes that a stable supply of gold will be able to dramatically increase his power, and Ponyets provides him with the transmuter. It appears that the friendly Pherl will ascend to the Grand Mastership, while Gorov is released quickly. Ponyets discusses his success with Gorov, who criticizes his techniques due to what he perceives as Ponyets's lack of morality. Ponyets replies by reminding Gorov of an alleged statement made by Salvor Hardin: \"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!\" (About 155 F.E.) (published August 1944 as \"The Big and the Little\") Set around 155 F.E., The Merchant Princes takes places against the backdrop of a powerful Foundation, which has subjugated the neighboring Four Kingdoms and expanded its commercial and technological empire throughout numerous stellar systems. However, it continues to meet resistance, and three Foundation vessels have vanished near the planets of the Republic of Korell, a nation suspected of independent technological development. Master Trader Hober Mallow is assigned to deal with Korell and also to investigate their technological developments and find the missing ships. Those who have assigned this mission to Mallow, Foreign Secretary Publius Manlio and the Mayor's secretary, Jorane Sutt, believe that a \"Seldon Crisis\" is underway; they fear that domestic tensions caused by the great autonomy given to Traders and shaky foreign relations may give rise to a nuclear conflict involving the Foundation. Sutt and Manlio, believing that they can weaken the Traders by staging an embarrassing diplomatic incident, plant an agent aboard Mallow's ship. The agent, a respected Trader, invites a Foundation missionary onto the ship once it reaches Korell. Such missionaries are forbidden to enter Korell, and an angry mob immediately surrounds the ship, demanding the missionary. This rapid response in a remote location arouses Mallow's suspicions, and Mallow gives the missionary to the mob, despite the frantic intervention of the agent. Later, Mallow meets with Korell's authoritarian ruler, Commdor Asper Argo, who appears friendly and welcomes Foundation technological gifts. Argo refuses to allow Scientism on Korell, and Mallow agrees not to encourage missionary work in the Republic. Mallow is invited to tour a steel foundry belonging to Korell's government, where he notes guards carrying atomic handguns. He is surprised to discover that these weapons bear the markings of the Galactic Empire, which the Foundation assumes has fallen by this time. Mallow's discoveries lead him to believe that the Empire may be attempting to expand into the Periphery again, and has been providing weapons to client states such as Korell. Leaving the Republic and his ship, he journeys alone to the planet Siwenna, which he believes may be the capital of an Imperial province. He finds Siwenna a desolate and sad place, and meets the impoverished patrician Onum Barr in the latter's isolated mansion, which is slowly crumbling. Barr, a former provincial senator and a leading citizen, had served in the Imperial government on Siwenna during a fairly stable time several decades earlier, before a series of corrupt and ambitious viceroys who each harbored dreams of becoming Emperor. After the previous viceroy rebelled against the Emperor, Barr participated in a revolution that overthrew the viceroy. However, the Imperial fleet also sent to remove the viceroy wanted to conquer a rebellious province even if it was no longer in rebellion, and began a massacre that claimed the lives of all but one of Barr's children. Mallow is tried for murder upon his return to Terminus, due to turning over the Foundation missionary to the mob. However, he is able to convince the court that the \"missionary\" was in fact a Korellian secret policeman who played a part in the conspiracy against the Traders manufactured by Sutt and Manlio. Acquitted, Mallow is received with delight by the population of Terminus, which will almost undoubtedly select him as Mayor in the elections scheduled to take place in the following year. To prepare for the election, Mallow engineers the arrest of Sutt and Manlio, and eventually takes office. However, he is soon faced with tensions between the Foundation and Korell, which declares war on the Foundation, using its powerful Imperial flotilla to attack Foundation ships. Instead of counterattacking, Mallow takes no action, waiting until the lack of Foundation goods forces Korell to surrender.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Foundation tells the story of a group of scientists who seek to preserve knowledge as the civilizations around them begin to regress. (0 F.E.) (First published as the book edition in 1951) Set in the year 0 F.E., The Psychohistorians opens on Trantor, the capital of the 12,000-year-old Galactic Empire. Though the empire appears stable and powerful, it is slowly decaying in ways that parallel the decline of the Western Roman Empire. Hari Seldon, a mathematician and psychologist, has developed psychohistory, a new field of science and psychology that equates all possibilities in large societies to mathematics, allowing for the prediction of future events. Using psychohistory, Seldon has discovered the declining nature of the Empire, angering the aristocratic members of the Committee of Public Safety, the de facto rulers of the Empire. The Committee considers Seldon's views and statements treasonous, and he is arrested along with young mathematician Gaal Dornick, who has arrived on Trantor to meet Seldon. Seldon is tried by the Committee and defends his beliefs, explaining his theories and predictions, including his belief that the Empire will collapse in 500 years and enter a 30,000-year dark age, to the Committee's members. He informs the Committee that an alternative to this future is attainable, and explains to them that creating a compendium of all human knowledge, the Encyclopedia Galactica, would not avert the inevitable fall of the Empire but would reduce the dark age to one millennium. The skeptical Committee, not wanting to make Seldon a martyr, offers him exile to a remote world, Terminus, with others who could help him create the Encyclopedia. He accepts their offer, prepares for the departure of the \"Encyclopedists\" and receives an imperial decree officially acknowledging his actions. (50 F.E.) (published May 1942 as \"Foundation\") Set in 50 F.E., The Encycl"
      },
      {
        "text": " fall of the Empire but would reduce the dark age to one millennium. The skeptical Committee, not wanting to make Seldon a martyr, offers him exile to a remote world, Terminus, with others who could help him create the Encyclopedia. He accepts their offer, prepares for the departure of the \"Encyclopedists\" and receives an imperial decree officially acknowledging his actions. (50 F.E.) (published May 1942 as \"Foundation\") Set in 50 F.E., The Encyclopedists begins on Terminus, which has no mineral resources but one region suitable for the development of large city, named Terminus City. The colony of professionals, devoted to the creation of the Encyclopedia, is managed by the Board of Trustees of the Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation, composed solely of scientists. The affairs of Terminus City itself are handled by the city's mayor, Salvor Hardin, who is virtually powerless due to the influence of the Board of Trustees. However, Hardin does not accept the status quo, which he believes puts Terminus in danger of political exploitation by the neighboring prefects of the Empire, which have declared independence and severed contact with Trantor. Hardin, recognizing the imminent downfall of imperial power due to the loss of the Empire's outermost region, decides that the only way to ensure Terminus's continued survival is to pit the four neighboring \"kingdoms\" against one another. Hardin manages to avoid an attempt by the Kingdom of Anacreon to establish military bases on Terminus and to take advantage of nuclear power, which Terminus retains but which the Four Kingdoms do not. Hardin succeeds in diverting Anacreon from its initial goal and furthers his goal of the establishment of a stable political system on Terminus. Hardin's efforts, however, are still resisted by the Board of Trustees and its chairman, Dr. Louis Pirenne. To remove this obstacle, Hardin and his chief advisor, Y"
      },
      {
        "text": " Anacreon to establish military bases on Terminus and to take advantage of nuclear power, which Terminus retains but which the Four Kingdoms do not. Hardin succeeds in diverting Anacreon from its initial goal and furthers his goal of the establishment of a stable political system on Terminus. Hardin's efforts, however, are still resisted by the Board of Trustees and its chairman, Dr. Louis Pirenne. To remove this obstacle, Hardin and his chief advisor, Yohan Lee, plan a coup d'etat designed to remove the Board of Trustees from its politically-powerful position on the same day that, in the city's Time Vault, a holographic recording of Hari Seldon is programmed to play. The recording will contain psychohistoric proof of Hardin's success or failure; Hardin realizes that his coup is a great gamble due to the possible case that his beliefs are incompatible with Seldon's original goals. At the playing of the Seldon recording, it is revealed that the Encyclopedia Galactica is a distraction intended to make the colony's creation possible. The true goal of the Foundation is to further science in a galaxy consumed by interplanetary strife, the Board realizes, and hands its political power to the Terminus City mayoralty. Meanwhile, Lee engineers the nonviolent takeover of Foundation institutions by the city government. (80 F.E.) (published June 1942 as \"Bridle and Saddle\") Set in 80 F.E., three decades after the events of The Encyclopedists, The Mayors is set in a time where the Encyclopedia Foundation's scientific understanding has given it significant leverage over the Four Kingdoms, though it is still isolated from the Galactic Empire. Exercising its control over the region through an artificial religion, Scientism, the Foundation shares its technology with the Four Kingdoms while referring to it as religious truth. Maintenance technicians comprise Scientism's priesthood, trained on Terminus. A majority of the"
      },
      {
        "text": ".E., three decades after the events of The Encyclopedists, The Mayors is set in a time where the Encyclopedia Foundation's scientific understanding has given it significant leverage over the Four Kingdoms, though it is still isolated from the Galactic Empire. Exercising its control over the region through an artificial religion, Scientism, the Foundation shares its technology with the Four Kingdoms while referring to it as religious truth. Maintenance technicians comprise Scientism's priesthood, trained on Terminus. A majority of the priests themselves are unaware of the true importance of their \"religion\", referring to advanced technology as \"holy food\". The religion is not suppressed by the secular elite of the Four Kingdoms, reminscient of Western European rulers of the early medieval period, who use it to consolidate their power over the zealous populaces. Salvor Hardin, as Mayor of Terminus City, is the effective ruler of the Foundation, and has been reelected as mayor continuously since his political victory over the Encyclopedia Galactica Board of Trustees. However, his influence is suddenly checked by a new political movement led by city councillor Sef Sermak, which encourages direct action against the Four Kingdoms and a cessation of the scientific proselytizing encouraged by Hardin's administration. The movement, whose followers refer to themselves as Actionists, is wildly popular, and Hardin is unable to appease Sermak and the Actionist leadership. The kingdom that is most concerning to the Actionists is that of Anacreon, ruled by Prince Regent Wienis and his nephew, the teenaged King Lepold I. Wienis plans to overthrow the Foundation's power by launching a direct military assault against Terminus, making use of an abandoned Imperial space cruiser redesigned by Foundation experts to fit the needs of the elite Anacreonian navy. However, Hardin orders several secret technological devices to be incorporated into the ship's design prior to its completion. Wienis plans to launch his offensive on the night"
      },
      {
        "text": "acreon, ruled by Prince Regent Wienis and his nephew, the teenaged King Lepold I. Wienis plans to overthrow the Foundation's power by launching a direct military assault against Terminus, making use of an abandoned Imperial space cruiser redesigned by Foundation experts to fit the needs of the elite Anacreonian navy. However, Hardin orders several secret technological devices to be incorporated into the ship's design prior to its completion. Wienis plans to launch his offensive on the night of his nephew's coronation as king and sole ruler of Anacreon. Hardin attends the coronation ceremony and is arrested, but has arranged with Anacreonian High Priest Poly Verisof, who is aware of the true nature of Scientism, to foster a popular uprising against Wienis. Convincing the Anacreonian populace that an assault against the Foundation and Terminus is blasphemous, Verisof leads an infuriated mob to the royal palace and surrounds it, demanding Hardin's release. Meanwhile, the crew of the space cruiser mutinies against its commander, Admiral Prince Lefkin, Wienis's son. Lefkin confronts the mutineers and, captured, is forced to broadcast a message to Anacreon demanding Wienis's arrest and threatening a bombardment of the royal palace if that and other demands are not met. Wienis, maddened by his failure, orders Hardin's execution, but his royal guardsmen refuse to obey him. Attempting and failing, due to a protective energy field, to kill Hardin personally, Wienis commits suicide. Hardin is proven correct again upon his return to Terminus City by another Seldon recording, set to play at this date. Though Actionists continue to hold a significant amount of power, an attempt to impeach the mayor fails and his popularity is renewed among the city's residents. It is also confirmed by Hari Seldon that the Foundation's immediate"
      },
      {
        "text": " refuse to obey him. Attempting and failing, due to a protective energy field, to kill Hardin personally, Wienis commits suicide. Hardin is proven correct again upon his return to Terminus City by another Seldon recording, set to play at this date. Though Actionists continue to hold a significant amount of power, an attempt to impeach the mayor fails and his popularity is renewed among the city's residents. It is also confirmed by Hari Seldon that the Foundation's immediate neighbors, the Four Kingdoms, will now be virtually powerless and incapable of resisting Scientism's advance. (About 135 F.E.) (published October 1944 as \"The Wedge\") The events of The Traders are set around 135 F.E., at a time during which the Foundation has expanded greatly and has sent out officially-sanctioned Traders to exchange technology with neighboring planets for what amounts to greater political and economic power. Master Trader Eskel Gorov, also an agent of the Foundation government, has traveled to the worlds of Askone, where he hopes to trade nucleics. Gorov, however, is met with resistance by Askone's governing Elders due to traditional taboos that effectively ban advanced technology. Gorov is imprisoned and sentenced to death; the Elders refuse Foundation requests for clemency. Trader Linmar Ponyets is ordered by the Foundation to try and negotiate with the Elders, and travels to the central Askonian planet. Ponyets meets with the Elders' Grand Master and deduces that, though he is determined to have Gorov executed, he may be willing to exchange the captive for a suitable bribe, which Ponyets realizes would be a sum of gold. Ponyets clumsily fashions a transmuter that will convert iron into gold. The Grand Master informs Ponyets that others who have attempted this have failed and have been punished with execution for both their attempt and for their failure; Ponyets succeeds and convinces the Grand Master"
      },
      {
        "text": " Elders' Grand Master and deduces that, though he is determined to have Gorov executed, he may be willing to exchange the captive for a suitable bribe, which Ponyets realizes would be a sum of gold. Ponyets clumsily fashions a transmuter that will convert iron into gold. The Grand Master informs Ponyets that others who have attempted this have failed and have been punished with execution for both their attempt and for their failure; Ponyets succeeds and convinces the Grand Master that the gold is appropriate for Askonian religious decoration, which pleases the Elders. Councilor Pherl, the Grand Master's prot\u00e9g\u00e9, appears to be wary of Ponyets. Meeting with the Councilor, Ponyets discovers that Pherl is instead quite willing to work with him, if only due to the chances of eventually attaining the Grand Mastership himself. Pherl, from a different ethnic background than traditional Grand Masters and a young man, believes that a stable supply of gold will be able to dramatically increase his power, and Ponyets provides him with the transmuter. It appears that the friendly Pherl will ascend to the Grand Mastership, while Gorov is released quickly. Ponyets discusses his success with Gorov, who criticizes his techniques due to what he perceives as Ponyets's lack of morality. Ponyets replies by reminding Gorov of an alleged statement made by Salvor Hardin: \"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!\" (About 155 F.E.) (published August 1944 as \"The Big and the Little\") Set around 155 F.E., The Merchant Princes takes places against the backdrop of a powerful Foundation, which has subjugated the neighboring Four Kingdoms and expanded its commercial and technological empire throughout numerous stellar systems. However, it continues to meet resistance, and three Foundation vessels have vanished near the planets of the Republic of Korell, a nation suspected of independent technological development. Master"
      },
      {
        "text": " you from doing what is right!\" (About 155 F.E.) (published August 1944 as \"The Big and the Little\") Set around 155 F.E., The Merchant Princes takes places against the backdrop of a powerful Foundation, which has subjugated the neighboring Four Kingdoms and expanded its commercial and technological empire throughout numerous stellar systems. However, it continues to meet resistance, and three Foundation vessels have vanished near the planets of the Republic of Korell, a nation suspected of independent technological development. Master Trader Hober Mallow is assigned to deal with Korell and also to investigate their technological developments and find the missing ships. Those who have assigned this mission to Mallow, Foreign Secretary Publius Manlio and the Mayor's secretary, Jorane Sutt, believe that a \"Seldon Crisis\" is underway; they fear that domestic tensions caused by the great autonomy given to Traders and shaky foreign relations may give rise to a nuclear conflict involving the Foundation. Sutt and Manlio, believing that they can weaken the Traders by staging an embarrassing diplomatic incident, plant an agent aboard Mallow's ship. The agent, a respected Trader, invites a Foundation missionary onto the ship once it reaches Korell. Such missionaries are forbidden to enter Korell, and an angry mob immediately surrounds the ship, demanding the missionary. This rapid response in a remote location arouses Mallow's suspicions, and Mallow gives the missionary to the mob, despite the frantic intervention of the agent. Later, Mallow meets with Korell's authoritarian ruler, Commdor Asper Argo, who appears friendly and welcomes Foundation technological gifts. Argo refuses to allow Scientism on Korell, and Mallow agrees not to encourage missionary work in the Republic. Mallow is invited to tour a steel foundry belonging to Korell's government, where he notes guards carrying atomic handguns. He is surprised to discover that these weapons bear the markings of the Galactic Empire, which the Foundation assumes has fallen by this time"
      },
      {
        "text": " Mallow meets with Korell's authoritarian ruler, Commdor Asper Argo, who appears friendly and welcomes Foundation technological gifts. Argo refuses to allow Scientism on Korell, and Mallow agrees not to encourage missionary work in the Republic. Mallow is invited to tour a steel foundry belonging to Korell's government, where he notes guards carrying atomic handguns. He is surprised to discover that these weapons bear the markings of the Galactic Empire, which the Foundation assumes has fallen by this time. Mallow's discoveries lead him to believe that the Empire may be attempting to expand into the Periphery again, and has been providing weapons to client states such as Korell. Leaving the Republic and his ship, he journeys alone to the planet Siwenna, which he believes may be the capital of an Imperial province. He finds Siwenna a desolate and sad place, and meets the impoverished patrician Onum Barr in the latter's isolated mansion, which is slowly crumbling. Barr, a former provincial senator and a leading citizen, had served in the Imperial government on Siwenna during a fairly stable time several decades earlier, before a series of corrupt and ambitious viceroys who each harbored dreams of becoming Emperor. After the previous viceroy rebelled against the Emperor, Barr participated in a revolution that overthrew the viceroy. However, the Imperial fleet also sent to remove the viceroy wanted to conquer a rebellious province even if it was no longer in rebellion, and began a massacre that claimed the lives of all but one of Barr's children. Mallow is tried for murder upon his return to Terminus, due to turning over the Foundation missionary to the mob. However, he is able to convince the court that the \"missionary\" was in fact a Korellian secret policeman who played a part in the conspiracy against the Traders manufactured by Sutt and Manlio. Acquitted, Mallow is received with delight by the population of Terminus"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and began a massacre that claimed the lives of all but one of Barr's children. Mallow is tried for murder upon his return to Terminus, due to turning over the Foundation missionary to the mob. However, he is able to convince the court that the \"missionary\" was in fact a Korellian secret policeman who played a part in the conspiracy against the Traders manufactured by Sutt and Manlio. Acquitted, Mallow is received with delight by the population of Terminus, which will almost undoubtedly select him as Mayor in the elections scheduled to take place in the following year. To prepare for the election, Mallow engineers the arrest of Sutt and Manlio, and eventually takes office. However, he is soon faced with tensions between the Foundation and Korell, which declares war on the Foundation, using its powerful Imperial flotilla to attack Foundation ships. Instead of counterattacking, Mallow takes no action, waiting until the lack of Foundation goods forces Korell to surrender.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Second Foundation",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1953",
    "synopsis": " Part I: Search By the Mule is about The Mule's search for the elusive Second Foundation, with the intent of destroying it. The executive council of the Second Foundation is aware of the Mule's intent and, in the words of the First Speaker, allows him to find it -- \"in a sense\". In the end the agents of the Second Foundation are able to catch the Mule off guard and telepathically alter his psyche, causing him to return to Kalgan to live out the remainder of his short life as essentially a benevolent despot. Search by the Mule was originally published in the January 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction under the title \"Now You See It\u2014\". Part II: Search By the Foundation takes place sixty years after the first part, fifty-five years after the Mule's death (by natural causes). The members of the (First) Foundation are now fully aware that the Second Foundation is out there (they had known of its existence all along, but had not known its purpose or nature until the Mule's arrival). Also concurrent with this plot thread is the Foundation's ongoing conflict with the Mule's former imperial capital at Kalgan. The ensuing war is won by the Foundation, and is listed in the Encyclopedia Galactica as the last major conflict before the rise of the Second Empire. After inventing a device that can jam telepathic abilities and can even be used to cause telepaths great pain, the Foundation finds and locates telepaths on Terminus, \"at the other end of the galaxy\" (from the First Foundation, also at Terminus). Since, as Arkady Darell puts it, \"a circle has no end\", then by tracing the disc of the galaxy around its edge, one would come back to Terminus. Thus, they declare the Second Foundation destroyed after finding the roughly 50 mentalist agents on Terminus, and are content to forget the matter. Finally, in response to the question \"Where is the Second Foundation?\", the First Foundation had found an answer that fit. However, although this was \"the answer that satisfied\", this was not \"the answer that was true\". The Second Foundation was actually located on Trantor, at the centre of the galaxy. It was called \"Star's End\" due to the ancient saying that \"All roads lead to Trantor, and that is where all stars end\". The location was also said to fit the \"other end of the galaxy\" location since the galaxy is not in fact a disc, but a spiral &mdash; and from the edge, the other end of a spiral lies at the centre. The book also noted that Hari Seldon was a social scientist, not a physical one. When the two Foundations were founded, they could be described as being at opposite social ends of the Galaxy &mdash; with Trantor at the very center of galactic power and prestige, and Terminus at the other extreme, something the First Foundation failed to realize because its members were inclined to analyze Seldon's statement in physical terms. The Second Foundation would again be revisited in Foundation's Edge. Search by the Foundation was originally published in the November and December 1949 and January 1950 issues of Astounding Science Fiction under the title \"\u2014And Now You Don't\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Part I: Search By the Mule is about The Mule's search for the elusive Second Foundation, with the intent of destroying it. The executive council of the Second Foundation is aware of the Mule's intent and, in the words of the First Speaker, allows him to find it -- \"in a sense\". In the end the agents of the Second Foundation are able to catch the Mule off guard and telepathically alter his psyche, causing him to return to Kalgan to live out the remainder of his short life as essentially a benevolent despot. Search by the Mule was originally published in the January 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction under the title \"Now You See It\u2014\". Part II: Search By the Foundation takes place sixty years after the first part, fifty-five years after the Mule's death (by natural causes). The members of the (First) Foundation are now fully aware that the Second Foundation is out there (they had known of its existence all along, but had not known its purpose or nature until the Mule's arrival). Also concurrent with this plot thread is the Foundation's ongoing conflict with the Mule's former imperial capital at Kalgan. The ensuing war is won by the Foundation, and is listed in the Encyclopedia Galactica as the last major conflict before the rise of the Second Empire. After inventing a device that can jam telepathic abilities and can even be used to cause telepaths great pain, the Foundation finds and locates telepaths on Terminus, \"at the other end of the galaxy\" (from the First Foundation, also at Terminus). Since, as Arkady Darell puts it, \"a circle has no end\", then by tracing the disc of the galaxy around its edge, one would come back to Terminus. Thus, they declare the Second Foundation destroyed after finding the roughly 50 mentalist agents on Terminus, and are content to forget the matter. Finally, in response to the question"
      },
      {
        "text": "ates telepaths on Terminus, \"at the other end of the galaxy\" (from the First Foundation, also at Terminus). Since, as Arkady Darell puts it, \"a circle has no end\", then by tracing the disc of the galaxy around its edge, one would come back to Terminus. Thus, they declare the Second Foundation destroyed after finding the roughly 50 mentalist agents on Terminus, and are content to forget the matter. Finally, in response to the question \"Where is the Second Foundation?\", the First Foundation had found an answer that fit. However, although this was \"the answer that satisfied\", this was not \"the answer that was true\". The Second Foundation was actually located on Trantor, at the centre of the galaxy. It was called \"Star's End\" due to the ancient saying that \"All roads lead to Trantor, and that is where all stars end\". The location was also said to fit the \"other end of the galaxy\" location since the galaxy is not in fact a disc, but a spiral &mdash; and from the edge, the other end of a spiral lies at the centre. The book also noted that Hari Seldon was a social scientist, not a physical one. When the two Foundations were founded, they could be described as being at opposite social ends of the Galaxy &mdash; with Trantor at the very center of galactic power and prestige, and Terminus at the other extreme, something the First Foundation failed to realize because its members were inclined to analyze Seldon's statement in physical terms. The Second Foundation would again be revisited in Foundation's Edge. Search by the Foundation was originally published in the November and December 1949 and January 1950 issues of Astounding Science Fiction under the title \"\u2014And Now You Don't\".\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " extreme, something the First Foundation failed to realize because its members were inclined to analyze Seldon's statement in physical terms. The Second Foundation would again be revisited in Foundation's Edge. Search by the Foundation was originally published in the November and December 1949 and January 1950 issues of Astounding Science Fiction under the title \"\u2014And Now You Don't\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Abolition of Work",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In the essay Black argues for the abolition of the producer- and consumer-based society, where, Black contends, all of life is devoted to the production and consumption of commodities. Attacking Marxist state socialism as much as Liberal capitalism, Black argues that the only way for humans to be free is to reclaim their time from jobs and employment, instead turning necessary subsistence tasks into free play done voluntarily \u2013 an approach referred to as \"ludic\". The essay argues that \"no-one should ever work\", because work - defined as compulsory productive activity enforced by economic or political means \u2013 is the source of most of the misery in the world. Black denounces work for its compulsion, and for the forms it takes \u2013 as subordination to a boss, as a \"job\" which turns a potentially enjoyable task into a meaningless chore, for the degradation imposed by systems of work-discipline, and for the large number of work-related deaths and injuries \u2013 which Black characterizes as homicide. He views the subordination enacted in workplaces as \"a mockery of freedom\", and denounces as hypocrites the various theorists who support freedom while supporting work. Subordination in work, Black alleges, makes people stupid and creates fear of freedom. Because of work, people become accustomed to rigidity and regularity, and do not have the time for friendship or meaningful activity. Many workers, he contends, are dissatisfied with work (as evidenced by absenteeism, goldbricking, embezzlement and sabotage), so that what he says should be uncontroversial; however, it is controversial only because people are too close to the work-system to see its flaws. Play, in contrast, is not necessarily rule-governed, and, more important, it is performed voluntarily, in complete freedom, for the satisfaction of engaging in the activity itself. But since intrinsically satisfying activity is not necessarily unproductive, \"productive play\" is possible, and, if generalized, might give rise to a gift economy. Black points out that hunter-gatherer societies are typified by play (in the sense of \"productive play\"), a view he backs up with the work of anthropologist Marshall Sahlins in his essay \"The Original Affluent Society,\" reprinted in his book \"Stone Age Economics\" (1971). Black has reiterated this interpretation of the ethnographic record, this time with citations and references, in \"Primitive Affluence,\" reprinted in his book \"Friendly Fire\" (Autonomedia 1994), and in \"Nightmares of Reason\" (a critique of Murray Bookchin posted at TheAnarchistLibrary.org). Black responds to the criticism (argued, for instance, by libertarian David Ramsey-Steele) that \"work,\" if not simply effort or energy, is necessary to get important but unpleasant tasks done, by contending that much work now currently done is unnecessary, because it only serves the purposes of social control and economic exploitation. Black has responded (in \"Smokestack Lightning,\" reprinted in \"Friendly Fire\") that of all, most important tasks can be rendered ludic, or \"salvaged\" by being turned into game-like and craft-like activities, and secondly that the vast majority of work does not need doing at all. The latter tasks are unnecessary because they only serve functions of commerce and social control that exist only to maintain the work-system as a whole. As for what is left, he advocates Charles Fourier's approach of arranging activities so that people will want to do them. He is also sceptical but open-minded about the possibility of eliminating work through labor-saving technologies, which, in his opinion, have so far never reduced work, and often deskilled and debased workers. As he sees it, the political left has, for the most part, failed to acknowledge as revolutionary the critique of work, limiting itself to the critique of wage-labor. The left, he contends, by glorifying the dignity of labor, has endorsed work itself, and also the work ethic. Black has often criticized leftism, especially Marxism, but he does not consider anarchism, which he espouses, as always advocating an understanding of work which is consistent with his critique of work. Black looks favorably, if critically, on a text such as \"The Right to Be Greedy,\" by the Situationist-influenced collective For Ourselves (he wrote a Preface for the Loompanics Unlimited reprint edition), which attempts to synthesize the post-moral individualism of Max Stirner (\"The Ego and Its Own\") with what appears to be an egalitarian anarcho-communism. What has been called \"zero-work\" remains controversial on the left and among anarchists.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the essay Black argues for the abolition of the producer- and consumer-based society, where, Black contends, all of life is devoted to the production and consumption of commodities. Attacking Marxist state socialism as much as Liberal capitalism, Black argues that the only way for humans to be free is to reclaim their time from jobs and employment, instead turning necessary subsistence tasks into free play done voluntarily \u2013 an approach referred to as \"ludic\". The essay argues that \"no-one should ever work\", because work - defined as compulsory productive activity enforced by economic or political means \u2013 is the source of most of the misery in the world. Black denounces work for its compulsion, and for the forms it takes \u2013 as subordination to a boss, as a \"job\" which turns a potentially enjoyable task into a meaningless chore, for the degradation imposed by systems of work-discipline, and for the large number of work-related deaths and injuries \u2013 which Black characterizes as homicide. He views the subordination enacted in workplaces as \"a mockery of freedom\", and denounces as hypocrites the various theorists who support freedom while supporting work. Subordination in work, Black alleges, makes people stupid and creates fear of freedom. Because of work, people become accustomed to rigidity and regularity, and do not have the time for friendship or meaningful activity. Many workers, he contends, are dissatisfied with work (as evidenced by absenteeism, goldbricking, embezzlement and sabotage), so that what he says should be uncontroversial; however, it is controversial only because people are too close to the work-system to see its flaws. Play, in contrast, is not necessarily rule-governed, and, more important, it is performed voluntarily, in complete freedom, for the satisfaction of engaging in the activity itself. But since intrinsically satisfying activity is not necessarily unproductive, \"productive play\" is possible, and, if generalized, might give rise to a gift economy. Black"
      },
      {
        "text": " so that what he says should be uncontroversial; however, it is controversial only because people are too close to the work-system to see its flaws. Play, in contrast, is not necessarily rule-governed, and, more important, it is performed voluntarily, in complete freedom, for the satisfaction of engaging in the activity itself. But since intrinsically satisfying activity is not necessarily unproductive, \"productive play\" is possible, and, if generalized, might give rise to a gift economy. Black points out that hunter-gatherer societies are typified by play (in the sense of \"productive play\"), a view he backs up with the work of anthropologist Marshall Sahlins in his essay \"The Original Affluent Society,\" reprinted in his book \"Stone Age Economics\" (1971). Black has reiterated this interpretation of the ethnographic record, this time with citations and references, in \"Primitive Affluence,\" reprinted in his book \"Friendly Fire\" (Autonomedia 1994), and in \"Nightmares of Reason\" (a critique of Murray Bookchin posted at TheAnarchistLibrary.org). Black responds to the criticism (argued, for instance, by libertarian David Ramsey-Steele) that \"work,\" if not simply effort or energy, is necessary to get important but unpleasant tasks done, by contending that much work now currently done is unnecessary, because it only serves the purposes of social control and economic exploitation. Black has responded (in \"Smokestack Lightning,\" reprinted in \"Friendly Fire\") that of all, most important tasks can be rendered ludic, or \"salvaged\" by being turned into game-like and craft-like activities, and secondly that the vast majority of work does not need doing at all. The latter tasks are unnecessary because they only serve functions of commerce and social control that exist only to maintain the work-system as a whole. As for what is left, he advocates Charles Fourier's approach of arranging activities"
      },
      {
        "text": " Lightning,\" reprinted in \"Friendly Fire\") that of all, most important tasks can be rendered ludic, or \"salvaged\" by being turned into game-like and craft-like activities, and secondly that the vast majority of work does not need doing at all. The latter tasks are unnecessary because they only serve functions of commerce and social control that exist only to maintain the work-system as a whole. As for what is left, he advocates Charles Fourier's approach of arranging activities so that people will want to do them. He is also sceptical but open-minded about the possibility of eliminating work through labor-saving technologies, which, in his opinion, have so far never reduced work, and often deskilled and debased workers. As he sees it, the political left has, for the most part, failed to acknowledge as revolutionary the critique of work, limiting itself to the critique of wage-labor. The left, he contends, by glorifying the dignity of labor, has endorsed work itself, and also the work ethic. Black has often criticized leftism, especially Marxism, but he does not consider anarchism, which he espouses, as always advocating an understanding of work which is consistent with his critique of work. Black looks favorably, if critically, on a text such as \"The Right to Be Greedy,\" by the Situationist-influenced collective For Ourselves (he wrote a Preface for the Loompanics Unlimited reprint edition), which attempts to synthesize the post-moral individualism of Max Stirner (\"The Ego and Its Own\") with what appears to be an egalitarian anarcho-communism. What has been called \"zero-work\" remains controversial on the left and among anarchists.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " attempts to synthesize the post-moral individualism of Max Stirner (\"The Ego and Its Own\") with what appears to be an egalitarian anarcho-communism. What has been called \"zero-work\" remains controversial on the left and among anarchists.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Vicomte de Bragelonne",
    "author": "Alexandre Dumas",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The principal heroes of the novel are the musketeers. The novel's length finds it frequently broken into smaller parts. The narrative is set between 1660 and 1667 against the background of the transformation of Louis XIV from child monarch to Sun King. After 35 years of loyal service, d'Artagnan resigns as Cardinal Mazarin is the true power behind the throne. He resolves to aid the exiled Charles II to retake the throne of England, unaware that Athos is attempting the same. With their assistance Charles II is restored to the throne and d'Artagnan is rewarded richly. In France Cardinal Mazarin has died, leaving Louis to assume power with Jean-Baptiste Colbert as his adviser. Louis persuades d'Artagnan to reenter his service, and tasks him to investigate Belle-Isle, the property of Nicolas Fouquet, promising him a substantial salary and promotion to Captain of the King's Musketeers on his return. d'Artagnan discovers Belle-Isle is being fortified and the engineer in charge is Porthos. The blueprints show Aramis' handwriting. Despite his friends, d'Artagnan hides the true reason for his presence. Aramis, suspicious of d'Artagnan, sends Porthos back to Paris to warn Fouquet, whilst tricking d'Artagnan into searching for Porthos around Vannes. Porthos warns Fouquet in time, and he cedes Belle-Isle to the king, allaying all suspicions and humiliating Colbert. On returning from the mission d'Artagnan is made Captain of the King's Musketeers. This part mostly concerns romantic events at the court of Louis XIV. Raoul de Bragelonne finds his childhood sweetheart, Louise de la Valli\u00e8re, is maid of honor to the Princess. Fearing a tarnishing of Louise's reputation by affairs at court, Raoul seeks to marry her. His father, Athos, the Comte de la F\u00e8re, disapproves, but eventually, out of love for his son, reluctantly agrees. The king, however, refuses to sanction the marriage because Louise is of inferior social status, and so marriage is delayed until Louise has earned her fortune and Raoul grows in prestige. Meanwhile, the struggle for power continues between Fouquet and Colbert. Louis attempts to impoverish Fouquet by asking for money to pay for a grand f\u00eate at Fontainbleau. Meanwhile, Aramis meets the governor of the Bastille M. de Baisemeaux, and learns of a secret prisoner who bears a striking resemblance to Louis XIV. Aramis uses this secret to persuade the dying general of the Jesuits (disguised as a Franciscan monk), to name him the new general of the Society. After Buckingham leaves France, the Comte de Guiche grows besotted with Henrietta. However, the King grows interested in Madame Henrietta. Anne of Austria intervenes, and suggests that the king choose a young lady at court to act as a smokescreen for their flirtation. Unfortunately, they select Louise de la Valli\u00e8re and during the f\u00eate at Fontainbleau, the king overhears Louise confess her love for him to friends, and promptly forgets his affection for Henrietta. That same night Henrietta hears de Guiche confess his love for her to Raoul. The two pursue their own love affair. Aware of Louise's attachment, the king sends Raoul to England indefinitely as a diplomatic envoy. Rumours of the king's love affair compromise Raoul's friends, de Guiche defends Raoul's honour in a duel with de Wardes. De Wardes prevails whilst de Guiche is seriously wounded. The incident is the last straw for Madame Henrietta who resolves to dismiss the Louise from her service as Maid of Honour. The king dissuades Henrietta, but she prevents the king from seeing Louise. The king circumvents Henrietta, and so she frustratedly contacts her brother King Charles II, imploring him to eject Raoul from England. On his return to France Raoul is heartbroken to discover Louise in the arms of the king. Athos falls out with Louis over the affair and resigns from his service. Louis orders Athos's imprisonment, but D'Artagnan convinces the king to release him. Dumas constructs the plot around the notion that the Man in the Iron Mask is the twin brother of Louis XIV, Philippe, who had been concealed and imprisoned from birth by his father, Louis XIII, and his mother, Anne of Austria, \"for the good of France\". Only a very few people living at the start of the novel know of Philippe's existence; these include his mother, Anne, and her former confidante, the Duchesse de Chevreuse. Chevreuse has let the secret slip to Aramis, the Bishop of Vanne and a former lover of Chevreuse. Aramis plots a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat to replace Louis with Philippe and recruits Porthos to assist, although Porthos is unaware of the true nature of the plot. Aramis believes that, if he puts Philippe on the throne in place of Louis, Philippe can assure Aramis's promotion to cardinal, and will eventually assist Aramis to become Pope. Aramis's further aim is to enhance Fouqet's position in France so that Fouquet will become prime minister under Philippe; Aramis plans to replace Fouquet as prime minister upon Fouquet's retirement. Through an elaborate subterfuge mounted by Aramis, Philippe replaces a prisoner due for release from the Bastille and escapes to Vaux. Meanwhile, Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finance, is throwing a lavish party for Louis at Vaux. Colbert, junior to Fouquet and hoping to supplant him, is jealous and turns the king against Fouquet; the king contemplates having Fouquet arrested, but defers his decision. While the king is still visiting Fouquet at Vaux, Aramis initiates the second half of his plan and kidnaps Louis with the unwitting assistance of Porthos, imprisoning Louis in the Bastille in Philippe's place. He then substitutes Philippe for the King. Aramis conspiratorially informs Fouquet of his acts. Aramis's treachery greatly angers Fouquet; Fouquet goes to the Bastille, rescues Louis, and brings him back to Vaux to confront Philippe. Realizing that his plot has unravelled, Aramis flees for Belle Isle to escape the king's impending wrath, taking Porthos with him. Louis returns to Vaux, exposes Philippe, and regains the throne with d'Artagnan's help, ending Philippe's brief reign. Louis banishes Philippe, ordering that \"he will cover his face with an iron visor\" which he \"cannot raise without peril of his life.\" Athos and Raoul meet Aramis and Porthos who relate their predicament before receiving horses to aid their journey to Belle Isle. But they are followed by the Duc de Beaufort, on his way to Algiers for an expedition against the Barbary corsairs. Raoul, devastated by the king's love affair with Louise, volunteers to join the Duc in his expedition. Athos accompanies him to the port of Toulon, and on the way they encounter the Man in the Iron Mask just as d'Artagnan is bringing him to the prison at Sainte-Marguerite, who throws to them a silver dish on which he inscribed the words: \"I am the brother of the king of France\u2014a prisoner to-day\u2014a madman to-morrow.\" Nothing comes of this, however, as Raoul is off to war in Africa, and Athos is retired from politics. At Toulon, father and son are part their ways. Despite Fouquet's rescue, Louis orders d'Artagnan to arrest Fouquet. Louis then orders d'Artagnan to arrest Porthos and Aramis. D'Artagnan feigns compliance whilst secretly giving his friends time to escape. However, Colbert discerns d'Artagnan's sympathies and undermines him. d'Artagnan resigns on learning that prisoners are to be executed immediately once arrested. Attempting an escape from Belle Isle, Porthos is killed, while Aramis escapes to sea. Meanwhile, Athos returns to his estates and lapses into decline. On hearing that Raoul has died in action at Gigelli, Athos succumbs to grief and dies. Meanwhile, the detained d'Artagnan is freed by King Louis and reinstated. He learns of Porthos' death and Aramis' escape. Aramis reaches Spain and becomes Spain's ambassador to France. Louise de la Valli\u00e8re is supplanted in the king's affections by Madame de Montespan. Louis grows in influence and stature and embarks on a military campaign against the United Provinces, with d'Artagnan commanding the offensive. D'Artagnan is killed in battle moments after reading he is to be made Marshal of France. His final words: \"Athos, Porthos, au revoir! Aramis, adieu for ever!\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The principal heroes of the novel are the musketeers. The novel's length finds it frequently broken into smaller parts. The narrative is set between 1660 and 1667 against the background of the transformation of Louis XIV from child monarch to Sun King. After 35 years of loyal service, d'Artagnan resigns as Cardinal Mazarin is the true power behind the throne. He resolves to aid the exiled Charles II to retake the throne of England, unaware that Athos is attempting the same. With their assistance Charles II is restored to the throne and d'Artagnan is rewarded richly. In France Cardinal Mazarin has died, leaving Louis to assume power with Jean-Baptiste Colbert as his adviser. Louis persuades d'Artagnan to reenter his service, and tasks him to investigate Belle-Isle, the property of Nicolas Fouquet, promising him a substantial salary and promotion to Captain of the King's Musketeers on his return. d'Artagnan discovers Belle-Isle is being fortified and the engineer in charge is Porthos. The blueprints show Aramis' handwriting. Despite his friends, d'Artagnan hides the true reason for his presence. Aramis, suspicious of d'Artagnan, sends Porthos back to Paris to warn Fouquet, whilst tricking d'Artagnan into searching for Porthos around Vannes. Porthos warns Fouquet in time, and he cedes Belle-Isle to the king, allaying all suspicions and humiliating Colbert. On returning from the mission d'Artagnan is made Captain of the King's Musketeers. This part mostly concerns romantic events at the court of Louis XIV. Raoul de Bragelonne finds his childhood sweetheart, Louise de la Valli\u00e8re, is maid of honor to the Princess. Fearing a tarnishing of Louise's reputation by affairs at court, Raoul seeks to marry her. His"
      },
      {
        "text": " Belle-Isle to the king, allaying all suspicions and humiliating Colbert. On returning from the mission d'Artagnan is made Captain of the King's Musketeers. This part mostly concerns romantic events at the court of Louis XIV. Raoul de Bragelonne finds his childhood sweetheart, Louise de la Valli\u00e8re, is maid of honor to the Princess. Fearing a tarnishing of Louise's reputation by affairs at court, Raoul seeks to marry her. His father, Athos, the Comte de la F\u00e8re, disapproves, but eventually, out of love for his son, reluctantly agrees. The king, however, refuses to sanction the marriage because Louise is of inferior social status, and so marriage is delayed until Louise has earned her fortune and Raoul grows in prestige. Meanwhile, the struggle for power continues between Fouquet and Colbert. Louis attempts to impoverish Fouquet by asking for money to pay for a grand f\u00eate at Fontainbleau. Meanwhile, Aramis meets the governor of the Bastille M. de Baisemeaux, and learns of a secret prisoner who bears a striking resemblance to Louis XIV. Aramis uses this secret to persuade the dying general of the Jesuits (disguised as a Franciscan monk), to name him the new general of the Society. After Buckingham leaves France, the Comte de Guiche grows besotted with Henrietta. However, the King grows interested in Madame Henrietta. Anne of Austria intervenes, and suggests that the king choose a young lady at court to act as a smokescreen for their flirtation. Unfortunately, they select Louise de la Valli\u00e8re and during the f\u00eate at Fontainbleau, the king overhears Louise confess her love for him to friends, and promptly forgets his affection for Henrietta. That same night Henrietta hears de Guiche confess his love for her to Raoul. The two pursue their own love affair."
      },
      {
        "text": ". Anne of Austria intervenes, and suggests that the king choose a young lady at court to act as a smokescreen for their flirtation. Unfortunately, they select Louise de la Valli\u00e8re and during the f\u00eate at Fontainbleau, the king overhears Louise confess her love for him to friends, and promptly forgets his affection for Henrietta. That same night Henrietta hears de Guiche confess his love for her to Raoul. The two pursue their own love affair. Aware of Louise's attachment, the king sends Raoul to England indefinitely as a diplomatic envoy. Rumours of the king's love affair compromise Raoul's friends, de Guiche defends Raoul's honour in a duel with de Wardes. De Wardes prevails whilst de Guiche is seriously wounded. The incident is the last straw for Madame Henrietta who resolves to dismiss the Louise from her service as Maid of Honour. The king dissuades Henrietta, but she prevents the king from seeing Louise. The king circumvents Henrietta, and so she frustratedly contacts her brother King Charles II, imploring him to eject Raoul from England. On his return to France Raoul is heartbroken to discover Louise in the arms of the king. Athos falls out with Louis over the affair and resigns from his service. Louis orders Athos's imprisonment, but D'Artagnan convinces the king to release him. Dumas constructs the plot around the notion that the Man in the Iron Mask is the twin brother of Louis XIV, Philippe, who had been concealed and imprisoned from birth by his father, Louis XIII, and his mother, Anne of Austria, \"for the good of France\". Only a very few people living at the start of the novel know of Philippe's existence; these include his mother, Anne, and her former confidante, the Duchesse de Chevreuse. Chevreuse has let the secret slip to Aramis, the Bishop of Van"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the Iron Mask is the twin brother of Louis XIV, Philippe, who had been concealed and imprisoned from birth by his father, Louis XIII, and his mother, Anne of Austria, \"for the good of France\". Only a very few people living at the start of the novel know of Philippe's existence; these include his mother, Anne, and her former confidante, the Duchesse de Chevreuse. Chevreuse has let the secret slip to Aramis, the Bishop of Vanne and a former lover of Chevreuse. Aramis plots a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat to replace Louis with Philippe and recruits Porthos to assist, although Porthos is unaware of the true nature of the plot. Aramis believes that, if he puts Philippe on the throne in place of Louis, Philippe can assure Aramis's promotion to cardinal, and will eventually assist Aramis to become Pope. Aramis's further aim is to enhance Fouqet's position in France so that Fouquet will become prime minister under Philippe; Aramis plans to replace Fouquet as prime minister upon Fouquet's retirement. Through an elaborate subterfuge mounted by Aramis, Philippe replaces a prisoner due for release from the Bastille and escapes to Vaux. Meanwhile, Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finance, is throwing a lavish party for Louis at Vaux. Colbert, junior to Fouquet and hoping to supplant him, is jealous and turns the king against Fouquet; the king contemplates having Fouquet arrested, but defers his decision. While the king is still visiting Fouquet at Vaux, Aramis initiates the second half of his plan and kidnaps Louis with the unwitting assistance of Porthos, imprisoning Louis in the Bastille in Philippe's place. He then substitutes Philippe for the King. Aramis conspiratorially informs Fouquet of his acts. Aramis's treachery greatly angers Fouquet; Fouquet goes to the Bastille, resc"
      },
      {
        "text": " contemplates having Fouquet arrested, but defers his decision. While the king is still visiting Fouquet at Vaux, Aramis initiates the second half of his plan and kidnaps Louis with the unwitting assistance of Porthos, imprisoning Louis in the Bastille in Philippe's place. He then substitutes Philippe for the King. Aramis conspiratorially informs Fouquet of his acts. Aramis's treachery greatly angers Fouquet; Fouquet goes to the Bastille, rescues Louis, and brings him back to Vaux to confront Philippe. Realizing that his plot has unravelled, Aramis flees for Belle Isle to escape the king's impending wrath, taking Porthos with him. Louis returns to Vaux, exposes Philippe, and regains the throne with d'Artagnan's help, ending Philippe's brief reign. Louis banishes Philippe, ordering that \"he will cover his face with an iron visor\" which he \"cannot raise without peril of his life.\" Athos and Raoul meet Aramis and Porthos who relate their predicament before receiving horses to aid their journey to Belle Isle. But they are followed by the Duc de Beaufort, on his way to Algiers for an expedition against the Barbary corsairs. Raoul, devastated by the king's love affair with Louise, volunteers to join the Duc in his expedition. Athos accompanies him to the port of Toulon, and on the way they encounter the Man in the Iron Mask just as d'Artagnan is bringing him to the prison at Sainte-Marguerite, who throws to them a silver dish on which he inscribed the words: \"I am the brother of the king of France\u2014a prisoner to-day\u2014a madman to-morrow.\" Nothing comes of this, however, as Raoul is off to war in Africa, and Athos is retired from politics. At Toulon, father and"
      },
      {
        "text": " they encounter the Man in the Iron Mask just as d'Artagnan is bringing him to the prison at Sainte-Marguerite, who throws to them a silver dish on which he inscribed the words: \"I am the brother of the king of France\u2014a prisoner to-day\u2014a madman to-morrow.\" Nothing comes of this, however, as Raoul is off to war in Africa, and Athos is retired from politics. At Toulon, father and son are part their ways. Despite Fouquet's rescue, Louis orders d'Artagnan to arrest Fouquet. Louis then orders d'Artagnan to arrest Porthos and Aramis. D'Artagnan feigns compliance whilst secretly giving his friends time to escape. However, Colbert discerns d'Artagnan's sympathies and undermines him. d'Artagnan resigns on learning that prisoners are to be executed immediately once arrested. Attempting an escape from Belle Isle, Porthos is killed, while Aramis escapes to sea. Meanwhile, Athos returns to his estates and lapses into decline. On hearing that Raoul has died in action at Gigelli, Athos succumbs to grief and dies. Meanwhile, the detained d'Artagnan is freed by King Louis and reinstated. He learns of Porthos' death and Aramis' escape. Aramis reaches Spain and becomes Spain's ambassador to France. Louise de la Valli\u00e8re is supplanted in the king's affections by Madame de Montespan. Louis grows in influence and stature and embarks on a military campaign against the United Provinces, with d'Artagnan commanding the offensive. D'Artagnan is killed in battle moments after reading he is to be made Marshal of France. His final words: \"Athos, Porthos, au revoir! Aramis, adieu for ever!\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "\u00e8re is supplanted in the king's affections by Madame de Montespan. Louis grows in influence and stature and embarks on a military campaign against the United Provinces, with d'Artagnan commanding the offensive. D'Artagnan is killed in battle moments after reading he is to be made Marshal of France. His final words: \"Athos, Porthos, au revoir! Aramis, adieu for ever!\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Twenty Years After",
    "author": "Alexandre Dumas",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The action begins under Queen Anne of Austria regency and Cardinal Mazarin ruling. D'Artagnan, who seemed to have a promising career ahead of him at the end of The Three Musketeers, has for twenty years remained a lieutenant in the Musketeers, and seems unlikely to progress, despite his ambition and the debt the queen owes him. By chance, however, he is summoned by Mazarin, who requires an escort, as the French people detest Mazarin, and are on the brink of rebellion (La Fronde). D'Artagnan is sent to the Bastille to retrieve a prisoner, who turns out to be his former adversary, the Comte de Rochefort. After renewing his acquaintance with d'Artagnan and making a promise to aid his advancement, Rochefort is brought to his audience with Mazarin, where he learns that the cause for his imprisonment was his refusal to serve Mazarin at an earlier stage. He does, however, remember his promise, and though he offers his own service to Mazarin, he refuses to watch over the Duc de Beaufort, who is imprisoned at the time, and soon learns that, in consequence, he is to be returned to the Bastille, though this does not deter him from speaking highly of the achievements of d'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers. Having determined that d'Artagnan was the man he sought, Mazarin enters the chambers of the Queen to let her know that he has enlisted the man who had served her so well twenty years earlier. The Queen, feeling guilty for having forgotten d'Artagnan's service, gives Mazarin a diamond ring which she had previously given d'Artagnan to be returned to him, which d'Artagnan had sold in her service. The avaricious Mazarin, however, merely uses the diamond to show d'Artagnan that he is once again to enter the Queen's service. He commissions d'Artagnan to go in search of his friends. D'Artagnan is at a loss; he has completely lost touch with his friends, who have resumed their real names. Athos, the Comte de la F\u00e8re, had returned to his estate near Blois; Porthos, Monsieur du Vallon, had married a lawyer's widow; and Aramis became a priest, the Abb\u00e9 d'Herblay. Fortune intervenes, however, when Planchet, his old servant, enters d'Artagnan's chambers, attempting to escape arrest for aiding the escape of Rochefort. Through Planchet, he locates Bazin, Aramis' old servant, now beadle at Notre Dame. Though Bazin is unwilling to help, d'Artagnan is able to find out, through an altar boy, that Bazin makes frequent visits to Noisy. D'Artagnan and Planchet go there, where they are set upon by a group who think them Frondeurs while outside the house of Madame de Longueville. When this group is satisfied that d'Artagnan is not the man they seek, Aramis surprises Planchet by dropping onto his horse from the tree in which he had been hiding. Though d'Artagnan finds, through the decoration of Aramis' chambre, that the former musketeer who had thought of little other than being a priest is now a priest who thinks of little other than being a soldier, Aramis is not willing to enter into Mazarin's service. When the time for departure comes, d'Artagnan waits in hiding, suspecting that Aramis is the Frondeur who had been sought earlier, and is the lover of Madame de Longueville; a suspicion which is confirmed. The visit to Aramis was not fruitless, as it yielded the address of Porthos. When d'Artagnan arrives at Porthos' estate he finds Mousqueton, who is overjoyed to meet d'Artagnan and Planchet. He finds that Porthos, despite his wealth and life spent in pursuit of amusement, is not happy. Porthos desires to become a baron, and with this bait d'Artagnan lures him into Mazarin's service. D'Artagnan then continues on his search, seeking Athos, whom he finds almost completely changed, to be an example to his ward, Raoul. Though Athos will not be enlisted into Mazarin's service, and indeed reveals that his sympathies lie against Mazarin, the two arrange to meet again in Paris; Athos wishes to bring Raoul there to help him to become a gentleman, and also to separate him from Louise de Valli\u00e8re, who Raoul is in love and obsessed with. In Paris, Athos visits Madame de Chevreuse, the former mistress of Aramis, with whom, under the name Marie Michon, Aramis had much communication in The Three Musketeers. Athos reveals, discreetly, that Raoul is the son born of a chance encounter he had with her, and through her gets a letter of recommendation for Raoul to join the army. The scene then changes, to focus on the Duc de Beaufort, Mazarin's prisoner at Vincennes, who finds a new jailer, Athos' servant, the silent Grimaud. Grimaud instantly makes himself disagreeable to the Duc, as part of an escape plot. Using messages passed to Rochefort using tennis balls, they arrange to have a meal on Whitsuntide, to which La Ram\u00e9e, second in command of the prison, is invited. The escape is successful, but d'Artagnan and Porthos are in pursuit. After a race against time, and having defeated several adversaries along the way, Porthos and d'Artagnan find themselves in the dark, surrounded, with swords crossed against adversaries equal to them, who are revealed to be Athos and Aramis. The four arrange to meet in Paris at the Place Royale; both parties, now finding themselves enemies, enter fearing a duel, but they reconcile and renew their vows of friendship. As this is going on, Raoul is travelling to join the army. Along the road he sees a gentleman of around the same age, and tries to make haste to join him. The other gentleman reaches the ferry before him, but has fallen into the river. Raoul, who is used to fording rivers, saves the gentleman, the Comte de Guiche, and the two become friends. Further along the road, the debt is repaid when the Comte saves Raoul when they are attacked by Spanish soldiers. After the fight, they find a man who is close to death, who requests the last rites. They help him to a nearby inn, and find a travelling monk. This monk is unpleasant to them, and does not seem inclined to perform this service, so they force him to go to the inn. Once there, the monk hears the confession. The dying man reveals that he was the executioner of B\u00e9thune, and confesses his part in the execution of Milady de Winter. The monk reveals himself as her son, John Francis de Winter, who calls himself Mordaunt after Charles I stripped him of all his titles. Mordaunt stabs the executioner. Grimaud, who is to join Raoul, comes upon the inn just as this is taking place, though too late to prevent it, or to detain the monk. After hearing what happened from the dying man, making his excuses to Raoul, he departs to warn Athos about the son of Milady. After his departure, Raoul and Guiche are forced to retreat when the Spanish come upon the town. After joining the army of the Prince de Cond\u00e9, Raoul provides assistance in interrogating the prisoner brought by Guiche and him, when the prisoner feigns to misunderstand them in several languages. Once they have learned the location of the Spanish army, they set out for battle, Raoul accompanying the Prince. Meanwhile, d\u00b4Artagnan and Porthos help Queen Anne of Austria, the young Louis XIV and Mazarin escape Paris after its citizens finally start a rebellion. The champion of the French populace and parliament, Pierre Broussel, is arrested, but then released when it becomes clear that his imprisonment has only served to stir the crowd up worse. D\u00b4Artagnan meets the young king and watches over him as some Frondeurs - including Planchet, under a false name - who wanted to make sure that the king and queen were not about to escape, enter the king's bedroom demanding to see him: immediately after this, he contrives for all of the royal household to escape from Paris anyway, bluffing his way past Planchet at the gates (the two men retain their friendship despite their differing allegiances in this conflict). After that, Mazarin sends d'Artagnan and Porthos to England with a message for Cromwell and orders them to stay there for some time under Cromwell's command. At the same time, Queen Henrietta of England meets the Musketeers' old English friend, Lord de Winter - a Royalist come to ask for French assistance for King Charles I of England, her husband, in the English Civil War, and sends Athos and Aramis to England as well. So once again the two pairs of Musketeers find themselves on opposite sides: but Athos and Aramis, on the occasion of departing, are recognised by Mordaunt, who has been following Lord de Winter in the hope of finding his friends. Milady's son, Mordaunt, reprises his role as one of the chief antagonists, and sets about avenging his mother's death. He seeks not only Lord de Winter, but the other four unknown conspirators who took part in his mother's clandestine \"trial\" and execution. He murders his uncle, Lord de Winter, who was Milady's brother-in-law, during the same battle in which king Charles I is captured. Athos and Aramis are captured by d'Artagnan and Porthos, who are fighting alongside Mordaunt and Cromwell's troops. As soon as they can have a conversation, Athos talks d'Artagnan and Porthos into helping save Charles I. D'Artagnan and Porthos free their friends and start making plans in order to try to save the king. In the end, all their plans fail, and Mordaunt executes King Charles I after d'Artagnan and the three former Musketeers have kidnapped the real executioner in order to prevent this. D'Artagnan and his friends later confront Mordaunt at Cromwell's London residence, but in the course of a duel with d'Artagnan he escapes through a secret passage. The Frenchmen and their menservants leave England by ship, but Mordaunt gets aboard and blows it up. Unfortunately for him, the Musketeers' servants discover the explosives on board, rouse their masters, and contrive to steal the only lifeboat before the ship can blow up, leaving Mordaunt aboard. Somehow, Mordaunt escapes the blast, and pleads with the Musketeers to let him into their boat. With the exception of Athos, they contemptuously reject his appeals. Athos insists on saving him however, but as he helps him into the boat, Mordaunt deliberately drags him back into the water where they struggle and Mordaunt is killed. Athos rejoins the others claiming that \"I have a son... and I wished to live\". They assume - correctly - that Athos means Raoul de Bragelonne, officially his ward and adopted son (in fact Raoul is Athos's natural illegitimate son, product of a one-night stand, as we have learned earlier in the novel: this is the first time that the other Musketeers are actually told that Athos is indeed Raoul's real father, although D'Artagnan may have suspected it earlier.) Athos further states that \"It was not me who killed him... It was fate.\" Once back in France, the four friends go separate ways. D'Artagnan and Porthos head to Paris through a different route from the other two, knowing that Mazarin will not forgive their disobedience. Aramis and Athos reach Paris only to find out that their friends haven't. After looking for them, they find out about their imprisonment by Mazarin in Rueil. Athos tries to persuade Queen Anne to free his friends, but is imprisoned as well. After this, d'Artagnan manages to escape with Porthos and capture Mazarin. Mazarin is taken to one of Porthos's castles and he gives some concessions to the four friends in exchange for his freedom, among them, making Porthos a baron and making d'Artagnan captain of musketeers. Athos asks for nothing: Aramis asks for concessions towards himself and his friends in the Fronde. These concessions are later accepted by Queen Anne, who finally realizes she has been rather ungrateful to d'Artagnan and his friends. At the end of the novel, the first Fronde comes to an end, and Mazarin, Queen Anne and Louis XIV enter Paris. A riot takes place during which d'Artagnan accidentally kills Rochefort and Porthos kills Bonacieux (who in the earlier novel was d'Artagnan's landlord and an agent of Richelieu, and is now a beggar and Frondist). At the end the four friends go their separate ways again. D'Artagnan stays in Paris with Mazarin and Queen Anne, Athos returns to la F\u00e8re, Aramis returns to his abbey in Noisy le Sec, and Porthos to his barony and castle.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The action begins under Queen Anne of Austria regency and Cardinal Mazarin ruling. D'Artagnan, who seemed to have a promising career ahead of him at the end of The Three Musketeers, has for twenty years remained a lieutenant in the Musketeers, and seems unlikely to progress, despite his ambition and the debt the queen owes him. By chance, however, he is summoned by Mazarin, who requires an escort, as the French people detest Mazarin, and are on the brink of rebellion (La Fronde). D'Artagnan is sent to the Bastille to retrieve a prisoner, who turns out to be his former adversary, the Comte de Rochefort. After renewing his acquaintance with d'Artagnan and making a promise to aid his advancement, Rochefort is brought to his audience with Mazarin, where he learns that the cause for his imprisonment was his refusal to serve Mazarin at an earlier stage. He does, however, remember his promise, and though he offers his own service to Mazarin, he refuses to watch over the Duc de Beaufort, who is imprisoned at the time, and soon learns that, in consequence, he is to be returned to the Bastille, though this does not deter him from speaking highly of the achievements of d'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers. Having determined that d'Artagnan was the man he sought, Mazarin enters the chambers of the Queen to let her know that he has enlisted the man who had served her so well twenty years earlier. The Queen, feeling guilty for having forgotten d'Artagnan's service, gives Mazarin a diamond ring which she had previously given d'Artagnan to be returned to him, which d'Artagnan had sold in her service. The avaricious Mazarin, however, merely uses the diamond to show d'Artagnan that he is once again to enter the Queen's service. He"
      },
      {
        "text": " know that he has enlisted the man who had served her so well twenty years earlier. The Queen, feeling guilty for having forgotten d'Artagnan's service, gives Mazarin a diamond ring which she had previously given d'Artagnan to be returned to him, which d'Artagnan had sold in her service. The avaricious Mazarin, however, merely uses the diamond to show d'Artagnan that he is once again to enter the Queen's service. He commissions d'Artagnan to go in search of his friends. D'Artagnan is at a loss; he has completely lost touch with his friends, who have resumed their real names. Athos, the Comte de la F\u00e8re, had returned to his estate near Blois; Porthos, Monsieur du Vallon, had married a lawyer's widow; and Aramis became a priest, the Abb\u00e9 d'Herblay. Fortune intervenes, however, when Planchet, his old servant, enters d'Artagnan's chambers, attempting to escape arrest for aiding the escape of Rochefort. Through Planchet, he locates Bazin, Aramis' old servant, now beadle at Notre Dame. Though Bazin is unwilling to help, d'Artagnan is able to find out, through an altar boy, that Bazin makes frequent visits to Noisy. D'Artagnan and Planchet go there, where they are set upon by a group who think them Frondeurs while outside the house of Madame de Longueville. When this group is satisfied that d'Artagnan is not the man they seek, Aramis surprises Planchet by dropping onto his horse from the tree in which he had been hiding. Though d'Artagnan finds, through the decoration of Aramis' chambre, that the former musketeer who had thought of little other than being a priest"
      },
      {
        "text": ", where they are set upon by a group who think them Frondeurs while outside the house of Madame de Longueville. When this group is satisfied that d'Artagnan is not the man they seek, Aramis surprises Planchet by dropping onto his horse from the tree in which he had been hiding. Though d'Artagnan finds, through the decoration of Aramis' chambre, that the former musketeer who had thought of little other than being a priest is now a priest who thinks of little other than being a soldier, Aramis is not willing to enter into Mazarin's service. When the time for departure comes, d'Artagnan waits in hiding, suspecting that Aramis is the Frondeur who had been sought earlier, and is the lover of Madame de Longueville; a suspicion which is confirmed. The visit to Aramis was not fruitless, as it yielded the address of Porthos. When d'Artagnan arrives at Porthos' estate he finds Mousqueton, who is overjoyed to meet d'Artagnan and Planchet. He finds that Porthos, despite his wealth and life spent in pursuit of amusement, is not happy. Porthos desires to become a baron, and with this bait d'Artagnan lures him into Mazarin's service. D'Artagnan then continues on his search, seeking Athos, whom he finds almost completely changed, to be an example to his ward, Raoul. Though Athos will not be enlisted into Mazarin's service, and indeed reveals that his sympathies lie against Mazarin, the two arrange to meet again in Paris; Athos wishes to bring Raoul there to help him to become a gentleman, and also to separate him from Louise de Valli\u00e8re, who Raoul is in love and obsessed with. In Paris, Athos visits Madame de Chevreuse, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " almost completely changed, to be an example to his ward, Raoul. Though Athos will not be enlisted into Mazarin's service, and indeed reveals that his sympathies lie against Mazarin, the two arrange to meet again in Paris; Athos wishes to bring Raoul there to help him to become a gentleman, and also to separate him from Louise de Valli\u00e8re, who Raoul is in love and obsessed with. In Paris, Athos visits Madame de Chevreuse, the former mistress of Aramis, with whom, under the name Marie Michon, Aramis had much communication in The Three Musketeers. Athos reveals, discreetly, that Raoul is the son born of a chance encounter he had with her, and through her gets a letter of recommendation for Raoul to join the army. The scene then changes, to focus on the Duc de Beaufort, Mazarin's prisoner at Vincennes, who finds a new jailer, Athos' servant, the silent Grimaud. Grimaud instantly makes himself disagreeable to the Duc, as part of an escape plot. Using messages passed to Rochefort using tennis balls, they arrange to have a meal on Whitsuntide, to which La Ram\u00e9e, second in command of the prison, is invited. The escape is successful, but d'Artagnan and Porthos are in pursuit. After a race against time, and having defeated several adversaries along the way, Porthos and d'Artagnan find themselves in the dark, surrounded, with swords crossed against adversaries equal to them, who are revealed to be Athos and Aramis. The four arrange to meet in Paris at the Place Royale; both parties, now finding themselves enemies, enter fearing a duel, but they reconcile and renew their vows of friendship. As this is going on, Raoul is travelling to join the army. Along the road he sees a gentleman of around the same age, and tries to"
      },
      {
        "text": " and d'Artagnan find themselves in the dark, surrounded, with swords crossed against adversaries equal to them, who are revealed to be Athos and Aramis. The four arrange to meet in Paris at the Place Royale; both parties, now finding themselves enemies, enter fearing a duel, but they reconcile and renew their vows of friendship. As this is going on, Raoul is travelling to join the army. Along the road he sees a gentleman of around the same age, and tries to make haste to join him. The other gentleman reaches the ferry before him, but has fallen into the river. Raoul, who is used to fording rivers, saves the gentleman, the Comte de Guiche, and the two become friends. Further along the road, the debt is repaid when the Comte saves Raoul when they are attacked by Spanish soldiers. After the fight, they find a man who is close to death, who requests the last rites. They help him to a nearby inn, and find a travelling monk. This monk is unpleasant to them, and does not seem inclined to perform this service, so they force him to go to the inn. Once there, the monk hears the confession. The dying man reveals that he was the executioner of B\u00e9thune, and confesses his part in the execution of Milady de Winter. The monk reveals himself as her son, John Francis de Winter, who calls himself Mordaunt after Charles I stripped him of all his titles. Mordaunt stabs the executioner. Grimaud, who is to join Raoul, comes upon the inn just as this is taking place, though too late to prevent it, or to detain the monk. After hearing what happened from the dying man, making his excuses to Raoul, he departs to warn Athos about the son of Milady. After his departure, Raoul and Guiche are forced to retreat when the Spanish come upon the town. After joining the army of"
      },
      {
        "text": " titles. Mordaunt stabs the executioner. Grimaud, who is to join Raoul, comes upon the inn just as this is taking place, though too late to prevent it, or to detain the monk. After hearing what happened from the dying man, making his excuses to Raoul, he departs to warn Athos about the son of Milady. After his departure, Raoul and Guiche are forced to retreat when the Spanish come upon the town. After joining the army of the Prince de Cond\u00e9, Raoul provides assistance in interrogating the prisoner brought by Guiche and him, when the prisoner feigns to misunderstand them in several languages. Once they have learned the location of the Spanish army, they set out for battle, Raoul accompanying the Prince. Meanwhile, d\u00b4Artagnan and Porthos help Queen Anne of Austria, the young Louis XIV and Mazarin escape Paris after its citizens finally start a rebellion. The champion of the French populace and parliament, Pierre Broussel, is arrested, but then released when it becomes clear that his imprisonment has only served to stir the crowd up worse. D\u00b4Artagnan meets the young king and watches over him as some Frondeurs - including Planchet, under a false name - who wanted to make sure that the king and queen were not about to escape, enter the king's bedroom demanding to see him: immediately after this, he contrives for all of the royal household to escape from Paris anyway, bluffing his way past Planchet at the gates (the two men retain their friendship despite their differing allegiances in this conflict). After that, Mazarin sends d'Artagnan and Porthos to England with a message for Cromwell and orders them to stay there for some time under Cromwell's command. At the same time, Queen Henrietta of England meets the Musketeers' old English friend, Lord de Winter - a Royalist come to ask for"
      },
      {
        "text": " from Paris anyway, bluffing his way past Planchet at the gates (the two men retain their friendship despite their differing allegiances in this conflict). After that, Mazarin sends d'Artagnan and Porthos to England with a message for Cromwell and orders them to stay there for some time under Cromwell's command. At the same time, Queen Henrietta of England meets the Musketeers' old English friend, Lord de Winter - a Royalist come to ask for French assistance for King Charles I of England, her husband, in the English Civil War, and sends Athos and Aramis to England as well. So once again the two pairs of Musketeers find themselves on opposite sides: but Athos and Aramis, on the occasion of departing, are recognised by Mordaunt, who has been following Lord de Winter in the hope of finding his friends. Milady's son, Mordaunt, reprises his role as one of the chief antagonists, and sets about avenging his mother's death. He seeks not only Lord de Winter, but the other four unknown conspirators who took part in his mother's clandestine \"trial\" and execution. He murders his uncle, Lord de Winter, who was Milady's brother-in-law, during the same battle in which king Charles I is captured. Athos and Aramis are captured by d'Artagnan and Porthos, who are fighting alongside Mordaunt and Cromwell's troops. As soon as they can have a conversation, Athos talks d'Artagnan and Porthos into helping save Charles I. D'Artagnan and Porthos free their friends and start making plans in order to try to save the king. In the end, all their plans fail, and Mordaunt executes King Charles I after d'Artagnan and the three former Musketeers have kidnapped the real executioner in order to prevent this. D'Artagnan and his"
      },
      {
        "text": " As soon as they can have a conversation, Athos talks d'Artagnan and Porthos into helping save Charles I. D'Artagnan and Porthos free their friends and start making plans in order to try to save the king. In the end, all their plans fail, and Mordaunt executes King Charles I after d'Artagnan and the three former Musketeers have kidnapped the real executioner in order to prevent this. D'Artagnan and his friends later confront Mordaunt at Cromwell's London residence, but in the course of a duel with d'Artagnan he escapes through a secret passage. The Frenchmen and their menservants leave England by ship, but Mordaunt gets aboard and blows it up. Unfortunately for him, the Musketeers' servants discover the explosives on board, rouse their masters, and contrive to steal the only lifeboat before the ship can blow up, leaving Mordaunt aboard. Somehow, Mordaunt escapes the blast, and pleads with the Musketeers to let him into their boat. With the exception of Athos, they contemptuously reject his appeals. Athos insists on saving him however, but as he helps him into the boat, Mordaunt deliberately drags him back into the water where they struggle and Mordaunt is killed. Athos rejoins the others claiming that \"I have a son... and I wished to live\". They assume - correctly - that Athos means Raoul de Bragelonne, officially his ward and adopted son (in fact Raoul is Athos's natural illegitimate son, product of a one-night stand, as we have learned earlier in the novel: this is the first time that the other Musketeers are actually told that Athos is indeed Raoul's real father, although D'Artagnan may have suspected it earlier.) Athos further states that \"It was not me who killed him... It was fate.\" Once"
      },
      {
        "text": " Raoul de Bragelonne, officially his ward and adopted son (in fact Raoul is Athos's natural illegitimate son, product of a one-night stand, as we have learned earlier in the novel: this is the first time that the other Musketeers are actually told that Athos is indeed Raoul's real father, although D'Artagnan may have suspected it earlier.) Athos further states that \"It was not me who killed him... It was fate.\" Once back in France, the four friends go separate ways. D'Artagnan and Porthos head to Paris through a different route from the other two, knowing that Mazarin will not forgive their disobedience. Aramis and Athos reach Paris only to find out that their friends haven't. After looking for them, they find out about their imprisonment by Mazarin in Rueil. Athos tries to persuade Queen Anne to free his friends, but is imprisoned as well. After this, d'Artagnan manages to escape with Porthos and capture Mazarin. Mazarin is taken to one of Porthos's castles and he gives some concessions to the four friends in exchange for his freedom, among them, making Porthos a baron and making d'Artagnan captain of musketeers. Athos asks for nothing: Aramis asks for concessions towards himself and his friends in the Fronde. These concessions are later accepted by Queen Anne, who finally realizes she has been rather ungrateful to d'Artagnan and his friends. At the end of the novel, the first Fronde comes to an end, and Mazarin, Queen Anne and Louis XIV enter Paris. A riot takes place during which d'Artagnan accidentally kills Rochefort and Porthos kills Bonacieux (who in the earlier novel was d'Artagnan's landlord and an agent of Richelieu, and is now a beggar and Frondist)."
      },
      {
        "text": " been rather ungrateful to d'Artagnan and his friends. At the end of the novel, the first Fronde comes to an end, and Mazarin, Queen Anne and Louis XIV enter Paris. A riot takes place during which d'Artagnan accidentally kills Rochefort and Porthos kills Bonacieux (who in the earlier novel was d'Artagnan's landlord and an agent of Richelieu, and is now a beggar and Frondist). At the end the four friends go their separate ways again. D'Artagnan stays in Paris with Mazarin and Queen Anne, Athos returns to la F\u00e8re, Aramis returns to his abbey in Noisy le Sec, and Porthos to his barony and castle.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Logan's Run",
    "author": "William F. Nolan",
    "published_date": "1967",
    "synopsis": " The introduction to the book states: :\"The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength. By the early 1970s over 75 percent of the people living on Earth were under 21 years of age. The population continued to climb\u2014and with it the youth percentage. :In the 1980s the figure was 79.7 percent. :In the 1990s, 82.4 percent. :In the year 2000\u2014critical mass.\" In the world of 2116, a person's maximum age is strictly legislated: twenty one years, to the day. When people reach this Lastday they report to a Sleepshop in which they are willingly executed via a pleasure-inducing toxic gas. A person's age is revealed by their palm flower crystal embedded in the palm of their right hand that changes color every seven years, yellow (age 0-6), then blue (age 7-13), then red (age 14-20), then blinks red and black on Lastday, and finally turns black at 21. Runners are those who refuse to report to a Sleepshop and attempt to avoid their fate by escaping to Sanctuary. Logan 3 is a Deep Sleep Operative (also called Sandman) whose job is to terminate Runners using a special weapon called the Gun, an unusual revolver which can fire a number of different projectiles. Runners are most terrified of one called the Homer which homes in on body heat and deliberately ignites every pain nerve in the body, killing the target. Sandmen practice Omnite, a fictional hybrid martial arts style. On his own Lastday, Logan becomes a Runner himself in an attempt to infiltrate an apparent underground railroad for runners seeking Sanctuary\u2014a place where they can live freely in defiance of society's dictates. For most of the book Logan is an antihero; however, his character develops a sympathy towards Runners and he becomes more of a traditional hero figure. Jessica 6, a contact Logan made after he chased her Runner brother Doyle 10 into Cathedral where he was killed by the vicious preteen \"Cubs\", helps him, despite her initial distrust of him. Francis, another Sandman and a friend of Logan, catches up with Logan and Jessica after they have managed to make it to the final staging area before Sanctuary. He reveals that he is actually the legendary Ballard, who has been helping arrange their escape. The 42-year-old Ballard is working from within the system; he believes that the computer that controls the global infrastructure, buried beneath Crazy Horse Mountain, is beginning to malfunction, and that the society will die with it. Sanctuary turns out to be Argos, an abandoned space colony near Mars. Logan and Jessica escape to the colony on a rocket that departs from a former space program launch site in Florida. Ballard remains to help others escape.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The introduction to the book states: :\"The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength. By the early 1970s over 75 percent of the people living on Earth were under 21 years of age. The population continued to climb\u2014and with it the youth percentage. :In the 1980s the figure was 79.7 percent. :In the 1990s, 82.4 percent. :In the year 2000\u2014critical mass.\" In the world of 2116, a person's maximum age is strictly legislated: twenty one years, to the day. When people reach this Lastday they report to a Sleepshop in which they are willingly executed via a pleasure-inducing toxic gas. A person's age is revealed by their palm flower crystal embedded in the palm of their right hand that changes color every seven years, yellow (age 0-6), then blue (age 7-13), then red (age 14-20), then blinks red and black on Lastday, and finally turns black at 21. Runners are those who refuse to report to a Sleepshop and attempt to avoid their fate by escaping to Sanctuary. Logan 3 is a Deep Sleep Operative (also called Sandman) whose job is to terminate Runners using a special weapon called the Gun, an unusual revolver which can fire a number of different projectiles. Runners are most terrified of one called the Homer which homes in on body heat and deliberately ignites every pain nerve in the body, killing the target. Sandmen practice Omnite, a fictional hybrid martial arts style. On his own Lastday, Logan becomes a Runner himself in an attempt to infiltrate an apparent underground railroad for runners seeking Sanctuary\u2014a place where they can live freely in defiance of society's dictates. For most of the book Logan is an antihero; however, his character develops a sympathy towards Runners and he becomes more of a traditional"
      },
      {
        "text": " homes in on body heat and deliberately ignites every pain nerve in the body, killing the target. Sandmen practice Omnite, a fictional hybrid martial arts style. On his own Lastday, Logan becomes a Runner himself in an attempt to infiltrate an apparent underground railroad for runners seeking Sanctuary\u2014a place where they can live freely in defiance of society's dictates. For most of the book Logan is an antihero; however, his character develops a sympathy towards Runners and he becomes more of a traditional hero figure. Jessica 6, a contact Logan made after he chased her Runner brother Doyle 10 into Cathedral where he was killed by the vicious preteen \"Cubs\", helps him, despite her initial distrust of him. Francis, another Sandman and a friend of Logan, catches up with Logan and Jessica after they have managed to make it to the final staging area before Sanctuary. He reveals that he is actually the legendary Ballard, who has been helping arrange their escape. The 42-year-old Ballard is working from within the system; he believes that the computer that controls the global infrastructure, buried beneath Crazy Horse Mountain, is beginning to malfunction, and that the society will die with it. Sanctuary turns out to be Argos, an abandoned space colony near Mars. Logan and Jessica escape to the colony on a rocket that departs from a former space program launch site in Florida. Ballard remains to help others escape.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Two Gentlemen of Verona",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " As the play begins, Valentine is preparing to leave Verona for Milan so as to broaden his horizons. He begs his best friend, Proteus, to come with him, but Proteus is in love with Julia, and refuses to leave. Disappointed, Valentine bids Proteus farewell and goes on alone. Meanwhile, Julia is discussing Proteus with her maid, Lucetta, who tells Julia that she thinks Proteus is fond of her. Julia, however, acts coyly, embarrassed to admit that she likes him. Lucetta then produces a letter; she will not say who gave it to her, but teases Julia that it was Valentine's servant, Speed, who brought it from Proteus. Julia, still unwilling to reveal her love in front of Lucetta, angrily tears up the letter. She sends Lucetta away, but then, realising her own rashness, she picks up the fragments of letter and kisses them, trying to piece them back together. Meanwhile, Proteus' father has decided that Proteus should travel to Milan and join Valentine. He orders that Proteus must leave the next day, prompting a tearful farewell with Julia, to whom Proteus swears eternal love. The two exchange rings and vows and Proteus promises to return as soon as he can. In Milan, Proteus finds Valentine in love with the Duke's daughter Silvia. Despite Julia's love, Proteus falls instantly in love with Silvia and vows to win her. Unaware of Proteus' feelings, Valentine tells him that the Duke wants Silvia to marry the foppish but wealthy Thurio, against her wishes. Because the Duke suspects that his daughter and Valentine are in love, he locks her nightly in a tower, to which he keeps the only key. However, Valentine tells Proteus that he plans to free her by means of a corded ladder, and together, they will elope. Proteus immediately informs the Duke, who subsequently captures and banishes Valentine. While wandering outside Milan, Valentine runs afoul of a band of outlaws, who claim they are also exiled gentlemen. Valentine lies, saying he was banished for killing a man in a fair fight, and the outlaws elect him their leader. Meanwhile, in Verona, Julia decides to join her lover in Milan. She convinces Lucetta to dress her in boy's clothes and help her fix her hair so she will not be harmed on the journey. Once in Milan, Julia quickly discovers Proteus' love for Silvia, watching him attempt to serenade her. She contrives to become his page \u2013 a youth named Sebastian \u2013 until she can decide upon a course of action. Proteus sends Sebastian to Silvia with a gift of the same ring that Julia gave to him before he left Verona, but Julia discovers that Silvia scorns Proteus' affections and is disgusted that he would forget about his love back home, i.e. Julia herself. Silvia deeply mourns the loss of Valentine, whom Proteus has told her is rumoured dead. Not persuaded of Valentine's death, Silvia determines to flee the city with the help of Eglamour, a former suitor to Julia. They escape into the forest but when they are confronted by the outlaws, Eglamour flees and Silvia is taken captive. The outlaws head to their leader (Valentine), but on the way, they encounter Proteus and Julia (still disguised as Sebastian). Proteus rescues Silvia, and then pursues her deeper into the forest. Secretly observed by Valentine, Proteus attempts to persuade Silvia that he loves her, but she rejects his advances. Furious and mad with desire, Proteus insinuates that he will rape her (\"I'll force thee yield to my desire\"). At this point, Valentine intervenes and denounces Proteus. Horrified at what has happened, Proteus vows that the hate Valentine feels for him is nothing compared to the hate he feels for himself. Convinced that Proteus' repentance is genuine, Valentine forgives him and seems to offer Silvia to him. At this point, overwhelmed, Julia faints, revealing her true identity. Upon seeing her, Proteus suddenly remembers his love for her and vows fidelity to her once again. The Duke and Thurio arrive, and Thurio claims Silvia as his. Valentine then warns Thurio that if he makes one move toward her, he will kill him. Terrified, Thurio renounces Silvia. The Duke, impressed by Valentine's actions, approves his and Silvia's love, and consents to their marriage. The two couples are happily united, and the Duke pardons the outlaws, telling them they may return to Milan.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As the play begins, Valentine is preparing to leave Verona for Milan so as to broaden his horizons. He begs his best friend, Proteus, to come with him, but Proteus is in love with Julia, and refuses to leave. Disappointed, Valentine bids Proteus farewell and goes on alone. Meanwhile, Julia is discussing Proteus with her maid, Lucetta, who tells Julia that she thinks Proteus is fond of her. Julia, however, acts coyly, embarrassed to admit that she likes him. Lucetta then produces a letter; she will not say who gave it to her, but teases Julia that it was Valentine's servant, Speed, who brought it from Proteus. Julia, still unwilling to reveal her love in front of Lucetta, angrily tears up the letter. She sends Lucetta away, but then, realising her own rashness, she picks up the fragments of letter and kisses them, trying to piece them back together. Meanwhile, Proteus' father has decided that Proteus should travel to Milan and join Valentine. He orders that Proteus must leave the next day, prompting a tearful farewell with Julia, to whom Proteus swears eternal love. The two exchange rings and vows and Proteus promises to return as soon as he can. In Milan, Proteus finds Valentine in love with the Duke's daughter Silvia. Despite Julia's love, Proteus falls instantly in love with Silvia and vows to win her. Unaware of Proteus' feelings, Valentine tells him that the Duke wants Silvia to marry the foppish but wealthy Thurio, against her wishes. Because the Duke suspects that his daughter and Valentine are in love, he locks her nightly in a tower, to which he keeps the only key. However, Valentine tells Proteus that he plans to free her by means of a corded ladder, and together, they will"
      },
      {
        "text": " instantly in love with Silvia and vows to win her. Unaware of Proteus' feelings, Valentine tells him that the Duke wants Silvia to marry the foppish but wealthy Thurio, against her wishes. Because the Duke suspects that his daughter and Valentine are in love, he locks her nightly in a tower, to which he keeps the only key. However, Valentine tells Proteus that he plans to free her by means of a corded ladder, and together, they will elope. Proteus immediately informs the Duke, who subsequently captures and banishes Valentine. While wandering outside Milan, Valentine runs afoul of a band of outlaws, who claim they are also exiled gentlemen. Valentine lies, saying he was banished for killing a man in a fair fight, and the outlaws elect him their leader. Meanwhile, in Verona, Julia decides to join her lover in Milan. She convinces Lucetta to dress her in boy's clothes and help her fix her hair so she will not be harmed on the journey. Once in Milan, Julia quickly discovers Proteus' love for Silvia, watching him attempt to serenade her. She contrives to become his page \u2013 a youth named Sebastian \u2013 until she can decide upon a course of action. Proteus sends Sebastian to Silvia with a gift of the same ring that Julia gave to him before he left Verona, but Julia discovers that Silvia scorns Proteus' affections and is disgusted that he would forget about his love back home, i.e. Julia herself. Silvia deeply mourns the loss of Valentine, whom Proteus has told her is rumoured dead. Not persuaded of Valentine's death, Silvia determines to flee the city with the help of Eglamour, a former suitor to Julia. They escape into the forest but when they are confronted by the outlaws, Eglamour flees and Silvia is taken captive. The outlaw"
      },
      {
        "text": " and is disgusted that he would forget about his love back home, i.e. Julia herself. Silvia deeply mourns the loss of Valentine, whom Proteus has told her is rumoured dead. Not persuaded of Valentine's death, Silvia determines to flee the city with the help of Eglamour, a former suitor to Julia. They escape into the forest but when they are confronted by the outlaws, Eglamour flees and Silvia is taken captive. The outlaws head to their leader (Valentine), but on the way, they encounter Proteus and Julia (still disguised as Sebastian). Proteus rescues Silvia, and then pursues her deeper into the forest. Secretly observed by Valentine, Proteus attempts to persuade Silvia that he loves her, but she rejects his advances. Furious and mad with desire, Proteus insinuates that he will rape her (\"I'll force thee yield to my desire\"). At this point, Valentine intervenes and denounces Proteus. Horrified at what has happened, Proteus vows that the hate Valentine feels for him is nothing compared to the hate he feels for himself. Convinced that Proteus' repentance is genuine, Valentine forgives him and seems to offer Silvia to him. At this point, overwhelmed, Julia faints, revealing her true identity. Upon seeing her, Proteus suddenly remembers his love for her and vows fidelity to her once again. The Duke and Thurio arrive, and Thurio claims Silvia as his. Valentine then warns Thurio that if he makes one move toward her, he will kill him. Terrified, Thurio renounces Silvia. The Duke, impressed by Valentine's actions, approves his and Silvia's love, and consents to their marriage. The two couples are happily united, and the Duke pardons the outlaws, telling them they may return to Milan.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". The Duke and Thurio arrive, and Thurio claims Silvia as his. Valentine then warns Thurio that if he makes one move toward her, he will kill him. Terrified, Thurio renounces Silvia. The Duke, impressed by Valentine's actions, approves his and Silvia's love, and consents to their marriage. The two couples are happily united, and the Duke pardons the outlaws, telling them they may return to Milan.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Girlfriend in a Coma",
    "author": "Douglas Coupland",
    "published_date": "1998",
    "synopsis": " The first part of the book covers the 17 years in the lives of this group of friends after Karen\u2019s lapse into a coma. Richard has to cope with losing Karen but gaining a daughter, Megan, as fatherhood is thrust upon him: the outcome of their mutual loss of virginity just hours before Karen fell into her coma. Wendy throws herself into work and Linus loses himself, looking for that which is lost. Pamela becomes a supermodel and Hamilton a demolition expert, but none of the friends\u2019 lives turn out how they imagined. Broken and lacking, they return to the suburbs of their youth to try to pull themselves together until one day, almost two decades after she fell asleep, Karen regains consciousness. The book is divided into three parts. The first chapter of the book is narrated by Jared, a ghost of a friend of the character's who died of leukemia at a young age. The rest of Part 1 is narrated by Richard, in the first person, as he tells the story of what happened in the 17 years. The second part of the book, with no narrator, deals with Karen's return to the world. It also begins to explain where she had been all those years and the reality she had hoped to escape. Then, suddenly, the world ends. This section is narrated in the third person, with insight into all the characters' minds. The final part of the book details life after everyone except these seven people have fallen asleep and not reawakened. This section is again narrated by Jared. The characters have to deal with the end of the world as predicted by Karen in her coma.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first part of the book covers the 17 years in the lives of this group of friends after Karen\u2019s lapse into a coma. Richard has to cope with losing Karen but gaining a daughter, Megan, as fatherhood is thrust upon him: the outcome of their mutual loss of virginity just hours before Karen fell into her coma. Wendy throws herself into work and Linus loses himself, looking for that which is lost. Pamela becomes a supermodel and Hamilton a demolition expert, but none of the friends\u2019 lives turn out how they imagined. Broken and lacking, they return to the suburbs of their youth to try to pull themselves together until one day, almost two decades after she fell asleep, Karen regains consciousness. The book is divided into three parts. The first chapter of the book is narrated by Jared, a ghost of a friend of the character's who died of leukemia at a young age. The rest of Part 1 is narrated by Richard, in the first person, as he tells the story of what happened in the 17 years. The second part of the book, with no narrator, deals with Karen's return to the world. It also begins to explain where she had been all those years and the reality she had hoped to escape. Then, suddenly, the world ends. This section is narrated in the third person, with insight into all the characters' minds. The final part of the book details life after everyone except these seven people have fallen asleep and not reawakened. This section is again narrated by Jared. The characters have to deal with the end of the world as predicted by Karen in her coma.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ". This section is again narrated by Jared. The characters have to deal with the end of the world as predicted by Karen in her coma.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Schindler's Ark",
    "author": "Thomas Keneally",
    "published_date": "1982-10-01",
    "synopsis": " This novel tells the story of Oskar Schindler, self-made entrepreneur and bon viveur who almost by default found himself saving Polish Jews from the Nazi death machine. Based on numerous eyewitness accounts, Keneally's story is unbearably moving but never melodramatic, a testament to the almost unimaginable horrors of Hitler's attempts to make Europe judenfrei, or free of Jews. What distinguishes Schindler in Keneally's version is not, superficially, kindness or idealism, but a certain gusto. He is a flawed hero; he is not \"without sin\". He is a drinker, a womaniser and, at first, a profiteer. After the war, he is commemorated as Righteous among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, but he is never seen as a conventionally virtuous character. The story is not only Schindler's. It is the story of Krak\u00f3w's dying ghetto and the forced labor camp outside of town, at Plasz\u00f3w. It is the story of Amon Goeth, Plasz\u00f3w's commandant. His wife Emilie remarked in a German TV interview that Schindler did nothing remarkable before the war and nothing after it. \"He was fortunate therefore that in the short fierce era between 1939 and 1945 he had met people who had summoned forth his deeper talents.\" After the war, his business ventures fail, he separates from his wife, and he ends up living a shabby life in a small flat in Frankfurt. Eventually he arranged to live part of the year in Israel, supported by his Jewish friends, and part of the year as a sort of internal \u00e9migr\u00e9 in Frankfurt, where he was often hissed at in the streets as a traitor to his \"race\". After 29 unexceptional postwar years he died in 1974. He was buried in Jerusalem as he wished with the help of his old friend Pfefferberg.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " This novel tells the story of Oskar Schindler, self-made entrepreneur and bon viveur who almost by default found himself saving Polish Jews from the Nazi death machine. Based on numerous eyewitness accounts, Keneally's story is unbearably moving but never melodramatic, a testament to the almost unimaginable horrors of Hitler's attempts to make Europe judenfrei, or free of Jews. What distinguishes Schindler in Keneally's version is not, superficially, kindness or idealism, but a certain gusto. He is a flawed hero; he is not \"without sin\". He is a drinker, a womaniser and, at first, a profiteer. After the war, he is commemorated as Righteous among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, but he is never seen as a conventionally virtuous character. The story is not only Schindler's. It is the story of Krak\u00f3w's dying ghetto and the forced labor camp outside of town, at Plasz\u00f3w. It is the story of Amon Goeth, Plasz\u00f3w's commandant. His wife Emilie remarked in a German TV interview that Schindler did nothing remarkable before the war and nothing after it. \"He was fortunate therefore that in the short fierce era between 1939 and 1945 he had met people who had summoned forth his deeper talents.\" After the war, his business ventures fail, he separates from his wife, and he ends up living a shabby life in a small flat in Frankfurt. Eventually he arranged to live part of the year in Israel, supported by his Jewish friends, and part of the year as a sort of internal \u00e9migr\u00e9 in Frankfurt, where he was often hissed at in the streets as a traitor to his \"race\". After 29 unexceptional postwar years he died in 1974. He was buried in Jerusalem as he wished with the help of his old friend"
      },
      {
        "text": " from his wife, and he ends up living a shabby life in a small flat in Frankfurt. Eventually he arranged to live part of the year in Israel, supported by his Jewish friends, and part of the year as a sort of internal \u00e9migr\u00e9 in Frankfurt, where he was often hissed at in the streets as a traitor to his \"race\". After 29 unexceptional postwar years he died in 1974. He was buried in Jerusalem as he wished with the help of his old friend Pfefferberg.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sparrow",
    "author": "Mary Doria Russell",
    "published_date": "1996",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins in the year 2019, when the SETI program, at the Arecibo Observatory, picks up radio broadcasts of music from the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. The first expedition to Rakhat, the world that is sending the music, is organized by the Jesuit order. Only one of the crew, Father Emilio Sandoz, a priest, survives to return to Earth, and he is damaged physically and psychologically. The story is told in framed flashback, with chapters alternating between the story of the expedition and the story of Sandoz' interrogation by the Jesuit order's inquest, set up in 2059 to find the truth. Sandoz' return has sparked great controversy \u2013 not just because the Jesuits sent the mission independent of United Nations oversight, but also because the mission ended disastrously. Contact with the UN mission, which sent Sandoz back to Earth alone in the Jesuit ship, has since been lost. From the beginning, Sandoz, a talented Taino linguist born in a Puerto Rican slum, had believed the mission to Rakhat was divinely inspired. Several of his close friends and co-workers, people with a variety of unique skills and talents, had seemingly coincidental connections to Arecibo and one of them, a gifted young technician, was the first to hear the transmissions. In Sandoz's mind, only God's will could bring this group of people with the perfect combination of knowledge and experience together at the moment when the alien signal was detected. These were the people who, with three other Jesuit priests, were chosen by the Society of Jesus to travel to the planet, using an interstellar vessel made out of a small asteroid. Sandoz tells about how the asteroid flew to the planet Rakhat, and how the crew tried to acclimatize themselves to the new world, experimenting with eating local flora and fauna, then making contact with a rural village \u2013 a small-scale tribe of vegetarian gatherers, the Runa, clearly not the singers of the radio broadcasts. Still, welcomed as 'foreigners', they settle among the natives and begin to learn their language and culture, transmitting all their findings via computer uplink to the asteroid-ship now orbiting above the planet. An emergency use of fuel for their landing craft leaves them stranded on the planet. When they do meet a member of the culture which produced the radio transmissions, he proves to be of a different species from the rural natives, a Jana'ata. An ambitious merchant named Supaari, he sees in the visitors a possibility to improve his status, while the crew hopes to find an alternative source of fuel in Supaari's city, Gayjur. Meanwhile, the crew begins to grow their own food, introducing the concept of agriculture to the villagers. These seemingly innocent actions and accompanying cultural misunderstandings set into motion the events which lead to the murder of all but Sandoz and one other Earthling, and Sandoz' capture and degradation which is a central mystery in the plot. It is revealed that Sandoz is made a slave of a famed poet/songwriter, whose broadcasts first alerted Earth to Rakhat's existence. Sandoz is physically disfigured. In that culture, it is considered an honour to be dependent upon another, and likewise to have a dependent, so the flesh between Sandoz's metacarpals is cut away to make it seem that he has long elegant fingers which start at his wrists, and with which he cannot even feed himself. Sandoz is routinely forced to sexually satisfy the musician, along with his friends and colleagues, and it is later revealed the songs which Sandoz had originally considered to be a divine revelation are in fact a kind of ballad pornography, relating the songwriter's sexual exploits on broadcast to the populace. When Sandoz returns to Earth, his friends are dead and gone and his faith, once considered worthy of actual canonization by his superiors, is merely an extension of his bitter anger with the God who sent him to Rakhat. Due to relativistic space-time effects, decades had passed while he has been gone, during which popular outrage at the UN's initial and highly out-of-context report on the mission, and especially Sandoz's role in the tragedy, had left the Society shattered and nearly extinct. As Sandoz painfully explains what really happened, his personal healing can begin, but only time will prove whether the same is true of the Society.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins in the year 2019, when the SETI program, at the Arecibo Observatory, picks up radio broadcasts of music from the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. The first expedition to Rakhat, the world that is sending the music, is organized by the Jesuit order. Only one of the crew, Father Emilio Sandoz, a priest, survives to return to Earth, and he is damaged physically and psychologically. The story is told in framed flashback, with chapters alternating between the story of the expedition and the story of Sandoz' interrogation by the Jesuit order's inquest, set up in 2059 to find the truth. Sandoz' return has sparked great controversy \u2013 not just because the Jesuits sent the mission independent of United Nations oversight, but also because the mission ended disastrously. Contact with the UN mission, which sent Sandoz back to Earth alone in the Jesuit ship, has since been lost. From the beginning, Sandoz, a talented Taino linguist born in a Puerto Rican slum, had believed the mission to Rakhat was divinely inspired. Several of his close friends and co-workers, people with a variety of unique skills and talents, had seemingly coincidental connections to Arecibo and one of them, a gifted young technician, was the first to hear the transmissions. In Sandoz's mind, only God's will could bring this group of people with the perfect combination of knowledge and experience together at the moment when the alien signal was detected. These were the people who, with three other Jesuit priests, were chosen by the Society of Jesus to travel to the planet, using an interstellar vessel made out of a small asteroid. Sandoz tells about how the asteroid flew to the planet Rakhat, and how the crew tried to acclimatize themselves to the new world, experimenting with eating local flora and fauna, then making contact with a rural village \u2013 a small-scale tribe of vegetarian gatherers, the Runa, clearly"
      },
      {
        "text": " These were the people who, with three other Jesuit priests, were chosen by the Society of Jesus to travel to the planet, using an interstellar vessel made out of a small asteroid. Sandoz tells about how the asteroid flew to the planet Rakhat, and how the crew tried to acclimatize themselves to the new world, experimenting with eating local flora and fauna, then making contact with a rural village \u2013 a small-scale tribe of vegetarian gatherers, the Runa, clearly not the singers of the radio broadcasts. Still, welcomed as 'foreigners', they settle among the natives and begin to learn their language and culture, transmitting all their findings via computer uplink to the asteroid-ship now orbiting above the planet. An emergency use of fuel for their landing craft leaves them stranded on the planet. When they do meet a member of the culture which produced the radio transmissions, he proves to be of a different species from the rural natives, a Jana'ata. An ambitious merchant named Supaari, he sees in the visitors a possibility to improve his status, while the crew hopes to find an alternative source of fuel in Supaari's city, Gayjur. Meanwhile, the crew begins to grow their own food, introducing the concept of agriculture to the villagers. These seemingly innocent actions and accompanying cultural misunderstandings set into motion the events which lead to the murder of all but Sandoz and one other Earthling, and Sandoz' capture and degradation which is a central mystery in the plot. It is revealed that Sandoz is made a slave of a famed poet/songwriter, whose broadcasts first alerted Earth to Rakhat's existence. Sandoz is physically disfigured. In that culture, it is considered an honour to be dependent upon another, and likewise to have a dependent, so the flesh between Sandoz's metacarpals is cut away to make it seem that he has long elegant fingers which start at his wrists, and with which he cannot"
      },
      {
        "text": " a central mystery in the plot. It is revealed that Sandoz is made a slave of a famed poet/songwriter, whose broadcasts first alerted Earth to Rakhat's existence. Sandoz is physically disfigured. In that culture, it is considered an honour to be dependent upon another, and likewise to have a dependent, so the flesh between Sandoz's metacarpals is cut away to make it seem that he has long elegant fingers which start at his wrists, and with which he cannot even feed himself. Sandoz is routinely forced to sexually satisfy the musician, along with his friends and colleagues, and it is later revealed the songs which Sandoz had originally considered to be a divine revelation are in fact a kind of ballad pornography, relating the songwriter's sexual exploits on broadcast to the populace. When Sandoz returns to Earth, his friends are dead and gone and his faith, once considered worthy of actual canonization by his superiors, is merely an extension of his bitter anger with the God who sent him to Rakhat. Due to relativistic space-time effects, decades had passed while he has been gone, during which popular outrage at the UN's initial and highly out-of-context report on the mission, and especially Sandoz's role in the tragedy, had left the Society shattered and nearly extinct. As Sandoz painfully explains what really happened, his personal healing can begin, but only time will prove whether the same is true of the Society.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Red Rabbit",
    "author": "Tom Clancy",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Jack Ryan, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the British Secret Intelligence Service help with transporting a Russian defector and his family to the United States. The defector tells of a KGB plan to kill Pope John Paul II.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Jack Ryan, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the British Secret Intelligence Service help with transporting a Russian defector and his family to the United States. The defector tells of a KGB plan to kill Pope John Paul II.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Family Matters",
    "author": "Rohinton Mistry",
    "published_date": "2002",
    "synopsis": " The first few pages tell of Nariman's subjection to increasing decay in physical health and stinging insults (revolving around his cost of medicine, lack of space and privacy, the daily routine of bedpans and urinals, sponge baths and bedsores) from his stepdaughter. Very soon, the focus shifts to Roxana's household. With Nariman's inclusion, however, deterioration and decay creep into it. As Yezad comes to centre stage for the following part of the book, the author explores the problems faced by an average middle-class family. Financial problems lure him and Jehangir towards greed and money. The subplot of the book, which involves Yezad hatching a plan to dethrone his employer, is a huge slap on the faces of the corrupt Shiv Sainiks. This subplot acts as the turning point in the main story. The book contains many details of the Parsis' practices, rituals, intolerances, and the concerns of native Parsis. In the epilogue, the youngest of all characters, Jehangir, becomes the narrator, describing the metamorphosis that religion, age, death, and wealth bring to his family.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first few pages tell of Nariman's subjection to increasing decay in physical health and stinging insults (revolving around his cost of medicine, lack of space and privacy, the daily routine of bedpans and urinals, sponge baths and bedsores) from his stepdaughter. Very soon, the focus shifts to Roxana's household. With Nariman's inclusion, however, deterioration and decay creep into it. As Yezad comes to centre stage for the following part of the book, the author explores the problems faced by an average middle-class family. Financial problems lure him and Jehangir towards greed and money. The subplot of the book, which involves Yezad hatching a plan to dethrone his employer, is a huge slap on the faces of the corrupt Shiv Sainiks. This subplot acts as the turning point in the main story. The book contains many details of the Parsis' practices, rituals, intolerances, and the concerns of native Parsis. In the epilogue, the youngest of all characters, Jehangir, becomes the narrator, describing the metamorphosis that religion, age, death, and wealth bring to his family.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions",
    "author": "Thomas Samuel Kuhn",
    "published_date": "1962",
    "synopsis": " Kuhn's approach to the history and philosophy of science has been described as focusing on conceptual issues: what sorts of ideas were thinkable at a particular time? What sorts of intellectual options and strategies were available to people during a given period? What types of lexicons and terminology were known and employed during certain epochs? Stressing the importance of not attributing modern modes of thought to historical actors, Kuhn's book argues that the evolution of scientific theory does not emerge from the straightforward accumulation of facts, but rather from a set of changing intellectual circumstances and possibilities. Such an approach is largely commensurate with the general historical school of non-linear history. Kuhn explains his ideas using examples taken from the history of science. For instance, at a particular stage in the history of chemistry, some chemists began to explore the idea of atomism. When many substances are heated they have a tendency to decompose into their constituent elements, and often (though not invariably) these elements can be observed to combine only in set proportions. At one time, a combination of water and alcohol was generally classified as a compound. Nowadays it is considered to be a solution, but there was no reason then to suspect that it was not a compound. Water and alcohol would not separate spontaneously, but they could be separated when heated. Water and alcohol can be combined in any proportion. A chemist favoring atomic theory would have viewed all compounds whose elements combine in fixed proportions as exhibiting normal behavior, and all known exceptions to this pattern would be regarded as anomalies whose behavior would probably be explained at some time in the future. On the other hand, if a chemist believed that theories of the atomicity of matter were erroneous, then all compounds whose elements combined in fixed proportions would be regarded as anomalies whose behavior would probably be explained at some time in the future, and all those compounds whose elements are capable of combining in any ratio would be seen as exhibiting the normal behavior of compounds. Nowadays the consensus is that the atomists' view was correct. But if one were to restrict oneself to thinking about chemistry using only the knowledge available at the time, either point of view would be defensible. What is arguably the most famous example of a revolution in scientific thought is the Copernican Revolution. In Ptolemy's school of thought, cycles and epicycles (with some additional concepts) were used for modeling the movements of the planets in a cosmos that had a stationary Earth at its center. As accuracy of celestial observations increased, complexity of the Ptolemaic cyclical and epicyclical mechanisms had to increase to maintain the calculated planetary positions close to the observed positions. Copernicus proposed a cosmology in which the Sun was at the center and the Earth was one of the planets revolving around it. For modeling the planetary motions, Copernicus used the tools he was familiar with, namely the cycles and epicycles of the Ptolemaic toolbox. But Copernicus' model needed more cycles and epicycles than existed in the then-current Ptolemaic model, and due to a lack of accuracy in calculations, Copernicus's model did not appear to provide more accurate predictions than the Ptolemy model. Copernicus' contemporaries rejected his cosmology, and Kuhn asserts that they were quite right to do so: Copernicus' cosmology lacked credibility. Thomas Kuhn illustrates how a paradigm shift later became possible when Galileo Galilei introduced his new ideas concerning motion. Intuitively, when an object is set in motion, it soon comes to a halt. A well-made cart may travel a long distance before it stops, but unless something keeps pushing it, it will eventually stop moving. Aristotle had argued that this was presumably a fundamental property of nature: for the motion of an object to be sustained, it must continue to be pushed. Given the knowledge available at the time, this represented sensible, reasonable thinking. Galileo put forward a bold alternative conjecture: suppose, he said, that we always observe objects coming to a halt simply because some friction is always occurring. Galileo had no equipment with which to objectively confirm his conjecture, but he suggested that without any friction to slow down an object in motion, its inherent tendency is to maintain its speed without the application of any additional force. The Ptolemaic approach of using cycles and epicycles was becoming strained: there seemed to be no end to the mushrooming growth in complexity required to account for the observable phenomena. Johannes Kepler was the first person to abandon the tools of the Ptolemaic paradigm. He started to explore the possibility that the planet Mars might have an elliptical orbit rather than a circular one. Clearly, the angular velocity could not be constant, but it proved very difficult to find the formula describing the rate of change of the planet's angular velocity. After many years of calculations, Kepler arrived at what we now know as the law of equal areas. Galileo's conjecture was merely that &mdash; a conjecture. So was Kepler's cosmology. But each conjecture increased the credibility of the other, and together, they changed the prevailing perceptions of the scientific community. Later, Newton showed that Kepler's three laws could all be derived from a single theory of motion and planetary motion. Newton solidified and unified the paradigm shift that Galileo and Kepler had initiated. One of the aims of science is to find models that will account for as many observations as possible within a coherent framework. Together, Galileo's rethinking of the nature of motion and Keplerian cosmology represented a coherent framework that was capable of rivaling the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic framework. Once a paradigm shift has taken place, the textbooks are rewritten. Often the history of science too is rewritten, being presented as an inevitable process leading up to the current, established framework of thought. There is a prevalent belief that all hitherto-unexplained phenomena will in due course be accounted for in terms of this established framework. Kuhn states that scientists spend most (if not all) of their careers in a process of puzzle-solving. Their puzzle-solving is pursued with great tenacity, because the previous successes of the established paradigm tend to generate great confidence that the approach being taken guarantees that a solution to the puzzle exists, even though it may be very hard to find. Kuhn calls this process normal science. As a paradigm is stretched to its limits, anomalies &mdash; failures of the current paradigm to take into account observed phenomena &mdash; accumulate. Their significance is judged by the practitioners of the discipline. Some anomalies may be dismissed as errors in observation, others as merely requiring small adjustments to the current paradigm that will be clarified in due course. Some anomalies resolve themselves spontaneously, having increased the available depth of insight along the way. But no matter how great or numerous the anomalies that persist, Kuhn observes, the practicing scientists will not lose faith in the established paradigm for as long as no credible alternative is available; to lose faith in the solubility of the problems would in effect mean ceasing to be a scientist. In any community of scientists, Kuhn states, there are some individuals who are bolder than most. These scientists, judging that a crisis exists, embark on what Thomas Kuhn calls revolutionary science, exploring alternatives to long-held, obvious-seeming assumptions. Occasionally this generates a rival to the established framework of thought. The new candidate paradigm will appear to be accompanied by numerous anomalies, partly because it is still so new and incomplete. The majority of the scientific community will oppose any conceptual change, and, Kuhn emphasizes, so they should. To fulfill its potential, a scientific community needs to contain both individuals who are bold and individuals who are conservative. There are many examples in the history of science in which confidence in the established frame of thought was eventually vindicated. Whether the anomalies of a candidate for a new paradigm will be resolvable is almost impossible to predict. Those scientists who possess an exceptional ability to recognize a theory's potential will be the first whose preference is likely to shift in favour of the challenging paradigm. There typically follows a period in which there are adherents of both paradigms. In time, if the challenging paradigm is solidified and unified, it will replace the old paradigm, and a paradigm shift will have occurred. Chronologically, Kuhn distinguishes between three phases. The first phase, which exists only once, is the pre-paradigm phase, in which there is no consensus on any particular theory, though the research being carried out can be considered scientific in nature. This phase is characterized by several incompatible and incomplete theories. If the actors in the pre-paradigm community eventually gravitate to one of these conceptual frameworks and ultimately to a widespread consensus on the appropriate choice of methods, terminology and on the kinds of experiment that are likely to contribute to increased insights, then the second phase, normal science, begins, in which puzzles are solved within the context of the dominant paradigm. As long as there is consensus within the discipline, normal science continues. Over time, progress in normal science may reveal anomalies, facts that are difficult to explain within the context of the existing paradigm. While usually these anomalies are resolved, in some cases they may accumulate to the point where normal science becomes difficult and where weaknesses in the old paradigm are revealed. Kuhn refers to this as a crisis. Crises are often resolved within the context of normal science. However, after significant efforts of normal science within a paradigm fail, science may enter the third phase, that of revolutionary science, in which the underlying assumptions of the field are reexamined and a new paradigm is established. After the new paradigm's dominance is established, scientists return to normal science, solving puzzles within the new paradigm. A science may go through these cycles repeatedly, though Kuhn notes that it is a good thing for science that such shifts do not occur often or easily. According to Kuhn, the scientific paradigms preceding and succeeding a paradigm shift are so different that their theories are incommensurable &mdash; the new paradigm cannot be proven or disproven by the rules of the old paradigm, and vice versa. The paradigm shift does not merely involve the revision or transformation of an individual theory, it changes the way terminology is defined, how the scientists in that field view their subject, and, perhaps most significantly, what questions are regarded as valid, and what rules are used to determine the truth of a particular theory. The new theories were not, as the scientists had previously thought, just extensions of old theories, but were instead completely new world views. Such incommensurability exists not just before and after a paradigm shift, but in the periods in between conflicting paradigms. It is simply not possible, according to Kuhn, to construct an impartial language that can be used to perform a neutral comparison between conflicting paradigms, because the very terms used are integral to the respective paradigms, and therefore have different connotations in each paradigm. The advocates of mutually exclusive paradigms are in a difficult position: \"Though each may hope to convert the other to his way of seeing science and its problems, neither may hope to prove his case. The competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proofs.\" (SSR, p.&nbsp;148). Scientists subscribing to different paradigms end up talking past one another. Kuhn (SSR, section XII) states that the probabilistic tools used by verificationists are inherently inadequate for the task of deciding between conflicting theories, since they belong to the very paradigms they seek to compare. Similarly, observations that are intended to falsify a statement will fall under one of the paradigms they are supposed to help compare, and will therefore also be inadequate for the task. According to Kuhn, the concept of falsifiability is unhelpful for understanding why and how science has developed as it has. In the practice of science, scientists will only consider the possibility that a theory has been falsified if an alternative theory is available that they judge credible. If there is not, scientists will continue to adhere to the established conceptual framework. If a paradigm shift has occurred, the textbooks will be rewritten to state that the previous theory has been falsified.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Kuhn's approach to the history and philosophy of science has been described as focusing on conceptual issues: what sorts of ideas were thinkable at a particular time? What sorts of intellectual options and strategies were available to people during a given period? What types of lexicons and terminology were known and employed during certain epochs? Stressing the importance of not attributing modern modes of thought to historical actors, Kuhn's book argues that the evolution of scientific theory does not emerge from the straightforward accumulation of facts, but rather from a set of changing intellectual circumstances and possibilities. Such an approach is largely commensurate with the general historical school of non-linear history. Kuhn explains his ideas using examples taken from the history of science. For instance, at a particular stage in the history of chemistry, some chemists began to explore the idea of atomism. When many substances are heated they have a tendency to decompose into their constituent elements, and often (though not invariably) these elements can be observed to combine only in set proportions. At one time, a combination of water and alcohol was generally classified as a compound. Nowadays it is considered to be a solution, but there was no reason then to suspect that it was not a compound. Water and alcohol would not separate spontaneously, but they could be separated when heated. Water and alcohol can be combined in any proportion. A chemist favoring atomic theory would have viewed all compounds whose elements combine in fixed proportions as exhibiting normal behavior, and all known exceptions to this pattern would be regarded as anomalies whose behavior would probably be explained at some time in the future. On the other hand, if a chemist believed that theories of the atomicity of matter were erroneous, then all compounds whose elements combined in fixed proportions would be regarded as anomalies whose behavior would probably be explained at some time in the future, and all those compounds whose elements are capable of combining in any ratio would be seen as exhibiting the normal behavior of compounds. Nowadays the consensus is that the atom"
      },
      {
        "text": " to this pattern would be regarded as anomalies whose behavior would probably be explained at some time in the future. On the other hand, if a chemist believed that theories of the atomicity of matter were erroneous, then all compounds whose elements combined in fixed proportions would be regarded as anomalies whose behavior would probably be explained at some time in the future, and all those compounds whose elements are capable of combining in any ratio would be seen as exhibiting the normal behavior of compounds. Nowadays the consensus is that the atomists' view was correct. But if one were to restrict oneself to thinking about chemistry using only the knowledge available at the time, either point of view would be defensible. What is arguably the most famous example of a revolution in scientific thought is the Copernican Revolution. In Ptolemy's school of thought, cycles and epicycles (with some additional concepts) were used for modeling the movements of the planets in a cosmos that had a stationary Earth at its center. As accuracy of celestial observations increased, complexity of the Ptolemaic cyclical and epicyclical mechanisms had to increase to maintain the calculated planetary positions close to the observed positions. Copernicus proposed a cosmology in which the Sun was at the center and the Earth was one of the planets revolving around it. For modeling the planetary motions, Copernicus used the tools he was familiar with, namely the cycles and epicycles of the Ptolemaic toolbox. But Copernicus' model needed more cycles and epicycles than existed in the then-current Ptolemaic model, and due to a lack of accuracy in calculations, Copernicus's model did not appear to provide more accurate predictions than the Ptolemy model. Copernicus' contemporaries rejected his cosmology, and Kuhn asserts that they were quite right to do so: Copernicus' cosmology lacked credibility. Thomas Kuhn illustrates how a paradigm shift later became possible when Galileo Galile"
      },
      {
        "text": "' model needed more cycles and epicycles than existed in the then-current Ptolemaic model, and due to a lack of accuracy in calculations, Copernicus's model did not appear to provide more accurate predictions than the Ptolemy model. Copernicus' contemporaries rejected his cosmology, and Kuhn asserts that they were quite right to do so: Copernicus' cosmology lacked credibility. Thomas Kuhn illustrates how a paradigm shift later became possible when Galileo Galilei introduced his new ideas concerning motion. Intuitively, when an object is set in motion, it soon comes to a halt. A well-made cart may travel a long distance before it stops, but unless something keeps pushing it, it will eventually stop moving. Aristotle had argued that this was presumably a fundamental property of nature: for the motion of an object to be sustained, it must continue to be pushed. Given the knowledge available at the time, this represented sensible, reasonable thinking. Galileo put forward a bold alternative conjecture: suppose, he said, that we always observe objects coming to a halt simply because some friction is always occurring. Galileo had no equipment with which to objectively confirm his conjecture, but he suggested that without any friction to slow down an object in motion, its inherent tendency is to maintain its speed without the application of any additional force. The Ptolemaic approach of using cycles and epicycles was becoming strained: there seemed to be no end to the mushrooming growth in complexity required to account for the observable phenomena. Johannes Kepler was the first person to abandon the tools of the Ptolemaic paradigm. He started to explore the possibility that the planet Mars might have an elliptical orbit rather than a circular one. Clearly, the angular velocity could not be constant, but it proved very difficult to find the formula describing the rate of change of the planet's angular velocity. After many years of calculations, Kepler arrived at what we now know as the law"
      },
      {
        "text": "oming growth in complexity required to account for the observable phenomena. Johannes Kepler was the first person to abandon the tools of the Ptolemaic paradigm. He started to explore the possibility that the planet Mars might have an elliptical orbit rather than a circular one. Clearly, the angular velocity could not be constant, but it proved very difficult to find the formula describing the rate of change of the planet's angular velocity. After many years of calculations, Kepler arrived at what we now know as the law of equal areas. Galileo's conjecture was merely that &mdash; a conjecture. So was Kepler's cosmology. But each conjecture increased the credibility of the other, and together, they changed the prevailing perceptions of the scientific community. Later, Newton showed that Kepler's three laws could all be derived from a single theory of motion and planetary motion. Newton solidified and unified the paradigm shift that Galileo and Kepler had initiated. One of the aims of science is to find models that will account for as many observations as possible within a coherent framework. Together, Galileo's rethinking of the nature of motion and Keplerian cosmology represented a coherent framework that was capable of rivaling the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic framework. Once a paradigm shift has taken place, the textbooks are rewritten. Often the history of science too is rewritten, being presented as an inevitable process leading up to the current, established framework of thought. There is a prevalent belief that all hitherto-unexplained phenomena will in due course be accounted for in terms of this established framework. Kuhn states that scientists spend most (if not all) of their careers in a process of puzzle-solving. Their puzzle-solving is pursued with great tenacity, because the previous successes of the established paradigm tend to generate great confidence that the approach being taken guarantees that a solution to the puzzle exists, even though it may be very hard to find. Kuhn calls this process normal science. As a paradigm is stretched"
      },
      {
        "text": " will in due course be accounted for in terms of this established framework. Kuhn states that scientists spend most (if not all) of their careers in a process of puzzle-solving. Their puzzle-solving is pursued with great tenacity, because the previous successes of the established paradigm tend to generate great confidence that the approach being taken guarantees that a solution to the puzzle exists, even though it may be very hard to find. Kuhn calls this process normal science. As a paradigm is stretched to its limits, anomalies &mdash; failures of the current paradigm to take into account observed phenomena &mdash; accumulate. Their significance is judged by the practitioners of the discipline. Some anomalies may be dismissed as errors in observation, others as merely requiring small adjustments to the current paradigm that will be clarified in due course. Some anomalies resolve themselves spontaneously, having increased the available depth of insight along the way. But no matter how great or numerous the anomalies that persist, Kuhn observes, the practicing scientists will not lose faith in the established paradigm for as long as no credible alternative is available; to lose faith in the solubility of the problems would in effect mean ceasing to be a scientist. In any community of scientists, Kuhn states, there are some individuals who are bolder than most. These scientists, judging that a crisis exists, embark on what Thomas Kuhn calls revolutionary science, exploring alternatives to long-held, obvious-seeming assumptions. Occasionally this generates a rival to the established framework of thought. The new candidate paradigm will appear to be accompanied by numerous anomalies, partly because it is still so new and incomplete. The majority of the scientific community will oppose any conceptual change, and, Kuhn emphasizes, so they should. To fulfill its potential, a scientific community needs to contain both individuals who are bold and individuals who are conservative. There are many examples in the history of science in which confidence in the established frame of thought was eventually vindicated. Whether the anomalies of"
      },
      {
        "text": " the established framework of thought. The new candidate paradigm will appear to be accompanied by numerous anomalies, partly because it is still so new and incomplete. The majority of the scientific community will oppose any conceptual change, and, Kuhn emphasizes, so they should. To fulfill its potential, a scientific community needs to contain both individuals who are bold and individuals who are conservative. There are many examples in the history of science in which confidence in the established frame of thought was eventually vindicated. Whether the anomalies of a candidate for a new paradigm will be resolvable is almost impossible to predict. Those scientists who possess an exceptional ability to recognize a theory's potential will be the first whose preference is likely to shift in favour of the challenging paradigm. There typically follows a period in which there are adherents of both paradigms. In time, if the challenging paradigm is solidified and unified, it will replace the old paradigm, and a paradigm shift will have occurred. Chronologically, Kuhn distinguishes between three phases. The first phase, which exists only once, is the pre-paradigm phase, in which there is no consensus on any particular theory, though the research being carried out can be considered scientific in nature. This phase is characterized by several incompatible and incomplete theories. If the actors in the pre-paradigm community eventually gravitate to one of these conceptual frameworks and ultimately to a widespread consensus on the appropriate choice of methods, terminology and on the kinds of experiment that are likely to contribute to increased insights, then the second phase, normal science, begins, in which puzzles are solved within the context of the dominant paradigm. As long as there is consensus within the discipline, normal science continues. Over time, progress in normal science may reveal anomalies, facts that are difficult to explain within the context of the existing paradigm. While usually these anomalies are resolved, in some cases they may accumulate to the point where normal science becomes difficult and where weaknesses in the old paradigm are revealed. Kuhn refers to"
      },
      {
        "text": " increased insights, then the second phase, normal science, begins, in which puzzles are solved within the context of the dominant paradigm. As long as there is consensus within the discipline, normal science continues. Over time, progress in normal science may reveal anomalies, facts that are difficult to explain within the context of the existing paradigm. While usually these anomalies are resolved, in some cases they may accumulate to the point where normal science becomes difficult and where weaknesses in the old paradigm are revealed. Kuhn refers to this as a crisis. Crises are often resolved within the context of normal science. However, after significant efforts of normal science within a paradigm fail, science may enter the third phase, that of revolutionary science, in which the underlying assumptions of the field are reexamined and a new paradigm is established. After the new paradigm's dominance is established, scientists return to normal science, solving puzzles within the new paradigm. A science may go through these cycles repeatedly, though Kuhn notes that it is a good thing for science that such shifts do not occur often or easily. According to Kuhn, the scientific paradigms preceding and succeeding a paradigm shift are so different that their theories are incommensurable &mdash; the new paradigm cannot be proven or disproven by the rules of the old paradigm, and vice versa. The paradigm shift does not merely involve the revision or transformation of an individual theory, it changes the way terminology is defined, how the scientists in that field view their subject, and, perhaps most significantly, what questions are regarded as valid, and what rules are used to determine the truth of a particular theory. The new theories were not, as the scientists had previously thought, just extensions of old theories, but were instead completely new world views. Such incommensurability exists not just before and after a paradigm shift, but in the periods in between conflicting paradigms. It is simply not possible, according to Kuhn, to construct an impartial language that can"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and, perhaps most significantly, what questions are regarded as valid, and what rules are used to determine the truth of a particular theory. The new theories were not, as the scientists had previously thought, just extensions of old theories, but were instead completely new world views. Such incommensurability exists not just before and after a paradigm shift, but in the periods in between conflicting paradigms. It is simply not possible, according to Kuhn, to construct an impartial language that can be used to perform a neutral comparison between conflicting paradigms, because the very terms used are integral to the respective paradigms, and therefore have different connotations in each paradigm. The advocates of mutually exclusive paradigms are in a difficult position: \"Though each may hope to convert the other to his way of seeing science and its problems, neither may hope to prove his case. The competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proofs.\" (SSR, p.&nbsp;148). Scientists subscribing to different paradigms end up talking past one another. Kuhn (SSR, section XII) states that the probabilistic tools used by verificationists are inherently inadequate for the task of deciding between conflicting theories, since they belong to the very paradigms they seek to compare. Similarly, observations that are intended to falsify a statement will fall under one of the paradigms they are supposed to help compare, and will therefore also be inadequate for the task. According to Kuhn, the concept of falsifiability is unhelpful for understanding why and how science has developed as it has. In the practice of science, scientists will only consider the possibility that a theory has been falsified if an alternative theory is available that they judge credible. If there is not, scientists will continue to adhere to the established conceptual framework. If a paradigm shift has occurred, the textbooks will be rewritten to state that the previous theory has been fals"
      },
      {
        "text": " be inadequate for the task. According to Kuhn, the concept of falsifiability is unhelpful for understanding why and how science has developed as it has. In the practice of science, scientists will only consider the possibility that a theory has been falsified if an alternative theory is available that they judge credible. If there is not, scientists will continue to adhere to the established conceptual framework. If a paradigm shift has occurred, the textbooks will be rewritten to state that the previous theory has been falsified.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Sartoris",
    "author": "William Faulkner",
    "published_date": "1929",
    "synopsis": " The novel deals with the decay of an aristocratic southern family just after the end of World War I. The wealthy Sartoris family of Jefferson, Mississippi, lives under the shadow of its dead patriarch, Colonel John Sartoris. Colonel John was a Confederate cavalry officer during the Civil War, built the local railroad, and is a folk hero. The surviving Sartorises are his younger sister, Virginia Du Pre (\"Aunt Jenny\" or \"Miss Jenny\"), his son Bayard Sartoris (\"Old Bayard\"), and his great-grandson Bayard Sartoris (\"Young Bayard\"). The novel begins with the return of young Bayard Sartoris to Jefferson from the First World War. Bayard and his twin brother John, who was killed in action, were fighter pilots. Young Bayard is haunted by the death of his brother. That and the family disposition for foolhardy acts push him into a pattern of self-destructive behavior, especially reckless driving in a recently purchased automobile. Eventually young Bayard crashes the car off a bridge. During the convalescence which follows, he establishes a relationship with Narcissa Benbow, whom he marries. Despite promises to Narcissa to stop driving recklessly, he gets into a near wreck with old Bayard in the car, causing old Bayard to die of a heart attack. Young Bayard disappears from Jefferson, leaving his now pregnant wife with Aunt Jenny. He dies test-flying an experimental airplane on the day of his son\u2019s birth.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel deals with the decay of an aristocratic southern family just after the end of World War I. The wealthy Sartoris family of Jefferson, Mississippi, lives under the shadow of its dead patriarch, Colonel John Sartoris. Colonel John was a Confederate cavalry officer during the Civil War, built the local railroad, and is a folk hero. The surviving Sartorises are his younger sister, Virginia Du Pre (\"Aunt Jenny\" or \"Miss Jenny\"), his son Bayard Sartoris (\"Old Bayard\"), and his great-grandson Bayard Sartoris (\"Young Bayard\"). The novel begins with the return of young Bayard Sartoris to Jefferson from the First World War. Bayard and his twin brother John, who was killed in action, were fighter pilots. Young Bayard is haunted by the death of his brother. That and the family disposition for foolhardy acts push him into a pattern of self-destructive behavior, especially reckless driving in a recently purchased automobile. Eventually young Bayard crashes the car off a bridge. During the convalescence which follows, he establishes a relationship with Narcissa Benbow, whom he marries. Despite promises to Narcissa to stop driving recklessly, he gets into a near wreck with old Bayard in the car, causing old Bayard to die of a heart attack. Young Bayard disappears from Jefferson, leaving his now pregnant wife with Aunt Jenny. He dies test-flying an experimental airplane on the day of his son\u2019s birth.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " day of his son\u2019s birth.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Babbitt",
    "author": "Sinclair Lewis",
    "published_date": "1922",
    "synopsis": " Lewis has been both criticized and congratulated for his unorthodox writing style in Babbitt. As one reviewer puts it: \u201cThere is no plot whatever\u2026 Babbitt simply grows two years older as the tale unfolds.\u201d Lewis presents a chronological series of scenes in the life of his title character. After introducing George F. Babbitt as a middle-aged man, \"nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay,\" Lewis presents a meticulously detailed description of Babbitt's morning routine. Each item Babbitt encounters is explained, from the high-tech alarm clock, which Babbitt sees as a marker of social status, to the rough camp blanket, a symbol of the freedom and heroism of the West. As he dresses for the day, Babbitt contemplates each article of his \"Solid Citizen\" uniform, most important being his Booster's club button, which he wears with pride. The first seven chapters follow Babbitt's life over the course of a single day. Over breakfast Babbitt dotes on his ten-year-old daughter Tinka, tries to dissuade his twenty-two-year-old daughter Verona from her new found socialist leanings, and encourages his seventeen-year-old son Ted to try harder in school. At the office he dictates letters and discusses real estate advertising with his employees. Babbitt is professionally successful as a realtor. Much of his energy in early chapters is spent on climbing the social ladder through booster functions, real estate sales, and making good with various dignitaries. According to Babbitt, any \u201cdecent\u201d man in Zenith belonged to at least two or three \u201clodges\u201d or booster clubs. They were good for potential business partnerships, getting time away from home and family life, and quite simply because \u201cit was the thing to do.\u201d Babbitt admits that while these clubs \u201cstimulated him like brandy,\u201d he often found work dull and nerve-wracking in comparison. Lewis also paints vivid scenes of Babbitt bartering for liquor (despite being a supporter of Prohibition) and hosting dinner parties. At his college class reunion, Babbitt reconnects with a former classmate, Charles McKelvey, whose success in the construction business made him a millionaire. Seizing the opportunity to hobnob with someone from a wealthier class, Babbitt invites the McKelveys to a dinner party. Although Babbitt hopes the party will help his family rise socially, the McKelveys leave early and do not extend a dinner invitation in return. Gradually, Babbitt realizes his dissatisfaction with \"The American Dream,\" and attempts to quell these feelings by going camping in Maine with his close friend and old college roommate Paul Reisling. When Babbitt and Paul arrive at the camp they marvel at the beauty and simplicity of nature. Looking out over a lake Babbitt comments: \u201cI\u2019d just like to sit here \u2013 the rest of my life \u2013 and whittle \u2013 and sit. And never hear a typewriter.\u201d Paul is similarly entranced, stating: \u201cOh it\u2019s darn good, Georgie. There\u2019s something eternal about it.\u201d Although the trip has its ups and downs, the two men consider it an overall success, and leave feeling optimistic about the year ahead. On the day that Babbitt gets elected vice-president of the Booster\u2019s club, he finds out that Paul shot his wife Zilla. Immediately Babbitt drives to the jail where Paul is being kept. Babbitt is very shaken up by the situation, trying to think of ways to help Paul out. When Paul was sentenced to a three-year jail term, \u201cBabbitt returned to his office to realize that he faced a world which, without Paul, was meaningless.\u201d Shortly after Paul\u2019s arrest, Myra and Tinka go to visit relatives, leaving Babbitt more or less on his own. Alone with his thoughts Babbitt begins to ask himself what it was he really wanted in life. Eventually, \u201che stumbled upon the admission that he wanted the fairy girl - in the flesh.\u201d Missing Paul, Babbitt decides to return to Maine. He imagines himself as a rugged outdoorsman, and thinks about what it would be like to become a camp guide himself. Ultimately, however, he is disenchanted with the wilderness and leaves \u201clonelier than he had ever been in his life.\u201d Eventually Babbitt finds the cure for his loneliness in an attractive new client, Tanis Judique. He opens up to her about everything that happened with Paul and Zilla, and Tanis proves to be a sympathetic listener. In time, Babbitt begins to rebel against all of the standards he formerly held: he jumps into liberal politics with famous socialist litigator Seneca Doane; conducts an extramarital affair with Tanis; goes on various vacations; and cavorts around Zenith with would-be Bohemians and flappers. But each effort ends up disillusioning him to the concept of rebellion. On his excursions with Tanis and her group of friends, \"the Bunch,\" he learns that even the Bohemians have rigid standards for their subculture. When Virgil Gunch and others discover Babbitt's activities with Seneca Doane and Tanis Judique, Virgil tries to convince Babbitt to return to conformity and join their newly founded \"Good Citizens' League.\u201d Babbitt refuses. His former friends then ostracize him; boycotting Babbitt's real estate ventures and shunning him publicly in clubs around town. Babbitt slowly becomes aware that his forays into nonconformity are not only futile but also destructive of the life and the friends he once loved. Yet he continues with them \u2014 even after Myra suspects Babbitt's affair, though she has no proof or specific knowledge. Unrelated to these events, Myra falls seriously ill with acute appendicitis. Babbitt, in a near-epiphany, rushes home and relinquishes all rebellion in order to care for his wife. During her long recovery, they spend a lot of time together, rekindling their intimacy. In short time, his old friends and colleagues welcome Babbitt back into the fold. The consequence of his disgruntled philosophical wanderings being met with practical events of life, he reverts into dispassionate conformity by the end; however, Babbitt never quite loses hold of the sentimentality, empathy, and hope for a meaningful life that he has developed. In the final scene, all has been righted in his life and he is back on a traditional track. He is awakened in the night to find that his son Ted and Eunice, the daughter of his neighbor, have not returned from a party. In the morning his wife informs him that the two have been discovered in the house, having been married that night. While an assemblage of friends and family gather to denounce this development, Babbitt excuses himself and Ted to be alone. He offers his approval of the marriage stating that though he does not agree he admires the fact that Ted has chosen to lead his life by his own terms and not that of conformity.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Lewis has been both criticized and congratulated for his unorthodox writing style in Babbitt. As one reviewer puts it: \u201cThere is no plot whatever\u2026 Babbitt simply grows two years older as the tale unfolds.\u201d Lewis presents a chronological series of scenes in the life of his title character. After introducing George F. Babbitt as a middle-aged man, \"nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay,\" Lewis presents a meticulously detailed description of Babbitt's morning routine. Each item Babbitt encounters is explained, from the high-tech alarm clock, which Babbitt sees as a marker of social status, to the rough camp blanket, a symbol of the freedom and heroism of the West. As he dresses for the day, Babbitt contemplates each article of his \"Solid Citizen\" uniform, most important being his Booster's club button, which he wears with pride. The first seven chapters follow Babbitt's life over the course of a single day. Over breakfast Babbitt dotes on his ten-year-old daughter Tinka, tries to dissuade his twenty-two-year-old daughter Verona from her new found socialist leanings, and encourages his seventeen-year-old son Ted to try harder in school. At the office he dictates letters and discusses real estate advertising with his employees. Babbitt is professionally successful as a realtor. Much of his energy in early chapters is spent on climbing the social ladder through booster functions, real estate sales, and making good with various dignitaries. According to Babbitt, any \u201cdecent\u201d man in Zenith belonged to at least two or three \u201clodges\u201d or booster clubs. They were good for potential business partnerships, getting time away from home and family life, and quite simply because \u201cit was the thing to do.\u201d Babbitt admits that while these clubs \u201c"
      },
      {
        "text": " spent on climbing the social ladder through booster functions, real estate sales, and making good with various dignitaries. According to Babbitt, any \u201cdecent\u201d man in Zenith belonged to at least two or three \u201clodges\u201d or booster clubs. They were good for potential business partnerships, getting time away from home and family life, and quite simply because \u201cit was the thing to do.\u201d Babbitt admits that while these clubs \u201cstimulated him like brandy,\u201d he often found work dull and nerve-wracking in comparison. Lewis also paints vivid scenes of Babbitt bartering for liquor (despite being a supporter of Prohibition) and hosting dinner parties. At his college class reunion, Babbitt reconnects with a former classmate, Charles McKelvey, whose success in the construction business made him a millionaire. Seizing the opportunity to hobnob with someone from a wealthier class, Babbitt invites the McKelveys to a dinner party. Although Babbitt hopes the party will help his family rise socially, the McKelveys leave early and do not extend a dinner invitation in return. Gradually, Babbitt realizes his dissatisfaction with \"The American Dream,\" and attempts to quell these feelings by going camping in Maine with his close friend and old college roommate Paul Reisling. When Babbitt and Paul arrive at the camp they marvel at the beauty and simplicity of nature. Looking out over a lake Babbitt comments: \u201cI\u2019d just like to sit here \u2013 the rest of my life \u2013 and whittle \u2013 and sit. And never hear a typewriter.\u201d Paul is similarly entranced, stating: \u201cOh it\u2019s darn good, Georgie. There\u2019s something eternal about it.\u201d Although the trip has its ups and downs, the two men consider it an overall success, and leave feeling optimistic about the year ahead"
      },
      {
        "text": " a lake Babbitt comments: \u201cI\u2019d just like to sit here \u2013 the rest of my life \u2013 and whittle \u2013 and sit. And never hear a typewriter.\u201d Paul is similarly entranced, stating: \u201cOh it\u2019s darn good, Georgie. There\u2019s something eternal about it.\u201d Although the trip has its ups and downs, the two men consider it an overall success, and leave feeling optimistic about the year ahead. On the day that Babbitt gets elected vice-president of the Booster\u2019s club, he finds out that Paul shot his wife Zilla. Immediately Babbitt drives to the jail where Paul is being kept. Babbitt is very shaken up by the situation, trying to think of ways to help Paul out. When Paul was sentenced to a three-year jail term, \u201cBabbitt returned to his office to realize that he faced a world which, without Paul, was meaningless.\u201d Shortly after Paul\u2019s arrest, Myra and Tinka go to visit relatives, leaving Babbitt more or less on his own. Alone with his thoughts Babbitt begins to ask himself what it was he really wanted in life. Eventually, \u201che stumbled upon the admission that he wanted the fairy girl - in the flesh.\u201d Missing Paul, Babbitt decides to return to Maine. He imagines himself as a rugged outdoorsman, and thinks about what it would be like to become a camp guide himself. Ultimately, however, he is disenchanted with the wilderness and leaves \u201clonelier than he had ever been in his life.\u201d Eventually Babbitt finds the cure for his loneliness in an attractive new client, Tanis Judique. He opens up to her about everything that happened with Paul and Zilla, and Tanis proves to be a sympathetic listener. In time, Babbitt begins to rebel against all"
      },
      {
        "text": " about what it would be like to become a camp guide himself. Ultimately, however, he is disenchanted with the wilderness and leaves \u201clonelier than he had ever been in his life.\u201d Eventually Babbitt finds the cure for his loneliness in an attractive new client, Tanis Judique. He opens up to her about everything that happened with Paul and Zilla, and Tanis proves to be a sympathetic listener. In time, Babbitt begins to rebel against all of the standards he formerly held: he jumps into liberal politics with famous socialist litigator Seneca Doane; conducts an extramarital affair with Tanis; goes on various vacations; and cavorts around Zenith with would-be Bohemians and flappers. But each effort ends up disillusioning him to the concept of rebellion. On his excursions with Tanis and her group of friends, \"the Bunch,\" he learns that even the Bohemians have rigid standards for their subculture. When Virgil Gunch and others discover Babbitt's activities with Seneca Doane and Tanis Judique, Virgil tries to convince Babbitt to return to conformity and join their newly founded \"Good Citizens' League.\u201d Babbitt refuses. His former friends then ostracize him; boycotting Babbitt's real estate ventures and shunning him publicly in clubs around town. Babbitt slowly becomes aware that his forays into nonconformity are not only futile but also destructive of the life and the friends he once loved. Yet he continues with them \u2014 even after Myra suspects Babbitt's affair, though she has no proof or specific knowledge. Unrelated to these events, Myra falls seriously ill with acute appendicitis. Babbitt, in a near-epiphany, rushes home and relinquishes all rebellion in order to care for his wife. During her long recovery, they spend a lot of time together, rekindling"
      },
      {
        "text": " only futile but also destructive of the life and the friends he once loved. Yet he continues with them \u2014 even after Myra suspects Babbitt's affair, though she has no proof or specific knowledge. Unrelated to these events, Myra falls seriously ill with acute appendicitis. Babbitt, in a near-epiphany, rushes home and relinquishes all rebellion in order to care for his wife. During her long recovery, they spend a lot of time together, rekindling their intimacy. In short time, his old friends and colleagues welcome Babbitt back into the fold. The consequence of his disgruntled philosophical wanderings being met with practical events of life, he reverts into dispassionate conformity by the end; however, Babbitt never quite loses hold of the sentimentality, empathy, and hope for a meaningful life that he has developed. In the final scene, all has been righted in his life and he is back on a traditional track. He is awakened in the night to find that his son Ted and Eunice, the daughter of his neighbor, have not returned from a party. In the morning his wife informs him that the two have been discovered in the house, having been married that night. While an assemblage of friends and family gather to denounce this development, Babbitt excuses himself and Ted to be alone. He offers his approval of the marriage stating that though he does not agree he admires the fact that Ted has chosen to lead his life by his own terms and not that of conformity.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " to lead his life by his own terms and not that of conformity.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Amerika",
    "author": "Franz Kafka",
    "published_date": "1927",
    "synopsis": " :The first chapter of this novel is a short story titled \"The Stoker\". The story describes the bizarre wanderings of a sixteen-year-old European emigrant named Karl Ro\u00dfmann in the United States, who was forced to go to New York to escape the scandal of his seduction by a housemaid. As the ship arrives in USA, he becomes friends with a stoker who is about to be dismissed from his job. Karl identifies with the stoker and decides to help him; together they go to see the captain of the ship. In a surreal turn of events, Karl's uncle, Senator Jacob, is in a meeting with the captain. Karl does not know that Senator Jacob is his uncle, but Mr. Jacob recognizes him and takes him away from the stoker. Karl stays with his uncle for some time but is later abandoned by him after making a visit to his uncle's friend without his uncle's full approval. Wandering aimlessly, he becomes friends with two drifters named Robinson and Delamarche. They promise to find him a job, but Karl departs from them on bad terms after he's offered a job by a manageress at Hotel Occidental. He works there as a lift-boy but is fired one day after Robinson shows up drunk at his work asking him for money. Robinson, in turn, gets injured after fighting with some of the lift-boys. Being dismissed, Karl leaves the hotel with Robinson to Delamarche's place. Once there, a police officer tries to chase him, but he gets away after Delamarche saves him. Delamarche now works for a wealthy, and quite obese lady named Brunelda. She wants to take in Karl as her servant. Karl refuses, but Delamarche physically forces him to stay. He decides to stay but looks for a good opportunity to escape. One day he sees an advertisement for the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, which is looking for employees. The theatre promises to find employment for everyone and Karl is taken in by this. Karl applies for a job and gets engaged as a \"technical worker\". He is then sent to Oklahoma by train and is welcomed by the vastness of the valleys.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " :The first chapter of this novel is a short story titled \"The Stoker\". The story describes the bizarre wanderings of a sixteen-year-old European emigrant named Karl Ro\u00dfmann in the United States, who was forced to go to New York to escape the scandal of his seduction by a housemaid. As the ship arrives in USA, he becomes friends with a stoker who is about to be dismissed from his job. Karl identifies with the stoker and decides to help him; together they go to see the captain of the ship. In a surreal turn of events, Karl's uncle, Senator Jacob, is in a meeting with the captain. Karl does not know that Senator Jacob is his uncle, but Mr. Jacob recognizes him and takes him away from the stoker. Karl stays with his uncle for some time but is later abandoned by him after making a visit to his uncle's friend without his uncle's full approval. Wandering aimlessly, he becomes friends with two drifters named Robinson and Delamarche. They promise to find him a job, but Karl departs from them on bad terms after he's offered a job by a manageress at Hotel Occidental. He works there as a lift-boy but is fired one day after Robinson shows up drunk at his work asking him for money. Robinson, in turn, gets injured after fighting with some of the lift-boys. Being dismissed, Karl leaves the hotel with Robinson to Delamarche's place. Once there, a police officer tries to chase him, but he gets away after Delamarche saves him. Delamarche now works for a wealthy, and quite obese lady named Brunelda. She wants to take in Karl as her servant. Karl refuses, but Delamarche physically forces him to stay. He decides to stay but looks for a good opportunity to escape. One day he sees an advertisement for the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, which is looking for employees. The theatre promises to find"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Once there, a police officer tries to chase him, but he gets away after Delamarche saves him. Delamarche now works for a wealthy, and quite obese lady named Brunelda. She wants to take in Karl as her servant. Karl refuses, but Delamarche physically forces him to stay. He decides to stay but looks for a good opportunity to escape. One day he sees an advertisement for the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, which is looking for employees. The theatre promises to find employment for everyone and Karl is taken in by this. Karl applies for a job and gets engaged as a \"technical worker\". He is then sent to Oklahoma by train and is welcomed by the vastness of the valleys.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Farthest Shore",
    "author": "Ursula K. Le Guin",
    "published_date": "1972",
    "synopsis": " A strange, inexplicable malaise is spreading throughout Earthsea. Magic is losing its power; songs are being forgotten; people and animals are sickening or going mad. Accompanied by Arren, the young Prince of Enlad, the Archmage Ged leaves Roke Island to find the cause on his boat Lookfar. They head south to Hort, chief port of the island of Wathort where they encounter a drug addled wizard called Hare, who almost tricks them into following him into the Dry Land to their deaths. They realise that Hare and many others are under the malign influence of a powerful wizard, who is literally sucking the life out of the world. They head further south again to the island of Lorbanery, which was once famous for its dyed silk. All knowledge of dyeing has been lost however, and the local people are apathetic and hostile to the visitors. Fleeing the sense of sickness and evil they encounter there, Ged and Arren again head west and south, out to the furthest parts of the Reaches. Increasingly they are coming under the influence of the dark wizard themselves. Ged is injured by a spear thrown from an island where they attempt to land, and Arren does little to help him. He can feel his life and energy ebbing from him and they both drift away on Lookfar out into the open ocean. Their lives are saved by the Raft People, who live on great wooden rafts in the open ocean, only coming to land once a year to repair them. The Raft People are so far unaffected by the spreading evil and Ged and Arren recover their wits and strength there. However, the sickness does reach the Raft People on the shortest night of the year, when the traditional singers are struck dumb, unable to remember the songs. Before Ged can decide what to do about this, the dragon Orm Embar flies over the rafts and tells Ged to sail to Selidor, the most western isle of all Earthsea, and the traditional home of the dragons. Orm Embar tells Ged that the dark wizard is there and the dragons are powerless to defeat him without Ged's help. Ged and Arren set out on the long journey to Selidor in Lookfar. After traveling over the open ocean Ged and Arren come to the Dragons' Run, a series of many small islands south of Selidor. There they encounter dragons flying about them in a state of madness. The dragons have lost the power of speech and are attacking each other. They manage to survive the Dragons' Run, and land at last in Selidor. Orm Embar is waiting for them, but he too has lost the power of speech. After a search they find the wizard in a house he has made of dragon bones at the extreme western end of Selidor - the end of the world. Ged recognises the wizard as Cob, a dark mage whom he defeated many years before. After his defeat Cob went and became an expert in the dark arts of how to cheat death and live forever. In doing so he has opened a breach between the worlds which is sucking all the life out of the world of the living. Cob and Ged confront each other and Cob starts to gain the upper hand. With the last of his wits Orm Embar launches himself at Cob and destroys his physical body, but is killed in the process. The grotesque remnant of Cob's body, which cannot be killed, crawls into the Dry Land of the dead, and Ged and Arren are forced to follow. In the Dry Land Ged manages to defeat Cob, robbing him of life and closing the breach in the world. However, Ged pays a high price for this as it means that he sacrifices all his magic power in the process. When they emerge back into the world of the living, after a dreadful journey over the Mountains of Pain, the dragon Kalessin carries them back to Roke island, many miles away. Kalessin leaves Arren on Roke and flies on with Ged to Gont, Ged's home island. Arren realizes that he has become the fulfilment of the prediction of the last King of Earthsea many centuries before: \"He shall inherit my throne who has crossed the dark land living and come to the far shores of the day.\" In the intervening time, the realm had broken up into smaller principalities and domains, with little peace between them. Now that Arren will be crowned as King Lebannen (his true name) they can be reunited. Le Guin originally offered two endings to the story. In one, after Arren's coronation, Ged sails alone out into the ocean and is never heard from again. In the other, Ged returns to the forest of his home island of Gont. In 1990, seventeen years after the publication of The Farthest Shore, Le Guin opted for the second ending when she continued the story in Tehanu.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A strange, inexplicable malaise is spreading throughout Earthsea. Magic is losing its power; songs are being forgotten; people and animals are sickening or going mad. Accompanied by Arren, the young Prince of Enlad, the Archmage Ged leaves Roke Island to find the cause on his boat Lookfar. They head south to Hort, chief port of the island of Wathort where they encounter a drug addled wizard called Hare, who almost tricks them into following him into the Dry Land to their deaths. They realise that Hare and many others are under the malign influence of a powerful wizard, who is literally sucking the life out of the world. They head further south again to the island of Lorbanery, which was once famous for its dyed silk. All knowledge of dyeing has been lost however, and the local people are apathetic and hostile to the visitors. Fleeing the sense of sickness and evil they encounter there, Ged and Arren again head west and south, out to the furthest parts of the Reaches. Increasingly they are coming under the influence of the dark wizard themselves. Ged is injured by a spear thrown from an island where they attempt to land, and Arren does little to help him. He can feel his life and energy ebbing from him and they both drift away on Lookfar out into the open ocean. Their lives are saved by the Raft People, who live on great wooden rafts in the open ocean, only coming to land once a year to repair them. The Raft People are so far unaffected by the spreading evil and Ged and Arren recover their wits and strength there. However, the sickness does reach the Raft People on the shortest night of the year, when the traditional singers are struck dumb, unable to remember the songs. Before Ged can decide what to do about this, the dragon Orm Embar flies over the rafts and tells Ged"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the open ocean, only coming to land once a year to repair them. The Raft People are so far unaffected by the spreading evil and Ged and Arren recover their wits and strength there. However, the sickness does reach the Raft People on the shortest night of the year, when the traditional singers are struck dumb, unable to remember the songs. Before Ged can decide what to do about this, the dragon Orm Embar flies over the rafts and tells Ged to sail to Selidor, the most western isle of all Earthsea, and the traditional home of the dragons. Orm Embar tells Ged that the dark wizard is there and the dragons are powerless to defeat him without Ged's help. Ged and Arren set out on the long journey to Selidor in Lookfar. After traveling over the open ocean Ged and Arren come to the Dragons' Run, a series of many small islands south of Selidor. There they encounter dragons flying about them in a state of madness. The dragons have lost the power of speech and are attacking each other. They manage to survive the Dragons' Run, and land at last in Selidor. Orm Embar is waiting for them, but he too has lost the power of speech. After a search they find the wizard in a house he has made of dragon bones at the extreme western end of Selidor - the end of the world. Ged recognises the wizard as Cob, a dark mage whom he defeated many years before. After his defeat Cob went and became an expert in the dark arts of how to cheat death and live forever. In doing so he has opened a breach between the worlds which is sucking all the life out of the world of the living. Cob and Ged confront each other and Cob starts to gain the upper hand. With the last of his wits Orm Embar launches himself at Cob and destroys his physical body,"
      },
      {
        "text": "ises the wizard as Cob, a dark mage whom he defeated many years before. After his defeat Cob went and became an expert in the dark arts of how to cheat death and live forever. In doing so he has opened a breach between the worlds which is sucking all the life out of the world of the living. Cob and Ged confront each other and Cob starts to gain the upper hand. With the last of his wits Orm Embar launches himself at Cob and destroys his physical body, but is killed in the process. The grotesque remnant of Cob's body, which cannot be killed, crawls into the Dry Land of the dead, and Ged and Arren are forced to follow. In the Dry Land Ged manages to defeat Cob, robbing him of life and closing the breach in the world. However, Ged pays a high price for this as it means that he sacrifices all his magic power in the process. When they emerge back into the world of the living, after a dreadful journey over the Mountains of Pain, the dragon Kalessin carries them back to Roke island, many miles away. Kalessin leaves Arren on Roke and flies on with Ged to Gont, Ged's home island. Arren realizes that he has become the fulfilment of the prediction of the last King of Earthsea many centuries before: \"He shall inherit my throne who has crossed the dark land living and come to the far shores of the day.\" In the intervening time, the realm had broken up into smaller principalities and domains, with little peace between them. Now that Arren will be crowned as King Lebannen (his true name) they can be reunited. Le Guin originally offered two endings to the story. In one, after Arren's coronation, Ged sails alone out into the ocean and is never heard from again. In the other, Ged returns to the forest of his home island of Gont. In 1990"
      },
      {
        "text": " intervening time, the realm had broken up into smaller principalities and domains, with little peace between them. Now that Arren will be crowned as King Lebannen (his true name) they can be reunited. Le Guin originally offered two endings to the story. In one, after Arren's coronation, Ged sails alone out into the ocean and is never heard from again. In the other, Ged returns to the forest of his home island of Gont. In 1990, seventeen years after the publication of The Farthest Shore, Le Guin opted for the second ending when she continued the story in Tehanu.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Quiet American",
    "author": "Graham Greene",
    "published_date": "1955-12",
    "synopsis": " Thomas Fowler is a British journalist in his fifties who has been covering the French war in Vietnam for over two years. He meets a young American idealist named Alden Pyle, who lives his life and forms his opinions based on the books written by York Harding, with no real experience in matters of Southeast Asia at all. Harding's theory is that neither Communism or colonialism are the answer in foreign lands like Vietnam, but rather a \"Third Force\" &mdash; usually a combination of traditions &mdash; works best. When Pyle and Fowler first meet, Pyle says he would be delighted if Fowler could help him understand more about the country. Fowler is much older, more realistic and more cynical. Fowler has a live-in lover, Phuong, who is only 20 years old and was previously a dancer at The Arc-en-Ciel (Rainbow) on Jaccareo Road, in Cholon. Her sister's intent is to arrange a marriage for Phuong that will benefit herself and her family. The sister disapproves of their relationship, as Fowler is already married and an atheist. So, at a dinner with Fowler and Phuong, Pyle meets her sister, who immediately starts questioning Pyle about his viability for marriage with Phuong. Towards the end of the dinner, Pyle dances with Phuong, and Fowler notes how poorly he dances. Fowler goes to the city to cover a battle there. Pyle travels there to tell him that he has been in love with Phuong since the first night he saw her, and that he wants to marry her. They make a toast to nothing and Pyle leaves the next day. Fowler gets a letter from Pyle thanking him for being so nice. The letter annoys Fowler because of Pyle's arrogant confidence that Phuong leave Fowler to marry him. Meanwhile, Fowler's editor wants him to transfer back to England. Pyle comes to Fowler's place and they ask Phuong to choose between them. She chooses Fowler, unaware that he is up for a transfer. Fowler writes to his wife to ask for a divorce in front of Phuong. Fowler and Pyle meet again in a war zone. They end up in a tower, and their discussion topics range from their sexual experiences to religion. As they escape, Pyle saves Fowler's life. Fowler goes back to Saigon, where he lies to Phuong that his wife will divorce him. Pyle exposes the lie and Phuong moves in with Pyle. After receiving a letter from Fowler, his editor decides that he can stay in Indo-China for another year. Fowler goes into the midst of the battlefield to cover the unfolding events. When Fowler returns to Saigon, he goes to Pyle's office to confront him, but Pyle is out. Pyle comes over later for drinks and they talk about his upcoming marriage to Phuong. Later that week, a car bomb is detonated and many innocent civilians are killed from the blast. Fowler puts the pieces together and realizes that Pyle is behind the bombing. Realising that Pyle is causing innocent people to die, Fowler takes part in an assassination plot against him. Although the police believe that Fowler is involved, they cannot prove anything. Phuong goes back to Fowler as if nothing had ever happened. In the last chapter, Fowler receives a telegram from his wife in which she states that she has changed her mind and that she will start divorce proceedings. The novel ends with Fowler reflecting on his first meeting with Phuong, and the death of Pyle.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Thomas Fowler is a British journalist in his fifties who has been covering the French war in Vietnam for over two years. He meets a young American idealist named Alden Pyle, who lives his life and forms his opinions based on the books written by York Harding, with no real experience in matters of Southeast Asia at all. Harding's theory is that neither Communism or colonialism are the answer in foreign lands like Vietnam, but rather a \"Third Force\" &mdash; usually a combination of traditions &mdash; works best. When Pyle and Fowler first meet, Pyle says he would be delighted if Fowler could help him understand more about the country. Fowler is much older, more realistic and more cynical. Fowler has a live-in lover, Phuong, who is only 20 years old and was previously a dancer at The Arc-en-Ciel (Rainbow) on Jaccareo Road, in Cholon. Her sister's intent is to arrange a marriage for Phuong that will benefit herself and her family. The sister disapproves of their relationship, as Fowler is already married and an atheist. So, at a dinner with Fowler and Phuong, Pyle meets her sister, who immediately starts questioning Pyle about his viability for marriage with Phuong. Towards the end of the dinner, Pyle dances with Phuong, and Fowler notes how poorly he dances. Fowler goes to the city to cover a battle there. Pyle travels there to tell him that he has been in love with Phuong since the first night he saw her, and that he wants to marry her. They make a toast to nothing and Pyle leaves the next day. Fowler gets a letter from Pyle thanking him for being so nice. The letter annoys Fowler because of Pyle's arrogant confidence that Phuong leave Fowler to marry him. Meanwhile, Fowler's editor wants him to transfer back to England. Pyle comes to Fowler's place"
      },
      {
        "text": " there to tell him that he has been in love with Phuong since the first night he saw her, and that he wants to marry her. They make a toast to nothing and Pyle leaves the next day. Fowler gets a letter from Pyle thanking him for being so nice. The letter annoys Fowler because of Pyle's arrogant confidence that Phuong leave Fowler to marry him. Meanwhile, Fowler's editor wants him to transfer back to England. Pyle comes to Fowler's place and they ask Phuong to choose between them. She chooses Fowler, unaware that he is up for a transfer. Fowler writes to his wife to ask for a divorce in front of Phuong. Fowler and Pyle meet again in a war zone. They end up in a tower, and their discussion topics range from their sexual experiences to religion. As they escape, Pyle saves Fowler's life. Fowler goes back to Saigon, where he lies to Phuong that his wife will divorce him. Pyle exposes the lie and Phuong moves in with Pyle. After receiving a letter from Fowler, his editor decides that he can stay in Indo-China for another year. Fowler goes into the midst of the battlefield to cover the unfolding events. When Fowler returns to Saigon, he goes to Pyle's office to confront him, but Pyle is out. Pyle comes over later for drinks and they talk about his upcoming marriage to Phuong. Later that week, a car bomb is detonated and many innocent civilians are killed from the blast. Fowler puts the pieces together and realizes that Pyle is behind the bombing. Realising that Pyle is causing innocent people to die, Fowler takes part in an assassination plot against him. Although the police believe that Fowler is involved, they cannot prove anything. Phuong goes back to Fowler as if nothing had ever happened. In the last chapter, Fowler receives a telegram from his wife in which she states that she"
      },
      {
        "text": ", a car bomb is detonated and many innocent civilians are killed from the blast. Fowler puts the pieces together and realizes that Pyle is behind the bombing. Realising that Pyle is causing innocent people to die, Fowler takes part in an assassination plot against him. Although the police believe that Fowler is involved, they cannot prove anything. Phuong goes back to Fowler as if nothing had ever happened. In the last chapter, Fowler receives a telegram from his wife in which she states that she has changed her mind and that she will start divorce proceedings. The novel ends with Fowler reflecting on his first meeting with Phuong, and the death of Pyle.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Noli Me Tangere",
    "author": "Jos\u00e9 Rizal",
    "published_date": "1887",
    "synopsis": " Having completed his studies in Europe, young Juan Cris\u00f3stomo Ibarra y Magsalin comes back to the Philippines after a 7-year absence. In his honor, Don Santiago de los Santos \"Captain Tiago,\" a family friend, threw a get-together party, which was attended by friars and other prominent figures. One of the guests, former San Diego curate Fray D\u00e1maso Vardolagas belittled and slandered Ibarra. Ibarra brushed off the insults and took no offense; he instead politely excused himself and left the party because of an allegedly important task. The next day, Ibarra visits Mar\u00eda Clara, his betrothed, the beautiful daughter of Captain Tiago and affluent resident of Binondo. Their long-standing love was clearly manifested in this meeting, and Mar\u00eda Clara cannot help but reread the letters her sweetheart had written her before he went to Europe. Before Ibarra left for San Diego, Lieutenant Guevara, a Civil Guard, reveals to him the incidents preceding the death of his father, Don Rafael Ibarra, a rich hacendero of the town. According to Guevara, Don Rafael was unjustly accused of being a heretic, in addition to being a subversive \u2014 an allegation brought forth by D\u00e1maso because of Don Rafael's non-participation in the Sacraments, such as Confession and Mass. D\u00e1maso's animosity against Ibarra's father is aggravated by another incident when Don Rafael helped out on a fight between a tax collector and a child fighting, and the former's death was blamed on him, although it was not deliberate. Suddenly, all of those who thought ill of him surfaced with additional complaints. He was imprisoned, and just when the matter was almost settled, he died of sickness in jail. Still not content with what he had done, D\u00e1maso arranged for Don Rafael's corpse to be dug up from the Catholic Church and brought to a Chinese cemetery, because he thought it inappropriate to allow a heretic a Catholic burial ground. Unfortunately, it was raining and because of the bothersome weight of the body, the undertakers decide to throw the corpse into a nearby lake. Revenge was not in Ibarra's plans, instead he carried through his father's plan of putting up a school, since he believed that education would pave the way to his country's progress (all over the novel the author refers to both Spain and the Philippines as two different countries as part of a same nation or family, with Spain seen as the mother and the Philippines as the daughter). During the inauguration of the school, Ibarra would have been killed in a sabotage had El\u00edas \u2014 a mysterious man who had warned Ibarra earlier of a plot to assassinate him \u2014 not saved him. Instead the hired killer met an unfortunate incident and died. The sequence of events proved to be too traumatic for Mar\u00eda Clara who got seriously ill but was luckily cured by the medicine Ibarra sent. After the inauguration, Ibarra hosted a luncheon during which D\u00e1maso, gate-crashing the luncheon, again insulted him. Ibarra ignored the priest's insolence, but when the latter slandered the memory of his dead father, he was no longer able to restrain himself and lunged at D\u00e1maso, prepared to stab him for his impudence. As a consequence, D\u00e1maso excommunicated Ibarra, taking this opportunity to persuade the already-hesitant Tiago to forbid his daughter from marrying Ibarra. The friar wished Mar\u00eda Clara to marry Linares, a Peninsular who had just arrived from Spain. With the help of the Governor-General, Ibarra's excommunication was nullified and the Archbishop decided to accept him as a member of the Church once again. But, as fate would have it, some incident of which Ibarra had known nothing about was blamed on him, and he is wrongly arrested and imprisoned. The accusation against him was then overruled because during the litigation that followed, nobody could testify that he was indeed involved. Unfortunately, his letter to Mar\u00eda Clara somehow got into the hands of the jury and is manipulated such that it then became evidence against him by the parish priest, Fray Salv\u00ed. With Machiavellian precision, Salv\u00ed framed Ibarra and ruined his life just so he could stop him from marrying Mar\u00eda Clara and making the latter his concubine. Meanwhile, in Capitan Tiago's residence, a party was being held to announce the upcoming wedding of Mar\u00eda Clara and Linares. Ibarra, with the help of El\u00edas, took this opportunity to escape from prison. Before leaving, Ibarra spoke to Mar\u00eda Clara and accused her of betraying him, thinking that she gave the letter he wrote her to the jury. Mar\u00eda Clara explained that she would never conspire against him, but that she was forced to surrender Ibarra's letter to Father Salvi, in exchange for the letters written by her mother even before she, Mar\u00eda Clara, was born. The letters were from her mother, P\u00eda Alba, to D\u00e1maso alluding to their unborn child; and that Mar\u00eda Clara was therefore not Captain Tiago's biological daughter, but D\u00e1maso's. Afterwards, Ibarra and El\u00edas fled by boat. El\u00edas instructed Ibarra to lie down, covering him with grass to conceal his presence. As luck would have it, they were spotted by their enemies. El\u00edas, thinking he could outsmart them, jumped into the water. The guards rained shots on him, all the while not knowing that they were aiming at the wrong man. Mar\u00eda Clara, thinking that Ibarra had been killed in the shooting incident, was greatly overcome with grief. Robbed of hope and severely disillusioned, she asked D\u00e1maso to confine her into a nunnery. D\u00e1maso reluctantly agreed when she threatened to take her own life, demanding, \"the nunnery or death!\" Unbeknownst to her, Ibarra was still alive and able to escape. It was El\u00edas who had taken the shots. It was Christmas Eve when El\u00edas woke up in the forest fatally wounded, as it is here where he instructed Ibarra to meet him. Instead, El\u00edas found the altar boy Basilio cradling his already-dead mother, Sisa. The latter lost her mind when she learned that her two sons, Crisp\u00edn and Basilio, were chased out of the convent by the sacristan mayor on suspicions of stealing sacred objects. (The truth is that, it was the sacristan mayor who stole the objects and only pinned the blame on the two boys. The said sacristan mayor actually killed Crisp\u00edn while interrogating him on the supposed location of the sacred objects. It was implied that the body was never found and the incident was covered-up by Salv\u00ed). El\u00edas, convinced that he would die soon, instructs Basilio to build a funeral pyre and burn his and Sisa's bodies to ashes. He tells Basilio that, if nobody reaches the place, he come back later on and dig for he will find gold. He also tells him (Basilio) to take the gold he finds and go to school. In his dying breath, he instructed Basilio to continue dreaming about freedom for his motherland with the words: El\u00edas died thereafter. In the epilogue, it was explained that Tiago became addicted to opium and was seen to frequent the opium house in Binondo to satiate his addiction. Mar\u00eda Clara became a nun where Salv\u00ed, who has lusted after her from the beginning of the novel, regularly used her to fulfill his lust. One stormy evening, a beautiful crazy woman was seen at the top of the convent crying and cursing the heavens for the fate it has handed her. While the woman was never identified, it is insinuated that the said woman was Mar\u00eda Clara.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Having completed his studies in Europe, young Juan Cris\u00f3stomo Ibarra y Magsalin comes back to the Philippines after a 7-year absence. In his honor, Don Santiago de los Santos \"Captain Tiago,\" a family friend, threw a get-together party, which was attended by friars and other prominent figures. One of the guests, former San Diego curate Fray D\u00e1maso Vardolagas belittled and slandered Ibarra. Ibarra brushed off the insults and took no offense; he instead politely excused himself and left the party because of an allegedly important task. The next day, Ibarra visits Mar\u00eda Clara, his betrothed, the beautiful daughter of Captain Tiago and affluent resident of Binondo. Their long-standing love was clearly manifested in this meeting, and Mar\u00eda Clara cannot help but reread the letters her sweetheart had written her before he went to Europe. Before Ibarra left for San Diego, Lieutenant Guevara, a Civil Guard, reveals to him the incidents preceding the death of his father, Don Rafael Ibarra, a rich hacendero of the town. According to Guevara, Don Rafael was unjustly accused of being a heretic, in addition to being a subversive \u2014 an allegation brought forth by D\u00e1maso because of Don Rafael's non-participation in the Sacraments, such as Confession and Mass. D\u00e1maso's animosity against Ibarra's father is aggravated by another incident when Don Rafael helped out on a fight between a tax collector and a child fighting, and the former's death was blamed on him, although it was not deliberate. Suddenly, all of those who thought ill of him surfaced with additional complaints. He was imprisoned, and just when the matter was almost settled, he died of sickness in jail. Still not content with what he had done, D\u00e1maso arranged for Don"
      },
      {
        "text": "\u00e1maso's animosity against Ibarra's father is aggravated by another incident when Don Rafael helped out on a fight between a tax collector and a child fighting, and the former's death was blamed on him, although it was not deliberate. Suddenly, all of those who thought ill of him surfaced with additional complaints. He was imprisoned, and just when the matter was almost settled, he died of sickness in jail. Still not content with what he had done, D\u00e1maso arranged for Don Rafael's corpse to be dug up from the Catholic Church and brought to a Chinese cemetery, because he thought it inappropriate to allow a heretic a Catholic burial ground. Unfortunately, it was raining and because of the bothersome weight of the body, the undertakers decide to throw the corpse into a nearby lake. Revenge was not in Ibarra's plans, instead he carried through his father's plan of putting up a school, since he believed that education would pave the way to his country's progress (all over the novel the author refers to both Spain and the Philippines as two different countries as part of a same nation or family, with Spain seen as the mother and the Philippines as the daughter). During the inauguration of the school, Ibarra would have been killed in a sabotage had El\u00edas \u2014 a mysterious man who had warned Ibarra earlier of a plot to assassinate him \u2014 not saved him. Instead the hired killer met an unfortunate incident and died. The sequence of events proved to be too traumatic for Mar\u00eda Clara who got seriously ill but was luckily cured by the medicine Ibarra sent. After the inauguration, Ibarra hosted a luncheon during which D\u00e1maso, gate-crashing the luncheon, again insulted him. Ibarra ignored the priest's insolence, but when the latter slandered the memory of his dead father, he was no longer able to restrain himself and lunged at D\u00e1maso, prepared to stab him for his"
      },
      {
        "text": " be too traumatic for Mar\u00eda Clara who got seriously ill but was luckily cured by the medicine Ibarra sent. After the inauguration, Ibarra hosted a luncheon during which D\u00e1maso, gate-crashing the luncheon, again insulted him. Ibarra ignored the priest's insolence, but when the latter slandered the memory of his dead father, he was no longer able to restrain himself and lunged at D\u00e1maso, prepared to stab him for his impudence. As a consequence, D\u00e1maso excommunicated Ibarra, taking this opportunity to persuade the already-hesitant Tiago to forbid his daughter from marrying Ibarra. The friar wished Mar\u00eda Clara to marry Linares, a Peninsular who had just arrived from Spain. With the help of the Governor-General, Ibarra's excommunication was nullified and the Archbishop decided to accept him as a member of the Church once again. But, as fate would have it, some incident of which Ibarra had known nothing about was blamed on him, and he is wrongly arrested and imprisoned. The accusation against him was then overruled because during the litigation that followed, nobody could testify that he was indeed involved. Unfortunately, his letter to Mar\u00eda Clara somehow got into the hands of the jury and is manipulated such that it then became evidence against him by the parish priest, Fray Salv\u00ed. With Machiavellian precision, Salv\u00ed framed Ibarra and ruined his life just so he could stop him from marrying Mar\u00eda Clara and making the latter his concubine. Meanwhile, in Capitan Tiago's residence, a party was being held to announce the upcoming wedding of Mar\u00eda Clara and Linares. Ibarra, with the help of El\u00edas, took this opportunity to escape from prison. Before leaving, Ibarra spoke to Mar\u00eda Clara and accused her of betraying him, thinking that she gave"
      },
      {
        "text": " framed Ibarra and ruined his life just so he could stop him from marrying Mar\u00eda Clara and making the latter his concubine. Meanwhile, in Capitan Tiago's residence, a party was being held to announce the upcoming wedding of Mar\u00eda Clara and Linares. Ibarra, with the help of El\u00edas, took this opportunity to escape from prison. Before leaving, Ibarra spoke to Mar\u00eda Clara and accused her of betraying him, thinking that she gave the letter he wrote her to the jury. Mar\u00eda Clara explained that she would never conspire against him, but that she was forced to surrender Ibarra's letter to Father Salvi, in exchange for the letters written by her mother even before she, Mar\u00eda Clara, was born. The letters were from her mother, P\u00eda Alba, to D\u00e1maso alluding to their unborn child; and that Mar\u00eda Clara was therefore not Captain Tiago's biological daughter, but D\u00e1maso's. Afterwards, Ibarra and El\u00edas fled by boat. El\u00edas instructed Ibarra to lie down, covering him with grass to conceal his presence. As luck would have it, they were spotted by their enemies. El\u00edas, thinking he could outsmart them, jumped into the water. The guards rained shots on him, all the while not knowing that they were aiming at the wrong man. Mar\u00eda Clara, thinking that Ibarra had been killed in the shooting incident, was greatly overcome with grief. Robbed of hope and severely disillusioned, she asked D\u00e1maso to confine her into a nunnery. D\u00e1maso reluctantly agreed when she threatened to take her own life, demanding, \"the nunnery or death!\" Unbeknownst to her, Ibarra was still alive and able to escape. It was El\u00edas who had taken the shots. It was Christmas Eve when El\u00edas woke up in"
      },
      {
        "text": " killed in the shooting incident, was greatly overcome with grief. Robbed of hope and severely disillusioned, she asked D\u00e1maso to confine her into a nunnery. D\u00e1maso reluctantly agreed when she threatened to take her own life, demanding, \"the nunnery or death!\" Unbeknownst to her, Ibarra was still alive and able to escape. It was El\u00edas who had taken the shots. It was Christmas Eve when El\u00edas woke up in the forest fatally wounded, as it is here where he instructed Ibarra to meet him. Instead, El\u00edas found the altar boy Basilio cradling his already-dead mother, Sisa. The latter lost her mind when she learned that her two sons, Crisp\u00edn and Basilio, were chased out of the convent by the sacristan mayor on suspicions of stealing sacred objects. (The truth is that, it was the sacristan mayor who stole the objects and only pinned the blame on the two boys. The said sacristan mayor actually killed Crisp\u00edn while interrogating him on the supposed location of the sacred objects. It was implied that the body was never found and the incident was covered-up by Salv\u00ed). El\u00edas, convinced that he would die soon, instructs Basilio to build a funeral pyre and burn his and Sisa's bodies to ashes. He tells Basilio that, if nobody reaches the place, he come back later on and dig for he will find gold. He also tells him (Basilio) to take the gold he finds and go to school. In his dying breath, he instructed Basilio to continue dreaming about freedom for his motherland with the words: El\u00edas died thereafter. In the epilogue, it was explained that Tiago became addicted to opium and was seen to frequent the opium house in Binondo to satiate his addiction. Mar\u00eda Clara became a nun where Salv\u00ed,"
      },
      {
        "text": " on and dig for he will find gold. He also tells him (Basilio) to take the gold he finds and go to school. In his dying breath, he instructed Basilio to continue dreaming about freedom for his motherland with the words: El\u00edas died thereafter. In the epilogue, it was explained that Tiago became addicted to opium and was seen to frequent the opium house in Binondo to satiate his addiction. Mar\u00eda Clara became a nun where Salv\u00ed, who has lusted after her from the beginning of the novel, regularly used her to fulfill his lust. One stormy evening, a beautiful crazy woman was seen at the top of the convent crying and cursing the heavens for the fate it has handed her. While the woman was never identified, it is insinuated that the said woman was Mar\u00eda Clara.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Feet of Clay",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "1996",
    "synopsis": " A cabal of Ankh-Morpork's guild leaders seeks to gradually depose the Patrician, replace him with Nobby Nobbs as the new king and rule the city through him. To implement this, the cabal orders the golems' newly-made king, Meshugah, to make poisoned candles and have them delivered to the palace. However, the golems used a baker's oven rather than a proper kiln to bake Meshugah, meaning the king is literally \"half-baked\". Its mind overloaded with all the wishes and propositions of the many golems, it goes mad and starts killing people. At this point the City Watch steps in trying to solve the murders and the poisoning of Lord Vetinari. With the assistance of their new forensics expert dwarf Cheery Littlebottom, Commander Vimes and Captain Carrot slowly unravel the mystery. Carrot and Dorfl, one of the golems, fight and defeat the golem king at the candlestick factory. Afterwards, Vimes confronts the city's chief herald, a vampire, who instigated the whole affair. Dorfl arrests him despite tenuous evidence and Vimes burns down all the heralds' records of the nobility as a sort of punishment. In the end, Vetinari has recovered completely, Dorfl is sworn in as a watchman, Vimes gets a pay rise, and the watch house gets a new dart board.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A cabal of Ankh-Morpork's guild leaders seeks to gradually depose the Patrician, replace him with Nobby Nobbs as the new king and rule the city through him. To implement this, the cabal orders the golems' newly-made king, Meshugah, to make poisoned candles and have them delivered to the palace. However, the golems used a baker's oven rather than a proper kiln to bake Meshugah, meaning the king is literally \"half-baked\". Its mind overloaded with all the wishes and propositions of the many golems, it goes mad and starts killing people. At this point the City Watch steps in trying to solve the murders and the poisoning of Lord Vetinari. With the assistance of their new forensics expert dwarf Cheery Littlebottom, Commander Vimes and Captain Carrot slowly unravel the mystery. Carrot and Dorfl, one of the golems, fight and defeat the golem king at the candlestick factory. Afterwards, Vimes confronts the city's chief herald, a vampire, who instigated the whole affair. Dorfl arrests him despite tenuous evidence and Vimes burns down all the heralds' records of the nobility as a sort of punishment. In the end, Vetinari has recovered completely, Dorfl is sworn in as a watchman, Vimes gets a pay rise, and the watch house gets a new dart board.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Cask of Amontillado",
    "author": "Edgar Allan Poe",
    "published_date": "1846-11",
    "synopsis": " Montresor tells the story of the day that he took his revenge on Fortunato, a fellow nobleman, to an unspecified person who knows him very well. Angry over some unspecified insult, he plots to murder his friend during Carnival when the man is drunk, dizzy, and wearing a jester's motley. He baits Fortunato by telling him he has obtained what he believes to be a pipe (about 130 gallons, 492 litres) of a rare vintage of Amontillado. He claims he wants his friend's expert opinion on the subject. Fortunato goes with Montresor to the wine cellars of the latter's palazzo, where they wander in the catacombs. Montresor offers wine (first Medoc, then De Grave) to Fortunato. At one point, Fortunato makes an elaborate, grotesque gesture with an upraised wine bottle. When Montresor appears not to recognize the gesture, Fortunato asks, \"You are not of the masons?\" Montresor says he is, and when Fortunato, disbelieving, requests a sign, Montresor displays a trowel he had been hiding. Montresor warns Fortunato, who has a bad cough, of the damp, and suggests they go back; Fortunato insists on continuing, claiming that \"[he] shall not die of a cough.\" During their walk, Montresor mentions his family coat of arms: a golden foot in a blue background crushing a snake whose fangs are embedded in the foot's heel, with the motto Nemo me impune lacessit (\"No one insults me with impunity\"). When they come to a niche, Montresor tells his victim that the Amontillado is within. Fortunato enters and, drunk and unsuspecting, does not resist as Montresor quickly chains him to the wall. Montresor then declares that, since Fortunato won't go back, he must \"positively leave [him]\". Montresor walls up the niche, entombing his friend alive. At first, Fortunato, who sobers up faster than Montresor anticipated he would, shakes the chains, trying to escape. Fortunato then screams for help, but Montresor mocks his cries, knowing nobody can hear them. Fortunato laughs weakly and tries to pretend that he is the subject of a joke and that people will be waiting for him (including the Lady Fortunato). As the murderer finishes the topmost row of stones, Fortunato wails, \"For the love of God, Montresor!\" Montresor replies, \"Yes, for the love of God!\" He listens for a reply but hears only the jester's bells ringing. Before placing the last stone, he drops a burning torch through the gap. He claims that he feels sick at heart, but dismisses this reaction as an effect of the dampness of the catacombs. In the last few sentences, Montresor reveals that in the 50 years since that night, he has never been caught, and Fortunato's body still hangs from its chains in the niche where he left it. The murderer concludes: Requiescat In Pace! (\"May he rest in peace!\").\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Montresor tells the story of the day that he took his revenge on Fortunato, a fellow nobleman, to an unspecified person who knows him very well. Angry over some unspecified insult, he plots to murder his friend during Carnival when the man is drunk, dizzy, and wearing a jester's motley. He baits Fortunato by telling him he has obtained what he believes to be a pipe (about 130 gallons, 492 litres) of a rare vintage of Amontillado. He claims he wants his friend's expert opinion on the subject. Fortunato goes with Montresor to the wine cellars of the latter's palazzo, where they wander in the catacombs. Montresor offers wine (first Medoc, then De Grave) to Fortunato. At one point, Fortunato makes an elaborate, grotesque gesture with an upraised wine bottle. When Montresor appears not to recognize the gesture, Fortunato asks, \"You are not of the masons?\" Montresor says he is, and when Fortunato, disbelieving, requests a sign, Montresor displays a trowel he had been hiding. Montresor warns Fortunato, who has a bad cough, of the damp, and suggests they go back; Fortunato insists on continuing, claiming that \"[he] shall not die of a cough.\" During their walk, Montresor mentions his family coat of arms: a golden foot in a blue background crushing a snake whose fangs are embedded in the foot's heel, with the motto Nemo me impune lacessit (\"No one insults me with impunity\"). When they come to a niche, Montresor tells his victim that the Amontillado is within. Fortunato enters and, drunk and unsuspecting, does not resist as Montresor quickly chains him to the wall. Montresor then declares that, since Fortunato won't"
      },
      {
        "text": ": a golden foot in a blue background crushing a snake whose fangs are embedded in the foot's heel, with the motto Nemo me impune lacessit (\"No one insults me with impunity\"). When they come to a niche, Montresor tells his victim that the Amontillado is within. Fortunato enters and, drunk and unsuspecting, does not resist as Montresor quickly chains him to the wall. Montresor then declares that, since Fortunato won't go back, he must \"positively leave [him]\". Montresor walls up the niche, entombing his friend alive. At first, Fortunato, who sobers up faster than Montresor anticipated he would, shakes the chains, trying to escape. Fortunato then screams for help, but Montresor mocks his cries, knowing nobody can hear them. Fortunato laughs weakly and tries to pretend that he is the subject of a joke and that people will be waiting for him (including the Lady Fortunato). As the murderer finishes the topmost row of stones, Fortunato wails, \"For the love of God, Montresor!\" Montresor replies, \"Yes, for the love of God!\" He listens for a reply but hears only the jester's bells ringing. Before placing the last stone, he drops a burning torch through the gap. He claims that he feels sick at heart, but dismisses this reaction as an effect of the dampness of the catacombs. In the last few sentences, Montresor reveals that in the 50 years since that night, he has never been caught, and Fortunato's body still hangs from its chains in the niche where he left it. The murderer concludes: Requiescat In Pace! (\"May he rest in peace!\").\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " an effect of the dampness of the catacombs. In the last few sentences, Montresor reveals that in the 50 years since that night, he has never been caught, and Fortunato's body still hangs from its chains in the niche where he left it. The murderer concludes: Requiescat In Pace! (\"May he rest in peace!\").\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Thursbitch",
    "author": "Alan Garner",
    "published_date": "2003-10",
    "synopsis": " Set both in the 18th century and the present day and centred on the mystery of an inscription on a rock about a death from exposure, the novel seeks to explain time and history in terms of setting and interaction. It is a complex novel that can be read on many different levels. Structurally it can be regarded as a M\u00f6bius strip, since the last chapter describes the same events as the first. One is then induced to read the book again, which becomes a different experience as a result of the first reading. Garner has discussed this in some detail. The name of the valley is first recorded in the 14th century and he argues that \"Thurs\" is from the Anglo Saxon \"\u00feyrs\". Applied to Grendel in Beowulf, it's usually translated as \"demon\", although Garner reckons \"something big\" would be a more accurate translation. He's a formidable linguist in his own right and collaborated with Prof Ralph Elliott of the Australian National University in his research on 'Thursbitch'. There's more detail in his lecture, 'The Valley of the Demon', but the snippets in this article \"Valley of the Living Dread\" give an idea.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set both in the 18th century and the present day and centred on the mystery of an inscription on a rock about a death from exposure, the novel seeks to explain time and history in terms of setting and interaction. It is a complex novel that can be read on many different levels. Structurally it can be regarded as a M\u00f6bius strip, since the last chapter describes the same events as the first. One is then induced to read the book again, which becomes a different experience as a result of the first reading. Garner has discussed this in some detail. The name of the valley is first recorded in the 14th century and he argues that \"Thurs\" is from the Anglo Saxon \"\u00feyrs\". Applied to Grendel in Beowulf, it's usually translated as \"demon\", although Garner reckons \"something big\" would be a more accurate translation. He's a formidable linguist in his own right and collaborated with Prof Ralph Elliott of the Australian National University in his research on 'Thursbitch'. There's more detail in his lecture, 'The Valley of the Demon', but the snippets in this article \"Valley of the Living Dread\" give an idea.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ripley's Game",
    "author": "Patricia Highsmith",
    "published_date": "1974-03-11",
    "synopsis": " In the third Ripley novel, Tom Ripley is a wealthy man in his early thirties. He lives in Villeperce, France, with his wealthy French wife, Heloise. Ripley spends his days living comfortably in his house, Belle Ombre, until an associate, an American criminal named Reeves Minot, asks him if he can commit a murder for him. Ripley &mdash; who \"detest[s] murder, unless absolutely necessary\" &mdash; turns down the offer of $96,000 for the two hits, and Minot goes back to Hamburg, Germany. The previous month, Ripley had gone to a party in Fontainebleau, where the host, Jonathan Trevanny, a poor British picture framer suffering from myeloid leukemia, insulted him. As revenge, Ripley suggests to Minot that he might try to convince Trevanny to commit the two murders. To ensure that the plan will work, Ripley starts a rumor that Trevanny has only months to live, and suggests that Minot fabricate evidence that Trevanny's leukemia has worsened, though Minot does not. Trevanny, who fears his death will leave his wife and son penniless, accepts Minot's offer of a visit to a German specialist in Hamburg. While in Hamburg, he is persuaded to commit the murder for money. After carrying out the contract &mdash; a shooting at a crowded U-bahn station &mdash; Trevanny insists that he is through as a hired gun. Minot invites Trevanny to Munich, where he visits another doctor. Minot persuades Trevanny to murder a Mafia boss, this time on a train using a garrotte, but he also gives him the far less desirable option of using a gun. At first Trevanny is horrified by the idea, but he eventually gives in and finds himself on the train. He resolves to shoot the mafioso and commit suicide before he can be caught, and he asks Minot to ensure that whatever happens to him the money will go to his wife. Before Trevanny can go through with it, however, Ripley &mdash; who had started to feel responsible for getting Trevanny into the situation &mdash; shows up and executes the Mafia boss himself. He asks Trevanny not to let Minot know that he has \"assisted\" with the assassination. Back in France, Ripley and Trevanny form a strange sort of bond; Ripley learns to take care of someone other than himself, while Trevanny learns to abandon his conscience and do whatever it takes to survive. Trevanny's wife Simone discovers a Swiss bank book with a large sum in Trevanny's name and starts to suspect that her husband is involved in something shady. She links the rumor about her husband's demise to Ripley and asks Trevanny to tell her how, exactly, he has been making so much money. Trevanny is unable to explain it to her and turns to Ripley to help him concoct a credible story. Ripley acknowledges his role in Trevanny's dilemma and promises to shepherd him through the ordeal. Ripley learns from Minot that the Mafia in Hamburg appear to be suspicious of Minot's involvement with the murders. Minot goes on the run after the Mafia bombs his house. Ripley begins to fear Mafia revenge when he receives a couple of suspicious phone calls. After sending Heloise and their housekeeper, Mme. Annette, away, Ripley asks Trevanny to help him deal with any Mafia reprisals at Belle Ombre. When two Mafia hitmen turn up at Belle Ombre, Ripley forces them to phone their boss in Milan and say that Ripley is not the man they are after. He then kills both assassins. Simone then shows up at the house demanding answers &mdash; and discovers the corpses and is sent away in a taxi. Ripley and Trevanny drive to a remote village to burn the corpses in their own car. A few days later, Ripley visits Trevanny's house, where a quartet of Mafia gunmen appear. One of them opens fire on Ripley, but Trevanny falls in front of him and is mortally wounded; he dies in Simone's arms. Minot is thrown out of the Mafia car as they drive away; they had kidnapped and tortured him into revealing Trevanny's name and address. A few months later, Ripley encounters Simone in Fontainebleau, and she spits at him. He realizes that Simone has accepted her husband's blood money, and in doing so has necessarily remained silent about her suspicions of Ripley's instigation of the entire affair.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the third Ripley novel, Tom Ripley is a wealthy man in his early thirties. He lives in Villeperce, France, with his wealthy French wife, Heloise. Ripley spends his days living comfortably in his house, Belle Ombre, until an associate, an American criminal named Reeves Minot, asks him if he can commit a murder for him. Ripley &mdash; who \"detest[s] murder, unless absolutely necessary\" &mdash; turns down the offer of $96,000 for the two hits, and Minot goes back to Hamburg, Germany. The previous month, Ripley had gone to a party in Fontainebleau, where the host, Jonathan Trevanny, a poor British picture framer suffering from myeloid leukemia, insulted him. As revenge, Ripley suggests to Minot that he might try to convince Trevanny to commit the two murders. To ensure that the plan will work, Ripley starts a rumor that Trevanny has only months to live, and suggests that Minot fabricate evidence that Trevanny's leukemia has worsened, though Minot does not. Trevanny, who fears his death will leave his wife and son penniless, accepts Minot's offer of a visit to a German specialist in Hamburg. While in Hamburg, he is persuaded to commit the murder for money. After carrying out the contract &mdash; a shooting at a crowded U-bahn station &mdash; Trevanny insists that he is through as a hired gun. Minot invites Trevanny to Munich, where he visits another doctor. Minot persuades Trevanny to murder a Mafia boss, this time on a train using a garrotte, but he also gives him the far less desirable option of using a gun. At first Trevanny is horrified by the idea, but he eventually gives in and finds himself on the train. He resolves to"
      },
      {
        "text": "bahn station &mdash; Trevanny insists that he is through as a hired gun. Minot invites Trevanny to Munich, where he visits another doctor. Minot persuades Trevanny to murder a Mafia boss, this time on a train using a garrotte, but he also gives him the far less desirable option of using a gun. At first Trevanny is horrified by the idea, but he eventually gives in and finds himself on the train. He resolves to shoot the mafioso and commit suicide before he can be caught, and he asks Minot to ensure that whatever happens to him the money will go to his wife. Before Trevanny can go through with it, however, Ripley &mdash; who had started to feel responsible for getting Trevanny into the situation &mdash; shows up and executes the Mafia boss himself. He asks Trevanny not to let Minot know that he has \"assisted\" with the assassination. Back in France, Ripley and Trevanny form a strange sort of bond; Ripley learns to take care of someone other than himself, while Trevanny learns to abandon his conscience and do whatever it takes to survive. Trevanny's wife Simone discovers a Swiss bank book with a large sum in Trevanny's name and starts to suspect that her husband is involved in something shady. She links the rumor about her husband's demise to Ripley and asks Trevanny to tell her how, exactly, he has been making so much money. Trevanny is unable to explain it to her and turns to Ripley to help him concoct a credible story. Ripley acknowledges his role in Trevanny's dilemma and promises to shepherd him through the ordeal. Ripley learns from Minot that the Mafia in Hamburg appear to be suspicious of Minot's involvement with the murders. Minot goes on the run after the Mafia bombs his house. Ripley begins to fear Mafia revenge"
      },
      {
        "text": " her how, exactly, he has been making so much money. Trevanny is unable to explain it to her and turns to Ripley to help him concoct a credible story. Ripley acknowledges his role in Trevanny's dilemma and promises to shepherd him through the ordeal. Ripley learns from Minot that the Mafia in Hamburg appear to be suspicious of Minot's involvement with the murders. Minot goes on the run after the Mafia bombs his house. Ripley begins to fear Mafia revenge when he receives a couple of suspicious phone calls. After sending Heloise and their housekeeper, Mme. Annette, away, Ripley asks Trevanny to help him deal with any Mafia reprisals at Belle Ombre. When two Mafia hitmen turn up at Belle Ombre, Ripley forces them to phone their boss in Milan and say that Ripley is not the man they are after. He then kills both assassins. Simone then shows up at the house demanding answers &mdash; and discovers the corpses and is sent away in a taxi. Ripley and Trevanny drive to a remote village to burn the corpses in their own car. A few days later, Ripley visits Trevanny's house, where a quartet of Mafia gunmen appear. One of them opens fire on Ripley, but Trevanny falls in front of him and is mortally wounded; he dies in Simone's arms. Minot is thrown out of the Mafia car as they drive away; they had kidnapped and tortured him into revealing Trevanny's name and address. A few months later, Ripley encounters Simone in Fontainebleau, and she spits at him. He realizes that Simone has accepted her husband's blood money, and in doing so has necessarily remained silent about her suspicions of Ripley's instigation of the entire affair.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " they drive away; they had kidnapped and tortured him into revealing Trevanny's name and address. A few months later, Ripley encounters Simone in Fontainebleau, and she spits at him. He realizes that Simone has accepted her husband's blood money, and in doing so has necessarily remained silent about her suspicions of Ripley's instigation of the entire affair.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "An American Tragedy",
    "author": "Theodore Dreiser",
    "published_date": "1925",
    "synopsis": " The ambitious but immature Clyde Griffiths, raised by poor and devoutly religious parents who force him to participate in their street missionary work, is anxious to achieve better things. His troubles begin when he takes a job as a bellboy at a local hotel. The boys he meets are much more sophisticated than he, and they introduce Clyde to the world of alcohol and prostitution. Clyde enjoys his new lifestyle and does everything in his power to win the affections of the flirtatious Hortense Briggs. But Clyde's life is forever changed when a stolen car in which he's traveling kills a young child. Clyde flees Kansas City, and after a brief stay in Chicago, he reestablishes himself as a foreman at the shirt-collar factory of his wealthy long-lost uncle in Lycurgus, New York, who meets Clyde through a stroke of fortune. While remaining aloof from him as a kinsman and doing nothing to embrace him personally or advance him socially, the uncle does give Clyde a job and ultimately advances him to a position of relative importance within the factory. Although Clyde vows not to consort with women in the way that caused his Kansas City downfall, he is swiftly attracted to Roberta Alden, a poor and innocent farm girl working under his supervision at the factory. Roberta falls in love with him. Clyde initially enjoys the secretive relationship (forbidden by factory rules) and ultimately persuades Roberta to have sex with him rather than lose him, but Clyde's ambition precludes marriage to the penniless Roberta. He dreams instead of the elegant Sondra Finchley, the daughter of a wealthy Lycurgus man and a family friend of his uncle's. Having unsuccessfully attempted to procure an abortion for Roberta, who expects him to marry her, Clyde procrastinates while his relationship with Sondra continues to mature. When he realizes that he has a genuine chance to marry Sondra, and after Roberta threatens to reveal their relationship unless he marries her, Clyde hatches a plan to murder Roberta in a fashion that will seem accidental. Clyde takes Roberta on a row boat on Big Bittern Lake in upstate New York and rows to a remote area. As he speaks to her regarding the end of their relationship, Roberta moves towards him, and he strikes her in the face with his camera, stunning her and capsizing the boat. Unable to swim, Roberta drowns while Clyde, who is unwilling to save her, swims to shore. The narrative is deliberately unclear as to whether he acted with malice and intent to murder, or if he struck her merely instinctively. However, the trail of circumstantial evidence points to murder, and the local authorities are only too eager to convict Clyde, to the point of manufacturing additional evidence against him. Following a sensational trial before an unsympathetic audience, and despite a vigorous defense mounted by two lawyers hired by his uncle, Clyde is convicted, sentenced to death, and executed. The jailhouse scenes and the correspondence between Clyde and his mother stand out as exemplars of pathos in modern literature.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The ambitious but immature Clyde Griffiths, raised by poor and devoutly religious parents who force him to participate in their street missionary work, is anxious to achieve better things. His troubles begin when he takes a job as a bellboy at a local hotel. The boys he meets are much more sophisticated than he, and they introduce Clyde to the world of alcohol and prostitution. Clyde enjoys his new lifestyle and does everything in his power to win the affections of the flirtatious Hortense Briggs. But Clyde's life is forever changed when a stolen car in which he's traveling kills a young child. Clyde flees Kansas City, and after a brief stay in Chicago, he reestablishes himself as a foreman at the shirt-collar factory of his wealthy long-lost uncle in Lycurgus, New York, who meets Clyde through a stroke of fortune. While remaining aloof from him as a kinsman and doing nothing to embrace him personally or advance him socially, the uncle does give Clyde a job and ultimately advances him to a position of relative importance within the factory. Although Clyde vows not to consort with women in the way that caused his Kansas City downfall, he is swiftly attracted to Roberta Alden, a poor and innocent farm girl working under his supervision at the factory. Roberta falls in love with him. Clyde initially enjoys the secretive relationship (forbidden by factory rules) and ultimately persuades Roberta to have sex with him rather than lose him, but Clyde's ambition precludes marriage to the penniless Roberta. He dreams instead of the elegant Sondra Finchley, the daughter of a wealthy Lycurgus man and a family friend of his uncle's. Having unsuccessfully attempted to procure an abortion for Roberta, who expects him to marry her, Clyde procrastinates while his relationship with Sondra continues to mature. When he realizes that he has a genuine chance to marry Sondra, and after Roberta threatens to reveal their relationship"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s ambition precludes marriage to the penniless Roberta. He dreams instead of the elegant Sondra Finchley, the daughter of a wealthy Lycurgus man and a family friend of his uncle's. Having unsuccessfully attempted to procure an abortion for Roberta, who expects him to marry her, Clyde procrastinates while his relationship with Sondra continues to mature. When he realizes that he has a genuine chance to marry Sondra, and after Roberta threatens to reveal their relationship unless he marries her, Clyde hatches a plan to murder Roberta in a fashion that will seem accidental. Clyde takes Roberta on a row boat on Big Bittern Lake in upstate New York and rows to a remote area. As he speaks to her regarding the end of their relationship, Roberta moves towards him, and he strikes her in the face with his camera, stunning her and capsizing the boat. Unable to swim, Roberta drowns while Clyde, who is unwilling to save her, swims to shore. The narrative is deliberately unclear as to whether he acted with malice and intent to murder, or if he struck her merely instinctively. However, the trail of circumstantial evidence points to murder, and the local authorities are only too eager to convict Clyde, to the point of manufacturing additional evidence against him. Following a sensational trial before an unsympathetic audience, and despite a vigorous defense mounted by two lawyers hired by his uncle, Clyde is convicted, sentenced to death, and executed. The jailhouse scenes and the correspondence between Clyde and his mother stand out as exemplars of pathos in modern literature.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " death, and executed. The jailhouse scenes and the correspondence between Clyde and his mother stand out as exemplars of pathos in modern literature.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Timon of Athens",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Timon is not initially a misanthrope. He is a wealthy and generous Athenian gentleman. He gives a large banquet, attended by nearly all the main characters. Timon gives away money wastefully, and everyone wants to please him to get more, except for Apemantus, a churlish philosopher whose cynicism Timon cannot yet appreciate. He accepts art from Poet and Painter, and a jewel from the Jeweller, but by the end of Act 1, he has given that away to another friend. Timon's servant, Lucilius, has been wooing the daughter of an old Athenian. The man is angry, but Timon pays him three talents in exchange for the couple being allowed to marry, because the happiness of his servant is worth the price. Timon is told that his friend, Ventidius, is in debtors' prison. He sends money to pay Ventidius's debt, and Ventidius is released and joins the banquet. Timon gives a speech on the value of friendship. The guests are entertained by a masque, followed by dancing. As the party winds down, Timon continues to give things away to his friends; his horses, and other possessions. The act is divided rather arbitrarily into two scenes but the experimental and/or unfinished nature of the play is reflected in that it does not naturally break into a five-act structure. Timon has given away all his wealth. Flavius, Timon's steward, is upset by the way Timon has spent his wealth\u2013overextending his munificence by showering patronage on the parasitic writers and artists, and delivering his dubious friends from their financial straits. He tells Timon so when he returns from a hunt. Timon is upset that he has not been told this before, and begins to vent his anger on Flavius, who tells him that he has tried repeatedly in the past without success, and now he is at the end; all Timon's land has been sold. Shadowing Timon is another guest at the banquet; the cynical philosopher Apemantus, who terrorises Timon's shallow companions with his caustic raillery. He was the only guest not angling for money or possessions from Timon. Along with a Fool, he attacks Timon's creditors when they show up to make their demands for immediate payment. Timon cannot pay, and sends out his servants to make requests for help from those friends he considers closest. Timon's servants are turned down, one by one, by Timon's false friends, two giving lengthy monologues as to their anger with them. Elsewhere, one of Alcibiades's junior officers has reached an even further point of rage, killing a man in \"hot blood.\" Alcibiades pleads with the Senate for mercy, arguing that a crime of passion should not carry as severe a sentence as premeditated murder. The senators disagree, and when Alcibiades persists, banish him forever. He vows revenge, with the support of his troops. The act finishes with Timon discussing with his servants the revenge he will carry out at his next banquet. Timon has a much smaller party, intended only for those he feels have betrayed him. The serving trays are brought in, but under them the friends find not a feast, but rocks and lukewarm water. Timon sprays them with the water, throws the dishes at them, and flees his home. The loyal Flavius vows to find him. Cursing the city walls, Timon goes into the wilderness and makes his crude home in a cave, sustaining himself on roots. Here he discovers an underground trove of gold. The knowledge of this spreads. Alcibiades, Apemantus, and three bandits are able to find Timon before Flavius does. Accompanying Alcibiades are two prostitutes, Phrynia and Timandra, who trade barbs with the bitter Timon on the subject of venereal disease. Timon offers most of the gold to the rebel Alcibiades to subsidise his assault on the city, which he now wants to see destroyed, as his experiences have reduced him to misanthropy. He gives the rest to his whores to spread disease, and much of the remainder to Poet and Painter, who arrive soon after, leaving little left for the senators who visit him. When Apemantus appears and accuses Timon of copying his pessimistic style, the audience is treated to the spectacle of a mutually misanthropic exchange of invective. Flavius arrives. He wants the money as well, but he also wants Timon to come back into society. Timon acknowledges that he has had one true friend in Flavius, a shining example of an otherwise diseased and impure race, but laments that this man is a mere servant. He invites the last envoys from Athens, who hoped Timon might placate Alcibiades, to go hang themselves, and then dies in the wilderness. Alcibiades, marching on Athens, then throws down his glove, and ends the play reading the bitter epitaph Timon wrote for himself, part of which was composed by Callimachus: <poem> \"Here lies a wretched corpse of wretched soul bereft: Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!\" Here lie I, Timon, who alive, all living men did hate, Pass by, and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.\" </poem>\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Timon is not initially a misanthrope. He is a wealthy and generous Athenian gentleman. He gives a large banquet, attended by nearly all the main characters. Timon gives away money wastefully, and everyone wants to please him to get more, except for Apemantus, a churlish philosopher whose cynicism Timon cannot yet appreciate. He accepts art from Poet and Painter, and a jewel from the Jeweller, but by the end of Act 1, he has given that away to another friend. Timon's servant, Lucilius, has been wooing the daughter of an old Athenian. The man is angry, but Timon pays him three talents in exchange for the couple being allowed to marry, because the happiness of his servant is worth the price. Timon is told that his friend, Ventidius, is in debtors' prison. He sends money to pay Ventidius's debt, and Ventidius is released and joins the banquet. Timon gives a speech on the value of friendship. The guests are entertained by a masque, followed by dancing. As the party winds down, Timon continues to give things away to his friends; his horses, and other possessions. The act is divided rather arbitrarily into two scenes but the experimental and/or unfinished nature of the play is reflected in that it does not naturally break into a five-act structure. Timon has given away all his wealth. Flavius, Timon's steward, is upset by the way Timon has spent his wealth\u2013overextending his munificence by showering patronage on the parasitic writers and artists, and delivering his dubious friends from their financial straits. He tells Timon so when he returns from a hunt. Timon is upset that he has not been told this before, and begins to vent his anger on Flavius, who tells him that he has tried repeatedly in the past without success, and now he is at the"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s steward, is upset by the way Timon has spent his wealth\u2013overextending his munificence by showering patronage on the parasitic writers and artists, and delivering his dubious friends from their financial straits. He tells Timon so when he returns from a hunt. Timon is upset that he has not been told this before, and begins to vent his anger on Flavius, who tells him that he has tried repeatedly in the past without success, and now he is at the end; all Timon's land has been sold. Shadowing Timon is another guest at the banquet; the cynical philosopher Apemantus, who terrorises Timon's shallow companions with his caustic raillery. He was the only guest not angling for money or possessions from Timon. Along with a Fool, he attacks Timon's creditors when they show up to make their demands for immediate payment. Timon cannot pay, and sends out his servants to make requests for help from those friends he considers closest. Timon's servants are turned down, one by one, by Timon's false friends, two giving lengthy monologues as to their anger with them. Elsewhere, one of Alcibiades's junior officers has reached an even further point of rage, killing a man in \"hot blood.\" Alcibiades pleads with the Senate for mercy, arguing that a crime of passion should not carry as severe a sentence as premeditated murder. The senators disagree, and when Alcibiades persists, banish him forever. He vows revenge, with the support of his troops. The act finishes with Timon discussing with his servants the revenge he will carry out at his next banquet. Timon has a much smaller party, intended only for those he feels have betrayed him. The serving trays are brought in, but under them the friends find not a feast, but rocks and lukewarm water. Timon sprays them with the water, throws the"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and when Alcibiades persists, banish him forever. He vows revenge, with the support of his troops. The act finishes with Timon discussing with his servants the revenge he will carry out at his next banquet. Timon has a much smaller party, intended only for those he feels have betrayed him. The serving trays are brought in, but under them the friends find not a feast, but rocks and lukewarm water. Timon sprays them with the water, throws the dishes at them, and flees his home. The loyal Flavius vows to find him. Cursing the city walls, Timon goes into the wilderness and makes his crude home in a cave, sustaining himself on roots. Here he discovers an underground trove of gold. The knowledge of this spreads. Alcibiades, Apemantus, and three bandits are able to find Timon before Flavius does. Accompanying Alcibiades are two prostitutes, Phrynia and Timandra, who trade barbs with the bitter Timon on the subject of venereal disease. Timon offers most of the gold to the rebel Alcibiades to subsidise his assault on the city, which he now wants to see destroyed, as his experiences have reduced him to misanthropy. He gives the rest to his whores to spread disease, and much of the remainder to Poet and Painter, who arrive soon after, leaving little left for the senators who visit him. When Apemantus appears and accuses Timon of copying his pessimistic style, the audience is treated to the spectacle of a mutually misanthropic exchange of invective. Flavius arrives. He wants the money as well, but he also wants Timon to come back into society. Timon acknowledges that he has had one true friend in Flavius, a shining example of an otherwise diseased and impure race, but laments that this man is a mere servant. He invites the last env"
      },
      {
        "text": " Apemantus appears and accuses Timon of copying his pessimistic style, the audience is treated to the spectacle of a mutually misanthropic exchange of invective. Flavius arrives. He wants the money as well, but he also wants Timon to come back into society. Timon acknowledges that he has had one true friend in Flavius, a shining example of an otherwise diseased and impure race, but laments that this man is a mere servant. He invites the last envoys from Athens, who hoped Timon might placate Alcibiades, to go hang themselves, and then dies in the wilderness. Alcibiades, marching on Athens, then throws down his glove, and ends the play reading the bitter epitaph Timon wrote for himself, part of which was composed by Callimachus: <poem> \"Here lies a wretched corpse of wretched soul bereft: Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!\" Here lie I, Timon, who alive, all living men did hate, Pass by, and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.\" </poem>\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Troilus and Cressida",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In the seventh year of the Trojan War, a Trojan prince named Troilus falls in love with Cressida, the daughter of a Trojan priest who has defected to the Greek side. Troilus is assisted in his pursuit of her by Pandarus, Cressida's uncle. Meanwhile, in the Greek camp, the Greek general, Agamemnon, wonders why his commanders seem so downcast and pessimistic. The wise and crafty Ulysses informs him that the army's troubles spring from a lack of respect for authority, brought about by the behavior of Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior, who refuses to fight and instead spends his time sitting in his tent with his comrade (and lover) Patroclus, mocking his superiors. Shortly thereafter, a challenge to single combat arrives from Prince Hector, the greatest Trojan warrior, and Ulysses decides to have Ajax, a headstrong fool, fight Hector instead of Achilles, in the hopes that this snub will wound Achilles's pride and bring him back into the war. In Troy, the sons of King Priam debate whether it is worthwhile to continue the war\u2014or whether they should return Helen to the Greeks and end the struggle. Hector argues for peace, but he is won over by the impassioned Troilus, who wants to continue the struggle. In the Greek camp, Thersites, Ajax's foul-mouthed slave, abuses everyone who crosses his path. His master, meanwhile, has been honored by the commanders over the sulking Achilles, and is to fight Hector the next day. That night, Pandarus brings Troilus and Cressida together, and after they pledge to be forever true to one another, he leads them to a bedchamber to consummate their love. Meanwhile, Cressida's father, the treacherous Trojan priest Calchas, asks the Greek commanders to exchange a Trojan prisoner for his daughter, so that he may be reunited with her. The commanders agree, and the next morning\u2014to Troilus and Cressida's dismay\u2014the trade is made, and a Greek lord named Diomedes leads Cressida away from Troy. That afternoon, Ajax and Hector fight to a draw, and after Hector and Achilles exchange insults, Hector and Troilus feast with the Greeks under a flag of truce. As the camp goes to bed, Ulysses leads Troilus to the tent of Calchas, where the Trojan prince watches from hiding as Cressida agrees to become Diomedes's lover. The next day, in spite of unhappy premonitions from his wife, sister, and his father, Hector takes the field, and a furious and heartbroken Troilus accompanies him. The Trojans drive the Greeks back, but Patroclus is killed, which brings a vengeful Achilles back into the war, finally. Achilles is unable to defeat Hector in single combat, but he later catches Hector unarmed and, together with a gang of Greek warriors, slaughters him. Achilles then drags Hector's body around the walls of Troy, and the play ends with the Trojan warriors retreating to the city to mourn their fallen hero.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the seventh year of the Trojan War, a Trojan prince named Troilus falls in love with Cressida, the daughter of a Trojan priest who has defected to the Greek side. Troilus is assisted in his pursuit of her by Pandarus, Cressida's uncle. Meanwhile, in the Greek camp, the Greek general, Agamemnon, wonders why his commanders seem so downcast and pessimistic. The wise and crafty Ulysses informs him that the army's troubles spring from a lack of respect for authority, brought about by the behavior of Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior, who refuses to fight and instead spends his time sitting in his tent with his comrade (and lover) Patroclus, mocking his superiors. Shortly thereafter, a challenge to single combat arrives from Prince Hector, the greatest Trojan warrior, and Ulysses decides to have Ajax, a headstrong fool, fight Hector instead of Achilles, in the hopes that this snub will wound Achilles's pride and bring him back into the war. In Troy, the sons of King Priam debate whether it is worthwhile to continue the war\u2014or whether they should return Helen to the Greeks and end the struggle. Hector argues for peace, but he is won over by the impassioned Troilus, who wants to continue the struggle. In the Greek camp, Thersites, Ajax's foul-mouthed slave, abuses everyone who crosses his path. His master, meanwhile, has been honored by the commanders over the sulking Achilles, and is to fight Hector the next day. That night, Pandarus brings Troilus and Cressida together, and after they pledge to be forever true to one another, he leads them to a bedchamber to consummate their love. Meanwhile, Cressida's father, the treacherous Trojan priest Calchas, asks the Greek commanders to exchange a Trojan prisoner for his daughter, so that he may be reunited with her. The commanders agree, and the"
      },
      {
        "text": " commanders over the sulking Achilles, and is to fight Hector the next day. That night, Pandarus brings Troilus and Cressida together, and after they pledge to be forever true to one another, he leads them to a bedchamber to consummate their love. Meanwhile, Cressida's father, the treacherous Trojan priest Calchas, asks the Greek commanders to exchange a Trojan prisoner for his daughter, so that he may be reunited with her. The commanders agree, and the next morning\u2014to Troilus and Cressida's dismay\u2014the trade is made, and a Greek lord named Diomedes leads Cressida away from Troy. That afternoon, Ajax and Hector fight to a draw, and after Hector and Achilles exchange insults, Hector and Troilus feast with the Greeks under a flag of truce. As the camp goes to bed, Ulysses leads Troilus to the tent of Calchas, where the Trojan prince watches from hiding as Cressida agrees to become Diomedes's lover. The next day, in spite of unhappy premonitions from his wife, sister, and his father, Hector takes the field, and a furious and heartbroken Troilus accompanies him. The Trojans drive the Greeks back, but Patroclus is killed, which brings a vengeful Achilles back into the war, finally. Achilles is unable to defeat Hector in single combat, but he later catches Hector unarmed and, together with a gang of Greek warriors, slaughters him. Achilles then drags Hector's body around the walls of Troy, and the play ends with the Trojan warriors retreating to the city to mourn their fallen hero.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", slaughters him. Achilles then drags Hector's body around the walls of Troy, and the play ends with the Trojan warriors retreating to the city to mourn their fallen hero.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "General Theory of Employment Interest and Money",
    "author": "John Maynard Keynes",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The central argument of The General Theory is that the level of employment is determined, not by the price of labour as in neoclassical economics, but by the spending of money (aggregate demand). He argues that it is wrong to assume that competitive markets will, in the long run, deliver full employment or that full employment is the natural, self-righting, equilibrium state of a monetary economy. On the contrary, under-employment and under-investment are likely to be the natural state unless active measures are taken. One implication of The General Theory is that a lack of competition is not the fundamental problem and measures to reduce unemployment by cutting wages or benefits are not only hard-hearted but ultimately futile. Keynes sought to do nothing less but upend the conventional economic wisdom. He mailed a letter to his friend George Bernard Shaw on New Year's Day, 1935: \"I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely revolutionize--not I suppose, at once but in the course of the next ten years--the way the world thinks about its economic problems. I can't expect you, or anyone else, to believe this at the present stage. But for myself I don't merely hope what I say,--in my own mind, I'm quite sure.\" Keynes wrote four prefaces, to the English, German, Japanese and French editions, each with a slightly different emphasis. In the English preface, he addresses the book to his fellow economists, yet mentions he hopes it will be helpful to others who read it. He also claims that the connection between this book and his Treatise on Money, written five years earlier, will most likely be clearer to him than anyone else, and that any contradictions should be viewed as an evolution of thought. The first book introduced what Keynes asserted would be a book that changed the way the world thinks. *Chapter 1: The General Theory (only half a page long) consists simply of this radical claim: \"I have called this book the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, placing the emphasis on the prefix general. The object of such a title is to contrast the character of my arguments and conclusions with those of the classical theory of the subject, upon which I was brought up and which dominates the economic thought, both practical and theoretical, of the governing and academic classes of this generation, as it has for a hundred years past. I shall argue that the postulates of the classical theory are applicable to a special case only and not to the general case, the situation which it assumes being a limiting point of the possible positions of equilibrium. Moreover, the characteristics of the special case assumed by the classical theory happen not to be those of the economic society in which we actually live, with the result that its teaching is misleading and disastrous if we attempt to apply it to the facts of experience.\" (p. 3) *Chapter 2: The Postulates of the Classical EconomicsJohn Maynard Keynes (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money Chapter 2 : The Postulates of the Classical Economics http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ch02.htm (Free Full Text) *Chapter 3: The Principle of Effective Demand *Chapter 4: The Choice of Units *Chapter 5. Expectation as Determining Output and Employment *Chapter 6. The Definition of Income, Saving and Investment *Chapter 7. The Meaning of Saving and Investment Further Considered Book III moves to cover what causes people to consume, and therefore stimulate economic activity. In a depression the government, he argued, needs to kick start the economy&#39;s motor by doing anything necessary. In Chapter 10 he says, \"If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.\" (p. 129) *Chapter 8. The Propensity to Consume: I. The Objective Factors *Chapter 9. The Propensity to Consume: II. The Subjective Factors *Chapter 10. The Marginal Propensity to Consume and the Multiplier The marginal efficiency of capital is the relationship between the prospective yield of an investment and its supply price or replacement cost. Keynes says on page 135: &#34;I define the marginal efficiency of capital as being equal to that rate of discount which would make the present value of the series of annuities given by the returns expected from the capital-asset during its life just equal to its supply price.&#34; *Chapter 11. The [[marginal efficiency of capital]] *Chapter 12. The State of Long-term Expectation *Chapter 13. The General Theory of the Rate of Interest *Chapter 14. The Classical Theory of the Rate of Interest *Chapter 15. The Psychological and Business Incentives to Liquidity *Chapter 16. Sundry Observations on the Nature of Capital *Chapter 17. The Essential Properties of Interest and Money *Chapter 18. The General Theory of Employment Re-stated *Chapter 20. The Employment Function *Chapter 21. The Theory of Prices \"It is better that a man should tyrannise over his bank balance than over his fellow citizens and whilst the former is sometimes denounced as being but a means to the latter, sometimes at least it is an alternative.\" (p. 374) \"... the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.\" (pp. 383\u20134)) *Chapter 22. Notes on the Trade Cycle *Chapter 23. Notes on Merchantilism, the Usury Laws, Stamped Money and Theories of Under-consumption *Chapter 24: Concluding Notes on the Social Philosophy towards which the General Theory might Lead\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The central argument of The General Theory is that the level of employment is determined, not by the price of labour as in neoclassical economics, but by the spending of money (aggregate demand). He argues that it is wrong to assume that competitive markets will, in the long run, deliver full employment or that full employment is the natural, self-righting, equilibrium state of a monetary economy. On the contrary, under-employment and under-investment are likely to be the natural state unless active measures are taken. One implication of The General Theory is that a lack of competition is not the fundamental problem and measures to reduce unemployment by cutting wages or benefits are not only hard-hearted but ultimately futile. Keynes sought to do nothing less but upend the conventional economic wisdom. He mailed a letter to his friend George Bernard Shaw on New Year's Day, 1935: \"I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely revolutionize--not I suppose, at once but in the course of the next ten years--the way the world thinks about its economic problems. I can't expect you, or anyone else, to believe this at the present stage. But for myself I don't merely hope what I say,--in my own mind, I'm quite sure.\" Keynes wrote four prefaces, to the English, German, Japanese and French editions, each with a slightly different emphasis. In the English preface, he addresses the book to his fellow economists, yet mentions he hopes it will be helpful to others who read it. He also claims that the connection between this book and his Treatise on Money, written five years earlier, will most likely be clearer to him than anyone else, and that any contradictions should be viewed as an evolution of thought. The first book introduced what Keynes asserted would be a book that changed the way the world thinks. *Chapter 1: The General Theory (only half a page long) consists simply of this radical claim: \"I"
      },
      {
        "text": " mentions he hopes it will be helpful to others who read it. He also claims that the connection between this book and his Treatise on Money, written five years earlier, will most likely be clearer to him than anyone else, and that any contradictions should be viewed as an evolution of thought. The first book introduced what Keynes asserted would be a book that changed the way the world thinks. *Chapter 1: The General Theory (only half a page long) consists simply of this radical claim: \"I have called this book the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, placing the emphasis on the prefix general. The object of such a title is to contrast the character of my arguments and conclusions with those of the classical theory of the subject, upon which I was brought up and which dominates the economic thought, both practical and theoretical, of the governing and academic classes of this generation, as it has for a hundred years past. I shall argue that the postulates of the classical theory are applicable to a special case only and not to the general case, the situation which it assumes being a limiting point of the possible positions of equilibrium. Moreover, the characteristics of the special case assumed by the classical theory happen not to be those of the economic society in which we actually live, with the result that its teaching is misleading and disastrous if we attempt to apply it to the facts of experience.\" (p. 3) *Chapter 2: The Postulates of the Classical EconomicsJohn Maynard Keynes (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money Chapter 2 : The Postulates of the Classical Economics http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ch02.htm (Free Full Text) *Chapter 3: The Principle of Effective Demand *Chapter 4: The Choice of Units *Chapter 5. Expectation as Determining Output and Employment *Chapter 6. The Definition of Income, Saving and Investment *Chapter 7. The"
      },
      {
        "text": " The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money Chapter 2 : The Postulates of the Classical Economics http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ch02.htm (Free Full Text) *Chapter 3: The Principle of Effective Demand *Chapter 4: The Choice of Units *Chapter 5. Expectation as Determining Output and Employment *Chapter 6. The Definition of Income, Saving and Investment *Chapter 7. The Meaning of Saving and Investment Further Considered Book III moves to cover what causes people to consume, and therefore stimulate economic activity. In a depression the government, he argued, needs to kick start the economy&#39;s motor by doing anything necessary. In Chapter 10 he says, \"If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.\" (p. 129) *Chapter 8. The Propensity to Consume: I. The Objective Factors *Chapter 9. The Propensity to Consume: II. The Subjective Factors *Chapter 10. The Marginal Propensity to Consume and the Multiplier The marginal efficiency of capital is the relationship between the prospective yield of an investment and its supply price or replacement cost. Keynes says on"
      },
      {
        "text": " are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.\" (p. 129) *Chapter 8. The Propensity to Consume: I. The Objective Factors *Chapter 9. The Propensity to Consume: II. The Subjective Factors *Chapter 10. The Marginal Propensity to Consume and the Multiplier The marginal efficiency of capital is the relationship between the prospective yield of an investment and its supply price or replacement cost. Keynes says on page 135: &#34;I define the marginal efficiency of capital as being equal to that rate of discount which would make the present value of the series of annuities given by the returns expected from the capital-asset during its life just equal to its supply price.&#34; *Chapter 11. The [[marginal efficiency of capital]] *Chapter 12. The State of Long-term Expectation *Chapter 13. The General Theory of the Rate of Interest *Chapter 14. The Classical Theory of the Rate of Interest *Chapter 15. The Psychological and Business Incentives to Liquidity *Chapter 16. Sundry Observations on the Nature of Capital *Chapter 17. The Essential Properties of Interest and Money *Chapter 18. The General Theory of Employment Re-stated *Chapter 20. The Employment Function *Chapter 21. The Theory of Prices \"It is better that a man should tyrannise over his bank balance than over his fellow citizens and whilst the former is sometimes denounced as being but a means to the latter, sometimes at least it is an alternative.\" (p. 374) \"... the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy"
      },
      {
        "text": " being but a means to the latter, sometimes at least it is an alternative.\" (p. 374) \"... the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.\" (pp. 383\u20134)) *Chapter 22. Notes on the Trade Cycle *Chapter 23. Notes on Merchantilism, the Usury Laws, Stamped Money and Theories of Under-consumption *Chapter 24: Concluding Notes on the Social Philosophy towards which the General Theory might Lead\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Tintin in America",
    "author": "Herg\u00e9",
    "published_date": "1932",
    "synopsis": " It is the year 1931. Having encountered Al Capone's gangsters in his last adventure, Tintin in the Congo, Tintin is sent to Chicago, Illinois to clean up the city's criminals. He is captured by gangsters several times, soon meeting Capone himself after he is dropped through a trapdoor in the street and knocked out by two thugs. Al Capone pays the two, ordering the second one to eliminate Tintin. However Snowy knocks a vase onto his head as he fires, knocking him out. Tintin listens at the door where Capone and the other crook went. However the other one, revealed to be called Pietro, recovers and throws a vase at Tintin. But the door is opened at that moment, causing the vase to hit Capone's face, though the door makes Tintin drop his gun. However he then headbutts Pietro in the waist and runs out, hiding behind a curtain to evade the other crook. Tintin then gags Pietro and binds him, as well as gagging and binding Capone. He then knocks the other gangster out with a chair as he enters. However the policeman he calls to help arrest the gangsters does not believe his story and tries to capture him instead (Tintin's failure to capture Capone reflects the fact that Capone was still active when the comic strip was written). Snowy later comes along, revealing someone else came and untied the other three, despite his efforts. After several attempts on his life, Tintin meets Capone's rival, the devious Bobby Smiles, who heads the Gangsters Syndicate of Chicago(GSC) who tries to persuade Tintin to work for him, but Tintin declines. Tintin spends much of the book trying to capture Smiles, pursuing him to the Midwestern town of Redskin City. There he is captured by a Blackfoot Indian tribe (fooled by Smiles into thinking Tintin is their enemy), and discovers oil. This unintentionally causes the expulsion of the tribe, as unscrupulous oil corporations take over their land, depriving them of any share in the oil profits (see Ideology of Tintin). Finally, Tintin captures Smiles, and ships him back to Chicago in a crate. After Smiles is captured, an unnamed bald gangster kidnaps Tintin's dog, Snowy. Tintin manages to save him after hiding in a suit of armour and knocking out the gangster and two of his henchman. He discovers Snowy with his leg manacled in a dungeon. However the gangster sends his 15 bodyguard after Tintin. He tells them he wants them back in 10 minutes, with Tintin bound and gagged. Tintin locks them in the Keep, but the leader escapes. The next day the bald gangster orders a subordinate named Maurice Oyle to invite Tintin to a cannery, where Tintin is tricked into falling into the meat grinding machine. However, because the workers at the cannery are on strike, the meat grinder is deactivated and Tintin escapes. Tintin later tricks and captures both Maurice and the bald gangster. After this escapade, Tintin is invited to a banquet held in his honor, where he is kidnapped by Chicago gangsters who have decided to wreak revenge upon him for his crackdown upon the city's criminals. The gangsters tie Tintin and Snowy to a weight and throw them into Lake Michigan. However, the gangsters mistakenly used a block of wood as a weight, and thus Tintin and Snowy are saved by what is ostensibly a police patrol boat. It soon transpires that the crew of the boat are not policemen, but more gangsters, and they attempt to kill Tintin. However Tintin overpowers them, and later leads the police to the gangsters' headquarters. A grateful Chicago holds a ticker-tape parade for Tintin, after which he returns to Europe.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It is the year 1931. Having encountered Al Capone's gangsters in his last adventure, Tintin in the Congo, Tintin is sent to Chicago, Illinois to clean up the city's criminals. He is captured by gangsters several times, soon meeting Capone himself after he is dropped through a trapdoor in the street and knocked out by two thugs. Al Capone pays the two, ordering the second one to eliminate Tintin. However Snowy knocks a vase onto his head as he fires, knocking him out. Tintin listens at the door where Capone and the other crook went. However the other one, revealed to be called Pietro, recovers and throws a vase at Tintin. But the door is opened at that moment, causing the vase to hit Capone's face, though the door makes Tintin drop his gun. However he then headbutts Pietro in the waist and runs out, hiding behind a curtain to evade the other crook. Tintin then gags Pietro and binds him, as well as gagging and binding Capone. He then knocks the other gangster out with a chair as he enters. However the policeman he calls to help arrest the gangsters does not believe his story and tries to capture him instead (Tintin's failure to capture Capone reflects the fact that Capone was still active when the comic strip was written). Snowy later comes along, revealing someone else came and untied the other three, despite his efforts. After several attempts on his life, Tintin meets Capone's rival, the devious Bobby Smiles, who heads the Gangsters Syndicate of Chicago(GSC) who tries to persuade Tintin to work for him, but Tintin declines. Tintin spends much of the book trying to capture Smiles, pursuing him to the Midwestern town of Redskin City. There he is captured by a Blackfoot"
      },
      {
        "text": " else came and untied the other three, despite his efforts. After several attempts on his life, Tintin meets Capone's rival, the devious Bobby Smiles, who heads the Gangsters Syndicate of Chicago(GSC) who tries to persuade Tintin to work for him, but Tintin declines. Tintin spends much of the book trying to capture Smiles, pursuing him to the Midwestern town of Redskin City. There he is captured by a Blackfoot Indian tribe (fooled by Smiles into thinking Tintin is their enemy), and discovers oil. This unintentionally causes the expulsion of the tribe, as unscrupulous oil corporations take over their land, depriving them of any share in the oil profits (see Ideology of Tintin). Finally, Tintin captures Smiles, and ships him back to Chicago in a crate. After Smiles is captured, an unnamed bald gangster kidnaps Tintin's dog, Snowy. Tintin manages to save him after hiding in a suit of armour and knocking out the gangster and two of his henchman. He discovers Snowy with his leg manacled in a dungeon. However the gangster sends his 15 bodyguard after Tintin. He tells them he wants them back in 10 minutes, with Tintin bound and gagged. Tintin locks them in the Keep, but the leader escapes. The next day the bald gangster orders a subordinate named Maurice Oyle to invite Tintin to a cannery, where Tintin is tricked into falling into the meat grinding machine. However, because the workers at the cannery are on strike, the meat grinder is deactivated and Tintin escapes. Tintin later tricks and captures both Maurice and the bald gangster. After this escapade, Tintin is invited to a banquet held in his honor, where he is kidnapped by Chicago gangsters who have decided"
      },
      {
        "text": " subordinate named Maurice Oyle to invite Tintin to a cannery, where Tintin is tricked into falling into the meat grinding machine. However, because the workers at the cannery are on strike, the meat grinder is deactivated and Tintin escapes. Tintin later tricks and captures both Maurice and the bald gangster. After this escapade, Tintin is invited to a banquet held in his honor, where he is kidnapped by Chicago gangsters who have decided to wreak revenge upon him for his crackdown upon the city's criminals. The gangsters tie Tintin and Snowy to a weight and throw them into Lake Michigan. However, the gangsters mistakenly used a block of wood as a weight, and thus Tintin and Snowy are saved by what is ostensibly a police patrol boat. It soon transpires that the crew of the boat are not policemen, but more gangsters, and they attempt to kill Tintin. However Tintin overpowers them, and later leads the police to the gangsters' headquarters. A grateful Chicago holds a ticker-tape parade for Tintin, after which he returns to Europe.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Christine",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1983-04-29",
    "synopsis": " In 1978, while riding home from work with his friend Dennis, nerdy teen Arnold \"Arnie\" Cunningham spots a dilapidated red and white Plymouth Fury parked in front of a house. Arnie makes Dennis stop so he can examine the car, despite Dennis's attempts to talk Arnie out of it. The car's owner, Roland D. LeBay, an elderly gentleman wearing a back supporter, sells the car\u2014named \"Christine\"\u2014to Arnie for $250. While waiting for Arnie to finish the paperwork, Dennis sits inside Christine. He has a vision of the car and the surroundings as they were in 1958, when the car was new. Frightened, Dennis gets out of Christine, deciding he does not like Arnie's new car. Arnie brings Christine to a do-it-yourself auto repair facility run by Will Darnell, who is suspected of using the garage as a front for illicit operations. As Arnie restores the automobile he becomes withdrawn, humorless and cynical, yet more confident and self-assured. Dennis is puzzled by the changes in both his friend and Christine; the repair work proceeds haphazardly, and the more extensive repairs do not appear to be done by Arnie. Arnie's appearance improves in tandem with Christine's. When LeBay dies, Dennis meets his younger brother, George, who reveals Roland's history of violent behavior. George also reveals that LeBay's small daughter choked to death on a hamburger in the back seat of the car, and that LeBay's wife was so traumatized that she apparently committed suicide in its front seat by carbon monoxide poisoning. As time passes, Dennis observes that Arnie is taking on many of LeBay's personality traits. Dennis also notices that Arnie has become close to Darnell, even acting as a courier in Darnell's contraband smuggling operations. When Arnie is almost finished restoring Christine, an attractive girl named Leigh Cabot transfers to his high school. She is regarded as the school beauty, and her decision to go out with Arnie puzzles everyone. While on a date with Arnie, she nearly chokes to death on a hamburger and is saved only by the intervention of a hitchhiker who uses the Heimlich maneuver. Leigh notices that Christine's dashboard lights seemed to become glaring green eyes, watching her during the incident, and that Arnie tried to save her by ineffectually pounding her on the back. She realizes that she and Christine are competing for Arnie's affection, and she vows to never get into that car again. Arnie's mother refuses to let him keep Christine at home. After several arguments, Arnie's father convinces him to purchase a 30 day pass for the airport parking lot, helping to restore peace in the family. Soon afterward, Buddy Repperton, a bully who frequently targeted Arnie before being expelled from high school, and his gang of thugs vandalize the car. As Arnie pushes Christine through Darnell's garage/junkyard, the car repairs itself. Arnie strains his back in the process and begins wearing a brace all the time, as LeBay did. His relationship with Leigh declines. A number of inexplicable car-related deaths occur around town, starting with Buddy and all but one of his accomplices in the vandalism and ending with Will Darnell. The police find evidence linking Christine to the scene of each death, although none is found on the car itself. A police detective named Rudy Junkins becomes suspicious of Arnie, and his suspicions are not allayed even though Arnie is able to produce an airtight alibi for each death. It is revealed that Christine, possessed by LeBay's vengeful spirit, is committing these murders independently and repairing herself after each one. Arnie becomes obsessed with Christine, forgetting Leigh entirely, and Leigh and Dennis begin their own relationship, unearthing details of Christine's and LeBay's past. One evening, Arnie stumbles upon Leigh and Dennis intimately close in Dennis's car, sending him into a rage. Junkins also falls victim to a gruesome death. Knowing they are now at the top of LeBay and Christine's hit list, Dennis and Leigh devise a plan to destroy the car and, hopefully, save Arnie. While Arnie is out of town, they lure Christine to Darnell's garage and batter her to pieces using a septic tanker truck. The remains are put through a car crusher, and Dennis learns that Arnie and his mother were both killed in a highway accident, while Christine killed Arnie's father earlier. Witness accounts lead Dennis to believe that LeBay's spirit, tied to Arnie through Christine, tore itself away and caused the wreck. Four years later, Dennis reflects on these events. He and Leigh parted after attending college together, and he is now a junior high school teacher. He learns about a freak car accident in Los Angeles, in which a movie theater employee - possibly the last surviving member of Buddy's gang - was struck and killed by a car that smashed in through the theater wall. Dennis speculates that Christine may have rebuilt herself and set out to kill everyone who stood against her, saving him for last.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In 1978, while riding home from work with his friend Dennis, nerdy teen Arnold \"Arnie\" Cunningham spots a dilapidated red and white Plymouth Fury parked in front of a house. Arnie makes Dennis stop so he can examine the car, despite Dennis's attempts to talk Arnie out of it. The car's owner, Roland D. LeBay, an elderly gentleman wearing a back supporter, sells the car\u2014named \"Christine\"\u2014to Arnie for $250. While waiting for Arnie to finish the paperwork, Dennis sits inside Christine. He has a vision of the car and the surroundings as they were in 1958, when the car was new. Frightened, Dennis gets out of Christine, deciding he does not like Arnie's new car. Arnie brings Christine to a do-it-yourself auto repair facility run by Will Darnell, who is suspected of using the garage as a front for illicit operations. As Arnie restores the automobile he becomes withdrawn, humorless and cynical, yet more confident and self-assured. Dennis is puzzled by the changes in both his friend and Christine; the repair work proceeds haphazardly, and the more extensive repairs do not appear to be done by Arnie. Arnie's appearance improves in tandem with Christine's. When LeBay dies, Dennis meets his younger brother, George, who reveals Roland's history of violent behavior. George also reveals that LeBay's small daughter choked to death on a hamburger in the back seat of the car, and that LeBay's wife was so traumatized that she apparently committed suicide in its front seat by carbon monoxide poisoning. As time passes, Dennis observes that Arnie is taking on many of LeBay's personality traits. Dennis also notices that Arnie has become close to Darnell, even acting as a courier in Darnell's contraband smuggling operations. When Arnie is almost finished restoring Christine, an attractive girl named Leigh Cabot"
      },
      {
        "text": " hamburger in the back seat of the car, and that LeBay's wife was so traumatized that she apparently committed suicide in its front seat by carbon monoxide poisoning. As time passes, Dennis observes that Arnie is taking on many of LeBay's personality traits. Dennis also notices that Arnie has become close to Darnell, even acting as a courier in Darnell's contraband smuggling operations. When Arnie is almost finished restoring Christine, an attractive girl named Leigh Cabot transfers to his high school. She is regarded as the school beauty, and her decision to go out with Arnie puzzles everyone. While on a date with Arnie, she nearly chokes to death on a hamburger and is saved only by the intervention of a hitchhiker who uses the Heimlich maneuver. Leigh notices that Christine's dashboard lights seemed to become glaring green eyes, watching her during the incident, and that Arnie tried to save her by ineffectually pounding her on the back. She realizes that she and Christine are competing for Arnie's affection, and she vows to never get into that car again. Arnie's mother refuses to let him keep Christine at home. After several arguments, Arnie's father convinces him to purchase a 30 day pass for the airport parking lot, helping to restore peace in the family. Soon afterward, Buddy Repperton, a bully who frequently targeted Arnie before being expelled from high school, and his gang of thugs vandalize the car. As Arnie pushes Christine through Darnell's garage/junkyard, the car repairs itself. Arnie strains his back in the process and begins wearing a brace all the time, as LeBay did. His relationship with Leigh declines. A number of inexplicable car-related deaths occur around town, starting with Buddy and all but one of his accomplices in the vandalism and ending with Will Darnell. The police find evidence linking Christine to the scene of each death, although"
      },
      {
        "text": " the car. As Arnie pushes Christine through Darnell's garage/junkyard, the car repairs itself. Arnie strains his back in the process and begins wearing a brace all the time, as LeBay did. His relationship with Leigh declines. A number of inexplicable car-related deaths occur around town, starting with Buddy and all but one of his accomplices in the vandalism and ending with Will Darnell. The police find evidence linking Christine to the scene of each death, although none is found on the car itself. A police detective named Rudy Junkins becomes suspicious of Arnie, and his suspicions are not allayed even though Arnie is able to produce an airtight alibi for each death. It is revealed that Christine, possessed by LeBay's vengeful spirit, is committing these murders independently and repairing herself after each one. Arnie becomes obsessed with Christine, forgetting Leigh entirely, and Leigh and Dennis begin their own relationship, unearthing details of Christine's and LeBay's past. One evening, Arnie stumbles upon Leigh and Dennis intimately close in Dennis's car, sending him into a rage. Junkins also falls victim to a gruesome death. Knowing they are now at the top of LeBay and Christine's hit list, Dennis and Leigh devise a plan to destroy the car and, hopefully, save Arnie. While Arnie is out of town, they lure Christine to Darnell's garage and batter her to pieces using a septic tanker truck. The remains are put through a car crusher, and Dennis learns that Arnie and his mother were both killed in a highway accident, while Christine killed Arnie's father earlier. Witness accounts lead Dennis to believe that LeBay's spirit, tied to Arnie through Christine, tore itself away and caused the wreck. Four years later, Dennis reflects on these events. He and Leigh parted after attending college together, and he is now a junior high school teacher. He learns about a freak"
      },
      {
        "text": " tanker truck. The remains are put through a car crusher, and Dennis learns that Arnie and his mother were both killed in a highway accident, while Christine killed Arnie's father earlier. Witness accounts lead Dennis to believe that LeBay's spirit, tied to Arnie through Christine, tore itself away and caused the wreck. Four years later, Dennis reflects on these events. He and Leigh parted after attending college together, and he is now a junior high school teacher. He learns about a freak car accident in Los Angeles, in which a movie theater employee - possibly the last surviving member of Buddy's gang - was struck and killed by a car that smashed in through the theater wall. Dennis speculates that Christine may have rebuilt herself and set out to kill everyone who stood against her, saving him for last.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Nova Express",
    "author": "William S. Burroughs",
    "published_date": "1964",
    "synopsis": " Nova Express is a social commentary on human and machine control of life. The Nova Mob&mdash;Sammy the Butcher, Izzy the Push, The Subliminal Kid, and others&mdash;are viruses, \"defined as the three-dimensional coordinate point of a controller.\" \"which invade the human body and in the process produce language.\" These Nova Criminals represent society, culture, and government, and have taken control. Inspector Lee and the rest of the Nova Police are left fighting for the rest of humanity in the power struggle. \"The Nova Police can be compared to apomorphine, a regulating instance that need not continue and has no intention of continuing after its work is done.\" The police are focused on \"first-order addictions of junkies, homosexuals, dissidents, and criminals; if these criminals vanish, the police must create more in order to justify their own survival.\" The Nova Police depend upon the Nova Criminals for existence; if the criminals cease to exist, so do the police. \"They act like apomorphine, the nonaddictive cure for morphine addiction that Burroughs used and then promoted for many years.\" Burroughs not only uses the Nova Police as a function for catching the Nova Criminals, he also adds satire about his own life and addictions. Control is the main theme of the novel, and Burroughs attempts to use language to break down the walls of culture, the biggest control machine. He uses inspector Lee to express his own thoughts about the world. \"The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals. In Naked Lunch, Soft Machine and Nova Express I show who they are and what they are doing and what they will do if they are not arrested. [...] With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly.\" As Burroughs battles with the self and what is human, he finds that language is the only way to maintain dominance over the \"powerful instruments of control,\" which are the most prevalent enemies of human society.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Nova Express is a social commentary on human and machine control of life. The Nova Mob&mdash;Sammy the Butcher, Izzy the Push, The Subliminal Kid, and others&mdash;are viruses, \"defined as the three-dimensional coordinate point of a controller.\" \"which invade the human body and in the process produce language.\" These Nova Criminals represent society, culture, and government, and have taken control. Inspector Lee and the rest of the Nova Police are left fighting for the rest of humanity in the power struggle. \"The Nova Police can be compared to apomorphine, a regulating instance that need not continue and has no intention of continuing after its work is done.\" The police are focused on \"first-order addictions of junkies, homosexuals, dissidents, and criminals; if these criminals vanish, the police must create more in order to justify their own survival.\" The Nova Police depend upon the Nova Criminals for existence; if the criminals cease to exist, so do the police. \"They act like apomorphine, the nonaddictive cure for morphine addiction that Burroughs used and then promoted for many years.\" Burroughs not only uses the Nova Police as a function for catching the Nova Criminals, he also adds satire about his own life and addictions. Control is the main theme of the novel, and Burroughs attempts to use language to break down the walls of culture, the biggest control machine. He uses inspector Lee to express his own thoughts about the world. \"The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals. In Naked Lunch, Soft Machine and Nova Express I show who they are and what they are doing and what they will do if they are not arrested. [...] With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly.\" As Burroughs battles with the self and what is human, he finds that language is the only way to maintain dominance over the \""
      },
      {
        "text": " his own thoughts about the world. \"The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals. In Naked Lunch, Soft Machine and Nova Express I show who they are and what they are doing and what they will do if they are not arrested. [...] With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly.\" As Burroughs battles with the self and what is human, he finds that language is the only way to maintain dominance over the \"powerful instruments of control,\" which are the most prevalent enemies of human society.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Katar",
    "author": "Stanis\u0142aw Lem",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " A former astronaut is hired by a detective agency to help in an investigation of a case of mysterious deaths. Several victims became mad and committed suicide during their vacation in various Naples spas, apparently without reason. Due to certain similarities in the circumstances of the deaths the case is assumed to be a serial murder by poisoning, although it is never certain what (if any) real connection exists between the victims. During the investigation, it becomes apparent that certain innocent chemicals can be combined into a strong depressor, a kind of chemical weapon. The hero experiences its effects, but his training helps him to survive and solve the case. He discovers the industrial sources of the chemicals, and demonstrates how random chance chemical reactions led to the string of deaths.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A former astronaut is hired by a detective agency to help in an investigation of a case of mysterious deaths. Several victims became mad and committed suicide during their vacation in various Naples spas, apparently without reason. Due to certain similarities in the circumstances of the deaths the case is assumed to be a serial murder by poisoning, although it is never certain what (if any) real connection exists between the victims. During the investigation, it becomes apparent that certain innocent chemicals can be combined into a strong depressor, a kind of chemical weapon. The hero experiences its effects, but his training helps him to survive and solve the case. He discovers the industrial sources of the chemicals, and demonstrates how random chance chemical reactions led to the string of deaths.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Fiasco",
    "author": "Stanis\u0142aw Lem",
    "published_date": "1986",
    "synopsis": " The book begins with a story of a base on Saturn's moon Titan, where a young spaceship pilot, Parvis, sets out in a strider (a mecha-like machine) to find several missing people, among them the famous Pirx of Lem's Tales of Pirx the Pilot. He ventures to the dangerous geyser region, where the others were lost, but unfortunately he suffers an accident. Seeing no way to get out of the machine and return to safety, he triggers a built-in cryogenic device. The main story concerns an expedition sent to a distant star in order to make contact with a civilization that may have been detected there. It is set more than a century after the prologue, when a starship is built in Titan's orbit. This future society is described as globally unified and peaceful with high regard for success. During starship preparations, the geyser region is cleared, and the frozen bodies are discovered. They are exhumed and taken aboard, to be awakened, if possible, during the voyage. However, only one of them can be revived (or more precisely, pieced together from the organs of several of them) with a high likelihood of success. The identity of the man is unclear - it has been narrowed to two men (whose last names begin with 'P'). It is never revealed whether he is in fact Pirx or Parvis (and he seems to have amnesia about it himself). In his new life, he adopts the name Tempe. The explorer spaceship Eurydika (Eurydice) first travels to a black hole near the Beta Harpiae to perform maneuvers to minimize the effects of time dilation. Before closing on the event horizon, the Eurydice launches the Hermes, a smaller explorer ship, which continues on to Beta Harpiae. Closing in on a planet (called 'Quinta') which exhibits signs of harboring intelligent life, the crew of the Hermes attempts to establish contact with the denizens of the planet, who, contrary to the expectations of the mission's crewmen, are strangely unwilling to communicate. The crew reaches the conclusion that there is a Cold War-like state on the planet's surface, halting the locals' industrial development. They try to force the aliens to engage contact by means of an event impossible to hide by the aliens' governments \u2014 that is, by staging the implosion of their moon. Surprisingly, just before impact, several of the deployed rockets are destroyed by the missiles of the Quintans, undermining the symmetry of the implosion which causes fragments of the moon to be thrown clear, some impacting the planet's surface. However, even this cataclysm does not drive the locals to open up to their alien visitors, so the crewmen deploy a device working as a giant lens or laser, capable of displaying images (but also concentrating beams to the point of being a powerful weapon) and following a suggestion by Tempe, show the Quintans a \"fairy tale\" by projecting a cartoon onto Quinta's clouds. At last, the Quintans contact the Hermes, and make arrangements for a meeting. The humans don't trust the Quintans, so to gauge the Quintans' intentions they send a smaller replica of the Hermes - which is destroyed shortly before landing. The humans retaliate by firing their laser on the ice ring around the planet, shattering it and sending chunks falling on the planet. Finally, the Quintans are forced to receive an 'ambassador', who is again Tempe; the Quintans are warned that the projecting device will be used to destroy the planet if the man should fail to report back his continued safety. After landing, Tempe discovers that there is no trace of anyone at the landing site. After investigating a peculiar structure nearby, he scouts around and finds a strange-looking mound, which he opens with a small shovel. But, to his horror, he notices that in his distracted state he has allowed the allotted time to run out without signaling his mates above. As the planet is engulfed by fiery destruction at the hands of those who were sent to establish contact with its denizens, Tempe finally realizes what the Quintans are - the mounds - but he has no time to share his discovery with the others.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book begins with a story of a base on Saturn's moon Titan, where a young spaceship pilot, Parvis, sets out in a strider (a mecha-like machine) to find several missing people, among them the famous Pirx of Lem's Tales of Pirx the Pilot. He ventures to the dangerous geyser region, where the others were lost, but unfortunately he suffers an accident. Seeing no way to get out of the machine and return to safety, he triggers a built-in cryogenic device. The main story concerns an expedition sent to a distant star in order to make contact with a civilization that may have been detected there. It is set more than a century after the prologue, when a starship is built in Titan's orbit. This future society is described as globally unified and peaceful with high regard for success. During starship preparations, the geyser region is cleared, and the frozen bodies are discovered. They are exhumed and taken aboard, to be awakened, if possible, during the voyage. However, only one of them can be revived (or more precisely, pieced together from the organs of several of them) with a high likelihood of success. The identity of the man is unclear - it has been narrowed to two men (whose last names begin with 'P'). It is never revealed whether he is in fact Pirx or Parvis (and he seems to have amnesia about it himself). In his new life, he adopts the name Tempe. The explorer spaceship Eurydika (Eurydice) first travels to a black hole near the Beta Harpiae to perform maneuvers to minimize the effects of time dilation. Before closing on the event horizon, the Eurydice launches the Hermes, a smaller explorer ship, which continues on to Beta Harpiae. Closing in on a planet (called 'Quinta') which exhibits signs of harboring intelligent life, the crew of the Hermes attempts to"
      },
      {
        "text": " the name Tempe. The explorer spaceship Eurydika (Eurydice) first travels to a black hole near the Beta Harpiae to perform maneuvers to minimize the effects of time dilation. Before closing on the event horizon, the Eurydice launches the Hermes, a smaller explorer ship, which continues on to Beta Harpiae. Closing in on a planet (called 'Quinta') which exhibits signs of harboring intelligent life, the crew of the Hermes attempts to establish contact with the denizens of the planet, who, contrary to the expectations of the mission's crewmen, are strangely unwilling to communicate. The crew reaches the conclusion that there is a Cold War-like state on the planet's surface, halting the locals' industrial development. They try to force the aliens to engage contact by means of an event impossible to hide by the aliens' governments \u2014 that is, by staging the implosion of their moon. Surprisingly, just before impact, several of the deployed rockets are destroyed by the missiles of the Quintans, undermining the symmetry of the implosion which causes fragments of the moon to be thrown clear, some impacting the planet's surface. However, even this cataclysm does not drive the locals to open up to their alien visitors, so the crewmen deploy a device working as a giant lens or laser, capable of displaying images (but also concentrating beams to the point of being a powerful weapon) and following a suggestion by Tempe, show the Quintans a \"fairy tale\" by projecting a cartoon onto Quinta's clouds. At last, the Quintans contact the Hermes, and make arrangements for a meeting. The humans don't trust the Quintans, so to gauge the Quintans' intentions they send a smaller replica of the Hermes - which is destroyed shortly before landing. The humans retaliate by firing their laser on the ice ring around the planet, shattering it and sending chunks falling on the planet. Finally, the Quintans are forced to"
      },
      {
        "text": "ans a \"fairy tale\" by projecting a cartoon onto Quinta's clouds. At last, the Quintans contact the Hermes, and make arrangements for a meeting. The humans don't trust the Quintans, so to gauge the Quintans' intentions they send a smaller replica of the Hermes - which is destroyed shortly before landing. The humans retaliate by firing their laser on the ice ring around the planet, shattering it and sending chunks falling on the planet. Finally, the Quintans are forced to receive an 'ambassador', who is again Tempe; the Quintans are warned that the projecting device will be used to destroy the planet if the man should fail to report back his continued safety. After landing, Tempe discovers that there is no trace of anyone at the landing site. After investigating a peculiar structure nearby, he scouts around and finds a strange-looking mound, which he opens with a small shovel. But, to his horror, he notices that in his distracted state he has allowed the allotted time to run out without signaling his mates above. As the planet is engulfed by fiery destruction at the hands of those who were sent to establish contact with its denizens, Tempe finally realizes what the Quintans are - the mounds - but he has no time to share his discovery with the others.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "As I Lay Dying",
    "author": "William Faulkner",
    "published_date": "1930",
    "synopsis": " The book is narrated by 15 different characters over 59 chapters. It is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family's quest and motivations\u2014noble or selfish\u2014to honor her wish to be buried in the town of Jefferson. As is the case in much of Faulkner's work, the story is set in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, which Faulkner referred to as \"my apocryphal county,\" a fictional rendition of the writer's home of Lafayette County in that same state. Addie Bundren, the wife of Anse Bundren and the matriarch of a poor southern family, is very ill, and is expected to die soon. Her oldest son, Cash, puts all of his carpentry skills into preparing her coffin, which he builds right in front of Addie\u2019s bedroom window. Although Addie\u2019s health is failing rapidly, two of her other sons, Darl and Jewel, leave the farm to make a delivery for the Bundrens\u2019 neighbor, Vernon Tull, whose wife and two daughters have been tending to Addie. Shortly after Darl and Jewel leave, Addie dies. The youngest Bundren child, Vardaman, associates his mother\u2019s death with that of a fish he caught and cleaned earlier that day. With some help, Cash completes the coffin just before dawn. The women have Addie placed in the coffin backwards so that the flared part of the coffin will allow the wedding dress she is buried in to be unwrinkled; Cash complains that this has caused his carefully-designed coffin to become unbalanced. Vardaman is troubled by the fact that his mother is nailed shut inside a box, and while the others sleep, he bores holes in the lid, two of which go through his mother\u2019s face. Addie and Anse\u2019s daughter, Dewey Dell, whose recent sexual liaisons with a local farmhand named Lafe have left her pregnant, is so overwhelmed by anxiety over her condition that she barely mourns her mother\u2019s death. A funeral service is held on the following day, where the women sing songs inside the Bundren house while the men stand outside on the porch talking to each other. Darl, who narrates much of this first section, returns with Jewel a few days later, and the presence of buzzards over their house lets them know their mother is dead. On seeing this sign, Darl sardonically reassures Jewel, who is widely perceived as ungrateful and uncaring, that he can be sure his beloved horse is not dead. Addie has made Anse promise that she will be buried in the town of Jefferson, and though this request is a far more complicated proposition than burying her at home, Anse\u2019s sense of obligation, combined with his desire to buy a set of false teeth, compels him to fulfill Addie\u2019s dying wish. Cash, who has broken his leg on a job site, helps the family lift the unbalanced coffin, but it is Jewel who ends up manhandling it, almost single-handedly, into the wagon. Jewel refuses, however, to actually come in the wagon, and follows the rest of the family riding on his horse, which he bought when he was young by secretly working nights on a neighbor\u2019s land. On the first night of their journey, the Bundrens stay at the home of a generous local family, who regard the Bundrens\u2019 mission with skepticism. Due to severe flooding, the main bridges leading over the local river have been flooded or washed away, and the Bundrens are forced to turn around and attempt a river-crossing over a makeshift ford. When a stray log upsets the wagon, the coffin is knocked out, Cash\u2019s broken leg is reinjured, and the team of mules drowns. Vernon Tull sees the wreck, and helps Jewel rescue the coffin and the wagon from the river. Together, the family members and Tull search the riverbed for Cash\u2019s tools. Cora, Tull\u2019s wife, remembers Addie\u2019s unchristian inclination to respect her son Jewel more than God. Thereafter follows a chapter narrated by Addie herself (it is not made clear whether she is speaking from beyond the grave or this chapter represents her deathbed thoughts and is placed out of chronology)) recalling events from her life: her loveless marriage to Anse; her affair with the local minister, Whitfield, which led to Jewel\u2019s conception; and the birth of her various children. When Whitfield hears Addie is dying, he heads for the Bundren's, intending to confess to Anse. On arrival he learns that Addie is already dead, realizes that she has not revealed their affair, and decides that his sincere intention to confess was just as good an actual confession, and abandons his plan. A horse doctor sets Cash\u2019s broken leg, while Cash faints from the pain without ever complaining. Anse is able to purchase a new team of mules by mortgaging his farm equipment, using money that he was saving for his false teeth and money that Cash was saving for a new gramophone, and trading in Jewel\u2019s horse. The family continues on its way. In the town of Mottson, residents react with horror to the stench coming from the Bundren wagon. While the family is in town, Dewey Dell tries to buy a drug that will abort her unwanted pregnancy, but the pharmacist refuses to sell it to her, and advises marriage instead. With cement the family has purchased in town, Darl creates a makeshift cast for Cash\u2019s broken leg, which fits poorly and only increases Cash\u2019s pain. The Bundrens then spend the night at a local farm owned by a man named Gillespie. Darl, who has been skeptical of their mission for some time, burns down the Gillespie barn with the intention of incinerating the coffin and Addie\u2019s rotting corpse. Jewel rescues the animals in the barn, then risks his life to drag out Addie\u2019s coffin. Darl lies on his mother\u2019s coffin and cries. The next day, the Bundrens arrive in Jefferson and bury Addie. Rather than face a lawsuit for Darl\u2019s criminal barn burning, the Bundrens claim that Darl is insane, and they give him to a pair of men who commit him to a Jackson mental institution. Two of the Bundren children, Jewel and Dewey Dell, help the men from the mental institution by leading the attack against Darl. This familial betrayal, combined with Darl's experience in the Great War and his realization that Jewel is not Anse's son, lead Darl to legitimate mental instability. Dewey Dell tries again to buy an abortion drug at the local pharmacy, where a boy working behind the counter claims to be a doctor and tricks her into exchanging sexual services for what she soon realizes is not an actual abortion drug. Anse then takes the ten dollars that Lafe had given her to buy an abortion drug and uses it to treat himself with a day on the town. The following morning, the children are greeted by their father, who sports a new set of false teeth and, with a mixture of shame and pride, introduces them to his new bride, a local woman he meets while borrowing shovels with which to bury Addie.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is narrated by 15 different characters over 59 chapters. It is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family's quest and motivations\u2014noble or selfish\u2014to honor her wish to be buried in the town of Jefferson. As is the case in much of Faulkner's work, the story is set in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, which Faulkner referred to as \"my apocryphal county,\" a fictional rendition of the writer's home of Lafayette County in that same state. Addie Bundren, the wife of Anse Bundren and the matriarch of a poor southern family, is very ill, and is expected to die soon. Her oldest son, Cash, puts all of his carpentry skills into preparing her coffin, which he builds right in front of Addie\u2019s bedroom window. Although Addie\u2019s health is failing rapidly, two of her other sons, Darl and Jewel, leave the farm to make a delivery for the Bundrens\u2019 neighbor, Vernon Tull, whose wife and two daughters have been tending to Addie. Shortly after Darl and Jewel leave, Addie dies. The youngest Bundren child, Vardaman, associates his mother\u2019s death with that of a fish he caught and cleaned earlier that day. With some help, Cash completes the coffin just before dawn. The women have Addie placed in the coffin backwards so that the flared part of the coffin will allow the wedding dress she is buried in to be unwrinkled; Cash complains that this has caused his carefully-designed coffin to become unbalanced. Vardaman is troubled by the fact that his mother is nailed shut inside a box, and while the others sleep, he bores holes in the lid, two of which go through his mother\u2019s face. Addie and Anse\u2019s daughter, Dewey Dell, whose recent sexual liaisons with a local farm"
      },
      {
        "text": " coffin will allow the wedding dress she is buried in to be unwrinkled; Cash complains that this has caused his carefully-designed coffin to become unbalanced. Vardaman is troubled by the fact that his mother is nailed shut inside a box, and while the others sleep, he bores holes in the lid, two of which go through his mother\u2019s face. Addie and Anse\u2019s daughter, Dewey Dell, whose recent sexual liaisons with a local farmhand named Lafe have left her pregnant, is so overwhelmed by anxiety over her condition that she barely mourns her mother\u2019s death. A funeral service is held on the following day, where the women sing songs inside the Bundren house while the men stand outside on the porch talking to each other. Darl, who narrates much of this first section, returns with Jewel a few days later, and the presence of buzzards over their house lets them know their mother is dead. On seeing this sign, Darl sardonically reassures Jewel, who is widely perceived as ungrateful and uncaring, that he can be sure his beloved horse is not dead. Addie has made Anse promise that she will be buried in the town of Jefferson, and though this request is a far more complicated proposition than burying her at home, Anse\u2019s sense of obligation, combined with his desire to buy a set of false teeth, compels him to fulfill Addie\u2019s dying wish. Cash, who has broken his leg on a job site, helps the family lift the unbalanced coffin, but it is Jewel who ends up manhandling it, almost single-handedly, into the wagon. Jewel refuses, however, to actually come in the wagon, and follows the rest of the family riding on his horse, which he bought when he was young by secretly working nights on a neighbor\u2019s land. On the first night of their journey, the Bund"
      },
      {
        "text": "\ufffds dying wish. Cash, who has broken his leg on a job site, helps the family lift the unbalanced coffin, but it is Jewel who ends up manhandling it, almost single-handedly, into the wagon. Jewel refuses, however, to actually come in the wagon, and follows the rest of the family riding on his horse, which he bought when he was young by secretly working nights on a neighbor\u2019s land. On the first night of their journey, the Bundrens stay at the home of a generous local family, who regard the Bundrens\u2019 mission with skepticism. Due to severe flooding, the main bridges leading over the local river have been flooded or washed away, and the Bundrens are forced to turn around and attempt a river-crossing over a makeshift ford. When a stray log upsets the wagon, the coffin is knocked out, Cash\u2019s broken leg is reinjured, and the team of mules drowns. Vernon Tull sees the wreck, and helps Jewel rescue the coffin and the wagon from the river. Together, the family members and Tull search the riverbed for Cash\u2019s tools. Cora, Tull\u2019s wife, remembers Addie\u2019s unchristian inclination to respect her son Jewel more than God. Thereafter follows a chapter narrated by Addie herself (it is not made clear whether she is speaking from beyond the grave or this chapter represents her deathbed thoughts and is placed out of chronology)) recalling events from her life: her loveless marriage to Anse; her affair with the local minister, Whitfield, which led to Jewel\u2019s conception; and the birth of her various children. When Whitfield hears Addie is dying, he heads for the Bundren's, intending to confess to Anse. On arrival he learns that Addie is already dead, realizes that she has not revealed their affair, and decides that his sincere"
      },
      {
        "text": " thoughts and is placed out of chronology)) recalling events from her life: her loveless marriage to Anse; her affair with the local minister, Whitfield, which led to Jewel\u2019s conception; and the birth of her various children. When Whitfield hears Addie is dying, he heads for the Bundren's, intending to confess to Anse. On arrival he learns that Addie is already dead, realizes that she has not revealed their affair, and decides that his sincere intention to confess was just as good an actual confession, and abandons his plan. A horse doctor sets Cash\u2019s broken leg, while Cash faints from the pain without ever complaining. Anse is able to purchase a new team of mules by mortgaging his farm equipment, using money that he was saving for his false teeth and money that Cash was saving for a new gramophone, and trading in Jewel\u2019s horse. The family continues on its way. In the town of Mottson, residents react with horror to the stench coming from the Bundren wagon. While the family is in town, Dewey Dell tries to buy a drug that will abort her unwanted pregnancy, but the pharmacist refuses to sell it to her, and advises marriage instead. With cement the family has purchased in town, Darl creates a makeshift cast for Cash\u2019s broken leg, which fits poorly and only increases Cash\u2019s pain. The Bundrens then spend the night at a local farm owned by a man named Gillespie. Darl, who has been skeptical of their mission for some time, burns down the Gillespie barn with the intention of incinerating the coffin and Addie\u2019s rotting corpse. Jewel rescues the animals in the barn, then risks his life to drag out Addie\u2019s coffin. Darl lies on his mother\u2019s coffin and cries. The next day, the Bundrens arrive in Jefferson and bury Addie."
      },
      {
        "text": " night at a local farm owned by a man named Gillespie. Darl, who has been skeptical of their mission for some time, burns down the Gillespie barn with the intention of incinerating the coffin and Addie\u2019s rotting corpse. Jewel rescues the animals in the barn, then risks his life to drag out Addie\u2019s coffin. Darl lies on his mother\u2019s coffin and cries. The next day, the Bundrens arrive in Jefferson and bury Addie. Rather than face a lawsuit for Darl\u2019s criminal barn burning, the Bundrens claim that Darl is insane, and they give him to a pair of men who commit him to a Jackson mental institution. Two of the Bundren children, Jewel and Dewey Dell, help the men from the mental institution by leading the attack against Darl. This familial betrayal, combined with Darl's experience in the Great War and his realization that Jewel is not Anse's son, lead Darl to legitimate mental instability. Dewey Dell tries again to buy an abortion drug at the local pharmacy, where a boy working behind the counter claims to be a doctor and tricks her into exchanging sexual services for what she soon realizes is not an actual abortion drug. Anse then takes the ten dollars that Lafe had given her to buy an abortion drug and uses it to treat himself with a day on the town. The following morning, the children are greeted by their father, who sports a new set of false teeth and, with a mixture of shame and pride, introduces them to his new bride, a local woman he meets while borrowing shovels with which to bury Addie.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " of false teeth and, with a mixture of shame and pride, introduces them to his new bride, a local woman he meets while borrowing shovels with which to bury Addie.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The God of Small Things",
    "author": "Arundhati Roy",
    "published_date": "1997-06-09",
    "synopsis": " The story, told here in chronological order, although the novel shifts around in time, primarily takes place in a town named Ayemenem or Aymanam now part of Kottayam in Kerala state of India. The temporal setting shifts back and forth from 1969, when fraternal twins Rahel and Estha are seven years old, to 1993, when the twins are reunited at age 31. Much of the story is written in a viewpoint relevant to the seven-year-old children. Malayalam words are liberally used in conjunction with English. Some facets of Kerala life which the novel captures are communism, the caste system, and the Keralite Syrian Christian way of life. Without sufficient dowry for a marriage proposal, Ammu Ipe becomes desperate to escape her ill-tempered father (Pappachi) and her bitter, long-suffering mother (Mammachi). She finally convinces her parents to let her spend a summer with a distant aunt in Calcutta. To avoid returning to Ayemenem, she marries a man who assists managing a tea estate whom she later discovers to be a heavy alcoholic who beats her and attempts to prostitute her to his boss so that he can keep his job. She gives birth to two children, fraternal twins, Estha and Rahel, yet ultimately leaves her husband and returns to live with her mother and brother, Chacko, in Ayemenem. Also living at their home in Ayemenem is Pappachi's sister, Baby Kochamma, whose actual name is Navomi Ipe, but is called Baby due to her young age at becoming a grand-aunt, and Kochamma being an honorific title for females. As a young girl, Baby Kochamma had fallen in love with Father Mulligan, a young Irish priest who had come to Ayemenem to study Hindu scriptures. In order to get closer to him, Baby Kochamma had become a Roman Catholic and joined a convent, against her father's wishes. After a few lonely months in the convent, Baby Kochamma had realized that her vows brought her no closer to the man she loved, with her father eventually rescuing her from the convent, sending her to America for an education, where she obtained a diploma in ornamental gardening. Due to her unrequited love with Father Mulligan, Baby Kochamma remained unmarried for the rest of her life, gradually becoming more and more bitter over the years. Throughout the book, Baby Kochamma delights in the misfortune of others and manipulates events to bring down calamity upon Ammu and the twins. While studying at Oxford, Chacko fell in love and married an English woman named Margaret (Mostly referred to in the novel as \"Margaret Kochamma\"). Shortly after the birth of their daughter Sophie (Mostly referred to as \"Sophie Mol\" in the novel, Mol meaning \"little girl\"), Margaret reveals that she had been having an affair with another man, Joe. They divorce and Chacko, unable to find a job, returns to India. After the death of Pappachi, Chacko returns to Ayemenem and takes over his mother's business, called Paradise Pickles and Preserves. When Margaret's second husband is killed in a car accident, Chacko invites her and Sophie to spend Christmas in Ayemenem. The day before Margarget and Sophie arrive, the family visits a theater to see The Sound of Music, where Estha is molested by the \"Orangedrink Lemondrink Man\", a vendor working the snack counter of the theater. His fear stemming from this encounter factors into the circumstances that lead to the tragic events at the heart of the narrative. On the way to the airport to pick them up, the family (Chacko, Ammu, Estha, Rahel, and Baby Kochamma) encounters a group of communist protesters. The protesters surround the car and force Baby Kochamma to wave a red flag and chant a communist slogan, humiliating her. Rahel thinks she sees Velutha, an untouchable servant that works in the pickle factory, in the crowd. Velutha's alleged presence with the communist mob makes Baby Kochamma associate him with her humiliation at their hands, and she begins to harbor a deep hatred towards him. Velutha is an untouchable (the lowest caste in India), a dalit, and his family has served the Ipes for generations. Velutha is an extremely gifted carpenter and mechanic. His skills with repairing the machinery make him indispensable at the pickle factory, but result in resentment and hostility from the other, touchable factory workers. Rahel and Estha form an unlikely bond with Velutha and come to love him, despite his untouchable status. It is her children's love for Velutha that causes Ammu to realize her attraction to him and eventually, she comes to \"love by night the man her children love by day\". They begin a short-lived affair that culminates in tragedy for the family. When her relationship with Velutha is discovered, Ammu is locked in her room and Velutha is banished. In her rage, Ammu blames the twins for her misfortune and calls them the \"millstones around her neck\". Distraught, Rahel and Estha decide to run away. Their cousin Sophie Mol convinces them to take her with them. During the night, while trying to reach the abandoned house across the river, their boat capsizes and Sophie drowns. Once Margaret Kochamma and Chacko return from Cochin, where they have been picking up airline tickets, Margaret sees Sophie's body lay out on the sofa. She vomits and hysterically berates the twins as they had survived, and hits Estha. Baby Kochamma goes to the police and accuses Velutha of being responsible for Sophie's death. She claims that Velutha attempted to rape Ammu, threatened the family, and kidnapped the children. A group of policemen hunt Velutha down and savagely beat him for crossing caste lines, the twins witnessing the horrific scene and are deeply disturbed. When the twins reveal the truth of Sophie's death to the Chief of Police, he is alarmed. He knows that Velutha is a communist, and is afraid that the wrongful arrest and beating of Velutha will cause unrest amongst the local communists. He threatens to hold Baby Kochamma responsible for falsely accusing Velutha. To save herself, Baby Kochamma tricks Rahel and Estha into accusing Velutha of Sophie's death. Velutha dies of his injuries. Hearing of his arrest, Ammu goes to the police to tell the truth about their relationship. The police threaten her to make her leave the matter alone. Afraid of being exposed, Baby Kochamma convinces Chacko that Ammu and the twins are responsible for his daughter's death. Chacko kicks Ammu out of the house. Unable to find a job, Ammu is forced to send Estha to live with his father. Estha never sees Ammu again, and she dies alone and impoverished a few years later at the age of thirty-one. After a turbulent childhood and adolescence in India, Rahel goes to America to study. While there, she gets married, divorced and finally returns to Ayemenem after several years of working dead-end jobs. Rahel and Estha, both 31-years-old, are reunited for the first time since they were children. In the intervening years, Estha and Rahel have been haunted by their guilt and grief-ridden pasts. Estha is perpetually silent and Rahel has a haunted look in her eyes. It becomes apparent that neither twin ever found another person who understands them in the way they understand each other. The twins' renewed intimacy ultimately culminates in them sleeping together. In the last chapter of the book, 'The Cost of Living', the narrative is once again set in the 1969 time frame and describes Ammu and Velutha's first sexual encounter. It describes that \"Instinctively they stuck to the Small Things. The Big Things ever lurked inside. They knew there was nowhere for them to go. They had no future. So they stuck to the Small Things\". After each encounter, Ammu and Velutha make one promise to one another: \"Tomorrow? Tomorrow.\" The novel ends on the optimistic note, \"She kissed his closed eyes and stood up. Velutha with his back against the mangosteen tree watched her walk away. She had a dry rose in her hair. She turned to say it once again: 'Naaley.' Tomorrow.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story, told here in chronological order, although the novel shifts around in time, primarily takes place in a town named Ayemenem or Aymanam now part of Kottayam in Kerala state of India. The temporal setting shifts back and forth from 1969, when fraternal twins Rahel and Estha are seven years old, to 1993, when the twins are reunited at age 31. Much of the story is written in a viewpoint relevant to the seven-year-old children. Malayalam words are liberally used in conjunction with English. Some facets of Kerala life which the novel captures are communism, the caste system, and the Keralite Syrian Christian way of life. Without sufficient dowry for a marriage proposal, Ammu Ipe becomes desperate to escape her ill-tempered father (Pappachi) and her bitter, long-suffering mother (Mammachi). She finally convinces her parents to let her spend a summer with a distant aunt in Calcutta. To avoid returning to Ayemenem, she marries a man who assists managing a tea estate whom she later discovers to be a heavy alcoholic who beats her and attempts to prostitute her to his boss so that he can keep his job. She gives birth to two children, fraternal twins, Estha and Rahel, yet ultimately leaves her husband and returns to live with her mother and brother, Chacko, in Ayemenem. Also living at their home in Ayemenem is Pappachi's sister, Baby Kochamma, whose actual name is Navomi Ipe, but is called Baby due to her young age at becoming a grand-aunt, and Kochamma being an honorific title for females. As a young girl, Baby Kochamma had fallen in love with Father Mulligan, a young Irish priest who had come to Ayemenem to study Hindu scriptures. In order to get closer to him, Baby Kochamma had become a Roman Catholic and"
      },
      {
        "text": " Pappachi's sister, Baby Kochamma, whose actual name is Navomi Ipe, but is called Baby due to her young age at becoming a grand-aunt, and Kochamma being an honorific title for females. As a young girl, Baby Kochamma had fallen in love with Father Mulligan, a young Irish priest who had come to Ayemenem to study Hindu scriptures. In order to get closer to him, Baby Kochamma had become a Roman Catholic and joined a convent, against her father's wishes. After a few lonely months in the convent, Baby Kochamma had realized that her vows brought her no closer to the man she loved, with her father eventually rescuing her from the convent, sending her to America for an education, where she obtained a diploma in ornamental gardening. Due to her unrequited love with Father Mulligan, Baby Kochamma remained unmarried for the rest of her life, gradually becoming more and more bitter over the years. Throughout the book, Baby Kochamma delights in the misfortune of others and manipulates events to bring down calamity upon Ammu and the twins. While studying at Oxford, Chacko fell in love and married an English woman named Margaret (Mostly referred to in the novel as \"Margaret Kochamma\"). Shortly after the birth of their daughter Sophie (Mostly referred to as \"Sophie Mol\" in the novel, Mol meaning \"little girl\"), Margaret reveals that she had been having an affair with another man, Joe. They divorce and Chacko, unable to find a job, returns to India. After the death of Pappachi, Chacko returns to Ayemenem and takes over his mother's business, called Paradise Pickles and Preserves. When Margaret's second husband is killed in a car accident, Chacko invites her and Sophie to spend Christmas in Ayemenem. The day before Margarget and Sophie arrive, the family visits a"
      },
      {
        "text": " had been having an affair with another man, Joe. They divorce and Chacko, unable to find a job, returns to India. After the death of Pappachi, Chacko returns to Ayemenem and takes over his mother's business, called Paradise Pickles and Preserves. When Margaret's second husband is killed in a car accident, Chacko invites her and Sophie to spend Christmas in Ayemenem. The day before Margarget and Sophie arrive, the family visits a theater to see The Sound of Music, where Estha is molested by the \"Orangedrink Lemondrink Man\", a vendor working the snack counter of the theater. His fear stemming from this encounter factors into the circumstances that lead to the tragic events at the heart of the narrative. On the way to the airport to pick them up, the family (Chacko, Ammu, Estha, Rahel, and Baby Kochamma) encounters a group of communist protesters. The protesters surround the car and force Baby Kochamma to wave a red flag and chant a communist slogan, humiliating her. Rahel thinks she sees Velutha, an untouchable servant that works in the pickle factory, in the crowd. Velutha's alleged presence with the communist mob makes Baby Kochamma associate him with her humiliation at their hands, and she begins to harbor a deep hatred towards him. Velutha is an untouchable (the lowest caste in India), a dalit, and his family has served the Ipes for generations. Velutha is an extremely gifted carpenter and mechanic. His skills with repairing the machinery make him indispensable at the pickle factory, but result in resentment and hostility from the other, touchable factory workers. Rahel and Estha form an unlikely bond with Velutha and come to love him, despite his untouchable status. It is her children's love for Velutha that causes Ammu to"
      },
      {
        "text": "), a dalit, and his family has served the Ipes for generations. Velutha is an extremely gifted carpenter and mechanic. His skills with repairing the machinery make him indispensable at the pickle factory, but result in resentment and hostility from the other, touchable factory workers. Rahel and Estha form an unlikely bond with Velutha and come to love him, despite his untouchable status. It is her children's love for Velutha that causes Ammu to realize her attraction to him and eventually, she comes to \"love by night the man her children love by day\". They begin a short-lived affair that culminates in tragedy for the family. When her relationship with Velutha is discovered, Ammu is locked in her room and Velutha is banished. In her rage, Ammu blames the twins for her misfortune and calls them the \"millstones around her neck\". Distraught, Rahel and Estha decide to run away. Their cousin Sophie Mol convinces them to take her with them. During the night, while trying to reach the abandoned house across the river, their boat capsizes and Sophie drowns. Once Margaret Kochamma and Chacko return from Cochin, where they have been picking up airline tickets, Margaret sees Sophie's body lay out on the sofa. She vomits and hysterically berates the twins as they had survived, and hits Estha. Baby Kochamma goes to the police and accuses Velutha of being responsible for Sophie's death. She claims that Velutha attempted to rape Ammu, threatened the family, and kidnapped the children. A group of policemen hunt Velutha down and savagely beat him for crossing caste lines, the twins witnessing the horrific scene and are deeply disturbed. When the twins reveal the truth of Sophie's death to the Chief of Police, he is alarmed. He knows that Velutha is a communist, and is afraid that the wrongful arrest and"
      },
      {
        "text": " Velutha of being responsible for Sophie's death. She claims that Velutha attempted to rape Ammu, threatened the family, and kidnapped the children. A group of policemen hunt Velutha down and savagely beat him for crossing caste lines, the twins witnessing the horrific scene and are deeply disturbed. When the twins reveal the truth of Sophie's death to the Chief of Police, he is alarmed. He knows that Velutha is a communist, and is afraid that the wrongful arrest and beating of Velutha will cause unrest amongst the local communists. He threatens to hold Baby Kochamma responsible for falsely accusing Velutha. To save herself, Baby Kochamma tricks Rahel and Estha into accusing Velutha of Sophie's death. Velutha dies of his injuries. Hearing of his arrest, Ammu goes to the police to tell the truth about their relationship. The police threaten her to make her leave the matter alone. Afraid of being exposed, Baby Kochamma convinces Chacko that Ammu and the twins are responsible for his daughter's death. Chacko kicks Ammu out of the house. Unable to find a job, Ammu is forced to send Estha to live with his father. Estha never sees Ammu again, and she dies alone and impoverished a few years later at the age of thirty-one. After a turbulent childhood and adolescence in India, Rahel goes to America to study. While there, she gets married, divorced and finally returns to Ayemenem after several years of working dead-end jobs. Rahel and Estha, both 31-years-old, are reunited for the first time since they were children. In the intervening years, Estha and Rahel have been haunted by their guilt and grief-ridden pasts. Estha is perpetually silent and Rahel has a haunted look in her eyes. It becomes apparent that neither twin ever found another person who understands them in the way they"
      },
      {
        "text": " married, divorced and finally returns to Ayemenem after several years of working dead-end jobs. Rahel and Estha, both 31-years-old, are reunited for the first time since they were children. In the intervening years, Estha and Rahel have been haunted by their guilt and grief-ridden pasts. Estha is perpetually silent and Rahel has a haunted look in her eyes. It becomes apparent that neither twin ever found another person who understands them in the way they understand each other. The twins' renewed intimacy ultimately culminates in them sleeping together. In the last chapter of the book, 'The Cost of Living', the narrative is once again set in the 1969 time frame and describes Ammu and Velutha's first sexual encounter. It describes that \"Instinctively they stuck to the Small Things. The Big Things ever lurked inside. They knew there was nowhere for them to go. They had no future. So they stuck to the Small Things\". After each encounter, Ammu and Velutha make one promise to one another: \"Tomorrow? Tomorrow.\" The novel ends on the optimistic note, \"She kissed his closed eyes and stood up. Velutha with his back against the mangosteen tree watched her walk away. She had a dry rose in her hair. She turned to say it once again: 'Naaley.' Tomorrow.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Comedy of Errors",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Due to a law forbidding the presence of Syracusian merchants in Ephesus, elderly Syracusian trader Egeon faces execution when he is discovered in the city. He can only escape by paying a fine of a thousand marks. He tells his sad story to the Duke. In his youth, he married and had twin sons. On the same day, a poor woman also gave birth to twin boys, and he purchased these as slaves to his sons. Soon afterwards, the family made a sea voyage, and was hit by a tempest. Egeon lashed himself to the main-mast with one son and one slave, while his wife was rescued by one boat, Egeon by another. Egeon never again saw his wife, or the children with her. Recently, his son Antipholus of Syracuse, now grown, and his son\u2019s slave Dromio of Syracuse, left Syracuse on a quest to find their brothers. When Antipholus of Syracuse did not return, Egeon set out in search of him. Solinus, Duke of Ephesus, is moved by this story, and grants Egeon one day to pay his fine. That same day, Antipholus of Syracuse arrives in Ephesus, searching for his brother. He sends Dromio of Syracuse to deposit some money at The Centaur (an inn). He is confounded when the identical Dromio of Ephesus appears almost immediately, denying any knowledge of the money and asking him home to dinner, where his wife is waiting. Antipholus, thinking his servant is making insubordinate jokes, beats Dromio. Dromio of Ephesus returns to his mistress, Adriana, saying that her \"husband\" refused to come back to his house, and even pretended not to know her. Adriana, concerned that her husband's eye is straying, takes this news as confirmation of her suspicions. Antipholus of Syracuse, who complains \"I could not speak with Dromio since at first I sent him from the mart,\" meets up with Dromio who now denies making a \"joke\" about Antipholus having a wife. Antipholus begins beating him. Suddenly, Adriana rushes up to Antipholus and begs him not to leave her. The Syracusans cannot but attribute these strange events to witchcraft, remarking that Ephesus is known as a warren for witches. Antipholus and Dromio go off with this strange woman, to eat dinner and keep the gate, respectively. Antipholus of Ephesus returns home for dinner and is enraged to find that he is rudely refused entry to his own house by Dromio of Syracuse, who is keeping the gate. He is ready to break down the door, but his friends persuade him not to make a scene. He decides, instead, to dine with a Courtesan. Inside the house, Antipholus of Syracuse discovers that he is very attracted to his \"wife\"'s sister, Luciana, telling her \"train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note / To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears.\" She is flattered by his attentions, but worried about their moral implications. After she exits, Dromio of Syracuse announces that he has discovered that he has a wife: Nell, a hideous kitchen-maid. He describes her as \"spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her\". Antipholus jokingly asks him identify the countries, leading to a witty exchange in which parts of her body are identified with nations. Ireland is her buttocks: \"I found it out by the bogs\". He claims he has discovered America and the Indies \"upon her nose all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose.\" This is one of Shakespeare's few references to America. The Syracusans decide to leave as soon as possible, and Dromio runs off to make travel plans. Antipholus is apprehended by Angelo, a goldsmith, who claims that he ordered a chain from him. Antipholus is forced to accept the chain, and Angelo says that he will return for payment. Antipholus of Ephesus dispatches Dromio of Ephesus to purchase a rope so that he can beat his wife Adriana for locking him out, then is accosted by Angelo, who tells him \"I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine\" and asks to be reimbursed for the chain. He denies ever seeing it, and is promptly arrested. As he is being led away, Dromio of Syracuse arrives, whereupon Antipholus dispatches him back to Adriana's house to get money for his bail. After completing this errand, Dromio of Syracuse mistakenly delivers the money to Antipholus of Syracuse. The Courtesan spies Antipholus wearing the gold chain, and says he promised it to her. The Syracusans deny this, and flee. The Courtesan resolves to tell Adriana that her husband is insane. Dromio of Ephesus returns to the arrested Antipholus of Ephesus, with the rope. Antipholus is infuriated. Adriana, Luciana and the Courtesan enter with a conjurer named Pinch, who tries to exorcise the Ephesians, who are bound and taken to Adriana's house. The Syracusans enter, carrying swords, and everybody runs off for fear: believing that they are the Ephesians, out for vengeance after somehow escaping their bonds. Adriana reappears with henchmen, who attempt to bind the Syracusans. They take sanctuary in a nearby priory, where the Abbess resolutely protects them. The Duke and Egeon enter, on their way to Egeon's execution. Adriana begs the Duke to force the Abbess to release her husband. Then, a messenger from Adriana's house runs in and announces that the Ephesians have broken loose from their bonds and tortured Doctor Pinch. The Ephesians enter and ask the Duke for justice against Adriana. Egeon believes he has found his own son, Antipholus, who will be able to bail him, but both Ephesians deny having ever seen him before. Suddenly, the Abbess enters with the Syracusan twins, and everyone begins to understand the confused events of the day. Not only are the two sets of twins reunited, but the Abbess reveals that she is Egeon's wife, Emilia. The Duke pardons Egeon. All exit into the abbey to celebrate the reunification of the family.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Due to a law forbidding the presence of Syracusian merchants in Ephesus, elderly Syracusian trader Egeon faces execution when he is discovered in the city. He can only escape by paying a fine of a thousand marks. He tells his sad story to the Duke. In his youth, he married and had twin sons. On the same day, a poor woman also gave birth to twin boys, and he purchased these as slaves to his sons. Soon afterwards, the family made a sea voyage, and was hit by a tempest. Egeon lashed himself to the main-mast with one son and one slave, while his wife was rescued by one boat, Egeon by another. Egeon never again saw his wife, or the children with her. Recently, his son Antipholus of Syracuse, now grown, and his son\u2019s slave Dromio of Syracuse, left Syracuse on a quest to find their brothers. When Antipholus of Syracuse did not return, Egeon set out in search of him. Solinus, Duke of Ephesus, is moved by this story, and grants Egeon one day to pay his fine. That same day, Antipholus of Syracuse arrives in Ephesus, searching for his brother. He sends Dromio of Syracuse to deposit some money at The Centaur (an inn). He is confounded when the identical Dromio of Ephesus appears almost immediately, denying any knowledge of the money and asking him home to dinner, where his wife is waiting. Antipholus, thinking his servant is making insubordinate jokes, beats Dromio. Dromio of Ephesus returns to his mistress, Adriana, saying that her \"husband\" refused to come back to his house, and even pretended not to know her. Adriana, concerned that her husband's eye is straying, takes this news as confirmation of her suspicions. Antip"
      },
      {
        "text": " knowledge of the money and asking him home to dinner, where his wife is waiting. Antipholus, thinking his servant is making insubordinate jokes, beats Dromio. Dromio of Ephesus returns to his mistress, Adriana, saying that her \"husband\" refused to come back to his house, and even pretended not to know her. Adriana, concerned that her husband's eye is straying, takes this news as confirmation of her suspicions. Antipholus of Syracuse, who complains \"I could not speak with Dromio since at first I sent him from the mart,\" meets up with Dromio who now denies making a \"joke\" about Antipholus having a wife. Antipholus begins beating him. Suddenly, Adriana rushes up to Antipholus and begs him not to leave her. The Syracusans cannot but attribute these strange events to witchcraft, remarking that Ephesus is known as a warren for witches. Antipholus and Dromio go off with this strange woman, to eat dinner and keep the gate, respectively. Antipholus of Ephesus returns home for dinner and is enraged to find that he is rudely refused entry to his own house by Dromio of Syracuse, who is keeping the gate. He is ready to break down the door, but his friends persuade him not to make a scene. He decides, instead, to dine with a Courtesan. Inside the house, Antipholus of Syracuse discovers that he is very attracted to his \"wife\"'s sister, Luciana, telling her \"train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note / To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears.\" She is flattered by his attentions, but worried about their moral implications. After she exits, Dromio of Syracuse announces that he has discovered that he has a wife: Nell, a hideous"
      },
      {
        "text": "ine with a Courtesan. Inside the house, Antipholus of Syracuse discovers that he is very attracted to his \"wife\"'s sister, Luciana, telling her \"train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note / To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears.\" She is flattered by his attentions, but worried about their moral implications. After she exits, Dromio of Syracuse announces that he has discovered that he has a wife: Nell, a hideous kitchen-maid. He describes her as \"spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her\". Antipholus jokingly asks him identify the countries, leading to a witty exchange in which parts of her body are identified with nations. Ireland is her buttocks: \"I found it out by the bogs\". He claims he has discovered America and the Indies \"upon her nose all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose.\" This is one of Shakespeare's few references to America. The Syracusans decide to leave as soon as possible, and Dromio runs off to make travel plans. Antipholus is apprehended by Angelo, a goldsmith, who claims that he ordered a chain from him. Antipholus is forced to accept the chain, and Angelo says that he will return for payment. Antipholus of Ephesus dispatches Dromio of Ephesus to purchase a rope so that he can beat his wife Adriana for locking him out, then is accosted by Angelo, who tells him \"I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine\" and asks to be reimbursed for the chain. He denies ever seeing it, and is promptly arrested. As he is being led away, Dromio of"
      },
      {
        "text": " will return for payment. Antipholus of Ephesus dispatches Dromio of Ephesus to purchase a rope so that he can beat his wife Adriana for locking him out, then is accosted by Angelo, who tells him \"I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine\" and asks to be reimbursed for the chain. He denies ever seeing it, and is promptly arrested. As he is being led away, Dromio of Syracuse arrives, whereupon Antipholus dispatches him back to Adriana's house to get money for his bail. After completing this errand, Dromio of Syracuse mistakenly delivers the money to Antipholus of Syracuse. The Courtesan spies Antipholus wearing the gold chain, and says he promised it to her. The Syracusans deny this, and flee. The Courtesan resolves to tell Adriana that her husband is insane. Dromio of Ephesus returns to the arrested Antipholus of Ephesus, with the rope. Antipholus is infuriated. Adriana, Luciana and the Courtesan enter with a conjurer named Pinch, who tries to exorcise the Ephesians, who are bound and taken to Adriana's house. The Syracusans enter, carrying swords, and everybody runs off for fear: believing that they are the Ephesians, out for vengeance after somehow escaping their bonds. Adriana reappears with henchmen, who attempt to bind the Syracusans. They take sanctuary in a nearby priory, where the Abbess resolutely protects them. The Duke and Egeon enter, on their way to Egeon's execution. Adriana begs the Duke to force the Abbess to release her husband. Then, a messenger from Adriana's house runs in and announces that the Ephesians have broken loose from their"
      },
      {
        "text": " escaping their bonds. Adriana reappears with henchmen, who attempt to bind the Syracusans. They take sanctuary in a nearby priory, where the Abbess resolutely protects them. The Duke and Egeon enter, on their way to Egeon's execution. Adriana begs the Duke to force the Abbess to release her husband. Then, a messenger from Adriana's house runs in and announces that the Ephesians have broken loose from their bonds and tortured Doctor Pinch. The Ephesians enter and ask the Duke for justice against Adriana. Egeon believes he has found his own son, Antipholus, who will be able to bail him, but both Ephesians deny having ever seen him before. Suddenly, the Abbess enters with the Syracusan twins, and everyone begins to understand the confused events of the day. Not only are the two sets of twins reunited, but the Abbess reveals that she is Egeon's wife, Emilia. The Duke pardons Egeon. All exit into the abbey to celebrate the reunification of the family.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Quicksilver",
    "author": "Neal Stephenson",
    "published_date": "2003-09-23",
    "synopsis": " The first book is a series of flashbacks from 1713 to the earlier life of Daniel Waterhouse. It begins as Enoch Root arrives in Boston in October 1713 to deliver a letter to Daniel Waterhouse containing a summons from Princess Caroline. She wants Daniel to return to England and attempt to repair the feud between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. While following Daniel's decision to return to England and board a Dutch ship (the Minerva) to cross the Atlantic, the book flashes back to when Enoch and Daniel each first met Newton. During the flashbacks, the book refocuses on Daniel's life between 1661 and 1673. While attending school at Trinity College, Cambridge, Daniel becomes Newton's companion, ensuring that Newton does not harm his health and assisting in his experiments. However, the plague of 1665 forces them apart: Newton returns to his family manor and Daniel to the outskirts of London. Daniel quickly tires of the radical Puritan rhetoric of his father, Drake Waterhouse, and decides to join Reverend John Wilkins and Robert Hooke at John Comstock's Epsom estate. There Daniel takes part in a number of experiments, including the exploration of the diminishing effects of gravity with changes in elevation, the transfusion of blood between dogs and Wilkins' attempts to create a philosophical language. Daniel soon becomes disgusted and visits Newton during his experiments with color and white light. They attempt to return to Cambridge, but again plague expels the students. Daniel returns to his father; however, his arrival on the outskirts of London coincides with the second day of the Fire of London. Drake, taken by religious fervour, dies atop his house as the King blows it up to create a fire break to prevent further spread of the fire. Soon after Drake's death, Newton and Daniel then return to Cambridge and begin lecturing. A flashforward occurs in the narration, to find Daniel's ship under attack by the fleet of Edward Teach (Blackbeard) in 1713. Then the story returns to the past as Daniel and Newton return to London: Newton is under the patronage of Louis Anglesey, the Earl of Upnor, and Daniel becomes secretary of the Royal Society when Henry Oldenburg is detained by the King for his active foreign correspondence. During his stint in London, Daniel encounters a number of important actors from the period. Daniel remains one of the more prominent actors in the Royal Society, close to Royal Society members involved in court life and politics. By 1672 both Daniel and Newton become fellows at Trinity College where they build an extensive alchemical laboratory which attracts other significant alchemists including John Locke and Robert Boyle. Daniel convinces Newton to present his work on calculus to the Royal Society. In 1673, Daniel meets Leibniz in England and acts as his escort, leading him to meetings with important members of British society. Soon, Daniel gains the patronage of Roger Comstock as his architect. While under Roger's patronage, the actress Tess becomes Daniel's mistress both at court and in bed. Finally the book returns to 1713, where Daniel's ship fends off several of Teach's pirate ships. Soon they find out that Teach is after Daniel alone; however, with the application of trigonometry, the ship is able to escape the bay and the pirate band. The King of Vagabonds focuses on the travels of \"Half-Cocked\" Jack Shaftoe. It begins by recounting Jack's childhood in the slums outside of London where he pursued many disreputable jobs, including hanging from the legs of hanged men to speed their demise. The book then jumps to 1683, when Jack travels to the Battle of Vienna to participate in the European expulsion of the Turks. While attacking the camp, Jack encounters Eliza, a European slave in the sultan's harem, about to be killed by janissaries. He kills the janissaries and loots the area, taking ostrich feathers and acquiring a Turkish warhorse which he calls Turk. The two depart from the camp of the victorious European army and travel through Bohemia into the Palatinate. In order to sell the ostrich feathers at a high price, they decide to wait until the spring fair in Leipzig. Jack and Eliza spend the winter near a cave warmed by a hot water spring. In the springtime, they travel to the fair dressed as a noblewoman and her bodyguard where they meet Doctor Leibniz. They quickly sell their goods with the help of Leibniz, and agree to accompany him to his silver mine in the Harz Mountains. Once they arrive at the mine, Jack wanders into the local town where he has a brief encounter with Enoch Root in an apothecary's shop. Jack leaves town but gets lost in the woods, encountering pagan worshippers and witch hunters. He successfully escapes them by finding safe passage through a mine connecting to Leibniz's. Eliza and Jack move on to Amsterdam, where Eliza quickly becomes embroiled in the trade of commodities. Jack goes to Paris to sell the ostrich feathers and Turk, leaving Eliza behind. When he arrives in Paris, he meets and befriends St. George, a professional rat-killer and tamer, who helps him find lodging. While there, he becomes a messenger for bankers between Paris and Marseilles. However, during an attempt to sell Turk Jack is captured by nobles. Luckily, the presence of Jack's former employer, John Churchill, ensures that he is not immediately killed. With Churchill's help, Jack escapes from the barn where he has been held prisoner. During the escape, he rides Turk into a masquerade at the Hotel d'Arcachon in a costume similar to that of King Louis. With the aid of St. George's rats he escapes without injury but destroys the ballroom and removes the hand of Etienne d'Arcachon. Meanwhile, Eliza becomes heavily involved in the politics of Amsterdam, helping Knott Bolstrood and the Duke of Monmouth manipulate the trade of VOC stock. This causes a panic from which they profit. Afterwards, the French Ambassador in Amsterdam persuades Eliza to go to Versailles and supply him information about the French court. Eliza agrees after a brief encounter and falling-out with Jack. William of Orange learns of Eliza's mission and intercepts her, forcing her to become a double agent for his benefit and to give him oral sex. Meanwhile, Jack, with an injury caused by his encounter with Eliza, departs on the slaving trip, the ship filled with cowry shells which he and his accomplices, a Russian fur trader and an English pub owner. The ship is captured by Barbary pirates, and the end of the book has Jack as a captured galley-slave. This book returns to Daniel Waterhouse, who in 1685, has become a courtier to Charles&nbsp;II because of his role as Secretary of the Royal Society. He warns James&nbsp;II, still Duke of York, of his brother Charles' impending death, following which, Daniel quickly becomes an advisor to James&nbsp;II. He continues to be deeply involved with the English court, ensuring the passage of several bills which reduce restrictions on non-conformists despite his detraction from the Francophile court. Meanwhile, Eliza becomes the governess of a widowers' two children in Versailles. She catches the eye of the king and becomes the broker of the French nobility. With her help, the French court, supported by King Louis, creates several market trends from which they profit extensively. Her active involvement in the French court gains her a title of nobility: Countess of Zeur. Daniel and Eliza finally meet during a visit to the Netherlands where Daniel acts as an intermediary between William of Orange and the detracting English nobility. Daniel realizes Eliza's importance during a meeting at the house of Christiaan Huygens. Eliza woos Daniel and uses this connection to gain entrance into the English court and the Royal Society. Daniel also meets Nicholas Fatio while in Amsterdam. Soon after this meeting, Fatio and Eliza prevent the attempted kidnapping of William of Orange by an ambitious French courtier. Upon his return, Daniel is arrested by the notorious judge George Jeffreys, and later imprisoned in the Tower of London. Daniel escapes with the help of Jack Shaftoe's brother Bob, whose infantry unit is stationed there. After a brief return to Versailles, Eliza joins Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate at her estate before the invasion of the Palatinate in her name. Eliza informs William of Orange of the troop movements caused by the French invasion which frees his forces along the border of the Spanish Netherlands, a region of stalemate between France and the Dutch Republic. During her flight from the Electorate of the Palatinate, Eliza becomes pregnant by Louis's cryptographer, though popular knowledge suggested it was the French nobleman Etienne D'Arcachon's child. Meanwhile, William takes the free troops from the border on the Spanish Netherlands to England, precipitating the Glorious Revolution, including the expulsion of James&nbsp;II. James flees London and Daniel Waterhouse soon encounters him in a bar. Convinced that the Stuart monarchy has collapsed, Daniel returns to London and takes revenge on Jeffreys by inciting a crowd to capture him for trial and later execution. Though he plans to depart for Massachusetts, Daniel's case of bladder stones increasingly worsens during this period. The Royal Society and other family friends are very aware of this and force Daniel to get the stone removed by Robert Hooke at Bedlam.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first book is a series of flashbacks from 1713 to the earlier life of Daniel Waterhouse. It begins as Enoch Root arrives in Boston in October 1713 to deliver a letter to Daniel Waterhouse containing a summons from Princess Caroline. She wants Daniel to return to England and attempt to repair the feud between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. While following Daniel's decision to return to England and board a Dutch ship (the Minerva) to cross the Atlantic, the book flashes back to when Enoch and Daniel each first met Newton. During the flashbacks, the book refocuses on Daniel's life between 1661 and 1673. While attending school at Trinity College, Cambridge, Daniel becomes Newton's companion, ensuring that Newton does not harm his health and assisting in his experiments. However, the plague of 1665 forces them apart: Newton returns to his family manor and Daniel to the outskirts of London. Daniel quickly tires of the radical Puritan rhetoric of his father, Drake Waterhouse, and decides to join Reverend John Wilkins and Robert Hooke at John Comstock's Epsom estate. There Daniel takes part in a number of experiments, including the exploration of the diminishing effects of gravity with changes in elevation, the transfusion of blood between dogs and Wilkins' attempts to create a philosophical language. Daniel soon becomes disgusted and visits Newton during his experiments with color and white light. They attempt to return to Cambridge, but again plague expels the students. Daniel returns to his father; however, his arrival on the outskirts of London coincides with the second day of the Fire of London. Drake, taken by religious fervour, dies atop his house as the King blows it up to create a fire break to prevent further spread of the fire. Soon after Drake's death, Newton and Daniel then return to Cambridge and begin lecturing. A flashforward occurs in the narration, to find Daniel's ship under attack by the fleet of Edward Teach (Blackbeard) in 1713."
      },
      {
        "text": " father; however, his arrival on the outskirts of London coincides with the second day of the Fire of London. Drake, taken by religious fervour, dies atop his house as the King blows it up to create a fire break to prevent further spread of the fire. Soon after Drake's death, Newton and Daniel then return to Cambridge and begin lecturing. A flashforward occurs in the narration, to find Daniel's ship under attack by the fleet of Edward Teach (Blackbeard) in 1713. Then the story returns to the past as Daniel and Newton return to London: Newton is under the patronage of Louis Anglesey, the Earl of Upnor, and Daniel becomes secretary of the Royal Society when Henry Oldenburg is detained by the King for his active foreign correspondence. During his stint in London, Daniel encounters a number of important actors from the period. Daniel remains one of the more prominent actors in the Royal Society, close to Royal Society members involved in court life and politics. By 1672 both Daniel and Newton become fellows at Trinity College where they build an extensive alchemical laboratory which attracts other significant alchemists including John Locke and Robert Boyle. Daniel convinces Newton to present his work on calculus to the Royal Society. In 1673, Daniel meets Leibniz in England and acts as his escort, leading him to meetings with important members of British society. Soon, Daniel gains the patronage of Roger Comstock as his architect. While under Roger's patronage, the actress Tess becomes Daniel's mistress both at court and in bed. Finally the book returns to 1713, where Daniel's ship fends off several of Teach's pirate ships. Soon they find out that Teach is after Daniel alone; however, with the application of trigonometry, the ship is able to escape the bay and the pirate band. The King of Vagabonds focuses on the travels of \"Half-Cocked\" Jack Shaftoe. It begins by recounting Jack's childhood in the slums outside"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s mistress both at court and in bed. Finally the book returns to 1713, where Daniel's ship fends off several of Teach's pirate ships. Soon they find out that Teach is after Daniel alone; however, with the application of trigonometry, the ship is able to escape the bay and the pirate band. The King of Vagabonds focuses on the travels of \"Half-Cocked\" Jack Shaftoe. It begins by recounting Jack's childhood in the slums outside of London where he pursued many disreputable jobs, including hanging from the legs of hanged men to speed their demise. The book then jumps to 1683, when Jack travels to the Battle of Vienna to participate in the European expulsion of the Turks. While attacking the camp, Jack encounters Eliza, a European slave in the sultan's harem, about to be killed by janissaries. He kills the janissaries and loots the area, taking ostrich feathers and acquiring a Turkish warhorse which he calls Turk. The two depart from the camp of the victorious European army and travel through Bohemia into the Palatinate. In order to sell the ostrich feathers at a high price, they decide to wait until the spring fair in Leipzig. Jack and Eliza spend the winter near a cave warmed by a hot water spring. In the springtime, they travel to the fair dressed as a noblewoman and her bodyguard where they meet Doctor Leibniz. They quickly sell their goods with the help of Leibniz, and agree to accompany him to his silver mine in the Harz Mountains. Once they arrive at the mine, Jack wanders into the local town where he has a brief encounter with Enoch Root in an apothecary's shop. Jack leaves town but gets lost in the woods, encountering pagan worshippers and witch hunters. He successfully escapes them by finding safe passage through a mine connecting to Leibniz's. El"
      },
      {
        "text": " They quickly sell their goods with the help of Leibniz, and agree to accompany him to his silver mine in the Harz Mountains. Once they arrive at the mine, Jack wanders into the local town where he has a brief encounter with Enoch Root in an apothecary's shop. Jack leaves town but gets lost in the woods, encountering pagan worshippers and witch hunters. He successfully escapes them by finding safe passage through a mine connecting to Leibniz's. Eliza and Jack move on to Amsterdam, where Eliza quickly becomes embroiled in the trade of commodities. Jack goes to Paris to sell the ostrich feathers and Turk, leaving Eliza behind. When he arrives in Paris, he meets and befriends St. George, a professional rat-killer and tamer, who helps him find lodging. While there, he becomes a messenger for bankers between Paris and Marseilles. However, during an attempt to sell Turk Jack is captured by nobles. Luckily, the presence of Jack's former employer, John Churchill, ensures that he is not immediately killed. With Churchill's help, Jack escapes from the barn where he has been held prisoner. During the escape, he rides Turk into a masquerade at the Hotel d'Arcachon in a costume similar to that of King Louis. With the aid of St. George's rats he escapes without injury but destroys the ballroom and removes the hand of Etienne d'Arcachon. Meanwhile, Eliza becomes heavily involved in the politics of Amsterdam, helping Knott Bolstrood and the Duke of Monmouth manipulate the trade of VOC stock. This causes a panic from which they profit. Afterwards, the French Ambassador in Amsterdam persuades Eliza to go to Versailles and supply him information about the French court. Eliza agrees after a brief encounter and falling-out with Jack. William of Orange learns of Eliza's mission and intercepts her, forcing her to become a double agent for his"
      },
      {
        "text": " heavily involved in the politics of Amsterdam, helping Knott Bolstrood and the Duke of Monmouth manipulate the trade of VOC stock. This causes a panic from which they profit. Afterwards, the French Ambassador in Amsterdam persuades Eliza to go to Versailles and supply him information about the French court. Eliza agrees after a brief encounter and falling-out with Jack. William of Orange learns of Eliza's mission and intercepts her, forcing her to become a double agent for his benefit and to give him oral sex. Meanwhile, Jack, with an injury caused by his encounter with Eliza, departs on the slaving trip, the ship filled with cowry shells which he and his accomplices, a Russian fur trader and an English pub owner. The ship is captured by Barbary pirates, and the end of the book has Jack as a captured galley-slave. This book returns to Daniel Waterhouse, who in 1685, has become a courtier to Charles&nbsp;II because of his role as Secretary of the Royal Society. He warns James&nbsp;II, still Duke of York, of his brother Charles' impending death, following which, Daniel quickly becomes an advisor to James&nbsp;II. He continues to be deeply involved with the English court, ensuring the passage of several bills which reduce restrictions on non-conformists despite his detraction from the Francophile court. Meanwhile, Eliza becomes the governess of a widowers' two children in Versailles. She catches the eye of the king and becomes the broker of the French nobility. With her help, the French court, supported by King Louis, creates several market trends from which they profit extensively. Her active involvement in the French court gains her a title of nobility: Countess of Zeur. Daniel and Eliza finally meet during a visit to the Netherlands where Daniel acts as an intermediary between William of Orange and the detracting English nobility. Daniel realizes"
      },
      {
        "text": " widowers' two children in Versailles. She catches the eye of the king and becomes the broker of the French nobility. With her help, the French court, supported by King Louis, creates several market trends from which they profit extensively. Her active involvement in the French court gains her a title of nobility: Countess of Zeur. Daniel and Eliza finally meet during a visit to the Netherlands where Daniel acts as an intermediary between William of Orange and the detracting English nobility. Daniel realizes Eliza's importance during a meeting at the house of Christiaan Huygens. Eliza woos Daniel and uses this connection to gain entrance into the English court and the Royal Society. Daniel also meets Nicholas Fatio while in Amsterdam. Soon after this meeting, Fatio and Eliza prevent the attempted kidnapping of William of Orange by an ambitious French courtier. Upon his return, Daniel is arrested by the notorious judge George Jeffreys, and later imprisoned in the Tower of London. Daniel escapes with the help of Jack Shaftoe's brother Bob, whose infantry unit is stationed there. After a brief return to Versailles, Eliza joins Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate at her estate before the invasion of the Palatinate in her name. Eliza informs William of Orange of the troop movements caused by the French invasion which frees his forces along the border of the Spanish Netherlands, a region of stalemate between France and the Dutch Republic. During her flight from the Electorate of the Palatinate, Eliza becomes pregnant by Louis's cryptographer, though popular knowledge suggested it was the French nobleman Etienne D'Arcachon's child. Meanwhile, William takes the free troops from the border on the Spanish Netherlands to England, precipitating the Glorious Revolution, including the expulsion of James&nbsp;II. James flees London and Daniel Waterhouse soon encounters him in a bar. Convinced that the Stuart monarchy has collapsed, Daniel returns to"
      },
      {
        "text": "orate of the Palatinate, Eliza becomes pregnant by Louis's cryptographer, though popular knowledge suggested it was the French nobleman Etienne D'Arcachon's child. Meanwhile, William takes the free troops from the border on the Spanish Netherlands to England, precipitating the Glorious Revolution, including the expulsion of James&nbsp;II. James flees London and Daniel Waterhouse soon encounters him in a bar. Convinced that the Stuart monarchy has collapsed, Daniel returns to London and takes revenge on Jeffreys by inciting a crowd to capture him for trial and later execution. Though he plans to depart for Massachusetts, Daniel's case of bladder stones increasingly worsens during this period. The Royal Society and other family friends are very aware of this and force Daniel to get the stone removed by Robert Hooke at Bedlam.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Persians",
    "author": "Aeschylus",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Persians takes place in Susa, Iran, which at the time was one of the capitals of the Persian Empire, and opens with a chorus of old men of Susa, who are soon joined by the Queen Mother, Atossa, as they await news of her son King Xerxes' expedition against the Greeks. Expressing her anxiety and unease, Atossa narrates \"what is probably the first dream sequence in European theatre.\" This is an unusual beginning for a tragedy by Aeschylus; normally the chorus would not appear until slightly later, after a speech by a minor character. An exhausted messenger arrives, who offers a graphic description of the Battle of Salamis and its gory outcome. He tells of the Persian defeat, the names of the Persian generals who have been killed, and that Xerxes had escaped and is returning. The climax of the messenger's speech is his rendition of the battle cry of the Greeks as they charged: \"On, sons of Greece! Set free / Your fatherland, your children, wives, / Homes of your ancestors and temples of your gods! / Save all, or all is lost!\" (401-405). At the tomb of her dead husband Darius, Atossa asks the chorus to summon his ghost: \"Some remedy he knows, perhaps, / Knows ruin's cure\" they say. On learning of the Persian defeat, Darius condemns the hubris behind his son\u2019s decision to invade Greece. He particularly rebukes an impious Xerxes\u2019 decision to build a bridge over the Hellespont to expedite the Persian army\u2019s advance. Before departing, the ghost of Darius prophesies another Persian defeat at the Battle of Plataea (479 BCE): \"Where the plain grows lush and green, / Where Asopus' stream plumps rich Boeotia's soil, / The mother of disasters awaits them there, / Reward for insolence, for scorning God.\" Xerxes finally arrives, dressed in torn robes (\"grief swarms,\" the Queen says just before his arrival, \"but worst of all it stings / to hear how my son, my prince, / wears tatters, rags\" (845-849)) and reeling from his crushing defeat. The rest of the drama (908-1076) consists of the king alone with the chorus engaged in a lyrical komm\u00f3s that laments the enormity of Persia\u2019s defeat.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Persians takes place in Susa, Iran, which at the time was one of the capitals of the Persian Empire, and opens with a chorus of old men of Susa, who are soon joined by the Queen Mother, Atossa, as they await news of her son King Xerxes' expedition against the Greeks. Expressing her anxiety and unease, Atossa narrates \"what is probably the first dream sequence in European theatre.\" This is an unusual beginning for a tragedy by Aeschylus; normally the chorus would not appear until slightly later, after a speech by a minor character. An exhausted messenger arrives, who offers a graphic description of the Battle of Salamis and its gory outcome. He tells of the Persian defeat, the names of the Persian generals who have been killed, and that Xerxes had escaped and is returning. The climax of the messenger's speech is his rendition of the battle cry of the Greeks as they charged: \"On, sons of Greece! Set free / Your fatherland, your children, wives, / Homes of your ancestors and temples of your gods! / Save all, or all is lost!\" (401-405). At the tomb of her dead husband Darius, Atossa asks the chorus to summon his ghost: \"Some remedy he knows, perhaps, / Knows ruin's cure\" they say. On learning of the Persian defeat, Darius condemns the hubris behind his son\u2019s decision to invade Greece. He particularly rebukes an impious Xerxes\u2019 decision to build a bridge over the Hellespont to expedite the Persian army\u2019s advance. Before departing, the ghost of Darius prophesies another Persian defeat at the Battle of Plataea (479 BCE): \"Where the plain grows lush and green, / Where Asopus' stream plumps rich Boeotia's soil, / The mother of disasters awaits them there, / Reward for insolence, for scorning God.\" Xer"
      },
      {
        "text": " He particularly rebukes an impious Xerxes\u2019 decision to build a bridge over the Hellespont to expedite the Persian army\u2019s advance. Before departing, the ghost of Darius prophesies another Persian defeat at the Battle of Plataea (479 BCE): \"Where the plain grows lush and green, / Where Asopus' stream plumps rich Boeotia's soil, / The mother of disasters awaits them there, / Reward for insolence, for scorning God.\" Xerxes finally arrives, dressed in torn robes (\"grief swarms,\" the Queen says just before his arrival, \"but worst of all it stings / to hear how my son, my prince, / wears tatters, rags\" (845-849)) and reeling from his crushing defeat. The rest of the drama (908-1076) consists of the king alone with the chorus engaged in a lyrical komm\u00f3s that laments the enormity of Persia\u2019s defeat.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Other Wind",
    "author": "Ursula K. Le Guin",
    "published_date": "2001",
    "synopsis": " It is about fifteen years since the events described in Tehanu, and eight after those in Dragonfly. King Lebannen has his share of problems. The dragons want the return of the lands men have stolen from them in the distant past, the Kargs want to marry him to their princess and thus cement a diplomatic relation between the two countries, and the dead seek release from the perpetual twilight of the afterlife. Accompanied by three wizards, two dragons in human form, and a Kargad princess, he sails to Roke where, together with the Masters of that island, they are able to right an ancient wrong and restore the balance.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It is about fifteen years since the events described in Tehanu, and eight after those in Dragonfly. King Lebannen has his share of problems. The dragons want the return of the lands men have stolen from them in the distant past, the Kargs want to marry him to their princess and thus cement a diplomatic relation between the two countries, and the dead seek release from the perpetual twilight of the afterlife. Accompanied by three wizards, two dragons in human form, and a Kargad princess, he sails to Roke where, together with the Masters of that island, they are able to right an ancient wrong and restore the balance.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Colour of Magic",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The main character is an incompetent and cynical wizard named Rincewind. He involuntarily becomes a guide to the rich but naive tourist from the Agatean Empire, Twoflower. Forced to flee the city of Ankh-Morpork to escape a terrible fire that was caused by a bartender who misunderstood the concept of insurance, which Twoflower told him about, they begin on a journey across the Disc. Unknown to them, their journey is controlled by the Gods playing a board game. Rincewind and Twoflower are controlled by the Lady, and is pitted against the champions of Zephyrus, the god of slight breezes, Fate and Offler the Crocodile God, in the game supervised by Blind Io. The duo face a mountain troll and are separated. The ignorant Twoflower ends up being led to the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth, and Rincewind ends up in a tree-nymph inhabited tree. Rincewind manages to escape while the tree-nymphs try to kill him and is reunited with the tourist. Together with Hrun the Barbarian, they escape from the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth the Soul Eater, which collapses. Later, Hrun agrees to travel with and protect Twoflower and Rincewind in exchange for Heroic pictures of him from Twoflower's magical picture box. They visit Wyrmberg, an upside-down mountain which is home to dragons that only exist in the imagination. The names of the dragons' riders feature punctuation in the middle, making reference and parody of the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. They nearly go over the waterfall on the edge of the Disc, only to be rescued and taken to the country of Krull, a city perched on the very edge of the Discworld inhabited by hydrophobic wizards. The Krullians wish to discover the gender of Great A'Tuin, the giant turtle which carries the Discworld through space, so they have built a space capsule to launch over the Edge. They intend on sacrificing Rincewind and Twoflower to get Fate to smile on the voyage. Instead, Rincewind, Twoflower and Tethis the sea troll hijack the capsule in an attempt to escape and are launched off the Disc themselves.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The main character is an incompetent and cynical wizard named Rincewind. He involuntarily becomes a guide to the rich but naive tourist from the Agatean Empire, Twoflower. Forced to flee the city of Ankh-Morpork to escape a terrible fire that was caused by a bartender who misunderstood the concept of insurance, which Twoflower told him about, they begin on a journey across the Disc. Unknown to them, their journey is controlled by the Gods playing a board game. Rincewind and Twoflower are controlled by the Lady, and is pitted against the champions of Zephyrus, the god of slight breezes, Fate and Offler the Crocodile God, in the game supervised by Blind Io. The duo face a mountain troll and are separated. The ignorant Twoflower ends up being led to the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth, and Rincewind ends up in a tree-nymph inhabited tree. Rincewind manages to escape while the tree-nymphs try to kill him and is reunited with the tourist. Together with Hrun the Barbarian, they escape from the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth the Soul Eater, which collapses. Later, Hrun agrees to travel with and protect Twoflower and Rincewind in exchange for Heroic pictures of him from Twoflower's magical picture box. They visit Wyrmberg, an upside-down mountain which is home to dragons that only exist in the imagination. The names of the dragons' riders feature punctuation in the middle, making reference and parody of the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. They nearly go over the waterfall on the edge of the Disc, only to be rescued and taken to the country of Krull, a city perched on the very edge of the Discworld inhabited by hydrophobic wizards. The Krullians wish to discover the gender of Great A'Tuin, the giant turtle which carries the Discworld through space"
      },
      {
        "text": " the dragons' riders feature punctuation in the middle, making reference and parody of the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. They nearly go over the waterfall on the edge of the Disc, only to be rescued and taken to the country of Krull, a city perched on the very edge of the Discworld inhabited by hydrophobic wizards. The Krullians wish to discover the gender of Great A'Tuin, the giant turtle which carries the Discworld through space, so they have built a space capsule to launch over the Edge. They intend on sacrificing Rincewind and Twoflower to get Fate to smile on the voyage. Instead, Rincewind, Twoflower and Tethis the sea troll hijack the capsule in an attempt to escape and are launched off the Disc themselves.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Light Fantastic",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " After the wizard Rincewind has fallen from the edge of the Discworld, the Octavo magic book saves his life and he lands back onto the world. Meanwhile, the wizards of Ankh-Morpork discover from Death via a rite that the Discworld will soon be destroyed by a huge red star unless the eight spells of the Octavo are read: the most powerful spells in existence, one of which hides in Rincewind's head. Consequently, several orders of wizards try to capture Rincewind, led by Trymon, a former classmate of Rincewind's, who wishes to obtain the power of the spells for himself. After Rincewind, who has met again with Twoflower, escapes them, it becomes apparent that Great A'Tuin, the giant turtle that carries the Discworld, has set a new course that leads it directly into a red star with eight moons. Rincewind and Twoflower are accompanied by Cohen the Barbarian, a toothless, ageing hero, and Bethan, a sacrificial virgin saved by Cohen, with assistance from Rincewind and Twoflower. Rincewind becomes one of the very few people ever to enter Death's Domain whilst still alive, where he finds Twoflower playing a card game with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He is nearly killed when he meets Death's adopted daughter Ysabell, but is saved by the quick-acting Luggage. The group also encounter people who, anticipating the apocalypse, are heading for the mountains (not for protection, but because they will have a better view). As well as this, they happen upon the kind of shop where strange and sinister goods are on sale and inexplicably vanish the next time a customer tries to find them. The existence of these shops is explained as being a curse by a sorcerer upon the shopkeeper for not having something in stock. As the star comes nearer and the magic on the Discworld becomes weaker, Trymon tries to put the seven spells still in the Octavo into his mind, in an attempt to save the world and gain ultimate power. However, the spells prove too strong for him and his mind becomes a door into the \"Dungeon Dimensions\", whence strange, horrible creatures try to escape into reality. The seven leading wizards are meanwhile turned to stone. After winning a fight against them, Rincewind is able to read all eight spells aloud; whereupon the eight moons of the red star crack open and reveal eight tiny world-turtles that follow their parent A'Tuin on a course away from the star. The Octavo then falls and is eaten by Twoflower's Luggage. The book ends with Twoflower and Rincewind parting company, as Twoflower decides to return home, leaving The Luggage with Rincewind as a parting gift.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After the wizard Rincewind has fallen from the edge of the Discworld, the Octavo magic book saves his life and he lands back onto the world. Meanwhile, the wizards of Ankh-Morpork discover from Death via a rite that the Discworld will soon be destroyed by a huge red star unless the eight spells of the Octavo are read: the most powerful spells in existence, one of which hides in Rincewind's head. Consequently, several orders of wizards try to capture Rincewind, led by Trymon, a former classmate of Rincewind's, who wishes to obtain the power of the spells for himself. After Rincewind, who has met again with Twoflower, escapes them, it becomes apparent that Great A'Tuin, the giant turtle that carries the Discworld, has set a new course that leads it directly into a red star with eight moons. Rincewind and Twoflower are accompanied by Cohen the Barbarian, a toothless, ageing hero, and Bethan, a sacrificial virgin saved by Cohen, with assistance from Rincewind and Twoflower. Rincewind becomes one of the very few people ever to enter Death's Domain whilst still alive, where he finds Twoflower playing a card game with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He is nearly killed when he meets Death's adopted daughter Ysabell, but is saved by the quick-acting Luggage. The group also encounter people who, anticipating the apocalypse, are heading for the mountains (not for protection, but because they will have a better view). As well as this, they happen upon the kind of shop where strange and sinister goods are on sale and inexplicably vanish the next time a customer tries to find them. The existence of these shops is explained as being a curse by a sorcerer upon the shopkeeper for not having something in stock. As the star comes nearer and the magic on the Discworld becomes weaker, Trymon"
      },
      {
        "text": ", anticipating the apocalypse, are heading for the mountains (not for protection, but because they will have a better view). As well as this, they happen upon the kind of shop where strange and sinister goods are on sale and inexplicably vanish the next time a customer tries to find them. The existence of these shops is explained as being a curse by a sorcerer upon the shopkeeper for not having something in stock. As the star comes nearer and the magic on the Discworld becomes weaker, Trymon tries to put the seven spells still in the Octavo into his mind, in an attempt to save the world and gain ultimate power. However, the spells prove too strong for him and his mind becomes a door into the \"Dungeon Dimensions\", whence strange, horrible creatures try to escape into reality. The seven leading wizards are meanwhile turned to stone. After winning a fight against them, Rincewind is able to read all eight spells aloud; whereupon the eight moons of the red star crack open and reveal eight tiny world-turtles that follow their parent A'Tuin on a course away from the star. The Octavo then falls and is eaten by Twoflower's Luggage. The book ends with Twoflower and Rincewind parting company, as Twoflower decides to return home, leaving The Luggage with Rincewind as a parting gift.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Children of the Atom",
    "author": "Wilmar H. Shiras",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In the novel, much of which was originally published in serial form in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, hidden throughout a future America of 1972 are a group of incredibly gifted children &mdash; all approximately the same age, all preternaturally intelligent, and all hiding their incredible abilities from a world they know will not understand them. These children were born to workers caught in an explosion at an atomic weapons facility, and orphaned just a few months after birth when their parents succumbed to delayed effects from the blast. Like the characters in the better-known X-Men series, these children are mutants, brought together to explore their unique abilities and study in secret at an exclusive school for gifted children, lest they be hated and feared by a world that would not understand them. The Oakland Tribune described it in 1953 as \"the invevitable adjustments and maladjustments of minority genius to majority mediocrity\". In Shiras' book, none of the children are given paranormal super powers such as telekinesis or precognition\u2014their primary difference is simply that of incredible intellect, combined with an energy and inquisitiveness that causes them to figuratively devour every book in their local libraries, to speed through university extension courses, and to publish countless articles and stories all over the world, but all done carefully through pen-names and mail-order, to disguise their youth, and protect them from the prejudicial stereotypes that less intelligent adults continue to try and enforce on children.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the novel, much of which was originally published in serial form in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, hidden throughout a future America of 1972 are a group of incredibly gifted children &mdash; all approximately the same age, all preternaturally intelligent, and all hiding their incredible abilities from a world they know will not understand them. These children were born to workers caught in an explosion at an atomic weapons facility, and orphaned just a few months after birth when their parents succumbed to delayed effects from the blast. Like the characters in the better-known X-Men series, these children are mutants, brought together to explore their unique abilities and study in secret at an exclusive school for gifted children, lest they be hated and feared by a world that would not understand them. The Oakland Tribune described it in 1953 as \"the invevitable adjustments and maladjustments of minority genius to majority mediocrity\". In Shiras' book, none of the children are given paranormal super powers such as telekinesis or precognition\u2014their primary difference is simply that of incredible intellect, combined with an energy and inquisitiveness that causes them to figuratively devour every book in their local libraries, to speed through university extension courses, and to publish countless articles and stories all over the world, but all done carefully through pen-names and mail-order, to disguise their youth, and protect them from the prejudicial stereotypes that less intelligent adults continue to try and enforce on children.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "True Names",
    "author": "Vernor Vinge",
    "published_date": "1981",
    "synopsis": " The story follows the progress of a group of disaffected computer wizards (called \"warlocks\" in the story) who are early adopters of a new full-immersion virtual reality technology, called the \"Other Plane\". Forming a cabal, they must keep their true identities \u2013 their True Names \u2013 secret even to each other and to avoid prosecution by their \"Great Adversary\" \u2013 the government of the United States. The protagonist is one of these warlocks. Known as \"Mr. Slippery\" in the Other Plane; his True Name is Roger Pollack. When a new warlock arrives in the Other Plane and begins to recruit other warlocks for a scheme in which the domination of cyberspace can be used to exert power in the real world, Mr. Slippery is forced to ally himself with the Great Adversary.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story follows the progress of a group of disaffected computer wizards (called \"warlocks\" in the story) who are early adopters of a new full-immersion virtual reality technology, called the \"Other Plane\". Forming a cabal, they must keep their true identities \u2013 their True Names \u2013 secret even to each other and to avoid prosecution by their \"Great Adversary\" \u2013 the government of the United States. The protagonist is one of these warlocks. Known as \"Mr. Slippery\" in the Other Plane; his True Name is Roger Pollack. When a new warlock arrives in the Other Plane and begins to recruit other warlocks for a scheme in which the domination of cyberspace can be used to exert power in the real world, Mr. Slippery is forced to ally himself with the Great Adversary.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Postman Always Rings Twice",
    "author": "James M. Cain",
    "published_date": "1934",
    "synopsis": " The story is narrated in the first person by Frank Chambers, a young drifter who stops at a rural California diner for a meal, and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a young, beautiful woman, Cora, and her much older husband, Nick Papadakis, sometimes called \"the Greek\". There is an immediate attraction between Frank and Cora, and they begin a passionate affair with sadomasochistic qualities (when they first embrace, Cora commands Frank to bite her lip, and Frank does so hard enough to draw blood). Cora, a femme fatale figure, is tired of her situation, married to a man she does not love, and working at a diner that she wishes to own and improve. Frank and Cora scheme to murder the Greek in order to start a new life together without Cora losing the diner. They plan on striking Nick's head and making it seem he fell and drowned in the bathtub. Cora fells Nick with a solid blow, but, due to a sudden power outage and the appearance of a policeman, the scheme fails. Nick recovers and because of retrograde amnesia does not suspect that he narrowly avoided being killed. Determined to kill Nick, Frank and Cora fake a car accident. They ply Nick with wine, strike him on the head, and crash the car. Frank and Cora are injured. The local prosecutor suspects what has actually occurred, but doesn't have enough evidence to prove it. As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on one another, he charges only Cora with the crime of Nick's murder, coercing Frank to sign a complaint against her. Cora, furious and indignant, insists upon offering a full confession detailing both their roles. Her lawyer tricks her into dictating that confession to a member of his own staff. Cora, believing her confession made, returns to prison. Though Cora would be sure to learn of the trickery, a few valuable hours are gained. The lawyer uses the time to manipulate those financially interested in the trial to have their private detective recant his testimony, which was the final remaining weapon in the prosecution's arsenal. The state is forced to grant Cora a plea agreement, under which she is given a suspended sentence and no jail time. Frank and Cora patch things up and plan a happy-family future. Then Cora is killed in a car accident while Frank is driving. The book ends with Frank, from death row, summarizing the events that followed, explaining that he was wrongly convicted of having murdered Cora. The text, he hopes, will be published after his execution.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is narrated in the first person by Frank Chambers, a young drifter who stops at a rural California diner for a meal, and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a young, beautiful woman, Cora, and her much older husband, Nick Papadakis, sometimes called \"the Greek\". There is an immediate attraction between Frank and Cora, and they begin a passionate affair with sadomasochistic qualities (when they first embrace, Cora commands Frank to bite her lip, and Frank does so hard enough to draw blood). Cora, a femme fatale figure, is tired of her situation, married to a man she does not love, and working at a diner that she wishes to own and improve. Frank and Cora scheme to murder the Greek in order to start a new life together without Cora losing the diner. They plan on striking Nick's head and making it seem he fell and drowned in the bathtub. Cora fells Nick with a solid blow, but, due to a sudden power outage and the appearance of a policeman, the scheme fails. Nick recovers and because of retrograde amnesia does not suspect that he narrowly avoided being killed. Determined to kill Nick, Frank and Cora fake a car accident. They ply Nick with wine, strike him on the head, and crash the car. Frank and Cora are injured. The local prosecutor suspects what has actually occurred, but doesn't have enough evidence to prove it. As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on one another, he charges only Cora with the crime of Nick's murder, coercing Frank to sign a complaint against her. Cora, furious and indignant, insists upon offering a full confession detailing both their roles. Her lawyer tricks her into dictating that confession to a member of his own staff. Cora, believing her confession made, returns to prison. Though Cora would be sure to learn of the trickery,"
      },
      {
        "text": " As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on one another, he charges only Cora with the crime of Nick's murder, coercing Frank to sign a complaint against her. Cora, furious and indignant, insists upon offering a full confession detailing both their roles. Her lawyer tricks her into dictating that confession to a member of his own staff. Cora, believing her confession made, returns to prison. Though Cora would be sure to learn of the trickery, a few valuable hours are gained. The lawyer uses the time to manipulate those financially interested in the trial to have their private detective recant his testimony, which was the final remaining weapon in the prosecution's arsenal. The state is forced to grant Cora a plea agreement, under which she is given a suspended sentence and no jail time. Frank and Cora patch things up and plan a happy-family future. Then Cora is killed in a car accident while Frank is driving. The book ends with Frank, from death row, summarizing the events that followed, explaining that he was wrongly convicted of having murdered Cora. The text, he hopes, will be published after his execution.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Siddhartha",
    "author": "Hermann Hesse",
    "published_date": "1922",
    "synopsis": " The story takes place in ancient India around the time of Gotama Buddha (likely between the fourth and seventh centuries BCE). Siddhartha, the son of a Brahmin, decides to leave behind his home in the hopes of gaining spiritual illumination by becoming an ascetic wandering beggar of the Samanas. Joined by his best friend Govinda, Siddhartha fasts, becomes homeless, renounces all personal possessions, and intensely meditates, eventually seeking and personally speaking with Gotama, the famous Buddha, or Enlightened One. Afterward, both Siddhartha and Govinda acknowledge the elegance of the Buddha's teachings. Although Govinda hastily joins the Buddha's order, Siddhartha does not follow, claiming that the Buddha's philosophy, however supremely wise, does not account for the necessarily distinct experiences of each person. He argues that the individual seeks an absolutely unique and personal meaning that cannot be presented to him by a teacher; he thus resolves to carry on his quest alone. Siddhartha crosses a river and the generous ferryman, who Siddhartha is unable to pay, merrily predicts that Siddhartha will return to the river later to compensate him in some way. Venturing onward toward city life, Siddhartha discovers Kamala, the most beautiful woman he has yet seen. Kamala, a courtesan of affluent men, notes Siddhartha's handsome appearance and fast wit, telling him that he must become wealthy to win her affections so that she may teach him the art of love. Although Siddhartha despised materialistic pursuits as a Samana, he agrees now to Kamala's suggestions. She directs him to the employ of Kamaswami, a local businessman, and insists that he have Kamaswami treat him as an equal rather than an underling. Siddhartha easily succeeds, providing a voice of patience and tranquility against Kamaswami's fits of passion, which Siddhartha learned from his days as an ascetic. Thus, Siddhartha becomes a rich man and Kamala's lover, though in his middle years realizes that the luxurious lifestyle he has chosen is merely a game, empty of spiritual fulfillment. Leaving the fast-paced bustle of the city, Siddhartha returns to the river and thinks of killing himself. He is saved only by an internal experience of the holy word, Om. The very next morning Siddhartha briefly reconnects with Govinda, who is passing through the area and remains a wandering Buddhist. In light of his mid-life crisis, Siddhartha decides to live out the rest of his life in the presence of the spiritually inspirational river. Siddhartha thus reunites with the ferryman, named Vasudeva, with whom he begins a humbler way of life. Although Vasudeva is a simple man, he understands and relates that the river has many voices and significant messages to divulge to any who might listen. Some years later, Kamala, now a Buddhist convert, is travelling to see the Buddha at his deathbed, escorted reluctantly by her young son, when she is bitten by a venomous snake near Siddhartha's river. Siddhartha recognizes her and realizes that the boy is his own child. After Kamala's death, Siddhartha attempts to console and raise the furiously resistant boy, until one day the child flees altogether. Although Siddhartha is desperate to find his runaway son, Vasudeva urges him to let the boy find his own path, much like Siddhartha did himself in his youth. Listening to the river with Vasudeva, Siddhartha realizes that time is an illusion and that all of his feelings and experiences, even those of suffering, are part of a great and ultimately jubilant fellowship of all things connected in the cyclical unity of nature. With Siddhartha's moment of illumination, Vasudeva claims that his work is done and he must depart into the woods, leaving Siddhartha peacefully fulfilled and alone once more. Toward the end of his life, Govinda hears about an enlightened ferryman and travels to Siddhartha, not initially recognizing him as his old childhood friend. Govinda asks the now-elderly Siddhartha to relate his wisdom and Siddhartha replies that for every true statement there is an opposite one that is also true; that language and the confines of time lead people to adhere to one fixed belief that does not account for the fullness of the truth. Because nature works in a self-sustaining cycle, every entity carries in it the potential for its opposite and so the world must always be considered complete. Siddhartha simply urges people to identify and love the world in its completeness. Siddhartha then oddly requests that Govinda kiss his forehead and, when he does, Govinda experiences the visions of timelessness that Siddhartha himself saw with Vasudeva by the river. Govinda bows to his wise friend and Siddhartha smiles radiantly, having found enlightenment.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story takes place in ancient India around the time of Gotama Buddha (likely between the fourth and seventh centuries BCE). Siddhartha, the son of a Brahmin, decides to leave behind his home in the hopes of gaining spiritual illumination by becoming an ascetic wandering beggar of the Samanas. Joined by his best friend Govinda, Siddhartha fasts, becomes homeless, renounces all personal possessions, and intensely meditates, eventually seeking and personally speaking with Gotama, the famous Buddha, or Enlightened One. Afterward, both Siddhartha and Govinda acknowledge the elegance of the Buddha's teachings. Although Govinda hastily joins the Buddha's order, Siddhartha does not follow, claiming that the Buddha's philosophy, however supremely wise, does not account for the necessarily distinct experiences of each person. He argues that the individual seeks an absolutely unique and personal meaning that cannot be presented to him by a teacher; he thus resolves to carry on his quest alone. Siddhartha crosses a river and the generous ferryman, who Siddhartha is unable to pay, merrily predicts that Siddhartha will return to the river later to compensate him in some way. Venturing onward toward city life, Siddhartha discovers Kamala, the most beautiful woman he has yet seen. Kamala, a courtesan of affluent men, notes Siddhartha's handsome appearance and fast wit, telling him that he must become wealthy to win her affections so that she may teach him the art of love. Although Siddhartha despised materialistic pursuits as a Samana, he agrees now to Kamala's suggestions. She directs him to the employ of Kamaswami, a local businessman, and insists that he have Kamaswami treat him as an equal rather than an underling. Siddhartha easily succeeds, providing a voice of patience and tranquility against Kamaswami's fits of passion, which Siddhartha learned from his days as an asc"
      },
      {
        "text": " teach him the art of love. Although Siddhartha despised materialistic pursuits as a Samana, he agrees now to Kamala's suggestions. She directs him to the employ of Kamaswami, a local businessman, and insists that he have Kamaswami treat him as an equal rather than an underling. Siddhartha easily succeeds, providing a voice of patience and tranquility against Kamaswami's fits of passion, which Siddhartha learned from his days as an ascetic. Thus, Siddhartha becomes a rich man and Kamala's lover, though in his middle years realizes that the luxurious lifestyle he has chosen is merely a game, empty of spiritual fulfillment. Leaving the fast-paced bustle of the city, Siddhartha returns to the river and thinks of killing himself. He is saved only by an internal experience of the holy word, Om. The very next morning Siddhartha briefly reconnects with Govinda, who is passing through the area and remains a wandering Buddhist. In light of his mid-life crisis, Siddhartha decides to live out the rest of his life in the presence of the spiritually inspirational river. Siddhartha thus reunites with the ferryman, named Vasudeva, with whom he begins a humbler way of life. Although Vasudeva is a simple man, he understands and relates that the river has many voices and significant messages to divulge to any who might listen. Some years later, Kamala, now a Buddhist convert, is travelling to see the Buddha at his deathbed, escorted reluctantly by her young son, when she is bitten by a venomous snake near Siddhartha's river. Siddhartha recognizes her and realizes that the boy is his own child. After Kamala's death, Siddhartha attempts to console and raise the furiously resistant boy, until one day the child flees altogether. Although Siddhartha is desperate to find his runaway son, Vasudeva urges him to"
      },
      {
        "text": " now a Buddhist convert, is travelling to see the Buddha at his deathbed, escorted reluctantly by her young son, when she is bitten by a venomous snake near Siddhartha's river. Siddhartha recognizes her and realizes that the boy is his own child. After Kamala's death, Siddhartha attempts to console and raise the furiously resistant boy, until one day the child flees altogether. Although Siddhartha is desperate to find his runaway son, Vasudeva urges him to let the boy find his own path, much like Siddhartha did himself in his youth. Listening to the river with Vasudeva, Siddhartha realizes that time is an illusion and that all of his feelings and experiences, even those of suffering, are part of a great and ultimately jubilant fellowship of all things connected in the cyclical unity of nature. With Siddhartha's moment of illumination, Vasudeva claims that his work is done and he must depart into the woods, leaving Siddhartha peacefully fulfilled and alone once more. Toward the end of his life, Govinda hears about an enlightened ferryman and travels to Siddhartha, not initially recognizing him as his old childhood friend. Govinda asks the now-elderly Siddhartha to relate his wisdom and Siddhartha replies that for every true statement there is an opposite one that is also true; that language and the confines of time lead people to adhere to one fixed belief that does not account for the fullness of the truth. Because nature works in a self-sustaining cycle, every entity carries in it the potential for its opposite and so the world must always be considered complete. Siddhartha simply urges people to identify and love the world in its completeness. Siddhartha then oddly requests that Govinda kiss his forehead and, when he does, Govinda experiences the visions of timelessness that Siddhartha himself saw with Vasudeva by the river. Govinda bows"
      },
      {
        "text": " for the fullness of the truth. Because nature works in a self-sustaining cycle, every entity carries in it the potential for its opposite and so the world must always be considered complete. Siddhartha simply urges people to identify and love the world in its completeness. Siddhartha then oddly requests that Govinda kiss his forehead and, when he does, Govinda experiences the visions of timelessness that Siddhartha himself saw with Vasudeva by the river. Govinda bows to his wise friend and Siddhartha smiles radiantly, having found enlightenment.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Bicentennial Man",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1976-02",
    "synopsis": " A character named Andrew Martin requests an unknown operation from a robotic surgeon. However, the robot refuses, as the operation is harmful and violates the First Law of Robotics, which says a robot may never harm a human being. Andrew, however, changes its mind, telling it that he is not a human being. The story jumps to 200 years in the past, when NDR (his serial number forgotten) is brought to the home of Gerald Martin (referred to as Sir) as a robot butler. Little Miss (Sir's daughter) names him Andrew. Later, Little Miss asks Andrew to carve a pendant out of wood. She shows it to her father, who initially does not believe a robot could carve so skillfully. Sir has Andrew carve more things, and even read books on woodwork. Andrew uses, for the first time, the word \"enjoy\" to describe why he carves. Sir takes Andrew to U.S. Robotics and Mechanical Men, Inc. to ask what the source of his creativity is, but they have no good explanation. Sir helps Andrew to sell his products, taking half the profits and putting the other half in a bank account in the name of Andrew Martin (though there is questionable legality to a robot owning a bank account). Andrew uses the money to pay for bodily upgrades, keeping himself in perfect shape, but never has his positronic brain altered. Sir reveals that U.S. Robots has ended study on generalized pathways and creative robots, frightened by Andrew's unpredictability. Little Miss, at this point, is married and has a child, Little Sir. Andrew, feeling Sir now has someone to replace his grown-up children, asks to purchase his own freedom with Little Miss's support. Sir is apprehensive, however, fearing that freeing Andrew legally would require bringing attention to Andrew's bank account, and might result in the loss of all Andrew's money. However, he agrees to attempt it. Though facing initial resistance, Andrew wins his freedom. Sir refuses to let Andrew pay him. It isn't long afterwards that he falls ill, and dies after asking Andrew to stand by his deathbed. Andrew begins to wear clothes, and Little Sir (who orders Andrew to call him George) is a lawyer. He insists on dressing like a human, even though most humans refuse to accept him. In a conversation with George, Andrew realizes he must also expand his vocabulary, and decides to go to the library. On his way, he gets lost, and stands in the middle of a field. Two humans begin to walk across the field towards him, and he asks them the way to the library. They instead harass him, and threaten to take him apart when George arrives and scares them off. As he takes Andrew to the library, Andrew explains that he wants to write a book on the history of robots. The incident with the two humans angers Little Miss, and she forces George to go to court for robot rights. George's son, Paul, helps out by fighting the legal battle as George convinces the public. Eventually, the public opinion is turned in favor of robots, and laws are passed banning robot-harming orders. Little Miss, after the court case is won, dies. Andrew, with Paul's help, gets a meeting with the head of U.S. Robots. He requests that his body be replaced by an android, so that he may better resemble a human. After Paul threatens legal action, U.S. Robots agrees to give Andrew an android body. However, U.S. Robots retaliates by creating central brains for their robots, so that no individual robot may become like Andrew. Meanwhile, Andrew, with his new body, decides to study robobiology &mdash; the science of organic robots like himself. Andrew begins to design a system allowing androids to eat food like humans, solely for the purpose of becoming more like a person. After Paul's death, Andrew comes to U.S. Robots again, meeting with Alvin Magdescu, Director of Research. He offers U.S. Robots the opportunity to market his newly-designed prostheses for human use, as well as his own. He successfully has the digestive system installed in his body, and plans to create an excretory system to match. Meanwhile, his products are successfully marketed and he becomes a highly honored inventor. As he reaches 150 years of age, a dinner is held in his honor in which he is labeled the Sesquicentennial Robot. Andrew is not yet satisfied, however. Andrew decides that he wants to be a man. He obtains the backing of Feingold and Martin (the law firm of George and Paul) and seeks out Li-Hsing, a legislator and chairman of the Science and Technology committee, hoping that the World Legislature will declare him a human being. Li-Hsing advises him that it will be a long legal battle, but he says he is willing to fight for it. Feingold and Martin begins to slowly bring cases to court that generalize what it means to be human, hoping that despite his prosthetics Andrew can be regarded as essentially human. Most legislators, however, are still hesitant due to his immortality. The first scene of the story is explained as Andrew seeks out a robotic surgeon to perform a ultimately fatal operation: altering his positronic brain so that it will decay with time. He has the operation arranged so that he will live to be 200. When he goes before the World Legislature, he reveals his sacrifice, moving them to declare him a man. The World President signs the law on Andrew's two-hundredth birthday, declaring him a bicentennial man. As Andrew lies on his deathbed, he tries to hold onto the thought of his humanity, but as his consciousness fades his last thought is of Little Miss.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A character named Andrew Martin requests an unknown operation from a robotic surgeon. However, the robot refuses, as the operation is harmful and violates the First Law of Robotics, which says a robot may never harm a human being. Andrew, however, changes its mind, telling it that he is not a human being. The story jumps to 200 years in the past, when NDR (his serial number forgotten) is brought to the home of Gerald Martin (referred to as Sir) as a robot butler. Little Miss (Sir's daughter) names him Andrew. Later, Little Miss asks Andrew to carve a pendant out of wood. She shows it to her father, who initially does not believe a robot could carve so skillfully. Sir has Andrew carve more things, and even read books on woodwork. Andrew uses, for the first time, the word \"enjoy\" to describe why he carves. Sir takes Andrew to U.S. Robotics and Mechanical Men, Inc. to ask what the source of his creativity is, but they have no good explanation. Sir helps Andrew to sell his products, taking half the profits and putting the other half in a bank account in the name of Andrew Martin (though there is questionable legality to a robot owning a bank account). Andrew uses the money to pay for bodily upgrades, keeping himself in perfect shape, but never has his positronic brain altered. Sir reveals that U.S. Robots has ended study on generalized pathways and creative robots, frightened by Andrew's unpredictability. Little Miss, at this point, is married and has a child, Little Sir. Andrew, feeling Sir now has someone to replace his grown-up children, asks to purchase his own freedom with Little Miss's support. Sir is apprehensive, however, fearing that freeing Andrew legally would require bringing attention to Andrew's bank account, and might result in the loss of all Andrew's money. However, he agrees to attempt it. Though facing initial resistance, Andrew wins"
      },
      {
        "text": " frightened by Andrew's unpredictability. Little Miss, at this point, is married and has a child, Little Sir. Andrew, feeling Sir now has someone to replace his grown-up children, asks to purchase his own freedom with Little Miss's support. Sir is apprehensive, however, fearing that freeing Andrew legally would require bringing attention to Andrew's bank account, and might result in the loss of all Andrew's money. However, he agrees to attempt it. Though facing initial resistance, Andrew wins his freedom. Sir refuses to let Andrew pay him. It isn't long afterwards that he falls ill, and dies after asking Andrew to stand by his deathbed. Andrew begins to wear clothes, and Little Sir (who orders Andrew to call him George) is a lawyer. He insists on dressing like a human, even though most humans refuse to accept him. In a conversation with George, Andrew realizes he must also expand his vocabulary, and decides to go to the library. On his way, he gets lost, and stands in the middle of a field. Two humans begin to walk across the field towards him, and he asks them the way to the library. They instead harass him, and threaten to take him apart when George arrives and scares them off. As he takes Andrew to the library, Andrew explains that he wants to write a book on the history of robots. The incident with the two humans angers Little Miss, and she forces George to go to court for robot rights. George's son, Paul, helps out by fighting the legal battle as George convinces the public. Eventually, the public opinion is turned in favor of robots, and laws are passed banning robot-harming orders. Little Miss, after the court case is won, dies. Andrew, with Paul's help, gets a meeting with the head of U.S. Robots. He requests that his body be replaced by an android, so that he may better resemble a human. After Paul threatens legal action, U"
      },
      {
        "text": " son, Paul, helps out by fighting the legal battle as George convinces the public. Eventually, the public opinion is turned in favor of robots, and laws are passed banning robot-harming orders. Little Miss, after the court case is won, dies. Andrew, with Paul's help, gets a meeting with the head of U.S. Robots. He requests that his body be replaced by an android, so that he may better resemble a human. After Paul threatens legal action, U.S. Robots agrees to give Andrew an android body. However, U.S. Robots retaliates by creating central brains for their robots, so that no individual robot may become like Andrew. Meanwhile, Andrew, with his new body, decides to study robobiology &mdash; the science of organic robots like himself. Andrew begins to design a system allowing androids to eat food like humans, solely for the purpose of becoming more like a person. After Paul's death, Andrew comes to U.S. Robots again, meeting with Alvin Magdescu, Director of Research. He offers U.S. Robots the opportunity to market his newly-designed prostheses for human use, as well as his own. He successfully has the digestive system installed in his body, and plans to create an excretory system to match. Meanwhile, his products are successfully marketed and he becomes a highly honored inventor. As he reaches 150 years of age, a dinner is held in his honor in which he is labeled the Sesquicentennial Robot. Andrew is not yet satisfied, however. Andrew decides that he wants to be a man. He obtains the backing of Feingold and Martin (the law firm of George and Paul) and seeks out Li-Hsing, a legislator and chairman of the Science and Technology committee, hoping that the World Legislature will declare him a human being. Li-Hsing advises him that it will be a long legal battle, but he says he"
      },
      {
        "text": " which he is labeled the Sesquicentennial Robot. Andrew is not yet satisfied, however. Andrew decides that he wants to be a man. He obtains the backing of Feingold and Martin (the law firm of George and Paul) and seeks out Li-Hsing, a legislator and chairman of the Science and Technology committee, hoping that the World Legislature will declare him a human being. Li-Hsing advises him that it will be a long legal battle, but he says he is willing to fight for it. Feingold and Martin begins to slowly bring cases to court that generalize what it means to be human, hoping that despite his prosthetics Andrew can be regarded as essentially human. Most legislators, however, are still hesitant due to his immortality. The first scene of the story is explained as Andrew seeks out a robotic surgeon to perform a ultimately fatal operation: altering his positronic brain so that it will decay with time. He has the operation arranged so that he will live to be 200. When he goes before the World Legislature, he reveals his sacrifice, moving them to declare him a man. The World President signs the law on Andrew's two-hundredth birthday, declaring him a bicentennial man. As Andrew lies on his deathbed, he tries to hold onto the thought of his humanity, but as his consciousness fades his last thought is of Little Miss.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Foundation and Empire",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1952",
    "synopsis": " The first half of the book, titled \"The General,\" tells how the Galactic Empire, now well into its collapse but led by skilled General Bel Riose, launches an attack against the Foundation. The Empire still retains far more resources and personnel than the Foundation and Riose is willing to use that advantage to its fullest. Devers, a native of the Foundation, intercepts a message that summarizes the General's doings, and escapes to Trantor, trying to see the emperor and show him the message. He fails and is nearly killed, but the emperor finds out anyway. In the end, the emperor decides that Riose is a threat to his status and to the balance of the Empire and has him executed. Psychohistory gives members of the Foundation a full understanding of the struggle for power between generals and emperors that takes place inside the Empire. The characters of Emperor Cleon II and Bel Riose in this story are based on those of the historical Roman Emperor Justinian I and his general Belisarius. Their story was familiar to Asimov from his recent reading of Robert Graves's novel Count Belisarius, and of his earlier study of Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, on which the entire series is loosely based. \"The General\" was first published in the April 1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction under the title \"Dead Hand\". The second half of the book, titled \"The Mule,\" takes place approximately one hundred years after the first half. The Empire has ceased to exist, Trantor has been sacked by a \"barbarian fleet\", and only a small rump state of 20 agricultural planets remain. Most of the Galaxy has split into barbaric kingdoms. The Empire entered into an even more rapid phase of decline and civil wars. The Foundation has become the dominant power in the Galaxy, controlling its regions through its trading network. Leadership of the Foundation has become degenerate. In response to the internal corruption within the Foundation, roughly 30 outer planets belonging to the Foundation who have become wealthy on their own through extensive trade begin to plan a secession war against the Foundation. In addition, an external threat arises in the form of a mysterious man who is known only as the Mule. The Mule (whose real name is never revealed) is a mutant, and possesses the ability to sense and manipulate the emotions of others, usually creating fear and/or total devotion within his victims. He uses this ability to take over the independent systems bordering the Foundation, and has them wage a war against it. The Foundation is incapable of fighting back and as the Mule advances, leadership in the Foundation assumes that Hari Seldon predicted this attack, and that the scheduled hologram crisis message appearance of Hari Seldon would tell them how to win, just like with Bel Riose. To their surprise, they see the tape run and discover Seldon never predicted the existence of the Mule. Foundation citizens Toran and Bayta Darell along with psychologist Ebling Mis and refugee clown named \"Magnifico Giganticus\" travel to different worlds of the Foundation, and finally to the Great Library of Trantor. The Darells and Mis seek to contact the Second Foundation, which they believe will be able to defeat the Mule. They also have suspicion the Mule wishes to know the location of the Second Foundation so that he can use the First Foundation's technology to destroy it. At the Great Library, Ebling Mis works continuously until his health fatally deteriorates. As Mis lies dying, he tells Toran, Bayta, and Magnifico that he knows where the Second Foundation is. Just before he reveals the Second Foundation's location, however, Bayta kills him. Bayta had shortly before realized that Magnifico was actually the Mule, who had used his powers in every planet they had visited before. In the same way he had forced Mis to continue working and find what the Mule was looking for. Bayta killed Mis to prevent him from revealing the Second Foundation's whereabouts to the Mule. The Darells are left on Trantor. The Mule leaves to reign over the Foundation and the rest of his new empire. Existence of the Second Foundation, as an organization centered on the science of psychology and mentalics, in contrast to the Foundation's focus on physical sciences, is now known to the Darells and the Mule. Now that the Mule has conquered the Foundation he stands as the most powerful force in the galaxy, and the Second Foundation is the only threat to his eventual rule over the entire galaxy. The Mule promises that he will find the Second Foundation, while Bayta asserts that he will not have enough time before the Second Foundation reacts. \"The Mule\" was first published in the November and December 1945 issues of Astounding Science Fiction.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The first half of the book, titled \"The General,\" tells how the Galactic Empire, now well into its collapse but led by skilled General Bel Riose, launches an attack against the Foundation. The Empire still retains far more resources and personnel than the Foundation and Riose is willing to use that advantage to its fullest. Devers, a native of the Foundation, intercepts a message that summarizes the General's doings, and escapes to Trantor, trying to see the emperor and show him the message. He fails and is nearly killed, but the emperor finds out anyway. In the end, the emperor decides that Riose is a threat to his status and to the balance of the Empire and has him executed. Psychohistory gives members of the Foundation a full understanding of the struggle for power between generals and emperors that takes place inside the Empire. The characters of Emperor Cleon II and Bel Riose in this story are based on those of the historical Roman Emperor Justinian I and his general Belisarius. Their story was familiar to Asimov from his recent reading of Robert Graves's novel Count Belisarius, and of his earlier study of Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, on which the entire series is loosely based. \"The General\" was first published in the April 1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction under the title \"Dead Hand\". The second half of the book, titled \"The Mule,\" takes place approximately one hundred years after the first half. The Empire has ceased to exist, Trantor has been sacked by a \"barbarian fleet\", and only a small rump state of 20 agricultural planets remain. Most of the Galaxy has split into barbaric kingdoms. The Empire entered into an even more rapid phase of decline and civil wars. The Foundation has become the dominant power in the Galaxy, controlling its regions through its trading network. Leadership of the Foundation has become degenerate. In response to the internal corruption"
      },
      {
        "text": " hundred years after the first half. The Empire has ceased to exist, Trantor has been sacked by a \"barbarian fleet\", and only a small rump state of 20 agricultural planets remain. Most of the Galaxy has split into barbaric kingdoms. The Empire entered into an even more rapid phase of decline and civil wars. The Foundation has become the dominant power in the Galaxy, controlling its regions through its trading network. Leadership of the Foundation has become degenerate. In response to the internal corruption within the Foundation, roughly 30 outer planets belonging to the Foundation who have become wealthy on their own through extensive trade begin to plan a secession war against the Foundation. In addition, an external threat arises in the form of a mysterious man who is known only as the Mule. The Mule (whose real name is never revealed) is a mutant, and possesses the ability to sense and manipulate the emotions of others, usually creating fear and/or total devotion within his victims. He uses this ability to take over the independent systems bordering the Foundation, and has them wage a war against it. The Foundation is incapable of fighting back and as the Mule advances, leadership in the Foundation assumes that Hari Seldon predicted this attack, and that the scheduled hologram crisis message appearance of Hari Seldon would tell them how to win, just like with Bel Riose. To their surprise, they see the tape run and discover Seldon never predicted the existence of the Mule. Foundation citizens Toran and Bayta Darell along with psychologist Ebling Mis and refugee clown named \"Magnifico Giganticus\" travel to different worlds of the Foundation, and finally to the Great Library of Trantor. The Darells and Mis seek to contact the Second Foundation, which they believe will be able to defeat the Mule. They also have suspicion the Mule wishes to know the location of the Second Foundation so that he can use the First Foundation's technology to destroy it. At the Great"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Bayta Darell along with psychologist Ebling Mis and refugee clown named \"Magnifico Giganticus\" travel to different worlds of the Foundation, and finally to the Great Library of Trantor. The Darells and Mis seek to contact the Second Foundation, which they believe will be able to defeat the Mule. They also have suspicion the Mule wishes to know the location of the Second Foundation so that he can use the First Foundation's technology to destroy it. At the Great Library, Ebling Mis works continuously until his health fatally deteriorates. As Mis lies dying, he tells Toran, Bayta, and Magnifico that he knows where the Second Foundation is. Just before he reveals the Second Foundation's location, however, Bayta kills him. Bayta had shortly before realized that Magnifico was actually the Mule, who had used his powers in every planet they had visited before. In the same way he had forced Mis to continue working and find what the Mule was looking for. Bayta killed Mis to prevent him from revealing the Second Foundation's whereabouts to the Mule. The Darells are left on Trantor. The Mule leaves to reign over the Foundation and the rest of his new empire. Existence of the Second Foundation, as an organization centered on the science of psychology and mentalics, in contrast to the Foundation's focus on physical sciences, is now known to the Darells and the Mule. Now that the Mule has conquered the Foundation he stands as the most powerful force in the galaxy, and the Second Foundation is the only threat to his eventual rule over the entire galaxy. The Mule promises that he will find the Second Foundation, while Bayta asserts that he will not have enough time before the Second Foundation reacts. \"The Mule\" was first published in the November and December 1945 issues of Astounding Science Fiction.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Mule has conquered the Foundation he stands as the most powerful force in the galaxy, and the Second Foundation is the only threat to his eventual rule over the entire galaxy. The Mule promises that he will find the Second Foundation, while Bayta asserts that he will not have enough time before the Second Foundation reacts. \"The Mule\" was first published in the November and December 1945 issues of Astounding Science Fiction.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Equal Rites",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "1987",
    "synopsis": " The wizard Drum Billet knows that he will soon die and travels to a place where an eighth son of an eighth son is about to be born. This signifies that the child is destined to become a wizard; on the Discworld, the number eight has many of the magical properties that are sometimes ascribed to seven in other mythologies. Billet wants to pass his wizard's staff on to his successor. However, the newborn child is actually a girl, Esk (full name Eskarina Smith). Since Billet notices his mistake too late, the staff passes on to her. As Esk grows up, it becomes apparent that she has uncontrollable powers, and the local witch Granny Weatherwax decides to travel with her to the Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork to help her gain the knowledge required to properly manage her powers. But a female wizard is something completely unheard of on the Discworld. Esk is unsuccessful in her first, direct, attempt to gain entry to the University, but Granny Weatherwax finds another way in; as a servant. While there, Esk witnesses the progress of an apprentice wizard named Simon, whom she had met earlier, on her way to Ankh-Morpork. Simon is a natural talent who invents a whole new way of looking at the universe that reduces it to component numbers. His magic, however, is so powerful that it causes a hole to be opened into the Dungeon Dimensions. Eskarina and Simon discover the weakness of the creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions - if you can use magic, but don't, they become scared and weakened. They both manage to transport themselves back into the Discworld. Together they develop a new kind of magic, based on the notion that the greatest power is the ability not to use all the others.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The wizard Drum Billet knows that he will soon die and travels to a place where an eighth son of an eighth son is about to be born. This signifies that the child is destined to become a wizard; on the Discworld, the number eight has many of the magical properties that are sometimes ascribed to seven in other mythologies. Billet wants to pass his wizard's staff on to his successor. However, the newborn child is actually a girl, Esk (full name Eskarina Smith). Since Billet notices his mistake too late, the staff passes on to her. As Esk grows up, it becomes apparent that she has uncontrollable powers, and the local witch Granny Weatherwax decides to travel with her to the Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork to help her gain the knowledge required to properly manage her powers. But a female wizard is something completely unheard of on the Discworld. Esk is unsuccessful in her first, direct, attempt to gain entry to the University, but Granny Weatherwax finds another way in; as a servant. While there, Esk witnesses the progress of an apprentice wizard named Simon, whom she had met earlier, on her way to Ankh-Morpork. Simon is a natural talent who invents a whole new way of looking at the universe that reduces it to component numbers. His magic, however, is so powerful that it causes a hole to be opened into the Dungeon Dimensions. Eskarina and Simon discover the weakness of the creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions - if you can use magic, but don't, they become scared and weakened. They both manage to transport themselves back into the Discworld. Together they develop a new kind of magic, based on the notion that the greatest power is the ability not to use all the others.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " weakness of the creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions - if you can use magic, but don't, they become scared and weakened. They both manage to transport themselves back into the Discworld. Together they develop a new kind of magic, based on the notion that the greatest power is the ability not to use all the others.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Guards! Guards!",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "1989",
    "synopsis": " The story follows a plot by a secret brotherhood, the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night, to overthrow the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork and install a puppet king, under the control of the Supreme Grand Master. Using a stolen magic book, they summon a dragon to strike fear into the people of Ankh-Morpork. Once a suitable state of terror and panic has been created, the Supreme Grand Master proposes to put forth an \"heir\" to the throne, who will slay the dragon and rid the city of tyranny. It is the task of the Night Watch &ndash; Captain Vimes, Sergeant Colon, Corporal Nobbs, and new volunteer Carrot Ironfoundersson &ndash; to stop them, with some help from the Librarian of the Unseen University, an orangutan trying to get the stolen book back. The Watch is in bad condition; they are regarded as a bunch of incompetents who just walk around ringing their bells, and this is mostly true. The arrival of Carrot changes this; Carrot has memorised the Laws and Ordinances of the Cities of Ankh and Morpork, and on his first day tries to arrest the head of the Thieves' Guild for theft (the Thieves' Guild is permitted a quota of legally licensed thieving, a concept that the book of ancient Laws does not take into account). Carrot's enthusiasm strikes a chord with Vimes; the Watch should prevent crime, not ignore it. Vimes begins investigating the dragon's appearances, which leads to an acquaintance with Sybil Ramkin, a breeder of swamp dragons. Ramkin gives an underdeveloped dragon, Errol, to the Watch as a mascot. The leader of the Elucidated Brethren is initially successful in controlling the dragon, but he has not accounted for the dragon's own abilities. The banished dragon returns, and makes itself king of Ankh-Morpork (keeping the head of the Elucidated Brethren as its mouthpiece) and demands that the people of Ankh-Morpork bring it gold and regular virgin sacrifices. Shortly after, Vimes is imprisoned in the same cell as the Patrician, who has been leading a relatively comfortable life with the help of the rats he uses as spies. The Librarian helps Vimes to escape and he runs to the aid of Sybil, who has been chosen as the first virgin to be sacrificed. The Watch's swamp dragon, Errol, reorganises his digestive system to form a supersonic jet engine and fights the king, eventually knocking the king out of the sky with a shock wave. As the assembled crowd closes in on the king for the kill, Sybil tries to plead for its life. Carrot instead places it under arrest, however Errol lets the dragon escape, revealing that the dragon is in fact female, the battle between the two in fact being a courtship ritual. Sam Vimes proceeds to arrest Lupine Wonse, but accidentally causes the man's death when he told Carrot to \"throw the book at him.\" The man was attempting to summon another dragon, and died from falling off a broken floor after being hit by the Laws and Ordinances of Ankh-Morpork. The Patrician is reinstated as ruler of Ankh-Morpork, and offers the Watch anything they want as a reward. They ask only for a modest pay raise, a new tea kettle and a dartboard.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story follows a plot by a secret brotherhood, the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night, to overthrow the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork and install a puppet king, under the control of the Supreme Grand Master. Using a stolen magic book, they summon a dragon to strike fear into the people of Ankh-Morpork. Once a suitable state of terror and panic has been created, the Supreme Grand Master proposes to put forth an \"heir\" to the throne, who will slay the dragon and rid the city of tyranny. It is the task of the Night Watch &ndash; Captain Vimes, Sergeant Colon, Corporal Nobbs, and new volunteer Carrot Ironfoundersson &ndash; to stop them, with some help from the Librarian of the Unseen University, an orangutan trying to get the stolen book back. The Watch is in bad condition; they are regarded as a bunch of incompetents who just walk around ringing their bells, and this is mostly true. The arrival of Carrot changes this; Carrot has memorised the Laws and Ordinances of the Cities of Ankh and Morpork, and on his first day tries to arrest the head of the Thieves' Guild for theft (the Thieves' Guild is permitted a quota of legally licensed thieving, a concept that the book of ancient Laws does not take into account). Carrot's enthusiasm strikes a chord with Vimes; the Watch should prevent crime, not ignore it. Vimes begins investigating the dragon's appearances, which leads to an acquaintance with Sybil Ramkin, a breeder of swamp dragons. Ramkin gives an underdeveloped dragon, Errol, to the Watch as a mascot. The leader of the Elucidated Brethren is initially successful in controlling the dragon, but he has not accounted for the dragon's own abilities. The banished dragon returns, and makes itself king of Ankh"
      },
      {
        "text": " with Vimes; the Watch should prevent crime, not ignore it. Vimes begins investigating the dragon's appearances, which leads to an acquaintance with Sybil Ramkin, a breeder of swamp dragons. Ramkin gives an underdeveloped dragon, Errol, to the Watch as a mascot. The leader of the Elucidated Brethren is initially successful in controlling the dragon, but he has not accounted for the dragon's own abilities. The banished dragon returns, and makes itself king of Ankh-Morpork (keeping the head of the Elucidated Brethren as its mouthpiece) and demands that the people of Ankh-Morpork bring it gold and regular virgin sacrifices. Shortly after, Vimes is imprisoned in the same cell as the Patrician, who has been leading a relatively comfortable life with the help of the rats he uses as spies. The Librarian helps Vimes to escape and he runs to the aid of Sybil, who has been chosen as the first virgin to be sacrificed. The Watch's swamp dragon, Errol, reorganises his digestive system to form a supersonic jet engine and fights the king, eventually knocking the king out of the sky with a shock wave. As the assembled crowd closes in on the king for the kill, Sybil tries to plead for its life. Carrot instead places it under arrest, however Errol lets the dragon escape, revealing that the dragon is in fact female, the battle between the two in fact being a courtship ritual. Sam Vimes proceeds to arrest Lupine Wonse, but accidentally causes the man's death when he told Carrot to \"throw the book at him.\" The man was attempting to summon another dragon, and died from falling off a broken floor after being hit by the Laws and Ordinances of Ankh-Morpork. The Patrician is reinstated as ruler of Ankh-Morpork, and offers the Watch anything they want as a reward. They ask"
      },
      {
        "text": " being a courtship ritual. Sam Vimes proceeds to arrest Lupine Wonse, but accidentally causes the man's death when he told Carrot to \"throw the book at him.\" The man was attempting to summon another dragon, and died from falling off a broken floor after being hit by the Laws and Ordinances of Ankh-Morpork. The Patrician is reinstated as ruler of Ankh-Morpork, and offers the Watch anything they want as a reward. They ask only for a modest pay raise, a new tea kettle and a dartboard.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Pyramids",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "1989",
    "synopsis": " The main character of Pyramids is Teppic, prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi. Djelibeybi is the Discworld counterpart to Ancient Egypt. Young Teppic has been in training at the Assassins Guild in Ankh-Morpork for several years. The day after passing his final exam he somehow senses that his father has died and that he must return home. Being the first Djelibeybian king raised outside the kingdom leads to some interesting problems, based on the fact that Dios, the high priest, is a stickler for tradition, and does not, in fact, allow the pharaohs to rule the country. After numerous adventures and misunderstandings, Teppic is forced to escape from the palace, along with a handmaiden named Ptraci. Meanwhile, the massive pyramid being built for Teppic's father warps space-time so much that it \"rotates\" Djelebeybi out of alignment with the space/time of the rest of the disc by 90 degrees. Teppic and Ptraci travel to Ephebe to consult with the philosophers there as to how to get back inside the Kingdom. Meanwhile, pandemonium takes hold in Djelibeybi, as the kingdom's multifarious gods descend upon the populace, and all of Djelibeybi's dead rulers come back to life. Eventually, Teppic re-enters the Kingdom and attempts to destroy the Great Pyramid, with the help of all of his newly resurrected ancestors. They are confronted by Dios, who, it turns out, is as old as the kingdom itself, and has advised every pharaoh in the history of the Kingdom. Dios hates change and thinks Djelibeybi should stay the same. Teppic succeeds in destroying the Pyramid, returning Djelibeybi to the real world and sending Dios back through time (where he meets the original founder of the Kingdom, thereby re-starting the cycle). Teppic then abdicates, allowing Ptraci (who turns out to be his half-sister) to rule. Ptraci immediately institutes much-needed changes.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The main character of Pyramids is Teppic, prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi. Djelibeybi is the Discworld counterpart to Ancient Egypt. Young Teppic has been in training at the Assassins Guild in Ankh-Morpork for several years. The day after passing his final exam he somehow senses that his father has died and that he must return home. Being the first Djelibeybian king raised outside the kingdom leads to some interesting problems, based on the fact that Dios, the high priest, is a stickler for tradition, and does not, in fact, allow the pharaohs to rule the country. After numerous adventures and misunderstandings, Teppic is forced to escape from the palace, along with a handmaiden named Ptraci. Meanwhile, the massive pyramid being built for Teppic's father warps space-time so much that it \"rotates\" Djelebeybi out of alignment with the space/time of the rest of the disc by 90 degrees. Teppic and Ptraci travel to Ephebe to consult with the philosophers there as to how to get back inside the Kingdom. Meanwhile, pandemonium takes hold in Djelibeybi, as the kingdom's multifarious gods descend upon the populace, and all of Djelibeybi's dead rulers come back to life. Eventually, Teppic re-enters the Kingdom and attempts to destroy the Great Pyramid, with the help of all of his newly resurrected ancestors. They are confronted by Dios, who, it turns out, is as old as the kingdom itself, and has advised every pharaoh in the history of the Kingdom. Dios hates change and thinks Djelibeybi should stay the same. Teppic succeeds in destroying the Pyramid, returning Djelibeybi to the real world and sending Dios back through time (where he meets the original founder of the Kingdom, thereby"
      },
      {
        "text": ", with the help of all of his newly resurrected ancestors. They are confronted by Dios, who, it turns out, is as old as the kingdom itself, and has advised every pharaoh in the history of the Kingdom. Dios hates change and thinks Djelibeybi should stay the same. Teppic succeeds in destroying the Pyramid, returning Djelibeybi to the real world and sending Dios back through time (where he meets the original founder of the Kingdom, thereby re-starting the cycle). Teppic then abdicates, allowing Ptraci (who turns out to be his half-sister) to rule. Ptraci immediately institutes much-needed changes.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Monkey's Paw",
    "author": "W. W. Jacobs",
    "published_date": "1903",
    "synopsis": " The story involves Mr. and Mrs. White and their adult son Herbert. Sergeant-Major Morris, a friend of the Whites who has been part of the British Armed Forces in India, leaves them with the monkey's paw, telling of its mysterious powers to grant three wishes, and of its journey from an old fakir to his comrade, who used his third and final wish to wish for death. Mr. White wishes for \u00a3200 to be used as the final payment on his house. Following that, Herbert is killed by machinery at his company, but they do get compensation of \u00a3200. Ten days after the funeral, Mrs. White, almost mad with grief, asks her husband to wish Herbert back to life with the paw. Reluctantly, he does so. After a delay, there is a knock at the door. Mrs. White fumbles at the locks in an attempt to open the door. Mr. White knows, however, that he cannot allow their son in, as his appearance will be too grotesque. Mr. White was required to witness and identify the body, which had been mutilated by the accident and then buried for more than a week. He wishes his third wish for Herbert to remain dead, and the knocking stops. Mrs. White opens the door to find no one there. The theme of the story is contained in this description of the paw: '\"It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,\" said the sergeant-major, \"a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people's lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story involves Mr. and Mrs. White and their adult son Herbert. Sergeant-Major Morris, a friend of the Whites who has been part of the British Armed Forces in India, leaves them with the monkey's paw, telling of its mysterious powers to grant three wishes, and of its journey from an old fakir to his comrade, who used his third and final wish to wish for death. Mr. White wishes for \u00a3200 to be used as the final payment on his house. Following that, Herbert is killed by machinery at his company, but they do get compensation of \u00a3200. Ten days after the funeral, Mrs. White, almost mad with grief, asks her husband to wish Herbert back to life with the paw. Reluctantly, he does so. After a delay, there is a knock at the door. Mrs. White fumbles at the locks in an attempt to open the door. Mr. White knows, however, that he cannot allow their son in, as his appearance will be too grotesque. Mr. White was required to witness and identify the body, which had been mutilated by the accident and then buried for more than a week. He wishes his third wish for Herbert to remain dead, and the knocking stops. Mrs. White opens the door to find no one there. The theme of the story is contained in this description of the paw: '\"It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,\" said the sergeant-major, \"a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people's lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow.\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " \"a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people's lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sea Hawk",
    "author": "Rafael Sabatini",
    "published_date": "1915",
    "synopsis": " Sir Oliver Tressilian lives at the house of Penarrow together with his brother Lionel and his servant Nicholas. Sir Oliver is betrothed to Rosamund Godolphin, but her brother Peter, a young hothead, detests the Tressilians, as there had been a feud between their fathers, and therefore tries to drive a wedge between his sister and Sir Oliver. Peter and Rosamund's guardian, Sir John Killigrew, also has little love for the Tressilians. One day, Peter's actions lead to Sir Oliver dueling Sir John, whom he deems to be the source of the enmity. Sir John survives the duel, but is badly wounded, and this only serves to infuriate Peter. One day, he insults Sir Oliver in front of a few nobles. Sir Oliver sets in a furious pursuit, but then remembers a promise to Rosamund to refrain from engaging her brother, following which he returns home. Later that evening, however, his brother Lionel stumbles in, bleeding. He has been in a duel with Peter Godolphin over a woman they both loved. Lionel killed Peter in self-defense, but there were no witnesses. Circumstances make everyone believe Sir Oliver is the killer, and Lionel does nothing to quench that rumor. He even goes so far as to have his brother kidnapped for sale as a slave in Barbary to ensure that he never reveals the truth. The ship gets boarded by the Spanish, and Sir Oliver and his kidnapper, Captain Jasper Leigh, both become Spanish slaves. Sakr-el-Bahr After six months toiling as a slave at the oars of a Spanish galley and befriending a fellow slave, the Moor Yusuf-ben-Moktar, the galley gets boarded by Muslim corsairs. Oliver, Yusuf and the other slaves escape their shackles and join the fight with the corsairs. His fighting and the testimony of Yussuf, the nephew of Asad-ed-Din, Basha of Algiers, establishes Oliver as an honorary member of Muslim society, and he eventually makes himself a name as the corsair Sakr-el-Bahr, the Hawk of the Sea. Oliver does hold on to his old ties by making a habit of buying captured English slaves and returning them via Italy. One day he captures a Spanish vessel and thereon discovers his one-time kidnapper Jasper Leigh as a slave at the oars. He gives Jasper the opportunity to join the Faith and his corsairs, the sea-hawks. Since Jasper can navigate the seas, Sakr-el-Bahr sets sail for England to get even with Lionel. Lionel has inherited Sir Oliver's possessions and even manages to befriend Sir John and become betrothed to Rosamund, who still believes Sir Oliver the murderer of her brother. Sakr-el-Bahr kidnaps them both and takes them back to Algiers where, to his dismay, the Basha enforces the law that all slaves have to be auctioned fairly. The Basha is also at the slave-market, takes a fancy to Rosamund, and orders his wazeer to buy her. But since all purchases have to be paid for immediately, Sakr-el-Bahr manages to buy her instead. The Basha is furious and threatens to take her by force, but Sakr-el-Bahr manages to thwart him by marrying Rosamund. He also manages to trick his brother, whom he also bought, to tell the truth about who killed Peter Godolphin in front of Rosamund. But the Basha wants to get rid of Sakr-el-Bahr in order to claim Rosamund for his own. Somehow Sakr-el-Bahr has to find a way to keep Rosamund from his clutches.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Sir Oliver Tressilian lives at the house of Penarrow together with his brother Lionel and his servant Nicholas. Sir Oliver is betrothed to Rosamund Godolphin, but her brother Peter, a young hothead, detests the Tressilians, as there had been a feud between their fathers, and therefore tries to drive a wedge between his sister and Sir Oliver. Peter and Rosamund's guardian, Sir John Killigrew, also has little love for the Tressilians. One day, Peter's actions lead to Sir Oliver dueling Sir John, whom he deems to be the source of the enmity. Sir John survives the duel, but is badly wounded, and this only serves to infuriate Peter. One day, he insults Sir Oliver in front of a few nobles. Sir Oliver sets in a furious pursuit, but then remembers a promise to Rosamund to refrain from engaging her brother, following which he returns home. Later that evening, however, his brother Lionel stumbles in, bleeding. He has been in a duel with Peter Godolphin over a woman they both loved. Lionel killed Peter in self-defense, but there were no witnesses. Circumstances make everyone believe Sir Oliver is the killer, and Lionel does nothing to quench that rumor. He even goes so far as to have his brother kidnapped for sale as a slave in Barbary to ensure that he never reveals the truth. The ship gets boarded by the Spanish, and Sir Oliver and his kidnapper, Captain Jasper Leigh, both become Spanish slaves. Sakr-el-Bahr After six months toiling as a slave at the oars of a Spanish galley and befriending a fellow slave, the Moor Yusuf-ben-Moktar, the galley gets boarded by Muslim corsairs. Oliver, Yusuf and the other slaves escape their shackles and join the fight with the corsairs. His fighting and the testimony of Yuss"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Sir Oliver and his kidnapper, Captain Jasper Leigh, both become Spanish slaves. Sakr-el-Bahr After six months toiling as a slave at the oars of a Spanish galley and befriending a fellow slave, the Moor Yusuf-ben-Moktar, the galley gets boarded by Muslim corsairs. Oliver, Yusuf and the other slaves escape their shackles and join the fight with the corsairs. His fighting and the testimony of Yussuf, the nephew of Asad-ed-Din, Basha of Algiers, establishes Oliver as an honorary member of Muslim society, and he eventually makes himself a name as the corsair Sakr-el-Bahr, the Hawk of the Sea. Oliver does hold on to his old ties by making a habit of buying captured English slaves and returning them via Italy. One day he captures a Spanish vessel and thereon discovers his one-time kidnapper Jasper Leigh as a slave at the oars. He gives Jasper the opportunity to join the Faith and his corsairs, the sea-hawks. Since Jasper can navigate the seas, Sakr-el-Bahr sets sail for England to get even with Lionel. Lionel has inherited Sir Oliver's possessions and even manages to befriend Sir John and become betrothed to Rosamund, who still believes Sir Oliver the murderer of her brother. Sakr-el-Bahr kidnaps them both and takes them back to Algiers where, to his dismay, the Basha enforces the law that all slaves have to be auctioned fairly. The Basha is also at the slave-market, takes a fancy to Rosamund, and orders his wazeer to buy her. But since all purchases have to be paid for immediately, Sakr-el-Bahr manages to buy her instead. The Basha is furious and threatens to take her by force, but Sakr-el-Bah"
      },
      {
        "text": " to Algiers where, to his dismay, the Basha enforces the law that all slaves have to be auctioned fairly. The Basha is also at the slave-market, takes a fancy to Rosamund, and orders his wazeer to buy her. But since all purchases have to be paid for immediately, Sakr-el-Bahr manages to buy her instead. The Basha is furious and threatens to take her by force, but Sakr-el-Bahr manages to thwart him by marrying Rosamund. He also manages to trick his brother, whom he also bought, to tell the truth about who killed Peter Godolphin in front of Rosamund. But the Basha wants to get rid of Sakr-el-Bahr in order to claim Rosamund for his own. Somehow Sakr-el-Bahr has to find a way to keep Rosamund from his clutches.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Master and Margarita",
    "author": "Mikhail Bulgakov",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel alternates between two settings. The first is 1930s Moscow, which is visited by Satan in the guise of \"Professor\" Woland or Voland (\u0412\u043e\u043b\u0430\u043d\u0434), a mysterious gentleman \"magician\" of uncertain origin, who arrives with a retinue that includes the grotesquely dressed \"ex-choirmaster\" valet Koroviev (Fagotto) (\u0424\u0430\u0433\u043e\u0442, the name means \"bassoon\" in Russian among other languages, from the Italian word fagotto), a mischievous, gun-happy, fast-talking black cat Behemoth (\u0411\u0435\u0433\u0435\u043c\u043e\u0442, a subversive Puss in Boots, the name referring at once to the Biblical monster and the Russian word for Hippopotamus), the fanged hitman Azazello (\u0410\u0437\u0430\u0437\u0435\u043b\u043b\u043e, hinting of Azazel), the pale-faced Abadonna (\u0410\u0431\u0430\u0434\u043e\u043d\u043d\u0430, a reference to Abaddon) with a death-inflicting stare, and the witch Hella (\u0413\u0435\u043b\u043b\u0430). The havoc wreaked by this group targets the literary elite, along with its trade union, MASSOLIT. MASSOLIT is a Soviet-style abbreviation for \"Moscow Association of Writers\", \u041c\u043e\u0441\u043a\u043e\u0432\u0441\u043a\u0430\u044f \u0430\u0441\u0441\u043e\u0446\u0438\u0430\u0446\u0438\u044f \u043b\u0438\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0430\u0442\u043e\u0440\u043e\u0432, but possibly interpretable as \"Literature for the Masses\"; one translation of the book also mentions that this could be a play on words in Russian, which could be translated into English as something like \"LOTSALIT\"), its privileged HQ Griboyedov's House, corrupt social-climbers and their women (wives and mistresses alike) \u2013 bureaucrats and profiteers \u2013 and, more generally, skeptical unbelievers in the human spirit. The second setting is the Jerusalem of Pontius Pilate, described by Woland talking to Berlioz and later echoed in the pages of the Master's novel. It concerns Pontius Pilate's trial of Yeshua Ha-Notsri (\u0418\u0435\u0448\u0443\u0430 \u0433\u0430-\u041d\u043e\u0446\u0440\u0438, Jesus the Nazarene), his recognition of an affinity with and spiritual need for Yeshua, and his reluctant but resigned submission to Yeshua's execution. Part one of the novel opens with a direct confrontation between the unbelieving head of the literary bureaucracy, Berlioz (\u0411\u0435\u0440\u043b\u0438\u043e\u0437), and an urbane foreign gentleman who defends belief and reveals his prophetic powers (Woland). Berlioz brushes the prophecy of his death off, only to have it come true just pages later in the novel. This fulfillment of a death prophecy is witnessed by a young and enthusiastically modern poet, Ivan Ponyrev, who writes his poems under the alias Bezdomniy (\u0418\u0432\u0430\u043d \u0411\u0435\u0437\u0434\u043e\u043c\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u2013 the name means \"Homeless\"). His futile attempt to chase and capture the \"gang\" and warn of their evil and mysterious nature lands Ivan in a lunatic asylum. Here, Ivan is later introduced to The Master, an embittered author, the petty-minded rejection of whose historical novel about Pontius Pilate and Christ led him to such despair that he burns his manuscript and turns his back on the \"real\" world, including his devoted lover, Margarita (\u041c\u0430\u0440\u0433\u0430\u0440\u0438\u0442\u0430). Major episodes in the first part of the novel include a satirical portrait of the Massolit and their Griboedov house;Satan's magic show at the Variety Theatre, satirizing the vanity, greed and gullibility of the new rich; and Woland and his retinue capturing the late Berlioz's apartment for their own use. Part two of the novel introduces Margarita, the Master's mistress, who refuses to despair of her lover or his work. She is invited to the Devil's midnight ball, where Satan (Woland) offers her the chance to become a witch with supernatural powers. This coincides with the night of Good Friday since the Master's novel also deals with this same spring full moon when Christ's fate is sealed by Pontius Pilate and he is crucified in Jerusalem. All three events in the novel are linked by this. Learning to fly and control her unleashed passions (not without exacting violent retribution on the literary bureaucrats who condemned her beloved to despair), and taking her enthusiastic maid Natasha with her, Margarita enters naked into the realm of night. She flies over the deep forests and rivers of the USSR; bathes and returns with Azazello, her escort, to Moscow as the anointed hostess for Satan's great Spring Ball. Standing by his side, she welcomes the dark celebrities of human history as they arrive from Hell. She survives this ordeal without breaking, and for her pains, Satan offers to grant Margarita her deepest wish. Margarita selflessly chooses to liberate a woman whom she met at the ball from the woman's eternal punishment: the woman was raped and had later suffocated her newborn by stuffing a handkerchief in its mouth. Her punishment was to wake up every morning and find the same handkerchief lying on her nightstand. Satan grants her first wish and offers her another, citing that the first wish was unrelated to Margarita's own desires. For her second wish, she chooses to liberate the Master and live in poverty-stricken love with him. Neither Woland nor Yeshua appreciate her chosen way of life. Azazello is sent to retrieve them. The three drink Pontius Pilate's poisoned wine in the Master's basement. Master and Margarita die, though their death is metaphorical as Azazello watches their physical manifestations die. Azazello reawakens them and they leave civilization with the Devil as Moscow's cupolas and windows burn in the setting Easter sun. The Master and Margarita, for not having lost their faith in humanity, are granted \"peace\" but are denied \"light\" \u2013 that is, they will spend eternity together in a shadowy yet pleasant region similar to Dante's depiction of Limbo, having not earned the glories of Heaven, but not deserving the punishments of Hell. As a parallel to the Master and Margarita's freedom, Pontius Pilate is released from his eternal punishment when the Master finally calls out to Pontius Pilate telling him he's free to finally walk up the moonbeam path in his dreams to Yeshua, where another eternity awaits.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel alternates between two settings. The first is 1930s Moscow, which is visited by Satan in the guise of \"Professor\" Woland or Voland (\u0412\u043e\u043b\u0430\u043d\u0434), a mysterious gentleman \"magician\" of uncertain origin, who arrives with a retinue that includes the grotesquely dressed \"ex-choirmaster\" valet Koroviev (Fagotto) (\u0424\u0430\u0433\u043e\u0442, the name means \"bassoon\" in Russian among other languages, from the Italian word fagotto), a mischievous, gun-happy, fast-talking black cat Behemoth (\u0411\u0435\u0433\u0435\u043c\u043e\u0442, a subversive Puss in Boots, the name referring at once to the Biblical monster and the Russian word for Hippopotamus), the fanged hitman Azazello (\u0410\u0437\u0430\u0437\u0435\u043b\u043b\u043e, hinting of Azazel), the pale-faced Abadonna (\u0410\u0431\u0430\u0434\u043e\u043d\u043d\u0430, a reference to Abaddon) with a death-inflicting stare, and the witch Hella (\u0413\u0435\u043b\u043b\u0430). The havoc wreaked by this group targets the literary elite, along with its trade union, MASSOLIT. MASSOLIT is a Soviet-style abbreviation for \"Moscow Association of Writers\", \u041c\u043e\u0441\u043a\u043e\u0432\u0441\u043a\u0430\u044f \u0430\u0441\u0441\u043e\u0446\u0438\u0430\u0446\u0438\u044f \u043b\u0438\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0430\u0442\u043e\u0440\u043e\u0432, but possibly interpretable as \"Literature for the Masses\"; one translation of the book also mentions that this could be a play on words in Russian, which could be translated into English as something like \"LOTSALIT\"), its privileged HQ Griboyedov's House, corrupt social-climbers and their women (wives and mistresses alike) \u2013 bureaucrats and profiteers \u2013 and, more generally"
      },
      {
        "text": "\ufffd\u0438\u044f \u043b\u0438\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0430\u0442\u043e\u0440\u043e\u0432, but possibly interpretable as \"Literature for the Masses\"; one translation of the book also mentions that this could be a play on words in Russian, which could be translated into English as something like \"LOTSALIT\"), its privileged HQ Griboyedov's House, corrupt social-climbers and their women (wives and mistresses alike) \u2013 bureaucrats and profiteers \u2013 and, more generally, skeptical unbelievers in the human spirit. The second setting is the Jerusalem of Pontius Pilate, described by Woland talking to Berlioz and later echoed in the pages of the Master's novel. It concerns Pontius Pilate's trial of Yeshua Ha-Notsri (\u0418\u0435\u0448\u0443\u0430 \u0433\u0430-\u041d\u043e\u0446\u0440\u0438, Jesus the Nazarene), his recognition of an affinity with and spiritual need for Yeshua, and his reluctant but resigned submission to Yeshua's execution. Part one of the novel opens with a direct confrontation between the unbelieving head of the literary bureaucracy, Berlioz (\u0411\u0435\u0440\u043b\u0438\u043e\u0437), and an urbane foreign gentleman who defends belief and reveals his prophetic powers (Woland). Berlioz brushes the prophecy of his death off, only to have it come true just pages later in the novel. This fulfillment of a death prophecy is witnessed by a young and enthusiastically modern poet, Ivan Ponyrev, who writes his poems under the alias Bezdomniy (\u0418\u0432\u0430\u043d \u0411\u0435\u0437\u0434\u043e\u043c\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u2013 the name means \"Homeless\"). His futile attempt to chase and capture the \"gang\" and warn of their evil and mysterious nature lands Ivan in a lunatic asylum. Here, Ivan is later introduced to The Master, an embittered author, the petty-minded rejection of whose historical novel about Pontius Pilate and"
      },
      {
        "text": " Ivan Ponyrev, who writes his poems under the alias Bezdomniy (\u0418\u0432\u0430\u043d \u0411\u0435\u0437\u0434\u043e\u043c\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u2013 the name means \"Homeless\"). His futile attempt to chase and capture the \"gang\" and warn of their evil and mysterious nature lands Ivan in a lunatic asylum. Here, Ivan is later introduced to The Master, an embittered author, the petty-minded rejection of whose historical novel about Pontius Pilate and Christ led him to such despair that he burns his manuscript and turns his back on the \"real\" world, including his devoted lover, Margarita (\u041c\u0430\u0440\u0433\u0430\u0440\u0438\u0442\u0430). Major episodes in the first part of the novel include a satirical portrait of the Massolit and their Griboedov house;Satan's magic show at the Variety Theatre, satirizing the vanity, greed and gullibility of the new rich; and Woland and his retinue capturing the late Berlioz's apartment for their own use. Part two of the novel introduces Margarita, the Master's mistress, who refuses to despair of her lover or his work. She is invited to the Devil's midnight ball, where Satan (Woland) offers her the chance to become a witch with supernatural powers. This coincides with the night of Good Friday since the Master's novel also deals with this same spring full moon when Christ's fate is sealed by Pontius Pilate and he is crucified in Jerusalem. All three events in the novel are linked by this. Learning to fly and control her unleashed passions (not without exacting violent retribution on the literary bureaucrats who condemned her beloved to despair), and taking her enthusiastic maid Natasha with her, Margarita enters naked into the realm of night. She flies over the deep forests and rivers of the USSR; bathes and returns with Azazello, her escort, to Moscow as the anointed hostess for Satan's"
      },
      {
        "text": " and he is crucified in Jerusalem. All three events in the novel are linked by this. Learning to fly and control her unleashed passions (not without exacting violent retribution on the literary bureaucrats who condemned her beloved to despair), and taking her enthusiastic maid Natasha with her, Margarita enters naked into the realm of night. She flies over the deep forests and rivers of the USSR; bathes and returns with Azazello, her escort, to Moscow as the anointed hostess for Satan's great Spring Ball. Standing by his side, she welcomes the dark celebrities of human history as they arrive from Hell. She survives this ordeal without breaking, and for her pains, Satan offers to grant Margarita her deepest wish. Margarita selflessly chooses to liberate a woman whom she met at the ball from the woman's eternal punishment: the woman was raped and had later suffocated her newborn by stuffing a handkerchief in its mouth. Her punishment was to wake up every morning and find the same handkerchief lying on her nightstand. Satan grants her first wish and offers her another, citing that the first wish was unrelated to Margarita's own desires. For her second wish, she chooses to liberate the Master and live in poverty-stricken love with him. Neither Woland nor Yeshua appreciate her chosen way of life. Azazello is sent to retrieve them. The three drink Pontius Pilate's poisoned wine in the Master's basement. Master and Margarita die, though their death is metaphorical as Azazello watches their physical manifestations die. Azazello reawakens them and they leave civilization with the Devil as Moscow's cupolas and windows burn in the setting Easter sun. The Master and Margarita, for not having lost their faith in humanity, are granted \"peace\" but are denied \"light\" \u2013 that is, they will spend eternity together in a shadowy yet pleasant region similar to Dante's depiction of Limbo, having not"
      },
      {
        "text": "ita die, though their death is metaphorical as Azazello watches their physical manifestations die. Azazello reawakens them and they leave civilization with the Devil as Moscow's cupolas and windows burn in the setting Easter sun. The Master and Margarita, for not having lost their faith in humanity, are granted \"peace\" but are denied \"light\" \u2013 that is, they will spend eternity together in a shadowy yet pleasant region similar to Dante's depiction of Limbo, having not earned the glories of Heaven, but not deserving the punishments of Hell. As a parallel to the Master and Margarita's freedom, Pontius Pilate is released from his eternal punishment when the Master finally calls out to Pontius Pilate telling him he's free to finally walk up the moonbeam path in his dreams to Yeshua, where another eternity awaits.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Gold-Bug",
    "author": "Edgar Allan Poe",
    "published_date": "1843",
    "synopsis": " William Legrand becomes obsessed with searching for treasure after being bitten by a scarab-like bug thought to be made of pure gold. He notifies his closest friend, the narrator, telling him to immediately come visit him at his home on Sullivan's Island in South Carolina. Upon the narrator's arrival, Legrand informs him that they are embarking upon a search for lost treasure along with his African-American servant Jupiter. The narrator has intense doubt and questions whether Legrand, who has recently lost his fortune, has gone insane. Legrand captured the bug but let someone else borrow it; he draws a picture of the bug instead. The narrator says that the image looks like a skull. Legrand is insulted and inspects his own drawing before stuffing it into a drawer which he locks, to the narrator's confusion. Uncomfortable, the narrator leaves Legrand and returns home to Charleston. A month later, Jupiter visits the narrator and asks him to return to Sullivan's Island on behalf of his master. Legrand, he says, has been acting strangely. When he arrives, Legrand tells the narrator they must go on an expedition along with the gold-bug tied to a string. Deep in the island's wilderness, they find a tree, which Legrand orders Jupiter to climb with the gold-bug in tow. There, he finds a skull and Legrand tells him to drop the bug through one of the eye sockets. From where it falls, he determines the spot where they dig. They find treasure buried by the infamous pirate \"Captain Kidd\", estimated by the narrator to be worth a million and a half dollars. Once the treasure is safely secured, the man goes into an elaborate explanation of how he knew about the treasure's location, based on a set of occurrences that happened after the gold bug's discovery. The story involves cryptography with a detailed description of a method for solving a simple substitution cipher using letter frequencies. The cryptogram is: 53\u2021\u2021\u2020305))6*;4826)4\u2021.)4\u2021);806*;48\u20208 \u00b660))85;1\u2021(;:\u2021*8\u202083(88)5*\u2020;46(;88*96 *?;8)*\u2021(;485);5*\u20202:*\u2021(;4956*2(5*\u20144)8 \u00b68*;4069285);)6\u20208)4\u2021\u2021;1(\u20219;48081;8:8\u2021 1;48\u202085;4)485\u2020528806*81(\u20219;48;(88;4 (\u2021?34;48)4\u2021;161;:188;\u2021?; The decoded message is: (The actual decoded message omits spaces and capitalization)\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " William Legrand becomes obsessed with searching for treasure after being bitten by a scarab-like bug thought to be made of pure gold. He notifies his closest friend, the narrator, telling him to immediately come visit him at his home on Sullivan's Island in South Carolina. Upon the narrator's arrival, Legrand informs him that they are embarking upon a search for lost treasure along with his African-American servant Jupiter. The narrator has intense doubt and questions whether Legrand, who has recently lost his fortune, has gone insane. Legrand captured the bug but let someone else borrow it; he draws a picture of the bug instead. The narrator says that the image looks like a skull. Legrand is insulted and inspects his own drawing before stuffing it into a drawer which he locks, to the narrator's confusion. Uncomfortable, the narrator leaves Legrand and returns home to Charleston. A month later, Jupiter visits the narrator and asks him to return to Sullivan's Island on behalf of his master. Legrand, he says, has been acting strangely. When he arrives, Legrand tells the narrator they must go on an expedition along with the gold-bug tied to a string. Deep in the island's wilderness, they find a tree, which Legrand orders Jupiter to climb with the gold-bug in tow. There, he finds a skull and Legrand tells him to drop the bug through one of the eye sockets. From where it falls, he determines the spot where they dig. They find treasure buried by the infamous pirate \"Captain Kidd\", estimated by the narrator to be worth a million and a half dollars. Once the treasure is safely secured, the man goes into an elaborate explanation of how he knew about the treasure's location, based on a set of occurrences that happened after the gold bug's discovery. The story involves cryptography with a detailed description of a method for solving a simple substitution cipher using letter frequencies. The cryptogram is: 53\u2021\u2021\u2020305"
      },
      {
        "text": " dig. They find treasure buried by the infamous pirate \"Captain Kidd\", estimated by the narrator to be worth a million and a half dollars. Once the treasure is safely secured, the man goes into an elaborate explanation of how he knew about the treasure's location, based on a set of occurrences that happened after the gold bug's discovery. The story involves cryptography with a detailed description of a method for solving a simple substitution cipher using letter frequencies. The cryptogram is: 53\u2021\u2021\u2020305))6*;4826)4\u2021.)4\u2021);806*;48\u20208 \u00b660))85;1\u2021(;:\u2021*8\u202083(88)5*\u2020;46(;88*96 *?;8)*\u2021(;485);5*\u20202:*\u2021(;4956*2(5*\u20144)8 \u00b68*;4069285);)6\u20208)4\u2021\u2021;1(\u20219;48081;8:8\u2021 1;48\u202085;4)485\u2020528806*81(\u20219;48;(88;4 (\u2021?34;48)4\u2021;161;:188;\u2021?; The decoded message is: (The actual decoded message omits spaces and capitalization)\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Visit",
    "author": "Friedrich D\u00fcrrenmatt",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story opens with the town of G\u00fcllen (which literally means \"to manure\") preparing for the arrival of famed billionairess Claire Zachanassian. The town is in a state of disrepair, and the residents are suffering considerable hardship and poverty. They hope that Claire, a native of the small town, will provide them with much-needed funds. Alfred Ill, the owner of G\u00fcllen's general store and the most popular man in town, was Claire's lover when they were young, and agrees with the Mayor that the task of convincing her to make a donation should fall to him. As the town gathers at the railway station to prepare for Claire's arrival, they are met with a surprise when Claire steps off of an earlier train, having pulled the emergency brakes in order to do so. She is grand, grotesque, and fantastic, and is accompanied by two henchmen, her husband, a butler, and two blind eunuchs, along with a coffin, a caged black panther, and various pieces of luggage. She begins a flirtatious exchange with Ill, and they promptly revisit their old haunts: Petersen's Barn and Konrad's Village Wood. Ill pretends to find her as delightful as ever, though they are both now in their sixties and significantly overweight. Claire draws Ill's attention to her prosthetic leg and artificial hand. After settling into the Golden Apostle Hotel, Claire joins the rest of the town, who have gathered outside for a homecoming celebration. A band plays, gymnasts perform, and the mayor gives a speech. Claire takes the opportunity to announce that she will make a donation of one billion units of an unspecified currency, half for the town and half to be shared among the families. The townspeople are overjoyed, but their happiness is dampened when Claire's butler steps forward to reveal her condition. The butler was once the Lord Chief Justice of G\u00fcllen, and had overseen the paternity suit that Claire had brought against Ill in 1910. In the suit, Ill had produced two false witnesses (who have since been transformed into Claire's eunuchs), and the court had ruled in his favor. Ill went on to marry Matilda, who owned the general store, and Claire moved to Hamburg and became a prostitute and her child died after one year. Her donation is conditional on someone's killing Alfred Ill. The mayor refuses, the town cheers in support, but Claire states rather ominously, \"I'll wait.\" Ill feels generally confident about his status in the town. However, as time passes, he becomes increasingly fearful as he begins to notice the proliferation of new yellow shoes on the feet of the townsmen and the fact that everyone seems to be purchasing especially expensive items on credit. Ill visits the policeman, the mayor in turn who have bought new expensive items and dismiss his concerns. He then visits the priest who attempts to calm Ill until the new Church bells ring out at which point the priest admits they are all weak and advises Ill to flee.Claire then receives the news that her black panther has been killed, and she has a funeral song played in its memory. In an effort to escape, Ill heads to the railway station, but finds that, strangely, the entire town is gathered there. They ask him where he is going, and he says that he is planning to move to Australia. They wish him well, again assuring him that he has nothing to fear in G\u00fcllen, but Ill grows increasingly nervous nonetheless. The train arrives, but he decides not to board, believing that someone will stop him anyway. Paralyzed, he collapses in the crowd, crying, \"I'm lost!\" After some time passes and Claire weds a new husband in the G\u00fcllen cathedral, the doctor and the schoolmaster go to see her and explain that the townspeople have run up considerable debt since her arrival. The schoolmaster appeals to her sense of humanity and begs her to abandon her desire for vengeance and help the town out of the goodness of her heart. She reveals to them that she already actually owns all of properties in the town and that she is the reason the businesses have been shut down, causing economic stagnation and poverty for the citizens. The doctor and the schoolmaster are horrified at this revelation. In the meantime, Ill has been pacing the room above the general store, his terror growing as the townspeople buy more and more expensive products on credit. News reporters, having received word of Claire's imminent wedding, are everywhere, and they enter the store to get the scoop on Ill, having heard that he was Claire's lover back in the day. The schoolmaster, drunk, tries to inform the press about Claire's cruel proposal, but the townspeople stop him. Finally Ill descends the stairs, surprised at the hubbub, but quiet. The reporters clear the room when they hear that Claire has just divorced the man she has just married and has found a new lover. After the confusion has cleared, the schoolmaster and Ill have an honest discussion. The schoolmaster explains that he is certain that Ill will be killed and admits that he will ultimately join the ranks of the murderers. Ill calmly states that he has accepted his guilt and acknowledges that the town's suffering is his fault. The schoolmaster leaves, and Ill is confronted by the mayor, who asks whether Ill will accept the town's judgment at that evening's meeting. Ill says that he will. The mayor then suggests that Ill make things easier on everyone and shoot himself, but Ill refuses, insisting that the town must go through the process of actually judging and then killing him. Ill goes for a ride in his son's newly purchased car, accompanied by his wife, Matilda, and his daughter, both of whom are wearing new outfits. As they drive through Konrad's Village Wood, Ill says that he is going to go for a walk in the woods before heading to the town meeting. His family continues on to the movie theater. In the woods, Ill comes across Claire, who is walking with her newest husband. She asks her husband to leave so that she and Ill can speak privately. They reminisce about the past and make plans for the future. Claire tells Ill that she plans to take his body away in the coffin to a mausoleum in Capri that overlooks the Mediterranean. She also tells Ill that she has never stopped loving him, but that over time her love has grown into something monstrous. The town meeting is flooded with press, and the town publicly announces acceptance of Claire's donation. The inhabitants then go through the formality of a vote, which is unanimous, and the mayor states that they have Ill to thank for their new-found wealth. The press is then ushered out of the auditorium to enjoy refreshments. The doors are locked, and the lights are dimmed. The priest crosses Ill, and he is killed by a townsman. Just as a reporter reappears in the auditorium, the doctor announces that Ill has died from a heart attack. The reporters gather and declare that Ill has died from joy. Claire examines the corpse, gives the mayor his cheque, and leaves the town with Ill's body in the coffin that she brought with her when she arrived in G\u00fcllen. Claire boards the train at the railway station, and the visit comes to an end.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story opens with the town of G\u00fcllen (which literally means \"to manure\") preparing for the arrival of famed billionairess Claire Zachanassian. The town is in a state of disrepair, and the residents are suffering considerable hardship and poverty. They hope that Claire, a native of the small town, will provide them with much-needed funds. Alfred Ill, the owner of G\u00fcllen's general store and the most popular man in town, was Claire's lover when they were young, and agrees with the Mayor that the task of convincing her to make a donation should fall to him. As the town gathers at the railway station to prepare for Claire's arrival, they are met with a surprise when Claire steps off of an earlier train, having pulled the emergency brakes in order to do so. She is grand, grotesque, and fantastic, and is accompanied by two henchmen, her husband, a butler, and two blind eunuchs, along with a coffin, a caged black panther, and various pieces of luggage. She begins a flirtatious exchange with Ill, and they promptly revisit their old haunts: Petersen's Barn and Konrad's Village Wood. Ill pretends to find her as delightful as ever, though they are both now in their sixties and significantly overweight. Claire draws Ill's attention to her prosthetic leg and artificial hand. After settling into the Golden Apostle Hotel, Claire joins the rest of the town, who have gathered outside for a homecoming celebration. A band plays, gymnasts perform, and the mayor gives a speech. Claire takes the opportunity to announce that she will make a donation of one billion units of an unspecified currency, half for the town and half to be shared among the families. The townspeople are overjoyed, but their happiness is dampened when Claire's butler steps forward to reveal her condition. The butler was once the Lord Chief Justice of G\u00fcllen, and"
      },
      {
        "text": " gathered outside for a homecoming celebration. A band plays, gymnasts perform, and the mayor gives a speech. Claire takes the opportunity to announce that she will make a donation of one billion units of an unspecified currency, half for the town and half to be shared among the families. The townspeople are overjoyed, but their happiness is dampened when Claire's butler steps forward to reveal her condition. The butler was once the Lord Chief Justice of G\u00fcllen, and had overseen the paternity suit that Claire had brought against Ill in 1910. In the suit, Ill had produced two false witnesses (who have since been transformed into Claire's eunuchs), and the court had ruled in his favor. Ill went on to marry Matilda, who owned the general store, and Claire moved to Hamburg and became a prostitute and her child died after one year. Her donation is conditional on someone's killing Alfred Ill. The mayor refuses, the town cheers in support, but Claire states rather ominously, \"I'll wait.\" Ill feels generally confident about his status in the town. However, as time passes, he becomes increasingly fearful as he begins to notice the proliferation of new yellow shoes on the feet of the townsmen and the fact that everyone seems to be purchasing especially expensive items on credit. Ill visits the policeman, the mayor in turn who have bought new expensive items and dismiss his concerns. He then visits the priest who attempts to calm Ill until the new Church bells ring out at which point the priest admits they are all weak and advises Ill to flee.Claire then receives the news that her black panther has been killed, and she has a funeral song played in its memory. In an effort to escape, Ill heads to the railway station, but finds that, strangely, the entire town is gathered there. They ask him where he is going, and he says that he is planning to move to Australia. They wish him well, again assuring him that he"
      },
      {
        "text": " out at which point the priest admits they are all weak and advises Ill to flee.Claire then receives the news that her black panther has been killed, and she has a funeral song played in its memory. In an effort to escape, Ill heads to the railway station, but finds that, strangely, the entire town is gathered there. They ask him where he is going, and he says that he is planning to move to Australia. They wish him well, again assuring him that he has nothing to fear in G\u00fcllen, but Ill grows increasingly nervous nonetheless. The train arrives, but he decides not to board, believing that someone will stop him anyway. Paralyzed, he collapses in the crowd, crying, \"I'm lost!\" After some time passes and Claire weds a new husband in the G\u00fcllen cathedral, the doctor and the schoolmaster go to see her and explain that the townspeople have run up considerable debt since her arrival. The schoolmaster appeals to her sense of humanity and begs her to abandon her desire for vengeance and help the town out of the goodness of her heart. She reveals to them that she already actually owns all of properties in the town and that she is the reason the businesses have been shut down, causing economic stagnation and poverty for the citizens. The doctor and the schoolmaster are horrified at this revelation. In the meantime, Ill has been pacing the room above the general store, his terror growing as the townspeople buy more and more expensive products on credit. News reporters, having received word of Claire's imminent wedding, are everywhere, and they enter the store to get the scoop on Ill, having heard that he was Claire's lover back in the day. The schoolmaster, drunk, tries to inform the press about Claire's cruel proposal, but the townspeople stop him. Finally Ill descends the stairs, surprised at the hubbub, but quiet. The reporters clear the room when they hear that Claire has"
      },
      {
        "text": " more and more expensive products on credit. News reporters, having received word of Claire's imminent wedding, are everywhere, and they enter the store to get the scoop on Ill, having heard that he was Claire's lover back in the day. The schoolmaster, drunk, tries to inform the press about Claire's cruel proposal, but the townspeople stop him. Finally Ill descends the stairs, surprised at the hubbub, but quiet. The reporters clear the room when they hear that Claire has just divorced the man she has just married and has found a new lover. After the confusion has cleared, the schoolmaster and Ill have an honest discussion. The schoolmaster explains that he is certain that Ill will be killed and admits that he will ultimately join the ranks of the murderers. Ill calmly states that he has accepted his guilt and acknowledges that the town's suffering is his fault. The schoolmaster leaves, and Ill is confronted by the mayor, who asks whether Ill will accept the town's judgment at that evening's meeting. Ill says that he will. The mayor then suggests that Ill make things easier on everyone and shoot himself, but Ill refuses, insisting that the town must go through the process of actually judging and then killing him. Ill goes for a ride in his son's newly purchased car, accompanied by his wife, Matilda, and his daughter, both of whom are wearing new outfits. As they drive through Konrad's Village Wood, Ill says that he is going to go for a walk in the woods before heading to the town meeting. His family continues on to the movie theater. In the woods, Ill comes across Claire, who is walking with her newest husband. She asks her husband to leave so that she and Ill can speak privately. They reminisce about the past and make plans for the future. Claire tells Ill that she plans to take his body away in the coffin to a mausoleum in Capri that overlooks the Mediterranean. She also tells Ill that"
      },
      {
        "text": " a walk in the woods before heading to the town meeting. His family continues on to the movie theater. In the woods, Ill comes across Claire, who is walking with her newest husband. She asks her husband to leave so that she and Ill can speak privately. They reminisce about the past and make plans for the future. Claire tells Ill that she plans to take his body away in the coffin to a mausoleum in Capri that overlooks the Mediterranean. She also tells Ill that she has never stopped loving him, but that over time her love has grown into something monstrous. The town meeting is flooded with press, and the town publicly announces acceptance of Claire's donation. The inhabitants then go through the formality of a vote, which is unanimous, and the mayor states that they have Ill to thank for their new-found wealth. The press is then ushered out of the auditorium to enjoy refreshments. The doors are locked, and the lights are dimmed. The priest crosses Ill, and he is killed by a townsman. Just as a reporter reappears in the auditorium, the doctor announces that Ill has died from a heart attack. The reporters gather and declare that Ill has died from joy. Claire examines the corpse, gives the mayor his cheque, and leaves the town with Ill's body in the coffin that she brought with her when she arrived in G\u00fcllen. Claire boards the train at the railway station, and the visit comes to an end.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Disgrace",
    "author": "John Maxwell Coetzee",
    "published_date": "1999-07-01",
    "synopsis": " David Lurie is a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his own daughter. He is twice-divorced and dissatisfied with his job as a 'communications' lecturer, teaching one class in romantic literature at a technical university in Cape Town in post-apartheid South Africa. His \"disgrace\" comes when he almost forcibly seduces one of his more vulnerable students which is thereafter revealed to the school and a committee is convened to pass judgement on his actions. David refuses to apologize in any sincere form and so is forced to resign from his both. Lurie is working on a play concerning Lord Byron's final phase of life in Italy which mirrors his own life in that Byron is living a life of hedonism and excess and is having an affair with a married women, and \"the irony is that he comes to grief from an escapade that Byron would have thought distinctly timid.\" He is dismissed from his teaching position, after which he takes refuge on his daughter's farm in the Eastern Cape. For a time, his daughter's influence and natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. Shortly after becoming comfortable with rural life, he is forced to come to terms with the aftermath of an attack on the farm in which his daughter is raped and impregnated and he is violently assaulted. The novel also concerns David's interaction with a few other characters- Bev, an animal welfare and healer of sorts, and Lucy's former farmhand, the self-described \"dog-man\" who lives on the neighbouring property, who took care of his daughters dogs. David remains on the farm far past his welcome in order to try to keep his daughter safe, but instead finds himself apathetic and demoralized yet on a journey towards redemption.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " David Lurie is a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his own daughter. He is twice-divorced and dissatisfied with his job as a 'communications' lecturer, teaching one class in romantic literature at a technical university in Cape Town in post-apartheid South Africa. His \"disgrace\" comes when he almost forcibly seduces one of his more vulnerable students which is thereafter revealed to the school and a committee is convened to pass judgement on his actions. David refuses to apologize in any sincere form and so is forced to resign from his both. Lurie is working on a play concerning Lord Byron's final phase of life in Italy which mirrors his own life in that Byron is living a life of hedonism and excess and is having an affair with a married women, and \"the irony is that he comes to grief from an escapade that Byron would have thought distinctly timid.\" He is dismissed from his teaching position, after which he takes refuge on his daughter's farm in the Eastern Cape. For a time, his daughter's influence and natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. Shortly after becoming comfortable with rural life, he is forced to come to terms with the aftermath of an attack on the farm in which his daughter is raped and impregnated and he is violently assaulted. The novel also concerns David's interaction with a few other characters- Bev, an animal welfare and healer of sorts, and Lucy's former farmhand, the self-described \"dog-man\" who lives on the neighbouring property, who took care of his daughters dogs. David remains on the farm far past his welcome in order to try to keep his daughter safe, but instead finds himself apathetic and demoralized yet on a journey towards redemption.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "regnated and he is violently assaulted. The novel also concerns David's interaction with a few other characters- Bev, an animal welfare and healer of sorts, and Lucy's former farmhand, the self-described \"dog-man\" who lives on the neighbouring property, who took care of his daughters dogs. David remains on the farm far past his welcome in order to try to keep his daughter safe, but instead finds himself apathetic and demoralized yet on a journey towards redemption.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Lords of Discipline",
    "author": "Pat Conroy",
    "published_date": "1980",
    "synopsis": " The novel's narrator, Will McLean, attends the Carolina Military Institute (a fictional military college based on The Citadel) in Charleston, from 1963 to 1967. The novel takes place in four parts. The first describes the beginning of his senior year and the admission of new freshmen into the plebe system. The second is an extensive flashback into his own plebe year. The third focuses on the main body of his senior year and his conflict with the plebe system. The fourth and final part relates to Will's battle against the mysterious Ten.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel's narrator, Will McLean, attends the Carolina Military Institute (a fictional military college based on The Citadel) in Charleston, from 1963 to 1967. The novel takes place in four parts. The first describes the beginning of his senior year and the admission of new freshmen into the plebe system. The second is an extensive flashback into his own plebe year. The third focuses on the main body of his senior year and his conflict with the plebe system. The fourth and final part relates to Will's battle against the mysterious Ten.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Engines of Creation",
    "author": "K. Eric Drexler",
    "published_date": "1986",
    "synopsis": " The book features nanotechnology, which Richard Feynman had discussed in his 1959 speech There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom. Drexler imagines a world where the entire Library of Congress can fit on a chip the size of a sugar cube and where universal assemblers, tiny machines that can build objects atom by atom, will be used for everything from medicinal robots that help clear capillaries to environmental scrubbers that clear pollutants from the air. In the book, Drexler first proposes the gray goo scenario\u2014his prediction of what might happen if molecular nanotechnology were used to build uncontrollable self-replicating machines. Topics also include hypertext as developed by Project Xanadu and life extension. Drexler takes a Malthusian view of exponential growth within limits to growth. He also promotes space advocacy arguing that, because the universe is essentially infinite, life can escape the limits to growth defined by Earth. Drexler supports a form of the Fermi paradox, arguing that as there is no evidence of alien civilizations, \"Thus for now, and perhaps forever, we can make plans for our future without concern for limits imposed by other civilizations.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book features nanotechnology, which Richard Feynman had discussed in his 1959 speech There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom. Drexler imagines a world where the entire Library of Congress can fit on a chip the size of a sugar cube and where universal assemblers, tiny machines that can build objects atom by atom, will be used for everything from medicinal robots that help clear capillaries to environmental scrubbers that clear pollutants from the air. In the book, Drexler first proposes the gray goo scenario\u2014his prediction of what might happen if molecular nanotechnology were used to build uncontrollable self-replicating machines. Topics also include hypertext as developed by Project Xanadu and life extension. Drexler takes a Malthusian view of exponential growth within limits to growth. He also promotes space advocacy arguing that, because the universe is essentially infinite, life can escape the limits to growth defined by Earth. Drexler supports a form of the Fermi paradox, arguing that as there is no evidence of alien civilizations, \"Thus for now, and perhaps forever, we can make plans for our future without concern for limits imposed by other civilizations.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Out of the Silent Planet",
    "author": "C. S. Lewis",
    "published_date": "1938",
    "synopsis": " The story begins with Dr. Elwin Ransom, a professor of philology at a college of the University of Cambridge, on a hiking trip in the English Midlands. Being refused lodging in the village of Nadderby he must travel into the Day the six miles to Sterk. He comes to a small, isolated cottage, the home of a woman and her mentally subnormal son, Harry. The anxious woman thinks Ransom is Harry and runs into him as he comes toward the cottage. She implicitly declines to accommodate Ransom, but tells him about where Harry works, the Rise, the small estate of Professor Weston. She also speaks of a gentleman from London staying there, Mr. Devine, whom Ransom discovers to be his former schoolfellow, a person whom he \"cordially disliked.\" Despite the woman's doubt that Ransom would find lodging, he decides to go there anyway, assuring the woman that he will see to it that Harry is sent home. When he gets to the front door of the Rise, Ransom hears shouting and struggling inside. When he goes around back, he sees Weston and Devine trying to force Harry to enter a structure on the property (\"It weren't the wash-house,\" Harry insists) against his will. Ransom intervenes in the struggle, and Devine sees him as a better prospect than Harry for what he and Weston have in mind. With Weston's grudging consent Devine offers Ransom a drink and accommodations for the night. After enjoying what he thinks is a glass of whisky and soda, Ransom loses consciousness. When he awakens shortly thereafter he realizes that he has been drugged. He tries to escape but is subdued by Weston and Devine. When he again regains consciousness he finds himself in a metallic spherical spacecraft en route to a planet called Malacandra. The wonder and excitement of such a prospect relieves his anguish at being kidnapped, but Ransom is put on his guard when he overhears Weston and Devine deliberating whether they will again drug him or keep him conscious when they turn him over to the inhabitants of Malacandra, the sorns, as a sacrifice. Ransom, who has been put to work as cook and scullion, appropriates a knife and plans to escape when he gets the chance. Soon after the three land on the strange planet, Ransom gets his chance to run off into the unknown landscape, just after he sees the Sorns. He wanders around, finding many differences between Earth and Malacandra, in that all the lakes, streams, and rivers are warm; the gravity is significantly less; and the plants and mountains are strangely tall and thin. Ransom later meets a civilized native of Malacandra, a hross named Hyoi, a tall and well-formed creature. He becomes a guest for several months in Hyoi's village, where he uses his philological skills to learn the language of the hrossa and learns their culture. In the process he discovers that gold, known to the hrossa as \"sun's blood\", is plentiful on Malacandra, and thus is able to discern Devine's motivation for making the voyage thither. Weston's motives are shown to be more complex; he is bent on expanding humanity through the universe, abandoning each planet and star system as it becomes uninhabitable. The hrossa honour Ransom greatly by asking him to join them in a hunt for a hnakra (plural hn\u00e9raki), a fierce water-creature which seems to be the only dangerous predator on the planet, resembling both a shark and a crocodile. While hunting, Ransom is told by an eldil, an almost invisible creature reminiscent of a spirit or deva, that he must meet Oyarsa, the eldil who is ruler of the planet. He hesitates to respond to the summons, as he wishes to proceed with the hunt. Hyoi, after killing the hnakra with Ransom's help, is shot dead by Devine and Weston, who are seeking Ransom in order to take him prisoner and hand him over to the s\u00e9roni. Ransom is told by Hyoi's friend (another hross named Whin) that this is the consequence of disobeying Oyarsa, and that Ransom must now cross the mountains to escape Weston and Devine and fulfil his orders. On his journey, Ransom finally meets a sorn, as he long feared he might. He finds, however, that the s\u00e9roni are peaceful and kindly. Augray (the sorn) explains to him the nature of Oyarsa's body, and that of all eldila. The next day, carrying the human on his shoulders, Augray takes Ransom to Oyarsa. After a stop at the dwelling place of an esteemed sorn scientist, wherein Ransom is questioned thoroughly regarding all manner of facts about Earth, Ransom finally makes it to Meldilorn, the home of Oyarsa. In Meldilorn, Ransom meets a pfifltrigg who tells him of the beautiful houses and artwork his race make in their native forests. Ransom then is led to Oyarsa and a long-awaited conversation begins. In the course of this conversation it is explained that there are Oy\u00e9resu (the plural) for each of the planets in our solar system; in the four inner planets, which have organic life (intelligent and non-intelligent), the local Oyarsa is responsible for that life. The ruler of Earth (Thulcandra, \"the silent planet\"), has turned evil (become \"bent\") and has been restricted to Thulcandra, after \"great war,\" by the Oy\u00e9resu and the authority of Maleldil, the ruler of the universe. Ransom is ashamed at how little he can tell Oyarsa about Earth and how foolish he and other humans seem to Oyarsa. While the two are talking, Devine and Weston are brought in guarded by hrossa, because they have killed three of that race. Oyarsa then directs a pfifltrigg to \"scatter the movements that were\" the bodies of Hyoi and the two other hrossa, using a small, crystalline instrument; once touched with this instrument, the bodies vanish. Weston is summoned to Oyarsa's presence and makes a long speech justifying his proposed invasion of Malacandra on progressive and evolutionary grounds, which Ransom attempts to translate into Malacandrian, thus laying bare the brutality and crudity of Weston's ambitions. Oyarsa listens carefully to Weston's speech and acknowledges that the scientist is acting out of a sense of duty to his species, and not mere greed. This renders him more mercifully disposed towards the scientist, who accepts that he may die while giving Man the means to continue. However, on closer examination Oyarsa points out that Weston's loyalty is not to Man's mind - or he would value equally the alien minds already inhabiting Malacandra, instead of seeking to displace them in favour of humanity - nor to Man's body - since, as Weston is well aware of and at ease with, Man's physical form will alter over time, and indeed would have to in order to adapt to Weston's programme of space exploration and colonisation. It seems then that Weston is loyal only to \"the seed\" - Man's DNA - which he seeks to propagate. Here Weston's eloquence fails him and he can only articulate that if Oyarsa does not understand Man's basic loyalty to Man then he, Weston, cannot possibly instruct him. Oyarsa, passing judgment, tells Weston and Devine that he would not tolerate the presence of such creatures, but lets them leave the planet immediately, albeit under very unfavourable orbital conditions. To Ransom, Oyarsa offers him the option of staying on Malacandra. He decides he does not belong there, perhaps because he feels himself unworthy and perhaps because he yearns to be back among the human beings of earth. Oyarsa gives the men ninety days of air and other supplies, telling the Thulcandrians that after ninety days, the ship will disintegrate; either way, they will never return to Malacandra. Weston and Devine do not further harm Ransom, focussing their attention on the perilous journey home. Oyarsa had promised Ransom that the eldila of \"deep heaven\" would watch over and protect him against any attacks from the other two Thulcandrians, who might seek to kill him as a way of economizing their air and food supplies; at times, Ransom is conscious of benevolent presences within the spaceship\u2014the eldila. After a difficult return journey, the space-ship makes it back to Earth, and is shortly \"unbodied\" according to Oyarsa's will. Ransom himself half-doubts whether all that happened was true, and he realizes that others will be even less inclined to believe it if he should speak of it. However, when the author (Lewis) writes him asking whether he has heard of the medieval Latin word \"Oyarses\" and knows what it meant, he lets him in on the secret. Ransom then dedicates himself to the mission that Oyarsa gave him before he left Malacandra of stopping Weston from further evil. The storyline may have been influenced by H. G. Wells's First Men in the Moon, which Lewis described as \"The best of the sort Science Fiction I have read....\" in a letter to Roger Lancelyn Green. Wells's book, like Lewis's, reaches its climax with a meeting between an Earthman and the wise ruler of an alien world, during which the Earthman makes very ill-considered boasts of his species' military prowess. The characters of Weston and Devine might be, in general, dark versions of Wells's Cavor and Bradford. In both books, a scientist with a wide-ranging mind forms a partnership with an eminently practical man who has a special attraction to extraterrestrial bars of gold, and they quietly build themselves a spaceship in the English countryside. In both stories, the interplanetary craft are spherical, though only Lewis' is called a \"space-ship\". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, J. J. Astor in his A Journey in Other Worlds first used the term \"space-ship\" in 1894, but Lewis was the fourth person to use the term in published material.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins with Dr. Elwin Ransom, a professor of philology at a college of the University of Cambridge, on a hiking trip in the English Midlands. Being refused lodging in the village of Nadderby he must travel into the Day the six miles to Sterk. He comes to a small, isolated cottage, the home of a woman and her mentally subnormal son, Harry. The anxious woman thinks Ransom is Harry and runs into him as he comes toward the cottage. She implicitly declines to accommodate Ransom, but tells him about where Harry works, the Rise, the small estate of Professor Weston. She also speaks of a gentleman from London staying there, Mr. Devine, whom Ransom discovers to be his former schoolfellow, a person whom he \"cordially disliked.\" Despite the woman's doubt that Ransom would find lodging, he decides to go there anyway, assuring the woman that he will see to it that Harry is sent home. When he gets to the front door of the Rise, Ransom hears shouting and struggling inside. When he goes around back, he sees Weston and Devine trying to force Harry to enter a structure on the property (\"It weren't the wash-house,\" Harry insists) against his will. Ransom intervenes in the struggle, and Devine sees him as a better prospect than Harry for what he and Weston have in mind. With Weston's grudging consent Devine offers Ransom a drink and accommodations for the night. After enjoying what he thinks is a glass of whisky and soda, Ransom loses consciousness. When he awakens shortly thereafter he realizes that he has been drugged. He tries to escape but is subdued by Weston and Devine. When he again regains consciousness he finds himself in a metallic spherical spacecraft en route to a planet called Malacandra. The wonder and excitement of such a prospect relieves his anguish at being kidnapped, but Ransom is put on his guard when he overhe"
      },
      {
        "text": " the night. After enjoying what he thinks is a glass of whisky and soda, Ransom loses consciousness. When he awakens shortly thereafter he realizes that he has been drugged. He tries to escape but is subdued by Weston and Devine. When he again regains consciousness he finds himself in a metallic spherical spacecraft en route to a planet called Malacandra. The wonder and excitement of such a prospect relieves his anguish at being kidnapped, but Ransom is put on his guard when he overhears Weston and Devine deliberating whether they will again drug him or keep him conscious when they turn him over to the inhabitants of Malacandra, the sorns, as a sacrifice. Ransom, who has been put to work as cook and scullion, appropriates a knife and plans to escape when he gets the chance. Soon after the three land on the strange planet, Ransom gets his chance to run off into the unknown landscape, just after he sees the Sorns. He wanders around, finding many differences between Earth and Malacandra, in that all the lakes, streams, and rivers are warm; the gravity is significantly less; and the plants and mountains are strangely tall and thin. Ransom later meets a civilized native of Malacandra, a hross named Hyoi, a tall and well-formed creature. He becomes a guest for several months in Hyoi's village, where he uses his philological skills to learn the language of the hrossa and learns their culture. In the process he discovers that gold, known to the hrossa as \"sun's blood\", is plentiful on Malacandra, and thus is able to discern Devine's motivation for making the voyage thither. Weston's motives are shown to be more complex; he is bent on expanding humanity through the universe, abandoning each planet and star system as it becomes uninhabitable. The hrossa honour Ransom greatly by asking him to join them in a hunt for"
      },
      {
        "text": " and learns their culture. In the process he discovers that gold, known to the hrossa as \"sun's blood\", is plentiful on Malacandra, and thus is able to discern Devine's motivation for making the voyage thither. Weston's motives are shown to be more complex; he is bent on expanding humanity through the universe, abandoning each planet and star system as it becomes uninhabitable. The hrossa honour Ransom greatly by asking him to join them in a hunt for a hnakra (plural hn\u00e9raki), a fierce water-creature which seems to be the only dangerous predator on the planet, resembling both a shark and a crocodile. While hunting, Ransom is told by an eldil, an almost invisible creature reminiscent of a spirit or deva, that he must meet Oyarsa, the eldil who is ruler of the planet. He hesitates to respond to the summons, as he wishes to proceed with the hunt. Hyoi, after killing the hnakra with Ransom's help, is shot dead by Devine and Weston, who are seeking Ransom in order to take him prisoner and hand him over to the s\u00e9roni. Ransom is told by Hyoi's friend (another hross named Whin) that this is the consequence of disobeying Oyarsa, and that Ransom must now cross the mountains to escape Weston and Devine and fulfil his orders. On his journey, Ransom finally meets a sorn, as he long feared he might. He finds, however, that the s\u00e9roni are peaceful and kindly. Augray (the sorn) explains to him the nature of Oyarsa's body, and that of all eldila. The next day, carrying the human on his shoulders, Augray takes Ransom to Oyarsa. After a stop at the dwelling place of an esteemed sorn scientist, wherein Ransom is questioned thoroughly regarding all"
      },
      {
        "text": " Ransom finally meets a sorn, as he long feared he might. He finds, however, that the s\u00e9roni are peaceful and kindly. Augray (the sorn) explains to him the nature of Oyarsa's body, and that of all eldila. The next day, carrying the human on his shoulders, Augray takes Ransom to Oyarsa. After a stop at the dwelling place of an esteemed sorn scientist, wherein Ransom is questioned thoroughly regarding all manner of facts about Earth, Ransom finally makes it to Meldilorn, the home of Oyarsa. In Meldilorn, Ransom meets a pfifltrigg who tells him of the beautiful houses and artwork his race make in their native forests. Ransom then is led to Oyarsa and a long-awaited conversation begins. In the course of this conversation it is explained that there are Oy\u00e9resu (the plural) for each of the planets in our solar system; in the four inner planets, which have organic life (intelligent and non-intelligent), the local Oyarsa is responsible for that life. The ruler of Earth (Thulcandra, \"the silent planet\"), has turned evil (become \"bent\") and has been restricted to Thulcandra, after \"great war,\" by the Oy\u00e9resu and the authority of Maleldil, the ruler of the universe. Ransom is ashamed at how little he can tell Oyarsa about Earth and how foolish he and other humans seem to Oyarsa. While the two are talking, Devine and Weston are brought in guarded by hrossa, because they have killed three of that race. Oyarsa then directs a pfifltrigg to \"scatter the movements that were\" the bodies of Hyoi and the two other hrossa, using a small, crystalline instrument; once touched with this instrument, the bodies vanish. Weston"
      },
      {
        "text": " can tell Oyarsa about Earth and how foolish he and other humans seem to Oyarsa. While the two are talking, Devine and Weston are brought in guarded by hrossa, because they have killed three of that race. Oyarsa then directs a pfifltrigg to \"scatter the movements that were\" the bodies of Hyoi and the two other hrossa, using a small, crystalline instrument; once touched with this instrument, the bodies vanish. Weston is summoned to Oyarsa's presence and makes a long speech justifying his proposed invasion of Malacandra on progressive and evolutionary grounds, which Ransom attempts to translate into Malacandrian, thus laying bare the brutality and crudity of Weston's ambitions. Oyarsa listens carefully to Weston's speech and acknowledges that the scientist is acting out of a sense of duty to his species, and not mere greed. This renders him more mercifully disposed towards the scientist, who accepts that he may die while giving Man the means to continue. However, on closer examination Oyarsa points out that Weston's loyalty is not to Man's mind - or he would value equally the alien minds already inhabiting Malacandra, instead of seeking to displace them in favour of humanity - nor to Man's body - since, as Weston is well aware of and at ease with, Man's physical form will alter over time, and indeed would have to in order to adapt to Weston's programme of space exploration and colonisation. It seems then that Weston is loyal only to \"the seed\" - Man's DNA - which he seeks to propagate. Here Weston's eloquence fails him and he can only articulate that if Oyarsa does not understand Man's basic loyalty to Man then he, Weston, cannot possibly instruct him. Oyarsa, passing judgment, tells Weston and Devine that he would not tolerate the presence of such creatures, but lets them leave the planet immediately, albeit under very unf"
      },
      {
        "text": " exploration and colonisation. It seems then that Weston is loyal only to \"the seed\" - Man's DNA - which he seeks to propagate. Here Weston's eloquence fails him and he can only articulate that if Oyarsa does not understand Man's basic loyalty to Man then he, Weston, cannot possibly instruct him. Oyarsa, passing judgment, tells Weston and Devine that he would not tolerate the presence of such creatures, but lets them leave the planet immediately, albeit under very unfavourable orbital conditions. To Ransom, Oyarsa offers him the option of staying on Malacandra. He decides he does not belong there, perhaps because he feels himself unworthy and perhaps because he yearns to be back among the human beings of earth. Oyarsa gives the men ninety days of air and other supplies, telling the Thulcandrians that after ninety days, the ship will disintegrate; either way, they will never return to Malacandra. Weston and Devine do not further harm Ransom, focussing their attention on the perilous journey home. Oyarsa had promised Ransom that the eldila of \"deep heaven\" would watch over and protect him against any attacks from the other two Thulcandrians, who might seek to kill him as a way of economizing their air and food supplies; at times, Ransom is conscious of benevolent presences within the spaceship\u2014the eldila. After a difficult return journey, the space-ship makes it back to Earth, and is shortly \"unbodied\" according to Oyarsa's will. Ransom himself half-doubts whether all that happened was true, and he realizes that others will be even less inclined to believe it if he should speak of it. However, when the author (Lewis) writes him asking whether he has heard of the medieval Latin word \"Oyarses\" and knows what it meant, he lets him in on the secret. Ransom then dedicates"
      },
      {
        "text": " it back to Earth, and is shortly \"unbodied\" according to Oyarsa's will. Ransom himself half-doubts whether all that happened was true, and he realizes that others will be even less inclined to believe it if he should speak of it. However, when the author (Lewis) writes him asking whether he has heard of the medieval Latin word \"Oyarses\" and knows what it meant, he lets him in on the secret. Ransom then dedicates himself to the mission that Oyarsa gave him before he left Malacandra of stopping Weston from further evil. The storyline may have been influenced by H. G. Wells's First Men in the Moon, which Lewis described as \"The best of the sort Science Fiction I have read....\" in a letter to Roger Lancelyn Green. Wells's book, like Lewis's, reaches its climax with a meeting between an Earthman and the wise ruler of an alien world, during which the Earthman makes very ill-considered boasts of his species' military prowess. The characters of Weston and Devine might be, in general, dark versions of Wells's Cavor and Bradford. In both books, a scientist with a wide-ranging mind forms a partnership with an eminently practical man who has a special attraction to extraterrestrial bars of gold, and they quietly build themselves a spaceship in the English countryside. In both stories, the interplanetary craft are spherical, though only Lewis' is called a \"space-ship\". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, J. J. Astor in his A Journey in Other Worlds first used the term \"space-ship\" in 1894, but Lewis was the fourth person to use the term in published material.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " a \"space-ship\". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, J. J. Astor in his A Journey in Other Worlds first used the term \"space-ship\" in 1894, but Lewis was the fourth person to use the term in published material.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Variable Man",
    "author": "Philip K. Dick",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The Terran system is growing and expanding all the time. But an old and corrupt Centaurian Empire is holding Terra down, as it encircles the Terran system and will not let the humans grow out of their current empire. For this reason Terra is at war with Proxima Centauri and is trying to find a way of breaking free from the Centaurian's hold upon them. In the war that results, Terra is continually coming up with new weapons to try and break the Centaurian defenses, but Proxima Centauri is also continually updating its defenses. Using spies and other such tactics, both parties find out about each others advances, and no actual fighting ever occurs because both sides are too busy trying to beat each other with new technological developments. Terra even calculates their chances to win a war versus Centauri and updates these calculations with each new development, making their decision about a war rely on this calculation. Eventually Terra comes up with a concept for a bomb, called Icarus, that Proxima can not defend against because it travels at relativistic speeds, making use of the build up of mass at near light speeds as a destructive agent. Then the odds start to side with Terra, and Terra prepares to fight with this new-found technology. The only problem being is that Icarus does not yet work which prevents Terra from using it against Proxima Centuari. This is where Thomas Cole, known as The Variable Man, comes in. Cole is a man from the past, from the time just before the First World War. He is brought into the present (or future depending on perspective) as an accident via a Time Bubble that was used for research about the past. He escapes from the authority in the future and spends a lot of time running from them afterwards. It is, however, discovered that this man has a certain genius to fix things and make things work. This is because he comes out of a period of time when humans had a natural genius and an ability to invent things and to solve problems. It is at this point that the man working on the FTL (Faster Than Light) bomb realizes that The Variable Man is the only person who can make Icarus work. As a result, the engineer working on Icarus convinces The Variable Man to help them out. Icarus does eventually work, although not in the way that anyone may have wanted. Instead of emerging from FTL speed in the middle of Centarus (the sun around which the Centaurian Empire is built) and blowing it, and the surrounding Centaurian system, out of existence, it turns out that Cole transformed (or fixed) Icarus into a working hyperdrive. However the order for Terra to launch a full-scale attack against the Centaurian Empire (under the assumption that the majority of the enemy ships and planets would have been destroyed in the Icarus explosion) had already been given. The forces of Terra suffered a terrible defeat, losing many of their ships, yet due to the Variable Man having successfully wired Icarus it was now possible for Terra to travel beyond the Centaurian Empire's perimeter. Terra was no longer blocked into their tiny system, and there was no further need for war.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Terran system is growing and expanding all the time. But an old and corrupt Centaurian Empire is holding Terra down, as it encircles the Terran system and will not let the humans grow out of their current empire. For this reason Terra is at war with Proxima Centauri and is trying to find a way of breaking free from the Centaurian's hold upon them. In the war that results, Terra is continually coming up with new weapons to try and break the Centaurian defenses, but Proxima Centauri is also continually updating its defenses. Using spies and other such tactics, both parties find out about each others advances, and no actual fighting ever occurs because both sides are too busy trying to beat each other with new technological developments. Terra even calculates their chances to win a war versus Centauri and updates these calculations with each new development, making their decision about a war rely on this calculation. Eventually Terra comes up with a concept for a bomb, called Icarus, that Proxima can not defend against because it travels at relativistic speeds, making use of the build up of mass at near light speeds as a destructive agent. Then the odds start to side with Terra, and Terra prepares to fight with this new-found technology. The only problem being is that Icarus does not yet work which prevents Terra from using it against Proxima Centuari. This is where Thomas Cole, known as The Variable Man, comes in. Cole is a man from the past, from the time just before the First World War. He is brought into the present (or future depending on perspective) as an accident via a Time Bubble that was used for research about the past. He escapes from the authority in the future and spends a lot of time running from them afterwards. It is, however, discovered that this man has a certain genius to fix things and make things work. This is because he comes out of a period of time when humans had a natural genius and an"
      },
      {
        "text": " past, from the time just before the First World War. He is brought into the present (or future depending on perspective) as an accident via a Time Bubble that was used for research about the past. He escapes from the authority in the future and spends a lot of time running from them afterwards. It is, however, discovered that this man has a certain genius to fix things and make things work. This is because he comes out of a period of time when humans had a natural genius and an ability to invent things and to solve problems. It is at this point that the man working on the FTL (Faster Than Light) bomb realizes that The Variable Man is the only person who can make Icarus work. As a result, the engineer working on Icarus convinces The Variable Man to help them out. Icarus does eventually work, although not in the way that anyone may have wanted. Instead of emerging from FTL speed in the middle of Centarus (the sun around which the Centaurian Empire is built) and blowing it, and the surrounding Centaurian system, out of existence, it turns out that Cole transformed (or fixed) Icarus into a working hyperdrive. However the order for Terra to launch a full-scale attack against the Centaurian Empire (under the assumption that the majority of the enemy ships and planets would have been destroyed in the Icarus explosion) had already been given. The forces of Terra suffered a terrible defeat, losing many of their ships, yet due to the Variable Man having successfully wired Icarus it was now possible for Terra to travel beyond the Centaurian Empire's perimeter. Terra was no longer blocked into their tiny system, and there was no further need for war.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " their ships, yet due to the Variable Man having successfully wired Icarus it was now possible for Terra to travel beyond the Centaurian Empire's perimeter. Terra was no longer blocked into their tiny system, and there was no further need for war.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Eric",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "1990",
    "synopsis": " The story is a parody of the tale of Faust, and follows the events of Sourcery in which the Wizard Rincewind was trapped in the Dungeon Dimensions. Rincewind wakes in a strange place, having been summoned by the 13-year-old demonologist, Eric Thursley, who wants the mastery of all kingdoms, to meet the most beautiful woman who ever existed, and to live forever. He is disappointed when Rincewind tells him he is unable to deliver any of these things, and embarrassed when Rincewind sees through his disguise. Rincewind is disheartened to learn that the spells to confine the demon summoned are working on him; Eric's parrot tells him that because he was summoned as a demon, he is subject to the same terms. The arrival of Rincewind's luggage causes Eric to suspect deceit on Rincewind's part. Eric's demands are renewed; he makes three wishes of Rincewind. Rincewind insists he cannot grant wishes with the snap of a finger, and discovers to his horror that snapping his fingers really does work. * To be Ruler of the World. Eric and Rincewind find themselves in the rain forests of Klatch, in the Tezumen empire, a parody of the Aztec empire. The local people come forward to pay tribute to Eric and declare him Ruler of the World. During this tribute, Rincewind and the parrot explore the temple of Quezovercoatl, where they find a prisoner, Ponce da Quirm (a parody of Juan Ponce de Le\u00f3n), who is to be sacrificed. Da Quirm tells Rincewind about the terrible fate the Tezumen have planned for the Ruler of the World, on whom they blame all life's misfortunes. Shortly, Rincewind, Eric and da Quirm find themselves tied up at the top of a pyramid, waiting to be sacrificed, when Quezovercoatl makes his appearance. Unfortunately for him, the luggage also makes an appearance, trampling the six-inch-tall Quezovercoatl in the process. The Tezumen are pleased to see Quezovercoatl destroyed, release the prisoners, and enshrine the luggage in the place of their god. At the end of the book, the Tezumen are revealed to have abandoned worshipping the Luggage as well (being as it never returned) and had turned atheist, \"which still allowed them to kill anyone they wanted, but they didn't have to get up so early to do it\". * To Meet the Most Beautiful Woman in All History. Rincewind snaps his fingers again, and they find themselves in a large wooden horse (a parody of the Trojan Horse). Exiting, they are surrounded by soldiers, who take them for an Ephebian invasion force. Rincewind manages to talk their way out of the Ephebian guards and out of the city, only to fall into the hands of the invading army. Rincewind and Eric are taken to Lavaeolus, the man who built the horse\u2014having sent the horse in as a decoy so that he and his men could sneak in around the back while their enemies waited around the horse for them to come out\u2014who tells them off for spoiling the war. They reenter Tsort through a secret passage, and find Elenor (a parody of Helen of Troy). Both Eric and Lavaeolus are disappointed to find that it has been a long siege, and Elenor is now a plump mother of several children, with the beginnings of a moustache, and that serious artistic licence had been taken in her description. The Ephebians escape the city while Tsort burns, and Lavaeolus and his army set out for home, with Lavaeolus complaining about voyages by sea (further reference to the Iliad and subsequent Odyssey). Eric notes that \"Lavaeolus\" in Ephebian translates to \"Rinser of Winds\", hinting that perhaps Lavaeolus is a relative of Rincewind. * To Live Forever. Rincewind snaps his fingers, bringing Eric and him outside of time, just before the beginning of existence. Rincewind meets the Creator, who is just forming the Discworld and is having trouble finishing some of the animals. Rincewind and Eric are left on the newly formed world, with the realization that \"to live forever\" means to live for all time, from start to finish. To escape, Rincewind has Eric reverse his summoning, taking them both to hell. They discover hell steeped in bureaucracy, where the Demon King Astfgl had decided boredom might be the ultimate form of torture. Rincewind uses his university experience to confuse the demons at their own game, so he and Eric can try to escape. While crossing through the recently reformed levels of hell (satirical forms of Dante's Inferno) they encounter da Quirm and the parrot, as well as Lavaeolus, who tells them where the exit is. The source of Rincewind's demonic powers is revealed to be Lord Vassenego, a Demon Lord leading a secret revolt against Astfgl. Using Rincewind to keep Astfgl occupied while gathering support amongst the demons, Vassenego confronts his king just as Astfgl finally catches up to Rincewind and Eric. Vassenego announces the council of demons has made Astfgl \"Supreme Life President of Hell\", and that he is to plan out the course of action for demons. With Astfgl lost to the bureaucratic prison of his own making, Vassenego takes over as king and releases Rincewind and Eric, so that stories about hell can be told.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is a parody of the tale of Faust, and follows the events of Sourcery in which the Wizard Rincewind was trapped in the Dungeon Dimensions. Rincewind wakes in a strange place, having been summoned by the 13-year-old demonologist, Eric Thursley, who wants the mastery of all kingdoms, to meet the most beautiful woman who ever existed, and to live forever. He is disappointed when Rincewind tells him he is unable to deliver any of these things, and embarrassed when Rincewind sees through his disguise. Rincewind is disheartened to learn that the spells to confine the demon summoned are working on him; Eric's parrot tells him that because he was summoned as a demon, he is subject to the same terms. The arrival of Rincewind's luggage causes Eric to suspect deceit on Rincewind's part. Eric's demands are renewed; he makes three wishes of Rincewind. Rincewind insists he cannot grant wishes with the snap of a finger, and discovers to his horror that snapping his fingers really does work. * To be Ruler of the World. Eric and Rincewind find themselves in the rain forests of Klatch, in the Tezumen empire, a parody of the Aztec empire. The local people come forward to pay tribute to Eric and declare him Ruler of the World. During this tribute, Rincewind and the parrot explore the temple of Quezovercoatl, where they find a prisoner, Ponce da Quirm (a parody of Juan Ponce de Le\u00f3n), who is to be sacrificed. Da Quirm tells Rincewind about the terrible fate the Tezumen have planned for the Ruler of the World, on whom they blame all life's misfortunes. Shortly, Rincewind, Eric and da Quirm find themselves tied up at the top of a pyramid, waiting to be sacrificed, when Quezovercoatl makes his appearance. Unfortunately for"
      },
      {
        "text": " a prisoner, Ponce da Quirm (a parody of Juan Ponce de Le\u00f3n), who is to be sacrificed. Da Quirm tells Rincewind about the terrible fate the Tezumen have planned for the Ruler of the World, on whom they blame all life's misfortunes. Shortly, Rincewind, Eric and da Quirm find themselves tied up at the top of a pyramid, waiting to be sacrificed, when Quezovercoatl makes his appearance. Unfortunately for him, the luggage also makes an appearance, trampling the six-inch-tall Quezovercoatl in the process. The Tezumen are pleased to see Quezovercoatl destroyed, release the prisoners, and enshrine the luggage in the place of their god. At the end of the book, the Tezumen are revealed to have abandoned worshipping the Luggage as well (being as it never returned) and had turned atheist, \"which still allowed them to kill anyone they wanted, but they didn't have to get up so early to do it\". * To Meet the Most Beautiful Woman in All History. Rincewind snaps his fingers again, and they find themselves in a large wooden horse (a parody of the Trojan Horse). Exiting, they are surrounded by soldiers, who take them for an Ephebian invasion force. Rincewind manages to talk their way out of the Ephebian guards and out of the city, only to fall into the hands of the invading army. Rincewind and Eric are taken to Lavaeolus, the man who built the horse\u2014having sent the horse in as a decoy so that he and his men could sneak in around the back while their enemies waited around the horse for them to come out\u2014who tells them off for spoiling the war. They reenter Tsort through a secret passage, and find Elenor (a parody of Helen of Troy). Both Eric and Lavaeolus"
      },
      {
        "text": " hands of the invading army. Rincewind and Eric are taken to Lavaeolus, the man who built the horse\u2014having sent the horse in as a decoy so that he and his men could sneak in around the back while their enemies waited around the horse for them to come out\u2014who tells them off for spoiling the war. They reenter Tsort through a secret passage, and find Elenor (a parody of Helen of Troy). Both Eric and Lavaeolus are disappointed to find that it has been a long siege, and Elenor is now a plump mother of several children, with the beginnings of a moustache, and that serious artistic licence had been taken in her description. The Ephebians escape the city while Tsort burns, and Lavaeolus and his army set out for home, with Lavaeolus complaining about voyages by sea (further reference to the Iliad and subsequent Odyssey). Eric notes that \"Lavaeolus\" in Ephebian translates to \"Rinser of Winds\", hinting that perhaps Lavaeolus is a relative of Rincewind. * To Live Forever. Rincewind snaps his fingers, bringing Eric and him outside of time, just before the beginning of existence. Rincewind meets the Creator, who is just forming the Discworld and is having trouble finishing some of the animals. Rincewind and Eric are left on the newly formed world, with the realization that \"to live forever\" means to live for all time, from start to finish. To escape, Rincewind has Eric reverse his summoning, taking them both to hell. They discover hell steeped in bureaucracy, where the Demon King Astfgl had decided boredom might be the ultimate form of torture. Rincewind uses his university experience to confuse the demons at their own game, so he and Eric can try to escape. While crossing through the recently reformed levels of hell (sat"
      },
      {
        "text": " the realization that \"to live forever\" means to live for all time, from start to finish. To escape, Rincewind has Eric reverse his summoning, taking them both to hell. They discover hell steeped in bureaucracy, where the Demon King Astfgl had decided boredom might be the ultimate form of torture. Rincewind uses his university experience to confuse the demons at their own game, so he and Eric can try to escape. While crossing through the recently reformed levels of hell (satirical forms of Dante's Inferno) they encounter da Quirm and the parrot, as well as Lavaeolus, who tells them where the exit is. The source of Rincewind's demonic powers is revealed to be Lord Vassenego, a Demon Lord leading a secret revolt against Astfgl. Using Rincewind to keep Astfgl occupied while gathering support amongst the demons, Vassenego confronts his king just as Astfgl finally catches up to Rincewind and Eric. Vassenego announces the council of demons has made Astfgl \"Supreme Life President of Hell\", and that he is to plan out the course of action for demons. With Astfgl lost to the bureaucratic prison of his own making, Vassenego takes over as king and releases Rincewind and Eric, so that stories about hell can be told.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sirens of Titan",
    "author": "Kurt Vonnegut",
    "published_date": "1959",
    "synopsis": " The protagonist is Malachi Constant, the richest man in 22nd-century America. He possesses extraordinary luck that he attributes to divine favor which he has used to build upon his father's fortune. He becomes the centerpoint of a journey that takes him from Earth to Mars in preparation for an interplanetary war, to Mercury with another Martian survivor of that war, back to Earth to be pilloried as a sign of Man's displeasure with his arrogance, and finally to Titan where he again meets the man ostensibly responsible for the turn of events that have befallen him, Winston Niles Rumfoord. Rumfoord comes from a wealthy New England background. His private fortune was large enough to fund the construction of a personal spacecraft, and he became a space explorer. Traveling between Earth and Mars, his ship&mdash;carrying Rumfoord and his dog, Kazak&mdash;entered a phenomenon known as a chrono-synclastic infundibulum, which is defined in the novel as \"those places ... where all the different kinds of truths fit together.\" Vonnegut notes that any detailed description of this phenomenon would baffle the layman, but any comprehensible explanation would insult an expert. Consequently, he \"quotes\" an article from a (fictional) children's encyclopedia. (Interestingly, much of Vonnegut's information on the solar system came from a similar source.) According to this article, since the Universe is so large, there are many possible ways to observe it, all of which are equally valid, because people from across the Universe can't communicate with each other (and therefore can't get into an argument). The chrono-synclastic infundibula are places where these \"ways to be right\" coexist. When they enter the infundibulum, Rumfoord and Kazak become \"wave phenomena\", somewhat akin to the probability waves encountered in quantum mechanics. They exist along a spiral stretching from the Sun to the star Betelgeuse. When a planet, such as the Earth, intersects their spiral, Rumfoord and Kazak materialize, temporarily, on that planet. When he entered the infundibulum, Rumfoord became aware of the past and future. Throughout the novel, he predicts future events; unless he is deliberately lying, the predictions always come true. It is in this state that Rumfoord established the \"Church of God the Utterly Indifferent\" on Earth to unite the planet after a Martian invasion. It is also in this state that Rumfoord, materializing on different planets, instigated the Martian invasion. On Titan, the only place where he can exist permanently as a solid human being, Rumfoord befriends a traveller from Tralfamadore (a world that also figures in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, among several others) who needs a small metal component to repair his damaged spaceship. Salo, the Tralfamadorian explorer, is a robot built millennia earlier to carry a message to a distant galaxy. His spacecraft is powered by the Universal Will to Become, or UWTB, the \"prime mover\" which makes matter and organization wish to appear out of nothingness. (UWTB, Vonnegut informs the reader, was responsible for the Universe in the first place, and is the greatest imaginable power source. A small component on Salo's spacecraft breaks and strands him here in the Sol System for over 200 millennia. He requests help from Tralfamadore, and his fellow Tralfamadorians respond by manipulating human history so that primitive humans evolve and create a civilization in order to produce the replacement part. Rumfoord's encounter with the chrono-synclastic infundibulum, the following war with Mars, and Constant's exile to Titan were all manipulated via the Tralfamadorians' control of the UWTB. Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China and the Kremlin are all messages in the Tralfamadorian geometrical language, informing Salo of their progress. As it turns out, the replacement part is a small metal strip, brought to Salo by Constant and his son Chrono (born of Rumfoord's ex-wife). A sunspot disrupts Rumfoord's spiral, sending him and Kazak separately into the vastness of space. An argument between Rumfoord and Salo moments before, left unresolved because of Rumfoord's disappearance, leads the distraught Salo to disassemble himself, thereby stranding the humans on Titan. Chrono chooses to live among the Titanian birds; after thirty-two years, his mother dies, and Constant manages to reassemble Salo. Then, using the part delivered so many years previously by Chrono, he repairs the Tralfamdorian saucer. Salo returns Malachi to Earth, where Constant dies, experiences a pleasant hallucination secretly implanted in his mind by Salo. The book's title is derived from a group of statues of three beautiful women which Salo sculpts out of \"Titanic peat\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The protagonist is Malachi Constant, the richest man in 22nd-century America. He possesses extraordinary luck that he attributes to divine favor which he has used to build upon his father's fortune. He becomes the centerpoint of a journey that takes him from Earth to Mars in preparation for an interplanetary war, to Mercury with another Martian survivor of that war, back to Earth to be pilloried as a sign of Man's displeasure with his arrogance, and finally to Titan where he again meets the man ostensibly responsible for the turn of events that have befallen him, Winston Niles Rumfoord. Rumfoord comes from a wealthy New England background. His private fortune was large enough to fund the construction of a personal spacecraft, and he became a space explorer. Traveling between Earth and Mars, his ship&mdash;carrying Rumfoord and his dog, Kazak&mdash;entered a phenomenon known as a chrono-synclastic infundibulum, which is defined in the novel as \"those places ... where all the different kinds of truths fit together.\" Vonnegut notes that any detailed description of this phenomenon would baffle the layman, but any comprehensible explanation would insult an expert. Consequently, he \"quotes\" an article from a (fictional) children's encyclopedia. (Interestingly, much of Vonnegut's information on the solar system came from a similar source.) According to this article, since the Universe is so large, there are many possible ways to observe it, all of which are equally valid, because people from across the Universe can't communicate with each other (and therefore can't get into an argument). The chrono-synclastic infundibula are places where these \"ways to be right\" coexist. When they enter the infundibulum, Rumfoord and Kazak become \"wave phenomena\", somewhat akin to the probability waves encountered in quantum mechanics. They exist along a spiral stretching"
      },
      {
        "text": ", there are many possible ways to observe it, all of which are equally valid, because people from across the Universe can't communicate with each other (and therefore can't get into an argument). The chrono-synclastic infundibula are places where these \"ways to be right\" coexist. When they enter the infundibulum, Rumfoord and Kazak become \"wave phenomena\", somewhat akin to the probability waves encountered in quantum mechanics. They exist along a spiral stretching from the Sun to the star Betelgeuse. When a planet, such as the Earth, intersects their spiral, Rumfoord and Kazak materialize, temporarily, on that planet. When he entered the infundibulum, Rumfoord became aware of the past and future. Throughout the novel, he predicts future events; unless he is deliberately lying, the predictions always come true. It is in this state that Rumfoord established the \"Church of God the Utterly Indifferent\" on Earth to unite the planet after a Martian invasion. It is also in this state that Rumfoord, materializing on different planets, instigated the Martian invasion. On Titan, the only place where he can exist permanently as a solid human being, Rumfoord befriends a traveller from Tralfamadore (a world that also figures in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, among several others) who needs a small metal component to repair his damaged spaceship. Salo, the Tralfamadorian explorer, is a robot built millennia earlier to carry a message to a distant galaxy. His spacecraft is powered by the Universal Will to Become, or UWTB, the \"prime mover\" which makes matter and organization wish to appear out of nothingness. (UWTB, Vonnegut informs the reader, was responsible for the Universe in the first place, and is the greatest imaginable power source. A small component on Salo's spacecraft breaks and strands"
      },
      {
        "text": "o, the Tralfamadorian explorer, is a robot built millennia earlier to carry a message to a distant galaxy. His spacecraft is powered by the Universal Will to Become, or UWTB, the \"prime mover\" which makes matter and organization wish to appear out of nothingness. (UWTB, Vonnegut informs the reader, was responsible for the Universe in the first place, and is the greatest imaginable power source. A small component on Salo's spacecraft breaks and strands him here in the Sol System for over 200 millennia. He requests help from Tralfamadore, and his fellow Tralfamadorians respond by manipulating human history so that primitive humans evolve and create a civilization in order to produce the replacement part. Rumfoord's encounter with the chrono-synclastic infundibulum, the following war with Mars, and Constant's exile to Titan were all manipulated via the Tralfamadorians' control of the UWTB. Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China and the Kremlin are all messages in the Tralfamadorian geometrical language, informing Salo of their progress. As it turns out, the replacement part is a small metal strip, brought to Salo by Constant and his son Chrono (born of Rumfoord's ex-wife). A sunspot disrupts Rumfoord's spiral, sending him and Kazak separately into the vastness of space. An argument between Rumfoord and Salo moments before, left unresolved because of Rumfoord's disappearance, leads the distraught Salo to disassemble himself, thereby stranding the humans on Titan. Chrono chooses to live among the Titanian birds; after thirty-two years, his mother dies, and Constant manages to reassemble Salo. Then, using the part delivered so many years previously by Chrono, he repairs the Tralfamdorian saucer. Salo returns Malachi to Earth, where Constant dies,"
      },
      {
        "text": "o moments before, left unresolved because of Rumfoord's disappearance, leads the distraught Salo to disassemble himself, thereby stranding the humans on Titan. Chrono chooses to live among the Titanian birds; after thirty-two years, his mother dies, and Constant manages to reassemble Salo. Then, using the part delivered so many years previously by Chrono, he repairs the Tralfamdorian saucer. Salo returns Malachi to Earth, where Constant dies, experiences a pleasant hallucination secretly implanted in his mind by Salo. The book's title is derived from a group of statues of three beautiful women which Salo sculpts out of \"Titanic peat\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Mila 18",
    "author": "Leon Uris",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " As in many other books by Uris, the story is largely told from the standpoint of a newspaperman; in this case, an American-Italian journalist, Christopher de Monti, who is assigned to Warsaw after covering the Spanish civil war. Although meant to be a dispassionate and neutral observer, he meets and becomes intimate with both the Nazi hierarchy and the Jews of Warsaw. He has a passionate affair with the wife of one of the Jewish community leaders, while also dealing with prostitutes provided by the Nazis. As the ghetto is surrounded and reduced to rubble, he throws in his lot with the gallant defenders. He is one of the few survivors and manages to escape with a young woman, Gabriela Rak, who is pregnant with the child of one of the defenders, Andrei Androfski, a former Polish army officer. *Andrei Androfski is a Polish army Ulany Brigade officer, and a Jew. He is hot-headed and several other characters comment that he is best at leading cavalry charges - i.e. hopelessly fighting until the end. He remains in the ghetto after the fall of the bunker at Mila 18 and is presumed dead afterwards. *Gabriela Rak is Andrei Androfski's girlfriend, although they decide not to marry due to Andrei's Jewish descent. She worked at the American Embassy in Warsaw before the war and at the end of the book was carrying Andrei's child. *Christopher de Monti is a journalist of whose father is Italian and mother is American. While opposed to fascism and being determined to bring out the truth to the world, he does not aid the fighters on the ghetto until he is compelled to enter the ghetto by the Nazi propaganda officer in Poland. He is the only person to know the location of all the ghetto's diaries. *Alexander Brandel is one of the leaders of the uprising and the father of Wolf Brandel. He started a diary which was later expanded to 24 volumes by members of the ghetto. *Wolf Brandel is the son of Alexander and one of the leaders of the uprising. He escapes the ghetto with a handful of survivors including his girlfriend Rachael Bronski. At the end of the book Christopher de Monti writes that Rachael and Wolf are off fighting in another Jewish resistance group. *Rachael Bronski is the daughter of Paul and Deborah Bronski and the girlfriend of Wolf Brandel. Along with being a talented musician and an excellent soldier she assists Wolf with the command of his part of the army. When the uprising comes to an end Rachael and Wolf escape with a few others out of the sewers and to safety. *Deborah Bronski is Christopher de Monti's lover and the wife of Paul Bronski. She is also the sister of Andrei Androfski. While Deborah does not feel any love for Paul, especially after he opposes the resistance in the ghetto, she refuses to leave him until he dies. Deborah has two children - Rachael and Stephan Bronski. *Paul Bronski is the husband of Deborah Bronski and, although a Jew, does not wish to be associated with other Jews in any way. He works at the Jewish Council and believes in cooperating with the Germans and opposing the Jewish resistance. He commits suicide eventually after not being able to cope with the pressure from both sides. Loosely based on Adam Czerniak\u00f3w. *Franz Koenig is an ethnic German living in Poland who receives higher and higher status after the Nazi invasion. As the war progresses, Koenig becomes more and more corrupted. He succeeds Paul Bronski in leading the Warsaw Medical Institute.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As in many other books by Uris, the story is largely told from the standpoint of a newspaperman; in this case, an American-Italian journalist, Christopher de Monti, who is assigned to Warsaw after covering the Spanish civil war. Although meant to be a dispassionate and neutral observer, he meets and becomes intimate with both the Nazi hierarchy and the Jews of Warsaw. He has a passionate affair with the wife of one of the Jewish community leaders, while also dealing with prostitutes provided by the Nazis. As the ghetto is surrounded and reduced to rubble, he throws in his lot with the gallant defenders. He is one of the few survivors and manages to escape with a young woman, Gabriela Rak, who is pregnant with the child of one of the defenders, Andrei Androfski, a former Polish army officer. *Andrei Androfski is a Polish army Ulany Brigade officer, and a Jew. He is hot-headed and several other characters comment that he is best at leading cavalry charges - i.e. hopelessly fighting until the end. He remains in the ghetto after the fall of the bunker at Mila 18 and is presumed dead afterwards. *Gabriela Rak is Andrei Androfski's girlfriend, although they decide not to marry due to Andrei's Jewish descent. She worked at the American Embassy in Warsaw before the war and at the end of the book was carrying Andrei's child. *Christopher de Monti is a journalist of whose father is Italian and mother is American. While opposed to fascism and being determined to bring out the truth to the world, he does not aid the fighters on the ghetto until he is compelled to enter the ghetto by the Nazi propaganda officer in Poland. He is the only person to know the location of all the ghetto's diaries. *Alexander Brandel is one of the leaders of the uprising and the father of Wolf Brandel. He started a diary which was later expanded to"
      },
      {
        "text": " is a journalist of whose father is Italian and mother is American. While opposed to fascism and being determined to bring out the truth to the world, he does not aid the fighters on the ghetto until he is compelled to enter the ghetto by the Nazi propaganda officer in Poland. He is the only person to know the location of all the ghetto's diaries. *Alexander Brandel is one of the leaders of the uprising and the father of Wolf Brandel. He started a diary which was later expanded to 24 volumes by members of the ghetto. *Wolf Brandel is the son of Alexander and one of the leaders of the uprising. He escapes the ghetto with a handful of survivors including his girlfriend Rachael Bronski. At the end of the book Christopher de Monti writes that Rachael and Wolf are off fighting in another Jewish resistance group. *Rachael Bronski is the daughter of Paul and Deborah Bronski and the girlfriend of Wolf Brandel. Along with being a talented musician and an excellent soldier she assists Wolf with the command of his part of the army. When the uprising comes to an end Rachael and Wolf escape with a few others out of the sewers and to safety. *Deborah Bronski is Christopher de Monti's lover and the wife of Paul Bronski. She is also the sister of Andrei Androfski. While Deborah does not feel any love for Paul, especially after he opposes the resistance in the ghetto, she refuses to leave him until he dies. Deborah has two children - Rachael and Stephan Bronski. *Paul Bronski is the husband of Deborah Bronski and, although a Jew, does not wish to be associated with other Jews in any way. He works at the Jewish Council and believes in cooperating with the Germans and opposing the Jewish resistance. He commits suicide eventually after not being able to cope with the pressure from both sides. Loosely based on Adam Czern"
      },
      {
        "text": " she refuses to leave him until he dies. Deborah has two children - Rachael and Stephan Bronski. *Paul Bronski is the husband of Deborah Bronski and, although a Jew, does not wish to be associated with other Jews in any way. He works at the Jewish Council and believes in cooperating with the Germans and opposing the Jewish resistance. He commits suicide eventually after not being able to cope with the pressure from both sides. Loosely based on Adam Czerniak\u00f3w. *Franz Koenig is an ethnic German living in Poland who receives higher and higher status after the Nazi invasion. As the war progresses, Koenig becomes more and more corrupted. He succeeds Paul Bronski in leading the Warsaw Medical Institute.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "QB VII",
    "author": "Leon Uris",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Parts one and two concern the plaintiff and the defendant in this trial and take us through their lives before meeting in 1967. The plaintiff is Adam Kelno, a doctor pressed into the service of the Nazis after Poland was overrun in World War II. As head physician in a concentration camp, he has the opportunity to save many prisoners from the gas chambers. After the war, he becomes a naturalized citizen of the United Kingdom and serves for several years in a free medical clinic in Borneo. Upon resuming private practice, the doctor is confronted with allegations that he collaborated with the Nazis and performed ghastly medical experiments for them. At first, he is staunchly defended; but, as more evidence comes to light in the trial, his past is revealed. The defendant, Abraham Cady, served overseas in World War II and recovered in England. He'd been a reporter and a writer of screenplays before and after the war; and one of his books documents the experiences of concentration camp survivors, several of whom cite the plaintiff as the source of their suffering. When he publishes a line to this effect in his latest book, citing \"fifteen thousand\" as subject of surgery without anaesthesia by Dr. Kelno, he and the publishing house are sued for libel. Part three deals with the defendant's search to vindicate his information, which ends with the famous violinist Pieter Van Damm revealing that Dr. Kelno turned him to a eunuch. Part four is set in one of Her Majesty's courtrooms (Queen's Bench, Courtroom Seven of the title) where this trial is played out. The jury finds for the plaintiff and awards him one half-penny in damages\u2014the lowest amount that could (then) be awarded for damages in Britain. In effect, the whole novel seems to indict the plaintiff for collaborating, while the defendant is guilty of a minor exaggeration since only one thousand surgeries could be verified from evidence, as opposed to the claimed fifteen thousand. As the defendant says before the verdict is read, \"Nobody's going to win this trial; we're all losers,\" since he realizes that, even though most people think that they could resist the pressure that could arise in a concentration camp, it is impossible to tell who will be able to resist. And the novel ends with the start of the Six-Day War in which the defendant's son, who emigrated to Israel, is killed in combat. The novel is loosely based on a libel action brought against Uris himself by Dr Wladislaw Dering, a Polish physician who worked at Auschwitz, in relation to his previous novel Exodus, which resulted in Dr Dering being awarded a half-penny damages, the smallest possible amount at the time. (Costs of \u00a320,000 were awarded against him). The lawsuit and trial against Leon Uris was documented in Auschwitz in England (MacGibbon & Kee, London, 1965), by barristers Mavis M. Hill and Norman Williams. The case is reported as Dering v Uris (no2)[1964] 2 QB 669. Under the rules of court in England and Australia a litigant who loses a case generally pays the costs of the other party. However, in order to promote settlements, a defendant may pay money into court and the plaintiff may take that money on settlement of the case. The judge is not allowed to know how much money has been paid into court by the defendant. In this case the defendant paid \u00a3500 into court and made a further offer of two pounds in settlement. The plaintiff did not take this money and therefore even though he won the case he was required to pay the costs because the damages were less than \u00a3502.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Parts one and two concern the plaintiff and the defendant in this trial and take us through their lives before meeting in 1967. The plaintiff is Adam Kelno, a doctor pressed into the service of the Nazis after Poland was overrun in World War II. As head physician in a concentration camp, he has the opportunity to save many prisoners from the gas chambers. After the war, he becomes a naturalized citizen of the United Kingdom and serves for several years in a free medical clinic in Borneo. Upon resuming private practice, the doctor is confronted with allegations that he collaborated with the Nazis and performed ghastly medical experiments for them. At first, he is staunchly defended; but, as more evidence comes to light in the trial, his past is revealed. The defendant, Abraham Cady, served overseas in World War II and recovered in England. He'd been a reporter and a writer of screenplays before and after the war; and one of his books documents the experiences of concentration camp survivors, several of whom cite the plaintiff as the source of their suffering. When he publishes a line to this effect in his latest book, citing \"fifteen thousand\" as subject of surgery without anaesthesia by Dr. Kelno, he and the publishing house are sued for libel. Part three deals with the defendant's search to vindicate his information, which ends with the famous violinist Pieter Van Damm revealing that Dr. Kelno turned him to a eunuch. Part four is set in one of Her Majesty's courtrooms (Queen's Bench, Courtroom Seven of the title) where this trial is played out. The jury finds for the plaintiff and awards him one half-penny in damages\u2014the lowest amount that could (then) be awarded for damages in Britain. In effect, the whole novel seems to indict the plaintiff for collaborating, while the defendant is guilty of a minor exaggeration since only one thousand surgeries could be verified from evidence, as opposed to the claimed fifteen thousand"
      },
      {
        "text": " in one of Her Majesty's courtrooms (Queen's Bench, Courtroom Seven of the title) where this trial is played out. The jury finds for the plaintiff and awards him one half-penny in damages\u2014the lowest amount that could (then) be awarded for damages in Britain. In effect, the whole novel seems to indict the plaintiff for collaborating, while the defendant is guilty of a minor exaggeration since only one thousand surgeries could be verified from evidence, as opposed to the claimed fifteen thousand. As the defendant says before the verdict is read, \"Nobody's going to win this trial; we're all losers,\" since he realizes that, even though most people think that they could resist the pressure that could arise in a concentration camp, it is impossible to tell who will be able to resist. And the novel ends with the start of the Six-Day War in which the defendant's son, who emigrated to Israel, is killed in combat. The novel is loosely based on a libel action brought against Uris himself by Dr Wladislaw Dering, a Polish physician who worked at Auschwitz, in relation to his previous novel Exodus, which resulted in Dr Dering being awarded a half-penny damages, the smallest possible amount at the time. (Costs of \u00a320,000 were awarded against him). The lawsuit and trial against Leon Uris was documented in Auschwitz in England (MacGibbon & Kee, London, 1965), by barristers Mavis M. Hill and Norman Williams. The case is reported as Dering v Uris (no2)[1964] 2 QB 669. Under the rules of court in England and Australia a litigant who loses a case generally pays the costs of the other party. However, in order to promote settlements, a defendant may pay money into court and the plaintiff may take that money on settlement of the case. The judge is not allowed to know how much money has been paid into court by the defendant."
      },
      {
        "text": ". Hill and Norman Williams. The case is reported as Dering v Uris (no2)[1964] 2 QB 669. Under the rules of court in England and Australia a litigant who loses a case generally pays the costs of the other party. However, in order to promote settlements, a defendant may pay money into court and the plaintiff may take that money on settlement of the case. The judge is not allowed to know how much money has been paid into court by the defendant. In this case the defendant paid \u00a3500 into court and made a further offer of two pounds in settlement. The plaintiff did not take this money and therefore even though he won the case he was required to pay the costs because the damages were less than \u00a3502.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Freaky Friday",
    "author": "Mary Rodgers",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " A willful, disorganized teenage girl, Annabelle Andrews, awakens one Friday morning to find herself in the body of her mother, with whom she argued the previous night. Suddenly in charge of taking care of the New York family's affairs and her younger brother Ben (whom Annabelle has not-so-affectionately nicknamed \"Ape Face\"), and growing increasingly worried about the disappearance of \"Annabelle\", who appeared to be herself in the morning but has gone missing after leaving the Andrews' home, she enlists the help of her neighbor and childhood friend, Boris, though without telling him about her identity crisis. As the day wears on and Annabelle has a series of increasingly bizarre and frustrating misadventures, she becomes gradually more appreciative of how difficult her mother's life is, and learns, to her surprise, that Ben idolizes her, and Boris is actually named Morris, but has a problem with chronic congestion (at least around Annabelle) leading him to nasally pronounce ms and ns as bs and ds. The novel races towards its climax and Ben also disappears, apparently having gone off with a pretty girl whom Boris did not recognize, but Ben appeared to trust without hesitation. In the climax and d\u00e9nouement, Annabelle becomes overwhelmed by the difficulties of her situation, apparent disappearance of her mother, loss of the children, and the question of how her odd situation came about and when/whether it will be resolved. Finally, it is revealed that Annabelle's mother herself caused them to switch bodies through some unspecified means, and the mysterious girl who took Ben was Mrs. Andrews in Annabelle's body (to which she is restored) made much more attractive by a makeover Mrs. Andrews gave the body while using it, including the removal of Annabelle's braces, an appointment Annabelle had forgotten about (and would have missed, had she been the one in her body that day). The book (and especially the film adaptations and its second sequel, Summer Switch) might be considered a modern retelling of Vice Versa, the 1882 novel by F. Anstey, in which the protagonists are a father and son.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A willful, disorganized teenage girl, Annabelle Andrews, awakens one Friday morning to find herself in the body of her mother, with whom she argued the previous night. Suddenly in charge of taking care of the New York family's affairs and her younger brother Ben (whom Annabelle has not-so-affectionately nicknamed \"Ape Face\"), and growing increasingly worried about the disappearance of \"Annabelle\", who appeared to be herself in the morning but has gone missing after leaving the Andrews' home, she enlists the help of her neighbor and childhood friend, Boris, though without telling him about her identity crisis. As the day wears on and Annabelle has a series of increasingly bizarre and frustrating misadventures, she becomes gradually more appreciative of how difficult her mother's life is, and learns, to her surprise, that Ben idolizes her, and Boris is actually named Morris, but has a problem with chronic congestion (at least around Annabelle) leading him to nasally pronounce ms and ns as bs and ds. The novel races towards its climax and Ben also disappears, apparently having gone off with a pretty girl whom Boris did not recognize, but Ben appeared to trust without hesitation. In the climax and d\u00e9nouement, Annabelle becomes overwhelmed by the difficulties of her situation, apparent disappearance of her mother, loss of the children, and the question of how her odd situation came about and when/whether it will be resolved. Finally, it is revealed that Annabelle's mother herself caused them to switch bodies through some unspecified means, and the mysterious girl who took Ben was Mrs. Andrews in Annabelle's body (to which she is restored) made much more attractive by a makeover Mrs. Andrews gave the body while using it, including the removal of Annabelle's braces, an appointment Annabelle had forgotten about (and would have missed, had she been the one in her body that day). The"
      },
      {
        "text": " Finally, it is revealed that Annabelle's mother herself caused them to switch bodies through some unspecified means, and the mysterious girl who took Ben was Mrs. Andrews in Annabelle's body (to which she is restored) made much more attractive by a makeover Mrs. Andrews gave the body while using it, including the removal of Annabelle's braces, an appointment Annabelle had forgotten about (and would have missed, had she been the one in her body that day). The book (and especially the film adaptations and its second sequel, Summer Switch) might be considered a modern retelling of Vice Versa, the 1882 novel by F. Anstey, in which the protagonists are a father and son.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "How Few Remain",
    "author": "Harry Turtledove",
    "published_date": "1997-09-08",
    "synopsis": " The point of divergence is September 10, 1862, during the American Civil War. In our timeline, a Confederate messenger lost General Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191, which detailed Lee's plans for the Invasion of the North. The orders were soon found by Union soldiers, and using them, George McClellan was able to halt the Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Antietam, after which it returned to Virginia. In How Few Remain, the orders are instead recovered by a trailing Confederate soldier. McClellan is caught by surprise, enabling Lee to lead the Army of Northern Virginia towards Philadelphia. Lee forces McClellan into battle on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania and destroys the Army of the Potomac in the Battle of Camp Hill on October 1. Lee goes on to capture Philadelphia, earning the Confederate States of America diplomatic recognition from both the United Kingdom and France, thus winning the war (which is known as the War of Secession in the alternate timeline) and independence from the United States on November 4. Kentucky, having been conquered by Confederate forces shortly after the Battle of Camp Hill, joins the eleven original Confederate states after the war's conclusion, and the Confederacy is also given Indian Territory (our timeline's state of Oklahoma, later the Southern Victory Series state of Sequoyah). The Spanish island of Cuba is purchased by the Confederate States in the 1870s for $3,000,000, thus also becoming a Confederate territory. In 1881, Republican James G. Blaine has ridden a hard-line platform of anti-Confederatism into the White House, having defeated Democratic incumbent Samuel J. Tilden in the 1880 presidential election. Both American nations have been sanctioning Indian raids into each other's territory. The international tension between the United States and the Confederate States peaks when Confederate President James Longstreet, desiring a Pacific coast for the confederacy so that the South can have a transcontinental railroad for itself, purchases the northwestern provinces of Sonora and Chihuahua from the financially strapped Mexican Empire (which is still ruled by France's Maximilian) for CS $3,000,000. Blaine uses the \"coerced\" purchase as a casus belli, leading to the commencement of what will later become known as the Second Mexican War. After the Confederate purchase of the northern Mexican provinces of Sonora and Chihuahua, which extends the CSA-USA border and gives the Confederates a Pacific port (Guaymas), the United States declares war on the Confederacy. Early on in the war, Confederate troops under Jeb Stuart capture a large quantity of gold and silver ore from a Union mining town after successfully occupying the newly purchased provinces. Meanwhile, a Union cavalry colonel, George Armstrong Custer, successfully uses Gatling guns against Kiowa Indians and Confederate cavalry in Kansas. Soon, the United Kingdom and France, both Confederate allies, blockade and bombard US port cities, including those on the Great Lakes. During the war, the Mormons in Utah rebel by severing transcontinental communication and transportation around Salt Lake City. John Pope is appointed as the military governor, puts down the revolt, and imposes martial law. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is classified as a political organization and the Mormon leaders are hunted down and executed. The United States' attempt to invade Virginia is easily thrown back by General Stonewall Jackson as the United States struggles to find a man his equal. A key reason for the Confederate success in the war, in addition to fighting a defensive war, is that the Confederates are led by excellent generals like Jackson, while the United States's military, despite possessing a massive advantage in numbers and resources, suffers from incompetent leadership. William Rosecrans, the commander of the entire US army, casually reveals at one point that there is no overall strategy for winning the war whatsoever. He envisions a vague idea of the opposing armies making counteroffensives back and forth against each other, which he feels the United States would assuredly win. This lack of planning leaves the German military observer, Alfred von Schlieffen, aghast. The United States next attempts to launch a massive invasion of Louisville to knock the Confederates out of Kentucky but it soon becomes a bloody stalemate. The decision of Stonewall Jackson to command the defense personally, the negligence of U.S. commanders, and most of all, the use of breech-loading artillery and repeating rifles make taking the city very difficult. The Confederate army never tries to invade any United States territory for two reasons. First, it does not have the resources for an offensive into hostile lands. Second, the Confederacy's success hinges on the support of Britain and France, who feel they are aiding a smaller nation wrongfully attacked by a larger one, and launching attacks into the United States would be seen as aggression for which they might lose foreign support. Galled by orders to wage a purely defensive war, Jackson takes them to the extreme, pioneering tactics of full-scale trench warfare which devastates Louisville (in scenes reminiscent of the World War I of mainline reality). The Louisville campaign quickly bogs down for the United States, and results in a bloodbath with little territory gained. The United Kingdom and France continue to shell the Great Lakes ports; France also shells Los Angeles, while the British bombard San Francisco and raid the Federal mint. The United States receives some good news when a young volunteer cavalry colonel, Theodore Roosevelt, and George Armstrong Custer rout a British division under Charles Gordon invading Montana from Canada. However, the British also invade northern Maine and annex it into the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Finally, facing defeat on almost all fronts, Republican president James G. Blaine is forced to capitulate. A Republican is never again elected to the White House. The United States, learning the importance of strong allies, seeks an alliance with the newly formed and powerful German Empire. The alliance sets up events for the next three series, which cover an alternate World War I, Inter-war period, and World War II.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The point of divergence is September 10, 1862, during the American Civil War. In our timeline, a Confederate messenger lost General Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191, which detailed Lee's plans for the Invasion of the North. The orders were soon found by Union soldiers, and using them, George McClellan was able to halt the Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Antietam, after which it returned to Virginia. In How Few Remain, the orders are instead recovered by a trailing Confederate soldier. McClellan is caught by surprise, enabling Lee to lead the Army of Northern Virginia towards Philadelphia. Lee forces McClellan into battle on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania and destroys the Army of the Potomac in the Battle of Camp Hill on October 1. Lee goes on to capture Philadelphia, earning the Confederate States of America diplomatic recognition from both the United Kingdom and France, thus winning the war (which is known as the War of Secession in the alternate timeline) and independence from the United States on November 4. Kentucky, having been conquered by Confederate forces shortly after the Battle of Camp Hill, joins the eleven original Confederate states after the war's conclusion, and the Confederacy is also given Indian Territory (our timeline's state of Oklahoma, later the Southern Victory Series state of Sequoyah). The Spanish island of Cuba is purchased by the Confederate States in the 1870s for $3,000,000, thus also becoming a Confederate territory. In 1881, Republican James G. Blaine has ridden a hard-line platform of anti-Confederatism into the White House, having defeated Democratic incumbent Samuel J. Tilden in the 1880 presidential election. Both American nations have been sanctioning Indian raids into each other's territory. The international tension between the United States and the Confederate States peaks when Confederate President James Longstreet, desiring a Pacific coast for the confederacy so that the South can have a transcontinental railroad for itself, purchases"
      },
      {
        "text": "81, Republican James G. Blaine has ridden a hard-line platform of anti-Confederatism into the White House, having defeated Democratic incumbent Samuel J. Tilden in the 1880 presidential election. Both American nations have been sanctioning Indian raids into each other's territory. The international tension between the United States and the Confederate States peaks when Confederate President James Longstreet, desiring a Pacific coast for the confederacy so that the South can have a transcontinental railroad for itself, purchases the northwestern provinces of Sonora and Chihuahua from the financially strapped Mexican Empire (which is still ruled by France's Maximilian) for CS $3,000,000. Blaine uses the \"coerced\" purchase as a casus belli, leading to the commencement of what will later become known as the Second Mexican War. After the Confederate purchase of the northern Mexican provinces of Sonora and Chihuahua, which extends the CSA-USA border and gives the Confederates a Pacific port (Guaymas), the United States declares war on the Confederacy. Early on in the war, Confederate troops under Jeb Stuart capture a large quantity of gold and silver ore from a Union mining town after successfully occupying the newly purchased provinces. Meanwhile, a Union cavalry colonel, George Armstrong Custer, successfully uses Gatling guns against Kiowa Indians and Confederate cavalry in Kansas. Soon, the United Kingdom and France, both Confederate allies, blockade and bombard US port cities, including those on the Great Lakes. During the war, the Mormons in Utah rebel by severing transcontinental communication and transportation around Salt Lake City. John Pope is appointed as the military governor, puts down the revolt, and imposes martial law. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is classified as a political organization and the Mormon leaders are hunted down and executed. The United States' attempt to invade Virginia is easily thrown back by General Stonewall Jackson as the United States struggles to find a man his"
      },
      {
        "text": " on the Great Lakes. During the war, the Mormons in Utah rebel by severing transcontinental communication and transportation around Salt Lake City. John Pope is appointed as the military governor, puts down the revolt, and imposes martial law. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is classified as a political organization and the Mormon leaders are hunted down and executed. The United States' attempt to invade Virginia is easily thrown back by General Stonewall Jackson as the United States struggles to find a man his equal. A key reason for the Confederate success in the war, in addition to fighting a defensive war, is that the Confederates are led by excellent generals like Jackson, while the United States's military, despite possessing a massive advantage in numbers and resources, suffers from incompetent leadership. William Rosecrans, the commander of the entire US army, casually reveals at one point that there is no overall strategy for winning the war whatsoever. He envisions a vague idea of the opposing armies making counteroffensives back and forth against each other, which he feels the United States would assuredly win. This lack of planning leaves the German military observer, Alfred von Schlieffen, aghast. The United States next attempts to launch a massive invasion of Louisville to knock the Confederates out of Kentucky but it soon becomes a bloody stalemate. The decision of Stonewall Jackson to command the defense personally, the negligence of U.S. commanders, and most of all, the use of breech-loading artillery and repeating rifles make taking the city very difficult. The Confederate army never tries to invade any United States territory for two reasons. First, it does not have the resources for an offensive into hostile lands. Second, the Confederacy's success hinges on the support of Britain and France, who feel they are aiding a smaller nation wrongfully attacked by a larger one, and launching attacks into the United States would be seen as aggression for which they might lose foreign support. Galled by orders to wage"
      },
      {
        "text": "-loading artillery and repeating rifles make taking the city very difficult. The Confederate army never tries to invade any United States territory for two reasons. First, it does not have the resources for an offensive into hostile lands. Second, the Confederacy's success hinges on the support of Britain and France, who feel they are aiding a smaller nation wrongfully attacked by a larger one, and launching attacks into the United States would be seen as aggression for which they might lose foreign support. Galled by orders to wage a purely defensive war, Jackson takes them to the extreme, pioneering tactics of full-scale trench warfare which devastates Louisville (in scenes reminiscent of the World War I of mainline reality). The Louisville campaign quickly bogs down for the United States, and results in a bloodbath with little territory gained. The United Kingdom and France continue to shell the Great Lakes ports; France also shells Los Angeles, while the British bombard San Francisco and raid the Federal mint. The United States receives some good news when a young volunteer cavalry colonel, Theodore Roosevelt, and George Armstrong Custer rout a British division under Charles Gordon invading Montana from Canada. However, the British also invade northern Maine and annex it into the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Finally, facing defeat on almost all fronts, Republican president James G. Blaine is forced to capitulate. A Republican is never again elected to the White House. The United States, learning the importance of strong allies, seeks an alliance with the newly formed and powerful German Empire. The alliance sets up events for the next three series, which cover an alternate World War I, Inter-war period, and World War II.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " The alliance sets up events for the next three series, which cover an alternate World War I, Inter-war period, and World War II.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Perelandra",
    "author": "C. S. Lewis",
    "published_date": "1943",
    "synopsis": " The story starts with the philologist Elwin Ransom, some years after his return from Mars at the end of Out of the Silent Planet, receiving a new mission from Oyarsa, the angelic ruler of Mars. After summoning Lewis, the first person narrator, to his country home, Ransom explains to Lewis that he (Ransom) is to travel to Perelandra (Venus), where is located a new Garden of Eden and a new Adam and Eve, to oppose the diabolically-possessed human physicist Professor Weston, who has been sent to corrupt the Eve figure. He is transported in a boxlike vessel seemingly made of ice, which contains only himself. He gets Lewis to blindfold him so the sunlight will not blind him once he travels beyond the earth's atmosphere. He does not wear any clothes on the journey as Oyarsa tells him clothes are unnecessary on Venus. He returns to Earth about a year later and is met by Lewis and another friend: the remainder of the story is told from Ransom's point of view, with Lewis acting as interlocutor and occasional commentator. Ransom arrives in Venus after a journey in which he is surrounded by bright colours; the box dissolves leaving Ransom on what appears to be an oceanic paradise. One day is about 23 Earth hours, in contrast to the (roughly) 24 and 25-hour days of Earth and Mars. The sky is golden and very bright but opaque. Hence the sun cannot be seen, and the night is pitch black with no stars visible. Strange, mythical creatures resembling small dragons roam the planetary sweet-water ocean, which is dotted with floating rafts of vegetation. These rafts resemble islands, to the extent of having plant and animal life upon them; however, having no geologic foundations, they are in a constant state of motion. The planet's sole observable geological feature is a mountain called the Fixed Land. Ransom meets Tinidril, the Queen of the planet; a cheerful being who soon accepts him as a friend. Unlike the inhabitants of Mars in Out of the Silent Planet, she resembles a human in physical appearance with the exception of her skin color, green; this is said to be the preferred form assumed by sentient creatures as a result of the manifestation of Maleldil, the second person of God, in human form. She and the King of the planet, who is largely unseen until the end, are the only human inhabitants and are the Eve and Adam of their world. They live on the floating raft-islands and are forbidden to sleep on the \"Fixed Land\". The rafts or floating islands are indeed Paradise, not only in the sense that they provide a pleasant and care-free life (until the arrival of Weston) but also in the sense that Ransom is for weeks and months naked in the presence of a beautiful naked woman without once lusting after her or being tempted to seduce her. The plot thickens when Professor Weston arrives in a spaceship and lands in a part of the ocean quite close to the Fixed Land. He at first announces that he is a reformed man, but appears to still be in search of power. He pledges allegiance to what he calls the \"Life-Force\", and subsequently shows signs of demonic possession. Weston finds the Queen and tries to tempt her into defying Maleldil's orders by spending a night on the Fixed Land. Ransom, perceiving this, believes that he must act as a counter-tempter. Well versed in the Bible and Christian theology, Ransom realises that if the pristine Queen, who has never heard of Evil, succumbs to Weston's arguments, the Fall of Man will be re-enacted on Perelandra. He struggles through day after day of lengthy arguments illustrating various approaches to temptation, but the demonic Weston shows super-human brilliance in debate (though when \"off-duty\" he displays moronic, asinine behaviour and small-minded viciousness) and moreover appears never to need sleep. With the demonic Weston on the verge of winning, the desperate Ransom hears in the night what he gradually realises is a Divine voice, commanding him to physically attack the Tempter. Ransom is reluctant, and debates with the divine (inner) voice for the entire duration of the night. A curious twist is introduced here; whereas the name \"Ransom\" is said to be derived from the title \"Ranolf's Son\", it can also refer to a reward given in exchange for a treasured life. Recalling this, and recalling that his God would (and has) sacrificed Himself in a similar situation, Ransom decides to confront the Tempter outright. Ransom attacks his opponent bare-handed, using only physical force. The Tempter, unable to withstand this despite his superior abilities of rhetoric, flees, whereupon Ransom chases him over the ocean, Weston fleeing and Ransom chasing on the backs of giant and friendly fish. During a fleeting truce, the 'real' Weston momentarily re-inhabits his body, and recounts his experience of Hell, wherein the damned soul is not consigned to pain or fire, as supposed by popular eschatology, but is absorbed into the Devil, losing all independent existence. While Ransom is distracted by his horror and his feelings of pity and compassion for Weston, the demon takes control of the body, surprises Ransom, and tries to drown him. The chase continues into a subterranean cavern, where Ransom seemingly kills Weston and, believing his quest to be over, searches for a route to the surface. Weston's body, horribly injured but still animated by the Devil, follows him. When they meet for the last time in another cavern, Ransom \"hurls\" at Weston's head a stone and consigns the body to volcanic flames. Returning to the planet's surface after a long travail through the caverns of Perelandra, Ransom recuperates from his injuries, all of which heal fully except for a bite on his heel which he sustained at some point in the battle; this bite continues bleeding for the rest of his time on Perelandra and is remains unhealed when he returns to earth. Ransom meets the King and Queen together with the Oy\u00e9resu of Mars and Venus, the latter of whom transfers its divinely ordained dominion over the planet to the King and Queen. All the characters celebrate the prevention of a second biblical \"Fall\" and the beginning of a utopian paradise in this new world. The story climaxes with Ransom's vision of the essential truth of life in the Solar System, and possibly of the nature of God: strongly paralleling the journeys of Dante in the Divine Comedy. His mission on Venus accomplished, he returns, rather reluctantly, to Earth in the same manner in which he made the outward journey; his new mission is to continue the fight against the forces of evil on their own territory.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story starts with the philologist Elwin Ransom, some years after his return from Mars at the end of Out of the Silent Planet, receiving a new mission from Oyarsa, the angelic ruler of Mars. After summoning Lewis, the first person narrator, to his country home, Ransom explains to Lewis that he (Ransom) is to travel to Perelandra (Venus), where is located a new Garden of Eden and a new Adam and Eve, to oppose the diabolically-possessed human physicist Professor Weston, who has been sent to corrupt the Eve figure. He is transported in a boxlike vessel seemingly made of ice, which contains only himself. He gets Lewis to blindfold him so the sunlight will not blind him once he travels beyond the earth's atmosphere. He does not wear any clothes on the journey as Oyarsa tells him clothes are unnecessary on Venus. He returns to Earth about a year later and is met by Lewis and another friend: the remainder of the story is told from Ransom's point of view, with Lewis acting as interlocutor and occasional commentator. Ransom arrives in Venus after a journey in which he is surrounded by bright colours; the box dissolves leaving Ransom on what appears to be an oceanic paradise. One day is about 23 Earth hours, in contrast to the (roughly) 24 and 25-hour days of Earth and Mars. The sky is golden and very bright but opaque. Hence the sun cannot be seen, and the night is pitch black with no stars visible. Strange, mythical creatures resembling small dragons roam the planetary sweet-water ocean, which is dotted with floating rafts of vegetation. These rafts resemble islands, to the extent of having plant and animal life upon them; however, having no geologic foundations, they are in a constant state of motion. The planet's sole observable geological feature is a mountain called the Fixed Land. Ransom meets Tinidril, the Queen of"
      },
      {
        "text": " cannot be seen, and the night is pitch black with no stars visible. Strange, mythical creatures resembling small dragons roam the planetary sweet-water ocean, which is dotted with floating rafts of vegetation. These rafts resemble islands, to the extent of having plant and animal life upon them; however, having no geologic foundations, they are in a constant state of motion. The planet's sole observable geological feature is a mountain called the Fixed Land. Ransom meets Tinidril, the Queen of the planet; a cheerful being who soon accepts him as a friend. Unlike the inhabitants of Mars in Out of the Silent Planet, she resembles a human in physical appearance with the exception of her skin color, green; this is said to be the preferred form assumed by sentient creatures as a result of the manifestation of Maleldil, the second person of God, in human form. She and the King of the planet, who is largely unseen until the end, are the only human inhabitants and are the Eve and Adam of their world. They live on the floating raft-islands and are forbidden to sleep on the \"Fixed Land\". The rafts or floating islands are indeed Paradise, not only in the sense that they provide a pleasant and care-free life (until the arrival of Weston) but also in the sense that Ransom is for weeks and months naked in the presence of a beautiful naked woman without once lusting after her or being tempted to seduce her. The plot thickens when Professor Weston arrives in a spaceship and lands in a part of the ocean quite close to the Fixed Land. He at first announces that he is a reformed man, but appears to still be in search of power. He pledges allegiance to what he calls the \"Life-Force\", and subsequently shows signs of demonic possession. Weston finds the Queen and tries to tempt her into defying Maleldil's orders by spending a night on the Fixed Land. Ransom, perceiving this, believes that he must"
      },
      {
        "text": " Professor Weston arrives in a spaceship and lands in a part of the ocean quite close to the Fixed Land. He at first announces that he is a reformed man, but appears to still be in search of power. He pledges allegiance to what he calls the \"Life-Force\", and subsequently shows signs of demonic possession. Weston finds the Queen and tries to tempt her into defying Maleldil's orders by spending a night on the Fixed Land. Ransom, perceiving this, believes that he must act as a counter-tempter. Well versed in the Bible and Christian theology, Ransom realises that if the pristine Queen, who has never heard of Evil, succumbs to Weston's arguments, the Fall of Man will be re-enacted on Perelandra. He struggles through day after day of lengthy arguments illustrating various approaches to temptation, but the demonic Weston shows super-human brilliance in debate (though when \"off-duty\" he displays moronic, asinine behaviour and small-minded viciousness) and moreover appears never to need sleep. With the demonic Weston on the verge of winning, the desperate Ransom hears in the night what he gradually realises is a Divine voice, commanding him to physically attack the Tempter. Ransom is reluctant, and debates with the divine (inner) voice for the entire duration of the night. A curious twist is introduced here; whereas the name \"Ransom\" is said to be derived from the title \"Ranolf's Son\", it can also refer to a reward given in exchange for a treasured life. Recalling this, and recalling that his God would (and has) sacrificed Himself in a similar situation, Ransom decides to confront the Tempter outright. Ransom attacks his opponent bare-handed, using only physical force. The Tempter, unable to withstand this despite his superior abilities of rhetoric, flees, whereupon Ransom chases him over the ocean, Weston fleeing and Ransom chasing on"
      },
      {
        "text": "'s Son\", it can also refer to a reward given in exchange for a treasured life. Recalling this, and recalling that his God would (and has) sacrificed Himself in a similar situation, Ransom decides to confront the Tempter outright. Ransom attacks his opponent bare-handed, using only physical force. The Tempter, unable to withstand this despite his superior abilities of rhetoric, flees, whereupon Ransom chases him over the ocean, Weston fleeing and Ransom chasing on the backs of giant and friendly fish. During a fleeting truce, the 'real' Weston momentarily re-inhabits his body, and recounts his experience of Hell, wherein the damned soul is not consigned to pain or fire, as supposed by popular eschatology, but is absorbed into the Devil, losing all independent existence. While Ransom is distracted by his horror and his feelings of pity and compassion for Weston, the demon takes control of the body, surprises Ransom, and tries to drown him. The chase continues into a subterranean cavern, where Ransom seemingly kills Weston and, believing his quest to be over, searches for a route to the surface. Weston's body, horribly injured but still animated by the Devil, follows him. When they meet for the last time in another cavern, Ransom \"hurls\" at Weston's head a stone and consigns the body to volcanic flames. Returning to the planet's surface after a long travail through the caverns of Perelandra, Ransom recuperates from his injuries, all of which heal fully except for a bite on his heel which he sustained at some point in the battle; this bite continues bleeding for the rest of his time on Perelandra and is remains unhealed when he returns to earth. Ransom meets the King and Queen together with the Oy\u00e9resu of Mars and Venus, the latter of whom transfers its divinely ordained dominion over the planet to the King and Queen"
      },
      {
        "text": "s of Perelandra, Ransom recuperates from his injuries, all of which heal fully except for a bite on his heel which he sustained at some point in the battle; this bite continues bleeding for the rest of his time on Perelandra and is remains unhealed when he returns to earth. Ransom meets the King and Queen together with the Oy\u00e9resu of Mars and Venus, the latter of whom transfers its divinely ordained dominion over the planet to the King and Queen. All the characters celebrate the prevention of a second biblical \"Fall\" and the beginning of a utopian paradise in this new world. The story climaxes with Ransom's vision of the essential truth of life in the Solar System, and possibly of the nature of God: strongly paralleling the journeys of Dante in the Divine Comedy. His mission on Venus accomplished, he returns, rather reluctantly, to Earth in the same manner in which he made the outward journey; his new mission is to continue the fight against the forces of evil on their own territory.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Teranesia",
    "author": "Greg Egan",
    "published_date": "1999",
    "synopsis": " The novel explores an unusual connection between molecular genetics and quantum computing, with criticism of some of what it considers the excesses of postmodernism and feminism. However, most of the novel focuses on future south-east Asian politics (Egan criticizes Indonesian imperialism and Australian treatment of refugees), repressed childhood guilt, evolutionary biology and academic life. As often in Egan's books, there is some focus on sexuality: this time the lead character is gay, rather than one of the more exotic alternatives in other novels.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel explores an unusual connection between molecular genetics and quantum computing, with criticism of some of what it considers the excesses of postmodernism and feminism. However, most of the novel focuses on future south-east Asian politics (Egan criticizes Indonesian imperialism and Australian treatment of refugees), repressed childhood guilt, evolutionary biology and academic life. As often in Egan's books, there is some focus on sexuality: this time the lead character is gay, rather than one of the more exotic alternatives in other novels.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "On the Road",
    "author": "Jack Kerouac",
    "published_date": "1957",
    "synopsis": " The two main characters of the book are the narrator, Salvatore \u201cSal\u201d Paradise, and his new friend Dean Moriarty, much admired for his carefree attitude and sense for adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to explore all kicks and an inspiration and catalyst for Sal\u2019s travels. The novel contains five parts, three of them describing road trips. The narrative takes place in the years 1947 to 1950, is full of Americana, and marks a specific era in jazz history, \u201csomewhere between its Charlie Parker Ornithology period and another period that began with Miles Davis.\u201d The novel is largely autobiographical, Sal being the alter ego of the author and Dean standing for Neal Cassady. The epic nature of the adventures and the text itself creates a tremendous sense of meaning and purpose for the themes and lessons. The first section describes Sal\u2019s first trip to San Francisco, CA. Disheartened after a divorce, his life changes when he meets Dean Moriarty, who is \"tremendously excited with life,\" and begins to long for the freedom of the road: \u201dSomewhere along the line I knew there would be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.\u201d He sets off in July 1947 with fifty dollars in his pocket. After taking several buses and hitchhiking, he arrives in Denver, where he hooks up with Carlo Marx, Dean, and their friends. There are parties&nbsp;\u2014 among them an excursion to the ghost town of Central City. Eventually Sal leaves by bus and gets to San Francisco, where he meets Remi Boncoeur and his girlfriend Lee Ann. Remi arranges for Sal to take a job as a night watchman at a boarding camp for merchant sailors waiting for their ship. Not holding this job for long, Sal hits the road again. \u201cOh, where is the girl I love?\u201d he wonders. Soon he meets Terry, the \u201ccutest little Mexican girl,\u201d on the bus to Los Angeles. They stay together, traveling back to Bakersfield, then to Sabinal, \u201cher hometown,\u201d where her family works in the fields. He meets Terry's brother Ricky, who teaches him the true meaning of \"ma\u00f1ana\" (\"tomorrow\"). Working in the cotton fields, Sal realizes that he is not made for this type of work. Leaving Terry behind, he takes the bus back to New York and walks the final stretch from Times Square to Paterson, just missing Dean, who had come to see him, by two days. In this section, Kerouac not only introduces many of the book's characters but also its central conflicts and dilemmas. He initially shows Sal as the deep thinking writer who yearns for greater freedom. As the plot unfolds he shows the depth and degree of Sal\u2019s internal conflict in the pursuit of \u201ckicks,\u201d torn between the romanticized freedom of the open road and practicality of a more settled, domestic life. Dean appears as the \u201cyellow roman candle\u201d that catalyzes the action of the novel. His uncontainable spirit invites Sal to follow but also foreshadows problems of commitment and devotion that will reappear later on. In December 1948 Sal is celebrating Christmas with his relatives in Testament, VA when Dean shows up with Marylou (having left his second wife, Camille, and their newborn baby, Amy, in San Francisco) and Ed Dunkel. Sal\u2019s Christmas plans are shattered as \u201cnow the bug was on me again, and the bug\u2019s name was Dean Moriarty.\u201d First they drive to New York, where they meet Carlo and party. Dean wants Sal to make love to Marylou, but Sal declines. In Dean\u2019s Hudson they take off from New York in January 1949 and make it to New Orleans. In Algiers they stay with the morphine-addicted Old Bull Lee and his wife Jane. Galatea Dunkel joins her husband in New Orleans while Sal, Dean, and Marylou continue their trip. Once in San Francisco, Dean again leaves Marylou to be with Camille. \u201cDean will leave you out in the cold anytime it is in the interest of him\u201d Marylou tells Sal. Both of them stay briefly in a hotel, but soon she moves out, following a nightclub owner. Sal is alone and on Market Street has visions of past lives, birth, and rebirth. Dean finds him and invites him to stay with his family. Together, they visit nightclubs and listen to Slim Gaillard and other jazz musicians. The stay ends on a sour note: \"what I accomplished by coming to Frisco I don\u2019t know,\u201d and Sal departs, taking the bus back to New York. In this section, Marylou sums up the dilemma of Dean\u2019s lack of commitment and selfishness when she says that he will always leave you if it isn\u2019t in his interest. This central conflict appears again after Dean returns to Camille in San Francisco, abandoning his two travel companions. Sal again finds himself at a loss for purpose and direction. He has spent his time following the other characters but is unfulfilled by the frantic nature of this life. Much of the euphoria has worn off as he becomes more contemplative and philosophical. In the spring of 1949, Sal takes a bus from New York to Denver. He is depressed and \u201clonesome\u201d; none of his friends are around. After receiving some money, he leaves Denver for San Francisco to see Dean. Camille is pregnant and unhappy, and Dean has injured his thumb trying to hit Marylou for sleeping with other men. Camille throws them out, and Sal invites Dean to come to New York, planning to travel further to Italy. They meet Galatea, who tells Dean off: \u201dYou have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your kicks.\u201d Sal realizes she is right&nbsp;\u2014 Dean is the \u201cHOLY GOOF\u201d&nbsp;\u2014 but also defends him, as \u201che\u2019s got the secret that we\u2019re all busting to find out.\u201d After a night of jazz and drinking in Little Harlem on Folsom Street, they depart. On the way to Sacramento they meet a \"fag,\" who propositions them. Deans tries to hustle some money out of this but is turned down. During this part of the trip Sal and Dean have ecstatic discussions having found \u201cIT\u201d and \u201cTIME.\" In Denver a brief argument shows the growing rift between the two, when Dean reminds Sal of his age, Sal being the older of the two. They get a '47 Cadillac from the travel bureau that needs to be brought to Chicago. Dean drives most of the way, crazy, careless, often speeding over 100 miles per hour, bringing it in in a disheveled state. By bus they move on to Detroit and spend a night on Skid Row, Dean hoping to find his hobo father. From Detroit they share a ride to New York and arrive at Sal's aunt\u2019s new flat in Long Island. They go on partying in New York, where Dean meets Inez and gets her pregnant while his wife is expecting their second child. After seeing how he treats Camille and Marylou, Sal finally begins to realize the nature of his relationship with Dean. While he cares greatly about him, several times discussing future plans to live on the same street, he recognizes that the feeling may not be mutual. The situations are beginning to change, though, as Sal has received some money from his recently published book and can begin to support himself and also Dean when he comes to New York. Sal is taking a more active role in his freedom as opposed to just following Dean. In the spring of 1950, Sal gets the itch to travel again while Dean is working as a parking lot attendant in Manhattan, living with his girlfriend Inez. Sal notices that he has been reduced to simple pleasures&nbsp;\u2014 listening to baseball games and doing card tricks. By bus Sal takes to the road again, passing Washington, Ashland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and eventually reaching Denver. There he meets Stan Shephard, and the two plan to go to Mexico City when they learn that Dean had bought a car and is on the way to join them. In a rickety '37 Ford sedan the three set off across Texas to Laredo, where they cross the border. They are ecstatic, having left \u201ceverything behind us and entering a new and unknown phase of things.\u201d Their money buys more (10 cents for a beer), police are laid back, cannabis is readily available, and people are curious and friendly. The landscape is magnificent. In Gregoria, they meet Victor, a local kid, who leads them to a bordello where they have their last grand party, dancing to mambo, drinking, and having fun with underage prostitutes. In Mexico City Sal becomes ill from dysentery and is \u201cdelirious and unconscious.\u201d Dean leaves him, and Sal later reflects that \u201cwhen I got better I realized what a rat he was, but then I had to understand the impossible complexity of his life, how he had to leave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes.\u201d In this section we see Dean\u2019s selfishness finally extend to Sal, as he leaves Sal abandoned in Mexico City. Sal has sunk to the bottom of his reality having seen Victor put his family obligations over the freedom of the road and Dean was not ready to do the same thing. This is the moment where the paths diverge and Sal realizes that he has more to live for than just constantly moving. Dean, having obtained divorce papers in Mexico, had first returned to New York to marry Inez, only to leave her and go back to Camille. After his recovery from dysentery in Mexico, Sal returns to New York in the fall. He finds a girl, Laura, and plans to move with her to San Francisco. Sal writes to Dean about his plan to move to San Francisco. Dean writes back saying that he's willing to come and accompany Laura and Sal. Dean arrives over five weeks early but Sal is out taking a late-night walk alone. Sal returns home to Laura and sees a copy of Proust and knows that it is Dean's. Sal realizes that his friend has arrived but its at a time when Sal doesn't have the money to relocate to San Francisco. On hearing this Dean makes the decision to head back to Camille and Sal's friend Remi Boncoeur denies Sal's request to give Dean a short lift to 40th Street on their way to a Duke Ellington concert at the Metropolitan Opera House. Sal's girlfriend Laura realises that this is a painful moment for Sal and prompts him for a response as the party drives off without Dean; to which he replies \"He'll be alright\". Sal later reflects as he sits on a river pier under a New Jersey night sky about the roads and lands of America that he has travelled and states \u201c. . . I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.\" Kerouac often based his fictional characters on friends and family. {| class=\"wikitable\" |- ! Real-life person ! Character name |- | Jack Kerouac | Sal Paradise |- | Gabrielle Kerouac | Sal's Aunt |- | Alan Ansen | Rollo Greb |- | William S. Burroughs | Old Bull Lee |- | Joan Vollmer | Jane |- | Lucien Carr | Damion |- | Neal Cassady | Dean Moriarty |- | Carolyn Cassady | Camille |- | Hal Chase | Chad King |- | Henri Cru | Remi Boncoeur |- | Bea Franco | Terry |- | Allen Ginsberg | Carlo Marx |- | Diana Hansen | Inez |- | Alan Harrington | Hal Hingham |- | Joan Haverty | Laura |- | Luanne Henderson | Marylou |- | Al Hinkle | Ed Dunkel |- | Helen Hinkle | Galatea Dunkel |- | Jim Holmes | Tom Snark |- | John Clellon Holmes | Ian MacArthur |- | Ed Stringham | Tom Saybrook |- | Herbert Huncke | Elmer Hassel |- | Frank Jeffries | Stan Shephard |- | Gene Pippin | Gene Dexter |- | Allan Temko | Roland Major |- | Bill Tomson | Roy Johnson |- | Helen Tomson | Dorothy Johnson |- | Ed Uhl | Ed Wall |}\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The two main characters of the book are the narrator, Salvatore \u201cSal\u201d Paradise, and his new friend Dean Moriarty, much admired for his carefree attitude and sense for adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to explore all kicks and an inspiration and catalyst for Sal\u2019s travels. The novel contains five parts, three of them describing road trips. The narrative takes place in the years 1947 to 1950, is full of Americana, and marks a specific era in jazz history, \u201csomewhere between its Charlie Parker Ornithology period and another period that began with Miles Davis.\u201d The novel is largely autobiographical, Sal being the alter ego of the author and Dean standing for Neal Cassady. The epic nature of the adventures and the text itself creates a tremendous sense of meaning and purpose for the themes and lessons. The first section describes Sal\u2019s first trip to San Francisco, CA. Disheartened after a divorce, his life changes when he meets Dean Moriarty, who is \"tremendously excited with life,\" and begins to long for the freedom of the road: \u201dSomewhere along the line I knew there would be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.\u201d He sets off in July 1947 with fifty dollars in his pocket. After taking several buses and hitchhiking, he arrives in Denver, where he hooks up with Carlo Marx, Dean, and their friends. There are parties&nbsp;\u2014 among them an excursion to the ghost town of Central City. Eventually Sal leaves by bus and gets to San Francisco, where he meets Remi Boncoeur and his girlfriend Lee Ann. Remi arranges for Sal to take a job as a night watchman at a boarding camp for merchant sailors waiting for their ship. Not holding this job for long, Sal hits the road again. \u201cOh, where is the girl I"
      },
      {
        "text": ", and their friends. There are parties&nbsp;\u2014 among them an excursion to the ghost town of Central City. Eventually Sal leaves by bus and gets to San Francisco, where he meets Remi Boncoeur and his girlfriend Lee Ann. Remi arranges for Sal to take a job as a night watchman at a boarding camp for merchant sailors waiting for their ship. Not holding this job for long, Sal hits the road again. \u201cOh, where is the girl I love?\u201d he wonders. Soon he meets Terry, the \u201ccutest little Mexican girl,\u201d on the bus to Los Angeles. They stay together, traveling back to Bakersfield, then to Sabinal, \u201cher hometown,\u201d where her family works in the fields. He meets Terry's brother Ricky, who teaches him the true meaning of \"ma\u00f1ana\" (\"tomorrow\"). Working in the cotton fields, Sal realizes that he is not made for this type of work. Leaving Terry behind, he takes the bus back to New York and walks the final stretch from Times Square to Paterson, just missing Dean, who had come to see him, by two days. In this section, Kerouac not only introduces many of the book's characters but also its central conflicts and dilemmas. He initially shows Sal as the deep thinking writer who yearns for greater freedom. As the plot unfolds he shows the depth and degree of Sal\u2019s internal conflict in the pursuit of \u201ckicks,\u201d torn between the romanticized freedom of the open road and practicality of a more settled, domestic life. Dean appears as the \u201cyellow roman candle\u201d that catalyzes the action of the novel. His uncontainable spirit invites Sal to follow but also foreshadows problems of commitment and devotion that will reappear later on. In December 1948 Sal is celebrating Christmas with his relatives in Testament, VA when Dean shows up with Mary"
      },
      {
        "text": " conflict in the pursuit of \u201ckicks,\u201d torn between the romanticized freedom of the open road and practicality of a more settled, domestic life. Dean appears as the \u201cyellow roman candle\u201d that catalyzes the action of the novel. His uncontainable spirit invites Sal to follow but also foreshadows problems of commitment and devotion that will reappear later on. In December 1948 Sal is celebrating Christmas with his relatives in Testament, VA when Dean shows up with Marylou (having left his second wife, Camille, and their newborn baby, Amy, in San Francisco) and Ed Dunkel. Sal\u2019s Christmas plans are shattered as \u201cnow the bug was on me again, and the bug\u2019s name was Dean Moriarty.\u201d First they drive to New York, where they meet Carlo and party. Dean wants Sal to make love to Marylou, but Sal declines. In Dean\u2019s Hudson they take off from New York in January 1949 and make it to New Orleans. In Algiers they stay with the morphine-addicted Old Bull Lee and his wife Jane. Galatea Dunkel joins her husband in New Orleans while Sal, Dean, and Marylou continue their trip. Once in San Francisco, Dean again leaves Marylou to be with Camille. \u201cDean will leave you out in the cold anytime it is in the interest of him\u201d Marylou tells Sal. Both of them stay briefly in a hotel, but soon she moves out, following a nightclub owner. Sal is alone and on Market Street has visions of past lives, birth, and rebirth. Dean finds him and invites him to stay with his family. Together, they visit nightclubs and listen to Slim Gaillard and other jazz musicians. The stay ends on a sour note: \"what I accomplished by coming to Frisco I don\u2019t know,\u201d and Sal departs, taking the bus"
      },
      {
        "text": " of them stay briefly in a hotel, but soon she moves out, following a nightclub owner. Sal is alone and on Market Street has visions of past lives, birth, and rebirth. Dean finds him and invites him to stay with his family. Together, they visit nightclubs and listen to Slim Gaillard and other jazz musicians. The stay ends on a sour note: \"what I accomplished by coming to Frisco I don\u2019t know,\u201d and Sal departs, taking the bus back to New York. In this section, Marylou sums up the dilemma of Dean\u2019s lack of commitment and selfishness when she says that he will always leave you if it isn\u2019t in his interest. This central conflict appears again after Dean returns to Camille in San Francisco, abandoning his two travel companions. Sal again finds himself at a loss for purpose and direction. He has spent his time following the other characters but is unfulfilled by the frantic nature of this life. Much of the euphoria has worn off as he becomes more contemplative and philosophical. In the spring of 1949, Sal takes a bus from New York to Denver. He is depressed and \u201clonesome\u201d; none of his friends are around. After receiving some money, he leaves Denver for San Francisco to see Dean. Camille is pregnant and unhappy, and Dean has injured his thumb trying to hit Marylou for sleeping with other men. Camille throws them out, and Sal invites Dean to come to New York, planning to travel further to Italy. They meet Galatea, who tells Dean off: \u201dYou have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your kicks.\u201d Sal realizes she is right&nbsp;\u2014 Dean is the \u201cHOLY GOOF\u201d&nbsp;\u2014 but also defends him, as \u201che\u2019s got the secret that we\u2019re all busting to find out.\ufffd"
      },
      {
        "text": " Sal invites Dean to come to New York, planning to travel further to Italy. They meet Galatea, who tells Dean off: \u201dYou have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your kicks.\u201d Sal realizes she is right&nbsp;\u2014 Dean is the \u201cHOLY GOOF\u201d&nbsp;\u2014 but also defends him, as \u201che\u2019s got the secret that we\u2019re all busting to find out.\u201d After a night of jazz and drinking in Little Harlem on Folsom Street, they depart. On the way to Sacramento they meet a \"fag,\" who propositions them. Deans tries to hustle some money out of this but is turned down. During this part of the trip Sal and Dean have ecstatic discussions having found \u201cIT\u201d and \u201cTIME.\" In Denver a brief argument shows the growing rift between the two, when Dean reminds Sal of his age, Sal being the older of the two. They get a '47 Cadillac from the travel bureau that needs to be brought to Chicago. Dean drives most of the way, crazy, careless, often speeding over 100 miles per hour, bringing it in in a disheveled state. By bus they move on to Detroit and spend a night on Skid Row, Dean hoping to find his hobo father. From Detroit they share a ride to New York and arrive at Sal's aunt\u2019s new flat in Long Island. They go on partying in New York, where Dean meets Inez and gets her pregnant while his wife is expecting their second child. After seeing how he treats Camille and Marylou, Sal finally begins to realize the nature of his relationship with Dean. While he cares greatly about him, several times discussing future plans to live on the same street, he recognizes that the feeling may not be mutual. The situations are beginning to change, though, as Sal has received some money from his recently"
      },
      {
        "text": " Island. They go on partying in New York, where Dean meets Inez and gets her pregnant while his wife is expecting their second child. After seeing how he treats Camille and Marylou, Sal finally begins to realize the nature of his relationship with Dean. While he cares greatly about him, several times discussing future plans to live on the same street, he recognizes that the feeling may not be mutual. The situations are beginning to change, though, as Sal has received some money from his recently published book and can begin to support himself and also Dean when he comes to New York. Sal is taking a more active role in his freedom as opposed to just following Dean. In the spring of 1950, Sal gets the itch to travel again while Dean is working as a parking lot attendant in Manhattan, living with his girlfriend Inez. Sal notices that he has been reduced to simple pleasures&nbsp;\u2014 listening to baseball games and doing card tricks. By bus Sal takes to the road again, passing Washington, Ashland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and eventually reaching Denver. There he meets Stan Shephard, and the two plan to go to Mexico City when they learn that Dean had bought a car and is on the way to join them. In a rickety '37 Ford sedan the three set off across Texas to Laredo, where they cross the border. They are ecstatic, having left \u201ceverything behind us and entering a new and unknown phase of things.\u201d Their money buys more (10 cents for a beer), police are laid back, cannabis is readily available, and people are curious and friendly. The landscape is magnificent. In Gregoria, they meet Victor, a local kid, who leads them to a bordello where they have their last grand party, dancing to mambo, drinking, and having fun with underage prostitutes. In Mexico City Sal becomes ill from dysentery and is \u201cdelirious and unconscious.\u201d Dean leaves"
      },
      {
        "text": "\ufffd Their money buys more (10 cents for a beer), police are laid back, cannabis is readily available, and people are curious and friendly. The landscape is magnificent. In Gregoria, they meet Victor, a local kid, who leads them to a bordello where they have their last grand party, dancing to mambo, drinking, and having fun with underage prostitutes. In Mexico City Sal becomes ill from dysentery and is \u201cdelirious and unconscious.\u201d Dean leaves him, and Sal later reflects that \u201cwhen I got better I realized what a rat he was, but then I had to understand the impossible complexity of his life, how he had to leave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes.\u201d In this section we see Dean\u2019s selfishness finally extend to Sal, as he leaves Sal abandoned in Mexico City. Sal has sunk to the bottom of his reality having seen Victor put his family obligations over the freedom of the road and Dean was not ready to do the same thing. This is the moment where the paths diverge and Sal realizes that he has more to live for than just constantly moving. Dean, having obtained divorce papers in Mexico, had first returned to New York to marry Inez, only to leave her and go back to Camille. After his recovery from dysentery in Mexico, Sal returns to New York in the fall. He finds a girl, Laura, and plans to move with her to San Francisco. Sal writes to Dean about his plan to move to San Francisco. Dean writes back saying that he's willing to come and accompany Laura and Sal. Dean arrives over five weeks early but Sal is out taking a late-night walk alone. Sal returns home to Laura and sees a copy of Proust and knows that it is Dean's. Sal realizes that his friend has arrived but its at a time when Sal doesn't have the money to relocate to San Francisco. On hearing this"
      },
      {
        "text": " to San Francisco. Sal writes to Dean about his plan to move to San Francisco. Dean writes back saying that he's willing to come and accompany Laura and Sal. Dean arrives over five weeks early but Sal is out taking a late-night walk alone. Sal returns home to Laura and sees a copy of Proust and knows that it is Dean's. Sal realizes that his friend has arrived but its at a time when Sal doesn't have the money to relocate to San Francisco. On hearing this Dean makes the decision to head back to Camille and Sal's friend Remi Boncoeur denies Sal's request to give Dean a short lift to 40th Street on their way to a Duke Ellington concert at the Metropolitan Opera House. Sal's girlfriend Laura realises that this is a painful moment for Sal and prompts him for a response as the party drives off without Dean; to which he replies \"He'll be alright\". Sal later reflects as he sits on a river pier under a New Jersey night sky about the roads and lands of America that he has travelled and states \u201c. . . I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.\" Kerouac often based his fictional characters on friends and family. {| class=\"wikitable\" |- ! Real-life person ! Character name |- | Jack Kerouac | Sal Paradise |- | Gabrielle Kerouac | Sal's Aunt |- | Alan Ansen | Rollo Greb |- | William S. Burroughs | Old Bull Lee |- | Joan Vollmer | Jane |- | Lucien Carr | Damion |- | Neal Cassady | Dean Moriarty |- | Carolyn Cassady | Camille |- | Hal Chase | Chad King |- | Henri Cru | Remi Boncoeur |- | Bea Franco | Terry |- | Allen Ginsberg | Carlo Marx |"
      },
      {
        "text": " Aunt |- | Alan Ansen | Rollo Greb |- | William S. Burroughs | Old Bull Lee |- | Joan Vollmer | Jane |- | Lucien Carr | Damion |- | Neal Cassady | Dean Moriarty |- | Carolyn Cassady | Camille |- | Hal Chase | Chad King |- | Henri Cru | Remi Boncoeur |- | Bea Franco | Terry |- | Allen Ginsberg | Carlo Marx |- | Diana Hansen | Inez |- | Alan Harrington | Hal Hingham |- | Joan Haverty | Laura |- | Luanne Henderson | Marylou |- | Al Hinkle | Ed Dunkel |- | Helen Hinkle | Galatea Dunkel |- | Jim Holmes | Tom Snark |- | John Clellon Holmes | Ian MacArthur |- | Ed Stringham | Tom Saybrook |- | Herbert Huncke | Elmer Hassel |- | Frank Jeffries | Stan Shephard |- | Gene Pippin | Gene Dexter |- | Allan Temko | Roland Major |- | Bill Tomson | Roy Johnson |- | Helen Tomson | Dorothy Johnson |- | Ed Uhl | Ed Wall |}\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Vernon God Little",
    "author": "D. B. C. Pierre",
    "published_date": "2003-01-20",
    "synopsis": " The title character is a fifteen-year-old boy who lives in a small town in the U.S. state of Texas. When his friend Jesus Navarro commits suicide after killing sixteen bullying schoolmates, suspicion falls on Vernon, who becomes something of a scapegoat in his small hometown of Martirio. Fearing the death penalty, he goes on the run to Mexico.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The title character is a fifteen-year-old boy who lives in a small town in the U.S. state of Texas. When his friend Jesus Navarro commits suicide after killing sixteen bullying schoolmates, suspicion falls on Vernon, who becomes something of a scapegoat in his small hometown of Martirio. Fearing the death penalty, he goes on the run to Mexico.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Last Hero",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "2001",
    "synopsis": " A message, carried by pointless albatross, arrives for Lord Vetinari from the Agatean Empire. The message explains that the Silver Horde (a group of aged barbarians introduced in Interesting Times, wherein they conquered the Empire, and led by Cohen the Barbarian, now the Emperor) have set out on a quest. The first hero of the Discworld, \"Fingers\" Mazda, stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind, and was chained to a rock to be torn open daily by a giant eagle as punishment. As the last heroes remaining on the Disc, the Silver Horde seek to return fire to the gods with interest, in the form of a large sled packed with explosive Agatean Thunder Clay. They plan to blow up the gods at their mountain home, Cori Celesti. With them is a whiny, terrified bard, whom they have kidnapped so that he can write the saga of their quest. Along the way, they are joined by Evil Harry Dread (the last Dark Lord) and Vena (an elderly heroine). The heroes are disillusioned with the way their lives have turned out\u2014having conquered the Empire, they have nothing left to do but die in comfort\u2014and are angry for having been allowed to grow old, rather than dying in battle as most of their friends did. They decided to go out on the quest after one of the Horde members choked to death on a cucumber. Evil Harry is just as angry; despite his efforts to give his opponents the sporting chance that an Evil Overlord should, they won't follow the Code by allowing him to escape in return. The Wizards of Unseen University explain to Lord Vetinari that blowing up Cori Celesti will destroy the Discworld by temporarily disrupting the Disc's magical field\u2014the only thing holding the Disc together\u2014so Vetinari organises an effort to stop the Horde. Since the Horde is already near the centre of the Discworld and the home of the gods, speed is of the essence. Vetinari recruits Leonard of Quirm to design the Discworld's second known spacecraft to slingshot under the Discworld and back around the top, landing on Cori Celesti. The vessel, named \"The Kite\" by Leonard, can carry only three people. Leonard of Quirm, Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, and Rincewind are selected for the trip. The Librarian accidentally stumbles aboard as well, having fallen asleep behind some crates of equipment while loading The Kite. After a few mishaps, including landing on the moon (to replenish their oxygen supply after the Librarian's unexpected presence threatened to leave them without enough air to survive the trip) and nearly having their swamp dragon powered spaceship explode on them, they crash in a spectacular fashion at, or rather, into the main gate of Cori Celesti. Meanwhile, the Horde have already reached Cori Celesti. The gods allow them to sneak in disguised as gods themselves, despite (or perhaps because of) their having been betrayed to the gods by Evil Harry. The Horde suspect that the gods have been manipulating their entire quest. Fate challenges Cohen to a game where he must roll higher than what Fate rolls on a standard 6-sided die. After Fate rolls a 6, Cohen cheats Fate by slicing the die in-half in mid-air with his sword; the two halves land with the 6 and 1 both facing up. Cohen also notes that even if he doesn't succeed in killing the gods, someone will have tried, so someone will eventually try harder. Captain Carrot attempts to arrest the Horde, at which point the Horde arms the explosives. While initially intending to attack him, the Horde realise that as a single brave man outnumbered by his foes and trying to save the world, Carrot is a Hero (and probably a king in disguise), and so their defeat is certain. After Rincewind explains that detonating the explosives will destroy the entire Discworld, the Horde grab the already live explosives and throw the explosives\u2014and themselves\u2014off the mountain. As punishment for creating The Kite (which allowed humans to travel higher than the gods) and for not expressing belief in the gods, Leonard is ordered by the gods to paint the entire ceiling of the Temple of Small Gods with a spectacular mural of the whole world (despite Blind Io saying he would be satisfied with \"a nice duck-egg blue with a few stars\"). They impose a time limit of 10 years on the task\u2014unassisted, \"even with the scaffolding\". (Leonard finishes the task in a few weeks.) Carrot asks for a boon to allow for the repairs of The Kite so that they can return to Ankh-Morpork. Rincewind asks for a blue balloon and the Librarian asks for some library supplies (and manages to refrain from bouncing Blind Io's head on the ground after Io calls him 'a monkey'). The Horde's end is ambiguous. Valkyries come to take the heroes to the Halls of the Slain, where a feast has been prepared for them. Instead, the Silver Horde, refusing to accept their deaths, steal the valkyries' horses and set off to find other worlds to \"do heroic stuff in.\" Death does not appear to them, as he often does when Discworld characters die, although he subsequently appears to Vena, and is evasive about whether he is \"collecting\". After the Horde leave with the Valkyries' horses, their first stop is to visit Mazda where he is being punished, cut off his chains, give him something to drink, and leave him a sword so that he may deal with his punisher. The bard, changed by his experience, composes a new style of saga, one with musical accompaniment, about it.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A message, carried by pointless albatross, arrives for Lord Vetinari from the Agatean Empire. The message explains that the Silver Horde (a group of aged barbarians introduced in Interesting Times, wherein they conquered the Empire, and led by Cohen the Barbarian, now the Emperor) have set out on a quest. The first hero of the Discworld, \"Fingers\" Mazda, stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind, and was chained to a rock to be torn open daily by a giant eagle as punishment. As the last heroes remaining on the Disc, the Silver Horde seek to return fire to the gods with interest, in the form of a large sled packed with explosive Agatean Thunder Clay. They plan to blow up the gods at their mountain home, Cori Celesti. With them is a whiny, terrified bard, whom they have kidnapped so that he can write the saga of their quest. Along the way, they are joined by Evil Harry Dread (the last Dark Lord) and Vena (an elderly heroine). The heroes are disillusioned with the way their lives have turned out\u2014having conquered the Empire, they have nothing left to do but die in comfort\u2014and are angry for having been allowed to grow old, rather than dying in battle as most of their friends did. They decided to go out on the quest after one of the Horde members choked to death on a cucumber. Evil Harry is just as angry; despite his efforts to give his opponents the sporting chance that an Evil Overlord should, they won't follow the Code by allowing him to escape in return. The Wizards of Unseen University explain to Lord Vetinari that blowing up Cori Celesti will destroy the Discworld by temporarily disrupting the Disc's magical field\u2014the only thing holding the Disc together\u2014so Vetinari organises an effort to stop the Horde. Since the Horde is already near the centre of the Discworld and the home of the gods"
      },
      {
        "text": " to give his opponents the sporting chance that an Evil Overlord should, they won't follow the Code by allowing him to escape in return. The Wizards of Unseen University explain to Lord Vetinari that blowing up Cori Celesti will destroy the Discworld by temporarily disrupting the Disc's magical field\u2014the only thing holding the Disc together\u2014so Vetinari organises an effort to stop the Horde. Since the Horde is already near the centre of the Discworld and the home of the gods, speed is of the essence. Vetinari recruits Leonard of Quirm to design the Discworld's second known spacecraft to slingshot under the Discworld and back around the top, landing on Cori Celesti. The vessel, named \"The Kite\" by Leonard, can carry only three people. Leonard of Quirm, Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, and Rincewind are selected for the trip. The Librarian accidentally stumbles aboard as well, having fallen asleep behind some crates of equipment while loading The Kite. After a few mishaps, including landing on the moon (to replenish their oxygen supply after the Librarian's unexpected presence threatened to leave them without enough air to survive the trip) and nearly having their swamp dragon powered spaceship explode on them, they crash in a spectacular fashion at, or rather, into the main gate of Cori Celesti. Meanwhile, the Horde have already reached Cori Celesti. The gods allow them to sneak in disguised as gods themselves, despite (or perhaps because of) their having been betrayed to the gods by Evil Harry. The Horde suspect that the gods have been manipulating their entire quest. Fate challenges Cohen to a game where he must roll higher than what Fate rolls on a standard 6-sided die. After Fate rolls a 6, Cohen cheats Fate by slicing the die in-half in mid-air with his sword; the two halves land with the 6 and 1 both facing up. Cohen also notes that"
      },
      {
        "text": " as gods themselves, despite (or perhaps because of) their having been betrayed to the gods by Evil Harry. The Horde suspect that the gods have been manipulating their entire quest. Fate challenges Cohen to a game where he must roll higher than what Fate rolls on a standard 6-sided die. After Fate rolls a 6, Cohen cheats Fate by slicing the die in-half in mid-air with his sword; the two halves land with the 6 and 1 both facing up. Cohen also notes that even if he doesn't succeed in killing the gods, someone will have tried, so someone will eventually try harder. Captain Carrot attempts to arrest the Horde, at which point the Horde arms the explosives. While initially intending to attack him, the Horde realise that as a single brave man outnumbered by his foes and trying to save the world, Carrot is a Hero (and probably a king in disguise), and so their defeat is certain. After Rincewind explains that detonating the explosives will destroy the entire Discworld, the Horde grab the already live explosives and throw the explosives\u2014and themselves\u2014off the mountain. As punishment for creating The Kite (which allowed humans to travel higher than the gods) and for not expressing belief in the gods, Leonard is ordered by the gods to paint the entire ceiling of the Temple of Small Gods with a spectacular mural of the whole world (despite Blind Io saying he would be satisfied with \"a nice duck-egg blue with a few stars\"). They impose a time limit of 10 years on the task\u2014unassisted, \"even with the scaffolding\". (Leonard finishes the task in a few weeks.) Carrot asks for a boon to allow for the repairs of The Kite so that they can return to Ankh-Morpork. Rincewind asks for a blue balloon and the Librarian asks for some library supplies (and manages to refrain from bouncing Blind Io's head on the ground after Io calls him 'a monkey'). The Horde"
      },
      {
        "text": " a time limit of 10 years on the task\u2014unassisted, \"even with the scaffolding\". (Leonard finishes the task in a few weeks.) Carrot asks for a boon to allow for the repairs of The Kite so that they can return to Ankh-Morpork. Rincewind asks for a blue balloon and the Librarian asks for some library supplies (and manages to refrain from bouncing Blind Io's head on the ground after Io calls him 'a monkey'). The Horde's end is ambiguous. Valkyries come to take the heroes to the Halls of the Slain, where a feast has been prepared for them. Instead, the Silver Horde, refusing to accept their deaths, steal the valkyries' horses and set off to find other worlds to \"do heroic stuff in.\" Death does not appear to them, as he often does when Discworld characters die, although he subsequently appears to Vena, and is evasive about whether he is \"collecting\". After the Horde leave with the Valkyries' horses, their first stop is to visit Mazda where he is being punished, cut off his chains, give him something to drink, and leave him a sword so that he may deal with his punisher. The bard, changed by his experience, composes a new style of saga, one with musical accompaniment, about it.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Vile Bodies",
    "author": "Evelyn Waugh",
    "published_date": "1930",
    "synopsis": " Adam Fenwick-Symes is the novel's antihero; his quest to marry Nina parodies the conventions of romantic comedy, as the traditional foils and allies prove distracted and ineffectual. War looms, Adam's circle of friends disintegrates, and Adam and Nina's engagement flounders. At the book's end, we find Adam alone on an apocalyptic European battlefield. The book's shift in tone from light-hearted romp to bleak desolation has bothered Okoye. (Waugh himself later attributed it to the breakdown of his first marriage halfway through the book's composition). Others have defended the novel's curious ending as a poetically just reversal of the conventions of comic romance.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Adam Fenwick-Symes is the novel's antihero; his quest to marry Nina parodies the conventions of romantic comedy, as the traditional foils and allies prove distracted and ineffectual. War looms, Adam's circle of friends disintegrates, and Adam and Nina's engagement flounders. At the book's end, we find Adam alone on an apocalyptic European battlefield. The book's shift in tone from light-hearted romp to bleak desolation has bothered Okoye. (Waugh himself later attributed it to the breakdown of his first marriage halfway through the book's composition). Others have defended the novel's curious ending as a poetically just reversal of the conventions of comic romance.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Gilgamesh the King",
    "author": "Robert Silverberg",
    "published_date": "1984",
    "synopsis": " The novel is told from the point of view of Gilgamesh, and is primarily ambivalent about the supernatural elements of the epic. Most of the events are portrayed in a fairly realistic manner, and the reader is left undecided as to whether certain events are coincidence, or divine intervention. Silverberg afterwards wrote a number of stories for the fantasy anthology series Heroes in Hell describing Gilgamesh's posthumous adventures in the underworld, including the award-winning novella \"Gilgamesh in the Outback.\" fr:Gilgamesh, roi d'Ourouk fi:Kuningas Gilgame\u0161\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is told from the point of view of Gilgamesh, and is primarily ambivalent about the supernatural elements of the epic. Most of the events are portrayed in a fairly realistic manner, and the reader is left undecided as to whether certain events are coincidence, or divine intervention. Silverberg afterwards wrote a number of stories for the fantasy anthology series Heroes in Hell describing Gilgamesh's posthumous adventures in the underworld, including the award-winning novella \"Gilgamesh in the Outback.\" fr:Gilgamesh, roi d'Ourouk fi:Kuningas Gilgame\u0161\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Roma Eterna",
    "author": "Robert Silverberg",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The novel is presented as a series of vignettes over a period of about 1500 years, from 1282 ab urbe condita (AD 529) to 2723 AUC (AD 1970). Most of the story-chapters involve Roman politics, either the competition between the Western and Eastern Empires to dominate the other or the violent creation of the Second Roman Republic in about 2603 AUC (AD 1850). Others describe the first Roman circumnavigation of the world and unsuccessful attempts to conquer Nova Roma (North America). Many features of our own history are repeated in this history, though under changed circumstances: The equivalent of the 16th and 17th Centuries have bold navigators and adventurers, romanticised by later generations but unpleasantly brutal and ruthless when looked at closely; in the late 18th to mid-19th Centuries, a decadent old order is overthrown by revolution followed by a reign of terror and the reemergence of Republicanism; though Italy remains a central part of the Roman Empire, the Latin dialect spoken there develops into a kind of Italian, and the name \"Marcus\" changes into \"Marco\"; though Vienna is a provincial capital which never had an Emperor of its own, its population dances the Waltz; by the 20th Century, people travel by cars rather than carriages and by the second half of the century, space flight is achieved. It concludes with the first story to be written, when a group of Hebrew citizens in Alexandria prepare to depart Earth in a rocket which explodes shortly after takeoff. But they will try again, still believing God chose them to inherit the Promised Land, just not on Rome-dominated Earth.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is presented as a series of vignettes over a period of about 1500 years, from 1282 ab urbe condita (AD 529) to 2723 AUC (AD 1970). Most of the story-chapters involve Roman politics, either the competition between the Western and Eastern Empires to dominate the other or the violent creation of the Second Roman Republic in about 2603 AUC (AD 1850). Others describe the first Roman circumnavigation of the world and unsuccessful attempts to conquer Nova Roma (North America). Many features of our own history are repeated in this history, though under changed circumstances: The equivalent of the 16th and 17th Centuries have bold navigators and adventurers, romanticised by later generations but unpleasantly brutal and ruthless when looked at closely; in the late 18th to mid-19th Centuries, a decadent old order is overthrown by revolution followed by a reign of terror and the reemergence of Republicanism; though Italy remains a central part of the Roman Empire, the Latin dialect spoken there develops into a kind of Italian, and the name \"Marcus\" changes into \"Marco\"; though Vienna is a provincial capital which never had an Emperor of its own, its population dances the Waltz; by the 20th Century, people travel by cars rather than carriages and by the second half of the century, space flight is achieved. It concludes with the first story to be written, when a group of Hebrew citizens in Alexandria prepare to depart Earth in a rocket which explodes shortly after takeoff. But they will try again, still believing God chose them to inherit the Promised Land, just not on Rome-dominated Earth.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " prepare to depart Earth in a rocket which explodes shortly after takeoff. But they will try again, still believing God chose them to inherit the Promised Land, just not on Rome-dominated Earth.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Emerald City of Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1910",
    "synopsis": " At the beginning of this story, it is made quite clear that Dorothy, the primary protagonist of many of the previous Oz books, is in the habit of freely speaking of her adventures to her only living relatives, her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Neither of them believes a word of her stories, but consider her a dreamer. She is undeterred, unlike her alter ego in the film Return to Oz, who is much perturbed by her guardians' doubts. Later, it is revealed that the destruction of their farmhouse by the cyclone in the original book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has left Uncle Henry in terrible debt. In order to pay it, he has taken out a mortgage on his farm. If he cannot repay his creditors, they will seize the farm. He is not afraid for himself, but both he and his wife, Aunt Em, fear very much for their niece's future. Dorothy arranges with Princess Ozma to take them to the Land of Oz, where they will be safe. Using the magic belt, a tool captured from the jealous Nome King Roquat, Ozma transports them to her throne room. They are given rooms to live in and luxuries to enjoy, including a vast and complex wardrobe. They meet with many of Dorothy's animal friends, including the Cowardly Lion and Billina the Yellow Hen. In the underground Nome Kingdom, the desirous Roquat is plotting to seize the Land of Oz. He was greatly embarrassed years ago when Dorothy, Ozma, and their many friends entered his domain and freed the royal family of Ev from imprisonment; as a result, he wants to embarrass them in a similar way. After ordering the expulsion of his General, who will not agree to such an attack, and the death of his Colonel, who also refuses, King Roquat holds counsel with a veteran soldier called Guph. Guph believes that against the many magicians and magicks of Oz (the reputation of which has grown in the telling), the Nome Army has no chance alone. He therefore sets out personally to recruit allies. Dorothy, accompanied by the Wizard of Oz and several other friends, departs the Emerald City in a carriage drawn by the Wooden Sawhorse, intending to give her aunt and uncle a tour of the land. Many of the people encountered have never been seen in other books: the living cut-out paper dolls created by an immortal called Miss Cuttenclip; the anthropomorphic jigsaw puzzles known as the Fuddles; the loquacious Rigmaroles; the paranoid Flutterbudgets; the living kitchen utensils of Utensia; the anthropomorphic pastries of Bunbury; the civilized rabbits of Bunnybury; and the zebra, who holds geographical disputes with a crab. Other figures, more familiar to readers of previous books, include the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, as well as the four tribes of Oz\u2014the Munchkins, the Quadlings, the Gillikins, and the Winkies. The Nome General Guph visits three nations; the Whimsies, the Growleywogs, and the Phanfasms. The Whimsies are large and hulking, but possess disproportionately small heads. This causes other species to call them stupid, stripping them of any self-esteem. To deny this, the Whimsies wear enormous, luridly designed masks that cover all of their heads. The Growleywogs are muscular giants, possessing no surplus flesh and no mercy. They are arrogant and cruel. As such, they are eager not only to help the Nomes conquer Oz, but also to subjugate the Nomes as well. Of the latter plan, they say nothing, but send Guph on his way. Last of his meetings is that which is with the mysterious, diabolical Phanfasms. To Guph, the Phanfasms resemble men, but having the heads of various carnivorous animals. Their true forms, number, standard of living, culture, and extent of influence remain unknown to both Guph and the reader, although both receive hints in the narrative. The Phanfasms send Guph home, telling him that they will conquer Oz alongside the other armies. It is their plan to do so, then to turn traitor and dominate their allies. Having learned of this through Ozma's omniscient Magic Picture, the people of Oz become worried. The climax takes place in the Emerald City, where Ozma wishes (using her magic belt) for a large amount of dust to appear in the tunnel. The Nome King and his allies are defeated after they drink thirstily from the Fountain of Oblivion and forget all their evil plans. Ozma uses the magic belt to send them all home. To forestall a future invasion of Oz Glinda uses a magic charm to render Oz invisible and unreachable to everyone except those within the land itself.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At the beginning of this story, it is made quite clear that Dorothy, the primary protagonist of many of the previous Oz books, is in the habit of freely speaking of her adventures to her only living relatives, her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Neither of them believes a word of her stories, but consider her a dreamer. She is undeterred, unlike her alter ego in the film Return to Oz, who is much perturbed by her guardians' doubts. Later, it is revealed that the destruction of their farmhouse by the cyclone in the original book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has left Uncle Henry in terrible debt. In order to pay it, he has taken out a mortgage on his farm. If he cannot repay his creditors, they will seize the farm. He is not afraid for himself, but both he and his wife, Aunt Em, fear very much for their niece's future. Dorothy arranges with Princess Ozma to take them to the Land of Oz, where they will be safe. Using the magic belt, a tool captured from the jealous Nome King Roquat, Ozma transports them to her throne room. They are given rooms to live in and luxuries to enjoy, including a vast and complex wardrobe. They meet with many of Dorothy's animal friends, including the Cowardly Lion and Billina the Yellow Hen. In the underground Nome Kingdom, the desirous Roquat is plotting to seize the Land of Oz. He was greatly embarrassed years ago when Dorothy, Ozma, and their many friends entered his domain and freed the royal family of Ev from imprisonment; as a result, he wants to embarrass them in a similar way. After ordering the expulsion of his General, who will not agree to such an attack, and the death of his Colonel, who also refuses, King Roquat holds counsel with a veteran soldier called Guph. Guph believes that against the many magicians and magicks of Oz (the reputation of"
      },
      {
        "text": " embarrassed years ago when Dorothy, Ozma, and their many friends entered his domain and freed the royal family of Ev from imprisonment; as a result, he wants to embarrass them in a similar way. After ordering the expulsion of his General, who will not agree to such an attack, and the death of his Colonel, who also refuses, King Roquat holds counsel with a veteran soldier called Guph. Guph believes that against the many magicians and magicks of Oz (the reputation of which has grown in the telling), the Nome Army has no chance alone. He therefore sets out personally to recruit allies. Dorothy, accompanied by the Wizard of Oz and several other friends, departs the Emerald City in a carriage drawn by the Wooden Sawhorse, intending to give her aunt and uncle a tour of the land. Many of the people encountered have never been seen in other books: the living cut-out paper dolls created by an immortal called Miss Cuttenclip; the anthropomorphic jigsaw puzzles known as the Fuddles; the loquacious Rigmaroles; the paranoid Flutterbudgets; the living kitchen utensils of Utensia; the anthropomorphic pastries of Bunbury; the civilized rabbits of Bunnybury; and the zebra, who holds geographical disputes with a crab. Other figures, more familiar to readers of previous books, include the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, as well as the four tribes of Oz\u2014the Munchkins, the Quadlings, the Gillikins, and the Winkies. The Nome General Guph visits three nations; the Whimsies, the Growleywogs, and the Phanfasms. The Whimsies are large and hulking, but possess disproportionately small heads. This causes other species to call them stupid, stripping them of any self-esteem. To deny this, the Whimsies wear enormous, luridly designed masks that cover all of their heads. The"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Quadlings, the Gillikins, and the Winkies. The Nome General Guph visits three nations; the Whimsies, the Growleywogs, and the Phanfasms. The Whimsies are large and hulking, but possess disproportionately small heads. This causes other species to call them stupid, stripping them of any self-esteem. To deny this, the Whimsies wear enormous, luridly designed masks that cover all of their heads. The Growleywogs are muscular giants, possessing no surplus flesh and no mercy. They are arrogant and cruel. As such, they are eager not only to help the Nomes conquer Oz, but also to subjugate the Nomes as well. Of the latter plan, they say nothing, but send Guph on his way. Last of his meetings is that which is with the mysterious, diabolical Phanfasms. To Guph, the Phanfasms resemble men, but having the heads of various carnivorous animals. Their true forms, number, standard of living, culture, and extent of influence remain unknown to both Guph and the reader, although both receive hints in the narrative. The Phanfasms send Guph home, telling him that they will conquer Oz alongside the other armies. It is their plan to do so, then to turn traitor and dominate their allies. Having learned of this through Ozma's omniscient Magic Picture, the people of Oz become worried. The climax takes place in the Emerald City, where Ozma wishes (using her magic belt) for a large amount of dust to appear in the tunnel. The Nome King and his allies are defeated after they drink thirstily from the Fountain of Oblivion and forget all their evil plans. Ozma uses the magic belt to send them all home. To forestall a future invasion of Oz Glinda uses a magic charm to render Oz invisible and unreachable to everyone except those within the land itself"
      },
      {
        "text": " worried. The climax takes place in the Emerald City, where Ozma wishes (using her magic belt) for a large amount of dust to appear in the tunnel. The Nome King and his allies are defeated after they drink thirstily from the Fountain of Oblivion and forget all their evil plans. Ozma uses the magic belt to send them all home. To forestall a future invasion of Oz Glinda uses a magic charm to render Oz invisible and unreachable to everyone except those within the land itself.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Door Into Ocean",
    "author": "Joan Slonczewski",
    "published_date": "1986",
    "synopsis": " The novel is set in the future, on the fictional planet of Shora, a moon covered by water. The inhabitants of this planet, known as Sharers, are all female. Sharers use genetic engineering to control the ecology of their planet. They are peaceful beings who \"share\" \u2014 that is, they have a spiritual and linguistic union with each other and treat everyone equally. The Sharers take egalitarianism for granted because they share and they lack the concept of \"power-over\", making their society one in which conflicts are settled without violence. When they are being threatened by an outside power, they resist nonviolently because they refuse to believe in power. Thus, the Sharers can never be subdued by force. The Sharer way of nonviolence is more than spiritual. It is based on historical realities of nonviolent resistance. The author based the events of her novel on much historical research, particularly the writings of peace historian Gene Sharp. The novel includes much biological research into the evolution of innate capacities for nonviolence. For example, the participation of children in nonviolent resistance draws on deep instinctual responses found in humans and related mammals. A unique expression of the Sharer way is their language, in which subject and object are interchangeable. The Sharers know by context what subject and object are\u2014but their language does not allow them to make a distinction. As a result, they always know that what one person \"forces\" upon another can always go the other way. Their language impedes anyone from \"giving orders\" to dominate others. For example, if a stranger says, \"You must obey me,\" the Sharer hears, \"I must obey you,\" or (the closest translation), \"We must share agreement.\" Their language reinforces the Sharers' inability to accept any situation in which one individual dominates another by force. The Sharer worldview extends to their environment, their surrounding ecosystem. They cannot act upon their plants and animals without being acted upon in return. So, for example, because Sharers consume plants and animals as food, they accept the fact that they in turn will become food for other life forms; that predators will ultimately consume them. At the beginning of the novel, the Sharers are all female. But as they encounter a non-Sharer community from another planet, which threatens them, the Sharer Merwen realizes that they must find out whether other kinds of \"people\" can share their life or not. Merwen goes to the other planet, Valedon, to recruit a young man, Spinel, to return to Shora and attempt to learn their ways. This venture leads to disagreement within the Sharer community (they have plenty of disagreements, though addressed without violence). With many false starts, Spinel gradually learns the Sharer way, as a man; and ultimately he works with the Sharers to help them defend their planet from a military invasion.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is set in the future, on the fictional planet of Shora, a moon covered by water. The inhabitants of this planet, known as Sharers, are all female. Sharers use genetic engineering to control the ecology of their planet. They are peaceful beings who \"share\" \u2014 that is, they have a spiritual and linguistic union with each other and treat everyone equally. The Sharers take egalitarianism for granted because they share and they lack the concept of \"power-over\", making their society one in which conflicts are settled without violence. When they are being threatened by an outside power, they resist nonviolently because they refuse to believe in power. Thus, the Sharers can never be subdued by force. The Sharer way of nonviolence is more than spiritual. It is based on historical realities of nonviolent resistance. The author based the events of her novel on much historical research, particularly the writings of peace historian Gene Sharp. The novel includes much biological research into the evolution of innate capacities for nonviolence. For example, the participation of children in nonviolent resistance draws on deep instinctual responses found in humans and related mammals. A unique expression of the Sharer way is their language, in which subject and object are interchangeable. The Sharers know by context what subject and object are\u2014but their language does not allow them to make a distinction. As a result, they always know that what one person \"forces\" upon another can always go the other way. Their language impedes anyone from \"giving orders\" to dominate others. For example, if a stranger says, \"You must obey me,\" the Sharer hears, \"I must obey you,\" or (the closest translation), \"We must share agreement.\" Their language reinforces the Sharers' inability to accept any situation in which one individual dominates another by force. The Sharer worldview extends to their environment, their surrounding ecosystem. They cannot act upon their plants and animals without being acted upon in return. So, for example"
      },
      {
        "text": " anyone from \"giving orders\" to dominate others. For example, if a stranger says, \"You must obey me,\" the Sharer hears, \"I must obey you,\" or (the closest translation), \"We must share agreement.\" Their language reinforces the Sharers' inability to accept any situation in which one individual dominates another by force. The Sharer worldview extends to their environment, their surrounding ecosystem. They cannot act upon their plants and animals without being acted upon in return. So, for example, because Sharers consume plants and animals as food, they accept the fact that they in turn will become food for other life forms; that predators will ultimately consume them. At the beginning of the novel, the Sharers are all female. But as they encounter a non-Sharer community from another planet, which threatens them, the Sharer Merwen realizes that they must find out whether other kinds of \"people\" can share their life or not. Merwen goes to the other planet, Valedon, to recruit a young man, Spinel, to return to Shora and attempt to learn their ways. This venture leads to disagreement within the Sharer community (they have plenty of disagreements, though addressed without violence). With many false starts, Spinel gradually learns the Sharer way, as a man; and ultimately he works with the Sharers to help them defend their planet from a military invasion.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Robber Bride",
    "author": "Margaret Atwood",
    "published_date": "1993-09",
    "synopsis": " During their most recent outing, three friends see Zenia, a long-dead university classmate who had stolen, one by one, their respective beaux. The novel alternates between the present and flashbacks featuring the points of view of Tony, Charis, and Roz, respectively. Zenia has given each woman a different version of her biography, tailor-made to insinuate herself into their lives. No one version of Zenia is the truth, and the reader knows no more than the characters. Their betrayals by Zenia are what initially bring the three together as friends and bind their lives together irrevocably; their monthly luncheons began after her funeral. The novel, like other works by Atwood, deals with power struggles between men and women; it is also a meditation on the nature of friendship, power, and trust between women. Zenia's character can be read as either the ultimate self-empowered woman, a traitor who abuses sisterhood, or simply a self-interested mercenary who cunningly uses the \"war between the sexes\" to further her own interests. One reading posits Zenia as a kind of guardian angel to the women, saving them from unworthy men. Atwood claims that of all the characters she has written, she identifies most \"with Zenia. She is the professional liar, and what else do fiction writers do but create lies that other people will believe?\" In the novel's present, Roz, Charis, and Tony finally each individually confront Zenia in a Toronto hotel room, where she tells each of them that the men they'd been with got what they deserved, and gives various versions of her earlier staged death, each as implausible as the accounts of her life. One of the four women never leaves that hotel alive. The novel itself leaves the reader questioning who was (or were) the victim(s) of life.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " During their most recent outing, three friends see Zenia, a long-dead university classmate who had stolen, one by one, their respective beaux. The novel alternates between the present and flashbacks featuring the points of view of Tony, Charis, and Roz, respectively. Zenia has given each woman a different version of her biography, tailor-made to insinuate herself into their lives. No one version of Zenia is the truth, and the reader knows no more than the characters. Their betrayals by Zenia are what initially bring the three together as friends and bind their lives together irrevocably; their monthly luncheons began after her funeral. The novel, like other works by Atwood, deals with power struggles between men and women; it is also a meditation on the nature of friendship, power, and trust between women. Zenia's character can be read as either the ultimate self-empowered woman, a traitor who abuses sisterhood, or simply a self-interested mercenary who cunningly uses the \"war between the sexes\" to further her own interests. One reading posits Zenia as a kind of guardian angel to the women, saving them from unworthy men. Atwood claims that of all the characters she has written, she identifies most \"with Zenia. She is the professional liar, and what else do fiction writers do but create lies that other people will believe?\" In the novel's present, Roz, Charis, and Tony finally each individually confront Zenia in a Toronto hotel room, where she tells each of them that the men they'd been with got what they deserved, and gives various versions of her earlier staged death, each as implausible as the accounts of her life. One of the four women never leaves that hotel alive. The novel itself leaves the reader questioning who was (or were) the victim(s) of life.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Zenia in a Toronto hotel room, where she tells each of them that the men they'd been with got what they deserved, and gives various versions of her earlier staged death, each as implausible as the accounts of her life. One of the four women never leaves that hotel alive. The novel itself leaves the reader questioning who was (or were) the victim(s) of life.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lazarillo de Tormes",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "1554",
    "synopsis": " L\u00e1zaro is a boy of humble origins from Salamanca. After his stepfather is accused of thievery, his mother asks a wily blind beggar to take Lazarillo (little L\u00e1zaro) on as his apprentice. L\u00e1zaro develops his cunning while serving the blind beggar and several other masters. Table of contents: *Prologue *Chapter (or treatise) 1: childhood and apprenticeship to a blind man. *Chapter 2: serving a priest. *Chapter 3: serving a squire. *Chapter 4: serving a friar. *Chapter 5: serving a pardoner. *Chapter 6: serving a chaplain. *Chapter 7: serving a bailiff and an archbishop.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " L\u00e1zaro is a boy of humble origins from Salamanca. After his stepfather is accused of thievery, his mother asks a wily blind beggar to take Lazarillo (little L\u00e1zaro) on as his apprentice. L\u00e1zaro develops his cunning while serving the blind beggar and several other masters. Table of contents: *Prologue *Chapter (or treatise) 1: childhood and apprenticeship to a blind man. *Chapter 2: serving a priest. *Chapter 3: serving a squire. *Chapter 4: serving a friar. *Chapter 5: serving a pardoner. *Chapter 6: serving a chaplain. *Chapter 7: serving a bailiff and an archbishop.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Day of the Locust",
    "author": "Nathanael West",
    "published_date": "1939-05-16",
    "synopsis": " The book follows a young man named Tod Hackett who thinks of himself as a painter and artist, but who works in Hollywood as a costume designer and background painter. He falls in love with Faye Greener, an aspiring starlet who lives nearby. Between his work in the studio and his introduction to Faye's friends, he is soon interacting with numerous Hollywood hangers-on, including a cowboy who lives in the hills above the studios and works as an extra in cowboy movies, his Mexican friend who keeps fighting cocks, and Homer Simpson, a hapless businessman whom Faye is taking advantage of. The book ends with a riot at a movie premiere.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book follows a young man named Tod Hackett who thinks of himself as a painter and artist, but who works in Hollywood as a costume designer and background painter. He falls in love with Faye Greener, an aspiring starlet who lives nearby. Between his work in the studio and his introduction to Faye's friends, he is soon interacting with numerous Hollywood hangers-on, including a cowboy who lives in the hills above the studios and works as an extra in cowboy movies, his Mexican friend who keeps fighting cocks, and Homer Simpson, a hapless businessman whom Faye is taking advantage of. The book ends with a riot at a movie premiere.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "On Her Majesty's Secret Service",
    "author": "Ian Fleming",
    "published_date": "1963-04-01",
    "synopsis": " For more than a year, James Bond, British Secret Service operative 007, has been involved in \"Operation Bedlam\": trailing the private criminal organisation SPECTRE and its leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The organisation had hijacked two nuclear devices and subsequently blackmailed the western world, as described in Thunderball. Convinced SPECTRE no longer exists, Bond is frustrated by MI6's insistence that he continue the search and his inability to find Blofeld. He composes a letter of resignation for his superior, M. Whilst composing his letter, Bond encounters a beautiful, suicidal young woman named Contessa Teresa \"Tracy\" di Vicenzo first on the road and subsequently at the gambling table, where he saves her from a coup de deshonneur by paying the gambling debt she is unable to cover. The following day Bond follows her and interrupts her attempted suicide, but they are captured by professional henchmen. They are taken to the offices of Marc-Ange Draco, head of the Unione Corse, the biggest European crime syndicate. Tracy is the daughter and only child of Draco who believes the only way to save his daughter from further suicide attempts is for Bond to marry her. To facilitate this, he offers Bond a dowry of \u00a31 million (\u00a3 million in 2013 pounds); Bond refuses the offer, but agrees to continue romancing Tracy while her mental health improves. Afterwards Draco uses his contacts to inform Bond that Blofeld is somewhere in Switzerland. Bond returns to England to be given another lead: the College of Arms in London has discovered that Blofeld has assumed the title and name Comte Balthazar de Bleuville and wants formal confirmation of the title and has asked the College to declare him the reigning count. On a visit to the College of Arms, Bond finds that the family motto of Sir Thomas Bond is \"The World Is Not Enough\", and that he might be (though unlikely) Bond's ancestor. On the pretext that a genetically-inherited minor physical abnormality (a lack of earlobes) needs a personal confirmation, Bond impersonates a College of Arms representative, Sir Hilary Bray to visit Blofeld's lair atop Piz Gloria, where he finally meets Blofeld. Blofeld has undergone plastic surgery partly to remove his earlobes, but also to disguise himself from the police and security services who are tracking him down. Bond learns Blofeld has been curing a group of young British and Irish women of their livestock and food allergies. In truth, Blofeld and his aide, Irma Bunt, have been brainwashing them into carrying biological warfare agents back to Britain and Ireland in order to destroy the agricultural economy, upon which post-World War II Britain depends. Believing himself discovered, Bond escapes by ski from Piz Gloria, chased by SPECTRE operatives, a number of whom he kills in the process. Afterward, in a state of total exhaustion, he encounters Tracy. She is in the town at the base of the mountain after being told by her father that Bond may be in the vicinity. Bond is too weak to take on Blofeld's henchmen alone and she helps him escape to the airport. Smitten by the resourceful, headstrong woman, he proposes marriage and she accepts. Bond then returns to England and works on the plan to capture Blofeld. Helped by Draco's Union Corse, Bond mounts an air assault against the clinic and Blofeld. Whilst the clinic is destroyed, Blofeld escapes down a bobsled run and although Bond give chase Blofeld escapes. Bond flies to Germany where he marries Tracy. The two of them drive off on honeymoon and, a few hours later, Blofeld and Bunt drive past, machine gunning them: Tracy is killed in the attack.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " For more than a year, James Bond, British Secret Service operative 007, has been involved in \"Operation Bedlam\": trailing the private criminal organisation SPECTRE and its leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The organisation had hijacked two nuclear devices and subsequently blackmailed the western world, as described in Thunderball. Convinced SPECTRE no longer exists, Bond is frustrated by MI6's insistence that he continue the search and his inability to find Blofeld. He composes a letter of resignation for his superior, M. Whilst composing his letter, Bond encounters a beautiful, suicidal young woman named Contessa Teresa \"Tracy\" di Vicenzo first on the road and subsequently at the gambling table, where he saves her from a coup de deshonneur by paying the gambling debt she is unable to cover. The following day Bond follows her and interrupts her attempted suicide, but they are captured by professional henchmen. They are taken to the offices of Marc-Ange Draco, head of the Unione Corse, the biggest European crime syndicate. Tracy is the daughter and only child of Draco who believes the only way to save his daughter from further suicide attempts is for Bond to marry her. To facilitate this, he offers Bond a dowry of \u00a31 million (\u00a3 million in 2013 pounds); Bond refuses the offer, but agrees to continue romancing Tracy while her mental health improves. Afterwards Draco uses his contacts to inform Bond that Blofeld is somewhere in Switzerland. Bond returns to England to be given another lead: the College of Arms in London has discovered that Blofeld has assumed the title and name Comte Balthazar de Bleuville and wants formal confirmation of the title and has asked the College to declare him the reigning count. On a visit to the College of Arms, Bond finds that the family motto of Sir Thomas Bond is \"The World Is Not Enough\", and that he might be (though unlikely)"
      },
      {
        "text": "eld is somewhere in Switzerland. Bond returns to England to be given another lead: the College of Arms in London has discovered that Blofeld has assumed the title and name Comte Balthazar de Bleuville and wants formal confirmation of the title and has asked the College to declare him the reigning count. On a visit to the College of Arms, Bond finds that the family motto of Sir Thomas Bond is \"The World Is Not Enough\", and that he might be (though unlikely) Bond's ancestor. On the pretext that a genetically-inherited minor physical abnormality (a lack of earlobes) needs a personal confirmation, Bond impersonates a College of Arms representative, Sir Hilary Bray to visit Blofeld's lair atop Piz Gloria, where he finally meets Blofeld. Blofeld has undergone plastic surgery partly to remove his earlobes, but also to disguise himself from the police and security services who are tracking him down. Bond learns Blofeld has been curing a group of young British and Irish women of their livestock and food allergies. In truth, Blofeld and his aide, Irma Bunt, have been brainwashing them into carrying biological warfare agents back to Britain and Ireland in order to destroy the agricultural economy, upon which post-World War II Britain depends. Believing himself discovered, Bond escapes by ski from Piz Gloria, chased by SPECTRE operatives, a number of whom he kills in the process. Afterward, in a state of total exhaustion, he encounters Tracy. She is in the town at the base of the mountain after being told by her father that Bond may be in the vicinity. Bond is too weak to take on Blofeld's henchmen alone and she helps him escape to the airport. Smitten by the resourceful, headstrong woman, he proposes marriage and she accepts. Bond then returns to England and works on the plan to capture Blof"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the process. Afterward, in a state of total exhaustion, he encounters Tracy. She is in the town at the base of the mountain after being told by her father that Bond may be in the vicinity. Bond is too weak to take on Blofeld's henchmen alone and she helps him escape to the airport. Smitten by the resourceful, headstrong woman, he proposes marriage and she accepts. Bond then returns to England and works on the plan to capture Blofeld. Helped by Draco's Union Corse, Bond mounts an air assault against the clinic and Blofeld. Whilst the clinic is destroyed, Blofeld escapes down a bobsled run and although Bond give chase Blofeld escapes. Bond flies to Germany where he marries Tracy. The two of them drive off on honeymoon and, a few hours later, Blofeld and Bunt drive past, machine gunning them: Tracy is killed in the attack.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Mote in God's Eye",
    "author": "Jerry Pournelle",
    "published_date": "1974",
    "synopsis": " The book is split up into four parts. In the year AD 3017, humanity is recovering slowly from an interstellar civil war that tore apart the first Empire of Man. A new Empire has risen and is occupied in establishing control over the remnants of its predecessor, by force if needed. Commander Lord Roderick Blaine, having participated in the suppression of a rebellion on the planet of New Chicago, is given command of an Imperial battlecruiser, INSS MacArthur, when the captain has to stay behind to restore order on the planet. Blaine is given secret orders to take Horace Hussein Bury, a powerful interstellar merchant of Arabic descent who is suspected of fomenting the revolt for his own profit, to the Imperial capital, Sparta. Blaine is one of the few people available who is wealthier than Bury, so he is the ideal man for the mission as he can't be bribed. MacArthur is to be repaired in the New Caledonia system, then proceed to the capital. Another passenger is Lady Sandra Bright \"Sally\" Fowler, the niece of an Imperial Senator and a rescued prisoner of the rebels. New Caledonia is the capital of the Trans-Coalsack sector, located on the opposite side of the Coalsack Nebula from Earth. Also in the sector is a red supergiant star known as Murcheson's Eye. Associated with it is a yellow Sun-like star. From New Caledonia, the yellow star appears in front of the Eye. Since some see the Eye and the Coalsack as the face of a hooded man, perhaps even the face of God, the yellow star is known as the Mote in God's Eye. While in the New Caledonia system, Blaine receives a message saying that an alien spacecraft has been detected, and includes an order that MacArthur intercept it. Human ships use the Alderson Drive, which allows them to \"jump\" instantaneously between points in specific star systems. The alien craft, by contrast, is propelled by a solar sail, taking 150 years to cross between stars at sublight speed. MacArthur duly intercepts the craft and is fired upon by its automated systems, but manages to capture it relatively intact. However, on arrival at the planet New Scotland, its single occupant, evidently the pilot, is found to be dead. The alien is bizarrely asymmetric, with two delicate arms on one side of its body and a single, much larger and stronger arm on the other. Although it is bipedal and has a head and face similar to humans, its anatomy is entirely different. It has no flexible spine and the face is capable of little expression. It is the first apparently intelligent alien race that humans have come into contact with. The ship itself is composed of alloys with remarkable properties and designed around unique, custom-built parts, no two alike, that perform multiple unrelated tasks simultaneously. MacArthur and the battleship Lenin are sent to the Mote: the star from which the alien ship came. MacArthur carries civilian research teams intended to meet with and investigate the Moties, while Lenin is there to ensure the security of humanity's technology and secrets, avoiding all contact with the aliens. Aboard Lenin is the commander in charge of the mission, Admiral Lavrenti Kutuzov, a ruthless, supremely loyal officer who had already sterilized one rebellious colony planet to safeguard Imperial Reunification. Bury goes along ostensibly because a merchant is needed to assess the trade possibilities, but actually because there is nobody trustworthy enough to take him to the capital. Sally, a trained anthropologist, ranks too highly in the political aristocracy to be refused. Despite (or rather, due to) the civilians' distrust, Blaine remains in command of MacArthur. The Mote has only one Alderson point leading to it, and to reach it the ships must actually enter the outer layers of the red supergiant itself before activating the drive. Supergiant stars are up to 500 million km in diameter, but the outer layers are basically a hot vacuum, which the human ships can survive because of the protective Langston Field. MacArthur successfully makes contact with the Moties. They have advanced technology (in some areas superior to that of the First Empire, let alone the current Second), but seem friendly and willing to share it. Indeed, they would have been a formidable threat to Humanity, had they not been bottled up in their home system. Although they also possess the Alderson Drive, they consider it a failure\u2014the \"Crazy Eddie\" Drive which makes ships disappear. When everything works perfectly, the termination of their Alderson Drive tramline inside the supergiant destroys their ships, since they have no knowledge of the protective Field. The Moties deduce that humans use the drive because MacArthur and Lenin appear at the \"Crazy Eddie Point\", the local origin of their tramline. The Moties are an old species that has evolved into many specialized subspecies. The first to board MacArthur is an engineer, a brown fur form with amazing technical abilities but limited speech, who brings along a pair of tiny Motie \"Watchmakers\" as assistants. Some days later, an official delegation of Motie Mediators arrives, brown and white forms like the dead pilot of the probe ship, who have astounding communication and negotiation skills but very limited ability with tools. A contact party of humans, including Sally Fowler, accompanies them to the surface of Mote Prime. Each Mediator adopts a particular human in this group, becoming his (her in Sally's case) Fyunch(click), studying their subject and learning how to think like him or her, even to the point of exactly reproducing voice and mannerisms. Back on MacArthur, disaster strikes. The Watchmakers have escaped, and although it was assumed they had died, they have actually been breeding furiously. Despite several attempts to rid MacArthur of the infestation, the Watchmakers, unknown to the human crew, continued quietly redesigning MacArthur and rebuilding it for greater living space. When they are discovered, a losing battle for control of the ship erupts. The crew is eventually forced to abandon ship. The contact party is also recalled without explanation and told to rendezvous directly with Lenin, which destroys MacArthur to prevent the capture of human technology. These events reveal the existence of an improved Langston Field which expands as it absorbs energy, increasing its surface area and dissipating heat faster. During the evacuation, three MacArthur midshipmen escape from the ship in lifeboats. Unfortunately, these were reconstructed by the descendants of the escaped Watchmakers, and automatic controls force a landing in an unpopulated area of Mote Prime. Exploring unsupervised for the first time, they find a fortified dome-like structure whose doors are locked by a puzzle that requires relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy to solve. It is a perfectly maintained yet completely deserted building that appears to be some type of museum. Every aspect of Motie civilization is preserved in detail, including in-place fragments of several smaller domes which have been violently shattered. The exhibits as a whole provide evidence of a very long and violent history, though the Moties had carefully portrayed themselves to the Expedition members as completely peaceful. Following this discovery, the midshipmen, Jonathon Whitbread, Horst Staley, and Gavin Potter, are reunited with Whitbread's Fyunch(click) Mediator escort, who reveals the self-destructive character underlying Motie society. Unlike human wars motivated by greed or malice, the Motie civilization is driven to conflict because of biology. The Moties are sequential hermaphrodites, changing sex over and over again during the course of their lives. However, if a Motie remains female for too long without becoming pregnant, the hormone imbalance will kill her. This characteristic ensures a never-ending population explosion. Attempts at population control through chemicals or infanticide have always failed for the Moties, because those who (secretly or openly) breed uncontrollably eventually swamp those Moties who comply. Once the population pressure rises high enough, massive wars inevitably result. Humans have encountered eight of the larger Motie subspecies, not including hybrids such as the Mediators: Masters, Engineers, Doctors, Porters, Farmers, Runners, Watchmakers and Meats, but the Masters concealed the existence of another type - the Warriors. Bred specifically for combat, they are innately superior in ability to any human soldier and capable of using any type of weapon. There are no longer any fissionable materials remaining in the Mote system, but asteroid bombardments serve as more than adequate weapons of mass destruction, giving the entire surface of the planet a cratered appearance resembling Mars. Each war typically ends in the complete destruction of the current civilization on Mote Prime. However, due to their high birth rates, enough Moties always survive to eventually repopulate the planet. A faster rise to civilization leads to a longer period between Collapses, since productivity increases more quickly than the population. The museums exist to accelerate this process after a collapse. They are located in unpopulated areas to avoid their destruction during the inevitable wars. Once the surviving population is advanced enough to solve the puzzle at the door, they have access to a literal catalogue of civilizations, and the weapons to put them into effect. Population is controlled by disease and injury between collapses and reconstructions, but the cycles have thus far never been stopped completely. The cycles of civilization, war, and collapse have apparently been repeating for hundreds of thousands of years. In some cases, Mote Prime was completely sterilized and then repopulated by those living in hollowed-out asteroids within the system. The current asymmetrical form is probably a mutation resulting from nuclear weaponry prior to a collapse. Presumably, each civilization arises, unlocks the museums, and discovers that unless they can solve a problem that had plagued countless others, they are doomed. Thus, the Moties have become fatalistically resigned to the never-ending Cycles. Only a mythical character called \"Crazy Eddie\" believes there is a way to change this, and any Motie who comes to believe a solution is possible is labeled as a \"Crazy Eddie\" and deemed insane. The current civilization is organized as a type of \"industrial feudalism\", where coalitions of related Masters govern the planet. Using the system's Alderson point to colonize other planets is proposed as one (ultimately unworkable) solution to the Cycles, leading to its designation as the \"Crazy Eddie Point\". Conflict erupts on Mote Prime between two groups of Masters considering this idea. The smaller group recognizes that expansion to other planets would only postpone the Cycles; nearby planets would soon be filled with Moties, and the Alderson Drive takes time to use \u2014 years of travel across systems from tramline to tramline to reach distant planets. Eventually, it would be easier for Moties to challenge humans for their planets, especially since humans cannot compete with Moties, technologically, biologically, or even numerically. Motie victory would be inevitable, but eventually futile as the population continues to expand exponentially. However, the more powerful coalition of Masters sees this temporary solution as more appealing than the impending phase of collapse. Both groups send envoys to the human worlds with instructions to negotiate for the majority position. To conceal the danger to human civilization, the three midshipmen who reached Mote Prime are not permitted to return to Lenin and are killed while resisting capture. Lenin returns home, taking with it \u2014 in violation of explicit orders to avoid contact at all costs \u2014 the three Motie ambassadors. Kutuzov takes this step only after much debate. The Motie embassy contains two Mediators called Charlie and Jock, and a Keeper (a sterile Master), known as Ivan. The choice of three infertile Moties occurs both to avoid conflict on Mote Prime, since no single family will control the mission, and to continue the deception of the humans. Their mission is to open the galaxy to their ships while concealing the inevitable drive to war of any Motie civilization. The Jump out of Mote System with the Alderson Drive reveals that the more complex nervous systems of the Moties produce a much more intense version of jump shock than humans experience. Back on New Caledonia, an Imperial Commission is on the verge of granting colonies to the Moties, not realizing the ultimate danger. Fortunately, MacArthur\u2019s sailing master, the unconventional Kevin Renner, manages to assemble various clues unknowingly gathered during the expedition. In particular, a series of images taken by MacArthurs cameras as it was attacked by the Motie probe ship reveal the well-kept secret of the Motie Warrior caste. This information, combined with the knowledge of unlimited population growth on Mote Prime, forces the commission to decide against permitting the Moties to leave their home system. Because the Moties learned about the Langston Field, enabling them to establish colonies independently, it seems the only option is to send the Fleet to eradicate the entire Motie species. However, the Mediator Charlie, who represents the minority view from Mote Prime, persuades the Commission to establish a permanent blockade of the system's only worthwhile exit through the Alderson point, allowing the Moties to survive with the seemingly endless Cycles, until such time as the humans can find a cure for their birth rate, something \"sane\" Moties think impossible. With Motie assistance in planning the blockade, the Commission accepts this alternative. Since the Moties are helpless for so long after a Jump, the ships of the human fleet can easily destroy any blockade runners with their laser weaponry, especially within the superheated photosphere of Murcheson's Eye. Even the Moties' improvement on the Langston Field \u2014 causing it to expand as it absorbs energy so as to faster dissipate heat \u2014 is useless in this environment. It simply causes faster heat absorption, resulting in a chain reaction that destroys every ship that makes the attempt to traverse the tramline even before they can return to inform others of the weakness. Sally Fowler establishes a private foundation seeking a cure for the Moties' unavoidable birth rate. The book ends on a dark note, with the mediator Charlie predicting that a later generation of humans will destroy the Motie species after the next collapse, unless a cure is actually found. In either case, it seems that \"Crazy Eddie\" was right \u2014 the Cycles will finally end.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is split up into four parts. In the year AD 3017, humanity is recovering slowly from an interstellar civil war that tore apart the first Empire of Man. A new Empire has risen and is occupied in establishing control over the remnants of its predecessor, by force if needed. Commander Lord Roderick Blaine, having participated in the suppression of a rebellion on the planet of New Chicago, is given command of an Imperial battlecruiser, INSS MacArthur, when the captain has to stay behind to restore order on the planet. Blaine is given secret orders to take Horace Hussein Bury, a powerful interstellar merchant of Arabic descent who is suspected of fomenting the revolt for his own profit, to the Imperial capital, Sparta. Blaine is one of the few people available who is wealthier than Bury, so he is the ideal man for the mission as he can't be bribed. MacArthur is to be repaired in the New Caledonia system, then proceed to the capital. Another passenger is Lady Sandra Bright \"Sally\" Fowler, the niece of an Imperial Senator and a rescued prisoner of the rebels. New Caledonia is the capital of the Trans-Coalsack sector, located on the opposite side of the Coalsack Nebula from Earth. Also in the sector is a red supergiant star known as Murcheson's Eye. Associated with it is a yellow Sun-like star. From New Caledonia, the yellow star appears in front of the Eye. Since some see the Eye and the Coalsack as the face of a hooded man, perhaps even the face of God, the yellow star is known as the Mote in God's Eye. While in the New Caledonia system, Blaine receives a message saying that an alien spacecraft has been detected, and includes an order that MacArthur intercept it. Human ships use the Alderson Drive, which allows them to \"jump\" instantaneously between points in specific star systems."
      },
      {
        "text": " of the Eye. Since some see the Eye and the Coalsack as the face of a hooded man, perhaps even the face of God, the yellow star is known as the Mote in God's Eye. While in the New Caledonia system, Blaine receives a message saying that an alien spacecraft has been detected, and includes an order that MacArthur intercept it. Human ships use the Alderson Drive, which allows them to \"jump\" instantaneously between points in specific star systems. The alien craft, by contrast, is propelled by a solar sail, taking 150 years to cross between stars at sublight speed. MacArthur duly intercepts the craft and is fired upon by its automated systems, but manages to capture it relatively intact. However, on arrival at the planet New Scotland, its single occupant, evidently the pilot, is found to be dead. The alien is bizarrely asymmetric, with two delicate arms on one side of its body and a single, much larger and stronger arm on the other. Although it is bipedal and has a head and face similar to humans, its anatomy is entirely different. It has no flexible spine and the face is capable of little expression. It is the first apparently intelligent alien race that humans have come into contact with. The ship itself is composed of alloys with remarkable properties and designed around unique, custom-built parts, no two alike, that perform multiple unrelated tasks simultaneously. MacArthur and the battleship Lenin are sent to the Mote: the star from which the alien ship came. MacArthur carries civilian research teams intended to meet with and investigate the Moties, while Lenin is there to ensure the security of humanity's technology and secrets, avoiding all contact with the aliens. Aboard Lenin is the commander in charge of the mission, Admiral Lavrenti Kutuzov, a ruthless, supremely loyal officer who had already sterilized one rebellious colony planet to safeguard Imperial Reunification. Bury goes along ostensibly because a merchant is needed"
      },
      {
        "text": ": the star from which the alien ship came. MacArthur carries civilian research teams intended to meet with and investigate the Moties, while Lenin is there to ensure the security of humanity's technology and secrets, avoiding all contact with the aliens. Aboard Lenin is the commander in charge of the mission, Admiral Lavrenti Kutuzov, a ruthless, supremely loyal officer who had already sterilized one rebellious colony planet to safeguard Imperial Reunification. Bury goes along ostensibly because a merchant is needed to assess the trade possibilities, but actually because there is nobody trustworthy enough to take him to the capital. Sally, a trained anthropologist, ranks too highly in the political aristocracy to be refused. Despite (or rather, due to) the civilians' distrust, Blaine remains in command of MacArthur. The Mote has only one Alderson point leading to it, and to reach it the ships must actually enter the outer layers of the red supergiant itself before activating the drive. Supergiant stars are up to 500 million km in diameter, but the outer layers are basically a hot vacuum, which the human ships can survive because of the protective Langston Field. MacArthur successfully makes contact with the Moties. They have advanced technology (in some areas superior to that of the First Empire, let alone the current Second), but seem friendly and willing to share it. Indeed, they would have been a formidable threat to Humanity, had they not been bottled up in their home system. Although they also possess the Alderson Drive, they consider it a failure\u2014the \"Crazy Eddie\" Drive which makes ships disappear. When everything works perfectly, the termination of their Alderson Drive tramline inside the supergiant destroys their ships, since they have no knowledge of the protective Field. The Moties deduce that humans use the drive because MacArthur and Lenin appear at the \"Crazy Eddie Point\", the local origin of their tramline. The Moties are an old species that has evolved into many"
      },
      {
        "text": " possess the Alderson Drive, they consider it a failure\u2014the \"Crazy Eddie\" Drive which makes ships disappear. When everything works perfectly, the termination of their Alderson Drive tramline inside the supergiant destroys their ships, since they have no knowledge of the protective Field. The Moties deduce that humans use the drive because MacArthur and Lenin appear at the \"Crazy Eddie Point\", the local origin of their tramline. The Moties are an old species that has evolved into many specialized subspecies. The first to board MacArthur is an engineer, a brown fur form with amazing technical abilities but limited speech, who brings along a pair of tiny Motie \"Watchmakers\" as assistants. Some days later, an official delegation of Motie Mediators arrives, brown and white forms like the dead pilot of the probe ship, who have astounding communication and negotiation skills but very limited ability with tools. A contact party of humans, including Sally Fowler, accompanies them to the surface of Mote Prime. Each Mediator adopts a particular human in this group, becoming his (her in Sally's case) Fyunch(click), studying their subject and learning how to think like him or her, even to the point of exactly reproducing voice and mannerisms. Back on MacArthur, disaster strikes. The Watchmakers have escaped, and although it was assumed they had died, they have actually been breeding furiously. Despite several attempts to rid MacArthur of the infestation, the Watchmakers, unknown to the human crew, continued quietly redesigning MacArthur and rebuilding it for greater living space. When they are discovered, a losing battle for control of the ship erupts. The crew is eventually forced to abandon ship. The contact party is also recalled without explanation and told to rendezvous directly with Lenin, which destroys MacArthur to prevent the capture of human technology. These events reveal the existence of an improved Langston Field which expands as it absorbs energy, increasing its surface area and dissipating heat faster."
      },
      {
        "text": " unknown to the human crew, continued quietly redesigning MacArthur and rebuilding it for greater living space. When they are discovered, a losing battle for control of the ship erupts. The crew is eventually forced to abandon ship. The contact party is also recalled without explanation and told to rendezvous directly with Lenin, which destroys MacArthur to prevent the capture of human technology. These events reveal the existence of an improved Langston Field which expands as it absorbs energy, increasing its surface area and dissipating heat faster. During the evacuation, three MacArthur midshipmen escape from the ship in lifeboats. Unfortunately, these were reconstructed by the descendants of the escaped Watchmakers, and automatic controls force a landing in an unpopulated area of Mote Prime. Exploring unsupervised for the first time, they find a fortified dome-like structure whose doors are locked by a puzzle that requires relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy to solve. It is a perfectly maintained yet completely deserted building that appears to be some type of museum. Every aspect of Motie civilization is preserved in detail, including in-place fragments of several smaller domes which have been violently shattered. The exhibits as a whole provide evidence of a very long and violent history, though the Moties had carefully portrayed themselves to the Expedition members as completely peaceful. Following this discovery, the midshipmen, Jonathon Whitbread, Horst Staley, and Gavin Potter, are reunited with Whitbread's Fyunch(click) Mediator escort, who reveals the self-destructive character underlying Motie society. Unlike human wars motivated by greed or malice, the Motie civilization is driven to conflict because of biology. The Moties are sequential hermaphrodites, changing sex over and over again during the course of their lives. However, if a Motie remains female for too long without becoming pregnant, the hormone imbalance will kill her. This characteristic ensures a never-ending population explosion. Attempts at population control through chemicals or infanticide have always"
      },
      {
        "text": " self-destructive character underlying Motie society. Unlike human wars motivated by greed or malice, the Motie civilization is driven to conflict because of biology. The Moties are sequential hermaphrodites, changing sex over and over again during the course of their lives. However, if a Motie remains female for too long without becoming pregnant, the hormone imbalance will kill her. This characteristic ensures a never-ending population explosion. Attempts at population control through chemicals or infanticide have always failed for the Moties, because those who (secretly or openly) breed uncontrollably eventually swamp those Moties who comply. Once the population pressure rises high enough, massive wars inevitably result. Humans have encountered eight of the larger Motie subspecies, not including hybrids such as the Mediators: Masters, Engineers, Doctors, Porters, Farmers, Runners, Watchmakers and Meats, but the Masters concealed the existence of another type - the Warriors. Bred specifically for combat, they are innately superior in ability to any human soldier and capable of using any type of weapon. There are no longer any fissionable materials remaining in the Mote system, but asteroid bombardments serve as more than adequate weapons of mass destruction, giving the entire surface of the planet a cratered appearance resembling Mars. Each war typically ends in the complete destruction of the current civilization on Mote Prime. However, due to their high birth rates, enough Moties always survive to eventually repopulate the planet. A faster rise to civilization leads to a longer period between Collapses, since productivity increases more quickly than the population. The museums exist to accelerate this process after a collapse. They are located in unpopulated areas to avoid their destruction during the inevitable wars. Once the surviving population is advanced enough to solve the puzzle at the door, they have access to a literal catalogue of civilizations, and the weapons to put them into effect. Population is controlled by disease and injury between collapses and reconstructions,"
      },
      {
        "text": " the planet. A faster rise to civilization leads to a longer period between Collapses, since productivity increases more quickly than the population. The museums exist to accelerate this process after a collapse. They are located in unpopulated areas to avoid their destruction during the inevitable wars. Once the surviving population is advanced enough to solve the puzzle at the door, they have access to a literal catalogue of civilizations, and the weapons to put them into effect. Population is controlled by disease and injury between collapses and reconstructions, but the cycles have thus far never been stopped completely. The cycles of civilization, war, and collapse have apparently been repeating for hundreds of thousands of years. In some cases, Mote Prime was completely sterilized and then repopulated by those living in hollowed-out asteroids within the system. The current asymmetrical form is probably a mutation resulting from nuclear weaponry prior to a collapse. Presumably, each civilization arises, unlocks the museums, and discovers that unless they can solve a problem that had plagued countless others, they are doomed. Thus, the Moties have become fatalistically resigned to the never-ending Cycles. Only a mythical character called \"Crazy Eddie\" believes there is a way to change this, and any Motie who comes to believe a solution is possible is labeled as a \"Crazy Eddie\" and deemed insane. The current civilization is organized as a type of \"industrial feudalism\", where coalitions of related Masters govern the planet. Using the system's Alderson point to colonize other planets is proposed as one (ultimately unworkable) solution to the Cycles, leading to its designation as the \"Crazy Eddie Point\". Conflict erupts on Mote Prime between two groups of Masters considering this idea. The smaller group recognizes that expansion to other planets would only postpone the Cycles; nearby planets would soon be filled with Moties, and the Alderson Drive takes time to use \u2014 years of travel across systems from tramline to tramline to reach distant"
      },
      {
        "text": " to colonize other planets is proposed as one (ultimately unworkable) solution to the Cycles, leading to its designation as the \"Crazy Eddie Point\". Conflict erupts on Mote Prime between two groups of Masters considering this idea. The smaller group recognizes that expansion to other planets would only postpone the Cycles; nearby planets would soon be filled with Moties, and the Alderson Drive takes time to use \u2014 years of travel across systems from tramline to tramline to reach distant planets. Eventually, it would be easier for Moties to challenge humans for their planets, especially since humans cannot compete with Moties, technologically, biologically, or even numerically. Motie victory would be inevitable, but eventually futile as the population continues to expand exponentially. However, the more powerful coalition of Masters sees this temporary solution as more appealing than the impending phase of collapse. Both groups send envoys to the human worlds with instructions to negotiate for the majority position. To conceal the danger to human civilization, the three midshipmen who reached Mote Prime are not permitted to return to Lenin and are killed while resisting capture. Lenin returns home, taking with it \u2014 in violation of explicit orders to avoid contact at all costs \u2014 the three Motie ambassadors. Kutuzov takes this step only after much debate. The Motie embassy contains two Mediators called Charlie and Jock, and a Keeper (a sterile Master), known as Ivan. The choice of three infertile Moties occurs both to avoid conflict on Mote Prime, since no single family will control the mission, and to continue the deception of the humans. Their mission is to open the galaxy to their ships while concealing the inevitable drive to war of any Motie civilization. The Jump out of Mote System with the Alderson Drive reveals that the more complex nervous systems of the Moties produce a much more intense version of jump shock than humans experience. Back on New Caledonia, an Imperial Commission is on the"
      },
      {
        "text": " both to avoid conflict on Mote Prime, since no single family will control the mission, and to continue the deception of the humans. Their mission is to open the galaxy to their ships while concealing the inevitable drive to war of any Motie civilization. The Jump out of Mote System with the Alderson Drive reveals that the more complex nervous systems of the Moties produce a much more intense version of jump shock than humans experience. Back on New Caledonia, an Imperial Commission is on the verge of granting colonies to the Moties, not realizing the ultimate danger. Fortunately, MacArthur\u2019s sailing master, the unconventional Kevin Renner, manages to assemble various clues unknowingly gathered during the expedition. In particular, a series of images taken by MacArthurs cameras as it was attacked by the Motie probe ship reveal the well-kept secret of the Motie Warrior caste. This information, combined with the knowledge of unlimited population growth on Mote Prime, forces the commission to decide against permitting the Moties to leave their home system. Because the Moties learned about the Langston Field, enabling them to establish colonies independently, it seems the only option is to send the Fleet to eradicate the entire Motie species. However, the Mediator Charlie, who represents the minority view from Mote Prime, persuades the Commission to establish a permanent blockade of the system's only worthwhile exit through the Alderson point, allowing the Moties to survive with the seemingly endless Cycles, until such time as the humans can find a cure for their birth rate, something \"sane\" Moties think impossible. With Motie assistance in planning the blockade, the Commission accepts this alternative. Since the Moties are helpless for so long after a Jump, the ships of the human fleet can easily destroy any blockade runners with their laser weaponry, especially within the superheated photosphere of Murcheson's Eye. Even the Moties' improvement on the Langston Field \u2014 causing it to expand"
      },
      {
        "text": " such time as the humans can find a cure for their birth rate, something \"sane\" Moties think impossible. With Motie assistance in planning the blockade, the Commission accepts this alternative. Since the Moties are helpless for so long after a Jump, the ships of the human fleet can easily destroy any blockade runners with their laser weaponry, especially within the superheated photosphere of Murcheson's Eye. Even the Moties' improvement on the Langston Field \u2014 causing it to expand as it absorbs energy so as to faster dissipate heat \u2014 is useless in this environment. It simply causes faster heat absorption, resulting in a chain reaction that destroys every ship that makes the attempt to traverse the tramline even before they can return to inform others of the weakness. Sally Fowler establishes a private foundation seeking a cure for the Moties' unavoidable birth rate. The book ends on a dark note, with the mediator Charlie predicting that a later generation of humans will destroy the Motie species after the next collapse, unless a cure is actually found. In either case, it seems that \"Crazy Eddie\" was right \u2014 the Cycles will finally end.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Dot and the Line",
    "author": "",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story details a straight line who is hopelessly in love with a dot. The dot, finding the line to be stiff, dull, and conventional, turns her affections toward a wild and unkempt squiggle. The line, unable to fall out of love and willing to do whatever it takes to win the dot's affection, manages to bend himself and form an angle. He works to refine this new ability, creating shapes so complex that he has to label his sides and angles to keep his place. The dot realizes that she has made a mistake: what she had seen in the squiggle to be freedom and joy was nothing more than chaos and sloth. She leaves with the line, having realized that he has much more to offer, and the moral is presented: \"To the vector belong the spoils.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story details a straight line who is hopelessly in love with a dot. The dot, finding the line to be stiff, dull, and conventional, turns her affections toward a wild and unkempt squiggle. The line, unable to fall out of love and willing to do whatever it takes to win the dot's affection, manages to bend himself and form an angle. He works to refine this new ability, creating shapes so complex that he has to label his sides and angles to keep his place. The dot realizes that she has made a mistake: what she had seen in the squiggle to be freedom and joy was nothing more than chaos and sloth. She leaves with the line, having realized that he has much more to offer, and the moral is presented: \"To the vector belong the spoils.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Egg and I",
    "author": "Betty MacDonald",
    "published_date": "1945",
    "synopsis": " MacDonald begins her book with a summary description of her childhood and family. Her father was an engineer, and moved frequently with his family throughout the West. Her mother's theory that a wife must support her husband in his career comes into play when the author marries a friend of her brother (\"Bob\") who soon admits that his dream is to leave his current office job and start a chicken ranch. Knowing nothing about ranching, but eager to support her husband, the author encourages the dream but is unprepared for the primitive conditions that exist on the ranch he purchases. From this \"set up\" the book turns to anecdotal stories that rely upon the proverbial \"fish out of water\" tales that pit MacDonald against her situation and her surroundings, such as the struggle to keep up with the need for water, which needs to be hand carried from a pond to the house until a tank is installed or keeping a fire going in \"Stove\" or the constant care that chicks need. At one point a guest expresses envy of MacDonald and her husband, as she thinks they live a life full of fresh air and beautiful scenery, which is then followed by MacDonald pointing out that while the guest had lounged in bed that morning, she and her husband had been up before sunrise working for several hours, and then again the couple had stayed up long into the night after the guest had gone to bed.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " MacDonald begins her book with a summary description of her childhood and family. Her father was an engineer, and moved frequently with his family throughout the West. Her mother's theory that a wife must support her husband in his career comes into play when the author marries a friend of her brother (\"Bob\") who soon admits that his dream is to leave his current office job and start a chicken ranch. Knowing nothing about ranching, but eager to support her husband, the author encourages the dream but is unprepared for the primitive conditions that exist on the ranch he purchases. From this \"set up\" the book turns to anecdotal stories that rely upon the proverbial \"fish out of water\" tales that pit MacDonald against her situation and her surroundings, such as the struggle to keep up with the need for water, which needs to be hand carried from a pond to the house until a tank is installed or keeping a fire going in \"Stove\" or the constant care that chicks need. At one point a guest expresses envy of MacDonald and her husband, as she thinks they live a life full of fresh air and beautiful scenery, which is then followed by MacDonald pointing out that while the guest had lounged in bed that morning, she and her husband had been up before sunrise working for several hours, and then again the couple had stayed up long into the night after the guest had gone to bed.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Persuasion",
    "author": "Jane Austen",
    "published_date": "1818",
    "synopsis": " Anne Elliot is the overlooked middle daughter of the vain Sir Walter, a spendthrift baronet who is all too conscious of his good looks and rank. Anne's mother, a loving, intelligent woman whom her second daughter resembles in appearance and temperament, is long dead. Anne's older sister, Elizabeth, takes after her father, and her younger sister, Mary, is a nervous, fretful woman who has made an unspectacular marriage to Charles Musgrove of nearby Uppercross Hall, the heir to a bucolic but respected local squire. None of her family can provide much companionship for the refined, sensitive Anne, who is still unmarried at 27 and seems destined for spinsterhood. Nearly nine years after breaking her engagement (and subsequently turning down a proposal from Charles Musgrove, who went on to marry her sister), she has still not forgotten Frederick Wentworth. Wentworth reenters Anne's life when Sir Walter is forced by his own fiscal irresponsibility to rent out Kellynch, the family estate. He and Elizabeth move to pricey rental lodgings in the fashionable resort of Bath, while Anne remains behind in Uppercross with her younger sister's family. In what is surely the most flagrant coincidence in all of Austen's six novels, Kellynch's tenants turn out to be none other than Wentworth's sister, Sophia, and her husband, the recently retired Admiral Croft. Wentworth's successes in the Napoleonic Wars have won him promotions and wealth amounting to about \u00a325,000 (around \u00a32.5 million in today's money) from prize money awarded for capturing enemy vessels, and he is now an eminently eligible bachelor. The Musgroves, including Mary, Charles, and Charles's younger sisters, Henrietta and Louisa, are happy to welcome the Crofts and Wentworth to the neighborhood. He is deliberately cool and formal with Anne, whom he describes as altered almost beyond recognition, but delighted with the Musgrove girls, who both respond in kind. Although Henrietta is nominally engaged to her clergyman cousin Charles Hayter, nothing is official, and both the Crofts and Musgroves, who know nothing of Anne and Frederick's previous relationship, enjoy speculating about which sister Wentworth might marry. All this is hard on Anne, who has spent the last several years bitterly regretting that she was ever persuaded to reject him and realizes that he still holds her refusal against her. To avoid watching him keep company with the Musgrove sisters, particularly Louisa, whom he seems to prefer, she does her best to stay out of his way. When they do meet, his conspicuous indifference, coupled with a few acts of seemingly careless kindness toward her, nearly break her heart. The sad slow pace of Anne's life suddenly picks up when the entire Uppercross family decides to accompany Captain Wentworth on a visit to one of his brother officers, Captain Harville, in the coastal town of Lyme Regis. There Anne meets yet a third officer, Captain James Benwick, a passionate admirer of the Romantic poets, who is in deep mourning for the death of his fianc\u00e9e, Captain Harville's sister, and appreciates Anne's sympathy and understanding. The new location, new acquaintances, and fresh ocean air all agree with Anne, who begins to regain some of the life and sparkle that Captain Wentworth remembered, and she attracts the attention of another gentleman, who turns out to be the Elliots' long-estranged cousin and her father's heir, William Elliot. While Wentworth is absorbing these developments, Louisa Musgrove sustains a serious concussion in a fall brought about by her own stubborn and impetuous behavior. While her family and friends panic and look on helplessly, Anne coolly administers first aid and summons assistance. Wentworth, who feels responsible for encouraging Louisa's irresponsible behavior in the first place, is both confused and impressed, and begins to reexamine his feelings about Anne. Following this near-tragedy, Anne relocates to Bath to be with her father and sister, while Louisa stays in Lyme to recover her health at the Harvilles. In Bath Anne finds that her father and sister are as shallow as ever, obsessed with rank and wealth, and flattered by the attentions of William Elliot, a widower, who has now successfully reconciled with his uncle, Sir Walter. Elizabeth assumes that he wishes to court her while Lady Russell, who is also in Bath, more correctly suspects that he admires Anne and is elated to think that her young friend may have a second chance at married happiness with such a suitable suitor. However, although Anne likes William Elliot and enjoys his company, she finds his character disturbingly opaque and tells Lady Russell, \"We should not suit,\" while admitting to herself that his admiration has done a great deal to lift her spirits. In the midst of this, Admiral Croft and his wife arrive in Bath, and soon afterward comes the news that Louisa Musgrove is indeed engaged\u2014but not to Captain Wentworth. The lucky man is Captain Benwick, who had attended her during her long and interesting convalescence. In short order Wentworth also comes to Bath, where he is not pleased to see Mr. Elliot courting Anne, and he and Anne begin to tentatively renew their acquaintance. Anne also takes the opportunity to reunite with an old school friend, Mrs. Smith, a once prosperous matron who is now a widow living in Bath in straitened circumstances. Through her she discovers that behind his charming veneer, Mr. Elliot is a cold, calculating opportunist who has lost the money left him by his late wife and led Mrs. Smith's late husband into crippling debt as well. Although Mrs. Smith believes that he is genuinely attracted to Anne, it appears that his real aim in making up to the Elliots has been to keep an eye on the ingratiating Mrs. Clay, whom he worries that Sir Walter may take it into his head to marry. A new wife might mean a baby boy and the end of Mr. Elliot's inheritance. Although Anne is shocked and dismayed by this news, it helps to confirm her belief that she, not Lady Russell or anyone else, is the best judge of what will constitute her own happiness. Ultimately, the Musgroves visit Bath to purchase wedding clothes for their daughters Louisa and Henrietta (now officially engaged to Charles Hayter). Captain Wentworth and his friend Captain Harville encounter them and Anne at a public room in Bath, where Wentworth overhears Anne and Harville conversing about the relative faithfulness of men and women in love. Deeply moved by what Anne has to say, Wentworth writes her a note declaring his feelings for her. In a tender scene, Anne and Wentworth reconcile, affirm their love for each other, and renew their engagement. The story ends less well for Anne's father and sister. They are both jilted by Mr. Elliot, who succeeds in persuading Mrs. Clay to become his mistress. Lady Russell admits she was wrong about Wentworth; she and Anne remain friends; and Wentworth helps Mrs. Smith recover some of her lost assets. Nothing remains to blight Anne's happiness\u2014except the prospect of another war.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Anne Elliot is the overlooked middle daughter of the vain Sir Walter, a spendthrift baronet who is all too conscious of his good looks and rank. Anne's mother, a loving, intelligent woman whom her second daughter resembles in appearance and temperament, is long dead. Anne's older sister, Elizabeth, takes after her father, and her younger sister, Mary, is a nervous, fretful woman who has made an unspectacular marriage to Charles Musgrove of nearby Uppercross Hall, the heir to a bucolic but respected local squire. None of her family can provide much companionship for the refined, sensitive Anne, who is still unmarried at 27 and seems destined for spinsterhood. Nearly nine years after breaking her engagement (and subsequently turning down a proposal from Charles Musgrove, who went on to marry her sister), she has still not forgotten Frederick Wentworth. Wentworth reenters Anne's life when Sir Walter is forced by his own fiscal irresponsibility to rent out Kellynch, the family estate. He and Elizabeth move to pricey rental lodgings in the fashionable resort of Bath, while Anne remains behind in Uppercross with her younger sister's family. In what is surely the most flagrant coincidence in all of Austen's six novels, Kellynch's tenants turn out to be none other than Wentworth's sister, Sophia, and her husband, the recently retired Admiral Croft. Wentworth's successes in the Napoleonic Wars have won him promotions and wealth amounting to about \u00a325,000 (around \u00a32.5 million in today's money) from prize money awarded for capturing enemy vessels, and he is now an eminently eligible bachelor. The Musgroves, including Mary, Charles, and Charles's younger sisters, Henrietta and Louisa, are happy to welcome the Crofts and Wentworth to the neighborhood. He is deliberately cool and formal with Anne, whom he describes as altered almost beyond recognition,"
      },
      {
        "text": " Wars have won him promotions and wealth amounting to about \u00a325,000 (around \u00a32.5 million in today's money) from prize money awarded for capturing enemy vessels, and he is now an eminently eligible bachelor. The Musgroves, including Mary, Charles, and Charles's younger sisters, Henrietta and Louisa, are happy to welcome the Crofts and Wentworth to the neighborhood. He is deliberately cool and formal with Anne, whom he describes as altered almost beyond recognition, but delighted with the Musgrove girls, who both respond in kind. Although Henrietta is nominally engaged to her clergyman cousin Charles Hayter, nothing is official, and both the Crofts and Musgroves, who know nothing of Anne and Frederick's previous relationship, enjoy speculating about which sister Wentworth might marry. All this is hard on Anne, who has spent the last several years bitterly regretting that she was ever persuaded to reject him and realizes that he still holds her refusal against her. To avoid watching him keep company with the Musgrove sisters, particularly Louisa, whom he seems to prefer, she does her best to stay out of his way. When they do meet, his conspicuous indifference, coupled with a few acts of seemingly careless kindness toward her, nearly break her heart. The sad slow pace of Anne's life suddenly picks up when the entire Uppercross family decides to accompany Captain Wentworth on a visit to one of his brother officers, Captain Harville, in the coastal town of Lyme Regis. There Anne meets yet a third officer, Captain James Benwick, a passionate admirer of the Romantic poets, who is in deep mourning for the death of his fianc\u00e9e, Captain Harville's sister, and appreciates Anne's sympathy and understanding. The new location, new acquaintances, and fresh ocean air all agree with Anne, who begins to regain some of the life and sparkle that Captain Wentworth remembered, and she attracts the attention of"
      },
      {
        "text": ", in the coastal town of Lyme Regis. There Anne meets yet a third officer, Captain James Benwick, a passionate admirer of the Romantic poets, who is in deep mourning for the death of his fianc\u00e9e, Captain Harville's sister, and appreciates Anne's sympathy and understanding. The new location, new acquaintances, and fresh ocean air all agree with Anne, who begins to regain some of the life and sparkle that Captain Wentworth remembered, and she attracts the attention of another gentleman, who turns out to be the Elliots' long-estranged cousin and her father's heir, William Elliot. While Wentworth is absorbing these developments, Louisa Musgrove sustains a serious concussion in a fall brought about by her own stubborn and impetuous behavior. While her family and friends panic and look on helplessly, Anne coolly administers first aid and summons assistance. Wentworth, who feels responsible for encouraging Louisa's irresponsible behavior in the first place, is both confused and impressed, and begins to reexamine his feelings about Anne. Following this near-tragedy, Anne relocates to Bath to be with her father and sister, while Louisa stays in Lyme to recover her health at the Harvilles. In Bath Anne finds that her father and sister are as shallow as ever, obsessed with rank and wealth, and flattered by the attentions of William Elliot, a widower, who has now successfully reconciled with his uncle, Sir Walter. Elizabeth assumes that he wishes to court her while Lady Russell, who is also in Bath, more correctly suspects that he admires Anne and is elated to think that her young friend may have a second chance at married happiness with such a suitable suitor. However, although Anne likes William Elliot and enjoys his company, she finds his character disturbingly opaque and tells Lady Russell, \"We should not suit,\" while admitting to herself that his admiration has done a great deal to lift her"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Sir Walter. Elizabeth assumes that he wishes to court her while Lady Russell, who is also in Bath, more correctly suspects that he admires Anne and is elated to think that her young friend may have a second chance at married happiness with such a suitable suitor. However, although Anne likes William Elliot and enjoys his company, she finds his character disturbingly opaque and tells Lady Russell, \"We should not suit,\" while admitting to herself that his admiration has done a great deal to lift her spirits. In the midst of this, Admiral Croft and his wife arrive in Bath, and soon afterward comes the news that Louisa Musgrove is indeed engaged\u2014but not to Captain Wentworth. The lucky man is Captain Benwick, who had attended her during her long and interesting convalescence. In short order Wentworth also comes to Bath, where he is not pleased to see Mr. Elliot courting Anne, and he and Anne begin to tentatively renew their acquaintance. Anne also takes the opportunity to reunite with an old school friend, Mrs. Smith, a once prosperous matron who is now a widow living in Bath in straitened circumstances. Through her she discovers that behind his charming veneer, Mr. Elliot is a cold, calculating opportunist who has lost the money left him by his late wife and led Mrs. Smith's late husband into crippling debt as well. Although Mrs. Smith believes that he is genuinely attracted to Anne, it appears that his real aim in making up to the Elliots has been to keep an eye on the ingratiating Mrs. Clay, whom he worries that Sir Walter may take it into his head to marry. A new wife might mean a baby boy and the end of Mr. Elliot's inheritance. Although Anne is shocked and dismayed by this news, it helps to confirm her belief that she, not Lady Russell or anyone else, is the best judge of what will constitute her own happiness. Ultimately, the Mus"
      },
      {
        "text": " aim in making up to the Elliots has been to keep an eye on the ingratiating Mrs. Clay, whom he worries that Sir Walter may take it into his head to marry. A new wife might mean a baby boy and the end of Mr. Elliot's inheritance. Although Anne is shocked and dismayed by this news, it helps to confirm her belief that she, not Lady Russell or anyone else, is the best judge of what will constitute her own happiness. Ultimately, the Musgroves visit Bath to purchase wedding clothes for their daughters Louisa and Henrietta (now officially engaged to Charles Hayter). Captain Wentworth and his friend Captain Harville encounter them and Anne at a public room in Bath, where Wentworth overhears Anne and Harville conversing about the relative faithfulness of men and women in love. Deeply moved by what Anne has to say, Wentworth writes her a note declaring his feelings for her. In a tender scene, Anne and Wentworth reconcile, affirm their love for each other, and renew their engagement. The story ends less well for Anne's father and sister. They are both jilted by Mr. Elliot, who succeeds in persuading Mrs. Clay to become his mistress. Lady Russell admits she was wrong about Wentworth; she and Anne remain friends; and Wentworth helps Mrs. Smith recover some of her lost assets. Nothing remains to blight Anne's happiness\u2014except the prospect of another war.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Stand on Zanzibar",
    "author": "John Brunner",
    "published_date": "1968",
    "synopsis": " The story is set in 2010, mostly in the United States. A number of plots and many vignettes are played out in this future world, based on Brunner's extrapolation of social, economic, and technological trends. The key main trends are based on the enormous population and its impact: social stresses, eugenic legislation, widening social divisions, future shock, and extremism. Certain of Brunner's guesses are fairly close, others not, and some ideas clearly show their 1960s mind-set. Many futuristic concepts, products and services, and slang are presented. A supercomputer named Shalmaneser is an important plot element. The Hipcrime Vocab and other works by the fictional sociologist Chad C. Mulligan are frequent sources of quotations. Some examples of slang include \"codder\" (man), \"shiggy\" (woman), \"whereinole\" (where in hell?), \"prowlie\" (an armored police car), \"offyourass\" (possessing an attitude), \"bivving\" (bisexuality, from \"ambivalent\") and \"mucker\" (a person running amok). A new technology introduced is \"eptification\" (education for particular tasks), a form of mental programming. Another is a kind of interactive television that shows the viewer as part of the program (\"Mr. & Mrs. Everywhere\"). Genetically modified microorganisms are used as terrorist weapons. The book centres on two New York men, Donald Hogan and Norman Niblock House, who share an apartment. House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of the all-powerful corporations. Using his \"Afram\" (African American) heritage to advance his position, he has risen to vice-president at age twenty-six. Hogan is introduced with a single paragraph rising out of nowhere: \"Donald Hogan is a spy\". Donald shares an apartment with House and is undercover as a student. Hogan's real work is as a \"synthesist\", although he is a commissioned officer and can be called up for duty. The two main plots concern the fictional African state of Beninia (a name reminiscent of the real-life Benin, though that nation in the Bight of Benin was known as the Republic of Dahomey when the book was written) making a deal with General Technics to take over the management of their country, in a bid to speed up development from third world to first world status. A second major plot is a break-through in genetic engineering in the fictional Australasian nation of Yatakang (which seems to be a disguised Indonesia), to which Hogan is soon sent by the U.S. government (\"State\") to investigate. The two plots eventually cross, bringing potential implications for the entire world.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is set in 2010, mostly in the United States. A number of plots and many vignettes are played out in this future world, based on Brunner's extrapolation of social, economic, and technological trends. The key main trends are based on the enormous population and its impact: social stresses, eugenic legislation, widening social divisions, future shock, and extremism. Certain of Brunner's guesses are fairly close, others not, and some ideas clearly show their 1960s mind-set. Many futuristic concepts, products and services, and slang are presented. A supercomputer named Shalmaneser is an important plot element. The Hipcrime Vocab and other works by the fictional sociologist Chad C. Mulligan are frequent sources of quotations. Some examples of slang include \"codder\" (man), \"shiggy\" (woman), \"whereinole\" (where in hell?), \"prowlie\" (an armored police car), \"offyourass\" (possessing an attitude), \"bivving\" (bisexuality, from \"ambivalent\") and \"mucker\" (a person running amok). A new technology introduced is \"eptification\" (education for particular tasks), a form of mental programming. Another is a kind of interactive television that shows the viewer as part of the program (\"Mr. & Mrs. Everywhere\"). Genetically modified microorganisms are used as terrorist weapons. The book centres on two New York men, Donald Hogan and Norman Niblock House, who share an apartment. House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of the all-powerful corporations. Using his \"Afram\" (African American) heritage to advance his position, he has risen to vice-president at age twenty-six. Hogan is introduced with a single paragraph rising out of nowhere: \"Donald Hogan is a spy\". Donald shares an apartment with House and is undercover as a student. Hogan's real work is as a \"sy"
      },
      {
        "text": " Hogan and Norman Niblock House, who share an apartment. House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of the all-powerful corporations. Using his \"Afram\" (African American) heritage to advance his position, he has risen to vice-president at age twenty-six. Hogan is introduced with a single paragraph rising out of nowhere: \"Donald Hogan is a spy\". Donald shares an apartment with House and is undercover as a student. Hogan's real work is as a \"synthesist\", although he is a commissioned officer and can be called up for duty. The two main plots concern the fictional African state of Beninia (a name reminiscent of the real-life Benin, though that nation in the Bight of Benin was known as the Republic of Dahomey when the book was written) making a deal with General Technics to take over the management of their country, in a bid to speed up development from third world to first world status. A second major plot is a break-through in genetic engineering in the fictional Australasian nation of Yatakang (which seems to be a disguised Indonesia), to which Hogan is soon sent by the U.S. government (\"State\") to investigate. The two plots eventually cross, bringing potential implications for the entire world.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Rubyfruit Jungle",
    "author": "Rita Mae Brown",
    "published_date": "1973",
    "synopsis": " The novel focuses on Molly Bolt, the adopted daughter of a poor family, who possesses remarkable beauty and who is aware of her lesbianism from early childhood. Her relationship with her mother is rocky, and at a young age her mother, referred to as \"Carrie,\" informs Molly that she is not her own biological child but a \"bastard.\" Molly has her first same-sex sexual relationship in the sixth grade with her friend Leota B. Bisland, and then again in a Florida high school, where she has another sexual relationship with another friend, Carolyn Simpson, the school lead cheerleader, who willingly has sex with Molly but rejects the \"lesbian\" label. Molly also engages in sex with males, including her cousin Leroy when the two were younger. Her father, Carl, dies when she is in her junior year of high school. In a combination of her strong-willed nature and disdain for Carrie, Molly pushes herself to excel in high school, winning a full scholarship to the University of Florida. Unlike Carrie, Carl has always supported Molly's goals and education. However, when Molly's homosexual relationship with her alcoholic roommate is discovered, she is denied a renewal of her scholarship. Possessing little money, she moves to New York to pursue an education in filmmaking. Upon reaching New York, she realizes that the rubyfruit is maybe not as delicious and varied as she had dreamed within the concrete jungle.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel focuses on Molly Bolt, the adopted daughter of a poor family, who possesses remarkable beauty and who is aware of her lesbianism from early childhood. Her relationship with her mother is rocky, and at a young age her mother, referred to as \"Carrie,\" informs Molly that she is not her own biological child but a \"bastard.\" Molly has her first same-sex sexual relationship in the sixth grade with her friend Leota B. Bisland, and then again in a Florida high school, where she has another sexual relationship with another friend, Carolyn Simpson, the school lead cheerleader, who willingly has sex with Molly but rejects the \"lesbian\" label. Molly also engages in sex with males, including her cousin Leroy when the two were younger. Her father, Carl, dies when she is in her junior year of high school. In a combination of her strong-willed nature and disdain for Carrie, Molly pushes herself to excel in high school, winning a full scholarship to the University of Florida. Unlike Carrie, Carl has always supported Molly's goals and education. However, when Molly's homosexual relationship with her alcoholic roommate is discovered, she is denied a renewal of her scholarship. Possessing little money, she moves to New York to pursue an education in filmmaking. Upon reaching New York, she realizes that the rubyfruit is maybe not as delicious and varied as she had dreamed within the concrete jungle.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Fallen Dragon",
    "author": "Peter F. Hamilton",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Fallen Dragon takes place during the 25th century. In the preceding centuries, a means of Faster-than-light (FTL) space travel was discovered, allowing a speed of one-half of a light-year per day. This led to a series of colonization efforts in a globe about 70 light years around Earth, but these ended as their costs proved prohibitive. The only major ongoing starflight efforts are carried out by the Zantiu-Braun megacorporation, who use their fleet of starships to periodically plunder their colonies in technically legal \"asset realization\" raids, typically involving military occupation of the planet in question. As it is cheaper to copy technology than ship it, these efforts normally collect single samples of interesting goods, or raw materials that are expensive on Earth. Zantiu-Braun is controlled by clones of Simon Roderick, who is motivated by the idea of uplifting the entire human race to his ideal. The story follows the life of Lawrence Newton from the colony planet Amethi, both in the current time and in a series of flashbacks. In the current time, Newton is a mercenary in the Zantiu-Braun strategic security forces, who leads a squad of troopers wearing organic armor suits called \"Skin\" that render them practically invulnerable. As a teenager, Newton lived on the planet Amethi and is the oldest son of one of the most powerful members of the board of the corporation which controls the planet. Lawrence dreams about being a starship pilot, despite being told by his father that starship exploration is finished. Lawrence loses interest in school work and withdraws socially. His father takes him to a holiday resort, where a gorgeous girl named Roselyn breaks through Lawrence's isolation, and the two develop a passionate relationship. Roselyn eventually informs Lawrence that there actually are space exploration missions through companies on Earth. Never having given up on his dream, he prepares to tell his father of his decision to leave school and overhears his father mentioning that Roselyn was paid to meet and seduce him. In a furious rage, he decides to leave Amethi immediately, and avoids detection by his father through the use of advanced quasi-sentient software called \"Prime\", given to him by his friend Vinnie. Lawrence makes it to Earth and scores well on the Zantiu-Braun officer candidacy exams, but lacking sufficient shares in the company, he is limited his strategic security job, instead of his dream of being a starship captain. As a Skin, he takes part on two missions of note, which are told over a series of short vignettes. One was on the planet Thallspring, which is fairly Earth-like. He is stationed in the town Memu Bay, but takes a journey through the hinterlands to the Arnoon province. During his time there he stops a trio of squaddies from a different platoon from gang-raping one of the villagers. Throughout his stay, Newton is bothered by something odd about the village, which seems to have a quality of living that is well beyond what one would expect given the surroundings. He is convinced they are hiding something, but can't find out what it is. The other was on the planet Santa Chico, where the founders modified themselves at a genetic level to coexist with the planet's biota. The mission goes disastrously wrong. As the colonists are no longer fully human, Zantiu-Braun's soldiers have trouble communicating with them, unable to fully comprehend their new lifestyle. The civilization has little in the way of centralized industry or anything of value to Earth, and remains extremely hostile to the Zantiu-Braun forces. Their biological augmentations make them an equal match for the Skins, which they invented years ago, and inflict severe casualties on the asset realization force. They eventually destroy a captured asteroid in orbit in order to create a Kessler syndrome that closes the sky, making further trips to the planet impossible. Newton concludes that the asset realization concept is no longer workable; the technology levels of the colony planets are growing so quickly that future missions will be too dangerous to be worthwhile. But it is this mission that apparently solves the mystery of Arnoon. Arnoon had, in plain sight, alien plants living on unsterilized soil bearing edible fruits. This would be impossible for Thallspring technology to create, and he concludes it was provided by Santa Chico geneticists. Lawrence plans to \"realize\" their unknown wealth for himself, and to use it to buy his retirement. When he learns of another mission to Thallspring, he ensures his team is part of the contingent. In the time since the first mission, Thallspring has advanced greatly. A small group has formed an effective resistance movement in preparation for the next asset realization mission, led by Denise Ebourn from Arnoon. As a cover, Denise works in a kindergarten, where she tells the kids supposedly fictional stories about an ancient alien galaxy-wide civilization and an alien prince named Mozark. Denise uses an advanced alien intelligence known as a \"dragon\" to enhance herself, her resistance-cell mates, and the villagers in Arnoon. When the Z-B mission arrives, her team uses their Prime software to sabotage the Zantiu-Braun efforts with some effect. However, Newton, now a Sergent, also has Prime, and uses it to return his platoon to Arnoon in search of its treasure. As Denise learns that Lawrence is headed for Arnoon village she races to intercept him. A violent confrontation takes place between Lawrence's platoon and a group of Arnoon villagers, ending with a wounded Lawrence staggering alone towards Arnoon village. When he gets there he and his Skin suit are spent, and he is near death. The villagers, one of whom (Denise's sister) is the girl he previously saved from being raped, revives him. They reveal that their wealth comes from a damaged alien dragon with greatly advanced technological knowledge such as the nanotechnology used to enhance the resistance movement. The dragon is a spaceliving creature, which is damaged and has lost much of its memory. To repay the dragon for its help, the villagers plan to use steal one of Zantiu-Braun's starships to travel to a red sun, where the dragon says its species lives. After meeting the dragon and learning its story, Lawrence decides to join them, and helps them to hijack a spaceship. But they are followed by a damaged Simon Roderick clone, who is determined to use all means to capture the technology for himself, not even trusting his clone brothers. Another Simon Roderick clone follows, to get the technology and to stop his clone brother from becoming the only human to possess the powerful knowledge. Denise and Lawrence arrive at the red star and quickly find the dragons. They learn that the dragons are a disengaged race who do nothing but amass knowledge, sharing it freely with others. The Arnoon dragon was simply a seed, one out of billions, and no more important to them than a single sperm cell is to humans. Since they arrived first, Denise and Lawrence convince the red star dragon that the deranged Simon Roderick will misuse their knowledge, and the dragon disables his ship. The dragon civilization gives their patternform construction knowledge to Lawrence, Denise and to the other Simon Roderick, in an agreement arranged by Denise and Lawrence so that the knowledge will be shared freely on Earth, and not monopolized by Zantiu-Braun. Lawrence uses the technology to construct the spaceship he has wanted since he was a teenager. He flies back in time through an ancient time portal, mentioned in Denise's kindergarten story, and then travels to Amethi. There he uses the technology to transform into Vinnie, one of young Lawrence's closest friends. After giving young Lawrence the Prime program so he can travel to Earth, \"Vinnie\" changes into young Lawrence, and goes to make up with Roselyn. The book has four separate story threads. The threads are told in parallel in the book, merging at the end. *Young Lawrence Newton's life on Amethi and becoming a Zantiu-Braun squaddie sergeant. *Adult Lawrence Newton's life as a Zantiu-Braun squaddie sergeant preparing for the asset realization expedition to Thallspring. *Denise Ebourn from Arnoon village and her resistance group's preparation for and battle against the Thallspring asset realization expedition. *The alien prince Mozark's journey in the galaxy-wide Ring Empire, a story told by Denise Ebourn to the kindergarten children. *Limited perspective and narrative view point from Simon Roderick; the board member leading the Thallspring campaign.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Fallen Dragon takes place during the 25th century. In the preceding centuries, a means of Faster-than-light (FTL) space travel was discovered, allowing a speed of one-half of a light-year per day. This led to a series of colonization efforts in a globe about 70 light years around Earth, but these ended as their costs proved prohibitive. The only major ongoing starflight efforts are carried out by the Zantiu-Braun megacorporation, who use their fleet of starships to periodically plunder their colonies in technically legal \"asset realization\" raids, typically involving military occupation of the planet in question. As it is cheaper to copy technology than ship it, these efforts normally collect single samples of interesting goods, or raw materials that are expensive on Earth. Zantiu-Braun is controlled by clones of Simon Roderick, who is motivated by the idea of uplifting the entire human race to his ideal. The story follows the life of Lawrence Newton from the colony planet Amethi, both in the current time and in a series of flashbacks. In the current time, Newton is a mercenary in the Zantiu-Braun strategic security forces, who leads a squad of troopers wearing organic armor suits called \"Skin\" that render them practically invulnerable. As a teenager, Newton lived on the planet Amethi and is the oldest son of one of the most powerful members of the board of the corporation which controls the planet. Lawrence dreams about being a starship pilot, despite being told by his father that starship exploration is finished. Lawrence loses interest in school work and withdraws socially. His father takes him to a holiday resort, where a gorgeous girl named Roselyn breaks through Lawrence's isolation, and the two develop a passionate relationship. Roselyn eventually informs Lawrence that there actually are space exploration missions through companies on Earth. Never having given up on his dream, he prepares to tell his father of his decision to leave school and overhears his father"
      },
      {
        "text": " being a starship pilot, despite being told by his father that starship exploration is finished. Lawrence loses interest in school work and withdraws socially. His father takes him to a holiday resort, where a gorgeous girl named Roselyn breaks through Lawrence's isolation, and the two develop a passionate relationship. Roselyn eventually informs Lawrence that there actually are space exploration missions through companies on Earth. Never having given up on his dream, he prepares to tell his father of his decision to leave school and overhears his father mentioning that Roselyn was paid to meet and seduce him. In a furious rage, he decides to leave Amethi immediately, and avoids detection by his father through the use of advanced quasi-sentient software called \"Prime\", given to him by his friend Vinnie. Lawrence makes it to Earth and scores well on the Zantiu-Braun officer candidacy exams, but lacking sufficient shares in the company, he is limited his strategic security job, instead of his dream of being a starship captain. As a Skin, he takes part on two missions of note, which are told over a series of short vignettes. One was on the planet Thallspring, which is fairly Earth-like. He is stationed in the town Memu Bay, but takes a journey through the hinterlands to the Arnoon province. During his time there he stops a trio of squaddies from a different platoon from gang-raping one of the villagers. Throughout his stay, Newton is bothered by something odd about the village, which seems to have a quality of living that is well beyond what one would expect given the surroundings. He is convinced they are hiding something, but can't find out what it is. The other was on the planet Santa Chico, where the founders modified themselves at a genetic level to coexist with the planet's biota. The mission goes disastrously wrong. As the colonists are no longer fully human, Zantiu-Braun's soldiers have trouble"
      },
      {
        "text": " bothered by something odd about the village, which seems to have a quality of living that is well beyond what one would expect given the surroundings. He is convinced they are hiding something, but can't find out what it is. The other was on the planet Santa Chico, where the founders modified themselves at a genetic level to coexist with the planet's biota. The mission goes disastrously wrong. As the colonists are no longer fully human, Zantiu-Braun's soldiers have trouble communicating with them, unable to fully comprehend their new lifestyle. The civilization has little in the way of centralized industry or anything of value to Earth, and remains extremely hostile to the Zantiu-Braun forces. Their biological augmentations make them an equal match for the Skins, which they invented years ago, and inflict severe casualties on the asset realization force. They eventually destroy a captured asteroid in orbit in order to create a Kessler syndrome that closes the sky, making further trips to the planet impossible. Newton concludes that the asset realization concept is no longer workable; the technology levels of the colony planets are growing so quickly that future missions will be too dangerous to be worthwhile. But it is this mission that apparently solves the mystery of Arnoon. Arnoon had, in plain sight, alien plants living on unsterilized soil bearing edible fruits. This would be impossible for Thallspring technology to create, and he concludes it was provided by Santa Chico geneticists. Lawrence plans to \"realize\" their unknown wealth for himself, and to use it to buy his retirement. When he learns of another mission to Thallspring, he ensures his team is part of the contingent. In the time since the first mission, Thallspring has advanced greatly. A small group has formed an effective resistance movement in preparation for the next asset realization mission, led by Denise Ebourn from Arnoon. As a cover, Denise works in a kindergarten, where she tells the kids supposedly fictional stories about"
      },
      {
        "text": "realize\" their unknown wealth for himself, and to use it to buy his retirement. When he learns of another mission to Thallspring, he ensures his team is part of the contingent. In the time since the first mission, Thallspring has advanced greatly. A small group has formed an effective resistance movement in preparation for the next asset realization mission, led by Denise Ebourn from Arnoon. As a cover, Denise works in a kindergarten, where she tells the kids supposedly fictional stories about an ancient alien galaxy-wide civilization and an alien prince named Mozark. Denise uses an advanced alien intelligence known as a \"dragon\" to enhance herself, her resistance-cell mates, and the villagers in Arnoon. When the Z-B mission arrives, her team uses their Prime software to sabotage the Zantiu-Braun efforts with some effect. However, Newton, now a Sergent, also has Prime, and uses it to return his platoon to Arnoon in search of its treasure. As Denise learns that Lawrence is headed for Arnoon village she races to intercept him. A violent confrontation takes place between Lawrence's platoon and a group of Arnoon villagers, ending with a wounded Lawrence staggering alone towards Arnoon village. When he gets there he and his Skin suit are spent, and he is near death. The villagers, one of whom (Denise's sister) is the girl he previously saved from being raped, revives him. They reveal that their wealth comes from a damaged alien dragon with greatly advanced technological knowledge such as the nanotechnology used to enhance the resistance movement. The dragon is a spaceliving creature, which is damaged and has lost much of its memory. To repay the dragon for its help, the villagers plan to use steal one of Zantiu-Braun's starships to travel to a red sun, where the dragon says its species lives. After meeting the dragon and learning its story, Lawrence decides to join them, and helps them to hijack"
      },
      {
        "text": " alien dragon with greatly advanced technological knowledge such as the nanotechnology used to enhance the resistance movement. The dragon is a spaceliving creature, which is damaged and has lost much of its memory. To repay the dragon for its help, the villagers plan to use steal one of Zantiu-Braun's starships to travel to a red sun, where the dragon says its species lives. After meeting the dragon and learning its story, Lawrence decides to join them, and helps them to hijack a spaceship. But they are followed by a damaged Simon Roderick clone, who is determined to use all means to capture the technology for himself, not even trusting his clone brothers. Another Simon Roderick clone follows, to get the technology and to stop his clone brother from becoming the only human to possess the powerful knowledge. Denise and Lawrence arrive at the red star and quickly find the dragons. They learn that the dragons are a disengaged race who do nothing but amass knowledge, sharing it freely with others. The Arnoon dragon was simply a seed, one out of billions, and no more important to them than a single sperm cell is to humans. Since they arrived first, Denise and Lawrence convince the red star dragon that the deranged Simon Roderick will misuse their knowledge, and the dragon disables his ship. The dragon civilization gives their patternform construction knowledge to Lawrence, Denise and to the other Simon Roderick, in an agreement arranged by Denise and Lawrence so that the knowledge will be shared freely on Earth, and not monopolized by Zantiu-Braun. Lawrence uses the technology to construct the spaceship he has wanted since he was a teenager. He flies back in time through an ancient time portal, mentioned in Denise's kindergarten story, and then travels to Amethi. There he uses the technology to transform into Vinnie, one of young Lawrence's closest friends. After giving young Lawrence the Prime program so he can travel to Earth, \"Vinnie\" changes into young Lawrence"
      },
      {
        "text": " freely on Earth, and not monopolized by Zantiu-Braun. Lawrence uses the technology to construct the spaceship he has wanted since he was a teenager. He flies back in time through an ancient time portal, mentioned in Denise's kindergarten story, and then travels to Amethi. There he uses the technology to transform into Vinnie, one of young Lawrence's closest friends. After giving young Lawrence the Prime program so he can travel to Earth, \"Vinnie\" changes into young Lawrence, and goes to make up with Roselyn. The book has four separate story threads. The threads are told in parallel in the book, merging at the end. *Young Lawrence Newton's life on Amethi and becoming a Zantiu-Braun squaddie sergeant. *Adult Lawrence Newton's life as a Zantiu-Braun squaddie sergeant preparing for the asset realization expedition to Thallspring. *Denise Ebourn from Arnoon village and her resistance group's preparation for and battle against the Thallspring asset realization expedition. *The alien prince Mozark's journey in the galaxy-wide Ring Empire, a story told by Denise Ebourn to the kindergarten children. *Limited perspective and narrative view point from Simon Roderick; the board member leading the Thallspring campaign.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Maus",
    "author": "Art Spiegelman",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The book opens with a scene from Spiegelman's Rego Park childhood in 1958. He runs to his father after being left behind by his friends, but his father responds in broken English, \"Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week, then you could see what it is, friends!\" As an adult, Spiegelman visits his father, Vladek, from whom he has become estranged. Vladek has remarried to a woman called Mala since the suicide of Art's mother, Anja, in 1968. Art wants to get Vladek to recount his Holocaust experience. Vladek tells of his time in Cz\u0119stochowa, describing how he came to marry into Anja's wealthy family in 1937 and move to Sosnowiec to become a manufacturer. Vladek begs Art not to include this part of the story in the book and Art reluctantly agrees. Anja suffers a mental breakdown after giving birth to their first son, Richieu, towards the end of the year. The couple go to a sanitarium in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia for her to recover. After they return, political and antisemitic tensions build until Vladek is drafted just in time for the Nazi invasion. Vladek is captured at the front and put to labor as a prisoner of war. After being released, he finds Sosnowiec has been annexed by Germany, and he is released on the other side of the border in the Polish protectorate. He sneaks across the border and is reunited with his family. During one of Art's visits, he finds that a friend of Mala's has sent them one of the underground comix magazines he had contributed to. Mala had tries to hide it, but Vladek finds and reads it. The four-page \"Prisoner on the Hell Planet\", reprinted in full, is a striking visual and thematic contrast with the rest of the book. Art is traumatized by his mother's suicide three months after he was released from the state mental hospital, and in the end depicts himself behind bars, saying \"You murdered me, Mommy, and left me here to take the rap!\" In 1943, all Jews were ordered to move from Sosnowiec to Srodula, from where they would be marched to Sosnowiec to work. The family is split up\u2014Richieu is sent to Zawiercie to be with his aunt, where they believed he would be safe. As the round-ups increase, and more Jews are sent from the ghettos to Auschwitz, the aunt poisons herself, her children and Richieu to escape the Gestapo. In Srodula, many Jews, including Vladek, build bunkers to hide from the German roundups. Vladek's bunker is discovered and he is placed into a \"ghetto inside the ghetto\", surrounded by barbed wire. Later the remnants of Vladek and Anja's family are taken away. Srodula is cleared completely of its Jews, except for a group Vladek hides with in another bunker. When the Germans finally depart, the group splits up and leaves the ghetto. In Sosnowiec, Vladek and Anja move from one hiding place to the next, making occasional contact with other Jews in hiding. Vladek hunts for provisions disguised as a Pole. They arrange with smugglers to escape to Hungary, but it is a trick\u2014they are arrested by the Gestapo on the train and are taken to Auschwitz, where they are separated until after the war. Art asks after Anja's diaries, which Vladek tells him were her later account of her Holocaust experiences. They are the only way to find out what happened to her after she was separated from Vladek at Auschwitz. Vladek tells Art she had said, \"I wish my son, when he grows up, he will be interested in this\". Vladek comes to admit that he burned them after she killed herself. Art is enraged, and calls Vladek a \"murderer\". The story jumps to 1986, after the first six chapters of Maus were collected into a single volume. Art is overcome with the unexpected attention the book receives, finding himself \"totally blocked\". Art talks with his psychiatrist, Paul Pavel, a Czech Holocaust survivor, about the book, who suggests that, as those who perished in the camps can never tell their stories, \"maybe it's better not to have any more stories\". Art replies with a quote from Samuel Beckett: \"Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness\", but then realizes, \"on the other hand, he said it\". Vladek tells of his hardships in the camps, of starvation and abuse, of avoiding the selektionen and of his resourcefulness. Though it is dangerous, Anja and Vladek occasionally are able to exchange messages. As the war progresses, and the German front is pushed back, the prisoners are marched from Auschwitz, in Poland, to Gross-Rosen within the Reich, and then to Dachau, where the hardships only increase and Vladek catches typhus. The war ends, the camp survivors are freed, and Vladek and Anja are reunited. The book closes with Vladek turning over in his bed and telling Art, \"I'm tired from talking, Richieu, and it's enough stories for now.\" The final image is of Vladek and Anja's tombstone\u2014Vladek died in 1982, long before the book was completed.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book opens with a scene from Spiegelman's Rego Park childhood in 1958. He runs to his father after being left behind by his friends, but his father responds in broken English, \"Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week, then you could see what it is, friends!\" As an adult, Spiegelman visits his father, Vladek, from whom he has become estranged. Vladek has remarried to a woman called Mala since the suicide of Art's mother, Anja, in 1968. Art wants to get Vladek to recount his Holocaust experience. Vladek tells of his time in Cz\u0119stochowa, describing how he came to marry into Anja's wealthy family in 1937 and move to Sosnowiec to become a manufacturer. Vladek begs Art not to include this part of the story in the book and Art reluctantly agrees. Anja suffers a mental breakdown after giving birth to their first son, Richieu, towards the end of the year. The couple go to a sanitarium in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia for her to recover. After they return, political and antisemitic tensions build until Vladek is drafted just in time for the Nazi invasion. Vladek is captured at the front and put to labor as a prisoner of war. After being released, he finds Sosnowiec has been annexed by Germany, and he is released on the other side of the border in the Polish protectorate. He sneaks across the border and is reunited with his family. During one of Art's visits, he finds that a friend of Mala's has sent them one of the underground comix magazines he had contributed to. Mala had tries to hide it, but Vladek finds and reads it. The four-page \"Prisoner on the Hell Planet\", reprinted in full"
      },
      {
        "text": " been annexed by Germany, and he is released on the other side of the border in the Polish protectorate. He sneaks across the border and is reunited with his family. During one of Art's visits, he finds that a friend of Mala's has sent them one of the underground comix magazines he had contributed to. Mala had tries to hide it, but Vladek finds and reads it. The four-page \"Prisoner on the Hell Planet\", reprinted in full, is a striking visual and thematic contrast with the rest of the book. Art is traumatized by his mother's suicide three months after he was released from the state mental hospital, and in the end depicts himself behind bars, saying \"You murdered me, Mommy, and left me here to take the rap!\" In 1943, all Jews were ordered to move from Sosnowiec to Srodula, from where they would be marched to Sosnowiec to work. The family is split up\u2014Richieu is sent to Zawiercie to be with his aunt, where they believed he would be safe. As the round-ups increase, and more Jews are sent from the ghettos to Auschwitz, the aunt poisons herself, her children and Richieu to escape the Gestapo. In Srodula, many Jews, including Vladek, build bunkers to hide from the German roundups. Vladek's bunker is discovered and he is placed into a \"ghetto inside the ghetto\", surrounded by barbed wire. Later the remnants of Vladek and Anja's family are taken away. Srodula is cleared completely of its Jews, except for a group Vladek hides with in another bunker. When the Germans finally depart, the group splits up and leaves the ghetto. In Sosnowiec, Vladek and Anja move from one hiding place to the next, making occasional contact with"
      },
      {
        "text": " is placed into a \"ghetto inside the ghetto\", surrounded by barbed wire. Later the remnants of Vladek and Anja's family are taken away. Srodula is cleared completely of its Jews, except for a group Vladek hides with in another bunker. When the Germans finally depart, the group splits up and leaves the ghetto. In Sosnowiec, Vladek and Anja move from one hiding place to the next, making occasional contact with other Jews in hiding. Vladek hunts for provisions disguised as a Pole. They arrange with smugglers to escape to Hungary, but it is a trick\u2014they are arrested by the Gestapo on the train and are taken to Auschwitz, where they are separated until after the war. Art asks after Anja's diaries, which Vladek tells him were her later account of her Holocaust experiences. They are the only way to find out what happened to her after she was separated from Vladek at Auschwitz. Vladek tells Art she had said, \"I wish my son, when he grows up, he will be interested in this\". Vladek comes to admit that he burned them after she killed herself. Art is enraged, and calls Vladek a \"murderer\". The story jumps to 1986, after the first six chapters of Maus were collected into a single volume. Art is overcome with the unexpected attention the book receives, finding himself \"totally blocked\". Art talks with his psychiatrist, Paul Pavel, a Czech Holocaust survivor, about the book, who suggests that, as those who perished in the camps can never tell their stories, \"maybe it's better not to have any more stories\". Art replies with a quote from Samuel Beckett: \"Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness\", but then realizes, \"on the other hand, he said it\". Vladek tells of his hardships in the"
      },
      {
        "text": " \"totally blocked\". Art talks with his psychiatrist, Paul Pavel, a Czech Holocaust survivor, about the book, who suggests that, as those who perished in the camps can never tell their stories, \"maybe it's better not to have any more stories\". Art replies with a quote from Samuel Beckett: \"Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness\", but then realizes, \"on the other hand, he said it\". Vladek tells of his hardships in the camps, of starvation and abuse, of avoiding the selektionen and of his resourcefulness. Though it is dangerous, Anja and Vladek occasionally are able to exchange messages. As the war progresses, and the German front is pushed back, the prisoners are marched from Auschwitz, in Poland, to Gross-Rosen within the Reich, and then to Dachau, where the hardships only increase and Vladek catches typhus. The war ends, the camp survivors are freed, and Vladek and Anja are reunited. The book closes with Vladek turning over in his bed and telling Art, \"I'm tired from talking, Richieu, and it's enough stories for now.\" The final image is of Vladek and Anja's tombstone\u2014Vladek died in 1982, long before the book was completed.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sea-Wolf",
    "author": "Jack London",
    "published_date": "1904",
    "synopsis": " Like The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf tells the story of a soft, domesticated protagonist, in this novel's case an intellectual man named Humphrey van Weyden, forced to become tough and self-reliant by exposure to cruelty and brutality. The story starts with him aboard a San Francisco ferry, called Martinez, which collides with another ship in the fog and sinks. He is set adrift in the Bay, eventually being picked up by Wolf Larsen. Larsen is the captain of a seal-hunting schooner, the Ghost. Brutal and cynical, yet also highly intelligent and intellectual (though highly biased in his opinions, as he was self-taught), he rules over his ship and terrorizes the crew with the aid of his exceptionally great physical strength. Van Weyden adequately describes him as an individualist, hedonist, and materialist. Larsen does not believe in the immortality of the soul, he finds no meaning in his life save for survival and pleasure and has come to despise all human life and deny its value. Being interested in someone capable of intellectual disputes, he somewhat takes care of Van Weyden, whom he calls 'Hump', while forcing him to become a cabin boy, do menial work, and learn to fight to protect himself from a brutal crew. A key event in the story is an attempted mutiny against Wolf Larsen by several members of the crew. The organizers of the mutiny are Leach and Johnson. Johnson had previously been beaten severely by Larsen, and Leach had been punched earlier while being forced to become a boat-puller, motivating the two. The first attempt is by sending Larsen overboard; however, he manages to climb back onto the ship. Searching for his assailant, he ventures into the sleeping quarters, located beneath the main deck, the only exit being a ladder. Several, at least seven men, take part in the mutiny and attack Larsen. Larsen however, demonstrating his inhuman endurance, strength, and conviction, manages to fight his way through the crew, climb the ladder with several men hanging off him, and escape relatively unharmed. Van Weyden is promoted as mate, for the original mate had been murdered. Larsen later gets his vengeance by torturing his crew, and constantly claiming that he is going to murder Leach and Johnson at his earliest convenience, being after the hunting season is done, as he can't afford to lose any crew. He later allows them to be lost to the sea when they attempt to flee on a hunting boat. During this section, the Ghost picks up another set of castaways, including a poet named Maud Brewster. Miss Brewster and van Weyden had known each other previously\u2014but only as writers. Both Wolf Larsen and van Weyden immediately feel attraction to her, due to her intelligence and \"female delicacy\". Van Weyden sees her as his first true love. He strives to protect her from the crew, the horrors of the sea, and Wolf Larsen. As this happens, Wolf Larsen meets his brother Death Larsen, a bitter opponent of his. Wolf kidnapped several of Death's crew and forced them into servitude to fill his own ranks, lost previously during a storm. During one of Wolf Larsen's intense headaches, which render him near immobile, van Weyden steals a boat and flees with Miss Brewster. The two eventually land on an uninhabited island, heavily populated with seals. They hunt, build shelter and a fire, and survive for several days, using the strength they gained while on the Ghost. The Ghost eventually crashes on the island, with Wolf Larsen the only crew member. As a revenge, Death Larsen had tracked his brother, bribed his crew, destroyed his sails, and set Larsen adrift at sea. It is purely by chance that van Weyden and Miss Brewster meet Larsen again. Van Weyden obtains all of the firearms left on the ship, but he cannot bear to murder Larsen, who does not threaten him. Van Weyden and Miss Brewster decide they can repair the ship, but Larsen, who intends to die on the island and take them with him, sabotages any repairs they make. After a headache, Larsen is rendered blind. He feigns paralysis and attempts to murder van Weyden when he draws within arm's reach but just then is hit with a stroke that leaves him blind and the right side of his body paralyzed. His condition only worsens; he loses usage of his remaining arm, leg, and voice. Miss Brewster and van Weyden, unable to bring themselves to leave him to rot, care for him. Despite this kindness, he continues his resistance, setting fire to the bunk's mattress above him. Van Weyden finishes repairing the Ghost, and he and Miss Brewster set sail. During a violent storm, Wolf Larsen dies. They give Larsen a burial at sea, an act mirroring an incident van Weyden witnessed when he was first rescued. The story ends with the two being rescued by an American revenue cutter.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Like The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf tells the story of a soft, domesticated protagonist, in this novel's case an intellectual man named Humphrey van Weyden, forced to become tough and self-reliant by exposure to cruelty and brutality. The story starts with him aboard a San Francisco ferry, called Martinez, which collides with another ship in the fog and sinks. He is set adrift in the Bay, eventually being picked up by Wolf Larsen. Larsen is the captain of a seal-hunting schooner, the Ghost. Brutal and cynical, yet also highly intelligent and intellectual (though highly biased in his opinions, as he was self-taught), he rules over his ship and terrorizes the crew with the aid of his exceptionally great physical strength. Van Weyden adequately describes him as an individualist, hedonist, and materialist. Larsen does not believe in the immortality of the soul, he finds no meaning in his life save for survival and pleasure and has come to despise all human life and deny its value. Being interested in someone capable of intellectual disputes, he somewhat takes care of Van Weyden, whom he calls 'Hump', while forcing him to become a cabin boy, do menial work, and learn to fight to protect himself from a brutal crew. A key event in the story is an attempted mutiny against Wolf Larsen by several members of the crew. The organizers of the mutiny are Leach and Johnson. Johnson had previously been beaten severely by Larsen, and Leach had been punched earlier while being forced to become a boat-puller, motivating the two. The first attempt is by sending Larsen overboard; however, he manages to climb back onto the ship. Searching for his assailant, he ventures into the sleeping quarters, located beneath the main deck, the only exit being a ladder. Several, at least seven men, take part in the mutiny and attack Larsen. Lars"
      },
      {
        "text": " Johnson. Johnson had previously been beaten severely by Larsen, and Leach had been punched earlier while being forced to become a boat-puller, motivating the two. The first attempt is by sending Larsen overboard; however, he manages to climb back onto the ship. Searching for his assailant, he ventures into the sleeping quarters, located beneath the main deck, the only exit being a ladder. Several, at least seven men, take part in the mutiny and attack Larsen. Larsen however, demonstrating his inhuman endurance, strength, and conviction, manages to fight his way through the crew, climb the ladder with several men hanging off him, and escape relatively unharmed. Van Weyden is promoted as mate, for the original mate had been murdered. Larsen later gets his vengeance by torturing his crew, and constantly claiming that he is going to murder Leach and Johnson at his earliest convenience, being after the hunting season is done, as he can't afford to lose any crew. He later allows them to be lost to the sea when they attempt to flee on a hunting boat. During this section, the Ghost picks up another set of castaways, including a poet named Maud Brewster. Miss Brewster and van Weyden had known each other previously\u2014but only as writers. Both Wolf Larsen and van Weyden immediately feel attraction to her, due to her intelligence and \"female delicacy\". Van Weyden sees her as his first true love. He strives to protect her from the crew, the horrors of the sea, and Wolf Larsen. As this happens, Wolf Larsen meets his brother Death Larsen, a bitter opponent of his. Wolf kidnapped several of Death's crew and forced them into servitude to fill his own ranks, lost previously during a storm. During one of Wolf Larsen's intense headaches, which render him near immobile, van Weyden steals a boat and flees with Miss Brewster. The two eventually land on"
      },
      {
        "text": " strives to protect her from the crew, the horrors of the sea, and Wolf Larsen. As this happens, Wolf Larsen meets his brother Death Larsen, a bitter opponent of his. Wolf kidnapped several of Death's crew and forced them into servitude to fill his own ranks, lost previously during a storm. During one of Wolf Larsen's intense headaches, which render him near immobile, van Weyden steals a boat and flees with Miss Brewster. The two eventually land on an uninhabited island, heavily populated with seals. They hunt, build shelter and a fire, and survive for several days, using the strength they gained while on the Ghost. The Ghost eventually crashes on the island, with Wolf Larsen the only crew member. As a revenge, Death Larsen had tracked his brother, bribed his crew, destroyed his sails, and set Larsen adrift at sea. It is purely by chance that van Weyden and Miss Brewster meet Larsen again. Van Weyden obtains all of the firearms left on the ship, but he cannot bear to murder Larsen, who does not threaten him. Van Weyden and Miss Brewster decide they can repair the ship, but Larsen, who intends to die on the island and take them with him, sabotages any repairs they make. After a headache, Larsen is rendered blind. He feigns paralysis and attempts to murder van Weyden when he draws within arm's reach but just then is hit with a stroke that leaves him blind and the right side of his body paralyzed. His condition only worsens; he loses usage of his remaining arm, leg, and voice. Miss Brewster and van Weyden, unable to bring themselves to leave him to rot, care for him. Despite this kindness, he continues his resistance, setting fire to the bunk's mattress above him. Van Weyden finishes repairing the Ghost, and he and Miss Brewster set sail. During a violent storm,"
      },
      {
        "text": " is hit with a stroke that leaves him blind and the right side of his body paralyzed. His condition only worsens; he loses usage of his remaining arm, leg, and voice. Miss Brewster and van Weyden, unable to bring themselves to leave him to rot, care for him. Despite this kindness, he continues his resistance, setting fire to the bunk's mattress above him. Van Weyden finishes repairing the Ghost, and he and Miss Brewster set sail. During a violent storm, Wolf Larsen dies. They give Larsen a burial at sea, an act mirroring an incident van Weyden witnessed when he was first rescued. The story ends with the two being rescued by an American revenue cutter.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Lost in the Stars",
    "author": "Maxwell Anderson",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " It is August 1949 in the South African village of Ndotsheni (\"The Hills of Ixopo\"). The black priest of St. Mark's Church, the Rev. Stephen Kumalo, learns that his sister is in trouble, from a letter from his brother, John Kumalo, who lives in Johannesburg. Stephen decides to travel to Johannesburg to help his sister and also seek his son, Absalom, who works in the mines (\"Thousands of Miles\"). In Johannesburg Stephen learns that his sister will not leave but she asks him to take care of her young son, Alex. He finally locates his son Absalom, who had been in jail but now plans with his friends to steal so they can get enough money to avoid a life in the gold mines. Absalom's pregnant girlfriend Irina tries to convince him not to take part but he goes ahead with it (\"Trouble Man\"). During the robbery, Absalom kills Arthur Jarvis, a white friend of his father, Stephen. As Absalom is jailed, Stephen wonders how to tell his wife, Grace, and realizes he is facing a crisis of faith (\"Lost in the Stars\"). Stephen knows that his son could either tell a lie and live, or tell the truth and die. He prays for guidance (\"O Tixo, Tixo, Help Me\"). At the trial, Absalom's two friends lie to the court and are freed, but Absalom, truly repentant, tells the truth and is sentenced to hang (\"Cry, the Beloved Country\"). Stephen performs a wedding between Absalom and Irina in prison, then returns home to Ndotsheni with Irina and Alex. Alex and the child of Arthur Jarvis meet and start to become friends (\"Big Mole\"). Stephen tells his flock he can no longer be their minister, and their faith is now also shaken (\"A Bird of Passage\"). On the still-dark morning of the execution, Stephen waits alone for the clock to strike (\"Four O'Clock\"). Unexpectedly, the father of the murdered man pays a visit. He tells Stephen he has realized that they have both lost sons. Out of recognition of their mutual sorrow, and despite their different races, he offers his friendship\u2014and Stephen accepts.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " It is August 1949 in the South African village of Ndotsheni (\"The Hills of Ixopo\"). The black priest of St. Mark's Church, the Rev. Stephen Kumalo, learns that his sister is in trouble, from a letter from his brother, John Kumalo, who lives in Johannesburg. Stephen decides to travel to Johannesburg to help his sister and also seek his son, Absalom, who works in the mines (\"Thousands of Miles\"). In Johannesburg Stephen learns that his sister will not leave but she asks him to take care of her young son, Alex. He finally locates his son Absalom, who had been in jail but now plans with his friends to steal so they can get enough money to avoid a life in the gold mines. Absalom's pregnant girlfriend Irina tries to convince him not to take part but he goes ahead with it (\"Trouble Man\"). During the robbery, Absalom kills Arthur Jarvis, a white friend of his father, Stephen. As Absalom is jailed, Stephen wonders how to tell his wife, Grace, and realizes he is facing a crisis of faith (\"Lost in the Stars\"). Stephen knows that his son could either tell a lie and live, or tell the truth and die. He prays for guidance (\"O Tixo, Tixo, Help Me\"). At the trial, Absalom's two friends lie to the court and are freed, but Absalom, truly repentant, tells the truth and is sentenced to hang (\"Cry, the Beloved Country\"). Stephen performs a wedding between Absalom and Irina in prison, then returns home to Ndotsheni with Irina and Alex. Alex and the child of Arthur Jarvis meet and start to become friends (\"Big Mole\"). Stephen tells his flock he can no longer be their minister, and their faith is now also shaken (\"A Bird of Passage\"). On the still-dark morning of the"
      },
      {
        "text": ", truly repentant, tells the truth and is sentenced to hang (\"Cry, the Beloved Country\"). Stephen performs a wedding between Absalom and Irina in prison, then returns home to Ndotsheni with Irina and Alex. Alex and the child of Arthur Jarvis meet and start to become friends (\"Big Mole\"). Stephen tells his flock he can no longer be their minister, and their faith is now also shaken (\"A Bird of Passage\"). On the still-dark morning of the execution, Stephen waits alone for the clock to strike (\"Four O'Clock\"). Unexpectedly, the father of the murdered man pays a visit. He tells Stephen he has realized that they have both lost sons. Out of recognition of their mutual sorrow, and despite their different races, he offers his friendship\u2014and Stephen accepts.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Count Zero",
    "author": "William Gibson",
    "published_date": "1986",
    "synopsis": " As with later Gibson works, there are multiple story-line threads which eventually intertwine: Thread One: In the southwestern USA, Turner, a corporate mercenary soldier, has been hired out to help Mitchell, a brilliant researcher, make an illegal career move from Maas' corporate fortress built into a mesa in the Arizona desert to another corporation. The attempt is a disaster, and Turner ends up escaping with the scientist's young daughter, Angie Mitchell instead. Her father had apparently altered her nervous system to allow her to access the Cyberspace Matrix directly, without a \"deck\" (a computer), but she is not conscious of this. She also carries the plans, implanted in her brain by her father, of the secrets of construction of the extremely valuable \"biosoft\" that has made Maas so influential and powerful. This \"biosoft\" is what multibillionaire Josef Virek (see thread three) desires above all else, so that he can make an evolutionary jump to something resembling omniscience and immortality. Thread Two: A young New Jersey-suburbs amateur computer hacker, Bobby Newmark, self-named \"Count Zero\", is given a piece of black market software by some criminal associates \"to test\". When he plugs himself into the matrix and runs the program, it almost kills him. The only thing that saves his life is a sudden image of a girl made of light who interferes and unhooks him from the software just before he flatlines. This event leads to his working with his associates' backers to investigate similar strange recent occurrences on the Net. It is eventually revealed that Bobby's mysterious savior is Angie (see Thread One); the two only meet physically at the very end of the book. Thread Three: Marly Krushkova, a small gallery owner in Paris until she was tricked into trying to sell a forgery, and newly infamous as a result, is recruited by ultra-rich, reclusive (cf. Howard Hughes) industrialist and art patron Josef Virek to find the unknown creator of a series of futuristic Joseph Cornell style boxes. Unbeknownst to her, the reason behind Virek's interest in these boxes is related to indications of biosoft construction in the design of one, which he suspects may be contained in the others. All of these plot lines come together at the end of the story and Virek \u2013 the hunter of his immortality and unlimited power \u2013 becomes the hunted. It is hinted that multiple AIs secretly inhabiting cyberspace are the fragmented, compartmentalized remains of two AIs, Neuromancer and Wintermute, having joined together (introduced in Neuromancer, and designed by the head of this Rockefeller-like family, the Tessier-Ashpools). These AI units now interface with humanity in the form of different Haitian voodoo gods, as they have found these images to be the best representations of themselves through which they can communicate with people. Hackers worldwide are becoming aware that there is something weird loose in the cyberspace matrix, but most are understandably reluctant to talk about (or deal with), \"voodoo spooks\" supposedly haunting cyberspace. The \"voodoo gods\" have constructed the elaborate series of events in the novel, having originally given Mitchell the information for developing the biosoft, instructing him to insert a biosoft modification in his daughter's brain, and then sent the Cornell boxes into the world to attract, and enable the disposal of, the malicious Virek. The Cyberspace Matrix, a synergistic linked computer database that encompasses all information on Earth, has become home to sentient beings. But most of humanity remains unaware.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As with later Gibson works, there are multiple story-line threads which eventually intertwine: Thread One: In the southwestern USA, Turner, a corporate mercenary soldier, has been hired out to help Mitchell, a brilliant researcher, make an illegal career move from Maas' corporate fortress built into a mesa in the Arizona desert to another corporation. The attempt is a disaster, and Turner ends up escaping with the scientist's young daughter, Angie Mitchell instead. Her father had apparently altered her nervous system to allow her to access the Cyberspace Matrix directly, without a \"deck\" (a computer), but she is not conscious of this. She also carries the plans, implanted in her brain by her father, of the secrets of construction of the extremely valuable \"biosoft\" that has made Maas so influential and powerful. This \"biosoft\" is what multibillionaire Josef Virek (see thread three) desires above all else, so that he can make an evolutionary jump to something resembling omniscience and immortality. Thread Two: A young New Jersey-suburbs amateur computer hacker, Bobby Newmark, self-named \"Count Zero\", is given a piece of black market software by some criminal associates \"to test\". When he plugs himself into the matrix and runs the program, it almost kills him. The only thing that saves his life is a sudden image of a girl made of light who interferes and unhooks him from the software just before he flatlines. This event leads to his working with his associates' backers to investigate similar strange recent occurrences on the Net. It is eventually revealed that Bobby's mysterious savior is Angie (see Thread One); the two only meet physically at the very end of the book. Thread Three: Marly Krushkova, a small gallery owner in Paris until she was tricked into trying to sell a forgery, and newly infamous as a result, is recruited by ultra-rich, reclusive ("
      },
      {
        "text": " he flatlines. This event leads to his working with his associates' backers to investigate similar strange recent occurrences on the Net. It is eventually revealed that Bobby's mysterious savior is Angie (see Thread One); the two only meet physically at the very end of the book. Thread Three: Marly Krushkova, a small gallery owner in Paris until she was tricked into trying to sell a forgery, and newly infamous as a result, is recruited by ultra-rich, reclusive (cf. Howard Hughes) industrialist and art patron Josef Virek to find the unknown creator of a series of futuristic Joseph Cornell style boxes. Unbeknownst to her, the reason behind Virek's interest in these boxes is related to indications of biosoft construction in the design of one, which he suspects may be contained in the others. All of these plot lines come together at the end of the story and Virek \u2013 the hunter of his immortality and unlimited power \u2013 becomes the hunted. It is hinted that multiple AIs secretly inhabiting cyberspace are the fragmented, compartmentalized remains of two AIs, Neuromancer and Wintermute, having joined together (introduced in Neuromancer, and designed by the head of this Rockefeller-like family, the Tessier-Ashpools). These AI units now interface with humanity in the form of different Haitian voodoo gods, as they have found these images to be the best representations of themselves through which they can communicate with people. Hackers worldwide are becoming aware that there is something weird loose in the cyberspace matrix, but most are understandably reluctant to talk about (or deal with), \"voodoo spooks\" supposedly haunting cyberspace. The \"voodoo gods\" have constructed the elaborate series of events in the novel, having originally given Mitchell the information for developing the biosoft, instructing him to insert a biosoft modification in his daughter's brain, and then sent the"
      },
      {
        "text": " through which they can communicate with people. Hackers worldwide are becoming aware that there is something weird loose in the cyberspace matrix, but most are understandably reluctant to talk about (or deal with), \"voodoo spooks\" supposedly haunting cyberspace. The \"voodoo gods\" have constructed the elaborate series of events in the novel, having originally given Mitchell the information for developing the biosoft, instructing him to insert a biosoft modification in his daughter's brain, and then sent the Cornell boxes into the world to attract, and enable the disposal of, the malicious Virek. The Cyberspace Matrix, a synergistic linked computer database that encompasses all information on Earth, has become home to sentient beings. But most of humanity remains unaware.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Mona Lisa Overdrive",
    "author": "William Gibson",
    "published_date": "1988",
    "synopsis": " Taking place eight years after the events of Count Zero and fifteen years after Neuromancer, the story is formed from several interconnecting plot threads, and also features characters from Gibson's previous works (such as Molly Millions, the razor-fingered mercenary from Neuromancer). One of the plot threads concerns Mona, an innocent young prostitute who has a more-than-passing resemblance to famed Simstim superstar Angie Mitchell. Mona is hired by shady individuals for a \"gig\" which later turns out to be part of a plot to abduct Angie. The second story focuses on a young Japanese girl named Kumiko, daughter of a Yakuza boss sent to London to keep her safe while her father engages in a gang war with other top Yakuza leaders. In London she is cared for by one of her father's retainers, who is also a powerful member of the London Mob. She meets Molly Millions (having altered her appearance and now calling herself \"Sally Shears\", in order to conceal her identity from hostile parties who are implied to be pursuing her), who takes the girl under her wing. The third story thread follows a reclusive artist named Slick Henry, who lives in a place named Factory in the Dog Solitude; a large, poisoned expanse of deserted factories and dumps, perhaps in New Jersey. Slick Henry is a convicted (and punished) car thief. As a result of the repetitive brainwashing nature of his punishment, he spends his days creating large robotic sculptures and periodically suffers episodes of time loss, returning to consciousness afterward with no memory of what he did during the blackout. He is hired by an acquaintance to look after the comatose \"Count\" (Bobby Newmark from the second novel, Count Zero, who has hooked himself into a super-capacity cyber-harddrive called an Aleph). A theoretical \"Aleph\" would have the RAM capacity to literally contain all of reality, enough that a memory construct of a person would contain the complete personality of the individual and allow it to learn, grow and act independently. The final plot line follows Angela Mitchell, famous simstim star and the girl from the second Sprawl novel Count Zero. Angie, thanks to brain manipulations by her father when she was a child, has always had the ability to access cyberspace directly (without a cyberspace deck), but drugs provided by her production company Sense/Net have severely impeded this ability. The story of the reclusive artist that makes cybernetic sculptures is a reference to Mark Pauline of Survival Research Labs.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Taking place eight years after the events of Count Zero and fifteen years after Neuromancer, the story is formed from several interconnecting plot threads, and also features characters from Gibson's previous works (such as Molly Millions, the razor-fingered mercenary from Neuromancer). One of the plot threads concerns Mona, an innocent young prostitute who has a more-than-passing resemblance to famed Simstim superstar Angie Mitchell. Mona is hired by shady individuals for a \"gig\" which later turns out to be part of a plot to abduct Angie. The second story focuses on a young Japanese girl named Kumiko, daughter of a Yakuza boss sent to London to keep her safe while her father engages in a gang war with other top Yakuza leaders. In London she is cared for by one of her father's retainers, who is also a powerful member of the London Mob. She meets Molly Millions (having altered her appearance and now calling herself \"Sally Shears\", in order to conceal her identity from hostile parties who are implied to be pursuing her), who takes the girl under her wing. The third story thread follows a reclusive artist named Slick Henry, who lives in a place named Factory in the Dog Solitude; a large, poisoned expanse of deserted factories and dumps, perhaps in New Jersey. Slick Henry is a convicted (and punished) car thief. As a result of the repetitive brainwashing nature of his punishment, he spends his days creating large robotic sculptures and periodically suffers episodes of time loss, returning to consciousness afterward with no memory of what he did during the blackout. He is hired by an acquaintance to look after the comatose \"Count\" (Bobby Newmark from the second novel, Count Zero, who has hooked himself into a super-capacity cyber-harddrive called an Aleph). A theoretical \"Aleph\" would have the RAM capacity to literally contain all of reality, enough that a"
      },
      {
        "text": ", he spends his days creating large robotic sculptures and periodically suffers episodes of time loss, returning to consciousness afterward with no memory of what he did during the blackout. He is hired by an acquaintance to look after the comatose \"Count\" (Bobby Newmark from the second novel, Count Zero, who has hooked himself into a super-capacity cyber-harddrive called an Aleph). A theoretical \"Aleph\" would have the RAM capacity to literally contain all of reality, enough that a memory construct of a person would contain the complete personality of the individual and allow it to learn, grow and act independently. The final plot line follows Angela Mitchell, famous simstim star and the girl from the second Sprawl novel Count Zero. Angie, thanks to brain manipulations by her father when she was a child, has always had the ability to access cyberspace directly (without a cyberspace deck), but drugs provided by her production company Sense/Net have severely impeded this ability. The story of the reclusive artist that makes cybernetic sculptures is a reference to Mark Pauline of Survival Research Labs.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Tehanu",
    "author": "Ursula K. Le Guin",
    "published_date": "1990",
    "synopsis": " Tehanu begins slightly before the conclusion of the previous book in the series, The Farthest Shore, and provides some information about the life of Tenar after the end of The Tombs of Atuan. She had rejected the option of life among the aristocracy of Havnor, which Ged had opened to her, and arrived on Gont. For some time she lived with Ged's old master Ogion - but though fond of him, rejected Ogion's offer to teach her magic. Instead, she married a farmer called Flint with whom she had two children, called Apple and Spark, and became known to the locals as Goha. It is mentioned that Ged was a bit disappointed in - and did not understand - Tenar's choice of a life. This is not explicitly explained, but there are hints of her feeling a lingering guilt about having been an arrogant Arch-Priestess and ordering people to be cruelly put to death. Moreover, in the beginning of \"The Tombs of Atuan\" it is mentioned that Tenar was born to a farmer's family and at a young age was taken from her loving parents by the Temple servants, and that as a child she was fond of apple trees. At the book's outset, with her husband now dead and her children grown up, Tenar lives on her own at Flint's property Oak Farm, and is lonely and uncertain of her own identity - is she the simple farm woman Goha, or the ex-Kargish priestess Tenar? She adopts the child of wandering vagabonds after the child's natural father pushes her into a campfire and leaves her for dead. Tenar helps to save the child's life, but the child is left with one side of her face permanently scarred and the fingers of one hand fused into a claw. Tenar gives the child the name Therru which means 'flame' in Tenar's native Kargish language. Tenar learns that the mage Ogion, her former tutor, is on his deathbed and has asked to see her. She sets out to visit him at his house outside the town of Re Albi, taking Therru with her. On the way, she encounters a group of ruffians, one of whom is Handy, who was involved in the original attempt on Therru's life, and claims to be her uncle. She stays with Ogion, tending to him in his last days. He instructs her to teach Therru, but his instructions are vague, and hint at her being more than she seems. After his death, she stays on at his cottage, tending to his orchard and goats and pondering her future. She befriends a local witch called Moss and a simple village girl called Heather. Her tranquil existence is dramatically broken by the arrival of Ged (also called Sparrowhawk) on the back of the dragon Kalessin, unconscious and near death. Ged - once the Archmage of Roke - has spent all his wizard's powers in sealing the gap between the worlds of the living and the dead created by the evil wizard Cob. She nurses him back to health, but when the new king Lebannen sends envoys to bring him back to Roke to resume his duties as Archmage, Ged cannot face them, fearing them due to his loss of power. He accepts Tenar's offer to return to Oak Farm to manage things there in her absence and flees there to take up a life as a goatherd. While at Re Albi, Tenar is confronted by the local lord's wicked mage, Aspen, who attempts to put a curse on her, but is initially thwarted. Tenar informs the king's men that she cannot reveal Ged's whereabouts, and they accept the situation and depart. Tenar is initially unsure whether to stay or leave Re Albi, when her safety is threatened again by Aspen and Handy, so she flees with Therru. Her mind confused by Aspen's magic, she is almost overtaken by Handy, but manages to escape, taking refuge in the ship of the king himself. Lebannen takes Tenar and Therru to Valmouth, where Tenar eventually returns to Oak Farm to find that Ged is away tending goats in the mountains for the season. Tenar settles back into life on the farm, until one night, several men attempt to break into the house and apprehend Therru, but are driven off by Ged, who happened to overhear and follow them on their way toward the farm. Tenar and Ged begin a relationship, acknowledging that they had always loved each other. Ged wants nothing more than to settle down and live an ordinary life, far from the concerns of an Archmage. Together, they teach and care for Therru and manage the farm. The order is upset however when Tenar's son Spark returns home suddenly from a life as a sailor and tells her he wishes to run the farm. Under Gontish law Oak Farm belongs to him and Tenar has no claim to it. Before they have time to work out what will happen, Tenar hears word that Moss is dying and wants to see Tenar. She, Ged and Therru leave immediately for Re Albi. However, the message was a trap set by Aspen, who reveals himself to be a follower of the defeated wizard Cob, who despises Ged and Tenar, and fears Therru. When Tenar, under Aspen's curse, leads Ged toward the lord's mansion, Therru escapes. Ged is powerless to prevent Aspen from capturing the two and holding them prisoner, beating and humiliating them in the process, especially Tenar. Meanwhile, Therru runs to the cliff behind Ogion's cottage, where she calls to the dragon Kalessin for help, and reveals her true nature: she is in fact \"a double being, half human, half-dragon.\" Aspen and his followers bring both Tenar and Ged up to the clifftop. Under the influence of Aspen's spell, they are both just about to jump to their deaths when the dragon Kalessin arrives and burns and crushes Aspen and his men to heaps of ash and rags. Kalessin addresses Therru by her true name Tehanu, calling her his daughter, and asks her if she would like to leave with him, but she decides for now that she will stay with Tenar and Ged. The novel ends with all three of them settling down to a simple life of farming and goat keeping at Ogion's old cottage. There is, however, the clear suggestion that Tehanu is the \"woman on Gont\" who is destined to ultimately become the Archmage at the Magic School of Roke. Obviously, innately knowing as her \"mother tongue\" the True Speech which is the basis of all magic - rather than having to spend years in laboriously learning it, as ordinary mages need to do - would give her an enormous head start. Also, already as an untrained child, she is by definition a dragon lord - i.e., \"a person which dragons talk to\" - a distinction which only a few grown mages achieve even at the height of their power.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Tehanu begins slightly before the conclusion of the previous book in the series, The Farthest Shore, and provides some information about the life of Tenar after the end of The Tombs of Atuan. She had rejected the option of life among the aristocracy of Havnor, which Ged had opened to her, and arrived on Gont. For some time she lived with Ged's old master Ogion - but though fond of him, rejected Ogion's offer to teach her magic. Instead, she married a farmer called Flint with whom she had two children, called Apple and Spark, and became known to the locals as Goha. It is mentioned that Ged was a bit disappointed in - and did not understand - Tenar's choice of a life. This is not explicitly explained, but there are hints of her feeling a lingering guilt about having been an arrogant Arch-Priestess and ordering people to be cruelly put to death. Moreover, in the beginning of \"The Tombs of Atuan\" it is mentioned that Tenar was born to a farmer's family and at a young age was taken from her loving parents by the Temple servants, and that as a child she was fond of apple trees. At the book's outset, with her husband now dead and her children grown up, Tenar lives on her own at Flint's property Oak Farm, and is lonely and uncertain of her own identity - is she the simple farm woman Goha, or the ex-Kargish priestess Tenar? She adopts the child of wandering vagabonds after the child's natural father pushes her into a campfire and leaves her for dead. Tenar helps to save the child's life, but the child is left with one side of her face permanently scarred and the fingers of one hand fused into a claw. Tenar gives the child the name Therru which means 'flame' in Tenar's native Kargish language. Tenar learns"
      },
      {
        "text": " ex-Kargish priestess Tenar? She adopts the child of wandering vagabonds after the child's natural father pushes her into a campfire and leaves her for dead. Tenar helps to save the child's life, but the child is left with one side of her face permanently scarred and the fingers of one hand fused into a claw. Tenar gives the child the name Therru which means 'flame' in Tenar's native Kargish language. Tenar learns that the mage Ogion, her former tutor, is on his deathbed and has asked to see her. She sets out to visit him at his house outside the town of Re Albi, taking Therru with her. On the way, she encounters a group of ruffians, one of whom is Handy, who was involved in the original attempt on Therru's life, and claims to be her uncle. She stays with Ogion, tending to him in his last days. He instructs her to teach Therru, but his instructions are vague, and hint at her being more than she seems. After his death, she stays on at his cottage, tending to his orchard and goats and pondering her future. She befriends a local witch called Moss and a simple village girl called Heather. Her tranquil existence is dramatically broken by the arrival of Ged (also called Sparrowhawk) on the back of the dragon Kalessin, unconscious and near death. Ged - once the Archmage of Roke - has spent all his wizard's powers in sealing the gap between the worlds of the living and the dead created by the evil wizard Cob. She nurses him back to health, but when the new king Lebannen sends envoys to bring him back to Roke to resume his duties as Archmage, Ged cannot face them, fearing them due to his loss of power. He accepts Tenar's offer to return to Oak Farm to manage things there in"
      },
      {
        "text": " once the Archmage of Roke - has spent all his wizard's powers in sealing the gap between the worlds of the living and the dead created by the evil wizard Cob. She nurses him back to health, but when the new king Lebannen sends envoys to bring him back to Roke to resume his duties as Archmage, Ged cannot face them, fearing them due to his loss of power. He accepts Tenar's offer to return to Oak Farm to manage things there in her absence and flees there to take up a life as a goatherd. While at Re Albi, Tenar is confronted by the local lord's wicked mage, Aspen, who attempts to put a curse on her, but is initially thwarted. Tenar informs the king's men that she cannot reveal Ged's whereabouts, and they accept the situation and depart. Tenar is initially unsure whether to stay or leave Re Albi, when her safety is threatened again by Aspen and Handy, so she flees with Therru. Her mind confused by Aspen's magic, she is almost overtaken by Handy, but manages to escape, taking refuge in the ship of the king himself. Lebannen takes Tenar and Therru to Valmouth, where Tenar eventually returns to Oak Farm to find that Ged is away tending goats in the mountains for the season. Tenar settles back into life on the farm, until one night, several men attempt to break into the house and apprehend Therru, but are driven off by Ged, who happened to overhear and follow them on their way toward the farm. Tenar and Ged begin a relationship, acknowledging that they had always loved each other. Ged wants nothing more than to settle down and live an ordinary life, far from the concerns of an Archmage. Together, they teach and care for Therru and manage the farm. The order is upset however when Tenar's son Spark returns"
      },
      {
        "text": " break into the house and apprehend Therru, but are driven off by Ged, who happened to overhear and follow them on their way toward the farm. Tenar and Ged begin a relationship, acknowledging that they had always loved each other. Ged wants nothing more than to settle down and live an ordinary life, far from the concerns of an Archmage. Together, they teach and care for Therru and manage the farm. The order is upset however when Tenar's son Spark returns home suddenly from a life as a sailor and tells her he wishes to run the farm. Under Gontish law Oak Farm belongs to him and Tenar has no claim to it. Before they have time to work out what will happen, Tenar hears word that Moss is dying and wants to see Tenar. She, Ged and Therru leave immediately for Re Albi. However, the message was a trap set by Aspen, who reveals himself to be a follower of the defeated wizard Cob, who despises Ged and Tenar, and fears Therru. When Tenar, under Aspen's curse, leads Ged toward the lord's mansion, Therru escapes. Ged is powerless to prevent Aspen from capturing the two and holding them prisoner, beating and humiliating them in the process, especially Tenar. Meanwhile, Therru runs to the cliff behind Ogion's cottage, where she calls to the dragon Kalessin for help, and reveals her true nature: she is in fact \"a double being, half human, half-dragon.\" Aspen and his followers bring both Tenar and Ged up to the clifftop. Under the influence of Aspen's spell, they are both just about to jump to their deaths when the dragon Kalessin arrives and burns and crushes Aspen and his men to heaps of ash and rags. Kalessin addresses Therru by her true name Tehanu, calling her his daughter,"
      },
      {
        "text": " she is in fact \"a double being, half human, half-dragon.\" Aspen and his followers bring both Tenar and Ged up to the clifftop. Under the influence of Aspen's spell, they are both just about to jump to their deaths when the dragon Kalessin arrives and burns and crushes Aspen and his men to heaps of ash and rags. Kalessin addresses Therru by her true name Tehanu, calling her his daughter, and asks her if she would like to leave with him, but she decides for now that she will stay with Tenar and Ged. The novel ends with all three of them settling down to a simple life of farming and goat keeping at Ogion's old cottage. There is, however, the clear suggestion that Tehanu is the \"woman on Gont\" who is destined to ultimately become the Archmage at the Magic School of Roke. Obviously, innately knowing as her \"mother tongue\" the True Speech which is the basis of all magic - rather than having to spend years in laboriously learning it, as ordinary mages need to do - would give her an enormous head start. Also, already as an untrained child, she is by definition a dragon lord - i.e., \"a person which dragons talk to\" - a distinction which only a few grown mages achieve even at the height of their power.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Missionary Position",
    "author": "Christopher Hitchens",
    "published_date": "1995",
    "synopsis": " Hitchens condemns Mother Teresa for having used contributions to open convents in 150 countries rather than establishing the teaching hospital toward which her donors expected that she would apply their gifts. He claims that Mother Teresa was no \"friend to the poor,\" and that she opposed structural measures to end poverty, particularly those that would raise the status of women. He argues she was a tool by which the Catholic Church furthered its political and theological aims, and the cult of personality that she developed was used by politicians, dictators and bankers to gain credibility and assuage guilt, citing Hillary Rodham Clinton, Charles Keating and Mich\u00e8le Bennett as examples. Hitchens portrays Mother Teresa's organization, the Missionaries of Charity, as a cult which has promoted suffering to further its own financial ends and does not help those in need. He argues that Teresa's own words on poverty proved that her intention was not to help people, citing a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: \"Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?\" She replied: \"I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.\" Hitchens details Mother Teresa's relationships with wealthy and corrupt individuals including Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and his wife Mich\u00e8le Duvalier, enigmatic quasi-religious figure John-Roger, and disgraced former financial executive Charles Keating. The book includes the reproduction of a letter written by Mother Teresa on behalf of Charles Keating to Judge Lance Ito who was presiding over Keating's trial for defrauding his investors of billions of dollars. The letter urged the judge to consider the fact that Keating had donated generously ($1.25 million) to the Missionaries of Charity and suggested that Judge Ito \"look into [his] heart\" and \"do what Jesus would do.\" Hitchens also includes the contents of a letter written to Mother Teresa by the man prosecuting the case against Keating, Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles Paul Turley. In the letter, Mr. Turley pointed out to Mother Teresa that Keating was on trial for stealing more than $250 million from over 17,000 investors in his business. In addition, Turley expresses his opinion that \"[n]o church, no charity, no organization should allow itself to be used as a salve for the conscience of the criminal\" and suggests: \"Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime; what Jesus would do if he were in possession of money that had been stolen; what Jesus would do if he were being exploited by a thief to ease his conscience? I submit that Jesus would promptly and unhesitatingly return the stolen property to its rightful owners. You should do the same. You have been given money by Mr. Keating that he has been convicted of stealing by fraud. Do not permit him the 'indulgence' he desires. Do not keep the money. Return it to those who worked for it and earned it! If you contact me I will put you in direct contact with the rightful owners of the property now in your possession.\" After the conclusion of the letter, Hitchens notes: &#34;Mr. Turley has received no reply to his letter. Nor can anyone account for the missing money: saints, it seems, are immune to audit.&#34;\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Hitchens condemns Mother Teresa for having used contributions to open convents in 150 countries rather than establishing the teaching hospital toward which her donors expected that she would apply their gifts. He claims that Mother Teresa was no \"friend to the poor,\" and that she opposed structural measures to end poverty, particularly those that would raise the status of women. He argues she was a tool by which the Catholic Church furthered its political and theological aims, and the cult of personality that she developed was used by politicians, dictators and bankers to gain credibility and assuage guilt, citing Hillary Rodham Clinton, Charles Keating and Mich\u00e8le Bennett as examples. Hitchens portrays Mother Teresa's organization, the Missionaries of Charity, as a cult which has promoted suffering to further its own financial ends and does not help those in need. He argues that Teresa's own words on poverty proved that her intention was not to help people, citing a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: \"Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?\" She replied: \"I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.\" Hitchens details Mother Teresa's relationships with wealthy and corrupt individuals including Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and his wife Mich\u00e8le Duvalier, enigmatic quasi-religious figure John-Roger, and disgraced former financial executive Charles Keating. The book includes the reproduction of a letter written by Mother Teresa on behalf of Charles Keating to Judge Lance Ito who was presiding over Keating's trial for defrauding his investors of billions of dollars. The letter urged the judge to consider the fact that Keating had donated generously ($1.25 million) to the Missionaries of Charity and suggested that Judge Ito \"look into [his] heart\" and \"do what Jesus would do.\" Hitchens also includes the contents of a letter written to Mother"
      },
      {
        "text": " the reproduction of a letter written by Mother Teresa on behalf of Charles Keating to Judge Lance Ito who was presiding over Keating's trial for defrauding his investors of billions of dollars. The letter urged the judge to consider the fact that Keating had donated generously ($1.25 million) to the Missionaries of Charity and suggested that Judge Ito \"look into [his] heart\" and \"do what Jesus would do.\" Hitchens also includes the contents of a letter written to Mother Teresa by the man prosecuting the case against Keating, Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles Paul Turley. In the letter, Mr. Turley pointed out to Mother Teresa that Keating was on trial for stealing more than $250 million from over 17,000 investors in his business. In addition, Turley expresses his opinion that \"[n]o church, no charity, no organization should allow itself to be used as a salve for the conscience of the criminal\" and suggests: \"Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime; what Jesus would do if he were in possession of money that had been stolen; what Jesus would do if he were being exploited by a thief to ease his conscience? I submit that Jesus would promptly and unhesitatingly return the stolen property to its rightful owners. You should do the same. You have been given money by Mr. Keating that he has been convicted of stealing by fraud. Do not permit him the 'indulgence' he desires. Do not keep the money. Return it to those who worked for it and earned it! If you contact me I will put you in direct contact with the rightful owners of the property now in your possession.\" After the conclusion of the letter, Hitchens notes: &#34;Mr. Turley has received no reply to his letter. Nor can anyone account for the missing money: saints, it seems, are immune to audit.&#34;\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "ulgence' he desires. Do not keep the money. Return it to those who worked for it and earned it! If you contact me I will put you in direct contact with the rightful owners of the property now in your possession.\" After the conclusion of the letter, Hitchens notes: &#34;Mr. Turley has received no reply to his letter. Nor can anyone account for the missing money: saints, it seems, are immune to audit.&#34;\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Plague Dogs",
    "author": "Richard Adams",
    "published_date": "1977-09-22",
    "synopsis": " This book tells of the escape of two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, from a government research station in the Lake District in England, where they had been horribly mistreated. They live on their own with help from a red fox, or \"tod,\" who speaks to them in a Geordie dialect. After the starving dogs attack some sheep on the fells, they are reported as ferocious man-eating monsters by a journalist. A great dog hunt follows, which is later intensified with the fear that the dogs could be carriers of a dangerous bioweapon, such as the bubonic plague.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " This book tells of the escape of two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, from a government research station in the Lake District in England, where they had been horribly mistreated. They live on their own with help from a red fox, or \"tod,\" who speaks to them in a Geordie dialect. After the starving dogs attack some sheep on the fells, they are reported as ferocious man-eating monsters by a journalist. A great dog hunt follows, which is later intensified with the fear that the dogs could be carriers of a dangerous bioweapon, such as the bubonic plague.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Moll Flanders",
    "author": "Daniel Defoe",
    "published_date": "1722-01",
    "synopsis": " Moll's mother is a convict in Newgate Prison in London who is given a reprieve by \"pleading her belly,\" a reference to the custom of staying the executions of pregnant criminals. Her mother is eventually transported to America, and Moll Flanders (not her birth name, she emphasizes, taking care not to reveal it) is raised until adolescence by a goodly foster mother, and then gets attached to a household as a servant where she is loved by both sons, the elder of whom convinces her to \"act like they were married\" in bed, yet eventually unwilling to marry her, he persuades her to marry his younger brother. After five years of marriage, she then is widowed, leaves her children in the care of in-laws, and begins honing the skill of passing herself off as a fortuned widow to attract a man who will marry her and provide her with security. The first time she does this, her \"gentleman-tradesman\" spendthrift husband goes bankrupt and flees to the Continent, leaving her on her own with his blessing to do the best she can and forget him. (They had one child together, but it died.) The second time, she makes a match that leads her to Virginia with a kindly man who introduces her to his mother. After three children (one dies), Moll learns that her mother-in-law is actually her biological mother, which makes her husband her half-brother. She dissolves their marriage and after continuing to live with her brother for three years, travels back to England, leaving her two children behind, and goes to live in Bath to seek a new husband. Again she returns to her con skills and develops a relationship with a man in Bath whose wife is elsewhere confined due to insanity. Their relationship is at first platonic, but eventually develops into Moll becoming something of a \"kept woman\" in Hammersmith, London. They have three children (one lives), but after a severe illness he repents, breaks off the arrangement, and commits to his wife. Moll, now 42, resorts to another beau, a banker, who while still married to an adulterous wife (a \"whore\"), proposes to Moll after she entrusts him with her money. While waiting for the banker to divorce, Moll pretends to have a great fortune in order to attract another wealthy husband. She becomes involved with some Roman Catholics in Lancashire that try to convert her, and she marries one of them, a supposedly rich man. She soon realises he expected to receive a great dowry which she denies having, leading him to admit that he has cheated her into marriage, having himself lied about having money that he does not possess. He is in fact a ruined gentleman and discharges her from the marriage, telling her nevertheless that she should inherit any money he might ever get (finally, she mentions his name). Although now pregnant again, Moll lets the banker believe she is available, hoping he returns. She gives birth and the midwife gives a tripartite scale of the costs of bearing a child, with one value level per social class. Moll's son is born when the banker's wife commits suicide following their divorce, and Moll leaves her newborn in the care of a countrywoman in exchange for the sum of \u00a35 a year. Moll marries the banker now, but realises \"what an abominable creature am I! and how is this innocent gentleman going to be abused by me!\" They live in happiness for five years before he becomes bankrupt and dies of despair, the fate of their two children left unstated. Truly desperate now, Moll begins a career of artful thievery, which, by employing her wits, beauty, charm, and femininity, as well as hard-heartedness and wickedness, brings her the financial security she has always sought. Only here does she take the name Moll Flanders and is known thereby. On the downside, she stoops to robbing a family in their burning house, then a lover to whom she becomes a mistress, and is sent to Newgate Prison (like the book's author 20 years prior). In Newgate she is led to her repentance. At the same time, she reunites with her soulmate, her \"Lancashire husband\", who is also jailed for his robberies (before and after they first met, he acknowledges). Moll is found guilty of felony, but not burglary, the second charge; still, the sentence is death in any case. Yet Moll convinces a minister of her repentance, and together with her Lancashire husband is sent to the Colonies to avoid hanging, where they live happily together (she even talks the ship's captain into not being with the convicts sold upon arrival, but instead in the captain's quarters). Once in the colonies, Moll learns her mother has left her a plantation and that her own son (by her brother) is alive, as is her brother/husband. Moll carefully introduces herself to her brother and their son, in disguise. With the help of a Quaker, the two found a farm with 50 servants in Maryland. Moll reveals herself now to her son in Virginia and he gives her her mother's inheritance, a farm for which he will now be her steward, providing \u00a3100 a year income for her. In turn, she makes him her heir and gives him a (stolen) gold watch. At last, her life of conniving and desperation seems to be over. When her brother/husband is dead, Moll tells her (Lancashire) husband the entire story and he is \"perfectly easy on that account... For, said he, it was no fault of yours, nor of his; it was a mistake impossible to be prevented\". Aged 69 (in 1683), the two return to England to live \"in sincere penitence for the wicked lives we have lived\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Moll's mother is a convict in Newgate Prison in London who is given a reprieve by \"pleading her belly,\" a reference to the custom of staying the executions of pregnant criminals. Her mother is eventually transported to America, and Moll Flanders (not her birth name, she emphasizes, taking care not to reveal it) is raised until adolescence by a goodly foster mother, and then gets attached to a household as a servant where she is loved by both sons, the elder of whom convinces her to \"act like they were married\" in bed, yet eventually unwilling to marry her, he persuades her to marry his younger brother. After five years of marriage, she then is widowed, leaves her children in the care of in-laws, and begins honing the skill of passing herself off as a fortuned widow to attract a man who will marry her and provide her with security. The first time she does this, her \"gentleman-tradesman\" spendthrift husband goes bankrupt and flees to the Continent, leaving her on her own with his blessing to do the best she can and forget him. (They had one child together, but it died.) The second time, she makes a match that leads her to Virginia with a kindly man who introduces her to his mother. After three children (one dies), Moll learns that her mother-in-law is actually her biological mother, which makes her husband her half-brother. She dissolves their marriage and after continuing to live with her brother for three years, travels back to England, leaving her two children behind, and goes to live in Bath to seek a new husband. Again she returns to her con skills and develops a relationship with a man in Bath whose wife is elsewhere confined due to insanity. Their relationship is at first platonic, but eventually develops into Moll becoming something of a \"kept woman\" in Hammersmith, London. They have three children (one lives"
      },
      {
        "text": " dissolves their marriage and after continuing to live with her brother for three years, travels back to England, leaving her two children behind, and goes to live in Bath to seek a new husband. Again she returns to her con skills and develops a relationship with a man in Bath whose wife is elsewhere confined due to insanity. Their relationship is at first platonic, but eventually develops into Moll becoming something of a \"kept woman\" in Hammersmith, London. They have three children (one lives), but after a severe illness he repents, breaks off the arrangement, and commits to his wife. Moll, now 42, resorts to another beau, a banker, who while still married to an adulterous wife (a \"whore\"), proposes to Moll after she entrusts him with her money. While waiting for the banker to divorce, Moll pretends to have a great fortune in order to attract another wealthy husband. She becomes involved with some Roman Catholics in Lancashire that try to convert her, and she marries one of them, a supposedly rich man. She soon realises he expected to receive a great dowry which she denies having, leading him to admit that he has cheated her into marriage, having himself lied about having money that he does not possess. He is in fact a ruined gentleman and discharges her from the marriage, telling her nevertheless that she should inherit any money he might ever get (finally, she mentions his name). Although now pregnant again, Moll lets the banker believe she is available, hoping he returns. She gives birth and the midwife gives a tripartite scale of the costs of bearing a child, with one value level per social class. Moll's son is born when the banker's wife commits suicide following their divorce, and Moll leaves her newborn in the care of a countrywoman in exchange for the sum of \u00a35 a year. Moll marries the banker now, but realises \""
      },
      {
        "text": " now pregnant again, Moll lets the banker believe she is available, hoping he returns. She gives birth and the midwife gives a tripartite scale of the costs of bearing a child, with one value level per social class. Moll's son is born when the banker's wife commits suicide following their divorce, and Moll leaves her newborn in the care of a countrywoman in exchange for the sum of \u00a35 a year. Moll marries the banker now, but realises \"what an abominable creature am I! and how is this innocent gentleman going to be abused by me!\" They live in happiness for five years before he becomes bankrupt and dies of despair, the fate of their two children left unstated. Truly desperate now, Moll begins a career of artful thievery, which, by employing her wits, beauty, charm, and femininity, as well as hard-heartedness and wickedness, brings her the financial security she has always sought. Only here does she take the name Moll Flanders and is known thereby. On the downside, she stoops to robbing a family in their burning house, then a lover to whom she becomes a mistress, and is sent to Newgate Prison (like the book's author 20 years prior). In Newgate she is led to her repentance. At the same time, she reunites with her soulmate, her \"Lancashire husband\", who is also jailed for his robberies (before and after they first met, he acknowledges). Moll is found guilty of felony, but not burglary, the second charge; still, the sentence is death in any case. Yet Moll convinces a minister of her repentance, and together with her Lancashire husband is sent to the Colonies to avoid hanging, where they live happily together (she even talks the ship's captain into not being with the convicts sold upon arrival, but instead in the captain's quarters). Once in the colonies"
      },
      {
        "text": " and after they first met, he acknowledges). Moll is found guilty of felony, but not burglary, the second charge; still, the sentence is death in any case. Yet Moll convinces a minister of her repentance, and together with her Lancashire husband is sent to the Colonies to avoid hanging, where they live happily together (she even talks the ship's captain into not being with the convicts sold upon arrival, but instead in the captain's quarters). Once in the colonies, Moll learns her mother has left her a plantation and that her own son (by her brother) is alive, as is her brother/husband. Moll carefully introduces herself to her brother and their son, in disguise. With the help of a Quaker, the two found a farm with 50 servants in Maryland. Moll reveals herself now to her son in Virginia and he gives her her mother's inheritance, a farm for which he will now be her steward, providing \u00a3100 a year income for her. In turn, she makes him her heir and gives him a (stolen) gold watch. At last, her life of conniving and desperation seems to be over. When her brother/husband is dead, Moll tells her (Lancashire) husband the entire story and he is \"perfectly easy on that account... For, said he, it was no fault of yours, nor of his; it was a mistake impossible to be prevented\". Aged 69 (in 1683), the two return to England to live \"in sincere penitence for the wicked lives we have lived\".\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " (in 1683), the two return to England to live \"in sincere penitence for the wicked lives we have lived\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Skellig",
    "author": "David Almond",
    "published_date": "1998",
    "synopsis": " A boy, Michael and his family have moved into a new house that is very old and falling apart. He and his parents are anxious as his new baby sister was born prematurely and may not live due to a heart condition. When Michael goes into the garage, amid all the boxes, debris and dead insects he finds a strange emaciated man. Michael assumes that he is a homeless person, but decides to look after him and gives him food, though he is crotchety and arthritic, demanding aspirin, Chinese food menu order numbers 27 and 53 and brown ale. Michael hears a story that human shoulder blades are a vestige of angel wings. Meanwhile his friends from school become more and more distant as Michael stops attending school and so spends less time with them. He meets a girl named Mina from across the road and over the course of the story they become very close friends. Mina is home schooled and is interested in nature, birds, drawing and poems by William Blake to which her Mother introduced her. She takes care of some baby birds who live in her garden and teaches Michael to hear their tiny sounds. Michael decides to introduce her to the strange old man. Michael asks about arthritis and how to cure it, talking to doctors and patients in the hospital where his baby sister is being treated. The man whom Michael had moved from the garage introduces himself as \"Skellig\" to Michael and Mina. Michael's baby sister comes dangerously close to death and must undergo heart surgery. His mother goes to hospital to stay with the baby and, that night, dreams or sees Skellig come in, pick the baby up and hold it high in the air, saving Michael's little sister.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A boy, Michael and his family have moved into a new house that is very old and falling apart. He and his parents are anxious as his new baby sister was born prematurely and may not live due to a heart condition. When Michael goes into the garage, amid all the boxes, debris and dead insects he finds a strange emaciated man. Michael assumes that he is a homeless person, but decides to look after him and gives him food, though he is crotchety and arthritic, demanding aspirin, Chinese food menu order numbers 27 and 53 and brown ale. Michael hears a story that human shoulder blades are a vestige of angel wings. Meanwhile his friends from school become more and more distant as Michael stops attending school and so spends less time with them. He meets a girl named Mina from across the road and over the course of the story they become very close friends. Mina is home schooled and is interested in nature, birds, drawing and poems by William Blake to which her Mother introduced her. She takes care of some baby birds who live in her garden and teaches Michael to hear their tiny sounds. Michael decides to introduce her to the strange old man. Michael asks about arthritis and how to cure it, talking to doctors and patients in the hospital where his baby sister is being treated. The man whom Michael had moved from the garage introduces himself as \"Skellig\" to Michael and Mina. Michael's baby sister comes dangerously close to death and must undergo heart surgery. His mother goes to hospital to stay with the baby and, that night, dreams or sees Skellig come in, pick the baby up and hold it high in the air, saving Michael's little sister.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " heart surgery. His mother goes to hospital to stay with the baby and, that night, dreams or sees Skellig come in, pick the baby up and hold it high in the air, saving Michael's little sister.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Kokoro",
    "author": "Soseki Natsume",
    "published_date": "1914",
    "synopsis": " The novel was written in 1914. It is set a few years previous and is divided into three parts. In the first part, Sensei and I, the narrator, a guileless university student, befriends an older man, Sensei (most of the characters' real names are not given). Sensei lives as a recluse, interacting only with his wife and the narrator, and occasional unseen visitors, but still maintaining a distance between himself and them. He regularly visits the grave of a friend, but for the moment refuses to tell the narrator any details of his earlier life. In the second part, My Parents and I, the narrator graduates and returns to his home in the country to await his father's death. As his father lies dying, the narrator receives a letter from Sensei which is recounted in the third part of the novel, Sensei and His Testament. Sensei reveals that in his own university days he was cheated out of most of his fortune by his uncle. As a result he moved to Tokyo and began living with a widow and her daughter, with whom he fell in love. Later he convinced his childhood friend (known only as K), who was in dire straits, to move in with him. Gradually K recovered, but also fell in love with the landlady's daughter. K confessed this love to Sensei, who was shocked, and later full of jealousy. Sensei then proposed marriage, and shortly after, K committed suicide. Sensei, who had lost his faith in humanity after being cheated by his uncle, was horrified to find the same dark impulses lurking in his own heart, and felt a heavy guilt for the death of his friend. In the present, 1912, Sensei is prompted by the suicide of General Nogi Maresuke (following the death of the Meiji Emperor) to take his own life, writing the letter to his only friend to explain his decision.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel was written in 1914. It is set a few years previous and is divided into three parts. In the first part, Sensei and I, the narrator, a guileless university student, befriends an older man, Sensei (most of the characters' real names are not given). Sensei lives as a recluse, interacting only with his wife and the narrator, and occasional unseen visitors, but still maintaining a distance between himself and them. He regularly visits the grave of a friend, but for the moment refuses to tell the narrator any details of his earlier life. In the second part, My Parents and I, the narrator graduates and returns to his home in the country to await his father's death. As his father lies dying, the narrator receives a letter from Sensei which is recounted in the third part of the novel, Sensei and His Testament. Sensei reveals that in his own university days he was cheated out of most of his fortune by his uncle. As a result he moved to Tokyo and began living with a widow and her daughter, with whom he fell in love. Later he convinced his childhood friend (known only as K), who was in dire straits, to move in with him. Gradually K recovered, but also fell in love with the landlady's daughter. K confessed this love to Sensei, who was shocked, and later full of jealousy. Sensei then proposed marriage, and shortly after, K committed suicide. Sensei, who had lost his faith in humanity after being cheated by his uncle, was horrified to find the same dark impulses lurking in his own heart, and felt a heavy guilt for the death of his friend. In the present, 1912, Sensei is prompted by the suicide of General Nogi Maresuke (following the death of the Meiji Emperor) to take his own life, writing the letter to his only friend to explain his decision.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", who had lost his faith in humanity after being cheated by his uncle, was horrified to find the same dark impulses lurking in his own heart, and felt a heavy guilt for the death of his friend. In the present, 1912, Sensei is prompted by the suicide of General Nogi Maresuke (following the death of the Meiji Emperor) to take his own life, writing the letter to his only friend to explain his decision.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Diary of an Ordinary Woman",
    "author": "Margaret Forster",
    "published_date": "2003-03-06",
    "synopsis": " From the age of thirteen, on the eve of the Great War, Millicent King keeps her journals in a series of exercise books. The diary records the dramas of everyday life in an ordinary English family touched by war, tragedy, and money troubles in the early decades of the century. She struggles to become a teacher, but wants more out of life. From bohemian literary London to Rome in the twenties, her story moves on to social work and the build-up to another war, in which she drives ambulances through the bombed streets of London. She has proposals of marriage and secret lovers, ambition and optimism. but then her life is turned upside down once more by wartime deaths.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " From the age of thirteen, on the eve of the Great War, Millicent King keeps her journals in a series of exercise books. The diary records the dramas of everyday life in an ordinary English family touched by war, tragedy, and money troubles in the early decades of the century. She struggles to become a teacher, but wants more out of life. From bohemian literary London to Rome in the twenties, her story moves on to social work and the build-up to another war, in which she drives ambulances through the bombed streets of London. She has proposals of marriage and secret lovers, ambition and optimism. but then her life is turned upside down once more by wartime deaths.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Road to Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1909",
    "synopsis": " Dorothy is near her home in Kansas when the story begins. She and her dog Toto first meet the Shaggy Man, a wandering hobo who carries the Love Magnet with him, en route to avoid the town of Butterfield. Further on, the road splits into seven paths. They take the seventh and soon meet Button Bright, a little boy in a sailor's outfit who is always getting lost. Later, the companions meet Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter, a fairy who danced off the edge of the rainbow just as it disappeared. Dorothy, Toto, the Shaggy Man, Button-Bright, and Polychrome soon come to the town of Foxville, where anthropomorphic foxes live. With prompting from King Dox of Foxville, Dorothy deduces that she's on another \"fairy adventure\" that will ultimately lead her to Oz, just in time for Ozma's birthday party, which is now acknowledged as August 21 by Oz fans, even though the book only refers to the 21st of the month, Dorothy having mentioned that the current month is August in another passage. The king takes a particular liking to Button Bright, whom he considers astute and clever due to his tabula rasa-like mind. Believing that the human face does not suit one so clever, Dox gives him a fox's head. A similar event subsequently happens to the Shaggy Man, when King Kik-a-Bray of Dunkiton confers a donkey's head upon him\u2014also in reward for cleverness, even though it's implied that Foxville and Dunkiton exist at odds with one another. After meeting the Musicker, who produces music from his breath, and fighting off the head-throwing Scoodlers, Dorothy and her companions reach the edge of the Deadly Desert surrounding Oz. There, the Shaggy Man's friend Johnny Dooit builds a \"sand-boat\" by which they may cross. This is necessary, because physical contact with the desert's sands, as of this book and Ozma of Oz, will turn the travelers to dust. Upon reaching Oz, Dorothy and her companions are welcomed by Tik-Tok and Billina the Yellow Hen. They proceed in company, to come in their travels to the Truth Pond, where Button Bright and the Shaggy Man regain their true heads by bathing in its waters. They meet the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and Jack Pumpkinhead who journey with them to the Emerald City for Ozma's birthday. As preparations are made for arrivals from all over Fairyland (principally characters from Baum's non-Oz books, such as Santa Claus, Queen Zixi of Ix, John Dough \u2013 a man made out of gingerbread \u2013 and Chick the Cherub), the Shaggy Man receives permission to stay in Oz permanently. He is given, in addition to this, a new suit of clothes having bobtails in place of his former costume's ragged edges, so that he may retain his name and identity. After everyone has presented their gifts and feasted at a banquet in Ozma's honor, the Wizard demonstrates a method of using bubbles as transportation by which to send everyone home. Polychrome goes home upon a rainbow, Button-Bright goes home with Santa Claus on a soap bubble, and Dorothy is wished home by Ozma's use of the Magic Belt.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Dorothy is near her home in Kansas when the story begins. She and her dog Toto first meet the Shaggy Man, a wandering hobo who carries the Love Magnet with him, en route to avoid the town of Butterfield. Further on, the road splits into seven paths. They take the seventh and soon meet Button Bright, a little boy in a sailor's outfit who is always getting lost. Later, the companions meet Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter, a fairy who danced off the edge of the rainbow just as it disappeared. Dorothy, Toto, the Shaggy Man, Button-Bright, and Polychrome soon come to the town of Foxville, where anthropomorphic foxes live. With prompting from King Dox of Foxville, Dorothy deduces that she's on another \"fairy adventure\" that will ultimately lead her to Oz, just in time for Ozma's birthday party, which is now acknowledged as August 21 by Oz fans, even though the book only refers to the 21st of the month, Dorothy having mentioned that the current month is August in another passage. The king takes a particular liking to Button Bright, whom he considers astute and clever due to his tabula rasa-like mind. Believing that the human face does not suit one so clever, Dox gives him a fox's head. A similar event subsequently happens to the Shaggy Man, when King Kik-a-Bray of Dunkiton confers a donkey's head upon him\u2014also in reward for cleverness, even though it's implied that Foxville and Dunkiton exist at odds with one another. After meeting the Musicker, who produces music from his breath, and fighting off the head-throwing Scoodlers, Dorothy and her companions reach the edge of the Deadly Desert surrounding Oz. There, the Shaggy Man's friend Johnny Dooit builds a \"sand-boat\" by which they may cross. This is necessary, because physical"
      },
      {
        "text": " head upon him\u2014also in reward for cleverness, even though it's implied that Foxville and Dunkiton exist at odds with one another. After meeting the Musicker, who produces music from his breath, and fighting off the head-throwing Scoodlers, Dorothy and her companions reach the edge of the Deadly Desert surrounding Oz. There, the Shaggy Man's friend Johnny Dooit builds a \"sand-boat\" by which they may cross. This is necessary, because physical contact with the desert's sands, as of this book and Ozma of Oz, will turn the travelers to dust. Upon reaching Oz, Dorothy and her companions are welcomed by Tik-Tok and Billina the Yellow Hen. They proceed in company, to come in their travels to the Truth Pond, where Button Bright and the Shaggy Man regain their true heads by bathing in its waters. They meet the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and Jack Pumpkinhead who journey with them to the Emerald City for Ozma's birthday. As preparations are made for arrivals from all over Fairyland (principally characters from Baum's non-Oz books, such as Santa Claus, Queen Zixi of Ix, John Dough \u2013 a man made out of gingerbread \u2013 and Chick the Cherub), the Shaggy Man receives permission to stay in Oz permanently. He is given, in addition to this, a new suit of clothes having bobtails in place of his former costume's ragged edges, so that he may retain his name and identity. After everyone has presented their gifts and feasted at a banquet in Ozma's honor, the Wizard demonstrates a method of using bubbles as transportation by which to send everyone home. Polychrome goes home upon a rainbow, Button-Bright goes home with Santa Claus on a soap bubble, and Dorothy is wished home by Ozma's use of the Magic Belt.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " costume's ragged edges, so that he may retain his name and identity. After everyone has presented their gifts and feasted at a banquet in Ozma's honor, the Wizard demonstrates a method of using bubbles as transportation by which to send everyone home. Polychrome goes home upon a rainbow, Button-Bright goes home with Santa Claus on a soap bubble, and Dorothy is wished home by Ozma's use of the Magic Belt.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Last Battle",
    "author": "C. S. Lewis",
    "published_date": "1956",
    "synopsis": " In The Last Battle, Lewis brings The Chronicles of Narnia to an end. The book deals with the end of time in the old Narnia and sums up the series by linking the experience of the human children in Narnia with their lives in their original world. The story is set during the reign of the last king of Narnia, King Tirian, great-grandson of the great-grandson of Rilian, son of King Caspian X. Narnia has experienced a long period of peace and prosperity begun during the reign of King Caspian X. A centaur, Roonwit, warns Tirian that strange and evil things are happening to Narnia and that the stars portend ominous developments. An ape named Shift has persuaded a well-meaning but simple donkey called Puzzle to dress in a lion's skin and pretend to be the Great Lion Aslan. Shift, using Puzzle as his pawn, convinces the Narnians that he speaks for Aslan. Once the Narnians are convinced that Aslan has returned, Shift orders the Narnians to work for the Calormenes, and to cut down Talking Trees for lumber. The money will be paid into \"Aslan's\" treasury, held by Shift, on the pretext that it will be used for the good of the Narnians. King Tirian and his friend Jewel the Unicorn at first believe the rumours of Aslan's return, but realize the lie when they hear Shift telling the Narnians that Aslan and the Calormene god Tash are one and the same. When Tirian accuses the ape of lying, the Calormenes overpower the king and bind him to a tree. He calls on Aslan for help and receives a vision of Digory Kirke, Polly Plummer, Peter Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, Eustace Scrubb, Lucy Pevensie, and Jill Pole, though he does not know who they are. The people in the room also see him and, though Tirian can't speak to them, they guess he is a messenger from Narnia. A few minutes later by Narnian time - although a week from their perspective - Jill and Eustace arrive in Narnia. They release the King and rescue Jewel and Puzzle. A band of dwarfs are also rescued, but because their faith in Aslan has been shattered, they refuse to help, claiming \"the dwarfs are for the dwarfs.\" Only one dwarf, Poggin, is faithful to Tirian, Aslan, and Narnia. Tirian and his small force prepare to fight the Calormenes. All the animals are killed (many by the dwarfs, who attack both sides) and Eustace, Jill, and Poggin are thrown into the stable where the false Aslan was kept. Tirian, earlier on, had thrown Shift into the stable and Tash, who now haunts the stable, swallowed the ape whole. Tirian, left alone and fighting for his life, drags Rishda Tarkaan, the leader of the Calormenes, into the stable, whose interior is a vast and beautiful land connected to Narnia by the incongruously-placed stable door. Much to the Calormen leader's surprise and terror, Tash appears, and snatches him up under an arm. Peter, Edmund, Eustace, Lucy, Jill, Polly, and Digory appear before them, (Susan does not appear in Narnia because she has stopped believing in it, thinking of it only as some silly childhood game), and Peter orders Tash to leave. Aslan appears, and as they watch at the stable door, all of the people and animals, including those who had previously died, gather outside the barn and are judged by Aslan. Those who have been loyal to Aslan or the morality upheld by Narnians join Aslan in Aslan's Country. Those who have opposed or deserted him become ordinary animals and vanish to an unmentioned place. The vegetation is eaten by dragons and giant lizards. Father Time calls the stars down from the skies into the sea, which rises to cover Narnia. The Sun expands and draws in the moon. Father Time then puts it out, freezing Narnia. Peter closes the door, and Aslan leads them to his country, telling them to go further in to Real Narnia. (Digory alludes to Plato whose Allegory of the Cave describes multiple levels of reality.) They move up a waterfall to some gates and are greeted by Reepicheep as well as meeting other good characters from the earlier novels. They find they can see a real England. Aslan reveals that the English friends of Narnia and the Pevensies' parents have died in a train crash (Susan is the only survivor, and it is not known if she later makes it into Aslan's country). The series ends with the revelation that it was only the beginning of the true story, \"which goes on forever, and in which every chapter is better than the one before.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In The Last Battle, Lewis brings The Chronicles of Narnia to an end. The book deals with the end of time in the old Narnia and sums up the series by linking the experience of the human children in Narnia with their lives in their original world. The story is set during the reign of the last king of Narnia, King Tirian, great-grandson of the great-grandson of Rilian, son of King Caspian X. Narnia has experienced a long period of peace and prosperity begun during the reign of King Caspian X. A centaur, Roonwit, warns Tirian that strange and evil things are happening to Narnia and that the stars portend ominous developments. An ape named Shift has persuaded a well-meaning but simple donkey called Puzzle to dress in a lion's skin and pretend to be the Great Lion Aslan. Shift, using Puzzle as his pawn, convinces the Narnians that he speaks for Aslan. Once the Narnians are convinced that Aslan has returned, Shift orders the Narnians to work for the Calormenes, and to cut down Talking Trees for lumber. The money will be paid into \"Aslan's\" treasury, held by Shift, on the pretext that it will be used for the good of the Narnians. King Tirian and his friend Jewel the Unicorn at first believe the rumours of Aslan's return, but realize the lie when they hear Shift telling the Narnians that Aslan and the Calormene god Tash are one and the same. When Tirian accuses the ape of lying, the Calormenes overpower the king and bind him to a tree. He calls on Aslan for help and receives a vision of Digory Kirke, Polly Plummer, Peter Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, Eustace Scrubb, Lucy Pevensie, and Jill Pole, though he does not know"
      },
      {
        "text": " they hear Shift telling the Narnians that Aslan and the Calormene god Tash are one and the same. When Tirian accuses the ape of lying, the Calormenes overpower the king and bind him to a tree. He calls on Aslan for help and receives a vision of Digory Kirke, Polly Plummer, Peter Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, Eustace Scrubb, Lucy Pevensie, and Jill Pole, though he does not know who they are. The people in the room also see him and, though Tirian can't speak to them, they guess he is a messenger from Narnia. A few minutes later by Narnian time - although a week from their perspective - Jill and Eustace arrive in Narnia. They release the King and rescue Jewel and Puzzle. A band of dwarfs are also rescued, but because their faith in Aslan has been shattered, they refuse to help, claiming \"the dwarfs are for the dwarfs.\" Only one dwarf, Poggin, is faithful to Tirian, Aslan, and Narnia. Tirian and his small force prepare to fight the Calormenes. All the animals are killed (many by the dwarfs, who attack both sides) and Eustace, Jill, and Poggin are thrown into the stable where the false Aslan was kept. Tirian, earlier on, had thrown Shift into the stable and Tash, who now haunts the stable, swallowed the ape whole. Tirian, left alone and fighting for his life, drags Rishda Tarkaan, the leader of the Calormenes, into the stable, whose interior is a vast and beautiful land connected to Narnia by the incongruously-placed stable door. Much to the Calormen leader's surprise and terror, Tash appears, and snatches him up under an arm. Peter, Edmund, Eustace,"
      },
      {
        "text": " now haunts the stable, swallowed the ape whole. Tirian, left alone and fighting for his life, drags Rishda Tarkaan, the leader of the Calormenes, into the stable, whose interior is a vast and beautiful land connected to Narnia by the incongruously-placed stable door. Much to the Calormen leader's surprise and terror, Tash appears, and snatches him up under an arm. Peter, Edmund, Eustace, Lucy, Jill, Polly, and Digory appear before them, (Susan does not appear in Narnia because she has stopped believing in it, thinking of it only as some silly childhood game), and Peter orders Tash to leave. Aslan appears, and as they watch at the stable door, all of the people and animals, including those who had previously died, gather outside the barn and are judged by Aslan. Those who have been loyal to Aslan or the morality upheld by Narnians join Aslan in Aslan's Country. Those who have opposed or deserted him become ordinary animals and vanish to an unmentioned place. The vegetation is eaten by dragons and giant lizards. Father Time calls the stars down from the skies into the sea, which rises to cover Narnia. The Sun expands and draws in the moon. Father Time then puts it out, freezing Narnia. Peter closes the door, and Aslan leads them to his country, telling them to go further in to Real Narnia. (Digory alludes to Plato whose Allegory of the Cave describes multiple levels of reality.) They move up a waterfall to some gates and are greeted by Reepicheep as well as meeting other good characters from the earlier novels. They find they can see a real England. Aslan reveals that the English friends of Narnia and the Pevensies' parents have died in a train crash (Susan is the only survivor, and it is not"
      },
      {
        "text": " further in to Real Narnia. (Digory alludes to Plato whose Allegory of the Cave describes multiple levels of reality.) They move up a waterfall to some gates and are greeted by Reepicheep as well as meeting other good characters from the earlier novels. They find they can see a real England. Aslan reveals that the English friends of Narnia and the Pevensies' parents have died in a train crash (Susan is the only survivor, and it is not known if she later makes it into Aslan's country). The series ends with the revelation that it was only the beginning of the true story, \"which goes on forever, and in which every chapter is better than the one before.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "After the Funeral",
    "author": "Agatha Christie",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " After the funeral of the wealthy Richard Abernethie, his remaining family assembles for the reading of the will at Enderby Hall. The death, though sudden, was not unexpected and natural causes have been given on his death certificate. Nevertheless, the tactless Cora says, \"It's been hushed up very nicely ... but he was murdered, wasn't he?\" The family lawyer, Mr. Entwhistle, begins to investigate. Before long there is no question that a murderer is at large. The essentials of Richard's will were told to the gathered family by Mr. Entwhistle. Richard, 68 and a widower, had lost his only child Mortimer to polio (infantile paralysis) six months earlier. The son, about to be married, died with no issue, as the lawyer dryly puts it. Thus Richard was prodded to revise his will. He was the eldest of a family of seven, of which only he, a brother Timothy and a sister Cora, the youngest, still lived when he wrote the will. His favorite brother Leo was killed in the war, as was Gordon. Richard had a nephew and two nieces, the sum total of the next generation, children of siblings who had already died. Richard spent time with his nephew George, and his two nieces and their husbands, to know them better. He called his sister in law Helen for a visit to the family home. Richard visited his reclusive brother, then travelled to his sister at her home, first time in over 20 years. His decision was to split his wealth in six portions, for his five blood relations, and a sixth for the widow of one brother killed in the recent war. Four received the capital directly, while two received a life income from their share of the capital. The house was to be put up for sale. At home the day after her brother's funeral, Cora Lansquenet is brutally murdered in her sleep by repeated blows with a hatchet. The motive for her murder was not obvious. It does not appear to be theft, nor is her own estate a likely motive. Cora's portion of the Abernethie bequest was a life income, which capital reverts to the estate of her brother, Richard, to be divided among the surviving heirs \u2014 not adding to her own estate. One possible motive is to suppress anything that Richard might have told Cora about his suspicions that he was being poisoned. These had been overheard by her paid companion, the timid Miss Gilchrist. Entwhistle calls on his long-time friend, Hercule Poirot, to resolve any doubts about the death of Richard. Poirot employs an old friend, Mr. Goby, to investigate the family. Mr. Goby, a most resourceful man, rapidly turns up a number of reasons within the family for members of it to be desperate for the money in Richard Abernethie\u2019s estate. Mr. Goby employs all sorts of clever methods to uncover the most private information, using agents who pose as actors, lawyers or even Catholic nuns. None of the family members can yet be cleared of suspicion. Poirot warns Entwhistle that Miss Gilchrist may herself be a target for the murderer. Cora has been a keen artist and collector of paintings from local sales. Susan Banks, learning she inherited her Aunt Cora's property, went to her cottage to clear up the possessions, ready them for auction, on the day of Cora's inquest. She reviewed Cora\u2019s own paintings as well as those Cora had purchased at local sales. She noticed that Cora has been copying postcards: one of her paintings, which Miss Gilchrist claims were all painted from life, features a pier that was destroyed in the war; however the painting was completed quite recently. The next day, after Cora's funeral, an old friend who is an art critic, Alexander Guthrie, arrives to look through Cora\u2019s recent purchases. His visit had been arranged before Cora's murder. He looked at all her recent purchases, but finds nothing of any value there. That evening, Miss Gilchrist is nearly killed by arsenic poison in a slice of wedding cake apparently sent to her through the post. The only reason that she is not killed is that, following a superstition, she has saved the greater part of the slice of cake under her pillow. Mrs. Gray had declined an offer to share in the slice of cake. Inspector Morton investigates Cora's murder. He recognized Poirot at the inquest, so makes a point of finding him in London to learn why. The two share information as they investigate. Morton focuses on people in the area of Cora's rented cottage. Poirot focuses on the Abernethie family, and a number of red herrings come to light. Rosamund Shane, one of the nieces, is a beautiful but determined woman who seems to have something to hide (which turns out to be her husband\u2019s infidelity and her own pregnancy). Susan\u2019s husband, Gregory, is a dispensing chemist who had been responsible for deliberately administering a nonlethal overdose to an awkward customer. In a surprising twist, he confesses to the murder of Richard Abernethie near the close of the novel. He is discovered to have a punishment complex. Timothy Abernethie, an unpleasant man preoccupied with his own health perhaps to gain attention, might have been able to commit the murder of Cora, as might his country-tweed, strong, healthy wife, Maude. Even the genteel Helen Abernethie left Enderby to fetch her things from her London flat upon agreeing to stay longer at Enderby. In short, all the family had been alone on the day Cora was murdered, for enough time to reach the rented cottage and do the deed. Did any of them do it? Perhaps identifying the murderer may depend on finding a nun whom Miss Gilchrist claims to have noticed twice? But what can all this have to do with a bouquet of wax flowers under glass to which Poirot pays attention? Poirot calls all those involved together to observe them directly, his habitual method, via Entwhistle. They gather to look over and select items of interest before the estate auction. This lures even the reclusive Timothy from his home, back to the family mansion of Enderby, bringing his wife Maude and Miss Gilchrist, who is now assisting them. Poirot briefly poses as Monsieur Pontalier of UNARCO, a group that has purchased the estate to house refugees. He is at the house on that same weekend. His guise is uncovered by Rosamund the first evening. After playing games in mirrors, Helen Abernethie telephones Entwhistle early the next morning with the news that she has realized what struck her odd the day of the funeral. Before she can say who it concerns, she is savagely struck on the head. Mr. Entwhistle is left speaking out over a telephone where no one is listening. Poirot\u2019s explanation in the denouement is a startling one. He gathered those at Enderby Hall, in his own identity as a detective the next evening. Helen is safely away to recover from her concussion. Added to the group is Inspector Morton, whose own investigations lead him out of his home county of Berkshire to Enderby Hall, increasing the tensions for the family. Inspector Morton spent the afternoon asking each member of the family to account for themselves on the day of Cora's murder. Cora had never come to the funeral at all. It was Miss Gilchrist, who disguised herself as Cora as part of a complicated plot for her own gain, leaving Cora home asleep from a sedative in her tea. She wished to plant the idea that Richard\u2019s death had been murder. Therefore when Cora herself was murdered, it would seem that the alleged murderer had struck again. None of the family had seen Cora for over 20 years, from the ill feeling at the time of her marriage. Miss Gilchrist had successfully copied her mannerisms, well enough to fool those who had known her as adults. The flaw in her portrayal of Cora was spotted by Helen Abernethie. Miss Gilchrist had rehearsed a characteristic turn of the head in a mirror, where the reflection is a reverse of reality. When she came to the house after the funeral, she turned her head to the left, not the right. Helen had had the feeling that something was wrong when Cora had made her startling statement, but took some days and a timely conversation among the young cousins to realize precisely what it was. Miss Gilchrist had further given herself away to Poirot, by referring to the wax flowers on the green malachite table the first day the relatives gathered to select objects before the auction. These were on display on the day of the reading of Richard's will but had been put out of sight by the time Miss Gilchrist, as herself, visited Enderby Hall. She had deliberately poisoned herself with the arsenic-laced wedding cake to avoid suspicion; ironically this only aroused Poirot's and Inspector Morton's misgivings. Miss Gilchrist saw what Cora had missed among the paintings that Cora had bought at the local sales. Miss Gilchrist felt sure one was a painting by Vermeer, yet Cora had no idea how valuable the artwork was, and thus Miss Gilchrist began her desperate plot. The painting's value would likely have been revealed to Cora when her friend the art critic visited, explaining in part the timing of the murder. Miss Gilchrist covered the Vermeer with her own painting depicting the destroyed pier copied from the postcard, to disguise it amongst others done by Cora. The scent of the oils lingered when Mr. Entwhistle visited the cottage the day after Cora's murder. She hoped to inherit some of Cora's paintings; the will confirmed she inherited all of them. Miss Gilchrist loathed Cora; even more, she loathed life as a dependent. Her dream was to sell the Vermeer to escape her dreary life with the capital to rebuild her beloved teashop, \"the essence of gentility\", lost during the war to food shortages. Poirot deduced the key role of the painting. He had Mr. Entwhistle take it from the Timothy Abernethie home where Miss Gilchrist had left it. The art critic was found to be authentic by Inspector Morton, so Poirot asked Entwhistle to bring the painting to him. In that same day, Mr. Guthrie sent a wire to Poirot that said tersely, definitely a Vermeer, Guthrie. Inspector Morton added that two nuns had called at Cora's cottage the day of Richard's funeral. No one answered, yet they heard noises from a person. Added to Poirot's explanation, these nuns became witness to the real Cora's presence in her own home as Miss Gilchrist was impersonating her at Enderby Hall. There is a motif of nuns in this mystery, appearing at each house where Miss Gilchrist stayed. Miss Gilchrist had invented what she overheard about Richard's fear of poisoning, for the furtherance of her plot. She told her lie to Mrs. Banks first. With revisions implicating Mrs. Banks, she repeated it to Poirot and Inspector Morton, very shortly before Poirot revealed her plot to all present at Enderby Hall. Once accused, Miss Gilchrist broke down in a flood of complaints of the unbearable hardships of her life, her convoluted justification for the murder of an innocent woman. She went quietly with Inspector Morton. Cora's was the only murder. There was no evidence that Richard Abernethie died any but a natural death in his sleep, from the disease his doctor had diagnosed. Thus Poirot answered the question Mr. Entwhistle hired him to resolve, as well as untangled, by deduction, the mystery of Cora's death. Miss Gilchrist is found guilty as the murderer of Cora at the Assizes. In her time in prison during legal proceedings, she was quickly becoming insane, planning one tea shop after another. Mr. Entwhistle and Hercule Poirot suspect her punishment might be served in Broadmoor, but have no doubt she had plotted and carried out the cold blooded murder in full possession of her faculties \u2014 this ladylike murderer.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After the funeral of the wealthy Richard Abernethie, his remaining family assembles for the reading of the will at Enderby Hall. The death, though sudden, was not unexpected and natural causes have been given on his death certificate. Nevertheless, the tactless Cora says, \"It's been hushed up very nicely ... but he was murdered, wasn't he?\" The family lawyer, Mr. Entwhistle, begins to investigate. Before long there is no question that a murderer is at large. The essentials of Richard's will were told to the gathered family by Mr. Entwhistle. Richard, 68 and a widower, had lost his only child Mortimer to polio (infantile paralysis) six months earlier. The son, about to be married, died with no issue, as the lawyer dryly puts it. Thus Richard was prodded to revise his will. He was the eldest of a family of seven, of which only he, a brother Timothy and a sister Cora, the youngest, still lived when he wrote the will. His favorite brother Leo was killed in the war, as was Gordon. Richard had a nephew and two nieces, the sum total of the next generation, children of siblings who had already died. Richard spent time with his nephew George, and his two nieces and their husbands, to know them better. He called his sister in law Helen for a visit to the family home. Richard visited his reclusive brother, then travelled to his sister at her home, first time in over 20 years. His decision was to split his wealth in six portions, for his five blood relations, and a sixth for the widow of one brother killed in the recent war. Four received the capital directly, while two received a life income from their share of the capital. The house was to be put up for sale. At home the day after her brother's funeral, Cora Lansquenet is brutally murdered in her sleep"
      },
      {
        "text": ", then travelled to his sister at her home, first time in over 20 years. His decision was to split his wealth in six portions, for his five blood relations, and a sixth for the widow of one brother killed in the recent war. Four received the capital directly, while two received a life income from their share of the capital. The house was to be put up for sale. At home the day after her brother's funeral, Cora Lansquenet is brutally murdered in her sleep by repeated blows with a hatchet. The motive for her murder was not obvious. It does not appear to be theft, nor is her own estate a likely motive. Cora's portion of the Abernethie bequest was a life income, which capital reverts to the estate of her brother, Richard, to be divided among the surviving heirs \u2014 not adding to her own estate. One possible motive is to suppress anything that Richard might have told Cora about his suspicions that he was being poisoned. These had been overheard by her paid companion, the timid Miss Gilchrist. Entwhistle calls on his long-time friend, Hercule Poirot, to resolve any doubts about the death of Richard. Poirot employs an old friend, Mr. Goby, to investigate the family. Mr. Goby, a most resourceful man, rapidly turns up a number of reasons within the family for members of it to be desperate for the money in Richard Abernethie\u2019s estate. Mr. Goby employs all sorts of clever methods to uncover the most private information, using agents who pose as actors, lawyers or even Catholic nuns. None of the family members can yet be cleared of suspicion. Poirot warns Entwhistle that Miss Gilchrist may herself be a target for the murderer. Cora has been a keen artist and collector of paintings from local sales. Susan Banks, learning she inherited her Aunt Cora's property, went to her cottage to clear"
      },
      {
        "text": "\ufffds estate. Mr. Goby employs all sorts of clever methods to uncover the most private information, using agents who pose as actors, lawyers or even Catholic nuns. None of the family members can yet be cleared of suspicion. Poirot warns Entwhistle that Miss Gilchrist may herself be a target for the murderer. Cora has been a keen artist and collector of paintings from local sales. Susan Banks, learning she inherited her Aunt Cora's property, went to her cottage to clear up the possessions, ready them for auction, on the day of Cora's inquest. She reviewed Cora\u2019s own paintings as well as those Cora had purchased at local sales. She noticed that Cora has been copying postcards: one of her paintings, which Miss Gilchrist claims were all painted from life, features a pier that was destroyed in the war; however the painting was completed quite recently. The next day, after Cora's funeral, an old friend who is an art critic, Alexander Guthrie, arrives to look through Cora\u2019s recent purchases. His visit had been arranged before Cora's murder. He looked at all her recent purchases, but finds nothing of any value there. That evening, Miss Gilchrist is nearly killed by arsenic poison in a slice of wedding cake apparently sent to her through the post. The only reason that she is not killed is that, following a superstition, she has saved the greater part of the slice of cake under her pillow. Mrs. Gray had declined an offer to share in the slice of cake. Inspector Morton investigates Cora's murder. He recognized Poirot at the inquest, so makes a point of finding him in London to learn why. The two share information as they investigate. Morton focuses on people in the area of Cora's rented cottage. Poirot focuses on the Abernethie family, and a number of red herrings come to light. Rosamund Shane, one of"
      },
      {
        "text": " her pillow. Mrs. Gray had declined an offer to share in the slice of cake. Inspector Morton investigates Cora's murder. He recognized Poirot at the inquest, so makes a point of finding him in London to learn why. The two share information as they investigate. Morton focuses on people in the area of Cora's rented cottage. Poirot focuses on the Abernethie family, and a number of red herrings come to light. Rosamund Shane, one of the nieces, is a beautiful but determined woman who seems to have something to hide (which turns out to be her husband\u2019s infidelity and her own pregnancy). Susan\u2019s husband, Gregory, is a dispensing chemist who had been responsible for deliberately administering a nonlethal overdose to an awkward customer. In a surprising twist, he confesses to the murder of Richard Abernethie near the close of the novel. He is discovered to have a punishment complex. Timothy Abernethie, an unpleasant man preoccupied with his own health perhaps to gain attention, might have been able to commit the murder of Cora, as might his country-tweed, strong, healthy wife, Maude. Even the genteel Helen Abernethie left Enderby to fetch her things from her London flat upon agreeing to stay longer at Enderby. In short, all the family had been alone on the day Cora was murdered, for enough time to reach the rented cottage and do the deed. Did any of them do it? Perhaps identifying the murderer may depend on finding a nun whom Miss Gilchrist claims to have noticed twice? But what can all this have to do with a bouquet of wax flowers under glass to which Poirot pays attention? Poirot calls all those involved together to observe them directly, his habitual method, via Entwhistle. They gather to look over and select items of interest before the estate auction. This lures even the"
      },
      {
        "text": " cottage and do the deed. Did any of them do it? Perhaps identifying the murderer may depend on finding a nun whom Miss Gilchrist claims to have noticed twice? But what can all this have to do with a bouquet of wax flowers under glass to which Poirot pays attention? Poirot calls all those involved together to observe them directly, his habitual method, via Entwhistle. They gather to look over and select items of interest before the estate auction. This lures even the reclusive Timothy from his home, back to the family mansion of Enderby, bringing his wife Maude and Miss Gilchrist, who is now assisting them. Poirot briefly poses as Monsieur Pontalier of UNARCO, a group that has purchased the estate to house refugees. He is at the house on that same weekend. His guise is uncovered by Rosamund the first evening. After playing games in mirrors, Helen Abernethie telephones Entwhistle early the next morning with the news that she has realized what struck her odd the day of the funeral. Before she can say who it concerns, she is savagely struck on the head. Mr. Entwhistle is left speaking out over a telephone where no one is listening. Poirot\u2019s explanation in the denouement is a startling one. He gathered those at Enderby Hall, in his own identity as a detective the next evening. Helen is safely away to recover from her concussion. Added to the group is Inspector Morton, whose own investigations lead him out of his home county of Berkshire to Enderby Hall, increasing the tensions for the family. Inspector Morton spent the afternoon asking each member of the family to account for themselves on the day of Cora's murder. Cora had never come to the funeral at all. It was Miss Gilchrist, who disguised herself as Cora as part of a complicated plot for her own gain, leaving Cora home asleep from a sedative in"
      },
      {
        "text": " Added to the group is Inspector Morton, whose own investigations lead him out of his home county of Berkshire to Enderby Hall, increasing the tensions for the family. Inspector Morton spent the afternoon asking each member of the family to account for themselves on the day of Cora's murder. Cora had never come to the funeral at all. It was Miss Gilchrist, who disguised herself as Cora as part of a complicated plot for her own gain, leaving Cora home asleep from a sedative in her tea. She wished to plant the idea that Richard\u2019s death had been murder. Therefore when Cora herself was murdered, it would seem that the alleged murderer had struck again. None of the family had seen Cora for over 20 years, from the ill feeling at the time of her marriage. Miss Gilchrist had successfully copied her mannerisms, well enough to fool those who had known her as adults. The flaw in her portrayal of Cora was spotted by Helen Abernethie. Miss Gilchrist had rehearsed a characteristic turn of the head in a mirror, where the reflection is a reverse of reality. When she came to the house after the funeral, she turned her head to the left, not the right. Helen had had the feeling that something was wrong when Cora had made her startling statement, but took some days and a timely conversation among the young cousins to realize precisely what it was. Miss Gilchrist had further given herself away to Poirot, by referring to the wax flowers on the green malachite table the first day the relatives gathered to select objects before the auction. These were on display on the day of the reading of Richard's will but had been put out of sight by the time Miss Gilchrist, as herself, visited Enderby Hall. She had deliberately poisoned herself with the arsenic-laced wedding cake to avoid suspicion; ironically this only aroused Poirot's and Inspector Morton's misgivings. Miss Gilchrist saw what Cor"
      },
      {
        "text": " to the wax flowers on the green malachite table the first day the relatives gathered to select objects before the auction. These were on display on the day of the reading of Richard's will but had been put out of sight by the time Miss Gilchrist, as herself, visited Enderby Hall. She had deliberately poisoned herself with the arsenic-laced wedding cake to avoid suspicion; ironically this only aroused Poirot's and Inspector Morton's misgivings. Miss Gilchrist saw what Cora had missed among the paintings that Cora had bought at the local sales. Miss Gilchrist felt sure one was a painting by Vermeer, yet Cora had no idea how valuable the artwork was, and thus Miss Gilchrist began her desperate plot. The painting's value would likely have been revealed to Cora when her friend the art critic visited, explaining in part the timing of the murder. Miss Gilchrist covered the Vermeer with her own painting depicting the destroyed pier copied from the postcard, to disguise it amongst others done by Cora. The scent of the oils lingered when Mr. Entwhistle visited the cottage the day after Cora's murder. She hoped to inherit some of Cora's paintings; the will confirmed she inherited all of them. Miss Gilchrist loathed Cora; even more, she loathed life as a dependent. Her dream was to sell the Vermeer to escape her dreary life with the capital to rebuild her beloved teashop, \"the essence of gentility\", lost during the war to food shortages. Poirot deduced the key role of the painting. He had Mr. Entwhistle take it from the Timothy Abernethie home where Miss Gilchrist had left it. The art critic was found to be authentic by Inspector Morton, so Poirot asked Entwhistle to bring the painting to him. In that same day, Mr. Guthrie sent a wire to Poirot that said"
      },
      {
        "text": "ashop, \"the essence of gentility\", lost during the war to food shortages. Poirot deduced the key role of the painting. He had Mr. Entwhistle take it from the Timothy Abernethie home where Miss Gilchrist had left it. The art critic was found to be authentic by Inspector Morton, so Poirot asked Entwhistle to bring the painting to him. In that same day, Mr. Guthrie sent a wire to Poirot that said tersely, definitely a Vermeer, Guthrie. Inspector Morton added that two nuns had called at Cora's cottage the day of Richard's funeral. No one answered, yet they heard noises from a person. Added to Poirot's explanation, these nuns became witness to the real Cora's presence in her own home as Miss Gilchrist was impersonating her at Enderby Hall. There is a motif of nuns in this mystery, appearing at each house where Miss Gilchrist stayed. Miss Gilchrist had invented what she overheard about Richard's fear of poisoning, for the furtherance of her plot. She told her lie to Mrs. Banks first. With revisions implicating Mrs. Banks, she repeated it to Poirot and Inspector Morton, very shortly before Poirot revealed her plot to all present at Enderby Hall. Once accused, Miss Gilchrist broke down in a flood of complaints of the unbearable hardships of her life, her convoluted justification for the murder of an innocent woman. She went quietly with Inspector Morton. Cora's was the only murder. There was no evidence that Richard Abernethie died any but a natural death in his sleep, from the disease his doctor had diagnosed. Thus Poirot answered the question Mr. Entwhistle hired him to resolve, as well as untangled, by deduction, the mystery of Cora's death. Miss Gilchrist is found guilty as the murderer of Cora at the Assizes. In her time in"
      },
      {
        "text": " woman. She went quietly with Inspector Morton. Cora's was the only murder. There was no evidence that Richard Abernethie died any but a natural death in his sleep, from the disease his doctor had diagnosed. Thus Poirot answered the question Mr. Entwhistle hired him to resolve, as well as untangled, by deduction, the mystery of Cora's death. Miss Gilchrist is found guilty as the murderer of Cora at the Assizes. In her time in prison during legal proceedings, she was quickly becoming insane, planning one tea shop after another. Mr. Entwhistle and Hercule Poirot suspect her punishment might be served in Broadmoor, but have no doubt she had plotted and carried out the cold blooded murder in full possession of her faculties \u2014 this ladylike murderer.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "She: A History of Adventure",
    "author": "H. Rider Haggard",
    "published_date": "1887",
    "synopsis": " A young Cambridge University professor, Horace Holly, is visited by a colleague, Vincey, who reveals that he will soon die and proceeds to tell Holly a fantastical tale of his family heritage. He charges Holly with the task of raising his young son, Leo (whom he has never seen) and gives Holly a locked iron box, with instructions that it is not to be opened until Leo turns 25. Holly agrees, and indeed Vincey is found dead the next day. Holly raises the boy as his own; when the box is opened on Leo's 25th birthday they discover the ancient and mysterious \"Sherd of Amenartas\", which seems to corroborate Leo's father's story. Holly, Leo and their servant, Job, follow instructions on the Sherd and travel to eastern Africa but are shipwrecked. They alone survive, together with their Arab captain, Mahomed; after a perilous journey into an uncharted region of the African interior, they are captured by the savage Amahagger people. The adventurers learn that the natives are ruled by a fearsome white queen, who is worshiped as Hiya or \"She-who-must-be-obeyed\". The Amahagger are curious about the white-skinned interlopers, having been warned of their coming by the mysterious queen. Billali, the chief elder of one of the Amahagger tribes, takes charge of the three men, introducing them to the ways of his people. One of the Amahagger maidens, Ustane, takes a liking to Leo and during a tribal feast sings lovingly to him. Billali tells Holly that he needs to go and report the white men's arrival to She, but in his absence, some of the Amahagger become restless and seize Mahomed, intending to eat him as part of a ritual \"hotpot\". Realising what is about to happen, Holly shoots several of the Armahagger, killing Mahomed in the process; in the ensuing struggle Leo is gravely wounded, but the three Englishmen are saved when Billali returns in the nick of time and declares that they are under the protection of She. As Leo's condition worsens, he approaches death although tended by Ustane. They are taken to the home of the queen, which lies near the ruins of the lost city of K\u00f4r, a once mighty civilization which predated the Egyptians. The queen and her retinue lives under a dormant volcano in a series of catacombs built as tombs for the people of K\u00f4r. There, Holly is presented to the queen, a white sorceress named Ayesha. Her beauty is so great that it enchants any man who beholds it. She, who is veiled and lies behind a partition, warns Holly that the power of her splendour arouses both desire and fear, but he is dubious. When she shows herself, however, Holly is enraptured and prostrates himself before her. Ayesha reveals that she has learned secret of immortality and that she possesses other supernatural powers including the ability to read the minds of others, a form of telegnosis and the ability to heal wounds and cure illness; she is also revealed to have a tremendous knowledge of chemistry, but is notably unable to see into the future. She tells Holly that she has lived in the realm of K\u00f4r for over two millennia, awaiting the reincarnated return of her lover, Kallikrates (whom she had slain in a fit of jealous rage). After she veils herself again, Holly remembers Leo and begs Ayesha to visit his ward. Having agreed, she is stunned upon seeing him, as she believes him to be the reincarnation of Kallikrates. Later, when Holly secretly follows Ayesha to a hidden chamber he learns that she may also have some degree of power to reanimate the dead. She heals Leo, but becomes jealous of the girl, Ustane. The latter is ordered to leave the home of She-who-must-be-obeyed but refuses, and is eventually struck dead by Ayesha's power. Despite the murder of their friend, Holly and Leo cannot free themselves from the power of Ayesha's beauty. They remain amongst the tombs as Leo recovers his strength, and Ayesha lectures Holly on the ancient history of K\u00f4r. Ayesha shows Leo the perfectly preserved body of Kallikrates, which she has kept with her, but she then dissolves the remains with a powerful acid, confident that Leo is indeed the reincarnation of her former lover. In the climax of the novel, Ayesha takes the two men to see the pillar of fire, passing through the ruined city of K\u00f4r and into the heart of the ancient volcano. She is determined that Leo should bathe in the fire to become immortal and remain with her forever, and that together they can become the immortal and all-powerful rulers of the world. After a perilous journey, they come to a great cavern, but at the last Leo doubts the safety of entering the flame. To allay his fears, Ayesha steps into the Spirit of Life, but with this second immersion, the life-preserving power is lost and Ayesha begins to revert to her true age. Holly speculates that it may be that a second exposure undoes the effects of the previous or the Spirit of Life spews death on occasion. Before their eyes, Ayesha withers away in the fire, and her body shrinks. The sight is so shocking that Job dies in fright. Before dying, She tells Leo, \"I die not. I shall come again.\" *Horace Holly - protagonist and narrator, Holly is a Cambridge don whose keen intellect and knowledge was developed to compensate for his ape-like appearance. Holly knows a number of ancient languages, including Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew, which allow him to communicate with the Amahagger (who speak a form of Arabic) and She (who knows all three languages). Holly's interest in archaeology and the origins of civilization lead him to explore the ruins of Kor. *Leo Vincey - ward of Horace Holly, Leo is an attractive, physically active young English gentleman with a thick head of blond hair. He is the confidant of Holly and befriends Ustane. According to She, Leo resembles Kallikrates in appearance and is his reincarnation. *Ayesha - the title character of the novel, called Hiya by the native Amahagger, or \"She\". Ayesha was born over 2,000 years ago amongst the Arabs, mastering the lore of the ancients and becoming a great sorceress. Learning of the Pillar of Life in the African interior, she journeyed to the ruined kingdom of K\u00f4r, feigning friendship with a hermit who was the keeper of the Flame that granted immortality. She bathed in the Pillar of Life's fire. *Job - Holly's trusted servant. Job is a working-class man and highly suspicious and judgmental of non-English peoples. He is also a devout Protestant. Of all the travellers, he is especially disgusted by the Amahagger and fearful of She. *Billali - an elder of one of the Amahagger tribes. *Ustane - an Amahagger maiden. She becomes romantically attached to Leo, caring for him when he is injured, acting as his protector, and defying She to stay with him. *Kallikrates - an ancient Greek, the husband of Amenartas, and ancestor of Leo. Two thousand years ago, he and Amenartas fled Egypt, seeking a haven in the African interior where they met Ayesha. There, She fell in love with him, promising to give him the secret of immortality if he would kill Amenartas. He refused, and enraged She struck him down. *Amenartas - an ancient Egyptian priestess and ancestress of the Vincey family. As a priestess of Isis, she was protected from the power of She. When Ayesha slew Kallikrates, she expelled Amenartas from her realm. Amenartas gave birth to Kallikrates' son, beginning the line of the Vinceys (Leo's ancestors).\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " A young Cambridge University professor, Horace Holly, is visited by a colleague, Vincey, who reveals that he will soon die and proceeds to tell Holly a fantastical tale of his family heritage. He charges Holly with the task of raising his young son, Leo (whom he has never seen) and gives Holly a locked iron box, with instructions that it is not to be opened until Leo turns 25. Holly agrees, and indeed Vincey is found dead the next day. Holly raises the boy as his own; when the box is opened on Leo's 25th birthday they discover the ancient and mysterious \"Sherd of Amenartas\", which seems to corroborate Leo's father's story. Holly, Leo and their servant, Job, follow instructions on the Sherd and travel to eastern Africa but are shipwrecked. They alone survive, together with their Arab captain, Mahomed; after a perilous journey into an uncharted region of the African interior, they are captured by the savage Amahagger people. The adventurers learn that the natives are ruled by a fearsome white queen, who is worshiped as Hiya or \"She-who-must-be-obeyed\". The Amahagger are curious about the white-skinned interlopers, having been warned of their coming by the mysterious queen. Billali, the chief elder of one of the Amahagger tribes, takes charge of the three men, introducing them to the ways of his people. One of the Amahagger maidens, Ustane, takes a liking to Leo and during a tribal feast sings lovingly to him. Billali tells Holly that he needs to go and report the white men's arrival to She, but in his absence, some of the Amahagger become restless and seize Mahomed, intending to eat him as part of a ritual \"hotpot\". Realising what is about to happen, Holly shoots several of the Armahagger, killing Mahomed in the process; in"
      },
      {
        "text": "ahagger maidens, Ustane, takes a liking to Leo and during a tribal feast sings lovingly to him. Billali tells Holly that he needs to go and report the white men's arrival to She, but in his absence, some of the Amahagger become restless and seize Mahomed, intending to eat him as part of a ritual \"hotpot\". Realising what is about to happen, Holly shoots several of the Armahagger, killing Mahomed in the process; in the ensuing struggle Leo is gravely wounded, but the three Englishmen are saved when Billali returns in the nick of time and declares that they are under the protection of She. As Leo's condition worsens, he approaches death although tended by Ustane. They are taken to the home of the queen, which lies near the ruins of the lost city of K\u00f4r, a once mighty civilization which predated the Egyptians. The queen and her retinue lives under a dormant volcano in a series of catacombs built as tombs for the people of K\u00f4r. There, Holly is presented to the queen, a white sorceress named Ayesha. Her beauty is so great that it enchants any man who beholds it. She, who is veiled and lies behind a partition, warns Holly that the power of her splendour arouses both desire and fear, but he is dubious. When she shows herself, however, Holly is enraptured and prostrates himself before her. Ayesha reveals that she has learned secret of immortality and that she possesses other supernatural powers including the ability to read the minds of others, a form of telegnosis and the ability to heal wounds and cure illness; she is also revealed to have a tremendous knowledge of chemistry, but is notably unable to see into the future. She tells Holly that she has lived in the realm of K\u00f4r for over two millennia, awaiting the reincarnated return of her lover,"
      },
      {
        "text": "strates himself before her. Ayesha reveals that she has learned secret of immortality and that she possesses other supernatural powers including the ability to read the minds of others, a form of telegnosis and the ability to heal wounds and cure illness; she is also revealed to have a tremendous knowledge of chemistry, but is notably unable to see into the future. She tells Holly that she has lived in the realm of K\u00f4r for over two millennia, awaiting the reincarnated return of her lover, Kallikrates (whom she had slain in a fit of jealous rage). After she veils herself again, Holly remembers Leo and begs Ayesha to visit his ward. Having agreed, she is stunned upon seeing him, as she believes him to be the reincarnation of Kallikrates. Later, when Holly secretly follows Ayesha to a hidden chamber he learns that she may also have some degree of power to reanimate the dead. She heals Leo, but becomes jealous of the girl, Ustane. The latter is ordered to leave the home of She-who-must-be-obeyed but refuses, and is eventually struck dead by Ayesha's power. Despite the murder of their friend, Holly and Leo cannot free themselves from the power of Ayesha's beauty. They remain amongst the tombs as Leo recovers his strength, and Ayesha lectures Holly on the ancient history of K\u00f4r. Ayesha shows Leo the perfectly preserved body of Kallikrates, which she has kept with her, but she then dissolves the remains with a powerful acid, confident that Leo is indeed the reincarnation of her former lover. In the climax of the novel, Ayesha takes the two men to see the pillar of fire, passing through the ruined city of K\u00f4r and into the heart of the ancient volcano. She is determined that Leo should bathe in the fire to become immortal and remain with her forever, and that together"
      },
      {
        "text": " of Kallikrates, which she has kept with her, but she then dissolves the remains with a powerful acid, confident that Leo is indeed the reincarnation of her former lover. In the climax of the novel, Ayesha takes the two men to see the pillar of fire, passing through the ruined city of K\u00f4r and into the heart of the ancient volcano. She is determined that Leo should bathe in the fire to become immortal and remain with her forever, and that together they can become the immortal and all-powerful rulers of the world. After a perilous journey, they come to a great cavern, but at the last Leo doubts the safety of entering the flame. To allay his fears, Ayesha steps into the Spirit of Life, but with this second immersion, the life-preserving power is lost and Ayesha begins to revert to her true age. Holly speculates that it may be that a second exposure undoes the effects of the previous or the Spirit of Life spews death on occasion. Before their eyes, Ayesha withers away in the fire, and her body shrinks. The sight is so shocking that Job dies in fright. Before dying, She tells Leo, \"I die not. I shall come again.\" *Horace Holly - protagonist and narrator, Holly is a Cambridge don whose keen intellect and knowledge was developed to compensate for his ape-like appearance. Holly knows a number of ancient languages, including Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew, which allow him to communicate with the Amahagger (who speak a form of Arabic) and She (who knows all three languages). Holly's interest in archaeology and the origins of civilization lead him to explore the ruins of Kor. *Leo Vincey - ward of Horace Holly, Leo is an attractive, physically active young English gentleman with a thick head of blond hair. He is the confidant of Holly and befriends Ustane. According to She,"
      },
      {
        "text": " Arabic, and Hebrew, which allow him to communicate with the Amahagger (who speak a form of Arabic) and She (who knows all three languages). Holly's interest in archaeology and the origins of civilization lead him to explore the ruins of Kor. *Leo Vincey - ward of Horace Holly, Leo is an attractive, physically active young English gentleman with a thick head of blond hair. He is the confidant of Holly and befriends Ustane. According to She, Leo resembles Kallikrates in appearance and is his reincarnation. *Ayesha - the title character of the novel, called Hiya by the native Amahagger, or \"She\". Ayesha was born over 2,000 years ago amongst the Arabs, mastering the lore of the ancients and becoming a great sorceress. Learning of the Pillar of Life in the African interior, she journeyed to the ruined kingdom of K\u00f4r, feigning friendship with a hermit who was the keeper of the Flame that granted immortality. She bathed in the Pillar of Life's fire. *Job - Holly's trusted servant. Job is a working-class man and highly suspicious and judgmental of non-English peoples. He is also a devout Protestant. Of all the travellers, he is especially disgusted by the Amahagger and fearful of She. *Billali - an elder of one of the Amahagger tribes. *Ustane - an Amahagger maiden. She becomes romantically attached to Leo, caring for him when he is injured, acting as his protector, and defying She to stay with him. *Kallikrates - an ancient Greek, the husband of Amenartas, and ancestor of Leo. Two thousand years ago, he and Amenartas fled Egypt, seeking a haven in the African interior where they met Ayesha. There, She fell in love with him, promising to give him the secret of immortality if he would kill"
      },
      {
        "text": " She becomes romantically attached to Leo, caring for him when he is injured, acting as his protector, and defying She to stay with him. *Kallikrates - an ancient Greek, the husband of Amenartas, and ancestor of Leo. Two thousand years ago, he and Amenartas fled Egypt, seeking a haven in the African interior where they met Ayesha. There, She fell in love with him, promising to give him the secret of immortality if he would kill Amenartas. He refused, and enraged She struck him down. *Amenartas - an ancient Egyptian priestess and ancestress of the Vincey family. As a priestess of Isis, she was protected from the power of She. When Ayesha slew Kallikrates, she expelled Amenartas from her realm. Amenartas gave birth to Kallikrates' son, beginning the line of the Vinceys (Leo's ancestors).\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Burmese Days",
    "author": "George Orwell",
    "published_date": "1934-10",
    "synopsis": " Burmese Days is set in 1920s imperial Burma, in the fictional district of Kyauktada. As the story opens U Po Kyin, a corrupt Burmese magistrate, is planning to destroy the reputation of the Indian Dr. Veraswami. The Doctor's main protection is his friendship with John Flory who, as a pukka sahib (European white man), has higher prestige. Dr.Veraswami wants the privilege of becoming a member of the British club because he thinks that if his standing with the Europeans is good, U Po Kyin's intrigues against him will not prevail. U Po Kyin begins a campaign to persuade the Europeans that the doctor holds disloyal, anti-British opinions, and believes anonymous letters with false stories about the doctor 'will work wonders.' He even sends a subtly threatening letter to Flory. John Flory is a jaded 35-year-old teak merchant. Responsible three weeks of every month for the 'excavation' of jungle timber, he is friendless among his fellow Europeans and is unmarried. He has a ragged crescent of a birthmark on his face. Flory has become disillusioned with his lifestyle, living in a tiresome expatriate community centred round the European Club in a remote part of the country. On the other hand he has become so embedded in Burma that it is impossible for him to leave and return to England. Veraswami and Flory are good friends, and Flory often visits the doctor for what the latter delightedly calls 'cultured conversation.' In these conversations Flory details his disillusionment with the Empire. The doctor for his part becomes agitated whenever Flory criticizes the Raj and defends the British as great administrators who have built an efficient and unrivalled Empire. Flory dismisses these administrators as mere moneymakers, living a lie, \"the lie that we're here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of to rob them.\" Though he finds release with his Burmese mistress, Flory is emotionally dissatisfied. \"On the one hand, Flory loves Burma and craves a partner who will share his passion, which the other local Europeans find incomprehensible; on the other hand, for essentially racist reasons, Flory feels that only a European woman is acceptable as a partner. \" His dilemma seems to be answered when Elizabeth Lackersteen, the orphaned niece of Mr Lackersteen, the local timber firm manager, arrives. Flory saves her when she thinks she is about to be attacked by a small water buffalo. He is immediately taken with her and they spend some time getting close, culminating in a highly successful shooting expedition. After several misses Elizabeth shoots a pigeon, and then a flying bird, and Flory shoots a leopard, promising the skin to Elizabeth as a trophy. Lost in romantic fantasy, Flory imagines Elizabeth to be the sensitive non-racist he so much desires, the European woman who will \"understand him and give him the companionship he needed.\" He turns Ma Hla May, his pretty, scheming Burmese concubine, out of his house. Under the surface, however, Elizabeth is appalled by Flory's relatively egalitarian attitude towards the natives, seeing them as 'beastly' while Flory extolls the virtues of their rich culture. She is frightened and repelled by the Burmese. Worse still are Flory's interests in high art and literature which remind Elizabeth of her boondoggling mother who died in disgrace in Paris, poisoned by her painting materials whilst masquerading as a bohemian artist. Despite these reservations, of which Flory is entirely unaware, she is willing to marry him to escape poverty, spinsterhood and the unwelcome advances of her perpetually inebriated uncle. Flory is about to ask her to marry him, when they are interrupted firstly by her aunt and secondly by an earthquake. Mrs. Lackersteen's interruption is deliberate because she has discovered that a military police lieutenant named Verrall is arriving in Kyauktada. As he comes from an extremely good family, she sees him as a better prospect as a husband for Elizabeth. Mrs. Lackersteen tells Elizabeth that Flory is keeping a Burmese mistress as a deliberate ploy to send her to Verrall. Indeed, Flory had been keeping a mistress, but had dismissed her almost the moment Elizabeth had arrived. No matter, Elizabeth is appalled and falls at the first opportunity for Verrall, who is arrogant and ill-mannered to all but her. Flory is devastated and after a period of exile attempts to make amends by delivering to her the leopard skin but an inexpert curing process has left the skin mangy and stinking and the gesture merely compounds his status as a poor suitor. When Flory delivers it to Elizabeth she accepts it regardless of the fact that it reeks and he talks over their previous relationship telling her he still loves her. She responds by telling him that unfortunately the feelings aren\u2019t mutual and leaves the house to go horse riding with Verrall. When Flory and Elizabeth both part their ways, Mrs. Lackersteen orders the servants to burn the reeking leopard skin, representing the deterioration of Flory and Elizabeth\u2019s relationship. U Po Kyin's campaign against Dr. Veraswami turns out to be intended simply to further his aim of becoming a member of the European Club in Kyauktada. The club has been put under pressure to elect a native member and Dr. Veraswami is the most likely candidate. U Po Kyin arranges the escape of a prisoner and plans a rebellion for which he intends that Dr. Veraswami should get the blame. The rebellion begins and is quickly put down, but a native rebel is killed by acting Divisional Forest Officer, Maxwell. Rising to unexpected courage Flory speaks up for Dr. Veraswami and proposes him as a member of the Club. At this moment the body of Maxwell, cut almost to pieces with dahs by two relatives of the man he had shot, is brought back to the town. This creates a tension between the Burmese and the Europeans which is exacerbated by a vicious attack on native children by the spiteful arch-racist timber merchant, Ellis. A large but ineffectual anti-British riot begins and Flory becomes the hero for bringing it under control with some support by Dr. Veraswami. U Po Kyin tries to claim credit but is disbelieved and Dr. Veraswami's prestige is restored. Verrall leaves Kyauktada without even saying goodbye to Elizabeth and she falls for Flory again. Flory is happy and plans to marry Elizabeth. However, U Po Kyin has not given up; he hires Flory's former Burmese mistress to create a scene in front of Elizabeth during the sermon at Sunday church. Flory is disgraced and Elizabeth refuses to have anything more to do with him. Overcome by the loss and seeing no future for himself, Flory kills himself and his dog. Dr. Veraswami is demoted and sent to a different district and U Po Kyin is elected to the Club. U Po Kyin's plans have succeeded and he plans to redeem his life and cleanse his sins by financing pagodas. He dies of apoplexy before he can even start on building the first pagoda and his wife envisages him returning to life as a frog or rat. Elizabeth eventually marries Macgregor, the Deputy Commissioner and lives happily in contempt of the natives, who in turn live in fear of her, fulfilling her destiny of becoming a \u201cburra memsahib\u201d [respectful term given to white European women].\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Burmese Days is set in 1920s imperial Burma, in the fictional district of Kyauktada. As the story opens U Po Kyin, a corrupt Burmese magistrate, is planning to destroy the reputation of the Indian Dr. Veraswami. The Doctor's main protection is his friendship with John Flory who, as a pukka sahib (European white man), has higher prestige. Dr.Veraswami wants the privilege of becoming a member of the British club because he thinks that if his standing with the Europeans is good, U Po Kyin's intrigues against him will not prevail. U Po Kyin begins a campaign to persuade the Europeans that the doctor holds disloyal, anti-British opinions, and believes anonymous letters with false stories about the doctor 'will work wonders.' He even sends a subtly threatening letter to Flory. John Flory is a jaded 35-year-old teak merchant. Responsible three weeks of every month for the 'excavation' of jungle timber, he is friendless among his fellow Europeans and is unmarried. He has a ragged crescent of a birthmark on his face. Flory has become disillusioned with his lifestyle, living in a tiresome expatriate community centred round the European Club in a remote part of the country. On the other hand he has become so embedded in Burma that it is impossible for him to leave and return to England. Veraswami and Flory are good friends, and Flory often visits the doctor for what the latter delightedly calls 'cultured conversation.' In these conversations Flory details his disillusionment with the Empire. The doctor for his part becomes agitated whenever Flory criticizes the Raj and defends the British as great administrators who have built an efficient and unrivalled Empire. Flory dismisses these administrators as mere moneymakers, living a lie, \"the lie that we're here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of"
      },
      {
        "text": "ory are good friends, and Flory often visits the doctor for what the latter delightedly calls 'cultured conversation.' In these conversations Flory details his disillusionment with the Empire. The doctor for his part becomes agitated whenever Flory criticizes the Raj and defends the British as great administrators who have built an efficient and unrivalled Empire. Flory dismisses these administrators as mere moneymakers, living a lie, \"the lie that we're here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of to rob them.\" Though he finds release with his Burmese mistress, Flory is emotionally dissatisfied. \"On the one hand, Flory loves Burma and craves a partner who will share his passion, which the other local Europeans find incomprehensible; on the other hand, for essentially racist reasons, Flory feels that only a European woman is acceptable as a partner. \" His dilemma seems to be answered when Elizabeth Lackersteen, the orphaned niece of Mr Lackersteen, the local timber firm manager, arrives. Flory saves her when she thinks she is about to be attacked by a small water buffalo. He is immediately taken with her and they spend some time getting close, culminating in a highly successful shooting expedition. After several misses Elizabeth shoots a pigeon, and then a flying bird, and Flory shoots a leopard, promising the skin to Elizabeth as a trophy. Lost in romantic fantasy, Flory imagines Elizabeth to be the sensitive non-racist he so much desires, the European woman who will \"understand him and give him the companionship he needed.\" He turns Ma Hla May, his pretty, scheming Burmese concubine, out of his house. Under the surface, however, Elizabeth is appalled by Flory's relatively egalitarian attitude towards the natives, seeing them as 'beastly' while Flory extolls the virtues of their rich culture. She is frightened and repelled by the Burmese. Worse still are Flory's interests"
      },
      {
        "text": " European woman who will \"understand him and give him the companionship he needed.\" He turns Ma Hla May, his pretty, scheming Burmese concubine, out of his house. Under the surface, however, Elizabeth is appalled by Flory's relatively egalitarian attitude towards the natives, seeing them as 'beastly' while Flory extolls the virtues of their rich culture. She is frightened and repelled by the Burmese. Worse still are Flory's interests in high art and literature which remind Elizabeth of her boondoggling mother who died in disgrace in Paris, poisoned by her painting materials whilst masquerading as a bohemian artist. Despite these reservations, of which Flory is entirely unaware, she is willing to marry him to escape poverty, spinsterhood and the unwelcome advances of her perpetually inebriated uncle. Flory is about to ask her to marry him, when they are interrupted firstly by her aunt and secondly by an earthquake. Mrs. Lackersteen's interruption is deliberate because she has discovered that a military police lieutenant named Verrall is arriving in Kyauktada. As he comes from an extremely good family, she sees him as a better prospect as a husband for Elizabeth. Mrs. Lackersteen tells Elizabeth that Flory is keeping a Burmese mistress as a deliberate ploy to send her to Verrall. Indeed, Flory had been keeping a mistress, but had dismissed her almost the moment Elizabeth had arrived. No matter, Elizabeth is appalled and falls at the first opportunity for Verrall, who is arrogant and ill-mannered to all but her. Flory is devastated and after a period of exile attempts to make amends by delivering to her the leopard skin but an inexpert curing process has left the skin mangy and stinking and the gesture merely compounds his status as a poor suitor. When Flory delivers it to Elizabeth she accepts it regardless of the fact that"
      },
      {
        "text": " Elizabeth had arrived. No matter, Elizabeth is appalled and falls at the first opportunity for Verrall, who is arrogant and ill-mannered to all but her. Flory is devastated and after a period of exile attempts to make amends by delivering to her the leopard skin but an inexpert curing process has left the skin mangy and stinking and the gesture merely compounds his status as a poor suitor. When Flory delivers it to Elizabeth she accepts it regardless of the fact that it reeks and he talks over their previous relationship telling her he still loves her. She responds by telling him that unfortunately the feelings aren\u2019t mutual and leaves the house to go horse riding with Verrall. When Flory and Elizabeth both part their ways, Mrs. Lackersteen orders the servants to burn the reeking leopard skin, representing the deterioration of Flory and Elizabeth\u2019s relationship. U Po Kyin's campaign against Dr. Veraswami turns out to be intended simply to further his aim of becoming a member of the European Club in Kyauktada. The club has been put under pressure to elect a native member and Dr. Veraswami is the most likely candidate. U Po Kyin arranges the escape of a prisoner and plans a rebellion for which he intends that Dr. Veraswami should get the blame. The rebellion begins and is quickly put down, but a native rebel is killed by acting Divisional Forest Officer, Maxwell. Rising to unexpected courage Flory speaks up for Dr. Veraswami and proposes him as a member of the Club. At this moment the body of Maxwell, cut almost to pieces with dahs by two relatives of the man he had shot, is brought back to the town. This creates a tension between the Burmese and the Europeans which is exacerbated by a vicious attack on native children by the spiteful arch-racist timber merchant, Ellis. A large but ineffectual anti-"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Rising to unexpected courage Flory speaks up for Dr. Veraswami and proposes him as a member of the Club. At this moment the body of Maxwell, cut almost to pieces with dahs by two relatives of the man he had shot, is brought back to the town. This creates a tension between the Burmese and the Europeans which is exacerbated by a vicious attack on native children by the spiteful arch-racist timber merchant, Ellis. A large but ineffectual anti-British riot begins and Flory becomes the hero for bringing it under control with some support by Dr. Veraswami. U Po Kyin tries to claim credit but is disbelieved and Dr. Veraswami's prestige is restored. Verrall leaves Kyauktada without even saying goodbye to Elizabeth and she falls for Flory again. Flory is happy and plans to marry Elizabeth. However, U Po Kyin has not given up; he hires Flory's former Burmese mistress to create a scene in front of Elizabeth during the sermon at Sunday church. Flory is disgraced and Elizabeth refuses to have anything more to do with him. Overcome by the loss and seeing no future for himself, Flory kills himself and his dog. Dr. Veraswami is demoted and sent to a different district and U Po Kyin is elected to the Club. U Po Kyin's plans have succeeded and he plans to redeem his life and cleanse his sins by financing pagodas. He dies of apoplexy before he can even start on building the first pagoda and his wife envisages him returning to life as a frog or rat. Elizabeth eventually marries Macgregor, the Deputy Commissioner and lives happily in contempt of the natives, who in turn live in fear of her, fulfilling her destiny of becoming a \u201cburra memsahib\u201d [respectful term given to white European women].\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " by financing pagodas. He dies of apoplexy before he can even start on building the first pagoda and his wife envisages him returning to life as a frog or rat. Elizabeth eventually marries Macgregor, the Deputy Commissioner and lives happily in contempt of the natives, who in turn live in fear of her, fulfilling her destiny of becoming a \u201cburra memsahib\u201d [respectful term given to white European women].\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Clergyman's Daughter",
    "author": "George Orwell",
    "published_date": "1935",
    "synopsis": " The story is given in five distinctive chapters. A day in the life of Dorothy Hare, the weak-willed daughter of a disagreeable widowed clergyman. Her father is Rector of Knype Hill, a small provincial East Anglian town. She keeps house for him, fends off the trade creditors, visits parishioners and makes costumes for fund-raising events. All the time she practises self-mortification in order to be true to her faith. In the evening she is invited to dinner by Mr Warburton, Knype Hill's most disreputable resident, a middle-aged bachelor and an unashamed lecher and atheist. He attempts to seduce Dorothy, as he has done before more than once. As she leaves he forces another embrace on her, and they are seen by Mrs Semprill, the village gossip and scandal-monger. Dorothy returns home to her conservatory late at night to work on the costumes. Dorothy is transposed to the Old Kent Road with amnesia. Eight days of her life are unaccounted for. She joins a group of vagrants, comprising a young man named Nobby and his two friends, who relieve her of her remaining half-crown and take her with them on a hop-picking expedition in Kent. Meanwhile, the rumour is spread by Mrs Semprill that Dorothy has eloped with Mr Warbuton, and this story captivates the national press for a while. After hard work in the hop fields, culminating in Nobby's arrest for theft, she returns to London with her negligible earnings. As a single girl with no luggage, she is refused admission at \"respectable\" hotels and ends up in a cheap hotel for \"working-girls\" (prostitutes). Her funds are constantly dwindling; ultimately she is forced to leave the hotel and live on the streets, and takes up residence in Trafalgar Square. Dorothy spends the night sleeping rough in Trafalgar Square (in a chapter presented entirely as dramatic dialogue). She is arrested for vagrancy and ends up in a police cell for twelve hours for failure to pay the fine. Dorothy believes that her father, distraught at the rumours of her running away with Mr Warburton, has ignored her letters for help. In actuallity, he has contacted his cousin Sir Thomas Hare in London, whose servant locates her at the police station. Hare's solicitor procures a job for her as a \"schoolmistress\" in a small \"4th rate\" private girls' \"academy\" run by the grasping Mrs Creevy. Dorothy's attempts to introduce a more liberal and varied education to her students clash with the expectations of the parents, who want a strictly \"practical\" focus on handwriting and basic mathematics. The work, which initially she enjoyed, quickly becomes a drudgery. Mrs Creevy eventually dismisses her, without notice, when she finds another teacher. Shortly after Dorothy steps out of the door of the school, Mr Warburton turns up in a taxi to say that Mrs Semprill has been charged with libel, and that she and her malicious gossip have been discredited. He has come, therefore, to take her back to Knype Hill. On the trip home, Warburton proposes marriage. Dorothy rejects him, recognising but disregarding his argument that, with her loss of religious faith, her existence as a hard-working clergyman's daughter will be meaningless and dull, and that marriage, while she is still young, is her only escape. The story ends with Dorothy back in her old routine, only without the self-mortification.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is given in five distinctive chapters. A day in the life of Dorothy Hare, the weak-willed daughter of a disagreeable widowed clergyman. Her father is Rector of Knype Hill, a small provincial East Anglian town. She keeps house for him, fends off the trade creditors, visits parishioners and makes costumes for fund-raising events. All the time she practises self-mortification in order to be true to her faith. In the evening she is invited to dinner by Mr Warburton, Knype Hill's most disreputable resident, a middle-aged bachelor and an unashamed lecher and atheist. He attempts to seduce Dorothy, as he has done before more than once. As she leaves he forces another embrace on her, and they are seen by Mrs Semprill, the village gossip and scandal-monger. Dorothy returns home to her conservatory late at night to work on the costumes. Dorothy is transposed to the Old Kent Road with amnesia. Eight days of her life are unaccounted for. She joins a group of vagrants, comprising a young man named Nobby and his two friends, who relieve her of her remaining half-crown and take her with them on a hop-picking expedition in Kent. Meanwhile, the rumour is spread by Mrs Semprill that Dorothy has eloped with Mr Warbuton, and this story captivates the national press for a while. After hard work in the hop fields, culminating in Nobby's arrest for theft, she returns to London with her negligible earnings. As a single girl with no luggage, she is refused admission at \"respectable\" hotels and ends up in a cheap hotel for \"working-girls\" (prostitutes). Her funds are constantly dwindling; ultimately she is forced to leave the hotel and live on the streets, and takes up residence in Trafalgar Square. Dorothy spends the night sleeping rough in Tra"
      },
      {
        "text": " After hard work in the hop fields, culminating in Nobby's arrest for theft, she returns to London with her negligible earnings. As a single girl with no luggage, she is refused admission at \"respectable\" hotels and ends up in a cheap hotel for \"working-girls\" (prostitutes). Her funds are constantly dwindling; ultimately she is forced to leave the hotel and live on the streets, and takes up residence in Trafalgar Square. Dorothy spends the night sleeping rough in Trafalgar Square (in a chapter presented entirely as dramatic dialogue). She is arrested for vagrancy and ends up in a police cell for twelve hours for failure to pay the fine. Dorothy believes that her father, distraught at the rumours of her running away with Mr Warburton, has ignored her letters for help. In actuallity, he has contacted his cousin Sir Thomas Hare in London, whose servant locates her at the police station. Hare's solicitor procures a job for her as a \"schoolmistress\" in a small \"4th rate\" private girls' \"academy\" run by the grasping Mrs Creevy. Dorothy's attempts to introduce a more liberal and varied education to her students clash with the expectations of the parents, who want a strictly \"practical\" focus on handwriting and basic mathematics. The work, which initially she enjoyed, quickly becomes a drudgery. Mrs Creevy eventually dismisses her, without notice, when she finds another teacher. Shortly after Dorothy steps out of the door of the school, Mr Warburton turns up in a taxi to say that Mrs Semprill has been charged with libel, and that she and her malicious gossip have been discredited. He has come, therefore, to take her back to Knype Hill. On the trip home, Warburton proposes marriage. Dorothy rejects him, recognising but disregarding his argument that, with her loss of religious faith, her existence as a hard-working clergyman's"
      },
      {
        "text": " after Dorothy steps out of the door of the school, Mr Warburton turns up in a taxi to say that Mrs Semprill has been charged with libel, and that she and her malicious gossip have been discredited. He has come, therefore, to take her back to Knype Hill. On the trip home, Warburton proposes marriage. Dorothy rejects him, recognising but disregarding his argument that, with her loss of religious faith, her existence as a hard-working clergyman's daughter will be meaningless and dull, and that marriage, while she is still young, is her only escape. The story ends with Dorothy back in her old routine, only without the self-mortification.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Star Maker",
    "author": "Olaf Stapledon",
    "published_date": "1937",
    "synopsis": " The book begins with a single human narrator from England who is, via unexplained means, transported out of his body and finds himself able to explore space and other planets. After exploring a civilization on another planet in our galaxy at a level of development similar to our own that existed millions of years ago thousands of light years from Earth (the \"Other Earth\") in some detail, his mind merges with that of one of its inhabitants, and as they travel together, they are joined by still more minds or group-minds. This snowballing process is paralleled by the expansion of the book's scale, describing more and more planets in less and less detail. The disembodied travellers encounter many ideas that are interesting from both science-fictional and philosophical points of view. These include the first known instance of what is now called the Dyson sphere, reference to a scenario closely predicting the later zoo hypothesis or Star Trek's Prime Directive, many imaginative descriptions of species, civilizations and methods of warfare, and the idea that the stars and even the pre-galactic nebulae are intelligent beings, operating on vast time scales. A key idea is the formation of collective minds from many telepathically linked individuals, on the level of planets, galaxies, and eventually the cosmos itself. The climax of the book is the \"supreme moment of the cosmos\", when the cosmical mind (which includes the narrator) attains momentary contact with the \"Star Maker\" of the title. The Star Maker is the creator of the universe, but stands in the same relation to it as an artist to his work, and calmly assesses its quality without any feeling for the suffering of its inhabitants. This element makes the novel one of Stapledon's efforts to write \"an essay in myth making\". After meeting the Star Maker, the traveller then explores earlier \"drafts\" of the universe, which he refers to as \"toy cosmos,\" including a universe composed entirely of music with no spatial dimensions, and a triune universe which closely resembles \"Christian orthodoxy\" (the three universes respectively being hell, heaven, and reality with presence of a savior). The novel ends with the traveller returning to Earth.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book begins with a single human narrator from England who is, via unexplained means, transported out of his body and finds himself able to explore space and other planets. After exploring a civilization on another planet in our galaxy at a level of development similar to our own that existed millions of years ago thousands of light years from Earth (the \"Other Earth\") in some detail, his mind merges with that of one of its inhabitants, and as they travel together, they are joined by still more minds or group-minds. This snowballing process is paralleled by the expansion of the book's scale, describing more and more planets in less and less detail. The disembodied travellers encounter many ideas that are interesting from both science-fictional and philosophical points of view. These include the first known instance of what is now called the Dyson sphere, reference to a scenario closely predicting the later zoo hypothesis or Star Trek's Prime Directive, many imaginative descriptions of species, civilizations and methods of warfare, and the idea that the stars and even the pre-galactic nebulae are intelligent beings, operating on vast time scales. A key idea is the formation of collective minds from many telepathically linked individuals, on the level of planets, galaxies, and eventually the cosmos itself. The climax of the book is the \"supreme moment of the cosmos\", when the cosmical mind (which includes the narrator) attains momentary contact with the \"Star Maker\" of the title. The Star Maker is the creator of the universe, but stands in the same relation to it as an artist to his work, and calmly assesses its quality without any feeling for the suffering of its inhabitants. This element makes the novel one of Stapledon's efforts to write \"an essay in myth making\". After meeting the Star Maker, the traveller then explores earlier \"drafts\" of the universe, which he refers to as \"toy cosmos,\" including a universe composed entirely of music with no spatial dimensions"
      },
      {
        "text": " Maker is the creator of the universe, but stands in the same relation to it as an artist to his work, and calmly assesses its quality without any feeling for the suffering of its inhabitants. This element makes the novel one of Stapledon's efforts to write \"an essay in myth making\". After meeting the Star Maker, the traveller then explores earlier \"drafts\" of the universe, which he refers to as \"toy cosmos,\" including a universe composed entirely of music with no spatial dimensions, and a triune universe which closely resembles \"Christian orthodoxy\" (the three universes respectively being hell, heaven, and reality with presence of a savior). The novel ends with the traveller returning to Earth.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Player Piano",
    "author": "Kurt Vonnegut",
    "published_date": "1952",
    "synopsis": " Player Piano is set in the future after a fictional third world war. During the war, while most Americans were fighting overseas, the nation's managers and engineers faced a depleted work force, and responded by developing ingenious automated systems that allowed the factories to operate with only a few workers. The novel begins ten years after the war, when most factory workers have been replaced by machines. The bifurcation of the population is represented by the division of Ilium into \"The Homestead\", where everyone who is neither a manager or engineer lives, and the other side of the river, where all the engineers and managers lives. Player Piano develops two parallel plot lines that converge only briefly, and insubstantially so, at the beginning and the end of the novel. The more prominent plot line follows the protagonist, Dr. Paul Proteus (hither to referred to as Paul), an intelligent, thirty-five-year-old factory manager of Ilium Works. The ancillary plot line follows the American tour of the Shah of Bratpuhr, a spiritual leader of six million residents in a distant, underdeveloped nation. The purpose of the two plot lines is to give two perspectives of the system: one from an insider who is emblematic of the system, and one from an outsider who is looking in. Paul, for all intents and purposes, is the living embodiment of what a man within the system should strive to be, while the Shah is a visitor from a very different culture, and therefore applies a very different context to happenings he sees on his tour. The main plot line follows the metamorphosis of Paul from being within the system to being against the system. At the beginning of the novel, Paul displays a sense of dissatisfaction with the industrial system and his contribution to society. Symbolically, he reflects on his colleagues' desire to destroy an old building, once a part of Edison's factory, which he saves and instead keeps it alive to store new machinery. Looking for salvation from a yet unknown plight, he gets a knock at his door, figuratively speaking, and Ed Finnerty, an old friend whom Paul has always held in high regard, informs him he has quit his important engineer job in Washington D.C. Paul and Finnerty visit a bar in the \"Homestead\" section of town, where workers who have been displaced by machines live out their meaningless lives in mass-produced houses. There, they meet an Episcopal minister, named Lasher, with an M.A. in anthropology, who puts into words the unfairness of the system that the two engineers have only vaguely sensed. They soon learn that Lasher is the leader of a rebel group known as the \"Ghost Shirt Society\", and Finnerty instantly takes up with him. Paul is not bold enough to make a clean break, as Finnerty has done, until his superiors ask him to betray Finnerty and Lasher. He quits his job and is captured by the \"Ghost Shirt Society;\" he is forced to join as their leader but only in name. Paul's father was the first \"National, Industrial, Commercial Communications, Foodstuffs, and Resources Director\"\u201d As his lengthy title suggests, Dr. George Proetus has almost complete control over the nation\u2019s economy and was more powerful than the President of the United States. Through his father's success, Paul's name is famous among the citizens, so the organization intends to use his name to their advantage by making him the false 'leader' to gain publicity.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Player Piano is set in the future after a fictional third world war. During the war, while most Americans were fighting overseas, the nation's managers and engineers faced a depleted work force, and responded by developing ingenious automated systems that allowed the factories to operate with only a few workers. The novel begins ten years after the war, when most factory workers have been replaced by machines. The bifurcation of the population is represented by the division of Ilium into \"The Homestead\", where everyone who is neither a manager or engineer lives, and the other side of the river, where all the engineers and managers lives. Player Piano develops two parallel plot lines that converge only briefly, and insubstantially so, at the beginning and the end of the novel. The more prominent plot line follows the protagonist, Dr. Paul Proteus (hither to referred to as Paul), an intelligent, thirty-five-year-old factory manager of Ilium Works. The ancillary plot line follows the American tour of the Shah of Bratpuhr, a spiritual leader of six million residents in a distant, underdeveloped nation. The purpose of the two plot lines is to give two perspectives of the system: one from an insider who is emblematic of the system, and one from an outsider who is looking in. Paul, for all intents and purposes, is the living embodiment of what a man within the system should strive to be, while the Shah is a visitor from a very different culture, and therefore applies a very different context to happenings he sees on his tour. The main plot line follows the metamorphosis of Paul from being within the system to being against the system. At the beginning of the novel, Paul displays a sense of dissatisfaction with the industrial system and his contribution to society. Symbolically, he reflects on his colleagues' desire to destroy an old building, once a part of Edison's factory, which he saves and instead keeps it alive to store new"
      },
      {
        "text": " very different culture, and therefore applies a very different context to happenings he sees on his tour. The main plot line follows the metamorphosis of Paul from being within the system to being against the system. At the beginning of the novel, Paul displays a sense of dissatisfaction with the industrial system and his contribution to society. Symbolically, he reflects on his colleagues' desire to destroy an old building, once a part of Edison's factory, which he saves and instead keeps it alive to store new machinery. Looking for salvation from a yet unknown plight, he gets a knock at his door, figuratively speaking, and Ed Finnerty, an old friend whom Paul has always held in high regard, informs him he has quit his important engineer job in Washington D.C. Paul and Finnerty visit a bar in the \"Homestead\" section of town, where workers who have been displaced by machines live out their meaningless lives in mass-produced houses. There, they meet an Episcopal minister, named Lasher, with an M.A. in anthropology, who puts into words the unfairness of the system that the two engineers have only vaguely sensed. They soon learn that Lasher is the leader of a rebel group known as the \"Ghost Shirt Society\", and Finnerty instantly takes up with him. Paul is not bold enough to make a clean break, as Finnerty has done, until his superiors ask him to betray Finnerty and Lasher. He quits his job and is captured by the \"Ghost Shirt Society;\" he is forced to join as their leader but only in name. Paul's father was the first \"National, Industrial, Commercial Communications, Foodstuffs, and Resources Director\"\u201d As his lengthy title suggests, Dr. George Proetus has almost complete control over the nation\u2019s economy and was more powerful than the President of the United States. Through his father's success, Paul's name is famous among the citizens, so the organization"
      },
      {
        "text": " job and is captured by the \"Ghost Shirt Society;\" he is forced to join as their leader but only in name. Paul's father was the first \"National, Industrial, Commercial Communications, Foodstuffs, and Resources Director\"\u201d As his lengthy title suggests, Dr. George Proetus has almost complete control over the nation\u2019s economy and was more powerful than the President of the United States. Through his father's success, Paul's name is famous among the citizens, so the organization intends to use his name to their advantage by making him the false 'leader' to gain publicity.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Loved One",
    "author": "Evelyn Waugh",
    "published_date": "1948-02",
    "synopsis": " Chapter one: Sir Ambrose Abercrombie visits housemates Dennis Barlow and Sir Francis Hinsley to express his concern about Barlow's new job and how it reflects on the British enclave in Hollywood, which is also taken as an announcement of Barlow's impending exclusion from British society. Barlow reports to his job at the Happier Hunting Ground, a pet cemetery and funeral service, and picks up a couple's dead Sealyham Terrier. Chapter two: Due to the difficulty he is having rebranding actress Juanita del Pablo as an Irish starlet (having previously rebranded Baby Aaronson as del Pablo), Hinsley is sent to work from home. After his secretary stops showing up, he ventures to Megalopolitan Studios and finds a man named Lorenzo Medici in his office. After working his way through the bureaucracy he finds he has been unceremoniously fired. In the next scene, Abercrombie and other British expatriates are discussing Hinsley's suicide and the funeral arrangements. Chapter three: Barlow, tasked with making Hinsley's funeral arrangements, visits Whispering Glades. There he is transfixed by the cosmetician Aim\u00e9e Thanatogenos, though he has yet to learn her name. Chapter four: Barlow continues with the funeral arrangements while Hinsley's body arrives at Whispering Glades and is tended to by Thanatogenos and the senior mortician Mr. Joyboy. Chapter five: Barlow visits Whispering Glades seeking inspiration for Hinsley's funeral ode. While touring a British-themed section of the cemetery, he meets Thanatogenos and begins his courtship of her when she learns he is a poet. Chapter six: Six weeks later, Thanatogenos is torn between her very different affections for Barlow and Joyboy. She writes to the advice columnist \"The Guru Brahmin\" for advice. Joyboy invites her over for dinner and she meets his mother. Chapter seven: The office of the Guru Brahmin consists of \"two gloomy men and a bright young secretary.\" Tasked with responding to Thanatogenos' letters is Mr. Slump, a grim drunk who advises that she marry Joyboy. She instead decides to marry Barlow. Chapter eight: Joyboy learns that the poems Barlow has been wooing Thanatogenos with are not his own, and arranges that Thanatogenos, who still does not know Barlow works for a pet cemetery, attend the funeral of his mother's parrot at the Happier Hunting Ground. Chapter nine: Some time after Thanatogenos' discovery of Barlow's deceptions, Barlow reads the announcement of her engagement to Joyboy. Barlow meets with her and she is again torn between the two men. She tracks down Mr. Slump to seek the advice of the Guru Bramin and finds him, via telephone, in a bar after he has been fired. Slump tells her to jump off a building. She commits suicide by injecting herself with cyanide in Joyboy's workroom at Whispering Glades. Chapter ten: Joyboy discovers Thanatogenos' body and seeks assistance from Barlow. Then Barlow meets with Abercrombie, who, fearing Barlow's plans to become a non-sectarian funeral pastor will further damage the image of the British enclave, pays his passage back to England. Joyboy returns, unaware of Barlow's impending departure, and in exchange for all his savings, Barlow says he will leave town so it will appear that he ran away with Thanatogenos. After cremating the body, Barlow signs Joyboy up for the Happier Hunting Ground annual postcard service so every year Joyboy will receive a card reading \"Your little Aim\u00e9e is wagging her tail in heaven tonight, thinking of you.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Chapter one: Sir Ambrose Abercrombie visits housemates Dennis Barlow and Sir Francis Hinsley to express his concern about Barlow's new job and how it reflects on the British enclave in Hollywood, which is also taken as an announcement of Barlow's impending exclusion from British society. Barlow reports to his job at the Happier Hunting Ground, a pet cemetery and funeral service, and picks up a couple's dead Sealyham Terrier. Chapter two: Due to the difficulty he is having rebranding actress Juanita del Pablo as an Irish starlet (having previously rebranded Baby Aaronson as del Pablo), Hinsley is sent to work from home. After his secretary stops showing up, he ventures to Megalopolitan Studios and finds a man named Lorenzo Medici in his office. After working his way through the bureaucracy he finds he has been unceremoniously fired. In the next scene, Abercrombie and other British expatriates are discussing Hinsley's suicide and the funeral arrangements. Chapter three: Barlow, tasked with making Hinsley's funeral arrangements, visits Whispering Glades. There he is transfixed by the cosmetician Aim\u00e9e Thanatogenos, though he has yet to learn her name. Chapter four: Barlow continues with the funeral arrangements while Hinsley's body arrives at Whispering Glades and is tended to by Thanatogenos and the senior mortician Mr. Joyboy. Chapter five: Barlow visits Whispering Glades seeking inspiration for Hinsley's funeral ode. While touring a British-themed section of the cemetery, he meets Thanatogenos and begins his courtship of her when she learns he is a poet. Chapter six: Six weeks later, Thanatogenos is torn between her very different affections for Barlow and Joyboy. She writes to the advice columnist \"The Guru Brahmin\" for advice. Joyboy invites her over for"
      },
      {
        "text": " Chapter five: Barlow visits Whispering Glades seeking inspiration for Hinsley's funeral ode. While touring a British-themed section of the cemetery, he meets Thanatogenos and begins his courtship of her when she learns he is a poet. Chapter six: Six weeks later, Thanatogenos is torn between her very different affections for Barlow and Joyboy. She writes to the advice columnist \"The Guru Brahmin\" for advice. Joyboy invites her over for dinner and she meets his mother. Chapter seven: The office of the Guru Brahmin consists of \"two gloomy men and a bright young secretary.\" Tasked with responding to Thanatogenos' letters is Mr. Slump, a grim drunk who advises that she marry Joyboy. She instead decides to marry Barlow. Chapter eight: Joyboy learns that the poems Barlow has been wooing Thanatogenos with are not his own, and arranges that Thanatogenos, who still does not know Barlow works for a pet cemetery, attend the funeral of his mother's parrot at the Happier Hunting Ground. Chapter nine: Some time after Thanatogenos' discovery of Barlow's deceptions, Barlow reads the announcement of her engagement to Joyboy. Barlow meets with her and she is again torn between the two men. She tracks down Mr. Slump to seek the advice of the Guru Bramin and finds him, via telephone, in a bar after he has been fired. Slump tells her to jump off a building. She commits suicide by injecting herself with cyanide in Joyboy's workroom at Whispering Glades. Chapter ten: Joyboy discovers Thanatogenos' body and seeks assistance from Barlow. Then Barlow meets with Abercrombie, who, fearing Barlow's plans to become a non-sectarian funeral pastor will further damage the image of the British enclave, pays his passage back to England. Joy"
      },
      {
        "text": " after he has been fired. Slump tells her to jump off a building. She commits suicide by injecting herself with cyanide in Joyboy's workroom at Whispering Glades. Chapter ten: Joyboy discovers Thanatogenos' body and seeks assistance from Barlow. Then Barlow meets with Abercrombie, who, fearing Barlow's plans to become a non-sectarian funeral pastor will further damage the image of the British enclave, pays his passage back to England. Joyboy returns, unaware of Barlow's impending departure, and in exchange for all his savings, Barlow says he will leave town so it will appear that he ran away with Thanatogenos. After cremating the body, Barlow signs Joyboy up for the Happier Hunting Ground annual postcard service so every year Joyboy will receive a card reading \"Your little Aim\u00e9e is wagging her tail in heaven tonight, thinking of you.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Town Like Alice",
    "author": "Nevil Shute",
    "published_date": "1950",
    "synopsis": " The story falls broadly into three parts. In Post-World War II London, Jean Paget, a secretary in a leather-goods factory, is informed by solicitor Noel Strachan that she has inherited a considerable sum of money from an uncle she never knew. But the solicitor is now her trustee and she only has the use of the income until she inherits absolutely, at the age of thirty-five, several years in the future. In the firm's interest, but increasingly for his own personal interest, Strachan acts as her guide and advisor. Jean decides that her priority is to build a well in a Malayan village. The second part of the story flashes back to Jean's experiences during the War, when she was working in Malaya at the time the Japanese invaded and was taken prisoner together with a group of women and children. As she speaks Malay fluently, Jean takes a leading role in the group of prisoners. The Japanese refuse all responsibility for the group and march them from one village to another. Many of them, not used to physical labour, die. Jean meets a young Australian soldier, Sergeant Joe Harman, also a prisoner, who is driving a truck for the Japanese and they strike up a friendship. He steals food and medicines to help them. Jean is carrying a toddler, whose mother has died, and this leads Harman to believe that she is married; to avoid complications, Jean does not correct this assumption. On one occasion, Harman steals six chickens from the local Japanese commander. The thefts are investigated and Harman takes the blame to save Jean and the rest of the group. He is beaten, crucified, and left to die by the Japanese soldiers. The women are marched away, believing that he is dead. When their sole Japanese guard dies, the women become part of a Malayan village community. They live and work there for three years, until the war ends and they are repatriated. Now a wealthy woman (at least on paper), Jean decides she wants to build a well for the village so that the women will not have to walk so far to collect water: \"A gift by women, for women\". Strachan arranges for her to travel to Malaya, where she goes back to the village and persuades the headman to allow her to build the well. While it is being built, she discovers that, by a strange chance, Joe Harman survived his punishment and returned to Australia. She decides to travel on to Australia to find him. On her travels, she visits the town of Alice Springs, where Joe lived before the war, and is much impressed with the quality of life there. She then travels to the (fictional) primitive town of Willstown in the Queensland outback, where Joe has become manager of a cattle station. She soon discovers that the quality of life in 'Alice' is an anomaly, and life for a woman in the outback is elsewhere very rugged. Willstown is described as 'a fair cow'. Meanwhile, Joe has met a pilot who helped repatriate the women, from whom he learns that Jean survived the war and that she was never married. He travels to London to find her, using money won in a lottery. He finds his way to Strachan's office, but is told that she has gone traveling in the Far East. Disappointed, he gets drunk and is arrested, but is bailed out by Strachan. Without revealing Jean's actual whereabouts, Strachan persuades Joe to return home by ship and intimates that he may well receive a great surprise there. While staying in Willstown, awaiting Joe's return, Jean learns that most young girls have to leave the town to find work in the bigger cities. Having worked with a firm in England that produced crocodile- leather luxury goods, she gets the idea of founding a local workshop to make shoes from the skins of crocodiles hunted in the outback. With the help of Joe and of Noel Strachan, who releases money from her inheritance, she starts the workshop, followed by a string of other businesses; an ice-cream parlour, a public swimming pool and shops. The third part of the book shows how Jean's entrepreneurship gives a decisive economic impact to develop Willstown into \"a town like Alice\"; also Jean's help in rescuing an injured stockman, which breaks down many local barriers. The story closes a few years later, with an aged Noel Strachan visiting Willstown to see what has been done with the money he has given Jean to invest. He reveals that the money which Jean inherited was originally made in an Australian gold rush, and he is satisfied to see the money returning to the site of its making. Jean and Joe name their second son Noel, and ask Strachan to be his godfather. They invite Noel to make his home with them in Australia, but he declines the invitation, returns to England and the novel closes.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story falls broadly into three parts. In Post-World War II London, Jean Paget, a secretary in a leather-goods factory, is informed by solicitor Noel Strachan that she has inherited a considerable sum of money from an uncle she never knew. But the solicitor is now her trustee and she only has the use of the income until she inherits absolutely, at the age of thirty-five, several years in the future. In the firm's interest, but increasingly for his own personal interest, Strachan acts as her guide and advisor. Jean decides that her priority is to build a well in a Malayan village. The second part of the story flashes back to Jean's experiences during the War, when she was working in Malaya at the time the Japanese invaded and was taken prisoner together with a group of women and children. As she speaks Malay fluently, Jean takes a leading role in the group of prisoners. The Japanese refuse all responsibility for the group and march them from one village to another. Many of them, not used to physical labour, die. Jean meets a young Australian soldier, Sergeant Joe Harman, also a prisoner, who is driving a truck for the Japanese and they strike up a friendship. He steals food and medicines to help them. Jean is carrying a toddler, whose mother has died, and this leads Harman to believe that she is married; to avoid complications, Jean does not correct this assumption. On one occasion, Harman steals six chickens from the local Japanese commander. The thefts are investigated and Harman takes the blame to save Jean and the rest of the group. He is beaten, crucified, and left to die by the Japanese soldiers. The women are marched away, believing that he is dead. When their sole Japanese guard dies, the women become part of a Malayan village community. They live and work there for three years, until the war ends and they are repatriated. Now a wealthy woman (at"
      },
      {
        "text": " steals six chickens from the local Japanese commander. The thefts are investigated and Harman takes the blame to save Jean and the rest of the group. He is beaten, crucified, and left to die by the Japanese soldiers. The women are marched away, believing that he is dead. When their sole Japanese guard dies, the women become part of a Malayan village community. They live and work there for three years, until the war ends and they are repatriated. Now a wealthy woman (at least on paper), Jean decides she wants to build a well for the village so that the women will not have to walk so far to collect water: \"A gift by women, for women\". Strachan arranges for her to travel to Malaya, where she goes back to the village and persuades the headman to allow her to build the well. While it is being built, she discovers that, by a strange chance, Joe Harman survived his punishment and returned to Australia. She decides to travel on to Australia to find him. On her travels, she visits the town of Alice Springs, where Joe lived before the war, and is much impressed with the quality of life there. She then travels to the (fictional) primitive town of Willstown in the Queensland outback, where Joe has become manager of a cattle station. She soon discovers that the quality of life in 'Alice' is an anomaly, and life for a woman in the outback is elsewhere very rugged. Willstown is described as 'a fair cow'. Meanwhile, Joe has met a pilot who helped repatriate the women, from whom he learns that Jean survived the war and that she was never married. He travels to London to find her, using money won in a lottery. He finds his way to Strachan's office, but is told that she has gone traveling in the Far East. Disappointed, he gets drunk and is arrested, but is bailed out by Strachan. Without revealing"
      },
      {
        "text": " Willstown is described as 'a fair cow'. Meanwhile, Joe has met a pilot who helped repatriate the women, from whom he learns that Jean survived the war and that she was never married. He travels to London to find her, using money won in a lottery. He finds his way to Strachan's office, but is told that she has gone traveling in the Far East. Disappointed, he gets drunk and is arrested, but is bailed out by Strachan. Without revealing Jean's actual whereabouts, Strachan persuades Joe to return home by ship and intimates that he may well receive a great surprise there. While staying in Willstown, awaiting Joe's return, Jean learns that most young girls have to leave the town to find work in the bigger cities. Having worked with a firm in England that produced crocodile- leather luxury goods, she gets the idea of founding a local workshop to make shoes from the skins of crocodiles hunted in the outback. With the help of Joe and of Noel Strachan, who releases money from her inheritance, she starts the workshop, followed by a string of other businesses; an ice-cream parlour, a public swimming pool and shops. The third part of the book shows how Jean's entrepreneurship gives a decisive economic impact to develop Willstown into \"a town like Alice\"; also Jean's help in rescuing an injured stockman, which breaks down many local barriers. The story closes a few years later, with an aged Noel Strachan visiting Willstown to see what has been done with the money he has given Jean to invest. He reveals that the money which Jean inherited was originally made in an Australian gold rush, and he is satisfied to see the money returning to the site of its making. Jean and Joe name their second son Noel, and ask Strachan to be his godfather. They invite Noel to make his home with them in Australia, but he declines the invitation, returns to England and"
      },
      {
        "text": " an aged Noel Strachan visiting Willstown to see what has been done with the money he has given Jean to invest. He reveals that the money which Jean inherited was originally made in an Australian gold rush, and he is satisfied to see the money returning to the site of its making. Jean and Joe name their second son Noel, and ask Strachan to be his godfather. They invite Noel to make his home with them in Australia, but he declines the invitation, returns to England and the novel closes.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "We the Living",
    "author": "Ayn Rand",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story takes place from 1922 to 1925, in post-revolutionary Russia. Kira Argounova, the protagonist of the story, is the younger daughter of a bourgeois family. An independent spirit with a will to match, she rejects any attempt by her family or the nascent Soviet State to cast her into a mold. At the beginning of the story, Kira returns to Petrograd along with her family, after a prolonged exile due to the assault of the revolutionaries. Kira's father had been the owner of a textile factory, which had been seized and nationalized. The family, having given up all hopes of regaining their past possessions after the emphatic victories of the Red Army in the last four years, is resigned to their fate, as they return to the city in search of livelihood. They find, to their dismay, that their home has likewise been seized, and converted to living quarters for several families. Left with nowhere to go, the family moves into Kira's aunt Marussia's apartment. The severity of life in the newly Socialist Russia is biting and cruel, especially for the people belonging to the now-stigmatized middle class. Kira's uncle Vasili has also lost his family business to the state, and has been forced to sell off his possessions, one at a time, for money (which has lost much of its value owing to steep inflation). Private enterprises have been strictly controlled, and licenses to run them allotted only to those \"enjoying the trust\" of the proletariat. Food is rationed. Only laborers of nationalized businesses and students in state-run educational institutions have access to ration cards. The family of five survives on the ration cards allotted to the two younger members of the family, who are students. After a brief stay at Vasili's home, Kira's family manages to find living quarters. Kira's father also manages to get a license to open a textile shop, an establishment that is but a shadow of his old firm. Life is excruciatingly difficult in these times. Rand portrays the bleak scenarios by vivid descriptions of long queues, weary citizens and low standards of living. (Everyone regularly cooks on a kerosene camp stove, usually a Swedish Primus stove, and the typical main course is millet, or whatever can be blended together.) With some effort, Kira manages to register with the State and obtain her Labor Book (which permits her to study and work). Kira also manages to enroll in the Technological Institute, where she aspires to fulfill her dream of becoming an engineer. She plans to storm the male bastion of engineers, and show her prowess by building structures like a lightweight aluminum bridge. Kira's strength of resolve to fulfill her dream is asserted at various points in the storyline. Becoming a highly competent engineer would be Kira's carving for herself a niche in a society that has become characterless and anonymous, and whose primary purpose in life has been reduced to subsistence rather than excellence. At the Institute, Kira meets Andrei Taganov, a co-student, an idealistic Communist, and an officer in the G.P.U., the secret police of the Soviet Union. The two share a mutual respect and admiration for each other in spite of their differing political beliefs. Andrei and Kira develop a friendship that endures until the end of the story. In a chance encounter, Kira meets Leo Kovalensky on a dark night in a seedy neighborhood. Leo is an extremely attractive man with a free spirit matched only by Kira's. It's love at first sight for Kira, and she unflinchingly throws herself at Leo. Leo, who initially takes her to be a prostitute, is also strongly attracted to her and promises to meet her again. Kira and Leo are shown to be united by their desperate lives, and their lofty beliefs that ran counter to what were being thrust on them by the State. After a couple of meetings, when they share their deep contempt for the state of their lives, the two plan to escape together from the land, on a clandestine mission operated by secret ships. The novel, from this point on, slowly cascades into a series of catastrophes for Kira and Leo. They are caught while attempting to flee the country, but escape imprisonment due to the generosity of a G.P.U. official, Stepan Timoshenko, who had fought under the command of Leo's father before the revolution. Kira leaves her parents' apartment and moves into Leo's. The relationship between Kira and Leo, intense and passionate in the beginning, begins to deteriorate under the weight of their hardships, and because of their different reactions to these hardships. Kira, who is an idealistic realist, keeps her ideas and aspirations alive, but decides to go with the system anyway, until she feels powerful enough to challenge it. Soon the state decides to expel anyone of a bourgeois background. On the verge of starvation, Kira finds work with the help of Andrei, enough to retain her ration card. Leo, however, burdened by his class background, and without any communist friend to help him, fails to find work, and sinks slowly into indifference and depression. He contracts tuberculosis and is prescribed treatment and recuperation in a sanatorium in Crimea in the South. Kira's efforts to finance his treatment fail, and her passionate appeals to the authorities to get State help for his stay at the sanatorium fall on deaf ears. Andrei, an equally important person in Kira's life, is portrayed by Rand as a man of character, resolve, and an unassailable loyalty to his party and ideology. Despite his political beliefs, Kira finds him to be the one person she could trust, and with whom she could discuss her most intimate thoughts and views. Not even Leo could fulfill that role for her. Andrei's affection and respect for Kira knows no bounds, and it slowly turns into love. Worried what this might do to their \"beautiful and rare\" friendship, he starts avoiding Kira. Kira misses him, and needs his help. Eventually when she confronts him in his house, Andrei explains his avoidance of her and confesses his love for her. Kira is dismayed at first, but recovers to find in it a way to finance Leo's treatment. Reluctant, but in desperation, she feigns love for Andrei, and agrees to become his mistress in return for the promise of complete secrecy about their relationship. Kira is never comfortable with what she was doing with her body, but is even more frightened by \"what she was doing to another man's soul\". The narrative reaches a climactic pace when Leo returns from Crimea, cured of tuberculosis and healthy, but a changed man. Ignoring Kira's protests, he opens a food store with the help of his morally bankrupt and rich friends, and a corrupt member of the Communist Party. The store is but a facade for illegal speculation and trade. Andrei is tipped off about this venture by Stepan Timoshenko, who commits suicide in despair at what is happening to his Soviet Union, but only after depositing a key piece of evidence with Andrei. Ignoring Kira's pleas, and unaware of her love for Leo, Andrei starts investigating Leo's store. After a search at his house, he arrests Leo for crimes against the State, which could carry a death sentence. In the process, he finds out about Kira's relationship with Leo. The ensuing confrontation between Andrei and Kira is perhaps the most poignant scene in the story. In the end, both realize what they had done to each other and how their passion and pretension had led them to the destruction of what each had held in \"the highest reverence\". Andrei decides to redress the situation, at least for Kira, and moves to restore Leo to her, risking his own standing in the Party. After Leo's release from the prison at Andrei's behest, the story ends in tragedy for all the three. Andrei loses his position in the Party, and shortly thereafter commits suicide. Kira, perhaps the only genuine mourner at his State funeral, wonders if she had killed him. Having lost any moral sense that he may have left, Leo leaves Kira to begin a new life as a gigolo, fulfilling the earlier portrayal of him as such by Kira's perceptive cousin Irina (who has been sentenced to a long prison term for associating with counter-revolutionaries). After Leo's departure, Kira makes a final attempt to cross the border. When she is almost in sight of freedom and liberation from her hellish life, she is shot by a border guard and soon dies. Kira remains loyal to her love for Leo until the end, and says at one point, \"When a person dies, one does not stop loving him, does one?\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story takes place from 1922 to 1925, in post-revolutionary Russia. Kira Argounova, the protagonist of the story, is the younger daughter of a bourgeois family. An independent spirit with a will to match, she rejects any attempt by her family or the nascent Soviet State to cast her into a mold. At the beginning of the story, Kira returns to Petrograd along with her family, after a prolonged exile due to the assault of the revolutionaries. Kira's father had been the owner of a textile factory, which had been seized and nationalized. The family, having given up all hopes of regaining their past possessions after the emphatic victories of the Red Army in the last four years, is resigned to their fate, as they return to the city in search of livelihood. They find, to their dismay, that their home has likewise been seized, and converted to living quarters for several families. Left with nowhere to go, the family moves into Kira's aunt Marussia's apartment. The severity of life in the newly Socialist Russia is biting and cruel, especially for the people belonging to the now-stigmatized middle class. Kira's uncle Vasili has also lost his family business to the state, and has been forced to sell off his possessions, one at a time, for money (which has lost much of its value owing to steep inflation). Private enterprises have been strictly controlled, and licenses to run them allotted only to those \"enjoying the trust\" of the proletariat. Food is rationed. Only laborers of nationalized businesses and students in state-run educational institutions have access to ration cards. The family of five survives on the ration cards allotted to the two younger members of the family, who are students. After a brief stay at Vasili's home, Kira's family manages to find living quarters. Kira's father also manages to get a license to open a textile shop, an establishment that is but a shadow of his old firm. Life is excruciatingly"
      },
      {
        "text": " proletariat. Food is rationed. Only laborers of nationalized businesses and students in state-run educational institutions have access to ration cards. The family of five survives on the ration cards allotted to the two younger members of the family, who are students. After a brief stay at Vasili's home, Kira's family manages to find living quarters. Kira's father also manages to get a license to open a textile shop, an establishment that is but a shadow of his old firm. Life is excruciatingly difficult in these times. Rand portrays the bleak scenarios by vivid descriptions of long queues, weary citizens and low standards of living. (Everyone regularly cooks on a kerosene camp stove, usually a Swedish Primus stove, and the typical main course is millet, or whatever can be blended together.) With some effort, Kira manages to register with the State and obtain her Labor Book (which permits her to study and work). Kira also manages to enroll in the Technological Institute, where she aspires to fulfill her dream of becoming an engineer. She plans to storm the male bastion of engineers, and show her prowess by building structures like a lightweight aluminum bridge. Kira's strength of resolve to fulfill her dream is asserted at various points in the storyline. Becoming a highly competent engineer would be Kira's carving for herself a niche in a society that has become characterless and anonymous, and whose primary purpose in life has been reduced to subsistence rather than excellence. At the Institute, Kira meets Andrei Taganov, a co-student, an idealistic Communist, and an officer in the G.P.U., the secret police of the Soviet Union. The two share a mutual respect and admiration for each other in spite of their differing political beliefs. Andrei and Kira develop a friendship that endures until the end of the story. In a chance encounter, Kira meets Leo Kovalensky on a dark night in a seedy neighborhood. Leo is an extremely attractive man with a free"
      },
      {
        "text": " Taganov, a co-student, an idealistic Communist, and an officer in the G.P.U., the secret police of the Soviet Union. The two share a mutual respect and admiration for each other in spite of their differing political beliefs. Andrei and Kira develop a friendship that endures until the end of the story. In a chance encounter, Kira meets Leo Kovalensky on a dark night in a seedy neighborhood. Leo is an extremely attractive man with a free spirit matched only by Kira's. It's love at first sight for Kira, and she unflinchingly throws herself at Leo. Leo, who initially takes her to be a prostitute, is also strongly attracted to her and promises to meet her again. Kira and Leo are shown to be united by their desperate lives, and their lofty beliefs that ran counter to what were being thrust on them by the State. After a couple of meetings, when they share their deep contempt for the state of their lives, the two plan to escape together from the land, on a clandestine mission operated by secret ships. The novel, from this point on, slowly cascades into a series of catastrophes for Kira and Leo. They are caught while attempting to flee the country, but escape imprisonment due to the generosity of a G.P.U. official, Stepan Timoshenko, who had fought under the command of Leo's father before the revolution. Kira leaves her parents' apartment and moves into Leo's. The relationship between Kira and Leo, intense and passionate in the beginning, begins to deteriorate under the weight of their hardships, and because of their different reactions to these hardships. Kira, who is an idealistic realist, keeps her ideas and aspirations alive, but decides to go with the system anyway, until she feels powerful enough to challenge it. Soon the state decides to expel anyone of a bourgeois background. On the verge of starvation, Kira finds work with the help of Andrei, enough to"
      },
      {
        "text": " The relationship between Kira and Leo, intense and passionate in the beginning, begins to deteriorate under the weight of their hardships, and because of their different reactions to these hardships. Kira, who is an idealistic realist, keeps her ideas and aspirations alive, but decides to go with the system anyway, until she feels powerful enough to challenge it. Soon the state decides to expel anyone of a bourgeois background. On the verge of starvation, Kira finds work with the help of Andrei, enough to retain her ration card. Leo, however, burdened by his class background, and without any communist friend to help him, fails to find work, and sinks slowly into indifference and depression. He contracts tuberculosis and is prescribed treatment and recuperation in a sanatorium in Crimea in the South. Kira's efforts to finance his treatment fail, and her passionate appeals to the authorities to get State help for his stay at the sanatorium fall on deaf ears. Andrei, an equally important person in Kira's life, is portrayed by Rand as a man of character, resolve, and an unassailable loyalty to his party and ideology. Despite his political beliefs, Kira finds him to be the one person she could trust, and with whom she could discuss her most intimate thoughts and views. Not even Leo could fulfill that role for her. Andrei's affection and respect for Kira knows no bounds, and it slowly turns into love. Worried what this might do to their \"beautiful and rare\" friendship, he starts avoiding Kira. Kira misses him, and needs his help. Eventually when she confronts him in his house, Andrei explains his avoidance of her and confesses his love for her. Kira is dismayed at first, but recovers to find in it a way to finance Leo's treatment. Reluctant, but in desperation, she feigns love for Andrei, and agrees to become his mistress in return for the promise of complete secrecy about their relationship. Kira is never comfortable"
      },
      {
        "text": " friendship, he starts avoiding Kira. Kira misses him, and needs his help. Eventually when she confronts him in his house, Andrei explains his avoidance of her and confesses his love for her. Kira is dismayed at first, but recovers to find in it a way to finance Leo's treatment. Reluctant, but in desperation, she feigns love for Andrei, and agrees to become his mistress in return for the promise of complete secrecy about their relationship. Kira is never comfortable with what she was doing with her body, but is even more frightened by \"what she was doing to another man's soul\". The narrative reaches a climactic pace when Leo returns from Crimea, cured of tuberculosis and healthy, but a changed man. Ignoring Kira's protests, he opens a food store with the help of his morally bankrupt and rich friends, and a corrupt member of the Communist Party. The store is but a facade for illegal speculation and trade. Andrei is tipped off about this venture by Stepan Timoshenko, who commits suicide in despair at what is happening to his Soviet Union, but only after depositing a key piece of evidence with Andrei. Ignoring Kira's pleas, and unaware of her love for Leo, Andrei starts investigating Leo's store. After a search at his house, he arrests Leo for crimes against the State, which could carry a death sentence. In the process, he finds out about Kira's relationship with Leo. The ensuing confrontation between Andrei and Kira is perhaps the most poignant scene in the story. In the end, both realize what they had done to each other and how their passion and pretension had led them to the destruction of what each had held in \"the highest reverence\". Andrei decides to redress the situation, at least for Kira, and moves to restore Leo to her, risking his own standing in the Party. After Leo's release from the prison at Andrei's behest, the story ends in tragedy for all the three"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Kira is perhaps the most poignant scene in the story. In the end, both realize what they had done to each other and how their passion and pretension had led them to the destruction of what each had held in \"the highest reverence\". Andrei decides to redress the situation, at least for Kira, and moves to restore Leo to her, risking his own standing in the Party. After Leo's release from the prison at Andrei's behest, the story ends in tragedy for all the three. Andrei loses his position in the Party, and shortly thereafter commits suicide. Kira, perhaps the only genuine mourner at his State funeral, wonders if she had killed him. Having lost any moral sense that he may have left, Leo leaves Kira to begin a new life as a gigolo, fulfilling the earlier portrayal of him as such by Kira's perceptive cousin Irina (who has been sentenced to a long prison term for associating with counter-revolutionaries). After Leo's departure, Kira makes a final attempt to cross the border. When she is almost in sight of freedom and liberation from her hellish life, she is shot by a border guard and soon dies. Kira remains loyal to her love for Leo until the end, and says at one point, \"When a person dies, one does not stop loving him, does one?\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "When Harlie Was One",
    "author": "David Gerrold",
    "published_date": "1972",
    "synopsis": " Central to the story is an Artificial Intelligence named H.A.R.L.I.E., also referred to by the proper name \"HARLIE\" - an acronym for Human Analog Replication, Lethetic Intelligence Engine (originally Human Analog Robot Life Input Equivalents). HARLIE's story revolves around his relationship with David Auberson, the psychologist who is responsible for guiding HARLIE from childhood into adulthood. It is also the story of HARLIE's fight against being turned off, and the philosophical question whether or not HARLIE is human; for that matter, what it means to be human. When HARLIE Was One contains the first fictional representation of a computer virus. It also is the first use of the term 'virus' to describe a program that infects another computer.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Central to the story is an Artificial Intelligence named H.A.R.L.I.E., also referred to by the proper name \"HARLIE\" - an acronym for Human Analog Replication, Lethetic Intelligence Engine (originally Human Analog Robot Life Input Equivalents). HARLIE's story revolves around his relationship with David Auberson, the psychologist who is responsible for guiding HARLIE from childhood into adulthood. It is also the story of HARLIE's fight against being turned off, and the philosophical question whether or not HARLIE is human; for that matter, what it means to be human. When HARLIE Was One contains the first fictional representation of a computer virus. It also is the first use of the term 'virus' to describe a program that infects another computer.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Call of the Wild",
    "author": "Jack London",
    "published_date": "1903",
    "synopsis": " As the story opens, Buck, a powerful St. Bernard-Scotch Collie dog, lives a comfortable life in California's Santa Clara Valley as the pet of Judge Miller. Manuel, the gardener's assistant, steals Buck and sells him to pay a gambling debt. Shipped to Seattle, Buck is harassed in his crate and given nothing to eat or drink. Released from the crate, he confronts and is beaten by the \"man in the red sweater\", and is taught to respect the club. Buck is bought by a pair of French-Canadians named Fran\u00e7ois and Perrault, who take him to the Klondike region of Canada and train him as a sled dog where he quickly learns how to survive the cold winter nights and the pack society by observing his teammates. He and the vicious, quarrelsome lead dog, Spitz, develop a rivalry. Buck eventually beats Spitz in a fight \"to the death\". Spitz is killed by the pack after his defeat and Buck becomes the leader of the team. The sled dog team is sold to a \"Scottish half breed\" man working in the mail service. The dogs carry a heavy load and the journey they make is tiresome and long. After a long time with this owner, the dogs are beat down and so tired that they can no longer make the trek. Buck is then sold to a trio of stampeders, Hal, Charles, and a woman named Mercedes. They have little experience of survival in the Northern wilderness, struggle to control the sled, and ignore warnings about the dangers of travel during the spring melt. They overfeed the dogs and starve them when the food supply runs out. On their journey they meet John Thornton, an experienced outdoorsman, who notices that the dogs poorly treated and in a weakened condition. He warns the trio against crossing the river, but they refuse his advice and order Buck to move on. Exhausted, starving, and sensing the danger ahead, Buck refuses and continues to lie unmoving in the snow. After Buck is beaten by Hal, Thornton recognizes him to be a remarkable dog; disgusted by the driver's treatment of Buck, Thornton cuts him free from his traces and tells the trio he's keeping him, much to Hal's displeasure. After some argument, the trio leaves and tries to cross the river, but as Thornton warned, the ice gives way and the three fall into the river along with the neglected dogs and sled. Thornton nurses Buck back to health, and Buck comes to love him and grows devoted to him. Buck saves Thornton when the man falls into a river. Thornton then takes him on trips to pan for gold. During one such trip, a man wagers Thornton on Buck's strength and devotion; the dog wins the bet by breaking a half-ton sled free of the frozen ground, pulling it 100 yards, and winning $1000 in gold dust for Thornton. While Thornton and his friends continue their search for gold, Buck explores the wilderness and begins to socialize with a timber wolf from a local pack. One night, he returns from a short hunt to find that his beloved master and the others in the camp have been killed by a group of Yeehat Indians. Buck eventually kills the Indians to avenge Thornton and he then follows the wolf into the forest and answers the call of the wild. At the end of the story, Buck returns each year, as the Ghost Dog of the Northland Legend, to mourn at the site of Thornton's death.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As the story opens, Buck, a powerful St. Bernard-Scotch Collie dog, lives a comfortable life in California's Santa Clara Valley as the pet of Judge Miller. Manuel, the gardener's assistant, steals Buck and sells him to pay a gambling debt. Shipped to Seattle, Buck is harassed in his crate and given nothing to eat or drink. Released from the crate, he confronts and is beaten by the \"man in the red sweater\", and is taught to respect the club. Buck is bought by a pair of French-Canadians named Fran\u00e7ois and Perrault, who take him to the Klondike region of Canada and train him as a sled dog where he quickly learns how to survive the cold winter nights and the pack society by observing his teammates. He and the vicious, quarrelsome lead dog, Spitz, develop a rivalry. Buck eventually beats Spitz in a fight \"to the death\". Spitz is killed by the pack after his defeat and Buck becomes the leader of the team. The sled dog team is sold to a \"Scottish half breed\" man working in the mail service. The dogs carry a heavy load and the journey they make is tiresome and long. After a long time with this owner, the dogs are beat down and so tired that they can no longer make the trek. Buck is then sold to a trio of stampeders, Hal, Charles, and a woman named Mercedes. They have little experience of survival in the Northern wilderness, struggle to control the sled, and ignore warnings about the dangers of travel during the spring melt. They overfeed the dogs and starve them when the food supply runs out. On their journey they meet John Thornton, an experienced outdoorsman, who notices that the dogs poorly treated and in a weakened condition. He warns the trio against crossing the river, but they refuse his advice and order Buck to move on. Exhausted, starving, and sensing the danger ahead, Buck refuses and continues to"
      },
      {
        "text": " wilderness, struggle to control the sled, and ignore warnings about the dangers of travel during the spring melt. They overfeed the dogs and starve them when the food supply runs out. On their journey they meet John Thornton, an experienced outdoorsman, who notices that the dogs poorly treated and in a weakened condition. He warns the trio against crossing the river, but they refuse his advice and order Buck to move on. Exhausted, starving, and sensing the danger ahead, Buck refuses and continues to lie unmoving in the snow. After Buck is beaten by Hal, Thornton recognizes him to be a remarkable dog; disgusted by the driver's treatment of Buck, Thornton cuts him free from his traces and tells the trio he's keeping him, much to Hal's displeasure. After some argument, the trio leaves and tries to cross the river, but as Thornton warned, the ice gives way and the three fall into the river along with the neglected dogs and sled. Thornton nurses Buck back to health, and Buck comes to love him and grows devoted to him. Buck saves Thornton when the man falls into a river. Thornton then takes him on trips to pan for gold. During one such trip, a man wagers Thornton on Buck's strength and devotion; the dog wins the bet by breaking a half-ton sled free of the frozen ground, pulling it 100 yards, and winning $1000 in gold dust for Thornton. While Thornton and his friends continue their search for gold, Buck explores the wilderness and begins to socialize with a timber wolf from a local pack. One night, he returns from a short hunt to find that his beloved master and the others in the camp have been killed by a group of Yeehat Indians. Buck eventually kills the Indians to avenge Thornton and he then follows the wolf into the forest and answers the call of the wild. At the end of the story, Buck returns each year, as the Ghost Dog of the Northland Legend, to mourn at the site of Thornton"
      },
      {
        "text": " to socialize with a timber wolf from a local pack. One night, he returns from a short hunt to find that his beloved master and the others in the camp have been killed by a group of Yeehat Indians. Buck eventually kills the Indians to avenge Thornton and he then follows the wolf into the forest and answers the call of the wild. At the end of the story, Buck returns each year, as the Ghost Dog of the Northland Legend, to mourn at the site of Thornton's death.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Soft Machine",
    "author": "William S. Burroughs",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The main plot appears in linear prose in chapter VII, The Mayan Caper. This chapter portrays a secret agent who has the ability to change bodies or metamorphose his own body using \"U.T.\" (undifferentiated tissue). As such an agent he makes a time travel machine and takes on a gang of Mayan priests who use the Mayan calendar to control the minds of slave laborers used for planting maize. The calendar images are written in books and placed on a magnetic tape and transmitted as sounds to control the slaves. The agent manages to infiltrate the slaves and replace the magnetic tape with a totally different message: \"burn the books, kill the priests\" which cause the downfall of their regime.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The main plot appears in linear prose in chapter VII, The Mayan Caper. This chapter portrays a secret agent who has the ability to change bodies or metamorphose his own body using \"U.T.\" (undifferentiated tissue). As such an agent he makes a time travel machine and takes on a gang of Mayan priests who use the Mayan calendar to control the minds of slave laborers used for planting maize. The calendar images are written in books and placed on a magnetic tape and transmitted as sounds to control the slaves. The agent manages to infiltrate the slaves and replace the magnetic tape with a totally different message: \"burn the books, kill the priests\" which cause the downfall of their regime.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Caddie Woodlawn",
    "author": "Carol Ryrie Brink",
    "published_date": "1935",
    "synopsis": " Set in the 1860s, Caddie Woodlawn is about a lively eleven-year-old tomboy named Caroline Augusta Woodlawn, nicknamed \"Caddie\", living in the area of Dunnville, Wisconsin, and her experiences with the nearby Indians. She is troublesome and the despair of her ladylike mother and sister. The sequel to the book, Magical Melons (1939), continues the story of Caddie and her family.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set in the 1860s, Caddie Woodlawn is about a lively eleven-year-old tomboy named Caroline Augusta Woodlawn, nicknamed \"Caddie\", living in the area of Dunnville, Wisconsin, and her experiences with the nearby Indians. She is troublesome and the despair of her ladylike mother and sister. The sequel to the book, Magical Melons (1939), continues the story of Caddie and her family.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Sun Also Rises",
    "author": "Ernest Hemingway",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The protagonist of The Sun Also Rises is Jake Barnes, an expatriate American journalist living in Paris. Jake suffered a war wound that has caused him to be impotent; the nature of his injury is not explicitly described in the novel. He is in love with Lady Brett Ashley, a twice-divorced Englishwoman. Brett, with her bobbed hair, embodies the new sexual freedom of the 1920s, having had numerous love affairs. Book One is set in the Caf\u00e9 society of Paris. In the opening scenes, Jake plays tennis with his college friend Robert Cohn, picks up a prostitute (Georgette), and runs into Brett and Count Mippipopolous in a nightclub. Brett and Jake leave together; in a taxi she tells him she loves him, but they know they have no chance at a lasting relationship. In Book Two Jake is joined by Bill Gorton, recently arrived from New York, and Brett's fianc\u00e9 Mike Campbell, who arrives from Scotland. Jake and Bill travel to Spain, where they meet Robert Cohn north of Pamplona for a fishing trip. Cohn, however, leaves for Pamplona to wait for Brett and Mike. Cohn had an affair with Brett a few weeks earlier and still feels possessive of her despite her engagement to Mike. Jake and Bill enjoy five days of tranquility, fishing the streams near Burguete, after which they rejoin the group in Pamplona, where they begin to drink heavily. Cohn's presence is increasingly resented by the others, who taunt him with anti-semitic remarks. During the fiesta the characters drink, eat, watch the running of the bulls, attend bullfights, and bicker with each other. Jake introduces Brett to Romero at Montoya's hotel; she is smitten with the 19-year-old matador and seduces him. The jealous tension among the men builds; Jake, Campbell, Cohn, and Romero each love Brett. Cohn, who had been a champion boxer in college, has fistfights with Jake, Mike, and Romero, whom he injures. Despite the tension, Romero continues to perform brilliantly in the bullring. Book Three shows the characters in the aftermath of the fiesta. Sober again, they leave Pamplona. Bill returns to Paris, Mike stays in Bayonne, and Jake goes to San Sebasti\u00e1n in northeastern Spain. As Jake is about to return to Paris, he receives a telegram from Brett asking for help; she had left with Romero for Madrid. He finds her in a cheap hotel, without money, and without Romero. She announces she has decided to go back to Mike. The novel ends with Jake and Brett in a taxi speaking of the things that might have been.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The protagonist of The Sun Also Rises is Jake Barnes, an expatriate American journalist living in Paris. Jake suffered a war wound that has caused him to be impotent; the nature of his injury is not explicitly described in the novel. He is in love with Lady Brett Ashley, a twice-divorced Englishwoman. Brett, with her bobbed hair, embodies the new sexual freedom of the 1920s, having had numerous love affairs. Book One is set in the Caf\u00e9 society of Paris. In the opening scenes, Jake plays tennis with his college friend Robert Cohn, picks up a prostitute (Georgette), and runs into Brett and Count Mippipopolous in a nightclub. Brett and Jake leave together; in a taxi she tells him she loves him, but they know they have no chance at a lasting relationship. In Book Two Jake is joined by Bill Gorton, recently arrived from New York, and Brett's fianc\u00e9 Mike Campbell, who arrives from Scotland. Jake and Bill travel to Spain, where they meet Robert Cohn north of Pamplona for a fishing trip. Cohn, however, leaves for Pamplona to wait for Brett and Mike. Cohn had an affair with Brett a few weeks earlier and still feels possessive of her despite her engagement to Mike. Jake and Bill enjoy five days of tranquility, fishing the streams near Burguete, after which they rejoin the group in Pamplona, where they begin to drink heavily. Cohn's presence is increasingly resented by the others, who taunt him with anti-semitic remarks. During the fiesta the characters drink, eat, watch the running of the bulls, attend bullfights, and bicker with each other. Jake introduces Brett to Romero at Montoya's hotel; she is smitten with the 19-year-old matador and seduces him. The jealous tension among the men builds; Jake, Campbell, Cohn, and Romero each love Brett. Cohn, who"
      },
      {
        "text": " presence is increasingly resented by the others, who taunt him with anti-semitic remarks. During the fiesta the characters drink, eat, watch the running of the bulls, attend bullfights, and bicker with each other. Jake introduces Brett to Romero at Montoya's hotel; she is smitten with the 19-year-old matador and seduces him. The jealous tension among the men builds; Jake, Campbell, Cohn, and Romero each love Brett. Cohn, who had been a champion boxer in college, has fistfights with Jake, Mike, and Romero, whom he injures. Despite the tension, Romero continues to perform brilliantly in the bullring. Book Three shows the characters in the aftermath of the fiesta. Sober again, they leave Pamplona. Bill returns to Paris, Mike stays in Bayonne, and Jake goes to San Sebasti\u00e1n in northeastern Spain. As Jake is about to return to Paris, he receives a telegram from Brett asking for help; she had left with Romero for Madrid. He finds her in a cheap hotel, without money, and without Romero. She announces she has decided to go back to Mike. The novel ends with Jake and Brett in a taxi speaking of the things that might have been.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Germinal",
    "author": "\u00c9mile Zola",
    "published_date": "1885",
    "synopsis": " The novel's central character is \u00c9tienne Lantier, previously seen in L'Assommoir (1877), and originally to have been the central character in Zola's \"murder on the trains\" thriller La B\u00eate humaine (1890) before the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Germinal persuaded him otherwise. The young migrant worker arrives at the forbidding coal mining town of Montsou in the bleak area of the far north of France to earn a living as a miner. Sacked from his previous job on the railways for assaulting a superior, \u00c9tienne befriends the veteran miner Maheu, who finds him somewhere to stay and gets him a job pushing the carts down the pit. \u00c9tienne is portrayed as a hard-working idealist but also a na\u00efve youth; Zola's genetic theories come into play as \u00c9tienne is presumed to have inherited his Macquart ancestors' traits of hotheaded impulsiveness and an addictive personality capable of exploding into rage under the influence of drink or strong passions. Zola keeps his theorizing in the background and \u00c9tienne's motivations are much more natural as a result. He embraces socialist principles, reading large amounts of working class movement literature and fraternizing with Souvarine, a Russian anarchist and political \u00e9migr\u00e9 who has also come to Montsou to seek a living in the pits. \u00c9tienne's simplistic understanding of socialist politics and their rousing effect on him are very reminiscent of the rebel Silv\u00e8re in the first novel in the cycle, La Fortune des Rougon (1871). While this is going on, \u00c9tienne also falls for Maheu's daughter Catherine, also employed pushing carts in the mines, and he is drawn into the relationship between her and her brutish lover Chaval, a prototype for the character of Buteau in Zola's later novel La Terre (1887). The complex tangle of the miners' lives is played out against a backdrop of severe poverty and oppression, as their working and living conditions continue to worsen throughout the novel; eventually, pushed to breaking point, the miners decide to strike and \u00c9tienne, now a respected member of the community and recognized as a political idealist, becomes the leader of the movement. While the anarchist Souvarine preaches violent action, the miners and their families hold back, their poverty becoming ever more disastrous, until they are sparked into a ferocious riot, the violence of which is described in explicit terms by Zola, as well as providing some of the novelist's best and most evocative crowd scenes. The rioters are eventually confronted by police and the army that repress the revolt in a violent and unforgettable episode. Disillusioned, the miners go back to work, blaming \u00c9tienne for the failure of the strike; then, Souvarine sabotages the entrance shaft of one of the Montsou pits, trapping \u00c9tienne, Catherine and Chaval at the bottom. The ensuing drama and the long wait for rescue are among some of Zola's best scenes, and the novel draws to a dramatic close. \u00c9tienne is eventually rescued and fired but he goes on to live in Paris with Pluchart. The title, Germinal, is drawn from the springtime seventh month of the French Revolutionary Calendar and is meant to evoke imagery of germination, new growth and fertility. Accordingly, Zola ends the novel on a note of hope and one that has provided inspiration to socialist and reformist causes of all kinds throughout the years since its first publication: \"Beneath the blazing of the sun, in that morning of new growth, the countryside rang with song, as its belly swelled with a black and avenging army of men, germinating slowly in its furrows, growing upwards in readiness for harvests to come, until one day soon their ripening would burst open the earth itself.\" By the time of his death, the novel had come to be recognized as his undisputed masterpiece. At his funeral crowds of workers gathered, cheering the cort\u00e8ge with shouts of \"Germinal! Germinal!\". Since then the book has come to symbolize working class causes and to this day retains a special place in French mining-town folklore. Zola was always very proud of Germinal and was always keen to defend its accuracy against accusations of hyperbole and exaggeration (from the conservatives) or of slander against the working classes (from the socialists). His research had been typically thorough, especially the parts involving lengthy observational visits to northern French mining towns in 1884, such as witnessing the after-effects of a crippling miners' strike first-hand at Anzin or actually going down a working coal pit at Denain. The mine scenes are especially vivid and haunting as a result. A sensation upon original publication, it is now by far the best-selling of Zola's novels, both in France and internationally. A number of exceptional modern translations are currently in print and widely available.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel's central character is \u00c9tienne Lantier, previously seen in L'Assommoir (1877), and originally to have been the central character in Zola's \"murder on the trains\" thriller La B\u00eate humaine (1890) before the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Germinal persuaded him otherwise. The young migrant worker arrives at the forbidding coal mining town of Montsou in the bleak area of the far north of France to earn a living as a miner. Sacked from his previous job on the railways for assaulting a superior, \u00c9tienne befriends the veteran miner Maheu, who finds him somewhere to stay and gets him a job pushing the carts down the pit. \u00c9tienne is portrayed as a hard-working idealist but also a na\u00efve youth; Zola's genetic theories come into play as \u00c9tienne is presumed to have inherited his Macquart ancestors' traits of hotheaded impulsiveness and an addictive personality capable of exploding into rage under the influence of drink or strong passions. Zola keeps his theorizing in the background and \u00c9tienne's motivations are much more natural as a result. He embraces socialist principles, reading large amounts of working class movement literature and fraternizing with Souvarine, a Russian anarchist and political \u00e9migr\u00e9 who has also come to Montsou to seek a living in the pits. \u00c9tienne's simplistic understanding of socialist politics and their rousing effect on him are very reminiscent of the rebel Silv\u00e8re in the first novel in the cycle, La Fortune des Rougon (1871). While this is going on, \u00c9tienne also falls for Maheu's daughter Catherine, also employed pushing carts in the mines, and he is drawn into the relationship between her and her brutish lover Chaval, a prototype for the character of Buteau in Zola's later novel La Terre (1887). The complex tangle of the miners' lives is played out"
      },
      {
        "text": " the rebel Silv\u00e8re in the first novel in the cycle, La Fortune des Rougon (1871). While this is going on, \u00c9tienne also falls for Maheu's daughter Catherine, also employed pushing carts in the mines, and he is drawn into the relationship between her and her brutish lover Chaval, a prototype for the character of Buteau in Zola's later novel La Terre (1887). The complex tangle of the miners' lives is played out against a backdrop of severe poverty and oppression, as their working and living conditions continue to worsen throughout the novel; eventually, pushed to breaking point, the miners decide to strike and \u00c9tienne, now a respected member of the community and recognized as a political idealist, becomes the leader of the movement. While the anarchist Souvarine preaches violent action, the miners and their families hold back, their poverty becoming ever more disastrous, until they are sparked into a ferocious riot, the violence of which is described in explicit terms by Zola, as well as providing some of the novelist's best and most evocative crowd scenes. The rioters are eventually confronted by police and the army that repress the revolt in a violent and unforgettable episode. Disillusioned, the miners go back to work, blaming \u00c9tienne for the failure of the strike; then, Souvarine sabotages the entrance shaft of one of the Montsou pits, trapping \u00c9tienne, Catherine and Chaval at the bottom. The ensuing drama and the long wait for rescue are among some of Zola's best scenes, and the novel draws to a dramatic close. \u00c9tienne is eventually rescued and fired but he goes on to live in Paris with Pluchart. The title, Germinal, is drawn from the springtime seventh month of the French Revolutionary Calendar and is meant to evoke imagery of germination, new growth and fertility. Accordingly, Zola ends the novel on a note of hope and"
      },
      {
        "text": " the bottom. The ensuing drama and the long wait for rescue are among some of Zola's best scenes, and the novel draws to a dramatic close. \u00c9tienne is eventually rescued and fired but he goes on to live in Paris with Pluchart. The title, Germinal, is drawn from the springtime seventh month of the French Revolutionary Calendar and is meant to evoke imagery of germination, new growth and fertility. Accordingly, Zola ends the novel on a note of hope and one that has provided inspiration to socialist and reformist causes of all kinds throughout the years since its first publication: \"Beneath the blazing of the sun, in that morning of new growth, the countryside rang with song, as its belly swelled with a black and avenging army of men, germinating slowly in its furrows, growing upwards in readiness for harvests to come, until one day soon their ripening would burst open the earth itself.\" By the time of his death, the novel had come to be recognized as his undisputed masterpiece. At his funeral crowds of workers gathered, cheering the cort\u00e8ge with shouts of \"Germinal! Germinal!\". Since then the book has come to symbolize working class causes and to this day retains a special place in French mining-town folklore. Zola was always very proud of Germinal and was always keen to defend its accuracy against accusations of hyperbole and exaggeration (from the conservatives) or of slander against the working classes (from the socialists). His research had been typically thorough, especially the parts involving lengthy observational visits to northern French mining towns in 1884, such as witnessing the after-effects of a crippling miners' strike first-hand at Anzin or actually going down a working coal pit at Denain. The mine scenes are especially vivid and haunting as a result. A sensation upon original publication, it is now by far the best-selling of Zola's novels, both in France and internationally"
      },
      {
        "text": " the working classes (from the socialists). His research had been typically thorough, especially the parts involving lengthy observational visits to northern French mining towns in 1884, such as witnessing the after-effects of a crippling miners' strike first-hand at Anzin or actually going down a working coal pit at Denain. The mine scenes are especially vivid and haunting as a result. A sensation upon original publication, it is now by far the best-selling of Zola's novels, both in France and internationally. A number of exceptional modern translations are currently in print and widely available.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Les Liaisons dangereuses",
    "author": "Pierre Choderlos de Laclos",
    "published_date": "1782-03-23",
    "synopsis": " The Vicomte de Valmont is determined to seduce the virtuous (and married) Madame de Tourvel, who is living with Valmont's aunt while Monsieur de Tourvel, a magistrate, is away on a court case. At the same time, the Marquise de Merteuil is determined to corrupt the young C\u00e9cile de Volanges, whose mother has only recently brought her out of a convent to be married \u2013 to Merteuil's recent lover, who has become bored with her and discarded her. C\u00e9cile falls in love with the Chevalier Danceny (her music tutor) and Merteuil and Valmont pretend to want to help the secret lovers in order to gain their trust, so that they can use them later in their own schemes. Merteuil suggests that the Vicomte seduce C\u00e9cile in order to exact her revenge on C\u00e9cile's future husband. Valmont refuses, finding the task too easy, and preferring to devote himself to seducing Madame de Tourvel. Merteuil promises Valmont that if he seduces Madame de Tourvel and provides her with written proof, she will spend the night with him. He expects rapid success, but does not find it as easy as his many other conquests. During the course of his pursuit, he discovers that C\u00e9cile's mother has written to Madame de Tourvel about his bad reputation. He avenges himself in seducing C\u00e9cile as Merteuil had suggested. In the meantime, Merteuil takes Danceny as a lover. By the time Valmont has succeeded in seducing Madame de Tourvel, it is suggested that he might have fallen in love with her. Jealous, Merteuil tricks him into deserting Madame de Tourvel \u2013 and reneges on her promise of spending the night with him. In response Valmont reveals that he prompted Danceny to reunite with C\u00e9cile, leaving Merteuil abandoned yet again. Merteuil declares war on Valmont, and in revenge she reveals to Danceny that Valmont has seduced C\u00e9cile. Danceny and Valmont duel, and Valmont is fatally wounded. Before he dies he is reconciled with Danceny, giving him the letters proving Merteuil's own involvement. These letters are sufficient to ruin her reputation and she flees to the countryside, where she contracts smallpox. Her face is left permanently scarred and she is rendered blind in one eye, so she loses her greatest asset: her beauty. But the innocent also suffer from the protagonist's schemes: hearing of Valmont's death, Madame de Tourvel succumbs to a fever and dies, while C\u00e9cile returns to the convent.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Vicomte de Valmont is determined to seduce the virtuous (and married) Madame de Tourvel, who is living with Valmont's aunt while Monsieur de Tourvel, a magistrate, is away on a court case. At the same time, the Marquise de Merteuil is determined to corrupt the young C\u00e9cile de Volanges, whose mother has only recently brought her out of a convent to be married \u2013 to Merteuil's recent lover, who has become bored with her and discarded her. C\u00e9cile falls in love with the Chevalier Danceny (her music tutor) and Merteuil and Valmont pretend to want to help the secret lovers in order to gain their trust, so that they can use them later in their own schemes. Merteuil suggests that the Vicomte seduce C\u00e9cile in order to exact her revenge on C\u00e9cile's future husband. Valmont refuses, finding the task too easy, and preferring to devote himself to seducing Madame de Tourvel. Merteuil promises Valmont that if he seduces Madame de Tourvel and provides her with written proof, she will spend the night with him. He expects rapid success, but does not find it as easy as his many other conquests. During the course of his pursuit, he discovers that C\u00e9cile's mother has written to Madame de Tourvel about his bad reputation. He avenges himself in seducing C\u00e9cile as Merteuil had suggested. In the meantime, Merteuil takes Danceny as a lover. By the time Valmont has succeeded in seducing Madame de Tourvel, it is suggested that he might have fallen in love with her. Jealous, Merteuil tricks him into deserting Madame de Tourvel \u2013 and reneges on her promise of spending the night with him. In response Valmont reveals that he prompted D"
      },
      {
        "text": " himself in seducing C\u00e9cile as Merteuil had suggested. In the meantime, Merteuil takes Danceny as a lover. By the time Valmont has succeeded in seducing Madame de Tourvel, it is suggested that he might have fallen in love with her. Jealous, Merteuil tricks him into deserting Madame de Tourvel \u2013 and reneges on her promise of spending the night with him. In response Valmont reveals that he prompted Danceny to reunite with C\u00e9cile, leaving Merteuil abandoned yet again. Merteuil declares war on Valmont, and in revenge she reveals to Danceny that Valmont has seduced C\u00e9cile. Danceny and Valmont duel, and Valmont is fatally wounded. Before he dies he is reconciled with Danceny, giving him the letters proving Merteuil's own involvement. These letters are sufficient to ruin her reputation and she flees to the countryside, where she contracts smallpox. Her face is left permanently scarred and she is rendered blind in one eye, so she loses her greatest asset: her beauty. But the innocent also suffer from the protagonist's schemes: hearing of Valmont's death, Madame de Tourvel succumbs to a fever and dies, while C\u00e9cile returns to the convent.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Krapp's Last Tape",
    "author": "Samuel Beckett",
    "published_date": "1958",
    "synopsis": " The curtain rises on \"[a] late evening in the future.\" It is Krapp\u2019s 69th birthday and he hauls out his old tape recorder, reviews one of the earlier years \u2013 the recording he made when he was 39 \u2013 and makes a new recording commenting on the last 12 months. Krapp is sitting in his den, lit by the white light above his desk. Black-and-white imagery continues throughout. On his desk are a tape-recorder and a number of tins containing reels of recorded tape. He consults a ledger. The tape he is looking to review is the fifth tape in Box 3. He reads aloud from the ledger but it is obvious that words alone are not jogging his memory. He takes childish pleasure in saying the word \u2018spool\u2019. The tape dates from when he turned 39. His taped voice is strong and rather self-important. The voice mentions that he\u2019s just celebrated his birthday alone \"at the wine house\" jotting down notes in preparation for the recording session later. His bowel trouble is still a problem and one obviously exacerbated by eating too many bananas. \"The new light above my table is a great improvement,\" reports the 39 year old Krapp, before describing how much he enjoys leaving it, wandering off into the darkness, so that he can return to the zone of light which he identifies with his essential self. He notes how quiet the night is. The voice reports that he has just reviewed an old tape from when he was in his late twenties. It amuses him to comment on his impressions of what he was like in his twenties and even the 69 year old Krapp joins in the derisory laughter. The young man he was back then is described as idealistic, even unrealistic in his expectations. The 39 year old Krapp looks back on the 20-odd year old Krapp with the same level of contempt as the 20-odd year old Krapp appears to have displayed for the young man he saw himself for in his late teens. Each can see clearly the fool he was but only time will reveal what kind of fool he has become. The voice reviews his last year, when his mother died. He talks about sitting on a bench outside the nursing home waiting for the news that she had passed away. When the moment comes he is in the process of throwing a rubber ball to a dog. He ends up simply leaving the ball with the creature even though a part of him regrets not hanging onto it as some kind of memento. Krapp at 69 is more interested in his younger self\u2019s use of the rather archaic word \"viduity\" (Beckett had originally used \"widowhood\" in early drafts) than in the reaction of the voice on the tape to their mother\u2019s passing. He stops listening to look up the word in a large dictionary. He returns to the tape. The voice starts to describe the revelation he experienced at the end of a pier. Krapp grows impatient and gets worked up when his younger self starts enthusing about this. He fast-forwards almost to the end of the tape to escape the onslaught of words. Suddenly the mood has changed and he finds himself in the middle of a description of a romantic liaison between himself and a woman in a punt. Krapp lets it play out and then rewinds the tape to hear the complete episode. Throughout it he remains transfixed and visibly relives the moment while it is retold. Afterwards, Krapp carefully removes this tape, locates a fresh one, loads it, checks the back of an envelope where he has made notes earlier, discards them and starts. He is scathing when it comes to his assessment of his thirty-nine-year-old self and is glad to see the back of him. He finds he has nothing he wants to record for posterity, save the fact he \"Revelled in the word spool.\" But he does mention a trip to the park and attending Vespers, where he dozed off and fell off the pew. He also mentions his recent literary disappointments: \"seventeen copies sold\", presumably of his last book, eleven of which have gone not to interested readers but to foreign libraries; \"Getting known,\" he sarcastically summarizes. His sex life has been reduced to periodic visits by an old prostitute recalling the jibes made in Eh Joe: \"That slut that comes on Saturday, you pay her, don't you? ... Penny a hoist tuppence as long as you like.\" Unlike his younger selves, Krapp has nothing good to say about the man he has become and even the idea of making one \"last effort\" when it comes to his writing upsets him. He retreats into memories from his dim and distant past, gathering holly and walking the dog of a Sunday morning. He then remembers the girl on the punt, wrenches off the tape he has been recording, throws it away and replays the entire section again from the previous tape. It is a scene of masochism reminiscent of Croak in Words and Music, tormenting himself with an image of a woman\u2019s face. This time he allows the tape to play out. It ends with the thirty-nine-year-old Krapp determinately not regretting the choices he has made, certain that what he would produce in the years to come would more than compensate him for any potential loss of happiness. Krapp makes no response to this but allows the tape to play on until the final curtain. \"Krapp\u2019s spool of life is almost wound, and the silent tape is both the time it has left to run and the silence into which he must pass.\" Whereas the younger Krapp talks about the \"fire in me\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The curtain rises on \"[a] late evening in the future.\" It is Krapp\u2019s 69th birthday and he hauls out his old tape recorder, reviews one of the earlier years \u2013 the recording he made when he was 39 \u2013 and makes a new recording commenting on the last 12 months. Krapp is sitting in his den, lit by the white light above his desk. Black-and-white imagery continues throughout. On his desk are a tape-recorder and a number of tins containing reels of recorded tape. He consults a ledger. The tape he is looking to review is the fifth tape in Box 3. He reads aloud from the ledger but it is obvious that words alone are not jogging his memory. He takes childish pleasure in saying the word \u2018spool\u2019. The tape dates from when he turned 39. His taped voice is strong and rather self-important. The voice mentions that he\u2019s just celebrated his birthday alone \"at the wine house\" jotting down notes in preparation for the recording session later. His bowel trouble is still a problem and one obviously exacerbated by eating too many bananas. \"The new light above my table is a great improvement,\" reports the 39 year old Krapp, before describing how much he enjoys leaving it, wandering off into the darkness, so that he can return to the zone of light which he identifies with his essential self. He notes how quiet the night is. The voice reports that he has just reviewed an old tape from when he was in his late twenties. It amuses him to comment on his impressions of what he was like in his twenties and even the 69 year old Krapp joins in the derisory laughter. The young man he was back then is described as idealistic, even unrealistic in his expectations. The 39 year old Krapp looks back on the 20-odd year old Krapp with the same level of contempt as the 20-odd year old Krapp appears"
      },
      {
        "text": " has just reviewed an old tape from when he was in his late twenties. It amuses him to comment on his impressions of what he was like in his twenties and even the 69 year old Krapp joins in the derisory laughter. The young man he was back then is described as idealistic, even unrealistic in his expectations. The 39 year old Krapp looks back on the 20-odd year old Krapp with the same level of contempt as the 20-odd year old Krapp appears to have displayed for the young man he saw himself for in his late teens. Each can see clearly the fool he was but only time will reveal what kind of fool he has become. The voice reviews his last year, when his mother died. He talks about sitting on a bench outside the nursing home waiting for the news that she had passed away. When the moment comes he is in the process of throwing a rubber ball to a dog. He ends up simply leaving the ball with the creature even though a part of him regrets not hanging onto it as some kind of memento. Krapp at 69 is more interested in his younger self\u2019s use of the rather archaic word \"viduity\" (Beckett had originally used \"widowhood\" in early drafts) than in the reaction of the voice on the tape to their mother\u2019s passing. He stops listening to look up the word in a large dictionary. He returns to the tape. The voice starts to describe the revelation he experienced at the end of a pier. Krapp grows impatient and gets worked up when his younger self starts enthusing about this. He fast-forwards almost to the end of the tape to escape the onslaught of words. Suddenly the mood has changed and he finds himself in the middle of a description of a romantic liaison between himself and a woman in a punt. Krapp lets it play out and then rewinds the tape to hear the complete episode. Throughout it he remains transfixed"
      },
      {
        "text": " he experienced at the end of a pier. Krapp grows impatient and gets worked up when his younger self starts enthusing about this. He fast-forwards almost to the end of the tape to escape the onslaught of words. Suddenly the mood has changed and he finds himself in the middle of a description of a romantic liaison between himself and a woman in a punt. Krapp lets it play out and then rewinds the tape to hear the complete episode. Throughout it he remains transfixed and visibly relives the moment while it is retold. Afterwards, Krapp carefully removes this tape, locates a fresh one, loads it, checks the back of an envelope where he has made notes earlier, discards them and starts. He is scathing when it comes to his assessment of his thirty-nine-year-old self and is glad to see the back of him. He finds he has nothing he wants to record for posterity, save the fact he \"Revelled in the word spool.\" But he does mention a trip to the park and attending Vespers, where he dozed off and fell off the pew. He also mentions his recent literary disappointments: \"seventeen copies sold\", presumably of his last book, eleven of which have gone not to interested readers but to foreign libraries; \"Getting known,\" he sarcastically summarizes. His sex life has been reduced to periodic visits by an old prostitute recalling the jibes made in Eh Joe: \"That slut that comes on Saturday, you pay her, don't you? ... Penny a hoist tuppence as long as you like.\" Unlike his younger selves, Krapp has nothing good to say about the man he has become and even the idea of making one \"last effort\" when it comes to his writing upsets him. He retreats into memories from his dim and distant past, gathering holly and walking the dog of a Sunday morning. He then remembers the girl on the"
      },
      {
        "text": " \"That slut that comes on Saturday, you pay her, don't you? ... Penny a hoist tuppence as long as you like.\" Unlike his younger selves, Krapp has nothing good to say about the man he has become and even the idea of making one \"last effort\" when it comes to his writing upsets him. He retreats into memories from his dim and distant past, gathering holly and walking the dog of a Sunday morning. He then remembers the girl on the punt, wrenches off the tape he has been recording, throws it away and replays the entire section again from the previous tape. It is a scene of masochism reminiscent of Croak in Words and Music, tormenting himself with an image of a woman\u2019s face. This time he allows the tape to play out. It ends with the thirty-nine-year-old Krapp determinately not regretting the choices he has made, certain that what he would produce in the years to come would more than compensate him for any potential loss of happiness. Krapp makes no response to this but allows the tape to play on until the final curtain. \"Krapp\u2019s spool of life is almost wound, and the silent tape is both the time it has left to run and the silence into which he must pass.\" Whereas the younger Krapp talks about the \"fire in me\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Happy Days",
    "author": "Samuel Beckett",
    "published_date": "1960",
    "synopsis": " Winnie, a woman no longer young, is embedded up to her \u201cbig bosom\u201d in a mound of earth, \u201cthe Mother Earth symbol to end all other mother earth symbols\u201d. She lives in a deluge of never-ending light from which there is no escape: even the parasol she unfolds at one point ignites, leaving her without protection. We learn that she has not always been buried in this way but we never discover how she came to be trapped so. Beckett\u2019s dramaturgy \u2013 indeed his entire \u0153uvre \u2013 takes little interest in causality, e.g. Molloy finds himself \u2018buried\u2019 in his mother\u2019s bed, in his mother\u2019s room, realizes he has not always been there but demonstrates no particular curiosity as regards the specifics of how he arrived there. It is a strange image. \u201cStrangeness,\u201d Beckett informs us, \u201cwas the necessary condition of the play of Winnie\u2019s plight in the play.\u201d During Berlin rehearsals he said, \u201cIn this play you have the combination of the strange and the practical, the mysterious and the factual. This is the crux of both the comedy and the tragedy of it.\u201d Winnie passes her time between \u201cthe bell for waking and the bell for sleep\u201d by following a very exact daily routine. In this respect, she is reminiscent of the two characters in Act Without Words II. In early drafts, Winnie set an alarm clock but Beckett later gave control of the bell to an unexplained external force like that in charge of the goad and the whistle in the two Act Without Words plays. By contrast Winnie, it has to be said, is not short of words, she is, in fact, a compulsive talker. Winnie begins her day. After the sounding of the transcendental bell, she offers up a half-forgotten prayer and then sets about her daily routine. As she removes the items from her bag a comb, a toothbrush (the writing on which she spends most of the first act trying to decipher), toothpaste, a bottle of patent medicine, lipstick, a nail file, a revolver (which she feels the need to quickly kiss) and a music box she prattles away to her husband, Willie who lives in a cave behind the mound. The routine is raised to the level of ceremony. Beckett\u2019s instructions to Billie Whitelaw in 1979 emphasize this: : The bag is all she has \u2013 look at it with affection \u2026 From the first you should know how she feels about it \u2026 When the bag is at the right height you peer in, see what things are there and then get them out. Peer, take, place. Peer, take, place. You peer more when you pick things up than when you put them down. Everything has its place. Everything is wearing out or running out. At the start of Act I she takes the last swig of her tonic before throwing away the bottle, her toothbrush has hardly any hairs left and the lipstick, to use Beckett\u2019s expression, is \u201cvisibly zu ende,\u201d the parasol is faded with a \u201cmangy fringe\u201d and even her pearl necklace is \u201cmore thread than pearls\u201d. Winnie functions on the ecclesiastical principle that there is a time for everything and the proper time for certain things to take place is in the daytime, \u2018day\u2019 being an abstract notion since there is only constant daylight in this place; she would not think of singing her song after the bell for sleep had gone which is why, when she uses the term, she refers to it as \u201cthe old style\u201d. She is the eternal optimist Robert Brustein called her a \u201chopeful futilitarian\u201d but the available sources of her optimism are being used up and she has to work harder and harder to keep up her positive front which is already wafer-thin when we first meet her. Beckett has described her as being \u201clike a bird\u201d and she makes every effort to rise above her predicament but she keeps getting pulled down. She never questions or explains why she finds herself in the predicament she is in most of us never understand how we wind up in a rut, or stuck in the mud to use similar earthy metaphors but her dream is that she will \u201csimply float up into the blue \u2026 And that perhaps some day the earth will yield and let me go, the pull is so great, yes, crack all round me and let me out.\u201d Beckett even pokes fun at his audience through Winnie and her story about Shower/Cooker. Beckett explained this in a letter to Alan Schneider: : Shower (rain). Shower & Cooker are derived from German \u201cschauen\u201d & \u201cgucken\u201d (to look). They represent the onlooker (audience) wanting to know the meaning of things. Willie, for his part, ignores her and what responses he does make are terse and often monosyllabic. At the start of the play she even strikes him a couple of times simply to get his attention. His responses are of less importance to Winnie than the fact that he is there to listen. Always in Beckett\u2019s drama there is someone or something to fulfil this critical function whether it is the Auditor in Not I or the interrogatory light in Play. When words fail her she reverts to the contents of her bag to tide her over, or at least in Act I she does. The two never have anything that could remotely be described as a conversation. He answers a question concerning the correct term to describe the hair on one\u2019s head, confirms he can still hear her again when she reduces the volume at which she speaks over stages, becoming audibly angrier in the process, finally he defines \u201chog\u201d for her, lavishing a whole two albeit short sentences on her in the process. The most we ever see of him is the back of his head whilst he reads his yellowing paper or scrutinises his postcards. Other than that, his activities are described by Winnie and involve finding his way in and out of his hole, working Vaseline into his privates and sleeping. Winnie offers up reminisces from an idealised past, quotes from the classics in contrast to Willie\u2019s quotes from the popular press, comments on everything flitting from topic to topic, laughs at herself, at Willie and at their predicament. She assures herself: \u201cThis will have been another happy day!\u201d a recurrent catchphrase throughout the play when in fact she often seems on the verge of tears. At the end of the day she carefully collects her possessions bar the gun and places them back in the bag. The gun, which has somehow always managed to defy the laws of physics ending up on the top of the bag she decides to leave out. Winnie never plumbs (never dares plumb) the bottom (\"The depths in particular, who knows what treasures\"), so it is also her hope chest. The items in her bag also have secondary functions, they serve as aides-m\u00e9moire. But more, like Krapp\u2019s tapes or Lucky\u2019s bones they provide her with what Mary Doll describes as \u201ctouchstones of existential meaning\u201d. Winnie\u2019s perception of these objects connects her to the memories of specific days and important incidents within them. While she is able to discuss these incidents in some detail, Winnie cannot hold on to them or place them within a context. \u201cAs Act II of Godot is bleaker than Act I, as Maddy\u2019s homeward journey is bleaker than her setting out, Act II of Happy Days is bleaker than Act I, and Winnie knows it: \u201cTo have been what I always am \u2013 and so changed from what I was.\u201d By Act II she can no longer imagine any relief, and she can no longer pray, as she did at the play\u2019s start. Although she still intones the phrase \u2018happy day\u2019, it no longer triggers her smile.\u201d Whereas in Godot Beckett explicitly states that Act II takes place on the next day, in Happy Days no such assertion is made. Time has simply passed. In the first act she uses the items from her bag to trigger memories. In this act, unable to reach into it, she uses the bag itself, along with the parasol which has, as she predicted, reappeared intact, to the same end. We learn that Willie gave her the bag \u201cto go to market\u201d and the parasol is linked to a memory not too dissimilar to the one that entrances Krapp so, the day out on the punt. Winnie is however sinking inexorably in the slow sands of time and disappointment. In the second act she has almost been engulfed by the mound; only her head is visible, now she cannot move it and she admits to being in pain. Despite the desperation of her predicament, she is confident that this will be another of her happy days. She continues to chatter, but as can no longer reach her bag or turn around, it takes more of an effort to keep up the front. It has been some time since she has seen or heard from Willie but, since she is unable to see over the back of the mound, she doesn\u2019t even know for sure if he is still there though she needs to believe he is: : I used to think that I would learn to talk alone. (Pause.) By that I mean to myself, the wilderness. (Smile.) But no. (Smile broader.) No no. (Smile off.) Ergo you are there. (Pause.) Oh no doubt you are dead, like the others, no doubt you have died, or gone away and left me, like the others, it doesn\u2019t matter, you are there. \u201cIn Happy Days the existential condition of the characters is visualized in the mound tightening around Winnie who is sinking deeper and deeper. The nearer she gets to the end, the slower does Winnie sink, and never does the end come to release her from the pain of being smothered in the mound. What Beckett wants to represent is the endless repetition of dying moments rather than death itself. His characters wish to finish life but the end never comes because the clock becomes slower and slower. There is still time, always.\u201d Not unreasonably Winnie\u2019s mound has been compared to Zeno\u2019s impossible heap. {| class=\"infobox\" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=3 rules=rows align=\"right\" font=\"3\" style=\"font-size:85%; width:270px; margin: 0 0 01em 1 em; border:1px solid black;\" |- | Zeno\u2019s heap |- style=\"height:100px\" | If a man were to take a bag of millet and tip half of the load and make a heap, and repeat this procedure day after day, then one day it would be completed if one assumes an infinite amount of time to complete the task (in pure math, the idea of the infinite will allow this). However, because man is limited, he will never be able to finish the task. In fact, the nearer the man gets to emptying the bag, the slower the progress is. The heap becomes \"the impossible heap.\" Without its completion, there is no release. |- |} At the conclusion of the play Willie crawls up to her, \u201cdressed to kill\u201d (a pun reserved for readers) and sporting a \u201cBattle of Britain moustache\u201d. Her response is ironic, not ebullient. When Kay Boyle asked Beckett why Willie reaches up towards Winnie, he replied: : The question as to which Willie is \u2018after\u2019 \u2013 Winnie or the revolver \u2013 is like the question in All That Fall as to whether Mr Rooney threw the little girl out of the railway-carriage or not. And the answer is the same in both cases \u2013 we don\u2019t know, at least I don\u2019t. All that is necessary as far as I\u2019m concerned \u2013 technically and otherwise \u2013 less too little, more too much \u2013 is the ambiguity of motive, established clearly I hope by Winnie, \u2018Is it me you\u2019re after, Willie, or is it something else? Is it a kiss you\u2019re after, Willie, or is it something else?\u2019 and by the conspicuousness of revolver requested in the stage-directions at beginning of Act II. To test the doubt was dramatically a chance not to be missed, not be bungled either by resolving it.\u201d Her words to Willie are bitter and unpleasant, and she maintains that tone up to the point he utters his one line in Act II: \u201cWin\u201d at which point she cannot hold back: : Win! (Pause.) Oh this is a happy day, this will have been another happy day! (Pause.) After all. (Pause.) So far. The familiar \u201cSo far\u201d gives the subtle suggestion of cynicism but it doesn\u2019t stop her bursting into the waltz duet, \u2018I love you so\u2019 from The Merry Widow and the play proceeds to its close.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Winnie, a woman no longer young, is embedded up to her \u201cbig bosom\u201d in a mound of earth, \u201cthe Mother Earth symbol to end all other mother earth symbols\u201d. She lives in a deluge of never-ending light from which there is no escape: even the parasol she unfolds at one point ignites, leaving her without protection. We learn that she has not always been buried in this way but we never discover how she came to be trapped so. Beckett\u2019s dramaturgy \u2013 indeed his entire \u0153uvre \u2013 takes little interest in causality, e.g. Molloy finds himself \u2018buried\u2019 in his mother\u2019s bed, in his mother\u2019s room, realizes he has not always been there but demonstrates no particular curiosity as regards the specifics of how he arrived there. It is a strange image. \u201cStrangeness,\u201d Beckett informs us, \u201cwas the necessary condition of the play of Winnie\u2019s plight in the play.\u201d During Berlin rehearsals he said, \u201cIn this play you have the combination of the strange and the practical, the mysterious and the factual. This is the crux of both the comedy and the tragedy of it.\u201d Winnie passes her time between \u201cthe bell for waking and the bell for sleep\u201d by following a very exact daily routine. In this respect, she is reminiscent of the two characters in Act Without Words II. In early drafts, Winnie set an alarm clock but Beckett later gave control of the bell to an unexplained external force like that in charge of the goad and the whistle in the two Act Without Words plays. By contrast Winnie, it has to be said, is not short of words, she is, in fact, a compulsive talker. Winnie begins her day. After the sounding of the transcendental bell, she offers up"
      },
      {
        "text": " of the two characters in Act Without Words II. In early drafts, Winnie set an alarm clock but Beckett later gave control of the bell to an unexplained external force like that in charge of the goad and the whistle in the two Act Without Words plays. By contrast Winnie, it has to be said, is not short of words, she is, in fact, a compulsive talker. Winnie begins her day. After the sounding of the transcendental bell, she offers up a half-forgotten prayer and then sets about her daily routine. As she removes the items from her bag a comb, a toothbrush (the writing on which she spends most of the first act trying to decipher), toothpaste, a bottle of patent medicine, lipstick, a nail file, a revolver (which she feels the need to quickly kiss) and a music box she prattles away to her husband, Willie who lives in a cave behind the mound. The routine is raised to the level of ceremony. Beckett\u2019s instructions to Billie Whitelaw in 1979 emphasize this: : The bag is all she has \u2013 look at it with affection \u2026 From the first you should know how she feels about it \u2026 When the bag is at the right height you peer in, see what things are there and then get them out. Peer, take, place. Peer, take, place. You peer more when you pick things up than when you put them down. Everything has its place. Everything is wearing out or running out. At the start of Act I she takes the last swig of her tonic before throwing away the bottle, her toothbrush has hardly any hairs left and the lipstick, to use Beckett\u2019s expression, is \u201cvisibly zu ende,\u201d the parasol is faded with a \u201cmangy fringe\u201d and even her pearl necklace is \u201cmore thread than pearls\u201d. Winnie functions on the"
      },
      {
        "text": " place. Everything is wearing out or running out. At the start of Act I she takes the last swig of her tonic before throwing away the bottle, her toothbrush has hardly any hairs left and the lipstick, to use Beckett\u2019s expression, is \u201cvisibly zu ende,\u201d the parasol is faded with a \u201cmangy fringe\u201d and even her pearl necklace is \u201cmore thread than pearls\u201d. Winnie functions on the ecclesiastical principle that there is a time for everything and the proper time for certain things to take place is in the daytime, \u2018day\u2019 being an abstract notion since there is only constant daylight in this place; she would not think of singing her song after the bell for sleep had gone which is why, when she uses the term, she refers to it as \u201cthe old style\u201d. She is the eternal optimist Robert Brustein called her a \u201chopeful futilitarian\u201d but the available sources of her optimism are being used up and she has to work harder and harder to keep up her positive front which is already wafer-thin when we first meet her. Beckett has described her as being \u201clike a bird\u201d and she makes every effort to rise above her predicament but she keeps getting pulled down. She never questions or explains why she finds herself in the predicament she is in most of us never understand how we wind up in a rut, or stuck in the mud to use similar earthy metaphors but her dream is that she will \u201csimply float up into the blue \u2026 And that perhaps some day the earth will yield and let me go, the pull is so great, yes, crack all round me and let me out.\u201d Beckett even pokes fun at his audience through Winnie and her story about Shower/Cooker. Beckett explained this in a letter to Alan Schneider: : Shower ("
      },
      {
        "text": "ut, or stuck in the mud to use similar earthy metaphors but her dream is that she will \u201csimply float up into the blue \u2026 And that perhaps some day the earth will yield and let me go, the pull is so great, yes, crack all round me and let me out.\u201d Beckett even pokes fun at his audience through Winnie and her story about Shower/Cooker. Beckett explained this in a letter to Alan Schneider: : Shower (rain). Shower & Cooker are derived from German \u201cschauen\u201d & \u201cgucken\u201d (to look). They represent the onlooker (audience) wanting to know the meaning of things. Willie, for his part, ignores her and what responses he does make are terse and often monosyllabic. At the start of the play she even strikes him a couple of times simply to get his attention. His responses are of less importance to Winnie than the fact that he is there to listen. Always in Beckett\u2019s drama there is someone or something to fulfil this critical function whether it is the Auditor in Not I or the interrogatory light in Play. When words fail her she reverts to the contents of her bag to tide her over, or at least in Act I she does. The two never have anything that could remotely be described as a conversation. He answers a question concerning the correct term to describe the hair on one\u2019s head, confirms he can still hear her again when she reduces the volume at which she speaks over stages, becoming audibly angrier in the process, finally he defines \u201chog\u201d for her, lavishing a whole two albeit short sentences on her in the process. The most we ever see of him is the back of his head whilst he reads his yellowing paper or scrutinises his postcards. Other than that, his activities are described by Winnie and involve finding his"
      },
      {
        "text": "\u2019s head, confirms he can still hear her again when she reduces the volume at which she speaks over stages, becoming audibly angrier in the process, finally he defines \u201chog\u201d for her, lavishing a whole two albeit short sentences on her in the process. The most we ever see of him is the back of his head whilst he reads his yellowing paper or scrutinises his postcards. Other than that, his activities are described by Winnie and involve finding his way in and out of his hole, working Vaseline into his privates and sleeping. Winnie offers up reminisces from an idealised past, quotes from the classics in contrast to Willie\u2019s quotes from the popular press, comments on everything flitting from topic to topic, laughs at herself, at Willie and at their predicament. She assures herself: \u201cThis will have been another happy day!\u201d a recurrent catchphrase throughout the play when in fact she often seems on the verge of tears. At the end of the day she carefully collects her possessions bar the gun and places them back in the bag. The gun, which has somehow always managed to defy the laws of physics ending up on the top of the bag she decides to leave out. Winnie never plumbs (never dares plumb) the bottom (\"The depths in particular, who knows what treasures\"), so it is also her hope chest. The items in her bag also have secondary functions, they serve as aides-m\u00e9moire. But more, like Krapp\u2019s tapes or Lucky\u2019s bones they provide her with what Mary Doll describes as \u201ctouchstones of existential meaning\u201d. Winnie\u2019s perception of these objects connects her to the memories of specific days and important incidents within them. While she is able to discuss these incidents in some detail, Winnie cannot hold on to them or place them within a context. \u201cAs Act II of Godot is ble"
      },
      {
        "text": "-m\u00e9moire. But more, like Krapp\u2019s tapes or Lucky\u2019s bones they provide her with what Mary Doll describes as \u201ctouchstones of existential meaning\u201d. Winnie\u2019s perception of these objects connects her to the memories of specific days and important incidents within them. While she is able to discuss these incidents in some detail, Winnie cannot hold on to them or place them within a context. \u201cAs Act II of Godot is bleaker than Act I, as Maddy\u2019s homeward journey is bleaker than her setting out, Act II of Happy Days is bleaker than Act I, and Winnie knows it: \u201cTo have been what I always am \u2013 and so changed from what I was.\u201d By Act II she can no longer imagine any relief, and she can no longer pray, as she did at the play\u2019s start. Although she still intones the phrase \u2018happy day\u2019, it no longer triggers her smile.\u201d Whereas in Godot Beckett explicitly states that Act II takes place on the next day, in Happy Days no such assertion is made. Time has simply passed. In the first act she uses the items from her bag to trigger memories. In this act, unable to reach into it, she uses the bag itself, along with the parasol which has, as she predicted, reappeared intact, to the same end. We learn that Willie gave her the bag \u201cto go to market\u201d and the parasol is linked to a memory not too dissimilar to the one that entrances Krapp so, the day out on the punt. Winnie is however sinking inexorably in the slow sands of time and disappointment. In the second act she has almost been engulfed by the mound; only her head is visible, now she cannot move it and she admits to being in pain. Despite the desperation of her predicament, she is"
      },
      {
        "text": " Willie gave her the bag \u201cto go to market\u201d and the parasol is linked to a memory not too dissimilar to the one that entrances Krapp so, the day out on the punt. Winnie is however sinking inexorably in the slow sands of time and disappointment. In the second act she has almost been engulfed by the mound; only her head is visible, now she cannot move it and she admits to being in pain. Despite the desperation of her predicament, she is confident that this will be another of her happy days. She continues to chatter, but as can no longer reach her bag or turn around, it takes more of an effort to keep up the front. It has been some time since she has seen or heard from Willie but, since she is unable to see over the back of the mound, she doesn\u2019t even know for sure if he is still there though she needs to believe he is: : I used to think that I would learn to talk alone. (Pause.) By that I mean to myself, the wilderness. (Smile.) But no. (Smile broader.) No no. (Smile off.) Ergo you are there. (Pause.) Oh no doubt you are dead, like the others, no doubt you have died, or gone away and left me, like the others, it doesn\u2019t matter, you are there. \u201cIn Happy Days the existential condition of the characters is visualized in the mound tightening around Winnie who is sinking deeper and deeper. The nearer she gets to the end, the slower does Winnie sink, and never does the end come to release her from the pain of being smothered in the mound. What Beckett wants to represent is the endless repetition of dying moments rather than death itself. His characters wish to finish life but the end never comes because the clock becomes slower and slower. There is still time, always.\u201d Not unreasonably Winnie"
      },
      {
        "text": " mound tightening around Winnie who is sinking deeper and deeper. The nearer she gets to the end, the slower does Winnie sink, and never does the end come to release her from the pain of being smothered in the mound. What Beckett wants to represent is the endless repetition of dying moments rather than death itself. His characters wish to finish life but the end never comes because the clock becomes slower and slower. There is still time, always.\u201d Not unreasonably Winnie\u2019s mound has been compared to Zeno\u2019s impossible heap. {| class=\"infobox\" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=3 rules=rows align=\"right\" font=\"3\" style=\"font-size:85%; width:270px; margin: 0 0 01em 1 em; border:1px solid black;\" |- | Zeno\u2019s heap |- style=\"height:100px\" | If a man were to take a bag of millet and tip half of the load and make a heap, and repeat this procedure day after day, then one day it would be completed if one assumes an infinite amount of time to complete the task (in pure math, the idea of the infinite will allow this). However, because man is limited, he will never be able to finish the task. In fact, the nearer the man gets to emptying the bag, the slower the progress is. The heap becomes \"the impossible heap.\" Without its completion, there is no release. |- |} At the conclusion of the play Willie crawls up to her, \u201cdressed to kill\u201d (a pun reserved for readers) and sporting a \u201cBattle of Britain moustache\u201d. Her response is ironic, not ebullient. When Kay Boyle asked Beckett why Willie reaches up towards Winnie, he replied: : The question as to which Willie is \u2018after\u2019 \u2013 Winnie or the"
      },
      {
        "text": " Without its completion, there is no release. |- |} At the conclusion of the play Willie crawls up to her, \u201cdressed to kill\u201d (a pun reserved for readers) and sporting a \u201cBattle of Britain moustache\u201d. Her response is ironic, not ebullient. When Kay Boyle asked Beckett why Willie reaches up towards Winnie, he replied: : The question as to which Willie is \u2018after\u2019 \u2013 Winnie or the revolver \u2013 is like the question in All That Fall as to whether Mr Rooney threw the little girl out of the railway-carriage or not. And the answer is the same in both cases \u2013 we don\u2019t know, at least I don\u2019t. All that is necessary as far as I\u2019m concerned \u2013 technically and otherwise \u2013 less too little, more too much \u2013 is the ambiguity of motive, established clearly I hope by Winnie, \u2018Is it me you\u2019re after, Willie, or is it something else? Is it a kiss you\u2019re after, Willie, or is it something else?\u2019 and by the conspicuousness of revolver requested in the stage-directions at beginning of Act II. To test the doubt was dramatically a chance not to be missed, not be bungled either by resolving it.\u201d Her words to Willie are bitter and unpleasant, and she maintains that tone up to the point he utters his one line in Act II: \u201cWin\u201d at which point she cannot hold back: : Win! (Pause.) Oh this is a happy day, this will have been another happy day! (Pause.) After all. (Pause.) So far. The familiar \u201cSo far\u201d gives the subtle suggestion of cynicism but it doesn\u2019t stop her bursting into the waltz duet, \u2018I love you so\u2019 from The Merry Widow and the play proceeds to its close"
      },
      {
        "text": " in Act II: \u201cWin\u201d at which point she cannot hold back: : Win! (Pause.) Oh this is a happy day, this will have been another happy day! (Pause.) After all. (Pause.) So far. The familiar \u201cSo far\u201d gives the subtle suggestion of cynicism but it doesn\u2019t stop her bursting into the waltz duet, \u2018I love you so\u2019 from The Merry Widow and the play proceeds to its close.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The First Circle",
    "author": "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn",
    "published_date": "1968",
    "synopsis": " Innokentii Volodin, a diplomat, makes a telephone call he feels obligated to his conscience to make, even though he knows he risks arrest. His call was taped and the NKVD seek to identify who made the call. The sharashka prisoners work on technical projects to assist state security agencies and generally pander to Stalin's increasing paranoia. While most are aware of how much better off they are than \"regular\" Gulag prisoners, some are also conscious of the overwhelming moral dilemma of working to aid a system that is the cause of so much suffering. Lev Rubin is tasked with identifying the voice in the recorded phone call, he examines printed spectrographs of the voice and compares them with recordings of Volodin and five other suspects. He narrows it down to Volodin and one other suspect, both of whom are arrested. By the end of the book, several zeks, including Gleb Nerzhin, the autobiographical hero, choose to stop cooperating, even though their choice means being sent to much deadlier camps. Volodin, initially crushed by the ordeal of his arrest, begins to find encouragement at the end of his first night in prison. The book also briefly depicts several Soviet leaders of the period, including Stalin himself, who is depicted as vain and vengeful, remembering with pleasure the torture of a rival, dreaming of one day becoming emperor of the world, or listening to his subordinate Viktor Abakumov and wondering: \"[...]has the day come to shoot him yet?\" The novel addresses numerous philosophical themes, and through multiple narratives is a powerful argument both for a stoic integrity and humanism. Like other Solzhenitsyn works, the book illustrates the difficulty in maintaining dignity within a system designed to strip its inhabitants of it.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Innokentii Volodin, a diplomat, makes a telephone call he feels obligated to his conscience to make, even though he knows he risks arrest. His call was taped and the NKVD seek to identify who made the call. The sharashka prisoners work on technical projects to assist state security agencies and generally pander to Stalin's increasing paranoia. While most are aware of how much better off they are than \"regular\" Gulag prisoners, some are also conscious of the overwhelming moral dilemma of working to aid a system that is the cause of so much suffering. Lev Rubin is tasked with identifying the voice in the recorded phone call, he examines printed spectrographs of the voice and compares them with recordings of Volodin and five other suspects. He narrows it down to Volodin and one other suspect, both of whom are arrested. By the end of the book, several zeks, including Gleb Nerzhin, the autobiographical hero, choose to stop cooperating, even though their choice means being sent to much deadlier camps. Volodin, initially crushed by the ordeal of his arrest, begins to find encouragement at the end of his first night in prison. The book also briefly depicts several Soviet leaders of the period, including Stalin himself, who is depicted as vain and vengeful, remembering with pleasure the torture of a rival, dreaming of one day becoming emperor of the world, or listening to his subordinate Viktor Abakumov and wondering: \"[...]has the day come to shoot him yet?\" The novel addresses numerous philosophical themes, and through multiple narratives is a powerful argument both for a stoic integrity and humanism. Like other Solzhenitsyn works, the book illustrates the difficulty in maintaining dignity within a system designed to strip its inhabitants of it.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "...]has the day come to shoot him yet?\" The novel addresses numerous philosophical themes, and through multiple narratives is a powerful argument both for a stoic integrity and humanism. Like other Solzhenitsyn works, the book illustrates the difficulty in maintaining dignity within a system designed to strip its inhabitants of it.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Death Be Not Proud",
    "author": "John Gunther",
    "published_date": "1949",
    "synopsis": " In the book, Gunther records the true story of his teenage son's struggle to overcome a brain tumor, and his ultimate death at the age of seventeen. The story chronicles the period beginning when Johnny experiences the first symptoms of the tumor shortly after being given a clean bill of health. Johnny's complaint of a stiff neck one day leads doctors to operate, thus leading to the discovery of a tumor the size of an orange, according to a doctor. The book, published in 1949, records in simple detail all the events and tensions that made up the months that Johnny Gunther fought for his life and his parents sought to help him through recourse to every medical possibility then known. When it appears that Johnny has finally overcome the tumor, he dies of a cerebral hemorrage, which occurs the day of a medical checkup - the day before he and his family are to leave on vacation. Partly because of its stark honesty about the pain that this kind of struggle causes a family, and partly because of its refreshingly revealing portrait of a brilliant young man (he discovered a new way to liquefy ammonia) struck down too young by incurable illness, Death Be Not Proud became a best-selling book that is still popular today. The story in the book was eventually made into a TV movie in 1975, starring Robby Benson as Johnny Gunther, and Arthur Hill as his father.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the book, Gunther records the true story of his teenage son's struggle to overcome a brain tumor, and his ultimate death at the age of seventeen. The story chronicles the period beginning when Johnny experiences the first symptoms of the tumor shortly after being given a clean bill of health. Johnny's complaint of a stiff neck one day leads doctors to operate, thus leading to the discovery of a tumor the size of an orange, according to a doctor. The book, published in 1949, records in simple detail all the events and tensions that made up the months that Johnny Gunther fought for his life and his parents sought to help him through recourse to every medical possibility then known. When it appears that Johnny has finally overcome the tumor, he dies of a cerebral hemorrage, which occurs the day of a medical checkup - the day before he and his family are to leave on vacation. Partly because of its stark honesty about the pain that this kind of struggle causes a family, and partly because of its refreshingly revealing portrait of a brilliant young man (he discovered a new way to liquefy ammonia) struck down too young by incurable illness, Death Be Not Proud became a best-selling book that is still popular today. The story in the book was eventually made into a TV movie in 1975, starring Robby Benson as Johnny Gunther, and Arthur Hill as his father.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Golden Age",
    "author": "John C. Wright",
    "published_date": "2002",
    "synopsis": " The author's first novel, it revolves around the protagonist Phaethon (full name Phaethon Prime Rhadamanth Humodified (augment) Uncomposed, Indepconciousness, Base Neuroformed, Silver-Gray Manorial Schola, Era 7043). The novel concerns Phaethon's discovery that parts of his past have been edited out of his mind\u2014apparently by himself.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The author's first novel, it revolves around the protagonist Phaethon (full name Phaethon Prime Rhadamanth Humodified (augment) Uncomposed, Indepconciousness, Base Neuroformed, Silver-Gray Manorial Schola, Era 7043). The novel concerns Phaethon's discovery that parts of his past have been edited out of his mind\u2014apparently by himself.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Good Soldier \u0160vejk",
    "author": "Jaroslav Ha\u0161ek",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The story begins in Prague with news of the assassination in Sarajevo that precipitates World War I. \u0160vejk displays such enthusiasm about faithfully serving the Austrian Emperor in battle that no one can decide whether he is merely an imbecile or is craftily undermining the war effort. However, he is arrested by a member of the secret police, Bretschneider, after making some politically sensitive remarks, and is sent to prison. After being certified insane he is transferred to a madhouse, before being ejected. \u0160vejk gets his charwoman to wheel him (he claims to be suffering from rheumatism) to the recruitment offices in Prague, where his apparent zeal causes a minor sensation. Unfortunately, he is transferred to a hospital for malingerers because of his rheumatism. He finally joins the army as batman to army chaplain Otto Katz; Katz loses him at cards to Lieutenant Luk\u00e1\u0161, whose batman he then becomes. Luk\u00e1\u0161 is posted with his march battalion to barracks in \u010cesk\u00e9 Bud\u011bjovice, in Southern Bohemia, preparatory to being sent to the front. After missing the train to Bud\u011bjovice, \u0160vejk embarks on a long anabasis on foot around Southern Bohemia in a vain attempt to find Bud\u011bjovice, before being arrested as a possible spy and deserter (a charge he strenuously denies) and escorted to his regiment. He is then promoted to company orderly. The unit embarks on a long train journey towards Galicia and the Eastern Front. Stopping in a town on the border between Austria and Hungary, in which relations between the two nationalities are somewhat sensitive, \u0160vejk is again arrested, this time for causing an affray involving a respectable Hungarian citizen and engaging in a street fight. After a further long journey and close to the front line, \u0160vejk is taken prisoner by his own side as a suspected Russian deserter, after arriving at a lake and trying on an abandoned Russian uniform. Narrowly avoiding execution, he manages to rejoin his unit. The unfinished novel breaks off abruptly before \u0160vejk has a chance to be involved in any combat or enter the trenches, though it appears Ha\u0161ek may have conceived that the characters would have continued the war in a POW camp, much as he had done. The book also includes a very large number of anecdotes told by \u0160vejk (usually either to deflect the attentions of an authority figure, or to insult them in a concealed manner) which are not directly related to the plot.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins in Prague with news of the assassination in Sarajevo that precipitates World War I. \u0160vejk displays such enthusiasm about faithfully serving the Austrian Emperor in battle that no one can decide whether he is merely an imbecile or is craftily undermining the war effort. However, he is arrested by a member of the secret police, Bretschneider, after making some politically sensitive remarks, and is sent to prison. After being certified insane he is transferred to a madhouse, before being ejected. \u0160vejk gets his charwoman to wheel him (he claims to be suffering from rheumatism) to the recruitment offices in Prague, where his apparent zeal causes a minor sensation. Unfortunately, he is transferred to a hospital for malingerers because of his rheumatism. He finally joins the army as batman to army chaplain Otto Katz; Katz loses him at cards to Lieutenant Luk\u00e1\u0161, whose batman he then becomes. Luk\u00e1\u0161 is posted with his march battalion to barracks in \u010cesk\u00e9 Bud\u011bjovice, in Southern Bohemia, preparatory to being sent to the front. After missing the train to Bud\u011bjovice, \u0160vejk embarks on a long anabasis on foot around Southern Bohemia in a vain attempt to find Bud\u011bjovice, before being arrested as a possible spy and deserter (a charge he strenuously denies) and escorted to his regiment. He is then promoted to company orderly. The unit embarks on a long train journey towards Galicia and the Eastern Front. Stopping in a town on the border between Austria and Hungary, in which relations between the two nationalities are somewhat sensitive, \u0160vejk is again arrested, this time for causing an affray involving a respectable Hungarian citizen and engaging in a street fight. After a further long journey and close to the front line, \u0160"
      },
      {
        "text": " denies) and escorted to his regiment. He is then promoted to company orderly. The unit embarks on a long train journey towards Galicia and the Eastern Front. Stopping in a town on the border between Austria and Hungary, in which relations between the two nationalities are somewhat sensitive, \u0160vejk is again arrested, this time for causing an affray involving a respectable Hungarian citizen and engaging in a street fight. After a further long journey and close to the front line, \u0160vejk is taken prisoner by his own side as a suspected Russian deserter, after arriving at a lake and trying on an abandoned Russian uniform. Narrowly avoiding execution, he manages to rejoin his unit. The unfinished novel breaks off abruptly before \u0160vejk has a chance to be involved in any combat or enter the trenches, though it appears Ha\u0161ek may have conceived that the characters would have continued the war in a POW camp, much as he had done. The book also includes a very large number of anecdotes told by \u0160vejk (usually either to deflect the attentions of an authority figure, or to insult them in a concealed manner) which are not directly related to the plot.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Singularity Sky",
    "author": "Charles Stross",
    "published_date": "2003-07-01",
    "synopsis": " The apparent cause of this distribution of humans is the mysterious and immensely powerful posthuman entity which calls itself \"the Eschaton\". Although the Eschaton is usually benign and uninvolved in human affairs, it strictly enforces certain rules on human civilization out of apparent self-interest. To this end, the Eschaton has helpfully left a message throughout human space, for example, engraved in huge letters on the sides of mountains, and dispersed everywhere throughout computer networks. The message is as follows: :I am the Eschaton. I am not your God. :I am descended from you, and exist in your future. :Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else. The most important commandment of the Eschaton appears to be \"thou shalt not violate causality\"; that is, the Eschaton strictly prohibits the use of faster than light travel for reaching any point in its own relative past, with the ominous proscription \"or else\". The Eschaton apparently makes use of time travel itself, but whenever a civilization attempts to break this rule, it is forcibly prevented from doing so immediately before the act (often with immense overkill, such as in at least one case where the relevant civilization's star is induced into going supernova). Inscrutable, and uncommunicative beyond disseminating the knowledge of its laws, the Eschaton generally does not provide further warnings before it acts. The Eschaton's other major involvement is that at a particular point in the book's history, it scattered pieces of human civilization, against their will, throughout nearby (within a few thousand light years) space, but it did so using instantaneous travel, and in some cases actually moved them backwards in time. This means that some civilizations, such as the Festival mentioned below, have been progressing for hundreds of years on their own before they encounter the rest of human civilization. Although human civilization on Earth collapsed in the wake of singularity, by the time of the events in Singularity Sky, Earth has recovered and become one of the more powerful and influential human societies. The Earth non-government, known as the United Nations and descended from the modern-day Internet Engineering Task Force, uses its agents to prevent other civilizations from breaking the Eschaton's rules so as to avoid the Eschaton taking enforcement action which may affect the very existence of Earth and the wider galaxy-spanning human race. Unknown to human civilization at large, the Eschaton also has its own human agents working to this end. The novel features the exploits of one such agent, Martin Springfield, an engineer specializing in faster-than-light starship engines who is hired by the New Republic (a totalitarian and relatively backward neo-luddite civilization) to upgrade the faster-than-light engines of their fleet of warships. The UN also suspects that the New Republic may attempt to use the upgraded engines to violate causality, so it dispatches one of its agents, Rachel Mansour, to the New Republic. This attempt comes to pass sooner than expected, when the New Republic colony on Rochard's World encounters the Festival, a spacefaring transhuman civilization/entity which trades highly advanced technology if prospective recipients can respond to the request: \"entertain us\". The old world order on Rochard's World quickly breaks down under this onslaught. Interpreting the failure of communications with the colony as the result of enemy action, the New Republic dispatches a mighty war fleet to Rochard's World, with Martin Springfield and Rachel Mansour aboard the flagship. A recurring theme of this book is that information and by extension progress are inexorable: the conflict between the neo-luddite/monarchist New Republic and the post-singularity transhuman culture that contacts them is utterly devastating for the status quo of the former, and our spy heroes are world-weary enough to realize this, exasperated by their apparent inability to understand that one can no more avoid change than one can avoid breathing. Information is, by whatever mechanism, the phlogiston of said change, providing its vital energies.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The apparent cause of this distribution of humans is the mysterious and immensely powerful posthuman entity which calls itself \"the Eschaton\". Although the Eschaton is usually benign and uninvolved in human affairs, it strictly enforces certain rules on human civilization out of apparent self-interest. To this end, the Eschaton has helpfully left a message throughout human space, for example, engraved in huge letters on the sides of mountains, and dispersed everywhere throughout computer networks. The message is as follows: :I am the Eschaton. I am not your God. :I am descended from you, and exist in your future. :Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else. The most important commandment of the Eschaton appears to be \"thou shalt not violate causality\"; that is, the Eschaton strictly prohibits the use of faster than light travel for reaching any point in its own relative past, with the ominous proscription \"or else\". The Eschaton apparently makes use of time travel itself, but whenever a civilization attempts to break this rule, it is forcibly prevented from doing so immediately before the act (often with immense overkill, such as in at least one case where the relevant civilization's star is induced into going supernova). Inscrutable, and uncommunicative beyond disseminating the knowledge of its laws, the Eschaton generally does not provide further warnings before it acts. The Eschaton's other major involvement is that at a particular point in the book's history, it scattered pieces of human civilization, against their will, throughout nearby (within a few thousand light years) space, but it did so using instantaneous travel, and in some cases actually moved them backwards in time. This means that some civilizations, such as the Festival mentioned below, have been progressing for hundreds of years on their own before they encounter the rest of human civilization. Although human civilization on Earth collapsed in the wake of singularity"
      },
      {
        "text": " major involvement is that at a particular point in the book's history, it scattered pieces of human civilization, against their will, throughout nearby (within a few thousand light years) space, but it did so using instantaneous travel, and in some cases actually moved them backwards in time. This means that some civilizations, such as the Festival mentioned below, have been progressing for hundreds of years on their own before they encounter the rest of human civilization. Although human civilization on Earth collapsed in the wake of singularity, by the time of the events in Singularity Sky, Earth has recovered and become one of the more powerful and influential human societies. The Earth non-government, known as the United Nations and descended from the modern-day Internet Engineering Task Force, uses its agents to prevent other civilizations from breaking the Eschaton's rules so as to avoid the Eschaton taking enforcement action which may affect the very existence of Earth and the wider galaxy-spanning human race. Unknown to human civilization at large, the Eschaton also has its own human agents working to this end. The novel features the exploits of one such agent, Martin Springfield, an engineer specializing in faster-than-light starship engines who is hired by the New Republic (a totalitarian and relatively backward neo-luddite civilization) to upgrade the faster-than-light engines of their fleet of warships. The UN also suspects that the New Republic may attempt to use the upgraded engines to violate causality, so it dispatches one of its agents, Rachel Mansour, to the New Republic. This attempt comes to pass sooner than expected, when the New Republic colony on Rochard's World encounters the Festival, a spacefaring transhuman civilization/entity which trades highly advanced technology if prospective recipients can respond to the request: \"entertain us\". The old world order on Rochard's World quickly breaks down under this onslaught. Interpreting the failure of communications with the colony as the result of enemy action, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " of its agents, Rachel Mansour, to the New Republic. This attempt comes to pass sooner than expected, when the New Republic colony on Rochard's World encounters the Festival, a spacefaring transhuman civilization/entity which trades highly advanced technology if prospective recipients can respond to the request: \"entertain us\". The old world order on Rochard's World quickly breaks down under this onslaught. Interpreting the failure of communications with the colony as the result of enemy action, the New Republic dispatches a mighty war fleet to Rochard's World, with Martin Springfield and Rachel Mansour aboard the flagship. A recurring theme of this book is that information and by extension progress are inexorable: the conflict between the neo-luddite/monarchist New Republic and the post-singularity transhuman culture that contacts them is utterly devastating for the status quo of the former, and our spy heroes are world-weary enough to realize this, exasperated by their apparent inability to understand that one can no more avoid change than one can avoid breathing. Information is, by whatever mechanism, the phlogiston of said change, providing its vital energies.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Perfect Storm",
    "author": "Sebastian Junger",
    "published_date": "1997-05-17",
    "synopsis": " The book follows the lives of the swordfishing crew of the Andrea Gail and their family members before and during the 1991 Perfect Storm. Among the men boarding the Andrea Gail were Billy Tyne, Alfred Pierre, David \"Sully\" Sullivan, Michael \"Bugsy\" Moran, Dale \"Murph\" Murphy, and Bobby Shatford, each bringing their own intelligence, physical strength, and hope on board with them. The men were raised with the expectation that they would become fishermen. As \"Sully\" said, even before they had left for their long journey, \"It's the money&nbsp;... If I didn't need the money I wouldn't go near this thing.\" Much of the early part of the book gives detailed descriptions of the daily lives of the fishermen and their jobs, and is centered around activities at the Crow's Nest, a tavern in Gloucester popular with the fishermen. The latter part of the book attempts to reconstruct events at sea during the storm, aboard the Andrea Gail as well as rescue efforts directed at several other ships caught in the storm, including the rescue by the Tamaroa of pararescuemen who were themselves caught in the storm. Lost from the New York Air National Guard HH-60 helicopter was TSgt. Alden \"Rick\" Smith. A week-long search off the South Shore of Long Island failed to find his remains. Surviving the helicopter crash were Maj. David Ruvola, Capt. Graham Buschor, SSgt. Jimmy Mioli and TSgt. John Spillane, the second pararescueman aboard. All six crew members of the Andrea Gail were missing, presumed dead. The ship and crew were never found. A few fuel drums, a fuel tank, the EPIRB, an empty life raft, and some other flotsam were the only wreckage ever found.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book follows the lives of the swordfishing crew of the Andrea Gail and their family members before and during the 1991 Perfect Storm. Among the men boarding the Andrea Gail were Billy Tyne, Alfred Pierre, David \"Sully\" Sullivan, Michael \"Bugsy\" Moran, Dale \"Murph\" Murphy, and Bobby Shatford, each bringing their own intelligence, physical strength, and hope on board with them. The men were raised with the expectation that they would become fishermen. As \"Sully\" said, even before they had left for their long journey, \"It's the money&nbsp;... If I didn't need the money I wouldn't go near this thing.\" Much of the early part of the book gives detailed descriptions of the daily lives of the fishermen and their jobs, and is centered around activities at the Crow's Nest, a tavern in Gloucester popular with the fishermen. The latter part of the book attempts to reconstruct events at sea during the storm, aboard the Andrea Gail as well as rescue efforts directed at several other ships caught in the storm, including the rescue by the Tamaroa of pararescuemen who were themselves caught in the storm. Lost from the New York Air National Guard HH-60 helicopter was TSgt. Alden \"Rick\" Smith. A week-long search off the South Shore of Long Island failed to find his remains. Surviving the helicopter crash were Maj. David Ruvola, Capt. Graham Buschor, SSgt. Jimmy Mioli and TSgt. John Spillane, the second pararescueman aboard. All six crew members of the Andrea Gail were missing, presumed dead. The ship and crew were never found. A few fuel drums, a fuel tank, the EPIRB, an empty life raft, and some other flotsam were the only wreckage ever found.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "chor, SSgt. Jimmy Mioli and TSgt. John Spillane, the second pararescueman aboard. All six crew members of the Andrea Gail were missing, presumed dead. The ship and crew were never found. A few fuel drums, a fuel tank, the EPIRB, an empty life raft, and some other flotsam were the only wreckage ever found.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Marvelous Land of Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1904",
    "synopsis": " Set shortly after the events in the first book, the protagonist is a boy named Tip, who for as long as he can remember has been under the guardianship of a witch named Mombi (who is the main antagonist) in Gillikin Country. As Mombi is returning home, Tip plans to frighten her with a scarecrow he has made. Since he has no straw available, Tip instead makes a man out of wood and gives him a pumpkin for a head, naming him Jack Pumpkinhead. Mombi is not fooled, and she takes this opportunity to demonstrate the Powder of Life that she bought from another sorcerer. She sprinkles the powder on Jack, bringing him to life and startling Tip, whom Mombi catches and threatens with revenge. Tip leaves with Jack that night and steals the Powder of Life because Mombi plans to turn him into a marble statue in the morning. As they head for the Emerald City, Tip uses the Powder to animate the Sawhorse so Jack can ride him \u2013 for even though his wooden body does not tire, it can get worn away from all of the walking. Tip loses them as the tireless Sawhorse gallops faster and he meets with General Jinjur's all-girl Army of Revolt which is planning to overthrow the Scarecrow, who has ruled the Emerald City since the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Marching with the Army, Tip meets again with Jack, the Sawhorse, and now the Scarecrow as they flee the Emerald City in Jinjur's wake. The companions arrive at the castle of the Tin Woodman, who now rules the Winkie Kingdom, and plan to retake the Emerald City. On their way back they are diverted by the magic of Mombi (whom Jinjur recruited to help her apprehend them), joined by the Highly Magnified and Thoroughly Educated Wogglebug, and aided by the Field Mice and their queen. Jinjur and her soldiers are scared by the Field Mice out of the main palace, but they still occupy the Emerald City itself. The Scarecrow proposes manufacturing a flying beast called a Gump by which they can escape through the air. Tip animates this collection of palace furniture with the Powder of Life, and they fly off, with no control over their direction, out of Oz and land in a nest of Jackdaws with all of the birds' stolen goods. In their attempt to drive the Jackdaws from their sanctuary, the Scarecrow's straw is taken away and the Gump's wings are broken. Using the Wishing Pills they discover with the Powder of Life, Tip and his friends escape and journey to the palace of Glinda the Good. They learn from Glinda that a girl named Ozma was hidden by the Wizard of Oz long ago and that she is the rightful ruler of the Emerald City, not the Scarecrow (who did not want the job anyway). Glinda discovered that the Wizard made three visits to Mombi, but not what they were for. She therefore accompanies Tip, Jack, the Sawhorse, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Wogglebug, and the Gump back to the Emerald City to see Mombi. The witch tries to deceive them by disguising a chambermaid as herself (which fails), but manages to elude them as they search for her in the Emerald City. Just as their time runs out, the Tin Woodman plucks a rose to wear in his lapel, unaware that this is the transformed Mombi. Glinda discovers the deception right away and leads the pursuit of Mombi, who is finally caught as she tries to run across the Deadly Desert in the form of a fast- and long-running Griffin (though later books state that anyone who touches the Desert is transformed into dust). Under pressure from Glinda, Mombi admits that the Wizard brought her the infant Ozma and that she used her magic to transform her into the boy Tip. At first, Tip is shocked to learn this, but Glinda and his friends help him to accept his destiny, and Mombi performs her last spell (although there is some evidence that she performed magic later on in The Tin Woodman of Oz). The restored Ozma (whose physical appearance differs considerably between this book and the next, Ozma of Oz) leads her friends in retaking the Emerald City. The Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, now stuffed with paper money that is worthless in Oz except as stuffing, return to Winkie Country with Jack Pumpkinhead, the Gump is disassembled at his request (though his head, which was a hunting trophy, can still speak), Glinda returns to her palace in Quadling Country, the Wogglebug remains as Ozma's advisor, and the Sawhorse becomes her personal steed.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set shortly after the events in the first book, the protagonist is a boy named Tip, who for as long as he can remember has been under the guardianship of a witch named Mombi (who is the main antagonist) in Gillikin Country. As Mombi is returning home, Tip plans to frighten her with a scarecrow he has made. Since he has no straw available, Tip instead makes a man out of wood and gives him a pumpkin for a head, naming him Jack Pumpkinhead. Mombi is not fooled, and she takes this opportunity to demonstrate the Powder of Life that she bought from another sorcerer. She sprinkles the powder on Jack, bringing him to life and startling Tip, whom Mombi catches and threatens with revenge. Tip leaves with Jack that night and steals the Powder of Life because Mombi plans to turn him into a marble statue in the morning. As they head for the Emerald City, Tip uses the Powder to animate the Sawhorse so Jack can ride him \u2013 for even though his wooden body does not tire, it can get worn away from all of the walking. Tip loses them as the tireless Sawhorse gallops faster and he meets with General Jinjur's all-girl Army of Revolt which is planning to overthrow the Scarecrow, who has ruled the Emerald City since the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Marching with the Army, Tip meets again with Jack, the Sawhorse, and now the Scarecrow as they flee the Emerald City in Jinjur's wake. The companions arrive at the castle of the Tin Woodman, who now rules the Winkie Kingdom, and plan to retake the Emerald City. On their way back they are diverted by the magic of Mombi (whom Jinjur recruited to help her apprehend them), joined by the Highly Magnified and Thoroughly Educated Wogglebug, and aided by the Field Mice and their queen. Jinjur and"
      },
      {
        "text": "crow as they flee the Emerald City in Jinjur's wake. The companions arrive at the castle of the Tin Woodman, who now rules the Winkie Kingdom, and plan to retake the Emerald City. On their way back they are diverted by the magic of Mombi (whom Jinjur recruited to help her apprehend them), joined by the Highly Magnified and Thoroughly Educated Wogglebug, and aided by the Field Mice and their queen. Jinjur and her soldiers are scared by the Field Mice out of the main palace, but they still occupy the Emerald City itself. The Scarecrow proposes manufacturing a flying beast called a Gump by which they can escape through the air. Tip animates this collection of palace furniture with the Powder of Life, and they fly off, with no control over their direction, out of Oz and land in a nest of Jackdaws with all of the birds' stolen goods. In their attempt to drive the Jackdaws from their sanctuary, the Scarecrow's straw is taken away and the Gump's wings are broken. Using the Wishing Pills they discover with the Powder of Life, Tip and his friends escape and journey to the palace of Glinda the Good. They learn from Glinda that a girl named Ozma was hidden by the Wizard of Oz long ago and that she is the rightful ruler of the Emerald City, not the Scarecrow (who did not want the job anyway). Glinda discovered that the Wizard made three visits to Mombi, but not what they were for. She therefore accompanies Tip, Jack, the Sawhorse, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Wogglebug, and the Gump back to the Emerald City to see Mombi. The witch tries to deceive them by disguising a chambermaid as herself (which fails), but manages to elude them as they search for her in the Emerald City. Just as their time runs out, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " that the Wizard made three visits to Mombi, but not what they were for. She therefore accompanies Tip, Jack, the Sawhorse, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Wogglebug, and the Gump back to the Emerald City to see Mombi. The witch tries to deceive them by disguising a chambermaid as herself (which fails), but manages to elude them as they search for her in the Emerald City. Just as their time runs out, the Tin Woodman plucks a rose to wear in his lapel, unaware that this is the transformed Mombi. Glinda discovers the deception right away and leads the pursuit of Mombi, who is finally caught as she tries to run across the Deadly Desert in the form of a fast- and long-running Griffin (though later books state that anyone who touches the Desert is transformed into dust). Under pressure from Glinda, Mombi admits that the Wizard brought her the infant Ozma and that she used her magic to transform her into the boy Tip. At first, Tip is shocked to learn this, but Glinda and his friends help him to accept his destiny, and Mombi performs her last spell (although there is some evidence that she performed magic later on in The Tin Woodman of Oz). The restored Ozma (whose physical appearance differs considerably between this book and the next, Ozma of Oz) leads her friends in retaking the Emerald City. The Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, now stuffed with paper money that is worthless in Oz except as stuffing, return to Winkie Country with Jack Pumpkinhead, the Gump is disassembled at his request (though his head, which was a hunting trophy, can still speak), Glinda returns to her palace in Quadling Country, the Wogglebug remains as Ozma's advisor, and the Sawhorse becomes her personal steed.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "man and the Scarecrow, now stuffed with paper money that is worthless in Oz except as stuffing, return to Winkie Country with Jack Pumpkinhead, the Gump is disassembled at his request (though his head, which was a hunting trophy, can still speak), Glinda returns to her palace in Quadling Country, the Wogglebug remains as Ozma's advisor, and the Sawhorse becomes her personal steed.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ozma of Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1907",
    "synopsis": " Uncle Henry has been ordered by his doctor to take a vacation from his Kansas farm to Australia. He and his niece Dorothy Gale (this is the first of the Oz books in which the reader learns her last name) are aboard a steamship traveling there when they are caught in a fierce storm and separated. Dorothy is tossed overboard in a large poultry crate along with Billina, a yellow hen that was also on the ship. Dorothy and Billina wash ashore and pick something to eat from a lunch pail tree. She guesses that they are in a \"fairy country\" because lunch pails do not normally grow on trees and animals like Billina do not talk, but it's not Oz because that country has no seashore. They come across a message inscribed in the sand: \"BEWARE THE WHEELERS\"! Soon they meet these gaudily dressed, loud-yelling creatures who have wheels instead of hands and feet, and roll around on all fours. Dorothy and Billina climb a rocky mountain to escape them and find a door carved into its side. Having found the key by the door, they open it and find Tik-Tok, a round copper mechanical man whom they activate by winding up all three of his clockwork motors (one each for thinking, motion and speech) with the key like a wind-up toy. Tik-Tok tells Dorothy and Billina about the Land of Ev where they are now and the loss of its royal family to the magic of the Nome King. He takes them to safety from the Wheelers to the royal residence where the head-exchanging Princess Langwidere (the niece of the deceased king of Ev) locks them in a high tower. Tik-Tok stops in mid-motion unable to move again until he is wound up with the key. Ozma and her companions (many of whom appeared in the two previous Oz books) cross the Deadly Desert with the aid of a magic carpet provided by Glinda the Good Witch to free the royal family of Ev, and Ozma has Dorothy released from Princess Langwidere's custody. Cheerful reunions are had by the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion, and new introductions are made to Ozma and the Hungry Tiger, a massive tiger hamstrung by his conscience. The expedition journeys to the underground kingdom of the Nomes, where the Nome King reveals that he has turned the royal family into ornaments around his palace. The Oz people are given the option to guess which ornaments they are (he does not reveal that they are royal purple ones), but if they fail, they will also become ornaments. Ozma, the twenty-seven soldiers of the Royal Army of Oz, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and Tik-Tok all suffer this fate (Dorothy escapes it only by touching a purple ornament in one of her guesses). When the guests from Oz retire one night, Billina learns which of the Nome King's ornaments were once people and about the magic belt that he wears. Billina was originally not going to be allowed to guess, but she so infuriates the Nome King by laying an egg (poisonous to any Nome) under his throne that he lets her guess. All of her guesses turn out to be right, thanks to her learning his transformation secrets. He commands his army to recapture all of them by force, but Dorothy takes the magic belt, the Army's sole private takes the offensive, and Billina's eggs are left in the Nomes' paths so they do not dare follow. After returning the royal family of Ev (the queen mother, five boys, and five girls) to their rightful place, Ozma, Dorothy, and the others return to Oz where a great victory celebration is held in the Emerald City. Dorothy is officially made a Princess of Oz, Billina elects to remain in Oz, and Ozma uses the magic belt to send Dorothy to Australia to be reunited with Uncle Henry.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Uncle Henry has been ordered by his doctor to take a vacation from his Kansas farm to Australia. He and his niece Dorothy Gale (this is the first of the Oz books in which the reader learns her last name) are aboard a steamship traveling there when they are caught in a fierce storm and separated. Dorothy is tossed overboard in a large poultry crate along with Billina, a yellow hen that was also on the ship. Dorothy and Billina wash ashore and pick something to eat from a lunch pail tree. She guesses that they are in a \"fairy country\" because lunch pails do not normally grow on trees and animals like Billina do not talk, but it's not Oz because that country has no seashore. They come across a message inscribed in the sand: \"BEWARE THE WHEELERS\"! Soon they meet these gaudily dressed, loud-yelling creatures who have wheels instead of hands and feet, and roll around on all fours. Dorothy and Billina climb a rocky mountain to escape them and find a door carved into its side. Having found the key by the door, they open it and find Tik-Tok, a round copper mechanical man whom they activate by winding up all three of his clockwork motors (one each for thinking, motion and speech) with the key like a wind-up toy. Tik-Tok tells Dorothy and Billina about the Land of Ev where they are now and the loss of its royal family to the magic of the Nome King. He takes them to safety from the Wheelers to the royal residence where the head-exchanging Princess Langwidere (the niece of the deceased king of Ev) locks them in a high tower. Tik-Tok stops in mid-motion unable to move again until he is wound up with the key. Ozma and her companions (many of whom appeared in the two previous Oz books) cross the Deadly Desert with the aid of a magic carpet provided by Gl"
      },
      {
        "text": " the magic of the Nome King. He takes them to safety from the Wheelers to the royal residence where the head-exchanging Princess Langwidere (the niece of the deceased king of Ev) locks them in a high tower. Tik-Tok stops in mid-motion unable to move again until he is wound up with the key. Ozma and her companions (many of whom appeared in the two previous Oz books) cross the Deadly Desert with the aid of a magic carpet provided by Glinda the Good Witch to free the royal family of Ev, and Ozma has Dorothy released from Princess Langwidere's custody. Cheerful reunions are had by the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion, and new introductions are made to Ozma and the Hungry Tiger, a massive tiger hamstrung by his conscience. The expedition journeys to the underground kingdom of the Nomes, where the Nome King reveals that he has turned the royal family into ornaments around his palace. The Oz people are given the option to guess which ornaments they are (he does not reveal that they are royal purple ones), but if they fail, they will also become ornaments. Ozma, the twenty-seven soldiers of the Royal Army of Oz, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and Tik-Tok all suffer this fate (Dorothy escapes it only by touching a purple ornament in one of her guesses). When the guests from Oz retire one night, Billina learns which of the Nome King's ornaments were once people and about the magic belt that he wears. Billina was originally not going to be allowed to guess, but she so infuriates the Nome King by laying an egg (poisonous to any Nome) under his throne that he lets her guess. All of her guesses turn out to be right, thanks to her learning his transformation secrets. He commands his army to recapture all"
      },
      {
        "text": " from Oz retire one night, Billina learns which of the Nome King's ornaments were once people and about the magic belt that he wears. Billina was originally not going to be allowed to guess, but she so infuriates the Nome King by laying an egg (poisonous to any Nome) under his throne that he lets her guess. All of her guesses turn out to be right, thanks to her learning his transformation secrets. He commands his army to recapture all of them by force, but Dorothy takes the magic belt, the Army's sole private takes the offensive, and Billina's eggs are left in the Nomes' paths so they do not dare follow. After returning the royal family of Ev (the queen mother, five boys, and five girls) to their rightful place, Ozma, Dorothy, and the others return to Oz where a great victory celebration is held in the Emerald City. Dorothy is officially made a Princess of Oz, Billina elects to remain in Oz, and Ozma uses the magic belt to send Dorothy to Australia to be reunited with Uncle Henry.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Prey",
    "author": "Michael Crichton",
    "published_date": "2002-11-25",
    "synopsis": " The novel is narrated by the protagonist Jack Forman, who is an unemployed software programmer who used to work for a company called Media Tronics when he was fired for discovering an internal scandal. As a result, he is forced to take the role of a house husband while his wife Julia serves a high ranking employee at a nanorobotics company called Xymos. Julia claims that she is working on a new piece of revolutionary imaging technology with her company, which takes up most of her time. He starts believing that during her long hours away from home she is having an affair, and becomes watchful of her changes. One night Julia comes home late and shows Jack a video of her demoing the Xymos nanobots. In the video, the nanobots are put into a human test subject, and video from inside the body is broadcast in real time. The next day, Julia is injured in a car accident, and Jack is offered a job by Xymos, because the project manager, Ricky, is having software issues with the nanobots. Jack is taken to the Xymos research facility in the desert. Jack is given a tour of the lab and meets the programming team. He is shown a very complicated machine used to make the nanobots. Ricky refuses to show Jack the source code for the nanobots, and later Ricky claims that building contractors failed to properly install filters in a certain vent in the building. As a result, hazardous elements such as the assemblers, the bacteria, and the nanobots were blown into the desert, evolving and eventually forming autonomous swarms. These swarms appear to be solar-powered and self-sufficient, reproducing and evolving rapidly. The swarms exhibit predatory behavior, attacking and killing animals in the wild, using code that Jack himself worked on. Most alarmingly, the swarms seem to possess rudimentary intelligence, the ability to quickly learn and to innovate. The swarms tend to wander around the fab plant during the day but quickly leave when strong winds blow or night falls. The nanoswarm kills a rabbit outside the complex, and Jack goes outside with Mae to inspect. They find that the rabbit died of suffocation resulting from the nanobots blocking its bronchial tubes. While Mae goes inside for equipment, Jack is attacked by the swarms. He barely manages to get through the airlock inside the lab before falling unconscious from anaphylactic shock. Persuaded by Jack, the team decides to destroy the swarm. They believe that the swarm must have nested in the desert to reproduce. They attempt to find this nest by tagging the swarm with radioactive isotopes and following them back to their nest at night. Under the cover of a strong wind that forces the swarms to remain dormant, the team goes outside to a storage shack to find the isotopes and build a spray device. However, as the wind dies down, four swarms attack the shack and eventually kill David and Rosie. The rest of the team are forced to take shelter in the cars parked outside. The Swarms begin an attempt to enter the cars. Eventually, the swarms find a way to enter the cars, but not long before the wind picks up in speed again. Jack and Mae manage to escape to the lab before losing consciousness, but Charley falls unconscious outside his car after he sprays his swarm with the isotope. Bobby, Vince and Ricky refuse to go outside and help Charley. Jack, dizzy and nauseous, goes back out again to save Charley as the swarms attacks again. Using a motorbike found in David's car, Jack manages to get himself and the semi-conscious Charley to the safety of the airlock before he falls unconscious again. As night falls, Jack, Mae and Bobby set out to find the swarms. While searching for them, they discover that one of the swarms, now so evolved that it can operate without solar energy, is moving the now deceased Rosie through the desert. They follow the body to find the swarms nesting in a cave. As some of the swarms come out of the cave after them, a Xymos helicopter arrives and traps the swarms inside the cave using its powerful draft. Mae and Jack then venture into the cave and proceed to exterminate the swarm, their nest and their organic assembly plant (which looks very similar to the original Xymos assembly plant) using explosive thermite caps. They return to the Xymos plant, exhausted. At the plant, Jack, Mae and Bobby are enthusiastically greeted by Julia, who was earlier discharged from the hospital and was brought in by the chopper. Julia's behavior seems to be extremely aberrant: She seems to pay heed to nothing other than trying to entice Jack and kissing him, even when Charley is found dead in the locked communications room with a swarm flying around him and the communication links cut. Jack cannot understand how the swarm got inside the rigorously protected airtight building, why Charley would have disabled the facility's communications, or why Julia and Ricky seem to be coming up with various out-of-character ways of how he died. To Jack's horror, the video not only reveals that Julia and Ricky had an affair but also shows how Charley engaged in a vicious fight with Ricky and Vince. All of them end up in the communications room where Julia kisses a subdued Charley, injecting a stream of swarm into his mouth. Eventually, Jack and Mae realize that everyone in the facility except themselves have been infected by a symbiotic version of the nanobot swarms. These nanobots, although evolved alongside the other swarms, do not show aggressive predatory behavior. Instead, while they seem to invigorate their hosts' physical statistics and their perception, they slowly devour and take over their hosts, initially affecting their decisions and then controlling them, while allowing them to travel and contaminate others. Jack comes up with a plan to destroy this new strain. Mae and Jack drink vials containing a form of phage that kills the nanobot-producing E. coli bacteria. The phage would protect them from infection. Jack then proceeds to take a sample of the phage and pour it into the sprinkler system and drench everyone with it. He tricks Mae into alerting Julia and the infected team. They set out to stop Jack. In the vicious struggle that ensues, Vince is killed and Jack, who barely escapes death several times, finally manages to place the sample into the sprinkler system. In order to prevent the sprinkler system from triggering, infected-Ricky disables the plant's safety network. However, this is exactly what Jack wants, as Mae has already allowed the phage into the assembly line, causing the phage to reproduce rapidly. The assembly line is rapidly overheating because of the no longer active safety system. If Ricky and Julia do not turn on the safety system the assembly line will burst, filling the lab with the phage. The infected-team, who are now doomed either way, choose to re-activate the safety network and get drenched with the phage. Jack and Mae escape the facility in a helicopter shortly before the facility explodes due to a methane gas leak combined with thermite Mae has placed in the building. After returning home, Jack infects all his children with the phage to eradicate the potential nanobot infestation. Mae calls the U.S. Army and sends a sample of the phage to her lab. Jack puts together all the missing links. The corrosion of the memory chip in Eric's MP3 player as well as Amanda's rash were caused by gamma assemblers. The MRI's strong magnetic field detached the assemblers from her. These assemblers were most likely brought home by Julia. Knowing this, Julia called in the Xymos special team to scan Amanda's room. The person who Jack spotted in Julia's car was in fact the cloud of nanobots. Xymos intentionally released the swarm into the desert so that it would evolve to stay in a cohesive group in the wind.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is narrated by the protagonist Jack Forman, who is an unemployed software programmer who used to work for a company called Media Tronics when he was fired for discovering an internal scandal. As a result, he is forced to take the role of a house husband while his wife Julia serves a high ranking employee at a nanorobotics company called Xymos. Julia claims that she is working on a new piece of revolutionary imaging technology with her company, which takes up most of her time. He starts believing that during her long hours away from home she is having an affair, and becomes watchful of her changes. One night Julia comes home late and shows Jack a video of her demoing the Xymos nanobots. In the video, the nanobots are put into a human test subject, and video from inside the body is broadcast in real time. The next day, Julia is injured in a car accident, and Jack is offered a job by Xymos, because the project manager, Ricky, is having software issues with the nanobots. Jack is taken to the Xymos research facility in the desert. Jack is given a tour of the lab and meets the programming team. He is shown a very complicated machine used to make the nanobots. Ricky refuses to show Jack the source code for the nanobots, and later Ricky claims that building contractors failed to properly install filters in a certain vent in the building. As a result, hazardous elements such as the assemblers, the bacteria, and the nanobots were blown into the desert, evolving and eventually forming autonomous swarms. These swarms appear to be solar-powered and self-sufficient, reproducing and evolving rapidly. The swarms exhibit predatory behavior, attacking and killing animals in the wild, using code that Jack himself worked on. Most alarmingly, the swarms seem to possess rudimentary intelligence, the ability to quickly learn and to innovate. The swarms tend to wander around the"
      },
      {
        "text": " as the assemblers, the bacteria, and the nanobots were blown into the desert, evolving and eventually forming autonomous swarms. These swarms appear to be solar-powered and self-sufficient, reproducing and evolving rapidly. The swarms exhibit predatory behavior, attacking and killing animals in the wild, using code that Jack himself worked on. Most alarmingly, the swarms seem to possess rudimentary intelligence, the ability to quickly learn and to innovate. The swarms tend to wander around the fab plant during the day but quickly leave when strong winds blow or night falls. The nanoswarm kills a rabbit outside the complex, and Jack goes outside with Mae to inspect. They find that the rabbit died of suffocation resulting from the nanobots blocking its bronchial tubes. While Mae goes inside for equipment, Jack is attacked by the swarms. He barely manages to get through the airlock inside the lab before falling unconscious from anaphylactic shock. Persuaded by Jack, the team decides to destroy the swarm. They believe that the swarm must have nested in the desert to reproduce. They attempt to find this nest by tagging the swarm with radioactive isotopes and following them back to their nest at night. Under the cover of a strong wind that forces the swarms to remain dormant, the team goes outside to a storage shack to find the isotopes and build a spray device. However, as the wind dies down, four swarms attack the shack and eventually kill David and Rosie. The rest of the team are forced to take shelter in the cars parked outside. The Swarms begin an attempt to enter the cars. Eventually, the swarms find a way to enter the cars, but not long before the wind picks up in speed again. Jack and Mae manage to escape to the lab before losing consciousness, but Charley falls unconscious outside his car after he sprays his swarm with the isotope. Bobby, Vince and Ricky refuse to go outside and help Char"
      },
      {
        "text": " and Rosie. The rest of the team are forced to take shelter in the cars parked outside. The Swarms begin an attempt to enter the cars. Eventually, the swarms find a way to enter the cars, but not long before the wind picks up in speed again. Jack and Mae manage to escape to the lab before losing consciousness, but Charley falls unconscious outside his car after he sprays his swarm with the isotope. Bobby, Vince and Ricky refuse to go outside and help Charley. Jack, dizzy and nauseous, goes back out again to save Charley as the swarms attacks again. Using a motorbike found in David's car, Jack manages to get himself and the semi-conscious Charley to the safety of the airlock before he falls unconscious again. As night falls, Jack, Mae and Bobby set out to find the swarms. While searching for them, they discover that one of the swarms, now so evolved that it can operate without solar energy, is moving the now deceased Rosie through the desert. They follow the body to find the swarms nesting in a cave. As some of the swarms come out of the cave after them, a Xymos helicopter arrives and traps the swarms inside the cave using its powerful draft. Mae and Jack then venture into the cave and proceed to exterminate the swarm, their nest and their organic assembly plant (which looks very similar to the original Xymos assembly plant) using explosive thermite caps. They return to the Xymos plant, exhausted. At the plant, Jack, Mae and Bobby are enthusiastically greeted by Julia, who was earlier discharged from the hospital and was brought in by the chopper. Julia's behavior seems to be extremely aberrant: She seems to pay heed to nothing other than trying to entice Jack and kissing him, even when Charley is found dead in the locked communications room with a swarm flying around him and the communication links cut. Jack cannot understand"
      },
      {
        "text": "ite caps. They return to the Xymos plant, exhausted. At the plant, Jack, Mae and Bobby are enthusiastically greeted by Julia, who was earlier discharged from the hospital and was brought in by the chopper. Julia's behavior seems to be extremely aberrant: She seems to pay heed to nothing other than trying to entice Jack and kissing him, even when Charley is found dead in the locked communications room with a swarm flying around him and the communication links cut. Jack cannot understand how the swarm got inside the rigorously protected airtight building, why Charley would have disabled the facility's communications, or why Julia and Ricky seem to be coming up with various out-of-character ways of how he died. To Jack's horror, the video not only reveals that Julia and Ricky had an affair but also shows how Charley engaged in a vicious fight with Ricky and Vince. All of them end up in the communications room where Julia kisses a subdued Charley, injecting a stream of swarm into his mouth. Eventually, Jack and Mae realize that everyone in the facility except themselves have been infected by a symbiotic version of the nanobot swarms. These nanobots, although evolved alongside the other swarms, do not show aggressive predatory behavior. Instead, while they seem to invigorate their hosts' physical statistics and their perception, they slowly devour and take over their hosts, initially affecting their decisions and then controlling them, while allowing them to travel and contaminate others. Jack comes up with a plan to destroy this new strain. Mae and Jack drink vials containing a form of phage that kills the nanobot-producing E. coli bacteria. The phage would protect them from infection. Jack then proceeds to take a sample of the phage and pour it into the sprinkler system and drench everyone with it. He tricks Mae into alerting Julia and the infected team. They set out to stop Jack. In the vicious struggle that ensues"
      },
      {
        "text": " others. Jack comes up with a plan to destroy this new strain. Mae and Jack drink vials containing a form of phage that kills the nanobot-producing E. coli bacteria. The phage would protect them from infection. Jack then proceeds to take a sample of the phage and pour it into the sprinkler system and drench everyone with it. He tricks Mae into alerting Julia and the infected team. They set out to stop Jack. In the vicious struggle that ensues, Vince is killed and Jack, who barely escapes death several times, finally manages to place the sample into the sprinkler system. In order to prevent the sprinkler system from triggering, infected-Ricky disables the plant's safety network. However, this is exactly what Jack wants, as Mae has already allowed the phage into the assembly line, causing the phage to reproduce rapidly. The assembly line is rapidly overheating because of the no longer active safety system. If Ricky and Julia do not turn on the safety system the assembly line will burst, filling the lab with the phage. The infected-team, who are now doomed either way, choose to re-activate the safety network and get drenched with the phage. Jack and Mae escape the facility in a helicopter shortly before the facility explodes due to a methane gas leak combined with thermite Mae has placed in the building. After returning home, Jack infects all his children with the phage to eradicate the potential nanobot infestation. Mae calls the U.S. Army and sends a sample of the phage to her lab. Jack puts together all the missing links. The corrosion of the memory chip in Eric's MP3 player as well as Amanda's rash were caused by gamma assemblers. The MRI's strong magnetic field detached the assemblers from her. These assemblers were most likely brought home by Julia. Knowing this, Julia called in the Xymos special team to scan Amanda's room. The"
      },
      {
        "text": "ot infestation. Mae calls the U.S. Army and sends a sample of the phage to her lab. Jack puts together all the missing links. The corrosion of the memory chip in Eric's MP3 player as well as Amanda's rash were caused by gamma assemblers. The MRI's strong magnetic field detached the assemblers from her. These assemblers were most likely brought home by Julia. Knowing this, Julia called in the Xymos special team to scan Amanda's room. The person who Jack spotted in Julia's car was in fact the cloud of nanobots. Xymos intentionally released the swarm into the desert so that it would evolve to stay in a cohesive group in the wind.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Tin Woodman of Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1918",
    "synopsis": " The Tin Woodman and the wizard of Oz are regaling each other with tales at the former's palace in the Winkie Country when a Gillikin boy named Woot wanders and is welcomed into their presence. After he is fed and rested (which the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, not being of blood and flesh, do not need), Woot asks the Woodman how he became made of tin. He relates how the Wicked Witch of the East enchanted his axe and caused him to chop his body parts off limb by limb, because he was in love with her ward, Nimmie Amee. Each chopped limb was replaced by the tinsmith Ku-Klip with a counterpart made of tin. (Since Oz is a fairyland, no one can die, even when the parts of their body are separated from each other.) He also tells Woot about Dorothy, who happened to be inside her house when it was carried away by a cyclone all the way from Kansas to the Land of Oz. Fortunately, when the house fell into Munchkin Land it landed on the Wicked Witch and crushed her to death. However, without a heart, the Tin Woodman felt he could no longer love Nimmie Amee and therefore he left her. He relates how Dorothy and the Scarecrow found him after he had rusted in the forest (an event related in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) and went with him to the Emerald City where the Wizard gave him a heart. Woot poses that the heart may have made him kind, but it did not make him loving&mdash;he would have returned to Nimmie Amee if it had. This shames and inspires him to journey to the Munchkin Country and find her. The Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and Woot journey into the Gillikin Country and encounter the inflatable Loons of Loonville, whom they escape by popping several of them. They descend into Yoop Valley, where a giantess, Mrs. Yoop, dwells who transforms the travelers into animals for her amusement, just as she already did to Polychrome, the Rainbow's Daughter. Woot's ingenuity is stealing one of Mrs. Yoop's sources of magic power, a magic apron that performs any task that its wearer wishes \u2013 this enables the four to escape. Woot, as a green monkey, narrowly avoids becoming a jaguar's meal by descending further into a den of subterranean dragons. After escaping that ordeal, Woot, the Tin Woodman as a tin owl, the Scarecrow as a straw-stuffed bear, and Polychrome as a canary turn south into the Munchkin Country and, with Polychrome's magic, reverse a spell cast on Tommy Kwikstep, a messenger boy who thoughtlessly wished himself twenty legs. They arrive at the farm of Jinjur, who first attacks what she thinks are ravening wild beasts (an act in itself strange in Oz, where birds and beasts talk and think) and then renews her acquaintance with them and sends to the Emerald City for help. Dorothy and Ozma arrive and Ozma easily restores the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman to their rightful forms. Polychrome takes several steps to restore to her true form. However, Ozma discovers that the Green Monkey into which Woot is transformed has to be someone's form; it cannot be destroyed. Polychrome suggests as a punishment for wickedness that Mrs. Yoop the giantess be made into the Green Monkey, and Ozma thus succeeds in restoring Woot to his proper form. The Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, Woot, and Polychrome resume their quest and come upon the spot that the Tin Woodman stood rusted&mdash;to find another tin man. After they oil his joints, he identifies himself as Captain Fy-ter, a soldier who courted Nimmie Amee after the Woodman had left her. The Wicked Witch of the East made Fy-ter's sword do what the Woodman's axe did&mdash;cut off his limbs, which Ku-Klip replaced with tin limbs. He did not have a heart either, but it did not bother Fy-ter. However, he could rust, which he one day did during a rainstorm. Both tin woodmen now seek the heart of Nimmie Amee, and they agree to let her choose between them. The five come to the dwelling of the tinsmith Ku-Klip where the Tin Woodman talks to himself&mdash;that is, the head of the man (Nick Chopper) he once was. The Tin Woodman and the Tin Soldier also find a barrel of assorted body parts that once belonged to each of them, but some, like Captain Fy-ter's head, are conspicuously missing. Ku-Klip reveals that he used Fy-ter's head and many body parts from each of them (which never decayed) to create Chopfyt for an assistant. Chopfyt complained about missing an arm until Ku-Klip made him a tin one, and he departed for the east. The companions leave Ku-Klip and continue east themselves to find Nimmie Amee and find themselves crossing the Invisible Country, where a massive Hip-po-gy-raf helps them across in return for the Scarecrow's straw. Reluctantly, he gives it and consents to being stuffed with available hay, which makes his movements awkward. They rest for the night at the house of Professor and Mrs. Swynne, pigs whose nine children live in the Emerald City under the care of the Wizard. They leave the Swynnes and arrive at the foot of Mount Munch on the eastern border of the Munchkin Country. At its summit is a cottage where a rabbit tells them Nimmie Amee now lives, who seems quite happy. However, a wall of hardened air that they cannot penetrate surrounds the cottage. Polychrome with her magic shrinks them to fit into the rabbit's burrow and travel under the wall. Restoring them to normal size, the Tin Woodman and Tin Soldier knock and are admitted by Nimmie Amee, who is now married herself&mdash;to Chopfyt, Ku-Klip's erstwhile assistant made of their human body parts. She refuses to leave her domestic life, even to become Empress of the Winkies (which she would become as the Tin Woodman's wife). \"All I ask is to be left alone and not be disturbed by visitors.\" Satisfied and respectful, they leave the cottage during a rainstorm, are reduced in size and restored again, and Polychrome on a rainbow leaves the tin woodmen and the Scarecrow to be cared for by Woot, who does not rust or get soggy or moldy. The four return to the Emerald City and relate their adventures; Woot is allowed free rein to roam where he pleases, Captain Fy-ter is dispatched by Ozma to guard duty in the Gillikin Country, and the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow return to his palace in the Winkie Country where this story began.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Tin Woodman and the wizard of Oz are regaling each other with tales at the former's palace in the Winkie Country when a Gillikin boy named Woot wanders and is welcomed into their presence. After he is fed and rested (which the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, not being of blood and flesh, do not need), Woot asks the Woodman how he became made of tin. He relates how the Wicked Witch of the East enchanted his axe and caused him to chop his body parts off limb by limb, because he was in love with her ward, Nimmie Amee. Each chopped limb was replaced by the tinsmith Ku-Klip with a counterpart made of tin. (Since Oz is a fairyland, no one can die, even when the parts of their body are separated from each other.) He also tells Woot about Dorothy, who happened to be inside her house when it was carried away by a cyclone all the way from Kansas to the Land of Oz. Fortunately, when the house fell into Munchkin Land it landed on the Wicked Witch and crushed her to death. However, without a heart, the Tin Woodman felt he could no longer love Nimmie Amee and therefore he left her. He relates how Dorothy and the Scarecrow found him after he had rusted in the forest (an event related in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) and went with him to the Emerald City where the Wizard gave him a heart. Woot poses that the heart may have made him kind, but it did not make him loving&mdash;he would have returned to Nimmie Amee if it had. This shames and inspires him to journey to the Munchkin Country and find her. The Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and Woot journey into the Gillikin Country and encounter the inflatable Loons of Loonville, whom they escape by popping several of them. They descend into"
      },
      {
        "text": " heart. Woot poses that the heart may have made him kind, but it did not make him loving&mdash;he would have returned to Nimmie Amee if it had. This shames and inspires him to journey to the Munchkin Country and find her. The Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and Woot journey into the Gillikin Country and encounter the inflatable Loons of Loonville, whom they escape by popping several of them. They descend into Yoop Valley, where a giantess, Mrs. Yoop, dwells who transforms the travelers into animals for her amusement, just as she already did to Polychrome, the Rainbow's Daughter. Woot's ingenuity is stealing one of Mrs. Yoop's sources of magic power, a magic apron that performs any task that its wearer wishes \u2013 this enables the four to escape. Woot, as a green monkey, narrowly avoids becoming a jaguar's meal by descending further into a den of subterranean dragons. After escaping that ordeal, Woot, the Tin Woodman as a tin owl, the Scarecrow as a straw-stuffed bear, and Polychrome as a canary turn south into the Munchkin Country and, with Polychrome's magic, reverse a spell cast on Tommy Kwikstep, a messenger boy who thoughtlessly wished himself twenty legs. They arrive at the farm of Jinjur, who first attacks what she thinks are ravening wild beasts (an act in itself strange in Oz, where birds and beasts talk and think) and then renews her acquaintance with them and sends to the Emerald City for help. Dorothy and Ozma arrive and Ozma easily restores the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman to their rightful forms. Polychrome takes several steps to restore to her true form. However, Ozma discovers that the Green Monkey into which Woot is transformed has to be someone's form; it cannot be destroyed. Polychrome suggests as a"
      },
      {
        "text": "an act in itself strange in Oz, where birds and beasts talk and think) and then renews her acquaintance with them and sends to the Emerald City for help. Dorothy and Ozma arrive and Ozma easily restores the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman to their rightful forms. Polychrome takes several steps to restore to her true form. However, Ozma discovers that the Green Monkey into which Woot is transformed has to be someone's form; it cannot be destroyed. Polychrome suggests as a punishment for wickedness that Mrs. Yoop the giantess be made into the Green Monkey, and Ozma thus succeeds in restoring Woot to his proper form. The Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, Woot, and Polychrome resume their quest and come upon the spot that the Tin Woodman stood rusted&mdash;to find another tin man. After they oil his joints, he identifies himself as Captain Fy-ter, a soldier who courted Nimmie Amee after the Woodman had left her. The Wicked Witch of the East made Fy-ter's sword do what the Woodman's axe did&mdash;cut off his limbs, which Ku-Klip replaced with tin limbs. He did not have a heart either, but it did not bother Fy-ter. However, he could rust, which he one day did during a rainstorm. Both tin woodmen now seek the heart of Nimmie Amee, and they agree to let her choose between them. The five come to the dwelling of the tinsmith Ku-Klip where the Tin Woodman talks to himself&mdash;that is, the head of the man (Nick Chopper) he once was. The Tin Woodman and the Tin Soldier also find a barrel of assorted body parts that once belonged to each of them, but some, like Captain Fy-ter's head, are conspicuously missing. Ku-Klip reveals that he used"
      },
      {
        "text": " to let her choose between them. The five come to the dwelling of the tinsmith Ku-Klip where the Tin Woodman talks to himself&mdash;that is, the head of the man (Nick Chopper) he once was. The Tin Woodman and the Tin Soldier also find a barrel of assorted body parts that once belonged to each of them, but some, like Captain Fy-ter's head, are conspicuously missing. Ku-Klip reveals that he used Fy-ter's head and many body parts from each of them (which never decayed) to create Chopfyt for an assistant. Chopfyt complained about missing an arm until Ku-Klip made him a tin one, and he departed for the east. The companions leave Ku-Klip and continue east themselves to find Nimmie Amee and find themselves crossing the Invisible Country, where a massive Hip-po-gy-raf helps them across in return for the Scarecrow's straw. Reluctantly, he gives it and consents to being stuffed with available hay, which makes his movements awkward. They rest for the night at the house of Professor and Mrs. Swynne, pigs whose nine children live in the Emerald City under the care of the Wizard. They leave the Swynnes and arrive at the foot of Mount Munch on the eastern border of the Munchkin Country. At its summit is a cottage where a rabbit tells them Nimmie Amee now lives, who seems quite happy. However, a wall of hardened air that they cannot penetrate surrounds the cottage. Polychrome with her magic shrinks them to fit into the rabbit's burrow and travel under the wall. Restoring them to normal size, the Tin Woodman and Tin Soldier knock and are admitted by Nimmie Amee, who is now married herself&mdash;to Chopfyt, Ku-Klip's erstwhile assistant made of their human body parts"
      },
      {
        "text": "e now lives, who seems quite happy. However, a wall of hardened air that they cannot penetrate surrounds the cottage. Polychrome with her magic shrinks them to fit into the rabbit's burrow and travel under the wall. Restoring them to normal size, the Tin Woodman and Tin Soldier knock and are admitted by Nimmie Amee, who is now married herself&mdash;to Chopfyt, Ku-Klip's erstwhile assistant made of their human body parts. She refuses to leave her domestic life, even to become Empress of the Winkies (which she would become as the Tin Woodman's wife). \"All I ask is to be left alone and not be disturbed by visitors.\" Satisfied and respectful, they leave the cottage during a rainstorm, are reduced in size and restored again, and Polychrome on a rainbow leaves the tin woodmen and the Scarecrow to be cared for by Woot, who does not rust or get soggy or moldy. The four return to the Emerald City and relate their adventures; Woot is allowed free rein to roam where he pleases, Captain Fy-ter is dispatched by Ozma to guard duty in the Gillikin Country, and the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow return to his palace in the Winkie Country where this story began.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote",
    "author": "Jorge Luis Borges",
    "published_date": "1939-05",
    "synopsis": " \"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote\" is written in the form of a review or literary critical piece about Pierre Menard, a (purely fictional) 20th century French writer. It begins with a brief introduction and a listing of all of Menard's work. Borges' \"review\" describes Menard's efforts to go beyond a mere \"translation\" of Don Quixote by immersing himself so thoroughly in the work as to be able to actually \"re-create\" it, line for line, in the original 17th century Spanish. Thus, Pierre Menard is often used to raise questions and discussion about the nature of authorship, appropriation and interpretation.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " \"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote\" is written in the form of a review or literary critical piece about Pierre Menard, a (purely fictional) 20th century French writer. It begins with a brief introduction and a listing of all of Menard's work. Borges' \"review\" describes Menard's efforts to go beyond a mere \"translation\" of Don Quixote by immersing himself so thoroughly in the work as to be able to actually \"re-create\" it, line for line, in the original 17th century Spanish. Thus, Pierre Menard is often used to raise questions and discussion about the nature of authorship, appropriation and interpretation.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Rocannon's World",
    "author": "Ursula K. Le Guin",
    "published_date": "1966",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins with a prologue called \"Semley's Necklace\", which was first published as a stand-alone story titled \"Dowry of the Angyar\" in Amazing Stories (September 1964). A young woman named Semley takes a space voyage from her unnamed, technologically primitive planet to a museum to reclaim a family heirloom, not realizing that, while the trip will be of short duration for her, many years will elapse on her planet. She returns to find her daughter grown up and her husband dead. The story in effect combines the Rip Van Winkle-type fairy tale\u2014where a person goes underground in the company of dwarves or elves, spending an apparently brief time but on emerging finding whole generations had elapsed\u2014with modern science fiction having the same effect through relativity and the time dilation resulting from traveling at near-light velocities. In the story, the planet's \"dwarves\" live underground and have an early industrial society that (unlike industrial societies in Earth's history) doesn't interfere with the less-developed societies on the surface. The interstellar society of the Ekumen has placed an automated spaceship at the dwarves' disposal, with which Semley travels. Semley descends into the dwarves' tunnels, like Rip van Winkle, from where she makes the flight - and returns after a generation (sixteen years) due to relativistic time dilation. The novel then follows Rocannon, an ethnologist who meets Semley at the museum. He later goes on an ethnological mission to her planet, Fomalhaut II. He places the planet under an 'exploration embargo' in order to protect the native cultures. Unbeknown to him and his colleagues, there is a base on the planet of an enemy of the League of All Worlds - a young world named Faraday, which embarked on a career of interstellar war and conquest, and which chose this \"primitive\" world as the location of a secret base. After the enemy destroys his ship and his companions, Rocannon sets out to find their base so that he can alert the League of their presence with the enemy's ansible. However, with his advanced means of transport destroyed, he must use other means of travel, such as on the back of \"windsteeds,\" basically large flying cats, as well as by boat or walking. His long and dangerous quest, undertaken with loyal companions from the Angyar, a local feudal culture, takes him through many lands, encountering various other cultures and species and facing numerous threats having nothing to do with the one he intends to confront. He identifies five species of highly intelligent life forms (hilfs), the dwarfish Gdemiar, the elven Fiia, the rodent-like Kiemhrir, the nightmarish Winged Ones, and the most human species, the Liuar. Increasingly, as the plot progresses, his experiences impact his personality and make him more attuned to the planet's culture and changes him from the interstellar sophisticate he had been. He encounters an entity in a mountainside cave and in exchange for \"giving himself to the planet\", he receives the gift of Mindspeech, a form of telepathy. Finally, after traveling halfway across the globe, and suffering much loss and bereavement, he reaches the enemy's stronghold which had been set up in a heretofore unknown land occupied by far distant relatives of the Angyar in whose strongholds in the northern continent his journey had begun. Rocannon reverts from the effective role of a Bronze Age hero, into which he had been increasingly pushed during most of the book, back to being the resourceful operative of an interstellar civilization. He uses his mindspeech abilities to both plan and successfully infiltrate the enemy base where he uses an ansible in one of the parked ships to alert his people. A Faster-Than-Light (FTL) unmanned ship (as life cannot survive FTL travel in the Hainish universe) destroys the installation following Rocannon's escape. Being telepathic, Rocannon feels the hundreds of deaths which he had caused at the moment when they happen - and while recognizing the need to have taken this action, he feels deeply guilty and is further traumatized, in effect burned out and incapable of ever initiating any further action. After the completion of his quest, Rocannon retires with the Angyar of the south continent, surrounded by sympathetic people and with a loving woman at his side. When rescuers from the League finally arrive 9 years later, restricted to relativistic travel below light speed, they find him dead, and slowly becoming a part of mythology. He would never know that the planet had been named Rokanan after him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins with a prologue called \"Semley's Necklace\", which was first published as a stand-alone story titled \"Dowry of the Angyar\" in Amazing Stories (September 1964). A young woman named Semley takes a space voyage from her unnamed, technologically primitive planet to a museum to reclaim a family heirloom, not realizing that, while the trip will be of short duration for her, many years will elapse on her planet. She returns to find her daughter grown up and her husband dead. The story in effect combines the Rip Van Winkle-type fairy tale\u2014where a person goes underground in the company of dwarves or elves, spending an apparently brief time but on emerging finding whole generations had elapsed\u2014with modern science fiction having the same effect through relativity and the time dilation resulting from traveling at near-light velocities. In the story, the planet's \"dwarves\" live underground and have an early industrial society that (unlike industrial societies in Earth's history) doesn't interfere with the less-developed societies on the surface. The interstellar society of the Ekumen has placed an automated spaceship at the dwarves' disposal, with which Semley travels. Semley descends into the dwarves' tunnels, like Rip van Winkle, from where she makes the flight - and returns after a generation (sixteen years) due to relativistic time dilation. The novel then follows Rocannon, an ethnologist who meets Semley at the museum. He later goes on an ethnological mission to her planet, Fomalhaut II. He places the planet under an 'exploration embargo' in order to protect the native cultures. Unbeknown to him and his colleagues, there is a base on the planet of an enemy of the League of All Worlds - a young world named Faraday, which embarked on a career of interstellar war and conquest, and which chose this \"primitive\" world as the location of a secret"
      },
      {
        "text": " at the museum. He later goes on an ethnological mission to her planet, Fomalhaut II. He places the planet under an 'exploration embargo' in order to protect the native cultures. Unbeknown to him and his colleagues, there is a base on the planet of an enemy of the League of All Worlds - a young world named Faraday, which embarked on a career of interstellar war and conquest, and which chose this \"primitive\" world as the location of a secret base. After the enemy destroys his ship and his companions, Rocannon sets out to find their base so that he can alert the League of their presence with the enemy's ansible. However, with his advanced means of transport destroyed, he must use other means of travel, such as on the back of \"windsteeds,\" basically large flying cats, as well as by boat or walking. His long and dangerous quest, undertaken with loyal companions from the Angyar, a local feudal culture, takes him through many lands, encountering various other cultures and species and facing numerous threats having nothing to do with the one he intends to confront. He identifies five species of highly intelligent life forms (hilfs), the dwarfish Gdemiar, the elven Fiia, the rodent-like Kiemhrir, the nightmarish Winged Ones, and the most human species, the Liuar. Increasingly, as the plot progresses, his experiences impact his personality and make him more attuned to the planet's culture and changes him from the interstellar sophisticate he had been. He encounters an entity in a mountainside cave and in exchange for \"giving himself to the planet\", he receives the gift of Mindspeech, a form of telepathy. Finally, after traveling halfway across the globe, and suffering much loss and bereavement, he reaches the enemy's stronghold which had been set up in a heretofore unknown land occupied by far distant relatives of the Angyar in whose strongholds"
      },
      {
        "text": " to the planet's culture and changes him from the interstellar sophisticate he had been. He encounters an entity in a mountainside cave and in exchange for \"giving himself to the planet\", he receives the gift of Mindspeech, a form of telepathy. Finally, after traveling halfway across the globe, and suffering much loss and bereavement, he reaches the enemy's stronghold which had been set up in a heretofore unknown land occupied by far distant relatives of the Angyar in whose strongholds in the northern continent his journey had begun. Rocannon reverts from the effective role of a Bronze Age hero, into which he had been increasingly pushed during most of the book, back to being the resourceful operative of an interstellar civilization. He uses his mindspeech abilities to both plan and successfully infiltrate the enemy base where he uses an ansible in one of the parked ships to alert his people. A Faster-Than-Light (FTL) unmanned ship (as life cannot survive FTL travel in the Hainish universe) destroys the installation following Rocannon's escape. Being telepathic, Rocannon feels the hundreds of deaths which he had caused at the moment when they happen - and while recognizing the need to have taken this action, he feels deeply guilty and is further traumatized, in effect burned out and incapable of ever initiating any further action. After the completion of his quest, Rocannon retires with the Angyar of the south continent, surrounded by sympathetic people and with a loving woman at his side. When rescuers from the League finally arrive 9 years later, restricted to relativistic travel below light speed, they find him dead, and slowly becoming a part of mythology. He would never know that the planet had been named Rokanan after him.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " a loving woman at his side. When rescuers from the League finally arrive 9 years later, restricted to relativistic travel below light speed, they find him dead, and slowly becoming a part of mythology. He would never know that the planet had been named Rokanan after him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Always Coming Home",
    "author": "Ursula K. Le Guin",
    "published_date": "1985",
    "synopsis": " The book weaves around the story of a Kesh woman called Stone Telling, who lived for years with her father's people&mdash;the Dayao or Condor people, whose society is rigid, patriarchal, hierarchical and militarily expansionist. The story fills less than a third of the book, with the rest being a mixture of Kesh cultural lore (including poetry, prose of various kinds, mythos, rituals, and recipes), essays on Kesh culture, and the musings of the narrator, \"Pandora\". Some editions of the book were accompanied by a tape of Kesh music and poetry. Pandora describes the book as a protest against contemporary civilization, which the Kesh call \"the Sickness of Man\". Pandora muses that one key difference is that the Kesh have solved the problem of overpopulation\u2014there are many fewer of them than there are of us. They use such inventions of civilization as writing, steel, guns, electricity, trains, and a computer network (see below). However, unlike most neighboring societies, they reject government, a non-laboring caste, expansion of population or territory, disbelief in what we consider supernatural, and human domination of the natural environment. They blend millennia of human economic culture by combining aspects of hunter-gatherer, agriculture, and industry, but reject cities; indeed, what they call towns would count as villages now.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book weaves around the story of a Kesh woman called Stone Telling, who lived for years with her father's people&mdash;the Dayao or Condor people, whose society is rigid, patriarchal, hierarchical and militarily expansionist. The story fills less than a third of the book, with the rest being a mixture of Kesh cultural lore (including poetry, prose of various kinds, mythos, rituals, and recipes), essays on Kesh culture, and the musings of the narrator, \"Pandora\". Some editions of the book were accompanied by a tape of Kesh music and poetry. Pandora describes the book as a protest against contemporary civilization, which the Kesh call \"the Sickness of Man\". Pandora muses that one key difference is that the Kesh have solved the problem of overpopulation\u2014there are many fewer of them than there are of us. They use such inventions of civilization as writing, steel, guns, electricity, trains, and a computer network (see below). However, unlike most neighboring societies, they reject government, a non-laboring caste, expansion of population or territory, disbelief in what we consider supernatural, and human domination of the natural environment. They blend millennia of human economic culture by combining aspects of hunter-gatherer, agriculture, and industry, but reject cities; indeed, what they call towns would count as villages now.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Last of the Mohicans",
    "author": "James Fenimore Cooper",
    "published_date": "1826-02",
    "synopsis": " The action takes place around Glens Falls in upstate New York. Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of Lieutenant Colonel Munro, are traveling with a column of reinforcements from Fort Edward to Fort William Henry, where Munro is commanding an army. In the party are David Gamut the singing teacher, and Major Duncan Heyward, the group's military leader. Magua, the treacherous Huron scout, offers to take the Munro party to Fort William Henry, but leads them into an ambush instead. Natty Bumppo (also known as Hawkeye) and his two Mohican friends, Chingachgook and his son Uncas, rescue them just in time. Knowing that Magua (also known as Le Renard Subtil, the cunning fox) will soon return with reinforcements, Hawkeye and the Mohicans lead their new companions to a nearby cave. A group of Hurons sent by Magua chase them into the cave. After a fierce struggle, Hawkeye and his friends decide to split up for safety, with Hawkeye and the Mohicans hiding in a nearby stream, while Heyward, Gamut, and the Munro sisters retreat back into the cavern. Magua returns with more Hurons and captures Cora, Alice and the two men in the cave. The Hurons take their captives to a stream with mineral water, where they rest briefly while watchful of the others. The Hurons interrogate Heyward, who tells them that Hawkeye and the Mohicans have escaped and learns from them that Uncas's nickname is the Bounding Elk and that Hawkeye is referred to as the Long Rifle or La Longue Carabine. When Cora demands why the Hurons were so eager to capture them, Magua tells his captives that Colonel Munro and other white officers came to the Huron village one day and introduced him to fire-water (whiskey) and his drunken misbeavior caused the Hurons to expel him from the tribe. He subsequently allied himself with the Mohawks (allies of the British) and went to war with them against the French and their Huron allies. Magua continued to drink the fire-water during the fighting and after one act of disorder, Munro ordered him tied to a post and whipped, wounding him both physically and spiritually. He has since gone back to the Hurons and is seeking revenge against Munro. He offers to spare the others in return for Cora following him to the Huron village as his wife, but Cora flatly refuses. Hawkeye, Uncas, and Chingachgook surprise the Hurons and kill most of them with Heyward's assistance, but Magua escapes once more. Hawkeye tells the former hostages that they had been secretly trailing the Hurons after their capture. After a short chase they decided to take action after the Hurons threatened to kill the captives. Heyward and Hawkeye lead the Munro women to Fort William Henry, which is by now surrounded by the French. Munro sends Hawkeye to Fort Edward to request reinforcements but, bearing General Webb's reply, he is captured by the French, who deliver him to Fort William Henry without the letter. Heyward attempts to parley with the French, but learns nothing. He then returns to Colonel Munro and announces his love for Alice. Munro reveals Cora's heritage\u2014the Colonel's first wife was of mixed race\u2014then gives his permission for Heyward to pay court to Alice. The French general, Montcalm, invites Munro to a parley. He shows him Webb's letter: the English general has refused to send further reinforcements. Realizing that his cause is lost, Munro reluctantly agrees to Montcalm's terms. The British soldiers, together with their wounded, and women and children, are allowed to leave the fort and withdraw. Outside the fort, the column is set upon by 2000 French allied Indian warriors. In the chaos of the massacre, Magua finds Cora and Alice, and leads them away towards the Huron village. David Gamut follows at a distance. Three days later, Hawkeye and the Mohicans, Heyward and Colonel Munro enter the ruins of Fort William Henry, where they plan their next move by the council fire. The next morning they set off for Lake George on canoes where they encounter a group of Hurons and escape after a brief but intense chase. Upon reaching shore they hide the canoe and follow Magua's trail. Outside the Huron village, they come across David Gamut, teaching beavers to sing psalms. The Huron have not killed him as they will not harm a madman. Gamut tells them that Alice is in the village, Cora is in another village belonging to the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tribe, and Magua has gone moose hunting. Heyward disguises himself as a French medicine man and enters the village with Gamut, intending to rescue Alice. Hawkeye and Uncas set out to rescue Cora. Chingachgook remains with Colonel Munro, who has become somewhat deranged as a result of events. Heyward's disguise is successful, but before he can find Alice, Uncas is led into the village, having been captured by the Hurons. Magua returns, and demands that Uncas be put to death, but does not recognise Heyward in his guise as a medicine man. Hawkeye steals a bearskin from a village shaman and uses it to disguise himself while he follows Heyward. They rescue Alice after finding her in a cave, taking her out of the village by wrapping her in cloth and convincing the Hurons she is a sick woman Heyward, as a French medicine man, had been asked to heal of an evil spirit. As Heyward carries Alice towards the Lenni Lenape village, David Gamut and Hawkeye (still disguised in bear skin of the village shamen) return to the village to rescue Uncas. Uncas's guards recognize the bear suit and allow the two to pass, believing Gamut will perform some magic to torture Uncas. Once reunited, Uncas dons the bear skin while Hawkeye dresses as Gamut and begins to sing. Gamut stays behind while Uncus and Hawkeye pass the guards, who did not notice a different white man exited than had entered. The pair flee to the Delaware village. The Hurons discover Gamut and realize that Uncas has escaped. When they enter the cave, they find Magua, who had been left bound and gagged by Heyward and Hawkeye as they rescued Alice. Magua tells them everything about Hawkeye's and Heyward's deception, enraging the other Hurons, who vow revenge against Hawkeye and his companions and quickly reaffirm Magua as their chief. Magua then makes his way to the Delaware village, demands the return of his prisoners, warning that one of the white captives is La Longue Carabine, the infamous killer of natives. At the council of chiefs, the venerable sage Tamenund is called on to make the final judgement. He asks which of the prisoners is La Longue Carabine. Hawkeye initially remains silent, since he does not claim the title for himself (His weapon is a smoothbore), so Heyward, mistaking Hawkeye wishes to be undiscovered, claims he is the man in question. Hawkeye then also claims the title, explaining the delay. To resolve the issue a shooting match is organised, at which Hawkeye outshoots the Major. Tamenund grants Magua's wish to keep his prisoners, but as she is being taken away Cora falls at the great sage's feet and begs him to reconsider. Unable to convince him to free either her sister or herself, she eventually begs him to hear her side of the story from a Delaware warrior, referring to Uncas. The tribe did not realize Uncas's heritage, and so he is summoned to speak. Upon arrival, Uncas offends the Delaware, who tear off his clothing in preparation to beat him. They stop upon discovering a turtle tattoo on his chest, identifying his people. At this point, Tamenund accedes to all Uncas asks and frees the prisoners, except he cannot free Cora as it was Magua who brought her to the village. Magua reluctantly also agrees to Uncas's demands but announces his intention to keep Cora as his wife, spurning Hawkeye's offer to allow Magua to take him prisoner instead in exchange for releasing Cora. Uncas and Heyward both vow to hunt down and kill Magua and rescue Cora as the Huron chief leaves with his captive. According to custom, Tamenund has agreed to give Magua a three-hour head start before permitting the Delaware to pursue in attempt to rescue Cora. As the Delawares use this time to prepare for battle and equip themselves with tomahawks and rifles, David Gamut finds his way to the Delaware village, and tells the group that he saw Magua and Cora return to the Huron village, where he sent Cora into the same cave where Heyward rescued Alice before ordering the Huron warriors into battle. With this in mind, the Delawares led by Uncas march into the forest to confront the Hurons. A battle breaks out between the Hurons and the Delaware, who are in three parties: one led by Hawkeye and Heyward, one by Uncas, and one by Chingachgook and Munro. During the course of battle the Hurons are forced back to their village with heavy losses and ultimately are defeated when the Delaware capture the village. Magua escapes with Cora and two of his warriors with Uncas, Hawkeye, and Heyward in pursuit, and they seek to flee by a mountain path which has a precipitous drop on one side, but Cora stops on a rocky ledge and refuses to go further. Uncas attacks the Huron, but both he and Cora are killed in the fight. Hawkeye arrives too late, and shoots Magua, who then falls to his death from a nearby cliff. The novel concludes with a lengthy account of the funerals of Uncas and Cora. The Lenni Lenape sing that Uncas and Cora will marry in the afterlife. Hawkeye does not believe this, but he renews his friendship with Chingachgook. Tamenund foresees that \"The pale-faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men has not yet come again....\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The action takes place around Glens Falls in upstate New York. Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of Lieutenant Colonel Munro, are traveling with a column of reinforcements from Fort Edward to Fort William Henry, where Munro is commanding an army. In the party are David Gamut the singing teacher, and Major Duncan Heyward, the group's military leader. Magua, the treacherous Huron scout, offers to take the Munro party to Fort William Henry, but leads them into an ambush instead. Natty Bumppo (also known as Hawkeye) and his two Mohican friends, Chingachgook and his son Uncas, rescue them just in time. Knowing that Magua (also known as Le Renard Subtil, the cunning fox) will soon return with reinforcements, Hawkeye and the Mohicans lead their new companions to a nearby cave. A group of Hurons sent by Magua chase them into the cave. After a fierce struggle, Hawkeye and his friends decide to split up for safety, with Hawkeye and the Mohicans hiding in a nearby stream, while Heyward, Gamut, and the Munro sisters retreat back into the cavern. Magua returns with more Hurons and captures Cora, Alice and the two men in the cave. The Hurons take their captives to a stream with mineral water, where they rest briefly while watchful of the others. The Hurons interrogate Heyward, who tells them that Hawkeye and the Mohicans have escaped and learns from them that Uncas's nickname is the Bounding Elk and that Hawkeye is referred to as the Long Rifle or La Longue Carabine. When Cora demands why the Hurons were so eager to capture them, Magua tells his captives that Colonel Munro and other white officers came to the Huron village one day and introduced him to fire-water (whiskey) and his drunken misbeavior caused the Hurons to expel him"
      },
      {
        "text": " and the Mohicans have escaped and learns from them that Uncas's nickname is the Bounding Elk and that Hawkeye is referred to as the Long Rifle or La Longue Carabine. When Cora demands why the Hurons were so eager to capture them, Magua tells his captives that Colonel Munro and other white officers came to the Huron village one day and introduced him to fire-water (whiskey) and his drunken misbeavior caused the Hurons to expel him from the tribe. He subsequently allied himself with the Mohawks (allies of the British) and went to war with them against the French and their Huron allies. Magua continued to drink the fire-water during the fighting and after one act of disorder, Munro ordered him tied to a post and whipped, wounding him both physically and spiritually. He has since gone back to the Hurons and is seeking revenge against Munro. He offers to spare the others in return for Cora following him to the Huron village as his wife, but Cora flatly refuses. Hawkeye, Uncas, and Chingachgook surprise the Hurons and kill most of them with Heyward's assistance, but Magua escapes once more. Hawkeye tells the former hostages that they had been secretly trailing the Hurons after their capture. After a short chase they decided to take action after the Hurons threatened to kill the captives. Heyward and Hawkeye lead the Munro women to Fort William Henry, which is by now surrounded by the French. Munro sends Hawkeye to Fort Edward to request reinforcements but, bearing General Webb's reply, he is captured by the French, who deliver him to Fort William Henry without the letter. Heyward attempts to parley with the French, but learns nothing. He then returns to Colonel Munro and announces his love for Alice. Munro reveals Cora's heritage\u2014the Colonel's first wife was of mixed race\u2014then gives his permission"
      },
      {
        "text": " Fort William Henry, which is by now surrounded by the French. Munro sends Hawkeye to Fort Edward to request reinforcements but, bearing General Webb's reply, he is captured by the French, who deliver him to Fort William Henry without the letter. Heyward attempts to parley with the French, but learns nothing. He then returns to Colonel Munro and announces his love for Alice. Munro reveals Cora's heritage\u2014the Colonel's first wife was of mixed race\u2014then gives his permission for Heyward to pay court to Alice. The French general, Montcalm, invites Munro to a parley. He shows him Webb's letter: the English general has refused to send further reinforcements. Realizing that his cause is lost, Munro reluctantly agrees to Montcalm's terms. The British soldiers, together with their wounded, and women and children, are allowed to leave the fort and withdraw. Outside the fort, the column is set upon by 2000 French allied Indian warriors. In the chaos of the massacre, Magua finds Cora and Alice, and leads them away towards the Huron village. David Gamut follows at a distance. Three days later, Hawkeye and the Mohicans, Heyward and Colonel Munro enter the ruins of Fort William Henry, where they plan their next move by the council fire. The next morning they set off for Lake George on canoes where they encounter a group of Hurons and escape after a brief but intense chase. Upon reaching shore they hide the canoe and follow Magua's trail. Outside the Huron village, they come across David Gamut, teaching beavers to sing psalms. The Huron have not killed him as they will not harm a madman. Gamut tells them that Alice is in the village, Cora is in another village belonging to the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tribe, and Magua has gone moose hunting. Heyward disguises himself as a French medicine man and"
      },
      {
        "text": " shore they hide the canoe and follow Magua's trail. Outside the Huron village, they come across David Gamut, teaching beavers to sing psalms. The Huron have not killed him as they will not harm a madman. Gamut tells them that Alice is in the village, Cora is in another village belonging to the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tribe, and Magua has gone moose hunting. Heyward disguises himself as a French medicine man and enters the village with Gamut, intending to rescue Alice. Hawkeye and Uncas set out to rescue Cora. Chingachgook remains with Colonel Munro, who has become somewhat deranged as a result of events. Heyward's disguise is successful, but before he can find Alice, Uncas is led into the village, having been captured by the Hurons. Magua returns, and demands that Uncas be put to death, but does not recognise Heyward in his guise as a medicine man. Hawkeye steals a bearskin from a village shaman and uses it to disguise himself while he follows Heyward. They rescue Alice after finding her in a cave, taking her out of the village by wrapping her in cloth and convincing the Hurons she is a sick woman Heyward, as a French medicine man, had been asked to heal of an evil spirit. As Heyward carries Alice towards the Lenni Lenape village, David Gamut and Hawkeye (still disguised in bear skin of the village shamen) return to the village to rescue Uncas. Uncas's guards recognize the bear suit and allow the two to pass, believing Gamut will perform some magic to torture Uncas. Once reunited, Uncas dons the bear skin while Hawkeye dresses as Gamut and begins to sing. Gamut stays behind while Uncus and Hawkeye pass the guards, who did not notice a different white man exited than had entered. The pair flee to the Delaware village"
      },
      {
        "text": " bear skin of the village shamen) return to the village to rescue Uncas. Uncas's guards recognize the bear suit and allow the two to pass, believing Gamut will perform some magic to torture Uncas. Once reunited, Uncas dons the bear skin while Hawkeye dresses as Gamut and begins to sing. Gamut stays behind while Uncus and Hawkeye pass the guards, who did not notice a different white man exited than had entered. The pair flee to the Delaware village. The Hurons discover Gamut and realize that Uncas has escaped. When they enter the cave, they find Magua, who had been left bound and gagged by Heyward and Hawkeye as they rescued Alice. Magua tells them everything about Hawkeye's and Heyward's deception, enraging the other Hurons, who vow revenge against Hawkeye and his companions and quickly reaffirm Magua as their chief. Magua then makes his way to the Delaware village, demands the return of his prisoners, warning that one of the white captives is La Longue Carabine, the infamous killer of natives. At the council of chiefs, the venerable sage Tamenund is called on to make the final judgement. He asks which of the prisoners is La Longue Carabine. Hawkeye initially remains silent, since he does not claim the title for himself (His weapon is a smoothbore), so Heyward, mistaking Hawkeye wishes to be undiscovered, claims he is the man in question. Hawkeye then also claims the title, explaining the delay. To resolve the issue a shooting match is organised, at which Hawkeye outshoots the Major. Tamenund grants Magua's wish to keep his prisoners, but as she is being taken away Cora falls at the great sage's feet and begs him to reconsider. Unable to convince him to free either her sister or herself, she eventually begs him to hear her side of the story from a Delaware"
      },
      {
        "text": " he is the man in question. Hawkeye then also claims the title, explaining the delay. To resolve the issue a shooting match is organised, at which Hawkeye outshoots the Major. Tamenund grants Magua's wish to keep his prisoners, but as she is being taken away Cora falls at the great sage's feet and begs him to reconsider. Unable to convince him to free either her sister or herself, she eventually begs him to hear her side of the story from a Delaware warrior, referring to Uncas. The tribe did not realize Uncas's heritage, and so he is summoned to speak. Upon arrival, Uncas offends the Delaware, who tear off his clothing in preparation to beat him. They stop upon discovering a turtle tattoo on his chest, identifying his people. At this point, Tamenund accedes to all Uncas asks and frees the prisoners, except he cannot free Cora as it was Magua who brought her to the village. Magua reluctantly also agrees to Uncas's demands but announces his intention to keep Cora as his wife, spurning Hawkeye's offer to allow Magua to take him prisoner instead in exchange for releasing Cora. Uncas and Heyward both vow to hunt down and kill Magua and rescue Cora as the Huron chief leaves with his captive. According to custom, Tamenund has agreed to give Magua a three-hour head start before permitting the Delaware to pursue in attempt to rescue Cora. As the Delawares use this time to prepare for battle and equip themselves with tomahawks and rifles, David Gamut finds his way to the Delaware village, and tells the group that he saw Magua and Cora return to the Huron village, where he sent Cora into the same cave where Heyward rescued Alice before ordering the Huron warriors into battle. With this in mind, the Delawares led by Uncas march into the forest to confront the Hur"
      },
      {
        "text": " rescue Cora. As the Delawares use this time to prepare for battle and equip themselves with tomahawks and rifles, David Gamut finds his way to the Delaware village, and tells the group that he saw Magua and Cora return to the Huron village, where he sent Cora into the same cave where Heyward rescued Alice before ordering the Huron warriors into battle. With this in mind, the Delawares led by Uncas march into the forest to confront the Hurons. A battle breaks out between the Hurons and the Delaware, who are in three parties: one led by Hawkeye and Heyward, one by Uncas, and one by Chingachgook and Munro. During the course of battle the Hurons are forced back to their village with heavy losses and ultimately are defeated when the Delaware capture the village. Magua escapes with Cora and two of his warriors with Uncas, Hawkeye, and Heyward in pursuit, and they seek to flee by a mountain path which has a precipitous drop on one side, but Cora stops on a rocky ledge and refuses to go further. Uncas attacks the Huron, but both he and Cora are killed in the fight. Hawkeye arrives too late, and shoots Magua, who then falls to his death from a nearby cliff. The novel concludes with a lengthy account of the funerals of Uncas and Cora. The Lenni Lenape sing that Uncas and Cora will marry in the afterlife. Hawkeye does not believe this, but he renews his friendship with Chingachgook. Tamenund foresees that \"The pale-faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men has not yet come again....\"\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Cora will marry in the afterlife. Hawkeye does not believe this, but he renews his friendship with Chingachgook. Tamenund foresees that \"The pale-faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men has not yet come again....\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia",
    "author": "Samuel Johnson",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The plot is simple in the extreme. Rasselas, son of the King of Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia), is shut up in a beautiful valley, \"till the order of succession should call him to the throne.\" He grows weary of the factitious entertainments of the place, and after much brooding escapes with his sister Nekayah, her attendant Pekuah and his poet-friend Imlac. They are to see the world and search for happiness, but after some sojourn in Egypt, where they encounter various classes of society and undergo a few mild adventures, they perceive the futility of their search and abruptly return to Abyssinia. Local color is almost nonexistent and episodic elements, e.g. the story of Imlac and that of the mad astronomer, abound. There is little of incident, no love-making, with few endeavors to charm the fancy, and with but slight recognition of the claims of sentiment.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The plot is simple in the extreme. Rasselas, son of the King of Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia), is shut up in a beautiful valley, \"till the order of succession should call him to the throne.\" He grows weary of the factitious entertainments of the place, and after much brooding escapes with his sister Nekayah, her attendant Pekuah and his poet-friend Imlac. They are to see the world and search for happiness, but after some sojourn in Egypt, where they encounter various classes of society and undergo a few mild adventures, they perceive the futility of their search and abruptly return to Abyssinia. Local color is almost nonexistent and episodic elements, e.g. the story of Imlac and that of the mad astronomer, abound. There is little of incident, no love-making, with few endeavors to charm the fancy, and with but slight recognition of the claims of sentiment.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1908",
    "synopsis": " In the story, set after the last book, Dorothy is joining Uncle Henry in California at Hugson's Ranch, on their way home from Australia, Dorothy having visited friends in San Francisco. She strikes up an acquaintance with Hugson's nephew and her second cousin, Zeb. Dorothy, Eureka, who is Dorothy's cat, and Zeb are riding a buggy being pulled by a cab-horse named Jim when an earthquake starts and opens a crevice beneath them that sends them hurtling into the bowels of the earth. Dorothy, Eureka, Jim, Zeb, and the buggy alight in the land of the Mangaboos, a vegetable people who accuse them of causing the Rain of Stones (what the Mangaboos call the earthquake because they are beneath the surface of the earth, and earth instead falls on them). Zeb is surprised by this strange new land, but Dorothy surmises that they are in a fairy country because they are meeting vegetable people and the animals&mdash;Jim and Eureka&mdash;are now speaking. Just as they are about to be sentenced to death by the Mangaboos, a hot air balloon falls out of the sky, and in the basket is the Wizard of Oz, whom Dorothy last met as he floated away from the Emerald City. The Wizard brags about his showmanship and with the others' aid attempts to awe the Mangaboos into sparing their lives. After defeating their wizard Gwig by slicing him in half&mdash;and showing him, as a vegetable, completely solid inside&mdash;he is appointed by the Mangaboo prince as their temporary wizard. The Wizard, Dorothy, and Zeb temporarily escape the fate of all intruders&mdash;to be cut up and planted&mdash;when they release a Princess from the garden who assumes authority. The Prince will now lose his authority and be planted himself. The cold Princess, however, vows to have Jim and Eureka killed nonetheless, so they all plan to escape higher into the earth where the Mangaboos cannot follow them due to the stronger pull of gravity the further they rise. Dorothy, Eureka, Zeb, Jim, and the Wizard enter a beautiful green valley and the Wizard's nine tiny piglets devour an enticing fruit which they find makes them invisible. They enter a seemingly empty cottage and are welcomed by invisible people, for they have entered the Valley of Voe, whose inhabitants use their invisibility to hide from marauding bears. The inhabitants of Voe help them escape the bears and explain what lies ahead, particularly the terrible Gargoyles. (A story the Voe people tell seems to indicate that by now Baum had decided that people in a fairy land do not die; even cut into pieces, an individual is still active and aware. See The Tin Woodman of Oz for another example of this.) The companions reach the base of Pyramid Mountain and meet the Braided Man halfway up. He used to make holes, Flutters (guaranteed to make any flag flutter on a windless day), and Rustles for silk skirts. One day he stacked up many postholes he had made and fell into Pyramid Mountain and since then kept shop there, continuing to make his wares. His facial hair has gotten so long, however, that he has had to braid it to keep from tripping. Dorothy had given him a blue bow, for he had tied each braid with a different color hair bow. The only color he didn't have was blue so Dorothy gave him one. They head into the land of the Gargoyles and at first repel them successfully because the winged wooden creatures are startled by loud noises. However, they do not tire and soon imprison Dorothy and her friends. They manage to escape the Gargoyles' grasp, using their detached wings and Jim's guidance. After a close encounter with the Dragonettes, baby dragons whose mother has tied their tails to a post until she returns from hunting, they find themselves trapped in a cave which they can not exit. Dorothy suggests that she signal Ozma to bring them to Oz by using the magic belt which she'd captured from the Nome King in Ozma of Oz. She does so at a prearranged time of day, and Dorothy, the Wizard, Zeb, Eureka, and Jim arrive within the Emerald City. Soon after renewing his acquaintance with the Emerald City staff and making the acquaintance of Ozma, the Wizard elects to remain in Oz permanently. The others' visit is highlighted by the wooden Saw-Horse beating Jim in a race and the trial of Eureka for eating Ozma's pet piglet given to her by the Wizard; in fact, the kitten is innocent and the piglet alive and well, but the obstinate Eureka will not say so. After the piglet is restored to Ozma and Zeb and Jim decide they've had enough of fairyland, Ozma then uses the magic belt to send Dorothy and Eureka back to Kansas, and Zeb and Jim back to California.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the story, set after the last book, Dorothy is joining Uncle Henry in California at Hugson's Ranch, on their way home from Australia, Dorothy having visited friends in San Francisco. She strikes up an acquaintance with Hugson's nephew and her second cousin, Zeb. Dorothy, Eureka, who is Dorothy's cat, and Zeb are riding a buggy being pulled by a cab-horse named Jim when an earthquake starts and opens a crevice beneath them that sends them hurtling into the bowels of the earth. Dorothy, Eureka, Jim, Zeb, and the buggy alight in the land of the Mangaboos, a vegetable people who accuse them of causing the Rain of Stones (what the Mangaboos call the earthquake because they are beneath the surface of the earth, and earth instead falls on them). Zeb is surprised by this strange new land, but Dorothy surmises that they are in a fairy country because they are meeting vegetable people and the animals&mdash;Jim and Eureka&mdash;are now speaking. Just as they are about to be sentenced to death by the Mangaboos, a hot air balloon falls out of the sky, and in the basket is the Wizard of Oz, whom Dorothy last met as he floated away from the Emerald City. The Wizard brags about his showmanship and with the others' aid attempts to awe the Mangaboos into sparing their lives. After defeating their wizard Gwig by slicing him in half&mdash;and showing him, as a vegetable, completely solid inside&mdash;he is appointed by the Mangaboo prince as their temporary wizard. The Wizard, Dorothy, and Zeb temporarily escape the fate of all intruders&mdash;to be cut up and planted&mdash;when they release a Princess from the garden who assumes authority. The Prince will now lose his authority and be planted himself. The cold Princess, however, vows to"
      },
      {
        "text": " by slicing him in half&mdash;and showing him, as a vegetable, completely solid inside&mdash;he is appointed by the Mangaboo prince as their temporary wizard. The Wizard, Dorothy, and Zeb temporarily escape the fate of all intruders&mdash;to be cut up and planted&mdash;when they release a Princess from the garden who assumes authority. The Prince will now lose his authority and be planted himself. The cold Princess, however, vows to have Jim and Eureka killed nonetheless, so they all plan to escape higher into the earth where the Mangaboos cannot follow them due to the stronger pull of gravity the further they rise. Dorothy, Eureka, Zeb, Jim, and the Wizard enter a beautiful green valley and the Wizard's nine tiny piglets devour an enticing fruit which they find makes them invisible. They enter a seemingly empty cottage and are welcomed by invisible people, for they have entered the Valley of Voe, whose inhabitants use their invisibility to hide from marauding bears. The inhabitants of Voe help them escape the bears and explain what lies ahead, particularly the terrible Gargoyles. (A story the Voe people tell seems to indicate that by now Baum had decided that people in a fairy land do not die; even cut into pieces, an individual is still active and aware. See The Tin Woodman of Oz for another example of this.) The companions reach the base of Pyramid Mountain and meet the Braided Man halfway up. He used to make holes, Flutters (guaranteed to make any flag flutter on a windless day), and Rustles for silk skirts. One day he stacked up many postholes he had made and fell into Pyramid Mountain and since then kept shop there, continuing to make his wares. His facial hair has gotten so long, however, that he has had to braid it to keep from tripping. Dorothy had given him a blue"
      },
      {
        "text": " and meet the Braided Man halfway up. He used to make holes, Flutters (guaranteed to make any flag flutter on a windless day), and Rustles for silk skirts. One day he stacked up many postholes he had made and fell into Pyramid Mountain and since then kept shop there, continuing to make his wares. His facial hair has gotten so long, however, that he has had to braid it to keep from tripping. Dorothy had given him a blue bow, for he had tied each braid with a different color hair bow. The only color he didn't have was blue so Dorothy gave him one. They head into the land of the Gargoyles and at first repel them successfully because the winged wooden creatures are startled by loud noises. However, they do not tire and soon imprison Dorothy and her friends. They manage to escape the Gargoyles' grasp, using their detached wings and Jim's guidance. After a close encounter with the Dragonettes, baby dragons whose mother has tied their tails to a post until she returns from hunting, they find themselves trapped in a cave which they can not exit. Dorothy suggests that she signal Ozma to bring them to Oz by using the magic belt which she'd captured from the Nome King in Ozma of Oz. She does so at a prearranged time of day, and Dorothy, the Wizard, Zeb, Eureka, and Jim arrive within the Emerald City. Soon after renewing his acquaintance with the Emerald City staff and making the acquaintance of Ozma, the Wizard elects to remain in Oz permanently. The others' visit is highlighted by the wooden Saw-Horse beating Jim in a race and the trial of Eureka for eating Ozma's pet piglet given to her by the Wizard; in fact, the kitten is innocent and the piglet alive and well, but the obstinate Eureka will not say so. After the piglet is restored"
      },
      {
        "text": " renewing his acquaintance with the Emerald City staff and making the acquaintance of Ozma, the Wizard elects to remain in Oz permanently. The others' visit is highlighted by the wooden Saw-Horse beating Jim in a race and the trial of Eureka for eating Ozma's pet piglet given to her by the Wizard; in fact, the kitten is innocent and the piglet alive and well, but the obstinate Eureka will not say so. After the piglet is restored to Ozma and Zeb and Jim decide they've had enough of fairyland, Ozma then uses the magic belt to send Dorothy and Eureka back to Kansas, and Zeb and Jim back to California.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Forward the Foundation",
    "author": "Isaac Asimov",
    "published_date": "1993-01",
    "synopsis": " In Forward the Foundation, Isaac Asimov continues the chronicles of the life of Hari Seldon, first begun in Prelude to Foundation. The story takes place on Trantor, and begins eight years after the events of Prelude to Foundation. It depicts how Seldon developed his theory of psychohistory from hypothetical concept to practical application in galactic events. Beginning during the latter years of the reign of Emperor Cleon I, Seldon's work brings him into the world of galactic politics, and takes him to the height of Imperial power as Cleon's First Minister, after the mysterious disappearance of his previous First Minister, Eto Demerzel (whom Seldon knows as R. Daneel Olivaw). Seldon becomes First Minister to the Emperor, but loses the position ten years later after the Emperor is assassinated. Gradually, Seldon loses all those who are close to him. Seldon's wife Dors is killed saving his life from an assassin. His adopted son Raych is killed in the Rebellion in Santanni; his daughter-in-law and second granddaughter are missing and never found. Yugo Amaryl dies early, brought on by the strain of his work. Except for his granddaughter Wanda, Seldon is alone. He eventually sends her off to start the Second Foundation. The Galactic Empire's decline accelerates during the later chapters, as does the decline of Seldon's physical health. At the same time, Seldon finally begins to unravel the secrets of psychohistory; he initiates a grand plan that will come to be known as the Seldon Plan, the road map for mankind's post-Imperial survival.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In Forward the Foundation, Isaac Asimov continues the chronicles of the life of Hari Seldon, first begun in Prelude to Foundation. The story takes place on Trantor, and begins eight years after the events of Prelude to Foundation. It depicts how Seldon developed his theory of psychohistory from hypothetical concept to practical application in galactic events. Beginning during the latter years of the reign of Emperor Cleon I, Seldon's work brings him into the world of galactic politics, and takes him to the height of Imperial power as Cleon's First Minister, after the mysterious disappearance of his previous First Minister, Eto Demerzel (whom Seldon knows as R. Daneel Olivaw). Seldon becomes First Minister to the Emperor, but loses the position ten years later after the Emperor is assassinated. Gradually, Seldon loses all those who are close to him. Seldon's wife Dors is killed saving his life from an assassin. His adopted son Raych is killed in the Rebellion in Santanni; his daughter-in-law and second granddaughter are missing and never found. Yugo Amaryl dies early, brought on by the strain of his work. Except for his granddaughter Wanda, Seldon is alone. He eventually sends her off to start the Second Foundation. The Galactic Empire's decline accelerates during the later chapters, as does the decline of Seldon's physical health. At the same time, Seldon finally begins to unravel the secrets of psychohistory; he initiates a grand plan that will come to be known as the Seldon Plan, the road map for mankind's post-Imperial survival.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " psychohistory; he initiates a grand plan that will come to be known as the Seldon Plan, the road map for mankind's post-Imperial survival.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Ramona",
    "author": "Helen Hunt Jackson",
    "published_date": "1884",
    "synopsis": " In Southern California, shortly after the Mexican-American War, a Scots-Native American orphan girl, Ramona, is raised by Se\u00f1ora Gonzaga Moreno, the sister of Ramona's deceased foster mother. Se\u00f1ora Moreno has raised Ramona as part of the family, giving her every luxury, but only because Ramona's foster mother had requested it as her dying wish. Because of Ramona's Native American heritage, Moreno does not love her. That love is reserved for her only child, Felipe Moreno, whom she adores. Se\u00f1ora Moreno considers herself a Mexican, although California has recently been taken over by the United States. She hates the Americans, who have cut up her huge rancho after disputing her claim to it. Se\u00f1ora Moreno delays the sheep shearing, a major event on the rancho, awaiting the arrival of a group of Indians from Temecula whom she always hires for that work. She is also awaiting a priest, Father Salvierderra, from Santa Barbara. She arranges for the priest so that the Indian workers can worship and make confession in her chapel, rather than leaving the rancho. Ramona falls in love with Alessandro, a young Indian sheepherder and the son of Pablo Assis, the chief of the tribe. Se\u00f1ora Moreno is outraged, because although Ramona is half-Indian, the Se\u00f1ora does not want her to marry an Indian. Ramona realizes that Se\u00f1ora Moreno has never loved her and she and Alessandro elope. Alessandro and Ramona have a daughter, and travel around Southern California trying to find a place to settle. In the aftermath of the war, Alessandro's tribe was driven off their land, marking the beginning of European-American settlement in California. They endure misery and hardship, for the Americans who buy their land also demand their houses and their farm tools. Greedy Americans drive them off from several homesteads, and they cannot find a permanent community that is not threatened by encroachment of United States settlers. They finally move up into the San Bernardino Mountains. Alessandro slowly loses his mind, due to the constant humiliation. He loves Ramona fiercely, and regrets having taken her away from relative comfort in return for \"bootless\" wandering. Their daughter \"Eyes of the Sky\" dies because a white doctor would not go to their homestead to treat her. They have another daughter, named Ramona, but Alessandro still suffers. One day he rides off with the horse of an American, who follows him and shoots him, although he knew that Alessandro was mentally unbalanced. Ramona was missing from the rancho for two years. Felipe Moreno finds the widowed Ramona and they marry. He has always loved her and finds her more beautiful than ever. Felipe had considered Alessandro a friend, and both he and Ramona are determined to leave California because of the Americans. They settle in Mexico, where they have many children. Ramona believes her passion is spent, but she is good to Felipe, who adores her. The most beautiful of their children is Ramona, Alessandro's daughter.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In Southern California, shortly after the Mexican-American War, a Scots-Native American orphan girl, Ramona, is raised by Se\u00f1ora Gonzaga Moreno, the sister of Ramona's deceased foster mother. Se\u00f1ora Moreno has raised Ramona as part of the family, giving her every luxury, but only because Ramona's foster mother had requested it as her dying wish. Because of Ramona's Native American heritage, Moreno does not love her. That love is reserved for her only child, Felipe Moreno, whom she adores. Se\u00f1ora Moreno considers herself a Mexican, although California has recently been taken over by the United States. She hates the Americans, who have cut up her huge rancho after disputing her claim to it. Se\u00f1ora Moreno delays the sheep shearing, a major event on the rancho, awaiting the arrival of a group of Indians from Temecula whom she always hires for that work. She is also awaiting a priest, Father Salvierderra, from Santa Barbara. She arranges for the priest so that the Indian workers can worship and make confession in her chapel, rather than leaving the rancho. Ramona falls in love with Alessandro, a young Indian sheepherder and the son of Pablo Assis, the chief of the tribe. Se\u00f1ora Moreno is outraged, because although Ramona is half-Indian, the Se\u00f1ora does not want her to marry an Indian. Ramona realizes that Se\u00f1ora Moreno has never loved her and she and Alessandro elope. Alessandro and Ramona have a daughter, and travel around Southern California trying to find a place to settle. In the aftermath of the war, Alessandro's tribe was driven off their land, marking the beginning of European-American settlement in California. They endure misery and hardship, for the Americans who buy their land also demand their houses and their farm tools. Greedy Americans drive them off from several homesteads, and they cannot"
      },
      {
        "text": " Moreno has never loved her and she and Alessandro elope. Alessandro and Ramona have a daughter, and travel around Southern California trying to find a place to settle. In the aftermath of the war, Alessandro's tribe was driven off their land, marking the beginning of European-American settlement in California. They endure misery and hardship, for the Americans who buy their land also demand their houses and their farm tools. Greedy Americans drive them off from several homesteads, and they cannot find a permanent community that is not threatened by encroachment of United States settlers. They finally move up into the San Bernardino Mountains. Alessandro slowly loses his mind, due to the constant humiliation. He loves Ramona fiercely, and regrets having taken her away from relative comfort in return for \"bootless\" wandering. Their daughter \"Eyes of the Sky\" dies because a white doctor would not go to their homestead to treat her. They have another daughter, named Ramona, but Alessandro still suffers. One day he rides off with the horse of an American, who follows him and shoots him, although he knew that Alessandro was mentally unbalanced. Ramona was missing from the rancho for two years. Felipe Moreno finds the widowed Ramona and they marry. He has always loved her and finds her more beautiful than ever. Felipe had considered Alessandro a friend, and both he and Ramona are determined to leave California because of the Americans. They settle in Mexico, where they have many children. Ramona believes her passion is spent, but she is good to Felipe, who adores her. The most beautiful of their children is Ramona, Alessandro's daughter.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", where they have many children. Ramona believes her passion is spent, but she is good to Felipe, who adores her. The most beautiful of their children is Ramona, Alessandro's daughter.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Tik-Tok of Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1914",
    "synopsis": " Queen Ann Soforth of Oogaboo, a small monarchy separated from the rest of Oz's Winkie Country, sets out to raise an army to conquer Oz. Seventeen men eventually make up the Army of Oogaboo; they march out of their valley. Glinda magically rearranges the path through the mountains and Queen Ann and her army march out of Oz into a low-lying, befogged country. Betsy Bobbin, a girl who is a year older than Dorothy Gale, and her loyal mule Hank are washed ashore during a storm. They arrive at a large greenhouse that is the domain of the Rose Kingdom, where the roses tell them that no strangers are allowed. Just as the Royal Gardener (apparently the only human allowed in this flowery kingdom) is about to pass sentence on Betsy and Hank, the Shaggy Man falls through the greenhouse's roof, and charms the Gardener into sparing all of their lives with his Love Magnet. The flowers, not having hearts, are unaffected by the Magnet, and force the travellers to leave, taking with them the newly plucked Rose Princess Ozga, a cousin of Ozma, the ruler of Oz. The Shaggy Man relates how Ozma sent him here by means of the Magic Belt because he wanted to find his brother, who went digging underground in Oklahoma and disappeared. He surmised that the Nome King, ruler of the underground Nome Kingdom, captured him. They meet up with Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter; and they rescue Tik-Tok from the well where the Nome King had tossed him. Once Tik-Tok is wound up, he accompanies Betsy, Hank, the Shaggy Man, Ozga, and Polychrome to their chance encounter with Queen Ann and her army. In a rage, Queen Ann orders them to be seized and bound, but Private Files &mdash; the only private in this army of generals, colonels, and majors &mdash; refuses to bind innocent girls. He resigns his commission on the spot. When Queen Ann learns of the riches to be found in the Nome King's underground kingdom, she calms down and accepts the services of Tik-Tok as her new private. The Nome King (who has recovered from having drunk the Water of Oblivion in The Emerald City of Oz) is aghast at this group coming toward his underground kingdom. Since no one can be killed in Oz, the Nome King seeks to discourage them, first by taking them through the Rubber Country, and then disposing of them by dropping them through the Hollow Tube, a conduit leading to the other side of the world. There the party enters the jurisdiction of the immortal called Tittiti-Hoochoo, the Great Jinjin, who vows to punish the Nome King for using the Hollow Tube. He sends Tik-Tok and the others back with his Instrument of Vengeance, a lackadaisical dragon named Quox. Quox and his riders bound from the other end of the Tube into an army of Nomes and narrowly evade them. Queen Ann and the Army of Oogaboo fall into the Slimy Cave when they enter the Nome Kingdom; the Shaggy Man and his companions are captured by the Nome King. Ann and her army escape the cave while the Nome King amuses himself by transforming his captives into various objects. Quox arrives, bursting through the main cavern. The Nome King sees the ribbon around Quox's neck and forgets all the magic he ever knew. The Nome King is driven out of his kingdom when Quox releases six eggs from the padlock around his neck. The eggs, poisonous to Nomes, follow the Nome King to the Earth's surface and confine him there. The new Nome King, the former chief steward Kaliko, vows to help the Shaggy Man find his brother, who he knows is in the Metal Forest. The Shaggy Man meets his brother in the center of the Forest; but the brother was cursed with a charm of ugliness by the former Nome King. A kiss will break a charm. First Betsy, a mortal maid, tries to undo the spell; then Ozga, a mortal maid who was once a fairy, tries. Finally the fairy Polychrome's kiss restores the Shaggy Man's brother to his former self. There is a banquet of rejoicing in the Nome Kingdom, and the former Nome King earnestly pleads to be let back into the underground lair (\"No Nome can really be happy except underground\"), which Kaliko allows on condition that he behave himself. Once on the surface again, Polychrome ascends her rainbow and Ozma uses the magic belt to bring Tik-Tok back to Oz and send Queen Ann, the Army of Oogaboo, Files, and Ozga back to Oogaboo. The Shaggy Man only agrees to return when his brother, Betsy, and Hank are allowed to enter Oz too. Upon being welcomed in Oz, Hank, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, and the Saw-Horse debate who is the best mistress &mdash; Betsy (for Hank), Dorothy (for the Lion and the Tiger), or Ozma (for the Saw-Horse). The three girls are listening and laugh at a silly quarrel, which the animals realize is silly too. In addition, Dorothy finally gets to hear her dog Toto speak &mdash; for all animals can in the Land of Oz.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Queen Ann Soforth of Oogaboo, a small monarchy separated from the rest of Oz's Winkie Country, sets out to raise an army to conquer Oz. Seventeen men eventually make up the Army of Oogaboo; they march out of their valley. Glinda magically rearranges the path through the mountains and Queen Ann and her army march out of Oz into a low-lying, befogged country. Betsy Bobbin, a girl who is a year older than Dorothy Gale, and her loyal mule Hank are washed ashore during a storm. They arrive at a large greenhouse that is the domain of the Rose Kingdom, where the roses tell them that no strangers are allowed. Just as the Royal Gardener (apparently the only human allowed in this flowery kingdom) is about to pass sentence on Betsy and Hank, the Shaggy Man falls through the greenhouse's roof, and charms the Gardener into sparing all of their lives with his Love Magnet. The flowers, not having hearts, are unaffected by the Magnet, and force the travellers to leave, taking with them the newly plucked Rose Princess Ozga, a cousin of Ozma, the ruler of Oz. The Shaggy Man relates how Ozma sent him here by means of the Magic Belt because he wanted to find his brother, who went digging underground in Oklahoma and disappeared. He surmised that the Nome King, ruler of the underground Nome Kingdom, captured him. They meet up with Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter; and they rescue Tik-Tok from the well where the Nome King had tossed him. Once Tik-Tok is wound up, he accompanies Betsy, Hank, the Shaggy Man, Ozga, and Polychrome to their chance encounter with Queen Ann and her army. In a rage, Queen Ann orders them to be seized and bound, but Private Files &mdash; the only private in this army of generals, colonels, and majors &mdash"
      },
      {
        "text": " Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter; and they rescue Tik-Tok from the well where the Nome King had tossed him. Once Tik-Tok is wound up, he accompanies Betsy, Hank, the Shaggy Man, Ozga, and Polychrome to their chance encounter with Queen Ann and her army. In a rage, Queen Ann orders them to be seized and bound, but Private Files &mdash; the only private in this army of generals, colonels, and majors &mdash; refuses to bind innocent girls. He resigns his commission on the spot. When Queen Ann learns of the riches to be found in the Nome King's underground kingdom, she calms down and accepts the services of Tik-Tok as her new private. The Nome King (who has recovered from having drunk the Water of Oblivion in The Emerald City of Oz) is aghast at this group coming toward his underground kingdom. Since no one can be killed in Oz, the Nome King seeks to discourage them, first by taking them through the Rubber Country, and then disposing of them by dropping them through the Hollow Tube, a conduit leading to the other side of the world. There the party enters the jurisdiction of the immortal called Tittiti-Hoochoo, the Great Jinjin, who vows to punish the Nome King for using the Hollow Tube. He sends Tik-Tok and the others back with his Instrument of Vengeance, a lackadaisical dragon named Quox. Quox and his riders bound from the other end of the Tube into an army of Nomes and narrowly evade them. Queen Ann and the Army of Oogaboo fall into the Slimy Cave when they enter the Nome Kingdom; the Shaggy Man and his companions are captured by the Nome King. Ann and her army escape the cave while the Nome King amuses himself by transforming his captives into various objects. Quox arrives, bursting through the main cavern. The"
      },
      {
        "text": "ox. Quox and his riders bound from the other end of the Tube into an army of Nomes and narrowly evade them. Queen Ann and the Army of Oogaboo fall into the Slimy Cave when they enter the Nome Kingdom; the Shaggy Man and his companions are captured by the Nome King. Ann and her army escape the cave while the Nome King amuses himself by transforming his captives into various objects. Quox arrives, bursting through the main cavern. The Nome King sees the ribbon around Quox's neck and forgets all the magic he ever knew. The Nome King is driven out of his kingdom when Quox releases six eggs from the padlock around his neck. The eggs, poisonous to Nomes, follow the Nome King to the Earth's surface and confine him there. The new Nome King, the former chief steward Kaliko, vows to help the Shaggy Man find his brother, who he knows is in the Metal Forest. The Shaggy Man meets his brother in the center of the Forest; but the brother was cursed with a charm of ugliness by the former Nome King. A kiss will break a charm. First Betsy, a mortal maid, tries to undo the spell; then Ozga, a mortal maid who was once a fairy, tries. Finally the fairy Polychrome's kiss restores the Shaggy Man's brother to his former self. There is a banquet of rejoicing in the Nome Kingdom, and the former Nome King earnestly pleads to be let back into the underground lair (\"No Nome can really be happy except underground\"), which Kaliko allows on condition that he behave himself. Once on the surface again, Polychrome ascends her rainbow and Ozma uses the magic belt to bring Tik-Tok back to Oz and send Queen Ann, the Army of Oogaboo, Files, and Ozga back to Oogaboo. The Sh"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the Nome Kingdom, and the former Nome King earnestly pleads to be let back into the underground lair (\"No Nome can really be happy except underground\"), which Kaliko allows on condition that he behave himself. Once on the surface again, Polychrome ascends her rainbow and Ozma uses the magic belt to bring Tik-Tok back to Oz and send Queen Ann, the Army of Oogaboo, Files, and Ozga back to Oogaboo. The Shaggy Man only agrees to return when his brother, Betsy, and Hank are allowed to enter Oz too. Upon being welcomed in Oz, Hank, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, and the Saw-Horse debate who is the best mistress &mdash; Betsy (for Hank), Dorothy (for the Lion and the Tiger), or Ozma (for the Saw-Horse). The three girls are listening and laugh at a silly quarrel, which the animals realize is silly too. In addition, Dorothy finally gets to hear her dog Toto speak &mdash; for all animals can in the Land of Oz.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Truce at Bakura",
    "author": "Kathy Tyers",
    "published_date": "1993",
    "synopsis": " While recovering from their victory against the Empire at Endor, the Rebel Alliance intercepts an Imperial probe containing a distress call for the Emperor. The message details a lizardlike race of aliens invading the Outer Rim planet Bakura. With Palpatine dead and the Imperial Navy scattered, Luke Skywalker volunteers to lead a force to intercept the alien invasion and save Bakura. Upon arrival, the Rebel Alliance forces ally with the remnants of the Imperial garrison to repel an invasion by the reptilian Ssi-Ruuk race under the Ssi-ruuvi Imperium, which seeks to establish a beachhead in the larger galaxy. The Ssi-Ruuk seek to harvest a supply of life forms, whose life energies power their advanced technology through a process known as entechment. The Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker especially intrigues the Ssi-Ruuk, because they believe his Force powers could allow the Ssi-ruuk to entech beings from a distance. Obi-Wan Kenobi appears to Luke and underscores the danger of the Ssi-Ruuk if they get into the greater galaxy with this technology. The Ssi-ruuk themselves cannot sense the Force, but they know of it through a captured human, Dev Sibwarra, who is Force-sensitive but untrained (his mother was killed by the Ssi-ruuk) and has been brainwashed into furthering the Ssi-ruuvi agenda. On a personal level, Luke finds himself consistently distracted by one of Bakura's senators, Gaeriel Captison, and by the nascent attraction forming between them, despite her religious objections to the Jedi Order. Princess Leia and Han Solo also struggle to find some time together and hash out their newly-formed relationship. Leia, putting diplomatic feelers out into a world that 'joined' the Empire only three years ago, discovers that Bakura chafes under Imperial rule \u2014 as do some of the Imperials, notably ranking officer Commander Pter Thanas \u2014 though Imperial governor Wilek Nereus is too crafty to let dissension spread too far. Finally, Leia must find a way to cope with the revelation given to her on Endor \u2014 that Darth Vader is actually her father, Anakin Skywalker \u2014 when she is visited by his spirit, who begs for her forgiveness. In the end, Nereus attempts to turn Luke over to the Ssi-ruuk in exchange for their retreat, but though the kidnapping succeeds, Luke manages to fight them off and escape. He is also able to free Dev of his brainwashing and decides to take him on as an apprentice, but Dev is injured during the escape and later dies of his wounds. The joint Rebel-Imperial force turns back the Ssi-ruuk, and during the chaos, Bakuran resistance cells overthrow Nereus; in his absence, Bakura decides to join the Rebel Alliance. Commander Thanas defects as well, although he first destroys the Rebel cruiser-carrier Flurry. New Republic Intelligence later referred to the battle as the \"Bakura Incident\", and believed that it would be best if the New Republic attempted to prevent widespread public knowledge of the Ssi-Ruuk, advice that was taken controversially at best. In addition, Luke finally makes his breakthrough with Gaeriel, though he must shortly leave her when the Alliance forces depart at the end of the novel, to continue the ongoing fight against the Empire.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " While recovering from their victory against the Empire at Endor, the Rebel Alliance intercepts an Imperial probe containing a distress call for the Emperor. The message details a lizardlike race of aliens invading the Outer Rim planet Bakura. With Palpatine dead and the Imperial Navy scattered, Luke Skywalker volunteers to lead a force to intercept the alien invasion and save Bakura. Upon arrival, the Rebel Alliance forces ally with the remnants of the Imperial garrison to repel an invasion by the reptilian Ssi-Ruuk race under the Ssi-ruuvi Imperium, which seeks to establish a beachhead in the larger galaxy. The Ssi-Ruuk seek to harvest a supply of life forms, whose life energies power their advanced technology through a process known as entechment. The Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker especially intrigues the Ssi-Ruuk, because they believe his Force powers could allow the Ssi-ruuk to entech beings from a distance. Obi-Wan Kenobi appears to Luke and underscores the danger of the Ssi-Ruuk if they get into the greater galaxy with this technology. The Ssi-ruuk themselves cannot sense the Force, but they know of it through a captured human, Dev Sibwarra, who is Force-sensitive but untrained (his mother was killed by the Ssi-ruuk) and has been brainwashed into furthering the Ssi-ruuvi agenda. On a personal level, Luke finds himself consistently distracted by one of Bakura's senators, Gaeriel Captison, and by the nascent attraction forming between them, despite her religious objections to the Jedi Order. Princess Leia and Han Solo also struggle to find some time together and hash out their newly-formed relationship. Leia, putting diplomatic feelers out into a world that 'joined' the Empire only three years ago, discovers that Bakura chafes under Imperial rule \u2014 as do some of the Imperials, notably ranking officer Commander Pter Thanas \u2014"
      },
      {
        "text": " of Bakura's senators, Gaeriel Captison, and by the nascent attraction forming between them, despite her religious objections to the Jedi Order. Princess Leia and Han Solo also struggle to find some time together and hash out their newly-formed relationship. Leia, putting diplomatic feelers out into a world that 'joined' the Empire only three years ago, discovers that Bakura chafes under Imperial rule \u2014 as do some of the Imperials, notably ranking officer Commander Pter Thanas \u2014 though Imperial governor Wilek Nereus is too crafty to let dissension spread too far. Finally, Leia must find a way to cope with the revelation given to her on Endor \u2014 that Darth Vader is actually her father, Anakin Skywalker \u2014 when she is visited by his spirit, who begs for her forgiveness. In the end, Nereus attempts to turn Luke over to the Ssi-ruuk in exchange for their retreat, but though the kidnapping succeeds, Luke manages to fight them off and escape. He is also able to free Dev of his brainwashing and decides to take him on as an apprentice, but Dev is injured during the escape and later dies of his wounds. The joint Rebel-Imperial force turns back the Ssi-ruuk, and during the chaos, Bakuran resistance cells overthrow Nereus; in his absence, Bakura decides to join the Rebel Alliance. Commander Thanas defects as well, although he first destroys the Rebel cruiser-carrier Flurry. New Republic Intelligence later referred to the battle as the \"Bakura Incident\", and believed that it would be best if the New Republic attempted to prevent widespread public knowledge of the Ssi-Ruuk, advice that was taken controversially at best. In addition, Luke finally makes his breakthrough with Gaeriel, though he must shortly leave her when the Alliance forces depart at the end of the novel, to continue the ongoing fight against the Empire.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "rier Flurry. New Republic Intelligence later referred to the battle as the \"Bakura Incident\", and believed that it would be best if the New Republic attempted to prevent widespread public knowledge of the Ssi-Ruuk, advice that was taken controversially at best. In addition, Luke finally makes his breakthrough with Gaeriel, though he must shortly leave her when the Alliance forces depart at the end of the novel, to continue the ongoing fight against the Empire.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "An Enemy of the People",
    "author": "Henrik Ibsen",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Dr. Thomas Stockmann is a popular citizen of a small coastal town in Norway. The town has recently invested a large amount of public and private money towards the development of baths, a project led by Dr. Stockmann and his brother, Peter Stockmann, the Mayor. The town is expecting a surge in tourism and prosperity from the new baths, said to be of great medicinal value, and as such, the baths are a source of great local pride. However, just as the baths are proving successful, Dr. Stockmann discovers that waste products from the town's tannery are contaminating the waters, causing serious illness amongst the tourists. He expects this important discovery to be his greatest achievement, and promptly sends a detailed report to the Mayor, which includes a proposed solution which would come at a considerable cost to the town. To his surprise, Dr. Stockmann finds it difficult to get through to the authorities. They seem unable to appreciate the seriousness of the issue and unwilling to publicly acknowledge and address the problem because it could mean financial ruin for the town. As the conflict develops, the Mayor warns his brother that he should \"acquiesce in subordinating himself to the community.\" Dr. Stockmann refuses to accept this, and holds a town meeting at Captain Horster's house in order to persuade people that the baths must be closed. The townspeople \u2014 eagerly anticipating the prosperity that the baths will bring \u2014 refuse to accept Dr. Stockmann's claims, and his friends and allies, who had explicitly given support for his campaign, turn against him en masse. He is taunted and denounced as a lunatic, an \"Enemy of the People.\" In a scathing rebuttal of both the Victorian notion of community and the principles of democracy, Dr. Stockmann proclaims that in matters of right and wrong, the individual is superior to the multitude, which is easily led by self-advancing demagogues. Dr. Stockmann sums up Ibsen's denunciation of the masses, with the memorable quote \"...the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone.\" He also says: \"A minority may be right; a majority is always wrong.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Dr. Thomas Stockmann is a popular citizen of a small coastal town in Norway. The town has recently invested a large amount of public and private money towards the development of baths, a project led by Dr. Stockmann and his brother, Peter Stockmann, the Mayor. The town is expecting a surge in tourism and prosperity from the new baths, said to be of great medicinal value, and as such, the baths are a source of great local pride. However, just as the baths are proving successful, Dr. Stockmann discovers that waste products from the town's tannery are contaminating the waters, causing serious illness amongst the tourists. He expects this important discovery to be his greatest achievement, and promptly sends a detailed report to the Mayor, which includes a proposed solution which would come at a considerable cost to the town. To his surprise, Dr. Stockmann finds it difficult to get through to the authorities. They seem unable to appreciate the seriousness of the issue and unwilling to publicly acknowledge and address the problem because it could mean financial ruin for the town. As the conflict develops, the Mayor warns his brother that he should \"acquiesce in subordinating himself to the community.\" Dr. Stockmann refuses to accept this, and holds a town meeting at Captain Horster's house in order to persuade people that the baths must be closed. The townspeople \u2014 eagerly anticipating the prosperity that the baths will bring \u2014 refuse to accept Dr. Stockmann's claims, and his friends and allies, who had explicitly given support for his campaign, turn against him en masse. He is taunted and denounced as a lunatic, an \"Enemy of the People.\" In a scathing rebuttal of both the Victorian notion of community and the principles of democracy, Dr. Stockmann proclaims that in matters of right and wrong, the individual is superior to the multitude, which is easily led by self-advancing demagogues. Dr. Stockmann sums up Ibsen's denunciation"
      },
      {
        "text": ", who had explicitly given support for his campaign, turn against him en masse. He is taunted and denounced as a lunatic, an \"Enemy of the People.\" In a scathing rebuttal of both the Victorian notion of community and the principles of democracy, Dr. Stockmann proclaims that in matters of right and wrong, the individual is superior to the multitude, which is easily led by self-advancing demagogues. Dr. Stockmann sums up Ibsen's denunciation of the masses, with the memorable quote \"...the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone.\" He also says: \"A minority may be right; a majority is always wrong.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Scarecrow of Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1917",
    "synopsis": " Cap'n Bill, a sailor with a wooden peg-leg, and his friend, a little girl named Trot, set out from California on a calm day for a short ride in their row-boat. The calm day suddenly turns dark and stormy and Cap'n Bill and Trot are washed overboard and are carried by mermaids (referred to but not seen) to a cave where they meet an ostrich-like flying creature called an Ork. Flying on the Ork's back, the Ork, Cap'n Bill and Trot strain to arrive at an island where a grim man calling himself Pessim the Observer points out that the Ork should not have eaten the light lavender berries growing on the island. The light lavender berries cause a person to shrink, and the dark purple berries cause a person to grow. Once the Ork resumes normal size, Cap'n Bill and Trot leave the island to escape the Observer's negative attitude&mdash;which drove the people in his homeland to exile him here in the first place. To reduce the load on the Ork, Cap'n Bill and Trot each eat a light lavender berry so they are small enough to carry in Trot's bonnet. Flying away from the island, Cap'n Bill, Trot, and the Ork alight in the land of Mo, one of Baum's non-Oz creations. They meet the Bumpy Man, who specializes in serving sugar and molasses and has some of their appearance too. After dining on Mo rain (lemonade) and Mo snow (popcorn), they run into Button Bright, the sailor boy from The Road to Oz who has gotten lost again. Cap'n Bill calls down some of the native birds (who, like all birds in fairy countries, can talk back) and offers them the dark purple berries to make them grow large enough to carry himself, Trot, and Button-Bright (for the Ork can fly) to the land of Oz across the Deadly Desert to the north of them. When they make it across the desert, Button-Bright, Cap'n Bill, and Trot are set down in a field and the Ork leaves them to find his own country, which he got lost from on a routine flight. The place Button-Bright, Cap'n Bill, and Trot have arrived in, Jinxland, has had a turbulent recent history. The rightful king of Jinxland, King Kynd, was killed by his prime minister Phearse, who was in turn killed by his prime minister Krewl. Now King Krewl rules over the land and seeks to marry King Kynd's daughter, Princess Gloria, to legitimize his claim to the throne. However, she wants nothing to do with him or another suitor, Googly-Goo; she is in love with Pon, the current gardener who is the son of the first usurper Phearse. King Krewl and Googly-Goo decide that if neither of them can have Gloria, no one can, and hire a witch named Blinkie to freeze her heart so she can love no one. Cap'n Bill happens on this plot, and to keep him from interfering, Blinkie turns him into a grasshopper. The Scarecrow is at Glinda's palace in the Quadling Country and learns about these events from reading Glinda's Great Book of Records, a magical volume which transcribes every event in the world at the instant it happens. The Scarecrow wants to help Cap'n Bill, Button-Bright, and Trot, and Glinda sends him to Jinxland with some of her magic to aid him. The Scarecrow uses a magic thread to cross the gorge separating Jinxland from the rest of the Quadling Country, and before he meets Cap'n Bill and Trot, he encounters the Ork, who has found his homeland. The Scarecrow attempts to depose Krewl and is captured, with Googly-Goo suggesting the Scarecrow be burned, but then the Ork arrives with fifty others who attack the Jinxlanders and turn the tables on Krewl. The victorious party then arrives at Blinkie\u2019s and makes her undo her magic on Cap'n Bill and Princess Gloria by using a magic powder to shrink her in size. When she has undone her evil spells, the Scarecrow stops Blinkie's shrinking, but she remains at a small size and loses all her magic powers. Gloria takes the throne of Jinxland and elevates Pon to be her royal consort, and the Scarecrow, Button-Bright, Cap'n Bill, Trot, and the Orks return to the Emerald City for a celebration.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Cap'n Bill, a sailor with a wooden peg-leg, and his friend, a little girl named Trot, set out from California on a calm day for a short ride in their row-boat. The calm day suddenly turns dark and stormy and Cap'n Bill and Trot are washed overboard and are carried by mermaids (referred to but not seen) to a cave where they meet an ostrich-like flying creature called an Ork. Flying on the Ork's back, the Ork, Cap'n Bill and Trot strain to arrive at an island where a grim man calling himself Pessim the Observer points out that the Ork should not have eaten the light lavender berries growing on the island. The light lavender berries cause a person to shrink, and the dark purple berries cause a person to grow. Once the Ork resumes normal size, Cap'n Bill and Trot leave the island to escape the Observer's negative attitude&mdash;which drove the people in his homeland to exile him here in the first place. To reduce the load on the Ork, Cap'n Bill and Trot each eat a light lavender berry so they are small enough to carry in Trot's bonnet. Flying away from the island, Cap'n Bill, Trot, and the Ork alight in the land of Mo, one of Baum's non-Oz creations. They meet the Bumpy Man, who specializes in serving sugar and molasses and has some of their appearance too. After dining on Mo rain (lemonade) and Mo snow (popcorn), they run into Button Bright, the sailor boy from The Road to Oz who has gotten lost again. Cap'n Bill calls down some of the native birds (who, like all birds in fairy countries, can talk back) and offers them the dark purple berries to make them grow large enough to carry himself, Trot, and Button"
      },
      {
        "text": " who specializes in serving sugar and molasses and has some of their appearance too. After dining on Mo rain (lemonade) and Mo snow (popcorn), they run into Button Bright, the sailor boy from The Road to Oz who has gotten lost again. Cap'n Bill calls down some of the native birds (who, like all birds in fairy countries, can talk back) and offers them the dark purple berries to make them grow large enough to carry himself, Trot, and Button-Bright (for the Ork can fly) to the land of Oz across the Deadly Desert to the north of them. When they make it across the desert, Button-Bright, Cap'n Bill, and Trot are set down in a field and the Ork leaves them to find his own country, which he got lost from on a routine flight. The place Button-Bright, Cap'n Bill, and Trot have arrived in, Jinxland, has had a turbulent recent history. The rightful king of Jinxland, King Kynd, was killed by his prime minister Phearse, who was in turn killed by his prime minister Krewl. Now King Krewl rules over the land and seeks to marry King Kynd's daughter, Princess Gloria, to legitimize his claim to the throne. However, she wants nothing to do with him or another suitor, Googly-Goo; she is in love with Pon, the current gardener who is the son of the first usurper Phearse. King Krewl and Googly-Goo decide that if neither of them can have Gloria, no one can, and hire a witch named Blinkie to freeze her heart so she can love no one. Cap'n Bill happens on this plot, and to keep him from interfering, Blinkie turns him into a grasshopper. The Scarecrow is at Glinda's palace in the Quadling Country and learns about these events from"
      },
      {
        "text": " is the son of the first usurper Phearse. King Krewl and Googly-Goo decide that if neither of them can have Gloria, no one can, and hire a witch named Blinkie to freeze her heart so she can love no one. Cap'n Bill happens on this plot, and to keep him from interfering, Blinkie turns him into a grasshopper. The Scarecrow is at Glinda's palace in the Quadling Country and learns about these events from reading Glinda's Great Book of Records, a magical volume which transcribes every event in the world at the instant it happens. The Scarecrow wants to help Cap'n Bill, Button-Bright, and Trot, and Glinda sends him to Jinxland with some of her magic to aid him. The Scarecrow uses a magic thread to cross the gorge separating Jinxland from the rest of the Quadling Country, and before he meets Cap'n Bill and Trot, he encounters the Ork, who has found his homeland. The Scarecrow attempts to depose Krewl and is captured, with Googly-Goo suggesting the Scarecrow be burned, but then the Ork arrives with fifty others who attack the Jinxlanders and turn the tables on Krewl. The victorious party then arrives at Blinkie\u2019s and makes her undo her magic on Cap'n Bill and Princess Gloria by using a magic powder to shrink her in size. When she has undone her evil spells, the Scarecrow stops Blinkie's shrinking, but she remains at a small size and loses all her magic powers. Gloria takes the throne of Jinxland and elevates Pon to be her royal consort, and the Scarecrow, Button-Bright, Cap'n Bill, Trot, and the Orks return to the Emerald City for a celebration.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " has undone her evil spells, the Scarecrow stops Blinkie's shrinking, but she remains at a small size and loses all her magic powers. Gloria takes the throne of Jinxland and elevates Pon to be her royal consort, and the Scarecrow, Button-Bright, Cap'n Bill, Trot, and the Orks return to the Emerald City for a celebration.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Genius and the Goddess",
    "author": "Aldous Huxley",
    "published_date": "1955-12",
    "synopsis": " The story begins in 1951. John Rivers is speaking to a friend about his encounter with the Maartens family. In 1921, Rivers, who was extremely sheltered by his widowed mother, is employed as a lab assistant to Henry Maartens, after receiving his PhD. Dr. Maartens is a Nobel Prize winning, socially awkward physicist. Rivers is invited to live in Henry's home until he finds his own place, but the Maartens family soon develops a fondness for Rivers, and insists that he stay with them. Rivers develops respect and fondness for the family, regarding Henry as a genius and his wife Katy as a goddess. As his attraction towards Katy grows, Rivers is simultaneously victimized by her 15-year-old daughter Ruth. After being rejected by a 17-year-old football player and scholarship winner, Ruth tries to be a dramatic poetess. She fantasizes that she is in love with Rivers to find solace and an outlet for her emotions. Rivers' experience with the Maartens family takes an important turn when Katy has to leave for a time to care for her dying mother. The unstable, asthmatic Henry becomes an emotional wreck without his much younger wife to care for him. The children, the household, and Henry himself are cared for only by the housekeeper Beluah and Rivers. Ruth takes advantage of her mother's absence to entertain her cosmetic interests and act out her imaginary love for Rivers, who just laughs at Ruth\u2019s poems. Katy returns sooner than planned because of Henry's declining health. She herself has so much vitality that she cannot minister Henry any longer. Learning of her mother's death, Katy turns to Rivers for comfort. Their relationship becomes sexual. Having lost his virginity, Rivers feels guilt for betraying his mother and pious background, and also for betraying his sick master Henry Maartens. As Henry recovers, Katy and Rivers continue their affair secretly. Ruth suspects Rivers of being in love with her mother, and presents him with a poem that subtly describes his affair with her mother. Rivers laughs off the poem, says that it reminds him of his father's sermons, and hides his true emotions. Katy and Rivers agree that he must leave. Rivers prepares to leave, saying that his mother is ill, but Katy and Ruth die in a car accident. Rivers is dejected and only recovers because he meets Helen, his future wife, at a party. Henry lives on and marries Katy's sister, who dies due to her obesity. After her death, Henry Maartens has a last and fourth marriage to a young redhead named Alicia. Henry dies at the age of 87. The story ends with Rivers, having Henry\u2019s biography and the memories of his life at the Maartens'.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins in 1951. John Rivers is speaking to a friend about his encounter with the Maartens family. In 1921, Rivers, who was extremely sheltered by his widowed mother, is employed as a lab assistant to Henry Maartens, after receiving his PhD. Dr. Maartens is a Nobel Prize winning, socially awkward physicist. Rivers is invited to live in Henry's home until he finds his own place, but the Maartens family soon develops a fondness for Rivers, and insists that he stay with them. Rivers develops respect and fondness for the family, regarding Henry as a genius and his wife Katy as a goddess. As his attraction towards Katy grows, Rivers is simultaneously victimized by her 15-year-old daughter Ruth. After being rejected by a 17-year-old football player and scholarship winner, Ruth tries to be a dramatic poetess. She fantasizes that she is in love with Rivers to find solace and an outlet for her emotions. Rivers' experience with the Maartens family takes an important turn when Katy has to leave for a time to care for her dying mother. The unstable, asthmatic Henry becomes an emotional wreck without his much younger wife to care for him. The children, the household, and Henry himself are cared for only by the housekeeper Beluah and Rivers. Ruth takes advantage of her mother's absence to entertain her cosmetic interests and act out her imaginary love for Rivers, who just laughs at Ruth\u2019s poems. Katy returns sooner than planned because of Henry's declining health. She herself has so much vitality that she cannot minister Henry any longer. Learning of her mother's death, Katy turns to Rivers for comfort. Their relationship becomes sexual. Having lost his virginity, Rivers feels guilt for betraying his mother and pious background, and also for betraying his sick master Henry Maartens. As Henry recovers, Katy and Rivers continue their affair secretly. Ruth suspects Rivers of being in love with her mother,"
      },
      {
        "text": " poems. Katy returns sooner than planned because of Henry's declining health. She herself has so much vitality that she cannot minister Henry any longer. Learning of her mother's death, Katy turns to Rivers for comfort. Their relationship becomes sexual. Having lost his virginity, Rivers feels guilt for betraying his mother and pious background, and also for betraying his sick master Henry Maartens. As Henry recovers, Katy and Rivers continue their affair secretly. Ruth suspects Rivers of being in love with her mother, and presents him with a poem that subtly describes his affair with her mother. Rivers laughs off the poem, says that it reminds him of his father's sermons, and hides his true emotions. Katy and Rivers agree that he must leave. Rivers prepares to leave, saying that his mother is ill, but Katy and Ruth die in a car accident. Rivers is dejected and only recovers because he meets Helen, his future wife, at a party. Henry lives on and marries Katy's sister, who dies due to her obesity. After her death, Henry Maartens has a last and fourth marriage to a young redhead named Alicia. Henry dies at the age of 87. The story ends with Rivers, having Henry\u2019s biography and the memories of his life at the Maartens'.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Balance Point",
    "author": "Kathy Tyers",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " On the planet Duro, a new galactic refugee settlement close to the Core, Jacen Solo has a horrifying vision through the Force about the fate of the galaxy. Amidst the invasion by the Yuuzhan Vong, anger and darkness will become the ultimate enemy of one pivotal individual in the war. And if Jacen embraces such evil, then the galaxy will fall. In order to avoid such catastrophe, Jacen decides to turn his back on the Force forever. However, even in the terror of the Vong's continued invasion of the galaxy, a ray of hope shines in the conceiving of Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker's child. Duro eventually becomes the next target of the Yuuzhan Vong. Though the conquest of the world is successful, Jacen, in a bid to save his mother, Leia, from certain doom, confronts the Vong Warmaster Tsavong Lah in combat, embraces the Force once more, and defeats him. The Skywalkers, the Solos, and several of their friends and allies flee Duro in its loss. And to make things worse, in the aftermath of his humiliation by Jacen, Tsavong Lah makes an ultimatum to the rest of the galaxy: If every single member of the Jedi are brought to the Yuuzhan Vong, especially Jacen, then the invaders will settle with Duro and conclude their invasion with what worlds they already have.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On the planet Duro, a new galactic refugee settlement close to the Core, Jacen Solo has a horrifying vision through the Force about the fate of the galaxy. Amidst the invasion by the Yuuzhan Vong, anger and darkness will become the ultimate enemy of one pivotal individual in the war. And if Jacen embraces such evil, then the galaxy will fall. In order to avoid such catastrophe, Jacen decides to turn his back on the Force forever. However, even in the terror of the Vong's continued invasion of the galaxy, a ray of hope shines in the conceiving of Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker's child. Duro eventually becomes the next target of the Yuuzhan Vong. Though the conquest of the world is successful, Jacen, in a bid to save his mother, Leia, from certain doom, confronts the Vong Warmaster Tsavong Lah in combat, embraces the Force once more, and defeats him. The Skywalkers, the Solos, and several of their friends and allies flee Duro in its loss. And to make things worse, in the aftermath of his humiliation by Jacen, Tsavong Lah makes an ultimatum to the rest of the galaxy: If every single member of the Jedi are brought to the Yuuzhan Vong, especially Jacen, then the invaders will settle with Duro and conclude their invasion with what worlds they already have.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Old Capital",
    "author": "Yasunari Kawabata",
    "published_date": "1962",
    "synopsis": " Chieko Sada is the daughter of Takichiro and Shige, who operate a kimono wholesale business in Kyoto. Now twenty, Chieko has known since she was in middle school that she was a foundling adopted by Takichiro and Shige. However, as told by Shige, they snatched Chieko when she was a baby \"Under the cherry blossoms at night at Gion Shrine\". The discrepancy on whether Chieko was a foundling or stolen is part of the plot and is revealed later in the story. Soon after a chance encounter at Yasaka Shrine, Chieko learns of a twin sister Naeko, who had remained in her home village in Kitayama working in the mountain forests north of the city. The identical looks of Chieko and Naeko confuse Hideo, a traditional weaver, who is a potential suitor of Chieko. The novel, one of the last that Kawabata completed before his death, examines themes common to much of his literature: the gulf between the sexes and the anxiety its recognition brings. The story is set in Kyoto, and incorporates various festivals celebrated there. One of these is the Gion festival which occurs in the book during July. As part of the Gion festival, there is a parade of floats constructed by various neighborhoods in Kyoto and one of Chieko fond memories is of Shin'ichi, who is interested in Chieko, participating as a festival boy. The Festival of the Ages is another important festival and this is where Hideo takes Chieko's twin, Naeko, to view the parade.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Chieko Sada is the daughter of Takichiro and Shige, who operate a kimono wholesale business in Kyoto. Now twenty, Chieko has known since she was in middle school that she was a foundling adopted by Takichiro and Shige. However, as told by Shige, they snatched Chieko when she was a baby \"Under the cherry blossoms at night at Gion Shrine\". The discrepancy on whether Chieko was a foundling or stolen is part of the plot and is revealed later in the story. Soon after a chance encounter at Yasaka Shrine, Chieko learns of a twin sister Naeko, who had remained in her home village in Kitayama working in the mountain forests north of the city. The identical looks of Chieko and Naeko confuse Hideo, a traditional weaver, who is a potential suitor of Chieko. The novel, one of the last that Kawabata completed before his death, examines themes common to much of his literature: the gulf between the sexes and the anxiety its recognition brings. The story is set in Kyoto, and incorporates various festivals celebrated there. One of these is the Gion festival which occurs in the book during July. As part of the Gion festival, there is a parade of floats constructed by various neighborhoods in Kyoto and one of Chieko fond memories is of Shin'ichi, who is interested in Chieko, participating as a festival boy. The Festival of the Ages is another important festival and this is where Hideo takes Chieko's twin, Naeko, to view the parade.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " boy. The Festival of the Ages is another important festival and this is where Hideo takes Chieko's twin, Naeko, to view the parade.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Destiny's Way",
    "author": "Walter Jon Williams",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Jacen Solo, son of Han Solo and Princess Leia, has escaped from the Yuuzhan Vong with the aid of a Jedi Master from the time of the Old Republic, Vergere. Besides making cryptic references to Jacen's destiny, Vergere also reveals that she has spent the last fifty years with the Yuuzhan Vong in order to save the living world of Zonama Sekot, as well as to gather intelligence on the Vong themselves. Meanwhile, Han and Leia Organa Solo were visiting the Imperial Remnant, trying to coax it into allying with the New Republic. Though the Remnant's leader, Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, refuses the offer, he does give them the locations of the Galactic Empire's old hideaways in the deep core in order to help the Republic's war against the Yuuzhan Vong. In exchange, the Solos offer information on Yuuzhan Vong technology, especially the yammosks. A new government is forming on Mon Calamari after the fall of Coruscant. Luke Skywalker wants to prevent an anti-Jedi government from forming, so his friends in the Smugglers' Alliance blackmail the majority of New Republic Senators into voting for Jedi-supporting Senator Cal Omas rather than the anti-Jedi Fyor Rodan. Luke inducts nine Jedi Knights into the new Jedi order he is forming, among them Jacen, his sister Jaina Solo, and the new Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka. The New Republic forces, now assembled on the water world of Mon Calamari, plan their next attack on the Yuuzhan Vong with the aid of the now-retired Admiral Ackbar. However, some elements in the New Republic are desperate enough\u2014the Bothans especially\u2014to make the war against the Yuuzhan Vong one of extermination as well as victory. One method meant to accomplish such a task is through Alpha Red, a biological virus developed by New Republic agent Dif Scaur and Chiss scientists that had been successfully tested to eliminate anyone and anything with Yuuzhan Vong DNA. When word of Alpha Red got out, Vergere was able to infiltrate security and use the chemical compounds she manufactured through the Force, residing in her system, to transform Alpha Red into something harmless. Until Alpha Red can be concocted into something lethal against the Yuuzhan Vong again, it is ruled out as an option to use against the galactic invaders. The success of the operation against Ebaq 9, a long-neglected world on a former Imperial trade route, leads the Yuuzhan Vong into a trap that halts their advance by killing nearly every warrior who went to Ebaq, including Warmaster Tsavong Lah, who died in combat against Jaina Solo. Vergere sacrifices herself to save Jacen from the Vong by plowing a stolen A-wing into Ebaq 9's surface. In the aftermath of the Battle of Ebaq 9, the New Republic is reformed into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, or the Galactic Alliance for short. The Yuuzhan Vong agent provocateur Nom Anor, who suggested the assault on Ebaq 9, is obliged to give his life for his plan's failure, but he disguises himself and hides beneath Yuuzhan'tar's (formerly Coruscant's) streets.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Jacen Solo, son of Han Solo and Princess Leia, has escaped from the Yuuzhan Vong with the aid of a Jedi Master from the time of the Old Republic, Vergere. Besides making cryptic references to Jacen's destiny, Vergere also reveals that she has spent the last fifty years with the Yuuzhan Vong in order to save the living world of Zonama Sekot, as well as to gather intelligence on the Vong themselves. Meanwhile, Han and Leia Organa Solo were visiting the Imperial Remnant, trying to coax it into allying with the New Republic. Though the Remnant's leader, Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, refuses the offer, he does give them the locations of the Galactic Empire's old hideaways in the deep core in order to help the Republic's war against the Yuuzhan Vong. In exchange, the Solos offer information on Yuuzhan Vong technology, especially the yammosks. A new government is forming on Mon Calamari after the fall of Coruscant. Luke Skywalker wants to prevent an anti-Jedi government from forming, so his friends in the Smugglers' Alliance blackmail the majority of New Republic Senators into voting for Jedi-supporting Senator Cal Omas rather than the anti-Jedi Fyor Rodan. Luke inducts nine Jedi Knights into the new Jedi order he is forming, among them Jacen, his sister Jaina Solo, and the new Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka. The New Republic forces, now assembled on the water world of Mon Calamari, plan their next attack on the Yuuzhan Vong with the aid of the now-retired Admiral Ackbar. However, some elements in the New Republic are desperate enough\u2014the Bothans especially\u2014to make the war against the Yuuzhan Vong one of extermination as well as victory. One method meant to accomplish such a task is through Alpha Red, a biological virus"
      },
      {
        "text": "apan Queen Mother Tenel Ka. The New Republic forces, now assembled on the water world of Mon Calamari, plan their next attack on the Yuuzhan Vong with the aid of the now-retired Admiral Ackbar. However, some elements in the New Republic are desperate enough\u2014the Bothans especially\u2014to make the war against the Yuuzhan Vong one of extermination as well as victory. One method meant to accomplish such a task is through Alpha Red, a biological virus developed by New Republic agent Dif Scaur and Chiss scientists that had been successfully tested to eliminate anyone and anything with Yuuzhan Vong DNA. When word of Alpha Red got out, Vergere was able to infiltrate security and use the chemical compounds she manufactured through the Force, residing in her system, to transform Alpha Red into something harmless. Until Alpha Red can be concocted into something lethal against the Yuuzhan Vong again, it is ruled out as an option to use against the galactic invaders. The success of the operation against Ebaq 9, a long-neglected world on a former Imperial trade route, leads the Yuuzhan Vong into a trap that halts their advance by killing nearly every warrior who went to Ebaq, including Warmaster Tsavong Lah, who died in combat against Jaina Solo. Vergere sacrifices herself to save Jacen from the Vong by plowing a stolen A-wing into Ebaq 9's surface. In the aftermath of the Battle of Ebaq 9, the New Republic is reformed into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, or the Galactic Alliance for short. The Yuuzhan Vong agent provocateur Nom Anor, who suggested the assault on Ebaq 9, is obliged to give his life for his plan's failure, but he disguises himself and hides beneath Yuuzhan'tar's (formerly Coruscant's) streets.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " the aftermath of the Battle of Ebaq 9, the New Republic is reformed into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, or the Galactic Alliance for short. The Yuuzhan Vong agent provocateur Nom Anor, who suggested the assault on Ebaq 9, is obliged to give his life for his plan's failure, but he disguises himself and hides beneath Yuuzhan'tar's (formerly Coruscant's) streets.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Timequake",
    "author": "Kurt Vonnegut",
    "published_date": "1997",
    "synopsis": " Vonnegut uses the premise of a timequake (or repetition of actions) in which there is no free will. The idea of determinism is explored\u2014as it is in many of his previous works\u2014to assert that people really have no free will. Kilgore Trout serves again as the main character, who the author declares as having died in 2001, at Xanadu retreat in Rhode Island. Vonnegut explains in the beginning of the book that he was not satisfied with the original version of Timequake he wrote (or Timequake One). Taking parts of Timequake One and combining it with personal thoughts and anecdotes produced the finished product, so-called Timequake Two. Many of the anecdotes deal with Vonnegut's family, the death of loved ones, and people's last words. The plot, while centered on Trout, is also a sort of ramble in which Vonnegut goes off on complete tangents to the plot and comes back dozens of pages later: the Timequake has thrust citizens of the year 2001 back in time to 1991 to repeat every action they undertook during that time. Most of the small stories in the book expound on the depression and sadness wrought by watching oneself make bad choices: people watch their parents die again, drive drunk or cause accidents that severely injure others. At the end of the timequake, when people resume control, they are depressed and gripped by ennui. Kilgore Trout is the only one not affected by the apathy, and thus helps revive others by telling them, \"You were sick, but now you're well, and there's work to do.\" In the conclusion of this book, Vonnegut (who has inserted himself into the text, something he also did in Breakfast of Champions and, to a lesser degree, in Slaughterhouse-Five) meets other authors for a celebration of Trout. The celebration, described as a \"clambake,\" is heavily foreshadowed throughout the novel's previous chapters.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Vonnegut uses the premise of a timequake (or repetition of actions) in which there is no free will. The idea of determinism is explored\u2014as it is in many of his previous works\u2014to assert that people really have no free will. Kilgore Trout serves again as the main character, who the author declares as having died in 2001, at Xanadu retreat in Rhode Island. Vonnegut explains in the beginning of the book that he was not satisfied with the original version of Timequake he wrote (or Timequake One). Taking parts of Timequake One and combining it with personal thoughts and anecdotes produced the finished product, so-called Timequake Two. Many of the anecdotes deal with Vonnegut's family, the death of loved ones, and people's last words. The plot, while centered on Trout, is also a sort of ramble in which Vonnegut goes off on complete tangents to the plot and comes back dozens of pages later: the Timequake has thrust citizens of the year 2001 back in time to 1991 to repeat every action they undertook during that time. Most of the small stories in the book expound on the depression and sadness wrought by watching oneself make bad choices: people watch their parents die again, drive drunk or cause accidents that severely injure others. At the end of the timequake, when people resume control, they are depressed and gripped by ennui. Kilgore Trout is the only one not affected by the apathy, and thus helps revive others by telling them, \"You were sick, but now you're well, and there's work to do.\" In the conclusion of this book, Vonnegut (who has inserted himself into the text, something he also did in Breakfast of Champions and, to a lesser degree, in Slaughterhouse-Five) meets other authors for a celebration of Trout. The celebration, described as a \"clambake,\" is heavily foreshadow"
      },
      {
        "text": " only one not affected by the apathy, and thus helps revive others by telling them, \"You were sick, but now you're well, and there's work to do.\" In the conclusion of this book, Vonnegut (who has inserted himself into the text, something he also did in Breakfast of Champions and, to a lesser degree, in Slaughterhouse-Five) meets other authors for a celebration of Trout. The celebration, described as a \"clambake,\" is heavily foreshadowed throughout the novel's previous chapters.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Neverending Story",
    "author": "Michael Ende",
    "published_date": "1979",
    "synopsis": " The book centers on a boy, Bastian Balthazar Bux, who is neglected by his father (who has sunken into despair after his wife's death) and is bullied by his schoolmates. Whilst running from some of them, Bastian bursts into the antique book store of Carl Conrad Coreander. Bastian steals a book from the store called The Neverending Story which Coreander has been reading; he hides in his school's attic, where he proceeds to read the story through the rest of the day and the night, not realizing that he has effectively become a part of it. After a while of reading he is magically transfixed and is brought into the book. The book begins in Fantastica, when a \"will-o'-the-wisp\" goes to ask the Childlike Empress for help against the Nothing, which is spreading over the land. The Empress is ill, which is believed to be the cause of the Nothing (or vice versa); she sends the only person that can stop the Nothing, a boy warrior named Atreyu, to find a cure for her. Atreyu is a brave person, being considered a warrior even though he is a young boy of Bastian's age. While on his quest, Atreyu meets characters such as Morla the Aged One, the incorporeal oracle Uyulala, and the gnomes Urgl and Engywook. Atreyu also meets Falkor, the luckdragon, who helps him along the way. After Atreyu and Falkor get in the way of a fight of the Wind Giants, Atreyu gets thrown off Falkor's back and ends up in Spook City, Atreyu meets Gmork the werewolf, who has been following Atreyu since the early days of his quest, intending to kill him. In the course of his quest, Atreyu learns about the true nature of Fantastica and the Nothing: Fantastica is a representation of the dreams and fantasies of the real world; the Nothing and the sickness of the Childlike Empress are the effects of the lies humans use in their greed for power; it is the denial of dreams and fantasy which is destroying Fantastica. The only thing that can save Fantastica is a human child, who must give the Childlike Empress a new name to start again the cycle of life in Fantastica. Falkor and Atreyu return to the Ivory Tower, where the Childlike Empress lives. But since Bastian, in his lack of confidence, hesitates to take the step into Fantastica, the Childlike Empress confronts him with the fact that whatever he may think, he has already become part of the Neverending Story, and he must carry out his part in it. And Bastian does so by crying out the name he has chosen for the Empress: 'Moonchild'. Bastian comes to Fantastica and meets the Empress; she asks him to help re-build Fantastica with his imagination, and he subsequently has many adventures of his own in his new world. With the help of AURYN, a medallion that links him to the Empress, that gives him power over all the inhabitants of Fantastica and grants all of the boy's wishes, Bastian explores the Desert of Colors, battles the evil witch Xayide, and meets the three Deep Thinkers. Bastian and Atreyu become friends. However, due to Bastian's continuous wishing with the The Gem - which costs a memory each time - he begins to lose his true self, to wit, Atreyu becomes increasingly more worried about him. Xayide exploits the growing tension between the two, driving Bastian to a lust for power and eventually having himself crowned as Childlike Emperor. Atreyu leads a rebellion against Bastian, but narrowly escapes with his life. Upon pursuing Atreyu, Bastian stumbled on a colony of humans who were trapped in Fantastica - having lost all their memories as they had recklessly indulged in the power of Auryn - and realizes what has nearly become of himself. Bastian sets out to find the only thing he can wish for without losing himself: his own true wish. After Bastian loses his remaining memories, he is aided by Atreyu in fulfilling his one true wish, and manages to cure his father at the same time. After returning from Fantastica, he decides to return the book to its rightful owner, Carl Conrad Coreander, but the book has gone missing upon his return to the human world. However, Mr. Coreander reveals he has also been to Fantastica once, and the two readily agree to see each other soon and talk about their respective experiences. But as Coreander surmises, this is not the true end of the story, as Bastian is now likely to lead others onto their way to Fantastica in order to preserve both worlds.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book centers on a boy, Bastian Balthazar Bux, who is neglected by his father (who has sunken into despair after his wife's death) and is bullied by his schoolmates. Whilst running from some of them, Bastian bursts into the antique book store of Carl Conrad Coreander. Bastian steals a book from the store called The Neverending Story which Coreander has been reading; he hides in his school's attic, where he proceeds to read the story through the rest of the day and the night, not realizing that he has effectively become a part of it. After a while of reading he is magically transfixed and is brought into the book. The book begins in Fantastica, when a \"will-o'-the-wisp\" goes to ask the Childlike Empress for help against the Nothing, which is spreading over the land. The Empress is ill, which is believed to be the cause of the Nothing (or vice versa); she sends the only person that can stop the Nothing, a boy warrior named Atreyu, to find a cure for her. Atreyu is a brave person, being considered a warrior even though he is a young boy of Bastian's age. While on his quest, Atreyu meets characters such as Morla the Aged One, the incorporeal oracle Uyulala, and the gnomes Urgl and Engywook. Atreyu also meets Falkor, the luckdragon, who helps him along the way. After Atreyu and Falkor get in the way of a fight of the Wind Giants, Atreyu gets thrown off Falkor's back and ends up in Spook City, Atreyu meets Gmork the werewolf, who has been following Atreyu since the early days of his quest, intending to kill him. In the course of his quest, Atreyu learns about the true nature of Fantastica and the Nothing: Fantastic"
      },
      {
        "text": "dragon, who helps him along the way. After Atreyu and Falkor get in the way of a fight of the Wind Giants, Atreyu gets thrown off Falkor's back and ends up in Spook City, Atreyu meets Gmork the werewolf, who has been following Atreyu since the early days of his quest, intending to kill him. In the course of his quest, Atreyu learns about the true nature of Fantastica and the Nothing: Fantastica is a representation of the dreams and fantasies of the real world; the Nothing and the sickness of the Childlike Empress are the effects of the lies humans use in their greed for power; it is the denial of dreams and fantasy which is destroying Fantastica. The only thing that can save Fantastica is a human child, who must give the Childlike Empress a new name to start again the cycle of life in Fantastica. Falkor and Atreyu return to the Ivory Tower, where the Childlike Empress lives. But since Bastian, in his lack of confidence, hesitates to take the step into Fantastica, the Childlike Empress confronts him with the fact that whatever he may think, he has already become part of the Neverending Story, and he must carry out his part in it. And Bastian does so by crying out the name he has chosen for the Empress: 'Moonchild'. Bastian comes to Fantastica and meets the Empress; she asks him to help re-build Fantastica with his imagination, and he subsequently has many adventures of his own in his new world. With the help of AURYN, a medallion that links him to the Empress, that gives him power over all the inhabitants of Fantastica and grants all of the boy's wishes, Bastian explores the Desert of Colors, battles the evil witch Xayide, and meets the three Deep Thinkers. Bastian and Atreyu become friends. However, due to Bastian"
      },
      {
        "text": " re-build Fantastica with his imagination, and he subsequently has many adventures of his own in his new world. With the help of AURYN, a medallion that links him to the Empress, that gives him power over all the inhabitants of Fantastica and grants all of the boy's wishes, Bastian explores the Desert of Colors, battles the evil witch Xayide, and meets the three Deep Thinkers. Bastian and Atreyu become friends. However, due to Bastian's continuous wishing with the The Gem - which costs a memory each time - he begins to lose his true self, to wit, Atreyu becomes increasingly more worried about him. Xayide exploits the growing tension between the two, driving Bastian to a lust for power and eventually having himself crowned as Childlike Emperor. Atreyu leads a rebellion against Bastian, but narrowly escapes with his life. Upon pursuing Atreyu, Bastian stumbled on a colony of humans who were trapped in Fantastica - having lost all their memories as they had recklessly indulged in the power of Auryn - and realizes what has nearly become of himself. Bastian sets out to find the only thing he can wish for without losing himself: his own true wish. After Bastian loses his remaining memories, he is aided by Atreyu in fulfilling his one true wish, and manages to cure his father at the same time. After returning from Fantastica, he decides to return the book to its rightful owner, Carl Conrad Coreander, but the book has gone missing upon his return to the human world. However, Mr. Coreander reveals he has also been to Fantastica once, and the two readily agree to see each other soon and talk about their respective experiences. But as Coreander surmises, this is not the true end of the story, as Bastian is now likely to lead others onto their way to Fantastica in order to preserve both worlds.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " its rightful owner, Carl Conrad Coreander, but the book has gone missing upon his return to the human world. However, Mr. Coreander reveals he has also been to Fantastica once, and the two readily agree to see each other soon and talk about their respective experiences. But as Coreander surmises, this is not the true end of the story, as Bastian is now likely to lead others onto their way to Fantastica in order to preserve both worlds.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Chosen",
    "author": "Chaim Potok",
    "published_date": "1967-06",
    "synopsis": " The Chosen is set in the mid-Twentieth Century, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City. The story takes place over a period of six years, beginning in 1944 when the protagonists are fifteen years old. It is set against the backdrop of the historical events of the time: the death of President Roosevelt, the end of World War II, the revelation of the Holocaust in Europe, and the struggle for the creation of the state of Israel. In Chap. 1: Reuven and Danny meet for the first time as rivals in a softball game between their school teams that turns into a spiritual war. Danny's batting style is such that the ball is sent speeding back up the middle of the field, and so he receives a reputation of trying to kill pitchers. Angered by unsuccessful attempts to hit Reuven's previous pitches, Danny hits a line drive toward Reuven, shattering his glasses and sending him to the hospital with an injured eye. While recovering from his injuries, Danny visits Reuven and apologizes and the two become best friends over time despite the difference between their cultures. Reuven learns that Danny's father, a respected Rabbi, only talks to Danny during religious conversations - Danny is being brought up 'in silence'. Reuven also learns Danny's deepest secret: he wishes to become a psychologist rather than a rabbi as his father wants. The only people who know about this are Reuven and a man who has been offering Danny advice, revealed to be Reuven's father. Reuven comes to experience the pain of silence himself, while the two young men are in college together. Though accepted as family after he stays with the Saunderses while his father is recovering at the hospital, he incurs Reb Saunders's wrath when he speaks favorably of the struggle to establish a secular Jewish nation in Palestine, which Saunders vehemently opposes. When Mr. Malter makes a speech at a pro-Israel rally that makes the newspapers, Saunders forbids his son to speak to Reuven, or even mention his name. (Danny breaks this order once, to let Reuven know, but tells him \"I won't go against my father. I won't!\") The ban lasts for two years, during which time Reuven experiences anguish, rage, and depression (particularly after his father suffers a second heart attack), before learning to cope with being alone. Their friendship resumes after modern Israel is founded; Danny explains to Reuven that Reb Saunders has relented, since the new nation is \"no longer an issue; it's a fact.\" Reuven finds that Danny has come to terms with the silence imposed by his father, having discovered that silence can be a teacher, and a source of beauty as well as pain. Danny himself waits in fear for the day following graduation, when he must tell his father that he does not wish to succeed him. (Reb Saunders already knows this to be true, after Danny receives an acceptance letter from Columbia University.) Reuven again finds himself a buffer between father and son when, in the novel's climax, the two friends learn Reb Saunders's purpose for raising his son in silence: Reb Saunders had discovered early on that his son's dawning intelligence was far outstripping his sense of compassion for others. He wanted his son to understand the meaning of pain, so he shut him out emotionally. Finding the grown-up Danny indeed has a heart, and cares deeply about other people, Reb Saunders is willing to give his blessing to Danny's dream of studying psychology. \"He will be a tzadik for the world,\" Reb Saunders tells Reuven. Saunders then finally, after many years, truly talks to Danny, asking him to forgive him for the pain he caused, bringing him up as he did. The words finally spoken, he leaves the room, and both boys burst into tears. Danny visits Reuven on his way to Columbia University, his Hasidic locks shorn and his clothing up to date. Reuven has definitely decided he wants to be a rabbi, and is going on to study at a yeshiva. Danny tells Reuven that his younger brother Levi will take his place as his father's successor, and his own relationship with Reb Saunders has completely changed. \"We talk now,\" he says quietly. Danny is finally set free, and Reuven and Danny taste profoundly the pain in life, and the consolation of deep friendship. Danny goes on to study psychology. Danny: Danny's phenomenal mind compels him to seek knowledge other than that permitted by his father, and he spends his spare time reading voraciously in secret in the public library. (Danny tells Reuven about an older man he met there who has been recommending books for him to read; both are astonished when the man turns out to be Reuven's own father.) Danny does not want to inherit his father's position as leader of their sect, as is expected of him; he desires instead to become a psychologist. He learns to read German just to read a book by Freud. Another great conflict in his life is that his father does not speak to him, except when they study Jewish law together; this has been so since he was about ten, when his father told him not to come to him about problems anymore. Reb Saunders: Reb Saunders welcomes Reuven as his son's friend, even though he disapproves of his father's work. \"You think it is easy to be a friend?\" Reb Saunders says to Reuven when they first meet. \"If you are truly his friend, you will learn otherwise.\" Reuven does learn as he is put in the position of being a buffer between father and son. Reb Saunders forces Reuven into a position to tell him of his son's secular studies even though Reb Saunders had known about it for a while already. Reuven impresses Reb Saunders by his understanding of Jewish law and tradition. Reb Saunders impresses Reuven in turn, as Reuven sees the important role he plays to the people of his congregation. He raised his son in silence, which allowed him to learn to find his soul. He was a very difficult man to understand, but a great one at that.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The Chosen is set in the mid-Twentieth Century, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City. The story takes place over a period of six years, beginning in 1944 when the protagonists are fifteen years old. It is set against the backdrop of the historical events of the time: the death of President Roosevelt, the end of World War II, the revelation of the Holocaust in Europe, and the struggle for the creation of the state of Israel. In Chap. 1: Reuven and Danny meet for the first time as rivals in a softball game between their school teams that turns into a spiritual war. Danny's batting style is such that the ball is sent speeding back up the middle of the field, and so he receives a reputation of trying to kill pitchers. Angered by unsuccessful attempts to hit Reuven's previous pitches, Danny hits a line drive toward Reuven, shattering his glasses and sending him to the hospital with an injured eye. While recovering from his injuries, Danny visits Reuven and apologizes and the two become best friends over time despite the difference between their cultures. Reuven learns that Danny's father, a respected Rabbi, only talks to Danny during religious conversations - Danny is being brought up 'in silence'. Reuven also learns Danny's deepest secret: he wishes to become a psychologist rather than a rabbi as his father wants. The only people who know about this are Reuven and a man who has been offering Danny advice, revealed to be Reuven's father. Reuven comes to experience the pain of silence himself, while the two young men are in college together. Though accepted as family after he stays with the Saunderses while his father is recovering at the hospital, he incurs Reb Saunders's wrath when he speaks favorably of the struggle to establish a secular Jewish nation in Palestine, which Saunders vehemently opposes. When Mr. Malter makes a speech at a pro-Israel rally that makes the newspapers, Saunders forbids"
      },
      {
        "text": " revealed to be Reuven's father. Reuven comes to experience the pain of silence himself, while the two young men are in college together. Though accepted as family after he stays with the Saunderses while his father is recovering at the hospital, he incurs Reb Saunders's wrath when he speaks favorably of the struggle to establish a secular Jewish nation in Palestine, which Saunders vehemently opposes. When Mr. Malter makes a speech at a pro-Israel rally that makes the newspapers, Saunders forbids his son to speak to Reuven, or even mention his name. (Danny breaks this order once, to let Reuven know, but tells him \"I won't go against my father. I won't!\") The ban lasts for two years, during which time Reuven experiences anguish, rage, and depression (particularly after his father suffers a second heart attack), before learning to cope with being alone. Their friendship resumes after modern Israel is founded; Danny explains to Reuven that Reb Saunders has relented, since the new nation is \"no longer an issue; it's a fact.\" Reuven finds that Danny has come to terms with the silence imposed by his father, having discovered that silence can be a teacher, and a source of beauty as well as pain. Danny himself waits in fear for the day following graduation, when he must tell his father that he does not wish to succeed him. (Reb Saunders already knows this to be true, after Danny receives an acceptance letter from Columbia University.) Reuven again finds himself a buffer between father and son when, in the novel's climax, the two friends learn Reb Saunders's purpose for raising his son in silence: Reb Saunders had discovered early on that his son's dawning intelligence was far outstripping his sense of compassion for others. He wanted his son to understand the meaning of pain, so he shut him out emotionally. Finding the grown-up Danny indeed has a heart, and cares deeply about other"
      },
      {
        "text": " acceptance letter from Columbia University.) Reuven again finds himself a buffer between father and son when, in the novel's climax, the two friends learn Reb Saunders's purpose for raising his son in silence: Reb Saunders had discovered early on that his son's dawning intelligence was far outstripping his sense of compassion for others. He wanted his son to understand the meaning of pain, so he shut him out emotionally. Finding the grown-up Danny indeed has a heart, and cares deeply about other people, Reb Saunders is willing to give his blessing to Danny's dream of studying psychology. \"He will be a tzadik for the world,\" Reb Saunders tells Reuven. Saunders then finally, after many years, truly talks to Danny, asking him to forgive him for the pain he caused, bringing him up as he did. The words finally spoken, he leaves the room, and both boys burst into tears. Danny visits Reuven on his way to Columbia University, his Hasidic locks shorn and his clothing up to date. Reuven has definitely decided he wants to be a rabbi, and is going on to study at a yeshiva. Danny tells Reuven that his younger brother Levi will take his place as his father's successor, and his own relationship with Reb Saunders has completely changed. \"We talk now,\" he says quietly. Danny is finally set free, and Reuven and Danny taste profoundly the pain in life, and the consolation of deep friendship. Danny goes on to study psychology. Danny: Danny's phenomenal mind compels him to seek knowledge other than that permitted by his father, and he spends his spare time reading voraciously in secret in the public library. (Danny tells Reuven about an older man he met there who has been recommending books for him to read; both are astonished when the man turns out to be Reuven's own father.) Danny does not want to inherit his father's position as leader of"
      },
      {
        "text": " deep friendship. Danny goes on to study psychology. Danny: Danny's phenomenal mind compels him to seek knowledge other than that permitted by his father, and he spends his spare time reading voraciously in secret in the public library. (Danny tells Reuven about an older man he met there who has been recommending books for him to read; both are astonished when the man turns out to be Reuven's own father.) Danny does not want to inherit his father's position as leader of their sect, as is expected of him; he desires instead to become a psychologist. He learns to read German just to read a book by Freud. Another great conflict in his life is that his father does not speak to him, except when they study Jewish law together; this has been so since he was about ten, when his father told him not to come to him about problems anymore. Reb Saunders: Reb Saunders welcomes Reuven as his son's friend, even though he disapproves of his father's work. \"You think it is easy to be a friend?\" Reb Saunders says to Reuven when they first meet. \"If you are truly his friend, you will learn otherwise.\" Reuven does learn as he is put in the position of being a buffer between father and son. Reb Saunders forces Reuven into a position to tell him of his son's secular studies even though Reb Saunders had known about it for a while already. Reuven impresses Reb Saunders by his understanding of Jewish law and tradition. Reb Saunders impresses Reuven in turn, as Reuven sees the important role he plays to the people of his congregation. He raised his son in silence, which allowed him to learn to find his soul. He was a very difficult man to understand, but a great one at that.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " his understanding of Jewish law and tradition. Reb Saunders impresses Reuven in turn, as Reuven sees the important role he plays to the people of his congregation. He raised his son in silence, which allowed him to learn to find his soul. He was a very difficult man to understand, but a great one at that.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Campus Murders",
    "author": "Gil Brewer",
    "published_date": "1969",
    "synopsis": " Against the background of a student rebellion, two murders are committed on the Tisquanto State College campus. The first victim is one of the conservative deans, who is stabbed after his life-size effigy has been burned on a stake specially erected by a group of students. The second victim is a female student whose body is found dangling from a rope in the campus bell tower. The missing student is found near a river, severely beaten up and in a coma. In the end it turns out that one of the rebellious students is the killer. However, the murders are nothing to do with radical student politics: In a drug-induced frenzy, the killer has murdered the people who stood in his way to personal success or who were threatening to expose his criminal schemes.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Against the background of a student rebellion, two murders are committed on the Tisquanto State College campus. The first victim is one of the conservative deans, who is stabbed after his life-size effigy has been burned on a stake specially erected by a group of students. The second victim is a female student whose body is found dangling from a rope in the campus bell tower. The missing student is found near a river, severely beaten up and in a coma. In the end it turns out that one of the rebellious students is the killer. However, the murders are nothing to do with radical student politics: In a drug-induced frenzy, the killer has murdered the people who stood in his way to personal success or who were threatening to expose his criminal schemes.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Rinkitink in Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1916",
    "synopsis": " Pingaree is an island in the Nonestic Ocean that surrounds the fairy countries that encircle the Deadly Desert that surrounds the Land of Oz. Many years before this story begins, the armies of Regos and Coregos sought to invade Pingaree, but their advance was repelled by Pingaree's king with the help of three magic pearls given to him by the Mermaids. The Blue Pearl gave the king superhuman strength, the Pink Pearl protected him from any form of harm, and the White Pearl provided words of wisdom that only he could hear. Buoyed by the Pearl's magic powers, the king of Pingaree led his people to victory and the invaders from Regos and Coregos drowned on the return trip. At the beginning of Rinkitink in Oz King Kitticut and Queen Garee, the son and daughter-in-law of the victorious king are introduced. Their son Inga is coming of age to learn the secret of the pearls, and one day Kitticut reveals their secret hiding place to Inga. The next day, a royal visitor arrives at the island&mdash;King Rinkitink of Gilgad, a jovial and pleasantly plump fellow on royal holiday who remains on the island as Kitticut's guest for several weeks. Rinkitink's companion, other than the rowers from Gilgad, is a surly goat named Bilbil who seems to be Rinkitink's opposite in attitude. Invaders from Regos and Coregos come again to Pingaree and seize the king before he can grab the pearls. All of the buildings are torn down, and all of the people are carried into slavery. The only ones remaining on the island are Inga, who was able to successfully hide by climbing a tree, Rinkitink, who escaped his pursuers by falling into a well, and Bilbil the goat whom the invaders did not see any value of. Inga realizes the only way he will be able to free his family and people is with the help of the magic pearls, so he comes to the palace floor to retrieve them. To make sure the pearls are not lost, he hides one each in the toes of his shoes and carries the speaking White Pearl with him. The White Pearl guides him to a boat the following morning, which he, Bilbil, and Rinkitink begin to row toward the island of Regos. Regos and Coregos are respectively ruled by a wicked king and queen, King Gos and Queen Cor. These two ruthless tyrants see no reason they cannot capture and enslave Inga and his companions as they did the rest of Pingaree's inhabitants. However, none of King Gos of Regos\u2019 forces can lay a hand on Inga, Rinkitink, or Bilbil when they are touching each other due to the Pink Pearl's power. They stride into the royal palace with the strength conferred by the Blue Pearl and force Gos and his evil forces to flee the island to Coregos and then free the king's slaves. Inga and Rinkitink wake the next morning to find the Pink Pearl is gone&mdash;it was in the shoe that Rinkitink carelessly threw at a howling cat the previous night. While out searching for the lost shoe, the royal maid cleans their room and, finding the other shoe with no mate, assumed it was discarded and disposed of it accordingly\u2014and with it, the blue pearl. At a complete loss, Inga tells Rinkitink about the power of the Pearls and, at the advice of the white pearl, attempts to bluff Gos and his wife, Queen Cor, into believing he still has the power of the Pearls. Cor uses diplomacy and trickery to capture him and Rinkitink and bring them to serve her on Coregos. Nikobob, a poor woodchopper who resides on Regos, finds the discarded shoes (unaware that they contain the Blue and Pink Pearls) and plans to give them to his daughter Zella. While he has the shoes, however, he encounters the giant worm Choggenmugger and chops it into pieces&mdash;something he couldn't do without the pearls. Zella is wearing the shoes with the pearls inside when she delivers honey to Queen Cor on Coregos, Inga recognizes the shoes, and he offers his new shoes to Zella in exchange for his old ones. Now with the Pearls in his possession, he defeats Cor and sends her fleeing to Regos with the captive Queen Garee. The captives from Pingaree and all the other places the invaders have been are freed and sent home\u2014except for Inga's parents. To consolidate the situation of Regos and Coregos, Inga offers to make Nikobob king of the islands, which he adamantly refuses. He instead asks to go himself with his family to Pingaree. They learn from a palace guard that Gos and Cor took King Kitticut and Queen Garee to the underground caverns of the Nome King, and Inga, Rinkitink, and Bilbil set out after them. Although Kaliko is a kinder Nome King than the previous one, he proves to be a politician who \"prefers to deal with the strong.\" Kaliko considers himself bound by his word to King Gos and Queen Cor and has Kitticut and Garee kept prisoner. Before Inga, Rinkitink, and Bilbil enter the underground kingdom, Rinkitink asks Inga to loan him the Pink Pearl in case they are separated. They are welcomed cordially enough by the Nomes and spend the night underground, but the next day Rinkitink and Bilbil have an audience with King Kaliko who is unable to harm them together while Inga works his way through the Three Trick Caverns with his strength and the White Pearl's Wisdom. Princess Ozma, the ruler of Oz, is viewing what's happening to Inga, Rinkitink, and Bilbil through her Magic Picture and Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz go to confront King Kaliko and resolve the entire matter. Dorothy herself carries a basket of eggs to keep the Nomes from attacking her (as eggs are poisonous to the Nomes). Upon her arrival, Dorothy delivers stunning news to Kaliko: King Gos and Queen Cor are dead\u2014a storm at sea wrecked their boat on their return trip to Regos and Coregos leaving the two evil rulers to drown in the Nonestic Ocean (according to Glinda's Book of Records). Kaliko, although shocked by the news, still refuses to release Kitticut and Garee. At that point, Dorothy pulls the cover off her basket revealing the eggs, and a frightened Kaliko immediately orders the release of Inga's parents. The reunited father, mother, and son with Bilbil and Rinkitink journey to the Emerald City, where it is revealed that Bilbil is actually enchanted himself. The Wizard asks Bilbil how it is that he is able to talk when he is not from, nor ever visited, the Land of Oz. The Wizard learns that the crusty goat is actually Prince Bobo of Boboland, and the enchanter who transformed him into a goat is long since dead; however, Glinda is able to change him back to human form. This also cures his bad disposition, which was a cover for Bobo/Bilbil's ill feelings. After a celebration, Kitticut, Garee, Inga, Rinkitink, and Bobo return to the rebuilt island of Pingaree for a victory celebration. Soon afterwards, to his sadness, Rinkitink learns that must return home to Gilgad and fulfill his duties as their king...but accompanied by his friend Prince Bobo. In 1939, Rinkitink in Oz was one of six Oz books specially re-issued by Rand McNally in a condensed, small-format \"junior edition\" for young readers, as a promotion for the MGM film of The Wizard of Oz.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Pingaree is an island in the Nonestic Ocean that surrounds the fairy countries that encircle the Deadly Desert that surrounds the Land of Oz. Many years before this story begins, the armies of Regos and Coregos sought to invade Pingaree, but their advance was repelled by Pingaree's king with the help of three magic pearls given to him by the Mermaids. The Blue Pearl gave the king superhuman strength, the Pink Pearl protected him from any form of harm, and the White Pearl provided words of wisdom that only he could hear. Buoyed by the Pearl's magic powers, the king of Pingaree led his people to victory and the invaders from Regos and Coregos drowned on the return trip. At the beginning of Rinkitink in Oz King Kitticut and Queen Garee, the son and daughter-in-law of the victorious king are introduced. Their son Inga is coming of age to learn the secret of the pearls, and one day Kitticut reveals their secret hiding place to Inga. The next day, a royal visitor arrives at the island&mdash;King Rinkitink of Gilgad, a jovial and pleasantly plump fellow on royal holiday who remains on the island as Kitticut's guest for several weeks. Rinkitink's companion, other than the rowers from Gilgad, is a surly goat named Bilbil who seems to be Rinkitink's opposite in attitude. Invaders from Regos and Coregos come again to Pingaree and seize the king before he can grab the pearls. All of the buildings are torn down, and all of the people are carried into slavery. The only ones remaining on the island are Inga, who was able to successfully hide by climbing a tree, Rinkitink, who escaped his pursuers by falling into a well, and Bilbil the goat whom the invaders did not see any"
      },
      {
        "text": "ink's opposite in attitude. Invaders from Regos and Coregos come again to Pingaree and seize the king before he can grab the pearls. All of the buildings are torn down, and all of the people are carried into slavery. The only ones remaining on the island are Inga, who was able to successfully hide by climbing a tree, Rinkitink, who escaped his pursuers by falling into a well, and Bilbil the goat whom the invaders did not see any value of. Inga realizes the only way he will be able to free his family and people is with the help of the magic pearls, so he comes to the palace floor to retrieve them. To make sure the pearls are not lost, he hides one each in the toes of his shoes and carries the speaking White Pearl with him. The White Pearl guides him to a boat the following morning, which he, Bilbil, and Rinkitink begin to row toward the island of Regos. Regos and Coregos are respectively ruled by a wicked king and queen, King Gos and Queen Cor. These two ruthless tyrants see no reason they cannot capture and enslave Inga and his companions as they did the rest of Pingaree's inhabitants. However, none of King Gos of Regos\u2019 forces can lay a hand on Inga, Rinkitink, or Bilbil when they are touching each other due to the Pink Pearl's power. They stride into the royal palace with the strength conferred by the Blue Pearl and force Gos and his evil forces to flee the island to Coregos and then free the king's slaves. Inga and Rinkitink wake the next morning to find the Pink Pearl is gone&mdash;it was in the shoe that Rinkitink carelessly threw at a howling cat the previous night. While out searching for the lost shoe, the royal maid cleans their room and, finding the other shoe with no"
      },
      {
        "text": " the royal palace with the strength conferred by the Blue Pearl and force Gos and his evil forces to flee the island to Coregos and then free the king's slaves. Inga and Rinkitink wake the next morning to find the Pink Pearl is gone&mdash;it was in the shoe that Rinkitink carelessly threw at a howling cat the previous night. While out searching for the lost shoe, the royal maid cleans their room and, finding the other shoe with no mate, assumed it was discarded and disposed of it accordingly\u2014and with it, the blue pearl. At a complete loss, Inga tells Rinkitink about the power of the Pearls and, at the advice of the white pearl, attempts to bluff Gos and his wife, Queen Cor, into believing he still has the power of the Pearls. Cor uses diplomacy and trickery to capture him and Rinkitink and bring them to serve her on Coregos. Nikobob, a poor woodchopper who resides on Regos, finds the discarded shoes (unaware that they contain the Blue and Pink Pearls) and plans to give them to his daughter Zella. While he has the shoes, however, he encounters the giant worm Choggenmugger and chops it into pieces&mdash;something he couldn't do without the pearls. Zella is wearing the shoes with the pearls inside when she delivers honey to Queen Cor on Coregos, Inga recognizes the shoes, and he offers his new shoes to Zella in exchange for his old ones. Now with the Pearls in his possession, he defeats Cor and sends her fleeing to Regos with the captive Queen Garee. The captives from Pingaree and all the other places the invaders have been are freed and sent home\u2014except for Inga's parents. To consolidate the situation of Regos and Coregos, Inga offers to make Nikobob king of"
      },
      {
        "text": ", Inga recognizes the shoes, and he offers his new shoes to Zella in exchange for his old ones. Now with the Pearls in his possession, he defeats Cor and sends her fleeing to Regos with the captive Queen Garee. The captives from Pingaree and all the other places the invaders have been are freed and sent home\u2014except for Inga's parents. To consolidate the situation of Regos and Coregos, Inga offers to make Nikobob king of the islands, which he adamantly refuses. He instead asks to go himself with his family to Pingaree. They learn from a palace guard that Gos and Cor took King Kitticut and Queen Garee to the underground caverns of the Nome King, and Inga, Rinkitink, and Bilbil set out after them. Although Kaliko is a kinder Nome King than the previous one, he proves to be a politician who \"prefers to deal with the strong.\" Kaliko considers himself bound by his word to King Gos and Queen Cor and has Kitticut and Garee kept prisoner. Before Inga, Rinkitink, and Bilbil enter the underground kingdom, Rinkitink asks Inga to loan him the Pink Pearl in case they are separated. They are welcomed cordially enough by the Nomes and spend the night underground, but the next day Rinkitink and Bilbil have an audience with King Kaliko who is unable to harm them together while Inga works his way through the Three Trick Caverns with his strength and the White Pearl's Wisdom. Princess Ozma, the ruler of Oz, is viewing what's happening to Inga, Rinkitink, and Bilbil through her Magic Picture and Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz go to confront King Kaliko and resolve the entire matter. Dorothy herself carries a basket of eggs to keep the Nomes from attacking her (as eggs are poisonous to the Nomes)."
      },
      {
        "text": " to harm them together while Inga works his way through the Three Trick Caverns with his strength and the White Pearl's Wisdom. Princess Ozma, the ruler of Oz, is viewing what's happening to Inga, Rinkitink, and Bilbil through her Magic Picture and Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz go to confront King Kaliko and resolve the entire matter. Dorothy herself carries a basket of eggs to keep the Nomes from attacking her (as eggs are poisonous to the Nomes). Upon her arrival, Dorothy delivers stunning news to Kaliko: King Gos and Queen Cor are dead\u2014a storm at sea wrecked their boat on their return trip to Regos and Coregos leaving the two evil rulers to drown in the Nonestic Ocean (according to Glinda's Book of Records). Kaliko, although shocked by the news, still refuses to release Kitticut and Garee. At that point, Dorothy pulls the cover off her basket revealing the eggs, and a frightened Kaliko immediately orders the release of Inga's parents. The reunited father, mother, and son with Bilbil and Rinkitink journey to the Emerald City, where it is revealed that Bilbil is actually enchanted himself. The Wizard asks Bilbil how it is that he is able to talk when he is not from, nor ever visited, the Land of Oz. The Wizard learns that the crusty goat is actually Prince Bobo of Boboland, and the enchanter who transformed him into a goat is long since dead; however, Glinda is able to change him back to human form. This also cures his bad disposition, which was a cover for Bobo/Bilbil's ill feelings. After a celebration, Kitticut, Garee, Inga, Rinkitink, and Bobo return to the rebuilt island of Pingaree for a victory celebration. Soon afterwards, to his sadness, Rinkitink learns that must return home to Gilgad and fulfill"
      },
      {
        "text": " goat is long since dead; however, Glinda is able to change him back to human form. This also cures his bad disposition, which was a cover for Bobo/Bilbil's ill feelings. After a celebration, Kitticut, Garee, Inga, Rinkitink, and Bobo return to the rebuilt island of Pingaree for a victory celebration. Soon afterwards, to his sadness, Rinkitink learns that must return home to Gilgad and fulfill his duties as their king...but accompanied by his friend Prince Bobo. In 1939, Rinkitink in Oz was one of six Oz books specially re-issued by Rand McNally in a condensed, small-format \"junior edition\" for young readers, as a promotion for the MGM film of The Wizard of Oz.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Arrowsmith",
    "author": "Sinclair Lewis",
    "published_date": "1925",
    "synopsis": " Arrowsmith tells the story of bright and scientifically minded Martin Arrowsmith as he makes his way from a small town in the Midwest to the upper echelons of the scientific community. (He is born in Elk Mills, Winnemac, the same fictional state in which several of Lewis's other novels are set.) Along the way he experiences medical school, private practice as the only doctor in tiny Wheatsylvania, North Dakota, various stints as regional health official, and the lure of high-paying hospital jobs. Finally, Arrowsmith is recognized by his former medical school mentor, Max Gottlieb, for a scientific paper he has written and is invited to take a post with a prestigious research institute in New York. The book's climax deals with Dr. Arrowsmith's discovery of a phage that destroys bacteria and his experiences as he faces an outbreak of bubonic plague on a fictional Caribbean island. Martin's wife, Leora, is the steadying, sensible, self-abnegating anchor of his life. When Leora dies of the plague that Martin is sent to study and exterminate, he seems to lose all sense of himself and of his principles. The novel comes full circle at the end as Arrowsmith deserts his wealthy second wife and the high-powered directorship of a research institute to pursue his dream of an independent scientific career in backwoods Vermont.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Arrowsmith tells the story of bright and scientifically minded Martin Arrowsmith as he makes his way from a small town in the Midwest to the upper echelons of the scientific community. (He is born in Elk Mills, Winnemac, the same fictional state in which several of Lewis's other novels are set.) Along the way he experiences medical school, private practice as the only doctor in tiny Wheatsylvania, North Dakota, various stints as regional health official, and the lure of high-paying hospital jobs. Finally, Arrowsmith is recognized by his former medical school mentor, Max Gottlieb, for a scientific paper he has written and is invited to take a post with a prestigious research institute in New York. The book's climax deals with Dr. Arrowsmith's discovery of a phage that destroys bacteria and his experiences as he faces an outbreak of bubonic plague on a fictional Caribbean island. Martin's wife, Leora, is the steadying, sensible, self-abnegating anchor of his life. When Leora dies of the plague that Martin is sent to study and exterminate, he seems to lose all sense of himself and of his principles. The novel comes full circle at the end as Arrowsmith deserts his wealthy second wife and the high-powered directorship of a research institute to pursue his dream of an independent scientific career in backwoods Vermont.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Lost Princess of Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1917",
    "synopsis": " Dorothy has risen from bed for the day and is seeing to her friends in the Emerald City and notices that Ozma has not awakened yet. Dorothy goes into Ozma's chambers only to find she is not there. Glinda awakens in her palace in the Quadling Country and finds her Great Book of Records is missing. She goes to prepare a magic spell to find it- only to see her magic tools are gone as well. She dispatches a messenger to the Emerald City to relay news of the theft. Receiving the news, the Wizard hastily offers his magic tools to assist Glinda, however, these are missing as well. Glinda, Dorothy, and the Wizard organize search parties to find Ozma and the missing magic. Accompanying them are Button-Bright, Trot, and Betsy Bobbin. Dorothy and the Wizard's party begins to search the Winkie Country to the west of the Emerald City. Meanwhile, in the southwestern corner of the Winkie Country on a plateau belonging to the Yips, and Cayke the cookie cook has had her diamond-studded gold dishpan stolen. The self-proclaimed adviser to the Yips, a human-sized dandy of a frog called the Frogman, hears Cayke's story and offers to help her find the dishpan. When they have gotten down the mountain, Cayke reveals to the Frogman that the dishpan has magic powers, for her cookies come out perfect every time. Dorothy, the Wizard, and their party enter the previously unknown communities of Thi and Herku. The citizens of Thi are ruled by the High Coco-Lorum (really the King, but the people do not know it) and repeat the same story about the Herkus: they keep giants for their slaves. In the Great Orchard between Thi and Herku, the party enjoys a variety of fruits. Button-Bright eats from the one peach tree in the orchard. When he reaches the peach's center he discovers it to be made of gold. He pockets the gold peach pit to show Dorothy, Betsy, and Trot later - despite warnings from the local animals that the evil Ugu the Shoemaker has enchanted it. In the city of Herku, Dorothy and the Wizard's party are greeted by the emaciated but jovial Czarover of Herku, who has invented a pure energy compound called zosozo that can make his people strong enough to keep giants as slaves. The Czarover offers them six doses to use in their travels and casually reveals that Ugu the Shoemaker came from Herku. Ugu found magic books in his attic one day because he was descended from the greatest enchanter ever known and learned over time to do a great many magical things. The Shoemaker has since moved from Herku and built a castle high in the mountains. This clue leads Dorothy and the Wizard to think that Ugu might be behind all the recent thefts of magic and the ruler of Oz. They proceed from Herku toward the castle and meet with the Frogman, Cayke the Cookie Cook, and the Lavender Bear the stuffed bear who rules Bear Center. Lavender Bear carries the Little Pink Bear a small wind-up toy that can answer any question about the past put to it. When the combined party arrives at Ugu's castle, Button-Bright is separated from them and falls into a pit. Before they rescue him, the Wizard asks the Little Pink Bear where Ozma is and it says that she is in the pit, too. After Button-Bright is let out of the pit, the Little Pink Bear says that she is there among the party. Unsure what to make of this seeming contradiction, the party advances toward the castle. Sure enough, Ugu is the culprit and the castle's magical defenses are techniques from Glinda and the Wizard. Once over coming the castle's exterior, the party soon finds themselves standing before the thief himself. Ugu uses magic to send the room spinning and retreats. Dorothy stops it by making a wish with the magic belt. She uses its power to turn Ugu into a dove, but he modifies the enchantment so he retains human size and aggressive nature. Fighting his way past Dorothy and her companions, Ugu the dove uses Cayke's diamond-studded dishpan to flee to the Quadling Country. Once the magic tools are recovered, the conquering search party turns their attention to finding Ozma. The Little Pink Bear reveals that Ozma is being carried in Button-Bright's jacket pocket, where he placed the gold peach pit. The Wizard opens it with a knife, and Ozma is released from where Ugu had imprisoned her. She was kidnapped by Ugu when she came upon him stealing her and the Wizard's magic instruments. The people of the Emerald City and Ozma's friends all celebrate her return. Days later, the transformed Ugu flies in to see Dorothy and ask her forgiveness for what he did. She offers it and offers to change him back with the Magic Belt, but Ugu has decided that he likes being a dove much better.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Dorothy has risen from bed for the day and is seeing to her friends in the Emerald City and notices that Ozma has not awakened yet. Dorothy goes into Ozma's chambers only to find she is not there. Glinda awakens in her palace in the Quadling Country and finds her Great Book of Records is missing. She goes to prepare a magic spell to find it- only to see her magic tools are gone as well. She dispatches a messenger to the Emerald City to relay news of the theft. Receiving the news, the Wizard hastily offers his magic tools to assist Glinda, however, these are missing as well. Glinda, Dorothy, and the Wizard organize search parties to find Ozma and the missing magic. Accompanying them are Button-Bright, Trot, and Betsy Bobbin. Dorothy and the Wizard's party begins to search the Winkie Country to the west of the Emerald City. Meanwhile, in the southwestern corner of the Winkie Country on a plateau belonging to the Yips, and Cayke the cookie cook has had her diamond-studded gold dishpan stolen. The self-proclaimed adviser to the Yips, a human-sized dandy of a frog called the Frogman, hears Cayke's story and offers to help her find the dishpan. When they have gotten down the mountain, Cayke reveals to the Frogman that the dishpan has magic powers, for her cookies come out perfect every time. Dorothy, the Wizard, and their party enter the previously unknown communities of Thi and Herku. The citizens of Thi are ruled by the High Coco-Lorum (really the King, but the people do not know it) and repeat the same story about the Herkus: they keep giants for their slaves. In the Great Orchard between Thi and Herku, the party enjoys a variety of fruits. Button-Bright eats from the one peach tree in the orchard. When he reaches the peach"
      },
      {
        "text": " Wizard, and their party enter the previously unknown communities of Thi and Herku. The citizens of Thi are ruled by the High Coco-Lorum (really the King, but the people do not know it) and repeat the same story about the Herkus: they keep giants for their slaves. In the Great Orchard between Thi and Herku, the party enjoys a variety of fruits. Button-Bright eats from the one peach tree in the orchard. When he reaches the peach's center he discovers it to be made of gold. He pockets the gold peach pit to show Dorothy, Betsy, and Trot later - despite warnings from the local animals that the evil Ugu the Shoemaker has enchanted it. In the city of Herku, Dorothy and the Wizard's party are greeted by the emaciated but jovial Czarover of Herku, who has invented a pure energy compound called zosozo that can make his people strong enough to keep giants as slaves. The Czarover offers them six doses to use in their travels and casually reveals that Ugu the Shoemaker came from Herku. Ugu found magic books in his attic one day because he was descended from the greatest enchanter ever known and learned over time to do a great many magical things. The Shoemaker has since moved from Herku and built a castle high in the mountains. This clue leads Dorothy and the Wizard to think that Ugu might be behind all the recent thefts of magic and the ruler of Oz. They proceed from Herku toward the castle and meet with the Frogman, Cayke the Cookie Cook, and the Lavender Bear the stuffed bear who rules Bear Center. Lavender Bear carries the Little Pink Bear a small wind-up toy that can answer any question about the past put to it. When the combined party arrives at Ugu's castle, Button-Bright is separated from them and falls into a pit. Before they rescue him, the Wizard asks the"
      },
      {
        "text": " magic and the ruler of Oz. They proceed from Herku toward the castle and meet with the Frogman, Cayke the Cookie Cook, and the Lavender Bear the stuffed bear who rules Bear Center. Lavender Bear carries the Little Pink Bear a small wind-up toy that can answer any question about the past put to it. When the combined party arrives at Ugu's castle, Button-Bright is separated from them and falls into a pit. Before they rescue him, the Wizard asks the Little Pink Bear where Ozma is and it says that she is in the pit, too. After Button-Bright is let out of the pit, the Little Pink Bear says that she is there among the party. Unsure what to make of this seeming contradiction, the party advances toward the castle. Sure enough, Ugu is the culprit and the castle's magical defenses are techniques from Glinda and the Wizard. Once over coming the castle's exterior, the party soon finds themselves standing before the thief himself. Ugu uses magic to send the room spinning and retreats. Dorothy stops it by making a wish with the magic belt. She uses its power to turn Ugu into a dove, but he modifies the enchantment so he retains human size and aggressive nature. Fighting his way past Dorothy and her companions, Ugu the dove uses Cayke's diamond-studded dishpan to flee to the Quadling Country. Once the magic tools are recovered, the conquering search party turns their attention to finding Ozma. The Little Pink Bear reveals that Ozma is being carried in Button-Bright's jacket pocket, where he placed the gold peach pit. The Wizard opens it with a knife, and Ozma is released from where Ugu had imprisoned her. She was kidnapped by Ugu when she came upon him stealing her and the Wizard's magic instruments. The people of the Emerald City and Ozma's friends all celebrate her return. Days later, the transformed Ugu flies in to see Dorothy"
      },
      {
        "text": " finding Ozma. The Little Pink Bear reveals that Ozma is being carried in Button-Bright's jacket pocket, where he placed the gold peach pit. The Wizard opens it with a knife, and Ozma is released from where Ugu had imprisoned her. She was kidnapped by Ugu when she came upon him stealing her and the Wizard's magic instruments. The people of the Emerald City and Ozma's friends all celebrate her return. Days later, the transformed Ugu flies in to see Dorothy and ask her forgiveness for what he did. She offers it and offers to change him back with the Magic Belt, but Ugu has decided that he likes being a dove much better.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Time Ships",
    "author": "Stephen Baxter",
    "published_date": "1995",
    "synopsis": " After the events related in The Time Machine, the Time Traveller (his first name, Moses, is given in the novel but applied to the Time Traveller's younger self) prepares, in 1891, to return to the year 802,701 and save Weena, the Eloi who died in the fire with the Morlocks. He reveals that the quartz construction of the time machine is suffused with a radioactive substance he calls Plattnerite for the mysterious benefactor who gave him the sample to study twenty years earlier, in 1871. The Time Traveller departs into the future and stops in AD 657,208 when he notes the daytime sky has gone permanently dark. He arrives and is abducted by a branch of Morlocks more culturally advanced than the ones he met before. One of their number, Nebogipfel (the name of a character from Wells' The Chronic Argonauts), explains after hearing the Time Traveller's own story that the conflict between Eloi and Morlocks never occurred due to the Writer's publication of the story that became The Time Machine. The timeline he sought to go to is inaccessible to him now. The Morlocks of this timeline have constructed a Dyson sphere around the inner solar system and use the Sun's energy to power it. Humans as the Time Traveller knows them live on the sunlit inner surface of the Sphere while the Morlocks live on the outer shell. The Time Traveller convinces Nebogipfel that he will help him understand the time traveling mechanism of the Time machine if the Morlock takes him back to it. When he thinks he is unobserved, the Time Traveller reactivates his machine and travels to 1873 to persuade his younger self to stop his research on Plattnerite. Nebogipfel, who took hold of the Time Traveller once he realized what he was doing, follows him there. As the Time Traveller attempts to persuade his younger self, whom he asks to call \"Moses\" to avoid confusion, to stop his research by providing Nebogipfel as proof that reality is changed by time travel, a tank-like Juggernaut pulls into Moses' yard. The army personnel on board, commanded by Hilary Bond and accompanied by an older version of the Time Traveller's friend Filby, take Moses, Nebogipfel, and the Time Traveller to their 1938, where World War I has stretched over twenty-four years due to the discovery of time travel which was influenced by the latter's work. Britain's major cities are all encased in Domes, and with the contributions of Austrian expatriate Kurt G\u00f6del, the government hopes to win the war by altering Germany's history conclusively. Nebogipfel explains to the Time Traveller that they've entered another future as a result of their actions in Moses' past. During another bombing raid on London by the Germans, G\u00f6del provides a vial of Plattnerite and leads to the only escape available, a Time-Car prototype. Upon hearing this and what society would be like after the war (a pessimistic view mirroring Wells' own), the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel mount the vehicle and insert the Plattnerite. Moses is killed in an explosion when he tries to save G\u00f6del, and the Time-Car travels back to the Paleocene and is wrecked on a tree. After weeks of bare survival, the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel are discovered by a scouting party from the Chronic Expeditionary Force commanded by Hilary Bond that arrived from 1944 to find them based on their remains in her time. Some time later, a German Messerschmitt plane arrives over the campsite, drops a Carolinum bomb (analogous to an atomic bomb in our world; see Wells's The World Set Free), and devastates the time-traveling Juggernauts and all but twelve of the Force. Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller are away from the campsite at the time. Over the next year and a half, the stranded soldiers under Hilary Bond's command start the colony of First London. In off moments, Nebogipfel has worked on repairing the Time-Car and acquired shavings of Plattnerite to power it on a journey through time. When the Time-Car is ready, the Time Traveller joins Nebogipfel in a fifty-million year journey through which they see First London expand and develop colonies on the moon and in Earth orbit. Eventually, human tampering with the Earth's environment renders the planet uninhabitable, and they depart for the stars. When the Time-Car finally stops due to loss of its Plattnerite fuel, Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller are tended by a Universal Constructor, a life form (or lifeforms) composed of thousands of nanotechnological entities. They see that there are few stars left in the night sky; this is due to the human descendants colonizing many worlds and constructing Dyson Spheres around the host star. The goal of the Universal Constructor is to harvest the energy of the sun to build time-travel vehicles from Plattnerite and travel to the beginning of the universe. However, this goal is not due to be completed for a million years. Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller acquire enough Plattnerite from the Constructors in order to journey to the point in the future (i.e., another million years hence) when the Constructors will have finished building their time ships. Once the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel reach this point, the Constructors integrate them into a time ship and thus begins the journey back to time's beginning. At this central point from where all matter and energy and timelines branch off, the Constructors apparently start a new history in which they become something even more grand and knowledgeable than before. These successors of the Constructors place the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel into the Time Traveller's original history in the year 1871. It is revealed that the Time Traveller himself is the mysterious stranger who gave his younger self the Plattnerite sample under the alias \"Gottfried Plattner\", and that because of this, the circle of causality is closed and thus, the whole multiplicity of histories which ends up creating the Constructors and their successors begins anew. Nebogipfel, with his consciousness enhanced by his time with the Constructors, leaves the Time Traveller behind to travel with the successors of the Constructors. These successors plan to travel \"beyond\" the \"local\" multiplicity into a new realm of historical dimensions. The Time Traveller then makes one final journey to AD 802,701, along his historical axis, and just barely saves Weena from the death she suffered before. Since (the reader is led to suppose) traveling in time again would cause this reality to branch off and become inaccessible again, the Time Traveller destroys the machine and encourages the Eloi in an Agrarian Revolution to reduce their dependence on the Morlocks for food and clothing, hoping to one day eliminate it entirely. As he works, the Time Traveller writes down the recounting of his adventures and seals them in a Plattnerite packet, a \"time capsule\", so to speak, in the hope that it will travel in time to a faithful scribe. Before sealing the packet, the Time Traveller writes that he plans to go into the world of the Morlocks again, hopefully to return and add an appendix to the story. The book ends by saying that no appendix was found.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " After the events related in The Time Machine, the Time Traveller (his first name, Moses, is given in the novel but applied to the Time Traveller's younger self) prepares, in 1891, to return to the year 802,701 and save Weena, the Eloi who died in the fire with the Morlocks. He reveals that the quartz construction of the time machine is suffused with a radioactive substance he calls Plattnerite for the mysterious benefactor who gave him the sample to study twenty years earlier, in 1871. The Time Traveller departs into the future and stops in AD 657,208 when he notes the daytime sky has gone permanently dark. He arrives and is abducted by a branch of Morlocks more culturally advanced than the ones he met before. One of their number, Nebogipfel (the name of a character from Wells' The Chronic Argonauts), explains after hearing the Time Traveller's own story that the conflict between Eloi and Morlocks never occurred due to the Writer's publication of the story that became The Time Machine. The timeline he sought to go to is inaccessible to him now. The Morlocks of this timeline have constructed a Dyson sphere around the inner solar system and use the Sun's energy to power it. Humans as the Time Traveller knows them live on the sunlit inner surface of the Sphere while the Morlocks live on the outer shell. The Time Traveller convinces Nebogipfel that he will help him understand the time traveling mechanism of the Time machine if the Morlock takes him back to it. When he thinks he is unobserved, the Time Traveller reactivates his machine and travels to 1873 to persuade his younger self to stop his research on Plattnerite. Nebogipfel, who took hold of the Time Traveller once he realized what he was doing, follows him there. As the Time Traveller attempts to persuade his younger self, whom he"
      },
      {
        "text": " he will help him understand the time traveling mechanism of the Time machine if the Morlock takes him back to it. When he thinks he is unobserved, the Time Traveller reactivates his machine and travels to 1873 to persuade his younger self to stop his research on Plattnerite. Nebogipfel, who took hold of the Time Traveller once he realized what he was doing, follows him there. As the Time Traveller attempts to persuade his younger self, whom he asks to call \"Moses\" to avoid confusion, to stop his research by providing Nebogipfel as proof that reality is changed by time travel, a tank-like Juggernaut pulls into Moses' yard. The army personnel on board, commanded by Hilary Bond and accompanied by an older version of the Time Traveller's friend Filby, take Moses, Nebogipfel, and the Time Traveller to their 1938, where World War I has stretched over twenty-four years due to the discovery of time travel which was influenced by the latter's work. Britain's major cities are all encased in Domes, and with the contributions of Austrian expatriate Kurt G\u00f6del, the government hopes to win the war by altering Germany's history conclusively. Nebogipfel explains to the Time Traveller that they've entered another future as a result of their actions in Moses' past. During another bombing raid on London by the Germans, G\u00f6del provides a vial of Plattnerite and leads to the only escape available, a Time-Car prototype. Upon hearing this and what society would be like after the war (a pessimistic view mirroring Wells' own), the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel mount the vehicle and insert the Plattnerite. Moses is killed in an explosion when he tries to save G\u00f6del, and the Time-Car travels back to the Paleocene and is wrecked on a tree. After weeks of bare survival,"
      },
      {
        "text": " of Plattnerite and leads to the only escape available, a Time-Car prototype. Upon hearing this and what society would be like after the war (a pessimistic view mirroring Wells' own), the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel mount the vehicle and insert the Plattnerite. Moses is killed in an explosion when he tries to save G\u00f6del, and the Time-Car travels back to the Paleocene and is wrecked on a tree. After weeks of bare survival, the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel are discovered by a scouting party from the Chronic Expeditionary Force commanded by Hilary Bond that arrived from 1944 to find them based on their remains in her time. Some time later, a German Messerschmitt plane arrives over the campsite, drops a Carolinum bomb (analogous to an atomic bomb in our world; see Wells's The World Set Free), and devastates the time-traveling Juggernauts and all but twelve of the Force. Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller are away from the campsite at the time. Over the next year and a half, the stranded soldiers under Hilary Bond's command start the colony of First London. In off moments, Nebogipfel has worked on repairing the Time-Car and acquired shavings of Plattnerite to power it on a journey through time. When the Time-Car is ready, the Time Traveller joins Nebogipfel in a fifty-million year journey through which they see First London expand and develop colonies on the moon and in Earth orbit. Eventually, human tampering with the Earth's environment renders the planet uninhabitable, and they depart for the stars. When the Time-Car finally stops due to loss of its Plattnerite fuel, Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller are tended by a Universal Constructor, a life form (or lifeforms) composed of thousands of nanote"
      },
      {
        "text": "fel in a fifty-million year journey through which they see First London expand and develop colonies on the moon and in Earth orbit. Eventually, human tampering with the Earth's environment renders the planet uninhabitable, and they depart for the stars. When the Time-Car finally stops due to loss of its Plattnerite fuel, Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller are tended by a Universal Constructor, a life form (or lifeforms) composed of thousands of nanotechnological entities. They see that there are few stars left in the night sky; this is due to the human descendants colonizing many worlds and constructing Dyson Spheres around the host star. The goal of the Universal Constructor is to harvest the energy of the sun to build time-travel vehicles from Plattnerite and travel to the beginning of the universe. However, this goal is not due to be completed for a million years. Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller acquire enough Plattnerite from the Constructors in order to journey to the point in the future (i.e., another million years hence) when the Constructors will have finished building their time ships. Once the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel reach this point, the Constructors integrate them into a time ship and thus begins the journey back to time's beginning. At this central point from where all matter and energy and timelines branch off, the Constructors apparently start a new history in which they become something even more grand and knowledgeable than before. These successors of the Constructors place the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel into the Time Traveller's original history in the year 1871. It is revealed that the Time Traveller himself is the mysterious stranger who gave his younger self the Plattnerite sample under the alias \"Gottfried Plattner\", and that because of this, the circle of causality is closed and thus, the whole multiplicity of histories"
      },
      {
        "text": " which they become something even more grand and knowledgeable than before. These successors of the Constructors place the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel into the Time Traveller's original history in the year 1871. It is revealed that the Time Traveller himself is the mysterious stranger who gave his younger self the Plattnerite sample under the alias \"Gottfried Plattner\", and that because of this, the circle of causality is closed and thus, the whole multiplicity of histories which ends up creating the Constructors and their successors begins anew. Nebogipfel, with his consciousness enhanced by his time with the Constructors, leaves the Time Traveller behind to travel with the successors of the Constructors. These successors plan to travel \"beyond\" the \"local\" multiplicity into a new realm of historical dimensions. The Time Traveller then makes one final journey to AD 802,701, along his historical axis, and just barely saves Weena from the death she suffered before. Since (the reader is led to suppose) traveling in time again would cause this reality to branch off and become inaccessible again, the Time Traveller destroys the machine and encourages the Eloi in an Agrarian Revolution to reduce their dependence on the Morlocks for food and clothing, hoping to one day eliminate it entirely. As he works, the Time Traveller writes down the recounting of his adventures and seals them in a Plattnerite packet, a \"time capsule\", so to speak, in the hope that it will travel in time to a faithful scribe. Before sealing the packet, the Time Traveller writes that he plans to go into the world of the Morlocks again, hopefully to return and add an appendix to the story. The book ends by saying that no appendix was found.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " to speak, in the hope that it will travel in time to a faithful scribe. Before sealing the packet, the Time Traveller writes that he plans to go into the world of the Morlocks again, hopefully to return and add an appendix to the story. The book ends by saying that no appendix was found.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Evolution",
    "author": "Stephen Baxter",
    "published_date": "2002-11-30",
    "synopsis": " The book follows the evolution of mankind as it shapes surviving Purgatorius into tree dwellers, remoulds a group that drifts from Africa to a (then much closer) New World on a raft formed out of debris, and confronting others with a terrible dead end as ice clamps down on Antarctica. The stream of DNA runs on elsewhere, where ape-like creatures in North Africa are forced out of their diminishing forests to come across grasslands where their distant descendants will later run joyously. At one point, hominids become sapient, and go on to develop technology, including an evolving universal constructor machine that goes to Mars and multiplies, and in an act of global ecophagy consumes Mars by converting the planet into a mass of machinery that leaves the Solar system in search of new planets to assimilate. Human extinction (or the extinction of human culture) also occurs in the book, as well as the end of planet Earth and the rebirth of life on another planet. (The extinction-level event that causes the human extinction is, indirectly, an eruption of the Rabaul caldera, coupled with various actions of humans themselves, some of which are only vaguely referred to, but implied to be a form of genetic engineering which removed the ability to reproduce with non-engineered humans.) Also to be found in Evolution are ponderous Romans, sapient dinosaurs, the last of the wild Neanderthals, a primate who witnesses the extinction of the dinosaurs, symbiotic primate-tree relationships, mole people, and primates who live on a Mars-like Earth. In the book's epilogue, it is implied that the replicator machines sent by humans to Mars have developed sentience and high technology, unknowingly advancing the late mankind's legacy in the Universe.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book follows the evolution of mankind as it shapes surviving Purgatorius into tree dwellers, remoulds a group that drifts from Africa to a (then much closer) New World on a raft formed out of debris, and confronting others with a terrible dead end as ice clamps down on Antarctica. The stream of DNA runs on elsewhere, where ape-like creatures in North Africa are forced out of their diminishing forests to come across grasslands where their distant descendants will later run joyously. At one point, hominids become sapient, and go on to develop technology, including an evolving universal constructor machine that goes to Mars and multiplies, and in an act of global ecophagy consumes Mars by converting the planet into a mass of machinery that leaves the Solar system in search of new planets to assimilate. Human extinction (or the extinction of human culture) also occurs in the book, as well as the end of planet Earth and the rebirth of life on another planet. (The extinction-level event that causes the human extinction is, indirectly, an eruption of the Rabaul caldera, coupled with various actions of humans themselves, some of which are only vaguely referred to, but implied to be a form of genetic engineering which removed the ability to reproduce with non-engineered humans.) Also to be found in Evolution are ponderous Romans, sapient dinosaurs, the last of the wild Neanderthals, a primate who witnesses the extinction of the dinosaurs, symbiotic primate-tree relationships, mole people, and primates who live on a Mars-like Earth. In the book's epilogue, it is implied that the replicator machines sent by humans to Mars have developed sentience and high technology, unknowingly advancing the late mankind's legacy in the Universe.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " primate-tree relationships, mole people, and primates who live on a Mars-like Earth. In the book's epilogue, it is implied that the replicator machines sent by humans to Mars have developed sentience and high technology, unknowingly advancing the late mankind's legacy in the Universe.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Black Beauty",
    "author": "Anna Sewell",
    "published_date": "1877-11-24",
    "synopsis": " The story is narrated in the first person as an autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse named Black Beauty\u2014beginning with his carefree days as a colt on an English farm with his mother, to his difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country. Along the way, he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty and kindness. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty's life containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness, sympathy, and understanding treatment of horses, with Sewell's detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude. The book describes conditions among London horse-drawn taxicab drivers, including the financial hardship caused to them by high licence fees and low, legally fixed fares. A page footnote in some editions says that soon after the book was published, the difference between 6-day taxicab licences (not allowed to trade on Sundays) and 7-day taxicab licences (allowed to trade on Sundays) was abolished and the taxicab licence fee was much reduced.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story is narrated in the first person as an autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse named Black Beauty\u2014beginning with his carefree days as a colt on an English farm with his mother, to his difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country. Along the way, he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty and kindness. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty's life containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness, sympathy, and understanding treatment of horses, with Sewell's detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude. The book describes conditions among London horse-drawn taxicab drivers, including the financial hardship caused to them by high licence fees and low, legally fixed fares. A page footnote in some editions says that soon after the book was published, the difference between 6-day taxicab licences (not allowed to trade on Sundays) and 7-day taxicab licences (allowed to trade on Sundays) was abolished and the taxicab licence fee was much reduced.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "A Visit from St. Nicholas",
    "author": "Clement Clarke Moore",
    "published_date": "1823",
    "synopsis": " On Christmas Eve night, while his wife and children sleep, a man awakens to noises outside his house. Looking out the window, he sees St. Nicholas in an air-borne sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. After landing his sleigh on the roof, the saint enters the house through the chimney, carrying a sack of toys with him. The man watches Nicholas filling the children's stockings hanging by the fire, and laughs to himself. They share a conspiratorial moment before the saint bounds up the chimney again. As he flies away, Saint Nicholas wishes everyone a \"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " On Christmas Eve night, while his wife and children sleep, a man awakens to noises outside his house. Looking out the window, he sees St. Nicholas in an air-borne sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. After landing his sleigh on the roof, the saint enters the house through the chimney, carrying a sack of toys with him. The man watches Nicholas filling the children's stockings hanging by the fire, and laughs to himself. They share a conspiratorial moment before the saint bounds up the chimney again. As he flies away, Saint Nicholas wishes everyone a \"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Vector Prime",
    "author": "Robert Anthony Salvatore",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The alien race known as the Yuuzhan Vong are preparing for their invasion on the Star Wars galaxy. They are doing this by covertly disrupting the peace established by that of the New Republic ever since the fall of the Galactic Empire years previously. These distractions allow for the specialist warrior caste, the Praetorite Vong, to establish a base on the frozen backwater world of Helska IV. But though they settle on Helska IV as secretly as possible, it is noticed nevertheless by the members of the ExGal-4 base on the nearby world of Belkaden, which is also infiltrated by a Yuuzhan Vong agent named Yomin Carr. Three ExGal-4 members go to Helska IV to investigate what is happening, and two of the members are killed by the Praetorite Vong, while the remaining one, Danni Quee, is captured and tortured for experimentation. Back on Belkaden, Yomin Carr readies the planet for Vong habitation by poisoning the world as the initial step in terraforming and he kills the remaining Ex-Gal-4 scientists personally. Meanwhile, the Skywalker-Solo family, who, like the New Republic, are unaware of the Yuuzhan Vong threat, decide to take a vacation from the bureaucratic troubles of the Republic and go visit Lando Calrissian at his industrious planet of Dubrillion. There, they see the liftoff of Jedi Master Kyp Durron's Dozen-and-Two Avengers X-wing squadron, whose sole purpose is to protect the galaxy from criminal and pirates. Lando, meanwhile, asks Luke Skywalker and his wife Mara to go and investigate what is happening on the world of Belkaden with R2-D2. They go, and Mara gets into a fight with Yomin Carr that she wins by killing him. This is despite her sickness that, incidentally, the Yuuzhan Vong had given her through their agent, Nom Anor. Lando also asks Han Solo, his son Anakin, and Chewbacca to go to the planet Sernpidal to pick up some cargo. They comply, but as they arrive, they find that the Praetorite Vong have decided to make a target of the planet by pulling its moon, Dobido, down. Meanwhile, at Helska IV, the Dozen-and-Two Avengers get into a battle with the Praetorite Vong, which marks the first-ever battle in the Yuuzhan Vong War, and the squadron is easily decimated under the mighty forces of the Vong. Kyp Durron and his apprentice, Miko Reglia, are the only survivors, but while Kyp is able to escape to tell the rest of the galaxy of this new threat, Reglia is taken captive and tortured like Danni Quee. Helska IV would later be raided and investigated again by the Skywalkers after they leave Belkaden. Back at Sernpidal, Han, Chewbacca, and Anakin save as many people as they can aboard the Millennium Falcon, but unfortunately, Chewbacca is incidentally left behind and dies as Dobido crashes into Sernpidal, destroying the world. As the Solos and Skywalkers fall into grief over Chewbacca's death, they and their allies also find themselves facing the threat of the Yuuzhan Vong. The final battle against the Praetorite Vong occurs when Jacen Solo senses a call in the Force by Danni Quee, so he takes his sister, Jaina, with him to rescue her covertly. Their cover is soon blown, but they are then quickly aided with forces from the New Republic that battle off the Vong and manage to get Jacen and Danni off of Helska IV. Miko Reglia, unfortunately, sacrifices himself against a few Vong warriors to make sure that Jacen and Danni escape. With Jacen and Danni returned, the New Republic makes a quick plan to destroy Helska IV by using heat-concentrating ships to blow the world up. The vast majority of the Praetorite Vong are destroyed in this explosion, and it appears that the New Republic has beaten this alien menace. However, it turns out that the actual Yuuzhan Vong invasion force have yet to make any real appearance in the galaxy. The novel ends with the Skywalkers and Solos returning to Sernpidal so that Han can say a few words about Chewbacca in the wake of his sacrifice. He concludes that with his death, the galaxy has become a more dangerous place than ever.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The alien race known as the Yuuzhan Vong are preparing for their invasion on the Star Wars galaxy. They are doing this by covertly disrupting the peace established by that of the New Republic ever since the fall of the Galactic Empire years previously. These distractions allow for the specialist warrior caste, the Praetorite Vong, to establish a base on the frozen backwater world of Helska IV. But though they settle on Helska IV as secretly as possible, it is noticed nevertheless by the members of the ExGal-4 base on the nearby world of Belkaden, which is also infiltrated by a Yuuzhan Vong agent named Yomin Carr. Three ExGal-4 members go to Helska IV to investigate what is happening, and two of the members are killed by the Praetorite Vong, while the remaining one, Danni Quee, is captured and tortured for experimentation. Back on Belkaden, Yomin Carr readies the planet for Vong habitation by poisoning the world as the initial step in terraforming and he kills the remaining Ex-Gal-4 scientists personally. Meanwhile, the Skywalker-Solo family, who, like the New Republic, are unaware of the Yuuzhan Vong threat, decide to take a vacation from the bureaucratic troubles of the Republic and go visit Lando Calrissian at his industrious planet of Dubrillion. There, they see the liftoff of Jedi Master Kyp Durron's Dozen-and-Two Avengers X-wing squadron, whose sole purpose is to protect the galaxy from criminal and pirates. Lando, meanwhile, asks Luke Skywalker and his wife Mara to go and investigate what is happening on the world of Belkaden with R2-D2. They go, and Mara gets into a fight with Yomin Carr that she wins by killing him. This is despite her sickness that, incidentally, the Yuuzhan Vong had given her through their"
      },
      {
        "text": "ron's Dozen-and-Two Avengers X-wing squadron, whose sole purpose is to protect the galaxy from criminal and pirates. Lando, meanwhile, asks Luke Skywalker and his wife Mara to go and investigate what is happening on the world of Belkaden with R2-D2. They go, and Mara gets into a fight with Yomin Carr that she wins by killing him. This is despite her sickness that, incidentally, the Yuuzhan Vong had given her through their agent, Nom Anor. Lando also asks Han Solo, his son Anakin, and Chewbacca to go to the planet Sernpidal to pick up some cargo. They comply, but as they arrive, they find that the Praetorite Vong have decided to make a target of the planet by pulling its moon, Dobido, down. Meanwhile, at Helska IV, the Dozen-and-Two Avengers get into a battle with the Praetorite Vong, which marks the first-ever battle in the Yuuzhan Vong War, and the squadron is easily decimated under the mighty forces of the Vong. Kyp Durron and his apprentice, Miko Reglia, are the only survivors, but while Kyp is able to escape to tell the rest of the galaxy of this new threat, Reglia is taken captive and tortured like Danni Quee. Helska IV would later be raided and investigated again by the Skywalkers after they leave Belkaden. Back at Sernpidal, Han, Chewbacca, and Anakin save as many people as they can aboard the Millennium Falcon, but unfortunately, Chewbacca is incidentally left behind and dies as Dobido crashes into Sernpidal, destroying the world. As the Solos and Skywalkers fall into grief over Chewbacca's death, they and their allies also find themselves facing the threat of the Yuuzhan Vong. The final battle against"
      },
      {
        "text": " they leave Belkaden. Back at Sernpidal, Han, Chewbacca, and Anakin save as many people as they can aboard the Millennium Falcon, but unfortunately, Chewbacca is incidentally left behind and dies as Dobido crashes into Sernpidal, destroying the world. As the Solos and Skywalkers fall into grief over Chewbacca's death, they and their allies also find themselves facing the threat of the Yuuzhan Vong. The final battle against the Praetorite Vong occurs when Jacen Solo senses a call in the Force by Danni Quee, so he takes his sister, Jaina, with him to rescue her covertly. Their cover is soon blown, but they are then quickly aided with forces from the New Republic that battle off the Vong and manage to get Jacen and Danni off of Helska IV. Miko Reglia, unfortunately, sacrifices himself against a few Vong warriors to make sure that Jacen and Danni escape. With Jacen and Danni returned, the New Republic makes a quick plan to destroy Helska IV by using heat-concentrating ships to blow the world up. The vast majority of the Praetorite Vong are destroyed in this explosion, and it appears that the New Republic has beaten this alien menace. However, it turns out that the actual Yuuzhan Vong invasion force have yet to make any real appearance in the galaxy. The novel ends with the Skywalkers and Solos returning to Sernpidal so that Han can say a few words about Chewbacca in the wake of his sacrifice. He concludes that with his death, the galaxy has become a more dangerous place than ever.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Skywalkers and Solos returning to Sernpidal so that Han can say a few words about Chewbacca in the wake of his sacrifice. He concludes that with his death, the galaxy has become a more dangerous place than ever.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Thorn Birds",
    "author": "Colleen McCullough",
    "published_date": "1977-04",
    "synopsis": " The epic begins with Meghann \"Meggie\" Cleary, a four-year-old girl living in New Zealand in the early twentieth century, the only daughter of Paddy, an Irish farm labourer, and Fee, his harassed but aristocratic wife. Although Meggie is a beautiful child with curly red-gold hair, she receives little coddling and must struggle to hold her own against her numerous older brothers. Of these brothers, her favourite is the eldest, Frank, a rebellious young man who is unwillingly preparing himself for the blacksmith's trade. He is much shorter than his brothers, but very strong; also, unlike the other Clearys, he has black hair and eyes. Paddy is poor, but has a wealthy sister, Mary Carson, who lives in Australia on an enormous sheep station called Drogheda. One day, Paddy receives a letter from Mary offering him a job on her estate. He accepts, and the whole family moves to the Outback. Here Meggie meets Ralph de Bricassart, a young, capable, and ambitious priest who, as punishment for insulting a bishop, has been relegated to a remote parish in the town of Gillanbone, near Drogheda. Ralph has befriended Mary, hoping a hefty enough bequest from her to the Catholic Church might liberate him from his exile. Ralph is strikingly handsome; \"a beautiful man\"; and Mary, who does not bother to conceal her desire for him, often goes to great lengths to see if he can be induced to break his vows. Ralph blandly shrugs off these attentions and continues his visits. Meanwhile, he cares for all the Clearys and soon learns to cherish beautiful but forlorn little Meggie. Meggie, in return, makes Ralph the centre of her life. Frank's relationship with his father, Paddy, has never been peaceful. The two vie for Fee's attention, and Frank resents the many pregnancies Paddy makes her endure. One day, after Fee, now in her forties, reveals she is again pregnant, the two men quarrel violently and Paddy blurts out the truth about Frank: he is not Paddy's son. Long ago, Fee had been the adored only daughter of a prominent citizen. Then she had an affair with a married politician, and the result, Frank, was already eighteen months old when her mortified father married her off to Paddy. Because he resembles her lost love, Fee has always loved Frank more than her other children. To the sorrow of Meggie and Fee, when Frank learns that Paddy is not his father, he runs away to become a boxer. Fee later gives birth to twin boys, James and Patrick (Jims and Patsy), but shows little interest in them. Shortly afterward, Meggie's beloved little brother, Hal, dies. With Frank gone and Hal dead, Meggie clings to Ralph more than ever. This goes largely unnoticed because Ralph has now been her mentor for several years; however, as she ripens into womanhood, some begin to question their close relationship, including Ralph and Meggie themselves. Mary Carson has also noticed their changing relationship, and from motives of jealousy mingled with Machiavellian cruelty, she devises a plan to separate Ralph from Meggie by tempting him with his heart's desire: a high place in the Church hierarchy. Although her will of record leaves the bulk of her estate to Paddy, she quietly writes a new one, making the Roman Catholic Church the main beneficiary and Ralph the executor. In the new will, the true magnitude of Mary's wealth is finally revealed. Drogheda is not the centre of her fortune as Ralph and Paddy have long believed but is merely a hobby, a diversion from her true financial interests. Mary's wealth is derived from a vast multi-national financial empire worth over thirteen million Pounds (about A$200 million in modern terms). The sheer size of Mary's bequest will virtually guarantee Ralph's rapid rise in the church. She also makes sure that after she dies only Ralph, at first, will know of the new will &mdash; forcing him to choose between Meggie and his own ambition. She also provides for her disinherited brother, promising him and all his grandchildren a home on Drogheda as long as any of them live. At Mary's seventy-second birthday party, Ralph goes to great lengths to avoid Meggie, now seventeen and dressed in a beautiful rose-pink evening gown; later, he explains that others might not see his attention as innocent. Mary dies in the night. Ralph duly learns of the new will. He sees at once the subtle genius of Mary's plan and, although he weeps and calls her \"a disgusting old spider\" he takes the new will to her lawyer without delay. The lawyer, scandalised, urges Ralph to destroy the will, but to no avail. The bequest of thirteen million pounds works its expected magic, and Ralph soon leaves to begin his rapid advance in the Church. Before he leaves, Meggie confesses her love for him; after the birthday party, Ralph finds her crying in the family cemetery and they share a passionate kiss, but Ralph refuses her because of his duties as a priest and begs Meggie to find someone to love and marry. The Clearys learn that Frank has been convicted of murder after killing someone in a fight. He spends three decades in prison. Paddy and his son Stuart are killed; Paddy dies in a lightning fire, and Stu is killed by a wild boar shortly after finding his father's body. Meanwhile, Ralph, unaware of Paddy and Stu's deaths, is on his way to Drogheda and suffers minor injuries when his plane bogs in the mud. As Meggie tends his wounds, she tries to seduce him and is rebuffed. Ralph remains at Drogheda only long enough to conduct the funerals. Three years later, a new ranch worker named Luke O'Neill begins to court Meggie. Although his motives are more mercenary than romantic, she marries him because he looks a little bit like Ralph, but mainly because he is not Catholic and wants little to do with religion-her own way of getting back at Ralph. She soon realises her mistake. After a brief honeymoon, Luke, a skinflint who regards women as sex objects and prefers the company of men, finds Meggie a live-in job with a kindly couple, the Muellers, and leaves to join a gang of itinerant sugarcane cutters in North Queensland. Before he leaves, he appropriates all Meggie's savings and arranges to have her wages paid directly to him. He tells her he is saving money to buy a homestead; however, he quickly becomes obsessed with the competitive toil of cane-cutting and has no real intention of giving it up. Hoping to change Luke's ambition and settle him down, Meggie deliberately thwarts his usual contraception and bears Luke a red-haired daughter, Justine. The new baby, however, makes little impression on Luke. Father Ralph visits Meggie during her difficult labour; he has come to say goodbye, as he is leaving Australia for Rome. He sees Meggie's unhappiness for himself, and pities her. Justine proves to be a fractious baby, so the Muellers send Meggie to an isolated island resort for a rest. Father Ralph returns to Australia, learns of Meggie's whereabouts from Anne Mueller, and joins her for several days. There, at last, the lovers consummate their passion, and Ralph realises that despite his ambition to be the perfect priest, his desire for Meggie makes him a man like other men. Father Ralph returns to the Church, and Meggie, pregnant with Ralph's child, decides to separate from Luke. She tells Luke what she really thinks of him, and returns to Drogheda, leaving him to his cane-cutting. Back home, she gives birth to a beautiful boy whom she names Dane. Fee, who has had experience in such matters, notices Dane's resemblance to Ralph as soon as he is born. The relationship between Meggie and Fee takes a turn for the better. Justine grows into an independent, keenly intelligent girl who loves her brother dearly; however, she has little use for anyone else, and calmly rebuffs Meggie's overtures of motherly affection. None of Meggie's other surviving brothers ever marry, and Drogheda gradually becomes a place filled with old people. Ralph visits Drogheda after a long absence and meets Dane for the first time; and although he finds himself strangely drawn to the boy, he fails to recognize that they are father and son. Dane grows up and decides, to Meggie's dismay, to become a priest. Fee tells Meggie that what she stole from God, she must now give back. Justine, meanwhile, decides to become an actress and leaves Australia to seek her dream in England. Ralph, now a Cardinal, becomes a mentor to Dane, but still blinds himself to the fact that the young man is his own son. Dane is also unaware of their true relationship. Ralph takes great care of him, and because of their resemblance people mistake them for uncle and nephew. Ralph and Dane encourage the rumour. Justine and her brother remain close, although he is often shocked at her sexual adventures and free-wheeling lifestyle. She befriends Rainer Hartheim, a German politician who is a great friend of both Dane and Ralph's - unbeknown to her, he falls deeply in love with her. Their friendship becomes the most important in her life, and is on the verge of becoming something more when tragedy strikes. Dane, who has just become a priest, is vacationing in Greece. While there, he goes swimming one day and dies while rescuing two women from a dangerous current. Meggie reveals before Dane's funeral that Dane is Ralph's son. Ralph dies in Meggie's arms after the funeral. Justine breaks off all communications with Rainer and falls into a depressed, hum-drum existence. Eventually, they renew their acquaintance on strictly platonic terms, until Rainer visits Drogheda alone in order to urge Meggie to help him pursue Justine's hand in marriage. Justine, now the sole surviving grandchild of Fee and Paddy Cleary, finally accepts her true feelings for Rainer. They marry, but have no plans to live on Drogheda. The book's title refers to a mythical bird that searches for thorn trees from the day it is hatched. When it finds the perfect thorn, it impales itself, and sings the most beautiful song ever heard as it dies.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The epic begins with Meghann \"Meggie\" Cleary, a four-year-old girl living in New Zealand in the early twentieth century, the only daughter of Paddy, an Irish farm labourer, and Fee, his harassed but aristocratic wife. Although Meggie is a beautiful child with curly red-gold hair, she receives little coddling and must struggle to hold her own against her numerous older brothers. Of these brothers, her favourite is the eldest, Frank, a rebellious young man who is unwillingly preparing himself for the blacksmith's trade. He is much shorter than his brothers, but very strong; also, unlike the other Clearys, he has black hair and eyes. Paddy is poor, but has a wealthy sister, Mary Carson, who lives in Australia on an enormous sheep station called Drogheda. One day, Paddy receives a letter from Mary offering him a job on her estate. He accepts, and the whole family moves to the Outback. Here Meggie meets Ralph de Bricassart, a young, capable, and ambitious priest who, as punishment for insulting a bishop, has been relegated to a remote parish in the town of Gillanbone, near Drogheda. Ralph has befriended Mary, hoping a hefty enough bequest from her to the Catholic Church might liberate him from his exile. Ralph is strikingly handsome; \"a beautiful man\"; and Mary, who does not bother to conceal her desire for him, often goes to great lengths to see if he can be induced to break his vows. Ralph blandly shrugs off these attentions and continues his visits. Meanwhile, he cares for all the Clearys and soon learns to cherish beautiful but forlorn little Meggie. Meggie, in return, makes Ralph the centre of her life. Frank's relationship with his father, Paddy, has never been peaceful. The two vie for Fee's attention, and Frank resents"
      },
      {
        "text": " for him, often goes to great lengths to see if he can be induced to break his vows. Ralph blandly shrugs off these attentions and continues his visits. Meanwhile, he cares for all the Clearys and soon learns to cherish beautiful but forlorn little Meggie. Meggie, in return, makes Ralph the centre of her life. Frank's relationship with his father, Paddy, has never been peaceful. The two vie for Fee's attention, and Frank resents the many pregnancies Paddy makes her endure. One day, after Fee, now in her forties, reveals she is again pregnant, the two men quarrel violently and Paddy blurts out the truth about Frank: he is not Paddy's son. Long ago, Fee had been the adored only daughter of a prominent citizen. Then she had an affair with a married politician, and the result, Frank, was already eighteen months old when her mortified father married her off to Paddy. Because he resembles her lost love, Fee has always loved Frank more than her other children. To the sorrow of Meggie and Fee, when Frank learns that Paddy is not his father, he runs away to become a boxer. Fee later gives birth to twin boys, James and Patrick (Jims and Patsy), but shows little interest in them. Shortly afterward, Meggie's beloved little brother, Hal, dies. With Frank gone and Hal dead, Meggie clings to Ralph more than ever. This goes largely unnoticed because Ralph has now been her mentor for several years; however, as she ripens into womanhood, some begin to question their close relationship, including Ralph and Meggie themselves. Mary Carson has also noticed their changing relationship, and from motives of jealousy mingled with Machiavellian cruelty, she devises a plan to separate Ralph from Meggie by tempting him with his heart's desire: a high place in the Church hierarchy. Although her will of record leaves the"
      },
      {
        "text": " ever. This goes largely unnoticed because Ralph has now been her mentor for several years; however, as she ripens into womanhood, some begin to question their close relationship, including Ralph and Meggie themselves. Mary Carson has also noticed their changing relationship, and from motives of jealousy mingled with Machiavellian cruelty, she devises a plan to separate Ralph from Meggie by tempting him with his heart's desire: a high place in the Church hierarchy. Although her will of record leaves the bulk of her estate to Paddy, she quietly writes a new one, making the Roman Catholic Church the main beneficiary and Ralph the executor. In the new will, the true magnitude of Mary's wealth is finally revealed. Drogheda is not the centre of her fortune as Ralph and Paddy have long believed but is merely a hobby, a diversion from her true financial interests. Mary's wealth is derived from a vast multi-national financial empire worth over thirteen million Pounds (about A$200 million in modern terms). The sheer size of Mary's bequest will virtually guarantee Ralph's rapid rise in the church. She also makes sure that after she dies only Ralph, at first, will know of the new will &mdash; forcing him to choose between Meggie and his own ambition. She also provides for her disinherited brother, promising him and all his grandchildren a home on Drogheda as long as any of them live. At Mary's seventy-second birthday party, Ralph goes to great lengths to avoid Meggie, now seventeen and dressed in a beautiful rose-pink evening gown; later, he explains that others might not see his attention as innocent. Mary dies in the night. Ralph duly learns of the new will. He sees at once the subtle genius of Mary's plan and, although he weeps and calls her \"a disgusting old spider\" he takes the new will to her lawyer without delay. The lawyer, scandalised, urges Ralph"
      },
      {
        "text": " birthday party, Ralph goes to great lengths to avoid Meggie, now seventeen and dressed in a beautiful rose-pink evening gown; later, he explains that others might not see his attention as innocent. Mary dies in the night. Ralph duly learns of the new will. He sees at once the subtle genius of Mary's plan and, although he weeps and calls her \"a disgusting old spider\" he takes the new will to her lawyer without delay. The lawyer, scandalised, urges Ralph to destroy the will, but to no avail. The bequest of thirteen million pounds works its expected magic, and Ralph soon leaves to begin his rapid advance in the Church. Before he leaves, Meggie confesses her love for him; after the birthday party, Ralph finds her crying in the family cemetery and they share a passionate kiss, but Ralph refuses her because of his duties as a priest and begs Meggie to find someone to love and marry. The Clearys learn that Frank has been convicted of murder after killing someone in a fight. He spends three decades in prison. Paddy and his son Stuart are killed; Paddy dies in a lightning fire, and Stu is killed by a wild boar shortly after finding his father's body. Meanwhile, Ralph, unaware of Paddy and Stu's deaths, is on his way to Drogheda and suffers minor injuries when his plane bogs in the mud. As Meggie tends his wounds, she tries to seduce him and is rebuffed. Ralph remains at Drogheda only long enough to conduct the funerals. Three years later, a new ranch worker named Luke O'Neill begins to court Meggie. Although his motives are more mercenary than romantic, she marries him because he looks a little bit like Ralph, but mainly because he is not Catholic and wants little to do with religion-her own way of getting back at Ralph. She soon realises her mistake. After a brief honeymoon,"
      },
      {
        "text": " him and is rebuffed. Ralph remains at Drogheda only long enough to conduct the funerals. Three years later, a new ranch worker named Luke O'Neill begins to court Meggie. Although his motives are more mercenary than romantic, she marries him because he looks a little bit like Ralph, but mainly because he is not Catholic and wants little to do with religion-her own way of getting back at Ralph. She soon realises her mistake. After a brief honeymoon, Luke, a skinflint who regards women as sex objects and prefers the company of men, finds Meggie a live-in job with a kindly couple, the Muellers, and leaves to join a gang of itinerant sugarcane cutters in North Queensland. Before he leaves, he appropriates all Meggie's savings and arranges to have her wages paid directly to him. He tells her he is saving money to buy a homestead; however, he quickly becomes obsessed with the competitive toil of cane-cutting and has no real intention of giving it up. Hoping to change Luke's ambition and settle him down, Meggie deliberately thwarts his usual contraception and bears Luke a red-haired daughter, Justine. The new baby, however, makes little impression on Luke. Father Ralph visits Meggie during her difficult labour; he has come to say goodbye, as he is leaving Australia for Rome. He sees Meggie's unhappiness for himself, and pities her. Justine proves to be a fractious baby, so the Muellers send Meggie to an isolated island resort for a rest. Father Ralph returns to Australia, learns of Meggie's whereabouts from Anne Mueller, and joins her for several days. There, at last, the lovers consummate their passion, and Ralph realises that despite his ambition to be the perfect priest, his desire for Meggie makes him a man like other men. Father Ralph returns to the Church, and Meggie"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Justine proves to be a fractious baby, so the Muellers send Meggie to an isolated island resort for a rest. Father Ralph returns to Australia, learns of Meggie's whereabouts from Anne Mueller, and joins her for several days. There, at last, the lovers consummate their passion, and Ralph realises that despite his ambition to be the perfect priest, his desire for Meggie makes him a man like other men. Father Ralph returns to the Church, and Meggie, pregnant with Ralph's child, decides to separate from Luke. She tells Luke what she really thinks of him, and returns to Drogheda, leaving him to his cane-cutting. Back home, she gives birth to a beautiful boy whom she names Dane. Fee, who has had experience in such matters, notices Dane's resemblance to Ralph as soon as he is born. The relationship between Meggie and Fee takes a turn for the better. Justine grows into an independent, keenly intelligent girl who loves her brother dearly; however, she has little use for anyone else, and calmly rebuffs Meggie's overtures of motherly affection. None of Meggie's other surviving brothers ever marry, and Drogheda gradually becomes a place filled with old people. Ralph visits Drogheda after a long absence and meets Dane for the first time; and although he finds himself strangely drawn to the boy, he fails to recognize that they are father and son. Dane grows up and decides, to Meggie's dismay, to become a priest. Fee tells Meggie that what she stole from God, she must now give back. Justine, meanwhile, decides to become an actress and leaves Australia to seek her dream in England. Ralph, now a Cardinal, becomes a mentor to Dane, but still blinds himself to the fact that the young man is his own son. Dane is also unaware of their true relationship. Ralph takes great care of him, and because of their"
      },
      {
        "text": " and decides, to Meggie's dismay, to become a priest. Fee tells Meggie that what she stole from God, she must now give back. Justine, meanwhile, decides to become an actress and leaves Australia to seek her dream in England. Ralph, now a Cardinal, becomes a mentor to Dane, but still blinds himself to the fact that the young man is his own son. Dane is also unaware of their true relationship. Ralph takes great care of him, and because of their resemblance people mistake them for uncle and nephew. Ralph and Dane encourage the rumour. Justine and her brother remain close, although he is often shocked at her sexual adventures and free-wheeling lifestyle. She befriends Rainer Hartheim, a German politician who is a great friend of both Dane and Ralph's - unbeknown to her, he falls deeply in love with her. Their friendship becomes the most important in her life, and is on the verge of becoming something more when tragedy strikes. Dane, who has just become a priest, is vacationing in Greece. While there, he goes swimming one day and dies while rescuing two women from a dangerous current. Meggie reveals before Dane's funeral that Dane is Ralph's son. Ralph dies in Meggie's arms after the funeral. Justine breaks off all communications with Rainer and falls into a depressed, hum-drum existence. Eventually, they renew their acquaintance on strictly platonic terms, until Rainer visits Drogheda alone in order to urge Meggie to help him pursue Justine's hand in marriage. Justine, now the sole surviving grandchild of Fee and Paddy Cleary, finally accepts her true feelings for Rainer. They marry, but have no plans to live on Drogheda. The book's title refers to a mythical bird that searches for thorn trees from the day it is hatched. When it finds the perfect thorn, it impales itself, and sings the most beautiful song ever"
      },
      {
        "text": "a alone in order to urge Meggie to help him pursue Justine's hand in marriage. Justine, now the sole surviving grandchild of Fee and Paddy Cleary, finally accepts her true feelings for Rainer. They marry, but have no plans to live on Drogheda. The book's title refers to a mythical bird that searches for thorn trees from the day it is hatched. When it finds the perfect thorn, it impales itself, and sings the most beautiful song ever heard as it dies.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Magic of Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1919",
    "synopsis": " At the top of Mount Munch, lives a group of people known as the Hyups. One of their numbers, a Munchkin named Bini Aru, discovered a method of transforming people and objects by merely saying the word \"Pyrzqxgl\". After Princess Ozma decreed that no one could practice magic in Oz except for Glinda the Good Witch and the Wizard of Oz, Bini wrote down the directions for pronouncing \"Pyrzqxgl\" and hid them in his magical laboratory. When Bini and his wife are at a fair one day, their son Kiki Aru, who thirsts for adventure, finds the directions and afterwards transforms himself into a hawk and visits various countries outside the land of Oz. When he alights in the land of Ev, Kiki Aru learns that he needs money to pay for a night's lodging (versus Oz, where money is not used at all) and changes himself into a magpie to steal a gold piece from an old man. A sparrow confronts the then-human Kiki Aru with knowledge of the theft, and Kiki says that he did not know what it was like to be wicked before, he is glad that he is now. This conversation is overheard by Ruggedo, the Nome who was exiled to the Earth's surface in Tik-Tok of Oz, and he sees through Kiki Aru's power a chance to get revenge on the people of Oz. Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into birds and they fly over the Deadly Desert into the Land of Oz. They enter Oz as animals to escape detection by Glinda and to recruit an army of conquest from the country's wild animal population. When they first appear in the Forest of Gugu in the Gillikin Country, Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into Li-Mon-Eags (fictional creatures with the heads of lions, the bodies of monkeys, and the wings of eagles as well as having the tails of donkeys) and lies that they've seen the people of the Emerald City plan to enslave the animal inhabitants of the Forest. Ruggedo claims that they the Li-Mon-Eags will transform the animals into humans and march on the Emerald City and transform its inhabitants into animals, driving them into the forest. Ruggedo proves their power (for Kiki's the only one who knows \"Pyrzqxgl\") by having Kiki transform one of the leopard king Gugu's advisors, Loo the unicorn, into a man and back again. Gugu offers to meet with the leaders of the other animal tribes to decide on this matter of invasion. Dorothy and the Wizard arrive with the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger in the Forest of Gugu during this council of war with a request for monkeys to train in time for Ozma's upcoming birthday party. Ruggedo recognizes his old enemies and inspires Kiki to begin transforming people and animals left and right &mdash; including Ruggedo, whom Kiki turns against by transforming him into a goose, a transformation that the Nomes most fears because as a goose he might lay an egg. The Wizard, whom Kiki transformed into a fox, follows the Li-Mon-Eag with his magic bag, the transformed Kiki, deep into the forest where he begins transforming monkeys into giant human soldiers. However, Kiki makes them so big that they cannot move through the trees. The Wizard, however, heard how to correctly pronounce \"Pyrzqxgl\" and first stops Kiki and Ruggedo by transforming them into a walnut and a hickory nut. Then the Wizard resumes his rightful form and changes Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, and Gugu back to their forms, and he agrees to change the soldiers back into monkeys. The Wizard recruits several of the grateful monkeys and shrinks them down to bring back to the Emerald City and train. On arriving there, Dorothy and the Wizard are dispatched to a magic island where Cap'n Bill and Trot went to get a magic flower for Ozma's birthday. However, the island itself causes anything living that touches it to take root there, and that is how the sailor and his friend are found when Dorothy and the Wizard arrive. The Wizard uses \"Pyrzqxgl\" to change Cap'n Bill and Trot into honeybees which narrowly avoid being eaten by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. When they are human again, Cap'n Bill retrieves the flower by strapping a wood plank onto his good leg, walks with that and his wooden leg onto the island, and retrieves the flower. Back at the Emerald City, Ozma and her friends celebrate her birthday (though without quite the pomp and fanfare from The Road to Oz) and then decide how to deal with the evil magicians transformed into nuts. The Wizard uses \"Pyrzqxgl\" to change them back to Kiki Aru and Ruggedo and make them thirsty enough to drink the Water of Oblivion, which will make them forget all that they have ever known. The now-blank slate Kiki Aru and Ruggedo will live in the Emerald City and learn to be good and kind.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At the top of Mount Munch, lives a group of people known as the Hyups. One of their numbers, a Munchkin named Bini Aru, discovered a method of transforming people and objects by merely saying the word \"Pyrzqxgl\". After Princess Ozma decreed that no one could practice magic in Oz except for Glinda the Good Witch and the Wizard of Oz, Bini wrote down the directions for pronouncing \"Pyrzqxgl\" and hid them in his magical laboratory. When Bini and his wife are at a fair one day, their son Kiki Aru, who thirsts for adventure, finds the directions and afterwards transforms himself into a hawk and visits various countries outside the land of Oz. When he alights in the land of Ev, Kiki Aru learns that he needs money to pay for a night's lodging (versus Oz, where money is not used at all) and changes himself into a magpie to steal a gold piece from an old man. A sparrow confronts the then-human Kiki Aru with knowledge of the theft, and Kiki says that he did not know what it was like to be wicked before, he is glad that he is now. This conversation is overheard by Ruggedo, the Nome who was exiled to the Earth's surface in Tik-Tok of Oz, and he sees through Kiki Aru's power a chance to get revenge on the people of Oz. Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into birds and they fly over the Deadly Desert into the Land of Oz. They enter Oz as animals to escape detection by Glinda and to recruit an army of conquest from the country's wild animal population. When they first appear in the Forest of Gugu in the Gillikin Country, Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into Li-Mon-Eags (fictional creatures with the heads of lions, the bodies of monkeys, and the wings"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into birds and they fly over the Deadly Desert into the Land of Oz. They enter Oz as animals to escape detection by Glinda and to recruit an army of conquest from the country's wild animal population. When they first appear in the Forest of Gugu in the Gillikin Country, Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into Li-Mon-Eags (fictional creatures with the heads of lions, the bodies of monkeys, and the wings of eagles as well as having the tails of donkeys) and lies that they've seen the people of the Emerald City plan to enslave the animal inhabitants of the Forest. Ruggedo claims that they the Li-Mon-Eags will transform the animals into humans and march on the Emerald City and transform its inhabitants into animals, driving them into the forest. Ruggedo proves their power (for Kiki's the only one who knows \"Pyrzqxgl\") by having Kiki transform one of the leopard king Gugu's advisors, Loo the unicorn, into a man and back again. Gugu offers to meet with the leaders of the other animal tribes to decide on this matter of invasion. Dorothy and the Wizard arrive with the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger in the Forest of Gugu during this council of war with a request for monkeys to train in time for Ozma's upcoming birthday party. Ruggedo recognizes his old enemies and inspires Kiki to begin transforming people and animals left and right &mdash; including Ruggedo, whom Kiki turns against by transforming him into a goose, a transformation that the Nomes most fears because as a goose he might lay an egg. The Wizard, whom Kiki transformed into a fox, follows the Li-Mon-Eag with his magic bag, the transformed Kiki, deep into the forest where he begins transforming monkeys into giant human soldiers. However, Kiki makes them so big"
      },
      {
        "text": "iki to begin transforming people and animals left and right &mdash; including Ruggedo, whom Kiki turns against by transforming him into a goose, a transformation that the Nomes most fears because as a goose he might lay an egg. The Wizard, whom Kiki transformed into a fox, follows the Li-Mon-Eag with his magic bag, the transformed Kiki, deep into the forest where he begins transforming monkeys into giant human soldiers. However, Kiki makes them so big that they cannot move through the trees. The Wizard, however, heard how to correctly pronounce \"Pyrzqxgl\" and first stops Kiki and Ruggedo by transforming them into a walnut and a hickory nut. Then the Wizard resumes his rightful form and changes Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, and Gugu back to their forms, and he agrees to change the soldiers back into monkeys. The Wizard recruits several of the grateful monkeys and shrinks them down to bring back to the Emerald City and train. On arriving there, Dorothy and the Wizard are dispatched to a magic island where Cap'n Bill and Trot went to get a magic flower for Ozma's birthday. However, the island itself causes anything living that touches it to take root there, and that is how the sailor and his friend are found when Dorothy and the Wizard arrive. The Wizard uses \"Pyrzqxgl\" to change Cap'n Bill and Trot into honeybees which narrowly avoid being eaten by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. When they are human again, Cap'n Bill retrieves the flower by strapping a wood plank onto his good leg, walks with that and his wooden leg onto the island, and retrieves the flower. Back at the Emerald City, Ozma and her friends celebrate her birthday (though without quite the pomp and fanfare from The Road to Oz) and then decide how to deal with the evil mag"
      },
      {
        "text": " into honeybees which narrowly avoid being eaten by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. When they are human again, Cap'n Bill retrieves the flower by strapping a wood plank onto his good leg, walks with that and his wooden leg onto the island, and retrieves the flower. Back at the Emerald City, Ozma and her friends celebrate her birthday (though without quite the pomp and fanfare from The Road to Oz) and then decide how to deal with the evil magicians transformed into nuts. The Wizard uses \"Pyrzqxgl\" to change them back to Kiki Aru and Ruggedo and make them thirsty enough to drink the Water of Oblivion, which will make them forget all that they have ever known. The now-blank slate Kiki Aru and Ruggedo will live in the Emerald City and learn to be good and kind.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator",
    "author": "Roald Dahl",
    "published_date": "1972-09",
    "synopsis": " The book begins where Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ends: Willy Wonka has just given Charlie the ownership of his factory, and they crash through the roof of Charlie's house with a flying elevator to inform his family of the good news. Charlie's grandparents (except Grandpa Joe who had already gotten out of the bed) are nervous about going inside the travelling elevator, and after twenty years in bed, they refuse to get up. The bed is thus pushed into the elevator, which then takes off. At a critical moment during the return trip to the factory, a panicking Josephine grabs Wonka away from the controls, which results in the elevator, along with its occupants, being sent into an Earth orbit. The elevator circles the planet until Wonka sees the chance to link it with the newly-launched Space hotel, a creation of the United States government. In the White House, President of the United States Lancelot R. Gilligrass, together with Vice President Elvira Tibbs (who was once Gilligrass's nanny) a Those shape-changers, Wonka tells the others, are predatory extraterrestrials called Vermicious Knids that have infested the Space Hotel. Since they can't reach Earth's surface to prey on its natives because they burn up in the atmosphere as shooting stars, the Knids are waiting in the Space Hotel for the new arrivals. Meanwhile the shuttle docks with the Space Hotel and the staff and astronauts go aboard. The Knids reappear and devour some of the humans, but most of them escape back to the spacecraft. Capable of flying in the vacuum of space at improbable speeds, they pursue the survivors but are unable to board the space shuttle. Instead, they dive-bomb the shuttle's engines and hull, destroying the rockets as well as the cameras and radio antenna. Without its engines, the shuttle is unable to escape the Knids by breaking orbit and returning to Earth. Seeing all this from the relative safety of the Great Glass Elevator (which is \"Knid-proof\" - one Knid bruised itself badly on the glass and has been chasing the Elevator ever since), Charlie suggests that he and his companions use the Elevator to tow the shuttle back to Earth. In agreement, Wonka pilots the Elevator into range, whereupon Charlie's Grandpa Joe connects the two vessels by means of a steel cord. The Knids change into living segments of a towing line, with which they intend to drag the two spacecraft away, while the bruised Knid wraps his body around the Elevator to provide an anchor for this operation. Willy Wonka activates the Elevator's retro-rockets and plunges to Earth, taking the shuttle and Knids, all of whom burn up due to friction with the atmosphere during re-entry. At the right moment Wonka releases the shuttle, which floats safely home. The Elevator then crashes into the chocolate factory, ending its flight in the Chocolate room. Since Charlie was presented the factory as a gift by Wonka, he wants his family to help him run it. Georgina, George and Josephine still refuse to move out of their bed. Wonka proposes a pill he invented, Wonka-Vite, to make them young again. (He says that it is too valuable to waste on himself, which is why he needed an heir in the first place.) The three bedridden recipients get greedy and take much more than they need to. Instead of becoming a mere twenty years younger, the three grandparents lose eighty years, making George one year old, Josephine three months, and Georgina absent altogether, having become \"minus two\" (she was seventy-eight). Charlie and Wonka journey in the Great Glass Elevator to Minusland \u2013 a realm that Wonka discovered when his earlier attempts to create Wonka-Vite turned all the Oompa-Loompas he tested it on to become Minuses as the formula was too strong \u2013 to get Georgina back with Vita-Wonk, a sprayable compound that makes people older. Minusland is a dark, gloomy region far beneath the surface of the Earth, filled up entirely with fog, and inhabited only by the invisible and highly dangerous Gnoolies, creatures which, with a single bite, turn their victims into more Gnoolies (Wonka states that the process, a form of long division, takes a long time and is very painful). After administering an even worse overdose of Vita-Wonk to Grandma Georgina, they return to the upper world. There, Georgina has become 358 years old. Her memory entails a lot of history, beginning with the Pilgrim voyage in the ship \"Mayflower\" (which Wonka and the Buckets use to pinpoint her exact age) and ending in the present moment, spanning over many wars and truces in between. Using a more cautious dose of Wonka-Vite, her companions subtract much of this age from her, leaving her at seventy-eight as she was before. During the process of becoming younger, she shouts several sentences, all having to do with American History, including: \"We've beaten them! Yorktown's Surrendered! We've kicked them out, those dirty British!\", \"Gettysburg! General Lee is on the run!\", \"He's dead, he's dead, he's dead!\", \"Lincoln! There goes the train...\" Charlie and Mr. Wonka administer enough Vita-Wonk to recall Josephine and George to their original age. The grandparents are still incensed with Wonka's adventurous nature. They refuse, as before, to come out of bed. Then mysterious visitors arrive in a helicopter. The Oompa-Loompas give Wonka a letter from President Gilligrass, congratulating the occupants of the Great Glass Elevator on saving the lives of the shuttle astronauts and hotel staff and inviting them as the guests of honor to a White House dinner. The grandparents don't want to be left out, so they leap out of bed and join Charlie, Grandpa Joe, Wonka, and Charlie's parents to enter the helicopter sent to pick them up.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book begins where Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ends: Willy Wonka has just given Charlie the ownership of his factory, and they crash through the roof of Charlie's house with a flying elevator to inform his family of the good news. Charlie's grandparents (except Grandpa Joe who had already gotten out of the bed) are nervous about going inside the travelling elevator, and after twenty years in bed, they refuse to get up. The bed is thus pushed into the elevator, which then takes off. At a critical moment during the return trip to the factory, a panicking Josephine grabs Wonka away from the controls, which results in the elevator, along with its occupants, being sent into an Earth orbit. The elevator circles the planet until Wonka sees the chance to link it with the newly-launched Space hotel, a creation of the United States government. In the White House, President of the United States Lancelot R. Gilligrass, together with Vice President Elvira Tibbs (who was once Gilligrass's nanny) a Those shape-changers, Wonka tells the others, are predatory extraterrestrials called Vermicious Knids that have infested the Space Hotel. Since they can't reach Earth's surface to prey on its natives because they burn up in the atmosphere as shooting stars, the Knids are waiting in the Space Hotel for the new arrivals. Meanwhile the shuttle docks with the Space Hotel and the staff and astronauts go aboard. The Knids reappear and devour some of the humans, but most of them escape back to the spacecraft. Capable of flying in the vacuum of space at improbable speeds, they pursue the survivors but are unable to board the space shuttle. Instead, they dive-bomb the shuttle's engines and hull, destroying the rockets as well as the cameras and radio antenna. Without its engines, the shuttle is unable to escape the Knids by breaking orbit and returning to Earth. Seeing all this from the"
      },
      {
        "text": " The Knids reappear and devour some of the humans, but most of them escape back to the spacecraft. Capable of flying in the vacuum of space at improbable speeds, they pursue the survivors but are unable to board the space shuttle. Instead, they dive-bomb the shuttle's engines and hull, destroying the rockets as well as the cameras and radio antenna. Without its engines, the shuttle is unable to escape the Knids by breaking orbit and returning to Earth. Seeing all this from the relative safety of the Great Glass Elevator (which is \"Knid-proof\" - one Knid bruised itself badly on the glass and has been chasing the Elevator ever since), Charlie suggests that he and his companions use the Elevator to tow the shuttle back to Earth. In agreement, Wonka pilots the Elevator into range, whereupon Charlie's Grandpa Joe connects the two vessels by means of a steel cord. The Knids change into living segments of a towing line, with which they intend to drag the two spacecraft away, while the bruised Knid wraps his body around the Elevator to provide an anchor for this operation. Willy Wonka activates the Elevator's retro-rockets and plunges to Earth, taking the shuttle and Knids, all of whom burn up due to friction with the atmosphere during re-entry. At the right moment Wonka releases the shuttle, which floats safely home. The Elevator then crashes into the chocolate factory, ending its flight in the Chocolate room. Since Charlie was presented the factory as a gift by Wonka, he wants his family to help him run it. Georgina, George and Josephine still refuse to move out of their bed. Wonka proposes a pill he invented, Wonka-Vite, to make them young again. (He says that it is too valuable to waste on himself, which is why he needed an heir in the first place.) The three bedridden recipients get greedy and take much more"
      },
      {
        "text": " in the Chocolate room. Since Charlie was presented the factory as a gift by Wonka, he wants his family to help him run it. Georgina, George and Josephine still refuse to move out of their bed. Wonka proposes a pill he invented, Wonka-Vite, to make them young again. (He says that it is too valuable to waste on himself, which is why he needed an heir in the first place.) The three bedridden recipients get greedy and take much more than they need to. Instead of becoming a mere twenty years younger, the three grandparents lose eighty years, making George one year old, Josephine three months, and Georgina absent altogether, having become \"minus two\" (she was seventy-eight). Charlie and Wonka journey in the Great Glass Elevator to Minusland \u2013 a realm that Wonka discovered when his earlier attempts to create Wonka-Vite turned all the Oompa-Loompas he tested it on to become Minuses as the formula was too strong \u2013 to get Georgina back with Vita-Wonk, a sprayable compound that makes people older. Minusland is a dark, gloomy region far beneath the surface of the Earth, filled up entirely with fog, and inhabited only by the invisible and highly dangerous Gnoolies, creatures which, with a single bite, turn their victims into more Gnoolies (Wonka states that the process, a form of long division, takes a long time and is very painful). After administering an even worse overdose of Vita-Wonk to Grandma Georgina, they return to the upper world. There, Georgina has become 358 years old. Her memory entails a lot of history, beginning with the Pilgrim voyage in the ship \"Mayflower\" (which Wonka and the Buckets use to pinpoint her exact age) and ending in the present moment, spanning over many wars and truces in between. Using a more cautious dose of Won"
      },
      {
        "text": " time and is very painful). After administering an even worse overdose of Vita-Wonk to Grandma Georgina, they return to the upper world. There, Georgina has become 358 years old. Her memory entails a lot of history, beginning with the Pilgrim voyage in the ship \"Mayflower\" (which Wonka and the Buckets use to pinpoint her exact age) and ending in the present moment, spanning over many wars and truces in between. Using a more cautious dose of Wonka-Vite, her companions subtract much of this age from her, leaving her at seventy-eight as she was before. During the process of becoming younger, she shouts several sentences, all having to do with American History, including: \"We've beaten them! Yorktown's Surrendered! We've kicked them out, those dirty British!\", \"Gettysburg! General Lee is on the run!\", \"He's dead, he's dead, he's dead!\", \"Lincoln! There goes the train...\" Charlie and Mr. Wonka administer enough Vita-Wonk to recall Josephine and George to their original age. The grandparents are still incensed with Wonka's adventurous nature. They refuse, as before, to come out of bed. Then mysterious visitors arrive in a helicopter. The Oompa-Loompas give Wonka a letter from President Gilligrass, congratulating the occupants of the Great Glass Elevator on saving the lives of the shuttle astronauts and hotel staff and inviting them as the guests of honor to a White House dinner. The grandparents don't want to be left out, so they leap out of bed and join Charlie, Grandpa Joe, Wonka, and Charlie's parents to enter the helicopter sent to pick them up.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " and inviting them as the guests of honor to a White House dinner. The grandparents don't want to be left out, so they leap out of bed and join Charlie, Grandpa Joe, Wonka, and Charlie's parents to enter the helicopter sent to pick them up.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Inheritors",
    "author": "Ford Madox Ford",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " The authors introduce the story via science fiction tropes such as the uncanny \u2013 coincidences, ESP, unearthly lighting effects, distorted visions, supernatural aural frequencies and scenes dissolving into another \u2013 pointing to the underlying threat of instability that drives the novel. The story is told through the eyes of Arthur, a writer turned journalist who feels he is compromising his art. Although Arthur at first holds to high ideals (he values \"literature\" over journalism, sacrificial literary types over opportunists), he gradually moves away from them because he wants to be a somebody. After first compromising his work, and obsessed with the woman, he is seduced into thinking that he has a chance with her. He further believes he has a choice between being phased out without making his mark or being \"one of them\", one of the inner circle who inherits power along with Them. She accurately chooses him for his weaknesses: his sense of failure and impotence as a writer with a need for significance; his isolation and willingness to join society; his snobbery and openness to flattering attention. While her reasons for bringing Arthur into play are not clear at first, they are complex. Inevitably Arthur is her tool for bringing down her opponent. For the authors, Arthur serves as an observer and an experiment at the hands of the Dimensionists, proving their effectiveness on an individual's psyche. The story is a Machiavellian labyrinth involving the British Government's tenuous support for a railway baron, a bid to annex Greenland, and a tilt at party leadership. Themes of unrealised potential, the cold-blooded manoeuvering, and the upward climb of the influential mystery woman, fictionalise the intricacies and interactions of class and power in Britain at the time. Two contrasting mindsets of society are delineated by generational values or lack of them and the changes they portend for the everyday people they effectively rule. By chance Arthur is offered a job writing \"atmospheric\" pieces for a new journal put together by an editor (Fox), a well-respected writer (Callan) and a Minister for Defence (Edward Churchill). Although Fox is a Fourth Dimensionist, his group represents the more humanitarian version of the Dimension threesome. Arthur is to write about celebrities. In this way, and through his own sense of superiority and lack of sympathy for others, he is drawn into the machinery of politics and the players who aim to inherit the earth. Although he frequently thinks of ways to expose their plan and tries to warn others such as his aunt and Churchill against the woman and Them, he is outwitted. As her brother, people see it as sibling rivalry, contaminated by jealousy, and ambition. His every move outmatched, Arthur lapses into passivity on that front. Instead he tries to win her favour. Using the ploy of hinting that she cares, the woman leads Arthur into believing there's hope if he can impress her. The ailing and exhausted Fox admits his own defeated position, trusting him with editorial power for a few hours. The climax comes when Arthur has the chance to insert an article that would avert history, to stop the presses at The Hour. But with a desire to show how much he is like her kind, to earn her favour, he decides not to. He learns to his dismay that he did just what he was meant to do, undermine Fox \u2013 Gurnard's opponent \u2013 that he never had a place in her scheme, and has betrayed anyone who would have meant anything to him, such as Churchill, Callan and Fox. Learning she is marrying a triumphant Gurnard, realising there is no going back and no future for him, he has a minor breakdown at his Club, where people speak of him as \"the one they got at\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The authors introduce the story via science fiction tropes such as the uncanny \u2013 coincidences, ESP, unearthly lighting effects, distorted visions, supernatural aural frequencies and scenes dissolving into another \u2013 pointing to the underlying threat of instability that drives the novel. The story is told through the eyes of Arthur, a writer turned journalist who feels he is compromising his art. Although Arthur at first holds to high ideals (he values \"literature\" over journalism, sacrificial literary types over opportunists), he gradually moves away from them because he wants to be a somebody. After first compromising his work, and obsessed with the woman, he is seduced into thinking that he has a chance with her. He further believes he has a choice between being phased out without making his mark or being \"one of them\", one of the inner circle who inherits power along with Them. She accurately chooses him for his weaknesses: his sense of failure and impotence as a writer with a need for significance; his isolation and willingness to join society; his snobbery and openness to flattering attention. While her reasons for bringing Arthur into play are not clear at first, they are complex. Inevitably Arthur is her tool for bringing down her opponent. For the authors, Arthur serves as an observer and an experiment at the hands of the Dimensionists, proving their effectiveness on an individual's psyche. The story is a Machiavellian labyrinth involving the British Government's tenuous support for a railway baron, a bid to annex Greenland, and a tilt at party leadership. Themes of unrealised potential, the cold-blooded manoeuvering, and the upward climb of the influential mystery woman, fictionalise the intricacies and interactions of class and power in Britain at the time. Two contrasting mindsets of society are delineated by generational values or lack of them and the changes they portend for the everyday people they effectively rule. By chance Arthur is offered a job writing \"atmospheric\""
      },
      {
        "text": " a bid to annex Greenland, and a tilt at party leadership. Themes of unrealised potential, the cold-blooded manoeuvering, and the upward climb of the influential mystery woman, fictionalise the intricacies and interactions of class and power in Britain at the time. Two contrasting mindsets of society are delineated by generational values or lack of them and the changes they portend for the everyday people they effectively rule. By chance Arthur is offered a job writing \"atmospheric\" pieces for a new journal put together by an editor (Fox), a well-respected writer (Callan) and a Minister for Defence (Edward Churchill). Although Fox is a Fourth Dimensionist, his group represents the more humanitarian version of the Dimension threesome. Arthur is to write about celebrities. In this way, and through his own sense of superiority and lack of sympathy for others, he is drawn into the machinery of politics and the players who aim to inherit the earth. Although he frequently thinks of ways to expose their plan and tries to warn others such as his aunt and Churchill against the woman and Them, he is outwitted. As her brother, people see it as sibling rivalry, contaminated by jealousy, and ambition. His every move outmatched, Arthur lapses into passivity on that front. Instead he tries to win her favour. Using the ploy of hinting that she cares, the woman leads Arthur into believing there's hope if he can impress her. The ailing and exhausted Fox admits his own defeated position, trusting him with editorial power for a few hours. The climax comes when Arthur has the chance to insert an article that would avert history, to stop the presses at The Hour. But with a desire to show how much he is like her kind, to earn her favour, he decides not to. He learns to his dismay that he did just what he was meant to do, undermine Fox \u2013 Gurnard's opponent \u2013 that he never had a place in her"
      },
      {
        "text": " exhausted Fox admits his own defeated position, trusting him with editorial power for a few hours. The climax comes when Arthur has the chance to insert an article that would avert history, to stop the presses at The Hour. But with a desire to show how much he is like her kind, to earn her favour, he decides not to. He learns to his dismay that he did just what he was meant to do, undermine Fox \u2013 Gurnard's opponent \u2013 that he never had a place in her scheme, and has betrayed anyone who would have meant anything to him, such as Churchill, Callan and Fox. Learning she is marrying a triumphant Gurnard, realising there is no going back and no future for him, he has a minor breakdown at his Club, where people speak of him as \"the one they got at\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Moving Pictures",
    "author": "Terry Pratchett",
    "published_date": "1990",
    "synopsis": " The alchemists of the Discworld have invented moving pictures. Many hopefuls are drawn by the siren call of Holy Wood, home of the fledgling \"clicks\" industry \u2013 among them Victor Tugelbend (\"Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little.\"), a dropout from Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University and Theda \"Ginger\" Withel, a girl \"from a little town you never ever heard of\", who become stars, and the Discworld's most infamous salesman, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, who introduces commerce to the equation and becomes a successful producer. Meanwhile, it gradually becomes clear that the production of movies is having a deleterious effect on the structure of reality. Ginger is possessed by an unspecified entity and she and Victor find an ancient, hidden cinema, complete with portal to the Dungeon Dimensions. Back in Ankh-Morpork, a creature from the Dungeon Dimensions breaks through, and Victor fights it, having found out that with a camera pointing at him in real life works out the way it does in the movies.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The alchemists of the Discworld have invented moving pictures. Many hopefuls are drawn by the siren call of Holy Wood, home of the fledgling \"clicks\" industry \u2013 among them Victor Tugelbend (\"Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little.\"), a dropout from Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University and Theda \"Ginger\" Withel, a girl \"from a little town you never ever heard of\", who become stars, and the Discworld's most infamous salesman, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, who introduces commerce to the equation and becomes a successful producer. Meanwhile, it gradually becomes clear that the production of movies is having a deleterious effect on the structure of reality. Ginger is possessed by an unspecified entity and she and Victor find an ancient, hidden cinema, complete with portal to the Dungeon Dimensions. Back in Ankh-Morpork, a creature from the Dungeon Dimensions breaks through, and Victor fights it, having found out that with a camera pointing at him in real life works out the way it does in the movies.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Glinda of Oz",
    "author": "L. Frank Baum",
    "published_date": "1920",
    "synopsis": " Princess Ozma and Dorothy travel to an obscure corner of the Land of Oz, in order to prevent a war between two local powers, the Skeezers and the Flatheads. The leaders of the two tribes prove obstinate. Unable to prevent the war, Dorothy and Ozma find themselves imprisoned on the Skeezers' glass-covered island, which has been magically submerged to the bottom of its lake. Their situation worsens when the warlike queen Coo-ee-oh, who is holding them captive and who alone knows how to raise the island back to the surface of the lake, loses her battle and gets transformed into a swan, forgetting all her magic in the process. Ozma and Dorothy summon Glinda, who, with help from several magicians and magical assistants, must find a way to raise the island and liberate its trapped inhabitants.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Princess Ozma and Dorothy travel to an obscure corner of the Land of Oz, in order to prevent a war between two local powers, the Skeezers and the Flatheads. The leaders of the two tribes prove obstinate. Unable to prevent the war, Dorothy and Ozma find themselves imprisoned on the Skeezers' glass-covered island, which has been magically submerged to the bottom of its lake. Their situation worsens when the warlike queen Coo-ee-oh, who is holding them captive and who alone knows how to raise the island back to the surface of the lake, loses her battle and gets transformed into a swan, forgetting all her magic in the process. Ozma and Dorothy summon Glinda, who, with help from several magicians and magical assistants, must find a way to raise the island and liberate its trapped inhabitants.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Book of Sand",
    "author": "Jorge Luis Borges",
    "published_date": "1975",
    "synopsis": " The titular \"Book of Sand\" is the Book of all Books, and is a monster. The story tells how this book came into the possession of a fictional version of Borges himself, and of how he ultimately disposed of it. On opening the book, Borges finds that the pages are written in an indecipherable script appearing in double columns, ordered in versicle as in a Bible. When he opens to a page with an illustration, the bookseller advises a close look, since the page will never be found, or seen, again. It proves impossible to find the first or last page. This Book of Sand has no beginning or end: its pages are infinite. Each page is numbered, apparently uniquely but in no discernible pattern. The bookseller indicates that he acquired the book in exchange for a handful of rupees and a Bible, from an owner who did not know how to read. His conscience is clear with respect to that transaction: he feels sure of not having cheated the native in exchanging the Word of God for this diabolical trinket. He and the fictive Borges strike a bargain, and Borges exchanges his entire pension plus a black-letter Wyclif Bible for the miraculous book. The Scottish philosopher David Hume is mentioned, and the poet George Herbert is referenced via the epigraph, \"Thy rope of sands.\" It can be by no means accidental that Borges (the author, not the character) has placed into the hands of an evangelical Presbyterian an \"immediate object,\" the sense of which seemingly undermines plain faith in a Christian eschatology. One imagines that to the Presbyterian Bible salesman, God's truth is a simple truth. This simple religion was by no means shared by the philosopher Hume, who, according to James Boswell , although the son of Presbyterians, \"...owned [that] he had never read the New Testament with attention...[and] had been at no pains to enquire into the truth of religion, and had continually turned his mind the other way\" (Boswell, p.&nbsp;409). According to Hume, Borges underscores the distance between the bookseller and Hume by having his fictive persona express his \"great personal affection for Scotland, through my love of Stevenson and Hume.\" The salesman \"corrects\" him, adding, \"And Robbie Burns.\" The worldly Borges ultimately proves no more able to live with the terrifying book than was the salesman. He considers destroying the book by fire, but decides against this after reasoning that such a fire would release infinite amounts of smoke, and asphyxiate the entire world. Ultimately, Borges transports the book to the Argentine National Library (of which the real Borges was, for many years, the head). \"Slipping past a member of the staff and trying not to notice at what height or distance from the door ... [he loses] the Book of Sand on one of the basement's musty shelves\", the infinite book deliberately lost in a near-infinity of books.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The titular \"Book of Sand\" is the Book of all Books, and is a monster. The story tells how this book came into the possession of a fictional version of Borges himself, and of how he ultimately disposed of it. On opening the book, Borges finds that the pages are written in an indecipherable script appearing in double columns, ordered in versicle as in a Bible. When he opens to a page with an illustration, the bookseller advises a close look, since the page will never be found, or seen, again. It proves impossible to find the first or last page. This Book of Sand has no beginning or end: its pages are infinite. Each page is numbered, apparently uniquely but in no discernible pattern. The bookseller indicates that he acquired the book in exchange for a handful of rupees and a Bible, from an owner who did not know how to read. His conscience is clear with respect to that transaction: he feels sure of not having cheated the native in exchanging the Word of God for this diabolical trinket. He and the fictive Borges strike a bargain, and Borges exchanges his entire pension plus a black-letter Wyclif Bible for the miraculous book. The Scottish philosopher David Hume is mentioned, and the poet George Herbert is referenced via the epigraph, \"Thy rope of sands.\" It can be by no means accidental that Borges (the author, not the character) has placed into the hands of an evangelical Presbyterian an \"immediate object,\" the sense of which seemingly undermines plain faith in a Christian eschatology. One imagines that to the Presbyterian Bible salesman, God's truth is a simple truth. This simple religion was by no means shared by the philosopher Hume, who, according to James Boswell , although the son of Presbyterians, \"...owned [that] he had never read the New Testament with attention...[and] had been at no pains to enquire into the truth"
      },
      {
        "text": " of an evangelical Presbyterian an \"immediate object,\" the sense of which seemingly undermines plain faith in a Christian eschatology. One imagines that to the Presbyterian Bible salesman, God's truth is a simple truth. This simple religion was by no means shared by the philosopher Hume, who, according to James Boswell , although the son of Presbyterians, \"...owned [that] he had never read the New Testament with attention...[and] had been at no pains to enquire into the truth of religion, and had continually turned his mind the other way\" (Boswell, p.&nbsp;409). According to Hume, Borges underscores the distance between the bookseller and Hume by having his fictive persona express his \"great personal affection for Scotland, through my love of Stevenson and Hume.\" The salesman \"corrects\" him, adding, \"And Robbie Burns.\" The worldly Borges ultimately proves no more able to live with the terrifying book than was the salesman. He considers destroying the book by fire, but decides against this after reasoning that such a fire would release infinite amounts of smoke, and asphyxiate the entire world. Ultimately, Borges transports the book to the Argentine National Library (of which the real Borges was, for many years, the head). \"Slipping past a member of the staff and trying not to notice at what height or distance from the door ... [he loses] the Book of Sand on one of the basement's musty shelves\", the infinite book deliberately lost in a near-infinity of books.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " shelves\", the infinite book deliberately lost in a near-infinity of books.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Walk Two Moons",
    "author": "Sharon Creech",
    "published_date": "1994-06-30",
    "synopsis": " The novel is narrated by a 13 year old girl, Salamanca Tree Hiddle (Sal). Sal's mother, Sugar, has recently left Sal and her father for reasons that are initially unclear. Sal, an only child, has had a very close relationship with her mother and is devastated by her departure. After Sal's father realizes that Sugar will never return, he and Sal move from their beloved farm in Bybanks, Kentucky to Euclid, Ohio, where a woman with whom he has recently become involved, Mrs.Magaret Cadaver, helps him find a job. Sal's beloved Gram and Gramps take her on a cross-country car trip to Lewiston, Idaho to reach her mother in time for her birthday; Sal hopes to bring Sugar home with her. On the trip, Sal entertains her grandparents by telling them about a friend in Euclid, Phoebe Winterbottom, whose mother, after many manifestations of discontent with her life, has also left her family. Intertwined with Sal's narrative is the story of her growing friendship with several classmates and her tentative romance with one of these classmates, Ben Finney. Over the course of the book, as Sal and her grandparents travel west, and Sal continues telling Phoebe's story, parallels and differences between Sal's and Phoebe's lives become clear. Sal's grandmother dies of a stroke just after she has achieved one of her lifelong wishes, seeing Old Faithful in Yellowstone, and right before they are due to arrive in Lewiston. Sal's grandfather, who has previously taught Sal how to drive, encourages Sal to complete the journey to Lewiston. There, she visits the site of a bus crash. We learn that Sal's mother has died in a horrific bus crash whose only survivor was Mrs. Cadaver. At this point --- the novel's denouement --- the reader realizes that Sal has already been told of the accident and her mother's death; however, she has not been able to believe that her mother is truly dead until she sees the site of the crash and her mother's grave. Sal now accepts her loss. She and her grandfather return home, and Sal and her father return to rebuild their life on their farm in Bybanks, where Sal can once again gather strength from the nature that she loves. She maintains her friendships with Phoebe, Ben, and Mrs. Cadaver, who make plans to visit her on her farm.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel is narrated by a 13 year old girl, Salamanca Tree Hiddle (Sal). Sal's mother, Sugar, has recently left Sal and her father for reasons that are initially unclear. Sal, an only child, has had a very close relationship with her mother and is devastated by her departure. After Sal's father realizes that Sugar will never return, he and Sal move from their beloved farm in Bybanks, Kentucky to Euclid, Ohio, where a woman with whom he has recently become involved, Mrs.Magaret Cadaver, helps him find a job. Sal's beloved Gram and Gramps take her on a cross-country car trip to Lewiston, Idaho to reach her mother in time for her birthday; Sal hopes to bring Sugar home with her. On the trip, Sal entertains her grandparents by telling them about a friend in Euclid, Phoebe Winterbottom, whose mother, after many manifestations of discontent with her life, has also left her family. Intertwined with Sal's narrative is the story of her growing friendship with several classmates and her tentative romance with one of these classmates, Ben Finney. Over the course of the book, as Sal and her grandparents travel west, and Sal continues telling Phoebe's story, parallels and differences between Sal's and Phoebe's lives become clear. Sal's grandmother dies of a stroke just after she has achieved one of her lifelong wishes, seeing Old Faithful in Yellowstone, and right before they are due to arrive in Lewiston. Sal's grandfather, who has previously taught Sal how to drive, encourages Sal to complete the journey to Lewiston. There, she visits the site of a bus crash. We learn that Sal's mother has died in a horrific bus crash whose only survivor was Mrs. Cadaver. At this point --- the novel's denouement --- the reader realizes that Sal has already been told of the accident and her mother's death; however, she has not been able"
      },
      {
        "text": " due to arrive in Lewiston. Sal's grandfather, who has previously taught Sal how to drive, encourages Sal to complete the journey to Lewiston. There, she visits the site of a bus crash. We learn that Sal's mother has died in a horrific bus crash whose only survivor was Mrs. Cadaver. At this point --- the novel's denouement --- the reader realizes that Sal has already been told of the accident and her mother's death; however, she has not been able to believe that her mother is truly dead until she sees the site of the crash and her mother's grave. Sal now accepts her loss. She and her grandfather return home, and Sal and her father return to rebuild their life on their farm in Bybanks, where Sal can once again gather strength from the nature that she loves. She maintains her friendships with Phoebe, Ben, and Mrs. Cadaver, who make plans to visit her on her farm.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater",
    "author": "Kurt Vonnegut",
    "published_date": "1965",
    "synopsis": " As the opening of the book explains, this is a story where the leading character is Money. The Rosewater Foundation was founded by United States senator Lister Ames Rosewater of Indiana to help Rosewater descendants avoid paying taxes on the family estate in Rosewater County, Indiana. It is operated by a large legal firm in New York and provides an annual pension of $3.5 million to Eliot, the senator's son. Restless, Eliot goes through the list of things philanthropists do to help the poor, and eventually sets out across America, going from small town to small town, before landing in Rosewater and setting up shop. He calls Rosewater home after becoming a volunteer firefighter in numerous cities across the U.S. This, along with his drunkenness, his generous relationship with the poor in Rosewater, and his odd relationship with his French wife, make him appear a bit crazy. Norman Mushari, a conniving lawyer, is determined to prove him insane so he can reroute a portion of the Rosewater fortune to himself, while transferring it to unwitting distant Rosewater cousins in Rhode Island.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " As the opening of the book explains, this is a story where the leading character is Money. The Rosewater Foundation was founded by United States senator Lister Ames Rosewater of Indiana to help Rosewater descendants avoid paying taxes on the family estate in Rosewater County, Indiana. It is operated by a large legal firm in New York and provides an annual pension of $3.5 million to Eliot, the senator's son. Restless, Eliot goes through the list of things philanthropists do to help the poor, and eventually sets out across America, going from small town to small town, before landing in Rosewater and setting up shop. He calls Rosewater home after becoming a volunteer firefighter in numerous cities across the U.S. This, along with his drunkenness, his generous relationship with the poor in Rosewater, and his odd relationship with his French wife, make him appear a bit crazy. Norman Mushari, a conniving lawyer, is determined to prove him insane so he can reroute a portion of the Rosewater fortune to himself, while transferring it to unwitting distant Rosewater cousins in Rhode Island.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Unknown Soldier",
    "author": "V\u00e4in\u00f6 Linna",
    "published_date": "1954-12-03",
    "synopsis": " The novel has no single central character (it both begins and ends with an ironic play on the narrator's omniscience), and its focus is on different responses to the experience of war. It tells the story of a machinegun company in the war from mobilisation to armistice. A picture of the whole nation in microcosm, the men come from all over the country (a result of Linna's unusual patchwork regiment - units were normally made up of men from the same region.) The men have widely varying social backgrounds and political attitudes, and they all have their own ways of coping, but the general picture is one of a quite relaxedly businesslike attitude, and the men's disrespect for formalities and discipline is a source of frustration for some of the officers. They are all there just to get the job done, and official propaganda, both their own and that of the enemy, is to them a source of amusement or outright offensive. Linna's own description of the men in the novel's final sentence is \"aika velikultia\" \u2014 something like \"good old boys\". The main officer characters are three lieutenants who embody different attitudes: one strict and aloof, one relaxed and fraternal, one idealistic and later disillusioned but brave and loyal to his men. Linna excels in describing the psychology of his characters. He paints realistic yet deeply sympathetic portraits of a score of very different men: cowards and heroes, the initially naive, eventually brave upper-class idealist Kariluoto, the down-to-earth Koskela, the hardened and cynical working-class grunt Lehto, the platoon comedian Vanhala and the preternaturally strong-nerved Rokka, the politically indifferent Hietanen and the communist Lahtinen. It is only for the sternest officers of the Prussian school for whom he has little love. Many of his characters have come to be seen as archetypes of Finnish men, household names to whom reference can be made without explanation.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel has no single central character (it both begins and ends with an ironic play on the narrator's omniscience), and its focus is on different responses to the experience of war. It tells the story of a machinegun company in the war from mobilisation to armistice. A picture of the whole nation in microcosm, the men come from all over the country (a result of Linna's unusual patchwork regiment - units were normally made up of men from the same region.) The men have widely varying social backgrounds and political attitudes, and they all have their own ways of coping, but the general picture is one of a quite relaxedly businesslike attitude, and the men's disrespect for formalities and discipline is a source of frustration for some of the officers. They are all there just to get the job done, and official propaganda, both their own and that of the enemy, is to them a source of amusement or outright offensive. Linna's own description of the men in the novel's final sentence is \"aika velikultia\" \u2014 something like \"good old boys\". The main officer characters are three lieutenants who embody different attitudes: one strict and aloof, one relaxed and fraternal, one idealistic and later disillusioned but brave and loyal to his men. Linna excels in describing the psychology of his characters. He paints realistic yet deeply sympathetic portraits of a score of very different men: cowards and heroes, the initially naive, eventually brave upper-class idealist Kariluoto, the down-to-earth Koskela, the hardened and cynical working-class grunt Lehto, the platoon comedian Vanhala and the preternaturally strong-nerved Rokka, the politically indifferent Hietanen and the communist Lahtinen. It is only for the sternest officers of the Prussian school for whom he has little love. Many of his characters have come to be seen as archetypes of"
      },
      {
        "text": ", eventually brave upper-class idealist Kariluoto, the down-to-earth Koskela, the hardened and cynical working-class grunt Lehto, the platoon comedian Vanhala and the preternaturally strong-nerved Rokka, the politically indifferent Hietanen and the communist Lahtinen. It is only for the sternest officers of the Prussian school for whom he has little love. Many of his characters have come to be seen as archetypes of Finnish men, household names to whom reference can be made without explanation.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Main Street",
    "author": "Sinclair Lewis",
    "published_date": "1920",
    "synopsis": " Carol Milford is a liberal, free-spirited young woman, reared in the metropolis of Saint Paul, Minnesota. She marries Will Kennicott, a doctor, who is a small-town boy at heart. When they marry, Will convinces her to live in his home-town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota (a town modeled on Sauk Centre, Minnesota, the author's birthplace). Carol is appalled at the backwardness of Gopher Prairie. But her disdain for the town's physical ugliness and smug conservatism compels her to reform it. She speaks with its members about progressive changes, joins women's clubs, distributes literature, and holds parties to liven up Gopher Prairie's inhabitants. Despite her friendly, but ineffective efforts, she is constantly derided by the leading cliques. She finds comfort and companionship outside her social class. These companions are taken from her one by one. In her unhappiness, Carol leaves her husband and moves for a time to Washington, D.C., but she eventually returns. Nevertheless, Carol does not feel defeated: :: \"I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women!\"\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Carol Milford is a liberal, free-spirited young woman, reared in the metropolis of Saint Paul, Minnesota. She marries Will Kennicott, a doctor, who is a small-town boy at heart. When they marry, Will convinces her to live in his home-town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota (a town modeled on Sauk Centre, Minnesota, the author's birthplace). Carol is appalled at the backwardness of Gopher Prairie. But her disdain for the town's physical ugliness and smug conservatism compels her to reform it. She speaks with its members about progressive changes, joins women's clubs, distributes literature, and holds parties to liven up Gopher Prairie's inhabitants. Despite her friendly, but ineffective efforts, she is constantly derided by the leading cliques. She finds comfort and companionship outside her social class. These companions are taken from her one by one. In her unhappiness, Carol leaves her husband and moves for a time to Washington, D.C., but she eventually returns. Nevertheless, Carol does not feel defeated: :: \"I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women!\"\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Misery",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1987-06-08",
    "synopsis": " Paul Sheldon, the author of a best-selling series of Victorian-era romance novels surrounding the heroine character Misery Chastain, has just finished the manuscript of his new crime novel, Fast Cars, while staying at the Hotel Boulderado; since 1974, he has completed the first draft of every one of his novels in the same hotel room. With his latest project finished, he has an alcohol-induced impulse to drive to Los Angeles rather than back home to New York City. However, a snowstorm hits while he is driving through the mountains. Sheldon drives off a cliff and crashes upside down into a snowbank. Paul is rescued from the car wreck by Annie Wilkes, a former nurse who lives in nearby Sidewinder. She takes him to her own home rather than a hospital, putting him in the guest bedroom. Using her nursing skills and stockpiled food and medical supplies, including an illicit stash of codeine-based painkillers, Annie slowly nurses Paul back to health. She proclaims herself as Paul's \"number one fan,\" being an avid reader of the Misery Chastain series. However, when she reads the manuscript for Fast Cars, Annie argues with Paul on its violent content and profanity, causing her to spill his soup. Saying that the accident was \"his\" fault, she punishes him by withholding his medication, then forcing him to wash it down with soap water. Paul, who has done extensive research into mental disorders, suspects that Annie is dangerously disturbed. When Sheldon's latest novel, Misery's Child, hits the shelves, Annie buys her reserved copy. She doesn't know, however, that Paul has killed her off at the end, intending to end the Misery series and re-establish himself as a mainstream writer. Upon learning of the main character's demise, Annie rages at Paul before leaving him alone in her house for over two days lest she do something \"unwise\". During this time, Paul suffers from extreme pain and withdrawal from the painkillers; by the time Annie returns, he is close to death. Annie forces him to burn the Fast Cars manuscript&mdash;the book he hoped would launch his post-Misery career&mdash;and presents him with an antique Royal typewriter, for the purpose of writing a new Misery Chastain novel that will bring the character back from the dead. Paul bides his time and writes the book as Annie wants, believing her fully capable of killing him. He manages to escape his room while Annie is on an errand, touring the house in search of more painkillers. He is almost caught by Annie, but manages to return to his room before she enters the house. On another occasion when Annie is absent, Paul escapes his room again and steals a knife from her kitchen, intending to kill her. On the way back to his room, he finds a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings from Annie's life, suggesting that she is a serial killer who murdered her own father, her college roommate, and numerous patients in several states&mdash;thirty-nine people in all. She was arrested and charged with killing several babies at a Boulder hospital, but was acquitted. He also finds a magazine clipping about his status as a missing person. Annie eventually reveals that she knows about Paul's excursions from his room, and punishes him by cutting off his foot with an axe, cauterizing the wound with a blowtorch. Later, when Paul complains about a missing letter on the typewriter, she punishes him by slicing off his thumb with an electric knife. A Colorado state trooper eventually arrives at Annie\u2019s house in search of Paul. Realizing a chance for escape, Paul alerts the officer by throwing an ashtray through the window. However, Annie surprises the trooper, stabs him repeatedly with a sharpened wooden cross, then finally rides over him with her lawnmower. She temporarily hides Paul in the basement while she departs, meaning to dispose of the trooper's body and his police cruiser. Paul finally finishes the book, Misery's Return. As a celebration, he asks Annie for a cigarette and a match, as per his normal practice after finishing a novel, but uses them to seemingly light his manuscript on fire in front of her. While Annie frantically tries to put out the flames, Paul throws the typewriter at her. The two engage in a violent struggle, with Paul stuffing Annie's mouth full of the burning pages. Annie breaks free and runs to find a weapon, but trips on the typewriter, causing her to crack her skull on the mantelpiece. Paul then crawls out of the room, closes the door, and locks the bolt that Annie had installed. After slumping down in front of the door, Paul feels Annie's fingers tugging his shirt from under it. Horrified at the question of how she is still alive, he pounds at her fingers then makes his way to the bathroom for more Novril. He finds and swallows some and sleeps against the door. Awakening, Paul musters up the courage to leave the bathroom in an attempt to escape, uncertain if Annie is either alive or dead. After slowly crawling a short distance, he sees headlights pour through a window. It's the police again. He finds Annie's Penguin and throws it through the window to get their attention. When they find him, Paul warns them about Annie still being alive and her being locked in the guest bedroom. They leave him to investigate. When they return, they tell Paul that they had not found anything but a shattered bottle of champagne and the room burned. Paul screams until he faints. Later it is revealed that Annie had escaped through the window and gone out to the barn in order to get a chainsaw. However, she had died in the barn due to her skull fracture, one hand grasping the handle of the chainsaw. Returning home to New York, Paul submits Misery's Return to his publisher; it is revealed that he burned a decoy of the manuscript instead of the book itself. Paul's publisher tells him that the book will become his greatest bestseller. However, the ordeal is far from over for Paul: he suffers nightmares about Annie and continues to have withdrawals from painkillers. He has also become an alcoholic with writer's block. Eventually, after a random encounter with a child in the street, he has the same spark that inspired him to write Fast Cars. He begins typing about this boy and the skunk he had with him in a shopping cart.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Paul Sheldon, the author of a best-selling series of Victorian-era romance novels surrounding the heroine character Misery Chastain, has just finished the manuscript of his new crime novel, Fast Cars, while staying at the Hotel Boulderado; since 1974, he has completed the first draft of every one of his novels in the same hotel room. With his latest project finished, he has an alcohol-induced impulse to drive to Los Angeles rather than back home to New York City. However, a snowstorm hits while he is driving through the mountains. Sheldon drives off a cliff and crashes upside down into a snowbank. Paul is rescued from the car wreck by Annie Wilkes, a former nurse who lives in nearby Sidewinder. She takes him to her own home rather than a hospital, putting him in the guest bedroom. Using her nursing skills and stockpiled food and medical supplies, including an illicit stash of codeine-based painkillers, Annie slowly nurses Paul back to health. She proclaims herself as Paul's \"number one fan,\" being an avid reader of the Misery Chastain series. However, when she reads the manuscript for Fast Cars, Annie argues with Paul on its violent content and profanity, causing her to spill his soup. Saying that the accident was \"his\" fault, she punishes him by withholding his medication, then forcing him to wash it down with soap water. Paul, who has done extensive research into mental disorders, suspects that Annie is dangerously disturbed. When Sheldon's latest novel, Misery's Child, hits the shelves, Annie buys her reserved copy. She doesn't know, however, that Paul has killed her off at the end, intending to end the Misery series and re-establish himself as a mainstream writer. Upon learning of the main character's demise, Annie rages at Paul before leaving him alone in her house for over two days lest she do something \"unwise\". During this time, Paul suffers from extreme pain and"
      },
      {
        "text": " disturbed. When Sheldon's latest novel, Misery's Child, hits the shelves, Annie buys her reserved copy. She doesn't know, however, that Paul has killed her off at the end, intending to end the Misery series and re-establish himself as a mainstream writer. Upon learning of the main character's demise, Annie rages at Paul before leaving him alone in her house for over two days lest she do something \"unwise\". During this time, Paul suffers from extreme pain and withdrawal from the painkillers; by the time Annie returns, he is close to death. Annie forces him to burn the Fast Cars manuscript&mdash;the book he hoped would launch his post-Misery career&mdash;and presents him with an antique Royal typewriter, for the purpose of writing a new Misery Chastain novel that will bring the character back from the dead. Paul bides his time and writes the book as Annie wants, believing her fully capable of killing him. He manages to escape his room while Annie is on an errand, touring the house in search of more painkillers. He is almost caught by Annie, but manages to return to his room before she enters the house. On another occasion when Annie is absent, Paul escapes his room again and steals a knife from her kitchen, intending to kill her. On the way back to his room, he finds a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings from Annie's life, suggesting that she is a serial killer who murdered her own father, her college roommate, and numerous patients in several states&mdash;thirty-nine people in all. She was arrested and charged with killing several babies at a Boulder hospital, but was acquitted. He also finds a magazine clipping about his status as a missing person. Annie eventually reveals that she knows about Paul's excursions from his room, and punishes him by cutting off his foot with an axe, cauterizing the wound with a blowtorch"
      },
      {
        "text": " serial killer who murdered her own father, her college roommate, and numerous patients in several states&mdash;thirty-nine people in all. She was arrested and charged with killing several babies at a Boulder hospital, but was acquitted. He also finds a magazine clipping about his status as a missing person. Annie eventually reveals that she knows about Paul's excursions from his room, and punishes him by cutting off his foot with an axe, cauterizing the wound with a blowtorch. Later, when Paul complains about a missing letter on the typewriter, she punishes him by slicing off his thumb with an electric knife. A Colorado state trooper eventually arrives at Annie\u2019s house in search of Paul. Realizing a chance for escape, Paul alerts the officer by throwing an ashtray through the window. However, Annie surprises the trooper, stabs him repeatedly with a sharpened wooden cross, then finally rides over him with her lawnmower. She temporarily hides Paul in the basement while she departs, meaning to dispose of the trooper's body and his police cruiser. Paul finally finishes the book, Misery's Return. As a celebration, he asks Annie for a cigarette and a match, as per his normal practice after finishing a novel, but uses them to seemingly light his manuscript on fire in front of her. While Annie frantically tries to put out the flames, Paul throws the typewriter at her. The two engage in a violent struggle, with Paul stuffing Annie's mouth full of the burning pages. Annie breaks free and runs to find a weapon, but trips on the typewriter, causing her to crack her skull on the mantelpiece. Paul then crawls out of the room, closes the door, and locks the bolt that Annie had installed. After slumping down in front of the door, Paul feels Annie's fingers tugging his shirt from under it. Horrified at the question of how she is still alive, he pounds at her fingers"
      },
      {
        "text": " Annie's mouth full of the burning pages. Annie breaks free and runs to find a weapon, but trips on the typewriter, causing her to crack her skull on the mantelpiece. Paul then crawls out of the room, closes the door, and locks the bolt that Annie had installed. After slumping down in front of the door, Paul feels Annie's fingers tugging his shirt from under it. Horrified at the question of how she is still alive, he pounds at her fingers then makes his way to the bathroom for more Novril. He finds and swallows some and sleeps against the door. Awakening, Paul musters up the courage to leave the bathroom in an attempt to escape, uncertain if Annie is either alive or dead. After slowly crawling a short distance, he sees headlights pour through a window. It's the police again. He finds Annie's Penguin and throws it through the window to get their attention. When they find him, Paul warns them about Annie still being alive and her being locked in the guest bedroom. They leave him to investigate. When they return, they tell Paul that they had not found anything but a shattered bottle of champagne and the room burned. Paul screams until he faints. Later it is revealed that Annie had escaped through the window and gone out to the barn in order to get a chainsaw. However, she had died in the barn due to her skull fracture, one hand grasping the handle of the chainsaw. Returning home to New York, Paul submits Misery's Return to his publisher; it is revealed that he burned a decoy of the manuscript instead of the book itself. Paul's publisher tells him that the book will become his greatest bestseller. However, the ordeal is far from over for Paul: he suffers nightmares about Annie and continues to have withdrawals from painkillers. He has also become an alcoholic with writer's block. Eventually, after a random encounter with a child in the street, he has the same spark"
      },
      {
        "text": " York, Paul submits Misery's Return to his publisher; it is revealed that he burned a decoy of the manuscript instead of the book itself. Paul's publisher tells him that the book will become his greatest bestseller. However, the ordeal is far from over for Paul: he suffers nightmares about Annie and continues to have withdrawals from painkillers. He has also become an alcoholic with writer's block. Eventually, after a random encounter with a child in the street, he has the same spark that inspired him to write Fast Cars. He begins typing about this boy and the skunk he had with him in a shopping cart.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Monk",
    "author": "M. G. Lewis",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Leonella and her niece, Antonia, visit a church to hear the sermon of a celebrated priest, Ambrosio, and while waiting tell their story to two young men, Don Lorenzo and Don Christoval. Antonia's Grandfather is the Marquis de las Cisternas, who was unhappy with his son\u2019s marriage, causing her parents to flee, leaving their young son behind only to be told a month later he has died. Leonella has come to Spain to convince the Marquis\u2019 son, Raymond de las Cisternas, to resume their pension, which has been cut off. As the story is told, Lorenzo falls in love with Antonia. The mysterious priest, who was left at the abbey as a child, delivers the sermon, and Antonia is fascinated with him. Lorenzo vows to win the hand of Antonia, but must visit his sister Agnes, who is a nun at the nearby abbey. Having fallen asleep in the church, he awakens to find someone delivering a letter for his sister from Raymond de las Cisternas. On the way home, a gypsy warns Antonia that she is about to die, killed by someone who appears to be honorable. Ambrosio is visited by nuns, including Agnes, for confession. She drops a letter which reveals her plans to run away with Raymond de las Cisternas. When Agnes confesses that she is pregnant with Raymond\u2019s child, Ambrosio turns her over to the prioress of her abbey for punishment. As she is led away, she curses Ambrosio. Returning to the abbey, Ambrosio's constant companion, a novice named Rosario admits that he is a woman named Matilda, who disguised herself so that she could be near Ambrosio. They both know he must throw her out of the monastery, but she begs him not to, and vows to kill herself if he does. He relents, but after talking the next day she decides to leave of her own accord, on the condition Ambrosio gives her a rose to remember him by. As he picks the rose, he is bitten by a serpent and is rushed to his room where it is predicated that he will die within three days. Rosario acts as his nurse, and the next day it is discovered that Ambrosio is cured which is proclaimed a miracle. When the other monks leave, Matilda reveals that she sucked the poison from Ambrosio\u2019s wound and is now dying herself. At the point of death, she begs him to make love to her, and he succumbs to the temptation at last, having discovered that she is the model who sat for his beloved portrait of the virgin Mary. Lorenzo confronts Raymond about his relationship with his sister Agnes and his being identified as Alphonse d\u2019Alvarada, who tried to elope with her. Raymond tells a story of the time he went travelling in Germany with his rank concealed under the name Alphonse d\u2019Alvarada. While traveling, his chaise is incapacitated and His servant finds him some lodging at a nearby cottage owned by Baptiste and his wife, who is anything but congenial. Another party, a baroness and her retinue also stop for the night. Receiving a sign of bloody sheets on his bed from Marguerite, Baptiste\u2019s wife, Alphonse realizes that something is amiss, and discovers that he has fallen into a group of murderers, who waylay travelers to kill and rob them. He avoids being drugged and manages to escape with the others, along with Marguerite, who kills Baptiste. They make it to Strasbourg, where Marguerite shares her story of illicit love with a bandit, by whom she has two children, and being forced into marriage with Baptiste. She returns to the home of her father, and Raymond continues his travels, taking along Marguerite\u2019s son, Theodore, as a servant. At the home of the baroness Raymond falls in love with her niece Agnes, and goes to the baroness to ask for her blessing. However The Baroness is in love with Raymond and when he refuses her advances since he loves Agnes, she vows vengeance her. Discovering that it is Agnes, she plans to send her to the convent and so Raymond and Agnes make plans to elope. Agnes plans to dress as the bleeding nun, a ghost who haunts the castle, when she escapes with Raymond. The two drive away in the night, but the carriage crashes, and when Raymond awakens, he finds the nun Agnes is gone. After several months healing, he learns that it was not Agnes but the bleeding nun herself who was with him. Raymond learns that the bleeding nun is an ancestor, and he is responsible for burying her bones and so release her from her hauntings. He finds Agnes in the convent and takes the disguise of the convent gardener. There he overcomes Agnes, earning her rejection. However, when she discovers that she is pregnant, she begs him to come to rescue her. When Raymond finishes his story, Lorenzo agrees to help him elope with Agnes. He then goes to visit Elvira (Raymond\u2019s half-sister and the mother of Antonia) to ask for permission to court Antonia. However, Elvira is very fearful of her daughter facing the prospect of being rejected by Lorenzo\u2019s family, just as she herself was rejected by the Cisternas. Despite Lorenzo\u2019s pleadings, Elvira suggests to both Raymond and to Antonia that they resist their love. Lorenzo promises that he will get his family\u2019s blessing so that will calm Elvira\u2019s fears. In the meantime, Lorenzo tries to visit his sister Agnes in the convent, but is told that she is too ill to see him. He has sent to Rome to receive a papal bull releasing Agnes from her vows so that she may honorably marry Raymond without fear of retribution. When the prioress of the abbey is presented with the papal bull, she tells Lorenzo that his sister died several days before. Lorenzo does not believe it, but knows that is simply the prioress\u2019s way to relieve the shame that having a pregnant nun would have on the abbey. However, after two months, there is no other word concerning Agnes. In the meantime, he has secured his family\u2019s blessing on his hoped-for marriage with Antonia. Ambrosio and Matilda spend the night making love, Ambrosio no longer feeling the guilt of sin. The next night in the cemetery, she performs some ritual of which Ambrosio can only see flashes of light and quaking of the ground, and when she returns, she is free of the poison, and free to be Ambrosio\u2019s secret lover. But as the week progresses, Ambrosio grows tired of her, and his eye begins to wander, noticing the attractiveness of other women. Ambrosio is approached by Antonia, who asks him to provide a confessor for Elvira, her dying mother, and is immediately attracted to her. He prays for Elvira, who begins to improve, and so agrees to come to visit them often, for the simple purpose of being with Antonia and hopefully seducing her. Elvira confesses that she sees something familiar in Ambrosio, but she cannot pinpoint what it is. Ambrosio continues his visits to Antonia. He asks if there is not a man whom she has ever loved, and she confesses that she loves him. Misinterpreting her, he embraces, but She resists him, insisting that she did not love him in that way, yet the priest continues to ravish her until her mother enters. Ambrosio pretends that nothing was happening, but Elvira had already suspected his designs on her daughter and tells him that his services are no longer needed. Matilda comes to his room and tells him she can help him to gain Antonia\u2019s charms, even though she realizes she herself no longer holds his interest, in the same way in which she was healed of the poison; witchcraft. Ambrosio is horrified and rejects her suggestion. However, when she shows him a magic mirror that reveals to him Antonia bathing, he agrees. Matilda and Ambrosio return to the cemetery, where Matilda calls up Lucifer and receives his help, and they receive a magic myrtle, which will allow Ambrosio to open any door, as well as satisfy his lust on Antonia without her knowing who is her ravisher. Ambrosio agrees, selling himself to the devil. Raymond mourns the death of his lover, Agnes, so Theodore plots to disguise himself as a beggar and go to the convent to find out what happened to her. He is taken into the convent, where he hopes that Agnes will recognize him, sending some word of her state. He is disappointed when no word comes. However, as he leaves, Mother St. Ursula, hands him a basket with gifts. Theodore takes the basket back to Raymond, where they find a note hidden in the linen cover, stating that they should have the cardinal arrest both Mother St. Ursula and the prioress, so that Agnes\u2019s murder can be requited. Ambrosio instigates out his plot to rape Antonia. With the magic myrtle he enters her chamber and finds her asleep. He performs the magic rite that will prevent her resistance. He is on the point of raping her when Elvira enters the room and confronts him, promising that she will make his true nature public. Ambrosio has not other recourse but to murder Elvira, without carrying out his true purpose of ravishing Antonia. He returns to the abbey, unsatisfied in his lust and horrified that he has now become a murderer. Antonia is grief-stricken at the death of her mother and alone. Leonella is married and distant, Raymond is ill and ignorant of her plight, and Lorenzo has gone to get an arrest order for the death of his sister. One night she wanders into Elvira\u2019s room and sees what she takes to be her mother\u2019s ghost, which warns her that it will return in three nights and Antonia will die. Terrified, Antonia faints and is found by her landlady, Jacintha, who goes to Ambrosio, requesting him to exorcise her home. Under Matilda\u2019s advice, Ambrosio prepares a concoction that will induce a condition appearing to be death for Antonia. While he is attending Antonia, he slips the potion into her medicine and waits. While he is waiting, he sees what he fears is, in actuality, the ghost of Elvira retreat across the room. He pursues it and discovers it is Flora, Antonia\u2019s maid, who is spying on him on the advice of Elvira before she died. As they are speaking, Jacintha cries out that Antonia is dying, as it indeed appears. With her \"dying\" breath, Antonia confesses how much she admired Ambrosio and desired his friendship, against her mother\u2019s wishes. She leaves everything to her aunt Leonella, and releases her half-uncle Cisternas from all obligations to her, though she waited for him to come rescue her from her dire straits. Lorenzo arrives back in Madrid with a representative of the Inquisition. During the procession honoring St. Clare, the prioress is arrested. Mother St. Ursula publicly relates the account of Agnes\u2019s trial by the sisters. The majority voted for the most extreme punishment, which would entail Agnes being thrown in a dungeon and left for dead. However, at Mother St. Ursula\u2019s instigation, the punishment is mitigated to death by poison. At Mother St. Ursula\u2019s revelation that the prioress is a murderer, the crowd turns to rioting. Despite the Inquisitor\u2019s pleas, she is attacked and killed by the crowd. Then they turn on the other nuns, vowing that all of them must be destroyed and the convent torn down. In the confusion, Lorenzo finds a group of nuns and a young woman named Virginia hiding in the cemetery vault near the statue of St. Clare. Groans coming from the statue arouse Lorenzo\u2019s suspicions. He manages to move the statue to find a passage leading down into a dungeon, where he finds Agnes, alive and holding the body of her baby. Lorenzo removes Agnes from the dungeon and with Virginia\u2019s help, takes the group of nuns to safety. When Antonia awakens from her drugged sleep in the crypt Ambrosio rapes her. Afterwards, he is as disgusted with Antonia as he was with Matilda, who comes to warn him about the riot. Ambrosio kills Antonia in her attempt to escape. Virginia visits Lorenzo as he is recovering from his grief, and the two become closer. Lorenzo convinces Agnes to tell of her experiences at the hands of the prioress. She tells of having awakened to the horrors of the tomb. With the putrid conditions of her surroundings and the pangs of hunger not expected to be assuaged, she many times contemplates suicide, but the thought of her unborn child prevents her. At length she is visited by the prioress, who admits that she purposely gave her an opiate rather than poison, so that she could carry out the punishment that she sees as fitting for Agnes\u2019s sin. She will be imprisoned in the dungeon, with enough food to ensure her survival, nothing more. In the dungeon, Agnes gives premature birth to her baby, which soon dies. At length, no food is brought, and Agnes resigns herself to die, when she is rescued by Lorenzo. Agnes and Raymond are married, and the couple leaves Madrid for Raymond\u2019s castle, accompanied by Lorenzo and Virginia, who are also eventually married. Ambrosio and Matilda are brought before the Inquisition, and at first both proclaim their innocence, but then Matilda confesses her guilt and is condemned to be burned at the Auto de Fe. Ambrosio insists upon his innocence and is tortured. When returned to his cell to regain his strength for a second \"questioning\", he is visited by a vision of Matilda, who tries to convince him to completely yield his soul to Satan as she has. She leaves him the volume by which the rite is performed. Ambrosio again proclaims his innocence, but when faced with the instruments of torture once again, he admits to his sins of rape, murder, and sorcery and he too is condemned to burn. In despair, Ambrosio requests Lucifer to save his life, who tells him it will be at the cost of his soul. Yet still Ambrosio resists, hoping eventually for God\u2019s pardon. Lucifer informs him that there is none, and Ambrosio, after much resistance, signs the contract. He is rescued from the cell by Lucifer and brought to a wilderness. Lucifer informs him that Elvira was his mother, making Antonia his sister, adding to his crimes the sin of incest. Lucifer reveals that it has long been his plan to gain Ambrosio\u2019s soul, and Matilda was his servant in the process. Lucifer then carries Ambrosio up and drops him on the rocks below. Ambrosio suffers for six days, dying alone and damned for eternity.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Leonella and her niece, Antonia, visit a church to hear the sermon of a celebrated priest, Ambrosio, and while waiting tell their story to two young men, Don Lorenzo and Don Christoval. Antonia's Grandfather is the Marquis de las Cisternas, who was unhappy with his son\u2019s marriage, causing her parents to flee, leaving their young son behind only to be told a month later he has died. Leonella has come to Spain to convince the Marquis\u2019 son, Raymond de las Cisternas, to resume their pension, which has been cut off. As the story is told, Lorenzo falls in love with Antonia. The mysterious priest, who was left at the abbey as a child, delivers the sermon, and Antonia is fascinated with him. Lorenzo vows to win the hand of Antonia, but must visit his sister Agnes, who is a nun at the nearby abbey. Having fallen asleep in the church, he awakens to find someone delivering a letter for his sister from Raymond de las Cisternas. On the way home, a gypsy warns Antonia that she is about to die, killed by someone who appears to be honorable. Ambrosio is visited by nuns, including Agnes, for confession. She drops a letter which reveals her plans to run away with Raymond de las Cisternas. When Agnes confesses that she is pregnant with Raymond\u2019s child, Ambrosio turns her over to the prioress of her abbey for punishment. As she is led away, she curses Ambrosio. Returning to the abbey, Ambrosio's constant companion, a novice named Rosario admits that he is a woman named Matilda, who disguised herself so that she could be near Ambrosio. They both know he must throw her out of the monastery, but she begs him not to, and vows to kill herself if he does."
      },
      {
        "text": ", Ambrosio turns her over to the prioress of her abbey for punishment. As she is led away, she curses Ambrosio. Returning to the abbey, Ambrosio's constant companion, a novice named Rosario admits that he is a woman named Matilda, who disguised herself so that she could be near Ambrosio. They both know he must throw her out of the monastery, but she begs him not to, and vows to kill herself if he does. He relents, but after talking the next day she decides to leave of her own accord, on the condition Ambrosio gives her a rose to remember him by. As he picks the rose, he is bitten by a serpent and is rushed to his room where it is predicated that he will die within three days. Rosario acts as his nurse, and the next day it is discovered that Ambrosio is cured which is proclaimed a miracle. When the other monks leave, Matilda reveals that she sucked the poison from Ambrosio\u2019s wound and is now dying herself. At the point of death, she begs him to make love to her, and he succumbs to the temptation at last, having discovered that she is the model who sat for his beloved portrait of the virgin Mary. Lorenzo confronts Raymond about his relationship with his sister Agnes and his being identified as Alphonse d\u2019Alvarada, who tried to elope with her. Raymond tells a story of the time he went travelling in Germany with his rank concealed under the name Alphonse d\u2019Alvarada. While traveling, his chaise is incapacitated and His servant finds him some lodging at a nearby cottage owned by Baptiste and his wife, who is anything but congenial. Another party, a baroness and her retinue also stop for the night. Receiving a sign of bloody sheets on his bed from Marguerite, Baptiste\u2019s wife, Alphonse"
      },
      {
        "text": " the time he went travelling in Germany with his rank concealed under the name Alphonse d\u2019Alvarada. While traveling, his chaise is incapacitated and His servant finds him some lodging at a nearby cottage owned by Baptiste and his wife, who is anything but congenial. Another party, a baroness and her retinue also stop for the night. Receiving a sign of bloody sheets on his bed from Marguerite, Baptiste\u2019s wife, Alphonse realizes that something is amiss, and discovers that he has fallen into a group of murderers, who waylay travelers to kill and rob them. He avoids being drugged and manages to escape with the others, along with Marguerite, who kills Baptiste. They make it to Strasbourg, where Marguerite shares her story of illicit love with a bandit, by whom she has two children, and being forced into marriage with Baptiste. She returns to the home of her father, and Raymond continues his travels, taking along Marguerite\u2019s son, Theodore, as a servant. At the home of the baroness Raymond falls in love with her niece Agnes, and goes to the baroness to ask for her blessing. However The Baroness is in love with Raymond and when he refuses her advances since he loves Agnes, she vows vengeance her. Discovering that it is Agnes, she plans to send her to the convent and so Raymond and Agnes make plans to elope. Agnes plans to dress as the bleeding nun, a ghost who haunts the castle, when she escapes with Raymond. The two drive away in the night, but the carriage crashes, and when Raymond awakens, he finds the nun Agnes is gone. After several months healing, he learns that it was not Agnes but the bleeding nun herself who was with him. Raymond learns that the bleeding nun is an ancestor, and he is responsible for burying her bones"
      },
      {
        "text": "nes make plans to elope. Agnes plans to dress as the bleeding nun, a ghost who haunts the castle, when she escapes with Raymond. The two drive away in the night, but the carriage crashes, and when Raymond awakens, he finds the nun Agnes is gone. After several months healing, he learns that it was not Agnes but the bleeding nun herself who was with him. Raymond learns that the bleeding nun is an ancestor, and he is responsible for burying her bones and so release her from her hauntings. He finds Agnes in the convent and takes the disguise of the convent gardener. There he overcomes Agnes, earning her rejection. However, when she discovers that she is pregnant, she begs him to come to rescue her. When Raymond finishes his story, Lorenzo agrees to help him elope with Agnes. He then goes to visit Elvira (Raymond\u2019s half-sister and the mother of Antonia) to ask for permission to court Antonia. However, Elvira is very fearful of her daughter facing the prospect of being rejected by Lorenzo\u2019s family, just as she herself was rejected by the Cisternas. Despite Lorenzo\u2019s pleadings, Elvira suggests to both Raymond and to Antonia that they resist their love. Lorenzo promises that he will get his family\u2019s blessing so that will calm Elvira\u2019s fears. In the meantime, Lorenzo tries to visit his sister Agnes in the convent, but is told that she is too ill to see him. He has sent to Rome to receive a papal bull releasing Agnes from her vows so that she may honorably marry Raymond without fear of retribution. When the prioress of the abbey is presented with the papal bull, she tells Lorenzo that his sister died several days before. Lorenzo does not believe it, but knows that is simply the prioress\u2019s way to relieve"
      },
      {
        "text": " visit his sister Agnes in the convent, but is told that she is too ill to see him. He has sent to Rome to receive a papal bull releasing Agnes from her vows so that she may honorably marry Raymond without fear of retribution. When the prioress of the abbey is presented with the papal bull, she tells Lorenzo that his sister died several days before. Lorenzo does not believe it, but knows that is simply the prioress\u2019s way to relieve the shame that having a pregnant nun would have on the abbey. However, after two months, there is no other word concerning Agnes. In the meantime, he has secured his family\u2019s blessing on his hoped-for marriage with Antonia. Ambrosio and Matilda spend the night making love, Ambrosio no longer feeling the guilt of sin. The next night in the cemetery, she performs some ritual of which Ambrosio can only see flashes of light and quaking of the ground, and when she returns, she is free of the poison, and free to be Ambrosio\u2019s secret lover. But as the week progresses, Ambrosio grows tired of her, and his eye begins to wander, noticing the attractiveness of other women. Ambrosio is approached by Antonia, who asks him to provide a confessor for Elvira, her dying mother, and is immediately attracted to her. He prays for Elvira, who begins to improve, and so agrees to come to visit them often, for the simple purpose of being with Antonia and hopefully seducing her. Elvira confesses that she sees something familiar in Ambrosio, but she cannot pinpoint what it is. Ambrosio continues his visits to Antonia. He asks if there is not a man whom she has ever loved, and she confesses that she loves him. Misinterpreting her, he embraces, but She resists him, insisting that"
      },
      {
        "text": " to improve, and so agrees to come to visit them often, for the simple purpose of being with Antonia and hopefully seducing her. Elvira confesses that she sees something familiar in Ambrosio, but she cannot pinpoint what it is. Ambrosio continues his visits to Antonia. He asks if there is not a man whom she has ever loved, and she confesses that she loves him. Misinterpreting her, he embraces, but She resists him, insisting that she did not love him in that way, yet the priest continues to ravish her until her mother enters. Ambrosio pretends that nothing was happening, but Elvira had already suspected his designs on her daughter and tells him that his services are no longer needed. Matilda comes to his room and tells him she can help him to gain Antonia\u2019s charms, even though she realizes she herself no longer holds his interest, in the same way in which she was healed of the poison; witchcraft. Ambrosio is horrified and rejects her suggestion. However, when she shows him a magic mirror that reveals to him Antonia bathing, he agrees. Matilda and Ambrosio return to the cemetery, where Matilda calls up Lucifer and receives his help, and they receive a magic myrtle, which will allow Ambrosio to open any door, as well as satisfy his lust on Antonia without her knowing who is her ravisher. Ambrosio agrees, selling himself to the devil. Raymond mourns the death of his lover, Agnes, so Theodore plots to disguise himself as a beggar and go to the convent to find out what happened to her. He is taken into the convent, where he hopes that Agnes will recognize him, sending some word of her state. He is disappointed when no word comes. However, as he leaves, Mother St. Ursula, hands him a basket with gifts. Theodore takes the basket back to Raymond, where"
      },
      {
        "text": " himself to the devil. Raymond mourns the death of his lover, Agnes, so Theodore plots to disguise himself as a beggar and go to the convent to find out what happened to her. He is taken into the convent, where he hopes that Agnes will recognize him, sending some word of her state. He is disappointed when no word comes. However, as he leaves, Mother St. Ursula, hands him a basket with gifts. Theodore takes the basket back to Raymond, where they find a note hidden in the linen cover, stating that they should have the cardinal arrest both Mother St. Ursula and the prioress, so that Agnes\u2019s murder can be requited. Ambrosio instigates out his plot to rape Antonia. With the magic myrtle he enters her chamber and finds her asleep. He performs the magic rite that will prevent her resistance. He is on the point of raping her when Elvira enters the room and confronts him, promising that she will make his true nature public. Ambrosio has not other recourse but to murder Elvira, without carrying out his true purpose of ravishing Antonia. He returns to the abbey, unsatisfied in his lust and horrified that he has now become a murderer. Antonia is grief-stricken at the death of her mother and alone. Leonella is married and distant, Raymond is ill and ignorant of her plight, and Lorenzo has gone to get an arrest order for the death of his sister. One night she wanders into Elvira\u2019s room and sees what she takes to be her mother\u2019s ghost, which warns her that it will return in three nights and Antonia will die. Terrified, Antonia faints and is found by her landlady, Jacintha, who goes to Ambrosio, requesting him to exorcise her home. Under Matilda\u2019s advice, Ambrosio prepares a conco"
      },
      {
        "text": " order for the death of his sister. One night she wanders into Elvira\u2019s room and sees what she takes to be her mother\u2019s ghost, which warns her that it will return in three nights and Antonia will die. Terrified, Antonia faints and is found by her landlady, Jacintha, who goes to Ambrosio, requesting him to exorcise her home. Under Matilda\u2019s advice, Ambrosio prepares a concoction that will induce a condition appearing to be death for Antonia. While he is attending Antonia, he slips the potion into her medicine and waits. While he is waiting, he sees what he fears is, in actuality, the ghost of Elvira retreat across the room. He pursues it and discovers it is Flora, Antonia\u2019s maid, who is spying on him on the advice of Elvira before she died. As they are speaking, Jacintha cries out that Antonia is dying, as it indeed appears. With her \"dying\" breath, Antonia confesses how much she admired Ambrosio and desired his friendship, against her mother\u2019s wishes. She leaves everything to her aunt Leonella, and releases her half-uncle Cisternas from all obligations to her, though she waited for him to come rescue her from her dire straits. Lorenzo arrives back in Madrid with a representative of the Inquisition. During the procession honoring St. Clare, the prioress is arrested. Mother St. Ursula publicly relates the account of Agnes\u2019s trial by the sisters. The majority voted for the most extreme punishment, which would entail Agnes being thrown in a dungeon and left for dead. However, at Mother St. Ursula\u2019s instigation, the punishment is mitigated to death by poison. At Mother St. Ursula\u2019s revelation that the prioress is a murderer, the"
      },
      {
        "text": " honoring St. Clare, the prioress is arrested. Mother St. Ursula publicly relates the account of Agnes\u2019s trial by the sisters. The majority voted for the most extreme punishment, which would entail Agnes being thrown in a dungeon and left for dead. However, at Mother St. Ursula\u2019s instigation, the punishment is mitigated to death by poison. At Mother St. Ursula\u2019s revelation that the prioress is a murderer, the crowd turns to rioting. Despite the Inquisitor\u2019s pleas, she is attacked and killed by the crowd. Then they turn on the other nuns, vowing that all of them must be destroyed and the convent torn down. In the confusion, Lorenzo finds a group of nuns and a young woman named Virginia hiding in the cemetery vault near the statue of St. Clare. Groans coming from the statue arouse Lorenzo\u2019s suspicions. He manages to move the statue to find a passage leading down into a dungeon, where he finds Agnes, alive and holding the body of her baby. Lorenzo removes Agnes from the dungeon and with Virginia\u2019s help, takes the group of nuns to safety. When Antonia awakens from her drugged sleep in the crypt Ambrosio rapes her. Afterwards, he is as disgusted with Antonia as he was with Matilda, who comes to warn him about the riot. Ambrosio kills Antonia in her attempt to escape. Virginia visits Lorenzo as he is recovering from his grief, and the two become closer. Lorenzo convinces Agnes to tell of her experiences at the hands of the prioress. She tells of having awakened to the horrors of the tomb. With the putrid conditions of her surroundings and the pangs of hunger not expected to be assuaged, she many times contemplates suicide, but the thought of her unborn child prevents her. At length she is visited by the prioress, who admits that"
      },
      {
        "text": " visits Lorenzo as he is recovering from his grief, and the two become closer. Lorenzo convinces Agnes to tell of her experiences at the hands of the prioress. She tells of having awakened to the horrors of the tomb. With the putrid conditions of her surroundings and the pangs of hunger not expected to be assuaged, she many times contemplates suicide, but the thought of her unborn child prevents her. At length she is visited by the prioress, who admits that she purposely gave her an opiate rather than poison, so that she could carry out the punishment that she sees as fitting for Agnes\u2019s sin. She will be imprisoned in the dungeon, with enough food to ensure her survival, nothing more. In the dungeon, Agnes gives premature birth to her baby, which soon dies. At length, no food is brought, and Agnes resigns herself to die, when she is rescued by Lorenzo. Agnes and Raymond are married, and the couple leaves Madrid for Raymond\u2019s castle, accompanied by Lorenzo and Virginia, who are also eventually married. Ambrosio and Matilda are brought before the Inquisition, and at first both proclaim their innocence, but then Matilda confesses her guilt and is condemned to be burned at the Auto de Fe. Ambrosio insists upon his innocence and is tortured. When returned to his cell to regain his strength for a second \"questioning\", he is visited by a vision of Matilda, who tries to convince him to completely yield his soul to Satan as she has. She leaves him the volume by which the rite is performed. Ambrosio again proclaims his innocence, but when faced with the instruments of torture once again, he admits to his sins of rape, murder, and sorcery and he too is condemned to burn. In despair, Ambrosio requests Lucifer to save his life, who tells him it will be at the cost of his soul. Yet still Ambrosio resists"
      },
      {
        "text": " who tries to convince him to completely yield his soul to Satan as she has. She leaves him the volume by which the rite is performed. Ambrosio again proclaims his innocence, but when faced with the instruments of torture once again, he admits to his sins of rape, murder, and sorcery and he too is condemned to burn. In despair, Ambrosio requests Lucifer to save his life, who tells him it will be at the cost of his soul. Yet still Ambrosio resists, hoping eventually for God\u2019s pardon. Lucifer informs him that there is none, and Ambrosio, after much resistance, signs the contract. He is rescued from the cell by Lucifer and brought to a wilderness. Lucifer informs him that Elvira was his mother, making Antonia his sister, adding to his crimes the sin of incest. Lucifer reveals that it has long been his plan to gain Ambrosio\u2019s soul, and Matilda was his servant in the process. Lucifer then carries Ambrosio up and drops him on the rocks below. Ambrosio suffers for six days, dying alone and damned for eternity.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Star by Star",
    "author": "Troy Denning",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " In this dark and dangerous time for the New Republic, the cruel Yuuzhan Vong continue their mission: galactic conquest. The Yuuzhan Vong have begun cloning voxyn, creatures capable of hunting Jedi through the Force and killing them. Former Chief of State Leia Organa Solo faces a difficult crisis; the Yuuzhan Vong want to know the location of the secret Jedi base, and if the New Republic does not provide this information within one week, they will violently destroy millions of refugee ships. As the Jedi Knights mourn the victims of the voxyn, Anakin Solo prepares a dangerous plan. He will lead a strike force made of his Force-adept friends into the core of an enemy worldship over Myrkr in attempt to kill the original voxyn. There, he will come into contact with evil, sorrow, the destiny of the New Republic ... and himself. The book also saw the creation of the deadly YVH 1 Droids that were built as a response to the Yuuzhan Vong invasion and the Fall of Coruscant. The Jedi find themselves in considerable danger when the Yuuzhan Vong unleash feral creatures called voxyn on them. These voxyn are aggressive, intelligent, and extremely difficult to kill, and worst of all for the Jedi, they can hunt through the Force and have been engineered specifically to hunt down Jedi. Leia Organa Solo captures one such beast but not before she is severely wounded. It is then discovered that all voxyn are clones of an original genetically modified beast native to Myrkr, the location of the Yuuzhan Vong voxyn cloning facility. In order to foil the threat posed by the voxyn, Anakin Solo and the Jedi Council consider sending a specialized all-Jedi strike team to take out the cloning facility. The idea faced some resistance, mainly from Han Solo who rightly believed that the mission was dangerous and was unwilling to send all three of his children right into Yuuzhan Vong territory. Ultimately, the choice was Luke Skywalker's, who is currently leading the Jedi, who thought that it was their only chance and volunteered himself for the mission. Anakin rejected his offer on the grounds that he was too valuable to the New Republic and the Jedi, as well as being too important and strong for the Yuuzhan Vong to consider taking alive. Instead, Anakin volunteers himself and others follow his lead. The final group comprises Anakin, Ulaha Kore, Jacen Solo, Jaina Solo, Tenel Ka Djo, Zekk, Tahiri Veila and Alema Rar among others. While the initial part of the mission went smoothly, things began to get out of hand once the team landed on the worldship orbiting Myrkr. While they were there, they were repeatedly ambushed by voxyn and Yuuzhan Vong warriors commanded by Nom Anor and Vergere. They also ran into Nightsister Lomi Plo and her Shadow Academy apprentice Welk. After some debate, Anakin decided that Lomi Plo and Welk should join them, although Zekk predicted that they would be double-crossed by the Dark Jedi. There were several casualties along the way to the original or 'queen' voxyn, but the biggest blow fell when Anakin was injured. Already weary and injured, the Jedi soon came under attack once again and although they escaped, the damage to Anakin had already been done. They soon learned that Welk and Lomi Plo had made off with the spacecraft Anakin had intended to use for their getaway, taking with them Raynar Thul, an old friend of Jaina and Jacen. This effectively means that the group are stranded aboard the worldship with a worsening Anakin. Anakin soon realized that his condition would result in the entire group's death. He died later fighting off many Yuuzhan Vong, destroying all of the voxyn cloning samples, and buying the time his comrades needed in order to escape the Yuuzhan Vong. His death was felt by his uncle Luke Skywalker and his mother Leia Solo, the former noting that before his death, Anakin had already become one with the Force. Before his death, he left his brother Jacen in charge of their group. After a brief period of mourning during which tensions within the group rose, Jacen and Jaina decided to split up. Jaina wanted to retrieve her brother's body while Jacen decided to finish off their original mission; the killing of the voxyn queen. On his way there, he met the mysterious Vergere who showed him the way to the voxyn queen whom he fought and defeated. After this, she turned on him and delivered him right into the waiting hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. Jaina, meanwhile, had successfully retrieved her brother's body and reluctantly led what was left of their group off of the Myrkr worldship via a stolen Vong frigate, leaving Jacen behind with the Yuuzhan Vong. Before her departure, she had already begun to show signs of dark side tendencies that rose from the loss of Anakin. The Yuuzhan Vong warfleet attacked Coruscant from the OboRin Comet Cluster, having assembled at such staging positions like Borleias. They used refugee ships containing prisoners from earlier battles to shield the Vong fleet. Even with the efforts of legendary leaders such as General Garm Bel Iblis (commanding Fleet Group Two), Admiral Traest Kre'fey (commanding Fleet Group One), General Wedge Antilles (commanding Fleet Group Three), Supreme Commander Sien Sovv, and Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, the Yuuzhan Vong were too plentiful to be thwarted. It was said that the Vong fleet numbered \"tens of thousands\", and that half of the New Republic space navy was present. Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya made Admiral Sovv command the battle in front of a full session of the Senate. As a result, the New Republic forces had no effective overall strategy, and discipline broke down. When Sovv ordered that the fleet hold their fire in order to not hit the refugee ships, Iblis flat out ignored him, and his Fleet Group operated solely under his command for the rest of the battle attacking the Yuuzhan Vong head on and suffering enormous casualties. The refugee ships, which were piloted by Yuuzhan Vong, were deliberately smashed into Coruscant's shields to weaken them. This tactic worked, as eventually whole shield-grids failed, and the surface shield-generators exploded. Coruscant did have extensive mine fields, but these didn't have quite as large an impact as desired\u2014the defenders at Coruscant disabled the mines to avoid slaughtering the refugees. The Vong also used the refugee ships to batter the city planet's surface, causing terrible damage below. Even the orbital defense platforms could not stop the advance of the Yuuzhan Vong. Soon Coruscant's skyline was burning with crashing vessels and plasma fire from the battle above. Even Orbital Defense Headquarters was crippled, and fell out of orbit to the surface. During the battle, Luke Skywalker and other Jedi from the Eclipse base targeted the enemy war coordinating yammosks, and managed to destroy four of them. Meanwhile, Han and Leia Solo, aboard the Millennium Falcon, attempted to rescue Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya, but were tasked with rescuing Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker. The second assault wave were thousands of yorik-trema dropships, tsik-seru airskimmers, swarms of yorik-vec assault cruisers and coralskippers, rakamat and fire breather walkers, legions of Yuuzhan Vong warriors and Chazrach support troops. In desperation, the New Republic military fired on the hostage refugee ships but to no avail. At the Imperial Palace, Tsavong Lah's aide Romm Zqar tried to force Borsk Fey'lya to surrender. When he refused, he was killed. But before the Chief of State died, he had planted a bomb in the Imperial Palace triggered by his heartbeat. This resulted in the deaths of the Chief of State, 25,000 Yuuzhan Vong warriors, the destruction of a portion of the Imperial Palace, many surrounding buildings, and several Yuuzhan Vong vessels. Prior to his death, Fey'lya had ordered the data towers to be destroyed to prevent valuable information from getting into the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. The battle lasted for several days with heavy casualties on both sides. Many of its citizens were forced to flee the former capital world of the New Republic while those who did not manage to escape were forced to flee into the city-planet's lower levels. Many Senators, fearing for their lives, commandeered bits of the fleet and escaped to their sectors as the battle progressed. The New Republic navy was somewhat diminished as a result. Some think that if this had not happened, then the New Republic might have won the battle. The third wave was a biotoxin in the form of green algae released by the Yuuzhan Von which devoured many of the buildings, including dead bodies, and the algae also left behind black spots. Coralskipper and yorik-vec squadrons bombed the devastated city world causing damage to the defenders. The Yuuzhan Vong eventually captured Coruscant and had it terraformed and renamed Yuuzhan'tar after their primordial homeworld. Overall, the Yuuzhan Vong won because of their utter ruthlessness.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In this dark and dangerous time for the New Republic, the cruel Yuuzhan Vong continue their mission: galactic conquest. The Yuuzhan Vong have begun cloning voxyn, creatures capable of hunting Jedi through the Force and killing them. Former Chief of State Leia Organa Solo faces a difficult crisis; the Yuuzhan Vong want to know the location of the secret Jedi base, and if the New Republic does not provide this information within one week, they will violently destroy millions of refugee ships. As the Jedi Knights mourn the victims of the voxyn, Anakin Solo prepares a dangerous plan. He will lead a strike force made of his Force-adept friends into the core of an enemy worldship over Myrkr in attempt to kill the original voxyn. There, he will come into contact with evil, sorrow, the destiny of the New Republic ... and himself. The book also saw the creation of the deadly YVH 1 Droids that were built as a response to the Yuuzhan Vong invasion and the Fall of Coruscant. The Jedi find themselves in considerable danger when the Yuuzhan Vong unleash feral creatures called voxyn on them. These voxyn are aggressive, intelligent, and extremely difficult to kill, and worst of all for the Jedi, they can hunt through the Force and have been engineered specifically to hunt down Jedi. Leia Organa Solo captures one such beast but not before she is severely wounded. It is then discovered that all voxyn are clones of an original genetically modified beast native to Myrkr, the location of the Yuuzhan Vong voxyn cloning facility. In order to foil the threat posed by the voxyn, Anakin Solo and the Jedi Council consider sending a specialized all-Jedi strike team to take out the cloning facility. The idea faced some resistance, mainly from Han Solo who rightly believed that the mission was dangerous and was unwilling to send all three of his children right"
      },
      {
        "text": " discovered that all voxyn are clones of an original genetically modified beast native to Myrkr, the location of the Yuuzhan Vong voxyn cloning facility. In order to foil the threat posed by the voxyn, Anakin Solo and the Jedi Council consider sending a specialized all-Jedi strike team to take out the cloning facility. The idea faced some resistance, mainly from Han Solo who rightly believed that the mission was dangerous and was unwilling to send all three of his children right into Yuuzhan Vong territory. Ultimately, the choice was Luke Skywalker's, who is currently leading the Jedi, who thought that it was their only chance and volunteered himself for the mission. Anakin rejected his offer on the grounds that he was too valuable to the New Republic and the Jedi, as well as being too important and strong for the Yuuzhan Vong to consider taking alive. Instead, Anakin volunteers himself and others follow his lead. The final group comprises Anakin, Ulaha Kore, Jacen Solo, Jaina Solo, Tenel Ka Djo, Zekk, Tahiri Veila and Alema Rar among others. While the initial part of the mission went smoothly, things began to get out of hand once the team landed on the worldship orbiting Myrkr. While they were there, they were repeatedly ambushed by voxyn and Yuuzhan Vong warriors commanded by Nom Anor and Vergere. They also ran into Nightsister Lomi Plo and her Shadow Academy apprentice Welk. After some debate, Anakin decided that Lomi Plo and Welk should join them, although Zekk predicted that they would be double-crossed by the Dark Jedi. There were several casualties along the way to the original or 'queen' voxyn, but the biggest blow fell when Anakin was injured. Already weary and injured, the Jedi soon came under attack once again and although they escaped, the damage to An"
      },
      {
        "text": "omi Plo and her Shadow Academy apprentice Welk. After some debate, Anakin decided that Lomi Plo and Welk should join them, although Zekk predicted that they would be double-crossed by the Dark Jedi. There were several casualties along the way to the original or 'queen' voxyn, but the biggest blow fell when Anakin was injured. Already weary and injured, the Jedi soon came under attack once again and although they escaped, the damage to Anakin had already been done. They soon learned that Welk and Lomi Plo had made off with the spacecraft Anakin had intended to use for their getaway, taking with them Raynar Thul, an old friend of Jaina and Jacen. This effectively means that the group are stranded aboard the worldship with a worsening Anakin. Anakin soon realized that his condition would result in the entire group's death. He died later fighting off many Yuuzhan Vong, destroying all of the voxyn cloning samples, and buying the time his comrades needed in order to escape the Yuuzhan Vong. His death was felt by his uncle Luke Skywalker and his mother Leia Solo, the former noting that before his death, Anakin had already become one with the Force. Before his death, he left his brother Jacen in charge of their group. After a brief period of mourning during which tensions within the group rose, Jacen and Jaina decided to split up. Jaina wanted to retrieve her brother's body while Jacen decided to finish off their original mission; the killing of the voxyn queen. On his way there, he met the mysterious Vergere who showed him the way to the voxyn queen whom he fought and defeated. After this, she turned on him and delivered him right into the waiting hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. Jaina, meanwhile, had successfully retrieved her brother's body and reluctantly led what was left of their group"
      },
      {
        "text": "aina wanted to retrieve her brother's body while Jacen decided to finish off their original mission; the killing of the voxyn queen. On his way there, he met the mysterious Vergere who showed him the way to the voxyn queen whom he fought and defeated. After this, she turned on him and delivered him right into the waiting hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. Jaina, meanwhile, had successfully retrieved her brother's body and reluctantly led what was left of their group off of the Myrkr worldship via a stolen Vong frigate, leaving Jacen behind with the Yuuzhan Vong. Before her departure, she had already begun to show signs of dark side tendencies that rose from the loss of Anakin. The Yuuzhan Vong warfleet attacked Coruscant from the OboRin Comet Cluster, having assembled at such staging positions like Borleias. They used refugee ships containing prisoners from earlier battles to shield the Vong fleet. Even with the efforts of legendary leaders such as General Garm Bel Iblis (commanding Fleet Group Two), Admiral Traest Kre'fey (commanding Fleet Group One), General Wedge Antilles (commanding Fleet Group Three), Supreme Commander Sien Sovv, and Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, the Yuuzhan Vong were too plentiful to be thwarted. It was said that the Vong fleet numbered \"tens of thousands\", and that half of the New Republic space navy was present. Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya made Admiral Sovv command the battle in front of a full session of the Senate. As a result, the New Republic forces had no effective overall strategy, and discipline broke down. When Sovv ordered that the fleet hold their fire in order to not hit the refugee ships, Iblis flat out ignored him, and his Fleet Group operated solely under his command for the rest of the battle attacking the Yuuzhan Vong head on and suffering"
      },
      {
        "text": ". Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya made Admiral Sovv command the battle in front of a full session of the Senate. As a result, the New Republic forces had no effective overall strategy, and discipline broke down. When Sovv ordered that the fleet hold their fire in order to not hit the refugee ships, Iblis flat out ignored him, and his Fleet Group operated solely under his command for the rest of the battle attacking the Yuuzhan Vong head on and suffering enormous casualties. The refugee ships, which were piloted by Yuuzhan Vong, were deliberately smashed into Coruscant's shields to weaken them. This tactic worked, as eventually whole shield-grids failed, and the surface shield-generators exploded. Coruscant did have extensive mine fields, but these didn't have quite as large an impact as desired\u2014the defenders at Coruscant disabled the mines to avoid slaughtering the refugees. The Vong also used the refugee ships to batter the city planet's surface, causing terrible damage below. Even the orbital defense platforms could not stop the advance of the Yuuzhan Vong. Soon Coruscant's skyline was burning with crashing vessels and plasma fire from the battle above. Even Orbital Defense Headquarters was crippled, and fell out of orbit to the surface. During the battle, Luke Skywalker and other Jedi from the Eclipse base targeted the enemy war coordinating yammosks, and managed to destroy four of them. Meanwhile, Han and Leia Solo, aboard the Millennium Falcon, attempted to rescue Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya, but were tasked with rescuing Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker. The second assault wave were thousands of yorik-trema dropships, tsik-seru airskimmers, swarms of yorik-vec assault cruisers and coralskippers, rakamat and fire breather walkers, legions of Yuuzhan Vong warriors and Chazrach"
      },
      {
        "text": " Leia Solo, aboard the Millennium Falcon, attempted to rescue Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya, but were tasked with rescuing Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker. The second assault wave were thousands of yorik-trema dropships, tsik-seru airskimmers, swarms of yorik-vec assault cruisers and coralskippers, rakamat and fire breather walkers, legions of Yuuzhan Vong warriors and Chazrach support troops. In desperation, the New Republic military fired on the hostage refugee ships but to no avail. At the Imperial Palace, Tsavong Lah's aide Romm Zqar tried to force Borsk Fey'lya to surrender. When he refused, he was killed. But before the Chief of State died, he had planted a bomb in the Imperial Palace triggered by his heartbeat. This resulted in the deaths of the Chief of State, 25,000 Yuuzhan Vong warriors, the destruction of a portion of the Imperial Palace, many surrounding buildings, and several Yuuzhan Vong vessels. Prior to his death, Fey'lya had ordered the data towers to be destroyed to prevent valuable information from getting into the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. The battle lasted for several days with heavy casualties on both sides. Many of its citizens were forced to flee the former capital world of the New Republic while those who did not manage to escape were forced to flee into the city-planet's lower levels. Many Senators, fearing for their lives, commandeered bits of the fleet and escaped to their sectors as the battle progressed. The New Republic navy was somewhat diminished as a result. Some think that if this had not happened, then the New Republic might have won the battle. The third wave was a biotoxin in the form of green algae released by the Yuuzhan Von which devoured many of the buildings, including dead bodies, and the algae also"
      },
      {
        "text": " the city-planet's lower levels. Many Senators, fearing for their lives, commandeered bits of the fleet and escaped to their sectors as the battle progressed. The New Republic navy was somewhat diminished as a result. Some think that if this had not happened, then the New Republic might have won the battle. The third wave was a biotoxin in the form of green algae released by the Yuuzhan Von which devoured many of the buildings, including dead bodies, and the algae also left behind black spots. Coralskipper and yorik-vec squadrons bombed the devastated city world causing damage to the defenders. The Yuuzhan Vong eventually captured Coruscant and had it terraformed and renamed Yuuzhan'tar after their primordial homeworld. Overall, the Yuuzhan Vong won because of their utter ruthlessness.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "American Tabloid",
    "author": "James Ellroy",
    "published_date": "1995-02-14",
    "synopsis": " *Part I, SHAKEDOWNS, November\u2013December 1958 \"Shakedowns\" covers just 26 days, introducing the three principal characters, and establishing their relationships, history, and career trajectories. Pete Bondurant is a former LASD deputy; he presently works for billionaire Howard Hughes and runs small-time shakedowns. (Bondurant is also an associate of Jimmy Hoffa.) Kemper Boyd is a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, a southerner, and a man who covets wealth and power. Ward Littell is also an FBI agent and Boyd's friend and former partner. Although assigned to monitor Communist Party activities, his abiding hatred of organized crime leads him to vie for a spot on the Bureau's Top Hoodlum Squad. Each of the three protagonists plot to entrap John F. Kennedy with a call girl; Boyd and Littell for J. Edgar Hoover, Bondurant for Hughes. The set-up is successful, but the Kennedy family discovers that Hughes's \"Hush-Hush\" tabloid will print the transcripts before the issue went to press, and prevents their publication. At Hoover's direction, Boyd leaves the FBI and begins working with Hoover's personal nemeses - Kennedy and his younger brother Robert\u2014on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management's investigation of organized crime and union corruption. Boyd strikes a rapport with John Kennedy but dislikes Bobby. The Kennedys, with their wealth and privilege, embody everything that Boyd hopes to gain. Littell, who meets the Kennedys through Boyd, is enraptured by Bobby, both men sharing a hatred for organized crime. *Part II, COLLUSION, January 1959-January 1961 \"Collusion\" opens with Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro's January 1, 1959 overthrow of the Fulgencio Batista government. The three principals begin to collude with one another to varying degrees. Bondurant and Boyd both become Central Intelligence Agency operatives, while Littell investigates Hoffa and Mafia connections both officially for the FBI and on his own initiative. Boyd also joins the employ of the Kennedy family, working on JFK's presidential campaign. Bondurant and Boyd ultimately collaborate with the CIA, the \"Outfit\" (seeking to retake its now nationalized Havana casinos), and far right Cuban refugees plotting to overthrow the new communist regime. Littell becomes increasingly disgruntled with the FBI and Hoover's anti-communism mandates and begins investigating the mob on his own. Much of this information he anonymously feeds to Bobby Kennedy through Boyd. Through a series of snitches, Littell confirms that the Teamsters Pension Fund is being used to fund organized crime. Littell tracks the Fund's supposed \"secret\" accounting books to the home of mid-level mobster Jules Schiffrin in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Littell coerces Jack Ruby into searching Schiffrin's home. While waiting for Ruby, Littell is severely beaten by Bondurant; Ruby had tipped off Bondurant to Littell's operation, and Bondurant feared that Littell would endanger the CIA's Cuban plots. After recuperating, Littell takes leave from the FBI, invades Schiffrin's home, and steals the Pension Fund's books himself. Cracking the books' code, he realizes that Joseph Kennedy loaned the Fund millions of dollars. Hoover fires Littell from the FBI, revokes his pension, and blackballs him as a communist sympathizer with every US state's bar association in order to hurt his chances of practicing law. Boyd tries to get Littell a job with now-Attorney General designate Bobby Kennedy, who emphatically refuses, also having received a report from Hoover of Littell's budding alcoholism and invented mob ties. \"Collusion\" concludes with the inauguration of Kennedy as President. *Part III, PIGS, February\u2013November 1961 In the employ of the CIA, Boyd and Bondurant help train the \"Blessington Cadre\": Cuban exiles training to overthrow Castro at a CIA camp in Florida. The exiles are recruited through Hoffa's \"Tiger Kab\" taxi stand in Miami. The CIA also establishes a Ku Klux Klan \"klavern\" to keep \"local rednecks\" occupied and away from the camp. The Mafia, through New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello, funds the operation by supplying the cadre heroin for redistribution. As part of his organized crime vendetta, Bobby Kennedy has Marcello deported, unaware of (and uninterested in) Marcello's involvement in the CIA operation. Bondurant covertly absconds with Marcello when his INS plane lands in Central America. Boyd recommends that Marcello hire Littell as his extradition lawyer. Littell meets Bondurant and Marcello at their Central American hideout, where Littell hands over the stolen Teamsters Pension Fund books (albeit without confessing to stealing them and without the pages implicating Joe Kennedy). President Kennedy, unaware of Boyd's CIA connection, taps Boyd\u2014now also working for Robert Kennedy's Justice Department civil rights task force\u2014to investigate the Blessington operation and advise whether to implement the CIA's invasion strategy. After a sham visit, Boyd naturally encourages the president to authorize the mission, promising Kennedy that it will guarantee his reelection. The Bay of Pigs Invasion is authorized, although Kennedy second-guesses its wisdom and refuses to provide the air support that the Cadre believes necessary. The invasion is a failure and an embarrassment for Kennedy and all involved\u2014including the CIA, the mob, Bondurant, and Boyd. The night of the invasion, Boyd is shot numerous times in a side operation to distribute \"hot shots\" of heroin that would be linked back to Castro. *Part IV, HEROIN, December 1961-September 1963 Through the patronage of Marcello, Littell has become a full-fledged mob lawyer. When Hoffa hires him, it confirms that Bobby Kennedy has become his primary adversary. Through their now-mutual hatred of the Kennedys, Littell and Hoover make amends, and Hoover arranges for Howard Hughes to become Littell's client. In the wake of the Bay of Pigs, Boyd and Bondurant encourage the mob to authorize an assassination attempt on Castro. When the mob passes on the opportunity, they surmise that the mob is now backing Castro. Enraged, they execute a plan wherein they steal millions of dollars of mob heroin as it comes to shore from Cuba in hopes of recouping their Bay of Pigs losses. In collusion with Littell, Bondurant also begins running a wire tap hoping to catch the president having an affair with a woman they have set up. They make several recordings of Kennedy, which they also share with Hoover. Boyd, however, remains fond of Jack, and becomes enraged when he discovers the scam. When he confronts Bondurant, Bondurant plays him sections from the tapes of Jack ridiculing Boyd, his social-climbing, and his Kennedy envy. Ironically, Bobby Kennedy (learning of Boyd's CIA connection and erratic behavior upon discovering the wire tap), fingers Boyd as the person trying to set up the president; he fires Boyd from the Justice Department, severing his ties with the Kennedys, and making an enemy of Boyd. The mob also figures out that Boyd and Bondurant were behind the theft of their heroin. Littell offers them the mob's price to atone for their theft: Kill President Kennedy. *Part V, CONTRACT, September\u2013November 1963 Boyd, Bondurant, and Littell plot to assassinate Kennedy during a motorcade in Miami and arrange the logistics to frame left-wing radicals. Without being specific, Littell tips off Hoover about the plot, but due to Hoover's non-committal response, Littell surmises that there is a second assassination plot in the works, which will take place several days later in Dallas. The three men determine that they were set up, and begin to clean up and cover up the tracks of their Miami operation. Littell visits Bobby Kennedy, confronting him with evidence of his father's collusion with the mob, with the added intent that it will serve as an after-the-fact explanation of why Jack would be killed. After killing several of the Miami conspirators, Bondurant leaves for Dallas while Boyd returns to Mississippi. Littell is waiting for Boyd at his hotel; Littell shoots Boyd, who dies thinking of Jack Kennedy. Bondurant, his new wife Barb Jahelka, and several mob associates, converge on Dallas on November 22, 1963. The book ends at 12:30 PM, as Kennedy's motorcade drives through Dealey Plaza, with Bondurant closing his eyes, awaiting the shots and screams.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " *Part I, SHAKEDOWNS, November\u2013December 1958 \"Shakedowns\" covers just 26 days, introducing the three principal characters, and establishing their relationships, history, and career trajectories. Pete Bondurant is a former LASD deputy; he presently works for billionaire Howard Hughes and runs small-time shakedowns. (Bondurant is also an associate of Jimmy Hoffa.) Kemper Boyd is a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, a southerner, and a man who covets wealth and power. Ward Littell is also an FBI agent and Boyd's friend and former partner. Although assigned to monitor Communist Party activities, his abiding hatred of organized crime leads him to vie for a spot on the Bureau's Top Hoodlum Squad. Each of the three protagonists plot to entrap John F. Kennedy with a call girl; Boyd and Littell for J. Edgar Hoover, Bondurant for Hughes. The set-up is successful, but the Kennedy family discovers that Hughes's \"Hush-Hush\" tabloid will print the transcripts before the issue went to press, and prevents their publication. At Hoover's direction, Boyd leaves the FBI and begins working with Hoover's personal nemeses - Kennedy and his younger brother Robert\u2014on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management's investigation of organized crime and union corruption. Boyd strikes a rapport with John Kennedy but dislikes Bobby. The Kennedys, with their wealth and privilege, embody everything that Boyd hopes to gain. Littell, who meets the Kennedys through Boyd, is enraptured by Bobby, both men sharing a hatred for organized crime. *Part II, COLLUSION, January 1959-January 1961 \"Collusion\" opens with Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro's January 1, 1959 overthrow of the Fulgencio Batista government. The three principals begin to collude with one another to varying degrees"
      },
      {
        "text": "edys, with their wealth and privilege, embody everything that Boyd hopes to gain. Littell, who meets the Kennedys through Boyd, is enraptured by Bobby, both men sharing a hatred for organized crime. *Part II, COLLUSION, January 1959-January 1961 \"Collusion\" opens with Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro's January 1, 1959 overthrow of the Fulgencio Batista government. The three principals begin to collude with one another to varying degrees. Bondurant and Boyd both become Central Intelligence Agency operatives, while Littell investigates Hoffa and Mafia connections both officially for the FBI and on his own initiative. Boyd also joins the employ of the Kennedy family, working on JFK's presidential campaign. Bondurant and Boyd ultimately collaborate with the CIA, the \"Outfit\" (seeking to retake its now nationalized Havana casinos), and far right Cuban refugees plotting to overthrow the new communist regime. Littell becomes increasingly disgruntled with the FBI and Hoover's anti-communism mandates and begins investigating the mob on his own. Much of this information he anonymously feeds to Bobby Kennedy through Boyd. Through a series of snitches, Littell confirms that the Teamsters Pension Fund is being used to fund organized crime. Littell tracks the Fund's supposed \"secret\" accounting books to the home of mid-level mobster Jules Schiffrin in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Littell coerces Jack Ruby into searching Schiffrin's home. While waiting for Ruby, Littell is severely beaten by Bondurant; Ruby had tipped off Bondurant to Littell's operation, and Bondurant feared that Littell would endanger the CIA's Cuban plots. After recuperating, Littell takes leave from the FBI, invades Schiffrin's home, and steals the Pension Fund's books himself. Cracking the books' code, he realizes that Joseph Kennedy loaned the Fund millions of dollars. Hoover fires"
      },
      {
        "text": ". While waiting for Ruby, Littell is severely beaten by Bondurant; Ruby had tipped off Bondurant to Littell's operation, and Bondurant feared that Littell would endanger the CIA's Cuban plots. After recuperating, Littell takes leave from the FBI, invades Schiffrin's home, and steals the Pension Fund's books himself. Cracking the books' code, he realizes that Joseph Kennedy loaned the Fund millions of dollars. Hoover fires Littell from the FBI, revokes his pension, and blackballs him as a communist sympathizer with every US state's bar association in order to hurt his chances of practicing law. Boyd tries to get Littell a job with now-Attorney General designate Bobby Kennedy, who emphatically refuses, also having received a report from Hoover of Littell's budding alcoholism and invented mob ties. \"Collusion\" concludes with the inauguration of Kennedy as President. *Part III, PIGS, February\u2013November 1961 In the employ of the CIA, Boyd and Bondurant help train the \"Blessington Cadre\": Cuban exiles training to overthrow Castro at a CIA camp in Florida. The exiles are recruited through Hoffa's \"Tiger Kab\" taxi stand in Miami. The CIA also establishes a Ku Klux Klan \"klavern\" to keep \"local rednecks\" occupied and away from the camp. The Mafia, through New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello, funds the operation by supplying the cadre heroin for redistribution. As part of his organized crime vendetta, Bobby Kennedy has Marcello deported, unaware of (and uninterested in) Marcello's involvement in the CIA operation. Bondurant covertly absconds with Marcello when his INS plane lands in Central America. Boyd recommends that Marcello hire Littell as his extradition lawyer. Littell meets Bondurant and Marcello at their Central American hideout"
      },
      {
        "text": " funds the operation by supplying the cadre heroin for redistribution. As part of his organized crime vendetta, Bobby Kennedy has Marcello deported, unaware of (and uninterested in) Marcello's involvement in the CIA operation. Bondurant covertly absconds with Marcello when his INS plane lands in Central America. Boyd recommends that Marcello hire Littell as his extradition lawyer. Littell meets Bondurant and Marcello at their Central American hideout, where Littell hands over the stolen Teamsters Pension Fund books (albeit without confessing to stealing them and without the pages implicating Joe Kennedy). President Kennedy, unaware of Boyd's CIA connection, taps Boyd\u2014now also working for Robert Kennedy's Justice Department civil rights task force\u2014to investigate the Blessington operation and advise whether to implement the CIA's invasion strategy. After a sham visit, Boyd naturally encourages the president to authorize the mission, promising Kennedy that it will guarantee his reelection. The Bay of Pigs Invasion is authorized, although Kennedy second-guesses its wisdom and refuses to provide the air support that the Cadre believes necessary. The invasion is a failure and an embarrassment for Kennedy and all involved\u2014including the CIA, the mob, Bondurant, and Boyd. The night of the invasion, Boyd is shot numerous times in a side operation to distribute \"hot shots\" of heroin that would be linked back to Castro. *Part IV, HEROIN, December 1961-September 1963 Through the patronage of Marcello, Littell has become a full-fledged mob lawyer. When Hoffa hires him, it confirms that Bobby Kennedy has become his primary adversary. Through their now-mutual hatred of the Kennedys, Littell and Hoover make amends, and Hoover arranges for Howard Hughes to become Littell's client. In the wake of the Bay of Pigs, Boyd and Bondurant encourage the mob to authorize an assassination attempt on Castro. When"
      },
      {
        "text": " Through the patronage of Marcello, Littell has become a full-fledged mob lawyer. When Hoffa hires him, it confirms that Bobby Kennedy has become his primary adversary. Through their now-mutual hatred of the Kennedys, Littell and Hoover make amends, and Hoover arranges for Howard Hughes to become Littell's client. In the wake of the Bay of Pigs, Boyd and Bondurant encourage the mob to authorize an assassination attempt on Castro. When the mob passes on the opportunity, they surmise that the mob is now backing Castro. Enraged, they execute a plan wherein they steal millions of dollars of mob heroin as it comes to shore from Cuba in hopes of recouping their Bay of Pigs losses. In collusion with Littell, Bondurant also begins running a wire tap hoping to catch the president having an affair with a woman they have set up. They make several recordings of Kennedy, which they also share with Hoover. Boyd, however, remains fond of Jack, and becomes enraged when he discovers the scam. When he confronts Bondurant, Bondurant plays him sections from the tapes of Jack ridiculing Boyd, his social-climbing, and his Kennedy envy. Ironically, Bobby Kennedy (learning of Boyd's CIA connection and erratic behavior upon discovering the wire tap), fingers Boyd as the person trying to set up the president; he fires Boyd from the Justice Department, severing his ties with the Kennedys, and making an enemy of Boyd. The mob also figures out that Boyd and Bondurant were behind the theft of their heroin. Littell offers them the mob's price to atone for their theft: Kill President Kennedy. *Part V, CONTRACT, September\u2013November 1963 Boyd, Bondurant, and Littell plot to assassinate Kennedy during a motorcade in Miami and arrange the logistics to frame left-wing radicals. Without being specific, Littell tips off Hoover"
      },
      {
        "text": "ys, and making an enemy of Boyd. The mob also figures out that Boyd and Bondurant were behind the theft of their heroin. Littell offers them the mob's price to atone for their theft: Kill President Kennedy. *Part V, CONTRACT, September\u2013November 1963 Boyd, Bondurant, and Littell plot to assassinate Kennedy during a motorcade in Miami and arrange the logistics to frame left-wing radicals. Without being specific, Littell tips off Hoover about the plot, but due to Hoover's non-committal response, Littell surmises that there is a second assassination plot in the works, which will take place several days later in Dallas. The three men determine that they were set up, and begin to clean up and cover up the tracks of their Miami operation. Littell visits Bobby Kennedy, confronting him with evidence of his father's collusion with the mob, with the added intent that it will serve as an after-the-fact explanation of why Jack would be killed. After killing several of the Miami conspirators, Bondurant leaves for Dallas while Boyd returns to Mississippi. Littell is waiting for Boyd at his hotel; Littell shoots Boyd, who dies thinking of Jack Kennedy. Bondurant, his new wife Barb Jahelka, and several mob associates, converge on Dallas on November 22, 1963. The book ends at 12:30 PM, as Kennedy's motorcade drives through Dealey Plaza, with Bondurant closing his eyes, awaiting the shots and screams.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": ", with Bondurant closing his eyes, awaiting the shots and screams.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils",
    "author": "Selma Lagerl\u00f6f",
    "published_date": "1906",
    "synopsis": " The book is about a young lad, Nils Holgersson, whose \"chief delight was to eat and sleep, and after that he liked best to make mischief\". He takes great delight in hurting the animals in his family farm. Nils captures a tomte in a net while his family is at church and have left him home to memorize chapters from the Bible. The tomte proposes to Nils that if Nils frees him, the tomte will give him a huge gold coin. Nils rejects the offer and the tomte turns Nils into a tomte, which leaves him shrunken and able to talk with animals, who are thrilled to see the boy reduced to their size and are angry and hungry for revenge. While this is happening, wild geese are flying over the farm on one of their migrations, and a white farm goose attempts to join the wild ones. In an attempt to salvage something before his family returns, Nils holds on to the bird's neck as it successfully takes off and joins the wild birds. The wild geese, who are not pleased at all to be joined by a boy and a domestic goose, eventually take him on an adventurous trip across all the historical provinces of Sweden observing in passing their natural characteristics and economic resources. At the same time the characters and situations he encounters make him a man: the domestic goose needs to prove his ability to fly like the experienced wild geese, and Nils needs to prove to the geese that he would be a useful companion, despite their initial misgivings. During the trip, Nils learns that if he proves he has changed for the better, the tomte might be disposed to change him back to his normal size. The book also includes various subplots, concerning people whose lives are touched in one way or another by Nils and the wild geese. For example, one chapter centers on a young provincial man who feels lonely and alienated in the capital Stockholm, is befriended by a nice old gentleman who tells him (and the reader) about the city's history - and only later finds that it was none other than the King of Sweden, walking incognito in the park. The book was criticized for the fact that the goose and boy don't make any stop in the province Halland. In chapter 53 they fly over Halland on the way back to Scania, but they aren't impressed by the sight and they don't stop. However, such a chapter has been added to some translations of the book. In depictions Nils is usually wearing a red cap, although this is erroneous as he is described in the original Swedish edition as wearing a white cap.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The book is about a young lad, Nils Holgersson, whose \"chief delight was to eat and sleep, and after that he liked best to make mischief\". He takes great delight in hurting the animals in his family farm. Nils captures a tomte in a net while his family is at church and have left him home to memorize chapters from the Bible. The tomte proposes to Nils that if Nils frees him, the tomte will give him a huge gold coin. Nils rejects the offer and the tomte turns Nils into a tomte, which leaves him shrunken and able to talk with animals, who are thrilled to see the boy reduced to their size and are angry and hungry for revenge. While this is happening, wild geese are flying over the farm on one of their migrations, and a white farm goose attempts to join the wild ones. In an attempt to salvage something before his family returns, Nils holds on to the bird's neck as it successfully takes off and joins the wild birds. The wild geese, who are not pleased at all to be joined by a boy and a domestic goose, eventually take him on an adventurous trip across all the historical provinces of Sweden observing in passing their natural characteristics and economic resources. At the same time the characters and situations he encounters make him a man: the domestic goose needs to prove his ability to fly like the experienced wild geese, and Nils needs to prove to the geese that he would be a useful companion, despite their initial misgivings. During the trip, Nils learns that if he proves he has changed for the better, the tomte might be disposed to change him back to his normal size. The book also includes various subplots, concerning people whose lives are touched in one way or another by Nils and the wild geese. For example, one chapter centers on a young provincial man who feels lonely and alienated in the capital Stockholm, is"
      },
      {
        "text": " that he would be a useful companion, despite their initial misgivings. During the trip, Nils learns that if he proves he has changed for the better, the tomte might be disposed to change him back to his normal size. The book also includes various subplots, concerning people whose lives are touched in one way or another by Nils and the wild geese. For example, one chapter centers on a young provincial man who feels lonely and alienated in the capital Stockholm, is befriended by a nice old gentleman who tells him (and the reader) about the city's history - and only later finds that it was none other than the King of Sweden, walking incognito in the park. The book was criticized for the fact that the goose and boy don't make any stop in the province Halland. In chapter 53 they fly over Halland on the way back to Scania, but they aren't impressed by the sight and they don't stop. However, such a chapter has been added to some translations of the book. In depictions Nils is usually wearing a red cap, although this is erroneous as he is described in the original Swedish edition as wearing a white cap.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Cold Six Thousand",
    "author": "James Ellroy",
    "published_date": "2001-05-08",
    "synopsis": " The story begins on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, minutes after the John F. Kennedy assassination, and continues for roughly five years. Ward Littell, former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent turned high-powered Mafia lawyer, arrives in Dallas with J. Edgar Hoover's blessing to \"manage\" the investigation and ensure a consensus: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Pete Bondurant, who Littell once arrested but is now an uneasy friend and partner, is a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency's war against Fidel Castro and now the point-man for the Mafia's Las Vegas operations. Wayne Tedrow, Jr., a US Army veteran and Las Vegas Police Department officer, is paid six thousand dollars to fly to Dallas and murder a black pimp who has offended the casinos, and is thus thrust into the assassination's aftermath. As the tension over race relations and the Vietnam War builds and explodes throughout the decade, all three become involved in plots to kill Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story begins on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, minutes after the John F. Kennedy assassination, and continues for roughly five years. Ward Littell, former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent turned high-powered Mafia lawyer, arrives in Dallas with J. Edgar Hoover's blessing to \"manage\" the investigation and ensure a consensus: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Pete Bondurant, who Littell once arrested but is now an uneasy friend and partner, is a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency's war against Fidel Castro and now the point-man for the Mafia's Las Vegas operations. Wayne Tedrow, Jr., a US Army veteran and Las Vegas Police Department officer, is paid six thousand dollars to fly to Dallas and murder a black pimp who has offended the casinos, and is thus thrust into the assassination's aftermath. As the tension over race relations and the Vietnam War builds and explodes throughout the decade, all three become involved in plots to kill Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Fifth Business",
    "author": "Robertson Davies",
    "published_date": "1970",
    "synopsis": " Ramsay's passion for hagiology and his guilty connection to Mary Dempster provide most of the impetus and background for this novel. He spends much of the book struggling with his image of Mary Dempster as a fool-saint and dealing with issues of guilt that grew from a childhood accident. The entire story is told in the form of a letter written by Ramsay on his retirement from teaching at Colborne College, addressed to the school Headmaster.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ramsay's passion for hagiology and his guilty connection to Mary Dempster provide most of the impetus and background for this novel. He spends much of the book struggling with his image of Mary Dempster as a fool-saint and dealing with issues of guilt that grew from a childhood accident. The entire story is told in the form of a letter written by Ramsay on his retirement from teaching at Colborne College, addressed to the school Headmaster.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Crab with the Golden Claws",
    "author": "Herg\u00e9",
    "published_date": "1941",
    "synopsis": " Tintin is informed by the Thompsons of a case involving the ramblings of a drunken man, later killed, found with a scrap of paper from what appears to be a tin of crab-meat with the word Karaboudjan scrawled on it. His subsequent investigation and the kidnapping near his apartment of a Japanese man interested in giving a letter to him leads Tintin to a ship called Karaboudjan, where he is abducted by a syndicate of criminals who have been hiding opium in the crab tins. Tintin escapes from his locked room after Snowy chews through his bonds and Tintin knocks out a man sent to bring him food. He leaves him bound and gagged in the room. Tintin encounters Captain Haddock, an alcoholic sea captain, who is manipulated by his first mate, Allan, and is unaware of his crew's criminal activities. Tintin hides in the locker under the bed and defeats Jumbo, the sailor left in the cabin, as Tintin is thought by Allan to have climbed out of the porthole back into the store-room. He blows open the door, then finding it empty goes back to the Captain's room, where he finds Jumbo tied to a chair and gagged. Escaping the ship in a lifeboat in an attempt to reach Spain after sending a radio message to the Police about the cargo, they are attacked by a seaplane. They hijack the plane and tie up the pilots, but a storm and Haddock's drunken behaviour causes them to crash-land in the Sahara, where the crew escapes. After trekking across the desert and nearly dying of dehydration, Tintin and Haddock are rescued and taken to a French outpost, where they hear on the radio the storm apparently sunk the Karaboudjan. They travel to a Moroccan port, and along the way are attacked by Tuareg tribesmen, defending themselves with French MAS-36 rifles. At the port, Captain is kidnapped by members of his old crew after he sees the disguised Karaboudjan. Tintin meets the Thompsons who got his message and went to the port, they find the crab tins are being sold by the wealthy merchant Omar Ben Salaad, who Tintin tells the Thompsons to discreetly investigate. Tintin tracks down the gang and saves the Captain, but they both become intoxicated by the fumes from wine barrels breached in a shootout with the villains. Haddock ends up chasing a gang-member from the cellar to an entrance behind a book-case in Salaad's house. Upon sobering up, Tintin discovers the necklace with the Crab with the Golden Claws on the now-subdued owner of the wine cellar, Omar Ben Salaad, and realizes that he is the leader of the drug cartel. After Tintin captures Allan, who has stolen a boat to try escaping, the gang is put behind bars. The Japanese is freed when the Police arrest the ship-members, and reveals he is a Policeman, and was trying to warn Tintin of the group he was up against. The sailor drowned at the beginning was about to bring him opium, but was eliminated by the gang.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Tintin is informed by the Thompsons of a case involving the ramblings of a drunken man, later killed, found with a scrap of paper from what appears to be a tin of crab-meat with the word Karaboudjan scrawled on it. His subsequent investigation and the kidnapping near his apartment of a Japanese man interested in giving a letter to him leads Tintin to a ship called Karaboudjan, where he is abducted by a syndicate of criminals who have been hiding opium in the crab tins. Tintin escapes from his locked room after Snowy chews through his bonds and Tintin knocks out a man sent to bring him food. He leaves him bound and gagged in the room. Tintin encounters Captain Haddock, an alcoholic sea captain, who is manipulated by his first mate, Allan, and is unaware of his crew's criminal activities. Tintin hides in the locker under the bed and defeats Jumbo, the sailor left in the cabin, as Tintin is thought by Allan to have climbed out of the porthole back into the store-room. He blows open the door, then finding it empty goes back to the Captain's room, where he finds Jumbo tied to a chair and gagged. Escaping the ship in a lifeboat in an attempt to reach Spain after sending a radio message to the Police about the cargo, they are attacked by a seaplane. They hijack the plane and tie up the pilots, but a storm and Haddock's drunken behaviour causes them to crash-land in the Sahara, where the crew escapes. After trekking across the desert and nearly dying of dehydration, Tintin and Haddock are rescued and taken to a French outpost, where they hear on the radio the storm apparently sunk the Karaboudjan. They travel to a Moroccan port, and along the way are attacked by Tuareg tribesmen, defending themselves with French MAS-36 rifles."
      },
      {
        "text": " up the pilots, but a storm and Haddock's drunken behaviour causes them to crash-land in the Sahara, where the crew escapes. After trekking across the desert and nearly dying of dehydration, Tintin and Haddock are rescued and taken to a French outpost, where they hear on the radio the storm apparently sunk the Karaboudjan. They travel to a Moroccan port, and along the way are attacked by Tuareg tribesmen, defending themselves with French MAS-36 rifles. At the port, Captain is kidnapped by members of his old crew after he sees the disguised Karaboudjan. Tintin meets the Thompsons who got his message and went to the port, they find the crab tins are being sold by the wealthy merchant Omar Ben Salaad, who Tintin tells the Thompsons to discreetly investigate. Tintin tracks down the gang and saves the Captain, but they both become intoxicated by the fumes from wine barrels breached in a shootout with the villains. Haddock ends up chasing a gang-member from the cellar to an entrance behind a book-case in Salaad's house. Upon sobering up, Tintin discovers the necklace with the Crab with the Golden Claws on the now-subdued owner of the wine cellar, Omar Ben Salaad, and realizes that he is the leader of the drug cartel. After Tintin captures Allan, who has stolen a boat to try escaping, the gang is put behind bars. The Japanese is freed when the Police arrest the ship-members, and reveals he is a Policeman, and was trying to warn Tintin of the group he was up against. The sailor drowned at the beginning was about to bring him opium, but was eliminated by the gang.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " behind bars. The Japanese is freed when the Police arrest the ship-members, and reveals he is a Policeman, and was trying to warn Tintin of the group he was up against. The sailor drowned at the beginning was about to bring him opium, but was eliminated by the gang.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Black Boy",
    "author": "Richard Wright",
    "published_date": "1945",
    "synopsis": " Black Boy (American Hunger) is a memoir of Richard Wright's childhood and young adulthood. It is split into two sections, \"Southern Night\" (concerning his childhood in the south) and \"The Horror and the Glory\" (concerning his early adult years in Chicago). The book begins with a mischievous, four-year-old Wright setting fire to his grandmothers' house, and continues in that vein. Wright is a curious child living in a household of strict, religious women and violent, irresponsible men. He quickly chafes against his surroundings, reading instead of playing with other children, and rejecting the church in favor of atheism at a young age. He feels even more out of place as he grows older and comes in contact with the rampant racism of the 1920s south. Not only he finds it generally unjust but also he is especially bothered by whites' and other blacks' desire to squash his intellectual curiosity and potential. His father deserts the family, and he is shuffled back and forth between his sick mother, his fanatically religious grandmother and various aunts and uncles. As he ventures into the white world to find jobs, he encounters extreme racism and brutal violence, which stays with him the rest of his life. The family is starving to death. They have always viewed the north as a place of opportunity, and so as soon as they can scrape together enough money, Richard and his aunt go to Chicago, promising to send for his mother and brother. But before Richard can go to Chicago, he has to resort to stealing money and lying. Richard, many times, has to do things that he does not want to do, in order to survive. He finds the north less racist than the south and begins forming concrete ideas about American race relations. He holds many jobs, most of them menial. He washes floors during the day and reads Proust and medical journals by night. His family is still very poor, and his mother is crippled by a stroke, and his relatives continue to annoy him about his atheism and his reading. They see no point of it. He finds a job at the post office and meets some white men who share his cynical view of the world and religion in particular. They invite him to the John Reed Club, an organization that promotes the arts and social change. He becomes involved with a magazine called Left Front. He slowly becomes immersed in the Communist Party, organizing its writers and artists. At first, he thinks he will find friends within the party, especially among its black members, but he finds them to be just as afraid of change as the southern whites he had left behind. The Communists fear anyone who disagrees with their ideas, and Wright, who has always been inclined to question and speak his mind, is quickly branded a \"counter-revolutionary.\" When he tries to leave the party, he is accused of trying to lead others away from it. After witnessing the trial of another black Communist for counter-revolutionary activity, Wright decides to abandon the party. Hhe remains branded an \"enemy\" of Communism, and party members threaten him away from various jobs and gatherings. Nevertheless, he does not fight them because he believes they are clumsily groping toward ideas that he agrees with: unity, tolerance, and equality. He ends the book by resolving to use his writing to search for a way to start a revolution: he thinks that everyone has a \"hunger\" for life that needs to be filled, and for him, writing is his way to the human heart.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Black Boy (American Hunger) is a memoir of Richard Wright's childhood and young adulthood. It is split into two sections, \"Southern Night\" (concerning his childhood in the south) and \"The Horror and the Glory\" (concerning his early adult years in Chicago). The book begins with a mischievous, four-year-old Wright setting fire to his grandmothers' house, and continues in that vein. Wright is a curious child living in a household of strict, religious women and violent, irresponsible men. He quickly chafes against his surroundings, reading instead of playing with other children, and rejecting the church in favor of atheism at a young age. He feels even more out of place as he grows older and comes in contact with the rampant racism of the 1920s south. Not only he finds it generally unjust but also he is especially bothered by whites' and other blacks' desire to squash his intellectual curiosity and potential. His father deserts the family, and he is shuffled back and forth between his sick mother, his fanatically religious grandmother and various aunts and uncles. As he ventures into the white world to find jobs, he encounters extreme racism and brutal violence, which stays with him the rest of his life. The family is starving to death. They have always viewed the north as a place of opportunity, and so as soon as they can scrape together enough money, Richard and his aunt go to Chicago, promising to send for his mother and brother. But before Richard can go to Chicago, he has to resort to stealing money and lying. Richard, many times, has to do things that he does not want to do, in order to survive. He finds the north less racist than the south and begins forming concrete ideas about American race relations. He holds many jobs, most of them menial. He washes floors during the day and reads Proust and medical journals by night. His family is still very poor, and his mother is crippled by"
      },
      {
        "text": " before Richard can go to Chicago, he has to resort to stealing money and lying. Richard, many times, has to do things that he does not want to do, in order to survive. He finds the north less racist than the south and begins forming concrete ideas about American race relations. He holds many jobs, most of them menial. He washes floors during the day and reads Proust and medical journals by night. His family is still very poor, and his mother is crippled by a stroke, and his relatives continue to annoy him about his atheism and his reading. They see no point of it. He finds a job at the post office and meets some white men who share his cynical view of the world and religion in particular. They invite him to the John Reed Club, an organization that promotes the arts and social change. He becomes involved with a magazine called Left Front. He slowly becomes immersed in the Communist Party, organizing its writers and artists. At first, he thinks he will find friends within the party, especially among its black members, but he finds them to be just as afraid of change as the southern whites he had left behind. The Communists fear anyone who disagrees with their ideas, and Wright, who has always been inclined to question and speak his mind, is quickly branded a \"counter-revolutionary.\" When he tries to leave the party, he is accused of trying to lead others away from it. After witnessing the trial of another black Communist for counter-revolutionary activity, Wright decides to abandon the party. Hhe remains branded an \"enemy\" of Communism, and party members threaten him away from various jobs and gatherings. Nevertheless, he does not fight them because he believes they are clumsily groping toward ideas that he agrees with: unity, tolerance, and equality. He ends the book by resolving to use his writing to search for a way to start a revolution: he thinks that everyone has a \"hunger\" for life that needs to be"
      },
      {
        "text": "ary activity, Wright decides to abandon the party. Hhe remains branded an \"enemy\" of Communism, and party members threaten him away from various jobs and gatherings. Nevertheless, he does not fight them because he believes they are clumsily groping toward ideas that he agrees with: unity, tolerance, and equality. He ends the book by resolving to use his writing to search for a way to start a revolution: he thinks that everyone has a \"hunger\" for life that needs to be filled, and for him, writing is his way to the human heart.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The City and the Pillar",
    "author": "Gore Vidal",
    "published_date": "1948-01-10",
    "synopsis": " The plot centers on Jim Willard, a handsome youth in Virginia in the late 1930s, who is also a very good tennis player. When his best friend Bob Ford, one year his senior, is about to leave high school, the two take a camping trip into the woods. Both are elated to be in each other's company and, after some moaning from Bob about how difficult it is to get the local girls to have sex with him, the two have sex, even though Bob thinks this is not a \"normal\" thing for two men to do. Jim, who does not find girls so appealing, hopes Bob can stay and is crushed when Bob is insistent on joining the United States Merchant Marine. The next seven years of Jim's life will be an odyssey, at the end of which he hopes to be happily reunited with Bob. Jim decides he wants to go to sea too and becomes a cabin boy on a cruise ship after going to New York to look for work. Another seaman on his ship, Collins, goes out with him in Seattle, but is more interested in a double date with two girls than in sex with Jim. The date is a disaster for Jim, who must realize that he is unable to drink enough to overcome being repelled by the female body. When he finally storms out, Collins calls him a queer, which causes him to think about this possibility. He quits his job, fearing another confrontation with Collins, and becomes a tennis instructor at a hotel in Los Angeles. One of the bellboys, Leaper, whose advances he has spurned previously, introduces him to the circle around the mid-thirties Hollywood actor Ronald Shaw, who immediately takes interest in Jim. Eventually, Jim moves in with Ronald, even though he is not really in love with him. Their affair is ended when Jim meets the writer Paul Sullivan, who is in his late twenties, at a party. Jim is drawn to Paul because he seems so different from the other, more stereotypical homosexuals he meets at Hollywood parties, even having married once (although that marriage was later annulled). When Shaw learns of their relationship, Jim is quite happy to move with Paul to New Orleans. Again, he is not in love with Paul but with his boyhood pal, but he considers Paul adequate for the time being. Paul however, needing some pain in his relationships for artistic inspiration, introduces Jim to Maria Verlaine, who seems to specialize in seducing homosexuals, hoping his relationship will end in a suitably tragic way. Together, the three go to Yucat\u00e1n, where Maria has made an inheritance. Jim does feel vaguely attracted to Maria, but he is unable to perform sexually. All the same, for Paul even an imagined affair of his boyfriend with a woman is as painful as he had hoped and warrants a breakup. In the meantime, World War II has started in Europe and Paul and Jim are determined to go to New York to enlist in the Army. This of course also means their separation. Jim gets transferred to a Colorado Air Force base, where his sergeant is clearly sexually interested in him. But Jim has set his sights on a young corporal. Unfortunately, the corporal does not seem to like him in \"that\" way, even though the sergeant later seems to succeed with the corporal. Due to the cold Colorado weather, Jim contracts rheumatoid arthritis and is eventually discharged from service. He goes back to New York, where he meets Maria and Ronald again. Ronald has been forced to marry a lesbian by studio executives to uphold his public image and tries unsuccessfully to become a stage actor. He also introduces Jim to his local friends like an effeminate millionaire. Jim begins frequenting gay bars to find sexual relief. Later, he meets Paul at a party and the two start an open relationship, not because of passion, but out of loneliness. When Jim finally goes home for Christmas, he learns that his father is dead and (more alarming to him) that Bob has married. Hoping their affair can resume despite this, Jim is anxious to see him again. The resolution of their relationship comes again in New York, where they end up on the bed in Bob's hotel room. But when Jim finally thinks he has attained what he wants and moves closer, grabbing his \"sex\", Bob panics, is outraged to be thought of as gay, and even punches Jim in the face. The two struggle and Jim wins because he is stronger. In the original version, Jim is infuriated enough to murder Bob while in the revision he rapes Bob and then leaves the room.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The plot centers on Jim Willard, a handsome youth in Virginia in the late 1930s, who is also a very good tennis player. When his best friend Bob Ford, one year his senior, is about to leave high school, the two take a camping trip into the woods. Both are elated to be in each other's company and, after some moaning from Bob about how difficult it is to get the local girls to have sex with him, the two have sex, even though Bob thinks this is not a \"normal\" thing for two men to do. Jim, who does not find girls so appealing, hopes Bob can stay and is crushed when Bob is insistent on joining the United States Merchant Marine. The next seven years of Jim's life will be an odyssey, at the end of which he hopes to be happily reunited with Bob. Jim decides he wants to go to sea too and becomes a cabin boy on a cruise ship after going to New York to look for work. Another seaman on his ship, Collins, goes out with him in Seattle, but is more interested in a double date with two girls than in sex with Jim. The date is a disaster for Jim, who must realize that he is unable to drink enough to overcome being repelled by the female body. When he finally storms out, Collins calls him a queer, which causes him to think about this possibility. He quits his job, fearing another confrontation with Collins, and becomes a tennis instructor at a hotel in Los Angeles. One of the bellboys, Leaper, whose advances he has spurned previously, introduces him to the circle around the mid-thirties Hollywood actor Ronald Shaw, who immediately takes interest in Jim. Eventually, Jim moves in with Ronald, even though he is not really in love with him. Their affair is ended when Jim meets the writer Paul Sullivan, who is in his late twenties, at a party. Jim is drawn to Paul because he seems so different from"
      },
      {
        "text": " a hotel in Los Angeles. One of the bellboys, Leaper, whose advances he has spurned previously, introduces him to the circle around the mid-thirties Hollywood actor Ronald Shaw, who immediately takes interest in Jim. Eventually, Jim moves in with Ronald, even though he is not really in love with him. Their affair is ended when Jim meets the writer Paul Sullivan, who is in his late twenties, at a party. Jim is drawn to Paul because he seems so different from the other, more stereotypical homosexuals he meets at Hollywood parties, even having married once (although that marriage was later annulled). When Shaw learns of their relationship, Jim is quite happy to move with Paul to New Orleans. Again, he is not in love with Paul but with his boyhood pal, but he considers Paul adequate for the time being. Paul however, needing some pain in his relationships for artistic inspiration, introduces Jim to Maria Verlaine, who seems to specialize in seducing homosexuals, hoping his relationship will end in a suitably tragic way. Together, the three go to Yucat\u00e1n, where Maria has made an inheritance. Jim does feel vaguely attracted to Maria, but he is unable to perform sexually. All the same, for Paul even an imagined affair of his boyfriend with a woman is as painful as he had hoped and warrants a breakup. In the meantime, World War II has started in Europe and Paul and Jim are determined to go to New York to enlist in the Army. This of course also means their separation. Jim gets transferred to a Colorado Air Force base, where his sergeant is clearly sexually interested in him. But Jim has set his sights on a young corporal. Unfortunately, the corporal does not seem to like him in \"that\" way, even though the sergeant later seems to succeed with the corporal. Due to the cold Colorado weather, Jim contracts rheumatoid arthritis and is eventually discharged from service. He goes back to New York"
      },
      {
        "text": " the Army. This of course also means their separation. Jim gets transferred to a Colorado Air Force base, where his sergeant is clearly sexually interested in him. But Jim has set his sights on a young corporal. Unfortunately, the corporal does not seem to like him in \"that\" way, even though the sergeant later seems to succeed with the corporal. Due to the cold Colorado weather, Jim contracts rheumatoid arthritis and is eventually discharged from service. He goes back to New York, where he meets Maria and Ronald again. Ronald has been forced to marry a lesbian by studio executives to uphold his public image and tries unsuccessfully to become a stage actor. He also introduces Jim to his local friends like an effeminate millionaire. Jim begins frequenting gay bars to find sexual relief. Later, he meets Paul at a party and the two start an open relationship, not because of passion, but out of loneliness. When Jim finally goes home for Christmas, he learns that his father is dead and (more alarming to him) that Bob has married. Hoping their affair can resume despite this, Jim is anxious to see him again. The resolution of their relationship comes again in New York, where they end up on the bed in Bob's hotel room. But when Jim finally thinks he has attained what he wants and moves closer, grabbing his \"sex\", Bob panics, is outraged to be thought of as gay, and even punches Jim in the face. The two struggle and Jim wins because he is stronger. In the original version, Jim is infuriated enough to murder Bob while in the revision he rapes Bob and then leaves the room.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " wins because he is stronger. In the original version, Jim is infuriated enough to murder Bob while in the revision he rapes Bob and then leaves the room.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Tai-Pan: A Novel of Hong Kong",
    "author": "James Clavell",
    "published_date": "1966",
    "synopsis": " The novel begins following the British victory of the first Opium War and the seizure of Hong Kong. Although the island is largely uninhabited and the terrain unfriendly, it has a large natural harbour that both the British government and various trading companies believe will be useful for the import of merchandise to be traded on mainland China, a highly lucrative market. Although the novel features many characters, it is Dirk Struan and Tyler Brock, former shipmates and the owners of two massive (fictional) trading companies who are the main focal points of the story. Their rocky and often abusive relationship as seamen initiated an intense amount of competitive tension. Throughout the novel, both men seek to destroy each other in matters of business and personal affairs. Struan is referred to throughout the novel as Tai-Pan, indicating his position as head of the largest of all the trading companies in Asia. Clavell translates Tai-Pan as \"Supreme Leader,\" although as described in the Tai-Pan entry, \"Big Shot\" might be more accurate. Brock, owner of the second largest of the trading companies, constantly vies to destroy Struan's company and reputation in an attempt both to exact revenge on Struan and to become the new \"Tai-Pan\" of Chinese trade. Other important characters of the novel include: * Culum Struan - Dirk Struan's son and future Tai-pan * Robb Struan - Dirk Struan's half-brother and business partner. * William Longstaff - first Governor of Hong Kong * Jeff Cooper, American trader and secret partner to the Noble House * Wilf Tillman, American trader and partner to Jeff Cooper. Guardian to Shevaun Tillman. Advocate of slavery. * Count Zergyev - Russian diplomat and spy to gauge British influence in Hong Kong * Gorth Brock - Tyler Brock's boat-captain son. * Jin-Qua, Chinese tea and opium trader, lends Dirk Struan \"40 Lac\" (about 1.656 million Pounds sterling, or 8 million dollars in silver bullion) to get out of debt to Tyler Brock. He is the originator of the \"coin debt\" to which Dirk and future Tai-Pans must swear to uphold (revealed as well in Noble House) * May\u2013May - Dirk Struan's Chinese mistress, granddaughter of Jin-Qua, instructed to teach Dirk \"civilized\" (Chinese) ways. * Liza Brock, wife of Tyler Brock and Tess' mother * Aristotle Quance - Painter and hedonist, always in debt. The Struan family own several of his paintings. * Shevaun Tillman, ward of Wilf Tillman and hopeful bride to Dirk Struan. * Captain Orlov, \"The Hunchback\" Finnish opium ship captain under Dirk Struan. Often has visions of precognition of future events. * William Skinner, editor of the island newspaper, privy to secrets handed to him by Dirk Struan to keep his rivals off balance * Gordon Chen - Dirk Struan's Eurasian son by a Chinese mistress and secret head of the first Hong Kong Triad (underground society) * Tess Brock, daughter of Tyler Brock and eventual wife of Culum Struan.Also known as Hag Struan in later novels. * Mary Sinclair, secret English prostitute and devotee/spy of Dirk Struan, and sister of Horatio Sinclair. * Captain Glessing, former ship captain of Royal Navy and harbor master. Has a peninsula named after him. Loses an arm in the typhoon. * Horatio Sinclair, clerk to Dirk Struan, church fanatic and harbors incestuous desires for his sister Mary. * Wolfgang Mauss, renegade priest and teacher to Gordon Chen. * Roger Blore, gambler, makes an unheard of record time journey to Hong Kong, later becomes Dirk Struan's horse racing club owner. * Captain Scragger, pirate and negotiator for Wu Fang Choi, a pirate king. Scragger's family line is mentioned several times in the following books of the Asian Saga. * Wu Fang Choi, pirate king and secret partner to Jin-Qua, as the bullion for the deal came from him.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The novel begins following the British victory of the first Opium War and the seizure of Hong Kong. Although the island is largely uninhabited and the terrain unfriendly, it has a large natural harbour that both the British government and various trading companies believe will be useful for the import of merchandise to be traded on mainland China, a highly lucrative market. Although the novel features many characters, it is Dirk Struan and Tyler Brock, former shipmates and the owners of two massive (fictional) trading companies who are the main focal points of the story. Their rocky and often abusive relationship as seamen initiated an intense amount of competitive tension. Throughout the novel, both men seek to destroy each other in matters of business and personal affairs. Struan is referred to throughout the novel as Tai-Pan, indicating his position as head of the largest of all the trading companies in Asia. Clavell translates Tai-Pan as \"Supreme Leader,\" although as described in the Tai-Pan entry, \"Big Shot\" might be more accurate. Brock, owner of the second largest of the trading companies, constantly vies to destroy Struan's company and reputation in an attempt both to exact revenge on Struan and to become the new \"Tai-Pan\" of Chinese trade. Other important characters of the novel include: * Culum Struan - Dirk Struan's son and future Tai-pan * Robb Struan - Dirk Struan's half-brother and business partner. * William Longstaff - first Governor of Hong Kong * Jeff Cooper, American trader and secret partner to the Noble House * Wilf Tillman, American trader and partner to Jeff Cooper. Guardian to Shevaun Tillman. Advocate of slavery. * Count Zergyev - Russian diplomat and spy to gauge British influence in Hong Kong * Gorth Brock - Tyler Brock's boat-captain son. * Jin-Qua, Chinese tea and opium trader, lends Dirk Struan \"40 Lac\" (about 1."
      },
      {
        "text": " - first Governor of Hong Kong * Jeff Cooper, American trader and secret partner to the Noble House * Wilf Tillman, American trader and partner to Jeff Cooper. Guardian to Shevaun Tillman. Advocate of slavery. * Count Zergyev - Russian diplomat and spy to gauge British influence in Hong Kong * Gorth Brock - Tyler Brock's boat-captain son. * Jin-Qua, Chinese tea and opium trader, lends Dirk Struan \"40 Lac\" (about 1.656 million Pounds sterling, or 8 million dollars in silver bullion) to get out of debt to Tyler Brock. He is the originator of the \"coin debt\" to which Dirk and future Tai-Pans must swear to uphold (revealed as well in Noble House) * May\u2013May - Dirk Struan's Chinese mistress, granddaughter of Jin-Qua, instructed to teach Dirk \"civilized\" (Chinese) ways. * Liza Brock, wife of Tyler Brock and Tess' mother * Aristotle Quance - Painter and hedonist, always in debt. The Struan family own several of his paintings. * Shevaun Tillman, ward of Wilf Tillman and hopeful bride to Dirk Struan. * Captain Orlov, \"The Hunchback\" Finnish opium ship captain under Dirk Struan. Often has visions of precognition of future events. * William Skinner, editor of the island newspaper, privy to secrets handed to him by Dirk Struan to keep his rivals off balance * Gordon Chen - Dirk Struan's Eurasian son by a Chinese mistress and secret head of the first Hong Kong Triad (underground society) * Tess Brock, daughter of Tyler Brock and eventual wife of Culum Struan.Also known as Hag Struan in later novels. * Mary Sinclair, secret English prostitute and devotee/spy of Dirk Struan, and sister of Horatio Sinclair. * Captain Glessing, former ship captain of Royal Navy"
      },
      {
        "text": " to keep his rivals off balance * Gordon Chen - Dirk Struan's Eurasian son by a Chinese mistress and secret head of the first Hong Kong Triad (underground society) * Tess Brock, daughter of Tyler Brock and eventual wife of Culum Struan.Also known as Hag Struan in later novels. * Mary Sinclair, secret English prostitute and devotee/spy of Dirk Struan, and sister of Horatio Sinclair. * Captain Glessing, former ship captain of Royal Navy and harbor master. Has a peninsula named after him. Loses an arm in the typhoon. * Horatio Sinclair, clerk to Dirk Struan, church fanatic and harbors incestuous desires for his sister Mary. * Wolfgang Mauss, renegade priest and teacher to Gordon Chen. * Roger Blore, gambler, makes an unheard of record time journey to Hong Kong, later becomes Dirk Struan's horse racing club owner. * Captain Scragger, pirate and negotiator for Wu Fang Choi, a pirate king. Scragger's family line is mentioned several times in the following books of the Asian Saga. * Wu Fang Choi, pirate king and secret partner to Jin-Qua, as the bullion for the deal came from him.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Horton Hears a Who!",
    "author": "Dr. Seuss",
    "published_date": "1954-08",
    "synopsis": " In the Jungle of Nool, a jungle environment populated by anthropomorphic fauna, an elephant named Horton encounters a clover inhabited by a society of tiny beings known as the \"Whos\" of microscopic size. After conversing with the mayor of Whoville, Horton decides to dedicate all of his time to tending to the needs of the Whos and guarding them from the hazards of the much larger world. However, the Sour Kangaroo, doubting Horton's stories of the Whos, encourages all of the other animals that Horton is lying, and they decide to destroy the clover out of contempt. The terrified, panicking Whos are left to despair until town's mayor stumbles upon a young boy named Jojo, whose mouth he raises a megaphone to just as the animals are about to bring devastation upon all of Whoville. Jojo screams the word \"YOPP!!\", which is amplified by the megaphone in the nick of time. Realizing that her suspicions were incorrect, the Sour Kangaroo redeems herself by joining Horton in devoting all of her time to protecting the Whos.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the Jungle of Nool, a jungle environment populated by anthropomorphic fauna, an elephant named Horton encounters a clover inhabited by a society of tiny beings known as the \"Whos\" of microscopic size. After conversing with the mayor of Whoville, Horton decides to dedicate all of his time to tending to the needs of the Whos and guarding them from the hazards of the much larger world. However, the Sour Kangaroo, doubting Horton's stories of the Whos, encourages all of the other animals that Horton is lying, and they decide to destroy the clover out of contempt. The terrified, panicking Whos are left to despair until town's mayor stumbles upon a young boy named Jojo, whose mouth he raises a megaphone to just as the animals are about to bring devastation upon all of Whoville. Jojo screams the word \"YOPP!!\", which is amplified by the megaphone in the nick of time. Realizing that her suspicions were incorrect, the Sour Kangaroo redeems herself by joining Horton in devoting all of her time to protecting the Whos.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The World is Round",
    "author": "Tony Rothman",
    "published_date": "1978",
    "synopsis": " The story concerns a world named Patra-Bannk (known otherwise as Freeze-Bake), and a crew of explorers from another world named Two-Bit (because life is cheap there), seeking a treasure of metallic hydrogen. Upon arriving at the planet, the four members of the expedition arrange themselves into two shuttlecraft. Pike and Hendig, in one shuttlecraft, travel inland toward a mountain village where they hope to find the navigator, Paddelack, who was stranded there after Hendig's previous voyage. After finding him, they are captured by a group of locals known as the Gostum. Upon escaping from the Gostum stronghold of Konndjlan, Pike and Paddelack proceed to Daryephna, a fabled forbidden city where Pike hopes to find the metallic hydrogen. Stringer and Valyavar take the other shuttle north along the coast about one hundred thousand kilometers and crash land near the city of Ta-tjenen. The locals consider Ta-tjenen to be the center of the world. Stringer awakens after the crash landing to find Valyavar missing, and he shoots and kills one of the natives who approach him, unaware that they were trying to help. The planet's current inhabitants are human-like, but with six fingers on each hand and with skin that darkens and lightens dramatically as the weather changes. They are divided into semi-barbaric groups or tribes with historical enmity toward one another. There are local legends of an ancient people called the Polkraitz who lived on Patra-Bannk centuries ago and had a much more advanced technology than is currently available. They left, but are prophesied to return when two of the traditional calendar systems coincide - an event known as the Golun-Patra that occurs once every 96 (Earth) years. The upcoming Golun-Patra is the twelfth Golun-Patra, which gives it added significance. The planet's slow rotation rate results in extreme weather, alternating between freezing cold \"nights\" (Patras) lasting up to six (Earth) months during which the sun never rises and steaming hot \"days\" (Bannks) during which the sun never sets for a similar number of months. Patra-Bannk is at least 50 times the size of Earth, six hundred thousand kilometers across. It is a type of Dyson sphere built around a black hole. The book is set in a time in the far future when the galaxies are beginning to merge, prior to the \"Big Crunch\".\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " The story concerns a world named Patra-Bannk (known otherwise as Freeze-Bake), and a crew of explorers from another world named Two-Bit (because life is cheap there), seeking a treasure of metallic hydrogen. Upon arriving at the planet, the four members of the expedition arrange themselves into two shuttlecraft. Pike and Hendig, in one shuttlecraft, travel inland toward a mountain village where they hope to find the navigator, Paddelack, who was stranded there after Hendig's previous voyage. After finding him, they are captured by a group of locals known as the Gostum. Upon escaping from the Gostum stronghold of Konndjlan, Pike and Paddelack proceed to Daryephna, a fabled forbidden city where Pike hopes to find the metallic hydrogen. Stringer and Valyavar take the other shuttle north along the coast about one hundred thousand kilometers and crash land near the city of Ta-tjenen. The locals consider Ta-tjenen to be the center of the world. Stringer awakens after the crash landing to find Valyavar missing, and he shoots and kills one of the natives who approach him, unaware that they were trying to help. The planet's current inhabitants are human-like, but with six fingers on each hand and with skin that darkens and lightens dramatically as the weather changes. They are divided into semi-barbaric groups or tribes with historical enmity toward one another. There are local legends of an ancient people called the Polkraitz who lived on Patra-Bannk centuries ago and had a much more advanced technology than is currently available. They left, but are prophesied to return when two of the traditional calendar systems coincide - an event known as the Golun-Patra that occurs once every 96 (Earth) years. The upcoming Golun-Patra is the twelfth Golun-Patra, which gives it"
      },
      {
        "text": "mity toward one another. There are local legends of an ancient people called the Polkraitz who lived on Patra-Bannk centuries ago and had a much more advanced technology than is currently available. They left, but are prophesied to return when two of the traditional calendar systems coincide - an event known as the Golun-Patra that occurs once every 96 (Earth) years. The upcoming Golun-Patra is the twelfth Golun-Patra, which gives it added significance. The planet's slow rotation rate results in extreme weather, alternating between freezing cold \"nights\" (Patras) lasting up to six (Earth) months during which the sun never rises and steaming hot \"days\" (Bannks) during which the sun never sets for a similar number of months. Patra-Bannk is at least 50 times the size of Earth, six hundred thousand kilometers across. It is a type of Dyson sphere built around a black hole. The book is set in a time in the far future when the galaxies are beginning to merge, prior to the \"Big Crunch\".\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes",
    "author": "Tony Kushner",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " Set in New York City in 1985, Act One of Millennium Approaches introduces us to the central characters. As the play opens, Louis Ironson, a neurotic, gay Jew learns his lover, WASP Prior Walter, has AIDS. As the play and Prior's illness progress, Louis becomes unable to cope and moves out. Meanwhile, closeted homosexual Mormon and Republican law clerk Joe Pitt is offered a major promotion by his mentor, the McCarthyist lawyer Roy Cohn. Joe doesn't immediately take the job because he feels he has to check with his Valium-addicted, agoraphobic wife, Harper, who is unwilling to move. Roy is himself deeply closeted, and soon discovers that he has AIDS. As the seven-hour play progresses, Prior is visited by ghosts and an angel who proclaim him to be a prophet; Joe finds himself struggling to reconcile his religion with his sexuality; Louis struggles with his guilt about leaving Prior and begins a relationship with Joe; Harper's mental health deteriorates as she realizes that Joe is gay; Joe's mother, Hannah, moves to New York to attempt to look after Harper and meets Prior after a failed attempt by Prior to confront Hannah's son; Harper begins to separate from Joe whom she has depended upon and finds strength she was unaware of; and Roy finds himself in the hospital, reduced to the companionship of the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg and his nurse, Belize, a former drag queen and Prior's best friend, who meanwhile has to deal with Louis's constant demands for updates on Prior's health. The subplot involving Cohn is the most political aspect of the play. Portrayed as a self-loathing, power-hungry hypocrite, he prides himself on his political connections and influence, which he has amassed through decades of corruption. In the play, he recollects with pride his role in having Ethel Rosenberg executed for espionage. As he lies alone in the hospital, dying of AIDS, the ghost of Rosenberg sings him a Yiddish lullaby and then brings him the news that the New York State Bar Association has just disbarred him, destroying his final hope of dying as a lawyer. The play ends on a note of optimism. After his friends procure for him a stash of AZT, in 1990 Prior is still alive and is managing to live with AIDS. With his friends, he looks at the statue of an angel in Bethesda Fountain and talks of the legend of the original fountain, and how it will flow again some day. The play is deliberately performed so that the moments requiring special effects often show their theatricality. Most of the actors play multiple characters (e.g., the actor playing Prior's nurse also appears as the Angel). There are heavy Biblical references and references to American society, as well as some fantastical scenes including voyages to Antarctica and Heaven, as well as key events happening in San Francisco and at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Set in New York City in 1985, Act One of Millennium Approaches introduces us to the central characters. As the play opens, Louis Ironson, a neurotic, gay Jew learns his lover, WASP Prior Walter, has AIDS. As the play and Prior's illness progress, Louis becomes unable to cope and moves out. Meanwhile, closeted homosexual Mormon and Republican law clerk Joe Pitt is offered a major promotion by his mentor, the McCarthyist lawyer Roy Cohn. Joe doesn't immediately take the job because he feels he has to check with his Valium-addicted, agoraphobic wife, Harper, who is unwilling to move. Roy is himself deeply closeted, and soon discovers that he has AIDS. As the seven-hour play progresses, Prior is visited by ghosts and an angel who proclaim him to be a prophet; Joe finds himself struggling to reconcile his religion with his sexuality; Louis struggles with his guilt about leaving Prior and begins a relationship with Joe; Harper's mental health deteriorates as she realizes that Joe is gay; Joe's mother, Hannah, moves to New York to attempt to look after Harper and meets Prior after a failed attempt by Prior to confront Hannah's son; Harper begins to separate from Joe whom she has depended upon and finds strength she was unaware of; and Roy finds himself in the hospital, reduced to the companionship of the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg and his nurse, Belize, a former drag queen and Prior's best friend, who meanwhile has to deal with Louis's constant demands for updates on Prior's health. The subplot involving Cohn is the most political aspect of the play. Portrayed as a self-loathing, power-hungry hypocrite, he prides himself on his political connections and influence, which he has amassed through decades of corruption. In the play, he recollects with pride his role in having Ethel Rosenberg executed for espionage. As he lies alone in the hospital, dying of AIDS, the ghost"
      },
      {
        "text": " to deal with Louis's constant demands for updates on Prior's health. The subplot involving Cohn is the most political aspect of the play. Portrayed as a self-loathing, power-hungry hypocrite, he prides himself on his political connections and influence, which he has amassed through decades of corruption. In the play, he recollects with pride his role in having Ethel Rosenberg executed for espionage. As he lies alone in the hospital, dying of AIDS, the ghost of Rosenberg sings him a Yiddish lullaby and then brings him the news that the New York State Bar Association has just disbarred him, destroying his final hope of dying as a lawyer. The play ends on a note of optimism. After his friends procure for him a stash of AZT, in 1990 Prior is still alive and is managing to live with AIDS. With his friends, he looks at the statue of an angel in Bethesda Fountain and talks of the legend of the original fountain, and how it will flow again some day. The play is deliberately performed so that the moments requiring special effects often show their theatricality. Most of the actors play multiple characters (e.g., the actor playing Prior's nurse also appears as the Angel). There are heavy Biblical references and references to American society, as well as some fantastical scenes including voyages to Antarctica and Heaven, as well as key events happening in San Francisco and at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "\u2019Salem's Lot",
    "author": "Stephen King",
    "published_date": "1975-09-05",
    "synopsis": " Ben Mears, a successful writer who grew up in the town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, has returned home after twenty-five years. He quickly becomes friends with high school teacher Matt Burke and strikes up a romantic relationship with Susan Norton, a young college graduate. Ben starts writing a book about the Marsten House, an abandoned mansion where he had a bad experience as a child. Mears learns that the Marsten House\u2014the former home of Depression-era hitman Hubert \"Hubie\" Marsten\u2014has been purchased by Kurt Barlow, an Austrian immigrant who has arrived in the Lot ostensibly to open an antique store. Barlow is an apparent recluse; only his business partner, Richard Straker, is seen in public. The duo's arrival coincides with the disappearance of a young boy, Ralphie Glick, and the death of his brother Danny, who becomes the town's first vampire, infecting such locals as Mike Ryerson, Randy McDougall, Jack Griffen, and Danny's own mother, Marjorie Glick. Danny fails, however, to infect Mark Petrie, who resists him successfully. Over the course of several weeks almost all of the townspeople are infected. Ben Mears and Susan are joined by Matt Burke and his doctor, Jimmy Cody, along with young Mark Petrie and the local priest, Father Callahan, in an effort to fight the spread of the vampires, whose numbers increase as the new vampires infect their own families and others. Susan is captured by Barlow before Mark has a chance to rescue her. Susan becomes a vampire, and is eventually staked through the heart by Mears, the man who loved her. Father Callahan is caught by Barlow at the Petrie house after Barlow kills Mark's parents, but does not infect them, so they are later given a clean burial. Barlow holds Mark hostage, but Father Callahan has the upper hand, securing Mark's release, agreeing to Barlow's demand that he toss aside his cross and face him on equal terms. However he delays throwing the cross aside and the once powerful religious symbol loses its strength until Barlow can not only approach Callahan but break the cross, now nothing more than two small pieces of plaster, into bits. Barlow says \"Sad to see a man's faith fail him\", then forces the helpless Callahan to drink blood from Barlow's neck. Callahan resists but cannot hold out forever and is forced to drink, leaving him trapped in a netherworld, as Barlow has left his mark. When Callahan tries to re-enter his church he receives an electric shock, preventing him from going inside. Callahan disappears forever from \"the Lot\". Jimmy Cody is killed when he falls from a rigged staircase and is impaled by knives by the one-time denizens of Eva Miller's boarding house, Mears' one-time residence, who have now all become vampires. Matt Burke dies from a heart attack in the town hospital. Ben Mears and Mark Petrie succeed in destroying the master vampire Barlow, but are lucky to escape with their lives and are forced to leave the town to the now leaderless vampires. The novel's prologue, which is set shortly after the end of the story proper, describes the men's flight across the country to a seaside town in Mexico, where they stop to recover from their ordeal. Mark Petrie is received into the Catholic Church by a friendly local priest. The epilogue has the two returning to the town a year later, intending to renew the battle. Ben, knowing that there are too many hiding places for the town's vampires, sets the town on fire with the intent of destroying it and the Marsten House once and for all.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ben Mears, a successful writer who grew up in the town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, has returned home after twenty-five years. He quickly becomes friends with high school teacher Matt Burke and strikes up a romantic relationship with Susan Norton, a young college graduate. Ben starts writing a book about the Marsten House, an abandoned mansion where he had a bad experience as a child. Mears learns that the Marsten House\u2014the former home of Depression-era hitman Hubert \"Hubie\" Marsten\u2014has been purchased by Kurt Barlow, an Austrian immigrant who has arrived in the Lot ostensibly to open an antique store. Barlow is an apparent recluse; only his business partner, Richard Straker, is seen in public. The duo's arrival coincides with the disappearance of a young boy, Ralphie Glick, and the death of his brother Danny, who becomes the town's first vampire, infecting such locals as Mike Ryerson, Randy McDougall, Jack Griffen, and Danny's own mother, Marjorie Glick. Danny fails, however, to infect Mark Petrie, who resists him successfully. Over the course of several weeks almost all of the townspeople are infected. Ben Mears and Susan are joined by Matt Burke and his doctor, Jimmy Cody, along with young Mark Petrie and the local priest, Father Callahan, in an effort to fight the spread of the vampires, whose numbers increase as the new vampires infect their own families and others. Susan is captured by Barlow before Mark has a chance to rescue her. Susan becomes a vampire, and is eventually staked through the heart by Mears, the man who loved her. Father Callahan is caught by Barlow at the Petrie house after Barlow kills Mark's parents, but does not infect them, so they are later given a clean burial. Barlow holds Mark hostage, but Father Callahan has the upper hand, securing Mark's release, agreeing to"
      },
      {
        "text": " families and others. Susan is captured by Barlow before Mark has a chance to rescue her. Susan becomes a vampire, and is eventually staked through the heart by Mears, the man who loved her. Father Callahan is caught by Barlow at the Petrie house after Barlow kills Mark's parents, but does not infect them, so they are later given a clean burial. Barlow holds Mark hostage, but Father Callahan has the upper hand, securing Mark's release, agreeing to Barlow's demand that he toss aside his cross and face him on equal terms. However he delays throwing the cross aside and the once powerful religious symbol loses its strength until Barlow can not only approach Callahan but break the cross, now nothing more than two small pieces of plaster, into bits. Barlow says \"Sad to see a man's faith fail him\", then forces the helpless Callahan to drink blood from Barlow's neck. Callahan resists but cannot hold out forever and is forced to drink, leaving him trapped in a netherworld, as Barlow has left his mark. When Callahan tries to re-enter his church he receives an electric shock, preventing him from going inside. Callahan disappears forever from \"the Lot\". Jimmy Cody is killed when he falls from a rigged staircase and is impaled by knives by the one-time denizens of Eva Miller's boarding house, Mears' one-time residence, who have now all become vampires. Matt Burke dies from a heart attack in the town hospital. Ben Mears and Mark Petrie succeed in destroying the master vampire Barlow, but are lucky to escape with their lives and are forced to leave the town to the now leaderless vampires. The novel's prologue, which is set shortly after the end of the story proper, describes the men's flight across the country to a seaside town in Mexico, where they stop to recover from their ordeal. Mark Petrie is received into the Catholic Church by"
      },
      {
        "text": " from a heart attack in the town hospital. Ben Mears and Mark Petrie succeed in destroying the master vampire Barlow, but are lucky to escape with their lives and are forced to leave the town to the now leaderless vampires. The novel's prologue, which is set shortly after the end of the story proper, describes the men's flight across the country to a seaside town in Mexico, where they stop to recover from their ordeal. Mark Petrie is received into the Catholic Church by a friendly local priest. The epilogue has the two returning to the town a year later, intending to renew the battle. Ben, knowing that there are too many hiding places for the town's vampires, sets the town on fire with the intent of destroying it and the Marsten House once and for all.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich",
    "author": "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn",
    "published_date": "1963",
    "synopsis": " Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been sentenced to a camp in the Soviet gulag system, accused of becoming a spy after being captured by the Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II. He is innocent but is nonetheless punished by the government for being a spy. The final paragraph suggests that Shukhov serves ten years. The day begins with Shukhov waking up sick. For waking late, he is sent to the guardhouse and forced to clean it\u2014a minor punishment compared to others mentioned in the book. When Shukhov is finally able to leave the guardhouse, he goes to the dispensary to report his illness. Since it is late in the morning by now, the orderly is unable to exempt any more workers, and Shukhov must work regardless. The rest of the day mainly speaks of Shukhov's squad (the 104th, which has 28 members), their allegiance to the squad leader, and the work that the prisoners (zeks) do\u2014for example, at a brutal construction site where the cold freezes the mortar used for bricklaying if not applied quickly enough. Solzhenitsyn also details the methods used by the prisoners for survival; the whole camp lives by the rule of survival of the fittest. Tiurin, the foreman of gang 104 is strict but kind, and the squad grows to like him more as the book goes on. Though a \"morose\" man, Tiurin is liked because he understands the prisoners, he talks to them, and he helps them. Shukhov is one of the hardest workers in the squad and is generally well respected. Rations at the camp are scant, but for Shukhov, they are one of the few things to live for. He conserves the food that he receives and is always watchful for any item that he can hide and trade for food at a later date. At the end of the day, Shukhov is able to provide a few special services for Tsezar (Caesar), an intellectual who is able to get out of manual labor and do office work instead. Tsezar is most notable, however, for receiving packages of food from his family. Shukhov is able to get a small share of Tsezar's packages by standing in lines for him. Shukhov's day ends up being productive, even \"almost happy\": \"Shukhov went to sleep fully content. He'd had many strokes of luck that day.\" (p.139). Those in the camps found everyday life extremely difficult. For example, one rule states that if the thermometer reaches , then the prisoners are exempt from outdoor labor that day\u2014anything above that was considered bearable. The reader is reminded in passing through Shukhov's matter-of-fact thoughts of the harshness of the conditions, worsened by the inadequate bedding and clothing. The boots assigned to the zeks rarely fit, in addition cloth had to be used or taken out, for example, and the thin mittens issued were easily ripped. The prisoners were assigned numbers for easy identification and in an effort to dehumanize them; Ivan Denisovich's prisoner number was \u0429-854. Each day, the squad leader would receive their assignment of the day, and the squad would then be fed according to how they performed. Prisoners in each squad were thus forced to work together and to pressure each other to get their work done. If any prisoner was slacking, the whole squad would be punished. Despite this, Solzhenitsyn shows that a surprising loyalty could exist among the work gang members, with Shukhov teaming up with other prisoners to steal felt and extra bowls of soup; even the squad leader defies the authorities by tar papering over the windows at their work site. Indeed, only through such solidarity can the prisoners do anything more than survive from day to day.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been sentenced to a camp in the Soviet gulag system, accused of becoming a spy after being captured by the Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II. He is innocent but is nonetheless punished by the government for being a spy. The final paragraph suggests that Shukhov serves ten years. The day begins with Shukhov waking up sick. For waking late, he is sent to the guardhouse and forced to clean it\u2014a minor punishment compared to others mentioned in the book. When Shukhov is finally able to leave the guardhouse, he goes to the dispensary to report his illness. Since it is late in the morning by now, the orderly is unable to exempt any more workers, and Shukhov must work regardless. The rest of the day mainly speaks of Shukhov's squad (the 104th, which has 28 members), their allegiance to the squad leader, and the work that the prisoners (zeks) do\u2014for example, at a brutal construction site where the cold freezes the mortar used for bricklaying if not applied quickly enough. Solzhenitsyn also details the methods used by the prisoners for survival; the whole camp lives by the rule of survival of the fittest. Tiurin, the foreman of gang 104 is strict but kind, and the squad grows to like him more as the book goes on. Though a \"morose\" man, Tiurin is liked because he understands the prisoners, he talks to them, and he helps them. Shukhov is one of the hardest workers in the squad and is generally well respected. Rations at the camp are scant, but for Shukhov, they are one of the few things to live for. He conserves the food that he receives and is always watchful for any item that he can hide and trade for food at a later date. At the end of the day, Shukhov is able to provide a few special"
      },
      {
        "text": ", he talks to them, and he helps them. Shukhov is one of the hardest workers in the squad and is generally well respected. Rations at the camp are scant, but for Shukhov, they are one of the few things to live for. He conserves the food that he receives and is always watchful for any item that he can hide and trade for food at a later date. At the end of the day, Shukhov is able to provide a few special services for Tsezar (Caesar), an intellectual who is able to get out of manual labor and do office work instead. Tsezar is most notable, however, for receiving packages of food from his family. Shukhov is able to get a small share of Tsezar's packages by standing in lines for him. Shukhov's day ends up being productive, even \"almost happy\": \"Shukhov went to sleep fully content. He'd had many strokes of luck that day.\" (p.139). Those in the camps found everyday life extremely difficult. For example, one rule states that if the thermometer reaches , then the prisoners are exempt from outdoor labor that day\u2014anything above that was considered bearable. The reader is reminded in passing through Shukhov's matter-of-fact thoughts of the harshness of the conditions, worsened by the inadequate bedding and clothing. The boots assigned to the zeks rarely fit, in addition cloth had to be used or taken out, for example, and the thin mittens issued were easily ripped. The prisoners were assigned numbers for easy identification and in an effort to dehumanize them; Ivan Denisovich's prisoner number was \u0429-854. Each day, the squad leader would receive their assignment of the day, and the squad would then be fed according to how they performed. Prisoners in each squad were thus forced to work together and to pressure each other to get their work done. If any prisoner was"
      },
      {
        "text": " or taken out, for example, and the thin mittens issued were easily ripped. The prisoners were assigned numbers for easy identification and in an effort to dehumanize them; Ivan Denisovich's prisoner number was \u0429-854. Each day, the squad leader would receive their assignment of the day, and the squad would then be fed according to how they performed. Prisoners in each squad were thus forced to work together and to pressure each other to get their work done. If any prisoner was slacking, the whole squad would be punished. Despite this, Solzhenitsyn shows that a surprising loyalty could exist among the work gang members, with Shukhov teaming up with other prisoners to steal felt and extra bowls of soup; even the squad leader defies the authorities by tar papering over the windows at their work site. Indeed, only through such solidarity can the prisoners do anything more than survive from day to day.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Black Dahlia",
    "author": "James Ellroy",
    "published_date": "1987-09",
    "synopsis": " In June, 1943 patrol officer Dwight \"Bucky\" Bleichert, a former boxer and a member of the Los Angeles Police Department is caught up in the Zoot Suit Riots. Bleichert comes to the rescue of Officer Lee Blanchard, who is in the middle of the rampage between American servicemen and Mexican zoot suit gangs. Together they apprehend a wanted criminal, Don Santos, and take refuge in an abandoned home while waiting out the riot. They size each other up as boxers and cops and Blanchard tells Bleichert of his plans to eventually be promoted to Sergeant while Dwight continues his mundane job as a radio car patrolman in the Bunker Hill section of L.A. The story continues three years later, in November 1946, as Bucky is invited to fight in a boxing match against Lee in hopes it will help raise support for a political bond issue and a pay raise. After realizing that his fathers' health is failing and to prove he can still fight he decides to take up the offer, have a friend make a bet against him with his money and lose on purpose to put his father in a retirement home. He also meets Kay Lake, a former artist who lives with Lee. After the fight he is transferred to Homicide-Warrants Division as a reward and partnered with Blanchard. Lee. Buckey and Kay begin to spend time together. On January 15, 1947 while Bucky and Lee are on a stakeout they see a commotion on the corner lot of 39th street and South Norton Avenue, where they discover the mutilated body of Elizabeth Short. Dubbed \"The Black Dahlia\" by the press, the case shocks the public, overwhelms the LAPD and hits Lee especially hard. During his investigation Bucky observes a mysterious young woman named Madeleine Sprague, a wealthy and promiscuous socialite who resembles Elizabeth Short, at a lesbian bar. Bucky follows her over the course of many nights, eventually questionning her and the two begin an affair. While the case continues on in circus fashion, Lee, becoming more emotionally detached begins taking bezadrine and acts erratically, collecting his own copies of the Dahlia case evidence and storing them in an El Nino hotel room. Lee eventually disappears after a confrontation with police superiors. Bucky, who is simultaneously juggling two relationships, also suffers a series of personal setbacks: breaking up with Madeline, romantic tension with Kay, and blowing an assignment for the D.A, resulting in demotion from the Warrants Bureau. He then sets out for Tijuana searching for Lee. During his trip he learns of Lee's fate and returns to L.A. to marry Kay. Two years pass, and with Bucky's detective career destroyed and his marriage quickly deteriorating, he transfers to the Science Investigation Division of the force and becomes a lab technician. While working with his old case supervisor Russ Millard during a suicide investigation of a wealthy businessman, he happens to notice a painting of a clown. He uncovers some clues and people associated with Elizabeth Short, piquing his curiosity about Madeline Sprague and her family. His obsession with Short and Madeline destroys his relationship with Kay, who leaves him when she finds out. As his life spirals out of control, his obsession taking its toll, he finally discovers the truth behind the murder of Short and its connection to the Sprague family, as well as Lee's disappearance. The novel ends with Bucky on a plane to Boston, where he and a pregnant Kay will try to rebuild their relationship.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In June, 1943 patrol officer Dwight \"Bucky\" Bleichert, a former boxer and a member of the Los Angeles Police Department is caught up in the Zoot Suit Riots. Bleichert comes to the rescue of Officer Lee Blanchard, who is in the middle of the rampage between American servicemen and Mexican zoot suit gangs. Together they apprehend a wanted criminal, Don Santos, and take refuge in an abandoned home while waiting out the riot. They size each other up as boxers and cops and Blanchard tells Bleichert of his plans to eventually be promoted to Sergeant while Dwight continues his mundane job as a radio car patrolman in the Bunker Hill section of L.A. The story continues three years later, in November 1946, as Bucky is invited to fight in a boxing match against Lee in hopes it will help raise support for a political bond issue and a pay raise. After realizing that his fathers' health is failing and to prove he can still fight he decides to take up the offer, have a friend make a bet against him with his money and lose on purpose to put his father in a retirement home. He also meets Kay Lake, a former artist who lives with Lee. After the fight he is transferred to Homicide-Warrants Division as a reward and partnered with Blanchard. Lee. Buckey and Kay begin to spend time together. On January 15, 1947 while Bucky and Lee are on a stakeout they see a commotion on the corner lot of 39th street and South Norton Avenue, where they discover the mutilated body of Elizabeth Short. Dubbed \"The Black Dahlia\" by the press, the case shocks the public, overwhelms the LAPD and hits Lee especially hard. During his investigation Bucky observes a mysterious young woman named Madeleine Sprague, a wealthy and promiscuous socialite who resembles Elizabeth Short, at a lesbian bar. Bucky follows her over the course of"
      },
      {
        "text": " they see a commotion on the corner lot of 39th street and South Norton Avenue, where they discover the mutilated body of Elizabeth Short. Dubbed \"The Black Dahlia\" by the press, the case shocks the public, overwhelms the LAPD and hits Lee especially hard. During his investigation Bucky observes a mysterious young woman named Madeleine Sprague, a wealthy and promiscuous socialite who resembles Elizabeth Short, at a lesbian bar. Bucky follows her over the course of many nights, eventually questionning her and the two begin an affair. While the case continues on in circus fashion, Lee, becoming more emotionally detached begins taking bezadrine and acts erratically, collecting his own copies of the Dahlia case evidence and storing them in an El Nino hotel room. Lee eventually disappears after a confrontation with police superiors. Bucky, who is simultaneously juggling two relationships, also suffers a series of personal setbacks: breaking up with Madeline, romantic tension with Kay, and blowing an assignment for the D.A, resulting in demotion from the Warrants Bureau. He then sets out for Tijuana searching for Lee. During his trip he learns of Lee's fate and returns to L.A. to marry Kay. Two years pass, and with Bucky's detective career destroyed and his marriage quickly deteriorating, he transfers to the Science Investigation Division of the force and becomes a lab technician. While working with his old case supervisor Russ Millard during a suicide investigation of a wealthy businessman, he happens to notice a painting of a clown. He uncovers some clues and people associated with Elizabeth Short, piquing his curiosity about Madeline Sprague and her family. His obsession with Short and Madeline destroys his relationship with Kay, who leaves him when she finds out. As his life spirals out of control, his obsession taking its toll, he finally discovers the truth behind the murder of Short and its connection to the Sprague family, as well as Lee"
      },
      {
        "text": " a wealthy businessman, he happens to notice a painting of a clown. He uncovers some clues and people associated with Elizabeth Short, piquing his curiosity about Madeline Sprague and her family. His obsession with Short and Madeline destroys his relationship with Kay, who leaves him when she finds out. As his life spirals out of control, his obsession taking its toll, he finally discovers the truth behind the murder of Short and its connection to the Sprague family, as well as Lee's disappearance. The novel ends with Bucky on a plane to Boston, where he and a pregnant Kay will try to rebuild their relationship.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "Invisible Man",
    "author": "Ralph Ellison",
    "published_date": "1952",
    "synopsis": " In the beginning, the narrator lives in a small town in the South. A model student, indeed the high school's valedictorian, he gives an eloquent, Booker T. Washington-inspired graduation speech about the struggles of the average black man. The local white dignitaries want to hear, too. First, however, in the opening \"Battle Royal\" chapter, they put him and other black boys through a series of self-abusive humiliations. Are these the white folk whom Washington thought blacks could look to as neighbors? Probably not--but they do give the narrator a scholarship to an all-black college clearly modeled, in spite of disguises, on Washington's Tuskegee University. One afternoon during his junior year, the narrator chauffeurs Mr. Norton, a visiting rich white trustee, out among the old slave-quarters beyond the campus, stopping by chance at the cabin of Jim Trueblood, who unintentionally--in his sleep--committed incest with his daughter, who's now pregnant. After hearing Trueblood's scandalous story, and giving him a $100, Norton feels faint and calls for a \"stimulant,\" meaning alcohol. The narrator realizes that he does not have the time to take Mr. Norton to the bars at the edge of town, and instead takes him to the Golden Day, a local tavern patronized by black World War I veterans who, presumably suffering from war-related disorders, are patients at a nearby mental hospital. It's a brutal, riotous scene, and Norton is carried out more dead than alive. Small wonder that the narrator worries about the college president Dr. Bledsoe's reaction: white trustees aren't supposed to know about the underside of black life beyond the campus. What the campus stands for--the vision of the unnamed Founder (Washington)--comes out in a sermon by the Reverend Homer A. Barbee, a blind but fervently dedicated upholder of that vision. The narrator is uplifted, but unfortunately, Bledsoe expels him for having mismanaged Norton's afternoon. This is an important stage in the narrator's understanding. Bledsoe goes so far trying to please the white power brokers that people like him, the narrator, are sacrificed--rendered invisible. Nonetheless, Bledsoe gives him several letters of recommendation, which should help him get a job that will earn him the money he'll need to return to school. Upon arriving in New York, the narrator distributes the letters with no success. Eventually, the son of one of \"possibilities\" takes pity on him and shows him an opened copy of the letter; it reveals that Bledsoe never had any intentions of letting the narrator return and sent him to New York to get rid of him. On the son's suggestion, the narrator eventually gets a job in the boiler room of a paint factory in a company renowned for its \"Optic White\" paint (used to render any object, from coal to monuments to buildings, blindingly white). The man in charge of the boiler room, Lucius Brockway, is extremely paranoid and thinks that the narrator has come to take his job. He is also extremely loyal to the company's owner, who once paid him a personal visit. When the narrator tells him about a union meeting he happened upon, the outraged Brockway attacks him. They fight, and Brockway tricks him into turning a wrong valve and causing a boiler to explode. Brockway escapes, but the narrator is hospitalized after the blast. While recovering, the narrator overhears doctors discussing him as a mental health patient. He learns through their discussion that shock treatment has been performed on him. After the shock treatments, the narrator attempts to return to his residence when he feels overwhelmed by dizziness and faints on the streets of Harlem. He is taken to the residence of Mary, a kind, old-fashioned, down-to-earth woman who reminds him of his relatives in the South and friends at the college. Mary somewhat serves as a mother figure for the narrator. While living there, he happens upon an eviction of an elderly black couple and makes an impassioned speech decrying the action. But when the police arrive soon after, the narrator is forced to escape over several building-tops. Upon reaching \"safety,\" he is confronted by a man named Jack, who implores him to join a group called the Brotherhood--a thinly-veiled version of the supposedly color-blind Communist Party--that claims to be committed to the betterment of conditions in Harlem, and the entire world. The narrator agrees. At first, the rallies go smoothly and the narrator is happy to be \"making history\" in his new job. Soon, however, he encounters trouble from Ras the Exhorter, a fanatical black nationalist similar to, but not based on Marcus Garvey who believes that the Brotherhood is controlled by whites. Ras tells this to the narrator and Tod Clifton, a youth leader of the Brotherhood, neither of whom seem to be swayed by his words. The narrator continues his work in Harlem until he is called into a meeting of the Brotherhood. Believing that he has become too powerful an \"individual\"--this in a movement where individuals count for nothing--they reassign him to another part of the city to address the \"women question.\" After the narrator gives his first lecture on women's rights, he is approached by the wife of another member of the Brotherhood. She invites him to her apartment where she seduces him. The narrator is soon called to return to Harlem to repair its falling membership in the black community. When he returns to Harlem, Tod Clifton has disappeared. When the narrator finds him, he realizes that Clifton has become disillusioned with the Brotherhood and quit. He is selling dancing Sambo dolls on the street, mocking the organization he once believed in. Soon after, Tod, resisting arrest, is fatally shot by a police officer. At his funeral, the narrator delivers a rousing speech, rallying a crowd to reclaim his former widespread Harlem support. He's criticized in a clandestine meeting with Brother Jack and other members for not being scientific in his arguments at the funeral; he angrily retaliates and Jack loses his temper to the extent that a glass eye flies out of its socket. The narrator realizes that the half-blind Jack has never really seen him either, and that the Brotherhood has no real interest in the black community's problems. He is trailed by Ras the Exhorter's men as he returns to Harlem; buying sunglasses and a hat, he's mistaken for a man called Rinehart in several scenarios: a lover, a hipster, a gambler, a briber, and finally, a reverend. He sees that Rinehart has adapted to white society at the cost of his own identity. He decides to take his grandfather's dying advice to \"overcome'em with yeses, undermine'em with grins, agree'em to death and destruction....\" and \"yes\" the Brotherhood to death by making it look like the Harlem membership is thriving when it's actually crumbling. He seduces Sybil, the wife of one of the Brothers, in an attempt to learn of the Brotherhood's new activities. Riots break out in Harlem and the narrator gets mixed up with a gang of looters. Wandering through a ravaged Harlem, he encounters Ras, who now calls himself Ras the Destroyer. After escaping Ras's attempt to have him lynched (by throwing a spear Ras had acquired through the leader's jaw, permanently sealing it), the narrator is attacked by a couple of white boys who trap him inside a coal-filled manhole/basement, sealing him off for the night and leaving him alone to finally confront the demons of his mind: Bledsoe, Norton, and Jack. At the end of the novel, the narrator is ready to resurface because \"overt action\" has already taken place. This could mean that, in telling us the story, the narrator has already made a political statement about how change could occur. Therefore, it is storytelling and the preservation of the history of these invisible individuals that cause political change.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the beginning, the narrator lives in a small town in the South. A model student, indeed the high school's valedictorian, he gives an eloquent, Booker T. Washington-inspired graduation speech about the struggles of the average black man. The local white dignitaries want to hear, too. First, however, in the opening \"Battle Royal\" chapter, they put him and other black boys through a series of self-abusive humiliations. Are these the white folk whom Washington thought blacks could look to as neighbors? Probably not--but they do give the narrator a scholarship to an all-black college clearly modeled, in spite of disguises, on Washington's Tuskegee University. One afternoon during his junior year, the narrator chauffeurs Mr. Norton, a visiting rich white trustee, out among the old slave-quarters beyond the campus, stopping by chance at the cabin of Jim Trueblood, who unintentionally--in his sleep--committed incest with his daughter, who's now pregnant. After hearing Trueblood's scandalous story, and giving him a $100, Norton feels faint and calls for a \"stimulant,\" meaning alcohol. The narrator realizes that he does not have the time to take Mr. Norton to the bars at the edge of town, and instead takes him to the Golden Day, a local tavern patronized by black World War I veterans who, presumably suffering from war-related disorders, are patients at a nearby mental hospital. It's a brutal, riotous scene, and Norton is carried out more dead than alive. Small wonder that the narrator worries about the college president Dr. Bledsoe's reaction: white trustees aren't supposed to know about the underside of black life beyond the campus. What the campus stands for--the vision of the unnamed Founder (Washington)--comes out in a sermon by the Reverend Homer A. Barbee, a blind but fervently dedicated upholder of that vision. The narrator is upl"
      },
      {
        "text": " It's a brutal, riotous scene, and Norton is carried out more dead than alive. Small wonder that the narrator worries about the college president Dr. Bledsoe's reaction: white trustees aren't supposed to know about the underside of black life beyond the campus. What the campus stands for--the vision of the unnamed Founder (Washington)--comes out in a sermon by the Reverend Homer A. Barbee, a blind but fervently dedicated upholder of that vision. The narrator is uplifted, but unfortunately, Bledsoe expels him for having mismanaged Norton's afternoon. This is an important stage in the narrator's understanding. Bledsoe goes so far trying to please the white power brokers that people like him, the narrator, are sacrificed--rendered invisible. Nonetheless, Bledsoe gives him several letters of recommendation, which should help him get a job that will earn him the money he'll need to return to school. Upon arriving in New York, the narrator distributes the letters with no success. Eventually, the son of one of \"possibilities\" takes pity on him and shows him an opened copy of the letter; it reveals that Bledsoe never had any intentions of letting the narrator return and sent him to New York to get rid of him. On the son's suggestion, the narrator eventually gets a job in the boiler room of a paint factory in a company renowned for its \"Optic White\" paint (used to render any object, from coal to monuments to buildings, blindingly white). The man in charge of the boiler room, Lucius Brockway, is extremely paranoid and thinks that the narrator has come to take his job. He is also extremely loyal to the company's owner, who once paid him a personal visit. When the narrator tells him about a union meeting he happened upon, the outraged Brockway attacks him. They fight, and Brockway tricks him into turning a wrong valve and causing a boiler to explode."
      },
      {
        "text": " object, from coal to monuments to buildings, blindingly white). The man in charge of the boiler room, Lucius Brockway, is extremely paranoid and thinks that the narrator has come to take his job. He is also extremely loyal to the company's owner, who once paid him a personal visit. When the narrator tells him about a union meeting he happened upon, the outraged Brockway attacks him. They fight, and Brockway tricks him into turning a wrong valve and causing a boiler to explode. Brockway escapes, but the narrator is hospitalized after the blast. While recovering, the narrator overhears doctors discussing him as a mental health patient. He learns through their discussion that shock treatment has been performed on him. After the shock treatments, the narrator attempts to return to his residence when he feels overwhelmed by dizziness and faints on the streets of Harlem. He is taken to the residence of Mary, a kind, old-fashioned, down-to-earth woman who reminds him of his relatives in the South and friends at the college. Mary somewhat serves as a mother figure for the narrator. While living there, he happens upon an eviction of an elderly black couple and makes an impassioned speech decrying the action. But when the police arrive soon after, the narrator is forced to escape over several building-tops. Upon reaching \"safety,\" he is confronted by a man named Jack, who implores him to join a group called the Brotherhood--a thinly-veiled version of the supposedly color-blind Communist Party--that claims to be committed to the betterment of conditions in Harlem, and the entire world. The narrator agrees. At first, the rallies go smoothly and the narrator is happy to be \"making history\" in his new job. Soon, however, he encounters trouble from Ras the Exhorter, a fanatical black nationalist similar to, but not based on Marcus Garvey who believes that the Brotherhood is controlled by whites. Ras tells this to the narrator and T"
      },
      {
        "text": " supposedly color-blind Communist Party--that claims to be committed to the betterment of conditions in Harlem, and the entire world. The narrator agrees. At first, the rallies go smoothly and the narrator is happy to be \"making history\" in his new job. Soon, however, he encounters trouble from Ras the Exhorter, a fanatical black nationalist similar to, but not based on Marcus Garvey who believes that the Brotherhood is controlled by whites. Ras tells this to the narrator and Tod Clifton, a youth leader of the Brotherhood, neither of whom seem to be swayed by his words. The narrator continues his work in Harlem until he is called into a meeting of the Brotherhood. Believing that he has become too powerful an \"individual\"--this in a movement where individuals count for nothing--they reassign him to another part of the city to address the \"women question.\" After the narrator gives his first lecture on women's rights, he is approached by the wife of another member of the Brotherhood. She invites him to her apartment where she seduces him. The narrator is soon called to return to Harlem to repair its falling membership in the black community. When he returns to Harlem, Tod Clifton has disappeared. When the narrator finds him, he realizes that Clifton has become disillusioned with the Brotherhood and quit. He is selling dancing Sambo dolls on the street, mocking the organization he once believed in. Soon after, Tod, resisting arrest, is fatally shot by a police officer. At his funeral, the narrator delivers a rousing speech, rallying a crowd to reclaim his former widespread Harlem support. He's criticized in a clandestine meeting with Brother Jack and other members for not being scientific in his arguments at the funeral; he angrily retaliates and Jack loses his temper to the extent that a glass eye flies out of its socket. The narrator realizes that the half-blind Jack has never really seen him either, and that the Brotherhood has no"
      },
      {
        "text": ", is fatally shot by a police officer. At his funeral, the narrator delivers a rousing speech, rallying a crowd to reclaim his former widespread Harlem support. He's criticized in a clandestine meeting with Brother Jack and other members for not being scientific in his arguments at the funeral; he angrily retaliates and Jack loses his temper to the extent that a glass eye flies out of its socket. The narrator realizes that the half-blind Jack has never really seen him either, and that the Brotherhood has no real interest in the black community's problems. He is trailed by Ras the Exhorter's men as he returns to Harlem; buying sunglasses and a hat, he's mistaken for a man called Rinehart in several scenarios: a lover, a hipster, a gambler, a briber, and finally, a reverend. He sees that Rinehart has adapted to white society at the cost of his own identity. He decides to take his grandfather's dying advice to \"overcome'em with yeses, undermine'em with grins, agree'em to death and destruction....\" and \"yes\" the Brotherhood to death by making it look like the Harlem membership is thriving when it's actually crumbling. He seduces Sybil, the wife of one of the Brothers, in an attempt to learn of the Brotherhood's new activities. Riots break out in Harlem and the narrator gets mixed up with a gang of looters. Wandering through a ravaged Harlem, he encounters Ras, who now calls himself Ras the Destroyer. After escaping Ras's attempt to have him lynched (by throwing a spear Ras had acquired through the leader's jaw, permanently sealing it), the narrator is attacked by a couple of white boys who trap him inside a coal-filled manhole/basement, sealing him off for the night and leaving him alone to finally confront the demons of his mind: Bledsoe, Norton, and Jack. At the end of the novel, the narrator"
      },
      {
        "text": " Ras, who now calls himself Ras the Destroyer. After escaping Ras's attempt to have him lynched (by throwing a spear Ras had acquired through the leader's jaw, permanently sealing it), the narrator is attacked by a couple of white boys who trap him inside a coal-filled manhole/basement, sealing him off for the night and leaving him alone to finally confront the demons of his mind: Bledsoe, Norton, and Jack. At the end of the novel, the narrator is ready to resurface because \"overt action\" has already taken place. This could mean that, in telling us the story, the narrator has already made a political statement about how change could occur. Therefore, it is storytelling and the preservation of the history of these invisible individuals that cause political change.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Bourne Identity",
    "author": "Robert Ludlum",
    "published_date": "1980-02",
    "synopsis": " In the stormy Mediterranean Sea, a man is found floating in the water by a small ship. He has several bullet wounds, including a head wound which has resulted in amnesia. The doctor treating him finds a message surgically embedded in his hip which contains details of a Swiss bank account, presumably held anonymously. The patient heads to Zurich to visit the bank, where he learns his name is Jason Charles Bourne, and finds US$ 5 million in his account. He transfers the bulk of this money and takes some in cash. As he leaves, he is attacked by three men, which he thwarts in their attempt on his life. In the panic, he escapes back to his hotel and takes a hostage, a French-Canadian government economist named Marie St. Jacques. After a few incidents, Marie escapes and Bourne is caught by his pursuers but manages to escape and rescue Marie from a thug raping her who would have killed her. While doing so, he is shot several times and is taken by Marie to a hotel to recuperate. The couple head to Paris to investigate Bourne's connection with the Treadstone Corporation, the apparent source of the money in his account. Bourne and Marie learn that their attackers may be led by Carlos the Jackal, an assassin whose trademark execution is a bullet in the throat. Meanwhile in America, a secret conference is convened by the head of Treadstone and members of the Pentagon top brass, including an army officer named Gordon Webb. One of Carlos' operatives, known as \"the European\", storms the mansion in which Treadstone is based, killing everyone inside. Bourne is then framed for these murders. Alexander Conklin of the CIA and former friend of Bourne, is tasked with handling the matter. Bourne convinces French intelligence general Villiers to join his side, but realizes his wife may be a mole for Carlos. He discovers a boutique used as a drop for her intel, and is recognized by an employee named D'Anjou who claims to be a man from his past. He agrees to meet D'Anjou. He learns that they were comrades in a CIA paramilitary unit called Medusa during the Vietnam war, and that his codename was Delta. Conklin, convinced Bourne has turned, baits him into a meeting at the Rambouillet Cemetery in France. However, Bourne arrives early and incapacitates Conklin's hidden associate. Although Conklin assumes Bourne will kill him, Bourne lets him get away. Villiers' wife is killed and Bourne takes the blame in order to bait Carlos into following him to the USA. In New York, Bourne finds the Treadstone mansion, he bluffs his way in and is attacked on the top floor by a knife-wielding Carlos. Carlos then shoots Bourne and escapes. Realizing that he will bleed out soon, Bourne manages to find the strength to kill all of Carlos' men. Conklin arrives and forces Carlos to retreat. Bourne passes out. The final chapter returns to Marie and two other men who tell her about Bourne's tragic past. He was a young foreign service officer named David Webb, brother to Gordon Webb. David was the most successful paramilitary officer in the U.S. Army, training under the alias of \"Cain\", a rival assassin, in a plan to draw out Carlos the Jackal.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " In the stormy Mediterranean Sea, a man is found floating in the water by a small ship. He has several bullet wounds, including a head wound which has resulted in amnesia. The doctor treating him finds a message surgically embedded in his hip which contains details of a Swiss bank account, presumably held anonymously. The patient heads to Zurich to visit the bank, where he learns his name is Jason Charles Bourne, and finds US$ 5 million in his account. He transfers the bulk of this money and takes some in cash. As he leaves, he is attacked by three men, which he thwarts in their attempt on his life. In the panic, he escapes back to his hotel and takes a hostage, a French-Canadian government economist named Marie St. Jacques. After a few incidents, Marie escapes and Bourne is caught by his pursuers but manages to escape and rescue Marie from a thug raping her who would have killed her. While doing so, he is shot several times and is taken by Marie to a hotel to recuperate. The couple head to Paris to investigate Bourne's connection with the Treadstone Corporation, the apparent source of the money in his account. Bourne and Marie learn that their attackers may be led by Carlos the Jackal, an assassin whose trademark execution is a bullet in the throat. Meanwhile in America, a secret conference is convened by the head of Treadstone and members of the Pentagon top brass, including an army officer named Gordon Webb. One of Carlos' operatives, known as \"the European\", storms the mansion in which Treadstone is based, killing everyone inside. Bourne is then framed for these murders. Alexander Conklin of the CIA and former friend of Bourne, is tasked with handling the matter. Bourne convinces French intelligence general Villiers to join his side, but realizes his wife may be a mole for Carlos. He discovers a boutique used as a drop for her intel, and is recognized by an"
      },
      {
        "text": ". One of Carlos' operatives, known as \"the European\", storms the mansion in which Treadstone is based, killing everyone inside. Bourne is then framed for these murders. Alexander Conklin of the CIA and former friend of Bourne, is tasked with handling the matter. Bourne convinces French intelligence general Villiers to join his side, but realizes his wife may be a mole for Carlos. He discovers a boutique used as a drop for her intel, and is recognized by an employee named D'Anjou who claims to be a man from his past. He agrees to meet D'Anjou. He learns that they were comrades in a CIA paramilitary unit called Medusa during the Vietnam war, and that his codename was Delta. Conklin, convinced Bourne has turned, baits him into a meeting at the Rambouillet Cemetery in France. However, Bourne arrives early and incapacitates Conklin's hidden associate. Although Conklin assumes Bourne will kill him, Bourne lets him get away. Villiers' wife is killed and Bourne takes the blame in order to bait Carlos into following him to the USA. In New York, Bourne finds the Treadstone mansion, he bluffs his way in and is attacked on the top floor by a knife-wielding Carlos. Carlos then shoots Bourne and escapes. Realizing that he will bleed out soon, Bourne manages to find the strength to kill all of Carlos' men. Conklin arrives and forces Carlos to retreat. Bourne passes out. The final chapter returns to Marie and two other men who tell her about Bourne's tragic past. He was a young foreign service officer named David Webb, brother to Gordon Webb. David was the most successful paramilitary officer in the U.S. Army, training under the alias of \"Cain\", a rival assassin, in a plan to draw out Carlos the Jackal.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": " Carlos' men. Conklin arrives and forces Carlos to retreat. Bourne passes out. The final chapter returns to Marie and two other men who tell her about Bourne's tragic past. He was a young foreign service officer named David Webb, brother to Gordon Webb. David was the most successful paramilitary officer in the U.S. Army, training under the alias of \"Cain\", a rival assassin, in a plan to draw out Carlos the Jackal.\n"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "title": "The Gripping Hand",
    "author": "Jerry Pournelle",
    "published_date": "",
    "synopsis": " At the end of The Mote in God's Eye, Renner and Bury are secretly enlisted into Imperial Naval Intelligence. They spend the next twenty-five years investigating revolutions against the Empire so that the Imperial Navy can concentrate on blockading the Moties from entering into human space. While investigating economic abnormalities on the Mormon planet Maxroy's Purchase, Renner and Bury encounter widespread use of the phrase \"on the gripping hand\". While the source of the phrase turns out to be innocuous enough &mdash; the Governor picked up the expression as an Able Spacer on INSS MacArthur on the expedition to Mote Prime &mdash; the memories dredged up by the incident are too much for Bury. Driven by nightmares and a deep-seated fear for humanity's safety, Bury must confirm that the Empire is safe from the Moties. Renner and Bury travel first to Sparta, the Imperial capital planet, to obtain permission to inspect the blockade. Along the way, they discover widespread interest in a second expedition to the Mote, as well as disturbing evidence that the blockade may soon fail. In Mote, it is mentioned that a protostar is forming in the Coalsack Nebula. The Moties had studied it extensively and told the MacArthur expedition of their estimate that it would ignite in about 1,000 years. That estimate was deliberately falsified - the object was about to collapse and ignite at any moment. The newborn star would mean that a new Alderson Point would be created for interstellar travel, allowing the Moties a second exit from their system. Previously, the only Alderson Point accessible to them was positioned in the photosphere of the supergiant red star, \"Murcheson's Eye\", making a human blockade practical since the Moties had not stumbled onto the secret of the Langston Field. Armed with the alarming new knowledge and carrying influential passengers, Renner, Bury, and their ship Sinbad depart for New Caledonia, the closest human system to the Mote. There the Imperial Commission decides that ships must be sent to the hitherto ignored star system where the new Alderson point is predicted to appear. Sinbad is among the ships dispatched. The point appears soon after the small, hastily assembled Imperial fleet's arrival\u2014and so do the Moties. The second half of The Gripping Hand is a convoluted tale of alliances, diplomacy, trade, and space combat between the Empire, led by Bury and Renner, and the many, many factions of Motie civilization. With the aid of the children of Lord and Lady Blaine, and an impressive piece of genetic engineering, Bury and Renner fight to stabilize the Mote civilization and save the Empire. At the end of the story, the Moties insist that they have to choose between the two equal but unpleasant options of staying bottled in their home system, or expanding and spreading their eternal war through the galaxy. The humans exploit the Moties' idiom of \"on the gripping hand\" to present a third, stronger option: a genetic modification that would slow down the excessive reproduction rate of the Moties so that they can expand peacefully.\n",
    "synopsis_passages": [
      {
        "text": " At the end of The Mote in God's Eye, Renner and Bury are secretly enlisted into Imperial Naval Intelligence. They spend the next twenty-five years investigating revolutions against the Empire so that the Imperial Navy can concentrate on blockading the Moties from entering into human space. While investigating economic abnormalities on the Mormon planet Maxroy's Purchase, Renner and Bury encounter widespread use of the phrase \"on the gripping hand\". While the source of the phrase turns out to be innocuous enough &mdash; the Governor picked up the expression as an Able Spacer on INSS MacArthur on the expedition to Mote Prime &mdash; the memories dredged up by the incident are too much for Bury. Driven by nightmares and a deep-seated fear for humanity's safety, Bury must confirm that the Empire is safe from the Moties. Renner and Bury travel first to Sparta, the Imperial capital planet, to obtain permission to inspect the blockade. Along the way, they discover widespread interest in a second expedition to the Mote, as well as disturbing evidence that the blockade may soon fail. In Mote, it is mentioned that a protostar is forming in the Coalsack Nebula. The Moties had studied it extensively and told the MacArthur expedition of their estimate that it would ignite in about 1,000 years. That estimate was deliberately falsified - the object was about to collapse and ignite at any moment. The newborn star would mean that a new Alderson Point would be created for interstellar travel, allowing the Moties a second exit from their system. Previously, the only Alderson Point accessible to them was positioned in the photosphere of the supergiant red star, \"Murcheson's Eye\", making a human blockade practical since the Moties had not stumbled onto the secret of the Langston Field. Armed with the alarming new knowledge and carrying influential passengers, Renner, Bury, and their ship Sinbad depart for New Cal"
      },
      {
        "text": " new Alderson Point would be created for interstellar travel, allowing the Moties a second exit from their system. Previously, the only Alderson Point accessible to them was positioned in the photosphere of the supergiant red star, \"Murcheson's Eye\", making a human blockade practical since the Moties had not stumbled onto the secret of the Langston Field. Armed with the alarming new knowledge and carrying influential passengers, Renner, Bury, and their ship Sinbad depart for New Caledonia, the closest human system to the Mote. There the Imperial Commission decides that ships must be sent to the hitherto ignored star system where the new Alderson point is predicted to appear. Sinbad is among the ships dispatched. The point appears soon after the small, hastily assembled Imperial fleet's arrival\u2014and so do the Moties. The second half of The Gripping Hand is a convoluted tale of alliances, diplomacy, trade, and space combat between the Empire, led by Bury and Renner, and the many, many factions of Motie civilization. With the aid of the children of Lord and Lady Blaine, and an impressive piece of genetic engineering, Bury and Renner fight to stabilize the Mote civilization and save the Empire. At the end of the story, the Moties insist that they have to choose between the two equal but unpleasant options of staying bottled in their home system, or expanding and spreading their eternal war through the galaxy. The humans exploit the Moties' idiom of \"on the gripping hand\" to present a third, stronger option: a genetic modification that would slow down the excessive reproduction rate of the Moties so that they can expand peacefully.\n"
      },
      {
        "text": "' idiom of \"on the gripping hand\" to present a third, stronger option: a genetic modification that would slow down the excessive reproduction rate of the Moties so that they can expand peacefully.\n"
      }
    ]
  }
]